Replies to post #6854 on Sector Investing

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Determining long term market tops and bottoms for the SOX:

Cross Overs of the 50 day sma on the SOX along with the number of stocks above the 200 and 50 day sma's of the NASDAQ which are overbought above the top (red) horizontal line and oversold below the lower (green) horizontal line. The horizontal line placement was picked by me somewhat arbitrarily but the point being made is a simple bit of contrarian logic; when too many stocks are above the 200 and 50 day sma's a reversal is in order. By watching for the cross overs in the 50 day sma above or below the longer term 200 day sma we can predict long term moves in the SOX higher or lower as well which may not correct until extremes are reached as shown by the horizontal lines on all the many charts below:








BPNDX and VXO vs the SOX. Sell zones are seen above or below the red lines depending on the chart. The VXO is a volatility index based on the S&P 100. It moves opposite to the SOX and is most useful at extreme reading to help denote enough "fear" in the market for a long term bottom to form. The BPNDX is based on the number of NASDAQ 100 stocks that have generated or lost PnF buy signals. Look for trend reversals to develop over time. It's not the absolute high or low that is important but rather the development of positive or negative divergences. For instance in October 2002 the BPNDX developed a positive divergence by setting a higher low even as the SOX was setting a lower low.





Market breadth indicators. Sell zones are seen above, or below, the red lines depending on the chart. Long term buy zones are shown above, or below, the green horizontal lines depending on the chart.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 01-Nov-13

Dow +69.80 at 15615.55, Nasdaq +2.34 at 3922.04, S&P +5.10 at 1761.64

The S&P 500 added 0.3% to end the week with a slim advance of 0.1%. Although the broader market ended little changed, small caps were under pressure throughout the session as the Russell 2000 lost 0.4%.

Notably, relative weakness among small caps was a recurring theme throughout the week, causing the Russell to lose 2.0% since Monday.

Outside of the continued underperformance of small caps, the session did not generate too much excitement. The S&P climbed at the open, but slid to lows during the first two hours as the broader market caught down to the Russell's weakness. The S&P was able to battle its way back to the opening high, but could not muster additional gains as energy (-0.3%) and materials (-0.2%) weighed.

The energy sector trailed the broader market throughout the day as Dow component Chevron (CVX 118.01, -1.95) weighed after missing bottom-line estimates by $0.14. Crude oil also pressured the sector, falling 1.8% to $94.61 per barrel.

Elsewhere, materials underperformed as miners displayed broad weakness. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 24.08, -1.02) tumbled 4.1% while gold futures slid 0.8% to $1313.10 per troy ounce.

On the upside, the relative strength of industrials (+0.8%) and health care (+0.7%) helped the S&P post a modest advance.

Transports paced the gains among industrials as the Dow Jones Transportation Average rallied 1.0%. Meanwhile, the health care sector outperformed with some help from biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 206.06, +0.73) added 0.4%.

Treasuries sold off throughout the session, sending the 10-yr yield higher by six basis points to 2.62%.

Trading volume was a bit above average as just under 810 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Although equities endured a relatively quiet session, the same could not be said for the foreign exchange market. The greenback rallied throughout the day, gaining significant strength against the euro and the pound. The Index ended near its high with an advance of 0.7% at 80.72.

The euro was under pressure since yesterday amid rumblings of an ECB rate cut by year-end and continued chatter of negative interest rates. Heavy selling dropped the pair roughly 300 pips off its October highs to 1.3490 against the dollar.

Today's economic data was limited to the October ISM Manufacturing Index, which increased to 56.4 in from 56.2 (Briefing.com consensus 55.0). The common adage throughout the government shutdown was that the manufacturing sector would suffer from lost orders and demand. If the ISM index is an accurate gauge of manufacturing activity in October, then the expected weakness never occurred.

New orders actually strengthened in October. The related index increased to 60.6 in October from 60.5. Meanwhile, order backlogs ended a contraction period and increased to 51.5 from 49.5.

Monday's economic data will be limited to August and September factory orders, which will be released through a single report at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: S&P 500 Holds Ground While Russell Lags

On Monday, the S&P 500 punctuated an uneventful session with a slim advance of 0.1%. Stocks alternated between gains and losses through the first two hours of action before the S&P climbed to a fresh record high of 1764.99. Final-hour selling cut the S&P's gain in half, but the index still finished ahead of the Dow (unch) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.1%), which was challenged by its flat line throughout the session. The day featured just a handful of notable reports. Health care components caught the eye of some participants with Biogen (BIIB 243.10, -1.09) reporting solid results and Merck(MRK 45.23, +0.14) beating bottom-line estimates on below-consensus revenue. Although Merck weighed, the broader health care sector (+0.3%) drew strength from the 6.7% gain in Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY 52.48, -0.04) after the company announced positive clinical trial data.

The S&P 500 registered its fourth consecutive advance on Tuesday, climbing 0.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) outperformed the benchmark index while the Nasdaq (+0.3%) lagged after starting the session in-line with the S&P. The tech-heavy Nasdaq posted a modest advance after the exchange experienced an intraday data dissemination issue that prevented index quotes from being sent out for nearly an hour. However, the issue was isolated to the index while individual components traded normally. One of the components that contributed to the Nasdaq's underperformance was Apple (AAPL 520.03, -2.67). The largest tech stock lost 2.5% after its below-consensus gross margin guidance overshadowed its earnings beat on above-consensus revenue.

Wednesday saw the S&P 500 register its first decline in five sessions (-0.5%). Small caps faced additional selling pressure as the Russell 2000 fell 1.4%. Stocks held modest losses into the afternoon, but slid to fresh lows after the Federal Reserve released its latest policy directive, which was little changed from prior statements. Most notably, the directive acknowledged the recent slowdown in the housing sector and noted that fiscal policy is presenting a headwind to growth. In addition, the Committee dropped the reference to "tightening financial conditions" that appeared in the September statement. While the statement did not throw the market any taper-related curveballs, it may have been perceived to be somewhat hawkish as the Committee did not alter its outlook to account for the impact from the partial government shutdown. All ten sectors settled in the red, but their losses were limited to less than 0.8%. Defensive sectors led to the downside, and consumer staples (-0.8%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 ended with a modest loss of 0.4%, trimming its October gain to 4.5%. Small caps displayed notable weakness during morning trade, but the Russell 2000 ended not far behind the S&P with a loss of 0.5%. Equity indices spent most of the session near their respective flat lines even after more than 250 companies reported their quarterly results since Wednesday's close. Trading volume was subdued until the last 30 minutes of action when a surge in trading activity sent equity indices to lows while pushing the final NYSE volume tally over 900 million shares.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 15570.28 15615.55 45.27 0.3 19.2
Nasdaq 3943.36 3922.04 -21.32 -0.5 29.9
S&P 500 1759.77 1761.64 1.87 0.1 23.5
Russell 2000 1118.34 1095.67 -22.67 -2.0 29.0

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: FLDM (30.87 +29.05%), SHOR (7.62 +22.95%), LSCC (5.37 +22.14%), NQ (12.78 +19.11%), SSNI (19.97 +18.5%), IQNT (11.58 +17.83%)
Services: CECO (5.36 +44.21%), UNTD (12.99 +42.57%), DWA (33.77 +21.59%), NTRI (19.47 +18.91%), BWLD (142.74 +17.73%)
Industrial Goods: TREX (69.58 +30.35%), XYL (33.22 +20.25%)
Healthcare: ZLTQ (12.78 +36.67%), NUVA (31.22 +24.82%), DYAX (8.33 +20.88%), GENT (44.8 +20.08%)
Consumer Goods: DECK (68.56 +18.4%)
Basic Materials: CRR (122.89 +23.41%), ZINC (13.8 +17.69%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: NIHD (3.39 -33.78%), CYOU (28.27 -25.85%), RATE (16.9 -25.78%), QLIK (25.03 -24.37%), TNGO (19.02 -22.95%), KONG (8.19 -20.6%), YGE (6.32 -19.79%)
Services: CETV (2.94 -52.4%), BYD (10.32 -24.19%), AAWW (38.5 -23.99%)
Industrial Goods: MY (2.49 -20.77%)
Healthcare: HWAY (10.43 -41.84%), ARIA (2.58 -34.33%), SNTA (4.27 -33.63%), VOLC (18.95 -20.22%)
Consumer Goods: AVP (18.27 -19.58%)
Basic Materials: RNF (20.09 -29.37%), RTK (1.69 -22.73%), SDR (11.5 -21.34%), XCO (5.56 -19.37%)

3:36PM Earnings Preview for the week of November 4 - 8 (SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of November 4 - 8 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - SYY, K, TA, RLGY, SE, GVA, VMC, CME
After Hours - PAA, WFT, MRO, APC, ED, HTZ, UNM, THC, RKT, OMI, NGLS, BGC, KND, TPC, CF, PXD
Tuesday:
Pre Market - CVS, HCA, DTV, EMR, TMUS, LBTYA, FE, DLPH, D, RRD, SRE, ODP, HSIC, TRP, CTSH, CHTR, BDX, MOS, ASH, OMX, EXPD, MPEL, HST, ENR, ZTS, KORS, REGN, ICE, OWW,
After Hours - ETE, ETP, FOXA, SXL, OKE, CHRW, URS, OKS, DVA, AGU, TX, FTR, BLMN, QEP, DOX, FOSL, TSLA, PZZA, JAZZ, MYGN, MELI,
Wednesday:
Pre Market - HUM, MGA, DUK, TWX, HFC, CHK, MMC, DVN, CNP, VOYA, RL, SUSS, POM, TLM, KELYA, TAP, SUSP, HSP, CLH, CG,
After Hours - PRU, MDLZ, TSO, QCOM, CTL, CBS, WFM, TS, RIG, DK, MKL, ANDE, CLR, TEG, AWK, UHAL, BKD, TPX, ATVI, TWTC, NLY,
Thursday:
Pre Market - MT, MFC, BCE, AES, GLP, CNQ, APA, EOG, HNT, CPN, AEE, VC, ROK, HII, WIN, COTY, ATK, LNT, WLK, FWLT, FLO, HSC, ENDP, WEN, SMG
After Hours - DIS, PCLN, ALJ, YRCW, NVDA, RNDY, CFN, GXP, WR, ATLS, GRPN, MNST, MTD, LGP, VVC, BIO, SF, XTEX, KRO, DAR
Friday:
Pre Market - COV, LGF, EGO

Large Cap Gainers
NEE (88.85 +4.84%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.25 ($1.64 vs $1.39 estimate), revs rose 14.3% yoy to $4.39 bln vs $4.42 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY13 guidance for EPS in upper half of $4.70-5.00 vs $4.95 estimate
VRX (109.48 +3.56%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($1.43 vs $1.42 estimate), revs rose 74.4% yoy to $1.54 bln vs $1.67 bln estimate; sees FY13 EPS of $6.11-6.16 (raised from $6.00-6.20) vs $6.14 estimate, revs of $5.7-5.9 bln vs $5.92 bln estimate
CAH (60.54 +3.2%): Continued strength following strong Q3 results; target raised to $65 from $56 at Mizuho; target raised to $66 from $64 at FBR Capital
Large Cap Losers
NSANY (18.45 -8.35%): Reported first half revs rose 14.7% yoy to JPY 5.2154 trillion, co cut profit forecast by 15.5% to 355 bln yen due to "costly recalls"
RBS (10.81 -8.23%): Reported Q3 EPS of GBP 0.04 vs GBP 0.05 estimate, revs of GBP 4.89 bln vs GBP 5.03 bln estimate
ABX (18.13 -6.5%): Announced offering of ~163.5 mln shares at $18.35 per share to raise $3 bln

Mid Cap Gainers

FSLR (59.4 +18.07%): Reported Q3 EPS of $2.28 ex items vs $1.10 estimate, revs rose 50.8% yoy to $1.26 bln vs $1.02 bln estimate; raised FY13 EPS guidance to $4.25-4.40 from $3.75-4.25 vs $3.84 estimate
TRMB (32.88 +15.24%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.39 vs $0.36 estimate), revs rose 10.2% yoy to $556.5 mln vs $559.07 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.35-0.39 vs $0.35 estimate, revs of $560-580 mln vs $564.37 mln estimate
NATI (32.28 +11.12%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.19 vs $0.16 estimate), revs fell 0.3% yoy to $289.1 mln vs $279.27 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.25-0.27 vs $0.27 estimate, revs of $291-321 mln vs $299.87 mln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

CVRR (21.21 -12.85%): Reported Q3 earnings of $0.58 (may not compare to $0.60 estimate), revs fell 18.3% yoy to $1.91 bln vs $1.64 bln single analyst estimate
IPGP (60.03 -9.42%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.81 vs $0.84 estimate), revs rose 10.1% yoy to $172.7 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.68-0.82 vs $0.80 estimate, revs of $155-170 mln vs $166.7 mln estimate
WCG (61.33 -8.02%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($1.56 ex items vs $1.51 estimate), revs rose 37.5% yoy to $2.5 bln vs $2.37 bln estimate; lowers FY13 EPS guidance to $4.70-4.80 from $4.70-4.90 vs $4.91 estimate, sees FY13 premium revs of $9.35-9.40 bln

11:53AM ATMI confirms review of strategic alternatives (shares halted) (ATMI) 28.26 +0.92 : Co confirmed in response to media reports that it is exploring strategic alternatives for the co and has retained Barclays Capital as its financial advisor. There can be no assurance that the exploration of strategic alternatives will result in the consummation of any transaction. The co does not intend to comment further regarding this matter.

8:05AM IPG Photonics misses by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (IPGP) 66.27 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.81 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.84; revenues rose 10.1% year/year to $172.2 mln vs the $172.7 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.68-0.82 vs. $0.80 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $155-170 mln vs. $166.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"We saw particularly strong demand for high-power lasers within materials processing. Gross margins of 53.9% were within our target range. EPS was flat with the year ago quarter and reflects the peak of our current investment cycle expanding manufacturing capacity, R&D and sales and marketing, which we believe will drive future revenue and earnings growth."

7:02AM Canadian Solar announces 100MW module supply agreement with Three Gorges New Energy in China (CSIQ) 23.00 : Co announced that it has been awarded a module supply agreement to provide China Three Gorges New Energy with photovoltaic modules totaling 100MW for a solar power project located in Guazhou County, in the Gansu Province of China. Canadian Solar will supply its high efficiency 60 cell CS6P250P and CS6P-255P modules with power output of 250Wp and 255Wp for the project. Module delivery has already commenced and is expected to be completed in Dec 2013.

1:40AM Western Digital prices secondary offering of 10,869,566 shares of common stock by selling share holder Hitachi at $67.00 per share (WDC) 69.64 :

07:49 am First Solar shares rise 7% following beat on earnings
First Solar (FSLR $53.96 +3.65) reported third quarter earnings of $2.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 50.8% year/year to $1.26 billion which is higher than expected. The sequential increase in net sales is primarily attributable to higher systems business project revenues, which included initial revenue recognition of Desert Sunlight and the sale of the ABW projects in Canada. Compared to the third quarter of 2012, the increase in net sales was also attributable to the Desert Sunlight and ABW projects and higher sales volume to third-party module-only customers in the third quarter of 2013, partially offset by initial revenue recognition for Topaz, achieved in the third quarter of 2012. Excluding the impact of the asset impairment charge, Non-GAAP net income per fully diluted share was $2.28.

The sequential increase in Non-GAAP earnings is primarily attributable to the initial revenue recognition of Desert Sunlight, the sale of the ABW projects, and higher sales volumes to third-party module-only customers in the third quarter compared to the second quarter. The year over year increase in earnings was primarily due to higher systems business project revenue, higher manufacturing utilization and higher module sales to third-party customers in the third quarter of 2013 compared to the third quarter of 2012.The Company's Net Cash grew to approximately $1.3 billion, an increase of approximately $274 million from the second quarter of 2013. Cash flows from operations were $375 million in the third quarter, compared to $222 million for the second quarter of 2013. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year for 2013 with raised EPS to $4.25-4.50 from $3.75-4.25 which is above expectations.

The company lowered revenue expectations $3.4-3.6 billion compared to prior $3.6 to 3.8 billion which is below expectations. Gross Margin guidance was raised to 24-26% from 22-23%. Operating Expense remains at $390-410 million. Operating cash flow lowered to $700-900 million from $800-1000 million. CapEx lowered to $300-350 million from $350-400 million.

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- New month, not much new money, no real change, not a bad thing.
- Fear of falling: Market has paused so it must be ready to fall.
- FOMC language stronger PMI readings add to fear of taper, but will Bernanke act as a lame duck?
- Rotation is occurring as new stocks attempt to turn the corner and rally.

A no change day that shows some change.

The new month happened to start on Friday and as such it was more of a whimper. Not really a whimper, but more of the same for the large cap indices, i.e. a continued test of the last leg higher now that they have hit new highs, post-bear market or all-time, or have reached the top of their ranges. If new money was hitting the market, not that much was put to work Friday.

SP500 5.10, 0.29%
NASDAQ 2.33, 0.06%
DJ30 69.80, 0.45%
SP400 0.12%
RUTX -0.41%
SOX -0.33%

That left SP500 and NASDAQ and even SP400 in fairly decent tests of their last moves. RUTX small caps and SOX are, in our view, problematic at this point. RUTX led to the upside but now it looks as if it is passing the torch as we see some industrial stocks, lesser known biotechs and others coming off of long bases while energy continues to produce more leadership support as more money flows into oil related sectors. It could simply be rotation taking place, and of course rotation in the market, as with your tires, keeps your trip going longer.

SOX remains problematic, however, and it does tend to be a market leader. A good recovery last week, but a recovery to resistance yet again. Still trending higher, but not just blasting its way ahead.

A pause means fear.

At these levels, of course, when the market doesn't rise the fear that it is going to fall does. After all last week saw the FOMC remove language about the negative impact of fiscal tightening on the economy. Perhaps it didn't see it as that negative after all. Heck, it didn't even mention the government shutdown. Of course that led many to the somewhat logical conclusion the Fed is willing to overlook negatives to get to tightening.

That seemed rather apparent in Mr. Bullard's statement from Friday where he talked of the employment picture improving and 'the most powerful' case for tapering if it continued to improve. Talk about a willingness to disconnect from reality. Unemployment is lower because of 90+M people leaving the workforce, not because of the 'millions' of part-time jobs (are there really millions?) the President brags about creating (or saving or is it just converting from full-time?). But of course there is 'no evidence' that the ACA has impacted the jobs market at all . . . unless you are or were formerly in the jobs market looking for a job. In any event, that Bullard could make that statement only adds to the chorus who want to add 'jackass' to the long line of credentials behind his name.

Then there was Plosser saying the Fed missed a great opportunity to taper in September, because he did talk of the shutdown and the increase in the debt limit as hindering the Fed from acting now. It had a window, but chose to close it. Plosser seems to think now the Fed has to wait for another good opportunity.

It appeared some investors felt that was shown with the Chicago PMI on Thursday and the ISM on Friday. Both beat expectations and continued the gains.

Of course the private Markit survey now covers the US, and it saw a 12 month LOW in October for manufacturing growth rates at 51.8 versus 52.8 in September. Hmmmm. Markit is well-respected; at least it was still above 50 and showing expansion.

WMT apparently doesn't feel things are so great: it has started its holiday promotions a month early. Kids had barely finished throwing up their Halloween sugar gorge when Santa appeared with list in hand at Wal-Mart. Well, not really; it is online only, but the holiday spirit is the same: money.

Apparently core inflation at 1.7% (low) is overcoming 0.9% real wage growth year/year, tens of millions unemployed and out of the workforce, and legions of newly minted (read converted) part-time workers now understanding they have to have two jobs. No longer is it a case of a 2-job marriage; now it is a 4-job marriage.

THE MARKET

OTHER MARKETS:

Dollar: Continues its upside move. 1.3489 versus 1.3583 versus 1.3735 versus 1.3747 versus 1.3787 versus 1.3802 versus 1.3803 versus 1.3779 versus 1.3783 versus 1.3682 versus 1.3677 versus 1.3528 versus 1.3524 versus 1.3565 versus 1.3544 versus 1.3520 versus 1.3524 euro.

Bonds: Still selling hard. 2.62% versus 2.55% versus 2.54% versus 2.51% versus 2.51% versus 2.51% versus 2.52% versus 2.49% versus 2.51% versus 2.61% versus 2.59% versus 2.68% versus 2.73% versus 2.69% versus 2.68% versus 2.66% 10 year.

Oil: 94.61, -1.77. Plunging toward the summertime lows.

Gold: 1313.10, -10.60. Continued its selling on the FOMC might taper after all worries.

MARKET INTERNALS and STATS

NASDAQ
Stats: +2.34 points (+0.06%) to close at 3922.04
Volume: 1.912B (-14.03%)

Up Volume: 1.01B (-80M)
Down Volume: 911.92M (-208.08M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.43 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.61 to 1

New Highs: 98 (-11)
New Lows: 53 (+3)

S&P
Stats: +5.1 points (+0.29%) to close at 1761.64
NYSE Volume: 697M (-2.92%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.2 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.54 to 1

New Highs: 496 (-89)
New Lows: 134 (+6)

DJ30
Stats: +69.8 points (+0.45%) to close at 15615.55

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 13.28; -0.47. Still suggesting some selling/more testing to come.
VXN: 14.76; -0.12
VXO: 12.03; -0.51

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.92; +0.02

Bulls and Bears:

Not as huge a surge as the prior week, but you cannot keep that pace up. Still a big jump in bulls and commensurate decline in bears. Getting dangerous.

Bulls: 52.6 versus 49.5 versus 42.3% versus 45.4 versus 46.4% versus 44.3% versus 42.3% versus 37.1% versus 37.1% versus 38.1% versus 43.3%. Backed off a hair form the sharp climb. Still a bit over-baked, but has been higher when selling bouts started in earlier moves.

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 16.5% versus 18.5 versus 21.6% versus 20.6% versus 18.6% versus 20.6% versus 21.6% versus 22.7% versus 23.7% versus 23.8% versus 21.6%. Bounced off the lows from March, April, May and August.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

Bullishness is quite high. VIX is at lows that have, for all of 2013, indicated a pullback was coming. Not a big selloff, but the kind of pullback seen as NASDAQ would fall and test its 50 day EMA. Not major but a significant pullback in the continuing trend.

Add onto that the usual fears that associate with a peak, e.g. the Fed is now going to taper thanks to stronger manufacturing data and a misread (has to be willful right?) of the employment (or lack thereof) data.

Then there is SOX still below its trendline and the Russell flagging. Leaders in the last move are tired and need a test or recycling.

So of course the selloff theme is now stronger even as investors and advisors are bullish. That throws up two caution flags moving ahead and as you know, the size of our portfolio is already smaller as we have taken quite a bit of gain and have closed several problematic positions. A bit leaner heading into what looks to be a pullback that will be a bit more than the 2-week lateral sidestep thus far.

At the same time we see stocks forming up off of long bases, bases a year and more in length. Indeed for the most part those are the plays we are looking at this week. We still have some great earnings gap/surge tests in progress that we will play if they show the moves, but it is very interesting and somewhat exciting for the upside to come to see these other stocks breaking higher off of long bases. Market rallies need new blood to come forward, and there are patterns out there doing just that.

Timing, is of course, the key. As noted in the start, there is nothing really different Friday from the rest of the week: still testing, SOX still struggling, RUTX getting a bit more ragged, and the same question: is this the extent of the test, i.e. NASDAQ tapping the upper channel line it broke and continuing higher, or does NASDAQ again, after reaching this level, fade back toward the 50 day EMA? The latter no doubt keeps the trend in place and provide great opportunity . . . once it is over. It is just that the market has not made that move yet, AND there is a character change in that NASDAQ actually broke through and has held for two weeks.

That said, as noted, we are lighter already on this move. That is a natural process of buying on breaks and then having logical targets within a projected move. You automatically are lighter when it starts to run out of gas. VIX is at the turn level. Sentiment is too bullish. Many leaders broke near support and many more look tired. It certainly looks as if a pullback of the ilk seen on this entire run is due.

Yet, it is year end and as Hans said in 'Die Hard' when his safe-cracker said he would need a miracle, it's Christmas, it's the time for miracles. The market likes to run into the year end. That, along with the $85B/month and Santa Yellen Clause are a strong impetus for more upside.

Still, even in times of relative market bliss it still ebbs and flows at least in some image of normal ups and downs. It is trying to work off its overbought condition with a lateral move; it can be done. But the VIX and sentiment have caution signs out.

That is why this weekend we are looking more at stocks coming off long bases, making the break, and now making that initial test. Less to lose and a lot more to gain, at least for the moment, versus a stock that has run well and is a bit extended.

So, we look for buys because overall the conditions are right, but we also acknowledge that sentiment and volatility suggest, as they have on prior tests in this same run, that a test is coming. The latter has to show itself; there can still be a last, orgy-like rush higher in this run toward year end. That won't end well, but it can make us some nice money on the run, we cash out, then enjoy candy and nuts at Christmas.

In short, we recognize the risks, see the good plays, and if the latter present the old 'buy me!' moves, we move in and play the MARKET versus OUR BIAS.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 3922.04

Resistance:
Next major resistance is around 4100 as NASDAQ hits 13 year highs

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 3915
3906 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
3819 is the early October high
3799 is the September 2013 high.
The 50 day EMA at 3792
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.
The July 2013 intraday high at 3625
3573 is the August 2013 low
3532 is the May intraday high
3521 is the August 2000 low.
3502 is the May 2013 closing high
The 200 day SMA at 3471
The 2011 up trendline at 3450
3295 is the June 2013 low selloff
3227 is the April 2000 intraday low
3197 is the September 2012 post-bear market high
3171 is the October intraday high

S&P 500: Closed at 1761.64

Resistance:
Down to 9.4% over the 200 day SMA, not so extended.

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 1753
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
The 50 day EMA at 1709
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1691 is the December 2012 up trendline
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1627 is the August 2013 low
The 200 day SMA at 1624
1576 from October 2007, the prior all-time high
1573 is the June 2013 closing low
1569.48 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement of the April to May 2013 run
1560 is the June 2013 reversal low
1556 from July 2007
1541 is the April 2013 closing low in that pullback inside the uptrend
1539 from June 2007
1531 is the recent high

Dow: Closed at 15,615.55

Resistance:
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,696 is the September 2013 peak

Support:
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
The 10 day EMA at 15,528
15,318 is the June closing high
The 50 day EMA at 15,316
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
The 200 day SMA at 14,905
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

October 28 - Monday
- Industrial Production, September (9:15): 0.6% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.4% prior
- Capacity Utilization, September (9:15): 78.3% actual versus 78.0% expected, 77.9% prior (revised from 77.8%)
- Pending Home Sales, September (10:00): -5.6% actual versus -1.3% expected, -1.6% prior

October 29 - Tuesday
- Retail Sales, September (8:30): -0.1% actual versus -0.1% expected, 0.2% prior
- Retail Sales ex-auto, September (8:30): 0.4% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.1% prior
- PPI, September (8:30): -0.1% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.3% prior
- Core PPI, September (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.0% prior
- Case-Shiller 20-city, August (9:00): 12.8% actual versus 12.4% expected, 12.3% prior (revised from 12.0%)
- Business Inventories, August (10:00): 0.3% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.4% prior
- Consumer Confidence, October (10:00): 71.2 actual versus 73.1 expected, 80.2 prior (revised from 79.7)

October 30 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 10/26 (7:00): 6.4% actual versus -0.6% prior
- ADP Employment Change, October (8:15): 130K actual versus 125K expected, 145K prior (revised from 166K)
- GDP-Adv., Q3 (8:30): 2.5% prior
- Chain Deflator-Adv., Q3 (8:30): 0.6% prior
- CPI, September (8:30): 0.2% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Core CPI, September (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Crude Inventories, 10/26 (10:30): 4.087M actual versus 5.246M prior
- FOMC Rate Decision, October (14:00): 0.25% actual versus 0.25% expected, 0.25% prior
- FOMC Rate Decision, October (14:15): 0.25% expected, 0.25% prior

October 31 - Thursday
- Challenger Job Cuts, October (7:30): 19.1% prior
- Initial Claims, 10/26 (8:30): 340K actual versus 335K expected, 350K prior
- Continuing Claims, 10/19 (8:30): 2881K actual versus 2850K expected, 2850K prior (revised from 2874K)
- Personal Income, September (8:30): 0.4% prior
- Personal Spending, September (8:30): 0.3% prior
- PCE Prices - Core, September (8:30): 0.2% prior
- Chicago PMI, October (9:45): 65.9 actual versus 55.0 expected, 55.7 prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 10/26 (10:30): 38 bcf actual versus 87 bcf prior

November 1 - Friday
- ISM Index, October (10:00): 56.4 actual versus 55.0 expected, 56.2 prior
- Construction Spending, September (10:00)
- Auto Sales, October (14:00): 5.4M prior
- Truck Sales, October (14:00): 6.5M prior

November 4 - Monday
- Factory Orders, August (10:00): 0.3% expected, -2.4% prior
- Factory Orders, September (10:00): 1.8% expected,

November 5 - Tuesday
- ISM Services, October (10:00): 54.0 expected, 54.4 prior

November 6 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 11/02 (7:00): 6.4% prior
- Leading Indicators, September (10:00): 0.6% expected, 0.7% prior
- Crude Inventories, 11/02 (10:30): 4.087 prior

November 7 - Thursday
- Challenger Job Cuts, October (7:30): 19.1% prior
- Initial Claims, 11/02 (8:30): 335K expected, 340K prior
- Continuing Claims, 10/26 (8:30): 2863K expected, 2881K prior
- GDP-Adv., Q3 (8:30): 1.9% expected, 2.5% prior
- Chain Deflator-Adv., Q3 (8:30): 1.4% expected, 0.6% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 11/02 (10:30): 38 bcf prior
- Consumer Credit, September (15:00): $11.0B expected, $13.6B prior

November 8 - Friday
- Nonfarm Payrolls, October (8:30): 100K expected, 148K prior
- Nonfarm Private Payr, October (8:30): 110K expected, 126K prior
- Unemployment Rate, October (8:30): 7.3% expected, 7.2% prior
- Hourly Earnings, October (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.1% prior
- Average Workweek, October (8:30): 34.4 expected, 34.5 prior
- Personal Income, September (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.4% prior
- Personal Spending, September (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.3% prior
- PCE Prices - Core, September (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.2% prior
- Mich Sentiment, November (9:55): 75.3 expected, 73.2 prior
- JOLTS - Job Openings, September (10:00): 3.883M prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages kicked off the new trading week with modest gains as the S&P 500 added 0.4%. The Russell 2000 (+1.1%) outperformed, but its relative strength came after the small cap index struggled to keep pace with the last week's advance in the broader market.

Outside of the notable outperformance among small caps, today's session unfolded in an uneventful fashion. Overseas markets did little to upset the state of affairs as Japan's Nikkei was closed for Culture Day while China's Shanghai Composite ended flat despite its Non-Manufacturing PMI rising to a 14-month high of 56.3 from 55.4.

All ten sectors ended in the green, but only energy (+1.3%) and telecom services (+0.8%) posted gains in excess of 0.4%. Energy was responsible for pacing much of the advance as the sector rallied throughout the session. Meanwhile, crude oil ended little changed at $94.59 per barrel.

The other commodity-linked sector, materials (+0.4%), displayed relative strength as steelmakers rallied in reaction to a Goldman Sachs upgrade of AK Steel (AKS 5.00, +0.40) and U.S. Steel (X 26.91, +1.13). The broader Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 49.68, +1.18) ended higher by 2.4%.

Elsewhere, industrials (+0.3%) settled essentially in-line with the broader market, but the underperformance of top sector components like Boeing (BA 132.79, -0.24) and General Electric (GE 26.43, -0.11) overshadowed the strength of transports. The Dow Jones Transportation Average rose 1.2% as 19 of 20 components registered gains. Norfolk Southern (NSC 86.84, -0.16) was the lone decliner, shedding 0.2%.

Although the S&P was able to finish at its session high, it did so without the participation of financials as the sector ended near its flat line.

Three of four countercyclical groups (consumer staples, health care, and utilities) trailed the broader market with staples lagging even after Kellogg (K 62.72, +0.43) reported a bottom-line beat on in-line revenue. In addition, the company announced plans to cut 7.0% of its workforce to reflect a challenging environment.

Treasuries held modest gains throughout the session as the 10-yr yield shed two basis points to 2.60%.

Trading volume was well below average as less than 600 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Due to the partial government shutdown, the Census Bureau released the factory orders reports for August and September at the same time. Orders increased 1.7% in September after declining 0.1% in August. July factory orders were revised down from -2.4% to -2.8%. The Briefing.com consensus expected factory orders to increase 1.8% in September and 0.3% in August.

The recent volatility in factory orders was a result of significant, up-and-down monthly moves in aircraft orders. Nondefense aircraft orders increased 57.7% in September after a 5.4% increase in August and a 58.9% decrease in July.

Tomorrow, the October ISM Services report will be released at 10:00 ET.DJ30 +23.57 NASDAQ +14.55 SP500 +6.29 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1674/1.74 bln/859 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2013/599.7 mln/964

3:30 pm :

Dec crude oil brushed a session high of $95.11 per barrel in morning pit trade and later dipped into the red and to a session low of $94.43 per barrel. It eventually settled at $94.59 per barrel, or 2 cents below the unchanged line
Dec natural gas traded in the red today, falling as low as $3.41 per MMBtu. It settled at its session high of $3.45 per MMBtu, booking a loss of 1.7%.
Dec gold traded in the black as the dollar index chopped around in negative territory.The yellow metal rose to a session high of $1320.80 per oujce in morning floor trade but lost steam heading into the close. It erased most of the earlier gains and settled just 0.1% higher at $1314.70 per ounce.
Dec silver chopped around slightly below the unchanged line for most of the session. It pulled-back in late afternoon pit action to a session low of $21.69 per ounce and settled with a 0.7% loss at $21.70 per ounce.

4:47PM Rudolph Tech announces ruling has been issued in co's patent infringement case brought by ITC; judgement reverses at least $23.4 mln in damages (RTEC) 10.85 +0.35 : Co announced that the United States Federal Court of Appeals issued a ruling in Rudolph's ongoing patent infringement dispute with Integrated Technology of Tempe, Arizona ("ITC"). The U.S. Federal Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Rudolph by reversing the finding of liability against Rudolph for the post-August 2007 infringement of its ProbeWoRx and PRVX systems of ITC's US Patent No. 6,118,894 under the Doctrine of Equivalents, a legal principle which expands the language of patent claims to encompass products or processes which may otherwise be found not to literally infringe a patent. In addition, the Court reversed the finding of willful infringement against Rudolph in this matter, thus vacating the award of enhanced damages. Furthermore, the Appeals Court vacated the District Court's award of attorney's fees against Rudolph and remanded this issue for further hearing. Finally, the Appeals Court affirmed the award of damages assessed during the original trial for the literal infringement of the '894 patent by products sold prior to August of 2007. This lawsuit was initially brought by ITC in 2006 against Applied Precision, LLC prior to Rudolph's acquisition of Applied's probe card test and analysis business in December of 2007.

4:27PM Rudolph Tech beats by $0.01, misses on revs (RTEC) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.06 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.05; revenues fell 29.3% year/year to $44.0 mln vs the $46.49 mln consensus.

"We are pleased to see the recent strengthening of orders for our front-end metrology solutions for 3D FinFET NAND flash memory technology at 20, 16 and 14 nanometer nodes. We believe this signals a restart of our industry's front-end growth trajectory and gives us increased confidence for 2014 after the pause experienced in the last couple of quarters...

4:29PM GT Advanced Tech. reports Q3 (Sep) results; announces agreement with AAPL that impacts 2H13 and 2014 Outlooks (GTAT) 8.38 +0.30 : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.16 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.02); revenues fell 63.4% year/year to $40.3 mln vs the $93.25 mln consensus. Co issues guidance for FY13, sees EPS of ($0.50)- ($0.40), may not be comparable to $0.30 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY13 revs of $29-320 mln, may not be comparable to $525.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $600-800 mln, may not be comparable to $579.29 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

AAPL Agreement

On October 31, 2013, GTAT and Apple (AAPL) entered into a Master Development and Supply Agreement and related Statement of Work, pursuant to which GTAT will supply sapphire material exclusively to Apple for consumer electronics. GTAT has granted Apple certain intellectual property rights in connection with its sapphire growth technologies. Although the agreement does not guarantee volumes, it does require GT to maintain a minimum level of capacity. GT will be subject to certain exclusivity terms during the duration of the agreement. GT expects this arrangement to be cash positive and accretive to earnings starting in 2014. Gross margins from this new materials business are expected to be substantially lower than GT's historical equipment margins.
GTAT also entered into a Prepayment Agreement with Apple pursuant to which GTAT will receive approximately $578 million in four separate installments, as payment in advance for the purchase of sapphire goods. GTAT is required to repay this amount ratably over a five year period ending in January 2020, either as a credit against Apple's purchases of sapphire goods under the MDSA or as a direct cash payment. GTAT's obligations under the Prepayment Agreement are secured by certain of its assets. While the MDSA specifies GTAT's minimum and maximum supply commitments, there are no minimum purchase requirements under the terms of the MDSA.
Finally, on October 31, 2013, GTAT entered into a lease agreement with an affiliate of Apple in order to lease a facility in Mesa, Arizona that GTAT will use for the purpose of manufacturing the sapphire goods under the MDSA.

Impact on 2H13 results

To service the sapphire material agreement announced today, the company has dedicated the vast majority of its ASF capacity in the second half of 2013 to expanding its own materials capacity. This shift in business model has effectively precluded the company from shipping significant levels of ASF units to other customers during the second half of 2013 and will continue to do so for the balance of the year.
Given the impact of its shift from ASF equipment sales to building ASF capacity for its own internal use as the company prepares to service the Apple agreement, GT is revising guidance for fiscal year 2013, which ends December 31, 2013, as follows: Revenue in the range of $290 million to $320 million Gross margin in the range of 30% to 32% Non-GAAP EPS in the range of a loss of $0.40 to a loss of $0.50; GTAT sees 2014 revenues in the range of $600-800 mln.

On October 30, 2013, GTAT terminated its credit agreement with Bank of America and the other lenders from time to time party thereto. As of October 30, 2013, there was approximately $96 million outstanding under the term loan component of the Credit Agreement, which amount was paid in full on October 30, 2013 by the Company using its available cash.

4:05PM Advanced Energy beats by $0.16, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (AEIS) 20.65 +0.26 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.16 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.37; revenues rose 21.6% year/year to $142.9 mln vs the $146.61 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.59-0.63, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.39 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $145-155 mln vs. $150.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Large Cap Gainers

IEP (107.23 +5.02%): Reported Q3 net income of $4.10 per limited partner unit (vs $1.61 single analyst estimate), revs $5.7 bln vs $4.7 bln single analyst estimate
SYY (34.01 +4.44%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.49 ex items vs $0.47 estimate), revs rose 5.7% yoy to $11.71 bln vs $11.62 bln estimate; gross margin was 17.63%
NEM (26.88 +3.46%): Upgraded to Hold from Sell at Mackie Research

Large Cap Losers

RYAAY (43.16 -14.26%): Reported 1H14 profit of EUR 602 mln vs EUR 606.7 mln estimate, revs rose 5% yoy to EUR 3.26 bln vs EUR 3.29 bln estimate; traffic rose 2%, sees FY14 traffic +2%; reduced full year profit guidance from EUR 570 mln to EUR 510 mln
CS (28.6 -7.29%): Credit Suisse and UBS trading lower following Reuters report that Swiss politicians are considering stricter capital requirements
RBS (10.55 -2.76%): The Telegraph reporting that co is in advanced discussions regarding the cancellation of the bank's "B" shares

Mid Cap Gainers

SCTY (62.49 +14.14%): Co's subsidiary, SolarCity LMC Series I, intends to offer in a private placement $54.425 mln aggregate principal amount of Solar Asset Backed Notes, Series 2013-1 with a scheduled maturity date of Dec 2026; mentioned positively in blog article
VMC (59.49 +10.85%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.32 ex items vs $0.26 estimate), revs rose 11.6% yoy to $813.56 mln vs $782.24 mln estimate
SPWR (34.02 +10.2%): Acquired Greenbiotics, a California-based company that offers panel cleaning products and services for large-scale solar power plants

Mid Cap Losers

BBRY (6.7 -13.77%): Co's go-private agreement failed; received investment of $1 bln from Fairfas Financial and other institutional investors; co plans to replace CEO
KT (16.17 -2.82%): Hearing downgraded to Neutral at Credit Suisse
CLMT (28.96 -2.56%): Downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets, target lowered to $31 from $36

11:59AM European Markets Closing Prices (SUMRX) : European markets are now closed; stock markets across Europe performed as follows:

UK's FTSE: + 0.4%
Germany's DAX: + 0.3%
France's CAC: + 0.4%
Spain's IBEX: + 0.4%
Portugal's PSI: + 1.1%
Italy's MIB Index: + 0.8%
Irish Ovrl Index: -0.6%
Greece ATHEX Composite: -1.3%

8:01AM SunPower confirms acquisition of Greenbotics; acquisition is a cash transaction that is accretive to co's results (SPWR) 30.87 : Co announces it has acquired Greenbotics, a Calif-based company that offers panel cleaning products and services for large-scale solar power plants. With this strategic acquisition, SunPower expands its energy services portfolio for global customers with the SunPower Oasis Power Plant product, especially in markets with challenging dirt and dust environments. SunPower expects to utilize the robotic technology and the Greenbotics team in conjunction with other product development and large-scale solar field installation projects.

Nokia (NOK) announced that Samsung (SSNLF) has extended a patent license agreement between Nokia and Samsung for five years. The agreement would have expired at the end of 2013. According to the agreement, Samsung will pay additional compensation to Nokia for the period commencing from January 1, 2014 onwards, and the amount of such compensation shall be finally settled in a binding arbitration which is expected to be concluded during 2015.

6:14AM SolarCity subsidiary, SolarCity LMC Series I, intends to offer in a private placement $54.425 mln aggregate principal amount of Solar Asset Backed Notes, Series 2013-1 with a scheduled maturity date of Dec 2026 (SCTY) 54.75 : Co announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, SolarCity LMC Series I, intends to offer in a private placement $54,425,000 aggregate principal amount of Solar Asset Backed Notes, Series 2013-1 with a scheduled maturity date of Dec 2026. These notes will be secured by a pool of photovoltaic systems and related leases and power purchase agreements and ancillary rights and agreements that will be owned by SolarCity LMC Series I. These notes will represent obligations solely of SolarCity LMC Series I, and will not be insured or guaranteed by SolarCity or any other affiliate thereof, or by any other person or entity.

1:47AM UTStarcom announces withdrawal of non-binding Going Private proposal (UTSI) 2.83 : Co announces that the Special Committee of its Board of Directors has received a notice from one of the directors of the Company, Hong Liang Lu, and entities affiliated with him, and Shah Capital Opportunity Fund LP and Himanshu H. Shah that they have unanimously determined to withdraw the non-binding going private proposal dated March 27, 2013.

07:46 am Canadian Solar shares spike 5% following raised shipment guidance
Canadian Solar (CSIQ $27.01 +1.45) announced it expects solar module shipments to be in the range of approximately 460-480 MW, which exceeds the Company's original guidance of 410-430 MW provided on August 8, 2013. The Company expects its revenue for the third quarter of 2013 to be in the range of $470-495 million. The Company now expects its gross margin to be in the range of 18-20% compared to its original guidance of 10-12%. The Company's gross margin for the third quarter of 2013 is expected to exceed its original guidance primarily due to the successful execution of its total solutions business strategy including the completion and sales of solar power plants as previously disclosed. For the three-month period as well as for the nine-month period ended on September 30, 2013 the Company expects to be profitable at the net-income level on a US-GAAP basis.

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) announced the launch of a capital increase for an amount of EUR955 mln, its intent to launch a high yield bonds offering in an aggregate principal amount of $750 mln and the execution of a commitment letter for the implementation of a new syndicated revolving credit facility of EUR500 mln. The Capital Increase will be conducted by way of issuance of preferential subscription rights to holders of the co's existing ordinary shares. Holders of Existing Ordinary Shares will receive one Right for every Existing Ordinary Shares held on the record date of Nov 18, 2013. The subscription price for the new ordinary shares will be EUR2.10 per share on the basis of 8 New Ordinary Shares for 41 Existing Ordinary Shares, resulting in the issuance of between 454,722,512 and 460,000,000 New Ordinary Shares. The Rights will be issued and detached from the Existing Ordinary Shares, and the subscription period will start, on Nov 19, 2013, and will end on Nov 29, 2013. Rights remaining unexercised at the end of the subscription period will expire. Based on this subscription price, the gross proceeds of the Capital Increase are expected to be ~ EUR955 mln. The purpose of the Capital Increase is to strengthen the equity of the company.

Extreme Networks (EXTR) reported first quarter earnings of $0.06 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is better than expected, while revenues fell 0.3% year/year to $75.9 million which is higher than consensus. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $0.14-0.16 and GAAP revenues of $140-155 million. Guidance Details: Financial targets for the second fiscal quarter reflect the acquisition of Enterasys Networks on October 31, 2013, and will include Enterasys results for the months of November and December. For its second quarter of fiscal 2014 ending December 31, 2013, the company is targeting GAAP revenue in a range of $140 million to $155 million with non-GAAP revenue in a range of $145 million to $160 million. GAAP gross margin is targeted in a range of 47% to 48% and non-GAAP gross margin targeted to be 54% to 56%. "We are pleased with these results in light of product shortages that persisted for most of the quarter, seasonally slow July and August demand, and the announcement of our acquisition of Enterasys in mid-September. We extended our position in the sports venue market with wins at the Philadelphia Eagles, Lincoln Financial Field and the NBA's Carolina Bobcats, at the Time Warner Cable Arena. The Company added alliances with Aviat Networks, who will use Extreme switches and routers in their microwave networking solutions, and Silicon Graphics Corp. who will deploy Extreme switches in their high performance data center solutions, particularly for cloud and big data applications.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages ended on a mixed note as the S&P 500 shed 0.3% while the Nasdaq added 0.1%.

Equities spent the entire session climbing off their early lows after weakness in Europe set the stage for a lower open. European indices hovered near their worst levels of the day at the outset of the U.S. session after the European Commission lowered its 2014 GDP forecast for the region to 1.1% from 1.2%. Similar to equities, core EU bonds also sold off as Germany's 10-yr yield added four basis points to 1.74% while the French 10-yr yield rose six basis points to 2.21%.

Although stocks began the U.S. session in negative territory, the buy-the-dip trade was at work once again, fueling a day-long rebound. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was able to eke out a modest gain thanks to the outperformance of biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 207.11, +1.44) rose 0.7%, extending its year-to-date advance to 51.1%. Meanwhile, the traditional tech sector ended just below its flat line.

While most groups were able to rebound from their early lows, energy (-0.8%), financials (-0.5%), utilities (-0.8%), and telecom services (-1.9%) were not as fortunate.

The energy sector was pressured by crude oil, which slid 1.3% to $93.40 per barrel. Meanwhile, the financial space underperformed for the second consecutive day, trimming its quarter-to-date advance to 3.0%. Although the sector continues to hold a solid gain for the quarter, the remaining nine groups have all had a better showing since the start of October.

Only one other cyclical sector, consumer discretionary, ended north of its flat line. The group posted a razor-thin advance of 0.01% as quick-service restaurants masked broad losses among homebuilders. Restaurant names rallied in reaction to better-than-expected earnings from Red Robin Gourmet Burgers (RRGB 84.20, +7.44) while the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction (ITB 22.20, -0.37) lost 1.6% as the increase in rates weighed.

Treasuries sold off during morning trade before regaining a small portion of their losses in the afternoon. The benchmark 10-yr yield rose six basis points to 2.67%, its highest since October 16.

Trading volume was just above average as 741 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Today's data was limited to the October ISM Services Index, which climbed to 55.4 from 54.4 (54.0 Briefing.com consensus). The strength in the services sector is not a surprise. Recent employment reports have shown an uptick in services hiring; moreover, October marks the 46th consecutive month in which economic activity in the non-manufacturing sector has expanded.

Business activity strengthened in October, with the series index rising to 59.7 from 55.1. The new orders index showed continued expansion with a print of 56.8, yet that was the second straight month in which new orders activity decelerated. The aforementioned index was at 60.5 in August and 59.6 in September.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET and September Leading Indicators will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq +30.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +29.9% YTD
S&P 500 +23.6% YTD
DJIA +19.2% YTD

DJ30 -20.90 NASDAQ +3.27 SP500 -4.96 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1076/1.86 bln/1475 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 967/741.3 mln/2054

3:30 pm :

A stronger dollar index following better-than-anticipated Oct ISM Services data put pressure on precious metals and crude oil. The ISM Services reading for Oct was 55.4, which was above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 54.0, and ahead of the 54.4 reading for Sept
Dec gold slipped to a session low of $1305.20 per ounce in morning floor trade after trading as high as $1317.90 per ounce earlier in the session. Unable to erase much of the loss, it settled 0.5% lower at $1308.10 per ounce
Dec silver also fell into negative territory, extending losses for a fourth consecutive session. It brushed a session low of $21.60 per ounce and eventually settled with a 0.3% loss at $21.64 per ounce.
Dec crude oil fell deeper into negative territory after pulling back from a session high of $94.30 per barrel. It touched a session low of $93.07 per barrel and settled with a 1.3% loss at $93.40 per barrel
Dec natural gas, on the other hand, trended higher today. It lifted from its session low of $3.40 per MMBtu set at pit trade open and broke into positive territory by late morning action. It settled 0.6% higher at $3.47 per MMBtu.

4:45PM 3D Systems and Sindoh Ink agreement to distribute consumer 3D printers in South Korea (DDD) 70.01 +3.97 : DDD announced that Sindoh, the largest Korean 2D printer manufacturer, agreed to distribute its Cube and CubeX consumer 3D printers in South Korea. Sindoh is the leading Korean office solutions provider with over 500 reseller channels and decades of proven sales and service expertise. Sindoh plans to expand its website to include 3D content and open 3D printing experience showrooms, dedicated to introducing customers to 3D printing and letting them experience and explore it firsthand.

4:20PM Tesla Motors beats by $0.02; raises FY13 delivery guidance; sees non-GAAP profitability about consistent with Q3, below ests (TSLA) 176.81 +1.61 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; GAAP revenues rose 760.9% year/year to $431.3 mln; Q3 non-GAAP revenues were $603 mln, up 9% QoQ; rev consensus $503 mln. One of the drivers for the anticipated drop in ZEV credit revenue to $10 million in Q3 from $51 million in the prior quarter was the shift in the mix of sales to Europe and non-ZEV states in the United States. We are now producing 550 cars per week with improved process controls which consistently result in high quality cars. Consequently, we finished the quarter with a record of slightly over 5,500 deliveries (vs. guidance for lsightly over 5000 and expectations for over 5500), including over 1,000 deliveries to European customers. Production in the quarter significantly exceeded deliveries in order to fill the pipeline of vehicles in transit to Europe and provide cars for service and marketing uses. Q1 gross margin 21% ex-ZEV credits vs. low 20% guidance.

Demand for Model S has continued to grow in North America and Europe. We began to take reservations in China during the quarter and now anticipate our first Model S deliveries there in Q1 2014. vs the $502.68 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees profitability about consistent with Q3 -- $0.12 vs. $0.20 Capital IQ Consensus. We are continuing to expand production and plan to deliver slightly under 6,000 Model S vehicles in Q4, which increases our total expected deliveries to 21,500 vehicles worldwide for 2013 (up from 2100). ASPs are expected to be relatively flat sequentially as we continue to see a rich mix of options on incoming orders.

Model S gross margin may continue to make slight improvements over the next several quarters as we continue to drive down manufacturing costs. While we expect to achieve our target of 25% non-GAAP automotive gross margin in Q4 (assuming no contribution from ZEV credits), further progress is likely if customers continue to purchase our vehicles with a high option take rate.

Large Cap Gainers

KORS (79.76 +6.66%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, beat on revs; guided Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line.
ECA (18.7 +4.76%): Co announced vision and strategy; co will focus its capital investment on five oil and liquids-rich resource plays in N. America.
REGN (293.78 +4.29%): Beat on EPS by $0.54, beat on revs; raised EYLEA US net sales forecast; filed for a mixed securities shelf offering for an undisclosed amount.

Large Cap Losers

DLPH (55.39 -4.5%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line; guided FY13 revs below consensus.
CF (207.56 -4.63%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, missed on revs.
NSANY (17.6 -4.56%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank; Renault-Nissan JV plans to work with Mitsubishi to develop electric cars, according to reports.

Mid Cap Gainers

ENDP (55.82 +27.91%): Beat on EPS by $0.23, beat on revs; raised FY13 guidance; co to acquire specialty pharma co Paladin Labs in a stock and cash transaction valued at ~ $1.6 bln; expected to be immediately accretive to Endo's 2014 adjusted EPS.
ORIG (20.32 +12.59%): Beat on EPS by $0.11, beat on revs.
CSOD (51.51 +11.59%): Missed on EPS by $0.01, reported revs in-line.

Mid Cap Losers

PPO (37.03 -15.65%): Missed on EPS by $0.14, missed on revs.
HTZ (20.15 -15.34%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY13 EPS guidance, revs guidance.
THC (43.3 -10.28%): Reported EPS in-line, beat on revs.

ADP (ADP) announced its ADP Mobile Solutions app surpassed 1.5 mln users. The number includes over one mln app downloads from Apple (AAPL) iTunes and over 450 thousand app downloads from Google Play (GOOG).

9:00AM Rubicon Tech follow-up: RBCN showing additional pre-mkt strength following GTAT deal with AAPL; RBCN now up 6% at 9.35 (RBCN) 8.82 :
As mentioned in the 8:31 RBCN comment:

RBCN is trading higher on light pre-mkt volume. The early strength appears to stem from to positive sentiment about sapphire technology, following a deal between competitor GT Advanced Technologies' (GTAT) and Apple (AAPL).
GTAT is trading higher by 26% following news that GTAT and AAPL entered into a Master Development and Supply Agreement and related Statement of Work, pursuant to which GTAT will supply sapphire material exclusively to Apple for consumer electronics. GTAT will be subject to certain exclusivity terms during the duration of the agreement.
RBCN develops/sells monocrystalline sapphire and other innovative crystalline products for Light-Emitting Diodes ("LEDs"), radio frequency integrated circuits ("RFICs"), blue laser diodes, optoelectronics and other optical applications. In 2012, RBCN's sales to LG Innotek and Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI) represented approximately 38% and 29% of revenues, respectively.
RBCN has a small float of around 18 mln shares and a very high short interest at ~36% of the float sold short, so the stock could be volatile if this news generates additional upside momentum.

8:09AM Trina Solar raises guidance for solar module shipments; Co estimates its solar module shipments in Q3 of 2013 to be between 750 MW to 780 MW, compared to the Co's previous guidance of 650 MW to 680 MW (TSL) 16.76 : Co announced the following updates to its previous guidance made for the quarter ended Sept 30, 2013.

The Co estimates its solar module shipments in the third quarter of 2013 to be between 750 MW to 780 MW, compared to the Co's previous guidance of 650 MW to 680 MW.

Additionally, for Q3 of 2013, the Company estimates that its overall gross margin to be between 14.5% to 15.5%, compared to the Co's previous guidance of low double digits in percentage terms.

The Co expects its net earnings results in the third quarter of 2013 to be impacted by:

An incremental accounts receivable provision of between $9.5 million and $10.5 million
A foreign currency exchange gain of $7.5 million to $8.5 million, net of change in fair value of derivative instruments

As these selected estimated results are subject to the finalization of the Company's financial closing procedures, the Company's actual results may differ from its current estimates. The Company will confirm or revise its previous module shipment guidance of between 2.3 GW to 2.4 GW for the full year 2013 during its third quarter 2013 earnings conference call.

Micron (MU) and WPG Americas, a subsidiary of WPG Holdings, announced that WPGA will handle sales, support and logistics services for Micron's complete line of memory and advanced products in North and South America, effective Nov 1, 2013.

Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) is powering a new application from Israeli startup, OrCam, that helps people with visual impairments interact more easily with the world around them.

ARM (ARMH) and Rockchip Electronics, a Chinese fabless semiconductor company and mobile-internet SoC solution provider, announced that Rockchip has acquired a subscription license of a broad range of ARM advanced technologies.

Sierra Wireless (SWIR) announced the launch of the latest additions to the AirPrime HL Series of embedded wireless modules for machine-to-machine applications. The new AirPrime HL modules include satellite navigation support and are the smallest embedded wireless modules (22 x 23 mm) to be completely interchangeable across 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies.

2:08AM Monolithic Power files patent infringement claims (MPWR) 31.71 : Co announces it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Silergy Corporation, Silergy Technology, Compal Electronics, and Bizcom Electronics asserting that Silergy step-down regulators, such as, e.g., SY8206, SY8208, and SY8228 product families, and Compal Electronic and Bizcom Electronics products incorporating those step-down regulators from, e.g., Silergy SY8206 and SY8208 product families, such as notebook computers, have infringed, e.g., MPS' under bump metallization technology and other protected technologies, specifically those covered by three MPS patents

07:51 am GT Advanced Tech shares soar 23% following earnings and Apple (AAPL)
GT Advanced Tech. (GTAT $10.32 +1.94) reported a third quarter loss of $0.16 per share, while revenues fell 63.4% year/year to $40.3 million. The company issued guidance the fiscal year 2013 with EPS of ($0.50)- ($0.40) with revenues of $29-320 million. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with revenues of $600-800 million (estimates may not compare).

Apple (AAPL) Agreement:

On October 31, 2013, GTAT and Apple (AAPL) entered into a Master Development and Supply Agreement and related Statement of Work, pursuant to which GTAT will supply sapphire material exclusively to Apple for consumer electronics. GTAT has granted Apple certain intellectual property rights in connection with its sapphire growth technologies. Although the agreement does not guarantee volumes, it does require GT to maintain a minimum level of capacity. GT will be subject to certain exclusivity terms during the duration of the agreement. GT expects this arrangement to be cash positive and accretive to earnings starting in 2014. Gross margins from this new materials business are expected to be substantially lower than GT's historical equipment margins. GTAT also entered into a Prepayment Agreement with Apple pursuant to which GTAT will receive approximately $578 million in four separate installments, as payment in advance for the purchase of sapphire goods. GTAT is required to repay this amount ratably over a five year period ending in January 2020, either as a credit against Apple's purchases of sapphire goods under the MDSA or as a direct cash payment.

GTAT's obligations under the Prepayment Agreement are secured by certain of its assets. While the MDSA specifies GTAT's minimum and maximum supply commitments, there are no minimum purchase requirements under the terms of the MDSA. Finally, on October 31, 2013, GTAT entered into a lease agreement with an affiliate of Apple in order to lease a facility in Mesa, Arizona that GTAT will use for the purpose of manufacturing the sapphire goods under the MDSA. Impact on 2H13 results To service the sapphire material agreement announced today, the company has dedicated the vast majority of its ASF capacity in the second half of 2013 to expanding its own materials capacity. This shift in business model has effectively precluded the company from shipping significant levels of ASF units to other customers during the second half of 2013 and will continue to do so for the balance of the year.

Given the impact of its shift from ASF equipment sales to building ASF capacity for its own internal use as the company prepares to service the Apple agreement, GT is revising guidance for fiscal year 2013, which ends December 31, 2013, as follows: Revenue in the range of $290 million to $320 million Gross margin in the range of 30% to 32% Non-GAAP EPS in the range of a loss of $0.40 to a loss of $0.50; GTAT sees 2014 revenues in the range of $600-800 mln. On October 30, 2013, GTAT terminated its credit agreement with Bank of America and the other lenders from time to time party thereto. As of October 30, 2013, there was approximately $96 million outstanding under the term loan component of the Credit Agreement, which amount was paid in full on October 30, 2013 by the Company using its available cash.

07:49 am Broadsoft shares plunge 17% following worse than expected earnings, downside guidance
Broadsoft (BSFT $27.47 -5.67) reported third quarter earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is worse than expected, while revenues rose 6.7% year/year to $42.9 million which is lower than expected.

The company issued downside guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of $0.34 to $0.49 which is below expectations with revenues of $47 to $53 million which is lower than expected.

"We believe our longer-term outlook remains positive although we have some short-term concerns about the service provider spending environment in the fourth quarter. We continue to believe that we are very well-positioned to take advantage of the secular trend of enterprise communications moving to the cloud. I'm pleased by the strong cash flow we were able to generate in the quarter and by the closing of the Hipcom acquisition, which is central to our plans for the expansion of Cloud PBX services into Europe."

Advanced Energy (AEIS) reported third quarter earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is better than expected, while revenues rose 21.6% year/year to $142.9 million which is lower than expected. The company issued guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of $0.59-0.63, which was below expectations with revenues of $145-155 million which is line with expectations.

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From Briefng.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages registered broad gains at the open, but only the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) and S&P 500 (+0.4%) were able to end in positive territory while the Nasdaq (-0.2%) and Russell 2000 (-0.5%) posted modest losses.

The Dow finished at a fresh record high of 15,746.63 as 27 of 30 components registered gains. Of those 27, twelve added at least 1.0%. Microsoft (MSFT 38.18, +1.54) was the top index performer, climbing 4.2% amid reports Ford (F 16.91, -0.18) Chief Executive Officer Alan Mullaly remains on the list of candidates hoping to replace outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer.

While Microsoft's gain had a limited impact on the price-weighted Dow, the stock provided support to the technology sector (+0.8%), which ended ahead of the remaining cyclical groups. Although the tech sector has a tendency to trade in-line with the Nasdaq, that was not the case today. The Nasdaq ended modestly lower as biotechnology and momentum names lagged.

Companies specializing in biotechnology registered broad losses as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 201.07, -6.04) tumbled 2.9%, widening its fourth quarter loss to 4.1%. Meanwhile, momentum names like Facebook (FB 49.12, -0.98), Priceline.com (PCLN 1058.04, -24.19), and Yelp (YELP 66.61, -4.52) took a cue from Tesla's (TSLA 151.16, -25.65) weakness. The electric car maker plunged 14.5% in reaction to its cautious guidance and Q3 deliveries that were essentially in-line with Street expectations. Despite today's loss, Tesla remains higher by 346% this year.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector (-0.2%) spent the bulk of the session in the red as apparel retailers weighed after Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 33.13, -5.18) issued below-consensus revenue guidance.

Also of note, the financial sector (+0.3%) continued its recent underperformance. Despite today's modest advance, the sector is unchanged this week versus a 0.5% gain in the S&P. In addition, the sector's recent weakness has trimmed its quarter-to-date gain to 3.4%, which puts the group behind the remaining nine sectors in Q4 standings.

Three of four countercyclical groups (consumer staples, telecom services, and utilities) posted solid gains between 1.0% and 1.3% while health care shed 0.3% as biotech pressured the sector.

Treasuries settled near their highs, erasing a portion of yesterday's loss. The benchmark 10-yr yield slipped three basis points to 2.65%.

Participation was on the light side as only 704 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

In today's economic data, the Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators increased 0.7% for a second consecutive month in September. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase 0.6%. The index will likely suffer a sizable pullback in October. Initial claims, which added 0.26 percentage points to the increase in the leading indicators, will contribute negatively in October as glitches from California and biases from the government shutdown drove claims to their highest level in several months.

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 7.0% to follow last week's increase of 6.4%.

Separately, October Challenger Job Cuts decreased 4.2% after increasing 19.1% in September.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims and the advance Q3 GDP reading will be reported at 8:30 ET while the September Consumer Credit report will be released at 15:00 ET.

Nasdaq +30.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +29.4% YTD
S&P 500 +24.1% YTD
DJIA +20.2% YTD

DJ30 +128.66 NASDAQ -7.92 SP500 +7.52 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1221/1.97 bln/1321 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1598/704.0 mln/1410

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded higher today, gaining support from a weaker dollar index. Dec gold brushed a session high of $1320.50 per ounce in early morning pit trade and chopped around slightly below that level for the remainder of the session. It eventually settled with a 0.7% gain at $1317.40 per ounce.
Dec silver rose to a session high of $21.93 per ounce but then inched lower. It settled with a 0.6% gain at $21.76 per ounce, just above its session low of $21.75 per ounce.
Dec crude oil also rose on the weaker dollar index. Adding to today's strength was better-than-anticipated inventory data that showed a build of 1.577 mln barrels when a build of 1.6-2.1 mln barrels was expected. The energy component lifted from a session low of $93.68 per barrel set at pit trade open and advanced as high as $95.40 per barrel. It pulled back slightly heading into the close and settled with a 1.4% higher at $94.74 per barrel.
Dec natural gas also traded in positive territory, advancing to a session high of $3.55 per MMBtu. It pulled back in afternoon pit trade and settled with a 0.9% gain at $3.50 per MMBtu.

4:19PM Novatel Wireless beats by $0.06, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (NVTL) 2.91 -0.07 : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.04 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.10); revenues rose 30.5% year/year to $92.7 mln vs the $94.5 mln consensus. For Q4, co sees non-GAAP EPS of $(0.14)-0.00 vs. ($0.06) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $66-78 mln vs. $99.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:13PM SolarCity beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (SCTY) 59.65 -3.12 : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.45); revenues rose 52.0% year/year to $48.6 mln vs the $42.42 mln consensus.

Estimated Nominal Contracted Payments Remaining of $1,737 million at September 30, 2013, up 23% from $1,409 million at June 30, 2013.
Retained Value forecast of $846 millionat September 30, 2013, equating to retained value per watt forecast of $1.37/W at September 30, 2013. Investments in Solar Energy Systems, Leased and to Be Leased, of $211.4 million bringing the cumulative total through the first nine months of 2013 to $507.7 million
Undeployed Tax Equity Financing Capacity of 149 MW as of November 1, 2013
MWs Deployed reached a new quarterly record of 78 MW as residential MWs deployed grew 151% year-over-year to 60 MW.
Cumulative total MWs deployed stood at 464 MW as of September 30, 2013. MWs Booked totaled 91 MW.
Cumulative Energy Contracts increased 155% since the end of the third quarter of 2012 (and 21% since the end of the second quarter of 2013) to 72,506.
Cumulative Customers grew to 82,235, up 133% since the end of the third quarter of 2012 (and 18% since the end of the second quarter of 2013).

Guidance for Q4 2013 and Update to 2013 and 2014 Outlook

Co issues mixed guidance for Q4, sees EPS of ($0.65)-($0.55), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.49) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $40-46 mln vs. $42.24 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
For Q4 2013, the Company expects to deploy 101 MW and thus reaffirms its guidance for 2013 MW deployed of 278 MW.
GAAP Operating Lease Revenue: $22 million - $24 million
GAAP Solar Energy Systems Sale Revenue: $18 million - $22 million GAAP Gross Margin: 30%-40%
GAAP Operating Expenses: $50 million - $55 million
Non-GAAP EPS (before Income (Loss) Attributable to Noncontrolling Interests): ($0.55) -- ($0.65)
Positive net cash flow.
For 2014, the Company reiterates its guidance for MW deployed in a range of 475 MW -- 525 MW.

4:12PM Qualcomm misses by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (QCOM) 69.74 +0.73 : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.08; revenues rose 33.0% year/year to $6.48 bln vs the $6.35 bln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.10-1.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.28 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $6.3-6.9 bln vs. $7.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

MSM chip shipments: 190 mln units, up 35 percent y-o-y and 10 percent sequentially. June quarter total reported device sales: approximately $60.2 bln, up 29 percent y-o-y and 7 percent sequentially. June quarter estimated 3G/4G device shipments: approximately 260 to 264 mln units, at an estimated average selling price of approximately $227 to $233 per unit.

"I am very pleased with our record financial performance this year as we delivered revenues of $25 bln, up 30% versus last year. Our technologies underpin the global growth of wireless data, and our semiconductor solutions are used across the industry's flagship smartphones...Looking forward, we expect continued strong growth of 3G and 3G/4G multimode devices around the world, particularly in China with the anticipated launch of LTE. Qualcomm remains well positioned from a growth standpoint, and we expect double-digit compound annual growth rates for both revenues and earnings per share over the next five years."

On August 21, 2013, we entered into a definitive agreement under which we agreed to sell the North and Latin American operations of our Omnitracs division for $800 mln, subject to closing conditions, including receipt of regulatory approvals. We expect the transaction to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Upon close, we expect to record a gain on sale of approximately $0.22 to $0.25 earnings per share, which has been excluded from our fiscal first quarter and fiscal 2014 outlook.

4:12PM Axcelis Tech misses by $0.01, misses on revs (ACLS) 2.26 +0.4 : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.04 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.03); revenues rose 9.4% year/year to $48.8 mln vs the $52.67 mln consensus.

4:03PM Brooks Automation changes time of its Q4 earnings release and conference call to before market open at 8:30 a.m. EST on Thursday, November 14, 2013 (BRKS) 9.45 0.00 : The company will release the financial results in advance of the call that morning.

Large Cap Gainers

LBTYA (80.94 +6.45%): Reported Q3 loss of -$2.09 per share, revs rose 73.5% yoy to $4.37 bln vs $4.41 bln estimate
ESV (60.5 +6.01%): Increased quarterly cash dividend 50% to $0.75 from $0.50 per share; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Nordea Securities, target raised to $68
RL (177.96 +3.95%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($2.23 vs $2.20 estimate), revs rose 2.8% yoy to $1.92 bln vs $1.91 blne stimate; sees Q3 revs +8-10% (~$1.99-2.03 bln) vs $2 bln estimate; sees FY14 revs +5-7% (~$7.29-7.43 bln) vs $7.35 bln estimate

Large Cap Losers

TSLA (152.01 -14.03%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.12 vs $0.10 estimate), GAAP revs rose 760.9% yoy to $431.3 mln; sees Q4 profitability consistent with Q3 ($0.12 vs $0.20 estimate); deliveries were shy of some expectations but exceeded guidance
VRSK (62.25 -8.19%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.62 ex items vs $0.60), revs rose 10.0% yoy to $438.56 mln vs $444.55 mln estimate
PXD (199.73 -5.05%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee

Mid Cap Gainers

FNGN (61.58 +12.21%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.20 vs $0.18 estimate), revs rose 28.3% yoy to $62.1 mln vs $60.73 mln estimate; sees FY13 revs of $238-240 mln vs $236.72 mln estimate
VOYA (33.41 +7.88%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.39 ($1.08 ex items vs $0.69 estimate); upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BTIG Research
AU (15.77 +7.83%): Reported Q3 net loss of -$0.34 per share vs $0.09 two analyst estimate, revs $1.26 bln vs $1.21 bln estimate; gold production rose 12% from previous quarter to 1,043koz, above 950koz-1000koz guidance

Mid Cap Losers

NPSP (23.25 -16.93%): Reported Q3 loss of -$0.01 per share (in-line), revs tose 45.2% yoy to $39.2 mln vs $38.25 mln estimate
JCOM (49.15 -10.83%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.64 ex items vs $0.70 estimate), revs rose 37.1% yoy to $127.8 mln vs $130.26 mln estimate; reaffirmed FY13 EPS guidance of $2.78-2.98 ex items vs $2.91 estimate, revs of $510-535 mln vs $526.73 mln estimate
MELI (123.25 -7.88%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.08 ($0.66 vs $0.74 estimate), revs rose 26.5% yoy to $123.1 mln vs $125.47 mln estimate; downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest

STMicroelectronics (STM) announced its close collaboration with Memoir Systems has made the Algorithmic Memory Technology available for embedded memories in application-specific integrated circuits and Systems on Chips manufactured in ST's fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator process technology.

Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of Avnet (AVT), introduced the MicroZed 7020 System-on-Module featuring the Xilinx (XLNX) Zynq-7000 XC7Z020-1CLG400C All Programmable SoC, with three times more programmable logic.

7:14AM Suntech Power files an application for a provisional liquidation with the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands, the jurisdiction of its incorporation (STP) 1.50 : Co announced it has filed an application for a provisional liquidation with the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands, the jurisdiction of its incorporation. In the event the Grand Court grants the Company's application, restructuring professionals selected by the Company would be appointed to work with the Company's Board of Directors to continue progressing a restructuring of the Company. By commencing such proceeding in the Cayman Islands, the Company will have the benefit of protection and additional time to complete negotiations and conclude the restructuring in the best interests of all stakeholders. The Company will consider pursuing a Chapter 15 filing in the United States following the grant of the application in the Cayman Islands to obtain similar protections in the United States. As previously announced, the Company has reached an understanding with its Creditor Working Group which includes implementing a recapitalization plan that contemplates a scheme of arrangement. The principal components of the restructuring scheme would include, among other things, the exchange of outstanding debt into the Company's equity and the introduction of a new strategic investor that will provide necessary funding to complete the restructuring process.

7:10AM Tessera Tech reports Q3 (Sep) results, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus; authorizes additional $50 mln in buybacks (TSRA) 18.84 : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.87 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.18); revenues fell 38.3% year/year to $37.3 mln vs the $36.5 mln consensus. Non-GAAP net losses from continuing operations for the third quarter of 2013 include a provision for income taxes of $40.5 million due to a valuation allowance on the Company's deferred tax assets.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $56-60 mln vs. $65.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Intellectual Property revenue is expected to range between $48 million and $50 million. The Company expects DigitalOptics revenue to range between $8 million and $10 million, including initial product sales of its mems|cam camera modules and a one-time license fee related to a legacy DOC license agreement. GAAP operating expenses are expected to range between $59 million and $63 million. Due to the anticipated ramp in production of the Company's mems|cam modules in the fourth quarter, the Company expects cost of sales and R&D to be higher than the prior quarter. SG&A is expected to be higher than the prior quarter due to increased patent analysis and business development activities, some of which relates to anticipated expenses that moved from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. Litigation expenses are expected to be slightly higher than the prior quarter. The Company expects amortization of intangibles of $5.4 million and stock based compensation expense of $4 million.

Share Repurchase Program
During the third quarter of 2013, the Company repurchased 259,000 shares for an aggregate amount of $5.0 million. As a reminder, in May 2013 the Company announced it expected to execute at least $16.0 million of stock repurchases through its stock repurchase program over the next four quarters based on the Company's episodic gains in the prior four quarters. In November 2013 our Board of Directors increased the total authorized to be repurchased from $100.0 million to $150.0 million. The Company intends to use this new authorization to execute stock repurchases in excess of the previously committed $16.0 million of stock repurchases.

07:49 am Mindspeed shares soar 65% following acquisition for $5.05/share
Mindspeed (MSPD) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by M/A-COM Technology Solutions (MTSI), for $5.05 per share in a cash tender offer. This represents a premium of ~ 66% to the close of $3.04 on Nov 4, 2013. MACOM intends to commence a tender offer to purchase each outstanding common share of Mindspeed for $5.05 in cash, without interest, and MACOM will assume certain equity awards held by Mindspeed employees. The transaction value is approximately $272 million in diluted equity value.The boards of both companies have approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. MACOM estimates that the acquisition will result in substantial synergies from corporate overhead, SG&A, and exit from underperforming businesses. MACOM also expects that the acquisition will be accretive to non-GAAP earnings per share between $0.15 and $0.20 in fiscal 2014 and between $0.25 and $0.30 in fiscal 2015.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages ended on their lows after opening gains turned into broad-based losses. The S&P 500 fell 1.3% while the Nasdaq underperformed with a decline of 1.9%.

Prior to the open, the European Central Bank cut its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 0.25% after recent data suggested the price level is moving away from the ECB's inflation target. The rate cut fueled a surge in the dollar while also sparking a risk bid. However, the equity gains were capped after a better-than-expected headline Q3 GDP reading (2.8% versus 2.5% Briefing.com consensus) fostered renewed speculation about a potential tapering announcement coming sooner rather than later.

The immediate reaction in Treasuries also reflected a 'taper on' trade as bonds sold off, sending the 10-yr yield from its low to a session high. However, Treasuries returned to their best levels of the day as weakness among equities redirected some flows into safe-haven assets. The 10-yr yield ended lower by four basis points at 2.61%.

The Nasdaq paced today's decline as momentum names saw a continuation of yesterday's weakness. Facebook (FB 47.56, -1.56), LinkedIn (LNKD 211.47, -9.31), Priceline.com (PCLN 1022.89, -35.15), Tesla (TSLA 139.77, -11.39), and Yelp (YELP 61.83, -4.78), lost between 3.2% and 7.5% with Tesla seeing added pressure in reaction to reports of another car fire after the vehicle hit some debris on the road. The index was also pressured by Qualcomm (QCOM 67.09, -2.65) after the company reported disappointing results combined with cautious guidance.

Even though the tech-heavy Nasdaq lagged, the traditional technology sector (-1.2%) ended ahead of the S&P along with two other top-weighted sectors-financials (-1.1%) and health care (-0.9%).

Although equities registered broad losses, a pocket of strength could be found in the shares of Twitter (TWTR 44.90, +18.90), which began trading as a public company at $45.10 per share after pricing the IPO at $26. The social media stock ended the session below its opening price, but 72.7% above its IPO price.

With stocks ending on their lows, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 13.90, +1.23) finished near its high.

Today's selling invited above-average participation as more than 900 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Taking another look at today's data, GDP increased 2.8% in the third quarter. That is up from a 2.5% increase in Q2 2013 and matches the best gain since Q3 2012. The Briefing.com consensus expected GDP to increase 1.9%. Final sales were up 2.0%, down slightly from a 2.1% increase in the second quarter.

Overall, the economy performed in the third quarter in a similar fashion to how it performed in the second quarter. Inventories contributed slightly more to growth (0.8 percentage points vs. 0.4 percentage points), which was the main difference between the two quarters. Inventories have now increased for three consecutive quarters and are due for a normal pullback soon. That could leave headline GDP growth coming in weaker in the coming quarters.

Separately, the weekly initial claims level declined to 336,000 from an upwardly revised 345,000 (from 340,000). The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to fall to 335,000. The Department of Labor stated that there were no unusual factors in the initial claims data. After two months of biases from computer glitches and the government shutdown, the initial claims report is giving a clean reading of the labor situation.

Unfortunately, the claims level is almost exactly where it was prior to the problems in the claims data. Layoff levels have remained steady and the private sector is very comfortable with its current labor needs.

Tomorrow, October non-farm payrolls, September personal income, personal spending, and core PCE prices will all be reported at 8:30 ET while the preliminary reading of the November Michigan Sentiment Survey will be released at 9:55 ET.

Nasdaq +27.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +27.1% YTD
S&P 500 +22.5% YTD
DJIA +19.0% YTD

DJ30 -152.90 NASDAQ -74.61 SP500 -23.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 576/2.15 bln/1980 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 660/909.6 mln/2363

3:30 pm :

Dec gold and Dec silver sold off to their respective session lows of $1296.00 and $21.38 per ounce in early morning floor action as the dollar index rallied following the European Central Bank's decision to cut its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 0.25%.
Gold managed to erase some of the earlier losses and settled 0.7% lower at $1308.70 per ounce. Silver inched higher for the remainder of the session and closed at $21.66 per ounce, shaving losses to 0.5%. Dec crude oil also traded lower today as the stronger dollar index weighed on the commodities space.
The energy component touched a session low of $93.81 per barrel in late morning pit trade but erased some of the loss and settled at $94.24 per barrel, or 0.5% lower.
Dec natural gas brushed a session high of $3.62 per MMBtu moments after floor trade opened but trended lower after inventory data for the week ending Nov 1 showed that natural gas inventories rose by 35 bcf when a build of 35-40 bcf was expected. It gave up most of the earlier gains and settled just 0.6% higher at $3.52 per MMBtu.

5:15PM Advanced Semi announces joint development and production collaboration with Infineon (ASX) 4.87 -0.03 : Co announced a joint development and production agreement for assembly services of automotive products with Infineon Technologies AG. The collaboration will focus on enabling copper wire bonding for QFP packages in automotive microcontrollers and manufacturing.

4:38PM Alcoa sets new business targets at 2013 Investor Day (AA) 8.95 -0.71 : The following new business targets were announced for the 2013 to 2016 time period:

Engineered Products and Solutions

$1.2 billion in incremental revenue growth by 2016; $900 million coming from share gains through innovations
Adjusted EBITDA margin percent exceeding historical highs in 2016

Global Rolled Products

$1.0 billion in incremental revenue growth by 2016; $900 million through share gains and innovations
Adjusted EBITDA per metric ton at or above average historical highs in 2016

Global Primary Products

Improve position on global alumina cost curve by 6 percentage points, from 27th percentile to 21st percentile
Improve position on global aluminum cost curve by 5 percentage points, from 43rd percentile to 38th percentile

4:28PM NVIDIA reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q4 revs below consensus (NVDA) 14.55 -0.3 : Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.26; revenues fell 12.5% year/year to $1.05 bln vs the $1.05 bln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $1.05 bln, plus of minus 2%, which equates to ~$1.03-1.07 bln vs $1.08 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20PM Universal Display beats by $0.16, beats on revs; guides FY13 revs above consensus (OLED) 29.15 -0.84 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.16 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.04); revenues rose 162.4% year/year to $32.8 mln vs the $21.48 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for FY13, sees FY13 revs of $142-144 mln vs. $128.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05PM Microsemi reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (MSCC) 24.17 -0.93 : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.53; revenues fell 4.8% year/year to $250.4 mln vs the $250.03 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.42-0.46, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of decline 3-5% QoQ calc to ~$237.8-242.9 mln vs. $256.80 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Microsemi's strategic business model continued to serve us well in the September quarter, with a sequential increase in revenue of 3.2 percent and disciplined cost controls driving 100 basis points of operating margin improvement...Operating and free cash flows remained strong and we are confident that our overall strategy continues to bring benefit to our shareholders."

Large Cap Gainers

RIG (51.87 +5.79%): Beat on EPS by $0.30, beat on revs; announced construction contracts for five newbuild high-specifications jackups.
PRU (85.03 +3.96%): Beat on EPS by $0.84, missed on revs.
MT (16.77 +3.65%): Missed on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line; co may have interest in ThyssenKrupp's U.S. plant, according to reports.

Large Cap Losers

WFM (58.6 -9.11%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, missed on revs; lowered FY14 EPS below consensus, lowered FY4 revs below consensus; comps +5.9%; increased dividend by 20%; authorized a new share repurchase program in the amount of $500 mln.
TSLA (141.25 -6.56%): Upgraded to Hold from Sell at Standpoint Research.
SNI (75.2 -6.34%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line.

Mid Cap Gainers

AWAY (34.11 +17.26%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, beat on revs; guided Q4 revs in-line; upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James; upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Monness Crespi & Hardt.
TPX (45.88 +14.39%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY13 EPS guidance, revs guidance.
SLH (65.48 +11.57%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, beat on revs; raised FY14 revenue guidance, below consensus, raised EPS guidance inline with consensus; upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray.

Mid Cap Losers

NSM (40.56 -17.59%): Missed on EPS by $0.14, beat on revs; announced strategic initiatives; Stonegate Mortgage (SGM) to acquire co's wholesale lending channel.
WEN (7.98 -12.21%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line; raised FY13 guidance.
SCTY (52.88 -11.36%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.

Microchip Technology (MCHP) announced the availability of its MPLAB Code Configurator.

8:09AM Vitesse Semi amends its senior secured loan agreement with Whitebox VSC (VTSS) 2.72 : Co amended its senior secured loan agreement with Whitebox VSC Ltd. giving the co rights of pre-payment, modifying interest rates and extending the maturity date to August 31, 2016. As part of the loan refinancing, the Company repurchased $13.7 mln of convertible second lien debentures held by Whitebox, reducing the co's total indebtedness. The new terms provide co with working capital to further fuel its new product growth strategy and supports increasing stockholder value. The loan amendment modifies the co's Term A Loan in the principal amount of $7.9 mln and Term B Loan in the principal amount of $9.3 mln. Both Term A and Term B Loans now come due on August 31, 2016, and each bears interest in cash at 9.0% per annum payable quarterly in arrears. The Term B Loan remains convertible into co common stock at a price of $4.95 per share through October 30, 2014. The loan amendment also permits the co to pre-pay the Term A and Term B Loans in whole or in part subject to the payment of a prepayment fee, and to pre-pay the co's convertible second lien debentures prior to their maturity in October 2014. The co repurchased Whitebox's $13.7 mln of debentures at a price of 107% of their principal amount. The repurchased debentures were convertible into approximately 3.0 mln common shares. Following the repurchase, $32.8 mln of convertible second lien debentures remain outstanding. The co intends to opportunistically repurchase additional debentures ahead of their maturity.

07:49 am SolarCity shares plunge 8% following disappointing guidance
SolarCity (SCTY $54.75 -4.90) reported third quarter loss of $0.43 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 52.0% year/year to $48.6 million which is higher than expected.Estimated Nominal Contracted Payments Remaining of $1,737 million at September 30, 2013, up 23% from $1,409 million at June 30, 2013.

Retained Value forecast of $846 million at September 30, 2013, equating to retained value per watt forecast of $1.37/W at September 30, 2013. Investments in Solar Energy Systems, Leased and to Be Leased, of $211.4 million bringing the cumulative total through the first nine months of 2013 to $507.7 million. Undeployed Tax Equity Financing Capacity of 149 MW as of November 1, 2013. MWs Deployed reached a new quarterly record of 78 MW as residential MWs deployed grew 151% year-over-year to 60 MW.

Cumulative total MWs deployed stood at 464 MW as of September 30, 2013. MWs Booked totaled 91 MW. Cumulative Energy Contracts increased 155% since the end of the third quarter of 2012 (and 21% since the end of the second quarter of 2013) to 72,506. Cumulative Customers grew to 82,235, up 133% since the end of the third quarter of 2012 (and 18% since the end of the second quarter of 2013).

Guidance for Q4 2013 and Update to 2013 and 2014 Outlook The company issued fourth quarter EPS of ($0.65)-($0.55) which is below estimates with revenues of $40-46 million which is line with expectations. For Q4 2013, the Company expects to deploy 101 MW and thus reaffirms its guidance for 2013 MW deployed of 278 MW. GAAP Operating Lease Revenue: $22 million - $24 million GAAP Solar Energy Systems Sale Revenue: $18 million - $22 million GAAP Gross Margin: 30%-40% GAAP Operating Expenses: $50 million - $55 million. Non-GAAP EPS (before Income (Loss) Attributable to Noncontrolling Interests): ($0.55) -- ($0.65). Positive net cash flow. For 2014, the Company reiterates its guidance for MW deployed in a range of 475 MW -- 525 MW.

07:48 am Qualcomm shares fall 5% following miss on earnings and downside gudiance
Qualcomm (QCOM $66.50 -3.24) reported fourth quarter earnings of $1.05 per share, which missed expectations, while revenues rose 33.0% year/year to $6.48 billion which is lower than expected. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $1.10-1.20, and revenues of $6.3-6.9 billion, which are both below estimates.

MSM chip shipments: 190 million units, up 35 percent y-o-y and 10 percent sequentially. June quarter total reported device sales: approximately $60.2 billion, up 29 percent y-o-y and 7 percent sequentially. June quarter estimated 3G/4G device shipments: approximately 260 to 264 million units, at an estimated average selling price of approximately $227 to $233 per unit.

"I am very pleased with our record financial performance this year as we delivered revenues of $25 billon, up 30% versus last year. Our technologies underpin the global growth of wireless data, and our semiconductor solutions are used across the industry's flagship smartphones...Looking forward, we expect continued strong growth of 3G and 3G/4G multimode devices around the world, particularly in China with the anticipated launch of LTE. Qualcomm remains well positioned from a growth standpoint, and we expect double-digit compound annual growth rates for both revenues and earnings per share over the next five years." On August 21, 2013, we entered into a definitive agreement under which we agreed to sell the North and Latin American operations of our Omnitracs division for $800 mln, subject to closing conditions, including receipt of regulatory approvals. We expect the transaction to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Upon close, we expect to record a gain on sale of approximately $0.22 to $0.25 earnings per share, which has been excluded from our fiscal first quarter and fiscal 2014 outlook."

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The spread between bulls (55.2%) and bears (15.6%) in the Investors Intelligence Poll moved up to 39.6% this week, the second-highest level since the low in March 2009. The last time the spread was this high was back in April of 2011, which coincided with a top in the S&P 500 and subsequent decline of over 20%.

Before that, you have to go back to the October 2007 peak to find sentiment at a similar extreme.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/12100898/1/forget-twitter--cautionary-signals-continue-to-build.html

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 08-Nov-13

Dow +167.80 at 15761.78, Nasdaq +61.90 at 3919.23, S&P +23.46 at 1770.61

Equities climbed throughout the session despite showing early signs of a potential continuation to yesterday's weakness. The S&P 500 advanced 1.3% while the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 outperformed with respective gains of 1.6% and 1.9%.

Before today's opening bell, it was announced that nonfarm payrolls increased by 204,000 in October (Briefing.com consensus 100,000). The immediate reaction was consistent with increased expectations of tapering sooner rather than later as bonds and futures fell to lows. However, equity futures returned into positive territory by the opening bell while Treasuries settled on their lows with the 10-yr yield up 15 basis points at 2.75%. The dollar also strengthened, sending the Dollar Index higher by 0.5% to 81.24.

Stocks rallied with the financial sector (+2.3%) paving the way after the group struggled to keep pace with the S&P earlier in the week. All major banks posted solid gains, and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 53.96, +2.31) surged 4.5%.

Other cyclical sectors also displayed strength, but only financials added more than 2.0%. Meanwhile, the materials space was the second-best performer (+1.8%) as steelmakers provided support. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 49.37, +0.81) gained 1.7%. Miners posted modest gains as the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 24.28, +0.14) added 0.6% despite weakness in gold. The yellow metal fell 1.8% to $1284.60 per troy ounce.

Elsewhere, the technology sector (+1.1%) was the only cyclical group unable finish ahead of the broader market as top components traded in mixed fashion. Apple (AAPL 520.56, +8.07) and Cisco Systems (CSCO 23.51, +0.40) gained 1.6% and 1.7%, respectively, while IBM (IBM 179.99, -0.01) and Intel (INTC 24.09, +0.03) ended little changed.

Yesterday, the Nasdaq was pressured by biotechnology and momentum names, but both groups displayed relative strength today. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 204.18, +6.36) climbed 3.2% while Priceline.com (PCLN 1073.20, +50.31) paced the gains among momentum names after beating on earnings.

Also of note, Twitter (TWTR 41.65, -3.25) endured a forgettable second-day of trading after Hudson Square initiated coverage of the stock with a 'Sell' rating. The social media stock tumbled 7.2%.

Trading volume was well above average as 823 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Taking another look through today's data, with the exception of government, every sector reported positive payroll gains in October. That included a 44,400 increase in retail employees. It has been reported that retailers started hiring earlier than normal for the holiday season.

Private payrolls added 212,000 new jobs in October, up from 150,000 in September. That was the biggest monthly gain since February when 319,000 jobs were added. The consensus expected only 110,000 new private jobs.

The average workweek remained at 34.4 hours and hourly wages increased by 0.1%. Combined with the solid increase in private payrolls, aggregate wages increased 0.3%. That is enough to keep consumption growth moving ahead.

The unemployment rate increased to 7.3% in October from 7.2% in September, as expected.

Separately, the November University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 72.0 in the preliminary reading from 73.2 in October. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 75.0. With the government shutdown over and the economy returning to its normal, albeit weak, trends, it was expected that consumer sentiment would return to September (77.5) or August (82.1) levels.

There is no economic data scheduled to be reported on Monday.

Week in Review: Stocks Test Record Highs

The major averages kicked off the week with modest gains as the S&P 500 added 0.4%. The Russell 2000 (+1.1%) outperformed, but its relative strength came after the small cap index struggled to keep pace with the prior week's advance in the broader market. Outside of the notable outperformance among small caps, the session unfolded in an uneventful fashion. Overseas markets did little to upset the state of affairs as Japan's Nikkei was closed for Culture Day while China's Shanghai Composite ended flat despite its Non-Manufacturing PMI rising to a 14-month high of 56.3 from 55.4. All ten sectors ended in the green, but only energy (+1.3%) and telecom services (+0.8%) posted gains in excess of 0.4%. Energy was responsible for pacing much of the advance as the sector rallied throughout the session. Meanwhile, crude oil ended little changed at $94.59 per barrel.

On Tuesday, the major averages ended on a mixed note as the S&P 500 shed 0.3% while the Nasdaq added 0.1%. Equities spent the entire session climbing off their early lows after weakness in Europe set the stage for a lower open. European indices hovered near their worst levels of the day at the outset of the U.S. session after the European Commission lowered its 2014 GDP forecast for the region to 1.1% from 1.2%. Similar to equities, core EU bonds also sold off as Germany's 10-yr yield added four basis points to 1.74% while the French 10-yr yield rose six basis points to 2.21%. Although stocks began the U.S. session in negative territory, the buy-the-dip trade was at work once again, fueling a day-long rebound. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was able to eke out a modest gain thanks to the outperformance of biotechnology as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF rose 0.7%.

Wednesday saw the major averages register broad gains at the open, but only the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) and S&P 500 (+0.4%) were able to end in positive territory while the Nasdaq (-0.2%) and Russell 2000 (-0.4%) posted modest losses. The Dow finished at a fresh record high of 15,746.63 as 27 of 30 components registered gains. Of those 27, twelve added at least 1.0%. Microsoft (MSFT 37.78, +0.28) was the top index performer, climbing 4.2% amid reports Ford (F 16.85, +0.30) Chief Executive Officer Alan Mullaly remains on the list of candidates hoping to replace outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer.

The major averages ended Thursday on their lows after opening gains turned into broad-based losses. The S&P 500 fell 1.3% while the Nasdaq underperformed with a decline of 1.9%. Prior to the open, the European Central Bank cut its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 0.25% after recent data suggested the price level is moving away from the ECB's inflation target. The rate cut fueled a surge in the dollar while also sparking a risk bid. However, the equity gains were capped after a better-than-expected headline Q3 GDP reading (2.8% versus 2.5% Briefing.com consensus) fostered renewed speculation about a potential tapering announcement coming sooner rather than later. The immediate reaction in Treasuries also reflected a 'taper on' trade as bonds sold off, sending the 10-yr yield from its low to a session high. However, Treasuries returned to their best levels of the day as weakness among equities redirected some flows into safe-haven assets. The 10-yr yield ended lower by four basis points at 2.61%.

 
 Index	    Started Week  Ended Week  Change  %Change  YTD % 
 DJIA	      15615.55	   15761.78  146.23     0.9   20.3 
 Nasdaq	       3922.04	    3919.23   -2.81    -0.1   29.8 
 S&P 500        1761.64	    1770.61    8.97     0.5   24.1 
 Russell 2000   1095.67	    1099.97    4.30     0.4   29.5

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: GTAT (9.47 +24.13%), GSAT (1.58 +20.14%), BCOR (28.76 +20.06%), FLTX (36.03 +18.11%), VJET (44.91 +17.66%), AEIS (24.46 +16.57%)
Services: PMC (18.81 +22.76%), LIOX (5.34 +22.48%), ONE (9.42 +20%), LPSN (11.31 +19.59%), MWW (5.21 +18.06%)
Industrial Goods: GTI (11.36 +24.27%)
Healthcare: GERN (4.61 +31.9%), ENDP (60.5 +31.35%), IDIX (4.35 +30.09%), KERX (12.99 +27.54%), HTWR (89.36 +21.23%), HWAY (12.09 +19.85%)
Consumer Goods: TPX (44.88 +17.24%)
Basic Materials: REGI (13.34 +19.16%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: NQ (11.33 -23.82%), IO (3.78 -22.84%), BSFT (25.09 -22.22%), ELLI (22.96 -22.11%), JCOM (45.08 -20.12%)
Services: QUAD (25.2 -24.31%), OWW (7.42 -24.24%), CKP (13.86 -20.68%), EDMC (12.74 -18.43%), FWM (21.1 -18.34%), EXLS (23.94 -18.3%)
Industrial Goods: PPO (36.15 -20.55%)
Healthcare: TRNX (16.41 -25.34%), IMGN (13.64 -22.43%), NXTM (10.16 -21.7%), BIOS (6.14 -19.4%)
Financial: NSM (36.48 -20.6%)
Basic Materials: PWE (8.69 -23.86%), ALDW (10.57 -20.04%), SZYM (8.87 -18.64%)

4:02PM OmniVision announced the OV13850, a new PureCel 13-megapixel CameraChip sensor for high-performance mobile devices (OVTI) 14.35 -0.06 : Co announced the OV13850, a new PureCel 13-megapixel CameraChip sensor for high-performance mobile devices. The OV13850 combines OmniVision's most advanced process technology and design methods to enable best-in-class low- and high-light performance. In addition to dramatically improved pixel performance, the OV13850 boasts best-in-class power efficiency, making it an ideal camera solution for high-end smartphones and tablets.

3:33PM Earnings Preview for the week of November 11 - 15 (SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of November 11 - 15 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - ABFS, STRL, SLW, WLH
After Hours - HOLX, RAX, AGO, IOC, SPRD, SHO, BID
Tuesday:
Pre Market - DISH, NRG, CORE, DF, ACM, DHI, NAFC, NS, SATS, ROC, YGE, DNDN, SRPT
After Hours - YRCW, BWC, TMHC, WWD, STAN, WX, PEGA, PBPB, MDVN, NQ
Wednesday:
Pre Market - M, MTOR, PF
After Hours - CSCO, ANW, NTAP, KGC, SEAS, TTEK, WGL, NTES, MM, XONE
Thursday:
Pre Market - WMT, KSS, VIAB, TYC, GIB, SBH, HP, TDG, DANG
After Hours - JWN, AMAT, A, HMIN, YOKU
Friday:
Pre Market - MMS

Large Cap Gainers
GPS (40.7 +7.81%): Reported October same store sales rose 4%; sees Q3 EPS of $0.70-0.71 vs $0.66 estimate, revs of $3.98 bln vs $3.96 bln estimate; target raised to $45 from $44 at Canaccord Genuity
SCHW (23.76 +4.39%): Seeing reports that co said it is closer to adding ETFs and 401(k) retirement plans
MET (49.6 +4.22%): Strength following rise in yields due to positive jobs data (MET has a large bond portfolio)
Large Cap Losers
TI (9.06 -4.43%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Natixis Bleichroeder
TSLA (134.45 -3.81%): Continued weakness following a third fire in a Model S
HCN (60.14 -2.10%): Priced EUR 550 mln in aggregate principal amount of 4.8% senior unsecured notes due November 20, 2028

Mid Cap Gainers

UBNT (43.3 +16.46%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.46 vs $0.40 estimate), revs rose 110.9% yoy to $129.7 mln vs $119.82 mln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of $0.42-0.46 vs $0.40 estimate, revs of $130-136 mln vs $123.07 mln estimate
SLXP (82.84 +16.17%): Acquired Santarus (SNTS) for $32 per share, expected to be accretive in 2014; upgraded to Neutral at Janney
RVBD (17.43 +15.35%): Elliott Assoc. disclosed a 5.8% active stake in the company, believes it is "significantly undervalued"

Mid Cap Losers

NSM (37.62 -7.68%): Downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley and Evercore; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee; target lowered to $45 at FBR Capital
LEN (32.67 -4.60%): Announced pricing of $250 mln of 7.00% senior notes due 2018
SWY (32.5 -4.50%): Seeing rumors that activist investor has a negative outlook on the company; also seeing reports that co is in talks with unions, concerns of a potential strike

8:44AM Riverbed Technology: Elliott Assoc. discloses 5.8% active stake in 13D filing; believes Co is significantly undervalued and has expressed this view to the Board (RVBD) 15.11 : "Elliott believes that the Issuer is significantly undervalued and has expressed this view to the Issuer's Board of Directors. The Issuer occupies a mission-critical position in thousands of networks, possesses extremely loyal customers who deeply value the Issuer's service and maintenance, and has a valuable and stable platform that is capable of producing significant profitability while generating revenue growth in its core and logically adjacent markets. It is Elliott's belief that the Issuer can build on these strengths and immediately increase stockholder value by implementing certain value-maximizing operational, capital structure and strategic review initiatives. Elliott believes that these initiatives will prudently, but significantly, provide a meaningful increase to the company's valuation. We have detailed these observations to the Board of Directors of the Issuer and look forward to a constructive dialogue."

QLogic (QLGC) is now providing enterprise-class Fibre Channel and converged network connectivity for Lenovo (LNVGY) ThinkServer systems.

NVIDIA (NVDA 14.81, +0.27): +1.8% following its in-line earnings and cautious fourth quarter revenue guidance.

Microsemi (MSCC) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is in line with expectations, while revenues fell 4.8% year/year to $250.4 million which is line with expectations. The company issued first quarter with EPS of $0.42-0.46 which is below expectations with revenues of 3-5% QoQ calc to approximately$237.8-242.9 million which is below expectations. "Microsemi's strategic business model continued to serve us well in the September quarter, with a sequential increase in revenue of 3.2 percent and disciplined cost controls driving 100 basis points of operating margin improvement...Operating and free cash flows remained strong and we are confident that our overall strategy continues to bring benefit to our shareholders."

FireEye (FEYE) reported third quarter loss of $1.21 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 95.0% year/year to $42.7 million which is higher than expected with billings +103% to $70.8 million. The company issued fourth quarter revenues of $52-54 which is above expectations with adjusted operating loss $40-44 million; billings $82-86 million. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with EPS revenues of $240-250 million which is above expectations with billings of $350-370 million.

OCZ Tech (OCZ) announced further progress in resolving outstanding legal issues. Three shareholder derivative actions filed in California state court recently were dismissed with prejudice pursuant to stipulation and order. The dismissals of these actions occurred after final approval of the settlement in the federal shareholder derivative action. On October 17, 2013, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted final approval of the previously announced settlement of the consolidated federal shareholder derivative litigation captioned In re OCZ Technology Group, Inc. Shareholder Derivative Litigation, Lead Case No. 12-cv-05556-RS, and entered an order dismissing the federal derivative action with prejudice. There are no more shareholder derivative actions pending.

NVIDIA (NVDA) reported third quarter earnings of $0.26 per share, which is line with expectations. while revenues fell 12.5% year/year to $1.05 billion which is line with expectations. The company issued downside guidance for the fourth quarter with revenues of $1.05 billion, plus of minus 2%, which equates to approximately $1.03-1.07 billion which is below expectations.

AVG Tech (AVG) reported third quarter earnings of $0.52 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 5.0% year/year to $100.1 million which is lower than expected. Non-GAAP unlevered free cash flow was $21.4 million for the quarter, compared with $26.8 million for the same period in the prior year. Operating cash flow was $24.8 million for quarter, compared with $24.9 million for the third quarter last year Guidance: The company issued guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of 0.37-$0.42 which is below expectations with revenues of $93-$97 million which is below expectations.

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What Do You Do When Everyone Is Bullish?

http://schaefferstradingfloor.com/what-do-you-do-when-everyone-is-bullish/id=7015

My biggest problem with the market here is it seems like everyone is bullish. Remember late August, when the world was ending because of Syria worries? A big rally in September and a huge rally in October have quickly turned the masses into bulls. As one of the guys who has been saying “buy” all year, I don’t like seeing everyone turning bullish here.

Check out the recent Investors Intelligence poll data. Sure, this is just one set of data; still, it is eye-opening, to say the least.

First off, bulls are up to 55.2%, matching the peak from May — right before a 6% dip. The last time the bulls were higher was 57.3% back in April 2011. This was near a major peak and right before an 18% dip over the coming months. Now, most of that drop occurred on the U.S. debt downgrade in August. Still, it happened.



Next up, the bears are down to just 15.6%, the lowest level we’ve seen in 2013. In fact, this is the lowest level of bears since 15.7% in April 2011. Going out further, the previous two times the bears were this low was December 2009, and before that, March 1987. Below is a chart that gives anyone without a bias some major pause.



Lastly, the difference between bulls and bears is clear up to 39.6%, closing in on the 41.6% spread from April 2011.



Now, with all of that said, here’s where I’m personally stumped. Sentiment polls are frothy, various put/call ratios are showing complacency, and just about everyone they trot out on TV is looking for a year-end rally. My issue is nearly every study I do confirms one thing: A strong first 10 months = a strong final two months.

Here are two examples.

Going back 40 years, when the SPX is up more than 20% after October, the November-December period has been higher every single time and stronger on average than your typical November-December.



Next, when the usually bearish months of September and October are both up more than 2% (they were this year), the normally bullish months of November and December actually do better, doubling the average return going back 100 years.



So although the sentiment poll data is very concerning, my take is — don’t give up on the bulls yet, as history continues to side with them.
About Ryan Detrick, CMT

Ryan Detrick is the Senior Technical Strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio. He joined Schaeffer’s in 2003 and is a frequent speaker and writer on stock market and economic issues and is widely sought after by financial media for his expertise and commentary. Mr. Detrick is a common guest on CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg Television and has been quoted in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, USA Today, Reuters, the Associated Press, and others. With a decade of financial industry experience in the investment and financial services area, strengths include short-term trading with an eye toward timely technical- and sentiment-based trading opportunities, and advanced option trading strategies. Mr. Detrick received a BA in finance from Xavier University, an MBA in finance from Miami University, and has earned his Chartered Market Technician (CMT).

http://schaefferstradingfloor.com/

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The S&P 500 added just over a point (+1.28) after spending the entire session inside of a five-point range. Excluding the first 30 minutes of action, the benchmark index was confined to a two-point range as many participants elected to sit today's session out.

With the bond market closed for Veterans Day and no market-moving economic or company news, equity indices drifted near their flat lines throughout the session. Small caps outperformed the broader market, but the Russell 2000's gain was limited to just 0.1%.

Meanwhile, the S&P crept higher as six of ten sectors registered gains. Financials (+0.1%) and health care (+0.2%) paced the slight advance, but only the health care sector was able to end among the leaders.

The countercyclical group received support from drug makers amid news Shire (SHPG 135.33, +0.93) will acquire ViroPharma (VPHM 49.42, +10.04) for $50 per share, representing a 27.0% premium to Friday's closing price. Biotechnology climbed throughout the day, and the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 205.54, +1.36) advanced 0.7%.

Unlike health care, the remaining countercyclical sectors-consumer staples (-0.1%), utilities (+0.02%), and telecom services (-0.3%)-underperformed.

With regard to cyclical groups, financials ended in-line with the S&P while consumer discretionary (+0.2%), energy (+0.2%), and technology (+0.1%) eked out slim gains. On the downside, industrials (-0.03%) and materials (-0.1%) lagged throughout the day.

Momentum names traded in mixed fashion following last week's group-wide weakness. Facebook (FB 46.20, -1.33) and LinkedIn (LNKD 211.66, -3.51) registered respective losses of 2.8% and 1.6% while Priceline.com (PCLN 1096.50, +23.30) gained 2.2% and Tesla (TSLA 144.70, +6.75) rose 4.9%.

Trading volume was well below average as just over 530 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

There is no notable economic data on tomorrow's calendar.

Nasdaq +29.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +29.7% YTD
S&P 500 +24.2% YTD
DJIA +20.4% YTD

DJ30 +21.32 NASDAQ +0.56 SP500 +1.28 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1248/1.55 bln/1293 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1556/537.6 mln/1433

3:35 pm :

Dec crude oil lifted from its session low of $94.17 per barrel set in early morning pit trade and broke into positive territory. Strength came on a weaker dollar index and failed talks between Iran and six world powers on reaching a deal on the country's nuclear program. The energy component brushed a session high of $95.38 per barrel and settled with a 0.6% gain at $95.14 per barrel
Dec natural gas oscillated between positive and negative territory today. It brushed a session low of $3.54 per MMBtu and eventually settled 0.6% higher at $3.58 per MMBtu
Dec gold traded slightly lower today despite the weaker dollar index. It touched a session high of $1284.00 per ounce in early morning pit trade and eventually settled with a 0.3% loss at $1281.20 per ounce
Dec silver spent most of today's floor trade trading just above the unchanged line. It slipped into the red in the last half hour of the session and settled at $21.28 per ounce, or 0.2% lower

4:16PM Spreadtrum Comms beats by $0.03, beats on revs (SPRD) 30.48 -0.01 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.74 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.71; revenues rose 58.1% year/year to $293.3 mln vs the $244.45 mln consensus.
The Company's operating margin for the quarter was 13.4%, up from 12.9% in the previous quarter and remaining the same as 3Q12. The sequential increase in operating margin was primarily due to lower research and development (R&D) expenses as a percentage of revenue. Non-GAAP operating margin, adjusted to exclude share-based compensation expenses was 15.3% in 3Q13, compared to 19.0% in 2Q13 and 16.6% in 3Q12

4:08PM Emulex to offer up to $125 mln aggregate principal amount of Convertible Senior Notes due 2018 in a private offering (ELX) 7.54 +0.05 : Co announced its intention to offer, subject to market and other conditions, up to $125 million aggregate principal amount of Convertible Senior Notes due 2018 in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933. In addition, the Company expects to grant the initial purchaser for the offering an option to purchase up to an additional $18.75 million aggregate principal amount of notes from the Company to cover over-allotments.

4:05PM Emulex announces new three-part initiative to improve profitability and enhance shareholder value; initiative includes a $200 mln capital return plan, a new cost savings program and board transformation (ELX) 7.54 +0.05 : ELX announced a cost savings program that is expected to generate $30 mln in annual cost savings over the fiscal 2013 spending level, expanding on the previously announced $10 mln cost savings initiative in its connectivity business. Co expects to complete this effort over the next few quarters and will provide quarterly progress updates on the savings, with the full run-rate benefits of this program expected to be realized in fiscal 2015. These actions are being undertaken to immediately return capital to shareholders while at the same time pursuing significant increases in the profitability and free cash flow of the Company. Finally, Emulex is adding three new experienced executives to the Board of Directors who will help drive the Company's transformation.

4:04PM Rackspace misses by $0.04, reports revs in-line (RAX) 49.32 +0.78 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.11 per share, $0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.15; revenues rose 15.7% year/year to $388.6 mln vs the $387.79 mln consensus.
Cash flow from operating activities was $115 million for the third quarter of 2013. Capital expenditures were $118 million, including $74 million for purchases of customer gear, $12 million for data center build outs, $7 million for office build outs and $25 million for capitalized software and other projects.

4:02PM QuickLogic announces it intends to offer newly issued shares of common stock in an underwritten public offering; size not disclosed (QUIK) 3.30 -0.12 : QUIK announced that it intends to offer newly issued shares of common stock, $0.001 par value in an underwritten public offering under an effective shelf registration statement on file with the SEC. The final terms of the offering will depend on market and other conditions at the time of pricing. Roth Capital is serving as the sole book-running manager for the offering and The Benchmark Company is acting as co-manager.

Large Cap Gainers

RIG (55.41 +3.67%): Announced agreement with Icahn Group; co will propose a dividend out of paid-in capital of $3 per share
BBY (43.89 +3.49%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS; target raised to $52 from $40 at Jefferies; target raised to $50 from $42 at Telsey Advisory Group
BX (26.8 +3.43%): Bloomberg reporting co is in talks with China Investment Corp to sell a west London office development

Large Cap Losers

TTM (29.33 -4.69%): Downgraded to Outperform from Buy at Credit Agricole; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura
KLAC (63 -2.78%): Downgraded to Negative from Neutral at Susquehanna
RIO (52.18 -1.86%): JP Morgan Analyst reportedly negative on mining stocks

Mid Cap Gainers

VPHM (49.43 +25.52%): To be acquired by Shire (SHPG) for $50 per share
AEGR (79.67 +13.12%): Rebound following declines seen after co received FDA warning letter concerning comments made about Juxtapid on CNBC interview; analysts at FBR Capital downplayed the letter
YOKU (27.17 +5.07%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Brean Capital; mentioned positively at JP Morgan

Mid Cap Losers

DNR (18.25 -5.68%): Seeing headlines that co will not be considering MLP options
RVBD (17.02 -2.96%): Adopted stockholder rights plan
SLW (20.98 -2.87%): Reported Q3 EPS of $0.22 (in-line), revs rose 3.2% yoy to $166.4 mln vs $187.32 mln estimate

9:02AM Riverbed Technology adopts stockholder rights plan (RVBD) 17.54 : Co announced that its Board of Directors has unanimously adopted a stockholder rights plan and declared a dividend distribution of one preferred share purchase right on each outstanding share of the Company's common stock.

The Board of Directors adopted the Rights Plan in order to help promote the fair and equal treatment of all stockholders of the Company and ensure that the Board remains in the best position to discharge its fiduciary duties to the Company and its stockholders.
Pursuant to the Plan, Riverbed will issue one preferred stock purchase right for each share of common stock outstanding at the close of business on November 21, 2013. Each right will entitle shareholders to buy one one-thousandth of a share of a new Series A participating preferred stock at an exercise price of $75. Initially, these rights will not be exercisable and will trade with the shares of Riverbed's common stock.
In general terms, the Rights Plan imposes a significant penalty upon any person or group which acquires 10.0 percent (or 20.0 percent in the case of institutional investors who report their holdings on Schedule 13G) or more of the Company's outstanding common stock without the approval of Riverbed's Board.

NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) has selected Accenture (ACN) to manage and accelerate NXP's recruitment process through the use of analytics, gamification and social media techniques.

QLogic (QLGC) announced that the co gained share in the Fibre Channel adapter market in the third quarter of calendar year 2013, according to new data from the Dell'Oro Group Q3 2013 SAN Report and the Crehan Research Q3 2013 Quarterly Market Share Report. Co captured significant rev market share in the 16Gb Gen 5 Fibre Channel category, increasing by 12 percentage points sequentially, according to the Dell'Oro Group.
Trina Solar (TSL) announced that the co's State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology has received accreditation from China's Ministry of Science and Technology.
Cypress Semiconductor (CY) announced production availability of a high-density video frame buffer that addresses the market's increasing demand for high-bandwidth video buffering.

Xilinx (XLNX) announced first customer shipment of the semiconductor industry's first 20nm product manufactured by TSMC, and the PLD industry's first 20nm All Programmable device.

7:31AM JA Solar to supply 70 MW of modules to Shanghai CSET in China (JASO) 10.98 : Co announced that it has signed two agreements to supply a total of 70 MW of high-efficiency polycrystalline solar modules to Shanghai CSET Co., Ltd., a photovoltaic ("PV") system integrator focused on the planning, design and operation of solar PV stations, for two commercial rooftop projects in China.
According to the agreements, 20 MW of modules will be delivered in December 2013, and 50 MW will be delivered in the first quarter of 2014. The projects will utilize JA Solar's high-efficiency polycrystalline modules with an average power output of between 255 W and 260 W in a 60-cell format, which are among the most powerful modules of their kind on the market. The contract amount will be paid in full prior to delivery.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The S&P 500 shed 0.2% after spending the entire session in negative territory. The index sold off steadily through the first four hours of action, but managed to regain most of its losses by the close. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq ended flat as the relative strength of technology (+0.3%) underpinned the index.

The tech sector was one of just two advancers among cyclical groups as top components like Cisco Systems (CSCO 23.73, +0.29), Oracle (ORCL 34.70, +0.33), and Qualcomm (QCOM 68.51, +0.89) provided leadership. Chipmakers also rallied with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 0.6%.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector settled just above its flat line with transports contributing to the outperformance. The Dow Jones Transportation Average rose 0.7% as airlines registered broad gains after AMR (AAMRQ 12.00, +2.48) and US Airways (LCC 23.52, +0.25) confirmed their settlement with the Department of Justice. JetBlue (JBLU 8.16, +0.47) was the leader among transports, climbing 6.1%.

Although the S&P climbed off its lows during the final 90 minutes, the index was unable to return into positive territory as energy (-0.9%) and financials (-0.9%) weighed.

The energy sector was pressured by persistent weakness in crude oil. The energy component settled lower by 2.1% at $93.12 per barrel.

Meanwhile, other commodities did not fare much better as copper (-1.2% at $3.22/lb), gold (-1.1% at $1267.50/ozt), and silver (-2.6% at $20.72/ozt) ended on their lows.

Countercyclical sectors settled on a mixed note as consumer staples (+0.1%), health care (-0.1%), and telecom services (+0.3%) outperformed while utilities (-0.9%) lagged throughout the session.

Treasuries ended modestly lower with the 10-yr yield up two basis points at 2.78%.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while October export prices ex-agriculture and import prices ex-oil will be reported at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 14:00 ET release of the October Treasury budget.

Nasdaq +29.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +29.7% YTD
S&P 500 +23.9% YTD
DJIA +20.2% YTD

DJ30 -32.43 NASDAQ +0.13 SP500 -4.20 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1142/1.72 bln/1402 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1108/652.9 mln/1921

3:35 pm :

Dec crude oil fell for the first time in three sessions, dipping below the $93.00 per barrel level in late afternoon pit trade. The energy component trended lower after brushing a session high of $95.22 per barrel and eventually settled with a 2.1% loss at $93.12 per barrel.
Dec natural gas, on the other hand, traded higher today, rising to a session high of $3.66 per MMbtu. It pulled back heading into the close and settled at $3.62 per MMBtu, or 1.1% higher.
Dec gold extended losses for a fourth consecutive session. It touched a session high of $1283.60 per ounce at pit trade open but retreated into negative territory later in the session. It settled with a 0.8% loss at $1271.20 per ounce, just above its session low of $1270.70 per ounce.
Dec silver spent all of today's pit trade in the red. It pulled back from its session high of $21.25 per ounce and settled at its session low of $20.77 per ounce, booking a 2.4% loss.

4:37PM Rambus division Cryptography Research and Tiempo SAS Sign License Agreement for DPA Countermeasures (RMBS) 8.79 +0.44 : Cryptography Research, Inc., a division of Rambus (RMBS), and Tiempo SAS announced they have signed an architecture license agreement allowing for the use of Cryptography Research's patented security inventions in Tiempo's integrated circuits. By incorporating Cryptography Research's countermeasures onto their devices, Tiempo's products will be protected against differential power analysis (DPA) and related side channel attacks. This license also covers software developed by Tiempo's customers when utilized on Tiempo's licensed integrated circuits.

4:04PM Diodes misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line (DIOD) 22.18 -0.46 : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.33 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.34; revenues rose 34.8% year/year to $224.5 mln vs the $225.71 mln consensus.

"As we look to the fourth quarter, it is shaping up to be weaker than our normal seasonality due to a broad based market weakness, especially the continued weakness in the PC market. However, we believe we are well positioned in the coming year to benefit from ongoing operational improvements as we leverage our broadened product portfolio and additional cost savings from transferring BCD products into our packaging facilities, and eventually off-loading our analog foundry wafer loadings into BCD's wafer fabs."

Large Cap Gainers

UAL (36.87 +4.42%): Strength in airline names on AMR (AAMRQ) and US Airways (LCC) confirming settlement with the DoJ and State Attorney's General.
DISH (49.65 +4.53%): Beat on EPS by $0.25, reported revs in-line.
SNE (17.17 +3.37%): Bloomberg discussed that co plans to meet analysts ests of 3 mln PS4s sold; co planning to increase console business in China, according to Marbridge.

Large Cap Losers

SYMC (22.64 -2.46%): Co announced that Francis deSouza, president of products and services, will leave the co on Dec 1st to become President of Illumina (ILMN); downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie; tgt lowered to $24.
RBS (10.55 -2.32%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.
NWSA (17.02 -2.27%): Reported Q1 rev of $2.06 bln compared to $2.13 bln in prior year, vs $2.18 bln consensus; reported EPS of $0.05 compared to a net loss of $0.16 per share in prior year, vs $0.05 consensus.

Mid Cap Gainers

IOC (80.62 +20.26%): Missed on EPS by $0.06, beat on revs.
VIPS (79.8 +8.84%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, bet on revs; guided Q4 revs above consensus.
WNR (35.6 +7.55%): Co acquired ACON Investments' and TPG's ownership interest in Northern Tier Energy LP (NTI) for a total consideration of $775 mln.

Mid Cap Losers

HOLX (19.64 -14.24%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 below consensus; guided FY14 below consensus; announced new $250 mln stock repurchase program; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity; downgraded to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt lowered to $21; downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at William Blair; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum.
RAX (43.35 -12.1%): Missed on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line; sees Q4 revs of $400-408 mln vs $402.95 mln consensus.
ACM (29.12 -6.96%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS below consensus.

Raleigh Orthopaedic Clinic chose LED lighting from Cree (CREE) for the facility's new headquarters and surgery center

Cypress Semiconductor (CY) announced that Seiko Epson has selected Cypress's CY5077C programmable clock generator die for the new SG-8003CG programmable crystal oscillator from its SG-8003 series.

8:06AM First Solar Signs Power Purchase Agreements for 40MW Kingbird Solar Project (FSLR) 63.14 : Co announced that it has signed power purchase agreements (PPA) with member cities of the Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA) for electricity to be generated at the 40 megawatt (MW)AC Kingbird photovoltaic solar power plant in Kern County, California. First Solar is developing and will construct the project. Depending on final permitting, construction on the 320-acre Kingbird project, located near Rosamond, California in the Antelope Valley, could start in mid-2014, and is expected to create up to 200 jobs at its peak. The power plant is expected to be commissioned in late 2015.

7:07AM Canadian Solar announces 32MW solar PV module supply agreement in China (CSIQ) 29.56 : Co announced that it has been awarded a module supply agreement to provide China Perfect Machinery Industry Corp. with 32 MW of solar photovoltaic ('PV') modules for a solar power plant project in China. Canadian Solar will supply its CS6X-P modules with power output of 295 and 300Wp for the project. CS6X-P modules outperform competing 72 polycrystalline cell module brands in the market, producing over 4% more power annually according to PVsyst PV system simulation.

6:19AM Advanced Micro announced closing of $500 mln secured revolving line of credit (AMD) 3.34 : Co announced that the co and its subsidiary, AMD International Sales & Service, have entered into a loan and security agreement for a principal amount up to $500 million with a group of lenders and Bank of America, N.A. acting as agent for the lenders. The proceeds of the Secured Revolving Line of Credit may be used for general corporate purposes, including working capital needs. Availability under the Secured Revolving Line of Credit is limited to a borrowing base of 85% of eligible accounts receivable, less certain reserves. The obligations under the Secured Revolving Line of Credit are secured by the Borrowers' accounts receivable and inventory. The five-year Secured Revolving Line of Credit will mature on November 12, 2018. No drawings were made under the Secured Revolving Line of Credit on the closing date of the loan agreement.

5:29AM Canadian Solar announces 2.3MW solar module supply agreement in Turkey (CSIQ) 26.56 : Co announces that it has recently completed a delivery of 2.3MW of photovoltaic ("PV") modules to a consortium of companies in Kayseri Organized Industry Area for a solar power project located in Kayseri, Turkey.

AMD (AMD) announced a new unified Software Development Kit, an improved CodeXL tool suite with added features and support for the latest AMD hardware, and added heterogeneous acceleration in popular Open Source libraries.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages settled on their best levels of the session despite showing some early weakness. The S&P 500 rose 0.4% while the Nasdaq outperformed with an advance of 0.7%.

Stocks began the session in the red as cautious action in Europe contributed to the lower open. Although European indices hovered near their lows as the U.S. session got underway, they were quick to climb off their lows right alongside U.S. equities.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq paced the rebound as top-weighted index components like Google (GOOG 1032.47, +20.69), Microsoft (MSFT 38.16, +0.80), and Qualcomm (QCOM 70.03, +1.52) provided significant support. In addition, Cisco Systems (CSCO 24.00, +0.27) added 1.1% ahead of its after-hours quarterly report.

Momentum names also underpinned the Nasdaq after suffering group-wide weakness last week. Facebook (FB 48.71, +2.11), LinkedIn (LNKD 220.65, +11.37), and Priceline.com (PCLN 1124.20, +24.71) gained between 2.3% and 5.4%. Tesla (TSLA 138.70, +0.90) also displayed intraday strength, but surrendered the bulk of its gain into the close amid reports of fire department activity at the company's factory in California.

Outside of technology, the discretionary sector (+1.6%) was the only other outperformer among cyclical sectors. Apparel retailers climbed throughout the session after Macy's (M 50.68, +4.35) beat on earnings and revenue. Macy's jumped 9.4% while the broader SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 87.31, +1.13) advanced 1.3%.

Homebuilders also provided a measure of support to discretionary shares as the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 22.13, +0.30) settled higher by 1.4%.

Also of note, the financial sector ended in-line with the broader market despite underperforming in early action. The sector climbed into positive territory in conjunction with the S&P, and followed the benchmark index into the close.

With regard to countercyclical sectors, only consumer staples (+0.9%) finished ahead of the broader market while health care (+0.5%), telecom services (-0.2%), and utilities (+0.3%) lagged.

Treasuries finished near their highs with the 10-yr yield down four basis points at 2.74%.

Today's participation was on the light side as less than 700 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 1.8% to follow last week's decline of 2.8%.

The Treasury Budget deficit fell to $91.6 billion in October from $120.0 billion in October 2012. Since the data are not seasonally adjusted, the October budget deficit cannot be compared to the surplus in September. The CBO, which typically releases its budget estimate a few days before the Treasury releases the actual numbers, did not release an advance projection for the October data. While the government shutdown likely had an effect on the decline in the October budget deficit, the Treasury Department did not issue a statement explaining what exactly the effects were.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims, September trade balance, and preliminary Q3 productivity will all be reported at 8:30 ET. In addition, Janet Yellen's confirmation hearing will begin tomorrow with an appearance in front of the Senate Banking Committee.

Nasdaq +31.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +30.9% YTD
S&P 500 +25.0% YTD
DJIA +20.7% YTD

DJ30 +70.96 NASDAQ +45.66 SP500 +14.31 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1784/1.75 bln/769 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2059/696.6 mln/947

3:30 pm :

Dec crude oil traded higher today, advancing to a session high of $94.54 per barrel in afternoon pit action. It pulled back slightly heading into the close and settled with a 0.8% gain at $93.91 per barrel.
Dec natural gas touched a session high of $3.63 per MMBtu in morning floor trade but slipped back into negative territory. It settled 1.4% lower at $3.57 per MMBtu, just above its session low of $3.56 per MMBtu.
Dec gold fell for a fifth consecutive session despite trading in the black for most of today's pit trade. The yellow metal rose to a session high of $1279.80 per ounce in morning action but gave up the gain as it slipped into the red in the last half hour of floor trade. It settled with a 0.2% loss at $1268.50 per ounce, just above its session low of $1267.70 per ounce.
Dec silver brushed a session high of $20.80 per ounce in early morning action but quickly fell into negative territory. It trended lower as the session progressed and settled 1.5% lower at $20.45 per ounce.

5:01PM Teradyne announces CEO succession: Mark E. Jagiela to succeed Michael A. Bradley as CEO effective January 31, 2014 (TER) 17.31 +0.13 : Co's Board of Directors today named Mark E. Jagiela to succeed Michael A. Bradley as CEO effective January 31, 2014. Mr. Jagiela will join the Board of Directors on the same date. Mr. Jagiela is currently the Company's President and a 31-year veteran of Teradyne.

4:12PM Cisco Systems beats by $0.02, misses on revs; Gross margin below mid-point of guidance; co announced $15 bln stock repurchase program; will guide for Q2 on CC at 16:30 (CSCO) 23.99 +0.27 : Reports Q1 (Oct) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.51; revenues rose 1.8% year/year to $12.09 bln vs the $12.35 bln consensus.

Q1 Gross Margin reported at ~61.3% versus guidance of 61-62%. Cash flows from operations were $2.6 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2014, compared with $4.0 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, and compared with $2.5 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2013.

The company announces $15 billion increase in stock repurchase program

"We are committed to our capital allocation strategy as we demonstrated today with the $15 billion increase in the authorization of our stock repurchase program...This quarter we delivered record non-GAAP profitability and continued our steady stream of innovation and market leadership...While our revenue growth was below our expectation, our financials are strong, our strategy is strong and our innovation engine is executing extremely well. We remain confident in our long-term goal to be the #1 IT company in the world and help our customers solve their biggest business problems."

Co will guide for Q2 on the call with consensus calling for non-GAAP EPS of $0.52 on revs of $12.6 bln


3:03PM Riverbed Technology announces new version 9.5 of its Stingray application delivery controller for Amazon Web Services (AMZN) GovCloud (RVBD) 17.38 -0.20 : Co announced the availability of Riverbed Stingray 9.5 traffic manager software on Amazon Web Services (AMZN) GovCloud. AWS GovCloud is a specific, isolated region of the AWS cloud that is designed to allow U.S. government agencies, contractors and customers to move more sensitive workloads into the cloud by addressing their specific regulatory and compliance requirements. Riverbed provides hundreds of government organizations around the world with solutions to meet their most demanding IT goals. Now, with the availability of Stingray on AWS GovCloud, U.S. federal agencies can optimize, scale, secure and improve the performance of their mission-critical applications in the cloud.

Large Cap Gainers

M (50.73 +9.50%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.08 ($0.47 vs $0.39 estimate), revs rose 3.3% yoy to $6.28 bln vs $6.19 bln estimate; Q3 comparable store sales +3.5% vs +2% estimates; reaffirmed FY14 EPS of $3.80-3.90 vs $3.80 estimate, comps +2.0-2.9%
PXD (193.35 +5.80%): Announced that the University 7-43 10H, its first horizontal Wolfcamp D interval well in Andrews County, had a 24-hour peak initial production rate of 3,605 barrels oil equivalent per day, with an oil content of 74%
PBR (16.4 +2.24%): Sold Peru assets to PetroChina for ~$2.6 bln

Large Cap Losers

REGN (277.05 -3.43%): Reuters reporting that new U.S guidelines on heart health favor statins for the lowernig of cholesterol; Regeneron is developing a different type of cholesterol drug - a PCSK9 inhibitor
NUE (52.1 -3.12%): Downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley
MT (16.49 -2.25%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Exane BNP Paribas

Mid Cap Gainers

SINA (85.77 +12.99%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($0.42 ex items vs $0.32 estimate), revs rose 21.8% yoy to $179.94 mln vs $178.2 mln estimate; sees Q4 revs of $190-194 mln vs $183.62 mln estimate; upgraded to Outperform at Credit Suisse
QIHU (87.08 +6.96%): Trading higher following strong quarterly results from peer SINA
HMA (13.26 +5.79%): Reported Q3 EPS of -$0.01 per share, revs rose 0.8% yoy to $1.68 bln vs $1.7 bln estimate; Board recommended shareholders vote for proposed merger with Community Health Systems (CYH); Glenview Capital, 14.5% owner of HMA, confirmed intention to vote for CYH proposal

Mid Cap Losers

FI (25.72 -12.87%): Hearing downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse
MWE (70.98 -5.80%): Reported Q3 EPS of -$0.17, revs rose 49.9% yoy to $420.52 mln vs $453.47 mln estimate
LFL (16.11 -3.48%): Reported prelimiarly monthly traffic statistics for October 2013: system passenger traffic increased 3.1% as capacity decreased 2.1%

Mainframe2 announced its support of new NVIDIA (NVDA) GRIDbased cloud instances at Amazon Web Services' (AMZN) annual re:Invent conference.

9:15AM Juniper Networks names Shaygan Kheradpir CEO (JNPR) 19.60 : Co announced Shaygan Kheradpir as its CEO, effective January 1, 2014. Kheradpir succeeds Kevin Johnson, who in July announced his plan to retire as CEO. Johnson will remain as a member of the board.

O2Micro International (OIIM) announced the patent grant for its Battery Module Identification methodology.

Lantronix (LTRX) has collaborated with Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) to demonstrate a new evaluation board for its xPico Wi-Fi OEM module, designed specifically for the Freescale Tower System.

AMD (AMD) launched the AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card, the newest addition to the AMD Radeon R9 Series GPUs.

Atmel (ATML) has further expanded its low-power 8-bit tinyAVR family with the ATtiny441 and ATtiny841

7:09AM Tessera Tech and ChipMOS (IMOS) settle litigation; in exchange for being released from the litigation, ChipMOS will make a payment to Tessera (TSRA) 18.20 : TSRA announced its Tessera subsidiary has reached a settlement with ChipMOS Technologies and ChipMOS U.S.A. In exchange for being released from the litigation, ChipMOS will make a payment to TSRA. The companies have not disclosed the full terms and conditions of the settlement agreement. Tessera agreed to dismiss its claims against ChipMOS relating to Tessera's patent infringement action pending in the United States District Court, Northern District of California.

6:58AM Verizon Digital Media Services acquired upLynk for expanded video streaming capabilities; financial terms not disclosed (VZ) 50.16 : Verizon Digital Media Services has acquired upLynk, a technology and television cloud company. The exclusive technology of upLynk simplifies the complex issues content owners face by streamlining the process of uploading and encoding TV Everywhere for live, linear and video on-demand content. By using a single adaptive video format across all devices, upLynk simplifies encoding, storage, playback, ad insertion and analytics to eliminate complexity and enable more agile video workflows.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Large Cap Gainers

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

Large Cap Losers

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

Mid Cap Gainers

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

Mid Cap Losers

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

Large Cap Gainers

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

Large Cap Losers

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

Mid Cap Gainers

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

Mid Cap Losers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Investing
Tech Stocks

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

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

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 15-Nov-13

Dow +85.48 at 15961.7, Nasdaq +13.23 at 3985.97, S&P +7.56 at 1798.18

Equities registered modest gains as the S&P 500 added 0.4%, registering its sixth consecutive weekly gain. The benchmark index spent the bulk of today's quiet session inside of a four-point range until the now-familiar final-hour rally sent the index to a fresh nominal record high of 1798.18. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) outperformed as all but five components finished in positive territory.

All ten sectors registered gains with energy (+0.7%) and materials (+0.6%) ending in the lead. The energy sector received support from Exxon Mobil (XOM 95.27, +2.05), which rallied 2.2% after Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a 40.1 million share stake in the largest sector component. On a related note, crude oil ended little changed at $93.82/bbl after spending the entire session near its flat line.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector, materials, was underpinned by steelmakers as the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 49.04, +0.49) gained 1.0%. Similar to crude oil, the underlying commodities ended little changed. Gold futures added $1.00 to $1287.50/ozt while copper futures ticked up one cent to $3.1715/lb.

Other cyclical sectors were more of a mixed bag as financials (+0.5%) outperformed while consumer discretionary (+0.3%), industrials (+0.3%), and technology (+0.3%) lagged.

Speaking of technology, the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.3%) underperformed as participants displayed limited buying interest in some momentum names like Facebook (FB 49.01, +0.02), Priceline.com (PCLN 1139.53, +2.09), and Tesla (TSLA 135.45, -2.15). In addition, the largest Nasdaq component, Apple (AAPL 524.99, -3.17) lost 0.6%.

With regard to countercyclical sectors, consumer staples (+0.2%) underperformed while health care (+0.6%), utilities (+0.6%), and telecom services (+0.5%) ended ahead of the broader market.

Treasuries registered modest losses as the 10-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.70%.

Light volume has been a recurring theme throughout the week, but today's options expiration prevented another below-average finish as just under 800 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

On the economic front, wholesale inventories increased 0.4% in September after increasing an upwardly revised 0.8% (from 0.5%) in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). The strong gain in wholesale inventories in September, along with the large upward revision to August, will likely result in a sizable upward revision to third quarter GDP. The Bureau of Economic Analysis assumed that wholesale inventories fell 0.1% in September, which was obviously well below what actually occurred.

Export prices, excluding agriculture, ticked down 0.4% in October after increasing 0.3% in the prior reading. Excluding oil, import prices were unchanged, which followed last month's uptick of 0.2%.

Separately, industrial production levels fell 0.1% in October after increasing an upwardly revised 0.7% (from 0.6%) in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). All in all, industrial production held up well in October considering the dire predictions that were associated with the government shutdown. In fact, the government shutdown seemed to have no negative effects on the entire industry.

The contraction in industrial production can be completely attributed to normal and cyclical fluctuations in utilities and mining. Utilities production dropped -1.1%, but that type of decline was expected following an unusually strong September (4.5%) gain. Mining production fell 1.6%, which, again, was a normal pullback after six consecutive months of gains.

Lastly, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for November registered a reading of -2.2, which was down from the prior month's reading of 1.5. Economists polled by Briefing.com expected the survey to improve to 4.3.

On Monday, September net long-term TIC flows and the November NAHB Housing Market Index will be released at 9:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Week in Review: Another Weel, Another Advance

Equities began the week on a quiet note as the S&P 500 added just over a point (+1.27) after spending the entire session inside of a five-point range. Excluding the first 30 minutes of action, the benchmark index was confined to a two-point range as many participants elected to forego the session. With the bond market closed for Veterans Day and no market-moving economic or company news, equity indices drifted near their flat lines throughout the day. Small caps outperformed the broader market, but the Russell 2000's gain was limited to just 0.1%. Meanwhile, the S&P crept higher as six of ten sectors registered gains. Financials (+0.1%) and health care (+0.2%) paced the slight advance, but only the health care sector was able to end among the leaders.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 shed 0.2% after spending the entire session in negative territory. The index sold off steadily through the first four hours of action, but managed to regain most of its losses by the close. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq ended flat as the relative strength of technology (+0.3%) underpinned the index. The tech sector was one of just two advancers among cyclical groups as top components provided leadership. Chipmakers also rallied with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 0.6%.

Wednesday saw the major averages settle on their best levels of the session despite showing some early weakness. The S&P 500 rose 0.4% while the Nasdaq outperformed with an advance of 0.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq paced the rebound as momentum names provided support after suffering group-wide weakness last week. Facebook, LinkedIn (LNKD 231.06, +9.62), and Priceline.com gained between 2.3% and 5.4%. Tesla also displayed intraday strength, but surrendered the bulk of its gain into the close amid reports of fire department activity at the company's factory in California.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 added 0.5%, but all eyes were focused on Washington where Janet Yellen appeared in front of the Senate Banking Committee for her confirmation hearing. The hearing did not generate any bombshells, and Ms. Yellen's comments strengthened the belief that the central bank will not be in any hurry to reduce the pace of its asset purchases. On that note, the Fed Chair nominee said:

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

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 15761.78 15961.70 199.92 1.3 21.8
Nasdaq 3919.23 3985.97 66.74 1.7 32.0
S&P 500 1770.61 1798.18 27.57 1.6 26.1
Russell 2000 1099.97 1116.20 16.23 1.5 31.4

5:06PM Semtech reports grants of inducement awards (SMTC) 30.96 -0.33 : Co announced that as an inducement to enter into employment with Semtech, it has made awards effective November 13, 2013 of restricted stock units to two recently hired employees under the Semtech 2009 Long-Term Equity Incentive Inducement Plan. An aggregate of 3,540 restricted stock units have been awarded for these Inducement Awards. Pursuant to the terms of Inducement Awards, each of the Inducement Awards is subject to time-based vesting and will vest annually over a four-year period.

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: GOGO (28.06 +64.29%), PRKR (4.02 +34.77%), WUBA (34.1 +34.11%), VJET (58.99 +30.67%), BITA (31.29 +27.05%), OLED (37.03 +26.96%), SUNE (13.14 +24.18%)
Services: RLD (8.69 +26.42%), HTLD (17.93 +24.35%)
Industrial Goods: JKS (29.5 +25.17%)
Healthcare: VNDA (14.59 +102.17%), ONVO (12.5 +51.98%), SNTS (32.1 +37.9%), VPHM (49.49 +29.09%), DRTX (11.45 +27.97%), CMRX (15.53 +26.06%), RMTI (14.9 +25.74%), ARNA (5.46 +25.25%)
Financial: EJ (11.33 +37.44%)
Basic Materials: IOC (92.36 +28.05%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Utilities: AT (3.73 -13.89%)
Technology: DIOD (20.05 -13.87%), AVG (17.43 -12.64%), RAX (42.21 -12.6%)
Services: TTS (14.5 -40.57%), KTOS (7.01 -15.65%), EZPW (11.8 -11.27%), GOL (4.59 -10.28%)
Industrial Goods: NES (1.61 -32.91%)
Healthcare: SRPT (14.37 -58.34%), EPZM (19 -39.67%), AMED (14.35 -16.04%), RPTP (12.41 -10.99%)
Financial: JOE (17.9 -14.24%)
Consumer Goods: CTB (23.83 -11.19%)
Basic Materials: MTL (2.32 -21.66%), FI (25.6 -16.56%), TRQ (4.11 -16.02%), AREX (23.51 -14.04%), EROC (5.46 -10.36%)

Large Cap Gainers

A (55 +8.82%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.81 ex items vs $0.76 estimate), revs fell 2.8% yoy to $1.72 bln vs $1.71 bln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.65-0.67 ex items vs $0.72 estimate, revs of $1.68-1.70 bln vs $1.72 bln estimate
MJN (85.03 +5.13%): Seeing positive read-through from news that China will ease the one-child policy; MJN sells nutritional products for infants, children, and expectant and nursing mothers
LNKD (230.52 +4.1%): Initiated with a Buy at Stifel, target $300

Large Cap Losers

REGN (278.25 -3.66%): Reversal following sharp gains seen at close yesterday on news that new class of cholesterol drugs under development, called PCSK9 inhibitors, will only have to meet existing FDA standards for clearance
HCA (44.59 -2.75%): Hospital stocks mentioned negatively at CRT Capital
GWW (261.22 -1.65%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James

Mid Cap Gainers

YOKU (29.11 +10.43%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.15 (GAAP -$0.21 vs -$0.06 estimate), revs rose 75.5% yoy to $140.2 mln vs $139.2 mln estimate; co said it is expected to reach non-GAAP profitability in Q4
BMRN (69.3 +7.73%): Announced that the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (ANSM) has granted Temporary Authorization for Use for patient sales of Vimizim for the treatment of Morquio A Syndrome
MDRX (15.26 +7.46%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Leerink Swann

Mid Cap Losers

WU (16.47 -5.62%): Announced Scott T. Schierman, CFO, will be will leaving the company on February 28, 2014
MMS (44.97 -4.18%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.51 vs $0.50 estimate), revs rose 27.8% yoy to $384.3 mln vs $357.24 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.75-1.85 vs $1.85 estimate, revs of $1.555-1.650 bln vs $1.6 bln estimate
ANF (34.34 -2.34%): Initiated with a Neutral at Mizuho; mentioned cautiously on MadMoney

11:50AM Molex announces approval of proposed merger agreement with Koch Industries (MOLX) 38.60 +0.02 : Co announced that at an annual stockholders' meeting held today, Molex stockholders approved the previously announced definitive agreement to be acquired by Koch Industries, Inc., one of the world's largest and most successful private companies, for $38.50 per share in cash. The approximate equity value of the transaction is $7.2 billion.

Cray (CRAY) announced that the latest release of the Cray Compiler Environment is now available on the Cray CS300 line of cluster supercomputers.

Applied Materials (AMAT) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.19 per share, which is better than expected, while revenues rose 20.6% year/year to $1.99 billion which is line with consensus. Backlog grew 4 percent to $2.37 billion including negative adjustments of $21 million. Gross margin was 42.0% on a non-GAAP adjusted basis, down slightly from 42.9% in the prior quarter. Outlook: The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS $0.20-0.24 which is in line with expectations with revenues of up 3-10% sequentially, which equates to $2.04-2.18 billion which is below expectations. The company expects non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses to be in the range of $540 million, plus or minus $10 million. "As we look ahead to 2014, we expect stronger investment by our semiconductor and display customers and major technology inflections in transistor and memory that play to our strengths."
Agilent (A) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.81 per share, which is better than expected, while revenues fell 2.8% year/year to $1.72 billion which is line with expectations. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $0.65-0.67, excluding non-recurring items, which is below expectations, with revenues of $1.68-1.70 billion which is below expectations.
Western Digital (WDC) announced that Tim Leyden has been named chief financial officer, effective Nov. 18, and that Jim Murphy will succeed Leyden as president of the company's WD subsidiary. Both executives are experienced leaders from within the Western Digital organization. Leyden will succeed Wolfgang Nickl, who is resigning as CFO, effective Nov. 17, to join ASML in his native Europe.
Youku Tudou (YOKU) reported third quarter GAAP loss of $0.21 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues rose 75.5% year/year to $140.2 million which is line with expectations. Business Outlook For the fourth quarter of 2013, the Company expects net revenues will be between RMB860 million and RMB900 million, which implies a 35% to 42% year over year increase, with advertising net revenues contributing between RMB780 million and RMB820 million, which implies a 36% to 43% year over year increase. The Company is expected to reach non-GAAP profitability in the fourth quarter of 2013.

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

Market continues midweek surge on a week that turned some weariness into renewed strength.
- Lots of very interesting news Friday.
- New York PMI flips negative. Does the contrapositive apply?
- Industrial production, capacity stumble.
- Gallup: Christmas spending plans not galloping along.
- Stocks finish a good week, holding or advancing their gains.

Futures rose Friday as stocks set up to continue the new upside advance started Wednesday. Whatever heaviness indices such as NASDAQ showed was swept aside Wednesday with a new strong upside break. It was no one-day wonder; stocks continued higher Thursday and put emphasis on the move Friday. Not all stocks were up but most did a very good job of holding onto the week's gains if they did not add to the advance Friday.

SP500 7.56, 0.42%
NASDAQ 13.23, 0.33%
DJ30 85.48, 0.54%
SP400 0.31%
RUTX 0.43%
SOX 0.70%

Volume mixed: NASDAQ trade -4%, NYSE +19%

Breadth: Again decent on NYSE at almost 2:1, a mediocre 1.5:1 NASDAQ.

THE NEWS

Friday saw many stories hit, most tangentially related to stocks as they dealt with the economy, but there were some stock specific stories.

Banks Downgraded.

Moody's decided it needed to downgrade four banks (JPM, BAC, GS, BK) on concerns their run of gains on free money might be upset if the Fed has to start tapering and as interest rates move higher. Didn't seem to hurt the action all that much.

New York PMI flips.

Empire Manufacturing, November: -2.2 actual versus 4.3 expected, 1.5 prior

Quite the turn of events as it was supposed to triple the 1.5 from October but instead missed by 6.5 points. That was the lowest reading since January 2013. The government shutdown was blamed.

Recall the string had been moving higher and in general PMI readings were stronger. As ECRI and others pointed out, however, the PMI results that are designed to PREDICT ultimate sales are not doing so over the past few years. Not only is the predictability less than accurate, the numbers are actually negatively correlated to sales.

The question that has not been answered is whether the contrapositive applies, i.e. a negative PMI means positive sales. Doubt it.

Industrial production and capacity slip.

Industrial Production, October: -0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.7% prior (revised from 0.6%)
Capacity Utilization, October: 78.1% actual versus 78.3% expected, 78.3% prior

Gallup: Christmas spending plans curtailed.

A new Gallup poll Friday suggests consumers are not as confident, that retail is not as 'smoking' as Macy's results suggested to some earlier in the week. Macy's pumped up sales with regional promotions that brought in enough volume to offset decreased margins. As we saw last week, others week not so fortunate. Not bad companies, but unable to bring in the sales.

Is it because they are poorly managed as some on CNBC say about any company that cannot make earnings in this economy? We have detailed the decreased buying power that slack wages are losing ground against inflation rates at double the wage gains. That is now showing up in Christmas shopping plans.

A majority of 'average Americans' as polled by Gallup shows they will spend 10% less than in 2012. Moreover, they will spend 19% less than in 2007. In 2007 recall that the financial crisis had started to unfold in September. We are now, according to our leaders, in the fifth year of recovery. Yet, we are going to spend almost 20% less than we spent the Christmas the crisis unfolded. What a recovery!

THE MARKET

There is not a lot of commentary you can add to the Friday action. The indices, and many stocks as well, basically extended the move that renewed itself on Wednesday. All of the misgivings we may have had about NASDAQ's heavy look and churn/distribution was gone with the surge. RUTX, SOX, and SP400 all tested to the 50 day EMA the prior week and reversed after one session. That was apparently enough for the large cap indices as they held their gains, using the tests of the smaller cap indices to their advantage.

New highs on SP500, DJ30 and SP400. A new post bear market high for NASDAQ and a new post-bear market closing high for SOX. The Russell 2000 was left out, but it was not down and out. That index continued its bounce off the 50 day EMA and the bottom of its channel, moving back up in its uptrend.

Leaders showed strong moves on the day while some simply held onto gains. Ending an up week holding gains is not bad. It would be nice to get a test and set up some new buys on stocks that have run and are extended, at least to extended to initiate plays, but the market doesn't want that. Money was ready to come in and it did, ready or not. That pushed stocks upside across the board.

Friday leaders: AMX, AXLL, BABY, KIRK, EDU, GNRC, LNKD, VISN. There are many more but as you can see, leaders crossed many sector boundaries.

OTHER MARKETS:

Dollar: 1.3496 versus 1.3456 versus 1.3459 versus 1.3434 euro. Faded all week but holding the break higher over the 50 day EMA.

Bonds: 2.70% versus 2.71% versus 2.71% versus 2.73% versus 2.77% versus 2.75%. Relief bounce on the week. Still look weak after the three week plunge to support.

Oil: 93.82, +0.07. Lateral move overall the past two weeks after the decline from the September highs. Trying to set up a bounce. Trying.

Gold: 1287.50, +1.00. Modest bounce Wednesday to Friday as gold sold to interim support and is putting in a modest bounce.

MARKET INTERNALS and STATS

NASDAQ
Stats: +13.23 points (+0.33%) to close at 3985.97
Volume: 1.871B (-3.8%)

Up Volume: 1.2B (+291.14M)
Down Volume: 600.04M (-439.96M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.47 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.09 to 1

New Highs: 172 (-13)
New Lows: 46 (-13)

S&P
Stats: +7.56 points (+0.42%) to close at 1798.18
NYSE Volume: 688M (+18.83%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.93 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.9 to 1

New Highs: 242 (-7)
New Lows: 75 (-4)

DJ30
Stats: +85.48 points (+0.54%) to close at 15961.7

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 12.19; -0.18. Fading further toward the 2013 range lows. Three days down to end the week. This suggests market selling, but it does not trump some pretty good technical action.
VXN: 13.13; -0.13
VXO: 11.41; -0.52

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.75; -0.08

Bulls and Bears:

Confidence started to flag just as the market was ready to rise. That is how it works. Even we were getting downbeat on the market but at least we recognize when we are negative and then look doubly at the technical picture to see if it warrants the worry.

Bulls: 52.6 versus 55.2% versus 52.6 versus 49.5 versus 42.3% versus 45.4 versus 46.4% versus 44.3% versus 42.3% versus 37.1% versus 37.1% versus 38.1% versus 43.3%. Stemmed the climb just a bit.

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 15.5% versus 15.6% versus 16.5% versus 18.5 versus 21.6% versus 20.6% versus 18.6% versus 20.6% versus 21.6% versus 22.7% versus 23.7% versus 23.8% versus 21.6%. Faded just a bit after bouncing off the lows from March, April, May and August.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

A good 1-2-3 rally to end expiration week, busting the indices to new highs. Many times an upside move in expiration week leads to a bit of weakness at the start of the next week. There are plays in great position and ready to make us money if that is the case. There are plays ready to go and make us money if that is not the case.

It took awhile, but clearly new money hit the market, trying to chase some performance into yearend. That is the yearend rally we talked about in October, and after a pause the move started. New money from the money managers and still $85B/month from the Fed. A pretty powerful combination, and if it continues, either after a pause early in the week or no pause, we want to continue if our plays show the right moves.

Pretty straightforward plan of attack, but with new money hitting and clearly turning back to the buy mode, you don't want to over-think it. Keep an eye on the VIX as it tests the 2013 lows, but if the technical picture remains strong and money keeps putting a bid in the market, it will override the technical picture as VIX does not have to bounce at those lows; it can remain low for quite some time if a steady bid hits the market.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 3985.97

Resistance:
Next major resistance is around 4100 as NASDAQ hits 13 year highs

Support:
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
3933 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
3855 is the November low
The 50 day EMA at 3840
3819 is the early October high
3818 is the November 2012 trendline
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.
The July 2013 intraday high at 3625
3573 is the August 2013 low
3532 is the May intraday high
3521 is the August 2000 low.
The 200 day SMA at 3510
3502 is the May 2013 closing high
The 2011 up trendline at 3471
3295 is the June 2013 low selloff
3227 is the April 2000 intraday low
3197 is the September 2012 post-bear market high
3171 is the October intraday high

S&P 500: Closed at 1798.18

Resistance:
8.9% over the 200 day SMA, not so extended.

Support:
1775.22 is the recent all-time high
The 20 day EMA at 1761
1730 is the September 2013 peak
The 50 day EMA at 1731
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1704 is the December 2012 up trendline
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
The 200 day SMA at 1637
1627 is the August 2013 low
1576 from October 2007, the prior all-time high
1573 is the June 2013 closing low
1569.48 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement of the April to May 2013 run
1560 is the June 2013 reversal low
1556 from July 2007
1541 is the April 2013 closing low in that pullback inside the uptrend
1539 from June 2007
1531 is the recent high

Dow: Closed at 15,961.70

Resistance:

Support:
15,798 the November 2013 high
The 10 day EMA at 15,773
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
The 50 day EMA at 15,464
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,318 is the June closing high
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
The 200 day SMA at 15,001
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

November 15 - Friday
- Empire Manufacturing, November (8:30): -2.2 actual versus 4.3 expected, 1.5 prior
- Export Prices ex-ag., October (8:30): -0.4% actual versus 0.3% prior
- Import Prices ex-oil, October (8:30): 0.0% actual versus 0.2% prior (revised from 0.1%)
- Industrial Production, October (9:15): -0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.7% prior (revised from 0.6%)
- Capacity Utilization, October (9:15): 78.1% actual versus 78.3% expected, 78.3% prior
- Wholesale Inventories, September (10:00): 0.4% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.8% prior (revised from 0.5%)

November 18 - Monday
- Net Long-Term TIC Fl, September (9:00): -$8.9M prior
- NAHB Housing Market , November (10:00): 55 expected, 55 prior

November 19 - Tuesday
- Employment Cost Inde, Q3 (8:30): 0.5% expected, 0.5% prior

November 20 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 11/16 (7:00): -1.8% prior
- Retail Sales, October (8:30): 0.1% expected, -0.1% prior
- Retail Sales ex-auto, October (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.4% prior
- CPI, October (8:30): 0.0% expected, 0.2% prior
- Core CPI, October (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.1% prior
- Existing Home Sales, October (10:00): 5.20M expected, 5.29M prior
- Business Inventories, September (10:00): 0.4% expected, 0.3% prior
- Crude Inventories, 11/16 (10:30): 2.640M prior
- FOMC Minutes, 10/30 (14:00)

November 21 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 11/16 (8:30): 333K expected, 339K prior
- Continuing Claims, 11/09 (8:30): 2863K expected, 2874K prior
- PPI, October (8:30): -0.2% expected, -0.1% prior
- Core PPI, October (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Philadelphia Fed, November (10:00): 11.9 expected, 19.8 prior
- Leading Indicators, October (10:00): 0.7% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 11/16 (10:30): 20 bcf prior

November 22 - Friday
- JOLTS - Job Openings, September (10:00): 3.883M prior

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The major averages ended on their lows after early gains turned into afternoon losses. The late decline occurred in reaction to the October FOMC minutes, which mentioned the possibility of tapering in the 'coming months.' It should be noted that despite today's 0.4% decline, the S&P 500 remains higher by 7.5% since October 9.

Stocks held modest gains through the bulk of the session after a better-than-expected October retail sales report set the stage for an upbeat open. The report pointed to an increase of 0.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a more modest uptick of 0.1%. More importantly, the report indicated the government shutdown had essentially no effect on consumer spending.

The above-consensus data helped retailers outperform the broader market as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 86.87, +0.03) ended flat. Among individual names of note, J.C. Penney (JCP 9.44, +0.73) surged 8.4% after its upbeat-sounding guidance overshadowed its bottom-line miss.

As the opening hour drew to its close, stocks spiked amid reports the European Central Bank will weigh implementing negative deposit rates if more easing is needed. The euro weakened on the news, falling below 1.3500 against the dollar. It is worth mentioning that negative rates have been discussed in recent weeks. In fact, just yesterday, ECB Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen said the central bank could implement negative deposit rates if the 2.0% inflation target remains elusive. However, Mr. Asmussen added he would be 'very, very careful' with regards to deploying the policy tool.

Equity indices then returned to their earlier levels after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said that a strong November jobs report would increase the chances of tapering in December.

Taper talk resurfaced this afternoon when the minutes from the October FOMC meeting indicated tapering is 'likely in the coming months.' The rest of the statement struck a familiar tone as the FOMC said the economy is expanding at a moderate pace while some downside risks remain.

The market's reaction was consistent with what transpired after previous mentions of tapering by the Fed. Equities, Treasuries (10-yr yield +8 bps to 2.79%), and gold futures (-2.3% to $1245.50/ozt) sold off while the Dollar Index (+0.4% to 81.02) rallied.

Even though the market received tapering hints from Mr. Bullard and the October minutes, it should be noted the labor situation represents just one half of the picture. The Federal Reserve has also committed to maintaining annual inflation close to 2.0%, but has struggled in achieving this target. Today's CPI report spoke to that point as October prices slipped 0.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected no change. Core prices increased 0.1%, below the 0.2% expected by the Briefing.com consensus. On an annualized basis, CPI came in at 1.0% while core CPI was reported at 1.7%.

When the dust settled, the health care sector (+0.3%) was the only group left in positive territory while the other sectors ended with losses between 0.3% and 1.2%. Rate-sensitive utilities (-1.1%) and telecom services (-0.8%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard as elevated rates weighed.

Participation was on the light side as only 622 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Looking back at today's remaining economic data, business inventories rose 0.6% in September after increasing 0.4% in August. The Briefing.com consensus expected inventory levels to increase 0.4%.

Separately, existing home sales fell 3.2% to 5.12 million in October from an unrevised 5.29 million in September. The Briefing.com consensus expected home sales to fall to 5.20 million. Surprisingly, the National Association of Realtors did not blame the government shutdown for the drop in sales. The shutdown left many banks unable to verify income through the IRS before closing. That was one of the main reasons why mortgage purchase applications fell during the month. We expected the delays in the mortgage approval process to push a number of home purchases that would have occurred in October into November.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims and October PPI will be reported at 8:30 ET while the November Philadelphia Fed survey will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq +29.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +29.5% YTD
S&P 500 +24.9% YTD
DJIA +21.3% YTD

DJ30 -66.21 NASDAQ -10.28 SP500 -6.50 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1170/1.67 bln/1372 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1006/622.4 mln/2012 3:35 pm : Commodities continued to remain pressured given the strength in the dollar index.

The dollar index spiked this morning after headlines said ECB to weigh -0.1% deposit rate if more easing is needed. Also, St. Louis Fed President came out suggested that a strong November jobs report would increase the likelihood the Fed would begin tapering its bond-buying program, which influenced the dollar index. And then, Fed minutes were released, which caused the dollar index to spike to a new session high.

All of this weighed on the commodity complex, but mostly on the metals. Natural gas futures were strong all session and rose as high as $3.68. At the end of floor trading, Dec nat gas closed $0.12 higher at $3.67/MMBtu.

Jan crude oil ended the day $0.07 lower at $93.86/barrel after a mixed session.

Metals were the worst performers today, led by precious metals. Each fell over 2% today and are near session lows in electronic trade. Dec gold ended $15.40 lower at $1257.80/oz, while Dec silver lost $0.25 at $20.05/oz.

5:18PM First Solar announces major supply contract to IXL Group (FSLR) 60.88 +0.46 : Co has awarded a contract to the IXL Group (IXL) of companies based in Geelong to manufacture and deliver the framing system for the 155 MW (AC) utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects at Nyngan and Broken Hill in New South Wales. AGL engaged First Solar to construct the solar projects which are expected to produce approximately 360,000 megawatt hours of electricity each year - enough to meet the needs of over 50,000 average homes in NSW.

4:07PM Ixia receives notice regarding non-compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rules due to the previously announced delay in the filing of its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter (XXIA) 13.48 +0.01 :

Large Cap Gainers

ETE (74.37 +7.22%): Co and Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) announced agreement for ETE to acquire Trunkline LNG Company from ETP in exchange for the redemption by ETP of 18.71 mln ETP units held by ETE; represents an effective purchase price of ~$1 bln
VRTX (66.38 +6.41%): Announced that it has sold its product royalty rights relating to INCIVO (telaprevir) to Janssen Pharmaceutica, a Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) company, for $152 mln; co also increased its FY13 year-end guidance for cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities to in excess of $1.4 bln
PCLN (1158.11 +3.55%): Added to Conviction Buy List at Goldman

Large Cap Losers

SJM (101.69 -6.35%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.08 ($1.52 ex items vs $1.60 estimate), revs fell 4.2% yoy to $1.56 bln vs $1.61 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS of $5.72-5.82 ex items vs $5.85 estimate, lowered FY14 rev guidance to -2% (from -1%) which calculates to ~$5.78 bln vs $5.87 bln estimate
LOW (48.09 -4.66%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.47 vs $0.48 estimate), revs rose 7.3% yoy to $12.96 bln vs $12.72 bln estimate; comparable sales increased 6.2%; sees FY14 EPS of ~$2.15 (raised from $2.10) vs $2.19 estimate, revs +6% (raised from +5%) or ~$53.55 bln vs $53.09 bln estimate
TSLA (121.2 -3.88%): Target lowered to $120 from $141 at Barclays

Mid Cap Gainers

BMRN (69.55 +3.95%): Confirmed FDA Advisory Committee recommended approval for Vimizim for the treatment of patients with Morquio A syndrome
MYGN (28.6 +3.66%): Announced a research collaboration with BioMarin that will use Myriad's novel Homologous Recombination Deficiency test to identify tumor types that may be sensitive to BioMarin's investigational product candidate, BMN-673
JAZZ (112.64 +2.4%): Mentioned as potential M&A candidate in blog article

Mid Cap Losers

SQM (26.31 -6.73%): Reported Q3 earnings per ADS of $0.53 vs $0.46 two analyst estimate, revs $521.1 mln vs $548.4 mln single analyst estimate
DKS (54.99 -2.05%): Downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital Markets; target raisd to $65 from $57 at Moness Crespi & Hart
GFI (4.45 -1.66%): Reported Q3 earnings from continuing operations of $9 mln vs a net loss of ($129) mln in prior quarter and gain of $122 mln in prior year;

Wind River, a subsidiary of Intel (INTC) announced that AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica co, is using Wind River VxWorks 653 Platform for its revolutionary "Project Zero" tilt rotor technology incubator.

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced that the co continued its leadership as the global interconnect solution provider for the TOP500 list of supercomputers. Overall, the number of Mellanox FDR InfiniBand connected systems grew 1.8X from Nov 2012 to Nov 2013.

Microsemi (MSCC) announced that its SmartFusion2 SoC FPGAs and IGLOO2 FPGAs have achieved PCI Express 2.0 endpoint specification certification and are now included on the PCI SIG Integrators List.

Mattson Technology (MTSN) announced that its new paradigmE XP etch system has been qualified for advanced DRAM device technologies.

Methode's Data Solutions Group, a division of Methode Electronics (MEI), announced its collaboration to provide a turn-key DCIM solution that integrates Methode hardware with Norlinx software.

Photronics (PLAB) announced an agreement with Dai Nippon Printing to merge Photronics Semiconductor Mask, a majority owned subsidiary of Photronics, with DNP Photomask Technology Taiwan, a subsidiary of DNP, to form a JV focused on serving semiconductor manufacturers in Taiwan.

6:03AM ReneSola provides 1MW of PV modules to Hecate Energy in entrance into southeastern U.S. (SOL) 4.39 : Co announced it has delivered 1MW of its 305W Virtus II PV modules to Hecate Energy, a U.S. based developer of power projects. The 3,280 1000V modules will power a project being built by Hecate Energy in Georgia of southeastern U.S.

LSI Corporation (LSI) announced it has extended the Nytro portfolio of PCIe flash cards to include the Nytro XP6200 series. The Nytro XP6200 series provides hyperscale cloud datacenters with accelerated performance for read-intensive applications, optimized power and thermals, and an overall lower cost per gigabyte PCIe flash solution.

Yahoo (YHOO) announced that it proposes to offer $1.0 billion aggregate principal amount of its convertible senior notes due 2018 in a private placement. Yahoo intends to use a portion of the net proceeds to pay the cost of the convertible note hedge transactions described below (after such cost is partially offset by the proceeds from the sale of warrants pursuant to the warrant transactions described below). Yahoo may use up to $200.0 million of the net proceeds from this offering to repurchase shares of its common stock from purchasers of notes in the offering in privately negotiated transactions effected through one of the initial purchasers or its affiliate as Yahoo's agent. Yahoo expects the purchase price per share in such transactions to equal the closing price per share of Yahoo's common stock on the date of pricing of the offering. The remaining net proceeds from the offering will be used for general corporate purposes, including, but not limited to, acquisitions or other strategic transactions, additional repurchases of common stock and working capital. However, Yahoo has not designated any specific uses of the net proceeds and has no current agreements or commitments with respect to any material acquisition or strategic transaction. Pending any specific application, Yahoo may invest the remaining net proceeds in short- and long-term marketable securities. Repurchases of common stock from purchasers of notes in the offering, as well as any additional repurchases of common stock by Yahoo, could increase, or prevent a decline in, the market price of Yahoo's common stock or the notes.
Yahoo (YHOO) also announced that it has increased its share buyback authorization by $5.0 billion.
ReneSola (SOL) announced it has delivered 1MW of its 305W Virtus II PV modules to Hecate Energy, a U.S. based developer of power projects. The 3,280 1000V modules will power a project being built by Hecate Energy in Georgia of southeastern U.S.
Model N (MODN) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 19.8% year/year to $27.8 million which is in line with consensus. The company issues guidance for the first quarter with EPS of ($0.13)-(0.10) which is below expectations with revenues of $21.0-21.5 million from $20-21 million which is above consensus. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with EPS of ($0.96)-(0.80) which is below expectations with raised fiscal year 2014 revenues to $72-80 mililon from $70-80 million which is line with expectations.

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The S&P 500 settled higher by 0.8%, snapping its three-day losing streak. The tech-heavy Nasdaq outperformed with an advance of 1.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) registered its first close above the 16,000 level.

Stocks climbed throughout the session with the Nasdaq bolstered by some of its recent laggards. Momentum names like Facebook (FB 46.70, +0.27), LinkedIn (LNKD 220.61, +4.42), Priceline.com (PCLN 1159.11, +12.02), and Micron (MU 19.99, +1.19) gained between 0.6% and 6.3%. Micron led the group, breaking out to an 11-year high, after activist investor David Einhorn made a bullish case for the stock.

Biotechnology also provided the Nasdaq with a measure of support as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 214.21, +3.14) jumped 1.5%. On a related note, the health care sector outperformed in morning trade, but ended behind the broader market with a gain of 0.5%.

Other countercyclical groups also lagged, but only the telecom services sector (-0.3%) ended in the red. Meanwhile, consumer staples (+0.2%) and utilities (+0.3%) posted modest gains. Notably, the staples sector was pressured by Target (TGT 64.19, -2.30) as the stock fell 3.5% after reporting disappointing results.

Target was not the only retailer pressured by below-consensus earnings. Over on the discretionary side, Dollar Tree (DLTR 56.28, -2.64), Game Stop (GME 48.80, -3.64), and Sears Holdings (SHLD 59.93, -1.77) lost between 2.9% and 6.9% in reaction to disappointing earnings and/or guidance. It should be noted many retailers have offered cautious comments regarding their expectations for the holiday quarter. However, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 87.55, +0.68) managed to outperform with a gain of 0.8%. Moreover, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.9%) ended among the leaders.

Speaking of leaders, financials (+1.5%) spent the entire session ahead of the remaining sectors. The group received broad support from its top components and Bank of America (BAC 15.59, +0.45) was the best performer among the majors.

Elsewhere, the energy sector (+0.8%) ended in-line with the broader market while crude oil spiked 1.6% to $95.34 per barrel. The other commodity-linked space-materials (+0.8%)-also kept pace with the broader market even as miners weighed. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 22.53, -0.32) fell 1.4% while gold futures slid 1.1% to $1243.70 per troy ounce.

Treasuries ended mixed with the 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.79%. Also of note, the 30-yr yield hit its highest level (3.938%) since August 2011 before ending at 3.883%. A fractional loss in the 5-yr note caused its yield to tick up to 1.363%.

Participation was on the light side as 669 million shares changed hands on the floor of the NYSE.

On the economic front, weekly initial claims dropped by 21,000 to 323,000 (Briefing.com consensus 333,000). The Department of Labor acknowledged, however, that the seasonal adjustments from the Veterans Day holiday may have played a role in the sharp decline, so we'll have to put an asterisk next to the encouraging headline.

Separately, producer prices declined 0.2% (consensus -0.2%) in October due to lower energy prices while core PPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (consensus 0.1%). Over the last 12 months, PPI is up just 0.3% while core PPI has risen a tame 1.4%.

Lastly, manufacturing activity softened in November as the Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook dropped to 6.5 from 19.8 in October. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to fall to 11.9. Employment levels deteriorated notably as the Number of Employees Index fell to 1.1 from 15.4.

There is no notable economic data on tomorrow's schedule.

Russell 2000 +31.8% YTD
Nasdaq +31.5 YTD
S&P 500 +25.9% YTD
DJIA +22.2% YTD

DJ30 +109.17 NASDAQ +47.88 SP500 +14.48 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1954/1.64 bln/598 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2263/668.9 mln/773 3:30 pm : Jan crude oil trended higher today, lifting from a session low of $94.11 per barrel set at pit trade open. The energy component rose as high as $95.63 per barrel and settled at $95.34 per barrel, booking a gain of 1.6%.

Dec natural gas popped to a session high of $3.74 per MMBtu following better than anticipated inventory data that showed a draw of 45 bcf when consensus called for a draw of 33-38 bcf. However, prices reversed and touched the break-even line in afternoon action. Natural gas eventually settled 0.8% higher at $3.70 per MMBtu.

Precious metals traded lower as investors digested yesterday's FOMC minutes that suggested the Fed could look to taper its stimulus program if the economy continued to improve. Dec gold dipped to a session low of $1235.80 per ounce shortly after equity markets opened. It inched slightly higher as the session progressed and settled with a 1.1% loss at $1243.70 per ounce.

Dec silver touched a session low of $19.70 per ounce in morning pit action but managed to trend higher until late afternoon floor trade. It brushed a session high of $20.05 per ounce and settled at $19.93 per ounce, shaving losses to 0.6%.

4:12PM Marvell beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (MRVL) 13.83 +0.53 : Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.32 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.25; revenues rose 15.4% year/year to $931 mln vs the $870.62 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.23-0.27 vs. $0.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $880-920 vs. $844.27 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.


"Our results in the third quarter were above the high-end of our guidance mainly due to better demand from our mobile, wireless and storage customers. We continue to make excellent progress in our end markets with new innovative products and remain committed to delivering above industry revenue and profit growth as we head into next year."

4:08PM LDK Solar announces onshore financing arrangement for RMB 1.56 bln (LDK) 1.60 +0.05 : Co announced that its onshore subsidiary, Jiangxi LDK Solar Hi-Tech, signed a framework agreement on Nov 11, 2013 with a syndicate of 11 commercial banks in China for a credit facility in the aggregate principal amount of RMB 1.56 billion. The use of proceeds of the credit facility is strictly limited to financing LDK Solar's onshore operations within Jiangxi Province, and may not be used to service any existing indebtedness, whether onshore or offshore.

The facility will terminate on Nov 10, 2016, and each loan under the facility may not have a maturity date later than such termination date. Each drawdown under the facility will be made in the absolute discretion of the syndicate and will be subject to additional conditions (including early repayment) imposed by the syndicate on a draw-specific basis. The syndicate has designated a working group to monitor the use of the funds and controlled bank accounts arrangements will be implemented. The facility and any of its outstanding loans are guaranteed by LDK Solar's onshore subsidiaries, Jiangxi LDK PV Silicon Technology Co., Ltd., Jiangxi LDK Solar Polysilicon Co., Ltd., LDK Solar Hi-Tech (Xinyu) Co., Ltd. and LDK Solar Hi-Tech (Nanchang) Co., Ltd., and by Peng Xiaofeng and his wife. The first drawdown of RMB 200 million was approved and completed on Nov 21, 2013.

Large Cap Gainers

JCI (50.66 +5.06%): Announced three-year $3.65 bln share repurchase program; increased quarterly dividend by 16%.
MU (19.75 +5.08%): Strength attributed to headlines indicating Einhorn made positive comments at Robin Hood Conference.
GM (38.66 +2.58%): U.S. Treasury confirmed that it completed the sale of 70.2 mln shares of GM common stock under its third pre-defined written trading plan; anticipates that it will complete the sale of its remaining shares by the end of the year.

Large Cap Losers

DLTR (55.75 -5.38%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; guided Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; Q3 comps +3.1%; target lowered to $48 from $52 at Canaccord Genuity.
PM (85.99 -3.71%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman; removed from Conviction Buy list.
RIG (52 -3.6%): Provided long term outlook at investor day; sees increasing financial flexibility with launch of MLP in mid-2014.

Mid Cap Gainers

GMCR (72.59 +17.41%): Beat on EPS by $0.14, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS below consensus; FY14 guidance mixed; announced share repurchase plan; upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Janney.
MDSO (116.11 +7.08%): Co raised long-term revenue growth target to 20-25%; initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank.
SPB (68.49 +7.28%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, reported revs in-line.

Mid Cap Losers

TRN (50.1 -6.41%): Downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Raymond James.
GME (49.52 -5.57%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; guided Q4 below consensus; added $500 mln to share buyback.
AL (30.99 -5.4%): Priced secondary public offering of 10,138,888 shares of its Class A Common Stock by affiliates of Ares Management, Leonard Green & Partners and WL Ross & Co. at $31.50 per share.

STMicroelectronics (STM) is launching its new ISO8200B, an isolated power switch that enables smaller, more robust and energy-efficient controllers for industrial automation equipment.

Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI) announced completion of its 2013 initiative to deliver a higher level of customer support globally. The company has opened new lab facilities and expanded technical resources at its sales offices in the UK, Korea and China.

Marvell (MRVL) announced that its total silicon and software-defined solutions portfolio continues to accelerate the connected lifestyle from consumer to enterprise across the globe.

(Crescendo Partners Sends Letter to A ropostale, Inc. Board of Directors; Urges Board to Immediately Pursue a Sale of the Company to Maximize Stockholder Value), ARMH +1.2%

Rudolph Technologies (RTEC) won orders for its AWX FSI unpatterned wafer inspection system at both a major Southeast Asia-based outsourced assembly and test facility and a key Korean memory manufacturer.

6:03AM Chipmos Technology to repurchase 12.2% ownership from ThaiLin (IMOS) 18.16 : Co announced that its Board of Directors has approved the repurchase of 12.2% ownership position in ChipMOS from the co's subsidiary, ThaiLin Semiconductor. Following the Board's approval, a Share Purchase Agreement was executed by ChipMOS and ThaiLin for the co's repurchase of the 4.1 mln shares held by ThaiLin. The purchase price of the shares at each of the Closings will be determined by the arithmetic mean of the closing prices of the co's Common Stock traded on the NASDAQ over the 20 consecutive trading days prior to the preceding fifth day of each of the First Closing Date and the Second Closing Date multiplied by zero point nine three (0.93), reflecting a 7% discount. Each of the Closings will be subject to the purchase price of the shares falling within a range of $13.00 per share to $19.92 per share.

The co's outstanding share count is expected to remain approximately 30 million after the consummation of the Closings because the 4.1 million shares held by ThaiLin subject to the sale and repurchase have been treated as treasury shares and not included in the co's share count.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 22-Nov-13There was a lot of talk about stock market bubbles entering the week, and while there may have still been a lot of talk about stock market bubbles exiting the week, it still didn't stop the S&P 500 from scoring its seventh straight weekly gain. In the process, it also established a new record closing high, as did the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had a Sweet 16 party closing above the 16,000 level for the first time ever.

The Nasdaq Composite started the week with a 37-point loss. That slide was precipitated by a selloff in many of the high-beta momentum stocks that came under fire in a Barron's feature story for having bubble-like valuations. In a tru sign of the underlying bullish bias in the market, the Nasdaq finished the week nearly six points higher than where it began the week.

To be sure, the buy-the-dip trade was alive and well once more, prevailing in the face of concerns about the suggestion in the minutes from the October FOMC meeting that the Fed could slow the pace of its asset purchases in coming months if the data proved consistent with its outlook for ongoing improvement in labor market conditions.

The aforementioned acknowledgment caused a bit of a hiccup on Wednesday, yet the market wasted little time making up the losses that followed the release of the FOMC Minutes. Its resilience was attributed generally to two reasons: (1) the idea that the Fed didn't really tell the market anything in the minutes it didn't already know and (2) the notion that the market is perhaps growing more comfortable with the Fed's position that a tapering isn't a tightening and that the fed funds rate target is apt to stay at the zero bound even well after the Fed ends its asset purchase program.

Separately, some weak inflation data this week in the form of the CPI and PPI reports seemed to support the market's thinking that the Fed won't curtail its asset purchases before the end of the year. That thinking has the potential to change with the November employment report (out on Nov. 6), but with total CPI up 1.0% over the last 12 months -- the smallest rate of increase since October 2009 -- it is clear that the Fed is still falling well short of meeting the inflation side of its dual mandate.

Another key happening related to the Fed is that Janet Yellen's confirmation as the next Fed chairman appears imminent after the Senate Banking Committee gave her a thumbs up this week. The market likes the thought of continuity in leadership, so it wasn't lost on participants that Fed Chairman Bernanke told the National Economists Club that he agreed with the views Ms. Yellen expressed in her testimony at her confirmation hearing.

Notably, only four out of the ten economic sectors closed the week higher; however, they were four of the market's most influential sectors by weight. The winners of note included the financial (+1.7%), health care (+1.6%), energy (+0.7%), and industrials (+0.6%) sectors. The week's biggest laggard was the rate-sensitive utilities sector (-1.8%).

Longer-dated Treasury securities enjoyed a positive session on Friday as stocks rose, but the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note climbed five basis points on the week to 2.75%. Another loser of note this week was gold, which dropped 3.40% to $1243.00/oz., broadsided both by the weak inflation readings and rumblings about a tapering.

The week ahead will be a short week due to the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. So, allow us in advance to wish you a good weekend and a happy Thanksgiving.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week  Change  % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	     15961.70	 16064.77   103.07	0.6	22.6 
 Nasdaq	      3985.97	  3991.65     5.68	0.1	32.2 
 S&P 500	1798.18	  1804.76     6.58	0.4	26.5 
 Russell 2000  1116.20	  1124.92     8.72	0.8	32.4

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: MLNX (41.91 +18.34%), SQI (28.1 +16.98%)
Services: KIRK (23.68 +30.29%), TTS (13.88 +22.24%), ARO (10.31 +14.72%)
Industrial Goods: NES (1.84 +18.24%), JKS (33.89 +15.36%)
Healthcare: CADX (8.51 +41.33%), HZNP (6.49 +40.52%), UNIS (4.03 +29.07%), SNTA (4.82 +21.41%), SQNM (2.77 +18.97%), ARIA (3.78 +15.77%)
Financial: LFC (48.5 +18.97%)
Consumer Goods: DAKT (14.99 +24.27%), LZB (28.57 +17.05%), GMCR (68.77 +16.39%)
Conglomerates: ENT (14.28 +21.9%)
Basic Materials: KWK (2.71 +16.67%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: VJET (35.86 -35.46%), BV (7.56 -17.82%), SCTY (46.59 -14.6%)
Services: LQDT (21.83 -24.43%), GME (49.86 -15.03%), FWM (18.52 -12.81%), FUEL (48.01 -12.28%)
Healthcare: ONVO (9.15 -25.55%), AMRI (11.56 -18.65%), AEGR (71.55 -13.38%)
Financial: EJ (10.38 -17.14%), GCAP (8.86 -16.54%)
Basic Materials: REGI (11.01 -20.06%), SAND (4.41 -16.64%), RBY (1.04 -15.62%), SA (7.31 -14.4%), HK (4.07 -14.26%), SBGL (5.24 -13.6%), AU (13.68 -13.18%), BVN (12.04 -13.13%)

Large Cap Gainers

BIIB (283.93 +12.48%): Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency has determined that dimethyl fumarate in TECFIDERA qualifies as a new active substance; this designation will provide 10 years of regulatory exclusivity for TECFIDERA in the European Union; price target raised at Citigroup and Deutsche Bank
TWC (131.13 +8.50%): Reuters reporting that Charter Communications (CHTR) is nearing a funding deal to make a bid for the company; Comcast (CMCSA) also mentioned as a potential buyer
GILD (75.02 +4.73%): Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency, has adopted a positive opinion on the co's Marketing Authorisation Application for Sovaldi (sofosbuvir 400 mg tablets), an investigational once-daily oral nucleotide analogue polymerase inhibitor for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus

Large Cap Losers

ROST (74.82 -6.78%): Reported Q3 EPS of $0.80 (in-line), revs rose 6.0% yoy to $2.4 bln vs $2.43 bln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.97-1.01 (lowered from $0.99-1.03) vs $1.08 estimate; co sees comparable store sales +1-2% on top of a 5% increase in last year's Q4; downgraded to Sell from Hold at Maxim Group, target lowered to $63 from $75
INTC (24 -4.86%): Sees FY14 revs flat yoy (vs +1.7% consensus), with gross margin at midpoint of long term range of 55-65%
GPS (40.83 -2.46%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.72 vs $0.71 estimate), revs rose 2.9% yoy to $3.98 bln (in-line with preannouncement and $3.96 bln consensus); reaffirmed FY14 EPS of $2.57-2.65 vs $2.75 estimate; target lowered to $50 from $52 at Telsey Advisory Group

Mid Cap Gainers

SPLK (73.12 +22.07%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.00 vs -$0.01 estimate), revs rose 50.9% yoy to $78.6 mln vs $70.82 mln estimate; sees Q4 revs of $88-90 mln vs $85.87 mln estimate; target raised to $72 from $68 at Canaccord Genuity
CLDX (28.24 +8.24%): Optimism ahead of conference call scheduled for 8:30 AM ET on November 25; co will provide an update on its rindopepimut Phase 2 ReACT program
BERY (21.76 +7.09%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.11 ($0.33 vs $0.22 estimate), revs flat yoy to $1.204 bln vs $1.196 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

TFM (41.33 -18.00%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.23 vs $0.26 estimate), revs rose 13.4% yoy to $364.46 mln vs $373.34 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.42-1.47 vs $1.53 estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee, target lowered to $44 from $59; target lowered to $53 from $60 at Telsey Advisory Group
ANF (33.62 -3.86%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo
X (26.47 -2.50%): Downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo

LDK +5% (announced onshore financing arrangement for RMB 1.56 bln)

Qualcomm (QCOM) announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, is enhancing location precision in smartphones and tablets initially in China with support for China's BeiDou Satellite Navigation System. Qualcomm is collaborating with Samsung (SSNLF) to launch the first wave of BeiDou enhanced consumer smartphones.
Microchip Technology (MCHP) announced the acquisition of EqcoLogic, a privately held, fabless semiconductor co based in Brussels, Belgium and a spin out of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The terms of the acquisition are confidential and are expected to have no material impact on co's Dec quarter results.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The S&P 500 began the holiday-shortened week on a lower note, shedding 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq outperformed, but their gains were limited to less than 0.1% apiece.

Stocks held modest gains through the vast majority of the session, but a final-hour sell off sent the S&P 500 to a fresh low. Despite today's retreat, the benchmark index remains higher by 2.6% in November.

Energy (-0.8%) and materials (-0.7%) led the afternoon sell off after lagging throughout the session. The energy sector was pressured by crude oil futures, which fell 0.8% to $94.03 per barrel. Oil futures were able to erase a portion of their losses after being down as much as 1.1% in reaction to the nuclear deal with Iran that was reached over the weekend.

Meanwhile, steelmakers weighed on the materials sector as the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 47.80, -0.47) lost 1.0%.

Elsewhere, industrials (-0.4%) joined the final-hour sell off as Boeing (BA 133.00, -2.97) fell 2.2% amid news the company has warned airlines about a potential engine icing risk. The engine maker, General Electric (GE 26.73, -0.35), lost 1.3%. However, there were some pockets of strength among industrials as the Dow Jones Transportation Average outperformed with a gain of 0.3%.

The afternoon weakness also claimed three countercyclical groups-consumer staples (-0.2%), telecom services (-0.3%), and utilities (-0.4%)-while health care outperformed with a gain of 0.4%. Biotechnology was largely responsible for the relative strength as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 222.79, +2.16) added 1.0%.

Outside of health care, only consumer discretionary (+0.1%) and financials (+0.1%) eked out narrow gains.

Treasuries ended modestly higher with the 10-yr yield off one basis point at 2.74%.

Trading volume was well below average as just over 620 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Today's economic data was limited to October pending home sales, which ticked down 0.6%. The reading followed last month's revised decrease of 4.6% (from 5.6%), and was worse than the 1.3% increase forecast by the Briefing.com consensus.

Tomorrow, building permits for September and October will be reported at 8:30 ET while the September Case-Shiller 20-city Index and September FHFA Housing Price Index will be released at 9:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the November Consumer Confidence Index.

Russell 2000 +32.4% YTD
Nasdaq +32.3% YTD
S&P 500 +26.4% YTD
DJIA +22.7% YTD

DJ30 +7.77 NASDAQ +2.92 SP500 -2.28 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1339/1.74 bln/1240 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1339/625.5 mln/1665 3:30 pm : Dec crude oil traded in negative territory today as the dollar index rose on an international nuclear deal with Iran. The agreement lifts some sanctions on the Middle Eastern nation's oil, gold, precious metals and auto parts. The energy component brushed a session low of $93.08 per barrel when floor trade opened and inched slightly higher as the session progressed. It eventually settled at $94.03 per barrel, or 0.8% lower.

Natural gas, on the other hand, rose for a fourth consecutive session as forecasts called for colder weather. It dipped to a session low of $3.80 per MMBtu after trading as high as $3.88 per MMBtu earlier in the session but regained momentum in afternoon pit trade. Natural gas eventually booked a 0.8% gain as it settled at $3.84 per MMBtu.

Dec gold traded slightly lower today as the stronger dollar index weighed on prices. The yellow metal traded as low as $1226.80 per ounce in early morning pit trade but managed to erase most of the loss. It chopped around just below the unchanged level for most of the session and settled 0.2% lower at $1241.40 per ounce.

Dec silver lifted from its session low of $19.64 per ounce set moments after pit trade opened and traded near the breakeven level. It brushed a session high of $19.99 per ounce and eventually settled at $19.87 per ounce, or 0.1% higher.

5:19PM F5 Networks discloses its Board authorized an additional $300 mln for the co's common stock share repurchase program (FFIV) 80.90 -2.04 :

4:34PM Qualcomm finalizes sale of Omnitracs to Vista Equity Partners; will result in an estimated $0.22 to $0.25 per share gain in Q1 (QCOM) 72.49 -0.47 : Co announced that the sale of Omnitracs, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, to Vista Equity Partners (Vista), a U.S.-based private equity firm, has been finalized. The agreement to sell the transportation and logistics business for approximately $800 million in cash was originally announced in August.

The sale includes all of Omnitracs' operations in the United States, Canada and Latin America. The sale will result in an estimated $0.22 to $0.25 per share gain and will be reported in Qualcomm's first fiscal quarter.


4:10PM Universal Display and Philips Technologie GmbH announce collaboration and evaluation agreement for OLED lighting (OLED) 35.17 -0.09 : Co announced a collaboration and evaluation agreement with Philips Technologie GmbH (PHG), Business Center OLED Lighting. Under this agreement, Universal Display will begin supplying Philips with its highly efficient phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED) materials for solid-state lighting applications.

4:06PM ON Semiconductor's Board of Directors approves amendments to co bylaws and certificate of incorporation (ONNN) 6.99 +0.04 : Co announced that its Board of Directors (has amended and restated the company's bylaws and approved certain changes to the company's Certificate of Incorporation, which remain subject to stockholder approval. The BOD took these actions in furtherance of the company's commitment to corporate governance practices it believes are in the best interest of the company and its stockholders. On November 21, 2013, the BOD approved a change to the company's bylaws to allow stockholders to call special meetings, subject to certain limitations, at a threshold of 25 percent of the voting power of the outstanding capital stock of the company.

The BOD also approved two amendments to the company's Certificate of Incorporation that remain subject to stockholder approval at the company's next annual shareholders meeting in 2014. The first amendment to the Certificate of Incorporation provides for a declassification of the BOD occurring over a three-year period beginning in 2014. The second amendment to the Certificate of Incorporation removes the current prohibition on stockholder action by written consent in lieu of a meeting.

Large Cap Gainers

FMS (34.66 +7.57%): CMS finalized home health payments for 2014 and payment rate changes for end-stage ernal disease facilities in 2014; cuts smaller than expected; DVA also higher
BIIB (295.47 +3.45%): Hearing estimates raised on Tecfidera in Europe at Citigroup, target raised to $320
DAL (29.18 +2.03%): Rated #1 in Business Travel News Annual Airline Survery for third consecutive year

Large Cap Losers

QIHU (80.88 -6.61%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($0.47 vs $0.37 estimate), revs rose 123.7% yoy to $187.9 mln vs $182.51 mln estimate; sees Q4 revs of $206-208 mln vs $205.74 mln estimate; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel - expects rev growth momentum will slow for the next two quarters
SDRL (42.6 -5.83%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.61 vs $0.64 estimate), revs rose 17.2% yoy to $1.28 bln vs $1.25 bln estimate
PXD (178.33 -4.47%): Initiated with a Sell at Prime Executions, target $155

Mid Cap Gainers

GA (11.37 +12.24%): Announced receipt of proposal from co's Chairman to acquire the company at $11.75 per share
CBST (71.27 +8.81%): Announced positive top-line results from Phase 3 clinical trial of its antibiotic candidate ceftolozane/tazobactam in complicated urinary tract infections; ceftolozane/tazobactam met its primary endpoint of statistical non-inferiority compared to levofloxacin
ALNY (60.56 +3.82%): Earnted $7 mln milestone payment from Genzyme (a Sanofi company) for Phase 2 success of patisiran (ALN-TTR02), an RNAi therapeutic targeting transthyretin for the treatment of TTR-mediated amyloidosis

Mid Cap Losers

LGF (31.1 -7.86%): Catching Fire opened at an estimated $161.1 mln for the highest November opening ever
YELP (57.6 -7.68%): Weakness in social media related stocks: FB, TWTR, LNKD lower
UBNT (38.78 -7.56%): Disclosed that Chief Marketing Officer David Hseih has left the company

9:00AM SolarCity Announces Major California Expansion, 10 New Operations Centers (SCTY) 46.59 : Co announced the opening of ten new operations centers in California. All are expected to be operational by the end of 2013, nearly doubling the company's locations in the state. The regional operations centers will expand solar services to new areas, reduce installation wait times, and contribute to state and local economies by creating jobs in a range of new locations. SolarCity will now have a location within 30 miles of more than 90 percent of the state's population

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that Chamberlain has selected Broadcom's Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Platforms platform to power its MyQ Garage.
Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) announced a family of robust CAN transceivers designed for high-speed performance and reliability.

Microchip Technology (MCHP) announced a new family of capacitive touch controllers-the CAP12XX Family

Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) and MicroSys Electronics GmbH are collaborating to establish the industry's most integrated development platform for functional safety

NetApp (NTAP) announced the general availability of the NetApp Certified Storage Associate program.

Altera (ALTR) announced implementation of a programmable logic controller and human machine interface system on a single chip. The integrated PLC/HMI system is implemented on a single 28 nm Altera Cyclone V SoC, and will be offered as a reference design by Altera in 2014

8:03AM First Solar starts construction of solar power plant in Kitakyushu-shi, Japan (FSLR) 60.35 : Co announced that it has started construction of a solar project in Kitakyushu-shi, Japan. Generation capacity of the project is 1.4MWDC, and it will start operating in Q1 2014. Using First Solar's advanced technology CdTe thin-film PV modules, the project will provide clean and safe solar power to Japan, mitigating idle nuclear and providing energy security. First Solar holds 100 percent equity in the project. Obayashi Corporation and Yaskawa Electric Corporation will construct the project.

7:32AM Qualcomm reported that China's National Development and Reform Commission has commenced an investigation of Qualcomm relating to the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law (QCOM) 72.96 : Co reported that China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has commenced an investigation of Qualcomm relating to the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law (AML). The NDRC has advised that the substance of the investigation is confidential. The co is not aware of any charge by the NDRC that Qualcomm has violated the AML. Co will continue to cooperate with the NDRC as it conducts its confidential investigation.

Xilinx (XLNX) announced accelerated design productivity for machine vision applications, leveraging HALCON and VisualApplets development platforms to create an end-to-end Smarter Vision development environment for the Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC

7:02AM NVIDIA to offer $1.3 bln aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due in 2018 (NVDA) 15.18 : Co announced today its intention to offer, subject to market and other conditions, $1.3 billion aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due in 2018 in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933.

In addition, the Company expects to grant the initial purchaser of the notes an option to purchase up to an additional $200 million aggregate principal amount of notes from the Company to cover any over-allotments. NVIDIA intends to use the net proceeds of the offering to fund capital return to shareholders and for privately negotiated convertible note hedge transactions (after taking into account the proceeds to it from warrant transactions), each as described below, and for general corporate purposes.

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NYSE Margin Debt at All-Time High
Why the stock market is like the 2006 housing bubble

http://www.elliottwave.com/freeupdates/archives/2013/11/29/NYSE-Margin-Debt-at-All-Time-High.aspx#axzz2m44ObzF5

By Bob Stokes
Fri, 29 Nov 2013 12:30:00 ET

Investors using ten to thirty times leverage have pushed stocks to new highs. Thanks to the Fed's easy money, banks are loaning wealthy speculators boatloads of money, and in turn, they are buying stocks.
In March 2013, New York Stock Exchange margin debt was near an all-time record. Now, margin debt is at a record high.



Hedge funds aren’t the only entities using leverage in record amounts. Individuals are using it, too. [The chart above] shows that margin debt at brokerage firms has now reached an all-time high. Leveraged buying by institutions and margin buying by individuals explains how the averages ... got to where they are. It’s just another big debt-financed bubble, like the one in housing that ended in 2006.

-- The Elliott Wave Theorist, November 2013

Credit expansion fueled real estate mania to unsustainable levels until the bubble burst.

Is the Fed helping to create yet another asset bubble?

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his central-bank counterparts ... have bet the run-up in stock and home prices they’ve engineered would boost consumer and corporate confidence and spur faster growth and higher inflation. Now they’re having to maintain or intensify their aid -- running the risk those efforts do more harm than good by boosting equity and property prices to unsustainable levels.

-- Bloomberg, Nov. 13

Even before NYSE margin debt reached a historic high, a major bank observed:

“Investors have rarely been more levered than today,” said Deutsche Bank, warning that the spike in margin debt is a “red flag” and should be watched closely. ... It said the equity rally may have further legs but it cited “astonishing similarities” between the latest patterns and events preceding prior market crises.

-- The Telegraph, Aug.13

Read more: http://www.elliottwave.com/freeupdates/archives/2013/11/29/NYSE-Margin-Debt-at-All-Time-High.aspx#ixzz2m46EYqNi
Follow us: @elliottwaveintl on Twitter | ElliottWaveInternational on Facebook

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Record low on Bears in Investors Intelligence Poll going all the way back to 1987?

 
 Date Published 	Percent Bullish 	Percent Bearish 
     11/27                  55.7 	             14.4

That must mean the market is headed for a top right? This article is a little older but the author says not so fast my friend! RtS

http://ryandetrick.tumblr.com/post/66879782869/where-did-all-the-bears-go-so-traders-everywhere



Where Did All The Bears Go?

So traders everywhere are worrying that the number of bears in the recent Investors Intelligence poll is down to just 15.5%, the lowest since March ‘87.

The thinking goes if there are no bears, the market has to peak.

Not so fast, my friends (thanks Lee Corso). Looking back, March ‘87 was the kick off to a huge six month rally. Of course, it ended with the ‘87 crash, still it wasn’t this big sell signal.

Then looking at data since ‘62, we’ve seen bears consistently beneath 15% and it really didn’t seem to matter. During much of the ’60s, the bears were ‘low’, yet the DJIA continued to rally. Fun fact time, the all-time low was just 4.5% in January 1977!

I’m not saying ignore the low number of bears here, just be aware that we’ve seen this before and honestly it wasn’t that bearish.

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Surging Stocks Don't Pass the Sniff Test Markets' Rise Belies Signs of Froth

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303332904579224412693834586

By
Spencer Jakab
connect

Nov. 28, 2013 4:35 p.m. ET
Sometimes a stock-market rally just doesn't smell right.

Bad breadth can indicate a weak foundation underpinning record index levels. For example, the last gasps of the technology bubble that peaked in March 2000 came from a handful of big companies.

Enlarge Image


The New York Stock Exchange on Monday Reuters

Today, gains are incredibly evenly spread. That counters worries about similar exuberance, says Robert Palmerton, managing director at technical research firm Baseline Analytics. "We could very well be seeing a secular bull market in the making because there's such good breadth."

Going into the last month of the year, some 73% of stocks in the S&P 500-stock index are above their 50-day moving average. With the index on track for its best gain in 16 years, that rising tide has lifted most boats.

"It's been pretty hard to pick a losing stock this year," says Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group.




But there is an alternative interpretation that is less sanguine. While the current move lacks many aspects of a bubble—there is no single industry that has captured investors' imagination—the rally smacks of a rush to buy almost any stock to compensate for the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates so low. The 27% gain in the S&P 500 in 2013 has come even though revenue growth is seen at a little under 2% and earnings growth at 5% for the full year. Investors are simply willing to pay more for each dollar of earnings.

There are more-traditional signs of froth, too. The latest Investors Intelligence poll of newsletter writers puts the percentage of bears at 14.4%, the lowest since 1987. And in a sign investors are putting not only their money but also others' where their mouths are, margin debt as a share of gross domestic product is nearing historical peaks, such as in March 2000.

Even reassuring measures may not provide comfort. The number of stocks hitting 52-week highs was about four times those plumbing lows on the New York Stock Exchange over the past 10 sessions. That is usually a good sign. Yet the ratio was at about 60 times back in October 2007, when the market last peaked.

Investors drawing comfort from this rally's broad base may be downplaying other danger signs. Just holding your nose and buying isn't always wise.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Equity indices finished the first December session on a lower note as the S&P 500 shed 0.3%. Small caps endured steady selling throughout the session as the Russell 2000 fell 1.2%.

The benchmark index spent some time on each side of its flat line, but ultimately ended near its lows. The index attempted to build on the relative strength of financials (-0.2%) and materials (-0.2%), but the underperformance of technology (-0.3%), industrials (-0.5%) and discretionary shares (-0.5%) short-circuited the rally.

The discretionary sector was pressured by homebuilders and retailers. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 22.69, -0.45) lost 1.9% as Treasury yields climbed throughout the session. The benchmark 10-yr yield added five basis points to 2.80%.

Meanwhile, retailers slumped after the National Retail Federation said Thanksgiving weekend sales were down 3.0% year-over-year. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 87.87, -0.59) lost 0.7%. However, eBay (EBAY 51.35, +0.83) outperformed its brick-and-mortar peers amid indications holiday online sales have gotten off to a strong start.

Elsewhere, Dow component 3M (MMM 127.68, -5.83) pressured the industrial sector, falling 4.4% after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock to 'Underweight.' Transports withstood the bulk of the selling as the Dow Jones Transportation Average added 0.3%.

The Nasdaq also contributed to the afternoon weakness as top-weighted components and momentum names lagged. Apple (AAPL 551.23, -4.84), Google (GOOG 1054.48, -5.11), and Intel (INTC 23.70, -0.14) lost between 0.5% and 0.9% while LinkedIn (LNKD 220.39, -3.64) and Tesla (TSLA 124.17, -3.11) fell 1.6% and 2.4%, respectively.

A pocket of strength could be found inside the tech-heavy index as biotechnology outperformed. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 224.73, +0.57) added 0.3%, which helped the health care sector finish with a slim gain of 0.1%.

The remaining countercyclical groups lagged across the board as consumer staples, telecom services and utilities lost between 0.4% and 0.9%.

Today's participation was well below average as 667 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Investors received just two economic data points today. After increasing a downwardly revised 0.1% (from 0.6%) in August, construction spending fell 0.3% in September before rebounding and increasing a solid 0.8% in October. The Briefing.com consensus expected construction spending to increase 0.4% and 0.3% in September and October, respectively.

The big gain in October spending came entirely from the government sector. Spending rose 3.9% in October, namely from an 8.5% gain in educational and a 5.9% gain in transportation. Private construction spending fell 0.5% in October after increasing 0.4% in September.

Separately, the November ISM Manufacturing Index increased to 57.3 from 56.4. That was the highest reading since the index reached 59.4 in April 2011. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to fall to 55.5. For the past several months, regional manufacturing surveys have hinted at a slowdown in manufacturing activities, but the national ISM has shrugged those off and continued its trek higher.

There is no notable economic data on tomorrow's schedule.

Nasdaq +34.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +32.9% YTD
S&P 500 +26.3% YTD
DJIA +22.2% YTD

DJ30 -77.64 NASDAQ -14.63 SP500 -4.91 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 750/1.63 bln/1854 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 855/667.3 mln/2178 3:30 pm : Precious metals underperformed the commodities space as a stronger dollar index and better-than-anticipated manufacturing data pressured prices. The November ISM Manufacturing Index increased to 57.3 from 56.4, posting the highest reading since the index reached 59.4 in April 2011. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to fall to 55.5.

Feb gold pulled back from its session high of $1238.20 per ounce set in morning pit action and trended lower for the remainder of the session. It eventually settled with a 2.3% loss at $1222.00 per ounce.

Mar silver also extended overnight losses as it slipped from its session high of $19.74 per ounce set moments after floor trade opened. It continued to trend lower and settled with a 3.7% loss at $19.30 per ounce, right above its session low of $19.27 per ounce.

Jan crude oil, on the other hand, extended Friday's gains, getting a boost from the better-than-anticipated economic data. The energy component lifted from its session low of $92.90 per barrel set at the floor open and trended higher. It brushed a session high of $94.08 per barrel in late afternoon pit action and settled with a 1.2% gain at $93.83 per barrel.

Jan natural gas rose for an eighth consecutive session despite spending most of today's pit trade in the red. It brushed a session low of $3.91 per MMBtu in morning action but gained momentum in the last hour of floor trade and erased the earlier losses. Natural gas settled at its session high of $3.99 per MMBtu, booking a gain of 0.8%.

5:00PM GT Advanced Tech. to offer $125 mln convertible senior notes and 12 mln shares of common stock (GTAT) 9.94 +0.13 : Co announced plans to offer $125,000,000 aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2020 and 12,000,000 shares of its common stock in concurrent underwritten registered public offerings. The Company currently intends to use the net proceeds of the Offerings for working capital and general corporate purposes, which may include the acquisition of companies or businesses and capital expenditures. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Goldman, Sachs & Co. will act as joint book-running managers and Canaccord Genuity Inc. will act as co-manager for the Offerings.

4:15PM Marvell announces resignation of interim CFO (MRVL) 14.24 +0.01 : Co announced that Brad D. Feller, Marvell's Interim CFO, has advised Marvell of his intention to resign from his position to pursue other opportunities. Mr. Feller's resignation is effective as of Dec 10, 2013. As previously disclosed Marvell is continuing its search to permanently fill the role of CFO.

Tomorrow before the open look for the following companies to report:

BMO, ISLE, LTXC

Large Cap Gainers

FRX (54.42 +6.06%): Announced major new plans to streamline operations, leverage balance sheet, and repurchase $1 bln of common stock; acquired U.S. marketing rights to Saphris for the treatment of schizophrenia for Merck (MRK)
MPC (87.08 +5.25%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank
VLO (47.06 +2.93%): Valero Energy Partners (VLP) launched IPO of 15 mln common units representing lmited partner interests

Large Cap Losers

PBR (14.23 -10.73%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup
GG (21.64 -3.65%): Weakness in gold miners: ABX, NEM also lower
MMM (129.6 -2.93%): Downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley

Mid Cap Gainers

GOGO (30.08 +12.79%): Co passed a key milestone in launching its international connectivity service by receiving an STC to install its Ku-satellite technology on Boeing 747-400 aircraft; will begin testing the new service immediately and plans to offer the service for customer usage by the first quarter of 2014
AXLL (49.63 +9.56%): Trading higher following news that Dow Chemical (DOW) will shut down ~800k tons of chlorine and caustic equivalent capacity
ROC (72.99 +6.62%): Acquired 49% interest in Talison Lithium through a joint venture with Chengdu Tianqi Industry Group

Mid Cap Losers

MYGN (25.82 -13.21%): Invitae Corp announced that it filed an action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Myriad seeking a declaration that certain Myriad patents relating to the BRCA1/2 and MUTYH genes are invalid and are not infringed by Invitae
NGD (4.99 -6.38%): Weakness in Canadian gold and silver miners: EGO, AEM, AUY, SLW also lower
KT (14.7 -6.16%): Co announced it plans to reduce its dividend

10:24AM Floor Talk: November Review (TALKX) : The month of November brought another round of gains for the major indices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average enjoyed its best month since July on its way to a close above the 16,000 level. The Nasdaq finished the month above the 4,000 mark while the S&P 500 settled north of 1,800 after registering eight consecutive weekly gains.

Steady Climb Continues

Equities continued their persistent climb throughout the month despite calls for a pullback getting increasingly louder. The expectations for some sort of a correction were not without merit as the S&P spent the month continuing a sharp rally that began in mid-October. The benchmark index entered November after gaining 6.1% during the previous 16 sessions. However, the S&P never gave in to sustained selling pressure, but instead rallied on, ending the month with a 9.0% gain since October 9.

Even though the S&P 500 registered another monthly gain, the index trailed the remaining averages. The tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 3.6% while small caps fared even better as the Russell 2000 surged 3.9%.
With stocks pushing to fresh highs, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) spent the entire month trapped in its narrowest range of the year. The near-term volatility measure bounced between 12.93% and 13.70% throughout November.

Rising Tide Lifts (Nearly) All Boats

Just about every sector rallied along with the broader market, but consumer staples (+1.6%), energy (+0.1%), and materials (+1.4%) were a bit tentative in their advance. Two countercyclical groups-telecom services (-2.5%) and utilities (-1.9%)-finished in the red, while another defensive sector-health care (+4.7%) ended in the lead.

The health care sector drew considerable strength from biotechnology, which continued its banner year. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) soared 9.2%, extending its year-to-date gain to 63.4%. In turn, the outperformance of biotech also underpinned the Nasdaq, which ended the month only behind the Russell 2000.

The Nasdaq was powered to a 3.6% increase by the strength of biotech and top-weighted components like Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT). However, some momentum names fell on tough times after providing support to the index earlier in the year.

Facebook (FB) and Tesla (TSLA) lost 6.4% and 20.4%, respectively while another momentum-favorite, Priceline.com (PCLN), outperformed with a gain of 13.1%.

Holiday Shopping Season Starts With Whimper

As the month drew to its close, the holiday shopping season began heating up. However, the early results were somewhat mixed as the National Retail Federation reported a 3.0% year-over-year decline in Thanksgiving weekend sales while ComScore reported a 3.0% increase in online sales versus the same period last year.

Yellen Cruises Through Hearing While Fed Minutes Bring Back Taper Talk

Early in the month, Janet Yellen's confirmation proceedings began with an appearance in front of the Senate Banking Committee. For the most part, the hearing proved to be a non-event, but one statement in Ms. Yellen's prepared remarks turned some heads. The Fed chair nominee said "the Federal Reserve has made significant progress toward its goals but has more work to do," which set the expectation for continued easing by the central bank.

That expectation was tested on November 18 when participants received the minutes from the October meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. The minutes sparked a selloff in bonds and equities after the Committee acknowledged that a form of tapering is 'likely in the coming months.' However, the selling suggested that once again the market focused on one part of the statement while ignoring the fact that the Fed continues falling short of its inflation target, which speaks in favor of continued easing.

Click here to see a breakdown of monthly sector ETF performance

STMicroelectronics (STM) announced a new family of always-on 6-axis inertial motion sensors with industry-lowest power requirements, ultra-compact packaging and unprecedented design flexibility.

Cypress Semiconductor (CY) announced that AVerMedia Technologies has selected Cypress's EZ-USB FX3 USB 3.0 controller for its new high-definition video capture card.

Marvell (MRVL) announced the launch of Yulong Coolpad's high-performance smartphone certified by China Mobile (CHL). Marvell's 4G LTE modem solution enables the production of Yulong Coolopad's 8736 smartphone and is among the first 4G LTE smartphones certified by China Mobile.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that G'Five, a consumer electronics co and OEM in China, has selected Broadcom's quad-core HSPA+ smartphone platform for its new WG5701 Android smartphone.

NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) and DATANG TELECOM TECHNOLOGY announced the establishment of a JV, the first true automotive semiconductor co in China. The JV will focus on developing and marketing semiconductor solutions for the domestic hybrid and electric car market.

Adobe Systems (ADBE) eleased its Adobe Digital Index 2013 online shopping data. Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday saw record online sales with 1.062 billion and 1.93 billion, respectively. For the first time more than 24% of online sales occurred on smartphones and tablets, a record increase of 118% year-over-year. iOS-based devices drove more than $543 million dollars in online sales, with iPad taking a 77% share. Android-based devices were responsible for $148 million in online sales, a 4.9% share of mobile driven online sales.
Comscore (SCOR) reported U.S. desktop retail e-commerce spending for the first 29 days of the November--December 2013 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $20.6 billion has been spent online, marking a 3% increase versus the corresponding days last year. Due to variation in the 2012 and 2013 holiday shopping calendars with Thanksgiving falling so late this year, current season figures are being compared to last year's, which contain a full week of heavy post-Thanksgiving/Cyber Week buying. As a result, the season-to-date growth rate is being artificially suppressed in the short term, with the effects likely to normalize as the season progresses. (An alternative comparison to the four weeks preceding Thanksgiving in 2012 shows a growth rate of 24 percent, which overstates the growth trend much in the way the current rate understates the real growth trend.) Black Friday 2013 (November 29) saw $1.198 billion in desktop online sales, making it the season's first billion dollar day and heaviest online spending day to date, while representing a 15% increase versus Black Friday 2012. Thanksgiving Day (November 28), while traditionally a lighter day for online holiday spending, achieved a strong 21% increase over Thanksgiving Day last year to $766 million. Related Stocks: AMZN, WMT, TGT, BBY, EBAY, XRT
Akamai Tech (AKAM) announced that the two companies have signed a definitive agreement for Akamai to acquire Prolexic, a provider of cloud-based security solutions. Under terms of the agreement, Akamai will acquire all of the outstanding equity of Prolexic in exchange for a net cash payment of approximately $370 million, after expected purchase price adjustments, plus the assumption of outstanding unvested options to purchase Prolexic stock. The closing of the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, is expected to occur in the first half of 2014. Therefore, Akamai's Q4 2013 existing guidance remains unchanged. The Prolexic acquisition is expected to be slightly dilutive to Akamai's Non-GAAP net income per share in the first full year post closure in the range of $0.06 to $0.08. Once the acquisition closes, the Company will include Prolexic in its guidance going forward. The company reaffirmed guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of $0.49-0.53 and revenues of $412-430 million which is line with estimates.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The S&P 500 shed 0.1%, registering its fourth consecutive decline. Today's session proved to be a bit of a roller coaster ride for stocks as the S&P 500 opened in the red, rallied into positive territory, fell to fresh lows, and regained the bulk of its losses into the close.

For the second day in a row, the early weakness coincided with heavy selling in Europe. In addition, bonds and risk assets were pressured by a better-than-expected ADP Employment report, which indicated employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose by 215K in November (160K Briefing.com consensus). The report increased expectations for a strong nonfarm payrolls report on Friday, and re-invited speculation about the Fed's tapering timeline. Treasuries sold off following the data, sending the 10-yr yield higher by five basis points to 2.83%.

The opening losses were followed by a swift reversal after below-consensus ISM Services (53.9 actual versus 55.0 expected) for November and a ho-hum composite home sales report for September (354K actual versus 432K consensus) and October (444K actual versus 420K expected) raised some doubts about the sustainability of the economic improvement. This calmed some of the tapering fears, and helped the major indices regain their flat lines. Contributing to the rebound, were rumors suggesting Democrats and Republicans reached a budget agreement.

The budget deal rumors faded shortly thereafter while equity indices responded with a fade of their own. The S&P 500 tumbled to fresh lows, but was able to springboard off the 1,779 level and rally back to its flat line.

In large part, the late-afternoon rebound was powered by three sectors-financials (+0.2%), technology (+0.2%), and materials (+0.5%)-that outperformed throughout the session. Outside of the three, only the utilities sector (+0.2%) finished with a gain.

Notably, the materials sector received all-around support from most of its components. Steelmakers and miners outperformed as the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 47.99, +0.39) gained 0.8% and Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 21.22, +0.65) jumped 3.2%. On a related note, gold futures spiked 2.0% to $1244.60 per troy ounce.

The other commodity-linked sector, energy (-0.4%), ended among the laggards while crude oil added 1.2% to $97.19 per barrel.

Today's trading volume was just above average as more than 756 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Looking at today's remaining economic data, the October trade deficit fell to $40.6 billion from an upwardly revised $43.0 billion. In large part, the decline was due to significant gains in sales of artwork (+$0.50 billion), gem diamonds (+$0.40 billion), and jewelry (+$0.40 billion). The Briefing.com consensus expected the trade deficit to fall to $40.5 billion.

Separately, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index tumbled 12.8% to follow last week's downtick of 0.3%.

Tomorrow, November Challenger Job Cuts will be reported at 7:30 ET while weekly initial claims and the second estimate of third quarter GDP will be released at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of October Factory Orders.

Nasdaq +33.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +32.0% YTD
S&P 500 +25.7% YTD
DJIA +21.3 YTD

DJ30 -24.85 NASDAQ +0.80 SP500 -2.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1077/1.84 bln/1487 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1141/756.1 mln/1888

3:30 pm : Precious metals rose along with other commodities today as the dollar index slipped further into negative territory. Both Feb gold and Mar silver lifted from their respective session lows of $1217.20 per ounce and $19.15 per ounce and trended higher as floor trade progressed. Both metals gained further momentum in afternoon action and pushed to new session highs. Gold settled 2.2% higher at $1220.70 per ounce while silver closed at $19.83 per ounce, booking a solid 4.0% gain.

Jan crude oil extended gains for a fourth consecutive session as it gained support from strong inventory data and the weaker dollar index. The EIA reported this morning that for the week ending Nov 29, crude oil inventories had a draw of 5.585 mln barrels when consensus was between a draw of 0.5 mln and a build of 0.3 mln barrels. The energy component dipped to a session low of $96.30 per barrel in late morning pit trade but quickly regained momentum. It rose to a session high of $97.54 per barrel and settled with a 1.2% gain at $97.18 per barrel.

Jan natural gas, however, extended yesterday's losses after pulling back from a session high of $4.01 per MMBtu set during morning floor action. It slipped into negative territory as it headed into the close and settled 0.3% lower at $3.96 per MMBtu.DJ30 -28.70 NASDAQ -0.01 SP500 -2.7 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1097/1.49 bln/1465 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1117/488.1 mln/1899
3:00 pm : The major averages have spent the past 90 minutes in a steady climb off their lows. The S&P 500 has narrowed its loss to 0.4% while the Nasdaq (-0.2%) continues to outperform.

Eight of ten sectors continue trading in the red while financials (+0.1%) and materials (+0.3%) are back in positive territory. The largest S&P 500 sector, technology, is also showing some relative strength as it hovers right at its flat line.

Treasuries remain pinned to the mat with the 10-yr yield up five basis points at 2.84%.

4:48PM SunEdison and Mayor Bloomberg introduce New York City's largest solar energy project (SUNE) 13.49 +0.21 : Co last week introduced an innovative renewable energy project in partnership with America's largest city. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, alongside SunEdison officials, unveiled a progressive partnership to build what will be the City's largest solar energy project. "Freshkills was once the site of the largest landfill in the world. Soon it will be one of the City's largest parks, and the site of the largest solar power installation ever developed within the five boroughs," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Over the last twelve years we've restored wetlands and vegetation and opened new parks and soccer fields at the edges of the site. Thanks to the agreement today with SunEdison, we will increase the amount of solar energy produced in New York City by 50 percent."

The project, which is scheduled to break ground in the second half of 2015, will consist of two photovoltaic systems totaling up to 10 megawatts (MW) in size, and will utilize between 30,000 and 35,000 high efficiency solar panels installed across 47 acres leased to SunEdison at Freshkills Park. The project will increase the city's renewable energy capacity by 50 percent and will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local pollutants.

4:10PM Avago Tech beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs above consensus (AVGO) 44.50 -0.28 : Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.89 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.83; revenues rose 19.4% year/year to $738 mln vs the $734.11 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of approx. $708-715 mln (down 3-6% sequentially) vs. $704.38 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate

Large Cap Gainers

CF (236.66 +10.49%): Presented at Citi Basic Materials Conference: capacity expansion program remains on schedule, on budget; co has repuchased 665k shares this quarter for $144.2 mln; $1.7 bln remaining on authorized repurchase program
WDC (78.11 +3.42%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
DE (85.33 +3.17%): Board authorized repurchase of up to $8 bln of additional common stock; supplements $1 bln remaining under previous $5 bln authorization

Large Cap Losers

GIB (34.22 -5.39%): Weakness attributed to reports that investor Jim Chanos is potentially shorting the stock
KMI (33.16 -5.37%): Expected to declare dividends of $1.72 per share for 2014, an approximate 10% increase over co's 2013 budget target of $1.57; mentioned negatively in blog article
ISRG (362.7 -2.71%): FDA issued Class 2 recall of "Assembly, Patient Side Manipulator on da Vinci Surgical Systems"

Mid Cap Gainers

BRE (59.55 +11.58%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.65 vs $0.64 estimate), revs rose 7.3% yoy to $104.62 mln vs $102.37 mln estimate; sees Q4 core FFO of $0.63-0.66 vs $0.63 estimate; Bloomberg reporting Essex Property (ESS) offered $5 bln for the company
P (29.67 +4.95%): Announced listener hours during the month of November 2013 were $1.49 bln, an increase of 18% yoy
GWRE (47.1 +4.71%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.15 (-$0.01 vs -$0.16 estimate), revs rose 5.1% yoy to $66.5 mln vs $62.78 mln estimate; sees Q2 revs of $76-78 mln vs $75.86 mln estimate, EPS of $0.00-0.02 vs $0.06 estimate; sees FY14 revs of $330-342.5 mln (raised from $328.5-340.5 mln) vs $336.8 mln estimate, EPS of $0.20-0.25 vs $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate

Mid Cap Losers

EXPR (18.79 -23.83%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.23 vs $0.25 estimate), revs rose 7.4% yoy to $503 mln vs $500.06 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.66-0.71 vs $0.78 estimate, with low single digit comp growth
EPB (36.81 -9.18%): Downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; downgraded to Trim from Hold at Tudor Pickering
SHLD (51.12 -7.97%): ESL Partners decreases stake to 48.4% from 55.4%

12:30PM Molex announces receipt of final merger control clearance for merger with Koch Industries (MOLX) 38.61 0.00 :

Velocent Systems and Ixia (XXIA) announced a partnership that will bring together the cos' technologies to help customers accurately monitor mobile networks of any size.

Cisco (CSCO) announced a major revision of the CCIE Routing and Switching Certification and expert-level training to meet the increasing challenges of enterprise networks evolving in size, scope and complexity.

WDC +1.3% (upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley due to stabilizing PC trends, continued cloud segment strength, and benign pricing), BRCD +1.2% (upgraded to Equal-Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley due to improved execution, cost savings, and valuation),

SolarWinds (SWI) announced that IT solutions provider Bulletproof Solutions replaced HP (HPQ) OpenView with SolarWinds' network management solutions.

Guidewire Software (GWRE) reported first quarter $0.01 per share, which is better than expected, while revenues rose 5.1% year/year to $66.5 million which is higher than expected. The company sees Q2 revs of $76-78 million which is higher than expected, with EPS of $0.00-0.02 which is below estimates. The company sees fiscal year 2014 revs of $330.5-342.5 million (raised from $328.5-340.5 million) which is line with expectations with EPS of $0.20-0.25 which is line with estimates.
OmniVision (OVTI) reported second quarter earnings of $0.60 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 1.8% year/year to $397.2 million which is higher than expected. The company issued third quarter with EPS of $0.28-0.44, which is in line with expectations, with revenues of $310-340 million which is higher than expected.
Adept Tech (ADEP) announced that Cornerstone Automation Systems (CASI), a producer of innovative material handling, packaging and manufacturing automation, has placed an order for a fleet of Adept "Lynx" mobile robots. CASI will integrate the robots into state-of-the-art pharmacy automation systems slated to deploy at three customer facilities in the US over the coming year. CASI has also been named Adept's first preferred partner for mobile robots. CASI's pharmacy automation systems are a next-generation solution for automated dispensing at centralized pharmacies. The turnkey systems use Adept's Lynx mobile robot platform to transport standard and controlled substances within a pharmacy facility with a new level of efficiency, security and traceability.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 06-Dec-13Like Maxwell Smart used to say, "Missed it by that much." Less than a point separated the S&P 500 from its ninth straight winning week, but what a finish to the week it was. Sparked by an encouraging employment report for November, the S&P 500 jumped 20 points, or 1.1%, on Friday.

The week in review pretty much begins and ends with Friday since the market was preoccupied all week with the question of whether the November employment report would prompt the Fed to make a tapering decision at its December meeting. The answer to that question was basically yes, no, and maybe.

The report, which featured a 203,000 increase in nonfarm payrolls and a drop in the unemployment rate to 7.0% from 7.3% that was not driven by a decline in the labor force participation rate, was solid enough to convince participants that the labor market is improving but not strong enough necessarily to force the Fed's hand into tapering this month.

Whatever unfolds, the overriding message of the market on Friday was either that it didn't believe there would be a tapering this month or that it doesn't fear a tapering this month (or next month). Both the 10-yr note and the stock market pushed higher on Friday while gold prices and the US Dollar Index were little changed.

They were moves that stood in contrast to the tapering angst that existed earlier in the week after the release of the better-than-expected ISM Index, higher-than-expected auto sales, a 25% increase in new home sales for October, lower-than-expected initial claims, and an upwardly revised 3.6% GDP growth rate for the third quarter (more on that in a bit).

Every sector finished higher on Friday and so did every Dow component. For the week, the best-performing sectors were the utilities (+0.8%), technology (+0.7%), consumer staples (+0.1%), and energy (+0.04%) sectors, so a bit of a cyclical and counter-cyclical mix, which probably reflected some hedging with respect to the tapering idea and the thinking that the market is due for a pullback of some kind after its extraordinary rally.

Still, it was clear that money wasn't in a hurry to leave the stock market this week. That may have been owed to the thinking that another buy-the-dip run would be seen -- and sure enough that ended up being the case.

Now, in terms of the GDP report, it wasn't as robust as it appeared to be at first blush. The change in inventories accounted for 1.68 percentage points of the change in GDP; moreover, personal consumption expenditures were up just 1.4% (lowest since Q4 2009) while real final sales, which exclude the change in inventories, were revised down to 1.9% from 2.0% in the first estimate.

It is almost certain that there will be some inventory payback in the fourth quarter that will act as a big drag on fourth quarter GDP. Briefing.com's current forecast calls for growth of just 0.8%.

The Fed will be cognizant of that inventory drag (New York Fed President Dudley spoke about it in a speech a few weeks ago), which is one reason why there is still room to think it will hold off on a tapering decision for the time being. Another reason embedded in the November employment report is the fact that the number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 37.3% of the unemployed, up from 36.1% in October, demonstrating the ongoing difficulty of finding a new job after being out of work for so long.

Emergency unemployment benefits are due to expire January 1 if Congress doesn't strike an agreement to extend them. On a related note, there were reports this week that negotiators are close to striking a budget agreement that will prevent another government shutdown, but that emergency unemployment benefits are creating a sticking point in those talks.

The budget negotiations promise to be a focal point in the week ahead along with the Retail Sales report for November and Q3 GDP data for Europe.

 
 Index	     Started Week  Ended Week  Change  % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	       16086.41	   16020.20   -66.21	 -0.4	 22.3 
 Nasdaq	        4059.89	    4062.52	2.63	  0.1    34.5 
 S&P 500	1805.81	    1805.09    -0.72	 -0.0    26.6 
 Russell 2000	1142.88	    1131.38   -11.50	 -1.0	 33.2

Large Cap Gainers

PH (121.16 +3.99%): Upgraded to Buy from Sell at Goldman
BSX (11.79 +3.97%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen; reported favorable results assessing real-world experience with the Precision Spectra SCS System
INFY (55.51 +3.04%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen, target raised to $65 from $55

Large Cap Losers

GPS (39.38 -2.14%): Reported November same store sales rose 2% vs +0.7% Retail Metric consensus; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies, target lowered to $40 from $51
TWC (130.72 -1.37%): WSJ reporting that comments from regulators suggest a deal with Comcast (CMCSA) would not be approved
TWTR (45.28 -0.75%): Initiated with a Market Perform at Bernstein, target $40

Mid Cap Gainers

PBYI (83.39 +7.32%): Continued strength following reporting of positive top line data from the Phase 2 clinical trial of the company's investigational drug PB272 (neratinib) for the neoadjuvant treatment of breast cancer (I-SPY 2 TRIAL)
CONN (74.76 +7.08%): Target raised to $86 from $73 at B. Riley & Co
LL (103.66 +6.25%): Initiated with an Outperform at Wedbush

Mid Cap Losers

ULTA (94.16 -20.20%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.72 ex items vs $0.74 estimate), revs rose 22.4% yoy to $618.8 mln vs $622.38 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $1.07-1.10 vs $1.24 estimate, revs of $853-867 mln vs $895.01 mln estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray
BIG (31.97 -13.9%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.08 (-$0.16 ex items vs -$0.08 estimate; US operations adjusted EPS was -$0.07), revs rose 1.6% yoy to $1.15 bln vs $1.16 bln estimate (US operations adjusted revs rose 1.8% to $1.1 bln); comparable store sales for US stores open at least fifteen months decreased 2.5%; target lowered to $34 from $37 at Canaccord Genuity
AEO (15.05 -8.23%): Reported Q3 EPS of $0.19 (in-line with pre-announcement), revs fell 5.8% yoy to $857.3 mln vs $842.43 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.26-0.30 ex items vs $0.39 estimate

9:00AM Solar Capital authorizes the extension of a program for the purpose of repurchasing up to $100 mln worth of its common stock to be implemented at the discretion of the co's mgmt team (SLRC) 22.67 : Co announced that its Board of Directors has authorized the extension of a program for the purpose of repurchasing up to $100 million worth of its common stock to be implemented at the discretion of the Company's management team. Unless further extended by the Company's Board of Directors, the Company expects the repurchase program to be in place until the earlier of July 31, 2014 or until $100 million of the Company's outstanding shares of common stock have been repurchased. To date, ~ $17.5 million of repurchases have been made by Solar Capital under the repurchase program.

SeaChange (SEAC) reported third quarter earnings of $0.09 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues fell 3.8% year/year to $37.77 million which is worse than expected. The company issued guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of $0.15-0.20 and revenues of $40-45 million which is worse than expected. "Our opportunity funnel remains very robust and we continue to respond to strong interest in our Nucleus gateway software and Adrenalin by many of the world's leading operators. However, we continue to experience some delays in receiving final product acceptances and some agreements expected for the third and fourth quarter are experiencing delays in signing due to expanded scope and the complex nature of the customer decision making process, which involves the customer selecting multiple vendors."
Finisar (FNSR) reported second quarter earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is better than expected, while revenues rose 25.3% year/year and 9.3% sequentially to $290.7 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the third quarter with EPS of $0.43-0.47 and revenues of $290-305 million which are above estimates.
Rally Software Development (RALY) reported third quarter loss of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 49.5% year/year to $18.94 million which is higher than expected. GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 76% as compared to 78% from the same period one year ago. Excluding stock-based compensation and amortization of acquired intangible assets, non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 77% as compared to 78% from the same period one year ago. The company increased total paid seats by 5,700 in the quarter, bringing total paid seat count to nearly 198,000. The company issued guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of $(0.26)-(0.24), which is in line with expectations with revenues of $19.2-19.4 million which is higher than expected.

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Jobs report shows some strength as full-time tries to play catch up to part-time, but most of the move comes from the return of government workers and there is still a lot of work to be done.
- Stocks rise on the stronger jobs data as investors perhaps ready to take the training wheels off.
- Where did the new workers go?
- Incomes remain a problem, dropping 0.6%.
- Is growth really strong enough to support these valuations? In Friday's market surge, consumer non-durables, drugs led the move in a defensive shift.
- Growth stocks need to regroup to keep the growth character of the market. With taper coming sometime in the next three months, how the market sectors react this week tells the kind of market we will have.

Jobs beat, report viewed as better, stocks rally anyway, sort of.

When the jobs report beat and actually showed some improvement futures actually rallied. Stocks moved up into the open and at the bell all stocks shot higher. Then the shakeout, the change, the possible alteration of the market's leadership and character as investors factor in the Fed no longer dumping a full $1.02T per year into the market, er, economy. All indices finished positive, but not all were solid.

SP500 20.06, 1.12%
NASDAQ 29.36, 0.73%
DJ30 198.69, 1.26%
SP400 0.82%
RUTX 0.79%
SOX 1.11%

Volume lighter: -8% NASDAQ, -5% NYSE

Breadth very credible: 2:1 NASDAQ, 2.5:1 NYSE.

Specifically, all stocks jumped higher at the open, but they all did not advance and some did not even hold the move. This was particularly apparent in growth sectors. NASDAQ gapped but sold and had to recover to keep most of the gain but did not advance at all beyond the gap. AAPL never looked good, finishing off over 1%. Not all growth suffered; small caps looked fine. Semiconductors look solid though they too gapped but could not advance.

On the other hand, personal products/consumer nondurables excelled (CLX, CL, PG) as did drugs. Both are a more defensive flavor, suggesting that with the perceived imminent taper (December at the earliest out to February), money funds are not that certain the economy will be strong enough to push ahead and shifted toward more defensive sectors on the very day they felt a taper was confirmed.

To be fair breadth was solid at 2:1 or better on both exchanges as most stocks gained ground. The difference was in those stocks that rallied through to the close and closed near the highs versus those that gapped and then stalled or even faded to negative. Techs and internets, recent leaders, were widely divergent even in their own sectors.

Still, overall stocks moved higher, and despite some growth areas fading, most stocks were up on the session. Perceived better news, taper seems assured, stocks higher. Perhaps it is the time investors figured taper was not only near, it is here, and they better get used to it.

The real question this week, however, is whether investors, specifically hedge funds, change their buys and allocations based upon the turn to taper. Looked to be the case Friday and this week we will see if that continues or if the leaders of the rallies during the taper are cast aside in favor of slower, more defensive plays that were indeed the Friday leaders.

THE NEWS/ECONOMY

Jobs report credited with real improvement. There was some, but it was no nirvana.

Non-Farm Payrolls beat with 203K and the unemployment rate fell from 7.3% from 7.0%. Household jobs gained were 818K. With the participation rate rising from 62.8% to 63%, many concluded this report was 'for real,' i.e. showing true improvement based upon the headlines and the internals.

When we looked at the headlines and even below the headlines we at first thought that finally, finally some real improvement was at hand. There was, but it was just a very slight improvement, made to look better after the very ugly October numbers. With more review, it looks more like just another modest uptick month out of many downtick months in an ever so slow recovery.

Some more data points:
Leaving workforce in October: 932,000
Returning to the workforce in November: 818,000
Net: -114,000

Participation rates: September 63.2%. October 62.8%. November 63.0%.

As with the October jobs report, you have to really look for WHERE the positives are.

Believability: First, what can you believe anymore regarding weekly jobless claims and the jobs report? The manipulation ahead of the 2012 elections throws every unemployment read into question. The jobless claims and the household survey were also both thrown into the twilight zone when the Obama Administration, long before the 2012 election, changed the definition of what was work or looking for work to include parent/teacher conferences, reading the want ads, etc. Remember how claims tumbled as a result along with the unemployment rate? If the facts don't fit your view of what reality should be, change the definition of the facts. Beat solving the problem.

Second, while the BLS reported 818K new household jobs were reported (largest in 30 years yet still lower than month's huge 932K decline), many overlooked the surge as a result of the 365K furloughed federal workers thanks to the shutdown returning to work. Also, the participation rate moved to 63.2% from 62.8%.

What doesn't seem right? The strange irony of this is how it impacted the numbers in October and November. In October the 365K federal workers were not counted in the household survey (932K leaving the workforce) and the participation rate fell from 63.2% to 62.8%; the unemployment rate rose one-tenth to 7.3%. In November, just 338K government workers were said to have returned, 818K found work (this included those 338K government workers) and the participation rate fell well shy of its September level by two-tenths. YET, the unemployment rate plummeted to 7.0%.

How do you get such a dramatic plunge in the unemployment rate when total jobs gains was less than the prior month and participation rose but was still below the September level by as much as was recovered? It does not add up. Believability.

Hourly Wages:

I suppose it is good that it is not heading lower the past four months, but NOTE that year/year earnings FELL to 2.0% from 2.2%. Is this good??

Workweek:

Heralded by Marc Zandi as a great improvement, the one-tenth tick higher is basically where the workweek has been for months and months and months. It is no improvement, just month to month noise in a stagnant trend.

The continued Part-Time effect:

Friday many went out of their way to tout the numbers as somehow disproving that there is a part-time bias in the US economy.

Full-time jobs: +652K November versus -623K in October
Part-time jobs: +174K November versus -127K in October

It is true that full-time jobs played some catch up in November. They are still massively below the part-time jobs created in this economic recovery:

The 'recovery' in full-time jobs after the collapse is nowhere near the rate or level of prior recoveries, another indication that this big-government, big regulation, increased taxation recovery is the worst on record.

Where the jobs are:
Service: +152K. Down from 183K in October but still the largest of the categories.
Retail: +22K, half of October's 46K.
Leisure/Hospitality: +17K well off the 49K in October but well above September's -1K.
Total: 194K jobs in the lowest paying, part-time areas.

Missing Workers:

Nobel Prize winner for economics, Dr. Fama on Friday pondered and was puzzled by the US unemployment rate. He is worried there is going to be another worldwide recession and did not view the US numbers as encouraging, saying he was 'not reassured at all' . . . 'The only reason the unemployment rate is 7%, which is high by historical standards in the U.S., is that people gave up looking for jobs.'

Thus Fama discounted the improvement many claimed to see in Friday's jobs numbers.

If you look at the numbers outside of those reported by the BLS, you can see his point. Since November 2012, the US population of eligible workers over 16 years of age (not including those incarcerated and thus out of the workforce) has risen by 2.4 million people. YET, the US labor force is smaller by 25,000 during that same period.

US eligible population for workforce 11/12 to 11/13: +2.4M
US Workforce 11/12: 155,319. 11/13: 155294

Summary: One month doesn't make a trend. Non-farm payrolls were only remarkable because they were supposed to be so bad. Indeed, they were LESS than the October original read of 204K!

Participation: At 63.0% it only recovered half of where it was in September before the October plunge. Participation for the past two months still heading lower and the trend continues lower REGARDLESS of what November showed.

Full-time versus Part-time jobs: The mix improved in October, but 1) full-time jobs have not snapped back and the recovery is the slowest I have ever seen in reviewing data going back to the Great Depression; and 2) at the pace of recovery even in this more recent 'improved' environment as the pundits style it, it will take 7 years to get back to what are considered normal, non-bubble levels.

A major turn in the employment market? Hardly. AT BEST this was a stemming of the losses, exacerbated by a snap-back from the government shutdown that furloughed over 300K federal workers.

It is not a case, as some made it out to be, of 'how good would it have been if there was no shutdown?' Just look at the 'snap back' numbers: Participation was still LOWER than in September. Jobs creation was less than August and is still struggling.

What was November? It was another month in a slow, stumbling recovery that from time to time sees better months after weaker months, the aggregate being a poor, slow recovery as the full-time jobs recovery graph showed.

As discussed on Thursday and the minimum wage argument, the PROBLEM is not being fixed: the economy is not creating enough quality jobs to satisfy the population. The problem to the problem: there won't be any change in the Administration's policies because it 1) won't change its policies as it believes it can do it where other socialists in the past could not, and 2) it believes it is right regardless of results. Again, the problem won't be fixed as they chase symptoms not the root issues unlike the hero in 'Disclosure.'

THE MARKET

OTHER MARKETS

Dollar: 1.3704 versus 1.3671 versus 1.3589 versus 1.3593 versus 1.3538 versus 1.3592 euro. Lower again versus the euro but managed a modest bounce versus other currencies. You have to again ask: why would the dollar fall if taper is coming? Not making sense unless the economic data is not that strong as the talking heads Friday would have you believe.

Bonds: 2.875% versus 2.875% versus 2.83% versus 2.78% versus 2.78% 10 year. Bonds overall rebounded toward the long end but the 10 year did not recover 2.85%. Still at support and in position to bounce, but why should it if the Fed is going to end the taper and thus stop buying so many bonds?

Oil: 97.70, +0.32. Still hanging at the 50 day EMA after a solid move higher on the week. Still some key resistance.

Gold: 1229.10, -2.80. Another doji at support and still looking as if gold wants to bounce off this support. Why would it bounce higher if the Fed is going to taper and thus protect the dollar somewhat from dilution.

MARKET INTERNALS and STATS

NASDAQ
Stats: +29.36 points (+0.73%) to close at 4062.52
Volume: 1.71B (-8.06%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.09 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.18 to 1

New Highs: 178 (+88)
New Lows: 27 (-9)

S&P
Stats: +20.06 points (+1.12%) to close at 1805.09
NYSE Volume: 575M (-5.27%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.54 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.95 to 1

New Highs: 147 (+85)
New Lows: 129 (-19)

DJ30
Stats: +198.69 points (+1.26%) to close at 16020.2

THE CHARTS

Could be a change in progress as NASDAQ showed less strength than the large cap NYSE indices and more defensive issues such as personal products. That makes this coming week very interesting to see where the big funds chase performance.

NASDAQ: Gapped upside, faded, mounted a recovery, closed lower than the open. That still put NASDAQ at a new post-bear market closing high. Great to see a new high, but it was not an incredibly strong session, not nearly what you would expect or want based upon the purportedly good news and the green all the way around the market.

RUTX: after compressing at the 20 day EMA Tuesday to Thursday with doji, the small caps showed a credible bounce Friday. Credible, solid, but not leadership with a three-quarter percent gain versus 1% gains on the large caps. Up, but a growth area that is following now versus leading.

SOX: Impressive gap to a new post-bear market high. Held it. That is all. Used up all its ammo on the gap upside. Much of the move was thanks to INTC and an upgrade. If the chips lead, things look good for the market.

SP500: Jumped off the 20 day EMA test set up with the weekly decline (first in 7 weeks).
Aided by the consumer staples and non-durables along with some industrials. Financials didn't help and energy was mixed.

DJ30: Same as SP500, bouncing off the test the prior four sessions of the week. Solid, but lower volume on the Dow as was the case on SP500.

SP400: Midcaps gapped back through the 20 day EMA and moved back up toward the top of the range. No deeper test thus far after the touch of the upper channel line, showing tenacity.

LEADERSHIP:

Perhaps the start of some rotation out of some growth areas and into staples, consumer products, and some industrials as fund managers confront the reality of a taper and what it may mean to the economy and the market.

Consumer: CLX, CL, PG

Electronics look quite interesting: AFOP, HOLI, MONT, AEIS, ALTI, SIMO.

Internet, Net retail: Some questionable, some solid. WWWW still looks good, YNDX is problematic as is TRIP. PCLN solid, NFLX still trending higher.

Medical: CELG gapped higher, ZMH hit a new high, JNJ posted a good move.

Construction solid: GVA, FWLT.

Energy weak: NOG, XEC, HAL.

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 13.79; -1.29
VXN: 14.85; -1.26
VXO: 12.74; -1.5

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.87; +0.1

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls are up over 57%, bears fell a tick to 14.3%. Kind of, kind of extreme as you would say. This kind of divergence typically leads to corrections . . . at some point. It is not an exact timing device.

Bulls: 57.1 versus 55.7 versus 53.6 versus 52.6 versus 55.2% versus 52.6 versus 49.5 versus 42.3% versus 45.4 versus 46.4% versus 44.3% versus 42.3% versus 37.1% versus 37.1% versus 38.1% versus 43.3%. Getting somewhat extreme.

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 14.3 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 15.5% versus 15.6% versus 16.5% versus 18.5 versus 21.6% versus 20.6% versus 18.6% versus 20.6% versus 21.6% versus 22.7% versus 23.7% versus 23.8% versus 21.6%. After holding steady at the 15.5ish level for three weeks the downward push resumed. Still a very low level.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

Jobs report and a ton of data is out of the way. Now the market can do what it wants into Christmas and New Year's. Of course it has to factor in the new view of imminent taper and what sectors it wants to push into year end. Some appeared to chase lagging areas Friday, but they will also want what they consider 'good' names in the year end statements, names that have performed all year. Thus we ultimately expect to see buys of those leaders that moved the market to where it is now regardless of CLX', CL's, etc. performance on Friday.

Still, for Monday we have a series of electronics plays and we also have several drug plays from last week we are watching. A good mix to hit what works as the Holiday/Christmas rally tries to continue after the Friday post-jobs report renewal. Pretty basic at this point until the market shows otherwise.

See you Monday!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4062.52

Resistance:
4069.70 is the post-bear market high.
Next major resistance is around 4100 as NASDAQ hits 13 year highs

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 4027
3995 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
The 50 day EMA at 3914
3877 is the November 2012 trendline
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.
The July 2013 intraday high at 3625
3573 is the August 2013 low
The 200 day SMA at 3568
3532 is the May intraday high
3521 is the August 2000 low.
3502 is the May 2013 closing high
The 2011 up trendline at 3495
3295 is the June 2013 low selloff
3227 is the April 2000 intraday low
3197 is the September 2012 post-bear market high
3171 is the October intraday high

S&P 500: Closed at 1805.09

Resistance:
The 20 day EMA at 1789
1813.55 is the November 2013 peak

Support:
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 1759
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1727 is the December 2012 up trendline
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
1657 is the late August upper gap point
The 200 day SMA at 1657
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1627 is the August 2013 low
1576 from October 2007, the prior all-time high
1573 is the June 2013 closing low
1569.48 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement of the April to May 2013 run
1560 is the June 2013 reversal low
1556 from July 2007
1541 is the April 2013 closing low in that pullback inside the uptrend
1539 from June 2007
1531 is the recent high

Dow: Closed at 16,020.20

Resistance:
16,175 is the November all-time high

Support:
15,798 the November 2013 high
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
The 50 day EMA at 15,689
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,318 is the June closing high
The 200 day SMA at 15,143
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

December 6 - Friday
- Nonfarm Payrolls, November (8:30): 203K actual versus 188K expected, 200K prior (revised from 204K)
- Nonfarm Private Payrolls, November (8:30): 196K actual versus 200K expected, 214K prior (revised from 212K)
- Unemployment Rate, November (8:30): 7.0% actual versus 7.2% expected, 7.3% prior
- Hourly Earnings, November (8:30): 0.2% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.1% prior
- Average Workweek, November (8:30): 34.5 actual versus 34.5 expected, 34.4 prior
- Personal Income, October (8:30): -0.1% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.5% prior
- Personal Spending, October (8:30): 0.3% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.2% prior
- PCE Prices - Core, October (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Michigan Sentiment, December (9:55): 82.5 actual versus 75.1 expected, 75.1 prior
- Consumer Credit, October (15:00): $18.2B actual versus $15.8B expected, $16.3B prior (revised from $13.7B)

December 10 - Tuesday
- Wholesale Inventories, October (10:00): 0.3% expected, 0.4% prior
- JOLTS - Job Openings, October (10:00): 3.913M prior

December 11 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 12/07 (7:00): -12.8% prior
- MBA Mortgage Purchases, 12/07 (7:00): -12.8% prior
- Crude Inventories, 12/07 (10:30): -5.585M prior
- Treasury Budget, November (14:00): -$172.1B prior

December 12 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 12/07 (8:30): 315K expected, 298K prior
- Continuing Claims, 11/30 (8:30): 2750K expected, 2744K prior
- Retail Sales, November (8:30): 0.6% expected, 0.4% prior
- Retail Sales ex-auto, November (8:30): 0.3% expected, 0.2% prior
- Export Prices ex-ag., November (8:30): -0.4% prior
- Import Prices ex-oil, November (8:30): 0.0% prior
- Business Inventories, October (10:00): 0.3% expected, 0.6% prior
- Natural Gas Inventories, 12/07 (10:30)

December 13 - Friday
- PPI, November (8:30): -0.1% expected, -0.2% prior
- Core PPI, November (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.2% prior

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Market’s Bill of Health – Momentum Continues to Weaken

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/chris-puplava/market-bill-of-health-market-momentum-weakens

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : There wasn't a lot of excitement in the stock market today and there is nothing wrong with that. After rallying in broad-based fashion on Friday, the major indices stood their ground (for the most part) amid a lack of conviction from buyers and sellers alike.

Today wasn't a case so much of the stock market going up as it was a case of some influential stocks going up to keep the major indices on a winning path. In fact, decliners were just about even with advancers at the NYSE and led by a 3-to-2 margin on the Nasdaq.

Apple (AAPL 566.43, +6.41) and Google (GOOG 1078.14, +8.27) were key drivers of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite while ExxonMobil (XOM 95.84, +0.19), Chevron (CVX 123.34, +1.05), and Goldman Sachs (GS 167.67, +0.46) were key drivers specifically of the price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Another distinction in today's market is that the small-cap sector generally sat this one out as evidenced by the underperformance of the Russell 2000 (-0.2%).

The S&P 500 made an attempt to switch into a higher gear, but it was rebuffed after peaking its head above the 1811 level. That area was a technical line in the sand that was tried and trumped on three separate occasions. The last time was around 1:25 p.m. ET. From that point forward, the broader market trended lower in a choppy trade, yet there was never a cascade of selling interest.

Three Federal Reserve Bank Presidents -- Lacker (Richmond), Bullard (St. Louis), and Fisher (Dallas) -- gave speeches today that touched on their economic views, but ultimately none of them surprised the market with their thinking.

On a related note, the Federal Reserve released a report today that showed household net worth hit a record high $77.3 tln in the third quarter. The stock market took that news and sat with it. Despite the encouraging statistic, it did little to add to household net worth today.

From a sector standpoint, there wasn't a single sector that moved up, or down, at least 1.0%. The biggest gainer today was the materials sector (+0.5%), which also happens to be one of the lowest-weighted sectors in the S&P 500. A decent showing by the financial (+0.4%) and industrials (+0.3%) sectors helped carry more of today's performance load. The utilities (-0.6%) and the consumer discretionary (-0.1%) sectors were the only sectors to end the day in red figures.

McDonald's (MCD 95.72, -1.08) was a notable blue chip laggard following the company's report that comparable sales in its US business declined 0.8% in November (they were up 0.5% overall). Separately, food services company Sysco (SYY 37.62, +3.31) enjoyed a strong day with investors applauding its decision to buy US Foods for a total consideration of $8.2 bln.

Aside from stocks, the bond market also stood its ground today after Friday's advance. The 10-yr note added two ticks, leaving its yield at 2.85%.

Tomorrow's economic calendar features the Wholesale Inventories and JOLTS - Job Openings reports for October. Neither is known for having market-moving potential.

Nasdaq +34.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +32.7% YTD
S&P 500 +26.8% YTD
DJIA +22.1% YTD

DJ30 +5.33 NASDAQ +6.23 SP500 +3.28 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1051/1.59 bln/1521 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1498/684 mln/1483

3:35 pm : Commodities ended the day mixed with energy lower, except for natural gas, metals mixed with gold and copper higher and silver fell.

Crude oil futures lost some steam near the end of today's session and fell to a new LoD of $97.27 just a couple minutes before the end of floor trading. At the end of the session, Jan crude oil ended $0.30 lower at $97.40. Jan natural gas gained 11 cents to $4.23/MMBtu.

Precious metals gained some steam in the early hours of electronic trading and continued to extend gains throughout the day. Feb gold rose $5 on today's session to $1234.10/oz, while Mar silver fell $0.17 to $19.07/oz. Both gold and silver hit new session highs in electronic trade here, about 15 minutes ago.DJ30 +7.13 NASDAQ +2.78 SP500 +2.60 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1014/1336.7 mln/1594 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1418/389 mln/1562
3:00 pm : The final hour is upon us. Stocks are showing modest gains and the 10-yr note is now unchanged for the session. To be sure, dynamic is not a word that would be used to describe today's trading action in either the stock or bond market. Resilient is probably the better fit.

Neither the stock nor the bond market has caved to selling interest after Friday's advance.

There wasn't any economic data out of the US that affected trading today. Tomorrow is light with the Wholesale Inventories and JOLTS - Job Opening reports for October the only items on the calendar. The big data points on the calendar this week are the Retail Sales report for November and the Initial Claims report for the week ending December 7. Each of those reports is out on Thursday.

6:06PM FormFactor confirms Q4 rev guidance of $46-50 mln vs $48.55 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate (FORM) 5.26 +0.06 : Co confirmed its Q4'13 guidance of a revenue range between $46 million to $50 million (vs $48.55 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate), non-GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 10% to 15%, non-GAAP operating expenses to be approximately $19 million to $20 million, and Q4 cash usage of $12 to $16 million. The company announced it will hold a conference call to provide a mid-quarter update on key programs tomorrow, December 10, 2013, at 6:00 a.m. PST, or 9:00 a.m. EST.

6:02PM Arch Coal announces it has begun operating its longwall mining system (ACI) 4.55 +0.28 : Co announced that Tygart Valley's Leer mine in northern West Virginia has begun operating its longwall mining system, representing a major milestone in the development of the overall mining complex. The Leer mine is expected to ramp up production during the first quarter of 2014, and to produce more than 3 million tons of coal on an annualized basis thereafter. The majority of the output will be sold into domestic and international metallurgical coal markets for use in the production of steel.

4:53PM NXP Semi: Selling shareholders commence 25 mln share secondary offering of common stock (NXPI) 43.55 -0.68 : Co announced that certain of its principal stockholders, including affiliates of funds managed or advised by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P., AlpInvest Partners B.V., Apax Partners LLP, Bain Capital Partners, LLC and Silver Lake Technology Management, L.L.C., have commenced a registered secondary offering of 25,000,000 shares of common stock pursuant to NXP's shelf registration statement on Form F-3. NXP will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares in the offering. Barclays Capital Inc. and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering.

4:45PM Diodes raises fourth quarter 2013 gross profit margin guidance (DIOD) 20.53 -0.01 : Co stated that it is raising its gross profit margin guidance for the fourth quarter of 2013. Diodes is maintaining its fourth quarter revenue guidance expectations to range between $205 million and $220 million (vs $213.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate), or down 2 to 9 percent sequentially and is raising its gross profit margin guidance from 28.0 percent, plus or minus 2 percent, to 28.6 percent, plus or minus 2 percent. Diodes is maintaining its prior guidance for operating expenses, income tax rate and shares used to calculate GAAP EPS, which is operating expenses are expected to be 22.7 percent of revenue, plus or minus 1 percent; income tax rate to range between 18 and 24 percent, and shares used to calculate GAAP EPS to be approximately 48.3 million. In addition, Diodes is currently performing its annual test for impairment of goodwill. Preliminary findings suggest that during the fourth quarter the Company may be required to take a one-time, non-cash charge for impairment relating only to the goodwill from the Eris Technology Corporation acquisition.

4:30PM Texas Instruments Mid Quarter Update- Tightens EPS guidance range to $0.44-0.48, Capital IQ consensus $0.46; tightens revenue range to $2.92-3.04 bln, CapIQ consensus $2.98 bln (TXN) 43.58 +0.09 : Preliminary Q3 Guidance issued on October 22 was for GAAP EPS of $0.42-0.50 and revenue guidance in the range of $2.86-3.10 bln.

4:15PM Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Announces Appointment of Interim Chief Financial Officer (MRVL) 13.42 -0.18 : Co announced the appointment of Michael Rashkin as Interim Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Rashkin has been with the Company since 1999 and prior to this appointment served in a variety of roles in the finance organization. Mr. Rashkin also served as Interim Chief Financial Officer of Marvell from July 2007 to January 2008.

4:03PM Aehr Test Systems announces $1 mln follow-on order for its FOX-15 wafer level burn-in and test system and WaferPak full-wafer contactors (AEHR) 3.05 +0.14

4:00PM Finisar announces proposed $200 mln convertible Senior notes offering due 2023 (FNSR) 22.60 +0.78 : Co announced its intention to offer $200 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2033 in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Finisar also expects to grant the initial purchaser of the Notes a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional $30 million aggregate principal amount of the Notes solely to cover over-allotments.

Large Cap Gainers

SYY (38.63 +12.59%): Co and US Foods announced an agreement to merge; Sysco to pay ~$3.5 bln for the equity of US Foods
IBN (40.42 +4.88%): Stregth in Indian markets and related stocks
CELG (172.35 +3.56%): Co and Acceleron reported that interim sotatercept data from the ongoing phase 2 trial demonstrate dose dependent increases in hemoglobin in non-transfusion dependent beta-thalassemia patients

Large Cap Losers

WDAY (79.05 -2.93%): Mentioned cautiously in Wall Street Journal article
CLR (102.46 -2.91%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Detusche Bank
NBL (68.21 -1.85%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Detusche Bank

Mid Cap Gainers

IOC (60.03 +8.16%): Mentioned positively in blog article; Morgan Stanley sees potential for upside but lowered target to $85
WWAV (22.57 +3.60%): Announced it has agreed to acquire Earthbound Farm from its existing shareholders led by Kainos Capital and founders Drew & Myra Goodman, for approximately $600 million in cash
SAPE (16.53 +3.31%): Target raised to $19.50 from $18 at Stifel

Mid Cap Losers

EW (62.56 -5.63%): Reaffirmed FY13 EPS guidance of $3.00-3.10 ex items vs $3.05 estimate; sees FY14 EPS around $3.00 vs $3.50 estimate, revs of $2.05-2.25 bln vs $2.20 bln estimate
SGEN (42.22 -4.80%): Presented interim Phase 1 clinical data from SGN-CD19A, an antibody-drug conjugate in development for the treatment of B-cell malignancies, including acute lymphoblastic leukemia; co also announced updated overall survival data from wo ADCETRIS (brentuximab vedotin) pivotal Phase 2 clinical trials in relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma
NFX (25.39 -3.93%): Updated production and capital investment outlook for 2014-2016; domestic liquids production expected to grow 30% in 2014. Company plans to invest ~$1.6 bln in 2014, focused on liquids growth

Broadcom (BRCM) introduced the BCM47531, a Global Navigation Satellite System chip that generates positioning data from five satellite constellations simultaneously.

7:41AM Qualcomm announces next-generation mobile health solutions for preventative, transitional and complex care management; announces availability of its Gimbal proximity beacons to enable customer engagement based on micro location (QCOM) 73.76 : Co has made its Gimbal proximity beacons commercially available as part of the Gimbal context aware, proximity platform. Gimbal proximity beacons, available in two models, are accurate down to one foot and work indoors and outdoors. Gimbal is a comprehensive context aware, proximity platform for brands to engage their customers' mobile devices with highly relevant communications using a powerful combination of physical location, activity, time and personal interests.

Co is also is collaborating with leading enterprise health care ecosystem participants who are leveraging the 2net and HealthyCircles Care Coordination Platforms to enable wireless connectivity and develop reliable solutions to seamlessly capture, transfer and share valuable health data from hospital to home.

7:27AM Trina Solar statement on decision of definitive anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties and price undertaking in European Union (TSL) 12.57 : "On December 5, 2013, the European Commission announced its decision to accept the price undertaking offered by Chinese export producers with the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products (CCCME) in connection with the AD and AS proceedings. Chinese solar panel exporters that participate in the price undertaking, including Trina Solar, are exempt from the AD and AS duties as described below. The Council of the European Union announced its final decision imposing AD and AS duties on imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules originating in or consigned from China. An average duty of 47.7%, consisting of both AD and AS duties, will be applied for a period of two years beginning on December 6, 2013 to Chinese solar panel exporters who cooperated with the European Commission's investigations."

7:02AM Canadian Solar signs loan agreement with Harvest North Star Capital for the development of its solar power projects in Japan (CSIQ) 27.57 : Co announces that it has signed a $40 million loan agreement with Harvest North Star Capital. The loan facility is split into 3 tranches, with the drawdown of the first tranche expected in December of 2013. The loan facility will be used to finance the development of several ground-mounted solar power projects in Japan totaling around 145.1 MWdc, with ~40-50 MWdc expected to start construction during the first half of 2014.

5:18AM Canadian Solar supplies 8.7 MW of solar modules for EOSOL MEXICO Project in Durango, Mexico (CSIQ) 27.57 : Co announces it is the supplier of 8.7 MW of its MaxPower CS6X Solar Modules to EOSOL Mexico. The ground mounted solar project is located in Durango, Mexico and represents Mexico's second largest Photovoltaic project to date. The formal ribbon cutting celebration is scheduled for an unannounced date in first quarter of 2014.

OSI Systems (OSIS) announced that its security division, Rapiscan Systems, provided an update on the delivery order recently terminated by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. The Company believes the termination resulted from Rapiscan's use of an upgraded component in the AT-2 detection systems. While the component change was vetted by Rapiscan's internal quality assurance, it did not meet the contractual requirement of obtaining TSA's approval in advance. When Rapiscan leadership discovered the error, they proactively informed TSA of the configuration change, the related procedural lapse and proposed a course for corrective action. The Company stated that the recent proposal that resulted in TSA's award to Rapiscan of the delivery order in question called out to TSA that Rapiscan would use X-ray generators manufactured in China and TSA subsequently awarded the delivery order to Rapiscan. The new generator is manufactured by Shanghai Advanced Non-Destructive Testing, a China-based company. SANDT supplies X-ray generators to many leading suppliers of security X-ray systems, including many of Rapiscan's competitors. As a long-standing supplier to the industry, SANDT has thousands of X-ray generators in use in security systems around the world. According to TSA's own preliminary test results, the SANDT manufactured generator shows comparable detection capability and false alarm rates.
ReneSola (SOL) announced it will deliver 6.8MW of its high efficiency Virtus II 72-cell 300W polycrystalline photovoltaic (PV) modules to one of California's leading project developers, Pristine Sun. Panasonic is providing the construction financing and performance guarantee, while Mosaic will provide take-out financing. The 6.8MW order is being installed by several contractors, resulting in a complex project with challenging schedules. This ground-mount project will consist of single-axis trackers, and is part of a portfolio of 75MW of similar projects being developed by Pristine Sun in California.
Analysts Intl (ALNY) announces that it has presented new pre-clinical data with ALN-CC5, a subcutaneously administered RNAi therapeutic targeting complement component C5 for the treatment of complement-mediated diseases. These data demonstrate that subcutaneous administration of ALN-CC5 in non-human primates led to an up to 98% knockdown of serum C5 and an up to 94% inhibition of hemolytic activity. Alnylam believes that ALN-CC5 -- part of the company's "Alnylam 5x15" product strategy -- represents a novel approach for the treatment of complement-mediated diseases, with a potentially competitive profile compared with intravenously administered anti-C5 monoclonal antibody therapy. In addition, Alnylam presented two separate posters with new pre-clinical data on ALN-TMP, an RNAi therapeutic targeting TMPRSS6 for the treatment of beta-thalassemia and iron-overload disorders. Alnylam is continuing to optimize its C5-targeted siRNA lead candidate, and now expects to identify its final Development Candidate for ALN-CC5 in early 2014 and to file an Investigational New Drug (IND) application or IND equivalent in early 2015.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages spent the entire session in a steady downtrend, but despite persistent selling pressure, today's losses were limited in scope. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq shed between 0.2% and 0.3% while the Russell 2000 lagged, falling 0.9%.

The underperformance of the Russell 2000 was likely owed in part to tax-loss selling, which tends to pick up this time of year. Small-caps often feel that pinch in a stronger fashion than large-cap issues since individual retail investors factor more prominently in the behavior of small-cap stocks. Large-cap stocks, on the other hand, have a stronger institutional shareholder base that may be less sensitive to the timing of tax-loss harvesting at year-end due to being tax exempt or having different taxable years.

U.S. equities began the session with modest losses, tracking the performance of their European counterparts. An early bid lifted the Nasdaq and S&P 500 briefly into positive territory, but a second round of selling into the European close pushed the indices back into the red where they spent the remainder of the session.

Countercyclical sectors lagged throughout the day with consumer staples and health care falling 0.9% and 0.4%, respectively. The health care space was pressured by biotechnology as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 219.64, -1.85) lost 0.8%. Meanwhile, the other two defensively-geared sectors-telecom services (-0.8%) and utilities (-1.0%)-ended at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Things looked a bit different on the cyclical side where all six groups finished in-line or ahead of the broader market. However, only materials (+0.3%) and discretionary shares (+0.1%) were able to register gains.

The materials sector received significant support from miners. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 22.03, +0.82) jumped 3.9% as gold futures advanced 2.3% to $1262.00 per troy ounce.

Elsewhere, the discretionary space drew strength from momentum names as Amazon.com (AMZN 387.78, +2.89), eBay (EBAY 51.92, +0.23), and Netflix (NFLX 363.10, +7.43) gained between 0.4% and 2.1%.

Also of note, financials settled in-line with the broader market even as Goldman Sachs (GS 169.73, +2.06) outperformed with a gain of 1.2%. It is worth mentioning that the Volcker Rule received clearance from all five regulatory agencies today, but CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton said the Rule is unlikely to be implemented before 2015.

Treasuries climbed throughout the day with the 10-yr yield falling five basis points to 2.80%.

Trading volume was well below average as only 619 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

In today's economic data, wholesale inventories increased 1.4% in October after increasing an upwardly revised 0.5% (from 0.4%) in September. The Briefing.com consensus expected wholesale inventories to increase 0.3%. The increase in inventories followed a sizable gain in overall inventories in the third quarter. It was expected that inventory growth would slow considerably throughout the fourth quarter.

Durable inventories increased 0.4% in October. Big gains in autos (2.7%) and furniture (1.3%) offset declines in computer (-5.7%) and professional (-1.4%) equipment. Meanwhile, nondurable inventories increased 3.0% in October, up from a 1.4% September gain. Almost two-thirds of the increase in nondurable goods inventories was the result of a 17.0% increase in farm product inventories.

Separately, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey came in at 3.925 million, which follows the prior reading of 3.913 million.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET and the November Treasury Budget will cross the wires at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq +34.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +31.8% YTD
S&P 500 +26.4% YTD
DJIA +21.9% YTD

DJ30 -52.40 NASDAQ -8.26 SP500 -5.75 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 890/1.71 bln/1687 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1210/619.4 mln/1810 3:35 pm : Commodities ended mixed this morning with metals higher and energy and agriculture mixed.

Gold and silver ended today's session with strong gains and finished just under its HoD. Feb gold ended today $31.90 higher at $1261/oz, while Mar silver gained 0.80% to $20.33/oz.

Crude oil held gains ahead of inventory data with the Jan contract rising $0.85 higher at $98.55/barrel. Jan nat gas rose $0.12 to $4.24/MMBtu.DJ30

Large Cap Gainers

TWTR (52.19 +6.21%): Continued strength on last week's announcement of new tool for more precise targeting of advertisements
ABX (16.88 +5.49%): Strength in large cap gold companies: GG, NEM also higher
CAH (67.33 +4.76%): Co and CVS announced agreement to form a 50/50 joint venture that will be the largest generic sourcing entity in the U.S.

Large Cap Losers

IEP (135.7 -8.64%): Announced sale of 2 mln depositary units representing limited partnership interests
GILD (70.63 -6.06%): Hearing Express Scripts (ESRX) is pushing for a price war in the hepatitis C treatment space
SBUX (77.2 -3.17%): Mentioned cautiously at ITG Research

Mid Cap Gainers

AU (13.19 +8.65%): Strength in mid cap gold companies: AEM, NGD, RGLD, EGO also higher
GRPN (10.13 +5.25%): Mentioned positively at Morgan Stanley
DDD (79.52 +4.70%): Initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank, target $95

Mid Cap Losers

LL (89.71 -13.57%): Raised FY13 rev guidance to $994-1000 mln (from $985-995 mln) vs $995.36 mln estimate, raised EPS guidance to $2.72-2.75 (from $2.65-2.74) vs $2.76 estimate; sees FY14 revs of $1.15-1.20 bln vs $1.16 bln estimate, EPS of $3.25-3.60 vs $3.51 estimate; Canaccord Genuity noted that Q4 gross margin outlook appears conservative
IOC (58.15 -4.87%): Mentioned negatively in blog article
CASY (71.48 -4.54%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.08 ($1.06 vs $1.14 estimate), revs rose 5.5% yoy to $2.02 bln vs $2.02 bln estimate

Juniper Networks (JNPR) announced Mozzart Bet has replaced most of its existing data center infrastructure with an integrated Juniper Networks switching, routing and security portfolio.

7:31AM Broadcom raises its Q4 revenue guidance at its Analyst day (BRCM) 27.88 : Co issues upside guidance for Q4 (Dec), sees Q4 (Dec) revs of $2.00-2.05 bln vs. $1.98 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate and above its prior guidance of $1.95-2.03 bln. The raised outlook was due to better-than-expected revenue in each reportable segment, particularly in Infrastructure & Networking.

Product Gross Margin: Improved the guided range for Q4'13 to down ~50 -- 75 bps on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis.
R&D Plus SG&A Expenses: Reduced guided sequential growth range for Q4'13 to up ~$30-50 mln on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis due to tighter expense management.

For a link to co's analyst day presentation, click here

7:15AM Taiwan Semi reports Nov sales volumes of NT$44.33 bln vs NT$44.30 bln in Nov 2012 (TSM) 17.57 :

3:17AM LDK Solar enters into further forbearance with noteholders (LDK) 1.38 : Co announces that it has entered into a new 30-day forbearance arrangement with holders of a majority in aggregate principal amount of its US$-Settled 10% Senior Notes due 2014. The new forbearance arrangement, which expires on January 9, 2014, relates to the interest payment due under the Notes on August 28, 2013. That interest payment is still unpaid. It is LDK Solar's intention to find a consensual solution to its obligations under the Notes as soon as possible and LDK Solar remains hopeful that it will be able to achieve that goal.

2:57AM Rambus and Micron (MU) sign license agreement (RMBS) 8.53 : Rambus (RMBS) and Micron Technology (MU) announce they have signed a broad patent cross license agreement. Under the agreement, Micron gains the right to use any Rambus patent for the manufacture of specified integrated circuit products, including any memory integrated circuit products. Certain of these memory products will enjoy a perpetual, paid-up license after the end of the initial term. The agreement requires quarterly royalty payments to Rambus over the next seven years capped at $10 million per quarter, with a rolling twelve-month cap fixed at $40 million, or $280 million during the initial term. In addition, Micron will have the option to extend the initial term of this agreement for additional renewal periods. As part of this agreement, the two companies have settled all outstanding patent and antitrust claims, and the agreement covers both Micron and Elpida products. Other terms and details of the agreement are confidential.

Marvell Technology (MRVL) announced the appointment of Michael Rashkin as Interim Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Rashkin has been with the Company since 1999 and prior to this appointment served in a variety of roles in the finance organization. Mr. Rashkin also served as Interim Chief Financial Officer of Marvell from July 2007 to January 2008.
Comtech Telecom (CMTL) reported first quarter earnings of $0.28 per share,which is better than expected, while revenues fell 8.3% year/year to $83.37 million which also topped expectations. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with raised EPS to $1.12-1.25 from $1.07-1.19 and raised revenues to $325-345 million which are both in line with expectations. The company's Board of Directors has raised its annual target dividend from $1.10 per share to $1.20 per share and declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.30 per share, payable on February 19, 2014, to shareholders of record at the close of business on January 17, 2014. The dividend is the Company's fourteenth consecutive quarterly dividend and represents an increase of 9.1% from the previous quarterly dividend paid on November 19, 2013. The Company also announced today that its Board of Directors has authorized an increase to its existing stock repurchase program from $50.0 million to $100.0 million.
Texas Instruments (TXN) narrowed its EPS guidance range to $0.44-0.48 and narrowed its revenue guidance of $2.92-3.04 billion which are both in line with expectations. Preliminary fourth quarter guidance issued on October 22 was for GAAP EPS of $0.42-0.50 and revenue guidance in the range of $2.86-3.10 billion.
Iron Mountain (IRM) disclosed that on December 9, 2013, the board of directors approved, and the Company entered into, a REIT Status Protection Rights Agreement, between the Company and Computershare Inc., as rights agent. The Rights Agreement provides for a dividend of one preferred stock purchase right for each share of common stock, par value $0.01 per share, of the Company outstanding on December 20, 2013. Each Right entitles the holder to purchase from the Company one one-thousandth of a share of Series A Junior Participating Preferred Stock, par value $0.01 per share, for a purchase price of $114.00, subject to adjustment as provided in the Rights Agreement. The description and terms of the Rights are set forth in the Rights Agreement.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Equity indices settled on their lows following a steady, session-long slide. Similar to yesterday, small-caps paced the retreat as the Russell 2000 fell 1.6%, extending its December loss to 3.6%. The S&P 500 settled lower by 1.1%, widening its month-to-date decline to 1.3%.

There was no specific news catalyst behind today's slide, which had the markings of broad-based profit-taking. Seven of ten sectors settled with losses of 1.0% or more while only two groups finished above their respective lows.

Top-weighted financial (-1.5%) and health care (-1.6%) sectors trailed throughout the session, which emboldened sellers and prevented dip-buyers from turning the tide. Interestingly, the largest S&P 500 sector, technology, outperformed with a loss of 0.9% even as the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-1.4%) lagged.

The outperformance of the tech sector was largely due to big gains in the shares of MasterCard (MA 790.57, +26.96) and Visa (V 205.66, +6.23). The pair posted respective gains of 3.5% and 3.1% after MasterCard announced a 10-1 stock split, increased its quarterly dividend by 83.0%, and announced a new share repurchase program in the amount of $3.50 billion. Furthermore, Visa's strength contributed to outperformance of the price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.8%).

Even though the Dow outperformed, only five index components finished in positive territory and Visa was the only listing that added more than 1.0%. Other advancers included Coca-Cola (KO 40.13, +0.28) and Procter & Gamble (PG 84.02, +0.37) while the broader consumer staples sector eked out a gain of 0.2%.

Finding shades of green in other areas proved particularly difficult today as bonds and commodities sold off. The 10-yr note fell 10 ticks, sending its yield higher by four basis points to 2.84%. Crude oil (-1.1% to $97.40) and gold futures (-0.7% to $1252.50/ozt) also retreated while copper bucked the trend, climbing 0.6% to $3.286/pound.

With stocks ending on their lows, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.36, +1.45) finished at its highest level since mid-October.

Participation was right in-line with average as just over 725 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Among news of note, negotiators in Washington secured a two-year budget agreement that aims to reduce sequester cuts by $63 billion and lower the deficit by roughly $20 billion. The deal has yet to receive full Congressional approval with votes in the House and the Senate expected to take place next week.

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index ticked up 1.0% following last week's 12.8% fall.

Separately, the Treasury budget deficit declined to $135.20 billion in November from $172.10 billion in November 2012. Since the data are not seasonally adjusted, the November deficit cannot be compared to the decline in October. The Briefing.com consensus expected the budget deficit to fall to $140.00 billion.

The Congressional Budget Office released their budget preview earlier in the week and predicted a shortfall of $140 billion. The market was well aware of the CBO's forecast, therefore the reaction to the budget data was limited.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims, November Retail Sales, and November export prices ex-agriculture and import prices ex-oil will all be reported at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the October Business Inventories report.

Nasdaq +32.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +29.7% YTD
S&P 500 +25.0% YTD
DJIA +20.9% YTD

DJ30 -129.60 NASDAQ -56.68 SP500 -20.40 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 597/1.79 bln/1959 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 599/727.2 mln/2473

3:35 pm :

Jan crude oil slipped further into negative territory today on higher-than-anticipated builds in gasoline and distillate inventories.
Although the EIA reported that crude oil inventories had a draw of 10.6 mln barrels when consensus called for a draw of 2.7-3.0 mln, gasoline stockpiles rose 6.7 mln vs expectations for a build of 1.7-2.0 mln barrels. Distillate inventories rose 4.5 mln barrels when consensus called for a smaller build of 1.5-1.6 mln.
The energy component pulled back from its session high of $98.43 per barrel set moments after pit trade opened and brushed a session low of $97.20 per barrel. It settled with a 1.1% loss at $97.47 per barrel.
Jan natural gas, on the other hand, came off its session low of $4.21 per MMBtu and broke into positive territory in late morning pit action. It trended higher for the remainder of the session and settled with a 2.4% gain at its session high of $4.34 per MMBtu.
Feb gold spent most of today's floor trade chopping around in negative territory. It dipped to a session low of $1254.60 per ounce in morning action and eventually settled 0.3% lower at $1256.80 per ounce.
Mar silver rose to a session high of $20.48 per ounce moments before equity markets opened but lost steam as the session progressed. It erased most of the earlier gains and closed just 0.1% higher at $20.35 per ounce.

4:30PM SunEdison announces intention to refinance its capital structure (SUNE) 12.79 -0.23 : Co announced that it intends to offer, subject to market and other conditions, $400 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2018 (the "2018 notes") and $400 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2021 (the "2021 notes" and, together with the 2018 notes, the "notes") in a private placement.

The notes will be offered by the initial purchasers only to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. The Company also intends to grant to the initial purchasers a 30-day option to purchase an additional $80 million aggregate principal amount of each series of notes on the same terms and conditions.

4:29PM SunEdison adjusted Q4 outlook; lowers semiconductor materials revenue estimate to $205-215 from $220-230 due to lower volume (SUNE) 12.79 -0.23 : Co updated its expectations for key metrics for Q4 and full year 2013. Our range of project completions for the 2013 Q4 remains unchanged.

"However, in an effort to retain more long-term project value, we have elected to keep additional solar projects on our balance sheet in Q4 rather than sell them. Therefore, the mix of projects in sold versus held on our balance sheet has shifted. In addition, due to continued market weakness, unit volumes in our semiconductor business are now expected to be below prior expectations for the fourth quarter. Pricing, however, remains approximately flat and we believe our market share remains consistent with the past several quarters."

Large Cap Gainers

SNI (80.77 +7.34%): Variety reporting that Discovery Communications (DISCA) is considering making a bid for the company; CNBC's David Faber reporting that co's are not actively discussing a deal
MA (794 +3.98%): Announced 10-for-1 stock split, 83% increase in quarterly dividend, and $3.5 bln share repurchase program
CAM (56.24 +2.48%): Announced $750 mln increase in share repurchase authorization

Large Cap Losers

IEP (114.5 -13.7%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article, says co "looks grossly overvalued"
ECA (18.36 -4.47%): Announced capital program focused on generating profitable growth through investment in five core liquids-rich resource plays; announced that a restructuring resulted in an approximate 20% workforce reduction since the beginning of November; co expects to take an ~$65 mln after-tax charge as a result of the restructuring
RBS (10.64 -3.77%): Confirmed that Nathan Bostock will resign from role as Group Finance Director; Bostock had been in role for just 10 weeks and is joining rival Santander

Mid Cap Gainers

NRF (11.49 +15.64%): Announced plan to spin-off asset management business into a separate publicly traded company in a tax-free transaction
URBN (37.24 +4.20%): Disclosed that thus far Q4 comparable retail segment net sales are mid single-digit positive
GRPN (10.26 +2.19%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo

Mid Cap Losers

OPK (9.92 -13.7%): Mentioned negatively in blog article (note: author of article disclosed short position in the stock)
LH (89.28 -9.95%): Reaffirmed FY13 EPS of $6.90-7.05 ex items vs $7.02 estimate, revs +3% to ~$5.84 bln vs $5.82 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of ~$6.50 ex items vs $7.55 estimate, revs +2% to ~$5.96 bln vs $5.95 bln estimate; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity; target lowered to $89 from $98 at Mizuho
ALSN (25.9 -5.51%): Announced the sale of 12.5 mln shares of common stock by funds affiliated with The Carlyle Group and Onex Corporation

10:03AM BlackBerry announces that RMHS has selected BlackBerry's enterprise mobility management solution - BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES10) - along with BlackBerry Z10 smartphones to enhance mobile productivity (BBRY) 5.82 -0.14 :

9:02AM JDS Uniphase plans to acquire Network Instruments for $200 mln (JDSU) 12.32 : Co announces that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Network Instruments, a leading developer of enterprise network and application-performance management solutions for global 2000 companies. JDSU plans to acquire Network Instruments for $200 mln in cash, subject to certain adjustments.

The acquisition of Network Instruments further strengthens JDSU as a key solutions provider to the enterprise, data center and cloud networking markets. It expands the addressable market for JDSU's Network and Service Enablement business segment by more than $1 bln in markets growing at nearly 13 percent, including the application-aware network performance management and network packet broker markets.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that HTC has chosen Broadcom's quad-core baseband and connectivity platform for the new HTC Desire 6160 Android smartphone.
SunEdison (SUNE) and the SunEdison Rural Energy Fund announced that the IRS recognized SREF as a 501(c)(3) public charity.

Silicon Labs (SLAB) has expanded its family of 8-bit Si10xx wireless microcontrollers with two new options optimized for both cost-sensitive and performance-intensive designs

Select solar names showing strength: SPWR +0.6% (Total, SunPower (SPWR) and Etrion secure financing with OPIC 70MWp Salvador Solar Project in Chile), TSL +0.6% (announces appointment of new CFO ), JASO +0.6% (announces Mr. Herman Zhao has been appointed the co's new chief financial officer ),

FNSR +0.6% (prices $225 mln of 0.50% of Convertible Senior Notes due 2033; offering was increased by $25 mln)

RVBD +1.3% (initiated with a Buy at Citigroup), QCOM +1% (assumed with a Buy from a Neutral at Citigroup)

Cisco Systems (CSCO 20.96, -0.25): -1.2% after Citigroup initiated the stock with a 'Sell' rating.

6:03AM JA Solar announces Mr. Herman Zhao has been appointed the co's new chief financial officer (JASO) 8.80 : Co announced changes to its management team, effective January 1, 2014. Mr. Herman Zhao has been appointed the co's new chief financial officer ("CFO"). Mr. Min Cao, the co's current CFO, will assume the role of chief strategy officer upon Mr. Zhao's appointment.

Concurrently, Mr. Jian Xie, the co's current chief operating officer ("COO"), will assume broader leadership at the co as its president, and current chief technology officer Mr. Yong Liu will become the co's COO. Mr. Herman Zhao previously served as JA Solar's CFO from July 2006 to May 2008. Since then, he has served as CFO at Legend Silicon, a Silicon Valley-based fabless semiconductor co, and Sky Solar Holdings, a downstream solar-project developer.

6:02AM Trina Solar announces appointment of new CFO (TSL) 12.23 : Co announced it has accepted Terry Wang's resignation as Chief Financial Officer effective January 10, 2014 to pursue other interests. Teresa Tan will be appointed as Chief Financial Officer of the Company immediately upon Mr. Wang's departure. Most recently, Ms. Tan worked for Parker Hannifin (PH).

Archipelago International has implemented Cisco (CSCO) cloud networking solutions for wireless and wired network access for their guests as well as a scalable and effective dashboard to manage their rapidly expanding network.

2:20AM Total, SunPower (SPWR) and Etrion secure financing with OPIC 70MWp Salvador Solar Project in Chile (TOT) 58.42 : Total (TOT), Etrion and SunPower (SPWR) announce that financing has been secured for construction of the 70-megawatt-peak Salvador project in the Atacama region of Chile. Project Salvador will be the world's largest solar power plant based on spot market electricity revenues.

PV Salvador, the project special purpose vehicle, recently signed a project finance facility agreement with the Overseas Private Investment Corp, the U.S. government's development finance institution, to finance 70% of the ~$200 mln project cost through long-term, non-recourse project debt. The remaining 30% equity portion will be funded by Etrion, Total and the initial project developer, Solventus, based on their ownership interests of 70%, 20% and 10%, respectively.

Etrion has a $42 mln credit facility from its major shareholder, the Lundin family, to fund its equity commitment. Following initial payback of Etrion's equity investment of $42 mln, Etrion's ownership in Project Salvador will decrease from 70% to 50.01%. After 20 years of operations, Etrion's ownership will decrease to zero.

2:07AM Finisar prices $225 mln of 0.50% of Convertible Senior Notes due 2033; offering was increased by $25 mln (FNSR) 21.56

Net 1 UEPS Techs (UEPS) announced that it has signed Relationship Agreements with its BEE partners for the issuance of 4.4 mln shares ("BEE Shares"), which will be partially restricted as to resale for a period of five years. In terms of the agreements, co will issue 4.1 mln shares of common stock at a price of ZAR 60.00 per share (calculated as 75% of the closing price of our common stock on the JSE Limited on December 6, 2013) to Business Venture Investments 1567 Proprietary Limited (RF) and 300,000 shares to Born Free Investments 272 Proprietary Limited. In order to facilitate the transactions, the co's wholly owned subsidiary Net1 Applied Technologies South Africa Proprietary Limited, will lend the funds to the BEE partners at a market related interest rate to effect the purchase of the BEE Shares and these shares will act as the collateral for the loan. The loan is repayable over a period of five years and the transactions are subject to certain conditions, including obtaining the relevant regulatory approvals.
Photronics (PLAB) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 1.7% year/year to $106 million which is line with estimates.Quarterly Non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.09; exceeds revised guidance of $0.06 - $0.07, which was issued on Nov 13. The company also warned on the top line of revs of $105-106 million on Nov 13. Photronics' fourth-quarter revenues reflect reduced high-end IC photomask sales, which were affected by decreased demand in memory photomasks due to customer delays in transitioning to new nodes and a delay in fully completing the qualification process with a key Asian foundry customer. Even with softer revenues, we delivered on the bottom line and achieved non-GAAP net income of $0.09 per diluted share, which exceeded our revised guidance range. Our business model is strong and when we complete our current qualifications and our customers transition to new nodes we expect robust top- and bottom-line growth."
Tessera Tech (TSRA) announced the appointment of Thomas Lacey as chief executive officer, effective immediately. Lacey, who was appointed interim CEO in May 2013, will also continue to serve on the Company's Board of Directors, which he joined in May 2013.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages finished the session on a lower note as the S&P 500 lost 0.4% while the Nasdaq shed 0.1%. The Russell 2000, which paced the retreat on Tuesday and Wednesday, added 0.2%, trimming its December loss to 3.5%.

After spending the first half of the session in a steady retreat, the S&P 500 found technical support in the 1772 area. Upon reaching that level, the index reversed sharply, and marched back to its flat line. There was no particular catalyst responsible for the turn, but steady inflows into influential cyclical sectors paved the way for a broad-market rebound. Although the S&P 500 battled back to its flat line, final-hour selling pressured the index to a modest loss.

Financials (unch) and industrials (+0.1%) led the afternoon bounce while energy (+0.5%) joined the rally in progress.

The financial sector was buoyed by regional banks as the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE 39.14, +0.26) jumped 0.7%.

Elsewhere, the industrial space received support from defense contractors with the PHLX Defense Index advancing 0.5%. Transports displayed intraday strength, but the Dow Jones Transportation Average surrendered its gain into the close. The bellwether complex settled flat.

For its part, the energy sector finished near its session high even as crude oil surrendered its gain, ending flat at $97.46/bbl.

While most cyclical groups took part in the afternoon climb, the tech sector (-0.7%) struggled to keep pace with the broader market. Networking names pressured the largest S&P 500 sector after Oracle (ORCL 33.60, -0.96) was downgraded at RBC Capital Markets and Morgan Stanley. Oracle fell 2.8% while peers F5 Networks (FFIV 81.99, -2.25) and JDS Uniphase (JDSU 11.80, -0.38) lost 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively.

One tech component, Facebook (FB 51.83, +2.45), was immune to the selling pressure following news the stock will be added to the S&P 100 and S&P 500.

On the countercyclical side, the utilities sector (+0.1%) outperformed while consumer staples (-1.4%), health care (-0.8%), and telecom services (-0.4%) lagged. Notably, the health care space was pressured by managed-care names like Humana (HUM 100.47, -1.46) and UnitedHealth Group (UNH 71.01, -1.13) while biotechnology rallied. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 215.72, +1.53) advanced 0.7%.

Today's selling contributed to an increased demand for volatility protection, sending the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.61, +0.19) to its highest close since October 15.

Trading volume was just above average as 740 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Treasuries registered modest losses, sending the 10-yr yield up two basis points to 2.88%.

Initial claims for the week ending December 7 spiked to 368,000 (Briefing.com consensus 315,000) from 300,000. The Department of Labor said it is still experiencing problems with seasonal adjustment volatility, which means the headline is probably not as disappointing as it seems at first blush.

Separately, the retail sales data produced a cleaner read of things and it has painted a mostly encouraging picture for personal consumption activity. Retail sales increased 0.7% overall in November following an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.4%) in October. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.4% on top of an upwardly revised 0.5% increase (from 0.2%) in October.

Sales gains were pretty broad-based. The notable exceptions were gasoline station sales (-1.1%), which tracked lower gasoline prices and clothing and accessories stores (-0.2%), which tailed off following a strong 2.6% increase in October.

Also of note, October business inventories increased 0.7% after increasing 0.6% in September. The Briefing.com consensus expected business inventories to increase 0.3%.

The big upward surprise in inventories resulted from a large surprise in the previously released wholesale inventories report. Total business inventories include manufacturers, merchant wholesalers, and retailers. Typically, manufacturers (0.1%) and wholesalers (1.4%) are known prior to the release, but in this case the wholesaler data was not released until after the consensus made its prediction.

Tomorrow, November PPI and core PPI will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq +32.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +29.9% YTD
S&P 500 +24.5% YTD
DJIA +20.1% YTD

DJ30 -104.10 NASDAQ -5.41 SP500 -6.72 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1250/1.76 bln/1309 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1263/740.2 mln/1746 3:35 pm : Commodities ended mostly lower today, while the dollar index held gains and remains near its HoD.

Gold and silver were the worst performers today and basically traded sideways just above its LoD this afternoon. Feb gold ended today's session down $32.10 at $1224.70/oz, while Mar silver lost $0.88 (or -4.3%) at $19.47/oz.

Jan crude oil showed some strength today, but lost steam and ended the day one cent lower. Jan crude oil closed at $97.46/barrel. Jan natural gas futures ended tyhe session five cents higher despite a smaller-than-expected draw, as seen by from EIA inventory data figures.

6:20PM Arch Coal announces pricing of $350 mln senior secured second lien notes offering (ACI) 4.15 -0.16 : Co announced the pricing of $350 million aggregate principal amount of its 8.000% Senior Secured Second Lien Notes due 2019 at an issue price of 100% of principal amount. The offering was upsized to $350 million from the previously announced $300 million due to strong demand. Arch intends to use the net proceeds from the offering of the 2019 Notes, together with the net proceeds of a Term Loan B facility it expects to complete substantially concurrently with the closing of the offering of 2019 Notes and cash on hand, to fund the purchase of any and all of its outstanding 8.750% Senior Notes due 2016 in its previously announced tender offer and consent solicitation and the redemption of any of the 2016 Notes that remain outstanding if Arch purchases less than all of the outstanding 2016 Notes in the Tender Offer.

4:15PM Adobe Systems reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY14 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; Q4 creative cloud subs increase 402K QoQ (ADBE) 53.99 -0.65 : Reports Q4 (Nov) earnings of $0.32 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.32; revenues fell 9.7% year/year to $1.04 bln vs the $1.03 bln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.22-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $950 mln - $1.0 bln vs. $1.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues downside guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $1.10, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.59 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of flat YoY or ~$4.06 bln vs. $4.36 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Adobe provided new long-term revenue growth rate targets for its business. The company expects to achieve a 20 percent compound annual growth rate between fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2016. To achieve this goal, Adobe said it is targeting a 20 percent CAGR in its Digital Media business and a 25 percent CAGR in its Adobe Marketing Cloud business during that timeframe. As part of these growth targets, the company said it could achieve non-GAAP earnings per share of ~$2.00 in fiscal year 2015 and at least $3.00 in fiscal year 2016 (Capital IQ consensus FY15 - $2.28 FY16 - $3.31).

Adobe exited Q4 with 1 million 439 thousand paid Creative Cloud subscriptions, an increase of 402 thousand when compared to the number of subscriptions as of the end of Q3 fiscal year 2013, and enterprise adoption of Creative Cloud was stronger than expected. (co's guidance was for slightly higher growth than Q3 (Q3 added 331K) -- In general Street expectations are in line with ADBE's guidance).

Creative Annualized Recurring Revenue grew to $768 million, and total Digital Media ARR grew to $911 million. Adobe Marketing Cloud quarterly revenue was $316.2 million, representing 38 percent year-over-year growth.

"We are leading the software industry in transitioning our business to the Cloud, which is enabling us to target higher top-line growth and greater recurring revenue...We are raising our long-term revenue growth targets, with a compound annual revenue growth rate of 20 percent between fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2016."

Large Cap Gainers

LUV (18.65 +3.76%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill; tgt raised to $23.
FB (51.41 +4.11%): Co will replace The Williams Companies (WMB) in the S&P 100 and Teradyne (TER) in the S&P 500; launched Instagram Direct 'a simple way to send photos and videos to your friends'.
YNDX (38.95 +4.09%): Priced $600 mln of 1.125% Convertible Senior Notes due 2018.

Large Cap Losers

IBN (36.58 -4.55%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies.
SNDK (65.34 -3.01%): Downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Nomura; tgt lowered to $56 from $66.
ORCL (33.83 -2.11%): Downgraded to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt $35; downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Mid Cap Gainers

XLS (18.68 +7.05%): Announced plan to spin off a new publicly traded military and government services company; selected to supply composite components for Boeing (BA) 787 Dreamliner; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Drexel Hamilton.
RAX (35.87 +6.6%): Announced new DevOps Automation Service to increase speed and agility for software developers and IT.
JBLU (8.7 +4.07%): International Air Transport Association reported that airline financial outlook strengthens with $12.9 bln global net profit expected in 2013.

Mid Cap Losers

LULU (60.96 -10.81%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line; guided Q4 below consensus.
SUNE (11.76 -8.05%): Adjusted Q4 outlook; lowered semiconductor materials rev estimate to $205-215 from $220-230 due to lower volume; announced intention to refinance its capital structure.
CIEN (21.77 -4.94%): Missed on EPS by $0.08, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs ~in-line; transfers listing to NYSE from NASDAQ.

10:06AM Cisco Systems slides to fresh seven month low (CSCO) 20.40 -0.47 : Noted the test of its early Dec and Nov lows (20.89/20.77) yesterday with the breakdown extended this morning to a s low as 20.40. Its 2013 close low from Jan and its May intraday low come into play at 20.29. The 11 month lows from April are at 20.00/19.98.

9:03AM Alcatel-Lucent to supply ultra-broadband access technology for China Telecom's (CHA) new LTE network (ALU) 4.54 : Co announced today that its innovative LTE solution has been selected by China Telecom (CHA) for the operator's nationwide trial of high-speed mobile broadband. China Telecom has chosen Alcatel-Lucent as one of the top three suppliers for its network infrastructure operating in both the LTE TDD and FDD modes. Co today announced that China Mobile (CHL),is deploying Alcatel-Lucent's small cells solution in the world's largest TD-LTE network. The deployment follows the award of China's 4G license and the successful small cell trials in several high populated cities of China. Co-created by Alcatel-Lucent and China Mobile, the Metro Cell solution will enable China Mobile to meet the surging capacity demands for ultra-broadband access in urban areas across China in the most effective and economical way.

7:03AM Fairchild Semi announces its Board of Directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $100 mln of the company's common stock (FCS) 12.51 : This authorization permits the company to repurchase up to $100 million of common stock before December 31, 2014. This repurchase program is expected to reduce share count by approximately 6% based on the current stock price.

SunEdison (SUNE) lowers semiconductor materials revenue estimate to $205-215 from $220-230 due to lower volume. "However, in an effort to retain more long-term project value, we have elected to keep additional solar projects on our balance sheet in Q4 rather than sell them. Therefore, the mix of projects in sold versus held on our balance sheet has shifted. In addition, due to continued market weakness, unit volumes in our semiconductor business are now expected to be below prior expectations for the fourth quarter. Pricing, however, remains approximately flat and we believe our market share remains consistent with the past several quarters."

DST Systems (DST) announced that it has appointed Gregg Wm. Givens to serve as Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, effective Jan. 1, 2014. He succeeds Kenneth V. Hager, who will retire from DST Systems as planned after 29 years of service to the Company. Givens has served as Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer for the past 14 years.

Amtech Systems (ASYS) reported fourth quarter loss of $0.18 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 36.7% year/year to $6.9 million which is worse than expected. Gross margin in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 was 46%, reflecting a high percentage of net revenue resulting from recognition of previously-deferred revenue. "Even though fiscal 2013 was a challenging year, progress was made at Amtech. We continued to restructure our global operations and intensified our efforts on developing new products and higher efficiency technology solutions to gain a competitive edge over our competitors. We introduced a new solar tool, a PECVD system, which doubles our served available market, and we received our first production order. Also, in June 2013, we announced the receipt of a multi-million dollar order for our advance diffusion and PECVD equipment to be used in Nexolon USA's facility in Texas." The company also announced that its solar subsidiary, Tempress Systems, signed a contract with ECN. The IonSolar system was developed and manufactured by Kingstone Semiconductor, a majority-owned subsidiary of Amtech. The IonSolar system, together with existing Tempress Systems' equipment already installed at ECN, will be used for these research and development activities.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 13-Dec-13

Dow +15.93 at 15755.36, Nasdaq +2.57 at 4000.98, S&P -0.18 at 1775.32

The stock market experienced a flat finish to an otherwise-forgettable week. The S&P 500 shed less than one point, maintaining its December loss of 1.7%. Small-caps outperformed as the Russell 2000 gained 0.4%, but the index remains lower by 3.1% this month.

Equities registered opening gains, but the early strength faded during the first 30 minutes of action, sending the major averages to their lows. The key indices spent the rest of the morning near their flat lines before staging a modest afternoon rally. However, selling pressure returned during the late afternoon, sending the S&P 500 back to unchanged for the day.

Today's rally attempts were fueled by the relative strength of four cyclical sectors as consumer discretionary (+0.3%), financials (+0.1%), industrials (+0.4%), and materials (+0.4%) outperformed throughout the session.

The discretionary sector displayed notable strength from the get go as media names advanced in reaction to news Charter Communications (CHTR 131.54, -0.45) is preparing an open letter to purchase Time Warner Cable (TWC 131.41, +0.35) for no more than $140 per share. However, Time Warner narrowed its gain to just 0.3% after a follow-up report indicated the proposed offer would be below $135 per share.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector advanced with help from defense contractors and transports. The PHLX Defense Index gained 0.6% while the Dow Jones Transportation Average added 0.4%.

Also of note, the materials space ended in the lead as steelmakers and miners outperformed. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 47.71, +0.30) settled higher by 0.6% while the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 21.11, +0.10) gained 0.5% as gold futures increased 0.8% to $1235.10 per troy ounce.

The other commodity-linked sector, energy (-0.4%), ended at the bottom of the leaderboard as crude oil fell 1.0% to $96.53 per barrel. The sector was also pressured by Anadarko Petroleum (APC 78.30, -5.37), which lost 6.4% after the company was held liable for upwards of $14.50 billion in damages in the Tronox bankruptcy case.

Similar to energy, three of four countercyclical groups ended in the red while health care (+0.04%) outperformed.

Despite today's flat finish, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.77, +0.23) suggested the presence of some demand for volatility protection. The near-term volatility measure registered its third consecutive gain, ending at its highest level since mid-October.

Treasuries registered slight gains, sending the 10-yr yield lower by one basis point to 2.87%.

Participation was well below average as only 627 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Among news of note, the House of Representatives passed the budget deal with a 332-94 vote. The bill will now head to the Senate with a vote expected to take place on Tuesday.

Today's economic data was limited to the November PPI report, which pointed to a downtick of 0.1% while core producer prices rose 0.1%. Both readings matched expectations.

On Monday, the December Empire Manufacturing survey as well as the third quarter productivity and unit labor costs will all be reported at 8:30 ET. The October net long-term TIC flows report will be released at 9:00 ET while November industrial production and capacity utilization will be released at 9:15 ET.

Week in Review: Santa Claus Rally on Hold

On Monday, the stock market did not generate too much excitement following a broad-based rally on Friday. The major indices stood their ground (for the most part) amid a lack of conviction from buyers and sellers alike. The day was not a case so much of the stock market going up as it was a case of some influential stocks going up to keep the major indices on a winning path. In fact, decliners were just about even with advancers at the NYSE and led by a 3-to-2 margin on the Nasdaq. Apple (AAPL 554.43, -6.11) and Google (GOOG 1060.79, -9.17) were key drivers of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite while ExxonMobil (XOM 95.31, -0.05), Chevron (CVX 119.90, -1.09), and Goldman Sachs (GS 168.39, +0.06) were key drivers specifically of the price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Tuesday's session saw the major averages spend the trading day in a steady downtrend. Despite persistent selling pressure, the losses were limited in scope. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq shed between 0.2% and 0.3% while the Russell 2000 lagged, falling 0.9%. The underperformance of the Russell 2000 was likely owed in part to tax-loss selling, which tends to pick up this time of year. Small-caps often feel that pinch in a stronger fashion than large-cap issues since individual retail investors factor more prominently in the behavior of small-cap stocks. Countercyclical sectors lagged throughout the day with consumer staples and health care falling 0.9% and 0.4%, respectively.

Wednesday featured a continuation of the selling from the previous day. Similar to Tuesday, small-caps paced the retreat as the Russell 2000 fell 1.6%. The S&P 500 settled lower by 1.1%, widening its month-to-date decline to 1.3%. Seven of ten sectors settled with losses of 1.0% or more while only two groups finished above their respective lows. Top-weighted financial (-1.5%) and health care (-1.6%) sectors trailed throughout the session, which emboldened sellers and prevented dip-buyers from turning the tide. Interestingly, the largest S&P 500 sector, technology, outperformed with a loss of 0.9% even as the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-1.4%) lagged.

The major averages finished the Thursday session on a lower note. The S&P 500 lost 0.4% while the Nasdaq shed 0.1%. The Russell 2000, which paced the retreat on Tuesday and Wednesday, added 0.2%, trimming its December loss to 3.5%. After spending the first half of the session in a steady retreat, the S&P 500 found technical support in the 1772 area. Upon reaching that level, the index reversed sharply, and marched back to its flat line. There was no particular catalyst responsible for the turn, but steady inflows into influential cyclical sectors paved the way for a broad-market rebound. Although the S&P 500 battled back to its flat line, final-hour selling pressured the index to a modest loss.

 
 Index	    Started Week  Ended Week   Change	%Change   YTD % 
 DJIA	      16020.20	   15755.36   -264.84	 -1.7	 20.2 
 Nasdaq	       4062.52	    4000.98    -61.54	 -1.5	 32.5 
 S&P 500	1805.09	    1775.32    -29.77	 -1.6	 24.5 
 Russell 2000   1131.38	    1107.05    -24.33	 -2.2	 30.3

4:48PM IBM states it will vigorously fight lawsuit filed by Louisiana Sheriff's Pension and Relief Fund (IBM) 172.80 -0.57 : Co's Senior Vice President and General Counsel Robert C. Weber announced that, "Yesterday, IBM (IBM) learned of a lawsuit pushing a wild conspiracy theory. This lawsuit seeks to confuse IBM's support for a U.S. cybersecurity legislative proposal -- which has yet to be enacted - with the completely unrelated NSA surveillance program called PRISM. Even a cursory reading of the legislative proposal, known as CISPA, makes clear that it has nothing to do with the recently disclosed NSA surveillance program. The legislation is designed to help protect companies from cyber attacks by encouraging the sharing of technical cyber threat information, such as malware code. The ability for those under attack to work together to help prevent cybercrime is a modern business requirement and an important goal, which is why many companies, including IBM, support such legislation. This bill does not refer to China, and it does not authorize government surveillance, facts that the plaintiff and its attorneys could have easily determined had they bothered to do the slightest fact checking. Starting from this fictitious connection between CISPA and PRISM, the complaint proceeds to make numerous specious and false accusations, and IBM calls upon the law firm that filed this action to do the right thing and dismiss this action immediately. To fail to do so is a profound disservice to the judicial system, to the public, and in this case, to IBM. IBM will vigorously fight this baseless lawsuit."

4:32PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Utilities: UNS (58.94 +24.2%)
Technology: TWTR (59 +21.28%), GSAT (1.97 +15.7%), GRPN (10.24 +14.41%), LOGI (12.63 +12.03%), RMBS (9.54 +11.8%)
Services: WBAI (31.57 +33.45%), GTN (13.57 +13.39%), AER (24.93 +13.26%), ZLC (14.48 +12.79%), RBA (21.95 +11.9%), MEG (21.73 +11.88%)
Healthcare: ENTA (37.16 +33.36%), GIVN (29.89 +27.54%), RLYP (25.92 +25.36%), MDXG (7.77 +15.77%), SEM (9.73 +15.28%), KPTI (19.96 +13.54%)
Financial: NRF (11.86 +17.58%), EJ (13.9 +17.25%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: RALY (16.65 -32.13%), SEAC (11.43 -22.01%), NIHD (1.93 -20.16%), NQ (12.1 -18.54%), LMOS (22.33 -16.77%), SUNE (11.46 -14.78%)
Services: ULTA (91.93 -22.68%), GASS (10.57 -17.87%), BIG (30.92 -16.46%)
Industrial Goods: OSIS (52.08 -29.38%)
Healthcare: AVNR (2.84 -24.64%), GERN (4.77 -18.57%), ARRY (5 -18.46%), PCYC (107.88 -16.46%)
Financial: AFSI (33.64 -16.72%), RSE (20.91 -14.94%)
Basic Materials: IOC (54.64 -38.56%), TPLM (9.12 -17.15%), MTDR (18.67 -15.19%), NFX (23.36 -14.97%)

Large Cap Gainers

ADBE (59.85 +10.85%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.32 ex items (in-line), revs fell 9.7% yoy to $1.04 bln vs $1.03 bln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.22-0.28 ex items vs $0.33 estimate, revs $950-1000 mln vs $1.01 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.10 ex items vs $1.59 estimate, revs flat at ~$4.06 bln vs $4.36 bln estimate; co exited Q4 with ~1.44 mln paid Creative Cloud subscriptions
NLSN (45.2 +5.21%): Sees FY14 adjusted EPS of $2.45-2.55 ex items vs $2.39 estimate; sees FY14 revs +10-12% (~$6.2-6.3 bln), may not compare to $6.32 bln estimate
TWTR (57.62 +4.14%): Target raised to $60 from $33 at RBC Capital Markets after positive advertiser survey results

Large Cap Losers

APC (76.35 -8.75%): Co's Kerr-McGee unit found to have acted improperly in the 2005 spinoff of Tronox, Anadarko to pay $14.5 bln; downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Global Hunter Securities, target lowered to $106 from $133
WFT (14.69 -1.97%): Initiated with a Neutral at Robert W. Baird
CXO (97.83 -1.95%): Announced that the combined effect of two severe winter storms across the Permian Basin in late November and early December significantly impacted production; expects 2013 annual production to fall near the low end of its guidance range

Mid Cap Gainers

CNC (57.82 +6.56%): Reaffirmed FY13 EPS guidance of $2.81-2.87 vs $2.83 estimate, revs of $10.6-10.8 bln vs $11 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $3.50-3.80 vs $3.61 estimate, revs of $13.5-14.0 bln vs $13.73 bln estimate
EA (22.24 +6.07%): Mentioned positively at Piper Jaffray
LDOS (42.98 +5.86%): Announced $300 mln accelerated stock repurchase transaction

Mid Cap Losers

OPK (8.38 -11.04%): Continued weakness following publishing of a negative article by Lakewood Capital Management
DAR (18.98 -5.10%): Priced public offering of 40 mln shares of common stock at $19 per share
SATS (47.31 -3.65%): Co announced that EchoStar Technologies and Vivendi subsidiary GTV are no longer in discussion to form a joint venture for pay TV services in Brazil

INTC -1.7% (Google considering making its own chips with ARMH technology, according to reports),

Great Britain's FTSE displays a gain of 0.2% with ARM Holdings providing leadership. The chipmaker trades higher by 4.7% amid reports Google is considering choosing ARM processors over Intel in its servers. On the downside RSA Insurance is lower by 16.4% after Chief Executive Officer Simon Lee resigned.

Analyst comments: WDC +2.6% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup), STX +2% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup ), CIEN +1.8% (upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at BMO Capital Mkts),

7:05AM SunEdison prices upsized offering of $500 mln aggregate principal amount of 2.00% convertible senior notes due 2018 and $500 mln aggregate principal amount of 2.75% convertible senior notes due 2021 (SUNE) 11.47 : The offering was upsized from the previously announced $400 mln aggregate principal amount of 2018 notes and $400 mln aggregate principal amount of 2021 notes. The 2018 notes will bear interest at a rate of 2.00% per year, payable semiannually in arrears on April 1 and October 1 of each year, or, if any such day is not a business day, the immediately following business day, beginning on Apr 1, 2014. The 2021 notes will bear interest at a rate of 2.75% per year, payable semiannually in arrears on Jan 1 and July 1 of each year, or, if any such day is not a business day, the immediately following business day, beginning on July 1, 2014.

The notes will be convertible, subject to certain conditions, into cash, or, subject to certain shareholder approval requirements, shares of common stock of the Company, or a combination of cash and shares of common stock, at the Company's option. The initial conversion rate for the notes will be 68.3796 shares of common stock per $1,000 principal amount of the notes, which is equal to an initial conversion price of ~ $14.62 per share, representing a conversion premium of ~ 27.5% above the closing price of the Company's shares of common stock of $11.47 per share on Dec 12, 2013.

3:43AM ARM Holdings acquires Geomerics (ARMH) 47.64 : Co announces it acquired Geomerics, a co with in lighting technology for the gaming and entertainment industries. The acquisition expands ARM's position at the forefront of the visual computing and graphics industries. Additionally, the agreement enables Geomerics to build on their existing partnerships as well as accelerate their development in mobile. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Adobe Systems (ADBE) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.32 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is in line with estimates, while revenues fell 9.7% year/year to $1.04 billion which is line with estimates. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $0.22-0.28 with revenues of $950 million - $1.0 billion which is lower than expected. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $1.10, excluding non-recurring items and revenues of flat YoY or $4.06 billion which is below expectations. Adobe provided new long-term revenue growth rate targets for its business. The company expects to achieve a 20 percent compound annual growth rate between fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2016. To achieve this goal, Adobe said it is targeting a 20 percent CAGR in its Digital Media business and a 25 percent CAGR in its Adobe Marketing Cloud business during that timeframe. As part of these growth targets, the company said it could achieve non-GAAP earnings per share of approximately $2.00 in fiscal year 2015 and at least $3.00 in fiscal year 2016, which are both below expectations. Adobe exited Q4 with 1 million 439 thousand paid Creative Cloud subscriptions, an increase of 402 thousand when compared to the number of subscriptions as of the end of Q3 fiscal year 2013, and enterprise adoption of Creative Cloud was stronger than expected. (co's guidance was for slightly higher growth than Q3 (Q3 added 331K) -- In general Street expectations are in line with ADBE's guidance). Creative Annualized Recurring Revenue grew to $768 million, and total Digital Media ARR grew to $911 million. Adobe Marketing Cloud quarterly revenue was $316.2 million, representing 38 percent year-over-year growth. "We are leading the software industry in transitioning our business to the Cloud, which is enabling us to target higher top-line growth and greater recurring revenue...We are raising our long-term revenue growth targets, with a compound annual revenue growth rate of 20 percent between fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2016."

Solera (SLH) announced that one of its subsidiaries has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Distribution Services Technologies, Inc. ("DST"). The Acquisition is subject to certain conditions to closing and is expected to close by the third quarter of Solera's fiscal year 2014. DST is a provider of B2B e-Commerce, ERP support and analytics solutions for automotive mechanical part distributors in North America. Through its cloud-based procurement solutions, DST connects mechanical aftermarket, heavy duty and OEM parts suppliers with repair shops, dealerships and fleet consumers, driving revenues and lowering operating costs.

BlackBerry (BBRY) announced that it has agreed with Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited and the holders of a requisite majority of the US$1 billion of convertible debentures issued by BlackBerry on November 13, 2013 that the previously-announced investor option to purchase up to an additional US$250 million principal amount of convertible debentures has been extended to January 13, 2014. If the option is exercised, the purchase of the additional convertible debentures will be completed on or before January 16, 2014.

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Stocks blow a modest bounce attempt, but it was Friday pre-FOMC and they were not ready.
- DJ30 holding the 50 day EMA, SP500 and SOX may help out after a bit more downside.
- PPI falls for third month.
- IMF wants more US taxes.
- Holiday sales: CNBC poll corroborates Bloomberg poll.
- Poole talks of a political Fed.
- Leaders are holding on but after the week are a bit more ragged.

The big Friday blah. Sure there was some pre-market life but it was frittered away pretty much at the open. Without much ceremony stocks opened higher, kicked upside even more, then dropped the ball. Stocks faded to midmorning, bounced decently into mid-afternoon, then rolled over to lower lows. A decent rebound the back half of the afternoon session kept the indices bracketing the flat line, some up, some down.

A good day in that it didn't sell off hard, a bad day in that the indices couldn't advance off support. That left the indices down for the week, some such as DJ30 in a nice pattern, others e.g. RUTX and SP400 need to work on it. The session and the week was similar to Michael Fox in 'Back to the Future' kissing his mom: just not right, indeed it just felt wrong. Friday itself was an oxymoron day. Sweet and sour. Jumbo shrimp. Good disco. Bad day fishing. Angry love.

SP500 -0.18, -0.01%
NASDAQ 2.58, 0.06%
DJ30 15.93, 0.10%
SP400 0.33%
RUTX 0.34%
SOX -0.06%

Volume faded: -13% NYSE (how appropriate on Friday the 13th), -15% NASDAQ

The end result? A week downside that left DJ30 and you can even argue SOX in decent shape to bounce. SP500 is at some support but could also easily fall to the 50 day EMA. NASDAQ is hanging onto its break above the channel by a thread while the other growth indices, SP400 and RUTX, struggle to retake the 50 day EMA.

The action suggests there is more downside this coming week ahead of the FOMC as investors jockey positions, attempting to place themselves where they want ahead of the decision. As noted Thursday, even the 'experts' from the many funds and analysis firms are as split as a coin flip. Nice job on the transparency FOMC, but then again, there is not much transparency in any branch of government or pseudo-government such as the Fed.

Stocks themselves are split with some breaking, many testing lower support, and quite a few leaders holding near support and setting up some good upside patterns. A continuation of the year end run is still very much on the table now that DJ30 has tested the 50 day EMA and put in a good pattern while SP500 and SOX are just a half session away from completing their tests and being in position as well.

THE NEWS

There was some real news in the form of economic reports, but it was Friday the 13th before an important FOMC meeting heading into the holidays and the news outlets were searching for something to talk about. As a result, there was more than a bit of 'stupid' news as I term it.

PPI: -0.1% as expected versus -0.2% prior. Third straight decline, something not seen in the past year.

PPI Core: 0.1 as expected versus 0.2% prior. Energy fell 0.4% on a big decline in heating oil. THAT will change with the twin storms that moved through recently.

Earnings

Last week we reported that negative pre-announcements are running 11:1 over positive pre-announcements, almost 5 times average. Friday saw more of the same.

ADBE beat top and bottom but guidance fell short.
ZQK (teen apparel) missed the top and bottom line.
UTX, a venerable Dow component, guided 2014 lower

Holiday shopping

CNBC echoed Bloomberg's survey from earlier in the week as it released its own survey. Everyone has a survey it seems. In any event, the same conclusion: the wealthy are spending less this holiday season. Skepticism about the stock market's rise is cited in this survey as well. Again the wealthy see the gains are built on easy money versus strong economic underpinnings.

The world to the US: Raise taxes.

The IMF saying the US should raise taxes on the highest bracket to 71%.

Just a little bit higher . . . from 40% to 71%

Been there, done that, bad results. At high tax rates those with excess money hide it. It leaves the economy. Stagnation results until better times when the risk/reward ratio is right. As Ronald Reagan said to his son when asked why he only made one movie a year, when the tax rate is so high on the marginal dollars you make, why take the risk, bust your tail with the extra work, etc. when you are only going to get 30 cents or less on the dollar IF everything goes perfect? So money goes into hiding, waiting for a better day, a better time to be put to work. It can wait. It always does.

The ACA and layoffs

There was some sobering news as well. The President has publicly stated there is no proof the ACA is or has led to layoffs. That is patently incorrect, and more evidence is piling up. A Duke University study/survey found that 48% of US CFO's indicated they will reduce employment in 2014 because of the ACA. Yet another less than savory after effect of the planned 'market' for health insurance, the market that will find coverage available but 1) many won't be able to afford the premiums and the deductible so they will be covered but have no access, and 2) if they can afford the upfront costs their doctor and hospital won't be part of the system. What a plan indeed!

The Fed is simply politics on a different scale.

The FOMC's Poole made some rather astonishing statements earlier in the year that were not released until recently. Astonishing, but nonetheless suspected given the Fed's actions.

So much is made of the Fed's political autonomy, how it has to be so in order to get the top notch analysis and action necessary to do the right thing to effectuate the Fed's mandate of price stability and maximum economic growth. It cannot be beholden to any group other than the United States in so doing.

Alas, as our framers knew, when you split off any group from fear of the electorate, the group has no fear of the electorate. Some say that is the purpose, but what invariably happens is that these groups, necessarily made up of humans, succumb to human frailties such as political pressure. Thus a body created to be free from political pressure is still ruled by political pressure. Thus Poole says the Fed does NOT base its decisions on rational, logical, dispassionate application of economics, but those decisions are politically influenced:

'The real issue is the politics of monetary policy . . . I am not a political expert or a political analyst by trade. My qualifications for speaking on this topic is that I have followed the interactions between monetary policy and politics for a very long time.'

'As with all things political, the politics of the Fed means that realities often fail to match outward appearances . . . the pressure on the Fed will come from inside the government and may not be very visible; it may be limited to a few op-ed articles from the housing lobby. The true amount of political pressure will be largely hidden.'

A long-time FOMC member tells it like it is: any entity created by government to perform a governmental function (whether in the Constitution or not) is political and will act political. The ONLY checks on such a body is the electorate yet the electorate is so far removed it has virtually no control over the Fed, the most powerful entity in the government regarding our currency and thus our store of wealth. Heck, CONGRESS cannot even control it because it cannot get an audit from the Fed. When the members of the body start to question its integrity when that is paramount for its functioning, you KNOW you have trouble.

THE MARKET

OTHER MARKETS

Dollar: 1.3733 versus 1.3752 versus 1.3787 versus 1.3763 versus 1.3738 versus 1.3704 versus 1.3671 versus 1.3589 versus 1.3593 versus 1.3538 versus 1.3592 euro. Rallied Thursday and some Friday, but hit near resistance and faded. Not much of a bounce after the selloff, and still strange given the Fed is supposed to taper.

Bonds: 2.86% versus 2.88% versus 2.84% versus 2.80% versus 2.85% versus 2.875% versus 2.875% versus 2.83% versus 2.78% versus 2.78% 10 year. Bounced off the Wednesday and Thursday selling. Bonds are bouncing around in a narrow range just over support ahead of the FOMC meeting. The move from here, is key. If the 10 year breaks 3% post-FOMC, trouble for stocks near term.

Oil: 96.53, -0.93. Rallied to the 200 day SMA early week, then started to roll back down. Up off the lows, testing that move, but below key resistance.

Gold: 1235.10, +10.40. Gold is acting as confused as other markets, bouncing up and down session to session, holding over support. As with bonds, it is waiting on the Fed.

MARKET INTERNALS and STATS

NASDAQ
Stats: +2.58 points (+0.06%) to close at 4000.98
Volume: 1.588B (-14.81%)

Up Volume: 847.45M (+41.97M)
Down Volume: 720.24M (-319.76M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.41 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.08 to 1

New Highs: 56 (+10)
New Lows: 35 (-13)

S&P
Stats: -0.18 points (-0.01%) to close at 1775.32
NYSE Volume: 555M (-13.55%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.33 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.43 to 1

New Highs: 59 (+32)
New Lows: 169 (-83)

DJ30
Stats: +15.93 points (+0.1%) to close at 15755.36

THE CHARTS

DJ30 tried a bounce off the 50 day EMA. Once, twice, three times. Didn't take. It shows, however, a very nice tight doji at that support.

SP500 held right on top of the late October/early November. Still may want to test the 50 day EMA. Wish it would have got it out of its system and rebounded.

NASDAQ gapped higher then as GOOG, AAPL, NFLX and other names faded from recent decent action, it too faded, closing a bit further under its upper channel line. Still not a pattern you say 'got to buy that one.'

SP400 and RUTX (midcaps and small caps) bounced, but bounces that meant nothing in terms of changing the character. Big drop Wednesday, anemic bounces Thursday and Friday not making any significant headway, not changing the bias.

SOX actually is one we like better. It faded further after starting higher, fading closer to the 50 day EMA where it has found support time and time again on this last leg (4 times prior). Can it do it a fifth time?

DJ30 looks good, SP500 with a bit more of a quick 50 day EMA test would look good. Between those two and SOX they might get the job done. But, from the Friday close it looks as if some more near term softness is in store before a new move.

That really makes sense, however, when you factor in the FOMC meeting ahead, the market has faded ahead of the meeting, the indices are holding at or above support. If the Fed comes in with a light taper of $5B to $10B the market will have no issues with that and will be in place to rally. What would hurt would be a $25B or more taper.

LEADERS

As noted, some of the big NASDAQ names faltered. AAPL looked so solid over the 10 day, but it slipped through that level on volume. GOOG was off. AMZN was up after being down when the other NASDAQ names were up. Kind of zen, relating to the opening paragraph about the market overall.

Financial: Still holding decent patterns.

Industrial Equipment: Started to move back up. Nice test, trying to lead again.

Personal Products: Still watching this group after it jumped on the jobs numbers. Has faded since but has not broken down. Could be that when the FOMC meets and if it does taper that these stocks will bounce again.

Many other stocks in many sectors continued to struggle, but many have faded, are holding support, and if the right mood comes along, they are set to bounce.

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 15.54; +0.12
VXN: 16; +0.12
VXO: 15.3; +0.69

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.7; -0.25

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls crossed 58 while bears held steady, but the point: the divergence continues AND it is extreme. Now, I have seen readings near 65% on bulls, so there is room to move. It is, however, at a level that is flashing extreme. As noted last week, these levels lead to corrections, but timing is the trouble. At this point you look at technicals and leaders. Technicals are weaker but not broken. Leaders are still quite nice. There can be another run to year end. After that, dicey.

Bulls: 58.2 versus 57.1 versus 55.7 versus 53.6 versus 52.6 versus 55.2% versus 52.6 versus 49.5 versus 42.3% versus 45.4 versus 46.4% versus 44.3% versus 42.3% versus 37.1% versus 37.1% versus 38.1% versus 43.3%. Getting even more extreme . . .

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 14.3 versus 14.3 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 15.5% versus 15.6% versus 16.5% versus 18.5 versus 21.6% versus 20.6% versus 18.6% versus 20.6% versus 21.6% versus 22.7% versus 23.7% versus 23.8% versus 21.6%. Held steady basically for the third straight week. Seems bears fall after each three weeks. Frankly, how much more can it fall? Further, I suppose.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

Overall the market is heavy after a week of declines (more than a week in some cases), and there is no unified front on the indices or in leaders that make you say 'this market is set right now to make the next upside break.' It likely takes a bit more this coming week to get them set. Makes sense given the FOMC meeting result mid-week.

Again, the indices are split on the next move. DJ30 looks ready while SP500 and SOX could be there with just one intraday test and recovery. Of course, they have to show that move, and that comes from the leaders that are also making tests and will have to hold and them actually make good on the setups after the pullback. Indeed, a continued test/pullback early next week will put more stocks in position to rally once the information comes out post-Fed.

We see stocks that look good and are actually starting to move already, e.g. MONT, PACB, FB, RMTI, TWTR, LNKD and we will see if they are indeed the early leaders setting the early pace.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4000.98

Resistance:
4009 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
4069.70 is the post-bear market high.
Next major resistance is around 4100 as NASDAQ hits 13 year highs

Support:
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
The 50 day EMA at 3934
3894 is the November 2012 trendline
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.
The July 2013 intraday high at 3625
The 200 day SMA at 3591
3573 is the August 2013 low
3532 is the May intraday high
3521 is the August 2000 low.
The 2011 up trendline at 3504
3502 is the May 2013 closing high
3295 is the June 2013 low selloff
3227 is the April 2000 intraday low
3197 is the September 2012 post-bear market high
3171 is the October intraday high

S&P 500: Closed at 1775.32

Resistance:
The 20 day EMA at 1788
1813.55 is the November 2013 peak

Support:
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 1765
1734 is the December 2012 up trendline
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
The 200 day SMA at 1664
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1627 is the August 2013 low
1576 from October 2007, the prior all-time high
1573 is the June 2013 closing low
1569.48 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement of the April to May 2013 run
1560 is the June 2013 reversal low
1556 from July 2007
1541 is the April 2013 closing low in that pullback inside the uptrend
1539 from June 2007
1531 is the recent high

Dow: Closed at 15,755.36

Resistance:
15,798 the November 2013 high
16,175 is the November all-time high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 15,721
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,318 is the June closing high
The 200 day SMA at 15,190
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

December 13 - Friday
- PPI, November (8:30): -0.1% actual versus -0.1% expected, -0.2% prior
- Core PPI, November (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.2% prior

December 16 - Monday
- Empire Manufacturing, December (8:30): 5.0 expected, -2.2 prior
- Productivity-Rev., Q3 (8:30): 2.7% expected, 1.9% prior
- Unit Labor Costs, Q3 (8:30): -1.3% expected, -0.6% prior
- Net Long-Term TIC Fl, October (9:00): $25.5B prior
- Capacity Utilization, November (9:15): 78.1% prior
- Industrial Productio, November (9:15): 0.4% expected, -0.1% prior
- Capacity Utilization, November (9:15): 78.4% expected, 78.1% prior

December 17 - Tuesday
- CPI, November (8:30): 0.1% expected, -0.1% prior
- Core CPI, November (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Current Account Bala, Q3 (8:30): -$101.0B expected, -$98.9B prior
- NAHB Housing Market , December (10:00): 55 expected, 54 prior

December 18 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 12/14 (7:00): 1.0% prior
- Housing Starts, September (8:30): 915K expected, 891K prior
- Housing Starts, October (8:30): 920K expected,
- Housing Starts, November (8:30): 950K expected,
- Building Permits, November (8:30): 983K expected, 1034K prior
- Crude Inventories, 12/14 (10:30): -10.585M prior
- FOMC Rate Decision, December (14:00): 0.25% expected, 0.25% prior

December 19 - Thursday
- Continuing Claims, 12/07 (8:30)
- Initial Claims, 12/14 (8:30): 333K expected, 368K prior
- Continuing Claims, 12/07 (8:30): 2760K expected, 2791K prior
- Existing Home Sales, November (10:00): 5.00M expected, 5.12M prior
- Philadelphia Fed, December (10:00): 5.0 expected, 6.5 prior
- Leading Indicators, November (10:00): 0.6% expected, 0.2% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 12/14 (10:30): -81 bcf prior

December 20 - Friday
- GDP - Third Estimate, Q3 (8:30): 3.6% expected, 3.6% prior
- GDP Deflator - Third, Q3 (8:30): 2.0% expected, 2.0% prior

[ReturntoSender]

Even though CEOs are warning of profit misses at a pace not seen since 2001, Wall Street pros say cautious CEO guidance won't derail the mighty bull.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2013/12/11/fourth-quarter-profit-warnings/3767803/[t][/t]

Profit warnings spike; on track for worst showing since 2001

There are 10 companies warning of a profit shortfall per each positive call

Wall Street takes note, but says market won't be derailed by CEO profit confessions

NEW YORK — A potential warning to stock investors: the fourth-quarter earnings pre-announcement season is shaping up to be the most negative on record.

In what seems like a major disconnect, the number of profit warnings relative to upbeat guidance is the widest it has ever been — at a time when the U.S. stock market is trading near record territory. The Standard & Poor's 500 index notched a new closing high of 1809 Monday.

For every 10 companies warning of weaker-than-expected earnings for the October-through-December period, only one has said it will top forecasts, says earnings-tracker Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The actual 10.4-to-1 negative-to-positive pre-announcement ratio is on track to eclipse the prior record of 6.8 warnings for every positive one back in the first quarter of 2001. The long-term ratio is 2.3 warnings for each positive one.

"This is off the charts, I've never seen it this high," says Gregory Harrison, analyst at Thomson Reuters.

STOCKS: Is too little market fear something to fear?

Is this mass downgrade of the year-end profit outlook by corporate CEOs, which some blame on the 16-day government shutdown, a threat to the stock market's upward march?

Oddly, despite CEOs muted outlook, Wall Street, while worried, doesn't necessarily see the weak earnings guidance as a bull market killer.

Wall Street has come up with a handful of reasons why the negative earnings data might not be as damaging to the bull case as one might imagine.

1. Estimates already slashed. Since the start of 2013, Wall Street has cut profit forecasts in half for the final quarter of 2013. Analysts now expect 7.8% growth, down from 17.6% on Jan. 1 and 11% on Oct. 1. In short, the bar companies must hurdle has already been lowered.

2. CEOs more cautious. "Corporate leaders are very unsure about the outlook," says Alan Skrainka, chief investment officer at Cornerstone Wealth Management. "Setting low expectations is the best way to avoid a (profit) disappointment later." Stocks tend to perform better when a company tops profit forecasts.

Mark Litzerman, equity research manager for Wells Fargo Private Bank, notes that CEOs have been issuing more negative guidance in recent quarters. Indeed, four of the 10 most-negative profit pre-announcement seasons have come in 2013.

3. It's still a Fed-driven market. Stocks have been driven by the Federal Reserve's easy-money policies the past few years. And while CEO profit warnings are worrisome, "an earnings disappointment will be transient if the Fed waits until March to taper," or reduce its monthly bond purchases, says David Kotok, chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors.

4. U.S. companies are strong. Sure, CEOs are cautious, but U.S. companies have posted record profits every year since 2011. "Although companies' earnings may slow they're still making a ton of money and cash flow is even better," says Neil Hennessy, chief investment officer at Hennessy Funds.

5. Profits to improve. "I think we'll get some modest improvement in earnings in 2014," says Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Investments. Profitability will get a boost from consumers that feel richer due to rising stock and home prices. He also expects U.S. companies to spend more and sees stronger growth in Europe and China.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The S&P 500 settled higher by 0.6%, snapping its four-day losing streak. Despite today's gain, the benchmark index remains lower by 1.1% in December.

The bulk of today's advance occurred shortly after the open as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 notched their highs during the initial 30 minutes. Small-caps were a notable exception as the Russell 2000 (+1.2%) climbed throughout the day, trimming its month-to-date loss to 2.0%.

Nine of ten sectors registered gains with cyclical groups maintaining their lead throughout the session. The energy sector (+1.0%) displayed strength from the open after its largest component, Exxon Mobil (XOM 97.22, +1.91), was upgraded to 'Buy' from 'Neutral' at Goldman Sachs. Crude oil, which added 0.9% to $97.47/bbl, also played a part in the sector's strength.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (+1.0%) assumed the lead in afternoon trade as defense contractors and transports rallied. The PHLX Defense Index settled higher by 1.2% while the Dow Jones Transportation Average climbed 0.9%.

Although heavily-weighted financials (+0.6%) and health care (+0.2%) were a bit tentative in today's advance, the largest S&P 500 sector, technology (+1.0%) picked up the slack. The sector received support from chipmakers after Avago (AVGO 50.10, +4.45) agreed to acquire LSI Logic (LSI 10.96, +3.05) for $11.15 per share. The broader PHLX Semiconductor Index ended higher by 1.3%.

Even though equities registered solid gains, all ten sectors remain in the red for the month. Countercyclical consumer staples, health care, telecom services, and utilities are down between 1.0% and 2.7% in December while losses among cyclical groups are limited to no more than 1.2% (consumer discretionary and financials).

Despite today's advance, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 16.06, +0.30) climbed for the fourth session in a row, ending at a two-month high.

Treasuries registered modest losses as the 10-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.88%.

Today's participation was on the light side as only 669 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

On the economic front, revised productivity data for the third quarter showed an increase of 3.0%, which was above the 2.7% increase that had been expected by the Briefing.com consensus. Unit labor costs for the third quarter were revised lower to reflect a decrease of 1.4% (from -0.6%). The consensus expected the reading to reflect a decrease of 1.3%.

Separately, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for December registered a reading of 1.0, which was up from the prior month's reading of -2.2. However, the reading came in below the 5.0 expected by the Briefing.com consensus.

November industrial production increased 1.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 0.4%. Meanwhile, capacity utilization hit 79.0%, which was better than the 78.4% expected by the consensus.

Lastly, the October net long-term TIC flows report reflected an inflow of $25.5 billion into U.S. denominated assets. This followed the prior month's $25.5 billion inflow.

Tomorrow, November CPI, core CPI, and the third quarter current account balance will all be reported at 8:30 ET. Separately, the NAHB Housing Market Index for December will be released at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq +33.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +31.9% YTD
S&P 500 +25.3% YTD
DJIA +21.2% YTD

DJ30 +129.21 NASDAQ +28.54 SP500 +11.22 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1749/1.82 bln/817 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2048/668.9 mln/1008 3:35 pm : Commodities ended the mostly higher with metals higher, excluding platinum futures, energy mixed (WTI crude oil, RBOB and heating oil higher, while Brent crude oil and U.S. nat gas declined) and ag mixed (grains mostly higher, softs mostly lower).

Crude oil futures are higher this morning, which follows an upbeat euro zone PMI report and unrest in Libya. Libya so far refuses to reopen the oil ports in the east of Libya, creating smaller exports to the market. Jan crude oil finished pit trading +$0.94 higher at $97.47/barrel.

Natural gas futures sold off today as more moderate weather conditions in the U.S. weighed on prices. At the end of today's session, Jan nat gas lost 10 cents at $4.26/MMBtu.

Gold and silver rallying this morning, but began to trend lower off those highs for the day. Feb gold erased about $10 of gains and ended up $9.20 at $1244.30/oz, while silver erased about half of its gains and finished $0.49 higher at $20.09/oz.

4:05PM Juniper Networks to acquire WANDL for ~$60 mln (JNPR) 21.04 +0.37 : The transaction is expected to close in January 2014, subject to customary closing conditions.

Large Cap Gainers

AVGO (49.79 +9.07%): To acquire LSI Corporation (LSI) for $11.15 per share in an all cash transaction valued at $6.6 bln; expected to be significantly and immediately accretive to Avago's non-GAAP free cash flow and earnings per shareYPF (31.24 +6.95%): Mentioned positively in Barron's article
TI (9.47 +5.57%): Reuters reporting that BlockRock has become the second-largest shareholder in the company, approximately doubling its stake to 10.1% from 5.1%
Large Cap Losers
EC (41.04 -3.93%): Announced $10.595 bln Capex budget for 2014; downgraded to Sell at Citigroup
TMUS (26.56 -3.91%): Reuters reporting that Sprint (S) is considering making a bid for the company
TWTR (57.3 -2.88%): Downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey
Mid Cap Gainers
LSI (10.97 +38.62%): To be acquired by Avago Technologies (AVGO) for $11.15 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $6.6 bln
AER (33.09 +32.73%): Entered into agreement to buy 100% of the common stock of American International Group's (AIG) subsidiary International Lease Finance Corporation for $3 bln in cash and ~97.6 mln AerCap shares
CBST (68.18 +8.60%): Announced positive top-line results from the Company's pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial of its antibiotic candidate ceftolozane/tazobactam in complicated intra-abdominal infections
Mid Cap Losers
YOKU (29.17 -5.54%): Weakness in Chinese internet stocks: QIHU, VIPS, YY also lower
ASX (4.55 -3.40%): Announced that steps have been taken to address the isolated case of industrial wastewater discharge at ASE Kaohsiung K7 facility on October 1st; Kaohsiung K7 facility continues to adhere to the standards of the national effluent guidelines and currently remains in normal operation
JAZZ (111.19 -2.92%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman
STMicroelectronics (STM) has been an early bird in introducing its LSM303D accelerometer and magnetometer combo module to Xiaomi (Mi1S) and other emerging mobile phone makers in China.

Mellanox (MLNX) announced that its dual port ConnectX-3 10/40GbE Network Interface Cards are now fully compatible with qualified Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell networking solutions.

Marvell (MRVL) announced the expansion of its broad 4G LTE portfolio with the introduction of its high performance ARMADA Mobile PXA1088LTE Pro unified platform to support the issuing of 4G TD-LTE licenses in China and operators worldwide.

Spreadtrum Communications (SPRD) announced the introduction of its portfolio of quad-core smartphone chipsets supporting both WCDMA and TD-SCDMA 3G standards for mid-range and high performance smartphones

8:01AM LSI Logic acquired by AVGO for $11.15/share in cash (41% premium); AVGO sees deal significantly and immediately accretive to earnings -- both stocks are halted (LSI) 7.91 : Avago will acquire LSI for $11.15 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $6.6 billion. The acquisition creates a highly diversified semiconductor market leader with ~ $5 billion in annual revenues by adding enterprise storage to Avago's existing wired infrastructure, wireless and industrial businesses. The combined co will be strongly positioned to capitalize on the growing opportunities created by the rapid increases in data center IP and mobile data traffic. The transaction is expected to be significantly and immediately accretive to Avago's non-GAAP free cash flow and earnings per share. Avago currently anticipates achieving annual cost savings at a run rate of $200 million by the end of the fiscal year ending November 1, 2015, the first full fiscal year after closing.

Avago intends to fund the transaction with $1.0 billion of cash from the combined balance sheet and fully-committed financing from the following sources: A $4.6 billion term loan from a group of banks; and A $1 billion investment from Silver Lake Partners, which is expected to be in the form of a seven year 2% convertible note with a conversion price of $48.04 per share or preferred stock with equivalent economic terms.

The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both cos and is subject to regulatory approvals in various jurisdictions and customary closing conditions, as well as the approval of LSI's stockholders.

"we expect to drive LSI's operating margins toward Avago's current levels, creating significant additional value for stockholders."


8:00AM Spreadtrum Comms announces receipt by Tsinghua Unigroup of regulatory approvals for merger (SPRD) 30.83 : Co announced that it has been informed by Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd. that Tsinghua Unigroup has now obtained all PRC regulatory approvals required to proceed with its acquisition of Spreadtrum. As previously announced on July 12, 2013, Spreadtrum and Tsinghua Unigroup entered into a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which the Company will become a subsidiary of Tsinghua Unigroup and each American depositary share (representing three ordinary shares) will be converted into the right to receive thirty one U.S. dollars (US$31.00) in cash and each ordinary share will be converted into the right to receive ten and one-third U.S. dollars (US$10.33) in cash. With Tsinghua Unigroup's receipt of regulatory approvals, the Merger is expected to be completed during the week commencing December 23, 2013, subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the conditions set forth in the merger agreement.

6:33AM Advanced Semi provides an update related to its Kaohsiung facilities; ASE Kaohsiung K7 facility continues to adhere to the standards of the national effluent guidelines and currently remains in normal operation (ASX) 4.71 : Co announced the steps that the co have taken to address the isolated case of industrial wastewater discharge at ASE Kaohsiung K7 facility on Oct 1st, 2013 and subsequent developments. Immediately after the incidents, ASE enlisted the help of industry experts to thoroughly investigate the root cause, and tightened its monitoring systems and reporting procedures. The ASE Kaohsiung K7 facility continues to adhere to the standards of the national effluent guidelines and currently remains in normal operation.

ASE sincerely apologizes for the high level of public concerns due to the recent incidents and intense media scrutiny. However, ASE firmly denies all allegations that the co had deliberately discharged contaminated wastewater and illegally installed underground piping within its facilities. The co is cooperating fully with Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Kaohsiung City Environment Protection Bureau and other related departments in support of their investigations. Co has also heightened our review of all our manufacturing facilities' environmental management and program implementation.

Moving forward, ASE will execute a two-prong approach to environmental protection and pollution prevention.

IBM's (IBM) Senior Vice President and General Counsel Robert Weber announced that, "Yesterday, IBM (IBM) learned of a lawsuit pushing a wild conspiracy theory. This lawsuit seeks to confuse IBM's support for a U.S. cybersecurity legislative proposal -- which has yet to be enacted - with the completely unrelated NSA surveillance program called PRISM. Even a cursory reading of the legislative proposal, known as CISPA, makes clear that it has nothing to do with the recently disclosed NSA surveillance program. The legislation is designed to help protect companies from cyber attacks by encouraging the sharing of technical cyber threat information, such as malware code. The ability for those under attack to work together to help prevent cybercrime is a modern business requirement and an important goal, which is why many companies, including IBM, support such legislation. This bill does not refer to China, and it does not authorize government surveillance, facts that the plaintiff and its attorneys could have easily determined had they bothered to do the slightest fact checking. Starting from this fictitious connection between CISPA and PRISM, the complaint proceeds to make numerous specious and false accusations, and IBM calls upon the law firm that filed this action to do the right thing and dismiss this action immediately. To fail to do so is a profound disservice to the judicial system, to the public, and in this case, to IBM. IBM will vigorously fight this baseless lawsuit."
Wi-LAN (WILN) has entered into a patent assignment agreement with Panasonic (PCRFY) under which Panasonic will assign to Collabo Innovations, a new WiLAN subsidiary, certain patents from Panasonic Automotive & Industrial Systems, one of Panasonic's internal companies. As part of the agreement, Panasonic will transfer over 900 patents and applications to the new WiLAN subsidiary relating to a broad range of technologies in the field of semiconductor devices, which are part of semiconductor patents that Panasonic owns. WiLAN believes the Semiconductor Portfolio has current applicability to a wide range of products including CMOS image sensors, microcontrollers and semiconductors used in optical drives.
Tableau Software (DATA 65.29); target $60 and Qlik Tech (QLIK 24.56), target $25 initiated with Neutral at Mizuho. The firm notes that while they are positive about the end markets and believe that these companies do command strong product leadership in the space, certain company-specific factors keep us on the sidelines. For QLIK, they think execution challenges will continue into 2014 and things could worsen before they improve, which would offer headwinds while low valuation would offer support. For DATA, they believe there is upside to estimates but the company's high valuation offers headwinds.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equities spent the bulk of today's session in the red, but afternoon buying interest helped the major averages end just below their respective flat lines. The S&P 500 shed 0.3% as eight of ten sectors registered losses.

Meanwhile, the Dow (-0.1%) traded ahead of its peers all session long as some of its top components provided support. 3M (MMM 131.39, +3.73) and Boeing (BA 135.88, +1.16) posted respective gains of 2.9% and 0.9% after both increased their quarterly dividends. The price-weighted index also received notable support from its top member, Visa (V 213.25, +5.50), which advanced 2.7%.

In turn, Visa's relative strength helped the technology sector (+0.03%) spend the entire session in the green. Chipmakers also factored into the modest gain as the PHLX Semiconductor Index ended higher by 1.0%.

Even though the tech sector outperformed, the tech-heavy Nasdaq could not stay out of the red as biotechnology weighed. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 213.66, -2.24) lost 1.0%, widening its December decline to 4.7%.

The losses in biotechnology also pressured the health care (-0.4%) space, which ended among the laggards. The remaining countercyclical groups did not fare much better as consumer staples (-0.5%) and telecom services (-0.8%) underperformed while utilities (-0.2%) ended just ahead of the broader market.

Today's losses among equities translated into a 1.4% gain for the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 16.25, +0.22), which posted its fifth consecutive increase ahead of tomorrow's FOMC policy directive.

Treasuries climbed throughout the session as the benchmark 10-yr fell four basis points to 2.85%.

Participation was on the light side with only 656 million shares changing hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Today's economic data was limited to just a handful of reports. November consumer prices were unchanged while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 0.1%. Core prices increased 0.2%, above the 0.1% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus.

Separately, the current account deficit for the third quarter totaled $94.8 billion, which was narrower than the $101.0 billion deficit that had been broadly anticipated.

Lastly, the December NAHB Housing Market Index rose to 58 from 54 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to tick up to 55.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while November Building Permits and Housing Starts for September, October, and November will be released at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the much-anticipated 14:00 ET release of the FOMC policy directive.

Below we lay out some key reasons why the FOMC might decide, or not decide, to make a tapering announcement on Wednesday.

The case for tapering now:

The House has passed the budget agreement and signs point toward the Senate doing the same this week. That signals the likelihood of less fiscal disruption, and less fiscal restraint, out of Washington in 2014.
Labor market trends are certainly improving. Nonfarm payroll gains have been 200,000+ in three of the last four months and have averaged 191,000 per month over the prior 12 months versus 151,000 (includes revisions) when QE3 was launched in September 2012.
Markets have hung in reasonably well as the case for a taper has gotten stronger, giving the Fed some measure of confidence (and another window of tapering opportunity) that participants are ready for a taper predicated on improving economic activity
Moody's notes high-yield spreads have hit a cycle low
The S&P 500 hit a new record high
After the strong November employment report, the fed funds futures market did not alter its view that the first rate hike will wait until July 2015
The 10-yr yield is down two basis points since the strong November employment report
The next scheduled FOMC press conference isn't until March. If a tapering announcement is made, the presumption is that the Fed chairman will want to explain it at a press conference (and the Fed chair may not want to wait until March given the improving data that could create financial market imbalances in the interim).
In the face of a declining budget deficit and an improving economy, there is growing uneasiness within the Fed about its balance sheet expansion

The case against tapering now:

Inflation rates remain well below the Fed's target rate
Real final sales, up 1.9% in Q3, remain relatively weak; and Q4 GDP is apt to be under 2.0%
The framework for a budget agreement is in place, but nothing has been resolved yet on the debt ceiling
There are reports that year-end liquidity issues will factor into a decision to hold off for now
Once the tapering begins, the Fed runs a heightened risk of seeing its credibility get eroded if it has to increase its purchases again on account of weakening data. While recent data have been encouraging, the Fed will want to be more certain about the sustainability of the improvement.

---

Nasdaq +33.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +31.7% YTD
S&P 500 +24.9% YTD
DJIA +21.2% YTD

4:03PM Integrated Device announces appointment of Greg Waters as President, CEO, effective Jan 6, 2014 (IDTI) 10.38 +0.17 : Mr. Waters previously was Executive Vice President and General Manager for Skyworks Solutions. Jeff McCreary, who served as interim CEO since August 2013, will remain a member of the co board of directors.

4:02PM Jabil Circuit to divest aftermarket services for $725 mln (JBL) 19.72 +0.04 : Co announces that it has entered into an agreement with iQor Holdings for the sale of its aftermarket services business for $725 mln. "Today, Jabil's AMS business is concentrated in depot repair for consumer electronics, which is not aligned with our strategy to focus on diversified manufacturing solutions...This divesture should provide us the financial flexibility to potentially add more engineering intensive capabilities, which should allow us to expand and diversify our core manufacturing business." Of the $725 million purchase price, $675 million is cash and $50 million is senior nonconvertible preferred stock of iQor.

1:06PM SolarCity launches 'Give Power Foundation' to provide solar-powered lighting to schools without electricity (SCTY) 53.14 +1.35 : Co launched the Give Power Foundation to build a cleaner, more sustainable future by providing solar energy to those in need. For every megawatt of residential solar power that SolarCity installs in 2014, the company will bring light to a community by donating a solar power system and battery combination to a school without access to electricity.

Large Cap Gainers

AVGO (53.9 +7.59%): Tgt raised to $64 at RBC Capital Mkts; target raised to $60 at DA Davidson; target raised to $65 at Canaccord Genuity; target raised premarket to $60 at UBS.
PBA (33.83 +3.84%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at TD Securities; target raised to $42 at RBC Capital Mkts.
WMB (36.5 +3.31%): Corvex disclosed 5.28% stake in 13D filing; seeks to add two members to the Board of Directors.

Large Cap Losers

DAL (26.98 -3.37%): Weakness in airline related names (UAL and LUV also trading lower).
TWTR (55.79 -1.45%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Atlantic Equities; tgt raised to $50 from $34; target raised to $65 at CRT Capital.
NBL (67.72 -2.42%): Announced highlights of 2013 Analyst Conference; production is projected to increase at a CAGR of 18% over the next five years; provided 2014 capital program and guidance.

Mid Cap Gainers

PBYI (104.51 +17.2%): Co will host a conference call on Dec 23, 2013, to provide an update on its clinical trials of PB272 (neratinib) in cancer patients with activating HER2 mutations.
FTR (4.77 +8.41%): Co to acquire AT&T's (T) Wireline Residential and Business Services and associated assets in Connecticut for $2 bln in cash; accretive to free cash flow per share in the first year.
CVLT (72.46 +6.2%): Co defended at BMO.

Mid Cap Losers

OPK (8.32 -8.47%): CEO/10% bought 156,000 shares at $8.54-9.24 worth ~ $1.4 mln,
FDS (111.17 -5.04%): Reported Q1 results; reported revs in-line; guided Q2 GAAP EPS in-line, revs in-line.
AGCO (57.8 -4.59%): Announced $500 mln share repurchase program.

OmniVision Tech (OVTI) and Gionee Communication Equipment have jointly developed a next-generation 16-megapixel camera for Gionee's flagship smartphone.

Micron Technology (MU) announced its collaboration with Broadcom (BRCM) to develop the industry's first solution designed for customers challenged by an intrinsic DDR3 timing parameter called tFAW, or four activate window.

QLogic (QLGC) announced that QLogic FlexSuite 2600 Series 16Gb Gen 5 Fibre Channel adapters and FabricCache 10000 Series server-based caching adapters are certified as DataCore Ready, providing full interoperability with SANsymphony-V storage virtualization solutions from DataCore Software.

8:22AM TTM Tech announces pricing of $220 mln of 1.75% convertible senior notes due 2020 (TTMI) 7.71 : Co announced the pricing of $220 million aggregate principal amount of 1.75% Convertible Senior Notes due 2020 in an underwritten public offering. The size of the transaction was increased from the previously announced aggregate principal amount of $150 million. The offering is being made pursuant to TTM's effective shelf registration statement (including a prospectus) previously filed with the SEC and a preliminary prospectus supplement related to the notes. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and RBS Securities Inc. are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering.

TTM also intends to use approximately $136.1 million of the net proceeds from the offering to repurchase approximately $131.6 million aggregate principal amount of its outstanding 3.25% convertible senior notes due 2015. TTM intends to use the remaining net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, which may include repayment of indebtedness, potential acquisitions, working capital, and capital expenditures.

TSL +1.4% (Trina Solar to Supply 1MW to Jordan's Largest Solar Power Project)


Analyst comments: HPQ +2.2% (upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan), STX +0.7% (Seagate upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JPMorgan),

6:47AM BlackBerry deploys of 10,000 BlackBerry 10 Smartphones and Migration to BES10 at PSA Peugeot Citroen (BBRY) 6.20 : Co announces that PSA Peugeot Citroen will deploy 10,000 BlackBerry Z10 smartphones for its operations in France and Spain, and is migrating to BlackBerry's award-winning Enterprise Mobility Management solution - BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10. To date, customers have installed nearly 30,000 BES10 commercial and test
servers around the world.

Pros Holdings (PRO) announced its acquisition of SignalDemand, Inc., a privately held software company headquartered in San Francisco, with approximately 40 professionals. Under the terms of the all-cash transaction, PROS will pay $13.5 million to acquire SignalDemand. SignalDemand provides predictive and prescriptive analytics and optimization for resource-based and commodity-driven businesses.
OpenTable (OPEN) announced that it has acquired Quickcue, a provider of guest management systems for restaurants, for approximately $11.5 million in cash pursuant to an agreement and plan of merger. The nine Quickcue team members joining OpenTable will continue to operate from their offices in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The acquisition will be recorded in the fourth quarter 2013 financial statements of OpenTable and is not expected to have a material impact on fourth quarter and full year 2013 financial guidance provided by the Company on November 5, 2013.
Pegasystems (PEGA) announced that its Board of Directors has authorized an expansion of the Company's current share repurchase program. Under this expansion, the expiration date of the current repurchase program has been extended from December 31, 2013 to December 31, 2014, and $15 million in repurchases of the Company's common stock has been approved, over and above the amounts repurchased through December 11, 2013. This expansion is effective from December 11, 2013 to December 31, 2014. For the current fiscal year through December 11, 2013, the Company had repurchased 378,073 shares under the current repurchase program, for an average price of $31.62 per share.

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>JBL may fall further than I thought! They are really lowering next quarter's outlook a bunch. RtS<

Jabil to sell warranty repair business; forecasts weak quarter

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jabil-sell-warranty-repair-business-230711313.html

Dec 17 (Reuters) - Contract electronics maker Jabil Circuit Inc said it would sell its warranty repair business in a deal valued at $725 million, as it focuses on its manufacturing operations.

The company, whose customers include Apple Inc and Cisco Systems Inc, also forecast current-quarter results way below Wall Street estimates.

Jabil's shares fell 14 percent in extended trading.

The company will sell the warranty repair business, also known as aftermarket services, to U.S.-based business process services company iQor Holdings Inc.

The business accounted for about 6 percent of Jabil's total revenue of $18.3 billion last year.

Jabil said JP Morgan was the financial adviser and Holland & Knight LLP its legal counsel for the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter.

Jabil forecast second-quarter core earnings of 5-15 cents per share on revenue of $3.5-$3.7 billion.

Analysts were expecting earnings of 52 cents per share on revenue of $4.28 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company expects revenue to fall 25 percent in its diversified manufacturing services and high velocity businesses.

The two businesses accounted for 70 percent of Jabil's total revenue last year. The high velocity business designs and markets products for devices and gadgets such as mobiles, set-top boxes and printers.

The company attributed the expected second-quarter revenue decline in the high velocity business to the winding down of its business with BlackBerry . Jabil said in September it could part ways with BlackBerry, its second-largest customer last year.

Jabil's shares were down at $17.02 after the bell. They closed at $19.72 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

The company said net income attributable to the company rose to $117.9 million, or 57 cents per share, in the first quarter, from $105.8 million, or 51 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell marginally to $4.61 billion.

Analysts had expected earnings of 54 cents per share on revenue of $4.46 billion.

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : Equities settled on their highs after dovish forward guidance from the Federal Reserve offset the immediate impact of a tapering announcement. Although the Federal Open Market Committee reduced the size of its monthly asset purchases from $85 billion to $75 billion, it pledged to keep the target Fed Funds Rate near its current levels 'well past the time that the unemployment rate declines below 6.5%.'

The dovish guidance was also the likely reason for Treasuries retracing all of their post-announcement losses. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended with a five basis point gain at 2.89%, which is essentially where it traded before the afternoon announcement.

During his press conference, Chairman Bernanke elaborated on the decision, saying the Committee plans to introduce further gradual reductions should economic data continue showing measurable improvement.

The S&P 500 surged 1.7%, wiping out its entire December loss. The index ended at a fresh record closing high as nine of ten sectors added at least 1.0%.

Heavily-weighted financials (+2.4%) and health care (+2.4%) finished in the lead. The health care sector received a considerable boost from biotechnology as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 219.31, +5.92) rose 2.8%.

Despite the relative strength of the two top-weighted sectors, the S&P 500 was kept from registering additional gains by the underperformance of technology (+0.8%). The sector lagged throughout the session as its top component, Apple (AAPL 550.77, -4.22), weighed. The largest tech stock fell 0.8% in the wake of Jabil Circuit's (JBL 15.67, -4.05) disappointing earnings report. Comments from China Mobile (CHL 52.61, +0.81) also weighed as the company said it is still working on an Apple iPhone deal after last week's reports implied the deal was nearing completion.

Today's broad gains overshadowed another key laggard, Ford (F 15.65, -1.05). The stock lost 6.3% after issuing fiscal-year 2014 guidance that fell short of expectations. Specifically, the company said it expects FY14 auto revenue to be about equal with FY13 (the current consensus calls for 11% growth) while adding its global auto operating margin target of 8-9% is at risk. The guidance update pressured rival General Motors (GM 41.27, -0.26) which slid 0.6%.

The removal of the uncertainty associated with today's FOMC decision caused the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 13.80, -2.41) to slump to last week's levels.

Today's economic data focused on housing. The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 5.5% to follow last week's 1.0% increase.

November building permits rose to 1,007,000 from the prior month's upwardly revised rate of 1,039,000 (from 1,034,000). That was above the pace of 983,000 that had been expected among economists polled by Briefing.com.

Regarding Housing Starts, September starts came in at 873,000 while the consensus expected a reading of 915,000. For October, Housing Starts were reported at 889,000 against the 920,000 expected by the consensus. Lastly, November starts increased to 1,091,000 while a reading of 950,000 was broadly anticipated.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims will be reported at 8:30 ET while Existing Home Sales for November will be reported at 10:00 ET. In addition, November Leading Indicators and the December Philadelphia Fed Survey will also be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq +34.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +33.5% YTD
S&P 500 +27.0% YTD
DJIA +23.4% YTD

DJ30 +292.71 NASDAQ +46.38 SP500 +29.65 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1840/2.05 bln/725 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2436/868.0 mln/649

3:30 pm :

Feb gold spent most of today's session chopping around near the unchanged line ahead of the FOMC policy statement. The yellow metal dipped to a pit session low of $1227.00 per ounce but gained steam in the last half hour of floor trade. It popped to a session high of $1237.50 per ounce and settled with a 0.4% gain at $1234.60 per ounce.
Mar silver pushed to a session high of $20.11 per ounce in late afternoon pit trade after trading in a consolidative fashion near the $19.95 per ounce level. It settled at $20.06 per ounce, booking a gain of 1.1%.
Gold fell as low as $1220.00 per ounce in electronic trade and silver slipped to a low of $19.42 per ounce following the 14:00 ET FOMC taper announcement. The Committee stated that beginning in January, it will taper its asset purchases by $10 bln per month. Gold is currently down 0.3% at $12226.80 and silver is up 0.2% at $19.88.
Feb crude oil traded as inventory data showed a draw of 2.941 bln barrels when a draw of 2.3-3.0 mln was anticipated. The energy component dipped to a session low of $97.46 in morning pit trade but eventually settled with a 0.6% gain at $98.08 per barrel, slightly below its session high of $98.30 per barrel.
Jan natural gas, on the other hand, trended lower today, erasing its earlier gains. Prices pulled back from a session high of $4.32 per MMBtu and slipped into the red by late morning floor action. Unable to regain momentum, natural gas settled 0.5% lower at $4.26 per MMBtu.

5:23PM CalAmp acquires Radio Satellite Integrators; The transaction is expected to be accretive to CAMP's overall margins and non-GAAP EPS in the coming fiscal year (CAMP) 25.05 +0.81 : Co announced that it has acquired privately held Radio Satellite Integrators, a Southern California-based provider of mobile resource management solutions to city and county government agencies.

This transaction improves CalAmp's competitive position and growth prospects in the state and local government market by augmenting CalAmp's current range of public safety solutions.

RSI's Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are utilized by a wide variety of fleet types including applications in public works, waste management, transit and public safety. On a trailing 12-month basis, RSI generated revenue of ~$5 mln and was profitable.

Consideration for the acquisition was $6.5 mln in upfront cash and future earn-out payments based on post-acquisition sales and gross profit performance. The transaction is expected to be accretive to CalAmp's overall margins and non-GAAP earnings per share in the coming fiscal year.

4:49PM BlackBerry announced two appointments that strengthen the Company's strategy, marketing and operations. (BBRY) 6.06 -0.05 : Co announced two appointments that strengthen the Company's strategy, marketing and operations.

James S. Mackey was appointed Executive Vice President for Corporate Development and Strategic Planning, joining the Company with years of experience executing highly successful corporate strategies that drive growth. Before joining BlackBerry, Mackey served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Open Text Corp., as well as head of Corporate Development at SAP.
Mark Wilson was named Senior Vice President of Marketing and brings extensive experience building brand preference and driving integrated marketing for a number of well-known companies. Wilson will join BlackBerry in January from Avaya, where as CMO he led the marketing transition to a customer-solutions orientation.

4:12PM Oracle beats by $0.02, beats on revs (ORCL) 34.70 +1.07 : Reports Q2 (Nov) earnings of $0.69 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.67; revenues rose 1.9% year/year to $9.28 bln vs the $9.18 bln consensus.

New software licenses revenue -1% to $2.4 bln vs. expectations of just under $2.4 bln (Flat YoY); Non-GAAP software license updates and product support revenues were up 6% to $4.5 bln.
Hardware revenue of $714 mln vs. expectations of ~$675 mln (-8% YoY); Hardware Systems revenues, including hardware systems products and hardware systems support, were unchanged at $1.3 billion.
Non-GAAP operating income was down 1% at $4.2 billion, and the non-GAAP operating margin was 46%.

"We're very pleased with our results as new software license and cloud software subscription revenue grew 1% in constant currency over the 18% growth reported last year. Software revenue grew 5% helping drive our tremendous cash flow and for the first time ever, we generated more than $15 billion in operating cash flow over four quarters. Our hardware business, including support, grew 2% in constant currency this quarter driven by double-digit revenue growth in Exadata, Exalogic and Exalytics. The SPARC SuperCluster and Big Data Appliance were even better, with triple-digit growth and we expect hardware products will show growth next quarter. Our billion dollar SaaS business delivered overall bookings growth of 35% in the quarter."

4:10PM PLX Tech announces preliminary results of 2013 annual meeting; three new independent directors elected (PLXT) 6.51 -0.06 : Co announced that, based on preliminary results from its 2013 Annual Meeting of Stockholders held earlier today, stockholders have elected Martin Colombatto, Stephen Domenik and Eric Singer, three new independent directors nominated by its largest shareholder, Potomac Capital Partners II, L.P., and re-elected five existing directors who ran unopposed, John Hart, David Raun, Michael Salameh, Ralph Schmitt and Patrick Verderico.
Potomac, together with its affiliates, is the beneficial holder of approximately 10.3 percent of PLX's common stock. IVS Associates, Inc., the independent inspector of elections for the Annual Meeting, has indicated that it expects to issue final, certified results over the next few days.

Large Cap Gainers

VRTX (68 +3.69%): Strength attributed to positive comments from BofA/Merrill.
NOK (7.55 +2.51%): Mentioned positively on MadMoney; co's unit, Nokia Solutions and Networks, has won an LTE contract with China Telecom (CHA).
CVS (68.39 +2.36%): Guided FY14 EPS in-line, raised dividend 22% and approved new $6 bln share repurchase at Analyst Day.

Large Cap Losers

F (15.6 -6.6%): Co sees FY14 automotive rev about equal to 2013 with a lower operating margin; sees lower pretax profit; sees 2014 US industry volume: 16-17 mln.
ESV (55.64 -4.1%): Tgt lowered to $61 from $64 at RBC Capital Mkts.
EQT (82.91 -3.41%): Announced the co's 2014 CAPEX forecast of $2.4 bln.

Mid Cap Gainers

KOG (10.94 +3.89%): Announced 2014 capital budget of $940 mln, co expects to increase production ~45% in 2014, borrowing base increased to $1.35 bln from $1.1 bln.
EVHC (33.56 +3.33%): Initiated with a Buy at KeyBanc Capital Mkts.
CGNX (35.44 +3.5%): Initiated with a Buy at BB&T Capital Mkts; tgt $45.

Mid Cap Losers

JBL (15.58 -21.01%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; announced $200 mln stock repurchase authorization; co to divest aftermarket services for $725 mln; downgraded at Citigroup, Needham, and Longbow; tgt cut to $24 from $26 at Stifel.
GOGO (26.82 -12.75%): Announced Ripplewood distribution and director resignations; Delta Air Lines (DAL) CEO affirmed no voice calls during flight for customers.
PAY (22.76 -8.96%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.

IBM (IBM) and 21Vianet Group (VNET) have entered a definitive agreement to introduce IBM's private cloud infrastructure service and accelerate high value managed private cloud services to China

Riverbed Technology (RVBD) and Gigamon (GIMO) announced that Riverbed Cascade Shark now supports Gigamon's time stamping solution in the GigaVUE H Series

Apple (AAPL) announced the all-new Mac Pro will be available to order starting Thursday, Dec 19.

INTC +0.2% (Intel added to the short-term buy list at Deutsche Bank)

5:23AM First Solar modules selected to power projects totaling 48MW in France (FSLR) 55.51 : Co announces that its advanced thin-film photovoltaic modules will power four solar energy plants in France, with a combined capacity of 48 megawatts.

4:04AM Tower Semicon raises its credit line to $70 mln from $45 mln at reduced rate (TSEM) 3.91 :

SunPower (SPWR) announced that it has signed multiple supply agreements with Ecomax Japan to purchase SunPower's high efficiency E20/327 solar panels totaling 20-megawatts. In 2014, Ecomax plans to install the solar panels at several locations in Central and Northern Japan.

Jabil Circuit (JBL) reported first quarter earnings of $0.51 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues fell 0.6% year/year to $4.61 billion which is higher than expected. The company issued second quarter guidance for EPS of $0.05-0.15 and revenues of $3.5-3.7 billion which is worse than expected. The company also announced that its Board of Directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $200 million of its common stock over the next 12 months. The company also announced that it has entered into an agreement with iQor Holdings for the sale of its aftermarket services business for $725 mln. "Today, Jabil's AMS business is concentrated in depot repair for consumer electronics, which is not aligned with our strategy to focus on diversified manufacturing solutions...This divesture should provide us the financial flexibility to potentially add more engineering intensive capabilities, which should allow us to expand and diversify our core manufacturing business." Of the $725 million purchase price, $675 million is cash and $50 million is senior nonconvertible preferred stock of iQor.
Dice Holdings (DHX) announced new $50 million stock repurchase program. The new authorization is effective upon the completion of the existing $50 million repurchase program and will be in effect for one year. In January 2013, the Board of Directors authorized the purchase of up to $50 million of its common stock. Under this plan, the Company has repurchased about 5.9 million shares of its common stock on the open market for approximately $49.4 million through December 13, 2013.
VeriFone (PAY) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.27 per share, which is better than expected, while NON-GAAP revenues fell 11.7% year/year to $432 million which is higher than expected. The company issued first quarter with EPS of $0.26, excluding non-recurring items, which is below estimates with first quarter NON-GAAP revenues $425-430 million which is line with estimates. The company issued fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $1.35-1.40, which is below estimates with revenues of $1.77-1.80 billion which is line with estimates.

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Leavitt Brothers - VIDEO: Indicators Are Not Fully Supportive of a Rally Right Now

http://leavittbrothers.com/blog/index.php/2013/12/19/video-indicators-are-not-fully-supportive-of-a-rally-right-now/

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Market Currently Displaying Bearish Divergence

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/tom-mcclellan/bearish-divergence

By Tom McClellan12/19/2013



The Fed's announcement that the taper would be a more quiet retreat instead of a sudden one was celebrated on Wall Street, and it pushed the DJIA and other indices to higher highs. But so far, the NYSE's A-D Line has not followed suit. Maybe it will catch up in the days ahead, but for now we have a bearish divergence showing.

That is a way of saying that the higher price highs for the indices are being made with dwindling participation, and that is not generally good news. A-D data are perhaps the best "liquidometer", a way of finding out the state of the liquidity available to the stock market. Financial markets can suffer from many different types of problems, but liquidity problems are the toughest to get over. And in periods when liquidity is plentiful, as evidenced by a strong A-D Line, then the other types of problems are easier to get over. Plentiful liquidity means that even the least deserving stocks can garner some of it, and participate in the advance. But when liquidity gets tight, the big and popular stocks which dominate the indices can hog their share, while the runts of the herd get taken out behind the barn.

The daily A-D Line is constructed as a cumulative time series of the daily Advance-Decline difference, also known as "daily breadth". Each day, the number of advances and declines are published by multiple sources, although the various sources almost never agree (a source of longstanding frustration). We use Wall Street Journal numbers as our official final source for A-D data, although we consult other sources during the trading day. We calculate the difference between advances and declines, which can be either a positive or negative number depending on which side prevails each day. Then we add that daily breadth number to the prior day's cumulative A-D Line value. The scaling of the numbers on the Y-axis is not important; it just reflects what has happened in the time since one's chosen start point for the data.

Generally speaking, the A-D Line will look a lot like price indices, which is to be expected. It give us useful information when the breadth numbers start doing something different from prices.

The chart above shows that the DJIA (and other indices too) has pushed ahead to a higher high. But the A-D Line peaked on Oct. 29, 2013, and as of the close on Dec. 18, 2013, it is still 2700 increments below that October high. That sort of bearish divergence is not good news, although it does not necessarily have to bring the price uptrend to an immediate halt. Instead, it is a warning message that trouble may be brewing for market liquidity.

If the bearish divergence persists into 2014, then that could spell an even bigger problem for investors. Major market tops have typically followed divergent tops in the A-D Line by a period of 3-6 months.



The composite A-D Line peaked on June 4, 2007, just over 4 months ahead of the final top for the DJIA. In 1998, there was an A-D Line peak on April 2, 1998, 3 months ahead of the July 17, 1998 top. That led to a 20% market decline in August 1998, and then we saw further trouble as the Internet bubble top in 2000 came with the A-D never giving confirmation of the new upward price move. That was a big sign of trouble, and trouble did indeed arrive in 2000-2002.

We saw similar big divergences between the A-D Line and the DJIA back in 1990 and 1987, before the severe price declines in those years. So if the current divergence we are seeing right now stretches into 2014, that suggests problems similar to those prior major bear market declines.

And the divergence is not just evident in the composite A-D Line. Many analysts say that we should only ever look at A-D data for the "common only" set of NYSE issues, since the preferred stocks, closed end funds (CEF), rights, warrants, and other special issues supposedly contaminate what those analysts see as the "real" data. I do not happen to agree with that prejudice, since my research has shown that those "uncommon" issues actually serve as a better canary in the coal mine, warning of trouble well ahead of time. The bond CEF A-D Line, for example, topped way back in May 2013, and it continues to show bearish divergences relative to prices.



The Bond CEF A-D Line also gave an earlier warning signal ahead of the Oct. 2007 market price top, when the Bond CEF A-D Line topped back on May 11, 2007, almost a full month before the composite and "common only" A-D Lines reached their tops.

But for those who nevertheless insist that it must be the "common only" A-D data that one follows, we are seeing a divergence there as well:



Note: data for the Common Only advances and declines is published each week in the Barron's Market Lab section. We also calculate our own version from scratch, which is the data reflected in this chart.

Everyone should remember that for now, these divergent conditions are still just a warning. For the price indices to make a higher high is generally a bullish action. It is only the last new high that is the bearish one, and along the way a lot of bullish new highs can pile up. Breadth numbers could possibly undergo a sudden improvement, and take away the divergence that is evident now. So we cannot just notice this divergence now and then forget about it. If the market does indeed make a price top in mid-January, as the 1929 analog suggests, and if the divergences are still in effect, then that will convey a more dangerous message about what lies ahead for 2014.

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

Dow +42.00 at 16221.08, Nasdaq +46.61 at 4104.74, S&P +8.71 at 1818.31

The major averages capped a solid week with a broad advance. The S&P 500 added 0.5%, extending its weekly gain to 2.7%.

Equities spent the entire session in a steady climb after the final reading of third quarter GDP sparked a broad-based rally. The report pointed to growth of 4.1%, which was the strongest reading since the economy expanded by 4.9% in the fourth quarter of 2011, and well above the 2.5% gain reported in the second quarter. Real final sales, which exclude inventory growth, increased 2.5%. That was up from a 1.9% gain reported in the second estimate, and was the largest gain since a 3.4% increase was observed in Q4 2011.

Even though all the key indices rallied, the small-cap Russell 2000 (+1.9%) had the best showing. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 posted a more modest gain as nine of ten sectors finished in the green.

The largest S&P 500 sector, technology (+0.9%) played a significant part in the rally. The group received support from large-cap names like Apple (AAPL 549.02, +4.56), Google (GOOG 1100.62, +14.40), and Microsoft (MSFT 36.80, +0.55). Chipmakers also chipped in as the PHLX Semiconductor Index gained 0.8%.

On a related note, the tech sector's strength contributed to the outperformance of the Nasdaq (+1.2%), which also received noteworthy support from biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 223.70, +5.71) surged 2.6%.

In turn, biotechnology gave a boost to the health care sector (+0.5%), which kept pace with the S&P 500 throughout the session.

Another influential group, financials (+0.5%) lagged for the majority of the session, but caught up to the broader market in the late afternoon.

Although most sectors had a strong showing, energy (+0.1%) and materials (+0.3%) struggled to gain traction. The energy sector underperformed as two large members, Chevron (CVX 122.78, -0.44) and Exxon Mobil (XOM 98.68, -0.75) spent the day in the red. The pair of Dow components also factored into the underperformance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%).

On the downside, the telecom services sector (-0.6%) was the lone decliner.

Today's participation was well above average as nearly two billion shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The final tally was aided by additional activity associated with quadruple witching and quarterly rebalancing that took place today.

Treasuries ended on their highs after staging an intraday reversal. The 10-yr yield tested resistance earlier this morning at 2.95% (September closing high). Despite the stronger-than-expected Q3 GDP revision, the 10-yr came barreling back in a surprising manner that probably stirred some short-covering activity that has exacerbated today's gains. The 10-yr note settled higher by 11 ticks with its yield down four basis points at 2.89%.

On Monday, November personal income, personal spending, and core PCE prices will all be reported at 8:30 ET while the final reading of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey will be released at 9:55 ET.

Week in Review: Taper Arrives But Stocks Party On

On Monday, the S&P 500 settled higher by 0.6%, snapping its four-day losing streak. The bulk of the advance occurred shortly after the open as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 notched their highs during the initial 30 minutes. Small-caps were a notable exception as the Russell 2000 (+1.2%) climbed throughout the day, trimming its month-to-date loss to 2.0%. Nine of ten sectors registered gains with cyclical groups maintaining their lead throughout the session. The energy sector (+1.0%) displayed strength from the open after its largest component, Exxon Mobil, was upgraded to 'Buy' from 'Neutral' at Goldman Sachs. Crude oil, which added 0.9% to $97.47/bbl, also played a part in the sector's strength.

Equities spent the bulk of the Tuesday session in the red, but afternoon buying interest helped the major averages end just below their respective flat lines. The S&P 500 shed 0.3% as eight of ten sectors registered losses. Meanwhile, the Dow (-0.1%) traded ahead of its peers all session long as some of its top components provided support. 3M (MMM 136.72, +0.31) and Boeing (BA 136.67, +1.50) posted respective gains of 2.9% and 0.9% after both increased their quarterly dividends. The price-weighted index also received notable support from its top member, Visa (V 215.97, -0.11), which advanced 2.7%.

Wednesday saw equities settle on their highs after dovish forward guidance from the Federal Reserve offset the immediate impact of a tapering announcement. Although the Federal Open Market Committee reduced the size of its monthly asset purchases from $85 billion to $75 billion, it pledged to keep the target Fed Funds Rate near its current levels 'well past the time that the unemployment rate declines below 6.5%.' The dovish guidance was also the likely reason for Treasuries retracing all of their post-announcement losses. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended with a five basis point gain at 2.89%, which is essentially where it traded before the afternoon announcement.

The stock market followed the Wednesday surge with a quiet Thursday session, which featured the added news that the Senate passed the two-year budget agreement. After some early gyrations, the major indices held to pretty tight trading ranges throughout the session and ended the day little changed. All in all, it was a pretty good showing given the scope of Wednesday's advance and considering the yield on the 10-yr note went as high as 2.95% before settling back down to 2.93%. A lack of concerted leadership and some buying exhaustion were to blame for the inability to log another record closing high for the S&P 500. It challenged Wednesday's high on two occasions, but each time it was greeted with renewed selling interest that held it in check. The Dow, though, eked out another record close.

 
 Index	    Started Week  Ended Week   Change  % Change  YTD % 
 DJIA	     15755.36	   16221.14    465.78	  3.0	23.8 
 Nasdaq	      4000.98	    4104.74    103.76	  2.6	35.9 
 S&P 500	1775.32	    1818.31	42.99	  2.4	27.5 
 Russell 2000  1107.05       1146.40	39.35	  3.6	35.0

2:59PM Index Change Reminder (INDXCH) : The following index changes will be effective after the close of trading today:

Facebook (FB) will replace Williams Companies (WMB) in the S&P 100, and Facebook will replace Teradyne (TER) in the S&P 500. Teradyne will replace Scholastic (SCHL) in the S&P MidCap 400, and Scholastic will replace Lincoln Education Services (LINC) in the S&P SmallCap 600. The Williams Company will remain in the S&P 500.
Alliance Data Systems (ADS) and Mohawk Industries (MHK) will replace Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) and JDS Uniphase (JDSU) in the S&P 500, and, likewise, Abercrombie & Fitch and JDS Uniphase will replace Alliance Data Systems and Mohawk Industries in the S&P MidCap 400.
Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL) and Brunswick (BC) will replace Arch Coal (ACI) and Regis (RGS) in the S&P MidCap 400, and likewise, Arch Coal and Regis will replace Old Dominion Freight Line and Brunswick in the S&P SmallCap 600.
The following five securities will be added to the NASDAQ-100 Index: DISH Network (DISH), Illumina (ILMN), NXP Semiconductors (NXPI), TripAdvisor (TRIP) and Tractor Supply (TSCO). The following five securities will be removed from the Index: Fossil Group (FOSL), Microchip Technology (MCHP), Nuance Communications (NUAN), Sears Holdings (SHLD) and DENTSPLY International (XRAY).

Large Cap Gainers

STX (54.7 +4.21%): Target raised to $70 from $55 at Brean Capital
MU (22.53 +4.20%): Mentioned positively in blog article
AGN (108.1 +4.18%): Continued strength following reported patent filings for Restasis, the company's treatment for dry eye syndrome; mentioned positivly and targets raised at multiple research firms

Large Cap Losers

KMX (48.46 -8.66%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.47 vs $0.48 estimate), revs rose 13.0% yoy to $2.94 bln vs $2.9 bln estimate; total used vehicle unit sales grew 15% and comarable store used units grew 10%
FAST (45.69 -4.83%): Co anticipates it will miss the average analyst net earnings expectations for Q4 EPS of $0.36 per share; During the last three months co's daily sales growth was 5.7% (September), 7.7% (October), and 8.2% (November)
SYMC (22.46 -2.31%): Announced departure of Andrew Del Matto, co's current actiong CFO and CAO; Don Rath, vice president of global tax, named interim CFO and CAO

Mid Cap Gainers

RHT (57.96 +18.29%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.07 ($0.42 ex items vs $0.35 estimate), revs rose 15.4% yoy to $396.5 mln vs $383.06 mln estimate; subscription revenue rose 17% in the U.S. to $343 mln; sees Q4 adjusted EPS of $0.36-0.38 vs $0.36 estimate; upgraded at UBS and Raymond James
BBRY (6.97 +11.52%): Missed analyst estimates on top and bottom line; announced five-year strategic partnership with Foxconn, which will jointly develop and manufacture certain new devices
ARRS (23.79 +9.03%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies, target $30

Mid Cap Losers

TIBX (21.05 -14.01%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.42 ex items vs $0.39 estimate), revs rose 6.4% yoy to $315.5 mln vs $312.47 mln estimate; sees Q1 revs of $247-253 mln vs $255.57 mln estimate, adjusted EPS of $0.17-0.18 vs $0.21 estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS
RAD (4.83 -6.58%): Continued weakness following earnings announced before the open on December 19 (co lowered FY14 EPS guidance to $0.17-0.23 from $0.18-0.27)
SWFT (22.33 -5.22%): Lowered Q4 EPS guidance to $0.33-0.36 (from ~$0.40) vs $0.41 estimate

8:04AM SolarCity announced that it has increased the size of its corporate revolver to $200 mln (SCTY) 56.90 : announced that it has increased the size of its Corporate Revolver to $200 million. This three-year credit facility bears interest of 2.25% over Base Rate or 3.25% over LIBOR. Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the Sole Lead Arranger and Sole Bookrunner, with an additional five participating lenders.

The expanded credit facility will be used primarily to fund SolarCity's growth. The company has set a goal to surpass 1 million customers in 2018.

n U.S. corporate news:

BlackBerry (BBRY 5.90, -0.35): -5.6% after the company reported disappointing quarterly results.
Carnival (CCL 39.41, +1.36): +3.6% after receiving upgrades from Credit Suisse and UBS.
Finish Line (FINL 28.30, +2.16): +8.3% following its bottom-line beat on above-consensus revenue.
Nike (NKE 78.30, +0.04): +0.1% after the company beat earnings estimates by one cent.
Red Hat (RHT 55.80, +6.80): +13.9% after UBS upgraded the stock to 'Buy' from 'Neutral.'
Walgreens (WAG 58.00, +1.06): +1.9% after reporting results in-line with its December 4th preannouncement.

7:13AM BlackBerry misses by $0.24, misses on revs; announces five-year strategic partnership with Foxconn, which will jointly develop and manufacture certain new BBRY devices (BBRY) 6.25 : Reports Q3 (Nov) adjusted loss of $0.67 per share (*see below), $0.24 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.43); revenues fell 56.3% year/year to $1.19 bln vs the $1.62 bln consensus.

The revenue breakdown for the quarter was ~40% for hardware, 53% for services and 7% for software and other revenue.
During Q3, the co recognized hardware revenue on ~1.9 million BlackBerry smartphones compared to ~3.7 million BlackBerry smartphones in the previous quarter. Most of the units recognized were BlackBerry 7 devices.
During the quarter, ~4.3 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers, which included shipments made and recognized prior to the third quarter and which reduced the Company's inventory in channel. Of the BlackBerry smartphones sold through to end customers in the third quarter, ~3.2 million were BlackBerry 7 devices.
Company begins transition to operating unit structure: Enterprise Services, Messaging, QNX Embedded business and the Devices business -- New organizational structure to drive greater focus on services and software, while establishing a more efficient business model for the Devices business
Enterprise Services: Co sees increasing penetration of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES10) with over 30,000 commercial and test servers installed to date, up from 25,000 in September 2013; Company remains a mobile device management leader with global enterprise customer base exceeding 80,000
Messaging: Over 40 million newly registered iOS/Android users in the last 60 days; more than a dozen Android OEMs to preload BBM, including most recently LG; over 250,000 BBM Channels created by global user base since launch of BBM Channels on BlackBerry, including large brands such as Coke Indonesia and USA Today; BBM is the most secure mobile messaging service for use in regulated enterprises
QNX Embedded Business: QNX to unveil new technology in automotive and cloud services at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show in January.
The total of cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments was $3.2 billion as of November 30, 2013, compared to $2.6 billion at the end of the previous quarter. Cash flow used in operations in the third quarter was ~ $77 million. Cash flows provided by financing activities in the third quarter were ~$991 million, including the proceeds from the issuance of debt.

In Q4, the co anticipates maintaining its strong cash position and further reducing operating expenses as it continues to implement its previously-announced cost reduction program.

The co announced that it has entered into a five-year strategic partnership with Foxconn, the world's largest manufacturer of electronic products and components. Under this new relationship, Foxconn will jointly develop and manufacture certain new BlackBerry devices and manage the inventory associated with those devices. The initial focus of the partnership will be a smartphone for Indonesia and other fast-growing markets targeting early 2014.

*Adj. EPS excludes the impact of the LLA Impairment Charge of ~$2.7 billion ($2.5 billion after tax), the Q3 14 Inventory Charge of ~$1.6 billion ($1.3 billion after tax) and pre-tax restructuring and legal and financial advisory charges of ~$266 million ($225 million after tax) related to the CORE program and strategic review process incurred in Q3.

7:05AM Plug Power receives a letter from The NASDAQ Stock Market advising that the co has regained compliance with NASDAQ's minimum bid price listing requirement (PLUG) 1.80 :

TIBCO Software (TIBX) reported second quarter earnings of $0.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 6.4% year/year to $315.5 million which is in line with estimates. "We saw strong, accelerating growth in the Americas and a return to growth in Asia this quarter, while closing a record 31 deals over $1 million in license revenue worldwide," said Vivek Ranadiv , TIBCO Chairman and CEO. "We are building momentum as we enter 2014, and I am very optimistic about our prospects in the year ahead." The company sees first quarter revs of $247-253 million which is below estimates with adjusted EPS of $0.17-0.18 which is worse than expected.

Red Hat (RHT) reported third quarter earnings of $0.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 15.4% year/year to $396.5 million which is higher than expected. Subscription revenue for the quarter was $343 million, up 17% in U.S. dollars year-over-year, or 18% measured in constant currency. At quarter end, the co's total deferred revenue balance was $1.12 billion, an increase of 14% on a year-over-year basis. Total cash, cash equivalents and investments as of November 30, 2013 was $1.33 billion after repurchasing ~$40 million of common stock, or ~920 thousand shares, in the third quarter. Red Hat has repurchased ~$239 million of common stock, or approximately 5.0 million shares, during the first nine months of fiscal 2014. "We experienced an acceleration in our billings proxy growth in Q3, both year-over-year and sequentially, due in part to the strengthening of our European and U.S. federal government businesses. The billings proxy, which we define as total revenue plus the change in deferred revenue found on the Statement of Cash Flows, was $453 million, up 19% in U.S. dollars and 21% in constant currency compared to last year." The company sees Q4 adjusted EPS of $0.36-0.38 which is line with estimates. The company sees fiscal year 2014 revenues of $1.531-1.534 billion (raised from $1.51-1.52 billion) which is higher than expected.

DealerTrack (TRAK) and Dealer.com announced a definitive agreement for Dealertrack to acquire Dealer.com, a leading provider of marketing and operations software and services for the automotive industry. Through the combination, the companies expect to realize their shared vision to transform automotive retail by delivering the most advanced solutions for dealers, OEMs, lenders and car shoppers. Under the terms of the agreement, Dealertrack will acquire all the equity of Dealer.com for approximately 8.7 million shares of Dealertrack's common stock and $620 million in cash, subject to customary post-closing adjustments. Dealertrack expects to finance the cash portion of the purchase price through cash on hand and with fully committed debt financing. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to regulatory approval, and the transaction is expected to be accretive to Dealertrack's standalone multi-year organic growth profile to Dealertrack's diluted adjusted net income per share.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- The Christmas rally continues aided by upward GDP revisions
- 4+% GDP for the third time in a 5 year recovery. Much rejoicing.
- Lost in the euphoria: China suffers another day of banking liquidity lockup, EU credit downgraded.
- Growth resumes leadership, looking very good.
- Short week but many stocks, even after a surge last week, are in good position to buy and continue higher.

Friday, post-FOMC, post-GDP surge continues the holiday rally.

Duck Dynasty and Q3 GDP dominated the headlines. The reaction to the former shows how difficult it is for us to get along on both sides. The reaction to the latter shows how difficult it is for the government to generate accurate data or perhaps the willingness to generate and report accurate data.

I have a plan: you let me talk and I will let you talk. We can agree to disagree but also agree to civilly let each other speak his or her mind.

There used to be this notion in the US that you may disagree, and disagree passionately, but you would fight for the right of your adversary to believe the way he wanted. That assured open and honest discussion of our differences and we would work out solutions. Today you are attacked and shouted down if you speak what you believe, left, right, middle, fringe. Heck, even those purportedly on your side can call you a fringe lunatic or something like that if the statement will garner poll points.

GDP sports largest revision on record: 45%

There also used to be this notion that you could trust the data the government reported regarding economic activity. From 'I am not a crook' to 'you can keep your insurance/doctor/ period,' however, things have changed. From the IRS, DEA, NSA, HHS (the ACA), to the BLS we have been targeted, used, spied upon, lied to and incompetently served, to downright deceived (the BLS altering employment data ahead of the 2012 elections).

Even so, we want to believe. Thus when the third revision of Q3 GDP showed massive, record-setting revisions, while hard to swallow, investors wanted to believe they numbers. We are a hopeful, optimistic lot. It worked on Friday.

2.8% first read, 3.6% second, and 4.1% third. 45% revision upward from the first read, a record setting revision. The second revision surged due to a massive 100% increase in inventory build. The third revision rose on consumption, mostly in the form of rising healthcare costs:

Personal consumption : 2.0% versus 1.4% originally reported.
60% of the increase was healthcare costs (read insurance cost surges; how is that ACA working for you?) and gasoline costs (27%). Those are not exactly the kind of costs that give you a great feeling about the rise in consumption. Policies cancelled, forced to pay up in new higher priced policies. Not good.

We can only hope the inventory build (115.7B from 56.5B in Q2) gets sold and can avoid the write-offs other inventory builds suffered during this recovery.
To wit, the last time GDP was this high (Q4 2011) it didn't last as inventories had to be liquidated as the late year surge was a false hope. This is the third 4+% GDP read in the recovery, each one occurring late in the year as retailers and manufacturers hoped this would be the turn.

Maybe this will be more of a turn. We need it. Don't be surprised, however, if it is just a blip that fades as the US economy continues to work through a protracted period of slow, sporadic growth. The same policies that produced a stagnant economy are still in place and indeed are even stronger with the ACA going live.

But don't you worry. Friday HHS and the President announced a suspension of the individual mandate for those losing policies as a result of the ACA enactment.

From Drudge Report

Once again the executive decides he is not going to faithfully enforce all parts of the laws passed by Congress but effectively re-write them as he sees fight. How monarch-like. Maybe someone in Congress grows a pair and takes him to task. To be fair some are as lawsuits have been filed. Oh joy. More wrangling. Sad but necessary given the circumstances.

The overlooked stories:

China: Second day of monetary intervention. China decided to get tough at the same time the FOMC tapered. Let's see, that makes about 45 Chinese attempts to reduce liquidity. Last week China's money markets started to freeze, displaying the same illiquidity indicia seen in June. As soon as it tried to taper itself, its markets rebelled. Thus some reverse repo action Thursday and again on Friday.

As noted Thursday, this is a gravely serious situation in China.

EU credit downgraded. Perhaps it is because the federal government sued S&P for its US downgrade this story did not receive much publicity. Whatever the reason, Friday S&P downgraded the EU credit to AA+ from AAA. We are told that all is fine and Europe is growing. Should the data from Europe be trusted any more than ours?

THE ACTION

The disquieting stories and the issues with the GDP report itself could not overcome the better feelings engendered by the third 4+% print in the 5 year recovery. In 20 quarters of recovery, just 3 over 4% (15%). Oh well. The holiday rally that started in early November as a continuation of the rally from early September, renewed itself last week with strong surges Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Friday started higher out of the gate and rallied into early afternoon. It took that long to get a fade. With expiration and rebalance the last 1.5 hours was rather mundane, the fireworks released earlier in the session. We used the late fade to pick up some positions that rallied well on the session and held much of the moves. We also took some gain on some December options, banking 230% on SFUN, 220% on some FSLR, and 300+% on CRR.

SP500 8.72, 0.48%
NASDAQ 46.61, 1.15%
DJ30 42.06, 0.26%
SP400 1.11%
RUTS 1.87%
SOX 0.83%

Volume surged on rebalance and expiration: NYSE +80%, NASDAQ +67%

Breadth solid: 3:1 NYSE, 2.6:1 NASDAQ

THE MARKET

OTHER MARKETS

Dollar: 1.3675 versus 1.3643 versus 1.3683 versus 1.3765 versus 1.3761 versus 1.3733 versus 1.3752 versus 1.3787 versus 1.3763 versus 1.3738 versus 1.3704 versus 1.3671 versus 1.3589 versus 1.3593 versus 1.3538 versus 1.3592 euro. Up on the week but after breaking the 50 day EMA Thursday the dollar struggled. Not a surge on the taper.

Bonds: 2.88% versus 2.93% versus 2.88% versus 2.84% versus 2.88% versus 2.86% versus 2.88% versus 2.84% versus 2.80% versus 2.85% versus 2.875% versus 2.875% versus 2.83% versus 2.78% versus 2.78% 10 year.

What the heck? Gapped and surged upside off of support. Why are bonds selling and yields falling with stronger GDP, taper, etc?

Oil: 99.33, +0.26. Managed to hold the Thursday break over the 200 day SMA as oil firmed back up on the week.

Gold: 1203.80, +10.20. Reversed some of the massive Thursday losses but still below the support it blew apart that day.

MARKET INTERNALS and STATS

NASDAQ
Stats: +46.61 points (+1.15%) to close at 4104.74
Volume: 2.983B (+67.4%)

Up Volume: 2.67B (+1.892B)
Down Volume: 565.29M (-431.62M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.58 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.63 to 1

New Highs: 266 (+127)
New Lows: 28 (+3)

S&P
Stats: +8.72 points (+0.48%) to close at 1818.32
NYSE Volume: 1.095B (+80.4%)

Up Volume: 3.39B (+1.79B)
Down Volume: 1.51B (-320M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 3.02 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.43 to 1

New Highs: 287 (+117)
New Lows: 91 (-32)

DJ30
Stats: +42.06 points (+0.26%) to close at 16221.14

CHARTS

After Thursday's no change in status, the indices surged Friday, particularly growth. When the market really moves, growth is the driver. Friday was promising in that sense.

SP500: New high, clearing the three peaks formed from mid-November. Not a huge break, but a new high.

DJ30: A similar session to SP500, up but giving back more than it gains. New high. Much rejoicing.

NASDAQ: Excellent surge past the prior peaks and perhaps, just maybe, breaking away from the upper channel line for good.

RUTX: Strongest move of the session and a new closing high. Powerful move off the 50 day EMA test, now closing in on the upper channel line.

SP400: Broke higher from the 50 day EMA early in the week, surging Wednesday, then again Friday after testing back to the 10 day EMA Thursday. New closing high here as well as SP400 moves back up toward the upper channel line.

SOX: Same action as the other growth indices, i.e. moving well off that 50 day EMA test. Very nice and a new post-bear market high.

LEADERSHIP

Big names: Surging, e.g. AMZN, GOOG.

Much of the action, however, was in the smaller caps. We saw many good moves in many sectors. GPOR, MLNX, OPEN, OTIV, AEIS, NPSP. Many others are set to make a move even after that strong last half of the week. Growth stocks leading is great.

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 13.79; -0.36
VXN: 14.48; -0.44
VXO: 11.8; -0.96

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.75; 0

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls crossed 58 while bears held steady, but the point: the divergence continues AND it is extreme. Now, I have seen readings near 65% on bulls, so there is room to move. It is, however, at a level that is flashing extreme. As noted last week, these levels lead to corrections, but timing is the trouble. At this point you look at technicals and leaders. Technicals are weaker but not broken. Leaders are still quite nice. There can be another run to year end. After that, dicey.

Bulls: 58.2 versus 57.1 versus 55.7 versus 53.6 versus 52.6 versus 55.2% versus 52.6 versus 49.5 versus 42.3% versus 45.4 versus 46.4% versus 44.3% versus 42.3% versus 37.1% versus 37.1% versus 38.1% versus 43.3%. Getting even more extreme . . .

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 14.3 versus 14.3 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 15.5% versus 15.6% versus 16.5% versus 18.5 versus 21.6% versus 20.6% versus 18.6% versus 20.6% versus 21.6% versus 22.7% versus 23.7% versus 23.8% versus 21.6%. Held steady basically for the third straight week. Seems bears fall after each three weeks. Frankly, how much more can it fall? Further, I suppose.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

Christmas falls on Wednesday but outside of that session, operating hours are normal.

The market enjoyed a solid week, particularly the back half as the growth sectors and smaller caps took over. Seems a January effect is coming early, falling in the Santa Clause move. It has done this more and more of late.

As such we picked up a number of positions last week even as we were able to pocket some nice gains. Not bad. Even with the market gains, however, there are a lot more stocks still in great patterns that are not extended. Thus we will, despite a short and typically quiet and light volume week, look at some of these for buys if they show the right stuff. Of course, if the market continues to log gains we will look to bank gain when it presents itself.

As for the reports on the week, we will, as is usual for this time of the year, shorten the evening reports and focus on plays, both new and managing existing positions.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4104.74

Resistance:
Next major resistance is around 4100 as NASDAQ hits 13 year highs. NASDAQ is bumping them.

Support:
4031 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
The 50 day EMA at 3957
3917 is the November 2012 trendline
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.
The July 2013 intraday high at 3625
The 200 day SMA at 3612
3573 is the August 2013 low
3532 is the May intraday high
3521 is the August 2000 low.
The 2011 up trendline at 3515
3502 is the May 2013 closing high
3295 is the June 2013 low selloff
3227 is the April 2000 intraday low
3197 is the September 2012 post-bear market high
3171 is the October intraday high

S&P 500: Closed at 1818.32

Resistance:
New high.

Support:
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 1771
1741 is the December 2012 up trendline
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
The 200 day SMA at 1671
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1627 is the August 2013 low
1576 from October 2007, the prior all-time high
1573 is the June 2013 closing low
1569.48 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement of the April to May 2013 run
1560 is the June 2013 reversal low
1556 from July 2007
1541 is the April 2013 closing low in that pullback inside the uptrend
1539 from June 2007
1531 is the recent high

Dow: Closed at 16,221.14

Resistance:

Support:
16,175 is the November all-time high.
The 50 day EMA at 15,785
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,318 is the June closing high
The 200 day SMA at 15,235
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

December 20 - Friday
- GDP - Third Estimate, Q3 (8:30): 4.1% actual versus 3.6% expected, 3.6% prior
- GDP Deflator - Third, Q3 (8:30): 2.0% actual versus 2.0% expected, 2.0% prior

December 23 - Monday
- Personal Income, November (8:30): 0.5% expected, -0.1% prior
- Personal Spending, November (8:30): 0.5% expected, 0.3% prior
- PCE Prices - Core, November (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Michigan Sentiment - Final, December (9:55): 83.3 expected, 82.5 prior

December 24 - Tuesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 12/21 (7:00): -5.5% prior
- Durable Orders, November (8:30): 2.2% expected, -1.6% prior (revised from -2.0%)
- Durable Goods -ex transports, November (8:30): 0.6% expected, 0.4% prior (revised from -0.1%)
- FHFA Housing Price I, October (9:00): 0.3% prior
- New Home Sales, November (10:00): 433K expected, 444K prior

December 26 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 12/21 (8:30): 350K expected, 379K prior
- Continuing Claims, 12/14 (8:30): 2850K expected, 2884K prior

December 27 - Friday
- Natural Gas Inventories, 12/21 (10:30): -285 bcf prior
- Crude Inventories, 12/21 (11:00): -2.941M prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The S&P 500 settled higher by 0.5%, registering its third consecutive gain. The benchmark index extended its December advance to 1.2% as eight of ten sectors ended in the green.

Stocks jumped at the open with the technology sector (+1.5%) driving the early surge. The space received considerable support from its largest component, Apple (AAPL 570.09, +21.07), which spiked 3.8% after inking a long-rumored distribution agreement with China Mobile (CHL 52.47, +0.84).

Emboldened by Apple's strength, other top sector components also rallied. Google (GOOG 1115.10, +14.48), Oracle (ORCL 36.94, +0.57), and Intel (INTC 25.32, +0.27) gained between 1.1% and 1.5%. Despite Intel's strength, other chipmakers struggled to keep pace with the sector as Micron (MU 21.49, -0.68) weighed after Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to 'Underperform' from 'Neutral.' The broader PHLX Semiconductor Index advanced 0.9%.

Social media names also took part in the tech party as Facebook (FB 57.77, +2.65) and Twitter (TWTR 64.54, +4.53) settled higher by 4.8% and 7.6%, respectively.

Outside of technology, gains in other sectors were much more subdued. In fact, the telecom services sector (+1.1%) was the only other outperformer.

Although all six growth-oriented groups posted gains, the energy sector spent the entire session in a steady slide from its opening high. The group ended little changed while crude oil slipped 0.4% to $98.93 per barrel.

The remaining cyclical sectors-consumer discretionary (+0.5%), industrials (+0.4%), and materials (+0.4%)-logged modest gains. However, the discretionary sector failed to capture the relative strength of homebuilders. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.31, +0.71) jumped 3.0%. A Citigroup upgrade of KB Home (KBH 18.19, +1.28) to 'Neutral' from 'Sell' and news that incoming FHFA Director Mel Watt is going to delay the implementation of new mortgage fees on government-backed loans, which many think will crimp new housing demand, factored into the outperformance.

On the countercyclical side, the telecom sector posted a solid gain while consumer staples (-0.2%), health care (+0.4%), and utilities (-0.3%) lagged.

Also of note, following Friday's close, the CBOE Skew Index (SKEW 143.20, +5.34) jumped above the 139 level for the first time in almost two years. Unlike the VIX, which measures the expected near-term volatility to the upside or downside, the Skew index updates after each session and measures the perceived likelihood of a tail event. The index ranges from 100 to 150 with higher values signaling increased demand for low-strike puts. With the index hovering just below its upper limit, we can conclude that investors are demanding downside protection.

Treasuries settled on their lows with the benchmark 10-yr yield up four basis points at 2.93%.

Participation was well below average as many elected to sit today's session out. Only 598 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Today's economic data was limited to just two reports, neither of which saw a notable reaction in the market. Personal income increased 0.2% in November after declining 0.1% in October. The Briefing.com consensus expected personal income to increase 0.5%. Compensation levels were a little softer than the employment report implied, increasing 0.3% instead of 0.6%. That difference likely caused the weaker-than-expected income gain. Personal spending rose 0.5%, in-line with consensus expectations, after increasing an upwardly revised 0.4% (from 0.3%) in October.

Separately, the December University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index remained at 82.5 in the final reading while the Briefing.com consensus expected the index to be revised up to 83.3.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while November Durable Orders will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. The October FHFA Housing Price Index will be reported at 9:00 ET while the New Home Sales report for November will be revealed at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq +37.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +36.3% YTD
S&P 500 +28.2% YTD
DJIA +24.4% YTD

DJ30 +73.47 NASDAQ +44.16 SP500 +9.67 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1904/1.66 bln/730 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2184/598.2 mln/891

3:30 pm :

Feb gold traded lower today despite a weaker dollar index. The yellow metal brushed a session high of $1203.40 per ounce in late morning pit trade but trended lower for the remainder of the session. It eventually settled with a 0.6% loss at $1197.00 per ounce
Mar silver oscillated between positive and negative territory with prices rising to a session high of $19.52 per ounce. Unable to stay in the black, it settled 0.2% lower at its session low of $19.41 per ounce
Feb crude oil also spent today's session in the red. The energy component dipped to a session low of $98.67 per barrel after pulling back from its session high of $99.30 per barrel set at pit trade open. It eventually settled with a 0.4% loss
Jan natural gas, on the other hand, traded higher, with prices touching a session high of $4.51 per MMBtu. It pulled back slightly in afternoon floor action and settled with a 1.1% gain at $4.46 per MMBtu

4:05PM CalAmp beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS, revs just below consensus (CAMP) 27.56 -0.71 : Reports Q3 (Nov) earnings of $0.23 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.21; revenues rose 43.3% year/year to $63.5 mln vs the $61.22 mln consensus.

Wireless Datacom revenue increased to $49.7 million from $36.3 million in the same period last year, and Satellite revenue was $13.8 million compared to $8.0 million in the third quarter last year.

The consolidated gross margin was 33.1% in the fiscal 2014 third quarter, up from 31.6% in the third quarter last year. The increase in consolidated gross margin is due primarily to the contribution of the higher margin Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) revenue from the Wireless Matrix acquisition and margin improvement in the Satellite segment.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.19-0.23, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.24 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q4 revs of $60-63 mln vs. $63.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Based on our current forecast, we anticipate that Wireless Datacom fourth quarter revenue will increase solidly on a sequential basis primarily driven by continued demand in our core market verticals, growing insurance telematics revenue and contribution from RSI. Due to normal quarterly fluctuations in demand from our DBS satellite customer, we currently expect Satellite fourth quarter revenues to be substantially lower on a sequential basis, more than offsetting the Wireless Datacom growth."

Large Cap Gainers

FB (58.19 +5.58%): Continued momentum following additin to S&P 500, priced 70 mln share offering of common stock at $55.05 per share on Friday
CHU (15.44 +4.04%): Co confirmed it and Apple (AAPL) have entered into a multi-year iPhone agreement beginning January 17, 2014
PAGP (26.1 +3.37%): Initiated with a Buy at Wunderlich, target $29

Large Cap Losers

KORS (80.45 -4.09%): Mentioned negatively at Wedbush, warned of slowing sales
MU (21.63 -2.44%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill
S (9.66 -2.03%): Seeing reports that CEO of Softbank is exploring a deal for Sprint to acquire T-Mobile US (TMUS) in 2014

Mid Cap Gainers

UTHR (111.24 +26.64%): Announced FDA approval of Orenitram (treprostinil) Extended-Release Tablets for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension; upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan; upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital Markets
RGP (26.09 +7.85%): Announced plans to purchase Eagle Rock Energy Partners' midstream business for ~$1.3 bln; to acquire midstream assets from Hoover Energy for $290 mln; deal expected to be accretive in 2014
RAD (5.28 +5.81%): Mentioned positively by Jim Cramer and in blog article

Mid Cap Losers

NAV (36.38 -2.1%): Continued weakness following disappointing Q4 results reported last Friday before the open
ALK (72.03 -2.00%): Mentioned as potential takeover target by Delta (DAL)
CNX (37.4 -1.16%): Reinstated with a Neutral at Goldman

Chipmakers have also made a contribution to the sector's outperformance, but the PHLX Semiconductor Index has been limited to a gain of 0.8% as Micron (MU 21.53, -0.65) weighs. The stock trades lower by 2.9% in reaction to a Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgrade to 'Underperform' from 'Neutral.'

11:01AM IBM receives patent for a breakthrough data encryption technique that is expected to further data privacy and strengthen cloud computing security (IBM) 181.53 +1.51 : The patented breakthrough, called "fully homomorphic encryption," could enable deep and unrestricted analysis of encrypted information -intentionally scrambled data - without surrendering confidentiality. IBM's solution has the potential to advance cloud computing privacy and security by enabling vendors to perform computations on client data, such as analyzing sales patterns, without exposing or revealing the original data.

Silicom (SILC) has secured a strategic Design Win from a new customer for its 10GbaseT network adapters. The co has received initial purchase orders totaling ~ $500,000, most of which were already shipped, while guidance provided by the customer indicates that 2014 sales related to the Design Win will total ~ $1 mln.

8:04AM SMTC appoints Sushil Dhiman as President and CEO (SMTX) 2.25 : Co announced the appointment of Sushil Dhiman as its President and Chief Executive Officer effective January 6, 2014. Mr. Dhiman will also be nominated to join the Board of Directors of the Company. Mr. Dhiman is a respected and accomplished executive with over 25 years of experience in the EMS industry. He joins SMTC from Sanmina (SANM) where he was Senior Vice President of Operations.

McAfee, a subsidiary of Intel (INTC) announced that Accor has chosen its next-generation firewall for the protection and continuity of their IT systems. -Kofax (KFX) announced that a leading construction and engineering company in North America has invested more than $700,000 in Kofax MarkView for AP software to automate its accounts payable operations and seamlessly integrate with its Oracle ERP system.

6:01AM Ascent Solar announced today the debut of the Surfr phone case for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone 5 and 5s at CES 2014 (ASTI) 0.69 :

Apple (AAPL) and China Mobile (CHL) confirmed they have entered into a multi-year iPhone agreement beginning Janunary 17th. As part of the agreement, iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c will be available from China Mobile's expansive network of retail stores as well as Apple retail stores across mainland China beginning on Friday, January 17, 2014. iPhone 5s will be available for pre-registration from China Mobile's official website beginning on Wednesday, December 25, 2013. "Apple has enormous respect for China Mobile and we are excited to begin working together. China is an extremely important market for Apple and our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world's largest network."

Engility (EGL) and Dynamics Research (DRCO) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Engility will acquire DRC. Under the terms of the agreement, Engility will commence a tender offer for all outstanding shares of DRC common stock at a price of $11.50 in cash for each outstanding share.The transaction, which was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is expected to be accretive to Engility's 2014 earnings and significantly accretive to 2015 earnings and beyond. The acquisition is anticipated to close during the first quarter of 2014, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval.

TeleComm Sys (TSYS) announced that TCS has prevailed in a patent dispute filed by Cassidian Communications against TCS and its wholly owned subsidiary microDATA GIS. On Dec 20, 2013, an Eastern District of Texas jury returned a verdict in favor of TCS and microDATA. All asserted claims were found to be not infringed and invalid. Cassidian originally filed the lawsuit against microDATA on March 26, 2012 asserting US Patent 6,744,858 prior to TCS' July 2012 purchase of microDATA. TCS was named as a defendant after the acquisition.

[ReturntoSender]

Investors Expectations Also Need Tapering As We Enter 2014
By Sy Harding12/27/2013

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/sy-harding/investor-expectations-need-tapering

Psychologists say much of the reason investors have such a dismal record of buying high and selling low, of being excited and buying enthusiastically at market tops and then bailing out in disgust at market bottoms, can be explained by the ‘recency bias’ of the human brain.

That is we expect whatever happened most recently to continue, even though facts tell us it is unlikely. When a severe hurricane strikes in an area where such catastrophes are rare, even though experts describe it as a once in a hundred year event, we strengthen our preparedness on expectation of more such storms the next year. When those health warnings we had a month ago recede we forget about seeing a doctor since more recent experience is not alarming. When the stock market has been going up for several years, that recency has us forget the longer-term memory of severe declines.

Warren Buffett explained recency bias in investing in his warning in 1999 that the market was near a serious top saying, “Investors project out into the future what they have most recently been seeing. That is their unshakable habit, looking in the rear-view mirror instead of through the windshield.”

In 1999, they were looking back at the powerful bull market of the late 1990’s and projecting it to continue endlessly into the future. Instead, the severe 2000-2002 bear market took place, which those like Buffett who were looking through the windshield saw coming. After the bear market ended, it was still the scene in the rear view mirror for quite some time. And with fear having replaced greed, investors then extended its trend endlessly into the future even though the 2002-2007 bull market was underway.

Currently, seeing the wonderfully one-directional market of 2013 in the rear view mirror, and the five-year bull market beyond that, investors are obviously extending those trends in a straight line into the future.

Investor sentiment as measured by the Investors Intelligence poll of newsletter writers is at 59.6% bullish and 14.3% bearish. That spread between bulls and bears is an extreme ratio often seen near serious market tops.

This week’s poll of its members by the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) shows investors are 55.1% bullish, only 18.5% bearish, and have 64% of their portfolios in stocks, just below the 69% stock allocation reached near the 2007 market peak.

The respected Ned Davis Research Crowd Sentiment Poll, a proprietary composite of numerous sentiment surveys, recently broke out above 70. That rivals some of its extreme readings of the past, and has Ned Davis Research Inc. expecting a 20% market decline sometime in the next 12 months.

Investors need to keep recency bias in mind as we enter 2014, since what is showing up through the windshield may be at odds now with the scene in the rear view mirror.

For instance, for the past five years the Federal Reserve has continuously increased its monetary QE stimulus. Beginning next month it will reverse the process to continuously decrease its stimulus.

For five years Washington has increased its fiscal stimulus, running the national debt into record territory in order to provide more spending, more support for the unemployed, more incentives for businesses to expand.

Washington is now also reversing that process. An estimated 1.3 million Americans will lose unemployment benefits Saturday when that emergency relief program expires. At the same time, the accelerated depreciation program that has allowed businesses to depreciate 50% to 100% of the cost of equipment purchases in the year of purchase rather than over 20 years, will expire.

Meanwhile, the additional market spike of the last year has stocks much closer to, if not already at, over-valuation levels. The average lifespan of the 11 bull markets since 1950 was 53 months. The current bull market is now 57 months old.

None of these observations, differing markedly through the windshield from what is seen in the rear view mirror, constitute sell signals. Nor can they predict when a market might top out.

But they do indicate the changed risk as we enter 2014, and how the ‘recency bias’ that has investors so enthralled now may become a problem.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Stocks gap then fade as anticipated as the dollar, bonds go somewhat rogue.
- Bonds move over 3%, highest since 7/2011.
- Dollar goes schitzo intraday.
- Fund flows see $50B for 2013, but that is a drop in the bucket.
- The market rally is still in place but some worrisome action to end the week needs to be resolved.

Early rally fades, gives a chance to take some gain.

As indicated Thursday night, the stock market was set to fade some following an almost two week move higher. Stocks even gapped higher to start Friday, performing pretty much to script. We used the action to bank some gain as planned.

The move may have been doomed to suffer a downside session from a technical standpoint anyway, but there was just cause for some investor trepidation nonetheless.

To wit, the dollar traded in a wide range, selling off sharply against the euro. It managed to recover much of the loss but still lost ground. The weakness kept oil rising along with gold. In general commodities and the hard assets all performed better and indeed are establishing solid patterns. This begs the question, why is the dollar weaker if the Fed is tapering because of a stronger economy?

Bonds were an issue as well with the 10 year trading over 3% (3.01% on the close) and at its highest level since July 2011. The 30 year hit 4.63%, its highest since May 2011. Of course that action broke the TLT below its August low, support that has held on four occasions since.

Thus, whether technical reasons or some volatile trade in the dollar and bond markets, perhaps both, stocks struggled on the session with all but SP400 and SOX closing lower, albeit modestly lower.

SP500 -0.62, -0.03%
NASDAQ -10.59, -0.25%
DJ30 -1.47, -0.01%
SP400 0.07%
RUTX -0.13%
SOX 0.02%

Volume improved but still well below average.

The Charts.

Thursday saw the growth indices rally but failed to hold much of the move. RUTX, SP400, and SOX showed doji, suggesting they were tiring. Friday they gapped and then faded to those modest losses.

Perhaps there is more weakness ahead next week before New Year's on Wednesday. The Friday action was not hard downside though NASDAQ did put in a modest downside engulfing pattern. There is no reason technically for stocks to abruptly truncate the Christmas and beyond rally, but the volatile bond and dollar action, if it continues, will indeed put investors on the sidelines. When they uptrend doesn't have its steady stream of bids, even if they have been just enough to keep the trend moving higher, the Friday action will repeat itself. If sellers decide to enter, then the action picks up downside speed.

Leaders.

Some big names definitely felt selling pressure Friday. TWTR is the poster child for this last leg of the rally, surging from 40 to 75. Friday it was slapped around, dropping 13% off a Thursday gap to a hanging man doji. As TWTR weakened it took other social media stocks with it.

Other 'names' struggled as well. NFLX thudded to the 20 day EMA in one move. PCLN fell through its 20 day EMA on rising volume. TRIP broke the 50 day EMA. WFM cracked and sold on rising, above average volume.

Not all names sold. GOOG easily held position. AAPL finished its 10 day EMA test. STX paused but didn't sell off.

Indeed, some sectors benefit from the dollar's weakness against the euro and the volatility in it and bonds. Energy looks much better. Metals and materials are stronger. The harder assets are getting funds pushed their way as interest rates breach a key level and the dollar acts up. Kind of worrisome to see the reserve currency so volatile. So, money moved to hard assets.

We used the early action to take some gain on positions that started higher but started to stall. Many were tickling near the target and the gap higher early gave some cover to take gains and indeed better gains. We also sold some stocks that were lagging, taking the loss now to offset some of the gains for the year. Doesn't do much given the big gains we have this year, but since they were down we took them as they wouldn't do us as much good in 2014.

Next week

This weekend we are looking at plays in energy, some hard substance such as metals, and perhaps some drugs. Don't forget the AAPL play; it is testing the 10 day EMA and could be in great shape to move higher this week. We also have some downside plays to consider; retail has enjoyed a nice run but some look as if they are ready to take a breather, and if so we want to use that to make some fairly easy money.

We will see what transpires with the dollar and bonds. If they remain volatile that will squelch bids from the money that is just now returning to market. Reports are that $50B moved into stock funds in 2013, but that is just 13% of the money that moved out the prior 5 years. Hey, it's a start. It is also the way it usually works: the average Joe's put in their money near the end of the line. Still, it is a small amount compared to what left the market, so it is not really a situation where you can say the retail investor is fully committed to stocks. Of course sentiment is still very high as reported Thursday, high enough to be extreme.

The market does have issues to deal with, but that is nothing new. We said that after the holiday rally all bets were off. The trend is still upside and there are still very solid stocks in great position to move or are in great ongoing moves. If the dollar and bonds settle down the rally can easily continue through this week. If not, the new year may receive a cold response from the buyers.

A prediction? Maybe that is what it is. I am not in the prediction business. Sure you look at the data and trends, but they often don't extrapolate to the markets, at least us human's interpretation of the data vis- -vis the markets. The market weighs and sums up all the data; whether we get it or not is not the market's concern. That is why we always have theories here in the office but we also know the market doesn't give a flying flip about our theories. That is why we look at patterns and let them do the talking, and being ready to move when they make the moves is the key, upside or downside. As noted, we have added some downside this week given the dollar and bond markets and the technical move up to this point. Just being prepared; we will see which way the market breaks.

Have a great weekend!

THE MARKET

OTHER MARKETS

Dollar: 1.3749 versus 1.3690 euro. Moved up to 1.39 euro intraday as the dollar sold hard but did recover some ground.

Bonds: 3.01% versus 2.99% versus 2.98% 10 year. Broke support.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -10.59 points (+0.25%) to close at 4156.59
Volume: 1.233B (+5.84%)

Up Volume: 516.27M (-90.56M)
Down Volume: 701.41M (+179.2M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.07 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.11 to 1

New Highs: 213 (-91)
New Lows: 15 (-2)

S&P
Stats: -0.62 points (-0.03%) to close at 1841.4
NYSE Volume: 386.54M (+3.63%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.08 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.12 to 1

New Highs: 253 (-112)
New Lows: 87 (+3)

DJ30
Stats: -1.47 points (-0.01%) to close at 16478.41

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 12.46; +0.13
VXN: 14.51; +0.58
VXO: 10.93; -0.29

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.73; +0.08

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls and Bears continued to diverge this week: Bulls 60%, bears 14%.

These are, as reported the prior three weeks, extreme levels. The timing is the key. They are showing excessive bullishness that leads to corrections, but the moves typically occur a few to several weeks after the levels are hit.

Thus as the market is trending higher in a Holiday rally, you let the trend move run its course, but on the other side of the rally in early 2014 you have to keep the extreme bullishness in mind: when everyone is in, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? It is not an exact science, but it is part of the picture, a bearish weight on the scale of the market's current position. After the holiday rally runs its course this could play a key role in a pullback.

Bulls: 60.0 versus 58.2 versus 57.1 versus 55.7 versus 53.6 versus 52.6 versus 55.2% versus 52.6 versus 49.5 versus 42.3% versus 45.4 versus 46.4% versus 44.3% versus 42.3% versus 37.1% versus 37.1% versus 38.1% versus 43.3%. Getting even more extreme . . .

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 14.0 versus 14.3 versus 14.3 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 15.5% versus 15.6% versus 16.5% versus 18.5 versus 21.6% versus 20.6% versus 18.6% versus 20.6% versus 21.6% versus 22.7% versus 23.7% versus 23.8% versus 21.6%. Held steady basically for the third straight week. Seems bears fall after each three weeks. Frankly, how much more can it fall? Further, I suppose.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4156.59

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 4109
4046 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
The 50 day EMA at 3986
3931 is the November 2012 trendline
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.
The 200 day SMA at 3630
The July 2013 intraday high at 3625
3573 is the August 2013 low
3532 is the May intraday high
The 2011 up trendline at 3522
3521 is the August 2000 low.
3502 is the May 2013 closing high
3295 is the June 2013 low selloff
3227 is the April 2000 intraday low
3197 is the September 2012 post-bear market high
3171 is the October intraday high

S&P 500: Closed at 1841.40

Resistance:
New high.

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 1820
The 50 day EMA at 1781
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1746 is the December 2012 up trendline
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
The 200 day SMA at 1676
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1627 is the August 2013 low
1576 from October 2007, the prior all-time high
1573 is the June 2013 closing low
1569.48 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement of the April to May 2013 run
1560 is the June 2013 reversal low
1556 from July 2007
1541 is the April 2013 closing low in that pullback inside the uptrend
1539 from June 2007
1531 is the recent high

Dow: Closed at 16,478.18

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 16,241
16,175 is the November all-time high.
The 50 day EMA at 15,877
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,318 is the June closing high
The 200 day SMA at 15,273
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

January 2 - Tuesday
- Initial Claims, 12/28 (8:30): 333K expected, 338K prior
- Continuing Claims, 12/21 (8:30): 2875K expected, 2923K prior
- Construction Spending, November (10:00): 0.8% expected, 0.8% prior
- ISM Index, December (10:00): 56.9 expected, 57.3 prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 12/28 (10:30): 177 bcf prior

January 3 - Wednesday
- Crude Inventories, 12/28 (11:00): -4.731M prior
- Auto Sales, December (14:00): 5.7M prior
- Truck Sales, December (14:00): 7.1M prior

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The S&P 500 ended flat after spending the entire session inside of a four-point range. The quiet trading day did little to upset the S&P 500's return for the year as the index will enter tomorrow with a 29.1% year-to-date gain.

Interestingly, while the S&P 500 was challenged by its flat line throughout the session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average held just above its unchanged level for the duration of the day. The price-weighted Dow saw 19 of its 30 components finish in the green, but shares of Disney (DIS 76.23, +1.88) stood out with a 2.5% gain. The noteworthy strength ensued after Guggenheim upgraded the stock to 'Buy' from 'Neutral.'

Fittingly, Disney also provided a measure of support to the discretionary sector (+0.4%), which ended ahead of the remaining nine groups. Retailers and homebuilders factored into the sector's strength as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 88.01, +0.44) and iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.68, +0.07) added 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.

The discretionary sector was the only area of strength among cyclical groups. The materials sector (+0.04%) eked out a slight gain, but had a limited impact on the broader market due to its small size. Meanwhile, the two top-weighted sectors-financials (-0.1%) and technology (-0.1%)-posted modest losses.

Another growth-sensitive sector, energy (-0.8%), spent the entire day at the bottom of the leaderboard while crude oil fell 1.1% to $99.20 per barrel.

Countercyclical groups fared a bit better as consumer staples (+0.3%), health care (+0.2%), telecom services (+0.04%), and utilities (+0.3%) all posted modest gains.

On a stock-specific note, Twitter (TWTR 60.51, -3.24) endured another rough session after falling 13.0% on Friday. Shares of the social media company slid 5.1%, which narrowed its December gain to 45.6%.

Even though the major averages ended little changed, volatility protection was in demand as the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 13.53, +1.07) posted its second consecutive gain.

Trading volume was well below average as only 452 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

The bond market proved to be a one-way street today as Treasuries rallied throughout the session. The 10-yr yield slipped three basis points to 2.97%.

Today's economic data was limited to November Pending Home Sales, which ticked up 0.2% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.5%.

Tomorrow, the October Case-Shiller 20-city Index will be released at 9:00 ET, December Chicago PMI will be reported at 9:45 ET, and the December Consumer Confidence report will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq +37.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +36.6% YTD
S&P 500 +29.1% YTD
DJIA +26.0% YTD

4:25PM Marvell: KKR discloses 6.8% active stake in 13D filing (MRVL) 13.76 +0.13 : "In addition, without limitation, the Reporting Persons may engage in discussions with management, the board of directors, stockholders of the Issuer and other relevant parties or take other actions concerning any extraordinary corporate transaction (including but not limited to a merger, reorganization or liquidation) or the business, operations, assets, strategy, future plans, prospects, corporate structure, board composition, management, capitalization, dividend policy, charter, bylaws, corporate documents, agreements, de-listing or de-registration of the Issuer."

Large Cap Gainers

DIS (76.07 +2.31%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Guggenheim; tgt raised to $87 from $77.
TSM (17.56 +1.74%): Co has secured a pull in of orders for H2 2014 delivery, according to reports.
SCCO (28.38 +1.68%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at BB&T Capital Mkts; tgt $34.

Large Cap Losers

TWTR (60.51 -5.08%): Weakness in social media names (FB also lower as reports out over the weekend indicated FB is losing popularity with UK teens).
GG (21.23 -1.67%): Metals/mining stocks trading lower (NEM also lower).

Mid Cap Gainers

RNR (96.01 +4.16%): Co to replace Lender Processing Services (LPS) in the S&P MidCap 400 after the close of trading Jan 2.
NYT (15.65 +1.56%): Move higher attributed to M&A speculation according to China news story circulating.

Mid Cap Losers

HAR (81.95 -1.69%): Trading lower following reports that Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) are planning to develop car entertainment systems.

8:32AM Real Goods Solar and Green Lantern Capital Partner to develop 4.5 MW of solar projects in Vermont (RSOL) 2.81 : RGS Energy, the commercial and utility division of RSOL, has joined forces with Green Lantern Capital to co-develop seven solar projects totaling 4.5 megawatts (MW) in Vermont.

RGS Energy will design, install, monitor and maintain the solar power systems. Co expects to begin construction in summer of 2014 and complete it by November.
On an annual basis, the solar power systems will be designed to generate more than 5.3 million kilowatt hours of electricity. Over the next 25 years, the solar energy produced would offset more than 204 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.
The new solar projects will also help Vermont reach its goal of 20% renewable energy by 2017.

8:18AM SunEdison announces redemption of $550 mln senior notes and $200 mln second lien; expected to lower annual interest expense by more than $35 mln (SUNE) 12.80 :

Co announced that it has completed the redemption of all $550 mln outstanding aggregate principal amount of its 7.75% senior notes due 2019, and its $200 mln second lien term loan with an interest rate of 10.75%. These redemptions follow the company's successful, upsized offering of $600 mln of 2.00% Convertible Senior Notes due October 1, 2018, and $600 mln of 2.75% Convertible Senior Notes due January 1, 2021.
Lower interest expense associated with the company's convertible debt offering, relative to the extinguished debt, will result in a net savings of more than $35 mln per year.

In U.S. corporate news:

Apple (AAPL 557.34, -2.75): -0.5% after the company urged its shareholders to vote against the buyback proposal presented by Carl Icahn.
Crocs (CROX 14.68, +1.35): +10.1% after the company announced an affiliate of Blackstone (BX 31.35, 0.00) agreed to purchase $200 million of newly-issued CROX stock.

7:03AM Nokia announced that Jesper Ovesen is to step down as Executive Chairman of Nokia Solutions and Networks (NOK) 8.06 : Mr. Ovesen is due to step down from his Executive Chairman role upon the closing of the transaction whereby Nokia is selling substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft, which is expected to take place during the first quarter of 2014. Mr. Ovesen will continue to serve in an advisory role for a period after the closing of the Microsoft transaction. As before, NSN CEO Mr. Suri reports to the NSN Board.

7:01AM ReneSola signs memorandum of intent to sell three utility-scale projects in China (SOL) 3.36 :

Co announced it signed a Memorandum of Intent to sell three utility-scale projects in Western China, with a total capacity of 60MW, to Jiangsu Akcome Solar Science & Technology Co., on December 30, 2013.
Co also announced its collaboration with Solar Power Systems of Mexico in implementing a 192KW project for glass manufacturer Vidrio Formas in Lerma, Edo, Mexico. ReneSola Signs Memorandum of Intent to Sell Three Utility-Scale Projects in China.

China Sunergy (CSUN) has completed the sale of a solar farm project to Lightsource Renewable Energy, which is a UK solar energy generator. The Project, located in the southwest of Cornwall in the UK was connected to the grid at the end of March of this year and now generates enough local green electricity to power over 1500 households.

eMemory and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMI) announced that they plan to expand the deployment of their current collaboration on SMIC's eNVM platform development.

6:18AM Trina Solar signs investment framework agreement to develop 1GW solar power plant project in Xinjiang, Western China (TSL) 13.15 :

Co announced that it has signed an investment framework agreement with the local government authority of Turpan Prefecture to develop a 1GW ground-mounted solar power plant project in western China's Xinjiang Region.
Under the agreement, the solar power plants totaling 1GW are scheduled to be built in multiple phases over a four year time frame starting from early 2014. The commencement of each phase of development is subject to certain conditions, including approvals from the local government and State Grid.
The first two phases of the project, with installed capacity of 300 MW, are scheduled to be completed and connected to the grid by the end of 2014, subject to receipt of the required approvals. Upon receiving approval for phase one, Trina Solar will also invest in the construction of a PV module production facility in the local area to supply modules to the solar power plants.

5:56AM Crocs announced that an investment fund affiliated with Blackstone (BX) has agreed to purchase $200 mln of newly issued series A convertible preferred stock; CEO McCarvel announced retirement; sees Q4 EPS and revs at low end of prior ranges (CROX) 13.33 :

Co announced that an investment fund affiliated with Blackstone has agreed to purchase $200 mln of newly issued series A convertible preferred stock. In connection with the investment, Crocs intends to revise its capital structure to accommodate a $350 mln stock repurchase program approved by its board of directors.
This includes using the net proceeds of ~$180 mln from the Preferred Stock as well as excess cash to fund the repurchase plan.
The Preferred Stock will have a 6.0% cash dividend rate and is convertible into shares of common stock at a conversion price of $14.50 per share. This conversion price represents a 9% premium to the closing price of $13.33 per share on December 27, 2013, and a 10% premium to the 30-day average closing price of $13.19 per share.
On an as-converted basis, the Preferred Stock will represent 13.8 mln common shares, or approximately 13% of the fully-diluted common shares outstanding after giving effect to the issuance.

Parametric Sound (PAMT) announced that, at a special meeting of stockholders held on December 27, 2013, Parametric stockholders overwhelmingly voted to approve the proposal to issue shares of Parametric common stock in connection with the merger contemplated by the Agreement and Plan of Merger dated August 5, 2013 among Parametric, VTB Holdings and Paris Acquisition and the corresponding change of control of Parametric which will result from the merger. The special meeting of stockholders was held pursuant to notice and a proxy statement that was filed with the SEC on December 3, 2013 and mailed to stockholders entitled to vote at the meeting beginning on December 3, 2013. The proxy statement contains additional information concerning the terms of the merger agreement. The Company also announced it has received a letter from NASDAQ informing Parametric that its application for listing its common stock on the NASDAQ Global Market has been approved. The Company's common stock currently trades on the NASDAQ Capital Market. The transition to the more senior and stringent Global Market tier will be effective upon completion of the merger and is expected to be seamless to stockholders. The post-merger trading symbol is expected to remain as "PAMT".
Trina Solar (TSL) announced that it has signed an investment framework agreement with the local government authority of Turpan Prefecture to develop a 1GW ground-mounted solar power plant project in western China's Xinjiang Region. Under the agreement, the solar power plants totaling 1GW are scheduled to be built in multiple phases over a four year time frame starting from early 2014. The commencement of each phase of development is subject to certain conditions, including approvals from the local government and State Grid. The first two phases of the project, with installed capacity of 300 MW, are scheduled to be completed and connected to the grid by the end of 2014, subject to receipt of the required approvals. Upon receiving approval for phase one, Trina Solar will also invest in the construction of a PV module production facility in the local area to supply modules to the solar power plants.
Apple (AAPL) disclosed "While the Board and management oppose this shareholder proposal, they are fully committed to returning cash to shareholders. The Board and management team believe that capital should be returned to shareholders on an efficient and sustained basis, and that the evaluation of capital return should be performed regularly and carefully with the best long-term interest of the business and shareholders in mind." "The Company is updating perspectives on its capital return program for 2014 and beyond. The Company is collecting input from a very broad base of shareholders, believing that the input of all shareholders is important and should be considered holistically. The evaluation of the capital return program continues to be thoughtful, deliberate, and consistent with a conservative financial policy that supports risk-taking and innovation. Consistent with its pattern for the last two years, the Company is on track to complete its regular review and thorough analysis and to announce any changes to the current program by March or April of 2014...approval of Proposal No. 10 requires the affirmative vote of a majority of the shares present or represented by proxy and voting at the Annual Meeting and a majority of the shares required to constitute the quorum..The Board recommends a vote against proposal no. 10."

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Chart of the Day - Percentage Rally Since the Bottom

http://www.chartoftheday.com/20140101.htm?H

For some perspective on the post-financial crisis rally, today's chart illustrates how much of the downturn that occurred as a result of the financial crisis has been retraced by several major international stock market indices. For example, the S&P 500 peaked at 1,565.15 back in October 9, 2007 and troughed at 676.53 back on March 9, 2009. The most recent close for the S&P 500 is 1,848.36 -- it has retraced 131.9% of its financial crisis bear market decline. As today's chart illustrates, China (Shanghai Composite), Japan (Nikkei 225), India (S&P BSE Sensex), Germany (DAX), France (CAC 40) and the UK (FTSE 100) are all above their financial crisis lows (i.e. above 0% on today's chart) and three of the aforementioned countries (Germany, India and the UK) are currently trading above their respective pre-financial crisis peak (i.e. are above 100% on today's chart). It is interesting to note that the US (epicenter of the financial crisis) has outperformed the other major stock market indices (* keep in mind that the German DAX is unique in that it includes for the reinvestment of dividends) while China has lagged to the point where it only trades 9.3% above its financial crisis lows -- not that impressive of a performance considering that the financial crisis occurred well over four years ago.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : After gaining nearly 30.0% in 2013, the S&P 500 exhibited a bit of a hangover in its first session of 2014. The benchmark index fell 0.9% as all ten sectors registered losses.

Stocks were pressured from the opening bell as cautious action in Europe weighed on the early sentiment. In all likelihood, the slide caught a number of participants off guard given the understanding that the first few days of a new year are known to have a favorable bias with inflows into IRA accounts, bonus money being put to work, and new money coming off the sidelines. That did not happen today as sellers maintained control throughout the trading day.

Three cyclical sectors-energy (-1.3%), industrials (-1.3%), and technology (-1.1%)-slipped behind the broader market at the open and their underperformance weighed for the remainder of the session.

The energy sector followed in the lead of crude oil as the energy component tumbled 3.0% to $95.49/bbl. Meanwhile, industrials were pressured by defense contractors and transports. The PHLX Defense Index lost 1.3% while The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.5%.

Elsewhere, the technology sector struggled to gain traction as its largest component, Apple (AAPL 553.13, -7.89), weighed after Wells Fargo downgraded the stock to 'Market Perform' from 'Outperform.' Chipmakers also lagged, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 1.4%.

Even though three large sectors pressured the broader market throughout the day, there was some relative strength in other heavily-weighted groups. On that note, consumer discretionary (-0.5%), financials (-0.6%), and health care (-0.6%) outperformed.

Notably, the financial sector owed some its outperformance to Bank of America (BAC 16.10, +0.53), which gained 3.4% after Citigroup upgraded the stock to 'Buy' from 'Neutral.' JPMorgan Chase (JPM 58.21, +0.11) also bucked the downtrend, climbing 0.2%.

Treasuries rallied throughout the day as the benchmark 10-yr yield slid from 3.04% to 2.99%.

Trading volume was on the light side as just over 610 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Today's economic data was limited to three reports, but neither had much of a trading impact:

Weekly initial claims dipped to 339,000 from an upwardly revised 341,000 (from 338,000) while the Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 333,000. Notably, there was no indication from the Department of Labor that seasonal adjustments continued creating difficulties.
Construction spending in November rose 1.0% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.8%. The November gain followed an upwardly revised 0.9% increase (from 0.8%) in October. Total private construction, paced by a 1.9% increase in residential spending, was up 2.2% and led the overall advance. Nonresidential private spending jumped 2.7%, paced by gains in the commercial (+4.7%), office (+4.6%), power (+3.3%), and manufacturing (+1.2%) spaces.
The December ISM Index checked in at 57.0, which was pretty much in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 56.9. The December reading was the second highest reading for the year, trailing only the 57.3 reading seen in November.

There is no economic data on tomorrow's schedule.

Nasdaq -0.8% YTD
DJIA -0.8% YTD
S&P 500 -0.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.1% YTD

DJ30 -135.31 NASDAQ -33.52 SP500 -16.38 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 929/1.64 bln/1662 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1015/611.4 mln/2057 3:30 pm : Feb crude oil extended losses for a third consecutive session as a stronger dollar index and reports that Libyan protesters have agreed to reopen a key oil field weighed on prices. The energy component trended lower after pulling back from its session high of $97.66 per barrel set at pit trade open. It fell below the $96 per barrel level and settled with a 3.0% loss at $95.49 per barrel.

Feb natural gas chopped around in positive territory today. It dipped to a session low of $4.27 per MMBtu in early afternoon pit action but quickly regained momentum. It settled with a 2.1% gain at $4.32 per MMBtu, just below its session high of $4.33 per MMBtu.

Precious metals traded higher today despite the stronger dollar index. Feb gold brushed a session low of $1216.90 per ounce in early morning floor trade and spent the remainder of the session trading in a consolidative pattern slightly above the $1220 per ounce level. It eventually settled at $1225.40 per ounce, booking a gain of 1.9%. Mar silver chopped around near the $20.10 per ounce level. It settled 3.9% higher at $20.13 per ounce.

4:01PM 3D Systems Expands 3DPRINTING 2.0 at CES 2014 with a dozen new consumer product reveals; unveils B-2-B-2-C powerful merchandising and licensing platforms (DDD) 94.19 +1.26 : Throughout the week the co plans to reveal a dozen new products together with meaningful partnerships and immersive experiences that catapult its entire portfolio of consumer solutions forward. As part of expanding its 3DPRINTING 2.0 initiative, the company will preview next-gen consumer and prosumer products and unveil three entirely new product categories at the Las Vegas Convention Center in the South Hall 3, booth 31424.

12:22PM Floor Talk: 2013 Review (TALKX) : The stock market welcomed 2013 with a bullish charge that began on the first trading day and continued throughout the record-breaking year. The fiscal cliff and worst-case recession scenario talked about at the end of 2012? Didn't happen. A tapering of the Fed's asset purchase program by Labor Day? Didn't happen. Larry Summers nominated to be Fed chairman? Didn't happen. A US-led military strike against Syria? Didn't happen. A debt default by the US? Didn't happen. A hard economic landing in China? Didn't happen. Basically, if there was something ominous on the market's radar screen in 2013, it didn't happen.

The S&P 500 shattered its 2007 high of 1576.09 in mid-April and never looked back. The benchmark index rallied steadily through the remainder of the year and settled at a fresh record high of 1848.36, bringing its 2013 price return to 29.6%. Not to be outdone, the Nasdaq surged 38.0% as the blend of biotechnology and momentum names powered the tech-heavy index to its best close in 13 years.

There was little doubt regarding the market's general trend in 2013 as equities defied a growing chorus of voices calling for a sustained pullback, which never materialized. The largest selloff took place in mid-May after the Federal Reserve hinted at the potential of reducing the size of its monthly asset purchases. That drawdown caused the S&P 500 to surrender 5.8%, but the loss was erased over the following five weeks. Separately, a partial government shutdown in October contributed to a cautious start to the month, but the weakness was promptly erased when it became clear that the shutdown had a limited impact on the economy.

The year-long bullish disposition was aided by solid gains overseas as European markets climbed to record highs of their own while struggling regional economies showed some signs of life.

Will They or Won't They?

Although little stood in the way of equity markets through the first quarter of the year, the rally hit a speed bump in mid-May after Fed Chairman Bernanke, in testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, and the FOMC minutes for the April 30-May 1 meeting pointed to the potential for a reduction in the Fed's monthly asset purchases. This 'taper talk' continued throughout the year, giving market participants time to adjust to the prospect of the Fed curtailing its purchases of Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities.

After the June meeting, Fed Chairman Bernanke said further improvements in economic conditions would warrant a modest reduction to the size of asset purchases.
The market expected the tapering announcement to come down after the September 18th meeting; however, that meeting came and went without any such news. During his press conference, Mr. Bernanke said economic data received since June had not been strong enough to justify scaling back asset purchases just yet.
In December, the markets finally received the tapering news as the FOMC announced plans to reduce its monthly asset purchases to $75 billion from $85 billion. Equities settled on their highs (S&P gained 1.7%) after dovish forward guidance offset the immediate impact of the tapering announcement. The FOMC said it will likely be appropriate to maintain the current target range for the fed funds rate "well past the time that the unemployment rate declines below 6.5%."

Although equities took the taper talk in stride, bonds were battered as the 10-yr yield climbed from 1.94% in mid-May to 3.03% by the end of the year.

Investors will keep a close eye on the Fed in 2014 as Janet Yellen, who is expected to be confirmed as the next Fed chair, will navigate the unprecedented unwinding of the Fed's balance sheet.

Cruising Ahead

While taper talk caused brief hiccups, the year-long strength in a handful of sectors helped the market stay true to its uptrend.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average paced the year-long advance with a 39.5% gain. In turn, the bellwether group underpinned the industrials sector, which gained 37.9% in 2013.
Biotechnology also did its part as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) soared 65.5%. That impressive showing contributed to the outperformance of the Nasdaq and helped the health care sector end in second place with an annual gain of 39.0%.
Momentum names also saw considerable inflows throughout the year:
Netflix (NFLX) took home the title of the top S&P 500 component of 2013. The online streaming service nearly tripled its value, contributing to the strength of the consumer discretionary sector, which ended ahead of the remaining nine groups with a gain of 40.9%.
Facebook (FB) saw its shares surge 105.3% in 2013 after a late-July earnings report revealed an improvement in the closely-watched mobile ad revenue metric.
Twitter (TWTR) came on the scene in early November with shares living up to the hype that led into the IPO. Following a modest November loss, the social media stock spiked more than 53.0% in December.
Tesla Motors (TSLA) posted an eye-popping gain of 344.1%, but its bull run did not start until the company raised its Model S guidance on April 1st. The next three quarterly reports saw TSLA beat earnings estimates each time, which fueled continued momentum in the shares.

Commodities Slump

Even though it proved to be a challenge to find noteworthy weakness in stocks in 2013, the same could not be said for the commodity market. Energy components-crude oil (+8.0%) and natural gas (+26%)-posted gains, but grains and metals endured a forgettable year.

Corn slumped 40.0%, which marked the worst fall since 1960. Soybeans also retreated, but the decline was limited to 8.0%.
Gold futures had their worst year since 1981 as the yellow metal tumbled 28% to the $1200/ozt area. Silver did not fare much better, falling 35% to end the year below $20/ozt.
Miners were victimized by the weakness in metals as the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) sank 54.5%.

Global Bulls on Parade

It should be noted that U.S. markets were not the only place where bulls were on parade during 2013. In Japan, the Nikkei soared 57.0%, which marked the best year for the index since 1972. Markets in China, however, could never gain traction as a persistent liquidity crunch weighed.

Over in Europe, markets in France (+18.0%), Germany (+25.0%), and Great Britain (+14.0%) contributed to the almost-daily, upbeat start for U.S. indices while gains in Italy (+17.0%) and Spain (+21.0%) were regarded as a sign of the ongoing recovery. Fittingly, Spain made a formal exit from its bailout program provided by the European Stability Mechanism on December 31, 2013.

Where Has All the Volatility Gone?

After starting 2013 just a shade over 18.00%, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) spent the entire year in a steady downtrend that ended with the index finishing the year below 15.00%. The volatility measure retreated steadily as the year-long rally led investors to lift their hedges to take full advantage of the uptrend.

Although the VIX was fairly subdued throughout the year, the same could not be said for the CBOE Skew Index (SKEW), which notched a multi-year high of 143.20 on December 20. Unlike the VIX, which measures the expected near-term volatility to the upside or downside, the Skew index updates after each session and measures the perceived likelihood of a tail event. The index ranges from 100 to 150 with higher values signaling increased demand for low-strike puts. Given the index ended the year close to its upper limit, we can conclude that investors demanded downside protection as 2013 drew to a close.

Click here to see a breakdown of sector ETF and global market performance in 2013

Large Cap Gainers

TWTR (66.05 +3.77%): Tgt raised to $70 from $52 at Evercore.
NEM (24.06 +4.47%): Strength in metals/mining stocks (GG, ABX also higher).
MPEL (40.22 +2.56%): Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reported Dec gross gaming rev +18.5% YoY .

Large Cap Losers

VALE (14.53 -4.72%): Weakness in select Brazil related names; move attributed to weaker real as central bank pulls back on stimulus (SBS, PBR also lower).
NXPI (44.23 -3.7%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.
TTM (29.58 -3.96%): Disclosed total sales (including exports) of Tata commercial and passenger vehicles in Dec 2013 were 37,852 vehicles.

Mid Cap Gainers

SCTY (59.53 +4.77%): Strength in solar names; Ford Motor (F) plans to show case plug in hybrid car with solar panels, according to reports; NYTimes discussed that a solar panel maker is requesting closure of China duties loophole (SPWR, FSLR, SUNE also higher).
X (30.74 +4.19%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at KeyBanc Capital Mkts.
AFSI (34.07 +4.22%): Announced its Board of Directors approved the repurchase of up to $150 mln of the co's outstanding common stock.

Mid Cap Losers

ONNN (7.91 -4.07%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.
HIMX (14.15 -3.81%): Removed from Chardan Capital MKt's top tech picks for the first time in two years.
AOL (44.94 -3.6%): Sold music services to Radionomy, according to reports out yesterday.

Marvell (MRVL) announced Yulong Coolpad's 1,000RMB TD-LTE smartphones for China Mobile (CHL) are based on Marvell's ARMADA Mobile solutions.

6:01AM Ascent Solar signs definitive agreement to build new manufacturing plant in Suqian of Jiangsu province, China; Suqian will provide $32.5 mln for the Joint Venture (ASTI) 0.71 :

Co announced the signing of a definitive agreement to establish a joint venture entity with the Government of the Municipal City of Suqian in Jiangsu Province, China.
Under this definitive agreement, Suqian will provide cash of ~$32.5 mln as well as five year rent-free use of ~331,000 square feet of factory & office space in the Suqian Economic and Industrial Development Science Park.
The JV will build a 100MW factory over six years to manufacture Ascent's proprietary thin-film Copper-Indium-Gallium-Selenium photovoltaic modules on flexible polyimide in addition to related consumer products. In the initial phase of the project, Ascent and Suqian will form a JV in which Suqian will inject ~$4.8 mln in cash and have majority interest of 75%. Ascent shall inject ~$1.6 mln in cash and hold a minority interest of 25%.
Subsequently, during 2014 Suqian will further inject the balance of the committed $32.5 mln while Ascent will contribute its proprietary technology and intellectual property, as well as certain equipment from its Colorado facility, thereby increasing its shareholdings progressively up to 80% ownership. By the first quarter of 2016, the JV is expected to operate an end-to-end manufacturing plant of 25 megawatts capacity and related consumer products

WPCS (WPCS) announced several new developments; looks to find a buyer for the 60% interest in its China-based joint venture. According to Interim CEO Sebastian Giordano, "We believe that the aggressive steps we began implementing in August 2013 and continue to execute to stabilize and turnaround core operations, reduce corporate overhead, and improve stockholders' equity are working. Meanwhile, we will be equally diligent in establishing our newly acquired Bitcoin operation to best position ourselves for growth in this sector." The following are some of the recent developments the Company wants to highlight as calendar 2013 comes to a close: Since last reporting new contracts for July and August 2013, the Company is announcing that for the four months ended December 31, 2013, its two profitable domestic subsidiaries have executed new project contract awards of approximately $6.8 million, a 27% increase over the $5.4 million of contracts awarded for the same period last year. Notable customers included: Johnson Controls, Siemens, Honeywell, SimplexGrinell, San Francisco International Airport, Sutter General Hospital and California Pacific Medical Center; The Company has initiated a search for a President for its Bitcoin trading platform, BTX Trader, LLC ("BTX"); secured office space for BTX in New York City; and is currently pursuing several key BTX-related strategic initiatives that it hopes to be able to report upon early in 2014. In addition, since announcing the public beta of its BTX trading platform, the Company has experienced a 600% increase in beta enrollments; With its corporate office lease expiring on January 31, 2014, the Company will be relocating to a smaller, lower cost space, which will be accompanied by further reductions in related overhead expenses. Recently, the Company entered into a separation agreement with a former executive that it expects will save approximately $200,000 in future compensation expense; and The Company has entered into a non-binding agreement with a business broker to find a buyer for the 60% interest in its China-based joint venture.
Hanwha SolarOne (HSOL) announced that it will supply 11.5 MW of high quality solar modules to Ikaros Solar Belgium NV. The modules are scheduled for delivery in January and February 2014. Ikaros intends to install the modules in a solar park in Norfolk County, United Kingdom. Hanwha SolarOne will supply its 72-cell module HSL-72, characterized by excellent real-life performance and extended durability.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 03-Jan-14

Dow +28.64 at 16469.99, Nasdaq -11.16 at 4131.91, S&P -0.61 at 1831.37

The major averages wrapped up the week on a mixed note as the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2% while the Nasdaq shed 0.3%. For its part, the S&P 500 ended flat.

Today's mixed finish was an appropriate reflection of a session that featured some mixed signals. On that note, seven of ten sectors ended in the red but market breadth remained positive throughout the trading day. In all likelihood, light volume played a part as some participants were kept away by the winter storm that has encompassed the Northeast. At the end of the day, only 533 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Stocks began the session on an upbeat note, but the Nasdaq was quick to slip from its early high. The index was pressured by its largest component, Apple (AAPL 540.98, -12.15), which lost 2.2%. Biotechnology also weighed on the Nasdaq as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 226.03, -1.06) shed 0.5%. The health care sector; however, outperformed with a gain of 0.2%.

The S&P 500 followed in the footsteps of the Nasdaq in the early afternoon, but the indices diverged once again during the final hour when the S&P 500 made an unsuccessful run at its opening high.

Seven sectors posted losses while financials (+0.6%), health care (+0.2%), and industrials (+0.3%) spent the entire session in the green.

Notably, the financial sector was underpinned by large banks as Bank of America (BAC 16.41, +0.31), Citigroup (C 53.40, +1.13), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 58.66, +0.45) all gained between 0.8% and 2.2%.

Elsewhere, gains in the industrial sector were paced by airlines. Delta Air Lines (DAL 29.23, +1.53) and United Continental (UAL 39.95, +2.22) soared 5.5% and 5.9%, respectively, while the broader Dow Jones Transportation Average added 0.5%.

Switching gears, the commodity market saw a replay of Thursday as oil fell while gold rallied. Crude oil slid 1.6% to $93.96/bbl while gold futures advanced 1.1% to $1238.40/ozt.

Treasuries ended little changed with the 10-yr yield at 2.99%.

On Monday, November Factory Orders and the December ISM Services Index will both be reported at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Shaky Start to 2014

Monday's session did not generate much excitement as the S&P 500 ended flat after spending the entire trading day inside of a four-point range. Interestingly, while the S&P 500 was challenged by its flat line throughout the session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average held just above its unchanged level for the duration of the day. The price-weighted Dow saw 19 of its 30 components finish in the green, but shares of Disney (DIS 76.11, -0.16) stood out with a 2.5% gain. The noteworthy strength ensued after Guggenheim upgraded the stock to 'Buy' from 'Neutral.'

On Tuesday, the major averages wrapped up a memorable year with a forgettable final session. The S&P 500 added 0.4%, extending its 2013 price return to 29.6%. Given its banner year, it was appropriate for the index to end 2013 at a fresh all-time high of 1848.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 26.5% in 2013 and ended at a record high of its own. Although the Dow (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.4%) saw comparable gains on Tuesday, the Nasdaq (+0.5%) fared a bit better. That was the theme throughout the year as the tech-heavy index rallied 38.3%.

Bond and equity markets were closed on Wednesday for New Year's Day.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 exhibited a bit of a hangover in its first session of 2014. The benchmark index fell 0.9% as all ten sectors registered losses. Stocks were pressured from the opening bell as cautious action in Europe weighed on the early sentiment. In all likelihood, the slide caught a number of participants off guard given the understanding that the first few days of a new year are known to have a favorable bias with inflows into IRA accounts, bonus money being put to work, and new money coming off the sidelines. That did not happen today as sellers maintained control throughout the trading day. Energy (-1.3%), industrials (-1.3%), and technology (-1.1%)-slipped behind the broader market at the open and their underperformance weighed for the remainder of the session.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 16478.41 16469.99 -8.42 -0.1 25.7
Nasdaq 4156.59 4131.91 -24.68 -0.6 36.8
S&P 500 1841.40 1831.37 -10.03 -0.5 28.4
Russell 2000 1161.09 1156.05 -5.04 -0.4 36.1

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: NQ (15.95 +40.26%), YGE (6.61 +37.12%), CUDA (37.85 +30.47%), SOL (4.07 +22.36%), WUBA (36.71 +21.3%), CMGE (24.71 +19.83%), NMBL (42.96 +19.61%), SWIR (24.93 +17.39%)
Industrial Goods: MY (2.56 +28.43%), JKS (32.54 +16.06%)
Healthcare: ONVO (10.9 +31.28%), GALE (5.09 +27%), SGYP (5.64 +16.32%), INO (2.5 +16.19%)
Consumer Goods: KNDI (13.29 +70.5%), CROX (16.4 +24.36%)
Basic Materials: MCP (6.01 +30.77%), AMRS (4.63 +20.46%), ANV (3.93 +16.42%), RIOM (1.65 +16%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Utilities: EBR (2.52 -8.08%)
Technology: TXTR (30.98 -20.64%), OIBR (1.75 -9.64%), TKC (12.73 -8.66%), IQNT (11.46 -8.5%)
Services: MYGN (21.2 -10.17%), RUTH (13.62 -9.75%), LIOX (5.8 -8.73%)
Industrial Goods: GFA (3.07 -12.42%)
Healthcare: IDIX (6.27 -9.97%), DNDN (3.08 -9.25%), NLNK (22.02 -8.71%), ANIK (34.35 -8.14%)
Financial: NOAH (17.68 -11.42%), GGAL (9.99 -8.93%), LTS (3.07 -8.28%)
Consumer Goods: SHLO (17.49 -9.83%)
Basic Materials: YZC (8.18 -10.35%), PZE (5.46 -10.14%), TPLM (8.14 -10.08%)

4:09PM Closing Market Summary: Stocks End Down Week on Mixed Note (WRAPX) : The major averages wrapped up the week on a mixed note as the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2% while the Nasdaq shed 0.3%. For its part, the S&P 500 ended flat.

Today's mixed finish was an appropriate reflection of a session that featured some mixed signals. On that note, seven of ten sectors ended in the red but market breadth remained positive throughout the trading day. In all likelihood, light volume played a part as some participants were kept away by the winter storm that has encompassed the Northeast. At the end of the day, only 533 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Stocks began the session on an upbeat note, but the Nasdaq was quick to slip from its early high. The index was pressured by its largest component, Apple (AAPL 540.98, -12.15), which lost 2.2%. Biotechnology also weighed on the Nasdaq as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 226.03, -1.06) shed 0.5%. The health care sector; however, outperformed with a gain of 0.2%.

The S&P 500 followed in the footsteps of the Nasdaq in the early afternoon, but the indices diverged once again during the final hour when the S&P 500 made an unsuccessful run at its opening high.

Seven sectors posted losses while financials (+0.6%), health care (+0.2%), and industrials (+0.3%) spent the entire session in the green.

Notably, the financial sector was underpinned by large banks as Bank of America (BAC 16.41, +0.31), Citigroup (C 53.40, +1.13), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 58.66, +0.45) all gained between 0.8% and 2.2%.

Elsewhere, gains in the industrial sector were paced by airlines. Delta Air Lines (DAL 29.23, +1.53) and United Continental (UAL 39.95, +2.22) soared 5.5% and 5.9%, respectively, while the broader Dow Jones Transportation Average added 0.5%.

Switching gears, the commodity market saw a replay of Thursday as oil fell while gold rallied. Crude oil slid 1.6% to $93.96/bbl while gold futures advanced 1.1% to $1238.40/ozt.

Treasuries ended little changed with the 10-yr yield at 2.99%.

On Monday, November Factory Orders and the December ISM Services Index will both be reported at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 -0.6% YTD
DJIA -0.6% YTD
S&P 500 -0.9% YTD
Nasdaq -1.1% YTD

Week in Review: Shaky Start to 2014

Monday's session did not generate much excitement as the S&P 500 ended flat after spending the entire trading day inside of a four-point range. Interestingly, while the S&P 500 was challenged by its flat line throughout the session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average held just above its unchanged level for the duration of the day. The price-weighted Dow saw 19 of its 30 components finish in the green, but shares of Disney (DIS 76.11, -0.16) stood out with a 2.5% gain. The noteworthy strength ensued after Guggenheim upgraded the stock to 'Buy' from 'Neutral.'

On Tuesday, the major averages wrapped up a memorable year with a forgettable final session. The S&P 500 added 0.4%, extending its 2013 price return to 29.6%. Given its banner year, it was appropriate for the index to end 2013 at a fresh all-time high of 1848.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 26.5% in 2013 and ended at a record high of its own. Although the Dow (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.4%) saw comparable gains on Tuesday, the Nasdaq (+0.5%) fared a bit better. That was the theme throughout the year as the tech-heavy index rallied 38.3%.

Bond and equity markets were closed on Wednesday for New Year's Day.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 exhibited a bit of a hangover in its first session of 2014. The benchmark index fell 0.9% as all ten sectors registered losses. Stocks were pressured from the opening bell as cautious action in Europe weighed on the early sentiment. In all likelihood, the slide caught a number of participants off guard given the understanding that the first few days of a new year are known to have a favorable bias with inflows into IRA accounts, bonus money being put to work, and new money coming off the sidelines. That did not happen today as sellers maintained control throughout the trading day. Energy (-1.3%), industrials (-1.3%), and technology (-1.1%)-slipped behind the broader market at the open and their underperformance weighed for the remainder of the session.

3:55PM Events and conferences of interest for next week : Events and conferences of interest for next week, Jan 6th-10th, are listed below. For a complete list of next week's events, please see the events calendar.
Monday

JP Morgan Tech Forum at CES 2014
Scheduled to appear: ADI, ARMH, AVGO, CY, HPQ, INTC, NVDA, ONNN, MRVL, TXN, XLNX, MSFT
Citi 2014 Internet, Media and Telecommunications Conference
Scheduled to appear: S, VZ, P, T, CCOI, MDCA, HSNI, DLR, MDP, ADT, INAP, CMCSA, CTL, USM, TDS, CVC, ELNK, TIVO, INXN, TRLA, WIN, TMUS, SIRI, DTV, TWER, EGHT, ASCMA
Janet Yellen Confirmation Hearing

Tuesday

International CES 2014
Scheduled to appear: TIVO, SPB, PLT, SI, SATS, CEVA, VC, ACTS, MVIS, SIMG, QUIK, PXLW, IDTI, CDNS, IRF, OPLK, TXN, AMBA, ASTI, DLPH, COBR, ARMH, MRVL, SYNA, INVN, IKAN, UEIC, ARRS, SNCR, QCOM, INTC, INTC, NXPI, INTC
Goldman Sachs Global Energy Conference 2014
Scheduled to appear: MPC, OII, ALDW, ALJ, ESV, FTI, CXO, KOG, ERA, FST, CHK, CA:VET, CNQ, SWN
Connections Summit
Scheduled to appear: SPRT

Wednesday

China Trade Data (out overnight)
Eurozone Retail Sales (out overnight)
FOMC Minutes at 14:00

Thursday

Boe Rate Decision at 7:00
ECB Rate Decision at 7:45 followed by Mario Draghi Press Conference at 8:30
Credit Suisse Asia Technology and Taiwan Corporate Days
Scheduled to appear: SMI

Friday

China New Loan Data (out overnight)
UK Industrial Production (out overnight)

3:32PM Earnings Preview for the week of January 6 - 10 (SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of January 6 - 10 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - CVGW
After Hours - SHLM, SONC
Tuesday:
Pre Market - CMC, IHS
After Hours - MU, APOL, TISI, TCS
Wednesday:
Pre Market - MON, STZ, RPM, MSM, SCHN, GBX, UNF, AZZ
After Hours - BBRY, GPN, HELE, RT, VOXX, TXI, MG, WDFC
Thursday:
Pre Market - SVU, FDO, AYI
After Hours - AXP, AA, SNX, PSMT, PRGS, ANGO, EOPN
Friday:
Pre Market - INFY

12:28PM BlackBerry files lawsuit against Typo Products; charges Typo has infringed its Keyboard Patents (BBRY) 7.53 -0.12 :
Co announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Typo Products. Typo announced the Typo Keyboard would be available for pre-order this month. The complaint against Typo alleges patent infringement and that Typo has copied BlackBerry's keyboard with its AAPL iPhone keyboard case designed to slip on to iPhone devices.
The Typo Keyboard violates BlackBerry's intellectual property rights, and BlackBerry will protect those rights from blatant copying and infringement. This lawsuit has been filed in the Northern District of California.

Large Cap Gainers

TSU (27.19 +7.34%): Telefonica (TEF) considering joint offer to take over TSU and breakup the local wireless unit of Telecom Italia (TI) also known as TIM Brasil
DAL (28.88 +4.24%): Reported December consolidated passenger unit revenue (PRASM) rose 10.0% year/year driven by continuing strong demand and benefits from the timing of the Thanksgiving holiday
INFY (56.9 +2.46%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at HSBC Securities

Large Cap Losers

S (9.95 -4.28%): Downgraded to Sell from Hold at Stifel on valuation and skepticism of M&A prospects
TMUS (32.33 -3.11%): AT&T (T) confirmed it will offer T-mobile customers up to $450 per line to switch to AT&T service
GM (39.72 -2.99%): Reported December sales declined 6.3% year/year

Mid Cap Gainers

QUNR (29.55 +9.28%): Reported it achieved a single-day record for air ticket bookings, with more than 60k over the New Year holiday
RAD (5.43 +7.74%): December same store sales increased 2.9% year/year, ahead of estimates
FNSR (23.9 +2.75%): Upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James

Mid Cap Losers

IOC (45.95 -6.22%): Weakness in select oil and gas refining and marketing companies: DK, FANG also lower
HLF (75.89 -4.93%): Federal Trade Commission announced a new initiative against "deceptive claims made by national marketers of fad weight loss products"; GNC, NUS also lower
UFS (90.99 -2.99%): Downgraded to Underperform from Buy at BofA/Merrill

Pixelworks (PXLW) announced that its PA168 MotionEngine video display processor has been selected to power Skyworth's Ultra HD 4Kx2K Dual Core Android 3D Smart TVs.

STMicroelectronics (STM) announced the industry's most complete hardware and software platform for the digital multimedia home. The complete product offering includes all the ingredients required for the US cable market from high-speed broadband access to Ultra HD multi-screen video processing and seamless home connectivity over wired and wireless networks.

Corning (GLW) announced the manufacturing readiness of a novel 3D glass-forming technology to shape Corning Gorilla Glass. Corning is targeting commercialization of finished 3D-shaped Gorilla Glass parts in 2014 and is working with G-Tech Optoelectronics to establish a vertically integrated operation in Taiwan.

Marvell (MRVL) announced that China Mobile (CHL) launched its self-branded 4G LTE mobile hotspot powered by Marvell's ARMADA Mobile PXA1802 multimode 4G LTE platform

FNSR +2.8% (upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James)

SWIR -2.1% (downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at boutique firm), MU -1.7% (downgraded to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt $19 )

7:05AM Tessera Tech announces appointment of Robert J. Andersen as the co's executive vice president and CFO effective as of Jan. 2, 2014 (TSRA) 19.73 : John Allen, who had served as the Company's acting CFO since June 2013, returned to his prior position as the Company's senior vice president and corporate controller. Andersen most recently served from June 2011 to July 2013 as the CFO and executive vice president of G2 Holdings d/b/a Components Direct, a privately held provider of cloud-based product life cycle solutions, which was acquired by Avnet (AVT) in April 2013.

FireEye (FEYE) announced that it has acquired privately-held Mandiant, which is a provider of advanced endpoint security products and security incident response management products. The acquisition was approved by the shareholders of Mandiant and the boards of directors of both companies. Under the terms of the merger agreement, FireEye will issue an aggregate of 21.5 million shares and options to purchase shares of FireEye stock and pay approximately $106.5 million of net cash in the transaction to the former Mandiant security holders. In addition, FireEye granted certain performance-based retention equity incentives. The company issued guidance for the fourth quarter with revenues of $55 to $57 million which is above expectations, compared with previous guidance of $52 to $54 million. Total fourth quarter billings are expected to be in the range of $95 to $100 million, compared with previous guidance of $82 to $86 million. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with revenues of $400 to $410 million compared with the previous expected range of $240 to $250 million. Total billings for 2014 are now expected to be within the range of $540 to $560 million, compared with the previous expected range of $350 to $370 million. The company expects to release final fourth quarter and full year 2013 results after the market close on February 11, 2014.
Leidos (LDOS) awarded a prime contract by the California Army and Air National Guard to provide architectural and engineering services for planning and facilities. The multiple-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity contract has a one-year base period of performance, four one-year options, and a total contract value of $80 million for all awardees, if all options are exercised. Work will be performed primarily in California.
Synaptics (SYNA) announced, as required by the notice provisions of the Indenture related to its 0.75% Convertible Senior Subordinated Notes due 2024, that the Notes are convertible during the first calendar quarter of 2014. As of December 31, 2013, the sale price of Synaptics' common stock exceeded the conversion trigger price per share as set forth in the Indenture for at least 20 trading days in a period of 30 consecutive trading days ending on the last trading day of such calendar quarter. Based on this condition, the Indenture provides that the Notes are convertible during the subsequent calendar quarter, which commences on January 1, 2014.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Friday deep freeze for the country and market doesn't provide much guidance, but some themes start to emerge.
- Bernanke midday rally fizzles as Bernanke doesn't care to give a farewell rally speech.
- Some reallocation as dollar rises but so does gold and gold stocks.
- Bullish advisors surge as bullish individual investors fade.
- Perhaps a new crop of leaders is emerging.

Whether Friday would reveal anything further about the new year trends was problematic at best. The weather took away pretty much any chance for the session to reveal anything significant as virtually no one showed up for work.

Still, there were some themes for the first week of 2014.

Leadership is still muddled though holding up. Many of the big names that took the large cap indices higher are still questionable; hanging in for the most part, but unable to advance. AAPL was in fact down sharply, receiving a downgrade Thursday and then selling harder Friday.

While some of the big names find it hard to make headway even if they are not selling off, many stocks are setting up very nicely from many different sectors. That is quite encouraging. We have many plays on the report that are in excellent position to move higher. Current plays and new plays. That is very good to see. Money may be shifting around, and if it rotates and keeps coming into the market, that works as we will follow the money.

Consumer products/staples didn't perform that well. That is a relief. We did not want to see that defensive sector start showing strength.

Transports elevated, led Friday by the airlines. Shipping surged the prior two weeks, and though it took a breather last week that sector still looks very solid.

Precious metals started upside. That does not seem to make a lot of sense given the stronger dollar on the week as well as the FOMC taper, and even Bernanke didn't have much to offer stocks Friday in his farewell tour speech. Still, gold is trying to rally, and we see gold stocks breaking some pretty serious downtrends. That may not make a lot of sense economically if the economy is as rosy as many yearend prognosticators suggest, particularly given the Fed taper is here to stay, but it does make some market sense: money being reallocated to beaten down areas, areas that have a lot of room to grow, to start a new year.

That raises an interesting point as to why we do not pay attention to forecasts other than for insight as to what the crowd thinks and for some comic relief. Sure some will be correct in their guesses, but no one got the size of the stock market rise in 2013 correct. It went a LOT farther than anyone predicted. There were those saying it would go down, those that it would go up. Those that got the direction right, great. But who do you follow? Whose prediction do you listen to out of the multitude?

That is why we don't take to heart or heed predictions. Half don't get the direction correct, virtually none get the magnitude of the move correct, and how do you follow blanket suggestions anyway?

No, let the market tell you where the money is going and how LONG it is going to move. Again, no one thought the market would move as far as it did in 2013. Just as we typically always let a part of a play run after taking initial profits simple because we don't know when the move will ultimately stall, prognosticators don't know how long a run, up or down, will last.

As always, look for where the money is going. It shows up in patterns, volume, trend breaks, gaps, rounded bottoms, rounded tops, etc. Use those to give you an edge in getting ready for a move. Then watch for the move to take place and join in. Take profits at logical targets, then let a good portion of the position continue to run. Some like taking half at first then half again, etc. Others take one-third first then another third or a half after that. It depends upon your risk tolerance and your portfolio.

Whether a third or a half, however, taking initial partial profits at a logical point frees up your trading, allowing you to let a position truly run to its potential. It gets you past that mind block of taking all your gain after an initial move then being too afraid to move back in at a higher price. Heck, it even HELPS you move in at a higher price because you still have a winner you are confident in and feel positive about adding to it at the right times.

No, Friday did not answer all questions or even many about 2014. It does show some very interesting promise and we have some of that promise in current positions, plays we are already looking at, and some new plays for this coming week. None of these observations are set in stone. Just two days of light volume trade hardly sets up the rest of the year. It is interesting to note, however, the old saying that 'so goes the first three days of January, so goes the month and year.' That puts some pressure on Monday no doubt given the first two days of 2014 were not that solid.

Friday saw a mixed market on the close. Indeed stocks were mixed all session. Interestingly, Bernanke spoke and managed to rally stocks from their lows, apparently on the hope of a 'bouquet toss' as Art Cashin put it. There was no bouquet. When it was apparent Bernanke was truly lame duck and had nothing to offer, stocks rolled back over to near session lows at the close. The magic appeared to be there, but was not.

SP500 -0.61, -0.03%
NASDAQ -11.16, -0.27%
DJ30 28.64, 0.17%
SP400 0.42%
RUTX 0.47%
SOX -0.20%

Volume was low Thursday the day after New Year's, and it was even lower Friday gratis the storm. Baby it's cold out there.

THE MARKET

OTHER MARKETS

Dollar: 1.3589 versus 1.3666 versus 1.3757 versus 1.3798 versus 1.3749 versus 1.3690 euro. Continued its surge off the recent December higher lows. Not a huge move, still at the low end of the range, but showing more strength as it is now at a key level of 81 on the dollar index. Lots of lows and highs at that level. Should be instructive next week how it handles that.

Bonds: 3.00% versus 2.99% versus 3.03% versus 2.97% versus 3.01% versus 2.99% versus 2.98% 10 year. Still bouncing up and down in this slightly lower new range. It won't give it up, refusing to crater after making the initial break.

Oil: 93.96, -1.48. Continued the pounding after Thursday showed the worst single day drubbing in three years. Again, will gasoline prices follow it lower? They shot up with just a modest rise in petrol. Let's see the opposite effect and give the consumer some relief. A new low on this selling, undercutting the mid-December low. Just about back to the November range.

Gold: 1238.40, +13.40. Quite the week, bouncing off a short double bottom that is part of a larger double bottom. Broke some prior support it fell through AND cleared the 20 day EMA, something it struggled to do the past two months. Interesting. Reallocation trade? Perhaps. Many gold stocks are trying to and some are making the reversal break.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -11.16 points (+0.27%) to close at 4131.91
Volume: 1.651B (-4.4%)

Up Volume: 893.48M (+174.04M)
Down Volume: 734.99M (-261.34M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.6 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.79 to 1

New Highs: 128 (+20)
New Lows: 7 (-4)

S&P
Stats: -0.61 points (-0.03%) to close at 1831.37
NYSE Volume: 482M (-11.23%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.79 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.98 to 1

New Highs: 103 (+12)
New Lows: 78 (-7)

DJ30
Stats: +28.64 points (+0.17%) to close at 16469.99

THE CHARTS

Sold a bit more, but all held the 10 day EMA on the close. SOX was the most problematical, but it also shows a nice tight doji at the 10 day EMA after undercutting it intraday.

Let's see, over two weeks of gains into year end, and a pullback to the 10 day EMA to start the year. That is not bad action, even if Thursday's loss was more than you want to see. Friday held things in check better. Still really too early in the year to say much of anything regarding serious trends though the first two days have of course not matched the monster days of 2013 and prior years.

LEADERSHIP

Big names: Still sluggish with AAPL downright weaker. GOOG sagged just through the 10 day EMA but is still solid. NFLX is still below the 20 day EMA, falling under it last week. PCLN is similar to AAPL, that is, already at the 50 day EMA. Not helping.

The new crop: NPSP, BONT, ACAD, ELOS, GALE, MONT, SWI, BEE, VISN and more either moved up or set up for new moves. TSLA, SFUN, IPCI, FSLR, Z and others look ready to make new moves.

As you can see, there is a new crop of stocks having money pushed their way. Love to see that: rotation, it's not just good for your tires.

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 13.76; -0.47
VXN: 15.85; -0.03
VXO: 12.4; -0.19

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.9; +0.08

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls and Bears continued to diverge this week: Bulls 61.6%, bears 15.2%.

Extreme levels become even more extreme as advisors turn more bullish. Just listening to the yearend predictions on the financial stations last week would leave you with no doubt bullishness is rampant. I found myself arguing the contrary JUST BECAUSE they were so darn (irrationally it seemed) bullish.

As noted last week: when everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. There is some upside. Then, the individual investor has not been that ebullient about the market advance: most think it is baloney, funny money inflated by the FOMC.

They are right! Consumer Confidence numbers rise, but Bloomberg, Gallup, and AP polls show a lot of distrust in the economy and the financial markets. Indeed, as one reader points out, while advisors as shown in the following chart are gaining in bullishness, the AAII (individual investors) shows more bearishness: Bulls fell to 43.1% versus 55.1% while bear rose to 29.3% from 18.5%. Are the retail investors again missing the call, being too bearish when they should be, as Barney Fife put it in 'The Andy Griffith Show,' a 'plunger?'

It is not an exact science, but it is part of the picture, a bearish weight on the scale of the market's current position. After the holiday rally runs its course this could play a key role in a pullback.

Note the extreme bullishness: it was this high in 2007 at the crash, in early 2005 as well.

Bulls: 61.6% versus 60.0 versus 58.2 versus 57.1 versus 55.7 versus 53.6 versus 52.6 versus 55.2% versus 52.6 versus 49.5 versus 42.3% versus 45.4 versus 46.4% versus 44.3% versus 42.3% versus 37.1% versus 37.1% versus 38.1% versus 43.3%. Getting even more extreme . . .

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 15.2% versus 14.0 versus 14.3 versus 14.3 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 15.5% versus 15.6% versus 16.5% versus 18.5 versus 21.6% versus 20.6% versus 18.6% versus 20.6% versus 21.6% versus 22.7% versus 23.7% versus 23.8% versus 21.6%. Held steady basically for the third straight week. Seems bears fall after each three weeks. Frankly, how much more can it fall? Further, I suppose.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

The holidays are over, the blizzard has hit, now we should see some indication of what the real trade will be. Of course there is the deep freeze that follows the storm; perhaps we won't see the true indication just yet.

Indeed the market may want to test the 2+ week run into the new year a bit more before it turns up. If it is down the first three days will that ruin the year? I don't know that answer. I do know there are many good looking patterns setting up in stocks that perhaps many are not that familiar with. That is fine. If money wants to rotate to new lesser known areas we can work with that. Indeed, is that not something of the 'January effect,' picking up smaller caps at smaller prices so there is more upside opportunity over the course of the year? Indeed.

So, simply put, we will follow the money by looking at the patterns setting up and moving in as they make the breaks. We found several last week and added several more this week. If the market rallies out of the current test of the pre-yearend move, we will be more than happy to play these stocks as the money pushes them higher.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4131.91

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 4131
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13
4070 is the series of highs from late November/early December
4061 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
The 50 day EMA at 4011
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
3947 is the November 2012 trendline
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.
The 200 day SMA at 3648

S&P 500: Closed at 1831.37

Resistance:
New high.

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 1829
The 50 day EMA at 1789
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1755 is the December 2012 up trendline
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
The 200 day SMA at 1682
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1627 is the August 2013 low
1576 from October 2007, the prior all-time high
1573 is the June 2013 closing low
1569.48 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement of the April to May 2013 run
1560 is the June 2013 reversal low

Dow: Closed at 16,469.99

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 16,380
16,175 is the November all-time high.
The 50 day EMA at 15,968
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,318 is the June closing high
The 200 day SMA at 15,313
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

January 6 - Monday
- Factory Orders, November (10:00): 1.7% expected, -0.9% prior
- ISM Services, December (10:00): 54.6 expected, 53.9 prior

January 7 - Tuesday
- Trade Balance, November (8:30): -$40.4B expected, -$40.6B prior

January 8 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 01/04 (7:00)
- ADP Employment Chang, December (8:15): 203K expected, 215K prior
- Crude Inventories, 01/04 (10:30): -7.007M prior
- FOMC Minutes, 12/18 (14:00)
- Consumer Credit, November (15:00): $15.2B expected, $18.2B prior

January 9 - Thursday
- Challenger Job Cuts, December (7:30): -20.6% prior
- Initial Claims, 01/04 (8:30): 338K expected,
- Continuing Claims, 12/28 (8:30): 2875K expected,
- Natural Gas Inventor, 01/04 (10:30): -97 bcf prior

January 10 - Friday
- Nonfarm Payrolls, December (8:30): 197K expected, 203K prior
- Nonfarm Private Payrolls, December (8:30): 198K expected, 196K prior
- Unemployment Rate, December (8:30): 7.0% expected, 7.0% prior
- Hourly Earnings, December (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
- Average Workweek, December (8:30): 34.5 expected, 34.5 prior
- Wholesale Inventories, November (10:00): 0.2% expected, 1.4% prior

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Despite staging an afternoon rally, the S&P 500 was unable to log its first gain of 2014. The benchmark index registered its third consecutive loss, shedding 0.3% as six of ten sectors finished in the red.

Equities began the day on a modestly higher note, but the early gains evaporated during the opening hour as the broader market followed the Nasdaq Composite into the red. The tech-heavy index was hit with widespread selling pressure that weighed on many top components and biotechnology. Both Apple (AAPL 543.93, +2.95) and eBay (EBAY 51.78, -1.48) received downgrades, but Apple was able to stage an intraday reversal after dipping below its 50-day moving average. For its part, eBay settled lower by 2.8%.

Furthermore, biotechnology also pressured the Nasdaq after Goldman Sachs downgraded Celgene (CELG 162.62, -7.19) to 'Sell.' The stock tumbled 4.2% while the broader iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 223.82, -2.21) lost 1.0%.

Even though the tech-heavy Nasdaq paced the early weakness, the technology sector ended in-line with the broader market. Other cyclical groups were mixed with respect to the broader market as energy (+0.1%) and financials (+0.1%) outperformed while consumer discretionary (-0.6%), industrials (-0.6%) and materials (-0.6%) lagged.

Notably, the financial sector spent the entire session in the green as Bank of America (BAC 16.66, +0.25) posted its third consecutive gain. The stock jumped 1.5% to extend its 2014 price return to 7.0%.

On the downside, the industrial sector finished near its lows as transports weighed. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 1.3% as 19 of its 20 components ended lower. Delta Air Lines (DAL 29.29, +0.06) was the lone advancer, adding 0.2%.

Similar to cyclical groups, countercyclical sectors ended in mixed fashion. Telecom services (+0.5%) and utilities (+0.1%) outperformed while consumer staples (-0.4%) and health care (-0.4%) lagged.

Once again, participation was on the light side as only 656 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Treasuries rallied throughout the trading day, sending the 10-yr yield lower by four basis points to 2.96%.

Today's economic data was limited to a pair of reports:

The ISM Non-manufacturing Index for December fell to 53.0 from 53.9 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 54.6. Business activities and production levels decelerated slightly as the respective index fell to 55.2 from November's 55.5.
November factory orders rose 1.8% after falling an upwardly revised -0.5% (from -0.9%). The Briefing.com consensus expected orders to increase 1.7%. As the advance report already hinted at, nearly the entire gain in factory orders resulted from strong demand for durable goods orders. Durable goods orders rose 3.4%, which was down slightly from the 3.5% gain reported in the advance report. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders rose a solid 1.2%.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the November trade balance, which will be reported at 8:30 ET.

DJIA -0.9% YTD
S&P 500 -1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.4% YTD
Nasdaq -1.5% YTD

DJ30 -44.89 NASDAQ -18.23 SP500 -4.60 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 945/2.14 bln/1636 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1404/656.2 mln/1640

3:35 pm :

Commodities ended the day mixed with WTI crude oil ending below $94 and gold below $1240
Crude oil remained in the red all session and trading just above the LoD, finishing down -1.9% at $93.67/barrel
Feb natural gas futures slid lower in early morning trade and closed unchanged at $4.30/MMBtu
Gold lost $0.20 in today's session, closing at $1238.20/oz, while silver fell $0.09 to $20.11/oz. Mar copper gained one cent to $3.36/lb

5:13PM Silicon Image announces its dual-mode MHL 3.0/HDMI 2.0 receiver has been designed into Samsung's (SSNLF) latest Ultra High Definition TVs (SIMG) 5.95 -0.11 : Co also announced its 4K Ultra HD adaptive scaling video processor with VRS ClearView technology has been designed into OPPO Digital's new BDP-103D Blu-ray Disc player.

5:04PM Viacom unit Paramount and Samsung collaborate to bring Ultra High-Definition content to customers (VIAB) 85.73 -0.87 : Samsung (SSNLF) and Paramount Pictures announced an alliance that will invigorate a growing UHD market. Samsung is releasing a UHD Video Pack that will come pre-loaded with UHD-quality content, including handpicked feature films from Paramount Pictures. Paramount Pictures Corporation (PPC), a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, is a unit of Viacom (VIAB).

5:03PM Sigma Designs demonstrates 4k Ultra HD at CES (SIGM) 4.78 +0.18 : Co announced it would demonstrate 4K Ultra HD in conjunction with Harmonic, the worldwide leader in video delivery infrastructure, at 2014 CES International, Jan. 7-10, in Las Vegas. A critical feature of any high-end HDTV, Sigma and its industry partners have OEMs covered.

2:01PM VOXX Intl unveils organizational changes: announces formation of new subsidiary, VOXXHirschmann (VOXX) 16.81 +0.16 : Co unveiled organizational changes that are expected to position the Company for growth in the coming years. The Company announced today the formation of a new subsidiary, VOXXHirschmann, which combines all Original Equipment Automotive Groups into one single entity that includes Hirschmann Car Communications, Audiovox Incaar, Code Alarm OE and Invision. The combination of these assets is expected to significantly strengthen the Company's tier-one status as a global manufacturer, while leveraging shared resources for sales, product development and customer support.

As part of this realignment, Ludwig Geis, who previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Hirschmann, has been appointed President and Chief Executive of the new company.

The Company also announced today another significant development - the formation of VOXX Electronics Corp ("VEC"). This new group was formed to take advantage of emerging technology trends, for both mobile and consumer electronics product categories.
Audiovox Electronics Corporation has been consolidated into this new company and Tom Malone; previously President of that group has been named President of this newly formed venture.

Large Cap Gainers

SIRI (3.79 +6.02%): Received a proposal from Liberty Medica (LMCA) to make Sirius XM Holdings a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty
STJ (63.46 +3.71%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
BSX (12.28 +2.93%): Upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer; mentioned positively by Jim Cramer; co named Craig Thompson as new Chief Medical Officer, interventional cardiology

Large Cap Losers

TWTR (65.25 -5.43%): Downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; downgraded to Fair Value from Buy at CRT Capital on valuation
CELG (161.56 -4.86%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman; WSJ published story discussing dispute between co and hospitals over royalties for cancer drugs
BBY (38.9 -4.38%): Peer company hhgregg (HGG) provided downide Q3 guidance, raising concerns BBY could also miss

Mid Cap Gainers

P (30.46 +10.40%): Announced listener hours during the month of December 2013 were 1.58 bln, an increase of 13% year/year; share of total U.S. radio listening rose to 8.60% from $7.58%, active listeners increased to 76.2 mln from 67.1 mln
SCTY (64.93 +9.55%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman, added to Conviction Buy list
VRNT (45.28 +6.77%): Signed agreement to acquire KANA Software for $514 mln in cash, KANA provides on-premises and cloud solutions for large enterprises and mid-market organizations

Mid Cap Losers

FSLR (51.34 -9.52%): Downgraded to Sell from Buy at Goldman
TPX (51.59 -5.13%): Trading lower following weak preliminary Q4 results from peer Select Comfort (SCSS); MFRM also lower
PCL (44.11 -4.81%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article

SanDisk (SNDK) announced that the ASUS ZENBOOK UX301LA Ultrabook relies on the compact SanDisk X110 Solid State Drives for intelligent, blazing-fast flash storage.

Enbridge (ENB) has entered into an agreement with Renewable Energy Systems Americas for construction of the 110-megawatt Keechi Wind Project, located in Jack County, Texas, at a cost of ~$0.2 bln. The project will deliver electricity into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas market, under a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with Microsoft (MSFT).

OmniVision Technologies (OVTI) launched the OV9762, a high-performance CameraChip sensor designed specifically for front-facing camera applications in smartphones and tablets.

9:02AM BlackBerry announced that Ron Louks will join the Company as President, Devices and Emerging Solutions (BBRY) 7.61 : Ron Louks joins BlackBerry from The OpenNMS Group, where he served as the Chief Executive Officer. Prior to that, Ron held many leadership positions over several decades in the technology industry, including as the Chief Strategy Officer of HTC America Inc. (HTCKF unit) and the Chief Technology Officer at Sony Ericsson (SNE, ERIC jv).

Silicon Labs (SLAB) announced that Magellan has chosen Silicon Labs' EFM32 Giant Gecko microcontroller as the energy-friendly processing platform for the Magellan Echo smart sports watch.

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced that Zenovia Exchange selected Mellanox's end-to-end FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand solutions to further improve transaction speed and bid decisioning for ad buyers.

Analyst comments: SRPT -7% (downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup), ATHM -6.7% (initiated with a Sell at Goldman), TWTR -5.2% ( downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley), FSLR -4.1% (downgraded to Sell from Buy at Goldman), ARIA -3.5% (downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup), EBAY -1.6% (downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley), HOLX -1.6% ( downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley), ALXN -1.5% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman), PETM -1.4% (downgraded to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank), ARRS -1.3% (downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays), RVBD -1.2% (downgraded to Hold from Strong Buy at Needham), AAPL -1.1% (downgraded to Sell at Standpoint Research), NMM -0.8% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Global Hunter Securities), PM -0.6% ( initiated with a Sell at Standpoint Research), AFL -0.4% (downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse)

8:10AM Silicon Motion sees Q4 sequential revenue to be near the midpoint of the original guidance range that it issued on Oct 25, 2013, of down 6-12% sequentially, which equates to ~$50.3-53.7 mln vs $51.9 mln Capital IQ Consensus Est (SIMO) 14.15 : Co announces that based upon its preliminary financial results, sequential revenue growth for the fourth quarter is expected to be near the midpoint of the original guidance range that the co issued on October 25, 2013, of down 6% to 12% sequentially. Gross margin (non-GAAP) is expected to be within the upper half of the co's guidance range of 47 to 49%.

Qualcomm (QCOM) has expanded its automotive product offerings by introducing an automotive-grade infotainment chipset, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 602A applications processor with a quad-core Krait CPU, Adreno 320 GPU, Hexagon DSP, integrated GNSS baseband processing and additional high-performance audio, video and communication cores.

3:44AM ReneSola panels to power 420 MW solar project in Japan (SOL) 4.07 : Co announces it has been awarded a contract to supply 420MW of solar panels to a leading solar project developer based in Japan. ReneSola's Virtus II 300W 72-cell high-efficiency polycrystalline PV panels will be installed in over ten ground-mounted power plants in the mountain regions of Japan, and will provide power to the surrounding residential homes

Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) and Rambus Inc. (RMBS) announced the companies have signed a comprehensive 10-year license agreement. The agreement extends the existing relationship between the companies, providing Samsung with access to Rambus' innovative technologies for inclusion in Samsung ICs. The agreement requires quarterly royalty payments to Rambus of $15 million per quarter for the first five years, with an initial payment of $22 million for the fourth quarter of 2013. Payments in the second five-year period are variable and subject to market-related factors. The agreement further provides Samsung access to Rambus' security technologies in system devices such as smart phones, tablets, and set-top boxes. The agreement is set to terminate in 2023. Other terms and details are confidential.
Verint Systems (VRNT) announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire KANA Software. The acquisition would form a unique and revolutionary combination that would extend Verint's Actionable Intelligence strategy. The collective solutions from Verint and KANA would enable organizations worldwide to implement a single-vendor suite to help transform customer engagement. The acquisition of KANA, a portfolio company of Accel-KKR, is expected to be completed in Verint's first fiscal quarter ending April 30, 2014.Verint has agreed to acquire KANA for ~ $514 million in cash, subject to certain closing adjustments. The acquisition is expected to be financed through a combination of cash on hand and debt, using ~ $100 million of Verint's cash, ~ $300 million from incremental term loans (on terms similar to Verint's existing term loans), and the balance from Verint's un-drawn revolving credit facility.
Radware (RDWR) issued upside guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of $0.21-0.22 and revenues of $53 million which are both above estimates. Co states: "The strong sales results are the outcome of continued growth in the Americas coupled with solid performance from EMEA."
RBC Capital Mkts upgrades Zillow (Z) to Outperform from Sector Perform and raises their tgt to $100 from $90 with increased confidence given their 2014 sector outlook, and with more reasonable current valuation. They have developed an increasingly positive outlook on Zillow's ability to execute in a secular growth industry. They view Zillow as the leader in Online Real Estate (with Trulia a close follower).

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The S&P 500 settled higher by 0.6%, notching its first advance of 2014. Despite today's gain, the index remains lower by 0.6% through the first four sessions of the year.

The benchmark index notched its high during the initial 90 minutes before spending the remainder of the session in a narrow range. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq (+1.0%) inched to a fresh high during the late afternoon.

Nine of ten sectors registered gains while materials (-0.2%) spent the day in negative territory. The sector was pressured by steelmakers with Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 47.63, -0.21) falling 0.4%.

Outside of materials, most of the remaining cyclical groups posted solid gains. The financial sector was an exception as Bank of America (BAC 16.50, -0.16), Goldman Sachs (GS 178.29, -1.08), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 58.32, -0.68) weighed. Bank of America lost 1.0% after spiking 7.0% over the past three sessions while JPMorgan Chase fell 1.2% after announcing its settlement stemming from the Madoff case will reduce fourth quarter net income by roughly $850 million. For its part, Goldman Sachs settled lower by 0.6% after Societe Generale initiated the stock with a 'Sell' rating.

Elsewhere, the technology sector (+0.9%) finished among the leaders even as its top component, Apple (AAPL 540.04, -3.89), lost 0.7%, ending below its 50-day moving average. Other large-cap names picked up the slack as Google (GOOG 1138.86, +21.54) and Oracle (ORCL 37.85, +0.38) advanced 1.9% and 1.0%, respectively.

The outperformance of technology gave a boost to the Nasdaq, which also drew strength from biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 226.93, +3.11) jumped 1.4%. In turn, the health care sector (+1.0%) settled in the lead.

Other countercyclical groups held up fairly well as utilities (+0.9%) outperformed while consumer staples (+0.5%) and telecom services (+0.5%) settled just behind the S&P 500.

Treasuries registered modest gains as the 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.95%.

Today's economic data was limited to the November trade deficit, which narrowed to $34.3 billion from a downwardly revised $39.30 billion (from $40.60 billion) while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to come in at $40.40 billion. The decline in the trade deficit in November combined with the downward revision to the October data will likely boost our fourth quarter GDP estimates.

Unfortunately, most of the decline in the trade deficit was likely temporary. A large drop in petroleum-based demand was a catalyst for a significant contraction in imports. Meanwhile, a significant portion of export growth came from the unstable sales of civilian aircraft and aircraft engines.

Among news of note, the U.S. Senate approved Janet Yellen's nomination to lead the Federal Reserve with a 56.26 vote.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while December ADP Employment Change will be reported at 8:15 ET. The FOMC minutes from the December meeting will be released at 14:00 ET and the day's data will be topped off with the Consumer Credit report, which will cross the wires at 15:00 ET.

DJIA -0.3% YTD
S&P 500 -0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.6% YTD
Nasdaq -0.6% YTD

DJ30 +105.84 NASDAQ +39.50 SP500 +11.11 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1813/2.12 bln/776 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2032/685.7 mln/1004 3:35 pm : Commodities ended the day mixed with oil gaining modestly, precious metals declining and corn rising slightly. At the end of today's session, Feb crude oil rose $0.21 to $93.67/barrel, while Feb natural gas settled unchanged at $4.30/MMBtu. Feb gold lost $9.20 to $1229.20/oz and Mar silver declined $0.41 to $19.79/oz.

4:27PM Rubicon Tech announces sale of $28.2 mln of common stock (RBCN) 11.44 0.00 : Co announced the sale of $28.2 million of its common stock pursuant to an underwriting agreement with Canaccord Genuity Inc. The last reported sale price of Rubicon's common stock as reported by the NASDAQ Global Market on January 7, 2014 was $11.44 per share. Rubicon intends to use the net proceeds to fund research and development of new products, for capacity expansion and for general corporate purposes. Closing of the offering is expected to occur on or about January 14, 2014, subject to customary closing conditions. In addition, Rubicon has granted the underwriter a 30-day option to purchase additional shares of common stock equal to up to 15% of the number of shares of common stock sold in the offering.

Canaccord Genuity Inc. is acting as sole book-running manager for the offering.

4:27PM Pericom Semi appoints James B. Boyd to the position of Chief Financial Officer (PSEM) 8.82 -0.07 : Co announced that it has appointed James B. Boyd to the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Boyd has over thirty years of finance experience, including twelve years as a public company CFO in the semiconductor industry.

4:08PM Micron beats by $0.26, beats on revs (MU) 21.73 +1.06 : Reports Q1 (Nov) earnings of $0.77 per share, $0.26 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.51; revenues rose 120.4% year/year to $4.04 bln vs the $3.71 bln consensus.

Revenues from sales of DRAM products were 69 percent higher q/q due primarily to an increase in sales volume resulting from the acquisition of Elpida.
Revenues from sales of NAND Flash products were 8 percent higher q/q primarily due to an 11 percent increase in sales volume offset by a slight decrease in average selling prices.
The company's consolidated gross margin improved to 32 percent in the first quarter of fiscal 2014 compared to 25 percent in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 primarily due to an increase in volume of products resulting from the acquisition of Elpida and to product mix.
Cash flows from operations for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 were $1.51 billion, while investments in capital expenditures were $669 million. The company ended the first fiscal quarter with cash and marketable investments of $4.41 billion.

Large Cap Gainers

VRX (122.81 +9.05%): Co reaffirmed Q4 guidance; guided FY14 EPS towards the low end of expectations; FY14 rev above.
MGM (24.57 +4.64%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
WDAY (88.19 +4.26%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS.

Large Cap Losers

NFLX (342.12 -4.85%): Downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; tgt lowered to $310 from $333; Sony (SNE) has teamed up with NFLX in video content deal, according to reports.
KORS (79.63 -2.94%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup.
TWTR (63.55 -4.13%): Fidelity funds bought 2.4 mln shares in days after going public, according to Reuters report.

Mid Cap Gainers

PCYC (125.09 +19.07%): Independent Data Monitoring Committee recommended Phase III study of IMBRUVICA (ibrutinib) vs. ofatumumab be stopped early based on statistically significant improvement in progression free survival and overall survival.
FDML (21.37 +10.61%): Honeywell (HON) reached agreement to sell friction materials business to FDML for ~ $155 mln.
CVG (22.44 +7.57%): Co to acquire Stream Global Services for $820 mln; reaffirmed 2013 EPS and rev guidance.

Mid Cap Losers

GPOR (56 -5.42%): Announced 2013 exit rate and provided update on production: achieved record daily production of ~27,780 BOEPD on Dec 31, 2013; downgraded to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt lowered to $61; downgraded to Hold from Buy at KLR Group.
SPN (24.91 -2.35%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen.
STM (7.68 -1.79%): Downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.

OmniVision Technologies (OVTI) announced the immediate availability of OV480, an electronic distortion correction solution for wide field-of-view automotive applications

3D Systems (DDD) introduced the ChefJet series of 3D printers, launching an entirely new 3D printer category of professionally-certified, kitchen-ready 3D printers for edibles.
3D Systems (DDD) announced the debut of the first-ever haptic-based, consumer 3D mouse for intuitive 3D sculpting and design, the Touch, with instant force feedback that mimics the sense of physical sculpting.
3D Systems (DDD) revealed its 3DMe Photobooth, the first compact, integrated physical photography pod that brings the entire 3DMe experience directly to the retail floor and event space.
3D Systems (DDD) announced a preview of its new CubeJet 3D printer.
3D Systems (DDD) showcased its new CeraJet 3D printer, extending its 3D printing portfolio to the ancient artisanal craft of pottery and ceramics.

Corning (GLW) announced Corning Gorilla Glass NBT, designed to help protect touch notebook displays from scratches and damage, has been adopted by Dell for several of its touch-enabled PCs, including the XPS, Inspiron, and Latitude series.

Corning (GLW) announced that Corning Gorilla Glass has been chosen by Pebble as the cover glass for the newly launched Pebble Steel smartwatch.
Ixia (XXIA) announced the expansion of its Xcellon-Multis portfolio of products with a native 12-port 40GbE load module, which is the highest 40GbE port density in the industry.

Marvell (MRVL) unveiled the ARMADA 1500 PRO a quad-core platform optimized to support Google (GOOG) services for Smart TV and complete IP-hybrid service security from Verimatrix. Co also announced a partnership with Skyworth, a global TV maker, to deploy Smart TVs and set-top boxes with Google services for Smart TV.

RFMD (RFMD) expanded its broad portfolio of Wi-Fi products to include two new front end modules for automotive Wi-Fi applications.

8:34AM Apple announces App store sales topped $10 billion in 2013 (AAPL) 543.93 : Co announced that customers spent over $10 billion on the App Store in 2013, including over $1 billion in December alone. App Store customers downloaded almost three billion apps in December making it the most successful month in App Store history. Apple's developers have now earned $15 billion on the App Store.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced two new system-on-a-chip devices for entry-level satellite set-top boxes.

Analog Devices (ADI) unveiled a high-precision, low-power meter-on-a-chip for a range of portable health applications such as point-of-care diagnostics, home/self-test health devices, and wearable vital signs monitors, including those for sports and fitness.

Integrated Device Technology (IDTI) announced the industry's first Qi-compliant single-chip wireless power transmitter solution supporting a 5V input.

6:04AM Advanced Semi reports Q4 revs above consensus; Dec net revs increased 12.8% YoY to NT$21.43 bln, down 2.5% sequentially (ASX) 4.50 : Co also reports Q4 net revs increased 13.3% YoY to NT$64.16 bln vs NT$60.85 bln CIQ est. This represented a sequential increase of 14.8%.

United Microelectronics (UMC) announced that it has surpassed 15 million shipments for customer small display driver ICs manufactured using the foundry's 55nm embedded high voltage technology.

AMD (AMD) announced a new milestone in their collaboration with BlueStacks, a joint solution that brings the complete Google (GOOG) Android OS experience to Microsoft (MSFT) Windows-based tablets, 2-in-1s, notebooks and desktops. Optimizations for the fourth generation AMD APU in BlueStacks provide a complete, Android user interface and extensive support for Android apps for entertainment and productivity.
iRobot Corp (IRBT) announced that the iRobot Scooba 450 is available in North America at www.irobot.com starting Tuesday, January 7 and introduced the new Roomba 800 Series.
Intel (INTC), Barneys New York, the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Opening Ceremony announced strategic collaborations to explore and bring to market smart wearable technology, and to increase dialogue and cooperation between the fashion and technology industries.

Palo Alto Networks (PANW) announced it has acquired Morta Security, a Silicon Valley-based cybersecurity company operating in stealth mode since 2012. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Ericsson (ERIC) announced an agreement with AT&T (T) to improve connectivity for products and applications that are powered by the Ericsson Connected Vehicle Cloud. The agreement creates a better consumer experience and helps advance the automotive cloud ecosystem by making it easier to connect in- vehicle technology and provide a path for the next generation consumer experience.
Cyan (CYNI) lowered guidance for the fourth quarter $20-$21 million, below prior guidance range of $30-$33 million which is below expectations. The decrease in guidance is largely a result of revenue from its largest customer decreasing by approximately 88% from $19 million in our third fiscal quarter to $2 million in the fourth quarter. Co states: "We are very disappointed with our preliminary fourth quarter 2013 revenue results, which were significantly impacted by a sharp decline in orders from our largest customer. Although we expect revenue from this customer to represent a meaningful portion of our revenue in future periods, we expect that it will continue to fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter. As we previously noted, our business in the near term is substantially dependent on this customer while we ramp revenue from new accounts and expand our customer base." In early February 2014, the company expects to announce the full results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2013, guidance for the first quarter of 2014, and an updated outlook for the full 2014 year.
Convergys (CVG) announced entry into a definitive merger agreement under which Convergys will acquire Stream for a total enterprise value of $820 mln in cash, subject to certain adjustments, from funds managed by Ares Management and Providence Equity Partners, as well as from LiveIt, the BPO investment arm of Ayala Corp. The company also announced the transaction is expected to add ~$0.35 in diluted earnings per share (EPS) in the first 12 months after close, excluding one-time charges, intangible amortization and integration costs. Convergys expects transaction to be accretive to EPS and to strengthen long-term revenue and earnings growth potential. Transaction and Integration Details The transaction is expected to close in Q1 of 2014, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including applicable regulatory requirements. The company also announced its intention to finance the transaction through $400 mln of cash on hand, a new $350 mln term loan for which co has received a commitment letter from Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and BofA Merrill Lynch, and existing credit facilities for the balance, although obtaining such financing is not a condition to the closing of the transaction. The company expects to extend its accounts receivable securitization and revolving credit facilities, and upon closing, to have at least $550 mln in available liquidity including undrawn credit facilities, cash and short term investments. Not included in this guidance is the impact of strategic acquisition activity or results classified within discontinued operations related to the sale of Convergys' Information Management business as well as other impacts from corporate simplification actions initiated in prior years such as non-cash pension settlement charges.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages ended the Wednesday session on a mixed note as the Nasdaq added 0.3%, the Dow shed 0.4% while the S&P 500 essentially split the difference, ending flat.

Equity indices began the session on a lower note, but the Nasdaq and S&P 500 staged swift rallies to new highs. The two indices hovered near their best levels of the session for the remainder of the trading day, but tested their lows during the final hour. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was unable to eclipse its morning high as 20 of its 30 components registered losses.

Prior to the open, it was reported that private sector employment increased by 238,000 in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 203,000. The strong report was received by the bond market as a sign suggesting the Fed could engage in additional tapering sooner rather than later. On that note, the December FOMC minutes revealed that some officials saw "waning benefits" from monthly bond purchases. Furthermore, some members wanted to see a quicker end to the asset purchasing program. Treasuries settled near their lows with the 10-yr yield up five basis points at 3.00%.

Six of ten sectors ended in the red with rate-sensitive consumer staples (-0.7%), telecom services (-1.7%), and utilities (-0.6%) leading the slide as higher yields weighed. The fourth defensive sector-health care (+0.9%)-finished in the lead with help from biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 231.58, +4.65) jumped 2.1%, also contributing to the outperformance of the Nasdaq.

Outside of health care, financials (+0.3%), materials (+0.6%), and technology (+0.1%) were the only other advancers. The materials sector received support from chemical producers after Monsanto (MON 115.23, +2.12) beat on earnings and revenue.

Elsewhere, the technology sector ended flat with its relative strength providing a boost to the Nasdaq. Chipmakers rallied broadly after Micron (MU 23.86, +2.13) beat on earnings and revenue. Micron soared 9.9% while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 1.6%.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.7%) was the weakest cyclical group as crude oil fell 1.4% to $92.32/bbl.

Today's session saw the most activity since December 20 as 743 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Tomorrow, the December Challenger Job Cuts report will be released at 7:30 ET while weekly initial claims will be reported at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq -0.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD
S&P 500 -0.6% YTD
DJIA -0.7% YTD

DJ30 -68.20 NASDAQ +12.43 SP500 -0.39 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1232/2.15 bln/1325 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1316/743.2 mln/1718

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded lower today as the dollar index rose on strong U.S. private sector jobs data. The ADP Employment report showed that the private sector added 238,000 jobs in December, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at 203,000
Feb gold extended losses for a third consecutive session, falling to a session low of $1218.30 per ounce in morning pit action. It eventually settled at $1225.50 per ounce, or 0.3% lower
Mar silver dipped to a session low of $19.31 per ounce after pulling back from a session high of $19.64 per ounce set moments after floor trade opened. Unable to regain much momentum, it settled with a 1.3% loss at $19.53 per ounce
Feb crude oil fell deeper into negative territory as weekly inventory data and the stronger dollar index weighed on prices. The EIA reported that for the week ending Jan 3, crude oil inventories had a draw of 2.675 mln barrels when a draw of 0.9-2.75 mln barrels was anticipated. In addition, both gasoline and distillate inventories came in higher-than-expected. The energy component retreated from its session high of $93.77 per barrel and fell below the $93 per barrel level by mid-morning pit action. It eventually settled with a 1.4% loss at $92.32 per barrel
Feb natural gas touched a session high of $4.32 per MMBtu but slipped into negative territory in late morning floor trade. It continued to trend lower for the remainder of the session and settled 1.9% lower at $4.22 per MMBtu

4:46PM EXFO renews normal course issuer bid (EXFO) 4.80 -0.02 : Co announced that its Board of Directors has authorized the renewal of its share repurchase program, by way of a normal course issuer bid ("NCIB") on the open market, of up to 10% (2,043,101 subordinate voting shares) of the public float (20,431,011 subordinate voting shares as of January 1, 2014) as defined by the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX").

EXFO had 28,801,683 subordinate voting shares outstanding on January 1, 2014. As of January 1, 2014, EXFO had repurchased in the course of the previous renewal of its NCIB a total of 502,756 shares, being 308,484 shares on the TSX at an average amount of CA$ 4.74 and 194,272 shares on the NASDAQ at an average amount of US$ 4.65. The previous renewal of the NCIB had been effective since November 12, 2012 and expired on November 11, 2013.

4:39PM VOXX Intl beats by $0.14, misses on revs; lowers FY14 revs below consensus; Co sees organic growth in FY15 of 3-4% with improved bottom-line performance (VOXX) 16.99 +0.16 : Reports Q3 (Nov) earnings of $0.63 per share, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.49; revenues rose 1.2% year/year to $245.8 mln vs the $250.15 mln consensus.

Co lowered FY14 revenue guidance to $825-830 mln vs. $840.20 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate
Co increases EBITDA guidance to $65 mln and free cash flow guidance to $40 mln
Net income for the three months ended November 30, 2013 was favorably impacted by an increase in other income as a result of a $4.3 million payment due from an OEM customer due to a contract shortfall, offset by lower interest and bank charges and higher income generated from the Company's joint venture, ASA Electronics.

4:36PM Finisar to acquire u2t Photonics AG for ~$20 mln in cash (FNSR) 24.75 +1.20 : Co and u2t Photonics AG announced today that they have entered into an agreement under which Finisar will acquire 100% of the equity interests in u2t Photonics AG, located in Berlin, Germany for approximately $20 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments. Finisar will also assume net debt of approximately $7 million. The transaction is expected to close during the month of January.

With this transaction, Finisar will add u2t's Indium-Phosphide (InP)-based 100G high speed receivers and photodetectors to its existing portfolio of high speed optics technologies.
In addition, this acquisition will consolidate Finisar's previously announced partnership with u2t on InP-based IQ Mach-Zehnder modulators for 100G coherent applications. These receiver, photodiode and modulator technologies and products, when combined with Finisar's narrow-line width tunable lasers, will provide a full suite of optical components and enable Finisar to offer its customers vertically integrated modules for the 100G coherent metro and long haul markets.
In calendar year 2013, u2t had total revenues of approximately $33 million.

:02PM T-Mobile US stock halted; Announces preliminary Q4 numbers; says 1.645 mln subs added in Q4; branded post paid churn 1.7% in Q4, Branded prepaid churn 5.1%; stock is halted (TMUS) 33.25 +0.03 :

Co added 1.645 million customers, bringing its total base to 46.7 million across postpaid, prepaid and wholesale. This was the third quarter in a row that the Company has generated more than 1 million customer additions.
Had the most branded postpaid net customer additions since the fourth quarter of 2005.
Branded postpaid net customer additions were 869,000, which represents a 34% improvement compared to the third quarter of 2013.
For the full year 2013, the Company reported branded postpaid net customer additions of 2.0 million, on a pro forma combined basis, above its guidance for branded postpaid net additions of between 1.6 and 1.8 million.
Branded postpaid phone net additions were 800,000, compared to 643,000.
Mobile broadband postpaid net additions, primarily consisting of tablets, were 69,000 in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 5,000 mobile broadband postpaid net additions in the third quarter of 2013, demonstrating the success of T-Mobile's Un-carrier 3.0.
Branded prepaid net customer additions in the fourth quarter of 2013 showed both sequential and year-over-year improvement. T-Mobile had 112,000 branded prepaid additions, which represents an improvement of 88,000 compared to the third quarter of 2013. Branded prepaid net customer additions in the fourth quarter of 2013 were impacted by continued migrations of approximately 120,000 from branded prepaid to branded postpaid. Wholesale net customer additions in the fourth quarter of 2013 were 664,000, compared to 351,000 in the third quarter of 2013 and 410,000 in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Branded postpaid churn of 1.7% in the fourth quarter of 2013 was consistent sequentially but declined 80 basis points year-over-year. The 80 basis point decline in churn represents the best quarterly year-over-year churn improvement in 2013.
Branded prepaid churn of 5.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013 was up 10 basis points sequentially and up 20 basis points year-over-year.

2:38PM Riverbed Technology confirms receipt of unsolicited proposal from Elliott Management (RVBD) 19.60 +1.75 : Co confirms that it has received an unsolicited proposal from Elliott Management Corporation to acquire all outstanding shares of Riverbed for $19.00 per share in cash. Consistent with its fiduciary duties, and in consultation with its financial and legal advisors, Riverbed's Board will review the offer and communicate its views in due course. No assurance can be given that the Elliott proposal, or any other transaction, will be consummated. The Company does not intend to disclose developments regarding these matters unless and until its Board of Directors determines there is a material need to update the market. As part of the commitment of the Riverbed Board and management to shareholders, the Board regularly reviews all options for generating and delivering value. The Board will review the Elliott proposal thoroughly, taking into account the Company's current strategic plan and growth initiatives.

Large Cap Gainers

FRX (68.53 +16.63%): To acquire Aptalis for $2.9 bln in cash; expected to be accretive to FY15 non-GAAP EPS by ~$0.78
MU (23.88 +9.91%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.26 ($0.77 vs $0.51 estimate), revs rose 120.4% yoy to $4.04 bln vs $3.71 bln estimate; target raised to $34 from $30 at Needham
STZ (75.67 +8.21%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.19 ($1.10 ex items vs $0.91 estimate), revs rose 88.2% yoy to $1.44 bln vs $1.39 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $3.10-3.20 (raised from $2.80-3.10) vs $2.99 estimate

Large Cap Losers

KORS (76.7 -2.84%): Continued weakness from yesterday's downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup
SJM (98.76 -2.72%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank
NOV (78.03 -2.24%): Downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets, target $86

Mid Cap Gainers

APOL (30.7 +13.96%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.14 ($1.04 ex items vs $0.90 estimate), revs fell 18.8% yoy to $856.3 mln vs $860.92 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $3.0-3.1 bln (raised from $2.95-3.05 estimate) vs $3.04 estimate; upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Compass Point, target raised to $30 from $20
RVBD (19.85 +11.20%): Elliott Management offered to acquire the co for $19 per share in cash
YELP (79.5 +9.41%): Bloomberg reporting co was mentioned positively at JP Morgan

Mid Cap Losers

TCS (39.4 -13.96%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.11 vs $0.08 estimate), revs rose 7.4% yoy to $188.3 mln vs $189.07 mln estimate; sees FY14 adjuted EPS of $0.40, revs of $754 mln; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill
JCP (7.54 -7.94%): Reaffirmed outlook for Q4 (comparable store sales and gross margin expected to improve sequentially and year over year, inventory expected to be ~$2.85 bln at year end); co said it is "pleased with its performance for the holiday period"
QCOR (49.56 -6.53%): Chronic Disease Fund stopping new enrollments on all Acthar indications other than infantile spasms

9:33AM STMicroelectronics announces that it worked closely with Microsoft (MSFT) in supplying several key components for the new Kinect for Xbox One (STM) 7.62 -0.06 :

STMicroelectronics (STM) has introduced a new 2-axis gyroscope specifically optimized for optical image stabilization in smartphones and digital still cameras. Co also announced Teseo III, a single-chip standalone positioning product family capable of receiving signals from multiple satellite navigation systems, including the Chinese BeiDou, the US GPS, European Galileo, Russia's GLONASS and Japan's QZSS.

Mellanox Tech (MLNX) announced that its full lines of end-to-end InfiniBand and Ethernet interconnect solutions are now available through SYNNEX's (SNX) General Services Administration Schedule.

Cypress Semiconductor (CY) announced the US Patent Office has issued Cypress its one hundredth patent related to its TrueTouch capacitive touchscreen controllers.
Violin Memory (VMEM) announced its Flash Memory Array was used by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency to provide valuable information to client human service agencies to improve their practices.
Intel's (INTC) McAfee announced it will deliver McAfee LiveSafe service worldwide as a preinstall on select new HP (HPQ) consumer and commercial PCs.

RBCN -6% (announces sale of $28.2 mln of common stock),

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages ended today's choppy session on a mixed note. The S&P 500 added less than a point while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) and Nasdaq (-0.2%) posted modest losses.

Equities displayed early strength, but sellers were quick to knock the indices off their opening highs. The Nasdaq outperformed out of the gate, but ultimately led the broader market into the red. Despite the late-morning weakness, the S&P 500 was able to find support at Wednesday's low where dip buyers stepped up and helped the index return to its flat line.

Individual sectors ended with an even split as five groups posted gains while the other five ended lower.

The early weakness took place as consumer discretionary (-0.1%) and technology (-0.6%) sectors slumped. The discretionary space was able to recover nearly all of its losses by the close but retailers were less fortunate. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 85.81, -0.68) lost 0.8% after Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY 69.75, -9.93) and Family Dollar (FDO 64.97, -1.37) reported disappointing earnings. One retailer, Macy's (M 55.80, +3.96), stood out with a 7.6% gain after boosting its guidance and announcing plans to close five stores and lay off 2,500 employees.

Elsewhere, the technology sector was pressured by several top components as Apple (AAPL 536.52, -6.94), Cisco Systems (CSCO 22.09, -0.20), and Google (GOOG 1130.24, -10.99) lost between 0.9% and 1.3%.

Other cyclical sectors were mixed as energy (-0.4%) and materials (-0.4%) lagged while financials (+0.3%) and industrials (+0.4%) outperformed. Notably, the industrial sector was underpinned by airlines after United Continental (UAL 43.80, +2.78) reported a 4.1% increase in December traffic. The stock spiked 6.8% while the broader Dow Jones Transportation Average advanced 1.0%.

Over on the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+0.4%), health care (+0.7%), and utilities (+0.6%) outperformed while telecom services (-1.9%) endured another rough session. The rate-sensitive sector widened its January loss to 3.8%.

Speaking of rates, they ended on their lows. The benchmark 10-yr yield fell three basis points to 2.97%.

Participation was on the light side as only 683 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Today's economic data was limited to just two reports.

The weekly initial claims level fell to 330,000 from an upwardly revised 345,000 (from 339,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected the claims level to fall to 338,000. The Labor Department stressed that the post-holiday period tends to be volatile as businesses dismiss their temporary work staff. Once the volatility is gone, we expect the initial claims level to stabilize at roughly its current level of 330,000. Normal volatility, however, could last another week or two. No states were estimated and the drop in claims was not attributed to the winter storm activity that began at the end of last week. Any effects of the storm will likely occur over the next week or two.
The December Challenger Job Cuts report pointed to a 6.0% decline in planned job cuts.

Tomorrow's data will also focus on jobs with December nonfarm payrolls set to be reported at 8:30 ET. Separately, the November Wholesale Inventories report will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD
Nasdaq -0.5% YTD
S&P 500 -0.6% YTD
DJIA -0.8% YTD

DJ30 -17.98 NASDAQ -9.42 SP500 +0.64 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1250/2.1 bln/1327 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1609/682.7 mln/1415

3:35 pm :

Commodities were mixed today with precious metals trading higher and crude oil and natural gas falling deeper into the red
Feb gold rose for the first time in four sessions after oscillating between positive and negative territory. It touched a session high of $1230.90 per ounce in early morning pit trade and dipped as low as $1222.80 per ounce later in the session. The yellow metal eventually settled with a 0.3% gain at $1229.30 per ounce
Mar silver dipped to a session low of $19.38 per ounce in late morning floor action but regained momentum and climbed back into positive territory. It settled 0.8% higher at $19.68 per ounce, just below its session high of $19.71 per ounce
Feb crude oil extended yesterday's losses despite opening up in the black. The energy component retreated from its session high of $92.84 per barrel and fell into negative territory by mid-morning pit action. It trended lower to a session low of $91.24 per barrel and settled with a 0.7% loss at $91.68 per barrel
Feb natural gas spent all of today's pit trade in the red. It popped to a session high of $4.19 per MMBtu following inventory data that showed a draw of 157 bcf when a draw of 155 bcf was anticipated but quickly lost momentum. It trended lower for the remainder of the session and settled with a 5.0% loss at $4.01 per MMBtu.

4:15PM Progress Software beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY14 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (PRGS) 25.52 +0.08 : Reports Q4 (Nov) earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.41; revenues rose 5.1% year/year to $91 mln vs the $90.84 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.29-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $80-82 mln vs. $86.44 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues downside EPS guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $1.40-1.50, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $340-350 mln vs. $349.10 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:15PM Alcoa misses by $0.02, beats on revs; sees 7% aluminum demand in 2014 (AA) 10.69 -0.14 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.04 per share, ex-$1.7 bln impairment from Primary Metals business, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues fell 5.3% year/year to $5.59 bln vs the $5.38 bln consensus.

Engineered Products and Solutions (EPS) reported record fourth quarter after-tax operating income (ATOI), the upstream business improved performance for the ninth consecutive quarter, and all business segments produced productivity gains in the fourth quarter.

In 2014, Alcoa projects global growth in the aerospace (7% to 8%), automotive (1% to 4%), packaging (2% to 3%), and building and construction (4% to 6%) markets. After a strong 2013, Alcoa projects a steady commercial transportation market (-1% to 3%), and a decline in the industrial gas turbine market (-8% to -12%) on lower orders for new gas turbines and spare parts. Alcoa sees global aluminum demand growth of 7% in 2014, after 7% growth in 2013.

Earlier today, Alcoa announced the resolution of the investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding certain legacy alumina contracts with Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba).

4:08PM SunPower and MidAmerican Solar synchronize Solar Star development to the grid (SPWR) 32.79 -0.24 : SPWR announced that the first portion of the 579-megawatt Solar Star development -- two projects co-located in Kern and Los Angeles counties in California -- was successfully synchronized and is now delivering energy to the California ISO grid.
The Solar Star projects are owned by MidAmerican Solar. SunPower designed and is constructing the projects, and will provide operations and maintenance services. Construction on the projects began in early 2013 and is expected to be complete by year-end 2015

4:03PM Aehr Test Systems announces new customer order of more than $1 mln for multiple ABTS Burn-in and Test Systems from a European semiconductor manufacturer (AEHR) 3.13 +0.27 : AEHR announced it has received a new customer order of more than $1 mln for multiple ABTS Burn-in and Test Systems from a European semiconductor manufacturer.

Order includes down payments to lock in delivery slots and volume pricing discounts.
As the order is for a configuration that is shipping in volume today, shipments are expected before the end of co's fiscal 2014.
The ABTS systems will be used in the qualification and production of a wide variety of devices, including memories, microcontrollers and microprocessors. Qualification tests typically utilize a high-temperature operating life (HTOL) test, where failure mechanisms are accelerated by burning-in the devices for 1000 hours to confirm that the basic design and fabrication process of a device will meet the reliability targets over an extended period of normal use.

Large Cap Gainers

UAL (44.87 +9.38%): Reported Dec 2013 operational performance; consolidated traffic increased 4.1%.
M (55.62 +7.29%): Reported Holiday comps +3.6%; reaffirmed FY14 EPS, guided FY14 sales above consensus (narrowed FY14 comps); guided FY15 EPS above consensus including savings from cost reduction initiatives/restructuring; co will lay off 2500 employees and close 5 stores; upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at BMO Capital Mkts; tgt raised to $64 at Stifel.
YNDX (44.63 +5.63%): Added to buy list at Morgan Stanley.

Large Cap Losers

BBBY (69.06 -13.33%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line; lowered Q4 EPS guidance below consensus; sees Q4 revs -3.9% to -5.7% (~$3.21-3.27 bln) vs $3.34 estimate; Q4 comparable store sales estimate decreased to +2-4% from +3.5-5.5%; tgt lowered to $73 from $84 at Canaccord Genuity; downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse; tgt lowered to $79 at Telsey Advisory Group.
ARMH (49.28 -7.04%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.
ALU (4.38 -4.99%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank; resumed with Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Mid Cap Gainers

AYI (128.5 +16.79%): Beat on EPS by $0.12, beat on revs.
AAL (29.13 +5.41%): Reported December 2013 RPM +5% y/y.
GPN (66.98 +3.99%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line; downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo; downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James; target raised to $78 at RBC Capital Mkts.

Mid Cap Losers

FDML (20.37 -11.32%): Downgraded to Sell at Goldman.
CTRP (38.56 -13.37%): Weakness attributed to cautious comments from 86 Research; concern over competitive pricing pressure from QUNR.
PIR (20.45 -12.31%): Reported Dec 2013 comparable store sales increased 1.3% YoY; lowered Q4 EPS guidance.

International Rectifier, IR (IRF) has launched a Certified Design Partner Program dedicated to providing its expanding DC-DC power management customer base with extended technical resources to support their design needs.

9:17AM Real Goods Solar: Mercury Solar Systems shareholders vote in favor of Real Goods Solar merger (RSOL) 3.60 : Co announces shareholders voted in favor of its merger with a subsidiary of Real Goods Solar. Real Goods Solar will hold a Special Meeting of its Stockholders on January 14, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. (GMT), at the offices of Real Goods Solar, 833 West South Boulder Road, Louisville, Colorado to approve the merger.

The Company also announced that it has established operations in Puerto Rico and has several projects under development.

Recent successful commercial projects include:

Coda Resources installed a 400kw rooftop installation at its facility in Brooklyn, New York. It consists of 1600 panels and will offset nearly 75% of their electric bill. T
Panasonic installed a new solar system 120 feet above its new U.S. headquarters in Newark, New Jersey using Panasonic HIT solar panels, among the most efficient panels in the world. This new LEED certified building was built using US Green Building Guidelines and will showcase Panasonic's new ECOSYSTEMS business. Panasonic and Mercury are planning to install additional solar projects in New York and New Jersey during 2014.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GRCM) most notably known for its ownership of Keurig, is having the Company install a 524kw solar rooftop system at its headquarters in Reading, Massachusetts. This system is expected to provide Green Mountain Coffee Roasters with over 625,000 kwh of power per year, for the next 25 years.

8:54AM Alcoa resolves Alba matter with U.S. Government; Alcoa World Alumina will pay a total of $223 million (AA) 10.83 :

As part of the DOJ resolution, subject to final court approval later today, AWA will pay a total of $223 mln, including a fine of $209 mln payable in five equal installments over four years. The first installment of $41.8 mln, plus a one-time administrative forfeiture of $14 mln, will be paid in the first quarter of 2014, and the remaining installments of $41.8 mln each will be paid in the first quarters of 2015-2018.
The $223 mln amount is within the range previously disclosed by Alcoa Inc. During the second quarter of 2013, Alcoa recorded a $103 mln charge ($62 mln after non-controlling interest) for the DOJ investigation. Under the terms of the DOJ resolution, AWA is pleading guilty to one count of violating the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The DOJ is bringing no case against Alcoa Inc.
Alcoa also settled civil charges filed by the SEC in an administrative proceeding relating to the anti-bribery, internal controls, and books and records provisions of the FCPA. Under the terms of the settlement with the SEC, Alcoa Inc. agreed to a settlement amount of $175 mln, but will be given credit for the $14 mln one-time forfeiture payment, which is part of the DOJ resolution, resulting in a total cash payment to the SEC of $161 mln payable in five equal installments over four years. The first installment of $32.2 mln will be paid to the SEC in the first quarter of 2014, and the remaining installments of $32.2 mln each will be paid in the first quarters of 2015-2018.

IXYS Integrated Circuits Division, a subsidiary of IXYS (IXYS), announced the availability of the FDA217, an optically isolated, dual photovoltaic MOSFET driver.

8:41AM LDK Solar enters into new 15-day forbearance arrangement with holders of a majority in aggregate principal amount of its US$-Settled 10% Senior Notes due 2014 (LDK) 1.36 : Co announced that it has entered into a new 15-day forbearance arrangement with holders of a majority in aggregate principal amount of its US$-Settled 10% Senior Notes due 2014. The new forbearance arrangement, which expires on January 23, 2014, relates to the interest payment due under the Notes on August 28, 2013. That interest payment is still unpaid. It is LDK Solar's intention to find a consensual solution to its obligations under the Notes as soon as possible and LDK Solar remains hopeful that it will be able to achieve that goal.

As reported previously, LDK Solar has engaged Jefferies LLC as a financial advisor for strategic advice in connection with the Notes and LDK Solar's other offshore obligations.

NVDA -1.3% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity)

Axcelis Technologies (ACLS) announced multiple wins for the co's Purion XE single wafer, high energy implanter from two chipmakers located in the Asia Pacific region. The wins include the penetration of a new foundry process dedicated to advanced image sensor devices, as well as a follow on order from a new fab focused on advanced NAND devices.

KVH Industries (KVHI) has surpassed the 100-vessel mark in its 10-year contract to supply the next-generation satellite communications solution for the U.S. Coast Guard's fleet of small cutters.

7:27AM Suntech Power announced that Weiping Zhou resigned as interim Chief Executive Officer, interim Chief Financial Officer, and President with immediate effect (STPFQ) 0.54 : Zhou cited personal reasons for his departure. Suntech plans to announce new management pending final review by Suntech's board of directors and Joint Provisional Liquidators (JPLs).

7:06AM Canadian Solar announced the successful completion and grid connection of a 10 MW ground mounted solar power project in Sihong County of Jiangsu Province in eastern China (CSIQ) 38.43 : This project was developed by CSI Solar Power (China), a subsidiary of Canadian Solar, with Gaochuangte New Energy as the EPC contractor.

Global Payment (GPN) reported second quarter earnings of $1.07 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 7.7% year/year to $634.1 million which is higher than consensus. The company raised fiscal year 2014 EPS guidance to $4.03-4.10 which is in line with estates and the company maintained fiscal year 2014 revenue guidance of $2.51-2.56 billion which is line with expectations.
Finisar (FNSR) and u2t Photonics AG announced today that they have entered into an agreement under which Finisar will acquire 100% of the equity interests in u2t Photonics AG, located in Berlin, Germany for approximately $20 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments. Finisar will also assume net debt of approximately $7 million. The transaction is expected to close during the month of January. With this transaction, Finisar will add u2t's Indium-Phosphide (InP)-based 100G high speed receivers and photodetectors to its existing portfolio of high speed optics technologies. In addition, this acquisition will consolidate Finisar's previously announced partnership with u2t on InP-based IQ Mach-Zehnder modulators for 100G coherent applications. These receiver, photodiode and modulator technologies and products, when combined with Finisar's narrow-line width tunable lasers, will provide a full suite of optical components and enable Finisar to offer its customers vertically integrated modules for the 100G coherent metro and long haul markets. In calendar year 2013, u2t had total revenues of approximately $33 million.
Mattersight (MATR) issued upside guidance for fourth quarter with revenues of $9.10 million which is ahead of expectations. The company and significantly improved Adjusted EBITDA in Q4. In addition, Mattersight ended the quarter with approximately $13 million in cash. This ending cash balance includes the impact of the company's $6 million private placement that closed in early December and the payoff of the $3.7 million outstanding balance on its line of credit with Silicon Valley Bank.

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While short interest may be high the total put to call ratio is as low as it has been in years. I am not short a single share of anything right now. Further as per the discussion here I would suspect that no one here is doing anything but buying calls on MU and other stocks hoping for further gains.

More gains coming!

Why wouldn't you believe that would happen?

It's been 5 years of gains without a single 20% loss. Well there was an almost 20% loss in there but not quite.

Here is a chart of my own worth watching on the total put to call ratio. The trend shows increasing optimism for further gains. That in itself is not a problem. When the trend turns up then we will likely be undergoing a market correction.

That has not happened yet. Any weakness to start the year so far has not shown up in the buying of more puts to calls on a relative basis in any time frame that I chart.

Is a change coming?



RtS

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market endured a forgettable start to the new trading week as the major averages ended on their lows. The S&P 500 fell 1.3%, ending at its lowest level of 2014.

Equities began the session with modest losses and spent the first three hours of action near their flat lines. The indices were able to inch back into positive territory during the late morning, but the move lacked conviction and failed to invite dip-buyers to the party. Shortly thereafter, sellers were the ones partying as the indices spent the entire afternoon in a steady downdraft.

In all likelihood, the selling was exacerbated by the fact many participants were not positioned to absorb today's volatility. On that note, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 13.37, +1.23) began the session in the red and tested multi-month lows before afternoon weakness sparked a rush for downside protection.

All ten sectors ended in the red but cyclical groups saw the largest losses. The consumer discretionary sector (-2.0%) finished behind the remaining groups as retailers lagged after Bon-Ton Stores (BONT 13.41, -2.09), Express (EXPR 18.15, -0.87), Lululemon (LULU 49.70, -9.90), and PVH (PVH 129.55, -2.58) issued disappointing guidance. The four names lost between 2.0% and 16.6% while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 83.36, -2.48) fell 2.9%, widening its January loss to 5.4%. For its part, the discretionary sector extended its January decline to 2.6% after ending 2013 ahead of the remaining nine sectors with a gain of 40.4%.

Elsewhere, the energy space (-1.9%) also played a significant part in pressuring the broader market. The sector lagged throughout the session as crude oil fell 0.9% to $91.78 per barrel. The other commodity-related sector-materials (-1.4%)-fared a bit better but also finished behind the S&P 500 even as gold futures added 0.4% to $1251.10 per troy ounce.

On the countercyclical side, consumer staples (-0.6%), health care (-0.8%), telecom services (-1.1%), and utilities (-0.9%) finished ahead of the broader market.

In M&A news, Beam (BEAM 83.42, +16.45) surged 24.6% after the company agreed to be acquired by Suntory Holdings for $83.50 per share.

Despite the selloff, participation was below average as 719 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Treasuries ended on their highs with the 10-yr yield down three basis points at 2.83%.

Economic data was limited to the December Treasury budget, which showed a surplus of $53.20 billion after showing a deficit of $1.20 billion in December 2012.

Tomorrow, December Retail Sales as well as December export prices ex-agriculture and import prices ex-oil will be reported at 8:30 ET while the November Business Inventories report will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.


Russell 2000 -1.2% YTD
Nasdaq -1.5% YTD
S&P 500 -1.6% YTD
DJIA -1.9% YTD

DJ30 -179.11 NASDAQ -61.36 SP500 -23.17 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 729/2.15 bln/1883 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 869/718.6 mln/2182 3:30 pm :

Feb natural gas outperformed the commodities space today, rising on near-term forecasts for colder weather. It climbed as high as $4.29 per MMBtu after coming off its session low of $4.20 per MMBtu set in early morning floor action. It settled with a solid 5.2% gain at $4.27 per MMBtu
Feb crude oil extended Friday's losses as it spent all of today's pit trade in negative territory. The energy component brushed a session high of $92.38 per barrel shortly after equity markets opened but slipped back below the $92 per barrel level. It brushed a session low of $91.65 per barrel moments before settling with a 0.9% loss at $91.78 per barrel
Feb gold rose for a third consecutive session, lifting from a session low of $1243.90 per ounce set at pit trade open. The yellow metal brushed a session high of $1252.80 per ounce by late morning action. It eventually settled with a 0.4% gain at $1251.10 per ounce
Mar silver also trended higher today. It broke into positive territory in late morning floor trade after trading as low as $19.97 per ounce earlier in the session. It touched a session high of $20.43 per ounce moments before settling at $20.37 per ounce, or 0.7% higher.

5:22PM Benchmark Elec expects to exceed Q4 rev and EPS guidance (BHE) 22.51 0.00 : Co announced that it expects sales and earnings per share to exceed the high end of guidance for the fourth quarter of 2013. On October 24, 2013, the Company had provided fourth quarter guidance for sales between $685 and $715 million (vs current Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $701.07 mln) and diluted earnings per share between $0.34 and $0.38 (excluding restructuring, acquisition and Thailand flood related items; vs $0.36 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate).
4:00PM 3D Systems announces hiring of new VP of Alliances and Partnerships (DDD) 91.58 -2.87 : DDD announced that Neal Orringer, a leading voice on manufacturing in the Obama administration, will be joining the company as its Vice President of Alliances and Partnerships.


In this timely created position, Orringer will report directly to 3DS President and CEO Avi Reichental, with responsibilities over government business and regulatory affairs as well as forging strategic alliances with corporate, research and educational partners.
Orringer joins 3DS from the Obama administration, where he helped lead task forces for the U.S. Secretary of Commerce focused on advanced manufacturing and U.S. economic development policy.
12:34PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BEAM (83.07 +24.04%): Acquired by Suntory Holdings Limited for $83.50 per share in cash (~$16 bln)
JNPR (25.47 +8.20%): Elliott Management (holder of 6.2% of common stock) laid out plan for company that it believes can result in a stock price of $35-40 per share
MRK (53.08 +6.43%): Initiated rolling submission to the FDA of a Biologics License Application for MK-3475, the company's investigational anti-PD-1 immunotherapy, for patients with advanced melanoma who have been previously treated with ipilimumab; co also provided update on accelerated strategic actions for growth at 32nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference: expects to realize a net reduction of annual operating expenses of approximately $2.5 billion by the end of 2015 with 40 percent, or $1.0 billion, to be realized by the end of 2014
Large Cap Losers
ISRG (394.4 -6.13%): Mentioned cautiously at Northland Securities, reporting that co is offering price dicscounts of up to $50%
SNI (77.79 -5.15%): WSJ reporting that co has ended merger discussions with Discovery Communications (DISCA)
KSS (54.14 -5.00%): Weakness in certain department store retail companies: JWN, JCP, TJX also lower Mid Cap Gainers
ALNY (102.2 +54.36%): Acquired Mercks's wholly owned subsidiary Sirna Therapeutics, comprising intellectual property and RNAi assets including pre-clinical therapeutic candidates, chemistry, siRNA-conjugate and other delivery technologies; co also expanded strategic agreement with Genzyme to develop and commercialize treatments for rare genetic diseases
NMBL (42.34 +10.95%): Upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at Pacific Crest, target $46
QIHU (86.85 +7.17%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel, target $108; initiated with a Buy at UBS
Mid Cap Losers
ICPT (361.55 -18.9%): Reversal following strong gains seen last week; co reported that lipid abnormalities involving increased total cholesterol and LDL and decreased HDL were seen in OCA-treated patients compared to placebo in FLINT clinical trial
LULU (50.48 -15.30%): Sees Q4 EPS of $0.71-0.73 (lowered from $0.78-0.80) vs $0.79 estimate, revs of $513-518 mln (lowered from $535-540 mln) vs $540.06 mln estimate; downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen
ASNA (20.32 -7.41%): Sees FY14 EPS of $1.10-1.15 ex items vs $1.32 estimate; total comparable sales for November - December rose 1% LSI (LSI) announced that LSI Nytroflash accelerator cards have been selected as the PCIe flash acceleration technology for Oracle's (ORCL) next-generation Database Machine, Oracle Exadata X4. In addition, the cos have collaborated on bringing a new LSI Nytro technology called Dynamic Logical Capacity to Exadata customers.


8:59AM Juniper Networks: Elliot Management announces value plan for JNPR; says plan can result in stock price of $35-$40 per share (JNPR) 23.54 :

Elliott Management Corporation, which owns 6.2% of the common stock of JNPR, filed a Schedule 13D and released a presentation today entitled "Juniper Networks: Elliott Management's Perspectives," available at www.new-juniper.com.
"Juniper's new CEO along with its existing management team and Board have a unique opportunity to immediately unlock significant value at the Company through three straightforward and much-requested courses of action," said Jesse Cohn, Portfolio Manager at Elliott.
"The highly value-accretive steps spelled out today include cost realignment, capital return to shareholders, and the optimization of Juniper's product portfolio."
As set out in the presentation, Elliott believes that these initiatives can collectively result in a stock price of $35-$40 per share, which is up to 70% above the current price.
Briefing.com note: On Jan. 8, 2014 Elliott
8:36AM Freescale Semi launches a formal process to identify a successor to Alan Campbell, chief financial officer, who has announced his decision to retire from the co (FSL) 15.36 :

Co announced that it has launched a formal process to identify a successor to Alan Campbell, CFO, who has announced his decision to retire from the company. The company has engaged an executive recruitment firm to assist in the process. Campbell will continue in his role as CFO during the transition. Campbell joined Motorola in 1979 and became the chief financial officer of its Semiconductor Products Sector in 2000.

F5 Networks (FFIV 90.03, +1.51): +1.7% following a William Blair upgrade to 'Outperform' from 'Market Perform.'

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KLIC bought 5000 shares@11.92 - Maybe something of a run higher before KLIC reports earnings on January 27th. The stock was really oversold yesterday. Should have bought then. The stock could go lower but if it does short term I will probably add more shares if KLIC is not too close to their actual earning's report.






RtS

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equities built on their Tuesday gains, turning in their best two-day stretch since mid-December. During that two-day swing, the S&P 500 jumped from its lowest level of the year to a fresh record close of 1848.38. Stocks spent the entire session in positive territory after receiving an opening boost from the World Bank hiking its 2014 global GDP growth forecast to 3.2% from 3.0%.

Seven of ten sectors finished in the green with cyclical groups driving the advance. Financials (+1.2%) and technology (+1.2%) displayed early strength and their outperformance lasted into the close.

The financial sector was buoyed by its top components after Bank of America (BAC 17.15, +0.38) beat on earnings and revenue. The stock jumped 2.4% while JPMorgan Chase (JPM 59.49, +1.75) and Wells Fargo (WFC 46.40, +0.81), both of which turned in satisfactory reports on Tuesday, gained 3.0% and 1.8%, respectively.

Elsewhere, the tech sector was underpinned by some of its most influential members. Apple (AAPL 557.36, +10.97) did some heavy lifting, climbing 2.0% amid upbeat commentary surrounding its upcoming iPhone launch in China. Chipmakers also displayed strength after Intel (INTC 26.67, +0.16) received an upgrade for the second day in a row. The stock gained 0.6% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 0.9%.

Outside of the two largest sectors, gains in other areas were much more subdued. Industrials (+0.7%) and materials (+0.7%) outperformed while the remaining cyclical groups-consumer discretionary (+0.2%) and energy (-0.3%)-lagged.

Notably, the discretionary sector was pressured by homebuilders and retailers. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.31, -0.05) and SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 84.02, -0.29) both slipped 0.3% with the retail ETF extending its 2014 loss to 4.6%.

On the countercyclical side, telecom services (+1.5%) outperformed while consumer staples (unch), health care (-0.1%), and utilities (-0.2%) lagged.

Treasuries posted modest losses as the 10-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.88%.

Participation was a bit below average as 704 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Also of note, the Federal Reserve released its January Beige Book, but true to form, the report was essentially ignored by the market. The report indicated that during the six weeks of 2013, the twelve Fed Districts observed a continued expansion of economic activity. Nine districts characterized the expansion as 'moderate' while Boston and Philadelphia Districts described the pace as 'modest.' For its part, the Kansas City region saw little change in activity.

With regard to manufacturing, nearly all districts reported steady growth in the sector but Kansas City saw a decline in production and shipments.

Lastly, prices were largely unchanged across all regions. However, Kansas City was singled out again in this section for observing a rise in some raw material prices.

Today's economic news included three data points:

December PPI increased 0.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 0.3%. Energy prices were a main contributor, increasing 1.6%. Most of the gain in energy costs was a result of a 2.2% increase in gasoline prices. Food prices fell 0.6% due to a 13.4% decrease in vegetable prices. Excluding food and energy, core prices unexpectedly spiked in December. Prices increased 0.3%, the largest monthly jump since rising 0.5% in July 2012. The consensus forecast called for a more modest uptick of 0.1%.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for January jumped to 12.5 from 1.0 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the survey to improve to 3.5.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Application Index jumped 11.9% to follow last week's 4.2% decline.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims and December CPI will be released at 8:30 ET while Net long-term TIC flows for November will be announced at 9:00 ET. The January Philadelphia Fed survey and the January NAHB Housing Market Index will both be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq +0.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD
S&P 500 0.0% YTD
DJIA -0.6% YTD

4:06PM JDS Uniphase issues 305,824 restricted stock units in connection with acquisition of Network Instruments (JDSU) 12.06 -0.02 :

These restricted stock unit awards were approved by the co Board of Directors on January 13, 2014, with a grant date of January 15, 2014.
Pursuant to such approval, co awarded restricted stock units covering a total of 305,824 shares of co common stock to 89 employees.

4:05PM Plexus beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (PLXS) 43.14 +1.05 : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.61 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.60; revenues rose 0.6% year/year to $533.9 mln vs the $536.73 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.57-0.63 vs. $0.61 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $535-565 mln vs. $551.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
As anticipated by our guidance, revenues declined approximately 6% from the prior quarter as we were impacted by the full revenue headwind of our previously announced disengagement from Juniper Networks.

2:03PM RF Micro Device teams with NC State on $70 mln DoE Power Electronics Development Award (RFMD) 4.94 +0.05 : Co announced that it will play a key role in developing power electronics to support the next generation of clean energy in the U.S. RFMD is a foundry and product design/development partner to North Carolina State (NC State) University's Next Generation Power Electronics Innovation Institute, which was awarded a 5-year $70 million contract from the Department of Energy to lead next generation power electronics manufacturing. RFMD will offer open foundry services to support the NC State-led program and help accelerate the development of key wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor products including RFMD's Gallium Nitride-(GaN-) based devices needed to increase the reliability and ef?ciency of the next generation power grid.

Large Cap Gainers

MS (31.88 +2.51%): Assumed with a Market Perform at Keefe Bruyette, target $34
BAC (17.18 +2.44%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.29 vs $0.26 estimate), revs rose 14.9% yoy to $21.7 bln vs $21.17 bln estimate; reported Dec default amount net of recoveries of 3.6% vs 3.66% in Nov
CMCSA (54.06 +2.37%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley

Large Cap Losers

FAST (45.63 -5.36%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.33 vs $0.34 estimate), revs rose 7.5% yoy to $813.8 mln vs $813.97 mln estimate
REGN (289.08 -3.74%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Market Outperform at BMO Capital Markets
NFLX (325.67 -3.64%): Trading lower on concerns on net neutrality and broadband; initiated with a Neutral at Nomura, target $360

Mid Cap Gainers

MDRX (16.88 +8.76%): Expects 3-year CAGR non-GAAP revs to grow 5-8%, adjusted EBITDA to grow in the 18-22% range
RHI (43.01 +4.80%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sun Trust Robison Humphrey
MWV (37.19 +4.29%): Sees Q4 EPS of $0.24 ex items (in-line); Upgraded to Buy at Deutsche Bank; upgraded to Buy at BofA/Merrill

Mid Cap Losers

NUS (112.12 -17.85%): China Daily reporting negatively on the company, claiming that the company engages in "brainwashing" and is a pyramid
QIWI (44.44 -17.63%): Seeing reports that Russia is considering a ban on cross-border payments
LKQ (28.49 -11.77%): Mentioned negatively at Prescience Point; defended at Stifel Nicolaus

O2Micro International (OIIM) announced a patent grant for its Power Source Detection topology from the Japanese Patent Office.

Atmel (ATML) announced it is the world's first supplier to be awarded full FIPS 140-2 certification for its AT97SC3204 series of trusted platform modules.

Marvell (MRVL) announced a collaboration with SK Broadband, who has launched B TV Smart, an IPTV set-top-box with Google (GOOG) services in the Korean market. B TV Smart is powered by Marvell's ARMADA 1500 Plus system-on-chip platform.

8:37AM Riverbed Technology raises and guides Q4 EPS and revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus (RVBD) 19.79 : Co issues upside guidance for Q4 (Dec), sees EPS of $0.30-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate and above previous guidance of $0.26 -0.27; sees Q4 (Dec) revs of $284-285 mln vs. $273.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate and above previous guidance of $270-276 mln

1Q14 guidance
Co issues upside guidance for Q1 (Mar), sees EPS of $0.21-0.23, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 (Mar) revs of $262-268 mln vs. $258.50 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Commentary: "...Sales in the fourth quarter exceeded our expectations across all major product lines and geographies, demonstrating strong ongoing demand and the differentiated value that we deliver to customers across our full product portfolio..."

8:35AM Riverbed Technology Board of Directors rejects Elliott's unsolicited proposal to acquire RVBD at $19/share (RVBD) 19.79 : Co announced that its Board of Directors, after consideration with independent legal and financial advisors, has unanimously determined not to pursue the unsolicited proposal from Elliott Management Corporation to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Riverbed common stock for $19.00 per share, as it believes the proposal undervalues the co and is not in the best interests of shareholders.

"Earlier today, we announced favorable preliminary fourth quarter 2013 results and our first quarter 2014 view, which are indicative of the strong early traction we have achieved against our strategy." "While the Board will carefully review any credible offer made to acquire the company, any such offer must deliver value to our shareholders in excess of what we believe will be created as we execute on our growth plans and capitalize on the significant investments we have already made in that regard.

Goldman Sachs is serving as financial advisor to Riverbed and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is serving as legal advisor.

Semtech (SMTC) announced its PCI Express 3.0 PHY IP, part of the Snowbush IP platform, successfully completed the rigorous testing of the PCI-SIG and is now on the PCIe 3.0 Integrators List.

Vitesse Semiconductor (VTSS) introduced its CEServices software, a comprehensive, mature protocol stack for easier provisioning and management.

INTC +1.5% (upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at BMO Capital Mkts),

XLNX +0.1% (upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays)

Xilinx (XLNX) announced that its Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC family enabled Wuhan Maxsine's EP3E servo drives.

HP (HPQ) unveiled two new mobile devices, the 6-inch diagonal HP Slate6 VoiceTab and the 7-inch diagonal HP Slate7 VoiceTab, designed to help the next generation of mobile customers multitask on the go. The HP Slate6 VoiceTab and HP Slate7 VoiceTab are expected to be available in India in February.

4:11AM BlackBerry announces India Enterprises move to Blackberry 10 (BBRY) 8.33 : Co announces the growing adoption of BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 by Indian enterprises across a range of sectors. BlackBerry has a strong market position in India where the Company has seen more than 1,000 Indian enterprises adopting or testing BES10 since its launch in January 2013.

ITC Limited, an Indian conglomerate, has implemented BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 across their various businesses.

Applied Materials (AMD) announced that CECEP Solar Energy Technology Co, a Chinese state-owned company, achieved a key milestone of 18.32% average cell efficiency for its multi-cells.

CyberOptics (CYBE) announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Laser Design, Inc. (LDI), a 3D metrology company headquartered in Minneapolis. The approximately $3.0 million all-cash transaction is expected to close in February 2014, pending approval by LDI's shareholders. LDI, which will be operated initially as a wholly-owned subsidiary, is forecasted to have a minimal impact on CyberOptics' consolidated bottom line performance in 2014. With revenues of approximately $6.0 million, LDI provides scanning systems and services to the estimated $825 million global 3D scanner and services metrology market.
Linear Tech (LLTC) reported second quarter earnings of $0.44 per share, which is higher than expected, while reports non-GAAP EPS of $0.51 which is higher than expected. revenues rose 9.6% year/year to $334.6 million which is line with estimates. "As we noted last quarter, our December quarter is generally a slower quarter for us as the automotive and industrial markets tend to be weaker. Though automotive continued to grow modestly, the industrial market was down for us and we ended the quarter with total revenues down sequentially 1.7%, in line with the midpoint of our guidance as the quarter generally went as expected. We are encouraged that this decline was modest compared to recent years and that we grew revenues year-over-year by 9.6% over the second quarter of fiscal 2013. In addition, we were able to hold gross margin flat at 75.3% and we managed expenses accordingly to minimize the impact on earnings, which were down 2.9% or one cent per share. Looking ahead, our book-to-bill ratio was slightly positive in the December quarter and we typically see improved bookings momentum in the automotive and industrial markets in the March quarter. Accordingly, we are currently forecasting revenues to grow sequentially by 3% to 6% in our fiscal third quarter." The company Q3 revs up 3-6%, or roughly $344.6-354.6 million which is line with estimates
BlackBerry (BBRY) announces the growing adoption of BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 by Indian enterprises across a range of sectors. BlackBerry has a strong market position in India where the Company has seen more than 1,000 Indian enterprises adopting or testing BES10 since its launch in January 2013. ITC Limited, an Indian conglomerate, has implemented BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 across their various businesses.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 17-Jan-14The broader market ended the week on a down note, undercut by a spate of uninspiring earnings results and guidance from some widely-held companies that put a damper on the bullish sentiment seen in the middle of the week. There were some buying efforts on Friday that controlled the fallout, but generally speaking there wasn't a lot of conviction among buyers with the exception of some specific stocks.

Those exceptions tended to reside in the price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average, which outperformed the other major indices on Friday.

American Express (AXP 90.97, +3.19), which came up shy of consensus earnings estimates but spotlighted encouraging card member spending, was instrumental in the Dow's outperformance. It joined with Visa (V 232.18, +10.41) -- the highest-priced stock in the Dow -- to effectively account for all of the Dow's gains. Remarkably, 21 out of the 30 Dow components ended lower on Friday.

Intel (INTC 25.85, -0.69) and General Electric (GE 26.58, -0.62) were among the Dow laggards. Both companies reported their results for the fourth quarter, yet neither wowed investors. Intel missed by a penny and said it expected FY14 revenues to be approximately flat. GE was in-line with expectations and said things were improving, albeit in a mixed environment.

Morgan Stanley (MS 33.40, +1.40), which beat by eight cents, and Schlumberger (SLB 90.21, +1.60), which beat by two cents, enjoyed positive outings that provided a measure of support for the broader market and their respective sectors.

Be that as it may, every S&P 500 sector closed in the red on Friday. The energy sector (-0.05%) was the relative strength leader while the consumer staples sector (-0.8%) was the biggest laggard. The latter was afflicted by a big earnings warning out of Elizabeth Arden (RDEN 27.96, -6.54).

Other notable companies warning they expect to fall short of earnings expectations included Con-way (CNW 40.59, -0.81), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.a 70.57, -1.17), and UPS (UPS 99.91, -0.58). The warning from UPS drew a lot of attention, yet the company came back nicely from a loss of more than three points during the day as investors seemed to warm to the notion that its shortfall was tied to the bad weather and the operational challenges of meeting increased demand during the holiday selling period.

The earnings news was the focal point throughout the day and the week. There were some early economic releases, but they didn't have much bearing on Friday's proceedings. Overall, the economic news was good enough not to create any newfound concerns about the economic recovery.

December housing starts slipped 9.8% to an annualized rate of 999,000 units, but the two-month average for starts was the highest since March 2008.
Industrial production jumped 0.3%, which was the fifth consecutive month industrial production increased.
The preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report for January dipped to 80.4 from 82.5, but the downturn wasn't enough to cause any real concerns

Friday was an options expiration day, so volume was heavier than usual with 880 mln shares having traded at the NYSE versus 641 mln on Thursday.

The early sense of things so far is that the fourth quarter wasn't a slam-dunk quarter despite the incoming signs of improving economic activity that were seen during the quarter. Furthermore, there hasn't been a lot of table pounding either with respect to the first quarter and the year ahead.

The latter is owed in part to the fact that the financial companies factored prominently on this week's earnings calendar and they don't typically provide specific earnings guidance. The coming week will provide some more clarity on the outlook when a larger number of industrial and technology companies report their results.

At the moment, the market is having some difficulty finding its way and has the semblance of being at a 'T' intersection, not knowing which way to turn. That indecision has led to some choppy trading action. The guidance from corporate America in the coming week may very well offer some navigational clues.

For the week that just concluded, the S&P 500 declined 0.2%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.5%.

As a reminder, the stock and bond markets will be closed on Monday in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

 
 Index       Started Week  Ended Week   Change % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	      16437.05	   16458.56	21.51	 0.1	-0.7 
 Nasdaq	      4174.67	    4197.58	22.91	 0.5	 0.5 
 S&P 500	1842.37	    1838.70	-3.67	-0.2	-0.5 
 Russell 2000  1164.53	    1168.43	 3.90	 0.3	 0.4

5:01PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: CMGE (32.66 +24.33%), NMBL (48.72 +23.7%)
Services: DL (22.27 +31.04%)
Industrial Goods: NPO (76.9 +34.43%)
Healthcare: SRPT (26.78 +45.53%), ALNY (87.38 +36.09%), CHTP (4.76 +33.14%), XON (36.78 +32.16%), NLNK (31.95 +29.67%), ARNA (7.26 +27.39%), CTIC (3.63 +25.98%), GALE (6.97 +23.84%), CLDX (28.32 +23.66%), INSY (53.61 +23.53%), QCOR (59.24 +23.06%)
Consumer Goods: BEAM (83.34 +25.63%)
Basic Materials: TC (2.96 +37.61%), RIOM (2.2 +24.69%), RBY (1.09 +23.81%), AUQ (4.83 +22.95%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: ZNGA (3.54 -14.08%)
Services: BBY (24.43 -28.51%), GME (37.69 -16.06%), ARO (7.71 -13.94%), LIN (24.71 -12.22%)
Industrial Goods: PGEM (13.6 -17.61%)
Healthcare: USNA (59.55 -20.23%), AEGR (62.53 -18.66%), GERN (4.5 -18.55%), MNKD (5.78 -14.97%), CORT (3.19 -13.87%), TNDM (26.88 -11.81%)
Financial: QIWI (40 -15.35%)
Consumer Goods: NUS (79.4 -38.52%), SODA (38.15 -22.32%), LULU (47.38 -14.93%), DECK (75.07 -14.14%), HLF (70.22 -12.11%)
Basic Materials: NRP (16.38 -18.79%), AGI (10.15 -13.1%)

4:01PM QLogic and Brocade (BRCD) to accelerate innovation in storage area networks; cos to collaborate on strengthening fibre channel SAN ecosystem through a strategic technology and marketing alliance (QLGC) 11.70 -0.25 : Co and Brocade Communications (BRCD) announced a broad technology alliance agreement that will enhance end-to-end storage connectivity for end users and accelerate innovation in Storage Area Networks. Under the terms of the agreement, QLogic and Brocade will:

Jointly develop capabilities to enhance Fibre Channel technology on an end-to-end basis with improved performance, manageability and reliability for enterprise customers
Align on product plans and testing to accelerate deployment of Gen 5 and Gen 6 Fibre Channel technology
Jointly market and evangelize advanced SAN solutions for the next-generation data centers.

In connection with the technology and marketing alliance agreement, QLogic also acquired Brocade's Fibre Channel and converged network adapter business. This further extends QLogic's market leading adapter offerings and ensures continuity of supply to current Brocade customers. This acquisition is not expected to have a material impact on the operating results of QLogic.

12:19PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ILMN (135.27 +7.99%): Co outlined plans for expansion and previewed new products at investor day; target raised to $150 from $135 at Mizho; target raised to $190 from $120 at J.P. Morgan
TWTR (63.68 +5.13%): Seeing reports that co plans to partner with startup Stripe for e-commerce; initiated with a Buy at Stifel, target $75
AXP (91.83 +4.61%): Reported Q4 EPS of $1.21 vs $1.25 estimate, revs rose 5.0% yoy to $8.55 bln vs $8.57 bln estimate; upgraded at Susquehanna and Buckingham Research

Large Cap Losers

SLM (24.78 -8.70%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.12 ($0.61 vs $0.73 estimate); loan originations rose 2% to $524 mln
COF (73.01 -4.49%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.12 ($1.45 vs $1.57 estimate), revs fell 1.4% yoy to $5.54 bln vs $5.46 bln estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna
INTC (25.64 -3.41%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.51 vs $0.52 estimate), revs rose 2.6% yoy to $13.83 bln vs $13.74 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 revs ~flat yoy at $52.7 bln vs $53.19 bln estimate; sees Q1 revs of $12.3-13.3 bln vs $12.78 bln estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

EA (24.05 +11.65%): NPD Group reported sale of new games at retail shops fell 17% to $1.31 bln; initiated with a Buy at CRT Capital, target $26
SWKS (30.93 +8.07%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.67 ex items vs $0.66 estimate), revs rose 11.3% yoy to $505 mln vs $500 mln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of $0.59 ex items vs $0.57 estimate, revs of ~$470 mln vs $460.50 mln estimate; target raised at Needham, Northland, Brean Capital, and Canaccord Genuity
AU (13.63 +6.57%): Strength in gold miners: KGC, GFI, EGO also higher; seeing reports that gold miners were mentioned positively by J.P. Morgan analysts

Mid Cap Losers

NUS (77.62 -8.47%): Continued weakness on news that China will investigate recent accusations that the company is operating an illegal pyramid scheme; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill
SINA (75.63 -6.14%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies
BBY (25.21 -6.04%): Continued weakness on disappointing domestic holiday comparable sales and lowering of Q4 profit guidance; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman; mentioned cautiously at Barron's; target lowered to $33 from $50 at Telsey Advisory Group

10:00AM Best Buy (-4%) hits new ~7 month low after falling 29% yesterday on disappointing holiday sales report indicating much lower than expected margins (BBY) 25.72 -1.11 :

8:00AM IBM confirms plans to commit over $1.2 bln to significantly expand its global cloud footprint (IBM) 188.76 : Co announced plans to commit over $1.2 billion to significantly expand its global cloud footprint. This investment includes a network of data centers designed to bring clients greater flexibility, transparency and control over how they manage their data, run their businesses and deploy their IT operations in the cloud.

This year IBM plans to deliver cloud services from 40 data centers worldwide in 15 countries and five continents globally, including North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. IBM will open 15 new centers worldwide adding to the existing global footprint of 13 global data centers from SoftLayer and 12 from IBM. Among the newest data centers to launch are China, Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, London, Japan, India, Canada, Mexico City and Dallas. With this announcement, IBM plans to have data centers in all major geographies and financial centers with plans to expand in the Middle East and Africa in 2015.

The new cloud investments IBM is making will provide business clients the ability to place and control their data globally. IBM SoftLayer gives clients the ability to choose a cloud environment and location that best suits their business needs and provides visibility and transparency to where data reside, control of data security and placement.

IBM SoftLayer is able to deliver high performance services globally across the SoftLayer network. The combination of distributed local data centers and a global network allows clients to place data where it is required, when it is required as well as the ability to consolidate or aggregate data as needed. This provides optimized application performance and responsiveness. SoftLayer's unique network architecture.

Intel (INTC) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.51 per share, which is below expectations, while revenues rose 2.6% year/year to $13.83 billion which is in line with expectations. Intel reports Q4 gross margins of 62% (INTC guided for gross margins of 61%, +/- a couple of percentage points). The company issued first quarter with revenues of $12.3-13.3 billion which is line with expectations. Intel sees Q1 gross margins of 59% plus or minus two percentage points. The company reaffirmed guidance for fiscal year 2014 revenues of $52.7 billion which is line with expectations. The company sees FY14 Gross margin percentage: 60 percent, plus or minus a few percentage points. PC Client Group revenue of $8.6 billion, up 2 percent sequentially and flat year-over-year. Data Center Group revenue of $3.0 billion, up 3 percent sequentially and up 8 percent year-over-year. "We had a solid fourth quarter with signs of stabilization in the PC segment and financial growth from a year ago...We've built a strong foundation for our business by bringing innovation to the market more quickly across a wide range of computing platforms. For example, at CES, we demonstrated multiple devices that weren't on our roadmap six months ago."
Conference Call Comments: The company sees Q1 gross margin at ~59%; three point decline from the fourth quarter is driven by higher platform writeoffs and overall lower platform volumes in-line with seasonal trends The company sees FY14 gross margin at ~60%; expects start up costs to decline, partially offset my impact of tablets; expects to spend $18.6 bln and expects capital spending of $11 billion.

Silver Spring Networks (SSNI) issued guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of ($0.01) - $0.00 and revenues of $88 - $89 million which are both below expectations. Non-GAAP gross profit margin was 42.0%, up from 31.4% a year ago, primarily due to a higher mix of higher margin revenue. GAAP gross profit margin was 32.0% as compared to 11.2% a year ago. "For the full year 2013 we now expect top line to grow approximately 13%. We did not close a few expected deals which impacted our fourth quarter results,"

Skyworks (SWKS) reported first quarter earnings of $0.67 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 11.3% year/year to $505 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $0.59, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of approximately $470 million which are both above expectations.

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Secular Bull Market?

By Carl Swenlin

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/carl-swenlin/secular-bull-market

A subscriber said he had heard a number of talking heads claiming that we are in a secular bull market, and he wondered what I thought. My gut reaction was to say "no way", but then I got to thinking about it.

A secular market refers to a market trend that persists over decades. I pulled up a very long-term chart and noted that the last secular bull market began off the bear market low in 1974. The first clue we would have had that something big was brewing was when the S&P 500 Index broke out of the ragged trading range it had been in during the 1960s and 1970s.

Now note that the S&P 500 has recently broken out of a trading range that spans more than a decade.

[Must Listen: One-on-One With Jim Puplava: Are We in a Stock Market Bubble?]



Let's look at a shorter time frame on a linear chart. The breakout is much more dramatic in this context, and the breakout leg is about one-third the width of the trading range. Pretty convincing, so, yes, I would have to say that, based upon these charts we could be in the early stages of a secular bull market. But so what?



The impression that some secular bull proponents would like to make is that we are in for many, many years of steady price appreciation, but secular bull markets are still vulnerable to cyclical bear markets, some of which can be quite severe — case in point, the 1987 Crash. Also, note that the 1980 breakout was followed by a sharp decline back the the top of the trading range. This is the usual technical expectation after a breakout.

The main thing to remember is that we won't know if it is a secular bull market until after the fact or at least long after it begins. I must say that the breakout looks promising, but it won't change my basic strategy, which is to try to avoid significant pullbacks in the intermediate-term.

Conclusion: Trading ranges are referred to as continuation patterns because prices are expected to exit them in the same direction they were in before they entered the consolidation trading range. The long-term breakout we are observing is a very positive sign, and supports the idea that a secular bull market is in progress. But the next technical expectation is for price to pull back toward the point of breakout. Let's see how that goes.

I will probably get some mail pointing out all the fundamental reasons why my conclusions must be wrong, but what I tried to do is set aside everything but the technicals. I think they are pretty clear.

The above content was an excerpt from the January 17, 2014 blog for Decision Point subscribers. Click here for a free trial.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages began the abbreviated week on a mixed note as the Nasdaq added 0.7% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.3%. For its part, the S&P 500 rose 0.3% as eight of ten sectors finished in the green.

Stocks began the day with solid gains but the early strength faded quickly when the S&P 500 was unable to extend above the 1850 level during the opening minutes. That rejection emboldened sellers, who promptly drove the indices to their lows. Adding insult to injury was the fact that today's mostly better-than-expected earnings failed to entice buyers.

On that note, 16 out of the 17 companies that reported this morning met or exceeded their Capital IQ consensus estimates. Forest Laboratories (FRX 68.00, -0.74), Halliburton (HAL 49.78, -0.88), and Dow components Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 94.03, -1.03), Travelers (TRV 85.00, -1.47), and Verizon (VZ 47.68, -0.68) all beat estimates but settled lower.

The notable weakness among the three Dow members pressured the price-weighted index, which had to contend with losses in 18 of its 30 components. The second-largest member, IBM (IBM 188.43, -1.66), lost 0.9% ahead of its earnings report set for an after-hours release.

One name that rallied following its earnings beat was Delta Air Lines (DAL 32.08, +1.01). The stock jumped 3.3%, which provided support to the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.6%). However, the industrial space was unable to keep pace with the broader market as the top sector component, General Electric (GE 26.29, -0.29), lagged after announcing a pair of acquisitions.

Similar to industrials, consumer discretionary (-0.2%) and financials (+0.1%) lagged while the remaining cyclical groups-energy (+0.5%), materials (+0.6%), and technology (+0.5%)-finished ahead of the broader market. Notably, the materials sector was boosted by Dow Chemical (DOW 45.93, +2.86), which surged 6.6% after Third Point took a big stake in the company and called for a spinoff of its petrochemical business.

On the countercyclical side, telecom services (-0.7%) lagged while consumer staples (+0.3%), health care (+0.5%), and utilities (+1.2%) outperformed. The health care sector received support from biotechnology as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 251.99, +4.56) rose 1.9%. In turn, this also factored into the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite.

Treasuries ended modestly lower with the 10-yr yield up one basis point at 2.83%.

Participation was a bit above average as 740 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET.

Nasdaq +1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.1% YTD
S&P 500 -0.3% YTD
DJIA -1.0% YTD

DJ30 -44.12 NASDAQ +28.18 SP500 +5.10 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1616/1.91 bln/976 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2030/739.9 mln/1070 3:30 pm : Commodities were mixed today, with energy trading higher while precious metals chopped around in negative territory.

Feb gold traded lower despite a decline by the dollar index. The yellow metal brushed a session low of $1235.10 per ounce in morning pit trade and spent the remainder of the session trading slightly above that level. It eventually settled with a 0.8% loss at $1241.70 per ounce.

Mar silver also spent the floor session in the red, slipping to a session low of $19.66 per ounce in early morning action. It then trended higher, trimming losses to 2.2% for the day as it settled at $19.85 per ounce.

Mar crude oil chopped around in positive territory, extending Friday's gains. It touched a session high of $95.46 per barrel in morning floor action and eventually settled 0.4% higher at $94.98 per barrel.

Feb natural gas also traded higher, rising as high as $4.45 per MMBtu. With momentum holding steady, it settled with a 2.3% gain at $4.43 per MMBtu.

4:38PM Advanced Micro reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (AMD) 4.17 -0.01 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.06 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.06; revenues rose 37.1% year/year to $1.59 bln vs the $1.54 bln consensus.

Gross margin was 35 percent in Q4 2013. Gross margin decreased 1 percentage point sequentially. Q4 2013 gross margin included a $7 million benefit from the sale of inventory previously reserved in Q3 2012 as compared to a similar benefit of $19 million in Q3 2013.
Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balance, including long-term marketable securities, was $1.2 billion at the end of the quarter, in line with expectations.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $1.287-1.382 bln vs. $1.36 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:37PM Texas Instruments reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS towards the low end of expectations, revs in-line (TXN) 43.85 +0.40 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.46 per share, in-line with the GAAP Capital IQ Consensus of $0.46 and guidance of $0.44-0.48; revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $3.03 bln vs the $2.99 bln consensus and guidance of $2.92-3.04 bln.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.36-0.44 vs. $0.44 GAAP Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q1 revs of $2.83-3.07 bln vs. $2.95 bln Capital IQ Consensus. TI's fourth-quarter results and first-quarter outlook include restructuring charges for cost-saving actions in Embedded Processing and in Japan. The company is not exiting any markets or discontinuing any existing products but will reduce investments in markets that do not offer sustainable growth and returns. The savings will reflect the elimination of about 1,100 jobs worldwide. The charges are expected to be about $80 million, of which $49 million was included in the fourth quarter of 2013 and about $30 million will be included in the first quarter of 2014. The co expects to achieve annualized savings of about $130 million by the end of 2014.

"Our fourth quarter capped a year in which each quarter's performance increasingly reflected the impact of structural changes we've made to focus TI on Analog and Embedded Processing, where the diversity and longevity of our positions are assets. "The combined revenue from Analog and Embedded Processing grew 12 percent over last year's fourth quarter and comprised 82 percent of total revenue. Individually, Analog was up 12 percent and Embedded Processing was up 11 percent from a year ago."

4:36PM BlackBerry announces plans to divest Canadian Real Estate Holdings; will not comment on potential value of a sale (BBRY) 9.93 +0.85 : Co announced that it intends to divest the majority of its real estate holdings in Canada. In partnership with CBRE Limited, BlackBerry intends to strategically divest the majority of its commercial real estate portfolio through a combination of sale-leaseback and vacant asset sales. The properties to be offered for sale comprise over 3 million square feet of space. BlackBerry will not comment on the potential value of a sale and will disclose further information as required in connection with any definitive sale transaction.

4:26PM Xilinx beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q4 revs in-line (XLNX) 47.54 +0.32 : Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.54; revenues rose 15.1% year/year to $587 mln vs the $600.62 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance Xilinx sees Q4 revs +2-6% sequentially (~$598.5-622.0 mln) vs $622.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Gross margin is expected to be approximately 68%.
Operating expenses are expected to be approximately $226 million, including $2.5 million of amortization of acquisition-related intangibles.
Other income and expenses are expected to be a net expense of approximately $7 million.

4:11PM IBM beats by $0.13, misses on revs; guides FY14 EPS in-line (IBM) 188.43 -1.66 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $6.13 per share, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $6.00; revenues fell 5.5% year/year to $27.7 bln vs the $28.29 bln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees EPS of at least $18.00 vs. $18.01 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Reaffirms 2015 roadmap for operating EPS of at least $20.
Software, Services and Global Financing each grew, adjusting for currency:
Software up 3 percent, up 4 percent adjusting for currency;
Services down 2 percent, up 1 percent adjusting for currency;
Global Financing revenue flat, up 3 percent adjusting for currency;
Systems and Technology revenue declined 26 percent, down 25 percent adjusting for currency;
Services backlog of $143 billion, up 2 percent, up 5 percent adjusting for currency;
"As we enter 2014, we will continue to transform our business and invest aggressively in the areas that will drive growth and higher value."
"We remain on track toward our 2015 roadmap for operating EPS of at least $20, a step in our long-term strategy of industry leadership and continuous transformation."
The company's total gross profit margin was 51.7 percent in the 2013 fourth quarter compared with 51.8 percent in the 2012 fourth-quarter period.
Total operating (non-GAAP) gross profit margin was 52.6 percent in the 2013 fourth quarter compared with 52.3 percent in the 2012 fourth-quarter period, driven by an increase in Services and a mix to Software.

4:08PM Cree beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS (midpoint of range below consensus), guides Q3 revs in-line with consensus (CREE) 62.83 +0.33 : Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.46 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.39; revenues rose 19.9% year/year to $415.1 mln vs the $412.54 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.34-0.41, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $390-420 mln vs. $412.93 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Q3 Guidance Details: For its third quarter of fiscal 2014 ending March 30, 2014, Cree targets GAAP gross margin targeted to be 37.7%+/- and non-GAAP gross margin targeted to be 38.5%+/-. Operating expenses are targeted to be similar to Q2. The tax rate is targeted at 21.0%+/- for the third quarter of fiscal 2014.
Gross margin decreased 110 basis points from Q1 of fiscal 2014 to 37.5% on a GAAP basis and decreased 100 basis points to 38.2% on a non-GAAP basis. Inventory increased $17.1 million from Q1 of fiscal 2014 to $234.5 million, with days of inventory of 81 days.
"Fiscal Q2 was another strong quarter as revenue increased to a record $415 million driven by strong growth in LED fixtures and LED bulbs. For the first half of fiscal 2014, revenue is up 22% from the first half of fiscal 2013 and Non-GAAP operating profit is up 38%...Our strategy is working, the business is growing and we've made great initial progress building the Cree brand."

4:09PM Super Micro Computer beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SMCI) 18.50 +0.54 : Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.35 per share, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues rose 22.3% year/year to $356.4 mln vs the $333.5 mln consensus.

Margins: GAAP and Non-GAAP gross margins for the second quarter were both 15.5% compared to 13.8% in the same period a year ago. GAAP gross margin and Non-GAAP gross margin for the first quarter of fiscal year 2014 were 15.1% and 15.2%, respectively

Guidance: Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.24-$0.30 vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $320-$350 mln vs. $317.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Commentary: Supermicro's second quarter was a record high for revenue and earnings. We grew revenue 22.3% higher than last year with significant jump in Asia revenues to 23% of revenues. Our Twin family, especially the FatTwin, storage and GPU/Xeon Phi product lines were strong drivers to revenue growth..."

Large Cap Gainers

AA (12.15 +7%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; tgt raised to $15 from $9.
SNP (81.44 +5.45%): Upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein; disclosed that Sinopec Group (SHI) increased its shareholding by way of acquiring 173,248,859 A shares on the secondary market as of Jan 17 2014.
DOW (45.21 +4.97%): Third Point's Dan Loeb took a ~$1.3 bln stake in DOW, wants co to spin off petrochemical biz - CNBC.

Large Cap Losers

CEO (166.87 -6.41%): Co announced its 2014 business strategy and development plan; downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Bernstein; downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse; downgraded to Reduce at Nomura.
VALE (13.21 -4.21%): Weakness in Brazil stocks following Q4 China GDP data (GGB, RIO also lower).
TJX (59.85 -3.25%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee.

Mid Cap Gainers

SBNY (124.59 +13.16%): Beat on EPS by $0.07.
BBRY (9.87 +8.7%): BlackBerry smartphones will be on 98% of DoD networks, according to reports.
GOLD (68.11 +4.27%): Reported Kibali met its goals and more.

Mid Cap Losers

LKQ (26.31 -5.8%): Co confirmed that a complaint has been filed against it by Chrysler Group in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan; co considers lawsuit without merit.
FEYE (69.7 -5.26%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan.
ATI (34.63 -4.6%): Resumed with an Underweight at JP Morgan.

Texas Instruments (TXN) introduced its next-generation wireless power transfer circuit with foreign object detection that will allow designers to bring to market 3-coil, 5-V and 12-V A6 charging stations compliant with the Wireless Power Consortium 1.1 specification.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that Swisscom has chosen Broadcom 5G WiFi solutions to power its new dual-band xDSL/fiber gateway.

Applied Ventures, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials (AMAT), has completed strategic investments in two advanced imaging detection companies: Oncoscope and Passport Systems.

Xilinx (XLNX) announced another industry first at 20nm with the tape-out of the first Virtex UltraScale device.

7:36AM Verizon beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line (VZ) 48.35 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.66 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.62; revenues rose 3.4% year/year to $31.07 bln vs the $31.04 bln consensus.

Wireless

8.0 percent year-over-year increase in service revenues in 4Q 2013;
7.5 percent year-over-year increase in retail service revenues;
29.5 percent operating income margin and 47.0 percent segment EBITDA margin on service revenues (non-GAAP).
1.7 million retail net additions, excluding acquisitions and adjustments;
1.6 million retail postpaid net additions;
low retail postpaid churn of 0.96 percent;
102.8 million total retail connections, 96.8 million total retail postpaid connections.

Wireline

6.4 percent year-over-year increase in consumer revenues;
consumer ARPU (average revenue per user) up 10.8 percent year over year.
15.6 percent year-over-year increase in FiOS revenues;
126,000 FiOS Internet and 92,000 FiOS Video net additions, with continued increased sales penetration for both services.

Free cash flow totaled $22.2 billion in 2013, an increase of 45.1 percent, or $6.9 billion, compared with 2012. From this $22.2 billion, Verizon returned $5.9 billion in dividends to shareholders, including a seventh consecutive year of a quarterly dividend increase.

Verizon Communications (VZ) and Intel (INTC) announce an agreement for Verizon to purchase from Intel the assets of Intel Media, a business division dedicated to the development of Cloud TV products and services. The transaction will accelerate the availability of next-generation video services, both integrated with Verizon FiOS fiber-optic networks and delivered "over the top" to any deviceTerms of the transaction were not disclosed.Verizon will purchase intellectual property rights and other assets that enable Intel's OnCue Cloud TV platform. Verizon will also make employment offers to substantially all of the approximately 350-person Intel unit, which will continue to be based in Santa Clara and be led by its current management team.
UTStarcom Holdings (UTSI) announced that it entered into a Purchase and Sale Agreement with SoftBank (SFTBY) and Shah Capital Opportunity Fund on January 17, 2014. The transaction was consummated on the same date.Pursuant to the Share Purchase Agreement, SoftBank sold its entire stake in the Company, consisting of 4,883,875 ordinary shares with par value $0.00375 per share. The Company and Shah Capital purchased 3,883,875 and 1,000,000 Ordinary Shares, respectively, for a price of $2.54 per Ordinary Share. Following the consummation of the transaction, Shah Capital's beneficial ownership in the Company increased from 17.2% to 21.9%.
WPCS (WPCS) reported continued progress with its rollout strategy for its BTX Trader Bitcoin trading platform. According to Interim CEO Sebastian Giordano, "Though the acquisition was only recently completed on December 17, 2013, we are formalizing our plans and undertaking several initiatives to launch and begin monetizing this exciting opportunity." Divya Thakur, BTX Chief Technology Officer stated that, "BTX is the first trading platform to enable Bitcoin traders and investors to access market data as well as execute orders for the top six (6) Bitcoin exchanges in a single application. What further differentiates BTX from any other product in the market is the opportunity to be the premier algorithmic trading platform for digital currencies, allowing traders to execute orders and trading strategies not available on other exchanges, such as 'stop limit'; which BTX already offers."

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Equities endured an uninspiring Wednesday session, which unfolded in similar fashion to Tuesday's affair. Like yesterday, the major averages ended mixed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) coming out on the losing end while the Nasdaq (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.1%) eked out modest gains.

The price-weighted Dow spent the entire session in the red as 19 of its 30 components registered losses. Most notably, the second-largest index member, IBM (IBM 182.25, -6.18), plunged 3.3% after beating its Capital IQ earnings estimate by 13 cents on below-consensus revenue. Despite the bottom-line beat, the report was scrutinized due to the company accounting for a lower tax rate than in previous quarters.

On the upside, another large index member, United Technologies (UTX 116.12, +1.13), gained 1.0% after reporting a bottom-line beat on below-consensus revenue. Furthermore, the stock factored into the outperformance of the industrial sector (+0.2%), which also drew strength from transports. The Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 1.1% with help from railroads after Norfolk Southern (NSC 92.94, +4.23) reported an earnings beat.

Like industrials, most other cyclical sectors finished just ahead of the broader market. The discretionary sector (+0.3%) rallied despite cautious action among retailers after Coach (COH 49.38, -3.17) reported disappointing earnings and said its North American comparable-store sales tumbled 13.6% during the quarter.

Elsewhere, energy (+0.3%) climbed as crude oil rose 1.8% to $96.72/bbl while materials (-0.9%) lagged after Freeport-McMoRan (FCX 34.52, -0.74) reported a top-line miss.

The remaining cyclical groups, financials (+0.1%) and technology (unch) ended little changed.

On the countercyclical side, health care (+0.1%) and utilities (+0.1%) finished in-line with the S&P 500 while consumer staples (-0.1%) and telecom services (-0.7%) ended in the red.

Treasuries finished in the red as the 10-yr yield ticked up three basis points to 2.86%. Trading volume was well below average with only 616 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which rose 4.7% to follow last week's 11.9% increase.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims will be reported at 8:30 ET while the November FHFA Housing Price Index will be released at 9:00 ET. December Existing Home Sales and Leading Indicators will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +1.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.6% YTD
S&P 500 -0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.2% YTD

DJ30 -41.10 NASDAQ +17.24 SP500 +1.06 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1500/1.88 bln/1082 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1969/616.1 mln/1069

3:30 pm :

Mar crude oil rose for a third consecutive session ahead of tomorrow's release of weekly inventory data. Prices lifted from a session low of $95.64 per barrel and continued to trend higher for the remainder of floor trade. The energy component eventually settled at $96.72 per barrel, or 1.8% higher.
Feb natural gas extended yesterday's gains as it gained strength on a strong Northeast winter storm accompanied by cold temperatures. It trended higher after coming off its session low of $4.57 per MMBtu and settled with a solid 5.9% at $4.69 per MMBtu. Action in precious metals was lackluster today.
Feb gold extended yesterday's losses as the dollar index recovered into positive territory. The yellow metal retreated from its session high of $1242.70 per ounce set moments after pit trade opened and settled 0.2% lower at $1238.60 per ounce.
Mar silver oscillated between positive and negative territory, with prices dipping to a session low of $19.83 per ounce. Unable to gain momentum, it settled with a 0.1% loss at $19.84 per ounce.

5:53PM Teradyne beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; initiates $0.06 per share quarterly dividend (TER) 19.58 +0.39 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; revenues rose 14.9% year/year to $285.3 mln vs the $275.19 mln consensus.

Bookings in the fourth quarter of 2013 were $290 million of which $225 million were in Semiconductor Test, $47 million in System Test and $18 million in Wireless Test.
"In line with seasonal trends, orders improved in the fourth quarter and we expect that order trend to accelerate in the first quarter as customers build capacity for new consumer devices in 2014

Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.02-0.09, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $300-330 mln vs. $325.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co also announced that its Board of Directors has approved the initiation of a quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share, with the initial quarterly dividend payable on June 2, 2014, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 9, 2014.

5:28PM SanDisk, on call, guides Q1 revs $1.45-1.525 bln vs $1.53 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; expects modest price decline for the yr (SNDK) 72.19 :

5:27PM SanDisk, on calls, guides FY14 revs $6.4-6.8 bln vs $6.71 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate (SNDK) :

5:25PM SanDisk, on calls, guides Q1 gross margins to 47-49% (Street at 47.7%); FY14 margins at 45-48% (Street at 47.2%) (SNDK) 72.19 +0.30 :

4:10PM SanDisk beats by $0.13, beats on revs; Offers its first quarter dividend of $0.225/share (SNDK) 72.19 +0.30 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.71 per share, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.58; revenues rose 12.1% year/year to $1.73 bln vs the $1.71 bln consensus.

Other Metrics: Gross Margin came in at 50.9% compared to 39.9% year ago. Fourth quarter and fiscal 2013 cash flow from operations set quarterly and annual records of $617 million and $1.86 billion, respectively.

Dividend: Announces its first-quarter dividend of $0.225 per share of common stock, payable on February 24, 2014 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on February 3, 2014.

Commentary: "Our SSD product revenue set another quarterly record and represented 19 percent of our annual revenue, and we also set a record for annual retail product revenue. SanDisk is enabling the next generation of mobile and enterprise data storage solutions, and we are excited about our prospects for 2014."

4:29PM F5 Networks beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; authorized additional $500 mln share repurchase program (FFIV) 97.48 -0.72 : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $1.22 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.19; revenues rose 11.2% year/year to $406.5 mln vs the $396.43 mln consensus.

F5 Networks reports Q1 GAAP gross margin of ~82.1% versus Street expectations of just under 84%
Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.23-1.26, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $408-418 mln vs. $404.19 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"During the first quarter, increasing demand for the new hardware and software products we introduced in fiscal 2013 continued to drive product revenue, which increased 3 percent from the prior quarter and 7 percent year over year...Strong sales across all geographic regions reflected both demand for the new products and positive customer response to our 'Good, Better, Best' pricing model we introduced in early November."
Share Repurchase: The company also announced today that its board of directors had authorized an additional $500 million for the company's common stock share repurchase program. This new authorization is incremental to the $281.3 million currently unused in the existing program which was initially authorized in October 2010.

4:19PM Western Digital beats by $0.11, beats on revs (WDC) 88.08 -0.78 : Reports Q2 (Dec) adj earnings of $2.19 per share, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $2.08; revenues rose 3.9% year/year to $3.97 bln vs the $3.86 bln consensus.

"We executed well in the December quarter as we continue participating in the ongoing growth of data in all of our served markets...The industry TAM was slightly higher than anticipated driven by seasonal demand as we saw strength in gaming and branded products."
Co should guide on its conference call at 17:00

4:09PM Cadence Design and Berkeley Design Automation reach a settlement agreement in the case filed by Cadence against BDA last year (CDNS) 14.30 -0.25 : CDNS and Berkeley Design Automation, Inc. (BDA) today announced that the companies have reached a settlement agreement in the case filed by Cadence against BDA last year.
As part of the settlement, BDA and Cadence signed a multi-year agreement to support interoperability between BDA's Analog FastSPICE (AFS) Simulator and Cadence's Virtuoso Analog Design Environment (ADE) through Cadence's OASIS interface, and BDA has agreed to pay Cadence an undisclosed amount.

12:37PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TEL (60.21 +6.95%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.82 ex items vs $0.77 estimate), revs rose 6.1% yoy to $3.33 bln vs $3.28 bln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of $0.88-0.92 ex items vs $0.89 estimate, revs of $3.4-3.5 bln vs $3.42 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $3.65-3.85 ex items vs $3.80 estimate, revs of $13.8-14.2 bln vs $14.09 bln estimate
TXT (37.94 +5.10%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.59 ex items (in-line), revs rose 4.3% yoy to $3.51 bln vs $3.44 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $2.00-2.20 vs $2.20 estimate, revs of ~$13.2 bln vs $13.23 bln estimate
NSC (93.01 +4.85%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.13 ($1.64 vs $1.51 estimate), revs rose 7.3% yoy to $2.88 bln vs $2.85 bln estimate

Large Cap Losers

COH (48.91 -6.93%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($1.06 vs $1.11 estimate), revs fell 5.6% yoy to $1.42 bln vs $1.49 bln estimate; sees second half sales declining in the low single digits in constant currencies; target lowered to $47 from $55 at Canaccord Genuity
ABB (25.61 -4.01%): Sees Q4 EPS of ~$0.23 vs $0.41 estimate
PH (122.3 -3.56%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($1.24 ex items vs $1.25 estimate), revs rose 1.3% yoy to $3.11 bln vs $3.15 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS guidance of $6.20-6.60 ex items vs $6.62 estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

NUAN (16.15 +8.43%): Raised Q1 EPS guidance to $0.23-0.24 ex items vs $0.20 estimate, revs to $487-491 mln vs $481.00 mln estimate
BBRY (10.73 +8.06%): Announced plans to divest Canadian Real Estate Holdings, will not comment on potential value of a sale
HIMX (14.83 +7.24%): Hearing price target raised at BofA/Merrill

Mid Cap Losers

AMD (3.71 -11.01%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.06 (in-line), revs rose 37.1% yoy to $1.59 bln vs $1.54 bln estimate; gross margin was 35%; sees Q1 revs of $1.287-1.382 bln vs $1.36 bln estimate
PWE (7.47 -9.23%): Provided Q4 and 2013 operational update: production is in-line with guidance and expected to be ~124k and 135.1k boe per day, respectively
ATI (32.17 -5.88%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.13 (-$0.08 ex items vs -$0.21 estimate), revs fell 10.4% yoy to $915.3 mln vs $969.76 mln estimate; sees FY14 capital expenditures to be ~$300 mln

11:10AM Super Micro Computer (+26%) at session/all time high after beating Q2 ests and guiding Q3 above consensus (SMCI) 23.28 +4.78 :

Super Micro Computer (SMCI) announced it is shipping new single, dual and quad socket G34 motherboards and server solutions with the latest AMD Opteron 6300 series processors built on 32nm "Piledriver" microarchitecture.

First Solar (FSLR) has begun construction on Phase I of the Barilla Solar Project in Pecos County, Texas, west of Fort Stockton. The 22 megawatt (MW)AC project is expected to begin commercial operation in mid-2014.

AMD (AMD) announced the immediate availability of its new 12- and 16-core AMD Opteron 6300 Series server processors, code named "Warsaw."

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that Haier has chosen Broadcom's Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded platform to power its latest smart appliances.

Cypress Semiconductor (CY) has been selected by L-3 Cincinnati Electronics, a division of L-3 Communications (LLL), as a supply partner to manufacture its Readout Integrated Circuits.

7:06AM Motorola Solutions beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 below consensus; guides FY14 (MSI) 67.11 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.67 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.62; revenues rose 2.6% year/year to $2.5 bln vs the $2.49 bln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.46-0.52 vs. $0.77 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees Q1 revenue decline of 4-6% YoY (consensus represents expectations for a 2.5% increase).
For the full-year 2014, the company expects revenue growth of flat to 2 percent compared with 2013 (consensus is for a roughly 3% increase) and Non-GAAP operating earnings of approximately 18.5 percent of sales.

6:16AM ASML +7% in Amsterdam following Q4: beats by EUR0.11, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus; reaffirms 1H14 guidance; plans to raise dividend 15% and buy back EUR1 bln in stock (ASML) 87.15 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of 1.08 per share, 0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of 0.97; revenues rose 80.6% year/year to 1.85 bln vs the 1.83 bln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of 1.4 bln vs. 1.7 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. gross margin of around 42 percent, R&D costs of about EUR 280 million, other income of about EUR 20 million -- which consists of contributions from participants of the Customer Co-Investment Program -- and SG&A costs of about EUR 85 million.The expected first-quarter gross margin of around 42 percent is impacted by the product mix relative to Q4 2013. Similar to Q4 2013, the expected Q1 2014 gross margin includes a negative impact from one NXE:3300B EUV system, without which the gross margin would be 1.9 percentage points higher.

ASML reiterates H1 2014 expected sales of around EUR 3 billion, excluding EUV

ASML intends to increase the dividend by 15 percent compared with last year. Therefore, we will submit a proposal to the 2014 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM) to declare a dividend in respect of 2013 of EUR 0.61 per ordinary share (for a total amount of ~EUR 267 million), compared with a dividend of EUR 0.53 per ordinary share paid in respect of 2012.

ASML has announced its intention to purchase up to EUR 1.0 billion of its shares in 2013-2014.

Spreadtrum Communications (SPRD) announced that it has entered the tablet market with the introduction of a quad-core chipset for tablets with integrated connectivity, supporting WCDMA/HSPA+, Android 4.4 and a turnkey reference design to help manufacturers reduce the time and resources required to bring new tablets to market.

Cree (CREE) reported second quarter earnings of $0.46 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 19.9% year/year to $415.1 million which is slightly above estimates. The company issued guidance for the third quarter with EPS of $0.34-0.41 and revenues $390-420 million which is line with estimates. Q3 Guidance Details: For its third quarter of fiscal 2014 ending March 30, 2014, Cree targets GAAP gross margin targeted to be 37.7%+/- and non-GAAP gross margin targeted to be 38.5%+/-. Operating expenses are targeted to be similar to Q2. The tax rate is targeted at 21.0%+/- for the third quarter of fiscal 2014. Gross margin decreased 110 basis points from Q1 of fiscal 2014 to 37.5% on a GAAP basis and decreased 100 basis points to 38.2% on a non-GAAP basis. Inventory increased $17.1 million from Q1 of fiscal 2014 to $234.5 million, with days of inventory of 81 days. "Fiscal Q2 was another strong quarter as revenue increased to a record $415 million driven by strong growth in LED fixtures and LED bulbs. For the first half of fiscal 2014, revenue is up 22% from the first half of fiscal 2013 and Non-GAAP operating profit is up 38%...Our strategy is working, the business is growing and we've made great initial progress building the Cree brand."
IBM (IBM) reported fourth quarter earnings of $6.13 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 5.5% year/year to $27.7 billion which is below estimates. The company issued fiscal year 2014 guidance with EPS of at least $18.00 which is in line estimates. Reaffirms 2015 roadmap for operating EPS of at least $20/share. Software, Services and Global Financing each grew, adjusting for currency: Software up 3 percent, up 4 percent adjusting for currency; Services down 2 percent, up 1 percent adjusting for currency; Global Financing revenue flat, up 3 percent adjusting for currency; Systems and Technology revenue declined 26 percent, down 25 percent adjusting for currency; Services backlog of $143 billion, up 2 percent, up 5 percent adjusting for currency; "As we enter 2014, we will continue to transform our business and invest aggressively in the areas that will drive growth and higher value." "We remain on track toward our 2015 roadmap for operating EPS of at least $20, a step in our long-term strategy of industry leadership and continuous transformation." The company's total gross profit margin was 51.7 percent in the 2013 fourth quarter compared with 51.8 percent in the 2012 fourth-quarter period. Total operating (non-GAAP) gross profit margin was 52.6 percent in the 2013 fourth quarter compared with 52.3 percent in the 2012 fourth-quarter period, driven by an increase in Services and a mix to Software.
Nuance Communications (NUAN) issued guidance for the first quarter with raised EPS to $0.23-0.24, excluding non-recurring items, from $0.18-0.21 and revenues of $487-491 million from $477-487 million which is higher than expected. The company has appointed Bill Robbins as executive vice president, Worldwide Sales.
Texas Instruments (TXN) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.46 per share, which is lien with estimates, while revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $3.03 billion which is higher than expected. The company issued first quarter with EPS of $0.36-0.44 and revenues of $2.83-3.07 billion which is line with estimates. TI's fourth-quarter results and first-quarter outlook include restructuring charges for cost-saving actions in Embedded Processing and in Japan. The company is not exiting any markets or discontinuing any existing products but will reduce investments in markets that do not offer sustainable growth and returns. The savings will reflect the elimination of about 1,100 jobs worldwide. The charges are expected to be about $80 million, of which $49 million was included in the fourth quarter of 2013 and about $30 million will be included in the first quarter of 2014. The co expects to achieve annualized savings of about $130 million by the end of 2014. "Our fourth quarter capped a year in which each quarter's performance increasingly reflected the impact of structural changes we've made to focus TI on Analog and Embedded Processing, where the diversity and longevity of our positions are assets. "The combined revenue from Analog and Embedded Processing grew 12 percent over last year's fourth quarter and comprised 82 percent of total revenue. Individually, Analog was up 12 percent and Embedded Processing was up 11 percent from a year ago."
Advanced Micro (AMD) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.06 per share, which is in line with estimates, while revenues rose 37.1% year/year to $1.59 billion which is line with estimates.Gross margin was 35 percent in Q4 2013. Gross margin decreased 1 percentage point sequentially. Q4 2013 gross margin included a $7 million benefit from the sale of inventory previously reserved in Q3 2012 as compared to a similar benefit of $19 million in Q3 2013. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balance, including long-term marketable securities, was $1.2 billion at the end of the quarter, in line with expectations.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 24-Jan-14

Dow -318.24 at 15879.11, Nasdaq -90.70 at 4128.17, S&P -38.17 at 1790.29

Equities endured a rough end to the abbreviated week with the S&P 500 seeing its largest weekly loss since June 2012. The benchmark index fell 2.1%, extending its January decline to 3.1%.

The market spent the entire session in a steady slide amid continued concerns regarding China. Furthermore, participants kept a close eye on the foreign exchange market where emerging market currencies weakened while the Japanese yen saw its second consecutive day of gains. Dollar/yen fell below the 102.50 level after trading near 104.50 on Wednesday. The yen strength came about after Bank of Japan officials said the Japanese economy remains on track and there is no need for additional easing at this time. In turn, this posed a headwind to yen-based carry trades, which played a significant part in last year's market rally.

Like yesterday, the weakness began overnight; however, unlike yesterday, the aggressive selling did not start until the European session kicked off. Regional indices saw broad losses with peripheral markets leading the slide. Spain's IBEX plunged 3.6% while Italy's MIB fell 2.3%.

The overseas weakness set the tone for a lower start in U.S. equities with cyclical sectors leading the decline. Consumer discretionary (-1.9%) and technology (-2.1%) finished just ahead of the broader market thanks to the relative strength of Starbucks (SBUX 74.98, +1.59) and Microsoft (MSFT 36.80, +0.75) after both beat their bottom-line estimates.

Staying on the earnings theme, most of the reports received between yesterday's close and today's open were ahead of expectations but that mattered little to the broader market. However, Kansas City Southern's (KSU 99.49, -17.79) seven-cent miss mattered quite a bit as the stock plunged 15.2% while also weighing on the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which tumbled 4.1%. This marked the largest one-day loss for the bellwether complex since September 2011 as the broad liquidation resulted in 17 of 20 components posting losses in excess of 2.0%. Due to the sharp losses, the industrial sector (-3.1%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Elsewhere, financials (-2.3%) and materials (-2.7%) lagged while energy (-2.1%) ended in-line.

Meanwhile, defensive sectors-sans health care-outperformed with losses between 0.9% and 1.1%. Procter & Gamble (PG 79.18, +0.94) contributed to the relative strength of the consumer staples sector after reporting a one-cent beat. For its part, the health care sector lost 2.3%.

Treasuries booked gains with the 10-yr yield ending lower by five basis points at 2.73%.

The aggressive selling fueled strong demand for volatility protection as indicated by a 30.0% surge in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 17.89, +4.12), which ended at its highest level since October 15.

For the second day in a row, the selloff was accompanied by above-average volume as 902 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Monday's data will be limited to the December New Home Sales report, which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: From Highs to Lows in Less Than a Week

On Monday, bond and equity markets were closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Tuesday saw the major averages begin the abbreviated week on a mixed note as the Nasdaq added 0.7% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.3%. For its part, the S&P 500 rose 0.3% as eight of ten sectors finished in the green. Stocks began the day with solid gains but the early strength faded quickly when the S&P 500 was unable to extend above the 1850 level during the opening minutes. That rejection emboldened sellers, who promptly drove the indices to their lows. Adding insult to injury was the fact that mostly better-than-expected earnings reported ahead of the opening bell failed to entice buyers.

The market endured an uninspiring Wednesday session, which unfolded in similar fashion to Tuesday's affair. Once again, the major averages ended mixed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) coming out on the losing end while the Nasdaq (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.1%) eked out modest gains. The price-weighted Dow spent the entire session in the red as 19 of its 30 components registered losses. Most notably, the second-largest index member, IBM (IBM 179.64, -3.09), plunged 3.3% after beating its Capital IQ earnings estimate by 13 cents on below-consensus revenue. Despite the bottom-line beat, the report was scrutinized due to the company accounting for a lower tax rate than in previous quarters.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 snapped its modest two-day win streak with its second-largest decline of the month. The index lost 0.9% as nine of ten sectors registered losses. Although stocks sold off throughout the day, the weakness actually started during the overnight futures session when three China-related developments began fueling the risk-off sentiment:

The HSBC flash PMI reading for January was below expectations at 49.6. The sub-50 reading is indicative of manufacturing activity contracting; and the January reading marked a six-month low for the series.
A Financial Times report indicated Chinese authorities are working to prevent a default of a $500 million high-yield investment trust, failure of which could trigger an unnerving fallout in China's shadow banking system.
An SEC administrative law judge issued a ruling that censures the accounting arms of the "Big Four" in China for six months due to their unwillingness to turn over requested documents involving US-listed Chinese companies under investigation for accounting fraud.

The three developments did enough damage to sentiment that a slate of mostly better-than-expected earnings could not halt the day-long slide. The discretionary sector (-0.7%) finished just ahead of the broader market after last year's top S&P 500 component, Netflix (NFLX 386.08, -2.64), surged 16.5% in reaction to its bottom-line beat and above-consensus guidance.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week  Change  % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	     16458.56	 15879.11   -579.45	-3.5	-4.2 
 Nasdaq	      4197.58	  4128.17    -69.41	-1.7	-1.2 
 S&P 500	1838.70	  1790.29    -48.41	-2.6	-3.1 
 Russell 2000  1168.43	  1144.13    -24.30	-2.1	-1.7

4:26PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: GAME (5.64 +27.66%), SMCI (20.98 +27.05%), BBRY (9.89 +21.94%), CCIH (16.23 +21.57%), NTCT (35.68 +18.13%)
Healthcare: STML (26.52 +42.27%), PRAN (8.99 +39.59%), SRPT (25.44 +37.94%), CTIC (4 +35.41%), GERN (5.63 +26.89%), CCXI (7.02 +26.23%), PACB (6.99 +22.91%), RLYP (38.03 +20.02%), TSRO (35.14 +19.86%), ILMN (138.62 +18.97%), RGEN (14.28 +18.46%)
Basic Materials: RBY (1.23 +23.53%), CENX (11.5 +19.36%), FSM (3.67 +18.21%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: SSNI (15.96 -28.81%), AMD (3.47 -19.02%), INFN (7.33 -18.95%), SINA (70.03 -14.29%), WUBA (35.89 -14.08%)
Services: BBY (25.02 -30.61%), PFMT (8.92 -17.37%)
Healthcare: SGNT (20.03 -16.3%), ONVO (9.12 -15.07%), HRC (37.38 -14.73%)
Financial: QIWI (37.31 -15.08%), SLM (23.01 -14.35%)
Consumer Goods: NUS (76.89 -29.22%), RDEN (27.17 -20.63%), HLF (60.06 -16.96%), ACAT (43.27 -15.06%)
Basic Materials: AGI (9.07 -25.54%), YPF (23.02 -24.09%), HERO (5.11 -17.01%), PWE (7.36 -14.11%)

12:25PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

JNPR (27.75 +6.69%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.43 ex items vs $0.37 estimate), revs rose 11.7% yoy to $1.27 bln vs $1.22 bln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.27-0.30 ex items vs $0.29 estimate, revs of $1.12-1.16 bln vs $1.14 bln estimate; upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at William Blair; upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman
DFS (54.87 +4.71%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($1.23 vs $1.18 estimate), revs rose 5.6% yoy to $2.13 bln vs $2.1 bln estimate; total loans grew $3.2 bln (5%)
PG (80.78 +3.25%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($1.21 vs $1.20 estimate), revs rose 0.5% yoy to $22.28 bln vs $22.36 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS guidance of +5-7% to ~$4.25-4.33 bln vs $4.27 bln estimate, revs +1-2% to ~$85.01-85.85 bln vs $85.84 bln estimate

Large Cap Losers

KSU (102.15 -12.90%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.07 ($1.03 ex items vs $1.10 estimate), revs rose 8.4% yoy to $616 mln vs $616.62 mln estimate
MPEL (39.5 -5.35%): Weakness in numerous Chinese stocks following SEC ruling that Big Four accounting firms China units' should be suspended in the US for six months
ISRG (415.67 -5.31%): Trading lower following Q4 results in-line with pre-announcement; co said it will not be providing FY14 revenue guidance, sees FY14 procedures growth of 9-12%

Mid Cap Gainers

OTEX (101.4 +11.90%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.08 ($1.58 vs $1.50 estimate), revs rose 3.2% yoy to $363.5 mln vs $352.29 mln estimate; target raised to $125 from $95 at The Benchmark Company; target raised to $120 from $110 at RBC Capital Markets
SIVB (118.9 +7.84%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Evercore
PB (65.43 +5.70%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.07 ($0.98 ex items vs $0.91 estimate)

Mid Cap Losers

IGT (15.46 -12.41%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.25 ex items vs $0.30 estimate), revs rose 2.0% yoy to $541 mln vs $553.59 mln estimate; co sees FY14 EPS at low end of previously announced guidance, with potential further downside risk; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee, target lowered to $18 from $21.50
FNFG (9.32 -9.86%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.20 (in-line); Q4 net interest income rose 1% from prior quarter to $280 mln
FEYE (67.45 -7.82%): Downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that Teracom has selected Broadcom silicon to demonstrate 4K Ultra HD and DVB-T2 broadcast capabilities with Boxer TV at its TV-Puls event on Jan 23, 2014.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.60, +1.59): +6.1% after beating on earnings and revenue. Following its earnings beat, the stock was upgraded at Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and William Blair.

5:37AM Samsung Elect reports Q4 results; beats slightly on revs (SSNLF) 1275.00 : Co reports FY13 operating profit down 18% QoQ to KRW8.31 trln; revs increased 14% YoY to KRW59.3 trln vs KRW59.1 trln CIQ est. This was in-line with co's pre-announcement on Jan 7 of Q4 Consolidated operating profit of ~KRW8.3 trln and Q4 revs of~KRW59 trln

'14 Outlook

DRAM : Expect server/graphic DRAM demand to remain solid amid limited su pply growth; tablet and mid-to low-end smartphone
Handset : Expect price/product competition to intensify amid pp y g ; p accelerated replacement from feature-phones to smartphones to drive demand for mobile devices
NAND : Expect demand to remain solid led by increased SSD adoption by datacenter and content growth in mobile devices
LSI : Expect to introduce 20 ? -class mobile AP and to expand new customer base; Expect to enhance competitiveness of accelerated replacement from feature phones to smartphones
Smartphone : Expect demand growth to continue with LTE service expansion in Europe/China and solid demand growth in emerging markets
Expect diverse mid to high-end products to address different new customer base
Expect to enhance competitiveness of customer needs LSI products such as high-pixel
CIS ? 1Q : Expect more balanced market despite low seasonality while demand for server/game cons oles/SSD to be relatively solid Expect low demand of S.LSI due to weak seasonality and customer needs
Tablet : Expect launch of various new products and intensified price competition, amid developed and emerging markets to continue rapid growth =1Q : Expect smartphone/tablet demand to decrease QoQ C E inventory adjustment by customers
LCD : Expect better supply demand than 2013; TV demand under weak seasonality
TV : Expect demand to grow led by W or ld C up impact and expansion of UHD TV sales Rapid growth expected in UHD TV ( '14: 12.7M, D.Search)
Digital Appliances : Expect over all demand to grow modestly YoY amid economic recovery in developed markets
LCD : Expect better supply-demand than 2013; TV demand to increase led by UHD penetration and global sports events impact; solid demand growth of tablet to continue
UHD TV : Expect growth of mass market segment in addition to premium market segment 5 y p ? 1Q : TV demand expect to decline QoQ entering off-season, but slightly increase YoY
OLED : Expect market growth led by expansion of OLED adoption by broader products, including mid-end smartephone, tablets, etc
1Q : Expect weaker panel demand under seasonality

Microsoft (MSFT) reported second quarter earnings of $0.78 per share, while revenues rose 14.3% year/year to $24.52 billion which are both higher than expected . Devices and Consumer revenue grew 13% to $11.91 billion. Windows OEM revenue declined 3%, reflecting strong 12% growth in Windows OEM Pro revenue, offset by continued softness in the consumer PC market. Surface revenue more than doubled sequentially, from $400 million in the first quarter to $893 million in the second quarter. The company sold 7.4 million Xbox console units into the retail channel, including 3.9 million Xbox One consoles and 3.5 million Xbox 360 consoles. Bing search share grew to 18.2% and search advertising revenue grew 34% Commercial revenue grew 10% to $12.67 billion. SQL Server continued to gain market share with revenue growing double-digits. System Center showed continued strength with double-digit revenue growth. Commercial cloud services revenue more than doubled. Office 365 commercial seats and Azure customers both grew triple-digits. "Our Commercial segment continues to outpace the overall market, and our Devices and Consumer segment had a great holiday quarter... We significantly outpaced enterprise IT spend as we continue to take share from our competitors by delivering the devices and services our customers need as they transition to the cloud.

Synaptics (SYNA) reported second quarter earnings of $0.86 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues rose 43.9% year/year to $205.8 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the third quarter with EPS of $180-200 million which is line with expectaitons. "Excluding the impact of the acquisition of Validity, which closed in early November, our financial performance for the December quarter was above the mid-point of our guidance as we experienced strong year-over-year revenue growth in touchscreen and touchpad products," stated Rick Bergman, President and CEO. "As we enter the second half of fiscal 2014, we expect to benefit from continued strong organic growth, further augmented by growing contributions from our acquisitions and new product innovations. In addition, we are very excited with the progress of our new Fingerprint ID business and expect the acquisition to be accretive by the end of the fiscal year, earlier than previously anticipated." The company sees Q3 adjusted EPS of $0.44-0.64 which is line with expectations.
Juniper Networks (JNPR) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is better than expected, while revenues rose 11.7% year/year to $1.27 billion which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS of 0.27-0.30, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of 1.12-1.16 which is line with expectations. Q1 Non-GAAP gross margin will be 64.0%, plus or minus 0.5% (Street at 64.3%); Non-GAAP operating margin for the first quarter will be roughly 17.0% at the midpoint of revenue guidance.
KLA-Tencor (KLAC) reported second quarter earnings of $0.85 per share, which is better than expected, while revenues rose 4.8% year/year to $705 million which is line with expectations. KLAC will guide on their conference call, which begins at 5:00 ET. "KLA-Tencor's strong shipments, revenue and earnings during the second quarter demonstrate our market leadership and robust business model," commented Rick Wallace, President and CEO of KLA-Tencor. "As we begin 2014, the prevailing outlook is for growth in the semiconductor equipment industry, with leading device manufacturers increasing their capital expenditures to adopt complex new device architectures and process technologies at the leading edge. The heightened yield challenges associated with these transitions are driving demand for process control and positioning KLA-Tencor for continued future success as a critical business partner to our customers." The company sees third quarter EPS between $1.00-1.20 and revenues of $790-850 million which are both in line with expectations. The company sees Q3 bookings of $700-900 million.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary:

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Currency issues swallow the rally for now.
- More possible problems after hours as HSBC has been denying withdrawals.
- Bank issues, currency issues beg the question: can 'things' be that strong if the money holders are so nervous?
- Indices blasting through support. RUTX, SOX, well, still looking pretty darn good.
- Protect positions, watch leaders testing, watch for new leaders forming up, then see if the Fed decides it is indeed a slave to market moves at this week's FOMC meeting.

For a Few Dollars (or Yen?) More. Investors sell as currency issues continue.

Thursday Japan talked of its own taper, taper al la Abe. Stories hit about China's large co-ops closing their doors, refusing to return deposits despite depositor requests. This on top of liquidity issues already arising and the PBOC's rather dramatic liquidity injection that was called 'seasonal'.

Late Friday the word got worse. Of course it was after hours, and as Art Cashen said Friday, when currency issues are, well, at issue, the news tends to come on the weekends.

Seems HSBC could not even wait for Saturday. Of course HSBC wasn't really doing the announcing and it was not really a currency issue. It is a deposit issue, i.e. is the money there, and even if so, can you get it?

Jimmy Stewart in 'It's a Wonderful Life' explains how a savings and loan works as its members demand their money as the late 1920's crash sparks runs on banks.

The BBC reports HSBC has imposed restriction on larger cash withdrawals. Customers are discovering that unless they can provide written documentation of why they need withdrawals in amounts as little as 3,000 Pounds they cannot get the money. Their money. They have to prove to the bank they need it, to explain to the bank why you need your money. HSBC says they have a duty to prevent lawless use of money. HSBC says this policy started in November; it just didn't notify depositors of the policy.

Eastwood in 'For a Few Dollars More.' Will we need a gun to withdraw our own money from our friendly bank?

Can you imagine going to Wells Fargo or Chase and wanting to withdraw $5,000 cash and they refuse to give you the money? They were not doing it as of November here in the US; maybe things have changed and we just don't know it . . .

Nothing like a crescendo of reports involving deposit withdrawals to chill investors. The week also saw an upset in the USD/JPY (dollar/yen) pairing, with the yen rallying through 104 resistance, moving down to 102.5 yen per dollar. Too much flux for investors. They sold here and across the globe, though ironically, China's market rose as Japan's Nikkei dove almost 2%.

Just how great are things?

If banks are reluctant to release deposits to the depositors and Chinese banks don't have the money to release them even if they wanted, that begs the question, where art though recovery?

We are told, a la Kevin Costner in 'The Postman' as he quotes the fictitious President Starkey, 'stuff's getting better.' Yet Macy's lays off 2500, 2000 are canned by another leading retailer, TXN dumps 1100 workers, and Friday we learned late that WMT is cutting 2300 from Sam's Club stores, about 2% of the workforce.

I suppose they are doing what they can to hold up the unemployment rate. After all, 1.37M people fell off the rolls as extended benefits expired. That could push the unemployment rate down near 6%; maybe the layoffs will offset it. Hardly. The end result is the same: more people not working.

Tom Petty: I've heard of you. Your famous.
Costner (Postman): Yeah, I'm the Ben Bernanke of post-apocalyptic America, or at least Bernanke thinks he was me. Hey, weren't you famous once?
Tom Petty: That was a long time ago. Kind of like Bernanke.

In 'The Postman' the postman, inadvertently, raised hopes and in the end, despite his desire to just get by, ended up making the difference in a turn in post-apocalyptic society when his conscience would not let him just slip away. Maybe the Fed members are watching the reruns of the movie and fancy themselves as making the difference in the turn from the post-Great Recession aftermath. Yep, stuff's getting better . . .

THE ACTION

The US indices obviously did not fare well. Lower start, selloff into midmorning, obligatory bounce, rollover to lower lows by the close. Heck, even closed on the low. Doesn't get much weaker than that. Currency issues are stock kryptonite.

SP500 -38.27, -2.09%
NASDAQ -90.70, -2.15%
DJ30 -318.23, -1.96%
SP400 -2.51%
RUTX -2.41%
SOX -2.33%

Volume surged: +15% NYSE, +16% NASDAQ. Shares being dumped.

A/D jumped close to extreme levels quickly: -6:1 NASDAQ, -6.4:1 NYSE.

The hammering was across the board though the recent leaders in the growth indices had their clocks cleaned a bit better.

THE MARKET

OTHER MARKETS

Dollar: 1.3676 versus 1.3695 versus 1.3545 versus 1.3562 versus 1.3528 versus 1.3612 versus 1.3605 versus 1.3683 versus 1.3669 versus 1.3665 versus 1.3603 versus 1.3578 versus 1.3616 versus 1.3633 versus 1.3589 versus 1.3666 versus 1.3757 versus 1.3798 versus 1.3749 versus 1.3690 euro.

The dollar went up and now it is heading back down, trading now near where it traded 20 sessions ago. Still, however, trying to put in a big rounded bottom over the past 6 months.

Bonds: 2.73% versus 2.77% versus 2.86% versus 2.83% versus 2.83% versus 2.84% versus 2.88% versus 2.87% versus 2.83% versus 2.86% versus 2.97% versus 2.99% versus 2.94% versus 2.96% versus 3.00% versus 2.99% versus 3.03% versus 2.97% versus 3.01% versus 2.99% versus 2.98% 10 year.

Unlike the dollar, bonds are not heading back to where they were a few weeks back. They are heading up to where they were in late October and likely beyond. Makes no sense for bonds to be surging if the US economy is stronger and the Fed is tapering. BUT . . . there is worry around the world about China, India, South America and likely other exotic ports of call. When their people worry about their future, the rich get their money out and send it to, you got it, US treasuries.

Oil: 96.70, -0.55. Modest dip to test the 50 day EMA broken midweek. Double bottom from November to early January, and oil has bounced from it.

Gold: 1264.50, +1.90. Gold basically held steady, holding the Thursday surge back through the 50 day EMA. A six session test then a blast higher Thursday. Nice inverted head and shoulders set up the past two months with the bottom coincident with the late June 2013 bottom. Worry in the world, gold moves higher.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -90.7 points (+2.15%) to close at 4128.17
Volume: 2.469B (+16.24%)

Up Volume: 440M (-208.95M)
Down Volume: 2.02B (+520M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 5.96 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 2.19 to 1

New Highs: 49 (-68)
New Lows: 36 (+11)

S&P
Stats: -38.17 points (-2.09%) to close at 1790.29
NYSE Volume: 775M (+14.64%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 6.38 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 2.03 to 1

New Highs: 44 (-65)
New Lows: 130 (+31)

DJ30
Stats: -318.24 points (-1.96%) to close at 15879.11

THE CHARTS

NASDAQ crashed through the 20 day EMA but held over the early January lows and the mid-December upper gap point. It also held the November 2012 channel upper trendline. It CAN put in a higher low here, but after slamming to that level and closing at the session low it will have to prove it.

RUTX small caps were crushed through the January lows and landed just over the 50 day EMA. Hey, making that trip to the 50 day EMA after all. Question now is whether it drops further to the lower channel line about 16 points lower from the Friday close.

SP400 midcaps crashed the 20 day EMA as well, also breaking the 50 day EMA where it bounced in October and December. Perhaps it can hang in this area and rebound. It is midrange in the channel and it has tested the bottom before as in early September in a one-month selloff from late July 2013. Closed on the low, selling hard.

SOX slammed through the 20 day EMA as well though it remains well above the 50 day EMA and the lower channel line is just points away. Hard drop, looks as if the 50 day EMA makes sense unless the currency issues evaporate. Cannot count on that in a session or two.

SP500 crashed through the 50 day EMA by a large margin. Heading fast toward the November 2012 up trendline now just 15 points hither. SP500 has the look of a rollover. The high the past week could not punch through the late December all time peak and MACD put in a lower high. The trendline is going to have its work cut out for it as the large cap NYSE lagged the last move and is leading the move lower.

DJ30 was the first to the 50 day EMA as of Thursday and Friday it was a freefall. This even with MSFT rising 2% on its earnings. But, the Dow is a price weighted average and a $35 stock pulls no weight against MMM (130), AXP (87), GS (167), V (221), CAT (86), etc. Next very logical support after this dive: 15,740ish (December low) to 15,650ish (July, September highs).

LEADERSHIP

A bit harder to find as some solid stocks broke trends, e.g. SFUN, but of course even SFUN didn't break the 50 day EMA. A continuation of the Thursday action culled more from the leadership category, as CCMP, ZHNE, VVTV, MMM, gave up some big chunks and key support.

Still, in any pullback you look at the stocks that are not giving away the jewels and there are still present. Some are holding their patterns, at near support (10 or 20 day EMA), at the current up trendline, or at the 50 day EMA.

Big names: AAPL is showing resilience at the 50 day EMA. PCLN Faded Friday, but nominally versus other stocks and holding a nice move off the 50 day EMA. NFLX of course enjoyed a strong week on its earnings. TWTR is holding the 20 day EMA in a nice consolidation. LNKD is testing the 200 day SMA but is in a great pattern.

Biotechs/healthcare: XON holds the 10 day EMA on the fade. PACB tapped the 10 day EMA Friday and bounced. STXS is testing the 10 day EMA. GILD and BIIB remain strong. INO is in position to break higher. NPSP is holding the 10 day EMA, oblivious.

Electronics: AEIS broke the 10 day EMA but is still in a nice test of a big move. AFOP is at the 50 day EMA, in great position to bounce. ALTI is testing the 50 day EMA and in excellent position. CAMT was unfazed. LFUS sold to the 50 day EMA then surged back to the 20 day EMA. MONT is holding the 10 day EMA. SCTY filled the gap higher, still in great shape.

Energy: END remains strong. SN is testing modestly, holding the 10 day EMA.

Telecom: Stumbled some as the week wore one. EGHT sold hard but managed to recover some ground. SWIR started higher but was sold to its trendline Friday. Still can make the move.

Internet: TWTR is holding well as noted. YY fell sharply but this gives us an opportunity. WWWW is hanging in at the 20 day EMA, still trying to make the break.

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 18.14; +4.37
VXN: 18.84; +3.51
VXO: 16.33; +3.66

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.92; +0.04

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls bump back up after a week off (57.6 versus 56.10). Off the recent high still but didn't take much to get them revving again. Still at the point of extreme. Hit it, done its job.

Bears faded to 15.1 from 15.3. Basically holding steady the past three weeks after bouncing up from 14.

When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Note the extreme bullishness: it was this high in 2007 at the crash, in early 2005 as well.

Bulls: 57.6 versus 56.1 versus 60.6% versus 61.6% versus 60.0 versus 58.2 versus 57.1 versus 55.7 versus 53.6 versus 52.6 versus 55.2% versus 52.6 versus 49.5 versus 42.3% versus 45.4 versus 46.4% versus 44.3% versus 42.3% versus 37.1% versus 37.1% versus 38.1% versus 43.3%. Getting even more extreme . . .

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 15.1 versus 15.3% versus 15.2% versus 15.2% versus 14.0 versus 14.3 versus 14.3 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 15.5% versus 15.6% versus 16.5% versus 18.5 versus 21.6% versus 20.6% versus 18.6% versus 20.6% versus 21.6% versus 22.7% versus 23.7% versus 23.8% versus 21.6%. Held steady basically for the third straight week. Seems bears fall after each three weeks. Frankly, how much more can it fall? Further, I suppose.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

THIS WEEK

With two sharp sessions lower with the recent leading indices heading for deeper tests, there are three courses of action.

First, protect positions. We did that on the move higher by taking some nice gain along the way. Then as stocks sold we used trailing stops moved up under the gains. If good stocks are holding support, patterns, trendlines, we can let them hold. Those that do are in great position to lead the next bounce, and there are stocks doing that right now.

Second, look for those that are holding well, either near support, patterns, or deeper support such as the 50 day EMA or are completing patterns as the market sells and are preparing to debut. Some great movers that we banked some great gain on are testing the move and if they hold up we look to pick them up on the bounces. Winners test and hold their trends/patterns/support, and we have no qualms about putting more money in them when they hold and bounce in a market recovery. Remember, however, leaders step up first, typically before the market. If they hold and show strength, that is good enough.

Third, after the market finishes selling this round, while we want to play the leaders that are still in position or have set up to become leaders (or at least are in a good risk/reward position to make us money), also keep an eye on stocks that rebound but do not repair the selling damage. Those are potential downside plays, and if the market cannot sustain a recovery, then they are prime candidates to play the next leg lower.

Right now we are simply gauging the selling and as noted in the discussion of the index charts, there is more downside room for SP500 and indeed most of the indices though RUTX and SOX could prove to be the early recovery indices.

What could cause a recovery? The currency issues need to die down and the market needs to digest them. What about the FOMC on Wednesday? Expected to taper another $10B/month, Friday the talk was that a Yellen Fed would not want to chance markets spiraling lower. She believes in wealth effect by stocks and does not want to lose that aspect of the 'recovery.' Of course the Fed cannot dictate market gains, though it has done pretty well since March 2009 . . .

Thus the FOMC is the wildcard. It could really help without a taper, it might hurt with a taper, but it also might hurt with no taper. The old 'what does the Fed know we don't?' issue. Of course the answer is 'nothing,' but changes in direction make investors wonder. It is a crapshoot as to the Fed's action. I would say likely another taper, but Yellen is new, a dove, and the market is down damn hard in two sessions.

Either way we play the same way, just have the added spice of the FOMC.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4128.17

Resistance:

Support:
4124 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13
The 50 day EMA at 4084
4070 is the series of highs from late November/early December
4022 is the November 2012 trendline
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
The 200 day SMA at 3714
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.

S&P 500: Closed at 1790.29

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 1809
1849.44 is the recent all-time high.

Support:
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1773 is the December 2012 up trendline
1768 is the December 3013 low
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
The 200 day SMA at 1701
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1627 is the August 2013 low
1576 from October 2007, the prior all-time high
1573 is the June 2013 closing low
1569.48 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement of the April to May 2013 run
1560 is the June 2013 reversal low

Dow: Closed at 15,879.11

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 16,133
16,175 is the November 2013 peak.
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high

Support:
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
The 200 day SMA at 15,439
15,318 is the June closing high
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

January 27 - Monday
- New Home Sales, December (10:00): 457K expected, 464K prior

January 28 - Tuesday
- Durable Orders, December (8:30): 2.1% expected, 3.4% prior (revised from 3.5%)
- Durable Goods -ex transports, December (8:30): 0.6% expected, 1.2% prior
- Case-Shiller 20-city, November (9:00): 13.8% expected, 13.6% prior
- Consumer Confidence, January (10:00): 77.5 expected, 78.1 prior

January 29 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 01/25 (7:00): 4.7% prior
- Crude Inventories, 01/25 (10:30): 0.990M prior
- FOMC Rate Decision, January (14:00): 0.25% expected, 0.25% prior

January 30 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 01/25 (8:30): 325K expected, 326K prior
- Continuing Claims, 01/18 (8:30): 3000K expected, 3056K prior
- GDP-Adv., Q4 (8:30): 3.0% expected, 4.1% prior
- Chain Deflator-Adv., Q4 (8:30): 1.2% expected, 2.0% prior
- Pending Home Sales, December (10:00): -0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
- Natural Gas Inventories, 01/25 (10:30): -107 bcf prior

January 31 - Friday
- Personal Income, December (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
- Personal Spending, December (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.5% prior
- PCE Prices - Core, December (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Employment Cost Index, Q4 (8:30): 0.4% expected, 0.4% prior
- Chicago PMI, January (9:45): 58.0 expected, 60.8 prior (revised from 59.1)
- Michigan Sentiment - Final, January (9:55): 80.4 expected, 80.4 prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages followed last week's sharp losses with another shaky performance. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 posted respective declines of 0.3% and 0.5% while the Nasdaq (-1.1%) and Russell 2000 (-1.5%) underperformed.

Stocks displayed gains at the open but the early strength faded during the initial hour as the Nasdaq headed into the red. The other indices followed suit and the broad retreat continued until about 12:20 ET when stocks reversed and spent the afternoon in a steady climb. Moderate selling pressure returned during the final hour, knocking the indices off their afternoon highs.

Although there was no news responsible for the turn, the morning selling coincided with a strengthening yen while the session low in equities matched the high point for the Japanese currency. Once the yen began weakening again, a rally in equities ensued. Similarly, the selling observed during the last 30 minutes of action coincided with the yen gaining strength once again.

The Dow and S&P 500 held up relatively well compared to the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The index suffered after being hit with a one-two punch of selling interest as large cap tech names and biotechnology retreated. The tech sector (-1.0%) finished at the bottom of the leaderboard while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 238.60, -5.42) lost 2.2% and also pressured the health care sector (-0.8%).

Even though technology underperformed, its largest component, Apple (AAPL 550.50, +4.43) added 0.8% ahead of its after-hours earnings report.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the industrial sector (+0.2%) drew strength from Caterpillar (CAT 91.29, +5.12) after the Dow component reported above-consensus results and announced a $10 billion buyback program. Transports, however, did not take part in the rally. The bellwether complex lost 0.8% after plunging 4.1% on Friday.

On the countercyclical side, health care (-0.8%) lagged while consumer staples (-0.3%), telecom services (+0.1%), and utilities (+0.2%) outperformed.

The early selling fueled a scramble for downside protection, which sent the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 17.51, -0.63) as high as 18.99%. However, the subsequent rebound invited many to lift their hedges. As a result, the near-term volatility measure ended lower by 3.5%.

Treasuries finished on their lows with the benchmark 10-yr yield up five basis points at 2.77%.

Participation was a bit above average as 764 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to the December New Home Sales, which fell 7.0% to 414,000 from a downwardly revised 445,000 (from 464,000) while the Briefing.com consensus pegged the reading at 457,000. Total sales in 2013 increased 16.3% to 428,000 from 368,000 in 2012. That was the most new homes sold since 485,000 sales registered in 2008. Although that may seem like a lot, more than a million new homes were sold each year from 2003 to 2006.

We hypothesized that the strong sales performance in October and November was due to buyers rushing into the market to take advantage of relatively low interest rates in a rising interest rate environment. The large December decline adds evidence to this theory as the push forward in demand dried up and sales levels returned to where they were during the lackluster summer period. Another drop in January would deliver more credence to the contention that gains in October and November were not from sustainable demand growth.

Tomorrow, December Durable Orders will be released at 8:30 ET while the November Case-Shiller 20-city Index and January Consumer Confidence will cross the wires at 9:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite -2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.1% YTD
S&P 500 -3.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.5% YTD

DJ30 -41.23 NASDAQ -44.56 SP500 -8.73 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 589/2.15 bln/2036 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 795/763.6 mln/2278 3:35 pm : Natural gas futures sold off today nicely following a huge rally, which pushed futures above $5/MMBtu late last week (over the weekend).

Today, Feb natural gas sold off $0.35/MMBtu (or -7%) to $4.68/MMbtu, following profit-taking.

Crude oil futures sold off early this morning and remained near its LoD for most of the session. Mar crude ended $0.94 lower at $95.78/barrel.

Precious metals ended the day mixed with Feb gold losing $1.5 to $1263/oz and Mar silver gaining $0.04 to $19.80/oz

4:45PM Semtech announces restructuring activity: to reduce workforce by ~6% (SMTC) 22.85 -0.37 : Co announced a reduction in its workforce by approximately 6 percent as part of a previously announced restructuring effort that is expected to strengthen its focus and increase future operating efficiencies. As a result of these activities, the Company also expects to take one-time charges that include, but are not limited to: employee termination benefits, the write down of inventory, goodwill and other intangibles and the impairment of fixed assets and other assets. Such charges are currently under review and additional details will be provided when Semtech reports its fourth quarter fiscal year 2014 financial results in early March. The estimated financial impact of the recent activity is expected to reduce full, normalized annual operating expenses by approximately $35.0 million for the Company's fiscal year 2015.

"Due to the significant reduction in demand in the second half of our fiscal year 2014, we have initiated a series of operating expense reductions across the Company. We believe these actions position the Company to accelerate earnings growth as our overall demand returns to growth," said Mohan Maheswaran, President and Chief Executive Officer of Semtech Corporation.

4:36PM Apple hits after-hours lows in electronic trade, now down 34.5 pts following earnings/guidance results... stock is now @ $516 (AAPL) 550.50 +4.43 :

4:34PM Apple beats by $0.45, reports revs in-line on lower than expected iPhone sales; guides Q2 revs below consensus; gross margin in-line (AAPL) 550.50 +4.43 : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $14.50 per share, $0.45 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $14.05; revenues rose 5.7% year/year to $57.59 bln vs the $57.42 bln consensus and $55-58 bln guidance; gross margin 37.9% vs. 36.5-37.5% guidance and 37.4% ests.

51 mln iPhones sold in Q1 vs Street est of ~56.5 mln
26 mln iPads sold in Q1 vs Street est of ~24.5 mln
4.8 mln Macs sold in Q1 vs Street est of ~4.5 mln

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $42-44 bln vs. $46.22 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin 37-38% vs. 37.4% estimates.

"We generated $22.7 billion in cash flow from operations and returned an additional $7.7 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the December quarter, bringing cumulative payments under our capital return program to over $43 billion."

4:32PM Apple initially drops 25 pts to ~$525 following earnings results... stock is now $526.41/share (see 16:30 comments) (AAPL) 550.50 +4.43 :

4:09PM Rambus reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY14 revs above consensus (RMBS) 9.58 +0.59 : Reports Q4 (Dec) adj. earnings of $0.14 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.14; revenues rose 27.9% year/year to $73.4 mln vs the $73.21 mln consensus, due to the new license agreements signed with SK Hynix, Micron Technology, ST Microelectronics and LSI Corporation during 2013.

Co issues upside guidance for FY14, sees FY14 customer licensing income and rev of $295-305 mln vs. $287.79 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Customer licensing income and revenue are not without risk and include expectations that the Company will sign new customers for patent as well as solutions licensing. The Company also expects to keep its non-GAAP operating expenses relatively flat, year over year.

4:07PM Sanmina beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SANM) 14.80 -0.44 : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.41 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.38; revenues fell 3.0% year/year to $1.45 bln vs the $1.45 bln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.36-0.42 vs. $0.37 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.425-1.475 vs. $1.44 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"Our first quarter results were in line with our expectations. We remain focused on higher value-added services, markets and innovative technologies. This allows us to capitalize on opportunities with new and existing customers and further strengthen our operating model. Our outlook for the second quarter reflects our view of a soft first half of fiscal 2014. We are encouraged by our customers' forecasts, recent wins and overall market improvements that will drive modest growth for fiscal 2014."

4:06PM Seagate Tech misses by $0.07, reports revs in-line (STX) 58.05 -0.52 : Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $1.32 per share, $0.07 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.39; revenues fell 3.8% year/year to $3.53 bln vs the $3.56 bln consensus.

Co reported NON-GAAP gross margin of 28.5%.
"Seagate's results in the December quarter reflect discipline in managing the profitability of our business and strong operational execution. We continue to strategically invest in our product portfolio and enhance our vertically integrated manufacturing capabilities to effectively capitalize on the cloud, mobile and open source storage trends that are being fueled by data growth,"
The co will guide for Q3 on its conference call at 17:00

4:01PM MagnaChip Semi announced that it is postponing its fourth quarter 2013 earnings release (MX) 17.59 -0.13 : Co announced that it is postponing its fourth quarter 2013 earnings release and investor conference call, previously scheduled for Tuesday, January 28, 2014, to provide additional time for the Company to complete its review of its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2013. When the Company completes its review, it intends to issue a press release to reschedule its fourth quarter 2013 earnings release and investor conference call.

12:54PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

S (8.77 +4.40%): Co announced the availability of LTE service in 40 more markets nationwide, for a total of 340 markets
CAT (89.43 +3.78%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.26 ($1.54 vs $1.28 estimate), revs fell 10.4% yoy to $14.4 bln vs $13.61 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $5.85 ex items vs $5.80 estimate, revs of ~$53.2-58.8 bln vs $55.18 bln estimate; co expects 1.7 bln of stock repurchase and announced authorization for new $10 bln stock repurchase program
MRK (53.31 +2.57%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-weight at Morgan Stanley

Large Cap Losers

TWTR (56.37 -8.70%): Hearing mentioned negatively at Tier 1 firm; David Faber recommended shorting a "basket of momentum stocks" including TSLA, NFLX, FB, TWTR, VEEV, and DDD
IRE (15.33 -7.37%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura
SNE (15.8 -5.50%): Moody's downgraded to Ba1/Not Prime; outlook stable

Mid Cap Gainers

SMI (4.94 +7.55%): Upgraded to Buy from Sell at UBS
RYN (44.19 +7.31%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.13 ($0.64 vs $0.51 estimate), revs rose 26.0% yoy to $520 mln vs $438.38 mln estimate; co plans to separate its Performance Fibers business from its Forest Resources and Real Estate businesses
SIG (78.37 +5.24%): Co reported it had a constructive meeting with Corvex Management; co "will continue to carefully review" these matters

Mid Cap Losers

JAZZ (136.13 -8.75%): Weakness in select biotech/healthcare stocks: ALGN, PCYC, ACAD also lower
CTRP (36.68 -7.4%): Continued weakness following questions surroinding Chinese auditors
ISIS (45.33 -6.38%): Seeing some insider selling activity

9:01AM FormFactor announced an organizational restructuring and cost reductions to improve company profitability; Co sees about $1 mln in savings in Q1 and $2 mln beginning in Q2 (FORM) 6.62 : Co announced an organizational restructuring and cost reductions to improve company profitability. These actions will eliminate ~61 positions worldwide with expected savings of about $1 mln in the first quarter of 2014, excluding the restructuring costs of ~$1.2 mln, and about $2 mln of savings per quarter beginning in the second quarter of 2014.

"It has been one year since the acquisition of MicroProbe and these actions are the logical next steps to realize further synergies in our co," said Tom St. Dennis, FormFactor CEO and Executive Chairman. "The restructuring and cost reductions improve our efficiency and effectiveness while positioning FormFactor for a profitable year in 2014." The co will discuss these actions and its Q4 2013 results on its regularly scheduled earnings call scheduled for Wednesday, February 5, 2014.

Altera (ALTR) complemented its suite of verification and board-level design tools with the release of its JNEye link analysis tool.

8:05AM SMTC Corp reports new management determined that the Company should conduct a full physical count of its inventory; estimates that adjustments to the Company's inventory balance resulting from these errors as of the end of Q4 2012, which includes the impact of adjustments for immaterial errors in prior periods in 2012, will total $725K (SMTX) 2.48 : Co reports the physical Inventory count results for fiscal year ended December 29, 2013 and the non-reliance on certain previously issued Financial Statements.

In connection with the preparation of financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 29, 2013, new management of SMTC determined that the Company should conduct a full physical count of its inventory.

The Company's previous practice was to perform cycle counts of inventory on a periodic basis as permitted by generally accepted accounting principles.
As a result of this full physical count, the Company has identified an overstatement of inventory at its Chihuahua, Mexico operations that it has preliminarily estimated at a cumulative $3.2 million.
A portion of this overstatement reflects normal adjustments for missing, excess or obsolete inventory. The majority of the overstatement, currently estimated at approximately $2.0 million, is attributable to errors in the inventory valuation occurring in prior reporting periods beginning with the quarter ended April 3, 2011.
These errors resulted from an inappropriate and unapproved shop floor practice followed by personnel at the Company's Chihuahua, Mexico plant, which involved the improper use of the plant's work order system.
This inappropriate practice was discovered and terminated by the Company in the 2013 third quarter. Based on its review to date, the Company believes these errors are immaterial to its 2011 quarterly and full year financial results.
The Company believes the impact of these errors relates primarily to the fourth quarter of 2012 and the first three quarters of 2013. The Company, based on currently available information, estimates that adjustments to the Company's inventory balance resulting from these errors as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2012, which includes the impact of adjustments for immaterial errors in prior periods in 2012, will total $725,000, and as of the end of the first three quarters of 2013 will total $390,000, $410,000 and $350,000, respectively.
The remaining impact of the overstatement, ~$1.33 million, is expected to be recorded in the fourth quarter of 2013. A portion of this expected 2013 fourth quarter adjustment may represent prior period errors for which no information currently exists by which to determine timing.
The effect of these adjustments will be to reduce inventories, increase cost of sales and reduce net earnings in each period.

As a result, on January 24, 2014, the Board of Directors of SMTC, on the recommendation of management, and in consultation with KPMG LLP, the Company's independent registered public accounting firm, concluded that the Company's financial results for the quarter ended December 30, 2012 included in the Company's financial statements for the year ended December 30, 2012, and for the quarters ended March 31, June 30 and September 29, 2013, should no longer be relied upon.

SMTC intends to correct the errors described above by restating its financial statements for the year ended December 30, 2012 and for the quarters ended March 31, June 30 and September 29, 2013.

8:02AM Micron announces repurchases of convertible debt (MU) 22.92 : Co announces that, using privately-negotiated transactions, it had repurchased approximately $26 mln in aggregate principal amount of its 1.875% Convertible Senior Notes due 2031 for $65 mln in cash, approximately $100 mln in aggregate principal amount of its 2.375% Convertible Senior Notes due 2032 for $249 mln in cash and approximately $38 mln in aggregate principal amount of its 3.125% Convertible Senior Notes due 2032 for $93 mln in cash.

"The transactions we announced today reduced the dilutive effect of our existing convertible notes...We eliminated approximately 10 mln shares from our current dilutive share count and reduced the outstanding principal amount of our debt by approximately $164 million."

7:05AM Sierra Wireless announced that Sierra Wireless has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Vancouver-based In Motion Technology for $21 mln (SWIR) 21.91 : Co and In Motion Technology announced that Sierra Wireless has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Vancouver-based In Motion for $21 mln US dollars in cash consideration, subject to certain customary post-closing adjustments.

In Motion is a leader in mobile enterprise solutions, providing rugged in-vehicle mobile routers tightly integrated with an advanced mobile-optimized security system and a powerful management and application platform. The complete solution enables organizations to connect and manage mobile operations, vehicles, and workforces more efficiently, reliably and securely.

With complementary product portfolios and channels, Sierra Wireless and In Motion will together provide the broadest choice of device-to-cloud solutions for enterprise customers, from simple gateways to full featured mobile routers, as well as a comprehensive suite of cloud services and applications. The combined co will hold a strong leadership position and unique capabilities in important growth segments, including public safety, transit, and commercial fleet.

7:01AM Canadian Solar announces the sale of a 10MW utility scale solar power plant in Ontario to a fund managed by BlackRock (CSIQ) 37.25 : Co announced that its subsidiary, Canadian Solar Solutions Inc., entered into an agreement with a fund managed by BlackRock ("BlackRock"), whereby BlackRock will acquire from Canadian Solar the Westbrook 10MW AC utility-scale solar power plant in Kingston, Ontario at a valuation comparable to other recent project sales completed by Canadian Solar on a per megawatt basis in the Ontario market. This follows BlackRock's acquisition on September 30, 2013 of the Demorestville and Taylor Kidd utility-scale solar power plants, totaling 20MW (AC), and located in Demorestville and Odessa, Ontario, Canada, respectively.

The construction of the Westbrook solar plant is already underway, with commercial operation expected in the second quarter of 2014. Canadian Solar is providing turnkey engineering, procurement and construction ("EPC") services to complete the project and will provide operations and maintenance ("O&M") services after completion.

4:03AM ReneSola to provide 57 MW of Virtus PV modules to Isolux Corsan (SOL) 3.39 : Co announces an agreement to provide Isolux Corsan, a global benchmark in the areas of concessions, energy, construction and industrial services and a leader in engineering, procurement and construction projects for solar PV plants, with 57 megawatts of Virtus PV modules for installation in three commercial PV projects in the United Kingdom.

According to the terms of the agreement, ReneSola will deliver 57 MW of Virtus PV modules with an average power output of 250 W. The modules will be installed at projects in Cornwall, Dorset, and Norfolk in the United Kingdom. ReneSola began delivery in December 2013 and the three projects are expected to connect to the grid in March of this year.

FLIR Systems (FLIR) announced that William A. Sundermeier, President of the Company's Government Systems Division, has resigned to pursue other personal and business opportunities. Thomas A. Surran, most recently President of the Company's Commercial Systems Division, has been appointed Chief Operating Officer, and will assume responsibility for FLIR's global commercial and government operations. Mr. Sundermeier has agreed to assist the Company with the transition of his responsibilities through the end of February.
LM Ericsson (ERIC) and Samsung (SSNLF) have reached an agreement on global patent licenses between the two companies. The cross license agreement covers patents relating to GSM, UMTS, and LTE standards for both networks and handsets. Impact of settlement: Settlement ends all ongoing patent related legal disputes Agreement includes global patent cross licensing of cellular technologies License illustrates Ericsson's commitment to FRAND principles Settlement impacts Ericsson sales and net income in Q4 2013 by SEK 4.2 bln. and SEK 3.3 bln. respectively.
ReneSola (SOL) announces an agreement to provide Isolux Corsan, a global benchmark in the areas of concessions, energy, construction and industrial services and a leader in engineering, procurement and construction projects for solar PV plants, with 57 megawatts of Virtus PV modules for installation in three commercial PV projects in the United Kingdom. According to the terms of the agreement, ReneSola will deliver 57 MW of Virtus PV modules with an average power output of 250 W. The modules will be installed at projects in Cornwall, Dorset, and Norfolk in the United Kingdom. ReneSola began delivery in December 2013 and the three projects are expected to connect to the grid in March of this year.
Sierra Wireless (SWIR) and In Motion Technology announced that Sierra Wireless has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Vancouver-based In Motion for $21 mln US dollars in cash consideration, subject to certain customary post-closing adjustments.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market halted its three-day slide on Tuesday as the S&P 500 gained 0.6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.4%) also finished in the green, but couldn't keep pace with the S&P 500 as Apple (AAPL 506.50, -44.00) weighed following its quarterly report.

Although the largest tech company beat on earnings and revenue, investors were not pleased by below-consensus iPhone sales. In addition, disappointing guidance for the second quarter also factored into the stock's 8.0% loss.

The remainder of the technology sector (-0.7%) was a bit more mixed as large-cap names like Google (GOOG 1123.01, +21.78), Oracle (ORCL 37.10, +0.61), and Intel (INTC 24.90, +0.18) posted solid gains while Seagate (STX 51.52, -6.53) tumbled 11.3% after missing earnings estimates.

Outside of technology, most other cyclical groups finished ahead of the broader market. Financials (+1.3%) ended in the lead while the materials (+0.5%) sector was the only cyclical underperformer. U.S. Steel (X 25.34, -0.11) lost 0.4% after reporting mixed earnings.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector advanced 0.8% with help from homebuilders after DR Horton (DHI 23.00, +2.06) reported better-than-expected results. The stock surged 9.8% while the broader iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.52, +0.90) jumped 3.8%.

Also of note, the industrial sector (+0.9%) rallied as transports provided support. The Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 1.1%, finishing just above its 50-day moving average.

On the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+0.7%) and health care (+1.3%) took part in the broad rally while telecom services (UNCH) and utilities (+0.4%) lagged.

Treasuries ended little changed despite showing early losses. The benchmark 10-yr yield settled at 2.75%.

Participation was well below average as only 609 million shares changed hands at the NYSE. So far in January, only six sessions have generated above-average volume with five taking place on days when the market ended lower.

Today's economic data included three reports.

Durable goods orders fell 4.3% in December after increasing a downwardly revised 2.6% (from 3.4%). The Briefing.com consensus expected durable goods orders to increase 2.1%. Boeing (BA 137.09, -0.27) reported solid aircraft orders in December, and that was expected to carry overall durable goods orders higher for the month. Yet, the official Census data showed aircraft orders, defense and nondefense, down 16.7%. A large portion of the decline was due to seasonal adjustments that naturally occur in December. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders fell 1.6% which was well below the 0.6% gain expected by the consensus. These orders were revised down from an originally reported 1.2% gain in November to a 0.1% increase.
The November Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index rose 13.6% while a 13.8% increase had been expected by the Briefing.com consensus. This followed the previous month's increase of 13.6%.
The January Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index increased to 80.7 from a downwardly revised 77.5 (from 78.1) in December. The Briefing.com consensus pegged the Consumer Confidence Index at 77.5. The strengthening in consumer confidence stands in contrast to what the preliminary reading for the January University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index showed. That index dropped on weakness in the labor market, increased volatility in equity prices, and higher gasoline prices.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while the FOMC will release its latest policy directive at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.1% YTD
S&P 500 -3.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.9% YTD

4:25PM Freescale Semi beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus (FSL) 15.30 +0.00 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.19 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.18; revenues rose 13.1% year/year to $1.08 bln vs the $1.05 bln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $1.07-1.11 bln vs. $1.04 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 gross margins increasing approximately 50-75 basis points on a sequential basis.

4:09PM Yahoo! beats by $0.08, reports revs in-line (YHOO) 38.22 +1.57 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.46 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.38; revenues fell 1.7% year/year to $1.2 bln vs the $1.2 bln consensus.

Display:

GAAP display revenue was $553 million for the fourth quarter of 2013, a 6 percent decrease compared to $591 million for the fourth quarter of 2012. Display revenue ex-TAC was $491 million for the fourth quarter of 2013, a 6 percent decrease compared to $520 million for the fourth quarter of 2012.
The Number of Ads Sold (excluding Korea) increased approximately 3 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.
Price-per-Ad (excluding Korea) decreased approximately 7 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.

Search:

GAAP search revenue was $464 million for the fourth quarter of 2013, a 4 percent decrease compared to $482 million for the fourth quarter of 2012. Search revenue ex-TAC was $461 million for the fourth quarter of 2013, an 8 percent increase compared to $427 million for the fourth quarter of 2012.
Paid Clicks (excluding Korea) increased approximately 17 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.
Price-per-Click (excluding Korea) decreased approximately 3 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.

Cash, cash equivalents, and investments in marketable securities were $5 billion as of December 31, 2013 compared to $6 billion as of December 31, 2012, a decrease of $1 billion. During the fourth quarter of 2013, Yahoo repurchased 6 million shares for $231 million and used a net $60 million for acquisitions. During the year ended December 31, 2013, Yahoo repurchased 129 million shares for $3.3 billion and used a net $1.2 billion for acquisitions. During the fourth quarter of 2013, Yahoo received net proceeds of $1.3 billion, which is net of the call spread, from the issuance of 0.00% Convertible Senior Notes due 2018 and net proceeds of $295 million from the settlement of derivative hedge contracts.

4:09PM Pericom Semi reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line (PSEM) 8.43 -0.03 : Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.08 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.08; revenues rose 5.3% year/year to $32 mln vs the $32.4 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $30-32.5 mln vs. $32.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
GAAP gross margins are expected to be between 37.0-39.0%, and adjusting for share-based compensation, amortization of intangibles and fair value adjustments that are expected to total ~1.5%, non-GAAP gross margins are expected to be in the 38.5-40.5% range.

4:06PM RF Micro Device reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q4 below consensus (RFMD) 4.87 : Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.13; revenues rose 6.4% year/year to $288.5 mln vs the $319.7 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.09-0.10 vs. $0.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $250-260 mln vs. $287.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06PM Tessera Tech and Samsung (SSNLF) enter into new patent license agreements (TSRA) 18.73 0.00 : Co and Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) announced that Tessera's subsidiaries Tessera, Inc. and Invensas each entered into new patent license agreements with Samsung. The specific terms and conditions of the agreements are confidential and have not been disclosed by the companies.

4:05PM Cirrus Logic beats by $0.12, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus (CRUS) 18.74 -0.88 : Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.89 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.77; revenues fell 29.4% year/year to $218.9 mln vs the $212.89 mln consensus.

Q3 Gross margin of 47.4%
Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $130-150 mln vs. $175.84 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Gross margin is expected to be between 47-49%.
"While our business is typically driven by product cycles that weight our revenue more heavily towards the September and December quarters, we expect to exceed our operating profit goal of 20 percent in FY14 and we remain committed to this long-term target. We are extremely excited to be taping out a wave of new products in advanced geometries this year as we look to capitalize on strategic opportunities in audio with new and existing customers, especially the growing trend of voice as a powerful interface to a wide variety of devices. We anticipate these products will contribute to future revenue growth as early as calendar year 2015."

2:43PM Advanced Micro confirms plans to accelerate the ARM (ARMH) server ecosystem with first ARM-Based CPU and development platform from a server processor vendor (AMD) 3.54 +0.13 :

Large Cap Gainers

AAL (31.45 +4.21%): Reported Q4 adj. earnings (on a combined basis) of $0.59 per share, may not be comparable to $0.55 estimate; revs rose 8.7% y/y to $10 bln vs the $9.92 bln estimate, on a 3.4 percent increase in total ASMs.
TROW (80.23 +4.86%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line.
MT (16.74 +4%): Upgraded to Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt raised to $16.

Large Cap Losers

VIP (10.1 -13.16%): Co provided update on strategy and targets for 2014; revenues and EBITDA to be stable y/y; Supervisory Board approved a new dividend policy pursuant to which from 2014 it aims to pay annual dividends of $0.035 per share until the co reaches a group Net Debt to EBITDA ratio of under 2 times.
STX (51.34 -11.56%): Missed on EPS by $0.07, reported revs in-line; sees Q3 revs of approx $3.4 bln, vs $3.459 bln estimate.
GLW (17.08 -6.26%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs.

Mid Cap Gainers

OSK (56.71 +10.3%): Beat on EPS by $0.29, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance.
DHI (22.85 +9.14%): Beat on EPS by $0.07, beat on revs.
SWFT (21.52 +8.03%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line.

Mid Cap Losers

HIMX (13.31 -8.46%): Downgraded to Neutral at Chardan Capital Markets; Prescription Google Glass frames are now available for developers; CNET reported Google Glass will be available to the public in 'late 2014'.
HLF (61.9 -3.37%): Drop attributed to NY Post story suggesting probe by Canadian regulator.
OCN (45.02 -3.41%): Sees Q4 revs below expectations; sees $100-106 mln in net income in Q4.

10:49AM Verizon shareholders approve issuance of shares to acquire Verizon Wireless (VZ) 47.40 -0.29 : At a special meeting held today, a substantial majority of shareholders of Verizon Communications (VZ) approved the company's issuance of up to 1.28 billion shares of common stock to Vodafone shareholders to complete the acquisition of Vodafone Group PLC's indirect 45 percent interest in Verizon Wireless. Earlier today at a shareholder meeting in London, Vodafone shareholders also approved matters necessary for the transaction to close.

Cisco (CSCO) extended its cloud portfolio with new products and services - including a breakthrough hybrid cloud solution, dubbed Cisco InterCloud, which is intended to lower the total cost of cloud services ownership for IT organizations and pave the way for interoperable and highly secure public, private and hybrid clouds.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that Dune HD has selected Broadcom's BCM7356 satellite system-on-a-chip for its next generation set-top box deployments.

BlackBerry (BBRY) announced BlackBerry 10 OS version 10.2.1, a new software update for BlackBerry 10 smartphones that lets you do more, more easily, and helps you be more productive and stay better connected.

8:02AM SunPower announces program with Bank of America Merrill Lynch to finance $220 mln in residential solar lease projects (SPWR) 31.02 : Co announced a new program with Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA Merrill) that will provide financing to support approximately $220 million of residential solar lease projects. The program will assist thousands of homeowners in financing solar power systems through SunPower solar leases, joining approximately 20,000 Americans currently enrolled in the program.

BofA Merrill and SunPower have worked together since 2009, when BofA Merrill began financing large solar projects SunPower designed and constructed for public agencies in California, including Yolo County and Mendocino Community College.

In addition to attractive terms and low monthly payments, the SunPower Lease includes one of the solar industry's only direct-from-manufacturer performance guarantees.

8:02AM JDS Uniphase announces that it is providing core optical technology for the Kinect system that enables the new Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox One entertainment and communications console to provide highly-precise 3D sensing capabilities (JDSU) 11.94 : In addition to enabling consumers to control Xbox One applications using body movements or gestures instead of using a traditional game controller, the new sensor can now sense multiple users and also much more subtle activities such as facial expressions and heart rate and incorporate them into various Xbox One applications.

7:19AM Corning beats by $0.02, beats on revs (GLW) 18.22 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.27; revenues fell 2.0% year/year to $2 bln vs the $1.93 bln consensus.

Core gross margin in the quarter was 40%, a 2 percentage points decline from the year-ago period. The decline was the result of lower Gorilla Glass volume, as well as a weaker sales mix in the company's Optical Communications segment.

2014 Outlook

'The incremental profitability we expect to achieve with the consolidation of Samsung Corning Precision into our display business, coupled with a new $2 billion share repurchase program, should result in a 20% accretion to earnings per share on a fully diluted basis." Corning will provide investors with details on the company's 2014 outlook at its annual Investor Relations meeting in New York on Friday, Feb. 7.

Q1 Guidance

Corning anticipates that glass volume in its Display Technologies segment will be down slightly sequentially, in line with normal seasonality. The company expects LCD glass price declines to be higher than previous quarters. The price declines are not related to the SCP acquisition or a result of recent supply contract renewals. The company expects that price declines will return to moderate levels after the first quarter.
Corning anticipates another year of growth in the LCD glass market in 2014, with retail demand up a mid-to-high single digit percentage, as measured in square feet. The company said that supply chain inventory levels remain healthy and industry glass supply appears aligned with overall demand.
In the Optical Communications segment, Corning anticipates first-quarter sales growth to be in the mid-teens on a percentage basis, a significant improvement over the first quarter last year.
For the Environmental Technologies segment, first-quarter sales should increase by a mid-single digit percentage on a year-over-year basis, driven by improvements in heavy-duty diesel products in China and Europe.
Specialty Materials segment sales are expected to be consistent on a year- over-year comparison in the first quarter, which is seasonally the slowest quarter each year.
The company expects its Gorilla Glass volume to increase on a yearly basis in quarter one, and as the year progresses, be more in line with overall industry consumption of glass for devices.
Life Sciences segment sales should be comparable to those of a year-ago first quarter.

Spreadtrum Communications (SPRD) introduced its next generation single-core smartphone platform for WCDMA, TD-SCDMA and EDGE, which integrates a Cortex-A7 CPU running at speeds up to 1.2GHz as well as GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and FM connectivity functions.

1:27AM Advanced Energy acquires assets of AEG Power control modules product line (AEIS) 24.95 : Co announces it has acquired the assets of AEG Power Solutions GmbH line of Power Control Modules. Owned by 3WPower, AEG PS's Power Control Modules business is the second largest supplier in its served market. It is comprised of the Thyro-Family of products and accessories and serves numerous power control applications in different industries ranging from materials thermal processing through chemical processing, glass manufacturing and numerous other general industrial power applications. AEG's advanced Power Control Modules provide precision power control through advanced communication and control algorithms. The Thyro-Family product line offers clean and controlled power combined with extensive technical and applications support. This acquisition is expected to accelerate Advanced Energy's revenue and profitability over time.

Advanced Energy has acquired the Power Control Module product line for EUR22 million in cash plus a one year earn-out of up to EUR1 million, payable in cash, if the EBITDA target for the product line is met in the first 12 months after closing.

Apple (AAPL) reported first quarter earnings of $14.50 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 5.7% year/year to $57.59 billion which is line with estimates, and $55-58 billion guidance; gross margin 37.9% versus 36.5-37.5% guidance. 51 million iPhones sold in the first quarter which is below estimates. 26 million iPads sold which is higher than expected. and 4.8 million Macs sold which is also higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with revenues of $42-44 billion which is below expectations, gross margin 37-38% vs. 37.4% estimates. "We generated $22.7 billion in cash flow from operations and returned an additional $7.7 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the December quarter, bringing cumulative payments under our capital return program to over $43 billion."
Seagate Tech (STX) reported second quarter earnings of $1.32 per share, while revenues fell 3.8% year/year to $3.53 billion which are both below estimates. The company reported NON-GAAP gross margin of 28.5%. "Seagate's results in the December quarter reflect discipline in managing the profitability of our business and strong operational execution. We continue to strategically invest in our product portfolio and enhance our vertically integrated manufacturing capabilities to effectively capitalize on the cloud, mobile and open source storage trends that are being fueled by data growth," The company sees Q3 revenues of $3.4 billion which is slightly below estimates.
Sanmina (SANM) reported first quarter earnings of $0.41 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 3.0% year/year to $1.45 billion which is line with estimates. The company issued second quarter EPS guidance of $0.36-0.42 and revenues of $1.425-1.475 billion which are both line with estimates. "Our first quarter results were in line with our expectations. We remain focused on higher value-added services, markets and innovative technologies. This allows us to capitalize on opportunities with new and existing customers and further strengthen our operating model. Our outlook for the second quarter reflects our view of a soft first half of fiscal 2014. We are encouraged by our customers' forecasts, recent wins and overall market improvements that will drive modest growth for fiscal 2014.
Rambus (RMBS) reported fourth quarter adjusted earnings of $0.14 per share, which is line with estimates, while revenues rose 27.9% year/year to $73.4 million which is line with estimates, due to the new license agreements signed with SK Hynix, Micron Technology, ST Microelectronics and LSI Corporation during 2013. The company issued upside guidance for fiscal year 2014 with customer licensing income and rev of $295-305 million which is higher than expected. Customer licensing income and revenue are not without risk and include expectations that the Company will sign new customers for patent as well as solutions licensing. The Company also expects to keep its non-GAAP operating expenses relatively flat, year over year.
Semtech (SMTC) announced a reduction in its workforce by approximately 6 percent as part of a previously announced restructuring effort that is expected to strengthen its focus and increase future operating efficiencies. As a result of these activities, the Company also expects to take one-time charges that include, but are not limited to: employee termination benefits, the write down of inventory, goodwill and other intangibles and the impairment of fixed assets and other assets. Such charges are currently under review and additional details will be provided when Semtech reports its fourth quarter fiscal year 2014 financial results in early March. The estimated financial impact of the recent activity is expected to reduce full, normalized annual operating expenses by approximately $35.0 million for the Company's fiscal year 2015. "Due to the significant reduction in demand in the second half of our fiscal year 2014, we have initiated a series of operating expense reductions across the Company. We believe these actions position the Company to accelerate earnings growth as our overall demand returns to growth," said Mohan Maheswaran, President and Chief Executive Officer of Semtech Corporation.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm : The major averages finished the Thursday session near their highs as the volatile week continued. The Nasdaq surged 1.8% while the S&P 500 gained 1.1% as all ten sectors ended in the green. As a result of the advance, the S&P 500 will enter Friday's session with a slim week-to-date gain of 0.2% while the Nasdaq remains lower by 0.1% for the week.

Stocks jumped out of the gate and continued climbing steadily into the early afternoon. The S&P 500 notched a session high of 1798.77 just before 13:00 ET, and spent the rest of the trading day near that level. The upbeat start to the session was aided by overnight gains in index futures which rallied while the Japanese yen weakened. The futures market received an additional boost an hour before the cash open when it was reported that fourth quarter GDP rose 3.2%, per the advance estimate.

The Nasdaq Composite spent the entire session in the lead with the likes of Amazon.com (AMZN 403.01, +18.81), Google (GOOG 1135.39, +28.47), Facebook (FB 61.08, +7.55), and Qualcomm (QCOM 73.26, +2.14) providing support. Amazon.com and Google rallied ahead of their earnings while Facebook and Qualcomm posted respective gains of 14.1% and 3.0% after reporting better-than-expected results.

Biotechnology also factored into the outperformance of the Nasdaq as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 249.96, +7.16) rose 3.0%. In turn, this underpinned the health care space (+1.8%), which ended in the lead.

Similar to health care, other heavily-weighted sectors like consumer discretionary (+1.7%), financials (+1.3%), and technology (+1.5%) ended ahead of the broader market.

Elsewhere, the energy sector (+0.2%) finished behind the remaining groups as Dow component ExxonMobil (XOM 93.99, -1.12) lagged after missing on earnings.

Speaking of the Dow (+0.7%), the price-weighted index was unable to keep pace with the broader market as 3M (MMM 128.05, -2.20) and Boeing (BA 126.53, -3.25) weighed. 3M lost 1.7% after reporting in-line earnings on below-consensus revenue while Boeing fell 2.5% after cautious guidance overshadowed its earnings beat.

Treasuries ended near the middle of their range with the 10-yr yield up two basis points at 2.70%.

Trading volume was below average as 641 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data included initial claims, fourth quarter GDP, and the pending home sales report for December.


Most notably, GDP increased 3.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the advance estimate. That was down from a 4.1% gain in the third quarter but slightly above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of a 3.0% increase. Despite the above-consensus reading, the report was actually a disappointment. Real final sales, which our model was tracking to be near a 4.0% gain, only increased 2.8%. That was the largest increase since a 3.4% gain in Q1 2012, but it was within the same trends that we have been seeing for the past couple of years. Contrary to the headline numbers, there has been no real acceleration in growth over the last few quarters.
Weekly initial claims unexpectedly spiked to 348,000 from an upwardly revised 329,000 (from 326,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected the claims level to fall to 325,000.
Pending home sales for December tumbled 8.7%, which was worse than the 0.2% decrease forecast by the Briefing.com consensus. The reading followed last month's revised decrease of 0.3% (from +0.2%).

Tomorrow, December Personal Income, Personal Spending, Core PCE Prices, and the fourth quarter Employment Cost Index will all be released at 8:30 ET while the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Survey for January will be reported at 9:55 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -1.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.0% YTD
S&P 500 -2.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.4% YTD

DJ30 +109.82 NASDAQ +71.69 SP500 +19.99 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1958/1.95 bln/636 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2340/641.1 mln/711 3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded lower today as the dollar index climbed on this morning's GDP data. According to the advance reading, GDP rose 3.2% in Q4, while the Briefing.com consensus estimate called for a 3.0% increase.
Feb gold brushed a session low of $1237.50 per ounce in morning action and traded in a consolidative fashion just above that level for the remainder of the session. Unable to gain momentum, it settled with a 1.6% loss at $1241.90 per ounce.
Mar silver dipped to a session low of $18.97 per ounce and eventually settled at $19.13 per ounce, or 2.1% lower.
Mar crude oil, on the other hand, gained strength on the GDP data. The energy component touched a session high of $98.59 per barrel moments before equity markets opened and spent the remainder of the session trading just below that level. It settled with a 1.0% gain at $98.25 per barrel.
Mar natural gas erased most of yesterday's 10% gain as it tumbled on forecasts for milder weather and inventory data. The EIA reported that inventories for the week ending Jan 24 showed a draw of 230 bcf when a draw of 231-236 bcf was anticipated. Priced touched a session high of $5.30 per MMBtu in late morning pit trade but slipped again in afternoon action. Natural gas dipped to a session low of $4.98 per MMBtu moments before settling at $5.02 per MMBtu, or 7.6% lower.

4:34PM Unisys beats by $1.10, beats on revs (UIS) 31.15 +0.62 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $2.82 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $1.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.72; revenues rose 1.7% year/year to $995.9 mln vs the $948.43 mln consensus.

International revenue grew 2% (3% on a constant currency(3) basis) in the fourth quarter as growth in Europe and Asia Pacific more than offset declines in Latin America. U.S. revenue was flat compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.

The company reported an overall fourth-quarter 2013 gross profit margin of 31.7%, up from 29.2% in the year-ago quarter.

Q4 services revenue increased 1% (2% on a constant currency basis) as growth in outsourcing and systems integration offset declines in core maintenance. Reflecting a richer mix of higher-margin services and solutions as well as a continued focus on cost control, fourth-quarter 2013 services gross profit margin improved to 21.9 percent from 20.2% a year ago and services operating profit margin improved to 9.8% from 6.6% a year ago.

Q4 services orders grew from the fourth quarter of 2012, driven by higher orders for outsourcing and systems integration services. Services backlog at December 31, 2013 was $4.8 billion, down 5% from services backlog at December 31, 2012. Fourth-quarter 2013 technology revenue grew 5% from the prior-year quarter.

Q4 technology gross profit margin declined to 61.4% from 68.1% in the year-ago quarter, resulting from a higher mix of third-party product sales, and technology operating profit margin declined to 40.6% from 43.9% in the year-ago quarter.

4:31PM Broadcom sees Q1 revs ~$1.9-2.0 bln vs $1.97 bln Capital IQ Consensus; non-GAAP product gross margin -50 to -100 bps QoQ from 52.6% (BRCM) 29.21 +0.52 :

4:17PM Broadcom beats by $0.03, beats on revs; announces 9% increase in quarterly dividend to $0.12 (BRCM) 29.21 +0.52 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.60 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.57; revenues fell 1.0% year/year to $2.06 bln vs the $2.02 bln consensus.

"In 2013 Broadcom delivered record revenue in all three business groups. Continued strength in our Infrastructure Business Group drove Q4 revenue and earnings ahead of expectations. Looking into 2014, we are building momentum in LTE, setting the stage for Ultra HD and powering next generation service provider and data center networks."

4:30PM Ixia Receives Nasdaq Acceptance of its Plan to Regain Compliance (XXIA) 13.01 +0.20 : XXIA announced today that The Nasdaq Stock Market has accepted the company's plan to regain compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5250(c)(1), which acceptance will permit the continued listing of Ixia's common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.

As previously reported, on November 19, 2013, Ixia received a letter from Nasdaq stating that the company is not in compliance with the Rule because co had not filed its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2013 with the Securities and Exchange Commission . In its letter, Nasdaq notified co that it had 60 days to submit to Nasdaq a plan to regain compliance with the Rule.
On January 17, 2014, Ixia timely submitted to Nasdaq a plan to regain compliance with the Rule. After reviewing co's plan, Nasdaq accepted the plan and granted an exception to enable co to regain compliance with the Rule.
Under the terms of the exception, co is required to file the Form 10-Q with the SEC on or before March 18, 2014 as required by the Rule.
Nasdaq has advised co that a failure to file the Form 10-Q within the extension period may result in a notice of delisting of the company's common stock.
4:29PM Microchip beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line; announced $0.355 dividend (MCHP) 45.36 +0.75 : Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.61 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.59; revenues rose 16.0% year/year to $482.4 mln vs the $474.25 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.59-0.63 vs. $0.62 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $482.4-496.8 mln vs. $484.04 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Microchip also announced today that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend on its common stock of 35.5 cents per share. The quarterly dividend is payable on March 7, 2014 to stockholders of record on February 21, 2014.4:18PM Emulex beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (ELX) 7.58 +0.03 : Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.21 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.17; revenues rose 0.7% year/year to $123 mln vs the $120.6 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.14-0.17 vs. $0.16 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $110-114 mln vs. $114.40 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:16PM PMC-Sierra beats by $0.01, beats on revs (PMCS) 6.42 +0.18 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.08; revenues fell 2.6% year/year to $126.1 mln vs the $123.79 mln consensus.

Commentary: Fourth quarter results were above the midpoint of our expectations and reflected solid growth in our storage business," said Greg Lang, PMC president and chief executive officer. "It is encouraging to see our storage and server businesses finish the year strong."

4:14PM Riverbed Technology beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (RVBD) 19.78 +0.30 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.30; non-GAAP revenues rose 19% year/year and 7% Sequentially to $285 mln vs the $283.4 mln consensus.

4:12PM Google misses by $0.28, reports revs in-line (GOOG) 1135.39 +28.74 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $12.01 per share, $0.28 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $12.29; revenues rose 17.9% year/year to $16.86 bln vs the $16.76 bln consensus.

Google Sites Revenues- Google-owned sites generated segment revenues of $10.55 billion, or 67% of total Google segment revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2013. This represents a 22% increase over fourth quarter 2012 Google sites segment revenues of $8.64 billion.Google Network Revenues - Google's partner sites generated segment revenues of $3.52 billion, or 23% of total Google segment revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2013. This represents a 3% increase over fourth quarter 2012 Google network segment revenues of $3.44 billion.Google Segment International Revenue- Google segment revenues from outside of the United States totaled $8.77 billion, representing 56% of total Google segment revenues in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 56% in the third quarter of 2013 and 54% in the fourth quarter of 2012. CPC and Paid Clicks
Paid Clicks- Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our Network members, increased approximately 31% over the fourth quarter of 2012 and increased approximately 13% over the third quarter of 2013.Cost-Per-Click- Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our Network members, decreased approximately 11% over the fourth quarter of 2012 and decreased approximately 2% over the third quarter of 2013.TAC
Traffic acquisition costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google's partners, increased to $3.31 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to $3.08 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 24% in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 25% in the fourth quarter of 2012.The majority of TAC is related to amounts ultimately paid to our Network members, which totaled $2.49 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013. TAC also includes amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $824 million in the fourth quarter of 2013.
Motorola
Motorola Mobile Segment Revenues- Motorola Mobile segment revenues were $1.24 billion, or 7% of consolidated revenues in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to $1.51 billion, or 11% of consolidated revenues in the fourth quarter of 2012. Capital
Cash Flow and Capital Expenditures- Net cash provided by operating activities in the fourth quarter of 2013 totaled $5.24 billion, compared to $4.67 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012. In the fourth quarter of 2013, capital expenditures were $2.26 billion, the majority of which was for production equipment, data-center construction, and real estate purchases. Free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, is defined as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures. In the fourth quarter of 2013, free cash flow was $2.98 billion.We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures.
Cash- As of December 31, 2013, cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $58.72 billion.4:06PM Micrel beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (MCRL) 10.01 +0.16 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.08 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.07; revenues fell 3.7% year/year to $60 mln vs the $59.61 mln consensus.

"We are cautiously optimistic that Micrel has turned the corner and will resume its growth trajectory. We are thrilled with the number of new products that are getting great traction with our customers. With the acceleration of the 'Internet of Things' trend, our LAN, timing and analog products are in strong demand. In addition, our penetration into the automotive market remains firmly on-track. Revenue in the first quarter of 2014 will be in the range of down 1% to up 3% on a sequential basis. Gross margins are expected to be approximately 51% resulting in GAAP EPS within the range of $.05 to $.08 per diluted share," Mr. Zinn concluded.
GAAP consensus is for GAAP Q1 EPS of $0.07

4:05PM JDS Uniphase acquires Trendium and Time-Bandwidth Products; terms not disclosed (JDSU) 12.72 +0.67 : JDSU announced it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Trendium, a provider of real-time intelligence software solutions for customer experience assurance, asset optimization and monetization of big data for 4G/LTE mobile network operators.

In addition, JDSU acquired Time-Bandwidth Products, a provider of high-powered and ultrafast lasers for the industrial and scientific markets.
The addition of Trendium employees and technology enables JDSU to introduce a new paradigm of customer experience assurance, enabling operators of 4G/LTE networks to achieve a real and relevant improvement in customer satisfaction while maximizing productivity and profitability for dynamic converged 4G/LTE networks and beyond.
4:03PM Celestica beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (CLS) 10.05 +0.12 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.23; revenues fell 4.0% year/year to $1.44 bln vs the $1.47 bln consensus.

Co issues in-line EPS guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.17-0.23, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.20 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.3-1.4 bln vs. $1.41 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Large Cap Gainers
ALXN (161.66 +20.89%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; guide FY14 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus.
FB (62.03 +15.88%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; tgt raised to $66 from $60 at FBR Capital; tgt raised to $75 from $61 at Deutsche Bank; Buy; tgt raised to $80 from $60 at Jefferies; tgt raised to $75 from $70 at Credit Agricole; tgt raised to $80 from $72.50 at Wedbush; tgt raised to $72 from $68 at Susquehanna; tgt raised to $67 from $56 at Janney; tgt raised to $70 from $57 at Citigroup; tgt raised to $80 from $62 at JP Morgan; tgt raised to $60 from $50 at BMO Capital Mkts; tgt raised to $75 at CRT Capital; tgt raised to $71 from $63 at Raymond James; tgt raised to $70 from $65 at Nomura.
TWTR (64.6 +8.66%): Social/online media related names higher following FB results (LNKD also higher).
Large Cap Losers
SYMC (22.24 -7.91%): Beat on EPS by $0.09, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line.
CTXS (52.99 -8.01%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 below consensus; guided FY14 below consensus; CEO Templeton returning from leave of absence but will retire within next year; tgt lowered to $70 from $75 at Mizuho; tgt lowered to $70 from $76 at FBR Capital; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup; tgt lowered to $58 from $70; downgraded to Neutral at Robert W. Baird; tgt lowered to $64; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Drexel Hamilton; downgraded to Mkt Underperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities; downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at a boutique firm; downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest.
DEO (121.03 -4.76%): Beat H1 ests on bottom line, misses on revs; downgraded to Hold from Add at Numis.
Mid Cap Gainers
UA (105.76 +24.1%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, beat on revs; raised FY14 outlook.
NOW (67.13 +16.55%): Reported EPS in-line, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs above consensus; guided FY14 revs well above consensus; upgraded to Outperform at Robert W. Baird; tgt raised to $70; tgt raised to $75 from $59 at JMP Securities; tgt raised to $60 from $55 at Evercore.
CNQR (127.04 +16.7%): Beat on EPS by $0.09, beat on revs; guided Mar EPS and revs above consensus; guided FY14 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; tgt raised to $115 from $97 at FBR Capital; tgt raised to $140 from $126 at Stifel.
Mid Cap Losers
NSR (35.13 -19.69%): Beat on EPS by $0.08, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; provided update on local number portability administrator selection process - co was notified that its Oct 2013 proposal would not be considered; authorized share repurchase program for up to $200 mln of its Class A common shares beginning Jan 30, 2014 through Dec 31, 2014; downgraded to Neutral at Robert W. Baird; tgt lowered to $36.
ADT (31.7 -16.16%): Reported Q1 earnings of $0.66 per share, may not be comparable to the $0.49 estimate, missed on revs; downgraded to Perform at Oppenheimer.
KMT (44.31 -7.07%): Missed on EPS by $0.09, beat on revs; lowered FY14 guidance. Universal Display (OLED) and Kaneka announced the signing of a new OLED Technology License Agreement where Universal Display has granted Kaneka license rights, under various patents owned or controlled by Universal Display, to manufacture and sell phosphorescent OLED lighting products.

8:07AM KEMET beats by $0.09, misses on revs (KEM) 5.33 : Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.02 per share, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.07); revenues rose 4.9% year/year to $207.3 mln vs the $213.23 mln consensus.

"Revenue, excluding discontinued operations, was essentially flat compared to the prior quarter as we forecasted and it is gratifying to see our cost reduction efforts reflected in our financial results with positive non-GAAP earnings per share in this challenging environment," stated Per Loof, KEMET's Chief Executive Officer.
"We have seen steady improvement in our operating margins and we will continue to stay focused on our overall cost structure to leverage our position as the economic rebound occurs in our industry," continued Loof.
4:57AM LM Ericsson beats by SEK0.94, beats on revs (ERIC) 11.95 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of SEK2.42 per share, SEK0.94 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of SEK1.48; revenues rose 0.1% year/year to SEK67 bln vs the SEK65.19 bln consensus.

The business mix, with a higher share of coverage projects than capacity projects, started to shift towards more capacity during the year. As anticipated, sales came under some pressure during the quarter. As previously communicated, the major reason behind this development is the two large mobile broadband coverage projects, which peaked in North America in the first half of 2013 and the impact from reduced activity in Japan.
The long-term fundamentals in the industry remain attractive and with our ongoing strategic initiatives we are well positioned to continue to support our customers in a transforming ICT market.
Co states it ended the year with a strong cash flow of SEK 17.4 (22.0) b. and a full-year cash conversion of 79%, above the target of 70%.
The Board of Directors proposes a dividend for 2013 of SEK 3.00 (2.75) per share, an increase by 9%.
Qualcomm (QCOM) reported first quarter adjusted earnings of $1.26 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 10.0% year/year to $6.62 billion which is slightly below estimates.First Quarter Key Business Metrics MSMTM chip shipments: 213 million units, up 17 percent y-o-y and 12 percent sequentially. September quarter total reported device sales: ~$61.6 billion, up 16 percent y-o-y and 2 percent sequentially. September quarter estimated 3G/4G device shipments: ~276 to 280 million units, at an estimated average selling price of ~ $219 to $225 per unit. The company issued downside guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $1.15-1.25 and revenues $6.1-6.7 billion. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with raised EPS to $5.00-5.20, excluding non-recurring items, from $4.95-5.15, which is in line with estimates, with reaffirmed fiscal year 2014 revenues of $26.0-27.5 billion which is line with estimates.

Facebook (FB) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.31 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 63.1% year/year to $2.59 billion which is higher than expected. Daily active users (DAUs) were 757 million on average for December 2013, an increase of 22% year-over-year. Mobile DAUs were 556 million on average for December 2013, an increase of 49% year-over-year. Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.23 billion as of December 31, 2013, an increase of 16% year-over-year. Mobile MAUs were 945 million as of December 31, 2013, an increase of 39% year-over-year. Revenue from advertising was $2.34 billion, a 76% increase from the same quarter last year. Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 53% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2013, up from approximately 23% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012. GAAP costs and expenses for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $1.45 billion, an increase of 37% from the fourth quarter of 2012, driven primarily by increased headcount and infrastructure expense. Operating margin: GAAP operating margin was 44% for the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 33% in the fourth quarter of 2012. Excluding share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP operating margin was 56% for the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 46% for the fourth quarter of 2012. Capital expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $483 million. Cash and marketable securities were $11.45 billion at the end of 2013. Citrix Systems (CTXS) reported fourth quarter earnings of $1.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 8.4% year/year to $802.4 million which is line with estimates. Product and license revenue increased a half of a%; Software as a service revenue increased 13%; Revenue from license updates and maintenance increased 11%; Professional services revenue, which is comprised of consulting, product training and certification, increased 28%; Net revenue increased in the EMEA region by 14%, increased in the Americas region by 8% and decreased in the Pacific region by 12%; Deferred revenue totaled $1.4 billion as of December 31, 2013, compared to $1.2 billion as of December 31, 2012, an increase of 18%. The company issued downside guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $0.57-0.60, excluding non-recurring items and revenues of +8-10% to approximately $726.7-740.2 million which is higher than expected. The company issued downside guidance for EPS of $2.85-2.95 and revenues of +8-10% to approximately $3.15-3.21 billion. In addition, Citrix announced today that the co's chief executive officer, Mark Templeton, will be returning from his previously announced leave of absence to resume is role as CEO. Mr. Templeton intends to retire within the next year, subject to the naming of his successor. The board of directors has formed a committee of independent directors to lead a search process to identify the next CEO. David J. Henshall, who has been serving as acting CEO, has been promoted to chief operating officer and will retain a portion of the executive responsibilities that he assumed during Mr. Templeton's absence. Mr. Henshall will continue in his roles as executive vice president and chief financial officer, with responsibility for the company's finance and accounting organizations.

Fortinet (FTNT) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.15 per share, which is higher thane expected, while revenues rose 17.3% year/year to $177.4 million which is higher than expected. Highlights for the qtr: Billings of $209.8 million, up 20% year over year Cash flow from operations of $46.7 million. Free cash flow of $39.5 million. Cash, cash equivalents and investments of $843.0 million with no debt.
QLogic (QLGC) reported third quarter earnings of $0.29 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues were unchanged from the year-ago period at $119.4 million. Operating margin: 17.0% GAAP, 23.1% non-GAAP. "During the third quarter, we delivered strong financial results, including non-GAAP earnings per diluted share that exceeded our original guidance range...We are very pleased with our continued focus and execution. As a result of our restructuring activities earlier in the year, we have continued our sharper focus on the server and storage connectivity markets and are now operating more effectively and efficiently as reflected in our financial results."

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Why you should not ignore the fact that December's NYSE Margin Data was the highest ever on record!

http://www.nyxdata.com/nysedata/asp/factbook/viewer_edition.asp?mode=table&key=3153&category=8

The following warning was enclosed in my latest E*Trade account statements.

You can lose more funds than you deposit in your margin account.
We can force the sale of securities and other assets in your account(s).
We can sell your securities and assets without contacting you.
If the firm takes action to meet a margin call on your behalf, you will not have the ability to choose which securities are liquidated.
We can increase your "house" maintenance margin requirements at any time and are not required to provide you with advance written notice.
You are not entitled to an extension of time on a margin call.

Be careful my friends!

RtS

[ReturntoSender]

Why you should not ignore the fact that December's NYSE Margin Data was the highest ever on record!

http://www.nyxdata.com/nysedata/asp/factbook/viewer_edition.asp?mode=table&key=3153&category=8

The following warning was enclosed in my latest E*Trade account statements.

You can lose more funds than you deposit in your margin account.
We can force the sale of securities and other assets in your account(s).
We can sell your securities and assets without contacting you.
If the firm takes action to meet a margin call on your behalf, you will not have the ability to choose which securities are liquidated.
We can increase your "house" maintenance margin requirements at any time and are not required to provide you with advance written notice.
You are not entitled to an extension of time on a margin call.

Be careful my friends!

RtS

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 31-Jan-14

Dow -149.76 at 15698.85, Nasdaq -19.25 at 4103.87, S&P -11.60 at 1782.59

The stock market ended a disappointing month on a lower note as the S&P 500 lost 0.7%, extending its January decline to 3.6%. The Nasdaq outperformed, falling 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 1.0%.

The stock market ended a disappointing month on a lower note as the S&P 500 lost 0.7%, extending its January decline to 3.6%. The Nasdaq outperformed, falling 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 1.0%.

Equities began the session sharply lower but a day-long rebound helped the major averages finish the trading day with more palatable losses. The S&P 500 made a very brief afternoon appearance in positive territory before retreating again in the final hour.

Today's cash session kicked off amid significant weakness in Europe where markets were flirting with losses close to 2.0%. The region-wide weakness was led by Germany after the country saw a 2.4% year-over-year drop in retail sales (+1.9% expected). A disappointing CPI reading for the eurozone (+0.7% versus 0.9% consensus) also played a part in the weakness.

Furthermore, the early selling once again coincided with yen strength as dollar/yen dropped as low as 102.00 before staging a modest recovery which accompanied the rebound in equities. Fittingly, the final hour retreat in stocks was accompanied another rally in the yen. Yen futures added 0.5% on Friday, extending their January gain to 3.0%.

Seven of ten sectors ended in the red with energy (-1.5%) seeing the largest decline. The sector was pressured by Dow component Chevron (CVX 111.63, -4.82), which tumbled 4.1% following disappointing earnings. The broader energy sector ended January behind the remaining nine groups with a loss of 6.3%.

Meanwhile, the second-weakest sector of the month, consumer discretionary, lost 1.3%, extending its January decline to 6.0%. The sector was a significant source of the morning weakness as Amazon.com (AMZN 358.69, -44.32) plunged 11.0% following its disappointing earnings and cautious guidance.

Despite the sharp loss in Amazon.com, the discretionary sector was able to climb off its lows with help from Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 551.96, +58.00) and homebuilders. Chipotle spiked 11.7% after reporting in-line earnings while iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.82, +0.43) added 1.8% as Treasury yields continued their retreat (10-yr yield -4 bps to 2.66%).

With regard to other cyclical groups, financials (-1.1%) lagged while industrials (-0.5%), materials (-0.6%), and technology (+0.2%) outperformed.

Notably, the tech sector drew strength from Google (GOOG 1180.97, +45.58), which jumped 4.0% after reporting earnings. Although the company missed its Capital IQ earnings estimate by $0.28, investors were pleased to see a 13% quarterly increase in click revenue.

On the countercyclical side, consumer staples (-0.4%), telecom services (+0.1%), and utilities (+0.8%) outperformed while health care (-0.8%) lagged.

Participation was well above average, which was likely related to month-end activity as 937 million shares traded at the NYSE.

Monday's data will be limited to the New Home Sales report for December, which will be released at 10:00 ET. It is also worth mentioning that China will release its Manufacturing PMI tonight at 20:00 ET, which is likely to generate a reaction in global markets on Monday. The general consensus expects the reading to slip from 51.0 to 50.5.

Week in Review: Stocks Endure Volatile Week

On Monday, the major averages followed the sharp losses of the prior week with another shaky performance. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 posted respective declines of 0.3% and 0.5% while the Nasdaq (-1.1%) and Russell 2000 (-1.5%) underperformed. Stocks displayed gains at the open but the early strength faded during the initial hour as the Nasdaq headed into the red. The other indices followed suit and the broad retreat continued until about 12:20 ET when stocks reversed, and spent the afternoon in a steady climb. Moderate selling pressure returned during the final hour, knocking the indices off their afternoon highs. Although there was no news responsible for the turn, the morning selling coincided with a strengthening yen while the session low in equities matched the high point for the Japanese currency. Once the yen began weakening again, a rally in equities ensued. Similarly, the selling observed during the last 30 minutes of action coincided with the yen gaining strength once again.

The stock market halted its three-day slide on Tuesday as the S&P 500 gained 0.6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.4%) also finished in the green, but couldn't keep pace with the S&P 500 as Apple weighed following its quarterly report. Although the largest tech company beat on earnings and revenue, investors were not pleased by below-consensus iPhone sales. In addition, disappointing guidance for the second quarter also factored into the stock's 8.0% loss. The remainder of the technology sector (-0.7%) was a bit more mixed as large-cap names like Google, Oracle, and Intel posted solid gains while Seagate tumbled 11.3% after missing earnings estimates. Outside of technology, most other cyclical groups finished ahead of the broader market with financials (+1.3%) ending in the lead.

Selling pressure returned on Wednesday as equities ended broadly lower with small caps leading the weakness. The Russell 2000 lost 1.5% while the S&P 500 fell 1.0% as nine of ten sectors finished in the red. Although the session generated plenty of excitement, some of the events that played out over the course of the day were set in motion on Tuesday. Shortly after Tuesday's session on Wall Street ended, the Central Bank of Turkey shocked the market with a 445-basis point hike to 12.00% in an attempt to halt the rapidly weakening lira. The move worked...for 15 hours. The lira strengthened after the announcement, but spent the remainder of the overnight session in a steady retreat, giving up all of its gains. Interestingly, the news of out of Turkey also gave a boost to U.S. equity futures while weighing on the yen. The moves did not hold as futures spent the night in a steady retreat while the yen rallied. The materials sector (+0.5%) withstood the broad-based weakness with help from Dow Chemical, which rallied 4.1% after beating on earnings.

On Thursday, the major averages finished near their highs with the Nasdaq surging 1.8% while the S&P 500 gained 1.1% as all ten sectors ended in the green. Stocks jumped out of the gate and continued climbing steadily into the early afternoon. The S&P 500 notched a session high of 1798.77 just before 13:00 ET, and spent the rest of the trading day near that level. The upbeat start to the session was aided by overnight gains in index futures which rallied while the Japanese yen weakened. The futures market received an additional boost an hour before the cash open when it was reported that fourth quarter GDP rose 3.2%, per the advance estimate. The Nasdaq Composite spent the entire session in the lead with the likes of Amazon.com, Google, Facebook, and Qualcomm providing support. Amazon.com and Google rallied ahead of their earnings while Facebook and Qualcomm posted respective gains of 14.1% and 3.0% after reporting better-than-expected results.

 
 Index	    Started Week  Ended Week  Change  % Change   YTD % 
 DJIA	      15879.11	   15698.85  -180.26	-1.1	-5.3 
 Nasdaq	       4128.17	    4103.88   -24.29	-0.6	-1.7 
 S&P 500	1790.29	    1782.59    -7.70	-0.4	-3.6 
 Russell 2000   1144.13	    1130.88   -13.25	-1.2	-2.8

4:55PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: INFN (8.73 +23.11%), ACCL (12.58 +20.06%), GAME (6.45 +18.52%), CLFD (24.95 +18.48%), VRNG (4.29 +15.28%), FSL (18.13 +14.41%)
Services: ISLE (9.56 +13.7%)
Healthcare: PRAN (11.6 +39.32%), ARWR (15.34 +30.77%), BDSI (7.85 +28.64%), CSII (33.92 +19.39%), PRTA (30.94 +18.89%), CORT (3.44 +18.79%), ALXN (158.73 +17.44%), HZNP (9.86 +16.88%), TXMD (6.58 +14.43%)
Consumer Goods: UA (108.11 +24.86%), PBI (25.18 +15.5%), HAR (103.43 +14.23%)
Basic Materials: KRA (25.01 +13.39%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: NSR (33.89 -22.95%), VIP (9.69 -22.06%), NTLS (16.41 -18.17%), IGT (14.43 -17.28%), SHOR (7.7 -16.4%)
Services: ESI (29.4 -33.32%), OSTK (21.06 -23.78%), EDMC (6.93 -22.68%), RCII (24.94 -20.26%), ADT (30.04 -19.11%), NGVC (37.97 -17.22%), JCP (5.92 -15.64%)
Healthcare: PGNX (4.78 -22.73%), EPZM (30.4 -19.95%), CTIC (3.19 -19.61%), CEMP (11.89 -16.74%), SPPI (8.41 -15.92%)
Financial: WETF (14.11 -18.9%), FNFG (8.64 -17.21%)
Consumer Goods: BDE (10.65 -16.21%)

4:22PM Closing Market Summary: Stocks End Down Month on Lower Note (WRAPX) : The stock market ended a disappointing month on a lower note as the S&P 500 lost 0.7%, extending its January decline to 3.6%. The Nasdaq outperformed, falling 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 1.0%.

Equities began the session sharply lower but a day-long rebound helped the major averages finish the trading day with more palatable losses. The S&P 500 made a very brief afternoon appearance in positive territory before retreating again in the final hour.

Today's cash session kicked off amid significant weakness in Europe where markets were flirting with losses close to 2.0%. The region-wide weakness was led by Germany after the country saw a 2.4% year-over-year drop in retail sales (+1.9% expected). A disappointing CPI reading for the eurozone (+0.7% versus 0.9% consensus) also played a part in the weakness.

Furthermore, the early selling once again coincided with yen strength as dollar/yen dropped as low as 102.00 before staging a modest recovery which accompanied the rebound in equities. Fittingly, the final hour retreat in stocks was accompanied another rally in the yen. Yen futures added 0.5% on Friday, extending their January gain to 3.0%.

Seven of ten sectors ended in the red with energy (-1.5%) seeing the largest decline. The sector was pressured by Dow component Chevron (CVX 111.63, -4.82), which tumbled 4.1% following disappointing earnings. The broader energy sector ended January behind the remaining nine groups with a loss of 6.3%.

Meanwhile, the second-weakest sector of the month, consumer discretionary, lost 1.3%, extending its January decline to 6.0%. The sector was a significant source of the morning weakness as Amazon.com (AMZN 358.69, -44.32) plunged 11.0% following its disappointing earnings and cautious guidance.

Despite the sharp loss in Amazon.com, the discretionary sector was able to climb off its lows with help from Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 551.96, +58.00) and homebuilders. Chipotle spiked 11.7% after reporting in-line earnings while iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.82, +0.43) added 1.8% as Treasury yields continued their retreat (10-yr yield -4 bps to 2.66%).

With regard to other cyclical groups, financials (-1.1%) lagged while industrials (-0.5%), materials (-0.6%), and technology (+0.2%) outperformed.

Notably, the tech sector drew strength from Google (GOOG 1180.97, +45.58), which jumped 4.0% after reporting earnings. Although the company missed its Capital IQ earnings estimate by $0.28, investors were pleased to see a 13% quarterly increase in click revenue.

On the countercyclical side, consumer staples (-0.4%), telecom services (+0.1%), and utilities (+0.8%) outperformed while health care (-0.8%) lagged.

Participation was well above average, which was likely related to month-end activity as 937 million shares traded at the NYSE.

Monday's data will be limited to the New Home Sales report for December, which will be released at 10:00 ET. It is also worth mentioning that China will release its Manufacturing PMI tonight at 20:00 ET, which is likely to generate a reaction in global markets on Monday. The general consensus expects the reading to slip from 51.0 to 50.5.

Nasdaq Composite -1.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.8% YTD
S&P 500 -3.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.3% YTD

Week in Review: Stocks Endure Volatile Week

On Monday, the major averages followed the sharp losses of the prior week with another shaky performance. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 posted respective declines of 0.3% and 0.5% while the Nasdaq (-1.1%) and Russell 2000 (-1.5%) underperformed. Stocks displayed gains at the open but the early strength faded during the initial hour as the Nasdaq headed into the red. The other indices followed suit and the broad retreat continued until about 12:20 ET when stocks reversed, and spent the afternoon in a steady climb. Moderate selling pressure returned during the final hour, knocking the indices off their afternoon highs. Although there was no news responsible for the turn, the morning selling coincided with a strengthening yen while the session low in equities matched the high point for the Japanese currency. Once the yen began weakening again, a rally in equities ensued. Similarly, the selling observed during the last 30 minutes of action coincided with the yen gaining strength once again.

The stock market halted its three-day slide on Tuesday as the S&P 500 gained 0.6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.4%) also finished in the green, but couldn't keep pace with the S&P 500 as Apple weighed following its quarterly report. Although the largest tech company beat on earnings and revenue, investors were not pleased by below-consensus iPhone sales. In addition, disappointing guidance for the second quarter also factored into the stock's 8.0% loss. The remainder of the technology sector (-0.7%) was a bit more mixed as large-cap names like Google, Oracle, and Intel posted solid gains while Seagate tumbled 11.3% after missing earnings estimates. Outside of technology, most other cyclical groups finished ahead of the broader market with financials (+1.3%) ending in the lead.

Selling pressure returned on Wednesday as equities ended broadly lower with small caps leading the weakness. The Russell 2000 lost 1.5% while the S&P 500 fell 1.0% as nine of ten sectors finished in the red. Although the session generated plenty of excitement, some of the events that played out over the course of the day were set in motion on Tuesday. Shortly after Tuesday's session on Wall Street ended, the Central Bank of Turkey shocked the market with a 445-basis point hike to 12.00% in an attempt to halt the rapidly weakening lira. The move worked...for 15 hours. The lira strengthened after the announcement, but spent the remainder of the overnight session in a steady retreat, giving up all of its gains. Interestingly, the news of out of Turkey also gave a boost to U.S. equity futures while weighing on the yen. The moves did not hold as futures spent the night in a steady retreat while the yen rallied. The materials sector (+0.5%) withstood the broad-based weakness with help from Dow Chemical, which rallied 4.1% after beating on earnings.

On Thursday, the major averages finished near their highs with the Nasdaq surging 1.8% while the S&P 500 gained 1.1% as all ten sectors ended in the green. Stocks jumped out of the gate and continued climbing steadily into the early afternoon. The S&P 500 notched a session high of 1798.77 just before 13:00 ET, and spent the rest of the trading day near that level. The upbeat start to the session was aided by overnight gains in index futures which rallied while the Japanese yen weakened. The futures market received an additional boost an hour before the cash open when it was reported that fourth quarter GDP rose 3.2%, per the advance estimate. The Nasdaq Composite spent the entire session in the lead with the likes of Amazon.com, Google, Facebook, and Qualcomm providing support. Amazon.com and Google rallied ahead of their earnings while Facebook and Qualcomm posted respective gains of 14.1% and 3.0% after reporting better-than-expected results.

3:48PM Events and conferences of interest for next week : Events and conferences of interest for next week, Feb 3-7, are listed below. For a complete list of next week's events, please see the events calendar.
Monday

Credit Suisse Latin American Investor Conference
Eurozone Manufacturing PMI
RBA Policy

Tuesday

SAP Investor Symposium Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2014 Global Macro Conference - Toronto
Fed's Lacker, Evans

Wednesday

UTX, TYC, AA and ATK at Cowen and Company 35th Annual Aerospace/Defense Conference and Transportation Forum
Eurozone Services PMI
Fed's Plosser, Lockhart

Thursday

BoE, ECB Policy Updates
Fed's Rosengren

Friday

GLW Investor Meeting
MU Analyst Conference

3:32PM Earnings Preview for the week of February 3 - 7 (SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of February 3 - 7 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - SYY, GOLD
After Hours - SU, HIG, YUM, APC, PFG, UGI, CCK, MDU, PRE, APU, TMK, CFN, TTWO, GGP, HOLX, EW
Tuesday:
Pre Market - BP, ADM, HCA, IP, UPS, EMR, ETN, DLPH, AGCO, CNC, ACM, BDX, BSX, R, FIS, AXe, SE, GCI, ABG, CLX, MHFI, SIRI, XYL, KORS, CHD, ACI, CME
After Hours - AFL, CHRW, AMP, GILD, BSAC, UNM, GNW, GAS, ATO, CERN, EQR, CVD, DV, BWLD
Wednesday:
Pre Market - MRK, HUM, TWX, ARW, EL, ADP, CTSH, GPI, CCE, RL, AGN, LVLT, NS, IACI, NDAQ, CVG,
After Hours - DIS, PAGP, PRU, PAA, TSO, ALL, ARMK, MRO, LNC, AIZ, CBG, ORLY, GMCR, XL, CNW, FISV, NXPI, RE, CINF, THG, FMC, WGL, GPRE, AKAM, SFLY, TWTR, P, YELP
Thursday:
Pre Market - SNE, GM, AET, FOXA, AZN, CS, EXC, BCE, TEVA, CMI, K, PPL, SEE, INGR, NU, SPR, AAP, NBL, RFP, ADS, WEC, GPK, NUS, PRGO, TW, USG, AOL, VMC, SMG, MWW, DNKN, PBH
During Market Hours - PM
After Hours - ATVI, RSG, FTI, EXPE, LGF, ONNN, TPX, OUTR, LNKD, BYI, VRSN, ATHN, OPEN,
Friday:
Pre Market - MT, CI, LH, UFS, BPL, WYN, AXL, MCO, BEAM, APO, MSG, FLIR, SIRO, CBOE
After Hours - CCJ

12:25PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers
CMG (562.41 +13.86%): Reported Q4 EPS of $2.53 per share (in-line), revs rose 20.7% yoy to $844.1 mln vs $826.23 mln estimate; co expects to open 180-195 restaurants in 2014, expects low to mid single digit comparable restaurant sales excluding any menu price increases; target raised at RBC Capital Markets, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Piper Jaffray, Telsey Advisory Group
TSN (37.53 +8.81%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.09 ($0.72 vs $0.63 estimate), revs rose 4.7% yoy to $8.76 bln vs $8.72 bln estimate; co repurchased 4.6 mln shares for $150 mln
WYNN (215.27 +6.83%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.54 ($2.27 ex items vs $1.73 estimate), revs rose 17.8% yoy to $1.52 bln vs $1.44 bln estimate; Q4 Macau revs rose 24.6% yoy

Large Cap Losers

MAT (38.9 -9.56%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.13 ($1.07 vs $1.20 estimate), revs fell 6.3% yoy to $2.11 bln vs $2.37 bln estimate; downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo
AMZN (366.2 -9.13%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.18 ($0.51 vs $0.69 estimate), operating income $510 mln vs -$500 to $500 guidance, revs rose 20.3% yoy to $25.59 bln vs $26.08 bln estimate; sees Q1 revs of $18.2-19.9 bln vs $19.61 bln estimate, operating income of -$200 to $200 mln
NEM (22.4 -7.05%): Co achieved Q4 attributable gold production of 1.5 mln ounces resulting in full year attributable production of 5.1 mln ounces; expects consolidated 2014 gold and copper production to be ~5.0-5.3 mln ounces and 160-175K tonnes, respectively; downgraded to Underperform at RBC Capital Markets

Mid Cap Gainers

ZNGA (4.13 +15.87%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 (-$0.03 ex items vs -$0.04 estimate), revs fell 43.3% yoy to $176.4 mln vs $186.17 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of -$0.01, revs of $155-165 mln, sees FY14 EPS of $0.01-0.03; upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Janney
MTW (28.59 +15.47%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.13 ($0.47 vs $0.34 estimate), revs fell 2.1% yoy to $1.1 bln vs $1.11 bln estimate; sees modest top-line growth in crane revenue in 2014
CPHD (53.37 +12.9%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.03 ex items vs $0.01 estimate), revs rose 22.6% yoy to $113.3 mln vs $102.15 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $0.24-0.29 ex items vs $0.38 estimate, revs of $446-461 mln vs $447.35 mln estimate; target raised to $65 from $50 at Mizuho, to $55 from $50 at Canaccord Genuity

Mid Cap Losers

N (105.07 -7.34%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.08 vs $0.07 estimate), revs rose 35.3% yoy to $115 mln vs $111.44 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $0.24-0.26 vs $0.28 estimate, revs of $535-540 mln vs $532.83 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.01-0.02 vs $0.05 estimate, revs $119-121 mln vs $119.69 mln estimate
VR (34.99 -5.86%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.62 ($0.94 vs $1.56 estimate), net premiums written fell 23.0% yoy to $212.7 mln vs $279.5 mln two analyst estimate
NATI (29.63 -5.00%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.31 vs $0.32 estimate), revs rose 0.2% yoy to $300.8 mln vs $309.53 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.15-0.27 vs $0.25 estimate, revs of $272-302 mln vs $298.50 mln estimate; Board approved increase in quarterly dividend to $0.15 from $0.14 per share

JDSU +6.5%, (also upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at William Blair)

7:59AM Micron announces proposed $500 mln offering of senior notes due 2022 (MU) 23.45 :

Co announced that it intends to offer $500 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2022 through an offering to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and outside the United States to non-U.S. persons pursuant to Regulation S under the Securities Act.
The interest rate, redemption provisions and other terms of the Notes will be determined by negotiations between Micron and the initial purchasers.
Micron intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to pay a portion of the costs of extinguishing its obligations with respect to its outstanding 1.875% convertible senior notes due 2014, which may include payments in settlement of conversions of, or to repurchase or redeem, the 2014 Notes.
Earlier today, Micron gave notice to holders of the 2014 Notes that their notes will be redeemed on March 3, 2014, except to the extent such notes are converted or repurchased by Micron prior to such date.

Qualcomm (QCOM) reported first quarter adjusted earnings of $1.26 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 10.0% year/year to $6.62 billion which is slightly below estimates.First Quarter Key Business Metrics MSMTM chip shipments: 213 million units, up 17 percent y-o-y and 12 percent sequentially. September quarter total reported device sales: ~$61.6 billion, up 16 percent y-o-y and 2 percent sequentially. September quarter estimated 3G/4G device shipments: ~276 to 280 million units, at an estimated average selling price of ~ $219 to $225 per unit. The company issued downside guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $1.15-1.25 and revenues $6.1-6.7 billion. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with raised EPS to $5.00-5.20, excluding non-recurring items, from $4.95-5.15, which is in line with estimates, with reaffirmed fiscal year 2014 revenues of $26.0-27.5 billion which is line with estimates.

Facebook (FB) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.31 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 63.1% year/year to $2.59 billion which is higher than expected. Daily active users (DAUs) were 757 million on average for December 2013, an increase of 22% year-over-year. Mobile DAUs were 556 million on average for December 2013, an increase of 49% year-over-year. Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.23 billion as of December 31, 2013, an increase of 16% year-over-year. Mobile MAUs were 945 million as of December 31, 2013, an increase of 39% year-over-year. Revenue from advertising was $2.34 billion, a 76% increase from the same quarter last year. Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 53% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2013, up from approximately 23% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012. GAAP costs and expenses for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $1.45 billion, an increase of 37% from the fourth quarter of 2012, driven primarily by increased headcount and infrastructure expense. Operating margin: GAAP operating margin was 44% for the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 33% in the fourth quarter of 2012. Excluding share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP operating margin was 56% for the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 46% for the fourth quarter of 2012. Capital expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $483 million. Cash and marketable securities were $11.45 billion at the end of 2013.

Citrix Systems (CTXS) reported fourth quarter earnings of $1.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 8.4% year/year to $802.4 million which is line with estimates. Product and license revenue increased a half of a%; Software as a service revenue increased 13%; Revenue from license updates and maintenance increased 11%; Professional services revenue, which is comprised of consulting, product training and certification, increased 28%; Net revenue increased in the EMEA region by 14%, increased in the Americas region by 8% and decreased in the Pacific region by 12%; Deferred revenue totaled $1.4 billion as of December 31, 2013, compared to $1.2 billion as of December 31, 2012, an increase of 18%. The company issued downside guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $0.57-0.60, excluding non-recurring items and revenues of +8-10% to approximately $726.7-740.2 million which is higher than expected. The company issued downside guidance for EPS of $2.85-2.95 and revenues of +8-10% to approximately $3.15-3.21 billion. In addition, Citrix announced today that the co's chief executive officer, Mark Templeton, will be returning from his previously announced leave of absence to resume is role as CEO. Mr. Templeton intends to retire within the next year, subject to the naming of his successor. The board of directors has formed a committee of independent directors to lead a search process to identify the next CEO. David J. Henshall, who has been serving as acting CEO, has been promoted to chief operating officer and will retain a portion of the executive responsibilities that he assumed during Mr. Templeton's absence. Mr. Henshall will continue in his roles as executive vice president and chief financial officer, with responsibility for the company's finance and accounting organizations.

Fortinet (FTNT) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.15 per share, which is higher thane expected, while revenues rose 17.3% year/year to $177.4 million which is higher than expected. Highlights for the qtr: Billings of $209.8 million, up 20% year over year Cash flow from operations of $46.7 million. Free cash flow of $39.5 million. Cash, cash equivalents and investments of $843.0 million with no debt.
QLogic (QLGC) reported third quarter earnings of $0.29 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues were unchanged from the year-ago period at $119.4 million. Operating margin: 17.0% GAAP, 23.1% non-GAAP. "During the third quarter, we delivered strong financial results, including non-GAAP earnings per diluted share that exceeded our original guidance range...We are very pleased with our continued focus and execution. As a result of our restructuring activities earlier in the year, we have continued our sharper focus on the server and storage connectivity markets and are now operating more effectively and efficiently as reflected in our financial results."

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market began February on a sharply lower note after enduring a rough month of January. Small caps paced the Monday retreat as the Russell 2000 tumbled 3.1% while the S&P 500 fell 2.3%. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.1%, ending below its 200-day moving average (15470).

Despite the sharply lower finish, today's session actually started in the green. However, sellers emerged during the opening minutes and intensified their efforts after the January ISM Manufacturing Index registered a large decline (to 51.3 from 56.6).

Although the ISM report itself did not cause the aggressive selloff, it added to global growth concerns that have been percolating under the surface after China's Manufacturing PMI (50.5) fell to a six-month low while the Non-Manufacturing reading (53.4) registered an 11-month low.

Furthermore, the selloff was accompanied by another wave of yen strength. Dollar/yen traded right above the 102.00 level at the start of the session, but retreated along with equities. The pair finished the trading day right under 101.00 while yen futures added 1.4%, extending their 2014 gain to 4.3%.

The daylong pressure that was exerted on equities translated into strength for the bond market. The 10-yr note ended on its high with its yield down seven basis points at 2.59%. Gold futures also garnered interest, climbing 1.6% to $1259.50 per troy ounce.

Also of note, the retreat invited strong demand for volatility protection, sending the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 21.12, +2.71) to its highest level since late June. Over the past two weeks, the near-term volatility gauge has added more than 72.0%.

All ten sectors finished in the red with the lowest-weighted group-telecom services (-3.7%)-ending at the bottom of the leaderboard. The remaining nine sectors fared a bit better, posting losses between 0.8% and 2.7%.

The discretionary sector (-2.7%) was the weakest performer among cyclical groups as retailers continued their recent weakness. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 77.47, -2.38) lost 3.0%, sliding to levels not seen since late August. Today's loss widened the retail ETF's 2014 decline to 12.1%.

Automakers also pressured the discretionary space after Ford (F 14.55, -0.41) reported a 7.0% decline in January sales while General Motors (GM 35.25, -0.83) announced an 11.9% decrease in sales. The two names settled lower by 2.7% and 2.3%, respectively.

Elsewhere, other influential sectors like financials (-2.5%) and industrials (-2.7%) lagged while health care (-2.0%) and technology (-2.2%) ended just ahead of the S&P 500.

The utilities sector (-0.8%) was the only group that avoided losing 1.0% or more. The rate-sensitive sector is the only group that remains in positive territory for the year with a gain of 2.1%.

The selloff was accompanied by heavy volume as more than 900 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Today's data was limited to just a pair of reports:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for January dropped to 51.3 from 56.5 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to fall to 56.0. That tied the largest one-month decline since October 2008. The sharp decline in the national index did not correlate with the regional surveys from Federal Reserve banks. They showed modest improvements in manufacturing activity throughout the country. According to the ISM report, some of the weakness may have been due to the extreme winter weather conditions that occurred in January. If this is true, then the ISM Index should bounce back rather significantly in February.
Total construction spending increased 0.1% in December after increasing a downwardly revised 0.8% (from 1.0%) in November. The Briefing.com consensus expected construction spending to increase 0.1%. The residential construction spending data does not line up with the contraction reported in the advance estimate for fourth quarter GDP growth. The downturn in fourth quarter residential investment spending could have only occurred if spending fell in December or if there were large revisions to the November and/or October data. According to the Census data, that did not happen.

Tomorrow, December factory orders will be announced at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -4.3% YTD
S&P 500 -5.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -7.3% YTD

DJ30 -326.05 NASDAQ -106.92 SP500 -40.70 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 368/2.15 bln/2288 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 464/900.7 mln/2648

3:35 pm :

Precious metals rallied in morning pit trade as the dollar index fell following weak ISM Manufacturing data. The ISM Manufacturing Index dropped to 51.3 in January from 56.5 in December, the largest one-month decline since October 2008. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to fall to 56.0. Apr gold rose as high as $1266.10 per ounce and settled with a 1.6% gain at $1259.50 per ounce.
Mar silver popped to a session high of $19.62 per ounce on the economic data. However, the momentum faded and prices pulled back as the session progressed. Silver eventually settled at $19.41 per ounce, or 1.6% higher.
Mar crude oil extended Friday's losses as it retreated from a session high of $97.77 per barrel set in morning action. The energy component dipped to a session low of $96.26 per barrel and settled at $96.43 per barrel, booking a loss of 1.1%.
Mar natural gas fell for a third consecutive session but trimmed earlier losses as it lifted from a session low of $4.80 per MMBtu set at pit trade open. It advanced to a session high of $4.96 per MMBtu and settled 0.8% lower at $4.90 per MMBtu.

4:24PM Advanced Energy beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (AEIS) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.67 per share, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.58; revenues rose 35.0% year/year to $152.6 mln vs the $150.75 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.41-0.47 vs. $0.44 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $138-146 mln vs. $147.19 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate

4:12PM Power Integrations beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (POWI) 57.36 -1.87 : Reports Q4 (Dec) non-GAAP earnings of $0.66 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.63; revenues rose 14.2% year/year to $90.4 mln vs the $89.2 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $86-92 mln vs. $90.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Non-GAAP gross margin for Q4 was 54.5% while non-GAAP operating margin was 23.5%.
Gross margin in Q1 is expected to be similar to Q4 levels.
"We ended the year with a strong quarter, and believe we're well-positioned for 2014 and beyond. Energy efficiency continues to be a major factor in the electronics, appliance and industrial markets, and our addressable market is expanding thanks to strong growth in areas like LED lighting, renewable energy and rapid charging for mobile devices."

4:07PM Peregrine Semi misses by $0.13, misses on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus (PSMI) 6.65 +0.08 : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.16 per share, $0.13 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.03); revenues fell 31.3% year/year to $43.3 mln vs the $45.02 mln consensus. Gross margin on a non-GAAP basis for the fourth quarter of 2013 was 36.6% of revenue, compared to 43.6% of revenue for the same period in 2012. Gross margins in the fourth quarter were impacted by a higher than normal inventory write-down of $3.1 million.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $33-36 mln vs. $41.35 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. First quarter GAAP gross margin is expected to be in the range of 36% to 38%.
"While we delivered on our commitments in the quarter, we clearly have work to do to return to sustainable top and bottom line growth," said Stephen MacMillan, President and Chief Executive Officer. "Looking forward, I am energized by our unique collection of leading product technologies and a deeply committed and passionate employee base to drive organic growth. Through the balance of fiscal 2014, we will remain focused on improving our operating performance and growth profile and on paying down our debt balance, which we believe will enhance shareholder value."

4:07PM Rudolph Tech beats by $0.04, misses on revs (RTEC) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.05; revenues fell 18.0% year/year to $44.5 mln vs the $45.25 mln consensus.

4:04PM Rudolph Tech has received two orders for its lithography systems totaling more than $11 mln (RTEC) 10.90 -0.09 : Purchase orders include a repeat order for the JetStep Lithography System for advanced packaging applications and a repeat order for a PanelPrinter 9200 System for flat panel display (FPD) lithography. The orders were received in the fourth quarter of 2013, and came from customers who are presently using Rudolph's lithography systems in volume production, both of whom foresee new capacity needs that require the Company's lithography systems. The JetStep system was shipped in Q1 2014 and the PanelPrinter system is scheduled to ship before the end of 2014.

4:03PM Integrated Device beats by $0.05, misses on revs (IDTI) : Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.12; revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $124.6 mln vs the $126.14 mln consensus.

Large Cap Gainers

RYAAY (48.85 +3.40%): Repoerted Q3 EPS of EUR -0.03, revs flat yoy at EUR 964 mln vs EUR 965.5 mln estimate; passnengers increased 6% yoy to 18.3 mln
PFE (31 +1.97%): Announced that the randomized Phase 2 trial [PALOMA-1] of palbociclib achieved its primary endpoint by demonstrating a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) for the combination of palbociclib and letrozole compared with letrozole alone in post-menopausal women with estrogen receptor positive (ER+), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negative (HER2-) locally advanced or newly diagnosed metastatic breast cancer
GG (25.17 +1.12%): Strength in gold companies: ABX also higher

Large Cap Losers

OKE (58.86 -14.06%): Completed separation of natural gas distribution business into a stand-alone, publicly traded company called ONE Gas (OGS)
GPC (78.54 -4.51%): Announced three acquisitions for its Industrial, Electrical/Electronic, and Office groups
LYG (5.26 -4.01%): Sees FY13 net underlying profit of GBP 6.2 bln; co plans to apply dor dividend reinstatement in the second half of 2014

Mid Cap Gainers

GOLD (72.21 +4.80%): Reported total cash cost per ounce for the quarter was $628, down 5% on the previous quarter, and $715 for the year, down 3% on 2012; reported gold sales of $1.27 billion for the year
AOL (47.55 +3.19%): Target raised to $57 from $46 at Needham
BLL (51.65 +0.90%): Co announced it completed the SpaceWire Inter-operability Test for the Joint Polar Satellite System-1 satellite and has begun spacecraft bus integration

Mid Cap Losers

FEYE (66.9 -8.35%): Filed for $700 mln common stock offering
MDVN (74.14 -6.86%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Bernstein; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham; target raised to $100 at chardan Capital Markets
NMBL (40.3 -6.78%): Mentioned positively at Pacific Crest

11:33AM Juniper Networks: Elliot Management provdes update on Junier: 'received overwhelming support for shareholder value plan' (JNPR) 26.76 +0.15 : Elliott Management Corporation, which owns 6.2% of the common stock of Juniper Networks (JNPR), released a statement regarding its investment in Juniper:

"Elliott is extremely gratified by the absolutely overwhelming support we have received from fellow Juniper shareholders, sell-side analysts and the broader investing community for the Shareholder Value Plan we have urged Juniper to adopt," said Jesse Cohn, Portfolio Manager at Elliott. "When we set out to suggest a plan for Juniper, we talked with fellow shareholders and leading analysts to develop a reasonable set of steps that could generate tremendous value. We also recruited a team of leading executives who are excited about Juniper and who have the operational skills and deep industry experience to help ensure that the Shareholder Value Plan becomes a reality. Elliott is entirely committed to seeing the plan through, and our commitment is such that we remain open to all paths to ensure its implementation. We have been pleased with our dialogue with the Company, and we were encouraged by Shaygan's decision to position himself as a change agent on Juniper's January 23rd earnings call. It is our strong preference to work collaboratively with Juniper to achieve the most important goal of ensuring implementation of a plan that is fully consistent with the specific value-maximizing steps outlined in the Shareholder Value Plan."

The Shareholder Value Plan was developed based on feedback from Juniper's shareholders and sell-side analysts and can be found at www.new-juniper.com.

1:38AM Suntech Power reaches agreement with petitioners and supporting noteholders in connection with the Chapter 7 proceeding (STPFQ) 0.59 : Co announces announces that it has signed a Restructuring Support Agreement relating to the petition for involuntary bankruptcy filed against it under chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Under the RSA signed by the petitioners for the chapter 7 proceeding, the Company, the joint provisional liquidators of the Company, and certain supporting holders of the Company's 3% Convertible Senior Notes that include members of the Company's creditor working group, the chapter 7 proceedings in the U.S. have been stayed and a stipulation for the dismissal of the chapter 7 proceedings will be executed and filed following recognition of the provisional liquidation proceeding previously filed by the Company in the Cayman Islands under chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

In addition, the RSA provides that (among other things):

The JPLs, on behalf of the Company, will use commercially reasonable efforts to file the chapter 15 petition by February 21, 2014;
The petitioners and supporting noteholders will support the chapter 15 petition
The restructuring must treat all beneficial holders of the notes pari passu
Upon performance of the RSA, the Company is required to dismiss appeals of certain judgments obtained by the petitioners relating to repayment of the Notes held by such petitioners
The RSA may be terminated if the Company fails to file the chapter 15 petition by February 21, 2014, an order obtaining recognition of the Cayman Islands restructuring proceeding is not entered by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court by May 31, 2014, or the Cayman Islands restructuring is not approved by December 31, 2014.

Last night after the close, Google (GOOG) reported Q4 (Dec.) earnings of $12.01 per share, $0.28 worse than the consensus estimate of $12.29, while revenues rose 17.9% year/year to $16.86 billion vs. the $16.76 billion consensus.
Paid Clicks- Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of its Network members, increased approximately 31% over the fourth quarter of 2012 and increased approximately 13% over the third quarter of 2013.
Cost-Per-Click- Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of its Network members, decreased approximately 11% over the fourth quarter of 2012 and decreased approximately 2% over the third quarter of 2013.
Last night after the close, Broadcom (BRCM) reported Q4 (Dec.) earnings of $0.60 per share, $0.03 better than the consensus estimate of $0.57, while revenues fell 1.0% year/year to $2.06 billion vs. the $2.02 billion consensus. "In 2013 Broadcom delivered record revenue in all three business groups. Continued strength in our Infrastructure Business Group drove Q4 revenue and earnings ahead of expectations. Looking into 2014, we are building momentum in LTE, setting the stage for Ultra HD and powering next generation service provider and data center networks."
Broadcom guided Q1 revenues to ~$1.9-2.0 billion vs $1.97 billion consensus and non-GAAP product gross margin to -50 to -100 bps quarter/quarter from 52.6%.
Last night after the close, NetSuite (N) reported Q4 (Dec.) earnings of $0.08 per share, $0.01 better than the consensus estimate of $0.07, while revenues rose 35.3% year/year to $115 million vs the $111.44 million consensus. Cash flow from operations was $17.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of $3.9 million, or 29%, over the same period last year. Cash flow from operations was $62.2 million for the year, an increase of $7.9 million, or 15%, over the prior year.
Last night after the close, JDS Uniphase (JDSU) reported Q2 (Dec.) earnings of $0.19 per share, $0.05 better than the consensus estimate of $0.14, while revenues rose 4.2% year/year to $447.6 million vs the $433.73 million consensus.
The company issued in-line guidance for Q3, with revenues of $420-440 million vs. the $425.94 million consensus estimate.
Last night after the close, Proofpoint (PFPT) reported Q4 (Dec.) loss of $0.07 per share, $0.05 better than the consensus estimate of ($0.12), while revenues rose 42.7% year/year to $40.8 million vs the $35.7 million consensus. The company generated $5.3 million in net cash from operations for the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to generating $4.9 million during the fourth quarter of 2012.
The company issued mixed guidance for Q1, with EPS of ($0.21)-(0.18) vs. the ($0.12) consensus estimate and revenues of $40-41 million vs. the $36.72 million consensus estimate.
The company issued mixed guidance for FY14, with EPS of ($0.53)-(0.48) vs. the ($0.29) consensus estimate and revenues of $174.5-176.5 million vs. the $165.49 million consensus estimate. Free cash flow is expected to be approximately positive $10.0 million.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : After enduring a broad-based selloff on Monday, the stock market rebounded, erasing roughly a third of yesterday's losses. The Nasdaq led the way, rising 0.9% while the S&P 500 gained 0.8%. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5%, but was unable to reclaim its 200-day moving average (15474).

Equities rallied steadily throughout the session in the absence of yen strength, which has been a headwind to the market since the start of the year. In fact, the yen began retreating overnight, and continued its slide into the close. Dollar/yen finished near 101.65 after starting its rally from just below the 101.00 level. Meanwhile yen futures lost 0.8%, trimming their 2014 gain to 3.6%.

Nine of ten sectors ended in the green with the discretionary space in the lead. The sector added 1.2% after Michael Kors (KORS 89.91, +13.24) and Yum! Brands (YUM 72.06, +5.06) reported above-consensus earnings. KORS surged 17.3% and YUM jumped 8.9% while also providing support to their respective industry groups. Despite today's relative strength, the discretionary sector remains the weakest performer of the year, down 7.4%.

Other influential groups like health care (+1.0%) and financials (+1.0%) also finished ahead of the broader market while technology (+0.5%) and industrials (+0.6%) lagged.

The largest S&P 500 sector, technology, struggled to keep pace with the market even with its top component, Apple (AAPL 508.79, +7.26), advancing 1.5%. Another large sector member, Microsoft (MSFT 36.35, -0.13), ended little changed after announcing Satya Nadella will replace the outgoing Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector lagged as the underperformance of Boeing (BA 122.04, -1.04) and United Technologies (UTX 109.10, -1.06) overshadowed the broad gains among transports. The Dow Jones Transportation Average advanced 1.2% as all but one component ended in the green. Con-way (CNW 37.19, -0.66) was the lone decliner, falling 1.7%.

Treasuries ended near their lows with the 10-yr yield up four basis points at 2.62%.

Participation was above average as 820 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to the December factory orders report:

Factory orders declined 1.5% after increasing a downwardly revised 1.5% (from 1.8%) in November. The Briefing.com consensus expected factory orders to decline 1.7%. The durable goods data were revised slightly higher, but still left a lot to be desired. Orders fell 4.2%, which was slightly above the 4.3% decline reported in the advance release. A large portion of the decline was a result of a sharp drop in transportation demand (-9.7%), which was mostly the result of a 16.9% decline in defense and nondefense aircraft.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the ADP Employment Change report for January will be released at 8:15 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of January ISM Services.

Nasdaq Composite -3.5% YTD
S&P 500 -5.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -6.8% YTD

DJ30 +72.44 NASDAQ +34.56 SP500 +13.31 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1625/2.02 bln/975 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2088/820.2 mln/979

3:30 pm :

Mar natural gas outperformed in the commodities space as it gained strength on forecasts for colder-than-average temperatures over the next 10 days. Prices came off a session low of $5.14 per MMBtu set moments after pit trade opened and advanced as high as $5.40 per MMBtu in afternoon action. With the momentum holding steady, natural gas settled with a solid 9.6% gain at $5.37 per MMBtu.
Mar crude oil traded higher ahead of tomorrow's release of inventory data. The energy component lifted from a session low of $96.78 per barrel and rose as high as $97.71 per barrel in morning action. It eventually settled with a 0.8% gain at $97.24 per barrel.
Mar silver dipped to a session low of $19.26 per ounce in morning floor trade but managed to recover back above the unchanged line. It brushed a session high of $19.48 per ounce and settled with a 0.1% gain at $19.43 per ounce.
Apr gold, on the other hand, spent the pit session in the red as a stronger dollar index pressured prices. It traded in a consolidative pattern near the $1250 per ounce level and eventually settled with a 0.6% loss at $1251.60 per ounce.

5:32PM Netflix prices $400 mln offering of 5.750% senior notes (NFLX) 405.91 +1.53 : Co announced the pricing of an offering of $400 million aggregate principal amount of its 5.750% senior notes due 2024. Netflix intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including capital expenditures, investments, working capital and potential acquisitions and strategic transactions.

4:10PM Nanometrics beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (NANO) 16.41 +0.23 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.01); revenues rose 52.5% year/year to $46.15 mln vs the $44.94 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.01 to $0.13, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.08 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $48 to $54 million vs. $50.66 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, with GAAP gross margin in the range of 47% to 49% and non-GAAP gross margin in the range of 48% to 50%
Due to the shift in timing of certain R&D program spending from the fourth quarter into the first quarter, as well as a normal seasonal increase in payroll and other expenses, management expects first quarter operating expenses to increase between $1.4 and $2.0 million from the fourth quarter.

4:03PM Axcelis Tech reports EPS in-line, misses on revs (ACLS) 2.41 +0.09 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.01 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.01; revenues rose 31.3% year/year to $58.6 mln vs the $61.21 mln consensus.

System sales were $25.5 million, a 26% increase over the third quarter 2013, and a 100% increase over the first quarter.
"We're extremely pleased with our return to profitability. This quarter reflects the significant progress we've made on strengthening our financial model and capturing new opportunities with our expanding Purion product family. As we enter 2014, we believe we are strongly positioned to regain market share, achieve last peak quarterly revenues of $90 million during the current industry upturn, and maintain long term profitability through the cycle.

12:49PM Target confirms plans to accelerates implementation of chip-enabled smart card technology to protect consumers from fraud (TGT) 55.23 -0.18 : The co confirmed it will be accelerating its implementation of smart card technology designed to dramatically reduce the threat of credit and debit card fraud among guests shopping in its stores. During Chief Financial Officer John Mulligan testimony, Mulligan said Target will equip its proprietary REDcards and all of its store card readers in the U.S. with chip-enabled smart-card technology by the first quarter of 2015, more than six months ahead of previous plans. The accelerated timing is part of a $100 million effort to put in place chip-enabled technology in all of Target's nearly 1,800 U.S. stores.

Large Cap Gainers

KORS (90.5 +18.04%): Beat on EPS by $0.25, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guided FY14 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus.
YUM (71.54 +8.13%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, missed on revs; guided FY14 EPS in-line.
UBS (20.27 +5.49%): Beat on EPS by CHF0.01.

Large Cap Losers

ARMH (42.74 -6.71%): Missed on EPS by GBP0.01, beat on revs.
ETN (67.84 -3.46%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided Q1/FY14 EPS in-line (midpoint below consensus).
BSX (12.93 -0.61%): Beat on EPS by $0.08, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS above consensus, revs in-line.

Mid Cap Gainers

ACM (29.95 +8.17%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, missed on revs.
LL (93.84 +8.01%): S.A.C. Capital disclosed 5.0% passive stake in 13G filing.
ZNGA (4.72 +5.23%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS; tgt raised to $6 from $4.

Mid Cap Losers

DNB (97.2 -8.7%): Missed on EPS by $0.07, beat on revs; Josh Peirez has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer, co raised quarterly dividend by 10% to $0.44.
BRO (28.6 -6.78%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, missed on revs.
HLF (66.45 -3.72%): Priced offering of $1 bln aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2019; entered into amendment relating to its $500 mln senior term loan and $700 mln senior revolving loan credit facility.

IXYS Integrated Circuits Division, a subsidiary of IXYS (IXYS), announced the availability of the IXEP1400 electronic paper display gate driver

JDSU (JDSU) announced new laser technology that will be on display at SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco from Feb 4 -6.

SunEdison (SUNE) and the Public Investment Fund of the Government of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Arabian Investment Company signed an agreement to jointly fund a feasibility study for the establishment of a vertically integrated solar PV manufacturing complex at Wa'ad Al Shammal in Saudi Arabia. This follows a successful preliminary study between the National Industrial Clusters Development Program and SunEdison in 2013.

RMBS +1.6% (added to Focus List at Citigroup)

8:02AM Cisco Systems and Google (GOOG) enter into a long-term patent cross-licensing agreement covering a broad range of products and technologies (CSCO) 21.55 : CSCO and Google announced they have entered into a long-term patent cross-licensing agreement covering a broad range of products and technologies.

The agreement allows each co to extract significant value from its patent portfolio through a license to the other's portfolio and by helping to reduce the risk of future litigation. It stands in direct contrast to actions such as patent privateering -- or the transfer of patents to patent assertion entities -- that harm consumers.
"Our agreement with Cisco will reduce the potential for litigation, letting us focus instead on building great new products," said Allen Lo, Google's Deputy General Counsel for Patents. "We're pleased to enter into this cross-license, and we welcome discussions with any company interested in a similar arrangement."

7:22AM ATMI beats by $0.14, misses on revs (ATMI) 26.93 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.44 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.30; revenues rose 6.3% year/year to $94.8 mln vs the $100.04 mln consensus.

Q4 results exclude a pre-tax asset impairment charge of $11.5 million ($0.28 per diluted share), and a pre-tax gain of $1.2 million ($0.03 per diluted share) on the sale of a marketable security.
Briefing note: Entegris announced it would acquire ATMI for $34/share in cash - see post at 7:04

7:16AM Entegris beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ENTG) 10.27 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues rose 11.0% year/year to $186.3 mln vs the $170.49 mln consensus.

Guidance:
Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.09-0.14, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $165-180 mln vs. $172.70 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

In a separate press release issued today, Entegris announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ATMI. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, therefore, any contribution from acquisition is not reflected. See 7:04 post

7:07AM Benchmark Elec beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (BHE) 22.07 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.36; revenues rose 19.4% year/year to $757 mln vs the $701.07 mln consensus. New program bookings in Q4 2013 were $150 million to $180 million.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.29-0.34, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.31 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q1 revs of $630-660 mln vs. $643.84 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

6:32AM Mattson sees Q4 revs above estimates; also sees Q1 rev mid-pt above estimates (MTSN) 2.92 : Co issues upside guidance for Q4 (Dec), sees EPS of $0.03-0.04, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.04 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 (Dec) revs of $40-41 mln vs. $39.39 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Mattson also expects, as of December 31, 2013, that cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash will be approximately $16 million with $14 million outstanding borrowing under its revolving credit facility.

Q1 Guidance
Co issues guidance for Q1 (Mar), sees EPS of $0.02-0.06, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.06 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 (Mar) revs of $41-45 mln vs. $42.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

These results reflect the recognition of revenue associated with the acceptance of a Millios system for volume production at advanced Foundry / Logic wafer fabrication facilities.

RBC Capital Markets downgraded select semicap names:
RBC Capital downgraded Lam Research (LRCX) to Sector Perform from Outperform and lowered its target to $57 from $62. RBC downgraded KLA-Tencor (KLAC) to Sector Perform from Outperform and lowered its target to $65 from $68. RBC downgraded Nanometrics (NANO) to Sector Perform from Outperform.
While RBC maintained its positive secular view on the semicap sector driven by increasing capital intensity, in the near term, it does expect memory spending to moderate and 20nm foundry adoption to be relatively muted. RBC expects the stocks to remain range bound balancing risk of downward revision and valuation support.
Violin Memory (VMEM) announced that its Board of Directors appointed Kevin DeNuccio as president and chief executive officer, effective immediately. DeNuccio, 54, succeeds Howard Bain, who was serving as interim CEO. Mr. Bain will remain chairman of the Violin Memory Board of Directors. Mr. DeNuccio brings to Violin more than 25 years of executive and board experience building, managing and growing leading technology businesses. Most recently, he managed Wild West Capital, an angel investing, management and technology consulting firm he co-founded in 2012.
FireEye (FEYE) announced it has filed a registration statement with the SEC for a proposed public offering of its common stock. A portion of the shares of common stock to be sold in the offering will be sold by FireEye, and a portion of the shares will be sold by existing stockholders of the company. FireEye will not receive any proceeds from the shares sold by existing stockholders. The number of shares to be sold and the allocation of the shares between FireEye and existing stockholders have not yet been determined. Morgan Stanley will act as lead book-running manager for the offering.

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Chart of the Day

http://www.chartoftheday.com/20140205.htm?H

The Dow has struggled so far in 2014 - down 6.8% year to date. For some perspective, today's chart illustrates the overall trend of the stock market (as measured by the Dow) since 2003. As today's chart illustrates, the Dow has benefited from a strong upward trend since early 2009 (see upward sloping green trendline). This year, however, the Dow has sold off sharply due to concerns over steep declines in emerging markets. The Dow's steep decline has been significant enough to result in a break below long-standing support (upward sloping green trendline).

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : Equities ended the Wednesday session on a mixed note. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 finished with respective losses of 0.5% and 0.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended flat. Despite its outperformance, the Dow was unable to settle above its 200-day moving average (15479) for the second day in a row.

Today's affair began on a lower note as stocks succumbed to the pressure exerted by the Japanese yen, which strengthened again overnight. Yen strength has been a considerable headwind for equities since the start of the year as many professionals who borrow in yen to fund their equity positions have found themselves in a bit of a pickle. In 2013, when the yen weakened steadily while equities rallied, the carry trade yielded strong results. This year, however, with the yen climbing and equities sliding, the losses have been compounding.

The dollar/yen pair marked its session low right below the 100.80 level this morning, but rallied sharply off that low. The pair then notched a high of 101.65 after today's better-than-expected ISM Services report before giving up a portion of its gain. Dollar/yen wasn't able to overtake the morning high and finished the New York Session right below the 101.40 level. Meanwhile, yen futures added 0.2%, extending their 2014 gain to 3.8%.

Overall, the lack of defined sector leadership and the presence of some mixed signals made for a sloppy session.

Out of the four top-weighted sectors, consumer discretionary (+0.2%), financials (-0.1%), and technology (+0.01%) outperformed while health care (-0.6%) lagged.

The discretionary sector drew strength from modest gains among retailers. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 78.12, +0.25) added 0.3%, but remains down 11.3% so far in 2014. Elsewhere, technology displayed relative strength with some help from large-cap components like Apple (AAPL 512.59, +3.80) and Google (GOOG 1143.20, +5.04).

On the downside, health care (and Nasdaq Composite) struggled to keep pace with the S&P 500 as biotechnology lagged. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 236.95, -4.06) lost 1.7%, but remains higher by 4.4% this year.

Also of note, the industrial sector finished in-line with the S&P 500, but transports struggled. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 0.8% after CH Robinson (CHRW 53.16, -5.48) reported disappointing earnings.

The mixed performance pushed some participants in the direction of volatility protection as the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 19.58, +0.47) rose 2.5%. Interestingly, the bond market did not reflect a safety bid as Treasuries ended on their lows with the 10-yr yield up four basis points at 2.67%.

Trading volume was a bit above average as 740 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data included three reports:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index ticked up 0.4% to follow last week's 0.2% decline.
According to today's ADP National Employment Report, employment in the nonfarm private business sector increased 175K in January. This was slightly below the increase of 178K expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The December reading was revised down to 227,000 from 238,000.
The ISM Non-manufacturing Index for January increased to 54.0 from 53.0. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 53.8. Weather conditions, which were blamed for the poor manufacturing report, seemed to have no impact on services sector. Business Activities accelerated in January. The index increased to 56.3 from 54.3.

Tomorrow, Challenger Job Cuts for January will be announced at 7:30 ET while weekly initial claims, December trade deficit, and fourth quarter productivity data will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -4.0% YTD
S&P 500 -5.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -6.9% YTD

DJ30 -5.01 NASDAQ -19.97 SP500 -3.56 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 804/1.99 bln/1809 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1242/740.5 mln/1787

3:30 pm :

Apr gold rallied sharply to a session high of $1274.50 per ounce at pit trade open on today's January ADP Employment Change reading of 175K. TheBriefing.com consensus expected an increase of 178K. However, the precious metal gave up the earlier gains and fell to a session low of $1251.80 per ounce when data showed that the ISM Non-manufacturing Index increased to 54.0 in January from 53.0 in December (Briefing.com consensus was 53.8). Gold eventually settled with a 0.4% gain at $1257.00 per ounce.
Mar silver also popped to a session high of $20.33 per ounce in early morning pit trade but pulled back as the session progressed. It traded in a consolidative pattern near the $19.80 per ounce level and settled at $19.81 per ounce, or 2.0% higher.
Mar crude oil pulled back from its session high of $98.14 per barrel set at floor trade open and dipped to a session low of $96.80 per barrel following inventory data that showed a build of 0.44 mln barrels when a build of 2.3-2.6 mln barrels was anticipated. Distillate inventories fell by 2.36 mln while consensus called for a draw of 1.5-1.6 mln. The energy component traded slightly above the unchanged line in afternoon action and settled 0.1% higher at $97.38 per barrel.
Mar natural gas rose as high as $5.74 per MMBtu in overnight trade, a new four-year high, but reversed course when floor trade opened. It fell into negative territory and brushed a session low of $4.99 per MMBtu moments before settling with a 6.1% loss at $5.04 per MMBtu.

4:58PM Cisco and Samsung enter into patent cross-license agreement (CSCO) 7.46 -0.92 : CSCO and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced they have entered into a patent cross-license agreement, effective immediately. Both companies gain access to each other's industry-leading patent portfolios under the agreement, which covers a broad range of products and technologies.

The mutually beneficial agreement covers the two companies' existing patents as well as those filed over the next 10 years. This type of patent agreement reduces the risk of potential litigation and instead puts the focus on innovation for future products and services

4:52PM Sierra Wireless beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus (SWIR) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.10 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 8.4% year/year to $118.6 mln vs the $114.95 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.01-0.04 vs. $0.05 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $117-121 mln vs. $111.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:23PM SolarWinds beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guides FY14 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SWI) 42.59 +2.13 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.41 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.34; revenues rose 32.1% year/year to $97.1 mln vs the $91.65 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of 0.34-0.36 vs. $0.35 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of 92-94 vs. $91.92 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues upside guidance for FY14, sees EPS of 1.55-1.65 vs. $1.54 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of 408-420 vs. $405.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:18PM KLA-Tencor announces it is now scheduled to present at the Goldman Sachs 2014 Technology and Internet Conference on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. PST (KLAC) 60.93 +0.64 :

4:18PM Atmel misses by $0.01, misses on revs (ATML) 8.19 -0.01 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 2.3% year/year to $353.2 mln vs the $357.4 mln consensus.
Revenue for our microcontroller business increased during 2013, with the core microcontroller business generating robust growth," said Steve Laub, Atmel's President and Chief Executive Officer. "We are well positioned for 2014 with multiple growth drivers tied to our extensive new product introductions and significant margin expansion from ongoing operational initiatives."

4:13PM Twitter beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus; guides FY14 revs above consensus (TWTR) 65.97 -0.35 :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.02 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.01). TWTR Monthly Active Users 241 mln compared to 231.7 mln at the end of SepQ and 185 mln at the end of prior year DecQ.

Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2013 totaled $243 million, an increase of 116% compared to $112 million in the same period last year.

Advertising revenue totaled $220 million, an increase of 121% year-over-year.
Mobile advertising revenue was more than 75% of total advertising revenue.
Data licensing and other revenue totaled $23 million, an increase of 80% year-over-year.
International revenue totaled $66 million, an increase of 200% year-over-year. International revenue was 27% of total revenue.
MAUs
Average Monthly Active Users (MAUs) were 241 million as of December, 31, 2013, an increase of 30% year-over-year.
Mobile MAUs reached 184 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 37% year-over-year, representing 76% of total MAUs.
Timeline views reached 148 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 26% year-over-year.
Advertising revenue per thousand timeline views reached $1.49 in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 76% year-over-year.
Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $10-16 bln, Capital IQ consensus $17 mln, sees Q1 revs of $230-240 mln vs. $215.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues upside guidance for FY14, sees adjusted EBITDA between $150-180 mln, Capital IQ consensus $43 mln, sees FY14 revs of $1.15-1.20 bln vs. $1.13 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12PM TTM Tech beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (TTMI) 7.92 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.22; revenues fell 4.1% year/year to $366.1 mln vs the $360.6 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.03-0.09, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $290-310 mln vs. $320.90 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08PM FEI acquires Lithicon AS of Trondheim, Norway and Canberra, Australia for $68 mln; acquisition is projected to add ~ 1% to 2% to FEI's revs for the balance of 2014; co expects the acquisition to be accretive to GAAP earnings in 2015 and slightly dilutive to GAAP earnings in 2014 (FEIC) 90.76 -0.44 : FEIC announced that it has acquired Lithicon AS of Trondheim, Norway and Canberra, Australia. Lithicon provides leading-edge digital rock technology services and pore-scale micro computed tomography (microCT) equipment to oil and gas companies worldwide. In conjunction with the acquisition, FEI has obtained the helical scan microCT product and associated software from the Australian National University (ANU), through a licensing and development agreement.

Lithicon is the result of the 2013 integration of two of the world's leading digital core imaging and analysis companies: Digitalcore Pty Ltd of Canberra, Australia and Numerical Rocks AS of Trondheim, Norway.
The company combines Digitalcore's unique core imaging and processing expertise with Numerical Rocks' next-generation multiphase flow modeling capabilities to give it a leadership position in the emerging digital rock analysis market.
The purchase price was $68 million. It was paid for with funds from FEI's European operations which otherwise would be subject to U.S. taxation if repatriated.
The acquisition is projected to add approximately 1% to 2% to FEI's revenues for the balance of 2014.
FEI expects the acquisition to be accretive to GAAP earnings in 2015 and slightly dilutive to GAAP earnings in 2014.

4:08PM FormFactor beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line (FORM) 6.09 -0.18 : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.23); revenues rose 1.9% year/year to $48.55 mln vs the $48.44 mln consensus.

4:07PM TriQuint Semi beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY14 EPS in-line (TQNT) 8.07 -0.23 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.16 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues rose 14.6% year/year to $267.7 mln vs the $266.03 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ($0.13)-($0.11) vs. $0.04 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $170-180 mln vs. $224.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co cites seasonality and a large customer's inventory correction in Mobile Device products.
Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees EPS to meet or beat $0.49 vs. $0.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Looking at 2014 as a whole, we expect revenue growth in the mid single digits as strong growth in premium filters is partially offset by significant reductions in lower margin amplifiers and non-strategic foundry revenue. Revenue seasonality should be roughly similar to 2013 with about 40% of revenue coming in the first half of the year. Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to grow about 500 basis points from 2013 levels due to these product mix changes and cost reductions in operations. Operating expenses are expected to decline modestly from 2013. We currently believe non-GAAP earnings per share will meet or beat the current analyst consensus of $0.49.

4:07PM Cadence Design acquires Forte Design Systems; transaction is expected to be slightly accretive to co's 2014 results of operations and accretive in 2015 and beyond; terms of the transaction were not disclosed (CDNS) 13.74 -0.07 : Co announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Forte Design Systems, a provider of SystemC-based high-level synthesis and arithmetic IP. The acquisition is expected to close within 30 days. Taking into account the effects of merger accounting, the transaction is expected to be slightly accretive to Cadence's 2014 results of operations and accretive in 2015 and beyond. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

4:05PM IRobot beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY14 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus (IRBT) 34.38 +0.14 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.11 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 25.4% year/year to $126.3 mln vs the $125.8 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.13-0.17 vs. $0.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $110-113 mln vs. $122.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues mixed guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $1.00-1.15 vs. $1.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $560-570 mln vs. $557.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Large Cap Gainers

NVO (41 +3.59%): Co and Zosano Pharma entered into a license agreement to deliver semaglutide for the treatment of type 2 diabetes using Zosano's microneedle patch system
PCAR (56.69 +2.96%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird
TM (115.45 +2.63%): Continued strength on strong Q3 results; Consumer Reports survey ranked Toyota brand #1

Large Cap Losers

CTSH (92.14 -5.02%): Reported Q4 EPS of $1.15 ex items (in-line), revs rose 20.9% yoy to $2.36 bln vs $2.36 bln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $1.18 ex items (in-line), revs of at least $2.42 bln vs $2.42 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $5.02 ex items vs $5.08 estimate, revs flat at $10.3 bln vs $10.39 bln estimate
EL (65.84 -4.84%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($1.09 ex items vs $1.06 estimate), revs rose 2.9% yoy to $3.02 bln vs $3.03 bln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.52-0.55 vs $0.63 estimate, revs +6-7% to ~$2.43-2.45 bln vs $2.5 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS guidance, lowered top end of FY14 rev guidance
CERN (54.16 -4.31%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.39, revs rose 12.0% yoy to $795.3 mln vs $793.82 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.36-0.37 vs $0.38 estimate, revs of $770-810 mln vs $780.95 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.62-1.67 vs $1.66 estimate, revs of $3.2-3.4 bln vs $3.33 bln estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

DATA (91.87 +15.66%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.20 ($0.20 vs $0.00 estimate), revs rose 95.0% yoy to $81.5 mln vs $67.04 mln estimate; sees Q1 revs of $61-63 mln vs $60.08 mln estimate, sees FY14 revs of $320-325 mln vs $307.64 mln estimate; target raised at JMP Securities, JP Morgan, and Deutsche Bank, among others
MYGN (30.24 +11.26%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.20 ($0.66 vs $0.46 estimate), revs rose 36.9% yoy to $204.1 mln vs $175.13 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $2.09-2.12 vs $1.96 estimate, revs of $740-750 mln vs $703.16 mln estimate
LVLT (34.34 +9.33%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.06 vs $0.07 estimate), revs fell 0.7% yoy to $1.6 bln vs $1.59 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

DDD (63.99 -15.53%): Sees FY13 adjusted EPS fo $0.83-0.87 (lowered from $0.93-1.03) vs $0.96 estimate, revs of $513-514 mln vs $514.5 mln estimate; sees FY14 adjusted EPS of $0.73-0.85 vs $1.27 estimate, revs of $680-720 mln vs $372.7 mln estimate
BWLD (127.3 -9.56%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($1.10 vs $1.07 estimate), revs rose 12.4% yoy to $341.5 mln vs $347.56 mln estimate; reaffirmed 20% net earnings grwoth goal for 2014
CHRW (53.3 -9.11%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.62 vs $0.68 estimate), revs rose 6.1% yoy to $3.15 bln vs $3.26 bln estimate

8:48AM 3D Systems sees 2013 revs guidance of $513-514 mln vs $514.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus Est, within the prior $500-530 mln range, lowers its EPS guidance to $0.83-0.87 vs $0.96 consensus, from $0.93-1.03. Co sees 2014 EPS of $0.73-0.85 vs $1.27 consensus, sees revenue guidance at $680-720 mln v s$672.7 mln consensus (DDD) 75.77 : Co announced that it anticipates its full year revenue to be in the range of $513-514 mln, within its previously raised revenue guidance range of $500-530 mln on over 30% organic revenue growth and over 50% total revenue growth for Q4 of 2013. Compared to its expectations, the co experienced much stronger professional 3D printers and materials demand and softer on-demand parts and consumer demand during Q4.

As a result, the co expects to report its December backlog nearly doubled sequentially to $28 mln which included multiple advanced manufacturing 3D printers orders that it plans to deliver over the next year. These are preliminary, unaudited results based on current expectations and actual results may differ. The co expects to report that its gross profit margin remained materially unchanged despite expanding unfavorable mix pressure that resulted in a slight decrease for the quarter.

Accordingly, the company expects its non-GAAP earnings per share to be in the range of $0.83 to $0.87, below its previously expected guidance of $0.93 to $1.03 and its GAAP earnings per share to be in the range of $0.43 to $0.45.

Consistent with management's prior comments and actions, the co expects to report that its non-GAAP earnings per share compressed as a result of a substantial increase to its R&D expenditure related to its accelerated new product developments, a step up in sales and marketing expenses related to its rapid products channel expansion and higher costs related to its acquisition concentration during the quarter.

"Consistent with our previous comments, during Q4 we made very significant R&D, manufacturing and marketing investments designed to accelerate revenue growth that resulted in substantially compressed earnings for the fourth quarter," said Avi Reichental, President and Chief Executive Officer, 3DS.

"As we previously stated, we are willing to tolerate earnings reduction and even slight gross profit margin compression during this period to substantially accelerate our growth rate and market share. We firmly believe that these accelerated investments that already resulted in the announcement of 24 new products over the past nine weeks position the co to double its revenue over the next couple of years on organic growth of at least 30% going forward and to achieve greater earnings power and profitability over the long term."

7:16AM Extreme Networks misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (EXTR) 7.04 : Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.15; revenues rose 96.2% year/year to $148.3 mln vs the $151.64 mln consensus.

Non-GAAP Gross margin for Q2 was 56.4%, an increase of two percentage points year over year and a decrease of two percentage points quarter over quarter.
Inventory ending Q2 was $62.9 mln, a (net) increase of $32.5 mln from Q1 of fiscal 2014 and represents 85 days of inventory, a decrease of 14 days from Q1 of fiscal 2014.
Co recorded $33.7 mln of inventory as part of the Enterasys acquisition on October 31, 2013.

Guidance:
Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.01-0.06, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.08 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $140-155 mln vs. $152.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

7:12AM Group 1 Auto reports EPS in-line, beats on revs (GPI) 62.04 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.08 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $1.08; revenues rose 17.6% year/year to $2.28 bln vs the $2.23 bln consensus.
Key metrics:

New vehicle revenues increased 16.9% on 17.4% more unit sales.
New vehicle gross profit increased 14.6%.
Retail used vehicle gross profit increased 7.8% on 18.9% higher revenues, as the Company retailed 18.3% more units.
Parts and service gross profit increased 17.1% on 15.9% higher revenues.
Same Store parts and service revenues grew 7.5%.
Same Store finance and insurance (F&I) gross profit per retail unit rose 7.4% or $96 to $1,388. Within this growth, U.S. Same Store F&I gross profit per retail unit improved $110 to $1,436.
Operating margin (adjusted) on a Same Store basis improved to 3.2%.

Share Repurchase update
Group 1 repurchased 55,655 shares of its common stock at an average share price of $63.82 during the fourth quarter of 2013. The Company's remaining common stock share repurchase authorization is $71.4 million.

Altera Corporation (ALTR) and Wind River today announced that as a result of their strategic partnership, the companies have developed and deployed tools and solutions for Altera's SoC FPGA devices. Wind River's industry-leading operating systems and development tools support Altera's multi-core ARM processor-based SoC platforms

Gigamon (GIMO) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.18 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 35.1% year/year to $43.1 million which is higher than expected Non-GAAP gross margins of 81% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, compared to 79% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012. GIMO generated $22.5 mln in cash from operations. Commentary: "In the quarter we added 92 new customers, including 15 Fortune 1000 companies, continued to expand our portfolio of pervasive visibility and traffic intelligence solutions and laid the foundation for continued growth in 2014."
Xoom (XOOM) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.06 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 44.6% year/year to $32.1 million which is ahead of estimates. The company issued downside guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $(0.08)-(0.05), excluding non-recurring items, which is below estimates and revenues of $33-34 million which is lower than expected. The company issued fiscal year 2014 guidance with EPS of $0.03-0.10, excluding non-recurring items, which is below estimates and revenues of $155-160 million which is above estimates. The company announced it has acquired BlueKite, a technology company that develops solutions and applications to improve the way people around the world pay their bills. Xoom acquired BlueKite for approximately $15 million in cash and equity. BlueKite has built a robust technology platform for cross-border bill payments and mobile phone top ups. This acquisition will allow Xoom to offer adjacent services to their burgeoning money transfer offerings, with the ability to pay bills for their loved ones, as well as top-up mobile phones. By facilitating safe, reliable and accurate cross-border bill payments, Xoom will be able to help its customers take even better care of family members back in their home country. Guatemala City-based BlueKite currently has 30 employees.
Tableau Software (DATA) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.20 per share, which his higher than expected, while revenues rose 95.0% year/year to $81.5 million which is higher than expected. The company sees Q1 revs of $61-63 million which is higher than expected. The company sees Q1 operating loss of $6-8 million. The company sees fiscal year 2014 revenues of $320-325 million which is higher than expected and non-GAAP operating loss of $15-20 million.
Oclaro (OCLR) reported second quarter loss of $0.29 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues fell 8.2% year/year to $102.9 million which his higher than expected. Non-GAAP gross margin was 17% compared to 13% in 1Q14. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $10.7 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2014, compared with negative $19.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Guidance: The company issues guidance for the third quarter with revenues of $93-$103 million which is in line with estimates. The company sees non-GAAP gross margin of 13-17% and adjusted EBITDA of ($13.0) - ($9.0) million.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market enjoyed a broad-based rebound on Thursday that placed the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.2%) back above its 200-day moving average (15483). The S&P 500 also gained 1.2%, ending just north of its 100-day average (1772) after flirting with that level during the afternoon.

Stocks began on an upbeat note and climbed through the first 90 minutes of action. Much of the advance was paced by groups that faced aggressive selling during the recent pullback, suggesting short covering played a role in the rally.

Yen weakness also factored into the advance as the retreat of the Japanese currency calmed fears about some participants being forced out of yen-based carry trades due to strength in the funding currency. The dollar/yen pair ended the New York session right above 102.00 after starting the day near 101.20.

The consumer discretionary group (+2.1%) ended in the lead with media names making a significant contribution after Dow component Disney (DIS 75.56, +3.80) beat its Capital IQ consensus estimate by 13 cents on in-line revenue.

Elsewhere among discretionary shares, retailers and homebuilders displayed industry-wide strength. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 80.00, +1.88) gained 2.4% and iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.82, +0.75) jumped 3.1%.

Also of note, the largest S&P 500 sector, technology (+1.2%) ended in line with the broader market. Most large cap components displayed strength, but Facebook (FB 62.16, -0.03) ended little changed after its peer, Twitter (TWTR 50.03, -15.94), reported earnings. Although the social media company announced above-consensus results, its Monthly Active Users metric showed disappointing growth.

On the countercyclical side, all four groups-consumer staples (+1.1%), health care (+0.5%), utilities (+0.6%), and telecom services (+0.1%)-were unable to keep pace with the S&P 500. Notably, the staples sector received support from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR 102.10, +21.22) after the company announced a strategic partnership with Coca-Cola (KO 38.03, +0.42), in which KO will purchase a 10% minority stake in GMCR. In addition, GMCR reported a bottom-line beat on below-consensus revenue.

Treasuries ended near their lows with the 10-yr yield up three basis points at 2.71%.

Participation was a bit above average as 730 million shares changed hands at the New York Stock Exchange.

Today's economic data featured three reports:

The initial claims level settled back into the 330,000 range this week as the initial claims level fell to 331,000 from an upwardly revised 351,000 (from 348,000). The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to fall to 335,000.
Fourth quarter nonfarm labor productivity increased 3.2% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 2.4%. That was down from an upwardly revised 3.6% increase (from 3.0%) in the third quarter. Profit growth outperformed labor gains in the fourth quarter. Compensation per hour increased only 1.5%, down from a 1.6% increase in the third quarter. With compensation increasing at a slower rate than productivity, unit labor costs fell 1.6%. That was the third quarterly decline of 2013.
The U.S. trade deficit for December widened to $38.7 billion from an upwardly revised $34.6 billion (from $34.3 billion). The Briefing.com consensus expected the trade deficit to increase to $36.0 billion. The Bureau of Economic Analysis assumed the trade deficit in December increased to around $37.0 billion in the advance estimate for fourth quarter GDP. The slightly higher than expected deficit will likely contribute to lower GDP growth in the second estimate.

Tomorrow's data will focus on jobs with the nonfarm payrolls report for January set to be released at 8:30 ET. Hourly earnings and average workweek will also be announced at 8:30 ET while the December consumer credit report will cross the wires at 15:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -2.9% YTD
S&P 500 -4.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.7% YTD

DJ30 +188.30 NASDAQ +45.57 SP500 +21.79 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1684/1.80 bln/890 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2322/729.6 mln/737

3:30 pm :

Apr gold popped to a session high of $1267.50 per ounce in early morning pit trade but quickly gave up the gain. It chopped around near the unchanged line for the remainder of the session and settled 20 cents lower at $1256.80 per ounce.
Mar silver traded in positive territory today, advancing to a session high of $20.18 per ounce in early morning action. It brushed a session low of $19.83 per ounce and eventually settled at $19.92 per ounce, or 0.6% higher.
Mar crude oil traded higher but retreated from its session high of $98.83 per barrel set in early morning floor trade. It dipped to a session low of $97.47 per barrel in afternoon action and settled with a 0.5% gain at $97.84 per barrel.
Mar natural gas traded as high as $5.40 per MMBtu in overnight trade but fell below $5.00 following inventory data that showed a draw of 262 bcf. Expectations called for a larger draw of 270-273 bcf. Unable to regain momentum, it settled with a 2.2% loss at $4.93 per MMBtu.

4:32PM Multi-Fineline beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs in-line (MFLX) 13.45 -0.41 : Reports Q1 (Dec) loss of $0.39 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.42); revenues fell 26.9% year/year to $211.7 mln vs the $210 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $120-135 mln vs. $140.60 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margin to range between negative 13 and negative 11 percent based on production build plans, projected net sales volume and anticipated product mix.

4:24PM ON Semiconductor beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus (ONNN) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.14; revenues rose 5.6% year/year to $718 mln vs the $691.31 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $695-725 mln vs. $676.09 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Business trends during the fourth quarter of 2013 improved significantly with heightened order activity, and the strength has continued thus far in the current quarter. With an improving macro-economic outlook, especially for developed economies, and with favorable supply-demand dynamics, we are upbeat on our outlook for 2014."

4:22PM Brooks Automation beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (BRKS) 9.92 0.00 : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.06; revenues rose 27.1% year/year to $124.6 mln vs the $122.26 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.05-0.09 vs. $0.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $126-130 mln vs. $131.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12PM Monolithic Power beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (MPWR) 32.41 +1.05 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.32 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.31; revenues rose 32.0% year/year to $63.6 mln vs the $62.8 mln consensus.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $58-62 mln vs. $60.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10PM Amtech Systems beats by $0.10, beats on revs (ASYS) 8.80 -0.32 : Reports Q1 (Dec) loss of $0.08 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.18); revenues rose 58.5% year/year to $14.8 mln vs the $9.9 mln consensus.

At December 31, 2013, the Company's total order backlog was $23.3 million, compared to total backlog of $26.8 million at September 30, 2013. Total backlog at December 31, 2013, includes $14.1 million in solar orders and deferred revenue, compared to solar backlog of $17.1 million at September 30, 2013. Foreign exchange caused a $0.4 million increase in backlog in the December 2013 quarter due to the strengthening of the Euro versus the US dollar. Backlog includes deferred revenue and customer orders that are expected to ship within the next 12 months.

Gross margin in the first quarter of fiscal 2014 was 31%, compared to 15% in the first quarter of fiscal 2013. The higher margin resulted primarily from increased sales volumes, expense reductions from company-wide cost control initiatives and use of previously-written down inventory.

4:03PM Lattice Semi beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus (LSCC) 5.94 +0.36 : Reports Q4 (Dec) GAAP earnings of $0.06 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.03; revenues rose 35.9% year/year to $89.5 mln vs the $81.1 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 sequential rev growth of -2% to flat, which computes to $87.7-89.5 mln vs. $83.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Large Cap Gainers

GMCR (105.98 +31.03%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, missed on revs; guided Q2 EPS below consensus; guided FY14 EPS in-line; announces strategic partnership with KO - KO to purchase 10% minority equity stake in GMCR for $1.25 bln; upgraded to Hold at Stifel; tgt raised to $117 from $95 at Canaccord Genuity; target raised to $130 at Imperial Capital.
ORLY (146.12 +8.59%): Beat on EPS by $0.08, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS in-line; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line; Board increased share repurchase authorization by $500 mln.
ADS (254.16 +8.52%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs below consensus.

Large Cap Losers

TWTR (52.3 -20.72%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs above consensus; guided FY14 revs above consensus; downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS; tgt lowered to $42; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel; downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at Atlantic Equities; downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Sterne Agee; tgt lowered to $55 from $65 at CRT Capital.
S (8.05 -5.34%): Co and Softbank (SFTBY) plan to decide on T-Mobile USA (TMUS) bid soon, according to reports.
CHK (24.55 -6.35%): Announced 2014 absolute production growth target of 2 -- 4% on planned capital expenditure decrease of 20%; budgeting total capital expenditures in the range of $5.2 - $5.6 bln in 2014.

Mid Cap Gainers

YELP (90.78 +20.67%): Missed on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs above consensus; guided FY14 revs above consensus; upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James; Pacific Crest raised its YELP tgt to $90 from $75; target raised to $95 from $85 at Stifel.
AKAM (56.53 +19.21%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS to $0.51-0.55 vs $0.49 consensus; guided Q1 revs to $426 to $442 mln vs $413.78 mln consensus; target raised to $51 from $44 at FBR Capital; upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse; tgt to $63 from $56 at Canaccord Genuity.
AAP (125.21 +13.06%): Beat on EPS by $0.13, missed on revs; guided FY14 EPS above consensus.

Mid Cap Losers

SPR (26.91 -18.38%): Reported EPS in-line, missed on revs; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.
P (31.16 -13.03%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; guided FY14 below consensus; listener hours rose 13% y/y to 1.58 bln; previewed Jan metrics: Active users of 73.4 mln, down from 76.2 mln in Dec, up from 65.5 mln in prior year.
TW (99.5 -13.06%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, missed on revs; guided Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; lowered FY14 EPS in-line, lowered FY14 revs.

SunEdison (SUNE) announced the completion of a 306 kW DC solar system for Whole Foods Market (WFM) in Brooklyn, New York.

TQNT +1.7% (upgraded to Buy at Needham)

7:16AM NXP Semi announces its subsidiary, NXP B.V., together with NXP Funding, is seeking to reprice its existing $486,250,000 Tranche A-1 Loans due 2017 (NXPI) 47.00 : Co announced today that its subsidiary, NXP B.V., together with NXP Funding LLC, is seeking to reprice its existing $486,250,000 Tranche A-1 Loans due 2017. The repriced loans would constitute a new tranche of loans under NXP's existing Senior Secured Term Loan Facility. The arranger on the transaction is Barclays Bank PLC.

7:04AM Canadian Solar announces the sale its fourth utility scale solar power plant in Ontario to a fund managed by BlackRock (BLK) (CSIQ) 37.39 : Co announced that its subsidiary, Canadian Solar Solutions, entered into an agreement with a fund managed by BlackRock (BLK), whereby BlackRock will acquire from Canadian Solar the Oro-Medonte solar power plant totaling 10 MW AC at a valuation comparable to other recent project sales completed by Canadian Solar on a per megawatt basis in the Ontario market. This latest transaction follows BlackRock's previously announced acquisition of the Demorestville, Taylor Kidd and Westbrook solar power plants in Ontario, Canada.

ARM (ARMH) and Crocus Technology announced that Crocus has licensed the ARM SecurCore SC000 processor.

6:14AM NXP Semi beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (NXPI) 47.00 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.99 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.95; revenues rose 15.9% year/year to $1.29 bln vs the $1.27 bln consensus.

GAAP Gross margin was 45.6% vs 45.2% last year

Guidance:
Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.84-0.96 vs. $0.89 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.21-1.25 vs. $1.23 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

1:37AM Micron prices $600 mln of 5.875% Senior Notes due 2022 (MU) 23.31 :

Akamai Tech (AKAM) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 15.3% year/year to $436 million which is higher than expected.
Yelp (YELP) reported fourth quarter GAAP loss of $0.03 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues rose 71.4% year/year to $70.6 million which is higher than expected. The comapny issued guidance for the first quarter with revenues of $73.5-74.5 million which is higher than expected. Q1 Guidance: Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $8 million to $9 million. Stock-based compensation is expected to be in the range of $10 million to $11 million, and depreciation and amortization is expected to be approximately 5% of revenue. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with revenues of $353-358 million which is higher than expected. FY14 Guidance: Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $54 million to $58 million. Stock-based compensation is expected to be in the range of $43 million to $45 million, and depreciation and amortization is expected to be approximately 5% of revenue.Average monthly unique visitors grew 39% year over year to approximately 120 million. Active local business accounts grew 69% year over year to approximately 67 thousand.
Twitter (TWTR) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.02 per share, which is higher than expected. TWTR Monthly Active Users 241 million compared to 231.7 mln at the end of SepQ and 185 millionat the end of prior year DecQ. Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2013 totaled $243 million, an increase of 116% compared to $112 million in the same period last year. Advertising revenue totaled $220 million, an increase of 121% year-over-year.Mobile advertising revenue was more than 75% of total advertising revenue.Data licensing and other revenue totaled $23 million, an increase of 80% year-over-year.International revenue totaled $66 million, an increase of 200% year-over-year. International revenue was 27% of total revenue. MAUs Average Monthly Active Users (MAUs) were 241 million as of December, 31, 2013, an increase of 30% year-over-year.Mobile MAUs reached 184 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 37% year-over-year, representing 76% of total MAUs.Timeline views reached 148 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 26% year-over-year.Advertising revenue per thousand timeline views reached $1.49 in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 76% year-over-year. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $10-16 million and revenues of $230-240 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with adjusted EBITDA between $150-180 million and revenues of $1.15-1.20 billion which is higher than expected.
eGain Comm (EGAN) reported second quarter GAAP loss of $0.05 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues rose 19.9% year/year to $17.67 million which is higher than expected. The company reaffirmed guidance for fiscal year 2014 with revenues of +20-25% calculating to approximately $70.66-73.61 million which is higher than expected. Gross profit for the fiscal second quarter was $11.8 million, compared to $10.5 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2013. Gross margin for the fiscal second quarter was 67%, compared to 71% in the second quarter last year. The subscription and support revenue gross margin for the fiscal second quarter was 81%, compared to 85% in the second quarter last year. Total deferred revenue (which includes both deferred revenue on the balance sheet of $20.0 million and unbilled deferred revenue that remains off balance sheet of $17.7 million, collectively representing contractual commitments that have not been recognized as revenue) was $37.7 million at December 31, 2013, compared to $40.5 million at December 31, 2012. Guidance Details: eGain reiterates its fiscal 2014 guidance for annual total revenue growth of between 20% and 25% and updates annual cloud revenue growth from between 40% and 45% to between 35% and 40%.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 07-Feb-14

Dow +165.55 at 15794.08, Nasdaq +68.74 at 4125.86, S&P +23.59 at 1797.02

The major averages finished a shaky week on an upbeat note. The Nasdaq led the way, climbing 1.7% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 added 1.1% and 1.3%, respectively. Thanks to the broad rally, the indices managed to register weekly gains between 0.5% and 0.8% but small caps were not as fortunate. The Russell 2000 gained 1.1%, trimming its weekly loss to 1.3%.

Prior to the open, it was reported that only 113,000 nonfarm payrolls were added in January while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 175,000. Immediately after the release, equity futures and the dollar/yen pair tumbled while gold futures and Treasuries rallied. Strikingly, the moves reversed nearly as fast after the dollar/yen pair surged off its low near the 101.50 level.

Once again, the rebound in dollar/yen occurred in conjunction with the rebound in futures and continued into the session. This suggests participants remain very sensitive to the performance of the Japanese currency due to the popularity of the yen-based carry trade that benefits from rising stocks and a falling yen.

An interesting component of today's rally in the stock market, which was presumably predicated on the belief that pent-up demand will unleash better labor market and economic data in coming months, was that the Treasury market also traded higher. The benchmark 10-yr note added four ticks, pressuring its yield to 2.68%. The growth acceleration view, therefore, did not appear to be resonating as much in the fixed income market as it did in the stock market.

In the same vein, the US Dollar Index (DXY 80.65, -0.25) slipped today in a move that didn't exactly mesh with the stock market's seeming optimism about the road ahead. Also of note, gold futures rose 0.5% to $1262.90/ozt.

Just like yesterday, cyclical sectors paced the bulk of the advance. All six growth-sensitive groups posted gains between 1.1% and 1.6% with industrials ending in the lead. The sector drew strength from the likes of Boeing (BA 127.02, +4.35) and Honeywell (HON 93.16, +2.02) while transports lagged. The Dow Jones Transportation Average surged at the open and tested its 50-day moving average (7272) before surrendering a portion of the advance. The bellwether complex ended higher by 0.8% after being up nearly 1.2% in the morning.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, the discretionary space advanced 1.3%, extending its weekly gain to 1.9%. The discretionary sector ended the week ahead of the remaining nine groups after losing nearly 6.0% in January.

On the defensive side, health care (+1.7%) seized the lead during the afternoon while the remaining three countercyclical groups-consumer staples (+0.9%), telecom services (+0.7%), and utilities (+0.6%)-lagged. Biotechnology contributed to the outperformance of the health care sector as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 246.33, +9.54) surged 4.0%.

Participation was a bit above average as 751 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's data was limited to just two reports:

Nonfarm payrolls added only 113,000 jobs in January. That was up from a 75,000 (from 74,000) gain in December, but well below the Briefing.com consensus expectation of a 175,000 gain. Even though the claims data have shown improvements in labor conditions and a clear decline in layoff trends, it has not translated into employers hiring more workers. The labor market is stuck in the mud. Many analysts will be quick to blame the poor data on extreme cold and other problematic weather conditions, but if this was the case then jobs that are directly affected by the weather-such as construction-should have fallen in January. That did not happen. The construction sector actually added 48,000 new jobs in January, which was the most new jobs since 80,000 jobs were added in March 2007. Total private payrolls added 142,000 jobs in January, up from an 89,000 gain in December. The consensus expected private payrolls to increase by 161,000. The unemployment rate fell to 6.6% from 6.7% while the consensus expected the rate to remain at 6.7%.
The consumer credit report for December showed credit growth of $18.80 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at $11.50 billion. The prior month's reading was revised higher to $12.40 billion from $12.30 billion.

There is no economic data on Monday's schedule.

Week in Review: Stocks Roundtrip

The stock market began February on a sharply lower note after enduring a rough month of January. Small caps paced the Monday retreat as the Russell 2000 tumbled 3.1% while the S&P 500 fell 2.3%. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.1%, ending below its 200-day moving average (15470). Despite the sharply lower finish, the session actually started in the green. However, sellers emerged during the opening minutes and intensified their efforts after the January ISM Manufacturing Index registered a large decline (to 51.3 from 56.6). Although the ISM report itself did not cause the aggressive selloff, it added to the global growth concerns that have been percolating under the surface after China's Manufacturing PMI (50.5) fell to a six-month low while the Non-Manufacturing reading (53.4) registered an 11-month low. Furthermore, the selloff was accompanied by another wave of yen strength. Dollar/yen traded right above the 102.00 level at the start of the session, but retreated along with equities. The pair finished the trading day right under 101.00 while yen futures added 1.4%, extending their 2014 gain to 4.3%.

On Tuesday, the stock market rebounded, erasing roughly a third of Monday's losses. The Nasdaq led the way, rising 0.9% while the S&P 500 gained 0.8%. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5%, but was unable to reclaim its 200-day moving average (15474). Equities rallied steadily throughout the session in the absence of yen strength, which has been a headwind to the market since the start of the year. In fact, the yen began retreating overnight, and continued its slide into the close. Dollar/yen finished near 101.65 after starting its rally from just below the 101.00 level. Nine of ten sectors ended in the green with the discretionary space in the lead. The sector added 1.2% after Michael Kors (KORS 94.22, +2.72) and Yum! Brands (YUM 71.73, +0.56) reported above-consensus earnings.

Equities ended the Wednesday session on a mixed note. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 settled with respective losses of 0.5% and 0.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended flat. Despite its outperformance, the Dow was unable to close above its 200-day moving average (15479) for the second day in a row. The trading day began on a lower note as stocks succumbed to the pressure exerted by the Japanese yen, which strengthened again overnight. Out of the four top-weighted sectors, consumer discretionary (+0.2%), financials (-0.1%), and technology (+0.01%) outperformed while health care (-0.6%) lagged.

Stocks rallied broadly on Thursday, placing the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.2%) back above its 200-day moving average (15483). The S&P 500 also gained 1.2%, ending just north of its 100-day average (1772) after flirting with that level during the afternoon. The session began on an upbeat note and equities climbed through the first 90 minutes of action. Much of the advance was paced by groups that faced aggressive selling during the recent pullback, suggesting short covering played a role in the rally. Once again, the discretionary sector finished in the lead after ending January behind eight other sectors. Yen weakness also factored into the advance as the retreat of the Japanese currency calmed fears about some participants being forced out of yen-based carry trades due to strength in the funding currency. The dollar/yen pair ended the New York session right above 102.00 after starting the day near 101.20.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week  Change  % Change	YTD % 
 DJIA	     15698.85	 15794.08    95.23	0.6	-4.7 
 Nasdaq	      4103.88	 4125.86     21.98	0.5	-1.2 
 S&P 500	1782.59	 1797.02     14.43	0.8	-2.8 
 Russell 2000  1130.88	 1116.55    -14.33      -1.3	-4.0

:20PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: GLUU (4.99 +31.73%), ZNGA (4.53 +25.56%), ATMI (33.8 +20.71%), YELP (89.41 +18.54%), AKAM (56.64 +17.97%), SNCR (32.21 +15.65%), LVLT (36.75 +14.14%)
Services: FURX (109.67 +138.34%), MMS (47.23 +18.08%), TUES (14 +17.35%), MWW (7.42 +15.65%), KORS (94.2 +13.82%), LIOX (6.42 +13.56%), NGVC (37.88 +13.52%)
Industrial Goods: MTRX (30.77 +20.23%), HW (12.79 +14.72%)
Consumer Goods: GMCR (107.75 +29%), MOD (13.57 +16.22%), CLW (64.07 +12.8%)
Basic Materials: SZYM (11.93 +23.34%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: AFFX (7.21 -25.08%), TXTR (27.66 -24.03%), TWTR (54.35 -21.18%), EXTR (5.67 -20.94%), AMBA (27.27 -19.93%), DDD (66.45 -18.59%), CALD (11.5 -17.29%)
Services: EDMC (5.6 -26.87%), FUEL (50.97 -20.5%), GDOT (21.35 -19.23%), NILE (34.45 -17.63%), CTCT (26 -17.33%)
Industrial Goods: SPR (27.06 -21.8%)
Healthcare: ITMN (12.13 -30.34%), GALE (4.93 -21.07%), VNDA (11.36 -19.6%), CORT (3.09 -19.03%), HALO (14.08 -17.92%)
Consumer Goods: NUS (71.83 -17.3%)
Basic Materials: BBG (22.41 -20.16%)

2:35PM Nokia and HTC signed a patent and technology collaboration agreement; all patent litigation between the companies dismissed (NOK) 7.33 +0.32 : Co and HTC have settled all pending patent litigation between them, and entered into a patent and technology collaboration agreement. HTC will make payments to Nokia and the collaboration will involve HTC's LTE patent portfolio, further strengthening Nokia's licensing offering. The companies will also explore future technology collaboration opportunities. The full terms of the agreement are confidential.

2:31PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ATVI (19.85 +15.61%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.79 vs $0.73 estimate), revs fell 12.4% yoy to $2.27 bln vs $2.23 bln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of ~$0.09 vs $0.11 estimate, revs of ~$675 mln vs $676.2 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.26 ex items vs $1.28 estimate, revs of ~$4.6 bln vs $4.66 bln estimate
TRIP (84.93 +10.10%): Trading higher following strong results from peer Expedia (EXPE)
GMCR (109 +6.76%): Target raised to $125 from $106 at Williams Capital Group

Large Cap Losers

CI (78.14 -8.47%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($1.39 ex items vs $1.49 estimate), revs rose 7.0% yoy to $8.15 bln vs $8.05 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $6.80-7.20 ex items vs $7.32 estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna
LNKD (208 -6.91%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.39 vs $0.38 estimate), revs rose 47.3% yoy to $447.2 mln vs $437.92 mln estimate; sees Q1 revs of $445-460 mln vs $470.85 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $2.02-2.05 bln vs $2.17 bln estimate; target lowered to $225 from $250 at UBS, to $270 from $285 at Piper Jaffray, to $256 from $285 at Goldman, to $235 from $298 at CRT Capital, to $250 from $270 at Canaccord Genuity
FTI (48.35 -3.20%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.14 ($0.79 ex items vs $0.65 estimate), revs rose 11.2% yoy to $2.05 bln vs $1.89 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $2.55-2.75 vs $2.77 estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

ATHN (175.28 +26.03%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.13 ($0.57 vs $0.44 estimate), revs rose 47.5% yoy to $171.6 mln vs $168.62 mln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS of $0.98-1.15 ex items vs $1.04 estimate, revs $725-750 mln vs $744.15 mln estimate
PBYI (122.31 +17.95%): Announced that the European Patent Office has upheld the claims in Puma's licensed European patent (EP 1848414) which were being opposed by Boehringer Ingelheim
EXPE (73.95 +13.52%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.20 ($0.92 ex items vs $0.86 estimate), revs rose 18.2% yoy to $1.15 bln vs $1.14 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

G (14.14 -17.96%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.25 ex items (in-line), revs rose 10.0% yoy to $558.5 mln vs $550.02 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $2.22-2.26 bln vs $2.35 bln estimate
NCR (31.87 -8.89%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.83 vs $0.80 estimate), revs rose 1.7% yoy to $1.67 bln vs $1.78 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $3.00-3.10 vs $3.13 estimate, revs +12-14% (~$6.858-6.980 bln) vs $6.78 bln estimate
ABCO (56.75 -7.13%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.26 ex items vs $0.28 estimate), revs rose 12.7% yoy to $131 mln vs $132.54 mln estimate

Lattice Semi (LSCC) reported fourth quarter GAAP earnings of $0.06 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 35.9% year/year to $89.5 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for first quarter with sequential rev growth of -2% to flat, which computes to $87.7-89.5 million which is higher than expected.

LinkedIn (LNKD) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.39 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 47.3% year/year to $447.2 million which is higher than expected. EBITDA $111 million versus $98-100 million guidance. Revenue from Talent Solutions products totaled $245.6 million, an increase of 53% compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. Talent Solutions revenue represented 55% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 53% in the fourth quarter of 2012. Revenue from Marketing Solutions products totaled $113.5 million, an increase of 36% compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. Marketing Solutions revenue represented 25% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 27% in the fourth quarter of 2012. Revenue from Premium Subscriptions products totaled $88.1 million, an increase of 48% compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. Premium Subscriptions represented 20% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013 and 2012. The company issued first quarter revenues of revenues of $445-460 million which is lower than expected with adjusted EBITDA $106-108 million. The company issued fiscal year 2014 with revenues of $2.02-2.05 billion (below estimates) with adjusted EBITDA approximately $490 million. The company also acquire Bright, a co that leverages data insights and matching technology to connect prospects and employers. The transaction is valued at approximately $120 million, subject to adjustment, and consists of approximately 73 percent stock and approximately 27 percent cash. The stock being issued in the transaction will be done so in a private placement. Subject to the completion of customary closing conditions, the acquisition is expected to close during the first quarter of 2014.

OpenTable (OPEN) reported earnings of $0.59 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 21.9% year/year to $52.3 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $0.39-0.43, which is worse than expected, with revenues of $53.3-54.9 million which is in with expectations. Q1 Guidance Details: In the North America segment the Company estimates revenue to be in the range of $45.8 million to $47.0 million and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $20.5 million to $21.7 million. In the International segment the Company estimates revenue to be in the range of $7.5 million to $7.9 million and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA loss to be in the range of $1.5 million to $1.8 million. The company issued fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $1.71-1.92 which is worse than expected with revenues of $221-229 million which his line with expectations. FY14 Guidance Details: In the North America segment the Company estimates revenue to be in the range of $189.0 million to $195.0 million and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $88.0 million to $93.8 million. In the International segment the Company estimates revenue to be in the range of $32.0 million to $34.0 million and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA loss to be in the range of $3.4 million to $5.3 million. Installed restaurant base as of December 31, 2013, totaled 31,553. Seated diners totaled 44.0 million, a 34% increase over Q4 2012. Reservation revenues were $32.5 million in Q4 2013, up 33% over Q4 2012 revenues of $24.5 million. Reservation revenues primarily increased as a result of the increase in seated diners. Subscription revenues were $16.3 million in Q4 2013, up 12% over Q4 2012 revenues of $14.5 million. Subscription revenues primarily increased as a result of the increase in installed restaurants using our Electronic Reservation Book solution. Acquisition: The company announced that it has acquired Ness Computing, Inc., a provide of mobile personalized restaurant recommendations, pursuant to an agreement and plan of merger for approximately $17.2 million in cash, or $11.3 million net of estimated Ness cash.

ON Semiconductor (ONNN) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.17 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 5.6% year/year to $718 million which is higher than expected. The company issued first quarter revenue guidance of $695-725 million which is higher than expected. "Business trends during the fourth quarter of 2013 improved significantly with heightened order activity, and the strength has continued thus far in the current quarter. With an improving macro-economic outlook, especially for developed economies, and with favorable supply-demand dynamics, we are upbeat on our outlook for 2014."

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary:

http://www.siliconinvestor.com/reply.aspx?subjectid=37144&nonstock=False&replytoid=29378422&replytype=Pub&OrigType=Pub

- Jobs report clinker, but apparently enough for stocks to rally.
- More of the same on the jobs report: disappointing, stagnant, but we are told not to worry about jobs.
- Funds drain from various equity vehicles, seek bonds.
- Indices move back up through cracked support, some don't, but didn't flinch, much, at jobs.
- Stocks show surprising upside strength, setting up an interesting inflection next week.

Friday was setting up for a more traditional look at economic data: good would be good, bad would be bad. The problem: the jobs report was just malaise. Non-farms missed but participation recovered from the lows though remained in its slow trend lower. Less people were long-term unemployed, but still way too many are unemployed.

Thus when the news came out the market was not quite sure how to take it. A dive on the news (indeed just ahead of it as early leaks emerged) was quickly reversed.

In a week that saw no other than the venerable CBO pronounce that the Affordable Care Act was indeed negatively impacting jobs and would continue to negatively impact jobs, it should be no surprise that the January jobs report was a disappointment, even with the extension granted by fiat of the Executive. Plenty of evidence already existed that companies were altering their hiring habits, extension or no, as the part-time jobs creation versus full-time jobs shows, but it takes the 'nonpartisan CBO' to get on board before some will even begin to warm to an idea.

Nonetheless, the administration's jobs lap dog Bureau of Labor Statistics is still in denial, blaming poor job performance on the weather in January. It was interesting to note that December's horrid result was not blamed on the weather. Go figure. In any event, the 'weather made me do it' asterisk on the January 113K miss was quite a bit more interesting given that in January, another month marked by ice storms and people stranded on freeways, construction jobs ROSE 48,000. It is ironic, if not appropriate then, that government jobs FELL 29,000. Despite rain, sleet, snow or cold of winter, construction workers did their job while government workers took time off. The old adage appears still true today, but things are different in one way: now government workers, particularly federal workers under this Administration, are paid MORE than their average private counterpart. Puts a whole new meaning on the phrase good enough for government work.

As you know, the jobs report was a miss on the non-farms payrolls.

For about 1 minute, stocks acted as you would expect on bad news. Dow futures were up 40 points heading into the number and within minutes, indeed even BEFORE the number was officially released, they plummeted, swinging 80 points to -40.

Then as quickly as they left, bids returned and futures not only returned to +40 but they improved upon that into the open. They opened higher, tested in the first hour, then continued to show strength into the afternoon and into the close, holding the session's gains without flinching late in the day.

SP500 23.59, 1.33%
NASDAQ 68.74, 1.69%
DJ30 165.55, 1.06%
SP400 1.05%
RUTX 1.14%
SOX 1.64%

Volume: Finally moved up on an upside session, +2% NYSE, +7% NASDAQ. That moved NYSE just a bit above average once more, an popped NASDAQ back above average. Still, the volume is relatively notably lighter than the recent volume, particularly the upside volume.

A/D: solid 3.4:1 NYSE, 2.3:1 NASDAQ.

Why did stocks rally on a non-farms miss? Damn good question.

It wasn't wages, at least from a worker's perspective. If you are not one of the 100+M that do not have a job, your wages are not instilling any confidence. Wages were low last year at 1.9% for all of 2013, just 0.4% when inflation adjusted. That is lower than 2012 and half the average gains for the 20 years preceding the ongoing recession.

It was postulated that a stronger participation rate coupled with a lower unemployment rate (6.6%) 'proved' the jobs market was improving. The participation rate did improve and it was lauded as a great breakthrough.

Really? The recent series:
63.0% January
62.8% December
63.0% November
62.8% October

Great improvement indeed. Hey, it's better than falling to another record low, but it is not a turn.

Long-term unemployment fell by 232K to only 3.6M people. Average jobless duration (how long you are out of a job) fell to 35.4 weeks (just under the time it takes to have a baby). That is the lowest in a year but well, well above pre-recession levels. This after 5+ years of recovery in a 'fundamentally' changed America. Fundamentally changed? I'll agree with that.

Last of all, it was the old standby, 'it was the weather.' Major ice storms hit in December, January, and now February. Easy to pick on the weather. Once again, history gets in the way of any claims made by the federal government. Those classified as 'out of work due to weather' came in at 262,000. Seems high, but historically it is nothing. Higher levels were recorded in . . . 2008, 2009, over 1,000,000 in early 2010, 900K in early 2011, and almost 400K in late 2012. The weather? Really? As noted earlier, it apparently only impacted the government workers.

Commentator statements sum up yet another weak-kneed jobs report: "On an absolute kind of real-economy basis, this does confirm there's probably some degree of slowness out there, but I don't think it's catastrophic." 'Probably some degree'? Another from BNP Paribas's former Fed economist: "It's another disappointment, but it's not anything disastrous . . . There isn't . . . momentum in hiring." That is about as firm as anyone could be given the divergences in the report. Fortunately we learned, thanks to CNBC's Steve Leisman in his analysis of the report, 'jobs are not critical for growth.' Now THAT is a new normal, smacking of the notion that the ACA allows people to pursue their passion . . . without having to work.

THE MARKET

OTHER MARKETS

Euro/Dollar: Falling versus the euro on weaker jobs and the ECB holding everything steady on Thursday.

1.3633 versus 1.3588 versus 1.3537 versus 1.3514 versus 1.3529 versus 1.3496 versus 1.3551 versus 1.3655 versus 1.3667 versus 1.3671 versus 1.3676 versus 1.3695 versus 1.3545 versus 1.3562 versus 1.3528 versus 1.3612 versus 1.3605 versus 1.3683 versus 1.3669.

Dollar/Yen: Dollar climbed again versus the yen in a bounce, albeit modest, on the week.

102.33 versus 102.10 versus 101.37 versus 101.62 versus 101.37 versus 101.40 versus 102.30 versus 102.72 versus 102.11 versus 102.89 versus 102.64.

Bonds: Surged on the initial jobs news with the 10 year yield falling to 2.63%. Faded off of that surge to a more modest gain by the close.

2.68% versus 2.70% versus 2.67% versus 2.62% versus 2.60% versus 2.67% versus 2.70% versus 2.68% versus 2.75% versus 2.76% versus 2.73% versus 2.77% versus 2.86% versus 2.83% versus 2.83% versus 2.84% versus 2.88% versus 2.87% versus 2.83% versus 2.86% versus 2.97% versus 2.99% versus 2.94% versus 2.96% versus 3.00% versus 2.99% versus 3.03% versus 2.97% versus 3.01% versus 2.99% versus 2.98% 10 year.

Oil: 99.87, +2.03. Even with a stronger dollar oil surged on the week, breaking the 200 day SMA for the first time since December when it broke then folded. Moving off a double bottom now and that is a stronger pattern. Prepare for higher prices in the 105 range.

Gold: 1262.90, +6.10. Muddled laterally all week, but holding its move over the 50 day EMA.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +68.74 points (+1.69%) to close at 4125.86
Volume: 2.041B (+6.86%)

Up Volume: 1.7B (+240M)
Down Volume: 306.62M (-148.82M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.33 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.87 to 1

New Highs: 57 (+17)
New Lows: 36 (0)

S&P
Stats: +23.59 points (+1.33%) to close at 1797.02
NYSE Volume: 671M (+1.82%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 3.42 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 3.02 to 1

New Highs: 81 (+30)
New Lows: 72 (-21)

DJ30
Stats: +165.55 points (+1.06%) to close at 15794.08

THE CHARTS

NASDAQ: Gapped through the November 2012 trenldine and the 50 day EMA Friday, closing out at session highs. Higher but not blowout volume. Hard to argue with this action. AAPL revealed a big share buyback that has been underway, GOOG jumped toward its high, and PCLN blasted off. Plenty of help from big names as NASDAQ moves through the early December peak. Again, hard to argue with this upside recovery that looks more like a recovery now versus a relief bounce.

SP500: Through the November 2012 trendline and closing at the 50 day EMA. Key week for SP500 because it is approaching the December highs that represent a potential left shoulder to a head and shoulders. 1805 to 1815 is an important resistance range to watch.

DJ30: Broke back above the 200 day SMA Thursday after cracking it, added to the move Friday. At some resistance from the December low, but more important is at 16K to 16,200.

SOX: Moved through the 50 day EMA on Thursday and then through one of the 2012 trendlines on Friday. Nice recovery after a three day breach of the 50 day EMA.

SP400: Through the 11/2012 trendline heading to important resistance at 1315 (closed at 1308). Important week today.

RUTX: The small caps continue lagging, just now making the 10 day EMA and still well below the 11/2012 trendline thanks to that Monday flop lower. Hole in the boat. We entered some TWM calls (inverse of RUTX) Friday as they tested the 10 day EMA.

RUTX represents a potential anchor chain on the rest of the market, but the other indices showed more strength. SP500 and SP400 are at important levels for the coming week, however.

LEADERSHIP

Some rotation back into bigger names as the market recovered off the lows. That left some of the January leaders flat. Some. There are still solid leaders in biotech, healthcare, as well as electronics, tech, internet.

Big Names: NFLX surged Friday after its breakaway gap test. PCLN gapped back through its 50 day EMA with a strong upside move. CMG gapped higher a week back, worked laterally, and looks good to continue.

Biotechs, Drugs: Good and bad. BIIB is strong. GILD tested after earnings but looks good again. Some smaller still look great: PETX, KERX, CLVS.

Internet: QIHU, LIVE, Z

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 15.29; -1.94
VXN: 16.71; -2.77
VXO: 14.05; -2.5

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.82; -0.1

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls fade to 45.9, a 7.2 point drop. Finally coming off that extreme 60+ reading from January.

Bears finally break higher to 17.4, clearing the 15.3 resistance.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Note the extreme bullishness: it was this high in 2007 at the crash, in early 2005 as well.

Bulls: 45.9% versus 53.1% versus 57.6 versus 56.1 versus 60.6% versus 61.6% versus 60.0 versus 58.2 versus 57.1 versus 55.7 versus 53.6 versus 52.6 versus 55.2% versus 52.6 versus 49.5 versus 42.3% versus 45.4 versus 46.4% versus 44.3% versus 42.3% versus 37.1% versus 37.1% versus 38.1% versus 43.3%. Getting even more extreme . . .

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 17.4% versus 15.3% versus 15.1 versus 15.3% versus 15.2% versus 15.2% versus 14.0 versus 14.3 versus 14.3 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 15.5% versus 15.6% versus 16.5% versus 18.5 versus 21.6% versus 20.6% versus 18.6% versus 20.6% versus 21.6% versus 22.7% versus 23.7% versus 23.8% versus 21.6%.

Finally breaking 15 and in a big way.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

Friday's reaction to a lackluster jobs report but one that was not imploding suggests there is more bid strength in the market than revealed itself on the initial bounce from the selloff. That is a positive and it saw NASDAQ and SOX clear two levels of important resistance, SP500 retake the 2012 trendline along with SP400. DJ30 and particularly RUTX still have serious work ahead.

More than that, SP500 needs to clear the December interim high at 1810ish, another 13 or so points. That makes this week, even with the Thursday and Friday rally, the inflection point that tells whether the selling is done and a new leg is on that will push toward a new high.

We did pick up some upside positions on the bounce, stocks showing excellent patterns and that held support/patterns/trendlines on the selling. We are more than happy to play them upside as the rally continues. At the same time we have some downside positions and are looking at some more this week if the market move stalls and reverses. Indeed we picked up some TWM RUTX inverse calls on Friday as RUTX tests the 10 day EMA in a bear flag. A good hedge if things start next week ugly or if the move suddenly runs out of gas early week.

The rebound was better than expected, and that is just fine, but remain skeptical and stick to good patterns that held during the selling. That is precisely what we are doing, and if they continue to show solid bids then we will continue to add them. Keep in mind those key levels on SP500 as the week progresses as your bigger picture view. If the market hits those levels and stalls, we can bank some upside and be ready for the downside if the stall turns into a reversal downside.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4125.86

Resistance:
4161 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak

Support:
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13
The 50 day EMA at 4079
4070 is the series of highs from late November/early December
4058 is the November 2012 trendline
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The 200 day SMA at 3755
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.

S&P 500: Closed at 1797.02

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 1797
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1849.44 is the recent all-time high.

Support:
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1785 is the December 2012 up trendline
1768 is the December 3013 low
1730 is the September 2013 peak
The 200 day SMA at 1711
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1627 is the August 2013 low
1576 from October 2007, the prior all-time high
1573 is the June 2013 closing low
1569.48 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement of the April to May 2013 run
1560 is the June 2013 reversal low

Dow: Closed at 15,794.08

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 15,978
16,009 is a lower trendline off the 11/2012 low
16,175 is the November 2013 peak.
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high

Support:
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
The 200 day SMA at 15,489
15,318 is the June closing high
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

February 7 - Friday
- Nonfarm Payrolls, January (8:30): 113K actual versus 175K expected, 75K prior (revised from 74K)
- Nonfarm Private Payr, January (8:30): 142K actual versus 161K expected, 89K prior (revised from 87K)
- Unemployment Rate, January (8:30): 6.6% actual versus 6.7% expected, 6.7% prior
- Hourly Earnings, January (8:30): 0.2% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.0% prior (revised from 0.1%)
- Average Workweek, January (8:30): 34.4 actual versus 34.4 expected, 34.4 prior
- Consumer Credit, December (15:00): $18.8B actual versus $11.5B expected, $12.4B prior (revised from $12.3B)

February 11 - Tuesday
- JOLTS - Job Openings, December (10:00): 4.001M prior
- Wholesale Inventories, December (10:00): 0.6% expected, 0.5% prior

February 12 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 02/08 (7:00): 0.4% prior
- Crude Inventories, 02/08 (10:30): 0.440M prior
- Treasury Budget, January (14:00): $2.9B prior

February 13 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 02/08 (8:30): 335K expected, 331K prior
- Continuing Claims, 02/01 (8:30): 2975K expected, 2964K prior
- Retail Sales, January (8:30): 0.0% expected, 0.2% prior
- Retail Sales ex-auto, January (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.7% prior
- Business Inventories, December (10:00): 0.4% expected, 0.4% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 02/08 (10:30): -262 bcf prior

February 14 - Friday
- Export Prices ex-ag., January (8:30): 0.3% prior
- Import Prices ex-oil, January (8:30): -0.1% prior
- Industrial Productio, January (9:15): 0.3% expected, 0.3% prior
- Capacity Utilization, January (9:15): 79.4% expected, 79.2 prior
- Mich Sentiment, February (9:55): 80.2 expected, 81.2 prior

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market began the new trading week on a subdued note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 posted gains between 0.1% and 0.5% with the Nasdaq Composite ending in the lead.


Overall, the session had a 'wait-and-see' feel as many participants stuck to the sidelines ahead of tomorrow's Humphrey-Hawkins testimony on monetary policy. Although Fed Chair Janet Yellen is expected to strike a similar tone to the latest FOMC policy statement, the testimony will be the first public appearance for the new Fed Chair. Janet Yellen's prepared remarks will be released at 8:30 ET while the Q&A before the House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to begin at 10:00 ET.

The limited participation was reflected in today's trading volume as only 640 million shares changed hands at the NYSE. In fact, the final tally marked the lowest daily volume since January 28.

Seven out of ten sectors posted gains with health care (+0.9%) ending in the lead. The group outperformed throughout the session thanks in part to the relative strength of biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 250.72, +4.39) advanced 1.8% and also provided support to the Nasdaq Composite.

Like health care, the remaining countercyclical sectors also finished in the green, posting gains between 0.4% and 0.7%.

Things were a bit more mixed on the cyclical side where financials (+0.1%), technology (+0.3%), and materials (+0.4%) outperformed while consumer discretionary (-0.04%), energy (-0.6%), and industrials (-0.6%) lagged.

Notably, the industrial sector was pressured by broad weakness among transports. The Dow Jones Transportation Average fell 1.0% as 17 of its 20 components ended in the red. The bellwether complex lagged for the second consecutive session after coming up short of its 50-day moving average (7272) on Friday.

Elsewhere, the energy sector finished behind the remaining groups as large components like Chevron (CVX 111.69, -0.36) and ExxonMobil (XOM 89.52, -1.06) lagged. The two Dow members lost 0.3% and 1.2%, respectively.

Treasuries settled modestly higher with the 10-yr yield off one basis point at 2.67%.

Tomorrow, the wholesale inventories report for December will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -0.7% YTD
S&P 500 -2.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.7% YTD

DJ30 +7.71 NASDAQ +22.31 SP500 2.82 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1521/1.69 bln/1047 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1796/640.4 mln/1234

3:35 pm :

Natural gas futures lost steam, while crude oil futures rise above $100/barrel.
Mar natural gas finished today's session 20 cents lower at $4.58/MMBtu. Mar crude oil closed $0.20 higher at $100.07/barrel.
Precious metals showed some gains today with both gold and silver futures rising higher today.
Apr gold rose $11.90 to $1274.80/oz and Mar silver rose $0.19 to $20.12/oz.

4:58PM Rackspace on Conference Call- Guides Q1 and FY14 revs in line (RAX) 40.36 +0.85 :

Co sees Q1 2-3.5% (Approx $416-422 mln), Capital IQ consensus $417 mln; expect seasonally lower Q1; Expects EBITDA margins in the range of 31-33% and to improve in subsequent quarters
FY14 sees revenue growth of 15-18% (Approx $1.764-1.810 bln, Capital IQ consensus $1.775 bln) Capital IQ consensus $1.775 bln; expects continued uptick in quarterly performances; Capex should trend around 25% of revenue; adjusted EBITDA margins 32-35% in FY14

4:36PM Photronics (halted, will resume trade at 17:00) lowers Q1 guidance (PLAB) 8.18 -0.07 : Co issues downside guidance for Q1 (Jan), lowers EPS to $0.03-0.04, excluding non-recurring items, from $0.06-0.10 vs. $0.09 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q1 (Jan) revs of ~$101.5 mln (from $103-107 mln) vs. $105.54 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We expect that our first quarter revenue and EPS will be lower than previously anticipated as a result of a number of factors, including a slower than projected post-holiday recovery in our mainstream business in the U.S. and Europe, a delayed ramp in our high-end memory, and the absence of a pre-Lunar New Year pull-in in Taiwan. On the positive side, our Korean IC business was stronger sequentially. We continue to expect that the strength of our technology, our financial position and our deep customer relationships will lead to solid growth for the year."

4:32PM InvenSense and STMicroelectronics (STM) announce settlement of pending patent litigation (INVN) 19.58 +1.08 : STM and INVN announced that they have settled all pending proceedings between them and have entered into a patent cross license agreement.

The two companies had instituted various proceedings beginning in May 2012 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the United States Patent and Trademark Office and with the United States International Trade Commission.
This settlement and patent cross license resolves all such actions.
Under terms of the settlement, neither ST nor InvenSense has made any admission of liability with respect to such proceedings.
Other terms between the parties are confidential.

4:09PM Amkor beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (AMKR) 5.32 +0.13 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.18 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues rose 4.4% year/year to $755 mln vs the $760.43 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ($0.02)-$0.08 vs. $0.09 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $650-700 mln vs. $724.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Large Cap Gainers

TSLA (197.8 +6.04%): Reuters reporting that China plasn to extend electric car busidies until after 2015
TTM (30.41 +4.90%): Reported Q3 EPS $0.24 vs. $0.08 last year (EBITDA $1.71 bln); revs rose 39% yoy to $10.3 bln vs $9.7 bln estimate
ALXN (169.46 +3.56%): Target raised to $205 from $125 at Deutsche Bank

Large Cap Losers

MT (16.35 -5.33%): Reuters reporting that co is considering buying a part of all of Italian steelmaker Ilva; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill
L (43.14 -4.52%): Reported Q4 EPS of -$0.51, revs rose 4.6% yoy to $3.88 bln; Q4 net income saw goodwill impairment charges of $398 mln related to HighMount reflecting the continued low market prices for natural gas and natural gas liquids and recent history of negative reserve revisions
S (7.74 -3.43%): Initiated with an Equal Weight at Barclays, target $9; WSJ reporting that co plans to rethink a T-Mobile acquisition after antitrust concerns

Mid Cap Gainers

ICPT (383 +8.94%): Target raised to $493 from $449 at Wedbush
AUY (9.71 +5.89%): Strength in mid-cap gold companies: AEM, KGC, EGO, GFI also higher
HAS (53.02 +5.85%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($1.12 ex items vs $1.22 estimate), revs fell 0.1% yoy to $1.28 bln vs $1.3 bln estimate; Board increased quarterly dividend 8% to $0.43 from $0.40 per share, co repurchased 2.3 mln shares of common stock during 2013 for $102.5 mln

Mid Cap Losers

MCY (42.42 -6.73%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.20 ($0.33 vs $0.53 estimate), net premiums written rose 2.0% yoy to $668.1 mln vs $661.48 mln estimate
ACIW (55.45 -6.35%): Sees FY14 revs of $865-870 mln vs $883.51 mln estimate
MDCO (32.06 -6.30%): Cautious briefing documents released ahead of co's Feb 12, 2014 FDA Advisory Committee meeting to review Cangrelor for the reduction of thrombotic cardiovascular events (including stent thrombosis) in patients with coronary artery disease undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention.

7:04AM Freescale Semi intends to offer 30 mln common shares (FSL) 18.01 : Co intends to offer 30,000,000 common shares, par value $0.01 per share, in an underwritten public offering, subject to market and other conditions. In addition, Freescale intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 4,500,000 additional common shares of Freescale. Freescale intends to use the contributed net proceeds, together with cash on hand, to redeem all of its outstanding 10.125% Senior Subordinated Notes due 2016 and a portion of its outstanding 8.05% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2020, in each case in accordance with the indenture governing the applicable series of notes, and to pay the related premium and fees.

Goldman, Sachs & Co., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Barclays Capital Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC will act as joint book-running managers for the offering.

7:03AM SunEdison announces cost reduction actions in Merano, ItalyaAnd St. Peters, Missouri semiconductor operations (SUNE) 14.57 : will indefinitely close its shuttered polysilicon manufacturing facility in Merano, Italy immediately. This is the conclusion of a process that began with the previously announced 2011 global restructuring plan.

The Merano polysilicon facility was shuttered in Dec of 2011 as part of a restructuring plan to better align the business with current and expected market conditions and improve overall cost competitiveness. For the past two years SunEdison explored various options to improve the cost effectiveness of the Merano polysilicon facility. Ultimately, the identified cost reductions were not enough to sustain the economic viability of the plant in the current market environment. The indefinite closure will affect approximately 200 employees at the Merano polysilicon plant. In connection with the closure, the associated electronic grade TCS (trichlorosilane) operation, which employs approximately 35 people, will be closed over the next 12 months. As a result of the decision to indefinitely close the polysilicon manufacturing facility and TCS operation, we expect to record ~$37 million of fixed asset impairments for the year-ended December 31, 2013.

SunEdison will also commence a plan to consolidate its semiconductor crystal operations. The consolidation will include the transitioning of small diameter crystal activities in its St. Peters, Missouri facility to its other crystal facilities in Korea

6:04AM JA Solar Module performance in extreme environments certified by China quality certification center (JASO) 9.13 :

Co announced that the performance of the Company's solar modules in extreme environments has been certified by the China Quality Certification Center.
JA Solar is the first solar product manufacturer to receive this CQC accreditation. As part of the certification process, JA Solar modules were tested for reliability and durability under high temperatures in both dry and humid conditions, as well as in conditions simulating those found at high altitudes.
The tests, which meet and in some cases exceed International Electrotechnical Commission standards, concluded that the Company's modules continued to perform well in each of these environmental conditions.

Entegris (ENTG) announced Protego Plus HT/HTX with 7 nm rated retention, the most advanced purifier/filter for removing metallic contamination from deionized water while also removing more fine particles than other purifiers on the market.

ARM (ARMH) and SMIC (SMI) announced an agreement to offer the ARM Artisan physical IP platform for SMIC's 28nm poly SiON process to provide high-performance, high-density and low-power technologies for SoC designs.

8:02AM Xilinx to redeem outstanding junior subordinated convertible debentures due 2037 (XLNX) 46.10 : Co announced it has issued a notice of redemption to redeem on March 17, 2014 all of its outstanding 3.125% Junior Convertible Subordinated Debentures due 2037. As of February 7, 2014, $689,635,000 of the Convertible Debentures was outstanding. The last reported sale price of co's common stock on February 7, 2014 was $46.10 per share.
Holders may convert the Convertible Debentures at any time prior to the close of business on March 14, 2014 at a conversion rate of 34.6593 shares of co's common stock per $1,000 principal amount of Convertible Debentures (which is equivalent to a conversion price of approximately $28.8523 per share) with a related Observation Period (as defined in the Indenture for the Convertible Debentures) of February 12, 2014 through March 12, 2014.

Interdigital Comm (IDCC) announced that it is continuing to cooperate with an Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) investigation by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and intends to submit a proposed commitments request to NDRC that could form the predicate for suspension of NDRC's investigation under a procedure provided for under the AML. On January 3, 2014, an InterDigital executive, accompanied by local and U.S. outside counsel, met with NDRC officials to respond to NDRC's investigation, to explain the Company's recent settlement agreement with the Chinese company in this matter and to discuss the way forward for resolving NDRC's investigation of InterDigital's licensing conduct. The Company executive reiterated at the meeting that InterDigital fully respects the authority of NDRC to implement the AML against monopolistic conduct that restricts competition in China's market. During the January 3 meeting, NDRC officials indicated that InterDigital's executives, as well as executives of any other foreign company, should have no concerns about being detained or arrested if they travel to China to meet with NDRC in response to an AML investigation, as there is no legal basis for such action under Chinese anti-monopoly laws. NDRC also indicated that any foreign company that has been requested to appear before NDRC to respond to an investigation may propose who will attend the meeting on the company's behalf, which may include foreign outside counsel with a good understanding of the AML. The InterDigital executive indicated to NDRC that it was unfortunate that the Company had misunderstood Chinese law and NDRC's rules and procedures in that regard. InterDigital will continue to cooperate with NDRC's anti-monopoly investigation and work with NDRC to resolve any remaining concerns.
Nokia (NOK) and HTC have settled all pending patent litigation between them, and entered into a patent and technology collaboration agreement. HTC will make payments to Nokia and the collaboration will involve HTC's LTE patent portfolio, further strengthening Nokia's licensing offering. The companies will also explore future technology collaboration opportunities. The full terms of the agreement are confidential.
Sohu.com (SOHU) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.12 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 28.9% year/year to $385.5 million which is line with estimates. Q4 performance by segment: Total online advertising revenues, which include revenues from brand advertising and search and others businesses for the fourth quarter of 2013, were $188 million, up 55% year-over-year and 6% quarter-over-quarter.Brand advertising revenues for the fourth quarter of 2013 totaled $123 million, up 50% year-over-year and down 1% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year increase was mainly due to the revenue increase in online video and real estate advertising businesses.Search and others revenues for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $64 million, up 66% year-over-year and 23% quarter-over-quarter. The increase was mainly due to increased traffic and improved monetization.Online game revenues for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $172 million, up 9% year-over-year and 6% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increase was mainly due to increased revenue from TLBB after the release of the major expansion pack "New TLBB" in the fourth quarter of 2013.Mobile revenues for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $10 million, down 21% year-over-year and 32% quarter-over-quarter.Guidance: The company issued first quarter guidance with EPS of ($1.20)-($1.10) and revenues of $355-367 million which is lower than expected.
Changyou.com (CYOU) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.82 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 12.3% year/year to $194.9 million which is line with estimates. Online game revenues reached a record $172.0 million, an increase of 6% quarter-over-quarter and 9% year-over-year, and were in line with the Company's guidance.Online advertising revenues reached a record $16.9 million, an increase of 3% quarter-over-quarter and 35% year-over-year, and were in line with the Company's guidance. Guidance: The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS of ($0.42)-($0.30) and revenues of $174-180 million which are below estimates.. The expected non-GAAP net loss attributable to co is because total revenues are expected to decrease, and the Company plans to increase expenditures on marketing of software applications for PCs and mobile devices in China and overseas, and to increase its investment in human capital. CFO resignation Additionally, co announces resignation of chief financial officer, Alex Ho, who is leaving his position to start his own business. His resignation is effective March 4, 2014. Erin Sheng, currently finance director at Changyou, will assume the role of interim CFO following Ho's departure. Changyou is in the process of searching for a permanent chief financial officer.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equity indices took a bit of a breather on Wednesday after the S&P 500 surged nearly 4.5% in the six sessions since February 3. The benchmark index shed less than a point while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2%.

Overall, the session was very quiet as the key averages respected narrow ranges. The S&P 500 spent the bulk of the trading day near its flat line while the Nasdaq (+0.2%) outperformed.

Similar to the major averages, most individual sectors never deviated too far from their unchanged levels. The largest S&P 500 sector, technology (+0.3%), finished in the lead thanks to chipmakers. Intel (INTC 24.55, +0.08) added 0.3% while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 0.9%.

Outside of technology, consumer discretionary (+0.1%) and industrials (+0.2%) were the only other advancers among cyclical groups. Defense contractors outperformed (PHLX Defense Index +0.5%) while Deere (DE 86.90, -0.56) fell 0.6% despite beating on earnings and revenue.

Also of note, two of yesterday's leaders-energy (-0.4%) and materials (-0.3%)-finished among today's laggards. However, the pair still fared a bit better than the consumer staples sector, which lost 0.5% as tobacco names lagged after Lorillard (LO 47.47, -2.48) reported disappointing earnings.

Other countercyclical groups were little changed with telecom services (+0.3%) ending modestly higher while health care (-0.1%) and utilities (-0.1%) finished in the red.

Treasuries posted their third day of losses as the 10-yr yield rose three basis points to 2.76%. Interestingly, the retreat in one safe-haven asset was accompanied by an increase in another. Gold futures saw their fourth day of gains, climbing 0.4% to $1294.90/ozt.

Today's participation was well below average as less than 630 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to just two reports:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index slipped 2.0% to follow last week's uptick of 0.4%.
January Treasury Budget showed a deficit of $10.40 billion, which followed the prior month's surplus of $2.90 billion. The Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $10.00 billion.

Among overseas news of note, Italian Prime Minster Enrico Letta held a press conference amid increasing calls for his resignation, making way for the leader of the Democratic Party, Matteo Renzi. In his remarks, Mr. Letta asked for 'clarity,' saying, 'He who wants to replace me must be clear about his intentions.' Even though the political future of Italy remains uncertain, Italian stocks appeared unconcerned with the situation as the MIB gained 1.3%.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims and January retail sales will be reported at 8:30 ET while the December Business Inventories report will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. Also of note, Fed Chair Janet Yellen was scheduled to appear before the Senate Banking Committee for the second part of the semiannual testimony on monetary policy, but the hearing has been postponed due to weather.

Nasdaq Composite +0.6% YTD
S&P 500 -1.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.7% YTD

DJ30 -30.83 NASDAQ +10.24 SP500 -0.49 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1389/1.90 bln/1198 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1727/628.0 mln/1315

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded higher despite a slightly stronger dollar index. Apr gold rose for a fourth consecutive session, advancing to a three month session high of $1296.40 per ounce in early afternoon pit trade. It settled with a 0.4% gain at $1294.90 per ounce.
Mar silver rose to a session high of $20.39 per ounce in morning action. It eventually settled at $20.33 per ounce, booking a gain of 0.9%.
Mar crude oil traded in positive territory but pulled back from its session high of $101.38 per barrel following inventory data that showed a build of 3.267 mln barrels for the week ending Feb 7. Consensus called for a smaller build of 2.6-3.0 mln barrels. The energy component trended lower for the remainder of the session and settled with a 0.4% gain at $100.38 per barrel.
Mar natural gas rose to a session high of $5.01 per MMBtu in morning action after trading as low as $4.78 per MMBtu earlier in the session. However, prices reversed in the last hour of floor trade, leaving natural gas to settle just 0.4% higher at $4.83 per MMBtu.

4:55PM Cisco Systems CEO, on call, guides Q3 non-GAAP gross margins to 61-62%, which they expect at to be most likely at the low end, EPS of $0.47-0.49 vs $0.48 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. (CSCO) 22.85 +0.14 :
Chamber discussed geographic regions; says China declined 1%; Europe is stablizing - US federal declined 16%

4:10PM Cisco Systems beats by $0.01, beats on revs; raises quarterly dividend 11.8% to $0.19/share (CSCO) 22.85 +0.14 : Reports Q2 (Jan) earnings of $0.47 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.46; revenues fell 7.8% year/year to $11.15 bln vs the $11.03 bln consensus.

Cisco is also announcing that earlier today its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.19 per common share, a two-cent increase over the previous quarter's dividend, to be paid on April 23, 2014 to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 3, 2014. Future dividends will be subject to Board approval.

4:31PM SunEdison and United Renewable Energy are working together to create new solar opportunities in Georgia (SUNE) 13.72 -0.48 : Co and United Renewable Energy are working together to create new solar opportunities in Georgia. Leveraging the Georgia Power Advanced Solar Initiative, the two companies are currently collaborating on projects totaling ~ 1.3 megawatts (MW) with plans to do more. A ~600 kilowatt (kW) solar power plant is scheduled to interconnect this week on land that was once an underutilized pasture. Separately, a ~700 kW power plant for the county development authority in Stephens County, Georgia is under construction and expected to be operational in March 2014.

4:25PM NVIDIA beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (NVDA) 16.83 +0.58 : Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $0.32 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.24; revenues rose 3.3% year/year to $1.14 bln vs the $1.05 bln consensus. Quarterly GAAP gross margin of 54.1 percent; non-GAAP gross margin of 53.8 percent.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $1.050 bln, plus or minus 2%. vs. $1 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins are expected to be approximately 54.2 percent and 54.5 percent, respectively.

4:23PM Applied Materials beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (AMAT) 17.91 +0.13 : Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.23 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.22; revenues rose 39.2% year/year to $2.19 bln vs the $2.13 bln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.25-0.29 vs. $0.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of +3-10% to ~$2.26-2.41 bln vs. $2.32 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"In our first fiscal quarter, Applied Materials delivered earnings near the high end of our guidance range, while demonstrating momentum in revenue, orders and market share...This performance reflects healthy investment by our semiconductor and display customers and major technology trends that are playing to our strengths in precision materials engineering."
Guidance Details: Applied's second quarter non-GAAP adjusted diluted EPS outlook excludes known charges related to completed acquisitions and integration costs of 3 cents. The company's second quarter business outlook does not exclude other non-GAAP adjustments that may arise subsequent to this release.

*Initial incorrect guidance calculation has been corrected.

4:13PM Cadence Design acquires high speed interface IP assets of TranSwitch, further expanding IP portfolio for mobile/consumer market; financial terms not disclosed (CDNS) 14.58 +0.16 :
The acquisition has been completed and is not expected to have a material impact on co's balance sheet or first quarter or fiscal 2014 results of operations.

4:12PM SunPower beats by $0.19, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guides FY14 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (SPWR) 31.62 +0.50 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.47 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.19 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.28; revenues fell 3.4% year/year to $758 mln vs the $681.76 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.25-0.40, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $650-700 mln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $603.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees gross margins in the range of 18-20%.
Co issues mixed guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $1.00-1.30, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $2.4-2.6 bln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.64 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees gross margin in the range of 19-21%.

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

Large Cap Gainers

TRIP (89.87 +6.73%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.21 (in-line), revs rose 25.6% yoy to $212.7 mln vs $205.41 mln estimate; total traffic in Q4 grew 50% yoy; upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at RBC Capital Markets
DVA (68.4 +6.33%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.99 (in-line), revs rose 23.6% yoy to $3.06 bln vs $3.04 bln estimate
INCY (69.01 +4.56%): Reported Q4 loss of -$0.26 per share, revs fell 14.7% yoy to $97.1 mln vs $93.61 mln estimate; sees FY14 Jakafi net product revs of $315-335 mln

Large Cap Losers

LO (46.96 -5.99%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.82 ex items vs $0.86 estimate), revs (excluding excise taxes) rose 3.6% yoy to $1.25 bln vs $1.31 bln estimate; cigarette net sales increased $24 mln, or 1.1%, to $1.689 bln
TRI (34.52 -5.68%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.49 ex items vs $0.28 estimate), revs rose 0.6% yoy to $3.27 bln vs $3.29 bln estimate; sees FY14 revs of ~$12.7 bln vs $12.84 bln estimate
RCI (39.55 -4.77%): Missed quarterly EPS by C$0.04 (C$0.69 ex items vs C$0.73 estimate), revs fell 0.6% yoy to C$3.24 bln vs C$3.31 bln estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

TRMB (37.15 +13.87%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.07 ($0.43 vs $0.36 estimate), revs rose 16.2% yoy to $599.2 mln vs $567.38 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.40-0.43 vs $0.42 estimate, revs of $610-630 mln vs $618.20 mln estimate
SGEN (51.45 +12.83%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.11 (-$0.13 vs -$0.24 estimate), revs rose 5.5% yoy to $67.4 mln vs $59.28 mln estimate; sees FY14 ADCETRIS sales of $155-165 mln
OC (44.75 +12.61%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.16 ($0.44 vs $0.28 estimate), revs rose 10.3% yoy to $1.28 bln vs $1.21 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

EEFT (38.98 -11.51%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.63 vs $0.57 estimate), revs rose 6.9% yoy to $375.4 mln vs $384.96 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.45 vs $0.45 estimate
FEYE (70.04 -10.21%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 (-$0.35 vs -$0.37 estimate), revs rose 80.8% yoy to $57.3 mln vs $56.12 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of -$0.56 to -$0.51 vs -$0.37 estimate, revs of $70-72 mln vs $76.5 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of -$2.20 to -$2.00 vs -$1.37 estimate, reaffirmed FY14 rev guidance of $400-410 mln vs $406.31 mln estimate
WCG (58.03 -6.73%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($1.09 vs $1.15 estimate), sees FY14 EPS of $3.75-4.05 vs $5.03 estimate

11:00AM Violin Memory: GAMEVIL selects Violin Flash Memory Array to deliver premium publishing services to game developers (VMEM) 3.84 -0.17 : Co announced it has been chosen by GAMEVIL, a Korean mobile game publisher, to help deliver premium publishing services to its customers. GAMEVIL'S platform is used to develop and publish hundreds of games on multiple platforms. Using a Violin 6000 Series Flash Memory Array, GAMEVIL was able to increase server performance by an average of seven times, enabling the company to differentiate its publishing services and to further solidify its position as the market leader in the domestic mobile game market.

10:46AM Cadence Design announces that Microsoft utilized four Tensilica processors in the Xbox One audio subsystem, as noted in the Linley Group Microprocessor Report (CDNS) 14.60 +0.18 :

SanDisk (SNDK) announced the SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC/SDXC UHS-II card.

Synopsys (SNPS), Realtek Semiconductor and United Microelectronics (UMC) announced that their collaboration has resulted in first-pass silicon success of Realtek's RTD2995 UHD Smart TV Controller SoC implemented in UMC's 40LP, the foundry's volume production, low-power 40-nanometer process technology.

STMicroelectronics (STM) has introduced a complete and configurable solution to develop and efficiently control a dimmable, high-brightness LED string (up to 100W) for street-lighting applications.

7:06AM Canadian Solar prices offering of 2,778,000 common shares at $36.00 per common share; also prices concurrent offering of $130 mln in aggregate principal amount of 4.25% convertible senior notes due 2019 (CSIQ) 36.17 :

The Common Shares Offering was upsized from 2,600,000 Common Shares and the Notes Offering was upsized from an aggregate principal amount of $100 million.
The Notes will be convertible into Common Shares at an initial conversion rate of 22.2222 Common Shares per $1,000 principal amount of the Notes (equivalent to an initial conversion price of ~ $45.00 per Common Share), subject to adjustments under certain circumstances.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market rallied steadily throughout the trading day despite starting the session on a lower note. Small caps led the way with the Russell 2000 climbing 1.3% while the S&P 500 advanced 0.6%.

The benchmark index was down as much as 0.6% at the start of the session after overnight weakness in the futures market set the stage for a lower open. The losses in futures coincided with a wave of yen strength that once again stoked fears about potential forced unwinds of the yen-based carry trade. Adding to the early weakness was a disappointing retail sales report for January.

Even though stocks opened lower, the S&P 500 found support at its 50-day moving average in the 1810 area. The index also drew strength from the retreat in the yen as the dollar/yen pair climbed off its low just under the 101.75 level.

Strikingly, the rally in equities continued even as the dollar/yen pair spent the afternoon in a narrow range while Treasuries never surrendered their morning gains. In fact, the 10-yr note extended its morning advance, sending its yield lower by six basis points to 2.73%.

It should be noted that the advance in equities took place amid below average volume, which could have exacerbated movements in some prices. Only 627 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor versus a 200-day average of 717 million.

All ten sectors posted gains with materials (+1.0%) and utilities (+1.2%) ending in the lead. The rate-sensitive utilities sector benefited from the retreat in yields while materials drew strength from steelmakers and miners. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 47.05, +0.44) gained 0.9% while Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 25.87, +1.10) jumped 4.4%. On a related note, gold futures rose 0.4% to $1300.40/ozt, ending above the $1300.00 mark for the first time since early November.

Elsewhere, the largest S&P 500 sector, technology (+0.9%) shook off the disappointing guidance provided by Cisco Systems (CSCO 22.27, -0.58), and rallied on the back of chipmakers. NVIDIA (NVDA 17.36, +0.53) gained 3.2% in reaction to its above-consensus results while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index settled higher by 1.2%.

Other heavily-weighted groups were mixed with respect to the broader market. Health care (+0.8%) outperformed while consumer discretionary (+0.4%), energy (+0.4%), financials (+0.4%), and industrials (+0.2%) lagged.

Looking back at the economic data:

Retail sales fell 0.4% in January after declining a downwardly revised 0.1% (from +0.2%) in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected no growth in January. The report was discouraging and many are going to point to extreme winter weather conditions as the primary cause for the larger-than-expected decline. That scenario holds some truth as sectors that are normally affected by weather conditions such as motor vehicle sales (-2.1%) and restaurants (-0.6%) saw significant pullbacks. However, spending in general was weaker across the board. That could signal that the spending out of savings that occurred in December was a one-time event related to the holidays and not the start of a new trend.
The weekly initial claims level increased to 339,000 from an unrevised 331,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 335,000. The claims data have shown some choppiness, likely the result of volatility from the extreme winter weather conditions. In general, claims have not deviated from its 330,000 - 340,000 trend. These levels normally support payroll growth in the neighborhood of 185,000 - 200,000 jobs per months.
Business inventories increased 0.5% in December after increasing 0.4% in November while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.4%.Total inventories consist of manufacturers, merchant wholesalers, and retails. Both manufacturers (0.5%) and wholesaler (0.3%) inventories were announced prior to the total inventory release. The only unknown was retailer inventories, which increased 0.6% in December after increasing 0.8% in November.

Tomorrow, January export prices ex-agriculture and import prices ex-oil will be released at 8:30 ET while Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for January will be announced at 9:15 ET. The day's data will be topped off by a 9:55 ET release of the preliminary Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey for February.

Nasdaq Composite +1.5% YTD
S&P 500 -1.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.3% YTD

DJ30 +63.65 NASDAQ +39.38 SP500 +10.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1884/2.10 bln/708 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2243/626.6 mln/774 3:30 pm :

Precious metals trended higher today, gaining support on a weaker dollar index following retail sales and initial claims data released this morning. Retail sales fell 0.4% in January after declining a downwardly revised 0.1% (from +0.2%) in December (Briefing.com consensus expected no growth). The weekly initial claims level increased to 339,000 from an unrevised 331,000 (Briefing.com consensus called for an increase to 335,000). Apr gold gained for a fifth consecutive session, rising above the $1300 per ounce level for the first time since November. It lifted from its session low of $1291.80 per ounce and eventually settled with a 0.4% gain at $1300.40 per ounce.
Mar silver came off its session low of $20.20 per ounce set in early morning pit trade. It broke into positive territory in late morning action and settled at $20.39 per ounce, or 0.3% higher.
Mar crude oil lifted from its session low of $99.84 per barrel set at pit trade open and advanced to a session high of $100.66 per barrel. However, it slipped back into the red as it headed into the close and settled 0.1% lower at $100.28 per barrel.
Mar natural gas rose for a third consecutive session as it gained support from better-than-anticipated inventory data. Inventories for the week ending Feb 7 declined by 237 bcf, while expectations called for a draw of 228-233 bcf. The energy component trended higher after lifting from a session low of $4.92 per MMBtu set in early morning action and settled with a 7.9% gain at $5.21 per MMBtu, or just below its session high of $5.24 per MMBtu.

4:09PM Agilent beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY14 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (A) 60.08 +0.19 : Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.67 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.66; revenues fell 0.1% year/year to $1.68 bln vs the $1.69 bln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.71-0.73, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.81 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.72-1.74 bln vs. $1.77 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues mixed guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $2.96-3.16, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $3.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $6.90-7.10 bln vs. $7.04 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:09PM SunPower announces a three-year agreement to offer high efficiency SunPower solar power systems at Meritage Homes communities nationwide (SPWR) 33.19 +1.57 : Co inks 3-year agreement to offer high efficiency SunPower solar power systems at Meritage Homes (MTH) communities nationwide. The two companies have teamed to provide leading comprehensive energy efficiency and solar power solutions to thousands of Meritage Homes homebuyers throughout the U.S. "By partnering with SunPower, the industry's most experienced provider of solar technology to new home communities, Meritage Homes provides customers the most reliable and efficient solar technology available, enabling customers to create value the moment they take ownership of their new home."

4:07PM Cray beats by $0.17, beats on revs; guides FY14 revs in-line (CRAY) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.48 per share, $0.17 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.31; revenues rose 62.8% year/year to $307.4 mln vs the $300.77 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs "in the range of $600 mln" vs. $595.40 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

For 2014, while a wide range of results remains possible, the Company anticipates revenue to be in the range of $600 million for the year. Revenue is expected to ramp quarterly during 2014, with about $50 million for the first quarter and roughly 50% of the year weighted to the fourth quarter. Non-GAAP gross margin for 2014 is anticipated to be in the mid-30% range. Total non-GAAP operating expenses for the year are anticipated to be about $175 million. Based on this outlook, the Company expects to be profitable on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis for 2014

Large Cap Gainers


TWC (144.54 +6.82%): Co confirmed merger with Comcast (CMCSA) in a stock-for-stock transaction amounting to ~ $45.2 bln in equity value; each TWC will be exchanged for 2.875 shares of CMCSA, with a value to TWC shareholders of ~ $158.82 per share based on the last closing price of CMCSA shares; Moody's changed debt review to a review to an upgrade review (currently Baa2) from a downgrade review.
ABX (19.73 +4.02%): Missed on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; sees FY14 production down 12.8% at midpoint with higher costs.
CBS (64.19 +3.78%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; announced plans for a $1.5 bln accelerated share repurchase; tgt raised to $74 from $67 at FBR Capital; RBC raised its CBS tgt to $69 from $68; remained firm's Top Pick. Large Cap Losers
WFM (51.67 -6.83%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; lowered FY14 EPS below consensus, lowered top end of FY14 revs below consensus; Q1 comps +5.4%; tgt lowered to $60 from $70 at Deutsche Bank; tgt lowered to $57 from $61 at JP Morgan; tgt lowered to $62 from $66 at UBS.
CHTR (129.31 -6%): Trading lower following TWC / CMCSA merger news; CRT cautious on CHTR following CMCSA's bid for TWC.
NTAP (40.86 -4.06%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, missed on revs; guided Q4 EPS in-line, revs below consensus.
Mid Cap Gainers
GNRC (56.2 +12.65%): Beat on EPS by $0.25, beat on revs; guided FY14 revs above consensus.
CTRP (46.88 +12.37%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs in-line; upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
AFSI (34.72 +12%): Beat on the bottom line excluding items, missed on revs; reaffirmed 2014-2016 outlook targets.
Mid Cap Losers
URS (43.37 -12.14%): Sees FY13 revs of ~$11 bln vs $11.15 bln consensus; sees FY13 EPS of $4.16-4.26 vs $4.15 estimate; expects FY14 consolidated revs between $10.8-11.2 bln vs $11.39 bln consensus, FY14 cash EPS between $4.13-4.43, on a fully diluted basis, vs $4.38 consensus.
CAB (62.66 -10.24%): Missed on EPS by $0.09, missed on revs; guided Q1 EPS below consensus; guided FY14 EPS below consensus.
KGC (5.01 -6.44%): Missed on EPS by $0.05, beat on revs.
11:01AM Microsoft and Voxx Electronics sign patent agreement for Anrdoid devices (MSFT) 37.80 +0.33 : Co and Voxx Electronics Corp. (formerly Audiovox Electronics Corp.) announced on Thursday a worldwide patent licensing agreement providing Voxx Electronics with broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for devices running the Android OS, including rear-seat entertainment devices, tablets and other consumer devices. While the contents of the agreement are confidential, the parties indicate that Microsoft will receive royalties from Voxx Electronics under the agreement.

STMicroelectronics (STM) released its Teseo II single-chip satellite-tracking IC to the European Space Agency and the European Commission Joint Research Center for testing for eCall approval.

9:10AM BlackBerry announced that a new version of BBM will be available later today for Android, iPhone and BlackBerry customers (BBRY) 9.68 : Android and iPhone customers will now be able to make free voice calls to BBM contacts over a Wi-Fi or data connection with BBM Voice(i), as well as access BBM Channels.

9:05AM LDK Solar Enters into Further Forbearance Arrangement with Noteholders (LDK) 1.11 : Co announced that it has entered into a new 14-day forbearance arrangement with holders of a majority in aggregate principal amount of its US$-Settled 10% Senior Notes due 2014. The new forbearance arrangement, which expires on Feb 27, 2014, relates to the interest payment due under the Notes on Aug 28, 2013. That interest payment is still unpaid. It is LDK Solar's intention to find a consensual solution to its obligations under the Notes as soon as possible and LDK Solar remains hopeful that it will be able to achieve that goal. As reported previously, LDK Solar has engaged Jefferies LLC as a financial advisor for strategic advice in connection with the Notes and LDK Solar's other offshore obligations.

NetApp (NTAP) reported third quarter adjusted earnings of $0.75 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 1.2% year/year to $1.61 billion which is slightly below estimates. The company issued guidance for the fourth quarter with adjusted EPS of $0.77-0.82 which is line with estimates with revenues of $1.62-1.72 billion which is below estimates."We are pleased with our strong operational execution again this quarter...With our strategy of delivering best-of-breed cloud-integrated and flash-accelerated solutions and our unique ability to manage data seamlessly across on- and off-premise environments, we are well positioned to create ongoing opportunity in the evolving IT landscape."
Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported second quarter earnings of $0.47 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 7.8% year/year to $11.15 billion which is higher than expected. Cisco is also announcing that earlier today its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.19 per common share, a two-cent increase over the previous quarter's dividend, to be paid on April 23, 2014 to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 3, 2014. Future dividends will be subject to Board approval. The company guided Q3 revs down 6-8% which is line with estimates.
Angie's List (ANGI) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.05 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues rose 48.9% year/year to $68.8 million which is higher than expected. Marketing expense increased 30 percent, or $2.7 million, compared to the prior year period. General and Administrative expense in the fourth quarter of 2013 includes a $4.0 million accrual for the pending settlement of certain litigation. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with revenues of i$71.5-72.5 million which is worse than expected. The company also sees first quarter marketing expense of $22.5 million to $23.5 million.
Applied Materials (AMAT) reported first quarter earnings of $0.23 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 39.2% year/year to $2.19 billion which is higher than expected. The company issued first quarter guidance with EPS of $0.25-0.29 and revenues of +3-10% to approximately $2.26-2.41 billion which are both in line with estimates. "In our first fiscal quarter, Applied Materials delivered earnings near the high end of our guidance range, while demonstrating momentum in revenue, orders and market share...This performance reflects healthy investment by our semiconductor and display customers and major technology trends that are playing to our strengths in precision materials engineering." Guidance Details: Applied's second quarter non-GAAP adjusted diluted EPS outlook excludes known charges related to completed acquisitions and integration costs of 3 cents. The company's second quarter business outlook does not exclude other non-GAAP adjustments that may arise subsequent to this release.

Zillow (Z) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 69.2% year/year to $58.03 million which is slightly below estimates. Average monthly unique users during the fourth quarter of 2013 were 54.4 million, up 57% year-over-year. Visits to Zillow via a mobile device nearly doubled year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2013. Premier Agent subscribers increased by 3,565 in the fourth quarter of 2013, and totaled 48,314 on December 31, 2013, up 64% year-over-year. Average monthly revenue per subscriber in the fourth quarter of 2013 was $271, which was an increase compared to $267 in the same period last year. The company sees first quarter revs of $62-63 million and fiscal year 2014 revenues of $288-294 million which is above estimates.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 14-Feb-14

Dow +126.80 at 16154.39, Nasdaq +3.35 at 4244.03, S&P +8.80 at 1838.63

The stock market ended an upbeat week on a positive note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) paced the advance while the S&P 500 gained 0.5%. The Nasdaq (+0.1%) lagged, but was able to finish at its highest level since late 2000.

Today's advance capped an impressive week during which the benchmark S&P 500 gained 2.3%. Even though stocks rallied sharply, it is worth noting that all five sessions of the week saw below-average volume while bellwether groups like financials and transports struggled to keep pace with the broader market. The financial sector added just 0.2% on Friday, extending its weekly gain to 1.6%. For its part, the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.3%) added 0.9% for the week.

Similar to financials, other top-weighted sectors like health care (+0.4%) and technology (+0.2%) lagged while consumer discretionary (+0.6%), energy (+1.5%), industrials (+0.7%), and materials (+0.7%) picked up the slack.

The energy sector drew considerable strength from its largest member, ExxonMobil (XOM 94.11, +2.68), which surged 2.9%. The Dow component regained its 100- and 200-day moving averages in a move that was aided by an ISI Group upgrade to 'Buy' from 'Neutral.' On a related note, crude oil ended little changed at $100.29/bbl.

Elsewhere among commodities, precious metals remained on a torrid pace. Gold futures posted their seventh day of gains, climbing more than 5.0% in that timeframe. Meanwhile, silver capped an eight-day run that saw the metal jump nearly 8.0%. This translated into another strong session for gold miners as the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 26.35, +0.48) rose 1.9%.

Mining shares contributed to the outperformance of the materials sector, which also benefitted from gains among steelmakers after Cliffs Natural Resources (CLF 23.16, +1.26) reported better-than-expected results.

Staying on the earnings theme, apparel retailer V.F. Corp (VFC 56.85, -3.04) slumped after announcing disappointing results and issuing a profit warning. The stock tumbled 5.1%, which kept a lid on its peers. The rest of the discretionary sector held up well with help from homebuilders. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 25.21, +0.28) rose 1.1%.

Interestingly, builder shares outperformed even as Treasury yields inched higher. The benchmark 10-yr yield rose one basis point to 2.74% after ending last week at 2.68%.

As mentioned earlier, trading volume was well below average with only 609 million shares changing hands at the NYSE. Today's final tally represented the lowest total since January 3.

Today's economic data included three reports:

Export prices, excluding agriculture, ticked up 0.2% in January after increasing 0.3% in the prior reading. Excluding oil, import prices rose 0.3%, which follows last month's downtick of 0.1%.
Industrial production declined 0.3% in January after increasing 0.3% in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%. Once again, the hard economic data did not mesh with the results in the ISM report and the related regional surveys. Those reports showed solid, albeit slightly unsteady production levels in January. Instead of translating into slightly positive growth, however, actual manufacturing production fell 0.8% in January. That was the largest drop since May 2009. Making matters worse, manufacturing production growth was revised down for each month going back to October. After the revisions, fourth quarter manufacturing production only increased 4.2%, down from an originally reported gain of 6.2%. This comes after the ISM Production Index was recorded above 60 during that entire time, suggesting manufacturers are definitely not doing what they are saying in the surveys. The motor vehicle sector was hit especially hard in January. Assemblies fell by 1.0 million, from 11.64 million in December to 11.62 million in January.

The preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February was unchanged at 81.2 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the index to fall to 80.2. The Current Conditions Index weakened slightly, falling from 96.8 in January to 94.0. This was offset by an increase in the Expectations Index from 71.2 to 73.0 in February.

Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday for Presidents' Day.

Week in Review: Stocks Charge Ahead Amid Light Volume

The stock market began the week on a subdued note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 posted gains between 0.1% and 0.5% with the Nasdaq Composite ending in the lead. Overall, the session had a 'wait-and-see' feel as many participants stuck to the sidelines ahead of Janet Yellen's testimony on monetary policy. The limited participation was reflected in the trading volume as only 640 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

On Tuesday, the stock market rallied steadily with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.2%) providing the lead. Thanks to the advance, the Dow narrowed its 2014 loss to 3.5% while the Nasdaq (+1.0%) was able to swing from a loss to a year-to-date gain of 0.4%. The S&P 500 (+1.1%) regained its 50-day moving average with all ten sectors contributing to the climb. Contrary to the expectations of many, Janet Yellen's testimony before the House Financial Services Committee was uneventful as the Chair struck a tone consistent with remarks made by her predecessor. When asked about the impact of the disappointing jobs reports for December and January on the Fed's reaction function, Ms. Yellen said it would be premature to alter policy based on a limited sample size. All ten sectors took part in the advance with energy (+1.4%) and materials (+1.2%) ending in the lead. Despite the broad rally, trading volume was below average as less than 700 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Equity indices took a bit of a breather on Wednesday after the S&P 500 surged nearly 4.5% in the six sessions since February 3. The benchmark index shed less than a point while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2%. Overall, the session was very quiet as the key averages respected narrow ranges. The S&P 500 spent the bulk of the trading day near its flat line while the Nasdaq (+0.2%) outperformed. Again, participation was well below average with less than 630 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Thursday's session saw the stock market rally steadily throughout the trading day despite starting on a lower note. Small caps led the way with the Russell 2000 climbing 1.3% while the S&P 500 advanced 0.6%. The benchmark index was down as much as 0.6% at the start after overnight weakness in the futures market set the stage for a lower open. The losses in futures coincided with a wave of yen strength that once again stoked fears about potential forced unwinds of the yen-based carry trade. Adding to the early weakness was a disappointing retail sales report for January. Even though stocks opened lower, the S&P 500 found support at its 50-day moving average in the 1810 area. The index also drew strength from the retreat in the yen as the dollar/yen pair climbed off its low just under the 101.75 level.

 
 Index	   Started Week	  Ended Week   Change  %Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	     15794.08	   16154.39    360.31	2.3	-2.5 
 Nasdaq	      4125.86	    4244.02    118.16	2.9	 1.6 
 S&P 500	1797.02	    1838.63	41.61	2.3     -0.5 
 Russell 2000  1116.55	    1149.21	32.66	2.9	-1.2

4:27PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: IO (4.13 +38.44%), AMAP (20.35 +32.81%), MRIN (12.21 +31.71%), CALL (17.25 +28.68%)
Services: ATHN (189.01 +34.23%), OWW (8.79 +24.82%)
Industrial Goods: CSTE (56.12 +28.72%)
Healthcare: LGND (76.92 +39.3%), ARWR (18.99 +35.76%), RLYP (37.95 +29.45%), ECYT (14.49 +28.44%), LCI (43.13 +27.97%), SNTA (6.24 +27.96%), VNDA (13.46 +27.62%), CADX (14 +27.06%)
Consumer Goods: SKX (35.47 +28.73%)
Basic Materials: AZC (3.21 +64.1%), SVM (2.88 +29.41%), SNMX (9.78 +27.48%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: LNKD (186.13 -14.22%), ITRI (36.12 -14.1%), JIVE (7.63 -13.83%), RAX (33.81 -13.71%), EGOV (18.6 -11.68%)
Services: BLOX (19.41 -42.23%), NSP (27.41 -15.59%), FURX (95.9 -13.59%), G (15.09 -13.12%), URS (43.37 -10.77%), RJET (9.11 -9.54%)
Healthcare: MDCO (29.52 -10.98%), CI (77.71 -10.81%), INSM (16.61 -10.53%)
Financial: GTS (15.54 -10.23%)
Consumer Goods: BNNY (37 -11.06%), BGS (28.87 -9.87%)
Basic Materials: WPX (17.46 -10.82%), IPI (14.42 -9.76%), SZYM (11.07 -9.05%)

12:44PM 3D Systems and Hasbro (HAS) announced partnership to co-develop, co-venture and deliver play experiences powered by 3D printing (DDD) 74.06 +3.39 : Alliance leverages entirety of Hasbro's world-renowned brands and retail presence with 3DS's powerful 3D printing portfolio to redefine play.

Large Cap Gainers

CPB (42.63 +4.05%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.76 ex items vs $0.71 estimate), revs rose 5.5% yoy to $2.28 bln vs $2.27 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $2.53-2.58 vs $2.51 estimate; expects continuing operations to grow sales by 4 to 5%, adjusted EBIT to grow by 4 to 6%
MUR (59.52 +4.02%): Reuters reporting that co is considering selling its Asian oil and gas assets for upwards of $3 bln
HOT (78.2 +3.77%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS, target raised to $85 from $75

Large Cap Losers

A (56.44 -6.06%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.67 vs $0.66 estimate), revs fell 0.1% yoy to $1.68 bln vs $1.69 bln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of $0.71-0.73 ex items vs $0.81 estimate, revs of $1.72-1.74 bln vs $1.77 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $2.96-3.16 ex items vs $3.19 estimate, revs of $6.90-7.10 bln vs $7.04 bln estimate
VFC (56.39 -5.85%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.82 ex items vs $0.84 estimate), revs rose 8.5% yoy to $3.26 bln vs $3.36 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $3.00-3.05 vs $3.10 estimate, revs +7-8% (~$12.09-12.21 bln) vs $12.46 bln estimate
DISH (56.67 -2.83%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup

Mid Cap Gainers

IM (29.42 +13.35%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($0.88 vs $0.78 estimate), revs rose 4.0% yoy to $11.83 bln vs $11.53 bln estimate; target raised to $32 from $26 at Needham
CIEN (25.14 +7.94%): Announced strategic global agreement with Ericsson (ERIC); companies to collaborate on accelerating adoption of SDN-based open architectures
COTY (14.75 +7.51%): Reported Q2 EPS of $0.28 ex items (in-line), revs fell 4.1% yoy to $1.32 bln vs $1.3 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

GNC (45.92 -12.35%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.63 ex items vs $0.65 estimate), revs rose 8.6% yoy to $613.7 mln vs $631.94 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $3.18-3.24 ex items vs $3.44 estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman
CGNX (35.46 -11.15%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.23 (in-line), revs rose 16.5% yoy to $95.7 mln vs $94.66 mln estimate; sees Q1 revs of $88-91 mln vs $91.43 mln estimate
SJM (89.95 -5.45%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($1.66 ex items vs $1.68 estimate), revs fell 6.0% yoy to $1.47 bln vs $1.53 bln estimate; lowered FY14 EPS guidance to $5.55-5.60 (from $5.72-5.82) vs $5.77 estimate, lowered FY14 rev guidance to a decline of 5% (from a decline of 2%) or ~$5.602 bln vs $5.78 bln estimate

12:11PM Nokia confirms that recent developments in India related to ongoing tax proceedings are not expected to affect the timing of the closing of Microsoft (MSFT) transaction (NOK) 7.22 +0.02 :
Co announced that recent developments in India related to ongoing tax proceedings are not expected to affect the timing of the closing nor the material deal terms of the anticipated transaction between Nokia and Microsoft, announced on September 3, 2013. The transaction is still expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, irrespective of the proceedings in the Indian tax case.

CEA-Leti and STMicroelectronics (STM) have presented the successful demonstration of an ultra-wide-voltage range digital signal processor, based on 28nm ultra-thin body buried-oxide FD-SOI technology.

9:12AM Agilent's Dako announces positive findings in an independent French multicenter study on the performance of Dako's HER2 IQFISH pharmDx (A) 60.08 :

Dako, an Agilent Technologies co, announced positive findings in an independent French multicenter study on the performance of Dako's HER2 IQFISH pharmDx.

The Toulouse, France, breast cancer group led by Magali Lacroix-Triki has published a peer-reviewed publication in the Journal of Histopathology that supports the use and performance of Dako's HER2 IQFISH pharmDx for HER2 gene amplification status assessment in breast cancer. Dako introduced the IQFISH hybridization buffer chemistry in 2012. The IQFISH buffer reduces test turnaround time from 17 hours to just 3.5 hours. As an aid in the treatment decision, HER2 IQFISH pharmDx can quantitatively determine HER2 gene amplification in the tumor.

The French study found that Instant Quality (IQ) FISH provides "excellent quality signals without any background staining, thus allowing excellent reading conditions." The study also points out "almost perfect agreement between IQFISH and FISH" and that IQFISH is a "safe, reliable and fast method that is easy to use in routine practice" with few reruns. The statement is significant in that the tissue came from five different laboratories using four different fixation methods.

The study concludes that the highly concordant results (99.3%) and assay robustness support IQFISH as a useful alternative to FISH, allowing reliable assessment of HER2 status. It also finds that using this method enables pathologists to report the results to the oncologist within a day, meaning patients can begin cancer treatment sooner than ever.

Agilent Technologies (A 56.20, -3.88): -6.5% after its below-consensus guidance overshadowed its one-cent beat.

7:01AM Ciena announces strategic global agreement with Ericsson (ERIC); companies to collaborate on accelerating adoption of SDN-based open architectures (CIEN) 23.29 : Co and Ericsson (ERIC) announced a strategic global agreement that includes packet-optical distribution, converged IP/optical joint development and distribution as well as an SDN collaboration framework. Ericsson will offer Ciena's Converged Packet Optical portfolio, including the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and 5400 family, to deliver a broader set of infrastructure solutions as customers migrate to new converged network architectures. In addition, Ciena's WaveLogic coherent optical technology will be integrated into Ericsson's IP portfolio, creating a solution that allows customers to seamlessly interoperate routers with Ciena's industry-leading photonics.

6:04AM Trina Solar announces acquisition of majority stake in Hubei Hongyuan; financial terms not disclosed (TSL) 15.36 :

Co announced that it has entered into an agreement with Shenzhen S.C. New Energy Technology, a solar equipment manufacturer, to acquire a majority stake in Shenzhen S.C.'s wholly-owned subsidiary, Hubei Hongyuan PV Science and Technology, a specialized PV cell producer located in Xiantao, Hubei Province.

Trina Solar will hold a 51% stake in Hubei Hongyuan with the remaining 49% stake held by Shenzhen S.C. The new joint venture company will expand Hubei Hongyuan's existing production facilities and solid infrastructure to achieve an expected capacity of 420 MW by the middle of 2014.

4:03AM ReneSola supplies several million watts of solar PV to Chevron (CVX) (SOL) 3.35 : ReneSola (SOL) announces that it provided 10,000 of its high efficiency solar PV modules to Chevron (CVX) Energy Solutions, one of the largest installers of solar power in the United States, for a 3.1MW multi-site project in Lemoore, California. The multi-array project will consist of 2.85MW of ReneSola's 72-cell 300W polycrystalline modules and 260KW of 260W monocrystalline modules.

1:39AM Suntech Power provides update on NYSE appeal (STPFQ) 0.38 : Co announces that the NYSE's Committee for Review has upheld a decision previously made by NYSE Regulation to commence delisting proceedings of the Company's American Depositary Shares. The Company expects a Form 25 (Notification of Removal from Listing and/or Registration) will be filed shortly with the SEC to delist the Company's American Depositary Shares.

As previously announced, trading of the Company's American Depositary Shares has been suspended by the NYSE since November 11, 2013. Quotations of the Company's American Depositary Shares have been, and the Company expects will continue to be, available on the OTC market under the symbol "STPFQ".

Brocade (BRCD) reported first quarter earnings of $0.24 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 3.3% year/year to $559 million which is higher than expected. Non-GAAP gross margin was 67.2%, compared to 64.8% in Q4 2012 and 65.6% in Q3 2013. The company sees second quarter revenues in the range of $520-540 million which is lower than expected Sees Non-GAAP gross margin 65.5-66.0%. Sees Non-GAAP EPS in the range of $0.17-0.19, which is line with estimates. Sees operating cash flow of approximately $135-145 million. Expect SAN revenue to be down 10% to 13% Qtr./Qtr Q2 14 IP Networking revenue to be flat to up 7% Qtr./Qtr. as expect a modest recovery in the Americas region including U.S. Federal.

Agilent (A) reported first quarter earnings of $0.67 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 0.1% year/year to $1.68 billion which is lower than expected. The company issue guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $0.71-0.73 and revenues of $1.72-1.74 billion which is worse than expected. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $2.96-3.16, which is worse than expected with revenues of $6.90-7.10 billion which is line with estimates.

LogMeIn (LOGM) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.16 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 22.2% year/year to $45.2 million which is higher than expected. The company issued first quarter EPS of $0.20-0.21 and revenues $46.8-47.3 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $0.86-0.96 and revenues $198-202 million which is higher than expected.

j2 Global (JCOM) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.91 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 35.3% year/year to $138 million which is below estimates. j2 Global Quarterly Dividend Increased by 13% to $0.2625 per Share versus Q1 2013. The company guidance for fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $3.23-3.47 and revenues $580-600 million which is higher than expected.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today's data was limited to three reports:

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

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

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

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

3:30 pm :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Large Cap Gainers

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

Large Cap Losers

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

Mid Cap Gainers

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

Mid Cap Losers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equities ended on their lows with the S&P 500 snapping its three-day win streak. The benchmark index fell 0.7% while the Nasdaq (-0.8%) lagged throughout the session.

Stocks began the day with slim losses, but the Dow and S&P 500 were quick to erase the early weakness. For its part, the Nasdaq was unable to make a sustained move into the green.

The S&P 500 climbed through the first hour of action, but the rally stalled with the index less than four points shy of its all-time intraday high of 1850.84. Shortly before midday, equities slumped to lows in a move that coincided with a headline from the International Monetary Fund reminding investors that global growth remains uneven and fragile with persistent downside risks.

While the IMF headline presented a convenient excuse for the swift dive, the stock market was challenged with increasing resistance prior to the release. The Nasdaq was bouncing up against its flat line while influential sectors like consumer discretionary (-0.9%), financials (-1.2%), and industrials (-0.9%) underperformed. Once the headline hit, the earlier underperformers drove the remainder of the market lower.

Eight of ten sectors ended in the red with financials registering the largest decline. Citigroup (C 48.19, -1.19) was the weakest performer among the majors while regional banks also endured significant losses. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE 37.83, -1.09) fell 2.8%.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector slumped despite some M&A activity among luxury retailers. Signet Jewelers (SIG 93.65, +14.38) spiked 18.1% after announcing an agreement to acquire Zale (ZLC 20.92, +6.01) for $21 per share, representing a 41.0% premium to Tuesday's closing price.

Also of note, the industrial sector was pressured by transports as The Dow Jones Transportation Average saw its second day of losses. The bellwether complex lost 1.3% and finished the session down 2.3% for the week.

On the upside, energy and telecom services added 0.1% and 0.5%, respectively.

Treasuries finished on their lows (10-yr yield +2 bps at 2.73%) with the bulk of the retreat coming after the release of the FOMC minutes from the January meeting. Although the minutes did not contain any major surprises, they did indicate that some officials said there should be a 'clear presumption' in support of continued tapering in $10 billion increments.

Participation was on the light side with 688 million shares changing hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Today's economic data included two reports:

Housing starts fell 16% in January, from an upwardly revised 1.048 million (from 999,000) in December to 880,000. The Briefing.com consensus expected housing starts to fall to 963,000. There are some questions about how much of a role the adverse weather played in the decline. Surely the 67.7% decline in starts in the Midwest was partially weather driven. However, starts in the South, which was not that affected by the polar vortex, declined 12.5% in January. Furthermore, the hard-hit Northeast saw starts increase 61.9% in January. Normally, an exogenous shock -- such as the weather -- would result in a sizable rebound in the next month or two. However, after looking at all of the regional data, it is difficult to state with assurance that starts will return to the 1.00 million trend that they averaged in November and December.
January PPI increased 0.2% after ticking up 0.1% in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected the PPI to increase 0.2%. The BLS reconstructed the PPI index for January. Instead of using a Stage-of-Processing method, the PPI is now calculated based on a Final Demand-Intermediate Demand system. Beyond the typical manufacturing data, the new index also includes price trends for services, government spending, and exports. Prices of final demand goods increased 0.4% in January after increasing by the same amount in December. Energy price growth softened, up 0.3% in January after increasing 1.5% in December. Much of the gain in the final demand goods index was due to a 2.7% increase in pharmaceutical preparations.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims and January CPI will be reported at 8:30 ET while January Leading Indicators and the Philadelphia Fed survey for February will both be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +2.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.1% YTD
S&P 500 -1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.2% YTD

DJ30 -89.84 NASDAQ -34.83 SP500 -12.01 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 736/1.80 bln/1859 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1081/687.8 mln/1970

3:30 pm :

Mar natural gas extended yesterday's gains on forecasts calling for frigid weather at the end of Feb and heading into early March. Prices lifted from a session low of $5.83 per MMBtu and rose as high as $6.28 per MMBtu, a new high since Jan 2009 for the continuous contract.
Natural gas pulled back slightly in the last half hour of pit trade and settled with a solid 11.0% gain at $6.15 per MMBtu.
Mar crude oil was higher today despite a slightly stronger dollar index. Prices dipped to a session low of $102.40 per barrel but quickly regained momentum. The energy component pushed to a high of $103.47 per barrel, its highest level since Oct, as it headed into the close and settled at $103.46 per barrel, or 0.9% higher.
Apr gold traded in negative territory ahead of the release of FOMC minutes at 14:00 ET. The yellow metal brushed a session low of $1317.50 per ounce in early afternoon pit trade and settled 0.3% lower at $1320.60 per ounce, booking its first loss in eight sessions.
Mar silver chopped around in the red for most of today's floor trade. It touched a session high of $21.92 per ounce in morning action but quickly slipped back below the unchanged line. It eventually settled at $21.85 per ounce, or 0.2% lower.
Both of the precious metals slipped further into the red in electronic trade following the release of the FOMC minutes. Gold is now down 0.7% at $1314.70 per ounce while silver is down 1.2% at $21.64 per ounce.

5:09PM Facebook follow up: Co confirms purchase of WhatsApp for ~$16 bln in 8K filing (FB) 68.06 +0.76 :

Facebook announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire WhatsApp, a rapidly growing cross-platform mobile messaging company, for a total of approximately $16 billion, including $4 billion in cash and approximately $12 billion worth of Facebook shares. The agreement also provides for an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp's founders and employees that will vest over four years subsequent to closing.
The acquisition supports Facebook and WhatsApp's shared mission to bring more connectivity and utility to the world by delivering core internet services efficiently and affordably. The combination will help accelerate growth and user engagement across both companies.
"WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "I've known Jan for a long time and I'm excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected."
In the event of termination of the Merger Agreement under certain circumstances principally related to a failure to obtain required regulatory approvals, the Merger Agreement provides for Facebook to pay WhatsApp a fee of $1 billion in cash and to issue to WhatsApp a number of shares of Facebook's Class A common stock equal to $1 billion based on the average closing price of the ten trading days preceding such termination date.
Facebook will host a 30-minute conference call to discuss the acquisition at 3:00 PT / 6:00 ET today.

4:48PM Technical Analysis Close: Stock indices rotate lower (SUMRX) : The stock indices began the session on a mildly negative note with Nasdaq underperforming. Cautious trade overseas, (weaker data, firmer Yen, political unrest) following the mixed performance Tuesday (Dow lower) contributed to the slip. The early round of data rolled in below consensus (House Starts 880 K, vs. 963 K; Permits 937 k vs. 980) but once again the market shrugged this off as futures were able to edge off their pre-market lows. The S&P held at first level support (1836/1835) on the opening dip and quickly rotated higher to set a new four week high and challenge its Jan/all-time close/intraday highs (1848/1850, session high 1847.50). While global growth concerns and Fed chatter regarding winding down tapering by Q4 were cited, the S&P was technically overextended as the resistance was probed (S&P futures were up 11 days in row in early trade) and momentum was missing as the Nasdaq Comp merely climbed back to the flat line. Pressure persisted into midday and after a lateral drift the indices spent the last 90 minutes drifting lower.

Sectors pacing the way lower on a percentage basis were led by: Gold Miners GDX, Reg Bank KRE, Bank KBE, Silver SLV, Solar TAN, Broker IAI, Medical Supplies, Trucking, Finance XLF, Transports IYT, Steel SLX, Insurance KIE, Casino, Rail, Networking IGN, Auto CARZ, Biotech IBB, Home Const ITB. Groups on the plus side included: Natural Gas UNG, Crude Oil USO, Retail XRT, Energy XLE.

It was not surprising to see some consolidation develop given the very aggressive sprint off the Feb low (S&P up 110 points/6.3% from low to high). Pressure was relatively modest but the outside day, long upper tail and close near the low reflects a possible short term change in mood. Unless the index is able to sustain a rebound back through the 1833/1834 area there remains potential for additional corrective trade near term. Support under the low/congest (1826/1824) is in the 1820/1819 area.

4:12PM Veeco Instruments misses by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus (VECO) 40.58 -0.55 : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.42 per share, $0.09 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.33); revenues fell 31.5% year/year to $73.2 mln vs the $70.14 mln consensus.

Guidance: Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $85-$95 mln vs. $82.10 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees gross margin of 33-35% and operating spending of $42-$43 mln.

Commentary: Fourth quarter revenue was $73 million, within our guidance range. Very weak gross margins and high operating expenses contributed to poor bottom line performance ... We haven't yet seen a recovery in business conditions. MOCVD bookings decreased 22% sequentially to $52 million and have been at trough levels for over two years. MBE and Data Storage bookings improved slightly from the prior quarter, to $11 million and $22 million, respectively..."

2:46PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

SNP (83.6 +8.54%): Co's Board agreed to restructure its oil product marketing segment; also agreed to diversify the ownership of this segment by way of introducing social and private capital investment
FLS (81.43 +6.76%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($1.10 ex items vs $1.04 estimate), revs rose 4.6% yoy to $1.39 bln vs $1.39 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $3.65-4.00 ex items vs $3.94 estimate, rev growth of +3-6% (~$5.10-5.25 bln) vs $5.25 bln estimate; increased quarterly dividend 14.3% to $0.16 per share
CF (241.12 +6.60%): Beat quarterly EPS by $1.23 ($5.71 vs $4.48 estimate), revs fell 10.5% yoy to $1.33 bln vs $1.24 bln estimate

Large Cap Losers

TS (43.77 -6.25%): Seeing reports that South Korea did not impose anti-dumping duties on energy pipe products; downgraded to Hold from Add at Banca Akros
TSLA (194.39 -4.57%): Initiated with a Market Perform at FBR Capital, target $150; co scheduled to report Q4 results today after the close
CA (32.27 -1.91%): Downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Cowen

Mid Cap Gainers

SIG (92.66 +16.89%): To acquire all of the outstanding stock of Zale (ZLC) for $21 per share in cash; acquisition expected to be high single-digit percentage accretive to earnings in the first full fiscal year after the close of the transaction
ZBRA (63.94 +12.70%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.82 vs $0.78 estimate), revs rose 12.4% yoy to $284.5 mln vs $267.81 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.77-0.87 vs $0.65 estimate, revs of $276-286 mln vs $262.50 mln estimate
NBR (20.8 +11.44%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.42 ex items, revs rose 0.3% yoy to $1.61 bln vs $1.54 bln estimate; upgraded to Outperform at Credit Agricole

Mid Cap Losers

SM (74.25 -17.12%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.18 ($1.26 ex items vs $1.44 estimate), revs rose 43.3% yoy to $636.7 mln vs $616.14 mln estimate; downgraded to Hold from Buy at KeyBanc Capital; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Tudor Pickering
X (24.81 -7.23%): Mentioned cautiously at JPMorgan following Department of Commerce preliminary decision to not impose tariffs on South Korean pipe manufacturers
SCTY (74.93 -6.28%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird

Analog Devices (ADI) reported first quarter adjusted earnings of $0.49 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 1.0% year/year to $628.2 million which is line with estimates. The company issued for the second quarter with EPS of $0.54-0.58 and revenues of $660-680 million which are both in line with estimates. ADI also announced that its Board of Directors has approved a 9 percent increase in its regular quarterly dividend, from $0.34 to $0.37 per outstanding share of common stock. The dividend will be paid on March 11, 2014 to all shareholders of record at the close of business on February 28, 2014.

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

Ultra Clean Holdings (UCTT) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.26 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 40.2% year/year to $126.3 million which is higher than expected. The company issued the first quarter with EPS of $0.28-0.31 and revenues$135-140 million which is higher than expected. The company also disclosed "On February 18, 2014, Gino Addiego provided notice to the Company of his intention to resign from his position as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Company. Mr. Addiego provided notice of his intent to resign in order to pursue other opportunities and not as a result of any disagreement with the Company or any matter relating to its operations, policies or practices. The resignation will be effective on or about March 10, 2014." significantly since November. Nitrogen floor prices are expected to continue to be the cash cost of Chinese urea producers. During the high-tariff season of November to June, their cash cost is estimated to be roughly $340 to $350 per ton delivered to the U.S. Gulf, compared to $285 to $300 per ton during the low-tariff season of July to October. Upside to nitrogen prices has recently developed due to the close of the Chinese low-tariff export season, low retailer and distributor inventory levels in important agricultural regions including Europe and North America, and emergence of normal seasonal demand. North America is expected to have robust ammonia demand through the first half of 2014, assuming normal weather conditions; however, prices may be constrained due to high levels of producer inventory carried over from 2013. Prices of urea and UAN in North America have increased and are expected to remain firm through the spring application season in order to attract imports required to fill 22 million nutrient tons of expected full year nitrogen demand, which is well in excess of the 15 million nutrient tons of expected North American production. Imports of urea and UAN have been lower than year ago levels, while strong spring demand is expected in association with 92 million acres of corn anticipated to be planted.

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Seasonal Patterns Point to Mid-April Market Top $DIA $SPY $QQQ
By Christopher Mistal

http://blog.stocktradersalmanac.com/post/Seasonal-Patterns-Point-to-Mid-April-Market-Top-DIA-SPY-QQQ

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : Equities ended the Thursday session on their highs with small caps in the lead. The Russell 2000 gained 1.1% while the S&P 500 rose 0.6% with all ten sectors posting gains.

Prior to the open, the market appeared to be headed for a lower start as disappointing data from China, Japan, and the eurozone weighed on index futures. Specifically, China's HSBC Manufacturing PMI fell to 48.3 from 49.5 (49.4 expected), Japan posted a record trade deficit of JPY1.82 trillion (JPY1.56 trillion expected), and the Manufacturing PMI for the eurozone (53.0 versus 54.0 expected) disappointed.

Despite the weak data from overseas, equity futures were able to find support when a better-than-expected Markit Manufacturing PMI for the U.S. was released (56.7 actual versus 53.0 expected). Historically, the data point has not been known for eliciting a noteworthy reaction in the market, but today's number likely fueled some short covering activity that sent futures back to their flat lines by the opening bell. In addition, buying ahead of tomorrow's options expiration likely factored into the morning rebound and the daylong rally.

Once the session got going, stocks saw a mild dip, which was erased within the first hour of action. Small caps enjoyed a strong session from the get-go after Facebook (FB 69.63, +1.57) announced the $16 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, a mobile messenger service.

With small caps charging ahead, the rest of the market followed suit. Although the S&P 500 ended on its high, the largest two sectors-financials (+0.3%) and technology (+0.3%)-could never catch up to the index. However, the market did receive support from the third largest sector-health care-which gained 0.9%.

Another countercyclical group-consumer staples (+0.5%)-finished behind the broader market as Wal-Mart (WMT 73.52, -1.33) weighed. The retail giant fell 1.8% after its cautious guidance overshadowed its bottom-line beat.

Also of note, the industrial sector (+0.8%) outperformed as transports rallied broadly. The Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 1.6% with all 20 components posting gains. Despite the sharp move, the bellwether complex was unable to regain its 50-day moving average (7278), which was violated on Tuesday.

Treasuries ended modestly lower with the benchmark 10-yr yield up one basis point at 2.75%.

Participation was on the light side as 660 million shares changed hands on the floor of the NYSE.

Today's economic data featured four reports:

The weekly initial claims level fell to 336,000 from an unrevised 339,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to fall to 335,000. There were no seasonal biases or unusual events reported in the data. The initial claims level is holding firmly between 330,000 and 340,000.
The Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators increased 0.3% in January after a downward revision to unchanged (from +0.1%) in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase 0.4%. The increase in the index was largely the result of the initial claims level returning to normal levels following unusual seasonal biases in the data. That component added 0.24 percentage points to the January increase in the index after reducing growth by 0.34 percentage points in December.
Manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia region contracted for the first time since May 2013. The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Survey for February dropped to -6.3 from 9.4 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the Index to decline to 7.4. Manufacturers commented to the Philly Fed that severe winter storms affected the region and reduced business activity. If this is true, then the contraction should not last long. We are hesitant to blame all of the weakness on the weather. Poor economic data have been reported for the last two months, and evidence suggests that the overall economy is to blame for the sluggishness and not necessarily the weather.
Consumer prices increased 0.1% in January, down from a 0.2% increase in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected the CPI to increase 0.2%. Inflation growth remains tame, and there was nothing in the data that suggests any type of breakout. Food prices rose 0.1% after being unchanged in December. Excluding food and energy, core CPI increased an in-line 0.1% for a second consecutive month.

Tomorrow's data will be limited to the Existing Home Sales report for January, which is set to be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.1% YTD
S&P 500 -0.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.7% YTD

DJ30 +92.67 NASDAQ +29.59 SP500 +11.03 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1834/1.84 bln/761 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1982/660.1 mln/1033

3:35 pm :

Apr gold extended yesterday's losses while the dollar index rose as investors digested yesterday's FOMC minutes. The minutes indicated that some officials said there should be a 'clear presumption' in support of continued tapering in $10 bln increments. The yellow metal brushed a session low of $1311.10 per ounce in early morning pit trade and eventually settled with a 0.2% loss at $1317.30 per ounce.
Mar silver also traded in negative territory, with prices trending near the $2.70 per ounce level. Unable to gain momentum, it settled at $21.68 per ounce, or 0.2% lower.
Apr crude oil spent most of its floor session in the red. Prices slipped to a session low of $102.40 per barrel following inventory data that showed a build of 0.973 mln barrels when a build of 2.0-2.3 mln barrels was anticipated. The energy component briefly rose above the unchanged line to a session high of $103.04 per barrel but settled with a 0.1% loss at $102.77 per barrel.
Mar natural gas fell to a session low of $5.88 per MMBtu following inventory data that showed a draw of 250 bcf when a larger draw of 251-257 bcf was anticipated. Prices reversed to a session high of $6.32 per MMBtu in early afternoon action but retreated back into negative territory heading into the close.
Natural gas eventually settled 1.6% lower at $6.05 per MMBtu.

4:34PM Multi-Fineline announces restructuring plan designed to return co to profitability; expects to record a total of ~ $40 to $60 mln in pre-tax charges for write-downs of production equipment and buildings that will be idled, severance, costs to move and rearrange equipment and other costs and liabilities associated with the restructuring (MFLX) 14.96 +0.13 :

Co announced its restructuring plan which is designed to return the co to profitability. Following a full review of its manufacturing footprint and in an effort to realign its manufacturing capacity and costs with expected revenues, MFLEX is consolidating its production facilities to reduce the total manufacturing floor space by ~ one-third.
In connection with these actions, MFLEX anticipates annual cost savings of ~ $50 mln, of which 90% is expected to reduce cost of sales and 10% is expected to lower operating expenses. The co anticipates that these actions will return it to profitability.
The co expects to record a total of ~ $40 to $60 mln in pre-tax charges for write-downs of production equipment and buildings that will be idled, severance, costs to move and rearrange equipment and other costs and liabilities associated with the restructuring. The charges are anticipated to be taken during the fiscal second and third quarters. This estimate is subject to change based on various factors including the appraisal of idled assets to be sold. The near-term cash outlay portion of these charges is expected to be less than $20 mln.
"Our restructuring initiatives are expected to reduce our annual revenue capacity by over 30 percent to ~ $920 mln, or $230 mln per quarter. As we enter fiscal 2015, we are targeting a quarterly breakeven point of roughly $160 to $165 mln. We believe this capacity will be sufficient to support our key customers, as well as our growing base of newer customers, over the next 12 months. After that time, we believe we have the ability to incrementally increase capacity at a much lower cost, if or when needed."

4:29PM Anadigics reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus (ANAD) 2.05 +0.11 : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of ($0.10); revenues rose 19.1% year/year to $36.3 mln vs the $35.91 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, The Company expects that first quarter 2014 revenue will decrease by 34 - 37% sequentially - equates to Q1 revs of ~$22.9-24.0 mln vs. $31.17 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"However, through greater efficiency and expense reductions, we anticipate a double digit gross margin in spite of the revenue decrease. Furthermore, we expect a 10% sequential reduction in operating expenses (research and development and selling and administrative expenses), which establishes a lower expense baseline for 2014."

4:23PM Mattson reports EPS in-line, beats on revs (MTSN) 2.68 -0.07 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.04; revenues rose 20.6% year/year to $40.8 mln vs the $40.36 mln consensus.

4:18PM Juniper Networks announces integrated operating plan; has support of Elliott Management (JNPR) 27.41 +0.21 : Co says enhanced operational efficiency expected to result in a 25% operating margin for 2015; aggressive capital return plan returning a minimum of $3 bln of capital to shareholders over the next three years, including more than $2 bln in share repurchases through Q1 2015; co to initiate $0.10 per share quarterly dividend to commence in Q3 2014.

Co also stated, "In developing the IOP, Juniper considered the views of its stakeholders, and engaged in constructive discussions with shareholders including Elliott Management. Juniper has reached an agreement with Elliott whereby Elliott has agreed among various customary terms, to support the Company's changes announced today and to vote in favor of Juniper's nominees at its 2014 Annual Meeting of Stockholders."

4:17PM Univ Elec beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (UEIC) 37.35 +1.12 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.49 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.48; revenues rose 15.5% year/year to $136.1 mln vs the $129.89 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.33-0.41, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $120-126 mln vs. $124.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:16PM Marvell beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (MRVL) 16.13 : Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.25; revenues rose 20.2% year/year to $931.7 mln vs the $901.18 mln consensus.
Co issues in-line EPS guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.20-0.24, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $870-910 mln vs. $849.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05PM Marvell names Michael Rashkin Chief Financial Officer (MRVL) 16.12 +0.35 : MRVL announced it has named Michael Rashkin Chief Financial Officer, effective February 17, 2014.

Mr. Rashkin served as the Interim Chief Financial Officer since December of 2013 and brings to Marvell more than 40 years of experience in finance, tax and operations in high technology industries.
Mr. Rashkin has been with the Company since 1999

4:13PM Hewlett-Packard beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line (midpoint below); raises low end of FY14 EPS, in-line (HPQ) 30.19 +0.74 : Reports Q1 (Jan) adj. earnings of $0.90 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.84; revenues fell 0.7% year/year to $28.15 bln vs the $27.17 bln consensus.

Personal Systems revenue was up 4% YoY with a 3.3% operating margin. Commercial revenue increased 8% and Consumer revenue declined 3%. Total units were up 6% with Desktops units down 3% and Notebooks units up 5%.
Printing revenue was down 2% YoY with a 16.8% operating margin. Total hardware units were up 5% with Commercial hardware units up 6% and Consumer hardware units up 4%. Supplies revenue was down 3%.
Enterprise Group revenue was up 1% YoY with a 14.4% operating margin. Industry Standard Servers revenue was up 6%, Storage revenue was flat, Business Critical Systems revenue was down 25%, Networking revenue was up 4% and Technology Services revenue was down 4%.
Enterprise Services revenue was down 7% YoY with a 1% operating margin. Application and Business Services revenue was down 4%, and Infrastructure Technology Outsourcing revenue declined 9%.
Software revenue was down 4% YoY with a 15.8% operating margin. Support revenue was down 2%, license revenue was down 6%, professional services revenue was down 12% and software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue was up 6%.
HP Financial Services revenue was down 9% YoY with a 6% decrease in net portfolio assets and an 18% increase in financing volume. The business delivered an operating margin of 11.6%. Corporate Investments revenue increased due to the sale of a portfolio of mobile computing intellectual property.
Asset management
HP generated $3.0 billion in cash flow from operations in the first quarter, up 17% from the prior-year period. Inventory ended the quarter at $6.0 billion, down 1 day YoY to 25 days. Accounts receivable ended the quarter at $13.5 billion, down 2 days YoY at 43 days. Accounts payable ended the quarter at $12.6 billion, up 4 days YoY to 52 days. HP's dividend payment of $0.1452 per share in the first quarter resulted in cash usage of $278 million. HP also utilized $565 million of cash during the quarter to repurchase ~20.4 million shares of common stock in the open market. HP exited the quarter with $16.4 billion in gross cash.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees adj. EPS of $0.85-0.89 vs. $0.89 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, raises adj. EPS to $3.60-3.75 (from $3.55-3.75) vs. $3.64 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:25PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TSLA (209 +7.93%): Beat on EPS by $0.12, non-GAAP rev rose 148.5% y/y to $761.3 mln vs $673.14 mln consensus - GAAP rev was $615 mln; guided FY14 deliveries above consensus; Deutsche Bank downgraded TSLA to Hold from Buy on valuation; tgt to $220 from $200; tgt raised to $245 from $215 at Robert W. Baird; tgt raised to $220 from $190 at Jefferies; tgt raised to $253 from $230 at Northland Capital; tgt raised to $325 from $200 at Dougherty; tgt raised to $225 from $205 at Wedbush.
BMRN (80.35 +5.24%): Co received positive opinion from the CHMP in the EU for VIMIZIM for Morquio A syndrome.
ABX (20.75 +4.93%): Upgraded to Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt raised to $28.

Large Cap Losers

YNDX (36.55 -8.24%): Beat on top and bottom lines; guided FY14 revs.
AEG (8.71 -5.12%): Reported Q4 Net income declined 23% y/y to EUR174 mln; total sales increased 3% y/y to EUR1.74 bln.
TRP (43.98 -2.31%): Missed on EPS by CAD0.02, missed on revs; WSJ discussed that Nebraska Judge has blocked Governor's Keystone decision.

Mid Cap Gainers

PRAA (58.96 +16.8%): Reported EPS in-line, revs in-line; agreed to acquire Aktiv Kapital for $880 mln, while also agreeing to assume ~$435 mln of its corporate debt, resulting in an acquisition of estimated total enterprise value of $1.3 bln; expected to be immediately accretive to earnings.
AWAY (48 +11.73%): Missed on EPS by $0.06, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs above consensus; guided FY14 revs above consensus; target raised to $53 from $43 at Piper Jaffray; tgt raised to $51 from $43 at Stifel; tgt raised to $43 at Canaccord Genuity.
TRN (66.5 +9.47%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS above consensus; guided FY14 EPS above consensus; upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sterne Agee.

Mid Cap Losers

CONN (38.19 -31.56%): Sees Q4 EPS below consensus; lowered FY15 EPS below consensus; downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at a boutique firm; downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer; tgt to $44 from $92; tgt lowered to $60 at Canaccord Genuity.
TAC (12.04 -10.18%): Missed on EPS by $0.05, revs fell 9,1% y/y to $587 mln vs the $617.6 mln consensus; cut dividend by 38% to $0.18/share (from $0.29), sold 50% interest in CE Generation.
WST (45.42 -4.86%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, missed on revs; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line.

11:01AM Microsoft and Hop-on sign patent agreement for android and Chrome devices (MSFT) 37.54 +0.03 : Co and Hop-on, Inc., signed a worldwide patent licensing agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for devices running the Android and Chrome OS, including smartphones and tablets. While the contents of the agreement are confidential, the parties indicate that Microsoft will receive royalties from Hop-on under the agreement.

9:48AM Advanced Micro announces private offering of $500 mln of senior notes (AMD) 3.73 +0.01 : Co announced that it intends to commence a private offering, subject to market and other conditions, of $500 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2019. AMD intends to use the net proceeds received in the offering to repurchase up to $425 million aggregate principal amount of its outstanding 6.00% Convertible Senior Notes due 2015 through a tender offer which was launched on February 20, 2014. AMD intends to use remaining net proceeds to repurchase up to a maximum of $200 million aggregate principal amount of AMD's outstanding 8.125% Senior Notes due 2017 through a tender offer which was also launched on February 20, 2014. To the extent AMD will have net proceeds after the completion of the tender offers, it will use such net proceeds to redeem, repurchase or otherwise retire other outstanding debt.

8:32AM Interdigital Comm beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs (IDCC) 28.41 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.35 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.30; revenues rose 13.4% year/year to $99.7 mln vs the $81.73 mln consensus.
Co issues guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $54-59 mln vs. $54.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "This revenue guidance is based on royalty reports received to date, and does not include the potential impact of any new patent license, technology solutions or patent sale agreements that may be signed, or any arbitration or dispute resolutions that may occur, during the balance of first quarter 2014."

Broadcom (BRCM) introduced the industry's first Global Navigation Satellite System system-on-chip, designed for low-power, mass-market wearable devices such as fitness trackers and smart watches.

SunEdison (SUNE) and MIC Solar Energy, a subsidiary of Macquarie Infrastructure (MIC), announced the completion of a 16.4 MW PV solar power plant located outside Tucson, Arizona on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

Nokia (NOK) considering acquisition of Juniper Networks (JNPR), according to reports

Equinix (EQIX) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.88 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 11.5% year/year to $564.7 million which is line with estimates. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with revenues of $572.0 and $576.0 million which is below estimates. Cash gross margins are expected to approximate 68% to 69%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range between $256.0 and $260.0 million, which includes $11.0 million in professional fees and costs primarily related to the REIT conversion. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with revenues greater than $2.38 billion. Total year cash gross margins are expected to approximate 69%. Adjusted EBITDA for the year is expected to be greater than $1,100.0 million, which includes negative foreign currency headwinds of approximately $5.0 million compared to the rates used from our prior guidance, and includes $37.0 million in professional fees and costs primarily related to the REIT conversion.

Millennial Media (MM) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 66.8% year/year to $96.66 million which is lower than expected. The company reported fourth quarter GAAP EPS of ($0.04), which is line with the GAAP consensus. As of December 31, 2013, Millennial Media reached over 600 million monthly unique users globally, including approximately 170 million monthly unique users in the United States alone. As of December 31, 2013, more than 50,000 apps were enabled by mobile app developers to operate on Millennial Media's platform, and Millennial Media had more than 625 million proprietary, anonymous user profiles used for delivering the most relevant ads to consumers. The company issued guidance for the revenues of $72-76 million which is lower than expected.

Facebook (FB) announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire WhatsApp, a rapidly growing cross-platform mobile messaging company, for a total of approximately $16 billion, including $4 billion in cash and approximately $12 billion worth of Facebook shares. The agreement also provides for an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp's founders and employees that will vest over four years subsequent to closing. The acquisition supports Facebook and WhatsApp's shared mission to bring more connectivity and utility to the world by delivering core internet services efficiently and affordably. The combination will help accelerate growth and user engagement across both companies. "WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "I've known Jan for a long time and I'm excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected." In the event of termination of the Merger Agreement under certain circumstances principally related to a failure to obtain required regulatory approvals, the Merger Agreement provides for Facebook to pay WhatsApp a fee of $1 billion in cash and to issue to WhatsApp a number of shares of Facebook's Class A common stock equal to $1 billion based on the average closing price of the ten trading days preceding such termination date.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 21-Feb-14

Dow -29.93 at 16103.3, Nasdaq -4.13 at 4263.41, S&P -3.53 at 1836.25

The major averages finished the mixed week on a lower note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both shed 0.2% while the Nasdaq slipped 0.1%. For the week, the Dow and S&P 500 posted respective losses of 0.3% and 0.1% while the Nasdaq added 0.5%.

In some ways, today's session resembled Wednesday's affair, during which the S&P 500 made an unsuccessful run at its 2013 closing high of 1848.36. However, today's rejection unfolded over the course of the afternoon while Wednesday's pushback from the record high occurred in one sharp move.

The opening rally was supported by the largest S&P 500 sector, technology, which outperformed during the first 90 minutes of action. However, the morning leader became an afternoon laggard after the S&P 500's failed run at new record highs. The tech sector lost 0.3% while top components like Apple (AAPL 525.25, -5.90), Facebook (FB 68.59, -1.04), and Intel (INTC 24.48, -0.26) lost between 1.1% and 1.5%. Another tech component, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 29.79, -0.40), lost 1.3% despite beating on earnings and revenue.

Interestingly, once the technology sector slipped behind the S&P 500, the second largest sector-financials-was there to pick up the slack. The group struggled to keep pace with the S&P 500 since Wednesday and began today among the laggards, but was able to climb ahead of the broader market during the late-morning retreat. Despite today's slight gain of 0.03%, the sector ended the week behind the remaining nine groups with a loss of 0.9%.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector (+0.2%) finished in the lead thanks to all-around strength. Retailers held up well even after Nordstrom (JWN 59.24, -0.20) issued disappointing guidance.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.7%) spent the entire session in the red while crude oil slid 0.6% to $102.18/bbl. Elsewhere among commodities, gold remained strong, climbing 0.5% to $1317.30/ozt.

Trading volume was above average, which resulted from options expiration. Nearly 800 million shares changed hands at the NYSE versus a 200-day average of 718 million.

Treasuries posted modest gains with the benchmark 10-yr yield ending lower by two basis points at 2.73%.

Week in Review: Stocks Endure Choppy Week

On Monday, bond and equity markets were closed for Presidents' Day.

Tuesday's session saw equity indices kick off the abbreviated trading week on a relatively quiet note. Small caps finished in the lead (Russell 2000 +1.0%) while the S&P 500 added 0.1%. The benchmark index saw a brief dip at the open, but the weakness was erased promptly thanks to the early strength of the health care sector (+0.9%). The group surged out of the gate after Actavis (ACT 218.41, -1.96) agreed to acquire Forest Laboratories (FRX 96.88, -0.42) for $25 billion. Biotechnology also factored into the sector's strength as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 268.71, +3.25) jumped 2.6%.

On Wednesday, stocks ended on their lows with the S&P 500 snapping its three-day win streak. The index fell 0.7% while the Nasdaq (-0.8%) lagged throughout the session. The trading day began with slim losses, but the Dow and S&P 500 were quick to erase the early weakness. For its part, the Nasdaq was unable to make a sustained move into the green. Eight of ten sectors ended in the red with financials registering the largest decline. Citigroup (C 48.26, +0.13) was the weakest performer among the majors while regional banks also endured significant losses. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE 38.15, +0.31) fell 2.8%.

Equities ended the Thursday session on their highs with small caps in the lead. The Russell 2000 gained 1.1% while the S&P 500 rose 0.6% with all ten sectors posting gains. Prior to the open, the market appeared to be headed for a lower start as disappointing data from China, Japan, and the eurozone weighed on index futures. Specifically, China's HSBC Manufacturing PMI fell to 48.3 from 49.5 (49.4 expected), Japan posted a record trade deficit of JPY1.82 trillion (JPY1.56 trillion expected), and the Manufacturing PMI for the eurozone (53.0 versus 54.0 expected) disappointed. Despite the weak data from overseas, equity futures were able to find support when a better-than-expected Markit Manufacturing PMI for the U.S. was released (56.7 actual versus 53.0 expected). Historically, the data point has not been known for eliciting a noteworthy reaction in the market, but today's number likely fueled some short covering activity that sent futures back to their flat lines by the opening bell. In addition, buying ahead of Friday's options expiration likely factored into the morning rebound and the daylong rally.

 
 Index	    Started Week  Ended Week  Change  % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	     16154.39	  16103.30    -51.09	-0.3	-2.9 
 Nasdaq	      4244.02	   4263.41     19.39     0.5     2.1 
 S&P 500	1838.63	   1836.25     -2.38	-0.1	-0.7 
 Russell 2000  1149.21	   1164.63     15.42	 1.3     0.1

12:15PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

PCYC (151.98 +6.52%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.09 ($0.95 vs $0.86 estimate), revs rose 113.1% yoy to $123.6 mln vs $99.91 mln estimate; target raised to $191 from $163 at JMP Securities following earnings
UA (112.4 +4.86%): Confirmed eight year contract extension with U.S. Speedskating
INTU (77.18 +4.51%): Reported Q2 EPS of $0.02 ex items (in-line), revs fell 11.5% yoy to $782 mln vs $788.49 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $3.46-3.51 ex items vs $3.49 estimate, revs of $2.325-2.400 bln vs $2.37 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 guidance

Large Cap Losers

COG (36.68 -6.62%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.18 ex items vs $0.17 estiamte), revs rose 31.8% yoy to $487.5 mln vs $472.38 mln estimate; co also announced it entered into a Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement with a subsidiary of WGL Holdings (WGL)
NEM (22.98 -6.05%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.11 ($0.33 vs $0.44 estimate), revs fell 12.4% yoy to $2.17 bln vs $2.19 bln estimate
CHTR (125.19 -5.04%): Beat quaterly EPS by $0.07 ($0.35 vs 0.28 estimate), revs rose 5.0% yoy on a pro forma basis to $2.15 bln vs $2.16 bln estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

COMM (22.62 +19.24%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.30 vs $0.28 estimate), revs declined 2% yoy to $846 mln vs $820 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.36-0.40 vs $0.30 estimate, revs of $860-900 mln vs $818 mln estimate; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies, target raised to $25 from $17.50
ISIS (59.7 +16.90%): Reported positive results from ongoing open-label, multiple-dose study of ISIS-SMNRx in children with spinal muscular atrophy
SSTK (96.05 +16.49%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.26 ex items vs $0.21 estimate, revs rose 38.4% yoy to $68.0 mln vs $65.8 mln estimate; sees Q1 revs of $69-70 mln vs $67.7 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $305-310 mln vs $304.5 mln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

GRPN (8.42 -18.08%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.04 ex items vs $0.02 estimate), revs rose 20.4% yoy to $768.4 mln vs $718.73 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of -$0.04 to $0.02 ex items vs $0.06 estimate, revs of $710-760 mln vs $681.81 mln estimate; downgraded at RBC Capital Markets
MRC (25.5 -13.73%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.09 ($0.32 ex items vs $0.41 estimate), revs rose 2.9% yoy to $1.34 bln vs $1.31 bln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $5.5-5.8 bln vs $5.7 bln estimate
FNGN (54.47 -12.38%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.22 vs $0.23 estimate), revs rose 26.8% yoy to $65.2 mln vs $66.21 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $274-279 mln vs $293.18 mln estimate

8:01AM Freescale Semi announces launch of new financing under senior secured credit facilities (FSL) 22.48 :

Co announced today that FSL, its wholly owned indirect subsidiary, is seeking to (i) lower the interest rate of its existing senior secured term loan facility maturing in 2016 with an aggregate outstanding principal amount of $347 mln and extend the maturity to 2020; (ii) lower the interest rate applicable to its existing senior secured term loan facility maturing in 2020 with an aggregate outstanding principal amount of $2.37 bln, and (iii) receive commitments for a new senior secured term loan facility under its existing senior secured credit facilities.
The proceeds from the new term loan are intended to be used to refinance any portion of the 2016 Term Loan and 2020 Term Loan not so amended.

1:54AM Hanwha SolarOne receives product carbon footprint certification based on new international standard (HSOL) 3.02 : Co announces it is among the first PV manufacturers to have its solar modules certified with the new international standard for carbon footprint assessment, ISO 14067. The certificates were issued by German safety standard authority T V Rheinland in January 2014.

1:34AM Advanced Micro prices $600 mln of 6.75% Senior Notes due 2019 (AMD) 3.69 :

Rocket Fuel (FUEL) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.06 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 113.5% year/year to $85.6 million which is higher than expected. The company reaffiremd gudiance for the first quarter with revenues of $73-76 mln which is line with estimates with Adjusted EBITDA in the range of ($9.0)-(7.5) mln. The company reaffiremd guidacne for the fiscal eyar 2014 with revenues of $420-435 million which is line with estimates, with Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $3-6 mln. "Rocket Fuel continued to deliver excellent results for advertisers in the fourth quarter, with all financial metrics coming in slightly ahead of the estimated ranges we provided in January. Our full year 2013 revenue of $240.6 million represented 126% growth over 2012, and we achieved our first full year of positive Adjusted EBITDA results as our technology investments powered gross margin expansion while we demonstrated operating leverage in sales and marketing. We ended 2013 with more than double the active customer base from 2012 and advertisers are increasingly using Rocket Fuel for multi-channel campaigns, demonstrated by the 721% growth of mobile, social, and video channel revenue versus Q4 2012, which comprised 32% of our total revenue in Q4 2013.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) reported first quarter adjusted earnings of $0.90 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 0.7% year/year to $28.15 billion which is higher than expected. Personal Systems revenue was up 4% YoY with a 3.3% operating margin. Commercial revenue increased 8% and Consumer revenue declined 3%. Total units were up 6% with Desktops units down 3% and Notebooks units up 5%. Printing revenue was down 2% YoY with a 16.8% operating margin. Total hardware units were up 5% with Commercial hardware units up 6% and Consumer hardware units up 4%. Supplies revenue was down 3%. Enterprise Group revenue was up 1% YoY with a 14.4% operating margin. Industry Standard Servers revenue was up 6%, Storage revenue was flat, Business Critical Systems revenue was down 25%, Networking revenue was up 4% and Technology Services revenue was down 4%. Enterprise Services revenue was down 7% YoY with a 1% operating margin. Application and Business Services revenue was down 4%, and Infrastructure Technology Outsourcing revenue declined 9%. Software revenue was down 4% YoY with a 15.8% operating margin. Support revenue was down 2%, license revenue was down 6%, professional services revenue was down 12% and software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue was up 6%. HP Financial Services revenue was down 9% YoY with a 6% decrease in net portfolio assets and an 18% increase in financing volume. The business delivered an operating margin of 11.6%. Corporate Investments revenue increased due to the sale of a portfolio of mobile computing intellectual property. Asset management HP generated $3.0 billion in cash flow from operations in the first quarter, up 17% from the prior-year period. Inventory ended the quarter at $6.0 billion, down 1 day YoY to 25 days. Accounts receivable ended the quarter at $13.5 billion, down 2 days YoY at 43 days. Accounts payable ended the quarter at $12.6 billion, up 4 days YoY to 52 days. HP's dividend payment of $0.1452 per share in the first quarter resulted in cash usage of $278 million. HP also utilized $565 million of cash during the quarter to repurchase ~20.4 million shares of common stock in the open market. HP exited the quarter with $16.4 billion in gross cash. The company issued second quarter guidance with EPS of $0.85-0.89 whcih is line with stimates. The company issued fiscal year 2014 with raised guiadnce to $3.60-3.75 (from $3.55-3.75) which is line with estimates.

Marvell (MRVL) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.29 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 20.2% year/year to $931.7 million which is higher than expected. The company issued in line guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $0.20-0.24, which is line with estimates and revenues of $870-910 million which is higher than expected.

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Amateur Investors Weekend Stock Market Analysis (2/22/14)

http://www.amateur-investor.net/Weekend_Market_Analysis_Feb_22_2014.htm

There has been a lot of conjecture that as long as the Federal Reserve keeps printing money the market will continue higher no matter what happens with the economy. As you can see in the chart below since the 2009 low the Federal Reserve has been printing money at an accelerated pace (red line) with a strong correlation in the market (points a to b).



Now if we take a look at the longer term the Federal Reserve been increasing the money supply since the 1960's so this is nothing new. Keep in mind just because the Federal Reserve prints money doesn't mean the market has to rise as we saw from late 1999 through 2002 when the Dow lost 39% of its value. Furthermore from the mid 1960's through the early 1980's the Dow went nowhere for 17 years as the Federal Reserve continued to print money at a steady pace (points b to c). Finally the Federal Reserve spun up the printing presses from the 1930's through the early 1940's (points d to e) which looks similar to what has occurred recently. Back then this was followed by a sharp rally in the Dow from 1932 through early 1937 (points f to g) but then the additional money printing eventually had a negative affect on the market as the Dow lost 53% of its value.

Thus as these examples show even if the Federal Reserve continues to increase the money supply that doesn't mean the market has to move higher.

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The stock market kicked off the new trading week on an upbeat note, sending the S&P 500 (+0.6%) to a fresh nominal intraday record high of 1858.71. Despite the rally, selling during the final hour kept the benchmark index from finishing the session above its 2013 closing high of 1848.36.

Although the catalyst for today's buying rush could be debated, some attributed the bullish tone to the resilience of the S&P 500 futures in the face of some disappointing economic data and market performance in China. To clarify, a bearish catalyst was there for the taking, but it wasn't taken. Once the U.S. stock market started with a bullish bias, a fear of missing out on further upside helped fuel some renewed buying interest following Friday's lackluster session.

Seven of ten sectors posted gains with energy (+1.5%) ending in the lead. The sector seized the lead at the open and maintained its outperformance throughout the session. Top sector members factored into the strength as Dow components Chevron (CVX 114.15, +1.47) and ExxonMobil (XOM 96.44, +1.41) both gained near 1.4% while crude oil rose 0.6% to $102.81/bbl.

Staying on the commodity theme, precious metals extended their recent gains while copper sold off. Gold futures climbed 1.1% to $1337.90/ozt while silver futures advanced 1.2% to $22.04/ozt. Today's rally extended gold's monthly gain to 7.5% while silver ended the session with a February increase of 15.1%. For its part, copper slid 0.8% to $3.264/lb amid reports of Chinese banks cutting credit to property developers. On a related note, the materials sector shed 0.5%.

Outside of energy and materials, the remaining four cyclical sectors were mixed with respect to the broader market. Financials (+0.8%) and industrials (+0.8%) outperformed while consumer discretionary (+0.6%) and technology (+0.5%) lagged.

Notably, the tech sector was unable to keep up with the S&P 500 as several large components like Cisco Systems (CSCO 22.12, -0.01), Qualcomm (QCOM 75.43, -0.18), and Microsoft (MSFT 37.69, -0.29) lagged. The sector did see some M&A activity as TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT 11.64, +2.41) announced a merger with RF Micro Devices (RFMD 7.03, +1.22).

On the countercyclical side, health care (+0.8%) outperformed while consumer staples (+0.4%), telecom services (-1.1%), and utilities (-0.3%) lagged.

Treasuries posted modest gains with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.74%.

Today's participation was above average as just over 830 million shares changed hands on the floor of the NYSE.

Tomorrow, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index and the FHFA Housing Price Index for December will both be released at 9:00 ET while the February Consumer Confidence report will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +2.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD
S&P 500 UNCH YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.2% YTD

DJ30 +103.84 NASDAQ +29.56 SP500 +11.36 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1686/2.01 bln/922 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1893/830.7 mln/1149

3:35 pm :

Apr gold extended Friday's gains, trending higher after lifting from its session low of $1328.70 per ounce. It brushed a session high of $1339.20 per ounce in late morning action and eventually settled at $1337.90 per ounce, or 1.1% higher.
Mar silver also traded higher, advancing to a session high of $22.14 per ounce. It spent afternoon action trading in a consolidative pattern just below that level and settled with a 1.2% gain at $22.04 per ounce.
Apr crude oil rose to a session high of $103.45 per barrel in late morning pit trade. It pulled back slightly in afternoon action and settled at $102.81 per barrel, booking a gain of 0.6%.
Apr natural gas, on the other hand, retreated into negative territory after pulling back from its session high of $5.08 per MMBtu set in early morning floor action. It trended lower for most of the session and settled 6.8% lower at $4.66 per MMBtu, slightly above its session low of $4.59 per MMBtu.

2:30PM Technology Select Sector SPDR retesting last week's multi-year high and this morning's peak at 36.26 (XLK) 36.26 +0.31 :

2:02PM Tessera Tech announces settlement with ASE; cos agree to engage in technical collaboration; ASE agreed to pay Tessera, Inc. a total of $30 mln (TSRA) 19.49 +0.36 :

Co announced that its subsidiary, Tessera, Inc., has entered into an agreement with Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASX) and ASE (U.S.) to settle all claims at issue between ASE and Tessera, Inc. in the case styled Tessera, Inc: v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., et al.
Under the terms of the agreement ASE agreed to pay Tessera, Inc. a total of $30 mln, comprised of a one-time payment in the first quarter of 2015 and annual recurring payments commencing in the first quarter of 2015 through the first quarter of 2018.

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

Large Cap Gainers

HUM (111.12 +8.07%): CMS proposed 2015 payment and policy updates for Medicare Health and Drug Plans; co now expects updates to result in a funding decline for 2015 of 3.5 to 4.0 percent.
VOD (41.78 +7.13%): Disclosed court approval of scheme of arrangement and the reductions of capital of Vodafone.
NBL (70.47 +5.4%): Initiated with a Buy at KLR Group; tgt $91.

Large Cap Losers

KMP (75.17 -4.17%): Barron's profiled cautious view on Kinder Morgan and its partnerships (KMI also lower).
TSU (24.98 -0.83%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup.
YNDX (36.21 -1.23%): Tgt lowered to $41 from $48 at Pacific Crest.

Mid Cap Gainers

BBRY (9.90 +8.32%): Ford (F) to switch to BBRY from Microsoft (MSFT) for Sync in cars, according to reports; co announced BBM for Windows Phone and Nokia X platforms.
MW (48.41 +7.32%): Co increased cash offer for Jos. A. Bank (JOSB) to $63.50 per share from $57.50 per share.
ATHM (37.23 +5.26%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs above consensus; upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman.

Mid Cap Losers

DDS (84 -5.97%): Missed on EPS by $0.31, missed on revs.
DDD (76.36 -5.42%): Downgraded to Underperform from Buy at BofA/Merrill; announces its ProJet 3510 MP 3D printer and proprietary VisiJet Stoneplast dental materials have been optimized for dental 'drill guide' production.
AWI (56.47 -4.72%): Missed on EPS by $0.08, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.

International Rectifier (IRF) has commenced initial production at its new ultra-thin wafer processing facility in Singapore.

8:58AM Cisco Systems intends to offer senior notes under an automatic shelf registration statement on file with the SEC (CSCO) 22.13 :

Actual terms of the notes, including interest rate, principal amount and maturity will depend on market conditions at the time of pricing.
Co intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including (i) to repay $3.75 billion in aggregate principal amount of its outstanding senior unsecured notes, consisting of $2.0 billion of its 1.625% senior notes and $1.25 billion of its floating rate notes, each due March 2014 and $500 million of its 2.90% senior notes due November 2014 and (ii) to return capital to shareholders pursuant to its previously-announced capital allocation strategy through the repurchase of shares of its common stock and the payment of cash dividends.
Barclays Capital Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. and Wells Fargo Securities, LLC are acting as joint book-running managers.

Atmel (ATML) is expanding its broad wireless product portfolio with a new family of solutions targeting the Internet of Things. The new SmartConnect family combines Atmel's ultra-low power MCUs with its wireless solutions and complementary software into a single package.

Broadcom (BRCM) introduced the 5G WiFi (802.11ac) 2x2 Multiple Input Multiple Output system-on-a-chip for smartphones.

Broadcom (BRCM) introduced the next-generation of near field communication controllers designed to deliver simplified connectivity and drive adoption in mass market smartphones and wearables. -

8:49AM 3D Systems announces its ProJet 3510 MP 3D printer and proprietary VisiJet Stoneplast dental materials have been optimized for dental 'drill guide' production (DDD) 80.74 : The ProJet 3510 MP uses 3DS' Stoneplast dental material that is available in both clear or plaster mode, and is compatible with all leading dental software modules capable of outputting the open .stl file format for automated local or distributed manufacturing.

8:47AM LDK Solar announced it made a filing with the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands for the appointment of joint provisional liquidators in connection with its plans to resolve its offshore liquidity issues; Co has made considerable progress in its discussions (shares halted) (LDK) 1.01 :

Co has made considerable progress in its discussions with its key offshore creditors in line with the terms announced in its press release of December 27, 2013. LDK Solar intends to continue such discussions over the next few days and anticipates a favorable conclusion to those discussions.
The filing and the proposed appointment do not affect any of the LDK Solar-affiliated entities operating in the People's Republic of China and LDK Solar has no intention of initiating any additional debt restructuring proceedings in that jurisdiction.
LDK Solar's bank group for its mainland China operations has expressed unanimous support for LDK Solar's continued discussions with its offshore creditors with a view to resolving its offshore liquidity issues.
(Shares Halted)

Cypress Semiconductor (CY) announced its TrueTouch Gen5 capacitive touchscreen controllers will drive both displays in the next generation YotaPhone, Yota Devices' "always-on" premium Android phone, which was unveiled today at Mobile World Congress.
ZTE (ZTCOF) has selected TrueTouch Gen4 capacitive touchscreen controllers from Cypress Semiconductor (CY) for its nubia Z5S and nubia Z5S Mini smartphones.

8:08AM Canadian Solar to supply 18MW of solar modules to Hitachi in Japan (CSIQ) 37.77 : Co announced that it has been awarded a module supply agreement to provide 18MW of photovoltaic ("PV") modules to Hitachi, Ltd. ("Hitachi") for a solar power project in Japan. The project is owned by Eurus Energy Holdings Corporation with Hitachi as its EPC contractor. This 18MW solar power project, which is expected to be in operation in March 2015, is located in the boundary between Marumori-machit in Miyagi prefecture and Soma city in Fukushima prefecture, covering an area of 80 hectares.

Canadian Solar will supply ~73,556 pieces of its 60 cell high efficiency CS6P255P modules with power output of 255Wp for this project. This solar power plant will power ~5,000 homes and is expected to displace ~9,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year. Electricity to be produced in the next 20 years will be sold to Tohoku Electric Power, Inc

7:37AM Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron Receive CFIUS Clearance for Proposed Combination (AMAT) 19.10 : Co and Tokyo Electron state they have received notice from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US that there are no unresolved national security issues relating to the cos' proposed business combination announced on September 24, 2013. The clearance by CFIUS was without conditions and terminates CFIUS review of the transaction.

7:31AM TriQuint Semi and RFMD announce merger of equals; represents an implied price of $9.73 for each TriQuint share (TQNT) 9.23 : TQNT and RFMD announced a definitive merger agreement under which the companies will combine in an all-stock transaction. To reflect the nature of this transaction as a merger of equals, the new company will have a new name and shared leadership team. The boards of directors of both RFMD and TriQuint have unanimously approved the transaction.

Former shareholders of RFMD and TQNT will each own approximately 50 percent of the new company post-merger.
The transaction represents an implied price of $9.73 for each TriQuint share, representing a 5.4% premium based on the closing price of $9.23 for TriQuint on February 21, 2014.
The combination is expected to achieve at least $150 million in cost synergies; $75 million in annualized synergies exiting the first year after closing and an additional $75 million exiting the second year.
The transaction is expected to be accretive to non-GAAP EPS in the first full fiscal year following the closing of the transaction.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of calendar 2014 subject to approval by the shareholders of both companies.

Rudolph Technologies (RTEC) announced completion of record installations in Q4 2013 of its fab-wide yield management software products, Discover Enterprise and Genesis Enterprise. In addition to traditional semiconductor manufacturing, Discover Enterprise Software was installed at a multi-billion dollar OEM in multiple labs, replacing the incumbent technology.
Yubico and NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI) will demonstrate at the RSA Conference USA next-generation YubiKey technology to create awareness of the need for strong two-factor authentication to keep online identities and proprietary business information safe.

LitePoint, a subsidiary of Teradyne (TER), released its LitePoint IQnfc, the first volume production-optimized test system designed to measure and verify the physical layer performance of Near Field Communication enabled devices.
Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) announced its participation in the "Will FPGAs Crack Mobile?" panel on Feb 27 at the 22nd ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, which takes place in Monterey, Ca. from Feb 26-28, 2014.

7:24AM GT Advanced Tech. beats by $0.10, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY14 EPS in-line, reaffirms FY14 revs guidance (GTAT) 12.11 : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.36); revenues fell 68.1% year/year to $32.6 mln vs the $36.76 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ($0.25)-($0.20), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.07) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $20-30 mln vs. $122.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The company expects that revenue and profitability will be back end loaded, with its sapphire materials business ramping as the year progresses, and with improving financial performance during the second half of 2014.
Co issues guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $0.02-0.18, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.07 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; reaffirms FY14 revs of $600-800 mln vs. $691.79 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"Our arrangement to supply sapphire materials to Apple is progressing well and we started to build out the facility in Arizona and staff the operation during the quarter...Although we have significant opportunities in sapphire, the GT story is not only about our emerging sapphire materials business. In fact, our entry into sapphire materials may enable us to expand into other materials segments once we have fully ramped the operation in Arizona. The many diversification and investment seeds we have planted over the last several years in the LED, power electronics, advanced solar and industrial markets are expected to begin to bear fruit over the next 18 months. We are seeing significant interest in our new products and now expect equipment orders from these initiatives to be received during the latter part of 2014, with meaningful revenue recognition beginning in early 2015."
Outlook Details: The company expects that its sapphire segment will account for more than 80% of total revenue in 2014. The sapphire segment includes the company's equipment and materials businesses in the LED, industrial and consumer electronics markets. Consolidated gross margins for 2014 are expected to be in the range of 25% to 27%, reflecting lower margin material shipments during the year, inefficiencies related to the ramp up of the sapphire materials business and underutilization of the company's equipment operations

Verizon (VZ) and McAfee, part of Intel (INTC) announced an extension of their agreement that now offers multi-device security to Verizon's more than 9 million FiOS Internet and High Speed Internet customers. With Verizon Internet Security Suite Multi-Device powered by McAfee, consumers and small businesses can protect all of their PCs, laptops, Macs, and Android smartphones and tablets with one easy-to-use central management console.

Texas Instruments (TXN), and Nokia Solutions and Networks announced their collaboration on NSN's next generation of indoor small cell base stations.
Citrix today announced ByteMobile Insight, a big data analytics solution designed to provide immediate, action Pubnable intelligence for mobile operator monetization, marketing and customer care organizations.
SanDisk (SNDK) announced the new 128GB2 SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I memory card, the world's largest capacity microSD card.
Silicon Image (SIMG) announced its entry into the small cell wireless backhaul market with the introduction of two high-throughput, single-chip CMOS beam-steering 60GHz RF transceivers designed to address the rapidly growing market for high-capacity wireless backhaul links in urban environments.

F5 Networks (FFIV) announced today that Oi selected the F5 Traffix Signaling Delivery Controller to meet the Diameter signaling management demands of their LTE network.
Sierra Wireless (SWIR) introduced the Legato platform, an open source embedded platform built on Linux and designed to simplify the development of machine-to-machine applications from the device to the cloud.
Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., in cooperation with ZTE, launched the world's first multimode, multiband chip featuring an integrated CMOS power amplifier and antenna switch on ZTE's new flagship smartphone, the Grand S II LTE.

Texas Instruments (TXN) released the 0.3" HD Tilt & Roll Pixel DLP Pico chipset, its smallest, most power-efficient micro-mirror array, which can generate high-definition displays from compact electronics, including tablets, smartphones, accessories, wearable displays, augmented reality displays, interactive surface computing, digital signage and control panels.

1:42AM Microsoft adds nine new Windows Phone hardware partners (MSFT) 37.98 : Co announces nine new hardware partners for Windows Phone and direct access to tools that will broaden the portfolio of devices for consumers and introduce new price points to accelerate growth in key markets. In addition to existing partners - Nokia (NOK), Samsung (SSNLF), HTC and Huawei - Microsoft has announced it is now working with Foxconn, Gionee, Lava (Xolo), Lenovo (LNVGY), LG, Longcheer, JSR, Karbonn and ZTE to develop on the Windows Phone platform.

NQ Mobile (NQ) announced that NQ Mobile has reached an agreement with Samsung Electronics (SSNLF). The new agreement extends the strategic relationship between NQ Mobile and Samsung, enabling NQ Mobile to sell, distribute and promote the Samsung KNOX end-to-end mobile security solution for Samsung devices.
Palo Alto Networks (PANW) reported second quarter earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 46.2% year/year to $141.1 mln vs the $135.48 mln consensus; billings +50% YoY to $186.7 million. "We reported very good Q2 results, driven by strong customer demand for our integrated and automated enterprise security platform. Enterprises around the world are accelerating their investments in security to enable them to improve their business and protect them against the risks stemming from cyber attacks. We see evidence of this in continued new customer adoption and rapid expansion of our platform among existing customers. Our business model is benefitting from higher attach rates of our SaaS-based subscription services, which, combined with continued strong product growth, contributed to record billings, revenue and deferred revenue. Non-GAAP gross margin, operating margin and free cash flow expanded both sequentially and year-over-year, and we finished the quarter with $501 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments.
GT Advanced Tech (GTAT) reported fourth quarter loss of $0.26 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 68.1% year/year to $32.6 million which is lower than expected. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS of ($0.25)-($0.20), which is lower than expected with revenues of $20-30 mln vs. $122.58 million which is lower than expected. The company expects that revenue and profitability will be back end loaded, with its sapphire materials business ramping as the year progresses, and with improving financial performance during the second half of 2014. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $0.02-0.18, which is in line with estimates with reaffirmed fiscal year 2014 with revenues of $600-800 million which is line with estimates. "Our arrangement to supply sapphire materials to Apple is progressing well and we started to build out the facility in Arizona and staff the operation during the quarter...Although we have significant opportunities in sapphire, the GT story is not only about our emerging sapphire materials business. In fact, our entry into sapphire materials may enable us to expand into other materials segments once we have fully ramped the operation in Arizona. The many diversification and investment seeds we have planted over the last several years in the LED, power electronics, advanced solar and industrial markets are expected to begin to bear fruit over the next 18 months. We are seeing significant interest in our new products and now expect equipment orders from these initiatives to be received during the latter part of 2014, with meaningful revenue recognition beginning in early 2015."Outlook Details: The company expects that its sapphire segment will account for more than 80% of total revenue in 2014. The sapphire segment includes the company's equipment and materials businesses in the LED, industrial and consumer electronics markets. Consolidated gross margins for 2014 are expected to be in the range of 25% to 27%, reflecting lower margin material shipments during the year, inefficiencies related to the ramp up of the sapphire materials business and underutilization of the company's equipment operations.
TriQuint Semi (TQNT) RF Micro (RFMD) announced a definitive merger agreement under which the companies will combine in an all-stock transaction. To reflect the nature of this transaction as a merger of equals, the new company will have a new name and shared leadership team. The boards of directors of both RFMD and TriQuint have unanimously approved the transaction. Former shareholders of RFMD and TQNT will each own approximately 50 percent of the new company post-merger. The transaction represents an implied price of $9.73 for each TriQuint share, representing a 5.4% premium based on the closing price of $9.23 for TriQuint on February 21, 2014. The combination is expected to achieve at least $150 million in cost synergies; $75 million in annualized synergies exiting the first year after closing and an additional $75 million exiting the second year. The transaction is expected to be accretive to non-GAAP EPS in the first full fiscal year following the closing of the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of calendar 2014 subject to approval by the shareholders of both companies.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market spun its wheels during the Tuesday session, ending essentially where it started. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% after spending the bulk of day within a striking distance of its flat line.

Equity indices tried to build on the relative strength of the two consumer sectors, but the rally attempts were stifled by the daylong underperformance of the top three groups.

Financials (-0.6%), health care (-0.2%), and technology (-0.3%) lagged from the opening bell and slumped to lows during the final hour of action. Since the three sectors account for more than 46.0% of the entire S&P 500, their underperformance acted as a headwind.

In the financial sector, Morgan Stanley (MS 29.71, -0.60) was the weakest performer among the majors while JPMorgan Chase (JPM 57.03, -1.00) fell 1.7% after announcing plans to eliminate jobs in its mortgage banking unit. In addition, the financial giant said it has observed a lower level of client activities across most investment banking units so far this year.

Elsewhere, the technology sector succumbed to the pressure exerted by some of its top components. Apple (AAPL 522.06, -5.49) lost 1.0% while Cisco Systems (CSCO 21.84, -0.28), Facebook (FB 69.85, -0.93), and Qualcomm (QCOM 74.91, -0.52) fell between 0.7% and 1.3%.

Unlike the traditional tech space, biotechnology remained strong. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 273.23, +1.15) added 0.4%, extending its year-to-date advance to 20.3%. Despite the strength, health care ended among the laggards.

On the upside, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%) finished in the lead after Home Depot (HD 80.98, +3.11) reported an earnings beat on below-consensus revenue. The company guided fiscal-year 2015 results below analyst estimates, but boosted its dividend 21.0% to $0.47 per share. On a related note, most homebuilders rallied while Toll Brothers (TOL 38.25, -0.09) shed 0.2% despite beating on earnings. The broader iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 25.55, +0.28) rose 1.1%.

Homebuilders received a measure of support from lower rates as the 10-yr yield slipped four basis points to 2.70%. Participation was well below average with only 633 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data included three reports:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index slipped to 78.1 in February from a downwardly revised 79.4 (from 80.7) while the Briefing.com consensus pegged the index at 80.8. Typically, confidence mirrors trends in stock prices, gasoline costs, employment levels, and media reports. There has been increased volatility among these indicators, but overall trends have been moving sideways. The slight drop in confidence, which is still above the December level (77.5), is likely nothing more than consumers reacting to the recent volatility.
The December Housing Price Index from the FHFA increased 0.8%, which followed an uptick of 0.1% observed in November.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for December rose 13.4% while a 13.6% increase had been expected by the Briefing.com consensus. This followed the November increase of 13.7%.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while New Home Sales for January will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +2.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.1% YTD
S&P 500 -0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.4% YTD

DJ30 -27.48 NASDAQ -5.38 SP500 -2.49 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1024/1.98 bln/1556 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1381/633.3 mln/1636

3:30 pm :

Apr gold came off its session low of $1333.70 per ounce set moments after equity markets opened and managed to break into positive territory. It continued to trend higher and settled at $1342.70 per ounce, booking a gain of 0.4%.
Mar silver also lifted from its session low of $21.75 per ounce and rose as high as $22.00 per ounce. However, it was unable to push out of negative territory and settled with a 0.4% loss at $21.96 per ounce.
Apr crude oil spent its entire floor session in the red, dipping to a session low of $101.02 per barrel in morning action. It pushed to a session high of $101.95 per barrel and eventually settled with a 0.9% loss at $101.86 per barrel.
Apr natural gas slipped to a session low of $4.53 per MMBtu in early morning action but quickly recovered into positive territory. It advanced to a session high of $4.77 per MMBtu ahead of the close but lost momentum and settled just 0.2% higher at $4.67 per MMBtu.

4:12PM AXT beats by $0.03, misses on revs (AXTI) : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.04 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.07); revenues fell 1.6% year/year to $18.6 mln vs the $20.95 mln consensus.

"Our fiscal year 2013 was among our most difficult years, with a significant technology transition, market consolidation and customer-specific technical issues. We are now focusing our efforts on growing our market presence in strategic areas, and leveraging our low-cost manufacturing as a competitive advantage. In the meantime, we are sizing our operations to be more in line with the demand environment and are implementing a number of programs to improve our gross margins and lower our operating expenses. We continue to focus on cash management and are committed to driving increasing value for our shareholders."

4:11PM First Solar misses by $0.10, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY14 revs in-line (FSLR) 58.03 +0.28 :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.89 per share, $0.10 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.99; revenues fell 28.6% year/year to $768 mln vs the $976.25 mln consensus. The sequential decrease in net sales is primarily attributable to lower systems business project revenues as initial revenue recognition for Desert Sunlight and sale of the ABW projects were both achieved in the third quarter of 2013.
Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.50-0.60, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.88 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $800-900 mln vs. $905.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:02PM OmniVision announces it is working with Google's (GOOG) Advanced Technology and Projects team to develop vision-based mobile devices, capable of tracking and mapping environments and motion in 3D (OVTI) 15.27 -0.14 :
As part of the collaboration, co's new OV4682 and OV7251 image sensors provide high performance imaging functionality to the project's Android-based smartphone and development kit.

3:18PM Riverbed Technology confirms unsolicited proposal from Elliott Management to acquire all outstanding shares of Riverbed for $21.00 per share in cash (RVBD) 20.72 +0.87 : The Board of Directors - in consultation with its financial and legal advisors - will thoroughly review the Elliott proposal, taking into account the co's current strategic plan, growth initiatives, and recent performance.

12:04PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TSLA (256.7 +17.94%): Tgt raised to $320 from $153 at Morgan Stanley.
CRH (29.91 +6.7%): Reported FY13 EPS of EUR 0.59.5 vs EUR 0.58 consensus; revs roughly unchanged at EUR 18.031 bln vs EUR 18.061 bln consensus.
NVO (48.18 +5.15%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.

Large Cap Losers

FMS (34.32 -5.4%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, revs rose 4.4% y/y to $3.87 bln vs the $3.86 bln consensus; sees 2014 rev guidance to be around $15.2 bln vs $15.4 bln consensus.
TMUS (31.31 -3.1%): Reported ~ in-line Q4; sees 2-3 mln net adds in FY14 with EBITDA of $5.7-6.0 bln, in-line.
OKS (54.4 -3.1%): Beat on EPS by $0.01.

Mid Cap Gainers

ZU (58.47 +36.48%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs above consensus; guided FY14 revs above consensus.
BLMN (25.6 +11.52%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, reported revs in-line; sees CY14 EPS of at least $1.27 and 52-53 wk FY14 EPS of at least $1.21 (vs. $1.28 consensus); sees CY14 revs of at least $4.45 bln and 52-53 wk FY14 revs of at least $4.40 bln vs. $4.52 bln consensus.
BBRY (10.76 +9.46%): Co introduced new products and services; new EZ Pass program will enable a free migration path for customers to move from BES and other MDM platforms to BES10.

Mid Cap Losers

GTLS (81.67 -9.3%): Missed on EPS by $0.01, missed on revs; guides FY14 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.
ROSE (42.65 -9.74%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, missed on revs; downgraded to Sector Outperform at Howard Weil; tgt lowered to $65.
SINA (69.35 -8.85%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, non-GAAP rev in-line with guidance; guided Q1 revs in-line.

7:25AM Aixtron misses by EUR0.06, misses on revs; unable to provide guidance due to low order visibility -- stock is down 7.5% in Germany (AIXG) 16.85 : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of 0.13 per share, 0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ( 0.07); revenues fell 34.1% year/year to 51.1 mln vs the 51.73 mln consensus.

Due to the still very low order visibility, AIXTRON mgmt is unable to provide any precise guidance for the Company's revenues and earnings for the current fiscal year 2014. As a consequence of the already advanced restructuring of the Company and the realized cost reductions, Management expects a further year-on-year improvement of the result in 2014. Based on its consideration of the current market demand Management believes that 2014 revenues will be on par with 2013 with a still negative but significantly improved operating result. Based on the assumption of a target gross margin of 40 percent and operating costs of ~EUR 100m, EBIT break-even may now be reached with revenues of ~EUR 250m.

LED: CREE, VECO.

7:15AM SunEdison sees 1Q14 Solar Energy Systems MW Sold (Non-GAAP) of 85 to 105; sees 1Q14 Solar Energy Systems Avg. Price ($/Wdc) of $2.85 to $3.10 (SUNE) 16.79 : Sees FY14 Solar Energy Systems MW Sold (Non-GAAP) of 500 to 650; sees 1Q14 Solar Energy Systems Avg. Price ($/Wdc) of $2.25 to $2.75.

3:44AM BlackBerry introduces new products and services (BBRY) 9.83 : Co announces new enterprise solutions, partnerships and smartphone models to enable enterprises and individuals to maximize their productivity, communication and collaboration. The launch of these solutions underscores BlackBerry's efforts to deliver technologies across the entire mobile spectrum - from the enterprise to the end user. Secure and Private Mobility Solutions for Enterprises

The next generation of BlackBerry Enterprise Service, BES12, will enable organizations to develop enterprise-grade applications that are quickly deployed to BlackBerry smartphones and other mobile devices.
A new EZ Pass program will enable a free migration path for customers to move from BES and other MDM platforms to BES10.
A new BES pricing and licensing structure will provide two simple tiers, Silver and Gold. Silver includes full device, application, email and security management for BlackBerry, iOS and Android devices, including the unique BlackBerry Balance technology, a containerization solution that separates personal and work data on BlackBerry 10 smartphones.

BlackBerry also revealed some of the latest companies to adopt BES10, including Daimler AG and Airbus Group. These distinguished corporations are part of an industry-leading 80,000 companies whose communications are secured by BlackBerry.

BlackBerry Z3 smartphone is an upcoming all-touch BlackBerry 10 smartphone designed for customers in Indonesia.
BlackBerry Q20 smartphone is an upcoming QWERTY smartphone that merges the power of BlackBerry 10 with the classic BlackBerry design and experience, realized with hard buttons as well as an integrated trackpad. With a new 3.5" touchscreen and keyboard with frets and sculpted keys, the device will feature the familiar workflow and efficiency that BlackBerry fans continue to value in a BlackBerry QWERTY smartphone.

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America’s Beleaguered Middle Class By Richard Larsen 2/26/2014

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/richard-larsen/america-s-beleaguered-middle-class

The middle class in America is shrinking; numerically in terms of the percentage of the total population, as well as qualitatively in terms of the quality of life. Most of us consider ourselves to be members of the middle class, and we’re being squeezed by declining real income and rising expenses, as we increasingly shoulder the inflationary costs of corporate America, and the burdensome costs of government operations.

Consider the following middle class statistics as researched by Bill Moyers and PBS. Middle class is roughly defined as those households ranging in income from $25,500 to $76,500. At $51,017 the real median household income in 2012 is even less than it was at the end of the ’80s, and it’s down 9 percent from its high in 1999, with the biggest portion of that decline, 8.3%, in just the past five years.



The median net worth of a family in 2010 was $77,300, compared to $126,400 just three years earlier. In 46 of our 50 states, the poverty rates have increased over the past five years, and the national poverty rate is over 15% for the fourth year running. The last time that happened was in 1965. More and more families are dropping from the ranks of the middle class into poverty.

One of the greatest factors adversely affecting median household income is the loss of jobs and extended unemployment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) the Participation Rate, which is represented as a ratio or a percentage of the total population, is at the lowest levels in 50 years, with about 62.8% of the population working. According to the BLS U-6 data, 13% of the population is still unemployed or underemployed, and marginally attached to the labor market.



On the cost of goods and services the picture isn’t much better. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the most relied on figure for calculating the year over year inflation rate. According to Forbes, the BLS has changed the way it calculates the CPI 20 times over the past 30 years, including new formulas and indices that have separated the volatile food and energy components and created a separate “Core” inflation rate. By some economist’s calculations, these changes have resulted in a significant dissociation between what the government reports as the inflation rate, and what we see in reality for the prices of goods and services that we buy.

Earlier this month Forbes declared, that “The CPI is not a measurement of rising prices, rather it tracks consumer spending patterns that change as prices change. The CPI doesn’t even touch the falling value of money. If it did the CPI would look much different.”



According to the BLS the CPI was up 1.6% last year, and has hovered between 1-4% over the past five years. But if the inflation rate were calculated now the same as it was in 1980, inflation over the past five years would’ve been between 5-12% per year. For example, average out-of-pocket healthcare costs have nearly doubled in just the last seven years, from $2,035 to $3,600.

Domestic energy prices have likewise increased dramatically. Over the past 10 years, energy prices have more than doubled as government energy policy has become increasingly ideological and counterintuitive. Increasing energy costs adversely affect the middle class disproportionately.

These data paint a distressing picture of the current status of the American middle class. And prospects for improvement are virtually nonexistent since the basis for the middle class demise is causally connected with the policies emanating from, and firmly entrenched, in the nation’s capital.

As best-selling authors and Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporters Donald Barlett and James Steele explain in their latest book, The Betrayal of the American Dream, “What is happening to America’s middle class is not inevitable. It’s the direct result of government policy, and it can be changed by government action.”



The solution to this malaise should be relatively simple, and recognized by everyone from the chairman of the Federal Reserve to the AFL-CIO. In fact, the labor organization perhaps worded it most succinctly in a piece titled, “How do we fix the U.S. economy?” They declared the first step must be “to put America back to work because high unemployment keeps wages down. Our goal should be ‘full employment, meaning everybody who wants to work should be able to find a decent job.”

What’s stifling job growth is the expansive overreach of government regulation. Last July, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey showed 74% of small businesses are positioning themselves to slash hours, lay off workers, or both because of increase regulation, primarily because of the Affordable Care Act. Investors Business Daily has a running list of nearly 300 large companies that are reducing hours for employees to get below the 32 hour threshold mandated by the Act. And that’s all from just one piece of legislation.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform published research two years ago that illuminates the role government has played in suppressing job growth. The committee reported, “Many regulations and legislation – both existing and proposed — exacerbate the uncertainty created by today’s volatile economic environment. Virtually every new regulation has an impact on recovery, competitiveness, and job creation.” The president’s own Economic Advisory Panel came to the same conclusion, and reported, “regulations are harming businesses and job creation.” This panel went on to suggest several measures that could be implemented in order to quell the expansion of such job-destroying regulation.

Periods of rising middle class income coincide directly to periods of economic expansion and growth. And not coincidently, those are also the periods when diminution of government regulatory control over the engines of the economy occurred, the most significant of which led to the declaration by then-president Bill Clinton, “The era of big government is over.”

The best way for people to increase their station in life is with a good job. Ronald Reagan once called jobs the “best welfare program.” And the best way for good jobs to be created is with a healthy economy that is vibrant, growing, adapting, and adjusting to global and domestic market vicissitudes. And the best way for that to be facilitated is to get government out of the way of trying to micromanage nearly every component of the economy. If the private sector didn’t have to work around overreaching regulation and interference, market efficiencies in the private sector could unleash the creation of jobs, market synergies, and economic growth.

The job situation will not improve appreciably until the cost of doing business starts dropping. Last year the Small Business Administration reported that regulation costs American business $1.75 trillion per year, and costs small businesses as much as $10,585 per employee. Just the costs of Obamacare, Financial Regulatory Reform, and new EPA regulations, are projected to increase that cost per employee as much as 30%, according to Investor’s Business Daily.

In 2012, the President said, “This country doesn’t succeed when we only see the rich getting richer. We succeed when the middle class gets bigger. We grow our economy not from the top down, but from the middle out.” He was correct. But it’s time that our policies begin reflecting that stated priority.

The history of mankind is littered with fallen nations and governments that overreached by centralized planning, stagnated their economies, and collapsed under the massive weight of their inefficiencies. Hopefully Bartlett and Steele are correct, that the utter collapse of the middle class is not inevitable. But for it not to be, a reversal of our current trend is critical, and the sooner the better.

Succinctly stated, we have shrinking income, inflation in energy and food “skyrocketing,” as was predicted five years ago, a weaker dollar, a ballooning debt, and a national security-risking deficit. The costs of all these challenges are landing squarely on the back of the middle class. A strong middle class equals a strong America. We can’t have one without the other. And our current policies are killing both.

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Anyone else concerned about sub prime loans in autos?

One trend that I have noticed is that many younger Americans are still living with their parents rather than buying a house. Even if they move out they mostly are living in a rental as they cannot afford a home.

That said they still want a nice car or truck to drive.

My typical employee has owned either a newer or more expensive automobile or truck than I drive for years.

http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/the-rise-of-the-subprime-auto-loan/4684

http://soberlook.com/2014/02/auto-loan-competition-heating-up.html

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/sober-look/us-household-debt-first-increase-four-years

Household debt is again rising while most Americans net worth is falling. I guess if you are not feeling good about the future (due to your falling net worth and rising debt load) driving a nice new vehicle would sure help until your credit actually matters again.

This won't end well.

RtS

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equity indices finished the Wednesday session on a flat note after surrendering their modest intraday gains. More importantly, the S&P 500 was unable to register a fresh record closing high for the third day in a row.

Stocks slipped from their opening levels, but the early weakness was erased in a flash when it was reported that new home sales in January surpassed estimates (468,000 versus Briefing.com consensus 400,000). The upbeat report sent stocks to new highs, but the S&P 500 ran into resistance just below the 1853 area, which the index was unable to penetrate throughout the afternoon.

Eight of ten sectors ended in the red with energy (-0.6%) seeing the largest loss. However, the daylong underperformance of financials (-0.1%) was more notable as it marked the second day of relative weakness for the bellwether sector. Today's decline narrowed the sector's February gain to 1.8% versus a 3.5% increase for the S&P 500. That showing warrants close attention over the coming days given the vital role the financials play in feeding economic growth and influencing market sentiment.

Elsewhere, the tech sector (+0.1%) was a reluctant participant in the early advance. The reluctance was visible among several top sector components like Apple (AAPL 517.35, -4.71), Microsoft (MSFT 37.47, -0.07), and Visa (V 226.11, -1.00), which lagged throughout the session. Chipmakers, however, held up well with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 0.7%. Also of note, the discretionary space added 0.6% thanks to gains among homebuilders and retailers. Homebuilders rallied in reaction to the new home sales report, sending the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 26.27, +0.72) higher by 2.8%. Meanwhile, retailers outperformed after Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 40.04, +4.05) reported a bottom-line beat on below-consensus revenue.

Although the discretionary sector displayed relative strength, producers of basic materials (+0.7%) fared even better. This took place without the participation of miners as the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 26.05, -0.28) lost 1.1% while gold futures also fell 1.1% to $1328.00/ozt.

Treasuries finished at their best levels of the session with the benchmark 10-yr yield down four basis points at 2.67%.

Participation was on the light side as only 656 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to two reports:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 8.5% to follow last week's decline of 4.1%. Notably, the purchase index dropped to levels last seen in 1995.
New home sales jumped 9.6% to 468,000 in January from an upwardly revised 427,000 (from 414,000) in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected new home sales to fall to 400,000. Weather-related problems were blamed for a wide variety of poor economic data throughout January. That included a sizable drop in existing home sales and a contraction in the NAHB homebuilders survey. Yet, weather was evidently not a problem in the new home sector as sales reached their highest level since July 2008.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims and the Durable Goods report for January will be released at 8:30 ET. Also of note, Fed Chair Janet Yellen will appear before the Senate Banking Committee for the second part of her semiannual testimony on monetary policy.

Nasdaq Composite +2.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.7% YTD
S&P 500 -0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.3% YTD

DJ30 +18.75 NASDAQ +4.48 SP500 +0.04 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1587/1.96 bln/1014 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1848/656.3 mln/1171

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded in negative territory today as the dollar index rose higher. Economic reports this morning showed that new home sales jumped 9.6% to 468,000 in January from an upwardly revised 427,000 (from 414,000) in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected new home sales to fall to 400,000.
Apr gold fell to a session low of $1322.30 per ounce in morning floor action and eventually settled with a 1.1% loss at $1328.00 per ounce.
Mar silver tumbled to a session low of $21.08 per ounce after pulling back from its session high of $21.67 per ounce set in early morning action. Unable to gain much momentum, it settled with a 3.2% loss at $21.25 per ounce.
Apr crude oil traded higher as it gained support on better-than-anticipated inventory data. The EIA reported that for the week ending Feb 21, crude oil inventories had a build of 0.068 mln barrels when a larger build of 1.2-1.3 mln barrels was anticipated. The energy component rose as high as $102.90 per barrel and settled at $102.62 per barrel, or 0.7% higher.
Apr natural gas spent its entire floor session in the red. It chopped around in the $4.51-4.62 per MMBtu range and eventually settled with a 2.8% loss at $4.54 per MMBtu.

4:48PM Technical Analysis Close: S&P/Dow form inside days for second session in a row (SUMRX) : The market opened on a slightly positive note following some constructive earnings and a mixed overnight performance. Trading activity has been consolidative of late and the S&P failed to build on the early upticks and slipped back into the red. Like the opening upticks, no follow through developed as it held near first level support at 1842/1840 and then rotated higher into mid-morning in the wake of the above consensus New Home Sales (458 K vs. 400 K). The small-/mid-caps posted new all time highs on this move with the Nasdaq 100/Comp reaching new 13 year highs. The S&P/Dow, however, stalled shy of Tuesday highs (first level resistance 1852/1854 S&P, session high 1852) and drifted laterally at slightly higher levels into the afternoon. A break below the midday/afternoon range low (and 2013/2014 close highs at 1848) led to some intraday weakness thereafter but the S&P held in the low end of the support zone (1840) and bounced to close near the flat line and within an inside day for the second session in a row.

Sectors that have posted gains were led by: Solar TAN, Home Const ITB, Retail XRT, Reg Bank KRE, Semi XSD, Bank KBE, Networking IGN, Software IGV. Groups that paced the way on the downside included: Silver SLV, Biotech IBB, Gold Miners GDX Gold GLD, Tobacco, Rail, Broker IAI, Oil Service OIH.

The S&P has now formed two inside days in a row following the 6.9% Feb surge into Monday's high. This kind of very narrow range action indicates that sellers remain sidelined despite the aggressive run but also that buying interest is limited amid the extended technical posture. While at least a brief corrective period seems warranted to bring buyers back into the fray, the obvious short term keys levels are at the highs/lows of the last two sessions (1852 and 1840). Support of note below is at 1836/1835 which marks congestion and the low of Monday's all time high bar.

4:06PM Riverbed Technology announces Satya Nadella has retired from the board of directors; Mr. Nadella is stepping down in order to more fully devote time to his new position as CEO of Microsoft (MSFT) (RVBD) 21.11 +0.45 :

12:27PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TGT (60.71 +7.43%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.81 (in-line), revs fell 3.8% yoy to $21.52 bln vs $21.44 bln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.60-0.75 vs $0.85 estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $3.85-4.15 vs $4.15 estimate; sees FY15 comps +0-2%
DLTR (55.91 +6.13%): Trading higher despite reporting Q4 revs and EPS below consensus; sees Q1 EPS of $0.63-0.68 vs $0.69 estimate, revs of $1.98-2.04 bln vs $2.03 bln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $2.91-3.13 vs $3.31 estimate, revs of $8.35-8.58 bln vs $8.66 bln estimate
YNDX (38.34 +5.91%): Co and Google (GOOG) announced a strategic partnership agreement in respect of online display advertising sales

Large Cap Losers

CHK (25.05 -7.01%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.12 ($0.27 bs $0.39 estimate), revs rose 28.3% yoy to $4.54 bln vs $4.4 bln estimate; co reaffirmed it does not expect to pursue equity raises; co says it no longer needs to divest assets to survive or the fund capital programs
JAZZ (164.76 -5.84%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($1.72 vs $1.78 estimate), revs rose 28.4% yoy to $235.8 mln vs $2.37.52 mln estimate; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald
EC (33.32 -4.09%): Reported Q4 net income declined 29.1% yyo to COP$2.6 bln, revs rose 7.6% yoy to COP$16.2 bln; Board approved earnings distribution proposal for FY13

Mid Cap Gainers

MIDD (298.61 +13.23%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.37 ($2.62 vs $2.25 estimate), revs rose 29.4% yoy to $377.4 mln vs $364.86
CRI (75.1 +9.23%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($1.02 vs $1.01 estimate), revs rose 11.6% yoy to $769.6 mln vs $759.95 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS growth of +10-15% ex items (~$0.87-0.91) vs $0.86 estimate, revs +8-10% (~$638.3-650.1 mln) vs $648.70 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS growth of +12-15% ex items (~$3.77-3.88) vs $3.91 estimate, revs +8-10% (~$2.85-2.90 bln) vs $2.89 bln estimate
ANF (39.22 +8.97%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.29 ($1.34 ex items vs $1.05 estimate), revs fell 11.6% yoy to $1.3 bln vs $1.36 bln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $2.15-2.35 vs $2.33 estimate

Mid Cap Losers

DGI (30.48 -25.88%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.18, revs rose 35.3% yoy $169.7 mln vs $185.92 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $630-660 mln vs $710.28 mln estimate
CLH (46.25 -14.26%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.11 ($0.44 vs $0.55 estimate), revs rose 57.3% yoy to $879.4 mln vs $894.2 mln estimate; sees Q1 revs of $820-840 mln vs $904.29 mln estimate; sees FY13 revs of $3.5-3.6 bln (lowered from $3.7-3.8 bln) vs $3.53 bln estimate
DWA (30.48 -13.41%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($0.20 vs $0.30 estimate), revs fell 22.8% yoy to $204.3 mln vs $236.8 mln estimate

12:09PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (267) outpacing new lows (23) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAL, ACAD, ACT, ACU, AGN, AHT, AIMC, AIRT, ALLE, ALX, AMBC, AMRI, ANIK, ANIP, APD, ARII, ASPX, ASTE, ATHL, ATHN, ATNI, ATRO, AUDC, AUXL, AVGO, AYI, BDC, BEE, BF.B, BFAM, BIOA, BKD, BLDP, BMRN, BOFI, BOTA, CAH, CAVM, CBG, CBI, CBT, CCJ, CECO, CG, CGEN, CHD, CJES, CKEC, CLR, CLRO, CNET, CPST, CRWS, CRZO, CSC, CSGP, CSOD, CSTE, CTS, CVS, CW, CXP, CYNO, DAL, DATA, DFRG, DLPH, DMND, DNKN, DNN, DOW, DPS, DV, DYAX, EAT, EBIO, EFII, EGLT, EIGI, EMN, ENT, EOG, ESC, ESTE, EXAM, EXH, EXP, FEIC, FEYE, FIS, FL, FLT, FLXN, FR, FRX, FUN, GALT, GMED, GNCA, GOOG, GSM, GTAT, GWRE, HA, HAS, HBI, HD, HEI, HEI.A, HF, HI, HMNF, HP, HPTX, HRB, HRL, HURN, HW, HWG, HY, IACI, IDRA, IFF, IG, ILMN, IMN, IMPV, INCY, INTU, ISIL, JCS, JE, JFBI, JLL, JW.A, KEYW, KFRC, KND, KPTI, KS, KYTH, LECO, LEE, LII, LIOX, LTBR, LTXC, LUV, LVNTA, LXK, LYB, M, MANH, MAR, MCHX, MEMP, MEOH, MGIC, MIDD, MINI, MLM, MNRO, MPWR, MRNA, MRTX, MTDR, MTOR, MTW, MWA, NEU, NEWP, NP, NPK, NSLP, NTCT, NTT, NWBO, NYMT, OPHT, P, PCLN, PEB, PES, PMCS, PNFP, PNR, POL, PPG, PRGO, PRTA, PTC, PTCT, PZZA, QIHU, QURE, RCON, RCPT, RDY, ROC, ROG, ROK, RRC, RRD, RRST, RSPP, RVNC, SAFM, SALE, SCOR, SCTY, SCX, SEP, SHW, SIG, SILC, SIVB, SLG, SLXP, SNA, SNDK, SNSS, SPA, SPLK, SPN, SPNC, STZ, SUNE, SWKS, SYNA, SYNT, TASR, TEN, TK, TMO, TPL, TQNT, TRN, TSLA, TTM, TXI, TXN, UA, UBNT, UGI, UIS, UNT, URG, URZ, USCR, USG, VASC, VMC, VNDA, VRA, VRX, VVC, WBC, WEN, WIT, WRES, XLNX, XPO, YELP, YY, ZBRA, ZLC, ZNGA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAWW, BRC, CCCL, CLH, CRCM, CYNI, EC, EVRY, FMX, FST, KOF, NMIH, PTSX, QEP, SPRT, STLY, TAC, TBAC, UTIW, VLRS, VTUS, VVUS, WIFI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: COW, EGPT, EWK, FDN, IGV, ITB, IWF, IWM, IYM, MDY, NLR, PBD, PBW, PPH, QQQ, SKYY, SMH, SOCL, SOXX, TAN, UWM, VNM, XHB, XLB

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SMN

11:01AM Violin Memory announces ADN Group will distribute Violin solutions in the DACH region which includes Germany, Austria and Switzerland (VMEM) 4.01 +0.11 : Under the terms of the agreement, Bochum, Germany-based ADN will resell the complete portfolio of Violin solutions, including 6000 Series flash memory arrays, memory appliances and Violin Maestro and Symphony software.

Centrosolar America and TSMC Solar, a subsidiary of TSMC (TSM), announced an agreement for the deployment of TSMC Solar's CIGS solar modules across North America. The territory covered by the agreement includes solar energy markets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

8:32AM O2Micro: Japanese Patent Office issues patent for O2Micro's power management invention (OIIM) 3.83 : Co announced that its Selector Circuit for Power Management in Multiple Battery Systems invention was patented by the Japanese Patent Office.

Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) is helping to enhance the security of the world's data centers, cloud services and web servers by collaborating with partners to expand the ecosystem and availability of its flagship C29x security coprocessor.

Cypress Semiconductor (CY) introduced a new addition to the TrueTouch Gen4X touchscreen controller family that supports advanced features and larger screen sizes.

EMCORE (EMKR) has been awarded a contract by ATK (ATK) to design and manufacture solar panels for NASA's InSight Mars Lander.

RTEC +2.1% (initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co.; tgt $14),

KLIC +1.9% (initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co)

Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) unveiled a set of antenna switch solutions supporting LTE, LTE-Advanced and next-generation carrier aggregation architectures.

1:14AM SunPower supplies Fuji Furukawa with 494 Kilowatts of its high efficiency solar panels (SPWR) 34.34 : Co announces it has supplied 494 kilowatts of its high efficiency E20/327 solar panels to Fuji Furukawa Engineering & Construction Co. FFEC has installed the solar panels at the Costco store located in Maebashi, Gunma, Japan, and the system is expected to commence operating next month. FFEC is acting as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for this project.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equity indices finished the Thursday session on an upbeat note with the S&P 500 settling above its 2013 closing high of 1848.36 after three unsuccessful attempts.

Stocks climbed throughout the session despite starting the day on a cautious note. The early weakness could be traced to European markets, which were pressured by news of renewed tensions in the pro-Russian region of Crimea in Southern Ukraine.

The developments weighed on European equities and contributed to a risk-off sentiment in the foreign exchange market where the yen strengthened notably against all major currencies. The dollar/yen pair fell as low as 101.70, which fueled worries about forced unwinds of yen-based carry trades.

Those worries were calmed by a rebound that sent the currency pair to a session high of 102.20. Meanwhile, the stock market began the trading day on a flat note and continued climbing throughout the day.

Participants heard from Fed Chair Janet Yellen today, but Ms. Yellen struck a familiar tone during her appearance before the Senate Banking Committee.

The Fed Chair did not provide any startling insights, which seemed to sit well with the market. To that end, the market didn't need her to sound outright dovish, just not clearly hawkish. She reiterated that further assessment time is necessary to determine what type of impact the severe winter weather has had on the economy and reminded her listeners that asset purchases are not on a preset course.

Eight of ten sectors ended in the green while energy (-0.01%) and utilities (-0.3%) posted modest losses.

On the upside, telecom services (+1.7%) outperformed notably thanks to a 2.5% gain in Verizon (VZ 47.50, +1.15), which rallied after being added to JPMorgan's Focus List.

The telecom sector was followed by materials (+0.7%) and technology (+0.7%). The materials sector drew strength from steelmakers as the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 45.73, +0.65) gained 1.4%.

Meanwhile, the tech sector received significant support from its top component, Apple (AAPL 527.67, +10.32), which gained 2.0%. Despite Apple's strength, other large tech names did not fare as well. Cisco Systems (CSCO 21.92, -0.01), Google (GOOG 1219.21, -0.96), Qualcomm (QCOM 75.19, +0.14), and Intel (INTC 24.76, -0.04) were all little changed.

Elsewhere among influential groups, health care (+0.5%) and financials (+0.6%) ended in-line or just ahead of the broader market.

Strikingly, Treasuries finished the session on their highs with the benchmark 10-yr yield down two basis points at 2.65%.

Participation was a bit below average as 683 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to weekly initial claims and durable orders for January:

Initial claims increased to 348,000 from a downwardly revised 334,000 (from 336,000) while the Briefing.com consensus pegged the initial claims level at 335,000. We had anticipated that the initial claims level would hold between 330,000 and 340,000 for the next several weeks. The increase in claims obviously exceeded this range, but we are not concerned. While the Department of Labor stated that there was nothing unusual in the claims data, the DoL has had extreme difficulties accounting for holiday-shortened weeks with their seasonal adjustment factors. It was likely that the Presidents' Day holiday negatively impacted the seasonal adjustments last week.
Regarding durable goods, orders fell 1.0% in January after declining a downwardly revised 5.3% (from -4.2%) in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected durable goods orders to fall 1.0%. A big drop in aircraft orders (-7.2%) pulled overall transportation demand down 5.6%. Excluding transportation, orders increased 1.1% after falling a downwardly revised 1.9% (from -1.3%) in December. The consensus expected these orders to decline 0.2%.

Tomorrow, the second estimate of Q4 GDP will be released at 8:30 ET while the Chicago PMI for February will cross the wires at 9:45 ET. The final reading of the Michigan Sentiment survey for February will be reported at 9:55 ET while the Pending Home Sales report for January will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +3.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.3% YTD
S&P 500 +0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.8% YTD

DJ30 +74.24 NASDAQ +26.87 SP500 +9.13 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1679/1.89 bln/919 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2047/682.9 mln/980

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded slightly higher today as the dollar index dipped into negative territory while Fed Chair Janet Yellen testified in front of Congress. She reaffirmed that if there is a significant change to outlook, the Fed would be open to reconsidering the pace of tapering. She said that she needs to get a firmer handle on how much of the recent soft economic data can be explained by weather.
Apr gold advanced to a session high of $1336.40 per ounce in morning action and eventually settled with a 0.3% gain at $1331.80 per ounce.
May silver dipped to a session low of $20.20 per ounce shortly after equity markets opened but recovered back into positive territory. It brushed a session high of $21.47 per ounce and settled at $21.35 per ounce, or 0.3% higher.
Apr crude oil retreated into negative territory after pulling back from its session high of $102.94 per barrel set at pit trade open. It dipped to a session low of $101.75 per barrel but managed to inch back up above the $102 per barrel level and settled with a 0.2% loss at $102.38 per barrel.
Apr natural gas spent most of the session chopping around below the break-even line as inventory data showed a draw of 95 bcf when a larger draw of 101-107 bcf was anticipated. It slipped to a session low of $4.44 per MMBtu and then rose as high as $4.57 per MMBtu. It eventually settled with a 0.7% loss at $4.51 per MMBtu.

4:54PM Universal Display misses by $0.08, beats on revs; guides FY14 revs in-line (OLED) 35.18 +1.09 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.35 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.43; revenues rose 76.2% year/year to $49.5 mln vs the $46.77 mln consensus.

Growth in fourth quarter revenues was led by a 153% increase in material sales, which rose to $25.5 million, up from $10.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2012, reflecting strong volume growth in green emitter and host material sales. Royalty and license fees were $23.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to $15.4 million in the same quarter of 2012. The Company recognized $20 million in SDC licensing revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013, up from $15 million in the same quarter of 2012.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $190-205 mln vs. $197.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:45PM Intermolecular announced that the development activity related to the Collaborative Development Program agreement with SanDisk (SNDK) and Toshiba (TOSBF) has reached its successful conclusion. (IMI) 3.85 :

4:32PM OmniVision beats Q3 ests; guides Q4 in-line (OVTI) 16.20 +0.44 : Reports Q3 (Jan) non-GAAP earnings of $0.69 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.35; revenues fell 16.9% year/year to $352 mln vs the $325.72 mln consensus. For Q3, the Company recorded a one-time after-tax benefit of ~$15.9 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, related to the initial public offering (IPO) of its equity investee, China WLCSP Ltd (not clear if included in non-GAAP EPS).

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees adj. EPS of $0.19-0.35 vs. $0.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $275-305 mln vs. $286.31 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:31PM Tessera Tech announces settlement with PTI (will receive $196 mln); raises Q1 rev guidance (TSRA) 20.97 0.82 : Tessera's subsidiary, Tessera, Inc., has entered into a settlement with Powertech Technology, Powertech Technology Co. Ltd., and Macrotech Tech related to their pending cases in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Under the terms of the settlement, PTI agrees to pay $196 million to Tessera, Inc. with two required payments to be made in 2014 and quarterly recurring payments beginning in 2015 through the end of 2018. In addition, Tessera, Inc. and PTI have agreed to stay the pending cases. If Tessera, Inc. receives a majority of the total amount owed by PTI under the settlement, and other conditions are met, by March 31, 2015, Tessera and PTI will dismiss the pending cases.

Co is increasing Q1 revenue guidance to the range of $83-86 mln, up from its previously announced revenue guidance of $33 million to $36 million; may not compare to $34 mln consensus.

12:24PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

WDAY (113.32 +13.01%): Beat on EPS by $0.03; beat on revs; guided Q1 revs above consensus; guided FY15 revs above consensus; upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at FBR Capital; tgt raised to $150 from $84; target raised to $126 from $82 at JMP Securities; target raised to $95 at Macquarie.
MYL (56.78 +10.42%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; sees Q1 EPS similar to last year's $0.74, current consensus $0.73.
SNP (89.7 +5.7%): Added to Conviction Buy list at Goldman.

Large Cap Losers

CTRX (45.77 -11.65%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.
RBS (10.96 -6.56%): Reported Q4 results; reported a pre-tax loss for 2013 of GBP 8.243 bln.
CLR (116.21 -3.62%): Missed on EPS by $0.09, missed on revs.

Mid Cap Gainers

TROX (24 +10.09%): Beat on EPS by $0.07, missed on revs; received positive planning decision in Fairbreeze mine.
VE (18.88 +7.83%): Reported FY13 from cont ops of ($0.32) vs ($0.40) consensus; revs fell 4% YoY to EUR 22.314 bln vs $22.824 bln consensus.
SHLD (43.4 +7.43%): Reported Q4 loss of ($0.96) per share, $0.64 better than the ($1.60) consensus, reported revs in line; Q4 domestic comparable store sales declined 6.4%.

Mid Cap Losers

CHS (16.57 -7.94%): Missed on the top and bottom lines.
LPI (25.64 -6.53%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs.
LKQ (27.4 -5.74%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, missed on revs; guided FY14 EPS in-line.

Riverbed Technology (RVBD) announces Satya Nadella has retired from the board of directors; Mr. Nadella is stepping down in order to more fully devote time to his new position as CEO of Microsoft (MSFT)

First Solar (FSLR) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird; tgt raised to $67 from $62

Microsoft (MSFT) initiated with a Neutral at B. Riley & Co.; tgt $39

Technical Factors

The S&P has now formed two inside days in a row following the 6.9% Feb surge into Monday's high.
This kind of very narrow range action indicates that sellers remain sidelined despite the aggressive run but also that buying interest is limited amid the extended technical posture.
While at least a brief corrective period seems warranted to bring buyers back into the fray, the obvious short term keys levels are at the highs/lows of the last two sessions (1852 and 1840).
Support of note below is at 1836/1835 which marks congestion and the low of Monday's all time high bar.

AMD (AMD) announced that the AMD FirePro R5000 remote graphics card has been fully tested and certified by Autodesk, Bentley, Dassault Systemes and Siemens PLM software.

FSLR +1.8% (First Solar upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird; tgt raised to $67 from $62)

8:05AM Amtech Systems announces $10 mln in solar orders from solar technology leaders; obtains second PECVD production order (ASYS) 10.05 : Co announced it has received ~ $10 million in new solar orders, including orders for its diffusion and PECVD systems from respected solar technology leaders in Korea and Taiwan. The orders are expected to ship within the next six months.

6:58AM LTX-Credence beats by $0.05, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (LTXC) 9.19 : Reports Q2 (Jan) loss of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.18); revenues rose 95.3% year/year to $68.4 mln vs the $71.91 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.00-0.06 vs. ($0.01) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $100-105 mln vs. $100.84 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"During the quarter we closed on the acquisition of the Multitest and Everett Charles Technologies businesses from Dover Corporation, implemented restructuring plans that are expected to deliver over $15 million in annual savings, and saw significantly improving business conditions in our SOC tester business. As we start the new calendar year we are optimistic about our growth prospects for 2014. We are seeing the strongest business conditions in the semiconductor test market in more than two years, and the PCB tester business is also showing strong momentum, especially with our industry leading flying probe test technology."

6:04AM Trina Solar awarded EPC contract with Fresh Fruits, a food storage and logistics co in Amman, Jordan, for a 2 MW rooftop solar power plant on the co's stores and warehouses (TSL) 14.99 :

Co announced that it has signed an EPC contract with Fresh Fruits Company, a food storage and logistics company in Amman, Jordan, for a 2 MW rooftop solar power plant on the company's stores and warehouses. Under the contract, Trina Solar is responsible for the engineering, procurement, and construction of the project. The project will use Trina Solar TSM-PC05A Honey 260 Wp, high efficiency modules that adapt well to dry and high temperature conditions prevalent in the Middle East.
This will be the first mega-scale rooftop solar power project in Jordan. The construction is scheduled to start in March this year and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2014.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 28-Feb-14

Dow +49.06 at 16321.71, Nasdaq -10.81 at 4308.12, S&P +5.16 at 1859.45

The stock market finished an upbeat week on a mixed note amid the return of concerns about the immediate future of Ukraine. The S&P 500 added 0.3% after holding a solid 0.6% gain through the bulk of the trading day. The Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 lagged, falling 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively.

The early advance occurred after the release of several data points that were cast in a bullish light.

Specifically, the second estimate for Q4 GDP was weak, revised down to 2.4% from 3.2%. That was able to be spun as a basis for why the Fed isn't going to hurry the pace of its tapering or the timing of the first hike in the federal funds rate. The Chicago PMI and Consumer Sentiment reports were better than expected, providing some hope that recent economic weakness is primarily a weather phenomenon. And, finally, pending home sales were up a disappointing 0.1% in January, playing back into the notion that the Fed is going to be deliberate with its handling of monetary policy.

The major averages reached their highs by midday, but the Nasdaq was much more tentative in its advance as large cap names traded little changed while biotechnology lagged. Appropriately, the afternoon selloff was paced by the index, which underperformed earlier in the day. Biotechnology was pressured considerably, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 264.42, -7.73) lower by 2.8%.

The afternoon weakness came about after multiple reports indicated that Russian troops have increased their presence in Crimea, which is located in Southern Ukraine. In addition to yesterday's seizure of the parliament building, armed gunmen also took control of two airports as well as the local television station and a telecommunications company. The reports were followed by comments from Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, who said Russia invaded the country 'as a guise of exercise' with intent to 'provoke a conflict.' President Turchynov urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to 'show reason' and pull back the forces.

Despite the selloff, the S&P 500 was able to return into positive territory thanks to relative strength of heavily-weighted sectors like consumer discretionary (+0.5%), consumer staples (+0.7%), and financials (+0.5%).

With uncertainty back in the picture, participants rushed in search of volatility protection, which sent the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 13.99, -0.05) from a session low of 13.49% to 14.79%. This represented a 9.6% swing in the near-term volatility measure before it settled near the middle of its range.

Elsewhere, Treasuries reclaimed a large portion of their morning losses. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended higher by two basis points at 2.66% after notching a session high at 2.70%.

Participation was above average with 944 million shares changing hands at the NYSE. MSCI rebalancing, which took place at the close, likely added some volume to the final tally.

Economic data included four reports:

Fourth quarter GDP was revised down from 3.2% to 2.4% in the second estimate while the Briefing.com consensus expected GDP to be revised down to 2.6%. Just about all of the data that came in over the last couple weeks were worse than what the BEA expected when it released its advance estimate. There was really nothing new in the GDP report that was a surprise from the most current monthly releases. The important takeaway is that real final sales, which were revised down to 2.3% from 2.8%, now show absolutely no breakout from trends that go back to Q1 2012. The "surge" in economic growth that led to strong 2014 economic forecasts did not actually happen.
The Chicago PMI for February increased to 59.8 from 59.6 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 56.0. Analysts have been quick to point to extreme winter weather conditions as the culprit for the recent poor economic data trends. Yet, the blustery weather in February had absolutely no effect on Chicago-area manufacturers. This is another data point suggesting the weather is being used as a scapegoat during a cyclical down period.
The final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February was revised up to 81.6 from 81.2 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 81.5. While the index moved in the opposite direction from the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence index, overall sentiment trends were relatively flat this month. Gains in equity prices offset slightly weaker employment conditions. Changes in gasoline prices and media reports likely had little effect on overall confidence values. The Current Conditions Index strengthened to 95.4 in the final reading from 94.0 in the preliminary. The Expectations Index was revised down to 72.7 from 73.0.
Pending home sales for January rose 0.1%, which was worse than the 0.8% increase forecast by the Briefing.com consensus. Today's reading followed last month's revised decrease of 5.8% (from -8.7%).

Week in Review: S&P 500 Registers Fresh Record Close

On Monday, the stock market kicked off the new trading week on an upbeat note, sending the S&P 500 (+0.6%) to a fresh nominal intraday record high of 1858.71. Despite the rally, selling during the final hour kept the benchmark index from finishing the session above its 2013 closing high of 1848.36. Although the catalyst for the buying rush could be debated, some attributed the bullish tone to the resilience of the S&P 500 futures in the face of some disappointing economic data and market performance in China. To clarify, a bearish catalyst was there for the taking, but it wasn't taken. Once the U.S. stock market started with a bullish bias, a fear of missing out on further upside helped fuel some renewed buying interest following Friday's lackluster session. Seven of ten sectors posted gains with energy (+1.5%) ending in the lead. The sector seized the lead at the open and maintained its outperformance throughout the session.

The stock market spun its wheels during the Tuesday session, ending essentially where it started. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% after spending the bulk of day within a striking distance of its flat line. Equity indices tried to build on the relative strength of the two consumer sectors, but the rally attempts were stifled by the daylong underperformance of the top three groups. Financials (-0.6%), health care (-0.2%), and technology (-0.3%) lagged from the opening bell and slumped to lows during the final hour of action. Since the three sectors account for more than 46.0% of the entire S&P 500, their underperformance acted as a headwind.

Equity indices finished the Wednesday session on a flat note after surrendering their modest intraday gains. More importantly, the S&P 500 was unable to register a fresh record closing high for the third day in a row. Stocks slipped from their opening levels, but the early weakness was erased in a flash when it was reported that new home sales in January surpassed estimates (468,000 versus Briefing.com consensus 400,000). The upbeat report sent stocks to new highs, but the S&P 500 ran into resistance just below the 1853 area, which the index was unable to penetrate throughout the afternoon. Eight of ten sectors ended in the red with energy (-0.6%) seeing the largest loss. However, the daylong underperformance of financials (-0.1%) was more notable as it marked the second day of relative weakness for the bellwether sector.

Stocks finished the Thursday session on an upbeat note with the S&P 500 settling above its 2013 closing high of 1848.36 after three unsuccessful attempts. Stocks climbed throughout the session despite starting the day on a cautious note. The early weakness could be traced to European markets, which were pressured by news of renewed tensions in the pro-Russian region of Crimea in Southern Ukraine. The developments weighed on European equities and contributed to a risk-off sentiment in the foreign exchange market where the yen strengthened notably against all major currencies. The dollar/yen pair fell as low as 101.70, which fueled worries about forced unwinds of yen-based carry trades. Those worries were calmed by a rebound that sent the currency pair to a session high of 102.20. Meanwhile, the stock market began the trading day on a flat note and continued climbing throughout the day. Participants heard from Fed Chair Janet Yellen, but Ms. Yellen struck a familiar tone during her appearance before the Senate Banking Committee.

 
 Index	Started Week     Ended Week    Change  % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	      16103.30	  16321.71	218.41	 1.4	-1.5 
 Nasdaq	       4263.41	   4308.12	 44.71	 1.0	 3.1 
 S&P 500	1836.25	   1859.45	 23.20	 1.3	 0.6 
 Russell 2000   1164.63	   1183.03	 18.40	 1.6	 1.7

4:25PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: TQNT (12.24 +31.04%), COMM (24.22 +24.57%)
Services: ZU (68.39 +73.79%), STRA (47.77 +43.55%), JCP (7.28 +32.21%), CECO (7.39 +30.6%), DANG (14.06 +27.16%), SSTK (99.38 +24.72%)
Industrial Goods: BLDP (3.7 +55.65%)
Healthcare: ITMN (30.04 +123.89%), ESC (31.53 +45.71%), PRAN (11.31 +42.87%), SNSS (6.55 +32.92%), KIN (22.56 +30.11%), ANIK (39.37 +26.02%), ASPX (24.7 +24.51%)
Financial: AMBC (34.56 +26.26%)
Basic Materials: AMRS (4.57 +29.81%), DNN (1.63 +25.4%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: LMOS (14.52 -18.71%), GRPN (8.31 -17.12%), NIHD (1.15 -16.77%), CRCM (18.51 -16.05%), RP (17.7 -13.08%), SEAC (10.55 -11.86%), DMD (4.85 -11.57%)
Services: UTIW (9.84 -30.22%), LITB (8.47 -21.68%), VLRS (9.28 -17.89%), NCMI (15.36 -13.17%), EDU (27.84 -12.22%), BGFV (15.18 -11.76%)
Industrial Goods: DGI (31.08 -22.97%), CLH (47.26 -14.35%), MRC (25.74 -13.23%)
Healthcare: VVUS (6.03 -14.68%), QCOR (60.75 -13.32%)
Basic Materials: SFY (10 -18.19%), RIOM (2.13 -11.72%)

12:01PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MNST (74.21 +4.29%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.44 vs $0.46 estimate), revs rose 14.7% yoy to $540.8 mln vs $525.49 mln estimate; target raised to $81 from $77 at RBC Capital Markets
CIB (51.4 +4.19%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Susise; target lowered to $61 from $69
DVA (69.7 +2.47%): Mentioned positively at Barron's

Large Cap Losers

PSO (17.12 -6.31%): Reported FY13 sales rose 2%, adjusteed EPS 70.1p after restructuring versus 82.6p in prior year; sees FY14 adjusted EPS of 62-67p vs 65p estimate
SWN (40.45 -6.24%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.54 ex items vs $0.52 estimate), revs rose 16.1% yoy to $649.37 mln vs $661.83 mln estimate; target raised to $52 from $48 at Laednburg Thalmann
BIDU (172.51 -3.58%): Downgraded to Reduce at Exame BNP Paribas, target $130

Mid Cap Gainers

MELI (106.7 +13.23%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.16 ($0.93 vs $0.77 estimate), revs rose 29.7% yoy to $134.6 mln vs $132.88 mln estimate; upgraded to Buy from Sell at Stifel, target $130
DRQ (107.56 +12.15%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.07 ($1.21 ex items vs $1.14 estimate), revs rose 23.3% yoy to $232.4 mln vs $232.7 mln estimate; issued downside Q1 and FY14 guidance
YOKU (34.33 +11.24%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 (-$0.02 vs -$0.05 estimate), revs rose 46.0% yoy to $148.9 mln vs $145.35 mln estimate; mentioned cautiously at Pacific Crest

Mid Cap Losers

KBR (27.26 -14.65%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.18, revs fell 5.6% yoy to $1.7 bln vs $1.92 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.75-2.10 vs $2.69 estimate; downgraded to Hold from Buy at BB&T Capital Markets
MDVN (72.63 -14.07%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.08 ($0.03 vs -$0.05 estimate), revs rose 160% yoy to $96.61 mln vs $72.67 mln estimate; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies; downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Cowen
DECK (73.46 -13.24%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.25 ($4.04 vs $3.79 estimate), revs rose 19.2% yoy to $736 mln vs $711.34 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of -$0.16 vs $0.11 estimate, revs +6% (~$280 mln) vs $294.57 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS +8% (~$4.51) vs $4.70 estimate, revs +10% (~$1.71 bln) vs $1.69 bln estimate

8:30AM Riverbed Technology Board of Directors rejects unsolicited proposal from Elliott (RVBD) 20.65 : Co announced that its Board of Directors, after consideration with its independent legal and financial advisors, has unanimously determined not to pursue the unsolicited proposal from Elliott Management Corp to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Riverbed common stock for $21.00/share, as it believes the proposal undervalues the Co and is not in the best interests of shareholders. As previously stated, the Board will carefully review any credible offer to acquire the Co that it receives.

Guests from Seagate (STX) and Republic will appear on radio talk show Let's Talk Computers.

Applied Micro Circuits (AMCC) has now shipped four million 10G Optical Transport Network ports to system providers

6:42AM Trina Solar announces researchers from the co and the Australian National University have jointly developed a new high-efficiency solar cell (TSL) 15.82 : The laboratory scale Interdigitated Back Contact ("IBC") cell was developed at the Australian National University Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems under a research and development contract with Trina Solar through a collaboration contract with the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore. Trina Solar is now developing a commercial version of the IBC solar cell as well as an IBC PV module. The commercial cell has already reached an efficiency greater than 22% for a 125mm by 125mm IBC solar cell, and 238W for an IBC PV module (based on 72 cells), which was independently tested by the National Center of Supervision and Inspection on Solar Photovoltaic Products Quality of China.

1:56AM Juniper Networks prices $350 mln of 4.5% senior notes due 2024; executes $1.2 bln accelerated share repurchase program (JNPR) 27.01 : Co announces the pricing of $350 million aggregate principal amount of its 4.500% senior notes due 2024. The Notes will mature on March 15, 2024 and bear interest at an annual rate of 4.500%.

Co also entered into separate accelerated share repurchase (ASR) agreements with Barclays Bank PLC and Goldman, Sachs & Co. to repurchase an aggregate of $1.2 billion of its common stock as part of Juniper's capital allocation plan announced on February 20, 2014. Juniper intends to use its cash on hand to fund its obligations under the ASR agreements.

MercadoLibre (MELI) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.93 per share, while revenues revenues rose 29.7% year/year to $134.6 million which are both higher than expected. For the three months ended December 31, 2013, gross merchandise volume grew to $2,138.9 million, while total payment volume reached $746.0 million, representing year-over-year growth of 29.9% and 42.1% respectively. In local currencies, gross merchandise volume grew 49.3% year-over-year, while payment volume grew 66.1% year-over-year. Items sold on MercadoLibre during the fourth quarter 2013 increased 20.1% to 22.million, while total payment transactions through MercadoPago increased 33.8% to 9.0 million.
Splunk (SPLK) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.03 per share, which is below estimates, while revenues rose 53.2% year/year to $99.9 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with revenues of $78-80 million which is line with estimates. Non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be between negative 8-10%. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2015 with revenues of $400 million which is line with estimates Non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be approximately zero.
Salesforce.com (CRM) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.07 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 37.2% year/year to $1.15 billion which is higher than expected. Deferred Revenue: Deferred revenue on the balance sheet as of January 31, 2014 was $2.52 billion, an increase of 35% year-over-year, benefited in part by the acquisition of ExactTarget. Current deferred revenue increased by 38% year-over-year to $2.47 billion, benefited in part by longer invoice durations. Non-current deferred revenue decreased by 25% year-over-year to $48 million. Unbilled deferred revenue, representing business that is contracted but unbilled and off balance sheet, ended the fourth quarter at approximately $4.50 billion, up 29% year-over-year. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS of i$0.09-0.10, which is with estimate with revenues of $1.205-1.210 billion w which is higher than expected.The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2015 with EPS of$0.48-0.50 which is in line with estimates with revenues of $5.25-5.30 billion which is higher than expected.
Youku Tudou (YOKU) reported fourth quarter loss of $0.02 per share, which is better than expected, while revenues rose 46.0% year/year to $148.9 million which is higher than expected. For the first quarter of 2014, the Company expects net revenues will be between RMB680 million and RMB720 million, with advertising net revenues contributing between RMB600 million and RMB640 million. This forecast reflects the Company's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

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As NYSE Margin Debt Hits Record, Watch Out For Any Signs Of Weakness

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2014/03/03/as-nyse-margin-debt-hits-record-watch-out-for-any-signs-of-weakness/

Margin debt hit a record $451 billion on the New York Stock Exchange in January, as investors borrowed more money than ever to buy into the post-financial-crisis bull market.

And that’s a good thing, for now. But rapidly rising margin debt can also signal a market top, especially if the rate of borrowing starts to drop below its 12-month average. That was a strong signal to get out of the stock market in late 1999 and 2007 — if 0nly investors had been able to see the data in real time. The NYSE margin statistics are released after a six-week delay.

“You can’t use this for timing, but you can use it to be prepared for trouble,” says Ricardo Ronco, head of technical analysis at Aviate Global in London who shared the charts here with me. The net level of margin debt “gives you an important color on the mentality of the market,” he told me.

The chart below shows the level of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, with the trend in NYSE margin debt below it. The important line in the middle panel is the 12-month moving average. As long as margin debt remains above its 12-month moving average, Ronco says, the market is probably “safe.” When it dips below the 12-month average, investors are using less of the rocket fuel needed to keep stocks aloft.



The bottom panel shows the trend in net margin debt, or credit minus debt. History doesn’t always repeat itself, but the parallels to 1999 and 2007 are obvious.

The chart below adds detail to Ronco’s analysis. The bottom panel shows the ratio between the Wilshire 5000 Index and NYSE margin debt to strip out the inflationary effect of rising stock prices. “This ratio tells us how much equities are running away from borrowing levels,” Ronco says. “Spikes in this ratio are associated with euphoria peaks driven by speculative excesses.”



Another indicator is the 12-month rate of change of the Wilshire and margin debt. When the margin debt ROC exceeds 40%, the market is in the territory of a top. More important is the combination of the two indicators. When the rates of change of equities and margin debt diverge, watch out. Investors are still borrowing money to buy stocks that are no longer going up in value. They get the picture eventually and give up.

Ronco’s summation:

Margin Debt is still rising and well above its 12-month m.a. confirming the uptrend in prices; it is rising at 20%+ rate in line with stocks and there are some signal of important divergences developing between the rate of increase in stocks vs debt.

Investors are still partying like it’s 1999 — or maybe 2007 — but if you believe in technical indicators the charts might be showing signs of vulnerability. And remember, when the trend really turns, you won’t see it until 6 weeks later.

Ronco’s advice:Prepare your strategy for a market reversal, including stop-loss protection. And this: “If you want to jump on a bull market and see the margin debt is below the 12-month average, you should hold your horses.”

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equity indices enjoyed a broad-based rally on Tuesday that sent the S&P 500 (+1.5%) and the Russell 2000 (+2.7%) to new closing record highs.

Stocks surged out the gate after index futures received a considerable bid around 1:00AM ET. The overnight strength came about after it was reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin called back the troops that were conducting exercises on the country's border with Ukraine. Mr. Putin commented on the tense situation, saying Russia is not aiming to annex the Crimean peninsula and that military force is a choice of last resort.

Mr. Putin's comments were followed by a response from Secretary of State John Kerry who visited Kiev today. Secretary Kerry called on Russia to refrain from using force and said the United States is not seeking a confrontation, but if Russia does not deescalate, then the U.S. will be forced to increase pressure on Russia. Less than 30 minutes after the comments from Secretary Kerry, Russia's Foreign Ministry said the introduction of any potential sanctions will be met with a response that is "not necessarily symmetrical."

The overnight developments were viewed positively by market participants who rushed into risk while shedding some of the safe-haven assets that were in strong demand yesterday:

Treasuries spent the entire session in a steady retreat with the 10-yr yield ending at its session high (+9 bps at 2.69%);
Gold futures fell 0.9% to $1337.80/ozt; and
Crude oil lost 1.6%, ending at $103.34/bbl.

In turn, the risk rally translated into solid gains for all ten sectors. The three largest S&P 500 groups-financials (+2.0%), technology (+1.5%), and health care (+1.9%)-paced the advance while most of the remaining groups added at least 1.0% with utilities (+0.8%) as the lone exception.

Elsewhere, industrials (+1.7%) also factored into the advance thanks to big gains among transports. All 20 members of The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+2.2%) finished in the green with airlines and railroads blazing the trail. Union Pacific (UNP 183.85, +4.34) and Delta Air Lines (DAL 34.45, +1.86) settled higher by 2.4% and 5.7%, respectively.

Although stocks spent the entire session in a steady push to new highs, a brief dip took place in the afternoon amid reports indicating Russia tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in the Astrakhan region. While the initial headline lacked detail, subsequent reports indicated the test was planned in accordance with international laws and that U.S. officials received an early notice.

The afternoon reports did not derail the rally, allowing the S&P 500 to settle just below its best level of the day.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the February ADP Employment Change will be announced at 8:15 ET. The ISM Services report for February will cross the wires at 10:00 ET while the Federal Reserve will release its March Beige Book at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +4.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.9% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.1% YTD

DJ30 +227.85 NASDAQ +74.67 SP500 +28.18 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2153/2.15 bln/469 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2563/837.5 mln/495

3:35 pm :

WTI crude oil, gold and silver futures all remained weak during today's trade
Meanwhile, copper and natural gas futures held onto strength and closed with a nice gain
Apr gold finished today's session 0.9% lower at $1337.80/oz, while May silver lost 1.3% to $21.21/oz
Apr natural gas futures traded in positive territory all session today and ended 3.5% higher at $4.48/MMBtu
Apr crude oil fell 1.6% to $103.34/barrel

5:48PM Ixia announces completion of Audit Committee internal investigation, SEC filings update, and CFO transition (XXIA) 13.08 +0.88 : Co announced today that the Audit Committee of Ixia's Board of Directors has completed the internal investigation that was initiated by the Committee as a result of the October 2013 resignation of the company's former president and chief executive officer. The Committee retained independent counsel and an advisory firm with forensic accounting expertise to assist the Committee in conducting the investigation, which included an email review and performing procedures to assess the company's recording of certain financial transactions and the corresponding impact on the company's financial reporting.

Results of Audit Committee Internal Investigation: On February 26, 2014, the Committee completed the investigation and made its findings with respect thereto. The Committee found that, although the company's former president and chief executive officer (the "Former CEO") had misstated his academic credentials, age, and early employment history, the investigation did not establish that he engaged in intentional misconduct with respect to the company's financial results or financial statements. The Committee also concluded that Tom Miller, the company's former chief financial officer, did not engage in any intentional misconduct. The investigation found, however, an aggressive tone at the top set by the Former CEO, a lack of leadership in terms of tone at the top with respect to the company's recently resigned chief financial officer, and insufficient resources, controls, and training of relevant personnel with respect to revenue recognition, all of which collectively resulted in certain identified errors in the company's revenue recognition.

As a result of the investigation and the company's own internal review, certain errors in the company's revenue recognition practices that affect the timing of the company's recognition of revenue for certain prior periods were identified. Any correction of these errors will result in a shift of revenues between accounting periods. The errors do not have any impact on the total amount of revenue ultimately recognized by the company and do not reflect a lack of validity of the underlying transactions. The company is currently proceeding as quickly as possible to complete its quantification and evaluation of the impact of the identified errors on the company's previously issued financial statements in order to determine whether the company will need to restate financial statements for any prior period(s).

SEC Filings Update: On March 4, 2014, the company filed with the Commission a Form 12b-25 Notification of Late Filing relating to the Form 10-K. The company reported in the Form 12b-25, that it was unable to file the 2013 Form 10-K by the prescribed due date of March 3, 2014 without unreasonable effort or expense. As indicated in the Form 12b-25, due to the errors in the company's revenue recognition practices identified in the investigation and by the company, and due to the company's need to file the Form 10-Q before filing its Form 10-K, the company requires additional time to complete its consolidated financial statements as of and for the three years ended December 31, 2013, and its assessment of its internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2013. The company is currently working to file the Form 10-K as soon as possible. If the Form 10-K is filed on or before March 18, 2014, the filing would be within the extension period of 15 calendar days provided under Rule 12b-25 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. There can be no assurance, however, that the Form 10-K and the audit of the company's financial statements to be included therein will be completed by that date.

CFO Transition: The company also announced that, following the completion of the Audit Committee investigation, Tom Miller has resigned as its chief financial officer, effective March 3, 2014. The Board has appointed Brent Novak, the company's vice president, finance, to also serve as the company's acting chief financial officer. Novak joined the company in 2004 as senior director, finance, and has served as vice president, finance since 2006. Miller has agreed to continue as an employee of the company for three months following his resignation in order to provide support during the transition period.

4:05PM Cohu: Elmos Semiconductor selects Cohu's SATURN for testing its next generation automotive products (COHU) 10.52 +0.41 : COHU announced that Elmos Semiconductor, Germany, has chosen SATURN as its next generation handler platform for automotive IC testing.

SATURN is a high speed handling system that dramatically reduces cost of test with an innovative test plunging mechanism that achieves extremely short index times and exceptional reliability at extended test temperatures from -60 C up to +175 C. Features like smart soaking and the hybrid plunging technology enable SATURN to achieve high productivity at low cost.
"We at Elmos selected the Cohu SATURN to test next generation QFN devices, driving continuous improvement and further lowering cost of test with this new hybrid gravity, pick & place handler," said Reinhard Senf, COO at Elmos.

3:01PM LTX-Credence promotes Mark J. Gallenberger to the Position of Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer (LTXC) 10.18 -0.03 : Co announced that its Board of Directors has promoted Mark J. Gallenberger to the position of Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, effective as of March 1, 2014. Mr. Gallenberger has been with Company since the year 2000 when he joined LTX as Vice President, Chief Financial Officer.

3:00PM LTX-Credence promoted Mark Gallenberger to Senior VP, COO and CFO, effective as of March 1, 2014 (LTXC) 10.18 -0.03 : ... Prior to joining LTX, Mr. Gallenberger was a vice president with Ernst & Young's consulting practice.

12:25PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

YNDX (35 +8.59%): Russia related names rebounding following news that Putin has ordered Russian troops in Western Russia to return to base.
QIHU (115.99 +6.36%): Strength in China internet names.
BBVA (12.42 +4.46%): Moody's upgraded BBVA's ratings to Baa2; outlook positive on long-term ratings.

Large Cap Losers

IRE (19.82 -7.1%): Wilbur Ross & Fairfax sold 6% stake in IRE, according to reports.
ISRG (445.63 -1.81%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald.
AZO (533.11 -1.5%): Beat on EPS by $0.09, beat on revs.

Mid Cap Gainers

VIPS (167.69 +31.25%): Beat on EPS by $0.08, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs well above consensus.
ATHM (46.36 +12.03%): Tybourne Capital disclosed 5.3% passive stake in 13G filing.
SUNE (20.75 +11.08%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; co filed to delay form 10-K.

Mid Cap Losers

ASNA (18.05 -4.35%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line; reduced FY14 EPS below consensus.
AU (17.49 -2.62%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS.
CLF (19.15 -2.05%): Downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.

12:22PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New highs (101) outpacing new lows (0) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABT, AGO, APD, AVGO, BEE, BHI, BKD, BWA, CAH, CBI, CBS, CCJ, CNO, CRZO, CSE, CUZ, CXO, DAL, DD, DFS, DIS, DLPH, DOV, DOW, DRH, DTV, EA, ECL, EMN, ENDP, EOG, ETE, FEYE, FIS, FL, FLIR, FSL, GD, GRMN, GT, HAS, HCA, HD, HON, HP, HST, HUN, IACI, ILMN, KAR, LAMR, LLTC, LM, LNG, LO, LUV, LVS, LYB, MCK, MGM, MMC, MTW, MYL, NOC, OC, ORCL, P, PBI, PDS, PFE, PNR, PWR, QIHU, RDN, RHT, RTN, SEE, SIG, STJ, SUNE, SWFT, SWKS, TEX, TOL, TRIP, TRMB, TRN, TSN, TXN, TXT, TYC, UNH, UNP, URI, WLL, WWAV, WYNN, XLNX, XLS, YY, ZNGA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: BJK, COW, DBA, DVY, IGN, IHF, IHI, ITA, IWC, IWF, IWM, IYH, IYJ, IYM, MDY, NLR, OEF, PBD, PBW, PHO, PPA, PPH, SMH, SOXX, SPY, TAN, UWM, UYM, VTI, XLB, XLI, XLK, XLV, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SMN

10:42AM Riverbed Technology: Elliott responds to Riverbed share repurchase announcement; says 'clear evidence of the Board's entrenchment' (RVBD) 21.82 +0.06 : Elliott, affiliates of which collectively own or have economic exposure to ~10.5% of the common stock and equivalents of Riverbed, issued the following statement:
"Riverbed's announcement today of an increased buyback program is more clear evidence of the Board's entrenchment. Riverbed's shareholders want and expect the Board to explore a value-maximizing sale, not to reflexively announce a buyback when the stock is up 35% on buyout speculation. Instead of engaging interested buyers, the Board has once again confirmed that it is focused on the wrong issues and desperately searching for any tactic that will allow it to retain control over a public Riverbed. The correct path forward is for the Board to allow all interested buyers, including Elliott, to conduct diligence so they can present shareholders with their best offers for the Company."

9:02AM Alcatel-Lucent to help Verizon Wireless (VZ) manage growing data traffic (ALU) 4.17 : Verizon Wireless is to deploy Alcatel-Lucent's (ALU) advanced data management platform throughout its network, helping to support the carrier's LTE expansion. The Alcatel-Lucent Subscriber Data Manager (SDM), part of the company's IMS Subsystem portfolio of technologies designed to enable rich multimedia applications, will help support the expansion of Verizon's LTE services by centralizing multiple application databases. The deployment continues the role Alcatel-Lucent plays in the expansion of the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network, for which the company was named a key supplier for the IMS portion when the network was originally launched.

8:30AM Riverbed expands Stock Repurchase program; Increases authorized share repurchase by $250 million; total program now at $750 million (RVBD) 21.76 : Co announced today that its board of directors approved a $250 million increase to the company's share repurchase program first announced August 19, 2011. The total authorized repurchase amount under the program is now $750 million. Approximately $375 million remains of the newly increased program.

Brocade (BRCD) announced that Rackspace (RAX) has completed the deployment of Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel SAN solutions across its global data center network to accommodate explosive customer growth.

QLogic (QLGC) announced that its FlexSuiteT 2600 Series 16Gb Gen 5 Fibre Channel adapters are now shipping for the Lenovo (LNVGY) ThinkServer Product Family.

8:18AM Violin Memory names Eric Herzog Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Business Development (VMEM) 4.31 : ( EMC and IBM storage industry veteran )

7:33AM Qualcomm raises quarterly dividend by 20% to $0.42 per share from $0.35 per share; Board approves $5.0 bln increase in co's stock repurchase authorization (QCOM) 73.63 : The $5.0 bln increase in the stock repurchase program brings the current authorization to $7.8 bln. Prior to this increase, $2.8 bln remained available under the stock repurchase program. To date in fiscal 2014, the Company has repurchased 27.6 million shares of common stock for $2.0 bln.

Guidewire Software (GWRE) reported second quarter earnings of $0.16 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 15.7% year/year to $83.5 million which is higher than expected. The company sees third quarter adjusted EPS of $0.01-0.03 and revenues of $77-79 million which are both in line with estimates.
China Mobile Games (CMGE) reported fourth quarter ADS of $0.10 vs $0.17 single est; revs increased 49.2% YoY to $24.4 mililon which is below single estimate. Fourth Quarter Operating Data Total paying users4 for social games were 3.2 mln, compared with 48,235 in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 2.8 mln in the third quarter of 2013. Average revenue per paying user account for social games was RMB36.6, compared with RMB92.47 in the fourth quarter of 2012 and RMB24.9 in the third quarter of 2013. Total paying users5 for single-player games (excluding game bundles) were 2.8 mln, compared with 5.0 mln in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 2.6 mln in the third quarter of 2013. ARPU for single-player games (excluding game bundles) was RMB7.4, compared with RMB2.4 in the fourth quarter of 2012 and RMB4.3 in the third quarter of 2013. The quarter-over-quarter increase in ARPU was driven by a shift in product mix toward single-player games with higher ARPUs. Total subscriptions6 for game bundles were 1.1 mln in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared with 1.1 mln in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 1.6 mln in the third quarter of 2013. Average revenue per subscription for game bundles was RMB4.90, compared with RMB4.01 in the fourth quarter of 2012 and RMB5.56 in the third quarter of 2013.
Trina Solar (TSL) reproted fourth quarter earnings of $0.13 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 73.6% year/year to $525.6 mililon which is lower than expected. Total shipments were 770.1 MW, compared to 774.6 MW in the third quarter of 2013 and 414.5 MW in the fourth quarter of 2012. The sequential decrease in revenues was primarily due to lower than expected contribution of system sales, and other sales during the fourth quarter. The year-over-year increase in revenues was driven largely by rising shipment volumes on growing demand from key geographical regions, particularly China and Japan. Gross margin was 15.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 15.2% in the third quarter of 2013 and 1.9% in the fourth quarter of 2012. The sequential decrease was primarily due to the disposal and impairment loss of $9.3 million on our downstream projects in the U.S. The year-over-year increase in gross margin was primarily due to the decrease in costs per watt exceeding the decrease in the ASP of modules year-over-year. Gross margin excluding the impact of project loss was 16.8%. Guidance: In the first quarter of 2014 the Company expects to ship between 670 MW to 700 MW of PV modules, of which 20 MW to 30 MW of PV modules will be shipped to its downstream PV projects. The company believes its blended gross margin for the first quarter of 2014, taking into account of the contribution from its downstream PV projects, will be in the mid-teens in percentage terms. Such guidance is based on the exchange rate between the Euro and the U.S. dollar as of March 4, 2014. For the full year of 2014, the co expects its total PV module shipments between 3.6 GW and 3.8 GW, of which 400 MW to 500 MW of PV modules will be shipped to its own downstream projects. This would represent an increase of 39.5% to 47.3% respectively, from 2013. For the full year 2014, the Company expects to complete construction of its downstream PV projects between 400 MW and 500 MW.

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The major averages posted modest Wednesday losses after spending the entire session inside narrow ranges. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2% while the S&P 500 shed less than a point. For its part, the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) ended just above its flat line.

Although today's session did not generate much (or any) excitement, it should be noted that equity indices essentially held their levels after yesterday's broad-based spike that sent the S&P 500 to a fresh record closing high.

Individual sectors were split right down the middle for the entire trading day with five groups posting gains while the other five registered losses.

The financial sector (+0.7%) took the lead shortly after the open and never relinquished its standing as top components rallied notably. Bank of America (BAC 17.25, +0.53) soared 3.2% while other large names like Citigroup (C 49.42, +0.59), JPMorgan Chase (JPM 58.16, +0.90), and Morgan Stanley (MS 31.97, +0.87) gained between 1.2% and 2.8%.

Today's outperformance of financials marked the second consecutive day of relative strength for a vital sector that has been struggling to keep pace with the broader market so far in 2014. Including today's gain, the sector extended its year-to-date advance to 0.9% versus a 1.4% gain for the S&P 500.

Financials notwithstanding, the remaining four advancers-consumer discretionary, industrials, materials, and technology-posted slim gains of no more than 0.3%. Of the four, the discretionary sector (+0.3%) had the best showing thanks to strength among media names.

On the downside, the four countercyclical sectors-consumer staples, health care, utilities, and telecom services-lost between 0.2% and 0.7% while the energy sector (-1.1%) spent the day in a steady retreat while crude oil fell 1.8% to $101.48/bbl.

The energy space slumped amid the weight of ExxonMobil (XOM 93.80, -2.72), which tumbled 2.8%, marking its largest daily decline since November 2012. Meanwhile, the broader sector widened its year-to-date loss to 2.7%. Only the telecom services sector has had a worse showing as it holds a 5.0% loss so far in 2014.

Treasuries ended modestly higher with the benchmark 10-yr yield down one basis point at 2.69%.

Also of note, today featured the release of the March Beige Book from the Federal Reserve. Similar to other reports received during past weeks, the Beige Book highlighted severe weather as a major headwind. To that end, 'weather' was mentioned 119 times in the entire release versus an average of 14 mentions in each previous Beige Book report dating back to 1997.

Eight out of twelve Fed Districts reported continued expansion from January to February with the growth characterized as 'modest' to 'moderate.' Retail sales saw relative weakness across the board, but that was written off as a result of the weather.

With regards to employment, a gradual improvement was reported in most districts while pressure from wages was characterized as 'stable.'

Investors received two other economic reports:

The ADP Employment Change report for February indicated an increase of 139K while the Briefing.com consensus called for an increase of 150K. Also of note, the January reading was revised down to 127,000 from 175,000.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index fell to 51.6 in February from 54.0 in January. That was the weakest print since February 2010 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the index to fall to 53.5. Not surprisingly, many sectors reported that extreme winter weather conditions wreaked havoc on business activity in February. The evidence in the hard data, however, suggests a cyclical slowdown is more likely taking place. The Employment Index fell a whopping 8.9 points to 47.5 in February from 56.4 in January. That ended a 25-month expansion cycle.

Tomorrow, the February Challenger Job Cuts report will be released at 7:30 ET while weekly initial claims, fourth quarter productivity, and unit labor costs will be announced at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the factory orders report for January.

Nasdaq Composite +4.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.8% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.3% YTD

DJ30 -35.70 NASDAQ +6.00 SP500 -0.10 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1260/2.08 bln/1323 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1458/653.6 mln/1541

3:30 pm :

Precious metals rose as the dollar index slipped into negative territory following weak U.S. economic data. The ADP Employment Change report for February showed an increase of 139K while the Briefing.com consensus called for an increase of 150K. The January reading was revised down to 127K from 175K. In addition, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index fell to 51.6 in February from 54.0 in January, the weakest print since February 2010, while theBriefing.com consensus expected the index to fall to 53.5.
Apr gold erased earlier losses as it lifted from its session low of $1334.20 per ounce and broke into positive territory in morning action. It brushed a session high of $1342.00 per ounce and settled with a 0.2% gain at $1340.20 per ounce. May silver dipped to a session low of $21.19 per ounce but quickly recovered back above the unchanged line. It touched a session high of $21.33 per ounce and eventually settled at $21.27 per ounce, or 0.3% higher.
Apr crude oil extended yesterday's losses despite the weaker dollar index. The move came on EIA inventory data that showed a build of 1.4 mln barrels when consensus called for a build of 1.3-1.5 mln barrels.
The energy component pulled back from its session high of $103.22 per barrel set moments after equity markets opened and trended lower to a session low of $101.22 per barrel. Unable to gain momentum, it settled 1.8% lower at $101.48 per barrel.
Apr natural gas also traded in the red, retreating from its session high of $4.66 per MMBtu. It brushed a session low of $4.51 per MMBtu and settled with a 2.8% loss at $4.53 per MMBtu.

5:01PM Avago Tech announces $0.27 interim dividend (AVGO) 63.08 -0.27 : Co announced that its Board of Directors has approved a quarterly, interim cash dividend of $0.27 per ordinary share. The dividend is payable on March 31, 2014 to shareholders of record at the close of business (5:00 p.m.) Eastern Time on March 20, 2014.

4:46PM Semtech beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SMTC) 25.59 +0.13 : Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $0.23 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.22; revenues fell 16.0% year/year to $126.53 mln vs the $125.29 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.28-0.32, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.30 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $127-133 mln vs. $130.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Capital expenditures are expected to be ~$9 mln

12:40PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

FEYE (95.66 +8.47%): Target raised to $105 from $90 at FBR Capital; co expected to price 5.6 mln share offering Thursday night
BF.B (87.86 +4.22%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.07 ($0.82 vs $0.75 estimate), revs rose 5.0% yoy to $1.08 bln vs $1.07 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $2.95-3.05 (raised from $2.80-3.00) vs $2.96 estimate; upgraded to Buy at BTIG Research
FAST (48.1 +2.66%): Reported February sales rose 7.7% yoy to $274.52 mln

Large Cap Losers

FLT (124.86 -3.92%): Weakness attributed to 2.5 mln share block trade that priced at $127 per share
RIO (54.6 -3.19%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup
CHU (13.1 -3.00%): Reuters reporting China has new plans for a valued-added tax for telecommunication services providers

Mid Cap Gainers

GOLD (84.44 +3.93%): Bloomberg reporting CEO indicated that the company would consider a sale of its stalled Senegalese gold project
GME (38.54 +3.19%): Increased quarterly dividend 20% to $1.32 from $1.10 per share
GTAT (17.03 +1.97%): Target raised to $18.50 from $15.50 at BofA/Merrill

Mid Cap Losers

CSIQ (38.61 -11.59%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.13 ($0.39 vs $0.52 estimate), revs rose 76.2% yoy to $519.5 mln vs $525.4 mln estimate; sees Q1 revs of $415-460 mln vs $545.80 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $2.7-2.9 bln vs $2.77 bln estimate
GEVA (99.09 -4.71%): Announced 2 mln public offering of common stock
NAV (36.26 -4.05%): Missed quarterly EPS by $1.27 (-$3.07 vs -$1.80 estimate), revs fell 16.3% yoy to $2.21 bln vs $2.62 bln estimate

9:09AM Fairchild Semi confirmed that a jury in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California found Tuesday that Fairchild willfully infringed two U.S. patents asserted against the company by Power Integrations (POWI) and awarded $105 million in damages against Fairchild (FCS) 14.05 : Co reported that a jury in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California found Tuesday that Fairchild willfully infringed two U.S. patents asserted against the company by Power Integrations, Inc. and awarded $105 million in damages against Fairchild. Fairchild said it was very disappointed by the outcome and will challenge several aspects of the verdict during post-trial review and any appeal. Fairchild said the infringement finding was in error and failed to account for differences in the accused products. The company also said it was particularly concerned by several elements of the damages award, including the sufficiency of the damages evidence and Power Integrations' unique damages theory. Products in the case include chips used in switch-mode power supplies made by the company's System General subsidiary. In a previous patent infringement case between the two companies, a jury awarded Power Integrations $34 million in damages in 2006. Virtually all of that damages award was eventually thrown out by a 2013 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

8:36AM ForceField Energy (FNRG) divests TCS Businesses in China - receives ~$8.6 mln of its common stock held by former minority partner; receives LED lighting purchase order 4.88 :

Co has completed the sale of its 60% interest in Wendeng He Xie Silicon Cto the minority owner of Wendeng and has concluded its operations at Zibo Baokai Commerce and Trade. The combination of both transactions significantly improves the Company's working capital, eliminates operating losses related to these business segments, and enables the Company to sharpen its focus on its continuing key business segments...
Co announced the signing of a LED lighting purchase order for the immediate sale and delivery of LED "High Bay" and LED fluorescent replacement lighting products to a warehouse facility of a Fortune 100 company located in southern United States. This purchase order for ~300 LED High Bay Lights and ~100 LED tubes followed a successful initial trial and prev

Argon Design announced the licensing of their Streams and Coverage Tool to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). AMD will use Argon's technology to validate its video decoder design and ensure that its designs are fully compatible with the latest HEVC video compression specification.

Qualcomm (QCOM) announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, in cooperation with Sprint (S) and NASCAR, demonstrated the second phase of an over-the-air trial of an LTE TDD hyper-dense small cell network at the Phoenix International Raceway.

HP Enterprise Services (HPQ) has been awarded a five-year task order worth up to $548 mln by the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Manpower Data Center to provide maintenance and support for mission-critical hardware and software located around the world.

7:08AM Canadian Solar misses by $0.13, misses on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus; guides FY14 revs in-line (CSIQ) 43.67 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.39 per share, $0.13 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.52; revenues rose 76.2% year/year to $519.5 mln vs the $525.4 mln consensus; co preannounced Q4 results on Feb 11, 'profitable' GAAP Q4, rev $510-520 mln, shipments 605-620 MW.

Total solar module shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013 were 621 MW, compared to 478 MW in the third quarter of 2013 and 404 MW in the fourth quarter of 2012. Solar module shipments to the Chinese market represented 42.9% of total shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to less than 1% in the third quarter of 2013, and 9.9% in the fourth quarter of 2012. Solar module shipments to the Japanese market represented 19.7% of total shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 29.5% in the third quarter of 2013 and 11.7% in the fourth quarter of 2012. Solar module shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013 included 41 MW used in the Company's total solutions business, compared to 60 MW in the third quarter of 2013 and 16 MW in the fourth quarter of 2012.
By geography, in the fourth quarter of 2013, sales to the European markets represented 5.5% of net revenue, sales to the Americas represented 32.1% of net revenue, and sales to Asia and all other markets represented 62.4% of net revenue, compared to 9.5%, 46.9% and 43.6%, respectively, in the third quarter of 2013 and 40.6%, 20.0% and 39.4%, respectively, in the fourth quarter of 2012.
The year-over-year increase in gross profit was primarily due to the increase in revenue contribution from the Company's higher margin total solutions business, as well as higher module shipments and lower module manufacturing cost, which was partially off-set by a slight decline in module average selling price. Gross margin in the fourth quarter of 2013 was 19.5%, compared to 20.4% in the third quarter of 2013 and 5.0% in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $415-430 mln vs. $545.80 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The co expects Q1 module shipments to be in the range of ~470 MW to 490 MW. Total revenue for the first quarter of 2014 is expected to be in the range of $415 million to $430 million, with gross margin expected to be between 14% and 16%. Management continues to see strong demand for the Company's products in the first quarter of 2014, as the seasonality in Chinese market was more than compensated by the increase in demand from Japan and the U.S. However, longer shipping time to these markets will push some revenue to the second quarter of 2014. In addition, the production output from the Company's module factories in China was low during the Chinese New Year holiday period. Meanwhile, the Company's revenue and gross margin in the first quarter of 2014 are expected to be adversely affected by the severe winter conditions in North America, which delayed construction and recognition of ~$100.0 million in revenue from some of its utility-scale projects in Canada. The Company expects to recognize this revenue in the second and third quarter of 2014. The expected gross margin in the first quarter of 2014 is adversely impacted by ~ 100 basis points (1.0%) due to the recently reported fire incident at the Company's cell plant in Suzhou. The Company expects to fully recover its losses from its property and business interruption insurance in later quarters.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $2.7-2.9 bln vs. $2.77 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. For the full year 2014, the Company expects annual module shipments to be in the range of 2.5 GW to 2.7 GW, including 400 MW to 500 MW of project recognition. In addition, the Company expects to build and hold up to 250MW of project assets during 2014. The Company expects that its net revenue for 2014 will be in the range of ~$2.7 billion to $2.9 billion, with ~50% of revenue being derived from its total solutions business. The Company's Canadian and U.S. project revenue recognition is expected to be back-end loaded in 2014 due to permitting and construction schedule as well as US GAAP accounting rules which, for most Canadian projects, only allow revenue recognition after commercial operation date (COD) and the transfer of ownership to end customers. The estimated COD of all of the Company's late-stage projects is disclosed in this press release to provide better granularity to investors.

2:04AM ReneSola provides high-efficiency modules to 11.7MW solar project in Italy (SOL) 3.87 : Co announces it has delivered approximately 45,900 of its high-efficiency modules to the Photovoltaic Plant of Ferrara Aranova project, a 11.7MW ground-mounted solar project in Italy.

ReneSola modules installed for the project averaged 255W and are insured by PowerGuard, third-party coverage that supplement's the Company's warranties regarding product quality and performance.

Ixia (IXIA) announced today that the Audit Committee of Ixia's Board of Directors has completed the internal investigation that was initiated by the Committee as a result of the October 2013 resignation of the company's former president and chief executive officer. The Committee retained independent counsel and an advisory firm with forensic accounting expertise to assist the Committee in conducting the investigation, which included an email review and performing procedures to assess the company's recording of certain financial transactions and the corresponding impact on the company's financial reporting. Results of Audit Committee Internal Investigation: On February 26, 2014, the Committee completed the investigation and made its findings with respect thereto. The Committee found that, although the company's former president and chief executive officer (the "Former CEO") had misstated his academic credentials, age, and early employment history, the investigation did not establish that he engaged in intentional misconduct with respect to the company's financial results or financial statements. The Committee also concluded that Tom Miller, the company's former chief financial officer, did not engage in any intentional misconduct. The investigation found, however, an aggressive tone at the top set by the Former CEO, a lack of leadership in terms of tone at the top with respect to the company's recently resigned chief financial officer, and insufficient resources, controls, and training of relevant personnel with respect to revenue recognition, all of which collectively resulted in certain identified errors in the company's revenue recognition. As a result of the investigation and the company's own internal review, certain errors in the company's revenue recognition practices that affect the timing of the company's recognition of revenue for certain prior periods were identified. Any correction of these errors will result in a shift of revenues between accounting periods. The errors do not have any impact on the total amount of revenue ultimately recognized by the company and do not reflect a lack of validity of the underlying transactions. The company is currently proceeding as quickly as possible to complete its quantification and evaluation of the impact of the identified errors on the company's previously issued financial statements in order to determine whether the company will need to restate financial statements for any prior period(s). SEC Filings Update: On March 4, 2014, the company filed with the Commission a Form 12b-25 Notification of Late Filing relating to the Form 10-K. The company reported in the Form 12b-25, that it was unable to file the 2013 Form 10-K by the prescribed due date of March 3, 2014 without unreasonable effort or expense. As indicated in the Form 12b-25, due to the errors in the company's revenue recognition practices identified in the investigation and by the company, and due to the company's need to file the Form 10-Q before filing its Form 10-K, the company requires additional time to complete its consolidated financial statements as of and for the three years ended December 31, 2013, and its assessment of its internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2013. The company is currently working to file the Form 10-K as soon as possible. If the Form 10-K is filed on or before March 18, 2014, the filing would be within the extension period of 15 calendar days provided under Rule 12b-25 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. There can be no assurance, however, that the Form 10-K and the audit of the company's financial statements to be included therein will be completed by that date. CFO Transition: The company also announced that, following the completion of the Audit Committee investigation, Tom Miller has resigned as its chief financial officer, effective March 3, 2014. The Board has appointed Brent Novak, the company's vice president, finance, to also serve as the company's acting chief financial officer. Novak joined the company in 2004 as senior director, finance, and has served as vice president, finance since 2006. Miller has agreed to continue as an employee of the company for three months following his resignation in order to provide support during the transition period. The company also filed for a delay in its 10-K. Ixiahas determined that it is unable to file its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013 within the prescribed time period without unreasonable effort or expense. As the Registrant previously reported in a Form 12b-25 Notification of Late Filing filed with the SEC on November 13, 2013, as a result of the resignation on October 24, 2013 of Victor Alston, the Registrant's former President and Chief Executive Officer, the Audit Committee of Ixia's Board of Directors initiated an internal investigation. The Committee retained independent counsel and an advisory firm with forensic accounting expertise to assist the Committee in conducting the investigation, which included an email review and performing procedures to assess the Registrant's recording of certain financial transactions and the corresponding impact on the Registrant's financial reporting. As the Registrant also reported in the November 2013 Form 12b-25, the investigation needed to be completed prior to the Registrant's filing with the Commission of its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2013."

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 07-Mar-14

Dow +30.83 at 16452.72, Nasdaq -15.90 at 4336.22, S&P +1.01 at 1878.04

The stock market finished an upbeat week on a mixed note. The S&P 500 added just over a point, holding its weekly gain at 1.0% while the Nasdaq lost 0.4%.

The major averages began the day on an upbeat note, but relinquished their opening gains during the first 90 minutes of action. The early sentiment was boosted by a better-than-expected nonfarm payrolls report for February (175K versus Briefing.com consensus 163K), but a closer look into the report suggested that the weather excuse, which has been commonplace for the past several weeks, may have been overused in justifying some of the disappointing economic data received in recent weeks.

Stocks retreated from their opening highs with the Nasdaq pacing the slide. Specifically, biotechnology underperformed for the second day in a row, which fueled much of the Nasdaq weakness. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 259.40, -1.74) lost 0.7% after being down as much as 2.6% at the start of the session. The biotech ETF posted a 1.9% decline for the week, but remains up 14.2% in 2014.

Although biotechnology was able to climb off its lows, the rebound coincided with selling in the traditional technology sector (-0.3%). As a result, the Nasdaq was pressured throughout the day.

Even though heavily-weighted sectors like technology and health care (-0.2%) weighed on the broader market, the S&P 500 held up relatively well thanks to the relative strength of the financial sector (+0.5%), which continued its recent outperformance. The influential sector finished the week with a gain of 3.0%.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, energy (+0.4%) and industrials (+0.3%) outperformed while consumer discretionary (-0.1%) and materials (-0.5%) lagged. The energy sector posted a modest gain as crude oil rose 1.0% to $102.54/bbl. Despite today's increase, the energy space remains the weakest cyclical group of the year, down 1.8%.

Industrials, meanwhile, drew strength from transports. The Dow Jones Transportation Average added 0.4% after marking a fresh intraday record high at 7627.44.

Despite the continued uncertainty surrounding the situation in Ukraine, stocks climbed into the close, suggesting participants remained hopeful that a worst case scenario would be avoided. The sentiment was a bit different in Europe where major regional indices finished on their lows after a Gazprom spokesman said the company could stop delivering natural gas to Ukraine since the country is behind on its payments. The news rattled the region considering Gazprom is a major supplier to the entire European continent and supply disruptions could affect other economies.

The Treasury market, however, did not reflect a flight to safety as the 10-yr note finished in the red with its yield up five basis points at 2.79%.

Participation was a bit below average as 710 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Taking a look at economic data:

Nonfarm payrolls added 175,000 jobs in February after adding an upwardly revised 129,000 (from 113,000) in January. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 163,000. Private payrolls were a little lighter, up 162,000 in February after adding 145,000 in January. The consensus expected private payrolls to increase by 170,000. Over the last several weeks, economists have pointed toward the winter weather as the reason for the recent economic slowdown. The above consensus result in the February employment report refutes that theory. Sectors that are normally impacted by weather events, such as construction of buildings (+100), reported positive payroll gains. These sectors should have seen a sizable pullback if weather was the root cause of the economic malaise.
The U.S. trade deficit widened in January to $39.10 billion from an upwardly revised $39.00 billion (from $38.7 billion) in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected the trade deficit to fall to $37.30 billion. The goods deficit rose to $59.30 billion from $58.70 billion, a gain of $0.70 billion. The services surplus increased by $0.50 billion in January to $20.20 billion. Exports increased 0.6% in January to $192.50 billion. Almost all of the increase can be attributed to a $1.80 billion increase in exports of nonmonetary gold and a $0.20 billion increase in artwork sales.
Consumer credit increased by $13.70 billion in January after increasing a downwardly revised $15.90 billion (from $18.80 billion) in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected consumer credit to increase by $11.80 billion in January.

Week in Review: Stocks Climb Despite Persistent Geopolitical Concerns

The stock market began the trading week on a defensive note after tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalated over the weekend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.9%) paced the decline while the S&P 500 lost 0.8% with all ten sectors ending in the red. Over the weekend, Russian troops increased their presence around several key strategic points located in the Crimean peninsula in Southern Ukraine. The troop deployment was authorized by the Russian parliament while Ukrainian authorities described the actions as an 'invasion.' With plenty of uncertainty abound, equities sold off broadly while traditional safe-haven assets received a bid. Treasuries settled on their highs with the benchmark 10-yr yield down five basis points at 2.60% while the Dollar Index (80.08, +0.39) gained 0.5%. Commodities saw interest with crude oil climbing 2.4% to $105.00/bbl while gold futures settled higher by 2.2% at $1350.40/ozt. In turn, the strength in gold gave a boost to miners, sending the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 26.18, -0.61) higher by 1.6%.

Equity indices enjoyed a broad-based rally on Tuesday that sent the S&P 500 (+1.5%) and the Russell 2000 (+2.5%) to new record closing highs. Stocks surged out the gate after index futures received a considerable bid around 1:00AM ET. The overnight strength came about after it was reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin called back the troops that were conducting exercises on the country's border with Ukraine. Mr. Putin commented on the tense situation, saying Russia is not aiming to annex the Crimean peninsula and that military force is a choice of last resort. The overnight developments were viewed positively by market participants who rushed into risk while shedding some of the safe-haven assets that were in strong demand on Monday. On that note, Treasuries spent the entire session in a steady retreat with the 10-yr yield ending at its session high (+9 bps at 2.69%); gold futures fell 0.9% to $1337.80/ozt; and crude oil lost 1.6%, ending at $103.34/bbl. The risk rally translated into solid gains for all ten sectors. The three largest S&P 500 groups-financials (+2.0%), technology (+1.5%), and health care (+1.9%)-paced the advance while most of the remaining groups added at least 1.0% with utilities (+0.8%) as the lone exception.

On Wednesday, the major averages posted modest losses after spending the entire session inside narrow ranges. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2% while the S&P 500 shed less than a point. Individual sectors were split right down the middle for the entire trading day with five groups posting gains while the other five registered losses. The financial sector (+0.7%) took the lead shortly after the open and never relinquished its standing as top components rallied notably.

The stock market ended the Thursday session on a mixed note ahead of Friday's nonfarm payrolls report for February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.2%) posted modest gains while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) lagged throughout the session. Biotech pressured the Nasdaq as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF ended near its session low, down 2.7%. Also exerting pressure on the Nasdaq was the technology sector, which ended flat.

 
 Index	    Started Week  Ended Week   Change   %Change  YTD % 
 DJIA	     16321.71	  16452.72	131.01    0.8	-0.7 
 Nasdaq	      4308.12	   4336.22	 28.10	  0.7	 3.8 
 S&P 500	1859.45	   1878.04	 18.59    1.0	 1.6 
 Russell 2000  1183.03	   1203.32	 20.29	  1.7	 3.4

4:26PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Utilities: FCEL (3.53 +55.73%)
Technology: MXWL (15.06 +64.56%), PLUG (8.27 +45.54%), AAOI (25.29 +37.29%), WUBA (58.32 +27.63%), PWRD (25.03 +26.84%), SFUN (92.47 +25.13%)
Services: VIPS (166.55 +50.97%), CETV (4 +48.71%), DANG (18.66 +36.77%), WWE (29.64 +31.05%), BJRI (33.02 +24.8%), NPD (3.24 +24.71%), RENN (4.21 +22.47%)
Industrial Goods: ERII (5.98 +42.32%), BLDP (5.28 +41.9%), MY (4.07 +29.32%), HEES (38.47 +23.57%)
Healthcare: PPHM (2.4 +45%), RIGL (4.52 +25.56%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: PRO (33.01 -20%), EPAM (36.42 -17.33%)
Services: ZU (58.47 -20.04%), APEI (36.69 -20%), SPLS (11.48 -15.55%)
Industrial Goods: HOV (5.08 -15.53%)
Healthcare: XOMA (6.33 -26.49%), CGEN (11.14 -21.34%), ELGX (14.16 -21.15%), MDVN (69.43 -19.73%), SNTA (5.13 -19.39%), NLNK (31.6 -19.35%), KYTH (45.02 -17.5%), AEGR (55.53 -17.49%), GEVA (98.44 -17%), CLDX (25.36 -16.52%), ZGNX (4.04 -15.79%), AKRX (22.45 -15.15%)
Financial: HCI (38.21 -20.33%), QIWI (36.83 -18.83%)

3:57PM Palo Alto Networks confirms Delaware District Court declares mistrial in patent infringement lawsuit initiated By Juniper Networks (JNPR) (PANW) 76.99 +7.54 : Co announced that today Honorable Judge Sue L. Robinson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (the "Court") declared a mistrial in a lawsuit brought by Juniper Networks against Palo Alto Networks due to the jury being unable to reach a verdict.

"From the outset, we said we would vigorously defend the Company against Juniper's lawsuit," said Mark McLaughlin, president and chief executive officer of Palo Alto Networks. "We continue to stand by our position that we do not infringe on their patents and are committed to delivering innovation and providing the network security market with disruptive technologies."

The lawsuit is pending in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware and was filed by Juniper Networks in December, 2011. The Court's decision follows a trial which began February 24, 2014. A new trial date in this matter has not been scheduled by the Court.

12:57PM Midday Market Summary: Mixed at Midday (WRAPX) : At midday, the major averages trade mixed. The Dow (+0.1%) holds a slim gain while the Nasdaq (-0.4%) hovers in the red. For its part, the S&P 500 sits on its flat line.

The stock market began the trading day on a higher note, but the early strength faded quickly. The upbeat open took place after it was reported that February nonfarm payrolls surpassed estimates (175K versus Briefing.com consensus 163K). Although the headline number surprised to the upside, it suggested that the weather excuse, which has been used for just about every disappointing report this year, may have been overused.

Like yesterday, the Nasdaq led the retreat due to significant weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 258.17, -2.97) is lower by 1.1% after being down nearly 3.0% shortly after the open. The underperformance of biotech has also reflected on the health care sector (-0.5%).

Although the biotech industry group has climbed off its lows, the Nasdaq has not seen a comparable snapback due to recent weakness in top-weighted technology components. Apple (AAPL 526.44, -4.31), Google (GOOG 1214.30, -5.31), Facebook (FB 70.15, -0.69), and Oracle (ORCL 38.95, -0.51) hold losses between 0.4% and 1.3%. The technology sector, meanwhile, trades down 0.4%.

Even though two of the three top-weighted groups lag, the S&P 500 has been able to hold its flat line thanks to the outperformance of industrials (+0.3%) and the continued strength of financials (+0.6%). Including the midday gain, the financial sector is higher by 3.1% this week versus a 0.9% increase for the S&P 500.

Another item at play that is likely contributing to participants reducing their risk exposure into the weekend is the continued uncertainty regarding the situation in Ukraine. Earlier, a Gazprom spokesman said the company could stop delivering natural gas to Ukraine since the country is behind on its payments. Since Gazprom is a major supplier to the entire European continent, the news weighed on regional equities, sending them to lows into the close.

Treasuries hover in the red, but they have climbed off their lows. The benchmark 10-yr yield is higher by six basis points at 2.79%.

Reviewing today's economic data:

Nonfarm payrolls added 175,000 jobs in February after adding an upwardly revised 129,000 (from 113,000) in January. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 163,000. Private payrolls were a little lighter, up 162,000 in February after adding 145,000 in January. The consensus expected private payrolls to increase by 170,000. Over the last several weeks, economists have pointed toward the winter weather as the reason for the recent economic slowdown. The above consensus result in the February employment report refutes that theory. Sectors that are normally impacted by weather events, such as construction of buildings (+100), reported positive payroll gains. These sectors should have seen a sizable pullback if weather was the root cause of the economic malaise.
The U.S. trade deficit widened in January to $39.10 billion from an upwardly revised $39.00 billion (from $38.7 billion) in December. The Briefing.com consensus expected the trade deficit to fall to $37.30 billion. The goods deficit rose to $59.30 billion from $58.70 billion, a gain of $0.70 billion. The services surplus increased by $0.50 billion in January to $20.20 billion. Exports increased 0.6% in January to $192.5 billion. Almost all of the increase can be attributed to a $1.8 billion increase in exports of nonmonetary gold and a $0.2 billion increase in artwork sales.

The January Consumer Credit report will be released at 15:00 ET.

12:32PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

HDB (37.74 +6.28%): Strength in large cap Indian banks: IBN also higher
PRU (89.06 +2.64%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill
KR (44.03 +1.52%): Target raised to $48 from $41 at Telsey Advisory Group

Large Cap Losers

FEYE (81.38 -9.12%): Priced follow-on public offering of 14 mln shares at $82 per share
CRM (60.26 -4.56%): Initiated with a Neutral at B. Riley & Co
RIO (53.42 -3.49%): Seeing reports that co may pursue an acquisition of Turquoise Hill Resources (TRQ)

Mid Cap Gainers

ITMN (34.82 +13.87%): Reuters reporting co is seeing takeover interest from several companies
FL (45.69 +6.93%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.82 ex items vs $0.76 estimate), revs rose 4.6% yoy to $1.79 bln vs $1.77 bln estimate; Q4 comparable-store sales rose 5.3% vs estimates of ~4.2%
COO (138.05 +6.12%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($1.47 ex items vs $1.46 estimate), revs rose 6.6% yoy to $405 mln vs $399.61 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $6.75-7.00 (raised from $6.70-7.00) vs $6.81 estimate, revs of $1.685-1.725 bln (raised from $1.675-1.725 bln) vs $1.7 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

SEAS (32.68 -6.92%): Seeing reports that a California state lawmaker has proposed a bill to prohibit SeaWorld from using orcas in its San Diego shows
CDW (25.68 -4.16%): Priced public offering of 10 mln shares of common stock by a selling stockholder at $25.55 per share
HMHC (19.26 -3.17%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman, removed from America's Buy list; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel

10:51AM ComScore reports Jan 2014 U.S. smartphone subscriber market share; Apple (AAPL) ranked as the top OEM with 41.6% of U.S. smartphone subscribers, up 1 percentage point from Oct (SCOR) 31.52 +0.08 :

comScore released data from comScore MobiLens and Mobile Metrix, reporting key trends in the U.S. smartphone industry for January 2014. Apple (AAPL) ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer with 41.6% OEM market share, while Google (GOOG) Android led as the #1 smartphone platform with 51.7% platform market share. Google Sites ranked as the top mobile media property, while Facebook (FB) was the top individual app.
159.8 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (66.8% mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in January, up 7% since October. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 41.6% of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 1 percentage point from October). Samsung (SSNLF) ranked second with 26.7% market share (up 1.3 percentage points), followed by LG with 6.9% (up 0.3 percentage points), Motorola with 6.4% and HTC with 5.4%.
Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in January with 51.7% market share, followed by Apple with 41.6% (up 1 percentage point), BlackBerry (BBRY) with 3.1%, Microsoft (MSFT) with 3.2% and Symbian with 0.2 percent.

F5 Networks (FFIV) target raised to $130 at RBC Capital Mkts

EMC (EMC) target raised to $31 at RBC Capital Mkts

8:33AM FuelCell Energy announces further progress with developing the on-site distributed hydrogen generation market with a $2.8 mln continuation of an award from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Manufacturing Office to showcase the tri-generation capabilities of a Direct FuelCell power plant for industrial applications (FCEL) 2.99 : The co will install a sub-megawatt fuel cell power plant at its manufacturing facility in Torrington, Connecticut, to generate hydrogen, electricity and heat, replacing hydrogen that is currently purchased and delivered to the facility via truck, and replacing electricity purchased from the electric grid. The tri-generation DFC-H2 is expected to be operational by the end of 2014.

8:01AM SunEdison, Nationwide Mutual, Sol Systems and National Bank of Arizona announce financing for 13.4 MW solar electricity portfolio (SUNE) 21.09 : announced a $50 million fund to build a 13.4 megawatt (MW) solar portfolio for the State of California prison and hospital systems. Sol Systems advised Nationwide Mutual Insurance on the acquisition of the equity in the transaction. SunEdison secured long-term debt for the projects from the National Bank of Arizona (NBAZ). These projects mark the first time the companies have worked together on a solar project.

Finisar (FNSR) reported third quarter earnings of $0.44 per share, which is line with estimates, while revenues rose 23% year/year to $294 million which is slightly below estimates. The sale of products for datacom applications increased by $ 6.1 million, or 3.0%, compared to the preceding quarter. The sale of products for telecom applications decreased by $2.8 million, or (3.2)%, compared to the preceding quarter, primarily driven by the impact of one month of the annual price reductions for telecom products that typically take effect on January 1st. The company issued fourth quarter guidance with EPS of $0.38-0.42 and revenues of $290-305 million which is line with estimates. After taking into account the acquisition of u2t, including the elimination of any intercompany revenue or expense transactions with Finisar, the Company indicated that it currently expects revenues for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 to be in the range of $296 to $311 million, non-GAAP gross margin of ~35.5%.

21Vianet (VNET) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.10 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 34.4% year/year to $90.2 million which is line with estimates. The company issued first quarter guidance with revenues of $95-98 million which is line with estates. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with revenues of $448-471 million which is line with estimates.

Qihoo 360 Tech (QIHU) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.70 per share, which is higher than elected, while revenues rose 115.3% year/year to $221.62 million which is line with estimates. Non-GAAP net margin was 43.5%, compared to 26.0% in the same period last year and 32.7% in the prior quarter. The year-over-year increase in non-GAAP net margin was also mainly due to leverage from strong revenue. The company issued guidance for the first quarter with revenues of i$226-228 million which in with estimates.

Ambarella (AMBA) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.26 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 27.0% year/year to $40 million which is line with estimates. Gross Margin: Gross margin on a non-GAAP basis for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 was 64.1%, compared with 63.3% for the same period in fiscal 2013. For the year ended January 31, 2014, non-GAAP gross margin was 63.5%, compared with 66.7% for the year ended January 31, 2013. Commentary: "During the fourth quarter we had revenue of $40M, up 26.8% from the same period last year. Our revenue for the whole fiscal year was up 30.2% from last year, while revenue from IP-security cameras more than doubled. In Q4 we introduced innovative surround-view solutions for the automotive market and collaborated with Google to explore new opportunities in wearable cameras. We look forward to driving continued innovation in the year ahead." The company sees first quarter revenues of $39-41 million which is line with estimates.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages began the new trading week on a slightly lower note with small caps leading the weakness. The Russell 2000 shed 0.3% while the S&P 500 slipped less than a point with six sectors ending in the red.

Equity indices began the day in negative territory with only the Nasdaq (-0.04%) making a very brief appearance in the green. After sliding through the first hour of action, the major averages reversed and spent the remainder of the session climbing off their lows with help from the three top-weighted sectors. Health care and financials gained 0.4% and 0.04%, respectively, while technology (-0.1%) ended just below its flat line. Also contributing to the rebound was the energy sector, which added 0.2% even as crude oil fell 1.4% to $101.07/bbl.

The S&P 500 tried to regain its flat line, but came up just short as the weakness among consumer discretionary (-0.4%), industrials (-0.5%), and materials (-0.1%) sectors kept a lid on the attempted rally.

Although the materials sector accounts for less than 4.0% of the entire S&P 500, the group was a notable early laggard after China reported disappointing trade figures for February. The country's trade balance swung from a surplus to a deficit of $22.98 billion (expected surplus of $14.50 billion) as exports fell 18.1% (expected +6.8%) while imports grew 10.1% (consensus +8.0%). The big miss did not come without an excuse as the Lunar New Year, which took place at the start of the month, was cited for causing distortions to the report.

The trade figures put additional pressure on copper futures, which continued their recent weakness. The metal fell 1.3% to $3.042/lb after starting the year in the 3.400/lb area. Miners and steelmakers were also pressured with Freeport-McMoRan (FCX 31.38, -0.81) and Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 43.87, -0.75) sliding 2.5% and 1.7%, respectively.

Elsewhere, the industrial space was pressured by Boeing (BA 126.89, -1.65), which lost 1.3% after a 777 jet operated by Malaysia Airlines vanished over the South China Sea during the weekend. Separately, a Tokyo-bound 787 from San Francisco was forced to make an emergency landing in Hawaii due to engine issues. Although the industrial space finished at the bottom of the leaderboard, transports fared a bit better. The Dow Jones Transportation Average shed 0.2%, trimming its March gain to 3.2%.

Also of note, the discretionary sector spent the duration of the session among the laggards. Homebuilders ended broadly lower with the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 25.23, -0.49) falling 1.9%. Automakers also lagged with Ford (F 15.51, -0.11) and General Motors (GM 37.08, -0.61) ending lower by 0.7% and 1.6%, respectively.

The Treasury market spent the day inside a narrow range and the 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.78%.

Trading volume was well below average with just over 615 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Tomorrow, the January Wholesale Inventories report will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +3.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.4% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.0% YTD

DJ30 -34.04 NASDAQ -1.77 SP500 -0.87 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1149/1.95 bln/1423 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1306/615.7 mln/1707

3:35 pm :

Commodities ended the day mostly lower today with energy, excl natural gas, grains (corn, wheat and soybeans) and copper and silver all finishing in the red.
Gold and natural gas futures ended today's session higher.
Grains sold off today following the monthly USDA WASDE report.
Corn ended the day 2% lower at $4.87/bushel, soybeans lost 40 cents (or -2.7%) to $14.19/bu and wheat fell 14 cents (or ) to $6.39/bu.
Copper ended 1.6% to $3.03/lb following Friday's notable losses following news that China saw its "first" corporate bond default, with Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy unable to pay its debt in full today.
Since China is the largest importer of copper in the world, this kind of news is something to keep in mind.
Apr crude oil ended today's session $1.47/barrel lower at $101.07/barrel.
Apr nat gas rose 3 cents to $4.65/MMBtu.
April gold rose $3.80 to$1341.60/oz, May silver lost one cent to $20.91/oz.

4:19PM Qualcomm names Derek Aberle President (QCOM) 77.05 +0.26 : Co announced that Derek Aberle, executive vice president of Qualcomm Incorporated and group president has been promoted to president of Qualcomm Incorporated. Prior to his current role, Aberle held several roles within Qualcomm's Technology Licensing division, including EVP & president and SVP & general manager. In 2000, Aberle joined Qualcomm after representing the Company as outside counsel for several years at large, international law firms.

12:11PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ALXN (178.74 +6.36%): Raised FY14 EPS guidance to $4.37-4.47 from $3.70-3.80 (may not compare to $3.82 estimate), raised FY14 rev guidance to $2.15-2.17 bln from $2.00-2.02 bln (may not compare to $2.03 estimate)
FMC (82 +5.30%): Announced separation into two independent public companies; new FMC will be comprised of FMC Agricultural Solutions and FMC Health and Nutrition segments
FB (71.76 +2.81%): Target raised to $90 from $72 at UBS; target raised to $82 from $70 at Telsey Advisory Group

Large Cap Losers

VOD (38.3 -4.08%): FT reporting that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was negative on chances of Vodafone being acquired
SCCO (27.84 -4.00%): Weakness in metals stocks: GGB, FCX, TCK, BHP, AA, VALE also lower
BA (125.47 -2.39%): Weakness following a Reuters report of wing cracks on 787 Dreamliners in production; a Japanese Airlines 787 also made an emergency landing

Mid Cap Gainers

HIMX (15.62 +11.73%): Target raised to $20 from $17.50 at Northland Capital - early channel checks indicate that Q1 is tracking in-line or better than the firm's current model
NBG (5.15 +6.85%): Initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank
CVRR (22.64 +4.04%): Mentioned positively at Barron's

Mid Cap Losers

ATHM (45.46 -6.35%): Initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup
DDD (63.94 -5.01%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article
CLF (17.75 -4.83%): Initiated with a Sell at Axiom Capital

Kinoma, a unit within semiconductor company Marvell (MRVL) launched its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for Kinoma Create, the JavaScript-powered Internet of Things construction kit that helps software developers become makers, makers tackle projects with less hassle, and designers prototype products faster

7:16AM Trina Solar announces sale of Wuwei solar power plant to Huadian Fuxin (TSL) 18.34 : Co announced it has successfully sold its 50 MW solar power plant in Wuwei, Gansu province to Huadian Fuxin Energy Corporation. Huadian Fuxin will assume 100 percent ownership of the project from the co with the completion of the transaction.

Freescale Semi (FSL) confirmed that 20 of its employees were confirmed passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Twelve are from Malaysia and eight are from China.

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From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm : The major averages finished the Tuesday session near their lows with the Russell 2000 (-1.0%) leading the slide. The S&P 500 lost 0.5% with nine sectors ending in the red.

Equities indices started the day with modest gains and spent the first two hours of action in the neighborhood of their flat lines. Although the early trade lacked clear sector leadership, that could have been overlooked due to the strength among heavily-weighted sectors like health care (-0.3%), technology (-0.2%), and consumer staples (unch). The relative strength of the three groups kept the market afloat in the early going considering they account for nearly 42.0% of the entire S&P 500.

However, another influential sector-financials (-0.7%)-was a bit more reluctant and never pulled away from its flat line. Fittingly, the group was among the first to show weakness when the broader market slipped into the red.

Interestingly, the first wave of selling among financials coincided with a notable drop in copper futures, which have been pressured recently amid worries regarding the health of China's corporate sector. Today, the red metal fell 2.8% to $2.947/lb, a level last seen in mid-2010. Furthermore, the base metal extended its March decline to 7.5%. Considering copper's importance to global industry, significant weakness in the price of the metal can be seen as a cautious signal regarding the overall health of the global economy. Similarly, the financial sector is also viewed as a vital factor in global growth.

Although financials lagged, today's retreat came after the sector led last week's advance. Despite today's loss, the sector remains higher by 1.4% so far this year versus a 1.0% gain for the S&P 500. Top sector components with global exposure, however, have not seen comparable gains. Goldman Sachs (GS 169.89, -3.62) lost 2.1% today, widening its year-to-date decline to 3.4% while JPMorgan Chase (JPM 58.19, -1.01) slumped 1.7%, ending the session with a 0.5% loss so far in 2014.

Commodity-linked energy (-1.2%) and materials (-1.0%) also contributed to the slide while crude oil lost 1.1%, ending at $99.99/bbl.

Also of note, the huge intraday reversal in the fuel cell stocks today was another focal point that may have encouraged investors to take some money off the table. Plug Power (PLUG 6.92, -3.39), Fuel Cell (FCEL 3.28, -0.65), and Ballard Power (BLDP 5.10, -1.78), for instance, ended down 48.6%, 30.8%, and 39.1%, respectively, from today's high. A caustic report on Plug Power out of Citron Research contributed to the sharp reversal.

Treasuries held modest intraday losses, but jumped to highs as the market slid into the red. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended lower by two basis points at 2.76%.

Today's selling pressure contributed to demand for volatility protection, sending the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.81, +0.61) higher by 4.3%.

Participation was below average with 630 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the Wholesale Inventories report:

Wholesale inventories increased 0.6% in January after increasing an upwardly revised 0.4% (from 0.3%) in December. The Briefing.com consensus pegged inventory growth at 0.4%. Inventory growth in the durables sector slowed, increasing 0.4% in January after a 1.2% gain in December. Nondurable inventories rose 0.8% in January after falling 0.9% in December. Unfortunately, the strong gain in inventories was likely not planned. Sales, which edged up a slight 0.1% in December, crashed in January and fell 1.9%.

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

Nasdaq Composite +3.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.4% YTD

DJ30 -67.43 NASDAQ -27.26 SP500 -9.54 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 705/2.15 bln/1907 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 988/629.8 mln/2044

3:30 pm :

Apr gold dipped to a session low of $1337.80 per ounce in late morning action after trading as high as $1352.90 per ounce earlier in the session. However, the yellow metal managed to push back into positive territory and settled at $1346.50 per ounce, or 0.4% higher.
May silver pulled back from its session high of $21.33 per ounce and brushed a session low of $20.67 per ounce by late morning pit trade. It eventually settled with a 0.4% loss at $20.82 per ounce.
May copper extended losses for a third consecutive session as concerns over China and its financing deals weighed on the metal. It traded as low as $2.94 per pound, its lowest level since July 2010, and settled with a 2.6% loss at $2.95 per pound.
Apr crude oil extended yesterday's losses, falling below $100 per barrel for the first time since early February. The energy component brushed a session low of $99.88 per barrel as it headed towards the close and settled at $99.99 per barrel, or 1.1% lower.
Apr natural gas spent its entire floor session in the red, falling as low as $4.57 per MMBtu. Unable to find buying support, it settled 1.1% lower at $4.60 per MMBtu.

4:56PM Spansion: US District court dismisses Macronix's patent infringement case against Spansion (CODE) 16.24 -0.32 : Co announced that the United States District Court of Virginia has issued two orders in Spansion's favor. The first court order dismisses the case that Macronix had filed against Spansion, explaining that Macronix's allegations failed to state a valid case for patent infringement. In the second order, the court held that, if Macronix files another complaint, the case will be transferred to the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, which could take more than a year for a decision.

In Spansion's ITC case against Macronix, the trial is scheduled for the end of May 2014. "We expect a favorable final decision for Spansion's ITC investigation," senior vice president Ali Pourkeramati added.

4:10PM MagnaChip Semi: Audit Committee has determined that co incorrectly recognized revenue on certain transactions; will restate its financial statements (stock halted) (MX) 14.33 -0.46 : Co announced that the Audit Committee of the Company's Board of Directors has determined that the Company incorrectly recognized revenue on certain transactions and as a result will restate its financial statements. This conclusion is based upon preliminary findings of an ongoing internal review into practices and procedures by management, conducted at the Audit Committee's request by outside professional advisors and after consultation with management and the Company's independent auditors. Revenue on these transactions was recognized when products were shipped to a distributor but should have been recognized when the distributor shipped the product to the customer. As a result, revenue on these transactions will be reversed and recognized in the period when the products were shipped by the distributor.

The correction of the Company's revenue recognition methodology will be applied retroactively, which the Company currently expects will require the restatement of its financial statements for each of the first, second and third quarters of 2013 and 2012 and for the years ending 2012 and 2011.
The Company does not anticipate that the restatement will cause any changes to the previously reported cash and debt balances as of the end of each of the periods being restated. Based on preliminary unaudited results, the Company currently estimates that its balance of cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2013 was approximately $153.6 million.
As a result of the ongoing internal review and information known to date, the Company does not expect that it will be in a position to complete the restatement and preparation of its fourth quarter and full year 2013 financial statements and audit and file its Annual Report on Form 10-K before its due date of March 17, 2014. Accordingly, the Company expects to file a Form 12b-25 with the Securities and Exchange Commission and currently does not expect that the restatement and Form 10-K will be completed and filed within the 15-day extension period.
The Company also announced today that it has appointed Jonathan W. Kim as Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and principal accounting officer of the Company, effective immediately, and expects that Mr. Kim will assist in the financial statement restatement, accounting policy change and evaluation of internal controls associated with the Audit Committee's internal review. As a result of Mr. Kim's appointment, Margaret Sakai, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the Company, will no longer serve as the Company's principal accounting officer.

4:05PM VeriFone beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guides FY14 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (PAY) 29.26 -0.06 : Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.27; non-GAAP revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $437 mln vs the $428.65 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line EPS guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.30-0.32 vs. $0.31 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 non-GAAP revs of $440-445 vs. $438.90 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues upside EPS guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $1.40 vs. $1.39 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 non-GAAP revs of $1.78-1.81 bln vs. $1.79 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:21PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

GMCR (108.45 +4.29%): Coca-Cola (KO) disclosed 10.1% active stake in 13D filing; pursuant to Feb. agreement.
IRE (19.74 +3.35%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.

Large Cap Losers

BCS (15.84 -2.76%): Weakness in European financial names (RBS also lower).
ACMP (55.99 -2.55%): Announced pricing of secondary public offering of common units at $54.85 by Global Infrastructure Partners II.
GM (36.33 -2.04%): Co's slow response in recall to be investigated by US House, according to reports.

Mid Cap Gainers

JCP (9.18 +9%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup; tgt raised to $11 from $7.50.
UBNT (49.55 +5%): Initiated with a Outperform at Bernstein; tgt $65.
LGF (33.08 +4.06%): The Hunger Games: Catching Fire sold ~3.9 mln DVD and Blu-Ray units in first weekend of North American release.

Mid Cap Losers

MYGN (34.1 -9.66%): Co disclosed that the District Court denied its motion for preliminary injunctive relief against Ambry Genetics.
AEO (13.47 -5.21%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS below consensus.
URBN (35.88 -4.36%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, rev in-line with Feb 10 downside preannouncement; tgt lowered to $45 from $50 at Oppenheimer.

Synopsys (SNPS) announced that STMicroelectronics (STM) has standardized on Synopsys' IC Compiler place-and-route solution for all its CPU and GPU implementations inside its Design Enablement and Services organization.

Marvell (MRVL) announced that the Marvell ARMADA Mobile PXA986 is powering Samsung's (SSNLF) second generation7-inch tablet, the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite.

Axcelis Technologies (ACLS) has received a multiple system order for the co's new Purion XE single wafer, high energy implanter.

8:04AM GT Advanced Technologies signs agreement to supply $336 mln of equipment and technology for a 25,000 MTA polysilicon production facility in Sarawak, Malaysia (GTAT) : Co announces the signing of a $336 mln supply agreement with Cosmos Chemicals Berhad to provide equipment and technology for a 25,0000 metric ton annual polysilicon facility, a project sponsored by Saudi Arabia based Project Management & Development Company, that will be located in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Under the terms of the agreement, which is subject to financing, GTAT will supply its complete suite of polysilicon production equipment and technology including engineering services, hydrochlorination, SDR CVD reactors, filament production, and polysilicon processing. Cosmos Chemicals Berhad is currently securing final financing for the project. Contingent upon completion of this step, GTAT expects the project to commence in phases beginning with the commissioning of engineering work followed by an equipment order.

DSP (DSPG) announced that Grandstream has chosen DSP Group's DVF99 VoIP platform for its new GXP2140 and GXP2160 IP phone models

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The major averages ended the Wednesday session on a mixed note. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) and Russell 2000 (+0.3%) posted modest gains while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) finished in the red. For its part, the S&P 500 (+0.03%) settled just above its flat line.

Stocks began the day in the red, but spent the first two hours of action in a steady climb off their lows. The cautious start took place amid broad-based weakness across major European markets where Germany's DAX, Great Britain's FTSE, and France's CAC all posted losses close to 1.0% apiece.

In addition to the weakness in Europe, losses among major Asian indices also weighed on the early sentiment. On that note, markets in Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong fell 2.6%, 1.7%, and 1.7%, respectively, while China's Shanghai Composite (-0.2%) outperformed.

Even though China was an area of relative strength, jitters regarding the health of the country's financial system remained palpable. Copper futures continued yesterday's tumble overnight, but were able to regain those losses in the morning. The red metal added one cent, ending at $2.961/lb.

Although copper did not send the same warning signal as yesterday, gold futures and Treasuries reflected a measure of caution. Gold jumped 1.8% to $1370.60/ozt while Treasuries climbed steadily, ending on their highs. Bolstered by a solid 10-yr reopening, the benchmark note added 14 ticks, sending its yield lower by five basis points to 2.72%. The retreat in Treasury yields, gave a boost to the rate-sensitive utilities sector (+1.3%), which was the top performer among the 10 sectors.

Six of ten groups ended in the red while technology (+0.2%), energy (+0.04%), and consumer staples (+0.1%) fared a bit better than the broader market.

Technology drew strength from chipmakers (PHLX Semiconductor Index +0.9%) while the energy sector was underpinned by Chevron (CVX 115.65, +1.14). The stock rallied 1.0% after being added to the US Focus List at Credit Suisse. The staples sector benefitted from gains among food producers.

While the broader market did not move much during afternoon action, the same could not be said for shares of Herbalife (HLF 60.57, -4.82), which fell 7.4% after the company received a Civil Investigative Demand from the Federal Trade Commission. Herbalife responded to the notice, saying they welcome the inquiry due to 'tremendous amount of misinformation in the marketplace.'

Also of note, the daylong underperformance of three influential sectors-consumer discretionary (-0.1%), financials (-0.1%), and industrials (-0.2%)-kept the S&P 500 from pulling away from its flat line. Notably, the discretionary sector was pressured by apparel retailers after Express (EXPR 16.05, -2.19) missed on earnings and lowered its guidance well below analyst estimates. The stock plunged 12.0%.

Participation was on the light side with 646 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Another item of note that remained on the backburner, but has the potential to make a quick return to the forefront is the situation in Crimea.

This morning, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a joint press conference, announcing the European Union will sign parts of an association deal with Ukraine next week. In addition, Chancellor Merkel said the EU is set to impose additional sanctions on Moscow after Russian officials chose not to take part in a diplomatic contact group. This comes ahead of Sunday's referendum on Crimea joining the Russian Federation. With the referendum nearing, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will be in London tomorrow in hopes of meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

As the session drew to its close, President Obama, who met with Ukraine's acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk in Washington, said 'We will stand with Ukraine and consider Russian incursion into Crimea against the law'

Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which fell 2.1% to follow last week's increase of 9.4%.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims, February retail sales, and February import/export prices will be released at 8:30 ET while January business inventories will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 14:00 ET release of the February Treasury budget, which was originally scheduled for today.


Nasdaq Composite +3.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.7% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.4% YTD

DJ30 -11.17 NASDAQ +16.14 SP500 +0.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1479/2.00 bln/1168 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1770/645.6 mln/1293 3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded higher today as a weaker dollar index boosted prices.
Apr gold rose for a third consecutive session and climbed as high as $1371.30 per ounce in late afternoon pit trade. It settled at $1370.60 per ounce, booking a gain of 1.8%.
May silver came off its session low of $20.95 per ounce set moments after floor trade opened. It touched a session high of $21.43 per ounce and settled with a 2.6% gain at $21.36 per ounce.
Apr crude oil fell for a third consecutive session following weaker-than-anticipated inventory data. The EIA reported that for the week ending Mar 7, crude oil inventories had a build of 6.18 mln barrels when a smaller build of 2.0-2.2 mln barrels was expected. In addition, the government announced plans to sell 5 mln barrels of sour crude from the SPR to test system capabilities. The energy component dipped to a session low of $97.55 per barrel and settled at $97.99 per barrel, or 2.0% lower.
Apr natural gas extended yesterday's losses as it pulled back from its session high of $4.59 per MMBtu set at pit trade open. It fell as low as $4.45 per MMBtu and settled with a 2.4% loss at $4.49 per MMBtu

3:57PM Exelis settles GPS patent infringement claim against Blackberry; terms confidential (XLS) 19.92 -0.17 : Co has reached a license agreement with Blackberry regarding patent infringement claims related to Exelis assisted Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. The license agreement resolves all issues regarding the company's claim that the mobile devices and components sold or supported by Blackberry, incorporating assisted GPS technology, infringed Exelis patent rights. Specific details of the license agreement will remain confidential.

12:39PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TSLA (241.8 +3.15%): Rebounding following declines seen yesterday on reports that the state of New Jersey has blocked direct sales of carsVMW (106.45 +2.60%): Added to US Focuse List at Credit Suisse GMCR (107.99 +1.66%): Mentioned positively at Barron's Large Cap Losers
PGR (23.7 -3.34%): Reported Feb 2014 net income of $0.08 versus $0.17 in Feb 2013; reported Feb 2014 net premiums written rose 3% yoy to $1.538 bln
VIP (8.61 -2.71%): Announced it is under investigation by the SEC
Mid Cap Gainers
PAY (32.28 +10.38%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.31 ex items vs $0.27 estimate), revs rose 1.6% yoy to $437 mln vs $428.65 mln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of $0.30-0.32 vs $0.31 estimate, revs of $440-445 mln vs $438.90 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.40 vs $1.39 estimate, revs $1.78-1.81 bln vs $1.79 bln estimate; upgraded to Hold from Sell at Deutsche Bank; target raised to $43 from $37 at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey
NUS (79.36 +8.03%): Seeing rumors of positive developments regarding status of co's regulatory review in China; HLF also higher
RAD (6.79 +5.39%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman
Mid Cap Losers
CZR (24.2 -5.36%): Reported Q4 loss of $12.83 per share, revs rose 3.1% yoy to $2.08 bln vs $2.13 bln estimate
SALE (37.72 -4.34%): Co's final lock up period expired today; analysts at Wunderlich noted that lock up expiration could prompt additional profit taking
AEO (12.6 -3.85%): Downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; target lowered to $13 from $14

11:55AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (72) outpacing new lows (40) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, ABCB, ACU, ATVI, BCR, BLMT, BPZ, BRK.A, BRK.B, CBZ, CELH, CISG, CLD, CPS, CPST, CTP, CUI, DBD, DFRG, DMND, DPS, EA, ESCA, FCH, GHC, GLUU, HST, IPG, ISIL, ITC, JACK, KNX, KONA, LADR, LDL, LHO, LUV, MAYS, MPC, MUX, NSC, ONTY, OXGN, PAY, PEB, PHX, PNK, PQ, PRMW, PSX, PUK, PX, QUMU, RARE, RCAP, RLOG, SBSA, SHEN, SPIL, SQBG, SZYM, TAS, TCBI, TOWR, TRNS, TSH, TXN, UCTT, VLO, VMW, VSB, YDKN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEPI, AH, AKO.A, ANR, AVNW, BAK, BIOC, CHL, CHU, CORR, CTCM, DMD, EGT, EPB, EXPR, FBR, HDY, HNP, HRZN, HSBC, KMG, KMI, KT, LAQ, LEI, MX, NEWL, PSO, PVD, QSII, RIG, RLOC, STLY, TEU, TLM, VHC, VHI, VIP, WLT, YZC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DBA, FXE, FXF, GREK, JO

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JJC, RSX

ANADIGICS (ANAD) announced that the co's AWL9281 front-end integrated circuit is enabling WiFi connectivity in the Ascend P6S smartphone by Huawei.

8:38AM Capstone Turbine receives follow-on orders for 50 C65s from Horizon Power Systems for Multiple U.S. Oil and Gas customers (CPST) 2.18 : Co received orders for fifty Capstone C65 microturbines for oil and gas production in the United States. Horizon Power Systems, Capstone's exclusive oil and gas distributor for the Eagle Ford, Permian, San Juan and Wattenberg Shale plays, secured the orders to support the growing power needs of its existing customers. The orders will bring the total fleet to more than 550 microturbines in operation in Horizon's area of responsibility and will serve various stages of oil and gas production including powering central processing stations, well-head operation, and flare reduction.

7:06AM UTStarcom announces Shah Capital subscribed for and purchased 2 mln shares of common stock from the co for a price of $2.67 per share; Shah Capital's beneficial ownership in the co increased from 21.9% to 26.0% (UTSI) 2.55 :

Co announced that it entered into a Share Subscription Agreement with Shah Capital Opportunity Fund on March 11, 2014. The transaction was consummated on the same date.
Pursuant to the Subscription Agreement, Shah Capital subscribed for and purchased 2 mln shares of common stock, with par value $0.00375 per share, from the co for a price of $2.67 per share.
Following the close of the transaction, Shah Capital's beneficial ownership in the co increased from 21.9% to 26.0%. The purchase was made on top of the recent increase of ownership that occurred in Jan 2013, at which time Shah Capital increased its holdings from 17.2%.

VeriFone (PAY) reported first quarter earnings of $0.31 per share, while non-GAAP revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $437 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $0.30-0.32 which is line with estimates and revenues of non-GAAP $440-445 million which is above estimates. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $1.40 which is slightly above estimates and revenues of Non-GAAP $1.78-1.81 billion which is line with estimates.
Kopin (KOPN) reports Q4 EPS of ($0.16) which is below estimates and revenues of $5.5 miliion which is higher than expected. The company sees 2014 revenues of $18-22 million which is below estimates. 'There are strong signs that wearable headsets will begin to be introduced starting in late 2014 and grow rapidly into 2015. For Kopin, we expect to have our first generation components as well as concept and reference systems ready by the end of this summer, and then prepare for component manufacturing in the second half of 2014, with substantial wearable revenue growth expected in 2015."
Spansion (CODE) announced that the United States District Court of Virginia has issued two orders in Spansion's favor. The first court order dismisses the case that Macronix had filed against Spansion, explaining that Macronix's allegations failed to state a valid case for patent infringement. In the second order, the court held that, if Macronix files another complaint, the case will be transferred to the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, which could take more than a year for a decision. In Spansion's ITC case against Macronix, the trial is scheduled for the end of May 2014. "We expect a favorable final decision for Spansion's ITC investigation," senior vice president Ali Pourkeramati added.

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From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm : The major averages finished the Thursday session near their lows after renewed concerns surrounding the situation in Ukraine, combined with more warnings signs from China, contributed to participants reducing their risk exposure. The jitters related to China are tied up in economic and financial risk, whereas, the concerns over Ukraine are tied up in geopolitical risk that has the potential to become a global economic problem.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq (-1.5%) led the retreat while the S&P 500 lost 1.2% with eight sectors ending in the red. As a result, the benchmark index settled below its 2013 closing high of 1848.36.

Equity indices began the session with modest gains, but the early strength was short-lived as the S&P 500 notched its high within the first ten minutes of action, spending the remainder of the trading day in a steady slide. Although stocks opened higher, the dollar/yen pair flashed an early warning signal when it began dropping at the start of the New York Session. The currency pair hovered near 102.80, but slumped all the way to 101.60 by the time the closing bell rang.

The yen often draws safe-haven interest in times of geopolitical distress and today's move basically snowballed given carry-trade dynamics that work against yen-based borrowers when the currency strengthens. In turn, the sharp move weighed on risk assets, including US stocks.

Continued worries about the strength of the Chinese economy fed into the risk-off posture after industrial production (8.6% year-over-year versus 9.5% expected), fixed asset investment (17.9% year-over-year versus 19.4% expected), and retail sales (11.8% year-over-year versus 13.5% expected) all fell short of estimates. Copper futures have been pressured recently, and continued retreating today. The red metal fell 1.3% to $2.923/lb.

Elsewhere, the dispute between Russia and Ukraine jumped back into focus after Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov was quoted by Reuters as saying he believes Russian forces concentrated on Ukraine's eastern border are 'ready to invade.' The comments were followed by a statement from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who said if the Sunday referendum goes ahead as planned there will be a 'serious series of steps' taking place on Monday from the United States and Europe.

Notably, Treasuries, which began climbing just after the start of the New York session, accelerated their advance following the remarks from President Turchynov. The 10-yr note added 24 ticks, sending the benchmark yield lower by nine basis points to 2.65%.

Similarly, volatility protection was in high demand as indicated by an 12.1% increase in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 16.22, +1.75).

Nine sectors posted losses with cyclical groups bearing the brunt of the weakness. The tech sector (-1.6%) registered the largest decline while industrials (-1.5%) and consumer discretionary (-1.4%) followed not far behind. The underperformance of technology weighed on the Nasdaq, which also suffered from the relative weakness of biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 254.80, -6.70) tumbled 2.6%. Biotech also weighed on the health care sector (-1.4%), which was the only laggard among countercyclical groups.

The remaining defensive sectors-consumer staples (-0.6%), telecom services (-0.4%), and utilities (+0.9%)-outperformed with utilities overtaking the health care sector for the top spot on this year's leaderboard. The rate-sensitive sector extended its year-to-date gain to 6.2% versus 5.6% for health care.

Despite the daylong selling pressure, participation was below average with 678 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Reviewing today's data:

Retail sales increased 0.3% in February after declining a downwardly revised 0.6% (from -0.4%) in January. The Briefing.com consensus expected retail sales to increase 0.2%.The report was pretty solid, but did not represent an upward shock that would come as a result of pent up winter-delayed demand. Sales increased in-line with the 0.2% increase in aggregate earnings that were reported in the February employment report. We would have expected a bigger upward swing if pent up demand was unleashed.
The initial claims level fell to 315,000 for the week ending March 8 from an upwardly revised 324,000 (from 323,000) for the week ending March 1. The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to increase to 329,000. The DOL reported that there were no special factors that drove the initial claims level to its lowest point since November 2013.
Total business inventories increased 0.4% in January after increasing an unrevised 0.5% in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%. Total inventories consist of manufacturers, merchant wholesalers, and retailers. Both manufacturer (0.2%) and wholesaler (0.6%) inventories were announced prior to the release. The only unknown was retailer inventories, which increased 0.4% in January after increasing 0.7% in December. The important takeaway from the report was that the inventory gain may not have been planned. Total business sales fell 0.9% in January after declining 0.1% in December. That sharp drop in spending caused an overstock situation as more goods than expected were left on shelves.
The Treasury Budget for February showed a deficit of $193.50 billion, which followed the prior month's deficit of $203.50 billion. The Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $195.00 billion.

Tomorrow, February PPI will be released at 8:30 ET while the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment Survey for March will cross the wires at 9:55 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +2.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.5% YTD
S&P 500 -0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.8% YTD

DJ30 -231.19 NASDAQ -62.91 SP500 -21.86 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 619/2.15 bln/2186 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 975/678.1 mln/2085

3:30 pm :

Apr gold and May silver fell to their respective session lows of $1364.90 per ounce and $21.10 per ounce in early morning pit trade on better-than-anticipated retail sales and initial claims data.
Retail sales increased 0.3% in Feb after declining a downwardly revised 0.6% (from -0.4%) in Jan. TheBriefing.com consensus expected retail sales to increase 0.2%. The initial claims level fell to 315,000 for the week ending March 8 from an upwardly revised 324,000 (from 323,000) for the week ending March 1. TheBriefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to increase to 329,000.
Gold then gained support from a weaker dollar index and rose above the unchanged line by afternoon action. It brushed a session high of $1375.40 per ounce and settled with a 0.1% gain at $1372.10 per ounce. Silver touched a session high of $21.34 per ounce in afternoon floor trade but lost momentum ahead of the close and settled with a 0.9% loss at $21.17 per ounce.
Apr crude oil see-sawed between positive and negative territory today. It dipped to a session low of $97.67 per barrel moments after floor trade opened and later touched a session high of $98.44 per barrel. The energy component eventually settled 0.3% higher at $98.26 per barrel.
Apr natural gas spent its entire floor session in the red, with prices falling as low as $4.36 per MMBtu. The weakness came on inventory data that showed a draw of 195 bcf when a draw of 191-196 bcf was anticipated. Unable to find buying support, natural gas settled 2.2% lower at $4.39 per MMBtu.

5:47PM Diodes maintains Q1 guidance for revs of $205-213 mln vs $208.85 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate (DIOD) 24.59 -0.26 : Co also sees Q1 GAAP gross margin to be 28.8 percent, plus or minus 2 percent; GAAP operating expenses to be 22.5 percent of revenue, plus or minus 1 percent; income tax rate to range between 19 and 25 percent, and shares used to calculate GAAP EPS to be approximately 48.2 million.

4:30PM QLogic completes acquisition of certain ethernet controller-related assets from Broadcom (BRCM); reaffirms Q4 guidance (QLGC) 11.72 -0.06 : Co announced it has completed the acquisition of the 10/40/100Gb Ethernet controller-related assets from Broadcom, pursuant to the definitive agreement that was previously announced on February 18, 2014. Under the terms of the agreement, QLogic paid approximately $147 million. In addition, QLogic entered into a license agreement that will cover its Fibre Channel products and made a one-time payment of $62 million.

QLogic announced today that it is also implementing a restructuring plan designed to consolidate its product roadmap in connection with the completion of the Broadcom transaction. The restructuring plan includes a workforce reduction primarily associated with the consolidation of its engineering activities and is expected to be substantially completed within the next three months. In connection with these restructuring activities, the company expects to incur pre-tax GAAP charges between $13 million and $16 million, the majority of which are expected to be recorded in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year ending March 30, 2014.

QLogic is also reaffirming its previously provided fourth quarter financial guidance of EPS $0.19-0.25 vs $0.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, revs of $110-116 mln vs $113.24 consensus). QLogic will discuss the financial impact of the transaction during its fourth quarter earnings call. Further, as previously disclosed, the company expects the acquisition to be accretive to revenue and non-GAAP earnings in the first quarter and for the full year of fiscal 2015.

3:22PM SanDisk files lawsuit against SK Hynix for theft of trade secrets (SNDK) 73.40 -1.61 : Co announced that it has filed a civil lawsuit against Korea's SK Hynix, Inc., SK Hynix America and related entities in Santa Clara Superior Court. The lawsuit seeks damages, an injunction and other remedies against Hynix for trade secret misappropriation under California's Uniform Trade Secret Act. Additionally, SanDisk has submitted a criminal complaint with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department against a former employee.

These actions relate to the theft of trade secrets related to NAND flash technology by a former engineer of SanDisk who left the company in 2008 to work for SK Hynix. This engineer is alleged to have illegally taken SanDisk's proprietary technical information and to have subsequently provided it to SK Hynix.

Tokyo Metropolitan Police today announced the arrest of the former employee, who worked at SanDisk's joint venture manufacturing facility in Yokkaichi, Japan. SanDisk has been and continues to cooperate with law enforcement in their investigation.

12:16PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

AMZN (378.43 +2.1%): Co raised Amazon Prime and Amazon Student Prime membership fee, as expected.
ACT (215.1 +1.28%): Co confirmed favorable ruling in generic Celebrex patent suit.
ATVI (20.95 +1.7%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.

Large Cap Losers

NOV (75.08 -2.88%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at ISI Group.
DG (57.9 -2.35%): Reported EPS in-line, missed on revs; guided Q1 and FY15 below consensus.
NTAP (37.27 -1.53%): Disclosed ~600 employee reduction; expects to incur aggregate charges of ~$35 -45 mln; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Lake Street Capital Mkts; initiated with a Hold at Wunderlich; tgt $44.

Mid Cap Gainers

WSM (65.33 +10.79%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guided FY15 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; Q4 comps +10.4%; increased quarterly dividend 6.45% to $0.33 from $0.31 per share; tgt raised to $63 from $59 at Canaccord Genuity; removed from US Focus list at Citigroup; tgt raised to $66 at RBC Capital Mkts.
CCJ (25.06 +3.43%): Announced ore production has begun at the Cigar Lake uranium mining operation in northern Saskatchewan.
APL (31.38 +4.01%): Priced offering of 4.4 mln of 8.25% Class E Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Units at $25.00 per unit.

Mid Cap Losers

GOGO (22.38 -6.28%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; guided FY14 revs in-line.
NMBL (43.08 -5.94%): Initiated with a Hold at Wunderlich; tgt $48.
FIG (7.94 -5.14%): Announced launch of 28.28 mln share offering of Class A shares; certain officers and senior employees selling ~5.08 mln shares in the offering.

Cypress Semiconductor (CY) announced a new USB 3.0 hub controller certified by the USB Implementers Forum for the SuperSpeed USB 5 Gbps standard.

Plug Power (PLUG 7.56, +0.76): +11.2% after reporting in-line earnings on above-consensus revenue.

NetApp (NTAP) On March 12, 2014, the co committed to a business realignment plan designed to focus its resources on key strategic initiatives and streamline its business in light of the constrained IT spending environment. The Company expects that the business realignment plan will be implemented through the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2015 and will include changes to the Company's worldwide headcount. As part of the business realignment plan, the Company expects to reduce worldwide headcount by ~600 employees. The company expects to incur aggregate charges of ~$35 to $45 million for employee

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Record margin debt poses risk for bull market
Adam Shell, USA TODAY 7:36 a.m. EDT March 12, 2014

NEW YORK — The amount of money investors borrowed from Wall Street brokers to buy stocks rose for a seventh straight month in January to a record $451.3 billion, a potential warning sign that in the past has coincided with irrational exuberance and stock market tops.

Borrowing money or using leverage to buy a house or a car is a sign of confidence. But getting a loan from a broker to finance stock purchases might be a sign of overconfidence in the outlook for the market, especially one trading in record-high territory, as is the current Wall Street bull.

"One characteristic of getting closer to a market top is a major expansion in margin debt," says Gary Kaltbaum, president of Kaltbaum Capital Management. "Expanding market debt fuels the bull market and is an investors' best friend when stocks are rising. The problem is when the market turns (lower), it is the market's worst enemy."

STOCKS: Wall Street on lookout for signs of market top

What are the risks of buying on margin? If the value of the securities you buy falls in value, your margin account may fall below the minimum value required by your broker, which is generally 25% of your total investment. That account deficiency results in a "margin call," in which your broker either asks you to pony up more cash to replenish your account back to the required minimum, or sells securities in your account without your permission to raise the cash to meet the "house minimum."

"Forced liquidations can occur," says Price Headley, CEO of BigTrends.com. "If the decline in the market is dramatic, it can cause a true flush-out, when everyone is getting forced out by margin calls."

In dollar terms, the current amount of "margin debt" dwarfs the amount borrowed near the past two stock market peaks in 2007 and 2000, according to New York Stock Exchange data. In March 2000, a then-record $278.5 billion in borrowed money was riding on stocks just as the Internet-stock bubble began bursting. The next record for margin debt didn't occur until July 2007, when broker-supplied loans to investors swelled to $381.4 billion just three months ahead of the market peak and coming financial crisis in 2008.

While the level of margin debt as both a percentage of U.S. economic growth and total value of the U.S. stock market is roughly in line with the prior two peaks, there's still reason for concern, given that the bull is five-years old and has delivered a gain of almost 180%, says Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial.

"Reaching such a peak in margin debt doesn't mean a correction is imminent; we can always go higher," McMillan says. "But it does suggest we're in elevated territory, and the conditions may be appropriate for a correction."

FINANCIAL CRISIS: Market lessons 5 years later

Margin debt works like this: The Federal Reserve limits the amount of borrowed money you can use to fund a stock purchase to 50%. So a purchase of, say, $16,000 in shares of a stock will require $8,000 of your own money. Let's say your investment plunges 40%, reducing the value to $9,600. Your margin account balance would fall to $1,600, so your broker would hit you up with a margin call for $800 to bring your minimum margin account balance back up to $2,400, or 25% of $9,600.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 14-Mar-14

Dow -43.22 at 16065.67, Nasdaq -15.02 at 4245.40, S&P -5.21 at 1841.13

The major averages ended the week on a lower note as participants continued reducing their risk exposure ahead of the weekend, which will feature a Sunday referendum in Crimea on potential annexation to Russia.

The stock market opened with modest losses, but made a quick recovery with help from most sectors; however, the S&P 500 (-0.3%) was unable to make a sustained move above the 1852 level, which marked the session high for the benchmark index.

After making an early jump to highs, the S&P 500 spent the next hour in a steady retreat towards its session lows as the three top weighted sectors-financials (-0.6%), technology (-0.7%), and health care (-0.5%)-refused to take part in the rally. The three groups remained among the laggards throughout the day, keeping the broader market from maintaining its gain after the major averages jumped back into the green in the late morning.

The return into positive territory occurred after comments from the press conference held by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the rounds. Specifically, Mr. Lavrov said Russia has no intentions of invading Eastern Ukraine. That remark gained the most traction, but Mr. Lavrov continued, saying U.S. and Russia remain at odds regarding Ukraine and that Russia does not need any international structure to mediate in Russia-Ukraine relations.

After the Russian Foreign Minister delivered his statement, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry conducted a press conference of his own. Secretary Kerry said that despite prolonged discussions with his Russian counterpart, not much has changed and that the Sunday referendum remains on schedule.

Although stocks made their way back into the green after Mr. Lavrov's press conference, they spent the afternoon in a slow retreat as the largest sectors weighed. Interestingly, small caps outperformed with the Russell 2000 holding a modest gain throughout the session. The index ended higher by 0.4% while large caps were not as fortunate.

The technology sector (-0.7%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard. The space was pressured by its largest members. Apple (AAPL 524.69, -5.96), Google (GOOG 1172.80, -16.26), and Qualcomm (QCOM 74.74, -0.89) lost between 1.1% and 1.3%.

Elsewhere, the financial sector (-0.6%) trimmed its month-to-date gain to 0.4%. Even though the sector maintained its gain for the month, it surrendered its year-to-date advance (-0.5%). Top sector components registered losses across the board with Bank of America (BAC 16.80, -0.36) leading the weakness with a 2.1% decline.

Even though stocks finished on their lows, Treasuries did not move much during afternoon action. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended little changed at 2.65% versus 2.72% registered last Friday.

While Treasuries did not signal additional safe-haven flows today, the foreign exchange market did. The Japanese yen continued its recent strength, sending the dollar/yen pair to the 101.30 area after starting the week around 103.30.

Volatility protection was in demand throughout the session, pushing the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 17.77, +1.55) to levels last seen on February 6.

Similar to yesterday, trading volume was on the light side with only 628 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Looking back at today's data:

Producer prices declined 0.1% in February after increasing 0.2% in January while the Briefing.com consensus expected producer prices to increase 0.2%. The drop in producer prices was the result of a sharp drop in producer services costs. Final demand for goods rose 0.4% for a third consecutive month whereas final demand for services declined 0.3% in February. Excluding food and energy, overall core prices declined 0.2% in February after increasing 0.2% in January. The consensus expected these prices to increase 0.1%.
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index slipped to 79.9 in the March preliminary reading from 81.6 in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 82.0. The Current Conditions Index increased to 96.1 from 95.4 in February. The Expectations Index fell to 69.4 in March from 72.7.

On Monday, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for March will be announced at 8:30 ET while the January Net Long-Term TIC Flows report will cross the wires at 9:00 ET. The Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report for February will be released at 9:15 ET while the day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the NAHB Housing Market Index for March.

Week in Review: Stocks Slump as Focus Turns Back to Ukraine

The major averages began the new trading week on a slightly lower note with small caps leading the weakness. The Russell 2000 shed 0.3% while the S&P 500 slipped less than a point with six sectors ending in the red. Equity indices started the day in negative territory with only the Nasdaq (-0.04%) making a very brief appearance in the green. After sliding through the first hour of action, the major averages reversed and spent the remainder of the session climbing off their lows with help from the three top-weighted sectors. Health care and financials gained 0.4% and 0.04%, respectively, while technology (-0.1%) ended just below its flat line. Also contributing to the rebound was the energy sector, which added 0.2% even as crude oil fell 1.4% to $101.07/bbl. The S&P 500 tried to regain its flat line, but came up just short as the weakness among consumer discretionary (-0.4%), industrials (-0.5%), and materials (-0.1%) sectors kept a lid on the attempted rally.

Stocks finished the Tuesday session near their lows with the Russell 2000 (-1.0%) leading the slide. The S&P 500 lost 0.5% with nine sectors ending in the red. The key indices started the day with modest gains and spent the first two hours of action in the neighborhood of their flat lines. Although the early trade lacked clear sector leadership, that was overlooked due to the opening strength among heavily-weighted sectors like health care (-0.3%), technology (-0.2%), and consumer staples (unch). The relative strength of the three groups kept the market afloat in the early going considering they account for nearly 42.0% of the entire S&P 500. However, another influential sector-financials (-0.7%)-was a bit more reluctant and never pulled away from its flat line. Fittingly, the group was among the first to show weakness when the broader market slipped into the red while the other sectors followed suit.

On Wednesday, the market finished the session on a mixed note. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) and Russell 2000 (+0.3%) posted modest gains while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) finished in the red. For its part, the S&P 500 (+0.03%) settled just above its flat line. Stocks began the day in the red, but spent the first two hours of action in a steady climb off their lows. The cautious start took place amid broad-based weakness across major European markets where Germany's DAX, Great Britain's FTSE, and France's CAC all posted losses close to 1.0% apiece. In addition to the weakness in Europe, losses among major Asian indices also weighed on the early sentiment. On that note, markets in Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong fell 2.6%, 1.7%, and 1.7%, respectively, while China's Shanghai Composite (-0.2%) outperformed.

The stock market ended the Thursday session near the lows after renewed concerns surrounding the situation in Ukraine, combined with more warnings signs from China, contributed to participants reducing their risk exposure. The jitters related to China are tied up in economic and financial risk, whereas, the concerns over Ukraine are tied up in geopolitical risk that has the potential to become a global economic problem. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (-1.5%) led the retreat while the S&P 500 lost 1.2% with eight sectors ending in the red. As a result, the benchmark index settled below its 2013 closing high of 1848.36. Equity indices began the session with modest gains, but the early strength was short-lived as the S&P 500 notched its high within the first ten minutes of action, spending the remainder of the trading day in a steady slide. Although stocks opened higher, the dollar/yen pair flashed an early warning signal when it began dropping at the start of the New York Session. The currency pair hovered near 102.80, but slumped all the way to 101.60 by the time the closing bell rang.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 16452.72 16065.67 -387.05 -2.4 -3.1
Nasdaq 4336.22 4245.40 -90.82 -2.1 1.6
S&P 500 1878.04 1841.13 -36.91 -2.0 -0.4
Russell 2000 1203.32 1181.41 -21.91 -1.8 1.5

5:03PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: CALL (22.76 +24.71%)
Services: VLCCF (14 +26.13%), BYD (13.82 +14.4%)
Industrial Goods: CPST (2.22 +21.31%)
Healthcare: CMRX (27.14 +44.9%), TSRO (36.76 +21.88%), AMRI (18.81 +20.42%), VNDA (17.65 +15.21%), UNIS (4.8 +14.56%)
Financial: CISG (8.94 +22.13%)
Basic Materials: SAND (6.71 +26.37%), EPL (38.05 +26.08%), BPZ (2.97 +20.73%), MUX (3.56 +18.27%), PPP (7.8 +16.59%), ANV (6.39 +15.97%), EMES (53.25 +15.76%), GFI (4.36 +15.65%), ALJ (15.94 +14.59%), NG (4.57 +13.4%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: VRNS (42 -21.47%), PLUG (6.71 -18.86%), YOKU (29.16 -18.11%), CUDA (34.69 -17.09%), TSL (15.26 -16.79%)
Services: DL (19.73 -25.46%), HELI (7.26 -25%), BPI (14.55 -24.53%), HTHT (23.44 -21.47%), ARO (5.83 -21%), HMIN (30.55 -18.66%), QUNR (29.03 -18.29%), DANG (15.54 -16.72%), WBAI (41.43 -16.3%)
Industrial Goods: AMRC (7.52 -25.62%), RAVN (32.44 -17.1%)
Healthcare: RPTP (11.25 -27.93%), PETX (17.03 -17.21%)
Financial: RM (24.45 -19.52%), WRLD (81.03 -17.7%)

4:23PM Closing Market Summary: Stocks End Down Week on Cautious Note Ahead of Crimean Referendum (WRAPX) : The major averages ended the week on a lower note as participants continued reducing their risk exposure ahead of the weekend, which will feature a Sunday referendum in Crimea on potential annexation to Russia.

The stock market opened with modest losses, but made a quick recovery with help from most sectors; however, the S&P 500 (-0.3%) was unable to make a sustained move above the 1852 level, which marked the session high for the benchmark index.

After making an early jump to highs, the S&P 500 spent the next hour in a steady retreat towards its session lows as the three top weighted sectors-financials (-0.6%), technology (-0.7%), and health care (-0.5%)-refused to take part in the rally. The three groups remained among the laggards throughout the day, keeping the broader market from maintaining its gain after the major averages jumped back into the green in the late morning.

The return into positive territory occurred after comments from the press conference held by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the rounds. Specifically, Mr. Lavrov said Russia has no intentions of invading Eastern Ukraine. That remark gained the most traction, but Mr. Lavrov continued, saying U.S. and Russia remain at odds regarding Ukraine and that Russia does not need any international structure to mediate in Russia-Ukraine relations.

After the Russian Foreign Minister delivered his statement, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry conducted a press conference of his own. Secretary Kerry said that despite prolonged discussions with his Russian counterpart, not much has changed and that the Sunday referendum remains on schedule.

Although stocks made their way back into the green after Mr. Lavrov's press conference, they spent the afternoon in a slow retreat as the largest sectors weighed. Interestingly, small caps outperformed with the Russell 2000 holding a modest gain throughout the session. The index ended higher by 0.4% while large caps were not as fortunate.

The technology sector (-0.7%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard. The space was pressured by its largest members. Apple (AAPL 524.69, -5.96), Google (GOOG 1172.80, -16.26), and Qualcomm (QCOM 74.74, -0.89) lost between 1.1% and 1.3%.

Elsewhere, the financial sector (-0.6%) trimmed its month-to-date gain to 0.4%. Even though the sector maintained its gain for the month, it surrendered its year-to-date advance (-0.5%). Top sector components registered losses across the board with Bank of America (BAC 16.80, -0.36) leading the weakness with a 2.1% decline.

Even though stocks finished on their lows, Treasuries did not move much during afternoon action. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended little changed at 2.65% versus 2.72% registered last Friday.

While Treasuries did not signal additional safe-haven flows today, the foreign exchange market did. The Japanese yen continued its recent strength, sending the dollar/yen pair to the 101.30 area after starting the week around 103.30.

Volatility protection was in demand throughout the session, pushing the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 17.77, +1.55) to levels last seen on February 6.

Similar to yesterday, trading volume was on the light side with only 628 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Looking back at today's data:

Producer prices declined 0.1% in February after increasing 0.2% in January while the Briefing.com consensus expected producer prices to increase 0.2%. The drop in producer prices was the result of a sharp drop in producer services costs. Final demand for goods rose 0.4% for a third consecutive month whereas final demand for services declined 0.3% in February. Excluding food and energy, overall core prices declined 0.2% in February after increasing 0.2% in January. The consensus expected these prices to increase 0.1%.
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index slipped to 79.9 in the March preliminary reading from 81.6 in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 82.0. The Current Conditions Index increased to 96.1 from 95.4 in February. The Expectations Index fell to 69.4 in March from 72.7.

On Monday, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for March will be announced at 8:30 ET while the January Net Long-Term TIC Flows report will cross the wires at 9:00 ET. The Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report for February will be released at 9:15 ET while the day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the NAHB Housing Market Index for March.

Russell 2000 +1.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.7% YTD
S&P 500 -0.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.1% YTD

Week in Review: Stocks Slump as Focus Turns Back to Ukraine

The major averages began the new trading week on a slightly lower note with small caps leading the weakness. The Russell 2000 shed 0.3% while the S&P 500 slipped less than a point with six sectors ending in the red. Equity indices started the day in negative territory with only the Nasdaq (-0.04%) making a very brief appearance in the green. After sliding through the first hour of action, the major averages reversed and spent the remainder of the session climbing off their lows with help from the three top-weighted sectors. Health care and financials gained 0.4% and 0.04%, respectively, while technology (-0.1%) ended just below its flat line. Also contributing to the rebound was the energy sector, which added 0.2% even as crude oil fell 1.4% to $101.07/bbl. The S&P 500 tried to regain its flat line, but came up just short as the weakness among consumer discretionary (-0.4%), industrials (-0.5%), and materials (-0.1%) sectors kept a lid on the attempted rally.

Stocks finished the Tuesday session near their lows with the Russell 2000 (-1.0%) leading the slide. The S&P 500 lost 0.5% with nine sectors ending in the red. The key indices started the day with modest gains and spent the first two hours of action in the neighborhood of their flat lines. Although the early trade lacked clear sector leadership, that was overlooked due to the opening strength among heavily-weighted sectors like health care (-0.3%), technology (-0.2%), and consumer staples (unch). The relative strength of the three groups kept the market afloat in the early going considering they account for nearly 42.0% of the entire S&P 500. However, another influential sector-financials (-0.7%)-was a bit more reluctant and never pulled away from its flat line. Fittingly, the group was among the first to show weakness when the broader market slipped into the red while the other sectors followed suit.

On Wednesday, the market finished the session on a mixed note. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) and Russell 2000 (+0.3%) posted modest gains while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) finished in the red. For its part, the S&P 500 (+0.03%) settled just above its flat line. Stocks began the day in the red, but spent the first two hours of action in a steady climb off their lows. The cautious start took place amid broad-based weakness across major European markets where Germany's DAX, Great Britain's FTSE, and France's CAC all posted losses close to 1.0% apiece. In addition to the weakness in Europe, losses among major Asian indices also weighed on the early sentiment. On that note, markets in Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong fell 2.6%, 1.7%, and 1.7%, respectively, while China's Shanghai Composite (-0.2%) outperformed.

The stock market ended the Thursday session near the lows after renewed concerns surrounding the situation in Ukraine, combined with more warnings signs from China, contributed to participants reducing their risk exposure. The jitters related to China are tied up in economic and financial risk, whereas, the concerns over Ukraine are tied up in geopolitical risk that has the potential to become a global economic problem. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (-1.5%) led the retreat while the S&P 500 lost 1.2% with eight sectors ending in the red. As a result, the benchmark index settled below its 2013 closing high of 1848.36. Equity indices began the session with modest gains, but the early strength was short-lived as the S&P 500 notched its high within the first ten minutes of action, spending the remainder of the trading day in a steady slide. Although stocks opened higher, the dollar/yen pair flashed an early warning signal when it began dropping at the start of the New York Session. The currency pair hovered near 102.80, but slumped all the way to 101.60 by the time the closing bell rang.

12:36PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

GMCR (115.36 +8.67%): Co and Starbucks (SBUX) amended terms of existing five-year agreement to continue to expand Starbucks range of K-Cup pack offerings; co and Peet's Coffee & Tea also announced a partnership
LMCA (136.8 +8.45%): Co announced the creation of tracking stock structure; says offer for SiriusXM (SIRI) is no longer applicable
BSX (13.14 +3.14%): Announced CE Mark approval and first implants of INGEVITY MRI pacing leads

Large Cap Losers

CELG (150.74 -3.37%): UK's NICE issuing new draft guidance on the use of Revlimid (lenalidomide); stock was defended at ISI Group
GILD (75.55 -3.15%): Idenix Pharmaceuticals (IDIX) filed patent infringement lawsuits against the company in Europe
UBS (20.38 -2.63%): Bloomberg reporting UBS traders were found to have tried to rig Hong Kong's benchmark interest rate from 2006-2009

Mid Cap Gainers

ULTA (96.42 +7.71%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($1.09 vs $1.07 estimate), revs rose 14.4% yoy to $868.1 mln vs $855.25 mln estimate; comps +9.2%; sees Q1 EPS of $0.70-0.75 vs $0.79 estimate, revs of $693-704 mln vs $695.86 mln estimate
NSM (33.21 +6.19%): Kyle Bass' Hayman Capital disclosed 5.3% passive stake
ALK (91.23 +4.37%): Target raised to $100 from $95 at Cowen

Mid Cap Losers

ITMN (32.5 -2.29%): Priced 7.5 mln share offering of common stock at $32.75 per share
CXP (25.91 -1.93%): Mentioned negatively by Jim Cramer
X (24.12 -1.15%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse

11:52AM Relative sector strength (TECHX) : Sectors that are outperforming the S&P on the push off the low include: Internet FDN, Retail XRT, Discretionary XLY, Industrial XLI, Finance/Bank XLF/KBE,

11:47AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (81) outpacing new lows (51) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAN, ACU, ASRV, AWK, BFAM, CBOE, COLB, CPE, CPK, CRL, DOX, EA, EGLT, EMES, ENZ, EVER, FCNCA, FMI, FSM, GFN, GROW, GSAT, GXP, HTM, ICGE, ITC, JACK, JVA, KIN, KNOP, KRNY, LHO, LLTC, LNT, LSG, MANH, MDRX, MFRM, MPC, MPWR, MUX, NEE, NG, NJR, NRF, NVDQ, OZRK, PFSW, PHX, PLM, PNM, PPP, PRI, PSXP, PZZA, QADA, QUMU, RCAP, RFMD, RGLD, RLYP, SAAS, SOHO, SRE, SSRI, STO, SWC, SYN, TQNT, TRNS, TSN, UBSH, UGI, USAP, UTL, VLCCF, VNDA, WEC, WES, WGP, WIBC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ADT, AH, AHP, AKO.A, ARO, AVNW, BCS, BIOC, BODY, BWP, CCCL, CERE, CHL, CHRW, COBK, CONN, COVS, CTCM, CYH, CZZ, DO, ELNK, EROC, FST, FSYS, GGS, HELI, IGC, KOF, LAQ, LMNS, MTL, MTU, NE, NIHD, PBR, PBR.A, PGEM, RELL, RIG, RLOC, SC, SDR, SUNS, SYMC, TEU, VALE, VHC, WRLD, XOXO, ZNH

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FXF

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: UUP

Trina Solar (TSL) announced its Trinasmart product has received IEC 61215/61730 certification from TUV Rheinland. Trinasmart is the first smart module to receive certification from TUV Rheinland in Greater China.

7:03AM Canadian Solar announces opening of Canadian Solar Microgrid Testing Centre (CSIQ) 33.07 : Co announced the opening of Canadian Solar Microgrid Testing Centre. The Centre will focus on micro-grid solution testing, and system solution design and smart grid assessment services.

QLogic (QLGC) announced it has completed the acquisition of the 10/40/100Gb Ethernet controller-related assets from Broadcom, pursuant to the definitive agreement that was previously announced on February 18, 2014. Under the terms of the agreement, QLogic paid approximately $147 million. In addition, QLogic entered into a license agreement that will cover its Fibre Channel products and made a one-time payment of $62 million. QLogic announced today that it is also implementing a restructuring plan designed to consolidate its product roadmap in connection with the completion of the Broadcom transaction. The restructuring plan includes a workforce reduction primarily associated with the consolidation of its engineering activities and is expected to be substantially completed within the next three months. In connection with these restructuring activities, the company expects to incur pre-tax GAAP charges between $13 million and $16 million, the majority of which are expected to be recorded in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year ending March 30, 2014. QLogic is also reaffirming its previously provided fourth quarter financial guidance of EPS $0.19-0.25 & revenues of $110-116 million which are in line with estimates. QLogic will discuss the financial impact of the transaction during its fourth quarter earnings call. Further, as previously disclosed, the company expects the acquisition to be accretive to revenue and non-GAAP earnings in the first quarter and for the full year of fiscal 2015.

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

MARKET SUMMARY

- After 5 weeks of gain with the geopolitical and economic issues piled on, stocks continue their weeklong decline.
- Little change, still in overall uptrends, heading toward strong support levels.
- Recent leadership mostly holds, some folds, some defensive areas improve.
- Michigan Sentiment dips in March.
- Russia readies to invade East Ukraine using the same 'rationale' it used to invade Crimea: to 'defend compatriots.' Can we invade Russia to defend our 'compatriots?'
- Russia dumping US treasuries, China next.
- EPA audit reveals 90% of transactions improper, prohibited, or in error. And the government wants to run healthcare. Efficiently. Cheaply. For real.
- Letting the test make next strong support and then we see if the trend holds.

A week-plus of testing and likely more this week as the indices seek solid support.

There is really not much to discuss regarding the Friday action as it was the same as seen all week: struggling early in the session, unable to hold, fading toward next support. Sure there were respites such as Wednesday where good upside was posted, but that turned out to be a good day in the midst of a continued pullback to find stronger support.

Not surprising frankly. Five weeks upside, new highs or new post-bear market highs on all indices sans DJ30. That is a long rally leg in the long rally. With that piano on the market's back it was primed for a pullback.

Add to that the ongoing geopolitical tensions in Ukraine that dragged the US, China, and Europe into it, forcing two sharply distinct factions very similar to the old Cold War factions. Back then the only thing the USSR and China had in common was communism. Now they are teaming up to stand against the west and that is a problem for the world.

So, the market has had success, it rallied 5 weeks as it continued the long upside run, it was tired and ready to test, then the geopolitical events provided the reason or excuse to sell. China's weak exports, Russia's aggression, still modest US economic data after the cold winter. Thus the indices are testing back to find the next strong support, still a bit lower for the next serious possibility. With the Fed pulling back on stimulus the question is whether the rally based upon Fed stimulus will hold the support it has held time and again on this run or give it up. That depends upon investor perception of economic growth to come. The market should provide some answers at the next support.

Friday stocks sported modest losses heading into the open, a modest positive in this market that rallies low to high or high to low depending upon which way it opens. Stocks surged early, gave it up by midmorning, then rallied right back up. Could not hold, however, and stocks sold back to basically flat ahead of the weekend. Crimea referendum, nice run still in need of a further test, investors just not wanting to get in front of that action with the market still making its fade.

SP500 -5.21, -0.28%
NASDAQ -15.02, -0.35%
DJ30 -43.22, -0.27%
SP400 0.32%
RUTX 0.40%
SOX -0.47%

Volume: Faded 7.5% on both NYSE, NASDAQ. A bit of lighter trade on some modest downside after a week of weakness.

A/D: 1.4:1 NYSE, 1.2:1 NASDAQ.

The action left the indices basically in the same position as Thursday, still fading in a test seeking stronger support, likely the same support that held the indices in past tests, e.g. the 50 day EMA or rising trendlines from late 2012. As noted, that is the test that will tell the tale of the tape, the next market leg.

THE NEWS

Further escalation in Ukraine and indeed the rest of the world.

Friday we learned that Russia has mobilized troops all across Russia and they are heading west toward the Ukraine border. Putin spoke again, saying this time Russia might have to invade East Ukraine in order to, you got it, 'defend compatriots' just as it said when it invaded Crimea. Putin is taking a page out of history in order to rebuild Russia's power: Catherine the Great conquered Crimea in the 1700's precisely to make Russia a world power via its warm water port. Putin is doing the same thing and that is why he will not, short of being physically forced out, leave Crimea. The rest of the world knows this and Putin and China know the rest of the world will not act to eject Russia.

Further, outside of a military buildup, Putin is preparing in other ways, apparently dumping Russia's holdings of US Treasuries. Friday reports show $104B worth of treasuries were dumped by the week ending 3/12/14. Russia held $138.6B and the smart money says Russia is the one doing the selling.

It is very clear Russia is in this for keeps, betting the west has no stomach to confront his expansion and aggression. Indeed the lack of a swift, cogent, AND force-based response from the west has likely emboldened him and thus his comments regarding East Ukraine. Earlier in the day Friday I likened the tit for tat between the US and Russia as the game of 'who is toughest' played by Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef, two bounty hunters pursuing the same bad hombres in the spaghetti western 'For a Few Dollars More.' Given the US is not really ready for military action, however, that is not the best analogy.

China's Involvement.

China's dog in this fight is interesting. China has thrown in with Russia and has threatened to unload its Treasury holdings as well.

But China is not the world power many attribute to it, and what power it has is going to be drained on domestic issues very soon. The 18+% plundering of exports, even if exacerbated by the Lunar New Year, is huge. The GDP growth is not the 7+% claimed, but is in the 3% range. Inflation is starting to surge, undercutting GDP growth and wages. China is again discussing stimulus to bolster expansion, the same expansion that has led to unoccupied rings around Beijing and several ghost cities. It apparently feels it has to build more of the same in order to keep the masses satisfied. They have had a taste of freedom and if the government cannot produce work, there will be unrest. Even more so, however, if the economy slows into a real recession, the masses will really show their unhappiness.

China is also about to be hit with massive domestic costs. Its cities are so polluted it has artificial sunrises on giant screens. Hey, no UV rays there so no skin cancer. Just throat, lung, eye and other cancers and diseases killing the working class and the next working classes (i.e., the children). China will have to spend huge chunks of its GDP to combat existing pollution and then retrofit to prevent additional pollution. It cannot afford to lose its working class to pollution related diseases.

With massive bond risk now in excess of Ireland (one of the PIIGS) and the start of bond defaults, China is going to have serious credit issues. With exports fading China is going to have trouble funding ambitious stimulus to spur the economy as it tries to keep from killing its working class. China is heading for serious trouble and ultimately, perhaps not in the next few years but eventually, the existing government will fail. That will leave the US, not because of our 'great' economic choices of the past 15 years but more by virtue of default, the main economic power on the planet once again.

China's role in the missing airliner.

One last thing. What is China hiding about the missing Malaysian airliner? Early reports queried whether a Chinese group that was threatening to grab an airplane actually did so. This was denied immediately. Then, after initial vague reports about the aircraft turning sharply west and still sending signals hours after it 'disappeared,' China releases bogus satellite images of junk; poor resolution, impossible to view. Heck, you get clearer images of your house from Google. Then today, after the evidence clearly tells the plane turned sharply west and suffered tumultuous elevation changes, China announces a 'seismic event' was recorded at the last location where the craft's transponder was working, implying either the plan exploded there or that an earthquake caused the plane to go down. Give me a break. And I suppose China believes the sun rotates around the earth. No, I believe China knows that group grabbed the plane and is covering it up. The group could not fly it and it likely splashed down in the Indian ocean on the way to India, Pakistan, or the Middle East; that was the air route they were attempting to take. We will see, but China does not have clean hands here.

THE MARKET

OTHER MARKETS

Euro/Dollar: A down week for the dollar versus the euro. Most everything else for that matter as the dollar index broke some near support.

1.3907 versus 1.3858 versus 1.3907 versus 1.3870 versus 1.3869 versus 1.3872 versus 1.3857 versus 1.3735 versus 1.3737 versus 1.3730 versus 1.3805

Dollar/Yen: Dollar fell all week against the yen including Friday. Now at a support level as the promising upside was set back at least for now.

101.29 versus 101.67 versus 102.71 versus 102.90 versus 103.24 versus 103.33 versus 103.07 versus 102.31 versus 102.19 versus 101.38 versus 101.82 versus 102.10 versus 102.38 versus 102.16 versus 102.47 versus 102.51 versus 102.35 versus 102.25 versus 102.43 versus 101.86

Bonds: Flat on the day but up big on the week, surging off of an equally sharp decline the prior week. Follow the bouncing bond.

10 year: 2.65% versus 2.65% versus 2.72% versus 2.77% versus 2.78% versus 2.79% versus 2.74% versus 2.69% versus 2.67% versus 2.60% versus 2.66% versus 2.69% versus 2.67% versus 2.70% versus 2.74% versus 2.73% versus 2.75%

Oil: 98.91, +0.65. Ugly Monday to Wednesday plunge to the 50 day SMA. Bouncing modestly Friday, but some damage was done.

Gold: 1379.20, +7.10. Upside week propelled by a big Wednesday. Friday another surge was underway though gold did fade off its high.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -15.02 points (-0.35%) to close at 4245.4
Volume: 2.178B (-7.67%)

Up Volume: 1.11B (+567.45M)
Down Volume: 1.07B (-750M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.22 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 3.09 to 1

New Highs: 82 (-4)
New Lows: 27 (-8)

S&P
Stats: -5.21 points (-0.28%) to close at 1841.13
NYSE Volume: 567M (-7.65%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.37 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 2.04 to 1

New Highs: 63 (-20)
New Lows: 90 (-4)

DJ30
Stats: -43.22 points (-0.27%) to close at 16065.67

THE CHARTS

As noted, little change in the indices from Thursday to Friday though the large cap indices did bleed a bit lower while the small and midcaps posted modest gains. Overall they look heavy and in need of a further pullback to more important support. The issue, as noted earlier, is whether they hold that move and continue upside. Recall the late January dive through that support, however; did that create the fissure the sellers will use?

NASDAQ: Slipped just below the upper channel line from 11/12, holding at the intraday low from early March on that invasion gap lower. Can still put in a higher low here and continue the move and solidify its strength by holding the breakout from the channel from late 2012. If not, the 50 day EMA is 37 points south, the lower trendline is about 95 points lower. I would be surprised if NASDAQ was able to fend off a further test toward that support, but if NASDAQ wants to hold here, no complaints.

SOX: Holding still at the 20 day EMA after failing to take out the middle trendline from 11/2012. SOX is at some support for sure, and if NASDAQ holds, SOX holds (likely more vice versa). Likely it tests as well toward the 50 day EMA still 15 points lower and coincident with the lower trendline from late 2012.

SP500: Slipped further after the big Thursday flop, holding at the lower support form the twin peaks spanning December and January. Likely comes back further to test the 50 day EMA and/or the trendline from late 2012 at 1822, 19 points away.

RUTX: Back and forth each session but trending down for the week even with a modest gain Friday. Managed to hold the 20 day EMA but right at the late January peak. Not bad, still solid, but also likely to test the 50 day EMA and lower trendline that have merged.

DJ30: The Dow failed to reach a new high, started to test and looked solid Wednesday, holding the trendline with a doji. Thursday was the key move, a crash through the trendline and the 50 day EMA in one move. Tried to recover the 50 day Friday, did it intraday, but then rolled over to close at the session low. Does not look well, and next support is 15,000, another 165 points lower, hardly an afternoon's conversation.

LEADERSHIP

Leadership was sloppy and sluggish, but as with the indices, no major changes with many holding next support or even nearest support.

Internet: VIPS tested the 20 day EMA on the low and bounced positive. QIHU is showing a nice doji with tail at the 20 day EMA. SFUN shows a doji at the 50 day EMA. Z surged off a midweek 200 day SMA test. Still life in this group.

Some good names are holding at the 50 day EMA: SCTY, GOOG, SWI.

Some big names are struggling, e.g. NFLX, PCLN, CRM.

Some big names jumped, e.g. GMCR

Drugs/biotechs: Some big names are really in trouble (CELG, GILD) some are just sluggish, e.g. BDSI, and some look pretty darn good, e.g. XON, NEOG, . Noteworthy is that they are not jumping upside as they did when the market last sold and investors turned defensive.

Techs: Some solid but very mixed. CRAY rallied over 3%. YY is holding over the 20 day EMA. SWI is solid at the 50 day EMA as noted.

Speaking of defensive, truly defensive names were up on Friday: CL, CLX.

Financials: It is worth noting that some financials, a group that contributed to leadership in late February, are under some pressure, e.g. GS, JPM. Others are hanging in such as WFC. Many are not that exciting to trade but they are an important aspect of the market.

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 17.82; +1.6
VXN: 18.89; +1.42
VXO: 17.22; +1.68

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.79; -0.25

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls still moving higher though again at a slower pace: 55.1 versus 54.6 versus 53.5 from 46.5 and 41.8 before that.

Bears surging back upside: 17.4 versus 15.1 from 17.2 for two weeks and 17.4 for three weeks prior to that.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Note the extreme bullishness: it was this high in 2007 at the crash, in early 2005 as well.

Bulls: 55.1% versus 54.6%
53.5% 46.5% 41.8% 45.9% 53.1% 57.6 56.1 60.6% 61.6% 60.0%
58.2% 57.1% 55.7% 53.6% 52.6% 55.2% 52.6 49.5 42.3% 45.4 46.4% 44.3% 42.3% 37.1% 37.1% 38.1% 43.3%.

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 17.4% versus 15.1% 17.2% 17.2% 17.4% 17.4% 15.3% 15.1 15.3% 15.2% 15.2% 14.0 14.3 14.3 14.4 15.5 15.5% 15.6% 16.5% 18.5 21.6% 20.6% 18.6% 20.6% 21.6% 22.7% 23.7% 23.8% 21.6%.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

We will see what the weekend brings in terms of the Crimean 'join mother Russia' referendum and the west's response, whether RussPutin invades East Ukraine as well, trying to carve out a name in history for himself, e.g. Vladimir the Great or Vladimir the KGB, or Once a KGB agent always a KGB agent.

No one really knows how low the market can go if Russia moves again, this time on East Ukraine. Of course, that likely means it intends to take all of Ukraine. If the west decides to do something with forces, all bets are off. Dangerous and sadly we just don't have our best team to handle that kind of crisis.

Outside of a new invasion and a hot war the market remains a bit top-heavy, not as extended thanks to a week of pullback, but still with room to fall. There is cushion to fall and still maintain the uptrends; that is a benefit of a good run that breaks to higher highs, i.e. room to test.

Patience is still the word. We made some downside money on GILD, taking some off the table Friday. For more downside there likely needs to be a rebound that fails, so we let what we have continue while we see where this test finds support.

During that time of course the leaders need to be watched, looking at new positions setting up. The strong use downturns to setup new moves. There are stocks doing just that as noted: QIHU, IDCC, SWI, RBCN, SQM, WUBA, Z, SCTY, GOOG, SFUN, YOD, CRAY. Many. If lots of stocks are holding support, using the selling to prep for the next move, that bodes well for a new break higher once the market releases enough worry or, as they said this past week, the 'froth' is worked out of the system.

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4245.40

Resistance:
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak
4257 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
4277 is the March lower gap point
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4372 is the March 2014 high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 4208
4154 is the November 2012 trendline
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13
4070 is the series of highs from late November/early December
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
The 200 day SMA at 3858
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.

S&P 500: Closed at 1841.13

Resistance:
1849.44 is the recent all-time high.

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 1831
1821 is the December 2012 up trendline
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1768 is the December 3013 low
The 200 day SMA at 1737
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1646 is the October 2013 low just before the surge into early 2014
1627 is the August 2013 low

Dow: Closed at 16,065.67

Resistance:
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,296 is a lower trendline off the 11/2012 low
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
The 50 day EMA at 16,127

Support:
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
The 200 day SMA at 15,620
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,318 is the June closing high
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

March 14 - Friday
- PPI, February (8:30): -0.1% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
- Core PPI, February (8:30): -0.2% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.2% prior
- Michigan Sentiment, March Preliminary: 79.9 actual versus 82.0 expected, 81.6 prior

March 17 - Monday
- Empire Manufacturing, March (8:30): 5.4 expected, 4.5 prior
- Net Long-Term TIC Fl, January (9:00): -$45.9B prior
- Capacity Utilization, February (9:15): 78.5% prior
- Industrial Production, February (9:15): 0.1% expected, -0.3% prior
- Capacity Utilization, February (9:15): 78.5% expected, 78.5% prior
- NAHB Housing Market , March (10:00): 50 expected, 46 prior

March 18 - Tuesday
- Housing Starts, February (8:30): 915K expected, 880K prior
- Building Permits, February (8:30): 955K expected, 937K prior
- CPI, February (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.1% prior
- Core CPI, February (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior

March 19 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 03/15 (7:00): -2.1% prior
- Current Account Bala, Q4 (8:30): -$87.6B expected, -$94.8B prior
- Crude Inventories, 03/15 (10:30): 6.180M prior
- FOMC Rate Decision, March (14:00): 0.25% expected, 0.25% prior

March 20 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 03/15 (8:30): 330K expected, 315K prior
- Continuing Claims, 03/08 (8:30): 2883K expected, 2855K prior
- Existing Home Sales, February (10:00): 4.60M expected, 4.62M prior
- Philadelphia Fed, March (10:00): 2.0 expected, -6.3 prior
- Leading Indicators, February (10:00): 0.3% expected, 0.3% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 03/15 (10:30): -195 bcf prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : All of the fear and loathing last week about the Sunday referendum in Crimea was set aside today. Stock markets in Europe and the US rallied, not because there was a de-escalation of the standoff in Ukraine, but because there has yet to be an escalation of the standoff that would threaten global economic growth.

As expected, Crimeans voted overwhelmingly in favor (95.5% of votes cast) of joining the Russian Federation. As expected, the outcome of the referendum was not accepted as valid by President Obama and EU leaders. Still, there were two points of relief that sparked a short-covering rally on Monday:

Military force has not been used; and
Hard-hitting economic sanctions have yet to be imposed

President Obama made a brief speech today to discuss a signed executive order that freezes the assets and imposes travel bans on a small group of advisors and allies of Vladimir Putin and only warned that more sanctions would be forthcoming if Russia continued to push a provocative stance in Ukraine. Things have the potential to get more serious, but from the market's standpoint, it hasn't been given reason yet in the aftermath of the referendum to fear a worst-case scenario of economic sanctions being handed down that would impede global GDP growth.

The latter consideration ignited a short-covering rally in European stock markets that carried over to the US. Gains here were fast-paced off the open as the Dow Jones Industrial Average sported a 205-point gain a little more than 30 minutes after the opening bell rang.

The early rush of buying activity was helped along by a positive showing out of China's stock market (+1.0%), which responded favorably to news of a new urbanization plan. Separately, there were reports that the People's Bank of China would expand the yuan's daily trading band to 2% from 1%. In the event of further yuan weakness, that would bode well for the country's exporters.

Basically, then, last week's main points of concern -- Ukraine and China -- were minimized, if only for a day. To be sure, plenty of questions remain about China's growth prospects and shadow banking system, as well as the path Russia will follow in Ukraine.

The gains in the US were broad-based. Every stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended higher and so did every sector in the S&P 500. From a broader perspective, there wasn't any true weakness on Monday. Rather, weakness was couched in terms of which sectors were up the least.

Gains for the major indices ranged from 0.6% for the Russell 2000 to 1.1% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The stock market was underpinned throughout the day by quality leadership from some of its most heavily-weighted sectors. That included the technology (+1.3%), industrials (+1.3%), financial (+1.0%), and health care (+0.9%) sectors. The utilities sector (+0.6%) trailed all other sectors, but it still made a respectable showing, particularly with interest rates rising at the back end of the Treasury yield curve.

Some of the weakness there followed an encouraging report that industrial production increased 0.6% in February, bolstered by a 0.8% jump in manufacturing production. The February strength came on the heels of a 0.2% decline in industrial production in January.

Separately, the Empire Manufacturing Index for March was slightly better than expected with a 5.6 reading (Briefing.com consensus 5.4). A number above zero denotes expansion. The NAHB Housing Market index, however, still reflected declining builder confidence with a reading of 47 for March. That was up from 46 in February but below the Briefing.com consensus estimate that called for a jump to 50.0, which is the dividing line between rising and declining confidence.

Despite today's nice-sized gains for the major indices, participation in the move was unequivocally light. Just 593 mln shares traded at the NYSE versus a recent average of 706 mln shares. This was a tacit sign that today's move wasn't so much a relief rally in unbridled form as it was a short-covering move to account for a negative development that has yet to live up to its advance, fear-based billing.

Tuesday's economic calendar will feature the Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 915,000) and Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 955,000) report for February, as well as the CPI report for February. The Briefing.com consensus calls for total CPI and core CPI to be up 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively. After Tuesday's close, Oracle (ORCL 38.22, +0.62) and Adobe Systems (ADBE 68.17, +0.98) will report their quarterly earnings results.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.95% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +2.5% YTD
S&P 500 +0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.1% YTD
S&P Midcap 400 Index +2.3% YTD

DJ30 +181.55 NASDAQ +34.55 SP500 +17.70 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1782/1.70 bln/945 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2203/593 mln/817

3:30 pm :

Apr gold fell for the first time in six sessions despite a slightly weaker dollar index. The yellow metal rose to a session high of $1382.90 per ounce in morning floor trade but gave up the gain as it slipped to a session low of $1370.00 per ounce. It spent afternoon action trading just above that level and settled with a 0.4% loss at $1373.10 per ounce.
May silver brushed a session high of $21.44 per ounce in morning action but quickly fell back into the red. It settled 0.7% lower at $21.27 per ounce, slightly above its session low of $21.23 per ounce.
Apr crude oil fell for the first time in three sessions as investors reacted to relatively limited sanctions imposed by the West against Russia following the completion of Crimea's referendum with no escalation of violence. 95.5% voted in favor of the region joining Russia. The energy component retreated from its session high of $98.69 per barrel and brushed a session low of $97.37 per barrel. It eventually settled at $98.05 per barrel, or 0.9% lower.
Apr natural gas, on the other hand, spent its entire floor session in the black, trading as high as $4.59 per MMBtu in early morning action. It spent the remainder of the session trading slightly above the $4.50 per MMBtu level and settled with a 2.5% gain at $4.53 per MMBtu.

4:04PM SolarCity announces it will report its earnings Tuesday, after the market closes (SCTY) 73.70 -0.09 : Briefing.com Note: Recall co reported the majority of its metrics on Feb 24 but delayed its EPS release due to accounting issues with an acquisition.

11:55AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (198) outpacing new lows (18) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAN, ABCB, AGN, ALK, ALV, AMKR, AMRI, ASRV, ATVI, BAS, BCR, BEE, BKH, BOFI, BPZ, BWA, BWS, BYLK, CAK, CBOE, CBT, CELH, CHC, CHD, CLDN, CMRX, CNL, CODE, COLB, CPE, CPK, CPS, CRL, CRVL, CUR, CVCO, CVGW, CVS, DBD, DJCO, DLB, DMND, DOX, DPZ, ECA, EMES, ENLK, ENTA, EQT, ETE, EVER, EVK, EWBC, FCH, FCNCA, FFBC, FITB, FNHC, FPRX, FRC, FSRV, GA, GAS, GB, GFN, GIII, GNRC, GPRE, GSAT, GSM, GVA, GXP, H, HELE, HI, HRG, HRTX, HST, IBKC, ICGE, IG, IPXL, ISBC, ISIL, ISR, ISSI, IT, JACK, JASO, KAMN, KNDI, KNX, KONA, KRNY, LBY, LNT, LOGM, LSG, MANH, MDRX, MEAS, MFRM, MGEE, MKL, MOBI, MPC, MPWR, MRH, MVNR, NEE, NEU, NG, NGVC, NRF, NVDQ, NWLI, ODFL, OHRP, OZRK, PAGP, PANW, PCAR, PEB, PEBO, PFSW, PKOH, PLL, PLOW, PMC, PNFP, PPC, PPP, PQ, PRI, PRTS, PRXL, PZZA, QADA, RCAP, REX, RFMD, RLJ, RLYP, RNR, RUSHB, SAAS, SAFM, SGB, SGK, SHEN, SIG, SIMG, SIVB, SOHO, SONC, SPB, SPNC, SRE, SSRI, STAA, STO, SUSS, SWC, SWN, TFX, TMNG, TPC, TQNT, TRCB, TRNS, TSH, TSN, TTWO, UA, UBSH, UCTT, UGI, URI, USEG, USMO, UTL, VGR, VLCCF, VMW, VNDA, VSB, VTSS, VVC, WEC, WG, WGP, WIBC, WLB, WLP, WSCI, WSM, WTFC, YDKN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ALAN, ARO, AVNW, CHL, COOL, COVS, CZZ, ESV, EXPR, FSYS, GGS, ICA, MCGC, OIBR, PBR.A, SDRL, TEU, TLM

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: COW, DVY, EGPT, EIS, GREK, NIB

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

11:51AM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

HTZ (27.42 +5.54%): FT.com reporting co is consdering spiining off its construction equipment business for ~$4.5 bln
BIIB (345.18 +3.82%): To replace American Electric Power (AEP) in the S&P 100
YHOO (38.97 +3.64%): Seeing reports that Alibaba could file for IPO as soon as April, has chosen to list on a US exchange

Large Cap Losers

FB (66.88 -1.25%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus
STZ (81.69 -0.98%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman
CHK (24.79 -0.96%): Filed form 10 registration statement for possible spin-off of Chesapeake Oilfield Services

Mid Cap Gainers

SINA (68.95 +6.75%): Filed initial F-1 to IPO its Weibo micro-blogging service
WTS (59 +4.50%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at BB&T Capital Markets, target $67
PTEN (29.99 +4.17%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman, added to Conviction Buy list

Mid Cap Losers

ICPT (395 -14.55%): Missed FY13 EPS by $0.03 (-$3.76 vs -$3.73 estimate); announced Phase 3 POISE trial of obeticholic acid (OCA) for the treatment of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) demonstrated that OCA, at both a 10 mg dose and a 5 mg dose titrated to 10 mg, met the trial's primary endpoint

SBGI (24.37 -8.25%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo

VRSN (50.62 -7.71%): National Telecommunications & Information Administration announced its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community; Verisign said this will no affect the company's operation of the .com and .net registries

SDL announced that Atmel (ATML) has selected SDL's LiveContent application suite to improve its content creation processes as part of an effort to drive end-to-end improvements in Customer Experience.

Aquantia announced the completion of series G financing for $16 mln. Xilinx (XLNX) led the round and existing investors provided additional capital.

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From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm : The major averages finished the Tuesday session with solid gains, but outside of a few pockets of considerable relative strength, most sectors could be classified as reluctant participants in the daylong rally. Small caps led the way with the Russell 2000 climbing 1.5% while the S&P 500 advanced 0.7% with nine sectors posting gains.

This morning, equity indices were on track for a lower start to the session, but that changed in a hurry when comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin began making the rounds. Although Mr. Putin did not provide any groundbreaking insight, European markets and equity futures rallied when he said Russia does not want to see a break-up of Ukraine.

The comments also gave a boost to risk sentiment in the foreign exchange market, sending the dollar/yen pair from a morning low of 101.33 to 101.80. Interestingly, the yen weakness was short-lived as the currency pair slid to a fresh session low (101.29) over the next five hours while equity indices built on their opening gains thanks to the outperformance of three heavily-weighted sectors-energy (+0.8%), health care (+1.2%), and technology (+1.4%)-that account for just a shade over 41.0% of the entire S&P 500.

The energy sector drew strength from Dow component Chevron (CVX 116.24, +1.17), which gained 1.0% after being added to the US Focus List at Credit Suisse, while also receiving a boost from the 1.7% gain in crude oil ($99.69/bbl).

Elsewhere, the health care sector was underpinned by companies specializing in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 262.22, +6.75) surged 2.6%, which also factored into the outperformance of the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite.

Speaking of the Nasdaq, the index got a big boost from shares of Microsoft (MSFT 39.55, +1.50), which rallied 3.9% in reaction to widespread reports indicating the company will release its Office suite for the Apple (AAPL 531.40, +4.66) iPad.

Strikingly, outside of the three influential sectors, the remaining groups could never catch up with the broader market. Most notably, the financial sector (+0.5%) lagged throughout the session, ending behind most of the remaining growth-sensitive groups.

On the countercyclical side, health care was the only outperformer while consumer staples (+0.2%), utilities (-0.2%), and telecom services (+0.66%) lagged.

Treasuries erased their overnight gains in reaction to the comments from Vladimir Putin, but spent the session in a climb towards the early highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended at 2.67% after starting the New York session just north of 2.69%.

Despite the mixed sentiment signals emanating from the foreign exchange, Treasury, and stock markets, participants did not show much demand for volatility protection as indicated by the 7.2% decline in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.52, -1.12).

Trading volume was on the light side for the second day in a row with only 574 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the February Housing Starts and Building Permits report and February CPI:

Housing starts fell 0.2% in February to 907,000 from an upwardly revised 909,000 (from 880,000) in January. The Briefing.com consensus expected housing starts to increase to 915,000. After two months where starts surpassed one million, construction levels in January and February returned to their April - October 2013 pace. There wasn't much evidence of significant shocks from winter weather conditions. Building Permits rose to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1,018,000, which was better than the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 955,000.
Consumer prices edged up 0.1% in February after increasing 0.2% in January. The Briefing.com consensus expected the CPI to increase 0.2%. Energy costs, which provided a sizable boost to the PPI, fell 0.5% in February. A 1.7% decline in gasoline prices offset a 3.6% increase in natural gas costs. Food price growth, which had been very low and stable for the past several months, shot up 0.5% in February. That was the largest one-month increase since September 2011. Most of the food components rose more than their long-term trends. That included a 1.2% increase in meats, poultry, fish, and eggs. Excluding food and energy, core CPI increased 0.1% for a third consecutive month in February. That was exactly what the consensus expected.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the fourth quarter current account balance (Briefing.com consensus -$87.60 billion) will be announced at 8:30 ET. Also of note, the Federal Open Market Committee will conclude its two-day meeting with the latest policy statement scheduled to be released at 14:00 ET. The statement will be followed by Janet Yellen's first press conference as Fed Chair, scheduled to begin at 14:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +3.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.8% YTD
S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.5% YTD

DJ30 +88.97 NASDAQ +53.36 SP500 +13.42 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2056/1.82 bln/629 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2368/573.8 mln/706

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded lower today following comments from Vladimir Putin, who said Russia does not want to see a break-up of Ukraine and that it wants a partnership with the West. In addition, investors await tomorrow's FOMC decision and Janet Yellen's first press conference as Fed Chief.
Apr gold extended yesterday's losses, falling to a session low of $1351.10 per ounce in early morning action. Despite trending slightly higher for the remainder of the session, the yellow metal settled with a 1.0% loss at $1359.00 per ounce.
May silver fell as low as $20.63 per ounce in early morning pit trade and brushed a session high of $20.92 per ounce. It eventually settled at $20.85 per ounce, or 2.0% lower.
Apr natural gas chopped around in negative territory between $4.45 and $4.50 per MMBtu. Unable to find buying support, it settled with a 1.5% loss at $4.46 per MMBtu.
Apr crude oil, on the other hand, rose alongside the equities market. It lifted from its session low of $98.16 per barrel set in early morning floor trade and trended higher for the remainder of the session. It settled 1.7% higher at $99.69 per barrel, just below its session high of $99.78 per barrel.

4:30PM Oracle earnigns follow up: ORCL -5% in after hours after missing Q3 earnings estimates (ORCL) 38.84 +0.62 : Q3 non-GAAP EPS was $0.68 vs. the $0.70 Capital IQ Consensus... Excluding the impact of the US dollar strengthening compared to foreign currencies and excluding Venezuela's exchange loss impact on both reporting periods, Oracle's reported Q3 non-GAAP earnings per share would have been $0.71, up 8%.

4:20PM SolarCity beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus (SCTY) 77.10 +3.40 : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.46 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.56); reports pre-announced revenues of $47.3 mln (Up 99% YoY).

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $(0.80)-(0.70), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.49) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co reported preannoucned significant growth in its core business in 2013 with MW Deployed up 78% Y/Y to 280 MW and operating lease revenue growth of 80% Y/Y for the full year
Co reports pre-announced Q1 MW deployed of between 78-82 MW, up 74% year-over-year at the midpoint and consistent with its targets for the year
Co reports pre-annuounced guidance for MW deployed of between 475-525 MW. We also continue to expect to generate positive cash flow for the full year 2014

4:10PM Adobe Systems beats by $0.05, beats on revs; numbers leaked out earlier (ADBE) 68.52 +0.35 : Reports Q1 (Feb) earnings of $0.30 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.25; revenues fell 0.8% year/year to $1 bln vs the $973.09 mln consensus.

4:02PM Rubicon Tech announces proposed public offering of common stock by selling shareholders (RBCN) 14.11 +0.32 :

Canaccord Genuity Inc. is acting as sole book-running manager for the offering.
Co will not receive any proceeds from the sale of common stock by selling stockholders.

12:39PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

HPQ (30.48 +3.39%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays; tgt raised to $38 from $33.
MBT (16.75 +3.24%): Reported Q4 results (rev below ests); guided FY14 (rev below ests).
FLR (76.42 +1.89%): Initiated with an Outperform at Cowen; tgt $90.

Large Cap Losers

KORS (96.28 -2.31%): Initiated with an Underweight at Barclays; tgt $85.
NEM (25.39 -1.47%): Weakness in select metals/mining stocks (ABX, GG also lower).
MHFI (79.42 -1.07%): Co reaffirmed its FY14 guidance; outlined longer-term goals at its Investor Day.

Mid Cap Gainers

YNDX (32.4 +7.96%): Co purchased Tel Aviv's KitLocate location service technology, according to reports.
FDS (113.76 +8.82%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; co acquired remaining 40% interest in Matrix.
EDU (28.84 +6.7%): Co and Tencent (TCEHY) have formed a JV for education, according to reports.

Mid Cap Losers

CRTO (50.3 -3.86%): Co commenced a public offering of 5.25 mln ADSs, each representing one of Criteo's ordinary shares (525,000 ordinary shares in the form of ADSs by co, 4.725 mln ordinary shares in the form of ADSs by certain existing shareholders).
CHH (46.31 -3.92%): Priced secondary offering of 3 mln shares of its common stock by certain selling stockholders at $46.65/share.
NDAQ (38.35 -3.47%): Reuters discussed that NY plans probe of high frequency trading (CBOE also lower).

12:06PM New session highs for Nasdaq 100/Comp and small-/mid-caps (TECHX) : Sectors displaying relative strength on the move to new highs for these indices include: Technology XLK, Semi SMH, Software IGV, Networking IGN, Biotech IBB, Energy XLE, Housing XHB.

12:01PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (178) outpacing new lows (23) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCB, AGN, AIRT, ALK, ALV, AMKR, AMRI, AR, ASPX, AVA, BAS, BF.B, BKH, BRKR, BRKS, BSTC, BWLD, CAK, CBI, CCE, CENX, CJES, CKSW, CLB, CNL, CODE, CRL, CRVL, CVGW, CVS, CXP, DAVE, DOX, DPZ, DRTX, DST, DXR, ECA, EDE, ELY, EMC, EMES, EPD, EQT, ESLT, ETE, ETFC, EVER, FF, FLML, FNHC, FOE, FSRV, FTR, FUN, GAS, GFN, GIII, GLDC, GLOG, GSM, GTAT, GURE, GVA, GXP, H, HCLP, HELE, HI, HP, HRTX, HTLD, HTM, HZNP, IDN, IDTI, IG, ISBC, ISIL, ISSI, JACK, JE, JVA, KATE, KNDI, KONA, KRNY, LANC, LLL, LOGM, LUV, LXK, MCHP, MDRX, MGPI, MKL, MMC, MMP, MSFT, MTW, MXWL, NEE, NGVC, NOA, NS, NWLI, OMCL, OMN, PAY, PBIO, PCAR, PEB, PES, PFSW, PLL, PLOW, PMC, PNFP, PNM, PNY, POWI, PPBI, PRI, PRTS, PRXL, PSXP, PZZA, QADA, QCOM, QUMU, RCAP, RES, RLYP, RNR, SAFM, SAVE, SGB, SHEN, SIG, SIVB, SLCA, SLP, SNDK, SONC, SPNC, SSL, ST, SUSS, SWN, SXL, TEP, TFX, TOT, TSN, TTWO, TXI, UA, UBNT, UCBI, UGI, UNP, USEG, USMO, UTL, VMW, VNDA, VNET, VOYA, VSB, VTSS, VVC, WEC, WG, WGP, WLB, WLFC, WLP, YDKN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AMBT, ATE, BODY, CHRW, GGS, GMET, GMO, HMC, HSBC, INTX, KIOR, MCGC, NATR, NEWL, NTLS, NVTL, OIBR, PBR.A, SDRL, SPHS, SUNS, SVM, WRLD

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: COW, DVY, EIS, ENZL, EWI

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


8:34AM Apple updates 9.7-inch ipad with retina display, improved cameras & enhanced performance-now available starting at $399 (AAPL) 526.74 : Co announced iPad with Retina display replaces iPad 2 as the 9.7-inch iPad at $399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and $529 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model.

7:33AM MKS Instruments announced it has agreed to purchase the assets of Granville-Phillips, a division of Brooks Automation (BRKS) for $87 million in cash (MKSI) 30.26 : announced it has agreed to purchase the assets of Granville-Phillips, a division of Brooks Automation (BRKS), for $87 mln in cash. Granville-Phillips is a leading global provider of vacuum measurement and control instruments to the semiconductor, thin film and general industrial markets, with sales of ~ $30 mln in 2013.

"We see the potential for both revenue and cost synergies as we integrate Granville-Phillips into MKS," continued Mr. Colella. "Their profitability and cash flow metrics are aligned with our own operating model, and we expect the acquisition to be accretive to our earnings in 2014. Going forward, with the revenue growth potential that we believe we can achieve with this business, as well as operating synergies to be realized over the next few years, we expect this acquisition to meet or exceed our target return thresholds."

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014.

Entropic (ENTR) announced its System-on-a-Chip solution is powering the world's first hybrid PowerPlug set-top box, the DCP5205 from EKT, a upplier of advanced STB solutions.

Schneider Electric and McAfee, part of Intel Security (INTC), partner to provide cybersecurity solutions for the utility and critical infrastructure market. This collaboration will enable Schneider Electric customers to add tested and certified application whitelisting capabilities in the management of core offerings of water, oil & gas, electric networks and transportation infrastructures.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages finished the Thursday session on an upbeat note with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) in the lead. Small caps underperformed with the Russell 2000 adding 0.1% while the S&P 500 settled higher by 0.6% with nine sectors posting gains.

Stocks began the day on the defensive amid cautious action overseas, but were quick to erase their early losses. The S&P 500 climbed out of the red during the first hour of action with most European indices following suit.

The early advance was powered by the heavily-weighted financial (+1.7%) and technology (+0.7%) sectors, both of which continued their outperformance into the close. Outside of the two, the telecom services sector (+2.5%) was the only other area of relative strength, but it bears noting the group accounts for just 3.0% of the entire S&P 500.

Financials began the trading day ahead of the remaining cyclical groups and never relinquished their standing. Major sector components posted solid gains with JPMorgan Chase (JPM 60.11, +1.81) and Morgan Stanley (MS 32.79, +0.98) ending in the lead. The significant strength of the sector reflected the expected benefit from higher rates and a presumption that stress test results would show that most banks meet the Fed's capital ratio standards. Accordingly, the results, which were released after the close indicated that 29 of 30 banks passed while Zions Bancorp (ZION 32.99, +1.02) failed.

For its part, the technology sector was powered by chipmakers. Intel (INTC 25.42, +0.41) jumped 1.6% while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index surged 1.9%. Even though most large components outperformed, that was not the case with the largest sector member-Apple (AAPL 528.70, -2.56)-which lost 0.5%.

The underperformance of Apple weighed on the Nasdaq (+0.3%) as the index could not keep up with the broader market. Biotechnology also pressured the Nasdaq Composite as indicated by a 0.5% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 258.25, -1.22).

Elsewhere, biotechnology also factored into the underperformance of the health care sector (-0.02%), which spent the day in negative territory. Outside of health care, industrials (+0.2%) and utilities (+0.1%) spent the bulk of the session in the red, but erased their losses ahead of the close.

The industrial sector underperformed amid weakness in transports. The Dow Jones Transportation Average shed 0.1% with FedEx (FDX 136.50, -1.88) trailing the remaining index components. The stock ended lower by 1.4% despite being upgraded to 'Market Outperform' at Avondale this morning. Interestingly, the logistics company reported disappointing earnings ahead of Wednesday's open, but the stock ended yesterday's session little changed.

Meanwhile, the utilities sector lagged as higher rates weighed. Elevated rates also took a bite out of homebuilders, sending the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.57, -0.41) lower by 1.6%.

Treasuries spent the entire session in a narrow range with the benchmark 10-yr yield ending unchanged at 2.77%.

Also of note, President Obama announced additional sanctions on 16 Russian officials as well as individuals with close ties to Vladimir Putin while also targeting Bank Rossiya, which is believed to have close ties to the Kremlin. The president also signed an executive order that permits the use of sanctions against specific sectors of the Russian economy. In a swift response, Russia announced sanctions of their own against ten U.S. officials.

Economic data included weekly initial claims, February existing home sales, February Leading Indicators, and the March Philadelphia Fed Survey:

The weekly initial claims level increased to 320,000 from an unrevised 315,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected the claims level to increase to 330,000. Prior to the last couple weeks, the initial claims level-absent unexpected seasonal biases-was bounded between 330,000 and 340,000. The latest data show a slight downward move from that range, which could be the start of another stage in the improvement in labor market conditions.
Existing home sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.60 million in February from an unrevised 4.62 million in January. That was exactly what the Briefing.com consensus expected. For the second consecutive month, the National Association of Realtors blamed extreme winter weather conditions as a primary catalyst for the weakness in sales demand. While sales did drop in winter weather-related areas like the Northeast and Midwest, sales in the South and West still remain well below their December levels. Even if sales recover in the weather-affected areas, overall demand remains below the 5.1 million - 5.3 million that was seen last spring and summer.
The Leading Indicators report for February increased 0.5%. That followed a 0.1% increase in January, and was better than the 0.3% uptick expected by the Briefing.com consensus.
Manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia region ended a temporary contraction in March as the Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Survey increased to 9.0 from -6.3 in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 2.0.

There is no economic data of note on tomorrow's schedule but it is worth mentioning that quadruple witching will be taking place.

Nasdaq Composite +3.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.5% YTD

DJ30 +108.88 NASDAQ +11.68 SP500 +11.24 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1430/1.72 bln/1248 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1481/620.5 mln/1556

3:30 pm :

Precious metals were under pressure today as the dollar index traded higher in response to yesterday's mentions of sooner-than-expected rate increases from the new FOMC Chair, Janet Yellen. She said interested rates could rise in "probably six months" following completion of the stimulus program.
Apr gold fell for a fourth consecutive session, brushing a session low of $1320.80 per ounce in early morning pit trade. It eventually settled with a 0.8% loss at $1330.20 per ounce.
May silver slipped to a session low of $20.14 per ounce moments after floor trade opened. It inched slightly higher for the remainder of the session and settled at $20.43 per ounce, cutting losses to 1.9%.
May crude oil fell for the first time in three sessions as the dollar index traded higher. The energy component dipped to a session low of $98.09 per barrel after trading as high as $99.45 per barrel in morning action. It settled at $98.87 per barrel, or 0.3% lower.
Apr natural gas traded lower as inventory data showed a draw of 48 bcf when a draw of 53-59 bcf was anticipated. It pulled back from its session high of $4.44 per MMBtu and brushed a session low of $4.35 per MMBtu. Unable to gain momentum, it settled with a 2.7% loss at $4.37 per MMBtu.

12:47PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

AKAM (62.14 +3.38%): MKM Partners out positive on co; notes AKAM is one of its top picks for 2014.
STX (53.44 +3.43%): Mentioned positively at Longbow.
CX (12.66 +2.43%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Longbow.

Large Cap Losers

CHL (43.51 -2.52%): Reported FY13 EBITDA was CNY240.4 bln, down 5.2% y/y; beat on revs.
WMB (40.97 -1.61%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies.
BP (46.61 -1.5%): Co has begun bidding for Gulf of Mexico leases, according to reports.

Mid Cap Gainers

GTE (7.57 +6.4%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at TD Securities.
FSLR (72.72 +4.79%): Tgt raised to $70 from $50 at Deutsche Bank; tgt raised to $75 from $64 at JP Morgan; tgt raised to $51 from $31 at Northland Capital; tgt raised to $48 from $47 at RBC; tgt raised to $87 from $67 at Robert W. Baird; tgt raised to $70 at Credit Suisse; tgt raised to $72 from $55 at UBS.
SUNE (21.6 +4.43%): Announced private placement of shares to Samsung (SSNLF) in connection with SunEdison Semiconductor IPO.

Mid Cap Losers

GES (27.36 -4.87%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line; guided Q1/FY15 EPS and rev below consensus; raised dividend 12.5%; tgt lowered to $26 from $30 at Mizuho; tgt lowered to $27 from $29 at Jefferies.
BYI (66.69 -3.14%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.
APO (31.86 -2.09%): Announced that Marc Spilker will be stepping down as President.

12:07PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (166) outpacing new lows (36) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADEP, ADI, AET, AMAT, AMTD, ASBC, ASGN, ASTE, AVGO, AXDX, BAC, BBCN, BBT, BGMD, BOKF, BONE, BRCD, BRKS, BXS, CAVM, CBF, CBT, CFR, CHE, CHKE, CKSW, CMA, CMG, CNO, CNTY, COLB, CORT, COWN, CRS, CRVL, CRZO, CVD, CYBE, DFRG, DMND, DRTX, DVA, EGBN, ELY, ETFC, EWBC, FBNC, FFBC, FITB, FLML, FNB, FNSR, FSLR, FTK, FTR, GNW, GPRE, GSAT, GSIG, GSM, GTAT, GVA, HAR, HASI, HBAN, HBHC, HPQ, HRTX, HUM, IBKC, ICGE, IHS, INDB, IPHI, ISIG, ISR, ISSI, KEY, KLAC, KONA, LXK, MCHP, MCRL, MCS, MEAS, MKTY, MLHR, MPWR, MSA, MSFT, MTX, NBCB, NBR, NTK, NTRS, NVDQ, OMN, ORBK, OZRK, PAY, PDS, PES, PFSW, PJC, PLL, PNC, PNFP, PRI, PRMW, PRTA, PTN, PTX, PVA, PVTB, QCOM, QUMU, RCL, REPH, REX, RF, RFMD, RGA, RUSHB, SAVE, SCHW, SF, SFBC, SGK, SGY, SIVB, SNDK, SQBG, STI, SVA, SWKS, SWN, SXT, TARO, TCBI, TFSL, TPC, TRCB, TSEM, UBFO, UBNT, UCBI, UNH, UNT, URI, USB, USEG, VMW, VPFG, VSB, VTNR, WFC, WG, WIBC, WLB, WNC, WSCI, WTFC, XLNX, YDKN, ZION, ZIOP

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AKO.A, AKO.B, ANR, AVNW, BODY, CHKR, CHL, COVS, CSBK, CZZ, ED, GLMD, GMAN, GMET, HMC, HSBC, JONE, KMI, KMP, KMR, LIQD, MCGC, MTU, NEWL, PBPB, PCL, PSO, RELL, REN, SDR, SDT, SVM, TCRD, VLRS, VTUS, WLT

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EGPT, GULF, IGN, IHF, KBE, KRE, SMH, SOXX

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: FXC, TAO

SUNE +0.6% (announces private placement of shares to Samsung in connection with SunEdison Semiconductor IPO)

7:45AM Hewlett-Packard Board increases quarterly dividend by 10.2% to $0.16/share (HPQ) 31.62 : The increase in the amount of the dividend will be effective when the HP board of directors declares HP's next dividend, which is expected to occur in May. HP's previously announced dividend, payable on April 2, 2014, to stockholders of record on March 12, 2014, will not be increased and will remain at 14.52 cents per share.

7:02AM SunEdison announces private placement of shares to Samsung (SSNLF) in connection with SunEdison Semiconductor IPO (SUNE) 20.68 : Co announced a series of transactions that are expected to occur concurrent with the initial public offering (IPO) of its semiconductor division, SunEdison Semiconductor, including:

Samsung Fine Chemicals will purchase $100 million of SSL's ordinary shares at the IPO price through a private placement concurrent with SSL's IPO.
Samsung Fine Chemicals has entered into an agreement with SunEdison pursuant to which SunEdison will purchase from Samsung Fine Chemicals shares representing a 35% interest in SMP, a joint venture between Samsung Fine Chemicals and SunEdison, and SunEdison will contribute those shares to SSL. Samsung Fine Chemicals will continue to be invested in SMP, owning 15% of SMP following the completion of the transaction. SMP is the low-cost fluidized bed reactor (FBR) based polysilicon joint venture under construction in Ulsan, Korea. The facility is expected to be completed in the second half of 2014 and will provide solar grade polysilicon to SunEdison with the potential to provide electronic grade polysilicon to SSL in the future.
Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) has entered into an agreement with SSL pursuant to which SSL will purchase Samsung Electronics' remaining 20% interest in MEMC Korea Company, in exchange for the issuance by SSL to Samsung Electronics of ordinary shares through a private placement concurrent with SSL's IPO. Upon completion of these transactions, SSL will own 100% of MEMC Korea Company.
Samsung Electronics and SSL have entered into a long-term agreement for Samsung Electronics to purchase semiconductor wafers from SSL. As a result, SSL's market share with Samsung Electronics is expected to increase in each of the next three years.

6:29AM Tessera Tech announces settlement with Renesas; new patent license agreements entered into with Renesas (TSRA) 23.33 : Co announced that its Tessera and Invensas subsidiaries entered into an agreement to settle their pending cases against Renesas Electronics and Renesas Electronics America. In conjunction with the settlement, Renesas entered into new multi-year patent license agreements with Tessera, Inc. and Invensas and transferred over 200 U.S. patents and their counterparts to a subsidiary of Tessera. The companies did not disclose the specific financial terms of the agreements.

5:57AM Tower Semicon signs definitive agreements with its existing institutional bondholders to strengthen its balance sheet (TSEM) 8.73 : Co announces that it has signed definitive agreements with certain existing US and offshore institutional holders, pursuant to which Jazz Technologies, will issue new un-secured bonds due December 2018 in exchange for ~$45 million in aggregate principal amount of the ~$94 million aggregate principal amount of 8% senior bonds due June 2015. The new bonds will be unsecured and are therefore structurally subordinated to the Wells Fargo credit line of up to $70 million due 2018, as are the currently outstanding bonds due June 2015.

Jabil Circuit (JBL) reported second quarter earnings of $0.10 per share, which is worse than expected, while revenues fell 14.1% year/year to $3.58 billion which is lower than expected. The company issued guiadnce for the third quarter with EPS of ($0.20)-0.00 which is below estimates with reveneus of $3.5-3.7 billion which is line with estimates. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2015 with EPS of $1.65-1.95 which is line with estimates.

eBay (EBAY) announces it continues to believe PayPal and Ebay are better together. "PayPal and eBay are better together. That's been true for the past five years, during which time PayPal and eBay have generated a 441% increase in share price for our investors, significantly outpacing NASDAQ and the S&P. And we continue to believe PayPal and eBay together is the best path to creating sustainable, long-term shareholder value in the future. As the lines between online and offline commerce continue to blur, the competitive advantages of PayPal and eBay together are more important than ever...A partial separation of PayPal is not a new idea, and we're glad to see that Mr. Icahn now seems to agree that a full separation of PayPal is not a good idea. Our board regularly evaluates strategic options for the company, looking at the best ways to enhance our competitiveness, accelerate growth and deliver sustainable shareholder value...We are fully committed to always acting in the best long-term interests of our shareholders...In the future, our board will continue to evaluate all strategic options and make the right decisions for shareholders. But today, PayPal and eBay are better together."

Tessera Tech (TSRA) announced that its Tessera and Invensas subsidiaries entered into an agreement to settle their pending cases against Renesas Electronics and Renesas Electronics America. In conjunction with the settlement, Renesas entered into new multi-year patent license agreements with Tessera, Inc. and Invensas and transferred over 200 U.S. patents and their counterparts to a subsidiary of Tessera. The companies did not disclose the specific financial terms of the agreements.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 21-Mar-14

Dow -28.35 at 16302.70, Nasdaq -42.50 at 4276.79, S&P -5.61 at 1866.40

The stock market finished an upbeat week on a lower note with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite losing 1.0% while the S&P 500 shed 0.3% with four sectors ending in the red.

Equities began the day on a strong note with no economic data to influence the trading sentiment; however, quadruple witching and index rebalancing contributed to additional volatility and volume. With nearly two billion shares changing hands at the New York Stock Exchange, today's final volume was less than 500 million below the 2.44 billion collective total registered between Monday and Thursday.

The S&P 500 surged out of the gate, notching a fresh intraday record high at 1884.00, but was unable to establish a new closing high above the March 7 settlement of 1878.04. After spiking at the open, the benchmark average spent the rest of the session in a steady retreat.

While the S&P 500 did not slip into the red until just before 14:00 ET, the Nasdaq underperformed from the open, making its first appearance in negative territory around 10:00 ET. Biotechnology pressured the index from the early going with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 246.01, -12.24) spending the session in a steady slide before settling lower by 4.7% on heaviest volume since October 2005. The ETF ended 9.9% below its February high, trimming its 2014 gain to 8.4%. In addition to pressuring the Nasdaq, biotechnology contributed to considerable weakness in the health care sector (-1.5%), which ended well behind the remaining nine sectors.

Although no other sector posted a loss larger than 0.6%, other top-weighted groups like technology (-0.5%) and consumer discretionary (-0.6%) underperformed while financials (+0.01%) finished a bit ahead of the broader market after being up as much as 1.1% at the start of the session.

Losses in the technology sector were paced by chipmakers with Intel (INTC 25.17, -0.25) falling 1.0% while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 0.9%. On the software side, shares of Symantec (SYMC 18.20, -2.71) caught a virus, plunging 12.9% after the company unexpectedly terminated Chief Executive Officer Steve Bennett, naming Michael Brown interim president and CEO.

Elsewhere, the discretionary space was pressured by homebuilders and Nike (NKE 75.21, -4.06). Top-weighted homebuilders posted losses across the board with the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.17, -0.40) slumping 1.6%. For its part, Nike tumbled 5.1% after its cautious outlook overshadowed above-consensus earnings and revenue.

Even though three of the four largest sectors underperformed notably, the broader market was kept from registering additional losses by the relative strength among the second-tier sectors. Consumer staples (+0.03%), energy (+0.3%), and industrials (+0.1%) all finished ahead of the broader market. Materials (+0.5%), telecom services (-0.03%), and utilities (+0.8%) also ended ahead of the S&P 500, but their impact was limited since three sectors account for just 9.9% of the entire market.

With stocks under pressure, participants displayed demand for volatility protection, sending the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.00, +0.48) higher by 3.3% after the near-term volatility measure tested early March lows at the start of the session.

Treasuries spent the entire day in a steady climb from their morning lows. The benchmark 10-yr yield fell three basis points to 2.74%.

Week in Review: Fed Chair Yellen Defines "Considerable Time"

All of the fear and loathing about the Sunday referendum in Crimea was set aside on Monday. Stock markets in Europe and the US rallied, not because there was a de-escalation of the standoff in Ukraine, but because there was no escalation of the standoff that would threaten global economic growth. As expected, Crimeans voted overwhelmingly in favor (95.5% of votes cast) of joining the Russian Federation. As expected, the outcome of the referendum was not accepted as valid by President Obama and EU leaders. Still, there were two points of relief that sparked a short-covering rally on Monday: (1) Military force has not been used and (2) hard-hitting economic sanctions had yet to be imposed. The early rush of buying activity was helped along by a positive showing out of China's stock market (+1.0%), which responded favorably to news of a new urbanization plan. Separately, there were reports that the People's Bank of China would expand the yuan's daily trading band to 2% from 1%.

The major averages finished the Tuesday session with solid gains, but outside of a few pockets of considerable relative strength, most sectors could be classified as reluctant participants in the daylong rally. Small caps led the way with the Russell 2000 climbing 1.5% while the S&P 500 advanced 0.7% with nine sectors posting gains. Prior to the open, equity indices were on track for a lower start to the session, but that changed in a hurry when comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin began making the rounds. Although Mr. Putin did not provide any groundbreaking insight, European markets and equity futures rallied when he said Russia does not want to see a break-up of Ukraine.

Wednesday's session ended in the red with small caps displaying the largest decline. The Russell 2000 lost 0.7% while the S&P 500 settled lower by 0.6% with all ten sectors ending in the red. Equity indices did not show much change during the first half of the session as participants awaited the latest policy statement from the Federal Reserve, but activity picked up considerably after the release of the directive. In response to a question as to what the Fed means by "considerable time" for keeping the current target range for the federal funds rate after the asset purchase program ends, Fed Chair Yellen said "probably six months." Selling activity accelerated after the remark and the fed funds futures market, which, last week, expected the first hike to take place in July, saw the expectations shift to April.

On Thursday, the major averages finished on an upbeat note with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) in the lead. Small caps underperformed with the Russell 2000 adding 0.1% while the S&P 500 settled higher by 0.6% with nine sectors posting gains. Stocks began the day on the defensive amid cautious action overseas, but were quick to erase their early losses. The S&P 500 climbed out of the red during the first hour of action with most European indices following suit. The early advance was powered by the heavily-weighted financial (+1.7%) and technology (+0.7%) sectors, both of which continued their outperformance into the close. Outside of the two, the telecom services sector (+2.5%) was the only other area of relative strength, but it bears noting the group accounts for just 3.0% of the entire S&P 500.

 
 Index	   Started Week	  Ended Week   Change % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	     16065.67	  16302.70     237.03	 1.5	 -1.7 
 Nasdaq	      4245.40	   1866.40   -2379.00	-56.0   -55.3 
 S&P 500	1841.13	   4276.79    2435.66	132.3	131.4 
 Russell 2000  1181.41	  1193.73	12.32	  1.0	  2.6

4:22PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: FSLR (73.37 +32.91%), GTAT (18.61 +17.93%), MRCY (13.03 +16.49%)
Services: TNP (7.68 +18.32%), ULTA (100.84 +16.52%)
Industrial Goods: NES (18.87 +16.6%)
Healthcare: FLML (14.32 +38.03%), HZNP (17.35 +28.81%), CUR (4.21 +28.06%), PRTA (45.48 +25.98%), SVA (7.53 +24.54%), ZIOP (5.17 +22.62%), SNTA (4.99 +19.27%), CCXI (7.65 +17.37%), DRNA (36.98 +16.52%)
Financial: Z (100.24 +18.29%)
Basic Materials: PVA (16.32 +23.66%), FF (21.24 +23.36%), EGY (7.28 +17.73%), AXAS (4.07 +16.12%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Utilities: FCEL (2.57 -27.63%)
Technology: PLUG (5.94 -25.37%), FEYE (69.66 -15.93%), YGE (4.79 -12.82%), CMGE (22.18 -12.73%)
Services: ARO (5.57 -23.29%), CETV (3.35 -17.46%), RENN (3.22 -12.43%)
Industrial Goods: BLDP (4.33 -27.76%)
Healthcare: RPTP (10.66 -26.3%), GWPH (66.83 -15.33%)
Basic Materials: MUX (2.88 -23.93%), RBY (1.1 -19.86%), WLT (7.52 -19.49%), RIOM (1.91 -17.8%), FSM (3.85 -16.34%), NGD (5.52 -13.68%), EGO (6.26 -13.49%), AUQ (4.51 -12.91%), CHKR (10.08 -12.73%)

3:40PM Earnings Preview for the week of March 24 - 28 (SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of March 24 - 28 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - SOL
After Hours - SONC, EXA
Tuesday:
Pre Market - WAG, CCL, HDS, MKC, GIII, NEOG, IKGH
After Hours - PVH, SCS, FIVE, LDNC, GOMO, GEVO, GERN
Wednesday:
Pre Market - LNN, MOV, EVRY, FRAN
After Hours - PAYX
Thursday:
Pre Market - ACN, GME, CMC, SIG, LDOS, UTIW, WOR, LULU, FRED, CONN, WGO, VNCE, SFXE, OTIV
After Hours - RH, RHT, OXM, PRGS, RMAX
Friday:
Pre Market - BBRY, FINL

12:21PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).
Large Cap Gainers
EXC (32.66 +4.12%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse, added to Focus List
V (227.23 +2.44%): Strength attributed to U.S. appeals court decision to uphold Fed's rules on swipe fees, reversing a lower court's decision to throw them out
S (9.31 +2.36%): re/code reporting that co is closing three call centers and 55 stores in new round of cuts

Large Cap Losers

SYMC (18.24 -12.75%): Announced termination of CEO Steve Bennett, appointed Board member Michael Brown as interim President and Chief Executive Officer; downgraded at Robert W. Baird, Jefferies, Cowen, UBS, and MKM Partners
ALXN (163.92 -5.61%): Broad based weakness in biotech: BIIB, BMRN, INCY, GILD, VRTX also lower
NKE (76.61 -3.36%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.76 vs $0.72 estimate), revs rose 12.7% yoy to $6.97 bln vs $6.81 bln estimate; management expects FX headwinds to continue to reduce EPS growth rate for Q4 and into FY15

Mid Cap Gainers

COMM (24.3 +9.81%): Raised Q1 guidance to $0.43-0.47 (from $0.36-0.40) vs $0.37 estimate, raised rev guidance to $900-925 mln (from $860-900 mln) vs $875.97 mln estimate; upgraded to Buy from Hold at National Alliance Securities, target $28
ITMN (35.7 +8.68%): Hearing strength related to positive results from peer company's trial in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease for which ITMN is also developing treatments
SBGI (28.39 +5.03%): Announced that it has submitted a letter to the Federal Communications Commission in order to meet certain objections to the co's transaction with Allbritton

Mid Cap Losers

GEVA (93.43 -6.73%): Broad based weakness in biotech: NPSP, ACAD, PCRX, ISIS also lower
ENLK (30.26 -5.85%): Priced a public offering of ~18 mln shares of common units representing limited partner interests owned by GSO Crosstex and certain of its affiliates for total gross proceeds of ~ $550 mln
ZION (31.88 -3.36%): Weakness following announcement that the company did not clear the Fed's hurdle for capital and leverage; co plans to resubmit its capital plan

12:11PM Mkt Vctrs Steel Sector ETF extends to new session high of 45.50 in recent trade, nearing its 50 ema/sma and 200 ema between 45.52/45.65 (SLX) 45.50 +1.11 : RIO, MT, TS, TKR, NUE, TX, RS, SSLT, X, STLD, SCHN, AKS.

11:55AM Oil Service HOLDRS Trust displaying relative strength, hovering just under its new session high of 49.25 (OIH) 49.24 +0.87 : Note that its March/four month high is at 49.34 -- SLB, NOV, RIG, HAL, BHI, CAM, ESV, WFT, FTI, RIG, SDRL.

11:40AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (283) outpacing new lows (21) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADEP, ADI, ADS, AET, AF, AGN, AL, ALL, ALV, AMAT, AMGN, AMKR, AMTD, ANN, APD, APH, ARW, ASBC, ASTE, ATI, AVAV, AVGO, AXAS, BAC, BBCN, BBNK, BBT, BC, BCR, BDX, BF.B, BK, BKU, BOCH, BOH, BOKF, BRCD, BRKS, BWA, BWLD, CAVM, CBI, CBSH, CBT, CBU, CCC, CFR, CHFC, CJES, CLB, CLD, CMA, CMG, CNO, CNTY, CODE, COLB, COMM, COWN, CPK, CREG, CRK, CRS, CUI, CUR, CVD, CVS, CWT, CYT, DAVE, DBD, DCOM, DEJ, DFS, DLPH, DMND, DNKN, DOV, DOW, DOX, DST, DVA, DW, EA, ECYT, ELY, EMC, EMCI, EME, ENTA, ENTG, ETFC, FCF, FCNCA, FFBC, FITB, FL, FLIR, FNB, FNSR, FOE, FORTY, FRC, FSL, FTR, GA, GCO, GIGM, GLNG, GLOG, GNW, GPRE, GRMN, GSIG, GSM, GTAT, GUID, GVA, HAL, HAR, HASI, HBAN, HBHC, HBI, HBP, HCBK, HI, HP, HTLD, HUB.B, IBKC, ICGE, IDN, IFON, INDB, INVN, ISBC, ISIG, ISIL, ISSI, IT, JPM, KEY, KFY, KLAC, KND, LANC, LKFN, LM, LPLA, LRCX, LXK, MCHP, MCHX, MCK, MCRL, MCS, MEAS, MGPI, MKL, MKTY, MLM, MMC, MRH, MSA, MSFT, MTB, MTW, MTX, NBCB, NBR, NEE, NEU, NGVC, NOA, NRG, NSC, NTK, NTRS, NWE, NXPI, OCLR, OMN, ORA, PAY, PB, PCAR, PDS, PEIX, PES, PF, PFBC, PJC, PLL, PNC, PODD, POWI, PRI, PRMW, PTEN, PVA, PWR, PZZA, QCOM, R, RCL, RES, RF, RFMD, RGA, RLJ, RUSHB, SCHW, SCOR, SF, SFE, SGB, SGMA, SGY, SIMO, SIVB, SKBI, SNA, SNAK, SNDK, SPA, SPNC, SRE, ST, STI, SUBK, SWC, SWN, SXL, SXT, TAP, TCB, TCBI, TFSL, TFX, THO, THRM, TPC, TRGP, TRN, TSN, TSRA, TV, TXI, TXN, UBNT, UNH, UNP, UNT, URI, USB, USEG, VAC, VIAB, VLO, VMW, VPFG, VSB, VTNR, WAB, WAFD, WAL, WASH, WBC, WDR, WFC, WG, WIBC, WLB, WLFC, WLP, WNC, WNRL, WSM, WTFC, XEC, XLNX, YDKN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AVNW, BODY, CHL, COVS, CTCM, CVA, GLMD, GMET, GRAM, LIQD, MLVF, NGHC, SAR, SBS, SDT, SYMC, TBAC, VHC, VLRS, VTUS, WTSL

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DVY, EGPT, IAI, IHF, IYF, IYG, IYZ, KBE, KRE, OEF, PALL, SMH, SOXX, SPY, UYG, XLF

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

11:33AM Small-/Mid-Caps and Dow +119 push to new session highs (TECHX) : The S&P +10 is roughly one point below this morning new all time high while the lagging Nasdaq Comp -1 is 26 points under its early high.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that Inspur Group, Shandong Cable Network's primary systems integrator, has selected Broadcom's high definition set-top box system-on-chip to enable deployment of cable services to millions of China cable subscribers.

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://investmenthouse2.com/cntdirplus.asp?name=IHDaily&zid=2770189&eeid=XFcqVytdVygELD4ZXlAyUFpZGFAqWg==

MARKET SUMMARY

- Change is afoot. Indices run higher, reverse to losses. Expiration? Rebalance? Rotation or more?
- International and domestic issues driving markets.
- Fed-speak affirms Yellen's comments.
- Still some excellent upside opportunity though ready to play some downside as well.

Changes.

The stock market and indeed other markets are showing some change, post-Yellen and even before. Perhaps they are just digesting the Yellen 'considerable time' definition. Maybe, but some of the move started before the Wednesday FOMC press conference though it was no doubt exacerbated by Yellen's comments. Perhaps there is rotation into new areas taking place. Perhaps the overall bull run based on QE is facing its end as QE continues its withdrawal and the economy and thus market have to rely on old fashioned growth. The following discusses those changes then we take up the market action.

Geopolitical changes.

The past few weeks injected some uncertainty abroad and domestically. With the invasion of Crimea, geopolitical issues are heightened to seemingly forgotten levels. Russia has Crimea and is making the same comments that led to the Crimean annexation about East Ukraine and Estonia. An aggressor sees an opportunity and is taking it as the world appears more transfixed by a missing airplane than countries that come up missing.

This adds to and perhaps exacerbates the ongoing situations in Syria where Russia dominates the conversation, Iran, North Korea, China/Japan conflict, and perhaps Venezuela and other South American countries.

Indeed, Friday we learned that Russia is ready to announce a natural gas supply agreement with China, its new-found friend after decades of animosity, and the two are talking about a commodity-backed currency to supplant the dollar. This alliance and its aims truly threaten the dollar as the world's reserve currency. A power play is underway between the US, China, and Russia, and it is no forgone conclusion as even the US has publicly admitted its weakened position by virtue of the Defense Secretary's 'the days are gone' comments regarding the US' ability to dominate the air and seas.

Sure China has its problems (economic bubble caused by too much stimulus, massive pollution that will sap its economy, corporate defaults gain speed the past week) as does Russia (still a rather smallish, totally commodities dominated economy), but the US has some of the same issues (massive debt, massive increases in government and regulation, giving up principals of free markets and free markets that made it strong) . A loss of the reserve currency status would be a huge blow to the US given its fiat currency is supporting so much debt and greatly disrupt the balance of power, reducing the US' ability to influence world events. Some may think that is a good thing, but the consequences to the US economy are not.

Economic issues

Economically, the data continues suggesting economic improvement, but still no great economic run. We have come out of the Great Recession, if we really have given the 100+M still unemployed or out of the workforce, 46+M on food stamps, weekly wages hitting a four year low. Tax receipts are at an all-time high, a phenomena that occurs after taxes are initially hiked in a moderate economic recovery, indicating that some areas are working. The US could be energy independent, giving it a great leg up on any competition, as that sector is the one area clearly leading the US economy and pulling several other sectors with it as the demand for oilfield related equipment surges.

The problem is that even with those jobs, most of the jobs created are low-paying service sector jobs. The policies the Administration has implemented, claimed to raise the middle class, are razing the middle class. All semantics. All lip service. The US middle class has never been this strapped since the Great Depression. Fitting I suppose given the report released two weeks back that crunched the numbers and now says this recovery is the worst in US history, worse than the recovery from the Great Depression.

On top of that you have the FOMC in the position of having to withdraw stimulus. Too much for too long. It had its intended effect, i.e. inflating financial assets. Though Bernanke had said the same thing many times before, Friday comments from Dallas Fed President Fisher made headlines when he said QE was a 'massive gift intended to boost wealth' and that the 'efficacy of QE has been exhausted.' QE is going to be removed as there will be no taper outside financial market collapse. Then rates will rise. Yellen said so and on Friday Mr. Bullard confirmed this saying that the 6 month comments were 'in line' with Fed surveys.

Thus the die is cast: Stimulus will be removed and it is up to the US economy to take over without the training wheels. Unfortunately, it is having to take over in a still weak state as the recovery is weak and there are extraordinarily serious world issues confronting the US.

Thus it is no wonder there is some change in the markets as they adjust to the recent domestic and international events in an attempt to assign the correct value to assets post-QE and in a new world where the dollar is threatened.

THE MARKETS

The Action

Stocks lost ground Friday after what was considered a good Thursday. As we pointed out, however, Thursday was not good as the indices gained on low trade, breadth was at best flat, and leaders were stumbling further. Expiration and index rebalancing dominated the Friday action as stocks opened higher then sold off. After a day of opening higher and closing higher last week, the older pattern returned: higher open, lower close. The indices showed potential reversal patterns: the push higher then reversing downside. Massive volume though it was expiration and rebalance day.

The indices did not break their trends. Thus there could be ongoing rotation as we noted in the reports this past week. Financials are getting money and despite some breaks in some leading stocks in the category, chips/electronics still look quite good. Rotation can look like a market readying to break down. Thus is it very important to keep an eye on sectors to see which start to move higher, if any. There are still sectors looking quite good, and thus you need to be ready to act upon where the money is moving. At the same time, however, you must be ready to act to the downside if stocks overall break or even if you just want to play some areas that were leading but are now suffering outflows of cash.

SP500 -5.49, -0.29%
NASDAQ -42.50, -0.98%
DJ30 -28.28, -0.17%
SP400 -0.13%
RUTX -0.44%
SOX -0.87%

Volume: +107% NYSE, +62% NASDAQ

A/D: NYSE 1.4:1, NASDAQ -1.4:1

Growth was the clear laggard as NASDAQ took a sharp hit as it reversed in a high to low engulfing pattern. As noted, no trend breaks but some character change is occurring.

OTHER MARKETS

Euro/Dollar: Dollar weaker after a big surge off support post-FOMC/Yellen comments.

1.3794 versus 1.3776 versus 1.3831 versus 1.3930 versus 1.3925 versus 1.3907 versus 1.3858 versus 1.3907 versus 1.3870 versus 1.3869 versus 1.3872 versus 1.3857 versus 1.3735 versus 1.3737 versus 1.3730 versus 1.3805

Dollar/Yen: Lost just a bit of ground after surging higher Wednesday.

102.25 versus 102.42 versus 102.51 versus 101.40 versus 101.75 versus 101.29 versus 101.67 versus 102.71 versus 102.90 versus 103.24 versus 103.33 versus 103.07 versus 102.31 versus 102.19 versus 101.38 versus 101.82 versus 102.10 versus 102.38 versus 102.16 versus 102.47 versus 102.51 versus 102.35 versus 102.25 versus 102.43 versus 101.86

Bonds: After a fade Wednesday and Thursday, bonds surged Friday, holding over the 50 day EMA.

10 year: 2.77% versus 2.78% versus 2.77% versus 2.67% versus 2.70% versus 2.65% versus 2.65% versus 2.72% versus 2.77% versus 2.78% versus 2.79% versus 2.74% versus 2.69% versus 2.67% versus 2.60% versus 2.66% versus 2.69% versus 2.67% versus 2.70% versus 2.74% versus 2.73% versus 2.75%

Oil: 99.55, +0.65. All week oil moved laterally below the 50 day EMA. Broke through on Friday but could not hold the move.

Gold: 1335.80, +5.60. Hard week as gold started selling even before Wednesday's FOMC meeting. Easily held above the 50 day EMA and indeed bounced modestly Friday, but not a strong attempt to recover.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -42.5 points (-0.98%) to close at 4276.79
Volume: 2.959B (+62.31%)

Up Volume: 979.59M (-60.41M)
Down Volume: 2.08B (+1.289B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.38 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.09 to 1

New Highs: 172 (+31)
New Lows: 24 (+1)

S&P
Stats: -5.49 points (-0.29%) to close at 1866.52
NYSE Volume: 1.187B (+107.52%)

Up Volume: 2.58B (+490M)
Down Volume: 2.49B (+1.32B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.41 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.01 to 1

New Highs: 207 (+105)
New Lows: 82 (-1)

DJ30
Stats: -28.28 points (-0.17%) to close at 16302.77

THE CHARTS

Potential reversal signals last week but nothing that broke the trends. Friday was mixed with NYSE large caps holding on better thanks to the rise of financial stocks last week, but all indices showed a negative signal with high to low reversals. Big volume but that was attributed to expiration and index rebalance.

SP500: Surged to a new high then reversed to close negative. No trend break, no support break. The financials rose last week in a rotation to that sector. But note: they didn't do a darn thing for the index.

NASDAQ: Recovered last week from the early March selling, but did not move to a new high, did not threaten a new high. It started losing some leadership on the week. It did not break, but it tested the November 2012 upper channel line for the second time in two weeks. Friday was a gap higher to a high for the week but then it reversed to close on the trendline. Weakening but has not broken.

DJ30: One of the Thursday leaders, the Dow rallied again Friday but posted a pretty spectacular reversal as it moved through the trendline then flared out and closed below it. Still lagging the other indices.

RUTX: Small gaps spent all wee bumping a long term trendline starting back in the 1990's. Look at the 20 year RUTX chart. Look at the magnitude and angle of the last move from 2012. This cannot sustain. No other run in the past is this big or straight higher. Even if some of those prior rallies were built in part on easy money (though mostly economic growth) this current move is massively out of the norm. Even those moves built on economic growth had to correct hard. This one is built on QE. QE is ending. Even with a 'normal' economy, this move is unsustainable. It will correct.

SOX: SOX is clearly the market leader. Broke to a new decade high with this last move starting in early March. Gapped, tested and last week surged higher. Friday was off but SOX remains the leader in the stock market, and it has room to move versus sitting on top of a big, historically outsized run. You see, SOX too has posted a dramatic rise off the November 2012 asset buying initiative, but note that its long term chart is nothing like the other indices. It is in a multiyear trading range, now bumping at the top of the range, just breaking higher with this last move. SOX could be on the brink of a new level of trading, and how it tests this move will tell the tale.

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 15; +0.48
VXN: 17.35; +1.17
VXO: 13.26; +0.17

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.9; +0.14

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls retreated from almost extreme levels. Still elevated.

Bears again holding at 17: 17.4 versus 17.4 versus 15.1 from 17.2 for two weeks and 17.4 for three weeks prior to that.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Note the extreme bullishness: it was this high in 2007 at the crash, in early 2005 as well.

Bulls: 52.0 versus 55.1%
54.6% 53.5% 46.5% 41.8% 45.9% 53.1% 57.6 56.1 60.6% 61.6% 60.0%
58.2% 57.1% 55.7% 53.6% 52.6% 55.2% 52.6 49.5 42.3% 45.4 46.4% 44.3% 42.3% 37.1% 37.1% 38.1% 43.3%.

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 17.4% versus 17.4%
15.1% 17.2% 17.2% 17.4% 17.4% 15.3% 15.1 15.3% 15.2% 15.2% 14.0 14.3 14.3 14.4 15.5 15.5% 15.6% 16.5% 18.5 21.6% 20.6% 18.6% 20.6% 21.6% 22.7% 23.7% 23.8% 21.6%.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

The past week the stock market and other markets had to deal with new realities. The end of QE is real as is the time of easier money. The new Fed chairman put a time on it. QE reductions continue at $10B/meeting. With $55B/month after the last reduction, you are looking at roughly 6 months until zero, then six months to start raising rates. 12 months is about how long the market looks ahead. Thus, it got the news as to the timetable and it is such that it has to deal with it now in addition to the issues from the rest of the world. Thus the turmoil last week.

Sure it didn't seem like much on the surface. All of the indices held their trends and heck, they were even up Thursday after the FOCM meeting. Financials rose as money moved their way given the Fed's signals. But what is good for financials good for everything else that has risen on QE? ONLY if the economy recovers at a better pace. It is showing signs of improvement but I am concerned it is just more of the modest recovery, not the historical US strength. If that is the case, there is no way these high stock prices are justified, and the hiccups seen last week might well be the precursors to long corrections as seen in the long term charts of the indices reviewed earlier.

That said, looking at the electronics/chips area there are still many very good setups, and coupled with the breakout from a long-term trading range, this could be a very good area to mine for the upside. Indeed we are looking at this area again this weekend for more upside.

At the same time there are big names breaking, and indeed some of the indices are in position to play if they break. If the market ends up topping, it takes time for it to happen. As with any move, however, there are early leaders, in this case stocks that fall first. We will look at playing some of those, and if the move develops, more will arise. If not, we make some money on stocks that needed to correct as they set up for new upside moves.

Again, the indices remain in their uptrends and indeed SOX is breaking through old resistance. We still want to play that trend even if some names that led the last move struggle. As noted Thursday, perhaps they will set up again and return to aid a further market rally.

Times of change are always tough on investors because turns are what hurts the most. Thus we went ahead and closed some positions Thursday and Friday and indeed have pared positions overall over the past few weeks as the change started to take shape in individual stocks.

This week we have looked at many sectors in the market and see many undergoing change. It is still time to be patient, but that does not mean just ignoring stocks. There are still great opportunities in electronics and indeed drug stocks despite some big name hits. We looked exhaustively at financials and there may be some possibilities develop off the initial run. We want to see good tests, however, to commit money, and even then the stocks that CAN produce good gains are few.

So, a bit of patience but that simply means playing very good patterns in sectors that are still strong. Electronics is one. At the same time we will look at downside plays given the market is in change, and if it breaks we can play some early movers and then many more on tests of initial drops.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4276.79

Resistance:
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4372 is the March 2014 high

Support:
4277 is the March lower gap point
4272 is the upper channel line for the November 2012 to present uptrend.
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak
The 50 day EMA at 4225
4173 is the November 2012 trendline
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13
4070 is the series of highs from late November/early December
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3967 is the October 2013 post-bear market high.
The 200 day SMA at 3880
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.

S&P 500: Closed at 1866.42

Resistance:
1883.57 is the recent all-time high hit in early March.

Support:
The December and January highs at 1848
The 50 day EMA at 1837
1830 is the December 2012 up trendline
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1768 is the December 3013 low
The 200 day SMA at 1743
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point
1657 is the late August upper gap point
1654 is the June 2013 peak
1646 is the October 2013 low just before the surge into early 2014
1627 is the August 2013 low

Dow: Closed at 16,302.77

Resistance:
16,359 is a lower trendline off the 11/2012 low
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high

Support:
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
The 50 day EMA at 16,157
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
The 200 day SMA at 15,647
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,318 is the June closing high
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)
14,198 from the October 2007 high
14,149 is the February 2013 high
14,022 from 7-07 peak
14,010 from the early February 2013 consolidation

Economic Calendar

March 25 - Tuesday
- Case-Shiller 20-city Index, January (9:00): 13.3% expected, 13.4% prior
- FHFA Housing Price I, January (9:00): 0.8% prior
- Consumer Confidence, March (10:00): 78.2 expected, 78.1 prior
- New Home Sales, February (10:00): 445K expected, 468K prior

March 26 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 03/22 (7:00): -1.2% prior
- Durable Orders, February (8:30): 1.0% expected, -1.0% prior
- Durable Goods -ex transports, February (8:30): 0.3% expected, -1.1% prior
- Crude Inventories, 03/22 (10:30): 5.850M prior

March 27 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 03/22 (8:30): 330K expected, 320K prior
- Continuing Claims, 03/15 (8:30): 2900K expected, 2889K prior
- GDP - Third Estimate, Q4 (8:30): 2.6% expected, 2.4% prior
- GDP Deflator - Third, Q4 (8:30): 1.6% expected, 1.6% prior
- Pending Home Sales, February (10:00): -0.2% expected, 0.1% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 03/22 (10:30): -48 bcf prior

March 28 - Friday
- Personal Income, February (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.3% prior
- Personal Spending, February (8:30): 0.3% expected, 0.4% prior
- PCE Prices - Core, February (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Michigan Sentiment - Final, March (9:55): 80.0 expected, 79.9 prior

[ReturntoSender]

KLIC MT Short Sale 5000 shares@12.58 - I should have just gone short the same time I sold on Friday. KLIC may yet head over 13... if it does then I will short more there.






RtS

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market kicked off the new trading week on a cautious note with the Nasdaq leading the retreat. The tech-heavy index lost 1.2% while the S&P 500 fell 0.5% with eight sectors ending in the red. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) held up relatively well.

Equity indices began the session in the green, but quickly slumped into the red as biotechnology continued its recent woes while other momentum names displayed broad weakness. Late-afternoon buying lifted the key averages off their lows, but the Nasdaq could only reclaim a portion of its loss.

The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 239.23, -6.78) settled lower by 2.8% after testing its 100-day moving average (235.61) for the first time since early November. Today's loss widened the ETF's March decline to 9.5%, but the high-flying industry group remains up 5.4% so far in 2014.

The underperformance of biotechnology pressured the health care sector (-1.4%), which spent the entire session behind the other nine groups. Health care was not the only influential sector weighing on the broader market as the consumer discretionary space (-1.0%) lagged throughout the session while technology (-0.4%) did not overtake the broader market until the late afternoon.

Momentum names did their part in keeping the two sectors on the defensive. Amazon.com (AMZN 351.85, -8.77) and Netflix (NFLX 378.90, -27.09) pressured the discretionary space, posting respective losses of 2.4% and 6.7%, while Facebook (FB 64.10, -3.14), Google (GOOG 1157.93, -25.11), and LinkedIn (LNKD 188.14, -8.58) contributed to the early weakness in technology.

Speaking of technology, the sector led the market lower in the morning, but was able to finish the day ahead of the S&P 500 thanks to the relative strength of top-weighted names. Apple (AAPL 539.19, +6.32), IBM (IBM 188.25, +1.58), and Microsoft (MSFT 40.50, +0.34) gained between 0.9% and 1.2% with Apple's strength coming amid reports indicating the company is working on a content distribution agreement with Comcast (CMCSA 50.30, +0.30). In all likelihood, the news exacerbated today's loss in the shares of Netflix.

Even though heavily-weighted sectors lagged, the broader market was prevented from registering additional losses by the relative strength among consumer staples (-0.1%), energy (-0.1%), and financials (-0.2%). Elsewhere, telecom services (+0.3%) and utilities (+0.2%) posted modest gains, but the pair carries little sway over the broader market since it accounts for just 5.5% of the S&P 500.

Treasuries posted modest gains after climbing off their overnight lows. The benchmark 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.73% after hovering near 2.78% ahead of the opening bell.

Participation was in line with average as roughly 714 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

There was no notable economic data reported today, but some news of note came out of the G7 meeting at The Hague where the G7 nations issued a joint statement, saying they are suspending their participation in the G8 until "Russia changes course."

Tomorrow, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index (Briefing.com consensus 13.3%) for January and the January FHFA Housing Price Index will be released at 9:00 ET while March Consumer Confidence (consensus 78.2) and New Home Sales for February (consensus 445K) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +1.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.2% YTD
S&P 500 +0.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.8% YTD

DJ30 -26.08 NASDAQ 50.40 SP500 -9.08 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 684/2.15 bln/2238 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1155/714.2 mln/1933

3:35 pm :

Precious metals spent all of today's floor trade in negative territory.
Apr gold pulled back from its session high of $1324.50 per ounce set in early morning action and brushed a session low of $1308.50 per ounce. The yellow metal eventually settled 1.8% lower at $1311.40 per ounce.
May silver dipped to a session low of $19.97 per ounce. It settled at $20.31 per ounce, or 1.2% lower.
May crude oil chopped around in positive territory for most of today's pit action. The energy component dipped to a session low of $99.34 per barrel in late morning pit trade after trading as high as $100.29 per barrel earlier in the session. It settled with a 0.1% gain at $99.57 per barrel.
Apr natural gas fell for a third consecutive session after slipping into negative territory from its session high of $4.33 per MMBtu set at floor trade open. It touched a session low of $4.26 per MMBtu and settled with a 0.7% gain at $4.28 per MMBtu.

Large Cap Gainers

CHL (42.86 +3.15%): Strength in large cap Chinese wireless companies: CHU also higher
BBD (12.37 +2.49%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse
LYG (5.22 +2.15%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Investec

Large Cap Losers

NFLX (377.03 -7.13%): Reuters reporting that Apple (AAPL) is in discussions with Comcast (CMCSA) regarding a TV streaming service
ALXN (148.78 -6.89%): Continued weakness in large cap biotech stocks: ILMN, VRX, BIIB also lower
TWTR (48.81 -4.14%): Weakness amid further reports that Turkey has blocked access; AppleInsider also reporting that co will pull the #music app from the App Store and shut down services in April

Mid Cap Gainers

NUS (89.37 +19.16%): Provided update on China regulatory review: co was penalized ~$524k for the sale of certain products by individual direct sellers were not registered for the direct selling channel
HLF (52.87 +6.72%): Agreed to nominate three additional Icahn designees to the Board of Directors
AXLL (44.01 +1.78%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill

Mid Cap Losers

BCEI (45.61 -8.62%): Hearing downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James
P (31.33 -7.88%): Billboard reporting that Apple (AAPL) is looking at launching a new streaming music service; Apple also thought to be adding an iTunes App for Android phones
QUNR (29.02 -6.75%): Initiated with a Neutral at Macquarie

11:40AM Stock indices edge off morning lows -- Dow -52, S&P -12, Nasdaq Comp -62 (TECHX) : Sectors displaying some relative strength vs. the S&P on during the push off lows include: Biotech IBB (held at support at 232, 10:15 update), Semi SMH, Rail/Transports IYT.

11:30AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (101) outpacing new lows (37) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AIRI, ALL, AP, ARW, ARX, ATI, ATNI, AUBN, AXAS, BEAV, BK, BOCH, BOH, BRKS, CBT, CCC, CDNS, CFR, CJES, CLD, CNX, COWN, CREG, CRK, CRS, CUI, CUR, CYBE, DBD, DFRG, EMC, EQM, EXH, FFBC, FNHC, FNSR, FWV, GA, GLNG, GMT, GNW, GPRC, GSIG, GSOL, GUID, GVA, GXP, H, HCLP, HIL, HP, HTLD, HTM, IDN, ISIG, ITRN, LFUS, MAR, MTR, NEU, NJ, NOA, ORBK, PAGP, PDS, PEIX, PPC, PQ, PRMW, PTEN, QUMU, R, REX, ROL, SCOR, SFE, SGB, SGU, SGY, SHEN, SLP, ST, SUBK, SWN, SXC, TDG, THRM, TTHI, USB, USEG, UTL, VAC, VNDA, VSB, VTNR, WG, WLB, WLFC, WNC, WSTG, XEC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AKBA, ARO, ATLC, COUP, CRCM, CSLT, CVA, DPRX, DSWL, GLMD, GRAM, HAE, HMC, LIQD, LXRX, MLVF, MR, MTU, NATR, NEWL, ONTX, OPHC, PBPB, PSO, SMLR, SVM, TBAC, TGI, VEEV, VHI, VLRS, VRNS, VVUS, WPRT, WRLD, WTSL, WTW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EGPT, PALL

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none
10:15AM iShares NASD Biotech flirting with supports (IBB) 239.71 -6.30 : Noted continued relative weakness in early trade with the IBB down more than 7% over the last two sessions (09:42). Technically it has tested flirted with its 100 ema at 238 (session low 239.01) with the next short term levels at 236 (two month close low, 50% retrace of Nov-Feb rally) and 232 (two month intraday low from Feb).

9:49AM Sector laggards (TECHX) : Sectors that have faltered this morning and are underperforming the S&P on a relative basis include: Biotech (IBB) down more than 7% over last two days, Health XLV, Pharma PPH, Internet FDN, Discretionary XLY, Networking IGN, Software IGV, Medical Supplies, Transports/Rail IYT.

9:42AM Oil Service HOLDRS Trust continues to display relative strength (OIH) 49.45 +0.53 : Noted the solid performance on Friday with it nearing its March peak (49.34). It has edged slightly above this level to set a new four month high (49.46) this morning -- SLB, HAL, NOV, BHI, CAM, WFT, FTI, RIG, SDRL, ESV.

8:34AM O2Micro lowers Q1 rev guidance, below consensus; stock halted (OIIM) 3.66 : Co issues downside guidance for Q1 (Mar), sees Q1 (Mar) revs of $15.5-16.5 mln vs. $18.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate and below previous guidance of $17.8-19.1 mln. In addition, gross margin for the first quarter is now expected to be ~49-51%.

The reduction in anticipated revenue for the first quarter is primarily the result of weakness in TV and notebook markets, as well as delays in mass production of several major general lighting programs.
Co does expect the delayed general lighting programs to ramp in the second quarter of 2014 and remain very optimistic regarding the rapid growth of general lighting and other power management businesses.
Co still expect to grow overall revenue year-over-year from 2013 levels.

EMKR +5.2% ( awarded solar panel manufacturing contract

8:08AM Yingli Green Energy supplied 1 MW of solar panels to Grupo Neoenergia, one of Brazil's largest energy companies (YGE) 4.76 : Co announced that it has supplied 1 MW of solar panels to Grupo Neoenergia, one of Brazil's largest energy companies and a pioneer in Brazilian solar project development. The panels will deliver clean electricity to Arena Pernambuco, the site of five 2014 FIFA World Cup matches

8:04AM EMCORE awarded solar panel manufacturing contract by Sierra Nevada Corp for NASA's CYGNSS mission (EMKR) 5.04 : Co announced that it has been awarded a contract by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) to design and manufacture solar panels for SNC to be used on NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS). The CYGNSS mission will be managed by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and is planned for launch, October 2016. EMCORE will populate solar panels with its ZTJ triple-junction solar cells.

Rambus (RMBS) and Nanya Technology signed a broad five-year patent license agreement. This agreement allows for the use of certain high-performance, low-power patented innovations developed by Rambus in Nanya DRAM products and enables future technology collaboration.

7:32AM Brooks Automation and BioCision Announce Equity Investment and Strategic Collaboration (BRKS) 11.44 : Co and BioCision, LLC have established a relationship to support the development of technologies to improve temperature control and standardization in the use of biomaterials across multiple industries, including pre-clinical and clinical research and product development. Under the terms of the agreement, Brooks Automation has made a $4 million equity investment in BioCision.

This new collaboration will leverage BioCision's proven expertise in the development of unique mobile temperature management products and technologies together with Brooks Automation's advanced research and production capabilities in automated systems for sample storage. The research and product design and engineering teams from both companies will work together to advance development of new, highly adaptable and scalable products to support a range of needs in biomaterial sample handling and biobanking, including products that are fully compatible with existing automated systems and that can serve as stand-alone solutions.

Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) introduced a new 6W device for handheld mobile radio applications called the AFT05MS006N. With this latest addition to its flagship Airfast RF power solutions portfolio, Freescale is the only supplier capable of supporting all power levels of relevance to the mobile radio space, from 5W handheld units to 75W digital mobile radios and base stations.

2:14AM Nokia expects the sale of substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft (MSFT) to close in April 2014 (NOK) 7.17 : Nokia announces that it now expects the transaction whereby the company will sell substantially all of its Devices & Services business and license its patents to Microsoft to close in April 2014. This compares with Nokia's previous expectation on the transaction closing in the first quarter of 2014, which Nokia communicated when the company first announced the transaction on September 3, 2013. Nokia and Microsoft remain committed to the transaction.

Nokia reiterates that ongoing tax proceedings in India have no bearing on the timing of the closing or the material deal terms of the anticipated transaction between Nokia and Microsoft.

Hackett Group (HCKT) announced that it would be taking a one-time $3.6 million charge in order to reduce staff and exit facilities in non core markets as part of a comprehensive plan to respond to structural market changes and deliver profitable growth in the region. The Company had made several leadership and sales related changes as it exited 2013 but wanted to be proactive in its desire to increase its investment to build its Enterprise Performance Management capabilities which have been a big part of its recent growth in North America. Excluding this one-time charge, the Company's previously provided revenue guidance for the first quarter of 2014 of $53.0 to $55.0 million, which is line with estimates, and proforma diluted earnings per share of $0.06 to $0.08, which is line with estimates remains unchanged.

GigaMedia (GIGM) reported preliminary fourth quarter revs of approxmately $3.4 mln, down 11% quarter over quarter, in-line with comapny's guidance. The company reports Cash and marketable securities-current of approximately $80.3 million, or approximately $1.58 per share, up from $74.3 million at the end of 3Q13; short-term debt of approximately $4.4 million. During the fourth quarter management took advantage of low interest rates in Taiwan to fund, in local currency, new strategic growth initiatives.

Palo Alto Networks (PANW) announced a definitive agreement to acquire Cyvera, a privately held cybersecurity company located in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Under the terms of the agreement, Palo Alto Networks will acquire all of the outstanding capital stock of Cyvera for an aggregate purchase price of ~ $200 million. The acquisition is expected to close during the second half of fiscal 2014.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market finished the Thursday session on a lower note with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) trailing the other indices once again. The Nasdaq widened its week-to-date loss to 3.6% while the S&P 500 settled lower by 0.2%, extending its weekly decline to 0.9%.

Equity indices began the trading day on a cautious note despite two upbeat economic data points crossing ahead of the open. Namely, fourth quarter GDP was revised up to 2.6% from 2.4% while weekly initial claims fell to 311,000 from 320,000.

The release of this morning's data coincided with session lows in Treasuries, which rallied into the afternoon. The 10-yr note added three ticks, pressuring its yield down to 2.68% after notching a morning high at 2.71%.

Meanwhile, the early weakness in equities was brought upon by continued volatility in the biotechnology space. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 236.14, +1.05) was down nearly 3.0% during the initial 30 minutes of action before returning to its flat line, where it traded for the remainder of the trading day.

The early selling in biotechnology pressured the health care sector (-0.1%), but the influential group was able to erase the bulk of its early loss thanks in part to the 3.9% gain in the shares of Baxter (BAX 72.80, +2.72) after the company announced plans to split into two entities.

Even though health care settled in-line with the broader market, other top-weighted sectors were not as fortunate. Financials (-0.6%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard while consumer discretionary (-0.5%) and technology (-0.6%) were not much stronger.

Notably, the financial sector lagged amid losses in some of its largest components. Citigroup (C 47.45, -2.71) slumped 5.4% after the Federal Reserve objected to the capital plan submitted by the bank.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector was pressured by the likes of Amazon.com (AMZN 338.47, -4.94), eBay (EBAY 55.18, -0.42), and Netflix (NFLX 364.18, -8.10), while quick-service restaurants also finished mostly lower. Yum! Brands (YUM 73.20, -0.97) was a notable laggard, falling 1.3%.

Although most cyclical groups spent the bulk of the session in the red, that was not the case with the energy space (+0.9%), which outperformed throughout the day while crude oil rose 1.0% to $101.24/bbl.

On the countercyclical side, telecom services (+1.2%) and utilities (+0.8%) posted gains while consumer staples (-0.2%) ended in-line.

Despite the cautious disposition, participants did not show strong demand for volatility protection, sending the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.56, -0.37) lower by 2.5%.

Trading volume was a bit above average as 778 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data included the final revision to Q4 GDP, weekly initial claims, and the February Pending Home Sales report:

Fourth quarter GDP was revised up to 2.6% in the third estimate from 2.4% in the second estimate. That matched the Briefing.com consensus estimate, but was down from a 4.1% gain in Q3 2013. Real final sales increased 2.7% in the fourth quarter. That was up from a 2.5% gain in Q3 2013 and above the previously reported 2.3% gain. It was also the strongest increase in real final sales since increasing 3.4% in Q2 2012. Looking at real final sales over the last four quarters (0.2%, 2.1%, 2.5%, and 2.7%), there is a definite upward moving trend. The year-over-year averages, however, put it below the 2.0% and 2.6% gains from 2011 and 2012.
The initial claims level fell to 311,000 for the week ending March 22 from an upwardly revised 321,000 (from 320,000) for the week ending March 15. The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to increase to 330,000. Over the past several months, excluding some seasonal volatility, the initial claims have been bounded between 330,000 and 340,000. That trend seems to have shifted lower over the past four weeks, with the initial claims level consistently falling below 330,000 and in the range of 310,000--320,000.
Pending home sales for February fell 0.8%, which was worse than the 0.2% decrease forecast by the Briefing.com consensus. Today's reading followed last month's revised decrease of 0.2% (from +0.1%).

Tomorrow, February Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), Personal Spending (consensus +0.3%), and Core PCE Prices (consensus +0.1%) will be released at 8:30 ET while the final reading of the March Michigan Sentiment survey (consensus 80.0) will cross the wires at 9:55 ET.

S&P 500 UNCH YTD
Nasdaq Composite -0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.9% YTD

DJ30 -4.76 NASDAQ -22.35 SP500 -3.52 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1040/2.12 bln/1731 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1633/778.1 mln/1416

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded lower today on pressure from upbeat economic data.
Specifically, Q4 GDP was revised up to 2.6% from 2.4% and weekly initial claims fell to 311,000 to 320,000.
Apr gold fell below the $1300 level and brushed a session low of $1293.00 per ounce. It settled with a 0.7% loss at $1294.70 per ounce.
May silver traded as low as $19.63 per ounce in early morning action. It brushed a session high of $19.77 per ounce and settled at $19.70 per ounce, or 0.4% lower.
May crude oil traded above $101 per barrel and extended yesterday's gains.
The energy component touched a session high of $101.70 per barrel and settled with a 1.0% gain at $101.24 per barrel.
Apr natural gas gained support from better-than-anticipated inventory data. According to the EIA, inventories for the week ending Mar 21 showed a draw of 57 bcf when a smaller draw of 52-54 was expected. Natural gas rose to a session high of $4.57 per MMBtu and settled with a 3.2% gain at $4.53 per MMBtu.

4:08PM Red Hat beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line (RHT) 56.13 +0.15 : Reports Q4 (Feb) earnings of $0.39 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.37; revenues rose 15.1% year/year to $400.4 mln vs the $398.92 mln consensus.

Billings +24% to $565 mln.
Subscription revenue for the quarter was $351 million, up 16% in U.S. dollars year-over-year, or 18% measured in constant currency.
Total backlog for fiscal year 2014 was in excess of $1.56 billion, up 14% year-over-year.

1:50PM Microsoft expands cloud services for mobile scenarios; Office for AAPL iPad and Enterprise Mobility Suite showcase co's mobile-first, cloud-first approach (MSFT) 39.61 -0.18 : Co announced several new and updated applications and services including Microsoft Office for AAPL iPad and free Office Mobile apps for iPhone and Android phones. Microsoft also announced the Enterprise Mobility Suite, a comprehensive set of cloud services to help businesses manage corporate data and services on the devices people use at work and at home. In addition, the company announced the upcoming availability of Microsoft Azure Active Directory Premium and enhancements to Windows Intune.

12:35PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BAX (73.93 +5.49%): Announced plans to create two separate global healthcare companies; independent companies will focus on biopharmaceuticals and medical products.
GRMN (57.83 +4.46%): Tgt raised to $65 from $58 at Oppenheimer.
S (9.31 +3.79%): Co reached an agreement with the NetAmerica Alliance to accelerate the deployment and utilization of 4G LTE across rural America.

Large Cap Losers

ACN (77.71 -6.34%): Missed on EPS by $0.01, missed on revs; guided Q3 revs in-line; raised FY14 guidance slightly.
C (47.15 -6%): Federal Reserve announced it objected to the capital plan submitted by Citi as part of the 2014 Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review; downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Keefe Bruyette; tgt lowered to $52 from $58.
FITB (22.42 -3.61%): Announced 2014 CCAR capital plan; no objection from Federal Reserve to co's capital plan; plan incl increasing stock dividend to $0.13 and the potential repurchase of common shares in an amount up to $669 mln; tgt raised to $25 at RBC Capital Mkts after Stable CCAR results.

Mid Cap Gainers

CIG (6.63 +6.59%): Initiated with a Buy at Goldman.
LULU (51.56 +6.9%): Reported Q4 results above lowered guidance; guided Q1/FY15 EPS and rev below consensus.
SIG (103.91 +5.65%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS in-line; raised quarterly div by 20% to $0.18 per share.

Mid Cap Losers

LDOS (36.36 -15.72%): Beat on EPS by $0.09, beat on revs; guided FY15 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.
GME (36.22 -6.89%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; guided Q1 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; guided FY15 EPS below consensus, revs above.
WOR (38.4 -5.14%): Missed on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs.

12:12PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (66) outpacing new highs (50) (SUMRX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAV, ASX, AXDX, BAS, BAX, CIS, CJES, CNQ, CRK, CRZO, CXO, DPS, ECA, EGY, EOG, EQM, EXH, FANG, FTR, GLW, GRMN, HBI, HSKA, IFN, LUX, MITL, NBCB, NRG, PACT, PDS, PMC, PVA, QCOM, SGY, SIG, SLB, SPCB, SRLP, SSL, STKL, STO, SUPX, SXL, UPL, VSEC, WES, WGP, WLFC, WSTG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEO, AEPI, AHP, ANGI, ANR, ARO, ATOS, AVNW, BGC, BODY, BTX, CACH, CCCR, CDE, CLSN, CRCM, CSLT, CTHR, DMD, DRL, DSWL, ELNK, EXEL, FDO, FOR, FULL, GLMD, GMAN, GMET, GNI, HOV, IGT, KGC, KIOR, LINC, LMNS, MDWD, MELA, MITK, OIBR, OIBR.C, ONE, ONTX, PBPB, PCL, PKT, QSII, REPH, SFLY, SFXE, SMLR, SPEX, SPLS, SPPR, STRM, SVM, TCS, TECUA, TRVN, UEC, UNXL, VHI, VLRS, VTUS, WPRT, WRLD

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: MES

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


9:26AM Anadigics gapping up; Samsung (SSNLF) selects ANADIGICS WiFi Solutions for GALAXY Tab Pro (ANAD) 1.77 : Co announced that the Company's AWL9293 and AWL9581 802.11ac front-end integrated circuits (FEICs) are enabling WiFi connectivity in the new GALAXY Tab Pro by Samsung Electronics

9:00AM ReneSola elaborates on U.S Dept of Commerce investigation regarding certain crystalline silicon photovoltaic Products from China; 'investigation may result in certain retroactive tariffs' -- reaffrims FY guidance of 2.3-2.5 GW (SOL) 3.37 :

On March 25, 2014, ReneSola received a letter from the Department in which ReneSola was named as one of the mandatory respondents related to the anti-dumping investigation. According to the World Trade Organization rules, the Department has to guarantee the export quantities of the sampled companies accounted for a certain percentage of the total export sales of China.
It is common practice for the Department to selects certain companies with relatively large market share in the United States to participate in the investigation. The Company intends to fully cooperate with the investigation proceedings and to pursue the best outcome for ReneSola, as well as the industry. It is estimated the Department will make a preliminary ruling in June of this year.
"However, as we mentioned in our recent earnings call, we have overseas capacity through our network of OEM facilities that we can use to continue shipping to the United States without any potential tariff risk. While we oppose the petition raised against certain products from China, we are well prepared and well positioned to meet this challenge and will continue to support U.S. consumers with our top quality module products that are not the subject of the trade proceedings. We are confident that we can continue to leverage our well-deployed global OEM resources and capabilities, and optimize our geographic distribution to our advantage.
"Furthermore, we reiterate our full year guidance of module shipments of 2.3GW to 2.5GW."

SunEdison (SUNE) announced that they have shipped over 1 GW of Silvantis Solar PV modules, making them one of the top 5 solar module manufacturers in the world. Growth was driven by strong demand for high performance solar modules from SunEdison's utility and commercial business groups and external customers.

8:06AM UTStarcom wins $24 mln contract to support broadband internet access in India (UTSI) 2.55 : Co announced a $24 million contract to support a major network enhancement for one of India's leading telecom service providers. The deal bolsters UTStarcom's position in India which has always been an important market for UTStarcom and its broadband equipment.

Paychex (PAYX) reported third quarter earnings of $0.44 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 7.3% year/year to $636.5 million which is higher than expected. The company issued raised net income to +9-10% from +8-9%; reaffirms total service rev +5-6%, payroll service rev +3-4%, HRS rev +10-11%. "We are pleased with our progress in the third quarter of fiscal 2014. Payroll service revenue growth continued to advance, led by core payroll results, while Human Resource Services revenue benefited from demand for our human resource outsourcing solutions. We continued to experience good new business revenue growth, particularly in core payroll and Paychex HR Solutions. Product investment in our software-as-a-service solutions and mobility applications continued with new product releases that position us for long-term growth, while we maintained strong operating margins."
Google (GOOG) disclosed transfer restriction agreement with execs. On March 25, 2014, the co entered into a transfer restriction agreement with each of Larry Page, Google's Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder; Sergey Brin, Google's Co-Founder; and Eric E. Schmidt, Google's Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors; and certain of their respective affiliates. The Transfer Restriction Agreements were entered into in connection with Google's adjustment of its capital structure by establishing a new class of capital stock, Class C capital stock, and its impending dividend of one share of Class C capital stock for each share of Class A common stock and Class B common stock outstanding on March 27, 2014. They are intended to limit the ability of Larry, Sergey, and Eric to sell their Google stock in a manner that does not reduce their voting power. Pursuant to the Transfer Restriction Agreements, none of Larry, Sergey, Eric, or certain of their respective affiliates that are party to the agreements may sell, assign, transfer, convey or hypothecate any shares of Class B common stock or Class C capital stock if, as a result of such sale, transfer, conveyance or hypothecation, they, together with certain of their respective affiliates, would own more shares of Class B common stock than shares of Class C capital stock.
Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) and China Mobile (CHL) announce a one-year comprehensive frame agreement valued at up to EUR750 million to provide technology that will move the co's mobile service provider to an all-IP ultra-broadband network paving the way for future network functions virtualization and cloud-based services.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 28-Mar-14

Dow +58.83 at 16323.06, Nasdaq +4.53 at 4155.76, S&P +8.58 at 1857.62

The stock market finished a cautious week on a modestly higher note, but kept only a portion of its opening gain. The S&P 500 added 0.5%, trimming its weekly loss to 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.1%, finishing the week with a 2.8% decline.

Emboldened by stimulus talk during the overnight session, equity indices began the day on a strong note with the Nasdaq leading the way. The tech-heavy index displayed early strength thanks to gains in biotechnology and other recently-battered momentum names. In all likelihood short covering played a part in the early advance that turned many recent laggards into leaders. One such area was the consumer discretionary sector, which added 0.8% for the day, but ended the week behind the remaining nine sectors with a loss of 2.1%.

Although the discretionary space held the bulk of today's gain, that was not the case with biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 229.38, -6.76) surged out of the gate and notched a high 15 minutes into the day before spending the remainder of the session in a steady retreat. Selling pressure intensified in the afternoon as the ETF dropped to yesterday's lows before settling with a loss of 2.9%.

The continued weakness in biotech pressured the health care sector (-0.4%) while other heavily-weighted groups ended mixed with respect to the broader market. Like the aforementioned consumer discretionary space, industrials (+0.7%) outperformed while financials (+0.4%) lagged. For its part, the largest S&P 500 sector, technology, ended in-line with the broader market.

Also of note, the energy sector (+1.2%) outperformed for the second day in a row, bringing its weekly gain to 2.5%. The sector drew strength from Dow component ExxonMobil (XOM 97.70, +1.46), which gained 1.5% while crude oil added 0.4% to $101.67/bbl.

On the countercyclical side, all four sectors ended behind the broader market. The telecom services (-0.1%) sector posted a modest loss while consumer staples (+0.4%) and utilities (+0.2%) registered gains.

Treasuries ended near their lows after retreating throughout the session. The benchmark 10-yr yield rose three basis points to 2.72%.

Trading volume was on the light side with just over 620 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Reviewing today's data:

Personal income increased 0.3% for a second consecutive month in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected income to increase 0.2%. As foretold in the employment report, wages and salaries were up 0.2% in February after increasing 0.3% in January. The Medicaid expansion from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act offset declines in unemployment insurance from the expiration of the emergency unemployment benefits. In all, government social benefits increased 0.8%. Personal spending met expectations, increasing 0.3% in February, up from a downwardly revised 0.2% (from 0.4%) in January.
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was revised up to 80.0 in the final March reading from 79.9 in the preliminary reading (Briefing.com consensus 80.0). Sentiment is still below the 81.6 final reading from February. There was a divergence between the March Conference Board's Consumer Confidence and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment indicators. The Confidence Index jumped to a six year high on stronger future expectations while the respondents in the University of Michigan survey were much more subdued. Competing trends are nothing new, but they do discount the effectiveness of using these data points to predict future consumption growth.

On Monday, the Chicago PMI for March will be reported at 9:45 ET.

Week in Review: Stocks Slide Amid Volatility in Biotechnology

The stock market kicked off the trading week on a cautious note with the Nasdaq leading the retreat. The tech-heavy index lost 1.2% while the S&P 500 fell 0.5% with eight sectors ending in the red. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) held up relatively well. Equity indices began the session in the green, but quickly slumped into the red as biotechnology continued its recent woes while other momentum names displayed broad weakness. Late-afternoon buying lifted the key averages off their lows, but the Nasdaq could only reclaim a portion of its loss. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF settled lower by 2.8% after testing its 100-day moving average (235.61) for the first time since early November.

The major indices strung together modest gains on Tuesday on the back of some strong showings from blue-chip issues and a volatile rebound effort by the beaten-down biotechnology stocks. The move followed on the heels of a strong outing by major European bourses, which shot up largely in response to some remarks from Bundesbank head, Jens Weidmann, who suggested it was not out of the realm of possibility for the ECB to implement a QE-type program to fight deflation. It would be remiss not to add that ECB President Draghi spoke later in the day and said the ECB is not currently seeing any evidence of deflation.

Equity indices finished the Wednesday session on a cautious note with the S&P 500 falling 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%) outperformed while small caps bore the brunt of the pressure. The Russell 2000 declined 1.9% while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.4%. Equity indices began the day on an upbeat note, but the financial sector (-0.9%) served up an early warning by not taking part in the opening rally. One industry group that briefly participated in the early advance was the biotech space. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF was up as much as 1.1% during the first hour of action, but faded from the early high, taking the market lower with it. Interestingly, the broader health care sector (+0.1%) finished the day ahead of the remaining nine groups.

On Thursday, the market finished the session on a lower note with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) trailing the other indices once again. The Nasdaq widened its week-to-date loss to 3.6% while the S&P 500 settled lower by 0.2%, extending its weekly decline to 0.9%. Equity indices began the trading day on a cautious note despite two upbeat economic data points crossing ahead of the open. Namely, fourth quarter GDP was revised up to 2.6% from 2.4% while weekly initial claims fell to 311,000 from 320,000. The release of this morning's data coincided with session lows in Treasuries, which rallied into the afternoon. The 10-yr note added four ticks, pressuring its yield down to 2.68% after notching a morning high at 2.71%.

 
 Index	   Started Week  Ended Week    Change  %Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	     16302.70	  16323.06	20.36	 0.1	-1.5 
 Nasdaq	      4276.79	   4155.76    -121.03	-2.8	-0.5 
 S&P 500	1866.40	   1857.62      -8.78	-0.5     0.5 
 Russell 2000  1193.73	   1151.81     -41.92	-3.5	-1.0

4:27PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Utilities: TGS (2.21 +14.72%), CIG (6.8 +13.28%), EBR (2.76 +12.5%)
Technology: PLUG (6.9 +15.41%)
Services: LIN (26.31 +22.43%), CRRS (2.91 +18%), CONN (38.78 +17.14%), FIVE (42.95 +11.33%)
Healthcare: ECYT (21.96 +57.58%), OFIX (30.29 +21.28%), KERX (16.61 +12.46%)
Financial: BBD (13.57 +11.39%), GGAL (11.9 +11.17%)
Consumer Goods: NUS (83.06 +14.67%), SCS (16.3 +12.04%)
Basic Materials: EGY (8.28 +14.2%), PBR-A (13.9 +13.95%), YONG (6.8 +12.56%), MTL (2.03 +12.23%), PBR (13.18 +11.67%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: GOMO (19.7 -28.47%), CSLT (21.42 -26.66%), CMGE (20.42 -24.65%), WIX (21.02 -23.95%), HIMX (11.38 -22.43%), RALY (13.69 -21.05%)
Industrial Goods: MY (2.91 -26.45%)
Healthcare: EXEL (3.38 -40.62%), ARWR (15.62 -31.42%), DRNA (29.05 -26.63%), RLYP (30.01 -25.81%), PRTA (36.03 -23.69%), SGMO (16.74 -23.42%), RCPT (39.63 -22.2%), CLDX (16.95 -21.77%), OMED (29.04 -21.71%), ICPT (317.58 -21.46%), UNIS (3.98 -21.42%), GEVA (75.47 -20.99%), IDIX (5.82 -20.79%)

4:07PM MagnaChip Semi announced that Margaret Sakai has resigned as the Co's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and from all other officer and director positions with the Co and its subsidiaries, effectively immediately (MX) 14.52 +0.29 : Co announced that Margaret Sakai has resigned as the Company's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and from all other officer and director positions with the Company and its subsidiaries, effectively immediately. The Company is currently negotiating the terms of Ms. Sakai's separation from MagnaChip's Korean subsidiary. The Company also announced today that the Company's Board of Directors has appointed Jonathan W. Kim, the Company's Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, as Interim Chief Financial Officer, effective immediately. The Board has also commenced a search for a new Chief Financial Officer.

As previously announced on March 11, 2014, the Audit Committee of the Company's Board of Directors has commenced an internal review into the Company's accounting practices and procedures with outside professional advisors, and such internal review remains ongoing. While substantial progress has been made, it is expected that this review and work with regard to the previously announced restatement will take several more months, and as a result the Company will be postponing its annual investor conference to a date to be announced after the filing of its Annual Report on Form 10-K.

12:22PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

CTSH (50.44 +6.01%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
TSLA (214.7 +3.56%): Reuters reporting that the NHTSA has closed its investigation into fire accidents of the Model S; '60 Minutes' will be doing a report on the company and Elon Musk on Sunday; New Jersey state sales ban has been delayed for 15 days
MSFT (40.5 +2.9%): Digitimes reporting that co plans to ship 25 mln Windows tablets in 2014; target raised to $44 from $37 at RBC Capital Markets

Large Cap Losers

AV (15.34 -4.78%): Reuters reporting that the UK's Financial Conduct Authority will investigate whether pension and savings plan providers are treating clients fairly
RHT (53.46 -4.76%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.39 vs $0.37 estimate), revs rose 15.1% yoy to $400.4 mln vs $398.92 mln estimate; sees FY15 revs of $1.730-1.755 bln vs $1.755 bln estimate, EPS of $1.54-1.56 vs $1.62 estimate; sees Q1 revs of $412-415 mln vs $415 mln estimate, EPS of $0.32-0.33 vs $0.37 estimate
PCG (41.99 -3.78%): Co said it expects criminal charges in connection with the San Bruno accident; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup, target lowered to $46 from $52

Mid Cap Gainers

RH (71.47 +12%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.83 ex items (in-line with pre-announcement of $0.82-0.85), revs rose 18.5% yoy to $471.7 mln vs $494.3 mln estiate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.09-0.11 ex items vs $0.07 estimate, revs of $345-350 mln vs $348.6 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $2.14-2.22 ex items vs $2.17 estimate, revs of $1.825-1.860 bln vs $1.89 bln estimate
HRB (30.11 +5.35%): Strength attributed to rumors that co will sell its Kentucy bank to BOFI
GME (39.33 +5.36%): Reversal following declines seen yesterday on weak Q4 results and mixed guidance

Mid Cap Losers

CZR (19.67 -6.69%): Announced offering of 7 mln shares of common stock
PANW (68.13 -4.38%): Research from Google security engineers suggests 21 of the world's top 25 news organizations have been targeted in state-sponsored hacking attacks
TX (29.11 -3.64%): Downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley

11:35AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (85) outpacing new lows (28) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAV, AIQ, AIRI, ALLB, AMKR, ASX, AXDX, BAS, BHI, BPZ, CAT, CDW, CENX, CHE, CHMI, CJES, CLR, CNX, CORT, COV, CRK, CRR, CRZO, CSTM, CVGW, CXO, DPS, DTE, ECA, EGY, EIX, ELY, EOG, EQM, EXH, FANG, FNHC, FTR, GLW, GSIG, HAS, HDS, HP, HRL, IFN, INVN, ISSI, KEG, LANC, LM, LUX, MEIP, MFRM, MLM, MTDR, MTZ, NICE, NRG, ORCL, PBA, PESI, PMC, PVA, RBA, RCAP, RCG, RES, SGY, SLB, SPN, STKL, TI.A, TSN, TV, TXI, UFS, UNT, UPL, USMO, VET, WEC, WGP, WSTG, XEC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: BGC, BTX, CACH, CCCL, CFFI, CLUB, COOL, CSLT, CTHR, EGAN, EXEL, GLMD, GMET, KIOR, LDOS, LPDX, MELA, MLVF, ONTX, PMCT, PRGS, SFLY, SMLR, SPEX, STLY, UNXL, VHI, VLRS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIG, ENZL, EWI, FUD, IEO, IGE, IXC, IYE, MES, XES, XLE

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

8:59AM LDK Solar confirms offshore restructuring arrangements and interim financing (LDK) 1.01 :

LDK Solar Co., Ltd. in provisional liquidation announces that, subsequent to the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands appointment of Tammy Fu and Eleanor Fisher, both partners of Zolfo Cooper (Cayman) Limited, as joint provisional liquidators for the Company on February 27, 2014, LDK Solar, working together with the JPLs, has engaged in extensive negotiations with its offshore creditors with a view toward reaching agreement on the terms of an offshore restructuring.
As of the date of this announcement, the Company has received: signatures to a restructuring support agreement from the holders of approximately 60% in aggregate principal amount of its 10% Senior Notes due 2014; signatures to a separate restructuring support agreement from the holders of approximately 79% of the convertible preferred shares issued by an affiliate of the Company and involving claims against the Company; signatures to both the Senior Notes RSA and the Preferred Obligations RSA from the debtors of the Senior Notes and the Preferred Obligations and a majority of the shareholders of the Company; and a signed commitment letter from Heng Rui Xin Energy (HK) Co., Limited, an existing shareholder of the Company, to provide an interim financing up to an aggregate principal amount of US$14 million.
The execution subject to court hearing expected to be on or around April 2, 2014 at a scheduled hearing.
Restructuring Financing
In order to finance the Restructuring Transactions, and subject to the approval of the JPLs and the sanction of the Cayman Court, the Company intends to raise: an Interim Financing up to an aggregate principal amount of US$14 million; and subsequently, an exit financing up to an aggregate principal amount, and on such terms, as may be agreed to by holders of the Senior Notes claim and holders of the Preferred Obligations claim. The existing ordinary equity will continue to exist post-restructuring as contemplated in the Senior Notes RSA and the Preferred Obligations RSA. The Restructuring Transactions will cause significant dilution to the existing equityholders of the Company as a result of the issuances of equity securities and convertible securities of the Company. The Company has not yet formulated or negotiated the terms for the Exit Financing.
To the extent any equity-linked derivative instruments are used in the Exit Financing, it may further dilute the shareholding structure of the existing shareholders at the relevant time as may be contemplated in the Exit Financing documentation.



8:31AM NRG Energy's solar portfolio surpasses 1,200 megawatts (NRG) 31.28 : Through its subsidiaries including NRG Yield (NYLD) and NRG Solar, one of the nation's largest solar developers, now owns and operates more than 1,200 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity. Through these facilities, NRG helps power nearly one million homes at full output with clean, renewable solar energy, which is helping reinvent the US energy ecosystem.

Analyst comments: PCG -5.4% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup), CIEN -1% (downgraded to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts), JDSU -1% (downgraded to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts)

BlackBerry (BBRY 9.67, +0.62): +6.6% after beating bottom-line estimates on below-consensus revenue.

7:10AM BlackBerry beats by $0.46, misses on revs; reports 2.3 mln Blackberry 7 devices sold; co targeting break even cash flow results by the end of FY15 (BBRY) 9.05 : Reports Q4 (Feb) loss of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.46 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.54); revenues fell 63.6% year/year to $976 mln vs the $1.13 bln consensus.

The revenue breakdown for the quarter was ~37% for hardware, 56% for services and 7% for software and other revenue. During the fourth quarter, the Company recognized hardware revenue on ~1.3 mln BlackBerry smartphones compared to ~1.9 mln BlackBerry smartphones in the previous quarter. During the fourth quarter, ~3.4 mln BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers, which included shipments made and recognized prior to the fourth quarter and which reduced the Company's inventory in channel. Of the BlackBerry smartphones sold through to end customers in the fourth quarter, ~2.3 mln were BlackBerry 7 devices.
The company reported adjusted Q4 gross margin of 43%, up from 34% in the prior quarter.
Co reported channel inventory down 30% from the prior quarter.
Cash Position: The total of cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments was ~$2.7 bln as of March 1, 2014, compared to $3.2 bln at the end of the previous quarter. Cash flow used in operations in the fourth quarter was ~$553 mln. Cash flows provided by financing activities in the fourth quarter were ~$251 mln, which includes the additional issuance of $250 mln of convertible debentures.
Outlook: The Company anticipates maintaining its strong cash position and continuing to look for opportunities to streamline operations. The Company is targeting break even cash flow results by the end of fiscal 2015.

7:01AM Tessera Tech ends litigation against Qualcomm (QCOM); cos agree to explore technical collaboration (TSRA) 23.15 : Co announced that its subsidiary, Tessera, Inc., has entered into an agreement with Qualcomm (QCOM) to dismiss the case of Tessera, Inc. v. Qualcomm, Inc., et al. (Case No. 4:12-CV-00692 (United States District Court for the Northern District of California)). The agreement also provides that Tessera and Qualcomm Technologies will explore potential technical collaborations concerning camera functionality and imaging performance of mobile devices.

Red Hat (RHT) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.39 per share, which is higher than expiated, while revenues rose 15.1% year/year to $400.4 million which is in line with estimates. Billings +24% to $565 million. Subscription revenue for the quarter was $351 million, up 16% in U.S. dollars year-over-year, or 18% measured in constant currency. Total backlog for fiscal year 2014 was in excess of $1.56 billion, up 14% year-over-year. The company sees Q1 revs of $412-415 million which is line with estimates and adjusted EPS of $0.32-0.33 which is below estimates. The company sees fiscal year 2015 revenues of $1.730-1.755 billion which is line with estimates and adjusted EPS of $1.54-1.56 which is worse than expected.

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Bonds Trounce Stocks in Q1

Friday, March 28, 2014 at 03:29PM

http://www.bespokeinvest.com/

While there is still one more trading day left to go, perhaps the biggest surprise of the first quarter is the performance of stocks relative to bonds. Heading into 2014, the stock market was often referred to as the TINA market, as in There Is No Alternative. A look at the numbers, though, suggests otherwise.

The charts below compare the performance (on a total return basis) of both the S&P 500 and the BofA/Merrill Lynch 10+ Year Treasury Index over the last year and so far this quarter. Over the last year, stocks are still trouncing treasuries by a wide margin (+20.33% vs. -3.31%). This quarter has been a different story, though. Following a strong start out of the gate, Treasuries haven't looked back. Heading into the weekend, long-term treasuries are up 7.81% on a total return basis compared to a total return of just 0.53% for the S&P 500.

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Short Term to Intermediate Indicators. It's best to be cover shorts and enter long positions on cross overs of green lines. Best to go short on cross overs of the red lines and or exit long positions.

The first set of charts for market timing the SMH are based on using the NASDAQ New Highs and similar indexes are shown here. To go long: First wait for the NASDAQ New Highs to set a new low and reverse itself from an approach of the lower Bollinger Band. To go short: Wait for the NASDAQ new highs and other similar new high indices to set a new high print at, near, or above the upper Bollinger Band. I am also now using the NASDAQ McClellan Oscillator (Ratio Adjusted) $NAMO) to confirm the above - Overbought above 25 - Oversold below -25. These charts do not fully update until after market close.





Short Term Indicators vs. the SMH; any index can be used - The first set of short term indicators I use are based on the put to call ratio. To go long it is best to wait for the put to call ratio to close over 1.0. On the chart below the put to call ratio now updates intraday but it is not always accurate! Intraday reading of the put to call ratio can be found here updated every half hour after the open:

http://www.cboe.com/data/IntraDayVol.aspx

The more days in a row the put to call ratio prints over 1.0 this the more likely the bottom will be a strong one. The link above shows intraday readings of the P/C ratio.

Also closes on the put to call ratio below 0.50 and sometimes a bit above are indicative of a short term top. Watch the simple moving averages as well because periods of too much buying of puts or calls will almost certainly bring about market bottoms and tops respectively. On the CPC/VIX ratio; this is largely a longer term indicator where investors are likely to make more money on the long side once the short-term 21 day sma has crossed above the 200 day sma. The reverse is true as well. An investor will likely make more money on the short side when the 21 day sma crosses below the 200 day sma:



Next I use the VIX, VXO and VXN (Fear Indices) because they can help to refine decision making on tops and bottoms upon reverses from upper or lower Bollinger Bands especially when the index stretches more than 10% above or below its 10 day simple moving average. When a volatility index stretches more than 10% above or below its 10 day sma it will generally reverse direction as will the market in general in the opposite direction.



Also TRIN and TRINQ readings on the 5 and 10 day simple moving averages over 1.5 are bullish while readings below 0.85 are bearish. These readings don't happen often especially with the 10 day sma. They are also early indicators so the market can continue higher or lower for a while but they are reliable for indicating market turns that are about to take place.



These charts simply forewarn of potential trend changes:

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market closed out a volatile month of March on an upbeat note with small caps leading the advance. The Russell 2000 gained 1.8% while the S&P 500 settled higher by 0.8% with nine sectors ending in the green. The benchmark index was able to eke out a 0.7% gain for the month while the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 could only trim their losses. The Nasdaq ended the month with a decline of 2.5% while the Russell 2000 lost 1.0% in March.

Equity indices made the bulk of their advance during the opening hour before spending the remainder of the session inside narrow ranges. The upbeat start took place after a weekend phone call between President Obama and Vladimir Putin, discussing the situation in Ukraine, was viewed as a step that increased the chances for a diplomatic solution to the standoff between Russia and Ukraine.

The early buying interest was also bolstered by comments from Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who spoke at a conference in Chicago, saying the Fed remains short of its employment and inflation goals and that the economy requires 'considerable support for some time.'

Today's session featured outperformance in some areas that have been lacking in strength recently. Biotechnology, which was under close scrutiny over the past two weeks, displayed broad gains with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 236.40, +7.02) climbing 3.1%. The ETF trimmed its March decline to 10.6% while the group's outperformance gave a boost to the health care sector (+1.3%), which finished the day ahead of the remaining groups.

Similar to health care, most other top-weighted sectors ended among the leaders. Financials (+1.0%), industrials (+1.0%), and technology (+0.8%) outperformed while the discretionary sector (+0.6%) lagged.

Notably, the industrial sector received strong support from transports as indicated by a 1.7% gain in the Dow Jones Transportation Average. The bellwether complex rallied with all 20 components finishing in the green. Airlines had the best showing among specific industry groups with United Continental (UAL 44.63, +1.67) setting the pace.

Elsewhere, the discretionary space trailed the benchmark index throughout the session, which was fitting for a sector that ended the month at the bottom of the leaderboard (-2.9%). General Motors (GM 34.42, -0.31) lost 0.9% after Reuters reported the company accepted ignition switches from its supplier even though the parts did not meet standards set by the company.

Treasuries ended flat after showing morning losses. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended at 2.72%.

Participation was above average with month-end flows contributing to the strong volume as more than 820 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to the Chicago PMI for March, which fell to 55.9 from 59.8 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 60.1. After three consecutive months above 60, the Chicago PMI fell to into the 59 range in January and February. At the time, severe winter weather conditions were blamed for the weakness in the PMI. As temperatures returned to normal, the consensus assumed manufacturing activities would return to their Q4 2013 levels, but that did not happen. A sharp drop in new orders (58.8 from 63.6) led to an overall pullback in manufacturing activities. Production, meanwhile, managed to improve to 61.7 from 59.6 as manufacturers worked down their backlogs (50.4 from 53.7).

Tomorrow, the ISM Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 54.0) and February Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) will both be reported at 10:00 ET.


S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +0.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.7% YTD

DJ30 +134.60 NASDAQ +43.24 SP500 +14.72 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2123/1.90 bln/643 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2348/833.1 mln/721 3:40 pm :

Commodities ended mostly lower with energy and metals posting losses and ag posting mixed results, between grains and soft commodities.
Following USDA reports, corn, wheat and soybeans all rallied after initial volatility
May corn ended the day up 2.2% at $5.02/bu, May wheat rose 2 cents at $6.97/bu and May soybeans rose 1.8% at $14.62/bu
Natural gas futures sold off today and ended the day at its session low. May nat gas closed 2.6% higher at $4.37/MMBtu
May crude oil lost $0.10 to close at $101.57/barrel

4:02PM Linear Tech calls for full redemption of 3.00% convertible senior notes due May 1, 2027; aggregate principal amount of the notes currently outstanding is approximately $845 mln (LLTC) 48.69 +0.84 : LLTC is calling for redemption on May 1, 2014 all of the outstanding principal amount of its 3.00% Convertible Senior Notes due May 1, 2027. The aggregate principal amount of the Notes currently outstanding is approximately $845 million.


Upon redemption, holders of the Notes will receive the principal amount of the Notes being redeemed.
Accrued and unpaid interest on the Notes being redeemed will be paid to the holder of record of the Notes on April 15, 2014, the record date for the interest payment due on May 1, 2014.
The Notes are currently convertible as a result of the Company calling the Notes for redemption.
Each $1,000 principal amount of the Securities is currently convertible at a rate of 24.582054 shares of the Company's common stock, par value $0.001 per share, with the conversion value settled in cash and common stock as provided in the Indenture for the Notes.
In addition, holders of the Notes have the right to require the Company to repurchase their Notes on May 1, 2014, at a purchase price equal to the principal amount of the Notes being repurchased
12:37PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MU (23.55 +7.49%): Mentioned positively at RBC Capital Markets and Drexel Hamilton; co scheduled to report Q2 results after the close on April 3 TEVA (52.26 +5.67%): Target raised to $50 from $40 at UBS; Reuters reporting that U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal filed by TEVA in patent litigation for multiple sclerosis drug CopaxoneQIHU (99.33 +4.29%): Reached partnership with China Unichom's (CHU) Beijing sbusidiary on free data, according to report from Marbridge Consulting Large Cap Losers
GG (24.58 -2.11%): Filed technical report for 100% owned Eleonore project and its 40% owned Pueblo Viejo mine: Eleonore project contrained 4.03 mln ounces of proven and probable gold mineral reserves and 4.10 mln ounces of inferred gold mineral resources as of December 31, 2013
CLR (123.34 -1.85%): Downgraded to Accumulate from Buy at KLR Group
WMB (40.61 -0.76%): Seeing reports of a fire at one of co's facilities in Plymouth, Washington
Mid Cap Gainers
ACAS (15.7 +10.49%): Announced open market repurchase of 8.9 mln of its shares
ISIS (43.22 +8.87%): Reported final Phase 2 data on ISIS-APOCIII Rx in patients with high triglycerides taking fibrates: reductions of up to 64% in triglycerides achieved
VIPS (148.6 +7.68%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman
Mid Cap Losers
GFI (3.77 -3.46%): Weakness in mid-cap gold stocks: AEM, EGO, KGC, AU also lower
HDS (26.06 -2.32%): Filed for a 30 mln share common stock offering by selling stockholders
BBRY (8.24 -2.03%): Downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Evercore; downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse, target lowered to $6 from $7

12:13PM Industrial Spdr retesting the morning high at 52.30, its two week trading range high is slightly above at 52.38 (XLI) 52.30 +0.57 : The XLI is the top performing S&P sector with it flirting with the upper end of its two week trading range -- MMM, BA, CAT, EMR, HON, UPS, UTX, UNP, GE, DHR, FDX.

12:05PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (141) outpacing new lows (34) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAV, AEGN, AMKR, ARTX, ASMI, ASX, AVA, BAS, BHI, BIOF, BPZ, CALM, CAT, CCE, CDW, CHE, CJES, CLR, CMI, CORT, CPS, CRK, CRR, CSTM, CVGW, CWEI, DMND, DOC, DPS, DTE, ECA, EGY, EIX, ELY, EMES, EOG, EQM, ETE, FANG, FL, FLIR, FMNB, FNHC, FTR, GLW, GPIC, GPOR, GSOL, HAL, HBI, HCA, HEES, HIL, HOLI, HRL, IDSA, IFN, IMO, ISSI, IVAC, IVZ, JNJ, KEG, KND, KNX, LM, LNG, LNT, MAR, MDT, MFRM, MGPI, MLM, MSFT, MTR, MTZ, NDZ, NEE, NICE, NJR, NOA, NORD, NRG, NVS, NWE, NYT, OFED, OILT, ORAN, ORBK, ORCL, PBA, PDS, PEG, PES, PESI, PF, PJC, PLCM, PPC, PVA, R, RBA, RCAP, RCG, ROK, RVSB, RYAAY, SAN, SGMA, SGY, SLCA, SNA, SPAN, STKL, STS, STZ, SXL, TEP, TEVA, TFX, THRM, TLMR, TNET, TOT, TSN, TSRA, TV, TXI, UGI, USMO, VIMC, VVC, WDC, WEC, WES, WG, WGP, WLB, WSTG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ANAD, AVEO, AXGN, BTX, CBSO, CCCL, CLSN, COOL, CSLT, CWTR, EGAN, FOR, LPDX, MDCO, MITK, NEWL, NSR, NVTL, OPHC, PGRX, PMCT, RALY, RELL, REPH, RLOC, SPEX, SPHS, STLY, TGE, TWMC, VALV, VRNS, WHX, ZTS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIG, EIS, EWI, EWK, EWN, EWP, EZU, IEO, IGE, IOO, IXC, IYE, MES, XES, XLE

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none
STMicroelectronics (STM) announced that Maxwell Guider Technology selected ST's LSM330 6-axis inertial module and LIS3DSH 3-axis accelerometer as the foundation for its low-power motion-sensing activity trackers suited for all generations and lifestyles.

Corning (GLW) and Atmel (ATML) are collaborating to develop ultra-thin capacitive touchscreens with superior multi-touch performance for next-generation applications.

SanDisk (SNDK) announced four new additions to its CloudSpeed Serial ATA product family: the CloudSpeed Extreme, CloudSpeed Ultra, CloudSpeed Ascend and CloudSpeed Eco Solid State Drives.

8:05AM Ingram Micro Takes cloud business global; expands reach to 170 countries (IM) 28.79 : Co announced it is expanding Ingram Micro Cloud into a worldwide services organization that will specialize locally and scale globally to accelerate the adoption of cloud services

MagnaChip Semi (MX) announced that Margaret Sakai has resigned as the Company's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and from all other officer and director positions with the Company and its subsidiaries, effectively immediately. The Company is currently negotiating the terms of Ms. Sakai's separation from MagnaChip's Korean subsidiary. The Company also announced today that the Company's Board of Directors has appointed Jonathan W. Kim, the Company's Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, as Interim Chief Financial Officer, effective immediately. The Board has also commenced a search for a new Chief Financial Officer. As previously announced on March 11, 2014, the Audit Committee of the Company's Board of Directors has commenced an internal review into the Company's accounting practices and procedures with outside professional advisors, and such internal review remains ongoing. While substantial progress has been made, it is expected that this review and work with regard to the previously announced restatement will take several more months, and as a result the Company will be postponing its annual investor conference to a date to be announced after the filing of its Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Wix.com (WIX) announced that, due to adverse market conditions, it has withdrawn the registration statement on Form F-1 it filed on March 20, 2014 for the proposed public offering of ordinary shares by it and certain selling shareholders.
Needham upgraded Blackberry (BBRY) to Hold from Underperform on the strength and competence of the company's new management team and the possibility of an upside surprise in BlackBerry sales later this year. John Chen, the new CEO, seems to have brought adult supervision to the company. Firm sees potential for a meaningful upgrade cycle in the co's installed base later this year when BlackBerry introduces its new "Classic" business smartphone. Firm is raising its fiscal 2015 estimate from a loss of $3.85 to a loss of $1.75.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market kicked off April on an upbeat note with the Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%) leading the charge. The S&P 500 (+0.7%) settled at a fresh record high of 1885.52 with eight sectors registering gains while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) lagged.

In the absence of notable pre-market data or earnings, the major averages began the day with a steady climb that was assisted by upbeat action in Europe, where markets in France, Germany, and Great Britain posted solid gains between 0.5% and 0.8%.

For the second day in a row, the Nasdaq began the day in the lead, maintaining its outperformance throughout the session. The early strength of biotechnology (IBB +2.2%) propelled the initial advance while the index was kept near its session high into the afternoon by the daylong outperformance of the technology sector (+1.3%).

The tech sector received considerable support from several of its top components. The largest sector member, Apple (AAPL 541.65, +4.91), rose 0.9% while other large names like Cisco Systems (CSCO 23.10, +0.88), Google (GOOG 1134.89, +20.38), Oracle (ORCL 41.49, +0.58), and Qualcomm (QCOM 80.10, +1.24) gained between 1.4% and 3.9%.

Although the largest sector finished ahead of the broader market, that was not the case with all top-weighed groups. Financials (+0.4%) and energy (+0.5%) lagged while the discretionary space (+1.4%) finished in the lead.

The growth-sensitive discretionary sector was underpinned by momentum names like Amazon.com (AMZN 342.99, +6.62), Netflix (NFLX 364.69, +12.66), and Priceline.com (PCLN 1251.37, +59.48), all of which struggled in March, but started April on an upbeat note. Shares of Ford (F 16.32, +0.72) also contributed, gaining 4.6% after the company reported a 3.0% year-over-year increase in monthly sales.

On the countercyclical side, consumer staples (-0.1%), telecom services (+0.3%), and utilities (-0.7%) ended behind the broader market while health care settled in-line with the S&P 500.

With stocks holding gains throughout the session, participants did not show strong interest in volatility protection, sending the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 13.10, -0.78) lower by 5.6%.

Treasuries registered modest losses with the benchmark 10-yr yield climbing four basis points to 2.76%.

Participation was on the light side as less than 700 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to February Construction Spending and the March ISM Index:

Construction spending increased 0.1% in February after falling a downwardly revised 0.2% (from +0.1%) in January while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.1%. Extreme winter weather conditions in January and February were blamed for a general downturn in economic data; however, construction, which should feel the brunt of the negative winter effects, was largely in-line with recent trends. Thus, there is no reason to expect construction spending to surge due to pent up demand in the near future.
The ISM Manufacturing Index increased to 53.7 in March from 53.2 in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 54.0. Extreme winter weather conditions were blamed for a deterioration in the ISM Manufacturing Index in January. Yet, as temperatures returned to normal, the ISM Manufacturing Index remained well below its Q4 2013 averages. This tells us that weakness in manufacturing activities was likely not tied to the adverse weather, but rather caused by cyclical trends.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the March ADP Employment Change will be announced at 8:15 ET (Briefing.com consensus 215K). The day's data will be topped off with the February Factory Orders report (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%), which is set for a 10:00 ET release.

Nasdaq Composite +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.2% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD

DJ30 +74.95 NASDAQ +69.05 SP500 +13.18 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2095/1.99 bln/652 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2218/694.8 mln/868

3:30 pm :

June gold slipped into negative territory despite a slightly weaker dollar index. The yellow metal pulled back from its session high of $1287.00 per ounce set in morning action and settled 0.3% lower at $1279.90 per ounce, just above its session low of $1279.10 per ounce.
May silver chopped around just above the unchanged line for most of today's floor trade, touching a session high of $19.84 per ounce. However, it retreated into the red in late afternoon action and brushed a session low of $19.68 per ounce moments before closing with a 0.3% loss at $19.69 per ounce.
May crude oil fell below the $100 level ahead of tomorrow's release of inventory data by the EIA. The energy component slipped further into negative territory after pulling back from its session high of $101.42 per barrel. It brushed a session low of $99.55 per barrel and settled at $99.69 per barrel, booking a loss of 1.9%.
May natural gas also traded in the red. It touched a session high of $4.34 per MMBtu and settled 2.3% lower at its session low of $4.27 per MMBtu.

4:46PM ON Semiconductor and Studio One Media to jointly develop audio solutions (ONNN) 9.45 +0.05 : Studio One Media has entered into an agreement with ON Semiconductor (ONNN) to develop integrated circuits (ICs) utilizing Studio One's award-winning AfterMaster audio technology and ON Semiconductor's DSP product development expertise. The devices are expected to offer an unprecedented level of audio clarity, depth and loudness for consumer electronic devices such as headphones, televisions, sound bars, computers, home and car stereos, tablets and mobile phones. It is expected that the audio ICs will also be used in a broad number of industrial applications, including business phone systems, police and military radios, intercom systems and many other product categories.

4:15PM AMD Amends Wafer Supply Agreement With GLOBALFOUNDRIES (AMD) 4.07 +0.06 : Co announced that it amended its Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) with GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc. for 2014. Under the terms of the amendment, AMD and GLOBALFOUNDRIES agreed on purchase commitments for 2014 and established fixed pricing and other terms of the WSA which apply to products AMD will purchase from GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Under this amendment AMD expects to pay GLOBALFOUNDRIES approximately $1.2 billion in 2014. These purchases contemplate AMD's current PC market expectations and the manufacturing of certain Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) and semi-custom game console products at GLOBALFOUNDRIES in 2014. The 2014 amendment does not impact AMD's 2014 financial goals including gross margin.


3:57PM Riverbed Technology responds to verdict in litigation with Silver Peak: No impact to business or customers (RVBD) 19.83 +0.12 : Co issued the following statement in response to the verdict of infringement of US patent numbers 7,948,921 and 7,945,736 in the US District Court for the District of Delaware:

"The jury found for Riverbed on the issue of literal infringement on the '736 patent, but found for Silver Peak under the doctrine of equivalents. We respectfully disagree with the verdict, and fully expect to prevail before the District Court on post-trial motions. In the meantime, the verdict, which addresses two minor optional features in our RiOS software, will not have any impact on our business or customers. No relief can be granted to Silver Peak that would prevent Riverbed from continuing to manufacture, sell and maintain our Steelhead product."

12:22PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ISRG (476.04 +8.69%): Announced FDA clearance and U.S. introduction of the da Vinci Xi Surgical System.
MPEL (40.72 +5.36%): Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reported March gross gaming revenue (GGR) +13% YoY, in-line with recent estimates.
CELG (145.35 +4.12%): Co and FORMA Therapeutics announced a novel and expansive multi-year strategic alliance; added to Focus List at Robert W. Baird.

Large Cap Losers

POT (35.07 -3.18%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald.
MCK (174.43 -1.21%): Co's McKesson Specialty Health to acquire majority stake in Oncology Rehab Partners; no financial terms disclosed.

Mid Cap Gainers

INFA (39.7 +5.08%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays; tgt raised to $45 from $44.
BFAM (41.15 +5.22%): Announced its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase program of up to $225 mln of the co's outstanding common stock; initiated with an Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt $46.
WCC (86.67 +4.15%): Upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at William Blair.

Mid Cap Losers

INVN (22.84 -3.51%): Downgraded to Perform at Oppenheimer.
XON (25.25 -3.96%): Missed on EPS by $0.01, missed on revs; CEO/10% owner bought 243,001 shares at $25.72 worth ~ $6.3 mln.
CLH (53.22 -2.87%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at KeyBanc Capital Mkts.

11:46AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (202) outpacing new lows (26) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, ABFS, ABG, AEGN, AGTC, ALK, ALL, ALV, AMKR, ARW, ASGN, ASMI, ASX, AVT, AXDX, BAH, BAS, BCPC, BCR, BDBD, BDX, BFAM, BKU, BLDR, BPZ, BRCD, BWEN, BXE, CBI, CBT, CCC, CDW, CENX, CLD, CMRE, CNQ, CORT, COV, CPF, CRK, CRS, CRWN, CSTM, CYT, DAN, DD, DHIL, DLPH, DMLP, DOC, DORM, DV, DVN, DW, DXYN, EIX, ELY, EMES, EOG, EQM, ESCA, ETE, EVK, FL, FLIR, FNHC, FORTY, FSL, GAIA, GLW, GPOR, GSIG, GSOL, HAS, HBI, HBOS, HCA, HEES, HI, HOLI, HP, HRL, IDSA, IFN, ISSI, IVAC, IVZ, JNJ, KED, KEG, KND, LBY, LDL, LEA, LLL, LM, LVLT, LXK, M, MAR, MCRL, MCS, MD, MDT, MGA, MGPI, MKL, MLHR, MLM, MPWR, MRCY, MRVL, MSFT, MTX, MXIM, NBCB, NGLS, NJ, NLS, NP, NRF, NSIT, NTK, NVDQ, NWE, NYT, OILT, ORAN, ORBK, ORCL, OSK, PATK, PDS, PESI, PLCM, PLL, PMC, PPC, PRSC, QCOM, R, RBA, RCAP, RCL, RFMD, RJF, RUSHB, RYAAY, SAFM, SAN, SCI, SEM, SGMA, SKX, SLCA, SNDK, SOHO, SPB, STKL, STS, STZ, SUBK, SUP, SXL, TAX, TBI, TEP, TFX, THG, THO, THRM, TLMR, TOWR, TQNT, TRGP, TSM, TSN, TSRA, TTGT, TTM, TV, TXI, UGI, UNT, URI, USMO, VAC, VC, VE, VGR, VLP, VPFG, VRNT, VSEC, VVC, WBC, WDC, WDR, WES, WG, WLB, WSM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ANAD, ATOS, BGC, CHCI, CRMB, CTHR, DRNA, EVRY, GMET, GRAM, GYRO, LGCY, LODE, MDCO, MDWD, MLVF, NEWL, NSR, OIBR, ORCT, PMCT, REPH, RIBT, RTGN, UNXL, WHX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DVY, EIS, ENZL, EWI, EWK, EWN, EWP, EWQ, EZU, IEO, IGE, IHI, IOO, MES, SOXX, XES

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXZ

10:26AM Floor Talk: March Review (TALKX) : After enduring a cautious start to the year, equity investors had to deal with continued volatility as the first quarter drew to a close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 registered March gains of 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively, while the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 did not fare as well. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2.5% while the small-cap Russell 2000 lost 0.8%. For the quarter, the Nasdaq, Russell 2000, and S&P 500 posted respective gains of 0.5%, 0.8%, and 1.3%, while the Dow lost 0.7%.

Overall, the month featured quite a bit of chop even though the key averages maintained relatively narrow ranges. The S&P 500 added nearly 13 points after being confined to a 50-point range with the bulk of the action taking place within a 30-point band.

The stock market held in tough even as the continued stand-off between Russia and Ukraine and Janet Yellen's first press conference as Fed Chair kept uncertainty running high. In addition, the underperformance of biotechnology and other momentum-favorite names knocked the market down, but not out.

Ukraine Watch Continues

Even though the standoff between Russia and Ukraine continued throughout the month, the stock market only suffered a few brief hiccups as the situation escalated.

The closely-watched referendum in Crimea on March 16 went as expected with the vote to be annexed to Russia showing a huge inclination (95.5% of votes cast) to join the Russian Federation. Remarkably, equity markets, which looked unnerved about the referendum going into the weekend, rallied sharply after the vote took place.

A sense that a worst-case economic scenario might not unfold after all and the recognition that military force had not been used, engendered a relief rally-or really more of a short-covering move-that was seen across the western world.

Fed Buys Less, Talks More

On March 19, the Federal Open Market Committee announced another taper, lowering the size of its monthly asset purchases to $55 billion ($25 billion in agency mortgage-backed securities and $30 billion in longer-term Treasuries). Furthermore, the FOMC elected to drop the 6.5% unemployment threshold from forward guidance, instead choosing to focus on a 'wide range of information' about jobs and inflation.

While the Fed took away from its asset purchases, it added to its directive, resulting in the longest policy statement on record. As a result, the wordy document introduced an element of confusion, which was on full display when Ms. Yellen gave an unexpectedly direct answer to a question during her first press conference as Fed Chair.

When asked what the Fed means by "considerable time" for keeping the current target range for the federal funds rate after the asset purchase program ends, Fed Chair Yellen said "probably six months." The remark was met with aggressive selling as the fed funds futures market saw the expectations for the first hike shift to April 2015 from July.

Interestingly, Fed Chair Yellen reminded investors of the Fed's data dependency while distancing herself from the 'six months' comment during a conference in Chicago on March 31. At that event, Ms. Yellen said the Fed remains short of its employment and inflation goals and that the economy requires "considerable support for some time."

Biotech Sputters

The broad-based rally that was observed in 2013 received significant support from biotechnology. This powered the health care sector to a 38.7% gain in 2013 while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) soared 65.5% during the same period.

Although the biotech industry group began the year on a strong note, the ETF marked its 2014 high in late February before spending the next six weeks in a retreat that accelerated as March drew to a close.

IBB lost 10.6% in March, but was able to preserve a 4.1% gain for the quarter versus a 5.4% quarterly increase for the broader health care sector.

Discretionary Stocks Lag

Elsewhere, the consumer discretionary sector, which led all sectors in 2013 with a 41.0% gain, lost 2.9% in March, finishing the month at the bottom of the leaderboard. Like biotechnology, the space saw a change in leadership as many momentum names that climbed steadily in 2013, headed in the opposite direction.

Amazon.com (AMZN) surged 59.0% in 2013, but fell 7.1% in March
Netflix (NFLX) led the S&P 500 in 2013 with a 291.9% gain, but was among notable laggards in March, falling 21.0%
Priceline.com (PCLN) fell 11.0% in March after enjoying a blistering 87.4% gain in 2013

Homebuilders also weighed on the sector as the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed from 2.64% to 2.72%, thus impacting affordability. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB) lost 7.9%.

http://www.briefing.com/common/images/content/pagecontent/InBrief/20140401102540MarchSectors.jpg

8:21AM Broadcom announces NETGEAR (NTGR) has selected Broadcom's StrataConnect system-on-chip to power the new generation of NETGEAR ProSAFE Gigabit Smart Switch solutions (BRCM) 31.48 : Co announced that NETGEAR (NTGR) has selected Broadcom's StrataConnect system-on-chip (SoC) to power the new generation of NETGEAR ProSAFE Gigabit Smart Switch solutions. Broadcom's highly integrated SoCs provide NETGEAR with the innovation required to cost-effectively deliver business-class, future-proof switch solutions optimized for use in small to medium sized businesses (SMBs). Broadcom will demonstrate its StrataConnect solutions at Interop, Las Vegas, April 1 -- 3, 2014, booth #1239. their chat experiences. Available for download later today from the respective app stores for the Android, BlackBerry and iOS platforms, BBM will now offer stickers that BBM users can add to their BBM chats.

NVDA +1.6% ( product marketing VP sees improved 2014, according to reports; upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities ),

JASO +1.3% (JA Solar initiated with an Outperform at Northland Securities), SSYS +1.1% (initiated with a Buy at UBS),

8:07AM Marvell to appeal patent decision; court denies request for injunction and pre-judgment interest (MRVL) 15.75 : Co announced that on March 31, 2014, the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania issued its judgment on the remaining motions in a lawsuit brought by Carnegie Mellon University against Marvell and Marvell Semiconductor , Marvell's U.S. operating subsidiary.

The Court rejected CMU's motion for an injunction which would block Marvell from selling chips that the jury found to be infringing. The Court also rejected CMU's demand for ~$326 million in pre-judgment interest, and substantially scaled back CMU's request for enhanced damages.

Based on these decisions, the Court calculated the damages, including enhancement, to total ~$1.54 bln. The Court held that under its decision, CMU is entitled to post judgment interest and an on-going royalty. Under the schedule set by the Court, the parties now have until April 15, 2014 to propose terms of a final judgment, consistent with the Court's orders.

Microsemi (MSCC) has implemented significant FPGA design infrastructure support with the opening of three new technical support design centers, and by training and certifying more than 200 distributor partner field application engineers worldwide

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market meandered inside a narrow range on Wednesday after posting solid gains on Monday and Tuesday. The S&P 500 added 0.3% and notched a fresh record closing high at 1890.90 while the Nasdaq (+0.2%) struggled to stay in the green throughout the session.

Equity indices began the day near their flat lines and maintained narrow ranges into the afternoon before breaking out to fresh highs during the final 30 minutes of action. That thrust placed the Dow Jones Industrial Average above its 2013 closing high of 16576.66 for the first time this year, but the index returned below that level by the close.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq and S&P 500 extended their respective 2014 gains to 2.4% and 2.3%, but the Nasdaq had a tough time keeping pace with the benchmark index today as large cap tech names and biotechnology lagged.

The technology sector (-0.02%) spent the bulk of the trading day at the bottom of the leaderboard before clawing its way back to the flat line the close. Chipmakers lagged throughout the session with Intel (INTC 25.89, -0.10) falling 0.4% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 0.2%.

For its part, biotechnology displayed strength at the open, but was unable to revisit its morning high as the day wore on. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 241.60, -0.05) ended little changed while the broader health care sector (+0.4%) finished a bit ahead of the S&P 500.

Elsewhere among influential sectors, financials (+0.1%) lagged while the discretionary sector (+0.7%) finished among the leaders. Homebuilders posted gains with the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.71, +0.10) climbing 0.4% while retailers also displayed strength. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 86.74, +1.24) jumped 1.5%.

Also of note, the smallest cyclical sector, materials (+0.6%), outperformed amid strength in miners. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 24.32, +0.63) rose 2.7% while gold futures rose 0.9% to $1290.80/ozt.

Treasuries finished just above their lows after spending the entire morning in a steady retreat. The benchmark 10-yr yield added five basis points to 2.80%.

Participation was well below average with only 640 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data included just two reports:

According to the ADP National Employment Report for March, employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose by 191K, which was below the increase of 215K expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The February reading was revised up to 178,000 from 139,000.
Factory orders increased 1.6% in February after falling a downwardly revised 1.0% (from -0.7%) in January. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.1%. The upside surprise in factory orders was a result of stronger-than-expected nondurable goods orders. Nondurable goods orders increased 1.0% in February, which more than offset the 0.7% decline in January. Durable goods orders were unrevised from the advance report, up 2.2% in February after falling 1.4% in January. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders increased 0.1% in February, down from an originally reported 0.2% gain in the advance report.

Tomorrow, the Challenger Job Cuts report for March will be released at 7:30 ET while weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 320K) and the February Trade Balance (consensus -$39.30 billion) will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. The final report of the day-ISM Services (consensus 53.5)-will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +2.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +2.4% YTD
S&P 500 +2.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.02% YTD

DJ30 +40.39 NASDAQ +8.42 SP500 +5.38 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1496/2.04 bln/1170 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1742/640.0 mln/1290

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded higher today despite a stronger dollar index. June gold touched a session low of $1288.10 per ounce as pit trade opened and chopped around in a consolidative pattern just above the $1290 per ounce level for the remainder of the session. It eventually settled with a 0.9% gain at $1290.80 per ounce.
May silver traded near the $20 per ounce level and settled with a 1.9% gain at $20.06 per ounce.
May crude oil traded in negative territory and fell to a session low of $98.86 per barrel despite bullish inventory data.
The EIA reported that for the week ending Mar 28, crude oil inventories had a draw of 2.4 mln barrels while consensus called for a build of 1.1-2.5 mln barrels.
The energy component managed to erase most of the loss as it gained momentum heading into the close. It settled 0.1% lower at $99.63 per barrel, slightly below its session high of $99.74 per barrel.
May natural gas trended higher, rising as high as $4.39 per MMBtu after it lifted from a session low of $4.31 per MMBtu set in early morning pit trade. It settled at $4.36 per MMBtu, booking a 2.1% gain.

5:03PM Exar sees Q4 revs of ~$28 vs $30.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate (EXAR) 12.20 -0.09 : Co updated its outlook for fiscal fourth quarter revenue. The Company now expects revenue to be approximately $28 million (vs $30.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate).

Exar President and CEO Louis DiNardo noted, "Delays in high reliability programs and software license revenue, as well as continued weakness in the networking market, contributed to a softer than expected month of March. Conversely, our core business in the industrial market performed well. Our expectations of a return to growth in the second half of the year remain intact as the pace of our new product introductions and design wins is accelerating."

4:48PM Plug Power acquires ReliOn for $4 mln in stock; expected to be accretive to earnings in 2015 (PLUG) 7.48 -0.06 : Co announced it has acquired the assets of ReliOn Inc., a developer of hydrogen fuel cell stack technology and fuel cell systems based in Spokane, WA. The acquisition adds valuable fuel cell stack technology and products that Plug Power plans to integrate into several models of its GenDrive fuel cell systems with first deployments this year. ReliOn develops modular, scalable proton exchange membrane (PEM) hydrogen fuel cell systems that feature innovative air-cooled stack designs with unique, low-cost snap-and-build stack assembly technology. The company has deployed more than 5,000 fuel cell stacks at customer sites. The acquisition adds 34 additional US fuel cell patents to the company's portfolio. Plug Power paid approximately $4 million in Plug Power common stock for ReliOn's assets and will add key ReliOn personnel, primarily in sales and engineering. The company expects the acquisition to be accretive to earnings in 2015, and to generate approximately $1 million in EBITDAS loss in 2014. Including the impact of the acquisition, the company continues to expect full year 2014 EBITDAS to be positive.

4:07PM Cypress Semi raises Q1 revenue guidance to $169-171 mln from prior range of $161-168 mln which is above consensus; announced Brad Buss, Executive VP & CFO is retiring (CY) 10.34 +0.04 :

Co issues raised guidance for Q1 (Mar), sees Q1 (Mar) revs of $169-171 mln from prior guidance of $161-168 mln vs. $165.04 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co announced that Brad Buss, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, is retiring from Cypress after eight years of service. He will remain EVP and CFO through June 1, 2014, after which Thad Trent, currently Vice President of Finance, will assume the role of EVP and CFO. Buss will then continue on a part-time basis, assisting in the transition through September 1, 2014, after which he will become a non-employee advisor to the Board and the CEO through April 30, 2015. Trent joined Cypress in 2005 and has been Vice President of Finance since 2010.

4:05PM ON Semiconductor to acquire Truesense Imaging for ~$92 mln in cash; expected to be immediately accretive to margins and earnings (ONNN) 9.50 +0.05 : ONNN signed a definitive agreement to acquire Truesense Imaging, a provider of high-performance image sensor devices addressing a wide range of industrial end-markets including machine vision, surveillance, traffic monitoring, medical and scientific imaging, and photography. The acquisition of Truesense Imaging complements ON Semiconductor's image-sensor business by vastly expanding its technology portfolio and adding more than 200 new customers.

Expands ON Semiconductor's presence in the high-margin industrial end-market
Establishes ON Semiconductor as a leading provider for a broad range of high-performance image sensors for applications in the industrial end-market
ON Semiconductor will pay approximately $92 million in cash to acquire Truesense Imaging, Inc. and the acquisition will be funded by cash on its balance sheet
Transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to margins and earnings.

4:01PM IRobot announces $50 mln stock repurchase program (IRBT) 42.82 +1.15 : IRBT announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase program.

Under the program, iRobot may purchase up to $50 million of its common stock beginning May 1, 2014 and ending April 30, 2015.
As of March 31, 2014, iRobot had 29,435,149 shares of common stock outstanding.

3:30PM Dataram signs strategic sales agreement with Elysium Europe LTD to expand penetration of AMD products internationally (DRAM) 3.43 +0.27 : Co announced that it has signed an Agreement with Elysium Europe Ltd., based out of the United Kingdom, to expand sales penetration in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Under this Agreement, Elysium is authorized to sell AMD Radeon Consumer and Server Memory as well as AMD Radeon RAMDisk software. Elysium is focusing on etailers, retailers, system builders and distributors. Sales orders have already been received and shipped by Elysium and Dataram under this Agreement. Dataram is continuing to roll out plans to further expand international availability and sales of AMD Radeon memory and RAMDisk products.

2:24PM Nokia introduces three Lumia smartphones for MSFT Windows Phone 8.1 (NOK) 7.59 +0.04 : Co announced three Lumia smartphones based on Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Phone 8.1 and a series of exclusive Nokia features. Nokia confirmed that Windows Phone 8.1 is scheduled to be available across the entire Lumia Windows Phone 8 portfolio as an over-the-air update this summer following testing and partner approvals.

1:46PM Riverbed Technology: Silver Peak confirmed it won patent infringement jury verdict against Riverbed; plans to seek permanent injunction (RVBD) 20.08 +0.20 : Silver Peak intends to seek a permanent injunction against the features of Riverbed's RiOS and Steelhead devices covered by the Silver Peak patents - "SDR-Adaptive," as well as "Enhanced Auto-Discovery" when used in combination with "Full Transparency."

12:56PM Midday Market Summary: Stocks Hold Modest Midday Gains (WRAPX) : The major averages hold slim midday gains after spending the first half of the session inside narrow ranges. The S&P 500 trades higher by 0.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) follow not far behind.

Equity indices began the trading day on a quiet note, and that is also how the first half of today's session has unfolded. The S&P 500 has notched a fresh intraday record high at 1890.85 while the Dow tried, but was unable, to turn positive for the year.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite has held a slim gain through the first half, but has been subjected to some whipsaw action due to the underperformance of the technology space (-0.1%) and continued volatility in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 241.05, -0.60) hovers below its flat line after starting the session with a solid gain. For its part, the broader health care sector (+0.2%) follows not far behind the broader market.

Similar to health care, two other top-weighted sectors can be found among the laggards. Financials (+0.1%) display a modest gain while technology hovers in the red. Large cap components are responsible for the relative weakness as Cisco Systems (CSCO 22.86, -0.24), Oracle (ORCL 41.12, -0.37), and Intel (INTC 25.73, -0.26) trade with losses close to 1.0% apiece.

Even though the top three sectors lag, the fourth largest group-consumer discretionary (+0.7%)-trades well ahead of the broader market. Homebuilders sport modest gains (ITB +0.6%) while retailers trade broadly higher with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 86.51, +1.01) up 1.2%.

Treasuries hover near their lows after retreating steadily since this morning. The benchmark 10-yr yield is higher by five basis points at 2.80%.

Today's economic data was limited to two reports:

According to the ADP National Employment Report for March, employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose by 191K, which was below the increase of 215K expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The February reading was revised up to 178,000 from 139,000.
Factory orders increased 1.6% in February after falling a downwardly revised 1.0% (from -0.7%) in January. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.1%. The upside surprise in factory orders was a result of stronger-than-expected nondurable goods orders. Nondurable goods orders increased 1.0% in February, which more than offset the 0.7% decline in January. Durable goods orders were unrevised from the advance report, up 2.2% in February after falling 1.4% in January. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders increased 0.1% in February, down from an originally reported 0.2% gain in the advance report.

12:06PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ISRG (513.5 +4.03%): Target raised to $525 from $450 at WallachBeth; upgraded to Market Outperform from Market Underperform at JMP Securities; target raised to $550 at BofA/Merrill; Upgraded to Outperform at JMP Securities, target $700
ABX (18.58 +3.86%): Strength in large cap gold companies: NEM, GG also higher
DOV (85.26 +3.05%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse

Large Cap Losers

MT (15.9 -2.57%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse, target lowered to $17 from $20
AGU (95.41 -2.16%): Sees Q1 EPS of "just above breakeven" vs estimate of $0.53; co's Carseland nitrogen facility experienced a failure in the auxiliary boiler on March 22, 2014, shutdown expected to lower product availability of urea by ~100k tonnes and ammonia by ~20k tonnes in Q2
EIX (55.94 -1.20%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus on valuation

Mid Cap Gainers

MYGN (39.53 +12.45%): Announced updated pricing for the sequencing of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes: Total reimbursement amount for integrated BRACAnalysis of $2,767 vs previous pricing of $2,021
GTAT (18.5 +6.44%): Mentioned positively at Goldman; also seeing favorable blog mention
STE (51.42 +5.35%): Continued strength following acquisition of Integrated Medical Systems; hearing upgraded at boutique firm

Mid Cap Losers

APOL (32.15 -8.57%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.09 ($0.28 ex items vs $0.19 estimate), revs fell 18.6% yoy to $679.1 mln vs $689.02 mln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 rev guidance of $3.0-3.1 bln vs $3.06 bln estimate; University of Phoenix degree enrollment declined 16.8% yoy to 250,300
YELP (77.66 -3.14%): Weakness attributed to release of March 18, 2014 Freedom of Information request from the FTC
ICPT (326.36 -2.34%): Announced proposed public offering of 1 mln shares of common stock: 600k sold by Intercept, 400k being sold by institutional selling stockholders

11:51AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (220) outpacing new lows (17) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABFS, ABG, AEY, ALGT, ALK, ALV, AMAT, AMKR, AN, ARW, AVA, AVAV, AVT, AXDX, BAH, BAM, BBW, BCPC, BEAV, BFAM, BHI, BKU, BMI, BMRC, BOH, BPL, BRCD, BUD, BWA, BWEN, CAR, CAT, CBI, CBSH, CBT, CCK, CFR, CHE, CHFC, CLD, CNQ, CODE, COMM, CPF, CRD.B, CRI, CRK, CRR, CSTM, CTS, CYT, DAL, DAN, DD, DHIL, DLPH, DMLP, DORM, DOV, DV, DVCR, DVN, DXYN, EMCI, EMES, ENVI, ENZ, EPD, EQM, ESS, ETE, FLIR, FLXS, FNB, FNHC, FSL, FWLT, FWRD, GBX, GGAL, GLOG, GLW, GPOR, GPRE, GSAT, GSIG, H, HAS, HBAN, HCLP, HF, HIL, HOLI, HP, HPQ, HTLD, IBTX, IFN, ISIL, ITRN, IVAC, IVZ, JW.A, JWN, JXSB, KED, KEG, KEP, KFY, KLAC, KNX, KWR, LBY, LDL, LLL, LLTC, LNG, LSCC, LUV, LVLT, LXK, M, MCS, MED, MGA, MINI, MLR, MMP, MPAA, MRCY, MSFT, MTRX, MXIM, MYGN, NBCB, NEWM, NGL, NGLS, NHC, NOC, NP, NSH, NSIT, NVDQ, NXPI, OILT, ORBK, OSK, PAGP, PAM, PBI, PDS, PEIX, PJC, PKOH, PLCM, PLL, PNFP, PRSC, QLGC, R, RCL, REMY, RFMD, RMBS, ROK, ROL, RRMS, RTRX, RYAAY, SEM, SGU, SHLM, SIG, SKX, SLCA, SLGN, SOHO, SPB, SPIL, ST, STE, SUBK, SUP, SXC, SYX, TAX, TBI, TECD, TEL, TEVA, TFX, THG, THRM, TLMR, TOWR, TRGP, TSEM, TTGT, TTM, TV, TWTC, UNT, UPL, USEG, USMO, UTX, VAC, VC, VLP, VMW, VPG, VSEC, VVC, WBC, WDC, WDR, WFT, WGP, WLB

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ANAD, AVEO, AVNW, CHCI, CSBK, DRNA, INFI, LQDT, NEWL, ORCT, OTEL, SDT, SPEX, STLY, STRL, TBAC, VTUS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIG, DVY, EIS, GULF, IEO, IGE, IHF, IHI, IOO, IXC, IYE, IYT, IYZ, PIN, SDY, SMH, SOXX, XES, XLE, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXZ

7:05AM Freescale & Broadcom (BRCM) extend ADAS surround-view automotive cameras beyond luxury models and into the mainstream (FSL) 25.17 : Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are quickly growing in popularity among consumers, driven in large part by a strong affinity for the functionality enabled by surround view cameras such as park assist and blind spot detection. According to ABI Research, Inc, the global ADAS market is forecast to reach US$261 billion by 2020, establishing ADAS as one of the fastest growing segments in the automotive sector.

In response to this growing market trend, Freescale Semiconductor and Broadcom Corporation have partnered to create Freescale's Qorivva MPC5606E -- the industry's first fully-integrated, packaged microcontroller (MCU) and physical layer transceiver (PHY) solution for use in 360 degree camera systems.

Camera size is increasingly important to automotive OEMS, as manufacturers prefer peripheral cameras to be miniaturized and unobtrusive to maintain vehicle aesthetics. Smaller cameras can be more easily hidden within design features of the car, such as a front grill, bumper or wing mirror. Featuring a compact 8x8mm package, the Qorivva MPC5606E device is designed to reduce the size of automotive camera modules by up to 50 percent, while helping speed time to market and reduce the overall bill-of-material.

Fundamental to the size and performance advantages of the Qorivva MPC5606E is the incorporation of Broadcom's BroadR-Reach automotive Ethernet PHY. The integrated Ethernet solution enables compact vision compression and rapid transmission of video data throughout the vehicle.

Integrated Device Technology (IDTI) announced mass production of its DDR4 chipset that is compliant to the JEDEC 1.0 specifications for use in DDR4 registered dual in-line memory modules and load-reduced dual in-line memory modules

6:40AM BlackBerry ends T-Mobile (TMUS) licensing agreement (BBRY) 8.10 : Co announced that it will not renew the T-Mobile U.S. (TMUS) license to sell BlackBerry products when it expires on April 25, 2014. BlackBerry customers on the T-Mobile network should not see any difference in their service or support. BlackBerry will work closely with T-Mobile to provide the best possible customer service to any customer remaining on the T-Mobile U.S. network or to any customer purchasing devices from T-Mobile's existing inventory.

Micron Technology (MU) announced it is ramping production of DDR4 memory to support upcoming Intel CPU launches.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems are quickly growing in popularity among consumers. In response to this growing market trend, Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) and Broadcom Corporation (BRCM) have partnered to create Freescale's Qorivva MPC5606E -- the industry's first fully-integrated, packaged microcontrollerand physical layer transceiver solution for use in 360 degree camera systems. Camera size is increasingly important to automotive OEMS, as manufacturers prefer peripheral cameras to be miniaturized and unobtrusive to maintain vehicle aesthetics. Smaller cameras can be more easily hidden within design features of the car, such as a front grill, bumper or wing mirror. Featuring a compact 8x8mm package, the Qorivva MPC5606E device is designed to reduce the size of automotive camera modules by up to 50 percent, while helping speed time to market and reduce the overall bill-of-material. Fundamental to the size and performance advantages of the Qorivva MPC5606E is the incorporation of Broadcom's BroadR-Reach automotive Ethernet PHY. The integrated Ethernet solution enables compact vision compression and rapid transmission of video data throughout the vehicle.
BlackBerry (BBRY) announced that it will not renew the T-Mobile U.S. (TMUS) license to sell BlackBerry products when it expires on April 25, 2014. BlackBerry customers on the T-Mobile network should not see any difference in their service or support. BlackBerry will work closely with T-Mobile to provide the best possible customer service to any customer remaining on the T-Mobile U.S. network or to any customer purchasing devices from T-Mobile's existing inventory.
Vistaprint (VPRT) announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Pixartprinting Srl for a base purchase price of approximately 127 million, resulting in Vistaprint ownership of 97 percent of Pixartprinting, and 3 percent retained ownership by Pixartprinting's founder. As part of the transaction, Vistaprint will assume 100 percent of the majority stake in Pixartprinting that is currently held by private equity firm Alcedo SGR. The agreement also includes a sliding-scale earn-out of up to EUR 10 million for Pixartprinting, subject to the achievement of revenue and EBITDA performance targets for calendar year 2014. Vistaprint expects Pixartprinting will have a net debt position of EUR 18 million at the close of the transaction. Based in Quarto D'Altino, Veneto, Italy with approximately 330 employees, Pixartprinting is a web-to-print business serving over 100,000 customers. The company's revenue primarily comes from graphic design agencies, print resellers and local printers that in turn serve small and medium businesses for flyers, brochures, decorated apparel, business cards, signs, banners, labels, textiles and other printed products. Consideration for the transaction will be in cash, using Vistaprint's existing debt facility. Vistaprint expects this transaction to be accretive to our fiscal 2014 revenue and operating cash flow, but dilutive to GAAP EPS due to transaction costs and expected amortization expense for acquisition-related intangible assets. On a non-GAAP EPS basis, which excludes amortization expense for acquisition-related intangible assets, the transaction is expected to have a neutral impact in fiscal 2014. In fiscal 2015, we expect the transaction to be dilutive to GAAP EPS, but accretive on a non-GAAP basis. Vistaprint will provide updated detailed guidance in the next quarterly earnings announcement following the close of the transaction.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market finished the Thursday session on a lower note with small caps leading the weakness. The Russell 2000 (-1.0%) and Nasdaq (-0.9%) posted comparable losses while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (unch) and S&P 500 (-0.1%) finished little changed after climbing off their lows during the last hour of action.

Equity indices began the day with modest gains, but were quick to slip into the red, where they remained for the rest of the session. Of the major averages, the Nasdaq faced the most aggressive selling due to the daylong weakness in biotechnology and an afternoon slump in the technology sector (-0.6%).

Biotechnology spent the entire session in a steady retreat that pressured the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 234.71, -6.89) back below its 100-day moving average (238.12). The biotech ETF lost 2.9% while the broader health care sector lost 0.3%.

For its part, the technology sector was among the early relative strength leaders before turning into a laggard during the early afternoon. It is worth mentioning the early strength was bolstered by a big gain in Google (GOOG 569.74, +2.74), which underwent a 2:1 split. The stock was up more than 3.0% in the morning before surrendering most of its gain over the course of the session. Most other large tech names finished in the red while Intel (INTC 26.41, +0.52) held a solid gain throughout the day.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector (-0.5%) was another notable laggard after finishing among the leaders on Monday and Tuesday. Large components like Amazon.com (AMZN 333.62, -8.34), Priceline.com (PCLN 1237.45, -29.21), and Netflix (NFLX 354.69, -8.19) fell between 2.3% and 2.4% while homebuilders held up relatively well. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.71, 0.00) ended flat.

On the upside, the energy sector (+0.6%) held a solid gain throughout the session while crude oil advanced 0.7% to $100.29/bbl.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-linked sector, materials (+0.1%) posted a modest gain, thanks to a boost from Monsanto (MON 117.04, +2.62), which gained 2.3% after being upgraded to 'Overweight' from 'Neutral' at JP Morgan.

Treasuries ended near the middle of their range with the benchmark 10-yr yield falling two basis points to 2.79%.

Participation was below average with 647 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data included three reports:

The weekly initial claims level increased to 326,000 from a revised 310,000 (from 311,000). The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to increase to 320,000. After several months between 330,000 and 340,000, initial claims have broken those bounds and are now trending between 315,000 and 330,000. This range is more typical of a 200,000 monthly increase in nonfarm payrolls. We would not be surprised, given the strength of the claims data in March, if payrolls top 200,000 for the first time since November 2013.
The U.S. trade deficit increased to $42.30 billion in February from a slightly upwardly revised $39.30 billion (from $39.10 billion) in January. That was the largest deficit since reaching $43.40 billion in September 2013. The Briefing.com consensus pegged the trade deficit at $39.30 billion. The goods deficit rose to $61.70 billion in February from $59.50 in January, an increase of $2.20 billion. The services surplus fell $800 million to $19.40 billion in February from $20.20 billion.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index increased to 53.1 in March from 51.6 in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 53.5. The increase in the headline index was mostly the result of a recovery in employment. The Employment Index, which contracted in February, increased to 53.6 in March from 47.5.

Tomorrow's data will focus on jobs with March Nonfarm Payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 195K), Private Payrolls (consensus 205K), Unemployment Rate (consensus 6.6%), Hourly Earnings (consensus +0.2%), and Average Workweek (consensus 34.4) all set to cross the wires at 8:30 ET.

S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.02% YTD

DJ30 -0.45 NASDAQ -38.72 SP500 -2.13 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 819/1.92 bln/1992 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1238/647.3 mln/1777

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded lower today as a stronger dollar index weighed on prices.
June gold brushed a session low of $1281.90 per ounce in early morning action and settled with a 0.5% loss at $1284.60 per ounce.
May silver dipped to a session low of $19.66 per ounce shortly after floor trade opened. It then consolidated near the $19.85 per ounce level and eventually settled 1.3% lower at $19.79 per ounce.
May crude oil lifted from its session low of $99.22 per barrel and broke into positive territory by late morning pit action. It brushed a session high of $100.34 per barrel and settled at $100.29 per barrel, booking a gain of 0.7%.
May natural gas fell to a session low of $4.36 per MMBtu following inventory data that showed a draw of 74 bcf when a draw of 74-75 bcf was anticipated. However, it quickly regained momentum and climbed to a session high of $4.48 per MMBtu before settling with a 2.5% gain at $4.47 per MMBtu.

4:06PM Micron beats by $0.09, beats on revs (MU) 24.00 -0.35 : Reports Q2 (Feb) earnings of $0.85 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.76; revenues rose 97.6% year/year to $4.11 bln vs the $4.02 bln consensus.

Revenues from sales of Trade NAND Flash products were 11 % higher in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2014 primarily due to a 35 % increase in sales volume offset by an 18 % decrease in average selling prices.
Revenues from sales of DRAM products were essentially unchanged in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2014 as both sales volumes and average selling prices remained stable.
The company's overall consolidated gross margin was 34 % in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 compared to 32 % in the first quarter of fiscal 2014 as a result of a higher DRAM gross margin.
Cash flows from operations for the second quarter of fiscal 2014 were $1.39 bln, while investments in capital expenditures were $565 mln. The company ended the second fiscal quarter with cash and marketable investments of $5.06 bln.

12:30PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

GOOG (578.1 +1.96%): Trading higher following Class C share dividend, resulting in a 2:1 split effective today.
MON (117.04 +2.29%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
KKR (23.68 +2.69%): Initiated with an Outperform at Bernstein; tgt $33; reports out that co is buying shipping loans and may be interested in Lloyds (LYG) tranche.

Large Cap Losers

SJR (23.32 -3.72%): Downgraded to Sector Perform from Sector Outperform at CIBC Wrld Mkts.
IVZ (36.79 -2.36%): Trading lower following reports that St James plans to move fund management mandates.
ADSK (48.53 -2.12%): Mentioned unfavorably on Mad Money.

Mid Cap Gainers

RPM (44.01 +4.36%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, missed on revs; raised FY14 EPS guidance.
NFX (32.63 +3.85%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS; tgt raised to $37 from $26.
ONNN (9.86 +3.84%): Co to acquire Truesense Imaging for ~$92 mln in cash; expected to be immediately accretive to margins and earnings.

Mid Cap Losers

QUNR (29.7 -7.99%): Weakness in Chinese ADRs (SFUN, YY, WUBA also lower).
SPLK (67.01 -5.78%): Upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Credit Agricole; tgt lowered to $80 from $100.
SCTY (60.96 -4.38%): Priced offering by its subsidiary, SolarCity LMC Series II, of $70.2 mln with an interest rate of 4.59% and an anticipated repayment date of April 2022.

12:18PM Lagging Nasdaq Comp -32 sets new session low along with S&P -4.3 -- Dow -19.9 hovering just above its low (TECHX) : Intraday relative sector weakness noted in: Internet FDN, Retail XRT, Restaurant, Casino BJK, Technology XLK, Software IGV, Networking IGN.

12:08PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (208) outpacing new lows (21) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAV, ABFS, ABG, ADI, ALV, AMAT, AMKR, AMSG, AN, ARW, ATI, BAH, BDBD, BELFB, BFAM, BHI, BKU, BMI, BMRC, BPL, BUD, BXE, CAR, CAT, CBI, CBSO, CCC, CDW, CFX, CHE, CLD, CLR, CNQ, CODE, CORT, CRI, CRK, CRS, CSE, CSL, CVD, CXO, CYT, DBD, DD, DISH, DLX, DMLP, DOV, DTE, DVN, ECA, EGY, EME, EMES, ENTG, EOG, FL, FLIR, FN, FNB, FNHC, FRP, FSL, FWLT, GA, GBX, GGAL, GLOG, GLW, GOOG, GPOR, GSAT, GSJK, GSOL, H, HAR, HCLP, HES, HI, HIL, HOLI, HPJ, HST, IRF, ISRG, ITRN, IVAC, JW.A, JWN, KAMN, KEP, KFS, KFY, KLAC, KR, LAZ, LBY, LEA, LINTA, LLTC, LLY, LRCX, LXK, MAR, MCHP, MDT, MED, MGPI, MKL, MLR, MPAA, MPET, MTDR, MTSI, MTX, MTZ, MXIM, NFX, NGL, NGLS, NOA, NP, NRG, NS, NVDA, NVDQ, NXPI, NYLD, OCLR, ONNN, ORAN, OSK, PACW, PBI, PES, PJC, PLCM, PMC, PMCS, PNY, POL, PSX, QCOM, QLGC, QUIK, R, RDNT, REI, REMY, RFMD, RMBS, ROK, RPM, RRMS, RTRX, RYAAY, SAN, SBSA, SCI, SFNC, SGK, SGU, SGY, SIR, SLB, SLCA, SLGN, SMMF, SOHO, SPB, SRLP, ST, STAG, STRZA, SUP, SWN, SXT, SYX, TAP, TECD, TEL, TER, THG, TOWR, TQNT, TRGP, TROW, TRW, TV, TWTC, TXI, TXT, UNT, UPL, VAC, VC, VECO, VET, VLO, VPFG, VPG, VSEC, VTNR, WDC, WEC, WES, WLL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEPI, AMAG, AVNW, CIX, CRCM, DRNA, GMO, HELI, INFI, KBIO, LQDT, MNTA, NEWL, ONTX, PBPB, SOQ, TBAC, TNGN, VEEV, VHI, VRNS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, DIG, DVY, EWC, EWP, EWQ, EZU, GULF, IEO, IGE, IHI, IOO, IXC, IYE, IYM, IYT, MDY, MES, OEF, SDY, SMH, SOXX, SPY, UYM, XLB, XLE, XLK, XOP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SMN

9:38AM STMicroelectronics and Italiano di Tecnologia sign R&D collaboration agreement (STM) 9.33 0.00 : Co and the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), an international scientific and technological research center based in Italy, have announced the signing of a formal agreement sealing their long-standing collaboration on a range of research activities, including Robotics, Neuroscience, Energy and Environment, and Health and Safety. The agreement, which will have an initial duration of three years, builds on many years of previous cooperation between the two parties.
9:34AM Intel provides early leadership for Semi sector and Dow (INTC) 26.28 +0.39 : The stock was resumed with an overweight from neutral rating and gapped higher to close the Jan bear gap at 26.32 (session high 26.32)

MaxLinear (MXL) and STMicroelectronics (STM) announced a reference design aimed at accelerating the adoption of next-generation Ultra HD set-top boxes and gateways for satellite pay-TV operators worldwide.

9:02AM SolarCity prices second securitization (SCTY) 63.75 : Co announces the pricing of the offering by its wholly-owned subsidiary, SolarCity LMC Series II, of $70.2 mln with an interest rate of 4.59% and an anticipated repayment date of April 2022. The notes were priced on April 2. The sale of the notes is expected to close on April 10.

9:00AM KEMET enters into agreement for sale of machinery division (KEM) 6.07 :

Co announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, KEMET Electronics Italia S.r.l., has entered into an agreement to sell the assets and specified liabilities of its Machinery division to Manz AG.
The division was originally acquired by KEMET as part of its purchase of Arcotronics Italia S.p.A. in 2007, and manufactures machines for the production of lithium-ion batteries, film capacitors and electrolytic capacitors. As a result of the sale, all 83 division employees will be transferred to Manz.
The transaction also includes a supply agreement by which Manz will supply certain capacitor manufacturing equipment to KEMET over the next four years.
The sale is expected to close no later than April 30, 2014.

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced that its FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand, 10Gb/s and 40Gb/s Ethernet solutions are fully certified on Cloudera 5.

8:30AM IXYS announces customer interest in high Megawatt 3-level press-pack IGBT Inverter Stacks (IXYS) 11.54 : Co announces wide ranging customer interest in the recent introduction of a range of standard three-level press-pack IGBT phase leg stacks with power rating up to 16 Megawatts.

The new stack designs are available for applications at three voltage levels 3.3kV, 6.6kV and 10kV and incorporate IXYS UK's market leading press-pack IGBT technology. The 3.3kV option is available as a single stack, comprising a complete phase leg of four 2400A press-pack IGBTs plus the anti-parallel and neutral point clamp diodes. The phase leg is rated at 8MW.

SunEdison (SUNE) signed an agreement with Shinsung Solar Energy. Co expects to purchase 660 MW of high efficiency solar cells manufactured by Shinsung with SunEdison solar wafers

BRCM -0.5% (resumed with a Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray)

ONNN +2.1% ( to Acquire Truesense Imaging for ~$92 mln in cash)

Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas, a business region of Avnet (AVT), opened two joint application design centers with Microsemi (MSCC). The design centers' efforts will concentrate on developing application-specific reference designs that solve OEM customers' major technical design challenges requiring low-power and security in the design.

7:03AM JinkoSolar Holding signs RMB241.4 mln loan with China Development Bank for 2 PV Solar Projects (JKS) 32.00 : Co announces that it has entered into RMB214.4 million (~$39 million) loan agreement with China Development Bank to finance two PV solar projects in Xinjiang and Gansu Provinces.

According to the terms of the agreements, CDB's Xinjiang Branch will provide a 18-year loan totaling RMB141.4 million to finance JinkoSolar's 20MW project located in Alaer, Xinjiang Province while the Gansu Branch will provide a 15-year loan totaling RMB100 million to finance JinkoSolar's 15MW project located in Jinchang, Gansu Province. The two projects were connected to the grid at the end of 2013.

6:01AM Chipmos Technology announced that its 62.1% owned subsidiary, priced its previously announced share subscription at a price of NT$26.5/share ($0.88/share) (IMOS) 22.91 :

20 mln common shares are being sold in an underwritten public offering, with Yuanta Securities Company, Limited is acting as the book-running manager and Capital Securities Corp. acting as the co-manager for the initial public offering. Pursuant to the Taiwan listing process, ChipMOS Taiwan is issuing 18.5 mln new common shares, while 1.5 mln shares are being offered by certain shareholders.
Under applicable Taiwan laws, an additional 3.3 mln new common shares have been reserved as incentive for the purchase by employees under managerial level of ChipMOS Taiwan.
ChipMOS Taiwan intends to use the proceeds from the sale of the 21.8 mln new common shares in this offering for general corporate purposes, including supporting potential growth opportunities. The offering is expected to close on April 9, 2014.

ON Semiconductor (ONNN) signed a definitive agreement to acquire Truesense Imaging, a provider of high-performance image sensor devices addressing a wide range of industrial end-markets including machine vision, surveillance, traffic monitoring, medical and scientific imaging, and photography. The acquisition of Truesense Imaging complements ON Semiconductor's image-sensor business by vastly expanding its technology portfolio and adding more than 200 new customers. Expands ON Semiconductor's presence in the high-margin industrial end-market. Establishes ON Semiconductor as a leading provider for a broad range of high-performance image sensors for applications in the industrial end-market. ON Semiconductor will pay approximately $92 million in cash to acquire Truesense Imaging, Inc. and the acquisition will be funded by cash on its balance sheet. Transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to margins and earnings.
CACI Intl (CACI) lowered fiscal year 2014 EPS guidance to $5.12-5.51, from $5.59-5.98 and lowered revenue guidance to $3.5-3.6 from $3.65-3.80 billion which are both below consensus. The company is revising its guidance as a result of the impact of the continued uncertainty our customers are experiencing despite the passage of the omnibus appropriations bill in January. Co continues to experience delays in contract awards for new business to CACI, lower run-rates on professional services contracts, and reductions in Afghanistan-related material purchases. Co now expects revenue for FY14 to range between $3.5-3.6 billion. Net income is now expected to range between $130 mln and $140 mln, which includes approximately $13 mln of one-time, pre-tax expenses associated with our acquisition of Six3 Systems. According to President and Chief Executive Officer Ken Asbury, "Our lower FY14 guidance reflects reduced government spending and delays in award activity." "We are disappointed that these factors have not been mitigated by the passing of the 2014 appropriations act, as we had anticipated. However, the operational performance across our company remains strong in this uncertain environment. We are seeing results from the strengthening of our business development initiatives, and we are very pleased with the progress of our integration of Six3 Systems and its performance. We remain confident in our market-driven strategy." Following are the key changes related to our revised FY14 guidance: "We expect that our direct labor costs will be flat to up slightly when compared with FY13, and our other direct costs will be 7-10% lower than FY13. ""We expect that our indirect costs and selling expenses will be about the same as FY13, with the ongoing operating costs of Six3 Systems and the associated one-time transaction costs offset by cost efficiencies in our base business.""We expect that Q4 net income will be higher than our Q3 due to higher award fees, greater contributions by Six3 Systems, increased volume of high margin product sales, modestly higher direct labor, and lower interest expense."
Cypress Semi (CY) raised guidance for the first quarter with revenues of $169-171 million from prior guidance of $161-168 million which is higher than expected. The company announced that Brad Buss, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, is retiring from Cypress after eight years of service. He will remain EVP and CFO through June 1, 2014, after which Thad Trent, currently Vice President of Finance, will assume the role of EVP and CFO. Buss will then continue on a part-time basis, assisting in the transition through September 1, 2014, after which he will become a non-employee advisor to the Board and the CEO through April 30, 2015. Trent joined Cypress in 2005 and has been Vice President of Finance since 2010.
Juniper Networks (JNPR) disclosed the following actions and charges associated with its previously announced integrated operating plan, or IOP. "The actions announced today are among several initiatives under our IOP that are designed to focus the Company on high-growth segments and to right-size certain functions. Overall, the Company believes that it is taking a balanced approach to cost management and prioritizing and strengthening our focus on the innovation that matters most to our customers." In connection with the efforts to streamline its business structure, the Company expects to reduce worldwide headcount by approximately 6%. The majority of these reductions are immediate, and a significant proportion are middle management positions. The Company estimates that it will incur cash charges of approximately $35 million for severance and other related employee termination expenses in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. In addition, in connection with a review of its product portfolio, the Company has determined to cease development of the application delivery controller technology licensed in July 2012 that will result in a non-cash intangible asset impairment charge of approximately $85 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. There are no revenues associated with this technology. In addition, the Company expects to accrue other non-cash asset write-downs of approximately $10 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Additional actions and restructuring charges are expected to be taken in the second quarter and the balance of fiscal 2014, including facilities consolidations, marketing program reductions, and other asset restructures. In particular, as a part of the Company's long-term facilities plans and the above-mentioned work force reductions, the Company plans to consolidate its facilities, which will result in the future disposal of approximately 300,000 square feet of leased facilities, representing approximately 12% of our global facilities square footage. The Company currently estimates that it will incur facilities restructuring charges beginning in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 and continuing throughout the fiscal year of approximately $70 million in the aggregate. We anticipate potential additional restructuring charges of approximately $20 million to be accrued later in fiscal 2014.

[ReturntoSender]

Okay guys now that I have reliable data I can say with certainty that if you were not worried about the state of the market then you should be now. A few months ago I read an article which I shared here that stated that the average number of new highs on the NYSE was about 6% at the past major market tops between 1929 and 2000.

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/chris-puplava/hindenburg-omen-imminent-warning-hot-air

I have been watching the number of new highs at each of the most recent highs but I was looking at data that I now consider inaccurate. Now that I am pulling data from the WSJ site (Thank you Sr K) you will see only 5.6% of stocks traded on the NYSE hit new highs on the latest high hit by the DJIA on April 4th.





Here is the site where I am pulling the accurate data from the WSJ:

http://markets.wsj.com/usoverview

If you are long in this stock market you might just be well advised to pull some coin off the table in my opinion.

JMHO, RtS

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market began the new trading week on the defensive, with the major averages posting losses across the board. The Russell 2000 (-1.5%) and Nasdaq (-1.2%) led the retreat, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.0%) and S&P 500 (-1.1%) fared a bit better.

The major averages started the session in the red with little help from other global indices as markets in Asia and Europe posted losses. Contributing to the cautious sentiment was an apparent escalation of tensions in Eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian protesters, demanding referendums on independence, took control of government buildings in four cities. Most notably, protesters in Donetsk called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to send in Russian peacekeepers.

Similar to Friday, equity indices spent the session in a steady retreat as momentum names remained volatile. Biotechnology displayed early strength, but the industry group notched a session high during the opening hour before spending the remainder of the day in a battle with its flat line. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 226.82, +1.52) tacked on 0.7%, while SPDR S&P Biotechnology ETF (XBI 133.22, -0.24) shed 0.2%. For its part, the health care sector (-1.1%) ended in-line with the S&P 500, while consumer staples (+0.3%), telecom services (unch), and utilities (-0.2%) outperformed.

Elsewhere, the six cyclical sectors registered losses between 0.8% and 1.9%. Even though the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lagged, the technology sector (-0.8%) outperformed thanks to gains in some top components. Cisco Systems (CSCO 22.85, +0.14), IBM (IBM 194.52, +2.75), and Intel (INTC 26.48, +0.32) posted gains between 0.6% and 1.4%, while momentum names remained volatile. Facebook (FB 56.95, +0.20) gained 0.4%, while LinkedIn (LNKD 159.65, -6.18) and Tesla (TSLA 207.52, -4.70) lost 3.7% and 2.2%, respectively.

Other momentum names like Amazon.com (AMZN 317.76, -5.24) and Priceline.com (PCLN 1169.73, -8.35) played a part in the underperformance of the consumer discretionary sector (-1.9%), which widened its year-to-date loss to 5.2%. Retailers ended broadly lower with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 83.01, -1.89) falling 2.2%, while homebuilders did not have a much better showing. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 23.94, -0.65) lost 2.6%.

With stocks ending near their lows, participants displayed demand for volatility protection, sending the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.57, +1.61) to mid-March levels.

Treasuries posted modest gains with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping three basis points to 2.70%.

For the second session in a row, participation was above average with nearly 820 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to the Consumer Credit report for February, which indicated an increase of $16.50 billion after increasing an upwardly revised $13.80 billion (from $13.70 billion) in January. That was the largest monthly expansion since October 2013. The Briefing.com consensus expected consumer credit to increase by $14.30 billion. Typically, consumer credit is a volatile measure that often goes through substantial revisions before the final data are released. The revisions to January, however, were much milder than normal.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which will be released at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 -0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.3% YTD

DJ30 -166.84 NASDAQ -47.97 SP500 -20.05 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 638/2.15 bln/2140 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 831/818.8 mln/2235

3:30 pm :

June gold traded lower today despite weakness in the dollar index. It dipped to a session low of $1295.80 per ounce in late morning action and eventually settled at $1298.20 per ounce, or 0.4% lower.
May silver spent most of the floor session in the red, trading as low as $19.77 per ounce in early morning action. It rose to a session high of $20.01 per ounce but fell back below the unchanged line and settled with a 0.3% loss at $19.91 per ounce.
May crude oil fell for the first time in three sessions on reports that Libya's conflicting parties reached a deal to open 2 ports, essentially doubling its capacity.
The energy component touched a session high of $101.32 per barrel in morning action but quickly reversed back into the red. It brushed a session low of $99.92 per barrel and settled with a 0.7% loss at $100.44 per barrel.
May natural gas, on the other hand, traded higher, rising as high as $4.53 per MMBtu. It sold off slightly heading into the close and settled with a 0.9% gain at $4.47 per MMBtu.

4:03PM Intel to change financial reporting structure (INTC) 26.48 +0.32 :

These changes will be comprised of the following:
PC Client Group (PCCG): PCCG will now include the results of our gateway and set-top box business, previously reported as the Service Provider Group within the other Intel architecture (Other IA) operating segments.
Data Center Group (DCG): DCG will now include the communications infrastructure portion of the Intelligent Systems Group, which had been previously reported in the Other IA operating segments.
Internet of Things Group (IOTG): The newly formed IOTG includes the embedded portion of the Intelligent Systems Group. Wind River Software Group (Wind River) will also transfer from the software and services operating segments to be part of the newly formed IOTG.
Mobile and Communications Group (MCG): MCG includes the Phone Group, the Tablet Group and Multi-Comm, all previously part of the Other IA operating segments. Software and services operating segments: The software and services operating segments will reflect the removal of Wind River. McAfee, Inc. (McAfee) and the Software and Solutions Group will continue to be part of the aggregated software and services operating segments.
All Other: All other will now include the remaining components of the Other IA operating segments, specifically: New Devices Group and Netbook Group. All other will continue to include Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) and Corporate.

1:08PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

PBR (13.97 +4.96%): Strength in Brazilian large cap companies: CBD, BSBR, UGP, ITUB, BBD also higher
INTC (26.61 +1.74%): Upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at Pacific Crest
PG (80.8 +1.29%): Increased quarterly dividend 7% to $0.6436 from $0.6015 per share

Large Cap Losers

MGM (24 -5.62%): Weakness in large cap casino and gaming related companies: MPEL, LVS also lower
KMX (43.6 -4.30%): Target lowered to $50 from $52 at RBC Capital Markets, believes it will be difficult for co to outperform in near-to-mid term in the face of slowing trends
BIDU (143.09 -4.19%): Trading lower following speculation that co may acquire Ctrip.com (CTRP)

Mid Cap Gainers

QCOR (77.98 +14.9%): Acquired by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals (MNK) in a transaction valued at ~$5.6 bln; QCOR shareholders to receive $30 in cash and 0.897 MNK shares per share of QCOR stock
TFSL (12.85 +6.46%): Board approved 5 mln share stock repurchase program; Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has terminated the Memoranda of Understanding between the company and Third Federal Savings & Loan Association of Cleveland, MHC
UTHR (94.08 +3.45%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research, target $118

Mid Cap Losers

WWE (22.4 -20.06%): Announced that WWE Network sold ~667k subscriptions within first 42 days of launch, lower than some had been expecting
MNKD (6.17 -10.19%): Announced the FDA has extended the Prescription Drug User Fee Act date for AFREZZA by three months to July 15, 2014 in order to provide time for a full review of information submitted in response to the FDA's requests
AEO (11.79 -7.03%): Downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Cowen

11:55AM S&P -14 dips to minor new low of 1850 (SPY) : Note that its 2013 high, flat line for the year and its 50 day ema come into play at 1849/1848.

11:52AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (76) outpacing new highs (39) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ATI, BXP, CART, CENX, CQH, DMLP, DYN, ECA, EMES, ESLT, GAS, GSJK, ITRN, KFS, KND, MTR, NCBC, NGLS, NOA, NRG, NU, NYLD, PEBO, PFIS, PIH, PRSC, QCOR, REMY, SEM, SGU, SLG, SOHO, TFSL, TI, TI.A, UPL, VOCS, WPT, WSTG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACUR, AEO, AEPI, ALAN, AMAG, ANAD, ARQL, ARRY, ATRS, AVD, AVEO, AVNW, AXR, BLFS, BRDR, BTX, CCCL, CLSN, COOL, CPXX, CRCM, CTRX, DRNA, EGAN, FOR, GEOS, GLMD, GNI, GOOG, GRAM, GTIV, GTXI, GYRO, HERO, INFI, INTX, KIPS, LIQT, LITB, LMOS, LPDX, LXRX, MDWD, MELA, MELI, MIND, MITK, NATR, NEWL, NSR, ONE, ONTX, PIR, PKT, QSII, REPH, SFLY, SPEX, SQBK, STRL, SUNS, TBNK, TCRD, TECUA, TEDU, TWMC, UEC, UNXL, VHI, VIP, VLGEA, VRNS, VSAR, VVUS, WPRT, XOOM

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWI, EWP, GULF

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


9:59AM Sectors displaying relative strength (TECHX) : The market averages have edged off morning lows in recent trade, sectors that have displayed relative strength vs. the S&P on this move include recent laggards (Semi SMH, Technology XLK, Software IGV, Internet FDN, Biotech IBB along with Transports IYT, Gold Miners GDX, Gold GLD, Silver SLV, Utility UTIL, REITs IYR.

9:02AM EXFO acquired the assets of ByteSphere; no terms disclosed (EXFO) 5.06 : Co announced it has acquired the assets of ByteSphere LLC, a privately held software company in the Boston area that specializes in global IT management and network monitoring solutions. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) and Pixit Media announced that Glassworks has selected a combined Mellanox and Pixit Media solution to power its visual effects and post-production storage and networking infrastructure.

agreement with Fujitsu (FJTSY). The agreement covers the sale of Fujitsu's 2G, 3G and 4G terminal unit and infrastructure equipment products, including LTE and LTE-Advanced products.

Altera (ALTR) announced that Harmonic (HLIT) has chosen Altera's new 4Kp60-capable H.265 enhanced motion estimation engine, a server co-processing solution based on the co's Stratix V FPGAs to improve efficiency and performance of Harmonic's PURE Compression Engine for the delivery of 4Kp60 content.

Silicon Labs (SLAB) named 20-year IBM veteran Michele Grieshaber as chief marketing officer.

8:39AM Silicon Motion updates guidance; sees gross margin in the lower half of the company's guidance range of 48 to 50% (SIMO) 16.70 : SIMO updates guidance:

Co says Q1 sequential revenue growth expected to be near the high-end of the original guidance range that the company issued on January 28, 2014, of flat to down 10% sequentially. Consensus currently represents a -4% sequential revenue change.
Gross margin (non-GAAP) is expected to be within the lower half of the company's guidance range of 48 to 50%.

Seagate Technology (STX) is now shipping the 6TB hard disk drive - the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD v4.

8:08AM Freescale Semi enters into definitive agreement to purchase Mindspeed ARM processor business from MACOM (MTSI) (FSL) 23.68 :

Co has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the Comcerto CPE communications processor business of Mindspeed Technologies. This business includes a series of multicore, ARM-based embedded processors and associated software, a talented team, and Tier One customers spanning the globe. As part of the agreement, key members of the business will join Freescale.
The closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in Q2, 2014. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

8:01AM GT Advanced Tech announces $58.6 mln Specialty Furnace orders this Q (GTAT) 16.90 : Co announces that it has received $58.6 mln in orders this quarter for high temperature refractory metal furnaces that are used for a variety of industrial purposes. These orders will be reflected in Q2 reportable backlog and GT expects to recognize revenue from these orders during the second half of 2014.

NVIDIA (NVDA) announced its GPUs are powering the upcoming releases and new GPU-accelerated features of Adobe Creative Cloud video applications, such as Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Adobe After Effects CC, SpeedGrade CC, Adobe Media Encoder, and Adobe Anywhere

MagnaChip (MX) announced that, as expected, on April 2, 2014, the co received a letter from the New York Stock Exchange indicating that the co is not in compliance with the NYSE's continued listing requirements under the timely filing criteria outlined in Section 802.01E of the NYSE Listed Company Manual as a result of its failure to timely file its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013. The NYSE has informed the Company that, under the NYSE rules, the Company will have six months (until October 1, 2014) to file its 2013 Annual Report on Form 10-K with the SEC. The Company and its advisors are working diligently to complete the previously announced internal review and restatement. While substantial progress has been made, it is expected that this review and work with regard to the previously announced restatement will take several more months, and the Company is currently unable to estimate when it will be in a position to file its 2013 Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages halted their three-day losing streak with a modest bounce that sent the Nasdaq Composite higher by 0.8%. The S&P 500, meanwhile, added 0.4% with seven sectors posting gains.

Equity indices exhibited some volatility during the opening hour before setting off on a climb to new session highs. The Nasdaq, which was the weakest index in recent days, stayed ahead of its peers throughout the day as momentum names recovered some of their recent losses.

The Nasdaq was supported by solid gains among the likes of Amazon.com (AMZN 327.07, +9.31), Google (GOOG 554.90, +16.75), LinkedIn (LNKD 169.10, +9.45), and Netflix (NFLX 348.89, +10.89). Amazon.com and Netflix also gave a boost to the consumer discretionary sector (+1.0%), while Google and LinkedIn contributed to the outperformance of the technology space (+0.9%).

Even though two of the largest sectors posted solid gains, other top-weighted groups like health care (-0.8%), financials (+0.1%), and industrials (unch) could not keep pace with the broader market. Notably, the health care sector finished at the bottom of the leaderboard amid weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 225.83, -0.99) lost 0.4%.

The underperformance of the aforementioned sectors was overshadowed by solid gains in most of the remaining areas. Energy (+0.9%) and materials (+0.4%) finished among the outperformers thanks to gains in the underlying commodities as crude oil surged 2.2% to $102.60, while copper (+0.4% to $3.05/lb) and gold (+0.5% to $1304.30/ozt) also posted gains.

Interestingly, today's session was not free of some warning flags. For one, the top-performing sector of the day was the utilities space (+1.5%), which has a defensive orientation. The countercyclical group extended its year-to-date gain to 10.3%, while the second-best performer of the year, health care, narrowed its gain to 2.8%.

Elsewhere, Treasuries began climbing during the late morning and continued their advance through a solid 3-year note auction. The benchmark 10-yr yield fell three basis points to 2.68%.

Also of note, the Japanese yen rallied throughout the day, which is a dynamic that has often signaled caution among participants. Yen futures gained 1.4%, while the dollar/yen pair traded near the 101.75 level at the end of the New York session after hovering north of 103.00 overnight.

Trading volume was just above average as 733 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for February, which indicated job openings rose to 4.173 million from 3.874 million.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while the Wholesale Inventories report for February (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. Also of note, the Federal Reserve will release the minutes from its latest policy meeting at 14:00 ET.

S&P 500 +0.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.9% YTD

DJ30 +10.27 NASDAQ +33.23 SP500 +6.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1868/2.04 bln/924 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2090/732.6 mln/968

3:35 pm :

Commodities ended the day mostly higher, while the dollar index continued to display weakness and closed near its session low
Despite the weakness and in the dollar index,silver futures continued to slide lower off its high for the day
May silver ended the day $0.16 higher at $20.07/oz. June gold rose $6.10/oz to $1304.30/oz
May crude oil posted nice gains today and put in another new high for the day at $102.71/barrel about 12 minutes after pit trade closed.
At the end of the pit session, May crude was up $2.14 at $102.59/barrel. May natural gas gained $0.06 to $4.53/MMBtu

4:31PM Rambus division and Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS) sign patent license agreement for DPA countermeasures (RMBS) 11.18 +0.06 : Cryptography Research, Inc. (CRI), a division of Rambus (RMBS), and Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS) announced they have signed a patent license agreement allowing for the use of CRI's patented inventions in Fairchild's integrated circuits. With CRI's patented technology, Fairchild's tamper-resistant integrated circuits are more securely protected against differential power analysis (DPA) and related attacks. This license also covers software developed by Fairchild's customers when utilized on Fairchild's licensed integrated circuits.

4:07PM Cray awarded a contract to deliver a Cray Tiered Adaptive Storage solution to the North German Supercomputing Alliance (CRAY) 33.69 +0.21 : CRAY announced it has been awarded a contract to deliver a Cray Tiered Adaptive Storage (TAS) solution to the North German Supercomputing Alliance (HLRN). Cray TAS is an open storage and archiving solution for big data and high performance computing environments, and gives HLRN a long-term data management solution for its High Performance Computing Center (RRZN) located at Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany.

The Cray TAS solution will provide RRZN's users with a large-scale archiving system to actively access, manage and preserve important data resulting from the Center's scientific research in the fields of environmental research, climate and ocean modeling, physics, chemistry, bioinformatics, engineering, and fluid dynamics.
This Cray TAS installation consists of more than one petabyte of data storage and is upgradeable to more than 75 petabytes within the delivered architecture.
For RRZN, Cray TAS provided a fast path to move from its existing Oracle SAM-QFS installation to Cray TAS without a lengthy data migration period.

4:06PM Alcoa beats by $0.04, misses on revs (AA) 12.53 +0.06 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.05; revenues fell 6.5% year/year to $5.45 bln vs the $5.55 bln consensus.

First quarter 2014 revenues were $5.5 billion, down 2 percent sequentially on lower Primary Metals third-party shipments.
Capacity reductions in Primary Metals combined with an 8 percent decline in year-over-year realized aluminum prices caused revenues to fall 6 percent from the first quarter last year.
The Company's value-add businesses drove 58 percent of Alcoa's first quarter revenues.

Continued Growth Across End Markets

Alcoa is increasing its 2014 global aerospace growth expectation by one percentage point (8 percent to 9 percent, previously 7 percent to 8 percent), on strong demand for both large commercial aircraft and regional jets and continued growth in the business jet market. The Company also continues to project 2014 growth in automotive (1 percent to 4 percent), packaging (2 percent to 3 percent), and building and construction (4 percent to 6 percent).
Alcoa expects a steady commercial transportation market (-1 percent to 3 percent) and a decline in the industrial gas turbine market (-8 percent to -12 percent) on lower orders for new gas turbines and spare parts.
Alcoa continues to project 7 percent global aluminum demand growth in 2014.

12:20PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

NOK (7.61 +5.34%): Co's plan to sell its Devices and Services business to Microsoft (MSFT) received regulatory approval in China.
BIDU (152 +5.92%): Qunar (QUNR), part of Bidu, is in merger talks with Ctrip.com (CTRP), according to reports.
WFM (51.78 +2.96%): Co's tgt raised to $70 from $62 at UBS; added to Key Call list.

Large Cap Losers

DPS (51.96 -3.2%): Downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
MYL (47.18 -2.52%): Weakness on Supreme Court/generic drug headlines; Albany Business Review discussed how TEVA is preparing for a Supreme Court case over generic cos rights to produce drugs following patent expiration (ACT also lower).
GILD (69.96 -3.15%): Express Scripts (ESRX) is pressuring GILD to lower $84K price of Hep C pill Sovaldi, according to reports.

Mid Cap Gainers

WUBA (42.2 +11.55%): Tiger Global Investments reported 6.5% passive stake in 13G filing.
VIPS (142.41 +10.94%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.
QUNR (29.22 +8.62%): Co is in merger talks with Ctrip.com (CTRP), according to reports.

Mid Cap Losers

ROVI (21.14 -9.11%): Trading lower following unfavorable Court of Appeals ruling on TV Guide appeal vs Amazon (AMZN).
DGI (27.4 -4.55%): CRT out cautious on co after Google (GOOG) entered mkt with purchase of Skybox Imaging.
UFS (102.51 -3.94%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup; tgt lowered to $90 from $106.

8:30AM Ixia selected by Microsoft (MSFT) as the official provider to qualify mobile devices for use with Microsoft's Lync application (XXIA) 12.63 : Co announced that it has been selected by Microsoft as the official provider to qualify mobile devices for use with Microsoft's Lync application. The expanding use of mission-critical applications encompassing voice, video and messaging is placing increased strain on mobile devices, while at the same time, customer expectations for quality are rising. Ixia's Wi-Fi device qualification includes rigorous testing in real-world scenarios to ensure that smartphones, tablets and laptops perform as expected when running Microsoft Lync.

Semtech (SMTC) announced its LoRa long-range RF technology has been chosen by KERLINK M2M Technologies, a Rennes, France-based supplier of machine-to-machine solutions, for its new Long Range IoT Station.

Microchip Technology (MCHP) announced the MCP8063-a highly integrated, cost-effective, automotive AEC-Q100-qualified motor driver in a small, 8-pin, 4x4 mm DFN package

Marvell (MRVL) announced its partnership with Swisscom to introduce the industry's first 802.11ac Android IPTV set-top box powered by Marvell's ARMADA 1500 Plus (88DE3108) system-on-chip platform.

MTSN +3.7% (light volume; still checking), NOK +3.3% (Nokia's plan to sell its Devices and Services business to Microsoft receives regulatory approval in China),

ARMH +2.1% (upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Bernstein)

Trina Solar (TSL) announced that its State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology has developed a new high-efficiency Honey Ultra solar module.

7:03AM JinkoSolar Holding signs distribution agreement with solar distributor in India (JKS) 27.30 : Co announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with PROINSO India. According to the terms of the agreement, PROINSO will begin distributing JinkoSolar solar PV modules through its extensive sales network in India. PROINSO will make use of its Mumbai office, experienced professionals who staff it, and 125 qualified installers who form part of its network in India.

3:21AM Nokia's plan to sell its Devices and Services business to Microsoft (MSFT) receives regulatory approval in China (NOK) 7.22 : Nokia announced that the planned transaction whereby Nokia plans to sell substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft has today received regulatory approval from the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China.

As previously communicated, the closing of the transaction, which was announced on September 3, 2013, is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Nokia and Microsoft have now received regulatory approvals from the People's Republic of China, the European Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and numerous other jurisdictions. Nokia and Microsoft continue to expect the transaction to close during April 2014, as communicated in our press release from March 24, 2014.

The regulatory approval process has involved a thorough review of Nokia's patent licensing practices by several competition authorities around the world. During that process, no authority has challenged Nokia's compliance with its FRAND undertakings related to standard-essential patents (licensing on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms) or requested that Nokia make changes to its licensing program or royalty terms.

Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI) debuts its new line of UltraCMOS RF power limiters, including PE45140 and PE45450 slated for release in May.

2:43AM BlackBerry wins patent infringement case (BBRY) 7.86 : Co announces that a federal jury ruled in favor of BlackBerry in a patent infringement case brought by NXP BV in the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division. The verdict was a sweeping victory for BlackBerry, as the jury found both that BlackBerry did not infringe NXP's patents, and that the patents NXP asserted against BlackBerry are invalid.

Samsung (SSNLF) announced it sees Q1 Consolidated revenues estimated at KRW51.0 - 55.0 trillion which is line with estimates. Co also sees Operating profit of KRW8.2-8.6 trillion.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market finished the Wednesday session on a sharply higher note, with the Nasdaq Composite (+1.7%) in the lead.

Equity indices held solid gains into the afternoon, with a second push coming after the release of the FOMC Minutes from the March policy meeting. For the most part, the minutes reiterated several points that were already known, but market participants zeroed in on a specific portion that commented on the expected trajectory of the fed funds rate.

Specifically, the minutes revealed that policymakers are not necessarily committed to hiking the fed funds rate in the first half of 2015. While that timetable could still come to fruition, it is becoming increasingly clear that the FOMC is unwilling to back itself into a corner by providing calendar-based guidance. That proved to be a relief for the stock and bond markets, while pressuring the dollar.

Treasuries cut the bulk of their losses after the release of the minutes, with the benchmark 10-yr yield ending at 2.69% after hovering near 2.72% in the early afternoon. Elsewhere, the Dollar Index (-0.3%) slumped to lows, while gold futures recovered their losses, clawing back to the 1309.00/ozt level.

Eight of ten sectors posted gains, with health care (+2.1%) ending in the lead after showing strength throughout the session. Since the advance was powered by many of the recent laggards, it is not a stretch to suspect that short covering fueled a significant part of the rally.

Biotechnology was a big contributor to the gains in health care as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 235.08, +9.25) surged 4.1%. It is worth mentioning that the strength of biotech also gave a boost to the Nasdaq.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq also received support from many recently-battered momentum names. Facebook (FB 62.41, +4.22) and LinkedIn (LNKD 176.18, +7.08) surged 7.3% and 4.2%, respectively, while discretionary components Amazon.com (AMZN 331.80, +4.74) and Netflix (NFLX 353.03, +4.14) posted gains close to 1.3% apiece. The broader discretionary sector (+1.1%), meanwhile, ended in line with the S&P 500.

Although three of four top-weighted sectors fared as well, or better than, the benchmark index, financials (+0.9%) were a reluctant participant in the advance.

On the downside, telecom services (-0.7%) and utilities (-0.3%) were the only two sectors ending in the red.

Participation was a bit below average as less than 690 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to the Wholesale Inventories report, which pointed to an increase of 0.5% in February after increasing an upwardly revised 0.8% (from 0.6%) in January. The Briefing.com consensus expected wholesale inventories to increase 0.5%. There were concerns that strong inventory growth in February would be the result of severe winter weather conditions. In theory, the extreme cold would keep shoppers away, which would result in more goods being left on the shelves. That notion has been debunked in just about all of the economic data over the last several weeks, including the February wholesale inventory data. Sales, which should have weakened from weather effects, increased 0.7% in February after falling 1.8% in January.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 325K) and March Import/Export Prices will be released at 8:30 ET, while the Treasury Budget for March (Briefing.com consensus -$36.0 billion) will cross the wires at 14:00 ET.

S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +0.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.8% YTD

DJ30 +181.04 NASDAQ +70.91 SP500 +20.22 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2064/1.82 bln/675 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2241/688.2 mln/806

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded lower today as investors awaited the release of FOMC Minutes.
June gold dipped to a session low of $1301.10 per ounce in morning action and settled with a 0.3% loss at $1305.70 per ounce.
May silver fell as low as $19.60 per ounce in early morning action and then consolidated near the $19.75 per ounce level. It eventually settled 1.5% lower at $19.77 per ounce.
May crude oil extended yesterday's gains following bullish gasoline data. The EIA reported a build of 4.030 mln barrels in crude oil inventories for the week ending Apr 4 when consensus called for a smaller build of 0.8-1.3 mln barrels. However, gasoline inventories had a draw of 5.188 mln barrels vs expectations for a draw of 0.7-1.0 mln. The energy component lifted from its session low of $102.37 per barrel and brushed a session high of $103.77 per barrel before settling with a 1.0% gain at $103.58 per barrel.
May natural gas slipped to a session low of $4.50 per MMBtu in morning floor trade but quickly recovered back into positive territory. It advanced to a session high of $4.59 per MMbtu and settled with a 1.1% gain at $4.58 per MMbtu.

4:56PM Rudolph Tech announces favorable ruling in patent infringement lawsuit against Camtek (CAMT) (RTEC) 11.03 +0.18 : Co announced another favorable ruling in its ongoing patent infringement suit against Israeli manufacturer, Camtek, Ltd. On March 31, 2014, Judge John R. Tunheim ruled in Rudolph's favor finding that Camtek's Falcon products infringed Rudolph's US patent no. 6,826,298, which covers continuous inspection of wafers using strobing illumination.

Rudolph will petition the court to reinstate a permanent injunction against the sale by Camtek of its infringing semiconductor inspection systems. Rudolph also anticipates that the damages originally awarded by the jury in 2009 will be reinstated, as well as related interest and all subsequently awarded damages. A subsequent lawsuit has additionally been filed by Rudolph, alleging infringement of Rudolph's US patent no. 7,729,528, also for an Automated Wafer Defect Inspection System And A Process Of Performing Such Inspection, by each of Camtek's current inspection tool offerings.

4:02PM LSI Logic stockholders approve acquisition by Avago Technologies (AVGO) at $11.15 per share (LSI) 11.06 +0.00 :

Large Cap Gainers

REGN (301.41 +5.23%): Rebound following recent weakness in large cap biotech stocks: CELG, ACT also higher
FB (60.99 +4.81%): EconomicTimes reporting co has 100 mln users in India; FTC approved acquisition of WhatsApp; Adweek reporting Q1 ad pricing is up 10% sequentially
AA (12.93 +3.19%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.09 vs $0.05 estimate), revs fell 6.5% yoy to $5.45 bln vs $5.55 blne stimate; target raised to $15 from $14 at Stifel; target raised to $12 from $11 at Cowen

Large Cap Losers

ISRG (457.25 -6.65%): Sees Q1 revs of ~$465 mln vs $536.6 mln estimate; initiated with an Underperform at Sterne Agee; mentioned cautiously at Canaccord Genuity
APA (82.93 -2.64%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank
HSY (99.06 -2.62%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman

Mid Cap Gainers

PCRX (71.79 +9.69%): Priced public offering of 1.6 mln shares at $64 per share
ATHL (36.6 +9.12%): Announced $873 mln acquisition of producing properties and undeveloped acreage on the western side of the northern Midland Basin in Martin, Upton, Andrews, and Glasscock counties
TECD (65.5 +6.52%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.15 ($2.10 vs $1.95 estimate), revs rose 7.1% yoy to $7.97 bln vs $8 bln estimate; sees year-over-year sales growth of mid-single-digits in the Americas and low-single-digits in Europe

Mid Cap Losers

EBR (3.07 -7.96%): Weakness in Brazilian mid-cap stocks: SID, ELP, CIG also lower
APOL (28.44 -4.27%): Reports reporting that Senator Marco Rubio will introduce income share agreements for use in education
EA (27.59 -3.98%): Gaming developers trading lower on NYPost report that Amazon is looking to hire game developers; TTWO also lower

12:20PM Hewlett-Packard announces settlement with DOJ and SEC; co will pay ~ $108 mln to these two U.S. government agencies; agrees to undertake certain compliance, reporting and cooperation obligations (HPQ) 32.55 +0.10 : Co announced a resolution of a DOJ and SEC investigation of potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). HP will pay approximately $108 million to these two U.S. government agencies. HP also has agreed to undertake certain compliance, reporting and cooperation obligations.

11:49AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (63) outpacing new lows (28) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AEP, ASMI, ATI, AXAS, BAM, BFR, BUD, BXP, CART, CLR, CM, CNQ, CNX, CQH, CQP, CWEI, DMLP, ECA, EPD, ERF, ESCA, GAS, GGAL, GPOR, GSJK, HCSG, HIL, HST, IM, IMO, ITRN, KED, KEP, KMB, KND, MMP, MSM, NEE, NOA, NRG, NS, NYLD, ONNN, ORAN, PBA, PFIS, RDNT, REMY, SEM, SLCA, SLG, SNP, SUP, SYX, TD, TECD, TFSL, TOT, TTM, UL, VNO, WR, YONG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEPI, AKBA, ALAN, AQXP, ASTI, ATEN, ATOS, BRDR, CBSO, CCCL, CDE, CHCI, CRCM, CRMB, EGT, INTG, NEWL, ONE, PRAN, QTWO, RJET, TBNK, TECUA, TWMC, UEC, VRNS, VSAR, VVUS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWC, GULF, JJA, USCI, XLU

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI) announced the Greater China debut of UltraCMOS Global 1, the industry's first reconfigurable RF front-end system, at EDI CON 2014.

Silicon Labs (SLAB) introduced a new 32-bit hardware and firmware development kit designed to accelerate the design of Made for AAPL iPod/iPhone/iPad accessories and help product manufacturers get to market quickly.

Integrated Silicon Solution (ISSI) announced it has begun sampling production units of its new 1 Gigabit Low Power DDR2 products. These devices are the IS43LD32320A and the IS46LD32320A, organized as 32Mx32, and the IS43LD16640A and the IS46LD16640A, organized as 64Mx16. These devices are packaged in a 134-ball BGA, and also available is the 168-pin PoP BGA. The IS46 series represents a full range of automotive grade products.

NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI) announced its investment in Senseg, the leader in next-generation spatial haptic feedback technology. The investment is part of NXP's drive to lead in new user interface technologies for mobile, consumer and automotive applications. Existing investors in Senseg also participated in this Series B round.

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The major averages spent the Thursday session in a daylong retreat that placed the Nasdaq (-3.1%) below its 100-day moving average, while the S&P 500 (-2.1%) finished below its 50-day average. The Dow Jones Industrial Average held up a bit better, but the price-weighted index posted a sharp loss (-1.6%) nonetheless.

Even though the major averages finished yesterday's session on an upbeat note, the sentiment began deteriorating during the overnight session when China reported a surprise trade surplus of $7.71 billion, which was due to disappointing import (-11.3% versus expected 2.4%) and export (-6.6% versus expected 4.0%) figures. This renewed some of the concerns about the strength of the Chinese economy, which have been present since the start of the year. Strikingly, markets in Hong Kong (+1.5%) and China (+1.4%) outperformed, but that was likely due to the announcement that Beijing would allow as much as CNY23.50 billion of cross-border equity trading.

Another major equity index, Japan's Nikkei, ended flat after starting with a solid 1.3% gain. The retreat from highs took place as the Japanese yen strengthened, sending the dollar/yen pair into the 101.50 area.

The caution that was exhibited in the foreign exchange market appeared to have faded by this morning, but the yen began strengthening ahead of the New York open, and returned to the overnight lows not long after.

Meanwhile, equities began their retreat shortly after the opening bell, with the Nasdaq Composite leading the slide.

By and large, there was some indiscriminate selling taking place as the lack of follow through from yesterday's rally piqued concerns about a larger scale correction being under way. In turn, the sharp price pullbacks started to raise worries about collateral damage among highly leveraged accounts that could be facing some margin calls. As those worries percolated, participants reduced their risk exposure with a sell-first-ask-questions-later disposition.

All ten sectors ended in the red with the largest four groups-technology (-2.5%), financials (-2.4%), health care (-3.2%), and consumer discretionary (-2.5%)-posting the largest losses.

Health care spent the duration of the trading day at the bottom of the leaderboard, with continued weakness in biotechnology exacerbating the decline. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 221.89, -13.19) tumbled to its 200-day moving average before inching up from that level into the close for a loss of 5.6%.

Elsewhere, technology and discretionary shares suffered from noteworthy weakness among momentum names. Amazon.com (AMZN 317.11, -14.69), Google (GOOG 540.95, -23.19), Facebook (FB 59.16, -3.25), and Netflix (NFLX 334.73, -18.30) surrendered between 4.1% and 5.2%, while smaller momentum-favorites fared even worse. FireEye (FEYE 49.75, -6.64), Tableau Software (DATA 65.52, -7.35), and Yelp (YELP 63.47, -7.78) all plunged more than 10.0% apiece.

The financial sector also ended among the laggards, with JPMorgan Chase (JPM 57.40, -1.87) and Wells Fargo (WFC 47.71, -1.39) falling 3.2% and 2.8%, respectively ahead of tomorrow morning's quarterly reports.

While seven sectors posted losses of 1.0% or more, defensively-oriented consumer staples (-0.9%), telecom services (-0.1%), and utilities (-0.4%) outperformed.

With stocks ending on their lows, demand for volatility protection sent the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.77, +1.95) higher by 14.1%, but the near-term volatility measure ended below highs established earlier in the week.

Treasuries posted gains, but finished below their midday highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield fell five basis points to 2.65%.

Participation was a bit above average as 786 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Looking back at today's data:

The weekly initial claims level fell to 300,000-its lowest point since May 2007-from an upwardly revised 332,000 (from 326,000), while the Briefing.com consensus expected the claims level to fall to 325,000. The size of the drop in claims was unusual, and while the Department of Labor did not issue any statements explaining the decline, there tends to be normal seasonal volatility over the first few weeks of April due to yearly calendar shifts in the Easter holiday.
Export prices, excluding agriculture, increased 0.5% in March after increasing 0.6% in the prior reading. Excluding oil, import prices rose 0.3%, which follows last month's downtick of 0.1%.
The Treasury Budget for March showed a deficit of $36.90 billion, which followed the prior month's deficit of $106.50 billion. The Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $36.00 billion.

Tomorrow, March PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) and Core PPI (consensus 0.1%) will be released at 8:30 ET, while the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment survey for April (consensus 81.0) will cross the wires at 9:55 ET.

S&P 500 -0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.0% YTD

DJ30 -266.96 NASDAQ -129.79 SP500 -39.10 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 352/2.15 bln/2707 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 663/785.7 mln/2408

3:35 pm :

Precious metals traded higher today as the dollar index retreated into negative territory.
June gold brushed a session high of $1324.90 per ounce in early morning action and spent most of the session chopping around near the $1320.00 per ounce level. It eventually settled with a 1.2% gain.
May silver touched a session high of $20.40 per ounce moments after pit trade opened and settled with a 1.7% gain at $20.10 per ounce.
May crude oil chopped around in negative territory as OPEC lowered its demand forecast for crude oil in 2014. The energy component dipped to a session low of $103.10 per barrel and settled with a 0.2^ loss at $103.38 per barrel.
May natural gas dipped to a session low of $4.52 per MMBtu in early morning floor trade but rallied sharply into positive territory following bullish inventory data that showed a build of 4 bcf when a larger build of 13-15 bcf was anticipated. It rose as high as $4.70 per MMBtu and closed with a 1.5% gain at $4.65 per MMBtu.

12:29PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

HPQ (33.47 +2.29%): Initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank; tgt $40.
SLM (24.94 +0.75%): Co's Board approved strategic separation of Navient.
KMP (78.3 +0.93%): Mentioned favorably on Mad Money.

Large Cap Losers

BBBY (63.64 -6.29%): Reported EPS at high end of lowered guidance range (in-line with consensus); revs fell 5.8% y/y to $3.2 bln vs the $3.23 bln consensus; guided Q1 and FY15 EPS below consensus; tgt lowered to $62 from $72 at Canaccord Genuity; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill; tgt lowered to $70 from $78 at Credit Suisse; tgt lowered to $68 from $79 at TAG; tgt lowered to $80 from $85 at Argus; tgt lowered to $62 from $72 at Canaccord Genuity.
GILD (66.56 -5.79%): Announced results from study of Sovaldi for retreatment of Chronic Hepatitis C in patients not cured with prior antiviral therapy - 74% of patients (37/50) achieved SVR12; announced Phase 2 results for two investigational all-oral sofosbuvir-based regimens for the treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C.
COG (32.64 -4.25%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel.

Mid Cap Gainers

RAD (6.95 +8.66%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, revs rose 2.2% y/y to $6.6 bln (~ in-line with preannouncement) vs the $6.51 consensus; guided FY15 EPS in-line, revs above consensus.
VC (88.27 +1.22%): Initiated with a Buy at Citigroup; tgt $103; closed $600 mln term loan B and $200 mln revolving credit facility.

Mid Cap Losers

FEYE (51.09 -9.4%): Trading lower following IMPV Q1 warning (FTNT also lower)
PSMT (92.23 -9.48%): Beat on EPS by $0.08, reports revs in-line; reported Mar same store sales +1.9% vs +6.0% Retail Metrics consensus.
DDD (51.04 -6.65%): Taiwan to begin 3D printing program in May, according to reports.

12:22PM S&P -20 extends back near flat line for the year and 50 ema (TECHX) : Steady slide after an early lateral drift has reached back to support noted here earlier (The Technical Take) at 1848/1847 (unch for the year, congest, 50 ema) -- session low 1847.86.

12:05PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (68) outpacing new lows (48) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAV, ADM, AEP, AGRO, ALGT, AMKR, ASMI, ATO, AXAS, BAS, BPL, BUD, BXE, CAT, CDW, CNX, DE, DMLP, DTE, DYN, ECA, EIX, EPD, ERF, FTK, FWLT, GAS, HIL, HPQ, IMOS, JOY, KMB, KND, LFUS, LNG, LNT, MAR, MED, MMP, MRK, NED, NOA, NU, NYLD, ONNN, ORAN, PES, PF, PSXP, RAD, REI, RNR, SEM, SGY, SIF, SLGN, SNP, SPCB, SPIL, SPN, SRE, SYX, TI.A, TTHI, TTM, UL, USAK, VET

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEPI, AFFY, AMRK, ARQL, ASTI, ATOS, AVNW, AXR, CAW, CHCI, CRCM, CTC, CTHR, CTRX, DMD, DSCI, EGAN, FCFS, FOR, FSYS, GIMO, GMAN, HTBX, IIVI, IMPV, INTG, JRCC, LIWA, LMOS, NEWL, NMR, NSR, ONE, OVRL, PIP, PKT, PRAN, SAR, SMLR, STRL, TEAR, TEDU, TEU, TM, TRVN, TWMC, VVUS, XONE

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DJP, EWH, GULF, USCI, XLP, XLU

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: UUP

Sigma Designs (SIGM) reported fourth quarter loss of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is worse than expected, while revenues fell 12.9% year/year to $38.5 million which is worse than expected. Q4 GAAP EPS was $0.04 vs a single analyst estimate of ($0.09). The company announced that the Board of Directors of the Company appointed Elias Nader the Company's Chief Financial Officer effective immediately. Mr. Nader had been serving as the Company's Interim Chief Financial Officer since March 2013. Mr. Nader, 51, served as corporate controller for the Company from October 2012 to March 2013.
Gartner said Worldwide PC shipments totaled 76.6 million units in the first quarter of 2014, a 1.7 percent decline from the first quarter of 2013, according to preliminary results by Gartner. The severity of the decline eased compared with the past seven quarters. "The end of XP support by Microsoft on April 8 has played a role in the easing decline of PC shipments," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "All regions indicated a positive effect since the end of XP support stimulated the PC refresh of XP systems. Professional desktops, in particular, showed strength in the quarter. Among key countries, Japan was greatly affected by the end of XP support, registering a 35 percent year-over-year increase in PC shipments. The growth was also boosted by sales tax change. We expect the impact of XP migration worldwide to continue throughout 2014." "While the PC market remains weak, it is showing signs of improvement compared to last year. The PC professional market generally improved in regions such as EMEA. The U.S. saw the gradual recovery of PC spending as the impact of tablets faded." Ms. Kitagawa said. Lenovo experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors. Its shipments grew 10.9 percent.
Rudolph Tech (RTEC) announced another favorable ruling in its ongoing patent infringement suit against Israeli manufacturer, Camtek, Ltd. On March 31, 2014, Judge John R. Tunheim ruled in Rudolph's favor finding that Camtek's Falcon products infringed Rudolph's US patent no. 6,826,298, which covers continuous inspection of wafers using strobing illumination. Rudolph will petition the court to reinstate a permanent injunction against the sale by Camtek of its infringing semiconductor inspection systems. Rudolph also anticipates that the damages originally awarded by the jury in 2009 will be reinstated, as well as related interest and all subsequently awarded damages. A subsequent lawsuit has additionally been filed by Rudolph, alleging infringement of Rudolph's US patent no. 7,729,528, also for an Automated Wafer Defect Inspection System And A Process Of Performing Such Inspection, by each of Camtek's current inspection tool offerings.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 11-Apr-14

Dow -143.47 at 16026.75, Nasdaq -54.37 at 3999.73, S&P -17.39 at 1815.69

The stock market finished the week on a broadly lower note with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 enduring their worst week since 2012. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.3%, ending the week with a loss of 3.1%. For its part, the S&P 500 settled lower by 1.0% to end the week down 2.7%.

Equity indices faced selling activity at the open after the overnight session failed to deliver any noteworthy respite following yesterday's drubbing. The lack of a concerted rebound effort today likely fed into concerns that the stock market is in the midst of a larger degree price correction than what participants have grown accustomed to seeing the past few years.

Despite starting in the red, the major averages spent the initial 90 minutes of action in a dash towards their flat lines. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were able to make a brief appearance in the green with help from biotechnology, while the Dow spent the entire day in the red.

The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 215.45, -6.44) appeared to have found support at its 200-day moving average in the morning, but the modest morning rebound was met with daylong selling that drove the ETF to a fresh session low. The ETF lost 2.9%, while the health care sector fell 1.1%.

Biotech notwithstanding, other momentum names that comprise a portion of the consumer discretionary sector (-1.4%) and a good part of the technology space (-1.2%) were weak once again. Amazon.com (AMZN 311.73, -5.38), Google (GOOG 530.60, -10.35), Netflix (NFLX 326.71, -8.02), and LinkedIn (LNKD 165.78, -4.21) lost between 1.7% and 2.5%, to name a few.

Even though the Nasdaq and S&P 500 made short-lived appearances in the green, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.9%) was unable to do so as JPMorgan Chase (JPM 55.30, -2.10) and top-weighted component, Visa (V 196.63, -4.92), weighed. Visa sank 2.4% while JPMorgan Chase plunged 3.7% after missing earnings estimates on below-consensus revenue. The financial sector (-1.2%), meanwhile, ended among the laggards. The sector was kept from logging additional losses due to a 0.8% gain in Wells Fargo (WFC 48.08, +0.37), which reported above-consensus earnings.

On a separate note, shares of Herbalife (HLF 51.48, -8.36) took a dive in the final hour of action, falling 14.0% after The Financial Times reported that a criminal probe has been launched into the company's business practices.

On the fixed income side, Treasuries were little changed overnight, but began climbing during the early morning hours. The 10-yr note added eight ticks, pressuring its yield to 2.62%.

Participation was a bit above average as nearly 800 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Reviewing today's data:

Producer prices jumped 0.5% in March, the largest monthly increase since June, after falling 0.1% in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected the PPI to increase 0.1%. We would not categorize the forecasting miss as a big surprise. The consensus is having difficulty forecasting the PPI following the methodology change. Under the previous PPI methodology, price growth for finished goods was down 0.1%. That was in line with expectations. The entire increase in producer prices was the result of a bounce in prices for final demand for services. After declining 0.3% in February, these prices increased 0.7%, which was the largest monthly gain since January 2010.
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index increased to 82.6 in the preliminary reading for April from 80.0 in March. That was the strongest sentiment reading since July 2013. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 81.0. Consumer sentiment typically follows changes in the equity markets, unemployment, and gasoline prices. The surveys were filled out prior to the recent weakness in the stock market, so equity prices enhanced sentiment in the preliminary reading. If the market does not rebound, we would expect the final reading to be notably lower. The Expectations Index increased to 97.1 in the preliminary reading for April from 70.0 in March. The Present Conditions Index increased to 97.1 from 95.7.

On Monday, the Retail Sales report for March will be released at 8:30 ET while February Business Inventories will be announced at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Selling Begets Selling

The stock market began the new trading week on the defensive, with the major averages posting losses across the board. The Russell 2000 (-1.5%) and Nasdaq (-1.2%) led the retreat, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.0%) and S&P 500 (-1.1%) fared a bit better. The major averages started the session in the red with little help from other global indices as markets in Asia and Europe posted losses. Similar to Friday, equity indices spent the session in a steady retreat as momentum names remained volatile. Biotechnology displayed early strength, but the industry group notched a session high during the opening hour before spending the remainder of the day in a battle with its flat line.

On Tuesday, the major averages halted their three-day losing streak with a modest bounce that sent the Nasdaq Composite higher by 0.8%. The S&P 500, meanwhile, added 0.4% with seven sectors posting gains. Equity indices exhibited some volatility during the opening hour before setting off on a climb to new session highs. The Nasdaq, which was the weakest index in recent days, stayed ahead of its peers throughout the day as momentum names recovered some of their recent losses. The Nasdaq was supported by solid gains among the likes of Amazon.com, Google, LinkedIn, and Netflix. Amazon.com and Netflix also gave a boost to the consumer discretionary sector (+1.0%), while Google and LinkedIn contributed to the outperformance of the technology space (+0.9%).

The stock market finished the Wednesday session on a sharply higher note, with the Nasdaq Composite (+1.7%) in the lead. Equity indices held solid gains into the afternoon, with a second push coming after the release of the FOMC Minutes from the March policy meeting. For the most part, the minutes reiterated several points that were already known, but market participants zeroed in on a specific portion that commented on the expected trajectory of the fed funds rate. Specifically, the minutes revealed that policymakers are not necessarily committed to hiking the fed funds rate in the first half of 2015. While that timetable could still come to fruition, it is becoming increasingly clear that the FOMC is unwilling to back itself into a corner by providing calendar-based guidance. That proved to be a relief for the stock and bond markets, while pressuring the dollar. Treasuries cut the bulk of their losses after the release of the minutes, with the benchmark 10-yr yield ending at 2.69% after hovering near 2.72% in the early afternoon. Elsewhere, the Dollar Index (-0.3%) slumped to lows, while gold futures recovered their losses, clawing back to the 1309.00/ozt level.

Thursday saw the return of aggressive selling that placed the Nasdaq (-3.1%) below its 100-day moving average, while the S&P 500 (-2.1%) finished below its 50-day average. The Dow Jones Industrial Average held up a bit better, but the price-weighted index posted a sharp loss (-1.6%) nonetheless. Even though the major averages finished Wednesday on an upbeat note, the sentiment began deteriorating during the overnight session when China reported a surprise trade surplus of $7.71 billion, which was due to disappointing import (-11.3% versus expected 2.4%) and export (-6.6% versus expected 4.0%) figures. This renewed some of the concerns about the strength of the Chinese economy, which have been present since the start of the year. Strikingly, markets in Hong Kong (+1.5%) and China (+1.4%) outperformed, but that was likely due to the announcement that Beijing would allow as much as CNY23.50 billion of cross-border equity trading. By and large, there was some indiscriminate selling taking place as the lack of follow through from the Wednesday rally piqued concerns about a larger scale correction being under way. In turn, the sharp price pullbacks started to raise worries about collateral damage among highly leveraged accounts that could be facing some margin calls. As those worries percolated, participants reduced their risk exposure with a sell-first-ask-questions-later disposition. Health care (-3.2%) spent the duration of the trading day at the bottom of the leaderboard, with continued weakness in biotechnology exacerbating the decline.

 
 Index	    Started Week  Ended Week     Change  % Change  YTD % 
 DJIA	     16412.71	   16026.75	-385.96	   -2.4	  -3.3 
 Nasdaq	      4127.73	    3999.73	-128.00	   -3.1	  -4.2 
 S&P 500	1865.09	    1815.69	 -49.40	   -2.6	  -1.8 
 Russell 2000  1153.38	    1111.44	 -41.94	   -3.6	  -4.5

5:10PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: VOCS (17.97 +47.54%), IGTE (36.4 +14.75%), KT (15.46 +12.68%)
Services: TITN (19.9 +26.75%), RT (6.68 +19.29%), CTCT (25.84 +16.45%), RAD (7.04 +13.55%)
Industrial Goods: ECOL (42.5 +18.09%)
Healthcare: AGIO (43.32 +22.1%), QCOR (80.12 +18.05%), RARE (58.99 +16.42%), KPTI (34.31 +15.37%), GNCA (20.58 +15.17%)
Financial: CSH (44.12 +14.42%)
Basic Materials: TC (2.85 +20.76%), AXAS (4.68 +20.31%), RTK (2.14 +15.05%), ACH (10.15 +12.65%), YZC (8.41 +11.1%), PSXP (53.87 +10.28%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: IMPV (28.11 -44.02%), GIMO (16.27 -38.42%), NQ (12.7 -25.29%), CMGE (15.97 -22.32%), CCIH (16.23 -21.75%), CSLT (17.08 -20.82%), VRNS (25.64 -19.67%), CSIQ (24.99 -19.34%), SPWR (26.61 -16.79%)
Services: WWE (20.29 -27.59%), SHLD (32.62 -19.83%), HVT (23.59 -18.4%)
Industrial Goods: XONE (27.46 -18.05%)
Healthcare: PBYI (76.17 -28.42%), MGNX (20.38 -21.8%), PETX (13.95 -19.69%), RTRX (15.36 -19.29%), ARWR (13.13 -19%), PTLA (20.78 -18.03%), DYAX (7.15 -17.25%)

4:01PM Trina Solar lowers Q1 shipment guidance; estimates its solar module shipments to be in the range of 540 MW to 570 MW, including 20 MW to 30 MW for its downstream projects (TSL) 11.55 -0.47 :

Co updated its guidance for the first quarter of 2014 based on preliminary financial data.
For the first quarter, the co currently estimates its solar module shipments to be in the range of 540 MW to 570 MW, including 20 MW to 30 MW for its downstream projects, as compared to the previous guidance of 670 MW to 700 MW, including 20 MW to 30 MW for its downstream projects. This is primarily due to a temporary decrease in shipments to the EU pending agreement on a new minimum import price pursuant to the adjustment mechanism in the price undertaking. The co expects shipments to European markets to increase with the finalization of the terms.
Additionally, for the first quarter of 2014, the co currently estimates that the overall gross margin will be between 18% to 20%, compared to the co's previous guidance of mid-teens in percentage terms. The increase in gross margin is due to improved ASP of modules and a gross margin in the high-teens from the sale of the co's 50 MW Wuwei project.
The co reiterates its full year 2014 module shipment guidance of 3.6 GW to 3.8 GW, of which 400 MW to 500 MW of PV modules are expected to be shipped to downstream projects. The Company expects to complete construction of between 400 MW and 500 MW in downstream PV projects during 2014.

3:35PM Earnings Preview for the week of April 14 - 17 (SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of April 14 - 17 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - C, JBHT, MTB
After Hours - PBY
Tuesday:
Pre Market - JNJ, KO, INFY, NTRS, CMA
After Hours - INTC, CSX, YHOO, LLTC, IBKR
Wednesday:
Pre Market - BAC, ABT, USB, PNC, GWW, ASML, STJ, HBAN
After Hours - IBM, GOOG, AXP, COF, KMI, KMP, CCK, STLD, SNDK, NE, URI, ALB, SLM, UFPI, KSU, PLXS, HNI, EPB, PBCT
Thursday:
Pre Market - TSM, WIT, GE, UNH, PEP, SLB, DD, HON, GS, MS, PM, BHI, UNP, DHR, AN, BAX, SAP, PGG, BLK, SHW, BBT, DOV, FITB, BX, COL, ADS, SON, KEY, MAT, CMG
After Hours - AMD, HUBG, SCSS

12:20PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers
GILD (68.24 +4.21%): Announced that Sovaldi demonstrates efficacy and safety among chronic hepatitis C patients with advanced liver disease
SIRI (3.22 +4.03%): Announced that the ratings on the 5.25% Senior Notes due 2022 issued by its subsidiary, Sirius XM Radio, have been upgraded to investment grade by both Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and Moody's Investors Service; the upgrade allows for the company to pursue greater share buyback activity
COP (71.11 +2.01%): Upgraded to Equal-Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley, target raised to $85

Large Cap Losers

JPM (55.54 -3.24%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.12 ($1.28 ex items vs $1.40 estimate), revs fell 8.5% yoy to $22.99 bln vs $24.04 bln estimate
FAST (49.21 -3.01%): Reported Q1 EPS of $0.38 (in-line), revs rose 8.7% yoy to $876.5 mln vs $870.96 mln estimate
GM (32.68 -1.87%): Reuters reporting that a group of U.S. senators urged the Department of Justice to oppose any efforts of the company to avoid financial penalties due to delayed recall of faulty ignition switches; yesterday co said it anticipates a $1.3 bln charge in the first quarter due to the recall

Mid Cap Gainers

FANG (69.7 +6.20%): Reported Q1 2014 production increased 30% to 13.6 Mboe/d from Q4 2013; sees FY14 total net production of 16.0-18.0 MBoe/D including minerals; target raised to $73 from $66 at Brean Capital, to $80 from $74 at Mizuho, to $60 from $58 at Northland Capital
ARUN (19.59 +4.14%): Initiated with a Buy at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey, target $25
ZNGA (4.18 +2.70%): Named David Lee as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer, Lee most recently served as Senior Vice President of Enterprise Finance for Best Buy; upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley

Mid Cap Losers

JCP (7.84 -7.98%): Continued weakness, potentially a technical breakdown as stock has been unable to break above $9 all week
BURL (27.52 -3.17%): Filed for 13.8 mln share offering of common stock by selling stockholders
FDO (56.2 -1.70%): Target lowered to $55 from $61 at at RBC Capital Markets; target lowered to $57 from $60 at Telsey Advisory Group; mentioned cautiously at FBR Capital; target lowered to $58 from $60 at MKM Partners

11:36AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (102) outpacing new highs (14) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AGRO, ALGT, AXAS, BBW, BPL, CXDC, DMLP, GLOG, GPOR, HIL, KEP, PSXP, REI, ZIGO

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACUR, AEO, AEPI, AFFY, ARO, ARQL, ARRY, ASTI, ATNY, ATOS, ATRS, AVD, AVNW, BGC, CARB, CBSO, CDE, CERE, CHCI, CHGG, CLSN, CLTX, CNCE, COUP, CRCM, CTHR, CWTR, DMD, DRNA, DSCI, EGAN, EGLT, ELGX, ELNK, ETH, EXPR, FDO, FOR, FSYS, FWM, GEVO, GIMO, GNI, GOOG, GTIV, HOS, IIVI, INFI, INTX, KBIO, KBR, KING, LITB, LIWA, LMOS, LUB, MGNX, MITK, MIXT, MNTA, MRLN, NEWL, NMR, NSR, ORBT, PAL, PCH, PGRX, PIP, PKT, PRAN, QSII, RALY, RDC, REPH, RJET, RMGN, RNG, SBY, SEAC, SMLR, SPEX, SPU, SSNI, STNR, STRL, TBNK, TCRD, TCS, TEAR, TECUA, TEDU, TGE, TWMC, VHI, VIP, VJET, VLGEA, VSAR, WPRT, XONE, ZTS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FUD, PALL

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

ANADIGICS (ANAD) is shipping production volumes of its AWC6383 dual-band ProVantage power amplifier to Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) for the new GALAXY S 5.

9:00AM 3D Systems announced that it is expanding its partnership with Canon Marketing Japan to include 3DS' complete ProJet professional series of 3D printers (DDD) 48.78 : Co announced that it is expanding its partnership with Canon Marketing Japan to include 3DS' complete ProJet professional series of 3D printers, desktop prototyping CubeX 3D printer and Geomagic scan-to-CAD software solutions. Canon Marketing Japan began selling 3D Systems' advanced manufacturing products in October 2013.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages finished the Monday session on a modestly higher note, but they ended below their best levels of the day after volatility during the last two hours of action forced the indices to test their flat lines. The S&P 500 rose 0.8%, while the Nasdaq added 0.6% after being up as much as 1.3%.

The stock market began the session on an upbeat note, casting aside renewed concerns about the situation in Ukraine, where the country's army was called in over the weekend to deal with pro-Russian separatists in several cities in the Southeast.

Instead, the market rallied in the morning after Citigroup's (C 47.67, +1.99) above-consensus quarterly results, combined with a better-than-expected March Retail Sales report, invited buyers into the mix. In all likelihood, the early advance was assisted by some short-covering as many areas that displayed weakness in recent sessions, showed relative strength this morning.

Biotechnology was among the early leaders and the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 215.37, -0.08) made a run at its 200-day moving average. The ETF made a brief appearance above that noteworthy level before spending the afternoon in a steady retreat that placed the group back in the red. The health care sector, meanwhile, added 0.5%.

Other momentum names traded in similar fashion to biotech with the likes of Google (GOOG 532.52, +1.92), Facebook (FB 58.89, +0.36), LinkedIn (LNKD 165.78, 0.00), and Yelp (YELP 61.94, +0.22) showing early strength before retreating from their highs during afternoon action. The technology sector (+1.1%), meanwhile, held up relatively well, but it too ended below its session high.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, energy (+1.3%) outperformed throughout the session with support from Dow components Chevron (CVX 118.70, +1.67) and ExxonMobil (XOM 97.86, +1.14), both of which posted gains close to 1.3% apiece. The sector ended in the lead while crude oil rose 0.4% to $104.05/bbl.

The other commodity-related sector, materials, ended in line with the broader market. Miners and steelmakers displayed strength, with Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 24.52, +0.30) and Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 47.41, +0.56) both gaining 1.2%. For its part, gold futures advanced 0.7% to $1327.70/ozt.

Treasuries posted slim losses, sending the benchmark 10-yr yield higher by one basis point to 2.64%.

Participation was below average as less than 680 million shares changed hands at the New York Stock Exchange.

Reviewing today's data:

Retail sales increased 1.1% in March after increasing an upwardly revised 0.7% (from 0.3%) in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected retail sales to increase 1.0%. As expected from the motor vehicle sales data, auto sales contributed significantly to overall sales growth. Sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers increased 3.1% in March after increasing 2.5% in February. Excluding autos, retail sales still increased a solid 0.7% in March, up from a 0.3% gain in February. The consensus expected these sales to increase 0.5%. Sales were strong all around, but there wasn't much to suggest that the acceleration in spending was the result of pent-up demand from delayed winter spending. The March employment report showed a 0.7% increase in aggregate wages, which exactly matched spending after stripping out autos.
Business inventories increased 0.4% for a second consecutive month in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected inventories to increase 0.6%. Total inventories consist of manufacturers, merchant wholesalers, and retailers. Both manufacturers (0.7%) and wholesalers (0.5%) inventories were announced prior to the release. Only retailer inventories, which were flat in February after increasing 0.3% in January, were unknown.

Tomorrow, March CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) and the Empire Manufacturing Survey (consensus 7.5) for April will be released at 8:30 ET, while the February Net Long-Term TIC Flows report will cross the wires at 9:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the NAHB Housing Market Index (consensus 50) for April, which will be released at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 -1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -3.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.0% YTD

DJ30 +146.49 NASDAQ +22.96 SP500 +14.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1509/1.77 bln/1291 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2012/675.9 mln/1025

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded higher today despite a stronger dollar index. The move came on continued tension in Ukraine, specifically news over the weekend that the country's army exchanged gunfire with pro-Russian separatists in several cities.
June gold brushed a session low of $1318.70 per ounce moments after floor trade opened and climbed as high as $1331.40 per ounce by late morning action. It eventually settled with a 0.4% gain at $1327.70 per ounce.
May silver lifted off its session low of $19.72 per ounce set in early morning action and broke into positive territory. It touched a session high of $20.08 per ounce and settled with a 0.4% gain at $20.01 per ounce.
May crude oil rose above $104.00 per barrel on the Ukrainian conflict. The energy component came off its session low of $103.34 per barrel and recovered into positive territory in morning pit trade. It brushed a session high of $104.19 per barrel and settled at $104.05 per barrel, or 0.4% higher.
May natural gas, on the other hand, traded in negative territory in a tight range between $4.54 and $4.58 per MMBtu. Unable to find buyer support, it settled with a 1.3% loss at $4.56 per MMBtu.

2:49PM Floor Talk (TALKX) : Early stock market strength is fading in the afternoon session as selling interest has picked up in all sectors. The Nasdaq Composite, which was up as much as 1.3% at its high today, is now up just 0.3%. Notably, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 214.09, -1.36)has turned negative after being up 2.0% earlier in the day while many of the large momentum stocks have given back a good portion of their earlier gains.

Geopolitical concerns are an ostensible catalyst for the retreat. The Treasury market, however, isn't yet benefiting strongly from a flight-to-safety trade, making it more likely that the inability to hold stronger gains from earlier has weighed on sentiment and has forced some selling activity. The 10-yr note is down four ticks with its yield at 2.64%.

Separately, the yen has been clawing its way back from larger losses against the dollar. That resilience might be acting as a headwind with respect to carry-trade concerns.

A peculiar mismatch today is that the broader market was reportedly uplifted by the better than expected earnings report from Citigroup (C 47.36, +1.68) and the better than expected Retail Sales report for March, yet two groups that should have been leaders on that view -- the financials (+0.4%) and the transports (+0.4%) -- have trailed the action throughout the session.

The energy sector (+1.2%) is doing its part to lend support to the broader market, but it is the only sector up more than 1.0% at this point.

12:20PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BSX (13.23 +4.26%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill
C (47.6 +4.21%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.15 ($1.30 vs $1.15 estimate), revs fell 0.6% yoy to $20.12 bln vs $19.46 bln estimate; upgraded to Hold from Sell at Rafferty
STX (55.09 +3.18%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Argus

Large Cap Losers

NBG (4.66 -10.90%): Reuters and Bloomberg reporting that co is planning a EUR 2.1 bln capital raise
AR (60.73 -3.94%): Reported Q1 avg net daily gas equivalent production is estimated to be 783 to 787 MMcfe/d, a 105% increase over the prior year quarter and 16% sequentially; avg net daily liquids production is estimated to be 16,000 to 16,500 Bbl/d, a 580% increase over the prior year quarter and 45% sequentially; avg realized natural gas price before hedging is estimated to be $5.02 to $5.06 per Mcf, an approximate $0.08 to $0.12 premium to NYMEX after Btu upgrade
ERIC (12.8 -2.51%): Announced that Douglas Gilstrap will resign from his role as Senior Vice President and Head of Group Function Strategy and leave Ericsson's Executive Leadership Team

Mid Cap Gainers

EW (82.48 +13.03%): Federal court granted a preliminary injunction limiting the sale of Medtronic's (MDT) CoreValve system in the United States; Upgraded to Buy from Fair Value at CRT Capital, target raised to $87 from $79; upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan
AHL (43.7 +11.00%): Board of Directors rejected unsolicited proposal from Endurance (ENH) to acquire the company at $47.50/share, believes proposal undervalues the co and is a strategic mismatch
HLF (55.57 +7.94%): Rebound following sharp declines seen prior to close last Friday on reports that co is under investigation by the FBI

Mid Cap Losers

CZR (18.21 -2.78%): Co's Caesars Growth Properties Holdings unit sees Q1 (Mar) revs of $280-305.5 mln; mentioned cautiously at Barron's
STM (8.55 -2.51%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS
ENH (52.98 -1.56%): Trading lower following rejection of offer to acquire Aspen Insurance for ~$47.50 per share

12:06PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (68) outpacing new lows (54) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAV, AEY, AFH, AGRO, AHL, ATHL, ATI, ATO, AXAS, BAM, BAS, BPL, BTI, BXE, CHC, CHDX, CLR, CPE, CRK, CWEI, CXDC, CXO, DEJ, DMLP, DYN, ECA, ECOL, EGY, EPD, EQM, ERF, FANG, FNHC, FTK, GLOG, GPOR, GSJK, HIL, KED, KEP, KND, KNX, LAKE, MCS, MMP, MPLX, NFX, NGL, OFED, PES, PIH, PNM, PRSC, PSXP, SBGL, SGY, SMMF, SPRO, ST, STS, SWC, TOT, TPC, TRGP, UL, USAK, VCO, VOCS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ARQL, ATOS, AVNW, BNFT, CCCL, CLTX, CNCE, CRIS, CTC, CTHR, CWTR, DRNA, DSCI, EGAN, ELNK, EXEL, FMD, GEVO, GIMO, GMAN, GNI, HMSY, INFI, KANG, KBR, KING, LEI, LIWA, LMNS, LMOS, NEWL, ORBT, QURE, RDC, RJET, RNG, SBY, SDRL, SMLR, SMTX, SPPI, STAY, STRL, TECUA, TEU, TRVN, VEEV, VJET, VRNS, VTUS, WMC, WPCS, WPRT, XONE

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DJP, EWH, PALL, USC

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


10:08AM UTStarcom announces sales milestone; co has sold over $250 mln of packet optical transport products that form the backbone of telecommunications network infrastructure (UTSI) 2.81 -0.02 :

Wind River, a subsidiary of Intel (INTC), announced that Toshiba (TOSBF) is using Wind River Simics to develop automotive application software on image recognition system-on-chip platforms.

9:26AM Advanced Energy acquires HiTek Power, a privately-held provider of high voltage power solutions; co expects acquisition to be accretive within the next year (AEIS) 22.80 : Co announced it has acquired HiTek Power Group, a privately-held provider of high voltage power solutions. Based in the UK, the co offers a comprehensive portfolio of high voltage and custom built power conversion products ranging from 100V to 500kV designed to meet the demanding requirements of OEMs worldwide. "We expect this acquisition to be accretive within the next year and accelerate Advanced Energy's revenue and profitability over time."

8:25AM Gapping down (SCANX) : Solar names lower following disappointing TSL guidance: TSL-2.9% (lowers Q1 shipment guidance; estimates its solar module shipments to be in the range of 540 MW to 570 MW, including 20 MW to 30 MW for its downstream projects), JKS -2.6%, CSIQ -4.4%, CSUN -2.8%

Analyst comments: STM -2.5% (downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS), GLW -0.9% ( downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel).

8:03AM JA Solar issues preliminary Q1 results that exceed previously issued guidance; expects total shipment volume in the first quarter of 2014 to exceed 620 MW (JASO) 9.32 : Based on preliminary financial information:

JA Solar currently expects total shipment volume in the first quarter of 2014 to exceed 620 MW, ahead of its previously announced guidance of 580 MW to 610 MW.
The Company also expects sequential gross margin improvement in the first quarter of 2014.
Furthermore, the Company reiterates its full year cell and module shipments guidance of between 2.7 GW and 2.9 GW, which includes 200 MW of module shipments to the Company's downstream projects.
"We are proud that solid execution in the quarter enabled us to exceed our previously issued guidance," said Baofang Jin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JA Solar.

Xilinx (XLNX) and Agilent Technologies (A) announced Xilinx's DDR4 memory solution for UltraScale devices has completed the Agilent N6462A compliance test running at 2400 Mb/s.

Trina Solar (TSL) updated its guidance for the first quarter of 2014 based on preliminary financial data. For the first quarter, the co currently estimates its solar module shipments to be in the range of 540 MW to 570 MW, including 20 MW to 30 MW for its downstream projects, as compared to the previous guidance of 670 MW to 700 MW, including 20 MW to 30 MW for its downstream projects. This is primarily due to a temporary decrease in shipments to the EU pending agreement on a new minimum import price pursuant to the adjustment mechanism in the price undertaking. The co expects shipments to European markets to increase with the finalization of the terms. Additionally, for the first quarter of 2014, the co currently estimates that the overall gross margin will be between 18% to 20%, compared to the co's previous guidance of mid-teens in percentage terms. The increase in gross margin is due to improved ASP of modules and a gross margin in the high-teens from the sale of the co's 50 MW Wuwei project. The co reiterates its full year 2014 module shipment guidance of 3.6 GW to 3.8 GW, of which 400 MW to 500 MW of PV modules are expected to be shipped to downstream projects. The Company expects to complete construction of between 400 MW and 500 MW in downstream PV projects during 2014.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The stock market finished the Wednesday session on an upbeat note with the Nasdaq (+1.3%) ending in the lead. The S&P 500 settled higher by 1.1% with all ten sectors posting gains.

The benchmark index spent the entire trading day in the green, rallying to new highs during the last hour of action. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, meanwhile, briefly dipped into the red during morning action, but was able to recover swiftly.

Stocks began the trading day with modest gains after the overnight session featured the release of China's Q1 GDP. Although the report could be classified as better-than-feared, it did not necessarily produce a clear-cut signal as the year-over-year reading of 7.4% beat estimates (7.3%), while the quarter-over-quarter growth of 1.4% was just below expectations (1.5%).

When the opening bell rang at the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow and S&P 500 maintained relatively narrow ranges through the first two hours of action, while the Nasdaq slipped below its flat line due to weakness among chipmakers. The largest industry player, Intel (INTC 26.93, +0.16), reported a slim earnings beat, but other semiconductor names struggled. The broader PHLX Semiconductor Index shed 0.2%.

Even though chipmakers knocked the Nasdaq into the red, the index was able to overcome that weakness due to the relative strength of biotechnology and recently-battered momentum names. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 222.79, +5.18) jumped 2.4%, ending just above its 200-day moving average (219.97) after struggling with that level for the past week.

Interestingly, the broader health care (+0.6%) sector did not follow biotech's lead as several large components weighed. UnitedHealth (UNH 78.19, -1.32) contributed to the underperformance, falling 1.7% after receiving a downgrade from Citigroup ahead of its earnings report, which will be released ahead of tomorrow's opening bell.

Elsewhere among influential sectors, consumer discretionary (+1.4%), energy (+1.2%), and industrials (+1.5%) provided support to the broader market, while financials (+0.9%) lagged. The economically-sensitive sector was pressured by Bank of America (BAC 16.13, -0.26), which lost 1.6% after missing bottom-line estimates. The financial sector will be in focus once again tomorrow with the market digesting quarterly results from American Express (AXP 87.40, +1.36), Goldman Sachs (GS 157.22, +2.30), and Morgan Stanley (MS 29.89, +0.34).

On the countercyclical side, health care (+0.6%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard, while consumer staples (+0.9%), telecom services (+0.9%), and utilities (+0.8%) had some difficulty keeping up with the broader market.

Treasuries settled modestly lower following a range bound session. The benchmark 10-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.64%.

Participation was below average as 661 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Reviewing today's data:

Housing starts increased 2.4% in March to 946,000 from an upwardly revised 920,000 in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected 955,000 new starts. Overall, the residential construction report was encouraging, but did not provide any evidence that the weakness in January and February was weather related. Starts remained well below 1.00 million, which was the average in the fourth quarter. Had weather factored into the weakness, then there should have been a much stronger bounce from delayed starts. Single-family construction, which languished below 600,000 in January and February, rebounded 6.0% to 635,000. That was more in-line with the trends over the last 12 months. Multifamily starts fell 3.1% to 311,000 in March from 321,000 in February. That was a typical decline from a normally volatile sector.
Industrial production increased 0.7% in March after increasing an upwardly revised 1.2% (from 0.6%) in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected industrial production to increase 0.5%. Manufacturing production increased 0.5% in March, down from an upwardly revised 1.4% (from 0.9%) in February. The March gain was in-line with the ISM production index. Despite a 0.8% decline in motor vehicles and parts production, durable goods manufacturing production increased 0.5%. Nondurable goods manufacturing production increased 0.7%, which was mostly the result of a 3.3% increase in petroleum and coal products production.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 312K) will be reported at 8:30 ET and the Philadelphia Fed Survey for April (consensus 8.6) will be released at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.6% YTD

DJ30 +162.29 NASDAQ +52.06 SP500 +19.33 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1967/1.73 bln/751 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2429/660.6 mln/623 3:35 pm :

June gold traded in positive territory for most of today's pit session. Prices advanced as high as $1307.10 per ounce and dipped to a session low of $1297.90 per ounce in mid-morning action. The yellow metal eventually settled with a 0.3% gain at $1303.40 per ounce.
May silver rose to a session high of $19.81 per ounce shortly after floor trade opened. It then chopped around near the $19.60 per ounce level and settled with a 0.8% gain at $19.64 per ounce.
May crude oil rose to a session high of $104.82 per barrel in early morning floor trade but slipped into negative territory following inventory data that showed a build of 10.0 mln barrels when a smaller build of 1.8-2.3 mln barrels was anticipated. The energy component managed to inch higher in afternoon action and settled at $103.73 per barrel, or 5 cents above the unchanged line.
May natural gas chopped around in the red today. It touched a session high of $4.57 per MMBtu in early morning action and settled with a 0.9% loss at $4.53 per MMBtu, just above its session low of $4.52 per MMBtu.

4:53PM IBM Conference Call Takeaways (IBM) 196.40 -0.62 :

Took substantial charges during the qtr to realign to align resources and skills to demand profile it sees
$1.5 bln in R&D spending reflects shift of development priorities to where co sees future growth
Continue to see strong demand in mobile, cloud
Hardware challenges persist (esp in US), combo of secular and cyclical challenges continued; now selling industry standard sever business to Lenovo (system x business)
Improved gross margins by 90 bps driven by services and ongoing mix to software
"Major market" revs down 1% in the qtr with improvement from last qtr driven by EMEA; growth markets were down 5%, despite high single digit growth in Latin America; expect it was take time for business in China to improve
Views the bulk of its challenges in growth markets as cyclical and still see good long term opportunity
Workforce rebalancing impacted SG&A base performance by 16 points
Total backlog was $138 bln (up 1% in constant currency terms) including $3.8 bln for customer care divestiture
Application server business delivered strong growth for 4th consecutive qtr; co is now 30% of market share
Storage hardware revs down 23%; saw "substantial weakness" in high-end storage.
$600 mln in FCF, down $1.1 bln y/y driven by $1.4 bln increase in tax payments driven by audit settlement payments and other prior periods that settled in the qtr
Returned $59.2 bln to investors; at the end of 1Q have $6.3 bln remaining in buyback authorization
Cloud revs up over 50%; strong growth of mobile and security
Co ranked #1 overall business consulting and cloud professional services by IDC and #1 immobility consulting services by Forrester IBM is trading at $188.22 in after-hours trading

4:17PM IBM reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; reaffirms FY14 EPS guidance above consensus (IBM) 196.40 -0.62 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $2.54 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.54; revenues fell 3.9% year/year to $22.48 bln vs the $22.95 bln consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin +90 bps tp 47.6%.
Revenue: $22.5 billion, down 4%; down 1% adjusting for currency, excluding divested customer care outsourcing business:
Software, Services and Global Financing each grew, adjusting for currency;
Software up 2% as reported and adjusting for currency
Services down 2%; up 2% adjusting for currency and excluding divested customer care outsourcing business
Global Financing up 3%, up 6% adjusting for currency
Systems and Technology down 23% as reported and adjusting for currency;
Services backlog of $138 billion, up 1% adjusting for currency and excluding divested customer care outsourcing business;
Business analytics revenue up 5%, up 6 percent adjusting for currency;
Cloud revenue up more than 50%: For cloud delivered as a service, first-quarter annual run rate of $2.3 billion doubled year to year
Co reaffirms guidance for FY14, sees EPS of at least $18.00, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $17.83 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Geographic Regions
The Americas' first-quarter revenues were $9.6 billion, a decrease of 4% (down 2%, adjusting for currency) from the 2013 period.
Revenues from Europe/Middle East/Africa were $7.6 billion, up 4% (up 1%, adjusting for currency).
Asia-Pacific revenues decreased 12% (down 6%, adjusting for currency) to $5.0 billion.
OEM revenues were $355 million, down 17% compared with the 2013 first quarter.
Growth Markets
Revenues from the company's growth markets decreased 11% (down 5%, adjusting for currency).
Revenues in the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - decreased 11% (down 6%, adjusting for currency).

4:31PM JDS Uniphase issues restricted stock units in connection with acquisition of Time-Bandwidth Products (JDSU) 13.28 +0.23 : Co announced that, in connection with the acquisition of Time-Bandwidth Products, a provider of high-powered and ultrafast lasers for the industrial and scientific markets, which was completed on January 26, 2014, it has issued grants of compensatory restricted stock unit awards to Time-Bandwidth employees joining JDSU in connection with the acquisition. The restricted stock unit awards to be granted to those employees by JDSU are generally comparable to equity awards that JDSU grants to its similarly situated new employees. These grants were made under the JDS Uniphase Corporation 2005 Acquisition Equity Incentive Plan, which was approved by the Board of Directors of JDSU, but not submitted for the approval of the stockholders of JDSU. These restricted stock unit awards were approved by the JDS Uniphase Corporation Board of Directors on April 15, 2014, with a grant date of April 15, 2014. Pursuant to such approval, JDSU awarded restricted stock units covering a total of 205,000 shares of JDSU common stock to 40 employees.

4:10PM Google misses by $0.15, reports revs in-line (GOOG) 556.54 20.10 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $6.27 per share, $0.15 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $6.42; revenues rose 19.1% year/year to $15.42 bln vs the $15.52 bln consensus.

Sites Revenues- Generated revenues of $10.47 billion, or 68% of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2014. This represents a 21% increase over first quarter of 2013 sites revenues of $8.64 billion.
Network Revenue- Partner sites generated revenues of $3.40 billion, or 22% of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2014. This represents a 4% increase over first quarter of 2013 network revenues of $3.26 billion.
Other Revenues- Were $1.55 billion, or 10% of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2014. This represents a 48% increase over first quarter of 2013 other revenues of $1.05 billion.International Revenues- Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $8.76 billion, representing 57% of total revenues in the first quarter of 2014, compared to 56% in the fourth quarter of 2013 and 55% in the first quarter of 2013.Paid Clicks- Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our Network members, increased approximately 26% over the first quarter of 2013 and decreased approximately 1% over the fourth quarter of 2013.

Cost-Per-Click- Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our Network members, decreased approximately 9% over the first quarter of 2013 and remained constant from the fourth quarter of 2013.
TAC- Traffic acquisition costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google's partners, increased to $3.23 billion in the first quarter of 2014, compared to $2.96 billion in the first quarter of 2013. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 23% in the first quarter of 2014, compared to 25% in the first quarter of 2013.
Operating Expenses- Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $5.34 billion in the first quarter of 2014, or 35% of revenues, compared to $4.07 billion in the first quarter of 2013, or 31% of revenues.Depreciation and loss on disposal of property and equipment and amortization expenses were $1.09 billion for the first quarter of 2014, of which $1.06 billion was related to Google, compared to $899 million in the first quarter of 2013. Of the $1.09 billion, $116 million was related to amortization of Motorola intangibles, which Google will retain subsequent to the disposal of Motorola Mobile.Cash Flow and Capital Expenditures
Net cash provided by operating activities in the first quarter of 2014 totaled $4.39 billion, compared to $3.63 billion in the first quarter of 2013. In the first quarter of 2014, capital expenditures were $2.35 billion, the majority of which was for production equipment, data-center construction, and real estate purchases. Free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, is defined as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures. In the first quarter of 2014, free cash flow was $2.05 billion.
We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures.
Cash
As of March 31, 2014, cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $59.38 billion, which excludes cash classified as held for sale, compared to $58.72 billion as of December 31, 2013.4:09PM SanDisk beats by $0.19, beats on revs; will guide for Q2 and FY14 revs on call at 17:00 (SNDK) 75.85 +0.51 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.44 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.19 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.25; revenues rose 12.8% year/year to $1.51 bln vs the $1.49 bln consensus.

SanDisk reports Q1 non-GAAP gross margin of 51.2% vs Street expectations near 48% and guidance of 47-49%, compared to 40.5% in Q1 of prior year.
"We delivered record first quarter results, driven by 61 percent growth in our SSD revenue and strong retail performance...We are excited by the momentum we are building in our business as we continue to execute on our growth initiatives."
Co is expected to guide for Q2 and FY14 revenue and gross margins on the conference call that begins at 17:00 (for more information please see our SNDK preview at 12:37)
12:37PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

IEP (98.3 +8.31%): Mentioned positively in Barron's article
YHOO (36.44 +6.50%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.38 vs $0.37 estimate), revs rose 1.2% yoy to $1.09 bln vs $1.08 bln estimate; Alibaba revs rose 66% yoy to $3.05 bln, gross profit rose 73% yoy to $2.37 bln; upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Gabelli & Co
WFT (17.85 +4.75%): Mentioned positively at Barclays
Large Cap Losers
ASML (81.25 -4.57%): Missed quarterly EPS by EUR 0.04 (EUR 0.57 vs EUR 0.53 estimate), revs rose 56.6% yoy to EUR 1.4 bln vs EUR 1.42 bln estimate; sees Q2 revs of EUR 1.6 bln vs EUR 1.69 bln estimate
LLTC (45.24 -4.01%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.48 vs $0.46 estimate), revs rose 10.6% yoy to $348.01 mln vs $350.02 mln estimate; sees Q4 revs +2-6% sequentially (~$355-368.9 mln) vs $365.41 mln estimate
BAC (16.05 -2.07%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.10 (-$0.05 vs $0.05 estimate), revs fell 2.7% yoy to $22.77 bln vs $22.1 bln estimate
Mid Cap Gainers
NMBL (33.73 +8.60%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS; initiated with a Market Perform at Raymond James
NPSP (25.13 +7.49%): Assumed with a Buy at Canaccord Genuity, target $42
ATHL (41.9 +6.26%): Announced Q1 average daily production volumes for the first quarter 2014 reached a record high of 16,987 BOE/d as compared with 9,959 BOE/d produced in the first quarter 2013, representing a 71% increase y/y; announced 11 mln share public offering of common stock and launched proposed $500 mln senior notes offering
Mid Cap Losers
AEM (28.36 -6.99%): Co and Yamana Gold (AUY) entered into agreement to jointly acquire Osisko Mining in transaction valued at C$3.9 bln, or C$8.15 per common share of Osisko
HK (5.01 -2.81%): Downgraded to Reduce from Hold at KLR Group
HBAN (9.33 -1.48%): Reported Q1 EPS of $0.17 (in-line), revs rose 0.8% yoy to $691.9 mln vs $676.74 mln estimate 12:07PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (107) outpacing new lows (35) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAV, ADM, AEP, AGRO, ANDE, ATHL, ATI, ATO, AVA, AXAS, BAM, BUD, BXP, CCK, CJES, CL, CLB, CLR, CMS, CPE, CQP, CRK, CXO, DEJ, DIOD, DTE, DVCR, DVN, E, EDE, EDGW, EGY, EIX, EPD, EQM, ERF, ETR, FANG, FNHC, FTK, FTR, GA, GAS, GLNG, GLOG, GXP, HAL, HCSG, HES, HIL, HP, HSKA, HST, INTC, ITC, JFBI, JNJ, KNX, LFUS, LNT, LYB, MCS, MPLX, MRH, MRTN, MYE, NEE, NFX, NU, NWE, ORM, PNM, PPC, PTEN, RDS.B, REI, RHP, RMBS, RNR, RRC, RUBI, RUSHB, SAFM, SCS, SE, SEM, SEP, SGY, SLB, SLCA, SLG, SPN, SRE, ST, STO, STS, TRGP, TSLX, UHAL, VLP, VOCS, VVC, WEC, WFT, WLL, WR

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AMBT, AMSC, ANTH, ARQL, AUY, AXGN, DMD, DRNA, EGLT, EVRY, FMD, GMAN, IGC, IMI, LEI, LINC, LUB, MBII, NCQ, NRX, OIBR, OIBR.C, OVRL, PBPB, PMFG, PRAN, QURE, RSH, SPEX, SQBK, STRL, TEAR, TEDU, TRVN, ZNH

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIG, DJP, FXB, IEO, IXC, IYE, JJA, RJA, XLE, XLU, XOP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

ANADIGICS (ANAD) is shipping production volumes of its ALT6735 ProEficient-Plus power amplifier to Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) for the new GALAXY S 5.

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced its 10/40GbE adapters for rack servers and 10GbE mezzanine adapters for blades are now available with Dell Fluid Cache for SAN.

Cypress Semiconductor (CY) announced that American Semiconductor has chosen Cypress Foundry Solutions to develop and manufacture custom optical devices

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that Lava International selected Broadcom's quad-core HSPA+ turnkey platform for Lava's newly released QPAD e704 tablet.

(upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS), CREE +2.3% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham),

8:01AM SMTC Corp appoints Jim Currie as interim CFO (SMTX) 1.54 :

Co announced the appointment of Jim Currie as its interim Chief Financial Officer effective April 16, 2014. With this appointment, Clarke Bailey will continue to serve as a Director and Chairman of the Board.
Currie has provided services as a financial executive to a number of public and private companies. Most recently, Currie was with Kapsch Trafficcom IVHS where he was employed from 2009 to 2012 as Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer.
Texas Instruments (TXN) announced support for iBeacon technology across its Bluetooth low energy portfolio.

7:01AM JinkoSolar Holding successfully connects two solar PV projects totaling 39MW to the grid in Jiangsu Province (JKS) 25.75 : Co announced that its 24MW solar PV power plant in Xinyi, Jiangsu Province and 15MW solar PV power plant in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province were successfully connected to the grid. The company has so far successfully connected to the grid for more than 252 MW of solar PV power projects. The 24MW Xinyi and 15MW Lianyungang power plants were granted blended 20-year subsidies of 1.125 RMB/KWh and 1.1 RMB/KWh, respectively, including subsidies from the local government. Both locations are among areas with the highest insolation level in Jiangsu Province.

Yahoo (YHOO) reported first quarter earnings of $0.38 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 1.2% year/year to $1.09 billion which is also higher than expected. Display: GAAP display revenue was $453 million for the first quarter of 2014, flat compared to the first quarter of 2013. Display revenue ex-TAC was $409 million for the first quarter of 2014, a 2 percent increase compared to $402 million for the first quarter of 2013. The Number of Ads Sold increased approximately 7 percent compared to the first quarter of 2013. Price-per-Ad decreased approximately 5 percent compared to the first quarter of 2013. Search: GAAP search revenue was $445 million for the first quarter of 2014, a 5 percent increase compared to $425 million for the first quarter of 2013. Search revenue ex-TAC was $444 million for the first quarter of 2014, a 9 percent increase compared to $409 million for the first quarter of 2013. Paid Clicks increased approximately 6 percent compared to the first quarter of 2013. Price-per-Click increased approximately 8 percent compared to the first quarter of 2013 Cash Balance: Cash, cash equivalents, and investments in marketable securities were $4.6 billion as of March 31, 2014 compared to $5 billion as of December 31, 2013, a decrease of $0.4 billion. Alibaba revenues increased 66% y/y to $3.05 bln; Gross profit increased 73% y/y to $2.37 billion; Net Income increased 110% y/y. Yahoo sees Q2 revs $1.06-1.1 billion which is line with estimates and sees non-GAAP operating income of $130-170 million.
Intel (INTC) reported first quarter earnings of $0.38 per share, which is higher than expected while revenues rose 1.5% year/year to $12.76 billion which in line with estimates. Q1 gross margin of 59.7% vs Street expectations of just above 59% (co guided for Q1 gross margin of 57-61%). PC Client Group revenue of $7.9 billion, down 8% sequentially and down 1% year-over-year. Data Center Group revenue of $3.1 billion, down 5% sequentially and up 11% year-over-year. Internet of Things Group revenue of $482 million, down 10% sequentially and up 32% year-over-year. Mobile and Communications Group revenue of $156 million, down 52% sequentially and down 61% year-over-year. Software and services operating segments revenue of $553 million, down 6% sequentially and up 6% year-over-year. "In the first quarter we saw solid growth in the data center, signs of improvement in the PC business, and we shipped 5 million tablet processors, making strong progress on our goal of 40 million tablets for 2014." The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $12.5-13.5 billion and gross margins of 61-65%. The company reaffirmed revenue guidance raises gross margin guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs flat YoY at approximately $52.7 billion. Gross margin percentage: 61 percent, plus or minus a few percentage points, 1 percentage point higher than prior expectations; R&D plus MG&A spending: $18.9 billion, plus or minus $200 million, higher than prior expectations of $18.6 billion.
Linear Tech (LLTC) reported third quarter GAAP earnings of $0.48 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 10.6% year/year to $348.01 million which is line with estimates. Non-GAP EPS was $0.55. The company issued guidance for the fourth quarter with revenue +2-6% sequentially (approximately $355-368.9 million) which is line with estimates. "After the slight decline we experienced last quarter, we are pleased to report that the bookings momentum that occurred at the end of our second quarter continued through the third quarter. As a result, we grew revenues 4% sequentially and 10.6% year-over-year. The book-to-bill ratio was positive for the quarter and bookings increased sequentially in all of our major markets, with the automotive, industrial and communications markets showing the most gains. Looking forward, we are encouraged by our current bookings momentum and the breadth of the bookings across our major markets. Accordingly, we are currently estimating sequential revenue growth of 2% to 6% for our fiscal fourth quarter."

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Chart of the Day - Geopolitical Tensions and the Price of Oil:

http://www.chartoftheday.com/20140416.htm?H

As a result of ongoing geopolitical tensions as well and increasing global demand, the price of crude oil continues to trend higher. Over the past five months, the cost of one gallon of gasoline has gone up a significant $0.45 (i.e. 14%). Today's chart provides some long-term perspective in regards to gasoline prices by presenting the inflation-adjusted US price of one gallon of gasoline since 1980. There are a few points of interest. For one, geopolitical crises are often associated with major swings in the price of gasoline. It is also worth noting that, since the financial crisis, the resulting peaks of gasoline price spikes have been decreasing over time (see downward sloping red trendline). Also, gasoline price spikes have often occurred prior to an economic downturn and as a result the current spike is something to watch going forward.

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Amateur Investors Weekend Stock Market Analysis (4/19/14)

http://www.amateur-investor.net/Weekend_Market_Analysis_April_19_2014.htm

This week for a change of pace we are going to look at a chart of the Inflation Adjusted Monthly S&P Composite going back to the early 1870's. As you can see the historical trend has always been to the upside with the black line representing the exponential long term trend line.

Historically the S&P Composite has held support roughly 60% below the trend line as represented by the green line (points A) with the last occurrence in the early 1980's. Meanwhile resistance has usually occurred roughly 70% above the trend line as represented by the red line (points B) with the last occurrence in 2007. The only time the S&P Composite surged well above the red line was from 1999 into 2000. Currently the S&P Composite has risen back to the red line once again so the question is will it encounter significant resistance or will it blast through it?

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The trading action in the stock market today left a lot to be desired, yet that didn't stop the market from finishing the day higher. Led by the health care (+1.2%), energy (+0.7%), and technology (+0.4%) sectors, the S&P 500 jumped 0.4% and closed the session with its fifth consecutive gain -- a first in 2014.

The US market reopened after the three-day Easter weekend, but for all intents and purposes, it continued to operate in holiday mode. Trading conditions were thin, no doubt kept that way by the lack of activity out of Europe where markets remained closed for the Easter holiday. NYSE volume totaled just 591 mln mln shares, which was well below a recent average of 725 mln shares.

There were only a handful of earnings reports today, yet the earnings news and the trading volume should pick up as the week progresses with roughly 150 S&P 500 companies reporting results for the March quarter.

Today's trading featured a report that Pfizer (PFE 30.86, +0.61) may be considering a $100 bln acquisition of AstraZeneca (AZN 69.11, +5.62). That speculation underpinned the health care sector all day. Additionally, the sector drew added support from the biotech stocks, which continued to rebound from their recent drubbing. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 227.34, +5.18) jumped 2.3% and contributed handsomely to the Nasdaq's outperformance.

Overall, there wasn't a lot of significant sector strength. Gains were modest in size, evidenced by the fact that the health care sector was the only sector to gain at least 1.0%. Similarly, there weren't any big losers from a sector standpoint either. The utilities sector (-0.2%) was the biggest laggard, but it was the financial sector (-0.04%) that was the most influential laggard despite a better than expected earnings report from SunTrust Banks (STI 38.52, +0.57). The sector's weakness can be blamed mostly on the money-center banks, which dipped modestly in today's action.

Other companies topping earnings expectations, like Halliburton (HAL 62.92, +2.02) and Hasbro (HAS 55.66, +1.05), fared well. Kimberly-Clark (KMB 110.94, -1.60), on the other hand, did not even though it surpassed the Capital IQ consensus EPS estimate for its March quarter by a penny.

Ford (F 15.97, -0.03) was another company that drew some added attention after reports indicated the company will be announcing CEO Alan Mulally's departure date on May 1. After Mr. Mulally's departure, COO Mark Fields will take over the CEO post.

Separately, IBM (IBM 192.27, +2.26) rebounded from its post-earnings lashing on Thursday to lead the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It was the only component, however, to gain at least a point.

On the economic front, the Leading Indicators report for March met expectations, showing a 0.8% increase that marked the third consecutive monthly increase. That was up from 0.5% in February and could be construed as an encouraging indication for future growth. That point notwithstanding, the Treasury market held firm today.

Tuesday's economic calendar will feature the Existing Home Sales report for March. The Briefing.com consensus estimate calls for existing home sales to be flat versus February at 4.60 mln units.

S&P 500 YTD: +1.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average YTD: -0.7%
Nasdaq Composite YTD: -1.3%
Russell 2000 YTD: -2.0%

DJ30 +40.71 NASDAQ +26.03 SP500 +7.04 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1637/1.45 bln/1055 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1898/591 mln/1161

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded lower today as the dollar index saw modest gains.
June gold brushed a session high of $1293.90 per ounce in morning action but retreated back below the $1290 per ounce level. It eventually settled 0.5% lower at $1288.20 per ounce.
May silver touched a session high of $19.47 per ounce in early morning action and settled with a 1.3 % loss at $19.34 per ounce.
May crude oil touched a session low of $103.99 per barrel in late afternoon action after pulling back from a session high of $104.77 per barrel set in morning action.
It managed to recover back into positive territory and settled 4 cents higher at $104.35 per barrel.
May natural gas slipped into negative territory after retreating from a session high of $4.78 per MMBtu.
Unable to regain momentum, it settled at its session low of $4.69 per MMBtu, or 1.1% lower.

4:13PM Cadence Design beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CDNS) 14.84 -0.02 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.19; revenues rose 6.9% year/year to $378.6 mln vs the $376.8 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.19-0.21, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $370-380 mln vs. $382.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $0.92-1.02, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.97 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $1.55-1.59 bln vs. $1.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07PM Cadence Design announces agreement to acquire Jasper Design automation for $170 mln in cash; to be accretive to non-GAAP EPS in FY15 (CDNS) 14.84 -0.02 :

Co intends to finance the transaction with available cash and an existing revolving credit facility.
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approvals.
Co expects the transaction to be accretive to its non-GAAP earnings per share in fiscal 2015 after the impact of merger-related accounting.
The impact on fiscal 2014 non-GAAP earnings per share will be provided when co reports its second quarter fiscal 2014 financial results.
The impact on GAAP earnings per share will be available after the completion of valuation and purchase accounting.

4:07PM Tessera Tech subsidiary, Invensas, and STS Semiconductor to partner on high volume bond via array mobile solutions (TSRA) 22.34 +0.15 : TSRA announced that Invensas Corporation, its wholly owned subsidiary, and Seoul, South Korea-based STS Semiconductor & Telecommunications, a leading semiconductor assembly and test solution provider specializing in mobile and communication devices, have entered into an agreement to validate high volume manufacturing capability for Invensas' Bond Via Array (BVATM) technology for next generation smartphone and tablet customers.
BVA is a proven advanced Package-on-Package (PoP) technology for System on Chip (SOC) and memory integration in mobile devices. Styled as a "Bridge Technology to 3DIC", it is a unique solution that utilizes established wire-bond assembly techniques to enable low power and high-bandwidth (1000 IO+) packaging in an ultra-small form factor, ideal for mobile devices. STS's state of the art engineering and worldwide high-volume capabilities provide an ideal platform for high volume manufacturing of BVA.

4:06PM Mellanox Tech: ITC rules co does not infringe Avago's (AVGO) laser driver patent (MLNX) 37.29 +0.51 : MLNX announced that, on April 17, 2014, the U.S. International Trade commission (ITC) issued its Final Determination ruling that Mellanox's Active Optical Cable products and VCSEL drivers do not infringe Avago's U.S. Patent Number 5,596,456, directed to a laser driver, which was asserted against Mellanox by Avago in an ITC complaint filed in September 2012.

"We are happy with the ITC's ruling, which confirms our position that Mellanox and IPtronics do not infringe the key patent at issue in the case," said Eyal Waldman, president and CEO of Mellanox Technologies. "Our customers can expect to continue receiving the same quality products that they have relied upon historically from Mellanox."
The ITC also affirmed the ALJ ruling that certain Mellanox cable products that contain a particular type of vertical cavity surface emitting laser ("VCSEL") do infringe another of Avago's patents, US Patent No. 5,596,595, directed to a VCSEL and issued a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders with respect to those products. The VCSELs in the products at issue are supplied to Mellanox by third parties.
These orders, however, will not interrupt Mellanox's ability to supply cables or otherwise impact Mellanox's current or planned product offerings. Those orders are also not expected to have a material adverse effect on the company's business, financial position, results of operations or cash flow.

Large Cap Gainers

AZN (67.01 +5.54%): Seeing reports that Pfizer (PFE) is considering a GBP 60 bln (~$100 bln) bid for the company
NEM (24.83 +5.48%): Strength on WSJ report that merger talks between NEM and Barrick Gold (ABX) have broken down
CHTR (124.22 +5.42%): Reuters reporting that Comcast (CMCSA) is in talks with Charter over divestitures related to Comcast's takeover of Time Warner Cable (TWC)

Large Cap Losers

TRP (44.83 -3.74%): Weakness following further delay on decision of Keystone XL pipeline; downgraded to Sector Perform from Sector Outperform at CIBC World Markets
ABX (17.35 -3.50%): Weakness on WSJ report that merger talks with Newmont Mining (NEM) have broken down
TCK (21.82 -1.13%): Announced it has subscribed for and acquired an additional 2 mln common shares of Erdene Resource Development at a cost of $0.175 per common share, in a private placement conducted by Erdene

Mid Cap Gainers

AMD (4.14 +12.33%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.02 vs $0.00 estimate), revs rose 28.4% yoy to $1.4 bln vs $1.34 bln estimate; sees Q2 revs +0-6% quarter over quarter (~$1.40-1.48 bln) vs $1.36 bln estimate
CSGP (172.04 +3.89%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley & Co
CPN (22.2 +3.88%): Agreed to sell six Southeast power plants for $1.57 bln

Mid Cap Losers

ATHN (136.45 -6.27%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.12 ex items vs $0.17 estimate), revs rose 29.8% yoy to $163.03 mln vs $170.45 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $725-755 mln vs $751 mln estimate, adjusted EPS of $0.98-1.10 vs $1.09 estimate
CPHD (45.05 -6.01%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 (-$0.01 ex items vs -$0.07 estimate), revs rose 16.3% yoy to $106.9 mln vs $104.98 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $0.19-0.24 ex items (lowered from $0.24-0.29) vs $0.26 estimate, revs of $446-461 mln vs $457.71 mln estimate
LII (86.51 -3.11%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.42 ex items vs $0.41 estimate), revs rose 4.0% yoy to $695.4 mln vs $701.4 mln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS guidance of $4.20-4.60 ex items vs $4.57 estimate, revs +3-7%

12:00PM Microsoft and Motorolla Solutions (MSI) sign licensing agreement (MSFT) 40.11 +0.10 : Co announced a patent licensing agreement with Motorola Solutions (MSI). The license provides worldwide coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for Motorola Solutions' devices running the Android platform and Chrome OS operating system.

9:58AM Nokia expects the sale of substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft (MSFT) to close on April 25, 2014 (NOK) 7.40 +0.06 : The transaction is now subject only to certain customary closing conditions. The transaction was originally announced on September 3, 2013.

MU +2% ( tgt raised to $50 at Drexel Hamilton; Buy),

Altera (ALTR) and TSMC (TSM) announced the two cos have worked together to bring TSMC's patented, fine-pitch copper bump-based packaging technology to Altera's 20 nm Arria 10 FPGAs and SoCs. Altera is the first company to adopt this technology in commercial production to deliver improved quality, reliability and performance to Altera's 20 nm device family.

1:19AM Ixia announces intent to restate 2013 First and Second Quarters, SEC Filings update and Nasdaq extension of time to regain compliance (XXIA) 12.93 : Co announces has concluded that the company's previously issued condensed consolidated financial statements contained in its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2013 and June 30, 2013 should no longer be relied upon and should be restated.

The correction of the errors is expected to reduce total revenues by ~$2.0 million and $4.5 million for the quarters ended March 31, 2013 and June 30, 2013, respectively. Further, the correction of the errors is expected to increase deferred revenues by ~$2.0 million and $6.5 million as of March 31, 2013 and June 30, 2013, respectively.
The company's restated condensed consolidated financial statements for the affected periods will also reflect the correction of errors related to the income tax effects of the revenue errors, as well as the correction of certain other tax items.
The restatement will result in revenue recognition timing differences between quarterly periods and will not have any impact on the total revenue to be recognized over the life of the applicable arrangements. As part of the restatement process, the company is continuing to assess the estimated errors identified above and will assess any other potential identified errors for correction as needed.

Updated Plan to Regain Compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule
As previously reported, as a result of Ixia's delayed filing of its Form 10-Q and Form 10-K, the company is not in compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5250, which requires the timely filing with the SEC of all required periodic financial reports. The company announced today that, as requested by the company in an updated plan to regain compliance with the Listing Rule, The Nasdaq Stock Market has granted the company through April 30, 2014 to regain compliance with the Listing Rule, which will permit the continued listing of our common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.

Advanced Micro (AMD) reported first quarter earnings of $0.02 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 28.4% year/year to $1.4 billion which is higher than expected consensus; GAAP gross margin flat QoQ at 35%. Computing Solutions segment revenue decreased 8 percent sequentially and 12 percent year-over-year. The sequential and year-over-year declines were due to decreased client unit shipments. Operating loss was $3 million, an improvement from an operating loss of $7 million in Q4 2013 and $39 million in Q1 2013 driven by lower operating expenses. Microprocessor average selling price (ASP) was flat sequentially and decreased slightly year-over-year. Graphics and Visual Solutions segment revenue decreased 15 percent sequentially and increased 118 percent year-over-year driven largely by semi-custom SoCs. GPU revenue increased sequentially and year-over-year due to strong demand for the AMD Radeon R7 and R9 family of products. Operating income was $91 million compared with $121 million in Q4 2013 and $16 million in Q1 2013. The sequential decline was primarily due to decreased revenue from semi-custom SoCs while the year-over-year increase was driven by higher sales of semi-custom SoCs. GPU ASP increased sequentially and year-over-year driven by the Radeon R7 and R9 family of products. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with revenues of +0-6% QoQ to approximately $1.40-1.48 billion which is higher than expected. Interactive
Intelligence (ININ) has entered into a letter of intent to acquire OrgSpan Inc., a privately held company that offers cloud-based enterprise social communications solutions. Subject to the negotiation of definitive documentation approval by the Interactive Intelligence audit committee and board, and the satisfaction of customary conditions, the companies expect to close the transaction within 30 days. Among its solutions, OrgSpan offers OrgSpan Select, which enables customers to search and view agent social profiles by multiple criteria, creating new and more effective ways of connecting customers and contact center agents. The company also offers OrgSpan Connect, a unified company directory of OrgSpan Connect users that includes information-rich personal profiles designed to improve employee collaboration.
Mercury (MRCY) receives $3.2 mln order for high-performance digital signal processing modules for synthetic aperture radar application.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equity indices strung together a daylong rally on Tuesday, giving the S&P 500 its sixth consecutive advance. Some selling during the final hour of action pressured the indices from their highs, but they still ended with the bulk of their gains. The benchmark index added 0.4% with eight sectors finishing in the green, while the Nasdaq (+1.0%) outperformed throughout the session.

Although the stock market began the day on a flat note, the major averages quickly took the lead from two heavily-weighted sectors-consumer discretionary (+0.8%) and health care (+1.0%)-that displayed strength out of the gate.

The health care sector spent the entire session in the lead due, in part, to the relative strength of biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 234.72, +7.38) jumped 3.3% to post its third consecutive gain. M&A activity also contributed to the sector's outperformance as Allergan (AGN 163.65, +21.65) surged 15.3% after Valeant (VRX 135.41, +9.40) proposed a merger for $48.30 in cash and 0.83 shares of Valeant for each share of Allergan.

Elsewhere, the discretionary space was underpinned by a solid 7.0% gain in the shares of Netflix (NFLX 372.90, +24.41), which spiked in reaction to above-consensus earnings. The remainder of the sector held up nearly as well with homebuilders (ITB +0.8%) and retailers rallying (XRT +1.2%), while quick-service restaurants appeared unaffected by disappointing earnings from McDonald's (MCD 99.32, -0.35). The fast food giant reported bottom-line results $0.03 below the Capital IQ consensus estimate as comparable sales in the U.S. declined 1.7% during the first quarter.

Among other earnings of note, Dow components Travelers (TRV 86.89, +0.49) and United Technologies (UTX 119.19, +0.89) reported better than expected earnings, while their respective sectors ended in mixed fashion. Financials (+0.7%) settled among the leaders after lagging through the first half of action, whereas the industrial sector (+0.01%) kept pace with the S&P 500 during early afternoon action, but slumped into the close.

Even though the industrial sector ended well below its session high, that was not the case with transports as the Dow Jones Transportation Average advanced 0.6% to a fresh all-time high. Delta Air Lines (DAL 34.95, +1.01) gained 3.0% ahead of its quarterly report, which is expected ahead of Wednesday's opening bell.

On the downside, consumer staples (-0.1%) and energy (-0.2%) were the only two sectors ending in the red.

The Treasury market displayed gains overnight, but slumped shortly after the New York open, before reclaiming its losses into the close. The 10-yr yield ended at 2.72%.

Participation was on the light side as just over 665 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data featured just two reports:

Existing home sales fell 0.2% in March to 4.59 million SAAR from an unrevised 4.60 million SAAR in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected existing home sales to remain at 4.60 million SAAR. Over the past three months, existing home sales have averaged only 4.603 million SAAR, down from an average of 4.94 million SAAR in Q4 2013. Initially, the decline in sales was attributed to extreme weather conditions at the beginning of 2014. However, weather conditions returned more or less to normal in March and sales failed to rebound. A more likely explanation for the recent downward trend is that rising prices combined with higher mortgage rates have caused affordability conditions to weaken. As a result, first-time home buyers, who are needed to drive stable growth, only accounted for 30% of total purchases. In March 2012, first time buyers accounted for 33% of total sales.
The February Housing Price Index from the FHFA increased 0.6%, which followed a revised uptick of 0.4% observed during the prior month.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET and New Home Sales for March (Briefing.com consensus 455K) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +1.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -0.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.6% YTD

DJ30 +65.12 NASDAQ +39.91 SP500 +7.66 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1955/1.73 bln/730 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2248/665.8 mln/812

3:30 pm :

June gold fell for a third consecutive session after pulling back from a session high of $1293.10 per ounce set in early morning action. It dipped to $1275.80 per ounce, its lowest level since early February 2014, and settled with a 0.6% loss at $1281.10 per ounce.
May silver touched a session high of $19.52 per ounce moments after floor trade opened but slipped into the red and to a session low of $19.30 per ounce in late morning action. It managed to rise back above the unchanged line and settled with a 0.1% gain at $19.36 per ounce.
June crude oil traded lower ahead of tomorrow's inventory data. It fell deeper into the red after retreating from its session high of $102.70 per barrel set moments after pit trade began. The energy component brushed a session low of $101.47 per barrel in late morning action and settled with a 1.9% loss at $101.67 per barrel.
May natural gas, on the other hand, traded higher after lifting from its session low of $4.69 per MMBtu in morning action. It eventually settled at its session high of $4.74 per MMBtu, booking a gain of 1.1%.

4:19PM Skyworks beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides JunQ sharply above consensus (SWKS) 37.96 +0.94 : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.62 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.59; revenues rose 13.1% year/year to $481.0 mln vs the $470.3 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3 (Jun), sees EPS of approximately $0.73, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.63 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of approximately $535 mln vs. $487.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Skyworks exceeded guidance across all key metrics last quarter and is set to substantially outpace the broader semiconductor industry as we capitalize on increasing analog system complexity driven by the Internet of Things."

4:17PM Plug Power announces proposed public offering of common stock; size not disclosed (PLUG) 6.70 -0.31 :

Co announced that it intends to offer and sell, subject to market and other conditions, common stock in an underwritten public offering.
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Barclays Capital Inc. are acting as the book-running managers and Cowen and Company, LLC and FBR Capital Markets & Co. are acting as co-managers for the offering.
Co intends to use the net proceeds of the offering for working capital and general corporate purposes, which may include capital expenditures and potential acquisitions.

4:16PM Super Micro Computer beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SMCI) : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.37 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.27; revenues rose 34.5% year/year to $373.8 mln vs the $335.19 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.35-0.41, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.35 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $370-410 mln vs. $369.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Supermicro's third quarter was a second straight quarter of record highs for revenue and earnings. Revenues were 34.4% higher year over year with strong growth coming from North America and from internet data centers. We grew again in multiples of the industry growth rate, expanded market share, and continued to lead the industry in system innovation and time to market..."

4:15PM AT&T beats by $0.02, beats slightly on revs; raises FY14 rev guidance above consensus; adds 1.1 mln postpaid smartphones in Q1 (T) 36.29 +0.23 :

Reports Q1 (Mar) adj earnings of $0.71 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.69; revenues rose 3.6% year/year to $32.5 bln vs the $32.39 bln consensus.
Co issues guidance for FY14, sees EPS of mid single digits including Leap operational pressure (cons +8%); raises FY14 revs to +4% or more (prior guidance of +2-3%) calc to ~$133.9 bln vs. $132.23 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Total wireless revenues, which include equipment sales, were up 7.0 percent year over year to $17.9 billion. Wireless service revenues increased 2.2 percent in the first quarter to $15.4 billion. First-quarter wireless operating expenses totaled $12.8 billion, up 6.6 percent versus the year-earlier quarter, and wireless operating income was $5.1 billion, up 8.1 percent year over year.
Total churn was essentially stable at 1.39 percent compared to 1.38 percent in the year-ago quarter. Postpaid churn of 1.07 was down sequentially and up slightly compared to 1.04 percent in the year-ago quarter.
AT&T added 1.1 million postpaid smartphones in the first quarter. At the end of the quarter, 78 percent, or 53.0 million, of AT&T's postpaid phone subscribers had smartphones, up from 72 percent, or 48.3 million, a year earlier. Smartphones accounted for 92 percent of postpaid phone sales in the quarter, a first-quarter record. AT&T's ARPU for smartphones is about twice that of non-smartphone subscribers. At the end of the first quarter, 57 percent of AT&T's postpaid smartphone customers used an LTE-capable device. The company sold 5.8 million smartphones in the quarter.
Total first-quarter wireline revenues were $14.6 billion, down 0.4 percent versus the year-earlier quarter. Wireline service revenues were up 0.1 percent year over year. Total U-verse revenues grew 29.0 percent year over year. First-quarter wireline operating expenses were $13.1 billion, up 0.9 percent versus the first quarter of 2013. AT&T's wireline operating income totaled $1.5 billion, down 10.5 percent versus the first quarter of 2013

4:13PM Juniper Networks reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (JNPR) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.29 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.29; revenues rose 10.5% year/year to $1.17 bln vs the $1.15 bln consensus.

Co sees Q2 EPS of $0.36-0.39 vs. $0.36 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.20-1.23 bln vs. $1.21 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12PM Sanmina beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (SANM) 18.26 +0.40 : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.44 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.39; revenues rose 3.4% year/year to $1.48 bln vs the $1.45 bln consensus.
Co issues upside EPS guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.45-0.49, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.43 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.5-1.6 bln vs. $1.51 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08PM Harmonic reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (HLIT) 6.90 +0.12 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.03 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.03; revenues rose 6.2% year/year to $108 mln vs the $111.72 mln consensus.

Gross Margin: Non-GAAP gross margin was 53.3% and non-GAAP operating margin was 3.2% for 1Q14, compared with 54.3% and 8.9%, respectively, for 4Q13, and 51.0% and (3.3)%, respectively, for the same period in 2013.

Guidance: Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $113-$123 mln vs. $119.74 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees Non-GAAP gross margins in the range of 52.5% to 53.5%. Sees Non-GAAP operating expenses in the range of $54.5 million to $55.5 million.

4:05PM Cree beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CREE) 58.05 +0.49 : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.39 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.38; revenues rose 16.1% year/year to $405.2 mln vs the $407.45 mln consensus. Gross margin decreased 50 basis points from Q2 of fiscal 2014 to 37.0% on a GAAP basis and decreased 40 basis points to 37.8% on a non-GAAP basis.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.38-0.44, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.44 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $430-460 mln vs. $434.70 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Operating expenses are targeted to increase $7 million from Q3. Non-GAAP gross margin targeted to be 37.5%+/-

3:31PM Kulicke & Soffa: Lemelson Capital Management announces stake in Kulicke and Soffa Industries, delivers letter to management and board members urging immediate share repurchase (KLIC) 12.84 +0.64 : Lemelson Capital Management, a private investment manager, announced that it has taken a significant equity position in Kulicke & Soffa Industries. Lemelson Capital's acquisition reflects the firm's view that shares of the company remain dramatically undervalued. Lemelson Capital also announced that it is urging K&S to initiate a share repurchase plan and has delivered the following letter to the company's management team, board of directors and other stakeholders.

"...In the not too distant future, if such a buyback were executed, today's forward (and conservative) EPS estimates of just 89 cents per share would grow to $1.23 based on a reduced ~55 million share count. It seems reasonable to expect that with these enlarged figures the share price would appreciate beyond $19 if the market prices the shares at approximately the same forward multiple as the S & P 500 (a multiple at any rate substantially lower than the company's peers)."

12:22PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

AGN (163.7 +15.28%): Valeant Pharma (VRX) proposed to combine with Allergan for $48.30 in cash and 0.83 shares of Valeant stock for each Allergan share; initiated with a Hold at Jefferies; tgt raised to $200 from $145 at Susquehanna; tgt raised to $190 from $140 at Credit Suisse.
HOG (72.95 +8.01%): Beat on EPS by $0.13, beat on revs; reaffirmed full year shipment guidance.
NFLX (369.34 +5.98%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 EPS above consensus; tgt raised to $393 from $356 at FBR Capital; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Cantor Fitzgerald; tgt raised to $425 from $405; upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James; tgt raised to $520 from $500 at Pacific Crest.

Large Cap Losers

PHG (32.72 -5.41%): Reported Q1 earnings of EUR0.15 per share, may not be comparable to the EUR0.12 consensus, missed on revs.
PNR (76 -5.57%): Reported EPS in-line, missed on revs; guided Q2 below consensus; reaffirmed FY14 EPS guidance.
RCI (38.83 -3.41%): Missed on EPS by CC$0.04, missed on revs; downgraded to Sell from Hold at Canaccord Genuity.

Mid Cap Gainers

CNC (63.95 +11.63%): Beat on EPS by $0.12, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line.
MTG (8.95 +7.44%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, missed on revs.
CE (60.88 +4.75%): Beat on EPS by $0.12, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS above consensus.

Mid Cap Losers

MDSO (38.7 -26.55%): Missed on EPS by $0.05, missed on revs.
LXK (41.85 -10.52%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line.
CDNS (14.25 -3.98%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line; announced agreement to acquire Jasper Design automation for $170 mln in cash; to be accretive to non-GAAP EPS in FY15.

12:07PM Floor Talk (TALKX) : The behavior of the S&P futures before the cash market opened didn't suggest there was a lot of conviction on the part of either buyers or sellers. Be that as it may, buyers stepped up and have been controlling the action since the opening bell.

The major indices have been pressing steadily higher, clearing an initial resistance barrier in the 1872/1874 zone. The upward move has been paced by the health care sector (+1.3%), which has been boosted by a spate of M&A activity in the pharmaceutical space and another burst of buying interest in the biotech stocks. Notably, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 234.74, +7.40) is up 3.3% today and has surged 13% from its recent low over the course of the last four trading sessions (including today).

The return to momentum form for the biotech stocks and other names like Netflix (NFLX 369.20, +20.71), which is up 18% from its April 15 low after impressing with its first quarter report and second quarter guidance, has fueled the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 today.

In turn, the strength in those names has been an additional underpinning factor for the broader market, which is also leaning on better than expected earnings results from the likes of United Technologies (UTX 119.89, +1.59), Harley-Davidson (HOG 73.14, +5.60), and Travelers (TRV 86.44, +0.04). McDonald's (MCD 99.89, +0.22), on the other hand, disappointed but is nevertheless trading higher in today's action.

Broad-based gains for the major indices don't appear to be rooted so much in short covering as they are in a flat squeeze that has been catalyzed by a fear of missing out on further gains. That fear has been stoked by the rapid-fire recovery of the Nasdaq after testing its 200-day moving average last week and another timely reminder from Fed Chair Yellen last week that the stock market has time on its side still when it comes to policy rates remaining at the zero bound.

Today's Existing Home Sales report for March didn't alter the latter perspective as sales slipped 0.2% from February to an annualized rate of 4.59 mln units. That was roughly in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 4.60 mln, but below the November/December average of 4.85 mln units and reflective of a slowdown earlier this year that wasn't just because of extreme winter weather.

The Treasury market has been tripped up slightly by the stock market's strength, yet it hasn't been undercut by that strength. The 10-yr note is down just three ticks with its yield at 2.729%. Strikingly, the US Dollar Index (DXY 79.93, -0.01) is acting sluggish. It is flat for the day, which is somewhat inconsistent with the stock market's seemingly upbeat view of things at the moment. Something to keep an eye on.

11:46AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (150) outpacing new lows (18) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACMP, AGN, ALV, ANDE, AXAS, BANF, BAS, BHI, BIG, BOCH, BPO, BTI, BUD, BWA, BXE, CAT, CBIN, CBT, CE, CFX, CGI, CHSP, CMRE, CPN, CRD.B, CRK, CRZO, CSL, CWEI, CXDC, DDS, DMRC, DOV, DY, EBR, ECOL, EGAS, EGY, EMES, ENG, EPD, EQM, EQT, EROS, ESTE, EXAM, EXR, FANG, FCH, FN, FNHC, FNSR, FTK, GA, GB, GBX, GEL, GGAL, HES, HIL, HNRG, HOG, HOLI, HP, HST, HTLD, HUBG, IIN, IM, ITC, ITW, JFBI, JNJ, KEG, KEP, KNX, LABC, LLY, LSI, LSTR, LYB, MED, MEMP, MGA, MMP, MOD, MPAA, MPLX, MRH, MTDR, MTR, MU, MXWL, NEU, NGG, NGLS, NS, NVS, NYNY, OCLR, OFED, OKE, ORAN, ORM, PEBO, PES, PHII, PMBC, PRMW, PTEN, PVA, RDNT, REI, RES, REX, RHI, RHP, RMBS, RNR, ROIC, ROK, RTN, SAFM, SEP, SGU, SLB, SLCA, SNA, SOHO, SONA, SPN, STS, SYRG, TFSL, THRM, TI, TOT, TPC, TRGP, TRW, UG, UNP, UNT, UPIP, UPL, UTX, VOCS, WBC, XEC, Z

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACFN, ASTI, CNSI, CTHR, DARA, DMD, DVR, EVRY, LCNB, LQDT, MCGC, NCQ, NEWL, NMR, OGEN, PAL, TGE, ZNH

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DBA, DIG, EWK, FXB, GULF, IGE, IOO, IXC, IYE, IYK, IYT, JO, MES, OIH, USCI, XES, XLP, XOP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none
Harris & Harris (TINY) noted the receipt of $6.5 mkn from the sale of Molecular Imprints' semiconductor business to Canon of Tokyo, Japan. Harris & Harris could receive an additional $625,000 from amounts held in escrow as well as up to $1.7 mln upon the achievement of certain milestones.

Micron Technology (MU) announced a new enterprise-class solid state drive designed specifically for data center storage platforms.

Altera (ALTR) is the first programmable logic company to integrate hardened IEEE 754-compliant, floating-point operators in an FPGA.

MU +0.7% ( following positive Barron's mention),

7:52AM Arch Coal misses by $0.16, beats on revs; co has lowered its metallurgical coal sales guidance, and now expects to ship between 6.3-7.3 mln tons for 2014 (ACI) 4.97 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.60 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.16 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.44); revenues fell 0.2% year/year to $736 mln vs the $725.84 mln consensus.

"As expected, our Q1 results reflect a challenging global metallurgical coal market and the impact of rail performance issues," said John W. Eaves, Arch's president and chief executive officer. "At Arch, we are taking proactive steps to manage our controllable costs and capital spending, reduce our cash outflows and preserve our liquidity."
"Moreover, we are reducing our expected metallurgical coal sales volume by ~1 mln tons for 2014 in response to soft market conditions and concentrating our metallurgical production in our lowest-cost assets in Appalachia."
"Based on the smooth start-up of the Leer longwall mine in Q1 of 2014, we also are lowering our full year cost-per-ton guidance in Appalachia."

Market Trends

"We are seeing a strengthening domestic thermal market in 2014, supported by improved power demand, depleting customer coal stockpiles, higher natural gas prices and low natural gas storage levels that will need to be rebuilt," said Eaves.
U.S. power generation hit record levels during the first two months of 2014, and Arch expects U.S. coal consumption for power generation to increase more than 25 mln tons in 2014 versus 2013 levels.
While the domestic thermal market is trending upward, the seaborne market remains challenged, as oversupply has pressured global prices for metallurgical and thermal coals. However, Arch believes the long-term outlook for the seaborne coal trade remains positive and the opportunities for U.S. coal significant.
Global coal trade is projected to exceed 1.5 bln metric tonnes by 2020, with ~100 gigawatts of new coal-fueled power projected to come online in 2014 alone. That new coal-fueled power could result in more than 300 mln metric tonnes of incremental annual coal demand this year.
Arch currently expects the global metallurgical coal market to remain soft in 2014, even as global steel production is projected to grow. However, recent and ongoing closures of some high-cost capacity and an improving demand outlook should lead to a more balanced market over time.

Outlook:
Arch now expects thermal sales volumes for 2014 to be in the range of 124-132 mln tons. The co has lowered its metallurgical coal sales guidance, and now expects to ship between 6.3-7.3 mln tons for 2014. In addition, Arch has reduced its annual cash cost-per-ton guidance range for both its Appalachian and Bituminous Thermal segments, while maintaining its cost outlook for the Powder River Basin. The co has modestly reduced its capital spending levels to a range of $180-190 mln for 2014.

HP Enterprise Services (HPQ) announced the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing has signed a $116.9 mln contract for HP to implement a new Medicaid management system.

7:04AM Canadian Solar to Supply 43MW of Solar Modules in Japan (CSIQ) 27.08 : Co announces that it has been awarded a module supply agreement to provide 43MW of photovoltaic modules to the second largest solar power plant project in Japan.

Canadian Solar will supply approximately 168,300 pieces of its 60 cell high efficiency CS6P255P modules with power output of 255Wp for this project.
Module delivery is expected to start from May 2014 and to be completed in February 2015.

Mattson Technology (MTSN) has expanded its etch market position with shipments to DRAM, 3D NAND and wafer level packaging fabs in the first quarter of 2014. These shipments are the result of new etch applications released for production on co's paradigmE line of etch systems.

PLX Tech (PLXT) reported first quarter earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 5.3% year/year to $24.8 million which is below estimates. The company issued guidance for revenues of $27-29 million which is above estimates. Q2 Outlook Details: Non-GAAP gross margins are expected to be ~56 percent with GAAP margins at approximately 55 percent. The non-GAAP number excludes an accrual for royalties associated with the Internet Machines litigation and share-based compensation. Operating expenses are expected to be approximately $15.0 million. Included in operating expenses are share-based compensation charges of approximately $0.6 million. The second quarter also includes a 40nm tape-out. For the year, operating expenses net of share-based compensation are expected to be about $52 million. "The sequential decline in our first quarter revenue was primarily the result of two temporary factors. One of our larger customers moved to a vendor managed inventory (VMI) program where it worked down its owned inventories rather than drawing from our VMI. We expect this customer to return to normal levels in late Q2 or Q3. We were also supply constrained on some of PCI Express Gen2 products in Q1 due to assembly issues at one of our subcontractors. These issues have been addressed and are not expected to be a limitation in the second quarter...These issues aside, the demand for our products remains solid. Based on current backlog, forecasts from customers, and resolution of the assembly issues, we expect all of our market segments to be up in Q2, driven primarily by Gen2 and Gen3 shipments. We are beginning to see an increasing number of Gen3 design wins go into volume production and we believe that this ramp will fuel our growth."
Rambus (RMBS) reported first quarter earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 17.1% year/year to $78.3 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the downside guidance for the revenues of $69-74 million which is below estimates.
Liquid Holdings (LIQD) announced that co-founder Brian Ferdinand has stepped down as Vice Chairman of the company's Board of Directors and Head of Corporate Strategy. Mr. Ferdinand will remain a strategic advisor to the company under a consulting agreement and has agreed to a voluntary one-year lock-up on his holdings of the company's common stock until April 17, 2015. The company has already initiated a search to fill Mr. Ferdinand's seat on the Board of Directors.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 25-Apr-14

Dow -140.19 at 16361.46, Nasdaq -72.78 at 4075.56, S&P -15.21 at 1863.4

The major averages spent the last session of the week in a steady retreat despite receiving a round of better than expected earnings from the technology sector. The Nasdaq lost 1.8%, widening its April decline to 2.9%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.8%, swinging to a month-to-date loss to 0.5%. The benchmark index notched a session low not far above its 50-day moving average (1858) and closed just north of its 20-day moving average (1862).

Market participants received an avalanche of earnings since yesterday's closing bell, with a large portion coming from companies that belong to the technology sector (-1.4%). Even though 32 of 40 tech companies met or beat expectations, the broader sector was the second-weakest performer, finishing only ahead of the consumer discretionary sector (-1.7%).

In large part, the discretionary space was pressured by the shares of Amazon.com (AMZN 303.83, -33.32), which fell 9.9% after the online retail giant missed earnings estimates by one cent and issued cautious guidance. Amazon.com factored into the underperformance of the Nasdaq, while noteworthy losses in high-beta names like Netflix (NFLX 322.08, -21.99) and Priceline.com (PCLN 1157.24, -59.79) also weighed on the index and the discretionary sector.

Staying on the momentum theme, high-beta tech components like Facebook (FB 57.71, -3.16), FireEye (FEYE 41.18, -3.27), LinkedIn (LNKD 158.17, -13.42), and Yelp (YELP 57.63, -5.07) endured a forgettable session, falling between 5.2% and 8.1%.

Today's weakness in high-growth names resembled the aggressive selling that took place at the start of the month, which is likely to invite concerns that the sell-off seen a few weeks ago has not run its full corrective course.

The recent sell-off featured significant weakness in the biotech space and that was the case once again today. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 223.96, -5.66) lost 2.5%, ending right above its 200-day moving average (221.37), which has acted like a magnet for the past couple weeks. Interestingly, the health care sector (-0.7%) held up relatively well, ending just ahead of the broader market.

While the losses in biotech and other high-beta areas fueled the early selling, dip-buyers were reluctant to step in amid continued worries about the situation in Ukraine. Earlier, Ukrainian officials demanded a statement from Russia, explaining the purpose of its troops massed at the border of the two countries. Additionally, President Obama spoke with his counterparts from France, Germany, Italy, and the UK, agreeing to introduce another round of sanctions against Russia for failure to observe the Geneva accord that was signed last Thursday.

The geopolitical concerns did fuel some safe-haven flows as Treasuries and gold futures posted gains. The 10-yr note added four ticks, pressuring its yield to 2.67%, while gold futures added 0.5% to $1290.80/ozt.

With stocks ending near their lows, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.12, +0.80) climbed 6.0%, suggesting participants hedged their bets.

Participation was a bit below average as less than 700 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to the final reading for the April University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, which was revised up to 84.1 from a preliminary reading of 82.6. The Briefing.com consensus expected the Consumer Sentiment Index to remain at 82.6. Consumer sentiment increased to its highest level since July 2013 when the index reached 85.1. Layoff trends and equity prices both improved over the second half of the month, which contributed to the overall improvement in sentiment. The Current Conditions Index was revised up to 98.7 in the final reading from 97.1 in the preliminary report. That is up from 95.7 in March. The Expectations Index was also revised up, to 74.7 from 73.3.

On Monday, the Pending Home Sales report for March will be released at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Nasdaq Remains Volatile

The trading action in the stock market on Monday left a lot to be desired, yet that didn't stop the market from finishing the day higher. Led by the health care (+1.2%), energy (+0.7%), and technology (+0.4%) sectors, the S&P 500 jumped 0.4% and closed the session with its fifth consecutive gain -- a first in 2014. The U.S. market reopened after the three-day Easter weekend, but for all intents and purposes, it continued to operate in holiday mode. Trading conditions were thin, no doubt kept that way by the lack of activity out of Europe where markets remained closed for the Easter holiday. NYSE volume totaled just 591 mln shares, which was well below a recent average of 725 mln shares.

Equity indices strung together a daylong rally on Tuesday, giving the S&P 500 its sixth consecutive advance. Some selling during the final hour of action pressured the indices from their highs, but they still ended with the bulk of their gains. The benchmark index added 0.4% with eight sectors finishing in the green, while the Nasdaq (+1.0%) outperformed throughout the session. Although the stock market began the day on a flat note, the major averages quickly took the lead from two heavily-weighted sectors-consumer discretionary (+0.8%) and health care (+1.0%)-that displayed strength out of the gate. The health care sector spent the entire session in the lead due, in part, to the relative strength of biotechnology. M&A activity also contributed to the sector's outperformance as Allergan surged 15.3% after Valeant proposed a merger for $48.30 in cash and 0.83 shares of Valeant for each share of Allergan.

The stock market finished the Wednesday session on a modestly lower note, but it is worth mentioning the retreat took place after six consecutive gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) and S&P 500 (-0.2%) settled not far below their flat lines, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.8%) lagged throughout the session. Equity indices started the day in the red, with the Nasdaq showing early weakness as large cap tech names and biotechnology weighed. The technology sector (-0.9%) slumped amid profit-taking in listings like Apple , Google, Microsoft, and Intel, while biotech names retreated following quarterly reports from three major industry players.

On Thursday, the major averages posted modest gains, but not before enduring a morning dip into the red, which took place in reaction to reports indicating Russia has commenced military exercises on the Ukrainian border. The news from Europe knocked the key indices from their early highs, while giving a boost to safe-haven assets like gold futures (+0.5% to $1290.80/ozt), Treasuries (10-yr yield -1 bps to 2.69%), and the Japanese yen (102.30 vs USD); however, the morning spike in safety flows was retraced partially, while equities rallied off their lows with the technology sector (+1.1%) setting the pace. Tech shares (and the Nasdaq) received significant support from the shares of Apple, which surged 8.2% after the top-weighted tech company handily beat earnings expectations. In addition, Apple increased its share buyback to $90 billion and announced a 7:1 stock split, which will go into effect on June 2.

 
 Index	   Started Week   Ended Week    Change	% Change   YTD % 
 DJIA	     16408.54	  16361.46	-47.08	   -0.3	  -1.3 
 Nasdaq	      4095.52	   4075.56	-19.96	   -0.5   -2.4 
 S&P 500	1864.85	   1863.40	 -1.45     -0.1	   0.8 
 Russell 2000  1137.90	   1123.03	-14.87	   -1.3	  -3.5

4:33PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: CBEY (9.82 +39.46%), SANM (21.03 +23.99%), SPWR (34.18 +19.7%), VDSI (11.17 +18.41%), SWKS (41.46 +17.73%), TWOU (14.86 +17.41%)
Services: SHLD (41.81 +28.63%), TEDU (8.91 +28.41%)
Healthcare: SRPT (36.7 +57.61%), GWPH (62.12 +52.11%), CYTK (4.59 +43.22%), PRTA (38.58 +41.15%), RVNC (34.33 +33.25%), ANIP (31.24 +32.03%), AGN (168.15 +26.74%)
Financial: XOOM (22.3 +18.72%)
Consumer Goods: RDEN (35.68 +29.17%), MOD (16.22 +20.31%)
Basic Materials: HGT (9.61 +21.58%), SYRG (12.2 +18.4%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: HEAR (9.28 -24.72%), CSLT (14.06 -24.42%), MDSO (39.77 -18.65%), PLUG (5.37 -15.11%), ATEN (12.75 -14.51%), GRUB (31.26 -13.7%), WIT (11.8 -13.2%), ATHN (127.81 -12.38%), UIS (25.03 -11.87%)
Services: BEBE (5.2 -17.96%)
Healthcare: RARE (35.25 -16.34%), XLRN (32.5 -15.74%), KPTI (25.63 -14.94%), IPCM (41.66 -13.32%), ONVO (5.55 -13.09%), QDEL (20.95 -11.68%)
Financial: MGI (13.5 -24.46%), TBBK (15.92 -13.11%)
Consumer Goods: MYE (19.93 -12.05%)
Basic Materials: EROC (4.38 -16.39%)

4:04PM NASDAQ announces mid-month open short interest positions in NASDAQ stocks as of settlement date April 15, 2014 (NDAQ) 36.05 -0.22 : Short interest in all 2,784 NASDAQ securities totaled 8,309,872,995 shares at the April 15, 2014 settlement date, compared with 2,777 issues and 8,294,206,693 shares at the end of the previous reporting period. This is 3.66 days average daily volume, compared with an average of 3.70 days for the previous reporting period.

3:36PM Earnings Preview for the week of April 28 - May 2 (SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of April 28 - May 2 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - NOV, ECL, GLW, CHTR, BEN, TEN, CNA, LH, ROP, SOHU, L
After Hours - SU, HIG, JEC, AMP, VLRS, RKT, OMI, STM, PRE, HLF, BWLD, QCOR, N
Tuesday:
Pre Market - BP, VLO, LYB, MRK, ABB, HCA, S, ETN, GT, TRW, CMI, PCAR, BMY, PH, NOK, HUN, MGM, AGCO, GAS, BSX, OSK, EME, ROK, LKQ, AXE, MHFI, HRS, ESV, COH, MGLN, FRX, FDP, CNX, XYL, CIT
After Hours - ESRX, BSAC, AFL, X, EBAY, STX, ACE, MAR, CHRW, EIX, GNW, AXS, OI, NCR, TRN, FISV, THG, WSH, MEOH, GPRE, PNRA, BXP, TWTR, DWA,
Wednesday:
Pre Market - PSX, AUO, WLP, IP, TWX, EXC, CVE, PBF, SO, NEE, D, ADP, TRI, GIB, ABX, ACT, HES, TX, NI, SEE, LVLT, INGR, MWV, WEC, SPW, ENR, H, HSP, JLL, CG, SLGN, ADT, GRMN,
After Hours - MET, INT, TSO, FLEX, WDC, LNC, FNF, PPC, ASH, CBG, TEX, WMB, BGC, WPZ, CNW, MUR, POL, FBHS, MDU, CBT, CACI, DOX, BKD, YELP,
Thursday:
Pre Market - XOM, CAH, NVO, MPC, BG, EPD, MFC, CI, TMUS, TEVA, CTRX, PCG, K, PPL, VIAB, PEG, TXT, LLL, XEL, RRD, CNP, CVI, AVP, MA, BDX, BWA, NGLS, CVRR, BLL, MSI, MYL, PTRY, JAH, PWR, FIS, CLX, SHPG, CPN, ARG, HST, HAR, IVZ, YRCW, RFP, ANR, Q, GG, CHD, CME, IRM, LM, ITT,
After Hours - FLR, KRFT, DVA, TS, MOH, XL, MHK, NU, ALJ, TEG, WU, MRC, NSIT, EXPE, MTZ, MTW, ONNN, DRC, CVD, OUTR, LNKD, AKAM, AEM, VRTX, CHGG,
Friday:
Pre Market - CVX, CVS, MMC, SRE, TRP, EL, SPR, BPL, GEL, NWL, TDS, XLS, USM, AXL, CTB, MSG

12:13PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers
WFT (20.4 +10.81%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.13 ex items vs $0.11 estimate), revs fell 6.3% yoy to $3.60 bln vs $3.71 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS of $1.10-1.20 ex items vs $1.00 estimate; hearing upgraded at Morgan Stanley
DCM (16.07 +5.38%): WSJ reporting that co will sell its Tata Teleservices stake
PFG (46.91 +4.73%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.014 ($1.06 ex items vs $0.92 estimate), revs rose 11.7% yoy to $2.5 bln vs $2.42 bln estimate

Large Cap Losers

AMZN (307.82 -8.7%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.23 vs $0.24 estimate), operating income $146 mln vs ($200)-200 mln guidance and $205 mln estimate, revs rose 22.8% yoy to $19.74 bln vs $19.42 bln estimate; sees Q2 revs of $18.1-19.8 bln vs $19.03 bln estimate
KLAC (64.05 -5.45%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.12 ($1.23 vs $1.11 estimate), revs rose 14.1% yoy to $832 mln vs $822.47 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.75-0.95 vs $1.16 estimate, revs of $700-760 mln vs $831.79 mln estimate; target lowered to $62 from $69 at Northland Capital; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co
TWTR (42.15 -5.96%): Mentioned negatively in blog article

Mid Cap Gainers

DV (46.33 +14.79%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.11 ($0.86 vs $0.75 estimate), revs fell 1.5% yoy to $496.1 mln vs $493.52 mln estimate; upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray
OTEX (49.9 +8.3%): Filed a shelf registration statement in resposne to the demand and piggyback registration requests received pursuant to the registration rights agreement entered into in connection with the acquisition of GXS Group, and to provide future financial flexibility to the company
HBI (80.07 +6.15%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.18 ($0.76 vs $0.58 estimate), revs rose 12.0% yoy to $1.06 bln vs $1.08 bln estimate; raised FY14 EPS guidance to $4.80-5.00 from $4.60-4.80 vs $4.73 estimate, reaffirmed FY14 revs of slightly less than $5.1 bln ex items vs $5.09 bln estimate; target raised to $88 from $84 at FBR Capital

Mid Cap Losers

CVLT (49.58 -27.7%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.52 ex items vs $0.47 estimate), revs rose 13.4% yoy to $156.8 mln vs $160.16 mln estimate
P (24.36 -13.6%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 (-$0.13 ex items vs -$0.14 estimate), revs rose 68.8% yoy to $194.3 mln vs $181.43 mln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of $0.00-0.03 ex items vs $0.05 estimate, revs of $213-218 mln; sees FY14 EPS of $0.14-0.18 ex items vs $0.16 estimate, revs of $880-900 mln
FSL (22.72 -12.21%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.27 vs $0.24 estimate), revs rose 14.9% yoy to $1.13 bln vs $1.09 bln estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.14-1.20 bln vs $1.13 bln estimate; appointed Dan Durn CFO following decision to retire by current CFO Alan Campbell

11:29AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (63) outpacing new lows (54) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADGE, AEP, AGN, ASX, ATO, AVA, CMS, CNL, CPK, CWEI, DTE, DV, EDN, EGAS, ESXB, FET, FWLT, GAS, GBR, GLDC, HBI, HITT, JJSF, KED, KFS, LPNT, LSCC, LSI, LSTR, MC, MDU, MJN, MO, NRG, NU, ODFL, ORM, PAC, PEBO, PEG, PGI, PNM, PPL, PSX, PTSI, QTS, ROIC, RRMS, SAIA, SIR, SMLP, SPN, SYNA, SYX, TFSL, UNT, UTL, VDSI, VLO, WBC, WFT, WR, XEL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AMRC, AQXP, ARQL, ATEN, ATV, AVD, BNFT, BTX, CACH, CFFI, CNCE, CNSI, COUP, CREE, CSLT, CVLT, CVT, CYTK, DMD, DSCI, EGRX, ESIO, FLXN, FUEL, GHDX, GOOG, HEAR, HELI, HMC, HSTM, IMPV, IPCM, ISLE, LQDT, MDWD, MRLN, NEWL, NMBL, NMR, PBPB, QLIK, QSII, RAX, RMGN, RNG, SFM, SUNS, TIGR, TXTR, UNXL, VEEV, VSTM, YNDX, ZNH

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: JJA, XLP, XLU

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


ANADIGICS (ANAD) announced high-volume production shipments of the AWT6530 quad-band ProVantage power amplifier.

8:43AM Nokia announces potential holdings by Microsoft (MSFT) in co have decreased below 5% as a result of the redemption of convertible bonds at the closing of the sale of substantially all of Nokia's Devices & Services business to MSFT (NOK) 7.30 :

Co announced that the potential holdings by Microsoft (MSFT) in Nokia have decreased below 5% as a result of the redemption of convertible bonds at the closing of the sale of substantially all of Nokia's Devices & Services business to Microsoft.
Nokia has on April 25, 2014 received flagging notification in accordance with Chapter 9, Section 5 of the Finnish Securities Markets Act from Microsoft Microsoft Asia Island and Microsoft Mobile Oy. The holdings notified relate to EUR 1.5 billion financing in the form of three convertible bonds issued by Nokia and subscribed for by Microsoft on September 2013. The conversion of the Bonds would have resulted in the acquisition of Nokia shares and related voting rights. If all the Bonds had been converted into shares of Nokia this arrangement could have led to bondholder's holdings in Nokia to be altogether 367 524 324 shares and voting rights, representing 8.9 % of all the shares and voting rights in Nokia as calculated based on current amount of shares added with shares from conversion of the Bonds.

KLAC -5.5%, (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.)

BRCM -2.1%, (also downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham ),

AMAT -0.6% and ASML -0.4% (following KLAC results),

7:07AM Plug Power prices registered offering of 22.6 mln shares of its common stock at $5.50 per share (PLUG) 6.01 :

6:59AM Nokia completes sale of substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft (MSFT), as expected (NOK) :

Co confirmed that it has completed the sale of substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft (MSFT). The transaction, which also includes an agreement to license patents to Microsoft, was originally announced on Sep 3, 2013.
As earlier communicated, the transaction was subject to potential purchase price adjustments. The estimate of the adjustments made for net working capital and cash earnings was slightly positive for Nokia, and co currently expects the total transaction price to be slightly higher than the earlier-announced transaction price of EUR 5.44 biln after the final adjustments are made based on the verified closing balance sheet.
Additionally, as is customary for transactions of this size, scale and complexity, Nokia and Microsoft made certain adjustments to the scope of the assets originally planned to transfer. These adjustments included Nokia's manufacturing facilities in Chennai in India and Masan in the Republic of Korea not transferring to Microsoft. These adjustments have no impact on the material deal terms of the transaction and Nokia will be materially compensated for any retained liabilities.

VeriSign (VRSN) reported first quarter earnings of $0.64 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 5.2% year/year to $248.8 million which is in line with estimates. The operating margin was 56.1 percent for the first quarter of 2014 compared to 56.4 percent for the same quarter in 2013. "Results of the first quarter demonstrate the fundamental soundness of our strategy and discipline in execution," commented Jim Bidzos, executive chairman, president and chief executive officer.
Microsoft (MSFT) reported third quarter earnings of $0.68 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 0.4% year/year to $20.4 billion vs $20.0-20.5 bln guidance which is line with estimates. Devices and Consumer revenue grew 12% to $8.30 bln vs. $7.8-8.1 bln guidance.Windows OEM revenue grew 4%, driven by strong 19% growth in Windows OEM Pro revenue.Office 365 Home now has 4.4 million subscribers, adding nearly 1 million subscribers in just three months.Microsoft sold in 2.0 million Xbox console units, including 1.2 million Xbox One consoles.Surface revenue grew over 50% to ~$500 million.Bing U.S. search share grew to 18.6% and search advertising revenue grew 38%.Commercial revenue grew 7% to $12.23 bln vs. the $1.2-12.4 bln guidance. Office 365 revenue grew over 100%, and commercial seats nearly doubled, demonstrating strong enterprise momentum for Microsoft's cloud productivity solutions. Azure revenue grew over 150%, and the company has announced more than 40 new features that make the Azure platform more attractive to cloud application developers. Windows volume licensing revenue grew 11%, as business customers continue to make Windows their platform of choice.Lync, SharePoint, and Exchange, our productivity server offerings, collectively grew double-digits. Microsoft expects to close the acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business on April 25, 2014. "We are making good progress in our consumer services like Bing and Office 365 Home, and our commercial customers continue to embrace our cloud solutions. Both position us well for long-term growth."
Broadcom (BRCM) reported first quarter earnings of $0.51 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 1.0% year/year to $1.98 billion which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with revenues of $2.0-2.1 billion which is line with estimates..Non-GAAP product gross margin of up ~75 to ~175 basis points from 1Q14Broadcom delivered overall results ahead of expectations in the March quarter," said Scott McGregor, Broadcom's President and Chief Executive Officer.The upside was driven by strength in Broadband and Infrastructure, stronger-than-expected gross margins and continued operating expense discipline."In the current quarter, we expect momentum in Infrastructure and Broadband to continue, driven by service provider spending on network build outs and technology upgrades."
Baidu.com (BIDU) reported first quarter earnings of $1.24 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 59.0% year/year to $1.53 billion which is below estimates. Online marketing revenues were $1.509 billion, representing a 57.5% increase from the corresponding period in 2013. Baidu had about 446,000 active online marketing customers, representing an 8.8% increase y/y and a 1.1% decrease q/q. Revenue per online marketing customer was approximately $3,362, a 44.1% increase y/y and flat q/q. Traffic acquisition cost as a component of cost of revenues was $190.1 million, representing 12.4% of total revenues, as compared to 10.2% in the corresponding period in 2013 and 12.3% in 4Q13. The year-over-year increase mainly reflects increased contextual ads contributions and the promotion of Hao123 through the Company's network.Bandwidth costs as a component of cost of revenues were $103.9 million, representing 6.8% of total revenues, compared to 6.8% in the corresponding period in 2013. Content costs as a component of cost of revenues were RMB393.6 million ($63.3 million), representing 4.1% of total revenues, compared to 1.6% in the corresponding period in 2013, and 3.8% in the previous quarter. The increase was mainly due to iQiyi's increased content costs. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with revenues of $1.901-1.948 billion which is higher than expected.

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The stock market began the new week on a mixed note despite showing early strength. Weakness among small-cap names resulted in the underperformance of the Russell 2000 (-0.6%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.03%), while the S&P 500 settled higher by 0.3%.

Equity indices climbed out of the gate, emboldened by M&A activity in the heavily-weighted health care sector (+0.6%). The third-largest group served as an early leader with help from Pfizer (PFE 32.04, +1.29), which jumped 4.2% after confirming its interest in AstraZeneca (AZN 77.01, +8.35). Also of note, Forest Laboratories (FRX 89.50, -0.34) agreed to acquire Furiex Pharmaceuticals (FURX 103.05, +22.90) for $1.1 billion.

Even though the health care sector rallied at the open, the broader market was unable to build on the strength as weakness in momentum names-including biotechnology-outweighed the early optimism. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 223.06, -0.90) spent the entire session between its 20- and 200-day moving averages before settling just above the 200-day average.

Elsewhere, other momentum names that have been volatile throughout April, remained unable to stage a rebound, which suggests the retreat in early April may not have fully run its course. For example, Amazon.com (AMZN 296.58, -7.25), Facebook (FB 56.14, -1.57), LinkedIn (LNKD 148.06, -10.11), and Yelp (YELP 55.55, -2.08) all lost between 2.4% and 6.4%. Interestingly, the losses in high-beta tech names did not scare investors away from large caps. Apple (AAPL 594.09, +22.15), IBM (IBM 193.14, +3.51), and Microsoft (MSFT 40.87, +0.96) advanced between 1.9% and 3.9%.

The relative strength of large cap issues was on display within the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%), which outperformed throughout the session as 22 of 30 components posted gains.

However, not all large caps displayed comparable strength as the financial sector (-0.6%) lagged throughout the session. Bank of America (BAC 14.95, -1.00) fell 6.3% after announcing an adjustment to its estimated regulatory capital ratios, which will require the bank to submit a new capital plan to the Fed. The stock ended near its session low, while the financial sector was able to reclaim the bulk of its losses during the afternoon as equity indices rallied off their lows.

Treasuries spent the entire session in the red, ending near their lows. The 10-yr note lost ten ticks, pushing its yield up to 2.70%.

Participation was above average as 804 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the Pending Home Sales report for March, which increased 3.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%. Today's reading followed last month's revised decrease of 0.5% (from -0.8%).

Tomorrow, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index (Briefing.com consensus +13.0%) will be released at 9:00 ET, while the Consumer Confidence survey for April (consensus 83.6) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.8% YTD

DJ30 +87.28 NASDAQ -1.16 SP500 +6.03 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1003/2.15 bln/1726 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1599/803.9 mln/1459

3:30 pm :

June gold pulled back into negative territory from its session high of $1303.90 per ounce set in early morning pit trade. It touched a session low of $1292.10 per ounce after economic data showed that Pending Home Sales in March increased 3.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%. The yellow metal managed to inch slightly higher as the session progressed and cut losses to 0.1% as it closed at $1299.00 per ounce.
May silver retreated into the red after touching a session high of $19.72 per ounce in morning action. It traded as low as $19.47 per ounce and settled at $19.59 per ounce, or 0.5% lower.
June crude pulled back from its session high of $101.36 per barrel set at pit trade open and chopped around the unchanged level for most of the session. It brushed a session low of $100.23 per barrel and eventually settled with a 0.3% gain at $100.85 per barrel.
June natural gas climbed as high as $4.81 per MMBtu after lifting from a session low of $4.74 per MMBtu in morning floor action. It settled at $4.79 per MMBtu, or 2.8% higher.

4:44PM STMicroelectronics beats by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q2 rev midpoint below consensus (STM) 9.21 +0.10 : Reports Q1 (Mar) adj. loss of $0.01 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.04); revenues fell 9.2% year/year to $1.83 bln vs the $1.85 bln consensus.

ST`s first quarter revenues, excluding legacy ST-Ericsson products, grew 0.7% on a year-over-year basis and decreased 6.4% sequentially. First quarter total revenues, including legacy ST-Ericsson products, decreased year-over-year and sequentially by 9.2% and 9.4%, respectively.Microcontroller, Memory, and Secure MCU (MMS) and Automotive (APG) led the product lines with year-over-year revenue growth of 15.6% and 15.5%, respectively.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs -1.5% to +5.5% QoQ to ~$1.80-1.93 bln vs. $1.93 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. As a result, gross margin in the second quarter is expected to be about 33.6%, plus or minus 2.0 percentage points.
As anticipated, ST-Ericsson`s legacy products are winding down and revenues are expected to be less than half of the $63 million recorded in the first quarter."We are encouraged by the signs of improvement in the macro-economic environment generally and by specific product dynamics expected in the next several quarters. In the second quarter, we see opportunities to continue to expand our customer base, driven by strength in microcontrollers, automotive and industrial, and power applications and by the initial recovery of the Embedded Processing Solutions segment.

4:33PM Ultra Clean Holdings misses by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (UCTT) 11.81 +0.23 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.29; revenues rose 43.5% year/year to $144.2 mln vs the $137.43 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.18-0.21 vs. $0.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $128-133 mln vs. $132.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus
"Results for the last quarter were mixed for UCT. We had our best revenue results ever and we exceeded our revenue guidance for the quarter. However, our gross margins for the quarter were lower than expected when we compare this quarter to what we achieved in the previous quarter. As I have mentioned previously, one of our goals has been to achieve gross margins in the 15-18% range, and I am pleased that we continue to operate within this range."

4:09PM Amkor beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (AMKR) 7.07 -0.09 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.02; revenues rose 1.2% year/year to $696 mln vs the $678.47 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.08-0.18, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $735-785 mln vs. $732.85 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:09PM Luminex beats by $0.14, beats on revs; reaffirms FY14 revs guidance (LMNX) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues rose 6.4% year/year to $56.6 mln vs the $55.45 mln consensus.

Co reaffirms guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $225-240 mln vs. $230.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We are pleased with the overall financial performance in the first quarter of 2014, which benefited from a concentration of our higher margin items, consumables, royalties and assays. In addition, by managing spending levels across our operating expense classes, we were able to deliver excellent operating leverage and improved performance at the net profit line."

12:44PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

AZN (77.42 +12.76%): Pfizer (PFE) confirmed prior discussions with AZN regarding a possible combination and its continuing interest in a possible merger transaction
ROP (137.11 +6.04%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.11 ($1.46 vs $1.35 estimate), revs rose 13.1% yoy to $834 mln vs $823.59 mln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of $1.46-1.51 vs $1.46 estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $6.22-6.36 (raised from $6.05-6.25) vs $6.20 estimate
CHTR (136.9 +5.30%): Reported Q1 loss of -$0.35 per share, revs rose 7.5% yoy to $2.2 bln vs $2.18 bln estimate; Q1 EBITDA grew by 7.3% yoy on a pro forma basis

Large Cap Losers

LNKD (146.03 -7.67%): Mentioned cautiously at Barron's
NOV (77.69 -6.92%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($1.40 ex $0.03 tax charge vs $1.39 estimate), revs rose 8.9% yoy to $5.78 bln vs $5.79 bln estimate
NEM (24.75 -6.43%): Co released a letter to Barrick Gold Corp (ABX) Board of Directors saying 'Our efforts to find consensus have been rejected out of hand repeatedly'

Mid Cap Gainers

NRF (17.52 +9.30%): Reuters reporting co is in discussions regarding a potential acquisition by American Realty Capital Properties (ARCP)
JCP (8.55 +7.14%): Mentioned positively by tier 1 firm
TECH (89.48 +6.68%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.94 ex items vs $0.89 estimate), revs rose 18.0% yoy to $95.6 mln vs $92.5 mln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

OZM (11.58 -10.44%): WSJ reporting that certain of the company's loans are being investigated by the SEC and the Justice Department
EDU (23.57 -9.28%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.30 vs $0.29 estimate), revs rose 16.4% yoy to $254.4 mln vs $266.99 mln estimate; sees Q4 revs of $278-287.6 mln vs $295.77 mln estimate
SOHU (52.72 -9.1%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.13 (-$1.26 ex items vs -$1.13 estimate, revs rose 18.5% yoy to $365 mln vs $366.33 mln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of -$1.35 to -$1.25, revs of $397-411 mln vs $409.9 mln estimate

11:51AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (96) even with new lows (96) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ABG, ADGE, AEP, AGN, AGRO, ARLP, ASX, ATO, AWK, AZN, BAH, BLL, BRK.A, BRK.B, BTI, BUD, CCK, CHC, CHD, CHMI, CHSP, CL, CLCT, CMS, CNL, CPK, CRESY, CWEI, CXP, D, DYN, EGAS, ESXB, EXR, GAS, GIS, GTIM, GXP, HCA, HFC, JFBI, JJSF, JNJ, KED, KR, LCUT, LPNT, LSI, MEMP, MO, MPET, NEE, NRF, NRG, NS, NU, NWE, ODFL, OPB, ORM, PAHC, PEG, PNM, POM, PPL, PSX, PTSI, QTS, RDS.B, REV, SAIA, SEP, SGU, SJT, SNDK, SPRO, SPWH, SRE, SUSP, SUSS, SYRG, SYX, TOT, TSLX, UGI, UNT, UTL, VLO, VNO, VVC, WEC, WFT, WNRL, WR, XEL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAT, ACFN, ADVS, AMRC, AMSC, AMWD, ANGI, AQXP, ARQL, ATEA, ATHX, AUY, AXR, BLFS, BNFT, BTX, CACH, CCCR, CHOP, CNSI, COUP, CREE, CRMB, CRTO, CSLT, CVLT, CYOU, CYTK, DARA, DGII, DMD, EGRX, ESIO, EVRY, FBR, FCBC, FLXN, FUEL, GES, GHDX, GOOG, GSH, HAE, HELI, HMC, ICUI, IGT, IMI, IMPV, IPCM, KBR, LCNB, LITB, LNKD, LQDT, LUB, MDWD, MRLN, N, NEWL, NMBL, NMR, NSPH, NSR, OGXI, OIBR, OIBR.C, OSTK, PAL, PROV, QLIK, QSII, QTM, RARE, RUBI, SEAC, SFLY, SFM, SIGM, SINA, SOQ, SPEX, SUNS, SWSH, TCS, TECUA, TGE, TOPS, TWMC, TXTR, UNXL, VEEV, VRNS, VSTM, WLT, ZAZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DJP, DVY, FXB, IOO, IYK, JJA, RJA, XLP, XLU

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

8:09AM Skyworks and Panasonic (PCRFY) Form JV for High Performance Filter Solutions; Skyworks Acquires Majority Interest for cash payment of $148.5 mln and Expects Transaction to be Immediately Accretive to Margins and EPS (SWKS) 41.46 : Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) announced the creation of a joint venture with Panasonic Corporation to design, develop and deliver high performance filters including surface acoustic wave (SAW) and temperature compensated (TC) SAW devices.

At closing, Skyworks will hold 66 percent of the newly created entity with Panasonic retaining 34 percent. The transaction encompasses the products, working capital, manufacturing equipment and intellectual property of Panasonic's Filter Division.
The joint venture will be comprised of approximately 590 employees and headquartered in Osaka, Japan with design centers and operations at facilities in Japan and Singapore. For consideration,
Skyworks will make a cash payment of $148.5 million to Panasonic for its share of the new venture. This investment is expected to be immediately accretive to Skyworks' margins and earnings per share. Skyworks and Panasonic expect the transaction to close before the end of the third calendar quarter of 2014, subject to customary closing conditions.

Xilinx (XLNX) announced immediate availability of the spring 2014 edition of its user magazine, Xcell Journal. Issue 87's cover story examines Xilinx's new Software Defined Specification Environment for Networking.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market rallied on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 (+0.5%) posting its second consecutive gain as eight sectors ended in the green. Momentum names, meanwhile, rebounded from yesterday's relative weakness, which allowed the Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) to finish ahead of the benchmark index.

Equity indices began the session on an upbeat note, slowly building on their early gains throughout the afternoon. The energy sector (+0.4%) powered the opening advance thanks to better than expected earnings from BP (BP 50.29, +1.25) and Valero Energy (VLO 56.84, -1.13). BP surged 2.6%, while Valero displayed early strength, but spent the session in a steady retreat from its opening high, which mirrored the price action of the entire sector.

The solid early gain in the energy sector kept the S&P 500 in the green during the first hour of action, while the Nasdaq briefly dipped into the red. The short-lived weakness in the tech-heavy index resulted from the underperformance of top-weighted components, but those names were able to rebound. For its part, the broader technology sector advanced 0.7%, finishing only behind the financial sector (+1.0%).

The economically-sensitive financial sector drew strength from a slew of top components, with Bank of America (BAC 15.24, +0.29) leading the charge. The stock gained 1.9% following yesterday's 6.3% loss. International financials had an even better showing, with Deutsche Bank (DB 44.45, +0.88) gaining 2.0% after reporting above-consensus results. Also of note, Standard & Poor's lowered the ratings of 15 European banks-including Deutsche Bank-to 'Negative' from 'Stable,' but the stock saw little reaction to the news.

In addition to receiving support from two of its largest sectors, the market was also underpinned by the health care space (+0.6%), where Dow component Merck (MRK 58.72, +2.04) rallied 3.6% in reaction to its bottom-line beat. Biotechnology, meanwhile, played along today as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 229.09, +6.03) gained 2.7%.

On the downside, consumer staples (-0.4%) and utilities (-0.4%) posted modest losses, with the utilities sector narrowing its 2014 gain to 13.4%.

Treasuries finished the session with slim gains, punctuating their session-long retreat from overnight lows. As a result, the benchmark 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.69%.

Participation was essentially in line with average as 724 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data featured two reports:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 82.3 in April from an upwardly revised 83.9 (from 82.3) in March. The Briefing.com consensus pegged the Consumer Confidence Index at 83.5. The Present Situation Index fell to 78.3 in April from 82.5 in March. The Expectations Index increased slightly, from 84.8 in March to 84.9 in April. The overall decline in confidence was a little unusual. Typically, confidence levels trend with employment conditions, equity prices, gasoline costs, and media reports. Extremely low layoff levels coupled with a generally rising stock market in April resulted in a large increase in the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. Those factors were expected, yet they failed to push the Consumer Confidence Index higher.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for February rose 13.2% while a 13.0% increase had been expected by the Briefing.com consensus. This follows the previous month's increase of 13.2%.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index will be released at 7:00 ET and the ADP Employment Change for April (Briefing.com consensus 215,000) will be announced at 8:15 ET. The advance reading of Q1 GDP (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) will be released at 8:30 ET, while the Chicago PMI report (consensus 56.5) for April will cross the wires at 9:45 ET. Finally, the Federal Open Market Committee will release its latest policy directive at 14:00 ET.

S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.6% YTD

DJ30 +86.63 NASDAQ +29.14 SP500 +8.90 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1385/1.79 bln/1242 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1835/723.8 mln/1226

3:30 pm :

June gold chopped around slightly below the unchanged level for most of today's floor trade as the dollar index traded higher. The FOMC began a two-day meeting on rates and policy and will issue a rate decision tomorrow. The yellow metal lifted from its session low of $1289.20 per ounce set in early morning action and peaked at a session high of $1302.00 per ounce. It eventually settled at $1296.20 per ounce, or 0.2% lower.
July silver spent its entire pit session in the red, trading as low as $19.36 per ounce. It settled with a 0.4% loss at $19.54 per ounce, slightly below its session high of $19.57 per ounce.
June crude oil extended yesterday's gains, advancing as high as $102.25 per barrel. Prices pulled back in late morning action and brushed a session low of $100.87 per barrel. The energy component eventually settled with a 0.4% gain at $101.27 per barrel.
June natural gas climbed into positive territory after touching a session low of $4.76 per MMbtu in morning action. It brushed a session high of $4.85 per MMBtu and settled with a 0.8% gain at $4.83 per MMBtu.

5:01PM Brooks Automation announces agreement to acquire DMS, a provider of automated systems to the semiconductor front-end market, for ~$31 mln (BRKS) 10.11 -0.32 : Co announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Dynamic Micro Systems Semiconductor Equipment GmbH ("DMS"). DMS, based in Radolfzell, Germany, provides automated cleaner and stocker products for wafer and reticle carrier devices used in the global semiconductor front-end markets. The cash purchase price is approximately $31 million, subject to an adjustment for working capital at closing. The acquisition is expected to close within the next two weeks upon satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

DMS generated approximately $28 million in revenue for calendar 2013 and because of its many synergies with Brooks, management expects it to become accretive to Brooks' earnings by the first half of fiscal 2015. The Company indicated that further details related to the acquisition will be provided on the regularly scheduled second quarter earnings conference call on May 8, 2014.

4:54PM Juniper Networks collaborates with Gainspeed to deliver virtualized converged cable access platform (JNPR) 24.28 +0.25 :

Co announced the Virtual Converged Cable Access Platform, a solution from its collaboration with Gainspeed that will enable cable operators to readily address growing consumer demand for data services over cable networks.
The Juniper Networks and Gainspeed integrated Virtual CCAP solution will allow cable operators to deliver nearly a 10 times increase in scale and data capacity, while enabling new revenue and service models by leveraging advances in modern silicon, systems packaging, cloud computing and software defined networking

4:31PM Cray misses by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus; guides FY14 revs in-line (CRAY) 32.43 +0.93 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.46 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.43); revenues fell 30.7% year/year to $55.11 mln vs the $51.1 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $75 mln vs. $98.30 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $600 mln vs. $599.40 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Revenue is expected to ramp quarterly during 2014, with about $75 mln for the second quarter and somewhat more
than 50% of the year weighted to the fourth quarter
Non-GAAP gross margin for 2014 is anticipated to be in the mid-30% range
Total non-GAAP operating expenses for the year are anticipated to be about $175 mln
Company expects to be profitable on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis for 2014

4:24PM SolarWinds beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; guides FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SWI) 42.51 +0.91 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.41 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.36; revenues rose 31.5% year/year to $95.91 mln vs the $93.68 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.35-0.37 vs. $0.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $96.5-98.5 vs. $98.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $1.60-1.70 vs. $1.61 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $409-421 mln vs. $415.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Combined maintenance and subscription revenue for the first quarter of $59.6 million, representing 41% year-over-year growth in recurring revenue.
License revenue for the first quarter of $36.4 million, representing 18% year-over-year growth.

4:20PM eBay beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; reaffirms FY14 EPS guidance, revs guidance (EBAY) 54.54 +0.90 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.70 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.67; revenues rose 13.7% year/year to $4.26 bln vs the $4.22 bln consensus.

PayPal net total payment volume (TPV) grew 27% with Merchant Services volume up 32% and on-eBay volume up 15%. Revenue grew to $1.8 billion. PayPal gained 5.8 million new active registered accounts to end the quarter at 148 million, up 16%.
eBay Marketplaces gross merchandise volume (GMV) grew 12%, with the U.S. up 11% and International up 13%. Revenue grew to $2.2 billion. Marketplaces gained 4.7 million new buyers to end the quarter with 145 million active buyers, up 14%.
Co issues mixed guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.67-0.69, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.70 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $4.325-4.425 bln vs. $4.39 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co reaffirms guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $2.95-3.00, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.99 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $18.0-18.5 bln vs. $18.25 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:16PM FEI misses by $0.08, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (FEIC) 88.80 -1.20 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.59 per share, $0.08 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.67; revenues rose 2.3% year/year to $226.3 mln vs the $235.21 mln consensus. The gross margin in the first quarter was 47.0%, compared with 46.4% in the first quarter of 2013 and 47.0% the fourth quarter of 2013. Bookings in the first quarter were $247.3 million, compared with bookings of $230.7 million in the first quarter of 2013 and $256.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. The book-to-bill ratio in the quarter was 1.09-to-1 and the backlog at the end of the quarter was $494.6 million.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.65-0.75 vs. $0.93 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $230-240 mln vs. $262.74 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:16PM Nanometrics beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (NANO) 16.16 -0.84 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.08; revenues rose 109.8% year/year to $51.6 mln vs the $51.16 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of (0.03) - $0.08, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $47-51 mln vs. $53.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:13PM Twitter beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line; guides FY14 revs in-line (TWTR) 42.62 +1.89 : Reports Q1 (Mar) net of breakeven, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.03); revenues rose 119.7% year/year to $250.5 mln vs the $241.71 mln consensus.

Revenues
Ad revs $226 mln, up 125% y/y, Q4 ad revs $220 mln
Mobile ad revenue approx 80% of ad revs
International revenue $70 mln, up 183% y/y
TWTR reports Q1 Average Monthly Active Users were 255 mln; Street expectations were 255 mln, Q4 was 241 mln. Mobile MAUs reached 198 mln, an increase of 31% y/y, represents 78% of total MAU
Timeline views reached 157 bln, up 15% y/y, 148 bln in Q4
Advertising Revenue per thousand views was $1.44, up 96% y/y; $1.49 in Q4

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $270-280 mln vs. $273.21 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Adjusted EBITDA expected to be between $25-30 mln

Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $1.200-1.250 bln vs. $1.24 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Prior guidance $1.150-1.200 bln

Adjusted EBITDA expected to be between $180-225 mln, prior guidance $150-180 mln
CapEx expected to be in the range of $330-390 mln, in line with prior guidance

4:09PM Riverbed Technology beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (RVBD) 19.70 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.23; revenues rose 7.8% year/year to $265.4 mln vs the $265.83 mln consensus.

"Our first quarter results are a strong proof point supporting our strategy to bring value to our customers by optimizing the delivery of applications and data on a global scale and to deliver profitable returns to our shareholders...Year-over-year revenue growth was led by WAN optimization and strength in enterprise and international sales. We are also very encouraged by our performance management business with increasing revenue from channel partners and significant growth in Europe."

4:09PM RF Micro Device beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (RFMD) 8.09 -0.02 : Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues fell 8.8% year/year to $256 mln vs the $255.61 mln consensus. Non-GAAP Gross Margin was 42%.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.17 vs. $0.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $305 mln vs. $277.19 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Expects Q1 non-GAAP gross margin to expand sequentially by approximately 150 to 200 basis points
Expects non-GAAP operating expenses to be approximately flat sequentially
Expects a non-GAAP tax rate of approximately 15%

4:06PM Seagate Tech beats by $0.09, reports revs in-line (STX) 53.49 +0.89 : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.25; revenues fell 3.4% year/year to $3.41 bln vs the $3.42 bln consensus and $3.4 bln guidance; non-GAAP margin 28.5%.

4:06PM Lam Research initiates quarterly dividend of $0.18 per share; announces $850 mln share repurchase authorization (LRCX) 56.27 -0.25 : LRCX announced that its Board of Directors has approved a $1.0 billion capital return program with the initiation of co's first ever quarterly dividend and an $850 million share repurchase authorization with execution currently planned over the next two year timeframe.

Co plans to declare a quarterly dividend of $0.18 per share of common stock equivalent to an annual yield of approximately 1.27% based on the April 28, 2014 closing stock price of $56.52. On an annualized basis, this will return approximately $117 million to shareholders based on shares outstanding as of March 30, 2014. The first dividend payment has been declared and will be made on July 2, 2014 to holders of record on June 11, 2014. Future dividend payments are subject to review and approval by the Board.
Additionally, co is authorized to repurchase up to $850 million of common stock, which includes approximately $49 million available under the company's prior authorization in the amount of $250 million. Repurchases may be made through both public market and private transactions, and may include the use of derivative contracts and structured share repurchase agreements. The share repurchase program may be suspended or discontinued at any time and does not have a set expiration.

4:01PM Cray signs $70 mln supercomputer contract with the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (CRAY) 32.43 +0.93 : Co announced that it has been awarded a $70 million contract to provide a next-generation Cray XC supercomputer to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC).

12:30PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BSBR (6.66 +15.22%): Banco Santander (SAN) announced an offer to acquire 25% of its Brazilian subsidiary, BSBR; SAN will offer a 20% premium over the last closing market price.
S (8.13 +9.42%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; raised FY14 adjusted EBITDA guidance.
MGM (24.83 +7.86%): Beat on EPS by $0.12, beat on revs; Q1 Strip Rev Par topped co's guidance; sees Q2 LV Strip RevPAR +5% vs. 14% in Q1; Gaming Board reported March gaming win +10.9% YoY to $560.8 mln on the Las Vegas Strip; +7.6% YoY to $982.2 mln statewide.

Large Cap Losers

COH (46.14 -8.49%): Beat on EPS by $0.07, missed on revs; Q3 N Am comps of -21%; tgt lowered to $42 at Canaccord Genuity.
ABB (24.15 -8.04%): Missed on EPS by $0.10, missed on revs; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Societe Generale.
ROK (116.76 -6.24%): Missed on EPS by $0.09, reported revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line.

Mid Cap Gainers

WLK (72.75 +13.34%): Announced filing of registration statement for Westlake Chemical Partners LP IPO.
WWW (29.44 +11.1%): Beat on EPS by $0.08, reported revs in-line; reaffirmed FY14 EPS guidance, revs guidance.
SGY (49.35 +10.45%): Announced Cardona South drilling success on the deep water Cardona South well at Mississippi Canyon 29; tgt raised to $53 from $48 at MLV & Co.

Mid Cap Losers

DDD (44.67 -9.32%): Reported EPS in-line, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY14 guidance.
JEC (56.45 -9.24%): Missed on EPS by $0.26, missed on revs.
SLAB (44.97 -8.18%): Reported EPS in-line, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.

11:46AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (110) outpacing new lows (68) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, AAV, ACMP, AEP, AGN, AGRO, AHGP, ALL, AMKR, ANDE, ARLP, ATK, ATO, AVA, AWK, BAH, BRK.A, BRK.B, BTI, BUD, BXE, CHD, CHDX, CHSP, CLR, CM, CMI, CNQ, CNX, COP, DYN, EBR, ECA, EGY, ERF, ESXB, ETR, EXR, FPI, FUR, GAS, GIS, HFC, IMO, IPHS, IRS, ITUB, JNJ, KED, KLIC, KR, LAWS, LO, LSI, MDLZ, MDU, MEMP, MO, MRK, NGG, NORD, NS, NU, NWE, OABC, OILT, OKE, ORAN, ORB, PAC, PAM, PEG, PF, PNM, PNY, POM, POR, PRE, PSA, PSX, RDNT, RDS.B, ROIC, SAN, SE, SGY, SJT, SLB, SOHO, SPIL, SRE, STO, SU, SWHC, SYX, TCP, TFSL, TOT, TSLX, UGI, UTL, VET, VLO, VNO, VTL, VTNR, VVC, WLK, WNR, XOM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACFN, ACPW, AMBT, AMWD, ANAD, AQXP, ATEA, AVD, AVEO, AXGN, BGC, BHLB, BLFS, BNFT, BNNY, BV, CAS, CCCL, CHOP, CNSI, CTHR, CVLT, CVT, EGRX, ESIO, ESNT, EVRY, FLXN, FSBW, GLMD, GTLS, HEAR, HELI, HWCC, IMPV, IPCM, LEI, MCGC, MGT, MITK, MTH, N, NEWL, NMBL, NSR, OIBR, OIBR.C, OPWR, PTSX, QNST, QTM, QTWO, RMGN, RTEC, SEAC, SIGM, STAY, SUSQ, SWSH, TCS, TECUA, TEU, TGE, TIGR, TOPS, TWMC, TXTR, ZNH

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIG, DVY, EWC, EWK, EWQ, EZU, FXB, IGE, IOO, IXC, IYE, PPH, SDY, XLE, XLU

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


Vicor (VICR) announced that its Intel (INTC) VR12.5-compliant, 48 V direct-to-processor power conversion solution is now shipping in volume to OEMs.

8:32AM Apple announced an updated MacBook Air, now starting at $899 (AAPL) 594.09 : Apple announced an updated MacBook Air with faster processors and lower prices, "making the perfect everyday notebook an even better value."

"Now starting at $899, MacBook Air features powerful processors, fast flash storage, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, up to 12 hours of battery life and Apple's iLife and iWork apps, giving you everything you need to handle all your work, all day long."
The 11-inch MacBook Air comes with a 1.4 GHz processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.7 GHz, 4GB of memory and is available with 128GB of flash storage starting at $899 (US), and 256GB of flash storage starting at $1,099 (US). The 13-inch MacBook Air comes with a 1.4 GHz processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.7 GHz, 4GB of memory and is available with 128GB of flash storage starting at $999 (US), and 256GB of flash storage starting at $1,199 (US).

NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) announced that in its recent report, 'Competitive Landscaping Tool -- Annual Detail - 2014 Worldwide Semiconductor Market Share', industry analyst HIS reported that NXP notched a significant increase in total sales. The report also confirmed that NXP has continued to extend its overall leadership in standard products worldwide.

8:07AM SunEdison closes financing to build 60 MW utility solar power plant (SUNE) 18.82 : Co announces that it has closed on construction financing underwritten by Deutsche Bank Securities. The funds will be used to construct the 60 megawatt alternating current Regulus solar power plant located in Kern County.

"Regulus is our largest North America project to date and is evidence of the momentum we are building in the California utility scale solar market. In the past month we've announced completion on the Adobe and Cascade projects which total nearly 40 MW AC. We look forward to participating in the continued growth of the California solar market."

STMicroelectronics (STM 9.46, +0.25): +2.7% after beating earnings estimates on below-consensus revenue.

7:45AM Aixtron misses by EUR0.04, misses on revs; reaffirms FY14 guidance (AIXG) 15.98 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of 0.11 per share, 0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ( 0.07); revenues rose 9.2% year/year to 43.9 mln vs the 44.56 mln consensus.

AIXTRON's order intake in Q1/2014 improved by 26% year-on-year to EUR 37.7m. Sequentially, orders remained stable reflecting a slightly more positive market sentiment (Q1/2013: EUR 29.9m; Q4/2013: EUR 37.1m).

Co reaffirms guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs in-line with last year (EUR 182.9 mln) vs. 215.39 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Management reiterates its guidance made at the end of February for 2014, for this year's revenues to be in line with those of last year. Concurrently, the Company is not expected to be profitable on an EBIT basis over the course of this year. Nevertheless, mgmt expects a year-on-year improvement in earnings due to progress made in cost savings and restructuring.

Microsemi (MSCC) expanded the co's mainstream SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA and IGLOO2 FPGA families with full military temperature-qualified and tested devices (-55 degrees C to +125 degrees C).

7:09AM LKQ reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides FY14 EPS in-line (LKQ) 27.22 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.34 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.34; revenues rose 35.9% year/year to $1.63 bln vs the $1.57 bln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $1.30-1.40 vs. $1.37 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co sees organic growth of its parts & services to be 8-10%. Sees 2014 cash flow from operations of approx $375 mln.
Sees CapEx in the range of $110-140 mln.

6:57AM Kulicke & Soffa beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs above consensus (KLIC) 12.63 : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 7.6% year/year to $114.2 mln vs the $115 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $165-175 mln vs. $154.42 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"Revenue in our second fiscal quarter was in the mid-range of our guidance and represented a 44% sequential increase. Our ability to generate strong gross margins was due, in part, to the strong contributions from wedge bonding, stud bumping, tools, and our service solutions, and the positive impact of our flexible manufacturing model. In addition, efforts in advanced packaging continue to produce outstanding results as the development team continues to innovate and produce deliverables against an aggressive road map."

6:08AM Silicon Labs reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (SLAB) 48.98 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.42; revenues rose 0.2% year/year to $145.7 mln vs the $144.01 mln consensus.
Business Highlights

Gross margin was 60.2%
Broad-based revenue was $72.3 million, essentially flat sequentially, as expected.
Broadcast exceeded expectations with revenue of $50.7 million, including record revenue in video.
Access revenue decreased slightly, as expected, to $22.7 million.

Guidance:
Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.43-0.47, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $147-151 mln vs. $149.91 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

5:40AM Nokia reports EPS in-line, misses on revs (NOK) 7.03 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of EUR0.03 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of EUR0.03; revenues fell 54.5% year/year to EUR2.66 bln vs the EUR2.84 bln consensus.
Outlook:

Co Reaffirms FY14 Networks' non-IFRS operating margin to the higher end of 5-10% target, now expects net sales to grow YoY
Co Reaffirms FY14 capex EUR200M
Continues to expect the Technologies annualized net sales run rate to expand to approximately EUR 600 million during 2014, now that Microsoft has become a more significant intellectual property licensee in conjunction with the sale of substantially all of our Devices & Services business.
Expects software sales to comprise a lower proportion of Networks' second quarter 2014 net sales compared to the first quarter 2014, which is expected to negatively affect Networks' second quarter 2014 non-IFRS operating margin

3:47AM Jacobs misses by $0.26, misses on revs (JEC) 62.20 : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.63 per share, $0.26 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.89; revenues rose 12.0% year/year to $3.18 bln vs the $3.33 bln consensus.

Backlog:
Jacobs also announced total backlog of $18.4 billion at March 28, 2014, including a technical professional services component of $12.6 billion. This is up approximately 10% from total backlog and up approximately 15% from technical professional services backlog of $16.8 billion and $10.9 billion, respectively, at March 29, 2013.

Designed to enable the best user experience on today's most popular and innovative PCs, AMD (AMD) announced its 3rd-generation Mainstream and Low-Power Mobile Accelerated Processing Units.

2:15AM Cirrus Logic agrees to acquire Wolfson Microelectronics; expected to be accretive in first full Q after closing (CRUS) 22.01 : Cirrus Logic and Wolfson Microelectronics announce the terms of a recommended transaction under which Cirrus Logic would acquire Wolfson at a price of 2.35 per share in cash, implying an enterprise value of 278 million, or ~$467 million. The transaction, if approved, is expected to strengthen Cirrus Logic's ability to expand its customer base with highly differentiated, end-to-end audio solutions for portable audio applications. The transaction will be financed by a combination of existing cash on Cirrus Logic's balance sheet and $225 million in debt funding.

The acquisition is expected to be completed in the second half of 2014.
Cirrus Logic expects the acquisition to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings per share in the first full quarter after the transaction closes

1:56AM Nokia appoints Rajeev Suri as President and CEO and announces new strategy, program to optimize capital structure, and leadership team (NOK) 7.03 : Having completed the sale of substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft on April 25, 2014, Nokia today announced the following:

The appointment of Rajeev Suri as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective May 1, 2014
A vision to be a leader in technologies important in a connected world
A strategy to realize that vision by building on Nokia's three strong businesses in networks, location and technologies
Plans for a EUR 5 billion program to optimize its capital structure, including the Nokia Board's proposal to the Annual General Meeting 2014 for the dividend and for an authorization for the Board to repurchase shares
A new governance structure and the appointment of a new leadership team, effective May 1, 2014.

To improve the efficiency of Nokia's capital structure, the Nokia Board is announcing plans for a EUR 5 billion capital structure optimization program which focuses on recommencing ordinary dividends, distributing deemed excess capital to shareholders, and reducing interest bearing debt. This comprehensive program consists of the following components:

Recommencement of ordinary dividend payments, with at least EUR 800 million of ordinary dividends in total planned for 2013 and 2014, as follows:
An ordinary dividend for 2013 of EUR 0.11 per share (~EUR 400 million), subject to shareholder approval in 2014
A planned ordinary dividend for 2014 of at least EUR 0.11 per share (at least ~EUR 400 million), subject to shareholder approval in 2015
A special dividend of EUR 0.26 per share, subject to shareholder approval in 2014 (~EUR 1 billion)
A EUR 1.25 billion share repurchase program, subject to the authorization to the Board by the shareholders in 2014
Debt reduction of ~EUR 2 billion by the end of the second quarter 2016

Ultra Clean Holdings (UCTT) reported first quarter earnings of $0.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is worse than expected, while revenues rose 43.5% year/year to $144.2 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $0.18-0.21 which is worse than expected with revenues of $128-133 million which is in line with estimates. 'Results for the last quarter were mixed for UCT. We had our best revenue results ever and we exceeded our revenue guidance for the quarter. However, our gross margins for the quarter were lower than expected when we compare this quarter to what we achieved in the previous quarter. As I have mentioned previously, one of our goals has been to achieve gross margins in the 15-18% range, and I am pleased that we continue to operate within this range."

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equity indices spent some time on either side of their respective flat lines on Wednesday, but when the dust settled, they ended with modest gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all added 0.3%, with the Dow registering a new record closing high at 16,580.84, which represented its first green close for the year.

Today's session featured another heavy dose of earnings and a full slate of economic data. Prior to the open, index futures jumped in reaction to a better-than-expected ADP Employment report, but promptly surrendered those gains when it was reported that GDP increased a puny 0.1% in the first quarter (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%).

The disappointing report ensured a lower start for the major averages, but they only took one more step down before forging a rebound on the back of the industrial sector (+0.5%), which drew strength from transports. The Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 0.7%, bolstered by above-consensus earnings reported by C.H. Robinson (CHRW 58.90, +2.91).

The S&P 500 and Dow were able to reclaim their flat lines within the first hour of action, while the Nasdaq remained in the red a bit longer as biotechnology and high-beta tech names weighed.

After clawing back to unchanged, the key indices maintained narrow ranges until the Federal Open Market Committee released its latest policy statement, which called for another $10 billion reduction to monthly asset purchases, lowering the total to $45 billion.

There were few changes overall in the language the FOMC used to communicate its stance. One switch came in the opening sentence as the committee acknowledged that growth in economic activity has picked up recently, after having slowed sharply during the winter in part because of adverse weather conditions. In March, the directive stated that "growth in economic activity slowed during the winter months, in part reflecting adverse weather conditions."

What that opening sentence, and the decision to cut another $10 billion from its monthly asset purchases implied, was that the FOMC is clearly expecting pent-up demand to shine through in the second quarter and to overshadow the feeble 0.1% GDP growth rate for the first quarter.

In any event, equity indices gyrated a bit following the release, but climbed to new session highs into the close. The late-afternoon move allowed the Nasdaq to catch up to its peers, while also giving a boost to biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 230.25, +1.16) gained 0.5%, while the broader health care sector (+0.1%) underperformed amid weakness in Express Scripts (ESRX 66.58, -4.43) after the company reported disappointing quarterly results.

The post-FOMC move also lifted some of the high-beta tech names off their lows, but shares of Twitter (TWTR 38.97, -3.65) still finished at a new all-time low after reporting its quarterly results. The stock tumbled 8.6% after Twitter's disappointing user growth overshadowed its above-consensus earnings.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.01%) ended just below its flat line, but still finished April ahead of the remaining nine groups with a gain of 5.1%.

Treasuries retreated overnight, but reversed course following this morning's GDP report. The 10-yr note advanced 12 ticks, pressuring its yield four basis points to 2.65%.

Boosted by month-end flows, trading volume was above average as 892 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Reviewing today's data:

The ADP Employment report indicated that employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose by 220K in April, which was above the increase of 215K expected by the Briefing.com consensus.
Q1 GDP increased 0.1% quarter-over-quarter, which represented the lowest quarterly increase since GDP rose by the same amount in Q4 2012. The Briefing.com consensus expected GDP to increase 1.0%. Many analysts over the last couple months have theorized that the softness in the first quarter is the result of extreme winter weather conditions. In our opinion, economic growth has tended to slow during the first half of the year for the past several years. The slowdown in Q1 2014 was not extraordinary and we do not expect a snap back from pent up demand to occur immediately in Q2 2014.
Manufacturing activities in the Chicago region rebounded in April as the Chicago PMI jumped to 63.0 from 55.9 that was reported in March. That was the strongest reading since the index reached 66.6 in October. The Briefing.com consensus expected the PMI to increase to 56.5. The increase in the Chicago PMI was predicated on a large boom in production. The production index jumped to 70.5 in April from 61.7 in March. More importantly, a solid increase in order backlogs (54.9 from 50.4) is likely to keep upward pressure on production growth over the next few months.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 5.9% to follow last week's decline of 3.2%.

Tomorrow, the Challenger Job Cuts report for April will be released at 7:30 ET, while weekly initial claims, March Personal Income, Personal Spending, and core PCE Prices will all be reported at 8:30 ET. March Construction Spending and the April ISM Index will both be released at 10:00 ET, while auto and truck makers will be reporting their April sales throughout the day.

S&P 500 +1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.03% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.9% YTD

DJ30 +45.47 NASDAQ +11.01 SP500 +5.62 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1582/1.91 bln/1170 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2045/892.2 mln/1016

3:30 pm :

June gold traded in the red for most of today's floor trade as investors awaited the release of the FOMC's latest policy statement at 14:00ET.
The yellow metal popped to a session high of $1297.50 per ounce after it was reported that Q1 GDP rose by just 0.1% vs a 1.0% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus, but quickly fell back into negative territory.
It gained some momentum heading into the close and settled at $1296.00 per ounce, just 20 cents below the unchanged line.
July silver pulled back from its session high of $19.44 per ounce set in early morning action and traded as low as $19.08 per ounce. Unable to find buying support, it settled with a 1.9% loss at $19.16 per ounce.
June crude oil fell for the first time in three sessions as the EIA reported that inventories for the week ending April 25 gained 1.698 mln barrels to a total of 399.4 mln barrels, the highest level since the EIA began reporting data in 1982.
Consensus called for a build of 2.1-2.4 mln barrels. The energy component dipped to a session low of $99.34 per barrel and eventually settled at $99.78 per barrel, or 1.5% lower.
June natural gas rallied to a session high of $4.85 per MMBtu in afternoon action after trading as low as $4.75 per MMBtu in the session. It sold off back into the red as it headed into the close and settled with a 0.2% loss at $4.82 per MMBtu.

6:03PM Qualcomm establishes retail solutions subsidiary as standalone company - Gimbal, Inc. (QCOM) 78.71 +0.19 : Co announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI), has signed a definitive agreement with a group of third-party investors to establish Qualcomm Retail Solutions, Inc. (QRS), an existing subsidiary of QTI, as an independent, standalone company. At close, the third-party investors will collectively assume a controlling interest in the business. QTI will remain a substantial investor. All aspects of QRS, including the Gimbal technology platform, will be part of this transaction. The QRS entity will be renamed "Gimbal, Inc."

"Gimbal is a context aware proximity platform that originated in Qualcomm's internal business incubation group before transitioning into QRS. Gimbal was created to help bring Qualcomm's vision of a 'digital sixth sense' to life. Gimbal includes support for geofencing and proximity beacons as well as an intuitive SDK for iOS and Android that enables brands, retailers and others to engage consumers with relevant, timely and personalized communications."

5:23PM GT Advanced Tech. announces a series of strategic initiatives to leverage its advances in Hyperion lamina production technology (GTAT) 16.61 +0.85 : Co announced several new initiatives aimed at expanding its portfolio of sapphire and silicon carbide (SiC) solutions for next generation consumer and industrial products. The company has entered into a memorandum of understanding ("MOU") with European-based EV Group ("EVG"), a global leader in specialty bonding and material handling equipment, to work together in various collaborative arrangements including jointly developing high volume production processes and equipment necessary to bond the ultra-thin sapphire and SiC lamina, produced by GT's Hyperion technology, to engineered substrates such as glass, silicon, and plastics.

Additionally, GT announced it will begin working with a leading glass substrate producer to develop specially engineered substrate materials that can be bonded to ultra-thin sapphire lamina to create unique composite solutions that expand the reach of sapphire into a broader set of applications.
The company also announced that it has acquired patent-pending technology for producing low-cost, scratch-resistant aluminum oxide coatings for various substrates including glass and plastics.

GT's business model will be focused on selling the bonding and coating equipment developed through these initiatives.

4:54PM Anadigics reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (ANAD) 1.25 -0.02 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of ($0.11); revenues fell 11.7% year/year to $23.3 mln vs the $23.45 mln consensus.
Anadigics' non-GAAP gross margin increased by 1,020 basis points year over year in the first quarter of 2014," said Terry Gallagher, vice president and CFO. "We delivered overall cost reduction progress ahead of our plan and are well positioned for continued improvement. For the second quarter, we expect revenues to rise by 8-12% and gross margin to expand by 250 to 550 basis points, sequentially. Concurrent with this revenue and gross margin expansion, we expect a sequential reduction in operating expenses of greater than 5%."

4:32PM Newport reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 revs in-line (NEWP) 18.68 +0.08 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.29; revenues rose 10.8% year/year to $146.9 mln vs the $145.59 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $147-153 mln vs. $150.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"We are off to a good start in 2014, and our first quarter results provide us with a strong foundation to build on. In the second quarter of 2014, we expect sales to be in the range of $147 million to $153 million, which would be 9.5% to 14.0% higher than the second quarter of 2013. As a result, we also expect significant year-over-year increases in our non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the second quarter of 2014. We are successfully executing on our strategic initiatives to introduce innovative new products and capture design wins with our industry-leading customers to drive sales and profit growth."

4:32PM Atmel beats by $0.02, beats on revs (ATML) 7.77 -0.09 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.07 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.05; revenues rose 2.5% year/year to $337.4 mln vs the $325.91 mln consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin was 44.0% compared to 43.7% in Q413 and 40.5% in Q113.
During the qtr Co repurchased 6.9 million shares of its common stock in the open market at an average price of $7.97 per share.

4:27PM Coherent beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line (COHR) 59.71 -0.05 : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.82 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.78; revenues fell 0.4% year/year to $199.22 mln vs the $199.81 mln consensus.

Bookings received during the second fiscal quarter ended March 29, 2014 of $261.8 million increased 29.7% from $201.8 million in the same prior year period and increased by 30.0% compared to bookings of $201.5 million in the immediately preceding quarter.
The book-to-bill ratio was 1.31, and ending backlog expected to ship in the next 12 months was $308.5 million at March 29, 2014, compared to a backlog of $285.9 million at December 28, 2013 and a backlog of $333.0 million at March 30, 2013.
Backlog as of March 29, 2014 includes $58.0 million related to the large flat panel display annealing laser order received in January 2014.

4:26PM Intl Rectifier beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs in-line (IRF) 26.04 +0.11 : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues rose 20.1% year/year to $269.3 mln vs the $269.21 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $280-295 mln vs. $283.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Non-GAAP gross margin for the third quarter was 36.3% compared to non-GAAP gross margin of 36.5% in the prior quarter and non-GAAP gross margin of 24.3% in the prior year quarter.
Non-GAAP operating income for the third quarter was $20.1 million, or 7.5% of revenue, compared to non-GAAP operating income of $21.1 million in the prior quarter and non-GAAP operating loss of $17.5 million in the prior year quarter.

4:17PM Western Digital beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line (WDC) : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.94 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.88; revenues fell 1.6% year/year to $3.7 bln vs the $3.74 bln consensus.

4:13PM AXT beats by $0.05, beats on revs (AXTI) 2.16 -0.01 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.06 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.11); revenues fell 13.8% year/year to $19.3 mln vs the $17.18 mln consensus.

4:09PM TTM Tech reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (TTMI) 7.89 +0.18 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.01; revenues fell 10.3% year/year to $291.9 mln vs the $292.22 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.02-0.08, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $290-310 mln vs. $321.84 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07PM Intersil beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (ISIL) 12.34 +0.10 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.14; revenues rose 6.3% year/year to $140 mln vs the $136.87 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.17-0.19 vs. $0.16 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $144-150 mln vs. $144.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Gross margin improved 250 basis points compared to the first quarter of 2013.
Operating income increased significantly from the prior year, resulting in a GAAP operating margin of 10.6% and non-GAAP operating margin of 20.0%.

4:03PM Flextronics beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FLEX) 8.99 +0.06 : Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues rose 27.0% year/year to $6.72 bln vs the $6.11 bln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.20-0.24, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $6.0-6.5 bln vs. $6.28 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:01PM QuickLogic reports EPS in-line, beats on revs (QUIK) 4.74 -0.03 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.03 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of ($0.03); revenues rose 270.9% year/year to $11.2 mln vs the $10.1 mln consensus. During the first quarter, new product revenue increased 27% to $8.9 million from $7.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. New product revenue accounted for 80% of the total revenue in the first quarter. During the first quarter, mature product revenue increased 24% to $2.2 million sequentially. Mature product revenue accounted for 20% of the total revenue in the first quarter.

1:45AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (91) outpacing new highs (86) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, AEGN, AMKR, ARLP, ASX, AV, BAH, BEE, BRK.A, BRK.B, BXE, BXP, CBEY, CM, CMP, CMRE, CNL, CNX, COLM, COMM, CPN, CXP, D, DEG, DYN, EIX, ENBL, ENR, ETR, FISV, FPI, GAS, GBX, GMK, GOL, GRMN, H, HES, HGT, HIW, HNRG, HOG, HSP, HST, IHG, KED, KLIC, LAWS, LO, LOGM, LSI, LVLT, MAR, MPB, MRK, NCBC, NEE, NGG, OKE, ORAN, PBA, POM, POR, QTS, RDS.B, REV, RFMD, SEE, SJT, SKX, SLCA, SOHO, SPIL, SXL, TI, TI.A, TMH, TQNT, TRN, UL, VET, VTNR, WAYN, WNR, XRSC, Z

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACFN, ACST, AMBT, AMRC, AMSC, AMWD, AQXP, AUY, AVD, BAXS, BBBY, BBOX, BGFV, BHLB, BIRT, BLFS, BNNY, CAS, CCCL, CHOP, CLUB, CNSI, COCO, COH, CORI, CTHR, CVT, DWCH, ELNK, ESIO, ESNT, EVRY, FLXN, FWM, GBDC, GEOS, GLMD, GNE, GTS, HTLF, IDI, IKAN, IMPV, INTG, IPCM, ISLE, LEI, LIWA, LUB, MCGC, MGT, MITK, MRLN, NMBL, NSPR, NSR, NYMX, OGXI, OPWR, ORIT, PNRA, QNST, QTM, QTWO, RM, RNG, RTEC, RUBI, SEAC, SFM, SIGM, SPEX, SPU, SUSQ, SWSH, TCCO, TCRD, TECUA, TEU, TG, TGE, TLOG, TWMC, TWTR, TXTR, UNXL, VHI, VLGEA, VPRT, ZIXI, ZNH

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AFK, EFA, EWC, EWQ, EWU, EZU, FXB, IOO, XLU

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXZ

11:01AM Agilent acquires electrothermal analysis technology from Gradient Design Automation (A) 53.63 +0.33 : Co announced its acquisition of electrothermal analysis technology from Gradient Design Automation, the maker of HeatWave electrothermal analysis software. Agilent EEsof EDA now has sole ownership of Gradient's core technology and will serve customers of both the integrated Advanced Design System software solution and Gradient's HeatWave solution. The electrothermal analysis technology allows designers to identify and correct thermal problems during integrated circuit development

9:43AM Sector Watch (TECHX) : Lagging sectors in the early going have been led by: Social Media SOCL, Silver SLV, Gold Miners GDX, Crude Oil USO, Internet FDN, Biotech IBB, Solar TAN, Semi XSD, Reg Bank KRE, Gold GLD, Steel SLX, Housing XHB. Sectors on the plus side include: Trucking, Pharma PPH, Utility.

POWI -12.7%, (Power Integrations downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee)

ARMH -1.3% (downgraded at Citigroup),

TQNT +5% (following RFMD results),

LRCX +2.6% ( initiates quarterly dividend of $0.18 per share; announces $850 mln share repurchase authorization),

8:02AM Univ Elec selected by Samsung (SSNLF) to deliver the control intelligence that powers the Samsung WatchON application in Galaxy S5 Smartphone, Samsung Gear 2, and Gear 2 Neo Smartwatches (UEIC) 34.20 : that its industry-leading universal setup and control solution, UEI QuickSet along with UEI's global device control database is the underlying control technology driving the Samsung WatchON application. The Samsung WatchON application is available on Galaxy S5 through Galaxy Essentials and the WatchON Remote is pre-installed in the Samsung Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo Smartwatches.

7:16AM KVH Industries misses by $0.03, misses on revs; guides FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line (KVHI) 13.36 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.07 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.04); revenues fell 7.3% year/year to $37 mln vs the $38 mln consensus.

"Planning for the remainder of 2014, we expect our mini-VSAT Broadband business to continue to show strong year-over-year growth, driven by an overall increase in our mini-VSAT Broadband customer base. We are encouraged by the visibility of some large TACNAV opportunities and are therefore comfortable with our previous full year guidance."
Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $0.30-0.40 vs. $0.31 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $165-185 mln vs. $173.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

7:09AM Integrated Silicon beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ISSI) 13.81 : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.23 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $80.9 mln vs the $80.16 mln consensus. Gross margin was 34.3%, compared to 32.3% in the December 2013 quarter and 33.3% in the March 2013 quarter.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.22-0.26 vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $81-86 mln vs. $83.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Q2 rev guidance consists of SRAM and DRAM revenue of between $72.5 million and $76.0 million, NOR flash revenue between $6.5 million and $7.5 million, and analog revenue of between $2.0 million and $2.5 million.
Gross margin for the June quarter is expected to range between 33.5 percent and 34.5 percent.

7:04AM JinkoSolar Holding to supply 37.2MW PV solar panels to EDP Renovaveis for Lone Valley Solar Park in the U.S. (JKS) 27.04 : Co announced that it will supply 38.7 MW of PV Modules to EDP Renovaveis, an Independent Power Producer in the global renewable energy sector, for two solar parks in San Bernadino County, California. Co will provide ~ 120,000 high-efficiency solar panels for the construction of both the Lone Valley Solar Park I (12.4MW DC) and Lone Valley Solar Park II (24.8MW DC) projects, in Lucerne Valley, California.

STMicroelectronics (STM) announced its automotive microprocessor for car radio and display audio has been selected by Visteon's (VC) Chinese joint venture, Yanfeng Visteon Electronics

Riverbed Technology (RVBD) reported first quarter earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 7.8% year/year to $265.4 million which is line with estimates. "Our first quarter results are a strong proof point supporting our strategy to bring value to our customers by optimizing the delivery of applications and data on a global scale and to deliver profitable returns to our shareholders...Year-over-year revenue growth was led by WAN optimization and strength in enterprise and international sales.

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Margin debt falls in the month of March from February's record high:

http://www.nyxdata.com/nysedata/asp/factbook/viewer_edition.asp?mode=table&key=3153&category=8

 
           End of month	     Margin debt     Free credit cash 	 
 January     $451,298	      $126,563	         $165,336 
 February   $465,720	      $128,676	         $159,520 
 March	    $450,283	      $130,251	         $163,485

On the surface this might seem good as it removes some risk of a larger fall in the market.

Fall in the market?

Yesterday the NYSE closed at a new record high! But behind the scenes market breadth has been eroding for months. In fact many sectors better represented by the Nasdaq have already fallen dramatically.

Market sell off are always followed by investors reducing their market debt. Unfortunately it is often due to margin calls.

RtS

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended on a cautious note after enduring a sloppy session that lacked concerted sector leadership. The S&P 500 settled right below its flat line, while the Russell 2000 lost 0.5% after displaying intraday volatility.

Equities began the first session of May near their flat lines amid the lack of leadership from overseas as most global markets were closed for Labor Day. Despite the quiet open, small caps were active from the get-go as the Russell 2000 retreated as much as 1.1% during the first hour of action. The index halted its slide at the 200-day moving average (1113.73), which has been acting as an area of support since mid-April.

The subsequent reversal took place as fast as the early slide, placing the Russell 2000 ahead of the remaining indices. The late-morning strength began fading into the afternoon, which sent the small-cap index back towards its morning low.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 spent the bulk of the afternoon within four points of its flat line as individual sectors traded in mixed fashion. Most notably, consumer discretionary (+0.4%) and utilities (+0.3%) outperformed throughout the session, with the utilities sector extending its 2014 advance to 14.0%.

For its part, the discretionary sector was boosted by media names amid reports indicating AT&T (T 35.58, -0.12) approached DirecTV (DTV 80.76, +3.16) about a potential $40 billion acquisition. Momentum names also served as support to the sector as Amazon.com (AMZN 307.89, +3.76), Netflix (NFLX 336.52, +14.48), and Priceline.com (PCLN 1180.60, +22.85) jumped between 1.2% and 4.5%.

Staying on the momentum theme, high-growth names also played a part in the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%). High-beta listings held up well after Yelp (YELP 64.02, +5.70) reported better than expected earnings and revenue. Another measure of support came from the shares of Facebook (FB 61.15, +1.37), which rallied 2.3% after being added to the U.S. Focus List at Credit Suisse.

Elsewhere, biotechnology climbed, which also contributed to the Nasdaq's relative strength. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 232.50, +2.25) gained 1.0%, while the broader health care sector ended flat. The third-largest group saw an intraday spike amid reports Pfizer (PFE 31.15, -0.13) may up its bid for AstraZeneca (AZN 81.09, +2.04).

Also of note, the leading sector from April, energy (-0.4%), finished near the bottom of the leaderboard as top component (and Dow member) ExxonMobil (XOM 101.41, -1.00) weighed. The stock lost 1.0% after beating earnings estimates on below-consensus revenue.

On the fixed income side, Treasuries rallied throughout the session, which was a bit perplexing. The benchmark 10-yr yield fell to 2.61%, settling not far above its lowest close of the year (2.58%).

That move was supported in part by the weaker than expected initial claims report, but the interesting thing was that it held up in the wake of the stronger than expected ISM Index and in front of the April employment report on Friday. The continued buying interest in the benchmark note, which has been seen all year, isn't something one would expect to see if there was a strong belief that the economy is getting ready to hit escape velocity.

Participation was a bit below average as 682 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Looking back at today's data:

The initial claims level increased to 344,000 for the week ending April 26 from an upwardly revised 330,000 (from 329,000) for the week ending April 19. That was the highest initial claims reading since February, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the claims level to fall to 315,000. There were no special factors cited for the increase, but in all likelihood, the recent volatility has resulted from seasonal adjustment issues surrounding the Easter holiday.
Personal income increased 0.5% in March after increasing an upwardly revised 0.4% (from 0.3%) in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected income to increase 0.4%.
Personal spending also topped expectations, increasing 0.9% in March after increasing an upwardly revised 0.5% (from 0.3%) in February.
Core PCE prices increased 1.2% y/y and remain well below the Fed's 2.0% target.
The April Challenger Job Cuts report indicated a 6.0% year-over-year increase to follow the previous decline of 30.2%.
The ISM Manufacturing Index increased to 54.9 in April from 53.7 in March. The Briefing.com consensus expected the ISM Manufacturing Index to increase to 54.5. The gain in the ISM Index was in-line with the improvements reported in the regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys released throughout April.
Construction spending increased 0.2% in March after falling a downwardly revised 0.2% (from +0.1%) in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected construction spending to increase 0.4%. The extreme winter weather in January and February did not lead to a release in pent up demand, suggesting the weather effects may have been overstated.

Tomorrow, the Nonfarm Payrolls report for April (Briefing.com consensus 210,000) will be released at 8:30 ET, while March Factory Orders (consensus 1.6%) will be announced at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.0% YTD

DJ30 -21.97 NASDAQ +12.90 SP500 -0.27 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1288/1.91 bln/1367 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1753/682.2 mln/1316

3:30 pm :

June gold traded in negative territory after the FOMC announced yesterday that it would continue its tapering path and reiterated an upbeat outlook for the economic future of the U.S. The yellow metal dipped to a session low of $1277.30 per ounce and eventually settled with a 1.0% loss at $1283.40 per ounce.
July silver also chopped around in the red. It fell as low as $18.86 per ounce, its lowest level since July 2013, and settled with a 0.7% loss at $19.03 per ounce.
June crude oil extended yesterday's losses as the dollar index traded slightly higher. The energy component touched a session low of $98.80 per barrel when pit trade opened and inched higher until late morning action. It brushed a session high of $99.91 per barrel and eventually settled with a 0.3% loss at $99.48 per barrel.
June natural gas fell deeper into negative territory following bearish inventory data. The EIA reported that for the week ending Apr 25, inventories showed a build of 82 bcf when a smaller build of 75-77 bcf was anticipated. It sold-off from a session high of $4.81 per MMBtu and settled at its session low of $4.71 per MMBtu, booking a loss of 2.3%.

4:49PM Micros Systems beats by $0.06, beats on revs; raises FY14 guidance (MCRS) 51.95 +0.45 : Reports Q3 (Mar) adj. earnings of $0.72 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.66; revenues rose 10.8% year/year to $349 mln vs the $330.98 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for FY14, raises EPS to $2.53-2.57, excluding non-recurring items, from $2.46-2.51 vs. $2.48 Capital IQ Consensus; raises FY14 revs to $1.360-1.385 bln from $1.32-1.345 bln vs. $1.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:39PM Univ Elec beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (UEIC) 36.70 -0.65 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.40 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.32; revenues rose 13.2% year/year to $129.8 mln vs the $123.28 mln consensus.

Business Category revenue was $118.4 million, compared to $104.6 million. The Business Category contributed 91.2% of total net sales in both periods. Consumer Category revenue was $11.4 million, compared to $10.1 million. The Consumer Category contributed 8.8% of total net sales in both periods. Gross margins were 28.3%, compared to 28.6%.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.56-0.66 vs. $0.61 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $141-149 mln vs. $144.22 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:33PM Multi-Fineline misses by $0.12, misses on revs; guides Q3 revs below consensus (MFLX) : Reports Q2 (Mar) loss of $1.00 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.12 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.88); revenues fell 32.2% year/year to $117.8 mln vs the $126.35 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $115-130 mln vs. $145.64 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:30PM ON Semiconductor beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs in-line (ONNN) 9.38 -0.03 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.15; revenues rose 6.9% year/year to $706.5 mln vs the $711.56 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $738-768 mln vs. $741.61 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Backlog level for the second quarter of 2014 represents approximately 80 to 85 percent of our anticipated second quarter 2014 revenue. Average selling prices for the second quarter of 2014 are expected to be down approximately one percent when compared to the first quarter of 2014. The outlook for the second quarter of 2014 includes stock-based compensation expense of approximately $11 to $14 million."

4:14PM Ingram Micro expands mobility services offerings with acquisition of Global Mobility Products (IM) 26.85 -0.11 : IM today announced it has acquired Global Mobility Products (GMP), a Canadian-based leading provider of mobile reverse logistics, repair and asset recovery services. As Ingram Micro Mobility further extends its reach into the Canadian mobility market, the acquisition of GMP is expected to provide the business with a superior, end-to-end forward and reverse logistics value proposition, enhancing the company's ability to provide a full suite of wireless device lifecycle services in Canada.

GMP's customers include Canada's largest mobile operators and retailers, as well as leading manufacturers. GMP's high-touch services include reverse logistics, asset recovery and repair services for device refurbishing and reselling from contract customers and the open market. The company also provides returns management and creates adaptive programs to meet customer-specific applications. Providing services at approximately 3,000 retail locations through its recently acquired 46,000 square feet state-of-the-art repair facility, GMP provides Ingram Micro Mobility customers with added capabilities and value-added services to supplement its already robust suite of offerings.
Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Burlington, Ontario, GMP has approximately 150 employees and has established a strong Canadian presence, with representation throughout the country in all provinces. GMP will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Ingram Micro. Founding principal John Gnocato will be moving to other ventures. Operating principal Ryan Djordjevic will continue to lead the company as a senior director, reporting directly to Nejdawi.

4:06PM Rubicon Tech misses by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus (RBCN) 10.18 +0.05 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.43 per share, $0.09 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.34); revenues rose 72.3% year/year to $14.3 mln vs the $13 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of ($0.46) to ($0.38) vs. ($0.20) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"We expect the LED market to continue to strengthen in the second quarter resulting in some pricing improvement, particularly for four-inch material. Core sales volumes in the second quarter will decline somewhat as we have exhausted our excess boule inventory. We also believe we will see meaningfully higher wafer revenue in the second quarter which will improve utilization but, in the near-term, will not improve margins. With reduced core revenue offsetting increased wafer revenue, we expect total revenue in the second quarter to be similar to the first quarter. We expect our loss per share in the second quarter to be between $0.38 and $0.46, based on a share count of 26.1 million shares."

12:29PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TMUS (31.76 +8.43%): Missed on Q1 EBITDA ests; lowered FY14 EBITDA guidance; raised postpaid net add guidance; renewed reports Sprint (S) is preparing a bid for TMUS.
DTV (81.72 +5.31%): AT&T (T) is in discussions with DTV over $40 bln acquisition, according to reports.
LNKD (162.11 +5.63%): Trading higher following YELP results; co reports earnings today after the close.

Large Cap Losers

SLM (9.04 -64.89%): Replaced Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) in the S&P MidCap 400 after being replaced by Navient (NAVI), its spin-off, in the S&P 500; initiated with an Outperform at Credit Suisse; tgt $11;
WDC (83.35 -5.37%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, reported revs in-line.
CAH (65.8 -5.34%): Reported EPS in-line, missed on revs.

Mid Cap Gainers

CTRX (42.4 +12.32%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line.
YELP (65.69 +12.64%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; guided Q2 revs in-line; raised FY14 guidance; upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie; upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray; upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt lowered to $60 from $84 at UBS; tgt lowered to $95 from $115 at Pacific Crest.
CW (69.25 +8.3%): Beat on EPS by $0.11, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS in-line, reaffirmed FY14 revs guidance.

Mid Cap Losers

AVP (13.28 -13.1%): Missed on EPS by $0.09, missed on revs.
JDSU (11.08 -12.55%): Missed on EPS by $0.01, missed on revs; guided Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; target lowered to $13 at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt lowered to $15 from $18 at MKM Partners.
BVN (11.56 -11.08%): Missed on EPS by $0.07, missed on revs.

11:41AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (116) outpacing new lows (91) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABG, ADMS, AFG, AGN, AHGP, ALL, AMKR, AMT, APH, ARCX, ASX, AZN, BAH, BBW, BFR, BLL, BWC, CBG, CHSP, CMI, CNX, COMM, CORE, CRESY, CSTM, DAL, DEG, DLX, DOX, DTV, DYN, ENB, EQM, ESS, FISV, FUR, GAS, GOL, HAR, HBI, HCC, HGT, HNRG, HOG, HST, HURN, ICGE, ICON, IFF, IHG, INT, IQNT, IT, ITT, KEX, KFRC, KR, LAD, LAWS, LNT, LO, LSI, LUV, LVLT, MACK, MDU, MEMP, MIC, MMM, MO, MPC, MRK, MTOR, MTW, MU, MWV, MYGN, MZA, NFX, NLSN, NVS, ODFL, OILT, OKE, OSHC, PES, PPL, RAD, RDS.B, RHI, SAN, SHO, SLCA, SLG, SNDK, SOHO, SPIL, SRT, STO, SWHC, THRM, TI, TI.A, TSLX, UG, UPIP, UPL, VDSI, VNO, VSEC, WAG, WEC, WIN, WMB, WNRL, XEL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACPW, AMBR, AMRC, AMWD, ANAD, ANR, ARQL, ATNY, AVD, AVP, BGC, BGFV, BHLB, BKCC, BLFS, BNNY, CERE, CFFI, CHOP, CLUB, COH, CRMB, CTC, CTHR, DMD, DVR, EDMC, ELX, ENTR, ESIO, ESNT, FBR, FCBC, FLXN, GBDC, GNE, GORO, GTIV, HAE, HOS, HTBI, HTLF, ICUI, IKAN, INGN, IPCM, ISNS, JDSU, JOUT, KN, LEI, LGCY, LUB, MCGC, NC, NEWS, NIHD, NYMX, OPLK, ORIT, PAL, PBY, PFSI, PLPC, RELL, RMGN, RTEC, SCOK, SGI, STMP, STNR, SUNS, TCCO, TCRD, TEAR, TEU, TG, TGE, TLOG, TOPS, TR, TRMK, TSRO, TWMC, UBNK, UNXL, VHI, VLGEA, VPRT, WLT, ZIXI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AFK, EFA, EWI, EWK, EWP, EWQ, EWU, EZU, IOO, IXC, IYK, PALL, VGK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


9:05AM SolarCity launches First-of-its-Kind Solar Service in Nevada (SCTY) 53.25 : Co is launching its solar service in Nevada for the first time. The nation's largest solar power provider will make it possible for many Las Vegas area homeowners to install solar panels for free and pay less for solar electricity than they pay for electricity from the local utility. SolarCity can allow Nevada homeowners to go solar for as little as $30 per month, with design, installation, financing, insurance, monitoring and a performance guarantee included.

SolarCity has already hired more than 400 people in Nevada, and plans to hire 400 more in the next year

8:41AM Interdigital Comm beats by $0.03, beats on revs (IDCC) 34.72 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.05 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.08); revenues rose 22.1% year/year to $57.84 mln vs the $57.12 mln consensus.

Increase in revs was primarily due to increased shipments by, and the coverage of additional products under our agreement with, per-unit licensee Pegatron. Additionally, technology solutions revenue increased as a result of the third quarter Intel (INTC) arbitration award that clarified whether royalties were owed on specific product classes.
10% customers for qtr were Pegatron Corporation (31%) and Sony Corporation of America (17%).

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 02-May-14

Dow -45.98 at 16512.89, Nasdaq -3.55 at 4123.90, S&P -2.54 at 1881.14

The stock market finished an upbeat week on a cautious note as the major averages settled near their flat lines. The S&P 500 (-0.1%) shed less than three points, while the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) outperformed slightly. Interestingly, the bulk of today's trading activity took place before 11:00 ET, while the key indices spent the afternoon within a striking distance of their unchanged levels.

One hour ahead of the opening bell, the April Nonfarm Payrolls report pointed to the addition of 288,000 jobs (Briefing.com consensus 210,000), but the release was a bit mystifying as a sharp drop in the labor force pressured the unemployment rate to 6.3% from 6.7%.

On one hand, the surprise jump in payrolls suggests a release of pent-up demand following weather-related delays; however, there was nothing in the job creation data that pointed toward a weather-delayed shock. Sectors that were most affected by the weather, such as construction and mining, saw solid growth but nothing different than what was reported during the worst of the weather problems in February. On the other hand, the unemployment rate plunged from 6.7% to 6.3%, which resulted entirely from an 806,000 drop in the civilian labor force. Had the labor force stayed constant, the unemployment rate would have increased to 6.8%.

The enigmatic report was met with an initial spike in index futures and the Dollar Index, while gold and Treasuries slumped; however, those moves were short-lived as futures returned to unchanged by the opening bell, while the dollar, gold, and Treasuries also reversed their post-data moves. As a result, Treasuries settled near their highs, with the benchmark 10-yr yield down three basis points at 2.59%. Also of note, the 30-yr bond posted its third consecutive gain, pressuring its yield to 3.37%, a level that was last seen in June of last year.

With regard to gold futures, the yellow metal rose 1.1% to $1297.60/ozt. This put in a floor under miners (GDX +2.2%), which in turn gave support to the materials (+0.5%) sector.

The materials space ended in the lead and was followed closely by the energy sector (+0.3%), which was able to overcome a disappointing quarterly report from Chevron (CVX 124.72, -0.22). Crude oil, meanwhile, added 0.4% to $99.80/bbl.

Outside of the two commodity-linked sectors, the discretionary space (+0.3%) was the only other advancer. Homebuilders took part in the move higher as the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 23.95, +0.34) gained 1.4%.

On the flip side, seven sectors registered losses, with utilities (-2.0%) leading the retreat, which was a bit peculiar considering the rate-sensitive sector tends to benefit from lower Treasury yields. To be fair, the selling may have been a function of some profit taking inside of a sector that remains well ahead of the other groups so far in 2014. Today's loss narrowed the sector's year-to-date gain to 11.7%, while the second-best performer of the year-energy-ended the session with a 5.3% advance so far this year.

Trading volume was below average as less than 685 million shares changed hands at the NYSE. This was likely a result of unwillingness among some participants to step in ahead of the weekend as the next couple days could change the state of affairs in Ukraine. Earlier today, Ukraine's military stormed the town of Slavyansk in an attempt to recapture a city that has been described as a stronghold for pro-Russian separatists. In response to the developments, Russia has called an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

Reviewing today's remaining data:

Factory orders increased 1.1% in March after increasing a downwardly revised 1.5% (from 1.6%) in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected factory orders to increase 1.6%. Durable goods orders were revised up, increasing 2.9% from an originally reported 2.6%. Orders increased 2.3% in February. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders increased 2.4%, up from an originally reported 2.0%.

On Monday, the ISM Services report for April will be released at 10:00 ET (Briefing.com consensus 54.0).

Week in Review: Large Caps Outperform

The stock market began the new week on a mixed note despite showing early strength. Weakness among small-cap names resulted in the underperformance of the Russell 2000 (-0.6%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.03%), while the S&P 500 settled higher by 0.3%. Equity indices climbed out of the gate, emboldened by M&A activity in the heavily-weighted health care sector (+0.6%). The third-largest group served as an early leader with help from Pfizer, which jumped 4.2% after confirming its interest in AstraZeneca. Also of note, Forest Laboratories agreed to acquire Furiex Pharmaceuticals for $1.1 billion. Even though the health care sector rallied at the open, the broader market was unable to build on the strength as weakness in momentum names-including biotechnology-outweighed the early optimism. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF spent the entire session between its 20- and 200-day moving averages before settling just above the 200-day average.

On Tuesday, equity indices rallied, with the S&P 500 (+0.5%) posting its second consecutive gain as eight sectors ended in the green. Momentum names, meanwhile, rebounded from Monday's relative weakness, which allowed the Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) to finish ahead of the benchmark index. Stock indices began the session on an upbeat note, slowly building on their early gains throughout the afternoon. The energy sector (+0.4%) powered the opening advance thanks to better than expected earnings from BP and Valero Energy. BP surged 2.6%, while Valero displayed early strength, but spent the session in a steady retreat from its opening high, which mirrored the price action of the entire sector.

The major averages spent some time on either side of their respective flat lines on Wednesday, but when the dust settled, they ended with modest gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all added 0.3%, with the Dow registering its first green close for the year. The session featured another heavy dose of earnings and a full slate of economic data. Prior to the open, index futures jumped in reaction to a better-than-expected ADP Employment report, but promptly surrendered those gains when it was reported that GDP increased a puny 0.1% in the first quarter (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%). The disappointing report ensured a lower start for the major averages, but they only took one more step down before forging a rebound on the back of the industrial sector (+0.5%), which drew strength from transports. The Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 0.7%, bolstered by above-consensus earnings reported by C.H. Robinson.

The stock market ended on a cautious note after enduring a sloppy session that lacked concerted sector leadership. The S&P 500 settled right below its flat line, while the Russell 2000 lost 0.5% after displaying intraday volatility. Equities began the first session of May near their flat lines amid the lack of leadership from overseas as most global markets were closed for Labor Day. Despite the quiet open, small caps were active from the get-go as the Russell 2000 retreated as much as 1.1% during the first hour of action. The index halted its slide at the 200-day moving average (1113.73), which has been acting as an area of support since mid-April. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 spent the bulk of the afternoon within four points of its flat line as individual sectors traded in mixed fashion. Most notably, consumer discretionary (+0.4%) and utilities (+0.3%) outperformed throughout the session, with the utilities sector extending its 2014 advance to 14.0%.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week   Change	% Change   YTD % 
 DJIA	     16361.46	 16512.89     151.43	   0.9	  -0.4 
 Nasdaq	      4075.56	  4123.90      48.34       1.2	  -1.3 
 S&P 500	1863.40	  1881.14      17.74       1.0     1.8 
 Russell 2000  1123.03	  1128.80	5.77	   0.5    -3.0

5:14PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Utilities: POM (26.98 +23.48%)
Technology: AMKR (8.48 +18.44%), JIVE (8.42 +17.6%), LVLT (43 +17.39%)
Services: SUSS (78.72 +38.03%), NTRI (16.8 +20.26%), CTCT (29.07 +18.32%), GOL (6.84 +17.73%)
Healthcare: MACK (6.43 +43.85%), AVNR (4.63 +40.3%), FURX (103.2 +28.76%), ADMS (20.01 +27.53%), AZN (81.02 +18%)
Financial: FUR (14.54 +27.21%), BSBR (6.67 +16.4%), AFSI (43 +16.03%)
Consumer Goods: WPRT (16.07 +24.19%), MERC (8.97 +18.49%), MTOR (13.83 +17.4%), ENR (115.76 +17.28%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology: ELX (4.68 -35.63%), SREV (4.2 -32.48%), GOGO (13.42 -26.47%), RUBI (14.76 -24.27%), SQI (19.25 -21.3%), POWI (49.06 -20.15%), SGI (9.65 -19.78%), QLGC (9.9 -16.53%), JDSU (10.96 -16.4%), PLUG (4.5 -16.2%)
Services: NGVC (23.15 -36.09%), EDMC (2.96 -23.12%), VPRT (39.22 -18.29%)
Industrial Goods: CPST (1.7 -22.6%), TASR (14.13 -20.21%)
Healthcare: PRTA (21.44 -44.43%), ISIS (25.87 -20.98%), AUXL (21.48 -20.09%), ASPX (18.92 -19.08%)
Basic Materials: AVD (15.47 -18.58%)

12:25PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

RBS (11.17 +7.51%): Reported Q1 operating profit of GBP 1.64 bln vs GBP 538 mln estimate; Common Equity Tier 1 ratio 9.4%, co is on track to achieve its capital target
SBAC (96.19 +6.22%): Beat quarterly AFFO estimate by $0.07 ($1.18 vs $1.11 estimate), revs rose 10.3% yoy to $345.5 mln vs $334.6 mln estimate; sees Q2 revs of $365-375 mln vs $356.11 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $1447-1487 mln vs $1430 mln estimate
WYNN (218.14 +5.57%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.26 ($2.32 vs $2.06 estimate), revs rose 9.8% yoy to $1.51 bln vs $1.49 bln estimate; upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sterne Agee, target raised to $260 from $225

Large Cap Losers

LNKD (151 -6.34%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.38 ex items vs $0.34 estimate), revs rose 45.7% yoy to $473 mln vs $466.34 mln estimate and $455-460 mln guidance; sees Q2 revs of $500-505 mln vs $504.81 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $2.06-2.08 bln vs $2.11 bln estimate; target lowered at Canaccord Genuity, Morgan Stanley, Cantor Fitzgerald, Telsey Advisory Group
DVA (67.5 -3.47%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.85 ex items vs $0.86 estimate), revs rose 7.5% yoy to $3.04 bln vs $3.02 bln estimate
PSA (170.93 -2.99%): Missed quarterly FFO estimate by $0.06 ($1.80 ex items vs $1.86 estimate), revs rose 10.3% yoy to $519.62 mln vs $513.87 mln estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

ACHC (45.08 +8.73%): Reported Q1 EPS of $0.28 ex items (in-line), revs rose 24.4% yoy to $206.1 mln vs $194.21 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.26-1.29 ex items vs $1.33 estimate
DGI (32.67 +8.39%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 (-$0.01 vs -$0.06 estimate), revs rose 22.6% yoy to $156.5 mln vs $149.78 mln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 rev guidance of $630-660 mln vs $641.27 mln estimate
AEM (31.92 +7.87%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.39 ($0.61 vs $0.22 estimate), revs rose 16.8% yoy to $491 mln vs $450.56 mln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

PCYC (84.76 -10.98%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.18 ($0.40 ex items vs $0.22 estimate), revs rose 4164% yoy to $119.4 mln vs $104.4 mln estimate; sees Q2 net product revs of $76-84 mln vs estimate for total revs of $75.89 mln; sees FY14 net product revs of $280-310 mln vs estimate for total revs of $417.41 mln
MTW (29.32 -9.17%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.17 ex items vs $0.20 estimate), revs fell 5.0% yoy to $850 mln vs $908.89 mln estimate
BYI (60.07 -8.44%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($1.10 ex items vs $1.12 estimate), revs rose 30.6% yoy to $338.4 mln vs $334.13 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $1.14-1.29 ex items vs $1.20 estimate

11:39AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (122) outpacing new lows (51) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, ABG, AER, AFG, AFSI, ALL, AMKR, AMT, ARLP, ASH, ASX, ATI, AWK, BAH, BBW, BEE, BKH, BRK.A, BRK.B, BXE, CE, CENX, CHDX, CHSP, COMM, COP, CP, CRESY, CRZO, CUZ, CXP, DDS, DLX, DPS, DYN, ECOL, EGY, EL, ENOC, ENR, ESRT, ESS, FCH, FISV, FRT, FWLT, GEL, GMK, GOL, GTIM, H, HCC, HNRG, HST, IHG, IPXL, IRS, IT, ITUB, JOSB, KEP, KR, KRC, LAD, LAZ, LDL, LHO, LNT, LSI, MAR, MIC, MKL, MMM, MTOR, MWV, MXWL, NRG, NSIT, NVS, ODFL, ORAN, OSHC, PAC, PAG, PEB, PF, PMC, PPC, PPL, PRE, RAD, RDS.B, RNR, RTIX, SAFM, SAIA, SAL, SEM, SEP, SHO, SKX, SLG, SSL, STO, SU, SWHC, SXI, SYA, TI, TI.A, TMK, TPC, TRN, TRV, UG, UHAL, VET, VLO, VNO, WIN, WNR, XOM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AHS, ATEN, AVD, BGFV, BIRT, CERS, DRL, ECYT, ELX, ENTR, GORO, GYRO, HE, HTCH, IKAN, IMPV, INTG, ISNS, JOEZ, JOUT, LUB, MCGC, MFLX, MGT, MITK, MSG, NAK, NCQ, NETE, NEWL, NEWS, NGVC, NIHD, PKT, PLPC, RELL, RITT, SABR, SEAC, SEB, SFM, SGA, SGI, SPU, SQI, SREV, TEAR, TOPS, VHI, XNPT, ZAZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AFK, ENZL, EWC, EWU, IXC, IYK, OEF, PALL, SDY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX

8:00AM JinkoSolar Holding to supply 100 mw solar pv modules for two projects in Chile (JKS) 27.35 :

Co announced that it signed contracts to supply 100 MW of PV modules for two PV projects in Chile.
Both projects are located in Chile's Atacama Desert region, which has one of the highest irradiation levels in the world. The Lalackama PV plant, the first of the two projects, will consist of 60 MW and will include 197,000 JinkoSolar high-efficiency PV Solar modules.
The project is expected to generate approximately 132 millions of kWh of electricity annually. The second of the two projects will consist of 40 MW and is located in the Municipality of Diego De Almagro, the plant is expected to generate approximately 88 millions of kWh of electricity power annually.

5:01AM Canadian Solar receives C$115.5 mln loan from National Bank of Canada (CSIQ) 27.51 : Co announces that the National Bank of Canada will provide the Company with C$115.5 million, in short-term construction financing. The credit facility will be used to support the construction of three solar power projects in Ontario, Canada, totaling 30 MWac.

LinkedIn (LNKD) reported first quarter earnings of $0.38 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 45.7% year/year to $473 million which is higher than expected and $455-460 million guidance; EBITDA $116.7 million $106-108 million guidance. Talent Solutions: Revenue from Talent Solutions products totaled $275.9 million, an increase of 50% compared to the first quarter of 2013. Talent Solutions revenue represented 58% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2014, compared to 57% in the first quarter of 2013. Marketing Solutions: Revenue from Marketing Solutions products totaled $101.8 million, an increase of 36% compared to the first quarter of 2013. Marketing Solutions revenue represented 22% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2014, compared to 23% in the first quarter of 2013. Premium Subscriptions: Revenue from Premium Subscriptions products totaled $95.5 million, an increase of 46% compared to the first quarter of 2013. Premium Subscriptions represented 20% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2014 and 2013. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with revenues of $500-505 million which is line with estimates and EBITDA $118-120 million. The company raised guidance EBITDA to $505-510 million; raises revs to $2.06-2.08 billon $2.02-2.05 billion which is below estimates.
Akamai Tech (AKAM) reported first quarter earnings of $0.58 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 23.4% year/year to $454 million. Cash from operations for the first quarter of 2014 was $89 million, or 20% of revenue. Reflecting the closing of the Prolexic acquisition and the issuance of convertible senior notes in February 2014, the Company had $1.4 billion of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at the end of the first quarter. The company expected second quarter in the range of $0.53-0.57 which is in line with estimates and revenues of $464-478 million which his higher than expected.
Elli Mae (ELLI) reported first quarter earnings of $0.16 per share, which is higher tha expected, while revenues rose 4.2% year/year to $32.2 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $0.20-0.22 & revenues of $36-37 million which is below estimates The company issued guidance for t he fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $0.98-1.01 vs previous guidance of $1.08-1.11 and is below estimates; sees FY14 revs of $150-153.5 million which his higher than expected. 'We have strong business momentum and a robust sales pipeline. So despite the recent forecasts of further declines in mortgage origination volume this year, we are maintaining our revenue guidance for the full year," continued Mr. Anderman. "However, following the outage we experienced on March 31, we incurred forensic and consulting fees, and have decided to accelerate our investments to bolster our infrastructure and enhance our system capacity, reliability and security. With the additional expenses anticipated in the second quarter and for the remainder of the year, we are lowering our GAAP and non-GAAP earnings guidance for the year.
OpenTable (OPEN) reported first quarter earnings of $0.45 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 18.2% year/year to $53.8 million which is below estimates. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS 0.43-0.48 & revenues of 54.7-56.3 million which is line with estimates. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $1.81-1.96 & revenues of $221.9-228.1 million which is in line with estimates.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market kicked off the new trading week on a sleepy note as the major averages spent the bulk of the session near their flat lines. However, a final push during the last hour of action placed the key indices at new highs into the close. The S&P 500 added 0.2%, while the Russell 2000 (-0.1%) lagged throughout the day.

Equities began the session on their lows as renewed global growth concerns, combined with continued worries about Ukraine, conspired to ensure a cautious start. In China, the HSBC Manufacturing PMI fell to 48.1 from 48.3 (expected 48.4), signifying a slowdown in manufacturing activities. Elsewhere, the European Commission warned about slower-than-expected growth by lowering its 2014 inflation forecast to 0.8%. The commission also trimmed next year's inflation forecast to 1.2%, while lowering its 2015 GDP forecast to 1.7% from 1.8%.

Strikingly, the worries that pressured index futures overnight were cast aside once the opening bell rang. The major averages returned to their flat lines during the first 90 minutes of action, but were unable to continue their rally as financials (-0.4%) acted as a wet blanket.

The second-largest sector finished the day at the bottom of the leaderboard as JPMorgan Chase (JPM 54.22, -1.36) weighed after guiding for a 20.0% year-over-year decline in Q2 markets revenue. Shares of JPM fell 2.5%, while peers Bank of America (BAC 15.08, -0.17) and Citigroup (C 47.18, -0.55) both lost near 1.2%.

Meanwhile, the remaining top-weighed sectors finished on a mixed note. Health care (+0.6%) and technology (+0.4%) outperformed, while the discretionary sector (+0.1%) lagged.

Retailers contributed to the underperformance of the discretionary space, with Target (TGT 59.87, -2.14) falling 3.5% after announcing Chief Executive Officer Gregg Steinhafel will step down from his post. Homebuilders also factored into the relative weakness of the discretionary sector after investor Jeffrey Gundlach recommended shorting the housing sector at the Ira Sohn conference. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 23.66, -0.29) lost 1.2%.

Elsewhere, the two commodity-related sectors-energy (+0.5%) and materials (+0.5%)-finished among the leaders. The energy space rallied even as crude oil shed 0.4% to $99.46/bbl, while producers of basic materials drew strength from miners. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 24.41, +0.09) gained 0.4%, while gold futures climbed 0.5% to $1309.60/ozt.

On the fixed income side, Treasuries finished in the red after sliding from their overnight highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield rose two basis points to 2.61%.

Participation was well below average with less than 600 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to just one report:

The ISM Non-manufacturing Index increased to 55.2 in April from 53.1 in March. That was the strongest reading since August 2013, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 54.0. Business activities/production levels improved to 60.9 in April from 53.4 in March. The increase in production was predicated on a large increase in new orders (58.2 from 53.4). There is some concern that production may not be sustainable without another influx of new orders growth. Order backlogs slipped into a contraction in April (49.0 from 51.5). The Employment Index fell to 51.3 in April from 53.6 in March, which was unusual considering the April Employment Situation Report showcased a large increase in payrolls that month.

Tomorrow, the Trade Balance for March (Briefing.com consensus -$42.50 billion) will be released at 8:30 ET.

S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -0.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.0% YTD

DJ30 +17.66 NASDAQ +14.16 SP500 +3.52 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1176/1.44 bln/1517 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1492/595.8 mln/1535

3:30 pm :

June gold traded higher as it got a boost from a slightly weaker dollar index and escalating tension in Ukraine. The yellow metal brushed a session high of $1315.80 per ounce in early morning action and eventually settled with a 0.5% gain at $1309.40 per ounce.
July silver pulled back from its session high of $19.75 per ounce set moments after floor trade opened. Although it remained in positive territory, silver cut gains for the day to 0.1% as it settled at $19.57 per ounce.
June crude oil fell into the red as a disappointing Chinese HSBC Final Manufacturing PMI reading that came in at 48.1 (down from the flash reading of 48.4) weighed on prices. The energy component retreated from its session high of $100.06 per barrel and dipped as low as $98.91 per barrel. It eventually settled at $99.46 per barrel, or 0.4% lower.
June natural gas traded in positive territory, touching a session high of $4.73 per MMBtu. It pulled back heading into the close and settled with a 0.4% gain at $4.69 per MMBtu.

4:54PM GT Advanced Tech. announces larger capacity ASF 165 sapphire furnace (GTAT) 16.67 -0.24 : Co announced that it will be making its next generation ASF 165 sapphire growth furnace, for the production of high volume and high quality sapphire material, commercially available in Q3'14. The new system will deliver a 40% increase in boule size when compared to the ASF115, extending GT's leadership as a provider of low cost high quality sapphire production tools. The ASF165 is expected to be the only commercially available sapphire production furnace capable of producing high quality 165 kilogram boules in high volume.
The product is currently in the beta testing stage and is expected to be ready for volume shipments beginning in Q3 2014. Customers with installed ASF units, or those who opt to take delivery of new ASFs out of backlog prior to the general availability of the ASF165, will be able to upgrade to the larger capacity system when they become available. ASF165 units will also be available to new customers targeting the LED and industrial markets.

4:36PM Plexus announces Patrick Jermain as new Chief Financial Officer (PLXS) 41.51 -0.54 : Co announced that Patrick Jermain has assumed the role of Chief Financial Officer succeeding outgoing CFO, Ginger Jones, who intends to resign from her employment with the co by September 28, 2014. Ms. Jones will remain employed by the co in a non-executive officer role to assist with the transition of her successor.

4:11PM Advanced Energy misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (AEIS) 21.39 +0.05 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.44; revenues rose 26.0% year/year to $140.9 mln vs the $142.46 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.26-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.51 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $135-145 mln vs. $154.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Consistent with industry reports, OEM customers are seeing a decline in their second quarter bookings compared to the last six months. This is resulting in lower order rates, balanced out to an extent by our diversified product portfolio.
Precision Power products sales were $82.9 million in the first quarter of 2014, a 5.4% decrease from $87.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2013 and a 34.1% increase from $61.8 million in the first quarter of 2013.

4:10PM Veeco Instruments beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus as orders could be lumpy (VECO) 36.83 +0.58 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.06 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.16); revenues rose 47.0% year/year to $90.8 mln vs the $89.2 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $(0.23)-(0.14), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.12) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $87-97 mln vs. $97.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"After a long downturn in our MOCVD business, LED fab utilization rates have improved to high levels at most key accounts and LED adoption is happening faster than many had expected. Our customers are also reporting better market demand for LED backlighting products. It is encouraging to see that our leading customers are beginning to place orders for capacity expansions."
"We currently anticipate that Veeco's [Q2] orders will be similar to or better than [Q1] orders. Yet, the timing and magnitude of key customer expansions could cause MOCVD orders to be lumpy and somewhat unpredictable on a quarterly basis, and we lack the visibility to see into the second half of the year."

4:06PM Integrated Device beats by $0.01, beats on revs (IDTI) 11.86 -0.24 : Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues rose 10.0% year/year to $118.6 mln vs the $117.16 mln consensus.

GAAP gross profit from continuing operations for the fiscal fourth quarter of 2014 was $61.1 million, or 51.5 percent, compared with GAAP gross profit of $59.5 million, or 55.2 percent, reported in the same period one year ago.
Non-GAAP gross profit for the fiscal fourth quarter of 2014 was $72.5 million, or 61.1 percent, compared with non-GAAP gross profit of $62.7 million, or 58.2 percent, reported in the same period one year ago.

4:04PM Peregrine Semi misses by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus (PSMI) 5.12 -0.09 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.22); revenues fell 11.4% year/year to $41.3 mln vs the $34.24 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $42-46 mln vs. $35.56 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co sees Second quarter GAAP gross margin is expected to be in the range of 36% to 39%.
Gross margin on a GAAP basis for the first quarter of 2014 was 35.7% of revenue, compared to 42.5% of revenue for the same period in 2013. Gross margin on a non-GAAP basis for the first quarter of 2014 was 36.3% of revenue, compared to 42.9% of revenue for the same period in 2013.

3:58PM Apple: AAPL hits $600 print for the 1st time since Oct. 2012; New 52-wk high now @ 600.62 (AAPL) 600.50 +7.92 :

1:01PM EMC to acquire privately-held DSSD; transaction is not expected to have a material impact to EMC GAAP or non-GAAP EPS for the full 2014 fiscal year (EMC) 25.62 -0.07 : Co announced has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held DSSD. Menlo Park-based DSSD is the developer of an innovative new rack-scale flash storage architecture for I/O-intensive in-memory databases and Big Data workloads like SAP HANA and Hadoop. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014, subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms were not disclosed. The transaction is not expected to have a material impact to EMC GAAP or non-GAAP EPS for the full 2014 fiscal year.

11:54AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (80) outpacing new highs (65) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAV, AER, AHGP, AMKR, AMT, ARLP, AV, BBW, BEAV, BFR, CLS, CMP, COP, CRESY, CRZO, DAL, DPS, DRII, DYN, EMES, EPD, ESS, FNF, GIL, GMK, GSAT, HA, HGT, HPAC, IIN, IRS, JFBI, KEP, LAZ, LDL, LSI, LVLT, MMP, MWV, MZA, NDZ, NSIT, NTI, OCIR, OKE, ORAN, PAC, PAM, POM, PPC, SBGL, SEP, SLCA, SNDK, SRT, SU, SXL, TRGP, TRN, UG, VSEC, WIN, WLK, XOM, YONG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACFN, AEPI, AHS, AMBT, AMRC, ARQL, ATEA, ATRS, BBBY, BGFV, BHLB, BSFT, CCCR, CERE, CLUB, CORI, DGII, ELRC, EVAR, EXAR, FCBC, FWM, GHDX, GNE, GORO, HTBX, ICUI, IKAN, IPCM, ISNS, KBR, LDR, LEI, LIQD, LQ, LUB, MFLX, MITK, MSG, NEWL, NEWS, NGVC, NL, NMBL, NSPH, OMI, ORIT, OVAS, OVRL, PINC, PKT, PLCE, PRAN, RITT, RLGY, RM, SABR, SFM, SGI, SIGM, SNOW, SPU, SSI, SSN, STNR, SUSQ, TEAR, TGE, TOPS, TR, TWER, TXTR, VCRA, VGGL, VIVO, VTL, VTUS, XNPT, XON, ZNH

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AMJ, EGPT, IXC

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


11:31AM Intel names Steven Fund to the post of corporate vice president and Chief Marketing Officer (INTC) 26.18 0.00 : Fund comes to Intel from Staples (SPLS), where he was senior vice president of global marketing and member of the co's senior leadership team.

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced its collaboration with NCS Technologies to offer an end-to-end 40GbE virtual desktop infrastructure solution.

8:38AM BlackBerry announces Spear Street Capital has waived its due diligence condition pursuant to co's previously-announced agreement to sell the majority of BlackBerry's real estate holdings in Canada (BBRY) 8.15 : Co announced that Spear Street Capital has waived its due diligence condition pursuant to BlackBerry's previously-announced agreement to sell the majority of BlackBerry's real estate holdings in Canada. Spear Street has agreed to purchase the properties for CAD305 million, or ~ $278 million. The parties expect to complete the sale of properties valued at approximately 80% of this total later this month, with the sale of the remaining properties to be completed during the third calendar quarter of 2014, subject to customary closing conditions in each case.

Marvell (MRVL) announced that Broadlink Electronics Technologies has selected Marvell's Wi-Fi microcontroller Internet of Things platform to power Broadlink's family of products for Smart Home automation.

8:03AM Nokia and Juniper Networks (JNPR) collaborate to advance telco cloud (NOK) 7.35 : Co announce an expansion of their long-standing partnership to advance telco cloud for mobile broadband. The latest collaboration brings together Nokia's leading Liquid Core solution, including network function virtualization (NFV) and telco cloud management and orchestration, and the Juniper Networks MetaFabric data center architecture, including Contrail -- Juniper's network virtualization and cloud network automation solution based on software-defined networking.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Equity indices finished the Tuesday session on their lows after spending the entire day in negative territory. The S&P 500 tumbled 0.9% with nine sectors registering losses, while the Russell 2000 fell 1.6%, settling below its 200-day moving average for the first time since November 2012.

Stocks were pressured from the get-go as index futures slid to their pre-market lows ahead of the opening bell. While the early slide was not brought on by a particular news item, it served as a reflection of the defensive sentiment in the foreign exchange market where the yen rallied to its best level in three weeks. The dollar/yen pair notched a session low in the 101.50 area, before inching up to 101.65 into the close.

The cautious posture was also visible in the Treasury market as the 10-yr note climbed off its overnight low into the New York open and continued into the afternoon. As a result, the 10-yr note added four ticks, sending its yield lower by two basis points to 2.59%.

Once the session got going, dip-buyers tried to force a turnaround, but were unable to do so as some of the top-weighted sectors kept the pressure on the broader market.

Most notably, the financial sector (-1.4%) underperformed for the second consecutive day. Influential components like Bank of America (BAC 14.73, -0.35), Citigroup (C 46.36, -0.82), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 53.34, -0.88) lost between 1.6% and 2.3%, while AIG (AIG 50.54, -2.18) plunged 4.1% after reporting a bottom-line beat on revenue that missed estimates.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector (-1.4%) also posted a loss larger than 1.0% amid broad weakness. Retailers (XRT -1.7%) and homebuilders (ITB -2.0%) played a part in the underperformance, while Office Depot (ODP 4.83, +0.66) surged 15.8% after beating earnings estimates.

Also of note, the technology sector (-1.2%) held up a bit better than financials and discretionary shares, but was unable to stay out of the bottom third of today's leaderboard. Chipmakers, however, had a decent showing as the PHLX Semiconductor Index shed 0.4%.

Momentum names were not nearly as fortunate, with Facebook (FB 58.53, -2.69), LinkedIn (LNKD 142.33, -8.58), and Yelp (YELP 52.13, -8.06) diving between 4.4% and 13.4%, while Twitter (TWTR 31.85, -6.90) sank 17.8% on heaviest volume on record.

Just like momentum names, biotechnology lagged, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 229.33, -3.95) lower by 1.7%, while the health care sector ended in line with the broader market.

On the upside, the energy sector (+0.2%) posted a slim gain to extend its quarter-to-date advance to 5.7%.

Despite the daylong selling, participation was a bit below average as less than 690 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Today's economic data was limited to the March Trade Balance report:

The U.S. trade deficit narrowed to $40.40 billion in March from a downwardly revised $41.90 billion (from $42.3 billion) in February, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the trade balance to decline to -$40.6 billion. The BEA assumed that the trade balance would increase to roughly $42.5 billion in the advance estimate to first quarter GDP. The lower-than-expected trade deficit should boost first quarter GDP growth in the second estimate. The goods deficit fell by $0.6 billion to $60.8 billion in March from $61.3 billion in February. The services surplus increased by $0.9 billion to $20.4 billion in March from $19.5 billion in February.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while Q1 Productivity and Unit Labor Costs will be announced at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with a 15:00 ET release of the March Consumer Credit report. Also of note, Fed Chair Janet Yellen will appear before the Joint Economic Committee at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.6% YTD

DJ30 -129.53 NASDAQ -57.30 SP500 -16.94 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 566/1.70 bln/2190 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 967/685.3 mln/2091

3:35 pm :

June gold chopped around slightly below the unchanged line today despite a weaker dollar index.
Economic data showed that the U.S. trade deficit narrowed to $40.40 bln in March from a downwardly revised $41.90 bln (from $42.3 bln) in February, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the trade balance to decline to -$40.6 bln. The yellow metal dipped to a session low of $1304.40 per ounce in morning action and eventually settled with a 0.1% loss at $1308.30 per ounce.
July silver, on the other hand, traded higher today. It brushed a session high of $19.70 per ounce in early morning action and consolidated near the $19.65 per ounce level for the remainder of the session. It settled with a 0.4% gain at $19.64 per ounce.
June crude oil pushed to a session high of $100.42 per barrel in morning action but gave up the gain in the last hour of pit trade. The energy component fell to a session low of $99.47 per barrel moments before settling at $99.52 per barrel, just 0.1% higher.
June natural gas trended higher after lifting from its session low of $4.74 per MMBtu. It held on to the momentum and settled 2.3% higher at $4.80 per MMBtu, just below its session high of $4.81 per MMBtu.

4:48PM Kopin misses by $0.02, beats on revs; maintains 2014 revenue guidance, in-line (KOPN) 3.15 -0.04 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of ($0.15) per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate loss of ($0.13); revenues fell 25.4% year/year to $4.7 mln vs the $4.3 mln consensus.
Kopin continues to expect full-year 2014 revenue in the range of $18-22 mln vs $20.5 mln consensus.

4:37PM Microchip beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (MCHP) 46.35 -0.41 : Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.64 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.61; revenues rose 14.7% year/year to $493.4 mln vs the $490.45 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.64-0.68, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.65 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $519.8-534.6 mln vs. $513.75 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:29PM First Solar Additional Metrics from Presentation (FSLR) 67.45 -0.97 : Q1 Actuals

Q1 Gross Profit 24.9%, Q4 was 24.6%.
Q1 Production 441 MW -1% q/q;
Q1 Cap Utilization 82% -1 bps q/q;
Q1 Conversion Efficiency 13.5% +10 bps q/q;

2014 Guidance

2014 expects module shipments 2.8 GW compared to 2.7 GW at end of Dec.
2014 revs guidance $3.7-4.0 bln, unchanged'
2014 Operating Cash Flow guidance $250-400 mln, prior $300-350 mln;
2014 CapEx Guidance $300-350 mln, unchanged; Production 1.9-2.0 GW, unchanged

4:28PM Planar Systems beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guides FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line (PLNR) 1.98 -0.05 : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.03 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.01; revenues rose 4.3% year/year to $41.1 mln vs the $40.1 mln consensus.

Guidance: Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.01-$0.03 vs. $0.03 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $41.5-$43.5 mln vs. $40.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co states, "In the short-term, the company expects to see continued strong revenue growth for digital signage products in the third quarter, driving overall revenue growth for the third quarter in excess of 10 percent compared with the third quarter of 2013."

Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $0.15-$0.20 vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $165-$175 mln vs. $167.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:22PM Extreme Networks misses by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; announces CFO transition (EXTR) 5.33 -0.23 : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.02 per share, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; revenues rose 107.9% year/year to $141.8 mln vs the $144.78 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.02-0.04 vs. $0.07 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $145-150 mln vs. $159.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Extreme Networks today also announced that John Kurtzweil, the company`s chief financial officer, will transition his duties and become a special assistant to the CEO beginning June 2, 2014 and will stay with the company until the end of September 2014 to ensure a seamless transition of his responsibilities. Kurtzweil has served as the company`s CFO since 2012. The Company also announced that Ken Arola is joining Extreme Networks as senior vice president and CFO, effective June 2, 2014.

4:20PM Axcelis Tech misses by $0.01, misses on revs; System revenues increase by 27% reflecting continued market acceptance (ACLS) 1.77 +0.02 : Reports Q1 (Mar) net of breakeven, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.01; revenues rose 49.4% year/year to $60.8 mln vs the $61.89 mln consensus.

4:05PM Veeco Instruments appoints Shubham Maheshwari as Chief Financial Officer (VECO) 34.10 -2.73 : VECO has appointed Shubham Maheshwari, 42, as its new Executive Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer.

Mr. Maheshwari replaces David D. Glass, who announced his retirement from Veeco last December.
Maheshwari most recently served as Chief Financial Officer of OnCore, a global manufacturer of electronic products in the medical, aerospace, defense and industrial markets.

12:38PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

AVGO (67.1 +4.44%): Co to replace LSI Corp. (LSI) in the S&P 500 after the close of trading on May 7.
EOG (103.2 +3.98%): Beat on EPS by $0.21, beat on revs.
ALU (4.01 +3.21%): Co may be a takeover target by Nokia (NOK), according to reports.

Large Cap Losers

TWTR (34.47 -11.03%): WSJ discussed that many advertisers are pitching for video ad spots on FB, according to reports; co's IPO lockup expired yesterday.
BCS (16.55 -4.22%): Reported Adj Pretax profit GBP1.69 bln vs GBP1.79 bln LY, revs of GBP6.65 bln vs GBP7.22 bln estimate; downgraded to Hold at Numis.
AIG (50.32 -4.55%): Beat on EPS by $0.15, missed on top line.

Mid Cap Gainers

ODP (4.85 +16.31%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; raised operating income, merger synergy guidance.
EXH (45.09 +7.46%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, missed on revs.
DATA (60.8 +4.85%): Beat on EPS by $0.10, beat on revs; guided Q2 above consensus, raised FY14 guidance; target raised to $65 from $60 at Mizuho; target lowered to $78 from $94 at FBR Capital; target raised to $78 from $70 at RBC Capital Mkts.

Mid Cap Losers

ATHN (110.01 -13.23%): Reaffirmed 2014 guidance; Greenlight's David Einhorn made cautious comments on ATHN at Ira Sohn, believes it could fall 80% - said ATHN is good co but stock is simply not at the right price (BBerg TV).
SGY (44.84 -7.66%): Beat on EPS by $0.13, beat on revs; sees Q2 production at 43.5-45.5 MBoe per day, sees 261-273 MMcfe per day.
MR (31.6 -6.15%): Beat on EPS by $0.02; revs rose 9.4% y/y to $264.8 mln vs the $292.5 mln consensus; reaffirmed FY rev to grow at least 15%, reaffirmed 2014 net income to remain similar to 2013 levels; announced that Mr. Jie Liu has resigned from his Chief Operating Officer position for personal reasons, effective immediately.

11:42AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (82) outpacing new lows (69) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ACMP, AER, AIRI, APC, ASMI, AV, AVGO, BP, BPL, BXE, CKEC, CRESY, CRZO, DAL, DMLP, DYN, ECOL, ELS, EMES, ENR, EOG, EPD, ESS, ESTE, FWLT, GLOG, GMK, GSAT, HGT, HHC, HOLX, IDXX, IHG, IRS, KEP, KFS, LSI, LVLT, LYB, MMP, MPC, MPET, MU, NGG, NGLS, NLS, NRG, NTI, NTZ, NVS, OKE, ORAN, PAC, PAM, POM, PPC, PPL, RDNT, RDS.B, RFMD, RHP, RTIX, SBGL, SNDK, SOFO, SPBC, SQBG, STO, SU, SXL, SYPR, TNET, TRN, VLO, WGP, WLP, WMB, WNR, XOM, YONG, ZBRA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAT, AEPI, AHS, AMRC, AMWD, ARQL, BNNY, CAS, CCCR, CIT, CNSI, COCO, COH, CPIX, DCTH, DGII, DRL, EDMC, ELNK, ELRC, EXPR, FLL, FWM, GENE, GNE, GORO, GYRO, HEAR, HGR, ISLE, JOEZ, KBR, LEI, LUB, MCGC, MNTA, NAK, NEWL, NIHD, NILE, NMBL, OCN, OLED, PLPC, PRAN, PRO, RM, RSE, SEAC, SFM, SGI, SIGM, SNOW, SOQ, SPU, TCRD, TEU, TIGR, TR, TWER, TWGP, TWTR, TXTR, UNXL, UTIW, VCRA, VIVO, VSR, WPCS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AMJ, DIG, EGPT, EWK, EWP, EWU, FAN, FXB, IEO, IGE, IXC, IYE, XLE

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: UUP, VXX

Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI) announced shipment of the first RF switches built on the UltraCMOS 10 technology platform.

9:11AM MKS Instruments authorized a quarterly cash dividend of $0.165/share, up from prior $0.16/share (MKSI) 28.23 :

9:07AM NVIDIA guides Q1 above consensus after inadvertently distributing results to ~100 people; call will still be held on Thursday afternoon (NVDA) 18.63 : Co issues upside guidance for Q1 (Apr), sees EPS of $0.29, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 (Apr) revs of $1.103 bln, up from $1.05 bln (+/- 2%) vs. $1.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

This press release is being issued because a preliminary draft of the co's financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2015 was inadvertently emailed to an internal distribution list of about 100 individuals. Because of this error, these results are being provided to the market in advance of trading in NVIDIA stock today as a precaution.
Co will report Q1 results on Thursday afternoon, as scheduled.

8:36AM Ixia receives expected Nasdaq letter; intends to request hearing before Nasdaq Hearings Panel (XXIA) 12.44 : Co announced that on May 2, 2014 and as expected, the company received a letter from the Listing Qualifications Department of The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC stating that unless the company requests on or before May 9, 2014 a hearing before a Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel, the company's common stock will be delisted due to the company's non-compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5250(c)(1). The letter was issued in accordance with standard Nasdaq procedures because of the company's previously reported delay in filing its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2013 and Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013. The company plans to timely request a hearing before a Hearings Panel, and the request will automatically stay the delisting of the company's common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market for a period of 15 days after the deadline for the hearing request.

8:06AM SunEdison Interconnects 117 MW Of Utility-Scale Solar Projects In United Kingdom (SUNE) 20.26 : Co it has completed construction of a 117 MW DC portfolio of utility-scale photovoltaic solar power plants across the United Kingdom. The portfolio is comprised of eight separate solar power plants.
Additionally, Co also announces that it has completed construction of a 100 MW DC portfolio utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) solar power plants across the United Kingdom. The portfolio is composed of seven separate solar power plants.

8:05AM First Solar to build 42.76MW for EDF Renewable Energy (FSLR) 68.42 : Co has been selected as the turnkey Engineering, Procurement and Construction contractor for two projects under development by EDF Renewable Energy in California. First Solar and EDF Renewable Energy have signed EPC agreements for the 19.76 Megawatt (MW) AC CID Solar Project, located in Kings County; and the 23MWAC Cottonwood Solar Project, consisting of two sites, one located in Kings County and the other in Kern County. The CID Solar Project has a Power Purchase Agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric Company. The Cottonwood project has a PPA with Marin Clean Energy.

7:02AM JinkoSolar Holding reaffirms Q1 and FY14 guidance; will report results on May 27 (JKS) 27.36 :

Co announced that it reaffirms its guidance for the first quarter of 2014 and full year 2014:
Total solar module shipments are expected to be in the range of 440 MW and 470 MW for the first quarter of 2014
Total solar module shipments are expected to be in the range of 2.3 GW to 2.5 GW.
Total project development scale expected to be above 400 MW for the full year 2014.

The Company plans to release its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2014 before the open of U.S. markets on Tuesday, May 27, 2014.

6:31AM ReneSola to provide 1.6MW in solar modules and 1MW in mounting systems to Consolidated Energy (SOL) 2.75 :

Co announced it has been contracted to provide 1.6MW in solar modules and 1MW in mounting systems to Consolidated Energy & Economic Engineering to power a series of residential and commercial rooftop projects in Jordan.
Under the terms of the agreement, ReneSola will provide 6,400 of its Virtus II 250W modules, along with 1.05MW of roof-mounting structures to Consolidated Energy. 4,400 units will be used for a 1.1MW commercial project to be completed within five months in Amman. The remaining 2,000 units will be used in a number of residential projects.

Veeco Instruments (VECO) reported first quarter loss of $0.06 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 47.0% year/year to $90.8 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with ESP of $(0.23)-(0.14) & Revenues of $87-97 million which is below estimates. "After a long downturn in our MOCVD business, LED fab utilization rates have improved to high levels at most key accounts and LED adoption is happening faster than many had expected. Our customers are also reporting better market demand for LED backlighting products. It is encouraging to see that our leading customers are beginning to place orders for capacity expansions." "We currently anticipate that Veeco's [Q2] orders will be similar to or better than [Q1] orders. Yet, the timing and magnitude of key customer expansions could cause MOCVD orders to be lumpy and somewhat unpredictable on a quarterly basis, and we lack the visibility to see into the second half of the year."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Equity indices finished the Wednesday session on a mixed note as high-growth names weighed on the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) and the Nasdaq (-0.3%), while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) and S&P 500 (+0.6%) outperformed thanks to strength in blue chip listings.

The stock market opened the trading day with modest gains amid headlines indicating Russia's President Vladimir Putin has reached out to OSCE chief and Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, attempting to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis through diplomatic avenues. Initially, the reports boosted overall risk appetite, sending Treasuries and the yen to lows, but those moves were retraced not long after. The yen returned into the middle of its trading range, while Treasuries reclaimed their losses and spent the afternoon near their flat lines. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended unchanged at 2.59%.

Stock indices, meanwhile, surrendered their opening gains during the first hour of action, but only the Nasdaq Composite spent the remainder of the session in the red, while the Dow and S&P 500 rebounded swiftly.

The S&P 500 tested its 50-day moving average (1865), spring-boarding off its early low with help from a handful of large sectors. Consumer staples (+1.0%), energy (+0.8%), and industrials (+0.9%) contributed to the recovery, while financials (+1.3%) finished ahead of the remaining cyclical groups following yesterday's underperformance.

Even though the financial sector posted a solid gain, it was unable to turn positive for the year, trimming its year-to-date loss to 0.01%. Meanwhile, the only other sector that holds a year-to-date loss-consumer discretionary (-0.2%)-joined health care (+0.2%) and technology (-0.2%) among today's laggards.

All three sectors contain a fair share of momentum names, which were the source of the relative weakness within the Nasdaq. Most notably, shares of FireEye (FEYE 28.65, -8.48) plunged 22.8% after the company reported in-line earnings, but issued disappointing guidance. Other momentum names fared a bit better, but Facebook (FB 57.39, -1.14) and Twitter (TWTR 30.66, -1.19) lost 2.0% and 3.7% respectively, while Tesla (TSLA 201.35, -5.93) slid 2.9% ahead of its after-hours quarterly report. Similarly, Priceline.com (PCLN 1131.74, -36.62) sank 3.1% prior to its report, which is due out tomorrow.

Elsewhere, biotechnology also factored into the underperformance of the Nasdaq. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 227.48, -1.85) fell 0.8%, while the broader health care sector (+0.2%) returned to its early high into the close.

The other countercyclical sectors ended among the leaders with the utilities sector (+1.6%) widening its year-to-date gain to 13.8%. For its part, consumer staples (+1.0%) overcame a disappointing quarterly report from Whole Foods (WFM 38.93, -9.02) that pressured the stock back to levels not seen since early 2012.

Participation was above average as roughly 750 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to Q1 productivity and unit labor costs and the Consumer Credit report for March:

Nonfarm business labor productivity declined 1.7% in the first quarter after increasing an upwardly revised 2.3% (from 1.8%) in Q4 2013. The Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to decline 1.2%. This was the first decline in productivity since Q1 2013 when it declined 1.8%. With a 0.1% increase in Q1 2014 GDP, there was no doubt that productivity declined during the first quarter. Output levels managed to increase a minimal 0.3% in the first quarter, but that was dwarfed by a 2.0% increase in hours worked. Hours growth had not exceeded 2% since Q4 2012.
Hourly compensation increased 2.4%, up from a 1.9% gain in Q4 2013. That was the largest increase since Q4 2012 when it rose 10.2%. Given the flat wage data in the April Employment Report, compensation growth is unlikely to remain at its first quarter pace. The combination of higher hours and compensation along with weak output growth caused unit labor costs to increase 4.2% in the first quarter.
Consumer credit increased by $17.50 billion in March, which was higher than the Briefing.com consensus estimate of $16.10 billion. The prior month's credit growth was revised lower to $13.30 billion from $16.50 billion.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 325,000) will be announced at 8:30 ET.

S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.5% YTD

DJ30 +117.52 NASDAQ -13.09 SP500 +10.49 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1178/2.15 bln/1527 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1991/749.1 mln/1078

3:30 pm :

Precious metals trended lower in negative territory today as the dollar index traded slightly higher
Fed Chair Yellen appeared before the Joint Economic Committee and noted that she expects economic activity will expand at a "somewhat faster pace" this year than it did in 2013
June gold pulled back from its session high of $1305.50 per ounce set moments after pit trade opened and settled with a 1.5% loss at $1288.90 per ounce
July silver retreated from its session high of $19.59 per ounce in early morning action. Unable to gain momentum, it settled at $19.34 per ounce, or 1.5% lower
June natural gas fell into negative territory after it pulled back from its session high of $4.81 per MMBtu set at floor trade open. It touched a session low of $4.71 per MMBtu and settled with a 1.3% loss at $4.74 per MMbtu.
June crude oil, on the other hand, traded higher following better-than-anticipated inventory data. The EIA reported that for the week ending May 2, crude oil inventories had a draw of 1.78 mln barrels when consensus called for a build of 1.25-1.4 mln barrels
The energy component rose from a session low of $99.79 per barrel and touched a session high of $101.09 per barrel. It eventually settled with a 1.3% gain at $4.74 per MMBtu.

4:36PM Amtech Systems misses by $0.22, beats on revs (ASYS) 9.34 -0.20 : Reports Q2 (Mar) loss of $0.39 per share, $0.22 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.17); revenues rose 56.6% year/year to $12.7 mln vs the $11.8 mln consensus.

Gross margin in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 was 23%, compared to 30% in the second quarter of fiscal 2013.
The lower margin resulted primarily from lower recognition of previously-deferred profit which was a high percentage of net revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2013.

4:08PM Amtech Systems announces $10.5 mln in new solar orders (ASYS) 9.34 -0.20 : ASYS announced it has received approximately $10.5 million in new solar orders, including orders for its market leading diffusion systems from Asian based solar companies.

The orders were received subsequent to March 31, 2014, and are expected to ship within the next six to twelve months.
Mr. Fokko Pentinga, Chief Executive Officer of Amtech, commented, "We are very pleased to announce these new solar orders early in our fiscal third quarter. This progress adds to the healthy bookings we had in the second quarter of fiscal 2014. We are engaged in ongoing discussions with current and prospective customers regarding their near and longer-term technology objectives and future capacity requirements."

4:21PM SolarCity beats by $0.46, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (SCTY) 47.71 -4.75 : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.26 per share, $0.46 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.72); revenues rose 111.9% year/year to $63.54 mln vs the $53.38 mln consensus.

MW Deployed of 82 MW as residential MWs Deployed grew 107% year-over-year to 67 MW.
Total cumulative MWs Deployed reached 649 MW as of March 31, 2014. MW Booked totaled 136 MW, up 34% as compared to Q4 2013.
Cumulative Energy Contracts increased to 100,609, up 97% since the end of the first quarter of 2013 (and 21% since the end of 2013).
Cumulative Customers grew to 110,662, up 84% since the end of the first quarter of 2013 (and 19% since the end of 2013).
Estimated Nominal Contracted Payments Remaining increased to $2,501 million at March 31, 2014, up 97% year-over-year and 21% since the end of the 2013.
Retained Value forecast increased to $1,291 million, equating to retained value per watt forecast of $1.56/W, at March 31, 2014....
Added 17,664 customers-the largest quarterly gain in our history-to end Q1 2014 with over 110,000 customers and remain firmly on track to meet our one million customer target by mid-2018.

Guidance

Increasing 2014 guidance to 500-550 MW Deployed from previous guidance of 475-525 MW, and establishing initial guidance for 2015 MW Deployed of between 900 MW and 1 gigawatt (GW). At the midpoint of guidance, estimate it would exit next year with more than 2 GW of cumulative MW deployed and annualized electricity production of ~ 2.8 terawatt-hours (TWh).
Co sees EPS of ($1.00) to ($0.91), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.61) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $56-64 mln vs. $63.97 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Based on current trends in demand and operations, have increased confidence in outlook for the year and in turn increase our 2014 guidance to
500 MW -- 550 MW Deployed from prior guidance of between 475 MW and 525 MW Deployed.
Continue to expect to generate positive cash flow for the full year 2014.
For 2015, establishing guidance of 900 -- 1,000 MW Deployed, representing growth of 81% year-over-year at the midpoint.
For Q2 2014, we expect MW deployed of between 105 MW -- 110 MW, up 103% year-over-year at the midpoint of both 2014 and 2015 guidance.
For Q2 2014, also expect:
GAAP Operating Lease and Solar Energy Systems Incentive Revenue: $39 million - $43 million
GAAP Solar Energy Systems Sale Revenue: $17 million - $21 million
GAAP Operating Lease and Solar Energy Systems Incentive Gross Margin: 50%-55% (including the impact of $2 million in amortization of intangibles)
GAAP Operating Expenses: $100 million - $110 million (including $3 million in amortization of intangibles)

4:05PM SanDisk increases quarterly dividend 33% to $0.30 from $0.225 per share (SNDK) 86.96 +0.70 :

4:03PM Flextronics partners with Ichor Medical Systems to provide supply chain solutions, including design and manufacturing services (FLEX) 9.43 -0.03 : FLEX announced that its Medical Group will provide design and manufacturing services to Ichor Medical Systems for the development of its next generation TriGrid DNA Delivery System, an electroporation device used to deliver DNA vaccines and treatments addressing a broad spectrum of disease indications. The TriGrid technology has recently been licensed by Pfizer for the intracellular delivery of their DNA-based cancer vaccines.

Supply chain services for this next generation TriGrid system will be performed at Flextronics facilities in Texas. Flextronics engineers will work with Ichor staff to develop and build the electronic and mechanical components of the device.
Ichor's patented TriGrid Delivery System is the first integrated and fully automated device for electroporation-mediated DNA administration in humans. Electroporation is a potent method for enhancing DNA vaccine delivery with the application of electrical fields at the site of DNA administration, resulting in increased antigen expression and enhanced immune responses to the encoded antigen.

1:33PM Anadigics announced its ProEficient and ProVantage power amplifiers have been selected by multiple Chinese OEMs to enable wireless connectivity in new smartphone designs (ANAD) 1.09 -0.02 : "We anticipate that these new design wins for our ProEficient and ProVantage power amplifiers should enable a significant increase in our mobile products revenue at Chinese OEMs."

12:06PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

XEC (131 +9.17%): Beat on EPS by $0.15, beat on revs; announced acquisition of Cana-Woodford Shale Acreage for $249 mln in cash; co to acquire Cana-Woodford assets for $249 mln.
MDLZ (37.85 +7.48%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line; lowered FY14 EPS; co is merging its coffee business with D.E Master Blenders, to be called Jacobs Douwe Egberts; announced new restructuring program.
ATVI (20.64 +6.86%): Beat on EPS by $0.09, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.

Large Cap Losers

WFM (38.61 -19.48%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line; lowered FY14 EPS, comps, rev guidance; downgraded at BMO Capital Mkts; tgt lowered to $40 from $65; downgraded at Deutsche Bank; downgraded at Cantor Fitzgerald; tgt lowered to $38 from $48; downgraded at Sterne Agee; tgt lowered to $40 from $60; downgraded at Piper Jaffray; downgraded at Jefferies; tgt lowered to $46 from $61; tgt lowered to $55 from $61 at Oppenheimer; upgraded at Argus; tgt lowered to $49 from $63 at Canaccord Genuity; tgt lowered to $47 from $55 at Telsey Advisory Group; downgraded at Prime Executions; tgt lowered to $40 from $62.
QIHU (78.19 -6.39%): Weakness in China internet related names (BIDU also lower).
PRGO (130.67 -8.62%): Missed on EPS by $0.20, missed on revs; lowered FY14 EPS guidance.

Mid Cap Gainers

EA (32.86 +17.15%): Beat on EPS by $0.37, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; guided FY15 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; announced new $750 mln stock repurchase program; upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird; Brean Capital raised their EA tgt to $38 from $33; tgt raised to $38 at CRT Capital; tgt raised to $40 from $35 at BMO Capital Mkts; tgt raised to $36 from $27 at MKM Partners.
CZR (21.31 +14.82%): Announced comprehensive financing plan designed to position Caesars Entertainment Operating Co for stock listing and significant deleveraging; CEOC launched first lien incremental term loan and refinancing of all 2015 maturities; announced tender offers for Caesars Entertainment Operating's debt securities (co reports earnings after the close).
ARRS (28.7 +11.59%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James; target raised to $33 at RBC Capital Mkts; target raised to $34 from $32 at Needham; target raised to $36 at National Alliance Securities.

Mid Cap Losers

ZU (32.94 -28.23%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; guided Q2 revs above consensus; guided FY14 revs above consensus; target lowered to $45 at RBC Capital Mkts.
FEYE (28.4 -23.51%): Reported EPS in-line; beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus; lowered FY14 EPS below consensus, raised FY14 revs in-line.
AOL (34.38 -21.69%): Missed on EPS by $0.12, beat on revs; extended programmatic leadership with attribution modeling in deal to acquire Convertro for ~$101 mln.

11:44AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (216) outpacing new highs (113) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AER, AHGP, AIRI, ALL, AMT, ASH, ATSG, AVA, AVGO, AWK, BAH, BAM, BFR, BHI, BRK.A, BXE, CHK, CJES, CLR, COP, CPN, CRZO, CXO, DEG, DPS, DTE, DTV, DYN, E, EA, ECA, ECOL, ELS, EMES, ENB, EQR, ESRT, ESS, ETE, ETP, ETR, EXAM, EXC, FISV, FRT, GGP, GIS, GMK, GSAT, HNT, HOLX, HSP, IDXX, IHG, IMO, IRS, ITUB, JFBI, KED, KEP, LYB, MDLZ, MKL, MMP, MPET, NGG, NGLS, NLS, NOA, NRG, NTI, NVS, OILT, OKE, OPB, ORM, PAC, POM, PPC, PPL, PQ, PSIX, QTS, RDS.B, RNR, SJT, SLG, SOFO, SQBG, SRE, STO, SUSS, SXI, TAP, TEO, TI, TOO, TOT, TQNT, TRGP, UNTY, UTSI, VNO, VSEC, WES, WFT, WLK, WLP, WMB, XEC, XOM, YONG, ZBRA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAME, ACAT, ACFN, ACTS, AEGR, AEO, AHS, AMBR, AMBT, AMRC, AMSC, AMWD, ANAD, ANGI, ANTH, ARCO, ARQL, ASCMA, ATEN, AUY, AVEO, AVNW, AXR, BANC, BBBY, BBOX, BBSI, BGFV, BLFS, BNFT, BNNY, BRDR, BSET, BTX, BV, BXC, CCCR, CDE, CHS, CIX, CNAT, CNSI, COCO, COH, CPIX, CRCM, CREE, CRIS, CRMB, CRRC, CSLT, CVT, CYTK, CZNC, DARA, DCTH, DMD, DRL, DSW, DTLK, DWSN, EDMC, EGAN, ELNK, ELRC, END, ENTR, ESIO, EVRY, EXPR, FCBC, FCSC, FEYE, FIO, FMD, FRAN, FUEL, FWM, GBDC, GENE, GEOS, GHDX, GLMD, GNC, GORO, GWRE, GYRO, HEAR, HGR, HIVE, HMST, HTCH, HWCC, IIVI, IKAN, IMGN, IMI, IMPV, INFI, ISNS, JDSU, JOEZ, KANG, KBR, KEYW, KOPN, LEJU, LNKD, LOV, LUB, LULU, MCGC, MCP, MDSO, MEIP, MELI, MFLX, MLNX, MM, MOVE, MRIN, MSG, NGPC, NGVC, NIHD, NILE, NMBL, NMIH, NPBC, NPTN, NSPH, NSR, NTAP, NTLS, NTWK, OCN, OGXI, OPLK, OPWR, ORIT, OSTK, OVRL, PBPB, PBY, PENN, PFSI, PIKE, PLCE, PLPC, PRAN, PRO, QNST, QTM, QUAD, RAX, RELL, RKUS, RLOC, RM, RNF, RSE, RTEC, RTI, RUBI, SEAC, SEB, SFLY, SFM, SGI, SIGM, SINA, SOQ, SPAR, SPEX, SSNI, STNR, SUSQ, SZMK, TBNK, TCCO, TCRD, TCS, TEAR, TFM, TGE, THLD, THRX, TIGR, TLMR, TNDM, TOPS, TR, TTMI, TWER, TWGP, TWTR, TXTR, UEC, UNXL, UTIW, VEEV, VGGL, VIVO, VLGEA, VSTM, VTUS, WFM, WLT, WPCS, XNPT, XON, XXIA, ZEUS, ZIXI, ZNH, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AMJ, DIG, EWC, EWK, EWP, EWU, IEO, IGE, IXC, IYE, XLE

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


SanDisk (SNDK) and Arrow Electronics (ARW) have signed an expanded distribution agreement, under which Arrow will offer a wide variety of SanDisk commercial flash storage solutions to its more than 100,000 customers worldwide

At EMC World, Riverbed Technology (RVBD) announced Riverbed SteelFusion validation with the EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, which offers an open integration approach that brings together technologies to create and deliver flexible IT solutions for customers.

AEIS +0.2% (upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James),

7:31AM Aeroflex beats by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (ARX) 7.77 : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues fell 1.0% year/year to $155.5 mln vs the $158.33 mln consensus.
Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.28-0.31 vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $186-196 mln vs. $183.00 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:25AM Lumos Networks beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides FY14 revs below consensus (LMOS) 13.82 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.18 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.17; revenues fell 4.6% year/year to $50.1 mln vs the $50.51 mln consensus.

The Company ended the first quarter of 2014 with 633 FTTC sites connected, up 25 sequentially, which represents a year-over-year increase in total FTTC sites of 56%. Lumos Networks reiterates its guidance of reaching 825 FTTC sites by year-end and reiterates its target of selling 500 to 700 unique and second FTTC circuits during 2014. Lumos Networks also maintains its target for 1,500 FTTC sites within the next few years.
Lumos Networks raised its target for connected data centers from 20 by the middle of 2015 to 20 by the end of 2014. As Enterprise bandwidth traffic moves increasingly into the Cloud, the Company believes that this segment will constitute an increasingly large percentage of total Enterprise revenue.
In the first quarter of 2014, the Company added 53 fiber route miles and now has a fiber route mile network of 7,467. Additionally, the Company added 43 on-net buildings in the quarter to reach 1,387.

Guidance
Co issues downside guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of ~$200 mln vs. $202.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, down from $200-204 mln prior

HP (HPQ) introduced HP Helion, a portfolio of cloud products and services that enable organizations to build, manage and consume workloads in hybrid IT environments. HP plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next two years on cloud-related product and engineering initiatives, professional services and expanding HP Helion's global reach.

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) reported first quarter earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higeher than expected, while revenues fell 4.0% year/year to $772 million which is higher than expected. The co mpany issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $0.01, excluding non-recurring items which is below estimates & revenues of $600 mln mililon which is above estimates. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $1.27, excluding non-recurring items which is below estimates and revenues of $4.675 bililon which is higher than expected.
FireEye (FEYE) reported first quarter loss of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is in line with estimates, while revenues rose 160.6% year/year to $74 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of ($0.63) - ($0.58) which is below estimates and revenues of $89-91 mln which is above estimates. Q2 Guidance: Total billings in the range of $108 to $112 million. Gross margin in the range of 68 to 70 percent. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with EPS to ($2.30) - ($2.10), from ($2.20) - ($2.00) excluding non-recurring items which is below estimates and raised fiscal year 2014 revenues to $405-415 million from $400-410 million which is line with estimates. FY14 Guidance: Total billings in the range of $550 to $570 million. Gross margin in the range of 70 to 73 percent. First quarter billings were $99.2 million, compared with the previously issued guidance range of $84 to $88 million. Total billings included $26.1 million in product billings, $39.4 million in product subscription billings, $18.0 million in professional services billings and $15.7 million in support and maintenance billings. In a separate release, FireEye announced the execution of a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held nPulse Technologies, the performance leader in network forensics. As consideration for the acquisition, FireEye will pay approximately $60 million in cash, and issue approximately $10 million stock consideration that is subject to the achievement of certain milestones.
Electronic Arts (EA) reported first quarter earnings of $0.14 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 5.4% year/year to $79.13 million which is higher than expected. "Our Laser Products segment was up 10%, our Precision Motion segment was up 12%, and our Medical Technologies segment was down (5%). Medical Technologies was down as a result of a single customer's dual sourcing decision that reduced NDS volume beginning in April 2013." The company issued guidance for the revenues of $90-95 million which is in line with estimates. On a reported basis, revenue is expected to increase 13% to 19%, compared to the second quarter of 2013. The Company expects Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $13 million to $15 million for the second quarter of 2014.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 09-May-14Dow +32.37 at 16583.34, Nasdaq +20.37 at 4071.86, S&P +2.85 at 1878.48

The stock market finished a choppy week on cautiously optimistic note. The S&P 500 added 0.2% despite spending the bulk of the session in the red. The benchmark index narrowed its week-to-date loss to 0.1%, while the Russell 2000 (+0.9%) trimmed its weekly decline to 1.8%. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) managed to eke out a slim gain of 0.4% for the week, finishing at a new closing record high at 16,583.34.

Generally speaking, small caps faced the brunt of the selling that took place this week, while some of the money rotated into blue chip listings, allowing indices like the Dow and S&P 500 to stay ahead of their counterparts. Today's session proved to be a bit of a departure from that trend as small caps rebounded, while blue chips struggled to keep pace with their high-beta counterparts.

The S&P 500 spent the first three hours of action stringing together a rebound from its early low. At first, the index was pressured by the four top-weighted sectors, but those groups later separated, leaving the financial sector (-0.1%) among the laggards, while consumer discretionary (+0.6%), health care (+0.6%), and technology (+0.2%) fueled the market-wide bounce.

In particular, the biotech industry was volatile as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 226.44, +3.09) bounced between its 20- (226.18) and 200-day moving averages (223.16), but ultimately settled closer to its 20-day average with a gain of 1.4%.

Elsewhere, gains in high-beta technology and discretionary components like Facebook (FB 57.24, +0.48), Netflix (NFLX 328.55, +6.89), LinkedIn (LNKD 148.69, +3.62), and Priceline.com (PCLN 1135.91, +27.91) gave a boost to the overall risk sentiment. However, there were still some soft spots among the recent high flyers as Rocket Fuel (FUEL 21.83, -5.98) rocketed lower by 21.5% after its cautious guidance and revenue miss overshadowed its earnings beat.

Unlike momentum names, heavily-weighted tech components were relatively weak. That underperformance was evidenced by the largest member of the tech sector-Apple (AAPL 585.54, -2.45)-which fell 0.4% amid reports the company will acquire Beats Electronics for about $3 billion. In addition, the stock was downgraded to 'Buy' from 'Strong Buy' at ISI Group.

On the downside, this year's leading sector-utilities (-1.4%)-spent the session in a steady retreat that trimmed its year-to-date gain to 10.9%. Meanwhile, the second-best sector of the year-energy (-0.2%)-was the second-weakest performer today, narrowing its 2014 advance to 5.2%.

Treasuries surrendered their overnight gains ahead of the open and spent the remainder of the session anchored to their flat lines. The 10-yr yield ended at 2.62%.

Today's participation was below average as less than 640 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to the Wholesale Inventories report for March and the March Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey:

Wholesale inventories increased 1.1% in March after increasing an upwardly revised 0.7% (from 0.5%) in February, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%. The BEA assumed that wholesale inventories increased 1.1% in March in the advance estimate of first quarter GDP. The upward revision to February, however, was not built into its model and will result in a positive contribution toward growth in the second estimate.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for March indicated job openings decreased to 4.014 million from 4.173 million.

On Monday, the Treasury Budget for April will be released at 14:00 ET. Also of note, Ukraine's regions of Donetsk and Lugansk remain scheduled for independence referendums on Sunday.

Week in Review: Small Caps Lag

The stock market kicked off the trading week on a sleepy note as the major averages spent the bulk of the Monday session near their flat lines. However, a final push during the last hour of action placed the key indices at new highs into the close. The S&P 500 added 0.2%, while the Russell 2000 (-0.1%) lagged throughout the day. Equities began the session on their lows as renewed global growth concerns, combined with continued worries about Ukraine, conspired to ensure a cautious start. In China, the HSBC Manufacturing PMI fell to 48.1 from 48.3 (expected 48.4), signifying a slowdown in manufacturing activities. Elsewhere, the European Commission warned about slower-than-expected growth by lowering its 2014 inflation forecast to 0.8%. The commission also trimmed next year's inflation forecast to 1.2%, while lowering its 2015 GDP forecast to 1.7% from 1.8%.

Equity indices finished the Tuesday session on their lows after spending the entire day in negative territory. The S&P 500 tumbled 0.9% with nine sectors registering losses, while the Russell 2000 fell 1.6%, settling below its 200-day moving average for the first time since November 2012. Stocks were pressured from the get-go as index futures slid to their pre-market lows ahead of the opening bell. While the early slide was not brought on by a particular news item, it served as a reflection of the defensive sentiment in the foreign exchange market where the yen rallied to its best level in three weeks. The dollar/yen pair notched a session low in the 101.50 area, before inching up to 101.65 into the close. Once the session got going, dip-buyers tried to force a turnaround, but were unable to do so as some of the top-weighted sectors kept the pressure on the broader market. Most notably, the financial sector (-1.4%) underperformed for the second consecutive day. Influential components like Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase lost between 1.6% and 2.3%, while AIG plunged 4.1% after reporting a bottom-line beat on revenue that missed estimates.

Stock indices finished the Wednesday session on a mixed note as high-growth names weighed on the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) and the Nasdaq (-0.3%), while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) and S&P 500 (+0.6%) outperformed thanks to strength in blue chip listings. The stock market opened the trading day with modest gains amid headlines indicating Russia's President Vladimir Putin has reached out to OSCE chief and Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, attempting to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis through diplomatic avenues. Initially, the reports boosted overall risk appetite, sending Treasuries and the yen to lows, but those moves were retraced not long after. The yen returned into the middle of its trading range, while Treasuries reclaimed their losses and spent the afternoon near their flat lines. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended unchanged at 2.59%. Stock indices, meanwhile, surrendered their opening gains during the first hour of action, but only the Nasdaq Composite spent the remainder of the session in the red, while the Dow and S&P 500 rebounded swiftly.

The stock market ended the Thursday session on a defensive note despite showing early strength. The S&P 500 lost 0.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.4%) fell nearly 60 points from its session high. Also of note, the Russell 2000 (-1.0%) settled below its 200-day moving average after failing to retake that level during the session. Today's affair proved to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride as equities grinded higher in the morning, but rolled to fresh lows during the afternoon before climbing off those lows into the close. Fittingly, the areas that fueled the early advance (biotechnology and high-growth names) were the same spots that paced the afternoon slide.

 
 Index	   Started Week	  Ended Week  Change	% Change   YTD % 
 DJIA	     16512.89	  16583.34    70.45        0.4	   0.0 
 Nasdaq	      4123.90	   4071.87   -52.03	  -1.3	  -2.5 
 S&P 500	1881.14	   1878.48    -2.66	  -0.1     1.6 
 Russell 2000  1128.80	   1107.22   -21.58	  -1.9	  -4.8

5:25PM This week's biggest % gainers/losers (SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology: EA (35.12 +23.23%), MITL (10.83 +18.75%), GSAT (3.17 +12.01%), CBB (3.76 +11.9%)
Services: STRA (53.7 +23.68%), ODP (5.24 +23.29%), ATSG (9.35 +16.58%), ZUMZ (28.28 +14.73%)
Industrial Goods: PPO (39.92 +14.42%)
Healthcare: CHTP (6.57 +28.07%), RMTI (11.45 +14.04%), NLNK (23.91 +13.1%)
Financial: GCA (8.03 +21.85%), MIG (6.43 +18.63%), WAC (29.34 +14.48%), IBN (48.5 +13.56%)
Consumer Goods: NLS (11.12 +33.17%), GMCR (108.47 +19.71%)
Basic Materials: EMES (86.41 +15.14%), JONE (16.99 +14.41%)
This week's top 20 % losersTechnology: FEYE (26.44 -33.8%), EXTR (3.68 -33.45%), SSNI (10.97 -28.63%), TWOU (10.93 -28%), CSLT (11.54 -24.43%), HIMX (6.68 -23.92%), ININ (48.3 -23.41%), UBNT (31.38 -23.28%)
Services: MM (3.38 -44.59%), CECO (4.66 -35.9%), ZU (30.42 -35.76%), FUEL (21.83 -32.54%), LQDT (12.24 -29.17%), SGMS (8.97 -26.21%)
Healthcare: VNDA (10.17 -29.91%), AEGR (32.62 -25.01%), DEPO (10.57 -24.18%), DNDN (1.94 -22.4%)
Financial: GCAP (7.98 -23.42%)
Basic Materials: MCP (3.05 -35.92%)
12:30PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

GPS (40.8 +3.98%): Reported April same store sales rose 9% vs -0.5% Retail Metric consensus; sees Q1 EPS of $0.56-0.57 vs $0.54 estimate, revs of $3.77 bln vs $3.69 bln estimate
SYMC (20.86 +3.63%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.47 vs $0.42 estimate), revs fell 5.6% yoy to $1.65 bln vs $1.64 bln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.41-0.43 vs $0.43 estimate, revs of $1.65-1.69 bln vs $1.64 bln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $1.84-1.92 vs $1.83 estimate, revs of $6.63-6.77 bln vs $6.66 bln estimate
BAP (156 +4.78%): Reported Q1 EPS of PEN 0.13 vs PEN 0.10 in prior year, rev rose 21% yoy to PEN 1.29 bln
Large Cap Losers
ALU (3.82 -4.98%): Beat quarterly EPS by EUR 0.01 (loss of EUR 0.03 per share vs estimate for loss of EUR 0.04 per share), revs fell 8.2% yoy to EUR 2.96 bln vs EUR 3.16 bln estimate; hearing downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum
MT (15.67 -4.18%): Reported Q1 EPS of -$0.12, revs rose 0.2% yoy to $19.79 bln vs $20.01 bln estimate
CBS (56.14 -3.22%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.79 ex items vs $0.75 estimate), revs fell 4.6% yoy to $3.86 bln vs $3.93 bln estimate
Mid Cap Gainers
CSC (63.9 +10.10%): Reported Q4 EPS of $1.04 (in-line), revs fell 5.0% yoy to $3.33 bln vs $3.36 bln estimate; target raised to $68 from $60 at Stifel
MDVN (64.73 +7.88%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.07 (-$0.18 vs -$0.11 estimate), revs rose 88.9% yoy to $87.19 mln vs $96.18 mln estimate; Q1 sales of XTANDI were $124.5 mln vs $75.4 mln in prior year; sees FY14 XTANDI revs of $540-575 mln
JCOM (46.7 +6.94%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.76 ex items vs $0.73 estimate), revs rose 18.0% yoy to $134.1 mln vs $132.7 mln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS of $3.23-3.47 ex items vs $3.35 estimate, revs of $580-600 mln vs $587.2 mln estimate
Mid Cap Losers
UBNT (31.98 -22.71%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.50 vs $0.49 estimate), revs rose 78.2% yoy to $148.3 mln vs $142.09 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.48-0.52 vs $0.50 estimate, revs of $147-153 mln vs $148.02 mln estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush
AIRM (47.54 -10.50%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.28 vs $0.33 estimate), revs rose 24.5% yoy to $223.1 mln vs $223.2 mln estimate
POST (47.64 -8.53%): Reported Q2 adjusted loss of $0.021 per share vs $0.19 estimate, revs rose 76.5% yoy to $438 mln vs $446.52 mln estimate
11:41AM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (190) outpacing new highs (39) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AIRI, AL, ALLY, ASBB, BAM, BAP, BLL, BPO, BXP, CBSO, CDW, CLDT, CPE, CSC, CXP, EA, EMES, EQR, ESRT, ESS, ETR, GIS, GSAT, HDB, MOH, NGG, NLS, NVS, ORM, PBA, RDNT, SGU, SQBG, TAP, TOO, TPL, TWIN, UDR, VNO

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAT, ACFN, ACST, ACTS, AEPI, AGI, AHPI, AHS, AMBR, AMBT, AMSC, AMWD, AMZG, ASCMA, AVEO, AVNW, AXR, BAGR, BANC, BAXS, BBSI, BLFS, BRDR, BTH, BTX, BV, CBMX, CCCR, CCNE, CDE, CERE, CGA, CGG, CHCI, CLDX, COCO, COH, CORI, CPIX, CRCM, CRIS, CRMB, CRNT, CRTO, CSLT, CUTR, CVT, CYTK, DARA, DDC, DMD, DNDN, DVR, EBIO, ECYT, EDMC, EGRX, EGT, ELRC, END, ENTR, ESIO, EVDY, FCSC, FDUS, FEYE, FIO, FIVN, FSGI, FSI, FUEL, FXCM, GBDC, GENE, GORO, GWRE, HELI, HIVE, HMST, HTBX, HTCH, HWKN, IDI, IDSY, IIVI, IKAN, IMI, IMN, IMPV, ININ, ISRG, ISSC, JMBA, JOEZ, KANG, KBIO, KEYW, KOPN, LAND, LEI, LEJU, LIME, LIQD, LODE, LOV, LUB, MBII, MBIS, MCP, MEIP, MFLX, MGNX, MIXT, MLNX, MOSY, N, NAK, NBS, NDLS, NDRO, NEON, NEWS, NGPC, NL, NMBL, NPK, NPTN, NRX, OGXI, ONCY, ONTX, OVAS, OVRL, PBPB, PGNX, PIKE, PINC, PMFG, PRO, QLIK, QTWO, RAX, RGDX, RGLS, RKUS, RL, RLOC, RNF, RSO, RST, RUBI, SFLY, SGI, SGYP, SIGM, SLRC, SMLR, SMSI, SNOW, SOQ, SPAR, SQI, SSN, SUSQ, TCRD, TEAR, TGE, THLD, TIBX, TLOG, TNGO, TRVN, TSRO, TUMI, TWER, TWOU, TXTR, UNXL, VGGL, VIDE, VJET, VLGEA, VRNS, VTUS, WLT, WTSL, XNPT, XON, ZIXI, ZLCS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FAN

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


7:00AM JinkoSolar Holding to provide 35 MW to Clenera for the Arizona Avalon Solar Project (JKS) 25.54 : Co announced that it will supply 35 MW of solar PV modules to Clenera, a clean energy finance and management firm, for the construction of the Avalon Solar Project. According to terms of the agreement, groundbreaking is expected to begin during the second quarter of 2014, with an anticipated completion date during the fourth quarter of 2014. Swinerton Renewable Energy will provide engineering, procurement, and construction services for the project.

GrubHub (GRUB) reported first quarter earnings of $0.06 per share, which is higher than expected. while revenues rose 48.7% year/year to $58.6 million which is higher than expected. Active Diners grew 49% to 3.85 million, compared to 2.58 million diners in the first quarter of 2013. GrubHub Inc. processed 181,200 Daily Average Grubs, a 40% year-over-year increase from 129,100 Daily Average Grubs in the first quarter of 2013. GrubHub Inc. processed $433 million in gross food sales, a 44% year-over-year increase from $300 million processed in the first quarter of 2013. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with revenues of $53-55 million which is higher than expected; adjusted EBITDA in the range of $13-15 million.MercadoLibre (MELI) reported first quarter earnings of $0.69 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 12.4% year/year to $115.4 million which is higher than expected. Gross profit margin was 72.7% up from 72.1% the first quarter of 2013, as scale in customer support operations and lower withdrawal costs in MercadoPago Argentina offset higher payment processing fees due to strong TPV growth.Symantec (SYMC) reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.47 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 5.6% year/year to $1.65 billion which is line with estimates. Operating Margin: Non-GAAP operating margin was 27.3 percent, up 320 basis points and up 250 basis points after adjusting for currency.Cash Flow: Cash flow from operating activities was $449 million, down 27 percent year-over-year. Guidance: The company issued guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $0.41-$0.43 which is line with estimates and revenues of $1.65-$1.69 billion which his higher than expected. Sees Non-GAAP operating margin of 24.1 to 24.5%, compared to 25.3% in the year-ago period. The company issued guidance for fiscal year 2015 with EPS of $1.84-$1.92 which is line with estimates and revenues of $6.63-$6.77 billion which is line with estimates. Non-GAAP operating margin of 24.1 to 24.5%, compared to 25.3% in the year-ago period.
Rocket Fuel (FUEL) reported first quarter loss of $0.18 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 94.8% year/year to $74.4 million which is lower than expected. Other Metrics: Adjusted EBITDA was $(3.7) million compared to $(4.6) million in the first quarter of 2013. Gross margin improved to 49.5% form 45.9% year ago. Active customer count expanded to 1,251, up from 560 in the first quarter of 2013. Guidance: The company issued guidance for the second quarter with revenues of $88-$92 milion which is lower than expected. Sees Adjusted EBITDA of ($6.0)-($4.5) mln. THe company issued guidance for fiscal year 2014 with revenues of $420-$435 million which is line with estimates. Sees Adjusted EBITDA of $3-$6 million.
NVIDIA (NVDA) reported first quarter earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 15.5% year/year to $1.1 billion which is higher than expected; non-GAAP margin 55.1%. The company already reported Q1 EPS and rev on Tuesday morning after a preliminary draft of the co's Q1 results was inadvertently emailed to an internal distribution list of about 100 individuals. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with revenues of approximately $1.1 billion which is higher than expected; non-GAAP margins are expected to be ~54.0%. "Nearly 600 enterprises worldwide are now evaluating GRID, our virtual GPU server platform. VMware announced support for GRID to enable GPU-accelerated enterprise virtualization. And with IBM, Dell and HP now selling our GPUs in their high-volume servers, we expect large-scale data centers to be a significant source of growth."

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market kicked off the new trading week on an upbeat note with small caps leading the advance after showing relative weakness last week. The Russell 2000 surged 2.3%, while the S&P 500 gained 1.0%. Even though the benchmark index posted a slimmer gain than the Russell 2000, it still managed to register a fresh closing record high at 1,896.65. Similarly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) also settled at a new record high.

Small caps faced some heavy selling last week, while indices with a significant concentration of large cap listings were able to withstand the pressure. Today, however, the areas that struggled last week displayed relative strength, while the Dow and S&P 500 posted more modest gains.

Eight of ten sectors finished in the green with a clear bias towards cyclical groups as consumer discretionary (+1.3%), financials (+1.0%), industrials (+1.5%), materials (+1.3%), and technology (+1.5%) all posted gains of 1.0% or more, while the energy sector (+0.6%) was the only laggard among cyclical sectors.

The largest S&P 500 sector-technology-finished in the lead thanks to a boost from high-growth names like Facebook (FB 59.83, +2.59), LinkedIn (LNKD 152.28, +3.59), and Yelp (YELP 56.60, +2.38); however, it is worth pointing out that other areas of the sector also had a strong showing. Top sector members Apple (AAPL 592.83, +7.29) and Microsoft (MSFT 39.97, +0.43) both gained near 1.1%, while the broad strength among chipmakers sent the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.8%.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector also received a measure of support from momentum names, but retailers and homebuilders were not far behind. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 84.88, +1.62) and iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 23.70, +0.49) posted gains close to 2.0% apiece.

With nearly all cyclical sectors finishing ahead of the broader market, the only soft spots were found on the countercyclical side. The health care sector (+1.0%) ended ahead of the broader market, while consumer staples (+0.1%), telecom services (-0.2%), and utilities (-1.0%) lagged.

Treasuries retreated throughout the session, ending just above their lows. The benchmark 10-yr yield rose two basis points to 2.65%.

Participation was well below average as less than 630 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Also of note, Ukraine's regions of Donetsk and Lugansk have declared independence after Sunday referendums showed overwhelming support for breaking away from Ukraine. Following yesterday's vote, the council of Donetsk has petitioned for accession to the Russian Federation.

Economic data was limited to the Treasury budget, which posted a surplus of $106.90 billion in April 2014, down from a surplus of $112.90 billion in April 2013. The Treasury data are not seasonally adjusted and the April surplus cannot be compared with the results from March. The Briefing.com consensus expected a budget surplus of $114.00 billion. The Congressional Budget Office released their monthly budget preview last week and predicted a surplus of $114.00 billion. The market is well aware of the CBO's forecast and generally does not react to the actual budget release.

Tomorrow, the Retail Sales report for April (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and April Import/Export Prices will be released at 8:30 ET, while the Business Inventories report for March (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +2.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -0.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.5% YTD

DJ30 +112.13 NASDAQ +71.99 SP500 +18.17 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2205/1.73 bln/561 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2429/625.9 mln/630 3:30 pm : Precious metals and crude oil traded higher today, gaining support from renewed tension in Ukraine. The EU has placed sanctions on two Crimean companies and 13 Russian individuals following independence referendums held over the weekend in Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Neither Kiev, nor the international community has recognized the votes as legitimate.

June gold advanced to a session high of $1304.50 per ounce in early morning action but retreated back below the $1300 per ounce level as the session progressed. It eventually settled with a 0.6% gain at $1295.90 per ounce.

July silver traded as high a $19.67 per ounce in early morning action. It then consolidated near the $19.60 per ounce level and settled with a 2.3% gain at $19.55 per ounce.

Crude oil rose for the first time in three sessions, advancing as high as $100.97 per barrel in morning action. It eventually settled with a 0.6% gain at $100.60 per barrel.

June natural gas, on the other hand, fell deeper into negative territory after pulling back from its session high of $4.50 per MMBtu set moments after pit trade opened. Unable to find buying support, it settled at its session low of $4.43 per MMBtu, or 2.2% lower.

4:05PM Rackspace beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs midpoint just above estimates (RAX) 27.54 +1.26 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.18 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.12; revenues rose 16.2% year/year to $421 mln vs the $419.41 mln consensus.

Net revenue for the first quarter of 2014 was positively impacted by currency exchange rates when compared to the previous quarter by $2.4 million and positively impacted when compared to the first quarter of 2013 by $6.6 million.
Total server count increased to 106,229, up from 103,886 servers at the end of the previous quarter. Adjusted EBITDA(1) for the quarter was $140 million, a 5.8% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2013.
Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 33.2% compared to 32.4% in the previous quarter.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $434-440 mln vs. $435.24 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:59PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TTM (40.76 +6.04%): Strength in Indian stocks following strong exit poll results for the Bharatiya Janata Party
ALU (4.06 +5.45%): In newspaper interview co's CEO said company is focused on its cost saving and repositioning plan, not on a potential deal with Nokia (NOK)
MNST (70.02 +4.52%): Added to European Focus List at JP Morgan

Large Cap Losers

CXO (130.65 -2.85%): Announced public offering of 6 mln shares of common stock
NTAP (33.65 -1.58%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James
RL (146.69 -1.42%): NY Post reporting that Executive Vice Chairman Roger Farah may retire; downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse, target lowered to $165 from $185

Mid Cap Gainers

PF (34.41 +13.00%): To be acquired by Hillshire Brands (HSH) for $18 per share in cash and 0.50 shares of Hillshire common stock, for implied price of $36.02 per share
YY (57.63 +9.04%): Strength in Chinese internet stocks: WUBA, QIHU, VIPS also higher
PAY (34.72 +8.09%): Seeing reports that Apple (AAPL) will adopt VeriFone's point of sale technology at its retail stores

Mid Cap Losers

CLB (154.08 -18.52%): Sees Q2 EPS of $1.32-1.35 vs $1.51 estimate, revs of $265-270 mln vs $284.83 mln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $5.80-6.00 vs $7.10 estimate, revs of $1.1 bln vs $1.28 bln estimate; target lowered to $160 from $170 at Cowen
HSH (34.71 -6.06%): Lower after announcing acquisition of Pinnacle Foods (PF) in cash and stock deal
APO (25.22 -3.70%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

12:06PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (151) outpacing new lows (41) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAN, ABG, AIRI, ALK, ALL, ALLY, AMKR, ANCI, AP, APH, ATSG, BAH, BAM, BBW, BGCP, BLL, BPO, CBB, CBSO, CCK, CDW, CENX, CHC, CHK, CHSP, CLDT, CNC, CNMD, COP, CP, CPE, CR, CSL, CUZ, CVS, CXDC, CXP, CYT, DLX, DMLP, DPS, DYN, EA, ECOL, EMES, ENR, EQR, ESRT, ESS, ETE, EW, FGP, FINL, FL, FNHC, GD, GGP, GIS, GLP, GMK, GSAT, HAYN, HBI, HDB, HNT, HOLX, HRS, HSP, HST, HUM, IBN, IDXX, IMS, INGR, ISIL, ITW, K, KRC, LDL, LUV, LYB, MANT, MAR, MC, MCD, MITL, MMM, MO, MOG.A, MOH, MSI, MSL, MTOR, MU, MUSA, MWV, NDSN, NGG, NLS, NNBR, NVS, OPB, ORM, PBA, PEP, PF, PGI, PHX, POM, PPC, PQ, QTS, R, RAI, RDNT, RDS.B, RFMD, RHI, RLJ, SAH, SBGL, SFNC, SGU, SIAL, SLG, SMP, SNDK, STE, SWKS, SXI, SYA, SYPR, TAP, TMK, TPC, TQNT, TRN, TRV, TSYS, TTM, TWIN, UDR, UHAL, UN, VNO, WLP, WMB, WNRL, WWD, YONG, ZLC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AETI, AMBT, AMZG, ARES, ARQL, AXR, BAXS, BOTA, BSDM, BTX, CBMX, CGG, CHCI, CHGG, CHOP, DARA, DCTH, DNDN, EGT, FEYE, FRSH, GWRE, HCAP, HCT, LIME, MBII, NEON, ONTX, PBPB, POWR, QRM, RNDY, RSO, SC, SCOK, SPEX, TGE, USMD, VHI, VRNS, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, EWK, FAN, IYK, IYT, OEF, PIN, SDY, USCI, XLB, XLI, XLP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SMN, VXX, VXZ

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced that its ConnectX-3 10/40Gb RDMA over Converged Ethernet and FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand Network Interface Cards power DataON Storage Cluster-in-a-Box appliances.

Riverbed Technology (RVBD) will demonstrate application acceleration across Microsoft (MSFT) business environments delivered by the Riverbed Application Performance Platform.

Sanmina (SANM) and Primus Power announced a manufacturing agreement focused on the growing energy storage market

Silicon Image (SIMG) announced that its reference design partnership with MediaTek has resulted in five new design wins for MHL-enabled smartphone models from various China and international brands.

OmniVision Technologies (OVTI), a leading developer of advanced digital imaging solutions, today announced the automotive industry's first backside illumination image sensor and a new powerful companion processing chip

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday session on a mixed note despite showing early strength. The S&P 500 added less than a point, while the Russell 2000 lost 1.0%.

Equity indices began the trading day on an upbeat note even though the April Retail Sales report that was released ahead of the open missed expectations. The report pointed to soft consumer spending, but had little effect on equities as the disappointing figures suggested there is little need as of yet to worry that the first rate hike from the Fed will come sooner rather than later.

With the data out of the way, the S&P 500 rallied out of the gate, charging past the 1,900 mark for the first time ever. Even though the index was able to creep above that psychological level during the first hour of action, it could not hold its high as the underperformance of small caps weighed on the overall sentiment. Furthermore, the lack of concerted leadership from either the cyclical or the countercyclical side contributed to the caution that was exhibited by market participants.

The four top-weighted sectors were mixed when compared to the S&P 500. Consumer discretionary (-0.3%) and financials (-0.1%) lagged throughout the session, while health care (+0.2%) and technology (+0.1%) registered modest gains after displaying some intraday volatility.

The health care sector posted a slim gain even as biotechnology ended on lows. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 230.51, -1.41) fell 0.6% after being up nearly 1.0% during the first hour of action.

Elsewhere, the tech sector was kept from pulling away from its flat line by the mixed performance among momentum names. LinkedIn (LNKD 147.67, -4.63) and Yelp (YELP 55.53, -1.07) lost 3.0% and 1.9%, respectively, while chipmakers also struggled, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 0.8%.

Even though the top four sectors did not show much strength, the S&P 500 never dipped too far below its flat line as energy (+0.3%), industrials (+0.2%), and consumer staples (+0.2%) outperformed throughout the session. Notably, the industrial sector was underpinned by transports as the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.5%) climbed to a fresh all-time high.

On the fixed income side, Treasuries surged after the disappointing Retail Sales report and continued their advance into the afternoon. As a result, the benchmark 10-yr yield fell five basis points to 2.61%.

For the second day in a row, participation was well below average, with less than 600 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data featured Retail Sales, Import/Export Prices for April, and March Business Inventories:

Retail sales increased 0.1% in April after increasing an upwardly revised 1.5% (from 1.2%) in March. The Briefing.com consensus expected retail sales to increase 0.3%. Expectations of strong GDP growth in the second quarter were predicated on the unleashing of pent-up demand from weather-related delays. So far, that has not happened. Instead, sales growth trended in-line with income gains. The April Employment report showcased a 0.2% increase in aggregate earnings, which translated into a 0.1% increase in retail sales. Excluding transportation, retail sales were flat after increasing an upwardly revised 1.0% (from 0.7%) in March. The consensus expected these sales to increase 0.6%.
Export prices, excluding agriculture, fell 1.2% in March after increasing 0.8% in the prior reading. Excluding oil, import prices were unchanged, which followed last month's uptick of 0.3%.
Business inventories increased 0.4% in March after increasing an upwardly revised 0.5% (from 0.4%) in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected business inventories to increase 0.4%. Total inventories consist of manufacturer, merchant wholesaler, and retailers. Both manufacturers (0.1%) and wholesalers (1.1%) were known prior to the release. Only retailer inventories, which were flat after falling 0.1% in February, were unknown.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while April PPI and Core PPI will be reported at 8:30 ET.

S&P 500 +2.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.4% YTD

DJ30 +19.97 NASDAQ -13.69 SP500 +0.80 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 917/1.75 bln/1796 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1361/590.9 mln/1698

3:35 pm :

June gold erased most of its early morning losses as it popped from its session low of $1290.00 per ounce following retail sales economic data.
Retail sales increased 0.1% in April after increasing an upwardly revised 1.5% (from 1.2%) in March. The Briefing.com consensus expected retail sales to increase 0.3%.
The yellow metal touched a session high of $1299.00 per ounce in late morning action and spent the remainder of the session chopping around near the unchanged line. It eventually settled 0.1% lower at $1294.70 per ounce.
July silver came off its session low of $19.47 per ounce in early morning action and brushed a session high of $19.62 per ounce. It also consolidated near the unchanged level in afternoon floor trade and settled with a 0.1% loss at $19.53 per ounce.
June crude oil extended yesterday's gains as investors awaited tomorrow's EIA inventory data. The energy component came off its session low of $100.85 per barrel set moments after equity markets opened. It rallied slightly heading into the close and settled at $101.73 per barrel, or 1.1% higher.
June natural gas fell for a fifth consecutive session. It trended lower after pulling back from its session high of $4.44 per MMBtu set in early morning pit trade and settled with a 1.6% loss at $4.36 per MMBtu.

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Chart of the Day - Rating the current Dow Rally

http://www.chartoftheday.com/20140514.htm?H

The Dow just made another all-time record high. To provide some further perspective to the current Dow rally, all major market rallies of the last 114 years are plotted on today's chart. Each dot represents a major stock market rally as measured by the Dow with the majority of rallies referred to by a label which states the year in which the rally began. For today's chart, a rally is being defined as an advance that follows a 30% decline (i.e. a major bear market). As today's chart illustrates, the Dow has begun a major rally 13 times over the past 114 years which equates to an average of one rally every 8.8 years. It is also interesting to note that the duration and magnitude of each rally correlated fairly well with the linear regression line (gray upward sloping line). As it stands right now, the current Dow rally that began in March 2009 (blue dot labeled you are here) would be classified as well below average in both duration and magnitude. However, the magnitude and duration of the current post-financial crisis rally has now reached median status -- its magnitude and duration is greater than six and less than six Dow rallies since 1900.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Equities finished the Thursday session with broad-based losses after spending the entire day in the red. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.9% with nine sectors registering losses, while the Russell 2000 lost 0.7% after being down as much as 1.9%.

Stocks slumped out of the gate with small caps leading the early slide even though the economic data that was reported ahead of the open was mostly better than expected. To be fair, a couple data points did miss expectations, but the first batch that included above-consensus weekly initial claims, in-line CPI, and the better than expected Empire Manufacturing Survey was met with a rally in the Treasury market.

Treasuries spiked into the green after the three economic reports crossed the wires, and continued their rally into the late morning. The 10-yr note added 13 ticks, pressuring its yield five basis points to 2.50%, after marking a session low at 2.47%. The benchmark yield ended today's session down 12 basis points for the week.

The continued strength in Treasuries weighed on the overall sentiment, causing participants to reduce their risk exposure. Fittingly, with Treasuries signaling unease about the strength of economic growth, today's weakest sectors came from the cyclical side.

Out of the six growth-sensitive sectors, four posted losses larger than the broader market. Energy, financials, industrials, and materials lost between 1.0% and 1.5%, while consumer discretionary (-0.7%) and technology (-0.8%) outperformed.

The consumer discretionary sector lagged for the better part of the session, but was able to reclaim a portion of its losses during the afternoon. Homebuilders held up relatively well, which was likely a function of lower yields. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 23.09, -0.07) shed 0.3%.

Elsewhere, the technology sector was underpinned by the shares of Cisco Systems (CSCO 24.18, +1.37), which rallied 6.0% in reaction to better than expected earnings and revenue. Chipmakers, however, could not keep pace with the sector as the PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 1.2%.

Things looked a bit better on the countercyclical side as this month's leading sector-telecom services (+0.2%)-extended its May advance to 2.8%, while the utilities space (-0.4%) posted a modest loss. The other two defensive groups registered losses that were more in line with the S&P 500. Health care (-1.0%) lagged, while the consumer staples sector (-0.9%) kept pace with the broader market even as its top component-Wal-Mart (WMT 76.83, -1.91)-weighed. The retail giant tumbled 2.4% after reporting disappointing results, coupled with cautious guidance.

Today's selloff invited above-average participation as 732 million shares changed hands at the NYSE, representing the highest total since last Wednesday.

Economic data was plentiful and mostly better than expected:

The initial claims level fell below 300,000 to 297,000 for the week ending May 10 from an upwardly revised 321,000 (from 319,000) for the week ending May 3. The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to increase to 325,000. According to the Department of Labor, there were no special factors that caused the initial claims level to fall unexpectedly to its lowest level since May 2007.
Consumer prices increased 0.3% in April, up from a 0.2% increase in March. The Briefing.com consensus expected the CPI to increase 0.3%. Food prices increased 0.4% for a fourth consecutive month. A big increase in producer food prices in April will likely pass through to consumers and keep upward pressure on the CPI food index. Energy costs, which fell 0.1% in March, increased 0.3% in April. Excluding food and energy, core CPI increased 0.2% for a second consecutive month in April, matching consensus expectations.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for May registered a reading of 19.0, which was up from the prior month's reading of 1.3. Economists polled by Briefing.com expected the survey to improve to 4.8.
The March net long-term TIC flows report indicated an $85.70 billion inflow of foreign capital into U.S. denominated assets. This followed the prior month's revised $90.30 billion inflow.
Industrial production declined 0.6% in April after increasing an upwardly revised 0.9% (from 0.7%) in March. The Briefing.com consensus expected industrial production to be flat in April. As expected, warmer weather conditions reduced the need for utilities consumption. Output/production in utilities fell 5.3% in April after increasing 0.6% in March.
The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook showed a slight deceleration in manufacturing growth in May. The diffusion index fell to 15.4 from 16.6 in April. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to fall to 9.1.
The May NAHB Housing Market Index fell to 45 from 46, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to increase to 48.

Tomorrow, Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 975,000) and Building Permits (consensus 1.008 million) for April will be released at 8:30 ET, while the preliminary Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey (expected 84.5) will be announced at 9:55 ET.

S&P 500 +1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.6% YTD

DJ30 -167.16 NASDAQ -31.33 SP500 -17.68 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 838/1.93 bln/1919 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 927/733.0 mln/2131

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded lower today as jobless claims fell below 300K. The initial claims level fell to 297K for the week ending May 10 from an upwardly revised 321K (from 319K) for the week ending May 3. The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to increase to 325K.
June gold dropped to a session low of $1290.90 per ounce after trading as high as $1303.60 per ounce at pit trade open. It eventually settled with a 0.9% loss at $1293.70 per ounce.
July silver pulled back from its session high of $19.67 per ounce set in early morning action and traded as low as $19.43 per ounce. Unable to gain momentum, it settled with a 1.5% loss at $19.49 per ounce. June crude oil fell for the first time in four sessions, trading as low as $101.27 per barrel in early afternoon action. The energy component retreated from a session high of $102.19 per barrel and settled at $101.46 per barrel, or 0.9% lower.
June natural gas rallied sharply into positive territory following inventory data that showed a build of 105 bcf when a build of 95-99 bcf was anticipated. It climbed to a session high of $4.51 per MMBtu in late morning action and settled with a 2.1% gain at $4.46 per MMBtu.

4:08PM Applied Materials reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 in-line (AMAT) 18.69 -0.26 : Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.28; revenues rose 19.3% year/year to $2.35 bln vs the $2.35 bln consensus.

Applied generated orders of $2.63 billion, up 15% from the prior quarter led by increases in Display and Silicon Systems. Net sales of $2.35 billion were up 7% sequentially led by growth in Silicon Systems.
Non-GAAP adjusted gross margin increased 170 basis points from the prior quarter to 44.2%.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.25-0.29, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.27 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q3 revs of (5)-0% QoQ to ~$2.24-2.35 vs. $2.31 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Backlog grew 12% sequentially to $2.74 billion including positive adjustments of $23 million, primarily related to EES re-bookings. Backlog composition by segment was: SSG 53%; AGS 24%; Display 17%; and EES 6%.

2:30PM Riverbed Technology: Elliott comments on ISS and Glass Lewis Riverbed recommendations; ISS and Glass Lewis recommend against nearly all of RVBD's proposals (RVBD) 19.24 -0.30 : Co issued a public statement regarding Riverbed Technology in connection with the recent news that ISS and Glass Lewis have recommended voting against nearly all of Riverbed's proposals at its annual meeting on May 22nd. Elliott portfolio manager Jesse Cohn also commented on a presentation that Riverbed filed in response to mounting criticism of its corporate governance track record.

Jesse Cohn, portfolio manager at Elliott Management stated, "Yesterday's filing by Riverbed weakly and mistakenly attempts to defend its entrenched and shareholder-unfriendly practices. The Board clearly remains unresponsive to shareholders' concerns, including the concerns voiced recently by another large Riverbed shareholder about the Company's failure to engage with potential buyers at a premium to the current market value. It is no wonder that both ISS and Glass Lewis have come out against the Board's proposals."

Large Cap Gainers

CSCO (24.32 +6.62%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS in-line, Q4 revs above consensus; target raised to $23 from $19 at FBR Capital; target raised to $26 from $24 at Piper Jaffray; tgt raised to $27 from $25 at Oppenheimer; tgt raised to $24 from $23 at RBC Capital Mkts.
SYMC (21.73 +1.47%): ValueAct disclosed new ~ 7.6 mln share position in co.
AZN (79.02 +0.93%): Co disclosed new data from co's investigational cancer medicines; updated data from the ongoing Phase I AURA study show that to date AZD9291 is well tolerated.

Large Cap Losers

BMY (48.6 -6.75%): Co's investigational PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab received FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation for Hodgkin lymphoma; nivolumab showed antitumor activity in previously treated and chemotherapy-naive patients in Phase 1b non-small cell lung cancer trials; downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Mkts;
STO (29.96 -4.1%): Downgraded to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts.
CA (28.95 -3.72%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, reported revs in-line; guided FY15 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.

Mid Cap Gainers

VIPS (154.87 +3.25%): Beat on EPS by $0.17, beat on revs; guided Q2 revs above consensus.
SABR (16.34 +3.68%): Reported Q1 EPS of $0.18 (no est); revs increased 7% YoY to $661.2 mln (no est); sees FY14 consolidated revs of $2.985-3.015 bln (no ests); sees FY14 EPS of $0.86-0.92 (no ests).
PAH (20.24 +1.61%): Co entered into subscription agreements with certain eligible purchasers for the purchase of a total of 15.8 mln shares of its common stock for an aggregate purchase price of $300.2 mln, or $19.00 per share.

Mid Cap Losers

ACXM (21.16 -22.03%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line; guided FY14 revs below consensus; upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at BMO Capital Mkt; co to acquire LiveRamp for ~$310 mln in cash; acquisition will be dilutive on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis.
WX (31.24 -14.18%): Missed on EPS by $0.09, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.
CXP (26.7 -7.48%): Downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

12:03PM Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (160) outpacing new highs (24) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: BAM, BBL, BWL.A, CBEY, ETE, EW, GTIV, HBM, HTWO, MC, MIC, NGG, NGLS, NJR, NVS, OILT, ORCL, PTX, SHG, SRLP, TU, UL, UN, WIN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAT, ACPW, ACST, ACTS, ACUR, ADTN, AGI, AMWD, AMZG, ANGI, AREX, ARQL, ARTNA, AXR, BANC, BBSI, BECN, BGFV, BHLB, BLMN, BRC, BV, CAS, CCNE, CGA, CGG, CIT, CNSI, COH, CREE, CRIS, CUO, CVT, DEST, DGII, DISCA, DRD, DSCI, DTLK, DTSI, DWCH, ELRC, EMXX, END, ENTR, ESIO, EV, EVAR, EVRY, EXXI, FCBC, FEYE, FFKT, FHCO, FLL, FNGN, FRSH, FSYS, FXCB, GLMD, GNE, GWRE, HCT, HDNG, HGR, HTBI, HTLF, IGT, IILG, IIVI, IKAN, IMI, IMRS, KBH, KBR, KGC, KOPN, KRO, L, LEI, LGL, LIQD, LXRX, MBII, MCP, MEIP, MELA, MFLX, MLNX, MOFG, MOSY, MRGE, MTH, MTSL, NDLS, NEON, NEWL, NEWS, NL, NPBC, NPTN, NVTL, OIBR, OMEX, OMG, ONE, ORIT, PGEM, PIKE, PINC, PIR, QRM, QUAD, RKUS, RNG, RST, RTI, RVLT, SC, SCL, SDT, SFXE, SIGM, SKYW, SLRC, SPLK, SPPR, SPU, SQBK, SREV, SRI, STML, STNR, SUSQ, SUTR, TBNK, TCCO, TCRD, TEU, TFM, TG, TGE, TRGT, TROV, UACL, UBNK, UCFC, VGGL, VIAS, VIP, VJET, VLTC, VOXX, VRNS, WETF, WIX, WMAR, WPP, WTSL, XXIA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: MBB, SHY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: TBT

IXYS (IXYS) and Torex Semiconductor announced the formation of a sales relationship aimed at increasing product adoption in consumer applications worldwide.

4:30AM Tower Semicon misses by $0.07; misses on revs; sees Q2 revs above consensus (TSEM) 8.45 : Reports Q1 EPS of $0.24 vs $0.31 CIQ estimate; revs increased 18% YoY to $132.7 mln vs $133.8 mln CIQ est.

Guidance:
Co sees Q2 revs to be ~$230 mln (+/-5%) vs $221.7 mln CIQ estimate.

Texas Instruments (TXN) introduced the automotive industry's first two-channel switching LED driver for front lights and the only linear LED driver with single short LED detection for rear lights.

Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported third quarter earnings of $0.51 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 5.5% year/year to $11.54 billion which is higher than expected. Cisco repurchased approximately 90 million shares of common stock under the stock repurchase program at an average price of $22.24 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $2.0 billion during the third quarter of fiscal 2014. The company expects Q4 revenues to decline 1-3% y/y, which would represent growth of approximately 4-6% q/q (approximately $12.0-12.2 billion); which is above estimates. The company sees FY14 EPS at the high end of prior guidance of $1.95-2.05 which is line with estimates.
Agilent (A) reported second quarter earnings of $0.72 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is worse than expected, while revenues fell 0.1% year/year to $1.73 billion which is line with estimates. The company sees EPS of $0.72-0.74 which is below estimates and revenues of $1.74-1.76 billion which is line with estimates. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $2.96-3.16 & revenues of $6.90-7.10 billion which is in line with estimates.
Wi-Lan (WILN) announced that its Board of Directors has concluded its review of strategic alternatives for the Company. "Following a comprehensive process involving financial advisor Canaccord Genuity, the Board of Directors determined that it is in the best interests of the Company and our shareholders to execute an updated business plan focused on business diversification, licensing partnerships, improved profitability and increasing the return of cash generated from operations to shareholders." "We have established a roadmap to increase GAAP earnings to at least $0.30 per share by 2018 by more than doubling our revenues and increasing our operating leverage. If these targets are achieved, the strong profitability of our business will drive higher returns to shareholders through quarterly dividends that we will strive to increase regularly. The first increase, to $0.05 per quarter per share, represents a 25% increase and will take effect with the Q2 2014 declaration. At today's share price, this represents a yield of approximately 5.6%." The board has also approved the entering into of a Normal Course Issuer Bid to repurchase for cancellation upto 10% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the Company subject to the receipt of regulatory and other approvals.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 16-May-14It was another roller-coaster week for the equity market. The performance of the Russell 2000 was arguably the most indicative of that point. The small-cap index surged 2.4% on Monday and yet it ended the week down 0.4% after staging a closing rally on Friday in which it gained approximately 1.1% in the last two hours of trading.

The topsy-turvy action had its share of explanations that spanned from technical factors to an acknowledgment from leading hedge fund manager David Tepper that "it's nervous time" and one shouldn't be "too frickin' long right now." The biggest focal point perhaps was the Treasury market.

Longer-dated Treasury securities continued to defy most people's logic entering the year that they were destined to drop in price and move up in yield. The exact opposite has occurred. The yield on the 10-yr note, which stood just above 3.00% at the end of 2013, traded below 2.50% on Thursday before settling the week at 2.52%.

The explanations for the strength in the Treasury market this year are as multi-varied as the explanations are for the stock market's roller-coaster behavior. They include short covering, pension fund liability matching, a demographic-related asset shift, sovereign interest rate differentials, geopolitical worries, and economic growth concerns.

The economy was a frequent topic of conversation this week as the economic calendar featured a host of reports dealing with inflation, consumer spending, housing, and manufacturing activity.

The brief summation of that body of data is that it was mixed.

April retail sales were weaker than expected, squashing arguments about there being pent-up demand
PPI was higher than expected, piquing some inflation concerns that carried over with an in-line CPI report
Weekly initial claims were just 297,000, which was the lowest since May 2007 and an encouraging sign for the labor market
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for May showed a big jump in activity from the prior month, yet the Philadelphia Fed Index showed a deceleration
The NAHB Housing Market Index for May showed a drop in builder confidence from April, yet housing starts for April rose 13.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.072 mln units; and
Industrial production declined 0.6% in April, not only because warmer temperatures reduced utilities output, but because of a surprising 0.4% decline in manufacturing output

Mixed isn't bad. The problem is that the data haven't been indisputably strong and that is raising concerns, along with the Treasury market's behavior, that second quarter GDP isn't going to live up to economists' optimistic forecasts for 3.0%+ growth.

The stock market itself was left in a mixed state this week. To that end, five sectors ended the week up -- telecom services (+1.2%), information technology (+0.8%), health care (+0.5%), materials (+0.2%), and industrials (+0.07%) -- while five sectors ended the week down -- financials (-0.9%), consumer staples (-0.6%), utilities (-0.6%), energy (-0.6%), and consumer discretionary (-0.2%).

Note, too, that the sector performance provided some mixed signals as there was a mishmash of cyclical and countercyclical sectors on the upside and the downside.

Separately, one of the standouts for the week was the US Dollar Index. It tacked on 0.2% with the euro dropping 0.5% on the expectation that the ECB will soon be announcing new stimulus measures. To be sure, the need to implement new stimulus at this juncture isn't conveying a lot of confidence about the current state of economic affairs in the eurozone. In turn, disappointing earnings results and guidance from Wal-Mart (WMT), the world's largest retailer, didn't provide the most comforting thoughts either as it relates to the outlook for the US consumer and US economy.

All of that is at odds with the strong optimism entering the year that the US economy will hit escape velocity soon. It's still a reasonable hope, but it is still trailing the reality, and that is causing the market to move in erratic fashion.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week    Change  % Change  YTD % 
 DJIA	     16583.34	  16491.31    -92.03	 -0.6	-0.5 
 Nasdaq	      4071.87	   4090.59     18.72      0.5	-2.1 
 S&P 500	1878.48	   1877.86     -0.62     -0.0	 1.6 
 Russell 2000  1107.22	   1102.91     -4.31	 -0.4	-5.2

4:55 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology:CSLT (15.6 +43.14%),TXTR (19.17 +33.1%),NMBL (26.45 +21.17%)
Services:VIPS (159.87 +24.78%)
Industrial Goods:PPO (42.72 +23.19%)
Healthcare:GTIV (13.62 +71.16%),BLUE (25.18 +38.61%),CLDX (13.33 +26.42%),ICPT (280.26 +22%),NWBO (5.83 +21.46%),CLVS (55.96 +20.13%),IRWD (13.62 +19.27%),TNDM (17.45 +19.16%),RLYP (22.7 +19.06%),XON (18.03 +18.95%),AXDX (21.25 +18.14%),BIOS (7.44 +17.57%)
Consumer Goods:CXDC (8.5 +17.39%)
Basic Materials:TC (2.9 +19.37%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology:NQ (8.04 -33.97%),OIBR-C (0.88 -27.03%),ACXM (20.61 -19.55%),OIBR (0.83 -17.53%),UBNT (34.42 -16.99%)
Services:DXPE (66.57 -37.65%),FUEL (22.08 -21.32%)
Industrial Goods:XONE (26.52 -25.33%)
Healthcare:INSY (23.85 -42.51%),ENZY (12.9 -29.31%),EBS (20.77 -16.57%)
Financial:GCAP (7.85 -20.25%),UVE (12.31 -18.11%),NBG (3.03 -17.85%)
Consumer Goods:RDEN (25.61 -26.1%)
Basic Materials:MCP (2.92 -24.53%),ACET (17.07 -24.08%),FF (16.35 -19.89%),SSRI (7.72 -17.47%),AXAS (4.68 -15.29%)

3:34 pm Earnings Preview for the week of May 19 - 23 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of May 19 - 23 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - CPB, VAL
After Hours - URBN, PWRD
Tuesday:
Pre Market - HD, TJX, SPLS, MDT, DKS, DCI, HGG, SSI, RRGB, CATO, EJ, AINV
After Hours - INTU, CRM, ADI, DY, TDW, VSAT, HEI
Wednesday:
Pre Market - TGT, LOW, HRL, PETM, QIWI, BAH, TIF, AEO, TSL, EV, CTRN, NM, LITB, MMYT
After Hours - LB, ANW, NTAP, WSM, SNPS, BRS, SINA, VVTV, SMTC, GA, EGHT, RENN, WSTL
Thursday:
Pre Market - BBY, RY, CAJ, SHLD, TD, DLTR, PDCO, TTC, BONT, PLCE, SMRT, BRC, BKE, ESI, PERY, MNRO, CMCO, MOV, KIRK, LTXC, ASEI
After Hours - HPQ, GPS, ROST, GME, MRVL, BRCD, TFM, DRYS, ARO, NDSN, ORIG, MENT, SCVL, CPWR, ARUN, ZUMZ, YOKU, VNET, TIVO, COVS
Friday:
Pre Market - FL, HIBB

12:49 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers
JWN (69.63 +13.24%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.72 vs $0.68 estimate), revs rose 6.8% yoy to $2.84 bln vs $2.76 bln estimate; comparable sales rose 3.9% vs +0-2% guidance; reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance of $3.75-3.90 vs $3.88 estimate, revs +5.5-7.5% (~$12.84-13.08 bln) vs $12.93 bln estimate; upgraded at Credit Suisse
IBN (50.81 +9.58%): Strength in India stocks following strong election results for the Bharatiya Janata Party
AMAT (19.9 +6.50%): Reported Q2 EPS of $0.28 ex items (in-line), revs rose 19.3% yoy to $2.35 bln vs $2.35 bln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.25-0.29 ex items vs $0.27 estimate, revs -5% to flat from prior quarter (~2.24-2.35 bln) vs $2.31 bln estimate

Large Cap Losers

S (9.14 -4.09%): Weakness in select tech/telecom large cap stocks: ALU, NTAP, WIT also lower
CHK (27.68 -4.52%): Provided update on 2014 asset sales and projected impact on 2014 outlook; announced additional noncore asset sales; established a five year annual production growth target of 7-9%
ILMN (141.62 -2.16%): Seeing insider selling activity: Director sold 4k shares following option exercise, Sr VP sold 2k shares following option exercise

Mid Cap Gainers

RAX (36.76 +19.82%): Co confirmed it has been approached by multiple parties who have expressed interest in exploring a strategic relationshipw ith the company, ranging from partnership to acquisition
JCP (9.6 +14.71%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.10 (-$1.16 ex items vs -$1.26 estimate, revs rose 6.3% yoy to $2.8 bln vs $2.71 bln estimate; Q1 comps +6.2% vs estimate of +4%; target raised at Deutsche Bank
DDS (110.92 +14.82%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.08 ($2.47 ex items vs $2.39 estimate), revs rose 0.1% yoy to $1.55 bln vs $1.60 bln estimate; same store sales rose 2%

Mid Cap Losers

CLVS (55.88 -5.70%): Weakness in mid-cap biotech stocks: ITMN, ISIS, NPSP, INCY, SGEN, THRX also lower
DRI (48.51 -4.30%): Co announced sale of Red Lobster to Golden Gate Capital for $2.1 bln
NSM (30.41 -4.04%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies, target lowered to $32 from $42

12:25 pm Nasdaq Comp -2.6 set new intraday rebound high -- Dow +7 and S&P +1.8 in range slightly under highs (:TECHX) :

12:21 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (101) outpacing new highs (43) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AMKR, ASX, BAM, BTI, CFN, CHC, DDS, ESTE, EW, FGP, HDB, IBA, IBN, IFN, JWN, KEP, KR, LRCX, MNK, NGG, NGLS, NJR, NVS, OILT, ORAN, PAH, PFIS, PSXP, QTS, RDI, SHG, SOHO, SQBG, SSLT, TAP, TNET, TRGP, TU, UL, UN, UNP, WES, WMB

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACFN, ACPW, ADAT, AGI, ASTI, ATEA, AXR, BAMM, BEBE, BV, CGG, CHCI, COOL, CRIS, CVT, DARA, DCIX, DCTH, DGII, DRD, DSCI, ECTE, EGT, END, ENZY, EV, EVRY, FCSC, FHCO, FMI, FORD, FPI, FRSH, GLMD, GPRC, GSIT, HCT, HTBI, IILG, IIVI, IMRS, KBR, KGC, KOSS, LCNB, LPCN, LPX, LXRX, MEIP, MELA, MFLX, MLNX, MTSL, NDRO, NIHD, NL, NPTN, NQ, NVTL, OIBR, OIBR.C, OMG, OTEL, PAYC, PBPB, PGEM, PMFG, QRM, QUNR, RDC, RM, RSH, RST, RTI, RVLT, SDT, SFLY, SIGA, SLRC, SOQ, SPU, SRI, SRNE, STML, STT, SUTR, TGE, THLD, TOPS, TROV, VGGL, VHI, VIP, VJET, VLTC, WETF, WIX, WLT, WMAR, WMC, YUME

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EGPT, PIN

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

6:08 am Canadian Solar misses by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus; reaffirms FY14 revs guidance (CSIQ) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.07 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.08; revenues rose 76.9% year/year to $466.3 mln vs the $431.06 mln consensus.

May 7 preannouncement: Raised rev to $460-470 from $415-430 mln, raised shipment to 490-500 from 470-490 mln and lowered GM to 15-15% from 14-16%.
Gross margin was 14.7%, compared to 19.5% in the fourth quarter of 2013 and to first quarter guidance in the range of 14% to 16%.

Shipments

Total solar module shipments in the first quarter of 2014 were 500 MW, compared to 621 MW in the fourth quarter of 2013 and 340 MW in the first quarter of 2013.
Solar module shipments in the first quarter of 2014 included 49 MW used in the Company's total solutions business, compared to 41 MW in the fourth quarter of 2013 and 23 MW in the first quarter of 2013.

Geographical Mix
By geography, in the first quarter of 2014, sales to Asia and other markets represented 50.4% of net revenue, sales to the Americas represented 43.6% of net revenue, and sales to Europe represented 6.0% of net revenue

Guidance
Q2 - Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $560-590 mln vs. $632.55 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

For the second quarter of 2014, the Company expects module shipments to be in the range of approximately 600 MW to 630 MW.
Gross margin expected to be between 17% and 19%.

FY14 - Co reaffirms guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $2.7-2.9 bln vs. $2.88 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Company reaffirms its guidance for annual module shipments to be in the range of 2.5 GW to 2.7 GW, including 400 MW to 500 MW of project recognition.
Company expects to build and/or hold up to 250 MW of project assets during 2014.

[ReturntoSender]

Wall Street Says It’s Different This Time

Sy Harding05/16/2014

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/sy-harding/wall-street-says-it-is-different-this-time

It’s a good thing it’s different this time! We know it is because Wall Street says so.

The high-valuation levels indicated by the Shiller CAPE 10 Price/Earnings Ratio mean nothing this time, because things are different than when that indicator’s similar readings in previous periods were accompanied by market tops.

The age of this bull market also means nothing because it’s different this time, since we have the Greenspan/Bernanke/Yellen Put in place there's a promise that the Fed is neither ahead of nor behind the curve, as it was so often in the past. This time the Fed is on top of what is going on, and knows what it must do to prevent economic slowdowns or market corrections from worsening into recessions and bear markets.

It sure worked in the summer slowdowns in 1998, 2011, and 2012. Well okay, not so much in the summer of 2010 when the S&P 500 plunged 19%. And not so much in preventing the 2000-2002 and 2007-2009 meltdowns. But 2010, 2008? That’s ancient history.

We also know the stock market cannot be timed. We know that also because Wall Street says so. We know that it cannot even warn when risk is high with enough accuracy to require cutting back exposure. Just buy any time and all the time, and let time take care of it.

Therefore, we need not be concerned about those high valuation levels, nor that we are in the second year of the Four-Year Presidential Cycle, and since 1934 the average decline in the 2nd year was 21%.

How about that silly stuff about Sell in May and Go Away outperforming the market over the long-term? It supposedly does so by avoiding the large losses often associated with the summer months? You only have to look back and see it didn’t work last year, or in 2012. It hasn’t worked since 2011. Besides, don’t look back. Look at what’s going on now. The Dow and S&P 500 just made new record highs a few days ago.

They pulled back some over the last few days, but not even enough to retest the potential support at their 50-day moving averages.

Sure, the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 are already in correction territory (down 10%)? So what? That’s meaningless, just a reflection of how speculative stocks got ahead of themselves and needed to cool off a bit before getting back in harness to the upside.

[Read: Is a Major Correction and Bear Market Around the Corner?]

Corporate insiders are selling at a near record pace? Corporations themselves are dumping IPO’s on the market, selling stock to enthusiastic investors at a frenzied pace? So-called ‘smart money’ big-names are issuing warnings of a serious correction, even a bear market?

Okay, so they were right with their selling and warnings in 1999, and in 2006 when the housing bubble was building, and in 2007. And investors who didn’t pay attention to the warnings were smashed down when those bubbles burst. And the wealth inequality between the top 5% and the rest of the country kept getting worse.

Well listen to this. Corporate insiders were selling heavily last spring, and those top 5% ‘smart money’ guys, hedge funds and the like, warned early last year that a big correction was coming last summer. And it didn’t.

So why be concerned. Wall Street says it’s different this time, and the stock market can’t be timed anyway.

Okay, I get all that. See and hear it every day.

So I must be a dinosaur in my thinking that conditions at previous tops, valuation levels, warnings from ‘smart money’, seasonality, etc., going back at least 100 years, have always had relevance when similar conditions appeared in later periods. Not with enough accuracy to provide buy or sell signals, but certainly with enough to warn of unusual risk.

And they are doing so now.

My advice is that investors pay attention.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market began the new trading week on a modestly higher note with small caps coming out on top. The Russell 2000 advanced 1.1%, while the S&P 500 added 0.4% with seven sectors posting gains. The underperformance of blue chip listings was apparent within the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%), which spent the entire session near its flat line.

Generally speaking, the first session of the week was largely uneventful with no economic data or noteworthy earnings influencing the sentiment. However, M&A activity was in focus early, even though it did not lift the underlying stocks. Some recent came to fruition as AT&T (T 36.38, -0.36) agreed to acquire DirecTV (DTV 84.65, -1.53) for $95 per share, which represents a 10.2% premium to Friday's closing price. However, shares of DirecTV did not rally amid concerns about potential regulatory hurdles.

Elsewhere, AstraZeneca (AZN 70.64, -9.64) plunged 12.0% after rejecting Pfizer's (PFE 29.28, +0.16) latest acquisition offer. Even though AstraZeneca lagged, the broader health care sector (+0.6%) was able to overcome that weakness thanks to the relative strength of biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 231.50, +3.20) gained 1.4% after starting the session right above its 200-day moving average, which has been an area of congestion for more than a month.

Also of note, the solid performance from the biotech group underpinned the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%), which also received noteworthy support from the technology sector (+0.8%).

The top-weighted S&P 500 sector settled in the lead thanks to broad-based gains. Large cap listings like Apple (AAPL 604.59, +7.08), Google (GOOG 528.86, +8.23), and Oracle (ORCL 42.16, +0.47) advanced between 1.1% and 1.6%, while chipmakers also rallied. The PHLX Semiconductor Index finished higher by 1.1%.

Overall, cyclical sectors were responsible for the bulk of today's rally, while only one countercyclical group-health care-finished in the green. The other three-consumer staples, telecom services, and utilities-posted losses between 0.3% and 1.6%.

The utilities sector finished the session at the bottom of the leaderboard, which widened its May loss to 4.4%. Despite the sharp month-to-date decline, the rate-sensitive sector remains higher by 8.6% for the year.

Treasuries spent the entire session in a steady retreat from their overnight highs. As a result, the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.54%.

Participation was well below average with just 573 million shares changing hands at the NYSE, which represented the second lowest total of the year.

There is no economic data of note on tomorrow's schedule.

S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.0% YTD

DJ30 +20.55 NASDAQ +35.23 SP500 +7.22 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1874/1.48 bln/826 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1980/572.9 mln/1068

3:30 pm :

June gold trended lower after pulling back from a session high of $1305.70 per ounce set in early morning pit trade. It dipped as low as $1293.00 per ounce and settled at $1294.10 per ounce, or 0.1% higher.
July silver also gave up its early morning losses as it pulled back from its session high of $19.68 per ounce. Unable to regain momentum, it closed with a 0.1% gain at $19.34 per ounce, just above its session low of $19.33 per ounce.
June crude oil extended Friday's gains as the dollar index traded lower. The energy component rose to a session high of $103.09 per barrel in morning action and brushed a session low of $102.49 per barrel. It eventually settled with a 0.6% gain at $102.65 per barrel.
June natural gas also traded higher, rising to a session high of $4.52 per MMBtu by late morning floor trade. It pulled back slightly in afternoon action and settled with a 1.4% gain at $4.47 per MMBtu.

4:45 pm Photronics misses by $0.02, beats on revs (PLAB) : Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.02 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; revenues fell 1.7% year/year to $104.88 mln vs the $103.31 mln consensus.

Quarterly High-end IC photomask sales of $17.2 million, up 4% sequentially
Quarterly High-end FPD photomask sales of $20.6 million, up 32% sequentially

Large Cap Gainers

RYAAY (54.54 +6.98%): Reported FY14 EPS of EUR 0.37 vs EUR 0.37 estimate, revs rose 3% yoy to EUR 5.04 bln vs EUR 5.02 bln estimate; co expects FY15 traffic to grow by 4% to over 84.6 mln as load factors increase 2% to 85%
JCI (46.65 +4.19%): Co and Yanfeng Automotive Trim Systems Co, a wholly owned subsidiary of Huayu Automotive Systems Co, the component group of Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp, announced the signing of a definitive agreement to form a global automotive interiors joint venture
NVDA (18.53 +3.17%): Upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets

Large Cap Losers

AZN (71.1 -11.43%): Rejected final acquisition proposal from Pfizer (PFE); Pfizer said it will not make a hostile offer directly to AstraZeneca shareholders and will only proceed with an offer with the recommendation of the board of directors of AstraZeneca
AMX (19.78 -3.18%): AT&T (T) to divest interest in AMX to facilitate the regulatory approval process for its acquisition of DirecTV in Latin America
CPB (43.75 -3.05%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.62 ex items vs $0.59 estimate), revs rose 0.4% yoy to $1.97 bln vs $2 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS at low end of previously provided range of $2.53-2.58 vs $2.53 estimate, lowered FY13 adjusted sales growth guidance to +3% from +4-5%

Mid Cap Gainers

ITMN (39.33 +14.62%): Reported that results from the Phase 3 ASCEND study evaluating pirfenidone in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis were presented at the International Conference of the American Thoracic Society; In ASCEND, pirfenidone significantly reduced decline in lung function as measured by change in percent predicted forced vital capacity (:FVC) from Baseline to Week 52 (rank ANCOVA p
FEYE (29.6 +6.13%): Strength in cyber security companies: DATA also higher; block of over 82 mln shares to become eligible for sale on May 21, 2014 upon the expiration of lock-up agreements
MNKD (7.41 +5.56%): Mentioned positively in blog article

Mid Cap Losers

ATK (129.76 -4.22%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Moness Crespi & Hardt; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman
FBR (9.56 -4.11%): Hearing downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman
CLF (16.51 -2.08%): WSJ reporting that India iron ore output may decline due to court ordered shut down of mines

11:29 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (62) outpacing new lows (47) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, AMKR, BAM, BLL, BP, BTI, CALM, CBG, CMP, CNMD, CXDC, DOM, EQS, ETE, FBMI, GST, HDB, HNT, IBA, IBN, IFN, ITMN, LUV, LYB, MBWM, MNK, MPLX, MSL, NGG, NGLS, NJR, ODFL, OILT, ORAN, PAH, PSXP, QCOR, QTS, RDI, RRMS, SAFM, SAIA, SBGL, SHG, SMP, SQBG, SSLT, SWC, THRM, TRGP, TRN, TTM, TWTC, UDR, UL, UN, UNP, VMI, WES, WMB, Z, ZEN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACTS, ADAT, AIT, AMCO, AMRN, ANR, BEBE, CCCR, CGA, CGG, CRIS, DARA, DCIX, EMXX, EVAR, FBR, FHCO, FPI, HOTR, HTBI, IKAN, LAND, LGL, MBII, MELA, NIHD, NL, NVTL, ONTX, PAYC, PMFG, QRM, QUNR, RARE, SFBS, SIGA, SPWH, SRNE, SUTR, TCCO, TECU, TLYS, TRGT, TRUE, VHI, VVUS, WLT

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EGPT, IYT, PIN, SHY, USCI, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ

TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT) revealed that a leading chipset provider has selected its two new high-performance 5GHz WLAN front-end modules for the industry's fastest commercially available 4x4 MU-MIMO 802.11ac chipset

8:04 am Vitesse Semi licenses Gigabit Ethernet IP Cores to Freescale (FSL) (VTSS) : CO announced that Freescale Semiconductor is using Vitesse's VSC9953-01 SparX Gigabit Ethernet switch IP core in Freescale's 28nm QorIQ T1040 quad-core and T1020 dual-core communications processors, now sampling to customers. Targeted applications include gateway routers and industrial automation, as well as unified threat management (:UTM) and network attached storage (:NAS) networking. Together, Freescale's processor family and Vitesse's complementary portfolio of Ethernet switches, PHYs and software deliver carrier-grade Ethernet functionality for diverse mixed control and data plane applications.

GSI Technology (GSIT) and MoSys (MOSY) announced a dual-sourcing product and technology partnership. The partnership includes alternate sourcing of the GSI SigmaQuad IVe SRAM family and the MoSys Bandwidth Engine 2 and 3 families of ICs.

Autodesk (ADSK) reported first quarter earnings of $0.32 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 3.9% year/year to $592.5 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the second quarter with EPS of $0.25-0.30, which is line with estimates and revenues of $595-610 million which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2015 with revenues of $2.36-2.41 billion which is line with estimates. "Our year is off to an encouraging start. We had solid first quarter results and made meaningful progress on our business model transition with the addition of over 89,000 subscriptions. Continued strength in our suites and Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) business segment, strong demand in Asia Pacific (APAC), and solid performance in our Manufacturing business drove financial results above our expectations. While we experienced strong growth in our cloud and desktop subscriptions (rental), strong growth in maintenance subscriptions was the primary driver behind the increase in total subscriptions, as expected..."

Applied Materials (AMAT) reported second quarter earnings of $0.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is line with estimates, while revenues rose 19.3% year/year to $2.35 billion which is in line with estimates. Applied generated orders of $2.63 billion, up 15% from the prior quarter led by increases in Display and Silicon Systems. Net sales of $2.35 billion were up 7% sequentially led by growth in Silicon Systems. Non-GAAP adjusted gross margin increased 170 basis points from the prior quarter to 44.2%. The company issued guidance for the third quarter with EPS of $0.25-0.29 which is in line with estimates and revenues of (5)-0% QoQ to approximately $2.24-2.35 vs. $2.31 billion which is line with estimates. Backlog grew 12% sequentially to $2.74 billion including positive adjustments of $23 million, primarily related to EES re-bookings. Backlog composition by segment was: SSG 53%; AGS 24%; Display 17%; and EES 6%.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday in the red after surrendering their gains from Monday. In fact, the Russell 2000, which led the way on Monday, paced today's retreat after being unable to reclaim its 200-day moving average (1117/1118). The small cap index fell 1.5%, while the S&P 500 lost 0.7% with nine sectors ending in the red.

Equity indices began the day with modest losses amid general weakness in most cyclical sectors. Most notably, retailers pressured the discretionary sector (-0.9%) after Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS 43.60, -9.56), Staples (SPLS 11.71, -1.68), TJX (TJX 53.95, -4.45), and Urban Outfitters (URBN 32.98, -3.19) all reported disappointing earnings.

Similar to the four names, Home Depot (HD 77.96, +1.46) also reported below-consensus earnings, but the Dow component was able to stay out of the red as upbeat comments from the management overshadowed the earnings miss. Despite Home Depot's outperformance, the retail space struggled with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 81.83, -2.07) falling 2.5%.

Elsewhere among influential sectors, financials (-0.7%) and industrials (-1.3%) lagged, while technology (-0.5%) and health care (-0.6%) outperformed.

Notably, the second-weakest sector of the month-financials-extended its May loss to 1.3%. In all fairness, the economically-sensitive group has been unable to gain any traction since the start of the year as today's loss widened its year-to-date decline to 0.9%.

Also of note, the health care sector was able to keep pace with the S&P 500 even as biotechnology struggled. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 228.36, -3.14) lost 1.4%, which contributed to the underperformance of the Nasdaq.

All in all, today's early price action was relatively sloppy, which opened the door to a more pronounced retreat in the afternoon. In addition, the overall sense of caution was heightened by continued yen strength as the dollar/yen pair registered its fifth consecutive decline while testing its 200-day moving average (101.19).

In all likelihood, some will attribute today's retreat to comments from Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser, who said he felt the economy is on its firmest footing since the recovery began. However, it is worth noting that equities began sliding ahead of Mr. Plosser's comments and that longer-dated Treasuries actually climbed to highs following the remarks. The 10-yr note advanced nine ticks, pressuring its yield four basis points to 2.51%.

Today's participation marked an improvement from yesterday, but remained below average with less than 650 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET, while the minutes from the latest FOMC policy meeting will be released at 14:00 ET.

S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.5% YTD

DJ30 -137.55 NASDAQ -28.92 SP500 -12.25 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 661/1.66 bln/2153 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 895/635.2 mln/2163

3:30 pm :

Precious metals rallied into positive territory today as equity markets opened.
June gold traded as low as $1286.00 per ounce in early morning action and rose to a session high of $1297.20. It eventually settled 40 cents higher at $1294.50 per ounce.
July silver brushed a session low of $19.23 moments after floor trade opened and climbed as high as $19.47. It managed to hold on to most of the gain and settled at $19.40 per ounce, or 0.3% higher.
July crude oil slipped to a session low of $101.69 per barrel but recovered back into positive territory by late morning action. It brushed a session high of $102.46 per barrel and settled with a 0.2% gain at $102.31 per barrel.
June natural gas trended higher after lifting from its session low of $4.48 per MMBtu set moments after floor trade opened. It rose as high as $4.57 per MMBtu and settled with a 1.8% gain at $4.55 per MMBtu.

5:38 pm Seagate Tech announces pricing and increased size of $1 bln (from $500 mln) of 4.75% senior notes due 2025 (STX) : Co announced that it has increased the size of its previously announced offering of $500 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2025 to $1 billion. The Notes were priced at 100% of the aggregate principal amount and will bear interest at a rate of 4.75% per annum. The Notes will be issued by Seagate HDD Cayman, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Seagate Technology plc, and guaranteed by Seagate. Seagate intends to use the net proceeds from the offering of the Notes for general corporate purposes, which may include, but are not limited to, the retirement of a portion of its outstanding indebtedness (including pursuant to the tender offers previously announced by Seagate), capital expenditures and other investments in the business.

4:06 pm MagnaChip Semi announces CEO transition: Sang Park Retires as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Board Appoints Executive Vice President YJ Kim as Interim CEO, R. Douglas Norby Named Non-Executive Chairman (MX) : ...

Large Cap Gainers

VRX (130.4 +2.51%): Co to discuss AGN proposal at investor meeting and webcast on May 28, 2014; said continues to believe that a Valeant and Allergan merger will be a powerful combination; said improved offer will not be an all cash deal.
HD (78.48 +2.59%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, misses on revs; reaffirmed FY15 rev guidance; Q1 comps +2.6%; mgmt on earnings call said most sales lost to weather in Q1 will be realized in Q2; May sales are 'robust'.
AZN (72.29 +2.34%): Pfizer (PFE) provided statement on its final proposal for AZN; Reuters discussed comments from analysts that PFE deal for AZN may not be dead yet; upgraded to Hold at Danske Bank.

Large Cap Losers

TJX (54.55 -6.59%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, missed on revs; guided Q2 ~in-line; lowered high end of FY15 EPS guidance, reaffirmed comps, below estimates.
VOD (34.37 -5.36%): Beat on EPS by GBP0.03, revs in-line; raised dividend by 8%.
DISH (57.61 -2.95%): Co could remain independent following sector M&A, according to reports; tgt raised to $56 from $51 at Wunderlich.

Mid Cap Gainers

FEYE (31.65 +9.4%): 82,236,543 shares will be eligible for sale in the public market on May 21, 2014 upon the expiration of lock-up agreements entered into in connection with co's secondary offering.
SSW (22.47 +3.64%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays; tgt raised to $30 from $25.
DDD (51.07 +3.68%): Co announced Cube3 and CubePro 3D printers availability.

Mid Cap Losers

DKS (44.01 -17.21%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; guided Q2 below consensus; lowered FY15 guidance below consensus; cited weakness in gold and hunting; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey.
SPLS (11.71 -12.55%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 EPS below consensus.
ICPT (238.32 -8.34%): Trading lower following cautious report from Adam Feuerstein regarding co's lack of disclosure about lipid abnormalities; Summer Street reiterated Buy and $650 tgt.

11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (77) outpacing new highs (52) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AMKR, ARX, ASBB, ASX, CALM, CDNS, CNC, CP, CRT, DPS, ENG, EQS, EW, GSAT, HBM, HDB, HGT, HNT, INPH, JBSS, MC, MNK, MSTR, NFX, NGLS, NSC, ODFL, PAH, PAHC, PGI, QTS, RDI, SAIA, SBR, SNDK, SSLT, SWC, SYPR, TDG, TEP, THRM, TRGP, TTM, UDR, UHS, UIHC, UNP, VLP, WMB, WSBF, ZEN, ZLC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACTS, AMCO, ANR, ATLS, AXR, BEBE, BGFV, BOTA, BRC, CACB, CGG, CLM, CRIS, DCIX, DEST, DGII, DKS, DRD, ECYT, EDMC, FBR, FCSC, FRSH, GSH, HCT, HELI, IDSY, IILG, IIVI, IMGN, KBR, KGC, LAND, LAS, LPX, LUK, MIND, MIXT, NIHD, NL, NPK, NPTN, NTLS, NYRT, ONTX, OPB, QUNR, RLGY, RSH, RST, RTI, SFBS, SIGA, SOQ, SPHS, SPWH, SREV, SRI, SSI, STNR, SVM, SWSH, TCS, TECU, TFM, TLYS, TRGT, TRVN, UNTK, URBN, UTMD, VHI, VTUS, WFM, WHX, WLT, YUME

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: CSJ, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ

8:36 am Sanmina announced it intends to offer $350 mln aggregate principal amount of senior secured notes due 2019 (SANM) :

Co announced that it intends to offer $350 mln aggregate principal amount of senior secured notes due 2019. The notes will be fully and unconditionally guaranteed on a senior secured basis by substantially all of Sanmina's domestic subsidiaries. The notes and guarantees will be secured by a first-priority lien on certain of Sanmina's and its guarantor subsidiaries' tangible and intangible assets and real property and by a second-priority lien on certain of Sanmina's and its guarantor subsidiaries' assets, including accounts receivable and inventory secured its asset-backed credit facility. The interest rate and other terms for the notes are to be determined by negotiations between Sanmina and the initial purchasers of the notes.
Co intends to use the net proceeds of this offering, together with cash on hand and borrowings under its credit facility, to fund the tender offer for any and all of its outstanding 7% Senior Notes due 2019.

8:36 am Sanmina announced it intends to offer $350 mln aggregate principal amount of senior secured notes due 2019 (SANM) :

Co announced that it intends to offer $350 mln aggregate principal amount of senior secured notes due 2019. The notes will be fully and unconditionally guaranteed on a senior secured basis by substantially all of Sanmina's domestic subsidiaries. The notes and guarantees will be secured by a first-priority lien on certain of Sanmina's and its guarantor subsidiaries' tangible and intangible assets and real property and by a second-priority lien on certain of Sanmina's and its guarantor subsidiaries' assets, including accounts receivable and inventory secured its asset-backed credit facility. The interest rate and other terms for the notes are to be determined by negotiations between Sanmina and the initial purchasers of the notes.
Co intends to use the net proceeds of this offering, together with cash on hand and borrowings under its credit facility, to fund the tender offer for any and all of its outstanding 7% Senior Notes due 2019.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages rallied on Wednesday, which allowed the Dow (+1.0%), Nasdaq (+0.9%), and S&P 500 (+0.8%) to reclaim yesterday's losses. For its part, the Russell 2000 advanced 0.5% despite a brief dip into the red that took place in the morning.

Even though small caps endured an intraday hiccup, that short-lived weakness had little impact on the S&P 500, which rallied at the open before spending the bulk of the trading day in a six-point range. For the most part, the index was unperturbed by the underperformance of small caps, while also showing little reaction to the FOMC minutes from the April 29-30 meeting.

To be fair, the lack of a reaction to the minutes reflected the lack of new information within the minutes. The document revealed a discussion of the expected path to an eventual rate hike, but there was no mention regarding the potential timing. The minutes also indicated that the committee sees inflation reaching the 2.0% target in the next "few" years with little risk of spillover inflation resulting from fueling payroll growth.

Interestingly, the Treasury market was not too concerned with the Fed mapping out its exit strategy as the 10-yr note registered its low when the minutes were released, before climbing higher into the close. The 10-yr note narrowed its loss to six ticks, while the benchmark yield increased two basis points to 2.53%.

All ten sectors posted gains with cyclical groups faring a bit better than their defensive counterparts. Of the six growth-sensitive sectors, five settled in line or ahead of the S&P 500. The financial sector (+0.8%) provided leadership through the first half of the session, but energy (+1.1%) and consumer discretionary (+1.2%) overtook financials during the afternoon.

The consumer discretionary sector finished in the lead even as quarterly earnings from a handful of retailers disappointed. American Eagle Outfitters (AEO 10.60, -0.73), PetSmart (PETM 57.02, -5.17), and Lowe's (LOW 45.41, -0.11) ended lower in reaction to below-consensus earnings and/or guidance, while Target (TGT 57.20, +0.59) was able to post a solid gain of 1.0% after its report was dubbed 'better than feared.' Also of note, Tiffany (TIF 96.30, +8.07) surged 9.2% following its solid results.

On the countercyclical side, telecom services and utilities ended little changed, while health care (+0.8%) settled in line with the broader market. The consumer staples sector (+0.6%) spiked into the close as shares of Lorillard (LO 62.63, +5.90) surged 10.4% amid reports Reynolds American (RAI 59.77, +2.51) is in discussions to acquire Lorillard.

Today's participation was well below average with the final tally of 574 million shares coming in just ahead of Monday's total that marked the second-lowest volume of the year.

Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which rose 0.9% to follow last week's increase of 3.6%. Despite the headline increase, purchase applications declined 3.0%, while the overall index was driven higher by a 4.0% gain in refinancing applications.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 305K) will be released at 8:30 ET, while the Existing Home Sales report for April (consensus 4.66 million) and the April Leading Indicators report (consensus 0.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.0% YTD

DJ30 +158.75 NASDAQ +34.65 SP500 +15.20 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1609/1.58 bln/1030 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1974/574.8 mln/1039

3:35 pm :

Metals remains weak today, while crude oil futures held strength
Crude oil initially displayed a muted reaction following EIA weekly inventory data
However, July crude climbed higher in afternoon trade and rose as high as $104.25/barrel. Crude closed the day $1.68 higher at $103.99/barrel
Natural gas sold in afternoon trade, falling as low as $4.47/MMBtu. June nat gas ended today's session eight cents lower at $4.47/MMBtu.
Gold and silver remained whippy
June gold finished $6 lower at $1288.10/oz, while July silver fell one cent to $19.33/oz
Copper remained in the red all day, closing five cents lower at $3.12/lb.

4:46 pm Ixia receives expected Nasdaq letter regarding late filing of quarterly report (XXIA) : Co announced today that as expected and due to the previously reported delay in the company's filing of its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2014, on May 15, 2014, the company received a letter from The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC notifying the company that it does not comply with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5250(c)(1). The company continues to work diligently and to devote substantial resources to complete its 2013 Form 10-Q, 2013 Form 10-K and 2014 Form 10-Q, as well as the previously announced restatement of the financial statements contained in the company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2013 and June 30, 2013. The company continues to make substantial progress in these matters and plans to file its Reports and the amendments to its previously filed Quarterly Reports as soon as practicable.

4:09 pm NetApp beats by $0.05, misses on revs; guides Q1 below consensus (NTAP) : Reports Q4 (Apr) earnings of $0.84 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.79; revenues fell 3.9% year/year to $1.65 bln vs the $1.67 bln consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin +90 bps QoQ and +310 bps YoY to 64.4%.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.53-0.58, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.62 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q1 revs of $1.42-1.52 bln vs. $1.52 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"NetApp saw market share gains and delivered a solid operational performance in fiscal year 2014, highlighted by margin expansion and strong cash generation."

1:08 pm First Solar to deliver diesel-PV hybrid solutions to Rio Tinto (RIO) in Australia (FSLR) : Co, Rio Tinto, and Ingenero announced that agreement has been reached for the development of the Weipa Solar Photovoltaic (PV.V) Project in Queensland, Australia. The project has received official confirmation of funding from the Commonwealth Government, with an initial commitment of $3.5 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (:ARENA) to be followed by an allocation of up to $7.8 million for the project's second phase.

Large Cap Gainers

TIF (95.84 +8.63%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.20 ($0.97 vs $0.77 estimate), revs rose 13.0% yoy to $1.01 bln vs $0.95 bln estimate; comparable store sales rose 11% due to growth in most regions; sees Q2 EPS of ~$0.83 vs $0.93 estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $4.15-4.25 (raised from $4.05-4.15) vs $4.17 estimate; target raised to $85 from $83 at Canaccord Genuity
NOK (7.54 +4.00%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies
AZN (74.51 +3.20%): Dealbook reporting that AZN shareholders are divided on Pfizer (PFE) offer; FT reporting that Pfizer is making efforts to keep its bid for AZN active

Large Cap Losers

CRM (49.98 -5.50%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.11 vs $0.10 estimate), revs rose 37.7% yoy to $1.23 bln vs $1.21 bln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of $0.11-0.12 ex items vs $0.12 estimate, revs of $1285-1290 mln vs $1.27 bln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $0.49-0.51 ex items vs $0.49 estimate, revs of $5.30-5.34 bln vs $5.28 bln estimate; target lowered to $70 from $80 at Needham
HRL (47.16 -2.83%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.52 vs $0.56 estimate), revs rose 4.3% yoy to $2.24 bln vs $2.24 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS of $2.17-2.27 vs $2.26 estimate
ADI (51.25 -1.40%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.59 vs $0.56 estimate), revs rose 5.4% yoy to $694.5 mln vs $671.0 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.60-0.64 vs $0.61 estimate, revs +1-5% (~$702-730 mln) vs $694.71 estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

ALGN (52.08 +4.08%): Discussed at Stifel ahead of earnings: noted that the level of insider selling is among the lowest in six years, a potential positive for the stock
EV (36.75 +3.64%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.59 ex items vs $0.56 estimate), revs rose 6.8% yoy to $354.1 mln vs $352.38 mln estimate
VOYA (35.75 +2.44%): Added to US Focus list at Credit Suisse

Mid Cap Losers

BAH (21.93 -10.14%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.33 ex items vs $0.31 estimate), revs fell 9.4% yoy to $1.4 bln vs $1.4 bln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $1.50-1.60 ex items vs $1.56 estimate
VSAT (54.06 -7.81%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.10 ex items vs $0.11 estimate), revs rose 11.4% yoy to $343.9 mln vs $348.08 mln estimate; target lowered to $50 from $53 at Wunderlich; target lowered to $66 from $72 at Oppenheimer
PETM (57.37 -7.75%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($1.04 vs $1.01 estimate), revs rose 1.1% yoy to $1.73 bln vs $1.77 bln estimate; sees Q2 EPS of $0.92-0.96 vs $1.00 estimate, comparable store sales flat to slightly down; sees FY15 EPS of $4.29-4.39 vs $4.44 estimate, comparable store sales relatively flat, net sales growth in the low-single digits

11:45 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (64) outpacing new lows (55) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AFSI, AIG, ALDX, ALL, AN, AON, ARX, ATHL, AXDX, BP, BXP, CALM, CBSO, CDNS, CLDT, CNC, CRT, CSX, CTRN, DOM, ENG, EQS, FUR, GBX, HBM, HGT, HNT, IPG, LOAN, LRCX, LUV, LVLT, MMP, MXWL, NFX, NGLS, NSC, PAH, PFIS, PGI, QCOR, QTS, REV, SAIA, SBAC, SE, SKX, SLG, SNDK, SQBG, SSLT, SWC, THRM, TIF, TRGP, TRV, TSLX, UHS, UIHC, WES, WLK, WMB, WSBF, ZLC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEPI, AGI, AMRN, AMWD, ANR, BEBE, BOTA, CDE, CHOP, CNCE, CRIS, DCIX, DEST, DKS, DWCH, FDO, FRSH, GNMK, GSH, GYRO, IDSY, IIVI, LITB, LXRX, MEIP, MELI, NGVC, NIHD, NL, NVTL, OMEX, ONTX, OTEL, PETM, RCG, RLJE, RNDY, RST, SSI, STNR, SVM, TECU, TFM, TLOG, TLR, TLYS, TOPS, TRUE, URBN, VHI, VSAT, VVUS, WLT, WTSL, XXIA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ

Select solar stocks trading higher following Digitimes report suggesting Solar PV module shipments to grow by 30%, also in sympathy with TSL earnings: YGE +5.3%, SOL +3.9%, JKS +3.3%, JASO +2%, CSIQ +1.9%, FSLR +1%.

Analog Devices (ADI) reported first quarter earnings of $0.59 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 5.4% year/year to $694.5 million which is higher than expected. The company sees third quarter EPS of $0.60-0.64 which is line with estates. The company issued guidance for the revenue guidance of increasing at 1-5% or $702.0-729.8 million which is above estimates.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Update:

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Sellers leave early for holiday, stocks continue rebound through Friday.
- Growth sectors again show more strength with NASDAQ making an important higher high.
- Leadership shows some old faces, new faces, and new old faces.
- VIX breaks below range. Lions, tigers and bears, oh my.
- The Fed doesn't' see any inflation, it just, as we do, feels it.
- The rally about nothing. Most missed it and are pushing it higher or waiting for an entry.

The rally about nothing continues.

We thought we would see some sellers return Friday afternoon given the stocks indices put in a surprisingly solid week that saw some big NASDAQ 'names' return to the leader board along with some of the same names that helped keep the indices from collapsing. Seems the sellers left for Memorial Day weekend early, leaving stocks to rise into the close.

New closing high for SP500 but once again large cap NYSE indices were not the session leaders. The honor again went to growth, RUTX and SOX in particular. After NASDAQ put in a higher recovery high Thursday, SOX did the same Friday. RUTX and SP400 both made significant moves (through 200 day and the trendline, respectively), though no higher recovery highs for them.

SP500 8.04, 0.42%
NASDAQ 31.47, 0.76%
DJ30 63.19, 0.38%
SP400 0.67%
RUTX 1.11%
SOX 0.96%

Volume expectedly shrank: -5% NYSE, -16% NASDAQ

A/D not bad: NASDAQ 2.8%, NYSE 2.1:1.

THE MARKET

THE CHARTS

NASDAQ: Nice rounded bottom the past 7 weeks, clearing the April peaks that marked the prior recovery high. Solid advance even if no volume, rising the backs of those same big names that really got this recovery move underway when they decided to rally.

SP500: New closing high. No volume, but new closing high. MACD is not at a new high with price so you always have to watch for a possible reversal on no volume and a lower MACD.

DJ30: Cleared the April high, still below the early May high. Important test ahead of course, but still trending nicely higher.

RUTX: Broke higher through the 200 day MA, its next important test. Still a scary pattern with the 50 day EMA just overhead that stopped it twice, once in April and again in May. Always harder breaking back through.

SP400: Scary pattern as well, but cleared the lower trendline after putting in a higher low. The uptrend continues though at a lower range.

SOX: Nice clean break through the trendline and also clearing the early May high hit just before SOX fell to test the 50 day EMA. For the third straight time SOX tested the 50 day, undercut it a session, but then recovered nicely.

LEADERS

The big names were at it again, pushing NASDAQ into a leadership role, but the smaller issues also enjoyed another great session.

AAPL, BIDU, GOOG, PCLN, TRIP posted solid gains.

Internet based: At it again. BIDU, TRIP, Z, TRLA, PCLN

Electronics: AFFX, CAVM, MXWL, OVTI, PSEM

Telecom: IDCC, MBT, MITL

OTHER MARKETS

Euro/Dollar: Surged to the 200 day SMA after a solid Thursday started the upside move again.

1.3632 versus 1.3654 versus 1.3687 versus 1.3704 versus 1.3170 versus 1.3698 versus 1.3716 versus 1.3713 versus 1.3702 versus 1.3754 versus 1.3853 versus 1.3914 versus 1.3928 versus 1.3878 versus 1.3875 versus 1.3865

Dollar/Yen: Broke through the 200 day SMA on a nice move though not as wild as the dollar index.

101.98 versus 101.80 versus 101.37 versus 101.2895 versus 101.40 versus 102.65 versus 101.49 versus 101.52 versus 101.84 versus 102.27 versus 102.15 versus 101.73 versus 101.81 versus 101.53 versus 101.73 versus 101.68 versus 102.11

Bonds: Sold on the week but Friday saw bonds bounce up off a rather normal 20 day EMA test for this move.

10 year: 2.53% versus 2.55% versus 2.53% versus 2.51% versus 2.54% versus 2.51% versus 2.50% versus 2.54% versus 2.61% versus 2.66% versus 2.62% versus 2.60% versus 2.59% versus 2.59% versus 2.61% versus 2.59% versus 2.67% versus 2.69% versus 2.70% versus 2.67% versus 2.68% versus 2.69% versus 2.73% versus 2.71% versus 2.72% versus 2.64% versus 2.62% versus 2.64% versus 2.62% versus 2.65% versus 2.69% versus 2.68% versus 2.70% versus 2.73% versus 2.79%

Oil: 104.36, +0.53. Right back up to the prior two highs in the range and now we see if there is a breakout or another roll lower. I saw a report of something like 1245 straight days of gasoline averaging over $3/gallon. Good thing wages are rising so nicely to cover for that. Oh yea, they aren't as average weekly wages continue to fall in this 'recovery.'

Gold: 1291.60, -3.4.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +31.47 points (+0.76%) to close at 4185.81
Volume: 1.52B (-16.16%)

Up Volume: 1.07B (-240M)
Down Volume: 401.22M (-97.47M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.82 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.06 to 1

New Highs: 58 (-5)
New Lows: 38 (-9)

S&P
Stats: +8.04 points (+0.42%) to close at 1900.53
NYSE Volume: 473M (-5.02%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.13 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.82 to 1

New Highs: 138 (+5)
New Lows: 56 (-5)

DJ30
Stats: +63.19 points (+0.38%) to close at 16606.27

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 11.36; -0.67
VXN: 13.45; -0.75
VXO: 11; -0.32

Much was made of the VIX breaking below the trading range of the past year, approaching the quick dip from March 2013. Surely this will bring down hellfire and ruin upon the market.

It did this in March 2013 as noted. The market cruised higher. A low VIX CAN mean a selloff is coming, but it is certainly no guarantee one is coming.

VIX can show you short term fluctuations in a trending market. It is best, however, at extremes (as are all indicators, really). Extreme selling that sees it spiking. Rising as the stock market rises to new highs. That latter is the most worrisome and accurate warning VIX shows: if it rises as stocks rise then turmoil underlies the market's rise as money is moving out and options are betting on some serious movement. That is not happening now.

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.76; -0.11

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls up again, getting closer to levels that have upended upside moves: 57.2% versus 55.1%

Bears fade further: 18.3% versus 19.4%

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Note the extreme bullishness: it was this high in 2007 at the crash, in early 2005 as well.

Bulls: 57.2% versus 55.1%
55.7 versus 54.7 versus 51.6 versus 50.5 versus 54.6% versus 50.5 versus 54.7% 52.0% 54.6% 53.5% 46.5% 41.8% 45.9% 53.1% 57.6 56.1 60.6% 61.6% 60.0% 58.2% 57.1% 55.7% 53.6% 52.6% 55.2% 52.6 49.5 42.3% 45.4 46.4% 44.3% 42.3% 37.1% 37.1% 38.1% 43.3%.

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 18.3% versus 19.4%
20.6% versus 19.7% versus 21.7% versus 20.6 versus 18.6% 18.6% 17.5% 17.4% 15.1% 17.2% 17.2% 17.4% 17.4% 15.3% 15.1 15.3% 15.2% 15.2% 14.0 14.3 14.3% 14.4 15.5 15.5% 15.6% 16.5% 18.5 21.6% 20.6% 18.6% 20.6% 21.6% 22.7% 23.7% 23.8% 21.6%.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

TUESDAY

During and after market hours we watched several stations commenting on the rally. No one believed in it, and it appeared from the statements most were caught off guard by it and thus not in it. Dennis Gartman again said his group erred in their market direction call and now is looking for entries as he feels the wall of worry is enough to keep it moving. Okay, get ready to bail . . .

Reminds me of the 'Seinfeld' episodes where they wrote the pilot 'Jerry,' the show about nothing. The rally about nothing. Can't be the economy. Can't be the Fed as it is tapering. Overseas economies are worse than ours. Bonds are rallying. The rally about nothing.

It's a show about . . . nothing.

Point 1: many missed the move, they are now helping push it up, and on a dip, they might indeed provide more capital to push stocks even higher.

Point 2: This is EXACTLY why we play what the stocks tell us to do, not what the pundits or our guts say. Recall last weekend I said GOOG looked as if it was time to buy. Monday it gave us the entry and it has rallied since. TRIP, PCLN, etc. are also moving as their patterns showed a turn.

Now the question is how far they run. No volume but new highs, some very robust patterns and moves in progress. We could indeed see more upside this coming week barring some weekend blowup somewhere.

For new positions we will look and see what if anything is left to buy, but after this kind of upside, entering is riskier. So, we do as usual and look at some possible downside setups where maybe new highs were hit on no volume and weak MACD. Always need to be ready for the possibilities, even if our guts &/or Brains say the opposite. If it is a possibility, the market can do it, and when everyone is sure it won't, then watch for it. Doing that helped us catch some good moves early and we were letting them run Friday.

That is how we can maybe take a rally that is about nothing and make it something, i.e. money, for us.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend and remember why we have the holiday.

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4185.81

Resistance:
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak
4277 is the March lower gap point
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4344 is the lower November 2012 trendline
4372 is the March 2014 high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 4136
4131 is the March 2014 low
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13
4070 is the series of highs from late November/early December
The 200 day SMA at 4014
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3968 is the February 2014 low
3946 is the April 2014 intraday low
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.

S&P 500: Closed at 1900.53

Resistance:
1902 from early May is the intraday all-time high.

Support:
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1894 is the December 2012 up trendline
1883.57 is the early March high.
The 50 day EMA at 1869
The December and January highs at 1848
1839 is the lower trendline from 11/2012
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
The 200 day SMA at 1791
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1768 is the December 3013 low
1738 is the February 2014 low
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point

Dow: Closed at 16,606.27

Resistance:
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,736 is the all-time high from May 2014
16,902 is a lower trendline off the 11/2012 low

Support:
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
The 50 day EMA at 16,426
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
The 200 day SMA at 15,906
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,340 is the February 2014 low
15,318 is the June closing high
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)

Economic Calendar

May 21 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 05/17 (7:00): 0.9% actual versus 3.6% prior
- MBA Mortgage Purchas, 05/17 (7:00)
- Crude Inventories, 05/17 (10:30): -7.226M actual versus 0.947M prior
- FOMC Minutes, 4/30 (14:00)

May 22 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 05/17 (8:30): 326K actual versus 305K expected, 298K prior (revised from 297K)
- Continuing Claims, 05/12 (8:30): 2653K actual versus 2700K expected, 2666K prior (revised from 2667K)
- Existing Home Sales, April (10:00): 4.65M actual versus 4.66M expected, 4.59M prior
- Leading Indicators, April (10:00): 0.4% actual versus 0.5% expected, 1.0% prior (revised from 0.8%)
- Natural Gas Inventories, 05/17 (10:30): 106 bcf actual versus 105 bcf prior

May 23 - Friday
- New Home Sales, April (10:00): 433K actual versus 415K expected, 407K prior (revised from 384K)

May 27 - Tuesday
- Durable Orders, April (8:30): -1.3% expected, 2.9% prior (revised from 2.6%)
- Durable Goods -ex tr, April (8:30): -0.2% expected, 2.4% prior (revised from 2.0%)
- Case-Shiller 20-city, March (9:00): 11.8% expected, 12.9% prior
- FHFA Housing Price I, March (9:00): 0.6% prior
- Consumer Confidence, May (10:00): 82.7 expected, 82.3 prior

May 28 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 05/24 (7:00): 0.9% prior

May 29 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 05/24 (8:30): 318K expected, 326K prior
- Continuing Claims, 05/17 (8:30): 2650K expected, 2653K prior
- GDP - 2nd Estimate, Q1 (8:30): -0.5% expected, 0.1% prior
- GDP Deflator - 2nd, Q1 (8:30): 1.3% expected, 1.3% prior
- Pending Home Sales, April (10:00): 1.0% expected, 3.4% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 05/24 (10:30): 106 bcf prior
- Crude Inventories, 05/24 (11:00): -7.226M prior

May 30 - Friday
- Personal Income, April (8:30): 0.3% expected, 0.5% prior
- Personal Spending, April (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.9% prior
- PCE Prices - Core, April (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
- Chicago PMI, May (9:45): 60.3 expected, 63.0 prior
- Michigan Sentiment - Final, May (9:55): 81.4 expected, 81.8 prior

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market endured a quiet session that had the S&P 500 confined to a seven-point range. The benchmark index shed 0.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) followed not far behind. Small caps, however, saw some additional weakness as the Russell 2000 lost 0.5%.

All in all, it is worth pointing out that today's lack of aggressive selling or buying followed four consecutive advances that sent the S&P 500 higher by 2.1%. Furthermore, there was no concerted leadership as the top-weighted sectors ended the day in the red. On that note, consumer discretionary (-0.1%), financials (-0.3%), health care (-0.3%), and technology (-0.3%) all struggled to keep pace with the S&P 500.

The discretionary sector had the best showing of the four after seeing some volatility among retailers and homebuilders. In the retail space, Brown Shoe (BWS 29.34, +2.90), and Michael Kors (KORS 97.01, +1.27) posted respective gains of 10.8% and 1.3% after beating earnings estimates, while Chico's FAS (CHS 15.14, -0.47) missed estimates. The stock fell 3.0%, while the overall industry group did not fare much better. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 82.93, -0.77) lost 0.9%.

Also of note, homebuilders displayed intraday strength following above-consensus quarterly results from Toll Brothers (TOL 36.38, +0.74). Shares of TOL jumped 2.1%, while the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.03, -0.04) surrendered its modest gain just ahead of the close.

Elsewhere, a pocket of strength among transports allowed the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.7%) to climb to a fresh all-time high. The bellwether complex extended its year-to-date gain to 9.1% and underpinned the industrial sector (+0.1%), which outperformed throughout the session.

Interestingly, the recent strength in the transports has not jived with the economic slowdown argument that has been used to explain the continued strength in Treasuries. The Treasury market rallied once again today with the 10-yr note climbing 21 ticks. As a result, the benchmark 10-yr yield fell eight basis points to 2.44%, ending at levels not seen in nearly a year.

Today's participation marked an improvement over last week, but remained below average as 621 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which fell 1.2% to follow last week's uptick of 0.9%.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 318,000) and the second estimate of Q1 GDP (consensus -0.5%) will be reported at 8:30 ET, while the Pending Home Sales report for April (consensus 1.0%) will be released at 10:00 ET.


S&P 500 +3.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.1% YTD

DJ30 -42.32 NASDAQ -11.99 SP500 -2.13 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1042/1.63 bln/1663 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1593/621.4 mln/1468 3:30 pm :

Crude oil sold off in the last 45 minutes of pit trading and hit a new low for the day
At the end of the session, the July contract lost $1.42 to $102.71/barrel
Natural gas, on the other hand, continued to rise during the session, closing just below its high for the day
July nat gas ended 11 cents higher at $4.61/MMBtu
Gold and silver sold off this morning and gold failed to ultimately recover those losses
June gold closed just above its session low, finishing $6.10 lower at $1259.30/oz
July silver, however, ended unchanged at $19.06/oz

4:32 pm Apple to acquire Beats Music & Beats electronics for $3 bln, consisting of a purchase price of approximately $2.6 bln and ~$400 mln that will vest over time (AAPL) : Co announced it has agreed to acquire the subscription streaming music service Beats Music, and Beats Electronics, which makes the popular Beats headphones, speakers and audio software. As part of the acquisition, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple. Apple is acquiring the two companies for a total of $3 billion, consisting of a purchase price of approximately $2.6 billion and approximately $400 million that will vest over time. Subject to regulatory approvals, Apple expects the transaction to close in fiscal Q4.

3:38 pm Tomorrow's events of interest : Events and conferences of interest for tomorrow May 29th include:

Benchmark LLC One-on-One Investor ConferenceScheduled to appear: SBGI, OSIS, INWK, TYL, VTSS, KFX, FTEK, CKEC, SNPS, MOVE, MOSY, OESX, PERY, MCS, PHX, DAKP.OB, CVU, QUIK, HIL, GUID, TZOOS.C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions ConferenceScheduled to appear: REGN, GS, ALL, GD, BLK, TRI, DISCA, NLSN, MMM, MU, CMG, FCX, BAC, NOC, PX, SNDK, HPQ, EIX, DD, USB, BIIB, TIVO, SWK, UTX, CSOD, LLY, TXN, VRX, N, AIG, HII, RRC, SI, CL, LXK, HSP, WIN, C, L, LMT, FFIV, KMB, EMR, ACT, GLW, BA, AMCX, CNI, EMC, EOG, MUR, AXP, CELG, GHL, TEL, TWX, AFSI, MC, CTSH, SWN, TYC, MKC, VTR, OXY, MSCC, ROK, EL, GE, ADI, SPR2014 Des Moines Insurance Conference
Scheduled to appear: ATI, ANSS, BBOX, CCC, EQT, IIVI, KMT, KOP, MYL, STBA, WCC, FSTR3:34 pm Earnings Calendar (:SUMRX) : Today after the close look for the following companies to report:

UHAL, CPRT, PANW, GMAN, TLYS, PLKI, SB, AGTCTomorrow before the open look for the following companies to report:COST, TECD, ANF, PLL, SAFM, FRED, SOL, MOD, QSII, DXLG, THR, IKGH, SBLK12:27 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

JD (24.5 +6.66%): Initiated with a Buy at Credit Agricole, target $24.50QIHU (95.78 +6.45%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.20 ($0.54 ex items vs $0.34 estimate), revs rose 141.3% yoy to $265.14 mln vs $229.44 mln estimate; sees Q2 revs of $300-305 mln vs $270.07 mln estimate; mentioned positively at Maxim GroupTWTR (32.01 +4.93%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Nomura Large Cap Losers AGN (158.33 -4.05%): Received a revised, unsolicited proposal from Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) valuing AGN shares at ~$166INFY (50.98 -3.67%): Disclosed that B.G. Srinivas, President and Member of the Board, has conveyed his intention to step down from the Board and resign from the services of the company effective June 10, 2014HCN (62.51 -2.97%): Priced underwritten public offering of 14 mln shares of common stock at $62.35 per share; offering was increased in size from 12 mln shares Mid Cap Gainers SYNA (66.4 +9.81%): WSJ reporting that co is in talks to purchase Japan's RenesasARMK (27.48 +5.25%): Co announced that certain of its stockholders intend to offer for sale 20,000,000 shares of its common stockJDSU (11.32 +3.66%): Announced $100 mln common stock repurchase agreement Mid Cap Losers DSW (23.59 -27.46%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.42 vs $0.48 estimate), revs fell 0.4% yoy to $599 mln vs $622.93 mln estimate; comparable sales decreased 3.7% vs estimates for a decrease of 0.3%; lowered FY15 EPS guidance to $1.52-1.67 ex items (from $1.87-2.02) vs $1.90 estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne AgeeDDD (51.27 -9.48%): Priced a public offerin gof 5.95 mln shares of common stock for estimated total gross proceeds of ~$317 mlnRXN (26.58 -4.77%): Announced public offering of 15 mln shares of common stock by selling stockholders 12:14 pm S&P +1.3 and Dow set new rebound highs -- Nasdaq Comp -1.3 (:TECHX) :

12:05 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (115) outpacing new lows (44) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ABC, AET, AKRX, AL, ALV, AMKR, AMOT, ARCB, ARRS, ASX, BELFB, BLL, BMO, BR, BWS, BXMT, CAVM, CBG, CLDT, CLS, CM, CMO, CNC, COF, COP, CP, CRT, CTO, CVS, CXDC, DAL, DAVE, DHR, DOW, ECOL, EQM, EVDY, FDEF, FFNM, FGP, GD, HH, HNNA, IDTI, IHS, IPG, JD, JFBI, JOE, KEX, LAZ, LDL, LPNT, LRCX, LSTR, LUV, LYB, MACK, MCO, MGPI, MMI, MMP, MON, MPWR, MSL, MTR, MU, NJR, NLSN, NSC, NTK, NTT, NYLD, OCIR, ODFL, PBI, PCYG, PDH, PFBI, PKY, PPL, R, RE, RFMD, RHI, ROP, RRST, SAN, SEM, SIAL, SKX, SLCA, SNDK, SNN, SOHO, SPCB, SPIL, TD, TDG, TLP, TMUS, TNET, TQNT, TRNX, TRV, TSLX, TSM, TYC, UGI, WFC, WIN, WLK, WLP, YONG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACUR, AG, ANR, ANV, AUY, AVEO, BEBE, BGFV, BVN, CDE, CGA, COH, COOL, COVS, CTC, DKS, DRD, DSW, ECTE, EDMC, EPIQ, FBR, FLL, GOMO, GRVY, HIBB, IAG, KGC, NCQ, NWY, ONE, PCTI, SCVL, SGRP, SOQ, SPU, SVM, TROV, VHI, VLTC, WILC, WLT, WTSL, YUME

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWT, FAN, IHF, IYT, LQD, MBB, OEF, SHY, SPY, VTI, XLI, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: TBT, VXX, VXZ

9:51 am Semiconductor Hldrs ETF displays relative strength (SMH) : The sector was a top performer yesterday and has displayed relative strength again this morning as it flirts with its multi-year close high from April at 46.29 --MU +2.6%, AMKR +1.4%, SNDK +1.1%, BRCM +0.8%, CRUS +0.8%, TSM +0.5%, INTC +0.4%, MRVL +0.4%.

9:01 am SolarCity and Groupon to offer deals on solar systems (SCTY) : Groupon (GRPN) will work with SolarCity (SCTY) to offer deals on solar systems in the Groupon marketplace. The SolarCity offer is Groupon's first national deal in the solar category and is part of their growing collection of home and auto services deals.

SunEdison (SUNE) introduced the SunEdison Silvantis R-series solar module. The SunEdison Silvantis R-series increases solar module efficiency via Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell technology, for higher power output and maximum durability

Integrated Silicon Solution (ISSI), a leader in advanced memory solutions, announced it has begun sampling production units of its new 8-gigabit DDR3 and DDR3L SDRAMs. The 8Gb DDR3 device is the IS43TR16512A, which operates at 1.5V, and the IS43TR16512AL, which operates at 1.35V. Both are organized as 512Mx16 and packaged in a 96-ball BGA. Micrel (MCRL) introduced the MIC23099 power management solution. The device is targeted at single AA/AAA battery cell applications. STMicroelectronics (STM) together with Changan Automobile announced a strategic partnership with the setup of the Changan - ST Automotive Electronic Joint Laboratory at the premises of Changan Automotive Engineering, Global Research Institute.

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday session on an upbeat note despite receiving some disappointing data ahead of the open. The S&P 500 settled higher by 0.5% with nine sectors registering gains, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) underperformed throughout the trading day.

Shortly before the open, the second revision to Q1 GDP revealed a 1.0% contraction, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a smaller decline of 0.5%. Interestingly, the subpar report led to just a brief stumble in the futures market, which recovered swiftly. That recovery may have been aided by today's initial claims report, which suggested the labor market remains on solid ground.

Even though almost all sectors finished in the green, there was no concerted leadership among the top-weighted sectors. Of the four largest groups, health care (+0.8%) and technology (+0.7%) displayed strength throughout the session, while consumer discretionary (+0.4%) and financials (+0.2%) joined the party in the late afternoon.

Most notably, the technology sector drew significant strength from the shares of Apple (AAPL 635.38, +11.37), which gained 1.8%. The largest tech stock extended its May advance to 7.7%, while also giving a major boost to the Nasdaq Composite. Interestingly, Apple's strength had little impact on the performance of other large cap tech names as Cisco Systems (CSCO 24.68, -0.14), Google (GOOG 560.08, -1.60), and Qualcomm (QCOM 80.19, -0.03) posted slim losses.

Elsewhere, the health care sector ended among the leaders even as biotechnology had a tough time keeping up with the sector. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 240.96, +1.37) added 0.6% versus a 0.8% gain for the countercyclical sector.

Staying on the countercyclical side, the consumer staples sector (+0.8%) benefitted from a broad rally, while ignoring below-consensus quarterly results from Costco (COST 114.14, -0.10). Shares of the wholesale retailer finished the session with a slim loss of just 0.1%.

Meanwhile, the other two defensive sectors-utilities (+0.1%) and telecom services (unch)-spent the entire session near their flat lines.

Like the two countercyclical sectors, Treasuries also settled in the neighborhood of their flat lines, but not before seeing intraday strength. Treasuries rallied through the first two hours of action, but spent the remainder of the day in a steady retreat. As a result, the 10-yr note slipped four ticks, sending the benchmark yield higher by one basis point to 2.46%.

Participation remained light as only 532 million shares changed hands at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. In fact, the final tally represented the lowest volume of the year with the count coming in just below the previous 2014 low of 533.3 million that was registered on January 3.

Reviewing today's data:

First quarter GDP was revised down to -1.0% in the second estimate from a 0.1% gain in the advance estimate. GDP increased 2.6% in Q4 2013. The Briefing.com consensus expected GDP to be revised down to -0.5%. The revisions brought GDP down into negative territory for the first time since falling 1.3% in Q1 2011. Almost the entire revision was due to weaker inventory data. Inventory growth, which was down $24.30 billion from fourth quarter levels in the advance estimate, was revised to -$62.70 billion. That reduced GDP growth by an additional 1.1 percentage points (1.62 percentage points in total). Excluding inventories, real final sales were virtually unchanged in the second estimate, up 0.6% vs. a 0.7% gain in the advance estimate. Real final sales are still well below 2013 levels.
The initial claims level fell to 300,000 for the week ending May 24 from a slightly upwardly revised 327,000 (from 326,000) for the week ending May 17. The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to fall to 318,000. Layoff levels are showing no signs of stability. After weeks of biases from likely seasonal adjustment problems, it looked like claims were stabilizing in the 320,000 to 330,000 range. However, over the past few weeks, claims have flirted with 300,000 a couple of times before retreating back toward 325,000.
Pending home sales for April rose 0.4%, which was worse than the 1.0% increase forecast by the Briefing.com consensus. Today's reading followed last month's unrevised increase of 3.4%.

Tomorrow, Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), Personal Spending (consensus 0.2%), and Core PCE Prices (expected 0.2%) will all be released at 8:30 ET, while the Chicago PMI report for May (consensus 60.3) will cross the wires at 9:45 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the final reading of the May Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey (expected 81.4), which will be released at 9:55 ET.

S&P 500 +3.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.7% YTD

DJ30 +65.56 NASDAQ +22.87 SP500 +10.25 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1562/1.57 bln/1072 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2054/532.3 mln/1011

3:30 pm :

June gold fell for a fourth consecutive session despite weakness in the dollar index. The yellow metal briefly poked into positive territory in morning action and brushed a session high of $1260.60 per ounce. However, it quickly retreated back into the red and settled with a 0.2% loss at $1256.30 per ounce.
July silver came off its session low of $18.78 per ounce set moments after floor trade opened and trended higher until late morning action. It touched a session high of $19.09 per ounce but slipped back into negative territory. It eventually settled at $19.02 per ounce, or 0.2% lower.
July crude oil trended higher following inventory data that showed a build of 1.657 mln when a build of 0.1-0.5 mln was anticipated. In addition, gasoline inventories decreased by 1.803 mln when consensus called for a build of 0.0-0.3 mln. The energy component lifted from its session low of $102.87 per barrel set in early morning action and brushed a session high of $103.94 per barrel. It settled at $103.60 per barrel, booking a gain of 0.9%.
July natural gas, on the other hand, fell to a session low of $4.53 per MMBtu on inventory data that showed a build of 114 bcf when a smaller build of 100-110 bcf was expected. It rose into positive territory in late morning action but retreated back into the red. It eventually settled with a 1.1% loss at $4.56 per MMBtu.

6:00 pm Agilent announces global distribution agreement with Cartagenia for CNV analysis (A) : Co announced an agreement for global distribution of Cartagenia's cloud-based software for copy number variation (CN.V) analysis. This agreement will enable Agilent to sell usage-priced annual licenses for Cartagenia's Bench Lab CNV module to small and medium-sized cytogenetic laboratories. The use-based licenses allow labs with limited budgets and little or no bioinformatics resources to gain access to a powerful interpretation support module to draft clinical grade reports.

4:27 pm Power Integrations adds $50 mln to stock repurchase program (POWI) : Co announced that its board of directors has expanded the company's stock-repurchase program, authorizing the use of an additional $50 mln for the repurchase of the company's common stock. Purchases will continue to be made according to price/volume guidelines set by the board of directors. The action follows a prior authorization of $50 mln in October 2012, of which the company has utilized $41 mln, repurchasing approximately 1.1 million shares at an average price of about $38 per share. This total includes 415,000 shares repurchased in the current quarter. Power Integrations had $217.7 million in cash and investments as of March 31, 2014.

4:21 pm OmniVision beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS and rev above consensus (OVTI) : Reports Q4 (Apr) earnings of $0.40 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.27; revenues fell 1.5% year/year to $331 mln vs the $292.11 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.43-0.63 vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q1 revs of $360-400 mln vs. $305.53 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We are pleased to conclude our fiscal 2014 on a high note. Our financial metrics have continued to improve, with better gross margin, higher cash balance, and lower inventories. We have made meaningful progress on multiple fronts, including the diversification of our revenues into multiple geographies, especially in Asia, and the strong growth in our emerging automotive and security markets," said Shaw Hong, chief executive officer of OmniVision Technologies, Inc. "We are also working on new technologies and applications in our core and emerging markets that have the potential to substantially enhance our market position over the longer term."

4:16 pm Microsoft and salesforce.com (CRM) announce global, strategic partnership (MSFT) : Co announced a strategic partnership to create new solutions that connect salesforce.com's customer relationship management (CRM) apps and platform to Microsoft Office and Windows so customers can be more productive. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

4:15 pm Avago Tech beats by $0.08, beats on revs (AVGO) : Reports Q2 (Apr) non-GAAP earnings of $0.85 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.77; revenues rose 24.7% year/year to $701 mln vs the $678.2 mln consensus. Co issues guidance for Q3 (Jul), sees Q3 revs of $1.30-1.40 bln, this is not comparable to $728.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate because it includes the LSI acquisition.
Co reports Q2 non-GAAP gross margin of 54% vs. 51.5-53.5% guidance. Co guides to Q3 non-GAAP gross margin of 54-56%, which is not comparable to consensus due to the LSI acquisition.

4:06 pm Violin Memory beats by $0.01, misses on revs; Co anticipates revenue growth in the second half of this fiscal year (VMEM) : Reports Q1 (Apr) loss of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.26); revenues fell 27.0% year/year to $18.1 mln vs the $23.27 mln consensus.

Fiscal Year 2015 Business Outlook

"Looking forward, we anticipate revenue growth in the second half of this fiscal year as our new products, strategic relationships and more efficient go-to-market model are expected to contribute meaningfully to our results," added DeNuccio.
Fiscal year 2015 non-GAAP gross margin of 52-56%
Fiscal year 2015 non-GAAP operating expenses of $115-125 mln

4:01 pm Violin Memory announces agreement to sell its PCIe product line for ~ $23 mln in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities totaling $0.5 mln (VMEM) : Co announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its PCIe product line to SK hynix for ~ $23 million in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities totaling $0.5 million. This sale is consistent with the Company's previously announced plan to review strategic alternatives for its PCIe flash memory card business in order to focus on markets where Violin has proven technology leadership and significant growth opportunities.

Large Cap Gainers

TSN (43.38 +6.47%): Co announced $50.00/share cash proposal to acquire Hillshire Brands (HSH).
S (9.42 +2.42%): Co Chairman backs reasoning for T-Mobile (TMUS) deal, according to WSJ story out yesterday afternoon.
BIIB (318.12 +3.01%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; tgt raised to $375 from $300.

Large Cap Losers

SPG (165.04 -6.2%): Announced completion of spin-off of Washington Prime Group (WPG); updated guidance to reflect spin off of WPG; sees FY14 FFO of $8.96-9.06 (from $9.60-9.70 previously), not comparable to the $9.62 consensus; target lowered to $165 from $175 at Imperial Capital.
KORS (93.31 -3.81%): Mentioned unfavorably on Mad Money (WDAY also lower on unfavorable mention); target raised to $110 at Telsey Advisory Group.
CM (89.85 -1.37%): Reported CAD2.17 vs CAD2.03 consensus; increased quarterly dividend to $1.00/share from prior dividend of $0.98/share.

Mid Cap Gainers

HSH (52.2 +16.03%): Tyson Foods (TSN) announced $50.00/share cash proposal to acquire HSH.
MELI (89.68 +9.24%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; tgt lowered to $104 from $114.
PANW (75.65 +8.83%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; settled patent dispute with Juniper (JNPR) for ~$175 mln in cash and stock; sees Q4 non-GAAP EPS of $0.10-0.11 a share, Q4 consensus $0.12; sees revs of $158-162 mln, Q4 consensus $157.8 mln; upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer; upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James; tgt raised to $90 from $84; target raised to $95 at Needham.

Mid Cap Losers

BAH (22.1 -6.47%): Announced sale of 10 mln shares of common stock by an affiliate of the Carlyle Group (CG).
TECD (60.64 -3.65%): Missed on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs.
RXN (25.39 -3.02%): Priced 15 mln shares of common stock by selling shareholders at $25.50 per share.

11:58 am European Markets Closing Prices (:SUMRX) : European markets are now closed; stock markets across Europe performed as follows:

UK's FTSE:+0.3%
Germany's DAX:0.0%
France's CAC:0.0%
Spain's IBEX:-0.2%
Portugal's PSI:-0.9%
Italy's MIB Index:-0.4%
Irish Ovrl Index:-0.4%
Greece ATHEX Composite: -1.1%

11:39 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (128) outpacing new lows (28) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ABC, ACMP, AL, ALK, AMKR, AMOT, AON, ARCB, ARRS, ASTC, ATRI, BELFB, BNS, BR, BWS, CE, CHC, CLDT, CLS, CNI, CNW, CODE, COF, CP, CSX, DIS, DOW, DVD, DVN, ECF, EL, EMES, ENSG, EQM, EVDY, FCH, FDEF, FGP, GD, GDP, GLNG, GPK, GSAT, H, HA, HCC, HSH, HSP, IBA, IDTI, IHS, IMO, IMOS, IPG, IRS, ISIL, JBLU, JD, JMEI, LSTR, LUV, MACK, MAR, MLR, MMI, MOH, MPWR, MU, NEN, NFX, NNBR, NRG, NSC, NTT, NYLD, OXY, PAH, PCYG, PDH, PEP, PES, PKY, PPL, PTP, RAD, RDI, REX, RHI, ROL, RUK, SABR, SAFM, SBR, SCI, SEM, SIG, SKX, SN, SNDK, SNN, SOHO, SPIL, SRC, SYPR, TEN, TGS, TIF, TMH, TMUS, TPL, TRUE, TRV, TRW, TSLX, UEIC, UGI, UHAL, UNS, USLM, VET, VTNR, WAG, WIN, WLK, WWAV, YONG, Z

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AG, ANV, AUY, BVN, CDE, CHS, CIO, COVS, DCIX, EDMC, ESI, EXPR, FLL, FRED, GMAN, IAG, JE, OMEX, OXF, SC, SOQ, SPHS, SVM, TCCO, TLYS, VHI, VLTC, WLT

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AGG, EFA, FAN, IYK, IYT, LQD, MBB, MES, OEF, SHY, SOXX, SPY, VTI, XLB, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: TBT, VXX

11:03 am Ingram Micro: ESET announces a strategic and exclusive distribution alliance with Ingram Micro (IM) : ESET, a provider of digital protection, announced a strategic and exclusive distribution alliance with Ingram Micro (IM). Ingram Micro will provide U.S. channel partners with quick and efficient access to ESET's full suite of award-winning business solutions to meet growing demand across industry sectors.

7:50 am Avago Tech: Seagate (STX) to acquire LSI's flash businesses from Avago for $450 mln in cash (AVGO) : Seagate Technology plc (STX) and AVGO announced that they have entered into a definitive asset purchase agreement under which Seagate will acquire the assets of LSI's Accelerated Solutions Division and Flash Components Division ("FCD") from Avago for $450 million in cash.

In FY15, Seagate would expect the combination of its enterprise SSD product line and these SSD Controller families to generate revenues of at least $150 mln and be slightly accretive to the co gross margin with operating margin headwind of $30-40 mln.

As Seagate drives operational synergies and leverages its SSD technology into its product portfolio, the co would expect the operating margin contribution from its SSD business to be neutral to positive in FY16 and beyond. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 of calendar year 2014, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and the receipt of certain regulatory approvals, including those required by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.

Aehr Test Systems (AEHR) has shipped ABTS Burn-in and Test Systems to two new customers in China, one to a Chinese semiconductor foundry to fill a previously announced order and the other to a Chinese government research institute.

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From Briefing.com: 4:11 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Begin June on Quiet Note (:WRAPX) : The stock market kicked off June on an unassuming note. The S&P 500 added 0.1% after spending the bulk of the day near its flat line, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) and Russell 2000 (-0.5%) underperformed throughout the session.

Equity indices displayed slim gains at the open, but small-cap stocks struggled from the get go. The major averages then had the rug pulled out from under them after a disappointing ISM Index for May (53.2 versus Briefing.com consensus 55.6) crossed the wires.

Although stocks slumped to lows in reaction to the report, they were able to trim their losses over the next 90 minutes. The Nasdaq and Russell 2000 could not return into positive territory, while the Dow and S&P 500 managed to regain their flat lines.

The recovery in the blue chip indices was assisted by headlines indicating that the original ISM report did not contain the correct seasonal adjustment data. Those headlines were accompanied by reports suggesting 56.0 was the correct reading for May, but when the final release from the ISM crossed the wires, it revealed that the index climbed to 55.4 and not 56.0.

Outside of the confusion created by the data, the first session of the month was rather uneventful. Trading volume remained on the light side as less than 537 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Similar to volume, another dynamic that carried over from May was the continued strength among transports. The Dow Jones Transportation Average advanced 0.6%, extending its year-to-date gain to 10.1%. The outperformance of transports underpinned the industrial sector (+0.4%), which ended the day just ahead of consumer discretionary (+0.3%) and financials (+0.3%) sectors.

Even though three heavily-weighted groups finished among the leaders, the S&P 500 could not pull away from its flat line as consumer staples (-0.3%), energy (-0.2%), and technology (-0.2%) weighed.

Notably, the tech sector finished near the bottom of the leaderboard due to weakness in two of its largest components. Shares of Apple (AAPL 628.65, -4.35) fell 0.7% after the company announced a set of software updates for its products, while also revealing an iOS-based Health Kit app, the release of which has been rumored in the past. Apple notwithstanding, the tech sector was also pressured by Google (GOOGL 564.34, -7.31), which lost 1.3% after its head of business development left the company.

Chipmakers, however, had a better showing than the overall sector as the PHLX Semiconductor Index advanced 0.5%. Broadcom (BRCM 34.84, +2.97) was a standout, surging 9.3% after announcing plans to explore strategic alternatives for its Cellular Baseband Business.

On the fixed income side, Treasuries spent the session in a steady retreat. The 10-yr note shed 15 ticks, pushing its yield up to 2.53%.

Economic data was limited to April Construction Spending and May ISM:

Construction spending increased 0.2% in April after increasing an upwardly revised 0.6% (from 0.2%) in March. The Briefing.com consensus expected construction spending to increase 0.7%. Total private construction was flat. A 0.1% increase in private residential spending was offset by a 0.1% decline in private nonresidential spending.
After correcting for seasonal adjustment problems, the ISM Manufacturing Index was revised to 55.4 in May from the 53.2 reading that was originally reported. With the correction, the May ISM reading is up from 54.9 in April, but below the Briefing.com consensus which called for the ISM Index to increase to 55.6. The ISM explained that its computers accidentally used the wrong seasonal adjustment factors --which seemed to have been left over from April --when calculating the adjusted indices. After using the correct seasonal adjustments, all of the indices reported stronger activity. More importantly, the newly revised data now confirm the improvements registered by the Federal Reserve regional manufacturing surveys for May.

Tomorrow, the April Factory Orders report (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +4.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.0% YTD

4:07 pm Advanced Energy announces Garry Rogerson has decided to step down from his role as CEO (AEIS) : Co announced that after nearly three years at the helm, Garry Rogerson has decided to step down from his role as chief executive officer. Until a successor is identified, Garry will continue to lead the strong management team at Advanced Energy.

Large Cap Gainers

BRCM (35.07 +10.04%): Co announced it is exploring strategic alternatives for its cellular baseband business, including a potential sale or wind-down; target raised to $40 from $35 at Topeka Capital Markets;
IBN (51.78 +4.25%): Strength in Indial stocks: HDB also higher
UAL (46.12 +3.94%): International Air Transport Association projects airline industry profits will reach a record high this year

Large Cap Losers

IEP (98.55 -3.76%): Multiple news sources reporting that Carl Icahn has been implicated in an insider trading investigation; Icahn has denied any wrongdoing
VTR (64.5 -3.44%): Announced acquisition of American Realty Capital Healthcare (HCT) in a transaction valued at $2.6 bln
ESRX (69.54 -2.69%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen, target lowered to $77 from $79

Mid Cap Gainers

NPSP (34.64 +11.28%): Reuters reporting that Shire (SHPG) has secured $5 bln of funding to make an acquisition offer
PL (57.82 +10.55%): WSJ reporting that Dai-ichi Life Insurance is considering an acquisition of the company
MWV (42.15 +3.87%): Starboard Value disclosed 5.6% active stake in the company, says shares are deeply undervalued and that substantial opportunities exist to create significant value for shareholders

Mid Cap Losers

PBYI (61.3 -19.8%): Announced presentation of results from an ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial of PB272 (neratinib) for the treatment of HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer that has metastasized to the brain: 8% of patients experienced a partial response, 10% experienced prolonged stable disease for greater than or equal to 6 months, 12% experienced stable disease for less than 6 months
MTZ (31.88 -11.44%): Sees Q2 EPS of $0.40 ex items vs $0.53 estimate, revs of ~$1.1 bln vs $1.16 bln estimate; stock was defended at Wunderlich
AFSI (41.6 -2.56%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article

11:45 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (177) outpacing new lows (43) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAL, ABBV, ABC, AET, AGN, AGRO, AGX, AHL, AIG, AL, ALDR, ALL, ALV, AMH, AMKR, AON, AP, ARCI, ARE, ARES, ATHL, AVB, AVGO, AWK, AXDX, BBEP, BELFB, BF.B, BMR, BR, BVX, CALM, CBG, CCC, CE, CHC, CHTR, CKEC, CMCM, CMO, CNC, CNI, CP, CPN, CQP, CSCD, CVS, CXDC, CYT, DD, DEI, DIS, DLNG, DOM, DOW, DRE, DVA, DVN, DYN, EL, ELS, EMES, ENL, ENSV, EPD, EQS, ERF, ETR, EVDY, FANG, FDX, FLEX, FRT, FSRV, GBX, GD, GDP, GGP, GIGA, GIS, GLOP, GMK, GSAT, H, HAL, HCLP, HCT, HNNA, HNRG, HSH, HST, IBA, INGR, INTC, IRS, JMEI, K, KEX, LEG, LLL, LNG, LRCX, MAC, MAR, MC, MCK, MGA, MGPI, MHFI, MIC, MMC, MMP, MO, MON, MSM, MWV, NDZ, NFX, NGG, NGLS, NLSN, NRG, NSC, NTT, NWE, NYLD, ODFL, OXY, PAH, PBI, PEB, PES, PL, PPG, PSXP, R, REI, RNR, SABR, SAFM, SBR, SDPI, SE, SEM, SGBK, SHO, SLB, SLG, SLI, SN, SPCB, SPG, SWHC, SWKS, SYPR, TAP, TDG, TGS, TKR, TLP, TMH, TNET, TRCB, TSLX, TTGT, TWTC, UGI, UNP, VNO, VTNR, VYFC, WAG, WES, WFC, WFT, WLDN, YONG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACFN, AEGR, AEPI, ALLY, ANR, ANV, ASCMA, AVD, AXGN, BIND, BOTA, CLF, COH, COVS, DEST, DRD, EDMC, ESI, FIO, FRAN, FSYS, GMAN, KTWO, LXRX, MCP, MX, NCQ, NEON, NGVC, NORD, NRP, NSPH, NWY, OMEX, OXF, RNG, SC, SLRC, TOPS, TRVN, WLT, XXIA, YUME

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, DIG, DVY, EFA, EWG, EWP, FAN, IEO, IGE, IOO, IWF, IYE, IYJ, IYM, IYR, IYT, MES, MOO, NIB, OEF, OIH, SDY, SEA, SMH, SOXX, SPY, URE, UYM, VGK, VTI, XLB, XLE, XLI, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SMN

9:41 am Peregrine Semi adds sales channel partners in EMEA and the Asia Pacific (PSMI) : Co announces the addition of six new sales channel partners in the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions. The channel partners have been appointed to drive design wins for UltraCMOS high-performance analog (:HPA) products in these important markets. To serve EMEA, Peregrine has appointed Interlligent, Link Microtek and Vostock. In the Asia Pacific region, Peregrine has appointed Asiacom, Tecnomic and Acromax.

Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM) announced that its lithium-ion battery monitor is being used by Nissan Motor (NSANY) for the Nissan Pathfinder Hybrid.

7:52 am Advanced Micro commences tender offer for its 8.125% senior notes due 2017 (AMD) : Co announced that it commenced a cash tender offer for any and all of its outstanding 8.125% Senior Notes due 2017. Concurrent with the Tender Offer, AMD is also soliciting consent from the holders of the Notes for proposed amendments to the terms of the 8.125% Notes to reduce the minimum notice period required in connection with redemption of the 8.125% Notes from 30 days to 3 business days. AMD intends to finance the purchase of the 8.125% Notes tendered in the tender offer with the net proceeds from the closing of AMD's private offering of $400 million of senior notes due 2024, which was also separately announced by AMD today. To the extent the net proceeds from the New Notes Offering are not enough to redeem the then outstanding 8.125% Notes, AMD intends to use cash on hand, including the remaining net proceeds from its February 2014 offering of its 6.75% Senior Notes due 2019, if required, to fund the redemption of any such 8.125% Notes.

7:51 am Advanced Micro announces private offering of $400 mln aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2024 (AMD) : Co announced that it intends to commence a private offering, subject to market and other conditions, of $400 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2024. AMD intends to use the net proceeds received in the offering to repurchase its outstanding 8.125% Senior Notes due 2017 through a tender offer which also launched , June 2, 2014. AMD intends to use the Net Proceeds to fund the purchase of all 8.125% Notes that are early tendered in accordance with the terms of the 8.125% Tender Offer.


HP (HPQ) announced new milestones in the transformation of its consumer personal systems portfolio with a host of innovative form factors, and multiple operating system options, including a new notebook powered by Android.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 06-Jun-14The major averages finished the first week of June on an upbeat note with small-cap stocks leading the charge. The Russell 2000 gained 1.0%, extending its weekly advance to 2.7%, while the S&P 500 added 0.5% to finish the week higher by 1.3%.

Stocks spent the first 90 minutes of action in a steady climb, while the remainder of the session saw range-bound action just below the highs.

The early charge took place after the Nonfarm Payrolls report confirmed that recent trends in the labor market remain intact. Specifically, the addition of 217,000 payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 220,000) reflected a gradual improvement in the labor market, while the participation rate remained low (held at 62.8%), and hourly earnings grew modestly (+0.2%).

The middle-of-the-road report was not weak enough to cause concerns about the overall economy, but it was also not strong enough to lead to concerns about faster policy tightening from the Fed. As such, equity indices continued on their recent course.

After showing relative weakness over the past few weeks, small-cap stocks outperformed their blue chip counterparts. As a result of the increased risk tolerance among investors, the Russell 2000 rallied 2.7% this week, finishing well ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which added 1.2%.

Fittingly, growth-sensitive sectors paced today's advance with five of six cyclical groups ending ahead of the broader market. The industrial sector (+1.0%) finished in the lead, while energy (+0.8%) and financials (+0.7%) followed.

Industrials received broad support from transports and defense contractors. The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.9%) extended to a fresh record high, pushing its year-to-date gain to 10.9%. Defense contractors, meanwhile, were underpinned by General Electric (GE 27.18, +0.41). The largest sector component rose 1.5%, while the PHLX Defense Index climbed 0.8%.

Elsewhere, the energy space was boosted by Dow component ExxonMobil (XOM 101.60, +1.05), which rallied 1.0%. Another Dow member, Chevron (CVX 124.19, +0.67), kept pace with ExxonMobil during the session, but narrowed its gain to 0.5% into the close. For its part, crude oil added 0.3% to $102.77/bbl.

Also of note, the financial sector extended its weekly gain to 2.3%, solidifying its spot atop the leaderboard. The industrial sector was the only other group to add more than 2.0% for the week (2.2%), while the remaining cyclical groups advanced between 1.2% and 1.8%.

On the countercyclical side, the telecom services sector (unch) lost 1.2% for the week, while consumer staples (+0.3%), health care (-0.1%), and utilities (-0.4%) posted respective weekly gains of 0.3%, 0.7%, and 0.7%.

With stocks ending on their highs, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 10.78, -0.90) got crushed again, cratering lower by 7.6% as participants did not see the need to hedge their risk exposure. The near-term volatility measure ended at its lowest level since early 2007.

Treasuries displayed some intraday volatility, but finished the day little changed. The 10-yr note slumped ahead of the jobs report, but rallied immediately after. The gains did not hold as the benchmark note slipped back to lows over the course of the session. The 10-yr note shed three ticks with its yield rising one basis point to 2.59% after notching a low at 2.53%.

Once again, participation was well below average with 629 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Taking another look at today's data:

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 217,000 (Briefing.com consensus 220,000)
April nonfarm payrolls were revised to 282,000 from 288,000
Total private payrolls increased by 216,000 (Briefing.com consensus 230,000)
April private payrolls were revised to 270,000 from 273,000
The unemployment rate held at 6.3% (Briefing.com consensus 6.4%)
The U6 unemployment rate, which also accounts for marginally attached workers and people employed part-time for economic reasons, dipped to 12.2% from 12.3%
Average hourly earnings increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%)
The average workweek was 34.5 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.5)
Consumer credit increased a robust $26.80 billion in April from an upwardly revised increase of $19.50 billion (from $17.50 billion) in March. That April figure was well above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of $15.00 billion.
Revolving credit increased by $8.80 billion, from $861.60 billion to $870.40 billion, suggesting consumers were doing more purchasing with credit cards
Once again, though, it was non-revolving credit that led the increase, surging $18.00 billion to $2,304.60 billion from $2,286.60 billion

Monday's session will be free of noteworthy economic data.

S&P 500 +5.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.1% YTD

Week in Review: Small-Caps Surge

The stock market kicked off June on an unassuming note. The S&P 500 added 0.1% after spending the bulk of the day near its flat line, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) and Russell 2000 (-0.5%) underperformed throughout the session. Equity indices displayed slim gains at the open, but small-cap stocks struggled from the get go. The major averages then had the rug pulled out from under them after a disappointing ISM Index for May (53.2 versus Briefing.com consensus 55.6) crossed the wires. Although stocks slumped to lows in reaction to the report, they were able to trim their losses over the next 90 minutes. The Nasdaq and Russell 2000 could not return into positive territory, while the Dow and S&P 500 managed to regain their flat lines. The recovery in the blue chip indices was assisted by headlines indicating that the original ISM report did not contain the correct seasonal adjustment data. Those headlines were accompanied by reports suggesting 56.0 was the correct reading for May, but when the final release from the ISM crossed the wires, it revealed that the index climbed to 55.4 and not 56.0.

On Tuesday, the stock market finished on a modestly lower note, but small-cap stocks underperformed once again. The Russell 2000 slipped 0.2%, while the S&P 500 snapped its three-day win streak, shedding less than a point. Equity indices faced an uphill climb from the opening bell, but the S&P 500 was able to cut the bulk of its losses during the initial 45 minutes of action; however, the early rebound attempt was stonewalled by the underperformance of small-caps. With high-beta names unable to gain any significant traction, the benchmark index returned to its earlier low. The S&P 500 then staged another recovery, which placed it right below its flat line by the close. To be sure, the (nearly) flat finish reflected a lack of concerted sector leadership during the trading day. On the cyclical side, energy (+0.3%) and financials (+0.1%) posted modest gains, while the remaining four sectors lost between 0.1% and 0.3%.

The major averages finished the Wednesday session on a modestly higher note with the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) in the lead. Like the Nasdaq, the Russell 2000 (+0.4%) also outperformed the S&P 500 (+0.2%), while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) lagged throughout the session. For the third day in a row, the stock market maintained a narrow range amid spotty sector leadership. Trading volume remained light with just 579 million shares changing hands at the NYSE versus a long-term average of 700 million. The quiet trading environment was a reflection of a wait-and-see approach employed by investors ahead of Thursday's policy decision from the European Central Bank and Friday's U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls report.

The stock market finished the Thursday session on an upbeat note after receiving a shot in the arm from an easing announcement made by the European Central Bank. Small-cap stocks led the way with the Russell 2000 climbing 2.1%, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.7% with all ten sectors posting gains. Prior to the open, the European Central Bank announced several easing measures after the past few months were filled with speculation surrounding potential stimulus from the ECB. The central bank lowered all three of its interest rates (main refinancing rate to 0.15% from 0.25%, marginal lending facility rate to 0.40% from 0.75%, and deposit facility rate to -0.10% from 0.00%), announced the deployment of a targeted long term refinancing operation [LTRO], and said preparations for purchases of asset-backed securities have begun. In addition, the ECB announced it will stop sterilizing purchases under its Securities Market Program [SMP]. One of the factors that forced the action was the continued strength of the euro, which has been stubbornly holding just below its best level since late 2011. The announcement knocked the single currency down...for about three hours. The euro/dollar pair slumped from 1.3600 to 1.3500 following the announcement, but rallied all the way to 1.3655 by the end of the New York session. Conversely, the Dollar Index (80.39, -0.28), which was boosted initially, slumped to lows by the close.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week  Change  % Change	YTD % 
 DJIA	     16717.17	 16924.28    207.11	1.2	2.1 
 Nasdaq	      4242.62	  4321.40     78.78	1.9	3.5 
 S&P 500	1923.57	  1949.44     25.87	1.3	5.5 
 Russell 2000  1134.50	  1165.20     30.70	2.7	0.1

3:29 pm Earnings Preview for the week of June 9 - 13 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of June 9-13 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market -- ANFI, FGP, LAYN
After Hours -- CASY, HTZ, PBY, SURG, TPLM
Tuesday:
Pre Market -- BURL, CBK, FRAN, HDS, RSH, SAIC
After Hours -- HRZN, NCS, OXM, SPWH, ULTA, UNFI
Wednesday:
Pre Market -- HRB, MDCI
After Hours -- ADES, DDC, RH, SIGM
Thursday:
Pre Market -- ISLE, LULU
After Hours -- FNSR, KBR, NQ
Friday:
Pre Market - PGEM

Large Cap Gainers

PBR (14.57 +6.27%): Brazil related ADRs trading higher following election poll results (BBD, VALE, CBD, TSU also higher).
AAL (43.5 +2.57%): Mentioned positively on Mad Money.
GPS (41.88 +1.68%): Reported May same store sales +1.0% vs +0.3% Retail Metrics consensus; co near franchisee deal with Arvind as it gets ready for India entry, according to reports.

Large Cap Losers

HTZ (27.71 -9.12%): Co disclosed that Q1 results are likely to be below consensus (consensus EPS of $0.09 & rev of $2.533 bln); audit committee has concluded that the financial statements for 2011 should no longer be relied upon.
TSN (40.11 -1.93%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at BB&T Capital Mkts.
TCK (21.59 -1.97%): Co filed report on Red Dog pipeline; based on study, Teck Alaska has informed the court it is exercising its option not to build the pipeline.

Mid Cap Gainers

CMCM (18.89 +16.68%): Initiated with a Overweight at JP Morgan; tgt $26.
PAY (36.3 +7.33%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, beat on revs; guided Q3 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; disclosed investigation by Competition Commission of India related to alleged unfair practices.
MW (54.4 +5.94%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line; Board adopted amended and restated bylaws; JOSB expiration date of MW tender offer extended to June 19, 2014.

Mid Cap Losers

THO (59.21 -3.58%): Missed on EPS by $0.05, reported revs in-line.
SPWR (33.59 -1.84%): Priced $400 mln aggregate principal amount of its 0.875 % senior convertible debentures due 2021.
BTU (16.32 -1.6%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.

8:32 am Sanmina calls for partial redemption of 7% senior notes due 2019 (SANM) :

Co is calling for redemption on July 7, 2014, ~$135.585 mln in aggregate principal amount of its 7% Senior Notes due 2019.
The aggregate principal amount of the Notes currently outstanding is ~$235.59 mln The CUSIP numbers for the Notes being called for redemption are 800907AQ0 and U80024AE9.
Upon redemption, holders of the Notes being redeemed will receive $1,052.50 per $1,000 principal amount of Notes, plus accrued and unpaid interest on the Notes being redeemed to, but excluding, the redemption date.

7:01 am JinkoSolar Holding strongly disagrees with U.S. Department of Commerce's preliminary decision on countervailing duty investigation; JinkoSolar will be subject to a prelim subsidy rate of 26.89%; at the mid-point of the range (JKS) : Co commented on the U.S. Department of Commerce's preliminary decision on its countervailing duty investigation of imports of certain crystalline silicon photovoltaic products from the People's Republic of China. The DOC's preliminary findings determined that producers and exporters in China will be subject to a countervailing subsidy rate ranging from 18.56% to 35.21%. According to the findings, JinkoSolar will be subject to a preliminary subsidy rate of 26.89%; at the mid-point of the range.

"We are disappointed to see the DOC's preliminary decision and believe that this will have a negative impact on the solar industry and will ultimately end up hurting US customers and US solar jobs the most," commented Mr. Xiande Li, Chairman of JinkoSolar. "Ill-conceived trade barriers such as these only aid in reducing the competitiveness of solar energy against other forms of power generation. JinkoSolar has fully cooperated with the relevant authorities throughout the investigation and will continue to do so in the hope that international trade and fair competition will eventually prevail. While we respect the DOC's decision, we strongly disagree with it. With a balanced and geographically diverse customer base, the tariffs are unlikely to have a significant impact on our entire business. We will continue to actively serve our customers in the US while we seek out other growth opportunities."

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market finished the Monday session on a modestly higher note, but the S&P 500 (+0.1%) could not keep pace with the Russell 2000 (+0.9%). Similar to the Russell 2000, the Nasdaq (+0.3%) displayed relative strength, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) settled just ahead of the S&P 500.

Equity indices climbed out of the gate with the early sentiment boosted by a set of acquisitions in three influential sectors; however, the intraday strength did not last as participants opted to take some money off the table after the Dow Jones Transportation Average surrendered its morning gain after outpacing the broader market over the past few weeks.

The largest S&P 500 sector received early support from chipmakers after Hittite Microwave (HITT 77.87, +17.31) agreed to be acquired by Analog Devices (ADI 55.31, +2.62) for $78/share. Shares of HITT surged 28.6%, but the PHLX Semiconductor Index narrowed its gain to 0.2% by the close.

Meanwhile, the broader tech sector (+0.3%) also slipped into the close, but was able to eke out a modest gain with help from its largest component. Apple (AAPL 93.70, +1.48) rose 1.6% on its first day of trading after the recent 7:1 share split.

Outside of technology, the remaining cyclical sectors saw a mixed finish. Consumer discretionary and energy settled in line with the S&P 500, materials (-0.3%) lagged, while financials (+0.4%), and industrials (+0.5%) outperformed.

The industrial sector finished ahead of the broader market, but the strength among defense contractors (PHLX Defense Index +0.8%) masked the underperformance of transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average was up as much as 0.6% in the late morning, but could not hold its gain into the close, ending flat. It is worth mentioning that today's underperformance took place after the bellwether complex surged nearly 8.5% since the start of the quarter versus a 4.2% gain for the S&P 500 over the same period.

While most cyclical sectors finished in line with or ahead of the broader market, the same could not be said for the four defensive groups. The telecom services sector tacked on 0.1%, while consumer staples (-0.1%), health care (-0.5%), and utilities (-0.7%) settled in the red.

Consumer staples spent the bulk of the session in negative territory, but shares of Hillshire Brands (HSH 62.06, +3.14) jumped 5.3% after Tyson Foods (TSN 37.50, -2.62) confirmed its offer to acquire the company for $63/share.

Also of note, the health care sector diverged from biotechnology, with the latter receiving a boost from Merck's (MRK 57.94, +0.09) offer to acquire Idenix Pharmaceuticals (IDIX 23.79, +16.56) for $24.50/share, which represents a gargantuan premium of 239% to Friday's closing price. Meanwhile, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 248.03, +1.94) advanced 0.8%.

On the fixed income side, Treasuries slumped overnight, but reclaimed a portion of their losses during the session. Ultimately, the 10-yr note shed five ticks, pushing its yield higher by two basis points to 2.61%.

Light participation continued to plague the market at the start of the week with only 595 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Tomorrow, the Wholesale Inventories report for April (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and the April Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey will both be released at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +5.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD

DJ30 +18.82 NASDAQ +14.84 SP500 +1.83 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1890/1.67 bln/871 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1864/595.1 mln/1165

3:35 pm :

Precious metals pulled back from their session highs set in early morning action as the dollar index gained strength.
Aug gold retreated from a session high of $1257.30 per ounce and brushed a session low of $1252.30 per ounce. It eventually settled with a 0.1% gain at $1253.80 per ounce.
July silver slipped from its session high of $19.17 per ounce and traded as low as $19.05 per ounce. Unable to regain momentum, it settled at $19.07 per ounce, or 0.4% higher.
July crude oil steadily trended higher after coming off its session low of $103.47 per barrel set in early morning pit trade. It settled 1.7% higher at $104.44 per barrel, just below its session high of $104.55 per barrel.
July natural gas chopped around in negative territory for most of today's floor trade. It brushed a session high of $4.72 per MMBtu in early afternoon action but gave up the momentum. It eventually settled 1.3% lower at $4.65 per MMBtu.

4:18 pm ON Semiconductor to acquire Aptina Imaging for ~ $400 mln in cash; transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to earnings (ONNN) :

Co signed a definitive agreement to acquire Aptina Imaging, a provider of high-performance CMOS image sensors for automotive and industrial markets, which are the key areas of strategic focus for ON Semiconductor. Other markets addressed by Aptina's products include cameras, mobile devices, and computing and gaming platforms.
Under the terms of the agreement, ON Semiconductor will pay approximately $400 million in cash to acquire Aptina Imaging, subject to customary adjustments at closing. The acquisition will be funded by available cash on ON Semiconductor's balance sheet and its existing revolver credit facility.
Co expects the acquisition to be immediately accretive to earnings, excluding any non-recurring acquisition related charges, the fair value step-up inventory amortization, and amortization of acquired intangibles.

2:44 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New highs (142) outpacing new lows (0) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAL, AAN, AAPL, ACE, ADI, ALLE, AMAT, AMP, AMT, APA, ARRS, ATML, AVGO, AXP, BEE, BHI, BIG, BLL, BMR, BPO, BRCM, BWA, CAT, CCK, CDNS, CE, CHTR, CL, CLR, CMI, CNQ, COF, COTY, CSX, CWH, CXO, DD, DDR, DFS, DG, DHR, DIS, DOV, DOW, DPS, DRE, EOG, EPE, ETE, FLEX, FOXA, FWLT, GD, GLNG, GPK, GRMN, HAL, HCBK, HES, HK, HOLX, HON, HSH, HSP, HST, HUM, HUN, IBN, INTC, IPG, IRM, ITMN, ITW, IVZ, JBLU, JOY, KR, KRFT, LMT, LRCX, LUV, MAR, MCHP, MHFI, MJN, MMC, MMM, MO, MU, MWV, MXIM, NFX, NOV, NSC, ORCL, PAY, PBI, PDM, PDS, PH, PKI, PNC, PTEN, RCL, RFMD, RGC, RHI, RSG, SAN, SAVE, SE, SHO, SLB, SPN, SRE, SWKS, SYNA, TAP, TEL, TIF, TQNT, TRV, TSM, TSU, TV, TWX, TXT, TYC, UNP, URI, VIPS, VSH, WFC, WFT, WIN, WMB, WSM, WWAV, XL, XRX, YUM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: MDY, OEF, OIH, PPA, QQQ, SDY, SEA, SMH, SOXX, SPY, UYG, UYM, VTI, VWO, XES, XLB, XLE, XLF, XLI, XLK, XLP, XOP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SMN, VXX

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 404 stocks made 52 week highs and 20 stocks made 52 week lows.

1:10 pm QLogic grieves sudden passing of HK Desai, Executive Chairman (QLGC) : Co annoounced that HK Desai, Executive Chairman, QLogic Corporation died Sunday night after suffering sudden cardiac arrest, at the age of 68. He had been with the company since August 1995. H.K. joined QLogic in 1995 as our interim Chief Executive Officer, President and Chief Technical Officer, and became our President and Chief Executive Officer in 1996 and became our Chairman of the Board in 1999. He continued to serve as our Chief Executive Officer until 2010 when he assumed his Executive Chairman role.

12:58 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).



Large Cap Gainers

DG (63.56 +9.60%): Trading higher in sympathy with Family Dollar (FDO); upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies; mentioned positively at tier 1 firm; co announced plans to expand its nationwide presence into three new states within the next year, increasing the co's presence to 43 states across the country
JD (28.75 +8.16%): Seeing reports that co plans for users to be able to prescription drugs online
ADI (55.46 +5.26%): Announced acquisition of Hittite Microwave (HITT) for $78 per share in cash, transaction expected to be accretive to ADI's non-GAAP EPS

Large Cap Losers

MPEL (30.65 -5.84%): Continued weakness following cautious mention at FBR Capital last Friday
TSN (38.26 -4.64%): Submitted a binding offer to acquire Hillshire Brands (HSH) for $63 per share (~$8.55 bln)
GILD (79.16 -3.92%): Trading lower following Merck's acquisition of hepatitis C treatment competitor Idenix Pharmaceuticals (IDIX)

Mid Cap Gainers

FDO (69.03 +14.04%): Carl Icahn disclosed 9.4% active stake; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies; mentioned positively at FBR Capital; upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Gilford
ALNY (66.09 +7.75%): Presented positive pre-clinical results with its Development Candidate for ALN-CC5, a subcutaneously administered investigational RNAi therapeutic targeting complement component C5 in development for the treatment of complement-mediated diseases
ARCO (10.2 +6.12%): Upgraded to Buy from Underperform at BofA/Merrill

Mid Cap Losers

MMS (43.03 -6.62%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James
PPC (24.67 -6.08%): Withdrew proposal to acquire Hillshire Brands following a superior proposal from Tyson Foods (TSN)
ERF (22.91 -2.68%): Downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets, target $25

11:00 am Agilent announces collaboration with Nippon Avionics to develop enhanced thermal imager solutions (A) : Co announced its collaboration with Nippon Avionics (Avio) on the co-development of enhanced thermal imager solutions. The first product of their collaboration is the Agilent U5855A TrueIR thermal imager, a handheld thermal imager solution. The two companies jointly developed the unique U5855A, fusing the best of each company's technology and expertise.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market finished the Tuesday session on a mixed note. Small caps underperformed with the Russell 2000 slipping 0.2%, while the S&P 500 shed less than a point with six sectors registering losses.

Equity indices entered today's session after enjoying a big rally that sent the S&P 500 higher by 4.2% over the past three weeks alone. That advance was predicated on the strength of small caps and transport stocks as the Russell 2000 and the Dow Jones Transportation Average entered the session with respective gains of 7.1% and 4.9% since May 20.

Fittingly, with small --cap stocks and transports showing relative weakness today, the broader market slumped out of the gate, but spent the remainder of the session in a steady climb back to unchanged.

The underperformance of the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.1%) caused the industrial sector (-0.2%) to end the session near the bottom of the leaderboard. Most index components finished in the red, while JetBlue Airways (JBLU 10.63, +0.17) and United Continental (UAL 47.76, +1.38) outperformed with respective gains of 1.6% and 3.0%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, consumer discretionary (-0.3%), energy (-0.1%), and financials (-0.04%) ended in the red, while technology (+0.1%) and materials (+0.1%) climbed into the close.

Notably, the tech sector was underpinned by chipmakers as the PHLX Semiconductor Index advanced 0.3% with the majority of its components posting gains. Meanwhile, large caps were somewhat mixed, but Facebook (FB 65.77, +2.89) surged 4.6% after eBay (EBAY 48.25, -1.33) revealed that PayPal President David Marcus will leave the company to join FB.

Like the six cyclical sectors, defensively-oriented groups also finished mixed with respect to the S&P 500. Telecom services (-0.1%) and utilities (-0.3%) slumped during the afternoon, while consumer staples (+0.1%) and health care (+0.2%) climbed into the close. Like the health care sector, biotechnology also finished modestly higher with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 249.30, +1.27) adding 0.5%.

Strikingly, the weakness in equities did not have much impact on the performance of the Treasury market, which retreated into the afternoon. The 10-yr note settled just above its low (-10/32) with the 10-yr yield up three basis points at 2.64%.

Participation remained well below average with just 545 million shares changing hands at the NYSE, representing the fifth lowest total of the year.

Economic data was limited:

Wholesale inventories increased 1.1% in April on top of a 1.1% increase in March. The April growth figure was well above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of +0.3%. Wholesale sales jumped 1.3% on the back of a 1.6% increase in March.
The inventory-to-sales ratio held steady in April from a downwardly revised 1.18 reading for March (from 1.19).
Durable inventories increased a solid 0.9% after increasing 0.7% in March. Inventory increases were logged in all durable categories with the exception of miscellaneous durables, which declined 0.1%.
Nondurable inventories rose 1.4% after increasing 1.6% in March. That growth was driven by a 2.6% increase in drug inventories and a 1.5% increase in grocery inventories.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for April indicated job openings increased to 4.455 million from 4.166 million.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage index will be released at 7:00 ET and the Treasury Budget for May will cross the wires at 14:00 ET.

S&P 500 +5.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.8% YTD

DJ30 +2.82 NASDAQ +1.75 SP500 -0.48 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1196/1.65 bln/1489 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1288/544.8 mln/1750

3:35 pm :

Precious metals traded higher today despite a stronger dollar index.
Aug gold and July silver both rallied to their respective session highs of $1263.80 per ounce and $19.24 per ounce in early morning action and consolidated slightly below that level for the remainder of pit trade.
Gold eventually settled with a 0.5% gain at $1260.10 per ounce, while silver settled at $19.17 per ounce, or 0.5% higher.
July crude oil pulled back from its session high of $105.06 per barrel in morning action and slipped into negative territory. It inched slightly higher after touching a session low of $103.92 per barrel and settled with a 0.1% loss at $104.38 per barrel.
July natural gas trended lower after retreating from its session high of $4.62 per MMBtu set in early morning pit trade. It settled at its session low of $4.53 per MMBtu, booking a loss of 2.6%.

Large Cap Gainers

TAP (70.8 +5.5%): Co is being picked up as a secondary play following reports that SABMiller plc (SBMRY) may be a possible takeover target.
FB (65.45 +4.09%): eBay (EBAY) announced that PayPal President David Marcus is leaving the co on June 27 to lead FB's messaging products.
NFLX (434.5 +2.7%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Evercore.

Large Cap Losers

BEAV (94.21 -4.72%): Co announced plan to separate into two businesses, aircraft cabin interior equipment & distribution logistics; raised FY14 EPS guidance.
TSN (35.78 -4.57%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.
CTSH (48.12 -3.41%): Downgraded to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna.

Mid Cap Gainers

ISIS (33.22 +6.8%): Co earned $15 mln from AstraZeneca (AZN) for initiation of Phase 1 study of ISIS-AR Rx.
BURL (29.73 +5.54%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 EPS in-line; reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance, revs, and comp guidance; Q1 comps +2.7%.
WB (19.34 +3.7%): Initiated with an Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Mid Cap Losers

COUP (23.85 -14.3%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.
QIWI (44.6 -6.26%): Filed for offering of ~7.97 mln ADSs, with ~1.99 mln being sold by QIWI, 5.98 mln being sold by selling shareholdes; announced co's Board of Directors has elected Boris Kim Chairman of the Board.
VRNT (48.94 -5.6%): Announced proposed concurrent underwritten public offerings of 5 mln shares of common stock and $300 mln of convertible senior notes due 2021; filed mixed securities shelf offering.

11:53 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (145) outpacing new lows (15) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ACMP, AFH, AGTC, AMSG, ATHL, ATML, BFR, BLL, BMA, BTE, BUD, CAT, CAVM, CCK, CHD, CHKE, CIG, CL, CLS, CMSB, CNI, CNQ, COP, CORE, CPK, CRT, CSL, DAVE, DCM, DIOD, DVN, DYN, EDAP, EDN, ENZ, EQM, ETE, FALC, FANG, FLEX, FMNB, FRNK, FSTR, FUBC, FWLT, GB, GFN, GGAL, GSAT, GST, GTIM, HAL, HALL, HBI, HCBK, HES, HNNA, HSH, HSP, HW, IDTI, IFF, IFN, IIN, IPG, JNJ, KANG, LAD, LCI, LOAN, LPL, LQ, MARK, MCHP, MCO, MEAS, MET, MHFI, MLM, MMI, MNDO, MO, MOH, MPWR, MRO, MSL, MTB, MTR, MTSI, MWV, NJR, NOV, NRG, NSC, NTCT, NTL, NVGS, NVSL, OMER, OPHT, ORCL, PAHC, PAM, PEP, PFIE, PL, REIS, RGC, RNR, ROP, RRMS, RSG, SAIC, SCOR, SGC, SLB, SOHO, SPCB, SQBG, STRP, SU, SWC, SWHC, TAP, TAX, TGS, THS, TNET, TRV, TSM, TSU, TTGT, TWTC, TXI, UEIC, UNP, VMI, VTL, WCN, WIN, WLB, WSBF, YONG, ZBRA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACUR, ADAT, COOL, CPAC, DGLY, ESSX, FNJN, FRAN, GLPI, MIXT, NSR, QRM, TOPS, TRVN, WGA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWC, EWT, PALL, VWO, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


AMCC +0.9% (initiated with a Buy at Canaccord Genuity)

6:02 am Chipmos Technology reported May 2014 revenue was NT$1,828.7 million or US$60.9 million, an increase of 2.4% from the month of April 2014 and an increase of 11.1% from the same period in 2013 (IMOS) :

Texas Instruments (TXN) announced the addition of the RF Software Development Kit to its Base Station SoftwarePac, enabling small cell developers to configure the baseband-to-radio communication and achieve first call or system verification in just one day compared to the weeks or months it took previously.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday session on a broadly lower note after spending the entire trading day in the red. The S&P 500 fell 0.7% with eight sectors posting losses, while the Nasdaq (-0.8%) underperformed.

Equities slumped out of the gate following some disappointing economic data and reports of skirmishes in northern Iraq. The disappointing economic news pertained to the retail sector as retail sales increased just 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%), while core retail sales, which closely match the consumption component of GDP, slipped 0.1% in May.

Separately, reports of intensifying battles in northern Iraq led by a breakaway militant group of Al-Qaeda raised concerns about the oil supply.

The headlines out of Iraq put a bid in the oil market (+2.1% to $106.54/bbl) while also creating a residual concern that higher energy prices will be an added tax on consumers who, broadly speaking, continue to be pinched by limited wage growth. Fittingly, the worries translated into relative weakness for the consumer discretionary sector (-1.3%), which ended at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Discretionary shares suffered from broad weakness among homebuilders and retailers. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 23.99, -0.24) lost 1.0%, while SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 84.41, -1.15) tumbled 1.3%, extending its year-to-date loss to 4.2%.

Higher energy prices also pressured industrials (-1.3%), and specifically, transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average tumbled 2.0% with all 20 components ending in the red. Of the 20 listings, 16 posted losses larger than 1.0% with airlines leading the weakness. Delta Air Lines (DAL 38.50, -2.21) and United Continental (UAL 42.60, -2.66) fell 5.4% and 5.9%, respectively.

With transports unable to stage a bounce, the last hope for a rebound hinged on the performance of high-growth names. Small caps displayed relative strength in the morning, but an afternoon fade sent the Russell 2000 and the Nasdaq Composite to fresh lows.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq ended behind the remaining major averages due to afternoon weakness in biotechnology and chipmakers. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 247.83, -1.20) and PHLX Semiconductor Index posted respective losses of 0.5% and 0.3% despite showing intraday strength.

On the upside, energy (+0.3%) and utilities (+0.3%) finished modestly higher, extending their year-to-date gains to 8.6% and 10.3%, respectively.

Also of note, Treasuries enjoyed a strong day with the move flowing from some safe-haven positioning, some disappointment over the retail sales data, and some surprise at the strength of the 30-yr bond auction. The latter saw a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.69 (12-auction average was 2.35) and the highest takedown by indirect bidders (51.7%) since 2006. The benchmark 10-yr note, meanwhile, added 14 ticks, sending its yield lower by five basis points to 2.59%.

Participation left a bit to be desired as only 610 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Investors received several data points:

There weren't any major surprises with the initial claims report for the week ending June 7. It showed claims increasing by 4,000 to 317,000. That was roughly in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which was pegged at 315,000. The four-week moving average for this series jumped by 4,750 to 315,250. The Department of Labor clarified that there were no special factors impacting this week's initial claims, which continue to point to nonfarm payrolls growth in the neighborhood of 200,000.
Continuing claims for the week ending May 31 increased by 11,000 to 2.614 mln, which was better than the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 2.638 mln.
Total retail sales for May increased 0.3%. Excluding autos, they were up 0.1%. Those results were below the Briefing.com consensus estimates, which called for increases of 0.7% and 0.4%, respectively. That is the disappointing news. The offsetting news is that there were large upward revisions for April. Specifically, total retail sales in April were revised up to 0.5% from 0.1% while sales, excluding autos, were revised up to 0.4% from 0.0%.
Export prices, excluding agriculture, rose 0.1% in May after decreasing 1.2% in the prior reading. Excluding oil, import prices were unchanged, which followed last month's unchanged reading.
April business inventories rose 0.6%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 0.4%. This followed the prior month's unrevised increase of 0.4%.

Tomorrow, May PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and core PPI (consensus 0.1%) will be reported at 8:30 ET, while the June Michigan Sentiment survey (consensus 82.9) will be released at 9:55 ET.

S&P 500 +4.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +2.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD

DJ30 -109.69 NASDAQ -34.30 SP500 -13.78 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 947/1.77 bln/1860 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1260/610.3 mln/1791

3:35 pm :

Precious metals trended higher today, gaining strength on a weaker dollar index. Aug gold and July silver both lifted from their respective session lows of $1261.80 per ounce and $19.20 per ounce set in morning action.
Gold touched a session high of $1274.60 per ounce and settled with a 1.0% gain at $1274.10 per ounce.
Silver brushed a session high of $19.55 per ounce moments before settling with a 1.9% gain at $19.53 per ounce.
July crude oil rose above the $106 per barrel level amid continued tensions in Northern Iraq.
The energy component brushed a session low of $105.68 per barrel in late morning action and pushed to a session high of $106.65 per barrel moments before settling at $106.54 per barrel, or 2.1% higher.
July natural gas rallied sharply following bullish inventory data that showed a build of 107 bcf when a build of 109-114 bcf was anticipated.
It rose to a session high of $4.77 per MMBtu after trading as low as $4.53 per MMBtu in early morning pit trade and closed with a solid 5.5% gain at $4.76 per MMBtu.

4:17 pm Intel raises Q2, FY14 sales and gross margin guidance, co cites stong demand for business PCs (INTC) : Co issues upside guidance for Q2 (Jun), sees Q2 (Jun) revs of $13.4-14.0 bln vs. $13.02 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

The co is forecasting the mid-point of the gross margin range to increase by 1 point to 64 percent, plus or minus a couple of percentage points (up from 63 +/-), driven mostly by higher PC unit volume.
R&D plus MG&A spending is expected to be ~$4.9 billion, $100 million higher than the prior expectation of ~$4.8 billion, driven largely by revenue- and profit-dependent items. The tax rate for the second quarter is expected to be 28 percent as compared to the prior expectation of 27 percent due to higher profits in higher tax jurisdictions. The expectation for second-quarter depreciation remains unchanged.

Co issues upside guidance for FY14 (Dec), Rraises FY14 (Dec) revs to 'some growth' from ~flat previously vs. consensus +0.7% to $53.06 bln.

The change in outlook is driven mostly by strong demand for business PCs.
The full-year gross margin percentage is now expected to be in the upper half of the previous range of 61 percent, plus or minus a few percentage points, driven mostly by expected improvements in unit cost and volume.
Full-year R&D plus MG&A spending is expected to be $19.2 billion, plus or minus $200 million, higher than the prior expectation of $18.9 billion, plus or minus $200 million, driven mostly by revenue- and profit-dependent items. The tax rate for each of the remaining quarters of 2014 is expected to be 28 percent, as compared to the prior expectation of 27 percent due to higher profits in higher tax jurisdictions. The expectations for full-year depreciation and capital spending are unchanged. No other guidance from the April 15 earnings release remains in effect.

4:12 pm Agilent Technologies calls for redemption of outstanding 5.5% senior notes due September 2015 (A) : Co announced it will redeem all of its outstanding 5.50% senior notes due September 2015 on July 14, 2014, the redemption date. This decision is consistent with Agilent's intention to resize its debt portfolio in connection with the expected spinoff of Keysight Technologies.

The accrued and unpaid interest on the notes up to but not including the redemption date. The aggregate principal amount of notes currently outstanding is $500 million.

4:06 pm Finisar misses by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus (FNSR) : Reports Q4 (Apr) adj. earnings of $0.36 per share, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.38 vs. $0.36-0.40 guidance; revenues rose 25.7% year/year to $306 mln vs the $303.92 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.30-0.34 vs. $0.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $320-335 mln vs. $313.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 10.3% to 11.3%.

12:25 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TWTR (37.22 +4.73%): Co confirmed Ali Rowghani has resigned from his position as the Chief Operating Officer; Mr. Rowghani will continue to be a Twitter employee.
TSLA (208.57 +2.01%): Elon Musk confirmed via Twitter that there will be news on TSLA patents tomorrow at 10am.
CMG (580.42 +1.77%): Tgt raised to $625 from $560 at Raymond James.


Large Cap Losers

UAL (42.54 -6.01%): Weakness in airline names (AAL, DAL, LUV also lower).
VALE (12.73 -3.53%): Downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
GWW (261.36 -2.92%): Reported daily sales for the month of May 2014 increased 6% versus May 2013.


Mid Cap Gainers

RH (80.63 +13.01%): Beat on EPS by $0.07, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; raised FY15 guidance above consensus.
GTAT (18.15 +4.28%): Co announced agreement with Qatar Solar Energy to supply its HiCz200 furnaces for QSE's integrated PV manufacturing project in Doha, Qatar.
ITMN (43.9 +4.42%): Tgt raised to $55 from $48 at JMP Securities.


Mid Cap Losers

SFUN (8.93 -16.07%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.
LULU (37.73 -14.83%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, lowered FY15 EPS and revs below consensus, announced $450 mln buy back, CFO to retire; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel; downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at William Blair.
APU (44.84 -5.82%): Announced Heritage ETC, (selling unitholdler), an affiliate of Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), priced a public offering of 8.5 mln AmeriGas common units at $45.80 per unit.

9:11 am Nokia's HERE plans to acquire Medio Systems; financial terms not disclosed (NOK) :

NOK's HERE announced plans to acquire Medio Systems. The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close by the end of July 2014. The terms of the transaction are confidential.
Following the acquisition, HERE intends to share Medio's technology, as relevant, with the other two businesses of the Nokia Group, Networks and Technologies, to further capitalize on the acquisition.

9:07 am Advanced Micro names Lisa Su Chief Operating Officer; Co to create two business groups focused on further strengthening traditional businesses and driving growth in adjacent markets (AMD) : Co announced the latest step in the company's multi-year strategic transformation to deliver consistent growth and profitability by combining the company's previously separate business units, global operations and sales organizations to create a singular, market-focused organization responsible for all aspects of product strategy, product execution, sales and operations. The new structure will be implemented on July 1 and will be led by Dr. Lisa Su in her new role as AMD's Chief Operating Officer (COO), reporting to AMD President and Chief Executive Officer Rory Read.

As a part of the re-alignment, AMD also announced it will consolidate its business units into two expanded business groups designed to deliver unmatched customer value in both traditional PC markets and adjacent high-growth markets:

The Computing and Graphics Business Group will combine AMD's client, consumer graphics and professional graphics businesses, as well as their related product engineering and sales functions. AMD Chief Sales Officer John Byrne has been appointed senior vice president and general manager responsible for leading the Computing and Graphics Business Group, reporting to Dr. Su.
The Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Business Group will combine AMD's server, embedded, dense server and semi-custom businesses, as well as their related product engineering and sales functions. Dr. Su will be the acting lead.

9:00 am GT Advanced Tech. announces agreement with Qatar Solar Energy to supply its HiCz200 furnaces for QSE's integrated PV manufacturing project in Doha, Qatar (GTAT) : Co announced that it has entered into an agreement with Qatar Solar Energy (:QSE) to supply its HiCz200 furnaces for QSE's integrated PV manufacturing project in Doha, Qatar.
The supply agreement is subject to QSE's receipt of government approvals and financing, at which time GT would expect to receive the equipment order.

VTSS -9.4% (prices 7,462,675 shares of common stock at $3.35 per share)

8:04 am BlackBerry announced new three-year agreement with EnStream ; expands mobile payments management services (BBRY) :

Co announced a new three-year agreement with EnStream LP, a mobile payments joint venture owned by Canadian wireless carriers Bell (BCE), Rogers (RCI) and TELUS (TU), to provide a secure platform that supports transaction services between leading banks and consumers.
Under the agreement, EnStream will leverage BlackBerry's proven and reliable infrastructure to enable financial institutions, including Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank Group, CIBC and Desjardins, and mobile operators to securely provision sensitive payment card credentials into any smartphone capable of near field communication.

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary:

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- The test continues with some howls starting though the pullback is nothing horrid at the present.
- Weak into the open, tries to recover, then flops in the afternoon.
- Holding near support, leadership as well.
- Retail sales disappoint. Thank goodness for revisions.
- Iraq situation devolves, oil spikes, gasoline to follow to $4/gallon. Another wildcard is identified.
- Likely not decisions on Friday given the weekend.

Full moon. Friday the thirteenth. Solar flares. Al Qaeda taking over Iraq. Father's Day weekend. Stocks up. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night keeps stocks from rising. It can stop the mail, but apparently not the market. Thus even with the potential perils preceding the paternal celebrations this weekend, stocks posted gains.

SP500 6.05, 0.31%
NASDAQ 13.02, 0.30%
DJ30 41.55, 0.25%
SP400 0.26%
RUTX 0.28%
SOX 0.99%

Volume dipped: NYSE -10.4%, NASDAQ -7.8%. Friday, summer ahead of Father's Day. But it did dip on an upside session, so you know the buyers were not pushing to get in ahead of the weekend.

A/D: Up with the indices, but unsurprisingly light. NYSE 1.3:1, NASDAQ flat.

I would say it was a routine pre-semi holiday weekend in the summer, but there was a flurry of volatility at the open and very much so in the last hour. Futures were down early but managed a decent recovery. Momentum carried into the open and stocks turned positive after an initial half hour of selling the open. A long 4 hour lateral move then a break sharply higher to start the last hour. Breakout then a reversal. 25 minutes later the gains from Noon to that break upside were trashed and then some. Once more, however, stocks rebounded and traded right back up near the session's trading range highs and closed out the day. Yes, a bit of intraday volatility to spice the session.

HEADING INTO NEXT WEEK . . .

The action left the indices with modest gains. After 1-2-3 pullbacks on RUTX, SP400, SP500, and 1-2 fades on NASDAQ and DJ30, the bump higher makes it look as if they are ready to rebound after the test: Nice break and trend higher, cleared to higher highs, testing in a short flag. Textbook position to continue the move.

Perhaps they will and there are plenty of leaders in position to help the cause. Definitely a solid contender for the next move in this market. At the same time I am not convinced Friday was the start of a rebound from this dip, at least one that makes the progress you want, i.e. higher highs. I feel the coming week will see more testing. Maybe the Iraq issues resolve over the weekend, but the odds of that are about as good as seeing John McCain celebrating Father's Day at a cross-dressing bar in South Beach. Geez, the thought alone just makes me kind of queasy.

There is likely more testing and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Should not be too much more, however, before resuming the move if the indices are going to rally once more with SP500 taking a hot at the 2000 level.

All in all the indices definitely did nothing to hurt themselves, they make pretty pictures on this pullback, but this week they will have to really show the move. Gee, the FOMC is on deck with its next policy meeting results and there are rumors/worries it will pull an 'irrational exuberance' trick of some sort. Rumor and speculation of course, but the Fed has voiced dismay over the lack of concern in the stock market.

THE MARKET

CHARTS

SP500: Pulled its own 1-2-3 fade on the week, coming off a three week rally to 1950, tapping at the 20 day EMA and holding over the 38% Fibonacci retracement, then rebounding Friday. MACD put in a higher high on this leg, indicating no shifting momentum. Looks pretty textbook as noted, but would not be surprised to see some more testing early next week as a final shakeout. Given all of the issues on the market, not a bad showing, but not convincing.

NASDAQ: Another test of the 10 day EMA. Thursday NASDAQ dropped to that near support and held, Friday it gapped higher then bounced off of the 10 day EMA on an intraday test. Good action, second day of testing and holding the 10 day EMA. Compared to SP500, it looks as if NASDAQ is closer to being there. Held the 10 day EMA late May/early June on the last test, and if it holds here and bounces, a good indication the run continues.

DJ30: Fell to the 20 day EMA Thursday with a two day flop. Friday a bounce on stronger volume thanks to INTC's guidance increase. Could be ready, but as noted Thursday, it has liked falling to the 50 day EMA on its tests.

SOX: Still moving higher, with barely a pullback at all on the week. More like a pause here and there. Gapped upside Friday to a higher high yet again. Showing a doji, and after a big run that always raises some questions, but it has gapped to doji four times prior on this rally alone. Moving higher, holding the trend, good for the market.

RUTX: Now this is more like it when talking pullbacks. Strong break off the 200 day SMA started two weeks back. Rallied into Monday, tested Tuesday to Thursday, holding the 10 day EMA on the low. Friday a doji with tail, tapping the 10 day EMA on the low and bouncing. Classic action, showing a doji with tail tapping the 38% Fibonacci retracement. This one looks ready to go.

SP400: Similar to RUTX, the midcaps rallied through Monday, tested Tuesday to Thursday, started back up Friday. The test brought SP400 back to the 10 day EMA and the breakout point over the early March/early April twin peaks. Breakout, test, in position. Looks solid, now we see if it can make the bounce.

LEADERSHIP

Big Names: The stocks of repute that led the last move up mostly spent the week testing, and there are some very good looking tests in progress.
NFLX is working on a six-day lateral move over the 10 day EMA.
GOOG tested on the week and Friday put in a nice doji with tail at the converging 50 day and 20 day EMA.
TRIP is in a five-session flag holding at the 10 day EMA for three sessions.
AAPL is a bit heavy after its split.
VIPS is in a nice 1-2-3 pullback to the 10 day EMA. Excellent.

Internet-based: The group remains very nice.
FB broke out Tuesday but could not advance, fading to a doji at the 10 day EMA Friday.
Z enjoyed a great week, breaking upside Wednesday and holding the move into the weekend.
TRLA enjoyed an excellent upside week, breaking resistance along the way.
YELP exploded higher Friday with a gap over the 200 day SMA and other resistance.

Electronics/Chips: INTC set the pace with its raised guidance.
CAVM: Excellent week, testing a good move, bouncing off the 10 day EMA.
OVTI: Moved to a new high rally high Wednesday.
Still a leadership group.

Drugs/Healthcare: Still showing up great as it continues its recovery.
AMRI broke higher and held the move into the weekend.
CLDX has made the turn, holding a very nice flag.
BIIB still in a nice handle to its cup.

Energy: A great week on top of good moves, of course led by the Iraq issue.
APC blasted off Wednesday.
OAS took off the back half of the week.
ATHL, PXD, SYRG and many more enjoyed strong moves.

OTHER MARKETS

Euro/Dollar: Up on the week, down to end it, but dollar higher overall and bumping at the top of the range.

1.3539 versus 1.3551 versus 1.3531 versus 1.3545 versus 1.3589 versus 1.3644 versus 1.3664 versus 1.3601 versus 1.3630 versus 1.3597 versus 1.3633 versus 1.3603

Dollar/Yen: Sold on the week, busted the 200 day SMA Thursday, bounced modestly Friday.

102.055 versus 101.735 versus 102.0370 versus 102.335 versus 102.5305 versus 102.540 versus 102.415 versus 102.7395 versus 102.5350 versus 102.365 versus 101.7765 versus 101.775

Bonds: Held the 50 day EMA after selling off to that level the prior week. Started to bounce Thursday, held the move Friday, as the Iraq situation went from bad to worse.

10 year: 2.60% versus 2.60% versus 2.64% versus 2.64% versus 2.61% versus 2.59% versus 2.58% versus 2.60% versus 2.60% versus 2.53% versus 2.47% versus 2.47% versus 2.44% versus 2.52% versus 2.53% versus 2.55% versus 2.53% versus 2.51% versus 2.54% versus 2.51% versus 2.50% versus 2.54% versus 2.61% versus 2.66%

Oil: 106.85, +0.31. Surged on the Iraq issues, continued Friday, but gave up most of the move by the close. Key move: breakout over 105.

Gold: 1274.10, 0.00. Recovery week after the beating it took through the beginning of June. Back up to the bottom of the April through May range.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +13.02 points (+0.3%) to close at 4310.65
Volume: 1.728B (-7.79%)

Up Volume: 1.11B (+467.65M)
Down Volume: 608.12M (-641.88M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.04 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.81 to 1

New Highs: 62 (-8)
New Lows: 21 (+4)

S&P
Stats: +6.05 points (+0.31%) to close at 1936.16
NYSE Volume: 472M (-10.44%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.35 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.38 to 1

New Highs: 95 (-9)
New Lows: 13 (+5)

DJ30
Stats: +41.55 points (+0.25%) to close at 16775.74

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 12.18; -0.38
VXN: 13.61; -0.24
VXO: 11.22; -0.37

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.77; -0.03

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls slowed the climb but climbed to a new 5 year high: 62.6%

Bears a bit lower but in a familiar range: 17.2%

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Note the extreme bullishness: it was this high in 2007 at the crash, in early 2005 as well.

Bulls: 62.6%
62.2% versus 58.3% versus 57.2% versus 55.1 versus 55.7 versus 54.7 versus 51.6 versus 50.5 versus 54.6% versus 50.5 versus 54.7% 52.0% 54.6% 53.5% 46.5% 41.8% 45.9% 53.1% 57.6 56.1 60.6% 61.6% 60.0% 58.2% 57.1% 55.7% 53.6% 52.6% 55.2% 52.6 49.5 42.3% 45.4 46.4% 44.3% 42.3% 37.1% 37.1% 38.1% 43.3%.

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 17.2%
17.4% versus 17.3% versus 18.3% versus 19.4% versus 20.6% versus 19.7% versus 21.7% versus 20.6 versus 18.6% 18.6% 17.5% 17.4% 15.1% 17.2% 17.2% 17.4% 17.4% 15.3% 15.1 15.3% 15.2% 15.2% 14.0 14.3 14.3% 14.4 15.5 15.5% 15.6% 16.5% 18.5 21.6% 20.6% 18.6% 20.6% 21.6% 22.7% 23.7% 23.8% 21.6%.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

THE NEWS

Producer Prices fade away according to the Fed.

Year/year: 2.0 versus 2.4% expected versus 2.1% prior
Core year/year: 2.0%

Down but still some pretty strong prices year/year. Not much to say here. Dropping prices is good, but the Fed views that as bad as it views inflation as a good thing. But the Fed should take heart: year/year numbers are still strong despite a one-month backtrack.

Michigan Sentiment, June Preliminary: 81.2 versus 82.9 expected versus 81.9 prior.

Not the gain anticipated, missing by the widest margin in 18 months. You know what? Who cares? As noted the last Michigan Sentiment report, at these levels the indicator means nothing. It is mired in mediocrity. Hmm. As the economy is mired in mediocrity perhaps this is representative.

What DOES mean something in sentiment terms is the newly released CEO Economic Sentiment Index. It limps in at 49.1, below the 50 expansion/contraction line, stuck at 2014 lows.

One CEO said his company is "concerned about the retail demand environment, and a little less bullish than earlier I the year due to a slower housing market, some inconsistency at retail, and an economy that's not quite as robust as expected."

Retailers in the survey complained of lower traffic and needing to continue promotions in order to drive sales.

The Q2 bounce is slipping away, just as it has done every year of the recovery but 2010. That is damn depressing.

MONDAY

Pre-market Friday we were perusing the headlines on the financial sites, blogs, etc., watching the futures and stock action. We traded notes on what we were seeing and what we all noticed were the comments about trouble ahead. Not the Tepper 'I'm nervous' comments, but similar.

CNBC reported a 'pro' as saying the rally is in the 'late innings.' Cramer said 'something unexpected may be imminent.'

Well, we are no fan of picking market tops or bottoms, but I did throw out there that if SP500 made it to 2000 that might very well be the top of this run. 1950 was the top for many 2014 S&P500 predictions. Hit that this past week. 2000 started to get some talk. Came under some pressure, sold back, then the talk about late innings, trouble lurking.

There could be problems for sure. There always can be problems. As for the unexpected but imminent, well, Iraq came unexpectedly but stocks really shrugged it off. Certainly no dive lower, just a test after a good run higher. The Fed is on tap for next week, and as I noted early week, it definitely could provide a Greenspan 'irrational exuberance' moment given its lamenting how its own actions caused market complacency. Begging the question, of course, what the hell did it think it was going to cause with its policies?

Perhaps Cramer was thinking of the Fed and that most would not expect the Fed to rattle investors' cages. Other than that, however, the statement struck me as particularly asinine. How do you expect something unexpected? If that is your criteria you should never invest.

This is the kind of 'noise' that I discuss in a free seminar I am giving next Thursday. It is the speculation, the gut feelings of the 'pros' as uttered on the financial stations. Smart traders/investors have fallen prey to this. They think they are immune to it, but when the action gets fierce and the emotions are raw, those words are there and they can cause you to not believe what you see.

And what is out there to be seen? A few things of note.

NASDAQ was forming a head and shoulders. It broke it up. SP500 was putting in a double top. Broke it up. SP400 had a double top in place. It broke out under two weeks back. SOX had set a head and shoulders pattern. It blew past the head and hasn't even looked back.

ALL OF THOSE PATTERNS formed during the March to May selling. On the DAY Tepper said he was nervous, the indices bottomed and we bought into GOOG, AAPL, PCLN, TRIP, VIPS, etc. We were watching the patterns of leaders. They were forming bullish patterns.

So of course that leads us to now and the key aspects: not what the 'pros' are saying, but what the patterns are telling us.

We went through the leadership above. There are very good pullbacks in progress that look to be setting up the continuation of rallies: STX, GOOG, TRIP, VIPS, BIIB, TEN, NFLX, FB, QIWI. There are stocks coming off rounded bottoms, ready to make their moves, e.g. RVBD, DHRM, MANH, CLDX, QIHU.

Many different sectors, many different stages of moves. Similar to the May 15 bottom but different given the participation and that some stocks have rallied well. In May people were almost panicking over a modest pullback. Now they are seeing ghosts and fearing the unknown. Similar and thus promising.

Yes the Fed can rip the market. It gives as it has for five years, and it takes when it thinks it has done too much. It is the market's Sybil, and it has to be respected because it can change personalities on you at any time.

Indeed, we respect the possibility of a Greenspan moment so much, we are considering just paring back positions in terms of their size when talking solid plays working well, and eliminating plays that are just not performing. Staying with the many strong plays we have, culling the plodders, but still looking for positions in the many solid stocks that used this past week to set up new moves and thus new entry points for us to make money. Don't want to let a fear of the 'unexpected' keep us sitting on our hands when stocks are saying 'buy me.' You won't necessarily lose money if you do nothing, but the opportunity cost of not acting when stocks are saying act is huge. You have to make the plays when they are there.

Happy Father's Day!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4310.65

Resistance:
4372 is the March 2014 high
4397 is the lower November 2012 trendline

Support:
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
The 10 day EMA at 4292
4277 is the March lower gap point
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak. Key level.
The 50 day EMA at 4200
4131 is the March 2014 low
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13
4070 is the series of highs from late November/early December
The 200 day SMA at 4059
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3968 is the February 2014 low
3946 is the April 2014 intraday low
3855 is the November low
3819 is the early October high
3801 is the September 2013 high.
The October low at 3750
3697 is the August high and a prior post-bear market high in the recovery.

S&P 500: Closed at 1936.16

Resistance:

Support:
1913 is the December 2012 up trendline
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
The 50 day EMA at 1897
1860 is the lower trendline from 11/2012
1883.57 is the early March high.
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
The 200 day SMA at 1810
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1768 is the December 3013 low
1738 is the February 2014 low
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point

Dow: Closed at 16,775.74

Resistance:
17,047 is a lower trendline off the 11/2012 low

Support:
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
The 20 day EMA at 16,731
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 16,582
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
The 200 day SMA at 16,021
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,340 is the February 2014 low
15,318 is the June closing high
15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)

Economic Calendar

June 13 - Friday
- PPI, May (8:30): -0.2% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.6% prior (no revisions)
- Core PPI, May (8:30): -0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.5% prior (no revisions)
- Michigan Sentiment, June (9:55): 81.2 actual versus 82.9 expected, 81.9 prior

June 16 - Monday
- Empire Manufacturing, June (8:30): 12.8 expected, 19.0 prior
- Net Long-Term TIC Fl, April (9:00): $4.0B prior
- Industrial Productio, May (9:15): 0.5% expected, -0.6% prior
- Capacity Utilization, May (9:15): 78.9% expected, 78.6% prior
- NAHB Housing Market , June (10:00): 46 expected, 45 prior

June 17 - Tuesday
- Housing Starts, May (8:30): 1028K expected, 1072K prior
- Building Permits, May (8:30): 1050K expected, 1080K prior
- CPI, May (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.3% prior
- Core CPI, May (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior

June 18 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 06/14 (7:00): +10.3% prior
- Current Account Bala, Q1 (8:30): -$97.8B expected, -$81.1B prior
- Crude Inventories, 06/14 (10:30): -2.596M prior
- FOMC Rate Decision, June (14:00): 0.25% prior

June 19 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 06/14 (8:30): 313K expected, 317K prior
- Continuing Claims, 06/14 (8:30): 2638K expected, 2614K prior
- Philadelphia Fed, June (10:00): 13.4 expected, 15.4 prior
- Leading Indicators, May (10:00): 0.5% expected, 0.4% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 06/14 (10:30): 107 bcf prior

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market pretty much ran in circles on Monday, having closed the session close to where it began. Its indecisive nature was attributed to some worrisome-sounding headlines on the geopolitical front, yet the market action suggested it may have been owed more to a case of wait-and-see in front of Wednesday's FOMC meeting when a new policy directive will be issued along with updated economic and fed funds rate projections.

To the latter point, oil prices were little changed despite the news that the militant group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, took over yet another city in northern Iraq. The 10-yr note, gold prices, and the US Dollar Index, meanwhile, were also little changed, signalling that there wasn't a flight to safety on those headlines or the news that Russia cut off its gas supply to Ukraine after the two countries failed to agree on pricing.

In turn, a batch of better-than-expected economic data and another round of M&A activity highlighted by Medtronic's (MDT 60.03, -0.67) $42.9 bln acquisition of Covidien (COV 86.75, +14.73) failed to stir any concerted buying interest.

Market internals reflected an overall mixed disposition. The advance-decline line was roughly even at the NYSE and Nasdaq, volume was light at 591 mln shares, and there wasn't a single sector that ended the day up, or down, more than 1.0%. For good measure, only two Dow components -- Visa (V 210.24, -1.05) and Chevron (CVX 128.54, +1.28) -- closed more than a point away from where they ended on Friday.

The financial sector (-0.4%) underperformed all day while the utilities sector (+0.7%) outperformed all day. The former finished off its low while the latter finished off its high.

Today's trading action in the S&P 500 was bounded between 1931 on the downside and 1941 on the upside. A little wave of buying interest in the closing minutes left it closer to the top end of that range than the bottom end when the closing bell rang.

The performance edge among the major indices went to the Nasdaq (+0.2%) and Russell 2000 (+0.3%), which benefited from some relative strength in Apple (AAPL 92.20, +0.92) and the biotech stocks, evidenced by the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 248.49, +0.90).

In terms of today's economic reports, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for June, the Industrial Production report for May, and the NAHB Housing Market Index all exceeded the Briefing.com consensus estimates and overshadowed the IMF lowering its 2014 growth outlook for the US to 2.0% from 2.8%:

Empire Manufacturing Survey 19.3 (Briefing.com consensus 12.8; prior 19.0)
Industrial Production +0.6% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%; prior -0.3%)
NAHB Housing Market Index 49 (Briefing.com consensus 46; prior 45)

Tuesday's economic calendar will feature the Housing Starts and CPI reports for May, both of which will be released at 08:30 a.m. ET.

S&P 500 +4.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.1% YTD

DJ30 +5.27 NASDAQ +10.45 SP500 +1.62 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1430/1.56 bln/1271 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1557/591 mln/1496 3:40 pm :

Aug gold traded in a consolidative pattern near the unchanged level after pulling back from its session high of $1283.00 per ounce set in morning action. Unable to gain momentum, it settled 0.1% higher at $1275.30 per ounce.
July silver touched a session high of $19.75 per ounce moments after floor trade opened and dipped to a session low of $19.58 per ounce later in morning action. The precious metal eventually settled with a 0.4% gain at $19.72 per ounce.
July crude oil traded in a tight range near the unchanged level today. It touched a session high of $107.17 per barrel in early morning action and brushed a session low of $106.61 per barrel before settling at $106.88 per barrel, or 3 cents higher.
July natural gas touched a session high of $4.78 per MMBtu after trading as low as $4.67 per MMBtu in morning action. However, it retreated back into the red ahead of the close and settled with a 0.8% loss at $4.70 per MMBtu.

4:05 pm MagnaChip Semi and SENIS AG sign patent license agreement (MX) : Co announced that it has signed a patent license agreement with SENIS AG, a manufacturer of magnetic field and current measurement instruments based in Zug, Switzerland.

With the agreement, MagnaChip acquires the right to use a portfolio of SENIS' patents covering magnetic field and current measurement technologies in its sensor products. MagnaChip expects the agreement to significantly strengthen the co's existing initiatives in sensors and allow development of sensor solutions for new industrial and consumer applications.

Large Cap Gainers

COV (85.89 +19.25%): To be acquired by Medtronic (MDT) in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at $93.22 per share, or a total of approximately $42.9 billionWMB (56.18 +19.08%): Agreed to acquire Global Infrastructure Partners' GP and LP interests in Access Midstream Partners (ACMP) for $5.995 bln; plans higher dividend; proposes subsequent merger of Access Midstream Partners and Williams Partners (WPZ); upgraded to Buy at Jefferies; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Tudor PickeringTSLA (219.65 +6.41%): Seeing reports that co is in talks with Nissan (NSANY) and BMW (BAMXY) regarding charging stations

Large Cap Losers VRTX (67.79 -7.75%): Negative blog mention regarding co's Phase 3 TRAFFIC and TRANSPORT studies evaluating lumacaftor (VX-809) in combination with ivacaftor for the treatment of cystic fibrosisLVLT (41.32 -6.28%): Announced acqisition of tw telecom (TWTC) in a cash and stock transaction valued at $40.86 per shareYHOO (35.28 -4.50%): Weakness following updated financial results and IPO-related disclosures from Alibaba Group (YHOO owns a 22.5% stake in Alibaba)

Mid Cap Gainers LAD (87.39 +13.97%): Co and DCH Auto Group USA announced they will combine; DCH stores are estimated to generate ~$2.3 bln in annualized revenue; and are expected to increase 2014 EPS by ~$0.12-0.14, excluding acquisition costsSUNE (21.4 +10.34%): Mentioned positively at Deutsche Bank, target raised to $35; stockholders voted to increase the number of the co's authorized shares of common stock issuable to 700 mln from 300 mln
NUAN (18.76 +9.71%): Seeing reports that co is considering a sale

Mid Cap Losers
DWA (24.23 -11.41%): "How to Train Your Dragon 2" opening domestic box office was weaker than expected at $50 mln
BFR (10.06 -7.28%): Weakness in Argentinian stocks following court ruling that forces Argentina to repay certain debts: TEO, BMA also lowerGNC (34.03 -2.66%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird

11:46 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (147) outpacing new lows (24) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAV, ACMP, AFH, AHL, ALDR, ALLE, AMAT, AMOT, APA, APC, AXDX, BBEP, BCEI, BDSI, BFAM, BLUE, BNS, BPT, BRCM, BSTC, BTE, CAVM, CBPO, CHRW, CIFC, CIO, CLS, CMO, CNI, CNQ, COP, COV, CPG, CRT, CSCD, CSTM, CVE, CVEO, CVX, DOM, DVN, DYN, E, ECA, ECF, EDAP, ELS, ENSV, ENZ, EOG, EQIX, EQM, ESTE, ETR, EVHC, EXAS, FANG, FCS, FET, FLT, FTNT, GAIA, GBR, GBX, GLNG, GLOP, HK, HRB, IMO, INTC, ITMN, KED, LABC, LAD, LGCY, LLNW, LPNT, LRCX, MGA, MGLN, MLM, MPO, MTR, MU, MVG, NCT, NFX, NGL, NRG, OFIX, OILT, OKE, OPEN, OXY, PAH, PCYG, PDS, PFIS, PGH, PNY, PPS, PQ, PTX, REX, RGC, RGP, SBR, SD, SE, SIM, SIRO, SJT, SMCI, SMLP, SNDK, SPWR, SQBG, SRE, STO, STV, SU, SUPN, SYA, SYK, TBPH, TEDU, TGLS, TKR, TOWR, TRNX, TROX, TRV, TWTC, TXI, TYC, UBIC, VET, WG, WGP, WIN, WLL, WMB, WPZ, WR, WSBF, XEC, XRS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: CHCI, COOL, CPSL, DCIX, DGSE, FHCO, GLPI, GNC, GRVY, HDNG, LAYN, LIME, MGT, MIXT, OGXI, PNRA, QNST, QRM, SEAC, TAXI, TRR, UNTK, VHI, VRTB

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AMJ, BNO, DIG, EWC, IEO, IGE, IHI, IXC, IYE, JNK, SMH, SOXX, XES, XLE, XOP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

9:10 am HEICO announces Seal Dynamicc, a subsidiary of its Flight Support Group, completed acquisition of certain assets and liabilities of Quest Aviation Supply of Chatsworth, California; co expects the acquisition to be accretive to its earnings within the first year after the closing (HEI) :

8:48 am Cadence Design completes acquisition of Jasper Design Automation; expects the transaction to be accretive to its non-GAAP earnings per share in fiscal 2015 after the impact of merger-related accounting (CDNS) :

8:01 am Advanced Micro announces extension of tender offer for its 8.125% notes and related consent payment deadline (AMD) : Co announced that in connection with its previously announced tender offer and consent solicitation with respect to any and all of its outstanding 8.125% Senior Notes due 2017, each commencing on June 2, 2014, AMD has extended the deadline by which holders of the 8.125% Notes may early tender their 8.125% Notes and receive an additional payment of $20.00 for each $1,000 principal amount of 8.125% Notes purchased pursuant to the Tender Offer in accordance with the terms of the Tender Offer , for an aggregate purchase price of $1,045.88 per $1,000 principal amount of 8.125% Notes. The Consent Payment Deadline has been extended to 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on June 19, 2014.

7:48 am Fusion-io to be acquired by SanDisk (SNDK) for $11.25 per share in cash (FIO) :

SanDisk (SNDK) announced a definitive agreement to acquire Fusion-io. The acquisition will be an all-cash transaction valued at ~$1.1 bln, net of cash assumed.Under the terms of the agreement, SanDisk will commence a tender offer for all outstanding shares of Fusion-io for $11.25 per share in cash. SanDisk will fund the acquisition with cash available on its balance sheet. It is expected that the transaction will close in the third quarter of SanDisk's fiscal 2014 and be accretive to non-GAAP earnings in the second half of SanDisk's fiscal 20157:00 am Last week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are last week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

Last week's top 20 % gainers

Technology:OPEN (104.48 +47.97%),HITT (78.02 +28.83%),IGT (15.86 +26.78%),ANET (69.58 +26.51%),SYNA (84.59 +24.87%)Services:SGMS (10.91 +25.69%)Healthcare:IDIX (23.64 +226.97%),ACHN (6.47 +124.65%),KPTI (47.12 +87.21%),VTL (32.14 +75.34%),RCPT (40.1 +54.23%),TGTX (9.61 +47.85%),GERN (2.98 +43.27%),NWBO (7.66 +34.15%),TRXC (5.52 +31.43%),ALDR (20.34 +29.39%)Basic Materials:RBY (1.23 +29.47%),CAK (0.8 +26.98%),ANV (3.55 +24.56%)

Last week's top 20 % losersTechnology:SFUN (8.88 -20.64%),FNSR (19.71 -20.17%),NQ (7.94 -15.08%)Services:HA (14.43 -11.2%),UAL (42.78 -10.97%),AL (37.95 -10.52%),MDCA (20.34 -8.95%)Industrial Goods:CBI (74.94 -10.38%)Healthcare:ARWR (12.33 -13.23%),INO (8.71 -11.57%),ONVO (6.87 -11.01%),OREX (5.85 -10.14%)Financial:TBBK (11.37 -30.33%),LEJU (10.47 -10.82%)Consumer Goods:CXDC (9.74 -20.16%),LULU (37.61 -15.33%),DMND (25.71 -13.55%),TSN (35.43 -11.69%)Basic Materials:VHI (5.2 -12.31%),SBGL (9.32 -9.43%)

STMicroelectronics (STM) announced that its STiH273 HD cable chipset has been selected by DEN Networks, a leading Indian Cable MSO with over 6 million subscribers. The ST technology inside DEN's newest HD zapper delivers an even better user experience and helps broaden market access to HD zappers and enable DEN to win more subscribers and grow its own revenues.

ARM (ARMH) and its Partners will start shipping a digital signal processing to universities worldwide to help boost practical skills development and the creation of new ARM-based audio systems. This will include products such as high definition home media and voice-controlled home automation systems.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday session on a modestly higher note with participants gearing up for the latest policy directive from the FOMC, which will be released on Wednesday afternoon.

Small- and mid-cap stocks led the way with the Russell 2000 and S&P Mid Cap 400 climbing 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 added 0.2% with five sectors posting gains.

Overall, cyclical groups did the bulk of the grunt work as five of six growth-sensitive sectors advanced. Financials (+0.9%) seized the lead at the start of the session and never looked back. Top-weighted components like Bank of America (BAC 15.59, +0.31) and Morgan Stanley (MS 32.50, +0.79) posted respective gains of 2.0% and 2.5%, while the entire sector extended its June advance to 1.9%.

Financials notwithstanding, gains in other areas were much more subdued as the second-best sector of the day-consumer discretionary-added just 0.3%. Retailers contributed to the strength with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 86.28, +0.74) climbing 0.9%, while shares of Netflix (NFLX 443.65, +13.39) jumped 3.1% amid reports indicating lawmakers are finalizing a proposal that would ban internet fast lanes.

Also of note, the technology sector (+0.2%) contributed to the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%), but it is worth mentioning that the bulk of the strength came from high-beta chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index jumped 0.7% as 25 of its 30 components finished in the green.

Although most growth-oriented sectors posted gains, that was not the case with the energy space (-0.2%). The sector trimmed its loss into the close, but could not turn positive as its top-weighted listing-ExxonMobil (XOM 102.42, -0.50) weighed. Shares of ExxonMobil fell 0.5%, while crude oil slumped into the pit close, diving 0.6% to $106.28/bbl.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector, materials (+0.2%), received support from steelmakers and miners. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 46.55, +0.41) rose 0.9% and Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 24.12, +0.14) added 0.6% even as gold futures retreated.

The yellow metal slipped 0.3% to $1271.80/ozt, but still ended above its pre-CPI levels. Gold traded at $1265 ahead of the report and fell to $1260 immediately after, before spending the remainder of the day in a slow climb.

On the fixed income side, Treasuries fell to lows following this morning's data and continued their retreat into the close. The 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 2.65%.

Participation was well below average with less than 600 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to May housing starts/building permits and CPI:

Housing starts fell 6.5% in May to 1.001 million from a downwardly revised 1.071 million (from 1.072 million) in April. The Briefing.com consensus expected housing starts to fall to 1.028 million. Multifamily construction fell 7.6% to 376,000. There is still room for more declines over the next few months. The bigger concern was the trend in single-family construction. That type of construction is normally stable, but these starts fell 5.9% in May to 625,000. That was the lowest level since 589,000 single-family homes were started in February. Hopefully, this was just a one-month blip but it warrants closer evaluation.
Consumer prices increased 0.4% in May, up from a 0.3% increase in April. That was the largest increase since February 2013. The Briefing.com consensus expected the CPI to increase 0.2%.
Contrary to the trends in the PPI, both food and energy prices contributed positively to overall consumer price growth in May.
Food prices increases accelerated in May. After increasing by 0.4% for each of the last three months, prices rose 0.5% in May. That was the largest increase since August 2011. Food at home prices rose 0.7%, the biggest increase since July 2011.
Energy prices increased 0.9% in May on a 2.3% increase in electricity costs and a 0.7% increase in gasoline costs. Some of this gain was due to seasonal credits that temporarily lowered electricity prices in California in April and returned to normal in May.
Excluding food and energy, core CPI increased 0.3% in May after increasing 0.2% in both March and April. That was the largest increase in core prices since August 2011. The consensus expected these prices to increase 0.2%.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while Q1 Current Account Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$97.80 billion) will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Lastly, the FOMC will release its latest policy directive at 14:00 ET.

S&P 500 +5.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD

DJ30 +27.48 NASDAQ +16.13 SP500 +4.21 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1924/1.68 bln/846 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1908/585.6 mln/1138 3:35 pm :

Crude oil sold off this afternoon and finished the day near its low for the day. July crude closed $0.60 lower at $106.28/barrel
Gold consolidated in afternoon trade following its morning rally and finished the day $3.50 lower at $1271.80/oz
Silver, on the other hand, continued to inch higher and ended today's session one penny higher at $19.73/oz.
Natural gas hit a new HoD of $4.74 early in afternoon trade. It has since pulled back and finished one cent higher at $4.71/MMBtu
Copper fell as low as $3.04.lb this morning and finished one cent higher at $3.06/lb

5:04 pm AES announces it reached an agreement to sell majority of its solar business for up to $207 mln and expects to receive ~$50 mln in proceeds from previously announced Google investment in Mount Signal (AES) : Co announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with SunEdison (SUNE) to sell its 50% stake in 336 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV.V) projects owned by Silver Ridge Power, LLC (Silver Ridge), a joint venture between AES and Riverstone Holdings LLC. Under the agreement, AES will sell its interest in solar PV projects in operation and under development in Europe, India and the United States for an equity purchase price of $165 million.

SunEdison also has an option to acquire AES' 50% ownership in 130 MW of solar PV projects in Italy for an additional $42 million by August 2015. This agreement does not include the sale of AES' 50% stake in the remaining 55 MW of solar PV projects in Puerto Rico and Spain.

In addition, as announced in October 2013, AES will receive approximately $50 million in proceeds from Google's tax equity investment in Silver Ridge's 266 MW Mount Signal project in California, which achieved commercial operation in April 2014.

These transactions were assumed in the Company's 2014 guidance and are expected to be modestly accretive in 2015 and beyond.


5:02 pm SunEdison and Riverstone to partner in Silver Ridge Power joint venture (SUNE) : Co has reached a definitive agreement to acquire a 50% ownership stake in Silver Ridge Power from a subsidiary of The AES Corporation (AES).

Through its ownership in the SRP joint venture, SunEdison will own 50% of (i) 336 MW (megawatt) of solar power plant operating projects and (ii) a 40% interest in the Tenaska Imperial Solar Energy Center West 183 MW solar power facility to be completed in 2016. SRP's assets include the currently operating 266 MW Mt. Signal solar project in California. The acquisition is expected to close in late June 2014, subject to customary closing conditions and receipt of regulatory approvals. Following the acquisition, the remaining 50% of SRP will continue to be held by an affiliate of Riverstone Holdings LLC. After closing, Riverstone and SunEdison expect the joint venture to contribute the Mt. Signal project to SunEdison's yieldco subsidiary. In addition, following completion of the Tenaska Imperial Solar Energy Center West project, and subject to customary closing conditions and receipt of regulatory approvals, SunEdison expects to acquire Riverstone's share of SRP's interest in Tenaska Imperial Solar Energy Center West and to contribute a total of a 40% interest in Tenaska Imperial Solar Energy Center West to SunEdison's yieldco subsidiary in 2016.

4:22 pm Adobe Systems beats by $0.07, beats on revs; Creative Cloud subscriptions above guidance (ADBE) : Reports Q2 (May) earnings of $0.37 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.30; revenues rose 5.7% year/year to $1.07 bln vs the $1.03 bln consensus.

Adobe exited Q2 with 2 million 308 thousand paid Creative Cloud subscriptions, an increase of 464K QoQ vs. guidance for the same QoQ increase as Q1 (405K).Creative Annualized Recurring Revenue grew to $1.20 billion, and total Digital Media ARR grew to $1.38 billion. Adobe Marketing Cloud quarterly revenue was $283 million, representing 23 percent year-over-year growth. 53 percent of Adobe's Q2 revenue was from recurring sources such as Creative Cloud and Adobe Marketing Cloud. The co repurchased ~2.6 million shares during the quarter, returning approximately $166 million of cash to stockholders.1:06 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

SCHW (27.26 +5.33%): Strength in brokerage firms as Senate hearing on high frequency trading takes place: AMTD also higherTSLA (234.79 +4.53%): Continued strength following NY Governor Cuomo signing of legislation that allows Tesla to maintain its five currently licensed retail locations in New York StateVRX (120.76 +2.56%): Co held conference call to discuss potential acquisition of Allergan (AGN), believes AGN shareholders will vote in favor of the deal

Large Cap Losers ACMP (63.87 -4.05%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann; target raised to $77 from $64 at WunderlichBSX (12.54 -2.94%): Co's CFO presented at the Wells Fargo Securities Healthcare Conference, said co will remain opportunistic with M&A and conduct share buybacksURI (102.35 -2.67%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow Mid Cap Gainers SCTY (64.72 +17.93%): To acquire Silveo, a solar technology and manufacturing company, for $200 mln upfront with earn-outs of up to $150 mlnMCRS (66.57 +15.35%): Seeing reports that Oracle (ORCL) may acquire the company in deal worth near $5 bln
ATHN (135.84 +6.02%): Initiated with a Buy at Stifel, target $155

Mid Cap Losers PE (22.65 -4.11%): Initiated with a Neutral at Goldman, JP Morgan, Global Hunter Securities (target $26), and Macquarie; initiated with an Outperform / Overweight at Wells Fargo, Raymond James, Credit SuisseWSTC (26.58 -3.94%): Downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley; announced offering of $1 bln of senior notes due 2022QIWI (40.42 -2.88%): Priced offering of ~7.97 mln of Class B shares represented by ADSs at $40 per share

11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (157) outpacing new lows (21) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACMP, AGII, AGRX, AGTC, ALLE, AMKR, ANET, AP, ATML, ATVI, BIG, BPT, BPZ, CBSO, CDW, CHRW, CIO, CJES, CLDT, CLS, CMCM, CODE, CRT, CRZO, CSCD, CSTM, DAN, DLX, DOM, DPS, DRII, DVN, EA, ECF, EGN, ENL, ENR, ENV, ENZ, EQIX, ERF, ESTE, EXAS, FAF, FANG, FCS, FFG, FORM, FTK, FTNT, FUBC, GB, GIGA, GLNG, GLOP, GRC, GTIV, GWPH, HALL, HBI, HCC, HK, HOLX, HRB, HRTG, HSH, IDSA, IDTI, INT, IRF, ISIL, ITMN, ITT, JOE, KEX, LAZ, LGCY, LPL, LRCX, MEAS, MED, MEMP, MET, MGLN, MMYT, MPWR, MSCC, MSFT, MTRN, MTRX, MU, MVG, NFX, NGL, NJR, NRG, NWE, NYLD, OVTI, PAC, PANW, PAY, PNY, PTX, REDF, RFMD, RGC, RH, RMBS, RSG, RSPP, RTK, RUK, SBR, SD, SEMG, SGBK, SIG, SIMO, SIRO, SJT, SKM, SMCI, SMP, SN, SNDK, SPN, SPWR, STFC, STRP, SUNE, SUPN, SUSS, SYA, SYNA, THS, TKR, TQNT, TRGP, TRNX, TROX, TRW, TUES, TYC, UBIC, UHS, VAL, VDSI, WCN, WIN, WLB, WLFC, WR, WSBF, WWAV, XEC, Z

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ASPN, CHCI, DB, DCIX, DGSE, GRIF, HOV, IPCM, ISNS, LAYN, MEA, NILE, PGEM, PNRA, QKLS, QRM, RSH, SLRC, SYNC, UNTK, VRTA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: BNO, EWT, OIH, SMH, SOXX, XES, XOP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

11:44 am Solar sector continues to outperform in midday trade boosted by SCTY news and YGE earnings (TAN) : Solar names trading higher: DSTI +17.5%, SCTY +11.7% (Silevo news, see prior comments from conference call coverage), RGSE +8.4% (Sunetric deployed a 198.8 kilowatt photovoltaic system with automated curtailment and smart-grid controls at a popular beachfront resort on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.), YGE +8.2% (reported earnings), HSOL +7.5%, CSIQ +7.2%, SOL +7.1%, ASTI +6.6% (rallying on news that India is considering more tax incentives for solar households), JASO +6%, TSL +5.2%, DQ +5.2%, CSUN +5%, JKS +4.5%, SUNE +3.4%, SPWR +2.8%, FSLR +2.5%, TAN +2.5%, STPFQ +0.5%, EMKR +0.3%

11:17 am Violin Memory: Tata Technologies enters into strategic partnership with Violin Memory (VMEM) : Co announced that it has entered into a strategic reseller partnership with Tata Technologies. Tata Technologies will integrate and configure high-speed flash array solutions into their global product lifecycle management customer base looking to enhance the performance of their business critical applications.

Tata Technologies will be featuring Violin All Flash Array solutions at PLM World in Orlando, FL. June 16-19, Booth #7 and will be hosting a series of workshops on what users should and should not expect from this rapidly expanding high performance computing solution.

9:01 am SolarCity to acquire Silevo, solar technology and manufacturing company (SCTY) : SolarCity has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Silevo, a solar technology and manufacturing company whose modules have achieved a unique combination of high energy output and low cost. Mr. Musk and Messrs. Rive will host a conference call to discuss the proposed acquisition today at 10am ET.

EMCORE (EMKR) announced the introduction of the new Genesis XD multimedia matrix switch for small-to-large Enterprise connectivity applications.

8:05 am Cisco Systems announces intent to acquire Tail-f Systems; Cisco will pay ~$175 mln in cash and retention-based incentives in exchange for all shares of Tail-f (CSCO) : Co announced its intent to acquire privately held Tail-f Systems, a leader in multi-vendor network service orchestration solutions for traditional and virtualized networks. Tail-f's products help service providers and enterprise IT organizations easily and cost-effectively implement applications, network services and solutions across networking devices. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Tail-f's technology also helps reduce the time-to-market for network equipment vendors building equipment for agile, software-programmable networks.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay ~$175 mln in cash and retention-based incentives in exchange for all shares of Tail-f. The acquisition of Tail-f is expected to be complete in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2014.

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From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm Closing Summary: Stock Market Takes a Back Seat (:WRAPX) : It was some day in the capital markets on Thursday. The major stock indices managed to hold fairly steady in what was a seesaw day of trading; longer-dated Treasuries experienced a notable reversal that left the 10-yr note down 12 ticks and yielding 2.63% while the front of the curve remain propped up with buying interest; commodity prices were higher with precious metals prices moving up sharply; and the US Dollar Index was down 0.3%

A 3.6% jump in gold prices to $1318.00/troy ounce and the weakness at the back end of the Treasury curve were cited as expressions of inflation concerns with market participants acting uneasy about the Fed's seemingly complacent view of inflation.

The explanation was not entirely out of bounds, but it also wasn't above reproach given that the dollar failed to bounce and the front of the Treasury curve held up just fine. Accordingly, it is too early to say if there were genuine inflation concerns today.

Nonetheless, it was a line of thinking that left equity investors reluctant to make any big moves outside of some individual story stocks like Coach (COH 35.69, -3.50), which issued a sales warning, and Kroger (KR 49.66, +2.39), which reported better than expected earnings and gave reassuring guidance.

Broadly speaking, the moves that were made fit the bill of a more cautious mindset than the one that prevailed following Wednesday's FOMC announcement and press conference. The best-performing sectors today were the utilities (+0.9%) and consumer staples (+0.6%) sectors. Energy (+0.6%) also fared well in the face of rising oil prices that were helped along by the weaker dollar and continued rumblings about the destabilizing situation in Iraq

Relative weakness in the technology (-0.2%) and financial (-0.2%) sectors acted as a restraint on the S&P 500 which ultimately managed to close near its best level of the day. In the process of doing so, it also established another new closing high.

Alas, there wasn't as much fear and loathing in the equity market as there was cheer and loafing. The buy-the-dip mentality shined through again in an otherwise laborious day of trading that saw the stock market take a back seat to other capital markets.

Aside from the advertised inflation concerns, longer-dated Treasuries also got pinched by a batch of encouraging economic data:

Initial claims for the week ending June 14 (the week in which the household survey for the June employment report was conducted) dipped by 6,000 to 312,000
The Philadelphia Fed Index for June increased to 17.8 from 15.4 in May, paced by broad-based gains in its various components; andThe Leading Indicators Index for May increased 0.5% on top of a 0.3% increase in the prior monthTrading volume picked up on Thursday with 636 mln shares changing hands at the NYSE versus 614 mln on Wednesday. Volume should be even higher on Friday with the S&P rebalancing at the close.

Overall, one could say there was some risk aversion in the stock market on Thursday, but there wasn't risk avoidance. To that end, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 10.65, +0.04) was up a scant 0.4% after plummeting 12% on Wednesday and money rotated within the market as opposed to rotating out of it completely.
S&P 500 YTD +6.0%
Dow Jones Industrial Average YTD +2.1%
Nasdaq Composite YTD +4.4%Russell 2000 YTD +1.8%4:06 pm Oracle misses by $0.03, misses on revs (ORCL) : Reports Q4 (May) earnings of $0.92 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.95; revenues rose 3.3% year/year to $11.33 bln vs the $11.47 bln consensus.


ORCL reports Q4 new software licenses and cloud software subscriptions revs increased +4% y/y to $8.9 bln vs +0-10% guidance and street expectations near midpoint of co's guidance. GAAP Cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) revenues were up 25% to $322 million, while non-GAAP SaaS and PaaS revenues were up 23% to $327 million.Cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) revenues were up 13% to $128 million. New software licenses revenues were unchanged at $3.8 billion. Software license updates and product support revenues were up 7% to $4.7 billion. Overall hardware systems revenues were up 2% to $1.5 billion with hardware systems products up 2% to $870 million, and hardware systems support up 2% to $596 million.Non-GAAP earnings per share were up 6% to $0.92, but would have been $0.94 if not for the currency loss in Venezuela. The non-GAAP operating margin was 51%. GAAP operating cash flow on a trailing twelve-month basis was $14.9 billion.

12:39 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers


EEP (34.91 +12.83%): Co and Enbridge (ENB) announced equity restructuring; announced drop down of additional interests in its natural gas business to Midcoast Energy Partners (MEP). KR (49.97 +5.71%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; raised FY15 guidance.CELG (166.45 +3.34%): Stockholders approved two-for-one stock split.

Large Cap Losers COH (35.37 -9.74%): Guided for low double digit rev decline at Investor Day Conference; consensus calls for FY15 (June) rev down 2.3%. JNPR (24.39 -3.41%): Initiated with a Buy at Buckingham Research; downgraded to Neutral at Mizuho; tgt lowered to $26 from $32.GMCR (122.18 -3.1%): Initiated with a Neutral at BTIG Research; co to open its first-ever cold pod dedicated manufacturing facility in Douglas County, Georgia.

Mid Cap Gainers EEQ (34.09 +12.25%): Trading higher on EEP news.
BBRY (9.29 +12.07%): Beat on EPS by $0.15, beat on revs; targeting break-even cash flow results by end of FY15; recognized hardware rev on ~1.6 mln BBRY smartphones.
CLC (62.59 +6.45%): Beat on EPS by $0.11, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; co to invest more than $10 mln in new Innovation Center.

Mid Cap Losers KBR (23.84 -9.42%): Missed on EPS by $0.66, missed on revs; co will undergo a strategic review.PPO (46.31 -4.35%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush.GSAT (3.92 -3.21%): Filed for an offering of ~$9.94 mln shares of voting common stock by selling stockholder.

12:01 pm Dominion: EDF Renewable Energy to sell CID solar project to D (D) : Co announced an agreement to acquire a 20-megawatt solar project from EDF Renewable Energy. The acquisition is expected to close later this year prior to the project commencing operations.

The solar facility, called the CID solar project, is located in King's County, California near the City of Corcoran. The project has secured a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement as well as the interconnection agreement and the engineering, procurement, construction contract.The acquisition will bring Dominion's total solar generating portfolio to 232 megawatts.

11:55 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (259) outpacing new lows (20) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAN, AAP, ABT, ACE, AEM, AEP, AGRX, AGTC, AIG, ALDX, ALLE, AMOT, AMTX, AON, AP, APA, APC, ASX, AWK, BCEI, BGCP, BHE, BHI, BKH, BLJ, BP, BPZ, BRKR, BTI, BUD, CENX, CHD, CHMI, CHRW, CHSP, CIFC, CIG, CJES, CL, CLR, CLS, CMCM, CMRE, CMS, CNC, CNL, CNSL, CNW, CONE, COP, CPK, CRK, CRZO, CSTM, CSX, CTRN, CTRP, CVX, CWH, CYT, DAN, DCM, DOV, DRII, DYN, E, ECF, EDE, EEP, EEQ, EIX, ELS, EMES, ENL, ENR, ENTA, ENTG, EQIX, ESL, ETR, EXAS, FET, FL, FNHC, FNV, FSM, FTI, FTK, FTNT, FUBC, GAS, GBR, GBX, GCO, GIL, GLOG, GMK, GPK, GRC, GRH, GRMN, GST, GTIV, GWPH, GWR, HAL, HALL, HCLP, HES, HNT, HPP, HRB, HRTG, IDA, IFF, IHS, IIN, IMO, INN, IR, ITC, ITMN, ITT, JBLU, JOE, KANG, KEX, KO, KOG, KR, KTWO, LAD, LG, LHO, LM, LO, LPL, LQ, LSG, LXU, MAR, MCO, MDT, MEAS, MET, MGLN, MITSY, MJN, MKTAY, MMYT, MO, MOH, MPO, MTG, MTR, MTRN, MVG, NFEC, NFG, NFX, NI, NJR, NRG, NSC, NTCT, NTT, NVGS, NVS, NWE, NYMT, ODP, OMAB, OPEN, ORCL, ORM, OSUR, PBIP, PCG, PCRX, PEB, PEP, PES, PLKI, PNC, PNM, PNY, PPS, PQ, PSX, PSXP, PTR, PXD, RAI, RGC, RGP, RH, RMBS, RNR, ROP, RSG, RSPP, RTK, RUK, SABR, SAN, SBR, SCOR, SCYX, SE, SEMG, SGBK, SIAL, SIRO, SKM, SLCA, SMCI, SMP, SN, SPN, SRE, SRT, SSL, STEM, STZ, SYA, TAHO, TAP, TAT, TEL, TGLS, THG, TKR, TPLM, TRGP, TSM, TSO, TWX, TXI, TYC, UEIC, UN, UTL, VC, VET, VLP, VNCE, VVC, WAB, WAG, WLB, WLFC, WLK, WNC, WR, WRB, WSBF, WSM, YUM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ALCS, AVD, BBGI, BPHX, CCCR, CHCI, COCO, COH, DGSE, EBMT, FREE, GRVY, GSIT, LTRE, PGEM, PIR, RSH, TAXI, UTEK, VRTB

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: BNO, DIG, DVY, EFA, EWC, EWG, EWN, EWP, EWT, EWU, FXB, IEO, IGE, IHI, IOO, IXC, IYE, IYK, MDY, MOO, OEF, OIH, PPH, QQQ, SDY, SPY, UGA, VGK, VTI, XES, XLE, XLK, XLP, XLU, XOP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ

6:12 am Entegris raises Q2 guidance; above consensus (ENTG) : Co issues upside guidance for Q2 (Jun), sees EPS of $0.17-0.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.13 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 (Jun) revs of $235-245 mln vs. $184.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Q2 revs include two months of results of ATMI, which Entegris acquired on April 30, 2014. EPS guidance excludes purchase accounting adjustments, transaction-related costs from the ATMI transaction, acquisition integration expenses and other one-time costs.
Q2 guidance favorable vs comparables
Entegris' previous guidance for the second quarter was for sales of $165-175 million, which excluded any results from ATMI. On a comparable basis excluding ATMI results, the Company's updated guidance reflects expected sales of $175-185 million. In terms of net income, on a non-GAAP basis, the Company previously expected EPS to range from $0.10-0.14 per share, adjusted for expected amortization expense of $2.3 million or $0.01 per share.

Jabil Circuit (JBL) reported third quarter loss of $0.06 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 9.8% year/year to $3.79 billion which is higher than expected. The company issued guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of ($0.10)-0.10 & revenues of $3.7-3.9 billion which is in line with estimates. The company issued reaffirmed guidance for the fiscal year 2015 with EPS of $1.65-1.95 which is line with estimates.

BlackBerry (BBRY) reported first quarter loss of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues fell 68.5% year/year to $966 million which is higher than expected. The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 39% for hardware, 54% for services and 7% for software and other revenue. During the first quarter, the Company recognized hardware revenue on approximately 1.6 million BlackBerry smartphones compared to approximately 1.3 million BlackBerry smartphones in the previous quarter. During the first quarter, approximately 2.6 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers, which included shipments made and recognized prior to the first quarter and which reduced the Company's inventory in channel. Adjusted Q1 gross margin of 48%, up from 43% in the prior quarter -- Reduced adjusted operating expenses by 57% year over year and 13% quarter over quarter. FY15 Outlook: The Company anticipates maintaining its strong cash position, while increasingly looking for opportunities to prudently invest in growth. The Company is targeting break-even cash flow results by the end of fiscal 2015.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages started the week on a quiet note with the S&P 500 shedding less than a point. To be fair, the slight downtick was a function of some profit taking after the benchmark index registered six consecutive gains.

Equity indices started the day in the red and maintained narrow ranges throughout the session. The S&P 500 tried to regain its flat line shortly after the open, but could not do so as three influential sectors weighed. Specifically, consumer staples (-0.6%), health care (-0.3%), and industrials (-0.6%) slumped out of the gate and pressured the market throughout the session.

Most notably, the industrial sector finished the trading day at the bottom of the leaderboard due to broad weakness among transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 0.5% with 17 of 20 components ending in the red. The five airline stocks that comprise a portion of the index all lost more than 1.0% apiece with Southwest Airlines (LUV 26.92, -0.37) leading the retreat. Despite today's loss, the Transportation remained higher by 7.8% for the quarter.

Elsewhere, the health care sector stumbled amid relative weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 252.91, -2.73) lost 1.1%, trimming its quarter-to-date gain to 7.0%.

Like the high-beta biotech space, chipmakers also displayed relative weakness after Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 4.01, -0.09) and NVIDIA (NVDA 18.71, -0.22) were both downgraded to 'Underperform' at Pacific Crest. The two stocks lost 2.2% and 1.2%, respectively, while the PHLX Semiconductor Index slipped 0.4%.

Meanwhile, large cap tech names held up well with the likes of Microsoft (MSFT 41.99, +0.31), Google (GOOGL 574.29, +7.77), and Oracle (ORCL 41.10, +0.28) climbing between 0.7% and 1.4%. For its part, Oracle rallied after announcing the acquisition of Micros (MCRS 67.98, +2.21) for $68/share.

Similar to the technology sector (+0.3%), five of the other six cyclical groups posted modest gains. Energy (+0.4%) outperformed throughout the session even as crude oil slid 0.6% to $106.18/bbl. The commodity-linked sector extended its June gain to 6.3%, while pushing its quarter-to-date advance to 12.9%.

The slim losses in equities encouraged participants to increase their demand for volatility protection, but the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 10.97, +0.12), which rose 1.1%, still finished near multi-year lows.

Treasuries, meanwhile, did not indicate safe haven demand as the 10-yr note slipped four ticks, which pushed the benchmark yield higher by one basis point to 2.62%.

Participation remained on the light side with just under 560 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the Existing Home Sales report for May:

Existing home sales increased 4.9% in May to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of 4.89 million from an upwardly revised 4.66 million SAAR (from 4.65 mln SAAR) in April. The Briefing.com consensus expected existing home sales to increase to 4.80 million SAAR.
Mortgage rates, which had been moving higher for most of 2014, fell sharply over the last couple of months and helped boost sales growth, but year-over-year sales are still 5.0% below May 2013 levels.
Purchases by first-time home buyers accounted for only 27% of all sales in May. That was down from 29% in April. First-time home buyers typically account for a third of home purchases during periods of normal sales trends.

Tomorrow, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index (Briefing.com consensus 11.6%) and FHFA Housing Price Index will both be released at 9:00 ET, while New Home Sales for May (consensus 440K) and June Consumer Confidence (consensus 84.0) will be released at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +6.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.9% YTD

DJ30 -9.82 NASDAQ +0.64 SP500 -0.26 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1213/1.59 bln/1583 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1507/559.3 mln/1530 3:35 pm :

Crude oil natural gas futures slid lower today and closed near session lows
Aug crude finished today's pit trading session $0.63 lower at $106.18/barrel, while July nat gas ended $0.08 to $4.45/MMBtu
Precious metals and copper basically did the opposite
After a sell off before floor trading, gold and silver climbed higher after hitting its low for the day there and finished just below its HoD
Copper began higher, held gains and closed just near its HoD
Aug gold ended $1.80 higher at $1318.40/oz, July lost $0.03 to $20.92/oz and July copper ended $0.03 higher at $3.15/lb

4:07 pm Micron beats by $0.09, beats on revs (MU) : Reports Q3 (May) earnings of $0.79 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.70; revenues rose 71.8% year/year to $3.98 bln vs the $3.88 bln consensus.

Revenues for both DRAM and NAND Flash products were down slightly for the third quarter of fiscal 2014 compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2014. The company's overall consolidated gross margin of 34 percent for Q3 consistent with Q2, as mix-related decreases in average selling prices were essentially offset by corresponding decreases in manufacturing costs. Briefing.com note: NAND and DRAM prices were expected to be down in the high single digits.

1:01 pm Micron collaborates with Intel (INTC) to enhance Knights Landing with a high performance, on-package memory solution (MU) : Co announced an ongoing collaboration with Intel (INTC) to deliver an on-package memory solution for Intel's next-generation Xeon Phi processor, codenamed Knights Landing.

The memory solution is the result of a long-term effort between the two companies to break down the memory wall, leveraging the fundamental DRAM and stacking technologies also found in Micron's Hybrid Memory Cube products.

4:06 pm Applied Materials: Stockholders have approved proposed business combination with Tokyo Electron (AMAT) : Co announces that its stockholders have approved its proposed business combination with Tokyo Electron. Approximately 99% of the shares voting at the Applied Materials special meeting of stockholders voted to adopt the parties' Business Combination Agreement, dated September 24, 2013, as amended. This represents approximately 78% of shares.

12:56 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

YPF (35.01 +3.70%): According to reports, co said that since it is an "independent" company, its assets cannot be embargoed by creditorsACT (222.07 +2.39%): Resumed with an Overweight at Morgan Stanley, target raised to $300 from $230DISH (62.53 +2.02%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup

Large Cap Losers

REGN (276.82 -2.96%): Continued weakness following cautious sell side commentary
WEC (45.66 -2.62%): To acquire Integrys Energy (TEG) for $9.1 bln (~$71.47 per share in cash and stock)
UAL (42.52 -2.61%): Weakness in airline companies: DAL, AAL also lower

Mid Cap Gainers
TEG (68.61 +12.57%): To be acquired by Wisconsin Energy (WEC) for $9.1 bln (~$71.47 per share in cash and stock)
BFR (11.59 +5.56%): Reuters reporting that Argentina is considering making an initial payment to holdout creditors prior to requesting an extension to negotiations to reach an official settlementBWLD (164.29 +4.70%): Mentioned positively at Wunderlich

Mid Cap Losers TRQ (3.68 -4.42%): Announced that Oyu Tolgoi has received an audit report from the Mongolian Tax Authority claiming unpaid taxes, penalties and disallowed entitlements associated with the initial development of the Oyu Tolgoi mine
AMD (3.94 -3.90%): Downgraded to Underperform from Sector Perform at Pacific Crest
FMC (71.85 -3.88%): Sees Q2 EPS of $0.95-1.05 vs $1.11 estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $4.10-4.30 (lowered from $4.35-4.55) vs $4.44 estimate

11:53 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (258) outpacing new lows (28) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAL, AAN, AAP, AEM, AET, AGRX, AGX, AIRT, AIV, AKR, AKRX, ALLE, AMAT, AMP, AMTX, AOSL, AP, APA, APC, ASH, ATHL, ATI, AXDX, BGCP, BHE, BHI, BIG, BK, BLJ, BMO, BP, BPL, BTE, BURL, BWLD, CAM, CAT, CAW, CBG, CBPO, CDNS, CDW, CE, CENT, CENX, CFN, CHK, CHMI, CHTR, CI, CJES, CLR, CNL, CNQ, CNSL, CO, CONE, COP, CORE, CRZO, CSX, CUNB, CUZ, CVE, CVGI, CVI, CVTI, CVX, CXO, CYT, DAN, DMLP, DRH, DRII, DVD, ECF, EDAP, EDE, EDR, EE, ELS, ENR, ENTG, ENV, EOG, EQS, ERF, ESCA, ETE, ETN, EVDY, EVER, EXAS, EXP, FDX, FET, FNHC, FNV, FTI, GB, GLOG, GMLP, GPRE, GRH, GST, GWPH, GY, HAL, HALL, HBI, HCA, HCC, HES, HK, HNT, HPP, HUM, IDA, IHG, IMO, INGR, INTC, IPXL, ISIL, ITT, JBLU, JOE, KIM, KOG, KRC, KS, KW, LAD, LCI, LE, LHO, LLY, LM, LPNT, LRCX, MC, METR, MITSY, MLM, MOH, MPLX, MPO, MRO, MSCC, MSFT, MUR, MVG, NAVI, NBL, NFX, NOV, NSC, NTCT, NWN, NXPI, OIS, OKE, OPEN, OXY, PBF, PCRX, PDS, PEB, PEGI, PHX, PJC, PKY, PNC, PPS, PQ, PSX, PSXP, PTX, PXD, REG, RGLD, RGP, RHI, RHP, RLJ, RMBS, RPAI, RPM, RSPP, RTK, RUSHB, SATS, SAVE, SIAL, SIG, SIRO, SMLP, SN, SNA, SPB, SPN, SPW, SQBG, SSL, ST, STJ, STZ, SUNE, SUPN, SWKS, SYNA, SYRG, TAHO, TAX, TBPH, TEG, THG, TOT, TOWR, TPLM, TRP, TRW, TSE, TSO, TXI, UCBA, UDR, UEIC, UFPT, UHS, UNT, VAL, VC, VLP, VMI, VNOM, VNR, VVC, WBB, WCN, WEX, WFT, WGP, WIN, WLB, WLFC, WLL, WNC, WPX, WRI, WSM, XEC, XOM, XYL, YPF, YUM, Z

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ALCS, ARO, AXTI, CCCR, CGA, CHCI, COH, CPAC, DB, GKNT, GRVY, GSH, HERO, IBP, ITIC, NCFT, NILE, NWY, OPB, PRKR, RSH, SBH, SEAC, SGA, USMD, UTEK, VHI, XXIA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIG, DVY, EWC, HYG, IEO, IGE, IHF, IHI, IXC, IYE, IYH, IYM, JNK, MDY, OIH, SOXX, UYM, VTI, XES, XLE, XLV, XOP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SMN

Applied Micro Circuits (AMCC) and E4 Computer Engineering have joined forces to design EK003 a low-power solution part of E4's ARKA series, targeting High-Performance Computing and big data workloads.

9:06 am JA Solar announces its started mass production of its PERCIUM solar cell (JASO) : Co announces its started mass production of its PERCIUM solar cell on June 20. The PERCIUM solar cell, the first P-TYPE solar cell in the industry that surpasses a conversion efficiency of 20%, has reached an average conversion efficiency of 20.4%. The 6x10 PERCIUM cells module, which has reached an average power rating of 285W, is expected to be put into mass production one week later. Currently, the co has one PERCIUM solar cell production line and will have four this October. It expects to have eight in 2015. The capacity of PERCIUM solar cells is expected to reach 170MW by the end of this year and 350MW next year.

8:15 am Advanced Micro announces initial settlement of tender offer for its 8.125% senior notes due 2017 and redemption of all remaining 8.125% notes (AMD) : Co announced that it has settled all 8.125% Senior Notes due 2017 that were tendered, but not validly withdrawn, at or prior to 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on June 19, 2014 pursuant to its previously announced tender offer and consent solicitation with respect to any and all of its outstanding 8.125% Notes. The Tender Offer will expire at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on July 3, 2014 unless extended or earlier terminated by AMD.

As of the Consent Deadline, holders of $145,130,000 aggregate principal amount of 8.125% Notes, representing 52.04% of the outstanding 8.125% Notes, had validly tendered their 8.125% Notes and had submitted related consents.AMD expects that the impact of its recent offering of its 7.00% Senior Notes due 2024 and subsequent use of proceeds will be largely neutral in terms of aggregate outstanding debt. AMD also expects to incur a charge of ~$50 mln in the second quarter of 2014 in connection with its purchase and redemption of 8.125% Notes. AMD expects interest expense in the second quarter of 2014 to be ~$46 mln, higher than previously anticipated due to increased debt balances for part of the second quarter of 2014. Beginning in the third quarter of 2014, AMD expects quarterly interest expense to decline to ~$42 mln, driven by 2014 debt reprofiling activities.

8:07 am Hittite Microwave: Analog Devices (ADI) announces that it has commenced tender offer to purchase all shares of HITT pursuant to previously announced merger agreement (HITT) : Analog Devices (ADI) announces that it has commenced a tender offer to purchase all outstanding shares of Hittite Microwave (HITT) for $78 per share in cash. The tender offer is being made pursuant to the Merger Agreement entered into and announced by ADI and Hittite on June 9. Unless extended, the tender offer will expire at midnight at the end of July 21, 2014.

8:02 am Micros Systems being acquired by ORCL (confirming reports) for $68/share in cash (MCRS) : Oracle (ORCL) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MICROS Systems (MCRS), a provider of integrated software and hardware solutions to the Hospitality and Retail industries, for $68.00 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at ~$5.3 bln, or $4.6 billion net of MICROS' cash.

Cloud, mobile, social, big data and the internet of things are impacting every industry, encouraging companies to modernize in order to compete effectively. The addition of MICROS extends Oracle's offerings in industries by combining MICROS' industry specific applications with Oracle's business applications, technologies and cloud portfolio. Together, Oracle and MICROS will help hotels, food & beverage facilities, and retailers to accelerate innovation, transform their businesses, and delight customers with complete, open and integrated solutions.

The Board of Directors of MICROS has unanimously approved the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2014, subject to MICROS stockholders tendering a majority of MICROS' outstanding shares and shares representing vested equity incentive awards in the tender offer, certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Ixia (XXIA 11.22, -0.65): -5.5% after missing earnings estimates and guiding Q1 revenue below analyst expectations.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages posted modest losses on Thursday, but a daylong rebound off the early lows helped the indices retrace the bulk of the decline. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% with six sectors ending in the red.

Stocks did not waste any time this morning, sliding to session lows within the first 30 minutes of action. All ten sectors participated in the early retreat with financials (-0.3%) leading the market lower.

Earlier this week, the financial sector struggled to keep pace with the broader market, but today's intraday losses were large enough to pressure the S&P 500. Citigroup (C 47.23, -0.59) was the weakest performer among the majors, while European financials also struggled. Most notably, Barclays (BCS 14.55, -1.16) fell 7.4% after New York Attorney General announced fraud charges against the company. In addition, news out of the Bank of England related to higher mortgage caps and stricter lending standards may have contributed to the losses.

Like the second-largest sector, the top-weighted technology space (-0.2%) also had a tough time keeping pace with the S&P 500. The tech sector suffered from losses among large cap names like Google (GOOGL 584.77, -1.16) and Microsoft (MSFT 41.72, -0.31), while chipmakers fared only a bit better. The PHLX Semiconductor Index slid 0.4%.

On a side note, GoPro (GPRO 31.34, +7.34) was a bright spot within the sector, soaring 30.6% on its first day as a publically traded company.

Elsewhere, industrials (-0.2%) also lagged amid broad weakness in transport and defense stocks. Notably, the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.2%) narrowed its June gain to 0.6%, but it is worth pointing out the bellwether complex soared more than 5.5% last month.

On the upside, four sectors-consumer discretionary (+0.1%), energy (+0.1%), health care (+0.1%), and utilities (+0.2%)-posted slim gains with the utilities space extending its year-to-date gain to 15.1%.

Treasuries spent the bulk of the trading day in the green, ending just below their highs. The 10-yr note added nine ticks, sending its yield lower by tree basis points to 2.53%.

Participation was well below average with less than 600 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to initial claims and income/spending data for May:

The weekly initial claims level fell to 312,000 from an upwardly revised 314,000 (from 312,000), while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 310,000.
For most of 2014, the initial claims level was bound between 320,000 and 330,000. Over the past few weeks, claims have come down into the 310,000-320,000 range. The current levels should spark an acceleration in payroll growth and show clear improvement in labor market conditions.
Personal income levels increased 0.4% in May following a 0.3% increase in April. The Briefing.com consensus expected personal income to increase 0.4%.
The May employment data showed a 0.4% increase in aggregate wages, which correlated nicely with a 0.4% increase in employee compensation.
Personal spending increased 0.2% in May after no growth in April. The consensus expected spending to increase 0.4%.
Adjusted for inflation, spending declined 0.1% on the heels of a 0.2% decline in real PCE in April. That will not factor all that favorably in the calculation for Q2 GDP.

Tomorrow, the final Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey for June will be released at 9:55 ET (Briefing.com consensus 81.7).

S&P 500 +5.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.4% YTD

DJ30 -21.38 NASDAQ -0.71 SP500 -2.31 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1310/1.45 bln/1585 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1601/578.6 mln/1454 3:30 pm :

Aug gold traded in the red today, falling as low as $1311.40 per ounce in morning pit trade. The yellow metal consolidated near the $1316.00 per ounce level in afternoon action and settled with a 0.4% loss at $1317.00 per ounce.
July silver managed to erase most of its earlier losses as it lifted from its session low of $20.90 per ounce in morning action. It brushed a session high of $21.12 per ounce and closed 0.1% lower at $21.10 per ounce.
Aug crude oil spent its entire session in negative territory, dipping to a session low of$105.01 per barrel. It inched slightly higher in afternoon action and settled with a 0.7% loss at $105.80 per barrel.
Aug natural gas touched a session high of $4.60 per MMBtu in early morning floor trade but sold off sharply following inventory data that showed a build of 110 bcf when a build of 93-102 bcf was anticipated. It traded as low as $4.40 per MMBtu and eventually settled with a 2.8% loss at $4.44 per MMBtu.

4:02 pm Anadigics follow-up (ANAD) : Co announced it is restructuring its business model to lower its operating costs and better align resources to address growth opportunities in rapidly expanding infrastructure markets.

"With a strong infrastructure design-win trajectory, I'm pleased we're able to accelerate our strategy to expand in infrastructure markets, and with that, lower our fixed manufacturing and operating costs," said Ron Michels, chairman and CEO of ANADIGICS. "We believe that these steps, coupled with our previously announced $10 mln cost-savings initiatives, should enable the Co to deliver significant EBITDA improvements and profitability leverage from a lower breakeven revenue level." Since the 1Q14 earnings call, ANADIGICS has made stronger-than-expected progress in infrastructure-targeted activities and experienced a decline in demand for some of the Co's legacy mobile products. In response, the Company is restructuring to expand its presence in the infrastructure space and reduce the fixed costs associated with the legacy mobile business.

ANADIGICS' restructuring initiative enables the Company to implement numerous cost efficiency improvements that we believe should lower cash manufacturing and operating costs by over $15 mln annually. ANADIGICS anticipates that the completion of the restructuring will lower manufacturing costs by ~$5 mln and operating costs by approximately $10 mln. These savings are in addition to the previously announced program targeting $10 mln in annual savings. The workforce reduction will eliminate ~140 positions throughout the Company or ~30%.

The Co anticipates recording a cash workforce restructuring charge of ~$2.3 mln and a non-cash charge of ~$5 mln for fixed asset and inventory write downs. The proceeds from equipment sales are expected to substantially offset the cash costs of the restructuring.

ANADIGICS anticipates revenues for the quarter ending June 28, 2014 will be ~$23 mln with infrastructure contributing a larger percentage of revenue than in the prior quarter. ANADIGICS expects a sequential improvement in non-GAAP gross margin and expects lower non-GAAP operating costs attributable to the previously announced expense reduction program. With these factors considered, ANADIGICS anticipates it will report a non-GAAP loss per share of ~$0.10.

4:01 pm Anadigics lowers Q2 revenue guidance; announces restructuring (ANAD) :

12:43 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MPEL (35.55 +4.84%): According to reports, Macau has banned jewelry makers from adding more card devices to casinos, but did not ask them to leave (WYNN, MGM, LVS also higher).
TWTR (40.98 +3.85%): Initiated with an Overweight at Barclays; $46 tgt.
SLB (116.35 +2.2%): Tgt raised to $127 from $117 at Cowen; tgt raised to $140 from $120 at UBS; tgt raised to $135 from $119 at Jefferies; tgt raised to $130 from $120 at Howard Weil; tgt raised to $129 from $125 at RBC Capital Mkts.

Large Cap Losers BBBY (55.95 -8.44%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; guided Q2 EPS below consensus; tgt lowered to $60 from $68 at Telsey Advisory Group; tgt lowered to $80 from $83 at Raymond James; tgt lowered to $58 from $66 at Wedbush; tgt lowered to $72 from $77 at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey.BCS (14.79 -5.86%): NY Attorney General confirmed fraud charges against Barclays in connection with marketing and operation of its dark pool. DB (35.41 -2.93%): Confirmed successful completion of capital increase; gross proceeds of ~ EUR 8.5 bln.

Mid Cap Gainers IRM (35.47 +19.13%): Co reported that the co is electing REIT Status effective Jan 1, 2014; reported favorable private letter rulings received from IRS; co expects its full-year 2014 annual distribution as a REIT to be $400 to $420 mln.
NBR (29.27 +7.23%): Confirmed agreement to combine its completion and production services business with C&J Energy Services (CJES) in transaction valued at $2.86 bln; upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Guggenheim.
YOKU (22.85 +3.91%): Strength attributed to renewed chatter that BIDU and Alibaba are interested in the co.

Mid Cap Losers SCS (15.24 -13.7%): Missed on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.FUL (47.18 -6.11%): Reported EPS in-line, revs in-line; lowered FY14 EPS below consensus; signed agreement to acquire 95% of the equity of Tonsan for RMB 1.4 bln.TRQ (3.26 -4.43%): Co confirmed notice of dispute filed with the Government of Mongolia.

12:00 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (91) outpacing new lows (29) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AES, AET, AGX, ASBB, ATI, ATO, AUO, AVA, BANF, BITA, BKS, BLJ, BMO, CDW, CJES, CMP, CNI, CNK, CNW, CVTI, DRII, EDE, ENV, EPD, EQS, ETE, FISH, FTNT, GLOG, GPI, HCLP, HF, HHC, IHG, IRM, IRWD, ITT, JBLU, JNJ, LG, LPL, MARK, MEI, MEMP, MINI, MITSY, MMYT, MPLX, MSL, NBR, NOV, NSIT, NWE, OKS, OMER, PAC, PBA, PBIP, PES, PSXP, PTIE, PTR, PTX, RGEN, RGP, RSG, SDPI, SIMO, SIX, SLB, SLF, SONC, SPB, SQBG, SSBI, TEDU, TEO, TFSL, TK, TNC, UCBA, VNR, WCN, WES, WR, WRES, WY, XRS, YUM, ZOES

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ALCS, AVD, BBBY, BBGI, BCS, BEBE, CBPX, CPAC, CPSL, DB, EDMC, FLL, FREE, GMAN, GNC, GRVY, HDNG, ISNS, KELYA, LDR, MGT, MOBL, NWY, PULS, RDEN, SGNL, SPLS, TECU, TLYS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: OIH, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXZ

Ingram Micro (IM) said it was on-track to meet or exceed its 2015 financial targets and also set 2016 financial targets for the first time, which included: Consolidated revenue expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 4% to 6% through 2016; Non-GAAP operating margins expectations of 175 to 200 basis points of revenue in 2016; Operating cash flow generation of $1.0 to $1.2 billion between 2014 to 2016; and $3.40 to $3.70 in non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in 2016. Returns on invested capital are targeted to be 300 basis points above the company's weighted average. 2015 Financials Targets. Expects to exceed prior guidance of Revenues 4-6% CAGR. Expects to exceed prior guidance of 5.40-5.60%. Operating margin remains in the range of 155-175 bps. EPRS guidance to be at the nigh end of the $2.60-3.10 range, Capital IQ consensus $3.00.

Cisco Systems (CSCO) disclosed that on June 20, 2014, Frank A. Calderoni, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, adopted a pre-arranged stock trading plan to exercise up to 200,000 Cisco stock options originally granted in 2006 and set to expire in September of 2015, and sell the acquired shares of Cisco stock. The plan is scheduled to terminate in September 2015.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 27-Jun-14

Dow +5.71 at 16851.84, Nasdaq +18.88 at 4397.93, S&P +3.75 at 1960.97

The major averages ended the Friday session on a higher note thanks to a final-hour rally that sent the indices to session highs. The S&P 500 added 0.2%, narrowing its weekly loss to 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite settled higher by 0.4% to bring its weekly advance to 0.7%.

In general, equity indices respected narrow ranges until the last hour of action with the S&P 500 confined to a five-point range. The subdued activity was also reflected by below-average intraday trading volume, which received a big boost at the close from rebalancing of the Russell indices. Thanks to the final surge, almost 1.5 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Only three sectors-energy, health care, and materials-ended in the red with materials (-0.4%) registering the largest decline. The smallest cyclical sector by weight (just 3.5% of the S&P 500) slumped out of the gate amid noteworthy weakness in the shares of DuPont (DD 65.44, -2.26). The Dow component tumbled 3.3% after lowering its Q1 and full-year guidance. Steelmakers also weighed with Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 47.44, -0.35) sliding 0.7%.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector-energy (-0.1%)-also pressured the broader market, but erased the bulk of its loss in the late afternoon to end the week higher by 4.9%. For its part, crude oil settled little changed at $105.76/bbl.

Also of note, the health care sector (-0.2%) lagged throughout the session amid weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 256.73, +0.35) was down as much as 0.9% intraday, but settled on its high.

The underperformance of the biotech space did not stop the Nasdaq from outpacing the benchmark index. Large cap components contributed to the outperformance with Apple (AAPL 91.98, +1.08) and Microsoft (MSFT 42.25, +0.53) advancing close to 1.2% apiece. High-beta chipmakers struggled to keep up as the PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.2%.

In addition to technology, three other influential sectors-consumer discretionary (+0.3%), financials (+0.2%), and industrials (+0.3%)-contributed to the afternoon spike to highs. Apparel retailers underpinned the discretionary space after Finish Line (FINL 29.56, +0.41) and Nike (NKE 77.68, +0.82) reported better than expected results.

Treasuries ended little changed with the 10-yr yield at 2.53%.

Economic data was limited to the Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey for June, which increased to 82.5 in its final reading for June. That was up from a preliminary report of 81.2 and up from 81.9 in May. The Briefing.com consensus expected the Index to increase to 81.7. The preliminary June report initially showed a decline in confidence. That didn't jive with the big improvements in equity prices and employment conditions. However, the final reading brought the Consumer Sentiment Index in-line with the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, which increased to 85.2 in June from 82.2 in May.

On Monday, the Chicago PMI report for June (Briefing.com consensus 61.0) will be released at 9:45 ET and the Pending Home Sales report for May (consensus +1.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Range-Bound Ahead of Quarter End

The major averages started the week on a quiet note with the S&P 500 shedding less than a point. To be fair, the slight downtick was a function of some profit taking after the benchmark index registered six consecutive gains. Equity indices started the day in the red and maintained narrow ranges throughout the session. The S&P 500 tried to regain its flat line shortly after the open, but could not do so as three influential sectors weighed. Specifically, consumer staples (-0.6%), health care (-0.3%), and industrials (-0.6%) slumped out of the gate and pressured the market throughout the session. Industrials finished the trading day at the bottom of the leaderboard due to broad weakness among transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 0.5% with 17 of 20 components ending in the red. Despite the loss, the Transportation Average remained higher by 7.8% for the quarter.

The stock market ended the Tuesday session on a lower note despite seeing early strength. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 posted respective losses of 0.7% and 0.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite shed 0.4%. Equity indices displayed modest losses at the start, but were quick to regain their flat lines after a pair of economic data points surprised to the upside. Briefly, the New Home Sales report for May came in well ahead of estimates (504K versus Briefing.com consensus 440K), while the Consumer Confidence report (85.2) registered its highest reading since early 2008. The economic news gave a boost to the consumer discretionary sector (-0.2%) and especially homebuilders. DR Horton (DHI) and Toll Brothers (TOL) both jumped 1.2%, while the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB) advanced 0.9%. For its part, the discretionary sector fell into the red during the afternoon when the overall market reversed and surrendered its gain.

On Wednesday, stocks advanced as participants looked past a pair of disappointing economic reports. The S&P 500 rose 0.5% with nine sectors ending higher, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) outperformed. Prior to the open, the S&P 500 appeared to be on track for its third consecutive decline after first quarter GDP was revised down to -2.9% from -1.0% (Briefing.com consensus -1.8%). In addition, a more recent report-May Durable Orders-also surprised to the downside. Despite starting on a lower note, the major averages were able to rebound swiftly with the move likely supported by some short covering.

Equity indices posted modest losses on Thursday, but a daylong rebound off the early lows helped the indices retrace the bulk of the decline. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% with six sectors ending in the red. Stocks did not waste any time this morning, sliding to session lows within the first 30 minutes of action. All ten sectors participated in the early retreat with financials (-0.3%) leading the market lower. Earlier in the week, the financial sector struggled to keep pace with the broader market, but Thursday's opening loss was large enough to pressure the S&P 500. Citigroup (C) was the weakest performer among the majors, while European financials also struggled. Most notably, Barclays (BCS) fell 7.4% after New York Attorney General announced fraud charges against the company.

 
 Index	    Started Week  Ended Week  Change  % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	      16947.08    16851.84   -95.24     -0.6     1.7 
 Nasdaq	       4368.04     4397.93    29.89      0.7     5.3 
 S&P 500	1962.87     1960.96    -1.91     -0.1     6.1 
 Russell 2000   1188.42     1189.50     1.08      0.1     2.2 
 

4:02 pm Anadigics follow-up (ANAD) : Co announced it is restructuring its business model to lower its operating costs and better align resources to address growth opportunities in rapidly expanding infrastructure markets.

"With a strong infrastructure design-win trajectory, I'm pleased we're able to accelerate our strategy to expand in infrastructure markets, and with that, lower our fixed manufacturing and operating costs," said Ron Michels, chairman and CEO of ANADIGICS. "We believe that these steps, coupled with our previously announced $10 mln cost-savings initiatives, should enable the Co to deliver significant EBITDA improvements and profitability leverage from a lower breakeven revenue level." Since the 1Q14 earnings call, ANADIGICS has made stronger-than-expected progress in infrastructure-targeted activities and experienced a decline in demand for some of the Co's legacy mobile products. In response, the Company is restructuring to expand its presence in the infrastructure space and reduce the fixed costs associated with the legacy mobile business.

ANADIGICS' restructuring initiative enables the Company to implement numerous cost efficiency improvements that we believe should lower cash manufacturing and operating costs by over $15 mln annually. ANADIGICS anticipates that the completion of the restructuring will lower manufacturing costs by ~$5 mln and operating costs by approximately $10 mln. These savings are in addition to the previously announced program targeting $10 mln in annual savings. The workforce reduction will eliminate ~140 positions throughout the Company or ~30%.

The Co anticipates recording a cash workforce restructuring charge of ~$2.3 mln and a non-cash charge of ~$5 mln for fixed asset and inventory write downs. The proceeds from equipment sales are expected to substantially offset the cash costs of the restructuring.

ANADIGICS anticipates revenues for the quarter ending June 28, 2014 will be ~$23 mln with infrastructure contributing a larger percentage of revenue than in the prior quarter. ANADIGICS expects a sequential improvement in non-GAAP gross margin and expects lower non-GAAP operating costs attributable to the previously announced expense reduction program. With these factors considered, ANADIGICS anticipates it will report a non-GAAP loss per share of ~$0.10.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market finished the second quarter on a subdued note with the major averages ending near their flat lines. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) outperformed throughout the session, while the S&P 500 (-0.04%) surrendered its slim gain into the close. For the quarter, the S&P 500 jumped 4.7%, while the Nasdaq advanced 5.0%.

Equity indices displayed losses at the start, but the Nasdaq and S&P 500 returned into the green after a better than expected Pending Home Sales report for June (6.1% versus 1.5% Briefing.com consensus) crossed the wires. Despite the early rebound, the S&P 500 ran into resistance in the 1964 area, which served as the high point for the day. Unlike the Nasdaq and S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) could not make a sustained move into the green.

Five of ten sectors posted gains with this year's leader-utilities-setting the pace. The countercyclical sector advanced 0.8%, extending its year-to-date gain to 16.4%. Unlike utilities, the remaining defensively-oriented groups ended in the red with consumer staples, health care, and telecom services down 0.04%, 0.4%, and 0.4%, respectively.

Meanwhile, the six cyclical groups also ended on a mixed note. Consumer discretionary (-0.1%), energy (unch), financials (unch), and industrials (-0.4%) lagged, while technology (+0.2%) and materials (+0.5%) held gains throughout the day.

Notably, the technology sector fueled the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite with chipmakers ending on their highs. Micron (MU 32.95, +1.44) surged 4.6% after being added to the Focus List at Credit Suisse, while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 1.1% to secure a quarterly advance of 8.4%. In addition, the top-weighted tech component-Apple (AAPL 92.93, +0.95)-also did some grunt work, rallying 1.0%.

Elsewhere, the materials sector was underpinned by miners and steelmakers. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 47.72, +0.28) added 0.6%, while Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 26.45, +0.47) spiked 1.8%.

On the downside, industrials could not climb into the green amid weakness in defense contractors (PHLX Defense Index -0.5%). Transports, however, displayed relative strength. The Dow Jones Transportation Average tacked on 0.3% to secure a quarterly advance of 8.3%.

Treasuries retreated in the morning, but the brief slip was retraced in its entirety over the course of the session. The 10-yr note added five ticks with its yield slipping two basis points to 2.52%.

Despite the narrow ranges, participation was solidly above average with nearly 800 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to Chicago PMI for June and May Pending Home Sales:


Manufacturing activity decelerated in the Chicago region as the Chicago PMI fell to 62.6 in June from 65.5 in May. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to fall to 61.0
The Chicago PMI has exceeded 60.0 for three consecutive months
Production strengthened in June as the related index increased to 70.1 from 64.4 on strong levels of backlogs
New orders growth faded in June as the related index fell to 65.1 from 70.2
Backlog levels dropped to 55.4 from 61.4
The Employment Index increased to 58.4 from 54.6
Pending home sales for May rose 6.1%, which was better than the 1.5% increase forecast by the Briefing.com consensus
The reading followed last month's revised increase of 0.5% (from 0.4%)

Tomorrow, the ISM Index for June (Briefing.com consensus 55.8) and May Construction Spending (consensus 0.4%) will be reported at 10:00 ET, while auto and truck makers will be reporting their June sales throughout the day.

S&P 500 +6.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.6% YTD

DJ30 -25.24 NASDAQ +10.25 SP500 -0.73 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1546/1.70 bln/1193 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1837/776.3 mln/1216 3:35 pm :

Grains including corn, soybeans and wheat sold off today following the USDA annual acreage report and quarterly grain stocks report results
July corn fell 25 cents (or -5.7%) to $4.17/bushel, July wheat fell 17 cents (or -2.9%) to $5.76/bushel, July soybeans fell 49 cents (or -3.6%) to $13.28/bushel
Crude oil futures extended losses last week, closing $0.43 today to $105.37/barrel
Gold and silver slowly climbed higher off of morning lows.
Aug gold ended the session $2.30 higher at $1322.30/oz. July silver fell $0.11 at $21.03/oz, but erased most losses
Natural gas rallied this morning and finished 3 cents higher at $4.47/MMBtu
Copper rallied this morning during pit trading, rising as high as $3.21/lb. Copper ended at $3.20, up $0.03.

4:31 pm Rudolph Tech announces ruling in litigation with ITC: Supreme Court denies Write of Certiorari (:RTEC) : Co announced a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the patent infringement lawsuit brought by Integrated Technology Corporation (:ITC). The Supreme Court denied Rudolph's petition for writ of certiorari in Integrated Technology Corporation et al. v. Rudolph Technologies, Inc., in which Rudolph appealed the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirming a jury's award of $7.68 million for the infringement of ITC's patent by probe card test and analysis products sold prior to Rudolph's acquisition of the relevant product lines. In addition to the $4.3 million accrued by the Company for this litigation, Rudolph will pay ITC an additional $6.3 million to satisfy the judgment and related interest charges. While attorney fees in the amount of an additional $3.25 million continue to be contested, Rudolph has reserved for the full amount.

"We are disappointed with this ruling, but are reconciled to the result. With this decision, Rudolph looks toward moving forward once this litigation is fully resolved," said Robert Koch, Rudolph's vice president and general counsel.

4:06 pm Universal Display announces expanded evaluation agreement with BOE Technology Group (:OLED) : Co announces an expanded evaluation agreement with BOE Technology. Under this agreement, Universal Display will broaden its collaboration with BOE and supply additional highly efficient phosphorescent OLED (:PHOLED) materials for display applications. With recent demonstrations of OLED TVs by major manufacturers and its growing usage in mobile devices, by 2020, according to NPD DisplaySearch, OLED shipments are expected to reach 540 million units as OLED revenues hit $26.9 billion.

4:06 pm Ingram Micro acquires Rollouts -- terms not disclosed (:IM) : Co announced an acquisition transaction with Rollouts, a Chaska, Minnesota based IT services co specializing in providing on-demand field technicians and rapidly-deployable workforces to businesses and IT solution providers throughout the United States and Canada. As an integral part of Ingram Micro Professional Services, Rollouts will build upon its specialization within key vertical markets including retail, healthcare, finance, education and the public sector, to empower Ingram Micro channel partners with the technical expertise and field-deployable resources needed to realize the promise of technology.

12:07 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

NTAP (36.97 +4.20%): Mentioned positively at Barron's; initiated with a Buy at Standpoint ResearchILMN (179.47 +3.92%): Co announced that it has entered into separate agreements with Biomnis, Genoma, and the Center for Human Genetics and Laboratory Diagnostics Martinsried, under which they will use the HiSeq 2500 and consumables from Illumina to develop and perform non-invasive prenatal testingMU (32.7 +3.78%): Added to Focuse List at Credit Suisse

Large Cap Losers AGN (170.23 -2.14%): Received a Complete Response Letter from the FDA for SEMPRANA (dihydroergotamine) for the treatment of migraine in adults; co also received FDA approval of OZURDEX as a new treatment option for diabetic macular edema in adult patients who have an artificial lens implant (pseudophakic) or who are scheduled for cataract surgeryCTXS (63.1 -1.72%): Mentioned cautiously at OTR GlobalBCS (14.59 -1.69%): Mentioned cautiously in blog article; continued weakness following the filing of fraud charges by the New York Attorney General

Mid Cap Gainers

MNKD (11.07 +10.67%): Strength following late Friday announcement of approval of AFREZZA for the treatment of diabetes; target raised to $15 from $12 at Brinson Patrick
PANW (84.6 +4.17%): Target raised to $105 from $90 at Morgan Stanley
CTRP (63.14 +3.88%): Target raised to $74 from $58 at Deutsche Bank

Mid Cap Losers

MBI (10.91 -5.00%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BTIG Research
RMD (50.71 -3.34%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article
SUNE (22.55 -1.38%): Co announced the closing of a $155 mln non-recourse debt financing arrangement with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank, and CorpBanca

12:03 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (185) outpacing new lows (13) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAN, AAP, ABG, AEP, AES, AET, AGN, AGX, AKRX, AMP, AOSL, ASH, ATI, ATO, ATRI, AUO, AVA, AWH, AXAS, BBNK, BITA, BK, BLL, BLX, BMO, BPOP, CALM, CHTR, CI, CLR, CMS, CNI, CNK, CNL, CNP, CNQ, CNSL, CNW, CSCD, CSX, CTRP, CVCO, CVCY, CVE, CYT, DAN, DIS, DRTX, DVA, DVN, EDAP, EDE, EE, EEQ, ENVE, EPD, EPE, ERF, ETR, EXAC, FFNM, FNV, FOLD, FTNT, FWRD, GCI, GPI, GPRE, GRH, GWPH, HAL, HBI, HCLP, HK, HNH, HNP, HT, HUM, IBA, IDTI, IHG, IIN, INT, INTC, IRWD, JBLU, JNJ, JONE, KLAC, KO, LABL, LAD, LLY, LNBB, LNG, LNT, LOAN, LPL, LRCX, LUX, MAR, MDCI, MMYT, MNKD, MSL, MTDR, MTN, MWV, NAVI, NFX, NJR, NOV, NSH, NSIT, NTCT, NWE, NWN, PAG, PANW, PATK, PEB, PGH, PJC, POR, PPG, PPL, PPS, PQ, QEP, QEPM, REIS, RGEN, RGP, RH, RLJ, RPM, RRMS, RY, SHLM, SIMO, SJR, SLB, SLCA, SLF, SOHO, SPB, SPCB, SRT, ST, STKL, SUNE, SUPN, SUSS, TARO, TAX, TD, TE, TEG, TGP, THS, TRCB, TRIP, TROW, TRP, TRW, TTEC, TTWO, TWX, UDR, UGI, VAC, VC, VIPS, VNR, VVC, WBKC, WCN, WGP, WLDN, WR, WRB, WRES, WSM, WY, Z

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: BEBE, BKJ, CGA, DGSE, GRVY, KIRK, MGT, NAUH, NEWL, PARN, RDEN, SODA, TWGP

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: COW, EWC, EWT, FXB, IWF, IYH, NIB, OIH, PFF, PPH, QQQ, XLU

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ

11:36 am Semiconductor Hldrs ETF sets new high of 49.52 just under last week's multi-year peak at 49.53 (:SMH) : Noted relative strength in the sector earlier with leadership in the group coming from: MU +3.9%, KLAC +2.3%, AMKR +2.1%, AMAT +1.1%, AMD +1%, SNDK +1%, LRCX +1%, NVDA +0.9%, XLNX +0.9%, LSCC +0.8^, ASML +0.8%.

8:03 am GT Advanced Tech. announces realignment of manufacturing, engineering and supply chain resources (:GTAT) :

In connection with these steps, co expects to recognize cash charges of approximately $1.8 mln and non-cash charges of approximately $11.6 mln over its second and third quarters.
Total one-time charges are expected to include approximately $4.5 mln related to asset impairments, $4.3 mln in facilities-related charges, $2.8 mln related to inventory and $1.8 mln for severance costs in connection with the elimination of approximately 70 positions. These charges, which will be reflected in the company's GAAP results, are not expected to impact the company's non-GAAP financial results.7:01 am Canadian Solar announces 12.6 MW Solar Module supply agreement in Turkey (:CSIQ) : Co announced that it has recently signed a sales contract to supply 12.6MW of photovoltaic ("PV") modules to Kayseri Organized Industry Zone (:KOIZ) and a consortium of companies in KOIZ, (BESLER Tekstil San. ve Tic. A.S and HASCELIK Group of companies- Hascelik Cable, Coreal Cable and Metal Matris) for a solar power project located in Kayseri, Turkey.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market kicked off July on a strong note with small caps pacing the rally. The Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 jumped 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.7% with nine sectors ending in the green.

Equities displayed early strength after economic data reported overnight and in the early morning indicated expanding manufacturing activity in China, Japan, the eurozone, and the U.S. Although some of the PMI readings missed estimates, they were all above 50, a level that represents the border between expansion and contraction. The data fostered the bullish tone, which was amplified by the arrival of new money at the start of the quarter.

In large part, today's advance was powered by four of the most influential sectors. Consumer discretionary (+1.1%), health care (+1.3%), financials (+0.6%), and technology (+1.1%) jumped to the top of the leaderboard at the open and held their ground throughout the session.

The health care sector was the top performer thanks in part to the relative strength of biotechnology. Regeneron (REGN 303.39, +20.92) surged 7.4%, while the broader iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 263.12, +6.09) advanced 2.4%. Furthermore, the outperformance of biotech boosted the Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%), which also drew strength from the technology sector.

Top-weighted tech components like Apple (AAPL 93.52, +0.59), Google (GOOGL 591.49, +6.82), and Qualcomm (QCOM 79.73, +0.53) rallied across the board, while chipmakers fared even better. The PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 1.4% with all 30 components posting gains.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector stayed near the lead amid broad strength. Shares of Netflix (NFLX 473.10, +32.50) soared 7.4% in reaction to a Goldman Sachs upgrade, while home builders and retailers also charged ahead. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 25.09, +0.29) added 1.2% and SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 87.47, +0.67) settled higher by 0.8%.

On the downside, the utilities sector (-1.0%) was the lone decliner amid some profit taking after the sector added 4.2% in June. Even though the rate-sensitive sector started the third quarter on a lower note, its year-to-date gain (15.3%) after today's slide was still large enough to keep the sector at the top of the 2014 leaderboard.

Treasuries spent the duration of the session in a steady retreat with the 10-yr note shedding nine ticks. As a result, the benchmark yield rose three basis points to 2.56%.

Participation remained on the light side with less than 675 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to May Construction Spending and June ISM:


Construction spending increased 0.1% in May following an upwardly revised 0.8% (from 0.2%) gain in April. The Briefing.com consensus expected construction spending to increase 0.4%
Private construction spending fell 0.3% in May, giving back nearly all of the 0.3% increase from April
Total public construction spending increased 1.0% in May after increasing 2.1%
The ISM Manufacturing Index fell slightly to 55.3 in June from 55.4, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the Index to increase to 55.8
Considering that nearly all of the regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys showed an acceleration in manufacturing activity in June, the deceleration registered in the national ISM Index was disappointing and confusing
New orders managed to increase to 58.9 from 56.9
Order backlogs contracted, falling to 48.0 from 52.5
Production Index fell to 60.0 from 61.0

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while Challenger Job Cuts for June will be announced at 7:30 ET. ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 200K) for June will be announced at 8:15 ET, while May Factory Orders (consensus -0.4%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +6.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.7% YTD

DJ30 +129.47 NASDAQ +50.47 SP500 +13.09 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2146/1.79 bln/728 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2076/671.2 mln/1007 3:35 pm :

Grains extended losses today, largely driven by yesterday's USDA reports (annual acreage report and quarterly grain stocks report)
Sept corn fell 2 cents to $4.15/bu, Sept wheat fell 4 cents to $5.72/bu
Crude oil sold off in afternoon trading, erasing all of its gains and closing one cent lower at $105.36/barrel
Aug natural gas lost one cent and finished at $4.46/MMbtu
Gold and silver held gains. Aug gold rose $3.30 to $1325.60/oz, while July silver rose $0.08 to $21.11/oz
July copper ended flat at $3.20/lb

4:04 pm CalAmp beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (:CAMP) : Reports Q1 (May) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.18; revenues rose 9.9% year/year to $59 mln vs the $58.04 mln consensus.


Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.17-0.21, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $57-61 mn vs. $62.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate"We anticipate Wireless Datacom revenue in Q2 will be higher on both a sequential quarter and year-over-year basis due primarily to the resumption of shipments to our key OEM customer in the solar power industry and healthy customer demand for our products and services within most of our core verticals, offset by a sharp decline in Positive Train Control revenues and only modest contribution from MRM product sales in Latin America.""Satellite revenue in the second quarter is expected to be down on a sequential quarter basis to the lower end of its normal quarterly operating range."3:02 pm Qualcomm: Sonics entered into a patent non-assert agreement with Qualcomm (:QCOM) : This follows the dismissal by Arteris of its claims that Sonics directly and indirectly infringes the patents, which are now owned by Qualcomm. All remaining claims in the case involving these patents have been dismissed pursuant to a joint motion by Qualcomm and Sonics. Given that Arteris has sold all of its patents to Qualcomm, Sonics believes this provides some additional protection from future claims by Qualcomm and Arteris.

12:21 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

REGN (300.57 +6.41%): Mentioned positively at RBC Capital Markets
NFLX (467.01 +5.99%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at GoldmanTWTR (42.8 +4.47%): Acquired TapCommerce for $100 mln; appointed Anthony Noto as CFO to replace Mike Gupta; mentioned positively at Pacific Crest

Large Cap Losers TKC (15.07 -3.40%): Hearing downgraded at UBSNEM (24.99 -1.77%): Announced the filing of international arbitration against the Government of Indonesia to seek relief from export restrictions that have halted production at the Batu Hijau mine and inflicted economic hardshipMNST (70.11 -1.30%): Hearing mentioned cautiously at Longbow following June energy drink survey

Mid Cap Gainers GPRO (48.45 +19.48%): Continued strength following IPODDD (67.42 +12.73%): Strength in 3D printing companies: SSYS, VJET, XONE, PRLB also higher; also seeing rumors that co has cancelled out of a conference, but unable to confirmSLXP (137.67 +11.61%): Announced the successful outcome of TARGET 3 - a Phase 3 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of repeat treatment with rifaximin for 14 days in subjects with irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea, or IBS-D, who respond to an initial treatment course with rifaximin for 14 days

Mid Cap Losers
GEVA (89.93 -14.18%): Reported top-line results from Phase 3 study of sebelipase alfa in children and adults with LAL Deficiency; data mostly positive, however, improvement in hepatic steatosis did not reach statistical significance
AYI (122.71 -11.24%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.13 ($1.00 vs $1.13 estimate), revs rose 11.5% yoy to $603.9 mln vs $609.52 mln estimate; target lowered to $123 from $135 at Northland CapitalMNKD (10.47 -4.47%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at MLV & Co, target $11

11:46 am Today's biggest point gainers/losers (:SCANX) : Biggest point gainers: NFLX (465.03 +24.43),REGN (301.24 +18.77),ICPT (253.99 +17.36),SLXP (137.39 +14.04),BIIB (324.36 +9.05),COO (143.46 +7.93),PRLB (89.78 +7.86),GPRO (48.30 +7.75),SSYS (119.53 +5.90),XONE (45.19 +5.57),ANET (67.95 +5.56),AMZN (330.07 +5.29),IBB (262.24 +5.21),GOOG (580.40 +5.12),VIPS (192.69 +4.95),GOOGL (589.48 +4.81),ALXN (160.98 +4.73),IBM (185.92 +4.65),DDD (64.28 +4.48),VJET (24.42 +3.48),ACT (226.48 +3.43),V (214.13 +3.42),DEO (130.38 +3.11),BIDU (189.87 +3.06),MCK (189.23 +3.02)

Biggest point losers: AYI (122.75 -15.50),GEVA (91.11 -13.69),STAA (13.46 -3.34),SHPG (232.82 -2.67),FNGN (43.26 -2.02),WGP (60.92 -1.78),GNRC (47.01 -1.73),CXO (142.87 -1.63),PANW (82.48 -1.37),MEI (36.85 -1.36),SQQQ (41.77 -1.34),NSM (34.97 -1.34),FNFV (16.19 -1.32),FSLR (69.82 -1.24),WUBA (52.83 -1.23),RRC (85.74 -1.21),XEC (142.33 -1.13),AGU (90.52 -1.11),MNST (70.03 -1.00),SIG (109.63 -0.96),HCLP (64.64 -0.92),Z (142.03 -0.90),NRG (36.32 -0.89),AGCO (55.35 -0.87),NEE (101.62 -0.86)

11:42 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New highs (100) outpacing new lows (0) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AEM, ALSN, AMP, ATI, ATVI, AVGO, AXP, BHI, BIDU, BIG, BK, CAR, CBG, CDNS, CELG, CFN, CHK, CHRW, CHTR, CI, CNQ, CTRP, CUZ, CXO, DAN, DFS, DHI, DIS, DISH, DRE, EPD, ETP, ETR, FDX, FL, FLEX, GCI, GILD, GLNG, GMCR, GPRO, GTAT, GWPH, HAL, HES, HK, HP, HSH, IDIX, IDTI, INTC, IP, IVZ, JD, KING, KLAC, LNG, LRCX, LYV, MAR, MCHP, MJN, MRO, MTDR, MU, NBR, NFLX, NFX, NLSN, NOV, NVS, NXPI, OKE, PAAS, PDS, PNC, PPC, PTEN, QEP, RSG, SCI, SE, SLB, SLCA, SLXP, SNDK, STZ, SYNA, TEL, TIF, TROW, TSM, TTWO, TWC, TWX, UDR, UMC, VIPS, WDC, XEC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: MDY, OEF, OIH, PPH, QAI, QQQ, SMH, SOXX, SPY, UYG, VTI, XES, XLF, XLK, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SMN, VXX, VXZ

10:17 am GT Advanced Tech. (+5%) breaks out to new all time highs (:GTAT) : GTAT serves the solar and LED end markets and perhaps more importantly signed a sapphire supply agreement with AAPL.

~35% of the float was recently quoted as sold Short.

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From Briefing.com: 1:15 pm : The stock market finished the abbreviated trading week on an upbeat note thanks to a boost from a June jobs report that surpassed expectations. The S&P 500 advanced 0.6% with nine sectors posting gains. As a result, the benchmark index extended its weekly gain to 1.3%.

Today's upbeat tone was set early with the June Nonfarm Payrolls report pointing to the addition of 288,000 jobs (Briefing.com consensus 210,000). In addition, the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to 6.1%.

Appropriately, the strong report gave a boost to cyclical sectors, while their countercyclical counterparts struggled a bit in the early going.

Consumer discretionary (+0.8%), financials (+0.8%), and industrials (+0.8%) paced the advance throughout the session and ended ahead of the remaining sectors. The discretionary space owed its outperformance to retailers as the group rallied broadly with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 88.65, +1.15) climbing 1.3%. Homebuilders also posted gains, but the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.94, +0.10), which added 0.4%, could not keep pace with the sector.

Elsewhere, industrials received support from transport stocks. All 30 components of the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.8%) finished in the green with airlines posting solid gains to follow yesterday's relative weakness. United Continental (UAL 39.88, +0.61) led the pack, climbing 1.6%.

Also of note, the financial sector padded its weekly advance to 1.3%.

On the countercyclical side, health care (+0.4%) and telecom services (+0.3%) displayed intraday losses, but returned into the green ahead of the close. The consumer staples sector (+0.6%), however, outperformed due to strength in tobacco names. Lorillard (LO 64.41, +3.26) jumped 5.3% in reaction to reports the company's merger with Reynolds American (RAI 61.56, +1.40) is on track to be announced within weeks.

Lastly, the utilities sector (-1.1%) displayed relative weakness for the third day in a row, ending the week lower by 3.2% as profit-taking continued.

Treasuries slumped in reaction to today's data, but spent the remainder of the session in a climb. The benchmark 10-yr yield inched up two basis points to 2.65%.

Economic data included June Nonfarm Payrolls, weekly initial claims, June Challenger Job Cuts, May Trade Balance, and the ISM Services report for June:


Nonfarm payrolls added 288,000 jobs in June after adding an upwardly revised 224,000 (from 217,000). The Briefing.com consensus expected nonfarm payrolls to increase by 210,000
Private payrolls were up 262,000 jobs in June after adding 224,000 jobs in May. That outpaced the consensus expectations of a 213,000 increase
The unemployment rate fell to 6.1% from 6.3%, while the consensus expected no change from 6.3%
The decline resulted from workers finding jobs (+407,000) rather than a drop in the labor force
Average hourly earnings increased 0.2% and hourly workweek was unchanged at 34.5 hours, as expected
The weekly initial claims level increased to 315,000 from an upwardly revised 313,000 (from 312,000). The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to increase to 315,000
Over the past few weeks, the initial claims level has settled into a range of 310,000 to 320,000 and this week's claims were no different
The Challenger Job Cuts report for June pointed to a 20.0% year-over-year decline
The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in May to $44.40 billion from a downwardly revised $47.00 billion (from $47.20 billion) in April. The Briefing.com consensus expected the trade deficit to fall to $45.2 bln
Total goods deficit fell to $63.30 billion in May from $65.70 billion in April. The services surplus increased to $18.90 billion from $18.60 billion
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index fell to 56.0 in June from 56.3 in May. The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 56.5
Business activities softened as the related index declined to 57.5 in June from 62.1 in May as non-manufacturing businesses worked down their backlogs
The Backlog of Orders Index fell to 53.0 from 54.0

There is no economic data on Monday's schedule.

S&P 500 +7.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.7% YTD

Week in Review: Stocks Rally into Q3

The stock market finished the second quarter on a subdued note with the major averages ending near their flat lines. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) outperformed throughout the session, while the S&P 500 (-0.04%) surrendered its slim gain into the close. For the quarter, the S&P 500 jumped 4.7%, while the Nasdaq advanced 5.0%. Equity indices displayed losses at the start, but the Nasdaq and S&P 500 returned into the green after a better than expected Pending Home Sales report for June (6.1% versus 1.5% Briefing.com consensus) crossed the wires. Despite the early rebound, the S&P 500 ran into resistance in the 1964 area, which served as the high point for the day. Unlike the Nasdaq and S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) could not make a sustained move into the green.

Equities kicked off July and Q3 on a strong note with small caps pacing the rally. The Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 jumped 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.7% with nine sectors ending in the green. Stocks displayed early strength after economic data reported overnight and in the early morning indicated expanding manufacturing activity in China, Japan, the eurozone, and the U.S. Although some of the PMI readings missed estimates, they were all above 50, a level that represents the border between expansion and contraction. The data fostered the bullish tone, which was amplified by the arrival of new money at the start of the quarter. In large part, the advance was powered by four of the most influential sectors. Consumer discretionary (+1.1%), health care (+1.3%), financials (+0.6%), and technology (+1.1%) all jumped to the top of the leaderboard at the open and held their ground throughout the session.

The market spent the Wednesday session in a narrow range, which resulted in the S&P 500 posting a slim gain of less than two points (+0.1%) with six sectors ending in the green. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) outperformed slightly, while the Russell 2000 (-0.4%) lagged. The major averages climbed out of the gate, but the early strength was short-lived as only a handful of sectors were able to distance themselves from their flat lines. The lack of concerted sector leadership caused the key indices to return to their flat lines, where they remained into the close. One sector that displayed notable strength throughout the session was the leader from Tuesday-health care. The countercyclical group added 0.7% with biotechnology underpinning the advance. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) tacked on 0.5%.

12:09 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

LO (64.74 +5.87%): Multiple sources reporting that co is nearing a deal to merge with Reynolds American (RAI)PCAR (67.42 +5.71%): Traded higher on speculative M&A commentary from Diamler's commerical-vehicle chiefRYAAY (55.5 +2.61%): Co announced three new routes between Edinburgh and London, Glasgow and London and Glasgow and Dublin, as well as a new base at Glasgow International

Large Cap Losers PEG (38.24 -2.32%): Weakness in large cap utilities companies: ETR, D, DUK, NU, SRE, EIX also lowerTSN (38.4 -1.44%): Hillshire Brands (HSH) disclosed that merger agreement with Tyson includes a termination fee of ~$261.3 mlnGG (27.62 -1.04%): Weakness in large cap gold companies: NEM also lower

Mid Cap Gainers PETM (67.3 +12.52%): JANA Partners disclosed 9.9% active stake; JANA intends to have discussions with the Board of Directors and management regarding a potential sale
RAD (7.51 +4.71%): Reported June same store sales rose 3.9% vs +2.6% estimate
CREE (52.66 +4.67%): Upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer, target $59; discussed positively in Digitimes article

Mid Cap Losers
SNX (69.42 -6.10%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.15 ($1.52 ex items vs $1.37 estimate and $1.34-1.38 guidance), revs rose 33.3% yoy to $3.45 bln vs $3.17 bln estimate and $3.1-3.2 bln guidance; sees Q3 EPS of $1.45-1.50 ex items vs $1.53 estimate, revs of $3.3-3.4 bln vs $3.29 bln estimate
MBI (10.34 -4.08%): Weakness related to Puerto Rico on going cash concerns; WSJ reporting that some utility companies may need to restructure debtRSPP (29.95 -2.66%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS

11:47 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (229) outpacing new lows (10) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABBV, ABG, ABT, ADM, AET, AKS, ALSN, AMH, AMP, AN, AOSL, AP, ARDX, ARKR, ARW, ASBC, ASX, ATHL, ATI, ATVI, AUO, AVGO, AWH, AZC, BBL, BFR, BHB, BIG, BLX, BMA, BMO, BNS, BWS, CAR, CAT, CBB, CDW, CELG, CENX, CFN, CFNL, CGNX, CHE, CHRW, CHTR, CI, CLMS, CM, CNC, COF, CORR, CRAI, CRESY, CSL, CSX, CVGI, CVTI, CZWI, DAN, DDS, DFS, DIS, DVA, E, ECF, ECOL, EDAP, EEFT, ENL, ENPH, ENSG, ENTG, EQIX, ESC, ESGR, ESTE, EXPE, FCX, FDEF, FDS, FDX, FL, FOLD, FSTR, FWRD, GBX, GCI, GGAL, GIL, GILD, GLNG, GMCR, GPI, GRMN, GSAT, H, HDB, HES, HF, HH, HIG, HNRG, HOT, HSH, HT, HTBK, HUM, HZO, IFF, IMO, INTC, IRT, IRWD, ISLE, IVZ, JW.A, KANG, KAR, KLAC, KRFT, LAD, LCI, LGIH, LNC, LO, LPL, LQ, LRCX, LVNTA, LXK, MAR, MCRL, MCS, MERC, MET, METR, MFC, MGA, MGLN, MITSY, MLR, MMM, MNDO, MOH, MSA, MSCI, MSL, MTRN, MTW, MW, NBR, NJ, NLSN, NOV, NS, NSH, PAG, PAM, PDS, PFG, PJC, PKE, PLT, PPC, PRTS, PSEM, PTEN, PTLA, PUK, QCOR, RHI, RY, SAH, SCCO, SCI, SCOR, SEM, SIM, SIMO, SIRO, SJR, SKBI, SKM, SLF, SNBC, SNDK, SPB, SPIL, SPW, ST, STEM, SYNA, TAM, TAT, TD, TEO, TEP, TEVA, THRD, TIF, TKR, TROW, TRP, TRW, TSM, TSYS, TTM, TV, TWC, TWX, UMC, URI, VAL, VC, VLP, WAB, WBKC, WDC, WFC, WLB, WLK, WLP, WNC, WY, XBKS, XRS, YUM, ZAGG, ZBRA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: CERU, CHLN, MELA, MGT, NEWL, NQ, OIBR, PLX, PT, TCCO

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: COW, DIA, EEM, EPU, EWC, EWT, IHF, IHI, IYF, IYH, IYM, IYZ, OEF, PALL, QAI, QQQ, SMH, SOXX, SPY, UYG, UYM, VTI, VWO, XLB, XLF, XLK, XLV, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: FXS, SMN, VXX, VXZ

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The major averages snapped their two-day losing streak with the Nasdaq Composite leading today's charge. The tech-heavy index rose 0.6%, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.5% with nine sectors posting gains.

Equity indices displayed opening strength, but the early advance was a bit shaky as the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) had a tough time keeping pace with the broader market. The small-cap index underperformed throughout the session, while the other key indices powered to new highs after the Federal Reserve released the minutes from the June FOMC meeting.

Most notably, the minutes revealed the belief among officials that investors have displayed too much complacency with regard to risk. Furthermore, the minutes indicated that the committee has discussed its exit strategy tools with the general expectation of a final $15 billion taper taking place in October if the current outlook holds up.

The subsequent rally in equities could likely be attributed to participants being encouraged by the relatively consistent language in the minutes. However, it was a bit striking to see a concurrent spike in Treasuries and gold futures.

The 10-yr note hovered on its session low ahead of the release, but reclaimed its entire loss in short order. As a result, the benchmark yield ended at 2.55% after being near 2.60% when the minutes crossed the wires. One could argue that this spike was also related to the consistent language in the minutes with participants viewing the status quo at the Fed as a sign that the central bank could fall behind on its growth forecast.

Elsewhere, gold futures spiked to $1329.00/ozt to register a solid 1.0% gain, suggesting some participants believe the Fed could be underestimating inflationary pressures given the apparent lack of urgency to move off the zero bound.

The consumer discretionary sector (+1.2%) spent the entire session in the lead thanks to support from restaurants and retail names. Interestingly, the retail sector appeared unaffected by cautious comments made by the CEO of The Container Store (TCS 24.80, -2.27). The specialty retailer tumbled 8.9% following its earnings miss while the CEO said the retail industry as a whole was in a 'funk.'

Unlike the discretionary sector, other top-weighted groups settled on a mixed note with respect to the broader market. Health care (+0.4%) and technology (+0.5%) ended essentially in line with the S&P 500, while financials (+0.3%) and industrials (+0.2%) were limited to slim gains.

The modest uptick among industrials masked the relative strength of transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average rose 0.5% with 16 components settling higher. Matson (MATX 28.99, +1.64) was a standout, surging 6.0% after BB&T upgraded the stock to 'Buy' from 'Hold.' Airlines also displayed broad strength following positive monthly data from American Airlines (AAL 41.98, +1.73).

On the downside, the utilities sector (-0.2%) was the lone decliner following two days of relative strength.

Participation was below average with 557 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which rose 1.9% to follow last week's downtick of 0.2%.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims will be reported at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 311K), while the Wholesale Inventories report for May will cross the wires at 10:00 ET (consensus 0.5%).

S&P 500 +6.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.8% YTD

DJ30 +78.99 NASDAQ +27.57 SP500 +9.12 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1516/1.62 bln/1209 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1755/557.1 mln/1274 3:35 pm :

Precious metals traded higher ahead of today's release of the latest FOMC minutes from the June meeting at 14:00 ET.
Aug gold traded as high as $1327.90 per ounce and settled with a 0.6% gain at $1324.40 per ounce.
Sep silver pulled back from a session high of $21.22 per ounce set in early morning action. It brushed a session low of $21.04 per ounce and settled with a 0.2% gain at $21.07 per ounce.
Both gold and silver popped to their respective HoD of $1333.40 per ounce and $21.28 per ounce in recent electronic trade and are currently trading slightly below those levels.
Aug crude oil trended lower in negative territory today as inventory data and reports that the El Sharara oil field in Libya was restarted put pressure on prices.
Although crude oil inventories for the week ending July 4 fell by 2.37 mln barrels when consensus called for a draw of 1.7-2.2 mln barrels, gasoline inventories grew 0.579 mln barrels (a draw of 0.2-0.4 mln barrels was anticipated). The energy component pulled back from its session high of $102.91 per barrel set at pit trade open and traded as low as $102.00 per barrel. Unable to find buying support, it settled with a 1.1% loss at $102.24 per barrel.
Aug natural gas rose to a session high of $4.23 per MMBtu but slipped back into negative territory in afternoon action. It settled 0.7% lower at $4.17 per MMBtu, just above its session low of $4.16 per MMBtu.

12:42 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

AA (15.59 +4.98%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.18 ex items vs $0.12 estimate), revs fell 0.2% yoy to $5.84 bln vs $5.65 bln estimate; target raised to $17 from $15 at Stifel; target raised to $18.50 from $15 at JP Morgan
AMX (21.75 +4.87%): Co confirmed that it has resolved to to reduce its national market share in the Mexican telecommunications market under fifty percent in order to cease being a preponderant economic agent, under the terms of the Constitution of the United Mexican States and its implementing legislation
AAL (41.65 +3.45%): Reported June total revenue passenger miles of 19.9 bln, up 1% from prior year; co sees Q2 consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile +5.5-6.5% (raised from +4-6%)

Large Cap Losers

GRMN (57.11 -5.81%): Downgraded to Undperform from Sector Perform at Pacific Crest
MU (32.38 -2.26%): Hearing mentioned cautiously at tier 1 firm on speculation that competitor Samsung (SSNLF) is increase its production of DRAM
POT (36.45 -2.23%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan

Mid Cap Gainers

BFR (13.32 +5.80%): Strength in Argetinian stocks: BMA, TEO also lower
BBRY (11.44 +4.59%): Mentioned positively in blog articles; continued upward momentum following slight decline seen yesterday
SIG (112.1 +3.02%): Resumed with an Overweight at JP Morgan

Mid Cap Losers

HCSG (28.32 -6.10%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.20 vs $0.22 estimate), revs rose 16.7% yoy to $319.3 mln vs $321.99 mln estimate
SLXP (131.21 -4.41%): To combine with Cosmo Technologies; upon completion of the merger, shareholders of Salix are expected to own slightly less than 80% of the ordinary shares of the company
MSM (89.53 -4.12%): Reported Q3 EPS of $1.06 ex items (in-line), revs rose 13.1% yoy to $720.5 mln vs $728.51 mln estimate and $720-732 mln guidance; sees Q4 EPS of $0.98-1.02 ex items vs $1.06 estimate, revs of $718-730 mln vs $729.16 mln estimate

11:54 am Relative sector weakness (:TECHX) : Sectors underperforming the S&P in recent trade include: Housing XHB, Bank KBE, Reg Bank KRE, Finance XLF.

11:49 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (75) outpacing new lows (34) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAME, AEM, AGII, AGX, ALB, AN, AWH, AWRE, AZC, BFR, BLL, BMA, BMO, CAM, CCK, CENX, CL, CMP, CNBKA, CODE, COO, CTAS, CXO, DDS, DMLP, EDN, ENTG, ESS, FCX, FNV, FSM, GA, GGAL, GILD, GOLD, GPRE, HBM, HOT, HT, KALU, KMX, LABL, LRCX, LSG, LTS, MATX, MERC, MITSY, NEP, NOV, NTT, PAAS, PAM, PES, PFG, PPC, PRE, RAI, RE, RY, SCOK, SHLM, SJR, ST, SUSP, SYA, TAHO, TARO, TEO, TRP, WLDN, WRI, WYN, YPF

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEGR, ARO, AXTI, BEBE, BECN, BTN, CCH, CMCT, CNHI, ESI, GIMO, GKNT, HIVE, ISNS, KITE, LL, MCP, MELA, MKTX, NAUH, NNA, OIBR, OIBR.C, PBPB, PRKR, PT, RXII, SGNL, SIMG, TCCO, TCS, TROV, VGGL, XXIA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EPU, PALL

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JJG

8:42 am Gapping down (:SCANX) : Gapping down
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance: GIMO -31.5%, TCS -14.3%, SIMG -10%, MSM -3.6%, BOBE -1.2%, IMOS -0.9%

MRVL -2.7% (downgraded to Underperform from Perform at Oppenheimer),

,BRCM +1% (upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer),

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market stumbled on Thursday, but a daylong rebound off the opening lows helped the major averages erase the bulk of their losses. The Russell 2000 was the weakest performer, falling 1.1%, while the S&P 500 settled lower by 0.4% after being down as much as 1.0% at the open.

The early stumble was not brought upon by any specific headline, but rather a series of developments that caused investors to reduce their exposure to equities. In Asia, China reported below-consensus exports (7.2% versus expected 10.6%) and imports (5.5% versus expected 5.8%), while Japan's Core Machinery Orders tumbled 19.5% against the expectations of an uptick of 0.7%.

As the night continued, news from Europe caused an exodus from regional equities (mainly financials) amid worries about Portugal's banking system after the parent company of Banco Espirito Santo missed a bond payment. Portugal's PSI 20 fell 4.2%, while Germany's DAX and Spain's IBEX lost 1.5% and 2.0%, respectively.

Domestically, participants received a sliver of good news on the economic front as weekly initial claims decreased to 304,000 (Briefing.com consensus 311,000); however, headlines out of the corporate world were not nearly as upbeat.

With the second-quarter earnings season set to heat up next week, two consumer discretionary components primed the market for disappointing results. Shares of Potbelly (PBPB 10.97, -3.68) plunged 25.1% to a new record low after the company said it expects its revenue to come in below estimates, while also guiding for a 1.6% decline in comparable store sales.

Yesterday, the CEO of The Container Store (TCS 24.58, -0.22) provided some cautious comments about the retail environment as a whole, and today his remarks were echoed by Lumber Liquidators (LL 55.25, -15.17). The home improvement retailer said that customer traffic during the quarter was well below expectations, which will result in disappointing results. The stock sank 21.5%, while peers Home Depot (HD 79.40, -1.33) and Lowe's (LOW 47.20, -0.66) both lost near 1.5%.

The relative weakness of the discretionary sector (-0.9%) was not enough to scare dip-buyers away. After putting in a session low during the first 15 minutes of the action, the S&P 500 spent the trading day in a steady rally that allowed the index to reclaim more than half of its losses. A rebound in the heavily-weighted health care (unch) and technology (-0.3%) sectors contributed to the partial recovery, but energy (-1.0%) and financials (-0.6%) were reluctant participants in the bounce, which prevented the S&P 500 from turning positive.

Treasuries, meanwhile, rallied throughout the night, registered their highs shortly before the start of the session, and spent the remainder of the day in a retreat. The 10-yr note trimmed its gain to four ticks, while the benchmark yield slipped two basis points to 2.54%.

Participation was below average with 640 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to weekly initial claims and the Wholesale Inventories report for May:

The initial claims level fell to 304,000 from an unrevised 315,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the claims level to fall to 311,000
Over the past several weeks, claims have stabilized between 310,000 and 320,000. While claims came in below this level, it was likely due to normal volatility stemming from the Independence Day holiday and not a change in trend
The continuing claims level increased to 2.584 million from a downwardly revised 2.574 million (from 2.579 million), while the consensus expected continuing claims to slip to 2.567 million
Wholesale inventories increased 0.5% in May following a downwardly revised 1.0% (from 1.1%) in April. The Briefing.com consensus expected wholesale inventories to increase 0.5%
The increase in inventories came predominantly from a 1.9% increase in automotive inventories and a 2.1% increase in metals

Tomorrow, the June Treasury Budget (Briefing.com consensus $70.00 billion) will be reported at 14:00 ET.

S&P 500 +6.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.1% YTD

DJ30 -70.54 NASDAQ -22.83 SP500 -8.15 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 677/1.58 bln/2207 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 941/639.9 mln/2127

3:30 pm :

Precious metals traded higher today, gaining support on concerns over Portugal's banking system after the parent company of Banco Espirito Santo missed a bond payment.
Aug gold touched a session high of $1346.80 per ounce in early morning action and settled with a 1.1% gain at $1339.50 per ounce.
Sep silver advanced as high as $21.61 per ounce and eventually closed at $21.51 per ounce, or 2.1% higher.
Aug crude oil chopped around slightly below the unchanged line in morning action but lifted into positive territory later in the session despite strength in the dollar index. The energy component touched a session high of $103.04 per barrel after trading as low as $101.86 per barrel. It settled with a 0.7% gain at $102.92 per barrel.
Aug natural gas fell into the red from its session high of $4.19 per MMBtu following inventory data that showed a build of 93 bcf when a build of 90-92 bcf was anticipated. It eventually settled with a 1.2% loss at $4.12 per MMBtu, just above its session low of $4.11 per MMBtu.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 11-Jul-14

Dow +28.74 at 16943.81, Nasdaq +19.29 at 4415.49, S&P +2.89 at 1967.51

The stock market finished the Friday session on a modestly higher note, but the slim gains could not prevent the key indices from finishing the week in the red. The S&P 500 added 0.2%, trimming its weekly loss to 0.9%, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) finished the week with a 1.6% decline. Small caps had a tough time keeping up as the Russell 2000 shed 0.1% today to widen its weekly loss to 3.9%.

Equities slipped at the open amid weakness in two cyclical sectors. Energy (-0.8%) and financials (+0.1%) were down in excess of 0.5% in short order, while the other sectors held much closer to their flat lines.

The opening weakness in the financial sector followed an in-line quarterly report from Wells Fargo (WFC 51.49, -0.32). The stock ended lower by 0.6%, while the overall sector managed to recover its loss during the afternoon when the S&P 500 returned into the green.

Meanwhile, the energy sector was pinned to its lows throughout the session with the two top-weighted components-Chevron (CVX 128.47, -1.78) and ExxonMobil (XOM 101.74, -0.83)-pressuring the sector. The two lost 1.4% and 0.8%, respectively. In all likelihood, the sector's inability to rebound alongside the broader market was related to the daylong weakness in crude oil futures. The energy component fell 2.1% to $100.79/bbl.

Elsewhere, other cyclical sectors like consumer discretionary (+0.3%), industrials (+0.6%), and technology (+0.4%) rallied in the afternoon, which sent the S&P 500 to a fresh high.

The industrial sector drew strength from a couple of its top-weighted components. Boeing (BA 128.09, +1.30) and General Electric (GE 26.55, +0.35) posted respective gains of 1.0% and 1.3%, while the PHLX Defense Index advanced 0.7%. Transports also rallied with airlines and railroads in the lead. United Continental (UAL 45.70, +0.53) rose 1.2%, Norfolk Southern (NSC 103.95, +1.54) jumped 1.5%, while the Dow Jones Transportation Average added 0.4%.

Also of note, the relative strength of the technology sector contributed to the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite. Google (GOOGL 586.65, +6.61) and Facebook (FB 66.34, +1.47) spiked 1.1% and 2.3%, respectively, but the top-weighted sector component-Apple (AAPL 95.22, +0.19)-surrendered the bulk of its gain into the close. On the earnings front, Infosys (INFY 54.22, -1.43) lost 2.6% despite beating earnings estimates.

Similar to the cyclical sectors, most countercyclical groups were able to finish in the green. Consumer staples (+0.1%), health care (+0.1%), and telecom services (+0.8%) posted gains, while the utilities sector (-0.7%) ended in the red.

Treasuries posted modest gains with the 10-yr note adding five ticks to send its yield lower by two basis points to 2.52%.

Participation was well below average with just 571 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the Treasury Budget for June, which posted a surplus of $70.50 billion versus a surplus of $116.50 billion in June 2013. The Treasury data are not seasonally adjusted so the June data cannot be compared with the $130.00 billion deficit from May. Fiscal year-to-date, the deficit is $365.90 billion, $144.00 billion less than the comparable period for FY13.

There is no economic data on Monday's schedule.

Week in Review: Small Caps Slide

The stock market opened the first full week of July on a cautious note with small caps pacing the retreat. The Russell 2000 and Nasdaq Composite posted respective losses of 1.7% and 0.8%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.4% with seven sectors ending in the red. Equities spent the duration of the trading day in negative territory with the opening weakness taking place amid cautious action in Europe. A disappointing Industrial Production report from Germany (-1.8% versus expected 0.2%) weighed on sentiment, which contributed to the profit-taking. Back in the U.S., profit-taking was also the theme of the day with some of the recent leaders seeing larger losses than the broader market. Specifically, the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 led the slide after entering the session with respective gains of 9.9% and 6.3% over the last three months.

On Tuesday, the major averages registered their second consecutive decline that sent the S&P 500 lower by 0.7% with nine sectors ending in the red. Small-cap stocks underperformed once again with the Russell 2000 and Nasdaq Composite posting respective losses of 1.2% and 1.4%. In many ways, the session resembled Monday's affair as stocks began the trading day on a cautious note amid weakness in European equities. On Monday, a disappointing Industrial Production report from Germany contributed to the cautious posture, while Tuesday's losses followed the largest monthly decline in UK's Industrial Production (-0.7%) since January 2013. With participants receiving another warning sign about the strength of economic growth in the eurozone, the stage was set for another day of profit taking.

The major averages snapped their two-day losing streak on Wednesday with the Nasdaq Composite leading the charge. The tech-heavy index rose 0.6%, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.5% with nine sectors posting gains. Equity indices displayed opening strength, but the early advance was a bit shaky as the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) had a tough time keeping pace with the broader market. The small-cap index underperformed throughout the session, while the other key indices powered to new highs after the Federal Reserve released the minutes from the June FOMC meeting. Most notably, the minutes revealed the belief among officials that investors have displayed too much complacency with regard to risk. Furthermore, the minutes indicated that the committee has discussed its exit strategy tools with the general expectation of a final $15 billion taper taking place in October if the current outlook holds up.

Equities stumbled on Thursday, but a daylong rebound off the opening lows helped the major averages erase the bulk of their losses. The Russell 2000 was the weakest performer, falling 1.1%, while the S&P 500 settled lower by 0.4% after being down as much as 1.0% at the open. The early stumble was not brought upon by any specific headline, but rather a series of developments that caused investors to reduce their exposure to equities. In Asia, China reported below-consensus exports (7.2% versus expected 10.6%) and imports (5.5% versus expected 5.8%), while Japan's Core Machinery Orders tumbled 19.5% against the expectations of an uptick of 0.7%. As the night continued, news from Europe caused an exodus from regional equities (mainly financials) amid worries about Portugal's banking system after the parent company of Banco Espirito Santo missed a bond payment. Portugal's PSI 20 fell 4.2%, while Germany's DAX and Spain's IBEX lost 1.5% and 2.0%, respectively. Domestically, participants received a sliver of good news on the economic front as weekly initial claims decreased to 304,000 (Briefing.com consensus 311,000); however, headlines out of the corporate world were not nearly as upbeat. Shares of Potbelly (PBPB) plunged 25.1% to a new record low after the company said it expects its revenue to come in below estimates, while also guiding for a 1.6% decline in comparable store sales.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week   Change   % Change	  YTD % 
 DJIA	     17068.26	  16943.81   -124.45      -0.7	  2.2 
 Nasdaq	      4485.92	   4415.49    -70.43      -1.6	  5.7 
 S&P 500	1985.44	   1967.51    -17.93      -0.9	  6.4 
 Russell 2000  1208.15	   1159.93    -48.22	  -4.0	 -0.3

5:04 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Utilities:EDN (16.43 +17.95%),TGS (3.3 +12.24%),PAM (11.45 +11.38%)
Technology:ACIW (18.36 +26.45%),GLUU (6 +13.64%),AMX (22.9 +10.52%)
Services:UAL (45.7 +14.59%),MIC (68.92 +11.88%),GOL (6.14 +10.83%)
Healthcare:BDSI (14.02 +16.93%),TXMD (4.77 +14.11%)
Financial:AMRE (22.25 +17.97%),BMA (46.02 +16.89%),BFR (13.96 +10.27%)
Consumer Goods:TRW (101.47 +11.46%)
Basic Materials:LSG (1.19 +29.35%),EXK (6.21 +13.53%),YPF (37.97 +11.22%),RIOM (2.53 +10.48%),GFI (4.05 +10.35%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology:GIMO (12.21 -37.67%),PT (2.49 -22.19%),VJET (19.6 -19.21%),GTAT (16.05 -17.9%)
Services:LL (54.86 -27.86%),TTS (10.98 -24.69%),PBPB (11.92 -22.6%),ACTG (15.22 -18.48%),CHUY (29.99 -17.43%),LQDT (13.06 -16.44%)
Healthcare:SRPT (21.98 -26.49%),RNA (9.89 -21.01%),ASPX (20.01 -20.66%),OMER (14.63 -19.57%),KITE (23.59 -19.05%),INSY (25.3 -18.78%),NLNK (23.01 -17.41%),FMI (24.65 -15.87%),PTLA (25.8 -15.71%)
Consumer Goods:CXDC (6.32 -23.58%)

1:22 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

AMZN (344.36 +5.01%): Strength following strong Channel Advisory June sales data; co also filed a petition seeking FAA approval for drone delivery
LO (65.43 +3.71%): Co confirmed it is in discussions with Reynolds American to potentially be acquired
MPC (79 +2.05%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup, target lowered slightly to $94 from $96

Large Cap Losers

FAST (45.89 -4.72%): Reported Q2 EPS of $0.44 (in-line), revs rose 12.1% yoy to $949.9 mln vs $952.45 mln estimate; gross margin -140 bps yoy and -40 bps qoq at 50.8%
INFY (54.04 -2.89%): Reported Q1 EPS of INR 50.51 vs INR 46.40 estimate, revs rose 7.2% yoy to INR 127.7 bln vs INR 128.27 bln estimate; sees FY15 revs +5.6-7.6% yoy (~INR 529.4-539.4 bln) vs INR 539.21 bln estimate
RAI (60.98 -2.06%): Lower following confirmation that co is in discussions to acquire Lorillard (LO)

Mid Cap Gainers

OPK (9.09 +3.65%): Mentioned positively on CNBC by Jim Cramer
RGLD (77.9 +3.14%): Provided update on Mt. Milligan stream deliveries: wholly owned subsidiary, RGLD Gold AG received approximately 21,900 ounces of gold for the quarter ended June 30, 2014 from the Mt. Milligan mine
URS (51.68 +1.47%): Higher following report that co is exploring a potential sale

Mid Cap Losers

MTG (8.21 -11.15%): Lower following Federal Housing Finance Agency proposal to tighten requirements for private insurers for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac counterparties; RDN also lower
PSMT (83.76 -2.84%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.70 vs $0.69 estimate), revs rose 7.6% yoy to $615 mln vs $624.47 mln estimate
EAT (46.27 -2.9%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich, target lowered to $52 from $56

12:48 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (55) outpacing new lows (41) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AB, ADM, AGII, AHT, AMRE, AWH, BAX, BFR, BITA, BKD, CARO, CBEY, CCE, CHE, CHTR, CRESY, CTP, EDN, ENTG, ESC, EW, GGAL, GILD, GLUU, GPRE, HAR, INTC, JLL, LEA, LO, MCBK, MGA, MO, NTT, PAM, PBCP, PEB, PPS, RGEN, RPAI, SAFM, SE, SUNE, TARO, TEO, TPX, TSM, URS, VRTS, WDC, WLB, WLDN, WRI, XL, YPF

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEGR, ALLY, ARO, BAXS, BIOD, BKJ, BTH, CGA, CGG, CHCI, CNHI, CREG, CS, CTT, DRI, DRIV, FNGN, FRED, HIVE, KITE, KKD, LAYN, LIME, LPTN, MKTX, MTSL, NDLS, NILE, OSTK, PIKE, PLX, PNRA, PSMT, PT, PVH, REXX, RUBI, TROV, UDF, VII, WMAR

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BAL, JJA, JJG, RJA

8:01 am Vishay to acquire Capella Microsystems, a Fabless IC Design Company (VSH) :

Co entered into an agreement to acquire Taiwan based Capella Microsystems Inc. (GreTai Securities Market: 3582) for ~NT$6,051 million or US$205 million. Capella is a fabless IC design company specializing in optoelectronic products.
Vishay intends to acquire Capella first through a tender offer of up to 100% of Capella's outstanding shares at a price of NT$139 per share.
The tender offer is conditioned upon at least a majority of the outstanding shares being tendered.
If a majority, but less than 100%, of the outstanding shares are tendered, Vishay will complete the acquisition of Capella by merger according to the Agreement and Plan of Merger executed today with Capella

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages started the new trading week on an upbeat note, but the bulk of the action on Monday took place at the start of the session. The S&P 500 rose 0.5% with nine sectors registering gains, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) outperformed. For its part, the small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.5%) settled in the middle of its trading range after showing relative strength at the start.

Equity indices received an opening boost from the financial sector (+0.6%), which in turn, was underpinned by Citigroup (C 48.42, +1.42) after the bank reported its earnings. Shares of Citigroup jumped 3.0% in reaction to above-consensus results that excluded the impact of a $3.8 billion charge stemming from settlements related to RMBS and CDO-related claims. The financial sector, meanwhile, spent the entire session in a steady retreat from its early high.

Although financials slipped from their opening levels, that void was filled by other influential sectors like energy (+0.9%) and technology (+0.8%).

The top-weighted S&P 500 sector-technology-rallied on the back of its largest components. Apple (AAPL 96.45, +1.23), Google (GOOGL 594.26, +7.61), Facebook (FB 67.90, +1.56), and IBM (IBM 189.87, +1.87) gained between 1.0% and 2.4% to name a few. However, chipmakers were not as strong with the PHLX Semiconductor Index tacking on 0.4%.

Elsewhere, the energy sector was boosted by M&A activity, while crude oil ended the session little changed at $100.99/bbl. On the acquisition front, Kodiak Oil & Gas (KOG 14.91, +0.68) rose 4.8% after agreeing to be acquired by Whiting Petroleum (WLL 84.58, +6.04) for $6 billion.

The energy sector was not the only source of M&A news as industrials (+0.6%) and health care (+0.4%) also benefitted from deals.

Among industrials, URS (URS 58.40, +6.38) surged 12.3% after agreeing to be acquired by Aecom (ACM 34.98, +3.22) for $56.31 per share. Furthermore, defense contractors and transports also displayed relative strength with the PHLX Defense Index and the Dow Jones Transportation Average both adding 0.7%.

On the countercyclical side, health care was limited to a gain of 0.4% even though Shire Pharmaceuticals (SHPG 254.27, +5.21) jumped 2.1% on reports it will accept a $53 billion takeover bid from AbbVie (ABBV 54.85, -0.11). Also of note, Mylan (MYL 51.24, +1.04) struck a $5.3 billion deal to purchase Abbott's (ABT 41.82, +0.52) non-US developed markets specialty and branded generics business.

Similar to health care, other countercyclical sectors also ended behind the broader market. Consumer staples (+0.4%) and telecom services (+0.3%) posted modest gains, while the utilities sector lost 1.2%.

Treasuries ended near their lows with the 10-yr yield up two basis points at 2.54%.

Participation was well below average as less than 600 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Tomorrow, the Retail Sales report for June (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%), June import/export prices, and the July Empire Manufacturing survey (consensus 13.2) will be released at 8:30 ET, while the Business Inventories report for May (consensus 0.6%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. Also of note, Fed Chair Janet Yellen will appear before the Senate Banking Committee to provide her semiannual testimony on the economy and monetary policy.


S&P 500 +7.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.2% YTD

DJ30 +111.61 NASDAQ +24.93 SP500 +9.53 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1759/1.47 bln/995 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1978/579.7 mln/1098 3:30 pm :

Precious metals fell today as equity markets advanced and concerns over the health of the Portuguese banking system lessened.
Aug gold traded as low as $1302.20 per ounce after retreating from its session high of $1316.60 per ounce set at pit trade open. It eventually settled with a 2.3% loss at $1306.70 per ounce.
Sep silver pulled back from a session high of $21.13 per ounce and settled 2.5% lower at $20.92 per ounce, just above its session low of $20.90 per ounce.
Aug crude oil dipped to a session low of $100.22 per barrel in morning action but recovered into positive territory as it headed into the close. The energy component touched a session high of $101.04 per barrel and settled at $100.99 per barrel, or 0.2% higher.
Aug natural gas touched a session low of $4.09 per MMBtu in morning action after trading as high as $4.17 per MMBtu earlier in the session. However, it managed to erase losses and settled unchanged at $4.15 per MMBtu.

Large Cap Gainers

PRGO (154.72 +5.86%): Seeing rumors that co has hired a bank to explore a sale of the company
PBR (15.94 +4.94%): Added to LATAM Spotlight list at Goldman
TSLA (226.65 +3.91%): Higher following Bloomberg report that China will mandate 30% electric car usage by 2016 for government vehicles

Large Cap Losers

GG (27.71 -2.50%): Weakness in large cap gold companies: NEM, ABX also lower
KORS (86.76 -2.30%): Mentioned cautiously in WSJ article; also mentioned positively in Barron's article
HSY (94.77 -1.74%): Lower following sale of Russel Stover Candies to Lindt & Sprungli

Mid Cap Gainers

URS (57.72 +10.96%): To be acquired by AECOM (ACM) for $56.31 per share in cash and stock; ACM also higher
WLL (84.38 +7.44%): Announced acquisition of Kodiak Oil & Gas
(KOG) in an all-stock transaction valued at $6.0 bln, expected to be accretive to EPS in 2015; target raised to $112 from $110 at Howard Weil; target raised to $102 from $96 at Brean Capital; KOG also higher
AMKR (11.57 +4.19%): Target raised to $13 from $9 at Topeka Capital Markets

Mid Cap Losers

RVBD (19.13 -6.00%): Sees Q2 EPS at low end of $0.26-0.28 range, ex items, vs $0.27 estimate; sees Q2 revs of $264-265 mln (lowered from $274-280 mln) vs $277.6 mln estimate; Elliott management reaffirmed $21 per share bid
GTAT (15.22 -5.17%): Weakness attributed to Credit Agricole comments raising concerns about iPhone sapphire covers
GPRO (37.11 -4.45%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article; continued decline following strong gains seen following IPO

12:01 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (124) outpacing new lows (36) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAT, AB, ABG, ADM, AGII, AGRO, AIV, AMRE, AMT, AN, AUO, AVB, AWH, BAX, BITA, BLL, BMA, BPOP, BSAC, BTI, CALM, CBEY, CBK, CBM, CENX, CHE, CI, CL, CMRE, CMSB, COO, CRESY, CTP, DCM, DMLP, EDN, EDR, EFX, ENVE, EQR, ERJ, ESC, ESCA, ESS, ETN, GA, GGAL, GILD, GLUU, GPK, GPRE, GRH, GTIV, HAR, HNP, HNT, HT, INTC, INTT, JLL, KEX, KOG, KRC, LE, LEA, LRCX, LUV, MAYS, MDCI, MGA, MIC, MMC, MO, MOH, MRH, MSFT, NAVI, NJ, NSC, NTT, PBCP, PEP, PES, PFG, PPC, PPS, PRE, PTR, PTSI, QCOR, QGEN, R, RE, REX, RGEN, RHP, SAFM, SE, SIMO, SMLP, SQBG, SUMR, SUNE, TEO, THRM, TIME, TPX, TRW, UMC, UNH, URI, VNTV, WDC, WLB, WLK, WLL, WLP, WRI, WTM, WYN, XBKS, XL, ZSPH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ARO, ATRS, AXTI, BAA, BECN, BSDM, CGA, CGG, CHCI, CHLN, CHUY, CLRX, DWA, ESIO, FHCO, GIMO, GKNT, GMAN, GOMO, HGSH, JE, KIOR, KITE, KKD, LIME, MGT, MRKT, NDLS, NETE, NEWL, PULS, QRM, REXX, SODA, TCCO, WTW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, EWT, IYK, IYT, IYZ, OEF, PFF, QQQ, VWO, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JJG, VXZ

10:01 am Riverbed Technology: Elliott comments on Riverbed's earnings miss; reaffirms $21 bid for the company; demands consideration of a sale (RVBD) : Elliott Management issued the following public statement regarding Riverbed Technology:"

"Riverbed's poor performance this quarter reveals its decision to stonewall prospective buyers to be a serious and costly mistake. The results of the Board's decision to "bet on execution" are in: revenue guidance lowered to $265 million on disappointing sales, a topline miss of nearly 5% from guidance that was given only one quarter ago. All Riverbed stakeholders will end up paying for this reckless gamble, in which the Board clearly put the interests of a deeply entrenched management team ahead of shareholders. This is a clear sign that dramatic change is needed at Riverbed: The Board should immediately retain an advisor and announce a review of strategic alternatives, including a sale. To that end, as the company's largest shareholder, we reaffirm our cash bid of $21 per share."

Cypress Semiconductor (CY) and United Microelectronics (UMC) announced that UMC licensed Cypress's SONOS embedded Flash memory intellectual property for the 55-nanometer process technology node.

8:35 am Riverbed Technology lowers Q2 rev guidance; sees EPS at low end of prior range (RVBD) : Co issues downside guidance for Q2 (Jun), sees EPS at the low end previous $0.26-0.28 range, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.27 Capital IQ Consensus; lowers Q2 (Jun) revs to 264-265 mln from $274-280 mln vs. $277.6 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Second quarter sales were below our expectations, principally in North America as we experienced longer sales cycles on some of our larger and more complex deals. We have carefully reviewed our opportunities and prospects for the remainder of the year and continue to have confidence in our ability to grow the business and deliver targeted earnings performance," said Jerry M. Kennelly, chairman and CEO, Riverbed. "During the quarter, we continued to prudently manage expenses and focus on achieving operating leverage, as demonstrated by our solid EPS performance within our guided range.

7:37 am Harmonic lowers Q2 guidance and guides Q3 below expectations (HLIT) : Co issues downside guidance for Q2 (Jun), sees EPS of $0.00-0.02, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.06 Capital IQ Consensus; lowers Q2 (Jun) revs to $108-110 mln from $113-123 mln vs. $118.32 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be in the range of 49.0% to 51.0%, compared with the Company's previous guidance of 52.5% to 53.5%. Non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be in the range of $52.5 million to $53.5 million, compared with the Company's previous guidance of $54.5 million to $55.5 million. Preliminary bookings for the second quarter of 2014 were $113.4 million, with first half 2014 bookings ~1% higher than bookings in the first half of 2013. Total backlog and deferred revenue was $132.1 million as of June 27, 2014, compared to $126.4 million as of March 29, 2014.Co issues downside guidance for Q3 (Sep), sees Q3 (Sep) revs of $103-113 mln vs. $124.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We saw a global slowdown in our video business as several of our larger customers began planning for our new virtualized approaches for delivering video services. This video slowdown was particularly pronounced among EMEA and North American Broadcast and Media customers, where we also saw several anticipated projects delayed and growing consideration of the new Ultra HD format and new HEVC compression technology. Our North America Cable business performed better, as strong demand for our cable edge products continued, including for the NSG Pro platform released last year. Looking ahead, while the transitioning video market is turbulent and we are consequently cautious about our near-term results, the growing signs of coming video technology investment cycles and our cable customers' continuing positive response to our CCAP products are encouraging. We therefore remain positioned and focused on achieving the company's overarching objectives for driving sustainable top and bottom line growth."

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From Briefing.com: 4:24 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Slide Amid Geopolitical Concerns (:WRAPX) : The stock market finished the Thursday session on a lower note with the Russell 2000 (-1.5%) posting its third consecutive loss that took the small-cap index below its 200-day moving average (1140.82). For its part, the S&P 500 fell 1.2%, which represented the first move in excess of 1.0% over the past 63 trading days.

The benchmark index spent the entire session in the red with the early weakness attributed to concerns about the impact of the latest set of U.S. sanctions against Russia. The sanctions targeting two banks (Gazprombank and VEB), two energy companies (Rosneft and Novatek), and several defense contractors were announced shortly after yesterday's closing bell and they pressured markets in Europe as well.

Despite the lower start, the S&P 500 was on the brink of turning positive at the end of the opening hour, but slid to fresh lows after it was reported that a Malaysian Airlines jet, with nearly 300 passengers and personnel on board, crashed in Ukraine near the border with Russia.

After the initial reports crossed the wires, subsequent headlines indicated that the plane did not crash due to mechanical reasons, but instead, was shot down. One pro-Russian rebel group in the east denied having any involvement, while Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said that the country's army has not taken any action "against airborne targets" either.

With no clarity regarding who was responsible for bringing down the jet, airlines in France and Germany said they will avoid Ukrainian airspace, while the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited U.S. carriers from flying in the area as well.

Equities attempted an afternoon rebound, but fell to new lows during the last hour of action in reaction to reports indicating Israel has launched a ground offensive in Gaza.

The pair of worrisome reports ensured a lower finish for equities, while safe-haven assets like gold, Treasuries, and the yen rallied. Gold futures rose 1.5% to $1319.70/ozt, while Treasuries ended on their highs with the 10-yr yield down seven basis points at 2.46%. For its part, the dollar/yen pair fell to 101.25, less than 60 pips away from the lowest level of the year for the risk-sensitive pair.

All ten sectors ended in the red with influential cyclical groups like energy (-1.6%), industrials (-1.6%), and technology (-1.3%) finishing at the bottom of the leaderboard. The energy sector diverged from crude oil, which rallied 2.1% to $103.29/bbl, while the industrial sector saw weakness among airline stocks. Delta Air Lines (DAL 36.57, -1.30) and United Continental (UAL 43.35, -1.55) both lost near 3.5%, while the Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 1.4%.

Elsewhere, the tech sector was pressured by chipmakers as evidenced by a 2.5% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. The high-beta group ended broadly lower after SanDisk's (SNDK 93.21, -14.62) cautious guidance overshadowed its above-consensus results.

Staying on the earnings theme, eBay (EBAY 51.03, +0.33) and SAP (SAP 80.68, +1.04) added 0.7% and 1.3%, respectively after beating bottom-line estimates.

While most sectors posted losses larger than 1.0%, materials (-0.5%) outperformed thanks to a boost from mining shares that sent the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 26.99, +0.71) higher by 2.7%.

Another big move took place in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.71, +3.71), which surged more than 33.0% off a depressed base to levels not seen since late April as participants rushed for volatility protection.

Despite the news-filled day, participation remained below average with 690 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data included weekly initial claims, June Housing Starts and Building Permits, and the Philadelphia Fed Survey for July:

The initial claims level dropped to 302,000 from an upwardly revised 305,000 (from 304,000), while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 311,000 After stabilizing in the 310,000 -- 320,000 range, the initial claims level has moved another leg down over the last couple of weeks. If these trends hold, we would expect to see monthly payroll growth close to 300,000 The continuing claims level fell to 2.507 million from an upwardly revised 2.586 million (from 2.584 million), while the consensus expected the level to fall to 2.563 million Housing starts fell 9.3% in June from a downwardly revised 985,000 (from 1.001 million) in May to 893,000. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 1.020 million. The drop in starts brought new residential construction levels to their lowest point since 863,000 homes were started in September 2013 Concerning was the new downward trend in single-family construction. This sector tends to produce stable trends yet starts have now fallen precipitously in both May (-2.6%) and June (-9.0%). Construction levels for new single-family homes are at their lowest point since 569,000 homes were started in November 2012 The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Survey strengthened in July, increasing to 23.9 from 17.8, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 23.9. That was the best reading since March 2011 with nearly all sub- indices showing significant improvement in July Tomorrow, the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July (Briefing.com consensus 84.0) will be released at 9:55 ET, while the Leading Indicators report for June (consensus 0.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.
S&P 500 +5.9% YTD Nasdaq Composite +4.5% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.4% YTD Russell 2000 -2.6% YTD3:30 pm :

Precious metals gained strength today on new US Treasury Department sanctions imposed on entities in Russia's financial, energy and defense sectors and headlines that a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet was shot down over Ukraine near the Russian border.
Aug gold advanced to a session high of $1325.90 per ounce and settled with a 1.3% gain at $1316.90 per ounce.
Sep silver rose as high as $21.30 per ounce in late morning action after touching a session low of $20.81 per ounce earlier in the session. It eventually settled at $21.44 per ounce, or 1.8% higher
Aug crude oil also extended yesterday's gains on the geopolitical concerns surrounding Russia and Ukraine as well as news of the plane crash.
The energy component rose as high as $103.32 per barrel after touching a session low of $101.86 per barrel in morning action and settled with a 1.9% gain at $103.15 per barrel.
Aug natural gas, on the other hand, retreated from its session high of $4.07 per MMBtu set in early morning floor trade and slid deeper into negative territory on bearish inventory data.
The EIA reported that for the week ending July 11, natural gas inventories grew by 107 bcf when a smaller build of 98-100 bcf was anticipated. Natural gas traded as low as $3.93 per MMBtu and settled with a 3.9% loss at $3.96 per MMBtu.

4:25 pm Vishay Board recommends shareholders tender their shares (VSH) : Co announced that the board of Taiwan-based Capella Microsystems Inc., which Vishay intends to acquire, has determined that the price per share offered by Vishay in a tender offer is reasonable and has recommended that shareholders of Capella tender their shares. A special offer review committee of Capella separately has made the same determination and recommendation.

On July 11, 2014, Vishay entered into an agreement to acquire Capella for ~NT$6,051 mln or $205 mln.

Vishay intends to acquire Capella first through a tender offer of up to 100 percent of Capella's outstanding shares at a price of NT$139/share.

4:22 pm Advanced Micro misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs below consensus (AMD) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.02 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.03; revenues rose 24.1% year/year to $1.44 bln vs the $1.44 bln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs -1 to +5% QoQ to ~$1.43-1.51 bln vs. $1.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Our transformation strategy is on track and we expect to deliver full year non-GAAP profitability (consensus $0.19) and year-over-year rev growth (consensus +13%). We continue to strengthen our business model and shape AMD into a more agile company offering differentiated solutions for a diverse set of markets."

4:20 pm Skyworks beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SWKS) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.83 per share (Co raised EPS guidance last month to $0.80 from $0.73), $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.80; revenues rose 34.6% year/year to $587 mln (Co raised rev guidance last month to $570 mln from $535 mln) vs the $570.02 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.00 vs. $0.87 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $680 mln vs. $606.59 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:17 pm Google misses by $0.15, beats on revs (GOOG) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $6.08 per share, $0.15 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $6.23; revenues rose 13.1% year/year to $15.96 bln vs the $15.61 bln consensus.

Sites Revenues - $10.94 billion, or 69% of total revenues, in Q2, +23% y/y. Network Revenues - $3.42 billion, or 21% of total revenues, in Q2, +7% y/y. Other Revenues - $1.60 billion, or 10% of total revenues, in Q2, +53% y/y. International Revenues - $9.33 billion, representing 58% of total revenues in Q2, compared to 57% in Q1 and 55% in 2Q13.

Clicks
Paid Clicks increased approximately 25% y/y (In line with expectations) and increased approximately 2% q/q. Sites paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads we serve on Google owned and operated properties across different geographies and form factors including search, YouTube engagement ads like TrueView, and other owned and operated properties like Maps and Finance, increased approximately 33% y/y and 6% q/q. Network paid clicks increased ~9% y/y and decreased 5% q/q. Cost-Per-Click decreased approximately 6% y/y and remained constant q/q. Cost-per-click for Google sites decreased ~7% y/y and decreased approximately 2% q/q.

TAC
Traffic acquisition costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google's partners, increased to $3.29 billion in the second quarter of 2014, compared to $3.01 billion in the second quarter of 2013. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 23% in the second quarter of 2014, compared to 25% in the second quarter of 2013.

Cash Flow and Capital Expenditures
Net cash provided by operating activities in the second quarter of 2014 totaled $5.63 billion, compared to $4.71 billion in the second quarter of 2013. In the second quarter of 2014, capital expenditures were $2.65 billion, the majority of which was for data-center construction, real estate purchases, and production equipment. Free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, is defined as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures. In the second quarter of 2014, free cash flow was $2.98 billion. We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures.

Cash
As of June 30, 2014, cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $61.20 billion, which excludes cash classified as held for sale, compared to $58.72 billion as of December 31, 2013.

4:12 pm IBM beats by $0.01, beats on revs; reaffirms FY14 EPS guidance (IBM) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $4.32 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $4.31; revenues fell 2.2% year/year to $24.36 bln vs the $24.1 bln consensus.
Co reaffirms guidance for FY14, sees EPS of at least $18.00 vs. $17.87 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"In the second quarter, we made further progress on our transformation. We performed well in our strategic imperatives around cloud, big data and analytics, security and mobile. We will continue to extend and leverage our unique strengths to address the emerging trends in enterprise IT and transform our business, positioning ourselves for growth over the long term."

4:07 pm Hewlett-Packard announces Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer, has been appointed chairman of the board of directors (HPQ) : Co announced that Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer, has been appointed chairman of the board of directors, and current director Pat Russo has been appointed lead independent director. Additionally, Klaus Kleinfeld, chief executive and chairman of Alcoa, has been appointed to the board, bringing the total number of board members to 12.

Whitman also serves as a director of The Procter & Gamble Company (PG).

4:03 pm Seagate Tech reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (STX) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $1.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.10; revenues fell 3.6% year/year to $3.3 bln vs the $3.33 bln consensus.

12:33 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers


HUM (132.36 +3.87%): Healthcare names trading higher following UNH earnings (AET, CI also higher).
SHW (209.03 +3.62%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line; guided Q3 EPS above consensus; raised FY14 EPS guidance.
UNH (86.58 +3.37%): Beat on EPS by $0.17, beat on revs; raised FY14 EPS and revs guidance.

Large Cap Losers

SNDK (94.21 -12.63%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; reported Q2 Non-GAAP gross margin 48.0% vs guidance of 47-49%; sees Q3 revs of $1.68-1.73 bln vs $1.74 bln est; sees Q3 gross margin of 47-49%. YUM (77.2 -6.66%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, reported revs in-line; reaffirmed FY guidance of at least 20% EPS growth.
MAT (36.7 -5.97%): Missed on EPS by $0.15, missed on revs.

Mid Cap Gainers

DRC (66.75 +10.48%): Siemens (SIEGY) considering bid for Dresser-Rand, according to overseas article in Manager Magazin.
BURL (31.45 +8.64%): Announced launch of debt refinancing transaction; raised comp. store sales guidance for 2Q2014; for the 13 weeks ending Aug 2, 2014 vs 13 weeks ended Aug 3, 2013, co expects comp. store sales to increase between 3% and 4%.
RSPP (30.3 +5.61%): Reported Q2 production, increased 2014 outlook and provided operational update; Q2 2014 average daily production increased 15% sequentially over Q1 2014 production to 10,714 Boe/d and increased 43% over Q2 2013 production; tgt raised to $42 from $38 at Howard Weil.

Mid Cap Losers

AN (56.26 -7.51%): Missed on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line.
CFX (68.46 -5.83%): Missed on EPS by $0.18, missed on revs.
IGTE (38.67 -4.96%): Tgt raised to $50 from $48 at Needham.

11:39 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (88) outpacing new lows (63) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AB, ABT, ABY, AET, AKS, ALSN, AMTX, AVB, BBEP, BKD, BMO, BURL, CAM, CBEY, CBG, CCE, CENX, CI, CMRE, CMSB, CNI, CONE, CORR, CP, CTP, DCM, DFS, DMLP, DRC, DVA, EA, EDR, EDUC, EQR, ESC, F, FDX, FES, FISV, GLP, GPRK, HCA, HES, HH, HUM, HURC, IBCA, KOG, LE, LEA, LVLT, MANU, MEP, MIC, MRO, MSFT, MUR, NAVI, NEO, NFX, NOV, NSC, NTCT, PBCP, PHX, PKY, QEP, R, RES, ROYL, RY, SHW, SLCA, SNA, SOCB, SPN, SWC, TGP, TIME, TRP, TRW, TWTC, TWX, UNH, URI, WLB, WLL, WLP

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACXM, ADGE, ALCS, ALDX, AMBT, AMDA, AQXP, BAXS, BECN, BTH, CBPX, CGA, CGG, CHCI, CHUY, CLRX, COCO, CPHC, CYOU, DCTH, EOPN, ESI, ESIO, ETH, FHCO, GFIG, GOMO, INFA, INTX, ITI, KELYA, KOSS, LPTN, MBLX, MCRI, MDWD, NDLS, NPTN, NUS, PDII, PERI, PGEM, PT, PULS, PVH, QRM, ROST, RUBI, SCL, SPWH, STML, TCS, TLYS, TROV, TSE, USMD, UUU, VOLC, VVUS, WFM, WSTL, WWW, ZIXI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AFK, DIA, IHF, PALL

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: TBT

8:32 am Advanced Semi priced $300 mln guaranteed bonds due 2017 offered by subsidiary Anstock II Limited (ASX) : The proceeds will be used to fund certain eligible projects to promote the Company's transition to low-carbon and climate resilient growth.

8:03 am Cypress Semi beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line (CY) : Reports Q2 (Jun) adj. earnings of $0.16 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.12; revenues fell 5.1% year/year to $183.6 mln vs the $183.84 mln consensus.

"book-to-bill ratio was 0.99, due to a mild, but broad, softening in the consumer electronics sector. However, based on the strength of the automotive and industrial sectors, we remain on track to attain our 2014 revenue forecast, which I communicated to shareholders in our 2013 Annual Report. Those two sectors account for 43% of revenue, more than double our TrueTouch touchscreen revenue."

7:53 am Advanced Photonix, Inc. continue industrial market penetration; received over $400K in orders (API) : Co announced that it has received over $400K in orders from our value added resellers for multiple T-Gauge online terahertz sensor systems in three different market segments; extruded plastics, carpet, and paper. The co expects these initial design wins will lead to multiple system sales in each market segment over the next several years. The T-Gauge system, manufactured by API, is the only fully hardened THz system that is suitable for online gauging applications.

7:33 am Fairchild Semi beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line (FCS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 4.2% year/year to $371.6 mln vs the $365.55 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $370-385 mln vs. $378.32 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."We expect adjusted gross margin to be 34-35% due primarily to higher sales and factory loadings as well as improved product mix. We anticipate R&D and SG&A spending to be $97 to $99 million due to higher variable compensation expenses and lack of the one-time cost benefit in the prior quarter offset by seasonal spending reductions. The adjusted tax rate is forecast at 15 percent plus or minus 3 percentage points for the quarter.

"Plexus (PLXS) reported third quarter earnings of $0.74 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 8.5% year/year to $620.5 million which is in line with estimates. The company issued guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of $0.74-0.80 which is line with estimates and revenues of $645-675 million which is higher than expected.

SanDisk (SNDK) reported second quarter earnings of $1.41 per share, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 10.7% year/year to $1.63 billion which is higher than expected. SNDK reported Q2 Non-GAAP Gross Margins of 48.0% vs guidance of 47-49%, expectations were for the co to come in at the high end of 47-49%. The company sees Q3 revs of $1.68-1.73 billion which below estimates.

eBay (EBAY) reported second quarter earnings of $0.69 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which is higher than expected, while revenues rose 12.6% year/year to $4.37 billion which is line with estimates. Payments PayPal net total payment volume (TPV) grew 29% to $55.05 bln (vs $53.09 bln Briefing consensus) with Merchant Services volume up 35% and on-eBay volume up 13%. Revenue grew to $1.9 billion. PayPal gained 4.0 million new active registered accounts to end the quarter at 152 million (vs 153.8 mln Briefing consensus), up 15%. Global on-eBay penetration increased to 79.8%. Marketplaces: eBay Marketplaces gross merchandise volume (GMV) grew 12% to 20.49 bln (vs $20.26 bln Briefing consensus), with the U.S. up 10% and International up 14%. Revenue grew to $2.2 billion. Marketplaces gained 3.8 million new buyers to end the quarter with 149 million active buyers, up 14%. Enterprise: eBay Enterprise gross merchandise sales (GMS) grew 15% to $940 mln. Revenue grew to $267 million. Non-GAAP operating margin decreased to 24.4% in the second quarter (vs 24.4% Briefing consensus), compared to 26.3% for the same period last year. The company repurchased 32.4 million shares of its common stock for approximately $1.7 billion in the second quarter of 2014. As of June 30, 2014, the company's remaining share repurchase authorization was approximately $2.2 billion. The company issued guidance for the third quarter with EPS of i$0.65-0.67 & revenues of $4.3-4.4 billion which is worse than expected. The company issued guidance for the fiscal year 2014 with EPS of $2.95-3.00, excluding non-recurring items, which is line with estimates and revenues of $18.0-18.3 billion (narrowed from $18.0-18.5 billion) which is line with estimates.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : Just like the geopolitical environment, things could have been better today for the stock market and they could have been worse. They were worse in the early going as the major indices backpedaled quickly at the start of trading. The ostensible catalysts for the opening retreat were geopolitical concerns over Israel's ground assault in Gaza and the troublesome diplomatic dealings in the wake of Malaysian Air flight MH17 being shot down over eastern Ukraine last week.

At their lows of the morning, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 were down 126, 28, and 12 points, respectively. They would eventually battle back, though, to pare their losses, aided by the following factors:

Technical support holding at 1966 for the S&P 500
A small sense of relief that remarks from President Obama today did not include the imposition of any new sanctions against Russia
There is some underlying concern that new economic sanctions will lead to deleterious economic developments more broadly and for the European Union in particular
Relative strength in the technology and energy sectors
The inability to sustain larger losses, which prompted some buy-the-dip activity

Overall, it was a subdued start to the week for the stock market, which was also cognizant that a flood of earnings results will pour in starting on Tuesday. To that end, today's session could be characterized as a period of wait-and-see on both the geopolitical and earnings fronts. That mentality manifested itself in the low volume at the NYSE where only 530 mln shares traded hands versus a recent average of 658 mln shares.

Notwithstanding today's leading headlines, there wasn't a strong flight-to-safety trade. The 10-yr note ended up two ticks, gold prices rose a modest 0.3%, the health care (-0.4%), utilities (-0.1%), consumer staples (-0.4%), and telecom services (-0.3%) sectors all finished lower, and the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 12.49, +0.43) was ultimately reined in after an opening burst of buying interest took it up as much as 13%.

At the same time, the Russell 2000, which fell as much as 1.0% early in the day, recouped a good portion of its losses and ended the session down 0.4%.

There wasn't a lot of absolute strength in the stock market today, but pockets of strength in the large-cap universe helped limit today's losses. To that end, the likes of Intel (INTC 34.06, +0.36), Boeing (BA 128.30, +0.66), Microsoft (MSFT 44.84, +0.15), Goldman Sachs (GS 171.72, +0.25), Chevron (CVX 131.29, +0.90), and ExxonMobil (XOM 103.08, +0.35) provided some cover for a beleaguered broader market.

Every sector ended down today with the exception of the energy sector (+0.2%). It followed crude prices higher ($104.89, +$1.75) and benefited from the outperformance of its sector heavyweights in the integrated oil group. Losses for the remaining nine sectors ranged from 0.1% to 0.5%.

There wasn't any economic data today, but that will change on Tuesday with the release of the CPI (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.00 mln) reports. That data will be processed alongside a bevy of earnings reports that will include results from six Dow components: Coca-Cola (KO 42.40, -0.03), DuPont (DD 65.54, -0.01), McDonald's (MCD 97.55, -1.44), Travelers (TRV 95.26, -0.08), United Technologies (UTX 112.98, -0.59), and Verizon (VZ 50.70, -0.05).

S&P 500 +6.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.5% YTD

DJ30 -48.45 NASDAQ -7.44 SP500 -4.59 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1053/1.46 bln/1735 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1126/530 mln/1929 3:35 pm :

Aug gold rose for a fourth consecutive session as geopolitical tension over Russia and Ukraine continued. The yellow metal pulled back from its session high of $1317.90 per ounce set at pit trade open but stayed above the unchanged line.
It brushed a session low of $1310.80 per ounce and settled with a 0.3% gain at $1313.90 per ounce. Sep silver dipped to a session low of $20.92 per ounce after trading as high as $21.15 in early morning floor action. It inched slightly higher heading into the close and settled at $21.01 per ounce, or 0.5% higher.
Aug crude oil traded in positive territory, lifting from a session low of $103.48 per barrel set in early morning action.
It continued to trend higher and settled with a 1.5% gain at $104.65 per barrel, just below its session high of $104.72 per barrel.
Aug natural gas, on the other hand, spent the entire pit session in the red. It traded as low as $3.83 per MMBtu, its lowest level since November 2013. Unable to gain momentum, it settled 2.8% lower at $3.84 per MMBtu.

4:37 pm Texas Instruments beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TXN) : Reports Q2 (Jun) GAAP earnings of $0.62 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.59; revenues rose 8.0% year/year to $3.29 bln vs the $3.27 bln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees GAAP EPS of $0.66-0.76 vs. $0.68 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q3 revs of $3.31-3.59 bln vs. $3.44 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Revenue for the quarter came in just above the middle of our expected range and earnings were near the top of the range, marking another quarter of solid execution. "We delivered 8 percent year-over-year revenue growth, or 13 percent when legacy wireless revenue is excluded. Analog and Embedded Processing comprised 82 percent of second-quarter revenue, 4 points higher than a year ago. "Gross margin of 57.1% (ests ~56.3%), a new record, reflects the quality of our Analog and Embedded Processing portfolio and the efficiency of our manufacturing strategy.

4:13 pm Cadence Design beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; guides FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CDNS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.21 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues rose 4.5% year/year to $378.8 mln vs the $375.93 mln consensus.

Co downside EPS guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.23-0.25, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $390-400 mln vs. $394.65 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $0.90-0.98, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.97 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $1.57-1.59 bln vs. $1.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12 pm Silicon Image announces new MHL 3.0 design win in nubia's flagship nubia Z7 smartphone (SIMG) : Co announced a key MHL 3.0 design win with nubia, a popular ZTE (ZTCOF) premium brand in China, for its flagship Z7 smartphone. Using Silicon Image's SiI8620 and SiI6031 MHL 3.0 chipset, the nubia Z7 is the first smartphone to implement simultaneous 4K UHD video and high speed data channel found in the latest MHL specification.

4:10 pm Rambus beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 rev midpoint below consensus (RMBS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.16 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.15; revenues rose 32.1% year/year to $76.5 mln vs the $76 mln consensus, down 2% on a sequential basis from the first quarter of 2014 primarily due to a one-time catch-up payment from the new license agreement signed with Nanya Technology Corporation during the first quarter of 2014. As compared to the second quarter of 2013, revenue was up 32% primarily due to the license agreements signed with SK hynix, Micron Technology, Nanya Technology Corporation and Qualcomm, offset by lower royalty revenue from Samsung.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $68-73 mln vs. $72.54 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Sanmina beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides SepQ above consensus (SANM) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.47; revenues rose 7.8% year/year to $1.60 bln vs the $1.55 bln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q4 (Sep), sees EPS of $0.50-0.55, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.50 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $1.60-1.65 bln vs. $1.58 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We delivered a solid third quarter. Revenue was up 9 percent sequentially and 8 percent year over year.""Each of our end-market segments grew on a sequential basis, with notable performance from our industrial, medical and defense segment...We continue to benefit from new programs and stable demand with key customers. Our previous expectation of modest growth in fiscal 2014 is achievable and solid execution of our strategy supports a promising future."

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

Large Cap Gainers

EMC (28.01 +3.81%): WSJ reporting that Elliott Management, owner of a $1 bln+ stake, is seeking a break up of the company
BIDU (197.5 +3.31%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
JNPR (24.55 +2.31%): Mentioned positively in Barron's article

Large Cap Losers

MNST (65.1 -4.00%): Downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley
BBT (37.43 -3.78%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($0.70 ex items vs $0.75 estimate), revs fell 7.9% yoy to $2.3 bln vs $2.31 bln estimate; net interest margin was 3.43% for the second quarter, a decrease of nine basis points compared to the prior quarter
DVA (71.17 -3.63%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James

Mid Cap Gainers

STLD (19.8 +6.57%): To acquire Severstal Columbus to accelerate future growth, expected to be immediately accretive to earnings and cash flow per share
PT (2.47 +6.01%): MEO, through PT Portugal, entered into an agreement to deploy, swap of capacity, and share its Fibre Network with Vodafone Portugal
CBSO (34.21 +3.54%): Announced the acquisition of premium outdoor assets from Van Wagner Communications for $690 mln in cash, expected to be immediately accretive to AFFO per share

Mid Cap Losers

SIX (38.32 -6.54%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.67 ex items vs $0.64 estimate), revs rose 3.5% yoy to $376.55 mln vs $396.07 mln estimate
LFL (12.5 -5.45%): Lowered FY14 operating margin guidance to ~4-5% from previous guidance of 6-8%; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill
CLF (15.02 -5.15%): Co mailed an open letter to shareholders regarding ongoing proxy fight with Casablanca Capital; said surrendering a majority of the Board will enable Casablanca to enact what it believes is a value-destructive plan

11:39 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (63) outpacing new highs (62) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AB, AEM, AKS, AMH, AMTX, ARE, ATHL, BFR, BGCP, BIDU, BK, BX, CIB, CIG, CMSB, CNI, CP, CTP, DOC, ELP, EMC, ENPH, ENSV, GILD, GLUU, HAL, HURC, IMS, INN, KOG, LEA, LRCX, MANU, MIC, MITSY, MNR, NGG, NSC, NSLP, PCYO, PEIX, PHX, PTSI, RFMD, ROYL, SDLP, SHW, SKX, STLD, SUMR, SVU, SWKS, TAX, TEN, TEP, TQNT, TRCB, TWX, VIPS, WLK, WRES, ZINC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACI, ADAT, AMBT, AQXP, ASNA, AVD, AVL, BAA, BAK, BAXS, BECN, BIOD, BPI, BTH, BTU, CBLI, CGA, CGG, CHCI, CHUY, CREG, CUB, CYOU, DRNA, ESI, FNJN, GFIG, GNC, GOMO, GTXI, HGSH, INTX, KOP, LIME, LPTN, LPX, MCRI, MOBL, MSN, NAUH, OGXI, PAYC, PDII, PHMD, PIKE, ROYT, RTGN, RUBI, SEAS, SODA, SQI, STML, SVT, TAXI, TCS, TROV, UUU, VGGL, VSAR, WPP, WWW, ZA, ZFGN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DBB, TLT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: FXS, JJA, JJG, RJA, TBT

Altera (ALTR) has joined the Embedded Vision Alliance, an industry group that brings together providers of the technology used to create practical applications of computer vision.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that its DOCSIS 3.0-based chipset is powering new high-speed broadband for Hathway Cable and Telecom, India's largest cable broadband service provider. Also, Videocon d2h has selected Broadcom's highly integrated satellite set-top box system-on-a-chip device to power their latest high definition universal serial bus digital video recorder.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 24.40, +0.55): trading higher after positive mention in this week's Barron's

7:26 am ReneSola signs framework agreement with China Seven Star to sell PV projects and MOU to sell two utility-scale projects in Bulgaria (SOL) :

Co announced it has entered a framework agreement with China Seven Star, a Hong Kong listed co, regarding a partnership in potential sales to China Seven Star of no less than 200 megawatts of existing and new PV projects within 18 months. The parties subsequently signed a MOU which stipulates that ReneSola will sell to China Seven Star two utility-scale projects, both of which are completed and connected to the grid, with a total capacity of 9.7 MW in Bulgaria. Under the terms of the Framework Agreement, China Seven Star seeks to acquire from ReneSola within 18 months no less than 200 MW of PV projects, including but not limited to four existing solar parks in Bulgaria and Romania. The series of PV project cooperation set forth in the Framework Agreement will begin with the sale of two utility-scale projects in Bulgaria by ReneSola to China Seven Star pursuant to the terms of the MOU, where China Seven Star will issue and allocate new shares to ReneSola in exchange for the entire shareholder equity of the project company. For each potential PV project sale under the Framework Agreement, including the Bulgaria projects specified in the MOU, ReneSola and China Seven Star will enter into a separate agreement.Rudolph Technologies

(RTEC) announced the availability of its new SONUS Technology, designed for measuring thick films and film stacks used in copper pillar bumps and for detecting defects, such as voids, in through silicon vias.

6:03 am Ascent Solar announces $32 mln secured convertible debt agreement; in connection with the sale of notes, co will issue to the investors warrants to purchase 26,685,729 shares of its common stock (ASTI) :

Co announced that it entered into definitive agreements on July 18, 2014 with institutional and certain investors, pursuant to which it will issue $32 million principal amount of senior secured convertible notes and warrants to purchase shares of its common stock in a private placement. WestPark Capital acted as the sole placement agent. Co will receive $7 million in gross proceeds at closing. The remaining gross proceeds of $25 million from the financing will be placed at closing into control accounts of the company. Those funds will be released for the company's use in installments over the 18-month period following the closing. The notes carry an 8% annual interest rate, subject to certain adjustments. The notes will mature on the fifth anniversary of closing. The notes are convertible, in whole or in part, at the holder's option, into shares of co's common stock at a price of $0.5246 per share, subject to certain adjustments. In connection with the sale of the notes, co will issue to the investors warrants to purchase 26,685,729 shares of its common stock. The warrants are exercisable beginning on the issuance date through the fifth anniversary of closing, at $0.5246 per share, subject to certain adjustments. Any funds received by co from exercise of the warrants would be in addition to the financing proceeds.

Semi Manufacturing (SMI) announced an upward revision of its Q2 gross margin guidance for the three months ended June 30, 2014, which was originally released by the Company in its results for the three months ended March 31, 2014 on April 28, 2014. Gross margin for the three months ended June 30, 2014 is guided to be 27% to 29% compared to the original guidance of 22% to 24%. As originally guided, revenue in the second quarter of 2014 was expected to increase 12% to 15% quarter over quarter, and non-GAAP operating expenses (excluding the effect of employee bonus accrual, funding of R&D contracts from the government and gain from the disposal of living quarters) were expected to range from $89 million to $93 million.

[ReturntoSender]

Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday session on a mixed note. The tech-heavy Nasdaq displayed relative strength, climbing 0.4%, while the S&P 500 added 0.2% with five sectors settling in the green. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) spent the entire session below its flat line.

Equities started the midweek affair on a rather unassuming note in the absence of market-moving news or economic releases. With those pieces missing from the equation, participants turned their attention to quarterly earnings as another dose of better than expected results pushed the S&P 500 to a fresh record close at 1987.01.

The health care sector (+0.8%) surged at the open and never relinquished the lead thanks to a big earnings beat reported by Biogen Idec (BIIB 337.60, +33.93). The stock soared 11.2%, while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 259.34, +5.66) advanced 2.2%. Elsewhere among biotech names, Puma Biotech (PBYI 233.43, +174.40) nearly tripled in value after announcing positive trial results.

In addition to boosting the health care space, biotechnology provided a measure of support to the Nasdaq, which also drew strength from the shares of Apple (AAPL 97.19, +2.47). The top-weighted tech stock rose 2.6% after beating earnings estimates on below-consensus revenue. However, the company guided Q4 revenue below its Capital IQ consensus estimate.

Sticking to tech earnings, Microsoft (MSFT 44.87, +0.04) missed bottom-line estimates, but beat on revenue. Meanwhile, Broadcom (BRCM 38.15, -0.60) and Juniper Networks (JNPR 22.43, -2.39) retreated despite delivering above-consensus results. Notably, Broadcom and other chipmakers struggled to stay out of the red with the PHLX Semiconductor Index falling 2.3%.

The underperformance of microchip names prevented the technology sector (+0.2%) from extending its slim gain, while other cyclical sectors ended on a mixed note. Energy (+0.6%) and materials (+0.4%) finished ahead of the broader market, while financials (+0.2%) kept pace with the S&P 500. The remaining two growth-sensitive sectors-consumer discretionary (-0.1%) and industrials (-0.4%)-could not make it into the green.

The weakest sector of the day-industrials-lagged amid weakness in the shares of Boeing (BA 126.71, -3.03). The Dow component lost 2.3% despite beating earnings estimates and raising its fiscal-year 2014 earnings guidance.

Also of note, it was reported during the session that the International Monetary Fund lowered its growth forecast for the U.S. to 1.7% from 2.0% and said the Fed may need to delay its first rate hike due to the contraction that took place in the first quarter. However, the remarks had little impact on equities as the major averages held their ground. The Treasury market did not move either and the 10-yr note ended the day flat with its yield at 2.47%.

Participation was well below average with less than 570 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which rose 2.4% to follow last week's 3.6% decline.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 308K) will be reported at 8:30 ET, while the New Home Sales report for June (consensus 475K) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. On the earnings front, 3M (MMM 144.68, -0.44), American Airlines (AAL 43.33, +0.95), Caterpillar (CAT 108.38, -1.68), Ford Motor (F 17.78, -0.04), and General Motors (GM 37.41, -0.35) will report ahead of the opening bell.


S&P 500 +7.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD

DJ30 -26.91 NASDAQ +17.68 SP500 +3.48 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1362/1.75 bln/1378 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1759/569.2 mln/1279 3:30 pm :

Aug gold touched a session high of $1311.80 per ounce in early morning pit trade but gave up the gain as it slipped below the unchanged line in afternoon action. It brushed a session low of $1303.50 per ounce and settled 0.1% lower at $1304.50 per ounce.
Sep silver touched a session low of $20.94 per ounce after retreating from a session high of $21.10 per ounce. It then chopped around near the break-even line and settled unchanged at $21.00 per ounce.
Sep crude oil traded higher today following bullish inventory data. The EIA reported that for the week ending July 18, crude oil inventories fell by almost 4 mln barrels when expectations called for a smaller draw of 2.6-2.9 mln barrels.
The energy component rose as high as $103.34 per barrel and settled with a 0.7% gain at $103.12 per barrel.
Aug natural gas advanced to a session high of $3.81 per MMBtu. However, prices pulled back into negative territory in late afternoon floor trade, leaving natural gas to settle 0.3% lower at its session low of $3.76 per MMBtu.

4:17 pm TriQuint Semi beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (TQNT) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.07; revenues rose 21.4% year/year to $230.8 mln vs the $220.6 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.23-0.25 vs. $0.24 Capital IQ Consensus EstimateCO sees Q3 revs of $255-265 vs. $277.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate5:06 pm Teradyne beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q3 below consensus (TER) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.54 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.41; revenues rose 22.5% year/year to $525.6 mln vs the $479.38 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.34-0.43, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.48 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $440-480 mln vs. $490.33 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Semiconductor Test orders were driven by a combination of capacity expansion and new design wins with the strongest demand from applications processor, power management, microcontroller and memory test. Our strong sales and earnings growth reflect both the short time to market requirements of chip makers and our operating model's ability to flex to meet customer demand. After the strongest first half of orders since 2004, our third quarter outlook reflects the industry's normal seasonal patterns."

5:03 pm Rambus and ENTR sign license agreement for DPA countermeasures to secure next generation content (RMBS) : Cryptography Research, the security division of RMBS, and Entropic (ENTR) announced they have signed a patent license agreement allowing for the use of the Cryptography Research side-channel attack countermeasures in Entropic's integrated circuits. The Cryptography Research patented technology will protect Entropic's set-top box system-on-a-chip (SoC) products against differential power analysis and related attacks.

4:46 pm F5 Networks on the call (FFIV) :

Security business continues to be largest growth driverSaw a rise in competitive win rates across coClosed acquisition of defense.net; increases portfolio w/ cloud based security servicesContinue to see new project wins for traffic diameter solutionShares are slightly higher in after-hours trading.

4:09 pm F5 Networks beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (FFIV) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.39 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.35; revenues rose 18.9% year/year to $440.3 mln vs the $435.05 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.46-1.49, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.45 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $453-463 mln vs. $456.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "F5's solid gains in Q3 were driven by strong growth in product revenue, up 5 percent sequentially and 20 percent year-over-year...Growing demand for our expanding array of systems and application services was fueled by increasing awareness and uptake of our security offerings and the appeal of our Good, Better, Best pricing options. During the quarter, sales of Good, Better, Best bundles grew 49 percent from the prior quarter and contributed to a significant increase in sales of software products and of security solutions in particular."

4:35 pm MKS Instruments beats by $0.14, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (MKSI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.42 per share, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.28; revenues rose 17.8% year/year to $185 mln vs the $171.25 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.28-0.42 vs. $0.31 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $170-190 mln vs. $175.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Looking ahead, reports from the recent semiconductor industry tradeshow continue to project that third quarter OEM shipments may be down from the second quarter. In our other markets, the global economy continues to improve and we continue to search out and leverage growth opportunities in a strategic manner."

4:14 pm Qualcomm beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line -- co believes certain licensees in China are not fully complying with their contractual obligations to report their sales of licensed products (QCOM) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.21; revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $6.81 bln vs the $6.52 bln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.03-1.18, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $6.5-7.4 bln vs. $7.14 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, we expect to complete a minimum of $1 billion in stock repurchases under our current stock repurchase program. Our outlook for fiscal 2014 diluted earnings per share includes an estimate of the benefit related to stock repurchases.

China continues to present significant opportunities for us, particularly with the rollout of 4G LTE, but also presents significant challenges, as our business practices continue to be the subject of an investigation by the China National Development and Reform Commission (:NDRC)...

We also believe that certain licensees in China currently are not fully complying with their contractual obligations to report their sales of licensed products to us (which includes certain licensees underreporting a portion of their 3G/4G device sales and a dispute with a licensee) and that unlicensed cos may seek to delay execution of new licenses while the NDRC investigation is ongoing. We expect calendar year 2014 3G/4G device shipments to be ~1.3 billion globally. However, our estimate of calendar year 2014 3G/4G device shipments that we currently expect to be reported to us is ~1.04 billion to 1.13 billion, which is adjusted for units that we believe may not be reported to us, are in dispute or are currently unlicensed. We are taking steps to address these issues, although the timing of any resolution is uncertain."
MSM chip shipments: 225 million units, up 31 percent y-o-y and 20 percent sequentially. March quarter total reported device sales: ~$58.1 billion, up 3 percent y-o-y and down 13 percent sequentially. March quarter estimated 3G/4G device shipments: ~ 250 to 254 million units, at an estimated average selling price of ~$228 to $234 per unit. Cash and Marketable

4:13 pm Facebook beats by $0.10, beats on revs (FB) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.42 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.32; revenues rose 60.5% year/year to $2.91 bln vs the $2.81 bln consensus.

Revenue from advertising was $2.68 billion, a 67% increase y/y. Excluding the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, revenue from advertising would have increased by 65%.

Daily active users (DAUs) were 829 million on average for June 2014, an increase of 19% year-over-year. Mobile DAUs were 654 million on average for June 2014, an increase of 39% year-over-year. Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.32 billion as of June 30, 2014, an increase of 14% year-over-year.

Mobile MAUs were 1.07 billion as of June 30, 2014, an increase of 31% year-over-year.

Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 62% of advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2014, up from approximately 41% of advertising revenue in the second quarter of 2013.
Payments and other fees revenue was $234 million, a 9% increase from the same quarter last year.
GAAP costs and expenses for the second quarter of 2014 were $1.52 billion, an increase of 22% from the second quarter of 2013. Excluding share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP costs and expenses were $1.2 billion in the second quarter of 2014, up 18% compared to $1.02 billion for the second quarter of 2013.
Capital expenditures for the second quarter of 2014 were $469 million.Cash and marketable securities were $13.96 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2014. Free cash flow for the second quarter of 2014 was $872 million.12:25 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ISRG (447.27 +14.05%): Reported Q2 GAAP EPS of $2.77 vs $2.80 estimate, revs fell 11.5% yoy to $512.2 mln vs $505.6 mln estimate; co sees FY14 procedures growth of +5-8% (raised from +2-8%); upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel, to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond James
BIIB (338.34 +11.42%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.65 ($3.49 vs $2.84 estimate), revs rose 40.5% yoy to $2.42 bln vs $2.16 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $12.90-13.10 ex items (raised from $11.35-11.45) vs $11.62 estimate, sees FY14 revs +38-41% (from +26-28%) which calcs to ~$9.57-9.77 bln vs $8.9 bln estimate; target raised to $420 from $370 at Piper JaffrayT
LM (10.89 +10.56%): Co confirmed it has been approached by Repsol (REPYY) with regards to various transactions

Large Cap Losers

XLNX (41.22 -14.38%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.62 vs $0.61 estimate), revs rose 5.8% yoy to $612.6 mln vs $631.53 mln estimate; sees Q2 revs flat to -4% sequentially (~$588.1-612.5 mln) vs $643.91 mln estimate; downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets, target lowered to $42 from $60; downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill
JNPR (22.38 -9.83%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.40 ex items vs $0.38 estimate), revs rose 6.9% yoy to $1.23 bln vs $1.22 bln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.35-0.40 ex items vs $0.44 estimate, revs of $1.15-1.20 bln vs $1.26 bln estimate
GSK (50.48 -5.16%): Missed quarterly EPS by GBP 0.02 (GBP 0.19 vs GBP 0.21 estimate), revs fell 16.0% yoy to GBP 5.56 bln vs GBP 5.73 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of ~GBP 1.10 vs GBP 1.01 estimate

Mid Cap Gainers
PBYI (228.11 +169.08%): Announced positive top line results from Phase 3 PB272 (neratinib) trial in adjuvant breast cancer; co also amended its licensing agreement for neratinib with Pfizer
RHI (51.75 +7.37%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.55 vs $0.52 estimate), revs rose 9.5% yoy to $1.16 bln vs $1.14 bln estimate; target raised to $55 from $48 at Deutsche Bank
LAD (93.98 +3.93%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($1.34 ex items vs $1.24 estimate), revs rose 21.2% yoy to $1.22 bln vs $1.18 bln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $1.34-1.38 vs $1.31 estimate, revs of $1.2-1.3 bln vs $1.24 bln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $1.23-1.26, revs of $1.6-1.7 bln vs $1.35 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

TUP (76.38 -9.87%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($1.47 ex items vs $1.48 estimate), revs fell 2.0% yoy to $674.3 mln vs $689.15 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.89-0.94 vs $1.08 estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $5.40-5.50 vs $6.35 estimate
KING (19.33 -6.39%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill
THRX (26 -6.07%): Weakness following poor results from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK); THRX has partnership agreements with GSK

11:44 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (152) outpacing new lows (44) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAPL, AAT, ABC, ABT, ACH, ADM, AHGP, ALGT, AMT, AON, APD, APH, ARE, ARES, ARLP, ATVI, BABY, BAX, BBEP, BBL, BDN, BEE, BHP, BITA, BK, BMO, BRCM, BX, CALM, CBG, CHRW, CIB, CNI, CODE, CONE, COO, CORR, CSC, DDR, DMLP, DOW, EGAS, EMC, ENB, EPD, ESS, FCS, FET, FLT, FTI, GCI, GIL, GLNG, GPRE, GT, H, HAL, HES, HNP, HPQ, HST, HTLD, IBA, IMS, INN, INVN, IPG, ISS, ITMN, JLL, KEX, KMR, KNX, KOG, LEJU, LGCY, LLY, LMT, LNG, LRE, LSTR, LUV, LYB, MAMS, MAR, MCO, MPB, MRO, MTD, MW, MWE, NFX, NGG, NJ, NNBR, NOC, NSC, NTES, NYLD, PAA, PBYI, PEIX, PEP, PHX, PII, PLBC, PPC, PTEN, PTR, PTSI, PXLW, QCOM, QLTY, R, REG, RES, REX, REXI, RGP, RHI, SAIA, SAVE, SBGL, SE, SGC, SGK, SHW, SIAL, SLCA, SNP, SPG, SRC, SSL, STLD, TEN, THRM, TRN, TRNS, TRP, TSRA, UNP, VAR, VIPS, VNR, WCN, WIN, WLB, WLK, WLL, WRI, XEC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACI, ALDX, AMBT, ARO, ASNA, ASPN, BTU, CAB, CGG, CHLN, EMAN, ESI, ESNT, FMER, FREE, FULT, GEVO, GFIG, HERO, IMN, INTX, LAYN, LIQT, MRKT, NKSH, OSTK, PIKE, PIP, PNRA, PRXI, RCPI, ROYT, RTGN, SPWH, SQI, TCCO, TCS, TRC, TSE, UIS, VII, XLNX, XNY, ZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AFK, AMJ, EMB, EPP, EWC, EWH, EZA, GAF, IYR, IYT, NIB, OEF, QQQ, SPY, TLT, URE, VWO, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JJG, RJA, TBT

9:05 am SanDisk completes acquisition of Fusion-io (FIO); co expects the acquisition to be dilutive to non-GAAP earnings in the near term; acquisition is expected to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings in the second half of 2015 (SNDK) : Co nnounced it has completed the previously announced acquisition of Fusion-io (FIO). Co's Q3 financial results will include the results of Fusion-io from July 23, 2014 through September 28, 2014.

Co's non-GAAP P&L results will be impacted by cash-related charges for transaction, restructuring, and integration costs as well as the reduction of support and maintenance revenue due to the effects of purchase accounting. SanDisk expects the acquisition to be dilutive to non-GAAP earnings in the near term primarily due to charges for transaction, restructuring and integration costs, which are expected to be ~ $35 million in the third quarter of 2014 and ~ $15 million in the fourth quarter of 2014, as well as operating losses from Fusion-io partially offset by modest near-term synergies. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings in the second half of 2015.

8:02 am O2Micro misses by $0.04, misses on revs (OIIM) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.12 per share, $0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.08); revenues fell 7.0% year/year to $17.4 mln vs the $17.63 mln consensus.

7:29 am Micron intends to offer $750 mln aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2025 (MU) : Co announced that it intends to offer, subject to market and other considerations, $750 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2025.

Micron intends to use a portion of the net proceeds from the offering to extinguish its obligations with respect to its 1.875% convertible senior notes due 2031, which may include payments in settlement of conversions of or to repurchase or redeem such notes. The co expects to use the balance of the net proceeds for retirement of other convertible notes and debt and other general corporate purposes. Earlier today, Micron gave notice to holders of the 2031B Notes that their notes will be redeemed on August 22, 2014, except to the extent such notes are converted or repurchased by Micron prior to such date, and its current intent is to settle any such conversions entirely in cash with a portion of the proceeds from the offering.

7:03 am Microsemi acquires Cork, Ireland-based Mingoa; financial terms not disclosed (MSCC) : Co announced it has acquired Cork, Ireland-based Mingoa, a provider of semiconductor IP for hardware accelerated Ethernet OAM and embedded tests. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

7:00 am EMC reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY14 EPS ~in-line, reaffirms FY14 revs guidance; adds $1 bln to buyback (EMC) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.43; revenues rose 4.7% year/year to $5.88 bln vs the $5.84 bln consensus.

Co issues guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $1.91 (from $1.90), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.90 Capital IQ Consensus; reaffirms FY14 revs of $24.575 bln vs. $24.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

EMC generated $1.3 billion in operating cash flow and $930 million in free cash flow2 in the second quarter - up 2% and 10% year over year, respectively. EMC ended the quarter with $14.6 billion in cash and investments. The company repurchased ~$600 million worth of its common stock in the second quarter and returned ~$200 million to shareholders via a quarterly dividend. In addition, EMC's Board of Directors has approved an acceleration of EMC's share buyback plan for 2014 from $2 billion to $3 billion. Including the accelerated buyback and EMC's increased dividend (announced in the first quarter of 2014), EMC expects to return more than $7 billion to shareholders over the course of 2013 and 2014. Geography:EMC's consolidated second-quarter revenue from the United States was up 3% year over year at $3.1 billion, representing 52% of consolidated second-quarter revenue. Revenue from EMC's business operations outside of the United States increased 7% year over year to $2.8 billion representing 48% of consolidated second-quarter revenue. Within this, revenue from EMC's Europe, Middle East and Africa region grew 12% year over year and revenue from EMC's Latin America region grew 14% year over year. Revenue from the BRIC+13 markets grew 5% year over year.

6:29 am ReneSola sells 40 energy storage systems to Think Green Energy (SOL) : Co announced the delivery of 30 ReneSola Novaplus 2KW energy storage systems to a national distributor in Chelmsford for onward sale to Essex installation company Think Green Energy. An additional 10 units are on order for use by Think Green Energy customers in the southeast of England.

Since the start of the third quarter, no sector in the S&P 500 has done better than the information technology sector. It is up 3.6% after padding its gain on Tuesday with a 0.9% advance that kept it ahead of the broader market.

The catalysts for the positive bias boiled down largely to the following factors:

Reassuring earnings results and guidance from Texas Instruments (TXN 49.12, -0.05) and Sanmina (SANM 24.00, +1.65)New product buzz surrounding Apple (AAPL 94.72, +0.78), with reports revolving around the possible introduction of an iWatch and/or iPhones with a larger screen sizeA Wall Street Journal article, citing people familiar with the matter, said Apple is asking suppliers to produce between 70 million and 80 million iPhones with 4.7 inch and 5.5 inch displays by December 30The news preceded Apple's earnings report after Tuesday's closeThe expectation that good earnings news out of the sector would continue with earnings results from Apple, Microsoft (MSFT 44.83, -0.01), Broadcom (BRCM 38.75, +0.12), Electronic Arts (EA 38.42, unch), Linear Technology (LLTC 47.67, +0.35), Juniper Networks (JNPR 24.82, +0.37), and Xilinx (XLNX 48.15, -0.18) after Tuesday's closePrior to Monday's close, S&P Capital IQ noted that 15 companies in the information technology sector had reported results and that 73% of those companies had exceeded consensus EPS estimates
Continued price momentum of large-cap issues
Netflix (NFLX 431.09, -20.86) was a notable laggard in Tuesday's session. It tumbled after its earnings results with reports attributing the weakness to concerns surrounding the stock's valuation and higher expenses related to the company's plans to invest in international markets.

In other developments, it was reported that Yahoo (YHOO 33.60, +0.32) bought startup company Flurry in a bid to enhance its competitive position in the mobile market.

The press release indicates Flurry's analytics product sees activity from more than 540,000 smartphone and tablet apps on over 1.4 bln devices worldwide, enabling the company to have a deep understanding of mobile consumer behavior. A purchase price was not provided, although a subsequent Bloomberg News report that ran in the San Jose Mercury News, and cited people familiar with the matter, said Yahoo paid more than $300 mln.

On a related note, comScore released its June 2014 U.S. search engine rankings. Yahoo Sites placed third with 9.8% of the core search market. Google Sites (GOOG 594.74, +5.27) ranked first with 67.6% market share followed by Microsoft Sites with 19.2%.

The only ratings change of note centered on Amazon.com (AMZN 360.84, +1.08), which was downgraded by Citigroup to Neutral from Buy. The downgrade, which also carried a cut in the firm's price target to $395 from $414, was predicated in part on concerns about lingering margin pressures. Amazon, though, traded through the downgrade and logged a modest gain in Tuesday's trading. Amazon is slated to report its second quarter results after the close on July 24.

While Texas Instruments succumbed to some sell-the-news pressure after its earnings report (it had risen nearly 10% since May 15), its weakness didn't prevent the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ("SOX") from outperforming with a 0.7% gain. A 2.3% jump in Qualcomm (QCOM 81.53, +1.86), which was aided by news its Snapdragon chip will be carried in the new Xiaomi Mi 4 phone, helped the cause. Tuesday's gain left the SOX Index up a remarkable 21.4% year-to-date.

Postscript:

After the close, Apple, Electronic Arts, Broadcom, Juniper Networks, and Xilinx reported EPS results ahead of expectations. Linear Technology had not yet reported as of this posting.

Microsoft reported diluted EPS of $0.55 on a GAAP basis for its fiscal fourth quarter, which included an $0.08 per share loss tied to its acquisition of Nokia's handset business. Initial reports say the GAAP result was below expectations.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market maintained a narrow trading range on Thursday before ending the session essentially where it began. The S&P 500 added less than a point, while the small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.2%) underperformed.

Equity indices displayed early strength thanks in part to an overnight boost from better than expected economic data in China and Europe. Specifically, China's HSBC Manufacturing PMI surged to an 18-month high (52.0 from 50.7), while Eurozone Manufacturing PMI (51.9; expected 51.7) and Services PMI (54.4; expected 52.7) also surpassed estimates.

In addition to upbeat data from overseas, participants received a batch of better than expected earnings, but the market had a difficult time building on its early gain. The S&P 500 surrendered its opening advance during the initial minutes, but was able to follow that with a rally to a fresh record high (1991.39). The index could not hold that level into the afternoon and slipped back to its flat line by the close.

None of the sectors were able to distinguish themselves with several groups spending time atop the leaderboard. When it was all said and done, consumer staples (+0.4%), utilities (+0.4%) and consumer discretionary (+0.3%) occupied the top three spots.

The staples sector drew strength from beverage stocks with Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS 60.98, +2.54) surging 4.4% in reaction to its bottom-line beat. Peer PepsiCo (PEP 91.91, +1.09) advanced 1.2% after being upgraded to 'Buy' from 'Hold' at Stifel Nicolaus.

For its part, the utilities sector erased its week-to-date loss, but could only narrow its July decline to 3.4%. Despite the recent weakness, the rate-sensitive group holds a year-to-date gain of 12.5% versus a 7.6% increase for the S&P 500.

Elsewhere, the discretionary space was supported by retailers. Under Armour (UA 69.55, +8.92) spiked 14.7% to a new record high after delivering an above-consensus quarterly report, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 85.33, +0.55) rallied 0.7%. The strength among retailers outweighed the broad losses among homebuilders.

The industry group was pressured by a disappointing report from a major builder-DR Horton (DHI 21.94, -2.86)-and the June New Home Sales report, which fell short of expectations (406K; Briefing.com consensus 475K). The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 23.38, -0.83) lost 3.4%.

Other high-beta groups like biotechnology and chipmakers did not fare much better. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 255.45, -3.89) tumbled 1.5%, while the health care sector (-0.2%) lagged throughout the session.

For its part, the PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 0.8% with Qualcomm (QCOM 76.17, -5.43) registering the largest drop. The stock fell 6.7% after its below-consensus Q4 earnings guidance overshadowed better than expected results.

Meanwhile, another tech stock-Facebook (FB 74.98, +3.69)-soared 5.2% after beating earnings and revenue expectations.

Treasuries retreated, making the bulk of their move ahead of the New York open. The 10-yr note lost 11 ticks, sending its yield higher by four basis points to 2.51%.

Participation was below average with a bit over 615 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to initial claims and the New Home Sales report for June:


The initial claims level fell to 284,000 from an upwardly revised 303,000 (from 302,000), while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 308,000
The drop in claims brought the overall level to its lowest point since February 2006 and pressured the four-week moving average to its lowest level since May 2006
The Department of Labor said there were no special factors associated with the report, but did note that claims tend to be volatile around this time of the year
New home sales fell 8.1% in June to 406,000 from a downwardly revised 442,000 (from 504,000) in May, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 475,000
Sales were also revised lower for April (408,000 from 425,000) and March (403,000 from 410,000)
Median new home prices increased 5.3% y/y in June to $273,500

Tomorrow, the Durable Orders report (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) will be released at 8:30 ET. On the earnings front, AbbVie (ABBV 54.08, -0.40), LyondellBasell (LYB 102.42, -0.08), and American Electric Power (AEP 54.01, +0.04) will report their results ahead of the opening bell.

S&P 500 +7.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.6% YTD

4:34 pm Altera beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line; quarterly dividend 20% to $0.18/share (ALTR) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.41 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.37; revenues rose 16.5% year/year to $491.5 mln vs the $480.62 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs in the range of down 2% to up 2% sequentially, which calculates to ~$481.7-501.3 mln vs. $491.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.4:31 pm Mattson reports EPS in-line, beats on revs (MTSN) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.03; revenues rose 71.0% year/year to $42.0 mln vs the $40.8 mln consensus.

4:28 pm Microsemi reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (MSCC) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.58 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.58; revenues rose 20.5% year/year to $292.3 mln vs the $290.41 mln consensus.

For the third quarter of fiscal 2014, non-GAAP gross margin was 56.0 percent and non-GAAP operating margin was 22.6 percent.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.62-0.66, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.62 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $299-305 mln vs. $302.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:26 pm Ingram Micro beats by $0.02, beats on revs; co currently expects 2014 Q3 worldwide revenue to increase YoY in the high single digits (IM) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.54 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.52; revenues rose 5.8% year/year to $10.91 bln vs the $10.59 bln consensus.

Outlook

The co currently expects 2014 third quarter worldwide revenue to increase year-over-year in the high single digits.Gross margin is expected to improve solidly over the 2014 second quarter, and be relatively flat with the prior year third quarter.2014 third quarter non-GAAP operating expense as a percentage of revenue is expected to continue to benefit sequentially over the 2014 second quarter from incremental cost savings related to implementation of the co's global organizational effectiveness program, and year-over-year from revenue leverage.

4:25 pm Riverbed Technology reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (RVBD) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues rose 5.7% year/year to $264.03 mln vs the $265.43 mln consensus.

"We made important strides in the second quarter to extend beyond our core WAN optimization business as evidenced by the number of multi-product transactions which increased both sequentially and year over year, and we expect this to accelerate our growth in the second half of the year and lead to long term sustainable growth in revenue and EPS."Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.30-0.32, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.30 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $285-291 mln vs. $279.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:23 pm RF Micro Device beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (RFMD) : Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.17; revenues rose 8.0% year/year to $316.32 mln vs the $304.83 mln consensus.

On a non-GAAP basis gross margin was 47.1%
Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of ~$0.27, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of ~$345 mln vs. $328.93 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co also sees non-GAAP gross margin to be approximately flat to up 25 basis points sequentially.

4:21 pm Flextronics beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FLEX) : Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.22; revenues rose 14.7% year/year to $6.64 bln vs the $6.28 bln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.22-0.26 vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $6.2-6.6 bln vs. $6.55 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20 pm KLA-Tencor misses by $0.06, reports revs in-line (KLAC) : Reports Q4 (Jun) non-GAAP earnings of $0.80 per share, $0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.86; revenues rose 2.0% year/year to $734.3 mln vs the $734.6 mln consensus. Note: Co usually guides on the call, starts at 5pm ET.

4:15 pm Freescale Semi beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line (FSL) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.35; revenues rose 14.7% year/year to $1.19 bln vs the $1.17 bln consensus.

Adjusted gross margin of 45.2%
Capital Expenditures for the quarter were $56 millionCo issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $1.19-1.23 bln vs. $1.2 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margins to increase approximately 50 basis points on a sequential basis.

4:12 pm Mellanox Tech beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs in-line (MLNX) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues rose 4.5% year/year to $102.57 mln vs the $102.83 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $114-118 mln vs. $114.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Micrel misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (MCRL) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues rose 5.2% year/year to $62.3 mln vs the $63.51 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.06-0.09, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.13 Capital IQ Consensus EstimatesCo sees Q3 revs of $62.9-66.0 mln vs. $67.34 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Guidance excludes the one-time $3 million to $5 million of revenue and related cost of goods sold impact

4:03 pm Maxim Integrated misses by $0.05, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (MXIM) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.43 per share, $0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.48; revenues rose 6.0% year/year to $642 mln vs the $650.45 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.34-0.40 vs. $0.51 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $580-620 mln vs. $676.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "While we experienced softness in our mobility business, our revenue performance in the quarter reflected the overall strength of Maxim's balanced portfolio, with growth in every one of our other major businesses." Mr. Doluca continued, "Although our near-term outlook for mobility remains cautious, we are executing on our strategy to bring new integrated designs to the Industrial, Automotive, Communications and Data Center markets, and to diversify our customer base in mobility."

4:03 pm Lattice Semi beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs below consensus (LSCC) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.10 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 17.3% year/year to $99.3 mln vs the $98.6 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs down 8-12% sequentially which computes to $87.4-91.4 mln vs. $98.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:02 pm Monolithic Power beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (MPWR) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.37 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.35; revenues rose 18.5% year/year to $68.4 mln vs the $67.14 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $76-80 mln vs. $73.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:01 pm Monolithic Power acquires Sensima Technology SA for an initial cash payment of $11.7 mln and a subsequent cash earn-out payment of up to $8.9 mln which will be based upon Sensima's achieving certain performance goals (MPWR) : Co announced that it has acquired Sensima Technology SA located in Switzerland. Sensima is a pre-revenue, developer of magnetic sensor technologies for angle measurements as well as three-dimensional magnetic field sensing.

MPS has acquired all of the outstanding shares of capital stock of Sensima. The purchase price includes an initial cash payment of $11.7 million and a subsequent cash earn-out payment of up to $8.9 million which will be based upon Sensima's achieving certain performance goals. Key employees will also be eligible to receive time-based and performance-based restricted stock units in connection with this transaction. A portion of the initial cash consideration payable to the stockholders will be placed into escrow under the terms of the acquisition agreement.
The estimated financial impact of the acquisition on the future operating results of MPS is not expected to be significant.

11:59 am Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

UA (69.65 +14.88%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; raised FY14 guidance; reported Q2 gross margin of 49.2%, prior guidance flat, vs estimate of ~20 bps expansion to 48.5%.
RCL (60.97 +8.43%): Beat on EPS by $0.13, reported revs in-line; guided Q3 EPS above consensus; raised FY14 EPS guidance (midpoint above consensus).
NOK (8.26 +7.55%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs.

Large Cap Losers

LMCA (49 -65.32%): Announced adjustment to the conversion rate of its 1.375% cash convertible senior notes due 2023 .
TRIP (97.19 -9.47%): Missed on EPS by $0.06, reported revs in-line; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald; target raised to $104 from $100 at RBC Capital Mkts; target raised to $98 from $87 at UBS.
QCOM (76.55 -6.19%): Beat on EPS by $0.10, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; co believes certain licensees in China are not fully complying with their contractual obligations to report their sales of licensed products; downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Evercore; downgraded to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna; tgt lowered to $85 from $86 at Cowen; tgt lowered to $90 from $95 at Canaccord Genuity.

Mid Cap Gainers

LOGI (15.44 +15.81%): Beat on EPS by $0.09, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY15 revs guidance; raised op income guidance; upgraded to Buy from Hold at European firm Vontobel.
CSGP (161.07 +12.17%): Beat on EPS by $0.10, beat on revs; guided Q3 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS above consensus, revs in-line.
SKX (52.51 +8.47%): Beat on EPS by $0.28, beat on revs; target raised to $58 at B. Riley & Co.

Mid Cap Losers
UFS (37.72 -9.74%): Reported Q2 earnings of $0.61 per share, missed on revs.
DHI (22.47 -9.4%): Reported Q3 earnings of $0.32 per share, including items; missed on revs; raised quarterly dividend by 67% from the most recent dividend paid to $0.0625 per share.
CLB (153.87 -7.93%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, reported revs in-line; guided Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guided Q4 (Dec) EPS in-line, revs in-line

11:48 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (185) outpacing new lows (30) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABC, ADM, AHGP, AHT, AIV, AKR, APD, ARE, ARES, ATHL, AVB, AVIV, BBL, BDN, BGCP, BHP, BIDU, BITA, BK, BKD, BPL, BRX, CAM, CBG, CCE, CHE, CHRW, CIB, CMRE, COBR, CONE, COO, COP, CORR, CSC, CUZ, CVTI, CVX, DAN, DDR, DDS, DFT, DPS, EDUC, EFX, EGAS, EMES, ENB, ENL, ENPH, EPD, EPR, EQR, ESC, ESS, ESTE, ETP, EXP, F, FB, FCH, FDS, FET, FFIV, FOLD, FRT, FTI, FTNT, GCI, GD, GIL, GILD, GLP, GMK, GPK, GPRE, GTIV, H, HAL, HBI, HES, HFBC, HLX, HME, HNT, HST, HT, IBA, ILMN, IMS, INGR, INVN, IPG, ITUB, JBLU, JKHY, JLL, KALU, KEX, KOG, KR, LEJU, LGCY, LHO, LLY, LRE, LUV, LYB, MAA, MAG, MAMS, MAR, MATW, MCK, MCO, MGA, MKSI, MMC, MMM, MPB, MS, MUR, NDAQ, NFX, NI, NOV, NSH, NSLP, OAS, OFC, OHI, PBA, PDM, PEB, PII, PJC, PKY, PNBK, PPC, PPS, PTEN, PTR, PTSI, PXD, QRE, RCL, REG, REX, REXI, RUK, SAVE, SE, SEIC, SEMG, SERV, SGK, SHI, SIAL, SKX, SLCA, SRC, STLD, SUSS, TEN, TEVA, TMH, TNC, TPL, TPX, TRP, UA, UAL, UDR, UHS, VAC, VDSI, VNR, VNTV, WAB, WFT, WLK, WLL, WYN, XEC, XOM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ANGI, AQXP, AVP, BTN, CBLI, CGG, CLRX, CNHI, CREG, DNKN, EDMC, EDU, ESI, EVOK, GPRC, IDI, MCRI, MORN, NEWL, NKSH, NUTR, ROYT, SILC, SQI, SSH, SWAY, TBBK, TSC, VII, WMAR

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: BKF, DBB, EEM, EPP, EWC, EWH, GAF, ICF, IYR, IYT, NIB, OEF, QQQ, SLX, SPY, URE, VNQ, VWO, XLK, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BAL

10:54 am SPDR Semiconductor sets new six week low, vacillating near its 50 sma at 72.81 (XSD) : INTC, SWKS, MU, SPWR, CRUS, FCS, RFMD, TQNT, AVGO, ONNN, TXN.

9:38 am Qualcomm extends aggressive post-earnings drop near its 200 ema at 75.84 and stabilizes -- session low 75.91 (QCOM) : Its 200 sma is slightly below at 75.68.

9:38 am Broadcom to offer senior notes due 2024 and 2044 (BRCM) : Co announced its intention to offer, subject to market and other conditions, two tranches of Senior Notes due 2024 and 2044 under an effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3, on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Broadcom expects to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, which may include the potential redemption, subject to market conditions, of Broadcom's 2.375% Senior Notes due 2015. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering.

8:04 am KEMET misses by $0.06, misses on revs (KEM) : Reports Q1 (Jun) loss of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.02; revenues rose 5.3% year/year to $212.9 mln vs the $215.64 mln consensus.

7:18 am Integrated Silicon beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line; initiates dividend (ISSI) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.25 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.24; revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $84.8 mln vs the $83.65 mln consensus. Gross margin was 34.5%, compared to 34.3% in the March 2014 quarter and 33.5% in the June 2013 quarter; DRAM revenue increased 14.9% and SRAM revenue increased 6.3% over the prior year period; Industrial, medical, and military (IMM.V) revenue increased 32.3% and automotive revenue grew 12.1% year-over-year;

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.25-0.29 vs. $0.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $85.0-89.0 mln vs. $86.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Announced quarterly cash dividend program.

7:14 am Benchmark Elec beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (BHE) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.38; revenues rose 17.9% year/year to $717 mln vs the $681.62 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.38-0.42, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.39 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $670-700 mln vs. $678.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "We executed very well during the quarter. Our continued focus on operational excellence enabled results for the second quarter to exceed our expectations as we convert our robust pipeline of new programs...The solid quarter demonstrates the level of performance we can achieve at current demand levels and provides visibility into our future potential as we continue to accelerate our pace and efficiency in new program introductions."

SunEdison (SUNE) announced its acquisition of the 156 megawatt (MW) DC Comanche Solar project from renewable energy developer Community Energy.

6:49 am Integrated Silicon initiates new dividend of $0.06/share (ISSI) : Dividend will be payable on Aug. 15, 2014 to shareholders of date at the close on Aug. 4, 2014.

6:18 am Cabot Micro misses by $0.10, misses on revs; expects FY14 gross profit to be around lower end of its guidance range (CCMP) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.10 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.63; revenues fell 1.4% year/year to $108.4 mln vs the $111.43 mln consensus. Gross profit, expressed as a percentage of revenue, was 47.7 percent this quarter, compared to 49.7 percent of revenue reported in the same quarter a year ago. Compared to the year ago quarter, gross profit percentage decreased primarily due to higher variable manufacturing costs, including higher raw material costs and higher logistics costs. Year to date, gross profit represented 47.3 percent of revenue, which includes a 70 basis point adverse impact of an asset impairment charge related to certain manufacturing assets recorded during the second fiscal quarter. The company expects its gross profit for the full fiscal year to be around the lower end of its guidance range of 48 to 50 percent of revenue.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market began the last week of July on a quiet note with the S&P 500 ending less than a point above its flat line. Like the benchmark index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) also posted a slim gain, while the Russell 2000 (-0.5%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) lagged throughout the session.

The major averages were awakened from their weekend slumber with an opening retreat that pressured the S&P 500 below its 20-day moving average (1975). Even though the index dipped early, only two sectors-consumer staples (-0.5%) and industrials (-0.5%)-displayed noteworthy weakness that persisted into the close.

Meanwhile, most of the remaining sectors kept pace with the broader market and climbed to highs as the afternoon wore on. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.2%) was an early laggard, but ended among the leaders with help from the likes of Netflix (NFLX 424.66, +2.80) and Priceline.com (PCLN 1239.29, +11.51). Furthermore, the sector drew strength from the retail industry, where Family Dollar (FDO 75.74, +15.08) agreed to be acquired by Dollar Tree (DLTR 54.87, +0.65) for $74.50/share, representing a 22.8% premium to Friday's closing price.

M&A activity was also the focus in another influential sector-technology (+0.2%)-with Zillow (Z 160.32, +1.46) acquiring Trulia (TRLA 65.04, +8.69) for $3.50 billion in stock, which represents roughly a 25.3% premium to Friday's closing price.

Elsewhere among tech shares, the largest sector component-Apple (AAPL 99.02, +1.35)-rallied 1.4%, but high-beta chipmakers were not nearly as fortunate. The PHLX Semiconductor Index shed 0.1% after being down as much as 1.3% during the opening hour of action.

Similar to chipmakers, biotech stocks struggled throughout the session, and while their underperformance weighed on the Nasdaq Composite, it had little impact on the health care sector. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 251.91, -2.15) lost 0.9%, while the health care sector tacked on 0.1%.

Like health care, countercyclical telecom services (+0.5%) and utilities (+1.5%) also finished in the green. Notably, the utilities sector climbed throughout the session to extend its year-to-date advance to 13.3%.

On the fixed income side, the 10-yr note made a brief appearance in the green when equities were on their lows, before sliding to a fresh low ahead of the close. The benchmark note shed four ticks with its yield climbing two basis points to 2.48%.

Participation was below average with less than 580 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to the Pending Home Sales report for June:


Pending home sales fell 1.1% in June, which was worse than the 0.8% decrease forecast by the Briefing.com consensus
The May reading was revised down to 6.0% from 6.1%

Tomorrow, the Case-Shiller 20-City Index for May (Briefing.com consensus 10.0%) will be released at 9:00 ET, while July Consumer Confidence (consensus 85.6) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. On the earnings front, BP (BP 50.64, -0.28), Honda Motor (HMC 35.18, +0.19), Pfizer (PFE 30.10, -0.09), and UPS (UPS 102.66, -0.91) will report their results ahead of the opening bell.

S&P 500 +7.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.1% YTD

DJ30 +22.02 NASDAQ -4.65 SP500 +0.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 999/1.66 bln/1755 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1323/576.4 mln/1720 3:30 pm :

Aug gold chopped around near the unchanged level today in a tight range between $1301.80 per ounce and $1305.80 per ounce. Unable to gain momentum, it settled just 20 cents higher at $1303.20 per ounce.
Sep silver slipped into negative territory in afternoon action after trading as high as $20.73 per ounce earlier in the session. It touched a session low of $20.55 per ounce and settled with a 0.3% loss at $20.57 per ounce.
Sep crude oil came off its session low of $100.82 per barrel in morning action and trended higher to a session high of $102.12 per barrel. However, it lost momentum heading into the close and settled with a 0.4% loss at $101.68 per barrel.
Aug natural gas rose to a session high of $3.85 per MMBtu but reversed into the red in late morning floor trade. It brushed a session low of $3.73 per MMBtu and eventually settled at $3.75 per MMBtu, or 0.8% lower.

The performance of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ("SOX) was a microcosm of the broader market on Monday. It was down sharply early, declining as much as 1.3%, and then it rebounded to end the session down just 0.1%.

Can anything be gleaned from that showing? Perhaps.

The SOX Index declined 4.2% last week, taking out its 50-day moving average in the process. At today's low then, it was down over 5.0% since July 18. Unlike last week, though, there wasn't any specific piece of bad news driving the early retreat. It was just follow-through selling, so there may have been an opportunistic, buy-the-dip trade at work on Monday.

It's hard to say for sure, but what can be said for sure is that the SOX Index and the S&P 500 had a pretty symbiotic relationship on Monday.

Overall, there wasn't a lot of news driving the technology sector. Some stocks simply benefited from added demand while others languished from soft demand, but with heavyweights like Apple (AAPL 99.02, +1.35), IBM (IBM 195.78, +1.38), EMC Corp. (EMC 29.67, +0.47), Oracle (ORCL 40.55, +0.22), Texas Instruments (TXN 47.35, +0.53), Priceline (PCLN 1239.29, +11.51), and Google (GOOG 590.60, +1.58) all finishing on the plus side, the S&P 500 technology sector (+0.2%) was spared a negative finish.

Apple was in the news making two smaller acquisitions -- BookLamp and Swell -- and spending approximately $45 mln for both companies. That's less than pocket change for a company with $165 bln in cash, and it is money that won't soon be missed considering Apple's market cap went up by roughly eight billion dollars on Monday.

Blackberry (BBRY 9.95, -0.32), which has seen its market cap shrink to $5.2 bln thanks in part to Apple's iPhone success, noted for the record that it doesn't have any takeover offers at the moment. That admission earned CEO John Chen some candor points, but it also led to the stock's underperformance.

Chinese Internet stocks remained in the news following earnings reports from Sohu.com (SOHU 57.81, +0.41) and Changyou.com (CYOU 24.26, +0.31). Both companies easily outpaced analysts' earnings expectations, yet they didn't generate the same halo trading effect on the group that Baidu (BIDU 225.80, -0.70) did following its results last Friday.

The broader market found a measure of support in some M&A activity on Monday. One deal included Zillow (Z 160.32, +1.46) making a $3.5 bln stock offer for Trulia (TRLA 65.04, +8.69). This deal was rumored to be in the works last week.

Both stocks moved up on heavier-than-average volume, yet that busy trading activity was very much the exception on Monday. Volume was light as a lot of traders sat on their hands in anticipation of more earnings results later in the week, the Q2 GDP report and FOMC directive on Wednesday, and the employment report for July on Friday. Geopolitical matters also worked to keep investors sidelined.

Come Tuesday, the earnings spotlight in the technology sector will shine on Corning (GLW 22.05, +0.03), which reports before the open, and Twitter (TWTR 37.93, -0.23), which reports after the close.

Twitter has an enviable task of living up to high growth expectations -- a task made all the more difficult by Facebook (FB 74.92, -0.27), which put up some robust results last week. As a reminder, Twitter fell as much as 31% in the six trading sessions following its last earnings report on April 29 when it failed to live up to growth expectations. At its closing price on Monday, shares of TWTR were up 28% from the May 7 low.

6:11 pm Silicon Motion beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus; guides FY14 revs above consensus (SIMO) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.41 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.36; revenues rose 19.0% year/year to $69.41 mln vs the $65.28 mln consensus.

Gross margin increased to 52.2% from 48.6% in prior quarterCo issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of +15-20% sequentially (~$79.8-83.3 mln) vs. $71.65 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees non-GAAP gross margin of 50-52%

Co issues upside guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of +22-27% (~$274.9-286.1 mln, raised from prior guidance of +5-15%) vs. $262.85 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees non-GAAP gross margin of 49.5-51.5%

4:45 pm Silicon Image appoints Raymond Cook as Chief Financial Officer, effective July 28, 2014 (SIMG) : Co announced the appointment of Raymond Cook as Chief Financial Officer effective July 28, 2014. Mr. Cook joins Silicon Image from STEC (recently acquired by HGST, a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital) where he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the last five years.

4:10 pm Luminex beats by $0.10, reports revs in-line; reaffirms FY14 revenue guidance (LMNX) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues rose 2.4% year/year to $55.6 mln vs the $55.64 mln consensus.

Co issues Reaffirms guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $225-240 mln vs. $231.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Peregrine Semi beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs inline (PSMI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.13); revenues fell 10.1% year/year to $47.1 mln vs the $44.15 mln consensus.

Gross margin on a non-GAAP basis for the second quarter of 2014 was 39.0% of revenue, compared to 40.0% of revenue for the same period in 2013. "We reported better than expected revenue this quarter driven by strong growth of LTE smartphones in many global markets," said James Cable, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "In our High Performance Analog business, we are also enjoying strong design win growth and momentum in our sales channel."Co issues inline guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $40-43 mln vs. $42.35 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees 3Q GAAP gross margin in range of 39-41%.

4:07 pm Integrated Device beats by $0.01, beats on revs (IDTI) : Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.16; revenues rose 6.5% year/year to $126.3 mln vs the $124.98 mln consensus. "Looking ahead we are confident in our ability to continue executing on our growth strategy with all key areas of our business contributing to that growth."

4:05 pm Integrated Device announces that an IDT wireless power receiver was incorporated on LG's latest flagship G3 smartphone (IDTI) : Co announced that an IDT wireless power receiver was incorporated on LG's latest flagship G3 smartphone. The two companies worked together closely to integrate the IDTP9025A chip, which delivers a compact size and simplified application circuit.

The LG G3 smartphone is winning rave reviews globally for its state-of-the-art feature set in a compact form.

3:11 pm Apple: AAPL, now +1.4%, pushes to a new 52-wk high print now @ 99.10 as shares edge closer to the widely followed $100.00 handle (AAPL) :

12:09 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TSN (41.38 +4.67%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.75 vs $0.78 estimate), revs rose 10.9% yoy to $9.68 bln vs $9.48 bln estimate; sees FY15 EPS growth of at least 10% on revs of ~$38 bln
UHS (108.45 +4.05%): Target raised to $131 from $95 at RBC Capital Markets; contineud strength following reporting of strong earnings and upside guidance after the close on July 24
DLTR (56.15 +3.56%): To acquire Family Dollar (FDO) in a cash and stock transaction; expected to be accretive to cash EPS within the first year post-closing, excluding one-time costs to achieve synergies

Large Cap Losers

CMI (145.04 -3.40%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($2.43 vs $2.39 estimate), revs rose 6.9% yoy to $4.84 bln vs $4.82 bln estimate; sees FY14 revs +8-11% (raised from +6-10%) or ~$18.7-19.2 bln vs $18.89 bln estimate
RBS (11.96 -3.39%): Seeing reports that Morgan Stanley has advised the company to sell a majority stake in its Irish unit, Ulster Bank
MNST (64.79 -3.31%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS, target lowered to $73 from $80

Mid Cap Gainers

FDO (74.46 +22.75%): To be acquired by Dollar Tree (DLTR) in a cash and stock transaction;
FDO shareholders to receive $59.60 in cash and $14.90 equivalent in Dollar Tree shares
TRLA (63 +11.80%): To be acquired by Zillow (Z) for ~$3.5 bln in stock; Trulia shareholders to receive 0.444 shares of class A common stock of Zillow for each share of Trulia
FSLR (66.11 +3.22%): Announced the signing of an agreement with XSOL Co, a distributor and integrator of solar systems in Japan, to supply cadmium telluride thin film modules in Japan
Mid Cap Losers
AWI (50.96 -7.96%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.60 ex items vs $0.66 estimate), revs rose 0.5% yoy to $710 mln vs $727.12 mln estimate; sees Q3 revs of $740-780 mln vs $760.10 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $2.15-2.40 (lwered from $2.55-2.80) vs $2.60 estimate, revs of $2.7-2.8 bln (lowered from $2.8-2.9 bln) vs $2.81 bln estimate
CMP (87.28 -7.76%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.14 ($0.13 ex items vs $0.27 estimate), revs rose 7.4% yoy to $186.6 mln vs $196.94 mln estimate; operating earnings $13.4 mln vs $14.7 mln in prior year
RSPP (31.13 -4.16%): Sees Q2 net income of $7.8-8.3 mln and adjusted EBITDAX of $51.0-53.7 mln Cypress Semiconductor (CY) announced that Raytrix GmbH has selected Cypress's EZ-USB CX3 USB 3.0 camera controller for its new 3-D camera.

FSLR +2.8% (co and and XSOL establish supply agreement in Japan)

JNPR +2.1% (upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein)

8:04 am SunPower closes agreement for up to $44.5 million in non-recourse debt to finance residential solar lease program (SPWR) : Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (HASI) and SunPower Corp. (SPWR) announced an agreement under which HASI is expected to provide up to $44.5 million in non-recourse debt to help finance SunPower's residential solar lease program. The transaction allows SunPower to leverage existing lease assets and expand its program while increasing its cash position and strengthening its balance sheet. This is the second transaction announced by the two companies this year. In early April, Hannon Armstrong and SunPower announced a $42 million non-recourse debt financing.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 25.75, -0.22): -0.9% after being downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest.

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Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday session on a lower note after generally upbeat earnings took the back seat to geopolitical concerns. The S&P 500 (-0.5%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) ended on their lows, while the Russell 2000 (+0.3%) displayed relative strength.

Once again, market participants were focused on quarterly reports in the early going, but geopolitical worries overshadowed the impact of mostly better than expected earnings. Specifically, equities retreated after it was reported that European EU officials have prepared the new set of sanctions against Russia. The imposition of new sanctions may pique concerns about a boomerang effect on the global economy, and Europe in particular, but it is worth noting that the Russian ruble and Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX 23.85, -0.50) strengthened in reaction to the news.

The reports of forthcoming sanctions were followed by afternoon headlines from Washington indicating the Treasury Department has added VTB, the Bank of Moscow, and Russian Agriculture Bank to the sanction list. After the news crossed the wires, the RSX and the ruble dropped to fresh lows, as did the S&P 500.

Nine of ten sectors registered losses with the industrial space (-1.2%) spending the day at the bottom of the leaderboard. The sector was pressured by transport stocks after UPS (UPS 98.86, -3.80) reported disappointing results and guided lower. For its part, the Dow Jones Transportation Average logged its fourth consecutive loss, tumbling 1.4% with 17 of its 20 components ending in the red.

Unlike the industrial sector, other cyclical groups fared a bit better. Financials (-0.6%) and materials (-0.7%) lagged, while consumer discretionary (-0.3%) and technology (-0.2%) displayed relative strength.

In the discretionary sector, Honda Motor (HMC 36.02, +0.84) advanced 2.4% after reporting a slim earnings beat. The carmaker underpinned the sector, which also drew strength from retailers. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 84.24, 0.00) ended flat.

Elsewhere, the relative strength of the technology sector kept the broader market from sliding deeper into the red. High-beta chipmakers contributed to the outperformance with the likes of AMD (AMD 3.79, +0.06), Broadcom (BRCM 37.99, +0.27), and Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM 20.55, +0.18) adding between 0.7% and 1.6%.

Similarly, biotech companies also rallied with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 254.78, +2.87) ending higher by 1.1%. Meanwhile, the health care sector settled flat.

On the upside, only one sector finished in the green. Telecom services (+2.2%) rallied after Windstream (WIN 11.83, +1.30) was cleared by the Internal Revenue Service to spin off its assets into a publically-traded REIT. Peers AT&T (T 36.59, +0.94) and Verizon (VZ 51.97, +0.39) gained 2.6% and 0.8%, respectively on speculation they could also explore conversions into REITs.

On the fixed income side, Treasuries ended the session with modest gains that pressured the 10-yr yield lower by two basis points to 2.46%.

Participation was on the light side with 615 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to the Case-Shiller 20-city Index and the Consumer Confidence report:


The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for May rose 9.3%, while a 10.0% increase had been expected by the Briefing.com consensus
This followed the previous month's increase of 10.8%
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index spiked to 90.9 in July from an upwardly revised 86.4 (from 85.2), while the Briefing.com consensus pegged the Index at 85.6
Consumer confidence is now at its highest level since October 2007
The Present Situation Index increased to 88.3 from 86.3 and the Expectations Index rose to 92.7 from 86.4

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while the ADP Employment Change for July (Briefing.com consensus 215K) will be reported at 8:15 ET. The advance reading of Q2 GDP will be released at 8:30 ET (consensus 3.2%), while the FOMC will reveal its latest policy statement at 14:00 ET.

S&P 500 +6.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.8% YTD

DJ30 -70.48 NASDAQ -2.21 SP500 -8.96 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1396/1.96 bln/1347 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1194/614.9 mln/1831 3:35 pm :

Aug gold fell into negative territory after trading as high as $1310.30 per ounce in morning action as the dollar index strengthened. The yellow metal brushed a session low of $1295.50 per ounce and eventually settled with a 0.4% loss at $1298.20 per ounce.
Sep silver also pulled back from its session high of $20.79 per ounce set in early morning pit trade and brushed a session low of $20.50 per ounce. It inched slightly higher heading into the close and settled 1 cent higher at $20.58 per ounce.
Sep crude oil extended yesterday's losses as the stronger dollar index weighed on prices. The energy component spent its entire floor session in the red, trading as low as $100.32 per barrel. Unable to gain buying support, it settled at $100.91 per barrel, or 0.8% lower.
Sep natural gas dipped to a session low of $3.74 per MMBtu in morning action and chopped around slightly below the unchanged level. Buyers stepped in during the last hour of floor trade and took prices up as high as $3.83 per MMBtu. Natural gas settled at $3.82 per MMBtu, or 1.3% higher.

Like the broader market, the technology sector vacillated on Tuesday before giving way to some late selling pressure. The indecisive nature of the trading action for most of the session could be pinned on a wait-and-see stance in front of Wednesday's session, which will include the advance estimate for second quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus 3.2%), the ADP Employment Change report for July (Briefing.com consensus 215,000), and the FOMC decision.

There was also some hesitation ahead of Twitter's (TWTR 38.59, +0.66) earnings report after the close and amid some nettlesome headlines reporting new sanctions being levied against Russia by the US and the EU.

Influential newsflow within the technology sector was limited as most of the headlines detailed minor developments that had little to no bearing on trading sentiment within the technology sector.

Some exceptions to the latter observation included the earnings report from Corning (GLW 20.00, -2.05) and the word from Windstream (WIN 11.83, +1.30) that the IRS cleared it to spin off certain telecommunication network assets into an independent, publicly-traded REIT.

The news from Windstream put a healthy bid in the telecom services sector as market participants banked on other companies, like Verizon (VZ 51.97, +0.39), AT&T (T 36.59, +0.94), and CenturyLink (CTL 39.90, +2.19), following suit. UBS poured some cold water on the notion, contending that AT&T and Verizon would be unlikely to consider a similar move since it would force them to open up their networks to competitors.

The telecom stocks saw stronger gains get pared as the session progressed, yet collectively they still stood out as one of the best-performing areas in Tuesday's market.

Corning for its part was one of the market's biggest laggards. It dropped nearly 10% after coming up short of EPS expectations for the June quarter and cutting its full-year outlook for cover glass shipment growth to 20% from more than 24%. That reduction was pinned on weaker than expected demand in the tablet market.

Separately, Blackberry's (BBRY 9.51, -0.44) slide continued after Ford Motor (F 17.57, -0.07) said it will be replacing Blackberry phones for approximately 3300 employees with Apple (AAPL 98.38, -0.64) iPhones by the end of the year. That's an obvious plus for Apple, yet there wasn't a counter trade in its stock, which slipped 0.7% and acted as an influential weight on the technology sector along with IBM (IBM 194.57, -1.21).

Elsewhere, RF Micro Devices (RFMD 11.38, +0.46) caught a bid on some takeover rumors while Microstrategy (MSTR 150.37, +12.84) jumped nicely after announcing a restructuring plan to streamline its workforce and get its cost structure more in-line with its business strategy. Shares of MSTR were also upgraded by JMP Securities to Market Outperform from Market Perform.

Losses in Intel (INTC 34.19, -0.04), Qualcomm (QCOM 75.31, -0.52), Texas Instruments (TXN 46.77, -0.58), and Applied Materials (AMAT 21.19, -0.17) held back the SOX Index, which dropped 0.3%. Meanwhile, Kulicke & Soffa (KLIC 14.20, +0.43) got a nice boost after providing better than expected revenue guidance for its fiscal fourth quarter and outlegged an otherwise weak semiconductor equipment group.

Postscript:

After the close, Twitter reported a small but unexpected profit for its second quarter on revenue growth of 124% that also exceeded expectations. The company also reported that average monthly active users were 271 mln as of June 30, 2014, representing 24% growth on a year-over-year basis.

Shares of TWTR were skyrocketing in after hours trading. They were up 35% as of this posting.

4:23 pm Cray beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs below consensus; guides FY14 revs in-line (CRAY) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.22 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.30); revenues rose 0.7% year/year to $85.1 mln vs the $74.8 mln consensus.

Outlook: Co states, "For 2014, while a wide range of results remains possible, the company anticipates revenue to be in the range of $600 million for the year and, as previously indicated, to be heavily weighted to the fourth quarter as has been typical in recent years. Non-GAAP gross margin for 2014 is anticipated to be in the mid-30% range. Total non-GAAP operating expenses for the year are anticipated to be about $175 mln. Based on this outlook, the company expects to be profitable on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis for 2014."Guidance: Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $125 mln vs. $156.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $600 mln vs. $599.54 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12 pm Applied Micro reports EPS in-line, misses on revs (AMCC) : Reports Q1 (Jun) net of breakeven, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.00); revenues fell 7.2% year/year and fell 3% sequentially to $50.3 mln vs the $52.1 mln consensus.

"We are very pleased to report that we have shipped initial production X-Gene units. Purchase orders continue to grow and backlog is building. The creation of the ARM 64-bit based server category is underway.""We experienced strong demand for our connectivity products while we saw a sharp decline in legacy PowerPC embedded products. The contributions of the base business continue to support our growth initiatives."

4:07 pm Power Integrations beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs in-line (POWI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.61 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.58; revenues rose 1.3% year/year to $89 mln vs the $88.95 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $92-97 mln vs. $96.74 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 55 percent and 55.5 percent. (Excludes approximately $0.3 million of stock-based compensation and $0.6 million of amortization of acquisition-related intangibles.) GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 54 percent and 54.5 percent. Operating expenses (GAAP and non-GAAP) are expected to be flat to slightly lower compared with the second quarter.

12:18 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers


LVLT (47.04 +4.75%): Beat on EPS by $0.06, beat on revs; announced proposed private offering of senior notes by subsidiary, Level 3 Escrow II, that mature in 2022 valued at $600 mln.
CTL (39.16 +3.85%): Telecoms trading higher on WIN REIT news (T also higher).
WM (45.3 +3.21%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, missed on revs; plans to meet or exceed its FY14 EPS guidance; executed agreements to repurchase $600 mln in shares; signed definitive agreement for $1.94 bln divestiture of Wheelabrator Technologies to Energy Capital Partners.

Large Cap Losers

GLW (19.9 -9.75%): Missed on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; sees continued growth.
EMN (82.21 -7.29%): Beat on EPS by $0.08, slightly missed on revs; reaffirmed FY14 EPS guidance.
ETN (72.06 -6.11%): Reported EPS in-line, revs in-line; guided Q3 EPS below consensus; lowered high end of FY14 EPS guidance.

Mid Cap Gainers

MDSO (46.1 +17.72%): Reported EPS in-line, beat on revs; guided FY14 revs in-line.
CGNX (44.37 +17.38%): Beat on EPS by $0.10, beat on revs; guided Q3 revs well above consensus.
IDTI (15.19 +12.27%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; announced that an IDT wireless power receiver was incorporated on LG's latest flagship G3 smartphone; tgt raised to $20 at Craig Hallum.

Mid Cap Losers

OSK (46.65 -12.3%): Missed on EPS by $0.14, reported revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.
HLF (60.35 -10.57%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; guided Q3 EPS in-line; guided FY14 EPS in-line.
SSW (22.24 -6.73%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line.

12:04 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (103) outpacing new lows (71) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ABAX, ACH, AEM, AKS, AMID, APD, ARLP, ARRS, BABY, BBD, BBL, BHP, BNS, CGNX, CHA, CHE, CHTR, CHU, CM, CMCSA, CMG, CNSL, CTL, CTRP, CVC, DMLP, ECF, EDUC, EFX, ENVE, EQR, FLT, FSRV, FTR, GCI, GILD, GLP, GPRE, GRUB, GTIV, HCA, HLS, HNRG, HPP, HPQ, INTU, IPDN, IPG, IPHS, ITUB, KALU, KTWO, LAWS, LEJU, LVLT, LYB, MITSY, MMC, MSTR, NDAQ, NTES, NTRS, NTT, NVEC, OPB, OVBC, PKX, Q, REX, RFMD, RGA, SAVE, SBAC, SCG, SEM, SGC, SHG, SIMO, SKX, SNCR, SRC, SUMR, SUSS, SYA, T, TAHO, TCX, TD, THC, TMH, TOUR, TQNT, TRNS, TWC, TWTC, UDR, UFI, UHS, VZ, WIN, XL, XOM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACPW, ACXM, AVL, AVP, AWRE, BCOV, BDE, BPI, BRP, CAS, CGA, CLRX, CNHI, COT, CPWR, CVLT, DCTH, DSX, DVR, ECYT, EDMC, ENTR, ESI, FRAN, GLF, GLT, GNC, HLIT, IBP, IKAN, INBK, IPAR, KBIO, KBR, LPX, MDCO, MTZ, NCFT, NKSH, NPK, NPTN, NWBI, OCRX, OFLX, OGXI, PIKE, PT, QLGC, QNST, QRM, RCPI, RNDY, RSH, SAGE, SCL, SCVL, SKYW, SQI, TAXI, TCCO, TELK, TLMR, TNDM, TR, TRGT, TSE, TTS, TUP, UBS, VSAR, ZGNX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EEM, EPP, EWH, EWY, FXI, GXC, IHF, IYZ, SLX, TLT, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: RJA, TBT

11:16 am VirnetX Holding announces denial of three Microsoft (MSFT) petitions for inter partes review (VHC) : Co announced that last week, the USPTO denied three petitions for inter partes review filed by Microsoft (MSFT). These petitions sought review of certain claims of VirnetX's U.S. Patent Nos. 6,502,135 and 7,188,180. Like some of the petitions filed by Apple (AAPL) and all of the petitions filed by RPX, the USPTO found that Microsoft's petitions were not filed within the time limit imposed by the statute and declined to institute inter partes review. Microsoft was found to infringe both '135 and '180 patents in a prior lawsuit filed by VirnetX against Microsoft.

10:21 am Solar Power entering into purchase agreement for $25-million private placement (SOPW) : When received, the company intends to use the net proceeds from the sale of the shares for expansion of its global PV project activities, continued investment in ramping its YES! Solar solution for the residential and small business segments, for working capital purposes and to pay down debt.

9:32 am Trina Solar responds to U.S. Department of Commerce's announcement of preliminary findings in antidumping investigations on certain solar energy products originating in mainland China and Taiwan; opposes the preliminary findings and believes the allegations made by SolarWorld are contrary to the principles of free and fair trade and are unfounded (TSL) : Co notes the preliminary findings on July 25, 2014 by the U.S. Department of Commerce relating to the antidumping duty investigations concerning imports into the United States of certain crystalline silicon photovoltaic products from mainland China and Taiwan.

Trina Solar is one of the China-based suppliers of these products to the United States. The U.S. Department of Commerce preliminarily determined that certain crystalline silicon photovoltaic products from mainland China and Taiwan have been sold in the United States at dumping margins ranging from 26.33% to 58.87% and from 27.59% to 44.18%, respectively. Trina Solar was a compulsory respondent to the China investigation in which it received a preliminary dumping margin of 26.33%, the lowest among the Chinese exporters. Trina Solar opposes the preliminary findings and believes the allegations made by SolarWorld are contrary to the principles of free and fair trade and are unfounded.TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT) announced that it is the first gallium nitride RF chip manufacturer to achieve Manufacturing Readiness Level 9.

Silicom (SILC) has achieved its first design win for the Silicom Coleto Creek encryption and compression card. The design win is from one of co's existing customers, a provider of smart network solutions, who will use Silicom's Coleto Creek and Silicom Quad-Port 10G Networking cards in one of its next-generation network appliances. Sales related to these design wins are expected to triple the revs from this customer to ~ $1.5 mln per year.

SunPower (SPWR) has started construction on the 135-megawatt Quinto Solar Project in Merced County, Calif. In accordance with the company's recently announced holdco strategy, co expects to own and operate the solar power plant during construction.

IDTI +7.2% (announced that an IDT wireless power receiver was incorporated on LG's latest flagship G3 smartphone; co also reported earnings)

8:03 am IPG Photonics beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (IPGP) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.92 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.85; revenues rose 14.3% year/year to $192.2 mln vs the $182.6 mln consensus.

Guidance: Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.88-$1.03 vs. $0.94 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $190-$205 mln vs. $195.55 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Commentary: "As we enter the second half of 2014, we remain focused on generating profitable growth through expanding our business with existing and new OEMs, developing new applications and introducing new fiber laser-based products. Order flow in Q2 was strong and, with a book-to-bill ratio of greater than one, we anticipate sequential and year-over-year revenue growth for the third quarter. We will continue to target margins in the range of 50% to 55% while making strategic investments to enhance our product pipeline and expand our worldwide infrastructure."

7:53 am Aixtron misses by $0.04, misses on revs; reiterates 2014 guidance (AIXG) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of 0.10 per share, 0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ( 0.06); revenues rose 2.0% year/year to 46.2 mln vs the 47.54 mln consensus.

AIXTRON's Q2/2014 equipment order intake, at EUR 38.2m, showed a year-on-year increase of 25% from the EUR 30.5m in Q2/2013. Sequentially, the equipment order intake was also up (Q1/2014: EUR 37.7m), representing the fifth consecutive quarter of rising orders. The total equipment order backlog of EUR 66.4m as at June 30, 2014 was 14% higher than the 2014 opening backlog of EUR 58.1m.Management reiterates its original guidance for fiscal year 2014 made at the end of February, for revenues to be in line with those of last year. Concurrently, the Company is not expected to be profitable on an EBIT basis over the course of this year. Nevertheless, Management continues to expect a year-on-year improvement in earnings due to progress made in cost savings and restructuring.

7:34 am Micros Systems: expiration date of tender offer for Micros Systems, Inc. shares extended to August 15, 2014; extension is in accordance with Oracle (ORCL) merger agreement (MCRS) : Oracle (ORCL) announced that, in accordance with the terms of its merger agreement with Micros Systems, Inc., Rocket Acquisition Corporation, a subsidiary of OC Acquisition, a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation, has extended its all-cash tender offer for $68.00/share for all of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock, par value of $0.025/share, of MICROS Systems, Inc. to 12:00 Midnight, New York City time, at the end of August 15, 2014, unless further extended. The tender offer was previously set to expire at 12:00 Midnight, New York City time, at the end of July 31, 2014.

7:18 am Corning misses by $0.01, beats on revs; sees continued growth (GLW) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.37 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.38; revenues rose 27.5% year/year to $2.58 bln vs the $2.53 bln consensus.

Display Technologies segment core sales were $1.1 billion, a 62% increase over core sales of $670 million a year ago. The sales improvement was driven by the consolidation of Corning Precision Materials. Core earnings for the quarter increased by 9% from the year-ago comparable period. LCD glass volume grew in the low teens percentage sequentially and was higher than anticipated. As the company expected, price declines were more moderate versus the first quarter. Optical Communications segment sales were $686 million, a 14% increase from $601 million in quarter two of last year. The sales increase was stronger than anticipated, driven primarily by continued demand for Corning's fiber-to-the-home solutions in North America and Europe.Outlook:
"We have accomplished a great deal with our first-half business performance. We expect the third quarter will bring Corning's eighth consecutive year-over-year quarterly sales (consensus +27%) and earnings (consensus $0.42 vs. $0.33 LY) improvement, and we are on track for strong earnings growth for the full year," James B. Flaws, vice chairman and chief financial officer, remarked. In the third quarter, the company anticipates its LCD glass volume will be up by a mid-single digit percentage, sequentially. Glass price declines are expected to moderate further, returning to the rates experienced through most of 2013. Optical Communications segment third-quarter sales are expected to increase by a mid-single digit percentage year over year, driven by continued strong sales of fiber-to-the-home solutions in North America and Europe. For the Environmental Technologies segment, third-quarter year-over-year sales are anticipated to grow by 20% to 25%. Corning continues to benefit from strong demand for its heavy-duty diesel emissions control products in North America, China, and Europe. Specialty Materials segment sales are expected to grow ~10% sequentially as demand for Gorilla Glass increases in the second half of the year. Life Sciences segment sales are expected to be up slightly on a year-over-year comparison. "Synergies from the Corning Precision Materials acquisition are rapidly being achieved, and we expect to surpass our original goal. The company is delivering excellent growth in our Environmental Technologies and Optical Communications business segments, which we expect will continue through the second half of this year," Flaws said. "Corning continues to invest in research and development to drive our future growth," he pointed out. "We are working on new glass substrates for high-performance displays to enhance consumer viewing experiences, improved diesel emissions filters and substrates, and advancements in fiber-to-the-home and next-generation, data-center network solutions. Additionally, we have developments underway in wireless communications, and we plan to introduce a new, enhanced generation of our market-leading Gorilla Glass later this year."

7:06 am Canadian Solar comments on the Department of Commerce preliminary anti-dumping determination; says 'preliminary AD announcement will definitely jeopardize what we have worked so hard for and have achieved in the last few years in the U.S. market' (CSIQ) : Co released this statement on behalf of Thomas Koerner, General Manager of the cos Americas division, in response to the United States Department of Commerce's preliminary decision made last Friday to impose anti-dumping tariffs of up to 44.18% on certain Taiwanese photovoltaic cell imports:

Comments that they are deeply disappointed by the DOC's decision, especially in context of the overwhelming damaging impact on the U.S. solar industryStates this preliminary AD announcement will jeopardize what they have worked so hard for and have achieved in the last few years in the U.S. market: solar industry job creation and affordable clean energy - from small residential installations to large utility scale power plants. While they applaud the government's vocal dedication to sustainable development and job creation via fostering the solar market; the pattern of protectionism directly contradicts these commitments. They declare that this decision in favor of one non-competitive PV manufacturer will cost tens and thousands of jobs across the entire U.S. solar industry, which currently employs more than 140,000 local workers

7:03 am Entegris beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (ENTG) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.20 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.18; revenues rose 41.7% year/year to $251.6 mln vs the $240.2 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.15-0.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $255-275 mln vs. $278.34 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

7:00 am Kulicke & Soffa misses by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs above consensus (KLIC) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.34 per share, $0.01 worse than the GAAP Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.35; revenues rose 27.8% year/year to $180.5 mln vs the $170 mln consensus; gross margin +50 bps YoY to 47.2%.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of ~$185-195 mln vs. $180.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"The 58% revenue increase, over the March Quarter, was driven by increased demand for our market-leading equipment solutions. While these offerings individually serve targeted segments, they collectively cover a wide-range of the industry's interconnect requirements. We expect to drive further enhancements to the diversity and breadth of our equipment portfolio as our ongoing Advanced Packaging investments come to fruition."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday session on a mixed note with small caps displaying relative strength. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) and Russell 2000 (+0.4%) registered modest gains, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) and S&P 500 (+0.01%) underperformed.

Despite the mixed finish, the key indices traded higher across the board at the start of the session after the advance reading of second quarter GDP surpassed estimates (4.0% versus Briefing.com consensus 3.2%). However, the early strength was short-lived with the S&P 500 sliding into red during the opening 90 minutes of action.

One could argue that the inability to rally on a strong data point and better than expected earnings resulted from concerns about a potential fed funds rate hike taking place sooner than expected. To that point, Treasuries spent the session in a steady retreat and finished near their lows. The 10-yr note fell 26 ticks, sending its yield higher by nine basis points to 2.55%.

However, the jitters about a swift rate hike should have been partially calmed by today's policy statement from the FOMC, which was very similar to the June directive. The Fed lowered the size of monthly asset purchases to $25 billion and reiterated that participants saw continued "significant underutilization" of labor resources. Household spending was described as "rising moderately," while the housing sector continued recovering at a slow pace.

Despite the familiar undertone, there was a slight change in the portion of the statement dealing with inflation. Specifically, the directive acknowledged that "the likelihood of inflation running persistently below two percent has diminished somewhat," while the prior statements focused on the potential risks stemming from inflation running below the two-percent target.

The statement did not receive unanimous support with Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser dissenting due to his view that the guidance is time dependent and does not reflect the considerable economic progress that has been made already.

When the dust settled, five sectors posted gains, while the other five finished in the red. Cyclical groups displayed broad strength at the open, but finished the trading day on a mixed note.

Heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (+0.6%) and financial (+0.4%) sectors hovered near their flat lines into the afternoon, but surged to the top of the leaderboard shortly after the release of the FOMC statement. In the financial sector, American Express (AXP 90.91, -0.80) lost 0.9% despite reporting better than expected earnings.

Meanwhile, the discretionary space was supported by retailers, while homebuilders slumped. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 85.07, +0.83) added 1.0%, narrowing its July loss to 2.0%. For its part, the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 22.59, -0.17) lost 0.8% as higher interest rates weighed.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (+0.1%) was a notable laggard during the early portion of the session, but sprung to life in the afternoon. Transport stocks fueled the move with the Dow Jones Transportation Average climbing 0.7%. CH Robinson (CHRW 68.53, +4.12) paced the rally with a 6.4% gain after beating bottom-line estimates.

Also of note, the top-weighted sector-technology (+0.3%)-received support from chipmakers as the PHLX Semiconductor Index advanced 1.0%, which gave a boost to the Nasdaq Composite.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq also benefitted from a rally among biotech names. Amgen (AMGN 130.01, +6.70) surged 5.4% following its strong earnings and guidance, while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 257.25, +2.47) rose 1.0%.

The outperformance of biotech helped keep the health care sector (+0.4%) in the green even as some large cap components displayed relative weakness. WellPoint (WLP 112.47, -0.08) shed 0.1% despite beating estimates, while Humana (HUM 120.34, -7.18) lost 5.6% in reaction to an in-line report.

Another countercyclical sector-utilities-ended at the bottom of the leaderboard with a loss of 1.7% that was likely due in part to the increase in Treasury yields.

Today's participation was an improvement when compared to recent sessions, but remained below average with less than 670 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, ADP Employment Change, and the Q2 GDP report:


Second quarter GDP increased 4.0% in the advance release after declining an upwardly revised 2.1% (from -2.9%) in Q1 2014. The Briefing.com consensus expected GDP to increase 3.2%
Real final sales, which fell 1.0% in the first quarter, rebounded and increased 2.3%. That is still well off the pace from the second half of 2013 when real final sales increased 3.0% and 3.9%, respectively, in the third and fourth quarters
Simply put, all the predictions for 2014 economic growth that were based on the second half 2013 rebound proved to be faulty. Last year's gains were not sustainable
Inventories added 1.66 percentage points to GDP growth in second quarter after subtracting 1.16 percentage points in Q1 2014
According to the ADP National Employment Report, employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose 218K in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 215K
The June reading was left unrevised at 281,000
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 2.2% to follow last week's increase of 2.4%

Tomorrow, the July Challenger Job Cuts will be announced at 7:30 ET, while weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 310K) and the Q2 Employment Cost Index (consensus 0.4%) will be released at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 9:45 ET release of the Chicago PMI for July (expected 61.8).

S&P 500 +6.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.5% YTD

DJ30 -31.75 NASDAQ +20.20 SP500 +0.12 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1662/1.73 bln/1106 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1183/666.5 mln/1865 3:30 pm :

Aug gold fell into negative territory in morning action as the dollar index strengthened after an advance GDP reading showed a 4.0% expansion during Q2 (Briefing.com consensus expected GDP to increase 3.2%). The move lower also came ahead of the latest policy statement from the FOMC released at 14:00 ET. The yellow metal slipped from its session high of $1303.00 per ounce and spent the remainder of the session trading in the red. It eventually settled with a 0.3% loss at $1294.80 per ounce.
Sep silver popped to a session high of $20.67 per ounce in morning trade after trading as low as $20.48 per ounce earlier in the session. The move was short lived, however, as it quickly retreated towards the unchanged line and settled just 1 cent higher at $20.59 per ounce.
Sep crude oil fell for a third consecutive session despite better-than-anticipated inventory data. The energy component advanced to a session high of $101.67 per barrel when the EIA reported that crude oil inventories had a draw of 3.7 mln barrels when consensus called for a draw of 1.2-1.5.
However, prices quickly turned negative and trended lower for the remainder of the session, leaving crude oil to settle with a 0.6% loss at $100.27 per barrel.
In electronic trade, Sept crude oil just hit a new LoD of $99.57/barrel and is -1.3% at $99.63/barrel
Sep natural gas traded in the red today, dipping to a session low of $3.75 per MMBtu. Unable to find buying support, it settled with a 1.0% loss at $3.78 per MMBtu.

4:53 pm Silicon Image reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 revs below consensus; guides FY14 revs in-line (SIMG) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.04 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; revenues fell 19.3% year/year to $59.5 mln vs the $59.17 mln consensus.


Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $70-75 mln vs. $75.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of down 4-8% to ~$254.3-265.4 mln vs. $262.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Strength in our CE business partially offset the headwinds in our mobile business. We are also pleased with the increased momentum and market acceptance of the worldwide standards in which we participate. In particular, this quarter, the MHL ecosystem showed continued growth with tier one manufacturers shipping MHL 3.0-enabled TVs and the addition of another 4K Ultra HD MHL 3.0 phone."

4:32 pm Intersil beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (ISIL) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.18; revenues rose 2.0% year/year to $147.76 mln vs the $147.2 mln consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin improved to 58.3% in the second quarter, a 170 basis point sequential improvement.
Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.19-0.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs flat to +3% (~$147.8-152.2 mln) vs. $152.87 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co expects Q3 gross margin to be flat.

4:32 pm Microsoft adds new board member John Stanton (MSFT) : Co announced that John W. Stanton has been appointed to the co's board of directors, increasing the board's size to 11 members. Stanton currently serves as chairman of Trilogy Equity Partners, a private equity fund that invests in early-stage growth opportunities in the wireless ecosystem, and Trilogy International Partners, a wireless operator in Central and South America and New Zealand.

4:28 pm Nanometrics reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q3 sharply lower (NANO) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.05; revenues rose 39.0% year/year to $48.0 mln vs the $49.5 mln consensus. Co issues sharply downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $(0.30)-(0.17), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.08 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $25-30 mln vs. $49.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Management expects that the current pause in industry spending will include a very significant decline in process control metrology spending by its two largest customers in Q3.

4:27 pm Veeco Instruments misses by $0.21, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (VECO) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.39 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.21 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.18); revenues fell 2.4% year/year to $95.1 mln vs the $92.94 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of ($0.15) to ($0.07), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.03) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $92-100 mln vs. $105.35 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Outlook


"LED market trends remain favorable, as indicated by our MOCVD first half order and revenue patterns. While quarterly MOCVD order patterns are lumpy, we see solid growth ahead. We currently expect orders in the second half of fiscal 2014 to be better than the first half, driven primarily by growth in MOCVD. We remain focused on delivering improved results by: 1) developing and launching game-changing new products that enable cost effective LED lighting, flexible OLED display encapsulation and other emerging technologies; 2) improving customer cost of ownership as well as our gross margins; 3) driving process improvement initiatives to make us more efficient; and 4) lowering expenses. It is our goal to get the Company back to double-digit adjusted EBITDA profitability by 2015 through a combination of improved business conditions, execution on our growth initiatives, a more streamlined Veeco, and lower operating expenses."

4:24 pm Coherent misses by $0.05, misses on revs (COHR) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.73 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.78; revenues fell 8.1% year/year to $196.5 mln vs the $201.2 mln consensus.

4:22 pm Lam Research beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (LRCX) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $1.25 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.23; revenues rose 26.6% year/year to $1.25 bln vs the $1.24 bln consensus; gross margin 46.4%.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.85-0.99, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.00 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.1-1.2 bln vs. $1.15 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20 pm FormFactor beats by $0.02, beats on revs (FORM) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.06; revenues rose 7.5% year/year to $67.4 mln vs the $66.55 mln consensus.

"In Q2, we saw increased business and improved operational performance, resulting in our first non-GAAP profitable quarter since Q4 of 2007...We made significant progress in each of our DRAM, Flash Memory and SOC product lines during the quarter and are positioned to support our growth objectives through 2016."

4:18 pm Western Digital beats by $0.11, beats on revs (WDC) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $1.85 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.74; revenues fell 2.1% year/year to $3.65 bln vs the $3.6 bln consensus.

"We achieved strong financial results in the June quarter, with better-than-anticipated revenue, healthy gross margin performance and continued strong cash flow generation...We did so by addressing continued robust demand in gaming and stronger-than-expected demand in notebook PCs, demonstrating our flexibility and capability in high-volume businesses. We also saw strength in our performance enterprise business."Co will guide on conference call at 17:00.

4:10 pm TTM Tech reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TTMI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.05 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.05; revenues fell 12.0% year/year to $297.6 mln vs the $300.09 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.11-0.17 vs. $0.16 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $325-355 mln vs. $333.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Roadrunner Transportation misses by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (RRTS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.38 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.39; revenues rose 38.7% year/year to $460.2 mln vs the $438.34 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.37-0.41 vs. $0.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $455-480 mln vs. $454.92 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm FEI beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY14 revs below consensus (FEIC) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.70 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.66; revenues rose 6.5% year/year to $237 mln vs the $234.45 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.60-0.70, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.90 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $228-243 mln vs. $258.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co lowers FY14 guidance for FY14, lowers revs growth to +5-7% YoY, which calculates to ~$973.8-992.4 mln vs. $1.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, down from growth of +8-10%, which equates to ~$1.0-1.02 bln.

4:05 pm Tessera Tech and Micron Technology (MU) announce execution of new technology and patent license agreements (TSRA) : Cos announced the execution of new, multiyear technology and patent license agreements. In addition to the new patent license agreement, Tessera's wholly-owned subsidiary Invensas Corporation will license its Multi-Die Face-Down (xFDTM) semiconductor packaging technology to Micron and cooperate with Micron on the manufacturing of Micron products that incorporate xFD technology. As part of the agreements, Tessera and Micron will also explore other possible joint development efforts.

The specific terms and conditions of the agreements are confidential and have not been disclosed by the companies.

4:00 pm Lattice Semi's iCE40 FPGA shipments reach 200 mln unit milestone (LSCC) :

12:20 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TWTR (46.9 +21.53%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.02 vs -$0.01 estimate), revs rose 124.0% yoy to $312 mln vs $283.3 mln estimate; Q3 average monthly active users rose 24% yoy to 271 mln vs 256.64 mln Briefing.com consensus; sees Q3 revs of $330-340 mln vs $323.72 mln estimate; sees FY14 revs of $1.31-1.33 bln (raised from $1.20-1.25 bln) vs $1.27 bln estimate; upgraded at BofA/Merrill, Cowen, UBS, CRT Capital, and FBN Securities
ASML (95.24 +14.36%): Co confirmed that one customer has exposed more than 500 wafers on an NXE:3300B extreme ultra-violet (:EUV) system winthin 24 hours; seeing reports that co is ahead of scheduled with tests for EUV machines
YPF (38.56 +8.34%): Reuters reporting that Argentine banks will offer to buy out the country's debt held by holdout investors to avert default

Large Cap Losers

ROK (111.68 -6.91%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($1.49 vs $1.55 estimate), revs rose 1.6% yoy to $1.65 bln vs $1.68 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $6.10-6.25 vs $6.19 estimate, organic sales growth of 4-6%
HUM (119.85 -6.01%): Reported Q2 EPS of $2.19 (in-line); reaffirmed FY14 EPS guidance of $7.25-7.75 vs $7.82 estimate
TOT (66.29 -4.50%): Missed quarterly Eps by $0.02 ($1.38 vs $1.40 estimate), revs $56.2 bln vs $52.9 bln estimate; Hydrocarbon production was 2,054 kboe/d in the second quarter, down 10% from last year; Liquids production declined 15% and gas production fell 5% from the prior year

Mid Cap Gainers

X (32.8 +18.54%): Reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $0.17, revs fell 0.7% yoy to $4.4 bln vs $4.2 bln estimate; co expects operating income for its reportable segments and other businesses to increase significantly over the second quarter, as it returns to normal operating levels
EW (93.57 +10.81%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.11 ($0.88 ex items vs $0.77 estimate), revs rose 11.2% yoy to $575.1 mln vs $544.3 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.66-0.72 ex items vs $0.74 estimate, revs of $530-570 mln vs $525.9 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $3.24-3.34 ex items vs $3.17 estimate, revs at high end of $2.05-2.25 bln vs $2.17 bln estimate
ICLR (52.28 +9.14%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.64 vs $0.58 estimate), revs rose 12.5% yoy to $376 mln vs $374.88 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $2.62-2.68 (raised from $2.30-2.40) vs $2.36 estimate, revs of $1.49-1.53 bln vs $1.5 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers
PWE (7.61 -16.83%): Disclosed that the company's Audit Committee is conducting a voluntary, internal review of certain of the company's accounting practices; reported Q2 average production of 108,130 barrels of oil equivalent per day, maintained guidance of 101,000-106,000 boe per day
BWLD (143.2 -14.33%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($1.25 vs $1.20 estimate), revs rose 20.0% yoy to $366.0 mln vs $359.6 mln estimate; same store sales increased 7.7% at company-owned restaurants and 6.5% at franchised restaurants
GNW (14.22 -12.56%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.34 vs $0.36 estimate), revs rose 1.9% yoy to $2.42 bln vs $2.36 bln estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie, target lowered to $17 from $20

11:46 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (94) outpacing new lows (78) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AIV, AMGN, AMID, AMP, AMRE, AMT, APC, APD, ARLP, AUO, AVB, BABY, BFR, BMA, CHE, CHKE, CHRW, CLMS, CMG, COO, CORE, DEJ, DHX, DLR, DMLP, ECF, EMC, EQR, EW, FLT, FSRV, GAGA, GB, GFIG, GGAL, GILD, GLNG, GLP, HCA, HES, HIW, HNRG, HOLX, HSKA, HSP, ICLR, IDIX, INGR, IPHI, IRWD, KEP, KTWO, LAZ, LEJU, NTRS, NUVA, NVEC, PEIX, PMBC, PPS, PTRY, PTSI, Q, QRE, RFMD, SBAC, SEM, SFBC, SHG, SKM, SKX, SLCA, SLF, SLI, SNP, SRCL, SUMR, SWC, TCX, TFX, TKC, TMH, TOUR, TQNT, TRN, TV, UFI, UNTY, WDC, WEX, WLB, WLP, X, YPF

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACPW, ACXM, AGCO, ALLY, AMCC, AOI, ATNY, AVHI, BAA, BAK, BDR, BECN, BGFV, BODY, BPI, BRP, CAS, CBDE, CERU, CGA, CGG, CKH, CMCT, CNHI, COT, CPWR, CREG, CS, DAR, DCTH, DEST, DORM, DWA, EDMC, ESI, FRAN, GEOS, HOV, IKAN, IOSP, ISSC, JEC, KBR, KIOR, LPX, MGAM, MMSI, MTZ, NILE, NKSH, NPK, NPTN, PED, PGEM, PIKE, PSTI, PSUN, PT, QLGC, QRM, RSH, SPAR, SSE, TAXI, TCCO, TEU, TGE, TNAV, TR, TRGT, TSE, UBS, UUU, VII, VNOM, WMS, WSH, ZQK

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EPP, EWH, EWY, IHF, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BAL, FXS, RJA

11:43 am IBM slip to fractional new session/weekly low (IBM) : The stock has recently edged under the low of this week's multi-month high bar from Monday at 193.65 (session low 193.59).

11:34 am Currency Commentary: DXY Hits 10-month Highs (:SUMRX) :

The Dollar Index continues to rally as the first glance at Q2 GDP came in higher than expected. The beat was driven by a rise in inventories but it has helped increase market expectations for a rate hike sooner than currently anticipated. This has led to more buying in the dollar as it presses to fresh multi-month highs. The last time that the dollar traded in this area was September of 2013. The market now prepares for the FOMC this afternoon but it is generally expected to be a non event. Expectations are for another $10 bln taper. The primary focus will be ion language around the economy, inflation, and potential dissenters. The euro has fallen to a ten month low as the divergence between the FOMC and the ECB gets priced into the currencies. CPI data from Germany came in slightly higher than expected while Spain saw a miss. This will lead to mixed expectations ahead of tomorrow's region wide inflation report. But the primary focus remains on the dollar, the Fed, and U.S. jobs. The pound has also pulled back against the dollar as it slides back to 1.69. The dollar has been closing the gap as the expectations for timing of rate hikes from the Bank of England and the Fed tightens. Sterling is also seeing a flattening out of its rise against the euro as the pair settle in the 0.79 area following a steady 3-month rally. The yen has broken out of its recent range as it falls to 102.84 against the dollar. This move has been a pure pair trade though and not risk on as equities have been selling off despite the yen selling (BONDX, FOREX).

Ixia (XXIA) announced a partnership agreement with Empowered Networks, a Canadian value-added reseller, to offer service providers, enterprises and network equipment manufacturers more comprehensive and complete solutions to address complex network requirements.

7:31 am Qualcomm further enhances commitment to 24/7 mobile learning with acquisition of Silicon Valley-based learning technology company EmpoweredU (QCOM) : Co announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., has taken a further step towards the vision of demonstrating how technology innovations can help address some of the challenges the education sector faces, by completing the acquisition of EmpoweredU, a pioneer in the development of an intuitive, mobile-centric cloud-based learning environment that is both device and operating system agnostic.

The integration of EmpoweredU, with other education initiatives within Qualcomm, will allow Qualcomm Technologies to accelerate mobile innovation and 24/7 learning into education -- providing institutions, students and parents access to best-in-class education tools.

7:22 am United Micro beats by $0.04, revs in-line; Foundry Segment Wafer Shipments expected to increase by low single-digit percentage range (UMC) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.24; revenues rose 16.1% year/year to NT$35.9 bln vs the NT$35.9 bln consensus.

"In the second quarter of 2014, UMC recorded NT$32.57 billion in revenue from the foundry segment, with operating margin from foundry operations of 10.2%. Wafer shipments reached 1.426 million 8-inch equivalent wafers."Our 28nm business represented 1% of revenue, while 40nm accounted for 21%." Second quarter foundry revenue grew 13.4% sequentially, fueled by strong communication segment demand that lifted capacity utilization to 90%."Market conditions also reflected a turnaround, with rising demand for portable computing devices helping to drive our 28nm shipments."We project continued 28nm revenue contribution growth in 3Q14 as a result of the sustained demand for mobile and tablet computing. We are optimistic in the long term that our 28nm production ramp will strengthen our overall product mix and generate abundant opportunities for UMC to win additional foundry market share."Quarter-over-Quarter Guidance:
Foundry Segment Wafer Shipments: To increase by low single-digit percentage rangeFoundry Segment ASP in US$: To remain flatFoundry Segment Profitability: Gross profit margin will be in the mid-20 percentage rangeFoundry Segment Capacity Utilization: Low-90% range2014 CAPEX for Foundry Segment: US$1.3bnGuidance to New Business Segment: Revenue to be ~NT$1.2bn and net loss attributable to UMC parent company to be ~NT$760mn

7:08 am KVH Industries beats by $0.01, misses on revs (KVHI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; revenues fell 5.3% year/year to $40.9 mln vs the $43.39 mln consensus.

6:02 am JinkoSolar Holding to receive $225 mln private equity investment led by China Development Bank International and Macquarie for downstream solar power project business (JKS) : Co announced that China Development Bank International, the Macquarie Greater China Infrastructure Fund and New Horizon Capital have agreed to invest a total of $225 million in the co's downstream solar power project business.

JinkoSolar Power Engineering, a wholly-owned subsidiary of JinkoSolar that develops and operates its downstream solar power project business, entered into separate definitive share purchase agreements with each of CDBI, MGCIF and New Horizon. Under the subscription agreements, CDBI, MGCIF and New Horizon have agreed to invest a total of $225 million in Jinko Power. Upon completion of the investment and the co's additional capital contribution to Jinko Power, the three investors will hold a total of ~ 45% of Jinko Power's equity interest.The three investors are expected to provide support and additional resources to facilitate Jinko Power's business development in terms of project financing, project development, project operation and global green energy network.

1:35 am SunPower announces 29-Megawatt supply agreement with Nangoku Corp (SPWR) : Co announces it has signed a definitive agreement to supply Nangoku Corporation (Nangoku) with 29-MWdc of the high efficiency E20/327 Solar Panel by SunPower Corporation. Nangoku, an independent power producer will build a mega solar plant in the Hioki, Kagoshima prefecture on the Island of Kyushu.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The stock market punctuated July with a broad-based retreat that sent the S&P 500 lower by 2.0% with all ten sectors ending in the red. The benchmark index posted a monthly decline of 1.5%, while the Russell 2000 (-2.3%) underperformed to end the month lower by 6.1%.

To get a better feel for what led to today's retreat, we'd like to look back to Wednesday, when the market had ample reason to rally, but did not. Instead, it ended basically flat after a sloppy day of trading where good news was marveled at -- Q2 GDP and earnings results -- but not acted on with any real conviction from buyers. A spike in long-term rates and worries the Fed could raise the fed funds rate sooner than expected (a worry the FOMC directive didn't refute in unequivocal fashion) garnered most of the blame for the lackluster response.

That inability to rally on a batch of good economic and earnings news left the stock market increasingly vulnerable to a larger pullback in the event any bad news came its way. Sure enough, there were some overnight headlines that rattled weak-handed positions:

Eurozone CPI was up just 0.4% year-over-year in July (expected 0.5%), triggering renewed worries about deflation
Argentina was deemed to be in default on its bond payments
Portuguese bank Banco Espirito Santo reported a big net loss for the first half of the year that wiped out its capital buffer and drove its stock price down 50%, reminding investors that there are still issues present in the European banking system

With the sentiment taking a turn for the worse, a batch of poor quarterly results from a handful of global players contributed to the slide. Samsung kicked things off overnight with below-consensus earnings that sent the stock lower by 3.7% in Seoul. Things did not get much better during the European session with Adidas and Deutsche Lufthansa posting respective earnings-driven losses of 15.4% and 6.4% in Frankfurt. The DAX Index, meanwhile, lost 1.9%.

Back in the U.S., market participants received a set of earnings that did not quite live up to the high standard that was set during the first two weeks of the reporting period with earnings growth pushing 9.0%, according to S&P Capital IQ.

On that note, 3D Systems (DDD 50.13, -5.94), Mosaic (MOS 46.11, -1.07), Beazer Homes (BZH 15.35, -1.95), and Ocwen Financial (OCN 30.17, -4.49), registered losses between 2.3% and 13.0% after disappointing with their results. Furthermore, even above-consensus earnings from the likes of Akamai Technologies (AKAM 59.02, -1.71), MasterCard (MA 74.15, -1.76), and Yelp (YELP 67.16, -8.44) were met with selling activity.

The ten economic sectors registered losses between 1.7% (utilities) and 2.4% (energy). Rate-sensitive telecom services (-2.3%) and utilities outperformed in the early going as participants sought cover in the defensively-oriented sectors, but the two groups could not avoid being engulfed in the selling activity.

Elsewhere, the top-weighted sector-technology (-2.0%)-suffered from broad pressure. Influential listings like Apple (AAPL 95.60, -2.55), Google (GOOGL 579.55, -15.89), Facebook (FB 72.65, -2.03), and Qualcomm (QCOM 73.72, -2.32) lost between 2.6% and 3.1%, while chipmakers also tumbled. Notably, Micron (MU 30.55, -1.98) plunged 6.1% amid cautious comments from Goldman Sachs, while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 2.1%.

Biotechnology did not fare much better with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 250.83, -6.42) sliding 2.5%. For its part, the health care sector lost 2.0%, surrendering its entire monthly gain.

Only technology and telecom services were able to post July gains of 1.4% and 2.6%, respectively, while the utilities sector lost 6.9% for the month.

Treasuries ended flat after regaining their early morning losses. The 10-yr yield settled at 2.56%.

The selloff invited above-average participation with more than 900 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data included Initial Claims, the Employment Cost Index, and the Chicago PMI report:

The initial claims level increased to 302,000 from a downwardly revised 279,000 (from 284,000)
The Briefing.com consensus expected the initial claims level to increase to 310,000
The Employment Cost Index increased 0.7% in Q2 2014, up from a 0.3% increase in the first quarter, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.4%
Wages and salaries rose 0.6% in the second quarter, up from a 0.3% increase in Q1
Benefits spending rose 1.0% and is up 2.5% year-over-year
Manufacturing activities in the Chicago region softened significantly in July as the Chicago PMI fell to 52.6 from 62.6 in June
The Briefing.com consensus expected a more modest decline to 61.8

Tomorrow's session will be full of economic data starting with the 8:30 ET release of the Nonfarm Payrolls report for July (Briefing.com consensus 220K). Personal Income/Spending (consensus 0.4%) data and Core PCE Prices (expected 0.2%) will also be reported at 8:30 ET, while the final reading of the Michigan Sentiment survey for July (consensus 82.0) will cross the wires at 9:55 ET. Finally, the July ISM Index (consensus 55.9) and June Construction Spending (expected 0.3%) will both be reported at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +4.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.7% YTD

DJ30 -317.06 NASDAQ -93.13 SP500 -39.40 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 443/2.09 bln/2511 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 277/909.4 mln/2852 3:30 pm :

Dec gold fell deeper into negative territory after pulling back from a session high of $1295.30 per ounce set at the open of floor trade. It brushed a session low of $1281.90 per ounce moments before settling with a 1.1% loss at $1283.10 per ounce.
Sep silver touched a session high of $20.70 per ounce in early morning action but retreated into the red. Unable to regain momentum, it settled 0.9% lower at $20.41 per ounce, just above its session low of $20.40 per ounce.
Sep crude oil fell below the $100 per barrel level today, extending losses for a fourth consecutive session. It traded as low as $98.05 per barrel and settled with a 2.1% loss at $98.12 per ounce.
Sep natural gas rallied into positive territory from its session low of $3.76 per MMBtu after inventory data showed a build of 88 bcf vs expectations for a build of 90-93 bcf. It climbed to a session high of $3.89 per MMBtu and settled at $3.84 per MMBtu, or 1.6% higher.

4:39 pm AXT beats by $0.06, beats on revs (AXTI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.01 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.05); revenues fell 10.2% year/year to $21.4 mln vs the $18.9 mln consensus.

4:33 pm Microchip beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (MCHP) : Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.68 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.67; revenues rose 14.8% year/year to $531.3 mln vs the $527.59 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.70-0.74, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.71 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $560-575.9 mln vs. $546.76 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:32 pm Sierra Wireless beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (SWIR) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.07; revenues rose 23.2% year/year to $135.01 mln vs the $129.52 mln consensus.


"In the second quarter, strong organic revenue growth, combined with a solid contribution from recent acquisitions, enabled continued profitability gains. In the second half, we expect to deliver continued revenue and profitability growth, while also pursuing additional strategic acquisitions to expand our leadership position in the machine-to-machine (M2M) market."
Gross margin was 32.2% in the second quarter of 2014, compared to 33.4% in the second quarter of 2013.
Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.12-0.15, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $137-140 mln vs. $132.87 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:28 pm PMC-Sierra beats by $0.01, beats on revs (PMCS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.08; revenues fell 0.6% year/year to $126.8 mln vs the $125.06 mln consensus.

4:25 pm ON Semiconductor beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs in-line (ONNN) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.20 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.19; revenues rose 10.1% year/year to $757.6 mln vs the $753.46 mln consensus.


Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $765-796 mln vs. $783.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Backlog levels for the third quarter of 2014 represent approximately 80 to 85 percent of our anticipated third quarter 2014 revenue. Average selling prices for the third quarter of 2014 are expected to be down approximately one to two percent when compared to the second quarter of 2014.Guidance for the third quarter of 2014 does not include any contribution from our pending acquisition of Aptina, Inc."4:21 pm Brooks Automation beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (BRKS) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.05 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; revenues rose 5.9% year/year to $117.35 mln vs the $117.05 mln consensus.


Co issues mixed guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.04-0.07 vs. $0.07 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $114-120 mln vs. $121.76 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.1:23 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers


BG (79.38 +7.78%): Beat on EPS by $0.38, beat on revs.
MPC (83.72 +6.01%): Beat on EPS by $0.78, beat on revs; announced additional $2 bln share repurchase authorization.
ALL (59.41 +4.43%): Beat on EPS by $0.33, reported revs in-line.

Large Cap Losers

LLL (101.61 -15.07%): Missed on EPS by $0.05, beat on revs; lowered FY14 EPS below consensus, raised FY14 revs in-line; downgraded to Sell at CRT Capital; tgt lowered to $90 from $102.
ALU (3.43 -10.78%): Missed on EPS by EUR0.11, reported revs in-line.
PNR (64.44 -7.4%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, missed on revs; lowered FY14 guidance and FY15 tgt to reflect exit of Water Transport business.

Mid Cap Gainers

OTEX (55.55 +14.68%): Beat on EPS by $0.11, beat on revs; announced new CFO; upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse; tgt raised to $65 from $61.
BMRN (65 +6.4%): Beat on EPS by $0.18, beat on revs; guided FY14 revs above consensus; announced sale of voucher for $67.5 mln.
PCRX (93.84 +6.84%): Beat on EPS by $0.14, beat on revs.

Mid Cap Losers

MTW (26.26 -14.3%): Missed on EPS by $0.07, missed on revs; lowered guidance.
FEIC (76.49 -12.19%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; guided Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guided FY14 revs below consensus; upgraded to Hold at Noble Financial.
YELP (67.51 -10.7%): Beat on EPS by $0.07, beat on revs; guided Q3 revs above consensus; raised FY14 guidance above consensus; downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James; tgt raised to $86 from $74 at Deutsche Bank; tgt raised to $90 from $80 at Piper Jaffray; tgt raised to $93 from $82 at Macquarie; tgt raised to $100 from $94 at JP Morgan; tgt raised to $85 from $73 at CRT Capital.

11:48 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (138) outpacing new highs (37) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ALL, APA, ARRS, BNS, CENX, CHA, CM, COO, DHX, DRII, EEFT, ENSG, EQIX, FSRV, HOLX, HSP, IDIX, INTT, IVZ, JRN, KTWO, LNC, LRCX, MC, MCK, MFC, NVEC, NWL, OTEX, PTSI, SFBC, SKM, TCX, TD, TSRA, WDC, X

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACPW, ACXM, AGCO, ALDX, ALLY, AOI, ASGN, ATEN, ATNY, AVHI, AWRE, BAA, BCOV, BDE, BECN, BGFV, BLMN, BPI, BRP, BSDM, CACH, CAP, CAS, CCG, CCS, CEB, CGG, CHEF, CKH, CLUB, CNHI, COCO, CREG, CRNT, CS, CTHR, DB, DCTH, DKS, DLA, DRIV, DVR, DWSN, EDAP, EHTH, ENTR, ESI, EXXI, FIX, FMER, FPI, FRSH, GEOS, GEVO, GLF, HERO, HGG, HHS, HIBB, HOV, HVT, IBP, IKAN, IMN, INTX, ISNS, ISSC, JEC, KBR, KELYA, KIOR, KKD, KOS, KOSS, LPX, LWAY, MANT, MBLX, MCRI, MDC, MDWD, MMLP, MTZ, NCFT, NILE, NPTN, NTWK, NUS, NWY, OC, OIBR, OIBR.C, OMEX, OXM, PBFX, PDII, PERI, PGEM, PIKE, PSTI, PT, QLGC, QRM, RAVN, RCPI, REXX, RPRX, RSH, RYL, SCL, SCYX, SHOO, SLRC, SPAR, SPWH, SSD, SSE, TAXI, TCCO, TEU, TGA, TGE, TILE, TMHC, TNDM, TPH, TR, TRGT, UBS, UUU, VNOM, VSAR, VVI, WMS, WSTL, WTI, XCO, ZGNX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AFK, EWH

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BAL, RJA

10:53 am Floor Talk (:TALKX) : The stock market is under pressure and it might have more to do with what happened yesterday -- or didn't happen -- than it does with what is going on today.

The concise view of things is that the stock market had ample reason to rally on Wednesday and it didn't. Instead, it ended basically flat after a sloppy day of trading where good news was marveled at -- Q2 GDP and earnings results -- but not acted on with any real conviction from buyers. A spike in long-term rates and worries the Fed could raise the fed funds rate sooner than expected (a worry the FOMC directive didn't refute in unequivocal fashion) garnered most of the blame for the lackluster response.

That inability to rally on a batch of good economic and earnings news left the stock market increasingly vulnerable to a larger pullback in the event any bad news came its way. Sure enough, there were some overnight headlines that rattled weak-handed positions:

Eurozone CPI was up just 0.4% year-over-year in July, triggering renewed worries about deflationArgentina was deemed to be in default on its bond paymentsPortuguese bank Banco Espirito Santo reported a big net loss for the first half of the year that wiped out its capital buffer and drove its stock price down 50%The futures market presaged a decidedly lower open and that is what happened. Compounding the rate hike worries were the initial claims and Employment Cost Index reports, both of which were better than expected. That kept the Treasury market on the defensive, pushing the yield on the 10-yr note up to 2.60%.

Treasury prices improved a bit after a surprisingly weak Chicago PMI report for July (52.6 vs. 62.6 in June). All that report did was create some confusion about the Fed's thinking. It is a third quarter number that followed on the heels of a report for the second quarter that showed the largest increase in labor costs (+0.7%) since the third quarter of 2008.

Markets don't like confusion. Throw in all of the other stuff on the geopolitical front and the uncertainty has provided a reason to take some money off the table at month end.

The other element at work is the recognition that second quarter EPS growth is pushing 9.0%, according to S&P Capital IQ, well ahead of the 6.6% growth rate projected on July 1, and yet the S&P 500 is trading 1.2% lower today than it was on July 1. Good earnings news yet there hasn't been an equal reaction to that fundamental source of support.

That lends itself to the thinking -- and profit-taking mindset -- that the good earnings news was priced in ahead of the reporting period with a near 9.0% run between April 11 and July 1.

Every sector is down for the day at this point, so there isn't any clear-cut defensive positioning taking place within the stock market. There is just a broad move out of stocks in a de-risking trade driven by the recognition that good news isn't moving the needle in a bullish way.

9:05 am BlackBerry: BBM now available for Windows phone users (BBRY) : Co announced a collaboration with Microsoft (MSFT) to bring BBM to Windows Phone 8 and higher.

MU -6.2% (following SSNLF results; also Tessera Tech and Micron Technology announce execution of new technology and patent license agreements),

7:40 am MSCI beats by $0.05, beats on revs (MSCI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.50; revenues rose 11.3% year/year to $254.2 mln vs the $246.73 mln consensus.

Full year 2014 Adjusted EBITDA expenses are expected to be in the range of $595-605 mln, prior guidance $569-582 mln.
Full year 2014 capital expenditures, including software capitalization, are expected to be in the range of $50-$55 mln. The previous range was $45-55 mln.

7:01 am SunEdison and NORD/LB close on financing for Bruining solar project in Ontario (SUNE) : Co announced that it has reached financial close with Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale for an 18 megawatt DC solar power plant in Ontario.

The project is set to start construction in July and be completed by the end of 2014, at which time it will be sold to Firelight Infrastructure Partners.
To complete the project, NORD/LB is providing a construction loan of approximately $50.5 million CAD, and has committed to provide up to $63 million CAD of long term debt.6:02 am Ascent Solar announces termination of $32 mln secured convertible debt agreement (ASTI) : Co announced the transaction contemplated by the Securities Purchase Agreement announced on July 21, 2014 has been terminated.

Subsequent to the termination of this transaction, Ascent entered into a new Stock Purchase Agreement with an Asian-based investor to sell 12 mln shares of restricted common stock with no warrants at a fixed price of $0.33 per share for proceeds of $3.96 mln in two tranches. This common stock will be restricted for resale until 6 months after the closure of the transaction. The first tranche consisting of 4 mln shares has already closed for proceeds of $1.32 mln. The second tranche consisting of 8 mln shares will close by August 15th, 2014 for additional proceeds of $2.64 mln. No placement agent or placement fee is involved in this transaction.There were few leaders in the information technology sector on Thursday, a whole lot of followers, and several stocks that simply got out of the way of a tide of selling interest that swept through the broader market on the last day of the month.

What happened? Well, the answer to that question starts with what didn't happen on Wednesday.

Armed with a swath of good economic and earnings news, the S&P 500 gained less than a point on Wednesday. That was a sign to some that the good news had already been priced in and that the market would be vulnerable to increased selling interest in the event of bad news and/or further disappointing price action.

The headline mill obliged overnight with reports that Eurozone CPI was up just 0.4% year-over-year in July, fueling deflation concerns, that Argentina was deemed to be in default on its bond payments, and that Portugal's largest private bank, Banco Espirito Santo, reported a net loss for the first half of 2014 that wiped out its capital buffer.

Those headlines set a negative pre-market tone, which worsened after the second quarter Employment Cost Index registered its largest increase (+0.7%) since the third quarter of 2008. That report fueled concerns that percolated yesterday about the Fed being behind the curve with its zero interest rate policy.

Those issues combined drove a collective interest to take some money off the table that hit the information technology sector (-2.0%) in a pretty indiscriminate fashion. There were no strong industry groups as stock monitors bled red down the line.

Not surprisingly, on a day like Thursday, high-beta stocks took some of the biggest hits.

Yelp (YELP 67.16, -8.44) was chief among them. Despite posting better than expected results for the June quarter and issuing guidance above expectations for the third quarter, worries about a year-over-year decline in local advertisers won out in driving an 11.2% decline in its stock. LinkedIn (LNKD 180.64, -6.65), which was due to report its quarterly results after the close, declined 3.6%.

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.43, -0.41) was another big laggard. It dropped 10.7% following a sizable earnings miss for its second quarter. Akamai Technologies (AKAM 59.02, -1.71) and Western Digital (WDC 99.89, -1.28), both of which surpassed earnings expectations, got caught up in the broader profit-taking effort.

Not even Apple (AAPL 95.60, -2.55), with its huge cash position and reasonable valuation, was spared. It declined 2.6% and underperformed the S&P 500 (-2.0%) after a disappointing earnings report from Samsung took a little shine off Apple's fruitful stock returns. Prior to Thursday's sell-off, shares of AAPL were up nearly 6.0% in the month of July alone and had risen 22% since the start of the year.

Similarly, Samsung's disappointing report wrapped up Micron (MU 30.55, -1.98) in its wake.

Reports noted that Samsung raised its DRAM bit supply growth forecast for the second straight quarter and that Goldman Sachs interpreted Samsung's report as having negative implications for Micron. The latter stock helped pace a 2.1% decline in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which dropped 4.5% in July.

One could go down the line and see losses in excess of 2.0% for many technology stocks and no meaningful corporate news to account for those losses.

That left a few stocks, like Lam Research (LRCX 70.00, +2.11) and T-Mobile (TMUS 32.94, +2.00), looking like rock stars as they not only finished up, but finished up big.

Lam Research's strength followed its fiscal fourth quarter earnings report while T-Mobile's strength was based on the news that France's Illiad made a $15 bln cash offer to acquire 57% of the company. Sprint (S 7.35, -0.41), which has reportedly been in talks with T-Mobile for some time, declined 5.3%.

Postscript:

After the close, LinkedIn topped EPS expectations for the second quarter by a comfortable margin on 47% revenue growth that also exceeded expectations. The company issued EPS guidance for the third quarter and full year that was above analysts' consensus views.

Shares of LNKD were up 8.2% in after hours action as of this posting.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 01-Aug-14The stock market finished a down week on a cautious note with small caps leading the retreat. The Russell 2000 lost 0.5%, widening its weekly decline to 2.6%, while the S&P 500 shed 0.3%. The benchmark index ended the week lower by 2.7%.

This morning, the market was provided a basis to rebound with the July employment report, which was just right for the policy doves (209K versus Briefing.com consensus 220K). It showed payroll growth that was weaker than expected, average hourly earnings that were flat, and an uptick in the U6 unemployment rate (accounts for underemployed and unemployed workers) to 12.2% from 12.1%.

All of those factors speak in favor of the Federal Reserve not being in a rush to raise the fed funds rate, but the market did not rally on those cues. Instead, the S&P 500 made a brief morning appearance in the green before sliding into negative territory, where it spent the afternoon. The benchmark average was able to climb off its low into the close, but could not return into positive territory.

Three sectors registered gains, while the remaining seven finished lower. In general, countercyclical groups had a decent showing with consumer staples (+0.8%) and utilities (+0.4%) posting gains, while the telecom services sector (-0.9%) ended among the laggards. The largest countercyclical group-health care-settled flat.

Notably, the staples sector finished in the lead thanks to a boost from Procter & Gamble (PG 79.65, +2.33). The Dow component rallied 3.0% after reporting a bottom-line beat on revenue that was a bit below estimates.

Elsewhere, the health care sector received support from large components like Aetna (AET 78.73, +1.20), McKesson (MCK 195.43, +3.57), and WellPoint (WLP 111.00, +1.19). The three gained between 1.1% and 1.9%, while biotechnology lagged. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 250.28, -0.55) shed 0.2%.

For its part, the utilities sector staged a rebound after losing 6.9% last month.

On the cyclical side, the materials sector (+0.1%) was the lone advancer thanks to relative strength among miners. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 26.20, +0.29) added 1.1%, while gold futures climbed 0.9% to $1294.60/ozt.

Meanwhile, the daylong weakness among influential sectors like energy (-0.7%), financials (-0.9%), and technology (-0.4%) prevented the market from turning positive. In the financial sector, JPMorgan Chase (JPM 56.48, -1.19) was the worst performer among the majors, falling 2.1%.

Lastly, the tech sector was pressured by top-weighted components like Google (GOOGL 573.60, -5.95), IBM (IBM 189.15, -2.52), and Microsoft (MSFT 42.86, -0.30). Chipmakers, however, held up relatively well. The PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.4%.

Treasuries rallied through the first half of the session before holding near their highs during the afternoon. The 10-yr note advanced 17 ticks, sending its yield lower by six basis points to 2.50%.

Participation was above average for the second day in a row with nearly 780 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was plentiful with Nonfarm Payrolls, Personal Income/Spending data, Core PCE Prices, the final reading of the Michigan Sentiment survey, ISM Index, and the Construction Spending report:

Nonfarm payrolls added 209,000 jobs in July after adding an upwardly revised 298,000 (from 288,000) in June, while the Briefing.com consensus expected 220,000 new jobs in July
Private payrolls fared worse, adding only 198,000 jobs in July following a 270,000 increase in June
The consensus expected 225,000 new private jobs in July
Even more disappointing, hourly wages were flat after increasing 0.2% in June and the average workweek remained at 34.5 hours
The unemployment rate ticked up to 6.2% from 6.1%
Personal income increased 0.4% in June after rising by the same amount in May, which matched the Briefing.com consensus
Personal spending also matched estimates with a 0.4% increase in June, up from an upwardly revised 0.3% (from 0.2%) gain in May
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index increased to 81.8 in the final July reading from 81.3 in the preliminary reading, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 82.0
The Current Conditions Index was revised up to 97.4 from 97.1
The Expectations Index rose to 71.8 in the final reading from 71.1
The ISM Manufacturing Index increased to 57.1 in July from 55.3 in June, representing the strongest reading since April 2011
The Briefing.com consensus expected the index to increase to 55.9
Construction spending fell 1.8% in June after increasing an upwardly revised 0.8% (from 0.1%) in May, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
Private construction fell 1.0% after increasing 0.4% in May
Residential construction declined 0.3% in June

There is no economic data scheduled to be released on Monday.

S&P 500 +4.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.1% YTD

Week in Review: Stocks Cap July With Broad Slide

The stock market began the last week of July on a quiet note with the S&P 500 ending less than a point above its flat line. Like the benchmark index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) also posted a slim gain, while the Russell 2000 (-0.5%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) lagged throughout the session. The major averages were awakened from their weekend slumber with an opening retreat that pressured the S&P 500 below its 20-day moving average (1975). Even though the index dipped early, only two sectors-consumer staples (-0.5%) and industrials (-0.5%)-displayed noteworthy weakness that persisted into the close.

On Tuesday, equities ended on a lower note after generally upbeat earnings took the back seat to geopolitical concerns. The S&P 500 (-0.5%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) settled on their lows, while the Russell 2000 (+0.3%) displayed relative strength. Once again, market participants were focused on quarterly reports in the early going, but geopolitical worries overshadowed the impact of mostly better than expected earnings. Specifically, equities retreated after it was reported that European EU officials have prepared the new set of sanctions against Russia. The imposition of new sanctions may pique concerns about a boomerang effect on the global economy, and Europe in particular, but it is worth noting that the Russian ruble and Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX) strengthened in reaction to the news. The reports of forthcoming sanctions were followed by afternoon headlines from Washington indicating the Treasury Department has added VTB, the Bank of Moscow, and Russian Agriculture Bank to the sanction list. After the news crossed the wires, the RSX and the ruble dropped to fresh lows, as did the S&P 500.

On Wednesday, the market finished on a mixed note with small caps displaying relative strength. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) and Russell 2000 (+0.4%) registered modest gains, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) and S&P 500 (+0.01%) underperformed. Despite the mixed finish, the key indices traded higher across the board at the start of the session after the advance reading of second quarter GDP surpassed estimates (4.0% versus Briefing.com consensus 3.2%). However, the early strength was short-lived with the S&P 500 sliding into red during the opening 90 minutes of action. One could argue that the inability to rally on a strong data point and better than expected earnings resulted from concerns about a potential fed funds rate hike taking place sooner than expected. To that point, Treasuries spent the session in a steady retreat and finished near their lows. The 10-yr note fell 26 ticks, sending its yield higher by nine basis points to 2.55%.

The stock market punctuated July with a broad-based retreat that sent the S&P 500 lower by 2.0% with all ten sectors ending in the red. The benchmark index posted a monthly decline of 1.5%. After upbeat earnings and economic news failed to spark a rally on Wednesday, Thursday's session invited a wave of profit taking. With the sentiment taking a turn for the worse, a batch of poor quarterly results from a handful of global players contributed to the slide. Samsung kicked things off overnight with below-consensus earnings that sent the stock lower by 3.7% in Seoul. Things did not get much better during the European session with Adidas and Deutsche Lufthansa posting respective earnings-driven losses of 15.4% and 6.4% in Frankfurt. The DAX Index, meanwhile, lost 1.9%.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 16960.57 16493.37 -467.20 -2.8 -0.5
Nasdaq 4449.56 4352.64 -96.92 -2.2 4.2
S&P 500 1978.34 1925.15 -53.19 -2.7 4.2
Russell 2000 1144.72 1114.86 -29.86 -2.6 -4.2

3:38 pm Events and conferences of interest for next week (ADES) : Events and conferences of interest for next week, August 4th-8th, are listed below. For a complete list of next week's events, please see the events calendar.
Monday

CIBO, Indistrial Emissions Control Technology Conference Scheduled to appear: ADES AEP-BRO Forum Scheduled to appear: FTEK F5 Agility 2014 - Americas Scheduled to appear: FFIV

Tuesday Needham 2014 Interconnect Conference Scheduled to appear: EPAY, NTCT, RHT, MNDL, TIVO, EGAN, PFPT, CRCM, RUBI, SSNC, EOPN, P, TWOU, PRFT, CTCT, WNS, DMRC, VOXX, GLUU, KFX, REIS, MEET, EPIQ, TISA, TYL, RST, BRDR, FIVN, SCOR, XOOM, IMMR, MITK, PCYG, SYNT, QLYS, TST, FNGN, VRTU, RENT, MCZ, LOCM, MAMS National Instruments Investor Conference Scheduled to appear: NATI Piper Jaffray Global Agriculture and Animal Health Investor Day Scheduled to appear: SANW, REGI

Wednesday
Credit Suisse Gaming, Lodging, Leisure and Restaurant Conference

Scheduled to appear: SIX, KONA

Deutsche Bank Summer Bank One-on-One Conference 2014

Scheduled to appear: BPFH, CYN, ISBC, NYCB, OFG, PBCT, UBSI, VLY, WBS, WTFC, FBP

Jefferies 2014 Boston Healthcare Summit

Scheduled to appear: CBST, PDLI

Thursday

BoE Rate Decision at 7:00
ECB Rate Decision at 7:45 followed by Mario Draghi Press Conference at 8:30
BoJ Decision at 21:30

Friday

China Trade Balance (out overnight)

3:36 pm Earnings Preview for the week of August 4 - 8 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of August 4 - 8 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:

Pre Market - CAH, HSIC, CNA, RLGY, KORs, ALR, I
After Hours - AIG, THC, MRO, CAR, Y, PL, PXD, DRC, APL, VNO, MDR, PHH, CHGG

Tuesday:
Pre Market - CVS, ADM, EMR, ODP, FE, MGM, ACT, WNR, MSI, ACM, CVC, EXPD, NTI, AEE, ZTS, SMG, COH, BLMN, WLK, AME, ARCO, VMC, MWW,
After Hours - DIS, LBTYA, EOG, OKE, OKS, FTR, AXLL, TPC, CLR, QUAD, DPM, FSLR, GRPN, XEC, TRMB, ATVI, TMHC, KAR, BIO, ITRI, DRYS, ORIG, SMCI, TDW, OAS, WGP, BKH, JAZZ, WBMD, PEGA, FEYE, Z

Wednesday: Pre Market - MDLZ, AVT, TWX, CHK, HFC, DVN, DISH, PH, VIAB, HNT, CTSH, VOYA, VC, CNP, RL, KELYA, SE, TAP, CEQP, ANR, WPX, CLH, THI, SKYW, DBD, NUS, DNR, APO, AOLAfter Hours - ETE, ETP, PRU, PAA, FOXA, AGU, MUSA, SXL, CTL, SLF, RIG, SYMC, CF, ANDE, KND, RGP, GMCR, EVHC, TEG, ATO, RNDY, QEP, AWK, UHAL, BWC, LNT, CXO, CPA, ENS, CXW, ZU, MCP

Thursday: Pre Market - NVO, MFC, DUK, CNQ, BCE, GLP, AES, NRG, SRE, CORE, QIWI, MYL, HII, WIN, HAR, TSE, MPEL, LINE, FWLT, BR, SATS, CTB, HSNI, CQB, WWAV, ICE, SUNE, WEN, OWW, GOLD, SSYSAfter Hours - CBS, CSC, ED, NWSA, ALJ, NVDA, CFN, DAR, ATLS, SEM, SFM, MNST, GXP, KMPR, LGF, DV, CENT, NFG, SLXP, MTX, ZNGA, YOKU, SCTY, WIFI, VVUS

Friday: Pre Market - MGA, BAM, BPL, SUSS, SUSP, BECN, ERFAfter Hours - MDRX

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

Large Cap Gainers

LNKD (197.82 +9.51%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.12 ($0.51 vs $0.39 estimate), revs rose 46.8% yoy to $534 mln vs $510.46 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.44 vs $0.40 estimate, revs of $543-547 mln vs $540.28 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.80 vs $1.65 estimate, revs of $2.14-2.15 bln vs $2.13 bln estimate; target raised to $220 from $200 at Susquehanna, to $250 from $220 at Pacific Crest, to $245 from $205 at Telsey Advisory Group, to $300 from $280 at Jefferies
EXPE (83.29 +4.87%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.28 ($1.03 vs $0.75 estimate), revs rose 24.0% yoy to $1.49 bln vs $1.44 bln estimate; gross bookings grew 29%; target raised to $92 from $82 at Cantor Fitzgerald, to $90 from $80 at RBC Capital Markets, to $95 from $85 at FBR Capital
SNN (89.6 +4.10%): Reported EPS of GBP 0.10, revs rose 3% yoy to GBP 1.147 bln vs GBP 1.135 bln estimate; co said, "We anticipate that the prevailing market conditions seen in the first half of 2014 will continue throughout the rest of the year"

Large Cap Losers

MT (14.38 -5.46%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.17 ($0.03 vs $0.20 estimate), revs fell 47.0% yoy to $10.7 bln vs $20.42 bln estimate
MPEL (31.85 -4.07%): Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reports July gross gaming revs declined 3.6% yoy to $28.42 bln patacas vs +20% in July 2013
BBBY (61.79 -2.37%): Downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer

Mid Cap Gainers

BYI (77.94 +29.54%): To be acquired by Scientific Games (SGMS) for $83 per share in cash
SPR (35.68 +9.55%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.31 ($1.01 vs $0.70 estimate), revs rose 18.5% yoy to $1.8 bln vs $1.69 bln estimate; backlog ~$41 bln; co sees FY14 EPS of $2.90-3.05 vs $2.94 estimate, revs of $6.7-6.9 bln vs $6.72 bln estimate
SYNA (78.59 +8.81%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.05 ($1.46 vs $1.41 estimate), revs rose 36.8% yoy to $315 mln vs $305.08 mln estimate; target raised to $110 from $100 at Needham, to $96 from $90 at Craig Hallum

Mid Cap Losers

GPRO (41.1 -14.32%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.08 vs $0.07 estimate), revs rose 38.1% yoy to $244.6 mln vs $237.97 mln estimate; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Dougherty & Co
ARRS (29.69 -13.11%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.70 ex items vs $0.68 estimate), revs rose 42.9% yoy to $1.43 bln vs $1.43 bln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.69-0.74 vs $0.69 estimate, revs of $1.37-1.41 bln vs $1.42 bln estimate
SPWR (33.83 -7.90%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.28 vs $0.25 estimate), revs fell 4.4% yoy to $621.1 mln vs $595.98 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.15-0.35 ex items vs $0.29 estimate, revs of $600-650 mln vs $658.20 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $1.10-1.40 ex items vs 1.30 estimate, revs of $2.50-2.65 bln vs $2.6 bln estimate

11:30 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (137) outpacing new highs (27) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AZC, BYI, CBM, CHKE, CORE, CTP, CYH, EXPE, FSI, IBCA, IDIX, IG, INTT, IPDN, KEP, PCRX, PKX, PLNR, RGCO, RWC, SCI, SFBC, SPR, TCX, WSTC, X, XRS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ADGE, ADNC, AEIS, AGCO, AHPI, AIXG, AKAO, ALLY, AQXP, ATU, AVL, AXL, BBRG, BCOV, BDBD, BECN, BGC, BLMN, BOTA, BRP, BTH, CACH, CASS, CCG, CERU, CFFN, CIMT, CLB, CLRX, CLUB, CMCT, CPWR, CRCM, CS, CZR, DB, DLA, DORM, DSKX, DWSN, EGLE, EHTH, ENTR, ESI, EV, FHCO, FMER, FOSL, FOXF, GEOS, GEVO, GK, GKNT, GLF, GLPW, GSK, HERO, HOV, HSOL, HSY, INVT, IOSP, JEC, KBR, KEG, KIOR, KOS, KOSS, L, LNCE, LPX, LTM, LUK, MANT, MCRI, MDC, MDWD, MICT, MIND, MR, MRKT, NDLS, NRX, NTWK, NWBI, NWY, OCN, OCRX, OFLX, OIBR, OMEX, OMG, OXM, PBFX, PGEM, PIR, PSTI, PT, PVH, QNST, QRM, RAVN, RCPI, RPRX, RSH, RUTH, SCL, SCVL, SDT, SEAC, SGA, SGOC, SHOS, SKYW, SLRC, SREV, SSD, STAA, TAXI, TEU, TGA, TITN, TR, UBS, USM, UUU, VCRA, VGGL, VII, VSAR, VVI, WMS, WTI, WWWW, XCO, XNY, ZGNX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BAL, RJA, SGG

6:36 am LDK Solar secures funding commitments for its offshore restructuring (LDKSY) : Co and its Joint Provisional Liquidators ("JPLs"), Tammy Fu and Eleanor Fisher, both of Zolfo Cooper (Cayman), today announced that LDK Solar has secured funding commitments to enable the offshore restructuring to continue to be progressed. The JPLs now intend to seek sanction of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands to the terms of the funding commitments and certain amendments to restructuring support agreements previously approved by the Cayman Court. The JPLs also provided an update on the progress of the restructuring in light of recent positive developments in the course of the Company's offshore restructuring.

On June 27, 2014, the JPLs confirmed that they continued to consider and progress discussions with a number of parties in respect of the provision of funding required to meet the agreed commitments pursuant to the restructuring support agreement relating to the 10% Senior Notes due 2014, the restructuring support agreement relating to the convertible preferred shares of an affiliate of the Company and involving claims against the Company, as well as the costs of the offshore restructuring process and the forecast offshore working capital requirements of the Company.On July 15, 2014, the JPLs received a binding commitment from Heng Rui Xin Energy for $10 million in cash and $14 million for working capital financing in connection with the Company's offshore restructuring. In addition, the Company and the JPLs have identified a further $5 million of funding which is to be committed by certain subsidiaries of the Company to the offshore restructuring. Subject to approval by the Cayman Court, the JPLs now consider that these funding commitments will be sufficient to meet the Exit Financing requirements of the offshore restructuring. Since their announcement on June 27, 2014 and in addition to the Exit Financing, the JPLs have also received an additional $3.2 million of interim financing for the provisional liquidation from the partial repayment of outstanding intercompany receivables.
As a result of the challenges in raising the Exit Financing and the resultant delay in the timetable for completing the restructuring, LDK Solar and the JPLs have reached agreements with the Ad-Hoc Committee for the Company's 10% Senior Notes due 2014, over 79% of the holders of the convertible preferred shares of an affiliate of the Company involving claims against the Company and a majority of shareholders of the Company to certain amendments to the Senior Notes RSA and the Preferred Obligations RSA.

6:35 am Genworth Financial provides additional disclosure on long term care insurance (GNW) : Co announced on July 29, 2014 that it is conducting a comprehensive review of its long term care insurance claim reserves. Many of the co's investors have asked for additional information about the last in-depth review of the claims reserve, which was conducted in 2012. The co cannot predict how the results of the current review will compare with the results of its review in 2012.

As a result of the 2012 claims review, the co established refinements to its claim reserves to reflect how a claim transitions by diagnosis and care facility, trends in benefit utilization, and refinements to claim terminations. The impact to GAAP claim reserves as a result of the new methodology was an increase to reserves of ~ $166 mln as of September 30, 2012. Separately, the co also made changes to claim reserves to appropriately reflect waiver of premium benefit, shared policies where both lives are on claim, reinsurance on incurred but not reported claims, and the valuation interest rate. The impact to GAAP claim reserves as a result of these changes was a decrease to reserves of ~ $165 mln as of September 30, 2012.
The net impact to GAAP claim reserves as a result of the 2012 claims review was a net increase to reserves of ~ $1 mln as of September 30, 2012.

6:33 am Immunogen reports FY14 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guides FY15 revs above consensus (IMGN) : Co reports FY14 loss of $0.83 vs. ($0.83) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; FY14 revs of $59.90 mln vs. $63.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues upside guidance for FY15, sees FY15 revs of $100-105 mln vs. $70.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Sees operating expenses to be between $160 million and $165 million; its net loss to be between $60 million and $65 million; its cash used in operations to be between $55 million and $60 million; and its capital expenditures to be between $7 million and $9 million.Cash and marketable securities at June 30, 2015 are anticipated to be between $75 million and $85 million. The information technology sector might have been spared the rod on Friday, but it still got the shaft from investors who continued to keep their distance for the most part after Thursday's broad-based sell-off. The S&P 500 information technology sector declined 0.4%, which left it underperforming the S&P 500 (-0.3%) by a slight margin.

The stock market in general struggled again on Friday, which may have surprised some given that a weaker than expected (but not weak) employment report for July tempered concerns about the Federal Reserve hiking the fed funds rate sooner rather than later. The Treasury market seemed at peace with that notion on Friday. It saw hefty gains from the front of the yield curve to the back end. The yield on the 2-yr note fell six basis points to 0.47% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note declined seven basis points to 2.49%.

After a skittish open, the stock market made an effort to run higher and the information technology sector ran along with it. That move, however, quickly ran out of gas and selling efforts picked up again on the disappointing price action that created an impression the market was simply intent on cutting risk exposure.

That mindset undercut many of the technology stocks whose big price gains have invited persistent allegations that they are overvalued. LinkedIn (LNKD 201.78, +21.14), which was trading at roughly 70x estimated FY15 earnings as of Thursday's close, is often mentioned in such conversations. Be that as it may, it defied its critics on Friday with a 12% gain following its better than expected second quarter earnings report and guidance.

LinkedIn's strength, though, didn't create much of a halo trading effect for other social media stocks, which fell prone to selling interest.

LinkedIn's strength was notable throughout the session, but it was Apple's (AAPL 96.13, +0.53) more modest gain that acted as the most influential source of support for the sector.

Apple doesn't get accused much of being overvalued. That helped in Friday's market along with the news that a judge provided preliminary approval of its $450 mln e-book settlement.

The technology sector would have underperformed by a wider margin if not for the relative strength of the semiconductor group. It attracted some buying interest after some pleasing earnings reports from Microchip Technology (MCHP 46.04, +1.02), Electro Scientific Industries (ESIO 6.77, +0.79), ON Semiconductor (ONNN 8.79, +0.23), Brooks Automation (BRKS 10.54, +0.36), and PMC-Sierra (PMCS 6.89, +0.16).

Strikingly, some of the industry's biggest and most widely-held stocks -- Intel (INTC 33.75, -0.15), Texas Instruments (TXN 46.24, -0.01) and Qualcomm (QCOM 72.55, -1.17) -- were left on the sidelines. That kept a lid on the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which managed a 0.4% gain after declining 4.5% in the month of July.

Some other technology sector constituents with better than expected earnings results and better stock performances included Expedia (EXPE 84.46, +5.04), Sierra Wireless (SWIR 20.09, +1.10), and Synaptics (SYNA 78.11, +5.88).

Web.com (WWWW 20.12, -6.43), on the other hand, got pummeled after the Internet service provider came up short of revenue estimates for its second quarter, noting a lack of qualified sales people to generate leads, and announced the acquisition of Scoot, an online directory service in the U.K.

For the week, the S&P information technology sector declined 2.5%. In a reflection of what a bad week it was for the market overall, that left the sector slightly ahead of the S&P 500, which ended the week down 2.7%.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market kicked off the new trading week on an upbeat note despite enduring a shaky start to the session. The S&P 500 settled higher by 0.7% with nine sectors ending in the green.

Equity indices climbed out of the gate amid upbeat action in Europe where Portugal's Banco Espirito Santo received bailout funds over the weekend. While the actual need for a bailout was not a positive in itself, the news calmed some fears about the stability of the European banking system.

Despite the opening strength, the key indices were back in the red during the first 90 minutes of action, but the outperformance of influential sectors like consumer discretionary (+1.0%), financials (+0.8%), and technology (+0.7%) invited dip-buyers into the fold. After a range-bound first half of the session, the indices spent the afternoon in a steady climb to new highs.

Overall, cyclical sectors fared better than defensively-oriented groups with five growth-sensitive sectors ending ahead of the broader market. The energy sector (+1.6%) was an early laggard, but surged into the lead in the afternoon after Colorado officials announced the formation of a task force aimed at minimizing regulatory conflicts in the industry. For its part, crude oil rose 0.4% to $98.27/bbl.

Like energy, the consumer discretionary sector (+1.0%) also added at least 1.0%. The group received all-around support as carmakers, homebuilders, and retailers rallied. Shares of Ford (F 17.02, +0.21) and General Motors (GM 33.61, +0.17) posted respective gains of 1.3% and 0.5% in reaction to strong July sales, while the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 22.36, +0.22) added 1.0%. With regard to retail stocks, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 84.57, +0.93) advanced 1.1%, but Michael Kors (KORS 77.01, -4.82) lost 5.9% after its disappointing outlook for Q2 overshadowed its above-consensus results and upbeat full-year guidance.

Elsewhere, the top-weighted S&P 500 sector-technology (+0.7%)-ended in line with the benchmark index. Large cap listings displayed broad strength with Google (GOOGL 582.27, +8.67) and Microsoft (MSFT 43.37, +0.51) both adding near 1.3%, while Apple (AAPL 95.59, -0.54) lagged. The largest tech stock shed 0.6%.

Even though most cyclical groups outperformed, the industrial sector (+0.3%) could not keep pace. Defense contractors pressured the sector (PHLX Defense Index -0.2%), while transport stocks struggled intraday. The Dow Jones Transportation Average added 0.4% to avoid its third consecutive decline.

On the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+0.4%), health care (+0.5%), and telecom services (+0.6%) benefitted from the afternoon rally, while the utilities sector (-0.6%) spent the entire trading day in the red to widen its third quarter loss to 7.1%.

Treasuries registered modest gains with the 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.49%.

Participation was a bit below average with 661 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Tomorrow, June Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) and the ISM Services Index for July (consensus 56.5) will both be reported at 10:00 ET.


S&P 500 +4.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average UNCH YTD
Russell 2000 -3.3% YTD

DJ30 +75.91 NASDAQ +31.25 SP500 +13.84 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1763/1.54 bln/1027 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1891/661.1 mln/1175 3:30 pm :

Dec gold declined for a fourth time in five sessions as the dollar index traded higher. The yellow metal pulled back from a session high of $1295.90 per ounce and brushed a session low of $1287.00 per ounce. It eventually settled with a 0.4% loss at $1289.00 per ounce.
Sep silver retreated into negative territory after touching a session high of $20.44 per ounce in morning action. It dipped as low as $20.20 per ounce and settled with a 0.7% loss at $20.24 per ounce.
Sep crude oil rose for the first time in six sessions with prices lifting from a session low of $97.52 per barrel in early morning pit trade. The energy component touched a session high of $98.52 per barrel moments before settling with a 0.4% gain at $98.27 per barrel.
Sep natural gas chopped around in positive territory in a tight range between $3.80 and $3.85 per MMBtu. It managed to hold momentum and settled at $3.84 per MMBtu, or 1.1% higher.

4:22 pm Rudolph Tech beats by $0.02, misses on revs (:RTEC) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.02; revenues fell 6.6% year/year to $43.02 mln vs the $43.74 mln consensus.


At June 30, 2014, cash and marketable securities totaled $177.3 million, a decrease of $6.2 million from $183.5 million at the end of the 2014 first quarter.
Gross margin was 54 percent of revenues in the 2014 second quarter, compared to 52 percent in the 2014 first quarter. The second quarter gross margin was positively impacted by record software sales, which represented 16 percent of revenues and was well above the Company's target model of 10 percent. 4:21 pm GT Advanced Tech. misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line (:GTAT) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.16 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.15); revenues fell 65.5% year/year to $58 mln vs the $64.34 mln consensus. During the second quarter, PV and polysilicon non-GAAP gross margins were 45 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Sapphire gross margins were 20 percent, reflecting the contribution of higher margin equipment sales partially offset by negative margins associated with the company's materials operation in Arizona. "The build-out of our Arizona facility, which has involved taking a 1.4 million square foot facility from a shell to a functional structure as well as the installation of sapphire growth and fabrication equipment, is nearly complete and we are commencing the transition to volume production," Gutierrez continued. "We remain confident about the long-term potential of the sapphire materials business for GT". The company ended the second quarter with $333 million of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, compared to $509 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2014. The second quarter ending cash balance reflects the receipt of $103 million of prepayments for the Arizona sapphire materials project. The fourth prepayment from Apple is contingent upon the achievement of certain operational targets by GT. GT expects to achieve these targets and receive the final $139 million prepayment by the end of October 2014. Equipment orders booked during the quarter were $75 million, including $72 million in sapphire equipment. The company ended the quarter with $628 million of equipment backlog, consisting of $333 million of sapphire equipment, $292 million of polysilicon and $3 million of PV.Guidance
Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $0.12-0.18 vs. $0.03 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY14 revs of $600-700 mln vs. $665.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Reiterated 2016 EPS gudiance of $1.50.

4:13 pm Advanced Energy beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (:AEIS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.37; revenues rose 4.7% year/year to $146.29 mln vs the $140.02 mln consensus.

"Even with a downturn in semiconductors, our diversification into a variety of precision power applications drove revenues higher sequentially and generated cash in the quarter," said Garry Rogerson, CEO of Advanced Energy. "While recent changes in the solar industry have dampened expectations for large utility scale projects, we are taking immediate action to address this overhang. The transition of our inverter manufacturing to Shenzhen and our new organizational structure with a product line focus should provide increased resource flexibility and cost savings. Our strong cash generation of $200 million in the last 3 years is enabling us to invest in product lines that fit our model and diversify our portfolio, while returning value to our shareholders. The business model we have put in place is driving continued success through cyclical peaks and troughs and we remain focused on cash generation, revenue acceleration and margin expansion."

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.30-0.38 vs. $0.40 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $130-140 mln vs. $144.50 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12 pm Axcelis Tech reports Q2 results in-line with lowered guidance from July 7 (:ACLS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.06 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.06); revenues fell 13.4% year/year to $41.15 mln vs the $40.75 mln consensus. Note, on July 7, co guided to revs of $40-42 mln down from $55-60 mln. Co guided to EPS of $(0.07)-(0.05) from $(0.02)-0.00.

4:06 pm Advanced Energy adds UltraVolt High Voltage products to its expanding product portfolio; purchase price of $30.2 mln in cash; expect this acquisition to be accretive within the next year and should accelerate Advanced Energy's revenue and profitability over time (:AEIS) : Co announced it has acquired UltraVolt, Inc., a privately-held provider of high voltage power solutions. Based in Ronkonkoma, New York, UltraVolt has a comprehensive portfolio of high voltage power supplies and modules ranging from benchtop and rack mount systems to microsize PCB-mount modules.

Its standard DC-to-DC product line consists of over 1,500 models, which can be combined with accessories and options to create thousands of product configurations. Serving over 100 markets, UltraVolt's fixed-frequency, high-voltage topology provides wide input and output operating ranges while retaining excellent stability and efficiencies.
"We expect this acquisition to be accretive within the next year and should accelerate Advanced Energy's revenue and profitability over time." Under the agreement, Advanced Energy has acquired UltraVolt for a purchase price of $30.2 mln in cash.

Large Cap Gainers

QIHU (94.96 +4.9%): Strength in Chinese internet stocks: BIDU also higherAMZN (316.03 +2.92%): Announced that Fire TV's app selection has more than doubled
CHTR (156.28 +2.64%): Target raised to $197 from $173 at Wunderlich, reiterated with a Buy rating

Large Cap Losers

KORS (75.97 -7.16%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($0.91 vs $0.81 estimate), revs rose 43.9% yoy to $887 mln vs $851.31 mln estimate; Q1 comparable store sales rose 24.2%; sees Q2 EPS of $0.85-0.87 vs $0.89 estimate, revs of $950-960 mln vs $960.58 mln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $4.00-4.05 vs $3.96 estimate, revs of $4.25-4.35 bln vs $4.2 bln estimate
CAH (68.87 -4.84%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.83 vs $0.81 estimate), revs fell 9.9% yoy to $22.89 bln vs $21.99 bln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $4.10-4.30 vs $4.25 estimate
RIG (39.24 -2.97%): Downgraded to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank, target lowered to $27 from $45

Mid Cap Gainers

GRPN (7 +8.37%): Strength ahead of co's Q2 results scheduled to be reported after the close on August 5; also general strength in internet information providers: ATHM, YY, WUBA also higher
NPSP (29.47 +5.78%): Announced the inititation of a Phase 2a study to evaluate the safety and tolerability of NPSP795 in adult patients with Autosomal Dominant Hypocalcemia (:ADH), an ultra-rare genetic disorder of calcium homeostasis
RLGY (38.13 +5.62%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.59 vs $0.56 estimate), revs fell 1.4% yoy to $1.51 bln vs $1.49 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

ALR (34.54 -13.54%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.16 ($0.42 ex items vs $0.58 estimate), revs fell 3.4% yoy to $737.9 mln vs $747.55 mln estimate
CZR (13.99 -8.62%): Bloomberg reporting that a group of senior bondholders that owns debt in a unit of the company have entered into talks to restructure borrowings
OCN (26.67 -3.65%): New York Financial Superintendent is investigating whether the company is overcharging struggling homeowners on insurance

11:41 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (128) outpacing new highs (32) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AGRO, BCRX, BITA, CENX, CLW, COHU, CTP, DRII, EEFT, EXPE, FRP, GCI, GPRE, HCOM, HSKA, IDIX, KALU, MCK, NDZ, PCRX, PEIX, PLNR, PTRY, SFBC, SKM, SLI, SPR, STND, TOUR, VDSI, WBB, XRS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABCO, ACXM, AGCO, AHPI, AIXG, AKAO, ALDX, ALLY, AMCO, ANAD, ARDX, ASNA, ASTI, ATU, AVL, AWRE, BDE, BGC, BGG, BIOD, BKJ, BODY, BSDM, BTH, CBLI, CDI, CEB, CERU, CGA, CGG, CHCI, CKP, CLRX, CLUB, CLVS, CMCT, COCO, CTT, CUNB, CZR, DAR, DB, DCTH, DLIA, DMD, DORM, DWSN, EDAP, EDMC, EDU, EGLE, ESI, ESNT, EXAR, FHCO, FMER, FOSL, GLPW, GMAN, GNE, GRVY, HE, HERO, HGG, HIBB, HOV, HSOL, IL, IOSP, IPAR, ISCA, ISNS, IVC, KIOR, LIME, LPX, MAT, MBLX, MDC, MDCO, MDWD, MICT, NEWL, NILE, NMIH, NPTN, NRX, NWBI, OC, OCN, OXM, PAR, PARN, PENN, PERI, PLX, PSTI, PVH, QLGC, QRM, RCPI, RDEN, RDN, REXX, RGDX, RUTH, SKYW, SPWH, STAA, TBBK, TESS, TEU, TITN, TRAK, UBS, UCP, USM, UUU, VII, VVI, WMS, WPP, XCO, XNY, YORW, ZFGN, ZQK, ZSPH

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWO, FXS

FEI (FEIC) announced that researchers at the NIH-FEI Living Lab for Structural Biology have achieved breakthrough biological results, using FEI's Titan Krios transmission electron microscope.

Intersil (ISIL) announced the ISL78268 55V synchronous buck controller with 3A integrated high side and low side drivers.

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Chart Of The Day - Long Term Trend of the Russell 2000

http://www.chartoftheday.com/20140806.htm?H

For some perspective on the current state of the stock market, today's chart presents the long-term trend of the Russell 2000 (small-cap stocks). As the chart illustrates, the Russell 2000 rallied from late 2002 into the mid-2007 and then effectively gave all of that back during the financial crisis. Since the financial crisis, the Russell 2000 has been rallying sharply to the upside (with the exception of a brief "fiscal cliff" induced selloff in November 2012). Since early March 2014, however, the Russell 2000 has moved significantly to the downside and is now testing support of its upward sloping, post-financial crisis trend channel.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages spent some time on both sides of their flat lines on Wednesday before ending little changed. The S&P 500 settled on its flat line with six sectors finishing in the red, while the Russell 2000 (+0.3%) displayed relative strength throughout the session.

Although stocks finished on a flat note, the early indication suggested the market could be in for a rough day as economic data from the eurozone and domestic corporate news weighed.

On the economic front, Germany reported its second monthly decline in factory orders (-3.2% versus expected 1.0%; prior -1.6%), while the Italian economy slipped into recession following its second consecutive quarterly GDP contraction (-0.2%; previous -0.1%).

Back at home, two potential acquisitions were called off with 21st Century Fox (FOXA 32.33, +1.03) terminating its pursuit of Time Warner (TWX 74.24, -10.95) and Sprint (S 5.90, -1.38) withdrawing its offer for T-Mobile (TMUS 31.06, -2.85).

In addition, shares of Walgreen (WAG 59.21, -9.91) plunged 14.3%, which also contributed to the early weakness. The drugstore operator said it will acquire the remaining 55.0% stake in Alliance Boots that it does not currently own and that it will not move its corporate headquarters out of the United States.

Despite the opening weakness, the S&P 500 was quick to find support at its 100-day moving average. The index breached that level for the first time since mid-April, but was able to claw back to its flat line in short order. However, extending the rebound proved challenging as a handful of influential sectors like consumer discretionary (-0.3%), health care (-0.1%), industrials (-0.5%), and technology (-0.2%) weighed.

Notably, the industrial sector lagged throughout the session amid weakness in defense contractors and transport stocks. The PHLX Defense Index lost 1.0%, while the Dow Jones Transportation Average fell 0.6% to extend its week-to-date loss to 1.4%. Almost all 20 components of the bellwether complex posted losses with the lone bright spot appearing among airlines. Alaska Air (ALK 42.94, +0.22) and JetBlue (JBLU 10.92, +0.14) added 0.5% and 1.3%, respectively.

Elsewhere, the health care sector posted a slim loss, while biotech stocks displayed some intraday volatility. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 251.82, +0.18) ended just above its flat line after alternating between gains and losses during the session.

On the upside, yesterday's weakest sector-energy (+0.4%)-seized the lead at the open, but surrendered a significant portion of its gain during the afternoon.

Outside of energy, financials (+0.4%), materials (+0.7%), and consumer staples (+0.9%) were the only sectors to register gains. The materials space drew strength from mining stocks. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 26.69, +0.59) gained 2.3%, whereas gold futures jumped 1.8% to $1308.30/ozt.

Treasuries held gains throughout the session, but the 10-yr note relinquished roughly two-thirds of its advance by the close. The benchmark 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.47%.

Participation was a bit below average with fewer than 680 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the June Trade Deficit and the MBA Mortgage Index:

The U.S. trade deficit narrowed to $41.50 billion in June from an upwardly revised $44.70 billion (from $44.40 billion), while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to $45.20 billion
According to the advance estimate for Q2 2014 GDP, the BEA assumed the trade deficit widened to roughly $45.10 billion in June. The fact that the deficit was much smaller than the BEA expected suggests that the new trade balance will contribute positively in the second estimate
The goods deficit fell to $60.30 billion in June from $63.30 billion in May
The services surplus remained at $18.70 billion
Exports increased by 0.1% in June, while imports declined 1.2%
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 1.6% to follow last week's 2.2% decline

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 308K) will be released at 8:30 ET, while the Consumer Credit report for June (consensus $15.80 billion) will cross the wires at 15:00 ET.

S&P 500 +3.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.1% YTD

DJ30 +13.87 NASDAQ +2.22 SP500 +0.03 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1697/1.70 bln/1098 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1814/677.9 mln/1229 3:30 pm :

Dec gold rose for the first time this week despite strength in the dollar index. The move higher came on increased tension between Ukraine and Russia as headlines indicated that Russia may be building up troops on its border with eastern Ukraine in a prelude to a possible invasion.
The yellow metal extended overnight gains as it rose from a session low of $1296.80 per ounce and consolidated slightly above the $1306.00 per ounce level in afternoon action. It eventually settled with a 1.8% gain at $1308.30 per ounce.
Sep silver also traded higher, rising as high as $20.14 per ounce in morning action. It spent the remainder of the session trading near the $20.05 per ounce level and settled with a 1.0% gain at $20.03 per ounce.
Sep crude oil extended yesterday's losses as investors reacted to today's release of EIA inventory data. For the week ending Aug 1, crude oil inventories had a draw of 1.756 mln barrels while consensus called for a draw of 1.6-1.9 mln barrels. The energy component pulled back into negative territory after trading as high as $98.13 per barrel in morning action. It brushed a session low of $96.69 per barrel and settled with a 0.4% loss at $96.94 per barrel.
Sep natural gas slipped to a session low of $3.88 per MMBtu in early morning action but quickly recovered back into positive territory. It rose to a session high of $3.94 per MMBtu and settled at $3.93 per MMBtu, or 0.8% higher.

4:28 pm Pericom Semi beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs in-line (PSEM) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues rose 3.2% year/year to $32.7 mln vs the $32.5 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $32-35 mln vs. $33.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Sees non-GAAP gross margins in the 41.5% to 43.5% range. Sees non-GAAP operating expenses in the range of $11.2 million to $11.5 million. Other income is expected to be between $0.6 million and $0.8 million on a GAAP basis and on a non-GAAP basis. The effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 30-34% on a GAAP basis and 26-28% on a non-GAAP basis.

4:17 pm Novatel Wireless misses by $0.14, misses on revs (NVTL) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.33 per share, $0.14 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.19); revenues fell 59.1% year/year to $37.3 mln vs the $41.3 mln consensus.

Commentary: "The second quarter represented a sea-change for the company with the Board of Directors making a decision to change senior leadership. The quarter's results were adversely impacted by significant additional restructuring charges, which we now believe are largely behind us, and increased inventory reserves. We are now in the process of charting a new direction for the Company which is centered around integrating our current two segments -- Mobil Computing and M2M -- into one synergistic business strategy which will revolve around a suite of products and services for IoT."

4:07 pm Atmel reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (ATML) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.09 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 2.2% year/year to $355.5 mln vs the $356.36 mln consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin was 45.3% in the second quarter of 2014 compared to 44.0% in the immediately preceding quarter and 42.6% in the second quarter of 2013. Refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation table included in this release for more details.

4:03 pm Anadigics beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs below consensus (ANAD) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.09 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.10); revenues fell 32.7% year/year to $23.3 mln vs the $23 mln consensus.

Guidance: Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs falling by 18-20% sequentially, equating to approx $18.6-$19.1 mln vs. $24.50 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Commentary: "In line with our strategic restructuring, we expect total revenue for the third quarter to decline sequentially by 18-20%, driven principally by reductions in legacy mobile. We anticipate a sequential gross margin expansion of approximately 200 basis points resulting from a richer product mix and lower manufacturing costs. With our strategic restructuring actions and other improvements, we expect operating expenses to decline by more than 15%."

1:07 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TAP (71.32 +6.12%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($1.57 vs $1.47 estimate), revs rose 0.9% yoy to $1.19 bln vs $1.18 bln estimate
FOXA (32.9 +5.11%): Co withdrew its proposal to acquire Time Warner (TWX); Board authorized a $6 bln share repurchase program
TSLA (248 +3.99%): Initiated with an Outperform at Pacific Crest, target $316; Co's trademark dispute in China has been resolved

Large Cap Losers

S (5.9 -18.95%): Co ended pursuit of T-Mobile (TMUS); named Marcelo Claure, the founder and CEO of Brightstar Corp, as the co's next President and CEO
CTSH (43.77 -12.42%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.66 ex items vs $0.62 estimate), revs rose 16.5% yoy to $2.52 bln vs $2.53 bln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of at least $0.63 ex items vs $0.65 estimate, revs of $2.55-2.58 bln vs $2.66 bln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 guidance; downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan
WAG (60.63 -12.28%): Co exercised its option to acquire the remaining 55% of Alliance Boots that it does not currently own for ~$5.29 bln and ~144.3 mln shares of common stock; announced a new $3 bln share repurchase program and increased quarterly dividend by 7.1%; co to remain headquartered in Illinois

Mid Cap Gainers
WPX (23.1 +11.22%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.11 ($0.06 ex items vs -$0.05 estimate), revs fell 0.1% yoy to $814 mln vs $887.2 mln estimate; Co sees total production on an equivalent basis of 1,209 MMcfe/d to 1,256 MMcfe/d for full-year 2014
NSM (32.97 +9.68%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.87 ex items vs $0.82 estimate), revs rose 17.0% yoy to $549.7 mln vs $529.43 mln estimate; reaffirmed FY14 EPS of $4.00-5.00
JAZZ (148.2 +9.13%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.14 ($2.05 ex items vs $1.91 estimate), revs rose 39.8% yoy to $291.23 mln vs $273.01 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $8.00-8.25 vs $8.05 estimate, revs of $1.12-1.165 bln vs $1.13 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

NUS (44.62 -22.96%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.14 ($1.13 vs $1.27 estimate), revs fell 3.1% yoy to $650 mln vs $710.29 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.90-0.95 vs $1.68 estimate, revs of $620-630 mln vs $880.33 mln estimate; issued downside Q4 guidance
GRPN (5.93 -16.05%): Reported Q2 EPS of $0.01 ex items (in-line), revs rose 23.5% yoy to $751.6 mln vs $762.34 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.00-0.02 ex items vs $0.03 estimate, revs of $720-770 mln vs $758.13 mln estimate; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich, target lowered to $6 from $10
GMED (18.95 -16.00%): Reported Q2 EPS of $0.23 (in-line), revs rose 6.2% yoy to $113.6 mln vs $119.83 mln estimate; sees FY14 EPS of $0.90-0.92 vs $0.94 estimate, revs of $460-465 mln vs $482.87 mln estimate; target lowered to $24 from $27 at Canaccord Genuity

12:09 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (97) outpacing new highs (37) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADK, ATVI, BITA, CHEV, CHKE, CLW, COHU, CORE, ELLI, ENSG, EW, GFIG, GTIV, HCA, HPP, IBCA, KEP, LPL, MNDO, NDZ, NEWM, PCRX, PEOP, REX, RLJ, SCI, SFBC, SGC, SKM, SKX, SPBC, STND, SUI, SXC, VDSI, X, ZEN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAN, ACUR, AIXG, ALCS, ANAD, AOI, APEI, ARDX, AREX, ARQL, AVL, BKJ, BODY, BPI, BSI, CALI, CBLI, CBNK, CHEF, CMLP, CNHI, COCO, CORI, CRNT, CS, CYTX, DB, DCTH, DLIA, DSKX, DVR, DWSN, ENZY, EV, FHCO, FNGN, FUEL, GMAN, GRVY, GSK, GTXI, HERO, HGSH, HLF, HSOL, HTBX, ISSC, JEC, KELYA, LDR, LINC, LPX, MFG, MMLP, MRKT, NICK, NNA, NPTN, NUS, OCN, OIBR, OIBR.C, OMEX, OPWR, OTEL, PB, PERI, PRPH, PT, PULS, REXX, RP, RST, RUTH, S, SALE, SEAS, SGMS, SGNL, SKYW, SOQ, SSH, STRI, SUTR, TBBK, TEU, TRMR, VCRA, VRML, VSAR, VSI, VVUS, WAIR, WPP, WSH, XXIA, YORW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWO, FXS, SGG

9:02 am 3D Systems acquires Laser Reproductions; financial terms not disclosed; transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to 3DS' cash generation and to contribute to its non-GAAP earnings per share within the first 12 months (DDD) :

Co announced that it has acquired Laser Reproductions, a provider of manufacturing product development and engineering services. Details of the transaction were not disclosed.

The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to 3DS' cash generation and to contribute to its non-GAAP earnings per share within the first 12 months.Broadcom (BRCM) announced that American Science and Engineering (ASEI) has selected the Broadcom Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices Wi-Fi technology as the connectivity component for the world's first handheld Z Backscatter imaging system.Diablo Technologies announced a strategic partnership with Supermicro (SMCI) to bring the industry's lowest latency, non-volatile memory solution to server systems.
SanDisk (SNDK) and Super Micro Computer (SMCI) announced that the SanDisk ULLtraDIMM solid state drive will begin shipping in Supermicro's Green SuperServer and SuperStorage platforms.

8:03 am BlackBerry further expands unparalleled security credentials with new government approval for multi-platform management (BBRY) :

Co announced that Secure Work Space for iOS and Android, a multi-platform containerization solution managed through BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES10), has received Security Technical Implementation Guide (GPIW) approval from the Defense Information Systems Agency (:DISA).In addition to BlackBerry 10 smartphones, U.S. Department of Defense customers can now use iOS and Android smartphones and tablets connected to the BES10 Enterprise Mobility Management solution.The STIG approval provides additional confidence for government agencies considering a more open mobile environment with a selection of devices and operating systems.

LitePoint, a wholly owned subsidiary of Teradyne (TER), announced that TCL Communications has started volume production of their new Alcatel branded POP S7 smartphone.

Wednesday is hump day, so it was perhaps only fitting that the stock market and the information technology sector found it challenging to get over a headline hump that revolved around geopolitical concerns, weakening economic activity in the eurozone, and a couple of high-profile acquisition efforts that got abandoned by corporate suitors.

The S&P 500 ended the session flat while the information technology sector dipped 0.2%.

Those anemic showings belie what was an otherwise wavy day of trading and a session that wasn't as unrewarding for the technology sector as the final standing suggested.

First Solar (FSLR 65.60, +1.94) was the best-performing component, gaining 3.1%. Even though the company came up short of earnings expectations due to project delays, it stuck with its top and bottom-line guidance for 2014. That consideration and analyst expectations that a stronger growth trajectory lies ahead overshadowed the miss for the June quarter.

Conversely, Cognizant Technology (CTSH 43.67, -6.31) was the sector's worst-performing component, dropping 12.6% after adopting a "more conservative stance" for the remainder of the year on account of weakness at certain clients and longer than anticipated sales cycles for certain large integrated deals. Additionally, JP Morgan downgraded the stock to Neutral from Overweight.

The sector's biggest component -- Apple (AAPL 94.96, -0.16) -- fell for the third straight session, albeit slightly.

Apple was in the news amid reports that the company and Samsung agreed to drop all patent suits against each other outside the US. There was a separate Bloomberg report, too, that China has banned the purchase of ten Apple products, including the iPad and MacBook Pro, with public money due to "security concerns."

Microsoft (MSFT 42.74, -0.34) and Accenture (ACN 77.84, -0.61) came under China's heavy-handed influence as well with reports noting the country's anti-trust regulator carried out new raids on their offices. A Computerworld report suggesting Microsoft's Surface business has lost close to $2.0 bln since its debut also helped keep shares of MSFT on lockdown.

Microsoft's loss paled in comparison to the losses suffered by FireEye (FEYE 30.78, -3.97), Groupon (GRPN 6.17, -0.90), Zillow (Z 138.30, -2.76), and Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO 20.57, -1.40), all of which felt the brunt of selling interest after reporting their quarterly results.

Activision (ATVI 22.95, +0.59) didn't follow in TTWO's wake. The entertainment software maker set its own winning course with an earnings report and revenue outlook that proved pleasing to its investors. Amazon.com (AMZN 313.89, +1.57), meanwhile, was nudged higher after the company announced the addition of six cities to its same-day delivery service.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ("SOX") outperformed the broader market with a 0.4% gain that was paced by broad-based gains in the chip equipment group. Those gains, it should be noted, came on light volume. SOX member, NVIDIA (NVDA 17.64, -0.02), will report its results after Thursday's close.

Where the volume was exceedingly heavy was in the telecom services space. Nearly 160 mln shares of Sprint (S 5.90, -1.38) were traded -- roughly 11x its three-month average and 20% of its float -- after the company announced it was dropping its bid for T-Mobile (TMUS 31.06, -2.85), citing regulatory hurdles.

That was one of the two failed merger attempts. The other included 21st Century Fox (FOXA 32.33, +1.03) abandoning its bid to acquire Time Warner (TWX 74.24, -10.95) due to the latter company's disinterest in getting a deal done.

With that, Wednesday is now a done day and it will go down in the books as a down day for the information technology sector.

(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Microsoft)

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday session on a lower note despite showing strength in the early going. The S&P 500 fell 0.6% with eight sectors registering losses.

Equities climbed out of the gate after the European Central Bank reaffirmed its commitment to the current policy course. In addition, better than expected earnings and economic data also factored into an upbeat start.

Despite the set of positive factors, the S&P 500 could not overtake its opening high at 1928.97. Instead, the index spent about an hour near that level before retreating into the red. An afternoon report from the New York Times concerning potential U.S. airstrikes on militants in Iraq contributed to keeping dip-buyers sidelined.

As a result, the S&P 500 ended the session below its 100-day moving average (1913/1914), while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%) settled just above its 200-day moving average (16343) after crossing that level for the first time since February 6.

The health care sector (-1.2%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard amid weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 248.15, -3.67) lost 1.5% after being rejected by its 50-day moving average (251.88).

Other countercyclical sectors like consumer staples (-0.8%) and telecom services (-1.0%) also underperformed, while the utilities sector (+1.1%) displayed relative strength to narrow its week-to-date loss to 2.0%.

Meanwhile, all six cyclical groups posted losses with the materials space (-0.9%) having the worst showing. Similarly, the other commodity-related sector-energy (-0.7%)-also finished near the bottom of the leaderboard.

Elsewhere, the technology sector (-0.5%) ended just ahead of the S&P 500, but that was a bit misleading as the relative strength in two influential components-Apple (AAPL 94.48, -0.01) and Microsoft (MSFT 43.23, +0.49)-kept the sector from registering additional losses. Chipmakers, however, lagged broadly with the PHLX Semiconductor Index sliding 1.4%.

Also of note, the industrial sector ended little changed after showing relative weakness yesterday. Two heavily-weighted components, Boeing (BA 119.84, +1.50) and General Electric (GE 25.50, +0.06), contributed to the outperformance, while the broader PHLX Defense Index shed 0.1%. Transport stocks displayed strength during the session, but the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.2%) slipped into the red during afternoon action.

The retreat in equities boosted the Treasury market, where the 10-yr note added half a point to lower its yield six basis points to 2.41%. This represented the lowest close for the benchmark yield since June 2013. The safe-haven demand was also visible in the foreign exchange market, where the yen jumped and pressured the dollar/yen pair into the 102.00 area.

Participation was below average with fewer than 660 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to weekly initial claims and the Consumer Credit report for June:


Initial claims declined to 289,000 from 303,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 308,000
Even though claims have held below the 300,000 mark over the past four weeks that has not translated into payroll growth in the neighborhood of 300,000 jobs per month, which had been the case in the past
Since the relationship hasn't held up, it appears the data has been skewed by seasonal adjustments or monthly volatility in the payroll data. If payroll volatility is the issue, we should see a surge in the August jobs report
Consumer credit increased by $17.30 billion in June, which was higher than the Briefing.com consensus estimate of $15.80 billion
The prior month's credit growth was left unrevised at $19.60 billion

Tomorrow, productivity (Briefing.com consensus 1.4%) and unit labor costs (consensus 2.0%) data for the second quarter will be released at 8:30 ET, while the Wholesale Inventories report for June (consensus 0.4%) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +3.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.8% YTD

DJ30 -75.07 NASDAQ -20.08 SP500 -10.67 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1007/1.73 bln/1772 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1415/656.5 mln/1660 3:30 pm :

Dec gold extended yesterday's gains despite strength in the dollar index. The yellow metal brushed a session low of $1303.20 per ounce in early morning action but climbed above the unchanged line later in the session. It touched a session high of $1315.50 per ounce and settled at $1312.60 per ounce, or 0.3% higher.
Sep silver chopped around in negative territory for most of today's floor session. It dipped as low as $19.88 per ounce and settled with a 0.2% loss at $19.99 per ounce.
Sep crude oil dipped to a session low of $96.57 per barrel in morning pit trade but quickly recovered into positive territory. It touched a session high of $97.48 per barrel and settled at $97.34 per barrel, booking a 0.4% gain.
Sep natural gas rose to a session high of $3.98 per MMBtu in morning action but gave up the gain after inventory data showed a build of 82 bcf when a build of 83-84 bcf was anticipated. It fell as low as $3.86 per MMBtu and settled with a 1.3% loss at $3.88 per MMBtu.

4:41 pm Amtech Systems misses by $0.24, misses on revs (ASYS) : Reports Q3 (Jun) loss of $0.53 per share, $0.24 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.29); revenues fell 11.5% year/year to $9.2 mln (net of $5.4 million of deferred revenue) vs the $14.14 mln consensus.

Customer orders of $17.9 million; solar $12.3 million. Shipments of $14.6 million; solar $7.3 million. Book to bill ratio of 1.2:1; solar 1.7:14:30 pm Universal Display beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides FY14 revs in-line (OLED) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.44 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.41; revenues rose 29.8% year/year to $64.1 mln vs the $61.5 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for FY14, sees FY14 revs of $190-205 mln vs. $205.18 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:25 pm NVIDIA beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs above consensus (NVDA) : Reports Q2 (Jul) earnings of $0.30 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.25; revenues rose 12.9% year/year to $1.1 bln vs the $1.1 bln consensus.

Rcord non-GAAP gross margin 56.4% vs. 54% guidance.Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $1.18-1.22 bln vs. $1.16 bln Capital IQ Consensus; non-GAAP gross margin 55-56%.

4:22 pm Universal Electronics beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (UEIC) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.66 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.60; revenues rose 7.5% year/year to $146.3 mln vs the $145.2 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.70-0.80, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.71 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $149-157 mln vs. $151.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:15 pm SolarCity beats by $0.47, misses on revs (SCTY) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.52 per share, $0.47 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.99); revenues rose 61.7% year/year to $61.3 mln vs the $63.2 mln consensus.

MW Deployed of 107 MW, up 102% year-over year. Total cumulative MWs Deployed reached 756 MW as of June 30, 2014. MW Booked totaled 218 MW, up 216% as compared to Q2 2013. Cumulative Energy Contracts increased to 128,933, up 114% since the end of the second quarter of 2013 (and 28% since the end of the first quarter 2014).Cumulative Customers grew to 141,034, up 102% since the end of the second quarter of 2013 (and 27% since the end of the first quarter 2014). Estimated Nominal Contracted Payments Remaining increased by $811 million in Q2 2014 to $3,312 million at June 30, 2014, up 135% year-over-year and 32% since the end of the first quarter of 2014. Retained Value forecast increased to $1,804 million, or $1.72/WQ3 Guidance
Expect MW deployed of between 135-150 MW, up 83% y/y at the midpoint.
GAAP Operating Lease and Solar Energy Systems Incentive Revenue: $50-55 mlnGAAP Solar Energy Systems Sale Revenue: $4-8 mlnGAAP Operating Lease and Solar Energy Systems Incentive Gross Margin: 50%-55% (including the impact of $2 million in amortization of intangibles)
GAAP Operating Expenses: $115-125 mln
Non-GAAP EPS: ($1.10) -- ($1.20), in line with Capital IQ consensus ($1.01)For 2014 and 2015
Reiterates 2014 MW Deployed of 500-550 MW and 900 MW-1,000 MW in 2015

4:05 pm Rubicon Tech beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (RBCN) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.39 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.42); revenues rose 37.1% year/year to $14.5 mln vs the $14.4 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $(0.44)-(0.39) vs. ($0.26) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $8-12 mln vs. $16.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We expect continued progress in growing the wafer business in [Q3] with additional volumes in both polished and PSS wafers. However, we are seeing very limited demand for two-inch core in [Q3] as our polishing customers currently have excess inventory. In addition, we believe that recent capacity additions in the sapphire market, which are primarily targeted at the developing mobile device market, are temporarily impacting the two-inch market."

4:03 pm Diodes beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs below consensus (DIOD) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.35; revenues rose 4.1% year/year to $223.2 mln vs the $223.07 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $228-238 mln vs. $239.17 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

2:05 pm Technical Analysis: S&P pauses after trimming morning slide in half (:SUMRX) : The market edged higher out of the starting gate but little was accomplished thereafter as this marked the high for the session for the S&P/Dow. The indices were looking to build on the previous session's modest recovery attempt and they did slightly penetrate Wed. highs but a first hour Nasdaq Comp extension was not confirmed by the S&P/Dow implying lackluster momentum with some backtracking beginning to develop. A number of headlines related to the Russian/Ukraine situation kept the market on edge and headed steadily lower into midday. The Dow flirted with its 200 sma at 16343 (session low 16349) while the S&P stalled near the 1911/1909 zone (session low 1908.24). The rebound off these levels has allowed the major averages to reach the mid-point of the session's range in recent trade leaving the overall bias mixed to modestly negative.

The worst performing sectors on a percentage basis include: Casino BJK, Natural Gas, Airline, Pharma PPH, Auto CARZ, Health XLV, Steel SLX, Reg Bank KRE, Broker IAI, Ag/Chem MOO, Networking IGN, Silver SLV. Groups that has posted gains have been led by: Solar TAN, Utility XLU, Trucking, Industrial XLI, REITs IYR, Defense PPA, Gold GLD, Copper JJC.

Although the market has worked higher off midday lows as the Dow held near its 200 sma and the Nasdaq Comp remained above this week and last week's lows, work is needed just to improve the very short term bias in the S&P to neutral. Intraday if the S&P can maintain a posture above the 1914 and 1912 levels there is potential for another rally attempt. On a close basis the first step for the index is to finish above Wed/early session highs (1927/1928).

12:19 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers


FOXA (34.38 +6.33%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Cowen; tgt raised to $35 from $29.
LB (61.13 +3.28%): Reported Jul same store sales +6% vs +1.8% Retail Metrics consensus; updated Q2 EPS guidance, reported Q2 sales above consensus.
SYMC (24.42 +2.89%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, beat on revs; guided SepQ EPS below consensus, revs in-line; guided FY15 in-line; target raised to $22 from $19 at FBR Capital; tgt raised to $26 from $25 at RBC Capital Mkts.

Large Cap Losers

SNI (78.13 -4.81%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, reported revs in-line.
CF (244.13 -3.53%): Missed on EPS by $0.49, beat on revs; raised dividend 50% and announced new $1 bln share repurchase program.
BSX (12.42 -3.35%): Co disclosed it received subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.

Mid Cap Gainers

SSYS (116.72 +18.01%): Beat on EPS by $0.11, beat on revs; raised FY14 guidance above consensus; raised long term annual organic rev growth forecast to at least 25% from at least 20%.
MIDD (83.63 +15.9%): Beat on EPS by $0.10, beat on revs.
LEAF (29.99 +13.77%): Beat on EPS by $0.07.

Mid Cap Losers

CPA (134.66 -10.77%): Beat on EPS by $0.39, reported revs in-line; downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Evercore; tgt to $150 from $160; downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James.
CSOD (36.33 -9.85%): Missed on EPS by $0.03, missed on revs; tgt lowered to $38 from $40 at Maxim.
SD (5.2 -9.72%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; downgraded to Neutral at Global Hunter Securities; tgt lowered to $7 from $8.

12:02 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (105) outpacing new highs (44) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADK, AKS, ALL, BITA, CHKE, CLW, COHU, CST, CTRP, EW, EXK, GEO, HNNA, HPP, IG, INN, KEP, LEAF, LGP, LIME, LNBB, LSG, MNDO, NRF, NXTM, PCRX, PRSC, RIC, RSG, RTIX, SCI, SFBC, SGC, SIMO, SKX, STND, SUI, SXC, THC, TOUR, TROX, TSO, WBB, WTM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAN, ABY, AHPI, AKAO, AMDA, ANAD, APEI, ARDX, AREX, AVL, BSDM, BSI, BWC, CBI, CBLI, CBMX, CBNK, CGG, CIE, CLUB, CMCT, CMLS, CNHI, COCO, CRNT, CRS, CS, CVU, DDE, DLA, DLIA, DRNA, EDAP, ELON, ERII, EXAR, FHCO, FLL, FMC, FNGN, GEOS, GPRC, GRVY, GSK, GTXI, HDNG, HOTR, HSC, HTBX, INPH, ISSC, JEC, KBIO, KOP, L, LINC, LPTH, LTM, MICT, MRIN, MTZ, NNA, NSPH, OCN, OPWR, OXFD, PBFX, PHMD, POWL, PRSS, PSTI, PT, RDC, RDEN, RIG, RITT, RLOC, RNDY, ROLL, SAPE, SCYX, SERV, SGMS, SGNL, SGOC, SKYW, SOQ, SPDC, SSH, STAA, TACT, TELK, TEU, THOR, TNAV, TSC, UIL, VII, VSAR, VSI, VVUS, WPG, WPP, WSH, XXIA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


ARMH +1.3% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at The Benchmark Company)

The yield on the 10-yr Treasury note settled at 2.417% on Thursday, marking its lowest close since June 2013. That will be good for mortgage rates and the stock market one day, but it wasn't much good for the stock market on Thursday considering it was a move fueled by safe-haven buying interest.

Russia's move to restrict food and agricultural imports from countries that had levied sanctions against it and reports that President Obama is considering air strikes against militants in Iraq killed a limited bullish bias seen early in the session. Those developments also overshadowed an encouraging initial claims report that produced the lowest four-week moving average in claims since February 2006.

The disappointing price action in the stock market, which saw the S&P 500 close below its 100-day moving average, was another catalyst that drove buyers into the Treasury market.

The information technology sector (-0.5%) got swept up in the broad market retreat, yet it still managed to outperform on an otherwise down day for stocks.

A 1.2% gain in Microsoft (MSFT 43.23, +0.49), which was helped by a report that a Director bought 23,000 shares at $43.10, and a 3.9% gain in First Solar (FSLR 68.17, +2.57), which drafted off SunEdison's (SUNE 21.59, +2.27) better than expected earnings results, helped the technology sector hold up better than most sectors.

The latter company was just one of two gainers in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which dropped 1.4%. ARM Holdings (ARMH 43.57, +0.14) was SunEdison's lone companion.

Other sources of sector support included Symantec (SYMC 23.97, +0.24), which reported a 50% increase in its fiscal first quarter net income, and Facebook (FB 73.17, +0.70), which said it is buying security software company Private Core for an undisclosed sum. That follows reports earlier in the week that Russian hackers stole 1.2 bln Internet credentials from as many as 420,000 web sites.

It wasn't enough, though, as 56 of the sector's 66 components gave up ground.

That included heavyweights Apple (AAPL 94.48, -0.48), which declined for the fourth straight session, IBM (IBM 184.30, -1.67), which has declined close to 6.0% since July 28, Cisco (CSCO 24.86, -0.07), which reports its quarterly results next Wednesday, and Qualcomm (QCOM 72.49, -0.40), which has dropped 11% since reporting its quarterly results and issuing disappointing guidance on July 23.

Outside the S&P 500 information technology sector, Chinese Internet company, YY, Inc. (YY 85.80, +3.05), enjoyed a good day after topping second quarter earnings expectations and providing reassuring guidance. Industry peer Dangdang (DANG 15.10, +0.73) also outperformed, aided by an upgrade to Buy from Hold at T.H. Capital.

Chinese travel services company Ctrip.com (CTRP 66.02, +5.57) also shot up on Thursday following the news that Priceline (PCLN 1285.11, +4.54) is making a $500 mln investment in the company through a convertible bond.

T-Mobile (TMUS 29.86, -1.20) remained in the news amid continued speculation that French company Iliad is planning to increase efforts to acquire the company after Sprint (S 5.88, -0.02) dropped its bid. That news, though, didn't help its stock, which dropped 3.9%.

Separately, Stratasys (SSYS 113.69, +14.78) was one of the biggest movers on Thursday, gaining 15% after the 3D printing company reported better than expected earnings and raised its long-term annual organic revenue growth forecast to at least 25% from at least 20%. Related stocks like Voxeljet (VJET 16.54, +0.69) and 3D Systems (DDD 48.56, +0.77) took a shine to its news.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages began the new week on a modestly higher note. The S&P 500 settled higher by 0.3% with seven sectors registering gains, while the Russell 2000 (+1.0%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) outperformed. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) was limited to a slim gain as blue chip listings had a tough time keeping pace.

Equity indices climbed from the opening bell with the early advance supported by upbeat action overseas. Furthermore, a slight improvement on the geopolitical scene was also cited for the improved sentiment. Specifically, a ceasefire was agreed upon in Gaza on Sunday, while pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine also asked for a pause in fighting.

The crisis in Ukraine was in the headlines during the day as conflicting reports about a potential humanitarian mission swirled about. The early reports suggested Ukraine's government agreed to allow a Red Cross-led operation with participation from Russia, Germany, and the United States, but subsequent headlines indicated Kiev never gave permission for Russian involvement.

Despite the advance, today's session lacked clear sector leadership as the consumer staples sector (+0.8%) ended in the lead, while other countercyclical groups underperformed. Meanwhile on the cyclical side, consumer discretionary (+0.4%) and technology (+0.6%) outperformed, while energy (-0.2%) and financials (+0.2%) lagged throughout the session.

Today's leading sector-consumer staples-drew strength from the shares of Sysco (SYY 37.44, +1.17), which rallied 3.2% in reaction to in-line earnings. Peer Dean Foods (DF 15.20, -0.61) was not as fortunate, falling 3.9% in reaction to a bottom-line miss and cautious guidance for the third quarter. In addition, the company withdrew its full-year guidance due to a volatile dairy commodity environment.

Elsewhere among countercyclical sectors, the utilities space (-0.4%) widened its third-quarter loss to 7.0%, while health care (unch) lagged throughout the session.

The health care sector ended on its session low, while the high-beta biotech group ended a bit below its early high. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 253.21, +1.72) gained 0.7% after being up 1.3% during the first two hours of action. Despite the afternoon slip, the biotech group still ended ahead of the S&P 500 and contributed to the outperformance of the Nasdaq.

The tech-heavy index also received noteworthy support from its top component-Apple (AAPL 95.99, +1.25)-and chipmakers. Apple added 1.3%, while the PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 1.0% with all but two components posting gains. Micron (MU 30.74, +0.70) led the way, climbing 2.3%.

Treasuries alternated between gains and losses before ending little changed. The benchmark 10-yr yield remained at 2.42%.

Participation was well below average with fewer than 585 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Tomorrow, the June Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey will be released at 10:00 ET, while the Treasury Budget for July will cross the wires at 14:00 ET (Briefing.com consensus -$96.00 billion).

S&P 500 +4.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average UNCH YTD
Russell 2000 -1.8% YTD

DJ30 +16.05 NASDAQ +30.43 SP500 +5.33 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2025/1.43 bln/736 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2253/583.1 mln/805 3:35 pm :

Dec gold traded lower today as geopolitical tensions eased over the weekend. Reports indicated that pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine asked for a pause in fighting. In addition, a ceasefire was agreed upon in Gaza on Sunday. Despite dipping to a session low of $1306.90 per ounce in morning action, the yellow metal inched higher as it headed into the close. It erased most of its earlier losses and settled at $1310.60 per ounce, just 40 cents below the unchanged line.
Sep silver chopped around slightly above the break-even level for most of today's floor trade. It touched a session low of $19.93 per ounce in early morning action but pushed higher in the last half hour of the session. It settled 0.7% higher at $20.08 per ounce, just below its session high of $20.11 per ounce.
Sep crude oil traded in positive territory after coming off its session low of $97.46 per barrel in early morning action. It brushed a session high of $98.58 per barrel and eventually settled with a 0.5% gain at $98.08 per barrel.
Sep natural gas pulled back from its session high of $4.00 per MMBtu and dipped as low as $3.92 per MMBtu in morning floor trade. It managed to recover back above the unchanged line in afternoon action and settled with a 0.3% gain at $3.97 per MMBtu.

4:30 pm AXT appoints Gary Fischer as CFO (AXTI) : Co announced that it has appointed Gary Fischer vice president and chief financial officer, effective Aug. 11, 2014. Fischer will have responsibility for AXT's global finance and accounting organization and will report to chief executive officer, Morris Young.

4:05 pm Rackspace reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 revs above consensus (RAX) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.16 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.16; revenues rose 17.3% year/year to $441 mln vs the $437.01 mln consensus.

Total server count in the second quarter of 2014 increased to 107,657, up from 106,229 servers at the end of the previous quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $142 million, a 1.5 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2014. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 32.1 percent compared to 33.2 percent in the previous quarter.Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $454-461 mln vs. $454.30 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We added thousands of new customers, including one of our largest ever, and we saw solid growth from existing customers like Under Armour, SunPower and Alex and Ani. We generated a company record $20 million in incremental revenue in the quarter and revenue per server was an all time high. Total revenue grew 4.3 percent on a constant currency basis, which was the highest rate of growth that we've generated since the fourth quarter of 2012."

1:04 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

KMR (97.18 +26.18%): Acquired by Kinder Morgan (KMI); shareholders will receive 2.4849 KMI shares for each share of KMR (valued at ~$89.75 per share)KMP (95.35 +18.68%): Acquired by Kinder Morgan (KMI); shareholders will receive 2.1931 KMI shares and $10.77 in cash for each share of KMP (valued at ~$89.98 per share)TSLA (260.95 +5.17%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank

Large Cap Losers

RBS (11.37 -2.4%): Reuters reporting that co confirmed it was considering selling the international arm of its private bank in deal worth up to $1 blnVRX (107.97 -1.10%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article; AGN also mentioned cautiouslyTMUS (29.64 -1.01%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article

Mid Cap Gainers

EPB (41.16 +22.5%): Acquired by Kinder Morgan (KMI): shareholders will receive 0.9451 KMI shares and $4.65 in cash for each share of EPB (valued at ~$38.79 per share)BITA (67.82 +8.05%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.09 ($0.48 ex items vs $0.39 estimate), revs rose 54.5% yoy to $84.2 mln vs $79.4 mln two analyst estimate; sees Q3 revs of $88.7-91.9 mln vs $87.46 mln estimateMNKD (8.73 +7.32%): Announced a worldwide exclusive licensing agreement with Sanofi (SNY) for the development and commercialization of Afrezza (insulin human) Inhalation Powder, a new rapid-acting inhaled insulin therapy for adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes; co also reported Q2 loss of $0.19 per share vs estimate for a loss of $0.12, no revs

Mid Cap Losers

TRLA (56.19 -3.34%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article; Zillow (Z) also lowerKING (18.74 -2.85%): Downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific CrestBLMN (16.14 -1.22%): Mentioend negatively in blog article

12:15 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (111) outpacing new lows (44) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADM, AGRO, AKS, AMID, AMT, BAM, BCRX, BITA, BLT, BPY, BRK.A, BRK.B, BURL, BWS, CAR, CCI, CENX, CHEV, CHKE, CMCM, CRAI, CRI, CTAS, CTP, CTRP, CVGW, CYBE, DCO, DECK, DEJ, DIS, DKL, DXM, ECHO, EEFT, FDP, FUR, GEO, GFIG, GPRE, GTIM, HPP, INN, JBLU, JMBA, JMEI, KALU, KANG, KMI, KMP, KMR, KRNY, LABL, LEAF, LNBB, MCRL, MFRM, MGA, MGPI, MITSY, MKSI, MMI, MUSA, NLS, NP, NRF, NVEC, NWL, OVTI, PBYI, PCRX, PERY, PLNR, PRXL, PTRY, PTSI, RAIL, REX, RIC, RSG, RUSHB, SBAC, SCI, SEMG, SGC, SKX, SPBC, STLD, STND, SUI, SUSP, SUSS, SXC, THI, TLK, TNET, TPL, TSO, TSRA, UDR, UEIC, WBB, WEX, WFBI, WLB, WNR, WTM, X, XRS, XRX, ZEN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACPW, ALTV, ALXA, ARCO, ASTI, BAXS, CBNK, CGG, COCO, COOL, CORI, CPHC, DDE, DVR, ECOM, EDAP, FI, FLL, FWM, GENE, GLCH, GPRC, HDNG, KWK, LINC, MOSY, MR, MRKT, NPTN, PERI, PGN, PLX, PRSS, RNDY, SDT, SGOC, SIGA, SOQ, SSH, STXS, SUTR, TPH, VCRA, ZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EGPT, XME

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

Rudolph Technologies (RTEC) has received a large order from one of Taiwan's providers of independent semiconductor manufacturing services in assembly and test. The order includes: multiple NSX systems for two-dimensional macro defect inspection, the Wafer Scanner Inspection Series for three-dimensional inspection and bump height metrology, and Discover software for yield optimization.

The Tech sector today is rebounding as the overall market is slightly higher with the XLK ETF trading higher by +0.5%. News in the sector was relatively slow as earnings season begins to wind down. However, there were a few notable reports.

In-flight connectivity and wireless provider Gogo (GOGO) reported a beat on the bottom line; however revenues were in line with expectations, and the shares are trading lower by -3.5%. GOGO also reaffirmed its revenue guidance for fiscal year 2014 with revenues of $400-422 million, which was in line with estimates.

Magic Software (MGIC) reported EPS that was in line with expectations, while revenues topped estimates. The shares are trading higher in today's session by +5.4%.

In news, thinly traded TransAct Technologies (TACT) shares are trading higher by 3.5% following news of a $7.5 million share repurchase program.

Finally, the Semiconductor sector is trading higher today by 1.1%. Micron Technology (MU +2.4%) is a notable leader in the sector, while Nvidia (NVDA -0.8%) is a notable laggard.

As we look ahead to the close, RaxSpace (RAX +2.1%) is a notable technology name due out tonight.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages stumbled on Tuesday with the Russell 2000 pacing the slide. The small-cap index lost 0.7%, while the S&P 500 (-0.2%) gave back most of its advance from yesterday. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) ended with a slim loss.

Equity indices spent the first hour of action near their flat lines after index futures slumped from their overnight highs shortly ahead of the cash open. The early weakness took place as markets in Europe retreated in reaction to disappointing survey data. Specifically, Eurozone ZEW Economic Sentiment plunged to 23.7 from 48.1 (expected 41.3), while Germany's ZEW Economic Sentiment dropped to 8.6 from 27.1 (consensus 18.2).

The news from overseas contributed to the shaky start and so did the underperformance of some closely-watched groups. Most notably, the top-weighted sector-technology (-0.2%)-spent the majority of the trading day in the red amid broad weakness. Chipmakers lagged early, but the PHLX Semiconductor Index was able to narrow its loss to 0.1% by the close. Meanwhile, most large cap tech components underperformed, while Apple (AAPL 95.97, -0.02), IBM (IBM 187.34, -0.13), and Microsoft (MSFT 43.52, +0.32) bucked the trend.

Similar to technology, the energy sector (-0.7%) also kept the market from staging a sustained rebound. The growth-sensitive sector finished near its session low, while crude oil fell 0.7% to $97.35/bbl.

Elsewhere, another influential sector-health care-was able to end just ahead of the broader market even as biotechnology weighed. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 251.66, -1.55) lost 0.6% and surrendered yesterday's gain.

Like health care, other countercyclical sectors finished near their flat lines. Consumer staples (-0.1%) and utilities (-0.1%) logged modest losses, while the weakest sector of the month-telecom services-added 0.5% to narrow its August decline to 2.5%.

Even though equities endured a sloppy session, participants did not rush in search of volatility protection. In fact, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.14, -0.09) finished in the red. The modest losses did not translate into higher demand for Treasuries either as the 10-yr note settled on its low with the benchmark yield up two basis points at 2.45%.

Participation was below average with 531 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey for June and the Treasury Budget for July:


The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for June indicated job opening increased to 4.671 million from 4.577 million
The Treasury Budget for July showed a deficit of $94.60 billion, which followed the prior deficit of $97.60 billion, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $96.00 billion

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while the Retail Sales report for July (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, the Business Inventories report for June (consensus 0.4%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +5.1% YTD
S&P 500 +4.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.6% YTD

DJ30 -9.44 NASDAQ -12.08 SP500 -3.17 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 865/1.44 bln/1891 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1247/530.8 mln/1790 3:30 pm :

Dec gold rose to a session high of $1319.30 per ounce in mid-morning floor trade on further Ukraine/Russia tension. The European and German ZEW surveys both came in well below expectations as the Ukrainian conflict continues to weigh on sentiment while sanctions cripple businesses.
However, the yellow metal reversed towards the unchanged line in afternoon action and settled the session just 10 cents higher at $1310.70 per ounce.
Sep silver slipped into negative territory after retreating from a session high of $20.16 per ounce set in early morning action. It touched a session low of $19.88 per ounce moments before settling with a 0.8% loss at $19.91 per ounce.
Sep crude oil traded lower today as the IEA lowered its estimates for global demand growth by 180K barrels a day to 1 mln barrels a day in 2014 and said that supplies were abundant despite geopolitical tensions. The energy component fell as low as $96.79 per barrel and eventually settled with a 0.7% loss at $97.35 per barrel.
Sep natural gas touched a session high of $4.01 per MMBtu in morning action but pulled back towards the unchanged line heading into the close. Unable to regain momentum, it settled flat at $3.97 per MMBtu.

4:19 pm Advanced Micro announces commencement of exchange offer for its 6.75% senior notes due 2019 and 7.00% senior notes due 2024 for registered notes (AMD) : Co announced that, in connection with its debt re-profiling activities and its issuance in private placements of its 6.75% Senior Notes due 2019 on February 20, 2014 and 7.00% Senior Notes due 2024 on June 16, 2014, AMD has commenced a registered exchange offer to exchange all of its Private Notes for an equal principal amount of new 6.75% Senior Notes due 2019 and 7.00% Senior Notes due 2024, each of which have been registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

The sole purpose of the exchange offer is to fulfill AMD's obligations with respect to the registration of the Private Notes. Pursuant to registration rights agreements entered into by AMD in connection with the sale of the Private Notes, AMD agreed to file a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the exchange offer in which AMD would offer to exchange any Private Notes tendered by the holders of those notes for Registered Notes containing terms that are substantially identical to the Private Notes.

4:19 pm Chipmos Technology Taiwan to acquire 19% of JMC Electric Corporation (IMOS) : Co announced that its majority-owned subsidiary, ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES INC., has signed a purchase agreement to acquire 19% of JMC Electric Corporation, Ltd., which is 100% owned by Chang Wah Electromaterial Inc. The non-material, all cash transaction is expected to close by the end of August, 2014.

4:10 pm Chipmos Technologyplans to repurchase 3.3% ownership from Siliconware Precision Industries (IMOS) : Co announced that its Board of Directors has approved the repurchase of 1 mln shares or 3.3% ownership of outstanding shares of ChipMOS held by Siliconware Precision Industries Co. Based on June 30, 2014 shareholding information, upon consummation of the proposed repurchase transaction, SPIL would hold 1,243,749 shares or 4.2% ownership of ChipMOS and 132,775,000 shares or 15.4% ownership of ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES INC.

ChipMOS anticipates that it will enter into a Share Purchase Agreement with SPIL prior to the end of August, 2014. The transaction is expected to be consummated before the end of September, 2014.

4:10 pm JDS Uniphase beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides SepQ EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (JDSU) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; non-GAAP revenues rose 6.5% year/year to $448.6 mln vs the $437.1 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1 (Sep), sees EPS of $0.08-0.12, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 non-GAAP revs of $405-425 mln vs. $441.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Cree beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q1 below consensus (CREE) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.41; revenues rose 16.3% year/year to $436.3 mln vs the $443.03 mln consensus.

non-GAAP gross margin -30 bps YoY to 37.9%.Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.40-0.45, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.45 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $440-465 mln vs. $465.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:36 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

GG (28.99 +2.62%): Strength in metals/mining stocks (NEM, ABX also higher).
NBG (3.12 +2.32%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup.
WFM (38.57 +0.81%): Renewed takeover chatter made the rounds.

Large Cap Losers
KORS (77.31 -3.35%): Trading lower in sympathy with KATE.
TCK (23.18 -1.9%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.
NTES (81.96 -1.82%): Downgraded to Hold at China International Capital.

Mid Cap Gainers

ICPT (295 +24.38%): Reported Q2 EPS of ($0.79) vs ($0.40) ests; licensing revs of $405 mln vs $445 mln last year; discloses positive results from FLINT trial of obeticholic acid in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in 10-Q filing; upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Leerink Partners; tgt raised to $445 from $270; target raised to $500 at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt raised to $500 from $395 at Deutsche Bank.
TRAK (46.16 +18.12%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; filed common stock shelf offering for an undisclosed amount.
MTZ (29.44 +4.88%): Reported EPS in-line, beat on revs; guided Q3 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus; guided FY14 EPS below consensus, lowered FY14 rev guidance below consensus.

Mid Cap Losers

KATE (30.44 -21.69%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, beat on revs; increased FY14 adjusted EBITDA guidance; expects direct-to-consumer comp results for 2014 to be in the range of 15% to 17% vs previously-guided range of 12% to 15%; lowered store expansion target to 100 from 134.
MNKD (7.46 -12.54%): Pulled back following yesterday's gain on licensing agreement with Sanofi (SNY); tgt lowered to $13 from $16 at RBC Capital Mkts.
NUAN (16.22 -10.39%): Reported EPS in-line, missed on revs; announced call options for 2027 convertibles; guided Q4 EPS and rev below consensus.

11:41 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (68) outpacing new lows (55) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADK, AKS, ALL, APH, BAM, BITA, BRK.A, BRK.B, CAR, CENX, CMCM, CNSL, CRAI, CTAS, DKL, EEFT, ELLI, ENSG, ENVE, EXAS, FNV, FRF, GAGA, GEO, GTIM, HSH, HZO, IESC, KANG, KATE, KRNY, LABL, LNBB, LXK, MATW, MFRM, MITSY, MNDO, MWE, NWL, OMAB, OVTI, PCRX, PTRY, REIS, RGLD, RIC, SERV, SHI, SIMO, SOHO, STND, SUSP, TAHO, TARO, TCX, TEDU, TLK, TNET, TPL, TSRA, TV, UCFC, VGR, VIPS, WEX, WNR, XRX

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACY, ADGE, ADMP, ALXA, AMCO, AMDA, AQXP, ASTI, AXGN, BAXS, BDE, CARA, CCO, CGG, DDE, DNDN, ECOM, END, ENVI, ENZY, FI, FLO, FUEL, FWM, GALT, GCAP, GENE, GSIT, HEAR, INPH, KWK, LINC, MBI, MBII, MM, NBN, NDLS, NIHD, NPTN, PGN, PLX, PRSS, RNDY, RNF, SC, SDT, SIGA, SOQ, SUNS, TBBK, TPH, TRMR, VSAR, WAC, ZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JJA, JJG, RJA, SGG

8:12 am Marvell: Samsung (SSNLF) launches new GALAXY Tab 4 7.0 tablet powered by Marvell's ARMADA Mobile PXA1088 system-on-chip; co also launches new 4G LTE smartphone and mobile hotspot powered by Marvell's ARMADA mobile LTE solutions (MRVL) : Marvell announced several new collaborations with Samsung (SSNLF):

Samsung selected the Marvell ARMADA Mobile PXA1088, a highly integrated quad-core application and communications mobile System-on-Chip, to power Samsung's new 7-inch GALAXY Tab 4 7.0 tablet.
Samsung launched the new GALAXY CORE MINI 4G LTE smartphone and its multi-mode mobile hotspot, the SMV101F, both powered by Marvell's ARMADA Mobile PXA family.Co also announced the introduction of its first native Non-Volatile Memory Express solid-state drive controller, the 88SS1093. The Marvell 88SS1093 NVMe SSD controller delivers high-performance solid-state storage solutions with a fully Flash-optimized architecture overcoming the SAS/SATA performance limitations by optimizing hardware and software to take full advantage on NAND and addressing the needs of data centers and client systems that utilize next-generation PCIe 3.0 SSD storage.

7:08 am Canadian Solar modules to power 44 MW North Carolina solar farms (CSIQ) : Co announced that it executed a 44 MWp module sales agreement with affiliates of Entropy Investment Management, LLC and Entropy Solar Integrators, LLC. Entropy will construct seven solar farms in North Carolina in 2014 by using high efficient Canadian Solar CS6X-P PV module series. Over the next twenty years, the projects are anticipated to generate more than 1.1 Mio. kWh of clean, renewable, solar energy. This is equivalent to taking the CO2 emission of more than 94K automobiles off the road or powering more than 130K homes.

7:02 am Trina Solar to develop 49.9MW solar power plant in UK (TSL) :

Co announced the acquisition of a 49.9 MW utility-scale ground-mounted power project in the UK from Good Energy Group PLC. The solar PV power plant received planning consent in January 2014 and will utilize Trina Solar's high quality PV modules.Construction will start in Q3 of 2014 and the site is expected to be connected to the national grid before the end of Q1 of 2015.If connection occurs prior to the end of March 2015 it will be entitled to receive 1.4 Renewables Obligation Certificates per megawatt-hour.Once operational, the project is expected to supply clean energy to more than 14,000 UK homes per year.The tech sector today is flat off yesterday's gains, mirroring the overall market, with the XLK ETF trading lower by -0.2%. News action in the sector remains slow with earnings season wrapping up soon.

IT services and consulting firm Chinanet Online (CNET) announced a partnership with Chinese search engine giant, Baidu (BIDU). The companies signed a two-year agreement for ~$26 million. This news comes just two weeks after the company regained compliance with the NASDAQ listing rule. At one point in the trading day, the stock was up 120% off the previous day's close.

Telecom company NII Holdings (NIHD) reported a miss on Q2 EPS and a beat on revenues. The shares have subsequently fallen off the table, losing more than 75% on the day. The company's revenues fell year over year, but still beat consensus estimates. The loss of $3.65 per share represented a
$1.35 miss from street estimates, and a churn of 3.39% compared to 2.67% in the previous quarter.

Voice-over-internet-protocol equipment company, magicJack VocalTec (CALL) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity. The stock fell to an intraday low of $11.05 almost immediately following the open, an almost 18% dip off yesterday's close. The company reported in-line EPS, but missed on revenues last night after the close. The company cited a 'transition point' as the catalyst for the discrepancy in share price.

Finally, the Semiconductor sector is trading lower today by -0.6%, pulling back from yesterday's gains. Microchip Technology (MCHP) is up on the day +0.2%, while Sandisk (SNDK) -1.6% is lagging.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 15-Aug-14Dow -50.67 at 16662.91, Nasdaq +11.93 at 4464.93, S&P -0.12 at 1955.06

The stock market finished an upbeat week on a cautious note after a late-morning headline interrupted an extension of this week's rally. Despite the intraday weakness, the major averages were able to climb off their lows into the close. The S&P 500 settled right below its flat line with six sectors ending in the green. The benchmark index posted a 1.2% gain for the week while the Nasdaq outperformed. The tech-heavy index added 0.3% to extend this week's advance to 2.2%.

Like yesterday, equities climbed out of the gate with biotechnology claiming the lead at the start of the session. However, the advance was halted after the spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council said the country's army destroyed a part of an armed convoy from Russia. The news sent U.S. and European equity indices to lows, while boosting German Bunds, U.S. Treasuries, and the yen.

Notably, Germany's Bunds finished on their highs with the 10-yr yield down seven basis points at 0.95%. Similarly, the U.S. 10-yr note rallied in reaction to the news from Ukraine, but surrendered a portion of its gain during afternoon action. The benchmark yield fell six basis points to 2.34% to register its lowest close since mid-June of last year.

One could argue that the market was ripe for some profit taking after a run that saw the S&P 500 log four gains over the past five sessions. Similarly, European equities were forced to give back a portion of their gains from this week.

Six sectors registered losses with telecom services (-0.4%) finishing at the bottom of the leaderboard. Meanwhile, heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (-0.1%), financials (-0.4%), and industrials (-0.3%) also ended among the laggards, which prevented the S&P 500 from returning into the green.

However, the Nasdaq Composite was able to claw its way back into positive territory with help from biotechnology and chipmakers. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 263.41, +2.21) added 0.9% to end the week higher by 4.7%. Microchip manufacturers also contributed to the outperformance of the Nasdaq with the PHLX Semiconductor Index climbing 1.0%. Applied Materials (AMAT 22.48, +1.33) was a standout, surging 6.3% after reporting a one-cent beat. For its part, the technology sector (+0.1%) ended little changed.

Also of note, the energy space (+0.5%) finished in the lead, rebounding from this week's underperformance. The sector trimmed its weekly loss to 0.5%, while crude oil jumped 1.9% to $97.31/bbl. Despite the advance, the energy component shed 0.3% during the week.

After registering the lowest NYSE floor volume of the year yesterday, today's participation was boosted by options expiration. As a result, more than 740 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Economic data included the PPI report, Empire Manufacturing survey, Net Long-Term TIC Flows, Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization, and the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment survey:

Producer prices increased 0.1% in July after increasing 0.4% in June, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
As expected, energy prices declined in July, falling 0.6%
Excluding food and energy, core PPI rose 0.2% for a second consecutive month, as expected by the consensus
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for August registered a reading of 14.7, which was below the prior month's reading of 25.6
The Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 15.5
The June net long-term TIC flows report showed an $18.70 billion outflow of foreign capital from U.S.-denominated assets to follow last month's inflow of $19.40 billion
Industrial production increased 0.4% in July after an upwardly revised 0.4% (from 0.2%) gain in June, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
Capacity utilization hit 79.2%, as expected by the Briefing.com consensus
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 79.2 in the August preliminary reading from 81.8 in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 81.7

On Monday, the NAHB Housing Market Index for August will be released at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Stocks Climb Amid Paltry Volume

The major averages began the new week on a modestly higher note. The S&P 500 settled higher by 0.3% with seven sectors registering gains, while the Russell 2000 (+1.0%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) outperformed. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) was limited to a slim gain as blue chip listings had a tough time keeping pace. Equity indices climbed from the opening bell with the early advance supported by upbeat action overseas. Furthermore, a slight improvement on the geopolitical scene was also cited for the improved sentiment. Specifically, a ceasefire was agreed upon in Gaza on Sunday, while pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine also asked for a pause in fighting.

Equity indices stumbled on Tuesday with the Russell 2000 pacing the slide. The small-cap index lost 0.7%, while the S&P 500 (-0.2%) gave back most of its advance from the previous day. Stocks spent the first hour of action near their flat lines after index futures slumped from their overnight highs shortly ahead of the cash open. The early weakness took place as markets in Europe retreated in reaction to disappointing survey data. Specifically, Eurozone ZEW Economic Sentiment plunged to 23.7 from 48.1 (expected 41.3), while Germany's ZEW Economic Sentiment dropped to 8.6 from 27.1 (consensus 18.2). The news from overseas contributed to the shaky start and so did the underperformance of some closely-watched groups. Most notably, the top-weighted sector-technology (-0.2%)-spent the majority of the trading day in the red amid broad weakness. Chipmakers lagged early, but the PHLX Semiconductor Index was able to narrow its loss to 0.1% by the close.

The stock market finished the midweek session on an upbeat note with the Nasdaq Composite in the lead. The tech-heavy index advanced 1.0%, while the S&P 500 added 0.7% with all ten sectors ending in the green. The key indices registered roughly half of their gains at the open with heavily-weighted health care (+1.2%) and technology (+1.1%) providing support from the start. In fact, only one other sector-industrials (+0.8%)-ended ahead of the broader market.

Stocks posted modest gains on Thursday with the S&P 500 (+0.4%) extending its week-to-date advance to 1.2%. Small caps lagged throughout the session as the Russell 2000 (+0.2%) was unable to reclaim its 200-day moving average (1145). Despite receiving disappointing economic data from overseas (Eurozone GDP 0.0%; expected 0.1%), equity indices climbed out of the gate with Wednesday's leading sector-health care-pacing the advance once again. The third-largest sector added 1.2% with help from biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF settled higher by 1.6% to extend its weekly gain to 3.8%. It is worth mentioning that the Thursday rally lacked conviction, generating the lowest NYSE floor volume of the year (506 mln).

 
 Index	    Started Week   Ended Week  Change % Change	YTD % 
 DJIA	      16553.93	   16662.91    108.98	0.7	0.5 
 Nasdaq	       4370.90	    4464.93     94.03	2.2	6.9 
 S&P 500	1931.59	    1955.06     23.47	1.2	5.8 
 Russell 2000   1131.35	    1141.65     10.30	0.9    -1.9

5:06 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology:CSIQ (33.25 +25.92%),OVTI (27.26 +23.75%),BITA (78.36 +21.28%),ZEN (23.98 +20.19%),GRUB (40.93 +19.34%)
Services:MELI (109.88 +20.62%),SGMS (9.15 +19.46%),VLCCF (12.66 +18.73%)
Healthcare:RPTP (10.91 +33.98%),ICPT (284.7 +33.02%),EPZM (36.69 +20.84%),ACHN (9.25 +20.57%),INSY (34.75 +20.3%),ARWR (13.94 +19.83%),ALNY (67.26 +19.35%)
Consumer Goods:CQB (13.63 +33.89%),MPAA (28.18 +22.74%)
Basic Materials:KMR (101.01 +27.71%),EPB (42.92 +23.92%),KMP (98.9 +19.38%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Utilities:EDN (12.3 -13.36%)Services:SEAS (18.66 -32.91%),KING (13.53 -27.51%),NDLS (20.98 -22.63%),LOCO (33.36 -17.83%),RRGB (54.9 -17.08%),MEG (16.02 -14.14%),MCHX (9.24 -13.75%)
Industrial Goods:NES (13.55 -27.4%),CPST (1.16 -19.01%)
Healthcare:HGR (21.43 -27.39%),VOLC (12.63 -19.46%),OMED (17.88 -18.4%),GALE (2.53 -15.76%),MNKD (6.86 -13.28%)
Financial:GGAL (12.92 -13.69%)Consumer Goods:KATE (31.65 -15.34%),POST (37.88 -14.54%)
Basic Materials:EXXI (15.74 -17.25%),MCP (2.04 -13.62%)

4:09 pm IBM issues statement in support of U.S. Government regulatory approval of x86-based server divestiture to Lenovo (LNVGY) (IBM) : Co stated it is, "pleased to announce it has received notice from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (:CFIUS) of the successful conclusion of the committee's review of the divestiture of its x86-based server business to Lenovo. The clearance by CFIUS of this transaction is good news for both IBM and Lenovo, and for our customers and employees. The parties now look forward to closing the transaction. The approval of the $2.3 billion sale to Lenovo enables IBM to focus on system and software innovations that bring new kinds of value to IBM clients in areas such as cognitive computing, Big Data and cloud, and provides clarity and confidence to current x86 customers that they will have a strong partner going forward."

3:33 pm Earnings Preview for the week of August 18 - 22 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of August 18 - 22 some of the bigger names include:

Monday: Pre Market - JKS, CMGE, FSYS
After Hours - URBN, FN, PWRD, JMEI

Tuesday: Pre Market - HD, TJX, MDT, DKS, CMCM, RDEN, AMWD, CYRNAfter Hours - LZB, YOKU, PLAB, RGSE, TEDU

Wednesday: Pre Market - TGT, LOW, SPLS, PETM, SJM, AEO, HAIN, JASO, EV, AMSG, EJ, VVTV, CTRN, LITB, GLOGAfter Hours - HPQ, LB, CACI, SNPS, IRF, SMTC, CRMT, PLKI

Thursday: Pre Market - SHLD, HRL, DLTR, PDCO, BONT, TTC, SSI, PLCE, SMRT, LANC, CATO, BKE, PERY, NM, KIRK, CYBX, WUBAAfter Hours - GPS, ROST, GME, CRM, MRVL, SCSC, INTU, BRCD, NDSN, TFM, ARO, MENT, NWY, TUES, ARAY, AVNW, QUNR

Friday: Pre Market - RY, FL, ANN, HIBB

12:06 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MNST (93.46 +30.44%): Entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Coca-Cola (KO); Coca-Cola to purchase a 16.7% stake in the company
AMAT (22.33 +5.58%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.28 vs $0.27 estimate), revs rose 14.6% yoy to $2.27 bln vs $2.29 bln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.25-0.29 vs $0.27 estimate, revs +/- 3% sequentially (~$2.20-2.34 bln) vs $2.28 bln estimate
A (57.78 +3.89%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($0.78 ex items vs $0.74 estimate), revs rose 6.9% yoy to $1.77 bln vs $1.75 bln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.87-0.91 ex items vs $0.94 estimate, revs of $1.81-1.85 bln vs $1.83 bln estimate

Large Cap Losers

JWN (65.92 -4.03%): Reported Q2 EPS of $0.95 (in-line), revs rose 6.2% yoy to $3.3 bln vs $3.31 bln estimate; same store sales +3.3% vs +3.2% estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $3.80-3.90 vs $3.90 estimate, revs +6.5-7.6% (~$12.96-13.08 bln) vs $13.11 bln estimate; sees FY15 same store sales +3-4% vs ~3.7% estimate
ADSK (54.41 -3.32%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.07 ($0.35 ex items vs $0.28 estimate), revs rose 13.4% yoy to $637 mln vs $603.41 mln estimate; total billings increased 27%; sees Q3 EPS of $0.17-0.23 ex items vs $0.28 estimate, revs of $590-605 mln vs $588.4 mln estimate; sees FY15 revs +7-9% (~$2.43-2.48 bln) vs $2.4 bln estimate
DVA (72.25 -1.16%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank

Mid Cap Gainers

SINA (50.5 +5.61%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.08 ($0.17 ex items vs $0.09 estimate), revs rose 18.7% yoy to $187 mln vs $179.21 mln estimate; sees Q3 revs of $193-199 mln vs $199.56 mln estimate
MNK (73.51 +3.72%): To replace Rowan Companies (RDC) in the S&P 500UPL (23.85 +3.20%): Upgrraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at CapitalOne; upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS

Mid Cap Losers

WB (20.06 -6.52%): Reported Q2 loss of $0.03 per share (in-line), revs rose 105.6% yoy to $77.3 mln vs $75.44 mln estimate; Monthly active users rose 30% yoy to 156.5 mln; sees Q3 revs of $79-82 mln vs $78.86 mln estimate
DDS (109.76 -5.05%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.08 ($0.80 vs $0.88 estimate), revs fell 0.3% yoy to $1.51 bln vs $1.54 bln estimate; comparable store sales rose 1%
XON (21.31 -4.87%): Beat quarterly Eps by $0.09 (-$0.11 vs -$0.20 estimate), revs rose 76.1% yoy to $11.8 mln vs $8.09 mln estimate; $5.1 mln increase in revs resulted in part from recognition of deferred revenue for upfront payments received from 11 collaborations or expansions

11:24 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (125) outpacing new lows (44) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACHN, ADM, AKR, ALGT, ALL, AMCF, AMGN, APH, ARX, AWK, BDR, BIG, BIOF, BITA, BLX, BPY, BRK.A, BRK.B, BSTC, CAR, CCI, CHEV, CHH, CHL, CIB, CLDT, CLW, CMCM, CNSL, CNW, COR, CQB, CRAI, CTAS, CTO, CUZ, CVS, CYH, DIS, DKL, DLB, DVCR, ECHO, ECL, EEFT, EFX, ENPH, ENVE, ERS, EW, FDP, FDS, FISV, FLT, FRP, GILD, HD, HZO, IBA, IHS, INN, INTU, IVZ, JBSS, JLL, KALU, KMP, KMR, KRNY, LG, LGP, LHCG, LPL, LUV, LYB, MAR, MATW, MCY, MGA, MKSI, MNST, MTD, NLS, NP, ODFL, PBA, PBYI, PEIX, PIKE, PKX, PRXL, QTS, REG, REIS, REV, RSG, SAIA, SCI, SCLN, SEMG, SERV, SHG, SIMO, SKX, SPCB, STLD, SUI, SWKS, TARO, TECH, THC, TQNT, TRUE, TSO, TSRA, TTM, VGR, VOYA, WEX, WRB, WRE, WWAV, WYN, X, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ADMP, AQXP, ASNA, BAA, BAXS, BEBE, BGC, BODY, BSDM, CCO, CHS, CLRX, COCO, EPM, EXXI, FI, FNGN, FWM, GENE, GSIT, IKAN, ISSC, IVAN, KEG, KING, KWK, MDWD, MM, NGVC, NWY, OIBR, OIBR.C, PRSS, PULS, RNF, SDR, SDT, SINO, SYNC, VLGEA, VRNS, VSAR, WPP, XIN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AGG, AMJ, EWW, IEF, IYR, MBB, PALL, QQQ, TLH, TLT, URE

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: TBT

The Technology Sector is trading higher by +0.4%, which is outperforming the S&P 500 (0.3%) Earnings season is drawing to a close, but there are still a few notable names that reported earnings.

First, Autodesk (ADSK) announced that it reported a slight beat on EPS. Total billings increased 27%, compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2014. However, shares are under slight pressure (-1.6%) due to disappointing third quarter EPS guidance.

China online media stock Sina (SINA) also reported last night. The company topped estimates for the current quarter, but guided third quarter revenues below consensus. However, the shares are trading higher by 6.1% so far this morning.

Finally, shares of Agilent (A) are trading higher by 3.9% following a top & bottom line beat.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market began the new trading week on an upbeat note with small caps leading the charge. The Russell 2000 gained 1.5%, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.9% with eight sectors posting gains.

Equity indices surged out of the gate and spent the entire afternoon in narrow ranges near their highs. Although the Russell 2000 paced the rally, the small-cap index could not climb above its 50-day moving average (1159), which served as resistance.

The opening push took place after the reports that weighed on risk sentiment on Friday were refuted over the course of the weekend. To recap, comments made by Ukrainian officials on Friday suggested that a direct confrontation took place between Russian forces and Ukrainian troops, but those accounts were called into question by several parties, including the White House.

In addition to boosting equities, the news weighed on safe-haven assets. The 10-yr note spent the day in a steady retreat, which pushed its yield up five basis points to 2.39%. Similarly, Germany's 10-yr note retreated, which sent its yield back above the 1.0% mark to 1.01%.

Cyclical sectors displayed broad strength as five of six growth-oriented groups finished ahead of the broader market. The industrial sector (+1.5%) seized the lead in the early going and held on until the close with help from transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 1.7% to extend its August gain to 3.2%. Airlines led with United Continental (UAL 47.84, +1.83) climbing 4.0%.

Elsewhere, the top-weighted sector-technology (+1.1%)-also finished ahead of the S&P 500 even as chipmakers were unable to keep pace after Goldman Sachs downgraded the entire semiconductor space. The PHLX Semiconductor Index was limited to a modest gain of 0.5%. However, large cap components picked up the slack with the likes of Apple (AAPL 99.16, +1.18) and Google (GOOGL 592.70, +8.99) ending higher by 1.2% and 1.5%, respectively.

Also of note, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.9%) benefitted from M&A activity as Dollar General (DG 64.14, +6.68) offered to acquire Family Dollar (FDO 79.81, +3.75) for $78.50/share, which represents a 3.2% premium to Friday's closing price.

Despite the broad strength, one cyclical group spun its wheels throughout the session. Specifically, the energy sector (+0.3%) ended near its flat line, while crude oil fell 0.9% to $97.31/bbl.

On the countercyclical side, telecom services (-0.1%) and utilities (-0.2%) registered slim losses, while consumer staples (+0.6%) and health care (+0.8%) finished a bit behind the broader market.

Participation was below average with fewer than 600 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for August, which rose to 55 from 53, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to hold at 53.

Tomorrow, July CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), July Housing Starts (consensus 964K), and Building Permits (consensus 1.001 million) will all be reported at 8:30 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 +6.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.5% YTD

DJ30 +175.83 NASDAQ +43.39 SP500 +16.68 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2104/1.46 bln/690 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2433/591.7 mln/649 3:35 pm :

Crude oil traded in the red all day and fell below the $96 level, falling as low as $95.98/barrel.
Sept crude oil finished the day $0.88 lower at $97.31/barrel
Gold slid back below $1300/oz today, while silver climbed higher in afternoon trade
Dec gold ended $7.40 lower at $1299.20/oz, Sept silver closed $0.12 higher to $19.64/oz
Sept natural gas rose 2 cents to $3.79/MMBtu
Corn lost steam and fell as much as 10 cents off its HoD to end at $3.60/bushel, down 6 cents.

5:02 pm Plexus announces $30 mln share repurchase program (PLXS) : Co announced that its Board of Directors has approved a new share repurchase program under which the Company is authorized to repurchase up to $30 million of its common stock during fiscal 2015.

4:07 pm Kulicke & Soffa Appoints Garrett E. Pierce as Chairman of the Board of Directors (KLIC) :

Co announced the appointment of Garrett Pierce as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Pierce will replace MacDonell Roehm who is stepping down as Chairman having reached the Company's customary retirement age. Pierce will become Chairman effective September 28, 2014. Pierce has served on the K&S Board of Directors since 2005 and is the Chairman of the Audit Committee. He is the Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Orbital Sciences Corporation (ORB).4:02 pm Riverbed Technology announced that Paul Mountford has joined the company as SVP and Chief Sales Officer (RVBD) :


12:22 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

DG (63.15 +9.90%): Co made proposal to acquire Family Dollar Stores (FDO) for $78.50 per share in cash; upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sterne Agee; upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse; mentioned positively at FBR Capital
CHU (17.2 +4.31%): Strength in Chinese wireless companies: CHL also higherAAL (40.73 +3.93%): Strengh in major airlines following declines in fuel prices: UAL, DAL also higher

Large Cap Losers

MNST (89.8 -3.95%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies, target raised to $95 from $80; pullback following strong gains seen after announcing a long-term strategic partnership with Coca-Cola (KO)
DLTR (54.38 -2.21%): Competitor Dollar General (DG) made superior offer ($78.50 vs $74.50) to acquire Family Dollar (FDO)
NXPI (62.49 -2.19%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman

Mid Cap Gainers

ST (48.85 +5.79%): Co's subsidiary reached an agreement to acquire the Schrader group of companies for a total enterprise value of $1 bln; expected to be accretive in 2015
GTAT (18.29 +5.36%): Seeing reports that Apple has begun mass production of iPhone 6 sapphire screens
FDO (79.83 +4.96%): Received acquisition offer from Dollar General (DG) at $78.50 per share, above previous offer of $74.50 per share from Dollar Tree (DLTR)

Mid Cap Losers
YOKU (20.92 -4.08%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at T.H. Capital
OCN (26.13 -3.08%): In a 10-Q filing co disclosed that internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of June 30, 2014
CSTM (29.49 -2.48%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse, target lowered to $32 from $33

11:47 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (158) outpacing new lows (36) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACHN, AKS, ALGT, ALL, ALX, AMGN, APH, ARII, AVB, AWK, BAM, BBD, BIG, BIOF, BITA, BLT, BLX, BOXC, BRX, BURL, CAR, CCI, CELG, CHH, CHL, CLDT, CMCM, CNK, CNW, COO, CORE, CQB, CRAI, CRI, CTAS, CTO, CTP, CUZ, CYH, DIS, DLR, DVCR, ECHO, ECL, EEFT, EEQ, EFX, ELS, EMC, ENPH, EW, EXPE, FDO, FISV, FLT, FRP, GILD, GPRK, HCA, HD, HDB, HHC, HTZ, HZO, IBA, IBN, IESC, IHS, IRDM, IVZ, JBLU, JBSS, JLL, JMEI, KALU, KRNY, LABL, LEG, LGP, LHCG, LMT, LPL, LRAD, LUV, LYB, MAR, MATW, MGPI, MITSY, MMI, MTD, MUSA, NEU, NEWM, NLS, NP, NTES, NWL, ODFL, PBA, PBIP, PBYI, PCRX, PEOP, PII, PKX, PLNR, PTRY, Q, RCL, REGN, REIS, REV, REX, RFMD, RSG, RUSHB, SAIA, SAVE, SCI, SCLN, SEMG, SERV, SIMO, SKX, SLI, SNSS, SPB, SPCB, SRC, ST, STLD, STND, SXL, SYNL, TARO, TCP, THC, TQNT, TSLA, TSO, TSRA, TTM, TV, UHS, UNP, URS, VAC, VGR, VOYA, WEX, WLDN, WLK, WPC, WRB, X, XRS, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACY, AMCC, AQU, AQXP, ARCO, BAA, BDE, BEBE, CBNK, CLRX, COOL, CREE, EGI, EGLT, EGT, ENVI, EXXI, FN, GSIT, HGR, KIOR, LPDX, LPTN, MITK, NGVC, PFSI, QRM, REE, SDR, SDT, SYNC, TGE, VII, WPP, XIN, ZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AMJ, BKF, ICF, IYH, IYR, NIB, PALL, PSK, QQQ, URE, VNQ, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BNO, SGG

9:42 am BlackBerry announced before the open that it has named Sandeep Chennakeshu to lead a new business unit to be called BlackBerry Technology Solutions (BBRY) : The BTS business unit comprises BlackBerry's innovative technology assets, including: QNX (embedded software), Project Ion (Internet of Things application platform), Certicom (cryptography applications), and Paratek (RF antenna tuning), as well as BlackBerry's extensive patent portfolio.

JA Solar Holdings (JASO) announced that its highly efficient polycrystalline RIECIUM module passed the 500-hour Potential Induced Degradation Test conducted by TUV SUD, a world leader in testing and certification services.

Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) announced that a tier-one automotive supplier is leveraging several of its solutions in their vehicle-based wireless platforms ramping across several leading car manufacturers.

7:08 am JinkoSolar Holding beats Q2 EPS on in-line rev; guides Q3 shipments; raises FY14 shipment guidance (JKS) : Q2 non-GAAP EPS $0.92 vs. $0.76 consensus; rev +38% to $392 mln vs. $390.5 mln consensus.

Total solar product shipments amounted to 659.5 megawatts vs. 570-600 MW guidance, consisting of 570.8 MW of solar modules, 54.1 MW of silicon wafers and 34.6 MW of solar cells. This represents an increase of 13.5% from 581.2 MW in the first quarter of 2014 and an increase of 34.8% from 489.2 MW in the second quarter of 2013. Gross margin was 22.6%, compared with 24.0% in the first quarter of 2014 and 17.7% in the second quarter of 2013. For Q3, the co estimates total solar module shipments to be in the range of 800 MW to 850 MW, which includes 650MW to 680MW module shipments to third parties and 150 MW to 170 MW for its own downstream projects.

For FY14, the co estimates total solar module shipments to be in the range of 2.9 GW and 3.2 GW, which includes 2.3GW to 2.5GW module shipments to third parties, and 600 MW to 650 MW for its own downstream projects. Full year project development scale is expected to be above 600 MW.

7:04 am Trina Solar announces supply of 82 MW of anti-PID modules to Sihong Tianganghu PV Power Generation (TSL) : Co announced it signed an agreement to supply 82MW of its anti-Potential Induced Degradation modules to Sihong Tianganghu Photovoltaic Power Generation Co., Ltd. for a solar power plant located in Jiangsu Province.


Module shipments are expected to be completed by the end of 2014.

The technology sector is trading higher today, +0.9%, outperforming the S&P 500 which stands at +0.8%. Amidst a slowing earnings calendar, there were a few names that stood out among the day's news.

Small cap, Vringo, Inc. (VRNG) is trading modestly higher ( +27.0%) on disclosures of notable insider purchases. The company's CFO disclosed a purchase of 9,000 shares at $0.91 worth $8,190, and a company Director disclosed a purchase of 30,000 shares at $0.89 worth $26,700. Between the two disclosures, the stock bounced back from its Friday low of $0.67 to an intraday high of $1.12, a swing of 67.2%.

Also, phones & handheld device manufacturer, BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY, +1.9%) swung to a more than two week high of $9.83 intraday on news of a new business unit named BlackBerry Technology Solutions. The unit will focus primarily on BlackBerry's extensive patent portfolio, in addition to handling some of the software and application technology.

Of note in the dwindling earnings calendar is Fabrinet (FN), which postponed its earnings that were supposed to be reported after the bell. The company is under investigation by an Audit Committee to see if there were any violations of the company's accounting policies, but no conclusion has been reached in the ongoing investigation. The stock gapped down today (-18.2%), and saw a brief intraday low of $13.57 before bouncing back to 14.50 level.

Finally, large cap components were also strong with the likes of Apple (AAPL 99.16, +1.18) and Google (GOOGL 592.70, +8.99) ending higher by 1.2% and 1.5%, respectively.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the midweek session on a mixed note. Blue chip listings bolstered the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.3%), while the Russell 2000 (-0.4%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.02%) underperformed.

Equity indices began the day in the red, but wasted no time regaining their flat lines. Small-cap stocks were not as fortunate as the Russell 2000 spent the day in the red.

Upon returning into positive territory, the key indices were confined to narrow ranges until the minutes from the July FOMC meeting crossed the wires. The minutes revealed that many officials saw recent job gains as a potential reason to bring forward the first fed funds rate hike; however, most officials showed preference for waiting for more evidence before changing their outlook on rates.

The minutes were followed by a retreat among equities, but the slide was not sustained. The S&P 500 was trading at a fresh session high within an hour of the release. Treasuries, meanwhile, slumped in reaction to the discussion on rates. The 10-yr note fell seven ticks with its yield climbing three basis points to 2.43%.

Eight sectors ended in the green with industrials (+1.0%) spending the entire session in the lead. The cyclical sector was supported by Dow components Boeing (BA 127.35, +1.77) and General Electric (GE 26.36, +0.31) as the two added 1.4% and 1.2%, respectively. Despite the strength in the two names, the broader PHLX Defense Index (+0.9%) ended just behind the sector. Similarly, transport stocks could not keep pace with the sector as the Dow Jones Transportation Average added 0.6%.

Also of note, shares of Hertz (HTZ 30.33, -1.23) endured quite the roller coaster ride. The stock settled at $31.56 yesterday, but fell all the way to $27.47 this morning after the company said it expects to fall short of its full-year guidance, which was withdrawn. The stock spent the bulk of the day inching off its low with a big boost coming after Carl Icahn disclosed a stake in the company and said he may seek a seat on the board. Hertz ended the session with a 3.9% decline.

The consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%) finished in second place after a handful of retailers reported their quarterly results. American Eagle (AEO 12.98, +1.39), Lowe's (LOW 52.33, +0.81), and PetSmart (PETM 70.52, +0.82) all reported better than expected results, while Target (TGT 60.33, +1.08) and Staples (SPLS 11.32, -0.30) met expectations, but issued cautious guidance. For its part, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 87.68, +0.63) gained 0.7%.

Elsewhere, the financial sector (+0.3%) was the only outperformer of note, while the remaining sectors finished near their respective flat lines. Bank of America (BAC 15.52, +0.07) was in the headlines after the Wall Street Journal reported the bank is nearing a $17 billion settlement with the Department of Justice over the sales of mortgage-backed securities.

Participation remained on the light side with just under 530 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which rose 1.4% to follow last week's 2.7% decline.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims will be reported at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 308K), while Existing Home Sales for July (consensus 5.00 million), August Philadelphia Fed Survey (consensus 15.5), and July Leading Indicators (expected 0.7%) will all be released at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +8.4% YTD
S&P 500 +7.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +http://www.siliconinvestor.com/reply.aspx?subjectid=37144&replytoid=29679232&replytype=Pub&OrigType=Pub2.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.5% YTD

DJ30 +59.54 NASDAQ -1.03 SP500 +4.91 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1024/1.39 bln/1709 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1544/529.3 mln/1462 3:30 pm :

Dec gold traded below the $1300 per ounce level today as investors awaited the release of the FOMC minutes from the July policy meeting. The yellow metal pulled back slightly from its session high of $1299.00 per ounce set in early morning action and dipped to a session low of $1293.40 per ounce.
It eventually settled with a 0.1% loss at $1295.00 per ounce.
Gold slipped further in electronic trade after the release of the FOMC minutes and is currently trading at $1290.80 per ounce, or 0.5% lower.
Sep silver touched a session high of $19.58 per ounce shortly after equity markets opened but retreated to a session low of $19.45 per ounce as the session progressed. It chopped around near the $19.50 per ounce level in afternoon action and settled at that price, booking a gain of 0.4%.
Oct crude oil traded in positive territory today, advancing as high as $96.61 per barrel following inventory data. The EIA reported that for the week ending Aug 15, crude oil inventories had a draw of 4.47 mln barrels when a draw of 1.2-1.8 mln barrels was anticipated.
The energy component briefly dipped below $93 per barrel in early afternoon action but eventually settled with a 0.6% gain at $93.40 per barrel.
Sep natural gas, on the other hand, spent its entire session in negative territory. It brushed a session low of $3.79 per MMBtu and settled with a 1.5% loss at $3.82 per MMBtu.

5:22 pm Micrel increases share repurchase authorization by an additional $25 mln (MCRL) : Co announced that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of an additional $25.0 million of Micrel's common stock. This new authorization is in addition to the approximately $17.7 million of the Board of Directors' previous authorization remaining as of August 19, 2014.

4:31 pm Semtech beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SMTC) : Reports Q2 (Jul) earnings of $0.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.39; revenues fell 11.7% year/year to $145.7 mln vs the $141.95 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.42-0.48, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.46 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $142-152 mnln vs. $152.22 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Hewlett-Packard reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line (HPQ) : Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.89 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.89; revenues rose 1.0% year/year to $27.59 bln vs the $27.06 bln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.03-1.07, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.05 Capital IQ Consensus -- narrows FY14 EPS to $3.70-3.74 from $3.63-3.75 vs. $3.72 Consensus.

Segment results:


Personal Systems revenue was up 12% YoY with a 4.0% operating margin. Commercial revenue increased 14% and Consumer revenue increased 8%. Total units were up 13% with Desktops units up 9% and Notebooks units up 18%. Printing revenue was down 4% YoY with an 18.4% operating margin. Enterprise Group revenue was up 2% YoY with a 14.0% operating margin. Enterprise Services revenue was down 6% YoY with a 4.1% operating margin. Software revenue was down 5% YoY with a 21.2% operating margin.

12:34 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ILMN (174.5 +2.35%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush
GRMN (57.25 +2.03%): Co announced the fleet 660 and 670, two new fleet navigators that, "combine the simplicity of Garmin navigation with the unique customization options of Android"
CELG (92.88 +1.66%): Co and Bristol-Myers Squibb announced the establishment of a clinical trial collaboration to evaluate the a combination regimen of Bristol-Myers Squibb's investigational PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor, OPDIVO (nivolumab), and Celgene's nab technology-based chemotherapy ABRAXANE in a Phase 1 study; multiple tumor types will be explored

Large Cap Losers

HTZ (28.53 -9.58%): Co disclosed it expects to be well below the low end of its previously provided guidance due to operatinal challenges; downgraded at Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan
CRH (23.1 -3.14%): Reported 1H EPS of EUR 0.061 vs EUR (0.078) in prior year; sales revenue increased by 4%; like-for-like sales up 5%
SLXP (158.49 -1.44%): Sell off following strong gains seen yesterday on reports that co is being pursued by Allergan (AGN)

Mid Cap Gainers

HAIN (96.27 +10.74%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.90 vs $0.89 estimate), revs rose 26.0% yoy to $583.8 mln vs $577.73 mln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $3.72-3.90 vs $3.73 estimate, revs of $2.725-2.80 bln vs $2.51 bln estimate
AEO (12.45 +7.42%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.03 ($0.03 vs $0.00 estimate), revs fell 2.2% yoy to $711 mln vs $688.93 mln estimate; sees Q3 EPS of $0.17-0.19 vs $0.18 estimate
JBLU (12.76 +3.45%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen, target raised to $15 from $10

Mid Cap Losers

YOKU (19.43 -9.71%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.06 (-$0.07 vs -$0.01 estimate), revs rose 27.0% yoy to $154.54 mln vs $158.67 mln estimate; sees Q3 revs of RMB 1.09-1.13 bln vs ~RMB 1.15 bln estimate
IDXX (125 -2.94%): Hearing downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Northcoast
GTAT (17.9 -2.72%): Downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Credit Agricole, target to $19 from $18

12:06 pm Intl Rectifier (halted): Infineon (IFNNY) to acquire International Rectifier (IRF) for $40/share (IRF) : Infineon Technologies AG (IFNNY) and International Rectifier announced that they have signed a definitive agreement under which Infineon will acquire International Rectifier for $40 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at ~ $3 bln. By the integration of International Rectifier, Infineon complements its offerings and will be able to provide customers with an even broader range of innovative products and services. Infineon will also benefit significantly from greater economies of scale as well as a larger regional footprint.

Infineon will pay $40 per share in cash for all of IR's outstanding shares, representing a fully diluted enterprise value of ~ $2.4 bln. The transaction price represents a premium of ~ 48% over the average share price of IR during the last three months and a premium of ~ 51% over the closing share price of IR on Aug 19, 2014.Infineon will fund the transaction using cash-on-hand and fully underwritten credit facilities of Euro 1.5 bln in total. Upon closing of the transaction, Infineon's capital structure should stay well within the previously communicated targets of 30-40% gross cash-to-revenue, no more than 2x gross debt-to-EBITDA and a positive net cash position.Transaction expected to be accretive to pro-forma EPS within the first fiscal year of closing and margin contribution should be at least in line with Infineon's average-cycle target of 15 percent at the latest within the second full fiscal year after closing.

11:44 am Intl Rectifier: Follow-up on IRF halt (IRF) : If IRF ends up being the one acquired by Infineon (IFNNY), watch the others that were bid up on M&A speculation for potential reaction...

As mentioned earlier, Bloomberg reported that Infineon (IFNNY) is nearing a buyout of a U.S. semi co for around $2 billion. While no specific buyout candidate was named, several stocks in the space are moving higher in the wake of the reports. For those considering possibilities, the current market cap of the potential target may be lower than the $2 bln price range named in the reports, as an acquisition would most likely involve some sort of premium to current prices. Stocks in the semi space around that market cap that are seeing the most action this morning include the following:

Power Integrations (POWI traded up +10%); mkt cap $1.722 bln Semtech Corporation (SMTC +9%); mkt cap $1.57 bln Fairchild Semi (FCS +6%) mkt cap $1.92 bln Spansion (CODE +5%); mkt cap $1.18 bln
Intersil Corporation (ISIL +3%); mkt cap $1.73 bln
Others include: CY +1.8%, SEMI +1.4%, MPWR +1.3%, AMBA +1.3%, OVTI +1.3%, PMCS +0.7%, CRUS +0.6%, AEIS +0.6%, MCRL +0.5%, LSCC +0.3%, DIOD +0.2%, SLAB +0.1%, TSRA +0%, BRKS -0.2%, MTSI -0.2%, ENTG -0.3%, VECO -0.3%, CCMP -0.6%

POWI, ISIL, SMTC, CODE are all pulling back already on the halt.

11:40 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (133) outpacing new lows (35) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ACHN, ACM, AGX, AKR, ARE, AVB, BBD, BLT, BMR, BRX, BXP, CAVM, CDW, CDZI, CELG, CENX, CM, CP, CPL, CTRN, CYBE, DDR, DKL, DLB, DLR, DRH, ECHO, ECL, EEQ, EFX, EIX, ENPH, EQR, EVEP, EW, EXAS, EXP, FCS, FDS, FFIV, FISV, FL, FOLD, FRF, FRP, FRT, FSI, GBX, GCO, GD, GGP, GILD, GLNG, GPRK, HD, HRB, IBN, IDTI, ITMN, ITUB, IVZ, JBLU, JBSS, KED, KMP, KMR, KRC, LEJU, LMT, LPL, LRAD, LUV, LYB, MATW, MCRL, MGA, MGPI, MNDL, MPWR, MSG, MUSA, NEU, ODFL, PEB, PFG, PHI, PKX, PLNR, RCL, RCMT, REG, REV, REX, ROP, RSG, RWC, SAVE, SCLN, SCOK, SERV, SIAL, SLI, SNCR, SRC, ST, SUSP, SVU, SWIR, SWKS, SXL, TPL, TRUE, TSRA, TTM, TWOU, UDR, UGI, UNP, URS, VOYA, WFBI, WLK, WM, WMS, WNR, WPX, WRB, WY, XRX, ZSPH, ZTS, ZUMZ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACY, ANGI, APO, AREX, CTG, CTIB, DWSN, EVOK, FWM, GIMO, IKAN, ISSC, KING, KIOR, KIPS, LDR, LPI, MDWD, NBY, PER, PERI, PLX, PULS, RITT, SDR, SDT, SUNS, SUTR, SYNC, TIGR, TRC, UUU, VIEW, VPCO, XXIA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AMJ, BKF, EPP, EWH, ICF, IWF, IYH, QQQ, TAO, VNQ, XLV, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JJA, SMN

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that Netatmo has selected the Broadcom Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices Wi-Fi technology to enable its smartphone-controlled thermostat by French designer Philippe Starck.

Micron Technology (MU) and Inspur Group today announced that Micron's 8Gb DDR3 SDRAM components will be used in a wide range of Inspur's computing products.

7:29 am JA Solar misses by $0.06, reports revs in-line; raises FY14 shipment guidance (JASO) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.14 per share, $0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues rose 52.9% year/year to $390.5 mln vs the $393.98 mln consensus.

Growth was driven by the ongoing shift in sales to modules, which were 65.4% of shipments, as well as penetration of our key geographies, most notably China and Japan.Total shipments were 681.8 MW, within the range of previous announced guidance of 670 to 700 MW. Shipments grew 6.8% sequentially and 47.0% year-over-year. In addition, the Company shipped 43.7 MW of modules to its downstream projects. Gross margin was 15.2%, which compares to 8.1% in the year-ago quarter, and 16.7% in the first quarter of 2014. The gross margin increase y/y was due to improved overall market conditions. The sequential decline was primarily due to a higher percentage of module shipments to China, where the module ASP declined slightly, and an adjustment of the minimum import price in European Union. For Q3, the co expects total cell and module shipments to be in the range of 730 MW to 760 MW.

For the full year 2014, the co revised up its previous shipment guidance. The Company now expects to ship between 2.9 GW and 3.1 GW, higher than previous guidance of a range of 2.7 GW to 2.9 GW. Consistent with the previous guidance, the new guidance includes 200 MW of module shipments to the Company's downstream projects.

7:00 am ReneSola to supply 5.4MW in solar modules for India utility project (SOL) : Co announced it will provide 5.4 megawatts in solar modules to Welspun Energy Pvt. Ltd., a New Delhi-based engineering, procurement and construction firm, for a utility-scale project in India.

Under the terms of the agreement, this month the co will provide 240W and 245W versions of its popular Virtus II solar PV modules, which were manufactured at the company's India-based OEM facilities, thereby satisfying the project's domestic content requirements, which call for certain solar projects to incorporate locally manufactured components.

It was a pretty non-descript day of trading for the information technology sector, which ended unchanged and trailed the S&P 500 (+0.3%). Still, unchanged isn't all that bad coming off a 4.3% gain over the previous eight sessions.

The technology sector held its ground, aided by a steady showing from Apple (AAPL 100.57, +0.04), a gain in Intel (INTC 34.50, +0.16) after reports of M&A activity in the semiconductor industry, and a generally agreeable response to the minutes from the July 29-30 FOMC meeting.

Altogether, there wasn't a lot of headline information to move the information technology sector with any real panache. Some ascribed that to a wait-and-see stance in front of Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ 35.12, -0.36) earnings report after the close and ahead of a Friday speech on the labor market by Fed Chair Yellen at the Jackson Hole Symposium.

One could also pin the lackluster action on vacation schedules that either took participants off trading desks or at least kept them on the sidelines in a thinly-traded market. To that end, volume at the NYSE was just 529 mln shares, which was the lowest total this week and one of the lowest totals this year.

A glimpse of the 66 components comprising the sector showed only 12 components with trading volume that exceeded their three-month daily average: Adobe Systems (ADBE 71.02, -1.03), Autodesk (ADSK 53.59, -0.16), Cognizant Technology (CTSH 46.01, -0.21), Corning (GLW 20.70, +0.36), F5 Networks (FFIV 122.57, +2.55), Fidelity National Information Services (FIS 57.19, +0.28), FLIR Systems (FLIR 34.00, +0.01), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 35.12, -0.36), TE Connectivity (TEL 62.34, -0.46), Qualcomm (QCOM 76.44, +1.31), SanDisk (SNDK 97.68, +2.38), and Xerox (XRX 13.54, +0.09).

In most cases, there wasn't any news to account for the higher-than-average volume.

F5 Networks was one of the few exceptions as it moved on an ISI Group upgrade to Strong Buy from Buy. Qualcomm, meanwhile, fared well after an Investor's Business Daily article indicated BMO Capital Markets thinks the market's view could be too pessimistic regarding the company's royalty-payment dispute with Chinese smartphone makers.

Elsewhere, International Rectifier (IRF 39.10, +12.54) was a huge gainer on Wednesday. It soared 47% following the news that it is going to be acquired by Infineon (IFNNY 11.35, -0.22) in an all-cash deal valued at $3 billion or $40 per share.

Word that Infineon might be looking to make an acquisition leaked prior to the aforementioned announcement and set off some speculative trading activity in the semiconductor space. That benefited components like Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS 16.74, +0.75), Power Integrations (POWI 59.22, +2.01), and Semtech Corporation (SMTC 24.00, +0.64).

Not surprisingly, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which jumped 0.8%, outperformed in Wednesday's session.

On the flip side, Chinese Internet company Youku Tudou (YOKU 19.52, -2.00) underperformed in a big way after the company came up short of earnings expectations for the June quarter. That cast a pall on its peer group as most related stocks ended the day lower.

Postscript: After the close, Hewlett-Packard reported fiscal third quarter earnings in-line with expectations on a 1.0% jump in revenue. Additionally, its fourth quarter and full-year guidance ranges were generally in-line with expectations.

Shares of HPQ were trading down 1.2% in extended action.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday session on an upbeat note with blue chips showing relative strength for the second consecutive day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.3%) settled ahead of the Russell 2000 (+0.2%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%). It is worth mentioning the benchmark index posted its fourth consecutive gain, registering a new record closing high at 1992.38.

Equity indices climbed out of the gate thanks to early strength among the four countercyclical sectors. Despite the early outperformance, the defensively-oriented sectors ended below their opening highs, while the six cyclical groups were mixed. Financials (+1.1%) and technology (+0.5%) contributed to the modest advance, while other heavily-weighted groups like consumer discretionary (-0.1%), industrials (unch), and energy (unch) kept the market from going on a bigger run.

The health care sector (+0.1%) was an early leader, but finished near its low amid weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 264.45, -2.40) ended lower by 0.9% after spending the session in a steady retreat. The ETF succumbed to profit taking after soaring 6.0% since last Tuesday.

In addition to pressuring the health care sector, biotechnology weighed on the Nasdaq, but the relative strength of the tech sector helped the index finish in the green. Intel (INTC 35.15, +0.65) and IBM (IBM 191.23, +1.13) posted respective gains of 1.9% and 0.6%, while Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 37.00, +1.88) jumped 5.4% after reporting in--line earnings.

Elsewhere, the financial sector spent the session in a steady climb. Bank of America (BAC 16.16, +0.64) was a notable standout, surging 4.1% after confirming its settlement with the Department of Justice, which is expected to negatively impact Q3 earnings by about $0.43 per share. The magnitude of today's advance on heavy volume suggests participants believe a big overhang is now gone and the bank can realize its full potential by focusing on its core business rather than being preoccupied with litigation.

The remaining cyclical sectors lagged throughout the day with the consumer discretionary space spending the session near its flat line. Retailers struggled following disappointing earnings from Sears Holdings (SHLD 33.38, -2.57), Kirklands (KIRK17.30, -1.68), Buckle (BKE 48.78, +1.70), Bon-Ton Stores (BONT 10.21, +1.16), and Dollar Tree (DLTR 54.28, -0.72). The broader SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 87.49, -0.19) shed 0.2%. On the upside, L Brands (LB 63.72, +0.74) gained 1.2% after reporting a one-cent beat.

Despite the gains in equities, Treasuries maintained a bullish bias throughout the session. The 10-yr note added seven ticks with its yield slipping two basis points to 2.41%.

Participation remained below average with just over 550 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Existing Home Sales, Philadelphia Fed Survey, and Leading Indicators:


The initial claims level fell to 298,000 from an upwardly revised 312,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 308,000
The Department of Labor reiterated that there were no special factors that influenced the initial claims level, suggesting the reading resulted from an improvement in labor market conditions
Existing home sales increased 2.4% to 5.15 million SAAR in July from a slightly downwardly revised 5.03 million SAAR (from 5.04 million) in June, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 5.00 million SAAR
This was the fourth consecutive monthly gain and contrasted with the downward move in both the Pending Home Sales Index and MBA Mortgage Purchase Index
Sales are down 4.3% from a year ago
The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Survey increased to 28.0 in August from 23.9 in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a drop to 15.5
The strength in the headline result is confusing and masks an oddly weaker subset of data
Outside of the headline result, the only gains came from the average workweek index (13.3 from 12.5) and inventories (8.3 from 4.8)
The Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators increased 0.9% in July after increasing an upwardly revised 0.6% (from 0.3%) in June, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%

There is no economic data on tomorrow's schedule.

Nasdaq Composite +8.5% YTD
S&P 500 +7.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.3% YTD

DJ30 +60.43 NASDAQ +5.62 SP500 +5.86 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1509/1.31 bln/1231 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1833/554.4 mln/1206 3:35 pm :

Dec gold declined for a fifth consecutive session as economic data this morning showed that the initial claims level fell to 298K from an upwardly revised 312K. The Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 308K. The yellow metal fell as low as $1273.40 per ounce, its lowest level since June. Unable to gain buying support, it settled with a 1.5% loss at $1275.20 per ounce.
Sep silver also chopped around in negative territory and touched a session low of $19.32 per ounce in early morning action. It eventually settled at $19.41 per ounce, or 0.5% lower.
Sep crude oil lifted from its session low of $92.98 per barrel in early morning action and broke into positive territory. It trended higher to a session high of $94.45 per barrel and settled with a 0.6% gain at $93.97 per barrel.
Sep natural gas fell from its session high of $3.91 per MMBtu following inventory data that showed a build of 88 bcf when a build of 82-83 bcf was anticipated. It brushed a session low of $3.79 per MMBtu but managed to recover back into positive territory in afternoon action. Natural gas eventually settled 1.8% higher at $3.89 per MMBtu.

4:17 pm Brocade beats by $0.04, beats on revs (BRCD) : Reports Q3 (Jul) non-GAAP earnings of $0.23 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.19; revenues rose 1.7% year/year to $545.5 mln vs the $532.6 mln consensus.


"With another solid quarter behind us, we are seeing the tangible benefits of our data center focused strategy...The resilience and durability of our SAN business, along with strong Brocade VDX sales, validate our strategic direction." SAN business revenue, including products and services, was $380 mln, up 3% year-over-year and flat sequentially. "The revenue performance was better than expected in a typically soft demand quarter."4:10 pm Marvell beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (MRVL) : Reports Q2 (Jul) earnings of $0.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.28; revenues rose 19.2% year/year to $962 mln vs the $961.57 mln consensus.


Co issues downside Q3 EPS guidance of $0.27-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.32 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $0.96-1.0 bln vs. $1.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:37 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers


EBAY (55.99 +4.85%): Renewed PayPal spin off speculation made the rounds.
HPQ (36.9 +5.07%): Reported EPS in-line, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS in-line; sees FY14 y/y rev decline of 6-7% (calcs to ~$104.4-105.6 bln vs $111.1 bln est).
HRL (50.51 +5.53%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY14 EPS guidance.

Large Cap Losers
JD (30.73 -0.65%): JD.com's Paipai rumored to add support for Tencent's (TCEHY) WeChat Pay, according to Marbridge.
DLTR (54.46 -0.98%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided Q3 in-line; guided FY15 EPS below consensus, raised FY15 revs, comp guidance; Family Dollar (FDO) issued statement rejecting buyout proposal from Dollar General (DG) - supports DLTR merger.

Mid Cap Gainers

SNPS (41.65 +5.98%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, reported revs in-line; guided Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.
BKE (48.7 +3.44%): Missed on EPS by $0.02, reported revs in-line with pre-announcement; CRT Capital remains cautious on BKE until comps improve.
SBH (27.55 +2.72%): Co's Board authorized new $1 bln share repurchase program.

Mid Cap Losers

SHLD (33.25 -7.51%): Missed on EPS by $0.24, missed on revs (limited analyst coverage).
WUBA (46.99 -7.11%): Beat single estimate, beat on revs; guided Q3 revs below dual est.
CCJ (19.59 -4.71%): Beat on EPS by $0.02, missed on revs; downgraded to Market Perform at Cowen; tgt lowered to $20 from $25.

12:11 pm DuPont files patent infringement lawsuit against SunEdison (SUNE) (DD) : Co filed a patent infringement lawsuit against SunEdison (SUNE) and its affiliate NVT LLC in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

In its complaint, DuPont alleges that by sourcing and using photovoltaic cells and solar modules containing Samsung (SSNLF) SDI front side metallization paste, SunEdison infringes DuPont's patented tellurium paste technology. The complaint also identifies Neo Solar Power of Taiwan as the cell manufacturer and Flextronics (FLEX) as SunEdison's contract manufacturer.

11:54 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (161) outpacing new lows (48) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACCO, ADP, AGX, AKR, ALL, APH, ARE, ARW, AVB, AVGO, BAM, BBD, BJRI, BLX, BMR, BRX, BXP, CCI, CDNS, CDW, CENX, CHH, CM, CMG, CNI, COO, CP, CPL, CPT, CRI, CTP, CVS, CW, DDR, DIS, DKL, DLR, DRE, DRH, ECF, ECL, EEQ, EFC, EIX, ELS, ENSG, EQIX, EQR, ESS, EW, EXP, FDS, FFIV, FIS, FISV, FL, FLT, FRF, FRT, GBX, GCO, GD, GGP, HCC, HCN, HD, HDB, HPQ, HRB, HRL, HSH, IBA, IESC, IHS, INN, INTC, ITUB, IVZ, JBLU, JRJC, KED, KEX, KRC, KSS, KTCC, LAZ, LG, LMT, LNBB, LOW, LPL, LTC, LUV, MAG, MAR, MATW, MCRL, MGA, MNDL, MNR, MPW, MRD, MTD, MUSA, NATI, NEU, NFLX, NOC, PBA, PDM, PEB, PEP, PERY, PFG, PHI, PJC, PSA, PUK, QRE, REG, RPM, RSG, RY, SAVE, SBSI, SEIC, SFL, SHW, SMLP, SNPS, ST, SUSP, SVU, TECD, TRN, TRT, TTM, TWOU, UAL, UDR, UEIC, UGI, UHS, UNP, VGR, WEX, WLK, WM, WMS, WOOF, WPC, WPX, WRB, WRE, WRI, WY, XRS, XRX, ZSPH, ZTS, ZUMZ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACY, ANTH, APO, AQXP, ARCO, AREX, ARTW, AVL, BAXS, CACG, CALI, COUP, CTG, CYTX, ECT, EGT, END, ENTR, ENVI, FST, FUEL, FWM, GES, GIMO, GKNT, GLCH, HERO, IRG, KING, LDR, LPI, ORRF, PERI, PT, QLGC, QRM, RAVN, SCL, SSI, STML, SUNS, SUTR, TIGR, TITN, TRMR, UNTK, VCRA, WMK

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AMJ, EEB, EWW, ICF, IHF, IWF, IYF, IYH, IYR, OEF, QQQ, RTH, SPY, URE, VNQ, VTI, XLB, XLF, XLK, XLV, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


Analyst comments: PLAB +4.1% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham),

SunEdison (SUNE) has closed a $160 mln fund for distributed generation projects in the U.S. with Barclays and Citi. The lease pass-through fund represents a unique structure that will provide the tax equity for 40 U.S. projects. The portfolio includes a mix of ground-mounted, rooftop and canopy photovoltaic systems with an average size of 1.1 megawatts per project.

The information technology sector (+0.5%) got things turned around and outperformed the S&P 500 (+0.3%) on Thursday. It did so under the leadership of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 37.00, +1.88), which rallied 5.4% after reporting its fiscal third quarter earnings results.

Although HP's report left plenty to be desired, investors continued to embrace its turnaround plan, bolstered by the recognition that HP reported revenue growth for the first time in 12 quarters. It wasn't much -- just 1.3% -- but it was something that has been missing for a long time. Notably, the company's Personal Systems group was the engine for that growth, achieving a 12% revenue increase versus the year-ago period.

The strength in the latter area, which management said was owed in part to the Windows XP expiration, helped drive gains in related stocks like IBM (IBM 191.23, +1.13), Intel (INTC 35.15, +0.65), Microsoft (MSFT 45.22, +0.27), and Seagate Technology (STX 60.43, +0.60).

On a related note, there was some talk that Microsoft is getting ready to release the Windows 9 operating system on September 30. That date was not confirmed by Microsoft.

Sector heavyweight Apple (AAPL 100.58, +0.01) didn't do much, but importantly for the sector's performance it didn't go down. Google (GOOG 583.37, -1.12) and Facebook (FB 74.57, -0.24), however, did not participate in Thursday's advance.

The lack of selling pressure in many of the sector's most influential, and widely-held, components left the sector on stable footing throughout the day. Only the financial sector (+1.1%), which got a boost from Bank of America's (BAC 16.16, +0.64) near $17 bln settlement with the Department of Justice for its dealings in mortgage-backed securities leading up to the financial crisis, did better than the information technology sector on Thursday.

eBay (EBAY 55.89, +2.49) was another big-name stock that showed some moxie. It jumped 4.7% on heavy volume following some rumors it may be entertaining a spin-off of PayPal.

Other sector components simply played the part of the good soldier, posting either modest gains or modest losses. In fact, there wasn't a single stock in the sector that declined more than 1.0% on Thursday.

Looking elsewhere across the technology sector landscape, Semtech (SMTC 25.15, +1.15) continued to advance on speculation it could be a takeover target; however, it also had the added benefit of reporting better than expected second quarter results.

Similarly, Synopsys (SNPS 41.75, +2.45), which is a software, IP, and services company that caters to the semiconductor industry, got a nice boost following its better than expected fiscal third quarter report.

On Friday, the market will have its eyes and ears turned to the Jackson Hole Symposium. Fed Chair Yellen will be speaking there at 10:00 a.m. ET about the labor market. The tone of her remarks, and the perceived implications for the path of monetary policy, is expected to drive the trading action for the broader market and the technology sector.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 22-Aug-14Dow -38.27 at 17001.22, Nasdaq +6.45 at 4538.55, S&P -3.97 at 1988.41

The major averages punctuated a solid week with a subdued Friday session. The S&P 500 shed 0.2% to narrow its weekly gain to 1.7%, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) displayed relative strength. The tech-heavy index finished the week in line with the benchmark average.

Market participants went into today's session expecting to hear some new insight from Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who delivered the keynote address at this year's Jackson Hole Symposium. Unfortunately, the speech was a disappointment to those who looked for clues about the Fed's policy course in the near term.

Ms. Yellen said the FOMC sees significant underutilization of labor resources and that the labor market has not fully recovered even when taking into account the recent gains. She also indicated that faster progress on goals could lead to a quicker rate hike, but this approach should be expected from a data-dependent central bank.

The remarks were met with a brief retreat among Treasuries, but the 10-yr note returned to its flat line in short order and remained near that level into the close. The benchmark instrument added two ticks, sending its yield lower by one basis point at 2.40%.

Equities, meanwhile, spent the session near their flat lines as participants showed unwillingness to step in ahead of the weekend with geopolitical concerns contributing to the cautious posture. This morning, European markets and U.S. index futures tumbled after a Russian aid convoy crossed Ukraine's border without permission from the government; however, Ukraine said it will allow the convoy to proceed in order to 'avoid provocations.' The initial reports were followed by comments from NATO and the Pentagon with both bodies condemning the crossing into Ukraine.

Only two sectors were able to register gains with the consumer discretionary space (+0.1%) ending in the lead. Retailers contributed to the relative strength after Foot Locker (FL 54.12, +1.55), Gap (GPS 45.43, +2.25), Gamestop (GME 42.90, +2.41), and Ross Stores (ROST 74.37, +5.12) reported better than expected earnings.

Outside of the discretionary sector, most cyclical groups ended in the red, but technology (+0.02%) eked out a miniscule gain. Large cap tech components traded in mixed fashion, but Apple (AAPL 101.32, +0.74) underpinned the sector with a solid gain of 0.7%. On the earnings front, Salesforce.com (CRM 59.80, +4.09) rallied 7.3% in reaction to a one-cent beat.

The relative strength of Apple also put in a floor under the Nasdaq Composite, which drew additional strength from biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 266.43, +1.98) gained 0.8% and helped the health care sector end the day on its flat line.

Meanwhile, the remaining three countercyclical sectors ended in the red. Consumer staples (-0.2%) and utilities (-0.3%) settled near their flat lines, while the telecom services sector lost 0.4%.

Participation was well below average with fewer than 510 million shares changing hands at the NYSE, which made for one of the quietest sessions of the year.

There was no economic data reported today and Monday's data will be limited to the New Home Sales report for July (Briefing.com consensus 427,000).

Week in Review: S&P 500 Charges to New Highs

The stock market began the week on an upbeat note with small caps leading the charge. The Russell 2000 gained 1.5%, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.9% with eight sectors posting gains. Equity indices surged out of the gate and spent the entire afternoon in narrow ranges near their highs. Although the Russell 2000 paced the rally, the small-cap index could not climb above its 50-day moving average (1159), which served as resistance. The opening push took place after the reports that weighed on risk sentiment on Friday were refuted over the course of the weekend. To recap, comments made by Ukrainian officials on Friday suggested that a direct confrontation took place between Russian forces and Ukrainian troops, but those accounts were called into question by several parties, including the White House.

Equities continued their strong start to the week with a broad-based Tuesday rally that sent the S&P 500 higher by 0.5%. Nine of ten sectors registered gains while the benchmark index extended its week-to-date advance to 1.4%. Stocks received an opening boost from a pair of economic data points that crossed the wires in the morning. An in-line CPI report suggested inflationary pressures remain contained, while a better than expected Housing Starts report underpinned homebuilders and the discretionary sector (+0.8%).

Wednesday ended on a mixed note as blue chip listings bolstered the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.3%), while the Russell 2000 (-0.4%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.02%) underperformed. The key indices were confined to narrow ranges until the minutes from the July FOMC meeting crossed the wires. The minutes revealed that many officials saw recent job gains as a potential reason to bring forward the first fed funds rate hike; however, most officials showed preference for waiting for more evidence before changing their outlook on rates. The minutes were followed by a retreat among equities, but the slide was not sustained. The S&P 500 was trading at a fresh session high within an hour of the release. Treasuries, meanwhile, slumped in reaction to the discussion on rates. The 10-yr note fell seven ticks with its yield climbing three basis points to 2.43%.

On Thursday, the market ended on an upbeat note with blue chips showing relative strength once again. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.3%) settled ahead of the Russell 2000 (+0.2%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) with the benchmark index registering a new record closing high at 1992.35. Stocks climbed out of the gate thanks to early strength among the four countercyclical sectors. Despite the early outperformance, the defensively-oriented sectors ended below their opening highs, while the six cyclical groups were mixed. Financials (+1.1%) and technology (+0.5%) contributed to the modest advance, while other heavily-weighted groups like consumer discretionary (-0.1%), industrials (unch), and energy (unch) kept the market from going on a bigger run.

 
 Index	    Started Week  Ended Week   Change  % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	     16662.91	  17001.22     338.31	  2.0	 2.6 
 Nasdaq	      4464.93	   4538.55      73.62	  1.6	 8.7 
 S&P 500	1955.06	   1988.40	33.34	  1.7	 7.6 
 Russell 2000  1141.65	   1160.34	18.69	  1.6	-0.3

4:48 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology:IRF (39.1 +53.77%),CMGE (18.65 +25.63%),GOGO (17.65 +19.93%),SWIR (27.52 +15.2%)Services:AEO (13.46 +23.45%),ARO (3.52 +21.43%),HMSY (22.76 +17.41%),SGMS (9.9 +16.88%)Industrial Goods:TASR (15.71 +25.02%),CBPX (15.53 +17.09%)Healthcare:FOLD (5.87 +22.68%),SLXP (158.96 +18.82%),DEPO (14.8 +17.88%)Financial:LEJU (18.41 +19.49%)Consumer Goods:MNST (86.37 +22.12%)Basic Materials:BXE (7.77 +15.7%),PBR.A (18.28 +14.85%),PBR (17.2 +14.68%),PQ (6.42 +14.59%),GDP (19.15 +14.56%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology:COUP (12.67 -18.02%),YOKU (19.09 -13.04%),BNFT (33.32 -11.72%),FEYE (28.01 -11.41%)Services:JMEI (32.18 -11.03%),TEDU (14.45 -9.55%)Healthcare:ITCI (15.62 -17.7%),EPZM (33.58 -16.47%),ARWR (12.8 -11.91%),XON (20.09 -11.83%),FMI (23.01 -10.25%),NWBO (6.11 -9.81%),VNDA (12.51 -9.49%),OMER (12.85 -9.47%),AERI (16.73 -9.4%)Financial:NOAH (15.3 -12.64%)Consumer Goods:RDEN (16.92 -15.18%),FN (15.7 -12.13%)Basic Materials:SDR (6.69 -10.61%),WLT (5.79 -9.71%)3:30 pm Earnings Preview for the week of August 25 - 29 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of August 25 - 29 some of the bigger names include:

Monday: Pre Market - QIHU, OSIS
After Hours - PINC, PSEC, FN, KANG, RENN, ADEP

Tuesday: Pre Market - BBY, TECD, BNS, BMO, SAFM, DSW, TSL, RGS, MOV, DAKT
After Hours - DY, BOBE, HEI, SLH, GSM, ARUN, SWHC, TIVO NMBL, ADI

Wednesday: Pre Market - SDRL, TIF, BF.B, CHS, DCI, BWS, YGE, EXPR, BRLI
After Hours - WSM, GEs, BYI, WDAY, GMAN, CWST, TLYS, VNET, LCI, VMEM, EXA

Thursday: Pre Market - TD, DG, COTY, SIG, CSTM, ANF, PLL GCO, DXLG, FRO, DATE
After Hours - AVGO, FRED, OVTI, PSUN, UEPS, ANFI, SPLK, VEEV, ZOES, RALY

Friday: Pre Market - BIG

11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (108) outpacing new lows (40)

(:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ACCO, ADP, AGII, BAM, BLX, BR, BSTC, BURL, CAVM, CDW, CDZI, CEP, CHH, CM, CRI, CYBE, DIS, DKL, DLB, DVCR, EDE, EFC, ENPH, EVEP, EW, EXAS, EXP, FCAP, FL, FRF, FSI, FWV, GCO, GILD, GMCR, GPK, GPS, HCC, HRB, IBA, IESC, INTC, INTU, IVZ, JBSS, KLAC, KSS, LABL, LEJU, LG, LMT, LPNT, LUV, M, MATW, MCRL, MNDL, MTD, NBTF, NFEC, NOC, NRF, NTRS, OTEX, PEOP, PHI, PLNR, PRI, PSMI, PUK, RFMD, RPM, RSG, RWC, RY, SBFG, SBSI, SEIC, SEMG, SHW, SLCA, SNCR, SNP, SNPS, SPCB, SPR, SUMR, TD, THC, TREC, TRN, TRT, TRUE, TUES, TWOU, UCFC, UGI, UHS, UNP, URI, VOYA, VSH, WMS, WOOF, WPX, WSM, XRX

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACPW, AMPE, AQXP, ARCO, ARTW, AVL, BH, BOSC, CACG, CALI, COUP, CRIS, CTG, CYTX, DLA, DO, DSCI, ECT, EPM, FLIC, FLL, FUEL, ICEL, INBK, IRG, ISSC, LYTS, MDWD, NSPH, PERI, PT, RAVN, RGSE, RIG, SSI, SZMK, TIGR, UNTK, USMD, UTIW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IGV, IWF, IYF, IYH, QQQ, RTH, SMH, XLF, XLK, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

8:08 am Peregrine Semi to be acquired by Murata for $12.50 per share in cash (shares halted) (PSMI) : Murata Electronics North America, a subsidiary of Murata Manufacturing (MRAAY), and PSMI announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Murata will acquire all outstanding shares of Peregrine not owned by Murata, for $12.50 per share in cash, or a total transaction value of $471 mln ($465 mln excluding Murata's existing holding). The transaction, which has been approved by both cos' boards of directors, is expected to close by the end of 2014 or early 2015, subject to PSMI's stockholders' approval, regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions.

7:01 am JinkoSolar Holding signs project investment agreement for 100 MW PV power plants; invest ~RMB 800 mln, will receive subsidies of RMB1.2 per kWh (JKS) : Co announced that JinkoSolar Power, a subsidiary of the co has signed project investment agreements with the local government of Hengfeng county in Jiangxi Province to develop totally 100 MW PV projects.

Jinko Power will own the projects and will manage the project investment and EPC as well as operations and maintenance. According to the terms of the agreement, Jinko Power will invest ~RMB 800 mln for the projects, and the project will receive subsidies of RMB1.2 per kWh. Construction has begun in the third quarter and is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of this year. After the completion, those projects will generate around 110 mln kWh electricity annually, generating ~RMB132 mln revenue per year.

SemiLEDs (LEDS) announced sampling and volume availability of the first in its new Enhanced FlipChip, or EF, LED series.

Traders were hoping for fireworks on Friday with Fed Chair Yellen and ECB President Draghi giving speeches on labor market dynamics at the Jackson Hole Symposium. Instead, all they got was barely enough to light a sparkler.

Without going into all of the details, neither the Fed Chair nor the ECB President said anything altogether new to excite the market. Accordingly, it was another low-volume affair with little conviction on the part of buyers and sellers.

The S&P 500 ended the day down 0.2% while the information technology sector ended the session basically where it began the session. It can be said therefore that the technology sector outperformed the market again, but barely so.

Apple (AAPL 101.32, +0.74) threw some of its influential weight around. It jumped 0.7% despite a Reuters article suggesting its iPhone 6 could possibly be delayed due to supply chain issues.

A big gain in Salesforce.com (CRM 59.80, +4.09) after its better than expected earnings report helped in the effort, as did a 1.0% jump in Yahoo (YHOO 38.01, +0.37) and a 1.1% gain in Electronic Arts (EA 38.16, +0.40), which drafted off Gamestop's (GME 42.90, +2.41) better than expected earnings report and outlook.

Intuit (INTU 83.57, -2.24), on the other hand, had a tough go of it and weighed on the sector after coming up short of fiscal fourth quarter earnings expectations and issuing disappointing guidance for fiscal 2015.

Elsewhere in the the technology arena, Brocade Communications (BRCD 9.74, +0.33) got a nice pop after surpassing earnings expectations.

Marvell Technology (MRVL 13.87, +0.23) moved up, too, after the semiconductor company beat earnings expectations and issued disappointing guidance for the third quarter. The semiconductor group ended the session mostly mixed, yet the SOX Index still squeezed out a 0.1% gain.

One of the biggest gainers of the day was the social media group. LinkedIn (LNKD 226.40, +7.20), Yelp (YELP 81.60, +1.28), and Twitter (TWTR 45.98, +0.87) all gained in excess of 1.0%. Facebook (FB 74.57, unch), meanwhile, sat things out on very light volume, which was emblematic of the overall market.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- After a nice run to some new highs on low volume, stocks pause.
- Jackson Hole: Yellen postures as no uber dove, Draghi cannot deliver QE, Bullard says hike rates in late Q1. Sure sounds as if six months is the target for rate hikes.
- More upside from here? Many tech names that took time off look ready to move higher again, but then there is Russia.

Wylie Coyote time for this move?

Trying to come up with something clever to describe Fridays action just hasn't produced much. After threatening a break of its range two weeks back, a break that could have put the entire market at risk of much more downside, NASDAQ held and indeed moved to a new post-bear market high. SP500 broke hard downside, but when NASDAQ held, it turned and followed, itself moving to a new all-time high Thursday. 'The Patriot' aired recently and the action brings to mind the scene where Mel Gibson grabs Old Glory, storms up the hill, and rallies the crumbling colonial lines to turn and re-engage the British. They turned, won the day, and swung the balance in the war for independence.

Not saying that the NASDAQ move guarantees the rally is here to stay. Heck, after 200+ years, within the past several years, it is suddenly a question just how strong the US will be in a world where China chastises the US for 'looking over neighbor's fences' when China is flying a fighter jet that is identical to the one the US developed and the very one of which China stole the plans.

Thus, while NASDAQ held and helped the other indices recover through last week, it is no guarantee that move has to stand. Indeed, with the utter lack of volume on the move higher images of Wylie Coyote come to mind, the ones where he runs out of mountain and hangs suspended in the air before plunging to the bottom of the canyon.

Stocks were sluggish all session. After leading the last part of the move, SP500 and DJ30 were quiet, down on the session. NASDAQ managed a modest gain along with RUTX and SOX. Nothing spectacular, nothing nefarious, just sluggish after two weeks of upside.

SP500 -3.97, -0.20%
NASDAQ 6.45, 0.14%
DJ30 -38.27, -0.22%
SP400 -0.08%
RUTX 0.03%
SOX 0.10%

Volume: Again it was low on the move higher, well below average. It was Friday in late summer so light trade is understandable, but light trade is the hallmark of this last move. At least you can say that in the absence of any serious trading, the bias is upside.

A/D: NYSE -1.6:1, NASDAQ flat.

Yellen and her central bank cohorts from around the globe met in Jackson Hole, WY Friday. Yellen was predicted to be very dovish, to walk back some of the FOMC minutes hawkishness. She did not. She was middle of the road, basically implying that rates had to rise, but the factors contributing to the timing are difficult to gauge, e.g. labor slack, what is causing slack (structural or cyclical), how fast is it ebbing? Weighty issues indeed when you have a body engaged in micromanaging the economy.

Basically, it comes down to this: rates will rise. The only question is when, i.e. are the rate hikes 'pulled forward' by the data, or are they left to whatever schedule the Fed has in mind. With Bullard piping in on Friday that a rate hike 'should be' in late Q1, that schedule looks very much the one Chairman Yellen laid out a few months back with her gaffe in her first press conference following an FOMC rate decision. End QE in October, hike rates in March; that is 5 months, 6 if you count October. Sure sounds as if that is the plan.

On top of Yellen's middle of the road stance, Draghi once again revealed he has absolutely no power to bring in US-style QE to Europe. That disappointed investors as well: if Yellen is not going to sprinkle rose petals, perhaps at least the ECB could aid world liquidity with taking its turn at full out money printing. Germany, however, won't allow it. Not surprising seeing how we have done such a good job of 'solving' our economic problems. Solved by papering over them, but it looks pretty good if you don't look too hard and don't expect it to last.

THE MARKET

CHARTS

NASDAQ: Up and down all session, but NASDAQ moved to a new post-bear market high yet again. Volume tails off each session but the bias is upside so the move continues sans trade. Friday a doji, suggesting NASDAQ is a bit winded after just over two weeks upside. That may be the suggestion, but looking at stocks such as GOOG, PCLN, FB -- all in position to bounce -- as well as e.g. NFLX that is surging, the prospects for a continued move near term are not that bad. It is extended on this move, but extended does not mean automatic selling.

SP500: After striking new high territory Thursday, SP500 had a hard time keeping it up so to speak. It gave up ground but did manage to hold above the late July closing high, keeping SP500 in all-time high range for the week. As it puts in the higher high, however, MACD is not doing the same; a bit of a lag in the momentum indicator is a caution sign, particularly when you factor in the lower and lower volume.

DJ30: Close to its own all-time high on Thursday, it was no cigar for the Dow as it backed off Friday. Perhaps it can make that high still in the week to come, but as with SP500, MACD is lagging a bit. Won't really know until and unless it makes that high and what MACD does at that point. Best to say DJ30 has rallied back from the July selling, it is bumping highs, but volume is low.

SOX: Moved into the range in July that produced the triple top and selloff, but that is about all. Showing a tight doji Friday suggests, but only suggests, SOX may peel back some here.

SP400: Very similar to DJ30 and akin to SOX, SP400 threw a pair of doji to end the week, slowing at the mid-June high, the last high before the all-time high struck on July 1. Solid three week run and a bit of a pause at this logical resistance makes some sense. It can pause, test, and still continue the move.

RUTX: Still lagging well behind the other indices, but still trying to building a lateral shelf over the 50 day EMA it can use to move higher. Kind of a rickety shelf at this juncture, i.e. it needs more work, but it is showing some decent buying activity.

LEADERSHIP

Big Names: Some of the well-known stocks faded the back half of the week and in so doing set up some nice upside potential. GOOG, PCLN look as if they want to join AAPL, NFLX on the upside. If they do, that adds more firepower to NASDAQ's advance.

Internet-based: NFLX strong, PCLN, GOOG look ready to move. TRLA, Z, LNKD are running, YY is starting to bounce again as it comes off a 2 week test.

Metals: Steel jumped yet again Friday (e.g. AKS, STLD), proving that a stock/sector CAN continue even after long, long moves.

Financial: Strong end to last week, helping push SP500 higher during the week if not Friday. BAC, C surged. GS rallied but is at the prior high; needs to resolve that.

Retail/Consumer discretionary: Slowed a bit Friday (in some cases), but a strong week for this group. Some impressive comebacks from some nasty gaps lower, e.g. M, JWN. Then there were the old standbys that managed to hold the line: WSM. TJX continued its comeback as well.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +6.45 points (+0.14%) to close at 4538.55
Volume: 1.215B (-7.18%)

Up Volume: 744.85M (-71.44M)
Down Volume: 521.89M (-64.44M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.06 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.23 to 1

New Highs: 86 (+9)
New Lows: 38 (-9)

S&P
Stats: -3.97 points (-0.2%) to close at 1988.4
NYSE Volume: 425.546M (-11.4%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.65 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.51 to 1

New Highs: 105 (-64)
New Lows: 18 (-1)

DJ30
Stats: -38.27 points (-0.22%) to close at 17001.22

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 11.47; -0.29
VXN: 12.23; -0.27
VXO: 10.56; -0.27

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.93; +0.21

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls still falling hard: 46.4% versus 50.5% versus 55.6%

Bears back down, still in the 16 to 17 range: 16.2% versus 17.1% versus 16.2%

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Note the extreme bullishness: it was this high in 2007 at the crash, in early 2005 as well.

Bulls: 46.4% versus 50.5%
50.5% versus 55.6% versus 56.5% versus 56.6% versus 60.6% versus 57.6% versus 60.2% versus 61.4% versus 62.6% versus 62.2% versus 58.3% versus 57.2% versus 55.1 versus 55.7 versus 54.7 versus 51.6 versus 50.5 versus 54.6% versus 50.5 versus 54.7% 52.0% 54.6% 53.5% 46.5% 41.8% 45.9% 53.1% 57.6 56.1 60.6% 61.6% 60.0% 58.2% 57.1% 55.7% 53.6% 52.6% 55.2% 52.6 49.5 42.3% 45.4 46.4% 44.3% 42.3% 37.1% 37.1% 38.1% 43.3%.

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 16.2% versus 17.1%
17.1% versus 16.2% versus 17.2% versus 15.1% versus 15.2% versus 16.1% versus 16.3% versus 17.2% versus 17.4% versus 17.3% versus 18.3% versus 19.4% versus 20.6% versus 19.7% versus 21.7% versus 20.6 versus 18.6% 18.6% 17.5% 17.4% 15.1% 17.2% 17.2% 17.4% 17.4% 15.3% 15.1 15.3% 15.2% 15.2% 14.0 14.3 14.3% 14.4 15.5 15.5% 15.6% 16.5% 18.5 21.6% 20.6% 18.6% 20.6% 21.6% 22.7% 23.7% 23.8% 21.6%.

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

MONDAY

The indices posted gains, have surpassed or are near prior highs. Volume is weak. Still lots of geopolitical issues. Yellen is less dovish. Yet the indices are holding the rally. They look as if they are at a logical point to test, NASDAQ and SP500 the breaks to highs, DJ30, SOX, SP400 near resistance, but that does not mean they roll over. As noted, PCLN, GOOG and others are in position to move higher or are just now breaking higher; that will give NASDAQ, the market leader, more push for upside moves.

Of course there is Russia trying everything it can to keep the West guessing. Merkel went to Kiev as an act of defiance in the ongoing chess game, but all it takes is for Russia to make provocative gestures and the western markets react adversely. There are reportedly still tens of thousands of troops and war machinery near the Ukraine border. That just doesn't go away in a week or so. It cost money to get them there and to maintain them there. You think Putin will waste that money? Makes you think.

While Putin keeps the West occupied, China is developing the weaponry to win the renewed cold war. It just completed the second test, the second in THREE months, of its new low orbit-based, hypersonic (mach 10) missile, a missile designed to evade US missile defenses both on land and at sea. The Aegis missile defense system currently protecting US carriers cannot handle this threat. Thus our carrier battle groups could be, within a year, sitting ducks for Chinese missiles. With no investment in cold war technologies to fend off other superpowers, we are quickly falling behind as we rely on old technology in an extremely high tech future battlefield with an opponent enjoying far more wealth than the US has to spend. D j vu for the US al la the USSR? The Soviets could not keep up economically with the US rebuilding its military in the 1980's and collapsed. The US economy is so hobbled and hamstrung by the heavy debts, regulations, and costs, the money is not there to develop competing weapons systems as it once was. When the President talked about the new world order, I would guess that most supporting him were not thinking that meant the US in decline.

The point: the market has rallied to resistance with some success at breakouts. It has survived several scares along the way. It still can continue the move, but more items are stacking up on the scale against the market. A major one if the Fed pulling out then raising rates. Perhaps the economy can stumble along in the aftermath, but after more than $4T in Fed magical money, the economy is the slowest in recovery history, and as shown last week, wage recovery is the lowest ever as well. At this rate it simply will not generate the industry and wealth needed to fund a competition with our new old enemies. A change in direction is needed a la the 1980's but that is a ways off.

So, we deal with the here and now, and see that yes there are some quality names in position to move higher after they put in a short test. Those are our focus this week to make money as they recovery and try to push for new highs or at least match some of the prior peaks. Either way, we make money off of them if they can show the moves.

As for existing positions, we need some more upside to really start rolling in the money on the last crop of buys. NASDAQ slowed its move, but if the horses we are looking at rally, then we will be banking some nice gain before too long.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4538.55

Resistance:
4598 is the lower November 2012 trendline

Support:
4486 is the July 2014 high
The 20 day EMA at 4460
The 50 day EMA at 4402
4372 is the March 2014 high
The August low at 4321
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4277 is the March lower gap point
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak. Key level.
The 200 day SMA at 4213
4131 is the March 2014 low
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13
4070 is the series of highs from late November/early December
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3968 is the February 2014 low
3946 is the April 2014 intraday low

S&P 500: Closed at 1988.40

Resistance:

Support:
1991 is the July 2014 high
1980 is the December 2012 up trendline
The 50 day EMA at 1952
1928 is the lower trendline from 11/2012
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
The 200 day SMA at 1873
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1768 is the December 3013 low
1738 is the February 2014 low
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point

Dow: Closed at 17,001.22

Resistance:
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high

Support:
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
The 50 day EMA at 16,787
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,341 is the May low
16,334 is the August 2014 low
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
The 200 day SMA at 16,410
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak
15,542 is the May 2013 intraday high
15,340 is the February 2014 low
15,318 is the June closing high 15,050 from the August 2013 interim recovery high
14,888 is the April peak and prior all-time high
14,844 is the June intraday low
14,762 is the August 2013 low
14,551 is the June 2013 intraday low on the selloff (14,659 closing)

ECONOMIC CALENDAR

August 25 - Monday
- New Home Sales, July (10:00): 427K expected, 406K prior

August 26 - Tuesday
- Durable Orders, July (8:30): 7.0% expected, 1.7% prior (revised from 0.7%)
- Durable Goods -ex transports, July (8:30): 0.6% expected, 1.9% prior (revised from 0.8%)
- Case-Shiller 20-city, June (9:00): 8.3% expected, 9.3% prior
- FHFA Housing Price I, June (9:00): 0.4% prior
- Consumer Confidence, August (10:00): 88.3 expected, 90.9 prior

August 27 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 08/23 (7:00): 1.4% prior
- Crude Inventories, 08/23 (10:30): -4.474M prior

August 28 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 08/23 (8:30): 302K expected, 298K prior
- Continuing Claims, 08/16 (8:30): 2520K expected, 2500K prior
- GDP - Second Estimate, Q2 (8:30): 4.0% expected, 4.0% prior
- GDP Deflator - 2nd, Q2 (8:30): 2.0% expected, 2.0% prior
- Pending Home Sales, July (10:00): 0.5% expected, -1.1% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 08/23 (10:30): 88 bcf prior

August 29 - Friday
- Personal Income, July (8:30): 0.3% expected, 0.4% prior
- Personal Spending, July (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.4% prior
- PCE Prices - Core, July (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Chicago PMI, August (9:45): 54.8 expected, 52.6 prior
- Michigan Sentiment - Final, August (9:55): 80.0 expected, 79.2 prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equity indices ended the Tuesday session on an upbeat note with small-cap stocks pacing the advance. The Russell 2000 jumped 0.9%, while the S&P 500 posted a slim gain of 0.1% with seven sectors ending higher.

In some ways, today's session resembled yesterday's affair as the key indices climbed out of the gate, reached their highs during the first half of action, and spent the remainder of the session in a slow retreat from their best levels of the day. Trading volume was light once again, but today's session generated a bit more activity (501 million) than what was observed yesterday.

Biotechnology outperformed for the second day in a row with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 275.71, +3.08) climbing to a new record high. The ETF rose 1.1%, while the health care sector (+0.4%) was the only outperformer among countercyclical sectors.

Meanwhile, the cyclical side fared a bit better with energy (+0.5%) and financials (+0.3%) spending the entire session ahead of the broader market. Energy rebounded from recent underperformance, while crude oil added 0.5% to $93.85/bbl.

For its part, the financial sector received support from heavily-weighted components like Citigroup (C 52.13, +0.50) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 59.74, +0.40). Similarly, foreign banks fared well with the likes of Deutsche Bank (DB 34.55, +0.66) and UBS (UBS 17.96, +0.11) posting respective gains of 2.0% and 0.6%.

The remaining cyclical sectors ended on a mixed note with consumer discretionary (+0.1%) and technology (+0.1%) finishing right behind the S&P 500, while industrials (-0.3%) settled in the red.

In the discretionary space, shares of Best Buy (BBY 29.80, -2.19) fell 6.9% after the company's cautious second-half outlook masked better than expected earnings. On the flip side, DSW (DSW 30.99, +2.62) soared 9.2% in reaction to strong results. Overall, retailers displayed strength with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 89.17, +0.66) climbing 0.8%.

On the downside, the industrial sector lagged amid weakness in transport stocks. Alaska Air (ALK 46.28, -0.61) and Delta Air Lines (DAL 39.90, -0.62) both lost near 1.4%, while the Dow Jones Transportation Average shed 0.4%.

Treasuries ended little changed after surrendering their overnight gains. The 10-yr yield finished at 2.39%.

Also of note, Presidents of Russia and Ukraine met in Minsk today for the first time since the conflict between the two governments broke out. The meeting did not produce any results, but both parties have agreed to return to the capital of Belarus for future talks.

Economic data included Durable Orders, FHFA Housing Price Index, Case-Shiller 20-city Index, and Consumer Confidence:


Durable goods orders soared 22.6% in July after increasing an upwardly revised 2.7% (from 1.7%) in June, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 7.0%
The headline surge was due to Boeing (BA 128.60, +0.27) reporting record-setting orders in July, which resulted in a 318% increase in orders of nondefense aircraft and parts, leading to an outsized 74.2% increase in transportation orders
Excluding transportation, orders fell 0.8%, while the consensus expected an increase of 0.6%
The June Housing Price Index from the FHFA rose 0.4%, which followed a revised increase of 0.1% observed during the prior month (from 0.4%)
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for June rose 8.1%, while an 8.3% increase had been expected by the Briefing.com consensus
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index rose to 92.4 in August from a downwardly revised 90.3 (from 90.9) in July, while the consensus expected a decline to 88.3
The Present Conditions Index increased to 94.6 in August from 87.9 in July, while the Expectations Index fell to 90.9 from 91.9

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which will be released at 7:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.4% YTD
S&P 500 +8.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD

DJ30 +29.83 NASDAQ +13.29 SP500 +2.10 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1774/1.32 bln/931 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2007/501.0 mln/1023 3:35 pm :

The dollar index remained in positive territory in afternoon trading, which helped weigh on select commodities
Precious metals sold off in late morning trade. Silver extended its sell-off longer than gold, erasing today's gains, mostly.
Gold remained consolidated in afternoon trade following sell-off.
Dec gold ended $6.90 higher at $1285.40/oz, while Sept silver ended just 4 cents higher at $19.39/oz
Copper remained in negative territory all day and closed 3 cents lower at $3.11/lb
Crude oil gradually climbed off of the flat line, which came after its sell-off
Oct crude closed $0.50 higher at $93.85/barrel. Sept nat gas fell 2 cents to $3.92/MMBtu.

4:06 pm Analog Devices reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ADI) : Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.63 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.63; GAAP revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $727.7 mln vs the $716.57 mln consensus. Q3 Non-GAAP revs of $722.4 mln. Q3 Non-GAAP gross margin of 66.5% of revenue.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.66-0.70, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.70 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $790-820 mln vs. $797.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. sees Non-GAAP gross margin expected to be ~66.2%.

12:33 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MT (14.72 +4.99%): Upgraded to Buy from Sell at UBS.
AMG (211.89 +3.74%): Added to US Focus List at Credit Suisse.
XEC (142.58 +2.47%): Co signed various purchase and sale agreements to sell $326 mln of oil and gas assets; tgt raised to $153 from $150 at Topeka Capital Markets

Large Cap Losers

BBY (30.21 -5.56%): Beat on EPS by $0.13, reported revs in-line; guided for negative low single digit comps in 2H15.
CIG (8.41 -3.67%): Downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
QIHU (91.42 -2.61%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse; co plans to invest more in mobile internet, according to reports.

Mid Cap Gainers

THI (81.21 +8.69%): Co to receive CAD65.50 in cash plus 0.8025 shares from Burger King (BKW), representing a value of $94.05 based on yesterday's close; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow; Warren Buffet (BRK.B) plans to invest in deal, according to reports; downgraded to Hold at Miller Tabak; tgt raised to $81 from $65.
DSW (30.9 +8.92%): Beat on EPS by $0.05, beat on revs; raised FY15 EPS guidance; comps +0.8%.
PINC (31.9 +5.07%): Beat on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; announced the acquisition of Aperek for $48.5 mln in cash.

Mid Cap Losers

SAFM (89.3 -6.12%): Missed on EPS by $0.56, reported revs in-line.
PSEC (10.58 -3.64%): Missed on EPS by $0.07, missed on revs.

11:52 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (187) outpacing new lows (32) (:SUMRX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACHN, ACM, ADP, AGX, AIG, AKRX, AKS, ALL, AMGN, AMPH, ANF, APC, ARII, ARW, ATHM, AVNR, BAM, BBD, BG, BIG, BIP, BITA, BLK, BMRC, BR, BWS, CATO, CBPO, CDXS, CELG, CENX, CEP, CHH, CIFC, CNI, COO, CP, CPL, CRI, CTAS, CTP, CVTI, CW, CYH, DECK, ECL, EDE, EEQ, EFC, EFX, EL, ENPH, ENVE, ENZ, EPD, EVEP, EW, EXAS, EXP, EXPE, FCAP, FCE.A, FDO, FDS, FFIV, FGP, FISV, FSFG, GBX, GCO, GD, GIII, GILD, GLNG, GPK, GPRE, GPS, HGSH, HI, HIG, HPQ, HSII, IBA, IHS, ISS, ITUB, IVZ, JBSS, JD, KALU, KERX, KLAC, KSS, LAZ, LBY, LG, LNBB, LNC, LNG, LUV, LVNTA, M, MAG, MAR, MCRL, MDVN, MNDO, MPWR, MRK, MRO, MSG, NDAQ, NRF, NTES, OABC, ODFL, OKE, PBA, PBR, PBR.A, PEOP, PEP, PFG, PHI, PLBC, PSBH, PSX, PTR, QEP, RAIL, RDY, REGN, REV, RGA, RPM, SBSI, SCLN, SEIC, SEMG, SGBK, SHW, SIAL, SKM, SLCA, SNCR, SNY, SPCB, SPR, STE, STLD, STRA, SYA, TA, TCP, TECD, THC, THI, TPL, TRP, TRT, TSRI, TTM, TV, UCFC, UEIC, UGI, UHS, URS, VC, VFC, VII, WLK, WLL, WMS, WOOF, WPX, WRB, WRES, WSM, WY, WYN, X, XRX, ZEN, ZSPH, ZTS, ZUMZ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AKAO, AMPE, AQXP, ARCO, ARTW, ASTI, AVL, AXX, BIOC, CACH, CCO, CTG, CTIB, DSCI, ECT, EGT, END, EOPN, EPM, KIPS, MDWD, MTSL, NRX, NTWK, PERI, PRPH, QNST, QRM, RGSE, SYNC, WGBS, XUE

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, EEB, EEM, EWW, IBB, ILF, IWF, IYF, IYH, OEF, PSK, RTH, SPY, TAO, UYG, VTI, VWO, XLB, XLF, XLV, XLY, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: FXS, JJG, SMN

10:32 am Solar Power subsidiary announces preliminary approval to develop 10 megawatt Photovoltaic Project in Shandong Province, China (SOPW) : Co announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Xinyu Xinwei New Energy, has received preliminary approval from the local government of LiaoCheng City to develop a PV project totaling ~10 megawatts, in Shandong Province, China.

Assuming final approval, construction of the project is scheduled to begin during the fourth quarter of 2014, with completion expected in 2015.

Marvell (MRVL) announced that ZTE (ZTCOF) has launched a 5-mode 4G LTE mass market smartphone for China Mobile (CHL) powered by Marvell's ARMADA Mobile PXA1920 platform.

Seagate Technology plc (STX) announced it is shipping the world's first 8TB hard disk drive.

If not for the fact that the S&P 500 closed above 2,000, Tuesday's session was a session that could be easily forgotten. Frankly, it looked like a lot of people simply didn't care that the market was open for trading or merely didn't care to trade in front of the Labor Day weekend.

Volume was anemic once again with just a smidgen over 500 million shares traded at the NYSE.

The light volume, however, didn't deter the market's bullish bias as the S&P 500 achieved another record closing high.

The information technology sector played a small part in the advance, rising 0.1% after a flat showing on Monday.

Things would have looked a little better if not for a 0.6% decline in Apple (APPL 100.89, -0.65). That drop came on light volume and may have perhaps been a bit of a sympathy trade off the disappointing earnings report and outlook from Best Buy (BBY 29.80, -2.19).

Once again, there wasn't a lot of big news to move the sector. Many sector components just traded in their own way, driven by the supply dynamics of the day.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 37.83, +0.68) was a winning standout, jumping 1.8%. It was actually one of the few stocks that traded heavier than average volume. HP said it was delivering new services to help enterprises accelerate the benefits of big data and analytics and that it was partnering with Avaya to deliver expanded communications services to the enterprise. One last missive from the Dow component was the recall of nearly six million power cords due to a fire hazard.

It was that kind of day generally speaking for the sector -- a hodgepodge of headlines that could be used (or not) as a catalyst to trade a stock but nothing that had broad sector influence.

Outside the S&P 500 information technology sector, Amazon.com (AMZN 341.83, +7.81) was one of the big story stocks of the day following last night's announcement that it will be acquiring Twitch, the leading live video platform and community for gamers, for $970 mln in cash.

Press reports indicated that Google (GOOG 577.86, -2.34) was entertaining a Twitch acquisition, which was generally heralded Tuesday as a good strategic move for Amazon.com. That understanding weighed a bit on Google's stock, which also traded down on light volume.

Qualcomm (QCOM 77.01, +0.42) for its part defied a headline suggesting it might be the subject of an antitrust probe in the EU and rose 0.6% on -- you guessed it -- light volume.

Tech Data (TECD 66.37, +0.08) pretty much stood its ground after reporting better than expected second quarter earnings results. That's not bad considering shares of TECD had risen nearly 8.0% in the 12 sessions leading up to its report.

Separately, Twitter (TWTR 48.17, +2.07), LinkedIn (LNKD 225.36, +2.88), and Facebook (FB 75.96, +0.94) traded up nicely as it appeared the traders around to play in this thinly-traded market went back to the well on some of the momentum stocks.

Plenty of others, though, just stayed away from the well altogether.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages ended the midweek session on a flat note after spending the day inside narrow ranges. The S&P 500 hovered near the 2,000 mark for the majority of the trading day, but slumped to new lows during the last hour of action. The index then returned to its flat line, where it settled for the day. For the third day in a row, participation left a lot to be desired with just 487 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Equity indices opened with slim gains, but were quick to return to their flat lines as most sectors traded little changed. Two countercyclical groups-telecom services (+0.5%) and utilities (+1.0%)-held gains throughout the day, but neither had much say over the direction of the broader market.

Meanwhile, influential sectors like consumer discretionary (+0.1%), financials (-0.2%), health care (unch), and technology (-0.1%) ended mixed with respect to the S&P 500.

Retailers contributed to the relative strength of the discretionary sector following better than expected quarterly results from Brown Shoe (BWS 29.90, -1.47), Express (EXPR 16.45, +1.86), and Tiffany & Co (TIF 101.75, +0.98). For its part, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 89.47, +0.30) advanced 0.3%.

Elsewhere, the health care space displayed intraday strength, but finished in line with the market. Biotechnology contributed to the early outperformance, but the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 275.06, -0.65) settled lower by 0.2% after soaring 9.6% over the past two weeks.

Similar to health care, the top-weighted sector-technology-also showed intraday strength prior to an afternoon retreat. Even though the sector ended in the red, its largest component-Apple (AAPL 102.13, +1.24)-climbed 1.2% amid speculation the company will reveal a wearable device at an event scheduled for September 9.

While equities ended little changed, there was some activity in the foreign exchange market. This morning, the euro/dollar pair jumped from 1.3170 to 1.3210 in reaction to reports suggesting the European Central Bank is unlikely to take action at next week's policy meeting. The comments were attributed to ECB sources and followed earlier speculation that ECB President Mario Draghi may announce a quantitative easing program at the upcoming meeting. The single currency traded near the 1.3195 level at the end of the New York session.

Treasuries settled near their highs with the 10-yr yield down four basis points at 2.36%. More notably, the 30-yr bond rallied to send its yield lower by six basis points to 3.11%, representing the lowest close since May of last year.

Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which rose 2.8% to follow last week's uptick of 1.4%.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 302,000) and the second estimate of Q2 GDP (expected 4.0%) will be released at 8:30 ET, while the Pending Home Sales report for July (consensus 0.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +9.4% YTD
S&P 500 +8.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD

DJ30 +15.31 NASDAQ -1.02 SP500 +0.10 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1204/1.28 bln/1520 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1716/486.7 mln/1316 3:35 pm :

The dollar index remained in the red all day, which helped provide some price strength in select commodities
Crude oil climbed off its LoD to recover its losses earlier today. Oct crude finished 4 cents higher at $93.89/barrel
Natural gas traded in a similar way as well, ended the day 5 cents higher at $4.00/MMBtu
Gold consolidated after a mild sell-off and ended $1.90 lower at $1283.50/oz. Sept silver closed 2 cents higher at $19.41/oz
Sept copper lost 1 cent to $3.18/lb.

4:13 pm Violin Memory beats by $0.02, misses on revs; non-GAAP gross margin of 55% vs 52% in prior qtr (VMEM) : Reports Q2 (Jul) loss of $0.21 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.23); revenues fell 29.8% year/year to $18.6 mln vs the $19.22 mln consensus.


Non-GAAP gross margin of 55% vs 52% in prior qtr

Business Outlook
FY15 Non-GAAP operating margin 52-56%
FY15 Non-GAAP operating expenses of $118-$122 mln12:12 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TSU (27 +6.34%): Oi S.A. (OIBR) announced it has engaged Banco BTG Pactual S.A. to review alternatives with the purpose of enabling a viable proposeal for the acquisition of shares of TSU indirectly held by Telecom Italia (TI)
RYAAY (56.04 +5.16%): Announced the launch of Ryanair Business Plus; co also announced six new routes
LVLT (44.33 +3.07%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie

Large Cap Losers

TLM (10.27 -3.93%): WSJ reporting that co's talks with Repsol (REPYY) regarding a potential deal for the sale of assets have stalled
ADI (50.59 -3.10%): Reported Q3 EPS of $0.63 (in-line), GAAP revs rose 7.9% yoy to $727.7 mln vs $716.57 mln estimate; sees Q4 EPS of $0.66-0.70 ex items vs $0.70 estimate, revs of $790-820 mln vs $797.95 mln estimate; target lowered to $56 from $60 at RBC Capital Markets
SDRL (36.71 -2.55%): Reported Q2 EPS of $1.29 vs $0.77 estimate, revs fell 3.6% yoy to $1.22 bln vs $1.25 bln estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

OIBR (0.63 +9.82%): Announced it has engaged Banco BTG Pactual S.A. to review alternatives with the purpose of enabling a viable proposeal for the acquisition of shares of TIM Participacoes (TSU) indirectly held by Telecom Italia (TI)
CZZ (13.5 +5.17%): WSJ reporting that the U.S. government may tax imports of Mexican sugar
ARUN (21.15 +4.50%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.24 ex items vs $0.23 estimate), revs rose 32.5% yoy to $202.9 mln vs $194.72 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $0.24-0.25 ex items vs $0.23 estimate, revs of $202-205 mln vs $199.29 mln estimate; upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS, target raised to $25 from $21; upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan, target raised to $21 from $15

Mid Cap Losers
SLH (61.66 -8.37%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.10 ($0.70 ex items vs $0.80 estimate), revs rose 22.6% yoy to $267.9 mln vs $265.9 mln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $3.17-3.32 ex items vs $3.36 estimate, revs of $1.15-1.17 bln vs $1.12 bln estimate
LEJU (16.91 -6.06%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman
HEI (52.04 -4.34%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.49 vs $0.43 estimate), revs rose 8.9% yoy to $291.03 mln vs $296.96 mln estimate; sees FY14 GAAP EPS +14-16% (calcs to ~$1.74-1.77, raised from previous guidance of +12-14%) vs. $1.73 estimate; reaffirmed FY14 rev guidance of +12-14% (~$1.13-1.15 bln) vs. $1.16 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate

11:30 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (138) outpacing new lows (12) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, AGX, AHS, AIG, AMGN, ANDE, ANET, ANF, APT, ARCW, ARW, AUO, BBD, BDSI, BG, BIG, BJRI, BLK, BMO, BMRC, BRFS, BURL, CATO, CBPO, CDW, CELG, CENX, CHA, CHE, CHH, CHKP, CIFC, CLW, CPL, CW, EEQ, EMES, EPD, EXP, FCAP, FCE.A, FDS, FFG, FFIV, FL, FOLD, FTNT, GPRE, HAIN, HCC, HCN, HEES, HI, HIG, HNT, HSII, INN, ITUB, JD, KALU, KERX, KLAC, LMT, LNC, LPL, M, MAG, MAR, MDVN, MGA, MMI, MOBL, MPAA, MRD, MRK, MRO, MSG, NEWM, NFEC, NMFC, NRF, OABC, PAYC, PBA, PBR, PBR.A, PEIX, PFG, PHI, PLBC, PLOW, PNX, PRI, PTR, QRE, RAIL, RCL, RDY, REX, RGA, RGP, RSG, RWC, SBSI, SCLN, SEP, SGBK, SKM, SLCA, SNCR, SNSS, SNY, SWIR, SYA, TCP, THC, TIF, TMH, TRP, TRT, TSRA, TTM, UBSI, UCFC, VNCE, VOYA, WDC, WM, WPX, WSM, WYN, XRS, ZEN, ZFC, ZPIN, ZSPH, ZTS, ZUMZ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AMPE, CACH, CCO, CRRS, DDE, ECT, END, INBK, PGN, PHMD, QRM, TITN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: BKF, EEB, EEM, EWT, EWZ, IBB, IHF, ILF, IYH, LQD, PFF, PSK, RTH, VWO, XLB, XLV, XLY, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


Broadcom Corporation (BRCM) introduced a new development kit into its Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devicee family to enable developers to rapidly prototype ideas and concepts for IoT devices and applications.

True to recent form, the trading activity on Wednesday was more about what didn't happen than what happened. To that end, volume was anemic, as was the newsflow for the most part.

There were a few pockets of increased activity and most were filled with reactions to earnings news.

Analog Devices (ADI 51.03, -1.19) was the biggest name to report. It met expectations, yet it was not overlooked by investors that higher operating expenses led to a 310 basis point drop in the company's operating margin from the year-ago period. Shares of ADI had been on quite a run ahead of its report, gaining 7% since August 7, but they got tripped up on Wednesday amid some pretty active selling

Conversely, smaller-sized companies like Aruba Networks (ARUN 21.26, +1.02) and TubeMogul (TUBE 13.82, +4.60), an enterprise software company, saw a nice pop after their earnings reports. TUBE was the biggest percentage gainer of the day as it easily surpassed expectations with its first earnings report as a public company.

With a market cap just under $400 million, TubeMogul pretty much had a party for one.

Apple (AAPL 102.13, +1.24), on the other hand, with a market cap of $611 billion, had a 1.2% gain that the broader market could celebrate. Apple's stock was lifted by a bunch of product speculation that touched on the possibility of the company introducing a 12.9 inch iPad, a thinner MacBook, and a wearable device in coming months if not weeks.

Other large-cap standouts included Applied Materials (AMAT 22.63, +0.40), which jumped 1.8% on no news and light volume, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 38.16, +0.33), which increased 0.9% on word from Gartner (IT 74.14, +0.02) that HP remained the worldwide leader in server shipments in the second quarter, and Yahoo (YHOO 38.18, +0.39), which got a nice pop on heavier than average volume from the news that Alibaba.com reported a 26% increase in operating profit on a 46% increase in revenue in the second quarter.

Strikingly, Google (GOOG 571.00, -6.86) remained in a downturn, trading lower for the sixth straight session. It has dropped 2.7% over that period versus a 0.9% gain for the S&P 500 and a 0.6% gain for the S&P 500 information technology sector.

Despite the gain in Apple and some other large components, the information technology sector ended Wednesday's session down 0.1% (and that's after rounding up).

Facebook (FB 74.63, -1.33), which was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Janney Capital Markets on concerns about a natural deceleration in user metrics, was a notable laggard in addition to Google and Analog Devices.

Separately, Seagate Technology (STX 61.18, +0.52) got some analyst love from RBC Capital Markets, which boosted its price target to $64 from $62 and said it believes Seagate is well positioned to meet or exceed current second half expectations for calendar year 2014.

One thing that seems certain not to meet or exceed expectations on Thursday is trading volume. Wednesday's session saw just 487 million shares at the NYSE, which was the second lightest day of the year (Monday's session was the lightest).

(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Yahoo)

I will be unable to post the Briefing.com info for the next couple of days. If anyone wants to help out here are the links to do that:

http://biz.yahoo.com/mu/update.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/inplay-briefing-com-055139997.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tech-stocks-briefing-com-155520118.html?u

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The headlines generally favored Tuesday being another good day for the stock market. Instead, it was just a mixed day with modest point changes on either side of the unchanged mark for the major indices.

For the most part, the stock market was a sideshow. The main trading events were seen in the commodity and Treasury markets, both of which saw some decent-sized losses within their respective complex.

Dollar strength was at the heart of the weakness in the commodity arena, which saw a 4.2% drop in natural gas futures to $3.90/btu, a 3.1% decline in oil prices to $92.96/bbl, and a 1.7% slide in gold prices to $1266.10/troy ounce.

The US Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 82.99 -- a 13-month high -- as the yen hit its weakest level (105.15) against the greenback since January; meanwhile, the euro was probing the 1.31 level, which was seen in September 2013.

The drop in commodity prices, and especially oil and natural gas, are positives for the consumer if they persist and should lead to more benign inflation readings that will provide a line of defense for the Federal Reserve's policy outlook. That is a positive consideration for longer-dated Treasuries. The fact that they traded down sharply on Tuesday went to show that the impetus for Tuesday's weak showing was primarily profit taking.

The 10-yr note (-20/32) settled at its low for the day and saw its yield jump seven basis points to 2.42%. Presumably, a holiday weekend that did not feature a flare-up of geopolitical conflict also led to some unwinding of safety trades that had been established ahead of the weekend.

The latter point notwithstanding, it was not a "risk-on" trade in the stock market. It tried to run early. The S&P 500 even set a new intraday high at 2006.15 shortly after the start of trading. The follow-through was lacking, however, as participants were battling the notion that the market has gotten overextended on a short-term basis, as well as the recognition that some key, market-moving events are waiting at the back half of the week.

Specifically, the Bank of Japan, Bank of England, and ECB will all be holding policy meetings on Thursday and the US employment report for August will be released on Friday.

The specter of those items overshadowed another spate of M&A news, which featured Dollar General (DG 64.36, +0.37) raising its all-cash bid for Family Dollar (FDO 80.22, +0.39) to $80 per share, the favorable impact on the consumer of lower energy prices, and some encouraging economic data that included the highest reading in the ISM Index (59.0) since March 2011 and a report that construction spending increased 1.8% in July.

Those things didn't go entirely unnoticed, however. The financial (+0.3%), industrial (+0.2%), and consumer discretionary (+0.2%) sectors all exhibited relative strength and helped keep losses in check. Remarkably, a weak earnings report electronics and appliance retaile
Conns (CONN 31.00, -13.83) that was blamed in large part on weak credit trends did not take down the consumer discretionary sector.

The information technology sector (+0.1%) also outperformed. It got a boost from Apple (AAPL 103.30, +0.80), which shot down accusations its iCloud service got hacked, noting instead that certain celebrities were targeted in a direct attack on their user names and passwords.

Separately, there were some rumblings that there may have been a customer data breach at Home Depot (HD 91.15, -1.88) stores. That allegation sent the home improvement retailer lower and left it as one of the Dow's worst-performing components along with Chevron (CVX 127.54, -1.91), Boeing (BA 125.48, -1.32), and ExxonMobil (XOM 98.49, -0.97).

Losses in Chevron and Exxon weighed heavily on the energy sector (-1.3%), which was the worst-performing sector in the S&P 500. It was followed by the utilities sector (-1.0%), which traded lower as Treasury yields moved higher.

Volume remained on the light side with just 578 mln shares traded at the NYSE.

Wednesday's session will feature the Mortgage Applications, Factory Orders, Beige Book, and Auto Sales reports.


DJIA +3.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +10.1% YTD
S&P 500 +8.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.4% YTD

DJ30 -30.89 NASDAQ +17.92 SP500 -1.09 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1628/1.70 bln/1126 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1482/578 mln/1592 3:30 pm :

A stronger dollar index weighted on the commodities space today.
Dec gold and Dec silver fell deeper into negative territory, trading as low as $1263.10 per ounce and $19.11 per ounce, respectively.
Unable to gain momentum, both metals settled with 1.7% losses, with gold closing at $1264.90 per ounce and silver closing at $19.16 per ounce.
Oct crude oil fell below the $93 per barrel level. It trended lower after pulling back from a session high of $94.99 per barrel set at pit trade open. The energy component brushed a session low of $92.68 per barrel moments before settling with a 3.1% loss at $92.91 per barrel.
Oct natural gas also slipped further into the red after touching a session high of $3.98 per MMBtu in early morning action. It settled 4.4% lower at $3.89 per MMBtu, just above its session low of $3.88 per MMBtu.

4:05 pm Aehr Test Systems receives a follow-on order for its Advanced Burn-in and Test System; system shipped in 1Q15 (AEHR) : Co announced it has received a follow-on order for its Advanced Burn-in and Test System from a leading manufacturer of advanced logic integrated circuits for automotive, embedded processing, digital signal processing and analog applications.

The order includes down payments to lock in a delivery slot and volume pricing discount. This system shipped in Q1 of AEHR's fiscal 2015.

4:02 pm Flextronics received shareholder approval to purchase up to 20% of its outstanding shares; also, co's Board of Directors authorized management to purchase the co's shares in an aggregate amount of up to $500 mln (FLEX) : Co received shareholder approval to purchase up to 20% of its outstanding shares.

Additionally, the co's Board of Directors authorized management to purchase the Company's shares in an aggregate amount of up to $500 mln. The co continues to return value to its shareholders as it has purchased ~ $1.7 bln or 247 mln of its shares over the last four years.

2:30 pm Apple provides update to investigation into the theft of photos of certain celebrities: 'certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions' (AAPL) : Co announced, "We wanted to provide an update to our investigation into the theft of photos of certain celebrities. When we learned of the theft, we were outraged and immediately mobilized Apple's engineers to discover the source. Our customers' privacy and security are of utmost importance to us. After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple's systems including iCloud or Find my iPhone. We are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved. To protect against this type of attack, we advise all users to always use a strong password and enable two-step verification. Both of these are addressed on our website at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4232.";

12:02 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers


TSLA (284.76 +5.58%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel; tgt $400; California lawmakers did not agree on TSLA incentives, according to reports.
BIDU (223.65 +4.26%): Co to invest $10 mln in startup IndoorAtlas Ltd, according to reports.
REGN (363.15 +3.62%): Co and Sanofi-Aventis (SNY) announced presentation of detailed positive results from four pivotal alirocumab trials; tgt raised to $400 from $340 at Credit Suisse; tgt raised to $436 from $389 at Leerink Partners.

Large Cap Losers

MPEL (26.91 -5.11%): Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reported August gross gaming rev -6.1% YoY (LVS, WYNN, MGM also lower).
GG (26.9 -4.17%): Weakness in metals/mining stocks (NEM also lower).
MPC (89.09 -2.11%): Co announced proposed offering of senior notes.

Mid Cap Gainers

CPWR (10.48 +12.09%): Co to be acquired by Thoma Bravo; shareholders will receive an aggregate value of ~ $10.92 per share.
NCLH (37.21 +11.71%): Co agreed to acquire Prestige Cruises International for $3.025 bln; acquisition immediately accretive to earnings without synergies; initial $25 mln of synergies will result in high single-digit percentage adjusted EPS accretion.
ACAD (26.29 +9.63%): Announced the FDA has granted BTD to NUPLAZID for the treatment of Parkinson's disease psychosis.

Mid Cap Losers
EMES (136.12 -5.58%): Downgraded to Neutral at Robert W. Baird on valuation.
FNSR (19.23 -5.32%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies.
OIBR (0.64 -3.93%): Co disclosed Moody's update.

11:49 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (256) outpacing new lows (30) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, AAPL, ACCO, ACHN, ADM, AFG, AGX, AI, AIG, ALX, AMGN, AMOT, AMP, AMSG, AMX, ANAC, ANDE, ARCW, AVGO, AVNR, BDR, BDSI, BG, BKS, BLL, BLT, BMO, BR, BURL, CAM, CDNS, CDXS, CELG, CENX, CFN, CHA, CHH, CHKP, CHL, CHU, CNI, CNSL, CNW, COO, CP, CSWC, CTAS, CTO, CW, CYS, DGLY, DK, DLX, DOC, DPS, DRH, DVA, EBR, ECHO, EEFT, EIX, ELS, ENZ, ERIE, EVEP, EW, EXH, EXP, FDO, FFG, FFIV, FISH, FL, FRF, FSFG, FTNT, GBX, GGP, GPK, GPRK, GPRO, GPS, GPT, HCC, HCLP, HCN, HEES, HGSH, HIG, HMLP, HRL, HSII, IBN, ICD, IESC, IFN, IHS, IMS, INGR, INVE, IRM, ITMN, ITUB, IVZ, KALU, KED, KLAC, KR, LAZ, LEA, LEG, LG, LHO, LNC, LNG, LOXO, LQ, LUV, LVNTA, LYB, MAG, MAR, MC, MCRL, MDVN, MEP, MGPI, MITT, MKSI, MMI, MNR, MPAA, MPW, MPWR, MRD, MRO, MTD, MTSI, MWE, NATI, NCLH, NEU, NEWM, NHI, NI, NMFC, NOC, NOV, NRF, NTCT, NTRS, NVGS, NVS, NWL, NXPI, ODFL, OKE, OKS, ORLY, OTIC, PANW, PBA, PBR, PEB, PEIX, PFG, PFNX, PHII, PIP, PLNR, PLOW, PMBC, PNX, PRE, PRI, PSEM, PSX, QEP, QRE, R, RAIL, RCMT, RDY, RE, REGN, RFMD, RGA, RGP, RIGP, RLJ, RPAI, RPM, RRMS, RTIX, RUSHA, RUSHB, SCI, SCLN, SEIC, SEMG, SERV, SIG, SIMO, SKM, SLCA, SLGN, SLI, SNCR, SPCB, SPR, SRE, STE, STRT, STX, SWIR, SWKS, SXL, SYA, TECH, TER, TFSL, THRM, THS, TMH, TPL, TQNT, TRN, TRNO, TROX, TSLA, TSQ, TTM, UBSI, UGI, UNM, UNP, URI, UTHR, UTSI, VGR, VOYA, VSH, WCN, WLK, WMB, WRB, WRE, WTS, WWAV, WYN, XRSC, XRX, ZEN, ZFC, ZFGN, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AMPE, CBMX, CONN, CRRS, CTG, CWST, DLA, DO, DWSN, END, EXEL, GKNT, IDI, IMRS, INTX, LODE, LPDX, MAT, MPEL, NDLS, NSPH, NUS, RLJE, SKY, SOQ, SPU, SVA, WWWW, XNY, XUE

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AMJ, EGPT, IBB, IGV, IHF, IWF, IYF, IYH, IYK, IYT, KIE, OEF, PIN, PSK, QQQ, RTH, SDY, SMH, SPY, THD, UYG, VNM, VTI, XLB, XLF, XLK, XLV, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: FXE, FXS, FXY

Rudolph Technologies (RTEC) announced that the SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering Albany, NY, has selected its Discover Enterprise Yield Management Software to provide an integrated data warehouse and analytics system for the Global 450 Consortium equipment development program

7:07 am Canadian Solar announces it supplied Conti / SunDurance with 11 MW of solar modules during 2Q2014 (CSIQ) :

Co announced that it supplied Conti / SunDurance with 11 MW of solar modules during the second quarter of 2014. For this 11MW order, Canadian Solar delivered to the Conti Group in total 37,202 pieces of CS6X solar modules in 6 x 12 cell matrix with UL 1000V certificate. During their 25 year life span, these modules will turn solar energy into 360,000 MWh of electricity, and reduce CO2 emissions by 67,000 tons, the equivalent to taking 11,800 cars off of the roads; or equivalent to creating a forest of 6,200 hectares with 237,000 trees.

6:58 am Microchip further announcement regarding CSR (CSRE) (MCHP) : Microchip Technology (MCHP) announces that, further to its announcement of August 28, 2014, that it has had preliminary mutual discussions with CSR plc (CSRE) regarding ways in which its relationship with CSR could be advanced, including possibly an acquisition of CSR, any offer for CSR is likely to be solely in cash, although Microchip reserves the right to vary the form of the consideration in any offer if one were to be made.

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The stock market had difficulty getting anything going on Wednesday as a wait-and-see stance permeated the trading action. That was understandable given some confusing headlines about cease-fire talk between Ukraine and Russia, Apple (AAPL 98.94, -4.36) suffering a 4.2% decline in its stock price, and the specter of policy meetings by the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, and the ECB on Thursday.

The way things ended on Wednesday was pretty much how they went throughout the day. That is, the Dow (+0.1%) and S&P 500 (-0.1%) held up better than the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-0.6%).

Things sounded more promising before the open when there was talk of a "permanent" cease-fire agreement between Ukraine and Russia. That report, however, got shot down (no pun intended) by the Kremlin, which shrewdly countered that it could not have agreed to such a thing when it is not a party to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine itself subsequently clarified that there was a mutual understanding as to the steps that need to be taken to contribute to the establishment peace. In other words, no one is sticking daisies in their gun barrels just yet. That clarification helped dampen the bullish enthusiasm seen in the overnight trade and it enabled the Treasury market to bounce back from early losses.

Nonetheless, the major indices did start the day on an upbeat note. The S&P 500 established a new intraday high at 2009.35... and then it ran into a wall of resistance when Apple rolled over in a profit-taking spree catalyzed by the analyst at Pacific Crest Securities who suggested taking some profits ahead of the company's new product announcements on September 9.

It is worth noting, too, that rival Samsung unveiled its latest smartphones today, highlighting for all to see that the competitive landscape in the industry is sure to remain challenging.

Apple's losses weighed heavily on the information technology sector (-0.7%), which in turn weighed on the broader market.

Things could have been worse if not for the relative strength exhibited by the health care (+0.3%) and energy (+0.3%) sectors. The former garnered support from large-cap pharmaceuticals like Merck (MRK 60.48, +0.69), Abbot Labs (ABT 42.76, +0.53), and Eli Lilly (LLY 64.15, +0.47), while the latter sector rebounded on the back of crude oil prices.

Crude futures, which fell 3.2% on Tuesday, bounced 2.6% on Wednesday to $95.33, aided by some weakness in the dollar.

The best-performing sector on Wednesday was the utilities sector (+0.6%), which drafted off the comeback waged by longer-dated Treasuries. At one point, the yield on the 10-yr note hit 2.46%, but it started to come back down after Russia basically said "nyet" to the cease-fire news, and as the stock market failed to sustain its opening rally effort. The 10-yr note settled the day up six ticks with its yield at 2.40%.

The debt markets promise to be a hotbed of activity on Thursday as participants digest the latest policy pronouncements out of Japan, England, and the ECB. The ECB is getting top billing ahead of time as the market is anxious to hear if any additional stimulus will be provided.

Thursday will also produce a raft of economic data that includes the ADP Employment Change, initial Claims, Trade Balance, Q2 Productivity, and ISM Services reports.

Today's data didn't sway things one way or another.

Factory orders rose 10.5% in July, which was slightly below the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 11.0%, yet any disappointment was tempered by the upward revision for June to 1.5% from 1.1%. Auto sales, meanwhile, hit an annual run rate of 17.5 million units in August. That was the best August in eight years, yet there were some rumblings about sales being driven by increased discounts and aggressive financing offers.

In any case, both Ford (F) and General Motors (GM) traded down in the wake of the August sales reports.

Separately, homebuilder Toll Brothers (TOL 33.95, -1.68) had a tough day following its latest earnings report, and so did Delta (DAL 38.82, -2.11), which cut its passenger unit revenue guidance for the third quarter to 2-3% from 2-4%. With the central bank meetings on Thursday, corporate headlines are expected to take a backseat once again as a market driver.

Dow +3.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.5% YTD
S&P 500 +8.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD

DJ30 +10.72 NASDAQ -25.62 SP500 -1.56 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 999/1.74 bln/1758 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1400/604 mln/1671

3:35 pm :

WTI crude oil recovered most of yesterday's losses by gaining $2.59/barrel today to $95.50/barrel
More volatility is expected ahead of the EIA's weekly oil inventory data, which will be released tomorrow morning instead of today given the Monday holiday
Oct natural gas fell a modest 4 cents today to $3.84/MMBtu
Grains were weak following weekly USDA crop condition report and broad market weakness
Dec corn lost 13 cents to $3.51/bu, Dec fell 20 cents to $5.35/bu
Dec gold gained $5.20 to $1270.10/oz, Dec silver rose $0.04 to $19.20/oz.

5:08 pm SunEdison and Los Pelambres Mine (Antofagasta Minerals) close an agreement to supply solar electric power in Chile (SUNE) : Co and Los Pelambres mine announced that they have reached an agreement for the long-term sale of power to Los Pelambres. The mine is owned by Antofagasta Minerals S.A., the largest private mining group in Chile and one of the nine largest copper-producers in the world. Under the agreement SunEdison will supply the power produced by the Javiera solar photovoltaic project, with a capacity of 69.5 megawatts (MW) DC, for operations at Los Pelambres mine.

4:35 pm STMicroelectronics and Tessera (TSRA) settle pending litigation; terms of the agreement are confidential (STM) :

Co and Tessera Technologies (TSRA) announced that they reached a settlement of all outstanding claims and litigation between them.
STMicroelectronics, STMicroelectronics N.V., and Tessera, Inc. agreed to dismiss all claims and counterclaims pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California with prejudice.

12:59 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MBT (18.89 +3.39%): Strength in Russian-related stocks on reports that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a permanent ceasefire: MT, VIP also higher
CRH (23.81 +3.03%): Upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at HSBC Securities
CHL (64.04 +2.64%): Seeing reports that co has begun taking Applie iPhone 6 pre-orders on its website

Large Cap Losers

DAL (38.8 -5.20%): Co reported consolidated passenger unit revenue (:PRASM) for the month of August increased 2.0% from prior year; lowered Q3 PRASM guidance to +2-3% from +2-4%; AAL lower in sympathy
AER (47.39 -3.62%): Filed for ~29.85 mln share common stock offering by selling shareholders
AAPL (99.57 -3.61%): Assumed with a Perform at Oppenheimer; also hearing some cautious sell side commentary

Mid Cap Gainers

MBLY (47.81 +11.11%): Mentioned positively by Jim Cramer on CNBC; co is scheduled to report second quarter financial results before the open tomorrow
CNQR (107.38 +6.37%): Higher following reports that co has explored a sale and approached companies including SAP and Oracle (ORCL)
FLEX (11.59 +4.37%): Received shareholder approval to purchase up to 20% of its outstanding shares; Board of Directors also authorized management to purchase the co's shares in an aggregate amount of up to $500 mln

Mid Cap Losers

CDW (31.81 -4.01%): Priced a public offering of 15 mln shares of common stock by selling stockholders at $31.95 per share
TOL (34.29 -3.76%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.07 ($0.53 vs $0.46 estimate), revs rose 53.4% yoy to $1.06 bln vs $0.98 bln estimate; net signed contracts of $949.1 mln and 1,324 units decreased 4% in dollars and 6% in units from prior year
SYNA (82.74 -3.49%): Mentioned cautiously at sell side firm following Samsung Note conference

11:45 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (248) outpacing new lows (30) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, ABAX, ACHN, ACT, AHGP, AIV, ALDW, ALL, AMBA, AMP, AMX, ANET, APH, ARCW, ATVI, AVGO, AXTI, BABY, BBD, BDSI, BG, BHBK, BIDU, BKS, BKW, BLL, BLT, BMO, BMRC, BRFS, BRK.A, BRK.B, BURL, CAH, CATO, CDXS, CENX, CFN, CHA, CHE, CHL, CNI, CNW, CORE, CP, CPT, CTAS, CTLT, CTO, CTRN, CVS, DGX, DIS, DRH, ECF, EIX, ELP, ELS, ENI, ENSG, EOC, EXAS, EXPE, FARM, FB, FCB, FCE.A, FDP, FFG, FFIV, FISV, FL, FLEX, FLWS, FTNT, FUBC, GBX, GIII, GILD, GLOB, GLRE, GPK, GPRO, GPS, GS, HDB, HEES, HPJ, HPQ, HRL, HSII, HT, IBN, IFN, IMS, INGR, INVE, ISNS, IT, ITUB, IVZ, JBSS, KB, KED, KLAC, KNX, KR, LABL, LDL, LEA, LEAF, LEG, LG, LH, LHO, LNG, LOXO, LRAD, LTC, LVNTA, MAG, MAGS, MAR, MBLY, MCK, MGPI, MIK, MNK, MNR, MPW, MRD, MRK, MRO, MS, MTD, MTSI, NCS, NEU, NEWM, NFLX, NI, NOC, NOK, NRF, NTCT, NUE, NVDA, NVS, ODFL, OKE, OTEX, OVAS, PAC, PANW, PBA, PBR, PBR.A, PEB, PEOP, PFG, PFNX, PHI, PIKE, PIP, PLNR, PLOW, PNX, PRE, PRI, PSX, PTR, PWR, QTS, R, RAIL, RCL, RCMT, RDY, RE, REV, RFMD, RGA, RLJ, RPAI, RPM, RPT, SBAC, SCI, SEMG, SGNT, SHG, SIAL, SIMO, SKM, SKX, SLCA, SLI, SMCI, SNCR, SNP, SNY, SPCB, SPR, SRE, STE, STLD, SWIR, SXL, SYA, SYF, TAM, TFSL, THRM, TMH, TNAV, TPL, TQNT, TRN, TRNO, TROX, TRP, TRUE, TSLA, TSQ, TSRA, TTM, UA, UBA, UBSI, UCFC, UHS, UNM, UNP, URI, VC, VFC, VGR, VII, VSH, WLDN, WLK, WLKP, WRE, WTS, X, XRS, XRX, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AMPE, AREX, BGI, BH, BOBE, BOTA, CLD, CONN, CRRS, END, FNSR, FRO, FWM, GLRI, IRG, IRMD, MBII, MM, NDLS, NSPH, PGN, PHMD, PRPH, PRSS, RGDO, SKY, SOQ, SPU, TPUB, VPCO

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AMJ, BKF, DIA, EEB, EEM, EPP, EWA, EWC, EWT, EWW, EWZ, FXI, GXC, HAO, IGV, ILF, IWF, IYF, IYH, IYK, IYM, IYT, OEF, PIN, PPH, QQQ, RTH, SDY, SMH, SPY, TAO, THD, UYG, UYM, VNM, VTI, VWO, XLB, XLF, XLK, XLV, XLY, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JJA, JJG, SMN

Intel's (INTC) subsidiary, Wind River, announced that HP (HPQ) has joined the Wind River Titanium Cloud partner program

Thin Film Electronics ASA announced a partnership with Flextronics (FLEX). As part of the agreement, Flextronics will further expand its Open Innovation Platform with the addition of Thinfilm's technology, and offer Thinfilm's printed electronics products and solutions - including rewritable memory, integrated smart label systems, and printed NFC tags - to its customers.

8:05 am Axcelis Tech receives follow on order for the company's Purion XE high energy implanter (ACLS) : Co announces that it has received a follow on order for the company's Purion XE high energy implanter. The Purion XE, will be installed as part of a capacity expansion at another one of the chipmaker's fabs in the Asia Pacific Region, and will be used in high volume production of 28nm low power and specialty logic devices. The system ships in September.

Apple (AAPL 98.93, -4.36) stole the show on Wednesday and in doing so it burglarized the information technology sector (-0.7%) of any gains.

The 4.2% decline in the sector heaviest-weighted component occurred on the back of a heavy profit-taking effort that was catalyzed by a call from the analyst at Pacific Crest Securities to take some profits ahead of Apple's new product announcements on September 9. It would be remiss not to add, too, that Samsung unveiled its latest smartphones today -- the Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy Note Edge -- that made it very apparent that the competitive landscape in this industry is certain to remain challenging.

In any event, one could have argued that Apple was due for a day like this, regardless of the aforementioned developments, considering it had jumped nearly 10% since August 7.

Apple's run was rooted in anticipation of its new product announcements. Wednesday's move, therefore, had the look of a sell-the-soon-to-be-announced news move as traders were cognizant that Apple typically sells off after a new product announcement. And sell they did. Apple traded 2.5x its 3-month average daily volume.

There were other things going on in the tech sector of course, yet the fact of the matter is that it was mostly overshadowed by Apple's performance.

Many of the Chinese Internet stocks also got knocked around on profit taking. Sohu.com (SOHU 56.57, -2.96) and Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU 85.67, -3.09) led that pullback. Baidu (BIDU 227.45, +2.65), however, marched to the beat of its own drum.

Security software company FireEye (FEYE 31.62, -2.16) also felt the pinch of profit taking. Following a five session streak in which it gained 21%, FEYE declined 6.4%.

Sticking with the profit-taking trend, Priceline (PCLN 1234.40, -20.50) moved lower after filing for a mixed securities shelf offering. Wednesday's loss dropped the stock below its 50-day moving average.

Other notable losers in the Internet/social media space included Facebook (FB 75.83, -0.85), Twitter (TWTR 49.33, -1.69), Yelp (YELP 83.29, -1.67), Amazon.com (AMZN 338.95, -3.38), and Yahoo (YHOO 38.87, -0.40).

Concur Technologies (CNQR 109.60, +8.65), though, surged 8.6% after a Bloomberg.com article, citing people familiar with the situation, indicated the software company has explored a sale.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday session on a modestly lower note following a daylong retreat from the opening high. The S&P 500 shed 0.2%, while the Russell 2000 (-0.4%) finished behind the benchmark index.

Overnight, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England made no changes to their policy stances, while the European Central Bank announced a rate cut. The ECB lowered its main refinance rate to 0.05% from 0.15%, cut its deposit facility rate to -0.2% from -0.1%, and cut the marginal lending rate to 0.3% from 0.4%. In addition to the cuts, the central bank announced the deployment of an asset-backed securities purchase program, but it was revealed that the decision was not unanimous.

The policy move pressured the euro, sending the single currency to its lowest level since July of last year. Prior to the announcement, the euro traded at 1.3130 versus the dollar, but fell below the 1.2950 level. In turn, the US Dollar Index jumped 1.1% to its best close in nearly 14 months.

Generally speaking, cyclical sectors held up better than the defensively-oriented groups. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.4%) jumped into the lead shortly after the open and remained in that position until the close. Homebuilders contributed to the strength with Hovnanian (HOV 4.25, +0.05) climbing 1.2% in reaction to better than expected quarterly results. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 23.68, +0.18) gained 0.8%.

Retail stocks also served up a measure of support with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 89.39, +0.52) adding 0.6%. Apparel retailer PVH (PVH 128.42, +11.29) surged 9.6% after beating earnings estimates and lowering its revenue guidance.

Meanwhile, the remaining growth-oriented sectors posted modest losses, but energy tumbled 1.3% amid a 1.0% decline in crude oil prices ($94.58). The sector was pressured by shares of BP (BP 44.89, -2.82), which tumbled 5.9% after a federal judge found the company grossly negligent in causing the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

On the countercyclical side, the consumer staples sector (+0.2%) was the lone advancer with Costco's (COST 125.15, +3.80) strong same store sales for August providing a measure of support. On the flip side, telecom services (-0.2%) and utilities (unch) spent the bulk of the session in the red, while health care (-0.5%) slumped in the afternoon. Biotechnology fueled the retreat with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 270.92, -4.54) sliding 1.7%.

Despite the afternoon retreat among equities, Treasuries ended the day on their lows with the 10-yr yield up five basis points at 2.45%.

Participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 613 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data included initial claims, ADP Employment Change, Q2 Unit Labor Costs/Productivity, trade balance, and the August ISM Services Index:


The initial claims level increased to 302,000 from an unrevised 298,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 300,000
Today's ADP National Employment Report revealed that employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose 204K in August, which was below the increase of 220K expected by the Briefing.com consensus
The July reading was revised down to 212,000 from 218,000
The U.S. trade deficit narrowed slightly in July to $40.50 billion, which was the smallest trade deficit since January, from a downwardly revised $40.80 billion (from $41.50 billion) in June, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to $42.00 billion
The goods deficit fell $200 million to $60.20 billion in July from $60.40 billion in June
The services surplus was unchanged at $19.60 billion
Nonfarm labor productivity in Q2 2014 was revised down to 2.3% in the second estimate from 2.5% in the advance estimate, while the consensus expected a revision up to 2.6%
A relatively large downward revision to hourly compensation (2.3% from 3.1%) led to a quarterly decline in unit labor costs (-0.1% from +0.6%), which represented the fourth decline out of the last six quarters
The ISM Non-manufacturing Index for August increased to 59.6 from 58.7, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a drop to 57.8
That was the strongest reading of the Index since it was redone in January 2008
Per the old methodology, the index is at its highest level since reaching 61.4 in August 2005

Tomorrow, the Nonfarm Payrolls report for August (Briefing.com consensus 223,000) will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.2% YTD
S&P 500 +8.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.5% YTD

DJ30 -8.70 NASDAQ -10.28 SP500 -3.07 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1148/1.60 bln/1628 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1024/613.1 mln/2057 3:30 pm :

Dec gold rallied to a session high of $1279.20 per ounce in morning action. However, it gave up the gain as the dollar index strengthened on the ECB's decision to cut all three of its financing rates and Mario Draghi's statement that the central bank would begin purchasing simple ABS in October. The yellow metal brushed a session low of $1265.50 per ounce and settled with a 0.3% loss at $1266.10 per ounce.
Dec silver also pulled back into negative territory after trading as high as $19.39 per ounce in morning pit trade. It eventually settled at $19.13 per ounce, or 0.4% lower.
Oct crude oil traded in negative territory as the stronger dollar index weighed on prices. It touched a session high of $95.28 per barrel following inventory data that showed a draw of 0.905 mln barrels when a draw of 1.0-1.1 mln barrels was anticipated but quickly pulled back. It dipped as low as $94.16 per barrel and settled with a 1.0% loss at $94.51 per barrel.
Oct natural gas slid from a session high of $3.88 per MMBtu to a session low of $3.79 per MMBtu after the EIA reported that natural gas inventories showed a build of 79 bcf vs expectations for a build of 73-74 bcf was expected. Unable to regain momentum, it settled with a 0.5% loss at $3.82 per MMBtu.

4:30 pm Finisar reopens just above $17/share following in-line Q1/downside Q2 guidance (FNSR)

4:08 pm Finisar (halted) reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 below consensus (FNSR) : Reports Q1 (Jul) adj. earnings of $0.32 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.32; revenues rose 23.1% year/year to $327.6 mln vs the $326.29 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.23-0.27, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.35 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $305-320 mln vs. $333.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"While demand for our transceivers that address wireless applications was very strong in the first quarter, demand for these products is now expected to decrease in the second quarter. We expect the demand to return and revenues to increase sequentially for these products in the third quarter. As a result of this decrease in demand for wireless transceivers, as well as a decrease in demand for telecom products due to soft carrier spending and a decrease in demand from several datacom customers with lumpy order patterns, we expect our overall revenues to decline in the second fiscal quarter."

4:16 pm PMC-Sierra executed an agreement with HP to license core HP (HPQ) Smart Array software, firmware and management technology; expects transaction to be modestly accretive in 2015 (PMCS) : PMC will form a storage design center in Houston where key development engineers from the HP Smart Array software team will join PMC. PMC expects the transaction to be modestly accretive in 2015, with more substantial contribution to top and bottom line growth in 2016 and 2017.

4:15 pm Nanometrics: Jeff Andreson to join Nanometrics as CFO (NANO) : co announced that Jeffrey S. Andreson will join Nanometrics as its Chief Financial Officer, effective September 22, 2014.

Since 2007 he has served as the CFO of Intevac (IVAC), a leading supplier of capital equipment to the hard drive media industry and night vision products to the military market.

4:07 pm NVIDIA files complaints against Samsung (SSNLF) and Qualcomm (QCOM) alleging that the companies are both infringing NVIDIA GPU patents (NVDA) : Co announced that it has filed complaints against Samsung (SSNLF) and Qualcomm (QCOM) at the International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, alleging that the companies are both infringing NVIDIA GPU patents covering technology including programmable shading, unified shaders and multithreaded parallel processing.

The identified Samsung products include the Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S4 mobile phones; and the Galaxy Tab S, Galaxy Note Pro and Galaxy Tab 2 computer tablets. Most of these devices incorporate Qualcomm mobile processors -- including the Snapdragon S4, 400, 600, 800, 801 and 805. Others are powered by Samsung Exynos mobile chips, which incorporate ARM's Mali and Imagination Technologies' PowerVR GPU cores.12:32 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

12:32 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

UAL (50.57 +3.14%): Co took delivery of first Boeing (BA) 787-9 aircraft in North America.
COST (124.49 +2.59%): Reported Aug same store sales +7.0% vs +4.9% Retail Metrics consensus.
AMZN (347.44 +2.49%): Trading higher following positive Bernstein comments; raised tgt to $450 from $360.

Large Cap Losers

BP (44.95 -5.78%): Co found to be 'grossly negligent' in 2010 Gulf oil spill.
UHS (106 -4.89%): US Appeals Court to reconsider subsidies case related to the Affordable Care Act, according to reports (HCA also lower).

Mid Cap Gainers

PVH (128.74 +9.91%): Beat on EPS by $0.09, reported revs in-line; guided Q3 EPS in-line, revs below consensus; reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance, lowered FY15 rev guidance slightly; tgt raised to $170 from $150 at UBS.
MDSO (49.74 +5.83%): Initiated with an Overweight at Morgan Stanley; tgt $56.
TIBX (22.15 +5.28%): Co announced review of strategic alternatives.

Mid Cap Losers

CIEN (18.93 -7.48%): Beat on EPS by $0.03, reported revs in-line, guided Q4 revs below consensus.
GPRO (54.56 -4.05%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan.
NRF (18.33 -2.76%): Priced public offering of 45 mln shares of common stock, of which 22.5 mln shares are subject to forward sale agreement, at $18.40/share.

12:12 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (188) outpacing new lows (55) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AA, AAP, ABAX, ACHN, ACT, ADP, AGX, AIV, ALDW, AMX, ANDE, AOSL, ARCW, ASR, ATV, ATVI, AVGO, AXTI, BANF, BG, BHB, BKS, BLL, BLT, BMO, BR, BRK.A, BRK.B, CAH, CALM, CATO, CBK, CCI, CDNS, CENX, CFN, CHA, CLR, CLW, CM, CNI, CNW, CODE, CORE, CP, CPT, CTLT, CTRN, CVS, DIS, DLX, DOW, DPS, EEQ, ELS, ENI, ENPH, ETE, FARM, FBRC, FCAP, FDP, FIS, FISV, FL, FOXA, FUBC, GBX, GD, GEO, GLOB, GLOW, GLRE, GOL, GPRE, GPS, HBI, HCN, HDB, HEES, HPQ, HSIC, HSII, IBA, ICLR, IESC, IFN, INXN, IRF, ITMN, ITT, JBSS, JWN, KED, KLAC, KR, KSS, KT, LDL, LEAF, LH, LOW, LUV, LVNTA, MAG, MAR, MAS, MDCI, MEI, MFRM, MNK, MRK, MTN, MTSI, MUSA, NATH, NEWM, NI, NMFC, NSC, NTRS, NUE, NVDA, NWL, ODFL, OME, ORLY, OTEX, PAC, PBA, PEOP, PFNX, PHI, PLOW, PRXL, PTR, RCL, RCMT, RDY, RGS, RIOM, RPAI, RPM, RPT, RWC, SAIA, SBAC, SCLN, SGNT, SKX, SNA, SNP, SNY, SPR, STLD, TAM, TMH, TNAV, TPL, TRP, TSO, TTM, TWIN, UA, UAL, UBA, UDR, UEIC, UEPS, UGI, UNH, UNP, VC, VDSI, VFC, VSH, WCN, WLDN, WLKP, WLP, WPX, WWAV, WYN, X, XPO, XRSC, XRX, YY

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACPW, AMPE, AMZG, APO, ARCO, AREX, AXX, BAMM, BOTA, CHOP, CONN, CRRS, CYTK, CYTX, DLA, DO, DWSN, ESV, FCTY, FRM, FRO, FST, FWM, GES, GNE, IRG, ISSC, KEG, KIPS, KVHI, MBII, MIND, MM, NDLS, NES, NMIH, NSPH, ONB, PGN, PHMD, PRSS, RGDO, RGSE, RLJE, RVLT, SIFI, SKY, TGEN, TRMR, TRUP, VIDE, VIVO, VPCO, WTSL, XNY

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IYH, IYK, IYM, IYT, OEF, RTH, SDY, SMH, SOXX, SPY, TAO, THD, UYM, VWO, XLB, XLF, XLV, XLY, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JJA, JJG, RJA, SGG, SMN

10:31 am Cisco Systems announced an expansion of their relationship with Red Hat (RHT), accelerating collaboration around OpenStack, Application Centric Infrastructure and Intercloud (CSCO) :

Ciena (CIEN 18.20, -2.26): -11.1% after its cautious revenue guidance overshadowed its bottom-line beat.

STMicroelectronics NV (STM) and Tessera Technologies (TSRA) announced today that they reached a settlement of all outstanding claims and litigation between them.

Microsemi (MSCC) introduced its new Timberwolf platform of Digital Signal Processors to address the growing intelligent processing markets.

6:34 am Methode Electronics beats by $0.15, beats on revs; raises FY15 EPS and revenue guidance above consensus (MEI) : Reports Q1 (Jul) earnings of $0.55 per share, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.40; revenues rose 30.4% year/year to $218.1 mln vs the $193.69 mln consensus.

Co issues raised guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $2.10-2.20 from $1.85-2.00 vs. $1.96 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 revs of $870-885 mln from $835-860 mlnvs. $851.39 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Consolidated gross margins improved to 23.2% in Q1 compared to 20.3% last year. "Also of note, our Automotive gross margins improved 440 basis points, the result of improved manufacturing efficiencies and cost reduction activities. Due to these results and greater expectations from the Automotive industry, we have increased our Fiscal 2015 guidance.

"Microsoft (MSFT) announced the Nokia (NOK) Lumia 830, Lumia 735 and Lumia 730 Dual SIM smartphones running the latest Windows Phone 8.1 operating system, bringing industry-leading imaging technology to more affordable price levels.

A glimpse of the final standing of the major indices would make it appear that little happened in Thursday's trading. That wasn't the case.

There was quite a bit that happened.

The Bank of Japan, Bank of England, and ECB all issued new policy pronouncements. The Bank of Japan and Bank of England left their policies unchanged, yet the ECB took things a step further on the easing road by cutting the interest rate on its main refinancing operations, its marginal lending facility, and its deposit facility, and announcing the implementation of an asset-backed securities purchase program.

The market fed off the policy action for a bit and then it went on a diet, trending steadily lower from its highs of the day reached shortly after 11:00 a.m. ET. At the closing bell, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P were down 9, 10, and 3 points, respectively, after being up as much as 83, 31, and 10 points, respectively.

There wasn't a specific piece of news that caused the turn. Accordingly, it had the markings of being a tired market that gave in to profit-taking efforts ahead of Friday's employment report.

Where did the information technology sector fit in with all of this? It ended the day down just 0.1% after rising only 0.2% earlier in the session to the devilish level of 666.00.

The internal read of the sector reflected a pretty mixed state. 32 of the 66 components traded lower, including Apple (AAPL 98.12, -0.82), which couldn't hold an earlier gain and coughed up another 0.8% after sliding 4.2% on Wednesday. One of its suppliers, Avago Technologies (AVGO 86.09, +0.70), though, did alright after the company bumped up its quarterly dividend to $0.32 per share from $0.29 per share.

The biggest sector loser of the day was Xerox (XRX 13.62, -0.43), which dropped 3.1% on heavier than average volume and no news of note. It was followed by TeraData Corp. (TDC 44.60, -1.20), which declined 2.6%, also on heavier than average volume and no news of note.

The best showing in the sector was delivered by software company CA Technologies (CA 29.34, +0.56). It jumped 2.0% on heavier than average volume and no specific company news of note.

There was a bit of a buzz in the business software space, though, after TIBCO Software (TIBX 21.61, +0.57) announced it is exploring strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value. That news gave a boost to industry peer Qlik Technologies (QLIK 28.66, +0.42), which was also resumed with an Outperform rating at Pacific Crest Securities.

Separately, Amazon.com (AMZN) was aided by positive comments out of Bernstein, which raised its price target to $450 from $360. Amazon.com led a brigade of Internet/social media stocks that had an otherwise good day on Thursday: Google (GOOG 581.98, +4.04), Facebook (FB 75.95, +0.12), Twitter (TWTR 50.24, +0.91), LinkedIn (LNKD 227.55, +2.50), YY, Inc. (YY 92.12, +3.37), Weibo (WB 20.35, +0.46) and Yahoo (39.19, +0.32).

The dog of the day, though, was Ciena (CIEN 18.51, -1.95). The networking specialist reported better than expected third quarter results, but issued disappointing fourth quarter guidance due in large part to the revenue and margin hit it will experience from being selected by AT&T (T 34.94, -0.03) as a Domain 2.0 supplier.

Ciena's weak showing weighed a bit on competitors Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.37, -0.05) and Cisco (CSCO 24.91, -0.13).

Friday's trading session should bring some more excitement as it will feature the release of the August employment report.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 05-Sep-14Dow +67.78 at 17137.36, Nasdaq +20.61 at 4582.90, S&P +10.06 at 2007.71

The stock market finished a cautious week on a modestly higher note. The S&P 500 added 0.5%, ending the week with a slim gain of 0.2%, while the Russell 2000 (+0.3%) shed 0.2% for the week.

This morning, the Nonfarm Payrolls report for August revealed the addition of 142,000 payrolls, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading closer to 223,000. Interestingly, this was followed by a rally in equity futures with investors viewing the report as an argument in favor of the Fed potentially delaying its first rate hike.

Equity indices slipped from their opening levels, but the S&P 500 found support near the 1990 mark, which served as resistance in July and provided support over the past two weeks. The benchmark index tested the area around 10:45 ET and spent the remainder of the session in a slow climb to new highs.

All ten sectors finished in the green, but health care (+0.6%) contributed to the opening weakness. The countercyclical sector was pressured by Gilead Sciences (GILD 105.36, -1.50) in the early going with the stock down 8.7% at its worst point of the session. Shares of GILD narrowed their loss to 1.4% by the close, while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 270.60, -0.32) shed 0.1% after being down as much as 2.0%. Furthermore, the ETF logged its fourth consecutive decline, ending the week lower by 2.2%.

The underperformance of the biotech space kept the Nasdaq Composite behind the S&P 500, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq still drew a good bit of strength from the technology sector (+0.7%), which outperformed throughout the day. Components of all sizes contributed to the advance with Apple (AAPL 98.97, +0.85), Facebook (FB 77.26, +1.31), and Microsoft (MSFT 45.90, +0.64) gaining between 0.9% and 1.7%. High-beta chipmakers also displayed strength with the PHLX Semiconductor Index climbing 0.9%.

Even though technology spent the day in the green, it was the utilities sector (+1.2%) that finished in the lead.

Treasuries rallied following today's Nonfarm Payrolls report, but surrendered all of their gains during the day. The 10-yr yield ended at 2.45%.

Participation was below average with roughly 600 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Taking a closer look at the details of today's jobs report:

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 142,000 (Briefing.com consensus 223,000)
July nonfarm payrolls revised to 212,000 from 209,000
June nonfarm payrolls revised to 267,000 from 298,000
Private sector payrolls increased by 134,000 (Briefing.com consensus 200,000)
July private payrolls revised to 213,000 from 198,000
June private payrolls revised to 260,000 from 270,000
Unemployment rate was 6.1% (Briefing.com consensus 6.1%) versus 6.2% in July
Average hourly earnings rose 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) after being unchanged in July
The average workweek was 34.5 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.5) for the sixth consecutive month
The labor force participation rate was 62.8% versus 62.9% in July

Monday's economic data will be limited to the Consumer Credit report for July (Briefing.com consensus $17.80 billion), which will cross the wires at 15:00 ET.

Week in Review: September Begins on Quiet Note

On Tuesday, the market started the abbreviated week on a mixed note with modest point changes on either side of the unchanged mark for the major indices. For the most part, the stock market was a sideshow. The main trading events were seen in the commodity and Treasury markets, both of which saw some decent-sized losses within their respective complex. Dollar strength was at the heart of the weakness in the commodity arena, which saw a 4.2% drop in natural gas futures to $3.90/btu, a 3.1% decline in oil prices to $92.96/bbl, and a 1.7% slide in gold prices to $1266.10/troy ounce. The US Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 82.99 -- a 13-month high -- as the yen hit its weakest level (105.15) against the greenback since January.

The stock market had difficulty getting anything going on Wednesday as a wait-and-see stance permeated the trading action. That was understandable given some confusing headlines about cease-fire talk between Ukraine and Russia, Apple suffering a 4.2% decline in its stock price, and the specter of policy meetings by the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, and the ECB on Thursday. The way things ended on Wednesday was pretty much how they went throughout the day. That is, the Dow (+0.1%) and S&P 500 (-0.1%) held up better than the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-0.6%). Things sounded more promising before the open when there was talk of a "permanent" cease-fire agreement between Ukraine and Russia. However, Kremlin countered that it could not have agreed to such a thing when it is not a party to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Equities finished Thursday on a modestly lower note following a daylong retreat from the opening high. The S&P 500 shed 0.2%, while the Russell 2000 (-0.4%) settled behind the benchmark index. Overnight, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England made no changes to their policy stances, while the European Central Bank announced a rate cut. The ECB lowered its main refinance rate to 0.05% from 0.15%, cut its deposit facility rate to -0.2% from -0.1%, and cut the marginal lending rate to 0.3% from 0.4%. In addition to the cuts, the central bank announced the deployment of an asset-backed securities purchase program, but it was revealed that the decision was not unanimous. The policy move pressured the euro, sending the single currency to its lowest level since July of last year.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17098.45 17137.36 38.91 0.2 3.4
Nasdaq 4580.27 4582.90 2.63 0.1 9.7
S&P 500 2003.37 2007.71 4.34 0.2 8.6
Russell 2000 1174.35 1170.13 -4.22 -0.4 0.6

5:04 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology:OIBR-C (0.75 +25.08%),SPLK (59.23 +24.4%),CRTO (35.27 +20.94%),CSLT (12.98 +20.04%),VEEV (29.73 +19.64%),CMGE (23.5 +19.31%),COUP (16.33 +18.87%),MEI (40.77 +18.43%),CPWR (10.63 +14.42%)Services:SGMS (12.02 +19.39%),UEPS (13.71 +18.43%),GPRO (58.75 +16.66%),UTIW (11.04 +14.33%),FLWS (6.09 +14.04%)
Healthcare:INFI (14.46 +23.64%),UTHR (112.16 +21.02%),TTPH (14.98 +18.27%),ACHN (12.17 +15.46%)Financial:HGSH (8.01 +20.03%)
Basic Materials:CENX (29.28 +13.96%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology:TUBE (12.05 -13.6%)Services:CONN (29.01 -35.52%),WSM (64.43 -13.79%),DHT (6.27 -11.76%),DSKY (21.87 -11.69%),NDLS (17.39 -10.89%),GCO (78.88 -10.68%)
Industrial Goods:MTRX (24.01 -20.6%)
Healthcare:EXEL (1.85 -55.1%),EPZM (28.4 -15.93%),GEVA (64.64 -14.4%),SGMO (12.34 -13.04%),XON (17.88 -12.99%),SNSS (7.1 -11.06%),AXDX (17.96 -10.76%),DRTX (14.93 -10.61%),DEPO (13.95 -10.52%)
Consumer Goods:KNDI (17.07 -11.06%)
Basic Materials:SSRI (8.08 -12.81%),CLF (14.06 -11.79%)

5:01 pm TriQuint Semi shareholders approve merger-of-equals with RF Micro Devices (RFMD) (TQNT) :

4:11 pm Fossil and Intel (INTC) announce collaboration to develop innovation in wearable technology (FOSL) : Co and Intel (INTC) announced that they will be collaborating to further develop wearable technology for the fashion industry.

Fossil Group will partner with Intel to identify, support and develop emerging trends in the wearable technology space. The companies will work together on emerging products and technologies that will be developed for the fashion-oriented consumer. In addition, Fossil Group will work closely with Intel Capital, Intel's global investment organization, to identify and evaluate co-investments in emerging technologies to accelerate industry innovation and stay at the forefront of the wearable consumer trend.

3:32 pm Earnings Preview for the week of September 8 - 12 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of September 8 - 12 some of the bigger names include:

Monday: Pre Market - CPBAfter Hours - CASY, PBY, HELI, NCS, KFY, FN, TPLM, FCEL

Tuesday: Pre Market - HDS, BKS, LDOS, BURL, TITN, JW.A, CVGW, LAYN, NX, FRANAfter Hours - SAIC, OXM, PIKE, PANW, KKD, SPA, IRET, LMNR, PPHM

Wednesday: Pre Market - VRA, MANU, PMFGAfter Hours - MW, RH, FIVE, WTSL, SIGM

Thursday: Pre Market - KR, PWE, LULU, BRC, FLWS, MBUUAfter Hours - ULTA, SPWH

Friday: Pre Market - SNOW, NTWK, DRI

12:33 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

VRTX (95.05 +3.82%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman
BP (45.95 +2.35%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup; recovery following sharp declines seen yesterday on court ruling that co was "grossly negligent" in Gulf of Mexico oil spill
ING (14.4 +2.35%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays

Large Cap Losers

GPS (44.4 -4.70%): Co reported August same store sales declined 2.0% vs +1.7% Retail Metric Consensus; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Buckingham Research
KORS (76.65 -4.15%): Priced secondary public offering of ~11.63 mln shares at $76.75 per share
GILD (102.73 -3.86%): Broad based weakness in biotech sector:
BIIB, BMRN also lower; also seeing a report that co is in discussions with generic drug makers to make Sovaldi available in developing countries at a greatly reduced cost

Mid Cap Gainers

VRNT (54.66 +6.97%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.12 ($0.72 ex items vs $0.60 estimate), revs rose 27.8% yoy to $284.7 mln vs $269.62 mln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $3.35-3.50 vs $3.38 estimate, revs of $1.125-1.175 bln vs $1.13 bln estimate; target raised to $60 from $57 at RBC Capital Markets; target raised to $61 from $58 at Imperial Capital
MBLY (48.29 +6.44%): Target raised to $52 from $43 at RBC Capital MarketsGPRO (55.55 +4.65%): Target raised to $60 from $48 at Piper Jaffray

Mid Cap Losers

CLH (57.69 -4.50%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at BB&T Capital Markets
ISIS (37.62 -3.74%): Broad based weakness in biotech sector: THRX, SGEN, ALNY also lowerGLNG (58.5 -3.05%): Priced secondary offering of ~27.8 mln shares at $58.50 per share

12:14 pm Broadcom probes is previous multi-year high from July at 40.74 -- session high 40.75 (BRCM) :

9:11 am RF Micro Device shareholders approve merger of equals (RFMD) : Co announced the preliminary results of its special meeting of shareholders held earlier this morning to approve its agreement and plan of merger and reorganization with TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT).

RFMD shareholders voted to approve the merger agreement and to approve, by non-binding advisory vote, the compensation arrangements for RFMD's named executive officers in connection with the transaction. TriQuint's stockholders are scheduled to vote on the merger agreement and other matters at a special meeting to be held later today.Amtech Systems (ASYS) announced its solar subsidiary, Tempress Systems, has received an order for its solar boron diffusion system from a leading Taiwan cell manufacturer, which makes it the third boron diffusion customer in that country.

8:04 am iPass expands its global Wi-Fi network to 13 mln hotspots; also announces support for the newly announced Samsung (SSNLF) Gear S (IPAS) : Co announced support for the newly announced Samsung (SSNLF) Gear S. iPass will allow wearers to access 13 mln hotspots around the world.

Ciena (CIEN 18.90, +0.39): +2.1% following a Goldman Sachs upgrade to 'Buy' from 'Neutral.'

SanDisk (SNDK 97.50, +1.27): +1.3% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to 'Overweight' from 'Equal-Weight.'

The August employment report came and went but not without leaving the impression that it was a good report for anyone who doesn't want to see the Federal Reserve raise the fed funds rate anytime soon.

That's because it showed a much weaker than expected nonfarm payroll gain of 142,000, which was well below consensus estimates and the prior 12-month average of 212,000. The report also revealed a drop in the labor force participation rate to 62.8% from 62.9%.

The reaction in the S&P futures market was swift and friendly as the futures spiked 10 points following the report's release. The cash market, however, was slow to respond and started the session on a relatively weak note. It eventually found its stride, though. The S&P moved steadily higher after finding technical support at the 1990 level and ended at its high for the day.

Fittingly, a late boost into the close was aided by Boston Fed President Rosengren who said the employment report was somewhat disappointing and that the Fed should be patient in removing stimulus, not raising rates until it is within one year of its mandate.

At about the same time, newswires were sharing the news that the IPO price range for Alibaba.com is expected to be $60-$66 and that 2.5 bln shares will be outstanding after the IPO (320 mln will be sold to the public at the IPO). That translates into an expected market cap of roughly $150-165 billion. That news certainly didn't hurt the fortunes of Yahoo (YHOO), which owns a 22.6% stake in Alibaba.com and will sell 121.7 mln shares at the IPO, according to CNBC.

It was also said late in the day that Dish Network (DISH 66.44, +0.60) is reportedly in talks with Deutsche Telekom about a T-Mobile (TMUS 30.67, +0.43) deal.

The burgeoning excitement about the Alibaba.com IPO solidified what was already a pretty solid day for the information technology sector (+0.7%), which outperformed the broader market. It did so, bolstered by healthy gains in a number of its components.

Akamai (AKAM 61.54, +1.12) jumped 1.9% after UBS started the stock with a Buy rating. Sandisk (SNDK 98.79, +2.56) increased 2.7% on the back of a Morgan Stanley upgrade to Overweight from Equal Weight.

Apple (AAPL 98.97, +0.85) supplier Avago Technologies (AVGO 87.88, +1.79) stayed hot following its earnings report earlier in the week, tacking on another 2.1%. AVGO has gained 16% over the last eight trading sessions.

Intuit (INTU 83.98, +1.72), which saw Bank of America reiterate its Buy rating after meeting with the company's CEO, also performed well on Friday.

Facebook (FB 77.26, +1.31), Microsoft (MSFT 45.91, +0.65), Google (GOOG 586.06, +4.08), and Micron (MU 32.94, +0.82) outperformed, too, as Friday's participants took a liking to many large-cap technology names.

The strength in Micron, combined with gains in Qualcomm (QCOM 75.81, +0.70), Texas Instruments (TXN 48.59, +0.33), and Intel (INTC 35.00, +0.10) gave the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index a nice 0.9% boost that accounted for nearly the entirety of its gains for the week. NVIDIA (NVDA 19.97, -0.06) didn't participate, though, as it slipped modestly in the wake of its announcement that it is suing Samsung and Qualcomm for infringing GPU patents in a number of mobile devices.

On a related note, chip makers RF Micro Devices (RFMD 12.31, +0.21) and TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT 20.41, +0.41) both garnered some added buying attention after RF Micro Devices confirmed its shareholders approved the merger of equals between the two companies. Similarly, Ambarella (AMBA 36.90, +1.13), which is a supplier for GoPro (GPRO 58.75, +5.67), logged a healthy gain after reporting better than expected earnings and upbeat guidance.

That was more than Ciena (CIEN 19.38, +0.87) did on Thursday when it reported its quarterly results, yet the networking specialist bounced back on Friday with the help of a Goldman Sachs upgrade to Buy from Neutral.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday session on their lows with the S&P 500 sliding 0.7%. Small-cap stocks outperformed yesterday, but the Russell 2000 erased Monday's uptick with a 1.2% decline.

Equity indices spent the entire session in the red with the early pressure coming from the financial sector (-1.0%). The second-largest group by market cap slumped out of the gate amid broad weakness in top-weighted components. Bank of America (BAC 16.14, -0.21), Citigroup (C 51.27, -0.78), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 59.06, -0.83) lost between 1.3% and 1.5%, while the sector acted as a drag on the market throughout the session.

Meanwhile, the consumer discretionary space (-1.0%) also weighed with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 88.06, -0.86) falling 1.0%. The quick-service restaurant space did not fare much better as McDonald's (MCD 91.09, -1.41) fell 1.5% after reporting a 3.7% decline in comparable store sales during August. The decline was paced by a 14.5% slump in Asia following the recent food safety scandal.

Elsewhere, the top-weighted sector-technology (-0.6%)-endured a choppy session before settling on its low. Shares of Apple (AAPL 97.99, -0.37) were responsible for the volatile action, with the stock surging on the announcement that near field communication capabilities will be included in the upcoming version of the iPhone. Despite the spike, Apple slumped from highs to lows after revealing the long-rumored "Apple Watch," which will be available next year.

Combined with the underperformance of the aforementioned sectors, the afternoon retreat in Apple pressured the market to fresh lows.

Despite the weakness in three top-weighted sectors, another influential group-health care (-0.3%)-kept the market from extending its loss. Insurers and managed care names outperformed, while biotechnology slumped. Tenet Healthcare (THC 60.97, +1.98) jumped 3.4% after Deutsche Bank added the stock to its short-term buy list, while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 269.60, -3.46) fell 1.3%.

Similar to health care, the consumer staples sector (-0.3%) outperformed, while telecom services (-1.2%) and utilities (-1.2%) lagged.

Economic data was limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for July, which indicated job opening decreased to 4.673 million from 4.675 million.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while the Wholesale Inventories report for July (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +9.0% YTD
S&P 500 +7.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD

DJ30 -97.55 NASDAQ -40.00 SP500 -13.10 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 660/1.82 bln/2179 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 707/587.1 mln/2353 3:30 pm :

Dec gold extended yesterday's losses as a slightly stronger dollar index weighed on prices. The yellow metal brushed a session high of $1258.10 per ounce in early morning pit trade but slipped into the red as the session progressed.
It traded as low as $1248.10 per ounce, its lowest level since June, and settled with a 0.5% loss at $1248.60 per ounce.
Dec silver also retreated into negative territory after touching a session high of $19.08 per ounce in morning action. It eventually settled at $18.92 per ounce, or 0.3% lower.
Oct crude oil touched a session high of$93.68 per barrel as floor trade opened but pulled back as the session progressed. It brushed a session low of $92.52 per barrel and settled at $92.73 per barrel, or 0.1% higher.
Oct natural gas extended yesterday's gains as it rose from a session low of $3.93 per MMBtu. It traded as high as $4.02 per MMBtu and settled with a 2.6% gain at $3.98 per MMBtu.

4:43 pm Diodes sees Q3 revs of $230-238 mln (slightly narrowed from $228-238 mln) vs $234.44 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; narrows Q3 gross profit margin guidance to 31-33% from 29.8-33.8% (DIOD) : Co currently expects third quarter revenue to range between $230 million and $238 million (vs $234.44 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate), or up 3.0 percent to 6.6 percent sequentially, compared to its original guidance of between $228 million and $238 million, or up 2.1 percent to 6.6 percent sequentially. Diodes is increasing its gross profit margin guidance to be 32.0 percent, plus or minus 1 percent, compared to its original guidance of 31.8 percent, plus or minus 2 percent. Diodes is maintaining its guidance for operating expenses to be approximately 21.0 percent of revenue, plus or minus 1 percent, income tax rate to be 22 percent, plus or minus 3 percent and shares used to calculate GAAP earnings per share to be approximately 48.8 million.

4:06 pm Qualcomm extends the benefits of LTE and carrier aggregation to entry-level smartphones and tablets (QCOM) : Qualcomm Technologies extends 3G/4G LTE reach to all Snapdragon processor tiers, expands Reference Design Program and further innovates RF Front-End solutions. The Snapdragon 210 processor and QRD reference tablet are expected to be available in commercial devices in the first half of 2015. The new RF360 front end products are expected to be available in commercial devices in the second half of 2014.

4:02 pm Solar Power announces agreement to acquire 26.57 Megawatts of Solar PV projects in Greece (SOPW) :

Co has entered into an agreement to acquire Sinsin Renewable. SRIL owns solar photovoltaic projects in Greece with an annual nameplate capacity of 26.57 megawatts . Under the terms of the agreement, SPI's subsidiary, SPI China will acquire all of the outstanding capital stock of SRIL from Sinsin Europe Solar Asset and Sinsin Solar Capital for an aggregate purchase price of 70,600,000 Euros (U.S. $91,780,000) using a mixture of cash and SPI shares, including $27.5 million in SPI shares at $0.72 a share, with closing expected in September 2014. Additionally, the agreement contains a provision specifying that Sinsin or its affiliates may appoint SPI and its subsidiaries to provide engineering, procurement and construction services on up to 360 MW of additional solar PV projects that Sinsin intends to invest in and/or develop over the next three years.

2:47 pm Apple confirms Apple Watch-Apple's most personal device ever; to be available in early 2015 for $349, come in varying colors and designs, two sizes, and with wrist vibration notifications; will have Passbook capabilities (AAPL) :

2:47 pm Apple confirms Apple Pay (AAPL) : Co announced Apple Pay works with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus through a NFC (NXPI) antenna design. Apple Pay supports credit and debit cards from the three major payment networks, American Express (AXP), MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V).

2:01 pm Western Digital's HGST extends development agreement with Intel (INTC) for HGST's enterprise-class SAS SSDs (WDC) : Co announced it will extend the use of Intel NAND Flash technology as part of a cooperative agreement with Intel Corporation (INTC) on Serial Attached SCSI solid state drives. Since 2008, HGST has successfully worked with Intel to develop industry-leading enterprise-class SAS SSDs for servers, workstations and storage systems. The resulting products have combined HGST's enterprise storage experience with Intel's NAND Flash expertise, and are the foundation for HGST's leading position in SAS SSDs.

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

Large Cap Gainers

MBLY (58.29 +9.96%): Tgt raised to $65 from $46 at Morgan Stanley.
ECA (23.27 +3.42%): Co sold PrairieSky Royalty stake for CAD2.6 bln, according to reports.
NVO (45.84 +2.37%): Co announced the FDA has published the briefing documents ahead of the Sep 11 2014 Advisory Committee meeting to discuss the NDA for Saxenda, the intended brand name forliraglutide 3 mg for the treatment of obesity.

Large Cap Losers

VIV (21.78 -2.51%): Moody's changed outlook of Brazil's rating to negative from stable; affirms Baa2 government bond rating (CIG also lower).
IRE (16.5 -1.96%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS
.UA (71.2 -2.05%): Favorable mention on Monday's Mad Money.

Mid Cap Gainers

WB (21.7 +7.85%): Initiated with a Buy at T.H. Capital; tgt $24.
THC (62.35 +5.69%): Added to Short-Term Buy list at Deutsche Bank.
HDS (28.52 +4.13%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, beat on revs; guided Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line.

Mid Cap Losers

LDOS (31.9 -15.74%): Missed on EPS by $0.01, beat on revs; guided FY15 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.
PF (32.21 -4.01%): Filed mixed securities shelf offering; announced secondary offering of 15 mln shares of common stock by selling shareholders.
AVP (13.16 -3.66%): Announced resignation of CFO Kimberly Ross; Robert Loughran appointed acting CFO effective Oct 2, 2014; upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BTIG Research; downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup; tgt lowered to $15 from $18.

12:00 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (90) outpacing new lows (66) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABAX, ACT, ADM, ALX, AMBA, BDSI, BHBK, BKS, BURL, CHE, CIO, CMCM, CMRX, CNW, CORE, CTLT, CTP, CVGW, CVTI, CYH, DECK, DFT, ECHO, EEP, ENI, ENPH, EPD, ETE, EW, EXP, FB, FDP, FOLD, FSFG, GD, GFIG, GPRO, HAIN, HCA, HNT, HTLD, ICLR, IESC, INGR, IT, KED, KEX, KINS, LDL, LH, LUV, MBLY, MDT, MDVN, MEP, MSFT, MTSI, NATH, NCS, NFLX, PAA, PBIP, PLOW, PNK, PTCT, RADA, RAIL, SCOK, SPCB, TCP, TEDU, TEP, THC, THRM, TNAV, TRP, UAL, UEPS, UGI, UNH, UTHR, UTSI, VIMC, WIFI, WLP, WOOF, WRE, WWAV, YHOO, YY

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACPW, AGCO, ALXA, AMCC, AMPE, AMZG, AOI, ARNA, ASTM, AXX, BAGL, BAXS, BECN, CACQ, CCSC, CLD, CLRB, CNHI, CNSI, CREE, CTG, CYTX, DLA, DXLG, FI, FRM, FVE, GTE, HGG, HIBB, HLF, I, ICFI, IRG, ISH, ISSC, KEG, KZ, LDOS, LDR, MCD, MCP, MRKT, MXL, NCMI, PERI, PGN, PULS, RIG, RIGL, RLOC, SALE, SHOS, SOQ, SWHC, SZMK, TAC, TITN, TRS, TWI, UBNK, VCRA, VIDE, VIVO, WH, WTSL

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: PPH, UUP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JJA, JJG, RJA, SGG

6:33 am Integrated Device is working closely with Intel (INTC) on the development of wireless charging solutions to accelerate the delivery and adoption of the nascent technology (IDTI) : Co announced at the Intel Developer Forum that it is working closely with Intel (INTC) on the development of wireless charging solutions to accelerate the delivery and adoption of the nascent technology.

The two cos will define, design and manufacture next-generation solutions that comply with the A4WP magnetic resonance standard. The new technology will offer the ability to charge both lower and higher power devices, from wearables and phones to tablets and PCs. The companies expect to have their technology in products in 2015.In addition, co announced completion of OEM and memory supplier qualification of its DDR4 chipset on enterprise servers designed with the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 family. DDR4 RDIMM and LRDIMM modules featuring IDT registers and data buffers are now available from memory suppliers for production shipments on Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 family-based servers.Finisar (FNSR) announced the upgrade of the WaveShaper 16000 to a 4x16 port structure. Designed for R&D applications in advanced optical networking, the enhanced WaveShaper 16000 allows switching and filtering of optical signals with arbitrary amplitude and phase between any input and output port combination.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages posted solid gains ahead of tomorrow's policy directive from the Federal Open Market Committee. The S&P 500 rallied 0.8%, while the Russell 2000 (+0.3%) could not keep pace with the benchmark index.

Equity indices hovered near their flat lines during the first two hours of action, but surged in reaction to reports from the Wall Street Journal concerning tomorrow's FOMC statement. Specifically, Fed watcher Jon Hilsenrath indicated that the statement will once again reflect the Fed's intentions to keep the fed funds rate at the zero bound for a considerable time after quantitative easing is wound down. The report sent the market higher since it contrasted with recent speculation that the Fed would drop the 'considerable time' language from its guidance, thus implying a swifter rate hike.

Furthermore, the late-morning rally was assisted by reports indicating the People's Bank of China will provide CNY500 billion to its top five banks through a Short-term lending facility. This followed a disappointing Foreign Direct Investment report (-1.8%), which dropped to its lowest level in more than four years.

A central bank trifecta was completed after reports from Nikkei revealed that Japan's government plans to lower its economic assessment in the September report due on Friday. The news hinted at a potential move from the Bank of Japan and weighed on the yen.

All ten sectors finished in the green, but only three groups were able to settle ahead of the broader market. Health care (+1.4%) and utilities (+1.2%) were the top-performing countercyclical sectors, while energy (+1.2%) finished ahead of other growth-sensitive groups.

The health care sector padded its third-quarter gain to 5.6% with help from biotechnology as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 270.82, +4.73) rallied 1.8%.

For its part, the energy sector, which endured a rough start to the month, continued this week's outperformance. The sector extended its week-to-date gain to 1.9%, but remains down 3.4% so far in September. Crude oil factored into today's strength, rallying 2.0% to $94.91/bbl. The energy component received some support from a weaker dollar as the Dollar Index slipped 0.3%.

Meanwhile, most of the remaining cyclical groups could not keep up with the market. Interestingly, the technology sector (+0.7%) was among the early laggards, but ended just behind the S&P 500 thanks to a strong showing from chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index advanced 1.7% with Micron (MU 31.45, +1.43) pacing the rally amid Wall Street Journal reports indicating the company may introduce wearable devices. Also of note, shares of Apple (AAPL 100.86, -0.77) were down as much as 2.0% at the start, but narrowed their loss to 0.8% by the end of the day.

Treasuries spent the day in a steady retreat from their early morning highs. The 10-yr note ended flat with its yield at 2.59%.

Participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 630 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while August CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) and Q2 Current Account (expected deficit of $114.50 billion) will be reported at 8:30 ET. The NAHB Housing Market Index for September (consensus 56) will be released at 10:00 ET, while the latest policy statement from the FOMC will cross the wires at 14:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +9.0% YTD
S&P 500 +8.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.9% YTD

DJ30 +100.83 NASDAQ +33.86 SP500 +14.85 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1520/1.74 bln/1292 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1960/632.4 mln/1100 3:30 pm : The dollar index remained in the red in afternoon trading, which helped provide price support to commodities.


Crude oil had a nice run today, gaining over $2/barrel on a steady climb upwards. Oct crude oil finished the day $2.02 to $94.91/barrel
Oct natural gas has a nice run today too, extending yesterday's gains. Oct NG closed 6 cents higher to $3.99/MMBtu
Dec gold rose today by $1.40 to $1236.20/oz, while Dec silver gained $0.11 to $18.73/oz. Dec copper rallied 8 cents to $3.17/lb.

4:06 pm Adobe Systems beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; Q3 cloud subs +502% vs guidance of +1 mln in H2 of 2014 with seq. growth QoQ. (ADBE) : Reports Q3 (Aug) earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues rose 1.0% year/year to $1.01 bln vs the $1.01 bln consensus.

Adobe exited Q3 with 2 million 810 thousand paid Creative Cloud subscriptions, an increase of 502K QoQ vs guidance of +1 mln in H2 of 2014 with seq. growth QoQ. Creative Annualized Recurring Revenue grew to $1.40 billion, and total Digital Media ARR grew to $1.62 billion.
ADBE is expected to guide for the fourth quarter in a presentation shortly.4:06 pm Verizon investing $13.8 mln in new solar projects in N.J. this year, bringing total to more than $34 mln (VZ) :


12:05 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

PBR (17.86 +7.98%): Strength in Brazil ADRs; recent election polls indicate Rousseff is tied with Silva, according to reports (ITUB, BBD, BRFS, VIV also higher).
HUM (132.11 +3.49%): Co announced $2 bln share repurchase authorization.
EPD (40.42 +2.12%): Mentioned favorably on Mad Money.

Large Cap Losers

MPEL (25.73 -4.99%): Macau gaming related names showing weakness following cautious comments from Wells Fargo & escalating Macau worker protests (MGM, LVS, WYNN also lower).
CHU (17.08 -2.37%): Reports indicate that AAPL's iPhone 6 launch in China won't come until next year.
VIPS (195 -0.8%): Announced shareholder approval of the adoption of a dual-class share structure.

Mid Cap Gainers

OIBR (0.73 +11.91%): Trading higher on headlines that Telecom Italia (TI) may acquire the company.
AEO (14.2 +5.42%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at a boutique firm.
P (27.19 +4.9%): Chatter that MSFT may take stake in co.

Mid Cap Losers
WPG (17.12 -7.26%): Co to acquire Glimcher Realty Trust (GRT) for $4.3 bln in stock and cash including the assumption of debt (stock and cash transaction valued at $14.20 per Glimcher common share).
SHLD (31.31 -6.59%): Disclosed $400 million secured short-term loan.
GPRO (64.75 -3.65%): Initiated with a Buy at Cleveland Research; tgt $78.

Cree (CREE) has filed patent infringement lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin to prevent Harvatek and Kingbright from infringing Cree's patented intellectual property. These patents, among other things, protect Cree's LED component portfolio, including Cree's white light LEDs.

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced that its end-to-end 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet interconnect solutions support the recently announced IBTA RoCEv2 specification.

8:38 am American Superconductor provides update on litigation with Sinovel Wind Group; AMSC is seeking ~$450 million in monetary damages (AMSC) : AMSC issued several updates regarding its litigation with Sinovel Wind Group. In the trade secret infringement case, the Beijing Higher People's Court upheld AMSC's position by rejecting Sinovel's appeal to transfer the case to the Beijing Arbitration Commission.

Trade Secret Infringement Case - The Beijing Higher People's Court upheld the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court's ruling that the dispute will be heard by the Beijing Courts separate from the commercial arbitration claims. AMSC is seeking approximately US$450 million in monetary damages in the trade secret infringement case.Trade Secret Infringement Case - On September 15, 2014, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court held its first substantive hearing in the Beijing case. At the hearing, the parties presented evidence, reviewed claims, and answered questions from the court. The Hainan case is expected to be heard in the Hainan court system. AMSC is seeking ~$6 million in monetary damages in the Beijing copyright infringement case and $200,000 in monetary damages in the Hainan copyright infringement case. U.S. Department of Justice Case - In May of 2014, a magistrate judge rejected Sinovel's challenge. Sinovel appealed the decision and in September 2014, the District Judge upheld the decision of the magistrate judge. Sinovel immediately appealed this ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Broadcom (BRCM) announced that SK Broadband has selected Broadcom's Ultra HD SoC technology to power its new B UHD tv set-top box and IPTV services.

Veeco Instruments (VECO) announced that its new Odyssey Ion Beam Deposition Upgrade for the NEXUS IBD-LDD System has repeatedly produced photomask blanks with zero deposition defects larger than 70 nanometers.

AMD (AMD) announced a new collaboration with Canonical that provides a way to deploy an OpenStack private cloud. The solution features the SeaMicro SM15000 server, Ubuntu LTS 14.04 and OpenStack, which includes a set of powerful tools to build one of the most flexible and reliable private clouds.

8:11 am Juniper Networks: BroadSoft (BSFT) selects Juniper Networks to power its global BroadCloud data centers (JNPR) : Co announced that BroadSoft (BSFT) has deployed a comprehensive cloud networking solution across its data centers comprised of Juniper routing, switching and security products, as well as Juniper Networks Support.

5:03 am Canadian Solar announces 1.5 MW solar module supply agreement in Jordan (CSIQ) : Co announces that it has been awarded a module supply agreement to provide 1.5 MW of photovoltaic modules to Kawar Energy for a rooftop solar power project located in a university in Amman, Jordan. Canadian Solar will supply its high efficiency 72 cell CS6X300P modules with power output respectively of 300Wp to this project.

It is tough to keep a stock market addicted to easy monetary policy down when there are reports suggesting that easy monetary policy is going to remain intact. That's essentially what transpired on Tuesday as the S&P 500 information technology sector, which declined 0.6% on Monday, recouped the entirety of that loss and then some. It did so, too, without the help of Apple (AAPL 100.86, -0.77).

Causality for Tuesday's broad market advance was not difficult to pinpoint. It stemmed from a late-morning comment from Wall Street Journal Fed watcher, Jon Hilsenrath, that the Fed may keep its "considerable time" phrase in the newest FOMC directive. The latter is due to be released on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. ET.

The stock market, which has been on edge of late about the possibility of that phrase being removed in an effort to start signaling the prospect of an earlier than expected rate hike, spiked in the wake of that report and didn't really look back for the rest of the day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new record high and the S&P 500 flirted with another close above the 2,000 level. It came up just shy, yet it gained 0.8% for the session. The S&P 500 information technology sector increased 0.7% and effectively executed a near 180 degree turn from Monday's session when 54 of 66 components traded lower. On Tuesday 55 of the 66 components traded higher.

Apple (AAPL 100.86, -0.77) was conspicuously absent from the advance. While the stock finished off its lows, it struggled to gather upside momentum amid reports the launch of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus could be delayed in China until 2015.

Separately, Apple was found to have infringed on some of VirnetX Holding's (VHC 8.30, -6.62) patents; however, VirnetX bore the brunt of that decision. Barron's, citing a Reuters report, said the U.S. Appeals Court vacated a $368.2 million damages award for VirnetX before sending the case back to the lower courts.

Another company taking on Apple's cachet of always being in the news is Alibaba Group (BABA) and it's not even a publicly-traded company -- not yet anyway.

On Friday it will be and its IPO is receiving very strong demand, evidenced by the company's amended F-1 filing last night noting its IPO price range is being raised to $66 to $68 from $60 to $66. That was nothing short of pleasing to hear for Yahoo (YHOO 42.71, +0.16), which has a 23% stake in the company.

Yahoo rose modestly on Tuesday, which belies the enviable fact that it is up almost 20% since August 7.

To be sure, there were a lot of 1.0%+ gainers on Tuesday as the thought of a dovish-sounding Fed dancing in traders' heads and short-covering activity supported the turnaround effort from Monday when many stocks were down more than 1.0%.

Micron Technology (MU 31.45, +1.43) was a case in point. The DRAM maker declined 4.76% on Monday and it gained 4.76% on Tuesday.

Twitter (TWTR 50.83, +1.45) dropped 5.2% on Monday and gained 2.9% on Tuesday. Facebook (FB 76.08, +1.50) fell 3.7% on Monday and gained 2.0% on Tuesday.

The list goes on and on, because the hope that the Fed will continue to sound undoubtedly dovish with its policy directive went on and on in Tuesday's trading.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market finished the Thursday session on a higher note with the S&P 500 climbing 0.5%. The benchmark index registered an early high within the first 90 minutes and inched to a new session best during the final hour of the action.

Equities rallied out of the gate with the financial sector (+1.1%) providing noteworthy support for the second day in a row. The growth-oriented sector extended its September gain to 1.9% versus a more modest uptick of 0.4% for the S&P 500.

Although financials did some heavy lifting, other influential sectors like health care (+0.8%) and technology (+0.7%) also served up a measure of support. The health care sector settled ahead of the broader market, but the biotech group was a reluctant participant in the advance. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 275.07, +2.09) added 0.8%.

For its part, technology rallied amid strength in chipmaker stocks. SanDisk (SNDK 103.22, +3.00) and Skyworks (SWKS 57.80, +1.92) led the charge with gains close to 3.0% apiece, while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index added 1.5% amid upbeat commentary from Topeka Capital Markets.

Elsewhere among influential groups, consumer discretionary (+0.4%) and industrials (+0.4%) lagged in the early going, but finished just behind the broader market. In the discretionary sector, the relative strength of high-growth names like Netflix (NFLX 459.01, +4.48) and Priceline.com (PCLN 1197.20, +23.40) masked the underperformance of homebuilders following today's disappointing Housing Starts/Building Permits report. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 24.01, -0.12) lost 0.5%.

On the downside, energy (-0.5%) and utilities (-0.7%) finished in the red with the energy sector following the price of crude oil, which slid 1.3% to $93.07. As for the sector, the group narrowed its week-to-date gain to 1.0% and widened its quarterly loss to 4.3%.

Treasuries ended flat after surrendering their overnight gains. The 10-yr yield settled at 2.63%.

Participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 660 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Housing Starts/Building Permits, and the Philadelphia Fed Survey:


The latest Initial Claims report revealed a drop to 280,000 from 316,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a more modest decline to 305,000
The reading marked its lowest level since July and aptly supports the view that the weak payroll growth seen in August is likely to be revised higher
Housing Starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 956,000 units in August from a revised 1.117 million units in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decrease to 1.045 million units
Building permits fell to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 998,000 versus a revised 1.057 million for July, while the consensus expected permits to come in at 1.054 million
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for September fell to 22.5 from 28.0, while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected that the Survey would slip to 23.5

Tomorrow, the Leading Indicators report for August (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) will be released at 10:00 ET. In addition, investors will be responding to the results of the independence referendum in Scotland.

Nasdaq Composite +10.0% YTD
S&P 500 +8.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.3% YTD

DJ30 +109.14 NASDAQ +31.24 SP500 +9.79 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1743/1.63 bln/1101 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1862/663.0 mln/1209 3:25 pm :

Precious metals fell in electronic trade yesterday following the FOMC statement which conveyed no changes to the Fed's current policy course. As expected, the FOMC reduced the monthly pace of its asset purchases by $10 bln to $15 bln and maintained the "considerable time" language in its forward guidance.
Dec gold continued to trade lower and fell as low as $1216.30 per ounce in overnight trade, its lowest level since January. It managed to inch slightly higher in late morning action and consolidated near the $1226.00 per ounce level for the remainder of the session. It eventually settled 0.7% lower at $1226.80 per ounce.
Dec silver brushed an overnight low of $18.27 per ounce moments before pit trade opened. It touched a floor session high of $18.62 per ounce and settled with a 1.2% loss at $18.51 per ounce.
Oct crude oil pulled back from its session high of $94.78 per barrel and fell into negative territory shortly after equity markets opened. The energy component continued to trend lower and brushed a session low of $92.85 per barrel before settling with a 1.3% loss at $93.07 per barrel.
Oct natural gas traded as high as $4.03 per MMBtu in early morning action but sold off sharply to a session low of $3.90 per MMBtu following inventory data that showed a build of 90 bcf when a build of 90-93 bcf was anticipated. Unable to regain momentum, it settled at $3.91 per MMBtu, or 2.5% lower.

6:01 pm RF Micro Device and TriQuint (TQNT) announce new company name: Qorvo (RFMD) : Co and TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT) revealed that the holding company under which the companies will combine in a merger of equals will be named Qorvo, Inc. The companies also unveiled the new Qorvo logo and stock trading symbol, which they will begin using immediately upon closing of the merger. Qorvo is expected to be traded on the NASDAQ Global Stock Market under the ticker symbol "QRVO" following closing of the merger.

5:05 pm Advanced Micro and Synopsys expand IP partnership (AMD) : Synopsys (SNPS) and AMD (AMD) announced they have signed a multi-year agreement that gives AMD access to a range of Synopsys DesignWare interface, memory compiler, logic library and analog IP on advanced 16/14-nanometer (nm) and 10-nm FinFET process technologies. Synopsys is also hiring approximately 150 AMD IP R&D engineers and gains access to AMD's leading interface and foundation IP. AMD cost efficiencies from these agreements are contemplated in the company's 2014 quarterly non-GAAP operating expense guidance of approximately $420 million to $450 million.

4:30 pm Texas Instruments raises quarterly dividend to $0.34 from $0.30/sh (TXN) : Co announces it will raise its quarterly cash dividend by 13%, from $0.30 per share to $0.34 per share. The higher dividend will be payable November 17 to stockholders of record on October 31. New annual yield is 2.8%.

12:44 pm Semiconductor Hldrs ETF back hovering just under its session high (SMH) : The SMH set its session high (52.49) mid-morning and paused. In recent trade it has edged back near this level with its multi-year peak from early Sep slightly above at 52.55.

12:06 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ERIC (13.24 +4.66%): Announced it will discontinue future development of modems and shift parts of resources in modems to radio network R&D to better capture growth opportunities in this area.
JD (29.44 +4.77%): Trading higher ahead of Alibaba's (BABA) IPO.
LVLT (47.77 +4.21%): Initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan; tgt $55; upgraded to Buy at DA Davidson; tgt raised to $54 from $50.

Large Cap Losers

CLR (70.14 -7.49%): Guided FY14, FY15 at Analyst Day; 2015 projected y/y production growth of 26-32% over 2014 growth of +27-30%; appointed Jack Start to C.O.O. position and Board of Director.
YHOO (41.68 -2.13%): Volatility ahead of Alibaba's (BABA) IPO; a CNBC report indicated that BABA will price within its expected range of $66-68.
ENDP (66.93 -1.93%): Co may need to raise bid for Auxilium Pharma (AUXL), according to Barron's.

Mid Cap Gainers

PWE (7.64 +8.99%): Co provided results of internal review of accounting practices, filed restated financial statements and confirmed no impact on strategic direction; beat on EPS by CAD0.18, missed on revs; reaffirmed production guidance.
MSCI (48.55 +4.88%): Announced 9lan to return $1 bln to shareholders by 2016; initiated quarterly cash dividend of $0.18/share; increased existing share repurchase authorization to $850 mln from $300 mln, including a $300 mln accelerated share repurchase program.
MBFI (30.03 +3.37%): Upgraded to Buy at DA Davidson; tgt raised to $33 from $31.

Mid Cap Losers
RAD (5.51 -16.94%): Beat on EPS by $0.07, reported revs in-line; lowered FY15 EPS, rev guidance, narrowed comp guidance.
BTU (13.35 -5.92%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman; tgt lowered to $13 from $15.
EPR (52.28 -4.3%): Priced offering of 3.2 mln common shares at $52.25/share.

11:45 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (130) outpacing new lows (103) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABAX, ABT, ACT, ADM, AKAM, ALL, AMBA, AMCF, AMRI, APD, APH, ASML, BANF, BDL, BEP, BK, BKYF, BLT, BRCM, BRK.A, BRK.B, BURL, CALM, CFR, CHDN, CIO, CISAA, CNI, CNSL, CP, CSX, CVTI, ECL, EEP, EEQ, EMKR, ENPH, ENVE, EPIQ, ETP, EW, FCAP, FDP, FFIV, FHN, FLWS, FMNB, FUBC, GBX, GD, GS, H, HCBK, HDS, HIG, HII, IBKR, IDSY, IVZ, JNJ, KEP, KLAC, KNX, KSS, LAWS, LE, LLY, LNBB, LNG, LOGM, LOW, LRCX, MAG, MAR, MDT, MDVN, MHFI, MMC, MO, MS, MSCI, MTB, MTN, NDAQ, NFBK, NHTB, NOK, NTRS, NVGS, NVO, OEC, PBIP, PERY, PJC, PLT, PMCS, PRXL, PTCT, RAIL, RDY, RJF, RWC, RY, SAIA, SBFG, SCHW, SHPG, SHW, SMCI, SNY, STLD, SWIR, SWKS, TEP, TMH, TSQ, TTPH, TUES, UNP, VAC, VDSI, VFC, VIMC, VOYA, WCN, WFC, WLP, WMS, XRS, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACI, ACPW, ACUR, ADGE, AGCO, AKO.B, ALSK, ALXA, ANGI, ANTH, ARQL, AWX, BAXS, BGC, BTU, CACH, CBMX, CDE, CIK, CLD, COCO, CPA, CRRS, CRVP, CTG, CTRL, CYTX, DAEG, DO, DRQ, EBF, ECTE, EDMC, EMXX, ESV, EVV, FF, FI, FMC, FREE, FVE, FWM, GEVO, GGB, GLF, GOMO, GTE, GTXI, HERO, IMN, IRET, ISTR, JIVE, KOSS, MBII, MCHX, MCP, MLAB, MVC, NCT, NE, NL, NXTD, OC, OI, OMEX, ONE, PACD, PGH, PGN, PHMD, PIR, PRSS, RDC, REE, RIG, RNF, RPRX, RTGN, RYAM, SCL, SDT, SGYP, SPKE, STXS, SYT, TAOM, TDW, TLM, TRMR, TRUP, UAN, ULBI, UQM, USU, UVV, VCYT, VHC, VNOM, WLT, WPG, WSO, XUE

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, GULF, IAI, IYF, IYG, IYH, OEF, PPH, SOXX, SPY, UYG, XLB, XLF, XLK, XLV, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DJP, FXY, JJA, JJG, REMX, RJA, SIVR, SLV, SMN

Mantis Vision and Flextronics (FLEX) announced their collaboration and development of the OEM-ready 3D-enabled tablet specifically designed for Dynamic 3D Content Creation, called Aquila. ANADIGICS (ANAD) is shipping production volumes of its AWL9280 and AWL9580S WiFi front-end ICs to LG Electronics in support of the global launch of the LG G3 Beat.
There wasn't a lot of news of note out of the S&P 500 information technology sector on Thursday. Quite frankly, there didn't have to be as market participants basically let central banks do their bidding for them.

A day after the FOMC stayed on its easy policy course, the ECB launched the first phase of its targeted longer-term refinancing operations. The latter was met by some surprisingly tepid demand, which fueled a belief the ECB may ultimately be forced down the path to a full-fledged quantitative easing program.

Most major equity markets around the globe traded higher on Thursday, including the FTSE 100 (+0.6%) in the UK as participants seemed to be frontrunning the likelihood of Scotland voting down its independence movement. That confidence was on display in the British pound, which rose 0.7% against the dollar.

Results of the referendum will be announced later tonight, yet the perspective that "no" means yes for greater certainty in the capital markets acted as an additional underpinning factor for the US market.

The S&P 500 (+0.5%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) both powered to record closing highs, bolstered by a strong showing from the financial (+1.1%) and health care (+0.8%) sectors, as well as the information technology sector (+0.7%).

It was nearly a clean sweep for the technology sector on Thursday. Only six of its 66 components ended the session with a loss and only one of those stocks declined more than 1.0%.

It just so happens that Yahoo (YHOO 42.08, -0.51) was the big loser, which was notable because it came on the eve of the Alibaba Group (BABA) IPO. Yahoo has a 23% ownership stake in BABA and will be monetizing a healthy portion of it when Alibaba comes public in what is expected to be the largest technology IPO ever.

Yahoo, of course, has been on a tear ever since Alibaba made it known it was road-show ready, so it is reasonable to think that Yahoo's weakness on Thursday was driven by an expectation that it could be subject to a sell-the-news response. Separately, there were reports highlighting a Form 4 filing disclosing an option exercise/stock sale by CEO Marissa Mayer, which is part of a pre-arranged trading plan.

The other sector components trading lower were Jabil Circuit (JBL 21.60, -0.04) on no news, Juniper Networks (JNPR 22.79, -0.03) on no news, Red Hat (RHT 60.64, -0.44), which said it is buying enterprise mobile application platform provider FeedHenry for $82 million, Xerox (XRX 13.88, -0.02), which was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research, and Western Union (WU 16.85, -0.10), which was dinged by news the SEC is probing its digital revenue reports.

Otherwise, that was it. Everything else was up.

The semiconductor stocks comprised one of the strongest areas, evidenced by the 1.5% gain in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Every index component traded higher with most gaining between 1% and 3%.

Postscript: After the close, Oracle (ORCL 41.55, +0.41) reported fiscal first quarter earnings of $0.62 per diluted share that were shy of analysts' expectations and announced that Larry Ellison will be stepping down as CEO. Mr. Ellison will hold the roles of Executive Chairman and CTO. Safra Catz and Mark Hurd were appointed to the position of CEO. Shares of ORCL were down 2% in after hours action.

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Companies' Stock Buybacks at Biggest Pace Since 2007

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/michael-shedlock/companies-stock-buybacks-at-biggest

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market finished the Tuesday session on the defensive after spending the entire day in a steady retreat. The S&P 500 (-0.6%) posted its third consecutive decline, while the small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.9%) slipped behind the broader market during afternoon action.

Equity indices were pressured from the start following some overnight developments that weighed on sentiment. The market tried to overcome the early weakness, but could not stage a sustained rebound, which resulted in follow-through selling in the afternoon.

Mixed PMI data from the eurozone combined with an announcement from the U.S. Treasury concerning tax inversion deals factored into the cautious action. Under a new notice released by the Treasury Department, an inverted company is subject to potential adverse tax consequences if, after the transaction: (1) less than 25% of the new multinational entity's business activity is in the home country of the new foreign parent, and (2) the shareholders of the old US parent end up owning at least 60% of the shares of the new foreign parent. The same tax treatment would still apply if 80% or more of the new foreign parent is owned by the US parent company's shareholders.

Fittingly, the news caused early weakness in the health care sector (-0.6%), which has been at the center of recent M&A deals. The sector was able to cut its early loss in half, while Dow component Pfizer (PFE 30.05, -0.13) narrowed its loss to 0.4% by the close. The stock received an afternoon boost after Bloomberg reported the company has approached Actavis (ACT 240.87, +5.25) about a potential acquisition.

Elsewhere among influential sectors, financials (-0.7%) and technology (-0.2%) displayed relative strength at the start, but only the tech sector was able to end near its flat line. The top-weighted component, Apple (AAPL 102.64, +1.58), did some heavy lifting, while other influential names like Facebook (FB 78.29, +1.49) and Google (GOOGL 591.18, -6.09) ended mixed.

Outside of technology, the energy sector (-0.3%) was the only other cyclical outperformer, while crude oil rose 0.7% to $91.55/bbl. The other commodity-related sector-materials (-0.6%)-ended in line with the market.

Also of note, the industrial sector (-0.8%) struggled amid weakness in defense and transport stocks. The PHLX Defense Index lost 1.2% and the Dow Jones Transportation Average fell 0.8%.

The daylong retreat contributed to increased demand for volatility protection that sent the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.87, +1.18) to its highest level in five weeks.

Treasuries ended on their highs with the 10-yr yield down four basis points at 2.53%.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages with roughly 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the July Housing Price Index from the FHFA, which rose 0.1% to follow a revised increase of 0.3% (from 0.4%) observed during the prior month.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while New Home Sales for August (Briefing.com consensus 435K) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +8.0% YTD
S&P 500 +7.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.8% YTD

DJ30 -116.81 NASDAQ -19.00 SP500 -11.52 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 822/1.70 bln/1946 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 892/703.1 mln/2187 3:30 pm : Nov crude oil rose for the first time in five sessions as the U.S. and Arab allies launched missile strikes in Syria on the Islamic State. The energy component lifted from its session low of $90.77 per barrel and traded as high as $92.09 per barrel before settling with a 0.7% gain at $91.55 per barrel.

Oct natural gas rose as high as $3.90 per MMBtu in morning action but gave up the early gain as it fell into negative territory later in the session. It settled 0.8 lower at $3.82 per MMBtu, just above its session low of $3.81 per MMBtu.

Dec gold pulled back from a session high of $1231.30 per ounce set at pit trade open and brushed a session low of $1220.50 per ounce. It then traded in a consolidative pattern near the $1222 per ounce level for the remainder of the session and settled with a 0.3% gain at $1222.10 per ounce.

Dec silver chopped around near the unchanged line for most of today's floor trade. It touched a session high of $17.84 per ounce in early morning action and eventually settled with a 0.1% gain at $17.78 per ounce.

4:52 pm SolarCity launches $500 mln convertible senior notes offering (SCTY) : Co announced that it intends to offer and sell, subject to market and other conditions, $500 million aggregate principal amount of its Convertible Senior Notes due 2019. The Company expects to use (i) a portion of the net proceeds of this offering for the cost of the capped call transactions described below and (ii) the remaining net proceeds for general corporate purposes, including working capital, capital expenditures and potential acquisitions.

12:24 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MBLY (52.73 +6.4%): Mentioned favorably on Mad Money.
SLXP (168.55 +5.46%): Allergan (AGN) plans to reject offer from Actavis (ACT) and may now bid for SLXP itself, according to reports; CNBC's David Faber reported AGN and SLXP have just started discussions regarding price; tgt raised to $181 from $154 at Cantor Fitzgerald.
CF (272.51 +6.54%): Yara ASA confirmed discussions with CF regarding potential merger of equals.

Large Cap Losers

KMX (47.95 -9.2%): Reported Q2 earnings of $0.70 per share (including a $0.06 benefit), may not be comparable to $0.67 est, revs in-line.
AZN (71.83 -3.8%): Select Tax Inversion related names showing weakness - Treasury announced first steps to reduce tax benefits of corporate inversions; said 'today's action eliminates certain techniques inverted companies currently use to gain tax-free access to the deferred earnings of a foreign subsidiary (MDT, SNN, COV, SHPG also lower).

Mid Cap Gainers

GPRO (72.37 +6.01%): Mentioned favorably on Mad Money.
AEO (14.82 +4.92%): Co's Interim CEO bought 148,942 shares at $14.10 worth ~$2.1 mln.
SPB (88.81 +3.11%): Co to acquire Procter & Gamble's (PG) European pet food business.

Mid Cap Losers

ASNA (13.86 -16.15%): Missed on EPS by $0.05, missed on revs; guided FY15 EPS below consensus; Telsey Advisory Group lowered its ASNA tgt to $16 from $18; Oppenheimer lowered its ASNA tgt to $19 from $22; target lowered to $17 from $21 at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey.
HCLP (55.31 -6.71%): Unfavorable mention on Mad Money.
BBRY (10.49 -4.05%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Speculative Buy at Cormark; tgt $11.50.

11:51 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (197) outpacing new highs (24) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AMBA, BDL, CCL, CF, CNSL, DRC, EMKR, FISH, GPRO, KT, MSON, NRIM, OABC, PFSW, PRXL, PSBH, PTCT, PW, SKM, SLXP, SPB, STRP, TTPH, UTHR

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABCO, ACI, ADNC, AGCO, AHPI, AKAO, ALCS, ALE, ALG, ALOG, ALSK, ALXA, AMDA, AMRN, ARTW, ASNA, ASTM, AVHI, AXU, AXX, B, BABA, BAXS, BBSI, BCOV, BEBE, BECN, BGC, BH, BID, BIOD, BPI, BXE, CACH, CACQ, CASS, CBMX, CBNK, CCG, CCS, CHOP, CHS, CIEN, CIK, CLNE, CLNT, CNHI, COOL, CPA, CPST, CRR, CTT, CVGI, CWST, CYD, DCOM, DDE, EC, ECR, ECT, EDMC, EGLE, ELSE, EMMS, EPM, ERA, ETN, EVC, EVV, EXEL, EXXI, FELE, FHCO, FLO, FLR, FLY, FMC, FMD, FRO, GES, GIG, GLF, GOV, GTE, GTXI, GTY, GUID, HDNG, HERO, HMNY, ICEL, IIVI, IMPR, IMRS, INNL, IOSP, IRET, IRG, JE, JIVE, KBR, KEG, KIPS, KRA, LEDS, LZB, MAT, MCP, MDGN, MDR, MEIL, MFG, MHR, MLAB, MOSY, MTL, MVC, MZOR, NCI, NCT, NEON, NGS, NGVC, NL, NM, NMIH, OC, ODC, OI, OII, OIIM, OMN, ONCY, OPXA, PACD, PDII, PER, PERI, PHMD, PICO, PIR, PLPM, PRGN, QRM, RBC, RDC, RFIL, RGDO, RGR, RIG, RLOC, RNDY, ROG, RRST, RSO, RVLT, SALT, SANW, SCL, SDT, SEAC, SHOS, SIR, SNTA, SOQ, SPKE, SPU, STRM, SUTR, SVBL, SWHC, SWSH, SZYM, TERP, TGA, TGB, THRX, TLM, TRIB, TTMI, TUP, UAN, UFPT, USU, UTI, VIAB, VNOM, VOC, VOLC, VPCO, VTG, WAC, WSO, XCO, XIN, XUE, ZIOP

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: HYD, NIB

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWO, FUD, JJG, REMX, UHN, URA

9:01 am NXP Semi will supply Delphi Automotive (DLPH) with its RoadLINK chipset for Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communication (NXPI) : NXP supplies Delphi with RoadLINK technology enabling cars to securely connect with one another and with traffic infrastructure.

For the second consecutive session, the US stock market got hit with broad-based selling interest and it was the Russell 2000 (-0.8%) that bore the brunt of the losses. In the last two sessions, the Russell 2000 has declined 2.4% whereas the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 have declined 1.3%, 1.6%, and 1.4%, respectively, over the same period.

The weak price action comes on the heels of the S&P 500 hitting a record high last Friday, suggesting it may be a function of profit taking by fund managers looking to protect nice-looking performance records going into quarter end.

The prevailing narrative, though, is that it is a function of global growth concerns that have triggered increased selling interest predicated on the belief the stock market got ahead of itself with its late-summer rally.

On Tuesday every sector ended the day lower.

Two points worth mentioning for our purposes here are: (1) there wasn't a fire-sale mentality as no sector declined at least 1.0% and (2) the information technology sector was the "best-performing" sector with a decline of 0.2%.

Market watchers can thank Apple (AAPL 102.64, +1.58) for the sector's relative strength. Its largest and most influential component gained 1.6% in a trade that probably had more to do with its aura as a "safe" stock in downtrodden market times than anything else. Apple did, however, shoot down speculation from Monday that it might shut down Beats Music.

Facebook (FB 78.29, +1.49), Micron (MU 31.20, +0.60), and Yahoo (YHOO 39.05, +0.40) were three other notable names to rise above the fray.

The Wall Street Journal cited reports Tuesday morning that said Facebook is planning to introduce a new ad platform; Micron benefited from upbeat views about its third earnings prospects from the analyst at Credit Suisse, and Yahoo rebounded from Monday's 5.6% decline on no news of note.

A day after reports swirled that EMC Corp. (EMC 29.85, +0.17) may be exploring strategic alternatives, Bloomberg reported in its real M&A column that EMC may need to buy Tableau Software (DATA 70.91, -1.16) or Fortinet (FTNT 25.51, -0.57) to increase growth; meanwhile Re Code reported that any interest Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 35.79, -0.68) might have in EMC is really related to the company's stake in VMWare (VMW 95.60, -0.56).

Google (GOOG 581.13, -6.24), Microsoft (MSFT 46.56, -0.50), Oracle (ORCL 38.83, -0.75), Cisco (CSCO 24.70, -0.27), Corning (GLW 19.94, -0.29), and Applied Materials (AMAT 21.63, -0.31) all dropped more than 1.0% and acted as an offset to the strength seen in many of the names mentioned above.

Google was under pressure after a Wall Street Journal article suggested the company may need to improve its search settlement or face more charges. Microsoft confirmed it will release Xbox One in China on September 29. Oracle, Cisco, and Corning fell on no news of note while AMAT dropped in the wake of new provisions instituted by the Treasury Department to curtail tax inversions for all deals closed on or after September 22. AMAT has a merger agreement pending with Japanese company Tokyo Electron Limited.

Elsewhere, several of the Chinese Internet stocks bounced back on Tuesday, including Dangdang (DANG 12.71, +0.40), which was a big loser on Monday.

China's e-commerce leader, Alibaba Group (BABA 87.17, -2.72), continued to back up after its record-setting IPO on Friday that arguably got this week's profit-taking ball rolling on the belief that IPO marked a near-term peak in the market.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 26-Sep-14Dow +167.35 at 17113.15, Nasdaq +45.45 at 4512.19, S&P +16.86 at 1982.85

Equity indices finished a cautious week on an upbeat note. The S&P 500 (+0.9%) and Nasdaq (+1.0%) reclaimed their 50-day moving averages, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.0%) was able to turn positive for the month (+0.1%). However, today's rally did not feature the same conviction as yesterday with just fewer than 620 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor versus Thursday's above-average total of 720 million.

The stock market received an early boost from heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (+1.1%) and technology (+1.2%) sectors. Both groups were underpinned by better than expected earnings with discretionary shares rallying behind Nike (NKE 89.50, +9.75), which surged 12.2%.

Elsewhere, the technology sector drew strength from chipmakers following an earnings beat from Micron (MU 33.84, +2.14). The stock jumped 6.8%, while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 1.3% to narrow its September loss to 0.3%. To be sure, large cap components also displayed strength with Apple (AAPL 100.75, +2.88) spiking nearly 3.0%.

Stocks were briefly pressured from their morning highs by the underperforming health care sector (+0.3%). The group could not catch up to the broader market amid weakness in hospital names like Tenet Healthcare (THC 60.75, -1.09), but biotechnology rallied with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 276.41, +2.44) advancing 0.9%.

The relative weakness in the health care space did not stand in the market's way during afternoon action as other influential groups like financials (+0.9%), industrials (+0.9%), and energy (+1.3%) picked up the slack. In the financial sector, Janus Capital (JNS 15.89, +4.78) soared 43.0% after it was announced Bill Gross will be joining the company following his departure from PIMCO.

For its part, the energy sector rebounded from its recent underperformance amid a 1.1% rise in crude oil. The energy component ended the pit session at $93.55/bbl to register a 2.2% gain for the week.

Treasuries slumped in the morning, but the rest of the session saw a divergence among different maturities. The 10-yr note settled near its low with its yield up three basis points at 2.53%, while the long bond returned to its flat line with its yield at 3.22%.

Also of note, the Dollar Index (85.63, +0.43) continued charging higher to extend this week's gain to 1.1%. The index will enter the final two sessions of the month after surging 3.6% so far in September.

On Monday, Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and Spending (consensus 0.4%) data for August will be reported at 8:30 ET alongside core PCE Prices (expected 0.0%). The day's data will be topped off with the Pending Home Sales report for August (consensus -0.2%).

Week in Review: Stocks Endure Broad Retreat

The stock market began the trading week on the defensive note with small-cap stocks pacing the retreat. The Russell 2000 (-1.4%) and Nasdaq Composite (-1.1%) displayed relative weakness, while the S&P 500 lost 0.8% with all ten sectors ending in the red. Global equities began showing some cracks overnight after China's Finance Minister Lou Jiwei poured cold water on hopes for new stimulus measures. Specifically, Mr. Lou said the government has no plans to change policies despite the recent string of disappointing data. A somewhat similar hawkish tone was conveyed by comments from Japan's Economy Minister Akira Amari, who said his country's government remains on track to implement another consumption tax hike.

Stocks finished the Tuesday session on the defensive after spending the entire day in a steady retreat. The S&P 500 (-0.6%) posted its third consecutive decline, while the small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.9%) slipped behind the broader market during afternoon action. Equity indices were pressured from the start following some overnight developments that weighed on sentiment. The market tried to overcome the early weakness, but could not stage a sustained rebound, which resulted in follow-through selling in the afternoon. Mixed PMI data from the eurozone combined with an announcement from the U.S. Treasury concerning tax inversion deals factored into the cautious action. Fittingly, the news caused early weakness in the health care sector (-0.6%), which has been at the center of recent M&A deals. The sector was able to cut its early loss in half.

The stock market ended the midweek session on an upbeat note despite enduring a shaky start to the day. The S&P 500 rose 0.8% with nine sectors posting gains, while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%) outperformed. Equity indices spent the initial 90 minutes of action near their flat lines with the S&P 500 briefly pressured to its 50-day moving average (1976.58) by the early weakness in the energy sector (+0.04%). The growth-sensitive group was down in excess of 1.0% in the early going, but charged into positive territory during afternoon action. Crude oil went along for the afternoon ride, climbing 1.6% to $93.03/bbl. The test of the 50-day moving average invited dip buyers into the fold, while the relative strength of high-beta areas like biotechnology and chipmakers emboldened their efforts. Furthermore, a well-timed report from the Wall Street Journal indicating China may replace the People's Bank of China Governor Zhou with someone more dovish provided an added measure of support.

Equities endured a broad-based retreat on Thursday that pressured the Nasdaq (-1.9%) and the S&P 500 (-1.6%) below their 50-day moving averages, while the Dow (-1.5%) notched a session low just above that mark. All ten sectors were encompassed in the slide with eight groups posting losses of 1.0% or more. The indices began the day with modest losses and continued heading lower through the first 90 minutes of the session. Interestingly, dip-buyers showed very little interest in getting involved, which resulted in new session lows during the afternoon. The reluctance to step into the fold was driven in part by the lack of notable leadership. To that point, all six cyclical sectors ended in-line or behind the S&P 500 with high-beta areas like biotechnology and chipmakers finishing among the laggards. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF and the PHLX Semiconductor Index both lost 1.9%.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week   Change  % Change	YTD % 
 DJIA	     17279.74	  17113.15   -166.59	-1.0	3.2 
 Nasdaq	      4579.79	   4512.19    -67.60	-1.5	8.0 
 S&P 500	2010.40	   1982.85    -27.55	-1.4	7.3 
 Russell 2000  1146.92	   1119.33    -27.59	-2.4   -3.8

4:49 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology:CNQR (126.78 +17.46%)
Services:GPRO (82.1 +22.58%),RENT (60.87 +12.62%),WTW (27.64 +10.8%)
Industrial Goods:DRC (82.61 +12.73%),NES (15.9 +10.81%)
Healthcare:OTIC (26.58 +19.22%),ACOR (35.62 +16.83%),XLRN (28.74 +16.03%),IG (9.23 +14.43%),VRTX (113.6 +13.28%),TTOO (18 +11.41%),PTCT (46.34 +10.9%),TTPH (19.85 +10.3%),AGIO (63.76 +9.91%)
Financial:GDOT (22.27 +12.19%)
Consumer Goods:CXDC (5.88 +10.63%)Basic Materials:SIAL (136.77 +31.13%),CAK (0.56 +14.58%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology:ENPH (14.51 -19.42%),INVN (19.93 -17.22%),KN (27.33 -15.84%)
Services:NM (5.85 -23.07%),ASNA (13.61 -21.62%),SFXE (5 -19.41%),SALT (6.11 -18.87%),VLCCF (9.15 -17.77%),DRYS (2.54 -16.11%)
Industrial Goods:GTI (4.45 -34.3%),TRS (24.95 -16.94%),BGC (16.52 -16.82%)
Healthcare:RLYP (20.77 -15.75%)
Basic Materials:CRR (63.89 -30.39%),CLF (10.94 -23.07%),ANR (2.36 -22.61%),XCO (3.76 -19.28%),ACI (2.09 -18.49%),GDP (15.33 -15.67%),FUL (38.67 -15.46%)

3:32 pm Earnings Preview for the week of September 29 - October 3 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of September 29 - October 3 some of the bigger names include:

Monday: Pre Market - FGP, CALM, CMNAfter Hours - SNX, CTAS
Tuesday: Pre Market - WAG
Wednesday: Pre Market - AYI, AZZ
Thursday: Pre Market - STZ, MKC, GPN, ATUAfter Hours - RECN

12:22 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

NKE (88.37 +10.81%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.21 ($1.09 vs $0.88 estimate), revs rose 14.5% yoy to $7.98 bln vs $7.78 bln estimate; sees Q2 and FY15 rev growth in low double digits; sees Q2 EPS growth in the high teens and FY15 EPS growth of ~20%; upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Janney
MU (33.53 +5.77%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.82 ex items vs $0.81 estimate), revs rose 48.7% yoy to $4.23 bln vs $4.15 bln estimate; gross margin 32.7% vs 34.3% in prior quarter; sees Q1 revs of $4.45-4.70 bln vs $4.34 bln estimate; target raised at Wells Fargo, Piper Jaffray, and Needham
TTM (44.38 +3.50%): Strengh in Indian companies folllowing S&P revision of India outlook to Stable from Negative, retings affirmed at BBB-/A-3

Large Cap Losers

MRK (58.6 -1.74%): Received approval for NOXAFIL (posaconazole) 300 mg Concetrate for Solution for Infusion from the European Medicines Agency
MAT (30.63 -1.84%): Estimates for 2016 lowered at Needham following loss of license to sell certain Disney Princess toys to rival Hasbro (HAS)
VALE (11.15 -1.46%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup, target lowered to $12.50 from $15

Mid Cap Gainers

JNS (14.82 +33.39%): Bill Gross to join the company to manage a recently launched Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund and related strategies
ATHM (42.24 +5.48%): Morgan Stanley disclosed a 5.3% passive stake in a 13G filing
BBRY (10.25 +4.59%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.14 (-$0.02 ex items vs -$0.16 estimate), revs fell 41.8% yoy to $916 mln vs $941.65 mln estimate; co continues to anticipate maintaining its strong cash position, while increasingly looking for opportunities to prudently invest in growth

Mid Cap Losers
SHLD (24.5 -4.52%): NYPost reporting that Sears Canada division is preparing for bankruptcy following the departure of CEO Douglas C. Campbell
STWD (21.98 -3.38%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Compass Point
ATU (31.39 -2.76%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at FBR Capital, target lowered to $35 from $40

11:56 am Stock indices slightly extend slip off first hour highs but continue lateral chop -- S&P +3.4, Nasdaq Comp +13, Dow +55 (:TECHX) :

11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (196) outpacing new highs (35) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AGIO, CHDX, CHKE, CMSB, CNSL, CQB, CVGW, CVTI, FCAP, GPRO, GTIM, HAWK, HPJ, IG, JACK, JNS, LB, LM, LTS, MFSF, MO, NAII, NATH, NJ, NKE, NVTL, OVAS, PW, RLGT, SHPG, SPB, STRP, TTPH, VRTX, WNS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACRE, ACRX, ACUR, ADNC, ADUS, ALCS, ALE, ALG, ALOG, ALTI, AMCO, AMDA, AMRN, APRI, ARCC, ARP, ATU, AUY, AVD, AVP, BCO, BCOV, BECN, BGC, BGI, BGS, BHP, BRC, BTU, BXE, CA, CBDE, CBNK, CCG, CCO, CCXI, CDNA, CEQP, CERE, CHEF, CHS, CIEN, CIK, CLD, CLF, CLRX, COOL, CPA, CPST, CRR, CRVL, CSG, CTCM, CTT, CVG, CVO, CYD, CYTK, CYTX, DARA, DCIX, DCOM, DGII, DWSN, EC, ECT, EGHT, ELSE, EOPN, ESBF, ESP, ESV, ETRM, EVV, EXEL, EXXI, FALC, FHCO, FLO, FMC, FMI, FNSR, FRO, FST, FTF, FWM, GEF, GFA, GGB, GIGM, GLDD, GLF, GOV, GTI, GTY, GVP, HEI, HELI, HMY, HOG, HOS, ICEL, IRC, IRET, ISSC, JE, JEC, KGC, KING, KIPS, KWK, LPI, LRN, LXP, MAN, MAT, MCF, MDU, MDWD, MOV, MTH, MTL, MVC, NAME, NCI, NCT, NDRO, NE, NMIH, NPK, NTLS, NVGN, OC, ODC, OI, OII, OMN, ONCY, ONE, ONP, OSK, OTTR, OZM, PCL, PDII, PERI, PGH, PLG, PLPM, POWL, PRGN, PRGX, PULS, PWE, RAVN, RBC, RBCN, RFIL, RLOC, RNF, RPXC, RRC, RSO, RVLT, RXII, SCHN, SD, SDRL, SIR, SKYW, SNOW, SOQ, SSD, STNG, SUTR, SYT, SZMK, TCK, TGH, TMHC, TWER, USAP, USU, VALE, VCYT, VIAB, VLTC, VNR, WAC, WIRE, WMK, WTI, XCO, XIN, XUE, ZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: UUP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWO, FXE, FXF, FXY, HYG, JJG, KOL, PPLT, URA

JA Solar (JASO) achieved 20% solar energy conversion efficiency in its multi-crystalline silicon solar cell.

8:00 am 21Vianet and Microsoft (MSFT) announce WebDirect payment services for Windows Azure services in China (VNET) : Theo co and Microsoft (MSFT) announced that Windows Azure services' WebDirect payment services are now available to all customers in China. Customers can purchase public cloud services at international standards directly from the 21Vianet official website. In contrast to traditional offline purchase models, the self-serviced WebDirect model will greatly simplify the contract signing, purchasing, and payment processes.

7:09 am BlackBerry beats by $0.14, misses on revs; reports recognized hardware revenue on ~2.1 mln smartphones (BBRY) : Reports Q2 (Aug) loss of $0.02 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.16); revenues fell 41.8% year/year to $916 mln vs the $941.65 mln consensus with Non-GAAP gross margin of 47.5%.

Co recognized hardware revenue on ~2.1 million BlackBerry smartphones versus ests of 1.6 mln ests and 3.7 mln last year. During the second quarter, ~2.4 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers.

The EZ Pass Program has resulted in a total of 3.4 million licenses issued for BES10. Co reported 91 million monthly active BBM users, up from 85 million in the prior quarter.Co says workforce restructuring is now complete.

Outlook: The Company continues to anticipate maintaining its strong cash position, while increasingly looking for opportunities to prudently invest in growth. The Company continues to target break-even cash flow results by the end of fiscal 2015. .

7:04 am Trina Solar selected to supply 11.7 MW of modules to customers' ground-mounted solar PV plants in Turkey and Ecuador (TSL) : Co announced it was selected to supply 11.7 MW of modules to customers' ground-mounted solar PV plants in the emerging solar markets of Turkey and Ecuador.

The solar plant located in the Antalya region of Turkey is expected to have a total capacity of 5.8 MW and will utilize 23,650 Trina Solar TSM-PC14 300W 72 cell modules. The facilities in Ecuador are expected to have a total capacity of 5.9 MW and will utilize 9,193 of Trina Solar's premium TSM-PC05A 250W 60-cell Honey modules.

Micron (MU 31.70) target raised to $40 from $37 at ROTH Capital -- Color on Q likely to follow

3:18 am Intel and Tsinghua Unigroup collaborate to accelerate development and adoption of Intel-based mobile devices (INTC) : Intel Corporation and Tsinghua Unigroup, a solely state-owned limited liability corporation funded by Tsinghua University in China, jointly announce that both parties have signed a series of agreements.

The purpose of the agreements is to expand the product offerings and adoption for Intel-based mobile devices in China and worldwide by jointly developing Intel Architecture and communications-based solutions for mobile phones. Intel also has agreed to invest up to RMB 9 billion (about $1.5 billion) for a minority stake of ~20% of the holding company under Tsinghua Unigroup which will own Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics

All of the fear and loathing over Thursday's sell-off was seemingly put to rest on Friday as the major indices all bounced back with relative ease. Granted they didn't recoup all that was lost on Thursday, yet they never dealt with any serious selling pressure from the sound of the opening bell.

The basis for the broad-based rally, which saw the information technology sector (+1.2%), assume a leadership position, was as indeterminate as the reasons were for Thursday's drubbing.

Basically, what transpired was an almost equal and opposite reaction to the negative items that got floated on Thursday. To that end, some of the explanations provided for Friday's advance included:

The stabilizing influence of better than expected quarterly results and forecasts from Nike (NKE 89.50, +9.75) and Micron (MU 33.83, +2.13)The seeming ease with which Apple (AAPL 100.75, +2.88) and other leadership stocks have come back from yesterday's sellingThe ability of the S&P 500 to reclaim a posture back above its 50-day moving averageThe resilience of the buy-the-dip tradeThe Russell 2000 recovering from recent lossesUnderperforming fund managers chasing the opportunity to pick up stocks at lower prices after Thursday's selling; andStandard & Poor's restoring an investment grade credit rating for General Motors (GM 33.17, +0.30) Recall that only two stocks in the information technology sector gained ground on Thursday. On Friday, there were only six stocks that lost ground.

Similar to what transpired throughout the week, Apple and Yahoo (YHOO 40.66, +1.71) were focal points.

Apple didn't bounce on any real news of note, although it did garner some support from Stifel, which raised its FY15 EPS and revenue estimates based on higher iPhone and average selling price estimates.

Yahoo for its part caught a bid after Starboard announced it has acquired a significant stake in Yahoo and said it thinks a deal with AOL (AOL 44.58, +1.58) could result in up to $1 billion of synergies. There was chatter all week that Yahoo was going to start feeling the pressure from activist investors to bolster shareholder value.

Micron was a big mover following its better than expected fourth quarter results and reassuring guidance. Its gain helped drive a 1.3% jump in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index in what was a generally good day for most semiconductor stocks.

Outside the sector, Blackberry (BBRY 10.26, +0.46) was another big percentage mover. The company reported its second quarter results before the open. They left plenty to be desired considering Blackberry posted a loss of $0.02 per share on a 42% decline in revenue. Still, the results were better than feared and that most likely helped drive some short-covering activity that aided in its move.

The rest of the story, as radio legend Paul Harvey was fond of saying, was a good story for the technology sector as many stocks, like Facebook (FB 78.79, +1.57), Cisco (CSCO 25.00, +0.46), eBay (52.93, +0.78), and SanDisk (SNDK 99.21, +2.22), took a nice joyride to end the week.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market began the new week on a cautious note. The S&P 500 lost 0.3%, but managed to erase more than half of its opening decline. Thanks to the rebound, the benchmark index reclaimed its 50-day moving average (1976.78) after slipping below that level in the morning.

Equities slumped at the open amid a couple global developments that dampened the overall risk appetite. Continued student protests in Hong Kong and a potential response from China weighed on the Hang Seng index (-1.9%), while other regional indices held up relatively well with Japan's Nikkei (+0.5%) and the Shanghai Composite (+0.4%) posting gains.

Meanwhile in Europe, participants showed concerns about the Catalan independence referendum scheduled to take place on November 9. Over the weekend, the regional government outlined an official referendum plan despite pushback from national leaders. Spanish debt sold off on the developments with the 10-yr yield climbing four basis points to 2.22%. Another twist was introduced to the story during the afternoon when the Spanish Constitutional Court announced it will block the independence vote.

The overseas developments contributed to a lower start, but the key indices wasted little time in staging a rebound. The S&P 500 narrowed its loss to just five points during the initial 90 minutes of action and held its ground until the close.

In large part, the technology sector (-0.1%) was responsible for the rebound with chipmakers displaying relative strength. Intel (INTC 34.90, +0.64) surged 1.9% after announcing a partnership with Mitsubishi Electric to create next generation factory automation systems, while the PHLX Semiconductor Index climbed 0.1%.

Outside of Intel, most large cap sector components struggled to keep pace with the broader market. Facebook (FB 79.00, +0.21) and Microsoft (MSFT 46.44, +0.03) settled just above their flat lines, while Apple (AAPL 100.11, -0.64), Qualcomm (QCOM 74.82, -0.24), and Oracle (ORCL 38.44, -0.51) lagged.

The technology sector was the only group able to overtake the broader market, while the remaining five cyclical sectors ended behind the S&P 500. Notably, the energy space (-0.4%) widened its September loss to 6.5% and extended its Q3 decline to 8.0%.

Elsewhere, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.6%) lagged amid weakness in carmakers after Ford (F 15.11, -1.22) said it projects a pre-tax loss of $250 million for its European unit in 2015. The stock plunged 7.5%, while peer General Motors (GM 32.22, -0.95) lost 2.9%. Homebuilders also lagged despite lower Treasury yields. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 22.77, -0.16) lost 0.7%.

Although things were relatively quiet on the corporate front, M&A activity made some headlines. On that note, TIBCO Software (TIBX 23.65, +4.14) surged 21.2% after agreeing to be acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $24.00 per share, representing a 26.3% premium to the closing price on September 23. Separately, Athlon Energy (ATHL 58.32, +11.59) spiked 24.8% in reaction to news that Encana (ECA 21.59, +0.46) will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of ATHL for $58.50/share. Lastly, DreamWorks Animation (DWA 28.18, +5.82) jumped 26.0% amid speculation the company could be acquired by Softbank (SFTBY 35.24, -1.14).

Treasuries ended near their highs with the 10-yr yield falling six basis points to 2.48%.

Participation was below average with fewer than 640 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Personal Income/Spending and Pending Home Sales for August:


Personal income increased 0.3% in August, up from an unrevised 0.2% increase in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
The August employment report showed a 0.4% increase in aggregate earnings, which matched the 0.4% increase in wages and salaries
Personal spending levels increased 0.5% in August after no change in spending (from -0.1%) in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase 0.4%
Big gains in motor vehicle sales were a primary catalyst for a 0.4% increase in goods spending
Services spending rose 0.5% after reporting no change in July
Core PCE prices rose 0.1%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an unchanged reading
Pending home sales for August fell 1.0%, which was worse than the 0.2% decrease forecast by the Briefing.com consensus o The July reading was revised down to 3.2% from 3.3%

Tomorrow, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for July (Briefing.com consensus 7.4%) will be released at 9:00 ET, while the Chicago PMI for September (consensus 61.5) will cross the wires at 9:45 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the Consumer Confidence report for September (expected 92.0).

Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 +7.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.9% YTD

12:29 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

NI (41.05 +6.40%): Co announced plans to separate into two publicly traded companies
GPRO (87.32 +6.36%): Target raised to $90 from $60 at Piper Jaffray; co introduced HERO4, a line of high performance capture devices
ECA (21.66 +2.51%): To acquire all of the issued and oustanding shares of common stock at Athlon (ATHL) by means of an all-cash tender offer of $58.50 per share, or $5.93 bln; transaction said to be highly accretive to co's long-term cash flow per share projections

Large Cap Losers

PBR (14.85 -9.78%): Weakness in Brazilian stocks as recent poll shows incumbent president Dilma Rousseff has a small lead: BBD, ITUB, CBD, UGP also lower
LVS (60.14 -2.90%): Weakness in resort and casino stocks on reports of potential weakness in China due to a crackdown against corruption:
WYNN, MPEL, MGM also lowerDISCA (37.99 -2.59%): Q3 estimates lowered at Needham

Mid Cap Gainers

ATHL (58.22 +24.6%): To be acquired by Encana (ECA) through an all-cash tender offer for $58.50 per share, or $5.93 bln
TIBX (23.59 +20.91%): To be acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $24 per share in cash; INFA higher in sympathy
SUNE (20.3 +4.67%): Announced that it confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 to the SEC relating to the proposed initial public offering of the common stock of a yieldco vehicle focused on contracted clean power generation assets in attractive, high growth, emerging markets, primarily in Asia (excluding Japan) and Africa

Mid Cap Losers
CVEO (13.85 -45.63%): Co confirmed it will continue as a corporation and redomicile in Canada; confirmed Q3 guidance; sees Q4 revs of $200-210 mln vs $248 mln estimate
SGEN (39.05 -5.61%): Co reported results from Phase 3 AETHERA trial of ADCETRIS (brentuximab vedotin) as consolidation therapy immediately following an autologous stem cell transplantation; trial met primary endpoint, weakness attributed to expectation that trial would be successful
JNS (15.22 -4.22%): Reversal following strong gains seen on hiring of Bill Gross to manage a recently launched Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund and related strategies

12:28 pm Intel names Cisco (CSCO) cybersecurity veteran Christopher Young as Intel Security sr VP and mgr; previously was Cisco senior vice president of the global Security and Government Group (INTC) :

11:45 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (233) outpacing new highs (42) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AGIO, AGN, AMBA, ATHL, BAGL, BRCD, CHD, CHDX, CNC, CNET, CVGW, CVTI, FARM, FB, FCAP, FDX, GPRO, HAWK, IMDZ, JACK, LMT, LTS, MNK, MSON, MU, NI, NKE, NVTL, OTIC, PFSW, PII, PTEK, RCPT, RDUS, RLGT, RVSB, SHW, TREE, TTPH, TUES, VRTX, WLDN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAN, ABIO, ABX, ACI, ACST, ACXM, ADNC, ADTN, ADUS, AFL, AKAO, ALB, ALE, ALG, ALOG, ALTI, ALU, AMRN, ANGI, ANR, APRI, ARCC, AREX, ASC, AUDC, AUY, AVD, AVH, AVP, AXU, B, BBL, BBRG, BCO, BCOR, BCOV, BGC, BHP, BID, BIO, BIOC, BIOD, BLDR, BLIN, BNFT, BNSO, BRC, BRN, BTU, CA, CACQ, CCG, CCSC, CCXI, CDE, CEQP, CERE, CIDM, CIEN, CIK, CLD, CLF, COOL, CPA, CRR, CTCM, CVEO, CVG, CYNI, DARA, DDE, DEO, DEST, DF, DO, DRNA, DRQ, DWSN, EC, ECT, EDAP, EGLT, ELGX, ELRC, EMITF, EMMS, END, ENZY, EOPN, ESBF, ESP, EXXI, FBNK, FELE, FFIN, FHCO, FI, FLO, FMC, FMI, FNGN, FNSR, FRED, FST, FTF, FWM, GEF, GEVO, GFA, GGB, GLDD, GLF, GLPI, GNCA, GRAM, GTI, GURE, HDNG, HEI, HOG, HOS, HY, IAG, IIVI, IKGH, IOSP, IRG, ISSC, JIVE, KBR, KGC, KIPS, KOP, KORS, KTWO, KWK, KZ, LAYN, LDR, LFL, LTRPA, LUK, MAN, MAT, MBII, MCF, MDR, MFG, MFLX, MOV, MTH, MTL, MVC, NAME, NE, NTLS, NTN, OC, OI, OMN, ONCY, ONP, OSK, OZM, PBY, PERI, PHMD, PKE, PLG, PRGN, PSUN, PULS, PWE, QIHU, RAVN, RBC, RBCN, RCPI, REE, REPH, RLOC, RNF, ROG, RRST, RST, RWT, SALE, SC, SCHN, SD, SEAC, SFXE, SINA, SIR, SKYW, SNTA, SSD, STNG, SUNS, SVA, TACT, TCK, TDW, TEX, TGH, THRX, TLM, TMHC, TRGT, TRIB, TRS, TUP, TWI, USAP, USU, VALE, VCYT, VIAB, VIP, VIVO, VLTC, VOLC, WABC, WAIR, WGA, WLT, WMK, XCO, XONE, XTLB, XUE, ZA, ZAZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BJK, EWO, EWQ, GREK, HYG, KOL, REMX, URA

11:26 am Cadence Design and ARM (ARMH) expand SoC design collaboration with new multi-year technology access agreement (CDNS) :

Expanding upon the EDA Technology Access Agreement signed in May 2014, this new agreement gives Cadence rights to access to existing and future ARM Cortex processors, ARM Mali GPUs, ARM CoreLink System IP, ARM Artisan physical IP, and ARM POP IP. This partnership enables ARM and Cadence to continue providing customers with advanced low-power and high-performance system-on-chip (SoC) design solutions for markets including next-generation mobile, consumer, networking, storage, automotive and IoT.ARM (ARMH) and Cadence (CDNS) tannounced an expanded collaboration for IoT and wearable devices targeting TSMC's (TSM) ultra-low power technology platform.

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced that its CloudX reference architecture for building efficient cloud platforms is now supported with Oracle (ORCL) OpenStack for Oracle Linux, in addition to Oracle VM.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market finished the third quarter on a cautious note with small caps leading the retreat. The S&P 500 shed 0.3% to narrow its Q3 gain to 0.6%, while the Russell 2000 (-1.5%) widened its quarterly loss to 7.9%.

Equity indices endured another volatile affair after the S&P 500 alternated between gains and losses during the past five trading days. Today's retreat represented the second consecutive decline for the benchmark index, which registered a September loss of 1.6%.

The benchmark index displayed modest strength in the early going with help from influential sectors like technology (+0.2%), financials (-0.2%), and industrials (-0.1%). The three cyclical groups helped the S&P 500 climb to a late morning high at 1985.18, but the index spent the next two hours in a steady retreat.

The slide from highs took place amid significant weakness in the two commodity-related sectors. Most notably, the energy space (-1.2%) widened its Q3 loss to 9.2% and was pressured by a 3.6% decline in crude oil. The energy component finished the pit session at $91.16/bbl, which represented a 13.6% loss for the quarter.

Similarly, the materials sector (-1.2%) stumbled in reaction to sliding prices of metals. Silver plunged 2.9% to $16.85/ozt, while gold (-0.6% to $1211.40/ozt) and copper (-1.6% to $3.01/lb) held up a bit better.

Also weighing on commodities was the continued strength of the Dollar Index, which added 0.4% to book a 3.9% gain for the month and an even more impressive 7.8% surge for the third quarter.

On the upside, the technology sector (+0.2%) finished ahead of the remaining cyclical groups and helped the S&P 500 trim its loss into the close. Large cap components displayed strength with Apple (AAPL 100.75, +0.64), Cisco Systems (CSCO 25.17, +0.24), and Visa (V 213.37, +2.44) climbing between 0.6% and 1.2%. Meanwhile, chipmakers traded alongside small-cap stocks as evidenced by a 0.9% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Likewise, the high-beta biotechnology group underperformed, causing the health care sector (-0.6%) to finish behind the other three countercyclical sectors. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 273.63, -2.43) lost 0.9%.

Treasuries registered losses after spending the entire session in the red. The 10-yr note fell seven ticks to send its yield higher by three basis points to 2.50%.

Today's participation was ahead of average with more than 910 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Chicago PMI, Consumer Confidence, and the Case-Shiller 20-City Index:


The Chicago PMI fell to 60.5 in September from 64.3 in August, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 61.5
Even though the PMI dropped more than expected, the current reading is far from a disappointment. Levels have remained above 60 for five of the past six months, and readings above 60 are generally considered too strong for long-term stability
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 86.0 in September from an upwardly revised 93.4 (from 92.4), while the Briefing.com consensus expected a fall to 92.0
This was the lowest reading in the Consumer Confidence Index since May
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for July rose 8.1%, while a 7.4% increase had been expected by the Briefing.com consensus
The reading followed June's increase of 8.1%

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET, while ADP Employment Change for September (Briefing.com consensus 202K) will be released at 8:15 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the ISM Index for September (consensus 58.5) and the Construction Spending report for August (consensus 0.4%).

Nasdaq Composite +7.6% YTD
S&P 500 +6.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.3% YTD

DJ30 -28.32 NASDAQ -12.46 SP500 -5.51 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 839/1.95 bln/1908 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1146/925.7 mln/1946

3:30 pm : The commodities space was mostly weaker today as the dollar index traded higher and the quarter came to an end.

Dec gold touched a session high of $1220.70 per ounce in morning action but quickly retreated back into negative territory. Earlier in overnight trade, the yellow metal fell as low as $1204.30 per ounce, its lowest level since early January. It managed to erase some of the losses as it headed into the close and settled 0.6% lower at $1211.40 per ounce, booking a loss of 8.4% for the quarter.

Dec silver slid to $16.85 per ounce in early afternoon pit trade, its lowest level since February 2010. It recovered back above $17 per ounce later in the session and settled with a 2.9% loss at $17.07 per ounce, declining 19.1% over the quarter.

Nov crude oil fell below the $91 per barrel level today after pulling back from a session high of $94.85 per barrel set moments after pit trade opened. The energy component traded as low as $90.86 per barrel while the dollar index held gains. Unable to find buying support, it settled 3.6% lower at $91.16 per barrel, booking a loss of 11.5% for the quarter.

Nov natural gas also retreated into negative territory after touching a session high of $4.17 per MMBtu in early morning action. It settled 0.5% lower at $4.12 per MMBtu, bringing losses for the quarter to 7.6%.

5:40 pm SunEdison announces closing of $50 million debt financing arrangement; proceeds will finance construction of a SUNE owned 23.8 megawatt (MW) DC solar power plant in Southern Jordan (SUNE) : Co announced the closing of a $50 million debt financing arrangement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

The debt proceeds will be used to finance the construction of a SunEdison owned 23.8 megawatt (MW) DC solar power plant in the Ma'an Governate, in Southern Jordan.Construction will begin in Q4 2014 and interconnection is expected to take place in Q3 of 2015.

2:05 pm Infosys extends relationship with Oracle (ORCL) to enhance support for a range of solutions and services on new technology platforms (INFY) : Co announced that it is extending its relationship with Oracle (ORCL) to enhance support for a range of innovative solutions and services on new technology platforms.

These platforms will enable enterprises to use Oracle products to reshape their business and create new innovation ecosystems.Infosys and Oracle will expand their relationship across digital marketing, big data and Oracle Cloud Applications, underpinned by investments from Infosys in Oracle technology.

2:03 pm Microsoft confirms Windows 10; company gives first look at Windows 10, highlighting enterprise advancements and open collaboration (MSFT) : Co unveiled its next Windows operating system, Windows 10, and gave a first look at an early technical preview for the PC available Oct. 1.

The company also introduced the Windows Insider Program, kicking off its largest-ever open collaborative development effort to change the way Windows is built and delivered to best meet the needs of customers. Program participants will receive the technical preview of Windows 10 and a steady stream of builds through the development cycle to use and give feedback on.
Technical updates:
Expanded start menu, apps that run in a window, snap enhancements, new task view button, multiple desktops

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

Large Cap Gainers

EBAY (56.55 +7.39%): Co to separate eBay and PayPal into independent publicly traded companies in 2015; expects tax-free spin-off in 2H2015; Dan Schulman will be President of PayPal, effective immediately; Devin Wenig will become CEO of the new eBay co; reconfirmed Q3 guidance; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity.
WFM (38.53 +2.58%): Heard takeover chatter making the rounds.
CP (210.45 +2.58%): Co amended share repurchase program from 5,270,374 common shares to 12,650,862 common shares.

Large Cap Losers

LPL (15.92 -3.52%): Downgraded to Sell from Outperform at Credit Agricole.
PBR (14.25 -3.06%): Brazil ADRs trading lower on continued concerns ahead of Presidential Elections Oct 5th.
LYB (110.34 -2.61%): Announced that CEO James L. Gallogly will retire in early 2015.

Mid Cap Gainers

TK (66.81 +14.48%): Co adopted new dividend policy; intends to increase dividend by 75-80% with future increases linked to growing cash flows from two MLP subsidiaries; upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank; tgt raised to $90 from $68.
CENX (26.23 +9.91%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
CTAS (71.39 +8.25%): Beat on EPS by $0.04, reported revs in-line; adjusted FY15 guidance; tgt raised to $68 at RBC Capital Mkts.

Mid Cap Losers

CNW (48.07 -4.01%): Confirmed plans to increase pay for Con-way Freight drivers system-wide.
SGEN (36.85 -4.01%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
IRM (32.65 -3.69%): Recall Holdings (RCLHF) confirmed that it is not in discussions with IRM or any other potential buyer.

12:06 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (217) outpacing new highs (55) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AMAG, AMBA, AMBR, ANET, APT, BBLU, BSTC, CP, CQB, CTAS, CVGW, CVTI, DUK, EIGI, ESPR, ETP, FARM, FB, FDX, FNHC, GPRO, GTIM, HAWK, ICLR, IG, INTU, JACK, KNX, LMT, MACK, MAS, MFSF, MGPI, MO, MOVE, MSON, MYCC, NAII, NI, NSC, NVTL, OVAS, PFSW, PTEK, SEMI, SMCI, SNCR, SONA, STRP, TK, TREE, TTPH, VIMC, VRNT, WLDN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAN, ABX, ACRE, ACXM, ADNC, ADTN, AG, ALB, ALSK, ALTI, ALU, AMCO, ANGI, ATU, AUDC, AUY, AVD, AVL, AXLL, AXN, AXU, B, BAA, BAMM, BBL, BEBE, BHP, BIOC, BNFT, BRC, BRN, BSI, CA, CACQ, CALL, CASS, CCSC, CDE, CEF, CIEN, CIK, CLF, CLNE, COOL, CRCM, CRR, CRS, CVD, CVEO, CVO, CYD, DDE, DEST, DF, DO, DWSN, EDAP, EGLT, ELSE, EMITF, EOPN, ERA, ERII, ESP, ESV, ETN, EXXI, FF, FFIN, FLR, FMC, FNSR, FOSL, FRED, GBIM, GES, GEVO, GFA, GGB, GLDD, GLPI, GLT, GMO, GSK, GURE, HCAP, HL, HMNY, HMY, HOG, HOS, HOV, IAG, ICFI, IMMR, IMRS, INNL, ISSC, IVC, JEC, KBH, KBR, KEG, KGC, KN, KOP, KVHI, KZ, LFL, LRN, LTRPA, LUK, LVS, MAN, MAT, MBT, MCF, MDC, MDRX, MEA, MEIL, MELA, MFG, MGCD, MGI, MM, MOV, MPEL, MRKT, MTH, MVC, NAUH, NE, NGVC, NM, NTLS, OC, OGXI, OI, OMN, ONCY, ONP, OREX, OSK, OZM, PACD, PBY, PDFS, PDII, PERI, PGH, PGN, PHMD, PIR, PKE, PLG, POWL, PRGN, PULS, QIHU, QSII, RAVN, RBC, RIG, RLOC, RNF, RPXC, RWT, RXII, SANW, SCL, SD, SHOS, SID, SINA, SIR, SKYW, SMRT, SNTA, SOHU, SOQ, SPRT, SUNS, SVA, SYT, SYUT, TAC, TCK, TEAR, TEU, TEX, THRX, TMHC, TPH, TRIB, TRK, TRS, TTMI, TUP, TWI, TX, USAP, UVV, VALE, VIP, VTG, WGA, WGO, WPP, WPRT, WTI, WTSL, XCO, XONE, XTLB, ZA, ZEP

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: PPH, UUP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BJK, BNO, BWX, DBC, EWO, FXE, FXF, FXY, GSG, JJG, REMX, SIVR, SLV

10:49 am Cadence Design and ARM (ARMH) expand collaboration for IoT and wearable device applications targeting TSMC's (:TMS) ultra-low power technology platform (CDNS) : Co and ARM (ARMH) announced an expanded collaboration for IoT and wearable devices targeting TSMC's (TSM) ultra-low power technology platform. The collaboration will enable the rapid development of IoT and wearable devices by optimizing the system integration of ARM IP and Cadence's integrated flow for mixed-signal design and verification, and their low-power design and verification flow.

Analyst comments: ARMH -2.1% (downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein),

MLNX +3.3% (upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray),RMBS +2.8% (attributed to positive Jefferies comments suggesting RMBS as Apple Pay beneficiary)

HP (HPQ) announced two ARM (ARMH) based servers, including the first enterprise-class 64-bit ARM-based server, for customers that value choice in their compute strategy. Additionally, HP is making available a production-ready platform to enable software developers to develop, test and port applications to the 64-bit ARM-based server.

TSMC (TSM) and ARM (ARMH) announced the results from a key FinFET silicon validation of the ARM big.LITTLETM implementation, using ARM Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 processors on TSMC's advanced 16nm FinFET process technology.

29 am Apple iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus available in China on Friday, October 17 (AAPL) : Apple (AAPL) announced that iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available in China beginning Friday, October 17 from the Apple Online Store, Apple's retail stores, and an expansive network of retail stores through all three major carriers and Apple Authorized Resellers.

That's it. The third quarter of 2014 is over.

It will go down as a winning quarter for the information technology sector, which soared 4.3% versus a more modest 0.6% gain for the S&P 500.

The significant outperformance can be attributed in large part to Apple (AAPL 101.50, +1.39), which gained 8.6%. Fittingly, Apple, which said the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available in China on October 17, ended Tuesday on a winning note that helped the sector (+0.2%) outperform the S&P 500 (-0.3%).

IBM (IBM 189.83, +0.19) posted a small gain that also helped. The company announced a three-year extension to its IT infrastructure management services agreement with AmerisourceBergen (ABC 77.30, -0.33).

The story stock of the day, though, was eBay (EBAY 56.63, +3.97). It gained 7.5% after the company announced its plan to separate eBay and PayPal into two separate publicly traded companies in 2015.

The decision to do so was a complete 180 by the Board of Directors, which said in March that, "...taking them apart would destroy value by reducing their considerable synergies." Apparently, the changing competitive landscape that got mowed over recently by Apple Pay forced the change in position that activist investor Carl Icahn thought was necessary back in March.

In any event, shareholders responded favorably to the news and the perception that the two companies -- but particularly PayPal -- will do better as stand-alone companies.

eBay was the biggest percentage gainer in the sector on Tuesday followed by Computer Sciences (CSC 61.15, +1.53), which gained 2.5% on the back of a Raymond James upgrade to Outperform from Market Perform, and Accenture (ACN 81.32, +1.40), which increased 1.8% after Credit Agricole started the stock with an Outperform rating and the company said AIG had selected it to transform AIG's software platform.

TE Connectivity (TEL 55.29, -2.58) was the sector's biggest loser. It dropped 4.5% on heavy volume and no news.

In other developments, Microsoft (MSFT 46.36, -0.08) unveiled its newest operating system, Windows 10, skipping the Windows 9 labeling altogether to reflect the number of changes it has made.

A primary aim of Windows 10 is to have an OS that improves the user experience across all devices. The messaging was good, yet Microsoft's stock, which shot up 11% in the third quarter, took a breather.

A basket of stocks that not only took a breather, but were left gasping for air were the Chinese Internet stocks.

Continued unrest in Hong Kong and disappointing economic data out of China pressured the group. Leading the losses were Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU 67.47, -3.15), YY, Inc. (YY 74.89, -2.93), Weibo (WB 18.68, -0.52), and Sohu (SOHU 50.23, -1.32).

Alibaba Group (BABA 88.85, +0.10) rose above the China-related weakness and finished the day with a small gain, helped we suspect by some window dressing by fund managers at the end of the quarter. BABA, though, ended well below its intraday high of 90.88.

New quarter starts tomorrow. Despite all my concerns it should be an up day. RtS

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market began October and the fourth quarter on a defensive note. The major averages spent the day in a steady decline with the Nasdaq Composite leading the slide. The tech-heavy index lost 1.6%, while the S&P 500 (-1.3%) sliced through its 100-day moving average (1958) with nine sectors ending in the red.

Equities were pressured from the start with a disappointing set of Manufacturing PMI figures from the eurozone weighing on sentiment. The region-wide reading slipped to 50.3 (expected 50.5) and was driven in part by Germany's decline to 49.9 from 50.3 (consensus 50.3).

Once the U.S. session got going, the key indices slumped amid early weakness in the industrial sector (-1.9%). In turn, the growth-sensitive group suffered from notable losses in airlines, stemming from concerns about the first case of Ebola in the United States. Delta Air Lines (DAL 34.90, -1.25) and Southwest (LUV 32.55, -1.22) both lost near 3.5%, while the Dow Jones Transportation Average tumbled 2.5%.

Elsewhere, the financial sector (-1.2%) was the only cyclical group that ended ahead of the broader market, but its outperformance hardly qualified as "strength."

Meanwhile, the top-weighted sector-technology (-1.6%)-suffered from weakness among high-growth areas like chipmakers and social media stocks. All 30 components of the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-2.4%) ended in the red with Skyworks (SWKS 53.31, -4.74) registering the largest decline. The stock sank 8.2% amid concerns about slowing 4G smartphone demand in China.

As for social media names, Facebook (FB 76.56, -2.48) slumped 3.1%, while LinkedIn (LNKD 203.08, -4.71), Twitter (TWTR 50.06, -1.52), and Yelp (YELP 67.11, -1.14) lost between 1.7% and 3.0%.

While most cyclical groups spent the entire day in the red, the energy sector (-1.9%) made a brief appearance in the green. The short-lived advance took place during a late morning rally in crude oil futures. The energy component was up as much as 2.0%, but slumped into the close to end lower by 0.4% at $90.75/bbl.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-linked sector-materials-ended at the bottom of the leaderboard despite an uptick in mining shares. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 21.40, +0.04) tacked on 0.2% as gold futures added 0.3% ($1215.40/ozt) and silver futures rallied 1.2% ($17.27/ozt). However, chemical producers struggled after Mosaic (MOS 43.23, -1.18) issued a disappointing forecast.

Unlike the cyclical sectors, the four countercyclical groups ended ahead of the broader market. Health care (-1.0%) was able to finish ahead of the S&P 500 even as biotechnology lagged with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 269.43, -4.20) surrendering 1.5%.

On the upside, the utilities sector (+0.5%) spent the day in the green to extend this week's gain to 1.3%. The outperformance of the rate-sensitive sector resulted from its defensive nature and a drop in long-term rates, while a 1.4% gain in Exelon (EXC 34.57, +0.48) provided added support. Shares of EXC advanced after being upgraded to 'Buy' at ISI Group.

Treasuries climbed throughout the session with the 10-yr note registering a 27-tick gain. The benchmark yield fell ten basis points to 2.40%.

Today's sell off saw above-average participation as more than 845 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Economic data included Construction Spending, ISM Index, ADP Employment Survey, and the MBA Mortgage Index:


Construction spending fell 0.8% in August after increasing a downwardly revised 1.2% (from 1.8%) in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%
Private construction spending fell 0.8% in August, nearly giving back its entire 0.9% increase from July
Public construction spending fell 0.9% in August after increasing 2.1% in July
The ISM Manufacturing Index fell to 56.6 in September from 59.0 in August, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a drop to 58.5
Most of the regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys showed solid gains in September, which contrasted with the pullback recorded in the national index
The Backlog of Orders Index contracted, falling from 52.5 in August to 47.0 in September, while the New Orders Index dropped to 60.0 from 66.7
The ADP National Employment Report revealed that employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose 213K in September, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 202K
The August reading was revised down to 202,000 from 204,000
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index slipped 0.2% to follow last week's decline of 4.1%

Tomorrow, the Challenger Job Cuts report for September will be released at 7:30 ET, while weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 297K) and Factory Orders for August (consensus -9.3%) will be released at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +5.9% YTD
S&P 500 +5.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.6% YTD

12:34 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

EXC (35.29 +3.52%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at ISI Group, target raised to $39 from $33; NRG Energy (NRG) also upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at ISI Group, target raised to $40 from $34
GM (32.83 +2.79%): September US sales rose 19% to 223,437 vehicles; co provided long term guidance: expects to achieve EBIT-adjusted margins of 10% in 2016 in North America, expects to return to profitability in Europe in 2016, expects that its joint ventures will maintain net income margins in the 9% to 10% range
GG (23.44 +1.78%): Strength in large cap gold companies: ABX, NEM also higher

Large Cap Losers

PBR (13.48 -5.00%): Continued weakness in Brazilian stocks as recent poll shows support for incumbent president Dilma Rousseff:
BBD, ITUB, UGP, BBDO also lower
HTZ (24.16 -4.84%): Continued weakness in sympathy with Avis Budget (CAR); yesterday Avis warned it may be unable to achieve high end of projected FY14 EBITDA range of $860-910 mln
DAL (35.1 -2.90%): Weakness in large cap airline stocks on concerns that Ebola outbreak will lower demand for travel: AAL, UAL also lower

Mid Cap Gainers

AYI (132.38 +12.46%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.04 ($1.26 vs $1.22 estimate), revs rose 15.3% yoy to $668.7 mln vs $648.65 mln estimate
BWC (29.68 +7.19%): Co announced its Board is evaluating the separation of the Company's Power Generation Business and Government & Nuclear Operations Business into two publicly traded companies
RAX (33.34 +2.43%): Trading higher on rumors of renewed M&A speculation

Mid Cap Losers

GSAT (2.54 -30.6%): Trading lower on rumors that a negative report on the company will soon be published
CAR (51.76 -5.71%): Yesterday co warned it may be unable to achieve high end of projected FY14 EBITDA range of $860-910 mln
TRN (44.24 -5.31%): Jim Cramer warned that railcare companies may be unable to meet earnings expectations: GBX and ARII also lower

11:53 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (47) outpacing new highs (4) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ATHL, DUK, ETP, KO

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, AFL, AGCO, ALB, ALU, ASNA, AVP, BABA, BHP, CBI, CBS, CREE, CZZ, DAR, DISCA, DNR, ETN, FLR, FMC, FULT, GSK, HOG, JMEI, KBR, KN, L, LUK, LXP, MBT, MRC, MT, OI, ORI, PGH, PWE, QIHU, RIG, SBS, SDRL, SID, SINA, SWN, TEX, TPH, VIAB, YOKU, ZNGA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: UUP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: PPLT, REMX, RJA, URA, XME

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 21 stocks made 52 week highs and 383 stocks made 52 week lows.

10:02 am JDS Uniphase: Sandell Asset Management releases letter to the Board of Directors; proposes strategic review to maximize value, estimates potential company value between $19-$26 per share (JDSU) : Sandell notes its belief that the company must commence a formal auction of its CCOP business. Furthermore, Sandell notes its belief that the JDSU current stock price reflects next to no value for the company's substantial tax assets, which as of June 28 include federal, state, and foreign tax net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $6.1 billion, $1.8 billion, and $1.0 billion, respectively, which constitutes a tax-effected book value in excess of $2.3 billion. Sandell estimates the potential value of the company's various business segments as well as these tax assets at between $19 and $26 per share. Furthermore, Sandell details its submission of a shareholder proposal requesting that the Board task its financial advisors to evaluate further strategic alternatives, in addition to the previously announced proposed spin-off of its CCOP business, to maximize the value of the Company's various business segments as well as its substantial tax assets in a timely manner. The text of the letter is as follows:

9:14 am Trina Solar prices offering of 10,333,785 ADSs, each representing 50 ordinary shares, 2,504,000 of which are being offered and sold by the co and 7,829,785 of which the co will loan to affiliates of the underwriters of the co's concurrent offering of convertible senior notes (TSL) :

The co also priced the concurrent offering of $100 million in aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2019.In connection with the Notes Offering, co has entered into ADS lending agreements with the ADS Borrowers, pursuant to which co will lend 7,829,785 borrowed ADSs to the ADS Borrowers. 4,996,000 of the borrowed ADSs have been initially offered at $11.75 per ADS in this offering of ADSs, and the remaining borrowed ADSs will be subsequently sold at prevailing market prices at the time of sale or at negotiated prices.

7:32 am SunEdison announces its most advanced polysilicon is now in production; plant will be operating at full capacity by 1Q15 (SUNE) : Co announced that its most advanced polysilicon technology was now in production and on target to produce solar material at the lowest cost in the world. This achievement represents a step-change in technology and will enable SunEdison to deliver a 400 watt peak solar panel at a cost of $0.40 per watt peak by 2016. The capacity of the Korean plant was originally designed for 10,000 metric tons (MT) per year but has been enhanced to 13,500 MT. The plant will be operating at full capacity in the first quarter of 2015.

6:43 am Taiwan Semi and ARM (ARMH) announced FinFET silicon with 64-bit ARM big.LITTLE technology (TSM) : Cos announced the results from a key FinFET silicon validation of the ARM (ARMH) big.LITTLETM implementation, using ARM Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 processors on TSMC's advanced 16nm FinFET process technology.

Ongoing collaborative efforts are focused on TSMC's 16FF+ process technology which will deliver an additional 11% gain in performance for the Cortex-A57 at the same power as the 16FF process, along with a further 35% power reduction for the Cortex-A53 when running low-intensity applications.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 03-Oct-14Dow +208.64 at 17009.69, Nasdaq +45.43 at 4475.62, S&P +21.73 at 1967.90

The major averages finished a defensive week on an upbeat note. The S&P 500 gained 1.1% with nine sectors ending in the green. The rally helped the benchmark index narrow this week's decline to 0.8% after being down near 3.0% at its lowest point on Thursday.

Equities received a morning boost after the Nonfarm Payrolls report for September sailed past expectations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, payrolls grew by 248,000, which was well ahead of the Briefing.com consensus estimate (210,000). The unemployment rate fell to 5.9% from 6.1%, but that resulted from a drop in the labor force participation rate.

The strong report underpinned equities and sent the Dollar Index (86.66, +1.06) to a fresh four-year high. The greenback strength weighed on commodities, resulting in a 1.4% drop in crude oil ($89.76/bbl) and a 1.8% decline in gold futures ($1192.90/ozt). The losses in the commodity space pressured the two commodity-related sectors, while the remaining cyclical groups posted gains of 0.8% or more.

Meanwhile, the energy sector (unch) underperformed throughout the session and was down near 1.0% during morning action. The growth-sensitive sector was able to return to its flat line, but could not avoid registering a 3.8% decline for the week.

Similarly, the materials sector (+0.3%) ended the week in-line with energy amid pressure from miners and steelmakers. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 20.63, -0.99) fell 4.6%, while the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 42.83, -0.84) tumbled 1.9% with Cliffs Natural Resources (CLF 8.32, -1.68) pacing the slide. The steel company plunged 16.8% following a Nomura downgrade to 'Reduce' from 'Buy.'

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, consumer discretionary (+1.3%) and financials (+1.5%) displayed strength throughout the session, while the technology sector (+0.8%) ended a bit behind the market. The top-weighted sector component-Apple (AAPL 99.62, -0.28)-acted as a drag, while chipmakers could not keep up with the market either. The PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.6%, but registered a 3.1% loss for the week.

The underperformance of chipmakers did not reflect the strength in other high-beta areas. The Dow Jones Transportation Average surged 2.1% back to unchanged for the week, while biotech stocks sent the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 275.33, +6.74) higher by 2.5%. Conversely, the health care sector (+2.0%) spent the entire session in the lead. Shares of Mylan Labs (MYL 50.23, +3.73) contributed to the strength after the company raised its guidance.

Treasuries slumped following the jobs data, but returned to their early morning levels by the close. The 10-yr note shed four ticks, adding one basis point to its yield (2.44%), while the long bond posted a modest gain, lowering its yield by one basis point to 3.13%.

Today's participation was ahead of average with more than 796 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data included Nonfarm Payrolls, Trade Balance, and ISM Services:

Nonfarm payrolls added 248,000 jobs in September following an upwardly revised 180,000 (from 142,000) gain in August, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 210,000
Stripping out government jobs, private payrolls added 236,000 jobs in September (consensus 205,000) after adding an upwardly revised 175,000 (from 134,000) in August
The hourly workweek ticked up to 34.6 hours from 34.5 hours and hourly earnings growth was flat
While the unemployment rate fell to 5.9% from 6.1%, which easily beat consensus expectations of 6.1%, much of the gain came from the 97,000 person decline in the labor force. Had the participation rate remained at August levels, the unemployment rate would have remained at 6.1%
The U.S. trade deficit fell to $40.10 billion in August from a downwardly revised $40.30 billion (from $40.50 billion) in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to $40.90 billion
The goods deficit increased to $59.90 billion in August from $59.80 billion in July and the services surplus increased to $19.80 billion from $19.50 billion
The ISM Non-manufacturing Index fell to 58.6 in September from 59.6 in August, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a drop to 58.9
Even though the index declined in September, the trends show robust economic growth with both business activities/production (62.9 from 65.0) and new orders (61.0 from 63.8) remaining above 60

There is no economic data on Monday's schedule.

Week in Review: Stocks Slide as Q3 Ends

The stock market began the new week on a cautious note. The S&P 500 lost 0.3%, but managed to erase more than half of its opening decline. Thanks to the rebound, the benchmark index reclaimed its 50-day moving average (1976.78) after slipping below that level in the morning. Equities slumped at the open amid a couple global developments that dampened the overall risk appetite. Continued student protests in Hong Kong and a potential response from China weighed on the Hang Seng index (-1.9%), while other regional indices held up relatively well with Japan's Nikkei (+0.5%) and the Shanghai Composite (+0.4%) posting gains. Meanwhile in Europe, participants showed concerns about the Catalan independence referendum scheduled to take place on November 9. However, a twist was introduced to the story during the afternoon when the Spanish Constitutional Court announced it will block the independence vote.

On Tuesday, the market finished the third quarter on a defensive note with small caps leading the retreat. The S&P 500 shed 0.3% to narrow its Q3 gain to 0.6%, while the Russell 2000 (-1.5%) widened its quarterly loss to 7.9%. The retreat represented the second consecutive decline for the benchmark index, which registered a September loss of 1.6%. The S&P 500 displayed modest strength in the early going with help from influential sectors like technology (+0.2%), financials (-0.2%), and industrials (-0.1%), but slid from highs amid significant weakness in the two commodity-related sectors. Most notably, the energy space (-1.2%) widened its Q3 loss to 9.2% and was pressured by a 3.6% decline in crude oil, which fell to $91.16/bbl, registering a 13.6% loss for the quarter.

The stock market began October and the fourth quarter with a retreat. The major averages spent the day in a steady decline with the Nasdaq Composite leading the slide. The tech-heavy index lost 1.6%, while the S&P 500 (-1.3%) sliced through its 100-day moving average (1958) with nine sectors ending in the red. Equities were pressured from the start with a disappointing set of Manufacturing PMI figures from the eurozone weighing on sentiment. The region-wide reading slipped to 50.3 (expected 50.5) and was driven in part by Germany's decline to 49.9 from 50.3 (consensus 50.3). Once the U.S. session got going, the key indices slumped amid early weakness in the industrial sector (-1.9%). In turn, the growth-sensitive group suffered from notable losses in airlines, stemming from concerns about the first case of Ebola in the United States. Delta Air Lines (DAL) and Southwest Airlines (LUV) both lost near 3.5%, while the Dow Jones Transportation Average tumbled 2.5%.

The major averages ended the Thursday session on a flat note despite showing broad-based weakness in the early going. The S&P 500 ended unchanged with four sectors in the green. Equity indices started the day near their flat lines, but commenced their retreat once European Central Bank President Mario Draghi concluded his press conference without providing much detail about the central bank's ABS purchases. Furthermore, Mr. Draghi did not hint at plans for sovereign bond purchases, which had been the subject of conversation in recent weeks. To that point, diminished prospects of a full-scale QE program weighed on markets in Italy (-3.9%) and Spain (-3.1%) with bank shares leading the retreat. As for the U.S., equities slumped across the board in the morning, but staged an impressive reversal after reaching short-term oversold conditions just ahead of 12:00 ET. At that time, the S&P 500 hit its session low of 1925.93 and the TICK reading at the NYSE neared -1500-a level typically associated with excessive selling.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week  Change   % Change	YTD % 
 DJIA	     17113.15	 17009.69   -103.46	-0.6	2.6 
 Nasdaq	      4512.19	  4475.62    -36.57	-0.8	7.2 
 S&P 500	1982.85	  1967.90    -14.95	-0.8	6.5 
 Russell 2000  1119.33	  1104.74    -14.59	-1.3   -5.1

5:05 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Technology:MOVE (20.93 +45.65%),TIBX (23.59 +23.27%),LMOS (16.14 +15.65%)

Services:BAGL (20.23 +53.18%),RLD (11.66 +24%),ARC (8.9 +17.83%),TK (67.12 +16.72%),FLWS (8.23 +16.36%)

Healthcare:AXDX (28.78 +48.06%),AMAG (32.27 +38.19%),KITE (34.79 +30.33%),CLVS (48.8 +19.97%),KERX (16.1 +18.86%),AGIO (63.66 +18.58%),CEMP (12.49 +16.3%)

Financial:JNS (14.49 +33.39%),FNHC (29.09 +16.66%)

Basic Materials:MTL (1.02 +45.83%),ATHL (58.2 +27.82%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Utilities:CLNE (7.14 -15.65%)

Technology:PDFS (12.76 -27.08%),GSAT (3.01 -21.15%),CMGE (20.06 -16.91%),CREE (33.73 -15.27%),GEOS (32.11 -14.06%)

Services:CVEO (13.01 -49.7%),CTCM (5.77 -26.39%),FINL (25.14 -15.27%),TA (9.26 -15.04%)

Industrial Goods:GTLS (47.21 -25.64%)

Healthcare:RVNC (16.3 -18.82%)
Consumer Goods:WPRT (7.2 -30.1%)

Basic Materials:XCO (2.96 -23.88%),MPO (4.71 -16.81%),PEIX (13.25 -16.15%),VTG (1.21 -15.6%),PBR-A (14.69 -15.01%),TSE (14.6 -14.83%),MHR (5.16 -14.5%)

12:48 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MYL (50.23 +8.02%): Raised Q3 & FY14 EPS guidance; increased Q3 guidance range includes ~$0.14/share as a result of an agreement with Strides Arcolab.
MBLY (59.35 +7.91%): Positive mention on Fast Money, and TSLA announcement next week adding to the momentum.
COV (93.75 +5.14%): Medtronic (MDT) reaffirmed its commitment to COV acquisition by announcing updated financing plans.

Large Cap Losers

GG (22.6 -4.24%): Down along with peers as gold dropped under $1200 for first time in 2014 on a strong dollar (ABX & NEM also lower).
UBS (16.73 -2.76%): Reports the co many be fined $6.3 bln by France officials over taxes.
RIG (30.72 -2.72%): Reports BP plans to challenge the $18 bln verdict regarding oil spill; as well as weakness in oil sector following drop in prices.

Mid Cap Gainers

PANW (105.26 +7.22%): Target raised to $120 at Piper Jaffray, Overweight; Cyber security stocks trading higher following JPM breach news.
GSAT (3.25 +7.63%): Heard Kerrisdale is not actually out negative on the name as opposed to rumors out earlier in the week.
ZBRA (70.79 +5.67%): Heard upgraded to Buy at Needham

Mid Cap Losers

TX (21.86 -7.57%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.
FEYE (28.37 -4.12%): Downgraded to Underperform at Northland; tgt $25.
GFI (3.82 -6.83%): Down along with peers as gold dropped under $1200 for first time in 2014 on a strong dollar (AU & NGD also lower).

11:40 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (107) outpacing new highs (46) (:SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADP, BABY, BLJ, BLMT, BSTC, CALM, CCI, CHDN, COV, CP, CTLT, DTSI, ERIE, ETP, EW, FLWS, FNHC, HAIN, HBI, HNH, HNNA, HRL, ICLR, IMDZ, JACK, KNX, KO, LNBB, LTS, MBLY, MCK, MNK, MNRK, NFBK, PANW, SAGE, SLP, SNCR, TAYD, TCP, THS, TSQ, TTGT, TTPH, VDSI, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ABX, ADTN, AG, AKO.A, AMCO, AMDA, ANR, AUY, AVD, AVL, AVP, AXN, AXU, BBL, BCO, BGC, BHP, BIO, BIOD, BLIN, BRSS, BTG, BTU, CBNK, CDE, CEF, CEQP, CLD, CLF, CRR, CTCM, CVR, CZZ, DCIX, DEO, DO, DSS, DSX, EC, EGLT, EMMS, END, ENVI, EPRS, EROC, ESEA, ESV, FI, FMD, FPI, FPP, GTU, HL, HMY, HOS, IAG, IMRS, INNL, IRC, IX, KGC, KOSS, KWK, MCHX, MDR, MDU, MIL, MSN, MT, MXC, NAK, NAUH, NE, NSPH, OII, ONCY, ORIG, PAL, PCMI, PCOM, PLG, POWL, PSTR, PWE, QSII, RFIL, RGDX, RIG, RIO, ROIA, RRST, RXII, SBS, SDRL, SDT, SVLC, SYT, TGA, TLM, TRS, TX, UBS, WDR, WPRT, XNY, ZAZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: UUP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BNO, BWX, DBC, DJP, EWG, EWO, EWQ, FXA, FXE, FXF, FXY, GSG, PPLT, SIL, SIVR, SLV, UGA

9:00 am Advanced Energy announces rescheduling of Analyst Day from November 19, 2014 to February 26, 2015 (AEIS) :

Co announced that it is rescheduling its analyst meeting from November 19, 2014 to February 26, 2015. With the recent appointment of Yuval Wasserman to President and CEO, the company decided to reschedule the analyst meeting. Details of the meeting location and time will be announced at a later date.Remember on Wednesday when the stock market got hammered on broad-based selling pressure that was attributed to concerns about Ebola, the dollar's strength, and a slowdown in the Chinese and eurozone economies? Well, fuggedaboutit... the stock market certainly did on Friday.

Tech Stocks

There were more reports about the possible spread of Ebola in the U.S., the U.S. Dollar Index jumped 1.3%, the Services PMI for China hit an eight-month low, and the composite PMI for the eurozone hit a ten-month low.

You know what the stock market did in the face of those same issues that reportedly broadsided it on Wednesday? It rallied. The Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500, and Russell 2000 all gained at least 0.8%.

The stock market forgot about the bad and focused on the good, which on Friday meant the September employment report. The latter showed a 248,000 gain in nonfarm payrolls and a 5.9% unemployment rate. It showed some other less encouraging things like a drop in the labor force participation rate to 62.7% from 62.8% and no change in average hourly earnings, yet the job growth stole the trading show.

The major indices shot up when the opening bell rang, continued to climb throughout the day, and closed near their best levels of the session. It was a move that put the squeeze on short sellers and put the latest calls for a correction on ice -- at least for the weekend.

There was plenty of buying interest in the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.8%) on Friday. Gains were registered by 55 of the sector's 66 components and many of the winners jumped more than 1.0%.

Alliance Data Systems (ADS 251.86, +8.19), Automatic Data Processing (ADP 74.85, +2.35), F5 Networks (FFIV 122.65, +3.94), and Salesforce.com (CRM 58.45, +1.81) all gained in excess of 3.0%.

Strikingly, Apple (AAPL 99.62, -0.28) was among the few losers despite reports it will be holding an iPad "event" on October 16. The stock was held back by a Deutsche Bank downgrade to Hold from Buy.

The situation was similar outside of the S&P 500 information technology sector as the winners far outnumbered the losers. Stocks that were down big, like FireEye (FEYE 28.19, -1.40), stood out like a sore thumb because they were very much the exception and not the rule.

Generally speaking, cyber security stocks did well after JPMorgan Chase revealed a major customer information breach. Palo Alto Networks (PANW 104.70, +6.52) and Cyber-Ark (CYBR 30.38, +1.69) were two of the biggest winners. FireEye, however, got burned by a Northland Capital downgrade to Underperform from Market Perform that it linked to heightened competition and ebbing revenue visibility.

ADTRAN (ADTN 18.81, -1.49) was another notable laggard. The networking and communications network equipment provider got hit hard after issuing an earnings warning for the third quarter due to a sequential decrease in its European business and a softer enterprise spending environment.

Separately, Yahoo (YHOO 41.03, +0.53) was in the news again on media reports that it may acquire MessageMe and/or make an investment in SnapChat. Neither deterred the stock, which gained 1.3%.

As nice as Friday's gains were for the stock market, it's doubtful that they will be taken for granted given the roller-coaster action of late. To be sure, everyone will be waiting with bated breath to see if there is follow-through buying interest on Monday.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Stocks continue the Thursday rebound as Jobs Report touches the right buttons.
- Large cap NYSE indices post nice gains, growth indices rally but patterns lag.
- Low paying jobs heralded in 'jobs recovery' that shows 4 of 5 jobs in the Wal-Mart greeter category.
- Drugs, Healthcare still outperforming in a rather defensive tone.
- New month for the month has taken its shot. Now we see if there is any left and if sellers take their shot.

It's not just the number of jobs, it's type of jobs.

Friday morning the headlines post-jobs report heralded a 'triple digit Dow futures move on jobs.' For the record, Dow futures were sharply higher, just below triple digits before the report's release as stocks continued the Thursday intraday reversal from another sharp decline. The news certainly didn't hurt as Dow futures did top triple digits after the news, but saying the jobs report caused triple digit gains is the same as saying a solo home run in the top of the ninth giving you a 5 run lead won the game; it prevented you from losing to a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth, but it didn't win the game.

September Non-Farm Payrolls: 248K versus 210K expected, 108K prior (from 142K)
Unemployment rate: 5.9% versus 6.1% expected, 6.1% prior
Surely jobs nirvana, surely an economic bonanza is here.

So with the jobs beat in the bank stocks opened higher. Yes, but they tried to throw it away in the first five minutes as some sellers entered. They didn't have enough ammunition, however, and were overrun with a morning upside surge adding onto the higher market open. The Thursday reversal had legs as it appeared the delay in putting new money to work for October ended. Stocks rallied into mid-afternoon and peaked, coasting into the close.

SP500 21.73, 1.12%
NASDAQ 45.43, 1.03%
DJ30 208.64, 1.24%
SP400 0.67%
RUTX 0.76%
SOX 0.56%

VOLUME: NYSE +1.5%, NASDAQ -19%

A/D: Decent at 2:1 NYSE, 1.97:1 NASDAQ

Heady gains but as you can see, the growth indices lagged with gains well below 1%. NASDAQ did manage to crack about 1% but its pattern, along with the smaller growth indices, leaves something to be desired in terms of the upside.

Specifically, NASDAQ gapped and rallied to the 50 day MA, tapping it on the high, fading modestly to the close. Nice reversal, but already at resistance on lower trade. SP400 and particularly RUTX and SOX look very much like modest bounces up off ugly selling, showing doji below resistance and looking a lot like bear flags. Even SP500 has something to prove at its resistance, though it still looks good.

As noted last week, it is still very early in October and the indices have suffered just a single leg lower. Perhaps the large cap NYSE stocks will lead a recovery and pull growth with them. Likely, however, they all need a test of the recent lows to set a sound bottom to rally out of October and into year end.

THE ECONOMY

Jobs numbers again viewed as strong by the gross numbers, but the headlines are not that great and the makeup shows the same weakness.

I suppose you can argue that 248K jobs is a strong number, particularly when compared to 210K expected and 180K (revised from 142K) in August. Nonetheless, 248K jobs only looks good when you have a history of 200K average.

After the initial recovery from the lows, going nowhere the past four years.

A LOOK AT THE REAL NUMBERS

1. Wherefore art thou, workers?

The unemployment rate dropped 0.2% to 5.9% from 6.1%. More employed, right?

Employed +232K. Unemployed -329K. Looks promising.

But, factor in the facts of life:

Participation rate: 62.7%, down from 62.8% in August. From 66.0% in 2008.
That ties the low at February 1978. Recall what a banner year that was for the economy, 2 years after Jimmy Carter's election. A stumbling, bumbling economy that had ups and downs but was a best a malaise. The parallels with the current economy are frighteningly similar.

Workforce overall lost 97K workers

Those Not in the Workforce: +315K
Total not in the Workforce to 92.6M, a NEW ALL-TIME HIGH.

Working age population growth, last 6 years: 248.4M from 234.6M (14M) versus labor force growth of 155.9M from 154.9M (1M). In other words, the labor force grew just 7% of the gain in the working age population (1M versus 14M).

Not in workforce + unemployed = 102M or 41% of the US' adult population.

So, a 'whopping' 248K jobs added but those working continued to fall. Finding it easier not to work than work? Why? Take a look at the jobs quality.

2. Wherefore art thou, jobs quality?

248K jobs created. 207K or 84% were in the services sector, the lowest paying scale of jobs.

Services jobs again dominate the recovery over 'breadwinner' construction, manufacturing jobs and thus it is no surprise the hourly earnings are falling. Note how the hourly earnings are well, well off of the pre-crisis levels. Simply no recovery because of low quality jobs.

3. Wherefore art thou, workers in their prime?

55+: Gained 230K of the 248K jobs, or 93% of all jobs. All-time record high at 32.6M workers. From 12/07 this group has gained 5.5M jobs.

25-54: -10K jobs. Since 12/07 this group is -2.04M jobs!!

SUMMARY OF THE JOBS REPORT:

84% of the jobs created were in the service sector. 93% of the new hires were in the 55+ age group. The breadwinner jobs were just 8% of the total for the month and the important 25-54 demographic lost 10K jobs, sliding further into the hole.

So, the economy and jobs market remains in the 'Hello, welcome to Wal-Mart where I work as a greeter so I can try to scratch out a living in my golden years thanks to the financial crisis and the Administration's worst recovery in US history' mode. Been there for 6 years, the entirety of the recovery.

But . . . the unemployment rate is 5.9% because more and more people are realizing they don't need to work or even look for work, particularly when it is for the low wage service jobs that dominate the job creation (4 of 5 jobs). Instead, just go ahead on and take disability, childcare assistance, free phones, food stamps, etc. AND take some cash side jobs (of course not paying taxes on those earnings) and come out in better shape than that poor sap working two or three 29 hour a week (thanks to the ACA's hour limits) part-time jobs wondering what the hell he is working so hard for so little for. But don't feel bad for the worker; with the participation rate hitting a 36 year low (1978, remember those golden years?) and keeps falling, the trend in participation shows that 'sap' is wising up and leaving the workforce, adopting a better or equivalent pay scale for much less work.

THE MARKET

CHARTS

SP500: Gapped modestly higher and ran well to close at the lower trendline of the 11/12 channel. That also leaves SP500 just below the 50 day EMA. Good recovery, but after such a selloff of course there is important resistance to take on.

DJ30: Strongest in terms of improvement of pattern, moving up through the 50 day MA up to the 20 day EMA on the high. Cleared some resistance on rising volume. Overall pattern, however, is still somewhat frightening with those twin peaks still in the way, still unable to take them out.

NASDAQ: Gapped and rallied off the Thursday doji, reaching the 50 day EMA on the high. Now is the moment of truth for NASDAQ on a bounce: back at the twin highs from July, the last highs before the September top. Broke them last week, gapped and ran back up. Much lower, average trade after three sessions of really strong volume indicates the Friday move was not that strong and has a more bear flag flavor.

RUTX: Gapped to a doji below the 10 day EMA, tapping at the August low on the high. A long way to recover for the small caps. Way oversold, needed a bounce, but as with NASDAQ, this has the look of a weaker relief bounce, setting up more of a bear flag.

SP400: Moved up off the doji and to the August low. As with RUTX, way oversold and rebounding, thus far in a relief move.

SOX: Very modest gain to a doji off of the Thursday big doji with tail. Gapped upside to a tight doji well below the 50 day SMA. Not a lot of power here.

As noted above, growth lagged. SOX, RUTX look quite weak on the bounce. Up, but lagging the large cap NYSE and also with patterns that are not inspiring in terms of upside.

LEADERSHIP

Drugs/Healthcare: The main market leadership group. CELG, BABY, TKMR, VRTX.

Financial: Another clear market leader. GS surged again. JPM jumped back up off the 50 day EMA.

Tech: Software looks pretty interesting. SPLK, CRM.

Big Names: GOOG looks ready to bounce up in its range. NFLX gapped back over the 50 day EMA on decent trade. AAPL holding at the 50 day EMA where it has held for the entire week.

Chips: Some struggles continue. SWKS trying to recover. ALTR bounced Thursday but flopped Friday. MU continues to set up for some upside.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +45.43 points (+1.03%) to close at 4475.62
Volume: 1.726B (-19.01%)

Up Volume: 1.29B (+200M)
Down Volume: 445.01M (-547.27M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.97 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.78 to 1

New Highs: 36 (+12)
New Lows: 77 (-113)

S&P
Stats: +21.73 points (+1.12%) to close at 1967.9
NYSE Volume: 812.4M (+1.56%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.06 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.13 to 1

New Highs: 30 (+19)
New Lows: 81 (-172)

DJ30
Stats: +208.64 points (+1.24%) to close at 17009.69

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 14.55; -1.61
VXN: 17.54; -1.09
VXO: 13.59; -1.84

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.92; -0.1

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls continue their tumble, not surprising given the market losses: 48.0% versus 52.5% versus 57.6%

Bears flat-lined: 15.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.1%

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Bulls:
48.0% versus 52.5% versus 57.6% versus 56.1% versus 52.5% versus 49.5% versus 46.4% versus 50.5% versus 55.6% versus 56.5% versus 56.6% versus 60.6% versus 57.6% versus 60.2% versus 61.4% versus 62.6% versus 62.2% versus 58.3% versus 57.2% versus 55.1 versus 55.7 versus 54.7

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears:
15.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.1% versus 13.3% versus 15.1% versus 16.2% versus 16.2% versus 17.1% versus 16.2% versus 17.2% versus 15.1% versus 15.2% versus 16.1% versus 16.3% versus 17.2% versus 17.4% versus 17.3% versus 18.3% versus 19.4% versus 20.6% versus 19.7% versus 21.7% versus 20.6 versus 18.6%

Background: Over 35% is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. For reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.44% versus 2.44% versus 2.41% versus 2.49% versus 2.48% versus 2.53% versus 2.51% versus 2.56% versus 2.53% versus 2.56% versus 2.58% versus 2.63% versus 2.62% versus 2.59% versus 2.59% versus 2.61% versus 2.55% versus 2.54% versus 2.50% versus 2.47% versus 2.45% versus 2.45% 10 year.

Strong week, bouncing Friday after a Thursday pause. Resistance from the August peak is close at hand, a serious test to this three week move.

Oil: 89.74, -1.27. Turned down from a tap at the 10 day EMA on the high.

Gold: 1192.90, -27.10. Ugly crash below the lows of the past two weeks.

$/JPY: 109.76 versus 108.42 versus 109.21 versus 109.63 versus 109.390 versus 109.287 versus 108.70 versus 109.12 versus 109.04 versus 108.89 versus 108.78 versus 108.982 versus 109.17 versus 108.265 versus 107.13 versus 107.19 versus 107.34 versus 107.13 versus 106.80.

Surging off the Thursday doji after the Wednesday yen rally.

Euro/$: 1.2516 versus 1.2669 versus 1.2608 versus 1.2631 versus 1.2685 versus 1.2747 versus 1.2780 versus 1.2847 versus 1.2850 versus 1.2831 versus 1.2916 versus 1.2875 versus 1.2960 versus 1.2940 versus 1.2963 versus 1.2912.

Exploding higher to a higher high on this long run from July.

MONDAY

Jobs are out of the way, some new money finally came in after a delaying entry Wednesday and part of Thursday. Earnings are starting up this week along with likely some more pre-announcement warnings.

The market is definitely set up to rally into earnings, and we have some plays from last week and this week that can take advantage of that move, e.g. GS. Juxtapose that with the patterns on RUTX, SOX, SP400 and even NASDAQ: bounced in relief but no volume and very shaky rebound patterns.

More upside from here is a definite possibility as the indices rebound from an oversold condition, very oversold on RUTX and SP400. I guess that is part of the irony: they are so much more oversold than the other indices, but their bounces lagged. That simply shows how they are still very much underperforming the rest of the market.

Thus while there can be more upside from here, the gains are likely limited with the indices bouncing, hitting resistance, then fading again to test the recent lows or more. There they put in some type of bottom for a move higher into year end.

That is the typical scenario during these fall selloffs and that is why we like to play the downside when it presents because the moves can be quite deep if a bit fast. That is also why we look at upside plays that hold the line, holding support and building good patterns to use for a run toward year end when the selling relents. This weekend we look at both upside and downside to take advantage of this scenario. We may not enter the upside for a bit, and there may be a bit more bounce in the market before we enter for the next leg higher, but you have to be ready for when that move starts.

Let's have a great week ahead!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4475.62

Resistance:
4486 is the July 2014 high
The 50 day EMA at 4490
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.

Support:
4372 is the March 2014 high
The August low at 4321
The 200 day SMA at 4293
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4277 is the March lower gap point
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak
4131 is the March 2014 low
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13
4070 is the series of highs from late November/early December
3991 is the prior November 2013 high and the post-bear market high.
3968 is the February 2014 low
3946 is the April 2014 intraday low

S&P 500: Closed at 1967.90

Resistance:
1969 is the lower trendline from 11/2012
The 50 day EMA at 1976
1991 is the July 2014 high
2011 is the all-time high
2021 is the December 2012 up trendline

Support:
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
The 200 day SMA at 1902
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high
1768 is the December 3013 low
1738 is the February 2014 low
1730 is the September 2013 peak
1710 is the August 2013 peak.
1698 to 1700 are the July and August interim highs
1687 is the May high and post-bear market high
1685 is the mid-August 2013 upper gap point

Dow: Closed at 17,009.69

Resistance:
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.

Support:
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
The 50 day EMA at 16,976
The 50 day SMA at 16,925
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,341 is the May low
16,334 is the August 2014 low
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 16,579
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,334 is the August 2014 low
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak

ECONOMIC CALENDAR

September 29 - Monday
- Personal Income, August (8:30): 0.3% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.2% prior
- Personal Spending, August (8:30): 0.5% actual versus 0.4% expected, 0.0% prior (revised from -0.1%)
- PCE Prices - Core, August (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.0% expected, 0.1% prior
- Pending Home Sales, August (10:00): -1.0% actual versus -0.2% expected, 3.2% prior (revised from 3.3%)

September 30 - Tuesday
- Case-Shiller 20-city, July (9:00): 6.7% actual versus 7.4% expected, 8.1% prior
- Chicago PMI, September (9:45): 60.5 actual versus 61.5 expected, 64.3 prior
- Consumer Confidence, September (10:00): 86.0 actual versus 92.0 expected, 93.4 prior (revised from 92.4)

October 1 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 09/27 (7:00): -0.2% actual versus -4.1% prior
- ADP Employment Chang, September (8:15): 213K actual versus 202K expected, 202K prior (revised from 204K)
- ISM Index, September (10:00): 56.6 actual versus 58.5 expected, 59.0 prior
- Construction Spendin, August (10:00): -0.8% actual versus 0.4% expected, 1.2% prior (revised from 1.8%)
- Crude Inventories, 09/27 (10:30): -1.363M actual versus -4.273M prior
- Auto Sales, September (14:00): 6.2M prior
- Truck Sales, September (14:00): 7.9M prior

October 2 - Thursday
- Challenger Job Cuts, September (7:30): -24.4% actual versus -20.7% prior
- Initial Claims, 09/27 (8:30): 287K actual versus 297K expected, 295K prior (revised from 293K)
- Continuing Claims, 09/20 (8:30): 2398K actual versus 2458K expected, 2443K prior (revised from 2439K)
- Factory Orders, August (10:00): -10.1% actual versus -9.3% expected, 10.5% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 09/27 (10:30): 112 bcf actual versus 97 bcf prior

October 3 - Friday
- Nonfarm Payrolls, September (8:30): 248K actual versus 210K expected, 180K prior (revised from 142K)
- Nonfarm Private Payrolls, September (8:30): 236K actual versus 205K expected, 175K prior (revised from 134K)
- Unemployment Rate, September (8:30): 5.9% actual versus 6.1% expected, 6.1% prior
- Hourly Earnings, September (8:30): 0.0% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.3% prior (revised from 0.2%)
- Average Workweek, September (8:30): 34.6 actual versus 34.5 expected, 34.5 prior
- Trade Balance, August (8:30): -$40.1B actual versus -$40.9B expected, -$40.3B prior (revised from -$40.5B)
- ISM Services, September (10:00): 58.6 actual versus 58.9 expected, 59.6 prior

October 7 - Tuesday
- JOLTS - Job Openings, August (10:00): 4.673M prior
- Consumer Credit, August (15:00): $20.0B expected, $26.0B prior

October 8 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 10/04 (7:00): -0.2% prior
- Crude Inventories, 10/04 (10:30): -1.363M prior
- FOMC Minutes, 9/17 (14:00)

October 9 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 10/04 (8:30): 295K expected, 287K prior
- Continuing Claims, 09/27 (8:30): 2425K expected, 2398K prior
- Wholesale Inventories, August (10:00): 0.3% expected, 0.1% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 10/04 (10:30): 112K prior

October 10 - Friday
- Export Prices ex-ag., September (8:30): -0.3% prior
- Import Prices ex-oil, September (8:30): 0.1% prior
- Treasury Budget, September (14:00): $75.1B prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm : It was a good start for the stock market today and that was about it. The major indices hit their best levels of the session within fifteen minutes of the opening bell and then spent the rest of the morning retracing those gains. The afternoon session produced a half-hearted rebound try, yet the major indices couldn't stake a position on positive ground when the closing bell rang.

Overall losses were modest in scope, which isn't bad given the scope of Friday's gains. However, with the presumed buying catalyst of a weakening dollar in place, more M&A activity, and a surprise announcement from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 36.87, +1.67) that it is going to split into two companies in an effort to bolster shareholder value, there was likely some disappointment that the stock market didn't do any better than it did.

The quick inclination to sell into the opening strength left buyers on guard that the de-risking move seen at the end of the third quarter may not have yet run its course.

The latter consideration along with technical resistance for the S&P 500 at the 1980 level, a stunning bankruptcy protection filing from GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT 0.80, -10.25), which supplies sapphire glass to Apple (AAPL 99.62, unch), and the underperformance once again of the Russell 2000 (-0.9%) helped keep buying interest in check.

The main pockets of weakness in the market were found in the biotech, transport, and semiconductor spaces. Word from Sunesis Pharmaceuticals (SNSS 1.46, -5.18) that a Phase 3 trial it was conducting failed to meet its primary endpoint sucked the momentum out of the biotech space; Ebola concerns once again weighed on the transports; and a 4.0% drop in Micron (MU 32.57, -1.37) after reports said Samsung is planning to invest close to $15 billion in a new semiconductor plant pressured the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-0.8%).

Separately, the energy sector (+0.1%) had a roller-coaster day of trading, vacillating with oil prices, which dipped below $89/bbl before finishing the day at $90.57/bbl. The rebound in oil prices coincided with a break lower in the U.S. Dollar Index (85.71, -0.98) in afternoon trading. The greenback was weak throughout the session, yet its losses accelerated in the afternoon action on what was considered to be a profit-taking move following a huge run in the third quarter.

Stock sector moves were pretty limited in scope to both the upside and the downside. The biggest winner was the telecom services sector (+0.4%) while the biggest loser was the consumer discretionary sector (-0.6%). The limited moves fit the standing of the S&P 500 at the closing bell.

There wasn't any economic data out of the U.S. today, but resonating in the background was a report that the World Bank cut its 2014 and 2015 GDP views for China and news that German factory orders declined 5.7% in August.

Notwithstanding the limited change in the S&P 500, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.29, +0.74) jumped 5.1% on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.7% YTD
S&P 500 +6.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.9% YTD

DJ30 -17.78 NASDAQ -20.82 SP500 -3.08 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 902/1.71 bln/1909 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1542/681 mln/1553 3:40 pm :

Gold fell overnight, only to rally strongly after the pit session opened, breaking back above the important $1,200 level closing 1.2% higher and testing levels from last Friday where the metal began its sell-off following jobs data that topped consensus estimates.
Silver rose from last Friday's fresh 4+ year lows, halting recent declines in the metal and closing 2.3% higher, currently holding in the upper range of Thursday's trading session.
Crude oil traded in a mixed range throughout the pit session, falling as low as $88.76 before eventually rallying and closing up 0.65% near the HoD. That said. oil remains near its lowest levels since last April.
Natural gas trended lower throughout the session, falling 3.5%, based on forecasts that call for milder weather, which could put a dent in heating demand, accelerating stockpile gains.

$0.21 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.19; revenues rose 0.7% year/year to $59.2 mln vs the $59.09 mln consensus.

Wireless Datacom revenue increased to $50.2 million from $47.2 million in the same period last year, while Satellite revenue was $9.0 million in the latest quarter compared to $11.6 million in the second quarter last year due to normal demand fluctuations in this business.Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.21-0.25, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.24 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q3 revs of $61-65 mln vs. $64.99 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $0.88-0.94, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.91 Capital IQ Consensus; sees FY15 revs of $250-255 mln vs. $252.70 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"For fiscal 2015 as a whole, we expect consolidated revenues to gain momentum as the year progresses with revenue from our key heavy equipment OEM customer likely exceeding $10 million in the second half of this fiscal year... We are pleased with the momentum we are experiencing across our core portfolio, and anticipate that continued execution and investments in new applications and geographic expansion will drive growth into fiscal 2016 and beyond."

12:42 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

PBR (15.86 +13.53%): Brazilian stocks notably higher following encouraging election results for pro-business candidate Neves (BBD, ITUB also higher); Was also upgraded to Buy at UBS.
BDX (123.99 +7.04%): Announced plans to buy CareFusion (CFN) for $12.2 bln; Positive reactions from analysts seen at Stifel, others.
LINTA (29.86 +6.15%): Co announced that its Board approved the change in attribution from the Liberty Interactive Group to the Liberty Ventures Group of its digital commerce companies; Tgt raised to $35 at Topeka, Buy reiterated.

Large Cap Losers

MBLY (54.17 -6.12%): Downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James.
MU (32.19 -5.15%): Samsung, one of its largest DRAM competitors, announced they are spending $14.7 bln to build a new chip plant.
TEVA (54 -1.69%): Announced results of strategic review of core specialty therapeutic areas; identified 14 pipeline projects for discontinuation or divestment.

Mid Cap Gainers

CFN (56.74 +22.89%): To be acquired by Becton Dickinson (BDX) for $58 per share.
PAH (28.06 +3.89%): Priced a private placement of ~25.465 mln shares of its common stock common stock at $25.59/share.
AU (11.60 +3.66%): Gold companies seeing early bid following strength in gold as spot prices reclaim $1200

Mid Cap Losers

GSAT (2.67 -11.3%): Confirmed as next short idea at Kerrisdale Capital, tgt $0.
HRB (29.58 -6.55%): Confirmed regulatory approval to acquire assets from Bofi Holdings (BOFI) is not expected this year.
DECK (88.24 -6.49%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray.

11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (143) outpacing new highs (53) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADP, ARDX, BABY, BDX, BLE, BLJ, CALM, CCI, CFN, CLDT, CMRX, DRTX, DTSI, ETP, EW, FDX, FNHC, GPN, GS, HBI, HD, HEP, HNH, HNNA, ICLR, IMDZ, INFU, JACK, KITE, KO, KR, LNBB, MNK, MNRK, MO, NKE, NSC, OMAB, OVAS, PMBC, PPC, RLGT, SAGE, THS, TTGT, TTPH, UNP, VDSI, WM, WRB, WTM, XRS, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABY, ACI, ADHD, AE, AEY, AG, ALEX, AMDA, AMZG, APPY, ASEI, AUY, AVD, AVL, AXU, AXX, BAMM, BBG, BCO, BLIN, BTU, CALI, CANF, CBMX, CCSC, CGIX, CHFC, CHK, CIEN, CLD, CLF, CLFD, CLNE, CLRX, CMCO, CMLS, CREE, CRRS, CRS, CVGI, CVO, DAR, DARA, DCIX, DRYS, DSX, DXR, EARS, EDAP, EGAN, EGI, EGLT, ELY, END, EOX, EPM, ESP, EZCH, FOMX, FPP, FRD, GBR, GEOS, GEVO, GIFI, GIGM, GLOW, GLPW, GMO, GSS, GTAT, GTXI, HAYN, HOS, IAG, IIVI, IMGN, IMRS, INNL, IO, ISSC, KN, KOP, KRO, KTOS, MBII, MCHX, MEIL, MIL, MILL, MRKT, MUR, MXC, MYE, NBG, NRP, OGXI, OII, OREX, ORIT, OXF, PE, PLPM, PRGN, PWE, PZG, RBCN, REN, REXX, RFIL, RRC, RVNC, SALE, SCL, SD, SDT, SFY, SGY, SIR, SLW, SMT, SNOW, SNSS, SPA, SPDC, SVBL, SZMK, TCK, TEAR, TEU, TORM, TRUP, TWI, URRE, VNR, VOC, VSR, WDR, WGBS, WPRT, XNY, YUMA, ZAZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BNO, EWG, GREK, UHN, XME
10:09 am GT Advanced Tech. files for bankruptcy court protection under Chapter 11 (shares halted) (GTAT) :

Co announced that it had, together with certain of its direct and indirect subsidiaries (collectively, GT), commenced voluntary cases under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Hampshire. GT expects the court will authorize the company to continue to conduct business as usual while it devotes renewed efforts to resolve its current issues and develops a reorganization plan. GT indicated that as of September 29, 2014 it had approximately $85 million of cash. In addition, it is now seeking debtor-in-possession financing, which, once obtained, would provide the company with an immediate source of additional funds. These funding sources will enable GT to satisfy the customary obligations associated with the daily operation of its business, including the timely payment of employee wages and other obligations. "Today's filing does not mean we are going out of business; rather, it provides us with the opportunity to continue to execute our business plan on a stronger footing, maintain operations of our diversified business, and improve our balance sheet."
OmniVision Technologies (OVTI) announced the OV13860, a new 13-megapixel camera solution.

8:33 am Riverbed Technology: Elliott Management reaffirms $21/share offer to acquire riverbed, challenges board to justify inaction (RVBD) :

Elliott Management launched RepairRiverbed.com as a platform for raising awareness of the long history of "broken promises and inconsistent results that have destroyed shareholder value at Riverbed Technology." Elliott also reaffirmed its $21 per share offer to acquire Riverbed and renewed its call for the Board to engage with Elliott and other interested acquirers and pursue a value-maximizing sale.8:05 am Axcelis Tech announces sale and leaseback transaction (ACLS) : Co has signed an agreement with Middleton Partners for the sale of its headquarter building for the purchase price of $50 million. At the closing of the sale, which will occur after the completion of a due diligence period of up to 45 days and on the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, Axcelis will enter into a 22 year lease of the property. The transaction is expected to generate net proceeds of ~ $35 mln, after the discharge of the existing mortgage and expenses. The Company will retain ownership of approximately 23 acres of adjacent property.

6:31 am HP confirms it will separate into two public companies; reiterates fiscal 2014 non-GAAP diluted net EPS outlook of $3.70 to $3.74 and updates GAAP diluted net EPS outlook to $2.60 to $2.64 (HPQ) : The co announced plans to separate into two new publicly traded Fortune 50 companies: one comprising HP's market-leading enterprise technology infrastructure, software and services businesses, which will do business as Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and one that will comprise HP's market-leading personal systems and printing businesses, which will do business as HP Inc. and retain the current logo. Immediately following the transaction, which is expected to be completed by the end of fiscal 2015, HP shareholders will own shares of both Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. The transaction is intended to be tax-free to HP's shareholders for federal income tax purposes.

Meg Whitman to be President and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise; Pat Russo to be Chairman of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Board Dion Weisler to be President and Chief Executive Officer of HP Inc.; Meg Whitman to be Chairman of the HP Inc. Board For fiscal 2014, HP reaffirms its non-GAAP diluted net EPS outlook range of $3.70 to $3.74, and updates its fiscal 2014 GAAP diluted net EPS outlook to be in the range of $2.60 to $2.64.For fiscal 2015, HP estimates non-GAAP diluted net EPS outlook to be in the range of $3.83 to $4.03 and GAAP diluted net EPS outlook to be in the range of $3.23 to $3.43.
The company disclosed that their FY15 outlook includes flat Y/Y growth in revenues

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday session on the lows after spending the entire day in negative territory. The Russell 2000 led the way, sliding 1.7%, while the S&P 500 lost 1.5% with all ten sectors ending in the red.

Equity indices were pressured from the start with the early weakness being attributed to a disappointing Industrial Production report from Germany (-4.0%; expected -1.5%), which represented the largest drop in activity in almost six years. Growth concerns were also on the mind of IMF economists as the Fund lowered its 2015 global growth forecast to 3.8% from 4.0%.

Fittingly, the macroeconomic worries weighed on most cyclical sectors, while energy (-1.3%) tried to withstand the broad pressure. The sector, which lost 3.8% last week, displayed modest intraday strength, but slumped in the afternoon amid a noteworthy drop in crude prices (-1.7% to $88.81/bbl).

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, the industrial space (-2.4%) spent the bulk of the day at the bottom of the leaderboard. Transports contributed to the weakness, but defense stocks did not fare much better as evidenced by a 2.1% decline in the PHLX Defense Index. As for transports, the Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 2.5% to widen this week's decline to 3.6%.

Other high-growth areas like chipmakers and biotechnology also struggled to keep up with the broader market. The PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 1.9% to extend its month-to-date decline to 5.1% with just five October sessions in the rear-view mirror.

For its part, the biotech group slumped at the open, halved its loss by midday, but returned to lows before the close. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 266.62, -5.10) lost 1.9%, while the health care sector (-1.6%) ended among the laggards.

Meanwhile, the remaining countercyclical sectors displayed slimmer losses than the broader market with utilities (-0.1%) registering the smallest decline.

Generally speaking, today's retreat reflected big picture concerns, thus putting corporate-specific developments on the backburner. To that latter point, Sodastream (SODA 21.52, -6.05) plunged 21.9% after guiding Q3 results well below analyst estimates. On a similar note, AGCO Corporation (AGCO 42.13, -4.97) sank 10.6% after priming the market for disappointing results.

The broad retreat fueled increased demand for volatility protection, sending the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 17.21, +1.75) to its highest close since mid-March.

The safe-haven demand underpinned Treasuries with the 10-yr note (+21/32) spending the entire day in a steady rally. As a result, the benchmark yield fell eight basis points to 2.34%.

Today's participation was ahead of average with more than 770 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Economic data was limited to JOLTS and Consumer Credit:

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for August indicated job opening increased to 4.835 million from 4.605 million
Consumer credit increased by $13.50 billion in August, down from a downwardly revised $21.60 billion (from $26.00 billion) in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of $20.00 billion

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET, while the minutes from the Sept 17 FOMC meeting will be released at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +5.0% YTD
S&P 500 +4.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.5% YTD

DJ30 -272.58 NASDAQ -69.60 SP500 -29.73 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 525/2.06 bln/2468 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 674/774.6 mln/2399 3:30 pm :

Gold rallied shortly after the pit session open in a continuation of yesterday's strength, still popping off of last Friday's first dip of the year below $1,200. The metal closed higher by 0.4%.
Silver started off the pit session in relatively tight range, but opposite gold, the metal began trickling lower for most of the day, but still managed to squeak out a 0.1% gain.
Crude moved lower today, by 1.6%, falling with stocks after the IMF cut its global growth forecasts, nearing but not touching what would have been its lowest close in 17 months.
Natural gas rose 1.3% today following yesterdays decline on forecasts calling for milder weather; Dec futures overtook yesterday's pit session highs closing up nearly 1.3%.

4:16 pm Integrated Silicon lowers Q4 revenue guidance to ~$84 mln, down from $85-89 mln, vs $87.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus Est, lowers EPS to $0.19-0.23, down from $0.25-0.29, vs $0.19 consensus (stock is halted) (ISSI) :

"Revenue in our fiscal fourth quarter ended September 30 will be below our original expectations due to weakness in the communications and consumer markets in Asia, and wafer shortages from one of our flash foundries. Sales in our industrial and automotive end markets continued to perform well during the quarter," said Scott Howarth, ISSI's President and CEO.
Stock is expected to resume trading at 4:45pm EST.

4:06 pm Cohu Announces Luis Muller will replace James Donahue as President and CEO (COHU) : COHU today announced that its Board of Directors appointed Luis A. M?ller as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) effective December 28, 2014, succeeding James A. Donahue who will retire as the Company's President and CEO and become Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors on that date.

Mr. Donahue is a 36-year veteran of Cohu and has been President and CEO since 2000. Mr. M ller was also elected to the Board of Directors, effective December 28, 2014.

12:50 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

PBR (16.72 +5.82%): Continued strength in Brazilian stocks; Co separately disclosed an ultra-deep water discovery in the Esp rito Santo Basin.
GMCR (139.39 +4.61%): Initiated with a Buy at Goldman; tgt $166.
SDRL (25.84 +4.01%): General strength in oil & gas companies as shares recover from multi-month slump (RIG & VLO also higher).

Large Cap Losers

GM (32.19 -4.62%): Cautious note from Morgan Stanley seen this morning, tgt cut to $27.
RIO (49.39 -4.04%): Glencore (GLNCY) confirmed it is no longer actively considering any transaction with RIO.URI (102.74 -4.04%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill.

Mid Cap Gainers

HUB.B (126.23 +4.1%): Reports out that controlling shareholders are evaluating alternatives.
FEYE (29.1 +3.82%): Announced targeted attack protection for the Apple (AAPL) platform; also partnered with SingTel to launch first managed defense solution.
SFUN (10.55 +3.03%): Signed strategic cooperation agreement with Century 21 China (CTC).

Mid Cap Losers

AGCO (43.39 -7.88%): Guided Q3 EPS below consensus; lowered FY14 EPS guidance; downgraded at BofA/Merrill, Janney, others.
BBEP (18.29 -5.67%): Priced a public offering of 14 mln common units at $18.64/unit.
KOS (9.48 -4.53%): Announced secondary public offering of 15 mln common shares by selling shareholders.

11:37 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (266) outpacing new highs (17) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: BDX, BHB, BLE, CMRX, DTSI, ETP, GMCR, GPRO, HNNA, INFU, KO, LAKE, OBAS, PBIP, SHI, SMI, TAYD

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ABX, ACAT, ACFN, ACI, ACST, ACUR, AE, AGCO, AHPI, ALEX, ALG, ALU, AMZG, AOI, APPY, AR, ARP, ARRY, ASC, ASEI, ASNA, ASTI, AT, ATAX, ATOS, AUY, AVD, AVHI, AVL, AXX, BALT, BAMM, BAXS, BBG, BCO, BEBE, BGC, BGMD, BKU, BOOM, BRN, BRSS, CAS, CBU, CCJ, CCOI, CDE, CECE, CEVA, CGG, CGIX, CHFC, CHK, CIDM, CLD, CLFD, CLGX, CLNE, CLRX, CLSN, CMC, CMCO, CMLS, CNSI, CREE, CSUN, CVGI, CVO, CYCC, CYD, CYTX, DAR, DARA, DCIX, DCOM, DE, DGII, DLIA, DNR, DXR, E, EC, ECOM, ECR, EDMC, EGHT, EGLT, ELY, END, ENS, EOX, EPM, EROC, ESCR, ESP, EZPW, FELE, FFIC, FIX, FLR, FMC, FMER, FNFG, FNGN, FNJN, FNSR, FOMX, FPI, FPP, FULT, FWM, FXEN, GBR, GENE, GEOS, GES, GLPW, GMO, GSS, GTE, GTI, HAYN, HCCI, HHS, HOS, HVT, IAG, IDT, III, IMGN, IMMR, INNL, INTL, INVT, IO, IRC, ISSC, IXYS, KEG, KING, KMG, KRO, KWK, LAYN, LDR, LF, LGND, LIQD, LTRPA, LUK, MCHX, MEIL, MGLN, MHH, MIL, MILL, MIND, MNTX, MUR, MXL, MYE, NAME, NBG, NCI, NL, NMR, NPBC, NRP, NWBI, OGXI, OII, ONB, ONCY, OREX, ORIT, PB, PBM, PCOM, PDII, PDLI, PKD, PLG, PLPM, PRFT, PRGN, PRPH, PULS, PWE, PZG, QLTI, QSII, QUAD, RAVN, REE, RELL, RGDX, RIGL, RNF, ROCK, ROG, ROKA, RS, RSO, RTI, RVNC, RWT, SALE, SCHN, SCSC, SCVL, SDR, SFXE, SGY, SHOS, SIR, SMT, SNSS, SODA, SPDC, STC, STXS, SVBL, SVLC, SWHC, SZYM, TAL, TCK, TCS, TEAR, TEU, TEX, TG, TGE, TGH, THLD, TLM, TRIB, TRK, TRUP, TTMI, TTS, TWI, TX, UAMY, UBS, UCP, URG, URRE, VCRA, VIP, VNR, VSR, WABC, WAC, WAIR, WDR, WIRE, WPPGY, WPRT, XNY, XONE, XXIA, YUMA, ZIOP, ZX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: MBB

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWG, EWQ, EZU, GREK, TBT, URA, XME

9:03 am Cadence Design announces pricing of $350 mln Senior Notes offering (CDNS) : Co announced the pricing of its public offering of $350 million aggregate principal amount of its 4.375% Senior Notes due 2024.

Cadence expects to receive net proceeds from this offering of approximately $342.4 million after deducting underwriting discounts and estimated offering expenses payable by Cadence. Cadence intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including the retirement of debt.8:03 am Silicon Motion sees revenue growth above prior guidance (SIMO) :

Co now sees sequential revenue growth for Q3 +23-25%, above original guidance range of 15-20%. Consensus represents +16.5% sequential growth.
Gross margin (non-GAAP) is expected to be in the 52 to 53% range, above the Company's original guidance range of 50 to 52%.

6:01 am MagnaChip Semi announces New York Stock Exchange listing extension (MX) : Co announced that it has received an extension for continued listing and trading of the co's common stock on the NYSE. The extension provides the co an additional trading period up to April 1, 2015, during which it can file its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013 with the SEC, subject to reassessment on an ongoing basis.

1:22 am NVIDIA: U.S. International Trade Commission opens investigation into Samsung (SSNLF) product infringement of NVIDIA GPU patents (NVDA) : The U.S. International Trade Commission has voted to investigate whether certain Samsung products should be blocked from entering the country because they infringe GPU patents owned by NVIDIA.

The decision follows a complaint filed last month in the ITC by NVIDIA. NVIDIA has also filed a lawsuit in the Delaware District Court seeking damages for infringement. The products at issue include the Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S4 mobile phones; and the Galaxy Tab S, Galaxy Note Pro and Galaxy Tab 2 computer tablets. Most of these devices incorporate Qualcomm mobile processors -- including the Snapdragon S4, 400, 600, 800, 801 and 805. Others are powered by Samsung's own Exynos mobile processors.
To put it succinctly, it was a terrible Tuesday for the stock market and the S&P 500 information technology sector (-1.7%) as growth concerns permeated the marketplace.

The only thing that could have made it worse for the S&P 500 information technology sector would have been if the declines were even bigger; otherwise, it is not an exaggeration to say that every sector component ended Tuesday with a loss.

There are 66 components in the sector and losses in many components exceeded 2.0%. Accordingly, let's just say traders and investors alike traveled on "rout 66."

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 35.22, -1.65), which declined 4.5%, was the worst-performing stock in the sector. It gave back nearly everything it gained on Monday following its news that it plans to split into two companies. The striking pullback on Tuesday then may have been some second guessing about the merits of its decision and/or the impetus (challenging industry conditions?) for the move it said not that long ago it wouldn't be making.

One takeaway from Tuesday's session was that there was little appreciation for favorable developments of any kind. For example:

Micron (MU 31.86, -0.70) traded lower despite being defended at Needham and RBC Capital Markets after Micron declined 4.0% on Monday in the wake of news Samsung is planning to invest $14.7 billion in a new chip plant.

Apple (AAPL 98.75, -0.87) slipped 0.8% even though Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Oppenheimer, RBC Capital Markets and Susquehanna all offered their support for the stock in the form of ratings moves, price target increases, and/or positive views on iPhone demand.That type of thing happens on trend-down days that are catalyzed by macro concerns.

That was the issue on Tuesday as growth concerns were triggered by an ugly industrial output reading from Germany for the month of August, the IMF lowering its 2015 global growth outlook to 3.8% from 4.0%, the continued struggles of the Russell 2000 (-1.7%), and the stark underperformance of the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-2.5%) in the face of lower oil prices.

There simply wasn't much inclination to add risk exposure in front of Wednesday's release of the FOMC Minutes, which some think will be more hawkish-sounding.

Accordingly, there was a penchant to reduce equity risk exposure that weighed on stocks like Google (GOOG 563.77, -13.58) and IBM (IBM 185.71, -3.33), and breathed life into the Treasury market. The 10-yr note added 23 ticks and its yield dropped eight basis points to 2.34%. The 10-yr note settled on its highs for the day while the major indices settled basically at their lows.

Relative strength in the information technology sector was generally couched in terms of which stocks were down the least as opposed to which stocks were up the most.

In that vein, KLA-Tencor (KLAC 75.49, -0.49), Apple (AAPL 98.75, -0.87), and Cognizant Technology (CTSH 43.91, -0.34), which said it acquired full-service digital marketing agency Cadient Group, were the standouts in the sector as they were the only components that didn't fall at least 1.0%.

Outside the sector, Twitter (TWTR 53.49, +0.04) put up a good fight after saying it filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over the restrictions it faces in detailing the number of surveillance requests it has received. That restriction, Twitter says, violates its First Amendment rights.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday session on an upbeat note despite enduring a shaky start. The S&P 500 spiked 1.8% with the bulk of the gain coming after the release of the FOMC minutes from the September meeting.

Equity indices began the day near their flat lines following another reminder about slowing global growth. To that point, China's HSBC Services PMI slipped to 53.5 from 54.1 (expected 53.8), but remained above 50.0, which marks the difference between expansion and contraction.

The first half of the session saw a brief dip into the red that was fueled by weakness in the energy sector. At its lowest level, the group was down near 2.0% with crude oil exerting pressure on the sector. Crude fell 1.3% to $87.67/bbl, while the sector ended with a solid gain (+1.0%) after the FOMC minutes sparked an afternoon rally that likely featured a short-covering component.

Most notably, the minutes acknowledged that growth concerns overseas could have an impact on the U.S. through a strengthening dollar, which would lead to a decline in inflation expectations. This was viewed as an indication that the Fed would not rush to raise the fed funds rate, but instead maintain its accommodative policy stance. Treasuries spiked from lows to new highs in response (10-yr yield -3 bps to 2.31%) while the Dollar Index (85.27, -0.40) slumped to a two-week low.

The dovish-sounding statement was accompanied by yet another reminder that economic data would serve as the driving force behind future policy changes. That being said, the overall tenor of the key passages suggests the Fed isn't convinced recent progress toward its objectives can be sustained.

Accordingly, the prospects of continued easy-money policy resulted in a broad-based rally with high-beta groups leading the way. Chipmakers soared with Intel (INTC 34.27, +0.80) climbing 2.4%, while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index gained 2.3% to narrow this week's loss to 0.5%. For its part, the technology sector (+2.0%) ended the day ahead of the remaining cyclical groups. Germany-based business software developer SAP (SAP 69.21, -1.20) bucked the trend, falling 1.7% amid speculation the company will implement a hiring freeze until 2015.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, industrials settled in-line with the market, but that concealed the underperformance of transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 1.0%, but despite today's advance, the bellwether complex remains down 2.7% since last Friday versus no change for the S&P 500.

On the countercyclical side, the telecom services sector (+0.1%) edged into the green just before the close, while consumer staples (+1.4%), health care (+2.5%), and utilities (+2.2%) posted stronger gains.

The staples sector received a measure of support from Costco (COST 128.73, +3.46), which reported better than expected results. As for health care, the sector received help from biotechnology with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 274.13, +7.51) surging 2.8%.

Today's session invited above-average participation with roughly 900 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data released this morning was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which rose 3.8% to follow last week's downtick of 0.2%.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 295K) will be released at 8:30 ET, while the Wholesale Inventories report for August (consensus 0.3%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +7.0% YTD
S&P 500 +6.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.8% YTD

DJ30 +274.83 NASDAQ +83.39 SP500 +33.79 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2002/2.15 bln/801 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2500/900.1 mln/613 3:30 pm :

Gold traded higher overnight, broke down in a big way this morning, but has since fully recovered, now higher by 0.6% and back in the upper band of this week's trading range.
Silver continues to probe support levels near $17, trading lower throughout much of the session, but the metal, mirroring the move in gold, is now higher by 0.75%.
Crude oil tanked today, now trading down 1.7% to $87.32/barrel, following inventory data that showed inventories had a build of 5.015 mln vs consensus for a build of 1.5-2.0 mln (see 10:30 comment for details). Oil is creating fresh lows on the daily chart, trading down and testing lows from the week of 4/17/13.
Natural gas also had a rough session, falling 2.45% to $3.86; the LoD was $3.837/MMB, a new 10-day low.

4:31 pm Exar expects SepQ revenue to be at or above high end of prior guidance (EXAR) : Co says it now expects 2Q15 (Sep) revenue to be at or above the high-end of its prior guidance of $40-43 mln. Current CapIQ consensus is $41.7 mln.

"Throughout the quarter our target markets remained strong and we now expect revenue at or above the high-end of our prior outlook.""Additionally, the accelerated pace of the iML integration and the completion of a restructuring of our workforce has allowed us to achieve meaningful synergies and operating efficiencies. Coupled with a revaluation of certain fixed and intangible assets we expect annualized savings of approximately $6.5 million. These savings will positively impact our manufacturing overhead, general and administrative costs as well as research and development expenses." Co will report full Q2 results on Nov 5.

4:16 pm Advanced Micro appoints Dr. Lisa Su as President & CEO (AMD) : Co announced that its board of directors has appointed Dr. Lisa Su as president and chief executive officer and member of the board of directors, effective immediately. Dr. Su succeeds Rory Read, who has stepped down as president and chief executive officer, and member of the board of directors, as part of a transition plan. Read will support the transition in an advisory role, remaining with the company through the end of 2014.

4:08 pm Alcoa beats by $0.09, beats on revs; reaffirms FY14 aluminum demand growth +7% (AA) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.22; revenues rose 8.2% year/year to $6.24 bln vs the $5.84 bln consensus.

Engineered Products and Solutions delivers highest after-tax operating income in history of $209 million, 18th consecutive quarter of year-over-year after-tax operating income improvement; new record adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.5% Global Rolled Products after-tax operating income up 30% sequentially, 45% higher year-over-year Upstream business improves performance for 12th consecutive quarter; highest Primary Metals segment adjusted EBITDA per metric ton since second quarter 2008. Global aluminum demand growth forecast of 7% in 2014 reaffirmed.

Alcoa continues to project 2014 global aerospace sales growth of 8 to 9 percent driven by robust demand for both large commercial aircraft and regional jets.The Company tightened its projection for 2014 global automotive production growth from a previous range of 1 to 4% in the second quarter to 2 to 4 percent.Global packaging sales growth of 2 to 3% and global building and construction sales growth of 4 to 6% in 2014 remain unchanged. In the industrial gas turbine market, the co's projected decline of 8 to 12 percent, on lower orders for new gas turbines and spare parts, also remains unchanged for the year. For the second time this year, Alcoa increased its 2014 estimate of production growth for the North America commercial transportation market to a range of 16 to 20 percent from a previous range of 10 to 14% in the second quarter, and 5 to 9% in the first quarter. The higher estimate is based in part on a 43 percent increase in third quarter truck orders year-over-year and strong backlogs. Globally, Alcoa continues to expect a flat commercial transportation market of negative 1 to positive 3% in 2014 due to ongoing weakness in the European market.

1:42 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (77) outpacing new highs (5) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AGN, CFN, COST, DUK, GMCR

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ABX, AFL, AGCO, ALLY, ALU, ARCC, ARCP, ASNA, AU, AUY, AVP, BHP, BTU, CA, CBI, CCJ, CHK, CIE, COG, CREE, DAR, DDD, DE, DNOW, DNR, EMR, ESV, F, FLR, FMC, FMER, FNFG, FULT, GM, GPOR, GSK, HOG, KBR, KGC, KING, KOS, LINE, LNCO, LPI, LUK, MBT, MRC, MT, MUR, NE, NGD, OAS, OC, OCN, OII, ORI, PE, PGH, PWE, RDC, RIG, RRC, SD, SDRL, SLW, SWN, TCK, TEX, TLM, UBS, UTX, VIAB, VIP, WDR, YOKU, ZNGA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: TLT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: OIL, PBW, REMX, SIL, SLX, TBT, UGA, UHN, URA, VGK, XES, XME, XOP

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 20 stocks made 52 week highs and 573 stocks made 52 week lows.

1:32 pm Plug Power says zero percent manufacturing tax will help support industrial operations in New York (PLUG) : The co welcomed New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo to its corporate headquarters in Latham, New York. During this milestone visit, Governor Cuomo toured the manufacturing facility and then told workers and executives of the dramatic positive impact he expects from the recent 0% manufacturing tax for operations in the State of New York. This is positive news for growing companies, like Plug Power, who are competing worldwide.

"We are happy to have welcomed Governor Cuomo to Plug Power for the first time, and appreciate his tremendous support for manufacturing operations in New York State," said Andy Marsh, CEO at Plug Power Inc. "Governor Cuomo's business development focus is having a positive influence on the growth of manufacturers, state-wide."

12:19 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

COST (127.96 +2.15%): Reported better than expected results, beat by $0.06, revs in-line; reported Sep comps of +4% vs +5.6% Retail Metrics consensus.
DTE (78.86 +2.39%): Strength in utility companies as oil continues its decline (ED & DUK also higher).
NEE (94.67 +1.77%): Joint venture with EQT Corp (EQT) announced it secured 2Bcf per day of firm capacity commitments at 20-year terms for the Mountain Valley Pipeline project.

Large Cap Losers

WFT (18.01 -7.02%): Continued weakness in oil & gas companies and oil moves down to 18-month lows (HAL & LNG also lower).
GPRO (90.75 -3.3%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray; tgt maintained at $90.
SAP (68.12 -3.25%): Report out suggesting job freeze until 2015.

Mid Cap Gainers

GEF (44.5 +3.49%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
DRH (12.84 +2.31%): Provided outlook in slide presentation at investor conference: sees Q3 RevPAR growth of 17%+.
PKY (18.81 +2.34%): Announced agreement to sell portfolio of 19 office buildings for $237 million.

Mid Cap Losers
SHLD (25.59 -15.54%): Reports out a vendor is withholding shipments.
JCP (8.22 -10.61%): At analyst day co sees comp guidance for Q3 below expectations to low single digits versus prior of mid single digits.
SAVE (58.19 -8.39%): Co sees Q3 adjusted operating margin in lower half of previous guidance range.

Analog Devices (ADI) introduced the industry's highest speed, high--temperature, 16-bit, A/D converter, which is more than twice as fast as currently available converters and provides error-free operation at temperatures of up to 175 degrees Celsius.

Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) announced that its 28-nm QorIQ T1 family multicore communications processors are the first embedded System on Chips to demonstrate interoperability with the newly unveiled Aquantia AQrate 2.5 and 5 Gbps Ethernet PHY products.

8:32 am O2Micro lowers Q3 revenue guidance to ~$15 mln vs $17.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus Est, down from $16.5-18.3 mln; reaffirms gross margin guidance at 50-52% (OIIM) :

The reduction in anticipated revenue for Q3 is primarily the result of ongoing weakness in demand at several notebook customers, coupled with a product issue in our charger IC product line.Co believes the soft demand in its business, which caused the reduction in guidance, is the result of continued weak demand by several of our major notebook customers.Co also experienced a product issue in our charger IC product line for notebooks. Co believes that it has resolved this issue and it expects the co's charger IC business will remain weak for several quarters. Co is confident it will garner new design wins in its notebook customers' next design cycle.During this difficult period of revenue weakness, the co will consider expense reduction measures.

Texas Instruments (TXN) expanded its successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter portfolio with the first devices in a new high-voltage family.

Xilinx (XLNX) announced major advances in productivity for Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoCs with the Vivado Design Suite 2014.3, the programmable industry's only SoC-strength design suite, SDK, and new UltraFast Embedded Design Methodology Guide.

Tuesday was a trend-down day for the major indices. Wednesday was for a time in the early-going, but then it soon became a trend-up day when the S&P futures held support at the 1918 level. Things turned higher at that point, yet they went into overdrive following the release of the minutes for the September 16-17 FOMC meeting that proved to be less hawkish-sounding than a growing number of participants had feared.

What ensued with the 2:00 p.m. ET release was a broad-based rally that was exacerbated by short-covering activity.

The gains were significant in many instances as the stock market found a measure of comfort in the thought that the Fed still sounded like it is not in a hurry to raise the fed funds rate or to project a hawkish-sounding image.

The Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500, and Russell 2000, which were down 56, 30, 10, and 11 points around 11:00 a.m. ET finished up 275, 83, 34, and 21 points, respectively, reclaiming everything that was lost on Tuesday and then some.

The S&P 500 information technology sector was one of the strongest performers of the day, jumping 2.0% with all but one component -- Juniper Networks (JNPR 21.20, -0.09) -- registering a gain. Recall that all 66 sector components ended with a loss on Tuesday.

The overhang for Juniper Networks was an MKM Partners downgrade to Neutral from Buy that was tied in part to secular and competitive concerns.

Just about every other component was riding high, gaining at least 1.0%. Cisco (CSCO 24.66, +0.02) was a laggard, adding just 0.1% in the wake of Business Insider report discussing a "massive reorganization" affecting up to 25,000 employees. The report, which highlighted a shake-up in Cisco's core routing and switching business, was attributed to "sources in the Valley."

On a related note, German software giant SAP (SAP 69.21, -1.20) came under pressure amid media reports the company is freezing hiring until 2015 to reduce costs. Bloomberg shared that news, attributing it to Boerse Online which cited an email from SAP's CFO to managers in its reporting.

Given the broad-based, and sizable, gains on Wednesday, most developments with a negative hue were overlooked as bargain-hunting efforts took over.

To wit, Qualcomm (QCOM 75.19, +1.68) didn't trade off the news that RBC Capital Markets lowered its price target to $85 from $88 so much as it traded off the news that FBR Capital raised its price target to $83 from $81

Western Digital (WDC 95.66, +2.35) even managed to climb 2.5% after reporting it lost a court ruling in Minnesota and will have to pay Seagate Technology (STX 57.08, +1.81) a final arbitration award of $630.4 million. The offset was the news that WDC had recorded an accrual of $758 million for this matter as of June 27, 2014.

In other developments, security software company Symantec (SYMC 24.01, +0.82) was said to be considering splitting up its security and storage units; EMC Corp. (EMC 28.82, +0.69) was also discussed as a potential breakup candidate after Elliott Management sent a letter to the company's Board of Directors claiming the company's current structure obscures enormous value

It sounds like letter writing is becoming increasingly popular these days. In mid-afternoon action, Carl Icahn said he is planning to send a letter on Thursday to Apple's (AAPL 100.80, +2.05)Tim Cook and that he believes "it will be interesting." That helped prop up the sector's largest component, which also sent out an invitation to an October 16 "event."

Finally, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which has been among the worst-performing indexes of late, increased 2.3% after being down 0.9% in early action. Applied Materials (AMAT 21.15, +0.78), which was upgraded by Credit Agricole to Outperform from Underperform, had a hand in that strong showing.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market followed Wednesday's sharp rally with an even sharper slide that clipped all ten sectors. The S&P 500 lost 2.1% and slid back below its 100-day moving average (1962.28) while the Russell 2000 tumbled 2.7%.

Equities began the trading day with modest losses, but the energy sector (-3.7%) was a notable laggard from the start once again. That prevented the broader market from turning positive while the relative weakness among most of the remaining cyclical sectors allowed for the selling to feed on itself.

The energy sector registered its largest one-day loss since surrendering 4.0% in April 2013 with crude oil contributing to the weakness. West Texas Intermediate crude plunged 2.4% to $85.22/bbl while Brent crude slipped below the $90.00/bbl level for the first time in more than two years. Following today's slide, WTI crude is down 6.8% since the start of October.

Macroeconomic concerns aside, crude prices were also pressured by the dollar rebounding from three days of losses. The Dollar Index (85.55, +0.25) traded lower overnight but erased that decline in the morning. Strikingly, greenback strength has had little effect on precious metals with gold futures climbing 1.5% to $1224.20/ozt.

The sell-off caused a scramble in search of volatility protection. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 18.96, +3.85) surged more than 25.0% to its highest level since early February. Treasuries, however, surrendered their overnight gains in the early morning before spending the session near their flat lines. The 10-yr note shed four ticks with its yield rising one basis point to 2.33%.

As mentioned earlier, most cyclical sectors underperformed the broader market, which prevented a sustained rebound from taking hold. The growth concerns weighed on economically-sensitive sectors like consumer discretionary (-2.3%), industrials (-2.3%), and materials (-2.5%), while financials (-2.1%) ended in-line with the S&P 500.

The widespread losses masked an 12.5% dive in the shares of Gap (GPS 36.67, -5.23) after the company reported below-consensus comparable store sales for September and announced the resignation of Chief Executive Officer Glenn Murphy.

Elsewhere, the technology sector (-1.7%) ended ahead of the other cyclical groups. Shares of Apple (AAPL 101.02, +0.22) contributed to the outperformance after activist investor Carl Icahn argued for a larger repurchase program in a letter sent to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook.

Meanwhile, the four countercyclical sectors displayed some intraday strength, but the consumer staples sector (-0.9%) was the only group to register a loss smaller than 1.6%.

Today's participation was stronger than average with 874 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Initial Claims and Wholesale Inventories:


Weekly initial claims ticked down to 287,000 from a downwardly revised rate of 288,000 (from 287,000), while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 295,000
Once again, the Department of Labor said there were no special factors affecting the reading, suggesting an improvement in labor market conditions
The four-week moving average of 287,750 for initial claims is at its lowest level since February 4, 2006
Wholesale inventories increased 0.7% in August after increasing an upwardly revised 0.3% (from 0.1%) in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%

Tomorrow, Import/Export Prices for September will be announced at 8:30 ET while the September Treasury Budget (Briefing.com consensus $106 billion) will be released at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +4.8% YTD
S&P 500 +4.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -8.3% YTD

DJ30 -334.97 NASDAQ -90.26 SP500 -40.68 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 393/2.09 bln/2618 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 365/874.0 mln/2750 3:40 pm :

Crude oil and natural gas futures slid lower all day and ended today's session at today's lows
Precious metals and copper rose notably today and largely held its gains
in afternoon trade, gold and silver traded in a tight consolidated pattern
Tomorrow at noon EST, the USDA will release its monthly demand/supply report for grains

12:51 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

UAL (45.15 +3.01%): Reported September 2014 consolidated traffic decreased 0.2%, consolidated capacity decreased 0.4%; positive commentary from Cowen, Credit Suisse, UBS, others.
VTR (64.21 +0.82%): Strength in REIT's as investors flock to yield plays for safety with deep broad market sell-off (VNO & SPG also higher).
CRM (57.92 +0.04%): Assumed with a Buy at MKM Partners premarket; tgt $67.

Large Cap Losers

GPS (36.73 -12.34%): Announced CEO Glenn Murphy resigning, reported Sep same store sales were flat vs +1.2% Retail Metrics consensus.
TCK (16.12 -7.36%): Reports China to reinstate tariffs on coal imports.
VOD (31.51 -5.26%): Downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Nomura.

Mid Cap Gainers

RVBD (18.69 +3.38%): Announced the Board has determined to undertake a comprehensive reviewof strategic and financial alternatives to enhance shareholder value.
SRC (11.3 +0.89%): Strength in REIT's as investors flock to yield plays for safety with deep broad market sell-off (O & HTA also higher).
EAT (53.36 +0.45%): Restaurants mostly higher following strong results from Ruby Tuesday (RT).

Mid Cap Losers
HUB.B (111.51 -10.22%): Sees Q3 revs +7% (~$894.4 mln) vs Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of approx +7.7% ($900.03 mln); sees FY14 revs at low end of previously provided guidance of +5-6%; downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer.
AMD (3.03 -7.62%): Appoints Dr. Lisa Su as President & CEO to replace Rory Read, who stepped down; downgraded Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush; tgt lowered to $3 from $6.
AXLL (35.12 -6.6%): Initiated with a Underperform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt $28.

11:41 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (187) outpacing new highs (48) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AGN, APT, AUXL, BDX, BLE, CAG, CALM, CCI, CLX, COST, CVS, DPS, DTE, DTSI, DUK, DVA, ELLI, GMCR, GTIV, HAWK, HD, HE, HPY, IMDZ, JACK, KO, KR, LAKE, LMNX, LTS, MNST, MO, NHTB, NI, NZH, OBCI, PEP, PTRY, QTS, RDNT, RDUS, RENT, SRE, TAYD, THS, TTPH, UUU, WLDN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ABIO, ACFN, ACUR, AEGN, ALB, ALCS, ALU, AMD, AMZG, AOI, AR, ARO, ASNA, ASTI, ATLS, ATOS, AWX, AXLL, BAMM, BBG, BEBE, BECN, BGMD, BH, BNFT, BPHX, BTU, BXE, CACH, CAS, CHK, CHOP, CIE, CLB, CLD, CLNE, CLNT, CLRO, CNX, COCO, COG, CPST, CRH, CRIS, CRR, CRRS, CTCM, CYOU, CYTX, DCTH, DEST, DLIA, DNR, DRNA, E, ECOM, EDAP, ELY, EOPN, EPM, EROC, FFHL, FMC, FOMX, FRED, FTEK, FWM, GLPI, GMO, GRAM, GRO, GTE, GTXI, HGG, HNSN, HOV, HVT, ICD, IKGH, ININ, ISCA, ISTR, KCAP, KIRK, KNOP, KODK, KOSS, KRA, KRO, KUTV, KWK, LAS, LF, LGL, LGND, LPI, LRN, LUK, LXFR, MAN, MBT, MDR, MDWD, MEA, MGCD, MIL, MPO, NAK, NDRO, OC, OCLS, OEC, OGEN, OMN, ONCY, ONTX, ORBT, ORIG, PBY, PCOM, PGN, PHMD, PLPM, PRGN, PSUN, PT, QLTI, REE, REN, REXX, ROIA, ROIAK, ROYT, SALE, SALT, SANW, SB, SDRL, SGY, SGYP, SHOS, SPAN, SREV, SSE, SSNI, STC, STNG, STNR, STXS, SWSH, SZYM, TCS, TECU, TG, TGA, TGE, TIGR, TINY, TKAI, TLM, TLP, TLYS, TPI, TRCH, TRUP, TTMI, TZOO, UAMY, UBS, UVV, VCYT, VIP, VNOM, VOC, VOD, VPCO, WAIR, WLT, WPRT, WSTL, WTI, WTSL, XNY, ZA, ZEP, ZNGA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: HYD, SHY, TLH, TLT, XLP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EFA, EWO, EWQ, EZU, OIL, REMX, TBT, UGA, USO, VGK

9:43 am Riverbed Technology: Elliott comments on Riverbed's release (RVBD) :

"We commend the Board for initiating a strategic review and believe that Riverbed is a great company with products customers value," said Jesse Cohn, portfolio manager at Elliott Management. "We have made a $21 bid for the company, and our team and advisors look forward to completing our confirmatory diligence in an expedited fashion."

8:39 am Apple: Icahn is requesting AAPL considers accelerating its share repurchase in letter (AAPL) : Some key excerpts from the letter include:

"the excess liquidity the company continues to hold on its balance sheet affords the company an amazing opportunity to take further advantage of this valuation disconnect by accelerating share repurchases". "This investment represents the largest position in our investment history, reflecting the strength of the convictions we have expressed in this letter". "Our valuation analysis tells us that Apple should trade at $203 per share today, and we believe the disconnect between that price and today's price reflects an undervaluation anomaly that will soon disappear"."Apple Pay will launch in October 2014, and while we expect limited financial impact in FY 2015 as retailers upgrade their infrastructure to incorporate the requisite near-field communications technology (:NFC), we expect a more meaningful contribution in FY 2016 that accelerates into FY 2017 and the following years". "Over the next three years, we expect the Apple Watch to have a significant impact on Apple's growth. Apple's first new product category since the iPad in 2010, and the company's first foray into wearables, the Apple Watch will launch early next calendar year".

8:31 am Novatel Wireless announces ticker symbol change to MIFI effective Oct. 15, 2014 (NVTL) :

Co will change its NASDAQ ticker symbol to 'MIFI' -- effective at the start of trading on October 15, 2014. The company will continue to operate as Novatel Wireless.

7:35 am Taiwan Semi reports September rev +8% MoM to NT$74.85 bln; rev +19.7% YoY to NT$540.3 bln YTD (TSM) :

Microsemi (MSCC) announced the availability of its new ultra secure SmartFusion2 SoC FPGAs and IGLOO2 FPGAs that have more advanced security features at the device, design and system levels than any other leading FPGA manufacturer.

7:04 am Spansion and ISSI (ISSI) to develop RAM products based on breakthrough Spansion HyperBus interface; both cos will have rights to sell HyperRAM products under a long-term supply agreement fulfilled by ISSI (CODE) : Co and Integrated Silicon Solution (ISSI), a leader in advanced memory solutions, announced plans to develop HyperRAM products based on the Spansion HyperBus interface, which dramatically improves performance while reducing the number of pins. Both companies will have rights to sell HyperRAM products under a long-term supply agreement fulfilled by ISSI.

Spansion and ISSI plan to release the first HyperRAM products in the first half of 2015 and will provide additional details at that time.

6:06 am Chipmos Technology sees Q3 revs above consensus (IMOS) : Co issues upside guidance for Q3 (Sep), sees Q3 (Sep) revs of $190.7 mln vs. $189.90 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

In local currency, Revenue for the third quarter of 2014 was NT$5,806.3 million, representing an increase of 7.3% as compared to the second quarter of 2014 and an increase of 13.6% from the same period in 2013. This is above the high-end of the Company's guidance, which called for revenue to increase by ~3-7% as compared to the second quarter of 2014. The Company expects gross margin on a consolidated basis to be at the high-end of its prior guidance range of ~23% to 26% for the third quarter of 2014

Tech Stocks

It seems the law of gravity took over in the stock market, because what went up on Wednesday came down on Thursday.

That was true anyway in most instances as the majority of stocks at the NYSE and Nasdaq lost ground. Declines of 2.0% or more were not out of the ordinary -- a point reflected in the major indices, all of which declined at least 2.0%. The Russell 2000 was the biggest loser, falling 2.5% after gaining 1.9% on Wednesday.

What happened, you ask? Well, it all began with what didn't happen.

There wasn't any follow-through buying interest at the opening bellThe S&P 500 failed to push above its 50-day simple moving average Germany's DAX Index coughed up a 1.5% gain and ended up just 0.1%Oil prices kept sliding ($85.25, -2.06)Better than expected earnings results and guidance from Alcoa (AA 15.39, -0.68) and PepsiCo (PEP 93.57, -0.37) was glossed over; andThere was little enthusiasm for the indication that the four-week moving average for initial claims fell to its lowest level since February 4, 2006The most influential factor perhaps was the quick inclination to sell into Wednesday's strength. It came as a surprise since Wednesday's key reversal after the FOMC Minutes had many participants thinking the bulls would regain control of the tape.

That didn't happen and that piqued concerns that the buy-the-dip trade, which has worked effectively for so long, may no longer be the easy money trade. Consequently, there was a flush of selling interest that hit far and wide and left the major indices near their lows for the day when the closing bell rang.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-1.7%) was not immune by any means to the selling pressure, although it did manage to outperform the broader market. That being the case, and on a day like Thursday, all eyes would naturally turn to Apple (AAPL 101.02, +0.22) for explanation.

Sure enough, Apple was one of just two stocks in the information technology sector to end higher. Yahoo (YHOO 41.10, +0.02) was the other. In both cases, it's fair to say that the influence of activist investors played a part in their relative strength.

Yahoo, of course, is being hounded by Starboard Value to take steps to unlock shareholder value. There wasn't any new information on that front on Thursday, but with the proceeds from the Alibaba Group (BABA 88.79, +0.49) IPO sitting in its coffers, investors are undoubtedly anticipating a constructive announcement soon. That consideration and a Business Insider report that Yahoo may convert Tumblr into a YouTube-like service helped underpin the stock.

As far as Apple is concerned, there were a number of headlines out pertaining to the company, yet one stood out above all others and that was Carl Icahn's letter to CEO Tim Cook requesting that Apple accelerate accelerate its share repurchases. Mr. Icahn said his valuation analysis suggests Apple should be a $203 stock.

Apple has a long way to go to get to where Mr. Icahn sees it, but its strength on Thursday went a long way toward keeping the technology sector's losses from being even greater than they were.

In other developments, the semiconductor stocks were hit particularly hard.

Micron (MU 30.64, -1.68), Atmel (ATML 7.47, -0.48), RF Micro Devices (RFMD 10.34, -0.67), TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT 17.11, -1.11), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 2.95, -0.33), which named a new CEO, and Kulicke & Soffa (KLIC 13.23, -0.79) all declined more than 5.0%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 2.7% as all 30 of its components ended with a loss.

Amazon.com (AMZN 315.37, -7.33) became a story stock after a Wall Street Journal report suggested the company is planning to open its first store in New York City before the holidays. Separately, Amazon announced after Wednesday's close that it is expanding its operations in Costa Rica, adding 1,000 new jobs in the process.

Microsoft (MSFT 45.85, -0.93), which is in the midst of cutting jobs, was out Thursday shooting down rumors that it might end its Surface tablet business. Microsoft coyly said in a blog post that its Surface tablet is here to stay.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market snapped its three-day skid with small caps pacing the Tuesday rebound. The Russell 2000 jumped 1.2% while the S&P 500 added 0.2% with eight sectors ending in the green. However, the advance masked an afternoon slide from intraday highs that caused the Dow to end flat.

Equity indices began the day with slim gains after investors received a trio of quarterly reports from the financial sector (+0.5%). Citigroup (C 51.47, +1.57) was a notable standout, surging 3.2%, in reaction to its better than expected results combined with news indicating the company will exit its consumer business in 11 markets around the world. However, the broader sector could not pull away from the S&P 500 as JPMorgan Chase (JPM 57.99, -0.17) and Wells Fargo (WFC 48.83, -1.37) weighed. Shares of JPM lost 0.3% following a bottom-line miss while Wells Fargo fell 2.7% after reporting in-line results.

Although the financial sector contributed to an opening boost, the market did not build on its early gain until the Russell 2000 climbed above its opening high. That strength emboldened bargain hunters who rushed into recently-battered areas like transports and chipmakers.

However, the intraday strength began fading shortly after noon ET with selling activity accelerating as crude oil plunged into the pit close. The energy component dove nearly 5.0% to $81.81/bbl, dragging the energy sector (-1.2%) down with it. The sharp drop sent oil to levels last seen in mid-2012, while the energy sector extended its October loss to 10.9%.

The afternoon retreat from highs was also fueled in part by weakness in the health care sector (-0.8%). The group tried to stage an intraday bounce, but was held back by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 97.01, -2.11), which fell 2.1% despite beating earnings estimates and hiking its guidance.

Even though the S&P 500 gave back its entire advance, the areas that displayed strength in the morning maintained their gains. Transport stocks underpinned the industrial sector (+1.3%) with the Dow Jones Transportation Average climbing 2.6%. JetBlue Airways (JBLU 10.23, +0.82) soared 8.7% to lead the way while shipper Kirby (KEX 99.63, -0.20) was the lone decliner.

Elsewhere, the relative strength among chipmakers sent the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.9%. Skyworks (SWKS 48.91, +3.59) was the standard-bearer, rallying 7.9% after boosting its guidance while Intel (INTC 32.14, +0.67) rose 2.1% ahead of its quarterly report. For its part, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%) ended a bit ahead of the broader market.

Also of note, the Dollar Index (85.81, +0.28) spent the day in positive territory while Treasuries finished just below their overnight highs. The 10-yr note added 24 ticks to send its yield lower by nine basis points to 2.20%.

Participation remained on the strong side with more than 940 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET, while the Retail Sales report for September (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%), September PPI (consensus 0.1%), and October Empire Manufacturing (expected 20.4) will all be released at 8:30 ET. Also of note, the Business Inventories report for August (consensus 0.4%) and the Fed's Beige Book for October will cross the wires at 10:00 ET and 14:00 ET, respectively.


•S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
•Nasdaq Composite +1.2% YTD
•Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.6% YTD
•Russell 2000 -8.8% YTD
DJ30 -5.88 NASDAQ +13.52 SP500 +2.96 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1813/2.15 bln/1048 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1884/944.4 mln/1209 3:35 pm :

•Oil prices dropped hard in afternoon trading, leaving both Brent crude oil and WTI crude oil sitting near session lows
•WTI ended today's pit trading session down almost $4/barrel (or -5%) to $81.81/barrel
•Natural gas sold off this afternoon, not as bad as oil, but it still dropped 2.5% to $3.82/MMBtu
•Gold and silver held modest gains today, while copper finished over 1% higher.
•Dec gold rose 0.4% to $1234.50/oz, while Dec silver rose 0.4% to $17.41/oz.
5:10 pm Linear Tech reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 revs below consensus (LLTC) : Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.53 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.53; revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $371.06 mln vs the $372.37 mln consensus.

The Board of Directors authorized the Company to purchase, depending on market conditions, up to 10 million shares of its outstanding common stock in the open market over the next two years.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs -6% to -3% sequentially (~$348.8-359.9 mln) vs. $367.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

5:01 pm Linear Tech announces planned retirement of Paul Coghlan and implements CFO transition plan; Donald Zerio to be promoted to CFO (LLTC) : Co announced that Paul Coghlan, the Company's Chief Financial Officer, plans to retire at the end of the current fiscal year in July 2015. Donald Zerio, the current Linear Technology Corporate Controller and a thirteen year Linear veteran will be promoted to CFO on June 29, 2015. In the interim months, Messrs. Coghlan and Zerio will continue to work closely together to ensure a smooth transition. Mr. Coghlan will continue to work for the Company on a part time consulting basis until June 30, 2016.

4:09 pm Intel beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 rev in-line -- midpoint above consensus (INTC) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.66 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.65; revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $14.55 bln vs the $14.45 bln consensus.

Gross margin 65% vs. 66% +/- a couple % points guidancePC Client Group revenue of $9.2 billion, up 6% sequentially and up 9% year-over-year.Data Center Group revenue of $3.7 billion, up 5% sequentially and up 16% year-over-year.Internet of Things Group revenue of $530 million, down 2% sequentially and up 14% year-over-year. Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $14.2-15.2 bln vs. $14.48 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Gross margin percentage: 64%, plus or minus a couple of % points. R&D plus MG&A spending: ~$4.9 billion. Full-year capital spending: $11.0 billion, plus or minus $500 million.

3:24 pm SAP AG and IBM (IBM) partner to accelerate enterprise cloud adoption (SAP) : The co and IBM (IBM) announced that SAP has selected IBM as a premier strategic provider of Cloud infrastructure services for its business critical applications -- accelerating customers' ability to run core business in the cloud. The SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud offering is now available through IBM's highly scalable, open and secure cloud.

1:04 pm Agilent Technologies to close nuclear magnetic resonance business; to take $72 mln restructuring charge in Q4, reaffirms Q4 guidance (A) : Co announced it is exiting its Nuclear Magnetic Resonance business. Agilent entered the NMR business in 2010, with the acquisition of Varian. Since then, the business has not met growth and profitability objectives.

Agilent will stop taking new NMR system orders immediately, but the company will continue to meet customer commitments for orders in progress and for ongoing support contracts.To cover the cost of exiting this business, Agilent will take an approximate $72 million restructuring charge in the fourth quarter. It expects a $20 million to $30 million decline in revenues in fiscal year 2015 due to the NMR business closure, but a positive impact of about $10 million in operating profit in FY15.Reaffirms guidance for Q4 (Oct), sees EPS of $0.87-0.91, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.89 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. and projects revenues to be negatively affected by currency at about $13 million, and lower NMR-related revenues by about $12 million.

12:39 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers


ETE (50.8 +8.15%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird; tgt $65.
NXPI (58.03 +7.66%): Semiconductors moving higher on the heels of strong Skyworks (SWKS) guidance (AVGO & ARMH also higher).DLPH (61.13 +4.85%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman; tgt raised to $82 from $78.

Large Cap Losers

TYC (40.01 -3.68%): Downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays.CI (88.32 -1.52%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee.
GILD (99.33 -2.08%): Renewed concerns of Hep-C price competition from AbbVie (ABBV).

Mid Cap Gainers

SWKS (50.45 +11.32%): Raised Q4 guidance to $1.08 EPS from $1.01 and revenues to $718 mln from $680 mln; bullish analyst commentary from Topeka & MKM Partners.
DPZ (82.64 +9.14%): Beat Q3 earnings by $0.02, revs of $446.6 mln vs. $434.06 mln consensus.
PCRX (100.17 +6.36%): Announced additional data supporting safety of EXPAREL in peripheral nerve block.

Mid Cap Losers

AWI (46.49 -4.6%): Sees FY14 revs of $2.68-2.72 bln (lowered from $2.70-2.80 bln) vs $2.75 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
ENBL (21.62 -4.08%): Continued weakness in oil & gas companies as oil drops below $84 a barrel (FI & CQP also lower).
SIG (106.28 -1.49%): Announced that CEO Michael Barnes has resigned.

11:39 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (72) outpacing new highs (10) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: CCI, CMS, CUBE, DUK, ED, EIX, NU, SO, TE, XEL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ALB, ALLY, AMD, AN, APA, APO, BABA, BBEP, BEAV, BP, CBI, CCE, CHK, CIE, CNX, COG, CS, CVE, DAN, DAR, DNR, DVN, EPE, EQT, FAST, FMC, GPOR, GSK, HFC, HTZ, JCI, KATE, KBR, KING, KKR, KOG, KOS, LINE, LNCO, LPI, LVS, MCHP, MDRX, MPEL, MRC, MTW, MUR, NBG, NBL, NCR, NE, OAS, OI, OII, PBF, PE, PGH, PWE, PXD, QEP, RDC, RIG, RKT, RLGY, ROSE, SC, SM, SWN, TLM, TS, ZION, ZNGA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AGG, BND, HYD, IEF, IEI, MUB, TLT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, BJK, BNO, DBC, DIG, EWN, EWU, FXB, GREK, GSG, IEO, IGE, IXC, IYE, KOL, OIH, OIL, PBW, SEA, TAN, TBT, UGA, UHN, URA, USO, XES, XLE, XOP

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 40 stocks made 52 week highs and 387 stocks made 52 week lows.

Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI) announces the UltraCMOS PE42722, a high-linearity RF switch that enables a dual upstream/downstream band architecture in cable customer premises equipment devices.

Texas Instruments (TXN) has shipped more than 22 billion units of copper wire bonding technology from its internal assembly sites and is now in production for major high reliability applications including automotive and industrial.

SUNE +4% (amends letter of credit facility to $800 mln USD for credit commitments and future increases)

SunEdison (SUNE) announced new zero white space solar module technology which can increase solar module power output by up to 15%, effectively decreasing the total system cost by up to 8%

MU +1.9% (Samsung Elect CEO downplayed fears of increased competition in chip space after co last week announced plans for new factory, which took down Micron last wk)

8:07 am Skyworks raises Q4 guidance (SWKS) : Co issues upside guidance for Q4 (Sep), raises EPS to $1.08 from $1.01, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.01 Capital IQ Consensus; raises Q4 (Sep) revs to $718 mln from $680 mln vs. $681.92 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Skyworks' upwardly revised outlook demonstrates the broad-based strength of our business and our ability to capitalize on positive underlying market trends to connect everyone and everything, all the time," said David J. Aldrich, chairman and chief executive officer. "These multi-year technology trends are setting the stage for us to outperform the broader semiconductor industry in the December quarter and for the foreseeable future."

8:07 am SunPower changes time of third-quarter 2013 results conference call to 5:30 a.m. PT on Oct. 29, 2014 (SPWR) :

Due to conflicts in executives' schedules, SunPower will now hold its third-quarter financial results conference call on Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
7:31 am SunEdison amends letter of credit facility to $800 mln USD for credit commitments and future increases (SUNE) :

Co announced the Credit Facility's overall cap was increased from $400 million USD to $800 million USD. The amendment reflects the banking community's strong confidence in SunEdison and will allow additional banks to participate in the Credit Facility as SunEdison continues to grow its business.The Credit Facility was also amended to permit investments in (i) a subsidiary of the company formed for the purpose of owning subsidiaries that own and operate renewable energy systems, and (ii) wind, biomass, natural gas, hydroelectric, geothermal or other clean energy generation systems or hybrid energy generation systems.In a separate press release, the co announced new zero white space solar module technology.The technology can increase solar module power output by up to 15%, effectively decreasing the total system cost by up to 8%.Trina Solar Limited (TSL) announced that its high-efficiency Honey solar module has set a new world record for peak power output for P-type monocrystalline silicon PV modules, as independently certified by TUV Rheinland.

Tech Stocks

The major indices started with a bang on Tuesday, but ended with a thud in what has become a familiar inclination to sell into strength.

The early rally was forged on a belief that the scope of recent losses left the market in a good position to put together a nice recovery rally. Things looked good in that respect during the morning when the Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500, and Russell 2000 were up 143, 68, 24, and 26 points, respectively, at their highs. They would all see their gains cut back considerably. For example, the Dow closed down six points.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.3%) got things turned around a bit thanks to a bargain-hunting bid in the semiconductor group.

The turnaround effort in that space was juiced by Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 48.91, +3.59), which raised its fiscal fourth quarter EPS guidance to $1.08 from $1.01, touting the broad-based strength in its business and the ability to leverage technology trends to outperform the industry in the December quarter and for the foreseeable future.

Skyworks is an Apple (AAPL 98.75, -1.06) supplier, so its upbeat view helped related peers like Avago Technologies (AVGO 72.02, +2.98), RF Micro Devices (RFMD 9.50, +0.34), Qualcomm (QCOM 71.86, +1.15), and NXP Semiconductors (NXPI 56.58, +2.68) outperform. Apple, however, did not go along for the ride. It succumbed to further profit-taking interest and acted as a negative influence on both the sector and the broader market.

Separately, Intel (INTC 32.14, +0.67) was a sector leader ahead of its earnings report after the close. Its strength and that of many other semiconductor-related stocks had the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up as much as 3.7% at its high on Tuesday. Like the broader market, though, it rolled over and concluded Tuesday's session with a solid, albeit reduced, 1.9% gain.

The weight of Apple made the sector's final standing look pretty pedestrian, yet a closer look reveals that more than two-thirds of the sector's 66 components ended the day higher.

Outside of the semiconductor stocks, leading names like Cisco (CSCO 23.06, +0.13), Facebook (FB 73.59, +0.60), Google (GOOG 537.94, +4.73), Mastercard (MA 71.00, +1.22), Microsoft (MSFT 43.73, +0.08), NetApp (NTAP 38.53, +0.31), and Oracle (ORCL 38.46, +0.23) lent the sector some added support.

Some of the news items involving companies in the technology sector on Tuesday included the following:

EMC Corp. (EMC 27.61, +0.07) acquired Cloudscaling, a cloud-computing startup. Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the situation, said the purchase price was less than $50 million.

Microsoft (MSFT 43.73, +0.08) said it reached one million registrants for the Windows 10 insider program.

Jack Dorsey of Square shot down rumors that eBay's (EBAY 50.59, +0.13) PayPal unit is looking at Square as a possible acquisition candidate.

Agilent (A 51.79, -1.00) said it will take a fourth quarter restructuring charge of $72 million to close its nuclear magnetic resonance business. The company reaffirmed its fourth quarter EPS guidance of $0.87 to $0.91 and warned that revenues will be negatively affected by about $13 million due to currency impact.

IBM (IBM 183.80, +0.28) announced that SAP (SAP 68.61, +0.36) selected it as a premier strategic provider of Cloud infrastructure services for its business critical applications

A few ratings changes of note included Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgrading Corning (GLW 17.57, -0.07) to Neutral from Buy and UBS starting Alibaba Group (BABA 84.95, -0.17) with a Buy rating and $100 price target.

Postscript: After the close, Intel posted a profit of $0.66 per share that was a penny ahead of expectations on a 7.9% jump in revenue to $14.55 billion. The company's revenue guidance range for the fourth quarter is $14.2 billion to $15.2 billion, the midpoint of which is above analysts' current expectations, and it expects gross margins to be 64%, plus or minus a couple of points. In a CNBC interview following the report, Intel's CFO said it is not seeing a chip slowdown.

Shares of INTC were up 1.7% in after-hours action as of this posting.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market endured another rough session, but the major averages managed to climb off their worst levels of the day ahead of the close. The S&P 500 lost 0.8% while the Russell 2000 rose 1.0% after showing relative strength throughout the session.

Equity indices stumbled out of the gate to continue the weakness that started in the futures market overnight. Also weighing on sentiment was a trio of disappointing economic reports with retail sales, PPI, and the Empire Manufacturing Index all missing expectations. The data was met with dollar weakness while Treasuries soared.

The dollar retreated against other major currencies with the euro (+170 pips), yen (+120 pips) and Swiss franc (+130 pips) benefitting from the greenback weakness. For its part, the Dollar Index (84.97, -0.85) lost 1.0%.

Meanwhile, the 10-yr note was up more than two points at its best level of the day with the benchmark yield down 34 basis points. That represented the sharpest move since the $1 trillion QE program was unveiled in March 2009. The benchmark yield recovered the bulk of its decline into the close, ending lower by five basis points at 2.15%.

Treasuries may have also received a boost from comments made by The Wall Street Journal's Jon Hilsenrath, who said the recent drop in commodity prices gives the fed more room to delay its first rate hike. To that point, the fed funds futures market has pushed out the probability of the first hike from July 2015 to the end of 2015.

Interestingly, the stock market all but ignored the report, leading to speculation that equity investors may be starting to question the power of the Fed and other central banks after years of asset purchases and rate cuts that have been followed by subpar growth and disinflationary pressures.

Eight sectors ended in the red with financials (-2.0%) posting the largest loss. Bank of America (BAC 15.76, -0.76) reported better than expected earnings, but the report could not stop the major sector component from settling lower by 4.6%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, the top-weighted group-technology-ended just ahead of the S&P 500. Chipmakers displayed relative strength with the PHLX Semiconductor Index climbing 0.5%. That advance took place despite a 2.7% decline in the shares of Intel (INTC 31.28, -0.87) after the industry giant reported a one-cent beat that was greeted with a Morgan Stanley downgrade to 'Underweight' from 'Equal-Weight.'

Also of note, the energy sector (+0.4%) was able to stage an intraday rebound while crude oil remained volatile. The energy component was down near 2.0% this morning, but ended the pit session with a ten-cent loss at $81.74/bbl. It is worth mentioning that the sector's outperformance followed heavy selling earlier in the month. The energy sector narrowed its October loss to 10.5%.

Similarly, the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.2%) rebounded to push this week's gain to 0.6%. The strength helped the industrial sector (-0.2%) end little changed.

Also of note, the utilities sector (-1.3%), which had shown relative strength earlier in the week, finished today's session among the laggards. Meanwhile, another countercyclical group-consumer staples (-1.2%)-was pressured by Wal-Mart (WMT 75.20, -2.78), which fell 3.6% after lowering its fiscal-year 2015 guidance to reflect expected sales growth of 2-3% (3-5% previous).

Today's wild ride invited above average participation with more than 1.1 billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors showed strong demand for volatility protection with the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 25.35, +2.56) spiking to its highest level since November 2011 before pulling back.

Economic data included Retail Sales, PPI, Empire Manufacturing, Business Inventories, and the MBA Mortgage Index:


Retail sales declined 0.3% in September following an unrevised 0.6% gain in August, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick of 0.2%.
Motor vehicle sales declined 0.8% after increasing 1.9% in July, which was in-line with the decline in per unit sales reported by the motor vehicle manufacturers
Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.2% in September after increasing an unrevised 0.3% in August, while the consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
Producer prices fell 0.1% in September after reporting no change in August, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
As expected, energy prices fell 0.7% in September, which was the third consecutive monthly decline
Food prices fell for the second consecutive month and the fourth time in the last five months, dropping 0.7% after falling 0.5% in August
Excluding food and energy, core PPI was flat after increasing 0.1% in August, while the consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for October fell to 6.2 from 27.5, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick to 20.4
Business inventories increased 0.2% in August after increasing an unrevised 0.4% in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.4%
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 5.6% to follow last week's 3.8% increase

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 290K) will be released at 8:30 ET, while September Industrial Production (consensus 0.4%) and Capacity Utilization (expected 79.0%) will both be reported at 9:15 ET. Also of note, the Philadelphia Fed Survey for October (consensus 19.8) and the October NAHB Housing Market Index (expected 59) will both be reported at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +0.9% YTD
S&P 500 +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.8% YTD

:23 pm eBay beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 below consensus (EBAY) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.68 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.67; revenues rose 11.8% year/year to $4.35 bln vs the $4.36 bln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.88-0.91, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.91 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $4.85-4.95 bln vs. $5.16 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.


PayPal net total payment volume (:TPV) grew 29% with Merchant Services volume up 37% and on-eBay volume up 9%. Revenue grew to $2.0 billion. PayPal gained 4.4 million new active registered accounts to end the quarter at 157 million, up 14%. Global on-eBay penetration increased to 80.5%. Mobile payment volume grew 72% to $12 billion, representing 20% of TPV. Active accounts acquired on mobile were 2.9 million. Newly rebranded PayPal Credit grew 29%. PayPal also rolled out new product innovations like its One Touch offering making it simpler and easier to check-out and pay with PayPal. eBay Marketplaces gross merchandise volume (GMV.V) grew 9% to $20.08 bln vs. $20.41 bln consensus, with the U.S. up 7% and international up 11%. Revenue grew to $2.2 billion. Marketplaces gained 3.4 million new buyers to end the quarter with 152 million active buyers, up 13%. The selection of items available on Marketplaces grew to over 800 million listings, including both platform and non-platform offerings, reflecting the success of improved selling initiatives, particularly on mobile. Marketplaces mobile volume grew 41% to $7 billion. Fixed price sales grew 15% and now represent 79% of the total sales on the platform.4:12 pm Netflix beats by $0.05, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (NFLX) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.96 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.91; revenues rose 10.6% year/year to $1.22 bln vs the $1.41 bln consensus.


Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.44 vs. $0.87 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $1305 mln vs. $1.49 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Notable Comments from Letter:
"Separate from forecast variability, year on year net additions in the US were down (1.3 million in Q3 2013 to 1 million in Q3 2014). As best we can tell, the primary cause is the slightly higher prices we now have compared to a year ago. Slightly higher prices result in slightly less growth, other things being equal, and this is manifested more clearly in higher adoption markets such as the US"."In hindsight, we believe that late Q2 and early Q3 the impact of higher prices appeared to be offset for about two months by the large positive reception to Season Two of Orange is the New Black"."We are forecasting Q4 US contribution margin to increase almost 500 basis points on a y/y basis, but to decrease slightly sequentially, as it did last year from Q3 to Q4, due to significant sequential increases in content and marketing expense"."Our international markets launched prior to this year (Canada 4 years ago through Netherlands 1 year ago) are now collectively profitable on a contribution basis and will continue to help us fund new markets. Moreover, contribution margin from our first expansion market, Canada, now approximates the US"."Our US contribution margin grew about 500 bps to 28.6% for Q3. After achieving 30% contribution margin, likely in Q1 or Q2 of next year, we will seek to grow margins an average of 200 basis points per year for the following years. Ideally, we will achieve 40% contribution margin five years after achieving 30%. This increase in our domestic contribution margin gives us room to increase content spending as we grow, as well as substantial domestic profitability".
Please see 14:06 Comment for key metrics.

4:07 pm Extreme Networks guides well below consensus - halted (EXTR) :

EXTR sees Q1 EPS of ($0.02)-$0.00 vs. s $0.07 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees revs $135.0-136.5 mln vs $151.22 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate"Extreme faced a number of headwinds that affected our revenue this quarter. Our EMEA business was impacted by the weakening of the Euro and the political and economic conditions in the Eastern part of these markets. In North America, we experienced significant delays in closing deals," said Charles Berger, president and CEO of Extreme Networks.Stock is halted12:41 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

SWN (34.57 +4.44%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
ETE (49.67 +3.89%): A director of the company bought 1,178,567 shares at $49.01-53.55 worth ~$60.5 mln.
TWTR (49.31 +1.5%): Favorable mention on Tuesday's Mad Money.

Large Cap Losers

SHPG (190.41 -22.14%): The Board of AbbVie (ABBV) is going to meet to reconsider its recommendation that AbbVie shareholders approve the merger with SHPG.
KEY (11.79 -8.53%): Reported EPS in-line of $0.26, missed on revs.
BAC (15.56 -5.81%): Beat on EPS with a loss of only $0.01 vs. consensus loss of $0.09, revenues for the quarter of $21.43 billion vs. $21.33 bln consensus; downgraded to Underperform from Sector Perform at Portales Partners.

Mid Cap Gainers

AGIO (68.19 +9.86%): Announced the initiation of four expansion cohorts in its ongoing Phase 1 study of AG-221, a first-in-class, selective, potent IDH2 mutant inhibitor.
SXL (39.83 +5.57%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
CAVM (41.79 +4.82%): Upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities.

Mid Cap Losers

NBG (2.19 -14.26%): Weakness in Greek stocks as Greece indices drop 6.3% on renewed political and economic uncertainty fears and a jump in bond yields.
THS (76.64 -6.54%): Downgraded to Underweight from Hold at KeyBanc Capital Mkts.
EDU (20.68 -6.04%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.

11:52 am European Markets Closing Prices (:SUMRX) : European markets are now closed; stock markets across Europe performed as follows:

UK's FTSE:-2.8%Germany's DAX:-2.9%France's CAC:-3.6%Spain's IBEX:-3.7%Portugal's PSI:-3.2%Italy's MIB Index:-4.4%Irish Ovrl Index:-2.5%Greece ASE General Index: -6.3%

11:42 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (166) outpacing new highs (2) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: SO, XEL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ACM, AES, AFL, ALB, ALLY, ALU, AMD, APA, APO, ARCC, ARCP, ATML, BA, BABA, BBEP, BBVA, BCS, BEAV, BEN, BP, CA, CBI, CCE, CCJ, CDK, CHK, CIE, CNP, CNX, COG, CS, CVE, CVX, CXO, DAN, DAR, DB, DISCA, DNOW, DNR, DVN, EMN, EMR, EPE, EQT, ERIC, ETN, F, FAST, FBHS, FCX, FIG, FLR, FMER, FNFG, FULT, GE, GM, GNW, GPOR, GPS, GSK, GT, HFC, HOG, HON, HTZ, HUN, IM, JCI, JEC, KATE, KBR, KEY, KKR, KOG, KORS, KOS, L, LAMR, LLTC, LMCA, LNCO, LPI, LUK, LYG, MAT, MBT, MCD, MCHP, MDRX, MET, MOS, MPEL, MRC, MRO, MSI, MTW, MUR, MXIM, NBG, NBL, NCR, NE, NWSA, OAS, OC, OCN, OII, ONNN, ORI, OXY, P, PBF, PDS, PE, PFE, PGH, PH, PKG, PNR, PSEC, PTEN, PWE, PX, PXD, QEP, QIHU, RDC, RF, RICE, RKT, RLGY, ROSE, RRC, RRD, SAP, SC, SM, SMFG, SPN, SU, TEF, TER, TEX, TLM, TMUS, TOT, TROW, TS, TSCO, UBS, UMPQ, UTX, VIAB, VIP, VOD, W, WDR, WLL, WPG, WPX, YOKU, ZION, ZNGA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: BND, CSJ, HYD, IEF, IEI, LQD, MBB, MUB, TLH, TLT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BJK, BNO, CROP, CUT, DBC, DIG, DJP, EFA, EWG, EWI, EWK, EWN, EWO, EWQ, EWU, EZU, FAN, FXC, GREK, GSG, HYG, IEO, IGE, IWM, IXC, IYE, IYZ, JNK, KBE, KCE, KOL, KRE, OIH, OIL, PBW, PHO, REMX, SEA, TAN, TBT, UHN, URA, USO, UWM, VGK, XES, XHB, XLE, XME, XOP

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 12 stocks made 52 week highs and 642 stocks made 52 week lows.

11:02 am Intel introduced Intel Data Protection Technology; will bridge security gap, and help adoption of IoT; estimated that enterprise businesses will spend $114 bln dealing with malware-related cyberattacks (INTC) : Co introduced Intel Data Protection Technology for Transactions, the industry's first solution to provide end-to-end encryption of consumer and financial data that is built into the point of sale platforms.

Developed in collaboration with NCR (NCR), the Intel Data Protection Technology for Transactions combines software optimized for retailers with Intel hardware, including Intel Core and select Intel Atom processors, to deliver a higher level of security from the start of a transaction until transaction data is stored on a bank server.

9:03 am SolarCity launches first public offering of solar bonds; will issue up to $200 mln in solar bonds (SCTY) : SolarCity has created funds to finance the installation of ~$5 bln in renewable energy assets with investments from a number of the world's leading financial institutions and corporations.
9:01 am Emulex raises Q1 rev guidance (ELX) : Raises rev expectations for Q1 (Sept) to a range of $102 mln to 104 mln vs. $96 mln cinsensus. The co had previously projected revenue within a range of $93 million to $99 mln.

"solid performance across multiple product lines including Fibre Channel and Ethernet. While we continue to manage through some transitions in our business, we are well positioned with both a new general manager of Network Visibility Products in place and a broad set of I/O qualifications completed on next generation 'Grantley-based' servers at the world's top OEMs. We look forward to expanding our 10Gb Ethernet position as these new platforms ramp over the coming year."

8:34 am Solar Power to acquire both land and project development rights for a 6 megawatt project in Susami City (SOPW) : announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire both land and project development rights for a 6 megawatt project in Susami City, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan.

The agreement calls for SPI's Japan subsidiary, SPI Solar Japan GK, to provide engineering, procurement and construction services for the project, which SPI will own following its completion. Construction on the project is scheduled to begin in November 2014, with completion expected by August 2015.

Atmel (ATML) announced the company has expanded its Atmel | SMART portfolio of energy metering products with the introduction of the SAM4C32 dual-core secure MCU, along with the SAM4CMS32 and SAM4CMP32 for residential, commercial and industrial metering applications.

Extreme Networks (EXTR) announced National Cable Communications Media has selected and deployed Extreme Networks' high performance switches to bring its data center into the next generation.

8:01 am Hewlett-Packard to resume share repurchase program; reaffirms FY14 & FY15 guidance (HPQ) :

Co announced that it will resume its share repurchase program under its current authorization after previously suspending activity due to the possession of material non-public information. The company is no longer in possession of such information. Briefing.com note: Separate reports this morning indicated that EMC (EMC) and HPQ have ended merger talks. HPQ reaffirms FY14 EPS guidance of $3.70-3.74 vs $3.73 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; reaffirms FY15 $3.83-4.03 vs $3.95 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Reaffirms its fiscal 2015 operating cash flow outlook of $10 billion to $10.5 billion, with free cash flow of $6.5 billion to $7 billion.

2:34 am CSR plc: Qualcomm (QCOM) to acquire CSR for ~$2.5 bln (CSRE) : Qualcomm (QCOM) announced that it has reached agreement with CSR plc (CSRE) regarding the terms of a recommended cash acquisition through which the entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of CSR will be acquired by Qualcomm Global Trading, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm.

The acquisition complements Qualcomm's current offerings by adding products, channels, and customers in the important growth categories of Internet of Everything (IoE) and automotive infotainment, accelerating Qualcomm's presence and path to leadership. This opportunity is aligned with Qualcomm's established strategic priorities in these rapidly growing business areas. At 9.00 per share, the acquisition of the entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of CSR is valued at ~ 1.6 billion ($2.5 billion based upon an exchange rate of USD:GBP 1.6057). This cash offer has been unanimously recommended by the CSR board of directors.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages endured another whipsaw session that ended with a flat finish for the S&P 500 while the Russell 2000 (+1.1%) registered its second consecutive advance. The price-weighted Dow was the weakest performer of the day with a loss of 0.2%.

Equity indices tumbled out of the gate for the second day in a row amid broad-based selling pressure that also weighed on equities in Europe. The S&P 500 marked a session low near the 1,835 level during the first hour, but spiked more than 20 points following comments from St. Louis Fed President James Bullard. Mr. Bullard appeared on Bloomberg TV and said the Fed should consider delaying the end of its Quantitative Easing program, which is set to wind down at the October FOMC meeting.

The market jumped from lows in reaction to the comments, but it is worth noting that Mr. Bullard is not a voting FOMC member this year and only an alternate voter on next year's schedule. The non-voter status did not get in the way of a surge in equities while Minneapolis Fed President (and FOMC voter) Kocherlakota provided a similar view, saying there is more the Fed can do to achieve maximum employment.

The intraday rebound was paced by some of the groups that faced the most aggressive selling in recent days. The energy sector (+1.7%) led the way, trimming its October loss to 9.0%. Crude oil also rallied, climbing 1.0% to $82.61/bbl after recovering from its overnight low near $79.91/bbl. Meanwhile, the other commodity-linked group-materials (+1.0%)-followed not far behind.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (+0.7%) advanced with help from transport stocks. Delta Air Lines (DAL 33.32, +0.94) jumped 2.9% after beating earnings estimates while the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.1%) extended this week's gain to 1.7%.

The three growth-sensitive sectors spent the entire afternoon in the green while other cyclical groups were a bit more reluctant in joining the rebound. Financials settled in-line with the S&P 500, but the sector was weighed down by Goldman Sachs (GS 172.58, -4.66), which fell 2.6% despite reporting better than expected earnings.

Also of note, the discretionary space (+0.2%) was underpinned by major apparel names like Nike (NKE 87.04, +1.86) and V F Corp (VFC 63.98, +1.18) with their strength masking a 19.4% plunge in the shares of Netflix (NFLX 361.70, -86.89). The video streaming service surpassed its earnings estimates, but guided Q4 results below consensus and said its recent price hike has resulted in slower user growth.

On the downside, the technology sector lost 0.6% even as chipmakers rallied broadly, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.5%. Large cap listings kept the sector in the red with Apple (AAPL 96.26, -1.28) falling 1.3% after refreshing its product lineup during an afternoon press event. Similarly, Google (GOOGL 536.53, -4.20) lost 0.8% ahead of its quarterly report.

Treasuries ended on their lows after a steady slide from early morning highs. The 10-yr yield ticked up two basis points to 2.16%, which represented an 18-bps spike from the low.

Strong participation continued with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Industrial Production, Philadelphia Fed Survey, and the NAHB Housing Market Index:


The weekly initial claims level fell to 264,000 from an unrevised 287,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 290,000
The Department of Labor said there were no special factors influencing the report
Industrial production increased 1.0% in September after falling a downwardly revised 0.2% (from -0.1%) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.4%
Manufacturing production did a full 180 degree turnaround. After falling 0.5% in August, production rose 0.5% in September. That gain was in-line with the improvements in the Federal Reserve regional manufacturing surveys and the national ISM production index
The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Survey Dipped to 20.7 in October from 22.5, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 19.8
Production levels softened as the Shipments Index fell to 16.6 from 21.6 in September
Employment conditions worsened with the Number of Employees Index falling to 12.1 from 21.2
The NAHB Housing Market Index for October fell to 54 from 59, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to hold at 59

Tomorrow, September Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1013K) and Building Permits (consensus 1030K) will be released at 8:30 ET while the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment survey for October (expected 84.0) will cross the wires at 9:55 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +1.0% YTD
S&P 500 +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.8% YTD

DJ30 -24.50 NASDAQ +2.07 SP500 +0.27 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1924/2.15 bln/1052 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2202/1.03 bln/898 3:35 pm :

Crude's LoD of $79.78 was reached in early morning trading on light volume, and futures have since trended higher, rallying as much as 5 points hitting its HoD of $84.83 shortly after lunch.
Futures pulled back slightly following this mornings inventory data that showed inventories had a build of 8.923 mln (consensus called for a build of 2.7 mln), but recovered quickly.
Natural gas sold off sharply to its LoD of $3.744 after data natural gas inventory data showed a build of 94 bcf vs expectations for a build of ~91 bcf.
Nov crude oil closed the day 0.9% higher at $82.51/barrel, while Nov nat gas -0.3% at $3.97/MMBtu.
Despite settling in negative territory, gold trended higher during the pit session after hitting its LoD of $1235.2 ~15min before the US equity market opened.
Dec gold ultimately fell 0.3% at $1241.20/oz, while Dec silver lost 0.2% at $17.43/oz
Copper prices fell below $3/lb, finishing the day 0.9% lower at $2.98/lb

4:46 pm SunPower announces its advancements in resource conservation and environmental stewardship in latest sustainability report (SPWR) : Highlights from this report include:

Received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certifications for its San Jose, Calif. Headquarters, Fab 2 solar cell manufacturing plant in the Philippines and Fab 3 AUO SunPower administration building in Malaysia Assisted more than 170 schools and 60,000 students through its participation in the Alliance for Mindanao Off-Grid Renewable Energy program Installed 4.7 gigawatts of solar globally as of Dec. 12, 2013, cumulatively avoiding almost 10 million metric tons of CO2 Since 2008, the company's total normalized greenhouse gas emissions fell by 47 percent as measured by metric tons of CO2 per megawatt produced

4:25 pm Xilinx beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs ~in-line -- midpoint just below consensus (XLNX) : Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.62 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.55; revenues rose 0.9% year/year to $604.3 mln vs the $601.85 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs flat to +4% QoQ to ~$604-628.5 mln vs. $623.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q3 gross margin ~69% vs. 71.9% in Q2.


Guidance appears to be better than feared."September quarter sales were in line with our guidance, but our profitability surpassed our expectations. Operating margin was 33% in the September quarter, up from 27% in the same quarter a year ago. For the December quarter, we are forecasting a strong recovery in 28nm sales driven by a broad base of applications. We continue to target ~$600 million in 28nm sales for fiscal year 2015, up nearly 60% from the prior fiscal year."

4:19 pm Advanced Micro misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus (AMD) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; revenues fell 2.2% year/year to $1.43 bln vs the $1.47 bln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs -16 to -10% QoQ to ~$1.20-1.286 vs. $1.48 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Our Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment results were strong; however, performance in our Computing and Graphics segment was mixed based on challenging market conditions that require us to take further steps to evolve and strengthen the financial performance of this business."

4:19 pm QLogic beats by $0.03, beats on revs; announces approval of a $100 mln stock repurchase program (QLGC) : Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.25 per share, ex-items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.22; revenues rose 13.2% year/year to $127.5 mln vs the $124.39 mln consensus.

The growth of its net revenue in the second quarter was driven by a sequential increase in revenue from Fibre Channel adapters of more than 5% and a sequential increase in revenue from Ethernet products of ~$5 million.

4:11 pm Google misses by $0.15, reports revs in-line (GOOG) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $6.35 per share, $0.15 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $6.50; revenues rose 10.8% year/year to $16.5 bln vs the $16.59 bln consensus.

Revenues and other information


Sites Revenues - Sites generated revenues of $11.25 billion, or 68% of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2014. This represents a 20% increase over third quarter of 2013 sites revenues of $9.38 billion.Network Revenues - Partner sites generated revenues of $3.43 billion, or 21% of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2014. This represents a 9% increase over third quarter of 2013 network revenues of $3.15 billion.Other Revenues - Other revenues were $1.84 billion, or 11% of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2014. This represents a 50% increase over third quarter of 2013 other revenues of $1.23 billion. Paid Clicks and Cost per Clicks
Paid Clicks - Increased approximately 17% y/y and increased approximately 2% q/q.Cost-Per-Click - Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of Network members, decreased approximately 2% y/y and remained constantq/q. Cost-per-click for Google sites decreased approximately 4% y/y and decreased approximately 1% q/q. Network cost-per-click decreased approximately 4% y/y and increased approximately 2% q/q.

4:09 pm SanDisk beats by $0.10, misses on revs (SNDK) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $1.45 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.35; revenues rose 7.4% year/year to $1.75 bln vs the $1.76 bln consensus.

non-GAAP gross margin 49% vs. 47-49% guidance. "Demand for NAND flash continues to be strong across mobile, client and enterprise, where SanDisk's innovations are creating significant opportunities."

2:19 pm Apple confirms Mac mini update and introduces a 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display (AAPL) :

The co today unveiled the 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display, featuring the world's highest resolution display with 14.7 million pixels. With the latest quad-core processors, high-performance graphics, Fusion Drive and Thunderbolt 2, iMac with Retina 5K display is the most powerful iMac ever made-it's the ultimate display combined with the ultimate all-in-one.
Co also updated Mac mini with the latest technologies and a new lower starting price, making Apple's most affordable Mac an even better value. Mac mini now features fourth generation Intel Core processors, integrated graphics that are up to 90 percent faster, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Thunderbolt 2 and is still the world's most energy efficient desktop.

2:07 pm Apple confirmed that customers can start making payments Monday, October 20 with Apple Pay (AAPL) :

2:05 pm Apple confirms iPad Air 2-the thinnest iPad ever (AAPL) :

Co introduced iPad Air 2. Now just 6.1 mm thin and weighing less than a pound, iPad Air 2 features an improved Retina display for enhanced contrast and richer, more vibrant colors, and better cameras for taking stunning photos and videos. Available in gold, silver and space gray, the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 offer Touch ID so users can unlock their iPad with just the touch of a finger and make purchases easily and securely within apps using Apple Pay.

12:34 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

CHK (20.61 +15.98%): Announced sale of Southern Marcellus and Utica Shale assets for proceeds of $5.375 bln.
TSM (20.86 +3.94%): Beat by NT$0.12, reported revs in-line; guided Q4 revs above consensus.
ADS (249.29 +4.45%): Beat by $0.16, reported revs in-line; reaffirmed FY14 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; guided FY15 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus.

Large Cap Losers

NFLX (351.6 -21.62%): Beat earnings by $0.05, missed on revs; guided Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus, co reported disappointing net subscription; Downgraded at CRT Capital, others.
BHI (49.95 -6.86%): Missed Q3 EPS by $0.11, reported revs in-line.
EBAY (47.2 -6.05%): Beat by $0.01, reported revs in-line; guided Q4 below consensus; Non-GAAP operating margin 23.7% vs 24.0% street consensus; Downgraded at RBC, Credit Agricole, others.

Mid Cap Gainers

ICPT (215.05 +8.57%): Defended at Oppenheimer, firm believes recent weakness is unjustified, Reiterates Outperform and $499 tgt.
FEYE (28.76 +7.31%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan, co also announced it was joining forces with
MobileIron (MOBL) to proactively secure mobile devices against emerging threats and malicious apps.
URI (99.98 +7.01%): Beat by $0.08, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY14 revs guidance.

Mid Cap Losers

SVU (8.14 -4.8%): Missed Q3 EPS by $0.01, beat on revs.
TX (19.55 -4.03%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan.
AKAM (52.77 -3.4%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo.

11:52 am European Markets Closing Prices (:SUMRX) : European markets are now closed; stock markets across Europe performed as follows:

UK's FTSE:-0.3%Germany's DAX:+0.1%France's CAC:-0.5%Spain's IBEX:-1.5%Portugal's PSI:-3.2%Italy's MIB Index:-1.2%Irish Ovrl Index:-0.8%Greece ASE General Index: -2.2%1

1:51 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (218) outpacing new highs (22) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AHS, ARC, CNSL, CUBE, CUNB, DLHC, DTSI, EDE, EGLE, ENVE, FFG, FORR, GBLI, LARK, LPDX, OSUR, QTS, SAFT, STRP, TREE, USPH, VSR

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ACPW, ACUR, ADGE, AEG, AFL, AIMC, ALEX, ALU, AMD, ANSS, ASNA, ATOS, ATTO, AU, AVL, AWX, AZPN, BBVA, BCS, BEL, BGMD, BH, BHI, BKH, BKU, BLIN, BNK, BOH, BORN, BP, BSX, BT, BXE, CA, CBF, CBNJ, CBT, CCE, CCJ, CCO, CCU, CDK, CDNA, CECE, CEL, CG, CGG, CJES, CNA, CORI, CPA, CPHI, CRH, CS, CTG, CVE, CYAN, DB, DCI, DCTH, DGSE, DNN, DVR, DWCH, DXPE, E, EARS, EBAY, ELSE, EPRS, ERIC, ESCR, ESSX, EVV, EWBC, EXTR, FCS, FCX, FFIN, FITB, FLO, FNFG, FOR, FRAN, FRC, FULL, GGB, GPS, GRAM, GRO, GRVY, GSIT, GSK, GTE, GVP, GWW, HCAP, HCBK, HIIQ, HMC, ICD, IIJI, IMGN, INBK, ISCA, JE, KEG, KGC, KYO, LMAT, LPG, LTRPA, LYG, MAN, MAT, MBT, MCD, MCGC, MCHP, MDWD, MFC, MFG, MGI, MORN, MSA, MT, MTU, MVO, MXT, NCQ, NES, NMIH, NMR, NR, NWSA, OAK, OCLS, OFS, OGEN, OIBR, OIBR.C, ORBT, ORIG, ORPN, OVRL, PACD, PBFX, PCMI, PED, PFE, PHG, PLPM, PRGN, PRQR, PRSS, PSIX, PT, PULS, REPH, RFIL, RRST, RSTI, SAN, SAP, SAR, SIX, SLF, SLH, SLRC, SMFG, SON, SQBK, SSE, STM, STO, SUNS, SWM, SWN, SYT, TBIO, TCB, TCK, TEF, TERP, TEX, TGA, TOT, TRUP, TRVN, TS, TSE, TU, TVPT, TWI, TX, TZOO, UAMY, UAN, UBS, UGP, ULBI, UMBF, USAT, UVV, VCYT, VIAB, VIP, VLTC, VOD, VRTS, WBS, WGO, WSH, WTFC, YUMA, ZHNE, ZION

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, BNO, CUT, DBC, DJP, EFA, EWG, EWI, EWJ, EWK, EWN, EWO, EWP, EWQ, EWU, EWY, EZU, FXC, GSG, IOO, KBE, KRE, OIL, SLX, USCI, USO, VGK

10:07 am SolarCity and Direct Energy to provide solar electricity and solar energy storage systems at two BJ's Wholesale Club locations (SCTY) : Two BJ's Wholesale Club sites in Framingham and Dedham, Mass. are early adopters of DemandLogic, SolarCity's smart energy storage system for businesses and commercial users. These are the first BJ's Clubs to install solar energy coupled with storage and will be the first two sites on the East Coast to utilize SolarCity's DemandLogic platform. SolarCity, Direct Energy Business, and BJ's have already installed one solar system together at a North Brunswick, N.J. site and BJ's boasts nearly 20 solar projects total across the United States. All three BJ's projects announced today were made possible by a dedicated investment fund created by Direct Energy and SolarCity in 2013 to finance up to $124 million in solar projects.

8:30 am GT Advanced Tech. announces that NASDAQ will suspend trading in company's common stock at open of market on October 16th; New symbol is GTATQ (GTAT) : Co announced that it will not pursue an appeal of the determination by The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC to suspend trading in the Company's common stock based on the Company's voluntary petition for reorganization relief under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. The Company has been informed that NASDAQ will suspend trading in the Company's common stock effective at the opening of the market on October 16, 2014. The Company will trade under the symbol, GTATQ. For quotes or further information on OTC Markets and the OTC Pink Marketplace.

8:01 am Cypress Semi reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (CY) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.16 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.16; revenues fell 0.6% year/year to $187.5 mln vs the $188.26 mln consensus.

Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM 20.37, +0.30): +1.5% after beating earnings estimates and guiding ahead of analyst expectations.

6:56 am Taiwan Semi beats by NT$0.12, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs above consensus (TSM) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of NT$2.94 per share, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of NT$2.82; revenues rose 28.6% year/year to NT$209.05 bln vs the NT$208.23 bln consensus; gross margin 50.5% vs. 58.5-50.5% guidance.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of NT$217-220 mln vs. NT$212.76 bln Capital IQ Consensus; sees gross margin 48-50%

7:38 am Fairchild Semi beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs below consensus (FCS) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.21; revenues rose 4.5% year/year to $381.1 mln vs the $378.03 mln consensus.

Fairchild reported third quarter adjusted gross margin of 35.3 percent, up 190 basis points from the prior quarter and 320 basis points higher than the third quarter of 2013.Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $340-360 mln vs. $367.54 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
"We expect adjusted gross margin to be 33.0 to 34.0 percent due primarily to lower sales and the impact of reduced factory loadings in the prior quarter... Looking forward to the fourth quarter, our guidance reflects the impact of lower demand from two large customers as well as some latitude to adjust shipments to keep distribution channel inventory flat in dollars exiting this year," said Thompson. "One large mobile and consumer-products customer is reducing demand again to exit the year with lower inventories. Another large consumer-products customer is significantly decreasing demand for a game platform now that they have the components they need for holiday builds. The impact of these two customers accounts for roughly half of the sequential sales decline we are guiding."

7:31 am SunEdison signs JV agreement with JIC Capital to penetrate the chinese solar market (SUNE) : Co announced today a joint venture agreement with JIC Capital, to facilitate nonrecourse financing and develop, construct and own up to 1 GW of utility-scale solar photovoltaic projects in China over the next 3 years.

The joint venture is currently exploring and evaluating several large-scale projects and expects to start construction in early 2015.

7:01 am JinkoSolar Holding signs 200 MW PV project development agreement with Government of Shicheng County in Jiangxi Province (JKS) :

Co announced that JinkoSolar Power, a subsidiary of the Company has signed a PV project development agreement with the government of Shicheng County, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province to develop 200MW PV power plant. Tech Stocks from Briefing.comIs it over yet? That's probably a question more than a few market participants are asking right now after another wild day of trading. The short answer is "no." It's not over yet. There is still another day of trading before this tumultuous week comes to a close.

Similar to Wednesday, Thursday's trading action featured an early rout that eventually got stamped out by renewed buying interest that was punctuated with another day of outperformance for the Russell 2000 (+1.5%), the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.1%), and the S&P 500 energy sector (+1.7%).

We point that out because those areas had been among the hardest-hit areas during the sell-off. Their continued relative strength might be construed as a signal that the recent selling interest is at, or near, an exhaustion point. Accordingly, the question, "Is it over yet?" carries some added meaning.

The selling wasn't over Wednesday for the S&P 500 information technology sector. It declined 0.6% on Thursday and underperformed the broader market.

Looking inside the sector it was easy to see why.

Apple (AAPL 96.26, -1.28), eBay (EBAY), EMC Corp. (EMC 26.89, -0.38), Google (GOOG 524.51, -5.52), Intel (INTC 30.85, -0.42), IBM (IBM 179.84, -1.91), Microsoft (MSFT 42.74, -0.48), and Oracle (ORCL 37.56, -0.74) all declined more than 1.0%.

Apple and eBay were in the news throughout the day. The former held its iPad event, but apparently didn't move the "ooh and ahh" dial enough with its product announcement to excite its shareholder base. eBay, meanwhile, experienced some disenchantment among its shareholder base in the wake of its third quarter earnings report and disappointing fourth quarter guidance.

The sector's biggest upside mover was Alliance Data Systems (ADS 252.15, +13.47). It gained 5.6% after beating analysts' third quarter EPS estimates by a comfortable margin and reaffirming its FY14 outlook.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 34.00, +1.20) was another big mover, adding 3.7% with Brean Capital speaking favorably of the company's plan to split into two, publicly-traded companies.

eBay was the sector's biggest laggard with a 4.7% decline. Akamai Technologies (AKAM 53.53, -1.10) was on its heels, having gotten clipped by a Wells Fargo downgrade to Market Perform from Outperform.

The semiconductor group stayed hot, evidenced by the 1.5% gain in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

Microchip Technology (MCHP 39.19, +1.46), which led the sector into a tailspin last Friday, jumped 3.9% on Thursday on bargain hunting efforts that also carried over to the likes of Micron (MU 28.30, +0.76), Texas Instruments (TXN 43.59, +0.83), and Applied Materials (AMAT 19.87, +0.44). A favorable response to earnings results and/or guidance from Taiwan Semi (TSM 20.72, +0.65), Cypress Semiconductor (CY 8.99, +0.32), and Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS 13.46, +0.87) provided the semiconductor group with an added measure of support.

Elsewhere, Baidu (BIDU 211.16, +5.49), which was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer, led an otherwise strong group of Chinese technology plays that included Alibaba Group (BABA 88.85, +3.25), YY, Inc. (YY 76.37, +3.97), Dangdang (DANG 11.46, +0.55), and Weibo (WB 18.21, +0.33).

Postscript: After the close, Google (GOOG 524.51, -5.52) reported third quarter earnings of $6.35 per share, which came up shy of analysts' expectations, on a 10.8% increase in revenue to $16.5 billion.

Shares of GOOG were trading 3.0% lower in after-hours action as of this posting.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages endured another whipsaw session that ended with a flat finish for the S&P 500 while the Russell 2000 (+1.1%) registered its second consecutive advance. The price-weighted Dow was the weakest performer of the day with a loss of 0.2%.

Equity indices tumbled out of the gate for the second day in a row amid broad-based selling pressure that also weighed on equities in Europe. The S&P 500 marked a session low near the 1,835 level during the first hour, but spiked more than 20 points following comments from St. Louis Fed President James Bullard. Mr. Bullard appeared on Bloomberg TV and said the Fed should consider delaying the end of its Quantitative Easing program, which is set to wind down at the October FOMC meeting.

The market jumped from lows in reaction to the comments, but it is worth noting that Mr. Bullard is not a voting FOMC member this year and only an alternate voter on next year's schedule. The non-voter status did not get in the way of a surge in equities while Minneapolis Fed President (and FOMC voter) Kocherlakota provided a similar view, saying there is more the Fed can do to achieve maximum employment.

The intraday rebound was paced by some of the groups that faced the most aggressive selling in recent days. The energy sector (+1.7%) led the way, trimming its October loss to 9.0%. Crude oil also rallied, climbing 1.0% to $82.61/bbl after recovering from its overnight low near $79.91/bbl. Meanwhile, the other commodity-linked group-materials (+1.0%)-followed not far behind.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (+0.7%) advanced with help from transport stocks. Delta Air Lines (DAL 33.32, +0.94) jumped 2.9% after beating earnings estimates while the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.1%) extended this week's gain to 1.7%.

The three growth-sensitive sectors spent the entire afternoon in the green while other cyclical groups were a bit more reluctant in joining the rebound. Financials settled in-line with the S&P 500, but the sector was weighed down by Goldman Sachs (GS 172.58, -4.66), which fell 2.6% despite reporting better than expected earnings.

Also of note, the discretionary space (+0.2%) was underpinned by major apparel names like Nike (NKE 87.04, +1.86) and V F Corp (VFC 63.98, +1.18) with their strength masking a 19.4% plunge in the shares of Netflix (NFLX 361.70, -86.89). The video streaming service surpassed its earnings estimates, but guided Q4 results below consensus and said its recent price hike has resulted in slower user growth.

On the downside, the technology sector lost 0.6% even as chipmakers rallied broadly, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.5%. Large cap listings kept the sector in the red with Apple (AAPL 96.26, -1.28) falling 1.3% after refreshing its product lineup during an afternoon press event. Similarly, Google (GOOGL 536.53, -4.20) lost 0.8% ahead of its quarterly report.

Treasuries ended on their lows after a steady slide from early morning highs. The 10-yr yield ticked up two basis points to 2.16%, which represented an 18-bps spike from the low.

Strong participation continued with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Industrial Production, Philadelphia Fed Survey, and the NAHB Housing Market Index:


The weekly initial claims level fell to 264,000 from an unrevised 287,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 290,000
The Department of Labor said there were no special factors influencing the report
Industrial production increased 1.0% in September after falling a downwardly revised 0.2% (from -0.1%) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.4%
Manufacturing production did a full 180 degree turnaround. After falling 0.5% in August, production rose 0.5% in September. That gain was in-line with the improvements in the Federal Reserve regional manufacturing surveys and the national ISM production index
The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Survey Dipped to 20.7 in October from 22.5, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 19.8
Production levels softened as the Shipments Index fell to 16.6 from 21.6 in September
Employment conditions worsened with the Number of Employees Index falling to 12.1 from 21.2
The NAHB Housing Market Index for October fell to 54 from 59, while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to hold at 59

Tomorrow, September Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1013K) and Building Permits (consensus 1030K) will be released at 8:30 ET while the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment survey for October (expected 84.0) will cross the wires at 9:55 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +1.0% YTD
S&P 500 +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.8% YTD

DJ30 -24.50 NASDAQ +2.07 SP500 +0.27 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1924/2.15 bln/1052 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2202/1.03 bln/898 3:35 pm :

Crude's LoD of $79.78 was reached in early morning trading on light volume, and futures have since trended higher, rallying as much as 5 points hitting its HoD of $84.83 shortly after lunch.
Futures pulled back slightly following this mornings inventory data that showed inventories had a build of 8.923 mln (consensus called for a build of 2.7 mln), but recovered quickly.
Natural gas sold off sharply to its LoD of $3.744 after data natural gas inventory data showed a build of 94 bcf vs expectations for a build of ~91 bcf.
Nov crude oil closed the day 0.9% higher at $82.51/barrel, while Nov nat gas -0.3% at $3.97/MMBtu.
Despite settling in negative territory, gold trended higher during the pit session after hitting its LoD of $1235.2 ~15min before the US equity market opened.
Dec gold ultimately fell 0.3% at $1241.20/oz, while Dec silver lost 0.2% at $17.43/oz
Copper prices fell below $3/lb, finishing the day 0.9% lower at $2.98/lb

5:00 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Utilities:CLNE (6.35 +22.64%)
Services:SALE (17.26 +22.64%)
Industrial Goods:XONE (23.97 +31.19%),GTI (4.35 +21.79%)
Healthcare:NLNK (29.35 +72.27%),EXAS (23.77 +29.8%),RNA (11.35 +28.82%),UNIS (3.78 +28.21%),ACRX (6.74 +21.09%),MDXG (8.29 +19.75%)
Financial:GCAP (7.36 +20.35%)
Consumer Goods:WPP (9.1 +18.95%)
Basic Materials:ACI (1.97 +44.81%),XCO (2.68 +30.38%),CLF (8.74 +28.55%),MTL (0.83 +23.75%),SD (4.23 +20.58%),HCLP (49.49 +20.45%),CDE (4.78 +19.72%),ANR (1.99 +19.27%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Technology:NTCT (33.84 -27.07%),KN (18.82 -19.25%),CODE (16.16 -18.65%),CYOU (17.54 -17.45%)
Services:NFLX (357.09 -21.65%),MWW (3.95 -18.46%),ENOC (13.47 -15.24%)
Healthcare:SHPG (179.15 -30.29%),ESPR (21.53 -25.66%),GWPH (63.46 -18.37%),NVDQ (10.65 -16.99%),TTPH (24.11 -15.15%)
Consumer Goods:GPRO (74.63 -18.49%),PPC (27.92 -17.93%),CALM (79.75 -15.68%)
Basic Materials:SSE (14.91 -24.48%),PHX (18.49 -22.39%),BXE (4.92 -17.38%),BAS (14.27 -15.81%),CPE (5.95 -15.09%)

3:32 pm Earnings Preview for the week of October 20 - 24 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of October 20 - 24 some of the bigger names include:

Monday: Pre Market - HAL, PHG, SAP, GPC, VFC, VRX, BTU, HAS, GCI, NVR, LII
After Hours - AAPL, IBM, TXN, STLD, CE, PKG, CMG, RCII, ZION, ILMN

Tuesday: Pre Market - VZ, UTX, KO, LMT, MCD, TRV, MAN, KMB, OMC, ITW, SAH, RAI, PNR, CP, ABG, RF, HOG, ATI, GPK, LXK, CSL, APOL, EAT, AOS
After Hours - ACE, CNI, DFS, BRCM, FTI, NBR, VMW, CLS, RHI, YHOO, UIS, HA, SIX, ISRG, CREE, ETFC, IBKR

Wednesday: Pre Market - BA, DOW, ABB, WIT, GD, EMC, NOC, ABT, XRX, USB, TMO, IR, NSC, SWK, BIIB, FDML, BSX, IPG, R, OC, APH, PII, SLGN, SPG, BEAV, NTRS, GRA, TUP, After Hours - T, WFT, ORLY, NXPI, RE, USTR, TSCO, RJF, LRCX, CA, LEG, TMK, VAR, BCR, CTXS, EFX, LOGI, CAKE, SLG, SCSS, YELP

Thursday: Pre Market - GM, CMCSA, CAT, AAL, UAL, MMM, AVT, CS, UNP, OXY, RTN, NUE, LLY, LUV, AEP, CVE, RCI, NOK, CAM, RS, GPI, PCP, RCL, ALV, CCE, JAH, WCC, CELG, DGX, DAN, PHM, NLSN, CMS, POT, JBLU, DPS, UFS, ALK, ARG, LO, ORI, SJR, BMS, FAF, CFX, WSO, ZMH, MJN, TROW, UA, AB, DO, KKR, JNS, DNKN
After Hours - MSFT, AMZN, IM, CBI, CB, PFG, WRB, FLS, FSL, JNPR, SWFT, POL, HUBG, CERN, VMI, SWN, SRCL, KLAC, EW, MTX, DECK, DV, RMD, SYNA, P, VRSN, DLB, BJRI

Friday: Pre Market - ERIC, F, PG, UPS, LYB, CL, LEA, DLPH, BMY, STT, DTE, OCR, AVY, WYN, SHPG, LPNT, MGLN, MCO, VTR, WBC, AAN, NDAQ, COG, EDU

11:58 am Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

REGN (375.02 +10.07%): Announced its EYLEA injection demonstrates significantly greater gains in visual acuity than both bevacizumab and ranibizumab in NIH-sponsored diabetic macular edema study; also a favorable mention on Thursday's Mad Money.
EQIX (205.99 +7.15%): Declared special distribution of $416 mln or ~$7.57 per share in connection with planned REIT conversion.
XLNX (41.26 +7.2%): Beat by $0.07, reported revs in-line; guided Q3 revs ~in-line -- midpoint just below consensus; Upgraded at Wells Fargo to Outperform.

Large Cap Losers

NFLX (344.74 -4.69%): Continued weakness following earnings; Unfavorable mention on Thursday's Mad Money.
COF (76 -3.22%): Missed by $0.09, beat on revs; Tgt lowered at RBC Capital Mkts.
MAT (29.21 -1.38%): Price target lowered to $28 at MKM Partners, firm maintains their Neutral rating.

Mid Cap Gainers

TXT (37.65 +11.85%): Beat by $0.07, missed on revs; raised FY14 EPS in-line.
SUNE (16.89 +8.48%): Upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Cowen; tgt raised to $24 from $20.
CPHD (47.69 +6.75%): Beat by $0.06, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; Bullish commentary from analysts at Oppenheimer, Mizuho, others.

Mid Cap Losers

URBN (29.75 -13.92%): Reported Q3 negative comparable retail segment net sale has continued quarter-to-date; gross profit margin may deleverage at a rate greater than during 1H; Downgraded at Goldman, Morgan Stanley, others.
MYGN (34.99 -7.34%): Issued guidance for Q1 (Sep), sees EPS of $0.25, vs. $0.43 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 (Sep) revs of $168 mln, vs. $183.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
ATHN (110.25 -8.5%): Reported EPS in-line, revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS in-line, revs in-line.

11:44 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (36) outpacing new lows (34) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AHS, ARE, BABY, CCBG, CMRX, CNSL, CORE, CUNB, DPZ, DTSI, EDE, ELLI, EROS, EXR, HTBK, ICUI, MGEE, NATH, NAVI, NRIM, PTRY, PTX, QTS, RBCAA, RDNT, REGN, SAFT, SCLN, SONC, STRA, TAYD, TREE, UHT, USPH, UUU, VAC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AU, AXU, BAMM, CLRB, CNSI, CPHI, CTG, DDE, DXPE, ENVI, ESSX, GBIM, GENE, IMGN, ISSC, KGC, MDCA, MWW, NSPR, NVDQ, OGEN, OIBR, OIBR.C, PED, PME, PRSS, PT, PULS, PWX, RPRX, SBCP, TS, ULBI, URBN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

9:41 am JinkoSolar Holding and sPower partnership brings 34 megawatts of solar power to Antelope Valley, California (JKS) : The co's announced details of the first partnership between the two companies. According to the terms of the contract, JinkoSolar supplied nearly 115,000 of its 305W high efficiency solar PV modules to sPower for the 34MW solar facility, which is comprised of four separate projects located in Lancaster and Victorville, California.

9:03 am JinkoSolar Holding supplied 34MW of solar modules to sPower for four solar power projects in Antelope Valley, California (JKS) : According to the terms of the contract, JinkoSolar supplied approx 115,000 of its 305W high efficiency solar PV modules to sPower for the 34MW solar plant which is comprised of four separate projects located in Lancaster and Victorville, California.

SunEdison (SUNE) announced that the China Institute of Energy Economics and China Energy News awarded Ahmad Chatila, Pres. and CEO, the coveted "Global New Energy Business Leader" award.

6:37 am General Electric beats by $0.01, misses on revs (GE) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.37; revenues rose 1.4% year/year to $36.17 bln vs the $36.86 bln consensus.

Industrial sales of $26.0 bln increased 3% YoY. Industrial segment profits rose 9% in the third quarter to $4.3 bln and industrial segment margins expanded 90 basis points. Industrial segment organic revenue growth was 4%. Orders were up 22% in the quarter, with increases in five of six segments. Growth market orders rose 34% with increases in five of nine growth regions. GE expects industrial organic revenue growth for the year to be at the higher end of the 4-7% range.
GE's backlog of equipment and services at the end of the quarter was a record $250 bln, up $21 bln over the year-ago period.
GECC revenues of $10.5 bln decreased 1% from last year.
Company is on track to meet its 2014 goal of $14-$17 bln in CFOA.
GE ended the quarter with $90 bln of consolidated cash and cash equivalents.
Our total-year framework is intact, GE expects Alstom to be accretive to earnings in 2015, and add $0.06-0.09 per share in 2016. Through these transactions, GE is executing on its strategy to achieve 75% of its earnings from its Industrial businesses by 2016.The stock market had a really good day on Friday. It would have been better if the Russell 2000 (-0.4%) went along for the ride, but alas, it didn't. That's what made it a really good day instead of a great day.

Participants are watching the small-cap average closely. It led the market into its recent selling mess and it wants to be sure that it is going to help lead it out of it.

The Russell 200 outperformed on Wednesday and Thursday, so its lackluster performance on Friday versus the blue-chip averages may have just been a case of traders spreading the "rebound wealth." Still, market participants will be looking for the Russell 2000 to find its rebound stride come Monday or doubts may start to creep in that the broader rebound effort in the latter part of the week wasn't built to last.

This Friday belonged mostly to the large-cap stocks. That benefited the S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.2%) nicely and it was a welcome move at the right time considering Google (GOOG 511.17, -13.34)) was left stranded at the station after its weaker than expected third quarter report.

What Google took away, though, Apple (AAPL 97.67, +1.41), Cisco (CSCO 23.25, +0.43), EMC Corp. (EMC 27.11, +0.22), Facebook (FB 75.95, +3.32), Intel (INTC 31.38, +0.53), IBM (IBM 182.05, +2.21), Mastercard (MA 71.56, +0.70), Microsoft (MSFT 43.63, +0.89), Qualcomm (QCOM 72.43, +1.29), Salesforce.com (CRM 55.63, +1.76), and Visa (V 206.00, +3.00) returned and then some.

Recall that it was the large-cap stocks that held the information technology sector back on Thursday... but not on Friday. They were scooped up in a bargain-hunting bid that began in Europe and continued in the U.S. with the help of some comforting economic data and better than expected earnings results and/or guidance from other large-cap companies like General Electric (GE 24.82, +0.57), Schlumberger (SLB 93.97, +3.33), and Morgan Stanley (MS 33.22, +0.69).

Within the technology sector, Sandisk (SNDK 82.80, -2.51) wasn't feted in the same way after reporting its earnings results. The maker of flash memory storage products put up some better than expected third quarter results but saw that news get overshadowed by some weaker than expected fourth quarter revenue guidance.

Xilinx (XLNX 41.05, +2.56), on the other hand, was celebrated after reporting better than expected fiscal second quarter results and issuing better than feared third quarter guidance. Its stock surged 6.7% and helped pace another winning session for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+0.8%).

After losing 9.9% in the prior week, the SOX Index rebounded 2.5% in the week just concluded.

QLogic (QLGC 10.71, +1.16) was another big winner after the network infrastructure provider posted better than expected fiscal second quarter earnings and third quarter guidance due in part to strong Ethernet growth. After the report, RBC Capital said it is maintaining its Outperform rating on the stock and $13 price target.

In other developments, CA Tech (CA 26.35, +0.53) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays, which believes the recent weakness has presented a buying opportunity to own a structural self-help story at a compelling valuation.

A number of other software stocks did quite well on Friday, including Electronic Arts (EA 34.28, +1.66), Adobe Systems (ADBE 64.52, +1.66), Intuit (INTU 81.03, +2.39), and SAP (SAP 68.99, +2.54).

For the week, the S&P 500 information technology sector declined 1.1%, leaving it up 6.0% for the year versus a 2.1% gain for the S&P 500.

On Monday, Apple, IBM, and Texas Instruments (TXN 43.67, +0.08) will report their quarterly results after the close.

[ReturntoSender]

4:12 pm Closing Market Summary: Nasdaq Leads Stocks Higher (:WRAPX) : Equity indices finished the first session of the week near their highs with the Nasdaq Composite (+1.4%) leading the way. The S&P 500 (+0.9%) settled a bit behind the tech-heavy index while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) struggled to turn positive.

The price-weighted Dow spent the bulk of the session in the red as IBM (IBM 169.10, -12.95) weighed. The stock fell 7.1% and surrendered its standing as the second-largest Dow component after reporting disappointing results that featured revenue declines across all key segments and all geographic regions in which the company operates.

Despite IBM's miss, the technology sector kept pace with the broader market, thanks in part to the relative strength of Apple (AAPL 99.76, +2.09). The top-weighted sector component jumped 2.1% ahead of its earnings report. Similarly, chipmakers also contributed to the advance with the PHLX Semiconductor Index climbing 1.5%.

The outperformance of microchip manufacturers gave a boost to the Nasdaq Composite, which also benefited from strength in the biotech space. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 269.57, +4.20) spiked 1.6% while the health care sector (+1.2%) finished among the outperformers. Similarly, two other countercyclical sectors-consumer staples (+1.4%) and utilities (+1.4%)-displayed relative strength, while the telecom services space (+0.8%) ended a bit behind the S&P 500.

Also of note, the energy sector (+0.8%) was able to settle in the green even as crude oil slipped 0.1% to $81.97/bbl. Halliburton (HAL 52.92, +0.32) underpinned the sector, climbing 0.6%, in reaction to better than expected earnings and revenue.

Elsewhere, industrials (+0.3%) registered a slim gain, but the sector was weighed down by defense contractors with the PHLX Defense Index shedding 0.1%. Meanwhile, transport stocks fared well with the Dow Jones Transportation Average rising 1.0%. Airlines led the way with United Continental (UAL 47.29, +2.61) spiking 5.8%.

Treasuries registered modest gains with the 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.18%.

Today's participation was largely in-line with average as 723 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic news today and tomorrow's data will be limited to the Existing Home Sales report for September (Briefing.com consensus 5.11 million), which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +3.3% YTD
S&P 500 +3.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.8% YTD

4:37 pm Ultra Clean Holdings misses by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS and revs below consensus; experiences impairments due to GTAT bankruptcy (UCTT) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.15; revenues rose 9.2% year/year to $117.04 mln vs the $117.19 mln consensus.


Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.11-0.14, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $115-120 mln vs. $125.11 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"At the beginning of the Company's fourth quarter, a new customer, GT Advanced Technologies, Inc. (GTAT), filed for bankruptcy. This event had an impact on the Company's earnings for the third quarter of 2014. As of the end of Q3 2014, the Company believes that the outstanding accounts receivable, as well as the value of its on-hand inventory and related non-cancelable in-transit inventory related to the bankruptcy, has been impaired. As a result, in the third quarter of 2014, approximately $2.8 million of revenue was reversed for third quarter 2014 and $1.6 million of account receivables was written off to bad debt expense for shipments made prior to the third quarter of 2014. In addition, approximately $6.6 million of on-hand and non-cancelable in-transit inventory was written off to cost of goods sold in the third quarter of fiscal 2014."

4:35 pm Apple beats by $0.11, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus (AAPL) : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.42 per share, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.31; revenues rose 12.4% year/year to $42.12 bln vs the $39.84 bln consensus.

Gross margins of 38% vs ests ~38% (guidance 37-38%)iPhone sales of 39.27 mln vs 38 mln ests and 33.8 mln last year.Q4 iPad sales of 12.32 mln vs 13 mln ests and 14.1 mln last year.Q4 Mac sales of 5.52 mln vs 4.75 mln ests and 4.6 mln last year

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $63.5-66.5 bln vs. $63.44 bln Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q1 gross margins of 37.5-38.5% versus ~38% ests vs 37.9% last year.
"We continued to execute aggressively against our capital return program, spending over $20 billion in the quarter and bringing cumulative returns to $94 billion."

4:34 pm Texas Instruments beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (TXN) : Reports Q3 (Sep) GAAP earnings of $0.76 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.71; revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $3.50 bln vs the $3.45 bln consensus.

"Gross margin of 58.4 percent, a new record, reflects the quality of our portfolio of Analog and Embedded Processing products as well as the efficiency of our manufacturing strategy. Co issues mixed guidance for Q4, sees GAAP EPS of $0.64-0.74 vs. $0.63 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $3.13-3.39 bln vs. $3.25 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The annual effective tax rate for 2014 is expected to be about 28 percent, unchanged from our previous guidance.

4:11 pm Cadence Design beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (CDNS) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.24; revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $400 mln vs the $396.24 mln consensus.

"Cadence continued to drive growth in the 3Q, with wins in core EDA and our expanding systems business," said Lip-Bu Tan, president and chief executive officer.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.26-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $417-427 mln vs. $427.44 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:11 pm Rambus misses by $0.01 (:GAAP), misses on revs; guides Q4 revs ~in-line (RMBS) : Reports Q3 (Sep) GAAP earnings of $0.05 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues fell 4.9% year/year to $69.7 mln vs the $71.16 mln consensus, down 9% on a sequential basis from the second quarter of 2014 primarily due to a one-time catch-up payment from the new license agreement signed with Qualcomm during the second quarter of 2014 and lower royalty revenue from NVIDIA. As compared to the third quarter of 2013, revenue was down 5% primarily due to lower royalty revenue from Samsung and NVIDIA, offset by the license agreements signed with Qualcomm and Micron Technology. Revenue is not without risk and includes expectations that the Company will sign new customers for patent as well as solutions licensing.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $70-75 mln vs. $74.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:06 pm Silicon Image appoints Khurram Sheikh as new Chief Strategy and Technology Officer (SIMG) : In the new role, Mr. Sheikh will be responsible for driving the company's strategic initiatives and technology innovation as well as overseeing corporate development, business development and industry standards activities. Prior to joining Silicon Image, Mr. Sheikh was founder and CEO of JKSFS, a communications technology company based in Silicon Valley.

2:01 pm General Electric's GE Aviation wins avionics and power systems for General Dynamics's (GD) Gulfstream's G500/G600 (GE) : GE Aviation is supplying the data concentration and network, the advanced power management system and the advanced health management system to General Dynamics's (GD) Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation for the G500/G600 business jet aircraft.
The data concentration and network for the G500/G600 builds on GE's core computing system from the Boeing (BA) 787 and is a new offering for business jets. The system provides a highly configurable integrated data network (analog, digital via multiple communication protocols) for the aircraft and offers a way to seamlessly connect avionics and utility functions. Using GE's sophisticated tool suite, the data concentration and network system can be rapidly re-configured, enabling efficient integration and significantly reducing cost of change over the life of the airplane. The G500 entry-into-service is anticipated for 2018. The G600 is slated to enter service in 2019.12:33 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

LUV (32.59 +4.96%): Positive view mentioned over the weekend in Barron's; strong commentary from Cowen on the airline industry ahead of earnings.
RCI (38.8 +3.49%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity.
TWTR (50.38 +3.29%): Bullish commentary from Topeka Capital Mkts, notes numerous near-term catalysts, raised PT to $63 from $62.

Large Cap Losers

IBM (169.72 -6.77%): Missed Q3 estimates by $0.64, missed on revs; removed 2015 EPS guidance.
SAP (65.36 -5.26%): Beat by EUR0.02, reported revs in-line; issued mixed guidance, trimming full-year profit outlook.
MJN (96.13 -4.09%): Reports are out that Danone (DANOY) did not discuss a transaction with MJN at its latest board meeting; also was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Mid Cap Gainers

CNL (53.08 +9.98%): To be acquired by a North American investor group led by Macquarie Infrastructure for $55.37, or ~$4.7 bln.
TERP (27.36 +9.66%): Mentioned positively by Greenlight's Einhorn at Robin Hood conference; also upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
LII (83.16 +8.92%): Beat by $0.03, missed on revs; reaffirmed FY14 EPS in-line, reaffirmed revs in-line; announced new $450 mln accelerated share repurchase program.

Mid Cap Losers

NCR (23.46 -21.46%): Issued downside Q3 guidance and lowered 2014 guidance.
TLLP (61.2 -8.77%): Purchased the Midstream Business from QEP Resources (QEP) for $2.5 bln, announced the commencement of a registered underwritten public offering of 19.35 mln common units and an intention to offer $1.3 bln of senior notes.
SHOO (29.16 -8.72%): Issued downside Q3 guidance; updated FY14 guidance to reflect Dolce Vita acquisition.

11:50 am Heading towards midday trading, SPX large-cap sector leadership & out-performance is seen in utilities- XLU +1.3%, consumer staples- XLP +1.0%, materials- XLB +0.90%, and consumer discretionary- XLY +0.85% (SPY) :

SPX currently trades @ 1894.17 +7.41 (+0.39%)11:41 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (57) outpacing new highs (22) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AMRE, ANAC, BSET, CCBG, CNSL, DPZ, EIX, ELLI, ERIE, FIZZ, FNHC, JXSB, NAVI, ORC, RDNT, ROX, SONC, STRA, TE, USPH, UUU, VAC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACUR, AE, AMZG, AU, BIND, BIOS, BSDM, CANF, CGG, CLRB, COOL, CPA, CPXX, DDE, DIT, DRNA, DXPE, EGAN, ENVI, ESCR, ESSX, FRAN, GBIM, GES, GIG, IBM, ISSC, JOB, KGC, LAS, MFLX, MG, MRVC, NCR, OIBR, OIBR.C, OMI, ONP, OXM, PBCT, PED, PETS, PHG, PME, PSTR, PT, QCCO, QEPM, SAP, SHOO, SID, STRM, TCK, TS, VALE, VRNS, WGA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DJP, REMX, USCI

Texas Instruments (TXN) announced that its SimpleLink Wi-Fi CC3100 and CC3200 devices, designed for the Internet of Things, are now Wi-Fi CERTIFIED at the chip level.

OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) announced the newest additions to its portfolio of OmniHDR automotive high dynamic range sensors: the 1.3-megapixel OV10642 and the WVGA OV10625.


Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (MLNX) announced that its ConnectX-3 Pro 10Gb/s Ethernet adapters with RoCE are integrated on the motherboard in the new HP ProLiant m400 server cartridge

Semtech Corporation (SMTC) announced it will demonstrate its next generation of high performance, low cost transmitter and quad receiver chip sets for HD surveillance applications at the Security China 2014 Conference.

Altera Corporation (ALTR) announced it is demonstrating new field-programmable gate array solutions enabling systems designers to rapidly add features and functionality to their automotive systems designs at SAE Convergence in Detroit, Michigan from October 21 to 22.

7:12 am IBM misses by $0.64, misses on revs -- Co will guide on the call at 8:00 (IBM) : Reports Q3 (Sep) non-GAAP earnings of $3.68 per share, $0.64 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $4.32; revenues rose -4% year/year to $22.4 bln vs the $23.37 bln consensus.

The company will provide earnings guidance during today's quarterly earnings conference call, and it is included in the presentation charts. "We are disappointed in our performance. We saw a marked slowdown in September in client buying behavior, and their results also point to the unprecedented pace of change in our industry. While we did not produce the results we expected to achieve, we again performed well in our strategic growth areas -- cloud, data and analytics, security, social and mobile - where we continue to shift our business. We will accelerate this transformation." Revenues from the Software segment were $5.7 billion, down 2% (down 2%, adjusting for currency) compared with the third-quarter of 2013. Software pre-tax income decreased 3% and pre-tax margin decreased to 35.5%. The Americas' third-quarter revenues were $10.1 billion, a decrease of 2% (down 1%, adjusting for currency) from the 2013 period. Revenues from Europe/Middle East/Africa were down 2% to $7.2 billion (down 3%, adjusting for currency). Asia-Pacific revenues decreased 9% (down 8%, adjusting for currency) to $5.0 billion. Revenues from the company's growth markets were down 6% (down 5%, adjusting for currency). Revenues in the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - were down 7% (down 7 percent, adjusting for currency). The co has reached an agreement under which GLOBALFOUNDRIES will acquire IBM's Microelectronics OEM semiconductor business and manufacturing operations. The loss from discontinued operations in the third quarter includes a non-recurring pre-tax charge of $4.7 billion, or $3.3 billion, net of tax.
At the end of Sept 2014, IBM had ~$1.4 billion remaining from the current share repurchase authorization. The company expects to request an additional share repurchase authorization at the October 2014 board meeting. It could have been a really bad day for the stock market on Monday, but it wasn't. In fact, the stock market did pretty darn good considering IBM (IBM 169.10, -12.95) checked in with a dismal third quarter earnings report and declined 7%, German software company SAP (SAP 65.68, -3.31) lowered its full-year operating profit target and declined 5%, and Dallas Fed President Fisher (an FOMC voter) said he didn't see a reason not to end QE at next week's FOMC meeting.

Just a few days ago, a lineup of headlines like that might have provoked quite a selloff. On Monday all they did was provoke a lot of talk and little selling action in the broader market.

The Dow finished positive, even with IBM's 13-point decline; the Nasdaq surged 58 points or 1.4%; the S&P 500 gained 17 points or 0.9%; and the Russell 2000 added 13 points or 1.2%. All of the major indices pretty much finished at their best levels of the day.

There was reportedly an element of relief, too, that the Ebola contagion scare was sounding less scary. Whatever the case might have been, one thing was clear: the stock market did not want to trade down after last week's late comeback effort.

The resilient performance was a bullish factor in and of itself as it presumably forced some short sellers to cover their positions and was regarded as a sign that the sell-off from the September 19 highs might have run its course.

With more than 100 S&P 500 companies due to report their quarterly results this week, that perspective could change in short order if more reports go the way IBM's report did. Today, however, we suspect an important offset was the belief that IBM's difficulties on the enterprise side of things were going to be overshadowed by an earnings report from Apple (AAPL 99.76, +2.09) after the close that showed clear-cut strength on the consumer side of things.

To be sure, the S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.0%) didn't show any ill-effects of IBM's struggles, which featured revenue declines across all key segments, and all geographies, and a warning from Big (black and) Blue that it no longer expects to achieve $20.00 in EPS in 2015.

Separately, IBM announced it is going to divest its semiconductor manufacturing business. As part of that plan, it will pay GLOBALFOUNDRIES approximately $1.5 billion in cash over a three-year period to take the business off its hands.

55 of the sector's 66 components closed higher and a large number of them gained more than 1.0%, including Apple, Corning (GLW 18.08, +0.33), eBay (EBAY 49.20, +1.25), Facebook (FB 76.95, +1.00), Google (GOOG 520.84, +9.67), Lam Research (LRCX 71.05, +1.86), Microsoft (MSFT 44.08, +0.45), Qualcomm (QCOM 73.27, +0.84), Seagate Technology (STX 53.85, +0.90), Texas Instruments (TXN 44.47, +0.74), and Yahoo (YHOO 39.28, +0.83).

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 33.82, -0.34) and Cisco (CSCO 22.93, -0.32) were among the handful of laggards. Their weakness probably had a bit of IBM blue written on it as investors bemoaned the difficulties of being too big to grow in a meaningful way. Oracle (ORCL 37.80, -0.07) also underperformed, getting buffeted as well by SAP's lowered outlook.

In other developments, the Chinese Internet stocks enjoyed some nice gains, albeit on low volume, in front of China's third quarter GDP report on Tuesday. Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU 67.59, +3.49) paced the way with a 5.4% gain.

Blackberry (BBRY 10.30, +0.81) was a big mover on big volume as speculation swirled that Lenovo might make a bid for the company. Altera (ALTR 33.03, +0.51), meanwhile, advanced on reports the company might be considering a sale.

Altera was one of many gainers in the semiconductor group, which remained hot among the buy-the-dip crowd. Including today's 1.5% gain, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is up 6.3% from a week ago.

Postscript: After the close, Apple and Texas Instruments reported their quarterly results. Both companies exceeded analysts' expectations and both companies provided fourth quarter guidance that was also better than expected.

Apple reported a profit of $1.42 per share on revenues of $42.1 billion and iPhone sales of 39.27 million units. The company projects fiscal first quarter revenues to be $63.5 billion to $66.5 billion.

Texas Instruments posted a profit of $0.76 per share on revenues of $3.5 billion. TXN is projecting fourth quarter EPS to be $0.64 to $0.74 and fourth quarter revenues to range from $3.13 billion to $3.39 billion.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market began the last week of October on a cautious note. The S&P 500 slipped below its 100-day moving average (1962) and settled lower by 0.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) outperformed throughout the session.

Equity indices faced selling pressure at the start, but the source of the early weakness was isolated to the two commodity-linked sectors that spent the entire session at the bottom of the leaderboard.

The energy sector (-2.0%) suffered from a Goldman Sachs downgrade of several major industry players, which stemmed from expectations that crude oil would trade between $70-$80/bbl. On that note, the energy component fell below the $80/bbl level in the morning, but narrowed its decline to just 0.1% by the pit close ($80.94/bbl). The rebound was assisted by a modest downtick in the Dollar Index (85.53, -0.20), which slipped 0.2%.

Elsewhere, the materials sector (-2.1%) endured broad pressure. Miners lagged with the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 20.11, -0.36) falling 1.8%, while steelmakers faced more aggressive selling. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 41.99, -1.15) lost 2.7% with Cliffs Natural Resources (CLF 9.22, -0.41) sliding 4.3% ahead of its earnings report.

Interestingly, the two cyclical sectors-and the telecom services space (+1.0%)-were the only groups that didn't settle in the neighborhood of their flat lines. Meanwhile, the remaining seven sectors ended with gains or losses of no more than 0.3%.

Generally speaking, countercyclical sectors held up well with the utilities sector (-0.2%) having the worst showing among the defensively-oriented groups. The rate-sensitive sector ended in-line with the market while the heavily-weighted health care space (+0.1%) registered a slim gain. The advance took place despite weakness in Allergan (AGN 182.33, -1.88) and Merck (MRK 56.45, -1.16), both of which reported earnings this morning. Allergan lost 1.0% despite reporting a bottom-line beat and upbeat Q4 earnings guidance while Merck slumped 2.0% after beating earnings estimates on a 4.3% year-over-year decline in revenue.

Treasuries climbed to highs shortly after the start of the session and spent the day near their best levels of the session. The 10-yr yield ticked down two basis points to 2.26%.

Participation was a bit below recent averages with 741 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor. The relatively light volume was likely a function of some participants sticking to the sidelines ahead of Wednesday's release of the latest FOMC policy directive.

Economic data was limited to Pending Home Sales for September, which rose 0.3%. This was worse than the 0.5% increase forecast by the Briefing.com consensus, but ahead of last month's unrevised decrease of 1.0%.

Tomorrow, the Durable Orders report for September (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) will be released at 8:30 ET while the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for August (consensus 5.5%) will cross the wires at 9:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the October Consumer Confidence report (expected 87.2).

Nasdaq Composite +7.4% YTD
S&P 500 +6.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.9% YTD

DJ30 +12.53 NASDAQ +2.22 SP500 -2.95 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1261/1.45 bln/1470 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1319/741.3 mln/1757 3:35 pm :

Oil prices dropped notably in early trading with U.S. prices falling below $80/barrel.
Crude traded lower overnight, reaching a low of 79.44, before recovering and trending higher for the rest of the session, closing near where it opened Sunday afternoon.
Dec crude ended 7 cents lower at $80.94/barrel
Nov nat gas dropped 1.8% to $3.56/MMBtu
Gold has been trading in a tight range since GLOBEX trading opened on Sunday, for the most part staying between 1228 and 1231.
The precious metal briefly traded at 1227.1 but quickly bounced back into its trading range.
Dec gold ended 0.2% lower at $1229.30/oz, while Dec silver rose 3 cents to $17.19/oz
Dec copper fell 2 cents to $3.06/lb

6:32 pm Cree increases stock repurchase program to $550 mln; Board authorizes increase on working capital line of credit facility, up to a maximum of $500 mln (CREE) : Co's Board approved an increase in the amount of the Company's stock repurchase program. Pursuant to the program, the Company is now authorized to repurchase shares of its common stock having an aggregate purchase price not exceeding $550 million for all purchases for fiscal 2015. During fiscal 2015 through today, the Company has repurchased 2.65 million shares of its common stock under the program at an average price of $36.54 per share with an aggregate value of $97 million.

Additionally, the board of directors of Cree, Inc. authorized the Company to secure an increase on its working capital line of credit facility, up to a maximum $500 million. The working capital line of credit will provide the Company flexibility to fund strategic opportunities and its general business needs.

4:15 pm PMC-Sierra beats by $0.01, beats on revs (PMCS) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues rose 5.1% year/year to $135.5 mln vs the $133.68 mln consensus.

"Our Storage business performed exceedingly well this past quarter with double-digit growth across all of its product lines. PMC remains well-positioned for continued growth into FY2015, as we expect to see increasing demand for our 12Gb/s SAS I/O controllers and expanders, advanced DIGI OTN processors, Flashtec NVMe controllers and our new RF Remote Radio Head products."

4:12 pm Amkor misses by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (AMKR) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.20 per share, $0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.24; revenues rose 5.8% year/year to $812.8 mln vs the $840.17 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.07-0.17 vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $755-805 mln vs. $853.04 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Sanmina beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SANM) : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.61 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.54; revenues rose 11.9% year/year to $1.69 bln vs the $1.63 bln consensus.

Non-GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter was $71.3 million or 4.2% of revenue, compared to $55.7 million or 3.7% of revenue for the same period a year ago.

Guidance: Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.55-$0.60 vs. $0.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.65-$1.70 bln vs. $1.58 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Integrated Device beats by $0.02, beats on revs (IDTI) : Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.18; revenues rose 10.5% year/year to $137.09 mln vs the $133.81 mln consensus.

4:07 pm Intevac beats by $0.06, beats on revs (IVAC) : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.21); revenues fell 22.8% year/year to $14.76 mln vs the $14.25 mln consensus.

4:04 pm Anadigics reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q4 revs in-line (ANAD) : Reports Q3 (Sep) adj loss of $0.07 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.07); revenues fell 48.9% year/year to $18.9 mln vs the $18.79 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of +8-12% to ~$20.3-21.13 mln vs. $20.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Guidance: Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to improve sequentially by approximately 200 basis points. Operating expenses are expected to be approximately flat sequentially

4:03 pm Monolithic Power reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q4 revs in-line (MPWR) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.46 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.46; revenues rose 14.5% year/year to $78.3 mln vs the $77.74 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $72-76 mln vs. $74.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Sees Q4 Non-GAAP gross margin between 54.4% and 55.4%

12:40 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

WPZ (51.83 +3.66%): Announced updated terms in plan to merge with Access Midstream Partners (ACMP); ~ $50 bln total transaction value.
MU (32.15 +3.51%): Announced a $1 bln stock buyback.
UPS (101.9 +1.3%): Target raised to $113 at Oppenheimer.

Large Cap Losers

PBR (11.06 -14.46%): Brazilian stock under heavy pressure following re-election of President Rousseff (UGP & BBD also lower).
NBG (2.73 -6.19%): Lower following news that the company failed the ECBs static balance sheet stress test.
HAL (52.14 -6.53%): Removed from Conviction Buy list at Goldman.

Mid Cap Gainers

HTLD (24.73 +3%): Target raised to $29 from $27 at RBC Capital Mkts.
W (25.77 +2.42%): Round of positive analyst ratings follow expiration of quiet period; Initiated with Outperform at Wells Fargo, Piper Jaffray, Cowen, others.
PAY (35.42 +2.94%): Positively mentioned Friday's Mad Money and in in Barron's this weekend.

Mid Cap Losers

PE (14.99 -13.37%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.
PTEN (22.4 -8.38%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman; tgt lowered to $103 from $153; removed from Conviction Buy list.
PDS (8.16 -7.8%): Reported Q3 earnings of CAD$0.18 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of CAD$0.18; revenues of CAD$584.6 mln vs the CAD$590.58 mln consensus.

12:08 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (115) outpacing new highs (106) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAC, AAP, ABBV, ABC, ADP, AEP, AGIO, ALK, ALL, ALXN, AMGN, AWK, BBW, BCR, BEE, BRX, CAH, CB, CBPO, CELG, CEMI, CHD, CHH, CHKP, CHRW, CHSP, CMS, CRAI, CRL, CSX, CVS, DIN, DOC, DTE, DUK, ED, EDE, EIX, EPAM, ETR, FAF, FISV, FRGI, FRT, GD, GHC, GTS, HA, HCN, HD, HNH, HNI, HRTG, HTA, HUBS, IBCA, IDA, IMDZ, INFU, ITC, JACK, KIM, KMX, KRC, LCI, LEG, LOW, MAC, MACK, MCK, MCO, MMM, MO, MSON, MTX, NKE, NU, ORLY, PG, PNW, PSA, RDI, REG, REGN, RGLS, RLJ, RNA, ROP, ROX, SO, SPG, STRP, STRT, SWX, SYF, TCO, TE, THG, TRV, UHT, UNH, WM, WOOF, WRB, YHOO, ZAYO

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACY, ADHD, ADNC, AFMD, AG, AKBA, AMRN, AMZG, ANV, AREX, AU, AXPW, BBCN, BBG, BBGI, BIND, BPZ, BTU, CACH, CBD, CBNJ, CBR, CDE, CGG, CJES, CORI, CRK, CRR, CTG, CVLT, CZZ, DEST, DRRX, DVR, DWSN, EC, ECR, ENZY, EPRS, ERIC, FNFG, FWM, GFA, GIG, GLF, GPRC, GRC, GSS, GYRO, GZT, HLSS, HMY, ICD, IMI, INTL, JONE, KEG, KOSS, LAS, LF, LND, LOJN, LPG, MCGC, MFLX, MG, MIND, MUX, NCQ, NDRO, OCLS, OCN, OPB, PDII, PE, PED, PHMD, PMBC, PTIE, QNST, REMY, RESI, REXX, ROYL, SAND, SBS, SEAC, SENEA, SFY, SMT, SN, SSRI, SUNS, SUSQ, SWN, TAOM, TAT, TDW, TG, TGA, TGE, THR, TLM, TLR, TRC, TRMR, TSU, TWI, UBSH, UGP, VALE, VIV, VOLC, XNET, XNY

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IBB, ICF, IHI, XLP, XLU, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DJP, OIL, REMX, USCI, USO

8:05 am Tower Semicon signs definitive agreement to re-finance its bank debt with a $111 mln term loan maturing 2018 (TSEM) : Co announces it re-financed its existing bank debt, replacing the present loans previously scheduled to be repaid during the coming two years, with a $111 mln term loan maturing by Oct 2018.

This substantially reduces the principal payments for 2015 and 2016 from $101 mln to $24 mln.
The schedule of the $111 mln loans is $10 mln principal payment during 2014 and 2015, $14 mln during 2016, $56 mln during 2017 and $21 mln during 2018.Monday had its share of events, yet the overall trading action was fairly uneventful.

The ECB released its bank stress test results, revealing a EUR 25 billion shortfall at 25 participant banks; Dilma Rousseff won her presidential re-election bid in Brazil, which sent stocks sliding there; a juvenile in New York was reportedly being tested for Ebola; and pending home sales for September were said to be up a weaker than expected 0.3% .

Armed with that information, the major indices in the U.S. traded in a guarded fashion that saw the Dow and Nasdaq eke out small gains and the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 post slight losses.

One factor overhanging everything, though, was the recognition that the FOMC will begin a two-day meeting on Tuesday and will be issuing a new policy directive on Wednesday. Naturally, there wasn't a lot of strong conviction ahead of that important event.

Still, with the S&P 500 gaining 4.1% last week, it will be regarded as a moral victory by some bulls that the market didn't bow to selling efforts on Monday.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.04%) was a microcosm of the broader action. It ended the day with a microscopic gain as there wasn't a whole lot of movement from most of its components. That is, most gains and losses were less than 1.0%.

Only ten of the sector's 66 components moved more than 1.0%.

The biggest gainer was Micron (MU 32.30, +1.24), which jumped 4% after the company announced a new $1 billion buyback program. The biggest loser was First Solar (FSLR 54.27, -2.17), which dropped 3.8% after the latest short interest report showed 12.3% of the company's float was sold short as of October 15.

Some of the other big movers in between included Yahoo (YHOO 44.70, +1.20), which remained hot after reporting earnings last week, and Juniper Networks (JNPR 19.72, +0.72), which jumped on some bargain-hunting interest following sizable losses of late that pushed the stock down more than 35% from its January high.

The corporate newsflow was pretty limited on Monday, which is something that also helped explain the lack of continuity in the overall trading activity.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 35.30, +0.37) jumped on speculation that it is seeking a buyer for its networking business in China, KLA-Tencor (KLAC 75.06, -0.84) slipped 1.1% despite being upgraded to Neutral from Negative at Susquehanna, and Seagate Technology (STX 58.73, +0.37) added 0.6% after reporting better than expected fiscal first quarter results and issuing reassuring guidance for the December quarter.

Seagate's good news helped drive up shares of Western Digital (WDC 92.65, +0.97), which was another 1.0%+ mover along with Xerox (XRX 12.81, +0.27), Symantec (SYMC 24.25, +0.27), and Electronic Arts (EA 36.88, +0.53).

Separately, Alibaba Group (BABA 97.79, +2.03) was a big gainer after Jefferies initiated coverage of the stock with a Buy rating and $118 price target.

Postscript: After the close, Twitter (TWTR 48.56, -1.39), which dropped 2.8% during regular trading, reported in-line third quarter earnings of $0.01 per share on a 115% jump in revenue to $361 million.

Twitter said its fourth quarter revenue is expected to be between $440 million and $450 million. The midpoint of that range is 83% higher than the same period a year ago and is slightly below analysts' average expectations.

Shares of TWTR were trading down 9% in after-hours action.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The rebound afterburners went into a cooling stage on Wednesday as the major indices fluttered before and after the Federal Reserve issued its new policy directive.

That directive contained a declaration that the Fed's current asset purchase program ("QE3") will end this month. That was expected.

The directive also said the target range for the federal funds rate is likely to be maintained at 0 to percent for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends. That was what the market had hoped it would hear.

The directive noted that a range of available indicators suggests the underutilization of labor resources is gradually diminishing. That was a bit of a surprise considering the directive six weeks ago said there remains significant underutilization of labor resources and there has been only one employment report in the interim.

The headline spin was that the directive wasn't quite as dovish as desired; consequently, there was some overblown chatter that the market might need to prepare for a rate hike sooner rather than later.

What appeared to unfold in the stock market was simply a sell-the-news response. Recall that the Russell 2000 gained nearly 3.0% on Tuesday when it was thought the asset purchase program would be ending and it was hoped the "considerable time" language would be maintained.

In brief, the stock market was ripe for a period of consolidation as each of the major indices had rallied rallied more than 5% from their mid-October lows.

The S&P 500 information technology sector went along for that joy ride and even helped lead it with a 7.5% advance since October 16. On Wednesday, it declined 0.2%. Tellingly, though, it ended the day higher than where it was trading before the FOMC announcement at 2:00 p.m. ET. Rate hike fears may have gotten some air time, yet they certainly didn't get the better of the sector or the S&P 500 for that matter, which dipped just 0.1%.

Apple (AAPL 107.31, +0.57) continued its winning ways and remained a mainstay of support that limited overall losses. It didn't have nearly as much company as it did on Tuesday when all 66 sector components ended higher. Wednesday was more of a mixed outing with 30 components trading higher and 36 components trading lower.

Facebook (FB 75.88, -4.89) was the biggest laggard. It declined 6.1% after its indication that 2015 will be a significant investment year overshadowed its better than expected third quarter results.

The only stocks that were remotely close to matching its losses were F5 Networks (FFIV 117.10, -3.10) and First Solar (FSLR 56.15, -1.23). They fell 2.6% and 2.1%, respectively, on no news. Both stocks, though, were up more than 4% on Tuesday. F5 Networks was slated to report its quarterly results after the close.

On the other side of the ledger, Total System (TSS 32.52, +1.39) was the biggest gainer, adding 4.5% after reporting better than expected third quarter results.

Other sector components that saw favorable responses to their earnings reports included Electronic Arts (EA 38.87, +1.39), Western Digital (WDC 95.80, +2.72), and Automatic Data Processing (ADP 77.95, +0.69).

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 35.38, -0.16) and IBM (IBM 163.46, -0.14), meanwhile, both failed to excite their shareholders with new announcements. Hewlett-Packard for its part unveiled new 3D printing solutions while IBM announced a partnership with Twitter (TWTR 42.08, -1.70) that will help companies using social data.

Elsewhere, TriQuint Semi (TQNT 20.18, +1.75) and Arrow Electronics (ARW 55.00, +1.21) got a nice pop after reporting their quarterly results.

Postscript: After the close, Visa (V 214.66, -2.05) reported a better than expected fiscal fourth quarter profit of $2.18 per diluted share and announced a new $5 billion share repurchase program. Additionally, Visa said it sees mid-teens EPS growth for FY15.

Shares of V were trading 4.3% higher in after-hours action.

4:12 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Register Slim Losses After Final Taper Announcement (:WRAPX) : The stock market ended the midweek session on a modestly lower note. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) was the weakest performer while the S&P 500 shed 0.1% with seven sectors ending in the red.

The benchmark index held a slim gain at the start, but spent the day in a slow retreat that featured a brief afternoon spike to lows after the Federal Open Market Committee released its latest policy statement. As expected, the statement called for the final $15 billion taper, thus putting a stop to scheduled purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities.

Meanwhile, the commentary on rates was little changed from previous directives with the Fed maintaining its reference to keeping the fed funds rate at its current level for a 'considerable time.' Minneapolis Fed President Kocherlakota was the lone dissenter, voting to keep the asset purchase program intact.

Equities handled the initial impact of the announcement relatively well with the S&P 500 finishing about two points above its pre-FOMC levels. Treasuries, meanwhile, ended mixed. The FOMC announcement sent the complex to lows, but the 30-yr bond surged to new highs ahead of the close to pressure its yield one basis point to 3.05%. For its part, the 10-yr note reclaimed its post-FOMC losses with the benchmark yield ending higher by two basis points at 2.32%. Also of note, the 2-yr note settled near its low with its yield higher by six basis points at 0.49%.

The dollar was also on the move, rallying against all other major currencies. The Dollar Index (85.99, +0.59) gained 0.7% to end within a point of its October high (86.87).

Seven sectors finished in the red with the spike in short-term rates helping financials (+0.2%) settle in the lead. Most of the remaining cyclical groups ended behind the broader market while technology (-0.2%) finished near the S&P 500. The top-weighted sector component, Apple (AAPL 107.34, +0.60), added 0.6% while social media names lagged after Facebook (FB 75.86, -4.91) reported earnings. Shares of FB plunged 6.1% with above-consensus earnings being overshadowed by concerns about increased spending plans and slowing revenue growth. Peers Twitter (TWTR 42.08, -1.70), LinkedIn (LNKD 199.51, -5.84), and Yelp (YELP 56.68, -2.43) also lagged, falling between 2.8% and 4.1%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, the materials space (-1.3%) spent the entire session at the bottom of the leaderboard while energy (-0.2%) outperformed. The growth-sensitive group received a helping hand from crude oil, which climbed 1.0% to $82.18/bbl. On the earnings front, Hess (HES 82.89, +0.94) rallied 1.2% in reaction to better than expected results.

Staying on the earnings theme, Gilead Sciences (GILD 110.75, -2.70), which is a major component of the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 290.63, -3.32), fell 2.4% after beating estimates on below-consensus sales of one of its major drugs. Biotechnology weighed on the Nasdaq Composite while the health care sector (+0.03%) registered a slim gain.

Economic data released this morning was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which fell 6.6% to follow last week's 11.6% spike.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 284,000) and the advance reading of Q3 GDP (consensus 3.0%) will both be released at 8:30 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +8.9% YTD S&P 500 +7.3% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.4% YTD Russell 2000 -1.5% YTD4:11 pm Peregrine Semi beats by $0.04, beats on revs (PSMI) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.08); revenues fell 28.2% year/year to $43.1 mln vs the $41.6 mln consensus.
In anticipation of the proposed merger with Murata, which the co currently expects to be completed by the end of 2014, Peregrine Semiconductor will not issue financial guidance for the upcoming quarter or conduct a Q4 financial results conference call.4:28 pm Atmel reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (ATML) : Reports Q3 (Sep) non-GAAP earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.12; revenues rose 5.1% year/year to $374.5 mln vs the $372.2 mln consensus.


Non-GAAP gross margin was 47.0% vs 45.3% in Q2 and 43.1% in the year ago period."We delivered another solid quarter of financial performance driven by revenue growth and increased gross and operating margins...Our broad microcontroller portfolio combined with our recently expanded wireless products and technologies have established Atmel as a leader in the Internet of Things marketplace."4:22 pm FormFactor beats by $0.04, beats on revs; announces CEO succession plan (FORM) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.16 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.12; revenues rose 9.3% year/year to $73.93 mln vs the $72.44 mln consensus.


Michael Slessor, President of the Company, will succeed Thomas St. Dennis as CEO on Dec 28, 2014, the start of the Company's fiscal 2015. Mr. St. Dennis will continue to serve as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors
4:18 pm Flextronics beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FLEX) : Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.24; revenues rose 1.9% year/year to $6.53 bln vs the $6.43 bln consensus.


Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.24-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $6.4-6.8 bln vs. $6.53 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Second quarter adjusted operating income increased 16% year-over-year to $183 million and was at the high end of the Company's previously provided guidance range of $165 million to $190 million.4:14 pm Intersil beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (ISIL) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.18; revenues fell 5.9% year/year to $143.6 mln vs the $150.12 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.13-0.15 vs. $0.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $125-132 mln vs. $145.87 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.4:12 pm JDS Uniphase beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (JDSU) : Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues rose 1.1% year/year to $433.6 mln vs the $416.67 mln consensus.


Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.12-0.18, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.17 Capital IQ Consensus EstimateCo sees Q2 revs of $433-457 mln vs. $445.27 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.For Q2 of FY15 ending December 27, 2014, the co expects non-GAAP net revenue to be $445 mln +/- $12 mln and non-GAAP EPS to be $0.15 +/- $0.03.4:11 pm Peregrine Semi beats by $0.04, beats on revs (PSMI) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.08); revenues fell 28.2% year/year to $43.1 mln vs the $41.6 mln consensus.
In anticipation of the proposed merger with Murata, which the co currently expects to be completed by the end of 2014, Peregrine Semiconductor will not issue financial guidance for the upcoming quarter or conduct a Q4 financial results conference call.4:09 pm F5 Networks beats by $0.09, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FFIV) : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.57 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.48; revenues rose 17.7% year/year to $465.3 mln vs the $460.67 mln consensus.


Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.46-1.49, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.48 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $460-470 mln vs. $464.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "During the quarter, product revenue grew 20 percent from the fourth quarter of 2013, driven by strong sequential growth of Enterprise sales in the Americas and solid year-over-year growth in EMEA and APAC."4:08 pm F5 Networks announces President and CEO John McAdam plans to retire at the end of FY2015 (FFIV) : Co announced that John McAdam, the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer, has informed the Board that he plans to retire at the end of fiscal year 2015.


Al Higginson, Chair of F5's Board of Directors, said it is the Board's current intention that following Mr. McAdam's retirement from his role as President and CEO, McAdam will remain on the Board and serve as non-executive Board Chair. Mr. McAdam will continue to work closely with the Board as part of its process for identifying his successor to ensure a smooth transition for the Company.

4:08 pm TTM Tech misses by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TTMI) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.15; revenues rose 1.9% year/year to $345.3 mln vs the $340.1 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.22-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $370-390 mln vs. $380.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Veeco Instruments beats by $0.08, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (VECO) : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.02 per share, -$0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.10); revenues fell 6.0% year/year to $93.3 mln vs the $96.68 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of -$0.03 to $0.09 vs. $0.02 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $100-115 vs. $108.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:04 pm QuickLogic beats by $0.02, beats on revs (QUIK) : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.06 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.08); revenues fell 54.6% year/year to $4.12 mln vs the $4 mln consensus.


New product revenue for the third quarter of 2014 was $2.2 million, down 50% sequentially and 69% compared to the third quarter of 2013.New product revenue accounted for 54% of the total revenue in the third quarter.Mature product revenue was $1.9 million in the third quarter of 2014, down 20% sequentially and 2% from the third quarter of 2013.4:03 pm Cirrus Logic beats by $0.12, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (CRUS) : Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.68 per share, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.56; revenues rose 10.2% year/year to $210.2 mln vs the $192.32 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $265-285 mln vs. $226.53 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:49 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

EA (38.95 +3.92%): Beat Q2 consensus estimates by $0.20, beat on revs; guided DecQ EPS above consensus, revs below consensus; guided FY15 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; Tgt raised at Brean Capital, Needham, others.
PCG (48.85 +2.79%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank, also upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
HAL (54.78 +2.85%): Favorable mention on Tuesday's Mad Money.

Large Cap Losers

ARCP (8.61 -30.41%): The company announced the conclusion of their Audit Committee in which various financial statements should no longer be relied on, CFO resigned; Downgraded at BMO & JP Morgan.
SNY (45.37 -5.62%): Board of Directors decided unanimously to remove Christopher Viehbacher as CEO of the company; Downgraded at Jefferies, Barclays, others.
VRTX (109.57 -3.94%): Reported Q3 results that beat EPS consensus by $0.06, beat on revs; Kalydeco 2014 guidance was lowered to $460M (from $470-500M) following a reimbursement agreement in Australia.

Mid Cap Gainers

CEB (70.65 +16.53%): Reported Q3 earnings of $1.05 per share, $0.19 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.86; revenues of $229 mln vs the $226.9 mln consensus; issued guidance for FY14, sees EPS of $3.25-3.45 vs. $3.25 consensus; sees FY14 revs of $915-925 mln vs. $916.76 mln consensus.
NFX (33.4 +13.68%): Reported Q3 earnings of $0.52 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.51; revenues rose 25.5% year/year to $610 mln vs the $585.35 mln consensus.
SWI (47.29 +11.06%): Beat Q3 EPS consensus by $0.07, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guided FY14 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus.

Mid Cap Losers

AZPN (34.66 -14.06%): Reported Q3 results that beat EPS consensus by $0.07, revs of $107.13 mln vs. the $103.09 mln consensus; Downgraded at Canaccord Genuity, Pacific Crest.
STM (6.41 -11.22%): Reported Q3 earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.05; revenues missed consensus, falling 6.3% y/y to $1.89 bln vs the $1.93 bln consensus.
AFSI (47.32 -10.77%): Downgraded to Neutral at Compass Point, also heard a negative blog post was out this morning that added to the downward move.
11:59 am IBM confirms Twitter (TWTR) and IBM form global partnership to transform enterprise decisions (IBM) : Twitter (TWTR) and IBM announced a landmark partnership that will help transform how businesses and institutions understand their customers, markets and trends -- and inform every business decision. The alliance brings together Twitter data that distinctively represents the public pulse of the planet with IBM's industry-leading cloud-based analytics, customer engagement platforms, and consulting services.


Integration of Twitter data with IBM analytics services on the cloud: IBM plans to offer Twitter data as part of select cloud-based services, including IBM Watson Analytics, a new cognitive service in the palm of your hand that brings intuitive visualization and predictive capabilities to business users; and a cloud-based data refinery service that enables application developers to embed data services in applications. Entrepreneurs and software developers will also be able to integrate Twitter data into new cloud services they are building with IBM's Watson Developer Cloud or IBM Bluemix platform-as-a-service. New data-intensive capabilities for the enterprise: IBM and Twitter will deliver a set of enterprise applications to help improve business decisions across industries and professions. The first joint solution will integrate Twitter data with IBM ExperienceOne customer engagement solutions, allowing sales, marketing, and customer service professionals to map sentiment and behavior to better engage and support their customers. Specialized enterprise consulting: IBM Global Business Services professionals will have access to Twitter data to enrich consulting services for clients across business. Additionally, IBM and Twitter will collaborate to develop unique solutions for specific industries such as banking, consumer products, retail, and travel and transportation. The partnership will draw upon the skills of tens of thousands of IBM Global Business Services consultants and application professionals including consultants from the industry's only integrated Strategy and Analytics practice, and IBM Interactive Experience, the world's largest digital agency.11:55 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (255) outpacing new lows (51) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, AAPL, AAT, ABC, ABCB, ACCO, ACE, ADP, AEC, AGII, AKR, ALDX, ALGT, ALSN, AMED, AMGN, AMRE, AMWD, ANAC, APOG, ARC, AVA, AVIV, AWK, AWR, BCC, BCR, BEE, BEP, BFAM, BLMT, BOTJ, BPY, BR, BRKS, BSTC, BXP, CAH, CASY, CB, CCMP, CELG, CHD, CHDN, CHKP, CHRW, CHSP, CLCT, CMN, CNC, CNSL, COR, CORE, COST, CPLA, CRL, CSX, CTAS, CTB, CUBE, CUNB, CVA, CVGW, CVS, CWT, DCT, DFT, DLX, DM, DOC, DRH, DRIV, DTSI, DUK, DV, DVA, DYAX, EA, EDE, EGP, EIX, ELLI, ELS, ENSG, EPAM, EQR, ERIE, EROS, ESS, ETR, EW, EXPO, EXR, FAF, FDEF, FDS, FFG, FISV, FNHC, FORR, FRT, GD, GEO, GGP, GHC, GNCMA, GPC, GPN, GTS, HAIN, HCC, HD, HE, HI, HIG, HNH, HNI, HPP, HPY, HR, HRL, HSNI, HT, HUM, ICUI, IDA, IDXX, IMDZ, INN, IT, ITW, JAH, JBSS, JJSF, KIM, KR, KRC, LB, LEAF, LG, LHO, LMT, LOW, MAC, MAR, MCY, MDT, MGEE, MHFI, MKL, MKSI, MLI, MMM, MOG.A, MSG, MSON, MTX, MUSA, MWA, NATH, NAVI, NBCB, NKE, NNI, NOC, NP, NU, NVEC, NWHM, O, ORLY, OVAS, PAYX, PCG, PCH, PEB, PEI, PEOP, PFSW, PG, PLOW, PNW, POR, PSA, PTRY, PTSI, QLYS, RDCM, RDI, RDNT, RE, REG, RENT, REV, RGEN, RGLS, RJET, RLJ, ROL, ROP, RPT, SAFT, SAIC, SBCF, SBY, SCLN, SFST, SLG, SNA, SNCR, SONC, SPCB, SPG, SRE, SSNC, SSS, STBA, STRA, SWI, SWX, SXI, SXT, SYBT, TAX, TE, TFX, TRNX, TRV, TSO, TYL, UAM, UBSI, UGI, UHT, UIHC, UIL, UNH, UNP, USNA, USPH, VAC, VASC, VDSI, VVC, WERN, WGL, WGP, WHG, WM, WSBC, XEL, ZAGG, ZAYO, ZMH, ZUMZ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABX, ADNC, AIXG, AMCC, AMRN, ANV, ARCP, AVL, AXPW, AZPN, BAMM, BBGI, BBSI, CFRX, CHMT, CLI, COT, DCTH, DDD, DDE, DSS, DVR, ENVI, EPAX, FTEK, HMY, KEYW, MUX, MYE, NSPH, OI, OPB, P, PHMD, PME, RCAP, RCKY, RYAM, SAND, SGNL, SNY, STM, SVBL, THRX, TRCH, VALE, VGZ, VIEW, WNC, XOOM, ZX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: ICF, IHF, IHI, IYH, IYT, QAI, SDY, XLP, XLU, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: GDX

STMicroelectronics (STM 6.47, -0.75): -10.4% following below-consensus revenue on better than expected earnings.


SunEdison (SUNE) announced the closing of a $130 mln USD non-recourse debt financing arrangement with CorpBanca (BCA) and BBVA (BFR).
TerraForm Power (TERP), an indirect subsidiary of SunEdison (SUNE) and owner and operator of solar power plants, intends to execute its call right on7:44 am United Micro reports Q3 EPS of NT$0.23 vs NT$0.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; revs NT$35.21 bln vs NT$35.26 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate (UMC) :

Foundry operating margin was 8.8%. Overall capacity utilization reached 93%, led by increasing demand from communication products such as handsets and tablet devices, bringing wafer shipments to 1.462 million 8-inch equivalent wafers. Moreover, 24% of our revenue came from 40nm, while 28nm contribution rose from 1% to 3% quarter-over-quarter, demonstrating the sustained traction of UMC's leading edge geometries. 28nm yield progress for poly-SiON & gate-last, High-K Metal Gate products has continued to improve, which will drive significant production ramp during the fourth quarter.
7:40 am Tower Semicon's TowerJazz and Physical Logic announce volume production of high performance MEMS-based accelerometer for inertial navigation applications; no specific volume data was given, but milestone was reached (TSEM) : Co announced a milestone achievement for mass production of its first generation high performance MEMS-based accelerometer family (MAXL-OL-2000). MEMS accelerators are sensors which can be used in inertial navigation applications to calculate the direction and speed of moving objects such as ships, aircraft, submarines, guided missiles and spacecraft.


According to Yole D veloppement, many new applications are fueling the growth of the Inertial Measurement Unit market, which is benefiting from significant technology evolutions, such as the continuous improvement of MEMS IMUs. High-performance inertial sensors and systems is a dynamic market segment as an ever-increasing number of platforms require stabilization, guidance or navigation functions. According to a Yole report, "Gyroscopes and IMUs for Defense, Aerospace & Industrial," the IMU market is expected to reach $2.6 billion in 2015.
7:40 am AU Optronics beats by $0.33, beats on revs (AUO) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.76 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.33 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.43; revenues fell 0.2% year/year to NT$106.89 bln vs the NT$105.76 bln consensus.

7:07 am Integrated Silicon misses by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (ISSI) : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.21; revenues rose 7.4% year/year to $84.2 mln vs the $84.02 mln consensus.


Gross margin was 35.3%, compared to 34.5% in the third fiscal quarter of 2014 and 33.1% in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2013.
Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.18-0.22 vs. $0.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $80-85 mln vs. $84.89 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.7:02 am JinkoSolar Holding to supply 19 MW of solar modules for a PV project in Chile (JKS) : The project is located in Chile's Atacama Desert region which has one of the highest irradiation levels in the world.


The 19 MW solar power plant will consist of 61K JinkoSolar high-efficiency PID-free modules. The project is expected to generate ~50 mln kWh of electricity annually, equivalent to the power consumption needs of about 30K local households, and reduce carbon emissions by over 30K tons annually.3:39 am STMicroelectronics beats by $0.08, misses on revs (STM) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.05; revenues fell 6.3% year/year to $1.89 bln vs the $1.93 bln consensus.


On a sequential basis, net revenues by region of shipment increased 7.4% and 2.8% in the Americas and Greater China & South Asia, respectively. EMEA and Japan & Korea decreased by 0.9% and 6.2%, respectively.On a year-over-year basis, net revenues decreased 6.3% mainly due to the phase-out of legacy ST-Ericsson products.

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Cyclical Industry Six Month Charts - Apparel Retailers, Clothing & Accessories, Footwear, Specialty Retailers, Broadline Retailers, Home Improvement Retailers, Toys, Automobiles, Auto Parts, Durable Household Products, Broadcasting & Entertainment, Business Training & Employment Agencies, Durable Household Products, Furnishings, Gambling, Home Construction, Hotels, Media Agencies, Publishing, Restaurants & Bars, Recreational Services, Travel & Tourism:

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4:10 pm: [BRIEFING.COM] The stock market had its issues on Monday, mostly because of what was happening outside the stock market. To that end, the dollar hit a seven-year high against the yen, crude futures slumped below $80/bbl, and economic reports from around the globe were mixed at best. On top of that, market participants were staring straight ahead at political issues wrapped up in election day for the U.S. on Tuesday.

Those items were reason enough not to expect the stock market to do all that well on Monday, never mind that it also had to contend with the thought that it was overbought following a 10.8% gain off the October 15 low and due for a period of consolidation.

That's pretty much what happened, too. The major indices went into a consolidation mode, holding to narrow trading ranges for most of the session and not distancing themselves all that far from the unchanged mark.

The technology (+0.4%) and financial (+0.3%) sectors exhibited relative strength throughout the session and provided an influential measure of support that helped the market avoid steep losses. However, it was the weakness in the energy sector (-1.7%) that collared the market and kept it from running away to the upside.

That weakness was limited for most of the session, yet it grew more pronounced in the afternoon session when oil prices failed to respond enthusiastically to the seemingly bullish news that Saudi Arabia will be raising December crude prices for Asia and Europe. In conjunction with that report, it was also noted that crude prices will be decreased for U.S. customers.

Crude futures pushed above $80.50/bbl following the aforementioned report, but just as quickly rolled over. When they did, weak-handed bulls bailed out and created an air pocket that sucked prices below $80.00/bbl and then $79.00/bbl in a fast retreat. Crude settled the session down $2.20 at $78.34/bbl.

That weakness pulled down the energy sector, which declined 1.7% for the session after being up as much as 0.8% when the Saudi Arabia headline first hit.

The energy sector was the only sector to make a move greater than 1.0% for the session. That was a big reason, along with the relative strength of the financial and technology sectors, why the broader market didn't trade down in a more noticeable manner.

The utilities sector (+0.7%) was actually the biggest percentage gainer on Monday, yet its small weight didn't make as much difference as the heavy weight of the financial and technology sectors did. To that end, a 1.3% gain in Apple (AAPL 109.40, +1.40) was a big driver of the broader market's resilience along with gains in Dow components American Express (AXP 90.85, +0.90), Goldman Sachs (GS 190.83, +0.84), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 60.88, +0.40) that helped offset weakness in Caterpillar (CAT 100.22, -1.19) and Home Depot (HD 96.09, -1.43).

Home Depot was downgraded by Raymond James to Market perform from Outperform.

The S&P 500 set a new all-time high earlier in the day at 2024.54, but slipped back from that record-setting level in afternoon trading.

Consistent with the overall mixed tone of Monday's trading, key economic releases were mixed. The ISM Index for October hit a three-year high at 59.0 while final October PMI readings for China, Germany, and the eurozone were revised slightly lower.

The Construction Spending report for September revealed a disappointing 0.4% decline and pointed to the prospect of a downward revision to the third quarter GDP report as the results for July were revised sharply lower from the original report (to +0.3% from +1.2%).

Tuesday's economic calendar will feature the Trade Balance report for September (Briefing.com consensus -$40.2 bln) and the Factory Orders report for September (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%).
3:35 pm: [BRIEFING.COM]

Crude oil and natural gas were big movers today
Natural gas rose almost 5% by early morning trade on a colder than usual weather forecast in the U.S.
By the time floor trading closed, nat gas finished 4.4% higher at $4.04/MMBtu
Crude was fairly range-bound throughout today's session until the last several minutes, where it has tanked lower, falling as low at $78.14/barrel at around 2:55pm EST.
The Dec contract ended the floor trading session down 2.2% at $78.75/barrel
Dec gold fell 0.2% to $1168.80/oz, while Dec silver gained 0.9% to $16.21/oz

4:08 pm Rudolph Tech beats by $0.06, beats on revs (RTEC) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; revenues rose 6.6% year/year to $46.9 mln vs the $43.73 mln consensus.

4:08 pm Advanced Energy beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (AEIS) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.34; revenues rose 0.2% year/year to $143.15 mln vs the $136.31 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.37-0.45, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $140-150 mln vs. $144.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

1:46 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers
SWKS (60.64 +4.12%): Positive profile view in Barron's this weekend.
BMRN (84.44 +2.36%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
LNKD (234.35 +2.36%): Initiated with a Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt; tgt $270.

Large Cap Losers

BSBR (4.99 -8.93%): Weakness in Brazilian stocks as Brazil Ibovespa exchange drops 2.8% (UGP, PBR also lower).
TTM (45.71 -2.95%): Reported October 2014 sales of commercial and passenger vehicles declined 17% YoY to 42,819 vehicles.
CS (26.02 -2.33%): Downgraded before the open to Sell from Hold at Societe Generale.

Mid Cap Gainers

SAPE (24.59 +41.97%): Being acquired by Publicis (PUBGY) for $25 per share, or $3.7 bln in cash.
CVD (100.11 +25.29%): Being acquired by LabCorp (LH) for $105.12 in cash/stock, or equity value of ~ $6.1 bln.
AU (10 +20.87%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Mid Cap Losers

ARCP (8.23 -7.22%): RCS Capital (RCAP) terminated agreement to acquire ARCP's Cole Capital; Also were reports out that the co may face a criminal investigation regarding the accounting problems disclosed last week.
DO (35.69 -5.36%): Downgraded to Strong Sell from Sell at Nordea; tgt lowered to $29 from $30.
SFUN (9.47 -2.87%): Downgraded to Hold at T.H. Capital.

11:54 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (311) outpacing new lows (59) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, AAPL, AAT, ABC, ABCB, ADP, ADPT, AEC, AEE, AEP, AGN, AIV, AKR, ALE, ALGT, ALK, ALL, ALX, AMBA, AMRE, AMRI, ANIP, ARE, ATLO, ATNI, ATO, AVB, AVX, AWK, AWR, BABA, BAM, BEE, BERY, BFS, BJRI, BLK, BLKB, BMRN, BMTC, BPY, BR, BRKS, BSET, BUSE, BXP, CBOE, CBPO, CDR, CFFN, CHD, CHFN, CHSP, CI, CLC, CLDT, CLMS, CLX, CME, CMN, CMS, CONE, COR, CPT, CQB, CRAI, CRL, CSL, CTB, CTCT, CUBE, CVA, CWT, CYBR, DCT, DENN, DLX, DOC, DPZ, DRE, DRH, DSPG, DTE, EA, EDR, EGP, EIX, ELS, ENFC, ENSG, EQR, ERIE, ESE, ESS, EXPO, EXR, FCH, FDEF, FDS, FR, FRGI, FRT, FWP, GBLI, GEO, GGP, GHC, GPC, GPN, GPX, GS, GSBC, GTIV, GTS, GWB, HA, HALL, HAWK, HCN, HCP, HDSN, HE, HIG, HIW, HNH, HOLX, HR, HRL, HTA, HUBS, HZO, IART, IBCA, IBN, IBOC, IDCC, IFN, INDB, INFN, INFY, INGN, INN, IQNT, IRDM, IT, JBHT, JLL, KIM, KITE, KMB, KMX, KR, KRC, KW, KWR, LBY, LCI, LE, LEAF, LEG, LHO, LMT, LNT, LRCX, MAC, MCO, MCY, MDXG, MHFI, MKL, MLI, MMC, MMI, MNDO, MNR, MNST, MO, MOH, MRGE, MTX, NATH, NAVG, NAVI, NBCB, NBTF, NCLH, NHI, NJR, NNI, NNN, NP, NVEC, NWLI, NZH, OFLX, OMCL, ORBK, OZRK, PAYX, PCG, PCH, PEB, PEG, PEI, PFSW, PJC, PLT, PNW, PPS, PSA, PSEM, PSTB, PTX, PULB, PVTB, Q, QLYS, RAI, RDN, RDNT, RE, REG, REXR, RFMD, RGA, RGLS, RHI, RJF, RLJ, ROG, ROIC, ROL, ROP, RPT, RUSHA, RVSB, SAIC, SANM, SAPE, SAVE, SCG, SEIC, SFG, SHO, SHW, SJW, SLG, SLM, SMCI, SMMF, SPB, SPG, SPR, SRCL, SSNC, SSS, STBA, STE, STX, SUI, SWKS, SWX, SXT, SYF, SYMC, TDY, TEVA, TGS, THG, TMH, TQNT, TREC, TREX, TRNO, TSO, TSQ, TSS, TTWO, TXRH, TYL, UAL, UBP, UDR, UGI, UHT, USLM, UTL, UUU, UVE, V, VAL, VDSI, VIPS, VNO, VPRT, WAL, WASH, WEC, WERN, WLP, WRB, WRI, WSBF, WTBA, WTR, XEL, Y, YHOO, YORW, ZAGG, ZMH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AKG, AKO.A, ARCP, ATL, BAMM, BVA, CDE, CEF, CEL, CHCI, CHLN, CPHC, CRRS, CYRN, DRNA, EC, EGO, ENRJ, ENVI, ENZY, FCX, FES, FRAN, FRM, GAI, GRVY, GSIT, GSV, GTU, GURE, HGG, HMY, KEG, KOSS, LPG, LRN, MGI, MR, NGD, NYMX, OPB, PAAS, PHMD, PPP, PZG, QNST, RCAP, REE, RGR, RMTI, SOCB, SSRI, TGD, THM, TLR, TLYS, VIEW, WGA, XNY

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, ICF, IGV, IHF, IWF, IYF, IYK, IYR, IYT, KIE, NLR, QQQ, SPY, URE, UUP, UYG, VNQ, XLF, XLK, XLP, XLU

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BWX, FXE, FXS, FXY

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From Briefing.com: In the wake of the midterm election results, the stock market turned in a winning session -- most of the market anyway.

The major indices all ended the day higher with the exception of the Nasdaq, which slipped slightly less than three points -- a proverbial drop in the bucket after advancing more than 400 points, or 9.7%, from its October 13 close.

The Russell 2000 eked out a small gain while the Dow and S&P 500 led the way with gains of 101 and 11 points, respectively.

An upturn in oil prices and energy stocks helped drive the advance, as did Visa (V 249.53, +6.56), which accounted for approximately half of the Dow's point gain and a portion of the 0.3% gain for the S&P 500 information technology sector.

The strong move by Visa followed a Bloomberg report that said Visa is going to replace MasterCard (MA 85.99, +2.00) as the credit card processor for Best Buy (BBY 34.64, +0.28). Bloomberg cited "two people briefed on the matter" for its report.

Visa wasn't the best-performing sector component, however. That distinction belonged to Cognizant Technology (CTSH 52.40, +3.91), which rallied 8.1% after reporting better than expected third quarter results and issuing reassuring fourth quarter guidance.

Most stocks in the S&P 500 information technology sector gained ground on Wednesday, yet decent-sized losses in a number of widely-held stocks contributed to the sector's underperformance.

Akamai Technologies (AKAM 59.01, -0.62), Facebook (FB 74.83, -0.93), First Solar (FSLR 56.22, -0.61), Google (GOOG 545.92, -8.19), Intel (INTC 33.76, -0.78), Motorola Solutions (MSI 64.46, -2.30), and Salesforce.com (CRM 61.91, -1.66) all fell more than 1.0%.

Most didn't have any company-specific news to account for their weakness. Intel, however, dropped after Bernstein downgraded the stock to Underperform from Market Perform, while Motorola Solutions sold off following the news that it has entered into a stock purchase agreement with ValueAct Capital Master Fund to buy 11.3 million shares of its common stock at a price of $66.26 per share (approximately $750 million).

Notwithstanding the weakness in Intel, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index remained flooded with buying interest. The only other component that didn't move higher in the SOX Index was SunEdison (SUNE 18.88, -0.77).

Altogether the SOX Index advanced another 0.9%, leaving it 18.1% higher from its October 13 closing level.

Broad-based gains in the semiconductor and semiconductor equipment stocks, which featured a 2.4% increase for Applied Materials (AMAT 22.61, +0.53), provided some influential support for the information technology sector.

Looking outside the S&P 500 sector, weakness in high-multiple stocks like LinkedIn (LNKD 218.18, -20.25), which announced a $1.15 billion convertible notes offering, Amazon.com (AMZN 296.52, -6.29), which hedge fund manager David Einhorn said he added to his "bubble basket" short, and TripAdvisor (TRIP 71.95, -11.84), which got hit following its disappointing earnings report, were a drag on investor sentiment.

Alibaba Group (BABA 108.67, +2.60), meanwhile, registered its thirteenth gain over the last sixteen sessions after several analysts raised their price targets in the wake of the company's fiscal second quarter results. BABA has risen 27% since October 15.

Postscript: After Wednesday's close, Qualcomm (QCOM 77.20, +0.09) reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings of $1.26 per share that fell shy of analysts' average estimate.

Qualcomm issued downside guidance for the first quarter and fiscal 2015, citing the issues related to its licensing business that it is facing in China.

For its fiscal first quarter, QCOM sees EPS of $1.18-1.30, excluding non-recurring items, while FY15 EPS is expected to be between $5.05 and $5.35.

Shares of QCOM were trading down 6.0% in after-hours trading as of this posting.

4:13 pm Closing Market Summary: S&P 500 Marks Record High With Help From Energy (:WRAPX) : The stock market registered a midweek gain with the S&P 500 climbing 0.6% to a fresh record high at 2,023.57. The benchmark index maintained a ten-point range while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) spent the bulk of the day near its flat line.

Equities climbed at the start after yesterday's midterm elections in the U.S. altered the balance of power in Washington. The GOP picked up seven Senate seats to claim a 52-seat majority while also adding ten seats to their majority in the House of Representatives.

In addition to giving a small overnight boost to index futures, the news helped the Dollar Index (87.45, +0.47) climb to a new multi-year high at the expense of the yen (-105 pips) and the euro (-60 pips).

Strikingly, the dollar strength did not get in the way of a rally in crude oil. The energy component surged 2.0% to $78.73/bbl with an intraday boost following reports of a diesel pipeline explosion in Saudi Arabia. However, follow-up headlines indicated the pipeline did not explode, but caught fire during maintenance work.

The spike in oil served as a supportive factor for the energy sector (+1.7%), which outperformed from the start of the session. Better than expected results from EOG Resources (EOG 96.10, +5.82) also factored into the strength, sending the stock higher by 6.5%.

Meanwhile, the remaining cyclical groups were not nearly as strong. The materials sector (+0.9%) outperformed while financials (+0.6%) and industrials (+0.6%) caught up to the S&P 500 during the final hour of the session. For its part, technology (+0.3%) was limited to a small gain as large cap names like Facebook (FB 74.83, -0.93), Google (GOOGL 555.95, -8.24), and IBM (IBM 161.82, -0.83) weighed. Intel (INTC 33.76, -0.55) also lagged, falling 1.6%, but the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index gained 0.9%.

Even though chipmakers displayed strength, that was not enough to keep the Nasdaq out of negative territory. Biotechnology pressured the index and the group's weakness caused the health care sector (-0.2%) to finish in the red. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 288.54, -4.80) settled lower by 1.6%.

Elsewhere among countercyclical sectors, consumer staples (+0.7%) and utilities (+2.3%) displayed strength while the telecom services sector (+0.2%) ended little changed. Consumer staples were underpinned by better than expected earnings from Mondelez (MDLZ 37.15, +2.12) while utilities rallied with help from Duke Energy (DUK 83.50, +1.27). The stock gained 1.5% despite missing earnings and revenue estimates.

Treasuries spent the bulk of the session in the red, but returned to their flat lines by the end of the day. The 10-yr yield ended at 2.34%.

Participation was ahead of average with more than 770 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included ADP Employment, ISM Services, and the MBA Mortgage Index:


The ADP National Employment Report revealed that employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose 230K in October while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 220K

The September reading was revised up to 225,000 from 213,000

The ISM Services Index dropped to 57.1 in October from 58.6 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 58.0

Even though the services sector data softened more than expected, the index remains at an elevated position and in-line with expansionary trends

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 2.6% to follow last week's 6.6% drop
Tomorrow, the Challenger Job Cuts report for October will be released at 7:30 ET while weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 285K) and Q3 Productivity/Unit Labor Costs data will cross the wires at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +10.6% YTD S&P 500 +9.5% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.5% YTD Russell 2000 +0.3% YTD

4:36 pm Sierra Wireless beats by $0.11, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SWIR) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues rose 27.6% year/year to $143.3 mln vs the $138.7 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.25-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.17 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $145-148 mln vs. $142.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:32 pm Exar beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides DecQ EPS below consensus, revs in-line (EXAR) : Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.04; non-GAAP revenues rose 27.4% year/year to $43.3 mln vs the $43.2 mln consensus. For Q3 (Dec), co sees EPS of $0.04-0.06, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.07 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 non-GAAP revs of $43-45 mln vs. $44.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:31 pm Western Digital announces secondary offering of 5,434,783 shares of its common stock by Hitachi (HTHIY) (WDC) : Co announces today an underwritten secondary public offering of 5,434,783 shares of its common stock by Hitachi, Ltd. (the "Selling Stockholder"). The Selling Stockholder has also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 815,217 shares.

An aggregate amount of 25 mln shares of the co's common stock were issued to the Selling Stockholder in connection with WDC's acquisition of Viviti Technologies Ltd., formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, in Mar 2012. The Selling Stockholder sold 12.5 mln of these shares on Nov. 6, 2013 in an underwritten offering. Upon completion of this offering, the Selling Stockholder will beneficially own 7,065,217 shares of the co's common stock (6.25 mlnshares if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional shares).

The co will not receive any of the proceeds from the offering of the shares (including any shares sold pursuant to the underwriters' option to purchase additional shares).4:24 pm Axcelis Tech reports Q3 results, misses on revs (ACLS) : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.04 per share, including $2.3 mln in restructuring charges. May not compare to ($0.04) CapIQ Consensus. Revenues fell 21.1% year/year to $38.5 mln vs the $40.53 mln consensus.

Co states: "We made strong progress with the Purion platform, reduced our cost structure and took actions that we expect will strengthen our balance sheet. We now have the full Purion product family in place, and are well positioned to increase our market share as industry dynamics improve."

4:19 pm SolarCity reports Q3 (Sep) results, misses on revs (SCTY) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.19 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($1.07); revenues rose 20.0% year/year to $58.3 mln vs the $60.37 mln consensus.

Total MW Booked increased 154% Y/Y to 230 MW and total MW Deployed grew 77% Y/Y to 137 MW with residential MW deployed up 100% Y/Y to 119 MW.Total blended cost declined (11%) Y/Y to $2.90 per watt.Remain on track to reach goal to roughly double volume every year and lower total cost to $2.50 per watt by 2017. Cumulative MW Deployed of 894 MW (up 93% Y/Y)Estimated Nominal Contracted Payments of $4.1 billion (up 137% Y/Y).At our goal of one million customers by mid-2018, we would have accumulated solar assets operating with an annual revenue run rate of over $1 billion contracted for 20-30 years thereafter and poised to grow even further."Our efforts to further differentiate SolarCity through technology also continued to make progress in the third quarter. Following our June announcement of the agreement to acquire Silevo, we officially closed the acquisition in September and broke ground on what is expected to be the largest solar manufacturing facility in the Western Hemisphere in partnership with the state of New York. We continue to expect our first 1 GW facility to be operating at full capacity in 2017, and to lay the groundwork for a step-change reduction in the cost of solar energy"."We now have more than 168,000 customers, up 105% from over 82,000 a year ago".

4:14 pm Qualcomm misses by $0.06, misses on revs; guides Q1 below consensus; guides FY15 below consensus (QCOM) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.32; revenues rose 3.3% year/year to $6.69 bln vs the $7.04 bln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.18-1.30, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.43 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $6.6-7.2 bln vs. $7.41 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues downside guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $5.05-5.35, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $5.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 revs of $26.8-28.8 bln vs. $29.12 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"We are forecasting continued growth of global 3G/4G device shipments in calendar year 2015, particularly in emerging regions. Our fiscal 2015 outlook reflects continued LTE leadership in our semiconductor business and is tempered by the issues we are facing in China related to our licensing business. Through this time, we remain focused on building our technology leadership in smartphones, while pursuing opportunities to extend our solutions into adjacent areas."

4:10 pm SunEdison misses by $0.41, misses on revs (SUNE) : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.68 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.41 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.27); revenues fell 19.6% year/year to $540.5 mln vs the $607.99 mln consensus.

For the fourth quarter 2014:


Solar energy systems total non-GAAP sales volume in the range of 84 MW to 124 MW Solar energy systems MW retained on the balance sheet of between 251 MW and 361 MW Solar energy systems MW completed of between 335 MW and 485 MW Fully developed solar energy systems average project pricing between $2.50/watt and $2.75/wattFor the full year 2014:
Solar energy systems total non-GAAP sales volume in the range of 260 MW to 300 MW Solar energy systems MW retained on the balance sheet of between 740 MW and 850 MW Solar energy systems MW completed of between 1,000 MW and 1,150 MW Fully developed solar energy systems average project pricing between $2.50/watt and $3.00/watt

12:54 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

DVN (61.62 +9.99%): Reported Q3 earnings of $1.34 per share, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.23; revenues rose 96.6% year/year to $5.34 bln vs the $4.6 bln consensus; raised full-year production outlook.
EOG (96.43 +6.82%): Beat Q3 consensus estimates by $0.02, beat on revs; raised production growth guidance; Upgraded at Miller Tabak.
MDLZ (37.19 +6.17%): Report Q3 results that beat consensus estimates by $0.11, reported revs in-line; raised FY14 EPS above consensus; reaffirmed organic net rev.

Large Cap Losers

TRIP (72.46 -13.52%): Reported Q3 earnings of $0.48 per share, $0.12 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.60; revenues rose 38.8% year/year to $354 mln vs the $348.85 mln consensus; Downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest.
LNKD (230.69 -3.25%): Announced a $1.15 bln convertible notes offering.
PBA (39.5 -1.81%): Reported Q3 adjusted cash flow from operating activities of $0.48 vs 0.61 in the yr-ago; revs rose 11% to $1.4 bln.

Mid Cap Gainers

NICE (45.28 +10.17%): Reported Q3 results that beat bottom line single estimate, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line.
KAR (33.22 +10.04%): Beat Q3 consensus estimates by $0.08, beat on revs; guided FY14 EPS above consensus; authorized share repurchase of up to $300 mln.
AXLL (42.11 +8.25%): Reported Q3 EPS of $0.72 vs $0.61 CIQ est; revs increased 6% YoY to $1.27 bln vs $1.16 bln CIQ est.

Mid Cap Losers

ZU (29.05 -19.22%): Beat Q3 consensus estimates by $0.06, reported revs in-line; issued in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $391-416 mln vs. $411.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Tgt lowered at Canaccord, RBC Capital.
NUS (42.56 -15.59%): Reported Q3 results that beat both top and bottom line consensus estimates; Issued downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.80-0.85, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.01 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $590-610 mln vs. $659.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
AWAY (29.65 -12.15%): Reported Q3 results that beat consensus estimates by $0.04, reported revs in-line; guided Q4 revs below consensus; Tgt lowered at Canaccord Genuity.

11:51 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (290) outpacing new lows (115) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, AAT, ABAX, ABC, ABCB, ACE, ACT, ADP, AEP, AFG, AGU, ALGT, ALK, ALL, ALSN, ALXN, AMED, AMP, ANIP, ATLO, ATNI, ATO, AUXL, AWR, AZO, BABA, BBW, BERY, BG, BGCP, BIDU, BJRI, BLE, BLK, BOTJ, BR, BRK.A, BRK.B, BSET, BURL, BUSE, BXP, CACI, CAH, CALD, CB, CBOE, CBRL, CHD, CHFN, CHSP, CI, CLNY, CME, COKE, COR, COST, CTB, CVA, CVS, CXW, DDR, DFT, DHX, DIN, DLTR, DOC, DPLO, DPS, DRE, DTSI, ED, EDR, EGP, EIGI, EPAM, EQY, ERIE, ESS, ESYS, FARM, FDEF, FDS, FDX, FFNW, FISV, FNF, FR, FRGI, FRT, GBNK, GD, GEO, GPC, GPN, GSBC, GTT, HA, HALL, HBOS, HCKT, HCN, HIG, HIW, HKTV, HNT, HOLX, HR, HRL, HSIC, HSNI, HT, HTBK, HUBS, HUM, HVB, IBKR, IBN, IDTI, IDXX, INFN, INFY, INTU, ITW, JACK, JAZZ, JBHT, JKHY, JLL, JNJ, JOUT, KAR, KITE, KMB, KR, KRC, KW, LBY, LEAF, LEG, LG, LHO, LLY, LM, LMCA, LOW, LSTR, LTC, LUV, MA, MAC, MCO, MCY, MDT, METR, MLI, MMC, MMM, MNK, MNR, MNRK, MO, MSFG, MSFT, MUSA, NAVG, NEE, NHI, NICE, NJR, NKE, NNI, NNN, NP, NU, NVDA, NVEC, NZH, O, OABC, OCR, ODP, ORLY, PAHC, PAYC, PAYX, PDM, PEB, PEG, PEP, PG, PLKI, PLL, PNRG, PPL, PRAA, PRE, PRI, PSA, PVTB, QTM, QVCA, RAI, RCPT, RDI, RE, REG, RFMD, RGA, RHI, RJET, RLJ, ROG, ROL, ROX, RPT, RYAAY, SAIC, SAPE, SAVE, SCG, SCOR, SCS, SEB, SEIC, SFG, SFST, SHW, SJW, SLG, SMCI, SNE, SO, SONC, SPG, SPNC, SRE, STAG, STBA, STE, STRA, STT, SWKS, SWX, SYKE, TAX, TDY, TE, TEG, TFX, THG, THS, TNET, TQNT, TRV, TTGT, TXN, TXRH, TXT, UBA, UCFC, UDR, UIHC, UIL, UNH, UPS, UTL, V, VAL, VASC, VDSI, VFC, VIPS, VNO, VTR, WEC, WERN, WGL, WHR, WLP, WOOF, WRB, WSBF, WTR, XNPT, XRAY, XWES, Y, YHOO, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAU, ABX, AE, AEM, AG, AGI, AKBA, AKG, AMZG, ANV, ARES, ASA, AUQ, AUY, AXPW, AXR, BAMM, BBGI, BIO, BPZ, BTG, BVN, BVSN, CCUR, CDE, CEF, CEL, CERE, CGG, CHUY, CLH, COH, CRCM, DDD, DNN, DNR, DRD, DRNA, EC, ECOM, EGI, EGO, EMITF, EXK, FCX, GLRI, GOMO, GORO, GSS, GSV, GTU, GURE, HL, IAG, IMRS, KELYA, KGC, LEI, LEU, LIQD, LPG, LRN, LTRPA, LVS, MCHX, MDGN, MDW, MEP, MOSY, NCQ, NEM, NGD, NTLS, NUS, NWY, OAS, OIIM, P, PAAS, PANL, PGH, PME, PPP, PTNR, PWE, PZG, RCPI, RGR, SA, SAND, SARA, SC, SD, SDLP, SLW, SN, SSE, SSRI, SVLC, SVM, TCK, TEAR, TESO, TGB, TGD, TLP, TLR, TPUB, TRCH, TRIP, TRX, VALE, VGGL, VIEW, YUMA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, DVY, ICF, IGV, IYF, IYG, IYK, IYR, IYT, KIE, PPA, PPH, PSK, QQQ, RTH, SDY, SPY, URE, UUP, UYG, VNQ, XLF, XLK, XLP, XLU, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BNO, BWX, DBC, DJP, FXA, FXC, FXE, FXY, GDX, GDXJ, GLD, GSG, IAU, PPLT, REMX, SGG, SIL, SIVR, SLV

7:34 am Vishay Precision beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q4 rev midpoint below consensus (VPG) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.23 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.16; revenues rose 9.9% year/year to $63.4 mln vs the $61.41 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $60-65 mln vs. $65.33 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

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I am thinking about shorting ENTG. KLIC reported awful earnings this morning and kind of got away to the downside. ENTG simply looks a little overextended to the upside. Here are some charts:






This is the company that is integrating ATMI. Last quarter's earnings were good.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=entg&ql=1

RtS

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From Briefing.com: Monday wasn't exactly a day for the trading ages. Rather, it looked more like a day for the aged as things moved slowly in another mixed session that saw the Dow (+0.1%) and S&P 500 (+0.1%) outperform the Nasdaq (-0.4%) and Russell 2000 (-0.7%).

By and large, it was a continuation of the consolidation trade that took root last week as neither buyers nor sellers could establish a foothold in Monday's trading. That was perhaps fitting as some disappointing macro news offset some exciting micro news.

The disappointment on the macro side was rooted in the report that Japan's third quarter GDP declined 0.4% quarter-over-quarter (-1.6% annualized) on the heels of a 1.9% decline (-7.3% annualized) in the second quarter. In doing so, Japan officially slipped back into a recession.

That understanding cast a pall on sentiment in overnight action, yet the broader market managed to hold its own on a combination of M&A announcements that included Halliburton (HAL 49.23, -5.85) acquiring Baker-Hughes (BHI 65.23, +5.34) in a $34.6 billion cash-and-stock transaction and Actavis (ACT 247.94, +4.17) acquiring Allergan (AGN 209.20, +10.55) in a $66 billion cash-and-stock offer.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.2%) took it all in from a distance and never made any real waves as it dipped on some modest profit-taking interest. Including Monday's retreat, the sector is still up 11.9% from its October 16 low.

Volume was on the lighter side for most winners and losers alike. Cisco (CSCO 26.47, +0.15) was a notable exception there, advancing for a second straight session following its fiscal first quarter earnings results on heavier-than-average volume.

Gains in other widely-held stocks like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 37.41, +0.49), Intel (INTC 34.24, +0.29), EMC Corp. (EMC 30.38, +0.33), Oracle (ORCL 41.16, +0.32), and Yahoo (YHOO 52.37, +0.62) helped offset losses in other widely-held names like Apple (AAPL 113.99, -0.19), Facebook (FB 74.24, -0.64), Google (GOOG 536.51, -7.89), KLA-Tencor (KLAC 79.02, -1.31), and Salesforce.com (CRM 62.51, -1.40).

The news behind those respective moves was limited in most respects.

Apple traded down despite RBC Capital Markets raising its price target to $120 from $115; meanwhile, Yahoo got a pop after a Forbes article highlighted Citigroup's belief that the current valuation of Alibaba (BABA 114.25, -0.85) within Yahoo is a 37% discount to Friday's closing price.

On a related note, BABA slipped 0.7% on Monday despite a number of hedge funds disclosing new positions in the stock in their quarterly 13F filings.

Chinese Internet stocks had a down day in general after leading e-commerce site JD.com (JD 25.00, -2.01) reported its quarterly results and disappointed with a fourth quarter sales outlook that was basically in-line with expectations. With JD gaining 13% over the prior seven sessions, investors were apparently geared up to hear more robust sales guidance.

Baidu (BIDU 244.00, -5.70), Sohu.com (SOHU 49.23, -1.73), Dangdang (DANG 12.89, -0.41), Weibo (WB 18.50, -0.43), and Changyou.com (CYOU 22.55, -1.32) all dropped more than 2.0%.

The biggest loser within the S&P 500 information technology sector on Monday was chip equipment maker Lam Research (LRCX 77.79, -2.02). It declined 2.5% on heavier-than-average volume and no specific news to account for its negative disposition. That decline, as well as declines in many other semiconductor-related names, weighed on the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which lost 0.5%.

4:20 pm Xilinx BoD authorizes a repurchase of up to $800 mln of the Co's outstanding common stock (XLNX) : Co announces its BoD has granted an authorization for the Co to repurchase up to $800 mln of its common stock, or ~7% of its outstanding shares at the current stock price. Since FY10, the Co has repurchased approximately 50 mln shares for approximately $1.6 bln.

4:09 pm Closing Market Summary: Countercyclical Sectors Pace Slim Advance (:WRAPX) : The stock market began the new trading week on an unassuming note. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) added just over a point while the Nasdaq (-0.4%) and Russell 2000 (-0.8%) underperformed throughout the session.

The benchmark index started under modest pressure, but was able to finish near its best level of day with help from countercyclical sectors. News from overseas contributed to the early weakness as Japan's preliminary GDP report for Q3 revealed the second consecutive decline (-0.4%; expected 0.5%), meaning the country is now in recession. The news gave an overnight boost to the yen, but the currency was back to unchanged against the dollar (116.20) by the start of the U.S. session. The yen weakened a bit during the session, sending the dollar/yen pair to 116.50.

Although the S&P 500 started in the red, the index was back near its flat line in the first hour with help from comments made by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. Mr. Draghi appeared in front of a European parliamentary committee and provided another reminder that the ECB stands ready to act if downside risks continue mounting.

The combination of Mr. Draghi's comments and the relative strength in countercyclical sectors kept the S&P 500 from dipping too far into the red. However, the index never climbed too far above its flat line either with participants reluctant to take on additional risk after an 11.2% rally over the past month. Below-average participation spoke to the cautious posture as fewer than 675 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

As mentioned earlier, countercyclical sectors displayed strength with consumer staples (+0.6%), health care (+0.5%), and utilities (+1.3%) registering solid gains while the telecom services sector (-0.2%) underperformed.

The staples sector rallied behind Tyson Foods (TSN 43.01, +2.35), which spiked 5.8% in reaction to a bottom-line beat. Elsewhere, health care was underpinned by news indicating Actavis (ACT 247.94, +4.17) agreed to acquire Allergan (AGN 209.20, +10.55) for $219/share in cash and stock. Biotechnology displayed intraday strength, but the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 288.84, +0.67) narrowed its gain to 0.2% by the close.

M&A activity was not isolated to the health care sector as Halliburton (HAL 49.23, -5.85) agreed to acquire Baker Hughes (BHI 65.23, +5.34) for $78.62/share, representing a 40.8% premium to BHI's price on October 10 before the initial offer was made. As for energy, the sector narrowed its loss to 0.4%, but still ended at the bottom of the leaderboard. Crude oil registered another decline, sliding 0.3% to $75.61/bbl.

The remaining growth-sensitive sectors settled closer to their flat lines, but the relative weakness among chipmakers kept the Nasdaq in the red throughout the session. The PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 0.5% while the technology sector shed 0.2%.

Treasuries ended near their lows with the 10-yr higher by a basis point at 2.33%.

Tomorrow, October PPI (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%) will be released at 8:30 ET while the NAHB Housing Market Index for November (consensus 55) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +11.8% YTD S&P 500 +10.4% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.5% YTD Russell 2000 +0.1% YTD

1:01 pm Fairchild Semi announced management changes to streamline the company's reporting structure; President and COO Vijay Ullal to depart the co; CEO Mark Thompson to assume title of president (shares halted) (FCS) : Vijay Ullal, President and Chief Operating Officer, has departed the company. The changes are effective immediately. More than two years ago, the co initiated an extensive restructuring of its supply chain, including a manufacturing footprint consolidation that is on schedule to be completed in 2015. The company also sought to upgrade its leadership team to accelerate operational improvement, one part of which was hiring Mr. Ullal.

12:40 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BHI (66.07 +10.31%): To be acquired by Halliburton (HAL) for $78.62 per share in a transaction valued at $34.6 bln.
AGN (209.52 +5.47%): To be acquired by Actavis (ACT) for $219 per share in a transaction valued at $66 bln.
TSN (42.82 +5.31%): Reported Q4 earnings of $0.87 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.77, revenues rose 13.6% year/year to $10.11 bln vs the $10.14 bln consensus; guided FY15 EPS in-line; co reported record Q4 sales and record 2014 sales and adj. EPS.

Large Cap Losers

HAL (49.72 -9.73%): Pulling back after announcing a deal to by BHI for almost $35 bln as investors digest the details of the proposed acquisition, including a $3.5 bln break-up fee HAL will have to pay should the transaction fail to obtain antitrust approvals.
JD (25.65 -5.03%): Reported Q3 loss of RMB 0.12 per share, which may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of (RMB 0.03); revenues rose 60.8% year/year to RMB 29.01 bln vs the RMB 28.71 bln consensus.
PBR (9.36 -5.93%): The co confirmed it will delay its Q3 earnings release as a result of a corruption probe into the energy firm.

Mid Cap Gainers

EXH (36.01 +6.63%): Announced plan to separate its international and fabrication businesses into a new publicly traded company.
HAS (56.26 +4.15%): Higher following reports that talks with DreamWorks (DWA) have cooled; Needham opined that the strategic benefits of a DWA purchase would be outweighed by financial and strategic risks.
LEAF (37.95 +3.89%): Target raised to $42 from $36 at JMP Securities; Mkt Outperform.

Mid Cap Losers

DWA (22.2 -14.68%): Lower following reports that the talks with Hasbro (HAS) about a possible acquisition may be fading.
DNR (9.95 -11.21%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse, tgt $16 and downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee following management changes and the declaration of the company's 2015 capital plan in which they plan to reduce capex by 50%.
ASNA (12.11 -7.94%): Heard downgraded to Mkt Perform at Avondale; stock rose sharply on Friday following an insider filing from Golden Gate detailing a 244K position in the company.

11:41 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (112) outpacing new lows (67) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAC, AAPL, ABBV, ABC, ACT, AEC, AGN, AIRT, AMOT, ANIP, BBW, BCE, BG, BIN, BLE, BLMT, BOOT, BPY, BRCD, CARO, CERN, CQB, CTP, CVA, CYAN, CYBR, DENN, DHX, DLR, DLTR, DOC, DPLO, EA, ENV, EROS, ESPR, EW, FBMS, FCE.A, FNF, GNTX, HAIN, HSP, HWBK, IFN, INFY, INGR, INTU, IP, IT, JBSS, KAR, LABL, LB, LEAF, LOGM, LOW, LVLT, MERC, MFRM, MHFI, MHG, MRGE, MSBF, MSTR, MTD, MUSA, NATH, NCLH, NTES, NUVA, NVEE, NWL, NXPI, OCUL, OPLK, OTEX, OVAS, OVBC, PAHC, PANW, PAYC, PDCO, PEBK, PEI, PLKI, QLYS, QTM, RCMT, RDCM, RENT, RHT, ROG, RVP, SCMP, SHO, SHW, SJR, SRT, SSNC, TCX, TFX, TGTX, TSRA, TU, VAL, VYFC, WIFI, WMT, XRAY, YHOO, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACUR, ACY, ADGE, AEZS, AHPI, ASPS, ATEA, ATL, AXX, BAXS, BRSS, CACH, CEL, CORI, CPAH, CZZ, DARA, DLIA, DNR, EDMC, EMITF, ENRJ, EPAX, EVGN, FATE, FES, FORD, GGB, HGR, HIIQ, HNR, ICA, KOP, LGCY, LOV, LPHI, MDU, NADL, NCTY, NPD, NRT, PBR.A, PCYO, PICO, PLPC, PTNR, RIG, RLOG, RNO, SARA, SM, SPRO, SR, STXS, TAXI, TNH, UVV, VIVO, VRML, VRTS, VVUS, WF, WPX, WSTL, WTSL, YUMA, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: PPH, PSK, RTH, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

9:31 am Ascent Solar announced the signing of a definitive agreement to raise $35 mln in financing from one institutional investor (ASTI) : Co announces the signing of a definitive agreement to raise $35 mln in financing from one institutional investor. ASTI will receive $4.5 mln in gross proceeds at closing. The remaining $30.5 mln of gross proceeds from the financing will be placed at closing into restricted control accounts of the Co. ASTI intends to use the proceeds of the offering to fund the continued operations and expansion of its retail channels for its EnerPlex products in the US, Europe and Asia, brand building, as well as the launch of additional EnerPlex products.

9:06 am JDS Uniphase: Sandell releases open letter to the shareholders of JDS Uniphase; Sandell to vote 'AGAINST' director nominees Thomas Waechter and Martin Kaplan; believes Mr. Waechter should follow through on stated willingness to pursue a sale of CCOP business (JDSU) :

9:06 am STMicroelectronics' secure microcontroller selected by Sony (SNE) for next-generation payment cards in Japan (STM) :

Co announced that its latest dual-interface secure microcontroller has been selected by Sony to power the new micropayment-enabled cards that will reach Japanese consumers by H1 2016.The market's most advanced dual-interface (contact / contactless) secure microcontroller, ST's ST31G480 combines high computing power and energy efficiency with superior flexibility and interoperability.It is the only device available today that can automatically detect and handle different types of radio-frequency communication used by the card readers.KLA-Tencor (KLAC) announced the closing of its $1.25 bln five-year senior unsecured revolving credit and term loan facility. This credit facility consists of $750.0 mln of amortizing term loans and commitments for an unfunded revolving credit facility of $500.0 mln.

8:37 am Solar Power announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, SPI Solar Power has entered into a framework agreement with TBEA Xinjiang Sunoasis to acquire from TBEA Sunoasis 168.5 mw of solar projects across China (SOPW) : Co announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, SPI Solar Power Co., Ltd., has entered into a framework agreement with TBEA Xinjiang Sunoasis Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of TBEA Co., Ltd. and a top machinery maker in China according to China Machinery Top 500 Research Report, to acquire from TBEA Sunoasis 168.5 megawatts of solar projects across China, including in Gansu Province, Xinjiang Region, Inner Mongolia Region and Qinghai Province. These projects are expected to be connected to the grid starting from 2014 to the end of 2015. SPI and TBEA Sunoasis will enter into a definitive equity interest purchase agreement no later than March 31, 2015.

7:00 am Rudolph Tech announced that it has received multi-system orders from several customers for its latest MetaPULSE G metal metrology system in support of their mobile device components ramp (RTEC) : "Consumer demand for more power and higher functionality from handheld devices and the burgeoning Internet of Things are driving continued technological innovation in the mobile and connected device markets. As a result, we see tremendous growth in specialty components such as MEMS sensors, frequency filters and power devices supporting the mobile and wireless IC market."

6:56 am Cray awarded $80 million contract from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (CRAY) : Co announced it has been awarded a contract to provide King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia with multiple Cray systems that span the Company's line of compute, storage and analytics products.

The contract with KAUST marks Cray's return to the Middle East for the first time in nearly 20 years. Cray will provide KAUST with a Cray XC40 supercomputer with DataWarp technology, a Cray Sonexion 2000 storage system, a Cray Tiered Adaptive Storage (TAS) system and a Cray Urika-GD graph analytics appliance. The Cray XC40 system at KAUST, named "Shaheen II," will be 25 times more powerful than its current system.

Consisting of products and multiple years of service and support, the contract is valued at more than $80 million and the systems are expected to be installed in 2015.

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From Briefing.com: Wednesday was hump day and the stock market couldn't get over the hump. It fell prone to some selling activity that was concentrated primarily in the Russell 2000 (-1.0%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%). The S&P 500 slipped just three points, or 0.15%, meaning one had to round up to make the claim that the market dropped 0.2%.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.6%) fell in-line with the Nasdaq where many technology stocks are listed. It did so without a whole lot of news driving the retreat, which appeared to be largely a function of profit-taking efforts following a big run.

Apple (AAPL 114.66, -0.81), Facebook (FB 73.33, -1.01), Intel (INTC 34.35, -0.36), Microsoft (MSFT 48.22, -0.52), Qualcomm (QCOM 70.44, -1.54), Salesforce.com (CRM 61.02, -1.45), and Yahoo (YHOO 50.58, -1.17) were just a few of the widely-held stocks that were on the defensive.

Altogether 51 of the sector's 66 components shed some ground on Wednesday, none more so than Avago Technologies (AVGO 89.25, -2.16), a supplier to Apple, which dropped 2.4% after gaining 33% from its October 10 low.

Notably, Qualcomm's weakness came after the company reaffirmed its FY15 EPS guidance of $5.05-5.35 at its analyst day and noted that it sees a 5-year compounded annual growth rate of 8-10%.

Salesforce.com, meanwhile, got hit ahead of its third quarter earnings report after the close. That report was better than expected, yet the company issued guidance for the fourth quarter and fiscal year that was below analysts' expectations. Shares of CRM were down 4.0% in extended action as of this writing.

Speaking of profit taking, Alibaba (BABA 108.82, -1.99) continued to cool off after its white-hot rally that produced a 45% gain in the stock between its October 15 low and its November 13 high. Over the last four sessions, BABA has declined 9.0%.

Yahoo has seen its recent returns tempered with Alibaba's weakness, slipping 3.5% from Monday's high. It was thrust into the news on Wednesday after a ReCode story said Yahoo is looking at additional acquisitions to help bolster its display business. The same article floated the idea that Yahoo might even find it within itself to consider buying Blackberry (BBRY 10.19, -0.57), although such a deal was seen as unlikely.

Moving along, the semiconductor stocks succumbed to some selling interest as well. Following Tuesday's 1.9% gain, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dipped 0.7%.

The majority of its components had a hand in that loss, although RF Micro Devices (RFMD 13.89, +0.14) was one that bucked the trend. It jumped 1.0% after Canaccord Genuity raised its price target to $18 from $16 and maintained its Buy rating on the stock. Separately, Craig Hallum also sounded a positive note on the company ahead of its pending merger with TriQuint Semiconductor ( 23.17, +0.24). The combined company is going to be named Qorvo.

Fellow semiconductor component NVIDIA (NVDA 20.01, -0.16) was on the weaker side of things after disclosing that Samsung filed a patent infringement and false advertisement complaint against it on November 10.

4:31 pm Semtech beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (SMTC) : Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.46 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.44; revenues rose 5.5% year/year to $148.9 mln vs the $146.29 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.32-0.34 vs. $0.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $128-132 mln vs. $140.11 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:11 pm Closing Market Summary: Small Caps Lead Stocks Lower (:WRAPX) : The major averages ended the midweek session on a lower note with Tuesday's leader-Russell 2000-pacing the retreat. The small-cap index lost 1.1% while the S&P 500 surrendered 0.2% with seven sectors finishing in the red.

The benchmark index slumped at the start due to notable losses among several heavily-weighted sectors. However, the S&P 500 was able to pull away from its late-morning low thanks to relative strength in consumer discretionary (+0.5%), consumer staples (+0.4%), and energy (+0.6%).

Although the trio helped the S&P 500 recover from its low, the index could not complete its comeback as industrials (-0.3%), technology (-0.6%), and health care (-0.5%) weighed. The index was able to briefly kiss the flat line after minutes from the October FOMC meeting crossed the wires, but that move was retraced as the dust settled and it became clear the minutes did not introduce anything new into the discussion. Instead, the minutes reminded investors for the umpteenth time that the central bank intends to remain data-dependent when deciding the appropriate timing for the first rate hike.

Treasuries followed a similar intraday pattern. The 10-yr note spiked to highs immediately after the release, but returned to lows shortly thereafter. As a result, the benchmark 10-yr yield rose four basis points to 2.36%.

As mentioned earlier, only three sectors managed to spend the bulk of the session in the green. Energy (+0.6%) ended in the lead even as crude oil remained volatile during the day. WTI crude ended the pit session lower by 0.2% at $74.48/bbl.

Elsewhere, the two consumer sectors were underpinned by retailers after Staples (SPLS 13.92, +1.16), Target (TGT 72.48, +4.97), and Lowe's (LOW 62.26, +3.73) reported one-cent beats. The three soared between 6.4% and 9.1% while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 91.04, +0.67) added 0.7%.

Retail names notwithstanding, finding areas of relative strength proved challenging. The top-weighted technology sector (-0.6%) ended among the laggards due to broad-based losses. Chipmakers settled in-line with the sector as the relative weakness among small caps weighed on sentiment in other high-beta areas.

Also of note, biotechnology tried to resists the pressure, but the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 294.21, -1.04) slipped to lows by the close. The ETF settled lower by 0.4% after being up near 0.6% intraday. As for health care, the top-weighted countercyclical group never took the biotech bait and spent the day near its low.

Participation was in-line with long-term trends with roughly 720 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to MBA Mortgage Index and Housing Starts/Building Permits:


Housing starts declined 2.8% in October from an upwardly revised 1.038 million (from 1.017 million) to 1.009 million while the Briefing.com consensus pegged the reading at 1.025 million
Since June, housing starts have followed a sawtooth pattern, which has continued with the October decline
Despite the headline miss, single-family construction, which generally follows stable trends, increased 4.2% to 696,000, which was the highest reading since November 2013
Building permits slipped to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.08 million in October from an unrevised 1.031 million for September, while the Briefing.com consensus expected permits to come in at 1.04 million.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index jumped 4.9% to follow the previous decline of 0.9%

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 285K) and October CPI (expected -0.1%) will be released at 8:30 ET while October Existing Home Sales (consensus 5.17 million), October Leading Indicators (expected 0.6%), and the Philadelphia Fed Survey for November (consensus 18.0) will all be reported at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +12.0% YTD
S&P 500 +10.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.5% YTD

3:47 pm Xilinx and NXP (NXPI) collaborate to reduce CapEx and OpEx costs of wireless infrastructure radios; to combine XLNX's SmartCORE IP with NXP's Gen9 LDMOS RF (XLNX) : Co and NXP (NXPI) announced their collaboration to reduce CapEx and OpEx costs of wireless infrastructure radios.
The two companies have been working together to enable customers to quickly and easily combine Xilinx's newest crest factor reduction and digital pre-distortion SmartCORE IP with NXP's Gen9 LDMOS RF highly efficient power amplifier technology. The combination of NXP's advanced power amplifier devices and Xilinx All Programmable devices and radio IP enables customers to implement smaller, lighter and higher reliability radios suitable for use in next-generation wireless infrastructure equipment.

11:56 am Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

LOW (62.34 +6.51%): Beat Q3 consensus estimates by $0.01, reported revs in-line; raised FY15 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; Upgraded at Canaccorrd Genuity.
TGT (72.21 +6.96%): Reported Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.54 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.47; revenues rose 2.7% year/year to $17.73 bln vs the $17.56 bln consensus; guided Q4 EPS in-line.
POT (36.25 +2.41%): Upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James; tgt raised to $40 from $38.50.

Large Cap Losers

VIPS (22.1 -6.79%): Reported Q3 results that beat consensus estimates by $0.01, beat on revs; guided Q4 revs above consensus; results demonstrated a sequential decline in non-GAAP operating margin.
ABX (12.65 -4.82%): Weakness in gold stocks as the precious metal drops $20 on the day following a Swiss Poll on a referendum to increase bank gold reserves which failed to gain the necessary 50% majority for approval (GG also lower).
TSLA (246.76 -4.25%): Dropping following a Morgan Stanley revision on estimates in which they cut their FY15 EPS expectations below consensus.

Mid Cap Gainers

AGIO (93.96 +12.11%): Announced early Phase 1 data showing clinical activity of AG-120 as a single agent in advanced acute myeloid leukemia; tgt raised to $111 at Canaccord Genuity, Buy rating maintained.
SPLS (13.83 +8.39%): Reported Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.37 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.36; revenues fell 2.5% year/year to $5.96 bln vs the $5.95 bln consensus.; Guided Q4 EPS & revs in-line.
MAC (75.12 +7.5%): Simon Property Group (SPG) discloses 3.6% ownership stake in Macerich and may seek waiver of excess share provision.

Mid Cap Losers

CSTM (17.91 -14.59%): Reported Q3 (Sep) earnings of 0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, 0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of 0.32; revenues rose 7.5% year/year to 927 mln vs the 906.52 mln consensus.
SNCR (42.13 -11.51%): Downgraded to Underperform at Robert W. Baird; tgt lowered to $42.
BBRY (10.17 -5.48%): Downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.

11:54 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (106) outpacing new highs (77) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAC, ABMD, AEC, AGIO, AINC, AIV, ALKS, APD, ARG, ASML, AVGO, AVNR, BSF, CAG, COO, COST, CQB, CSL, DISH, DPLO, EA, ENFC, EPB, FARM, GTIM, HIG, HNH, HQY, HSIC, JACK, JAH, JBLU, JBSS, JLL, KMP, KMR, KTWO, LNDC, LOW, LWAY, MAC, MAG, MCK, MMP, MNDO, MSTR, MUSA, NCLH, NKE, NTES, NYMT, OMER, OPLK, PEI, PETM, PGRE, PPS, QTNT, RCL, RDWR, RDY, REGN, RSTI, SBFG, SERV, SFBC, SHLX, SHW, SWKS, TGT, TXT, UUU, VOYA, WBB, WGP, WHR, WMT

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABCO, ACST, ADGE, AEZS, AMRK, ANGI, APDN, AVL, AVP, BANX, BAS, BBL, BCOR, BONE, BTE, CALL, CEO, CGIX, CHLN, COOL, CRNT, CRR, CVEO, CYNI, DCIX, DNR, DRWI, DSX, DWSN, DXYN, EBR.B, ECT, ENVA, EVGN, EZCH, FCSC, FES, FORD, FOXF, FXEN, GHL, GKNT, GRAM, HMG, HNR, HSON, HTWR, IKGH, ISH, JASN, JGW, KTOS, LAS, LEU, LPI, LPTN, LQDT, MDAS, MILL, MIND, NADL, NAME, NAP, NEWS, NTP, ORPN, PARR, PGRE, PHMD, PICO, PKD, PTEN, RCPI, RIG, RIO, RLOG, RPXC, RVLT, SARA, SDLP, SHOS, SID, SM, SMT, TAS, TEU, TGA, TRXC, TS, TX, UAMY, ULTR, UNT, USEG, UVV, VALE, VALE.P, VIVO, VLTC, VRTS, VVUS, WF, WSTL, XUE, ZEUS, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: OEF, PPH, RTH, SMH, XLP, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWY, FXY, OIL, SLX, USO

6:07 am Trina Solar signs 10 MW EPC turnkey solutions agreement with Shamsuna Power in Jordan (TSL) : Co announced that it has entered into an agreement for the design, build and operation and maintenance of the 10 MW Shamsuna Solar Project in Aqaba, Jordan with Shamsuna Power Company. Foursan Capital Partners will hold a 85% stake and Shamasuna Power will hold a 15% stake in the project, respectively.

The project is being financed by International Finance Corporation and a small syndicate of lenders. Construction of the project is scheduled to commence in December 2014 with completion and grid connection expected in the second quarter of 2015. Once the plant is completed, Trina Solar will provide Operation and Maintenance services on the project based on a 5 year service agreement with a possible 5 year extension upon mutual agreement.
Once operational, it will be the largest solar farm in Aqaba, Jordan.

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From Briefing.com: The Technology sector is trading higher by 0.8% today. Apple (AAPL) is showing strength once again, adding to gains from yesterday after the tech giant crossed the $700 billion market cap level.

Hewlett Packard (HPQ) shares are trading higher by 3.8% after the company reported fourth quarter earnings of $1.06 which was higher than expected, with revenues of $28.41 billion which was slightly lower than expected. The company also reaffirmed guidance for fiscal year 2015. The company said Personal Systems revenue was up 4% YoY with a 4.0% operating margin. Commercial revenue increased 7% and Consumer revenue decreased 2%. Total units were up 5% with Desktops units down 2% and Notebooks units up 8%.

Infoblox (BLOX) is also showing relative strength today with a 5.7% gain. The company reported strong first quarter earnings last night and guiding in-line with expectations for 2Q15 (Jan). They also announced a new CEO which seems to be partly responsible for the move higher as well. The stock has sold off hard twice in just the past year as the company has been facing some headwinds. But they now have strung together a couple of pretty good quarters.

In terms of non-GAAP operating margin, it fell to 5.5% from 12.1% in the year ago period but it was above the 3.2% achieved in JulQ. During the quarter, BLOX says it made good progress in new customer acquisitions and added some marquee names as customers. The EMEA region also helped drive OctQ performance as it was up 14% YoY.

As you can see by the YoY declines in EPS and margins, this is a tough time for BLOX. They have suffered from a slowdown in growth in the general IP address management market as companies are favoring other IT priorities such as IT security. BLOX has also been hurt by contract delays and a slowdown in customer additions.

The Technology sector is trading higher by 18% based on the XLK ETF. There are no notable tech names to report tonight ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.

4:10 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Advance Despite Disappointing Economic Data (:WRAPX) : The major averages ended the session near their best levels of the day with the Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) finishing in the lead. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to another record high while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) hovered near its flat line throughout the session.

Meanwhile, the benchmark index spent the day in a slow and steady advance despite a heavy batch of disappointing economic data that was reported this morning. The index did show some signs of defensive posturing as all four countercyclical sectors ended ahead of the market while cyclical sectors traded in mixed fashion.

The telecom services sector (+1.2%) finished in the lead after trending higher throughout the day, but more notably, the heavily-weighted health care sector (+0.7%) posted a solid gain with help from biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 303.87, +4.20) settled higher by 1.4% to extend this week's gain to 3.0%. Conversely, biotechnology helped the Nasdaq spend the day in the lead.

Although biotech provided a measure of support, the Nasdaq also drew significant strength from chipmakers after Analog Devices (ADI 54.56, +2.85) reported better than expected results. The stock spiked 5.5% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index jumped 2.1% with all but one component ending in the green.

The solid gains among chipmakers helped the technology sector (+0.9%) spend the day in a steady uptrend. However, the same could not be said for the remaining cyclical groups. Financials (+0.2%) held a slim gain throughout the day while consumer discretionary (unch), energy (-1.1%), industrials (-0.2%), and materials (+0.1%) lagged.

Notably, the energy sector widened its November loss to 2.8% as crude oil took another leg down, falling 0.5% to $73.75/bbl.

Treasuries spiked following today's data, but slipped into the close. The 10-yr yield ended lower by a basis point at 2.24%.

Intraday participation was well below average, but volume spiked into the close. As a result, just under 685 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was plentiful and almost entirely disappointing. Initial claims, durable orders ex-transportation, personal income/spending, Chicago PMI, Michigan Sentiment, and October pending/new home sales all missed expectations while headline durable orders beat:

Initial claims came in at 313,000 (Briefing.com consensus 288,000), which was above the revised prior week count of 292,000 (from 291,000) Continuing claims fell to 2.316 million from 2.330 million Durable goods orders increased 0.4% in October following an upwardly revised 0.9% (from -1.3%) decline (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%) A 45.3% increase in defense aircraft orders helped boost total aircraft demand by 8.7%. The gains in aircraft orders drove overall transportation orders up 3.4% after declining 3.3% in September Excluding transportation, orders fell 0.9% in October after increasing an upwardly revised 0.2% (from -0.2%) (consensus +0.5%) Personal income increased 0.2% for a second consecutive month in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) Personal spending increased 0.2% in October after an upward revision resulted in no change (from -0.2%) in September (consensus +0.3%) The Chicago PMI for October fell to 60.8 from 66.2 (consensus 63.0) The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report for November was revised down to 88.8 from 89.4 (consensus 90.0) Pending home sales for October fell 1.1% (expected +0.5%) New home sales increased 0.7% in October to 458,000 from a downwardly revised 455,000 (from 467,000) (consensus 470,000) The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 4.3% to follow last week's 4.9% increase Equity markets will be closed tomorrow and Friday's session will end early at 13:00 ET.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nasdaq Composite +14.6% YTD S&P 500 +12.1% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.6% YTD Russell 2000 +2.3% YTD 2:13 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BDX (140.91 +4.59%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; tgt raised to $160 from $134.
ADI (54.5 +5.4%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line ; Tgt raise at RBC Capital Mkts.
MYL (58.62 +4.36%): Up following a note from Jefferies suggesting that MYL is the most likely takeover candidate for Pfizer (PFE).

Large Cap Losers

SDRL (16.23 -21.63%): Reported Q3 (Sep) results, beat on revs; slashed their dividend to focus on debt reduction.
AGU (96.51 -2.36%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
EOG (94.14 -2.69%): Weakness in oil & gas companies as crude prices continue move lower ahead of tomorrow's OPEC meeting (COG & CHK also lower).

Mid Cap Gainers

VEEV (32.17 +11.55%): Beat Q3 consensus estimates by $0.01, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; Tgt raised at JP Morgan.
ZAYO (26.71 +4.58%): Round of analyst initiations following the IPO; Initiated at Outperform at Raymond James, William Blair, Cowen, others.
GPRO (78.27 +4.77%): Reports out that the company is working on bringing a drone product to the market by the end of the year.

Mid Cap Losers

DO (32.31 -10.65%): Lower following the dividend cut from Seadrill (SDRL) and cautious analysts comments warning the dividend news could spread to other offshore drillers (RIG also lower).
CTRP (52.62 -9.99%): Beat Q3 consensus estimated by $0.04, beat on revs; guided Q4 revs below consensus; Downgraded at UBS, Barclays, others.
FMSA (11.69 -8.77%): Initiated with a Market Perform at Wells Fargo; Frac sand plays lower following a downgrade to U.S. Silica (SLCA) from Outperform to Market Perform at Wells Fargo

11:34 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (196) outpacing new lows (61) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAL, AAVL, ABAX, ABBV, ABC, ABMD, ACCO, ACE, ACT, AEC, AGIO, AIV, ALOT, AMAG, AMAT, AMBA, AMOT, AMT, ANAC, ARE, AVB, AVGO, AVNR, BAP, BBW, BDL, BDR, BDX, BFAM, BJRI, BNDX, BOOT, BRCM, BRK.A, BRK.B, BSET, BSF, BWS, CACI, CAF, CAH, CATO, CELG, CENX, CFA, CFN, CIM, CMN, COST, COTY, COV, CSCO, CSX, CTLT, CVA, CVTI, DBL, DDC, DFT, DIS, DLR, DPLO, DRH, DSPG, EAT, EEFT, EFX, ENH, ENL, EQIX, EQR, ERIE, ESRX, EXR, FAF, FEUZ, FFC, FFNW, FGL, FIS, FMS, FOLD, FTCS, FV, GGG, GGP, GTT, HA, HAIN, HBNK, HCN, HIW, HLT, HON, HPI, HPQ, HPS, HQH, HRG, HSIC, HSP, IDTI, IFN, INCR, INFY, INGR, INTC, IPXL, JBLU, JBSS, JCOM, JRS, KEYS, KNX, LBRDA, LBRDK, LBTYA, LBTYK, LEG, LFC, LQ, LRCX, MA, MACK, MGPI, MHFI, MIK, MKC.V, MMU, MNDO, MU, MYL, NFBK, NIE, NKTR, NVDA, OMER, ONEQ, OPLK, OVAS, PAYC, PDCO, PEP, PERY, PGRE, PLL, PMCS, PPS, PRE, PSCT, PSG, QQXT, QTEC, QTM, RBA, RENT, RFI, RFMD, RHP, RMAX, RT, RUK, SAGE, SBAC, SEIC, SHO, SSNC, ST, STK, STOR, SWKS, TASR, TBK, TCO, TFX, THG, TQNT, TQQQ, TRI, TSM, TSRA, TTWO, TXN, UNH, USAK, USCR, V, VAR, VEC, VR, VTAE, VTR, VWR, WFC, WY, XNPT

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: API, ATW, AVH, BIND, BLRX, BPZ, BRN, CSTM, CSUN, DATE, DCTH, DWSN, ECT, ESEA, EVGN, FES, FOXF, GER, GNBC, HAL, HERO, HNR, JMEI, KGJI, LPI, MCEP, MCP, MEMP, MIND, NADL, NBR, NCQ, NDRO, NSLP, NSPH, NSPR, OCIP, OKS, PHMD, PRSS, RFIL, RGDO, RIG, RIGP, RNO, RTGN, SALT, SDLP, SDRL, SOFO, SOL, SQQQ, SZYM, TOPS, VIEW, VJET, VRTA, WLL, WPRT, WRES, XNET

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: ICF, IGN, IHF, IHI, IYF, IYH, IYR, PPH, PSK, QQQ, SMH, SOXX, URE, UYG, XLK, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BNO, FXA, OIL, USO, VXX

Semtech (SMTC) announced the RClamp0531TQ, a high-performance, ultra-low capacitance transient voltage suppression device. The single-line, automotive-qualified RClamp0531TQ offers unparalleled low-clamping voltage performance, an essential requirement for safeguarding the sensitive electronics common in today's automotive infotainment and telematics systems.

7:02 am Tessera Tech announced that a California state appellate court affirmed a lower court ruling denying a petition by Amkor Technology (:AKMR) (TSRA) : The petition from Amkor Technology (AKMR) was to correct an arbitration award that the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce issued in July 2012 in favor of Tessera in its contract dispute with Amkor. This award was the basis for the arbitrators' ultimate damages award that a California trial court recently confirmed in the amount of $128.3 million plus ongoing post-judgment interest in Tessera's favor.

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From Briefing.com: "Build it and they will come," was the theme for today's U.S equities rally as total construction spending in October increased more originally expected, bringing demand back into the markets today on boosted confidence in the U.S economy.

In regards to the global picture, yesterday's weak PMI numbers for China have been followed by sentiment that their central bank will step in to provide additional economic stimulus. This helped cool worries of a global economic slow down, fueled by yesterday's bad news, that sent stocks falling more than they have in over a month.

Preliminary Cyber Monday sales were also released today via Adobe, showing a 16% increase from 2013. Adobe also noted that mobile purchases continue to drive sales, accounting for 19% of total online sales. As this trend continues, sales from the Thanksgiving weekend will increasingly be spread out as stores extend discounts to catch the "always online" consumer.

While an increase in total construction spending is good news for the economy, it doesn't directly affect the technology sector. This explains the sectors less than stellar performance today during a broad market rally. The Technology Select Sector ETF (XLK 42.02) gained only 0.04% vs the S&P 500's 0.64% gain.

The tech sectors top performing industry, Communication Equipment, was lead by Sierra Wireless (SWIR 38.83 +2.43), Alliance Fiber Optic (AFOP 12.73 +0.41), and Black Box Corp (BBOX 23.40 +0.58).

Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals was the largest declining industry in the sector, bogged down by Sandisk Corp (SNDK 101.31 -1.55), and Stratasys (SSYS 96.80 -0.52).

Notable Tech stories:

Spansion Inc. (CODE 27.86 +5.01) announced a definitive agreement to merge with Cypress Semiconductor (CY 11.92 +1.49) yesterday after the close. The transactions expected value is approximately $4 billion. The merger is expected to achieve at least $135 million in cost synergies within three years. Additionally, the deal is expected to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings within the first full year after the deal closes (anticipate close in Q1 of 2015).

Following the announcement of the agreement, CODE received mixed analyst actions that included a Buy reiteration at Topeka Capital where they raised their price target to $32. ROTH Capital was also bullish on the merger, reaffirming its buy rating for CODE. On the other side, Wells Fargo downgraded the company to Market Perform from Outperform.

We should also note that there are several law firms who believe that CODE breached their fiduciary duty by not shopping the company aroung before agreeing to be acquired by CY. That didn't deter the stock from reaching new 52 week highs today, but definitely something to keep an eye on moving forward.

Digital Ally (DGLY 18.69 +5.82) was also a top performer in the sector. In the aftermath of the trial in Ferguson, Missouri, President Obama has called for lawmakers to spend $263 million on 50,000 body cameras for law enforcement. For starters, the NYPD has reported that they will begin body camera training soon. To help avoid controversial situations similar to the one in Missouri, we may see more police departments adopt this strategy, though with such advanced technology its hard to imagine what took so long.

Taser International (TASR 23.34 +1.25) is another body camera manufacturer that would benefit from the additional funding.

MOL Global (MOLG 3.65 +1.96) has a rather interesting story behind its monstrous move today (+116%). The e-payment solutions provider for online goods and services in Southeast Asia has had several bad press releases in recent days. These stories include an apparent accounting error at its Vietnam subsidiary where revenues were reported on a gross basis rather than correctly on a net basis. The company's CFO also resigned from the company, and their latest earnings release was delayed. This perfect storm of bad news sent the stock plummeting approximately 80% in only a few days.

Today, MOLG's largest shareholder Vincent Tan made statements supporting the company, mentioning that although recent events are unfortunate, his fundamental stance on the company does not change. Realistically he has a point, accounting errors do happen, and reports conclude that the CFO left on his own terms, without any disagreements with the company. Today's rally can be partially attributed to this announcement, but investors should still be cautious moving forward as short sellers surely took some profits after the sell-off, especially with today's broad market rally creating headwinds for future declines.

4:22 pm OmniVision beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (OVTI) : Reports Q2 (Oct) earnings of $0.60 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.51; revenues fell 0.8% year/year to $394 mln vs the $377.55 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.22-0.38, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $275-305 mln vs. $332.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:16 pm Microchip raises low end of Q3 guidance; sees Q4 rev growth in the low single digits QoQ (MCHP) : Co raises Q3 EPS to $0.60-0.64 from $0.59-0.64 vs $0.62 Capital IQ Consensus; raises GAAP rev to $512-528 mln from $501-528 mln (non-GAAP to $519-535 mln from $508-535 mln) vs $520.97 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We have continued to see an improvement in our bookings and billings since our earnings call on October 30, 2014. We are now even more confident that the small correction that we experienced in the September quarter is behind us, and we currently expect to provide guidance of a low single digit sequential revenue increase for the March 2015 quarter (consensus +2.9%) when we announce our fiscal third quarter of 2015 results in late January,"

4:12 pm Closing Market Summary: Small Caps Pace Broad Rebound (:WRAPX) : The stock market enjoyed a broad rebound on Tuesday after starting the week with a Monday retreat. The S&P 500 settled higher by 0.6% while the Russell 2000 (+1.2%) displayed relative strength. Despite today's outperformance, the small-cap index could only narrow its weekly decline to 0.4% while the S&P 500 reclaimed most of its loss from Monday.

The benchmark index spent the day in a steady advance with M&A news from this morning acting as a supportive factor. In the technology sector (+0.3%), Cypress Semiconductor (CY 11.92, +1.48) agreed to a $4 billion merger of equals with Spansion (CODE 27.86, +5.01) while health care component (+1.1%) Avanir Pharmaceuticals (AVNR 16.92, +1.92) agreed to be acquired by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals for $3.5 billion in cash. Also of note, insurer Aviva (AV 15.64, -0.09) announced its acquisition of Friends Life Group.

Outside of corporate deals, the Tuesday session was very quiet, but somewhat surprisingly, trading volume surpassed recent averages with 795 million shares changing hands at the NYSE.

Nine of ten sectors were able to register gains with energy (+1.3%) ending in the lead for the second day in a row. The sector spent the bulk of the session ahead of other groups even as crude oil fell 3.0% to $66.97/bbl. Dow components Chevron (CVX 114.02, +2.29) and ExxonMobil (XOM 94.19, +1.84) both gained near 2.0% while Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A 69.30, +1.81) surged 2.7% amid press reports the company may be interested in acquiring BP (BP 40.72, +0.89).

Elsewhere, financials (+1.0%) and industrials (+0.8%) were the only other outperformers among cyclical sectors. The industrial space rallied behind transport stocks with their strength sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 1.2%.

Meanwhile on the countercyclical side, the health care sector (+1.1%) held a solid gain throughout the session with biotechnology providing support. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 306.87, +6.25) jumped 2.1% to a fresh record high. As for the remaining defensively-oriented groups, consumer staples (+0.4%) and telecom services (-1.8%) lagged while the utilities sector (+0.7%) ended just ahead of the broader market.

Treasuries finished on their lows with the 10-yr yield up five basis points at 2.29%.

Economic data was limited to the Construction Spending report for October, which increased 1.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%. The value of construction put in place increased 0.9%, which will be a positive factor in Q4 GDP computations.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the ADP Employment Change report for November will cross the wires at 8:15 ET (Briefing.com consensus 225K). Third quarter Productivity (consensus 2.4%) and Unit Labor Costs data (expected 0.0%) will be reported at 8:30 ET while the November ISM Services report (consensus 57.5) will be released at 10:00 ET. Also of note, the Federal Reserve will release its December Beige Book at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +13.9% YTD S&P 500 +11.8% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.9% YTD Russell 2000 +0.4% YTD

12:29 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BIIB (325.72 +5.6%): Up following positve developments on Alzheimer's drug BIIB037 at Deutsche Bank BIOFEST.
RCL (76.42 +5.71%): S&P announced RCL will replace Bemis Company (BMS) in the S&P 500.
TRIP (74.69 +5.12%): CEO bought 13,785 shares at $72.55 worth ~$1.0 mln.

Large Cap Losers

BRFS (24.8 -3.13%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill.
WDAY (83.08 -2.27%): Initiated with a Neutral at JP Morgan.
BMO (71.51 -2.19%): Reported Q4 (Oct) earnings of C$1.63 per share, excluding non-recurring items, C$0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of C$1.68; revenues rose 4.9% year/year to C$4.34 bln vs the C$4.33 bln consensus.

Mid Cap Gainers

AVNR (16.92 +12.81%): To be acquired by Otsuka Pharmaceutical for for $17.00 per share in cash , or ~$3.5 bln.
QUNR (25.69 +4.64%): Reported Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.78 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.41); revenues rose 107.6% year/year to $81.6 mln vs the $77.16 mln consensus.
NPSP (33.48 +3.94%): Announced that the EMA has validated and initiated its review of the company's marketing authorization application for Natpar for the treatment of Hypoparathyroidism.

Mid Cap Losers

MFRM (63.75 -8.43%): Reported EPS in-line, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance; raised comps guidance.
THO (55.75 -3.6%): Reported Q1 (Oct) earnings of $0.73 per share, $0.08 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.81; revenues rose 15.3% year/year to $922 mln vs the $903.87 mln consensus; sales of both towable and motorized RVs posted double-digit growth.
UPL (18.88 -3.32%): Downgraded to Sell at Global Hunter.

12:21 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (207) outpacing new highs (115) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAC, ABC, ABT, ADM, ADP, AET, AIRT, ALXN, AMAG, AMGN, ANIP, ARDX, ARE, AVNR, AXTA, BBK, BCR, BERY, BMRN, BSD, BSF, BTF, BXP, CAF, CELG, CMN, CODE, COST, COV, CRMT, CSCD, CSCO, CTLT, CY, DEPO, DIS, DRI, EIX, ENR, ESRX, EVN, EW, EXAM, FAF, FCAU, FDP, FDX, FFNW, FICO, FOX, FOXA, FUR, GTIM, HA, HAWK, HAWKB, HCT, HDRAU, HQH, HRB, HRC, IBCA, IFN, IIF, INGR, IRS, KMX, LEAF, LFC, LLY, LQ, LSBK, MCRL, MCY, MDT, MRH, MTSI, NEWM, NKTR, NPT, NVRO, OGS, OMC, PCG, PCQ, PETM, PG, PHM, PNW, POR, PPG, PTSI, PUK, QVCA, RCL, RDI, RVP, SCOR, SCYX, SFS, SONC, SRT, STX, SYK, SYMC, TASR, TCX, TM, TRK, UNH, USAK, VAC, XEL, Y, ZNH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAOI, ABIO, ACUR, ALSK, ALXA, ANF, AOI, APDN, AREX, ARWR, ASPN, ASPS, ATLS, AVAL, BALT, BANX, BBG, BGH, BOOM, BRSS, BSPM, BXE, CACH, CAK, CALL, CASH, CCU, CEO, CFD, CGIX, CH, CHKR, CLB, CLNE, CNCO, CNSI, COHR, CREG, CRT, CRVP, CTHR, CXO, DAKP, DATE, DCTH, DHRM, DHY, DKL, DNOW, DRD, DRQ, DSX, DWSN, DXPE, E, EC, ECR, ECT, ELON, ENVI, EOX, EPE, EROC, ESEA, EYES, FCX, FES, FET, FMD, FOR, FTK, FWLT, FXEN, GER, GGB, GLRI, GMZ, GNBC, GSI, GSV, GTE, GTLS, HDY, HIIQ, HIX, HNR, ICA, ICL, IKGH, ISH, IVAN, JGH, JMEI, JOEZ, KEG, KGJI, KOP, LBIX, LEI, LEU, LOOK, LOXO, LPTN, LXFR, MBT, MCP, MDR, MDU, MEP, MFRI, MORE, MPO, MRC, MTBC, MTRX, MXF, NCQ, NDRO, NEOT, NKA, NOA, NOG, NPD, NR, NSPH, NSPR, NTLS, NTP, NVFY, OCLS, OPB, OXGN, PACD, PBT, PED, PGH, PGN, PHMD, PLG, PLPC, PQ, PRAN, PRKR, PRSS, PSTI, PWRD, QEPM, QIWI, QKLS, RCON, REN, RGDX, RGSE, RNE, RNO, ROSE, ROYL, ROYT, RTK, RVLT, RYAM, SALT, SB, SBLK, SBR, SCL, SDR, SFY, SKIS, SM, SPP, SRF, SSE, SSNI, STAA, STN, SWSH, SXC, TAS, TC, TCAP, TGA, TGE, TLM, TMST, TOPS, TPLM, TRF, TRUP, TRXC, TS, TTI, ULTR, UNT, UQM, USAP, VET, VIEW, VJET, VLCCF, VNOM, VSLR, WG, WPRT, WSTL, XOOM, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IYH, UUP, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, FXA, FXY, RSX, SGG, UGA
7:01 am Corning confirmed that it has reached a definitive agreement with Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) to acquire its fiber optics business (GLW) :

Co has reached a definitive agreement with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. to acquire its fiber optics business. The terms of the agreement were not released. The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2015.Corning will integrate Samsung's fiber optic business, with manufacturing facilities in Gumi, South Korea, as well as in Hainan, China, into the Corning Optical Communications business segment upon closing of the acquisition.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The technology sector performs in-line with a broad market rally as the S&P 500 posts new all-time highs, although many investors are taking a wait-and-see approach ahead of an important ECB meeting scheduled for tomorrow. In addition, another important economic report, November employment numbers will be released Friday.

The Technology Select Index (XLK 42.17 +0.15) was lead primarily by the outperformance of semi conductors, which we will touch on below, but here are a few other notable movers from other industries in the space:

Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM 30.92 +1.15) Electronic Arts (EA 45.99 +2.36) F5 Networks (FFIV 130.95 +2.22)Skyworks (SWKS 66.67 +0.87)Semiconductors were the real winners today. The Philadelphia semi conductor index (SOX +13.92) included only two decliners, but there were several notable gainers in the space.

Cree Inc (CREE 35.22 +1.05)Avago Tech (AVGO 95.13 +2.93)Kla-Tencor (KLAC 71.02 +2.18)Microchip Technology (MCHP 46.59 +1.94)Alibaba (BABA 110.64 +0.75) presented at the Credit Suisse Tech Conference. The company noted that they are fundamentally transforming how business is done in China. Also, BABA mentioned that they are seeing similar growth characteristics in countries like India and Indonesia where mobile internet use is rising rapidly and the traditional brick-and-mortar retail industry is very poor. These are prime conditions for e-commerce giant who is looking to expand into other countries and diversify its products. The company's most recent product launch, Taobao Movie, allows customers to purchase movie tickets online.

Apple Inc. (AAPL 115.93 +1.30) saw another analyst company raise its price target today. JMP Securities reiterated its Market Outperform rating, raising AAPL's price target from $135 to $150. This is the third raised target the co has seen this week. The stock is still about 3% from its all time high of 119.75 set on November 28, but the recent increased price targets may be the necessary catalyst to push it back to that price level.

Intel Corp (INTC 37.43 -0.17) was one of the only two losers in the SOX. Aside from that, the company announced they are forming a strategic alliance with Luxottica Group to collaborate on the research and development of wearable premium, luxury, and sports eyewear with smart technology. With AAPL's iWatch on the cusp of release, and Google's glasses, it's no surprise that INTC wants to delve into the wearable technology market.

Leidos Holdings (LDOS +2.65) provides science and technology solutions like data analytics, systems integration, and cybersecurity, to agencies of the US. The company reported third quarter earnings results this morning before the open. In the report, LDOS beat analyst estimates of both EPS and revenue, while reaffiriming guidance for fiscal year 2015. Although the company's revenues fell 10% year/year, investors were impressed with the better than expected performance in the quarter. The reason for the decrease in revenues is due to budget cuts that lead to decreased sales in their major revenue streams, National Security Solutions and Health and Engineering.

4:13 pm Closing Market Summary: Russell 2000 Leads Stocks Higher (:WRAPX) : The stock market ended the midweek session on an upbeat note with the Russell 2000 (+1.0%) pacing the advance for the second day in a row. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 posted a more modest gain of 0.4% with seven sectors ending in the green.

Similar to yesterday, equities were essentially left to their own devices amid a lack of market-moving news. Cyclical sectors were responsible for the bulk of the advance as all six growth-sensitive groups ended in the green while health care (+0.2%) was the lone gainer on the countercyclical side.

The materials sector (+1.4%) settled in the lead after showing relative strength throughout the session. The group benefitted from strength among steelmakers and miners with Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 39.15, +0.90) and Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 19.60, +0.40) climbing 2.4% and 2.1%, respectively.

Meanwhile, another commodity-related sector-energy (+1.2%)-settled just behind materials, which represented the third consecutive day of relative strength for the recently-battered sector. Today's advance occurred amid a 0.5% gain in crude oil ($67.30/bbl) and helped the sector extend its week-to-date gain to 3.2%.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (+1.3%) was the only other group to add more than 1.0%. The top-weighted sector component-General Electric (GE 26.38, +0.33)-spiked 1.3% while transport stocks also displayed relative strength. The Dow Jones Transportation Average settled higher by 0.8% with Alaska Air (ALK 56.76, +1.51) setting the pace.

Also of note, the technology sector (+0.5%) underperformed in the morning, but powered to new highs during the final hour. The sector was underpinned by chipmakers and its strength helped the S&P 500 to a new high just ahead of the close. As for chipmakers, the group rallied broadly after Microchip Technology (MCHP 46.59, +1.94) said it is confident the small correction experienced in the third quarter is now in the past. The stock spiked 4.3% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index jumped 2.0%.

Over on the countercyclical side, consumer staples (-0.8%), telecom services (-0.8%), and utilities (-0.3%) ended in the red while health care (+0.2%) turned positive in the early afternoon. Biotechnology contributed to the rebound with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 308.25, +1.38) climbing 0.5%.

Treasuries spent the bulk of the session near their flat lines before ending close to highs. The 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.28%.

Participation was a bit below average with just over 755 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included ADP Employment Change, Q3 Labor Productivity Data, ISM Services, and the MBA Mortgage Index:


The ADP report revealed that employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose 208K in November, which was below the increase of 225K expected by the Briefing.com consensus. Q3 nonfarm business productivity was revised up to 2.3% from an originally reported 2.0% gain while the Briefing.com consensus expected a revision to 2.4% Unit labor costs were revised down and now show a 1.0% decline in the third quarter after initially showing a small 0.3% increase. The consensus expected a flat reading. This was the second consecutive quarterly decline The ISM Services Index for November rose to 59.3 from 57.1 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick to 57.5 The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 7.3% to follow last week's 4.3% decline Tomorrow's data will be limited to the Challenger Job Cuts report for November, which will be released at 7:30 ET while weekly Initial Claims will cross at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 295K).
Nasdaq Composite +14.3% YTD S&P 500 +12.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.4% YTD

4:09 pm Avago Tech beats by $0.30, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus (AVGO) : Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $1.99 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.30 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.69; revenues rose 115.4% year/year to $1.59 bln vs the $1.55 bln consensus; gross margin +1 % pt QoQ at 58%.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs flat to +4% QoQ to ~$1.59-1.65 bln vs. $1.52 bln Capital IQ Consensus; non-GAAP gross margin 56.5-58.5%.

1:15 pm Corning declared a quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share, a 20% increase over the previous dividend of $0.10; Also authorized a new $1.5 bln share repurchase program (GLW) : The 2015 first-quarter dividend is payable on March 31, 2015, to shareholders ofrecord on Feb. 27, 2015

The new share repurchase program expires atthe end of 2016.

12:35 pm SPDR Semiconductor continues to display intraday relative strength (XSD) : The XSD (and SMH) pushed to a new session high of 77.49 in midday trade. This is a new two month plus high and leaves it slightly under its multi-year close high from Sep at 77.58. The multi-year intraday high from Sep does not come into play until 78.22. Semi names helping pace the way include: AMKR +3.9%, ARMH +3.8%, MCHP +3.4%, AMD +3.2%, ADI +2.6%, AMAT +2.6%, TER +2.3%, MRVL +2.3%, NVDA +2.1%, XLNX +2%, CRUS +2%, KLAC +1.9%, LLTC +1.8%, LRCX +1.7%.

12:19 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (231) outpacing new lows (135) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, AAVL, AAWW, ABT, ACCO, ACE, ADM, ADMA, AEC, AET, AFG, AIRT, ALKS, ALXN, AMAG, AMAT, AMGN, AMP, AON, ARDX, ARE, ASFI, ASH, ATRA, AXL, AXS, AXTA, AZO, BAH, BAP, BBK, BCR, BDL, BERY, BIB, BIF, BK, BLE, BLL, BRK.A, BRK.B, BSD, BSF, CAF, CARB, CEV, CFN, CFNL, CHEV, CI, CMN, CMPR, CMRX, CNC, CRMT, CSC, CSCD, CSS, CUB, CVC, DEPO, DFP, DFT, DGX, DHR, DLPH, DPZ, EA, ECHO, EEFT, EFX, EML, EQY, EROS, ESRX, EVN, EW, FAF, FCAU, FDP, FDS, FEUZ, FFG, FICO, FII, FLML, FNF, FSRV, FTCS, FUR, GGP, GIII, GNCMA, GNTX, GTIM, GTS, HCKT, HCN, HDS, HNI, HON, HPY, HQH, HQL, HRB, HSIC, HSP, HST, HTA, HUM, HW, IDCC, IEC, IFN, IG, IIF, INGR, INTC, ISSI, ITW, JCOM, JPS, KEQU, KMX, KRC, LABC, LB, LLY, LNT, LOW, LQ, LRCX, LWAY, MA, MAC, MAG, MCK, MCRL, MCY, MD, MLI, MMC, MMM, MMU, MNDO, MO, MPA, MPAA, MPWR, MQY, MRH, MSCC, MTEX, MTSI, MUS, MYCC, MYD, NAVG, NDAQ, NEV, NIM, NPT, NVRO, OGS, ORLY, OSUR, OTIC, PCAR, PCQ, PEB, PFPT, PHM, PKG, PLD, PLL, PMCS, PNW, PPC, PRE, PRI, PSCT, PTSI, QQQX, QTM, QTWO, RAX, RBA, RCL, RDI, REGN, RIC, RMD, ROIC, RPAI, SEE, SEIC, SFS, SLG, SONC, SPR, SQNM, SRT, ST, STK, STMP, SWI, SWIR, TCO, TM, TRV, TSEM, TTPH, TXN, UNH, USAK, V, VAC, VCV, VEC, VGM, VR, VRTX, VWR, WBB, WGL, WHR, WLDN, WOOF, WST, XRX, ZSPH,

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABIO, ACFN, ALSK, AMDA, ANF, API, ATAI, AVH, AXX, BAS, BGH, BIS, BOOM, BPZ, BRN, BRSS, BSPM, CALL, CAPN, CCU, CEO, CGIX, CLB, CNV, CRK, CRNT, CYNI, DCTH, DHY, DNOW, DRYS, DSX, DXPE, E, ECR, ECT, EDI, ELON, ENVI, EXE, FAM, FDUS, FGEN, FTEK, FULL, GBSN, GDP, GHL, GLRI, GLUU, GMAN, GNBC, GSV, GTLS, HERO, HIIQ, HIX, HOTR, ICA, JGH, JMEI, JOEZ, KBAL, KEG, KEX, KOF, KOP, LAS, LBIX, LEI, LODE, LOXO, LPI, LPTN, LXFR, MBT, MCP, MDR, MM, MPO, MXF, NBY, NCQ, NDRO, NE, NEOT, NRT, NSPH, NSPR, OME, OPWR, PARN, PBT, PED, PHMD, PLG, PRAN, PRGN, PRSS, PRTO, QIWI, QRM, ROYL, ROYT, SARA, SCL, SDRL, SDT, SKIS, SPP, SRF, SSL, STXS, SVVC, SWSH, SYRX, TAS, TAT, TBI, TBPH, TC, TECU, TEU, TGB, TNH, TPLM, TS, USEG, VIEW, VJET, VTIP, WATT, WRES, WSTL, ZU,

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, DVY, IBB, IHF, IHI, IYF, IYG, IYH, SMH, SOXX, UUP, UYG, XLF, XLV,

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BNO, BWX, DBC, DJP, EWM, FXA, FXE, FXF, FXY, GSG, SGG, UHN, USCI, VXX,

12:08 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

OKE (54.5 +3.82%): Announced that its 2015 cash flow available for dividends is expected to be in the range of $580-660 mln.
NLSN (43.66 +4.59%): Upgraded to Buy from hold at Needham; tgt $50.
CMI (150.53 +2.97%): Strength in Class 8 Trucking stocks following strong preliminary November data from FTR Transportation Intelligence Research (PCAR also higher).

Large Cap Losers

BF.B (93.04 -3.08%): Missed Q2 consensus estimates by $0.07, missed on revs; lowered FY15 EPS below consensus.
WYNN (169.79 -2.56%): Weakness in Macau stocks after selling off in Hong Kong on disappointing gaming revenue results; sixth consecutive monthly decline in Macau revenues.
DISH (73.92 -1.8%): Downgraded to Sell at Wunderlich; tgt raised to $67.

Mid Cap Gainers

LDOS (43.77 +8.93%): Beat Q3 consensus estimates by $0.12, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance, revs guidance.
FSL (22.92 +7.33%): Strength in semiconductors after Microchip (MCHP) raised the low end of their Q3 guidance
IPGP (75.95 +5.49%): Standard & Poor's announced IPGP set to replace CPWR in the S&P MidCap 400.

Mid Cap Losers

PBYI (193.04 -14.2%): Updated timeline for filing NDA for the approval of PB272 (neratinib); intends to delay its proposed timeline for filing the NDA until the first quarter of 2016.
JCP (7.07 -4.4%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.
ICPT (132.51 -2.7%): Target lowered to $99 from $125 at FBR Capital, firm maintains Underperform rating.

4:01 am Hanwha SolarOne completes 20 MW module supply agreement with Haike Engineering Holding (HSOL) : Hanwha SolarOne Co announced it has completed the delivery of 20 MW of Hanwha SolarOne's high quality E-star HSL72 modules to Haike Engineering Holding Co., Ltd. Deliveries were made throughout November to a ground-mounted project in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China.

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From Briefing.com: With the ECB ending its meeting today without taking action, and important November employment numbers set for release tomorrow, it is little surprise that U.S equity markets ended the day relatively flat. The S&P 500 closed down 0.12% but the Technology sector was able to avoid a loss (XLK unchanged). Here are a few noteworthy movers in the sector that helped it outperform.

Avago Technologies (AVGO 103.07 +7.94) the semiconductor company and Apple (AAPL) supplier reported better than expected third quarter results. The company beat average analyst estimates of EPS by $0.30 a share. Additionally, the company guided revenues above estimates for the first quarter of next year.

Microsoft (MSFT 48.84 +0.76) entered into an agreement with Barnes & Nobles (BKS) to sell back its portion of the NOOK Media agreement for $300 million. In addition, MSFT received a reiterated Buy rating at Nomura, which included a raised price target to $56 from $50.

Synopsys Inc (SNPS 44.65 +1.65) had its price target raised from $45 to $47 by Needham, reiterating its Buy rating on the stock.

Walmart (WMT 84.76 -0.18) While not a tech company, it announced today that Sam's Club is releasing a retail travel app for on-the-go savings. Companies that may be affected by the new app that will increase supply in the travel field include Priceline (PCLN 1140.11 +9.94), and Expedia (EXPE 89.55 +0.96) among others.

Google (GOOG 537.31 +5.99) (GOOGL +5.61) - No news.

Sector performance by industry group:


Communication Equipment (-0.83%)Electronics Equipment Instruments & Components (-0.54%)Internet Software & Services (+0.72%)IT Services (-0.24%)Semiconductors (+0.30%)
Software (+0.78%)
Technology Hardware, Storage, and Peripherals (-0.31%)
Other movers worth noting: Facebook (FB 75.24 +0.36), Yahoo (YHOO 50.41 +0.13), Alibaba (BABA 109.17 -1.47), and Intel (INTC 37.46 +0.03)

5:06 pm TTM Tech and Viasystems Group receive Second Request from FTC (TTMI) : Co and Viasystems Group (VIAS) announced they have each received a second request from the United States Federal Trade Commission (the "FTC") for additional information associated with TTM's proposed acquisition of Viasystems. The effect of the second request is to extend the waiting period imposed by the HSR Act until 30 days after TTM and Viasystems have substantially complied with the FTC's second request, unless that period is extended voluntarily by the parties or terminated sooner by the FTC. Both companies intend to cooperate fully with the FTC's review.

5:04 pm Silicon Image launches new subsidiary to focus on 'Internet of Everything' services; Qualcomm (QCOM) participates with strategic investment (SIMG) : Co announced that Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. has made a $7 million strategic investment in Silicon Image's new subsidiary, Qterics, for a 7% ownership interest.

Qterics will be focused on enabling a wide variety of solutions and services for Internet-enabled consumer products including TVs, mobile handsets, tablets, routers, home automation devices, white goods and more. Qterics is comprised of the UpdateLogic services business combined with other related Silicon Image assets, including software and other intellectual property (IP). Current UpdateLogic General Manager, Kurt Thielen, will assume the role of President of Qterics.
In addition to the investment, Qualcomm and Silicon Image will explore opportunities to collaborate on promoting the AllJoyn open source software framework and developing new Internet of Everything (IoE) services.

4:11 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks End Flat After ECB Stands Pat (:WRAPX) : The stock market ended the Thursday session on a modestly lower note ahead of Friday's Nonfarm Payrolls report for November. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% while the Russell 2000 (-0.5%) underperformed.

Thursday served as a perfect reminder for how dependent global equity markets have become on central bank stimulus. The first reminder occurred during the Asian session with China's Shanghai Composite soaring 4.3% amid expectations the People's Bank of China will introduce additional stimulus measures. While today's advance was impressive, it pales in comparison with an 18.3% surge in the index since November 20.

Meanwhile, the second reminder manifested itself through volatility in European and U.S. markets in reaction to the European Central Bank's latest policy statement and subsequent press reports.

As expected, the ECB made no changes to its interest rate corridor, but more notably, President Mario Draghi did not call for the start of a sovereign QE program, which had been expected by some. Instead, Mr. Draghi said the economic situation in the eurozone will be reassessed early next year. Furthermore, the ECB lowered its 2015 GDP projection to 1.0% from 1.6% and cut its harmonized inflation forecast for the region to 0.7% from 1.1%.

The absence of a QE announcement gave a boost to the euro while pressuring European and U.S. stocks. However, U.S. equities were able to string together a rebound after markets in Europe closed for the day. That recovery was capped with the S&P 500 spiking into the green just after 12:30 ET when Bloomberg reported the European Central Bank will prepare a broad-based QE package for the January meeting. In a way, preparations for such a program should be expected even if no announcement is made in January and it is worth pointing out that Mr. Draghi was pressed to define 'early' during his press conference, to which he responded, "Early, it means early, it doesn't mean the next meeting."

The vague report knocked the euro off its high to 1.2380 against the dollar after the single currency tested the 1.2455 level in the morning. Conversely, the Dollar Index (88.62, -0.33) halved its loss to 0.4%.

Although the early afternoon rebound sent the benchmark index back to its flat line, the S&P 500 was unable to extend that move. The index spent the next two hours within a point of unchanged before sliding away from its flat line into the close. Once again, an ECB-related report was cited for the afternoon weakness after Germany's Die Welt reported Mr. Draghi no longer enjoys majority support on the Executive Board.

Eight sectors finished in the red with energy (-0.9%) spending the day at the bottom of the leaderboard. The sector slumped as crude oil surrendered 0.8% to $66.75/bbl, but despite the decline, the energy sector will enter Friday with a week-to-date gain of 2.4% versus a slim 0.2% uptick for the S&P 500.

Outside of energy, telecom services (-0.2%) and industrials (-0.5%) were the only two groups unable to keep pace with the market. The industrial sector followed its top component-General Electric (GE 26.09, -0.29)-lower, while transport stocks held up relatively well with the Dow Jones Transportation Average ending in-line with the market.

Elsewhere, the consumer discretionary sector also finished in-line with the S&P 500, but retail stocks were pressured after Aeropostale (ARO 2.48, -0.71), Express (EXPR 13.19, -1.30), Guess? (GES 20.07, -2.10), and PVH (PVH 122.68, -1.72) disappointed with their earnings and/or guidance. The four names lost between 1.4% and 22.3% while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 92.73, -0.64) fell 0.7%.

On the upside, financials (+0.1%), materials (+0.3%), and technology (+0.1%) registered modest gains. Notably, the tech sector received a measure of support from the PHLX Semiconductor Index, which added 0.1%. Shares of Avago Technologies (AVGO 103.07, +7.94) spiked 8.4% and were responsible for the bulk of the uptick in reaction to strong quarterly results and guidance.

Treasuries ended on their highs with the 10-yr yield sliding four basis points to 2.24%.

Participation was a bit below average with just over 780 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to initial claims and the Challenger Job Cuts report:

Weekly initial claims fell to 297,000 from an upwardly revised rate of 314,000 (from 313,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 295,000
Continuing claims increased to 2.362 million from an upwardly revised 2.323 million (from 2.316 million)
The Challenger Job Cuts report showed a 21.0% year-over-year decline in planned layoffs to follow the prior increase of 11.9%

Tomorrow, the November Nonfarm Payrolls report (Briefing.com consensus 230K) will be released at 8:30 ET alongside the October Trade Balance (consensus -$42.00 billion). The Factory Orders report for October (consensus 0.2%) will cross at 10:00 ET and the day's data will be topped off with the 15:00 ET release of the Consumer Credit report for October (consensus $16.50 billion).
Nasdaq Composite +14.2% YTD S&P 500 +12.1% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.0% YTD Russell 2000 +0.8% YTD

4:02 pm Finisar misses by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (FNSR) : Reports Q2 (Oct) earnings of $0.23 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.25; revenues rose 2.2% year/year to $297 mln vs the $311.94 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of ~$0.23-0.27, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.28 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $297-312 mln vs. $323.86 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:26 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ENB (53.31 +11.34%): The co provided in-line guidance for 2015 and raised its dividend by 33%.
RYAAY (67.95 +6.96%): Reported November traffic jumped 22% to 6.35 mln customers; raised profit guidance; Upgraded earlier to Overweigh at HSBC.
AVGO (102.53 +7.78%): Beat Q4 consensus estimates by $0.30, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs above consensus; Tgt raised at Brean Capital, Deutsche Bank, Canaccord Genuity, others.

Large Cap Losers

TD (48.31 -3.48%): Reported Q4 (Oct) earnings of C$0.98 per share, excluding non-recurring items, C$0.08 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of C$1.06; revenues rose 6.5% year/year to C$7.45 bln vs the C$7.55 bln consensus.
RIO (45.86 -2.94%): Downgraded to Underperform from Buy at BofA/Merrill.
DISH (72.84 -2.12%): Downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.

Mid Cap Gainers

HE (32.64 +15.79%): NextEra Energy (NEE) announced plans to Combine with HE in a $4.3 bln deal.
SNPS (44.8 +4.17%): Beat Q4 consensus estimates by $0.03, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guided FY15 EPS in-line, revs in-line; Tgt raised to $47 at Needham.
MBLY (43.39 +3.78%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Mid Cap Losers

GIL (53.99 -7.35%): Missed Q4 consensus estimates by $0.07, missed on revs; guided Q1 & CY15 below consensus.
THO (55.25 -4.56%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets.
STRZA (31.87 -3.95%): David Faber on CNBC says CBS (CBS) has confirmed with sources that they will not buy Starz.

11:55 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (211) outpacing new lows (192) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAL, AAP, ABAX, ABG, ACCO, ACE, ADM, AFG, AFSI, AIRT, ALKS, ALL, ALTR, AMAT, AMBA, AMOT, ANAC, AON, APH, ARDX, ASFI, ASH, AUO, AVGO, AXL, AXTA, BCV, BDX, BERY, BFK, BIB, BLE, BLL, BOOT, BPY, BRCM, BSD, CACI, CAF, CAKE, CAVM, CB, CCK, CEV, CFN, CFO, CMPR, CMRX, CMS, CORE, COST, COV, CSCD, CSCO, CSS, DFT, DG, DLTR, DPG, DPZ, EA, EAT, EDR, EEP, EEQ, EFX, EIX, ENB, EQY, ESPR, EVM, EXPE, FDP, FFG, FFIV, FII, FIS, FNF, GHC, GNTX, GTIM, GWB, HA, HDS, HE, HPY, IDTI, IFN, IIF, IIM, IMKTA, INGR, ISSI, JAZZ, JBLU, JBSS, KMX, KR, LB, LFC, LLY, LNDC, LNT, LPSB, LRCX, LWAY, MA, MAG, MCK, MCRL, MD, MDVN, MGPI, MHFI, MKTX, MMC, MMM, MMS, MMU, MOCO, MPA, MPWR, MQT, MQY, MSCC, MTSI, MU, MUS, MYD, NAD, NDAQ, NEV, NKX, NOAH, NPF, NPI, NPT, NQM, NU, NVDA, NVEE, NVRO, NXR, OGS, OPLK, OVAS, PCAR, PDCO, PKG, PLUS, PMCS, POR, PPC, PPG, PRE, PTCT, PZC, QTEC, QTM, QVCA, RAI, RCL, RDN, RDWR, REGN, RFMD, RIC, RIF, RKT, RMD, RPAI, RPM, RYAAY, SAGE, SBUX, SCG, SCMP, SEE, SEIC, SIGI, SLG, SLGN, SNPS, SPB, SRT, ST, SWIR, SWKS, TEG, TM, TQNT, TRV, TTPH, TXN, UAL, USAK, UVE, V, VCV, VGM, VR, VTR, WDC, WGL, WHR, WOOF, XEL, XL, XRAY, ZNH, ZSPH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABIO, ACY, ALSK, ALXA, AMDA, AMFW, AR, AREX, ARO, ARWR, ASPN, ASPS, ATAI, ATW, AVEO, AXAS, BANX, BAS, BBG, BCEI, BGH, BIND, BIS, BONT, BRN, BTE, BTU, BVSN, CBK, CFD, CH, CHKR, CLB, CLNE, CLR, CLSN, CLWT, CNSI, CPG, CRK, CYNI, CZZ, DAKP, DCTH, DHY, DSCO, DWCH, E, EAC, ECA, ECPG, ECR, EDI, EGY, EPAY, EPE, ERF, ESCR, ESV, FAM, FAX, FCO, FET, FPP, FXEN, GBSN, GER, GES, GGB, GHI, GLRI, GMAN, GMZ, GSI, HAL, HIIQ, HIX, HK, HNW, HYF, IKGH, INVN, JGW, KBAL, KIN, KOF, KOP, LAND, LEI, LPHI, LPI, LQDT, LRE, LXFR, MBT, MCC, MCEP, MDGN, MDR, MELA, MGCD, MIND, MM, MRC, MRD, MTDR, NCQ, NDRO, NE, NEFF, NEOT, NOG, NPD, NRT, NVFY, NWPX, NWY, OAS, ONP, ORIG, PBT, PDS, PED, PER, PERI, PGH, PHMD, PICO, PRKR, PTEN, PTSX, PWE, PWRD, PZN, QIWI, QRM, QTWW, REE, REMY, RENN, RGSE, RIG, RNO, ROIA, ROIAK, ROSE, ROYL, ROYT, RYAM, SDRL, SEAC, SEAS, SHOS, SID, SIM, SKIS, SLH, SM, SN, SRF, SRV, SSL, STO, STRN, SWN, SXC, TAOM, TAS, TAT, TBPH, TC, TITN, TLM, TNH, TPLM, TRF, TRVN, TS, TTI, UNT, USDP, VALE, VALE.P, VET, VJET, VNOM, W, WGA, WPCS, WPX, WRES, WSTL

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IBB, IYH, SMH, SOXX

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BNO, DBC, DJP, EWM, FXA, FXY, GSG, OIL, RSX, SGG, UGA, UHN, UNG, USO

8:23 am Silicom Limited announced that it has received the first Design Win for its Switched SETAC (SILC) : The client, an important provider of cloud-based cyber security and application delivery solutions, has placed an initial $250,000 purchase order, and Silicom estimates that future sales from this customer will ramp to approximately $2 million per year.

7:31 am SunEdison announced they have executed power purchase agreements with 16 separate public housing authorities across Massachusetts, totaling 39.5 megawatts in peak capacity (SUNE) : Net metering credits will be generated by more than 10 solar systems installed at various locations across Massachusetts, and will be sold via 20 year power purchase agreements to housing authorities

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Indicator That Precedes Almost Every Stock Market Correction Is Flashing A Warning Signal

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2734985-indicator-that-precedes-almost-every-stock-market-correction-is-flashing-a-warning-signal?ifp=0

My chart of the HGY begs the question is the recent divergence between the HGY destined to precede a market sell off in the S&P 500 like in 2007 or like 2013 lead to even higher highs for the HGY?



RtS

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market slumped on Monday as the S&P 500 ended lower by 0.7% with seven sectors in the red. The price-weighted Dow (-0.6%) finished a little ahead of the benchmark index while the Nasdaq (-0.8%) and Russell 2000 (-1.3%) lagged.

Equity markets around the world started the new week on a mostly lower note. However, continued hopes for stimulus from the PBoC sent China's Shanghai Composite higher by 2.8% to extend its gain over the past month to 25.0%. The advance took place after the latest trade data showed a better than expected surplus of $54.47 billion, which resulted from a 6.7% drop in imports (expected +3.5%). Hopes for additional stimulus were also present in Europe, but the key indices there could not stay out of the red amid weakness in growth-sensitive listings.

Fittingly, cyclical sectors were also responsible for the weakness in the U.S. with energy (-3.9%) taking it on the chin amid another decline in crude oil. The sector gave back its entire advance from last week while Chevron (CVX 106.80, -4.07) and ExxonMobil (XOM 91.70, -2.12) lost 3.7% and 2.3%, respectively. As for crude oil, the energy component plunged 5.5% to $63.10/bbl, which represents the lowest level since August 2009. Oil was not the only weak spot among commodities as copper and iron ore also retreated following China's trade data. This kept the pressure on the materials sector (-1.6%), which settled only ahead of energy.

Elsewhere, the technology sector (-1.2%) held up relatively well through the morning, but slipped into the afternoon amid broad weakness. Apple (AAPL 112.40, -2.60), Intel (INTC 37.21, -0.46), and Microsoft (MSFT 47.70, -0.73) lost between 1.2% and 2.3% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index sank 1.4%.

Also of note, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.8%) underperformed with shares of McDonald's (MCD 92.61, -3.70) diving 3.8% after the fast food giant reported a 2.2% decline in global comparable store sales in November, paced by a 4.6% decline in U.S. sales.

Although cyclical sectors were responsible for the bulk of the weakness, financials (+0.4%) tried to resist the broad pressure. The sector climbed through the first two hours of action, but returned in the middle of its range by the close to maintain its market-leading December gain of 2.2%.

Meanwhile, the second-best performer of the month-health care (+0.3%)-followed the same pattern as financials. The sector received an early boost from biotechnology after Merck (MRK 61.88, +0.39) agreed to acquire Cubist Pharmaceuticals (CBST 100.60, +26.24) for $102/share, which represents a 35.0% premium to CBST's average stock price over the past five days. Cubist soared 35.3% while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 313.79, +4.98) jumped 1.6% to a new record high.

Treasuries ended the day near their highs with the 10-yr yield slipping five basis points to 2.26%. However, the front of the curve saw little change with the 2-yr yield slipping one basis point to 0.64%.

For its part, the Dollar Index (89.16, -0.18) took a step back from its multi-year high, but the index is still up more than 11.5% since May. That strength has prompted the Bank of International Settlements to issue a warning about the rising dollar and the potential impact to $1.1 trillion in dollar-denominated loans held by Chinese banks. The BIS said that continued dollar strength increases the potential for a credit shock being sent through East Asia.

Today's participation was in-line with average as roughly 794 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to October Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and October JOLTS with both reports set to be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +13.5% YTD
S&P 500 +11.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.3% YTD

DJ30 -106.31 NASDAQ -40.06 SP500 -15.06 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 712/1.81 bln/2159 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 921/793.6 mln/2198 3:35 pm :

Oil prices tanked today as oversupply concerns continue, which following OPEC's call of not reducing output on Thanksgiving
Jan crude oil dropped 5.5% to end the day at $63.10/barrel
Jan natural gas also tanked, dropping 5.3% to $3.60/MMBtu
Precious metals staged a late-day rally
Feb gold closed +$4.8 at $1195/oz, while Mar silver rose +0.02 to $16.28/oz
Mar copper lost 1 cent to $2.89/lb
4:31 pm Photronics misses by $0.02, misses on revs (PLAB) : Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 17.3% year/year to $124.3 mln vs the $128.2 mln consensus.

1:06 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

CELG (118.94 +4.21%): Announced a number of positive developments in some of its clinical trials including favorable trends in REVLIMID for treatment of myeloma; PDUFA date for REVLIMID set for Feb 22, 2015.
EW (132.37 +2.05%): Outlined its growth strategy at Investor Conf.; sees FY15 in-line, reaffirms FY14 guidance.
UTX (113.42 +1.91%): Upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein; al were reports out that the company's Pratt & Whitney unit could receive an investment from the Canadian government.

Large Cap Losers

AR (38.31 -9.39%): Continued weakness in oil & gas companies as WTI crude drops 3.75% on the day to another five year low, now at $63.40 (ECA, CLR, CPG also lower).
TWTR (36.47 -5.25%): Cautious view profiled in Barron's on TWTR over the weekend.
INFY (32.49 -3.49%): Reports out that the founders plan to sell $1 bln of stock

Mid Cap Gainers

CBST (100.74 +35.48%): Entered into an agreement to be acquired by Merck (MRK) for $102/share, in a deal valued at ~9.5 bln.
ALNY (107.67 +8.49%): The co filed a Clinical Trial Application with the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to initiate a Phase 1/2 clinical trial with ALN-CC5 for the treatment of complement-mediated diseases.
ISIS (57.66 +9.29%): Reported positive phase 2 data for ISIS-FXI Rx for the prevention of Venous Thrombosis in patients undergoing total knee replacement surgery; Tgt raised to $66 at Stifel.

Mid Cap Losers

YNDX (19.49 -11.06%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
PSEC (8.15 -8.38%): Co suspended its at-the-market equity issuances for the indefinite future; reduced monthly cash dividends to shareholders.
BTU (8.43 -5.17%): Reaffirmed its prior guidance regarding 2014 coal sales volumes, U.S. revenues per ton, operating costs and expenses per ton and capital spending.

12:12 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New highs (124) outpacing new lows (80) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABBV, ABC, ABT, ACAD, ACE, AET, ALL, ALTR, AMAT, AMGN, AMTD, AON, APH, AVNR, BEN, BG, BK, BMRN, BMY, BRCM, BRK.B, C, CAG, CAH, CB, CELG, CERN, CHKP, CI, CME, CMS, COV, DCT, DHR, DIS, DRH, DRI, EAT, ESRX, EXAS, FDX, FHN, FOX, FOXA, FTNT, GGP, GNTX, GS, HBAN, HCA, HD, HIG, HLT, HST, HTA, IDTI, INCY, IP, ITW, IVZ, JBLU, JNS, JPM, KAR, KR, LHO, LLY, LOW, LYV, MAC, MAR, MCK, MDT, MHFI, MMC, MNK, MO, MS, MTG, MU, MWV, NAVI, NSAM, NU, NVDA, NWL, OMC, PLD, PNC, RAI, RAX, RCL, RDN, RFMD, RMD, RPAI, SAVE, SBUX, SCI, SEE, SHO, SKT, SLM, SNV, ST, STI, STR, STT, SUSQ, SYF, SYK, SYMC, TEL, TQNT, TRV, TXN, USB, V, WDC, WEC, WY, WYN, XL, XRX

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ANF, APA, AR, ATW, BBEP, BHP, BTU, CFX, CIE, CLR, CNQ, CRZO, CVE, CXO, CZZ, DNOW, DNR, ECA, ENLK, EPE, ERF, ESV, FMSA, FTI, GGB, GPOR, HAL, HFC, HP, KOS, LINE, LNCO, LPI, MBT, MDU, MEOH, MRC, MRD, MRO, MUR, NBR, NE, NOV, OAS, OIS, OKE, PBR, PBR.A, PDS, PGH, PSEC, PTEN, PWE, PXD, RDC, RDS.A, RES, RIG, ROSE, RRC, SDRL, SID, SM, SPWR, STO, SU, SWN, TCK, TLM, TS, UPL, VALE, VALE.P, VIP, WFT, WLL, WPX, WYNN, YNDX, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DVY, IAI, IBB, ICF, IHF, IHI, ITA, IYF, IYG, IYH, KIE, PPA, PPH, SDY, SMH, SOXX, UYG, VNQ, XBI, XLF, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, BNO, CSJ, DBC, DIG, DJP, EWM, FXA, FXC, FXE, FXF, GSG, IEO, IGE, IXC, IYE, OIH, OIL, REMX, RSX, SLX, UGA, UHN, UNG, USCI, USO, XES, XOP

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 361 stocks made 52 week highs and 380 stocks made 52 week lows.

9:01 am Microvision announced it has received a $1.9 mln purchase order for key components for a high definition display module being developed by its Fortune Global 100 customer (MVIS) : Co announced it has received a $1.9 million purchase order for key components for a high definition display module being developed by its Fortune Global 100 customer. This order follows previous orders announced in September of nearly $1.9 million. The value of component orders for this customer totals $3.8 million to date. The customer has informed MicroVision that it plans to incorporate the components from MicroVision in a high definition display module.

Marvell (MRVL) announced the world's first DRAM-less NVMe solid state drive controller for mass market mobile computing solutions with industry-leading NANDEdge low-density parity check technology supporting triple-level cell and 3D NAND.

AMAT +0.8% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank)
6:43 am Tower Semicon announced that it has decided to early redeem its ~$45 mln 8% coupon senior notes originally due June 30, 2015 (TSEM) : In accordance with the Indenture dated as of July 15, 2010, the Company can early redeem these notes in its discretion, and save future interest accruals and payments. The notes will be redeemed on January 7, 2015, causing all of the outstanding 8% Senior Notes due June 2015 to become fully repaid as of such date.

As a result, the Company will save approximately $1.7 million of interest payments that otherwise would accrue and be paid during 2015.

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From Briefing.com: The rout continued for oil today, falling 4% as it led broad markets lower. The S&P fell 1.6%, while the Technology Sector posted similar losses (XLK -1.5%). It is little surprise then, that there were no industry groups within the Tech Sector able to post gains. The worst performing industry groups were Communications Equipment (-2%) and Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals (-1.89%)

Top performing large caps, bucking a down market today:

Broadcom Corp (BRCM 42.68 +0.03) - The semiconductor company received several positive analyst ratings today, including a Buy reiteration at Brean Capital with a raised price target to $53 from $46. Additionally, Susquehanna reiterated its positive rating on BRCM, also raising its price target to $52 from $45. BRCM also announced after the close yesterday that it is raising its dividend 17% to $0.14 per share, and that it has authorized a $1 billion buy back for next year.

Amphenol (APH 53.82 -0.06) - RBC Capital reiterated APH is a Top Pick, also raising its price target to $59 from $54.

Alliance Datasys (ADS 277.29 +0.20) - Today the company announced that it has completed the acquisition of Conversant. The acquisition is expected to be complimentary to APH's current operations, allowing for more effective targeted marketing programs in addition to other benefits.

Worst performing large caps:

Alibaba (BABA 103.88 -3.60) - No news, but we note that there was an unconfirmed rumor today that there was a security breach at BABA. Again, BABA has not confirmed this news, but it may have affected the stock price today.

Netease (NTES 96.56 -3.34) - No news.

Lam Research (LRCX 79.70 -2.58) - Although Stifel reiterated its Buy rating for the stock yesterday, it was still unable to post gains, potentially bogged down by a bearish broad market.

Fleetcor Technologies (FLT 143.90 -4.80) - No news.

It was a relatively quite day in regards to news from the Tech Sector, but here are a couple noteworthy stories.

Apple (AAPL 111.95 -2.17) - Apple and International Business Machines (IBM 160.51 -2.48) released the first made-for-business app supporting cloud services allowing for big data and analytics capabilities on the iPhone and iPad.

Trimble Navigation (TRMD 27.00 -1.03) - The FAA has granted TRMD an exemption for its unmanned aircraft system. This could bode well for some other stocks as well like Amazon (AMZN 305.84 -6.66), and GoPro (62.76 -5.74), both of which have reportedly been interested in their own drone initiatives.

Facebook (FB 76.18 -0.66) - The social media company reported today that one of its platforms, Instagram, reported 300 million users.

LiveDeal (LIVE 2.89 +0.11) - The marketing solution provider announced that its expanded national advertising campaign increased traffic 570% compared to the same period in November, far surpassing the Company's expectations.

Other movers in the sector Electronic Arts (EA 44.76 -0.82), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 68.52 -0.70), Sandisk (SNDK 102.02 -2.77), Mobileye (MBLY 42.82 -3.07), Splunk (SPLK 59.52 -3.09), First Solar (FSLR 43.07 -1.99), Zillow (Z 114.11 -3.92), Avago Technologies (AVGO 99.25 -3.39)

4:33 pm Sigma Designs beats by $0.03, beats on revs (SIGM) : Reports Q3 (Oct) adj. earnings of $0.04 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.01; revenues fell 1.1% year/year to $53.78 mln vs the $53.19 mln consensus.
Recent Highlights include

"We have successfully ramped volume shipments of our UXL DTV SoC as well as our latest smart TV products, the SX6 SoC and FRCX frame-rate conversion processor, which allow our customers to launch new 4K TVs with improved video quality along with BOM cost reductions."

4:32 pm Diodes sees Q4 revs of $220-228 mln (narrowed from $217-231 mln) vs $224.56 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate (DIOD) : Co provided updated guidance for the fourth quarter ending December 31, 2014. The Company is narrowing its revenue range and currently expects fourth quarter revenue to range between $220 million and $228 million (vs $224.56 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate), or down 6 percent to 2 percent sequentially, compared to its original guidance of between $217 million and $231 million, or down 7 to 1 percent sequentially. Diodes is maintaining its guidance for gross profit margin to be 31.6 percent, plus or minus 2 percent, operating expenses to be approximately 22.2 percent of revenue, plus or minus 1 percent, income tax rate to be 25 percent, plus or minus 3 percent, and shares used to calculate GAAP earnings per share to be approximately 49.0 million.

4:18 pm Altera: Sees 2015 Gross Margin in the range of 67-69% (Q4 expected to be between 66-67%); Sees CapEX of approx $28 mln (ALTR) :

Gross Margin 67% to 69%
Research and Development Approximately $441 million
SG&A $319 million Other Income/Expense Expense of $3 to $6 million Tax Rate 13% to 14% Diluted Share Count (Wt. Avg.) 300 million Capital Expenditures $28 million

4:11 pm Closing Market Summary: Energy Sector Leads Stocks Lower (:WRAPX) : The major averages ended the Wednesday session on a broadly lower note. The S&P 500 lost 1.6% with all ten sectors ending in the red while the Russell 2000 (-2.1%) underperformed.

For the second day in a row, the major averages slumped at the start, but unlike yesterday, the key indices could not stage a comeback with a big drop in the energy sector (-3.1%) keeping the market under pressure throughout the session.

The energy sector widened its fourth-quarter loss to 15.9% with crude oil settling lower by 4.5% at $60.92/bbl. Today's slide took place after China reported its lowest year-over-year growth in CPI (1.4%) and OPEC cut its demand forecast. In addition, crude stockpiles showed an unexpected build. Following today's drop, the energy component is down 33.4% since the end of the third quarter.

However, the recent slump among commodities has not been isolated to just oil, but the weakness factored in more prominently today as misgivings about the pace of global economic growth and the potential spillover effect for the U.S. fueled a sense that the market has come too far too fast. Accordingly, today's selling interest hit far and wide with nine sectors losing more than 1.0%.

Similar to energy, the materials sector (-2.1%) spent the day at the bottom of the leaderboard. Growth concerns weighed on steelmakers, which sent Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 36.28, -1.29) lower by 3.4%.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (-1.9%) slumped under the weight of Boeing (BA 124.64, -5.02). The Dow component lost 3.9% and fell below its 50-, 100-, and 200-day averages. The underperformance of the influential sector component masked the relative strength among airlines after International Air Transport Association's projection that the airline industry's collective global net profit after tax will increase to $25.00 billion in 2015 from an estimated $19.00 billion in 2014. Jetblue Airways (JBLU 15.15, +0.11), Southwest Airlines (LUV 41.48, +0.75), and United Continental (UAL 63.69, +1.17) jumped between 0.7% and 1.9%, helping the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-1.4%) finish a little ahead of the market.

Also of note, the consumer discretionary sector (-1.4%) settled ahead of the market, but that was no thanks to Yum! Brands (YUM 70.53, -4.69). The stock tumbled 6.2% after issuing disappointing guidance. In a way, the guidance from Yum! echoed global growth concerns. The company said that sales at its China division have not recovered from bad publicity over the summer as fast as the company had expected.

Growth concerns were also visible in the foreign exchange market with the Dollar Index (88.25, -0.45) recording its third consecutive decline. Notably, the retreat in the dollar gave a big boost to the yen and pressured the dollar/yen pair below yesterday's low (118.00).

Safe haven demand boosted Treasuries with the 10-yr yield falling six basis points to 2.16%.

The selloff invited above-average participation with more than 890 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the MBA Mortgage Index and the Treasury Budget:


The weekly MBA Mortgage Index spiked 7.3% to follow last week's 7.3% decline The Treasury budget showed a deficit of $56.80 billion in November, down from a deficit of $135.2 billion in November 2013. The Treasury data are not seasonally adjusted, and the November data cannot be compared to the $121.7 billion deficit in October The Briefing.com Consensus expected a budget deficit of $59.0 billion The November deficit was slightly smaller than the CBO's forecast of a $59.0 billion deficit Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 295K), November Retail Sales (consensus 0.4%), and November Import/Export prices will be reported at 8:30 ET while the Business Inventories report for October (consensus 0.2%) will be released at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +12.2% YTD
S&P 500 +9.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.8% YTD Russell 2000 UNCH YTD1:51 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

GMCR (140.2 +5.42%): A Director bought 7,600 shares at $133.10 worth ~$1.0 mln; target was also raised to $151 from $131 at Williams Capital Group.
UAL (65.83 +5.29%): Upgraded to Overweight from Underweight at Barclays; tgt raised to $76 from $52.
BKW (33.7 +3.72%): Upgraded to Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts; tgt raised to $38.

Large Cap Losers

S (4.36 -4.59%): Downgraded to Underperform from Perform at Oppenheimer.
WYNN (148.69 -5.07%): Weakness in resort & casino stocks after FBR reduced their estimates and lowered their price targets on a number of companies in the industry; WYNN tgt lowered to $165 from $195 (MPEL & LVS also lower).
YUM (71.6 -4.81%): Sees FY15 adjusted EPS growth of at least 10% (vs Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of approx +17.3%); Tgt lowered at RBC Capital Markets, Stifel, others.

Mid Cap Gainers

BDC (80.16 +6.99%): Announced an agreement to acquire Tripwire for $710 mln; transaction is instantly accretive with an expected impact to adjusted income from continuing operations per diluted share of $0.65 in 2015.
AEO (13.1 +4.72%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital Mkts.
BURL (44.85 +2.87%): Price target raised to $50 from $44 at Telsey Advisory Group.

Mid Cap Losers

OIBR (0.43 -2.34%): Oi SA's Board of Directors approved the sale of shares of PT Portugal (PT) to Altice S.A.
TOL (33.2 -4.57%): Reported Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.71 per share, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.73; revenues rose 29.3% year/year to $1.35 bln vs the $1.35 bln consensus.
DDD (30.94 -3.7%): Initiated with an Underperform at Longbow. 1:48 pm Stock indices slide under intraday range troughs to set new session lows -- Dow -196, S&P -21, Nasdaq Comp -41 (:TECHX) :

11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (280) outpacing new highs (163) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, ABMD, ACAD, ACNB, AEC, AERI, AFSI, AIRT, ALCO, ALL, APH, AVB, AVX, AWK, AYR, BABY, BDC, BFAM, BG, BMRN, BMS, BWLD, CALA, CATO, CEMP, CEV, CFG, CHFN, CHKE, CHSP, CLDT, CMN, CMPR, CMS, CODE, COST, CSS, CY, DEPO, DG, DMB, EIX, ENFC, EOT, EQR, ESPR, ESS, EVM, EXAM, EXAS, FAF, FCNCA, FE, FFIV, FII, FOLD, FTNT, GPI, GSIG, GTS, HAWK, HAWKB, HCN, HCT, HMN, HNI, HR, IBKR, IDA, IDCC, IEC, IFNA, INCR, INFI, IP, ISSI, JBSS, JJSF, KITE, KR, KTWO, LFUS, LHCG, LNT, LOW, LPSB, LWAY, MAC, MACK, MDXG, MEI, MHK, MKTX, MMSI, MRGE, MSCC, MTSI, NAVI, NBH, NBIX, NEWM, NHC, NKX, NPF, NQM, NSAM, NTRI, NU, NWE, NXR, NXTM, OGS, OSIS, OSUR, OVBC, PCG, PCQ, PEOP, PFPT, PMCS, PNM, POR, PPS, PTRY, RAND, RECN, RIC, RKT, RLJ, SAM, SCI, SHO, SLG, SLM, SO, SQBK, ST, STE, STR, SUI, TEG, TREC, TRK, TSRA, TTPH, UBA, UHT, UIL, UTHR, VCV, VIRC, VTR, WDC, WDFC, WEC, WR, WSTC, WY, XEL, XENT, XOXO, ZAYO, ZNH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABCO, ACP, ADGE, AGM.A, AKO.A, ALLT, AM, AMD, AMFW, AMID, APL, AR, ARCI, AREX, ASPN, ATLS, ATW, AVAL, AVH, AWX, AXX, BAS, BBG, BBL, BBVA, BCX, BGMD, BGR, BGX, BKJ, BP, BTE, BXE, CAK, CASI, CBB, CBI, CBT, CERE, CFRX, CLD, CMLP, CNQ, CPG, CTHR, CVE, CVEO, CVRR, CVX, CXO, CZZ, DAKP, DGI, DHF, DNR, DPM, DRA, DSE, E, EAC, EBR.B, EC, ECA, EDF, EDS, EFR, EGY, EHIC, EMCB, EMD, EMITF, ENBL, ENLC, EPAX, ERF, EROC, ESCR, ESTE, ESV, FELP, FES, FET, FLS, FMSA, FSAM, FSD, FST, FTI, GASS, GBSN, GDO, GEL, GER, GGB, GGM, GLF, GLMD, GLP, GLPI, GMZ, GNBC, GPOR, GPRK, GRH, GTE, GULTU, HCCI, HELI, HES, HHY, HMG, HNW, HOS, HSBC, HUSA, HYB, HYF, HYT, HYZD, ICEL, INVT, IRR, IVH, JEC, JHI, JLS, JMEI, JMLP, KMM, KMM, KNM, KOF, KOP, KOS, KST, KST, KTOS, LAQ, LDF, LINE, LNCO, LODE, LOV, LPI, LRE, LVS, MCC, MCF, MDR, MEET, MELA, MEOH, MFRI, MHR, MHY, MIL, MILL, MIND, MPEL, MRC, MRO, MSN, MT, MTLS, MTSL, MUR, MXF, NBG, NBL, NBR, NDP, NE, NES, NGL, NGLS, NHS, NKA, NOA, NOG, NOV, NRP, NVFY, NWPX, NYMX, OAS, OCIP, OHAI, OIS, OKE, OKS, ONP, OPTT, OPWR, ORIG, OXY, PACD, PBIB, PCI, PCYO, PEO, PERI, PES, PKD, PRGN, PTEN, PTNT, PWE, PXD, QKLS, QLTY, QTWW, RDC, RDS.A, RDS.B, REE, REN, RGSE, RIG, RIO, RLOG, RNF, ROIA, ROIAK, ROSE, RRC, S, SALT, SCL, SD, SEAC, SEAS, SFL, SGL, SID, SLB, SLH, SM, SMT, SNR, SPN, SPP, SQNS, SRV, SSL, SSN, STN, STO, STRL, SU, SWN, SWSH, SZC, TAS, TAT, TBIO, TCK, TECU, TGA, TITN, TLI, TLP, TOPS, TOT, TRF, TRUP, TS, UNT, UPL, VALE, VALE.P, VET, VGI, VIEW, VIP, VLT, VTG, WATT, WFT, WLL, WYNN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: ICF, XLU

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, BNO, DBC, DIG, EWY, EWZ, FXC, GSG, HYG, IEO, IGE, IXC, IYE, JNK, OIH, OIL, RSX, SLX, UGA, USCI, USO, XES, XLE, XOP

8:01 am First Solar and Clean Energy Collective announced that they have formed a strategic partnership to develop and market community solar offerings to residential customers and businesses directly on behalf of client utilities (FSLR) : Co and Clean Energy Collective announced that they have formed a strategic partnership to develop and market community solar offerings to residential customers and businesses directly on behalf of client utilities. Through the agreement, the two companies will jointly pursue opportunities in the community solar market. As part of the deal, First Solar has made a strategic investment in CEC and obtained an equity interest, and First Solar's CEO, Jim Hughes, and Vice President of Strategic Marketing, Marc van Gerven, will join the CEC board. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The U.S. equity market continued its Fed-backed rally on Thursday, erasing essentially all of the losses it suffered during last week's trading. The S&P 500 rallied 2.4%, led by the Information Technology Sector, which gained 3%. Several news stories helped lead the sector higher. We've outlined some of the more important releases below.

We touched on Oracle (ORCL 45.35 +4.19) in yesterday's summary, but the stock continued to rally on Thursday, gaining another 10% on its way to flirting with a new all-time high. Following its better than expected fiscal second quarter results, the company had its stock price target raised at Canaccord Genuity to $50 from $48, which also maintained its Buy rating.

Additionally, Canaccord Genuity noted that it believes Oracle was late to fully committing to a shift to cloud. With the "all in" commitment at ORCL OpenWorld last fall, the firm believes investor opinion on the company's stock will change for the better.

On the bearish side, MKM Partners maintained its Neutral rating on ORCL, noting that with a strong recovery in N. America database, it's surprising to still see a 4% decline in total license revs. Moreover, with database & N. America at 80% & 50% of license revs, respectively, this implies a sharp Y/Y decline in on-premise Application license sales. As such, MKM remains concerned about the company's software business.

In other earnings news, Jabil Circuit (JBL 20.96 +0.89) reported first quarter financial results that surprised on the upside, providing a catalyst for the stock's 4.4% rally. JBL's results included an $0.08 beat above analysts' average expectation. The company also outperformed revenue estimates and issued upside guidance for Q2 (Feb) and the entire fiscal year 2015.

Several analysts provided commentary on the company following its earnings release. RBC Capital noted investor sentiment on the name may get tempered due to a) a material uptick in capex - now expected to be $700M (vs. prior $400M), and b) Apple (AAPL 112.65 +3.24) - while the material upside is impressive there is concern that it's largely driven by AAPL, which it estimates accounts for >20% of sales and >40% of profits.

Also, Stifel noted Jabil Nov-quarter sales/EPS of $4.55bn/$0.55 significantly beat its estimates of $4.3bn/$0.47, with the upside coming primarily from its Greenpoint materials (casing) business, of which Apple is its top customer. Although the Apple exposure (not disclosed, but likely 20%+ in the Nov. quarter) continues to be a concern, Jabil is executing well, investing in future growth opportunities, and will still generate significant FCF ($200-300mn)

Accenture (ACN 89.74 +4.44) also reported earnings results for its fiscal second quarter after the close on Wednesday. The company's stock rose 5.2% Thursday after it reported fiscal first quarter EPS and revenues that exceeded analysts' expectations.

Elsewhere in the sector, there were rumors reported that Alcatel Lucent (ALU 3.59 +0.27) and Nokia (NOK 8.04 +0.18) may be discussing a merger. The companies didn't comment, yet the speculation seemed to help both stocks.

Separately, the following notable analyst actions were reported this morning:

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 2.55 +0.00) was initiated with a Sell at Citigroup

Microchip Technology (MCHP 45.16 +1.45) was resumed with a Buy at Citigroup

Linear Technology (LLTC 46.14 +0.38) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup

Analog Devices (ADI 57.06 +1.07) was resumed at Neutral at Citigroup

The stock market ended the Thursday session on its high with the S&P 500 (+2.4%) extending its two-day advance to 88 points.

The key indices started the Thursday session on a sharply higher note after equity futures received an early morning boost, which took place after the Swiss National Bank imposed negative deposit rates (-0.25%). The central bank said the move is aimed at lowering the three-month LIBOR below zero and European investors viewed the announcement as a prelude to a sovereign QE program from the European Central Bank.

European equities, U.S. futures, and commodities rallied following the news, but crude oil fell victim to renewed selling interest after climbing above the $58.50/bbl level in the early morning. The energy component ended near its worst level of the day, down 4.0% at $54.19/bbl.

For its part, the energy sector (+2.1%) displayed relative strength at the start, but was pressured from its high by the intraday weakness in crude. Marathon Oil (MRO 27.56, +0.89) finished ahead of the sector, adding 3.3%, after lowering its 2015 capital, investment, and exploration budget by about 20.0% from this year's levels due to the recent plunge in the price of crude. The energy sector was the only group that could not climb above its morning high.

Outside of energy, consumer discretionary (+1.6%) and materials (+2.3%) were the only other cyclical groups that could not finish ahead of the broader market. A handful of quick-service restaurant names contributed to the underperformance of discretionary shares after Dunkin Brands (DNKN 43.05, -3.17) issued below-consensus guidance for fiscal year 2015. Shares of DNKN tumbled 6.9% while peers Krispy Kreme (KKD 18.98, -0.75) and Starbucks (SBUX 80.03, -0.41) lost 3.8% and 0.5%, respectively.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, technology (+3.0%) did some heavy lifting with a sizable assist from Oracle (ORCL 45.35, +4.19). The stock surged 10.2% in reaction to better than expected results while other large cap names like Apple (AAPL 112.65, +3.24), Microsoft (MSFT 47.52, +1.78), and IBM (IBM 157.68, +5.75) rallied between 3.0% and 3.9%.

Over on the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+2.0%), telecom services (+1.8%), and utilities (+2.0%) lagged while the health care sector (+2.8%) ended ahead of the broader market with help from biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 313.97, +10.59) spiked 3.5%.

Treasuries ended the day just above their lows with the 10-yr yield higher by seven basis points at 2.21%.

Participation was well ahead of average with more than 950 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Leading Indicators, and the Philadelphia Fed Survey:


Initial jobless claims fell to 289,000 from a revised rate of 295,000 (from 294,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 292,000
Continuing claims fell to 2.373 million from 2.520 million
The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook fell to 24.5 in December from 40.8 in November while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 26.0
While the index deteriorated across the board, it was coming off a high point that was simply not sustainable
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.6% for a second consecutive month in November after a downward revision (from 0.9%) to the October data
The Briefing.com Consensus expected an increase of 0.5%

Tomorrow's session will be free of economic data.

Nasdaq Composite +13.7% YTD
S&P 500 +11.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.5% YTD

DJ30 +421.28 NASDAQ +104.08 SP500 +48.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2238/2.05 bln/660 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2546/953.0 mln/585 3:40 pm :

Oil prices continue to be very volatile
Jan crude oil surged as high as $58.73/barrel, but completely lost steam and it sailed back down to finish the day at $54.19/barrel
Natural gas rose 8 cents to $3.70/MMBtu
Precious metals closed unchanged today, both gold and silver, while copper fell 2 cents to $2.85/lb

4:06 pm Mellanox Tech announced that the securities class action filed against MLNX was dismissed with prejudice (MLNX) : Co announced that, on Dec. 17, 2014, Judge James Donato of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted co's motion to dismiss plaintiffs' Second Amended Complaint for purported violations of the federal securities laws without leave to amend.

In March 2014, plaintiffs' Amended Complaint was dismissed for its failure to allege adequately falsity or scienter.
Plaintiffs have 30 days after entry of judgment to file a notice of appeal.

12:25 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ORCL (44.55 +8.22%): Reported Q2 (Nov) earnings of $0.69 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.68; revenues rose 3.5% year/year to $9.6 bln vs the $9.5 bln consensus; Price tgt raised at RBC Capital, BMO Capital, Canaccord Genuity, others.
LNG (69.59 +6.28%): Announced the signing of an LNG Sale and Purchase Agreement between its Corpus Christi Liquefaction subsidiary and EDP Energias de Portugal.
KRFT (62.55 +5.02%): Announced that its Board has named John Cahill, Chairman of the Board of Directors, to the position of Chairman and CEO.

Large Cap Losers

RGP (23.8 -2.98%): Filed for a $1bln offering consisting of common units and representing limited partner interests.
CAG (35.96 -3.08%): Reported Q2 (Nov) earnings of $0.61 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.60; revenues fell 1.7% year/year to $4.15 bln vs the $4.2 bln consensus; reaffirmed FY15 outlook.
RCL (80.25 -1.58%): Downgraded to Sell at DNB Markets.

Mid Cap Gainers

RAD (6.77 +11.73%): Beat Q3 consensus estimates by $0.04, reported revs in-line; raised FY15, EPS, sales and comps.
CPHD (54 +8.46%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
ALU (3.54 +6.63%): Reports out that Alcatel-Lucent may be in merger talks with Nokia (NOK).

Mid Cap Losers

WOR (31.39 -11.3%): Reported Q2 (Nov) earnings of $0.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.65; revenues rose 13.1% year/year to $871 mln vs the $867.24 mln consensus.
DNKN (42.14 -8.83%): Issued downside guidance for FY15 (Dec), sees EPS of $1.88-1.91 vs. $2.02 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
KEX (82.63 -6.9%): Co issued downside guidance for Q4 (Dec), lowers EPS to $1.10-1.20 from $1.30-1.40 vs. $1.35 Capital IQ Consensus; Price tgt lowered to $100 from 145 at FBR Capital.

11:46 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (252) outpacing new lows (50) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABAX, ACN, ADPT, AEE, AEL, AEPI, AHS, ALCO, ALDR, ALE, AMAG, AMED, ANGO, ATRI, AVB, AYN, BABY, BEE, BFAM, BKN, BMS, BNK, BRKL, BURL, BWLD, CASY, CBG, CBRL, CCBG, CCL, CEMP, CHSP, CLDN, CLDT, CLX, CME, CMPR, CMS, CNBKA, CNC, CODE, CORE, CPLA, CQB, CST, CTAS, CUBE, CUK, CVS, CY, D, DCT, DF, DG, DHR, DM, DOC, DPLO, DRE, DRH, DTE, DYAX, EA, ED, ENSG, EOT, EQR, ESRT, ESS, ETM, ETR, EXAM, EXPO, FARM, FCCO, FDS, FE, FGL, FHN, FIS, FLML, FLXN, FR, FTNT, G, GGP, GNCMA, GPC, GPK, GPT, GSIG, HNI, HNP, HNT, HPP, HPQ, HRTG, HSKA, HSNI, HST, HUM, HWAY, IART, IBP, IDA, INDB, INFN, INN, IRC, IRM, JAH, JBHT, JBT, JCOM, JKHY, JLL, JNS, KMG, KR, KRFT, KRG, KTWO, KWR, LADR, LC, LE, LEG, LHCG, LNDC, MAC, MAS, MD, MIK, MKTX, MMM, MMSI, MOH, MSFG, MTSN, MUH, MUJ, MUSA, NBIX, NBW, NCA, NCLH, NEOG, NEWM, NHI, NPM, NSAM, NUVA, NVX, NWN, NXP, NXTM, NZH, O, OCC, OCR, ODP, OLP, OPLK, ORCL, ORLY, OUTR, OVAS, OZRK, PANW, PCG, PCQ, PEB, PEG, PETM, PFPT, PGNX, PKG, PLAY, PMCS, PMO, PNC, PNY, POOL, POR, PSCU, QSR, RAND, RCII, RDI, RDUS, REG, REXR, RFMD, RH, RHI, RHP, RKT, RLJ, RMD, RPM, RPT, RSG, RVSB, SAM, SCG, SCLN, SCOR, SCSS, SEE, SERV, SF, SHO, SJW, SO, SPB, SPG, SPLS, SPTN, SSNC, STBA, STBZ, STOR, SUI, SWKS, SYY, TASR, TGT, TQNT, TREC, TTPH, TUBE, UCFC, UEIC, VCV, VNO, WASH, WBB, WCG, WDC, WDFC, WEC, WHR, WM, WPC, WR, WSBF, XNCR, XOXO, XPO, ZFGN, ZLTQ, ZUMZ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: APRI, ATRM, ATU, BGH, BSDM, CAPN, CASI, CHN, CRIS, CRNT, CVRR, DLIA, DSKX, EYES, FATE, GLBS, GZT, HART, HDP, HSOL, ISHG, KEF, KEX, LALT, LPHI, LTRE, MFV, MOMO, MOSY, NCTY, NSPR, NWPX, PBMD, PRCP, RLJE, SAR, SKYS, SMT, SOFO, SPE, SQNS, STR, STRL, SXC, UQM, VTIP, WOR, WRN, WTSL, XNET

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: ICF, IGN, RTH, XLU, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EPOL, FXE, FXF, FXS

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 19-Dec-14Dow +26.65 at 17804.8, Nasdaq +16.98 at 4765.38, S&P +9.44 at 2070.65

The stock market capped a strong week with an advance that sent the S&P 500 higher by 0.5% to extend its weekly gain to 3.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) underperformed today, but the price-weighted index still managed to add 3.0% for the week.

After adding more than 88 points in the previous two sessions, the S&P 500 spent the first half of the day near its flat line, but climbed ahead of the close. Despite the sharp midweek surge, buying interest remained in place today with nine of ten sectors ending the day in the green.

The energy sector (+3.1%) finished in the lead and extended its weekly gain to 9.7%, which put the growth-sensitive group well ahead of the remaining sectors. Crude oil contributed to today's rally as the energy component settled higher by 5.4% at $57.10/bbl and continued its advance into the $58.00/bbl area in electronic trade.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector-materials-ended in the second place with a solid gain of 1.2%. Steelmakers contributed to the advance with the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 36.61, +1.05) climbing 3.0%.

Outside of energy and materials, only one other sectors was able to end ahead of the broader market. Industrials (+0.5%) rallied behind their top-weighted component-General Electric (GE 25.62, +0.48)-while transport stocks ended just behind the broader market. The Dow Jones Transportation Average climbed 0.4% with freight carriers pacing the advance.

Elsewhere, the health care sector (+0.4%) slipped behind the market into the close, but biotechnology outperformed. Juno Therapeutics (JUNO 35.00, +11.00) surged 45.8% in its debut, which represented the largest biotech IPO of the year. For its part, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 317.20, +3.23) rallied 1.0% and helped the Nasdaq Composite end just behind the broader market even as chipmakers lagged.

The PHLX Semiconductor Index shed 0.3% with Xilinx (XLNX 43.00, -0.70) falling 1.6% after Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to 'Underperform' from 'Neutral.' As for the broader technology sector (+0.1%), the top-weighted group was kept behind the broader market by relative weakness in influential components like Apple (AAPL 111.78, -0.87), Intel (INTC 36.37, -0.65), and Visa (V 261.67, -2.49).

Shares of Visa were also partially responsible for the underperformance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. However it wasn't just the top-priced listing that kept the index behind the S&P 500. Nike (NKE 94.84, -2.24) fell 2.3% after the company's below-consensus futures orders growth overshadowed better than expected earnings and revenue. Retail names in general displayed weakness with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 94.13, -0.68) shedding 0.7%.

Treasuries climbed throughout the day and ended just below their highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield slipped four basis points to 2.17%.

Today's participation was well ahead of average, which was caused by quadruple witching. As a result more than 2.1 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic news today and Monday's data will be limited to the Existing Home Sales report (Briefing.com consensus 5.20 million), which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Oil Remains in Focus

The major averages began the new week amid some old concerns. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.6% while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.0%) underperformed, but most of the attention was directed to crude oil trading pits once again. After plunging nearly 4.0% on Friday and inviting questions about macroeconomic implications of the continued weakness, crude oil enjoyed an overnight rebound before resuming its downtrend. The energy component ended the pit session lower by 3.2% at $55.96/bbl and continued its retreat into the $55.50/bbl area in electronic trade. Similar to oil, European equities and U.S. equity futures rebounded in overnight action, but accelerated their retreat from highs once the U.S. cash market opened. All ten sectors finished the day in negative territory with heavily-weighted financials (-0.9%), health care (-0.9%), and consumer discretionary (-0.6%) keeping the market under pressure.

The stock market endured a volatile session on Tuesday with investors keeping one eye on the oil market and one on the dollar/ruble exchange rate. The Russell 2000 (-0.1%) registered the slimmest decline while the S&P 500 settled lower by 0.9% after failing to hold its 100-day (1988) and 50-day moving averages (2001). On Monday evening, the Central Bank of Russia hiked its key interest rate by 650-basis points to 17.0% with the move aimed at halting the recent freefall in the ruble. The news gave a brief boost to the Russian currency, but the ruble was down more than 18.0% against the dollar in the morning, which invited concerns about potential economic and financial risks stemming from the continued plunge. This sent participants scrambling in search of safe havens, which boosted Treasuries and the yen. Meanwhile in the commodity market, crude oil was down in excess of 2.5% this morning, but the energy component spiked off its low shortly after the start of the pit session. Oil was able to return to its flat line, but could not make a sustained move into the green, ending with a nine-cent loss at $55.87/bbl.

Stocks ended the Wednesday session with solid gains that were paced by the Russell 2000. The small-cap index jumped 3.1% while the S&P 500 settled higher by 2.0% with all ten sectors registering gains. Equities climbed through the first half of action and saw an extension of their rally in the afternoon once the FOMC released its latest policy directive. As expected by some, the Fed removed the "considerable time" language from its policy statement, but that reference was replaced with a call for "patience," which essentially conveyed the same message. Above all, Chair Yellen reiterated that the central bank will remain data-dependent and reserves the right to accelerate, or defer, a rate hike in accordance with what the data are communicating about the progress being made toward the Fed's dual mandate. The policy statement was followed by volatile action in the bond market, but Treasuries slid to lows into the close. The benchmark 10-yr yield spiked eight basis points to 2.14%. As for equities, the energy sector (+4.2%) paced the advance and ended near its high even as crude oil slumped into the close, narrowing its gain to 1.0% at $56.44/bbl.

Equity indices ended the Thursday affair on their highs with the S&P 500 (+2.4%) extending its two-day advance to 88 points. The key averages started the Thursday session on a sharply higher note after equity futures received an early morning boost, which took place after the Swiss National Bank imposed negative deposit rates (-0.25%). The central bank said the move is aimed at lowering the three-month LIBOR below zero and European investors viewed the announcement as a prelude to a sovereign QE program from the European Central Bank. European equities, U.S. futures, and commodities rallied following the news, but crude oil fell victim to renewed selling interest after climbing above the $58.50/bbl level in the early morning. The energy component ended near its worst level of the day, down 4.0% at $54.19/bbl. For its part, the energy sector (+2.1%) displayed relative strength at the start, but was pressured from its high by the intraday weakness in crude. Marathon Oil (MRO) finished ahead of the sector, adding 3.3%, after lowering its 2015 capital, investment, and exploration budget by about 20.0% from this year's levels due to the recent plunge in the price of crude.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week    Change	%Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	     17280.83	  17804.80     523.97      3.0	 7.4 
 Nasdaq	      4653.60	   4765.38     111.78	   2.4	14.1 
 S&P 500	2002.33	   2070.65      68.32	   3.4	12.0 
 Russell 2000  1152.45	   1195.96	43.51	   3.8	 2.8

The S&P Information Technology Index lagged the broader market on Friday, gaining 0.09% versus the S&P 500's 0.46% gain to end the week. The tech sector rose as much as 2% this week, supported by better than expected earnings reports and the Fed's dovish statements following its FOMC meeting.

There were several notable news releases in the sector today. First, Rogers Corp (ROG 79.15 +7.15) rose 9.9% after it announced that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Arlon, LLC, currently owned by Handy & Harman Ltd. (HNH 38.78 +0.10), for $157 million. The transaction is expected the transaction to be accretive to its earnings in the first 12 months following the acquisition, ex. purchase accounting charges.

Separately, following the announcement that the FBI has accused the North Korean government for Sony's (SNE 20.58 -0.56) cyber-attack, many of the cyber security names saw a boost in interest today on the notion that companies will need to revamp their security systems. Notable names in the space include: Fireye (FEYE 33.06 +2.16), CyberArk (CYBR 41.95 +1.32), Palo Alto Networks (PANW 124.36 +0.92), Qualys Inc (QLYS 39.31 +2.22)

In other news, Accenture (ACN 90.51 +0.77) had its price target raised to $91 from $83 at UBS although it maintained its Neutral rating on the stock. UBS noted that Accenture Digital continues to drive results with greater than 20% growth. Brazil, which has been a turnaround story, is back to double-digit gains, and Europe is seeing improvement in consulting services. Given the widening disparity between expected headcount and revenue growth, there could be upside to estimates.

A few earnings announcements were announced after the close yesterday and prior to the open this morning. First, BlackBerry (BBRY 9.99 -0.08) reported Q3 (Nov) adjusted earnings of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than analysts' estimates. The company also reported that revenues fell 33.5% year/year to $793 million. In regards to outlook, BBRY continues to anticipate maintaining its strong cash position, while increasingly looking for opportunities to prudently invest in growth. The Company continues to anticipate break-even or better cash flow from operations. Additionally, it is expanding its distribution capability, and expects traction from these efforts to manifest some time in fiscal 2016.

Redhat (RHT 68.04 +6.54) also reported earnings. The company reported Q3 (Nov) adjusted earnings of $0.42 per share, $0.02 better than analyst' estimates. Revenues for the company rose 15.0% year/year to $455.9 million, also above estimates. Subscription revenue for the quarter was $395 million, up 15% in U.S. dollars year-over-year, or 18% measured in constant currency. In addition, RHT announced that its CFO, Charles E. Peters Jr, will be retiring.

In regards to analyst actions, GrubHub (GRUB 35.79 +0.51) was initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer, its price target set at $42. Oppenheimer noted that the service gives diners a quick and efficient process to order from various restaurants, while restaurants benefit from an expanded diner base. Grubhub's online and mobile platforms allow diners to order from ~30K restaurants in more than 800 US cities and London. In 2013, it processed $1.3 billion of gross food orders, or 2% of its US TAM. Oppenheimer considers GRUB to be a "category leader" in online food ordering.

Elli Mae (ELLI 40.98 -0.04) initiated with an Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts, its price target set at $52. RBC noted that Ellie Mae's software and data network lowers cost, risk and errors while creating efficiencies in the loan origination process. They think competition is fragmented, user market share is just 15% and loan market share is 5%, suggesting plenty of room for growth. In addition, they think we are on the right side of the mortgage credit cycle.

Lastly, LinkedIn (LNKD 234.61 +2.77) had its price target raised to $255 from $230 at Topeka Capital Markets. Topeka mentioned that the increase is based on slightly higher estimates and an increase in their target multiple. The firm sees multiple sources of potential outperformance including Sales Navigator, Sponsored Updates, and pricing within Talent Solutions. Topeka also believes China remains a longer-term opportunity for LNKD.

5:26 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:ASPX (53.37 +114.34%),VOLC (17.88 +51.14%),OVAS (47.85 +46.29%),CERS (6.41 +31.62%)
Consumer Discretionary:ZQK (2.72 +42.41%)
Information Technology:DRIV (24.04 +42.33%),BNFT (31.77 +34.16%)
Energy:TLM (7.85 +82.98%),SN (10.47 +50.65%),TPLM (5.78 +42.36%),OAS (17.16 +39.17%),PE (15.92 +38.31%),NBR (13.63 +36.3%),TTI (6.87 +35.77%),EPE (10.13 +35.61%),SGY (18.35 +34.53%),WTI (7.63 +34.33%),BTE (17.96 +33.93%),PVA (6.47 +33.68%),PDCE (43.58 +31.54%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:IMGN (6.11 -38.96%),EYES (11.19 -26.57%),XOMA (4.01 -14.32%)
Materials:WOR (30.06 -14.96%),MUX (0.95 -14.19%)
Consumer Discretionary:RT (6.43 -21.59%),FINL (23.35 -17.55%),HABT (35.11 -16.19%),ICON (33.31 -15.13%),WGO (21.23 -14.05%),ARCO (5.27 -11.43%),GPRO (53.9 -10.94%),DNKN (41.67 -10.88%)
Information Technology:SIMG (5.19 -23.22%),QIWI (20.06 -16.28%),XNET (6.6 -12.35%),HDP (23.34 -11.52%)
Energy:TNK (4.7 -12.15%)
Consumer Staples:ANFI (10.5 -12.5%),FRPT (15.01 -12.43%)

4:13 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks End Strong Week on Upbeat Note (:WRAPX) : The stock market capped a strong week with an advance that sent the S&P 500 higher by 0.5% to extend its weekly gain to 3.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) underperformed today, but the price-weighted index still managed to add 3.0% for the week.

After adding more than 88 points in the previous two sessions, the S&P 500 spent the first half of the day near its flat line, but climbed ahead of the close. Despite the sharp midweek surge, buying interest remained in place today with nine of ten sectors ending the day in the green.

The energy sector (+3.1%) finished in the lead and extended its weekly gain to 9.7%, which put the growth-sensitive group well ahead of the remaining sectors. Crude oil contributed to today's rally as the energy component settled higher by 5.4% at $57.10/bbl and continued its advance into the $58.00/bbl area in electronic trade.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector-materials-ended in the second place with a solid gain of 1.2%. Steelmakers contributed to the advance with the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 36.61, +1.05) climbing 3.0%.

Outside of energy and materials, only one other sectors was able to end ahead of the broader market. Industrials (+0.5%) rallied behind their top-weighted component-General Electric (GE 25.62, +0.48)-while transport stocks ended just behind the broader market. The Dow Jones Transportation Average climbed 0.4% with freight carriers pacing the advance.

Elsewhere, the health care sector (+0.4%) slipped behind the market into the close, but biotechnology outperformed. Juno Therapeutics (JUNO 35.00, +11.00) surged 45.8% in its debut, which represented the largest biotech IPO of the year. For its part, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 317.20, +3.23) rallied 1.0% and helped the Nasdaq Composite end just behind the broader market even as chipmakers lagged.

The PHLX Semiconductor Index shed 0.3% with Xilinx (XLNX 43.00, -0.70) falling 1.6% after Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to 'Underperform' from 'Neutral.' As for the broader technology sector (+0.1%), the top-weighted group was kept behind the broader market by relative weakness in influential components like Apple (AAPL 111.78, -0.87), Intel (INTC 36.37, -0.65), and Visa (V 261.67, -2.49).

Shares of Visa were also partially responsible for the underperformance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. However it wasn't just the top-priced listing that kept the index behind the S&P 500. Nike (NKE 94.84, -2.24) fell 2.3% after the company's below-consensus futures orders growth overshadowed better than expected earnings and revenue. Retail names in general displayed weakness with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 94.13, -0.68) shedding 0.7%.

Treasuries climbed throughout the day and ended just below their highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield slipped four basis points to 2.17%.

Today's participation was well ahead of average, which was caused by quadruple witching. As a result more than 2.1 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic news today and Monday's data will be limited to the Existing Home Sales report (Briefing.com consensus 5.20 million), which will be released at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +14.1% YTD
S&P 500 +12.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.7% YTD Week in Review: Oil Remains in Focus

The major averages began the new week amid some old concerns. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.6% while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.0%) underperformed, but most of the attention was directed to crude oil trading pits once again. After plunging nearly 4.0% on Friday and inviting questions about macroeconomic implications of the continued weakness, crude oil enjoyed an overnight rebound before resuming its downtrend. The energy component ended the pit session lower by 3.2% at $55.96/bbl and continued its retreat into the $55.50/bbl area in electronic trade. Similar to oil, European equities and U.S. equity futures rebounded in overnight action, but accelerated their retreat from highs once the U.S. cash market opened. All ten sectors finished the day in negative territory with heavily-weighted financials (-0.9%), health care (-0.9%), and consumer discretionary (-0.6%) keeping the market under pressure.

The stock market endured a volatile session on Tuesday with investors keeping one eye on the oil market and one on the dollar/ruble exchange rate. The Russell 2000 (-0.1%) registered the slimmest decline while the S&P 500 settled lower by 0.9% after failing to hold its 100-day (1988) and 50-day moving averages (2001). On Monday evening, the Central Bank of Russia hiked its key interest rate by 650-basis points to 17.0% with the move aimed at halting the recent freefall in the ruble. The news gave a brief boost to the Russian currency, but the ruble was down more than 18.0% against the dollar in the morning, which invited concerns about potential economic and financial risks stemming from the continued plunge. This sent participants scrambling in search of safe havens, which boosted Treasuries and the yen. Meanwhile in the commodity market, crude oil was down in excess of 2.5% this morning, but the energy component spiked off its low shortly after the start of the pit session. Oil was able to return to its flat line, but could not make a sustained move into the green, ending with a nine-cent loss at $55.87/bbl.

Stocks ended the Wednesday session with solid gains that were paced by the Russell 2000. The small-cap index jumped 3.1% while the S&P 500 settled higher by 2.0% with all ten sectors registering gains. Equities climbed through the first half of action and saw an extension of their rally in the afternoon once the FOMC released its latest policy directive. As expected by some, the Fed removed the "considerable time" language from its policy statement, but that reference was replaced with a call for "patience," which essentially conveyed the same message. Above all, Chair Yellen reiterated that the central bank will remain data-dependent and reserves the right to accelerate, or defer, a rate hike in accordance with what the data are communicating about the progress being made toward the Fed's dual mandate. The policy statement was followed by volatile action in the bond market, but Treasuries slid to lows into the close. The benchmark 10-yr yield spiked eight basis points to 2.14%. As for equities, the energy sector (+4.2%) paced the advance and ended near its high even as crude oil slumped into the close, narrowing its gain to 1.0% at $56.44/bbl.

Equity indices ended the Thursday affair on their highs with the S&P 500 (+2.4%) extending its two-day advance to 88 points. The key averages started the Thursday session on a sharply higher note after equity futures received an early morning boost, which took place after the Swiss National Bank imposed negative deposit rates (-0.25%). The central bank said the move is aimed at lowering the three-month LIBOR below zero and European investors viewed the announcement as a prelude to a sovereign QE program from the European Central Bank. European equities, U.S. futures, and commodities rallied following the news, but crude oil fell victim to renewed selling interest after climbing above the $58.50/bbl level in the early morning. The energy component ended near its worst level of the day, down 4.0% at $54.19/bbl. For its part, the energy sector (+2.1%) displayed relative strength at the start, but was pressured from its high by the intraday weakness in crude. Marathon Oil (:MRO) finished ahead of the sector, adding 3.3%, after lowering its 2015 capital, investment, and exploration budget by about 20.0% from this year's levels due to the recent plunge in the price of crude.

12:24 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

RHT (67.53 +9.81%): Beat Q3 consensus estimates $0.02, beats on revs; sees Q4 revs of $456-459 mln vs $459.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, adjusted EPS of $0.40-0.41 vs $0.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Price tgt raised at Oppenheimer, Stifel, Needham, others.
KMX (66.11 +9.22%): Reported Q3 (Nov) earnings of $0.60 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 15.8% year/year to $3.41 bln vs the $3.26 bln consensus.
ALLY (23.34 +2.57%): The co announced that the U.S. Department of the Treasury has sold its remaining 54.9 million shares of Ally common stock at $23.25/share.

Large Cap Losers

EQT (79.01 -4.23%): Dropping as Natural Gas futures drop 3.5% on the day following warmer weather forecasts in the coming weeks.
NKE (94.06 -3.11%): Falling after earnings despite a strong quarter; futures orders were in-line but slowed QoQ and gross margin came in at the low end of guidance; co warned that they face FX headwinds going forwards.
XLNX (42.63 -2.47%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.

Mid Cap Gainers

ISIS (65.02 +9.19%): Favorable mention on Thursday's Mad Money.
FEYE (32.99 +6.76%): Continued strength in cyber security names as the FBI officially accuses North Korea of being behind the Sony (SNE) hacking.
CTAS (78.89 +5.91%): Reported Q2 (Nov) earnings of $0.86 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.78; revenues fell 0.3% year/year to $1.12 bln vs the $1.11 bln consensus; Raised FY15 EPS above consensus, revs in-line.

Mid Cap Losers

UBNT (31.04 -7.78%): Initiated with a Sell at Goldman; tgt $28.
FL (53.35 -7.83%): Downgraded to Underperform at BofA/Merrill.
BBRY (9.56 -5.11%): Reported Q3 (Nov) adj earnings of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.06); revenues fell 33.5% year/year to $793 mln vs the $919.63 mln consensus.

7:09 am BlackBerry beats by $0.07, misses on revs; reports 2 mln BBRY smartphones; continues to target sustainable non-GAAP profitability some time in FY16 (shares halted -- will resume 7:30 ET) (:BBRY) : Reports Q3 (Nov) adj earnings of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.06); revenues fell 33.5% year/year to $793 mln vs the $919.63 mln consensus.

The revenue breakdown for the quarter was ~46% for hardware, 46% for services and 8% for software and other revenue. During the third quarter, the Company recognized hardware revenue on ~2 mln BlackBerry smartphones vs 2.2 mln ests vs 1.9 mln last year. Non-GAAP and GAAP gross margin of 52%.Outlook: The Company continues to anticipate maintaining its strong cash position, while increasingly looking for opportunities to prudently invest in growth. The Company continues to anticipate break-even or better cash flow from operations. The Company is expanding its distribution capability, and expects traction from these efforts to manifest some time in fiscal 2016. The company continues to target sustainable non-GAAP profitability some time in fiscal 2016.Co also announced that BES12: a cross-platform EMM solution includes support for Android 5.0 Lollipop. Co also announced that Ocean Capital Investments, and its subsidiaries, members of the Irving family of companies, are migrating to BES12: a cross-platform EMM solution by BlackBerry.7:04 am Canadian Solar issues statement in response to the United States Department of Commerce's decision to impose counter-veiling and anti-dumping tariffs on certain Chinese and Taiwanese photovoltaic modules and cell imports (:CSIQ) : "We are very disappointed by the DOC's decision, and the damaging impact this has on the American solar industry. This decision threatens the employment of tens and thousands of American workers in the various facets of the solar industry, including manufacturing, design, installation and operations."

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : Remember last week's rally effort following the pronouncement from the FOMC that it will be patient in raising the fed funds rate? Well, it's not over yet. The stock market on Monday continued its winning ways with each of the major indices adding to their gains. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 closed at new all-time highs.

Throughout Monday's trading, there was a clear preference for owning Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks. Our sense of things is that participants were favoring these names for their liquidity, which is optimal in the event positions need to be exited quickly, and for their appeal as conservative options to participate in further upside should the year-end rally continue.

Either way, it was a good day for the price-weighted average, which saw 27 of its 30 components advance. IBM (IBM 161.45, +2.94) was the biggest price mover while Intel (INTC 37.22, +0.85), up 2.3%, was the biggest percentage gainer.

Those stocks helped lead the information technology sector (+1.1%), which was the best-performing sector in the S&P 500. Its gains helped offset weakness in the health care (-1.2%) and energy (-1.0%) sectors.

Health care was weak due in large part to a large loss in Gilead Sciences (GILD 92.90, -15.55), which followed reports that pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts (ESRX 82.34, +1.37) is going to displace Gilead's hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi, in favor of a less expensive offering from AbbVie (ABBV 66.96, -0.75), Viekira Pak, which recently won FDA approval and will become the exclusive option in the formulary for patients with genotype 1 hepatitis C.

Essentially, the decision by Express Scripts created some angst about potential pricing pressures for the drug makers. Not all drug makers were weak on Monday, yet Merck (MRK 58.95, -0.63) was one of Dow's three losers, which also included Chevron (CVX 112.05, -0.88), and ExxonMobil (XOM 93.31, -0.33).

The energy sector traded in negative territory throughout the day, pressured by a renewed drop in oil and natural gas prices. WTI crude futures dipped 3.3% to $55.27/bbl while natural gas futures, hit with forecasts for warmer winter temperatures ahead in the northeast, plunged 8.2% to $3.18/btu.

Commodities in general were weak on Monday with a stronger dollar pressuring some of the action. To that end, gold futures slipped 2.0% to $1172.60/troy ounce; meanwhile, copper futures fell 0.4% to $2.87/lb.

There didn't appear to be any abject concerns in the stock market about the weakness in commodity prices signaling economic trouble ahead. Granted the materials sector (0.05%) underperformed, yet the industrials (+0.9%), consumer discretionary (+0.9%), and financial (+0.6%) sectors outperformed.

Interestingly, the 10-yr Treasury note battled back from modest losses and went out at its highs for the day as stocks were advancing into the close to finish at their best levels of the session. The highs weren't that high for the Treasury market. The 10-yr note was unchanged at 2.165%, yet its steady state didn't necessarily reflect the same amount of confidence in the outlook that the stock market's continued gains did.

A weaker-than-expected Existing Home Sales report for November, which showed a 6.1% decline in homes sold from October to an annualized rate of 4.93 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.20 mln), lent a measure of support to the Treasury market.

Tuesday will feature an extensive lineup of economic releases that includes the Durable Orders, Third Estimate for Q3 GDP, Personal Income and Spending, University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment, and New Home Sales reports.

Volume was on the lighter side of recent averages as 772 million shares traded at the NYSE.


Nasdaq Composite +14.5% YTD
S&P 500 +12.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.3%
Russell 2000 +3.1% YTD

DJ30 +154.64 NASDAQ +16.04 SP500 +7.89 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1772/1.57 bln/1097 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1827/772 mln/1287

4:03 pm Advanced Energy announced that it has started to explore strategic alternatives for its Solar Inverter business (shares halted) (AEIS) :

Co announced that it has started to explore strategic alternatives for its Solar Inverter business. The company is considering various options including a sale, joint venture, partnership, licensing or other alternatives including additional product line optimization and rationalization. The company plans to continue offering its inverter products and services, and supporting its customers during this process. As a result of the company's strategic review and resulting retirement of certain central inverter legacy products, the company expects to record a non-cash inventory charge of between $10 and $14 million in the fourth quarter. This non-cash inventory charge will reduce net income and earnings per share on a GAAP-basis for the fourth quarter and full year 2014 on a GAAP basis.1:38 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

RTN (109.98 +2.96%): Announced it was awarded $2.4 bln contract to provide the State of Qatar with Patriot Air and Missile Defense System.
TWTR (38.24 +3.13%): Renewed rumors that CEO Costolo may resign.
BA (128.38 +1.7%): Announced that Air China has committed to purchase 60 737s, including Next-Generation 737 and 737 MAX airplanes. The commitment when finalized will be valued at more than $6 billion at current list prices.

Large Cap Losers

GILD (95.38 -12.05%): Express Scripts (ESRX) agreed to make AbbVie's (ABBV) Hep C drug (Viekira Pak) its sole treatment instead of GILD's Sovaldi and Harvoni.
CHK (18.59 -6.39%): Energy companies with exposure to Nat Gas notably lower on the day as the fossil duel drops 8% following continued milder winter forecasts (SWN & RRC also lower).

Mid Cap Gainers

EXAS (27.6 +6.28%): Announced that The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will issue a correction to the 2015 lab fee scheduled; to reimburse Cologuard at $500.76.
RAD (7.13 +5.3%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen.
BBRY (10.43 +4.4%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at TD Securities.

Mid Cap Losers

OCN (15.53 -29.09%): Confirmed that it has reached a settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services related to a recent investigation of related to erroneously dated borrower correspondences; to pay $150 mln and its founder and Executive Chairman has agreed to stepdown.
GSAT (2.84 -8.09%): Negative blog post out over the weekend leading to the sell-off.
NGD (4.2 -7.28%): Gold companies lower as the precious metal drops $16.5 on the day to $1179 (KGC & AU also lower).

12:56 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (272) outpacing new lows (61) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAL, ABAX, ACC, ACHN, ACOR, ADXS, AEPI, AHC, AHS, AIV, ALCO, ALL, AMAG, AMAT, AMED, ANCX, APH, AVB, AVY, AXL, AXTA, AYN, BKN, BMS, BNDX, BRCD, BXP, CAVM, CBG, CBRL, CDR, CEMP, CHD, CHFN, CHH, CHKP, CHRW, CHSP, CL, CLX, CMCSA, CMCSK, CME, CMRX, CODE, CQB, CSCO, CTAS, CTCT, CUBA, CUBE, CUNB, CVS, CXW, CY, D, DCT, DD, DGX, DHR, DIN, DOC, DPZ, DRE, DRII, DYAX, EA, EAT, ECHO, ED, EDR, EIGI, ELS, ENTA, EQIX, EQR, EQY, ESGR, ESS, ETM, FARM, FARO, FB, FCAP, FDS, FHN, FISV, FLML, FMS, FNF, FOX, FOXA, FPRX, FTCS, FTNT, G, GGP, GIB, GIII, GK, GNCMA, GPT, GSH, HA, HAWK, HAWKB, HCA, HCN, HD, HFBC, HII, HIW, HNP, HON, HPP, HPQ, HPT, HR, HSIC, HST, HTA, IART, IBKR, IDCC, IMDZ, INFN, INGN, INGR, IRC, JBL, JCOM, JLL, JOB, JRN, JRVR, KAI, KFRC, KMX, KNL, KR, KRC, KRFT, KTWO, KWR, LJPC, LLL, LMT, LNBB, LOW, MAA, MAC, MACK, MARA, MAS, MCA, MD, MDXG, MFI, MGPI, MHN, MMM, MNK, MS, MSFG, MTSI, MUA, MYJ, NAC, NAVI, NBB, NBH, NCLH, NDAQ, NHI, NICE, NKX, NNN, NOC, NPF, NRO, NTC, NUVA, NVRO, NWL, NXR, NXTM, O, OCR, OCUL, ORLY, OSUR, OVAS, PANW, PCQ, PFD, PFPT, PIKE, PKG, PLL, PPG, PPS, PRI, PSCC, PSCT, PVTB, QLYS, QSR, RAND, RCII, RCL, RCMT, RCPT, RDUS, REXR, RFMD, RIT, RKT, RMD, RPAI, RPM, RPT, RTN, SFBS, SFST, SGBK, SGC, SHW, SIRO, SKH, SKYS, SKYY, SLGN, SMCI, SNA, SO, SOR, SPB, SPG, SPLS, SQBK, STBZ, STZ, STZ.B, SUI, SURG, SWIR, SWK, SWKS, SXT, TA, TASR, TCX, THS, TJX, TQNT, TROW, TTWO, TUBE, TVPT, UDR, UNF, USAK, UTL, VOYA, WASH, WCG, WIFI, WPC, WSBF, WYN, XOXO, ZFGN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAMC, APF, ASPS, ATU, BORN, CERE, CHLN, CHN, CHNR, CNNX, CPAH, CRCM, DHRM, DSWL, ENVA, EVAR, EXD, EXE, FINL, FRPT, GALE, GDF, HIE, HOTR, HSOL, IBTX, JPEP, KWK, LALT, LUB, MN, MOMO, MY, NCTY, NEFF, NEOT, OCN, ONP, PBIB, PSTR, PT, PTNR, PTNT, RLJE, RXII, SB, SBSA, SDLP, SGOC, SOFO, SRF, TGD, TOPS, UQM, VGSH, VIEW, VLTC, VOC, VSCI, WMGI, WOR

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IAI, ICF, IGN, IHF, IHI, IYR, RTH, SKYY, URE

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BJK, CHN, DJP, FXS, UNG

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From Briefing.com: The S&P 500 edged slightly lower on the first trading day of 2015, falling 0.03%, paring back nearly all of its losses right before the close. While the S&P 500 Information Technology Index also rallied into the close, it still underperformed the broader market, closing down 0.15% on Friday.

The IT Services industry group started the year off on a positive note, gaining 0.34% to open the year. On the other hand, the Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals group lost 0.70% and led the sector in declines.

Taking a look at the news headlines, Perfect World (PWRD 19.25 +3.49), an online game developer and operator in China, soared 22% following its announcement Friday morning that its board of directors has received a preliminary non-binding proposal letter from its founder and chairman, Mr. Michael Yufeng Chi, to acquire the company at $20 per ADS and take it private.

PWRD's Board has formed a special committee of independent to consider this proposal. The Independent Committee intends to retain a financial advisor and legal counsel to assist it in its work. Meanwhile, the Board cautions shareholders and others considering trading in its securities that the Board just received the preliminary non-binding proposal from Mr. Chi and no decisions have been made with respect to PWRD's response to the proposal.

In other news, analysts returned to work today, releasing a few notable ratings updates:

Apple (AAPL 109.33 -1.05): Argus raised its AAPL target to $125 from $120, while maintaining its Buy rating on the stock. Argus noted that the company is poised to deliver strong fiscal first quarter 2015 results, driven mainly by the global success of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Argus expects AAPL to set records for total revenue, total smartphone revenue, and net income in fiscal first quarter 2015. Smartphones likely contributed more than 60% of first quarter revenue, and AAPL's phone share appears to be growing both domestically and globally. Argus believes that other important categories also performed well in Q1. Argus also expects the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus to continue their global expansion in 2015, supplemented by ongoing strength in Mac, enterprise strength in iPad, and the growing Apple software ecosystem.Argus does not expect Apple Watch to be a major contributor in 2015, though it rarely pays to underestimate AAPL.

Paychex (PAYX 46.24 +0.07): Topeka Capital Markets maintained its Sell rating on PAYX, noting that despite an attractive dividend yield, improved macro backdrop, and relatively low expectations, firm does not believe PAYX will generate enough net income growth to justify its super-premium relative valuation, particularly when other names in the sector trade at similar multiples but offer far higher revenue and EPS growth rates. PAYX's intact and unchanged 2015 guidance supports Topeka's view that net income upside surprise is unlikely, and firm thinks this wide growth/valuation gap is unsustainable.

Qorvo (QRVO 70.40): MKM Partners updated it coverage on QRVO, following combination of RFMD+TQNT, with Buy, $73 price target. MKM disagrees with the bears, and believes earnings multiples slightly above average S&P500 are now justified by exposure to one of the top secular growth trends in semiconductors and an improving fundamental backdrop. Specifically, there is room for RF names to beat expectations on better demand elasticity in China's low-end 4G after a choppy 2014 and early upgrade programs driving shorter replacement cycles in developed markets.

Synaptics (SYNA 64.25 -4.59) was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest

SS&C Technologies (SSNC 55.28 -3.21) was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James

Sierra Wireless (SWIR 47.95 +0.56): was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital. Its price target was raised to $40 from $33

Top % gainers in the sector: Twitter (TWTR 36.56 +0.69), Infosys (INFY 31.90 +0.44), Visa (V 265.02 +2.82), Fleetcor (FLT 150.26 +1.55), and International Business Machines (IBM 162.06 +1.62)

Top % decliners in the sector: LG Display (LGL 14.26 -0.89), Baidu (BIDU 223.08 -4.89), Workday (WDAY 80.41 -1.20), Oracle (ORCL 44.33 -0.64), and Arm Holdings (ARMH 45.70 -0.60)

Weekly Recap - Week ending 02-Jan-15Dow +9.92 at 17832.99, Nasdaq -9.24 at 4726.81, S&P -0.70 at 2058.20

The stock market began 2015 on a cautious note with the major averages surrendering their opening gains. The S&P 500 ended flat while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) settled just above its flat line.

Equity indices started the day with broad-based gains, but the early buying spree ended in a flash. The S&P 500 marked its high 11 minutes after the start of the session before reversing course. The index continued its retreat through the 9:00 ET release of disappointing Construction Spending and ISM reports, and marked its session low shortly after 13:30 ET.

The S&P 500 tried to fight its way back into the green during the afternoon, but losses among influential sectors like consumer discretionary (-0.7%), consumer staples (-0.4%), industrials (-0.2%), and technology (-0.2%) proved too large to overcome.

Notably, the discretionary sector suffered from broad weakness. Homebuilders and retailers lagged with iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 25.67, -0.21) and SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 95.34, -0.67) falling 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively. The two groups helped the sector finish at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Elsewhere, industrials contributed to the persistent pressure as transport stocks underperformed. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 0.5% with all but five components ending in the red. Shipper Kirby (KEX 81.53, +0.79) outperformed while freight carrier CH Robinson (CHRW 73.84, -1.05) brought up the rear.

Similar to industrials, the technology sector kept the market under pressure during the afternoon. Large cap listings settled in mixed fashion, but Apple (AAPL 109.33, -1.05) fell 1.0%, which contributed to the underperformance of the Nasdaq Composite. However, chipmakers lagged early, but climbed into the afternoon, allowing the PHLX Semiconductor Index to end flat.

On the upside, the utilities sector (+0.6%) ended in the lead, but more notable was the outperformance of health care (+0.4%). The countercyclical group benefitted from daylong strength in biotechnology that sent the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 306.34, +2.99) higher by 1.0%.

Also of note, the energy sector (+0.4%) ended in the green even as crude oil continued its retreat, dropping 1.6% to $52.57/bbl. Greenback strength factored into the move as the Dollar Index jumped 0.9% to 91.12. The dollar picked up about 1.5% against the British pound and 1.0% against the euro, with the latter sliding after a Financial Times op-ed penned by Mario Draghi was viewed as a preamble to a sovereign QE announcement from the European Central Bank.

Treasuries registered solid gains after erasing their overnight losses. The benchmark 10-yr yield fell five basis points to 2.12%.

Participation was in-line with recent totals as 628 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Construction Spending and ISM:

Construction spending in November declined 0.3% from October, which was revised up to show an increase of 1.2% versus 1.1% previously
The November reading was below the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which called for a 0.1% increase
The disappointment was rooted in public construction spending, which declined 1.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $277.30 billion largely due to a 2.5% pullback in educational construction spending
The ISM Index for December checked in at 55.5, down 3.2 percentage points from the high 58.7 reading in November
The December reading marked the 19th consecutive month of expansion; however, it was weaker than the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which was pegged at 57.5
A number above 50 denotes expansion, so the pullback in December doesn't connote weakness so much as it connotes the manufacturing sector cooling down from a very hot November

Monday's session will be free of economic data.

Week in Review: Stocks Slide Into 2015

The holiday-shortened week began with a full day of trading on Monday, yet the stock market acted like it was still on vacation. Volume was light and the major indices held to narrow trading ranges that bracketed the unchanged line for much of the session. The S&P 500 managed to eke out its seventh gain in the last eight sessions. In doing so, it established another record closing high that pulled it ever closer to the 2100 level. However, most of the action happened away from the U.S. stock market. To that end, European bourses had a roller-coaster session, riding a wave of Greek politics that included a third failed vote for the prime minister's preferred presidential candidate, the subsequent announcement that parliament would be dissolved, and news that snap elections would be held on January 25.

The stock market ended Tuesday on a broadly lower note. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) was the weakest performer among the major averages while the S&P 500 (-0.5%) ended a bit ahead of the tech-heavy index. Equities began the day in negative territory and remained below their flat lines until the close. However, participation was very limited with just 524 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor. The light activity was also reflected by narrow trading ranges with the S&P 500 bounded between 2,080 and 2,084 for most of the session. Cyclical sectors were responsible for the bulk of the weakness as three of six growth-sensitive groups settled in-line with or behind the broader market while the utilities sector (-2.1%) was the only laggard on the countercyclical side.

Equities ended the last session of 2014 on a lower note. The S&P 500 lost 1.0%, but that did not stop the benchmark index from gaining 11.4% over the course of 2014. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended the session (-0.9%) and the year (+13.4%) ahead of the S&P 500. All ten sectors settled in the red with utilities (-1.9%) ending at the bottom of the leaderboard. In all likelihood, the selling was a function of profit taking after the countercyclical sector led the 2014 market rally with a gain of 24.3%. The remaining groups did not fare much better. The top-weighted technology sector (-1.2%) was among the early leaders, but began fading from its high not long before noon ET, dragging the broader market down with it.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18053.71 17832.99 -220.72 -1.2 0.1
Nasdaq 4806.86 4726.81 -80.05 -1.7 -0.2
S&P 500 2088.77 2058.20 -30.57 -1.5 -0.0
Russell 2000 1215.21 1198.80 -16.41 -1.4 -0.5


4:51 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:IDRA (4.9 +22.81%),AAVL (58.92 +21.13%),ARWR (7.71 +18.25%),RMTI (10.15 +17.89%),KITE (60.61 +12.18%)
Materials:PVG (6.16 +16.45%),SAND (3.74 +15.08%),IAG (2.81 +14.23%),PPP (3.97 +12.15%)
Consumer Discretionary:MPG (19.22 +18.13%),CNV (8.34 +17.3%)
Information Technology:PWRD (19.25 +21.6%),IPHI (17.74 +14.3%)
Financials:MIG (8.38 +23.24%)
Energy:CEQP (8.36 +19.26%),EROC (2.53 +17.13%),SHLX (41.99 +16.64%),SDLP (17.24 +16.09%),MPLX (75.9 +14.76%),AM (27.41 +13.78%)

This week's top 20 % losers
Healthcare:MDXG (9.74 -13.73%),RDNT (8.66 -9.89%)
Materials:SID (1.95 -12.56%)
Industrials:CVEO (3.87 -51.99%),KBAL (9.11 -10.25%)
Consumer Discretionary:WTW (21.53 -19.39%),WBAI (16.94 -11.77%),ZQK (2.2 -9.47%),DV (44.28 -9.39%)
Information Technology:SYNA (64.25 -10.51%)
Financials:FUR (15.84 -11.8%),EHTH (24.23 -9.96%)
Energy:TPLM (4.64 -21.36%),EMES (53.41 -17.03%),SSE (5.74 -13.03%),XCO (2.09 -12.18%),PBR.A (6.95 -9.86%)
Telecommunication Services:PT (1.05 -13.22%),MBT (7.17 -12.35%),GSAT (2.68 -10.96%)

3:37 pm Earnings Preview for the week of January 5 - 9 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of January 5 - 9 some of the bigger names include:

Tuesday: Pre Market - CMC, CVGW, ZEP, LNN
After Hours - MU, SHLM, TISI, SONC, LNDC

Wednesday: Pre Market - SVU, MON, RPM, MSM, GBX, UNF
After Hours - GEF, MG, RECN, WDFC

Thursday: Pre Market - STZ, APOL, GPN, SCHNAfter Hours - BBBY, PSMT, HELE, RT, VOXX, TCS, ANGO, CUDA, EOPN

Friday: Pre Market - INFY, AYI, AZZ, SYRG

1:04 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

TTM (43.75 +3.48%): Announced total sales of commercial and passenger vehicles in December 2014 of 41,734 vehicles, an increase of 10% y/y.FNF (35.16 +2.06%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at a boutique firm.SNI (76.64 +1.82%): Reports out that Yahoo (YHOO) considered a Scripps Networks Interactive acquisition last year.

Large Cap Losers

MPEL (24.15 -4.92%): Casino stocks with exposure to Macau down following data from the Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reporting December gross gaming rev -30.4% YoY (MGM & LVS also lower).KSS (59.23 -2.97%): Sector-wide weakness in retail (JWN & UA also lower).

Mid Cap Gainers

LINE (11.67 +15.21%): Announced 2015 oil and gas capital budget; reduced annual distribution to $1.25 per unit from the previous level of $2.90; approved 2015 CapEx budget of $730 mln, down 53% y/y.CNV (8.31 +4.99%): Initiated with a Outperform at Credit Suisse; tgt $13.KITE (59.55 +3.26%): Price target raised to $71 from $34, maintain Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Mid Cap Losers

SYNA (63.3 -8.05%): Downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest.SSNC (54.51 -6.8%): Downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James.

11:54 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (86) outpacing new lows (45) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACOR, AGN, ALDR, ALGT, ALOT, ANW, ASPX, AYN, BCLI, BJRI, BLE, BNDX, BYM, CBRL, CCO, CFI, CHEV, CMRX, CNV, COTY, COWN, CZNC, DGX, DIN, EGRX, ESPR, ESSA, FPRX, HEOP, HFBC, HOFT, HTBI, HW, IBCA, JFC, JMBA, JRS, KITE, LFC, LH, LOAN, M, MACK, MHN, MPG, MPLX, MRNS, MSFG, NATH, NBB, NEA, NIO, NPM, NQS, OCUL, OMER, ONEQ, OSBC, OZRK, PFSW, PGNX, PLAY, PLKI, PNI, PZC, PZZA, QLGC, RCL, RESN, RJET, RLGT, RLH, RVSB, SAPE, SHLX, SMTC, SNFCA, STBZ, TSS, UAL, UEIC, UIHC, USAK, USCR, VMO, WTBA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: BORN, CEL, COMT, DSWL, EAC, ELON, ESCR, FEUZ, FTGC, GF, GLOW, GNBC, GNI, HELI, HNR, IBTX, ICD, IDN, ISHG, KB, KND, KUTV, LMRK, LTBR, MN, MXC, NCTY, PT, PTBI, PTNR, PW, RICE, RLJE, SIFY, SODA, SWN, SWZ, TGC, TZOO, UBS, VIVO, VLTC, VSCP, WBAI, XGTI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: UUP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BJK, BNO, BWX, DBC, DJP, EPOL, EWY, FXB, FXC, FXE, FXF, FXS, GSG, JJC, OIL, SGG, TBT, UGA, UHN, USCI, USO

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From Briefing,com 4:10 pm : The stock market began the first full week of 2015 on a cautious note. The S&P 500 lost 1.8% while the Russell 2000 (-1.3%) outperformed.

Stocks began sliding at the sound of the opening bell amid weakness in Europe that was brought on by renewed fears of a potential Greek exit from the eurozone. With the January 25 Greek snap elections fast approaching, voices out of Germany have tried to calm investors, but those calls have fallen on deaf ears so far. Over the weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that a Greek exit from the eurozone would be manageable, but the comments did not stop the euro from falling below the 1.1900 level against the dollar immediately after the foreign exchange market opened on Sunday evening. The single currency was able to rebound into the 1.1940 area by Monday afternoon, but markets across Europe ended the day broadly lower.

Interestingly, the dollar rallied against the euro, but surrendered almost 100 pips to the yen (119.60), suggesting a sense of caution was present among foreign exchange traders. Treasuries also benefitted from safe-haven demand that sent the benchmark 10-yr yield lower by seven basis points to 2.04%.

As for stocks, there is no denying that today's selling produced notable losses for many influential sectors, but it is worth pointing out that the retreat unfolded over the course of the session and did not have a panicky feel of investors running for the exits. That being said, the return of global macroeconomic concerns was enough for participants to reduce their risk exposure, leaving the S&P 500 up 2.4% from its mid-December low.

All ten sectors finished in the red with energy (-4.0%) spending the entire session at the bottom of the leaderboard. The growth-sensitive group endured aggressive selling in crude oil that caused the commodity to dip below the $50.00/bbl level for the first time since April 2009. The energy component settled lower by 5.3% at $50.03/bbl and continued inching down in electronic trade.

Broadly speaking, the continued crash in oil prices has not been viewed as a positive due to the magnitude of the move. Instead, the market's consciousness is allowing for the possibility that there could be some latent financial, or economic, risk in the plummeting price of oil and the commensurate slippage in copper prices, which have fallen roughly 53% and 16%, respectively, from their highs last summer.

Like energy, four other cyclical sectors ended the day behind the broader market while technology (-1.8%) settled in-line with the S&P 500. Even transport stocks that would be expected to rally on cheaper oil struggled to keep pace. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 2.7% to narrow its gain from the December low to 1.3%.

Elsewhere, the four countercyclical sectors finished ahead of the broader market, but they could not stay out of the red. The health care sector (-0.6%) did make an intraday appearance in positive territory, but could not build on that short-lived gain. Gilead Sciences (GILD 96.78, +1.88) spiked 2.0% after an intraday report revealed that CVS Health (CVS 94.16, -0.94) will give preferred status to a pair of Gilead's drugs. Shares of GILD contributed to the outperformance of the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 305.85, -0.49), which shed 0.2%.

Among other movers of note, Morgan Stanley (MS 37.49, -1.22) fell 3.2% after announcing that one of its employees has been terminated after stealing partial account information of about 10 percent of clients of the Wealth Management department. The broader financial sector lost 2.1%.

Today's slide caused participants to increase their hedges, evidenced by a 13.0% spike in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 20.10, +2.24).

Participation was just ahead of average as 823 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Tomorrow, Factory Orders for November (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%) and the ISM Services Index for December (consensus 58.5) will both be released at 10:00 ET.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.8% YTD
S&P 500 -1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.9% YTD

DJ30 -331.34 NASDAQ -74.24 SP500 -37.62 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 804/1.66 bln/2125 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 724/822.6 mln/2435 3:40 pm :

Oil prices got slammed today with WTI crude oil breaking below $50/barrel
Feb crude oil closed the day $2.54 lower at $50.03/barrel, after momentarily, breaking below the $50/barrel level
Feb natural gas fell 11 cents to $2.88/MMBtu
Precious metals held strong despite strength in dollar index
Feb gold rallied $17.50 to $1203.60/oz, while Mar silver rallied $0.46 to $16.23/oz

Tech stocks headed lower on Monday, while still slightly outperforming the broader market to begin the first full trading week of the New Year with the S&P Information Technology Index closing down 1.77% versus the S&P 500's 1.83% loss. It's worth noting that only two stocks in the S&P Information Tech Index posted gains, CA Incorporated (CA 30.78 +0.09) and Paychex (PAYX 46.32 +0.08). On the other hand, First Solar (FSLR 41.83 -2.72), Netapp (NTAP 40.05 -1.41), Applied Materials (AMAT 24.16 -0.80), Apple (AAPL 106.25 -3.08), and Mastercard (MA 83.27 -2.41) were the biggest decliners on the day.

From a broader perspective, all industry groups in the space closed in the red, led by Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals, which posted a 2.6% loss. Although it still closed in the red, the Software industry group outperformed all others, falling just 1.1%. The rest of the groups lost at least 1.3%.

Perhaps the most interesting news story on the day was Gartner's estimate that worldwide tablet sales will reach 233 million units in 2015, an 8% increase from 2014. Gartner noted that the collapse of the tablet market in 2014 was alarming, in the last two years global sales of tablets were growing in double-digits. Additionally, Gartner believes the steep drop can be explained by several factors, including an extended lifetime for tablets, and the lack of innovation in hardware which deters consumers from upgrading. (Related stocks: Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG 513.87 -10.94), Lenovo (LNVGY 25.53 -0.57), Microsoft (MSFT 46.33 -0.44))

In acquisition news, Lexmark (LXK 40.67 -0.14) announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Claron Technology for approximately $37 million in cash. The Toronto-based Claron Technology is a provider of medical image viewing, distribution, sharing and collaboration software technology.

Open Text (OTEX 57.16 -0.96) also announced a definitive agreement on Monday for the acquisition of Informative Graphics Corp (IGC 0.64 +0.02). Graphics Corp., is a developer of viewing, annotation, redaction and publishing commercial software. As an OpenText partner for more than a decade, IGC technologies will be further integrated into the ECM product portfolio and extended into other OpenText Suites. The deal strengthens the company's capabilities for secure access to any content, on any device, on premises and in the cloud.

Analysts continued to flood the wire with updated ratings on Monday as many returned from their extended holiday vacation. Here are some of the more noteworthy analyst actions with commentary:

F5 Networks (FFIV 129.76 -0.57) was upgraded to Outperform at Oppenheimer, its price target set at $160.

Salesforce.com (CRM 58.17 -1.07) was initiated with a Buy at Mizuho, its price target set at $70.

Intel (INTC 35.95 -0.41) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at MKM Partners, which raised its price target to $45 from $40.

Arista Networks (ANET 63.80 +1.12) was upgraded to Buy at Gabelli & Co from Hold Buy.

Cognizant Tech(CTSH 52.34 -0.33) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman, which raised its price target to $64 from $55.

Lastly, Synnex (SNX 73.28 -3.31) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James.
4:15 pm Ultra Clean Holdings announces James Scholhamer as new CEO effective Monday, January 19, 2015 (UCTT) : The co's current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Clarence Granger, has decided to retire as an officer of the company, effective Monday, January 19th. Mr. Granger will remain UCT's non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. Scholhamer has had an eight-year tenure at Applied Materials (AMAT), and has most recently been Corporate Vice President and General Manager, leading the Equipment Products Group and Display Services Group of Applied Materials' Global Service Division.


4:02 pm Qualcomm announces strategic collaboration with Novartis (NVS) to optimize global clinical trials (QCOM) : Co announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Life, has been selected by Novartis, a global pharmaceutical leader, as a global digital health collaborator for its Trials of The Future program. Qualcomm Life's 2net Platform will serve as a global connectivity platform for collecting and aggregating medical device data during clinical trials to improve the convenience and speed of capturing study participant data and test results to ultimately gain more trial efficiencies and connected experiences for participants.

Co also announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Atheros, and LIFX, a leader in smart lighting, have collaborated to deliver a turnkey Wi-Fi based smart lighting platform that can accelerate the development of connected lighting.

12:51 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BSX (13.9 +5.11%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
ZMH (116.45 +3.43%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
GILD (96.71 +1.9%): Seeing headlines that CVS Health (CVS) giving preferred status to co's HCV drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi.

Large Cap Losers

CLR (34.35 -11.45%): Oil & Gas companies under heavy pressure as WTI Crude drops 4.5% on the day after earlier dropping under $50/bbl for first time since May of 2009 (NBL, APC also notable decliners as well)
F (14.77 -3.84%): Co reported sales of 220,671 vehicles in December, up 1% YoY; Downgraded earlier to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup.
SNY (43.74 -3.91%): Downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.

Mid Cap Gainers

KITE (65.81 +8.58%): Entered into a strategic research collaboration and license agreement with Amgen (AMGN) to develop and commercialize the next generation of novel Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell immunotherapies; KITE to receive upfront $60 mln payment.
ISIS (66.54 +8.07%): Entered into a global collaboration with Janssen Biotech (JNJ unit) to discover and develop antisense drugs to treat autoimmune disorders of the gastrointestinal tract; co will receive $35 mln in upfront payments.
GEVA (101.77 +8.1%): Announced new pipeline programs and other company progress; Beyond GACI, SBC-105 may have broader medical utility in other rare disorders; also heard its price target was raised to $124 from $114 at Nomura; Buy rating maintained.

Mid Cap Losers

NBG (1.67 -9.08%): Weakness in Greek stocks as the main Greece indices all drop over 5.5% on the day.
DDD (30.84 -4.87%): Announced that it acquired U.K. based 3D printer maker botObjects, terms not disclosed; price target lowered to $42 at Stifel.
XYL (36.04 -5.36%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel on FX concerns/valuation.

11:47 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (98) outpacing new highs (88) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAVL, ACC, AVID, AVIV, AYN, BCC, BFK, BLUE, BSET, BYM, CBL, CDR, CEMP, CFI, CFN, CIVI, CMRX, CNV, COR, CQB, DMF, DOC, EDR, EGRX, ELS, EMI, ESPR, ESRT, ESSA, FOLD, GBAB, GNCMA, GSH, HALL, HFFC, HOFT, HTA, IIM, IMKTA, IQI, ISIS, JFC, KITE, LH, LOAN, MACK, MCA, MFL, MHD, MHN, MLVF, MMV, MRNS, MUE, MVF, NAD, NBB, NBD, NEA, NEV, NEWR, NHI, NIO, NPI, NPM, NQS, NXP, NXR, PNI, PPS, PYN, PZZA, QLGC, RDUS, RESN, REXR, RPAI, RVSB, SFST, SIX, SONC, SSS, TCX, TRK, VBLT, VCV, VMO, ZMH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACWX, ADRU, AEG, AKO.B, ATU, AWAY, AWX, BALT, BBVA, BGR, BORN, BTU, CBD, CCU, CEE, CEL, CFNB, CH, CHT, CLD, CMRE, COMT, CRC, CS, CVEO, CX, DB, DCM, DSWL, E, ELON, EQT, FCLF, GF, GLOW, GNBC, GNI, HABT, HIE, HSBC, IBTX, ICD, IDN, IGD, IGOV, IID, ING, ISHG, JST, KB, KF, KND, KOF, LOR, LYG, MFG, MGT, MN, MT, MTSL, MXC, MXE, NBG, NTT, OIBR, OIBR.C, OXM, PBR.A, PKX, PRXI, PT, PTNR, PWE, REE, RICE, SALT, SAN, SB, SCHN, SHG, SNY, SODA, SQNS, STRI, SWN, SWZ, TEF, TOPS, TOT, TS, TWMC, UBS, UPL, VRTA, VSCI, WBAI, WOR, XGTI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: TLT, UUP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BJK, BNO, BWX, DBC, EIS, EPOL, EWI, EWP, EWQ, EWU, EWY, FXA, FXB, FXC, FXE, FXF, GREK, GSG, JJC, OIL, SLX, TBT, UGA, UHN, USO

8:31 am O2Micro announces reduction in current worldwide employee base by ~80 employees; expects to lower overall operating expenses by ~$3.5-4.5 mln through 2015 (OIIM) : The strategy is aimed to better utilize its proprietary battery management technologies for industrial applications, including its precision battery gas gauge products. OIIM will provide additional details related to the financial impact of this announcement when it reports Q4 and fiscal year ending Dec 31, 2014, financial results, which is tentatively scheduled for Feb 4, 2015.

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SanDisk estimates lower fourth quarter revenue, shares fall

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sandisk-estimates-lower-fourth-quarter-131953293.html

(Reuters) - SanDisk Corp estimated fourth-quarter revenue below its forecast, citing lower revenue primarily due to weaker-than-expected sales of its retail products and NAND storage chips.

The company said it now expects revenue of $1.73 billion. It had previously forecast revenue of $1.80 billion-$1.85 billion.

SanDisk, whose shares fell about 7 percent in premarket trading, also lowered its adjusted gross margin estimate to about 45 percent compared from its forecast of 47-49 percent.

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Stocks rallied Friday but indices are struggling.
- IEA lowers estimates for non-OPEC production, so hike taxes.
- Senator Durbin proposes raising the tax to $1.00/gallon.
- Friday was classic short covering action ahead of a 3-day weekend.

Stocks rallied Friday, rebounding from the five prior sessions of selling.

Lower high the prior week, lower low below the early December low this week. The indices are struggling no doubt.

Friday, however, they rebounded. Oh there were all kinds of reasons given for the move as pundits played pin the tail on the reason for the rally, but to us it was pretty clear as discussed on Thursday.

First, short covering. The market is down from the late December high, falling for just over 2 weeks. It was stretched downside. Then you have the Swiss national bank and its surprise action (even surprised the IMF leader) in removing the peg to the euro, freeing the Swiss franc to rally as it wanted to do. Switzerland had to do it if QE was coming. It wiped out several hedge funds, a forex trading broker, and saddled some banks (e.g. Barclays) and some brokerages (e.g. Interactive Brokers) with massive losses. That is the problem of trading for so long with central bank support: when the safeties are removed, things can get a bit hairy.

Anyway, with surprises becoming the norm, after two weeks of selling, some short covering on Friday is normal. Throw in a 3-day weekend and you have a recipe for short covering. That was clearly driving much of the upside, and you could really see it in the last hour as stocks broke higher from a three hour consolidation and sprinted higher to the close. It was also expiration Friday. Not sure if that influenced anything other than volume, but just throwing that out there.

Second, the dollar rebounded versus the yen. The dollar/jpy pair peaked in early December, made a normal test, but then put in a lower high to end December. Sold off through the 50 day EMA Tuesday, and Friday managed to rebound back to that level. Still not out of the woods, but the dollar beating the yen has been the trade that has accompanies US stock market rallies. That 'status quo' event is getting rattled around by the world events and is another element of uncertainty added to the other uncertainties facing the stock market.

Third, well I don't know what number three should be, but you can fill in the blank if you want. Let's say it was Michigan Sentiment that surged to 98.2 from 93.6 in December. A preliminary reading, but who cares? The headline was great, right? Other December numbers are definitely showing softness, but nothing like lower gasoline prices to spark better will. Spending $45 to fill up versus $90 is kind of nice.

You can also throw in higher oil prices on the day as oil attempts to put in a bottom and actually bounce. It closed over the 10 day EMA for the first time since late September. Wow, finally breaking the weakest resistance. Anyway, it can bounce here, but it is not going to break the downtrend.

All of this, or really just part of it, led to a stock rebound. Nothing major but the indices held that next level of support so that at least gives them some credible support to attempt a rally. The leaders bounced as well, but they had a rough week. Sure they are still out there and putting together some good patterns, but the action later in the week damaged a lot of patterns and thinned leadership ranks. We do see some good patterns setting up, but there are not a plethora of leadership patterns showing bottoming as in May and December. That is an important distinction and suggests any bounce doesn't have a lot of foundation, at least to start. We can play bounces, and they may turn into a rally to higher highs, but we cannot assume that to start.

SP500 26.75, 1.34%
NASDAQ 63.56, 1.39%
DJ30 190.86, 1.10%
SP400 1.42%
RUTX 1.90%
SOX 1.12%

VOLUME: NYSE +13%, NASDAQ -0.2%. Most likely NYSE trade driven by expiration. NASDAQ trade was lower but in line with all the above average volume on the week.

A/D: NYSE 4.5:1. NASDAQ 3:1. Impressive breadth as all indices bounced. That typically is not indicative of a relief move, but recall that all of the market was selling as of Thursday. Thus they all could bounce in covering action.

THE NEWS

IEA lowers estimates for non-OPEC production, so hike taxes.

Friday the IEA forecast the 305K fewer bbl/day for the US and other non-OPEC producers. This as many of our esteemed leaders in DC call for an increase in the gasoline tax that the call euphemistically a 'user fee.' Most of the reporting says $0.12 is the size of the raise, but one senator wants $1.00. Sure, jack it right back up to what the price was before prices fell. No one will notice because with this 'great economy' no one suffers with $3+/gallon gasoline.

378,000,000 gallons per day in 2010
368,500,000 gal/day in 2013. A decline but not huge.

Current federal tax rate is $0.184/gallon for gasoline, $0.244 for diesel.

Some are proposing a 0.12/gallon hike. Senator Durbin proposes raising the tax to $1.00/gallon.

The excuse, the basis for the needed tax increase, is that the roads and bridges are crumbling all around us. I am so sick of hearing this tired excuse. They have been crumbling for 20 years; you would think they would have all collapsed by now.

In any event, consumption figures show, even with a great recession, that the tax revenues have remained extremely healthy. At the lower levels the tax still produced $67,252,000 per day in revenues or $24,546,980,000 per year. $24.5B per year! Since 1993 when the $0.185 tax began that is $515.5B. More than that, the Obama stimulus in 2008 threw HUGE amounts of dollars at our highways and bridges, those 'shovel ready' projects. So the total is MUCH more than $515B.

During this period of huge tax revenue collection we are told our infrastructure is 'crumbling.' What pray tell, happened to the $500+B? In 21 years over $500B is not enough to maintain and construct new roads, particularly with states required to put up a portion of the funds in many cases?

The problem is not lack of money but of misuse of our money. Nothing new there, unfortunately. It is the government. It simply cannot spend money well because there is no incentive to be efficient. No one is going to lose their jobs if the money is all spent on whatever special interests arise; just raise the tax rate and get more money.

The republicans say it won't happen, but you have the likes of republican Senator Corker supporting a tax increase, saying it will 'fix the problem.' Everyone who believes that is, to take the gloves off, a fool. Money to the government never fixed anything but DID guarantee more profligate spending. They should be rolling taxes back along with regulations, not even contemplating this.

CPI flips negative overall thanks to plunging gasoline prices (but not taxes).

CPI: -0.4% versus -0.4% expected versus -0.3% prior. Year/year +0.8%

Core: 0.0% versus 0.1% expected versus 0.0% November. Year/year +1.6%

Gasoline: -9.4%, the cause of the big drop in overall CPI.

Food: +0.3% for the month, and +9.1% in 2014, moving to an all-time high. Record highs for meat, fish, eggs, and chicken. At least we have lower gasoline prices to pay for the higher food prices. Great trade! Gas for food.

Layoffs reappear.

With the initial round of earnings an old nemesis returns: the layoff. SLB cans 9,000. TGT printing up 17,600 pink slips. Citi is laying off 'thousands' though no exact figure was given.

Expect more layoffs from quality jobs providers such as the energy companies. Those produced the lion's share of breadwinner jobs in the recovery, and thousands upon thousands upon thousands are going away along with a lot of the jobs created to service those with those good jobs. Thank goodness we have all of those hourly jobs that these people can slide right into and perhaps make up a fifth of their prior earnings.

THE MARKET

The indices tried to hold an upper support level and did so early week, but Thursday that broke and they slipped lower. As of the weekend they held the lower level of next support, bouncing off it Friday. Not bad but as noted, likely short covering ahead of a long weekend. They can still rally; they always can. Unlike the September and October selloff, however, the pattern is very toppy, showing head and shoulders on most of the indices. Breaches of the uptrend that has held since late 2012. Leaders taking serious hits and the ranks thinning considerably.

Yes, they can always bounce and mount new rallies. With leadership struggling and narrowing, this remains a market where the stocks have to show they are able to overcome the negatives. The Fed is not there anymore. The economy is not a lock. Something is needed and perhaps that something is earnings. Thus far, however, the earnings are not doing the trick, e.g. JPM, BAC, GS, KBH. On the other hand, LEN, TSM, INTC all reported nice results and look solid. Stocks have sold ahead of results and that provides room to bounce.

CHARTS

SP500: Bounced off a lower January low, still holding over the mid-December lows in that selloff. December was a sharp drop and knifepoint turn when a normal pullback got a bit aggressive. The current pattern used that and build on with something of a head and shoulders. In any event, it is a more volatile and more pronounced rounded top pattern. SP500 held around the 78% Fibonacci retracement on the week's lows, but it closed below it once and traded below it the last three sessions. Not a solid pattern for new highs but an oversold one that is sort of holding some support. Combined with the other indices, that action can yield a bounce but it is not one that screams new highs.

NASDAQ: A bit better defined lows than SP500 with the January lows at least matching the same support but both undercutting the 78% Fibonacci retracement. Perhaps it can morph the pattern into some kind of pennant, but even so it has to prove it can move higher with declining MACD and increasing volume downside.

DJ30: Neat clean holds at the 78% Fibonacci retracement. Note the bounces intraday off that level as DJ30 finds solid support at the September peak. Okay perhaps the Dow will lead and SP500, NASDAQ will follow. Not a bad bounce pattern at all. REMEMBER, 78% Fibonacci retracement double bottoms are viewed as REBOUNDS to test the prior peaks, typically lacking the strength to move to higher highs. That doesn't mean they won't move to higher highs, it is just that something else has to push it given the pattern has lost a lot of momentum.

RUTX: As with the Dow, a second clean bounce off a support level, this one the 200 day SMA that is roughly coincident with the 78% Fibonacci retracement level. Thus there is potential to bounce and test that old high as with the Dow, but frankly, after RUTX showed some relative strength it showing relative weakness. It has serious resistance from 1180 to 1188 and those will be a key test for any bounce upside.

SOX: SOX is the pattern NASDAQ is trying to morph into as it holds the September high as well as the lower trendline from mid-2013. Chips remain one of the more solid groups in the market. INTC is working on a good 7 week consolidation using the 50 day EMA as support. The market needs the chips to step up.

LEADERSHIP

Some stocks that broke earlier in the week recovered Friday, but typically it did not rectify the problems. Thus the leadership ranks are thinning as the index patterns are more bearish in bias than in other selloffs since the Fed quite QE. There are still some really great patterns out there, and if they show the right stuff we will put some money to work, but we also have to keep an eye on the indices and where they bounce. They can bounce for sure, but our concern is that they only bounce in relief and cannot push any higher.

Social media: FB rebounded modestly after breaching its lower trendline in the uptrend channel. Lower volume. TWTR was flat after the big Thursday dump. YELP is back at the December lows with rising MACD; it looks as if IT will take its turn at trying to bounce.

Chips: INTC has a nice pattern as noted. ENPH is setting up a roll higher in its range. ANAD remains strong but it is a smaller stock. NXPI, SIMO, BRKS, AVGO are not bad. AMCC is still struggling and FORM didn't have a great week.

Gold stocks: Surged and are not really in buy position right now, e.g. GG, NG, GOLD, NEM. A test will come and that will be the opportunity to enter.

Biotech/Drugs: Some nice setups and good moves. CLDX launched upside Friday close to 9% on huge trade. EXAS has put together a nice pattern in the market selling. CELG fought off the Thursday dips and rallied to a higher closing high. BIIB fought back as well. Overall a positive group but it had some blowups last week.

MARKET STATS

NASDAQ
Stats: +63.56 points (+1.39%) to close at 4634.38
Volume: 1.911B (-0.2%)

Up Volume: 1.51B (+1.181B)
Down Volume: 452.76M (-1.177B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 3.03 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 3.52 to 1

New Highs: 46 (+4)
New Lows: 116 (-31)

S&P
Stats: +26.75 points (+1.34%) to close at 2019.42
NYSE Volume: 1B (+13.65%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 4.52 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.85 to 1

New Highs: 207 (+34)
New Lows: 94 (-26)

DJ30
Stats: +190.86 points (+1.1%) to close at 17511.57

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 20.95; -1.44
VXN: 21.22; -1.5
VXO: 19.7; -1.86

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.91; -0.12

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls: 48.0% versus 50.5% versus 56.4% versus 52.5% versus 49.5% versus 51.5% versus 53.4% versus 56.5%. Steady decline just missing out on the upper 50's/60 level that marked rollovers. Seems to have been enough . .

Bears: 16.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 13.9%. Wow, a breakthrough after months of holding below 15% the bears are emerging from hibernation. Important to see them get skeptical. Hey, with the Fed out of the game, Europe doing unexpected things, and investors having to price real worth into stocks, a bit of apprehension is definitely overdue.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Note the low short interest as well, an indication of some complacency.

Bulls: 48.0%
50.5% versus 56.4% versus 52.5% versus 49.5% versus 51.5% versus 53.4% versus 56.5% versus 56.4% versus 55.5% versus 54.6% versus 47.0% versus 35.3% versus 37.8% versus 45.5% versus 47.5% versus 48.0% versus 52.5% versus 57.6% versus 56.1% versus 52.5%

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 16.3%
15.2% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 13.9% versus 13.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 15.1% versus 16.3% versus 18.2% versus 17.3% versus 14.1% versus 15.1% versus 15.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.1% versus 13.3% versus 15.1% versus 16.2%

Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Right now bulls are coming back down from the 60 level that has consistently marked market tops over the past two years. The rapid decline in progress is pushing the bulls/bears lines toward one another. Still far from a cross with bulls falling faster than bears are rising, but bears are warming up to the notion of market weakness.

OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 1.83%
1.76% versus 1.84% versus 1.91% versus 1.91% versus 1.95% versus 2.02% versus 1.97% versus 1.94% versus 2.04% versus 2.12% versus 2.17% versus 2.19% versus 2.21% versus 2.25% versus 2.26% versus 2.165% versus 2.17% versus 2.21% versus 2.14% versus 2.05% versus 2.11% versus 2.08% versus 2.18% versus 2.16% versus 2.22% versus 2.26% versus 2.31% versus 2.24% versus 2.29% versus 2.29% versus 2.22 versus 2.17% versus 2.21% versus 2.24% versus 2.26% versus 2.30% versus 2.31% versus 2.34% versus 2.35% versus 2.32% versus 2.34% versus 2.32% versus 2.35%

The surge had to slow and on Friday there was a rest day ahead of the three-day weekend. Still very strong but also very straight up angle of attack that cannot be sustained indefinitely.

Oil: 48.69, +2.44. Oil recovered some of what it lost Thursday. Ah, that is a rally. Seriously, it looks as if oil is going to try a bounce of sorts as it actually moved above the 10 day EMA on the close for the first time since September.

Gold: 1276.90, +12.10. After breaking the 200 day SMA gold tested it then surged to a higher rally high. Uncertainty by central banks means buy gold.

$/JPY: 117.52 versus 115.928 versus 117.33 versus 117.77 versus 118.29 versus 118.50 versus 119.69 versus 119.43 versus 118.39 versus 119.62 versus 120.50 versus 119.81 versus 119.51 versus 120.67 versus 120.31 versus 120.48 versus 120.79 versus 119.99 versus 119.49 versus 118.83 versus 118.86 versus 116.81 versus 117.61 versus 118.75 versus 119.07

After breaking the 50 day EMA on the week and selling hard Thursday, the dollar rallied back to test the 50 day EMA. The 'kiss goodbye' before more weakness or a double bottom off the mid-December low? More like the former for now.

Euro/$: 1.1543 versus 1.1609 versus 1.1789 versus 1.1764 versus 1.1832 versus 1.1842 versus 1.1789 versus 1.1839 versus 1.1890 versus 1.1934 versus 1.2002 versus 1.2099 versus 1.2156 versus 1.2143 versus 1.2183 versus 1.2203 versus 1.2171 versus 1.2223 versus 1.2225 versus 1.2284 versus 1.2345 versus 1.2509 versus 1.2448 versus 1.2462 versus 1.2389 versus 1.2439 versus 1.2366 versus 1.2318 versus 1.2289 versus 1.2379 versus 1.2313 versus 1.2383 versus 1.2473 versus 1.2452 versus 1.2509 versus 1.2477 versus 1.2442 versus 1.2386 versus 1.2549 versus 1.2543 versus 1.2532

Euro slaughtered again as the dollar breaks higher from a weeklong tight lateral consolidation over the 10 day EMA. QE anticipation as well as the Swiss pulling out.

TUESDAY

You can call Friday an upside day with cause as quite a few did post-close. Oil higher, consumer confidence soaring - - the usual 'pin the tail on the rally' suspects. Seriously? Investors suddenly stepped in because consumer confidence, always the bastion of economic forecasters, jumped due to lower gasoline? YET at the same time investors also bought because oil prices rose, something if they keep doing gasoline prices will rebound and that consumer confidence goes into the dumpster again? This is the kind of mish-mash crapola that they are paying people to spew and advertisers are paying money to be associated with. Of course it makes perfect sense in a world where people don't really pay attention, just reading the headlines. But in this case, even if the headlines are internally inconsistent no one says a thing, just follow along like the Pavlovian dogs they have become.

Okay, that felt good.

No, no, no. Friday was short covering. Stocks did not shoot higher in the last 20 minutes of trade because investors, funds, etc. suddenly felt great about oil prices rising and the consumer confidence. It was classic short covering action ahead of a 3-day weekend. Two weeks lower, all kinds of uncertainties in the world as central banks either pull back stimulus or set to launch more stimulus, and funds bought because oil rose and consumers passed some gas so to speak. Good grief. Short covering and the yen giving back some of its gains versus the dollar. Market bounced. Of course most market rallies start with short covering, but that is never the entire story. Patterns, leadership, and other elements do matter.

What is causing the volatility?

So many wild swings has everyone lamenting having to once again deal with volatility. For six years the Fed plied its QE and that kept stocks relatively stable. Indeed, the ONLY instability occurred when one QE program expired and the Fed didn't have a new one to immediately roll out. Stocks bucked and sold, forcing Bernanke to launch more QE in order to keep prices high and fan the wealth effect flames. Remember all of that? Inflation financial asset prices with lots of money and everyone will feel wealthy. Except for the middle class that lost its breadwinner jobs and had them replaced with low paying food service or secretarial work. Not much wealth happiness for the majority of citizens.

Now the Fed has pulled QE. The market is on its own. It now has to do things the old fashioned way, i.e. figure out the real values for financial assets without the Fed buying all the junk there is.

Thus, as soon as the Fed pulled QE stocks sold in October. They rebounded sharply into November, sold again in December, rebounded to year end, and are now selling in January. As noted thrice has SP500 violated the 11/2012 uptrend channel that formed with that round of QE. Stocks are trying to hold up, but the Fed is not there buying anymore. It is up to the economy to provide a reason prices should not only remain at these levels but to climb higher.

With the December economic data not giving a thumbs up (e.g. retail sales reported last week), worries are creeping in as to whether the 'great economy' as the Administration calls it is really that great.

With the Fed no longer the backstop and the economic data somewhat concerning, it only makes sense that stocks are choppy. The thing that propped them up is gone, the thing that is supposed to keep them propped up is now being questioned. Investors don't know what prices should be so things are choppy. Voila, volatility.

And you do what?

So how does that play out in the coming week? As noted, the indices held support though at a lower level. That holds out the potential they can rebound in a relief move. Recall the only move we were looking at was a bounce to test toward the prior peaks, not new highs. The index patterns have eroded. SP500 has four breaches of its 11/2012 uptrend channel, all occurring in the last four months. Instead of just a fade to test support the indices have a toppish, 3-headed rounded top similar to a head and shoulders. Leadership ranks have thinned considerably. The upside has to prove that it can move to higher highs in a post-Fed QE world.

Not that we cannot make some money on that bounce. There is room to move higher after the sharp selling as the rubber band is stretched. Friday the 'just in case' bounce ahead of the weekend took some pressure off. The next very instructive move is whether that bounce released enough pent up pressure that the upside fizzles quickly. If that is the case that shows a very weak market.

We will let it show us what it will do. We still have some very good upside plays that are working, some that are holding nicely but need a bounce, and others we had to jettison last week as they broke support. We can make money on an oversold bounce, but we also have to realize that is what we are playing and pick plays and positions accordingly. Oh yes, and we have to trowel on earnings on top of that. Certainly the market is primed for a bit of an earnings bounce if it can get some good earnings reports.

Thus this weekend we have some more upside plays on stocks that are at key support and have a bounce pattern set up or that have used the selling to go about their business and set up great patterns. That is what leaders do. If the market wants to bounce in relief and they make the moves, we can play them WITH THE mindset it is for a bounce, at least until it can show otherwise.

We also have some more downside plays at the ready. We were somewhat surprised seeing the several downside setups that are not oversold after this kind of market pullback. That can speak to a weakening market that stocks are still in position to fall even after a couple of weeks of selling and not relief move. As noted above, if the market fails to hold the Friday relief move and starts selling anew, that speaks to a very weak market and the downside plays, despite the selling leading up to the current position, are in play to make us money from here.

Again we let the market show us what it wants to do near term. As for beyond that, the index patterns are not encouraging and it is up to the market to show it can do more than bounce.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4634.48

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 4666
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4815 is the December 2014 market peak

Support:
4631 is the October 2014 upside gap point
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.
4566 is the lower gap point from late October
4547 is the December low
4545 is the 38% Fibonacci retracement
4486 is the July 2014 high
The 200 day SMA at 4442
4372 is the March 2014 high
The August low at 4321
4316 is the lower gap point from October 2014
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4277 is the March lower gap point
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak
4185, the May lower gap point
4131 is the March 2014 low
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13

S&P 500: Closed at 2019.42

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 2032
2062 is the lower trendline from 11/2012
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2076 is the all-time high from November
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November
2124 is the December 2012 up trendline

Support:
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1991 is the July 2014 high
1972 is the December 2014 low
The 200 day SMA at 1967
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high

Dow: Closed at 17,511.57

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 17,572
17,923 is the January 2015 lower high
17,991 is the early December interim
18,104 is the December all-time high

Support:
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
The 200 day SMA at 17,007
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,341 is the May low
16,334 is the August 2014 low
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
15,739 is the December 2013 low
15,696 is the September 2013 peak
15,659 is the August 2013 peak

ECONOMIC CALENDAR

January 16 - Friday
- CPI, December (8:30): -0.4% actual versus -0.4% expected, -0.3% prior
- Core CPI, December (8:30): 0.0% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
- Industrial Production, December (9:15): -0.1% actual versus -0.1% expected, 1.3% prior
- Capacity Utilization, December (9:15): 79.7% actual versus 79.9% expected, 80.0% prior (revised from 80.1%)
- Michigan Sentiment, January (9:55): 98.2 actual versus 94.1 expected, 93.6 prior
- Net Long-Term TIC Fl, November (16:00): $33.5B actual versus -$1.4B prior

January 20 - Tuesday
- NAHB Housing Market Index, January (10:00): 58 expected, 57 prior

January 21 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 01/17 (7:00): 49.1% prior
- Housing Starts, December (8:30): 1040K expected, 1028K prior
- Building Permits, December (8:30): 1060K expected, 1035K prior

January 22 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 01/17 (8:30): 300K expected, 316K prior
- Continuing Claims, 01/10 (8:30): 2380K expected, 2424K prior
- FHFA Housing Price Index, November (9:00): 0.6% prior
- Natural Gas Inventories, 01/17 (10:30): -236 bcf prior
- Crude Inventories, 01/17 (11:00): 5.389M prior

January 23 - Friday
- Existing Home Sales, December (10:00): 5.10M expected, 4.93K prior
- Leading Indicators, December (10:00): 0.4% expected, 0.6% prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 16-Jan-15Dow +190.86 at 17511.57, Nasdaq +63.56 at 4634.38, S&P +26.75 at 2019.42

The major averages snapped their five-day losing streak with a broad-based advance on Friday. The S&P 500 (+1.3%) reclaimed its 100-day moving average (2,007) and narrowed its weekly decline to 1.2%.

The stock market was on shaky footing in the early going, but the overall risk tolerance was improved by a rebound in crude oil, which continued climbing throughout the session to end higher by 4.6% at $48.50/bbl. That advance bolstered the energy sector (+3.2%), which spent the day in the lead.

Meanwhile, the remaining cyclical groups ended a bit closer to their flat lines. The materials sector (+1.7%) outperformed with help from steelmakers and miners while the discretionary sector (+1.3%) settled in line with the broader market. As for the remaining three growth-sensitive groups, financials (+1.2%), industrials (+0.7%), and technology (+0.9%) spent the day behind the broader market.

The financial sector could not catch up to the S&P 500 as Goldman Sachs (GS 177.23, -1.26) weighed. The stock fell 0.7% despite better than expected results from the investment bank. Also of note, foreign exchange broker FXCM (FXCM 12.63, 0.00) agreed to terms on a $300 million lifeline provided by Leucadia National (LUK 21.84, +0.20) after yesterday's surge in the Swiss franc caused about $225 million in negative client balances at FXCM. Shares of FXCM were halted throughout the session after surrendering almost 90.0% in pre-market action.

Elsewhere, the technology sector struggled to keep pace with the market as Apple (AAPL 105.94, -0.88) weighed. The largest sector component lost 0.8% while most other heavily-weighted tech names settled with gains. On the earnings front, Intel (INTC 36.45, +0.26) gained 0.7% after beating bottom-line estimates. For its part, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+1.1%) ended just behind the S&P 500.

Over on the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+0.8%) and utilities (+0.9%) underperformed throughout the day while telecom services (+1.7%) and health care (+1.9%) spent the day among the leaders. The health care sector was bolstered by high-beta biotechnology names, evidenced by a 3.3% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 317.82, +10.12). The ETF was able to add 1.4% for the week versus a slim uptick of 0.2% for the health care sector.

Treasuries notched their highs in the early morning before spending the session in a steady retreat that sent the benchmark 10-yr yield higher by 11 basis points to 1.82%.

Friday's participation was ahead of average with 950 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included CPI, Industrial Production, and Michigan Sentiment:

The CPI declined 0.4% in December after declining 0.3% in November while the Briefing.com Consensus expected a decline of 0.4%
Prices are up only 0.8% year-over-year, which is the smallest increase since October 2009
The energy index, which has fallen for the past six consecutive months, declined 4.7% in December
Food prices increased 0.3% in December, up from a 0.2% increase in November
Excluding food and energy, core CPI was flat in December (consensus +0.1%) after increasing 0.1% in November
Industrial production declined 0.1% in December after increasing an unrevised 1.3% in November (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%)
The decline in industrial production can be blamed on warmer-than-normal temperatures that reduced the demand for heating. According to the National Climatic Data Center, December 2014 was the second warmest December on record. That was a large reversal from November, which was the coldest November since 2000. The shift in temperatures resulted in a 7.3% decline in utilities production
Capacity utilization hit 79.7% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 79.9%
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index jumped to 98.2 in the preliminary January reading from 93.6 in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 94.1
That was the highest reading since the index reached 103.8 in January 2004

Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day.

On Tuesday, the NAHB Housing Market Index will be released at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Slipping and Sliding

The stock market began the week on the defensive with the Nasdaq (-0.8%) and S&P 500 (-0.8%) pacing the Monday slide. The Dow (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-0.3%) outperformed, but the two indices also spent the bulk of the day in negative territory. Equities opened the trading day with slim gains that evaporated during the first few minutes of the session. The S&P 500 slumped back below its 50-day moving average (2046) at the start and spent the rest of the day well below that level as influential sectors weighed. Most notably, the energy sector (-2.8%) was the weakest performer with crude oil contributing to the pressure after Goldman Sachs lowered its short-term forecast for the commodity. WTI crude ended the pit session on its low, down 4.9% at $46.07/bbl. Meanwhile, the remaining cyclical groups registered slimmer losses, but heavily-weighted financials (-0.9%) and technology (-1.3%) kept the market under pressure throughout the session.

The major averages enjoyed broad-based support at the start of the Tuesday session, but the opposite was true when the trading day ended. The S&P 500 lost 0.3% with eight sectors settling in the red. The final standing masked the fact that the benchmark index was up in excess of 1.0% at the start of the day. The S&P 500 spent the first 90 minutes near its high, but the absence of intraday buying interest opened the door to a retreat that accelerated when the S&P cut through its 50-day moving average (2046/2047). Commodity-related sectors fueled the pullback from highs with energy (-0.7%) and materials (-1.2%) ending the day at the bottom of the barrel. The two groups struggled to keep pace with the market in the early going and their underperformance became more notable during the afternoon retreat.

Equities endured their fourth consecutive decline on Wednesday with the S&P 500 (-0.6%) making an intraday appearance below its 100-day moving average (2,007). The tech-heavy Nasdaq outperformed, but still lost 0.5%. Stocks faced selling pressure from the start after the overnight session failed to alleviate the growth concerns that contributed to the recent weakness. Instead, the concerns grew larger, starting with the World Bank's reduced growth outlook for 2015 (to 3.0% from 3.4%) and 2016 (to 3.3% from 3.5%). The lowered outlook pressured commodities, and especially copper, which remained under pressure throughout the day, ending lower by 4.9% at $2.51/lb after hitting a low near the $2.45/lb level. Crude oil, however, traded in the red during morning action, but rocketed into the pit close, which helped the broader market climb off its intraday low. The energy component spiked 5.7% to $48.55/bbl.

The stock market continued its rough week on Thursday with the S&P 500 (-0.9%) registering its fifth consecutive decline after failing to hold the 100-day moving average (2007). The price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%) fared a bit better while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.5%) and Russell 2000 (-1.7%) underperformed. Market participants were greeted by an astounding move in the foreign exchange market. Specifically, the Swiss franc was up as much as 25.0% against the dollar after the Swiss National Bank abandoned the EURCHF 1.20 floor and lowered the benchmark deposit rate to -0.75%. The move was likely taken in anticipation of a QE announcement from the ECB, and the dollar/franc pair was able to narrow its loss to 15.0% (0.8687); however, that was still large enough to resonate with investors who were lulled into a false sense of security by the SNB's pledge to maintain the exchange rate floor. Equity indices began the day with slim gains, but the morning strength faded alongside crude oil, which slid from a session high at $51.00/bbl to $46.57/bbl. The energy component ended the day lower by 4.1%, but that masked the fact that crude fell almost 9.0% from its best level of the day. Furthermore, that pullback was closely correlated with a broad-market slide, which was paced by cyclical sectors.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17737.37 17511.57 -225.80 -1.3 -1.7
Nasdaq 4704.07 4634.38 -69.69 -1.5 -2.1
S&P 500 2044.81 2019.42 -25.39 -1.2 -1.9
Russell 2000 1185.68 1176.64 -9.04 -0.8 -2.3

It was a quiet news day for the Technology Sector, which underperformed the broader market on Friday. The S&P Information Technology Index rose 0.91%, while the S&P 500 gained 1.34% to end the week.

Only one industry group closed in the red today, Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals. The group fell 0.57%, led by Nimble Storage (NMBL 25.02 -0.89), Logitech (LOGI 13.72 -0.19), Diebold (DBD 31.20 -0.29), and Apple (AAPL 105.99 -0.83).

The best performing industry group, Software, rose 1.89% on the day. Top performing large caps in the group were Activision (ATVI 20.25 +1.70), Electronic Arts (EA 48.09 +1.45), Symantec (SYMC 25.63 +0.72), and Salesforce (CRM 56.64 +1.53).

As for news, the unpegging of the Swiss Franc ruled the headlines today. FXCM Inc. (FXCM 12.63) was the biggest loser amid the turmoil. Earlier, it announced that due to unprecedented volatility in EUR/CHF pair after the Swiss National Bank announcement this morning, clients experienced significant losses, generated negative equity balances owed to FXCM of approximately $225 million. As a result of these debit balances, the company may be in breach of some regulatory capital requirements. FXCM stated it is actively discussing alternatives to return our capital to levels prior to today's events and discussing the matter with our regulators. The stock was halted throughout the day after falling 88% pre-market open.

Later in the day, Leucadia National Corp (LUK 21.84 +0.20) and FXCM announced that Leucadia would be providing $300 million in cash to FXCM and its subsidiaries that will permit FXCM to meet its regulatory-capital requirements and continue normal operations after the $225 million loss due to the unprecedented actions of the Swiss National Bank. LUK's stock was also halted prior to the announcement.

In analyst related news, Littelfuse (LFUS 99.15 +3.04) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Longbow.

Nintendo (NTDOY 12.85 +0.07) was upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies.

WEX (WEX 93.25 -0.22) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo.

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:FMI (47.51 +98.54%),TKMR (24.2 +54.14%),ZIOP (8.11 +50.74%),PCYC (145.51 +17.16%),DEPO (20.2 +16.76%),CLVS (67.56 +14.41%),XON (34.11 +13.4%)
Materials:CLF (8.9 +24.48%),HMY (3.01 +16.67%),SSRI (6.63 +14.9%),GG (23.81 +14.69%),SBGL (10.5 +13.88%)
Consumer Discretionary:WBAI (18.12 +20.88%),BBW (22.44 +20.45%),GME (36.35 +12.64%)
Information Technology:ADVS (36.95 +20.01%),ELX (6.94 +19.45%)
Financials:FCE.A (24.67 +16.31%)
Energy:UPL (14.18 +20.07%),CCLP (14.99 +15.31%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:ARWR (6.86 -24.28%),FLML (14 -23.33%)
Materials:AKS (4.06 -24.81%)
Industrials:FCEL (1.14 -20.63%),MIL (5.27 -20.27%)
Consumer Discretionary:KBH (12.51 -24.5%),GPRO (47.51 -21.91%)
Information Technology:ECOM (9.38 -56.87%),BITA (63.53 -28.71%),TUBE (16.25 -20.34%)
Financials:EHTH (9.68 -56.16%),OCN (8.22 -36.38%),FXCM (12.63 -25.88%)
Energy:HK (1.2 -24.53%),BBEP (4.87 -24.26%),LGCY (8.69 -23.97%),PES (3.92 -20.97%),EVEP (14.7 -20.71%)
Telecommunication Services:OIBR.C (1.9 -30.91%),OIBR (1.8 -29.96%)

3:47 pm Events and conferences of interest for next week : Events and conferences of interest for next week, Jan 19-23, are listed below. For a complete list of next week's events, please see the events calendar.
Monday

Markets Closed For Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday

Tuesday NDLS, LOCO, ZOES at Jefferies Consumer Summit

Wednesday FRSH, CHUY at Jefferies Consumer Summit

AUQ, IAG, FNV at CIBC Investor Conf. U.S. Capital Advisors E&P Corporate Access DayMSFT Windows 10 Event

Thursday
RGLD, AGU, TCK at CIBC Investor Conf.
FDO Special Meeting (DLTR merger) ECB (Expected to announce QE)

Friday LBY Investor Day

3:31 pm Earnings Preview for the week of January 20 - 23 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of January 20 - 23 some of the bigger names include:

Tuesday: Pre Market - JNJ, DAL, HAL, MS, BHI, SAP, RF, MTB, ATI, IGTE, MTG, OMN, EDU, PETS
After Hours - IBM, NFLX, CLS, AMD, CA, SMCI, WWD, CREE, IBKR, FULT, ADTN

Wednesday: Pre Market - UNH, USB, FITB, APH, ASML, NTRS, AMTD, UCBI, VIVO
After Hours - AXP, EBAY, KMI, DFS, SNDK, URI, RJF, CCI, PLXS, LOGI, XLNX, NAVI, FFIV, BGG, HGR, EWBC, DLB, BXS, SLM

Thursday: Pre Market - VZ, JCI, UAL, AVT, UNP, TRV, LUV, COV, PCP, BBT, CP, ORI, ALK, KEY, HBAN, TDY, BPOP, DLX, GMT, FCS, JNS, WBS
After Hours - COF, SBUX, CE, SWKS, KLAC, ISRG, MXIM, ALTR, HXL, ETFC, RMD, PLCM, CYN, SIVB, MSCC
Friday: Pre Market - GE, HON, MCD, KMB, BK, STT, SYF, COL, KSU, FNFG, FHN, PB

5:05 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:FMI (47.51 +98.54%),TKMR (24.2 +54.14%),ZIOP (8.11 +50.74%),PCYC (145.51 +17.16%),DEPO (20.2 +16.76%),CLVS (67.56 +14.41%),XON (34.11 +13.4%)
Materials:CLF (8.9 +24.48%),HMY (3.01 +16.67%),SSRI (6.63 +14.9%),GG (23.81 +14.69%),SBGL (10.5 +13.88%)
Consumer Discretionary:WBAI (18.12 +20.88%),BBW (22.44 +20.45%),GME (36.35 +12.64%)
Information Technology:ADVS (36.95 +20.01%),ELX (6.94 +19.45%)
Financials:FCE.A (24.67 +16.31%)Energy:UPL (14.18 +20.07%),CCLP (14.99 +15.31%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:ARWR (6.86 -24.28%),FLML (14 -23.33%)
Materials:AKS (4.06 -24.81%)Industrials:FCEL (1.14 -20.63%),MIL (5.27 -20.27%)
Consumer Discretionary:KBH (12.51 -24.5%),GPRO (47.51 -21.91%)
Information Technology:ECOM (9.38 -56.87%),BITA (63.53 -28.71%),TUBE (16.25 -20.34%)
Financials:EHTH (9.68 -56.16%),OCN (8.22 -36.38%),FXCM (12.63 -25.88%)
Energy:HK (1.2 -24.53%),BBEP (4.87 -24.26%),LGCY (8.69 -23.97%),PES (3.92 -20.97%),EVEP (14.7 -20.71%)
Telecommunication Services:OIBR.C (1.9 -30.91%),OIBR (1.8 -29.96%)

4:10 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Rally to Snap Five-Day Losing Streak (:WRAPX) : The major averages snapped their five-day losing streak with a broad-based advance on Friday. The S&P 500 (+1.3%) reclaimed its 100-day moving average (2,007) and narrowed its weekly decline to 1.2%.

The stock market was on shaky footing in the early going, but the overall risk tolerance was improved by a rebound in crude oil, which continued climbing throughout the session to end higher by 4.6% at $48.50/bbl. That advance bolstered the energy sector (+3.2%), which spent the day in the lead.

Meanwhile, the remaining cyclical groups ended a bit closer to their flat lines. The materials sector (+1.7%) outperformed with help from steelmakers and miners while the discretionary sector (+1.3%) settled in line with the broader market. As for the remaining three growth-sensitive groups, financials (+1.2%), industrials (+0.7%), and technology (+0.9%) spent the day behind the broader market.

The financial sector could not catch up to the S&P 500 as Goldman Sachs (GS 177.23, -1.26) weighed. The stock fell 0.7% despite better than expected results from the investment bank. Also of note, foreign exchange broker FXCM (FXCM 12.63, 0.00) agreed to terms on a $300 million lifeline provided by Leucadia National (LUK 21.84, +0.20) after yesterday's surge in the Swiss franc caused about $225 million in negative client balances at FXCM. Shares of FXCM were halted throughout the session after surrendering almost 90.0% in pre-market action.

Elsewhere, the technology sector struggled to keep pace with the market as Apple (AAPL 105.94, -0.88) weighed. The largest sector component lost 0.8% while most other heavily-weighted tech names settled with gains. On the earnings front, Intel (INTC 36.45, +0.26) gained 0.7% after beating bottom-line estimates. For its part, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+1.1%) ended just behind the S&P 500.

Over on the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+0.8%) and utilities (+0.9%) underperformed throughout the day while telecom services (+1.7%) and health care (+1.9%) spent the day among the leaders. The health care sector was bolstered by high-beta biotechnology names, evidenced by a 3.3% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 317.82, +10.12). The ETF was able to add 1.4% for the week versus a slim uptick of 0.2% for the health care sector.

Treasuries notched their highs in the early morning before spending the session in a steady retreat that sent the benchmark 10-yr yield higher by 11 basis points to 1.82%.

Friday's participation was ahead of average with 950 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included CPI, Industrial Production, and Michigan Sentiment:


The CPI declined 0.4% in December after declining 0.3% in November while the Briefing.com Consensus expected a decline of 0.4% Prices are up only 0.8% year-over-year, which is the smallest increase since October 2009 The energy index, which has fallen for the past six consecutive months, declined 4.7% in December Food prices increased 0.3% in December, up from a 0.2% increase in November Excluding food and energy, core CPI was flat in December (consensus +0.1%) after increasing 0.1% in November Industrial production declined 0.1% in December after increasing an unrevised 1.3% in November (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%)
The decline in industrial production can be blamed on warmer-than-normal temperatures that reduced the demand for heating. According to the National Climatic Data Center, December 2014 was the second warmest December on record. That was a large reversal from November, which was the coldest November since 2000. The shift in temperatures resulted in a 7.3% decline in utilities production
Capacity utilization hit 79.7% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 79.9% The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index jumped to 98.2 in the preliminary January reading from 93.6 in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 94.1 That was the highest reading since the index reached 103.8 in January 2004 Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day.

On Tuesday, the NAHB Housing Market Index will be released at 10:00 ET.
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.8% YTD S&P 500 -1.9% YTD Nasdaq Composite -2.2% YTD Russell 2000 -2.5% YTD Week in Review: Slipping and Sliding

The stock market began the week on the defensive with the Nasdaq (-0.8%) and S&P 500 (-0.8%) pacing the Monday slide. The Dow (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-0.3%) outperformed, but the two indices also spent the bulk of the day in negative territory. Equities opened the trading day with slim gains that evaporated during the first few minutes of the session. The S&P 500 slumped back below its 50-day moving average (2046) at the start and spent the rest of the day well below that level as influential sectors weighed. Most notably, the energy sector (-2.8%) was the weakest performer with crude oil contributing to the pressure after Goldman Sachs lowered its short-term forecast for the commodity. WTI crude ended the pit session on its low, down 4.9% at $46.07/bbl. Meanwhile, the remaining cyclical groups registered slimmer losses, but heavily-weighted financials (-0.9%) and technology (-1.3%) kept the market under pressure throughout the session.

The major averages enjoyed broad-based support at the start of the Tuesday session, but the opposite was true when the trading day ended. The S&P 500 lost 0.3% with eight sectors settling in the red. The final standing masked the fact that the benchmark index was up in excess of 1.0% at the start of the day. The S&P 500 spent the first 90 minutes near its high, but the absence of intraday buying interest opened the door to a retreat that accelerated when the S&P cut through its 50-day moving average (2046/2047). Commodity-related sectors fueled the pullback from highs with energy (-0.7%) and materials (-1.2%) ending the day at the bottom of the barrel. The two groups struggled to keep pace with the market in the early going and their underperformance became more notable during the afternoon retreat.

Equities endured their fourth consecutive decline on Wednesday with the S&P 500 (-0.6%) making an intraday appearance below its 100-day moving average (2,007). The tech-heavy Nasdaq outperformed, but still lost 0.5%. Stocks faced selling pressure from the start after the overnight session failed to alleviate the growth concerns that contributed to the recent weakness. Instead, the concerns grew larger, starting with the World Bank's reduced growth outlook for 2015 (to 3.0% from 3.4%) and 2016 (to 3.3% from 3.5%). The lowered outlook pressured commodities, and especially copper, which remained under pressure throughout the day, ending lower by 4.9% at $2.51/lb after hitting a low near the $2.45/lb level. Crude oil, however, traded in the red during morning action, but rocketed into the pit close, which helped the broader market climb off its intraday low. The energy component spiked 5.7% to $48.55/bbl.

The stock market continued its rough week on Thursday with the S&P 500 (-0.9%) registering its fifth consecutive decline after failing to hold the 100-day moving average (2007). The price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%) fared a bit better while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.5%) and Russell 2000 (-1.7%) underperformed. Market participants were greeted by an astounding move in the foreign exchange market. Specifically, the Swiss franc was up as much as 25.0% against the dollar after the Swiss National Bank abandoned the EURCHF 1.20 floor and lowered the benchmark deposit rate to -0.75%. The move was likely taken in anticipation of a QE announcement from the ECB, and the dollar/franc pair was able to narrow its loss to 15.0% (0.8687); however, that was still large enough to resonate with investors who were lulled into a false sense of security by the SNB's pledge to maintain the exchange rate floor. Equity indices began the day with slim gains, but the morning strength faded alongside crude oil, which slid from a session high at $51.00/bbl to $46.57/bbl. The energy component ended the day lower by 4.1%, but that masked the fact that crude fell almost 9.0% from its best level of the day. Furthermore, that pullback was closely correlated with a broad-market slide, which was paced by cyclical sectors.

11:38 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (183) outpacing new highs (174) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCW, ADC, ADVS, AFFX, ANTM, APU, ARE, AVB, AVIV, AWR, AYN, BBF, BBK, BFZ, BIE, BLE, BLJ, BMR, BNDX, BNJ, BNY, BSE, BTT, BYM, CCA, CHD, CPT, CRRC, CSG, CUBE, CXH, DEPO, DFT, DLR, DMB, DRE, ED, EIA, EIM, EMI, ENX, EOT, EPR, EQR, ESS, EVM, EVN, EXR, FMB, FSP, G, GNCMA, GSH, HCN, HCP, HDB, HME, HNP, HR, HSY, HTD, IART, IDT, IDXX, IGR, INAP, INN, IQI, JJSF, JRS, KR, KRG, KTF, KTF, LABL, LBY, LFUS, LPT, LTC, MAA, MCA, MEN, MFL, MFT, MHN, MIY, MJI, MNP, MO, MQY, MUA, MUC, MUE, MUI, MUJ, MUS, MVF, MVT, MYC, MYJ, MYM, MZA, NAN, NEA, NEV, NJR, NKX, NMA, NMO, NMZ, NNN, NNP, NPI, NPT, NQI, NQP, NRO, NTES, NUV, NVCN, NVX, NXJ, NXK, NXZ, NZF, NZH, O, OCIR, OHI, OLP, PCQ, PENN, PF, PML, PMM, PMO, PMX, PNI, PNW, PPS, PZC, RAI, RHP, RIT, ROIC, RPAI, RPT, RQI, SBRA, SKT, SPG, SRC, SSS, STOR, STZ, TLYS, TNET, UBA, UBP, UDR, UIHC, UTHR, VCV, VGM, VKI, VKQ, VMO, VNO, VTR, VVC, WEC, WGL, WNS, WRI

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAOI, ACFN, ACM, AEG, AIT, AIXG, AMRS, ANY, ASCMA, ASNA, ASTE, ATI, ATU, AXE, BCBP, BKJ, BPI, BSPM, BWC, CAAS, CAS, CAT, CCS, CET, CHOP, CLB, CLWT, CM, CMC, CNO, COHR, CROX, CRS, CS, CSLT, CTG, CX, DCI, DISCA, DISCK, DXPE, ECYT, EHTH, ELRC, ESCR, FC, FDML, FELE, FLR, FOR, FPP, FRD, FSC, FSLR, FTK, GBCI, GES, GHL, GIFI, GILT, GKNT, GLUU, GNBC, GNCA, GNW, GRAM, HAYN, HHC, HK, HMIN, HSBC, HWCC, IBKC, IBTX, ICLD, IGD, IGLD, INVN, ITT, JEC, JGH, JOE, JOY, KBH, KLXI, KMT, LALT, LF, LOV, LTRPA, MDAS, MFC, MHR, MIL, MN, MNI, MRC, MRIN, MTH, MTSL, MVC, NES, NMR, NSPH, NVFY, NWPX, NWY, OCLS, OIBR, OIBR.C, OPB, OSK, P, PANL, PB, PCLN, PCP, PDII, PFBX, PGI, PGN, PRIM, PT, PZN, REE, RES, RIVR, RLOG, RNO, RPXC, RS, RSH, RSO, RXII, RXN, SCHN, SD, SDPI, SGEN, SGMA, SLF, SODA, SPE, SPF, SRF, STAA, TC, TCRD, TD, TESS, TGB, THRX, TMST, TRC, TRCH, TRIP, TRMB, TRMK, TTF, TWIN, TZOO, UBS, UCP, UPLD, UUUU, VALX, VECO, VLY, VMI, VRTS, VSCI, WABC, WB, WCC, WDR, WLH, WMGI, WPCS, WPRT, WTFC, WTSL, X, XONE

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FLAT, FXF, ICF, UUP, VNQ

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EPOL, EWO, FXC, FXE, PBW, USCI

8:03 am Cypress Semi and Spansion (CODE) receive early termination of HSR waiting period, German Antitrust and merger control clearance; expect the deal to close in the first half of 2015 (CY)


7:31 am SunEdison has raised a total of $590 mln dollars to fund the acquisition of First Wind (SUNE) :

The co raised $190 million of proceeds through the secondary offering of SunEdison Semiconductor (SEMI) shares.
In addition, the co has secured a $400 mln credit commitment from several SunEdison relationship financial institutions for a 24-month loan secured with a portion of SunEdison's shares in TerraForm Power (TERP). The $590 million in proceeds from these transactions will be used to fund the cash portion of the upfront consideration to purchase First Wind.7:14 am Solar Power has entered into a stock purchase agreement to acquire 4.3 megawatts of photovoltaic projects in Italy (SOPW) : Under the terms of the stock purchase agreement, SPI HK will acquire all of the outstanding capital stock of the holding companies wholly owned by CECEP HK that hold the Italian projects for an aggregate consideration of EUR12.5 mln in the form of EUR9.375 mln of SPI's shares of common stock and EUR3.125 mln of cash.

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From Briefing.com: It was another topsy-turvy day in the stock market, yet it was ultimately resolved in a winning fashion with each of the major indices recording modest gains.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.2%) trailed the S&P 500 (+0.5%) thanks in large part to a weak showing from IBM (IBM 152.09, -4.86, -3.1%), which disappointed investors with its fourth quarter results and FY15 outlook.

Some of Wednesday's more notable news items for sector components included the following:

IBM (IBM 152.09, -4.86, -3.1%) reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $5.81 per share, excluding non-recurring items, well ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 11.9% year/year to $24.11 bln (down 2%, adjusting for the impact of the divested customer care outsourcing and System x businesses and for currency). With dollar strengthening, IBM said currency will have significant impact on revenue growth in 2015, 5-6 points (impacted 4Q14 by nearly $300 mln). IBM sees FY15 EPS of $15.75-16.50 versus $16.53 for FY14. Separately, IBM announced a new strategic technology services agreement with Anthem (ANTM 139.68, +2.55, +1.9%); the services agreement is valued at nearly $500 mln.

CA Tech (CA 29.94, -1.73, -5.5%) reported Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.67 per share, which was better than expected. Revenues fell 3.3% year/year to $1.09 bln, which was slightly below expectations. Q3 Bookings decreased by 29% y/y, on constant currency basis, to $1.067 bln. Total revenue backlog decreased by 8% y/y, on constant currency basis, to $6.685 bln. Co sees FY15 EPS of $2.45-$2.52 and FY15 revs of $4.26-$4.30 bln. Reaffirms FY15 cash flow from operations guidance of $1.0-$1.07 bln.

Google (GOOG 518.04, +11.14, +2.2%): According to Space Exploration Technologies (Space X), it has raised a billion dollars in a financing round with two new investors, Google and Fidelity. Separately, The Information, citing three people with knowledge of the plans, reported Google is preparing to sell mobile phone plans directly to customers and manage their calls and mobile data by way of Sprint (S 4.39, +0.23, +5.5%) and T-Mobile's (TMUS 30.08, +0.54, +1.8%) networks.
Apple (AAPL 109.55, +0.83, +0.8%) benefitted from a research report suggesting is achieving smartphone market share gains against key competitors in Asian markets.

Qualcomm (QCOM 71.59, -0.89, -1.2%), according to a press report, has been dropped from the next Samsung (SSNLF) smartphone. Cowen said the press report speculates that SSNLF will use Exynos for ALL models, but that it consider that as UNLIKELY. Cowen reiterated its Outperform rating on Qualcomm.

Microsoft (MSFT 45.92, -0.47, -1.0%) unveiled its Windows 10 operating system.

Amphenol (APH 53.93, +1.58, +3.0%) reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.63 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was better than expected. Revenues rose 14.5% year/year to $1.43 bln, also better than expected. The company said it achieved growth in most markets with particular strength in the automotive, industrial and mobile networks markets. For Q1, Amphenol sees EPS of $0.55-0.57, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $1.286-1.326 bln. For FY15, it sees EPS of $2.41-2.49, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $5.493-5.653 bln. The Company's Board of Directors has authorized a new two year open market stock repurchase plan effective January 21, 2015, for up to 10 million shares of the Company's common stock."

Fiserv (FISV 72.42, -0.74, -1.0%) announced that Consolidated Edison of New York, the electric, gas and steam utility in New York City and Westchester County, New York, has implemented BillMatrix Payments from Fiserv. Some notable items for technology companies outside the S&P 500 information technology sector included the following:

Cree (CREE 33.88, +1.54, +4.8%) reported Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.33 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of expectations. Revenues fell 0.5% year/year to $413.2 mln, slightly above estimates. For Q3, Cree sees EPS of $0.21-0.25, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $395-415 mln. Cree's CEO said, "We made solid progress in Q2 with operating margin higher than targeted due to an improvement in gross margins in our lighting business."

Celestica (CLS 11.27, -0.04, -0.4%) reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.23 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was light of analysts' average expectations. Revenues fell 0.9% year/year to $1.42 bln. For Q1, Celestica sees EPS of $0.18-0.24, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $1.28-1.38 bln.

Advanced Micro (AMD 2.45, +0.21, +9.4%) reported Q4 (Dec) net of breakeven, slightly worse than expected. Revenues fell 22.0% year/year to $1.24 bln. Q4 gross margin of 29% and non-GAAP gross margin of 34%. Gross margin was down 6 percentage points sequentially, primarily due to lower of cost or market inventory adjustment of $58 million related to its second-generation APU products. Non-GAAP gross margin was down 1 percentage point sequentially. For Q1, sees revenues declining 12% to 18% sequentially to ~$1.016-1.09 bln, which is below analysts' estimates.

ASML (ASML 106.59, +2.78, +2.7%) reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of 0.70 per share, which was well ahead of expectations. Revenues fell 19.2% year/year to 1.49 bln. For Q1, sees revenues of ~ 1.6 bln and gross margin of around 47%.

Cypress Semi (CY 14.16, +0.15, +1.1%) announced that United Micro (UMC 2.41, +0.03, +1.3%) licensed CY's SONOS embedded Flash memory intellectual property for the 40-nanometer process technology node.

Amazon.com (AMZN 297.25, +7.81, +2.7%) saw some increased trading action on reports Carl Icahn invested in the company. CNBC later reported that Mr. Icahn has no ownership in AMZN.Analyst Actions:

SAP (SAP 64.08, +0.52, +0.8%): FBR Capital lowered price target to $65 from $72 following earnings. Argus lowered its target to $87 from $99 while BMO Capital Markets lowered its target to $70 from $71.

CA Tech (CA 29.94, -1.73, -5.5%); FBR Capital raised its target to $33 from $29 following earnings.

Apple (AAPL 109.55, +0.83, +0.8%): Oppenheimer said it is expecting strong Dec. results and Mar. guidance. Firm raised its C1Q15 estimates and reiterated its Outperform rating with $130 PT.

Electronic Arts (EA 48.07, +0.26, +0.5%): target raised to $53 from $46 at Stifel Electronic Arts (EA 48.07, +0.26, +0.5%): target raised to $53 from $46 at Stifel

Xilinx (XLNX 41.51, +0.45, +1.1%) downgraded to Outperform from Buy at Credit Agricole

Altera (ALTR 34.73, -0.26, -0.7%) downgraded to Outperform from Buy at Credit Agricole

KLA-Tencor (KLAC 69.41, +0.50, +0.7%) assumed with a Neutral at Credit Suisse

Applied Materials (AMAT 24.32, +0.69, +2.9%) and Lam Research (LRCX 80.04, +1.54, +2.0%) assumed with an Outperform at Credit Suisse

IBM (IBM 152.09, -4.86, -3.1%): Stifel lowered its target to $180 from $190.

ASML (ASML 106.59, +2.78, +2.7%) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup.

Verizon (VZ 48.25, +0.07, +0.2%): downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays, which lowered its target to $51 from $54

Brooks Automation (BRKS 12.58, -0.02, -0.2%) assumed with a Underperform at Credit Suisse; target $10

Advanced Micro (AMD 2.45, +0.21, +9.4%): target lowered to $2 from $3 at Credit Suisse; Underperform

Cree (CREE 33.88, +1.54, +4.8%): downgraded to Sell from Underperform at Credit Agricole

4:25 pm Xilinx beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus (XLNX) : Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.62 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.61; revenues rose 1.2% year/year to $594 mln vs the $616.59 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of approx $558-582 mln vs. $635.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margin is expected to be approximately 68% to 69%. Xilinx sees Mar qtr sales are expected to be down 2% to down 6% sequentially; expectation was for 3% increase (consensus revenue equates to 7% increase off Dec. qtr actual) Operating expenses are expected to be approximately $227 million including $2.5 million of amortization of acquisition-related intangibles.

4:08 pm F5 Networks beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; announces additional $750 mln share repurchase (FFIV) : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $1.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.49; revenues rose 13.8% year/year to $462.8 mln vs the $467.14 mln consensus. "In addition to the seasonal softness we normally experience in the first quarter of a new fiscal year, product sales during the quarter reflected a marked decrease in the number of deals greater than $1 million," said John McAdam, F5 president and chief executive officer. "While this resulted in slower than expected revenue growth for the quarter, the number of large deals in the current pipeline is encouraging and indicates that we should see a resumption of the recent trend toward larger deals in the second quarter.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.48-1.51, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.53 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $465-475 mln vs. $478.84 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

The company also announced today that its board of directors had authorized an additional $750 million for the company's common stock share repurchase program. This new authorization is incremental to the $180.7 million currently unused in the existing program which was initially authorized in October 2010.

4:08 pm SanDisk beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line with lowered guidance from last week -- co will guide for Q1 on conference call beginning at 17:00 (SNDK) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.30 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.27; revenues fell 0.6% year/year to $1.74 bln vs the $1.73 bln consensus; gross margin 45%.

Co lowered guidance on January 12: Sales to $1.73 bln from $1.80-1.85 bln; gross margin to 45% from 47-49%"Our SSD solutions reached 29 percent of revenue in 2014, with strong growth from both client and enterprise SSDs. We are disappointed with our fourth quarter results, which were impacted primarily by supply constraints. We believe that NAND flash industry fundamentals are healthy, and we expect our financial results to improve as we move through 2015."

4:04 pm Plexus beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (PLXS) : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.72 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.71; revenues rose 20.8% year/year to $644.7 mln vs the $647.56 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.74-0.82, excluding non-recurring items and $0.10 in stock based comp expenses, vs. $0.71 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $630-660 mln vs. $648.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "During the quarter, we won 32 new programs in our Manufacturing Solutions group. We anticipate these wins will generate approximately $190 million in annualized revenue when fully ramped into production. The wins performance this quarter results in a trailing four quarter total of approximately $801 million in annualized revenue, or approximately 32% of our trailing four quarter revenue, well above our goal of 25%."4:15 pm : Equity indices enjoyed their third consecutive advance on Wednesday with the S&P 500 climbing 0.5%.

The highly-anticipated policy meeting at the European Central Bank will take place tomorrow morning, but that did not stop the Wednesday session from being filled with central bank-related storylines. The Bank of Japan got the ball rolling overnight by lowering its inflation outlook to 1.0% from 1.7%, which boosted the yen (117.80).

The Bank of England was next on tap with the minutes from its latest policy meeting. The minutes were a bit surprising as Messrs. McCafferty and Weale, who previously voted in favor of rate hikes, rejoined the majority in their belief that hiking rates too early would prolong the period of low inflation. The newfound dovish tilt at the BoE helped UK's FTSE spike 1.6% to outperform the region.

Meanwhile, other European indices struggled in the early going after ECB governing council member Ewald Nowotny said policymakers should maintain their long-term perspective and that "one should not get overexcited" about [the meeting].

Mr. Nowotny's remarks contributed to a cautious start in the U.S., but global equities jumped off their lows in reaction to reports indicating the European Central Bank is set to propose EUR50 billion in asset purchases through 2016. The euro wobbled on the news before ending the day near 1.1590 against the dollar. In a surprising move, Germany's 10-yr note tumbled, sending the benchmark yield higher by seven basis points to 0.47%.

The Bank of Canada completed the central bank bonanza with a surprise 25-basis point cut to 0.75% in response to crashing oil prices, which are expected to put downward pressure on Canadian inflation. The loonie retreated to its lowest level since early 2009, sending USDCAD to 1.2330 from 1.2070.

All ten sectors registered gains with energy (+1.8%) maintaining the lead throughout the session. The recently-batter sector was able to trim its January loss to 2.8% with help from crude oil, which spiked 2.7% to $47.78/bbl. Another commodity-related sector-materials (+1.0%)-followed not far behind with steelmakers underpinning the move. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 33.38, +0.68) gained 2.1%.

Elsewhere, the remaining cyclical sectors ended mixed with respect to the broader market. Industrials (+0.7%) and consumer discretionary (+0.6%) outperformed with the latter receiving a boost from above-consensus earnings reported by Netflix (NFLX 409.28, +60.48).

On the flip side, financials (+0.2%) and technology (+0.2%) spent the day among the laggards. The tech sector could not keep pace with the market due to a 3.1% loss in the shares of IBM (IBM 152.09, -4.86) after the Dow component missed revenue estimates and issued disappointing guidance. However, chipmakers rallied behind better than expected results from ASML (ASML 106.59, +2.78) and Cree (CREE 33.88, +1.54). The broader PHLX Semiconductor Index advanced 1.1%.

Over on the countercyclical side, the utilities sector (+1.0%) extended its January advance to 4.3% while consumer staples (+0.3%), telecom services (+0.2%), and health care (+0.1%) underperformed.

Treasuries notched their highs in the morning before giving up those gains in early afternoon action. As a result, the 10-yr yield jumped six basis points to 1.86%.

Participation was a bit below average with roughly 750 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Housing Starts/Building Permits and the MBA Mortgage Index:

Led by a large increase in single-family construction, new housing starts increased 4.4% in December to 1.089 million from an upwardly revised 1.043 million (from 1.028 million) in November
The Briefing.com consensus pegged new housing starts at 1.040 million
Single-family construction increased 7.2% to 728,000 from 679,000 in November, representing the largest number of single-family starts January 2008 (773,000)
Building permits fell to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.032 million versus a revised 1.052 million for November (from 1.035 million)
The Briefing.com consensus expected permits to come in at 1.060 million
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index spiked 14.2% to follow last week's 49.1% surge

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims will be released at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 302,000) while the FHFA Housing Price Index for November will cross the wires at 9:00 ET.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.5% YTD
S&P 500 -1.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.2% YTD

DJ30 +39.05 NASDAQ +12.58 SP500 +9.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1250/1.70 bln/1651 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1970/752.8 mln/1123 3:35 pm :

Energy futures posted some gains today.
WTI crude oil rallied over the $48/barrel level, but pulled back some and close below here
However, WTI crude rallied $1.27 overall and closed today's session at $47.78/barrel
Feb natural gas futures recovery some of yesterday's losses and ended $0.15 higher today at $2.98/MMBtu
Precious metals sold off following some ECB comments
Feb gold lost steam and close $0.60 lower at $1293.30/oz
Mar silver finished with a small gain of $0.23 to $18.19/oz

1:59 pm SanDisk Q4 Earnings Preview (SNDK) : Sandisk is set to release its Q4 results after the close in which Capital IQ consensus estimates call for EPS of $1.27 on revenues of $1.73 bln. Last week, Sandisk lowered its Q4 revenue guidance to $1.73 bln vs the then $1.83 bln Capital IQ Consensus Est. The co further shared that non-GAAP gross margin for the fourth fiscal quarter is expected to be ~45% compared to the previously guided range of 47% to 49%.

The company traditionally offers guidance on its conference call for expected revs and gross margins.For Q1, Capital IQ consensus estimates call for revs of $1.59 blnFor FY15, Capital IQ consensus estimates call for revs of $7.23 blnRecent DevelopmentsOn January 13, Gartner said worldwide semiconductor capital spending to increase 0.8% in 2015. Despite strong growth of 12.9 percent in 2014, worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to only grow 0.8 percent in 2015, to $65.7 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.

On January 12, Sandisk lowered their Q4 revenue guidance noting the lower revenue was primarily due to weaker than expected sales of retail and iNAND products. Non-GAAP gross margin for the fourth fiscal quarter is expected to be approximately 45% compared to the previously guided range of 47% to 49%.Shares had rallied strong since their previous quarterly report in October but the company's guidance warning last week eliminated all those gains and more with the stock now sitting at levels last seen in April 2014. Before their guidance revision, shares were trading above $97 per share

Highlights from Last Quarter
Reported Q3 (Sep) earnings of $1.45 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.35; revenues rose 7.4% year/year to $1.75 bln vs the $1.76 bln consensus.Non-GAAP gross margin 49% vs. 47-49% guidance.On their Q3 conference call, SNDK guided for Q4 revs of $1.80-1.85 bln vs $1.87 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate and non-GAAP gross margin of 47-49%.

On their call the co shares that it sees "Strong demand signals from customers in all key product categories"
Management also commented that it expects Enterprise SSD revs to surpass $1 bln in 2015, a year ahead of previously stated timeline

Analyst Commentary

On January 13, UBS lowered their SNDK tgt to $100 from $110 noting while retail and iNAND were mentioned as areas of weakness, firm will have to wait till the 21-Jan earnings call for full details on the duration of this weakness. Retail typically comprises 32-38% of overall sales, with Q4 being the strongest on consumer demand. Firm believes the retail weakness could be attributable to: 1) pricing pressure due to increased TLC supply that could be leading to lower ASPs for memory cards, USB flash drives, or client SSDs, 2) US Dollar strength against emerging market currencies impacting demand. Firm notes that Micron's (MU) near term NAND margins are also being impacted by client SSD ASP pressure.On January 13, Needham downgraded SNDK to Hold from Buy. SanDisk pre-announced lower than expected revenues and gross margins driven primarily by worse than expected sales of retail and iNAND products. They are particularly disappointed in the GM% performance, with 4Q14 levels now expected to be at their lowest since 1Q13. With SanDisk's growing CapEx and downward trending GM%, FCF may have peaked, which could limit capital return to shareholders in 2015 & 2016. Furthermore, they believe Samsung is at least one year ahead of SNDK in its progress toward 3D NAND, possibly altering its competitive position in the NAND market long-term. As they've stated in the past, they prefer DRAM fundamentals over NAND and favor MU over SNDK.Options Activity

Based on SNDK options, the current implied volatility stands at ~ 40%, which is ~ 16% lower than historical volatility (over the past 30 days). Based on the SNDK Weekly Jan23 $80 straddle, the options market is currently pricing in a move of ~6% in either direction by weekly expiration. (Fri). SNDK calls are outpacing puts by a factor of 1:9:1 (10.3K calls traded vs ~5.3K puts).

New Lows outpacing new highs (138) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABAX, ABCD, ACT, ADVS, AEP, AET, AGN, AHH, ALGT, ALK, ALR, AMAG, ANTM, APSA, APU, ASPX, ASR, AWK, AWR, AXL, BBN, BCR, BFK, BIIB, BNDX, BUD, CBST, CHL, CI, CLNY, CMS, CNC, CNS, COKE, CPB, CRME, CTSH, CVS, DEG, DNP, DPS, DTE, DUK, EBIX, ED, EFX, EIA, EIO, ESPR, EVN, FE, FICO, FSL, GAS, GEVA, GFED, GNCMA, GXP, HDB, HELE, HOLI, HQL, HTD, HUM, ICCC, IIM, INAP, INDY, INFY, IRC, JAH, JJSF, KEYS, KRFT, LFC, LTC, MFL, MRCY, NAC, NBB, NEV, NJR, NOC, NPM, NPSP, NSP, NVAX, NXQ, NXR, OGS, OPHT, PCYC, PDT, PEG, PENN, PETS, PFE, PKG, PMF, PNW, PZC, RHP, RIF, RKT, RLGT, SAM, SBGL, SCG, SJW, SKH, SMCI, SO, SURG, SWKS, TE, TEG, TEP, TKC, TR, TSEM, TTWO, UAL, UIHC, UNH, UTG, UTHR, UVE, VCLT, VCV, VFL, VGLT, VISI, VRTX, WEC, WEN, WGL, WM, XEL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACFN, ACTG, AETI, AIT, AMD, AMRS, AMSC, ANR, ANY, ARCW, ARR, ASCMA, ASNA, ASRV, ATNM, AXPW, BECN, BLDP, BNS, BOXC, BSDM, CALL, CASH, CBLI, CCS, CH, CHOP, CLSN, CM, CNNX, CNTF, CPSS, CRDC, CROX, CSLT, CTCM, CTG, CTRE, DHRM, DMD, DRWI, DWCH, DXPE, ECOM, EDS, EMN, ESCR, EVEP, EYES, FET, FFIN, FITB, FOR, FRD, FSC, GBSN, GHL, GILT, GLAD, GNCA, GNW, GRVY, GSOL, HDY, HEES, HELI, HMIN, HSGX, HYND, IDN, IGLD, IMI, INWK, IPAR, IVAN, KLXI, LALT, LAS, LDR, LEE, LF, LOV, MAT, MDR, MFC, MIL, MM, MNI, MRIN, MSA, MSL, MTSL, NBHC, NRG, NRIM, NSPH, NUTR, NVFY, NWY, OCLS, OPTT, OPWR, PANL, PCM, PFMT, PGI, PICO, PIM, PPT, PRAN, PSTR, PT, RCON, RMP, RVM, SBLK, SLF, SLTC, SSTK, STB, SXC, TAPR, TAT, TAXI, TCFC, TD, TISA, TLMR, TRCO, TRMB, UAMY, VRTS, VSCI, VVUS, WHX, WIRE, WLT, XXII, ZINC, ZION

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: There was a winter storm on Tuesday, not so much in New York City as there was on Wall Street. Hit by a slate of disappointing guidance from large-cap, multinational companies and a surprisingly weak Durable Goods Orders report for December, the major indices succumbed to broad-based selling pressure.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq Composite, and S&P 500 dropped 1.7%, 1.9%, and 1.3%, respectively. At their worst levels of the day, however, they were down 2.2%, 2.4%, and 1.8%, respectively.

The weakest link in the broader market was the S&P 500 information technology sector (-3.3%). That was owed in large part to Microsoft (MSFT 42.66, -4.35, -9.3%), which tanked after it reported its fiscal second quarter results and issued disappointing guidance for the March quarter.

Its weakness bled into Intel (INTC 34.19, -1.62, -4.5%) and other PC-related issues including, but not limited to, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 37.36, -1.48, -3.8%), Micron (MU 29.65, -1.37, -4.4%), Western Digital (WDC 97.63, -3.35, -3.3%), and Apple (AAPL 109.14, -3.96, -3.5%), the latter of which was slated to report its results after Tuesday's close.

Really, though, Microsoft's showing and its acknowledgment that foreign currency will be a headwind cast a pall on many of the sector's largest components. Microsoft wasn't alone with its foreign currency problems. Caterpillar (CAT 79.85, -6.18, -7.2%), Procter & Gamble (PG 86.49, -3.09, -3.5%), Pfizer (PFE 26.60, -0.20, -0.6%), DuPont (DD 73.18, -0.93, -1.3%), and United Technologies (UTX 119.16, +0.41, +0.4%) all tempered their 2015 guidance on account of the dollar's strength. Those views set the tone for Tuesday's downturn.

Most of Tuesday's relevant news for the technology stocks was earnings-related. With that, the synopsis below is concentrated on the key earnings results released following the close of trading on Monday and both before and after the close of trading on Tuesday.

Microsoft (MSFT 42.66, -4.35, -9.3%): After Monday's close, the company reported Q2 (Dec) GAAP earnings of $0.71 per share, in-line with expectations on an 8.0% year/year increase in revenue to $26.47 bln that was slightly above expectations. The EPS figure include $0.06 in unfavorable items ($0.02 from restructuring/integration and $0.04 from an IRS tax adjustment). Devices and Consumer revenue grew 8% to $12.9 billion. Commercial revenue grew 5% to $13.3 billion. Separately, Microsoft announced its intention to complete the existing $40 bln share repurchase authorization by Dec 31, 2016. On call, noted that headwinds include geopolitical issues in China, macro issues in Japan, the transition to the cloud and FX.

Texas Instruments (TXN 54.83, -0.22, -0.4%): After Monday's close, the company reported Q4 (Dec) GAAP earnings of $0.69 per share, in-line with analysts' average expectation. EPS included a $0.05 loss for a Federal Tax Credit and a $0.02 loss on a sale of assets. The quarter was in-line with the company's guidance of $0.64-0.74. Revenues rose 8.0% year/year to $3.27 bln, which was also in-line with estimates. For Q1, Texas Instruments sees EPS of $0.57-0.67 and revenues of $3.07-3.33 bln. The midpoint of its EPS estimate is in-line with expectations.

Corning (GLW 24.73, +0.82, +3.4%): Before Tuesday's open, reported Q4 (Dec) core earnings of $0.45 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Core revenues rose 29.8% year/year to $2.60 bln, driven by growth in all segments. Corning said it is entering 2015 with momentum. In the first quarter, LCD glass volume for its Display Technologies segment is expected to be consistent to down slightly on a sequential basis, which is in-line with normal seasonal patterns, and quarterly glass price declines are expected to be moderate again. Core sales for the Optical Communications segment are expected to increase more than 10% year-over-year while Specialty Materials segment core sales should be up approximately 10%. The Environmental Technologies and Life Sciences segments are anticipated to deliver core sales that are comparable with the same period a year ago.

Apple (AAPL 109.14, -3.96, -3.5%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q1 (Dec) earnings of $3.06 per share, well ahead of estimates. Revenues rose 29.5% year/year to $74.6 bln, which was also well ahead of analysts' average expectation. Gross margins were 39.9% versus company's guidance of 37.5-38.5%. Q1 iPhones were 74.5 mln versus 51 mln last year and estimates for around 67 mln. Q1 iPads were 21.4 mln versus 26 mln last year and estimates of approximately 22 mln. Q1 Macs were 5.5 mln versus 4.8 mln last year and were in-line with estimates. For Q2, Apple sees revenues of $52.0-55.0 bln, in-line with expectations, and gross margins of 38.5-39.5%. CEO Tim Cook said development of Apple Watch is on schedule and that shipments are set to begin in April. AAPL shares were up 4.8% in after-hours action as of this post.

Yahoo (YHOO 47.99, -1.45, -2.9%): After Tuesday's close Yahoo! reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.30 per share, excluding non-recurring items, slightly ahead of estimates; revenues fell 1.7% year/year to $1.18 bln. Yahoo! said it sees Q1 revs ex-tac in the range of $1.02-1.06 bln, which is below analysts' average expectation. Separately, Yahoo! announced management has recommended and the Board of Directors has authorized a plan for a tax-free spin-off of the company's remaining holdings in

Alibaba Group (BABA 102.94, -1.05, -1.0%) into a newly formed independent registered investment company.
Following the spin-off, Yahoo will continue to operate its core business and hold its 35.5% interest in Yahoo Japan. SpinCo will own all of Yahoo's remaining 384 million shares of Alibaba, valued at $40 billion based on the closing price on January 26, 2015, as well as a legacy, ancillary Yahoo business. SpinCo will assume no debt in the transaction, and Yahoo will retain its cash. The completion of the transaction is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2015 after the expiration of its one-year lock-up agreement on the Alibaba shares entered into in connection with the IPO. YHOO shares were up 7.1% in after-hours action as of this post.

Electronic Arts (EA 48.41, -1.06, -2.2%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q3 (Dec) earnings of $1.22 per share, excluding non-recurring items, well ahead of estimates. Non-GAAP revenues fell 9.2% year/year to $1.43 bln but outpaced analysts' average expectation. For its Q4 (Mar), Electronic Arts sees EPS of approximately $0.22, excluding non-recurring items, and non-GAAP revenues of approximately $830 mln, both of which are shy of consensus expectations. Shares of EA were up 4.5% in after-hours action as of this post.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 21.83, -0.32, -1.4%): After Tuesday's close, reportedQ4 (Dec) Non-GAAP earnings of $0.41 per share, comfortably ahead of estimates. Revenues fell 13.5% year/year to $1.1 bln. The company issued in-line guidance for Q1, saying it sees EPS of $0.28-0.32 and revenues of $1.02-1.06 bln. Non-GAAP gross margin will be ~63.5%, plus or minus 0.5%. Juniper added that $1 billion of aggregate share repurchases will be completed before the end of Q2'15 subject to Juniper raising additional debt financing. Shares of JNPR were up 4.7% in after-hours action as of this post.

Western Digital (WDC 97.63, -3.35, -3.3%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q2 (Dec) earnings of $2.26 per share, better than expected. Revenues fell 2.1% year/year to $3.89 bln.

Sanmina (SANM 20.97, -2.39, -10.2%): After Monday's close, reported Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.61 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was better than analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 15.4% year/year to $1.67 bln. Sanmina issued in-line guidance for Q2, saying it sees EPS of $0.50-0.55, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $1.575-1.625 bln. The company added that its outlook for the second quarter is slightly down sequentially primarily due to seasonality, and that it believes demand will improve in the second half of the year.

Lattice Semi (LSCC 7.30, +0.71, +10.8%): Before Tuesday's open, reaffirmed its guidance for Q4 (Dec), saying it sees Q4 (Dec) revenues of flat to +4% sequentially to ~$83.1-86.6 mln, in-line with expectations. Gross margin percentage is expected to be approximately 57% plus or minus 2%. This is unchanged from the company's original guidance. Separately, Lattice Semiconductor announced it will acquire Silicon Image (SIMG 7.29, +1.39, +23.6%) in an all-cash tender offer of $7.30 per share. The deal is expected to be immediately accretive on a non-GAAP basis through efficiencies in operating expenses and supply chain.

Applied Micro (AMCC 5.88, -0.34, -5.5%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q3 (Dec) loss of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, that was slightly ahead of expectations. Revenues fell 33.0% year/year to $36.7 mln.

Freescale Semi (FSL 26.35, +0.17, +0.7%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q4 (Dec) adjusted earnings of $0.42 per share, well ahead of expectations. Revenues rose 1.9% year/year to $1.1 bln. For the first quarter, sees revenues of $1.135-1.185 bln, which is ahead of expectations, and gross margins essentially flat on a sequential basis. FSL shares were up 9.1% in after-hours action.

VMware (VMW 80.61, -1.85, -2.2%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q4 (Dec) adjusted earnings of $1.08 per share, just ahead of expectations. Revenues rose 14.8% year/year to $1.7 bln. License revenues for the fourth quarter were $777 million, an increase of 13% from the fourth quarter of 2013, or up 16% year over year in constant currency. VMware also announced that its Board of Directors has authorized the purchase of up to $1 billion of its Class A common stock through the end of 2017 and that it expects the stock repurchase program to more than offset dilution from its equity compensation programs in 2015. The new stock repurchase authorization is in addition to VMware's ongoing $1 billion stock repurchase program, originally announced August 6, 2014.

4:15 pm : The major averages stumbled on Tuesday with the S&P 500 (-1.3%) returning below its 50-day moving average (2,047). The benchmark index settled ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.7%), but behind the Russell 2000 (-0.5%).

Stocks careened lower at the start of today's session after several large companies cautioned that dollar strength will present a headwind to their future earnings. Most notably, Caterpillar (CAT 79.92, -6.11), DuPont (DD 73.18, -0.93), Microsoft (MSFT 42.66, -4.35), and Procter & Gamble (PG 86.49, -3.09) lost between 1.3% and 9.3% while Pfizer (PFE 32.60, -0.20), and United Technologies (UTX 119.16, +0.41) held up relatively well despite their warnings.

However, cautious guidance from six Dow components was not the only issue as investors had to digest a disappointing Durable Orders report while Consumer Confidence and New Home Sales beat expectations.

The Russell 2000 was able to stay ahead of the broader market as domestically-oriented small cap stocks benefitted from having limited exposure to currency fluctuations. Today's outperformance lifted the small-cap index ahead of the S&P 500 for the month of January. The Russell is lower by 0.8% since the end of 2014 while the S&P 500 has surrendered 1.4% so far this month.

Overall, cyclical sectors bore the brunt of today's losses with the top-weighted technology sector tumbling 3.3%. Microsoft's 9.3% decline was a notable drag on the index, but other large cap names also registered losses. Google (GOOGL 521.55, -15.17) and Intel (INTC 34.19, -1.62) lost 2.8% and 4.5%, respectively, while Apple (AAPL 109.13, -3.97) fell 3.5% ahead of its quarterly report. Investors are likely to pay close attention to Apple's guidance to see if the company joins the chorus of influential names voicing concern over greenback strength.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (-1.3%) was the only other underperformer on the cyclical side, but the group caught up to the S&P 500 just ahead of the close. Caterpillar's 7.2% dive pressured the sector while transport stocks settled just ahead of the broader market. The Dow Jones Transportation Average fell 1.2%.

Over on the countercyclical side, consumer staples (-1.2%) finished in-line with the S&P 500 while health care (-0.8%), telecom services (-1.1%), and utilities (+0.2%) outperformed.

Similar to utilities, the energy sector (-0.2%) spent the day ahead of the broader market with crude oil lending support. The energy component rose 2.3% to $46.21/bbl while the energy sector narrowed its weekly gain to 1.2%.

Treasuries round tripped, spiking in the morning just to spend the remainder of the session in a slide from highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 1.81% after testing the 1.76% level in the morning.

Today's participation was below average with fewer than 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Durable Orders, Consumer Confidence, New Home Sales, and Case-Shiller 20-city Index:

Durable goods orders declined 3.4% in December after declining a downwardly revised 2.1% (from -0.9%) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%
A significant portion of the negative surprise came from seasonal adjustments in the aircraft sector. Even though Boeing (BA 132.48, -1.59) reported a positive increase in orders on a month-to-month basis, sales actually declined significantly once seasonal factors were taken into consideration. Aircraft orders declined 46.4% in December, which led to a 9.2% decline in overall transportation orders
Excluding transportation, durable goods orders fell 0.8% in November after declining a downwardly revised 1.3% (from -0.7%) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.7%
New home sales increased 11.6% in December to 481,000 from a downwardly revised 431,000 (from 438,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 450,000
That was the most new homes sold since 487,000 were sold in June 2008
Total sales in 2014 were marginally better than 2013, inching up 1.2% to 435,000 from 429,000 in 2013
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for November rose 4.3%, which is what the consensus expected
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index jumped to 102.9 in January from an upwardly revised 93.1 (from 92.6) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 96.0
According to the index, consumer confidence is at its strongest level since August 2007 when the index reached 105.6

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while the FOMC will release its latest policy directive at 14:00 ET.

Russell 2000 -0.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.2% YTD
S&P 500 -1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.5% YTD

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

Large Cap Gainers

ABX (13 +2.44%): Outperformance in gold miners as the precious metal jumps $14 on the day to $1293/oz (GG & NEM also higher).
PLD (47.46 +3.51%): Reported Q4 (Dec) funds from operations of $0.48 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.47; revenues rose 3.2% year/year to $450.86 mln vs the $362.11 mln consensus; Issued upside guidance for FY15 FFO.
GLW (24.31 +1.69%): Reported Q4 (Dec) core earnings of $0.45 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.38; core revenues rose 29.8% year/year to $2.60 bln vs the $2.49 bln consensus.

Large Cap Losers

CAT (79.53 -7.56%): Reported Q4 earnings that missed consensus estimates by $0.22, reported revs in-line; guided FY15 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.
PHG (28.66 -5.44%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of 0.15 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of 0.22; revenues fell 4.4% year/year to 6.5 bln vs the 6.94 bln consensus.
FCX (18.68 -4.5%): Missed Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.10, beat on revs.

Mid Cap Gainers

COMM (25.03 +15.81%): Reports out that TE Connectivity (TEL) may be close to a deal to sell its network business to Commscope for $3 bln.
PII (147.85 +4.51%): Beat Q4 consensus estimates by $0.04, beat on revs; guided FY15 EPS below consensus, revs in-line.
DO (34.44 +4.97%): Select strength in offshore oil drillers following reports this morning that President Obama may allow drilling off the Atlantic Coast.

Mid Cap Losers

PLT (45.37 -12.97%): Missed Q3 consensus EPS estimates by $0.02, beat on revs; guided Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.
PKG (74.82 -8.26%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.16 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.17; revenues rose 13.4% year/year to $1.43 bln vs the $1.49 bln consensus; issued downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.07-1.10 vs. $1.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
GGG (72.59 -5.93%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.80 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.83; revenues rose 12.5% year/year to $306 mln vs the $299.85 mln consensus.

11:37 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (188) outpacing new lows (87) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACC, AHP, AIV, AKR, ALE, AOS, ARE, ATO, AVB, AWR, BAH, BBK, BBN, BFS, BFZ, BLE, BMR, BNJ, BRX, BV, BX, BXP, CARB, CCXI, CDR, CERN, CEV, CHSP, CMS, CNK, COR, CPT, CRRC, CTCT, CUK, CXW, DCT, DDR, DEG, DFT, DLR, DNP, DOC, DOOR, DRE, DXCM, DYAX, ED, ELS, EPR, EQR, EQY, ESRT, ESS, EXL, FRT, GBAB, GEO, GFED, GGP, GLW, GPT, GXP, HDB, HME, HNT, HQL, HR, HTA, HURN, HZO, IBN, ICBK, IIM, IMAX, IPXL, IRC, IRWD, KIM, KR, KRC, KRG, LAMR, LJPC, LPT, LTC, MAA, MEN, MHN, MIFI, MMD, MNP, MPW, MTT, MUC, MUH, MUJ, MVF, MYD, MYN, NATH, NBB, NBD, NBIX, NEE, NHI, NKX, NMA, NMZ, NNN, NPI, NPP, NQI, NQU, NRO, NUV, NVAX, NXP, NXQ, NXR, NXTM, NXZ, NYLD, O, OCUL, OFC, OPHT, OPK, PCG, PCYC, PDM, PFD, PLD, PMF, PML, PMX, PNI, POR, PSB, PSXP, PYN, PZC, RDUS, RHP, RIC, RIT, RLJ, RPT, RQI, RSG, SBUX, SCG, SCSS, SCX, SLG, SO, SPG, SRC, SSS, STAG, STON, SUI, SURG, TA, TE, TEG, TEL, TRNO, TSO, UBA, UDR, UVE, VCLT, VCV, VFL, VGLT, VGR, VLGEA, VTR, WAT, WEC, WEN, WIFI, WPC, WR, WRE, WRI, XEL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAT, ACI, AIMC, ANGI, AOI, APPS, ARCI, ARTW, BALT, BDE, BPFH, BTU, BXE, CAT, CIG, CLD, CM, COMT, CPSS, CROX, CS, CTCM, CXDC, EDU, EFII, EGLE, EMR, ERII, EXTR, FMY, FOE, FRD, FTI, GAI, GEF, GHM, GSOL, HEAR, HEES, IGLD, IRE, JOE, JOY, KBIO, MDM, MOMO, MSL, MVC, NBG, NRIM, NUE, OI, PICO, PKX, PRAN, RCI, REE, RGSE, RIVR, SALT, SCHN, SDPI, SHIP, SIM, SPNS, SR, SRV, STAA, STRL, SVVC, SXC, TAPR, TESS, TEX, THR, TISA, TNGO, TST, TZOO, UE, VPCO, VSCI, WAVX, WGO, WLT, WTW, ZION

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: ICF, IYR, LQD, MUB, TLT, URE, VNQ, XBI

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: GREK, JJC, TBT, VNM

M&A news: SIMG +23.1% (to be acquired by Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) in an all-cash tender offer of $7.30 per share)

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market tossed and turned in early action, but its final turn was decidedly higher.

Bolstered by the S&P 500 holding a technical support level at the 1993/1992 level, a rebound in oil prices, and short-covering activity as the rebound effort solidified, the major indices posted some solid gains that enabled them to recoup most of Wednesday's losses.

On the busiest day of earnings reporting yet, the S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.1%) played an influential role in the broader market's advance. Once again, Apple (AAPL 118.90, +3.59, +3.1%) carried the sector load and fortified the recovery effort by the S&P 500.

Below are some of the more notable news items for technology companies that were considered during Thursday's trading activity:

Facebook (FB 78.00, +1.76, +2.3%): After Wednesday's close, the company reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.54 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 49.0% year/year to $3.85 bln, also ahead of expectations. Revenue from advertising was $3.59 billion, a 53% increase from the same quarter last year. Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 69% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014, up from approximately 53% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013. Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.39 billion (Briefing.com consensus 1.394 bln) as of December 31, 2014, an increase of 13% year-over-year. Mobile MAUs were 1.19 billion as of December 31, 2014, an increase of 26% year-over-year.

Qualcomm (QCOM 63.69, -7.30, -10.3%): After Wednesday's close, the company reported Q1 (Dec) earnings of $1.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 7.2% year/year to $7.1 bln, also ahead of estimates. The company issued in-line guidance for Q2, saying it sees EPS of $1.28-1.40, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $6.5-7.1 bln. However, Qualcomm lowered its outlook for the second half of fiscal 2015 in its semiconductor business, QCT, largely driven by the effects of: A shift in share among OEMs at the premium tier, which has reduced its near-term opportunity for sales of our integrated Snapdragon processors and has skewed its product mix towards more modem chipsets in this tier. The company noted its expectation that the Snapdragon 810 processor will not be in the upcoming design cycle of a large customer's flagship device and heightened competition in China.

Citrix Systems (CTXS 60.76, +1.57, +2.7%): After Wednesday's close, Citrix reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.10 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 6.2% year/year to $851.5 mln, also ahead of estimates. For Q1, sees EPS of $0.70-0.72 vs. $0.80 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $780-790 mln vs. $797.44 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. For FY15, sees EPS of $3.60-3.65 and revenues of $3.290-3.330 bln, both of which are below expectations. Separately, announced a restructuring that will affect ~700 full-time and 200 contractor positions, and is expected to result in annualized pre-tax savings in the range of ~$90-100 mln.

Lam Research (LRCX 79.87, +0.15, +0.2%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q2 (Dec) earnings of $1.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, ahead of expectations. Revenues rose 6.9% year/year to $1.23 bln, in-line with estimates. For Q3, sees EPS of $1.23-1.37, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $1.365-1.375 bln.

EMC Corp. (EMC 26.40, -0.20, -0.8%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.69 per share, excluding non-recurring items, slightly ahead of expectations. Revenues rose 5.5% year/year to $7.05 bln, which was shy of analysts' average expectation. For FY15, sees EPS of $1.98, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $26.1 bln, both of which are below estimates. EMC said it expects to repurchase an aggregate of $3.0 billion of the company's common stock in 2015.

Google (GOOG 510.66, +0.66, +0.1%) and VMware (VMW 76.19, +1.13, +1.5%) said they will collaborate on Enterprise Public Cloud. Google Cloud Platform will be integrated into vCloud Air, providing enterprise customers with greater access to cloud services on VMware's hybrid cloud platform. Google Cloud Platform services will include: Google Cloud Storag, Google BigQuery, Google Cloud Datastore, and Google Cloud DNS.

Micron (MU 29.71, +0.61, +2.1%): Announced that it intends to offer $750 mln aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2023. The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for the retirement or repurchase of convertible notes and debt and general corporate purposes.

Research firm IDC reported that smartphone vendors shipped a total of 375.2 million units during the Q4, resulting in 28.2% growth year-over-year. The report notes that Apple (AAPL 118.90, +3.59, +3.1%), having spent 11 quarters prior to 4Q14 as the number two smartphone vendor in terms of shipments, managed to close the gap to a near tie with Samsung in 4Q14. Led by the success of its newer, larger iPhone 6/6+ models, Apple reduced the volume gap to just 600,000 units in the fourth quarter. Despite being far more profitable for quite some time, Apple's shipment volumes trailed Samsung's by more than 33 million units during the same quarter a year ago. Continued success from Apple, coupled with the ongoing challenges facing Samsung, could enable Apple to overtake Samsung during the 2015 calendar year.

Alibaba (BABA 89.81, -8.64, -8.8%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.81 per share, which was better than expected. Revenues rose 39.6% year/year to $4.22 bln but fell short of analysts' expectations. Said gross merchandise volume (GMV) transacted in China retail marketplaces in the quarter ended December 31, 2014 was RMB787 billion (US$127 billion), an increase of 49% compared to the same quarter of 2013, and compared to RMB556 billion in the quarter ended September 30, 2014, representing a net addition of RMB231 billion GMV in three months. Mobile GMV in the quarter ended December 31, 2014 was RMB327 billion (US$53 billion), an increase of 213% compared to the same quarter of 2013. Mobile GMV accounted for 42% of total GMV transacted in China retail marketplaces in this quarter, compared to 36% in the quarter ended September 30, 2014 and 20% in the same quarter of 2013.

Cirrus Logic (CRUS 26.14, -1.41, -5.1%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.97 per share, excluding non-recurring items, well ahead of expectations. Revenues rose 36.5% year/year to $298.6 mln, also well ahead of estimates. For Q4, sees revenues of $220-240 mln, which is well above what analysts were expecting.

Teradyne (TER 18.62, -0.12, -0.6%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 13.3% year/year to $323.24 mln, topping estimates. For Q1, sees EPS of $0.09-0.14, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $320-345 mln. Teradyne also announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program authorizing the Company to repurchase up to $500 million of its common stock through open market or private transactions. The $500 million authorization replaces the Company's existing repurchase program announced in 2010. Company expects to execute $300 mln of the share repurchase program this year.

Nokia (NOK 7.75, -0.14, -1.8%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of 0.09 per share, in-line with estimates. Revenues rose 9.4% year/year to 3.8 bln, which was ahead of expectations. Nokia said it continues to expect Nokia Networks' net sales to grow on a year-on-year basis for the full year 2015 and its non-IFRS operating margin for the full year 2015 to be in-line with Nokia Networks' long-term non-IFRS operating margin range of 8% to 11%. Continues to expect Nokia Group capital expenditures to be approximately EUR 200 million in 2015, primarily attributable to capital expenditures by Nokia Networks.Postcript:

Google (GOOG 510.66, +0.66, +0.1%): After Thursday's close, reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $6.88 per share, which was below analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 15.2% year/year to $18.1 bln, which was also below estimates. Google Site Revenues +18% compared to +20% in Q3. Company said free cash flow was $2.81 billion compared to $2.98 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013 and that it expects to continue to make significant capital expenditures. Shares of GOOG were down 1.7% in after hours action.

Amazon.com (AMZN 311.78, +7.87, +2.6%): After Thursday's close, Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.45 per share, well ahead of expectations. Revenues rose 14.6% year/year to $29.33 bln compared to its guidance of $27.3-30.3 bln. Q4 operating income was $591 mln vs ($570)-430 mln guidance. For Q1, sees revenues of $20.9-22.9 bln. Operating income (loss) is expected to be between $(450) million and $50 mln versus $146 million in 1Q14. Shares of AMZN were up 8.4% in after hours action.

Visa (V 248.00, +1.64, +0.7%): After Thursday's close, reported Q1 (Dec) earnings of $2.53 per share, which was ahead of expectations. Revenues rose 7.2% year/year to $3.38 bln, also ahead of estimates, driven by solid growth in service revenues, data processing revenues and international transaction revenues. The strengthening of the U.S. dollar impacted net operating revenues by approximately 2 percentage points of negative growth during the quarter. Announced a 4-for-1 stock split and reaffirmed its FY15 financial outlook. Shares of V were up 3.8% in after hours action

Analyst Action:

Lam Research (LRCX 79.87, +0.15, +0.2%): target raised to $82 from $72 at RBC Capital Mkts; Sector Perform... target raised to $88 from $85 at Cowen; Outperform -- Remains a Top Pick... target raised to $103 from $84 at Pacific Crest; Outperform

Qualcomm (QCOM 63.69, -7.30, -10.3%): downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital; target lowered to $70 from $85... FBR Capital reduces price target to $77 from $83... Cowen & Co. takes price target to $75 from $79; Maintains Outperform... downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS

Apple (AAPL 118.90, +3.59, +3.1%): target raised to $135 from $125 at Argus; remains at Buy

Facebook (FB 78.00, +1.76, +2.3%): Stifel Research raises target to $97 from $94...Oppenheimer leaves $100 price target unchanged; Reiterates Outperform... RBC Capital trims price target to $90 from $92; Reiterates Outperform... target raised to $90 from $84 at Raymond James; Outperform... target raised to $90 from $88 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy... target raised to $105 from $100 at Jefferies; Buy... target raised to $90 from $85 at Goldman Sachs; Buy

Microsoft (MSFT 42.01, +0.82, +2.0%): downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at Atlantic Equities

Changyou.com (CYOU 27.70, +0.95, +3.6%): upgraded to Overweight from Underweight at HSBC Securities; target raised to $35 from $20

VMware (VMW 76.19, +1.13, +1.5%): removed from US Global Focus List at Credit Suisse

Nokia (NOK 7.75, -0.14, -1.8%): target lowered to $8.50 from $9 at MKM Partners; remains at Neutral
EMC Corp. (EMC 26.40, -0.20, -0.8%): target lowered to $31 from $33 at FBR Capital; OutperformUpcoming earnings reports on Friday:

Before the open: MasterCard (MA 81.38, +0.64, +0.8%), Xerox (XRX 13.56, +0.32, +2.4%)

After the close: None

4:30 pm Rambus announces that Microsemi (MSCC) will serve as reseller for certain differential power analysis technologies developed by its Cryptography Research division (RMBS) : Co announced that Microsemi (MSCC) will serve as reseller for certain differential power analysis technologies developed by its Cryptography Research division.

This reseller agreement includes the DPA WorkStation and the recently-announced DPA Resistant AES cryptographic cores that offer chipmakers an easy-to-integrate solution to protect against side-channel attack vulnerabilities. MSCC will focus its reseller efforts on the government and military sectors.
The agreement also enables Microsemi to conduct training classes to help customers evaluate their vulnerability to DPA and related side-channel attacks, helping chip purchasers and downstream customers identify devices with the most effective security.

4:23 pm Emulex beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ELX) :

Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.24 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.23; revenues fell 9.7% year/year to $111.1 mln vs the $110.5 mln consensus.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.11-0.15 vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $97-103 mln vs. $100.50 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm : The stock market endured a volatile session on Thursday, but a steady rebound off morning lows helped the major averages register their first gain in three days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average paced the advance (+1.3%) while the S&P 500 (+1.0%) reclaimed its 100-day moving average (2,010).

Equities faced some selling pressure at the start amid continued weakness in crude oil. The energy component set a fresh January low in the $43.60/bbl area, but was able to charge back to unchanged by the pit close. That rebound improved the overall risk tolerance and helped the S&P 500 find support just a point above its January low (1988.12). Dip buyers entered the picture about 90 minutes after the start of the session, which helped all ten sectors rebound off their lows.

The materials space (+1.4%) finished in the lead thanks to better than expected earnings from Dow Chemical (DOW 45.02, +1.99). The stock spiked 4.6% and gave a boost to its peers. Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector-energy (+0.2%)-was the weakest performer.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector (+1.3%) outperformed throughout the session after several major components reported earnings. Homebuilders surged after PulteGroup (PHM 21.82, +1.24) and Ryland Group (RYL 39.62, +2.95) reported better than expected results with iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 25.86, +0.83) spiking 3.3%. Heavily-weighted Ford (F 14.85, +0.39) and McDonald's (MCD 93.27, +4.49) also rallied after the former beat estimates while the latter announced the retirement of its Chief Executive Officer. The broad strength within the sector overshadowed an 8.8% loss in the shares of Alibaba (BABA 89.81, -8.64) after the company missed revenue expectations.

Similarly, the industrial sector (+1.2%) outperformed while technology (+1.1%) overtook the broader market into the close. Top-weighted names like Apple (AAPL 118.90, +3.59), IBM (IBM 155.48, +3.93), and Microsoft (MSFT 42.01, +0.82) jumped between 2.0% and 3.1%, which helped overshadow a 10.3% decline in Qualcomm (QCOM 63.69, -7.30) brought on by disappointing guidance for the fiscal year.

When the dust settled, four of six cyclical sectors ended ahead of the S&P 500 while the utilities sector (+1.3%) represented the only outperformer on the countercyclical side.

Treasuries spent the day in a steady retreat with the 10-yr yield climbing four basis points to 1.76%.

Today's participation was a bit above average as 843 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to jobless claims and pending home sales:

The initial claims level dropped to 265,000 for the week ending January 24 from an upwardly revised 308,000 (from 307,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 301,000
Not only did the drop break three consecutive weeks above 300,000, but the initial claims level fell to its lowest level since April 2000 o As it has for the past several months, the Department of Labor reported that there were no special factors impacting the report
The continuing claims level declined to 2.385 million from an upwardly revised 2.456 million (from 2.443 million) while the consensus expected a drop to 2.429 million
Pending home sales for December fell 3.7% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%

Tomorrow, the advance reading of Q4 GDP (Briefing.com consensus 3.2%) will be released at 8:30 ET alongside the Q4 Employment Cost Index (consensus 0.5%). The Chicago PMI report for January (consensus 58.0) will cross the wires at 9:45 ET while the final reading of the January Michigan Sentiment Index will be reported at 9:55 ET (consensus 98.2).

Nasdaq Composite -1.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.1% YTD
S&P 500 -1.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.3% YTD

4:17 pm Broadcom beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (BRCM) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.90 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.87; revenues rose 3.8% year/year to $2.14 bln vs the $2.11 bln consensus. Co reports gross margin of 54.7% compared to 52.3% in prior year. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $1.925-2.075 bln vs. $2.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees Non-GAAP Gross Margin in the range of 53.9-55.4%.

4:13 pm Google misses by $0.25, misses on revs (GOOG) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $6.88 per share, $0.25 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $7.13; revenues rose 15.2% year/year to $18.1 bln vs the $18.44 bln consensus.

GOOG Site Revenues +18% compared to +20% in Q3.

Revenues and Monetization


Sites Revenues - Our sites generated revenues of $12.43 billion, or 69% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2014. This represents an 18% increase over fourth quarter 2013 sites revenues of $10.54 billion. Network Revenues - Our partner sites generated revenues of $3.72 billion, or 20% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2014. This represents a 6% increase over fourth quarter 2013 network revenues of $3.52 billion. Other Revenues - Other revenues were $1.95 billion, or 11% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2014. This represents a 19% increase over fourth quarter 2013 other revenues of $1.65 billion. International Revenues - Our revenues from outside of the United States totaled $10.23 billion, representing 56% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2014, compared to 58% in the third quarter of 2014 and 56% in the fourth quarter of 2013.
Paid Clicks and Cost per Clicks
Paid Clicks increased approximately 14% y/y and 11% q/q. Cost-Per-Click decreased approximately 3% y/y and q/q. Cost-per-click for Google sites decreased approximately 8% y/y and q/q. Expenses
Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $6.78 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014, or 37% of revenues, compared to $5.03 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013, or 32% of revenues. Free cash flow was $2.81 billion compared to $2.98 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013. We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures

4:11 pm Riverbed Technology beats by $0.02, misses on revs (RVBD) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.32; revenues were unchanged from the year-ago period at $283.4 mln.

"Taking into account the revenue impact from the sale of SteelStore, our fourth quarter revenue performance was consistent with our original expectations, while we exceeded the top end of our EPS range due in part to a more favorable tax rate."

4:07 pm PMC-Sierra reports EPS in-line, beats on revs (PMCS) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.11 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $136.9 mln vs the $135.31 mln consensus.

4:04 pm Coherent beats by $0.10, beats on revs (COHR) : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.87 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.77; revenues rose 3.6% year/year to $200.6 mln vs the $196.0 mln consensus.

"We posted solid numbers in our first fiscal quarter with expected benefits arising from higher volume. A better mix and lower warranty costs were positive contributors to gross profit percentage. Orders reflected the timing of certain OEM bookings and are not indicative of either a market slowdown or changes in market share."

4:55 pm SunEdison and TerraForm Power (TERP) announce that they have completed the acquisition of First Wind Holdings (SUNE) : 4:30 pm Rambus announces that Microsemi (MSCC) will serve as reseller for certain differential power analysis technologies developed by its Cryptography Research division (RMBS) : Co announced that Microsemi (MSCC) will serve as reseller for certain differential power analysis technologies developed by its Cryptography Research division.
This reseller agreement includes the DPA WorkStation and the recently-announced DPA Resistant AES cryptographic cores that offer chipmakers an easy-to-integrate solution to protect against side-channel attack vulnerabilities. MSCC will focus its reseller efforts on the government and military sectors.
The agreement also enables Microsemi to conduct training classes to help customers evaluate their vulnerability to DPA and related side-channel attacks, helping chip purchasers and downstream customers identify devices with the most effective security.

4:23 pm Emulex beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ELX) : Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.24 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.23; revenues fell 9.7% year/year to $111.1 mln vs the $110.5 mln consensus.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.11-0.15 vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $97-103 mln vs. $100.50 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:18 pm QLogic beats by $0.07, beats on revs (QLGC) : Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.36 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.29; revenues rose 17.4% year/year to $140.2 mln vs the $137.68 mln consensus.

"Our strong revenue performance, combined with our intense focus on operating expense management resulted in a significant expansion of our operating profit during the third quarter. Based on our compelling product portfolio, our focus on consistent execution and the current momentum with the enterprise upgrade cycle, we believe we are well positioned to continue delivering solid revenue and earnings per share performance."

4:17 pm Broadcom beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (BRCM) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.90 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.87; revenues rose 3.8% year/year to $2.14 bln vs the $2.11 bln consensus. Co reports gross margin of 54.7% compared to 52.3% in prior year. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $1.925-2.075 bln vs. $2.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees Non-GAAP Gross Margin in the range of 53.9-55.4%.

4:13 pm Harmonic beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (HLIT) :
Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.06 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.03; revenues fell 10.2% year/year to $107.9 mln vs the $101.66 mln consensus.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $100-110 mln vs. $102.40 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:13 pm Google misses by $0.25, misses on revs (GOOG) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $6.88 per share, $0.25 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $7.13; revenues rose 15.2% year/year to $18.1 bln vs the $18.44 bln consensus.

GOOG Site Revenues +18% compared to +20% in Q3.

Revenues and Monetization

Sites Revenues - Our sites generated revenues of $12.43 billion, or 69% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2014. This represents an 18% increase over fourth quarter 2013 sites revenues of $10.54 billion. Network Revenues - Our partner sites generated revenues of $3.72 billion, or 20% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2014. This represents a 6% increase over fourth quarter 2013 network revenues of $3.52 billion. Other Revenues - Other revenues were $1.95 billion, or 11% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2014. This represents a 19% increase over fourth quarter 2013 other revenues of $1.65 billion. International Revenues - Our revenues from outside of the United States totaled $10.23 billion, representing 56% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2014, compared to 58% in the third quarter of 2014 and 56% in the fourth quarter of 2013. Paid Clicks and Cost per Clicks
Paid Clicks increased approximately 14% y/y and 11% q/q. Cost-Per-Click decreased approximately 3% y/y and q/q. Cost-per-click for Google sites decreased approximately 8% y/y and q/q. Expenses
Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $6.78 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014, or 37% of revenues, compared to $5.03 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013, or 32% of revenues. Free cash flow was $2.81 billion compared to $2.98 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013. We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures.
4:11 pm Riverbed Technology beats by $0.02, misses on revs (RVBD) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.32; revenues were unchanged from the year-ago period at $283.4 mln.
"Taking into account the revenue impact from the sale of SteelStore, our fourth quarter revenue performance was consistent with our original expectations, while we exceeded the top end of our EPS range due in part to a more favorable tax rate."

4:10 pm Amazon.com reports Q4 operating income above guidance/estimates with rev just below estimates; guides Q1 below consensus (AMZN) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.45 per share, $0.29 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.16; revenues rose 14.6% year/year to $29.33 bln vs the $29.63 bln consensus and $27.3-30.3 bln guidance

Q4 operating income $591 mln vs ~$180 mln est and ($570)-430 mln guidance.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $20.9-22.9 bln vs. $22.96 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Operating income (loss) is expected to be between $(450) million and $50 mln vs ~$145 mln consensus and $146 million in 1Q14.4:09 pm JDS Uniphase misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (JDSU) : Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.15 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.16; revenues fell 2.3% year/year to $437.1 mln vs the $444.38 mln consensus.

Guidance: Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.09, +/- $0.02, vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $418 mln, +/- $10 mln, vs. $431.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm PMC-Sierra reports EPS in-line, beats on revs (PMCS) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.11 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $136.9 mln vs the $135.31 mln consensus.4:04 pm Coherent beats by $0.10, beats on revs (COHR) : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.87 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.77; revenues rose 3.6% year/year to $200.6 mln vs the $196.0 mln consensus.
"We posted solid numbers in our first fiscal quarter with expected benefits arising from higher volume. A better mix and lower warranty costs were positive contributors to gross profit percentage. Orders reflected the timing of certain OEM bookings and are not indicative of either a market slowdown or changes in market share."

11:55 am Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

NOW (73.33 +6.41%): Reported Q4 earnings that beat EPS consensus estimates by $0.01, beat on revs; guided Q1 & FY15 revs above consensus; Price target raised at BMO Capital Mkts, Canaccord Genuity, RBC, others.
COH (38.81 +6.45%): Reported Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.72 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.66; revenues fell 14.1% year/year to $1.22 bln vs the $1.23 bln consensus. Q2 N Am comps of -22% vs -13.6% year ago and -24% last qtr (prior guidance was for FY15 mid to high 20s comp decline).
CL (68.64 +5.41%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.02, reported revs in-line.

Large Cap Losers

QCOM (62.8 -11.54%): Beat Q1 by $0.09, beat on revs; guided Q2 in-line; lowered FY15 guidance; announced Snapdragon 810 processor will not be in Samsung's Galaxy S6; Downgraded at Northland, UBS, others.
HSY (99.99 -7.14%): Missed Q4 consensus estimates by $0.02, missed on revs; guided FY15 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.
VRTX (112.7 -7.06%): Reported Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.46); revenues fell 58.8% year/year to $144.56 mln vs the $135.59 mln consensus; sees KALYDECO net revenues of $560 to $580 million for 2015; Downgraded at Needham, Maxim, others.

Mid Cap Gainers

HAR (119.21 +18.02%): Beat Q2 consensus estimates by $0.51, beat on revs; guided FY15 EPS above consensus, reaffirmed FY15 revs guidance; Announced strategic collaboration with Baidu (BIDU).
CMPR (81.45 +12.53%): Beat Q2 consensus estimates by $0.50, beat on revs; guided FY15 EPS above consensus, revs below consensus.
KATE (32.51 +9.35%): Announced plan to focus investment on Kate Spade New York; guided FY14 and FY15; Announced JV with Walton Brown to scale and accelerate growth in China.

Mid Cap Losers

TGI (55.29 -10.36%): Reported Q3 (Dec) earnings of $1.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.52; revenues rose 0.2% year/year to $917.4 mln vs the $980.64 mln consensus; guided Q4 EPS in-line; guided FY15 revs in-line.
CLB (91 -8.86%): Reported EPS in-line, revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.
RES (10.89 -8.56%): Downgraded to Neutral from Accumulate at Global Hunter Securities.

11:51 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (253) outpacing new highs (147) (:SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AFB, ANGO, APTS, AYN, BA, BAF, BBF, BBK, BBN, BFK, BFS, BFZ, BNJ, BNY, BPS, BR, BRP, BSE, BTA, BTT, BUD, BYM, CCA, CCMP, CEMP, CGI, CMPR, CRMD, CSWC, CTCT, CXE, CXH, CXW, DBL, DEG, DMF, DOOR, EA, EIM, ENX, EVO, FFC, FLC, GBAB, GEO, GFF, GSH, HAR, HLS, HOLX, HSKA, HZO, IMAX, IQI, ITG, JBLU, JHP, KLIC, KRC, LUX, MD, MFL, MFM, MHD, MIY, MJI, MLNX, MMD, MNE, MNP, MQT, MTT, MUA, MUC, MUE, MUH, MUI, MUJ, MUS, MVF, MYC, MYD, MYJ, MYN, NAC, NAVG, NID, NIO, NIQ, NKG, NMA, NMO, NMT, NMY, NMZ, NOC, NOW, NPI, NPM, NPP, NPV, NQI, NQM, NQP, NQS, NQU, NRK, NTC, NUV, NVG, NVX, NXJ, NXN, NXZ, NZF, OCUL, OPK, ORAN, OVLY, PENN, PFO, PMF, PML, PMM, PMO, PMX, PNI, PSO, PZZA, QADB, RDUS, RESN, RIF, ROL, TA, TSCO, TSRA, TSS, VAR, VCV, VGM, VKI, VKQ, VMO, WX, XNCR, ZLTQ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ACFN, ACI, AES, AGI, AIRM, AIXG, ALB, ALLY, ANGI, ANR, AOI, APPY, AR, ATV, AVL, AXE, BALT, BDE, BIOC, BMO, BNS, BORN, BOX, BPFH, BRDR, BRS, BSPM, BXE, CAM, CAT, CBNJ, CCJ, CEL, CERE, CFX, CHOP, CIG.C, CJES, CLB, CLD, CLNE, CM, CMO, CNTF, CNX, COP, CPS, CPSS, CRK, CRR, CRRS, CRS, CTCM, CTP, CVEO, CX, CXDC, CYCC, DANG, DMD, DNN, DPM, DSKY, DWA, ECPG, EFII, EGLE, EMN, EMR, ENRJ, ESEA, ETJ, EXH, EXP, FBRC, FCX, FET, FFHL, FITB, FIVN, FLR, FLS, FMER, FMSA, FOE, FTGC, FTI, FUEL, GBCI, GEF, GES, GEVO, GHL, GNW, GPRK, GRAM, GSOL, GTE, HEES, HELI, HGT, HNR, HP, HSC, HY, IBKC, IBM, ICA, IGLD, IKGH, IO, ITT, JEC, JMI, KEX, KMT, KOP, KRO, L, LDR, LEE, MBVT, MCC, MDLY, MDM, MFC, MGIC, MIND, MN, MOMO, MRC, MUR, MVC, NOA, NOV, NQ, NRG, NRIM, NUE, NVFY, OCLS, OGXI, OI, OII, OIS, ONCY, ONDK, OPTT, OPWR, OPXA, OPY, PACD, PB, PCBK, PDS, PERI, PFMT, PGN, PICO, PIM, PKX, PQ, PRGN, PSCE, PTC, PWE, QCOM, RAVN, RCMT, RES, RIBT, RIVR, RLOC, RMT, RNET, ROSE, ROYL, RRC, RS, RXN, RY, RYAM, RYI, SALT, SARA, SB, SBLK, SFUN, SGM, SLF, SMM, SNC, SNTA, SOL, SPE, SQNS, SR, SSE, STB, STRL, SXC, SZYM, TAT, TCB, TD, TDW, TEX, TGA, TGI, THR, THRX, TICC, TK, TLF, TMST, TOO, TPRE, TRC, TRMB, TRMK, TTI, TWI, TWIN, TZOO, UBNK, UBNT, UBSH, ULTR, UMBF, UMPQ, UNT, VBTX, VECO, VLY, VMW, VOC, VPCO, WABC, WAIR, WILN, WMGI, WRES, WSCI, WTI, XGTI, XOM, YGE, YNDX, ZHNE, ZINC, ZION, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DBA, DBC, DJP, EWC, FXA, FXC, GSG, JJC, KOL, NIB, OIL, RJA, SLX, UNG, URA, USCI, USO, XES, XME

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 30-Jan-15 Dow -251.90 at 17164.95, Nasdaq -48.17 at 4635.24, S&P -26.26 at 1994.99

The stock market ended a down month on a sharply lower note. The Dow (-1.5%) and S&P 500 (-1.3%) widened their respective January losses to 3.7% and 3.1% while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.0%) lost 2.1%. Furthermore, this marked the first time since early 2012 that the market registered losses in two consecutive months.

The key indices struggled at the start after a disappointing GDP report for the fourth quarter introduced a new wrinkle into a deteriorating outlook for global growth. Overnight, Japan and the eurozone saw a slowdown in their respective inflation data while a handful of U.S. companies joined a growing chorus of names that have reduced their guidance for the first quarter. On that note, consensus Q1 earnings growth has contracted to just 0.2% from 8.6% on December 1, according to S&P Capital IQ.

Equities followed their lower open with another slip, but the S&P 500 turned around just north of the 2,000 level and spent the afternoon working back to its flat line. The rebound coincided with a Der Spiegel report indicating Germany is ready to back EUR20 billion in aid for Greece, but the package would be contingent on Greece accepting reform conditions imposed by the troika. This contrasted with earlier comments from Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis who said Greece will no longer negotiate with the troika. Furthermore, Germany's government was quick to deny the report from Der Spiegel.

The afternoon rebound also featured a surge in crude oil, which spiked to end the day higher by 8.0% at $48.17/bbl. However, crude notched its high just ahead of the 14:30 ET pit close and inched away from that level in electronic trade while the S&P 500 slumped back below its 100-day moving average (2,010) to a new low.

Nine of ten sectors registered losses while energy (+0.7%) benefitted from the spike in crude. However, today's surge was a small victory considering the sector lost 4.9% in January. Dow component Chevron (CVX 102.53, -0.47) shed 0.5% after its plans to cut capital expenditures by 13.0% overshadowed better than expected results.

Speaking of the Dow, the index stayed near the S&P 500, but a 2.8% spike in the shares of Visa (V 254.91, +6.91) masked the fact that 15 of 30 Dow members lost more than 2.0% while four of the 15 tumbled 3.0% or more. As for Visa, the payment processor spiked after beating estimates and announcing a 4:1 split, which will become effective March 19 and remove some of Visa's influence over the price-weighted index.

In other earnings of note, Amazon.com (AMZN 354.53, +42.75) soared 13.7% after beating operating income estimates and issuing cautious guidance for the first quarter. The stock helped the consumer discretionary sector (-1.1%) finish a few steps ahead of the broader market.

Although the market endured a whipsaw session, that was not the case with Shake Shack (SHAK 45.90, +24.90), which made its public debut today. Shares of the hamburger chain rocketed higher by 118.6% after pricing the IPO at $21.

Treasuries spiked, ending near their highs with the 10-yr yield down eight basis points at 1.67%.

Today's participation was well ahead of average with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Q4 GDP, Employment Cost Index, Chicago PMI, and Michigan Sentiment:

According to the advance estimate, GDP increased 2.6% in Q4 2014 (Briefing.com consensus 3.2%), down from a 5.0% increase in the third quarter
Real final sales increased 1.8% in the fourth quarter after increasing 5.0% in the third quarter
Much of the GDP gain was the result of lower prices adding a boost to the "real" economy. Nominal GDP growth was anemic (2.5%), which was down by more than 50% from both second (6.8%) and third quarter (6.4%) growth levels
Consumption spending was a bright spot, increasing 4.3%, which was the largest jump since 2006
The Employment Cost index Increased 0.6% in Q4, down from a 0.7% increase in Q3 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%
Wages and salaries decelerated, up 0.5% after increasing 0.8% in Q3 2014
Benefits spending growth increased 0.6% for a second consecutive quarter
The Chicago PMI for January increased to 59.4 from 58.8 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a drop to 58.0
Production levels accelerated as the related index increased to 64.1 in January from 62.7 in December
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was virtually unchanged in January, ticking down to 98.1 from 98.2 (Briefing.com consensus 98.2)
Lower gasoline prices and improvements in the labor market were key for overall sentiment growth in January

On Monday, December Personal Income, Personal Spending, and Core PCE Prices will be reported at 8:30 ET while the ISM Index for January and December Construction Spending will be released at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Stocks Slide to End January

The stock market began the week on a quiet note with the Dow (unch), Nasdaq (+0.3%), and S&P 500 (+0.3%) settling near their flat lines. The small-cap Russell 2000 (+1.0%) outperformed, but the action took place against the backdrop of anemic trading volume as the East Coast braced for Winter Storm Juno. The intraday lack of trading activity masked the fact that the weekend featured an important election in Greece. As expected, the anti-bailout Syriza party came away victorious, and despite failing to secure absolute majority, the party was able to form a coalition with Independent Greeks-a party that also opposes EU bailouts. So far, Syriza officials have been very careful when discussing the future of Greece with Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis saying a euro exit is not in the plans and that talks of a 'Grexit' should not be sensationalized.

The major averages stumbled on Tuesday with the S&P 500 (-1.3%) returning below its 50-day moving average (2,047). The benchmark index settled ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.7%), but behind the Russell 2000 (-0.5%). Stocks careened lower at the start of the session after several large companies cautioned that dollar strength will present a headwind to their future earnings. Most notably, Caterpillar (CAT), DuPont (DD), Microsoft (MSFT), and Procter & Gamble (PG) lost between 1.3% and 9.3% while Pfizer (PFE), and United Technologies (UTX) held up relatively well despite their warnings. However, cautious guidance from six Dow components was not the only issue as investors had to digest a disappointing Durable Orders report while Consumer Confidence and New Home Sales beat expectations.

Equities finished the midweek session on a lower note despite showing considerable strength in the early going. The S&P 500 (-1.4%) lost its 100-day moving average (2,010) and settled behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) while the Russell 2000 (-1.7%) lagged throughout the day. The key indices appeared to be on solid footing at the start with the Nasdaq up 1.0% after Apple (AAPL) reported better than expected results for the quarter and issued strong guidance. The stock surged 5.7% and helped the technology sector (-0.1%) finish near its flat line while most of the remaining sectors struggled. The benchmark index traded little changed ahead of the afternoon release of the latest policy statement from the Fed, but slumped into the close. Once again, the policy directive reiterated the Fed's intent to remain patient in determining the appropriate timing for the first rate hike, which helped send Treasuries to new highs. The 10-yr yield fell ten basis points to 1.73% while the 30-yr yield dropped 11 basis points to register its lowest close on record (2.28%). The Fed described U.S. economic growth as 'solid' while categorizing job growth as 'strong.' The central bank did not spend much time discussing overseas developments, which could help explain some of the selling that developed after the statement was released. Furthermore, the FOMC showed little concern over low inflation, saying that while the price level is expected to decline in the near term, a gradual return to 2.0% should follow once the 'transitory effects of lower energy prices and other factors dissipate.'

The market endured a volatile session on Thursday, but a steady rebound off morning lows helped the major averages register their first gain in three days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average paced the advance (+1.3%) while the S&P 500 (+1.0%) reclaimed its 100-day moving average (2,010). Equities faced some selling pressure at the start amid continued weakness in crude oil. The energy component set a fresh January low in the $43.60/bbl area, but was able to charge back to unchanged by the pit close. That rebound improved the overall risk tolerance and helped the S&P 500 find support just a point above its January low (1988.12). Dip buyers entered the picture about 90 minutes after the start of the session, which helped all ten sectors rebound off their lows. The materials space (+1.4%) finished in the lead thanks to better than expected earnings from Dow Chemical (DOW). The stock spiked 4.6% and gave a boost to its peers. Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector-energy (+0.2%)-was the weakest performer.

 
 Index	   Started Week	 Ended Week   Change  % Change	 YTD % 
 DJIA	     17672.60	 17164.95    -507.65	-2.9	-3.7 
 Nasdaq	      4757.88	  4635.24    -122.64	-2.6	-2.1 
 S&P 500	2051.82	  1994.99     -56.83	-2.8	-3.1 
 Russell 2000  1188.93	  1165.39     -23.54	-2.0	-3.3

The markets ended the session all in the red, with the S&P 500 down 26 points to 1995, the Dow down 244 points to 17173, and the Nasdaq down 48 points to 4635. Two of the three major indices briefly saw green in the session, with the Dow being the outlier.

The technology ETF XLK was in the green briefly as well for moments in the trading session. However, the XLK ended the session down 1.24%, mirroring the losses in the broader market.

There were a number of technology names reporting earnings today in a crowded week for quarterly reports, and last night, names like Google (GOOG, GOOGL), and Broadcom (BRCM) reported results. In terms of which names beat and which names lagged:

Notable companies which beat estimates:


Broadcom (BRCM): Broadcom reported Q4 (Dec) EPS of $0.90, ahead of estimates, on revenues which rose 3.8% year-over-year to $2.14 billion. BRCM reported gross margins of 54.7% compared to 52.3% in the prior year's period. BRCM also issued in-line guidance for Q1; it sees Q1 revenues in the range of $1.925-2.075 billion. In addition, for Q1, the company sees non-GAAP gross margins in the range of 53.9-55.4%.

Notable companies which lagged estimates:

Unisys (UIS): Unisys reported a miss on expectations on the top and bottom lines. UIS reported Q4 EPS of $1.60, which was shy of expectations. The company also reported revenues which fell 9.0% year-over-year to $905.8 million. Management noted free cash flow generated in the quarter was $37 million, down from $93 million in the prior year's quarter.

Among notable analyst actions:

Yahoo! (YHOO) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Evercore ISI

Silicom Limited (SILC) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham. The firm noted that the company is now positioned into easier comps and should get back on a solid growth curve.

Google (GOOG, GOOGL) had its target lowered to $630 from $660 at UBS, but the firm remained at Buy on shares. The firm still wants to see better ad pricing trends and a stable improvement in margins.

Synaptics (SYNA) had its target raised to $87 from $80 at Dougherty & Company, and the firm remained at Buy on the shares. The firm noted the FY15 guidance will go a long way toward de-risking the story as it relates to the potential Samsung (SSNLF) Galaxy S6 content losses.

In the week ahead, notable company's reporting results include but are not limited to Sprint (S), Yelp (YELP), Computer Sciences (CSC), Activision Blizzard (ATVI), Cognizant Tech (CTSH), and Symantec (SYMC).

5:18 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:ABMD (51.74 +31.05%),RDUS (48.19 +24.68%),ZIOP (8.95 +23.62%),ICPT (201.03 +21.28%),IMGN (7.63 +20.54%),CSII (34.09 +16.91%)

Materials:X (24.44 +18.76%)

Consumer Discretionary:HAR (129.63 +27.64%),HZO (25.51 +25.67%),LRN (14.22 +23.22%)

Information Technology:COMM (28.11 +29.82%),IIVI (17.19 +24.03%),FSL (32.09 +23.47%),SIMG (7.26 +23.47%),GIMO (18.41 +18.01%),SYNA (76.81 +15.3%)

Energy:CRC (5.12 +26.11%),BBEP (6.56 +21.48%),ALDW (15.66 +17.66%),ARP (9.82 +15.53%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Materials:ADES (10.61 -46.06%),SID (1.5 -21.47%),EGO (4.78 -15.7%)

Industrials:HA (19.44 -27.03%)

Consumer Discretionary:CNV (5.5 -27.73%)

Information Technology:DSKY (10.78 -28.66%),UIS (21.93 -19.2%),SGI (9.43 -18%),DHX (8.27 -16.97%),RDWR (19.24 -16.31%)

Financials:NBG (1.1 -34.52%),GDOT (15.25 -23.64%),EZPW (10.31 -15.7%)

Energy:FRO (2.31 -24.76%),PBR.A (6.15 -19.19%),BXE (2.03 -18.8%),PBR (6.01 -17.1%)

Consumer Staples:PPC (27.15 -23.41%)

Telecommunication Services:PT (0.72 -31.14%),OIBR (1.97 -29.64%)

5:00 pm Celestica announces that it completed a program share repurchase under its Normal Course Issuer Bid (CLS) : Pursuant to an agreement between the Company and Citibank, N.A., Canada Branch (the Bank) and the terms and conditions of an exemptive relief order of the Ontario Securities Commission, the Company has cancelled 4,391,782 subordinate voting shares purchased from the Bank at a price of approximately US$11.38 per share, being the arithmetic average of the volume-weighted average price per share of the Company's subordinate voting shares on the New York Stock Exchange for each trading day during the term of the PSR, less a negotiated discount.

3:31 pm Earnings Preview for the week of February 2 - 6 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of February 2 - 6 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - XOM, SSY, TEN, AVY, PBI, LII, FLWS
After Hours - HIG, APC, RGA, OI, MDU, CLF, XL, AFG, TMK, RCII, BKH, AGNC, APAM

Tuesday: Pre Market - BP, UPS, AET, LYB, HCA, NOV, ETN, EMR, AN, CNC, AGCO, PNR, GCI, AXE, R, SPR, JLL, ARG, SC, MNK, CHD, ACI, BHE, ST, IMS, HRC, NYT,
After Hours - DIS, GILD, AFL, CHRW, UNM, WRB, FISV, ATO, AJG, WYNN, CMG, SLGN, IACI, TTWO, EQR, AXS, EW, ATW

Wednesday: Pre Market - SNE, GM, MPC, HUM, MRK, WHR, SO, ADP, CTSH, RL, LVLT, BSX, MSI, SE, ABG, CLX, TMHC, NJR, HAIN, ARCB, LG, STE, SMG
After Hours - BSAC, PRU, PAA, PAGP, SU, ALL, FOXA, MUSA, YUM, WFT, LNC, CBG, UGI, ORLY, NXPI, GMCR, BGC, CNW, RE, PRE, GAS, BKD, CINF, FMC, SPB, APU, FBHS, UA, NE, DATA, OSUR

Thursday: Pre Market - ABB, CI, PM, AZN, ARW, BCE, TEVA, CMI, DLPH, PPL, EL, ETR, GPI, CHTR, BDX, BLL, FIS, ADS, KORS, COTY, CFX, PRGO, SIRI, XYL, GPK, SBH, USG, BCO, TW, PTEN, ICE, TDC, VMC, NUS, DNKN, GRUB
After Hours - MCK, ATVI, SYMC, EXPE, YRCW, ONNN, CME, LGF, TPX, TBI, MTD, SRCL, LNKD, OUTR, GPRO, DV, TWTR, BWLD, P, YELP

Friday: Pre Market - ALU, AON, MMC, BPL, UFS, HRS, AXL, MCO, AAN, BECN, CAE, MSG, FLIR, SIRO, STRA
After Hours - D, CCJ

12:49 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

AMZN (353.68 +13.44%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.45 per share, $0.29 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.16; revenues rose 14.6% year/year to $29.33 bln vs the $29.63 bln consensus and $27.3-30.3 bln guidance; guided Q1 below consensus; price target raised at Oppenheimer, Deutsche Bank, Piper Jaffray, others.
BIIB (393.74 +11.46%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.32, reported revs in-line; guided FY15 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; Price target raised at RBC Capital Mkts, Stifel, others.
V (259.53 +4.65%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.04, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY1515 outlook; announced 4:1 stock split.

Large Cap Losers

PCAR (61.14 -4.54%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.11 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.10; revenues rose 12.0% year/year to $4.82 bln vs the $4.85 bln consensus.
CX (9.02 -3.84%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow.
GMCR (123.98 -3.13%): Initiated with a Underperform at Credit Agricole; tgt $130.

Mid Cap Gainers

ICPT (207.69 +21.68%): Announced that It had received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from FDA for Obeticholic Acid for Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis with liver fibrosis.
MAN (72.99 +12.47%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.04, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS below consensus including unfavorable currency impacts.
MTX (64.76 +9.76%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.22 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.07; revenues rose 101.1% year/year to $516 mln vs the $526.93 mln consensus; announced it has entered into agreement with Glencore (GLNCY) in South Africa.

Mid Cap Losers

EGO (4.49 -19.39%): Weakness being attributed to reports that Greece's new government opposes Canadian gold mine.
DECK (66.79 -18.82%): Missed Q3 consensus estimates by $0.02, missed on revs; lowered Q4 EPS guidance; downgraded at Telsey.
CBI (32.87 -14.56%): Weakness attributed to Georgia Power updated forecast for completion of Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4; would incrementally delay the previously disclosed estimated in-service dates by 18 months.

11:45 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (194) outpacing new lows (175) (:SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ABAX, ABCD, AFB, AINC, AKP, ALKS, ANAC, AYN, BAF, BBF, BBK, BBN, BDL, BFK, BFY, BFZ, BIIB, BLE, BLJ, BNJ, BNY, BRX, BSE, BSX, BTA, BTT, BX, BYM, CDXS, CEA, CEMP, CMS, CPHD, CPRX, CXE, CXH, DGX, DLX, DMB, DMF, EBSB, EIA, EIM, EIO, EMI, ENFC, ENL, ENX, EOT, EVM, EVN, GBAB, GFF, HAR, HBI, HLIT, HPF, HPS, HQH, HSKA, HZO, ICB, IIM, IIVI, IMMU, IQI, IR, JBLU, KSM, KSM, LEO, LFUS, LJPC, MANT, MCA, MD, MEN, MFL, MFM, MFT, MHD, MIY, MJI, MMD, MNE, MNP, MQT, MQY, MTT, MUA, MUC, MUE, MUH, MUI, MUJ, MUS, MVF, MVT, MYC, MYD, MYI, MYJ, MYM, MYN, MZF, NAC, NAD, NBB, NBD, NBIX, NCA, NEA, NEU, NHC, NID, NIM, NIO, NIQ, NKX, NMA, NMO, NMY, NMZ, NNC, NNP, NOC, NOM, NPI, NPM, NPP, NPT, NPV, NQI, NQM, NQP, NQS, NQU, NRK, NTC, NUV, NUW, NVCN, NVG, NVX, NWL, NXJ, NXN, NXQ, NXR, NXZ, NZF, NZH, OCUL, OPK, PCQ, PCYC, PFD, PFO, PFPT, PMF, PML, PMM, PMO, PMX, PNF, PNI, PSCH, PYN, PZC, QLGC, RDUS, RIF, RLGT, RUK, SBI, STOR, SWKS, TAST, TSRA, UA, UHT, UTL, VCLT, VCV, VFL, VGLT, VGM, VKI, VKQ, VMO, WD, WEN, WX

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAMC, ABB, ACI, ADES, AEGN, AES, AKO.A, ALB, ALLY, AMCC, AMFW, ANF, ANGI, ANR, ANY, APPY, AR, ARR, ATV, AWAY, AXE, BDE, BIS, BNS, BOX, BRS, BSPM, BXE, CALL, CBB, CBD, CBI, CCJ, CEL, CIG.C, CLD, CLNE, CLNT, CM, CNV, CNX, CPSI, CRK, CRNT, CRRS, CVX, CX, DANG, DECK, DRWI, ECPG, EGLE, EGO, ELRC, EMN, ETJ, FBNC, FMSA, FORTY, FREE, FTGC, FXEN, GBCI, GDOT, GDP, GEF, GEF.B, GES, GHM, GLBS, GLNG, GPRK, GSOL, HEB, HEES, HSC, ICA, IGC, IMO, IVAN, IX, JEC, JMI, KOF, KOP, KRO, LBRDA, LF, LFL, LXFR, MBI, MBVT, MCC, MDLY, MET, MFC, MFG, MGIC, MNI, MPET, MRC, MRIN, MVC, NAV, NFG, NRIM, NVFY, OCLS, OHGI, ONDK, OPWR, OPXA, OPY, PACD, PB, PBA, PDBC, PIM, PKX, PPT, PQ, PRGN, PRU, PRXI, PT, QLTY, RCI, RCMT, RDS.A, REE, RGSE, RIVR, ROSE, ROYL, RRC, RS, RY, RYAM, SBS, SFUN, SID, SIM, SLF, SMFG, SPE, SQNS, STB, STRL, SXC, TAPR, TCBI, TD, TGB, TGE, TICC, TMST, TOO, TRC, TRMB, TZOO, UBSH, ULTR, VALE, VRTS, WABC, WILN, WK, WRES, WRN, WTW, XIN, YNDX, ZION, ZSAN, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: AGG, BND, FLAT, HYD, IEF, IEI, LQD, MUB, TLH, TLT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DBA, EPU, EWC, FXC, RJA, SLX, TBT, UNG, USCI, VNM

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From Briefing.com: US equities markets headed higher on Thursday, rebounding from a sell-off yesterday amid concerns over the ECB's removal of a waiver that allowed for Greek Government bonds to be used as collateral. Investors feared this would send Greece into a credit crunch, but the fear subsided today as negotiations between Greece and European authorities continued.

Major indices finished conclusively higher, with the S&P 500 gaining 1%. The S&P Information Technology Index also performed well, boasting a 0.9% gain on the day.

Top performing constituents in the S&P Tech Index include: Frontier Communications (FTR 7.70, +0.42, +5.8%), Microchip Technologies (MCHP 48.91, +2.58, +5.6%), and Electronic Arts (EA 56.39, +1.84, +3.4%).

Some notable news items from the S&P 500 information technology sector included:

Teradata (TDC 42.19, -4.79, -10.2%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.91 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than estimates of $0.90. Revenues rose 0.3% year/year to $761 million vs the $778.2 million consensus. Additionally, TDC issued downside guidance for FY15, noting it sees EPS of $2.50-2.70, versus the $2.99 analyst estimate. FY15 revenues are expected to be flat to down 2% which equates to roughly $2.68-$2.73 billion, lower than the $2.83 billion consensus.

Fidelity National Information Services (FIS 64.00, -0.49, -0.8%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.87 per share, right in-line with the $0.87 consensus. Non-GAAP revenues rose 7.4% year/year to $1.69 billion vs the $1.70 billion consensus. FIS issued guidance for FY15 in-line, noting it sees EPS of $3.37-3.49 versus the $3.47 analyst estimate; sees FY15 non-GAAP revs of $6.74-6.87 billion vs. $6.86 billion consensus.

NXP Semi (NXPI 78.27, -1.48, -1.9%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.35 per share, $0.03 better than analyst estimates. Revenues rose 18.9% year/year to $1.54 billion, also above consensus. NXPI issued mixed guidance for Q1, noting it sees EPS of $1.25-1.35, vs. the $1.22 average estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.41-1.47 billion, in-line with analyst estimations.

Microchip (MCHP 48.91, +2.58, +5.6%) announced proposed $1 bln offering of convertible senior subordinated notes due 2025. Microchip intends to use a substantial portion of the net proceeds from this offering to retire a portion of its outstanding convertible debt concurrently with this offering.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Twitter (TWTR 41.26 , +0.54, +1.3%): Reports earnings results after the close today, but earlier announced it has struck a deal with Google (GOOG) to make tweets easier to search through the search engine.Maximus (MMS 59.68, +2.23, 3.9%): Reported Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.63 per share, $0.07 better than estimates. Revenues rose 14.9% year/year to $467 million, which also beat the $469.23 million consensus. Signed contract awards totaled $1.3 billion and the sales pipeline remained strong at $3.6 billion at December 31, 2014.

Liquidity Services (LQDT 10.27, +2.24, +27.9%): Reported Q1 (Dec) loss of $2.14 per share, includes items, but may not be comparable to analyst's $0.16 estimate. Revenues rose 2.6% year/year to $125.1 million vs the $110.28 million consensus.

GrubHub (GRUB 39.76, +2.33, +6.2%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.02 better than analyst estimates. Revenues rose 49.6% year/year to $73.3 million vs the $70.31 million consensus. GRUB issued upside guidance for Q1, noting it sees Q1 revs of $83-85 vs. $80.12 million estimate, and Adjusted EBITDA of $24-26 million

Analyst Action:

GrubHub (GRUB 39.76, +2.33, +6.2%): upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James

Brocade (BRCD 11.92, +0.24, +2%): upgraded to Buy from Sell at Citigroup; target raised to $15 from 9.50

Qualcomm (QCOM 67.95, +0.99, +1.5%): downgraded to Market Underperform from Market Perform at Charter Equity

Apple (AAPL 119.94, +0.38, +0.3%): target raised to $140 from $130 at Credit Suisse; Outperform

Automatic Data (ADP 87.17, +0.59, +0.9%): target raised to $98 from $88 at Argus; Buy... target raised to $88 from 77 at Deutsche Bank; Hold

Tableau Software (DATA 99.73, +14.52, +17.24): target raised to $110 from $95 at Deutsche Bank; Buy... target raised to $109 from $97 at UBS; Buy... target raised to $150 from $130 at Cantor Fitzgerald; Buy... target raised to $100 from $88 at Oppenheimer; Perform... target raised to $100 from $90 at Jefferies; Hold... target raised to $110 from $100 at RBC Capital; Outperform... target raised to $100 from $88 at FBR Capital; Market Perform

Tyler Technology (TYL 114.03, +4, +3.64%): target raised to $127 from $123 at Oppenheimer; Buy

Cognizant Tech (CTSH 57.64, -0.35, -0.4%): target raised to $67 from $60 at Needham; Buy

NXP Semiconductor (NXPI 78.27, -1.48, -1.9%): target raised to $95 from $90 at FBR Capital; Ouperform

4:10 pm : The major averages zoomed higher on Thursday, allowing the S&P 500 (+1.0%) to reclaim its loss from yesterday and then some. The benchmark index erased the remainder of its decline from January while the Dow (+1.2%) and Russell 2000 (+1.3%) outperformed.

Equity indices made the bulk of their advance during the opening hour and spent the rest of the trading day in narrow ranges near their highs. The opening spike took place after investors realized that yesterday's ECB decision to lift a waiver that allowed for the acceptance of Greek government bonds as collateral was political at its core.

For the time being, Greek banks are still allowed to turn to the Bank of Greece, which in turn has access to funds through Emergency Liquidity Assistance from the European Central Bank. To that point, Germany's Die Welt reported that the ECB has granted up to EUR60 billion in funding to the Bank of Greece through ELA channels.

That being said, the negotiations are unlikely to unfold without a hitch, evidenced by today's press conference after Greece's Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis met with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble. Mr. Schaeuble said he was advised to say the two "Agreed to disagree," but Mr. Varoufakis countered, saying "We didn't even agree to disagree."

The S&P 500 opened just above its 50-day moving average (2,044) and built on its early gain with the assistance from most sectors. The materials space (+2.4%) finished in the lead while health care (+1.6%) and energy (+1.4%) also outperformed.

The energy sector received a helping hand from crude oil, which followed yesterday's 9.3% plunge with a 4.2% spike to $50.47/bbl. Despite the surge, the energy component remains below its 50-day moving average, which resides in the $55.00/bbl area.

Meanwhile, the health care sector benefitted from strength in the biotech group with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 319.91, +7.36) climbing 2.4% to snap its four-day losing streak. Furthermore, Dow component Pfizer (PFE 32.99, +0.92) added 2.9% after agreeing to acquire Hospira (HSP 87.64, +22.84) for $90/share, which represents a 38.9% premium to HSP's closing price from yesterday.

Elsewhere among influential sectors, financials (+1.0%), industrials (+1.0%), and technology (+0.9%) finished near the broader market while the consumer discretionary sector (+0.6%) underperformed. Homebuilders struggled amid today's increase in Treasury yields with the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 26.20, -0.15) shedding 0.6%. Also of note, apparel names ended in mixed fashion with Michael Kors (KORS 69.77, -1.61) falling 2.3% after cautious guidance and below-consensus comparable store sales overshadowed a bottom-line beat.

Treasuries retreated, ending near their lows with the 10-yr yield higher by six basis points at 1.81%.

Today's participation was below average with roughly 775 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Trade Deficit, Productivity/Unit Labor Cost Data, and Challenger Job Cuts:


The initial claims level increased to 278,000 from an upwardly revised 267,000 (from 265,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 290,000
For the first few weeks of January, the initial claims level suddenly accelerated above 300,000. There was no supporting evidence that explained the increase, but we assumed that it must have been the result of increased layoff activities in the oil and gas sector
The trade deficit widened to $46.60 billion in December from a downwardly revised $39.8 billion ($39.0 billion) in November while the consensus expected a decrease to $38.00 billion
According to the advance fourth quarter GDP report, the BEA assumed that the trade deficit would widen in December to roughly $45.00 billion. Not only did the December deficit exceed those expectations but inclusion of the downside November revisions means that the trade deficit will subtract more from GDP growth in the second estimate than it did in the advance release
Nonfarm labor productivity declined 1.8% in the fourth quarter after increasing an upwardly revised 3.7% (from 2.3%) in Q3 2014 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
Unit labor costs increased 2.7% in the fourth quarter after declining in both the second and third quarters. The increase resulted from a 0.9% jump in hourly compensation coupled with lower output gain
The Challenger Job Cuts report for January indicated a 17.6% increase to follow the prior rise of 6.6%

Tomorrow, the Nonfarm Payrolls report for January will be released at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 235K) while the Consumer Credit report for December will cross at 15:00 ET (consensus $15.00 billion).

Nasdaq Composite +0.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.3% YTD
S&P 500 +0.2% YTD

DJ30 +211.86 NASDAQ +48.39 SP500 +21.01 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2080/1.89 bln/733 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2375/776.4 mln/754 3:40 pm :

Oil was at it again today, which was driven by a few catalysts including rising violence in Libya and a declining dollar
Mar crude oil rallied today as high as $52.10/barrel and closed pit trading $2.03 higher at $50.47/barrel
Nat gas was in the red all morning/afternoon and closed $0.06 lower at $2.60/MMBtu
Apr gold lost $1.60 to $1263/oz and Mar silver fell $0.22 to $17.19/oz
Mar copper futures climb slowly higher today off its low and ended $0.01 higher at $2.60/lb

5:31 pm Silicon Image beats by $0.02, beats on revs; note: co previously announced it's being acquired by LSCC (SIMG) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.07; revenues rose 8.6% year/year to $66.6 mln vs the $63.7 mln consensus.


Note, on Jan 26, co announced it agreed to be acquired by Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) for $7.30 per share in cash. The deal has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close by the end of March 2015. Due to the pending acquisition, co will not provide Q1 guidance.

5:00 pm Riverbed Technology: Brocade (BRCD) announces its intent to acquire the assets of Riverbed Technology's SteelApp business in all cash transaction; terms not disclosed (RVBD) :

4:36 pm Sierra Wireless beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus (SWIR) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues rose 25.7% year/year to $149.1 mln vs the $146.82 mln consensus.

4:30 pm Amtech Systems misses by $0.26, misses on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus (ASYS) : Reports Q1 (Dec) loss of $0.53 per share, $0.26 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.27); revenues fell 16.0% year/year to $12.4 mln vs the $14.4 mln consensus.

Customer orders in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 were $30.0 million, up from orders of $9.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014.
At December 31, 2014, the Company's total order backlog was $48.3 million, compared to total backlog of $28.5 million at September 30, 2014.
Gross margin in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 was 28%, compared to 31% in the first quarter of fiscal 2014.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $24-26 mln vs. $22.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margin in that quarter is expected to be in the low 20s percent range, negatively influenced by anticipated revenue deferrals. Operating margin for the quarter ending March 31, 2015, is expected to be negative, but improved from the quarter ended December 31, 2014. For the second half of fiscal 2015 the company expects gross margins to migrate to the low 30's percent range and to positive operating margins

4:22 pm Brooks Automation beats by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (BRKS) : Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.06; revenues rose 4.8% year/year to $122.7 mln vs the $127.63 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.04-0.06 vs. $0.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $130-135 mln vs. $136.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:19 pm Axcelis Tech beats by $0.03, beats on revs (ACLS) : Reports Q4 (Dec) net of breakeven, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.03); revenues rose 6.7% year/year to $62.5 mln vs the $51.6 mln consensus. System sales of $29.9 million, a 254% increase over the third quarter.

4:13 pm ON Semiconductor beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 rev midpoint above consensus (ONNN) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.16; revenues rose 20.4% year/year to $864.2 mln vs the $856.04 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $840-880 mln vs. $840.21 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"We are off to a solid start in 2015 with improving order rates and a favorable macro-economic backdrop. Our strategy of focusing our investments in automotive, industrial, and smartphone end-markets is showing strong results with solid revenue growth and growing design win pipeline. Our acquisitions of Truesense and Aptina should further accelerate our momentum in 2015 in automotive and industrial markets. With a strong outlook for our business, we should be able to achieve our free cash target of $300 million to $400 million in the current year. We intend to deploy most of the free cash generated in 2015 for share repurchase in accordance with our recently announced capital allocation policy."

4:06 pm Amtech Systems announces $12 million in orders in January 2015, including $10 million of solar orders from China and Japan for diffusion, PECVD, and Ion Implant Systems (ASYS) : Co announced that in the month of January, it has received approximately $12 million in orders, including $10 million in orders for its solar diffusion, PECVD and ion implant systems.

The solar orders come from leading cell and module manufacturers in China and Japan and are expected to ship within the next three to nine months.For the first four months of fiscal 2015 orders total $42 million, including $31 million in solar orders.

4:02 pm Ultra Clean Holdings announces acquisition of Marchi Thermal Systems for purchase price of ~$43.6 million; transaction to be accretive to earnings immediately following the close of the transaction (UCTT) : UCT paid a purchase price of approximately $43.6 million.

The transaction signed and closed on February 5, 2015. The consideration consisted of $30 million in cash and 1,437,500 shares of UCT common stock.In conjunction with this acquisition, UCT closed a new $80 million debt facility with East West Bank and City National Bank which UCT used to refinance amounts outstanding under its existing credit facility and fund the cash portion of the purchase price of Marchi. The existing credit facility was terminated.

2:19 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

HSP (87.62 +35.22%): To be acquired by Pfizer (PFE) for $90 per share in cash for a total enterprise value of ~$17 bln
CX (9.8 +11.49%): Reported Q4 revs of $3.8 billion vs $3.9 bln estimate; on a like-to-like basis, operating earnings before other expenses, net in Q4 increased 31% to $443 mln
ORLY (208.75 +8.32%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.09 ($1.76 vs $1.67 estimate), revs rose 8.8% yoy to $1.76 bln vs $1.74 bln estimate; Q4 same store comps +6.3%; sees Q1 EPS of $1.89-1.93 vs $1.87 estimate; sees FY15 EPS of 8.20-8.30 vs $8.33 estimate, revs of $7.60-7.80 bln vs $7.68 bln estimate

Large Cap Losers

PRU (75.15 -5.93%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.25 ($2.12 ex items vs $2.37 estimate), revs $15.83 bln
FOXA (32.82 -5.32%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.12 ($0.53 ex items vs $0.41 estimate), revs fell 1.3% yoy to $8.05 bln vs $7.35 bln estimate; target lowered to $41 from $43 at Topeka Capital Markets; downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at FBR Capital, target lowered to $36 from $43; initiated with a Sell at Rosenblatt, target $30
ADS (279.7 -4.32%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.13 ($3.45 ex items vs $3.32 estimate), revsrose 30.2% yoy to $1.49 bln vs $1.49 bln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of $3.40 vs $3.48 estimate, revs of $1.54 bln vs $1.55 bln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $14.80 vs $14.94 estimate, revs of $6.5 bln vs $6.61 bln estimate

Mid Cap Gainers

DATA (98 +16.38%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.31 ($0.42 vs $0.11 estimate), revs rose 75.3% yoy to $142.9 mln vs $122.58 mln estimate; sees Q1 EPS of -$0.06 to -$0.02 vs -$0.03 estimate, revs of $110-115 mln vs $107.2 mln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $0.13-0.23 vs $0.23 estimate, revs of $565-580 mln vs $554.6 mln estimate; target raised at UBS, FBN, Cowen, Jefferies, RBC Capital Markets
GRA (102.96 +13.01%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.12 ($1.37 ex items vs $1.25 estimate), revs rose 3.5% yoy to $804.1 mln vs $839.52 mln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $5.05-5.45 vs $5.06 estimate
CEB (79.05 +11.84%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.24 ($1.27 ex items vs $1.03 estimate), revs rose 7.5% yoy to $240.1 mln vs $248.11 mln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $3.55-3.90 vs $3.70 estimate, adjusted revs of $960-985 mln vs $1 bln estimate

Mid Cap Losers

TDC (41.98 -10.64%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.01 ($0.91 ex items vs $0.90 estimate, revs rose 0.3% yoy to $761 mln vs $778.2 mln estimate; sees FY15 EPS of $2.50-2.70 ex items vs $2.99 estimate, revs flat to -2% (~$2.38-2.73 bln) vs $2.83 bln estimate
DFT (33.8 -8.23%): Reported Q4 FFO fo $0.62 (in-line), revs rose 8.7% yoy to $108 mln vs $106.66 mln estimate; sees Q1 FFO of $0.59-0.63 per share vs $0.63 estimate; sees FY15 FFO of $2.27-2.47 per share vs $2.57 estimate
FEIC (79.91 -7.46%): Missed quarterly EPS by $0.02 ($0.98 vs $1.00 estimate), revs flat at $265.3 mln; co sees Q1 revs of $215-230 mln vs $250.37 mln estimate; target lowered to $90 from $100 at Stifel

11:38 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (174) outpacing new lows (41) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABMD, ADVS, AET, AKRX, ALV, AMPH, AMWD, APD, ARMK, ASH, AWH, BAM, BCC, BCE, BERY, BIIB, BIP, BLL, BOOT, BR, BRCM, BRKS, BURL, CACC, CBL, CDK, CEB, CERU, CEVA, CHH, CHL, CHRS, CHTR, CI, CNC, COMM, COR, COTY, CPB, CPF, CRUS, CSGS, CTCT, CXE, DIS, DLPH, DLTR, DLX, DNBF, DOX, DST, EBSB, EIO, EL, ENH, EQY, ESPR, ETFC, EXPO, FBP, FCE.A, FISV, FLEX, FLWS, FTR, G, GEO, GFF, GIB, GK, GPK, GPN, HAE, HAR, HCC, HCSG, HD, HELE, HII, HRB, HSP, HZO, IART, IBCA, IBKR, IPHS, ISBC, ITG, JMM, JOUT, KIRK, KR, KRFT, KSS, LAMR, LBY, LII, LM, LOW, MANT, MATX, MCY, MD, MENT, MHFI, MHLD, MIK, MKL, MKTX, MMS, MMV, MNK, MRGE, MSCI, MSG, MTD, MYD, NAVG, NICE, NOC, NOW, NQM, NYV, OCR, OPK, ORLY, PBH, PDT, PETM, PFPT, PGZ, PLAY, PTP, PZZA, QTS, RE, RHI, RHP, ROP, RTEC, SABR, SBH, SBUX, SEIC, SIMO, SIRI, SIX, SLGN, SMG, SMRT, SNA, SNE, SON, SRC, SSS, TARO, TNET, TRK, TSO, TSRA, TW, TYL, UA, UHAL, UNFI, V, VIAS, VKI, VMC, WETF, WOOD, WSM, ZBRA, ZLTQ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ADEP, AI, ARUN, AXE, BAK, BIOS, BOX, CBLI, CRRS, DRWI, FXEN, GEOS, HAYN, HWCC, ICA, IRBT, IVAC, LFVN, LTRX, LXFR, MPV, NAV, NKA, NSPR, NWY, ONTX, OPXA, PANL, PLM, PMFG, POWL, PRU, PRXI, QUIK, RELV, RGSE, RL, SLTC, SYMX, WILN, WSTL

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IHI, MDY, PPA, RTH, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: COW, UNG

9:02 am Ultratech misses by $0.08, beats on revs (UTEK) : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.06 per share, $0.08 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.02; revenues rose 101.2% year/year to $48.3 mln vs the $45.3 mln consensus.

2:25 am NXP Semi beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (NXPI) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.35 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.32; revenues rose 18.9% year/year to $1.54 bln vs the $1.51 bln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.25-1.35, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.41-1.47 bln vs. $1.45 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 06-Feb-15 - The major averages capped a strong week with a defensive finish. The S&P 500 lost 0.3%, to narrow its weekly gain to 3.0% while the Nasdaq (-0.4%) underperformed, but managed to end the week higher by 2.4%.

Equities climbed at the open in reaction to the release of a better than expected Nonfarm Payrolls report for January. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, January payrolls increased by 257,000 (Briefing.com consensus 235,000) while the December reading saw a large upward revision to 329,000 from 252,000. Hourly earnings (+0.5%; consensus +0.3%) surpassed estimates, which bolstered the report.

The gain in hourly earnings shaped a consensus view that the employment report showcased strong labor market conditions, but that analysis may not be completely correct. According to the National Conference of State Legislators, the minimum wage in 20 states increased on January 1, 2015. The change in state policies resulted in a 0.3% increase in the average minimum wage, with all of the states equally weighted. When weighted by state payrolls, the average minimum wage increased by a slightly less but still hefty 0.2%, which is not a trivial gain. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports wages based on averages and not medians, the increase in the bottom of the wage spectrum caused an overall increase in average wages. Just about 0.2 percentage points of the 0.5 percentage point gain in hourly earnings came from the three lowest paid sectors -- retail trade, leisure and hospitality, and other services. Those three sectors are also the most likely to employ minimum wage workers.

That being said, the report caused participants to reassess their expectations for the timing of the first fed funds rate hike. On that note, The Wall Street Journal's Jon Hilsenrath said today's jobs report increased the chance that the Fed will alter the language that indicates plans to remain 'patient' before hiking rates. In addition, this year's FOMC voting member and Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said liftoff should begin "around mid-year, or a little later."

Accordingly, the Treasury complex responded with a slide led by the 5-yr note. The 5-yr yield surged 17 basis points to 1.48% while the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed 12 basis points to 1.94%, representing a 27-basis point rally since last Friday.

Equities held modest gains through the first half of the session, but market breadth never turned positive, which hinted at a potential reversal. That reversal materialized after Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece to 'B-' and said another downgrade could be in the cards. Later in the day, Eurogroup Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Greece must apply for a bailout extension by February 16 in order to maintain financial backing from the eurozone.

The downgrade and subsequent comments from Mr. Dijsselbloem sparked some profit taking after a strong run earlier this week; however, it is worth mentioning that the market was probing a resistance level and its failure to clear that area could signal more downside in the near term. Despite the afternoon slip, nine sectors posted weekly gains between 0.7% (health care) and 7.0% (telecom services), while the rate-sensitive utilities sector lost 4.1% today to end the week lower by 3.7%.

Outside of utilities, the health care sector (-0.8%) was the only group that lost more than 0.6%. Biotechnology contributed to the relative weakness with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 315.59, -4.32) falling 1.4% to end the week lower by 1.9%.

On the upside, telecom services (+1.9%) and financials (+0.7%) held gains throughout the session. The telecom sector was underpinned by Verizon (VZ 49.33, +1.47), which surged 3.1% after confirming a sale of its wireless assets in three states to Frontier Communications (FTR 7.93, +0.23) for $10.54 billion, leasing the rights to over 11,300 wireless towers to American Tower (AMT 95.73, -3.86) for about $5 billion, and entering into an accelerated $5 billion share repurchase program.

Meanwhile, financials benefited from the rise in short-term interest rates with the sector adding 4.8% for the week. Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the energy sector lost 0.3%, but jumped 5.4% for the week as crude oil rallied 2.4% to $51.67/bbl. The energy component spiked more than 9.0% since last Friday.

Also of note, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.6%) settled a bit behind the broader market. Earnings were in focus today with LinkedIn (LNKD 263.40, +25.43) and Twitter (TWTR 48.01, +6.75) soaring 10.7% and 16.4%, respectively, after beating estimates. On the flip side, GoPro (GPRO 47.12, -7.25) and Yelp (YELP 45.11, -12.36) stumbled. GoPro slid 13.3% in reaction to cautious guidance while Yelp tumbled 21.5% after its report revealed a slowdown in user growth.

Today's participation was ahead of average with more than 900 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Nonfarm Payrolls and Consumer Credit:

Nonfarm payrolls added 257,000 new jobs in January after adding an upwardly revised 329,000 (from 252,000) in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 235,000
Private payrolls increased by 267,000 in January, down from an upwardly revised 320,000 (from 240,000) in December while the consensus an increase of 225,000
The decline in the average hourly wage in December (-0.2%) was more than offset by a surge in wage growth (0.5%) in January, which easily topped the consensus forecast of a 0.3% gain. However, the sustainability of this growth remains in question considering 20 states raised their minimum wage in January
The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.7% in January from 5.6% in December as a result of an uptick in the labor force participation rate
Consumer credit increased by $14.80 billion in December, up from a downwardly revised $13.50 billion in November while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of $15.00 billion

Monday's session will be free of economic data.

Week in Review: Stocks Recover January Losses


The stock market began February on a higher note. The S&P 500 spiked 1.3% while the Nasdaq (+0.9%) and Russell 2000 (+0.9%) underperformed. Overall, the Monday session was fairly quiet with the market spending some time on each side of its unchanged level. The S&P 500 began with a slim gain, but relative weakness among high-beta biotechnology and chipmaker names kept heavily-weighted health care (+0.6%) and technology (+1.0%) sectors on the defensive. The S&P 500 tried to overcome that weakness, but was rebuffed by its 100-day moving average in the 2,010 area. However, a second effort in the late afternoon sent the S&P 500 well above the 100-day average to end the day. All ten sectors finished in the green with energy (+3.0%) spending the entire session in the lead. The sector benefitted from a 2.8% advance in crude oil ($49.59/bbl) while also drawing strength from ExxonMobil (XOM), which reported better than expected earnings thanks to a $1 billion non-cash windfall resulting from deferred tax items and a favorable ruling for expropriated Venezuela assets.

The market registered its second consecutive advance on Tuesday with the S&P 500 climbing 1.4% to retake its 50-day moving average (2,044). The price-weighted Dow (+1.8%) fared a bit better while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%) underperformed. Equities displayed strength from the get-go after markets in Europe responded positively to a Financial Times report suggesting Greece will soften its negotiating stance; however, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said there has been no 'U-turn' in Greece's position while German Chancellor Angela Merkel set expectations for a drawn out process, saying the ongoing talks will 'drag on for months.' Despite a rocky road ahead, the market happily continued retracing its losses from January. The S&P 500 narrowed its quarter-to-date decline to 0.4% with all ten sectors ending in the green.

The major averages finished the Wednesday session on a lower note. The S&P 500 lost 0.4% after tumbling from its high to a new low during the final 30 minutes of action after it was reported that the European Central Bank has lifted its waiver that allowed for the acceptance of Greek government debt as collateral. The announcement came with a caveat that the counterparty status of Greek banks remains unchanged and they may satisfy their liquidity needs through Emergency Liquidity Assistance. However, the news showed that the negotiations are likely to be tumultuous, which contrasted with the rosy picture painted in previous days. Despite the closing slide, a handful of influential sectors like consumer discretionary (+0.7%), technology (+0.1%), and consumer staples (+0.1%) were able to finish in the green.

Equities zoomed higher on Thursday, allowing the S&P 500 (+1.0%) to reclaim its loss from Wednesday and then some. The benchmark index erased the remainder of its decline from January while the Dow (+1.2%) and Russell 2000 (+1.3%) outperformed. The key indices made the bulk of their advance during the opening hour and spent the rest of the day in narrow ranges near their highs. The opening spike took place after investors realized that Wednesday's ECB decision to lift a waiver that allowed for the acceptance of Greek government bonds as collateral was political at its core. Germany's Die Welt reported that the ECB has granted up to EUR60 billion in funding to the Bank of Greece through ELA channels. That being said, the negotiations are unlikely to unfold without a hitch, evidenced by the press conference after Greece's Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis met with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble. Mr. Schaeuble said he was advised to say the two "Agreed to disagree," but Mr. Varoufakis countered, saying "We didn't even agree to disagree."
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17164.95 17824.29 659.34 3.8 0.0
Nasdaq 4635.24 4744.40 109.16 2.4 0.2
S&P 500 1994.99 2055.47 60.48 3.0 -0.2
Russell 2000 1165.39 1205.46 40.07 3.4 0.1

US equities closed relatively unchanged, edging slightly lower (-0.3%) on Friday, as better than expected nonfarm payroll numbers left investors questioning the timing of the first fed funds rate hike. Despite Friday's dip, the S&P 500 closed +3% on the week.

The S&P Information Technology Index underperformed, falling 0.6% on the day.

Top-performing constituents in the S&P Tech Index included: Harris Corp (HRS 76.18, +6.69, +9.6%) and Verisign (VRSN 59.97, +3.02, +5.3%)

Notable headlines from the technology space included:

Harris Corp (HRS 76.18 +6.69, +9.6%): Reported Q2 (Dec) earnings of $1.32 per share, $0.14 better than the $1.18 consensus. Revenues fell 1.4% year/year to $1.21 billion, also better than consensus, which was $1.18 billion. HRS issued guidance for FY15, raising EPS of $4.95-5.05 from $4.75-5.00, it also reaffirmed FY15 revs of -1-3% to ~$4.862-4.962 billion. Additionally, HRS announced it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Exelis (XLS 24.13, +6.42, +36.3%) in a cash and stock transaction valued at $23.75 per share, or an ~$4.75 billion enterprise value. The transaction is expected to be slightly accretive to Harris in the first full year and a significant contributor thereafter.

Intuit (INTU 87.83, -3.88, -4.2%): Announced that during this tax season, it and some states have seen an increase in suspicious filings and attempts by criminals to use stolen identity information to file fraudulent state tax returns and claim tax refunds. In order to combat this issue, it is working with state agencies to address the growing concern. After working with third-party security expert, Intuit believes that these instances of fraud did not result from a security breach of its systems and that the information used to file fraudulent returns was obtained from other sources outside the tax preparation process.

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.65 -0.02, -0.5%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of 0.08 per share, 0.02 better than consensus estimates. Revenues fell 2.2% year/year to 3.68 billion vs the 3.67 billion consensus.

FLIR Systems (FLIR 33.97 +2.17, +6.8%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.51 per share, $0.03 better than consensus estimates. Revenues rose 8.5% year/year to $434.4 million vs the $416.42 million consensus. FLIR's backlog of firm orders for delivery within the next twelve months was approximately $547 million as of December 31, 2014, a decrease of $32 million, or 6%, during the quarter and an increase of $57 million, or 12%, compared to the end of 2013. The company also issued in-line guidance for FY15

Harris Corp (HRS 76.18 +6.69, +9.6%): Reported Q2 (Dec) earnings of $1.32 per share, $0.14 better than the $1.18 consensus. Revenues fell 1.4% year/year to $1.21 billion, also better than consensus, which was $1.18 billion. HRS issued guidance for FY15, raising EPS of $4.95-5.05 from $4.75-5.00, it also reaffirmed FY15 revs of -1-3% to ~$4.862-4.962 billion. Additionally, HRS announced it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Exelis (XLS 24.13, +6.42, +36.3%) in a cash and stock transaction valued at $23.75 per share, or an ~$4.75 billion enterprise value. The transaction is expected to be slightly accretive to Harris in the first full year and a significant contributor thereafter.

FY15Analyst Action:

LinkedIn (LNKD 263.40, +25.43, +10.69): upgraded to Neutral from Buy at Bank of America/Merrill... price target raised to $260 from $200 at Barclays; Equal Weight...price target raised to $295 from $275 at UBS; Buy... price target raised to $300 from $253 at JP Morgan; Overweight... price target raised to $285 from $240 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy... price target raised to $211 from $180 at FBR Capital; Market Perform... price target raised to $331 from $285 at Credit Suisse; Outperform... price target raised to $200 from $160 at Stifel; Buy.

Twitter (TWTR 48.01, +6.75, +16.4%): price target raised to $65 from $60 at Deutsche Bank; Buy... price target raised to $58 from $55 at UBS; Buy... price target raised to $48 from $45 at Nomura; Neutral...price target raised to $67 from $64 at JP Morgan; Overweight... price target raised to $46 from $36 at Oppenheimer; Perform... price target raised to $55 from $47 at RBC Capital Markets; Sector Perform

GrubHub (GRUB 40.57, +0.81, +2.04%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Brean Capital... price target raised to $50 from $42 at Oppenheimer; Outperform

Yelp (YELP 45.11 -12.36, -21.5%): upgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital... price target lowered to $51 from $58 at UBS; Neutral... price target lowered to $70 from $90 at Piper Jaffray; Overweight...price target lowered to $70 from $85 at Sterne Agee; Buy... price target lowered to $73 from $83 at Oppenheimer; Outperform... price target lowered to $82 from $86 at RBC Capital Markets; Outperform

Teradata (TDC 41.63, -0.56, -1.3%): downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit SuisseFiserv (FISV 76.98, -0.14, -0.2%): price target raised to $87 from $77 at Argus; Buy

NXP Semiconductor (NXPI 82.26, +4.02, +5.1%): price target raised to $95 from $83 at Susquehanna... price target raised to $97 from $95 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy

Arista Networks (ANET 56.71, -3.79, -6.3%): price target lowered to $80 from $105 at MKM Partners; Buy

Mettler - Toledo (MTD 308.91, -2.36, -0.8%): target raised to $328 from $286 at Cantor Fitzgerald; Buy

GoPro (GPRO 47.12, -7.25, -13.3%): target lowered to $35 from $45 at Oppenheimer; Underperform

3:33 pm Earnings Preview for the week of February 9 - 13 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of February 9 - 13 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - MAS, CNA, HAS, MCY, DO, TE, SOHU, EXXI, GOLD, BWP, L
After Hours - CSC, MOH, CCK, AMKR, KS, NTES, WCN, ALSN, DNB, CMP, TDW, AGII, HMN, OTTR, COUP

Tuesday:
Pre Market - CVS, KO, OUBS, ACM, OMC, PCG, HNT, CDW, DF, RAI, SEE, HOT, TLM, WYN, TAP, MLM, REGN, ALR, NSP, HCP, SAVE, GWR, KKR, MWW, SALE
After Hours - GNW, FTI, NCR, ANDE, WU, PXD, WSH, CERN, ACGL, KGC, SCI, TMH, TRMB, AKAM, VSAT, CRL, SGEN

Wednesday:
Pre Market - PEP, MDLZ, TWX, PAG, WCG, TRI, HSIC, MOS, VOYA, OC, LO, ZTS, WEC, AFSI, FSRV, AOL, CG, BGCP, LPX, WOOF, AGCO
After Hours - MET, CSCO, TSO, WFM, CTL, SLF, AMAT, BIDU, PPC, NU, NTAP, NSIT, NVDA, OII, PNRA, CPA, HNI, EFX, AUY, CAKE, ITRI, FET, CTLT, AEM, ZU, TRIP, SWM, FEYE,

Thursday:
Pre Market - BG, MFC, CS, K, PBF, APA, TU, CVE, JAH, AVP, AAP, BWA, CCE, NLSN, SHPG, DPS, SPW, SON, MHFI, LPNT, CAB, FAF, MPEL, HSP, Q, ANR, THS, TIME, WWAV, FLO, WSO, DBD, HE, AB, SKYW
After Hours - INT, AIG, LBTYA, KRFT, CBS, DVA, AIZ, RSG, GRPN, RGC, COLM, BYD, KING, AEL, SFLY, DLR, MGI, ZNGA

Friday:
Pre Market - MT, EXC, BAM, TRW, VFC, DTE, NGLS, IPG, CPN, SJM, VTR, WBC, ITT, POR, RRGB

Large Cap Gainers

TWTR (48.27 +16.99%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.06, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs in-line; guided FY15 revs above consensus; Price target increased at RBC Capital, JPMorgan, Cowen, others.
LNKD (269.76 +13.36%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.08, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guided FY15 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; Price target raised at Piper Jaffray, Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey, RBC Capital Mkts, others.
NXPI (83.11 +6.18%): Price target raised to $97 from $95 at Canaccord Genuity; maintain Buy following strong quarter.

Large Cap Losers

EXPE (78.57 -10.72%): Reported Q4 (Dec) adj earnings of $0.86 per share, $0.15 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.01; revenues rose 17.7% year/year to $1.36 bln vs the $1.36 bln consensus; Downgraded at Oppenheimer, Atlantic Equities, others.
DLR (70.16 -5.42%): Weakness in REITs today as Treasury yields jump following the strong jobs report (HCN, O, KIM also lower).
AR (39.8 -1.51%): Initiated with a Underperform at Jefferies.

Mid Cap Gainers

XLS (23.93 +35.13%): To be acquired by Harris Corp (HRS) for $23.75 per share, or ~$4.75 bln total enterprise value.
UBNT (30.2 +15.14%): Beat Q2 consensus EPS estimates by $0.05, beat on revs; guided Q3
EPS in-line, revs in-line.
ONNN (11.54 +12.37%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 rev midpoint above consensus.

Mid Cap Losers

YELP (45.13 -21.47%): Reported Q4 earnings with upside rev; guided Q1 revs in-line; guided FY15 revs above consensus; Company provided disappointing EBITDA guidance and reported slowing user growth; Downgraded at B. Riley & Co, Pacific Crest, others.
P (15.36 -16.55%): Reported Q4 EPS in-line, missed consensus estimates on revs; guided Q1 revs below consensus; guided FY15 revs below consensus; Downgraded at Raymond James and Maxim Group.
DV (36.74 -16.97%): Reported Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.75 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.76; revenues fell 1.3% year/year to $484.9 mln vs the $486.42 mln consensus; Price target lowered at Compass Point.

11:59 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (222) outpacing new lows (44) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCD, ABM, ABMD, ACGL, ACLS, ADP, ADVS, AHH, AKRX, AMPH, APD, ARMK, ASH, ASX, AWH, BA, BANR, BDC, BIIB, BKMU, BOOT, BPY, BR, BURL, BWLD, BYM, CBM, CCI, CDK, CERN, CHFN, CHH, CHRS, CME, COL, COTY, CPB, CPF, CPRT, CSGS, CSL, CSWC, CTB, CTCT, CTRX, CUBI, CXE, CYNO, DD, DHI, DIS, DLPH, DOX, DRIV, DST, DXCM, DY, EA, EBSB, EGL, EL, EMAN, ENH, ENV, ESPR, ESRT, ESSA, ETFC, EWBC, EXLS, EXPO, FAF, FBP, FBR, FDS, FFG, FFNW, FHN, FII, FISV, FNRG, FRC, FRME, FSFG, FSL, FSS, FTR, G, GEO, GFF, GIB, GNVC, GPN, HAE, HAR, HCC, HCSG, HD, HII, HLT, HNI, HOFT, HRB, HRTG, HTLF, HXL, HZO, IBCA, IBKR, ICCC, ICE, IDTI, IMH, INFY, INT, IPGP, IPHS, IRM, ISBC, ISSI, ITG, ITW, JACK, KCG, KFRC, KIRK, KR, KSS, LB, LEA, LM, LNKD, LOW, MANT, MATX, MCK, MCY, MD, MENT, MHFI, MHLD, MIK, MKL, MKTX, MMI, MMS, MMSI, MOFG, MPC, MRCY, MRGE, MSCC, MSCI, MSG, MTD, MTSN, NAVG, NICE, NJR, NNI, NOC, NVAX, NXPI, ODP, OMI, ONNN, OPK, PAG, PCRX, PFBC, PFPT, PLUS, PNFP, PRE, PSCH, PSO, PTP, PVTB, QLYS, RE, RHP, ROP, RTEC, SAFT, SBH, SCHL, SEIC, SHW, SIGI, SIMO, SIRI, SIX, SNA, SNV, SON, SPR, SQBK, SXT, SYF, TARO, TDG, TNAV, TREX, TTGT, TW, TYL, UHAL, UTX, V, VIAS, VMC, VRSN, VSEC, VTWG, WAL, WBS, WETF, WOOD, WSFS, WTBA, XLS, ZLTQ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AES, ARCW, ARLP, ATNM, BRDR, BRS, CASM, CBLI, CIG, CMO, COCO, DBVT, ECOM, EGAN, ENZY, EVI, FNJN, GAME, GEOS, GOL, HTS, IMI, INPH, KERX, KLXI, MXWL, NKA, NOV, ONTY, P, PERF, PHT, PRXI, PTBI, RCMT, RDEN, RELL, SIEB, SVVC, SYMX, VPCO, WAIR, YELP, ZHNE
ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IHI, ITA, IWF, MDY, PPA, RTH, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: FXS

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Jobs beat handsomely with major revisions to benchmarks and of course seasonal adjustments. Stocks rally, until, as with the December report, they don't.
- Lots of jobs in the low end once more and no indication at all of the layoffs in the oil patch. The Jobs calculus remains a mystery.
- North America rig count plunges again.
- Indices press toward prior highs, reverse to close the week lower, but . . SP400 hangs onto a new high.
- Indices nearing their peaks in an important test of the most recent bounce in the trading range. Some major stocks have bounced but it looks as if just in relief.

Stocks started fired up. Jobs were better than expected, revisions were good, wages looked higher. Futures were flat but jumped on the jobs data. With a half hour to the open, however, they started to peel back, giving up over half the gains. Not a good omen for the session as traders recalled early January when stocks jumped on the December report then rolled over.

They may have recalled that, but stocks rallied at the open and into midmorning. Good recovery, a little not so high to higher action.

Now maybe the numbers behind the jobs headlines finally came home to roost or perhaps it was the ECB again taunting Greece, giving the country 10 days to basically capitulate or face the total brush off with images of bank runs, mass hysteria, street fighting . . . basically biblical type disasters.

Whatever the case, stocks rolled over as lunch started and plunged into the close. Just as Thursday ended with a sprint higher, Friday ended with a dive.

SP500 -7.05, -0.34%
NASDAQ -20.70, -0.43%
DJ30 -60.59, -0.34%
SP400 -0.35%
RUTX -0.27%
SOX -0.57%

VOLUME: NYSE +13%, NASDAQ -0.3%

A/D: -1.7:1 NYSE, -1.2:1 NASDAQ

It was not a massive rollover. The indices rallied nicely Tuesday and Thursday, and with the early upside move Friday they came closer to their previous highs. Indeed DJ30 came darn close before it started to backtrack and frankly the other indices are close enough where if the mood hit, sellers could force a turn back downside, the rebound having run its course.

Fridays action didn't say that was the story, but when in a trading range, a test toward the highs that rolls over deserves attention and a bit of caution the next week.

THE NEWS

TO VIEW THE ECONOMY SUMMARY VIDEO CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK:
Economy Summary Video

Jobs numbers show definite improvement if no change in quality.

We heard the Gallup CEO earlier this past week lamenting that the BLS and the American populace is looking at the wrong numbers. An unemployment rate at 5.7% (up from 5.6% in December) means nothing when 92+M working aged people are out of the workforce, 50% of the working age population is on disability, and 52% of the US is collecting food stamps. Instead, focus on the record low 44% who have full-time jobs of 30+ hours per week. A 'great' jobs report loses a lot of luster in that circumstance.

Did the January report work a change in the jobs mix? You be the judge. I can and will list the numbers, and there was improvement, particularly in numbers with the November and December revisions (+147K for those two months), but the same issues plague the creation: numbers are up, but the poor jobs quality continues. So much so that even with the participation rate climbing 0.1%, the number of unemployed and underemployed (the U6 unemployment rate), rose: people getting jobs but not the jobs they want, i.e. part-time, low paying jobs. There is also the issue of accuracy: virtually no job losses in the oil patch.

The Numbers:

257K versus 235K expected versus 325K December (from 252K).
November: revised to 423K

Unemployment: 4.7% versus 4.6% versus 4.6% prior. More people re-entering the workforce.

Hourly wages: 0.5% versus 03% expected versus -0.2% prior. Best jump since 11/2008.

U6: 11.3% versus 11.2%. Adding in the underemployed the rate moved higher.

Participation rate: 62.9% versus 62.8%.

Workweek: 34.6 versus 34.6 versus 34.6

Now, behind the headlines.

Participation rate: This past week we heard from some states telling how their unemployment rate is falling as they ended jobless benefits. No free money, no more freeloading. I don't care what people argue, if you pay extended benefits there will be people who do not work in lieu of getting benefits. I know some very well educated people who golfed every day until the benefits ran out, then went back to work. If you pay someone not to do something, they won't do it, even if the pay is less than if they were in the real world having to perform or get nothing.

Household survey: +759K in the labor force. Less the 267K more unemployed you have 492K added. Some definite improvement.

Wages: the jump to +0.5% from -0.2% was heralded, as was November, as the 'start of higher wages.' Really? How about the fact that 20 states implemented higher minimum wage levels to start 2015? Ah, that is how you fix low wages: MANDATE workers be paid more. Why stop there? Mandate prosperity. In any event, that mandated wage increase accounted for 0.3% of the 0.5% gain; without it, just 0.2% growth, keeping things basically at 0 growth-wise.

Jobs distribution:

Education: 46K
Retail: 46K
Leisure and hospitality: 37K (35K waiters and bartenders)
Professional business services (secretaries): 43K
Manufacturing: 22K
Construction: 39K

Once again, the lowest paying sectors produced far and away the most jobs. Thus wage gains reported were indeed resulting from increases in minimum wages, not an organic growth in wages via demand.

Manufacturing gap: Bartenders and waters versus manufacturing jobs: 1.387M (record low). Compare to January 1990 when manufacturing jobs outnumbers waiters and bartenders by 11.3M.

This will worsen as more in the machining areas servicing the oil and gas industry are laid off.

Can you believe the BLS?

The BLS already has a spotty history of making up numbers to fit the executive branch's needs. Pre-2012 elections the data was adjusted to make sure the unemployment rate was below 8%.

Seasonal and benchmark changes: This report saw massive changes to the 2014 data based upon further adjustments of the prior adjustments. January 2014 was adjusted very low due to the polar vortex. With the end of year adjustments, it was revised up to nearly 250K from the mid-100K level. Guess it wasn't an issue as first believed and as we reported it should not be. Worse weather in the early 1980's and the economy grew 4+% that quarter.

Energy jobs losses: The BLS reports -1900 jobs in January. Bloomberg reported 18,000 January layoffs, and Challenger Gray reported 21,322 with 19.8K in Texas.

It is rather clear now that the jobs report and indeed other economic data is simply a tool to influence voters. The news media now is in the influence business, not the news reporting business. Helicopters supposedly shot with rocket propelled grenades that were not (Brian Williams lie) to make a point, but the point is made with a lie. Yet, it is being accepted as okay. The government agencies, the news media, sporting teams; there appears to be no area where fabrication is absent and it appears that the US populace is okay with that. Have iPhone, a cell connection, an internet connection, a sub-prime car loan, a student loan you never intend to repay and indeed use for living expenses, and a disability check and you are doing fine my man.

I don't want to sound too pessimistic. The data shows some improvement and some truth: the unemployment rate rose as it should if more come to the market. The problem is there has been so many times the actual data has been adjusted away that the report's veracity is shot. We heard of the 'professionals' at the BLS who would never manipulate data at the time the allegations were made, and then, what do you know, those professionals actually did adjust the data to achieve a purpose. Unfortunately that purpose was not the truth regarding jobs.

THE MARKET

CHARTS

SP400: After moving to a new all-time high Thursday, a bit of backtracking Friday. On the low the midcaps undercut the prior peak, but they recovered enough ground close not with a new high, but they did hold the breakout over that December peak. Okay, good move to a new high but not MACD is thus far lagging on the move. Not fatal; it is a very small lag and can change quickly if SP400 continues this breakout.

DJ30: Came within 40 points of the early December interim high then reversed to a loss. Not a huge rollover, just a test near the prior peak that ran out of gas. After a strong Monday to Thursday move, it is okay it took a break to end the week. Makes some sense but at a critical point in the rebound and thus this coming week is important. Note volume was lower as DJ30 climbed this week.

SP500: Similar to DJ30, a good run through Thursday and indeed early Friday before it faded the Friday move. Matched the January twin peaks and stalled for the session. Got to within 10 points of the early December peak then faded. Still in the trading range, still decent but after this kind of move higher in the range you start watching the action when the prior highs get close.

NASDAQ: Rallied up to the upper trendline of its three month range, tapped it, then faded. Nothing major, but at the top of the range where it failed three times prior. Quite the track record and thus watching this week.

RUTX: Still well off the highs form 2014, but closing in on the late December peak. Tapped at it Friday them faded modestly. Working on it, following SP400. That works for now.

SOX: Still lagging. UP on the week with the indices, but less than impressive. Friday a move up through the 50 day SMA then a fade to near support. Very flat three month range. SOX is not out of the game, just needed a consolidation along with the rest of the market. At a key level, however, so as with the other indices, needs to be watched this week to see if this was just a pause.

LEADERSHIP

Chips: Despite SOX lagging (due to some big names), chips still performed well. ENPH, ANAD, MTSN, AFOP, NXPI.

Financial: Bounced nicely off the double bottoms, e.g. JPM, BAC (over the 200 day MA on big volume).

Social media: Riding good earnings. TWTR, LNKD. Well, not all, e.g. YELP.

Big Names: AAPL is still at the November high, threatening a double top. GOOG looks ready to break higher again. AMZN exploded. DIS surged on earnings.

Some others are up in a rebound and thus helped the market, but they may be done, and this may be a reason the indices struggle some next week.

MSFT, INTC, PG.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -20.7 points (-0.43%) to close at 4744.4
Volume: 1.975B (-0.31%)

Up Volume: 916.58M (-603.42M)
Down Volume: 1.09B (+592.18M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.16 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.77 to 1

New Highs: 107 (+13)
New Lows: 35 (-3)

S&P
Stats: -7.05 points (-0.34%) to close at 2055.47
NYSE Volume: 900M (+13.38%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.67 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 3.09 to 1

New Highs: 132 (-5)
New Lows: 15 (-5)

Dow/NYSE
Stats: -60.59 points (-0.34%) to close at 17824.29

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 17.29; +0.44
VXN: 18.41; +0.23
VXO: 17.27; +0.97

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.02; +0.06

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls: 49.0% versus 53.1% versus 49.0% versus 48.0% versus 50.5% versus 56.4% versus 52.5%. Sold on the market selling. Next week it will rise on the market gains. As volatile as the market itself.

Bears: 16.3% versus 16.3% versus 17.4% versus 16.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 14.9%. Back to the game of holding steady with bears underrepresented in the market.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.

Bulls: 49.0%
53.1% versus 49.0% versus 48.0% versus 50.5% versus 56.4% versus 52.5% versus 49.5% versus 51.5% versus 53.4% versus 56.5% versus 56.4% versus 55.5% versus 54.6% versus 47.0% versus 35.3% versus 37.8% versus 45.5% versus 47.5% versus 48.0% versus 52.5% versus 57.6% versus 56.1% versus 52.5%

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 16.3%
16.3% versus 17.4% versus16.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 13.9% versus 13.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 15.1% versus 16.3% versus 18.2% versus 17.3% versus 14.1% versus 15.1% versus 15.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.1% versus 13.3% versus 15.1% versus 16.2%

Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Right now bulls are coming back down from the 60 level that has consistently marked market tops over the past two years. The rapid decline in progress is pushing the bulls/bears lines toward one another. Still far from a cross with bulls falling faster than bears are rising, but bears are warming up to the notion of market weakness.

OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 1.94%. Bonds selling, rates jumping. Again.
1.81% versus 1.77% versus 1.78% versus 1.68% versus 1.67% versus 1.76% versus 1.73% versus 1.81% versus 1.82% VERSUS 1.80% versus 1.88% versus 1.86% versus 1.79% versus 1.83% versus 1.76% versus 1.84% versus 1.91% versus 1.91% versus 1.95% versus 2.02% versus 1.97% versus 1.94% versus 2.04% versus 2.12% versus 2.17% versus 2.19% versus 2.21% versus 2.25%

Oil: 51.67, +1.20. Bouncing off the Wednesday test of the initial break higher. Still a lot to prove with the 50 day EMA ahead. Recall that Wednesday a much larger than expected build in inventories (6+M bbl versus 3.7M bbl) sent prices lower. Friday we learned the North American rig count fell 87 rigs on top of the 94 the prior week. The North American count is down a whopping 1140 in the last 9 weeks.

Gold: 1234.60, -28.40. Plummeting to the 50 day SMA on the low.

$/JPY: 118.987 versus 117.56 versus 117.21 versus 117.58 versus 117.52 versus 117.40 versus 118.30 versus 117.54 versus 117.88 versus 118.45 versus 117.78 versus 118.49 versus 117.80 versus 118.82 versus 117.52 versus 115.928 versus 117.33 versus 117.77 versus 118.29 versus 118.50 versus 119.69

Wow. After the four week lateral move just below the 50 day EMA, a big upside break.

Euro/$: 1.1318 versus 1.1474 versus 1.1387 versus 1.1481 versus 1.1336 versus 1.1290 versus 1.1318 versus 1.1287 versus 1.1375 versus 1.1263 versus 1.1204 versus 1.1366 versus 1.1590 versus 1.1550 versus 1.1543 versus 1.1609 versus 1.1789 versus 1.1764 versus 1.1832 versus 1.1842 versus 1.1789 versus 1.1839 versus 1.1890 versus 1.1934 versus 1.2002 versus 1.2099 versus 1.2156

Big move higher off the 20 day EMA test.

MONDAY

FOMC. Check. Jobs report. Check. Earnings. Mostly check. Lots of news is in the bank so to speak. The indices have rallied again off the lows of the trading range, approaching the range top. Friday a move higher toward those levels and a modest fade.

With a lot of data now priced in, the next move tells much about the market. That is what I wrote back when the indices were finding the bottom of the range on the last selloff. Okay the bounce we were looking for has occurred, at least for the most part. Will there be some more upside then a rollover? Will some more upside reveal a breakout? Or will stocks just fall from the Friday close?

There are still some really good leadership plays from chips, tech, internet. Others are up on nice moves already and can test without rolling over. In short, there are enough stocks that can still rally and thus push the indices to and beyond the old highs.

That can happen, but is that a realistic expectation? SP500 is the poster child for volatility since the Fed ended QE in October. Five breaches of the channel in a market filled with volatility. As noted last week, volatility is the hallmark of a trend change. After a long move up or down, volatility represents a season change just as the weather gets wild when seasons change.

Thus, all the more reason to be cautious with a move higher that was on lower volume for the most part. Not all sessions, but there was stronger downside trade than upside. So, don't assume a break over the prior highs just because the indices have made it that far.

Of course, don't assume a break lower either just because the indices are in a range and are near the top after a week of upside. If the breakouts come, so be it.

We have several upside plays, many we have banked some gain on already, others not yet. On further upside that probes the prior highs but cannot make the break, we want to look at taking some more gain off the table. A very good week upside toward the range peaks, and if there is another try higher that starts to struggle, e.g. throwing tombstone doji or gapping upside to or through the tops and reversing, a good time to bank some gain. At the same time we have some new downside and some plays already on the report we can enter if there is that rollover that heads back toward the bottom of the range. This is, until proved otherwise, after all, only a trading range.

Have a great weekend!

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4744.40

Resistance:
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4774 is the January high
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4815 is the December 2014 market peak

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 4683
4631 is the October 2014 upside gap point
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.
4566 is the lower gap point from late October
4563 and 4567 are the January lows
4547 is the December low
4486 is the July 2014 high
The 200 day SMA at 4484
4372 is the March 2014 high
The August low at 4321
4316 is the lower gap point from October 2014
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4277 is the March lower gap point
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak
4185, the May lower gap point
4131 is the March 2014 low
4104 is the lower gap point from 12/20/13

S&P 500: Closed at 2055.47

Resistance:
2078 is the lower trendline from 11/2012
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2076 is the all-time high from November
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November
2144 is the December 2012 up trendline

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 2033
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1991 is the July 2014 high
The 200 day SMA at 1979
1972 is the December 2014 low
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high

Dow: Closed at 17,824.29

Resistance:
17,923 is the January 2015 lower high
17,991 is the early December interim
18,104 is the December all-time high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 17,569
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
The 200 day SMA at 17,092
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,341 is the May low
16,334 is the August 2014 low
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
15,855 is the October 2014 low
15,739 is the December 2013 low

ECONOMIC CALENDAR

February 6 - Friday
- Nonfarm Payrolls, January (8:30): 257K actual versus 235K expected, 329K prior (revised from 252K)
- Nonfarm Private Payr, January (8:30): 267K actual versus 225K expected, 320K prior (revised from 240K)
- Unemployment Rate, January (8:30): 5.7% actual versus 5.6% expected, 5.6% prior
- Hourly Earnings, January (8:30): 0.5% actual versus 0.3% expected, -0.2% prior
- Average Workweek, January (8:30): 34.6 actual versus 34.6 expected, 34.6 prior
- Consumer Credit, December (15:00): $14.8B actual versus $15.0B expected, $13.5B prior (revised from $14.1B)

February 10 - Tuesday
- Wholesale Inventorie, December (10:00): 0.2% expected, 0.8% prior
- JOLTS - Job Openings, December (10:00): 4.972M prior

February 11 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 02/07 (7:00): 1.3% prior
- Crude Inventories, 02/07 (10:30): 6.333M prior
- Treasury Budget, January (14:00): -$10.3B prior

February 12 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 02/07 (8:30): 285K expected, 278K prior
- Continuing Claims, 1/31 (8:30): 2405K expected, 2400K prior
- Retail Sales, January (8:30): -0.5% expected, -0.9% prior
- Retail Sales ex-auto, January (8:30): -0.5% expected, -1.0% prior
- Business Inventories, December (10:00): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
- Natural Gas Inventor, 02/07 (10:30): -115 bcf prior

February 13 - Friday
- Export Prices ex-ag., January (8:30): -1.2% prior
- Import Prices ex-oil, January (8:30): -0.1% prior
- Mich Sentiment, February (10:00): 98.5 expected, 98.1 prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market turned in another losing session, accented by modest losses for each of the major indices.

Macro issues seemed to win out as a deterrent for buyers, with Greece's recalcitrant stance on bailout renegotiations, a weaker than expected trade report out of China, and ongoing turmoil in the Russia-Ukraine standoff holding sway.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.2%) lost some ground Monday in an otherwise uneventful day of trading that was light on meaningful corporate news.

Notable items from the S&P 500 information technology sector included:

Accenture (ACN 87.36, -0.79, -0.9%) : Announced Accenture Federal Services has agreed to acquire Agilex Technologies, a provider of digital solutions for the U.S. federal government; terms not disclosed

Apple (AAPL 119.72, +0.79, +0.7%): AppleInsider discusses AAPL's Macbook Air refresh which will feature

Intel (INTC 32.93, -0.36, -1.10%) Broadwell chips

Motorola Solutions (MSI 67.78, +3.12, +4.8%): Rallied on a Bloomberg article suggesting Motorola Solutions might be considering a possible sale

Qualcomm (QCOM 67.11, +0.76, +1.2%) News reports suggested the company may be close to agreeing to pay a $1 billion China antitrust fine

Seagate Technology (STX 60.40, +0.46, +0.8%): CEO sold 100K shares at $60.10 worth ~$6.0 mln Elsewhere in the technology arena:

Alibaba (BABA 86.00, +0.32, +0.4%): Announced it has agreed to invest $590 million for a minority stake in Meizu, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer.

Changyou.com (CYOU 24.16, -5.05, -17.3%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.25 per share which was weaker than analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 10.8% year/year to $215.9 mln, which was ahead of estimates. For Q1, sees EPS of $0.08-0.09 and revenues of $195-200 million. The Company also announced the appointment of Jasmine Zhou as Chief Financial Officer.

PMC-Sierra (PMCS 8.97, -0.02, -0.2%): Announced that its Board has authorized a new share repurchase program for up to $75 mln of its common stock. This new program will increase the total remaining repurchase authorization to $102 million, including the $27 million that remains available for repurchases under the $275 million 2012 share repurchase authorization.

Priceline (PCLN 1033.15, +10.73, +1.1%): Announced conversion of its outstanding 1.25% Convertible Senior Notes due 2015 to be paid in cash

Sohu.com (SOHU 51.62, -4.27, -7.6%): Reported Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.36 per share, which may not have been comparable consensus estimates. Revenues rose 23.8% year/year to $477.2 million. For Q1, sees EPS of ($1.05)-($0.95) and revenues of $425-440 million.

Analyst Action:

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.62, -0.03, -0.8%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Societe Generale

Apple (AAPL 119.72, +0.79, +0.7%): target raised to $145 from $135 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy

Broadcom (BRCM 43.37, -0.42, -1.0%): target raised to $52 from $48 at Argus; Buy

Harris (HRS 75.64, -0.54, -0.7%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sterne Agee... Barclays raised its target to $76 from $71

LinkedIn (LNKD 267.43, +4.03, +1.5%): Wunderlich raised its target to $300 from $250... target raised to $315 from $250 at CRT Capital; Buy

Priceline (PCLN 1033.15, +10.73, +1.1%): RBC Capital Markets lowered its target to $1300 from $1400.

Symantec (SYMC 24.75, -0.02, -0.1%): target lowered to $23 from $25.50 at Topeka Capital Markets

Twitter (TWTR 47.32, -0.69, -1.4%): target raised to $50 from $45 at Wunderlich; Buy

Yelp (YELP 42.17, -2.97, -6.5%): MKM Partners lowers its target to $65 from $86

4:10 pm : The stock market kicked off the new week on a sleepy note with the S&P 500 (-0.4%) spending the day in a 15-point range. The benchmark index settled ahead of the Dow (-0.5%), but that was a small victory considering the S&P 500 finished near its session low. Above all, today's trading volume was well below average with just 760 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Equity indices faced some pressure at the start, brought on by lingering concerns about the eurozone. Yesterday, Greek Prime Minster Alexis Tsipras spoke in front of parliament, reiterating his intention to push back against eurozone's austerity measures. The continued defiance towards requests of the troika has led to increased chatter about a forced Greek exit from the single currency bloc. Meanwhile, Germany's Economic Affairs Minister Sigmar Gabriel called the tone of Mr. Tsipras' speech 'regrettable.' Greece's Athens General Index tumbled 4.8% in response while the Greek 10-yr note sold off to send its yield higher by 64 basis points to 10.75%.

The concerns contributed to a lower start, but the S&P 500 did not go down without a fight. The index tried to reclaim its flat line, and was able to do so briefly on the third attempt; however, the third time was hardly the charm as a slide to a fresh session low followed. Nine sectors registered losses with countercyclical health care (-1.1%) and utilities (-0.9%) ending at the bottom of the leaderboard. The utilities sector widened its February loss to 4.6% while health care lagged even as biotechnology names displayed intraday strength. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 313.35, -2.24) spent the bulk of the day in the green, but slumped during afternoon action to end lower by 0.7%.

Elsewhere, another countercyclical group-consumer staples (-0.7%)-also finished behind the broader market while the six cyclical groups settled in-line with or ahead of the S&P 500.

Most notably, the energy sector surrendered the bulk of its intraday gain during the final hour, but still ended ahead of others with crude oil underpinning the relative strength. The energy component gained 2.6% and finished the pit session at $52.99/bbl. On a related note, the Baltic Dry Index fell to a new all-time low, sliding below its worst level from August 1986.

Similar to energy, the technology sector (-0.2%) settled near its flat line. The largest sector by weight enjoyed support from a handful of influential components like Apple (AAPL 119.70, +0.77), Oracle (ORCL 43.40, +0.42), and Qualcomm (QCOM 67.11, +0.76) while chipmakers struggled, evidenced by a 1.1% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Treasuries ended the day with slim gains after a daylong slide from overnight highs. The 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 1.95%.

Tomorrow, the Wholesale Inventories report for December (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and December Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.5% YTD
S&P 500 -0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.7% YTD

DJ30 -95.08 NASDAQ -18.39 SP500 -8.73 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1047/1.52 bln/1801 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1261/758.9/1839

3:35 pm :

Baltic Dry Index falls 5 points to its all time low of 554, initially hit in August 1986
However, this collapse is different vs the 2008 collapse
The 2008 collapse was largely demand driven. This current collapse if both supply and demand driven, but more supply driven (oversupply of vessels)
Related stocks include
DRYS, GNK, PRGN, DSX, FREE, EGLE, NM, NMM, SBLK, KEX, SB, SINO, BALT, SHIP, DCIX.
WTI crude oil futures rallied today and rose as high as $53.99/barrel
By the end of today's session, Mar crude has rallied $1.32 to $52.99/barrel
Natural gas futures were modestly higher all day after selling off from overnight low of $2.69/MMBtu
Apr gold and Mar silver ended the day with modest gains.

4:27 pm Cascade Microtech beats by $0.08, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 below consensus (CSCD)

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.18; revenues rose 7.6% year/year to $36.6 mln vs the $36.63 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.07-0.13, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $32.0-35.0 mln vs. $35.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:22 pm Rudolph Tech announced U.S. District Court ruling in Rudolph's patent infringement case against Camtek (CAMT) (RTEC) : The court denied Camtek's (CAMT) motion for a new trial on damages and granted Rudolph's motion for final judgment and reinstatement of the original damages awarded at trial in 2009.Including interest, these damages now exceed $14mln. Further, the District Court enjoined Camtek from "making, using, selling and offering to sell any of its Falcon machines and any machines that are colorable imitations thereof in the United States, intended for sale and use within the United States, until the expiration of the '6,298 patent. Camtek is enjoined from:

i. Communicating with third parties for the purposes of offering to sell Falcon machines or machines that are colorable imitations thereof, where the contemplated destination of the machine is within the United States. ii. Advertising or marketing the Falcon machines or machines that are colorable imitations thereof in the United States unless it is made clear on the marketing or advertisements that Camtek's Falcon machines or machines that are colorable imitations thereof are not for sale or use in the United States. iii. Providing operator training for Falcon machines or machines that are colorable imitations thereof within the United States.iv. Reconstructing the Falcon machines sold and delivered prior to March 5, 2009 located within the United States, which includes substantially improving or otherwise substantially changing such machines relative to the state in which they were originally accepted by the customer.

4:14 pm Newport beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (NEWP) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.38 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.36; revenues rose 2.9% year/year to $158.7 mln vs the $157.73 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.27-0.34 vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $147-154 mln vs. $153.18 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Amkor beats by $0.24, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (AMKR) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.38 per share, $0.24 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.14; revenues rose 13.0% year/year to $853 mln vs the $781.54 mln consensus.

Guidance: Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.04-$0.14 vs. $0.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $715-$765 mln vs. $739.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co states: "We also expect full year 2015 capital expenditures of around $600 million, including around $150 million of spending for our new K5 factory and R&D center in Incheon, Korea."

4:02 pm Qualcomm reaches a resolution with China's National Development and Reform Commission regarding its investigation of Qualcomm under China's Anti-Monopoly Law; co fined $975 mln and raises low end of FY15 guidance (QCOM) : The NDRC has issued an Administrative Sanction Decision finding that Qualcomm has violated the AML. Qualcomm will not pursue further legal proceedings contesting the NDRC's findings. Qualcomm has agreed to implement a rectification plan that modifies certain of its business practices in China and that fully satisfies the requirements of the NDRC's order.

Qualcomm will offer licenses to its current 3G and 4G essential Chinese patents separately from licenses to its other patents and it will provide patent lists during the negotiation process. If Qualcomm seeks a cross license from a Chinese licensee as part of such offer, it will negotiate with the licensee in good faith and provide fair consideration for such rights. For licenses of Qualcomm's 3G and 4G essential Chinese patents for branded devices sold for use in China, Qualcomm will charge royalties of 5% for 3G devices (including multimode 3G/4G devices) and 3.5% for 4G devices that do not implement CDMA or WCDMA, in each case using a royalty base of 65% of the net selling price of the device. Qualcomm will give its existing licensees an opportunity to elect to take the new terms for sales of branded devices for use in China as of January 1, 2015.

Qualcomm will not condition the sale of baseband chips on the chip customer signing a license agreement with terms that the NDRC found to be unreasonable or on the chip customer not challenging unreasonable terms in its license agreement. However, this does not require Qualcomm to sell chips to any entity that is not a Qualcomm licensee, and does not apply to a chip customer that refuses to report its sales of licensed devices as required by its patent license agreement.

Co raises FY15 EPS to $4.85-5.05 from $4.75-5.05 vs. $4.96 consensus; raises rev to $26.3-28.0 bln from $26-28 bln vs. $27.2 bln consensus.

12:53 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

VALE (7.75 +5.44%): Positive view profiled in Barron's over the weekend.
STO (19.54 +5.43%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
MSI (67.66 +4.64%): Reports out that the company is considering a possible sale of itself.

Large Cap Losers

AA (15.67 -5.43%): Downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan; tgt lowered to $18.50 from $20.
UAL (64.71 -4.25%): Airlines weak as WTI continues its recovery from multi-year lows, jumping 3% on the day to $52.25/bbl (AAL, DAL also lower).
ABBV (56.07 -1.47%): Initiated with a Sell at Citigroup; tgt $53.

Mid Cap Gainers

HAS (60.48 +8.5%): Missed Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.02, missed on revs; raised dividend, announced additional stock buyback.
IPGP (87.02 +6.25%): Raised guidance for Q4 (Dec) to EPS of $1.06-1.07 including $0.03 F/X benefit vs prior guidance of $0.86-1.01 vs. $0.96 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; raises Q4 (Dec) revs of $207 mln from $190-205 mln vs. $196.66 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
DO (34.8 +3.57%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.07, reported revs in-line; decided not to declare a special dividend; maintained quarterly dividend.

Mid Cap Losers

TAHO (12.65 -10.35%): Tahoe and Rio Alto Mining (RIOM) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to combine their respective businesses.
CENX (23.11 -8.55%): Downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
SOHU (52.7 -5.71%): Reported Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.36 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.24); revenues rose 23.8% year/year to $477.2 mln vs the $471.21 mln consensus; Guide Q1 revs in-line.

11:52 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (76) outpacing new lows (44) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABMD, AFH, AMC, AMPH, AMWD, AOS, AYI, BCC, BKMU, CERU, CHFN, CHRS, COTY, CPRT, CSGS, CSTE, CTB, CUBI, DM, DRIV, DST, DY, EMAN, ESPR, EXLS, FBP, FBR, FLWS, FNWB, FSS, GFF, GK, HAS, HCSG, HOFT, HTLF, IBCA, ICCC, ICE, INFY, INT, IPGP, KCG, KSS, LBY, LEN, MAS, MHLD, MOFG, MPC, MRGE, MSI, NEU, NOC, NVS, OPK, ORA, OSBC, PFBC, PGZ, PLUS, PSCD, PVTB, RDUS, RIOM, RLH, RTEC, SCHL, SIMO, SIX, SLGN, SLWD, SNA, TREX, TW, VSEC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AES, ANF, ARTW, CAE, CASM, CBD, CIG, COCO, DEA, EBR.B, FSC, FXEN, GEOS, GOL, HSON, HTS, IMI, KERX, KT, LEU, MDVX, MTGE, MTLS, MVC, NKA, OMEX, ONTY, PFBX, PHT, PRXI, PTNT, PVH, SHAK, SHG, SIF, SLWD, SPDC, SYMX, SYPR, VPCO, WHX, WILC, XXII, YELP

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: UNG

9:00 am PMC-Sierra announces that its Board has authorized a new share repurchase program for up to $75 mln of its common stock (PMCS) : This new program will increase the total remaining repurchase authorization to $102 million, including the $27 million that remains available for repurchases under the $275 million 2012 share repurchase authorization.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market took a while to find its footing on Tuesday amid some conflicting reports discussing the Greek/troika bailout negotiation stances. It ultimately found its footing, though, rallying sharply from its morning lows.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.8%, the S&P 500 jumped 1.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite surged 1.3%.

Naturally, Apple (AAPL 122.02, +2.30, +1.9%) was a key contributor to the broader market's gains along with the semiconductor stocks, which fueled a 3.4% gain for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. The S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.6%), led by Apple, outperformed the broader market.

Notable news items regarding sector components included the following:

Apple (AAPL 122.02, +2.30, +1.9%): According to reports, company is working on vehicle development and is competing with Tesla (TSLA 216.29, -1.19, -0.6%) to hire top talent

Computer Sciences (CSC 60.89, -3.95, -6.1%): Reported Q3 (Dec) earnings of $1.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of expectations. Revenues fell 8.7% year/year to $2.95 bln, which was light of expectations. Company sees FY15 revenues declining in mid-single digits.

Facebook (FB 75.19, +0.75, +1.0%): Company announced that it will make internet available in India along with Reliance Communications through the launch of the Internet.org app and free basic services

First Solar (FSLR 48.61, +2.28, +4.9%): Confirmed that Apple has committed $848 mln for clean energy from First Solar's California Flats Solar Project in Monterey County, California. Apple will receive electricity from 130 megawatts AC of the solar project under a 25-year power purchase agreement, the largest agreement in the industry to provide clean energy to a commercial end user.

IBM (IBM 158.56, +2.81, +1.8%): Confirmed it has entered into a global alliance with Softbank (SFTBY) to bring Watson to Japan. The alliance, which involves training Watson to understand Japanese, represents a major milestone in IBM's efforts to accelerate the adoption of cognitive computing and a powerful example of how SoftBank is transforming Japanese businesses and society. The goal of the collaboration is for SoftBank and IBM to bring new apps and services powered by Watson to market in the region, by establishing a broad local ecosystem of partners, entrepreneurs, and app developers who will apply Watson in new and innovative ways. Separately, IBM confirmed it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against The

Priceline Group (PCLN 1057.62, +24.47, +2.4%) for damages for past infringement and for a reasonable royalty going forward. The lawsuit comes after more than three years of attempts by IBM to resolve its concerns with Priceline over infringement of IBM's patents.

Micron (MU 31.09, +2.74, +9.7%): Disclosed that on February 10, 2015, it and Inotera Memories entered into a supply agreement that amends and restates the existing supply agreement, and a new supply agreement, to take effect as of January 1, 2016. The Supply Agreements provide that, during their respective terms, Inotera will sell to Micron all of the DRAM products manufactured by Inotera. Under the 2015 Supply Agreement, the price for DRAM products sold to Micron is based on a discount from market prices and is determined in a manner generally consistent with the Existing Supply Agreement. The 2015 Supply Agreement will expire on December 31, 2015.

Qualcomm (QCOM 70.26, +3.15, +4.7%): Reached a resolution with China's National Development and Reform Commission regarding its investigation of Qualcomm under China's Anti-Monopoly Law. Qualcomm fined $975 mln but raised the low end of its FY15 guidance, saying it sees EPS of $4.85-5.05 versus prior guidance of $4.75-5.05. Revenue guidance raised to $26.3-28.0 bln from $26-28 bln. Elsewhere in the technology arena:

Netease.com (NTES 114.85, +7.91, +7.4%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.56 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 42.5% year/year to $593.7 mln, which was also ahead of estimates. Company said its board of directors has approved a dividend of US$0.39 per ADS for the fourth quarter of 2014, which is expected to be paid on March 6, 2015 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on February 25, 2015.

Newport (NEWP 20.35, +0.81, +4.2%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.38 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 2.9% year/year to $158.7 mln, also ahead of estimates. For Q1, sees EPS of $0.27-0.34 and revenues of $147-154 mln, both of which are in-line with estimates.

Qualys (QLYS 46.94, +6.09, +14.9%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was above expectations. Revenues rose 25.9% year/year to $36.57 mln, also ahead of estimates. For Q1, sees EPS of $0.10-0.12, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $37.6-38.1 mln, both of which exceeded analysts' average expectations. For FY15, sees EPS of $0.50-0.55, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $167.3-169.3 mln, which is ahead of estimates.

Taiwan Semi (TSM 23.86, +1.19, +5.3%): Announced that its revenues for January 2015 were ~NT$87.12 billion on a consolidated basis, +25.3% from December 2014 and +69.4% over January 2014. Company's Board of Directors also adopted a proposal recommending distribution of a NT$4.5 cash dividend per common share

US government announced it is creating a new agency: Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC). Stocks that advanced on the announcement included the likes of Qualys (QLYS 46.94, +6.09, +14.09), CyberArk Software (CYBR 40.90, +4.81, +13.3%), Palo Alto Networks (PANW 128.43, +3.40, +2.7%), FireEye (FEYE 36.52, +0.98, +2.8%), and Fortinet (FTNT 32.24, +0.75, +2.4%).
Yelp (YELP 44.66, +2.49, +5.9%): Acquired online food ordering service Eat24 in a transaction valued at ~$134 mln. Eat24 provides ~20,000 restaurants in over 1,500 cities nationwide with the ability to offer online delivery and takeout services. The transaction is valued at ~ $134 mln, consisting of ~1.4 mln shares of Yelp Class A common stock and $75 mln cash, less certain transaction expenses and subject to customary working capital adjustments. Yelp said it sees Q1 (Mar) revenues of $118.5-120.5 mln, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation; Adjusted EBITDA is still expected to be in the range of $19-21 mln. For FY15 (Dec) sees revenues of $574 -579 mln, which is also ahead of estimates

Analyst Action:

Qualcomm (QCOM 70.26, +3.15, +4.7%): upgraded to Sector Outperform from Sector Perform at Scotia Capital

Qualys (QLYS 46.94, +6.09, +14.9%): target raised to $49 from $42 at Imperial Capital; Outperform... RBC Capital Markets maintaining Sector Perform rating but raising price target to $40 from $36... BMO Capital maintains Market Perform rating and increases price target to $45 from $374:15 pm : The major averages snapped their two-day losing streak with a Tuesday rally that allowed the S&P 500 (+1.1%) to settle at its best level of the year. The benchmark index finished ahead of the Dow (+0.8%) and Russell 2000 (+0.6%), but behind the Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%).

Market participants were greeted this morning with Greece-related headlines, which should have been expected considering the EU finance ministers meeting will take place tomorrow. The rumor mill was active from the early morning, starting with a Bloomberg report indicating the European Commission will propose a six-month extension for Greece. The report cited unnamed sources and was met with a swift denial from the European Commission spokeswoman, who said there is no formal proposal on the table at this time, but talks are "intensive." German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble also offered a denial, simply calling the report "wrong."

Lost in the whirlwind was the fact that the Bloomberg report took place not long after Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos entertained the possibility of looking for financial support elsewhere, naming the United States, Russia, and China as potential options.

The stock market rallied happily following the initial report and held its ground through the subsequent denials. The S&P 500 spent the bulk of the early afternoon in a narrow range, but powered to a fresh high ahead of the close. It is worth noting that market breadth did not turn positive until the final 90 minutes, meaning the number of advancers equaled that of decliners even as the market sported a solid gain at midday.

Nine of ten sectors registered gains with yesterday's laggards leading the way. To that effect, three of four countercyclical sectors finished ahead of the broader market with health care (+1.6%) and utilities (+2.1%) ending in the lead.

The health care space received support from biotechnology, evidenced by a 1.6% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 318.26, +4.85). The high-beta biotech group gave a boost to the Nasdaq, and the tech-heavy index received another measure of support from chipmaker names. Qualcomm (QCOM 70.26, +3.15) raised its guidance after settling an anti-trust investigation in China for $975 million while Micron (MU 31.09, +2.74) announced an amendment to one of its supply agreements. The two names posted respective gains of 4.7% and 9.7% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index spiked 3.4%. As for the technology sector, the top-weighted group advanced 1.6%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, the consumer discretionary space (+1.2%) settled ahead of the market while the other four groups underperformed.

Notably, the industrial sector (+0.6%) could not keep up with the market even as transport stocks displayed strength (Dow Jones Transportation Average +0.9%). Machinery stocks kept the sector among the laggards following cooler-than-expected inflation data from China. Dow component Caterpillar (CAT 83.90, -0.77) lost 0.9% while Joy Global (JOY 43.84, -0.94) fell 2.1%.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.2%) spent the day in negative territory, but erased the bulk of its loss ahead of the close. The sector had to contend with a 5.5% plunge in crude oil ($50.06/bbl) while Halliburton (HAL 42.60, -0.91) lost 2.1% after Houston Business Journal reported the company will reduce its workforce by 6.5%-8.0%.

Treasuries spent some time on either side of their flat lines before locking in slim losses with the 10-yr yield higher by a basis point at 1.99%.

Participation was below average for the second consecutive day with roughly 770 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Wholesale Inventories and JOLTS:


Wholesale inventories increased 0.1% in December following an unrevised 0.8% increase in November while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
The BEA estimated that wholesale inventories increased 0.6% in the advance Q4 2014 GDP report, which will likely result in negative revisions for fourth quarter GDP
Durable goods inventories increased 0.2% in December after increasing 0.9% in November
Petroleum inventories declined 6.2%, causing a 0.1% downtick in nondurable goods inventories
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that openings increased to 5.028 million from 4.847 million in December

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the Treasury Deficit for January (Briefing.com consensus $19.00 billion) will be reported at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +1.1% YTD
S&P 500 +0.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.3% YTD
Russell 2000 UNCH YTD

DJ30 +139.55 NASDAQ +61.63 SP500 +21.85 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1903/1.64 bln/1109 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1749/768.7 mln/1335 3:40 pm :

WTI crude oil futures sold off today following three consecutive days of gains
One catalyst weighing on crude today was the IEA Oil Market Report, which had some bearish commentary
Ultimately, Mar crude oil closed the day $2.93 lower at $50.06/barrel
Mar nat gas gained $0.08 to $2.68/MMBtu
Precious metals lost steam today, but showed only modest losses
Apr gold fell $9.50 to $1232.10/oz, while Mar silver lost $0.21 to $16.86/oz
Mar copper lost $0.04 to $2.54/lb

4:30 pm Rambus announces it has developed an R+ DDR4/3 PHY on the Samsung (SSNLF) 28nm LPP process (RMBS) : Through the collaboration with Samsung, Rambus has achieved a robust, production-ready R+ DDR4/3 PHY on the power-performance optimized 28nm Low Power Plus process.

3:54 pm First Solar confirms that Apple (AAPL) has committed $848 mln for clean energy from First Solar's California Flats Solar Project in Monterey County, Calif (FSLR) : Apple (AAPL) will receive electricity from 130 megawatts AC of the solar project under a 25-year power purchase agreement, the largest agreement in the industry to provide clean energy to a commercial end user.

The 2,900-acre California Flats Solar Project occupies 3 percent of a property owned by Hearst Corporation in Cholame, Calif. Construction is expected to begin in mid-2015, and to be completed by the end of 2016.

12:43 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers
HOT (75.89 +6.54%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.21, missed on revs; Board approved $750 mln increase to share repurchase authorization; provided guidance for Q1 and FY15 adjusted EBITDA; announced plans to spin-off its vacation ownership business, Starwood Vacation Ownership.
MU (30.23 +6.63%): Co disclosed that it entered into a new supply agreement with Inotera Memories which will allow Micron to buy DRAM products at a discount.
NTES (111.79 +4.53%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.56 per share, $0.03 better than the two analyst estimate of $1.53; revenues rose 42.5% year/year to $593.7 mln vs the $522.07 mln consensus.

Large Cap Losers

KKR (23.73 -5%): Reported Q4 (Dec) economic net income of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.39 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.44; revenues fell 5.3% year/year to $212.9 mln vs the $256.3 mln consensus.
HCP (42.47 -2.68%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.02, beat on revs; guided FY15 FFO in-line; raised quarterly dividend 3.7%; Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Mizuho; tgt lowered to $37.
TAP (74.01 -3.05%): Missed Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.14, reported beat on revs, announced new $1 bln share repurchase program, raised dividend by 11%; made cautious comments during conference call regarding its 2015 expected operating margins.

Mid Cap Gainers

SEE (45.38 +10.87%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.12, reported revs in-line; guided FY15 EPS above consensus, revs below consensus.
MLM (130.59 +9.59%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.94 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.86; revenues rose 57.1% year/year to $856.3 mln vs the $844.43 mln consensus.
WYN (87.81 +8.39%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.06, reported revs in-line; raised FY15 guidance, in-line; raised dividend 20%; sees Q1 EPS $0.91-0.94 vs $0.85 Capital IQ Consensus.

Mid Cap Losers

CSC (60.18 -7.19%): Reported Q3 (Dec) earnings of $1.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.12; revenues fell 8.7% year/year to $2.95 bln vs the $3.18 bln consensus; reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance.
MCY (52.83 -6.83%): Downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Keefe Bruyette.
RIG (19.17 -6.21%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.

7:06 am Entegris misses by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (ENTG) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.18; revenues rose 45.8% year/year to $271.6 mln vs the $267.3 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.15-0.18, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $260-270 mln vs. $266.34 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"The integration with ATMI is proceeding ahead of our original schedule, and we expect to have the vast majority of the cost synergies in place as we exit the second quarter of 2015. The combination with ATMI is allowing us to create new, high-value yield-enhancing solutions to address a wide array of applications for a broad set of customers."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The major indices opened strong on Friday following a better than expected 0.3% quarter/quarter increase in fourth quarter GDP for the eurozone. That increase was driven by Germany, which reported a 0.7% quarter/quarter expansion.

The indices pushed to new all-time highs before dipping lower as investors weighed in on a disappointing University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February. The downturn didn't last long, though, as it was soon followed by an afternoon rally into the close that left the S&P 500 up 0.4% for the day, 5.1% for the month, and 1.9% for the year.

Cyber-security stocks got a boost on Friday with President Obama speaking at the Cyber-security Summit. Many of the companies have already reported strong quarterly results, but the added publicity didn't hurt. Palo Alto Networks (PANW 135.27, +2.26, +1.7%, Cyber-Ark Software (CYBR 52.52 +6.83, +15.0%), which posted better than expected fourth quarter results and first quarter guidance after Thursday's close, Symantec (SYMC 26.33, +0.18, +0.7%), and FireEye (FEYE 42.26 +2.63, +6.6%) all closed higher following the summit.

The S&P 500 information technology index outperformed the broader market, gaining 0.7% on a fairly quiet Friday, led by NetApp (NTAP 38.22, +1.33, +3.6%), eBay (EBAY 56.47, +1.74, +3.2%), Adobe Systems (ADBE 76.51, +1.92, +2.6%), Salesforce (CRM 62.85, +1.59, +2.6%), and AutoDesk (ADSK 60.67, +1.6, +2.7%). Apple (AAPL 127.08, +0.62, +0.5%) chipped in, too, logging its fifth straight gain.

While there were several news stories released today, nothing noteworthy from the S&P 500 technology index made the wire. Notable news items from outside of the S&P information technology sector included:

Freescale Semi (FSL 37.53, +2.83, +8.2%): The company has reportedly hired investment bankers to discuss a possible sale. Management has not made any comment; however, there have been reports in the past that FSL is being viewed as a potential acquisition target. A Bloomberg.com report last month said that Samsung, which has a ton of cash available, was a potential suitor.

FireEye (FEYE 42.26, +2.63, +6.6%): Announced that it will launch its Global Threat Intelligence Sharing initiative as part of its commitment to helping companies leverage Adaptive Defense security architectures that better secure their organizations. The new initiative allows customers to quickly share anonymized FireEye threat intelligence with their partners, customers, and other trusted community members in order to develop a more robust community defense.

King Digital (KING): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.57 per share, excluding non-recurring items, comfortably ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 9.3% year/year to $545.6 mln, yet that was ahead of expectations. The company said it expects gross bookings of $575 million to $600 million in first quarter 2015, noting it expects the general shape of quarterly gross bookings in 2015 to be similar to 2014, with the second and third quarters being softer periods than the first and fourth. In addition, King declared a special dividend to shareholders of $0.94 per share or ~$300 million in aggregate payable to shareholders of record on March 4, 2015.Analyst Action:

Microchip Technology (MCHP 50.71, +0.73, +1.5%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Drexel Hamilton

SanDisk (SNDK 82.81, +0.51, +0.62%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Drexel HamiltonElli Mae (ELLI 50.06, +2.67, +5.6%): target raised to $58 from $50 at Barclays; Overweight... target raised to $61 from $52 at RBC Capital Markets; Outperform... target raised to $62.50 frm $53.50 at ROTH Capital; Buy... target raised to $57 from $47 at JMP Securities; Market Outperform... target raised to $55 from $45 at Oppenheimer; Outperform

Apple (AAPL 127.08, +0.62, +0.5%): target raised to $150 from $130 at UBS; Buy

Cyber-Ark Software (CYBR 52.52, +6.83, +15%): target raised to $50 from $40 at Deutsche Bank; Hold

King Digital (KING 16.70, +1.96, +13.3%): target raised to $21 from $16 at Deutsche Bank; Hold... target raised to $20 from $17 at RBC Capital Markets; Sector Perform... target raised to $23 from $20 at Wedbush; OutperformWeekly Recap - Week ending 13-Feb-15

Dow +46.97 at 18019.35, Nasdaq +36.22 at 4893.84, S&P +8.51 at 2096.99

The stock market finished a strong week on an upbeat note with the S&P 500 (+0.4%) setting a fresh closing record high at 2,096.99. The benchmark index posted a weekly gain of 2.0% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) outperformed to end the week higher by 3.2%.

Equity indices climbed out of the gate after the futures market received an early morning boost from a better than expected Eurozone Q4 GDP reading (+0.3%; expected +0.2%) that was largely driven by a 0.7% quarter-over-quarter expansion in Germany (expected 0.3%).

Meanwhile, Greece was not a focal point on Friday, but Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem did say he is "very pessimistic" that Monday's meeting can produce a concrete solution as Greece maintains high ambitions despite limited possibilities.

Six of ten sectors finished in the green with cyclical groups setting the pace, which was the case throughout the week. The energy sector jumped 2.0% to extend its weekly advance to 2.6% thanks to a rally in crude oil. WTI crude advanced 2.9% to $52.67/bbl and held its ground through the release of the latest Baker Hughes U.S. rig count, which revealed a decline of 98 to 1358, representing the 10th consecutive weekly decline.

Another commodity-linked group-materials (+0.9%)-rallied behind miners and steelmakers. Rio Tinto (RIO 49.37, +2.22) surged 4.7% after reporting better than expected results, boosting its dividend 12.0% to $2.15/share, and adding $2 billion to its buyback authorization. As for steelmakers, ArcelorMittal (MT 11.20, +0.74) jumped 7.1% despite reporting a Q4 loss. The broader Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 35.20, +1.14) gained 3.4%.

Elsewhere, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.7%) began among the laggards, but ended in a position of relative strength. The influential group finished the week in the lead, up 4.3%, with Apple (AAPL 127.08, +0.62) tacking on 0.5% to extend its weekly gain to 6.9%. Chipmakers kept pace with the sector, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 0.7%.

Also of note, the financial sector (-0.1%) lagged throughout the day and its underperformance caused the S&P 500 to make a brief afternoon appearance in the red. However, other sectors held their own through the intraday slip, which in turn, helped the market springboard to a fresh high just ahead of the close.

Meanwhile, countercyclical sectors struggled, but health care (+0.5%) caught up to the market during afternoon action. On the flip side, consumer staples (-0.5%), telecom services (-0.1%), and utilities (-1.6%) settled in the red. Notably, shares of Kraft (KRFT 64.42, -1.75) lost 2.7% after concerns regarding potential currency headwinds overshadowed better than expected results.

Treasuries spent the day in a steady retreat, sending the 10-yr yield higher by five basis points to 2.03%.

Today's participation was below-average, which was the case throughout the week. Only 744 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor (50-day average 835 mln), which likely reflected some caution ahead of a long weekend, which is expected to include the implementation of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire on February 15. Despite the scheduled truce, the past two days featured reports of increased clashes in the contested rail hub city of Debaltseve.

Economic data was limited to Import/Export Prices and the advance reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index:

Export prices, excluding agriculture, decreased 2.1% in January after decreasing 1.2% in the prior reading
Excluding oil, import prices fell 0.7%, which followed last month's 0.1% decline
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index declined to 93.6 in the preliminary February reading from 98.1 in January while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 98.3
Despite the large and unexpected decline, the sentiment level is the same as it was in December
The Current Conditions Index declined to 103.1 in February from 109.3 in January while the Expectations Index dropped to 87.5 from 91.0

Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday for Presidents' Day. On Tuesday, the Empire Manufacturing Index for February will be released at 8:30 ET while the February NAHB Housing Market Index will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Week in review: Nasdaq Composite Reaches March 2000 Levels

The stock market kicked off the week on a sleepy note with the S&P 500 (-0.4%) spending the day in a 15-point range. The benchmark index settled ahead of the Dow (-0.5%), but that was a small victory considering the S&P 500 finished near its session low. Above all, the trading volume was well below average with just 760 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor. Equity indices faced some pressure at the start, brought on by lingering concerns about the eurozone after Greek Prime Minster Alexis Tsipras spoke in front of parliament, reiterating his intention to push back against austerity measures imposed by the troika. The concerns contributed to a lower start, but the S&P 500 did not go down without a fight. The index tried to reclaim its flat line, and was able to do so briefly on the third attempt; however, the third time was hardly the charm as a slide to a fresh session low followed.

The major averages snapped their two-day losing streak with a Tuesday rally that allowed the S&P 500 (+1.1%) to settle at its best level of the year. The benchmark index finished ahead of the Dow (+0.8%) and Russell 2000 (+0.6%), but behind the Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%). The rumor mill was active from the early morning, starting with a Bloomberg report indicating the European Commission will propose a six-month extension for Greece. The report cited unnamed sources and was met with a swift denial from the European Commission spokeswoman, who said there is no formal proposal on the table at this time, but talks are "intensive." German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble also offered a denial, simply calling the report "wrong." Lost in the whirlwind was the fact that the Bloomberg report took place not long after Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos entertained the possibility of looking for financial support elsewhere, naming the United States, Russia, and China as potential options. The market rallied happily following the initial report and held its ground through the subsequent denials. The S&P 500 spent the bulk of the early afternoon in a narrow range, but powered to a fresh high ahead of the close. It is worth noting that market breadth did not turn positive until the final 90 minutes, meaning the number of advancers equaled that of decliners even as the market sported a solid gain at midday.

Equity indices ended the midweek session on a mixed note. The S&P 500 settled just below its flat line after respecting a 15-point range while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) outperformed throughout the session. The final NYSE volume (732 million) came in below average, continuing a weeklong trend. However, the limited participation was not all that surprising as some investors treaded lightly, trying to avoid potential whiplash associated with headlines out of Europe. The EU finance ministers meeting took place in Brussels, but hopes for a swift deal were dampened by Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble who said he did not expect a resolution on Wednesday, echoing comments made by Eurogroup Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Meanwhile, leaders from France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine met in Minsk, and agreed to reaffirm the cease-fire agreement that was struck at the first Minsk conference on September 5, 2014, but was violated shortly after being put into place.

The market finished the Thursday session on a broadly higher note. The S&P 500 (+1.0%) settled just six points below its record high that was registered in late December while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.2%) outperformed. Equity indices began the day with modest gains and continued their advance in undisturbed fashion throughout the day. However, participation was limited once again with 786 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor (50-day average 836 million). Stocks received an opening boost after it was confirmed that leaders from France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine struck a ceasefire agreement, set to go into effect over the weekend. As for Greece, Bloomberg reported that Germany is ready to soften its negotiating stance while Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras agreed to begin a "technical assessment" of the common ground between Greece and the current program in preparations for the next Eurogroup meeting on Monday.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17824.29 18019.35 195.06 1.1 1.1
Nasdaq 4744.40 4893.84 149.44 3.1 3.3
S&P 500 2055.47 2096.99 41.52 2.0 1.9
Russell 2000 1205.46 1223.13 17.67 1.5 1.5

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:XON (39.3 +32.23%),EXEL (2.48 +29.84%),SGMO (15.4 +20.6%)

Materials:RTI (28.03 +23.59%),MLM (145.23 +23.11%)

Industrials:WPRT (6.06 +20.72%)

Consumer Discretionary:LTRPA (31.12 +26.45%),OWW (11.68 +26.27%),WWE (16.59 +25.4%),TRIP (84.81 +23.67%)

Information Technology:CYBR (52.52 +41.68%),MWW (6 +29.87%),VDSI (27.86 +25.44%),AMKR (8.9 +25.35%),KING (16.7 +23.16%),HUBS (43.29 +22.98%),SSNI (9.15 +22.65%),SCOR (53.35 +21.19%)

Financials:NBG (1.61 +33.06%)

Energy:BXE (2.79 +24.55%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:INO (6.8 -17.07%)

Materials:GFI (4.83 -13.44%),KGC (2.81 -13.27%),IAG (2.23 -11.86%)

Consumer Discretionary:PIR (12.52 -26.78%),ZU (14.22 -23.61%),ENT (13.56 -13.63%),CECO (5.34 -13.03%),MPAA (24.08 -12.15%)

Information Technology:MX (7.52 -50.2%),COUP (11.06 -24.76%),ZNGA (2.24 -18.25%),KN (18.59 -17.34%),MKTO (28.24 -17.31%),JIVE (5.34 -12.03%)

Financials:FSC (7.23 -14.84%)

Energy:JONE (10.18 -15.73%),NRP (7.86 -12.08%)

Consumer Staples:ANFI (8.84 -34.03%),THS (80 -11.91%)

3:33 pm Earnings Preview for the week of February 16 - 20 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of February 16 - 20 some of the bigger names include:

Tuesday:
Pre Market - GT, MDT, GPC, WM, MGM, WWW, LECO, WLT, ALE, QSR, PES, ACC, TGH, WRI
After Hours - DVN, FE, OMI, TEX, MEP, FLS, CF, FOSL, A, VMI, ADI, NCLH, AMC, VNO, KAR, XEC, RAX, JACK, WTS, CHE, LZB,

Wednesday:

Pre Market - DUK, FLR, HUN, HLT, NI, H, ENBL, WAB, GRMN, XRAY, SABR, CNK, I, SGBI, ALLE, GEO, VA, NOR, YNDX, CIR, MDCO, DORM, HL
After Hours - ETE, ETP, SXL, EOG, ACT, MAR, TS, ABX, MRO, WMB, CAR, FNF, TRN, RGP, SUN, ARRS, AXLL, XPO, CVG, SUNE, CW, UFPI, MHLD, SNPS, PCYC, SCTY

Thursday:

Pre Market - WMT, DTV, RS, HRL, HII, CVI, PCLN, CVRR, DISCA, DAN, HST, NBL, PDCO, BLMN, LPLA, SCG, GEL, GG, LINE, BCC, GTS, DNR, TK, TTC, FCN, UPL,
After Hours - CYH, JWN, ED, MHK, NEM, MRC, FTR, SPN, MRVL, INTU, SEM, HY, EQIX, BRCD, PSA, BRKR, BLDR, BAS, WIRE, AHS, EGO, IPCM, EXR, ANET

Friday:

Pre Market - ENB, DE, PEG, LH, HCN, COMM, IRM, PNW, COG, TFX, ERF, WLH, B, NPO

12:01 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (263) outpacing new lows (25) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABMD, ACT, ADP, ADT, AFG, AGN, AHS, AKAM, ALKS, ALLE, ALR, AMC, AMP, ANAC, ANSS, ANW, AON, AOS, APD, APH, ASH, ASPX, ASX, AVGO, AYI, BA, BAM, BANR, BCC, BDC, BFAM, BFR, BIP, BKMU, BLK, BLL, BPY, BR, BRCM, CATO, CBM, CCF, CERN, CFG, CFO, CGI, CHD, CHTR, CLGX, CMCSA, CMPR, COL, COLM, COR, CPHD, CPPL, CPRT, CSGS, CSWC, CTAS, CTB, CTCT, CTRN, CTSH, CXW, CYBR, CYN, DD, DEG, DGRW, DHI, DIS, DNB, DOX, DST, DWAT, DXGE, DY, EBSB, EGRX, EL, ELLI, ENDP, ENR, ETFC, EVT, EWBC, FAF, FBP, FCAU, FCE.A, FCZA, FDS, FHN, FICO, FIS, FISH, FISV, FLEX, FNF, FNRG, FONE, FRC, FSL, FTCS, FV, FWRD, GGAL, GHC, GPN, GTIM, HAE, HAR, HAS, HASI, HBAN, HBI, HD, HII, HLIT, HLT, HON, ICE, ICLR, IFEU, IFF, IMAX, INFA, INT, INTL, IP, IPG, IR, ITCI, ITW, JCOM, JKHY, KAR, KEYS, KR, LAMR, LEN, LII, LLL, LMCA, LMCK, LOW, LXFT, MANH, MCHP, MENT, MERC, MHK, MIDD, MIK, MKL, MKTX, MLM, MNK, MO, MOH, MOS, MPWR, MRVL, MSCC, MTSN, MTT, MWV, NEWR, NJ, NOM, NSP, NVAX, NWL, NXPI, NXST, OMCL, ONEQ, OTEX, PAM, PANW, PAYX, PFD, PFNX, PFO, PFPT, PLL, PNFP, PPG, PSCT, PTLA, PTP, PVTB, PZG, Q, QLIK, QQEW, QQQ, QQXT, RAND, RAVE, RAX, RCKY, RDVY, RECN, RIOM, RLGY, RLH, RMCF, ROP, RTIX, RUTH, SATS, SBH, SBUX, SEE, SEIC, SEMI, SERV, SHW, SIRI, SJM, SKX, SKYW, SKYY, SNA, SNE, SNPS, SNV, SSNC, SUBK, SWK, TEL, TRK, TRV, TSM, TSS, TTC, TTMI, TXN, TY, TYPE, UEIC, UFI, UNP, USTR, V, VMC, VONE, VONG, VRSK, VSEC, VTWG, VTWO, VUSE, WBS, WSM, WSO, WU, WX, WYN, ZBRA, ZIOP

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ADRA, AKBA, APTO, AXP, BASI, EGAN, ELON, FIVN, GLBS, LOCM, LTBR, MDM, MX, NSPR, NUTR, OGEN, PANL, PRAN, SQQQ, SSTK, SYMX, TNGO, XXII, ZNGA, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IGV, ITA, ITB, IWF, IWM, IYJ, MDY, PPA, QQQ, RTH, SKYY, VTI, XHB, XLB, XLK, XLY, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SMN

8:34 am Axcelis Tech issues letter to stockholders discussing recent actions taken to create stockholder value (ACLS) : ACLS mgmt issues a letter to stockholders detailing recent actions taken to create stockholder value. Highlights below:

Developed and introduced the full Purion product offering, which is enabling co to gain share and establish a leadership position in the ion implantation market; Significantly reduced operating expenses in demonstrating focus on cost discipline; Improved capital allocation and strengthened balance sheet to drive stockholder returns; Enhanced management team & transformed Board

7:41 am SunEdison announces the completion of a 677 kilowatt ground-mount solar photovoltaic system that will provide energy for the AT&T (T) materials distribution facility in Lancaster, Texas (SUNE) :

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary - Investors Not Afraid of a Long Weekend

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- New highs, almost all the way around.
- Investors not afraid of a long weekend.
- Solid moves from many sectors.
- If we can survive to 2017 and play our cards right, we could see the 1980's again.
- FOMC members out in force against an audit, tout the benefits of the Fed's 100 years. Benefits? Look at the dollar.
- Lots of fast talk explaining why retail sales are weak and people don't feel the effects of the recovery. Maybe, just maybe because the recovery is not benefitting a large group.
- VIX is still a concern.
- Okay, the market made new highs. As Ben Franklin said of the new government, now can they hold it?

It wasn't a lock, but they pulled it off.

Futures were up but not surging. The issues of the week once again appeared to be resolved. Europe and Russia had a Ukraine cease-fire. It wasn't in effect and they were fighting still, but the ceasefire hasn't gone into effect, so get your shots in while you can, right?

Greece and the EU were on again after the reports of a 'agreement in principle' Thursday fell apart. Greece officials were saying at the Monday meeting with EU finance ministers it had to do 'whatever it can' to get a deal. Apparently there is only so much liquidity in Greece, and the reality of comments such as the country could get money from Russia, China, the US or whoever to fund its ongoing overspending started to hit home (i.e. no way that could happen).

With that 'positive' backdrop, futures were up. Not surging, but they were up on top of the week's prior gains. The question we posed in the pre-market was whether modest gains early in the session would hold with a 3-day weekend on top of a nice stock market rally for the week.

It turns out investors (that is the term we are almost euphemistically using to describe current market participants) were not phased at all by the holiday weekend on top of the week's rally. It wasn't all cake, and stocks turned negative in the early afternoon session. They came back, however, and the fact they came back after selling negative is a testament in itself as to the buy side's tenacity.

Not only did the bids return after midday weakness, they were on a mission. A mission to drive the indices to new highs. They did so across the board . . . sans DJ30. Oh it wasn't a blastoff to massive new highs; volume was lower and breadth quite mediocre in contrast to the Thursday move. Still, when NASDAQ made the key move to that higher high Thursday, it had the volume. Key moves accompanies by volume are what you want to see, and at least NASDAQ showed it Thursday.

SP500 8.51, 0.41%
NASDAQ 36.23, 0.75%
DJ30 46.97, 0.26%
SP400 0.53%
RUTX 0.56%
SOX 0.70%

VOLUME: NYSE -5%, NASDAQ -6%

A/D: NYSE 1.7:1, NASDAQ 1.8:1

NASDAQ and SOX again led the gains as on Friday. That is fitting to see growth again taking the lead on new highs. RUTX and SP400 lagged somewhat, but their gains were better than the large cap NYSE. Definitely a growth-led move, and that is always a good thing.

Of course now the questions come. Can stocks hold the move? What about VIX falling to a level that triggered other bouts of selling over the past few months? Perhaps, however, with the indices breaking out the correlation breaks down? Further, what about VIX remaining overall elevated, even though it fell last week, as the market hits higher highs? Valuations are as extreme as 2007, indeed worse by some calculations.

These contrast others who say this is just the start of major move higher.

Short term there likely is testing of this move. Recall SP400 breaking to a higher high 1.5 weeks back. It immediately came back to test. Of course the rest of the market was not following it so it had to test, but it is not unusual to test breaks to new highs, particularly when there is a correlation set up between VIX and stock prices in a range. Yes the indices are breaking out of that range, but they are not blowing it away just yet, not in all cases. Again, breaks higher or breaks lower typically are tested either quickly or a week or so down the road. Doesn't mean the move is over, not at all. The tell, of course, is in how the test unfolds.

In any event, the move Friday on top of a week of gains ahead of a long weekend was somewhat impressive in its audacity if not in its internals.


THE NEWS

The future could be great, IF . . .

In listening to all the back and forth on the week regarding the significance of this move to the highs in the range vis- -vis consumers still not spending as much (see January retail sales miss Thursday), earnings great in some instances, so-so in most others, continuing M&A, dividend payments, and stock buybacks in lieu of real capital investment, and the downturn in US economic activity in December and January, a thought occurred to me.

If the US can make it through 2016 without layering on ever more regulation, taxation, and intrusion in markets and businesses (something hardly answered at this point given just this past week the FEC's proposed rules taking over the internet with a 1930's telecom law), things could be very interesting.

We could see a 1980's-style boom in capital investment given the trillions of dollars that are not being invested because of the regulatory burdens and punitive tax schemes for businesses and individuals thanks to the ACA and the hundreds of thousands of other regulations enacted the past 6 years.

Just as sure as money was squirreled away in tax shelters in the 1970's, where the game was to avoid losing money versus making money and the country plodded its way through a malaise, money is not being put to work building, developing, creating as it typically is in the US. Stock buybacks, dividend payments, M&A (buy it, don't build it) are the 'new normal' forms of investment, along with money held overseas, awaiting a more favorable climate to start investing, building, researching, developing.

Ronald Reagan's son once asked him why he only made one movie a year given he made so much off of that movie. The not-quite-40th-President yet told his son that if he made a second movie, 90% of the profits would be taxed away, leaving just 10% to reward the movie studio, actors, etc. If the film was a flop, the risk of loss was huge. If it was a success, the reward was miniscule. Better not to invest in that second film, but wait until next year and do one then as well.

The same logic applies today. If the next President is smart, he or she will roll back regulations promulgated the past six years as fast as possible, energize Congress to reform the tax code, and provide incentives to invest and build in the US. Not the idiotic 'shovel ready' infrastructure that every socialist and communist country touts as the great jobs creator, but letting the private sector determine where the money should go, providing tax incentives to invest WHEREVER a person or business sees opportunity.

If that is done, trillions of dollars will come flying into the economy, growth will surge, revenues will explode, and, if we don't get stupid (as we always do) and spend $1.50 or more for every tax dollar that comes in, we could correct our deficit problem in no time. Moreover, others would pay up to invest in the US and its strength because the dollar would be so strong everyone would want dollar-based assets. I would love to be the next President. A few simple steps and in economic terms you would go down in history as a great.


FOMC takes to the airwaves to defeat being audited.

Speaking of meddling as referenced above, we have the Fed. This past week many of the twelve (a direct reference to 'The Nine' witch kings from 'The Lord of the Rings') spread out across the land (for them that means the financial stations) to strike back against the congressional bill calling for audits of the Fed to see just where our money is being used. A good question since there are many well-sourced stories out about the Fed using our money to prop up banks, corporations, and countries around the world. We should know why we have 0% interest rates, why our seniors cannot save but have to risk everything in financial markets.

But that would be foolish the smooth talking, indeed smug, FOMC governors instruct us. My goodness, Congress cannot even pass a budget as required by the Constitution and it wants to oversee the Fed? Preposterous of course as it would only be used for political gain and thus the independence of the Fed would be destroyed along with its credibility.

No one can argue that Congress knows damn little about how to run anything. Nor the executive. Nor congressional or executive appointees. Government cannot run anything and, alas, the Fed is a governmental body created by the Congress.

All we want to know is where the money is going. The Fed says it is transparent, but only in discussing interest rates and the concept of QE. It says nothing about WHERE it sends the money, where it makes those purchases, what countries, governments, groups, companies, individuals, etc. get the money or its benefit.

But we are told that the Fed has been around for 100 years and look how great the US is. The Fed is obviously doing the right thing and should be free from this kind of oversight into its inner workings and dealings. Even governor Fisher was dripping smugness when he said the same on Wednesday.

Credibility? The Fed cannot even admit that keeping rates at 0% during the Greenspan era fostered the housing bust. Or that loading the economy with liquidity ahead of Y2K surged NASDAQ 75% only to send it plummeting from 5000 to 1100 when it pulled all liquidity at once and jacked up interest rates in early 2000. How it was too tight at the threshold of the Great Recession with Mr. Bernanke saying the housing market was stable and was in no danger. How now Ms. Yellen cites the falling unemployment rate, that everyone knows is falling due to lack of participation, is a solid indicator of economic recovery.

What about those 100 years? Yes the economy has climbed higher and higher, but what has happened to our buying power? In those 100 years the dollar is been shredded, losing value steadily against gold that used to back it. Gold buys the same amount of goods or services it always has. A dollar, on the other hand, has lost over 90% of its value in that time.



Looked at another way:



Yes, an independent Federal Reserve has been so good to the US citizens. We certainly should not meddle in its affairs; we might find we could have a more valuable currency.


Retail Sales are not low, they just are not tracking the real spending. Yeah, right.

All week, before and after the putrid January Retail Sales figures Thursday (-0.8% versus -0.4% versus -0.9% prior), speculation raged about why consumers were not spending money when jobs were better, the economy was better, and they had the 'gasoline tax cut.'

As is often the case, those wanting to put forth a particular agenda came up with something completely off the wall to explain it: consumers ARE spending, but not on retail goods. They are going out and obtaining services such as massages, facials, lawn care, meals. After all, we are a service economy, right?

Makes so much sense. Until you ask the people in the service industry how their business is. Golly gee, it is as bad as the retail business, at least for the smaller players in the economy.

Maybe not even the small players. Seen PNRA's chart of late? How about CMG? It is not bad all over, but it is not exactly Mai Thais and Yahtzee (from 'Con Air', 1997).


Nicholas Cage, 'Con Air'

That is the way it has been since 2008 and the stimulus package: at that point the federal government made it clear who were the chosen. The large corporations received most of the funds, and those that were left over went to pay some political favors. Regulations at the rate of tens of thousands per year were promulgated that benefitted the large versus the small. The ACA was passed so we could see what was in it. We knew what it was and now we see what it is doing: driving small businesses out of business as, despite the recovery, the US is still killing more small businesses than creating. How healthy!

Perhaps the argument is correct, but misplaced. Yes, perhaps consumers ARE spending more on services. BUT, it is not discretionary services is it? No. It is mandated service acquisition in the form of higher costs of healthcare thanks to the ACA. People MUST spend to acquire insurance or be fined. Either way they are spending, right?

Mr. Liesman on CNBC dismissed the notion the services being purchased were mandated healthcare, saying 'his' group's research showed that spending was lower and thus was not the services where money is being spent.

The fallacy with his position: Liesman looks at average spending and says it is lower. Indeed, that is what the Administration looks at as well in concluding costs are lower.

Remember my discussion of how the costs vary, how a subsidized person can spend $4/month for the same insurance the person who does not qualify for a subsidy spends $4000 to $4800? The person spending the higher amount has seen his or her insurance continue to spike higher. Many saw 30%+ increases last year and are seeing at least the same this year. The AVERAGE cost, however, thanks to the new people put in the system with insanely low costs, is lower. Thus is LOOKS as if the average cost is lower, but we who are in the system KNOW the costs are higher because we are paying higher rates to cover generally higher priced policies as well as those who pay virtually nothing.

Talk about a regulatory burden. A small business that just meets the criteria is suddenly slammed with expenses it cannot afford to pay or pass along to employees because THEY cannot afford to pay it. Thus they have horrible choices. Lay people off and watch their business shrink instead of have a chance to grow, hire more people and cut everyone's hours below the minimum and thus risk losing good workers, or pay the freight and run out of money. The only way to make it work is to suddenly quadruple in size to get some economy of scale. In this economy, however, we know that just isn't going to happen.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

NASDAQ: Only one more high to top, and that is 5133 from March 2000. 15 years ago less a month. Could NASDAQ be there in a month (closed at 4893.84 Friday)? The week saw NASDAQ start at the 10 day EMA just below the November and December peaks. It bounced, hit those highs, then Thursday gapped through them. Friday the same story. Good volume Thursday, lower but decent volume Friday. It showed the volume when it needed and it looks strong now. After a big breakout, it like will test in the near future, but it made the move and it made it with some strength as it came off the January low, showing volume and leadership.

SOX: A week of gains here as well took SOX just past the December peaks. A strong 2 weeks that got dicey Monday and the prior Friday. It held the line and rallied well, following NASDAQ. As with NASDAQ it will test the move before too long, but it will take its cue from that index.

SP400: Similar to NASDAQ, the midcaps rallied to the December peak last week, tested, then Thursday took off. Gapped upside and rallied to the close. Gapped and rallied Friday as well. Excellent upside break. SP400 took to the lead in late December, faded, then took the lead again the last week of January. It is still leading and that is very positive for the market overall.

RUTX: Coming to life, from laggard to co-leader, though still kind of following the other growth indices. Cannot argue with the move, however, rallying form late January, testing into early this week, then surging higher, taking out the summertime peaks then the late December peak Friday.

SP500: New high by the skin of its teeth, but a new high. Kind of a follower with volume lower and below average all week. This one suggests that VIX may be ready to push stocks into a test sooner than later.

DJ30: No new high for you. At 18,104, the prior high is just 86 points away, an easy day's work if the Dow gets it going. It likely could have been there with the other indices but for AXP sinking the index Thursday and Friday. As it is, DJ30 is at a double top and may make the prior high just as the market overall tests the breakouts following the nice two week advance off the bottom of the trading range.


LEADERHIP

Chips: SOX hitting a new high and chips from many different areas and sizes contributing to the move. We have our plays making us money, e.g. ANAD, ENPH, NXPI, MTSN. Others don't stink, e.g. SWKS, BRCM, NVDA.

Internet related: GOOG is still surging up to the 200 day SMA. TRIP rallied again after its gap on earnings. TWTR is still solid after its upside gap. GRUB surged back up off its test that filled the gap.

Software: SPLK jumped yet again after its nice breakout test. FEYE is blasting off, hitting our initial target Friday.

Energy: Still working higher after that pause, no doubt aided by a recovery in oil prices. APC gapped higher again. PTEN jumped on strong volume. SLB gapped upside to a higher high on this rally.

Retail: Still strong but some toppy looks, e.g. ROST, possibly TJX, BBBY. EVLV still looks quite good with a solid Friday move.

China: NOAH is still solid with a good move. JD is in a great pattern. SINA still moving up. Others slammed recently look better or are trying to rebound, e.g. SOHU, BIDU.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +36.22 points (+0.75%) to close at 4893.84
Volume: 1.878B (-6.44%)

Up Volume: 1.29B (-200M)
Down Volume: 629.36M (+69.5M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.75 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.39 to 1

New Highs: 136 (+3)
New Lows: 30 (+4)

S&P
Stats: +8.51 points (+0.41%) to close at 2096.99
NYSE Volume: 760M (-5.32%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.66 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 3.35 to 1

New Highs: 176 (+13)
New Lows: 7 (-4)

DJ30
Stats: +46.97 points (+0.26%) to close at 18019.35


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 14.69; -0.65
VXN: 15.15; -0.95
VXO: 14.48; -0.46

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.97; +0.1

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls: 52.5% versus 49.0% versus 53.1% versus 49.0%. As expected, bulls rose with the market gains. Working in the same lateral range since November after rallying off that dip in October that was the lowest reading

Bears: 15.2% versus 16.3% versus 16.3% versus 17.4% versus 16.3% versus 15.2%. So much for holding steady as bears flop back to the lows. But, even this 'flop' is part of a very long, flat lateral move of virtually no bears, or no change in bearishness.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 52.5%
49.0% versus 53.1% versus 49.0% versus 48.0% versus 50.5% versus 56.4% versus 52.5% versus 49.5% versus 51.5% versus 53.4% versus 56.5% versus 56.4% versus 55.5% versus 54.6% versus 47.0% versus 35.3% versus 37.8% versus 45.5% versus 47.5% versus 48.0% versus 52.5% versus 57.6% versus 56.1% versus 52.5%

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 15.2%
16.3% versus 16.3% versus 17.4% versus16.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 13.9% versus 13.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 15.1% versus 16.3% versus 18.2% versus 17.3% versus 14.1% versus 15.1% versus 15.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.1% versus 13.3% versus 15.1% versus 16.2%


Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Right now bulls are coming back down from the 60 level that has consistently marked market tops over the past two years. The rapid decline in progress is pushing the bulls/bears lines toward one another. Still far from a cross with bulls falling faster than bears are rising, but bears are warming up to the notion of market weakness.


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.03%.
1.99% versus 1.98% versus 1.99% versus 1.95% versus 1.94% versus 1.81% versus 1.77% versus 1.78% versus 1.68% versus 1.67% versus 1.76% versus 1.73% versus 1.81% versus 1.82% VERSUS 1.80% versus 1.88% versus 1.86% versus 1.79% versus 1.83% versus 1.76% versus 1.84% versus 1.91% versus 1.91% versus 1.95% versus 2.02% versus 1.97% versus 1.94% versus 2.04% versus 2.12% versus 2.17% versus 2.19% versus 2.21% versus 2.25%

Breaking below the 50 day EMA for the first time since September 2014. That big surge was the near term top as Rick Santelli called just over two weeks back.

Oil: 52.67, +1.48. Wednesday oil looked weak but it bounced Thursday, and then Friday moved up through the 50 day SMA. It is not dead on this move yet, and with MACD surging and a short inverted head and shoulders pattern in place, anticipate a beak up to the 50 day EMA at 54 soon. It likely takes it out but there is a lot of resistance at 55 to deal with.


Gold: 1227.00, +6.70. Trying to bounce after breaking the 50 day SMA Wednesday, but a pretty tepid move.


$/JPY: 118.83 versus 118.915 versus 120.26 versus119.48 versus 118.62 versus 118.987 versus 117.56 versus 117.21 versus 117.58 versus 117.52 versus 117.40 versus 118.30 versus 117.54 versus 117.88 versus 118.45

Holding at the 20 day EMA after the Thursday flop. Market would like to see it hold.


Euro/$: 1.1390 versus 1.1409 versus 1.1294 versus 1.1315 versus 1.1324 versus 1.1318 versus 1.1474 versus 1.1387 versus 1.1481 versus 1.1336 versus 1.1290 versus 1.1318 versus 1.1287 versus 1.1375 versus 1.1263 versus 1.1204 versus 1.1366 versus 1.1590 versus 1.1550 versus 1.1543 versus 1.1609 versus 1.1789 versus 1.1764 versus 1.1832 versus 1.1842 versus 1.1789 versus 1.1839 versus 1.1890 versus 1.1934 versus 1.2002 versus 1.2099 versus 1.2156

Doji at the 20 day EMA where the DXY0 has held on this entire move. Thus an important test.


TUESDAY

Recall we did not think this move off the low of the range would not make it to new highs back when it started. That premise remained even as the move continued. We prepped some downside plays, entered some. Some worked e.g. GMCR, others started to but have struggled. Indeed, it is interesting several are STILL in position to sell off even as the indices hit new highs.

But I digress. Though we operated under the premise the indices would not make new highs, we have a lot of upside plays. Why? Because the market was primed to bounce, we played the bounce, and lo, stocks are still moving higher. When NASDAQ made that higher low at the 50 day SMA early in the week, our we started to warm to the idea there may be breakouts, particularly given SP400 already made the move.

The beauty of it is, as we said a few times on the way up, if stocks kept moving higher we would make money because we don't try to think we are smarter than the market, we just stick with good plays until they don't work. Obviously with the moves the market made, they are working.

There are good things happening in the market. New highs are showing up all over the place. The A/D lines have turned up. New highs in indices, new highs in stocks, new leaders turning up, old leaders still leading.

Now that the indices are at new highs suddenly everyone looks at the market again. Sometimes new highs begat more new highs as money rushes in to chase the move. That pushes our positions higher and creates opportunity to take gain in that regard as well as new upside plays.

It also means be a bit careful. After the rush of money the move is typically done near term and needs a rest. Thus, on a further rush higher next week, be prepared to bank some more gain. It is expiration week as well so you can bet more gains will be met with some selling, But it also will mean some volume as MANY felt the market would not make new highs, and if the indices hold the new highs they will be forced to roll out positions and otherwise cover. Again, that leads to some upside pressure.

You know that typically after new highs the market tests those highs at some point. A rush higher in expiration week is tailor made to take some gain and then anticipate some pullback. It may come, it may not, but if positions hit or tickle the targets or are up many days in a row, banking some gain ins prudent. If things pull back you look like a genius. And things will pull back at some point in the near future after this kind of move and given the breakouts.

So, we use the move to our advantage, as always. That does not mean we here are not going to look at other upside. To the contrary, while many stocks are up, we are looking around for others to play. Not all stocks rise at the same time. Further, even in a pullback good stocks will hold their patterns, and we want to be ready. Also, just because we think a pullback is due, doesn't mean it will happen anymore than it meant the indices would not make higher highs.

So, we look for up and coming areas, and if the market continues and they make the moves from good risk/reward levels, we participate in those moves. I always say a stock or an index can run farther, upside or downside, than we rationally think possible. Moreover, market advances move in waves. Early leaders rally first, then the next wave, then the next, etc. Consider that the indices just broke from a 3.5 month lateral consolidation/trading range. That is a pretty solid basing process and this is the first move. It behooves us to play stocks that are in good position to move higher and start higher given the indices are just making the break.

As always, look for good risk/reward and don't chase extended stocks, particularly after two weeks of upside. If a good stock broke out and we didn't get it, just wait. It will give you a second chance, e.g. GRUB, SPLK. Be patient, let them setup, then move in when they move. Take gain at logical points. If a play doesn't work, cut it and move on; there are many out there working just fine. And always, take partial profits then let the rest run higher. In these kind of moves exercising that kind of patience often turns a good gain into a really great gain.

Have a great Valentine's Day!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4893.84

Resistance:

Support:
4815 is the December 2014 market peak
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4774 is the January high
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
The 50 day EMA at 4708
4631 is the October 2014 upside gap point
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.
4566 is the lower gap point from late October
4563 and 4567 are the January lows
4547 is the December low
The 200 day SMA at 4501
4486 is the July 2014 high
4372 is the March 2014 high
The August low at 4321
4316 is the lower gap point from October 2014
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4277 is the March lower gap point
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak


S&P 500: Closed at 2096.99

Resistance:
2150 is the December 2012 up trendline

Support:
2094 is the all-time high
2087 is the lower trendline from 11/2012
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November
2076 is the all-time high from November
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
The 50 day EMA at 2041
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1991 is the July 2014 high
The 200 day SMA at 1984
1972 is the December 2014 low
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high


Dow: Closed at 18,019.35

Resistance:
18,104 is the December all-time high

Support:
17,991 is the early December interim
17,923 is the January 2015 lower high
The 50 day EMA at 17,628
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
The 200 day SMA at 17,127
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,341 is the May low
16,334 is the August 2014 low
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
15,855 is the October 2014 low
15,739 is the December 2013 low


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

February 10 - Tuesday
Wholesale Inventories, December (10:00): 0.1% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.8% prior
JOLTS - Job Openings, December (10:00): 5.028M actual versus 4.847M prior (revised from 4.972M)

February 11 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 02/07 (7:00): -9.0% actual versus 1.3% prior
Crude Inventories, 02/07 (10:30): 4.868M actual versus 6.333M prior
Treasury Budget, January (14:00): -17.5B actual versus -$19.0B expected, -$10.3B prior

February 12 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 02/07 (8:30): 304K actual versus 285K expected, 279K prior (revised from 278K)
Continuing Claims, 1/31 (8:30): 2354K actual versus 2395K expected, 2405K prior (revised from 2400K)
Retail Sales, January (8:30): -0.8% actual versus -0.4% expected, -0.9% prior
Retail Sales ex-auto, January (8:30): -0.9% actual versus -0.4% expected, -0.9% prior (revised from -1.0%)
Business Inventories, December (10:00): 0.1% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 02/07 (10:30): -160 bcf actual versus -115 bcf prior

February 13 - Friday
Export Prices ex-ag., January (8:30): -1.0% actual versus -1.0% prior (revised from -1.2%)
Import Prices ex-oil, January (8:30): -0.7% actual versus -0.1% prior
Mich Sentiment, February (10:00): 93.6 actual versus 98.3 expected, 98.1 prior

February 17 - Tuesday
Empire Manufacturing, February (8:30): 9.0 expected, 9.9 prior
NAHB Housing Market , February (10:00): 58 expected, 57 prior
Net Long-Term TIC Fl, December (16:00): $33.5B prior

February 18 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 02/14 (7:00): -9.0% prior
Housing Starts, January (8:30): 1070K expected, 1089K prior
Building Permits, January (8:30): 1065K expected, 1032K prior
PPI, January (8:30): -0.4% expected, -0.3% prior
Core PPI, January (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.3% prior
Industrial Productio, January (9:15): 0.4% expected, -0.1% prior
Capacity Utilization, January (9:15): 79.9% expected, 79.7% prior
FOMC Minutes, 1/28 (14:00)

February 19 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 02/14 (8:30): 295K expected, 304K prior
Continuing Claims, 02/7 (8:30): 2398K expected, 2354K prior
Philadelphia Fed, February (10:00): 9.8 expected, 6.3 prior
Leading Indicators, January (10:00): 0.3% expected, 0.5% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 02/14 (10:30): -160 bcf prior
Crude Inventories, 02/14 (11:00): 4.868M prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Market participants returned from the holiday weekend, armed with the understanding that Greece had balked at the suggestion of extending its bailout program, that the ceasefire in Ukraine had been violated, and that Japan's fourth quarter GDP was weaker than expected. Notwithstanding the negative connotation of those headlines, the stock market stood its ground and walked through Tuesday's session with a sense of calm and resignation that worst-case scenarios won't be allowed to unfold.

The latter mentality took a heavy toll on the U.S. Treasury market, which suffered some sizable losses across the curve as safe-haven trades were liquidated.

A mid-day report that Greece is poised to accept a six-month extension of its bailout program compounded the selling in the Treasury market and underpinned the stock market, along with a positive reversal in oil prices, for the remainder of the day.

A burst of buying interest in the closing minutes enabled the S&P 500 to gain 0.2% and top 2100.00 for the first time ever on a closing basis (2100.34).

The S&P 500 information technology sector was flat on Tuesday, weighed down by the likes of Google (GOOG 542.18, -6.15, -1.2%), Microsoft (MSFT 43.54, -0.29, -0.8%), Oracle (ORCL 43.80, -0.09, -0.3%), Seagate Technology (STX 61.10, -0.68, -1.2%), and Yahoo (YHOO 43.53, -0.89, -2.0%). Apple (AAPL 127.83, +0.75, +0.6%), however, provided some offsetting support.

The newsflow out of the sector was fairly limited, and included the following:

Accenture (ACN 89.30, -0.49, -0.6%): Was chosen by Pacific Specialty Insurance Company to deliver its Accenture Duck Creek Suite through a Software as a Service model, replacing its legacy-based property and casualty insurance system.

Alliance Data (ADS 284.23, -2.38, -0.8%): Monthly update on its Private Label segment showed average receivables for January totaled $10.9 bln, up 32% year-over-year; delinquency rate of 4.2% versus 4.3% in 2014.

Apple (AAPL 127.83, +0.75, +0.6%): Barron's profiles positive view on Apple based on upcoming Apple Watch product. Separately, AppleInsider article says Apple has won a patent that would allow an iPhone to serve as a display for a virtual reality headset.

Facebook (FB 75.51, -0.14, -0.3%): Announced new product ads feature that helps businesses promote multiple products or their entire catalog on devices used by their customers.

Google (GOOG 542.18, -6.41, -1.2%): Disclosed that under the terms of the newly adopted Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, and as a part of a two-year diversification plan, Larry Page and Sergey Brin each intends to sell approximately 2 million shares of each Class B common stock (converted into Class A common stock) and non-voting Class C capital stock. If Larry and Sergey complete all the planned sales under these newly adopted Rule 10b5-1 stock trading plans, they would continue to collectively own approximately 40.6 million shares of Class B common stock, which would represent approximately 11.9% of Google's outstanding Class A and Class B common stock, taken together, and approximately 52.0% of the voting power of Google's outstanding voting stock.

IBM (IBM 160.75, +0.56, +0.2%): Announced an innovative public-private partnership, along with CenturyLink (CTL 39.23, -0.23, -0.6%) and the State of Louisiana, which will create high-value, high-tech jobs in Louisiana and fuel the talent demands of the digital economy. Separately, IBM unveiled IBM Spectrum Storage, a new storage software portfolio designed to address data storage inefficiencies by changing the economics of storage with a layer of intelligent software. To accelerate the development of next-generation storage software, IBM also announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in its storage software portfolio over the next five years.Elsewhere in the technology space:

Agilent Technologies (A 40.52, +0.37, +0.9%): Dako, an Agilent Technologies company and ONO Pharmaceutical announced a new partnership to develop a potential diagnostic test specifically for use with Opdivo in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. This test is being investigated for its diagnostic utility to determine which patients are most likely to respond to Opdivo.

Alibaba (BABA 86.85, -2.20, -2.5%): Company stated, "Alibaba Group has received correspondence from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission asking for background facts and other information related to our interaction with one of our Chinese regulators, the SAIC, and related matters. We are cooperating with the SEC's request. Although Alibaba Group has no obligation to disclose the receipt of the SEC correspondence, we have chosen to proactively disclose the request because we value being open with our investors and feel that disclosure could help avoid false rumors or speculation. The SEC letter states it should in no way be construed as Alibaba Group having done anything wrong or there having been any violation of securities law. We are committed to maintaining an open, transparent and cooperative relationship with all regulatory agencies and look forward to a constructive dialogue.

Amazon.com (AMZN 375.27, -6.56, -1.7%): Press reports indicated that Amazon.com's drone plans may be limited by government regulation. Also, according to reports, Amazon.com has started one hour delivery in NYC's Manhattan region.

Arrow Electronics (ARW 62.12, +0.14, +0.2%): Acquired United Technical Publishing, a digital provider of product information to the global electronics components industry; terms not disclosed.

Blackberry (BBRY 10.36, +0.27, +2.7%): AT&T (T 34.71, +0.05, +0.1%) announced that the BlackBerry Passport and BlackBerry Classic will be available at att.com and in AT&T retail stores on Feb. 20.

Sonus Networks (SONS 18.10, +0.41, +2.3%): Company and Numonix announced that they are collaborating to increase customer service levels, maximize agent productivity, support compliance regulations and reduce contact center costs by enabling security, enhancing reliability and integrating call recording.

Analyst Action:

Blackberry (BBRY 10.36, +0.27, +2.7%): target raised to $10 from $9 at Cowen; maintain Market Perform

FireEye (FEYE 43.84, +1.58, +3.7%): target raised to $49 from $44 at BofA/Merrill

FreeScale Semi (FSL 36.30, -1.23, -3.3%): Downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets

Micron (MU 32.32, +0.47, +1.5%): upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie... RBC Capital Markets raises its target to $44 from $42... target raised to $45 from $42 at Jefferies; Buy

4:32 pm Photronics beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (PLAB) : Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.06 and at the high end of prior guidance of $0.02-0.07; revenues rose 21.6% year/year to $123.51 mln vs the $123.37 mln consensus.

4:15 pm : The stock market kicked off an abbreviated trading week with a sleepy Tuesday session that had the S&P 500 (+0.2%) locked in an eleven-point range while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.1%) spent the bulk of the day near its flat line.

Broadly speaking, the market appeared to be little concerned with weekend developments overseas, making the price action more closely correlated with the gyrations in the oil market. The benchmark index returned to its session high just above the 2,100 mark during the final minutes of the day; however, that move was not correlated to anything in particular.

A ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia-backed rebels went into effect over the weekend, but the agreement only reduced fighting in the eastern part of the country. Most importantly, the truce failed to stop the assault on an important rail hub in Debaltseve, with rebel leaders claiming control of the area, according to the Associated Press.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who met Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban today, said the fate of Debaltseve could have been foreseen while the UN Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire.

Meanwhile in Brussels, yesterday's Eurogroup meeting with Greece provided little reason for optimism for a swift solution. The atmosphere at the negotiating table may have gotten a bit frostier today after Eurogroup officials struck down a proposal that was brought forth by France's Pierre Moscovici, and had the support of Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.

This morning's torrent of quotes from the Eurogroup was followed by more thunder from Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who was interviewed in Germany's Stern, and reiterated "The old austerity program is dead."

Despite Mr. Tsipras' comments, an afternoon report, attributed to unnamed sources, claimed that Greece will ask for an extension to the program that has been proclaimed dead. That report made the rounds in the early afternoon and helped nudge the S&P 500 to the 2,100 level.

Five sectors posted gains with health care (+0.7%) spending the entire session in the lead. The influential group was underpinned by biotechnology with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 326.82, +3.36) adding 1.0%.

The relative strength of the health care sector helped the benchmark index resist early weakness among cyclical sectors. Energy (+0.3%) was among the weakest performers in the early going, but the growth-sensitive sector perked up when crude oil erased its early morning loss. The energy component rallied 1.7% to $53.54/bbl after trading below the $52.00/bbl level this morning.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, financials (+0.3%) outperformed while the discretionary sector (-0.2%) was pressured by Amazon.com (AMZN 375.27, -6.56), which lost 1.7%. Automakers also struggled with Ford (F 16.11, -0.19) and General Motors (GM 37.24, -0.38) down 1.2% and 1.0%, respectively.

While the stock market maintained a narrow range, the same could not be said for Treasuries. The 10-yr note spent the day in a steady slide, sending the benchmark yield higher by 13 basis points to 2.15%. The selling may have occurred in anticipation of tomorrow's FOMC minutes from the January meeting that are likely to keep participants on guard for a potential rate hike.

Light participation was a theme last week and not much changed today with just 763 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the Empire Manufacturing Survey and NAHB Housing Market Index:


The Empire Manufacturing Survey for February registered a reading of 7.8, which was below the prior month's reading of 9.9 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an improvement to 9.0
The NAHB Housing Market Index for February slipped to 56 from 57 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick to 58

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while January Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.07 million), Building Permits (consensus 1.065 million), PPI (consensus -0.4%), and core PPI (expected 0.1%) will all be reported at 8:30 ET. The January Industrial Production (consensus 0.4%) and Capacity Utilization (expected 79.9%) reports will be released at 9:15 ET while the FOMC minutes from the January meeting will cross the wires at 14:00 ET.
DJ30 +28.23 NASDAQ +5.43 SP500 +3.35 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1626/1.62 bln/1286 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1352/763.4 mln/1782 3:55 pm :

Gold and Silver ended the day down, both sank in early trading and never recovered, Apr Gold ended the day $18.50 lower at $1208.50/oz, and Mar Silver ended the day down $0.91 to $16.37/oz
Mar Copper closed $0.02 lower at $2.58/lb
March Crude Oil futures closed the day up $0.87/barrel to $53.54/barrel
Mar Natural Gas closed down $0.04 to $2.76/MMBtu

4:12 pm Agilent reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY15 EPS in-line, revs in-line (A) : Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.41 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.41; revenues rose 1.8% year/year to $1.03 bln vs the $1.03 bln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.37-0.41 vs. $0.39 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $0.985-1.005 bln vs. $1 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $1.67-1.73 vs. $1.73 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 revs of $4.06-4.12 bln vs. $4.12 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:11 pm Analog Devices beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 above consensus; raises quarterly dividend 8% to $0.40/share (ADI) : Reports Q1 (Jan) non-GAAP earnings of $0.63 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.61; revenues rose 22.9% year/year to $772 mln vs the $760.5 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.70-0.74, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.70 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $810-830 mln vs. $806.72 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

ADI announced that its Board of Directors has approved an 8% increase in its quarterly cash dividend, from $0.37 to $0.40 per outstanding share of common stock. The quarterly dividend that was declared by the Board of Directors will be paid on March 10, 2015 to all shareholders of record at the close of business on February 27, 2015.

4:03 pm Anadigics beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs below consensus (ANAD) : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.05 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.06); revenues fell 42.4% year/year to $20.9 mln vs the $20.77 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs down 10-13% q/q (of approx $18.1-18.8 mln) vs. $19.00 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:57 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

VIPS (24.8 +13.76%): Beat Q4 consensus estimates by $0.02, beat on revs; guided Q1 revs above consensus.
WM (53.82 +4.93%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.08, missed on revs; guided FY15 EPS in-line; Board increased div to $0.385/share from prior of $0.375/share; authorized a share repurchase program of up to $1 bln.
CP (193.41 +3.81%): Announced that a tentative four-year agreement has been reached with Unifor; separately announce with that the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference agreed to enter into binding arbitration; also Conatus Capital discloses new ~0.5 mln stake in the name.

Large Cap Losers

CAG (33.87 -2.76%): Unfavorable mention on Friday's Mad Money.
FSL (36.47 -2.82%): Downgraded to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts on risk/reward.
M (63.15 -1.82%): Initiated with an Underweight at Barclays, tgt $55.

Mid Cap Gainers

FEYE (44.27 +4.76%): Price target raised to $49 from $44 at BofA/Merrill; firm has Buy rating on the name.
YUM (75.3 +0.82%): initiated with a Market Perform at Cowen.
CBI (40.52 +4.73%): Heavy call activity in the name following a new ~2.9 mln share position in the name at Greenlight Capital.

Mid Cap Losers

HLX (16.15 -15.36%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.08 per share, $0.12 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues fell 8.6% year/year to $207.2 mln vs the $223.93 mln consensus.
GFI (4.43 -8.28%): Downgraded to Sector Underperform from Sector Perform at Scotia Capital.
DDD (30.72 -6.37%): Cautious view profiled in Barron's over the weekend.

11:44 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (195) outpacing new lows (36) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ABC, ACT, ADT, AFG, AGN, AHS, AKAM, AMP, ANAC, ANSS, ANW, APD, ARRY, ASMB, ASPX, ASX, AVGO, BA, BAM, BBP, BC, BCC, BDC, BFR, BLK, BMA, BMRN, BRCD, BRLI, BZM, CBPO, CCF, CCI, CDI, CDW, CEMP, CFG, CFO, CGI, CHD, CHH, CNC, COLM, COTY, CPHD, CPPL, CPRT, CPSH, CRIS, CRUS, CSWC, CTB, CTCT, CTRN, CTRX, CTSH, CXW, CYBR, DIS, DLPH, DNB, DOOR, DRAD, EBIX, EBS, EFX, EGRX, EIGI, ENDP, ESP, ESPR, EWBC, FDP, FDS, FHN, FIS, FLEX, FLWS, FNF, FNRG, FONE, FRME, FTR, FV, GGAL, GHC, GTIM, HASI, HII, HRL, HSII, HUBS, HXL, ICLR, INGN, INT, INTL, IPG, IPXL, ISSI, ITCI, ITG, JKHY, JLL, KAR, KEYS, KR, LABL, LBTYA, LBTYK, LCI, LII, MANH, MANT, MAR, MCK, MDT, MFLX, MIDD, MKL, MNK, MPC, MSCC, MSTR, MTSN, NEU, NEWT, NHC, NSP, NVAX, NWL, NXST, OMAM, ONNN, OTEX, PANW, PFPT, PINC, PKG, PNFP, POOL, PSCD, PSCH, PSCT, PTLA, PVTB, QLGC, QLYS, QQQ, QQXT, RAX, RCKY, RLH, ROG, RVSB, SAIC, SEE, SEMI, SERV, SGU, SHW, SPR, STLY, SWK, TEL, THOR, TQQQ, TRK, TRV, TTMI, TXT, TY, TYL, UEIC, UNFI, USAK, USTR, UTHR, UTX, VDSI, VMC, VONG, VRSN, VTWG, VTWO, WAL, WBS, WM, WSO, WU, WYN, XON, ZBRA, ZIOP

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AVGR, AVNU, AXP, CLTX, CNXR, COCO, ELON, FIVE, GLF, GRAM, GRVY, HLX, ICA, ISHG, JOEZ, KOOL, LBIX, MGH, MPV, MTGE, NRP, NSPR, ONTX, PANL, PRXI, RGSE, RL, SCON, SDPI, SHAK, SNC, SPKE, SQQQ, TSI, TTF, XRA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IHI, ITA, IWM, MDY, PPA, PPH, PSK, QQQ, UWM, XBI, XLK, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: PPLT

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: It was another languid day of trading for the broader market, which continued to be transfixed by the back and forth drama surrounding Greece's efforts to work out a new agreement with the troika. To that end, early reports on Thursday said Greece requested a six-month extension for its loan agreement. Soon thereafter, it was reported that Germany balked at that request.

By and large, investors balked at participating in Thursday's market. Trading volume at the NYSE totaled just 677 mln shares, which marked the second lowest volume day of the year.

The S&P 500 dipped two points, or 0.1%, held back by weakness in the utilities (-1.01%), energy (-0.8%), consumer staples (-0.6%), and financial (-0.4%) sectors.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.4%) was the best-performing sector on Thursday, which was remarkable simply because Apple (AAPL 128.45, -0.26, -0.2%) did not participate in the move. After seven straight gains, Apple rested on the eighth session. Picking up its slack were Applied Materials (AMAT 24.91, +0.84, +3.4%), EMC Corp. (EMC 28.72, +0.52, +1.8%), Facebook (FB 79.42, +2.71, +3.5%), MasterCard (MA 89.20, +1.47, +1.7%), and Yahoo! (YHOO 44.37, +0.72, +1.7%).

Once again, newsflow from sector components was limited, but included the following: Google (GOOG 542.91, +3.21, +0.6%): CNBC reported after Wednesday's close that Google may soon introduce paid subscription service

IBM (IBM 163.89, +1.70, +1.1%): Announced two new next generation flash storage products for data-intensive applications and infrastructures

Qualcomm (QCOM 70.99, +0.45, +0.6%): Disclosed that, on February 18, 2015, it entered into a Revolving Credit Agreement which provides for a five-year senior unsecured revolving credit facility in an aggregate principal amount of $4 bln. Loans under the Revolving Credit Facility will bear interest, at the option of the Company, at either LIBOR (determined in accordance with the Revolving Credit Agreement) plus an initial margin of 0.700% per annum or the Base Rate (determined in accordance with the Revolving Credit Agreement) plus an initial margin of 0.000% per annum.

Yahoo! (YHOO 44.39, +0.74, +1.6%): Announced new mobile developer suite at its Yahoo Mobile Developer Conference; includes suite apps for analytics, publishing, marketing and search Elsewhere in the technology space: Priceline (PCLN 1219.42, +96.43, +8.6%): Reported Q4 (Dec) non-GAAP earnings of $10.85 per share, which was well ahead of estimates. Revenues rose 19.4% year/year to $1.84 bln. For Q1, sees non-GAAP EPS of $7.20-7.75, which is shy of expectations. Year-over-year (YoY) increase in total gross travel bookings of ~2% - 9% (an increase of ~14% - 21% on a local currency basis). YoY increase in international gross travel bookings of ~3% - 10% (an increase of ~17% - 24% on a local currency basis). YoY increase in domestic gross travel bookings of ~0% - 5%. YoY increase in revenue of ~4% - 11%. YoY increase in gross profit of ~9% - 16% (an increase of ~21% - 28% on a local currency basis). Adjusted EBITDA of ~$475 million to $510 million.

SolarCity (SCTY 53.79, -3.31, -5.9%): Reported Q4 (Dec) loss of $1.47 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was shy of analysts' average loss estimate. Revenues rose 51.8% year/year to $71.8 mln, slightly ahead of expectations. For Q1, sees EPS of ($1.75)- ($1.65), excluding non-recurring items, which is a bigger projected loss than analysts were expecting. Company said it has secured a majority of the financing commitments required to fund all of its 2015 needs. For the first quarter of 2015, it is targeting MW Installed of 145 MW. This reflects the typical commercial softness in the first quarter, the company said, and growing seasonality in its residential deployments in light of a higher mix of demand in Northeast states like NY, MA, and CT where snow on rooftops can and is causing delays in some installs.

Sprint (S 4.88, -0.10, -2.0%): Commenced an underwritten public offering of $1 bln aggregate principal amount of notes. The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, which may include, among other things, working capital requirements, retirement or service requirements of outstanding debt and network expansion and modernization.

SunEdison (SUNE 21.97, -0.05, -0.2%): Reported Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.16 per share, well ahead of estimates. Revenues fell 34.9% year/year to $625.5 mln, which was shy of expectations. Q4 Solar energy systems retained on the balance sheet 295 MW compared to guidance of between 251 MW and 361 MW. Operating cash used in the 2014 fourth quarter was $199.9 million and was primarily the result of changes in working capital and continued investment to grow the business. Free cash flow was $198.6 million and was largely influenced by solar energy project financing, solar project construction activities, and capital expenditures.

T-Mobile (TMUS 31.85, +0.85, +2.7%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.12 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. 4Q14 Adjusted EBITDA increased 41.3% to $1.8 billion. Company said it had 2.1 million total net adds in 4Q14 and 8.3 million in 2014. For 2015 it is targeting 2.2 to 3.2 million branded postpaid net customer additions and $6.8 to $7.2 billion of Adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter of 2015 is expected to be significantly impacted by a large investment to front end customer growth in 2015, similar to what the Company did in 2014.

Unisys Corporation (UIS 23.23, +0.28, +1.2%): Announced that Banco de Brasilia has signed a contract with Unisys' Brazilian subsidiary for new Unisys ClearPath Libra systems to expand computing power to support growth initiatives, streamline operations and enhance customer service. Signed in the third quarter of 2014, the three-year contract has a value of ~$16 million.

Analyst Action:

Amazon.com (AMZN 378.99, +5.62, +1.5%): target raised to $475 from $420 at Piper Jaffray; Overweight

Apple (AAPL 128.45, -0.26, -0.2%): target raised to $140 from $130 at RBC Capital Mkts; Outperform

Avago Technologies (AVGO 110.90, +0.90, +0.8%): target raised to $125 from $122 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy

Qihoo 360 Tech. (QIHU 52.09, -2.74, -5.0%): target lowered to $88 from $98 at Stifel

SolarCity (SCTY 53.81, -3.29, -5.8%): Canaccord Genuity raises their SCTY tgt to $67 from $64
(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Yahoo!)

4:12 pm Cohu beats by $0.22, beats on revs (COHU) : Reports Q4 (Dec) adearnings of $0.39 per share, $0.22 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.17; revenues rose 57.4% year/year to $96.2 mln vs the $82.01 mln consensus. Orders were $60.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2014 and $86.7 million for the third quarter of 2014. Orders for semiconductor equipment were $56.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2014 compared to $82.6 million in the third quarter of 2014 as customers digested the significant capacity additions from recent quarters.

4:11 pm Marvell beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (MRVL) : Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.24; revenues fell 8.0% year/year to $857 mln vs the $889.88 mln consensus. Reports Non-GAAP Gross Margin of 51.9% compared to guidance of 49.5-51.5%. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.17-0.19 vs. $0.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $810-830 mln vs. $884.21 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Non-GAAP Gross Margin is expected to be in the range of 49.5-51.5%.

4:08 pm Univ Elec beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (UEIC) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.70 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.65; revenues rose 1.7% year/year to $138.39 mln vs the $139.19 mln consensus.

Gross margins were 30.3%, compared to 30.0%.
At December 31, 2014, cash and cash equivalents was $112.5 million.
Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.41-0.51, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $133-141 mln vs. $137.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate

4:06 pm Universal Display and OLEDWorks LLC announce the signing of a new OLED Technology License Agreement (OLED) : Under the agreement, Universal Display has granted OLEDWorks non-exclusive license rights, under various patents owned or controlled by Universal Display, to manufacture and sell phosphorescent OLED lighting products. In return, OLEDWorks will pay Universal Display an upfront license fee and running royalties on its sales of these licensed products. The agreement runs for the life of Universal Display's intellectual property rights.

12:55 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

PCLN (1211.99 +7.93%): Reports Q4 (Dec) non-GAAP earnings of $10.85 per share, $0.75 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $10.10; revenues rose 19.4% year/year to $1.84 bln vs the $1.8 bln consensus; gross bookings +16.7%; +23% ex-FX; issues downside Q1 guidance.
ABX (12.83 +4.91%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.15 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.14; revenues fell 14.2% year/year to $2.51 bln vs the $2.45 bln consensus.
HRL (57.35 +2.16%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.05, missed on revs; raised FY15 EPS guidance.

Large Cap Losers

HST (21.92 -6.88%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, missed on revs; guided FY15 FFO below consensus.
GG (21.93 -5.96%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.12; revenues fell 9.6% year/year to $1.09 bln vs the $1.01 bln consensus.
NBL (48.94 -3.45%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.38 per share, $0.03 better than theCapital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.35; revenues fell 19.4% year/year to $1.07 bln vs the $1.24 bln consensus.

Mid Cap Gainers

TRN (32.18 +6.77%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.03, beat on revs; guided FY15 EPS in-line.
SYNT (48.04 +6.4%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.13, reported revs in-line; guided FY15 revs in-line.
HII (135.05 +5.17%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $2.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.18 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $2.01; revenues fell 0.6% year/year to $1.93 bln vs the $1.89 bln consensus.

Mid Cap Losers

SCTY (53.21 -6.81%): Missed Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.29, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS below consensus.
TX (17.81 -5.22%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.31 per share, $0.09 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.40; revenues rose 1.8% year/year to $2.15 bln vs the $2.17 bln consensus.
LHO (38.85 -6.48%): Reported Q4 FFO in-line, revs in-line; guided Q1 FFO in-line; guided FY15 FFO below consensus.

11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (230) outpacing new lows (33) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ABCD, ABM, ACAD, ACT, ADAM, ADPT, AGN, AKAM, AMC, ANAC, ANTH, APD, ASMB, ASPX, ATRC, ATRO, ATU, AVG, AXLL, AYR, BA, BANR, BDC, BGCP, BIB, BIIB, BJRI, BMRN, BOTA, BPTH, BRLI, BURL, BZH, CAVM, CEMP, CHDN, CHH, CI, CNC, CNMD, COL, COLM, CPRT, CRL, CRUS, CSFL, CSS, CSV, CSWC, CTSH, CVS, DAKP, DEG, DEST, DGRW, DHI, DIN, DLHC, DLTR, DOOR, DOX, DRI, DRII, DUK, EA, EAT, EBIX, EBS, EFX, EGRX, EHIC, ENDP, ENPH, EXLS, FBR, FCAU, FCCO, FII, FIS, FLO, FNRG, FSRV, FSS, FTNT, FV, G, GB, GFF, GHC, GIII, GRFS, GSB, GTU, HAIN, HBI, HD, HII, HOLX, HON, HRL, HXL, IBB, ICE, ICLR, IFF, IMAX, INFY, INT, IPAR, IPG, ITW, JACK, JAH, JAXB, JBLU, JBT, JEQ, JKHY, JVA, JW.A, JW.B, KEYS, LAMR, LCI, LII, LLL, LMCA, LMCK, LMT, LNKD, LO, LOW, LULU, LUX, MAR, MATX, MCK, MCS, MENT, MFLX, MHFI, MHG, MHK, MHLD, MIC, MIY, MJN, MLR, MOH, MOS, MPC, MSCI, MTSN, MTU, MWV, NDAQ, NEU, NICE, NOC, NOW, NVR, NXST, ONEQ, PAHC, PANW, PAR, PATK, PAYX, PCYC, PFNX, PKG, PLL, PSCD, PSCH, PSCT, PSO, PTLA, Q, QQEW, QQQ, QQXT, RAI, RCKY, RHP, RKT, RLD, RUK, SAIC, SBFG, SBH, SBI, SBUX, SEE, SEMI, SENEB, SERV, SIBC, SIX, SKYW, SNPS, SONC, STR, STZ, TINY, TM, TQQQ, TSCO, TSO, TTC, TXRH, TY, ULTA, UTHR, VAL, VLO, VMC, VONG, VRSN, VTWG, VTWO, WABC, WBC, WERN, WFM, WPPGY, WWAV, WYN, XLS, XRX

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AIZ, ASFI, CCSC, CSLT, ELON, ENBL, ETAK, EVTC, FCO, GLF, HWCC, I, IDN, IPAS, KEYW, MDM, MNI, MX, NBY, NSPR, NWBI, ORM, PCO, QIHU, REGI, SCHN, SQQQ, SVVC, SYX, THST, UPIP, VBLT, XRA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWJ, IBB, IGN, IGV, ITB, IYH, IYJ, MDY, PPA, PPH, QQQ, XBI, XLI, XLK, XLV, XLY, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JO, SMN
8:03 am Interdigital Comm reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q1 revs above consensus (IDCC) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.36 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.36; revenues fell 13.6% year/year to $86.1 mln vs the $85.9 mln consensus.

In fourth quarter 2014, the company generated $43.5 million of free cash flow compared to $14.9 million used in fourth quarter 2013. Ending cash and short-term investments totaled $703.9 million.

Guidance: Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $107-$110 mln vs. $91.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co states: "This expected sequential quarterly increase is based on the same set of licensees and is driven, in part, by second half 2014 product introductions that saw tremendous market success but also introduce a cyclical element to our first quarter guidance. Consistent with our practice, this revenue guidance is based on royalty reports received to date, and does not include the potential impact of any new patent license, technology solutions or patent sale agreements that may be signed, or any arbitration or dispute resolutions that may occur, during the balance of first quarter 2015."

4:30 am Dialog Semi beats on top and bottom lines; sees Q1 revs in-line (DLGNF) : Reports Q4 EPS $1.17 vs $1.07 Capital IQ consensus; revs increased 24% YoY to $435 mln vs $434 mln consensus.

Full year IFRS gross margin at 44.5%

Outlook
Q1 2015 revenue will reflect the expected seasonal pattern and deliver year on year growth. Co expects revenue for Q1 2015 to be in the range of $265-300 mln vs $288 mln consensus. In line with the seasonal lower revenue, gross margin in Q1 2015 will decline sequentially but improve on a year-on-year basis. Gross margin in 2015 is expected to remain broadly at a similar level to the full year 2014.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 20-Feb-15Dow +154.67 at 18140.44, Nasdaq +31.27 at 4955.97, S&P +12.85 at 2110.30

The major averages finished what had been a range-bound week with a Friday rally that helped the S&P 500 (+0.6%) add 0.6% for the week. The benchmark index settled at a fresh record high at 2,110.30 while the Dow (+0.9%) outperformed today, but ended the week just ahead of the benchmark index (+0.7%).

Once again, Friday's main focus was on Greece with the market starting under modest pressure after morning reports dampened hopes for an agreement at today's Eurogroup meeting, the start of which was delayed twice. However, the market spent the morning in a slow climb off its low and the S&P 500 was able to turn positive with help from reports indicating the two sides were able to reach an agreement to extend funding for Greece until the end of June. Per today's accord, the Greek government has agreed to honor current obligations in full and is expected to present a list of reforms on Monday.

The afternoon developments weighed on Treasuries, causing the 10-yr note to surrender its intraday gain and end on its low with the benchmark yield higher by a basis point at 2.12%. Meanwhile, the Dollar Index surrendered its intraday gain, ending little changed.

Nine of ten sectors posted gains with health care (+1.0%) and industrials (+0.9%) ending in the lead. The two sectors outperformed throughout the session with the industrial sector rallying behind a few large components. Deere (DE 92.43, +0.72) added 0.8% in reaction to better than expected earnings and cautious guidance while Dow component Boeing (BA 158.31, +4.56) jumped 3.0% after securing a helicopter delivery contract with the U.S. Army.

Elsewhere among heavily-weighted cyclical sectors, financials (+0.8%) spiked in reaction to the Eurogroup-Greece news while the largest sector by weight-technology (+0.6%)-settled in-line with the broader market.

On the flip side, energy (-0.3%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard while crude oil fell 1.9% to $50.82. The energy component settled near its low that was reached after the latest Baker Hughes rig count registered its 11th consecutive decline, which indicated the number of active oil and gas rigs declined by 48 to 1310. For its part, the energy sector climbed off its low ahead of the close, but still ended the week lower by 2.4%.

Over on the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+0.3%), telecom services (+0.1%), and utilities (unch) underperformed while the health care sector (+1.0%) was boosted by biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 336.43, +4.44) climbed 1.3% while the broader health care sector ended the week ahead of other groups with a gain of 1.9%.

For the first time in two weeks, trading volume was close to long-term averages, but that was largely due to today's options expiration. As a result, more than 810 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic data today and Monday's data will be limited to the Existing Home Sales report for January, which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: S&P 500 Holds Narrow Range

The stock market kicked off an abbreviated trading week with a sleepy Tuesday session that had the S&P 500 (+0.2%) locked in an eleven-point range while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.1%) spent the bulk of the day near its flat line. Broadly speaking, the market appeared to be little concerned with weekend developments overseas, making the price action more closely correlated with the gyrations in the oil market. The benchmark index returned to its session high just above the 2,100 mark during the final minutes of the day; however, that move was not correlated to anything in particular. A ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia-backed rebels went into effect over the weekend, but the agreement only reduced fighting in the eastern part of the country. Most importantly, the truce failed to stop the assault on an important rail hub in Debaltseve, with rebel leaders claiming control of the area, according to the Associated Press. Meanwhile in Brussels, Monday's Eurogroup meeting with Greece provided little reason for optimism for a swift solution. Five sectors posted gains with health care (+0.7%) spending the entire session in the lead. The influential group was underpinned by biotechnology with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) adding 1.0%.

The major averages finished the Wednesday session on a flat note thanks to a late afternoon crawl that lifted the market off its low. The S&P 500 ended unchanged while the Nasdaq outperformed, adding 0.1%. For the second day in a row, stocks opened with slim losses and drifted inside narrow ranges until the early afternoon. The S&P 500 spiked off its low and made a brief appearance in the green following the FOMC minutes from the January meeting, but the index was back near its low just 30 minutes later. A second effort in the late afternoon propelled the S&P 500 back to its flat line ahead of the close. It was a bit surprising to see the market react rather lackadaisically to the FOMC minutes, considering they revealed a high likelihood that the Fed will not be raising rates any time soon due to several risks including declining inflation and weak global growth. Meanwhile, the Treasury market heard the message and responded with a rally. The 10-yr note reclaimed about half of yesterday's decline with the benchmark yield dropping six basis points to 2.08%. On a related note, the dollar surrendered its intraday gain following the minutes. Six of ten sectors posted gains, but only three-industrials (+0.6%), consumer staples (+0.6%), and utilities (+2.4%)-added more than 0.3%. On the flip side, financials (-0.6%) surrendered their gain from yesterday while the energy sector (-1.2%) was responsible for much of the early weakness.

Equity indices endured yet another range-bound, low-volume affair on Thursday that saw the S&P 500 (-0.1%) end just below its flat line. The market started the day under pressure that was largely due to early weakness in the energy sector. The growth-sensitive group narrowed its loss to 0.8% by the close, but was down as much as 2.5% at the start. Meanwhile, crude oil tested the $50.00/bbl level in the morning, but narrowed its loss to 0.6% at $51.83/bbl by the pit close. Oil rallied through the early afternoon release of the latest EIA storage report, which showed the largest inventory build for this time of the year in the past 80 years.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18019.35 18140.44 121.09 0.7 1.8
Nasdaq 4893.84 4955.97 62.13 1.3 4.6
S&P 500 2096.99 2110.30 13.31 0.6 2.5
Russell 2000 1223.13 1231.79 8.66 0.7 2.2

U.S. Equity markets opened fairly weak on Friday as uncertainty surrounding the negotiations between Greece and the Eurogroup continued. Early reports indicated an unnamed Greek official said the two sides had reached an agreement. This was later confirmed by the Eurogroup spokesperson, who noted the two sides agreed to extend Greece's aid program until the end of June.

Although the terms of the agreement have not yet been disclosed, the news sent U.S. indices rallying to a new all-time high. The S&P 500 gained 0.6% on the day, closing just shy of its high, as the heath care (+1.03%), industrials (+0.93%), and consumer discretionary (+0.76%) sectors led the index higher.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.63%) performed in-line with the broader market with Intuit (INTU 96.72, +5.61, +6.2%) leading all constituents. Other constituents that performed well in the sector include: Xerox Corp (XRX 14.00, +0.25, 1.8%), Mastercard (MA 90.79, 1.59, +1.8%), Cognizant Tech Solutions (CTSH 63.05, +1.05, +1.6%), and Salesforce.com (CRM 63.74, +0.93, +1.5%).

The week ended rather quietly for the sector, with very little noteworthy news stories, except:


Intuit (INTU 96.72, +5.61, +6.2%): Reported Q2 (Jan) loss of $0.06 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than estimates. Revenues for the quarter rose 3.3% year/year to $808 million which also beat expectations. The company reported that total TurboTax units increased 11% through Feb. 14, versus the comparable prior-year period. Additionally, the company reiterated financial guidance and raised QuickBooks Online subscriber guidance for full fiscal 2015.

Apple (AAPL 129.50, +1.05, +0.8%): Is reportedly working hard to begin production of an electric vehicle by 2020. The company has been working diligently to diversify its revenue streams, and the electric car industry is pretty wide open at this point, with a lot of growth potential. Surely Apple sees Google's (GOOG 538.95, -3.92, -0.7%) strong push into the automotive industry as motivation, and with plenty of cash on hand, the company that thrives on innovation could prove to be a serious competitor to electric car maker

Tesla (TSLA +5.41, +2.6%) if plans come to fruition.Elsewhere in the technology space:

Commscope (COMM 31.10, +0.86, +2.8%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than expectations of $0.35. However, revenues fell 2.2% year/year to $827.9 million which was below expectations. COMM noted it sees Q1 EPS of $0.33-0.38, excluding non-recurring items, and Q1 revs of $800-850 million vs. $826.83 million. Additionally, COMM issued in-line guidance for FY15, reaffirming EPS of $1.95-2.05, excluding non-recurring items, and noting it sees FY15 revs of $3.65-3.80 billion.

Echostar (SATS 55.31, +0.94, +1.7%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.59 per share, $0.22 better than analysts' estimates, while revenues rose 4.5% year/year to $844 million, but this was below expectations.

IPG Photonics (IPGP 93.28, +4.98, +5.6%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.07 per share, $0.03 better than consensus. Revenues for the quarter rose 25.0% year/year to $207.4 million vs the $204.46 million consensus. Following the announcement of Q4 results, the company issued in-line guidance for Q1, noting it sees EPS of $0.92-1.02 and Q1 revenues of $195-205 million.Analyst Action:

Apple (AAPL 129.50, +1.05, +0.8%): target raised to $145 from $130 at Goldman; Buy

Intuit (INTU 96.72, +5.61, +6.2%): target raised to $100 from $98 at Oppenheimer; Outperform

Marvell Technologies (MRVL 16.29, -0.11, -0.7%): upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at FBR Capital target raised to $18 from $16 at MKM Partners; Buy

Rocket Fuel (FUEL 10.82, -3.95, -28.7%) downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer

Yelp (YELP 47.79, +0.45, +1%): initiated Buy at Rosenblatt; target $62

GrubHub (GRUB 41.36, +1.67, +4.2%): initiated Overweight at Barclays; target $46

Rackspace (RAX 49.38, +0.32, +0.7%): target raised to $52 from $48 at UBS

Arista Networks (ANET 68.50, +0.51, +0.8%): target raised to $80 from $75 at Imperial Capital; Outperform target raised to $68 from $63 at Northland Capital; Market Perform

Sunedison (SUNE 22.13, +0.16, +0.7%): target raised to $28 from $24 at RBC Capital; Outperform

5:32 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:THRX (18.22 +22.69%),DRNA (26.02 +22.16%),ADPT (41.89 +20.13%),SRPT (15.21 +19.2%),XOMA (4.05 +18.77%),TTPH (41.66 +18.42%),PRTA (26.63 +16.34%),TSRO (44.2 +14.84%)
Materials:UAN (13.79 +16.47%)
Industrials:ATRO (66.89 +16.8%),TILE (18.91 +16.23%)
Consumer Discretionary:TTS (11.1 +29.52%),VIPS (25.64 +17.61%),BJRI (53.07 +16.33%)
Information Technology:CYBR (70.35 +33.95%),EBIX (28.13 +18.19%),Z (125.42 +17.77%)
Financials:NBG (1.96 +21.74%)
Energy:CAK (0.38 +14.83%)
Telecommunication Services:SAAS (11.24 +17.94%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:GTS (18.44 -23.26%),CSLT (7.16 -22.09%),AXDX (18.05 -21.04%),GEN (7.21 -16.45%)
Materials:CDE (5.84 -19.67%),PAAS (10 -15.61%),BCC (37.04 -13.62%)
Consumer Discretionary:NDLS (18.9 -27.2%),EROS (15.77 -18.37%)
Information Technology:FUEL (10.82 -24.34%),MX (5.86 -22.07%),VRNS (29.88 -19.98%),HOLI (18.93 -19.28%),QIHU (51.46 -14.91%)
Financials:UIHC (22.97 -16.17%)
Energy:CHKR (6.48 -20.88%),MCF (25.37 -16.98%),HLX (15.9 -16.67%),GLF (16.51 -14.23%)
Telecommunication Services:I (13.19 -23.76%)

3:31 pm Earnings Preview for the week of February 23 - 27 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of February 23 - 27 some of the bigger names include:

Monday: Pre Market - DISH, AER, DNOW, AXL, CTB, AWI, TVPT, PACD
After Hours - ESRX, THC, OKS, OKE, AGU, DK, QUAD, LNT, SF, KAMN, TXRH, MDCA, ROSE, TRAK, HVT, SSW

Tuesday: Pre Market - HD, CMCSA, M, BMO, ODP, ECL, SAH, VRX, FDML, EXPD, WIN, RLGY, WLK, CEQP, AMT, VAL, TOL, CMLP, CBRL, PF, PLL, SAFM, DPZ, SPWR, WEN, UTHR
After Hours - HPQ, CBI, EIX, FSLR, CLR, DPM, QEP, AWK, SM, HLS, DYN, NFX, CENX, RRC, DOOR, VRSK, MATX, DY, PZZA, NDSN, NLY, RJET, CLGX, JAZZ, CPRT, HEI, SAM, WBMD, ZAGG

Wednesday: Pre Market - TGT, LOW, MGA, RY, TJX, CHK, FMS, HFC, RRD, DLTR, CPB, CVC, OCR, LAD, ECA, AEE, TDS, USM, CLH, MWE, AVA, STRZA, ICLR, EV, TRS, LAMR, SODA
After Hours - LB, RIG, AVGO, CRM, ESV, BWC, WLL, SFM, CXO, WPX, WR, AMSG, AR, GXP, MMLP, CHMT, OAS, AEGN, TTEC, RLJ, HK, FOE, AGO, MDVN, WDAY

Thursday: Pre Market - BUD, TD, KSS, AES, CTRX, SRE, WNR, VC, CNP, LKQ, EME, SDRL, HSNI, MGLN, NTI, EXH, HAWK, CHS, AMCX, BIN, SERV, VAC, NSM, OGE, HSC, TWI, KOP, SEAS, DDD, GOGO
After Hours - IM, GPS, JCP, ROST, UHS, KBR, LYV, TPC, KND, MTZ, HLF, EVHC, SWN, ADSK, BIO, MNST, SEMG, UIL, MENT, SBAC, OUT, CROX, DGI, TUMI, BLOX, WIFI,

Friday: Pre Market - CST, NRG, POM, XLS, GVA, RDC, HPT, PNM, TTI, HTH, NRF, CAS, DFRG, HZNP, PTCT, KERX
After Hours - CNL

3:12 pm Linear Tech recommends stockholders reject 'mini-tender offer' by TRC Capital Corporation (LLTC) :

Co has been notified of the "mini-tender offer" made by TRC Capital Corporation to the stockholders of the co, to purchase up to 2 mln shares of the co's common stock at $45.80/share.Co states:"The co does not endorse TRC Capital's mini-tender offer and recommends that stockholders reject the offer and not tender their shares. TRC Capital's offer is at a price below the current market price of the co's common stock and TRC Capital has made many similar mini-tender offers for shares of other companies. The co is not associated in any way with TRC Capital, its mini-tender offer, or the offer documentation."

12:58 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MHK (182.69 +5.8%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.06, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS in-line.
NEM (26.25 +7.3%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues fell 7.0% year/year to $2.02 bln vs the $1.81 bln consensus.
INTU (96.07 +5.44%): Beat Q2 consensus EPS estimates by $0.07, beat on revs; guided Q3 (tax quarter) below consensus, Q4 above consensus; Price Target raised to $100 at Oppenheimer.

Large Cap Losers

DISCA (30 -3.54%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.42; revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $1.68 bln vs the $1.7 bln consensus.
EOG (90.67 -3.34%): Downgraded to neutral at UBS, Macquarie; Downgraded to Underweight at Capital One.
RY (60.53 -2.04%): Downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Keefe Bruyette.

Mid Cap Gainers

TEP (50.87 +5.99%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.45 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.42; revenues rose 26.2% year/year to $109.5 mln vs the $118.56 mln consensus; co expects its current annualized distribution rate of $1.94 to increase by approximately 20 percent for the calendar year 2015.
B (39 +4.84%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, reported revs in-line; guided FY15 in-line.
SLXP (156.88 +4.07%): Further reports out that Valeant (VRX) is a near a deal to acquire Salix, and such a deal could be announced next week.

Mid Cap Losers

IRM (36.6 -5.74%): Missed Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.03, missed on revs; lowered FY15 guidance.
OIS (40.94 -4.99%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse; tgt lowered to $43 from $56.
AVP (8.4 -3.84%): Price target lowered to $8 from $9 at RBC Capital Mkts.

11:41 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (135) outpacing new lows (28) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABC, ABM, ABT, ACAD, AHS, AKAM, AMOT, ANAC, ANIP, ASMB, AVGO, AXN, BA, BBC, BBP, BCV, BDC, BIB, BIIB, BMRN, BRCD, BSQR, BURL, CBM, CEMP, CERN, CGI, CHD, CHH, CI, CLGX, CNC, CNMD, COMM, CRL, CRMD, CSWC, CTSH, CYBR, DENN, DOX, EGL, EIG, EIGI, ENDP, ENFC, ESP, FBHS, FCAU, FIS, FNFV, FORM, FRGI, FRP, FV, FWRD, GHC, HASI, HBI, HIFS, HQH, HUM, IBB, ICLR, IFF, INAP, INT, INTL, INTU, IPGP, JACK, JEQ, JLL, JW.A, JWN, LAMR, LH, LII, LLL, LMT, LUX, LXFT, MA, MENT, MHK, MIDD, MMI, MPC, MPWR, MRVL, MTSN, NICE, NOC, NSAM, NVAX, PAHC, PANW, PATK, PAYX, PFPT, PLL, PMCS, PSCH, PSCT, PTLA, PZZA, QQEW, QQQ, RGC, RLD, ROST, RWC, SAAS, SAIC, SATS, SOXX, SPR, SYNT, TEP, TM, TQQQ, TSCO, TSRO, TSS, TYL, UHAL, USAK, UTX, VRSN, VRX, WBC, WMS, WPPGY, WWAV, XON

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACTG, AIZ, AMBR, BAX, BIS, CAS, CCSC, DRL, ENZ, FCO, FUEL, GES, HWCC, JIVE, MX, NWBI, OESX, ORM, PRXI, QIHU, SCHN, SQQQ, SVVC, SXCP, UPIP, VBLT, WILN, YPRO

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWJ, IBB, IGV, ITA, IYH, PPA, PPH, QQQ, SMH, SOXX, XBI, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JO, PPLT, SMN

8:02 am IPG Photonics beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 (IPGP) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.07 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.04; revenues rose 25.0% year/year to $207.4 mln vs the $204.46 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.92-1.02 vs. $0.93 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $195-205 mln vs. $195.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "The book-to-bill ratio was greater than one in the fourth quarter... We exited 2014 with a backlog of $321.0 million, representing an increase of 21% from year-end 2013. Backlog includes $174.5 million of orders with firm shipment dates and $146.5 million of frame agreements that we expect to ship within one year."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: After six-and-a-half hours of trading, the S&P 500 ended Monday down all of 0.64 points. Not long before the close it looked like there would be a larger loss, but a broad-based rally in the final thirty minutes of trading lifted all of the major indices in noticeable fashion.

The Nasdaq for its part jumped 13 points in the last 30 minutes, enabling it to log a five-point gain that marked its ninth consecutive winning session.

Apple (AAPL 133.00, +3.51, +2.7%) was naturally at the helm of the advance, having exhibited relative strength throughout the day that was fortified by some speculative chatter that it could be added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is often rumored to be a candidate for the Dow; but whatever the case may have been, Apple is a stock that can seemingly do no wrong these days. Since the end of 2014, it has risen 20%.

Apple was one of only three components in the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.2%) to gain in excess of 1.0%. The other two were First Solar (FSLR 49.62, +0.60, +1.2%) and Computer Sciences (CSC 71.74, +4.81, +7.2%), the latter of which spiked on rumors it could be an M&A target.

Actually, it wasn't a great day for the S&P 500 information technology sector. 53 of its 66 components closed the session with a loss, which goes to show the influence Apple has over the sector's performance. It didn't hurt either that Microsoft (MSFT 44.15, +0.29, +0.7%) was one of the other winners for the day.

The newsflow out of the sector was pretty light. Notable items included the following:

Altera Corporation (ALTR 35.90, -0.23, -0.7%): Announced Microsoft is using Altera Arria 10 FPGAs to achieve compelling performance-per-Watt in data center acceleration based on CNN algorithms. These algorithms are frequently used for image classification, image recognition, and natural language processing.

Apple (AAPL 133.00, +3.51, +2.7%): Announced a 1.7 billion plan to build and operate two data centres in Europe, each powered by 100 percent renewable energy. The facilities, located in County Galway, Ireland, and Denmark's central Jutland, will power Apple's online services including the iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Maps and Siri for customers across Europe. Separately, there was also some chatter of Apple being added to the Dow.

Fiserv (FISV 78.80, -0.25, -0.3%): Announced that Bank of the Ozarks, headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, successfully converted to the Premier bank platform. In addition, the bank is implementing a host of additional Fiserv solutions to enhance capabilities and optimize processes for the institution.Elsewhere in the technology space:

Amazon.com (AMZN 380.14, -3.52, -0.9%): Viacom and Lionsgate joint venture EPIX announced extension of agreement with Amazon to license movie titles for Prime Instant Video

CenturyLink (CTL 36.63, -0.39, -1.1%): Announced that it has successfully delivered superchannel transmission speeds of one terabit per second (1 Tb/s) on a portion of its fiber network in central Florida using technology from

Ciena Corp. (CIEN 20.03, -0.28, -1.4%).

Electro Scientific (ESIO 6.32, -0.23, -3.5%): The company announced that its Board of Directors has suspended the quarterly dividend to focus its resources on growth. In conjunction with that news, ESIO reaffirmed guidance for Q4 (Mar), saying it sees EPS of ($0.32) - ($0.22) and revenues of $32-40 mln, both of which were in-line with analysts' average expectation.

MicroStrategy (MSTR 177.39, -2.16, -1.2%): Announced that Banco Mare Nostrum, with headquarters in Madrid, Spain, has implemented MicroStrategy as its enterprise analytics standard to drive analysis and insight for its 4,700 employees.

NXP Semiconductors (NXPI 84.50, -0.16, -0.2%): Announced that as a result of a partnership with Sonova -- the leading manufacturer of innovative hearing care solutions -- they have collaboratively developed Venture, a landmark next-generation hearing instrument platform, which offers users exceptional performance.

Twitter (TWTR 48.47, -0.64, -1.3%): Issued blog update in favor of net neutrality

Verizon (VZ 48.77, -0.20, -0.4%): Disclosed that 2015 labor negotiations --encompassing less than 27% of its workforce -- have potential to create work stoppages, negatively affecting operations

Analyst Action:

Advanced Micro (AMD 3.06, unch, 0.00%): initiated with a Underperform at Exane BNP Paribas; target $2.30

Broadcom (BRCM 44.25, -0.43, -1.0%): target raised to $43 at Barclays; Equal Weight

Fiserv (FISV 78.81, -0.24, -0.3%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt; target lowered to $79

Intel (INTC 33.76, -0.65, -1.9%): initiated with Outperform at Exane BNP Paribas; target $42

Teradata (TDC 44.63, -0.66, -1.5%): initiated with a Hold at Deutsche Bank

4:31 pm First Solar and SunPower plan to partner to form joint YieldCo vehicle (FSLR) : First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) and SunPower Corp. (SPWR) announced that they are in advanced negotiations to form a joint YieldCo vehicle (the YieldCo) to which they each expect to contribute a portfolio of selected solar generation assets from their existing portfolio of assets. Upon the execution of a master formation agreement, the parties intend to file a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) for an initial public offering of limited partner interests in the YieldCo (the IPO). Formation of the YieldCo and completion of the IPO are subject to, among other things, the execution of definitive documentation, each party's board approval and regulatory approval. There is no assurance that the YieldCo will be formed or that the IPO will be consummated or that any other transaction will occur.

4:26 pm AXT disclosed that on February 23, 2015, the Board announced that pursuant to an anonymous whistleblower complaint, the Audit Committee has conducted an investigation of certain potential related-party transactions involving Davis Zhang, the Company's President, China Operations (AXTI) : The investigation did not conclude that there was any intentional misconduct by Mr. Zhang, or that he received any improper benefit from these transactions. Further, the investigation did not reveal any inaccuracies in the Company's financial statements resulting from these transactions. However, the investigation identified the following historical related-party transactions that were not previously disclosed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On February 20, 2015, the Board waived any potential inconsistencies with the Company's Code of Conduct and Ethics arising from the transactions identified in the investigation. Also, the Audit Committee approved the related-party nature of such transactions to the extent it had not previously approved such transactions. The Board and Audit Committee specified that such waiver and approval would have retroactive effect to the date of commencement of the transactions covered by such waiver and approval.

4:10 pm : The major averages began the new week on a sleepy note. The S&P 500 ended flat after spending the day in a seven-point range while the Nasdaq (+0.1%) finished a little ahead of the benchmark index.

In large part, the lack of activity on Monday could be explained by participants sticking to the sidelines ahead of Fed Chair Janet Yellen's semiannual testimony on monetary policy. Tomorrow, Ms. Yellen will appear before the Senate Banking Committee at 10:00 ET while her appearance in front of the House Financial Services Committee will follow on Wednesday. Since the minutes from the latest FOMC policy meeting showed waning support for increasing the fed funds rate during the first half of the year, participants will be on a lookout for similar hints from the Fed Chair tomorrow.

Meanwhile in Europe, Greece's government was expected to present a list of reforms today, but it remains unclear whether the Eurogroup received that list. Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told CNN that the list was indeed delivered today, but separate reports indicated reform plans will be submitted tomorrow.

The wait-and-see tone resulted in range-bound action on light volume with only 720 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Six of ten sectors registered losses with all six cyclical sectors ending in the red. Most notably, the energy sector (-0.4%) slumped to the bottom of the leaderboard at the start, exerting pressure on the market throughout the day. The group lagged as crude oil fell 2.5% to $49.56/bbl. The energy component saw a brief afternoon spike into the $50.00/bbl area after Nigeria's oil minister said the sharp slide in crude prices could lead to an emergency OPEC meeting. WTI crude returned to its afternoon low after OPEC refuted the report, announcing no plans for an emergency meeting at this time.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, financials (-0.4%) and industrials (-0.4%) lagged while technology (+0.2%) finished ahead of the broader market thanks to the shares of Apple (AAPL 133.00, +3.50). The top-weighted sector component spiked 2.7% after announcing a EUR1.70 billion plan to build two data centers in Europe.

In addition to boosting its sector, the largest tech stock helped the Nasdaq spend the day ahead of the S&P. Biotechnology also contributed to the outperformance with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 338.00, +1.57) adding 0.5% after being up more than 1.0% intraday. In turn, the health care sector (+0.4%) ended in the lead with Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 198.75, +25.49) spiking 14.7% after agreeing to acquire Salix Pharmaceuticals (SLXP 155.76, -2.09) for $158.00/share.

Elsewhere among countercyclical groups, consumer staples (+0.3%) and utilities (+0.7%) posted gains while the telecom services sector (-0.6%) lagged.

Treasuries climbed throughout the day, ending on their highs with the 10-yr yield down five basis points at 2.06%.

Economic data was limited to the Existing Home Sales report, which showed a 4.9% decline in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million from an upwardly revised 5.07 million (from 5.04 million) in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 4.95 million SAAR.

The existing home sales data is derived from actual closings. Even though mortgage rates declined significantly in January, the impact from lower mortgage rates will not be felt until February. Furthermore, inventory levels continue to be troublesome for growth. During normal sales periods, inventory levels typically hold at roughly 6 months at the current sales rate. In January, inventories represented only a 4.7 months' supply.

Tomorrow, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for December (Briefing.com consensus 4.3%) will be released at 9:00 ET while February Consumer Confidence will cross the wires at 10:00 ET (consensus 99.3).


Nasdaq Composite +4.8% YTD
S&P 500 +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.7% YTD

DJ30 -23.60 NASDAQ +5.01 SP500 -0.64 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1196/1.64 bln/1592 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1522/720.3 mln/1544 3:40 pm :

Oil futures showed some volatility today as investors/trader remained concerned about the global oversupply
This kept WTI crude prices over 3% earlier this morning.
Oil spiked this afternoon following headlines that OPEC may possibly hold an emergency meeting, which would be well before its scheduled meeting in June.
Oil erased those losses after headlines later came out refuting the earlier FT reports... go figure
Ultimately, Apr crude closed $1.26 lower at $49.56/barrel today.
Mar nat gas fell $0.07 to $2.88/MMBtu
Apr gold lost $3.80 to $1200.80/oz, while Mar silver fell $0.03 to $16.27/oz

12:36 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

VRX (196.34 +13.32%): Announced it will acquire Salix Pharma (SLXP) in a $14.5 bln deal; Reported Q4 earnings which beat consensus EPS estimates by $0.02, beat on revs; guided Q1 EPS above consensus.
TDG (221.98 +3.86%): Announced a definitive agreement to purchase the Telair Cargo Group of businesses from AAR Corp (AIR) for a total purchase price of ~$725 mln in cash.
KSU (120.24 +3.11%): Initiated with a Overweight at JP Morgan; tgt $148.

Large Cap Losers

BA (154.53 -2.39%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.
PXD (154.57 -2.64%): Weakness in various Oil & Gas companies as WTI crude declines 3.3% on the (CLR, numerous others also lower).

Mid Cap Gainers

PPO (59.74 +12.82%): Signs definitive agreement to be acquired by Asahi Kasei for $60.50 per share.
NSM (30.1 +7.77%): Signed an agreement in principle to purchase a $9.8 bln portfolio of
mortgage servicing rights from Ocwen Financial (OCN).
IPGP (97.01 +4%): Price target raised to $102 from $98 at Needham; Buy rating maintained.

Mid Cap Losers

CYBR (60.7 -13.72%): Downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
ERF (10.05 -6.86%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill; Downgraded to Hold at TD Securities and Desjardins.
CTB (35.28 -6.44%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.45 per share, excluding the gain on the joint venture interest sale, $0.19 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.64; revenues fell 4.8% year/year to $819.6 mln vs the $806.66 mln consensus.

12:02 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (230) outpacing new lows (53) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAPL, ABC, ACAD, ADBE, ADP, ADT, AET, AGN, AIR, AKRX, ALGT, ALKS, ALR, AMOT, AMZN, ANIP, ANTM, AOS, ASH, ASPX, AVG, AVGO, AXL, AXTA, AZO, BBC, BBP, BCV, BDX, BFR, BIB, BIIB, BMA, BMRN, BRK.B, BURL, CAH, CAVM, CELG, CEMP, CERN, CF, CFN, CGI, CHD, CHH, CHKP, CI, CNC, CNMD, COTY, COWN, CRL, CRMD, CSC, CSGS, CSWC, CXW, DD, DEG, DEI, DG, DIS, DISH, DLTR, DLX, DM, DOOR, DOX, DPZ, DRI, DWAT, DXCM, DXGE, DY, EA, EBS, EGL, EIGI, ENL, EPAM, ESLT, ESRX, EXPE, FCAU, FCCO, FLEX, FNFV, FNRG, FORM, FTCS, FV, GB, GFF, GIB, HAE, HASI, HBI, HD, HIFR, HII, HNT, HOLX, HQH, HQL, HRL, HUM, IBB, IFF, IGT, IMAX, INCY, INT, INTL, IPG, IPGP, IPXL, JACK, JBLU, JW.A, JYNT, LABL, LAMR, LBTYK, LCI, LEA, LH, LLNW, LMT, LO, LOW, LUX, LVLT, LXFT, MA, MASI, MCK, MD, MDT, MFLX, MIDD, MMM, MMSI, MNK, MNRO, MNST, MO, MOH, MOS, MPC, MPWR, MSCI, MSG, MTSN, NBIX, NOW, NRZ, NSAT, NVAX, OCUL, OMAM, ONCE, ONEQ, PAM, PANW, PAYX, PCYC, PLKI, PPO, PSCH, PSO, PTLA, PUK, PZZA, Q, QQEW, RAI, RCKY, RDVY, RECN, RMCF, ROP, ROST, RUK, SBUX, SERV, SGU, SHW, SIAL, SKX, SKYW, SKYY, SONC, ST, STWD, SWKS, TAST, TDG, TECH, TFX, TM, TMO, TREX, TRR, TSCO, TSEM, TSO, TSRO, TSS, TXRH, UNFI, UNH, UTHR, V, VIPS, VLO, VONE, VONG, VRX, WAB, WBC, WCG, WM, WPPGY, XON, Y, ZBRA, ZFGN, ZIOP, ZSPH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ADEP, ADGE, AGYS, AMBR, ARCW, BIS, CACQ, CAS, CIB, CLTX, CMLP, CRRS, DNOW, DRL, DWSN, EGAN, ENZ, GEOS, GLF, GRMN, GSOL, HLX, HSBC, I, INVT, JIVE, JONE, KZ, MCF, MGH, MNI, MRIN, MX, NEWS, NMIH, NUTR, OPXA, PRXI, QIHU, RAVN, RELV, SCHN, SGOC, SODA, SPPI, SVVC, TDW, TGD, TRX, TTI, VBLT, WBAI, XRA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IBB, IHF, IHI, ITA, IWF, IYH, PPA, PPH, RTH, SKYY, XBI, XHB, XLK, XLV, XLY, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: JO

8:03 am Samsung Elect: Samsung SDI to acquire Magna International's (MGA) battery pack business (SSNLF) : Co announces it has agreed to acquire the battery pack business of Magna International (MGA). The acquisition is expected to enhance SSNLF's SDI's capabilities in batteries for electric vehicles by combining the co's established leadership in battery cells and modules with MGA's expertise in battery packs. Financial terms of the deal will not be disclosed. The transaction is expected to be completed during the first half of 2015.

8:02 am Violin Memory signs EMEA distribution agreement with Arrow (VMEM) :

Co and and Arrow announced the signing of an EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) distribution agreement.Violin will be leveraging Arrow's sales, support and technical resources to continue Violin's expansion into the all-flash array market in EMEA as enterprise flash storage adoption increases.Arrow has technical applications teams and specialists that assist its extensive channel community across the EMEA region to benefit from improved application performance based on enhanced workload handling, application speed and durability functionalities.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: It was a fairly quiet day in the equity market as participants kept their focus on the impending release of the February employment report on Friday.

Some M&A activity in the health care sector and the European Central Bank discussing plans for its quantitative easing program offered some distractions, but ultimately, there wasn't a lot of separation from where the indices started the day and where they ended it.

Gains for the major indices ranged from 0.1% to 0.3%.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.1%) trailed the action, held back by some profit taking in Apple (AAPL 126.41, -2.13, -1.7%).

Notable new items from sector components were limited and included the following:

Apple (AAPL 126.33, -2.19, -1.7%): Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the matter, said Apple will delay the production of a 12.9-inch screen iPad until around September versus a prior plan to start production this quarter due to display panel supply issues

Avago Technologies (AVGO 130.58, +1.18, +0.9%): Increased quarterly interim dividend to $0.38/share from $0.35/share

CA Technologies (CA 31.95, +0.04, +0.1%): Announced it has entered an agreement with Tech Mahindra to develop and deploy end-to-end secured Internet of Things solutions for enterprise customers worldwide.

Facebook (FB 81.19, +0.30, +0.4%): Instagram confirms introduction of 'carousel ads'

Google (GOOG 575.22, +1.85, +0.3%): Marathon Patent Group announces its wholly-owned subsidiary TLI Communications GmbH has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google in the Regional Court of Munich in Germany. TLI Communications is asserting infringement of the German part of European patent 0 814 611 B1 by the Internet services "YouTube" and "Google+" operated by the Defendant, as well as the associated application software for smartphones and tablet computers.

Salesforce.com (CRM 65.59, +0.71, +1.1%): Launched Salesforce Marketing Cloud Predictive Decisions. With Predictive Decisions, marketers can now harness the power of data science to analyze customer engagement and proactively deliver new recommended content, products or offers to customers, creating highly personalized journeys across channels at scale.

Western Union (WU 19.49, -0.16, -0.8%): Company and bpost, the leading postal services operator for Belgium, announced the expansion of their long-standing relationship under a renewed agreement.Elsewhere in the technology space:

Acxiom (ACXM 19.81, +0.23, +0.8%): Has expanded its global data partnership with Twitter (TWTR 47.35, -0.22, -0.3%) to augment Twitter's current targeting capabilities for advertising

Baidu (BIDU 214.16, +6.47, +3.0%): Company and Huawei sign memorandum of understanding to jointly develop indoor mobile internet

Ciena (CIEN 20.64, +0.04, +0.2%): Reported Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 0.8% year/year to $529.2 mln, which was below expectations. For Q2, sees revenues of $585-615 mln, in-line with estimates. FY15 revenue growth outlook lowered to +5% from +7-9% due to FX headwind (reaffirmed +7-9% ex-FX).

Maxwell Technologies (MXWL 7.66, +0.55, +7.7%): Filings indicate CEO bought 20K shares at $7.33 worth ~$146K

Semtech (SMTC 26.29, -3.00, -10.2%): Reported Q4 (Jan) earnings of $0.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 3.1% year/year to $130.4 mln. For Q1, sees EPS of $0.27-0.30, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $130-136 mln, both of which are below estimates. Separately, the company said it has completed the acquisition of Triune Systems for ~$45 mln; deal expected to be slightly accretive for FY2016. Triune Systems is a privately-held supplier of wireless charging and power management platforms targeted at high and low power, high efficiency applications.

Sprint (S 5.38, +0.17, +3.4%): Filings indicate CFO bought 20K shares at $5.10 worth ~$102K

Unisys Corporation (UIS 23.34, -0.17, -0.7%): Announced that its Belgian subsidiary was awarded contracts in November 2014 under the ESP-DESIS III framework contract. This framework contract is the largest ever awarded by the European Commission. According to the European Commission, the total value of the three lots in which Unisys teams will be providing services is more than $900 million. The projected revenue for Unisys under the framework is estimated at around $100 million over the four year term.

Analyst Action:

Ambarella (AMBA 64.21, -3.28, -4.7%): upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Chardan Capital Markets; target raised to $60 from $40

STMicroelectronics (STM 9.31, +0.04, +0.4%): downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at HSBC Securities

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday session on a modestly higher note with the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) settling in the lead. The tech-heavy index is now up 0.4% week-to-date, while the S&P 500 (+0.1%) will enter the Friday session lower by 0.2% for the week.

In a way, today's session fit right in with recent affairs as equity indices maintained narrow ranges amid light volume. The S&P 500 spent the day inside a nine-point range while NYSE floor volume totaled fewer than 675 million shares (50-day average 766 million).

Six of ten sectors registered gains with three of four countercyclical groups ending ahead of the broader market. To that point, consumer staples (+0.3%), health care (+0.4%), and utilities (+0.8%) spent the day ahead of the broader market while telecom services (-0.1%) lagged.

Most notably, the health care sector was underpinned by biotechnology after AbbVie (ABBV 56.85, -3.42) agreed to acquire Pharmacyclics (PCYC 254.22, +23.74) for $261.25/share. Shares of PCYC jumped 10.3% while the broader iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 347.67, +7.58) advanced 2.2%, helping the Nasdaq finish in the lead.

However, the relative strength among biotech names masked a significant soft spot in the market. Specifically, the largest stock by weight-Apple (AAPL 126.39, -2.15)-lost 1.7%, which prevented equity indices from revisiting their morning highs. Meanwhile, the technology sector (-0.1%) held up relatively well despite Apple's weakness. Large cap names like IBM (IBM 161.18, +1.76) and Google (GOOGL 581.44, +3.10) gained 1.1% and 0.5%, respectively, while chipmakers also displayed relative strength with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 0.1%.

Similar to technology, growth-sensitive energy (-0.6%) and materials (-0.4%) settled in the red while the other cyclical sectors registered gains.

The energy sector finished at the bottom of today's leaderboard with crude oil contributing to the weakness. The energy component fell 1.5% to $50.76/bbl as dollar strength sent the Dollar Index (96.37, +0.40) to a fresh high for the year. The greenback rallied against the euro, dropping the euro/dollar pair to 1.1030 after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the central bank will begin its QE program on March 9, buying negative-yielding bonds up to the deposit rate, which is currently at -0.2%.

On the flip side, the financial sector (+0.4%) ended among the leaders ahead of the 16:30 ET release of the Fed's stress test. The Federal Reserve will announce capital levels of 31 major banks this evening while next Wednesday evening will feature the release of complete results. Bank of America (BAC 16.00, +0.16) led the majors with a 1.0% gain.

Treasuries spent some time on either side of their flat lines before ending with slim gains, sending the 10-yr yield lower by a basis point to 2.11%.

Economic data included jobless claims, productivity/labor cost data, and factory orders:

The initial claims level increased to 320,000 from an unrevised 313,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 295,000
The reading marked the highest level of initial claims since May 2014 when it reached 327,000
The Department of Labor reported that no special factors impacted this week's claims reading
The continuing claims level increased to 2.421 million from an upwardly revised 2.404 million (from 2.401 million)
Nonfarm business productivity for Q4 2014 was revised down to -2.2% from an originally reported -1.8% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a revision down to -2.3%
Annual productivity in 2014 was 0.7%, which was the smallest annual gain since increasing only 0.2% in 2011
Unit labor costs were revised up to 4.1% from 2.7% while the consensus expected a revision up to 2.9%
Factory orders declined 0.2% in January after declining 3.5% in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%
Almost the entire decline can be attributed to low oil prices as petroleum refinery orders declined 11.6% in January after declining 15.8% in December. Excluding petroleum, factory orders increased a solid 1.1% in January

Tomorrow, the Nonfarm Payrolls report for February (Briefing.com consensus 240K) and the January Trade Balance (consensus -$42.00 billion) will be released at 8:30 ET while the Consumer Credit report for January (expected $14.00 billion) will cross the wires at 15:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +5.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.5% YTD
S&P 500 +2.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.8% YTD

DJ30 +38.82 NASDAQ +15.67 SP500 +2.51 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1579/1.61 bln/1173 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1675/671.7 mln/1377 3:35 pm :

WTI crude oil futures couldn't hold today's gains and slide lower in afternoon activity
Apr crude ultimately closed $0.74 lower at $50.76/barrel.
Apr nat gas, on the other hand, rose $0.07 to close at $2.84/MMBtu
Gold and silver futures hit today's lows in afternoon trade
Apr gold ended $5.00 lower at $1196.20/oz, while May silver lost $0.01 to $16.16/oz
Mar copper shed $0.01 to $2.65/lb

Large Cap Gainers

PCYC (254.63 +10.48%): To be acquired by AbbVie (ABBV) for $21 bln, or $261.25 per share.
KR (73.48 +5.5%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.14, reported revs in-line; guided FY16 EPS above consensus.
MAC (88.54 +5.66%): Reports out suggesting the company may be a takeover target by Simon Property Group (SPG).

Large Cap Losers

ABBV (57.7 -4.26%): Announced the acquisition of Pharmacyclics (PCYC); expects the transaction to be highly accretive to both revenue and earnings by 2017; lowered its FY15 EPS guidance to account for dilution from deal.
MOS (50.16 -3.35%): Potash names lower following disappointing earnings from Russia's Uralkali (URALL) (POT also lower).
AR (37.59 -2.24%): Announced the upsizing of its public offering of common stock of 13.1 mln shares; expects gross proceeds of ~$485 mln.

Mid Cap Gainers

GLNG (32.5 +10.13%): Entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Rosneft Oil Company (OJSCY) that foresees cooperation between the companies in the area of floating liquefaction and transportation of natural gas.
MR (30.69 +9.53%): Strength attributed to M&A speculation.
SCTY (51.49 +2.88%): Piece out suggesting MLP structures would benefit solar companies like SolarCity.

Mid Cap Losers

GEF (37.87 -13.26%): Missed Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.08, missed on revs; reaffirmed FY15 EPS in-line.
MOMO (10.94 -12.83%): Missed Q4 consensus estimates by $0.12, beat on revs; sees Q1 revs in-line.
ERJ (32.2 -7.74%): Reported Q4 (Dec) results, missed on revs; guided FY15 revs below consensus; Price target lowered to $36 at UBS.

12:00 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (158) outpacing new lows (69) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCD, ACAD, ACN, ACT, ADMP, AEO, AET, AFFX, AGN, AJX, ALKS, ALN, ALNY, AMAG, AMPH, ANAC, ANTH, APH, ARRY, AVGO, BAM, BBC, BBP, BDX, BFIN, BIB, BIIB, BIO, BLRX, BLUE, BMRN, BMY, BSQR, BT, BURL, BX, BZM, CBPO, CEMP, CFI, CFN, CHEV, CHFN, CI, CLDN, CLDX, CMCSK, CNC, CODE, COLM, CPIX, CPRX, CRL, CRMD, CRUS, CSV, CSWC, DCM, DEA, DEG, DEPO, DVAX, DXGE, DY, ECOL, ESE, FCB, FLXN, FNRG, FRC, FSL, FV, GB, GHC, GLOB, GTT, GWB, GY, HAIN, HASI, HBI, HLT, HPI, HRTG, HSKA, HSP, IBB, IBP, ICLN, IDCC, IGTE, IIF, INCY, INN, INT, INTL, JCOM, JEQ, JOUT, JTP, JTPY, KR, KYO, LAMR, LII, LLNW, LPSB, LVLT, MACK, MDVN, MEI, MFLX, MKTX, MLR, MNK, MRTX, MXIM, NBIX, NCLH, NLNK, NSAM, NSP, NVDA, NXPI, OLN, OMER, PAM, PCYC, PRXL, PSO, PTX, PUK, QLYS, QURE, RCPT, RHP, RRD, SBFG, SIEN, ST, SWKS, SYNT, TGS, TREX, TSQ, TSRO, TWC, UEPS, USCR, USPH, VMC, VRX, WBB, WETF, WWAV, XL, XPO, ZIOP

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AGYS, AHGP, ALIM, AMZG, ANF, BIS, BOCH, BONT, CACQ, CECE, CHK, CTG, DAR, DV, DXM, EAC, EBR, EGI, ELRC, ENOC, ERJ, FENG, FIVE, FPP, FSTR, GEF.B, GES, GLF, GLOW, GNI, GOMO, GRVY, GSOL, HLX, HSBC, I, IGOV, IRET, JOY, KBSF, KEYW, KOF, LTBR, MERU, MNI, NAO, NATR, OPWR, PERF, PGN, PHIIK, PRXI, PSMT, RAVN, RUSHA, SCON, SGF, SIF, STRL, STRS, TDW, TRC, TSU, UG, VALE, VALE.P, VNCE, WTW, XRA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IBB, IYH, PSK, UUP, XBI, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BWX, FXE, JJA

8:08 am Avago Tech increases quarterly interim dividend to $0.38/share from $0.35/share (AVGO) :

6:36 am Methode Electronics beats by $0.18, misses on revs; raises FY15 EPS above consensus, reaffirms FY15 revs guidance (MEI) : Reports Q3 (Jan) earnings of $0.68 per share, $0.18 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.50; revenues rose 8.5% year/year to $206 mln vs the $209.71 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $2.50-2.60 from $2.20-2.30 vs. $2.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; reaffirms FY15 revs of $870-885 mln vs. $884.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Consolidated gross margins as a percentage of sales improved to 25.5 percent in the Fiscal 2015 first nine months compared to 20.8 percent in the Fiscal 2014 period.

6:29 am Canadian Solar misses by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 and FY15 (CSIQ) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.28 per share, $0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.34; revenues rose 84% year/year to $956.2 mln vs the $953.94 mln consensus.

Total solar module shipments in the fourth quarter of 2014 were 1,125 MW, with 897 MW recognized in revenue, compared to 770 MW recognized in the third quarter of 2014 and 621 MW in the fourth quarter of 2013. Co issues guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $725-775 vs. $713.18 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Expects Q1 total module shipments to be in the range of ~1,000 MW to 1,030MW, including ~55 MW of shipments to the Company's utility-scale solar projects that will not be recognized into first quarter 2015 revenue. Co issues guidance for FY15, sees FY15 revs of $2.8-3.0 bln vs. $3.44 bln Capital IQ Consensus; Absent the planned change in the Company's energy business model from a build-to-sell to a build and operate model, revenue for 2015 would be ~$1.0 billion to $1.1 billion higher.Sees total module shipments to be in the range of ~4.0 GW to 4.3 GW, including 3,300MW to 3,500 MW of third-party module sales, 235 MW to 275 WW of project and EPC sales, and 460 MW to 490 MW of shipments to projects which will be held on the balance sheet pending the launch of a YieldCo vehicle. At the end of February of 2015, the Company had a pipeline of late -stage, utility-scale solar projects totaling ~1.4 GW DC. Canadian Solar's late-stage, utility-scale solar project pipeline is expected to increase by ~1.0 GW DC to 2.4GW DC with the Recurrent acquisition.

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From Briefing.com: The buy-the-dip crowd showed up early, but then went away, paving the way for renewed selling interest that left the major indices in negative territory by the closing bell.

Small-cap and mid-cap stocks fared better than their large-cap counterparts, evidenced by the outperformance of the Russell 2000 (+0.4%) and S&P Midcap 400 Index (+0.7%).

Once again, the dollar's performance -- or really the euro's performance -- took center stage. The latter dropped another 1.6% to 1.0542 against the dollar. That move, and further weakness in the yen, drove the U.S. Dollar Index up 1.2% to 99.75 and contributed to growing concerns about the negative impact of a stronger dollar on U.S. multinational companies.

For the second session in a row, the S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.7%) was among the biggest laggards and underperformed the broader market with losses in Apple (AAPL 122.26, -2.25, -1.8%), Cisco (CSCO 28.26, -0.40, -1.4%), EMC Corp (EMC 25.72, -1.23, -4.6%), MasterCard (MA 86.97, -1.87, -2.1%), and Qualcomm (QCOM 70.28, -1.61, -2.2%) weighing on matters.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Altera Corporation (ALTR 35.01, -0.10, -0.3%): Announced it is adding a 30-amp PowerSoC DC-DC step-down converter to its portfolio of Enpirion power solutions for FPGAs. The 30-amp EM1130 is the first in a family of integrated digital DC-DC step-down converters that will provide power management for Altera's Generation 10 FPGAs.

Apple (AAPL 122.26, -2.25, -1.8%): Company's App store experienced an outage

Broadcom Corporation (BRCM 43.79, +0.06, +0.1%): Announced it is powering the first Ultra High Definition (Ultra HD) Android TV set-top box

Cisco (CSCO 28.26, -0.40, -1.4%): Announced an extension of its cloud and data center relationship with Microsoft (MSFT 41.98, -0.05, -0.1%) to include a new technology platform designed to accelerate service delivery and streamline the journey to the Intercloud for cloud providers. Additionally, 14 cloud providers announced they plan to join Cisco's Intercloud partner ecosystem, bringing the number of Intercloud providers to more than 60 with a footprint of more than 350 data centers across 50 countries.

Fiserv (FISV 76.95, +0.22, +0.3%): Announced the availability of Mobiliti Business, a comprehensive, secure and easy-to-use mobile banking solution designed to meet the unique needs of business banking users.

Google (GOOG 551.19, -3.82, -0.7%): Discloses that on March 4, 2015, CFO Patrick Pichette informed of his intent to retire. The effective date of his retirement has not yet been determined. Pichette indicated that he intends to assist in the search for a new CFO and ensure an orderly transition, which the company expects will occur within the next six months.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 32.61, -0.06, -0.2%): Announced the authorization of HP Fortify on Demand by the Joint Authorization Board of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. Company noted that it is the first Security Software-as-a-Service offering to achieve a FedRAMP authorization.

Intel (INTC 32.34, +0.64, +2.0%): VentureBeat, citing two sources with knowledge of the companies' plans, reported that Intel's 7360 chip will ship inside a special version of the iPhone marketed in emerging markets in Asia and Latin America

Micron (MU 27.89, +0.27, +1.0%): Digitimes details news that Micron plans to expand its NAND flash memory fabrication facility in Singapore. Initial manufacturing output is expected to occur in fiscal 2017.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba (BABA 81.99, -0.98, -1.2%): Company confirmed the upcoming expiration of the 180-day lock-up period in March 2015 in connection with its initial public offering completed in September 2014. In light of press stories containing different expiration dates that have recently come to Alibaba Group's attention regarding the lock-up period ending in March 2015, Alibaba Group confirms that, approximately 437 million ordinary shares (including approximately 8 million restricted share units and share options that vested after the IPO) subject to the 180-day lock-up period described in Alibaba Group's IPO prospectus will be available for sale to the public commencing March 18, 2015. Of these ordinary shares that will no longer be subject to the 180-day lock-up starting from March 18, 2015, approximately 100 million shares will nevertheless remain subject to Alibaba Group's employee trading restrictions until after the announcement in May 2015 of its earnings results for the quarter and fiscal year ending March 31, 2015.

Dangdang (DANG 8.14, -0.74, -8.2%): Rescheduled Q4 earnings release, citing a scheduling issue. Says the report, originally scheduled for March 12, is expected to occur 'later this month.'

MicroStrategy (MSTR 160.38, -0.66, -0.4%): Announced that the Toronto Transit Commission has selected the MicroStrategy Analytics Platform as its enterprise analytics standard.

Qlik Technologies (QLIK 30.78, -0.63, -2.1%): Announced that VWR (VWR 24.48, +0.68, +2.6%) has deployed QlikView worldwide to perform complex analysis of more than eight terabytes of data.

SINA (SINA 35.01, -1.19, -3.3%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.24 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 5.8% year/year to $208.5 mln. Gross margin for the fourth quarter of 2014 was 65%, compared to 64% for the same period last year. For FY15, sees revenues of $800-900 mln. Company states, "In the year 2015, the company will continue to execute a number of major initiatives to renovate its portal business in order to build a solid foundation for long term growth. Many of these transformative endeavors may take time to become meaningful revenue contributors, making it difficult for Management to predict the inflection point for a sustainable growth. As a result, the Company believes that an estimated range of annual revenue targets would be more reliable than quarterly revenue guidance."

Weibo (WB 15.00, +0.12, +0.8%): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.04 per share, in-line with estimates. Revenues rose 47.3% year/year to $105.2 mln, which was slightly ahead of expectations. For Q1, sees revenues of $93-96 mln, which is in-line with estimates

.Analyst Action:

EMC (EMC 25.72, -1.23, -4.4%): downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo

SanDisk (SNDK 82.73, +2.57, +3.2%): target raised to $106 from $100 at Goldman Sachs -- Added to Conviction Buy List

Seagate Technology (STX 54.36, -0.05, -0.1%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum; target lowered to $56 from $69

SINA (SINA 35.01, -1.19, -3.1%): target lowered to $50 from $58 at Brean Capital; Buy

Western Digital (WDC 97.89, -1.50, -1.4%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum; target lowered to $93 from $118

4:10 pm : The Dow (-0.2%), Nasdaq (-0.2%), and S&P 500 (-0.2%) registered modest losses on Wednesday while the Russell 2000 (+0.6%) outperformed. The small-cap index climbed steadily throughout the afternoon while the S&P 500 spent the day in an 11-point range near its flat line before settling just below its 100-day moving average (2,042).

Yesterday's sharp slide was paced by the two largest sectors by weight, but technology (-0.7%) and financials (+0.6%) spent today on opposite sides of their unchanged levels, which contributed to the sideways action.

The financial sector settled in the lead ahead of this evening's release of the complete results of the stress test administered by the Federal Reserve. Citigroup (C 52.33, +1.10) was the top performer among the majors, climbing 2.2%.

Meanwhile, the technology sector struggled throughout the session, sliding to lows during the final hour of action. Shares of Apple (AAPL 122.24, -2.27) fell 1.8%, keeping the sector under pressure while chipmakers displayed relative strength. Intel (INTC 32.34, +0.64) and SanDisk (SNDK 82.73, +2.56) posted respective gains of 2.0% and 3.2% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 0.3%. Intel rallied after VentureBeat reported that the company's processors will be used in Apple iPhones in 2016 while SanDisk was added to Goldman's Conviction Buy List.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, the discretionary space (-0.5%) lagged while the energy sector (+0.2%) ended among the leaders even though crude oil settled lower by 0.4% at $48.21/bbl after testing the $47.40/bbl level intraday. The dollar-denominated energy component had to contend with another uptick in the greenback that pushed the Dollar Index (99.76, +1.15) higher by 1.2%. The dollar enjoyed another day of broad strength, pressuring the euro to 1.0540.

Over on the countercyclical side, consumer staples (-0.8%) and utilities (-0.7%) underperformed throughout the day while health care ended flat after showing intraday strength. The sector saw little reaction to news indicating Endo International (ENDP 87.76, -1.24) offered to buy Salix Pharmaceuticals (SLXP 168.60, +10.95) for $175/share.

Treasuries rallied following today's solid 10-yr auction, sending the benchmark 10-yr yield lower by three basis points to 2.11%.

Today's participation was in-line with recent averages as roughly 760 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data released today was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which fell 1.3% to follow last week's 0.1% uptick.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 306K), February Retail Sales (consensus 0.4%), and February Import/Export Prices will be released at 8:30 ET while the Business Inventories report for January (consensus 0.1%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 14:00 ET release of the Treasury Budget for February (consensus -$192 billion), which was pushed back from today.

Nasdaq Composite +2.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.9% YTD
S&P 500 -0.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.1% YTD

DJ30 -27.55 NASDAQ -9.85 SP500 -3.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1576/1.68 bln/1227 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1774/760.9 mln/1285 3:35 pm :

WTI crude oil was rather volatile again, following some industry data
Apr crude popped higher, but reversed following yesterday's API data
Today, crude fell following the EIA data to today's low, well below $48/barrel.
Apr crude recovered back above $48 in floor trading, but closed $0.19 lower still at $48.21/barrel
Natural gas rallied today and held its gains. Apr nat gas closed $0.10 higher at $2.83/MMBtu
Gold and silver climbed higher following its morning low, but still closed in the red
Apr gold closed $9.50 lower at $1150.60/oz, while May silver closed $0.26 lower at $15.38/oz

1:06 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MYL (57.99 +4.85%): Speculation that Mylan may be an M&A target.
SNDK (83.5 +4.16%): Price target raised to $106 from $100 at Goldman -- Added to Conviction Buy List.
AEG (7.96 +4.19%): Added to Europe focus list at Citigroup.

Large Cap Losers

TSN (37.98 -4.52%): Poultry names underperforming on reports of Avian influenza in Arkansas poultry (HRL also lower).
EMC (26 -3.53%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo.
WHR (197.9 -2.3%): Weaker following cautious commentary from analyst.

Mid Cap Gainers

IPXL (42.13 +9.54%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray.
GSAT (3.15 +7.14%): Announced it has completed a successful TLPS demonstration at the FCC.
TRN (31.15 +4.57%): Ruling out from the Federal Highway Administration on TRN'sguard-rail terminals, says end terminals crash tested are representative of the devices installed.

Mid Cap Losers

MRD (17.59 -14.24%): Reported Q4 revs of $103.8 mln vs $115 mln Capital IQ consensus vs $60.2 mln last year; downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel.
NBG (1.22 -9.33%): Announced Finansbank's intention to launch an offering of its ordinary shares through the Borsa Istanbul.
SXL (40.09 -7.12%): Priced its public offering of 13.5 mln units at $41.76.

11:55 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (186) outpacing new highs (63) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACHC, AEO, ALOG, ALR, AMAG, ANAC, AXTA, BBNK, BBP, BBY, BFAM, BFR, BLJ, BLUE, BURL, CBMG, CFI, COO, CRL, CVTI, DD, DNBF, DVA, DXGE, ENDP, ESLT, GBNK, GTT, GY, HASI, HPTX, HZNP, INFN, INGN, IPXL, LJPC, MEI, MGLN, MLVF, MYL, NSP, NVDA, OCUL, OTIC, PNK, PTX, QURE, RCKY, RCPT, RHP, RLGT, SLGN, SMG, SSP, SURG, SWKS, TGS, TSRO, URBN, USCR, UTHR, VVR, WETF

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAU, ACRX, ACTG, AETI, AGNC, AHC, AKO.B, AMCF, ANAT, ANDE, AOI, ARCO, AUQ, AUY, AVAL, AXPW, AXU, AXX, BAK, BBD, BIOS, BPI, BPT, BSBR, BTG, BTU, CAE, CARV, CBD, CECE, CHNR, CIG, CLD, CLF, CMLS, CMO, CNP, CNX, CPAC, CPL, CTRL, CUO, DAEG, DAR, DBVT, DRQ, DSCI, DXM, EBR, ECA, EDD, EGI, EGP, EJ, ELON, EMIF, EMR, ERA, ETAK, EURN, EXK, FCO, FHCO, FMY, FTEK, FTGC, FUEL, FULL, GAS, GEF, GEOS, GOL, GPL, GPRK, GSOL, GSV, GUID, HDP, HGT, HLX, HMIN, HSBC, HTHT, HTS, HWCC, ICLD, IGOV, IPI, ISHG, JMI, JMT, JONE, JOY, KEYW, KOF, KT, LAQ, LAS, LAYN, LFL, LFVN, LMIA, LOR, MAT, MDU, MDW, MLHR, MPO, MRVC, MSM, MTLS, NAO, NE, NFG, NGG, NLY, NWPX, OB, OESX, OGE, ONVO, OPXA, ORIG, P, PAAS, PBR, PGN, PKY, PLTM, PM, PN, POWL, PPL, PPP, PQ, PVH, RAVN, RCI, RDS.A, RDS.B, RIG, RL, RLJE, ROYL, RSO, RUSHA, SB, SBLK, SEED, SFUN, SGF, SINA, SJR, SMTX, SSE, SVLC, SWN, TAHO, TC, TDW, TENX, TGD, TKC, TKF, TLF, TMST, TRP, TSU, TU, ULTR, UNT, UUUU, VALE, VALE.P, VBLT, VIV, VNCE, VRA, WLT, WYNN, XCO, XNET, XOM, YNDX, ZHNE, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: UUP

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BJK, BWX, DBA, EPU, EWZ, FUD, FXA, FXB, FXE, FXS, ILF, KOL, NLR, PPLT, SIL, SLV, USCI, XME

SanDisk (SNDK) announced contributions to the open source Ceph object, block, and file storage platform that empower customers to take advantage of the full benefits of flash. With these contributions, SanDisk solidifies its commitment to being an open source contributor in order to deliver more open, easy-to-integrate and cost-effective solutions to customers.Violin Memory (VMEM) announced the launch of its Global Partner Program and a new easy-to-use online portal. Following the launch of the Violin Flash Storage Platform, the expanded Violin Global Partner Program establishes new incentives and business models that will enable partners to achieve success through simplified partner programs, more predictable performance rewards, and innovative tools to deliver consistency in partner engagement.

7:30 am Vishay Precision increase preliminary pre-tax, non-cash impairment charge for 4Q14 to $5.4 mln from $3.3 mln (VPG) : Co stated:

"While there is no change to the non-GAAP results reported in the press release dated February 11, 2015, the additional impairment charge results in a final generally accepted accounting principles net loss attributable to VPG stockholders for the fourth quarter of 2014 in the amount of $(4.4) million, or $(0.32) per diluted share, and net earnings attributable to VPG stockholders for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2014 in the amount $3.9 million, or $0.28 per diluted share."

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 13-Mar-15Dow -145.91 at 17749.31, Nasdaq -21.53 at 4871.76, S&P -12.55 at 2053.4

The stock market finished the week on a defensive note with the S&P 500 (-0.6%) returning below its 50-day moving average (2,059). The benchmark index settled ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.8%), but behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%).

Equity indices began the day with modest losses and spent the first two hours of action in a steady slide that involved all ten sectors. The S&P 500 hovered near its morning low into the afternoon, but was able to rally into the middle of its trading range during the final 90 minutes of the day.

Once again, the early pressure was largely due to continued greenback strength that sent the Dollar Index (100.22, +0.78) higher by 0.8% to extend its March advance to 5.1%. The unyielding strength fed concerns about the impact to earnings of multinational companies while also pressuring crude oil. The energy component fell 4.7% to $44.89/bbl and notched its low after the Baker Hughes rig count fell to 1125 (-67), registering its 14th consecutive weekly decline.

For the week, WTI crude lost 9.1% while the energy sector (-0.5%) fell 2.8%, ending the week well behind the remaining groups. Today, however, the sector finished ahead of the broader market thanks to a late rally amid speculation ExxonMobil (XOM 83.87, -0.35) may be interested in Whiting Petroleum (WLL 40.00, +1.64). Meanwhile, the materials sector (-1.0%) was the weakest performer on the cyclical side as steelmakers weighed with Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 30.97, -0.72) falling 2.3%.

Elsewhere, the technology sector (-0.5%) stayed ahead of the broader market thanks to relative strength among chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index gained 0.7% with NXP Semiconductor (NXPI 104.66, +6.09) jumping 6.2% after Needham initiated coverage of the stock with a 'Strong Buy' rating. As for large cap names, Intel (INTC 30.93, +0.13), Microsoft (MSFT 41.38, +0.36) and Oracle (ORCL 42.38, +0.76) finished in the green while other major tech components registered losses.

The Nasdaq settled a little ahead of the broader market thanks to those pockets of strength while biotechnology names also contributed to the outperformance. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 345.33, +0.50) added 0.1% after being up more than 1.0% this morning. On a related note, the health care sector (-0.2%) finished ahead of the remaining groups.

Treasuries ended flat after showing intraday gains with the 10-yr yield settling at 2.12%.

Today's participation was a bit light with fewer than 790 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included PPI and Michigan Sentiment:

Producer prices declined 0.5% in February after declining 0.8% in January while the Briefing.com Consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
The drop in producer prices was a shock. Most analysts expected a rise in energy prices would offset any weaknesses from other sectors, but that did not happen
Energy prices were flat in February after declining 10.3% in January
Food prices declined 1.6% in February after declining 1.1% in January, which was the third consecutive monthly decline in food prices. Most of the drop resulted from a 17.1% decline in fresh and dry vegetable prices
Excluding food and energy, core PPI also declined 0.5% in February after declining 0.1% in January while the consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 91.2 in the preliminary March reading from 95.4 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 95.8
Slightly higher gasoline prices and a volatile equity market offset continued strengthening in the labor market

On Monday, the Empire Manufacturing report for March will be released at 8:30 ET while February Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization will be announced at 9:15 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of NAHB Housing Market Index for March.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17856.78 17749.31 -107.47 -0.6 -0.4
Nasdaq 4927.37 4871.76 -55.61 -1.1 2.9
S&P 500 2071.26 2053.40 -17.86 -0.9 -0.3
Russell 2000 1217.52 1232.14 14.62 1.2 2.3

Strong dollar woes continued to weigh on U.S equities on Friday with the Dollar index gaining nearly 1% on the day. All major indices spent the day in the red, but managed to muster a decent rally into the close. paring back at least some of the day's losses.

The S&P technology sector (-0.5%) performed much like the rest of the market, though it slightly outperformed the S&P 500 (-0.6%). News in the space was sparse, with only a few stories notable enough to cause significant price action. While news in the sector was thin, there were still several significant gainers and losers in the space.

The following stocks were top performers in the sector: Micron Technology (MU 28.72, +0.70, +2.5%), Applied Materials (AMAT 24.24, +0.47, +2%), Oracle (ORCL 42.38, +0.76, 1.8%), Lam Research (LRCX 78.71, +0.99, +1.3%), and Intuit (INTU 97.77, +1.10, +1.1%)

The worst performers in the sector were: IBM (IBM 154.28, -3.70, -2.3%), Visa (V 265.03, -4.55, -1.7%), Mastercard (MA 87.75, -1.50, -1.7%), NetApp (NTAP 36.82, -0.59, -1.6%), and Symantec (SYMC 23.36, -0.36, -1.5%).

Notable news items from sector components included:

Oracle (ORCL 42.38, +0.76, +1.8%): Announced that Oracle Social Cloud's Social Relationship Management platform now supports Instagram (Facebook FB 78.05, -0.88, -1.1%) and Weibo (WB 14.18, -0.69, -4.6%)

Seagate Technology (STX 53.76, -0.78, -1.4%): Announced that its Nytro family of PCIe-based flash acceleration cards -the XP6209-has been selected by China's foremost Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider QingCloud to enhance the performance and capabilities of its cutting-edge cloud service.

Texas Instruments (TXN 57.12, -0.11, -0.2%): Introduced the industry's first 80-V, 10-A integrated gallium nitride field-effect transistor power-stage prototype, which consists of a high-frequency driver and two GaN FETs in a half-bridge configuration -- all in an easy-to-design quad flat no-leads package
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Loral (LORL 69.40, -2.89, -4%): Disclosed that after further discussions between Loral Space & Communications and the high bidder in the previously disclosed strategic process, the co and the high bidder have been unable to overcome the gap posed primarily by the currency exchange fluctuations, and the discussions have now concluded.

Violin Memory (VMEM 3.53, +0.37, +11.7%): President and Directors (4) disclose the purchase of 180K shares at $3.08-3.18 worth $562K.

LiveDeal (LIVE 2.90, -0.04, -1.4%): Announced that it has enhanced its proprietary software to anticipate demand for higher-profit items, and initiate its in-house manufacturing capabilities to meet demand and increase revenue growth. The proprietary software, which was developed by LiveDeal subsidiary, Modern Everyday, tracks consumer behavior and can help the Company predict where increased demand will emerge.

TiVo (TIVO 10.64, -0.15, -1.4%): Announced acquisition of Aereo Assets; receives approval from bankruptcy judge to complete the deal, details not disclosed

Ultimate Software (ULTI 167.13, +0.41, +0.3%): Announced that Human Arc will adopt the company's Ultipro offering for HCM and payroll functions

Ebix (EBIX 29.55, +3.94): Reported Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.45 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ single analyst estimate of $0.39; revenues rose 19.3% year/year to $60.6 mln vs the $52.85 mln single analyst estimate.
Analyst Action:

Intel (INTC 30.93, +0.13, +0.4%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity; target lowered to $38 from $40... upgraded to Underperform from Sell at Credit Agricole... price target lowered to $38 from $42 at Deutsche Bank; Buy... price target lowered to $40 from $42 at FBR Capital; Outperform... price target lowered to $48 from $50 at Jefferies; Buy

Cognizant Tech (CTSH 61.15, -0.51, -0.8%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Berenberg

eBay (EBAY 59.07, -0.34, -0.6%): price target raised to $75 from $59 at Susquehanna; Positive

Broadcom (BRCM 44.27, -0.45, -1%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity; target lowered to $47 from $50

Cisco Systems (CSCO 27.94, -0.30, -1.1%): target raised to $32 from $30.50 at UBS; Buy

Apple (AAPL 123.59, -0.86, -0.7%): target raised to $85 from $60 at Berenberg; Sell

5:01 pm SMTC Corp postpones the timing of its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014 earnings release and conference call to allow for more time to finalize its year-end financial results (SMTX) : At the current time, the earnings release is expected to be issued by March 30, 2015.

4:59 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:AMRN (2.9 +62.92%),LBIO (13.12 +45.78%),AMPE (7.98 +35.71%),RGEN (31.31 +24.89%),GERN (4.34 +24%),EGRX (46.09 +22.48%),AAVL (43.24 +20.24%),SUPN (11.77 +20.22%),HPTX (35.12 +19.33%),ANAC (55.66 +17.97%)

Materials:RTI (37.79 +38.53%),PLM (1.33 +19.82%)

Consumer Discretionary:PNK (34.39 +25.42%),TWOU (21.46 +20.97%),EXPR (16.24 +17.43%)

Information Technology:GCA (8.33 +17.66%)

Financials:ITG (27.91 +24.04%),ONDK (19.41 +19.37%)

Energy:TGS (5.48 +26.56%),WLL (40 +17.54%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:ACRX (4.06 -53.6%),CUR (2.56 -32.45%),CTIC (1.97 -25.66%)

Materials:BAK (6.74 -21.45%),CLF (4.94 -21.21%)

Industrials:NNBR (20.95 -19.79%),CVEO (2.92 -19.78%),BLT (13.41 -19.12%)

Consumer Discretionary:ARO (3.06 -24.26%),VRA (15.25 -20.03%),WBAI (11.6 -20%),ARCO (4.23 -18.5%)

Information Technology:BITA (47.6 -28.96%),CMTL (27.54 -19%)

Energy:EXXI (3.05 -24.69%),BAS (5.91 -22.85%),CLD (5.88 -19.34%),PWE (1.42 -18.86%),PES (4.63 -18.77%),XCO (1.54 -18.52%)

3:30 pm Earnings Preview for the week of March 16 - 20 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of March 16 - 20 some of the bigger names include:

Monday: Pre Market - RDNT, STRL, TSQ, UCP, PGNX, PFNX

After Hours - ANW, HELI, PRSC, JMEI, DCO, NES, MCP, QUNR, BDE, NOAH, BOOM, CALL, EGY, FTEK, XONE, CUI, FXEN, OMER

Tuesday: Pre Market - BURL, ARCO, RYI, ZBRA, DSW, FDS, RSPP, PLUG, IOC

After Hours - ORCL, ADBE, RATE, FRSH, CDNA, MCUR

Wednesday: Pre Market - FDX, GIS, ATU, EJ, EVLV, LEJU

After Hours - JBL, WSM, CTAS, SFS, GES, MLHR, CLC, SCVL, TLYS, SLW, GOMO, KTWO, QEPM, RENN, JUNO

Thursday: Pre Market - TECD, MIK, LEN, DANG, CATO, MCS, VNCE, TNP, CRCM

After Hours - NKE, MFRM, ZQK, CTRP, NWY, INGN, RALY, EXA, VCYT, VTL, ZFGN

Friday: Pre Market - DRI, TIF, CMCM, KBH

5:01 pm SMTC Corp postpones the timing of its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014 earnings release and conference call to allow for more time to finalize its year-end financial results (SMTX) : At the current time, the earnings release is expected to be issued by March 30, 2015.
12:23 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (177) outpacing new highs (148) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABC, ACHC, AEO, AET, AFAM, AFFX, AGN, AIR, ALGT, ALR, AMAG, AMPH, AMRN, AMSG, ANAC, ANTM, ASPX, ATRO, BBC, BBP, BHV, BIB, BMRN, BMY, BRP, BURL, CACC, CBF, CBM, CEMP, CEVA, CFI, CGNX, CHDN, CI, CLDN, CNC, CONE, CRL, CSBK, CSFL, CVGW, CY, DEPO, DG, DGX, DLTR, DSPG, DVA, DVAX, DXGE, DYAX, EBIX, EBSB, EGBN, EGRX, EIG, ESPR, ETFC, FCAU, FCS, FDP, FIX, FRME, FSL, GERN, GHC, GTN, GTN.A, GY, HALO, HBI, HCC, HCHC, HIG, HMHC, HPTX, HTLF, IBB, IBP, IMKTA, INFN, INS, INSY, INTL, IPGP, IPXL, IRS, ISLE, ITG, JBLU, JEQ, KAI, KR, KYO, LBIO, LCI, LLNW, MAC, MD, MDVN, MNK, MSBF, MSO, MTN, MYRG, NCLH, NEWT, NSP, NXPI, OLED, ONCE, PAM, PBH, PBIP, PNFP, PNK, PRXL, PTCT, QADA, QADB, RDI, RGEN, RHP, RLI, SAGE, SFNC, SIGI, SIXD, SRDX, SSP, SUPN, SWKS, SWM, SYNT, TA, TGT, TSRO, TWOU, UAM, ULTA, USPH, VLGEA, WAL, WBS, WSM, XPO, ZFGN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABEV, ADRE, AMCF, AMIC, ANAT, ATLS, ATNM, AXPW, BAK, BBD, BBDO, BCA, BICK, BIS, BSBR, BTG, BTU, CAT, CBD, CEL, CHK, CIG, CIG.C, CLD, CLF, CNNX, CNP, CNX, COP, CPL, CTIC, CUO, CUR, DAR, DBVT, DEST, DO, DPG, DPM, DRQ, EBR, EBR.B, ECA, EDD, EEML, EGI, ELP, EMIF, EMR, ENBL, ENOC, ERJ, ESV, FCO, FHCO, FOSL, FTGC, GALE, GCO, GEOS, GFA, GLF, GOL, GRAM, GULTU, HELI, HERO, HLX, HOLI, HSBC, HWCC, I, IGOV, IHD, IMO, IPI, ISHG, ITEK, ITUB, JMT, KBR, KYE, LAQ, LAYN, LDF,LEJU, LFL, LITB, LOCM, LODE, LOR, LXK, MDM, MDU, MDW, MHGC, MPO, MSM, NAO, NDRO, NE, NFG, NGG, NGLS, NOA, NOV, NRG, NRP, NTG, NTP, OESX, OGE, PBR, PBR.A, PDI, PGN, PHII, PHIIK, PLTM, PLX, PM, PRGN, PTNR, PWE, RDC, RDS.A, RDS.B, REN, RIG, RNET, ROYL, RRC, RYAM, RYI, SBLK, SDLP, SDRL, SEED, SFUN, SHG, SHOS, SIFY, SINA, SJR, SJT, SRV, SSL, SVBL, SXCP, TCPI, TDW, TENX, TGD, TICC, TKF, TLP, TMST, TOT, TRP, TSU, TTF, UG, UNT, UPLD, UUUU, VALE, VALE.P, VBLT, VNCE, WILN, WIN, WLT, WYNN, XCO, XOM, YOKU, YY

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IBB, IHF, UUP, XBI, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BWX, DBA, DJP, EPOL, EWS, EWZ, FUD, FXB, FXC, FXE, FXY, ILF, JJA, KOL, RJA, SGG, USCI, XME

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary:

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Sloppy Friday sees DJ30, SP500 revert to old ways, relative strength in RUTX and SP400, and SOX post a gain.
- Dollar continues its surge, pushing more rotation.
- Near trend continues with money rotating from large caps to smaller caps.
- Michigan Sentiment shows a rare decline.
- Gallup Poll: Government dissatisfaction tops the list of US citizen gripes.
- Growth index patterns are not bad, but leadership took on some water the past week.
- FOMC 'no patience' meeting set for this week. Will the market now have patience?

Back to Tuesday as large cap NYSE indices give up gains, small and mid-caps lead.

Tuesday saw all indices fall, but SP400 and RUTX held their 50 day MA while SP500 and DJ30 plowed them under. Thursday all stocks advanced and DJ30 even recaptured the 50 day MA it just crashed. Looked as if they were back on the same page though RUTX and SP400 were really nice, gapping back through the gap lower Tuesday.



Friday it was back to Tuesday. DJ30 and SP500 gave up the goods, i.e. the bounce from Thursday that took DJ30 back up through the 50 day EMA. At the same time, RUTX and SP400, both of which sold early, filled that Thursday upside gap intraday and rebounded rather nicely. Large cap struggling on the stronger dollar (up again) while the smaller caps continued working on good patterns.

NASDAQ was lower but bounced off a 50 day EMA intraday test. SOX actually scored a gain, using that Thursday gap and reversal that tested the 50 day EMA in something of a slingshot effect, moving through the 20 day EMA on the close.

So, RUTX and SP400 leading (though lower), SP500 and DJ30 struggling (with a stronger dollar), NASDAQ hanging in there, and SOX trying to move up and lead with SP400 and RUTX.

SP500 -11.47, -0.55%
NASDAQ -17.71, -036%
DJ30 -130.75, -0.72%
SP400 -0.54%
RUTX -0.37%
SOX 0.85%

VOLUME: NYSE +7.8%, NASDAQ scratching higher at +0.23%. Another day of distribution on the NYSE large caps. Not bad action on NASDAQ as it bounced off the 50 day EMA and recovered some lost ground.

A/D: NYSE -2.4:1, NASDAQ -3:2.

Yes, the large caps struggled again as the small and midcaps performed better. Another bout of strong dollar-itis.

What about that dollar? Broke the 1.05 barrier, closing at 1.0494 euro/dollars. Some say parity is coming soon (certainly looks easy to get there), others say an all-time low for the euro at $0.80 is a given before this is finished.

Of course that puts the hurt on the large caps that have fed so heavily on the weak dollar and the policies that allowed them to rake in big profits . . . most of which are left overseas thanks to our tax code . . and avoid any investment in the US outside of dividends, stock buy backs, and the occasional acquisition, funded of course, by the use of stock at inflated values.


The strong dollar is a grave danger . . . to my bonus structure.

And what are those corporations saying if they don't get a lower dollar? It will hurt . . . who? Certainly not the US consumer who gets virtually no benefit from those overseas profits. No investment, no new innovations, no new full-time, breadwinner jobs.

I have beaten that horse quite a bit of late, but with EVERY guest on every financial stations berating a strong dollar there has to be a counter voice.


Michigan Sentiment: A bit less exuberant

91.2 versus 95.8 expected, 95.4 February. Wow not heading up for once. What could be holding the consumer back? Realization that the decent jobs are not pouring fourth? Or maybe it is the anti-dollar talk convincing them things are not going to be good. Gasoline prices back up? Or maybe the oil patch workers in Michigan are voicing displeasure over good jobs lost.


They said gas prices were going lower!


Gallup Poll: What is important to Americans right now.

ISIS? National security? Budget deficit? No. Not even in the top 8.

Surely the economy? No, even that falls second to the number 1 concern.

Perhaps it is something that aggregates ALL of the concerns, frustration, and indeed, anger in the US:

Dissatisfaction with the government.



Spaces 2 through 7: Economy, Unemployment/Jobs, Immigration/illegal aliens, healthcare, terrorism, and education.

Hmmm. All areas over which the government now asserts primary control. No wonder government dissatisfaction, what many are now viewing as the cause of so many of our troubles, sits atop the list.




Rig Count: -67 on the week to 1125.

Fourteen weeks of decline and picking up speed. But - - production continues unabated. Of course we know why: producers trying to make what they can on their most recent wells drilled to get their money back before things really hit the skids, i.e. when the Cushing, OK storage facility is topped off and the oil has to go into the refineries to be processed. When that happens, oil goes to $30 or less from what our friends in the patch are telling us. So, produce as if there is no tomorrow (or at the legal limits set by the state) and get what you can while you can. They know what is coming and they want the cash in hand now versus prices $20/bbl less.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

RUTX: Not the leader on the day but perhaps the best situated. Gapped lower Tuesday to the 50 day EMA, gapped right back through the gap Thursday. Friday the small caps sold back, but held the gap point and rebounded to cut the losses. Very nice action as the small caps benefit from the stronger dollar as investors and traders push money their way versus the large caps.

SP400: After gapping higher Thursday through the Tuesday gap point, the midcaps tested and filled the gap intraday, recovering a good chunk of the downside. Perhaps not as solid as RUTX, but similar action and better than the large caps.

SOX: Leader on Friday, The chips managed to recover the 20 day EMA after the Thursday gap lower that tested the 50 day EMA and the reversed to flat. Nice test and reversal followed by some more upside Friday. Not huge, now all-powerful, but the move works well.

NASDAQ: Fell to the 50 day EMA, still over the November peaks, holding that level Tuesday and Wednesday, bouncing Thursday, giving it up Friday but then rebounding to cut the losses. Not exactly a powerhouse, but holding where it needs to, actually consolidating.

DJ30: Maybe not horrid, but it has to prove it can make the upside move. Ugly crash Tuesday, held the line and rebounded through the 50 day EMA Thursday. Friday, it was in another sharp drop, but the late market bounce pulled at least one of its chestnuts out of the fire. Still closed below the 50 day MA, but at least it held the same lows for the week and bounced. Not in love with it as it looks a bit toppy considering that late December high. Picked up a few DIA put positions ahead of the close in the event the downside cranks up again Monday.

SP500: Same action as DJ30. Identical but for the large cap index never recaptured the 50 day EMA Thursday and never crossed it Friday. Otherwise basically the same.


SUMMARY: It looks as if money is not necessarily leaving the market, at least not wholesale. Volume is up on SP500 and DJ30 selling, but at the same time you see small and midcaps getting money pushed their way. When there is rotation, one area's high volume selling is another area's higher volume buying. Thus while we don't feel all that great about the SP500 and DJ30's prospects, there are very good upside plays in the small and midcaps. Chips remain leaders, and tech is not chopped liver. Bifurcated action, and while we like what we see in the small and midcaps, it is not blow me away kind of strength. Thus we play good plays but we also keep an eye on the overall market action.


LEADERSHIP

Not as solid as Thursday by any means. Some great moves, but it was not the day for those ahead of the weekend.

Chips: The lone upside group so you would expect some decent action. NXPI was huge with a new 6+% upside surge. SWKS is still trending higher. AVGO is holding its gap, prepping for a new move.

Internet: Hanging in there. GRUB posted a new closing high on this move. VIPS tested lower but held the 10 day EMA on the close. WWWW is putting in a nice 10 day EMA test of the break higher off the 50 day.

Biotech: TXMD is still rallying. BIIB is a larger biotech and is making a 10 day EMA test.

Software: FLTX took a day off after a great run. SPLK is holding the start of a bounce from support. More work to do.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -21.53 points (-0.44%) to close at 4871.76
Volume: 1.815B (+0.23%)

Up Volume: 665.87M (-524.13M)
Down Volume: 1.15B (+512.13M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.53 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.53 to 1

New Highs: 101 (-22)
New Lows: 64 (+7)

S&P
Stats: -12.55 points (-0.61%) to close at 2053.4
NYSE Volume: 806.1M (+7.8%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 2.28 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.68 to 1

New Highs: 73 (-30)
New Lows: 119 (+70)

DJ30
Stats: -145.91 points (-0.82%) to close at 17749.31


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 16; +0.58
VXN: 17.55; +0.4
VXO: 16.88; +0.92

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.21; +0.16. Six consecutive sessions over 1.0, and seven of ten. Plenty of downside speculation to be a positive for the upside.


Bulls and Bears: Broke lower as expected in the selling. Not low enough but heading in the right direction.

Bulls: 53.46% versus 58.7% versus 59.5% versus 56.6% versus 52.5% versus 49.0%
After that rapid spike from 49% to 59.5%, backing down. A bit.

Bears: 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 15.2% versus 16.3%

Are you kidding me? This goes beyond stuck in the mud. Chronically low bearishness is bearish.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 53.6%
58.7% versus 59.5% versus 56.6% versus 52.5% versus 49.0% versus 53.1% versus 49.0% versus 48.0% versus 50.5% versus 56.4% versus 52.5% versus 49.5% versus 51.5% versus 53.4% versus 56.5% versus 56.4% versus 55.5% versus 54.6% versus 47.0% versus 35.3% versus 37.8% versus 45.5% versus 47.5% versus 48.0% versus 52.5% versus 57.6% versus 56.1% versus 52.5%

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 14.1%
14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 15.2% versus 16.3% versus 16.3% versus 17.4% versus16.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 13.9% versus 13.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 15.1% versus 16.3% versus 18.2% versus 17.3% versus 14.1% versus 15.1% versus 15.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.1% versus 13.3% versus 15.1% versus 16.2%


Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Right now bulls are coming back down from the 60 level that has consistently marked market tops over the past two years. The rapid decline in progress is pushing the bulls/bears lines toward one another. Still far from a cross with bulls falling faster than bears are rising, but bears are warming up to the notion of market weakness.


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.12% versus 2.10%.
2.12% versus 2.11% versus 2.13% versus 2.20% versus 2.245% versus 2.11% versus 2.12% versus 2.12% versus 2.08% versus 1.98% versus 2.04% versus 1.96% versus 1.98% versus 2.06% versus 2.09% versus 2.11% versus 2.08% versus 2.14% versus 2.03% versus 1.99% versus 1.98% versus 1.99% versus 1.95% versus 1.94% versus 1.81% versus 1.77% versus 1.78% versus 1.68% versus 1.67% versus 1.76%

Big rebound on the week to the 50 day EMA. Likely doesn't get further.


Oil: 44.89, -2.22. Breaking bad, heading back to the late January low 43.58.


Gold: 1150.60, +1.60. Second doji just over the early November low. Looks like a place to bounce.


$/JPY: 121.43 versus 121.28 versus 121.50 versus 121.80 versus 121.60 VERSUS 120.72 versus 120.14 versus 119.71 versus 119.74 versus 120.179 versus 119.63 versus 119.48 versus 118.86

Nice flag test of the 10 day EMA. Setting up the next move.


Euro/$: 1.04.94 versus 1.0635 versus 1.0546 versus 1.0700 versus 1.0829 versus 1.0849 versus 1.1030 versus 1.1079 versus 1.1175 versus 1.1182 versus 1.1197 versus 1.1195 versus 1.1362 versus 1.1337 versus 1.1385 versus 1.1379 versus 1.1366

Exploding higher yet again, breaking the important 1.05 level. Just a one-day oversold pause? Seems that way.


NEXT WEEK

The FOMC meets next week with a decision Wednesday. To be or not to be . . patient. The consensus is the Fed removes patient. Makes sense to us. Yellen said a couple of meetings to do away with it, and if she wants to keep her slip of tongue 6 months after QE ends, take out patient now, hike in April.

That the Fed may lose its patience was a purported issue for the market the past week. The stronger dollar was supposedly another issue for stocks. The two are, of course, related. While the rest of the world devaluates on top of prior devaluations, the US is actually talking raising rates, thereby instantly making the dollar more desirous. Add to that the US economy is not nearly as crappy as all the others, you get a stronger currency.

So, how does the market react? A good and bad move, sweet and sour, whatever you want to call it, last week saw some good days, some weak days, and some bifurcation. Thanks to the dollar, money rotated from the large caps to the smaller cap areas. Rotation is healthy for the market, but we are not 100% convinced this leads to significant higher highs.

RUTX looks to be a lock at a new high. That means beware. NASDAQ is holding the 50 day EMA, looks good to bounce. SOX bounced again. Take out SP500 and DJ30 and the market prospects are pretty solid. Put them in and they are still decent. Rotation is good as noted, but not sure this one is 100% of the money raised from selling large caps is getting put back into the market in other areas.

Friday saw some pattern degradation, e.g. ATHM, GNRC, QIWI, Z. Some. Still many are setting up: they had the week to test and set back up given the market chop. With money rotating, we definitely have plays setting up and will play them if they show the breaks, but at the same time you have to keep an eye on all the market. If too much bifurcation between large caps and smaller caps takes place, that impacts the market's ability to rise.

What would be best is to see the smaller caps lead, NASDAQ and SOX (both growth) perform well, and SP500 and DJ30 follow along. Maybe grudgingly, but following.

The market reacts adversely to Fed rate hikes. It anticipates them, struggles with the thought, then sells some on the news. Typically, however, they come back. The question is when. No one knows that. All we can do is watch where the money goes, what stocks it pushes into leadership, and go with that flow.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4871.76

Resistance:
The 10 day EMA at 4907
5008.57 is the March 2015 post-bear market high
5132.52 is the 3/2000 all-time high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 4828
4816 is the 38% Fibonacci retracement of the February run
4815 is the December 2014 prior market peak
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4774 is the January high
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4631 is the October 2014 upside gap point
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.
The 200 day SMA at 4579
4566 is the lower gap point from late October
4563 and 4567 are the January lows
4547 is the December low
4486 is the July 2014 high
4372 is the March 2014 high
The August low at 4321
4316 is the lower gap point from October 2014
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4277 is the March lower gap point
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak


S&P 500: Closed at 2053.40

Resistance:
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
The 50 day EMA at 2066
2076 is the all-time high from November
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November
2094 is the December 2014 high, the prior all-time high
2111 is the lower trendline from 11/2012
2119.59 is the all-time high
2175 is the December 2012 up trendline

Support:
2011 is the September prior all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 2003
1991 is the July 2014 high
1972 is the December 2014 low
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high


Dow: Closed at 17,749.31

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 17,830
17,923 is the January 2015 lower high
17,991 is the early December interim
18,104 is the December high
18,289 is the all-time high

Support:
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
The 200 day SMA at 17,268
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,341 is the May low
16,334 is the August 2014 low
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
15,855 is the October 2014 low
15,739 is the December 2013 low


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

March 13 - Friday
PPI, February (8:30): -0.5% actual versus 0.3% expected, -0.8% prior
Core PPI, February (8:30): -0.5% actual versus 0.1% expected, -0.1% prior
Michigan Sentiment, March (10:00): 91.2 actual versus 95.8 expected, 95.4 prior

March 16 - Monday
Empire Manufacturing, March (8:30): 8.8 expected, 7.8 prior
Industrial Production, February (9:15): 0.3% expected, 0.2% prior
Capacity Utilization, February (9:15): 79.5% expected, 79.4% prior
NAHB Housing Market , March (10:00): 56 expected, 55 prior
Net Long-Term TIC Fl, January (16:00): $35.4B prior

March 17 - Tuesday
Building Permits, February (8:30): 1070K expected, 1053K prior
Housing Starts, February (8:30): 1040K expected, 1065K prior

March 18 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 03/14 (7:00): -1.3% prior
Crude Inventories, 03/14 (10:30): 4.512M prior
FOMC Rate Decision, March (14:00): 0.25% expected, 0.25% prior

March 19 - Thursday
Continuing Claims, 03/07 (8:30)
Initial Claims, 03/14 (8:30): 294K expected, 289K prior
Continuing Claims, 03/07 (8:30): 2420K expected, 2418K prior
Current Account Bala, Q4 (8:30): -$105.0B expected, -$100.3B prior
Philadelphia Fed, March (10:00): 7.2 expected, 5.2 prior
Leading Indicators, February (10:00): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 03/14 (10:30): -198 bcf prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The major indices logged some robust gains on Monday in a session that saw oil prices drop 2.1% to $43.88/bbl, the U.S. Dollar Index dip 0.7% to 99.65, and every economic report (Empire Manufacturing, Industrial Production, and NAHB Housing Market Index) check in weaker than expected.

It was rally helped along by thoughts that the Federal Reserve might not sound as if it is in a hurry to raise the fed funds rate when it releases its latest policy directive on Wednesday, even if that directive doesn't include the word "patient" in it.

Time will tell, but the tale of the tape on Monday had a somewhat defensive story line to it. The health care (+2.1%) and utilities (+1.7%) sectors were the best-performing sectors and the Treasury market also moved higher simultaneously with the stock market.

To be fair, though, it wasn't as if the cyclical sectors didn't do well. Every sector gained at least 1.1% with the exception of the telecom services (+0.8%) and basic materials (-0.1%) sectors.

Nearly every component in the S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.2%) logged a gain on a fairly slow news day. The information technology sector, however, still trailed the S&P 500 (+1.4%).

Notable news items from the sector included the following:


Alliance Data (ADS 289.32, +1.04, +1.2%): Provided update on its Private Label segment for February 2015. Average receivables totaled $10,604,279 (in thousands), up 33% year-over-year. The Delinquency rate as of February 28, 2015, was 4.2%.

Facebook (FB 78.05, unch, 0.00%): Acquired TheFind.com; terms not available

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 32.38, -0.05, -0.2%): A U.S. District Judge approved its settlement with shareholders over Autonomy deal, according to reports. Separately, HP Enterprise Services Ltd announced that it has been selected by international express delivery services company TNT to help achieve its goal of delivering the perfect customer transaction. Under the six-year contract, HP will support TNT's business by consolidating and virtualizing its IT infrastructure and moving some functions to an HP Helion Managed Virtual Private Cloud environment.

MasterCard (MA 88.71, +0.96, +1.1%): Company and Ita (ITUB) confirmed the signing of a new 20-year agreement that further strengthens the long-term relationship between the two companies. As part of the agreement, Ita and MasterCard will establish and operate a new electronic payments network in Brazil. In addition, Ita will issue payment solutions including credit, debit and pre-paid cards as part of the newly created payments network and focus on enhancing the efficiency of their payment value chain. MasterCard will be responsible for managing the operations of the new network and transaction routing.

Microsoft (MSFT 41.53, +0.15, +0.4%): Announced the availability of new products and services designed to enable people and organizations to put data to work, driving better results for businesses of all sizes. The announcements were made at Convergence 2015, Microsoft's annual conference for its business customers.

Motorola Solutions (MSI 65.86, +1.06, +1.6%): Made a strategic investment in CyPhy Works; terms not disclosed. CyPhy Works is a developer of advanced unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones.Elsewhere in the technology space:

Arrow Electronics (ARW 60.72, +1.04, +1.7%): Company and Splunk (SPLK) announce distribution agreement. Under the agreement, Arrow's enterprise computing solutions business will distribute Splunk software that lets users search, monitor and analyze all machine-generated IT and business data from a single location in real time.

Cree (CREE 37.08, +0.46, +1.3%): Announced that it has demonstrated that its best-in-class SiC MOSFET and diode technologies enable previously unattainable levels of power density in string solar inverter products, yielding ultra-high efficiencies at one-fifth the average size and weight of today's silicon-based inverter units.

Electro Scientific (ESIO 6.43, -0.06, -0.8%): Announced a corporate restructuring expected to streamline its manufacturing and development operations. The restructuring will result in the closure of the assembly plant and development center located in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and overall staff reductions of approximately 45 employees. Products currently developed and manufactured in the Chelmsford plant will be transferred to other corporate facilities.The financial impact is expected to produce annualized pre-tax cost savings of approximately $4.5 million once fully implemented during the fiscal third quarter ending December 2015. The company expects pre-tax charges of approximately $5.5 million in severance and facility-related costs, of which $2.0 million is expected to be recorded in the fiscal fourth quarter ending March 2015.

JDS Uniphase (JDSU 13.93, +0.30, +2.1%): Announced that SoftBank (SFTBY) Mobile has chosen to implement JDSU's ariesoGEO platform and GEOperformance application across its 3G and LTE networks in downtown Tokyo. SoftBank will use ariesoGEO to help improve customer satisfaction by using location intelligence data from its network.

LinkedIn (LNKD 260.17, +1.05, +0.4%): Acquired software company Careerify; terms not disclosed

Sprint (S 5.15, +0.03, +0.5%): Filings show CFO disclosed the purchase of 3,600 shares at $5.05 per share (transaction date 3/13)

Zillow Group (Z 106.17, +0.68, +0.4%): Announced that the largest multiple listing service in the country, California Regional MLS, along with 17 additional MLS partners, have signed agreements to send their listings directly to Zillow and Trulia, bringing thousands of new listings directly to both sites.Analyst Action:

Avago Technologies (AVGO 129.86, +4.86, +4.0%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson; target to $150 from $125

Jabil Circuit (JBL 22.22, +0.49, +2.3%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Cross Research

Microsoft (MSFT 41.53, +0.15, +0.4%): target lowered to $49 from $52 at UBS; Buy

Oracle (ORCL 43.41, +1.03, +2.4%): target raised to $48 from $47 at RBC Capital Markets; Sector Perform

Qorvo (QRVO 76.30, +3.73, +5.2%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson; target raised to $100 from $70

Seagate Technology (STX 54.84, +1.08, +2.0%): upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Needham; target $65

Xilinx (XLNX 41.39, +1.65, +4.2%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Drexel Hamilton

4:15 pm : The stock market rebounded from last week's decline with a Monday rally that sent the S&P 500 (+1.3%) back above its 50-day moving average (2,060). The benchmark index narrowed its March loss to 1.1% while the Nasdaq (+1.2%) and Russell 2000 (+0.6%) underperformed, but still logged solid gains to start the week.

Unperturbed by disappointing economic data, equity indices rallied out of the gate and registered the bulk of their gains during the first hour of action. Countercyclical health care (+2.2%) and utilities (+1.7%) held the lead throughout the session, but most other sectors also posted solid gains.

The only group that couldn't make it out of the red was the materials sector (-0.1%) as Dow component DuPont (DD 77.07, -3.43) weighed after Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to 'Underperform' from 'Buy.' DuPont lost 4.3% while steelmakers also pressured the sector with Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 30.91, -0.06) sliding 0.2%.

Meanwhile, another commodity-linked sector-energy-began the day in negative territory, but rebounded to end higher by 1.4% even as crude oil dropped to a new low for the year. The energy component settled lower by 2.1% at $43.94/bbl after testing the $43.00/bbl level this morning.

Crude oil spent the day in the red after OPEC's monthly oil market report indicated that global demand growth is unlikely to increase from the previous month's 1.17 million barrels/day. Furthermore, a pullback in the Dollar Index (99.71, -0.63) failed to provide support. The Dollar Index lost 0.6% with the greenback giving up 0.7% to the euro, which tested the 1.0600 level.

Today's relative weakness in the dollar combined with the lack of a negative response to disappointing economic data suggests that participants were not all that concerned with the possibility that the Fed will strike a hawkish tone in Wednesday's policy statement. There was no strong demand for volatility protection today with the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.61, -0.39) falling 2.4%.

As mentioned earlier, the health care sector ended in the lead. Biotechnology supported the advance step-for-step with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 353.97, +8.64) climbing 2.5% to a new record high.

In turn, the relative strength within the biotech group was not enough to keep the Nasdaq in-line with the broader market. The tech-heavy index underperformed slightly as Facebook (FB 78.07, +0.02) and Intel (INTC 30.83, -0.10) spent the day in negative territory. Intel shed 0.3%, but that had little impact on its peers as the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index gained 1.5%.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the industrial sector (+1.6%) outperformed with help from transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 1.7% with 19 of its 20 components posting gains while Matson (MATX 40.73, -0.42) lost 1.0%.

Treasuries registered modest gains with the 10-yr yield slipping three basis points to 2.09%.

Today's participation was in-line with recent averages as 740 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Empire Manufacturing Index, Industrial Production, and NAHB Housing Market Index:


The Empire Manufacturing Survey for March registered a reading of 6.9, which was below the prior month's reading of 7.8 and below the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which was pegged at 8.8
Industrial production increased 0.1% in February after declining a negatively revised 0.3% (from +0.2%) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
Manufacturing production declined 0.2% in February after declining 0.3% in January, representing the third consecutive monthly contraction
Capacity utilization declined to 78.9% from 79.1% (consensus 79.5%)
The NAHB Housing Market Index for March fell to 53 from 55 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 56

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the 8:30 ET release of February Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.041 million) and Building Permits (consensus 1.07 million).

Nasdaq Composite +4.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.9% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.9% YTD

DJ30 +228.11 NASDAQ +57.75 SP500 +27.79 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1584/1.59 bln/1223 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1988/739.7 mln/1087 3:40 pm :

Oil prices sold off again today on broad market weakness
WTI crude came back some, but ultimately closed below $44/barrel
Apr contract finished the day $0.95 lower at $43.94/barrel
Apr nat gas closed $0.02 lower at $2.71/MMbtu
Despite weakness in the dollar index, precious metals closed with only modest gains
Apr gold ended floor trading $2.80 higher at $1153.40/oz, while May silver gained $0.12 at $15.61/oz
May copper rose $0.01 to $2.67/lb

1:06 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

EW (147.12 +8.7%): Announced that five-year outcomes for high-risk Sapien patients demonstrated equivalence to surgery, durable valve performance.
AMGN (162.23 +5.17%): Reported that New Detailed Data From Phase 3 study show Amgen's Repatha in combination with Statins reduced LDL-C by 67-76% compared to placebo in Japanese patients with high cardiovascular risk and high cholesterol.
QRVO (76.03 +4.77%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson; tgt raised to $100.

Large Cap Losers

NFLX (418.84 -4.46%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Evercore ISI; tgt to $380 from $450.
EC (13.52 -4.22%): Ecopetrol and Pacific Rubiales Energy announce that they have agreed not to extend the Rubiales risk participation and Piriri joint venture contracts that expire in 2016.
MPEL (20.82 -2.69%): Downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Mid Cap Gainers

LTM (70.61 +5.07%): To be acquired by affiliates of Leonard Green & Partners and TPG; Life Time Shareholders will receive $72.10 per share in cash.
JBLU (18.72 +3.31%): Upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James.
MIK (29.16 +3%): Price target raised to $31 from $24 at Raymond James; Outperform.

Mid Cap Losers

WLL (37.58 -6.05%): Pulling back following a surge late Friday on reports the company has attracted potential buyers in its rumored sales process.
AVP (7.29 -5.57%): Replaced by Hanesbrands (HBI) in the S&P 500.
LINE (10.67 -4.73%): Numerous Oil & Gas names under pressure as WTI crude futures decline to fresh multi-year lows (WPX, PTEN, BTE also lower).

11:56 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (271) outpacing new lows (145) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABC, ACGL, ACHC, ACT, ADXS, AEO, AET, AFAM, AFFX, AFG, AGN, AIR, AKAM, ALG, ALNY, AMBA, AMPH, AMRN, AMSG, ANAC, ANTM, APH, ASPX, AWH, BANR, BBC, BBNK, BBP, BBY, BFR, BHB, BIB, BLUE, BMA, BMRN, BMY, BPOP, BSFT, BURL, CACC, CAF, CBRL, CBRX, CEMP, CEVA, CFI, CFNL, CFRX, CGNX, CHDN, CI, CIVI, CLDN, CME, CNC, CNK, CNMD, COKE, COL, CONE, COO, CPF, CPRX, CRL, CRMT, CRUS, CSBK, CSF, CSFL, CTAS, CTLT, CUK, CUTR, CVTI, CYAN, DEPO, DG, DGX, DHIL, DIS, DLTR, DNBF, DSPG, DVA, DW, DXGE, DXJS, DYAX, EBIX, EBSB, EIG, EOS, ESLT, ESPR, ESS, ETFC, EW, EXLS, FCAU, FCS, FDP, FEIM, FL, FMS, FRSH, FSL, FV, FWRD, G, GB, GCI, GFF, GGAL, GHC, GMK, GOOD, GY, HAIN, HBI, HBOS, HMHC, HNT, HOLX, HPTX, HTLF, HUM, HXL, IBB, IBP, ICUI, IIVI, IMKTA, INAP, INCR, INFN, INSM, INTU, IPXL, IRS, ISLE, JBHT, JBLU, JEQ, JOF, JRN, KAI, KR, KSS, KYO, LBIO, LEG, LH, LION, LLNW, LPSB, LTM, MAC, MANH, MASI, MCS, MD, MDCA, MGLN, MHFI, MIK, MLR, MNK, MSCC, MSO, MTG, MTN, MTU, MVIS, NCLH, NEWT, NLNK, NSP, OA, ONCE, PAM, PATK, PAYX, PBH, PBIP, PCYC, PF, PFPT, PKI, PLT, PLUS, PNFP, PNK, PRQR, PRXL, PSCH, PVTB, Q, QADA, QADB, QGEN, RAX, RDI, REGN, REV, RGA, RHP, RLI, RMD, ROL, ROST, SAGE, SBNY, SCHL, SCI, SCMP, SEIC, SFNC, SHLM, SIGI, SKYW, SPLP, SPNC, SPR, SPTN, SRCL, SRDX, SSP, STC, STZ, SUPN, SWKS, SYNT, TA, TBNK, TGT, TLMR, TMO, TRR, TRV, TSRO, TWOU, TYL, TYPE, UAM, UBSI, ULTI, UNH, URBN, USCR, USPH, UTHR, VAC, VLRS, VOYA, VRTX, VTWG, WAL, WAT, WBA, WBB, WBS, WCG, WERN, WETF, WRLD, WSH, WSM, WSO, XPO, ZAGG, ZFGN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACI, ACRX, AETI, ANR, AP, ARLP, ARP, ATL, ATLS, ATNM, AXPW, BAS, BBDO, BIS, BTU, CEQP, CHK, CHNR, CIG.C, CLD, CLF, CNNX, CNX, COMT, DDD, DNN, DRQ, DSKY, DWSN, DYNT, EGLE, EJ, ELON, ENBL, EPM, ESV, FBIZ, FHCO, FTEK, FTGC, FTK, FUEL, GEOS, GHI, GLF, GRAM, GRMN, GULTU, HELI, HERO, HGT, HNR, HOLI, HOS, IF, IRG, JMT, JOEZ, KBR, KYE, LAQ, LAYN, LEJU, LFL, LITB, MARK, MDM, MERU, MIL, MPEL, MPET, MRIN, NAO, NDRO, NE, NGLS, NOA, NOR, NOV, NRP, NSLP, NTG, NTP, OII, ORIG, ORMP, OXY, PBT, PDBC, PFIE, PGN, PHII, PQ, PRGN, PT, PVH, PWE, RDC, REDF, REN, RIG, RNET, ROYL, ROYT, RYAM, SBLK, SCON, SDLP, SDPI, SDRL, SFUN, SHOS, SINA, SJT, SKBI, SRF, SRV, SSE, SSL, SWSH, SXCP, TAHO, TCPI, TDW, TENX, TGB, TGC, TICC, TMST, TTF, UCP, UNT, USEG, UUUU, VNCE, WHZ, WIA, WILN, WRES, WYNN, XGTI, XPL, YOKU, ZEUS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWJ, IAI, IBB, IHF, IYH, PPH, RTH, XBI, XLV, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: COW, DBC, DJP, GREK, KOL, OIH, OIL, PPLT, RJA, USCI, USO, VNM, XES, XME

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market cooled its jets on Thursday following the surge of buying excitement seen Wednesday in the wake of the Federal Open Market Committee's policy announcement.

Every sector closed lower with the exception of the health care sector (+0.5%), which was underpinned by yet another strong showing from the biotech stocks.

The strength in the biotech names helped both the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) and Russell 2000 (+0.2%) outperform the Dow (-0.7%) and S&P 500 (-0.5%). The U.S. Dollar Index (+0.7% at 99.25) rebounded from Wednesday's sharp sell-off, which weighed on many large-cap issues with international exposure.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.2%) fared better than the S&P 500 without Apple's (AAPL 127.71, -0.76, -0.6%) support, yet it still ended lower for the day. Gains in Facebook (FB 82.76, +1.85, +2.3%), Cisco (CSCO 28.26, +0.11, +0.4%), SanDisk (SNDK 84.81, +1.91, +2.3%), Lam Research (LRCX 78.94, +1.46, +1.9%), and Yahoo (YHOO 45.01, +0.31, +0.8%) provided some offsetting support.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:


Apple (AAPL 127.71, -0.76, -0.6%): Company was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average after the close of trading on Wednesday. In its first day of trading as a Dow component, Apple declined 0.6%.

F5 Networks (FFIV 114.54, +0.27, +0.2%): Introduced software solutions to expand its offerings and simplify service delivery across physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructures. These new, lightweight solutions extend the capabilities of the F5 Synthesis framework to allow all applications to receive services-from basic load balancing to more advanced security and optimization capabilities-regardless of where the applications are located.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 32.84, -0.19, -0.6%): Increased quarterly dividend by 10% to $0.176/share from $0.16/share

Jabil Circuit (JBL 23.35, +0.70, +3.1%): Reported Q2 (Feb) earnings of $0.50 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which exceeded analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 20.5% year/year to $4.31 bln, also ahead of estimates. For Q3, sees EPS of $0.43-0.55, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $4.35-4.55 bln, both of which are in-line with expectations. For FY15, sees EPS of $1.85-2.15, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $17.5-18.5 bln. Both guidance ranges are in-line with analysts' expectations.Microsoft (MSFT 42.28, -0.22, -0.5%): Company and Fuji Xerox announced a broad patent cross-licensing agreement. The agreement covers a broad range of products and services offered by Microsoft and Fuji Xerox, including digital imaging, document management and mobile consumer products. Microsoft and Fuji Xerox have a long history of working together to bring high-quality, cutting-edge products to consumers. Contents of the agreement will not be disclosed. Fuji Xerox is a 75-25 joint venture between FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation and Xerox Corporation (XRX 12.85, -0.15, -1.1%)

Yahoo (YHOO 45.01, +0.31, +0.8%): TechCrunch discussed that Yahoo is closing its office in BeijingElsewhere in the technology space:

Amazon.com (AMZN 373.19, -1.94, -0.5%): Announced that Prime Now has expanded to Baltimore and Miami. The 'ultra-fast' service, which initially launched as a benefit for Prime members in Manhattan, offers one-hour delivery on tens of thousands of daily essentials through a mobile app.

Red Hat (RHT 69.18, +2.11, +3.1%): Announced that LeShop.ch, the largest online supermarket in Switzerland, has selected OpenShift Enterprise, Red Hat's on-premise, private Platform-as-a-Service, to deploy and manage its new online shopping application.

SAP AG (SAP 70.31, -0.66, -0.9%): Recommends annual dividend of EUR1.10/share, up from EUR1.00/share

In industry news, Gartner says worldwide combined shipments of devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are estimated to reach 2.5 bln units in 2015, an increase of 2.8 % over 2014. In spending terms, the global computing devices market is on pace to reach $226 bln, a 7.2 % decline in current U.S. dollars. The mobile phone market, the largest and most profitable segment of the global device market, is expected to total 1.9 bln units and grow 3.5 % in 2015.

Analyst Action:

CA, Inc. (CA 32.36, -0.01, -0.02%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research

eBay (EBAY 57.88, -0.54, -0.8%): downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray; target lowered to $49 from $55

Microsemi (MSCC 36.70, +2.02, +5.7%): target raised to $40 from $35 at Stifel; Buy

T-Mobile US (TMUS 33.20, +0.34, +1.2%): target raised to $38 from $37 at Jefferies; Buy

Vitesse Semi (VTSS 5.31, -0.03, -0.8%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Topeka Capital Markets; target raised to $5.50... downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday session on a mixed note. The S&P 500 lost 0.5% after spending the entire session in negative territory while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq extended this week's gain to 2.5% while the S&P 500 will enter the Friday session up 1.7% for the week.

Yesterday's dovish FOMC policy statement pressured the greenback, but the Dollar Index (99.23, +0.67) wasted no time, stringing together a swift comeback. The index added 0.7% today and returned to Tuesday's low. Notably, the euro retraced the bulk of yesterday's move, returning below 1.0650 versus the dollar.

Likewise, the dollar strength weighed on crude oil, sending the energy component lower by 2.5% to $45.50/bbl. In turn, this kept the energy sector (-1.7%) near the bottom of the barrel while the other commodity-related sector-materials (-1.7%)-finished just behind energy. Steelmakers kept the sector pressured after Nucor (NUE 46.11, -3.16) cut its guidance well below analyst estimates. Shares of NUE tumbled 6.4% while Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 31.07, -1.10) fell 3.4%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, industrials (-0.7%) and financials (-1.0%) struggled while consumer discretionary (-0.2%) and technology (-0.2%) displayed relative strength.

The largest sector by weight-technology-spent the day near its flat line as heavyweights like Apple (AAPL 127.50, -0.97), Google (GOOGL 563.67, -2.49), and Facebook (FB 82.75, +1.84)traded in mixed fashion while chipmakers outperformed with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 0.2%.

Conversely, the relative strength gave a boost to the Nasdaq, but the index also received significant support from biotechnology. Biogen Idec (BIIB 433.65, +5.72) jumped 1.3% after Credit Suisse raised its price target for the stock to $500 from $400 while the broader iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 365.25, +7.11) spiked 2.0%, logging its sixth consecutive advance.

In addition to boosting the Nasdaq, biotechnology helped the health care sector (+0.5%) finish well ahead of other groups. The countercyclical sector extended its week-to-date gain to 3.7%, overtaking the utilities sector (-1.0%), which narrowed its weekly gain to 3.3%.

Treasuries retraced a portion of yesterday's advance with the 10-yr yield spiking five basis points to 1.97%.

Today's participation was a bit light with roughly 715 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Current Account Balance, Leading Indicators, and Philadelphia Fed Survey:


The initial claims level increased to 291,000 from an upwardly revised 290,000 (from 289,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 293,000
There were no special factors impacting this week's claims reading
The current account deficit for the fourth quarter totaled $113.50 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $105.00 billion
The third quarter deficit was revised to $98.90 billion from $100.30 billion
The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Survey dropped slightly to 5.0 in March from 5.2 in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 6.9
While the overall index was virtually unchanged from a month ago, the underlying details showed that a stark weakness developed over the past few weeks
Shipments-or production-moved into a deep contraction in March as the related index dropped to -7.8 from +8.1 in February.
New orders growth slowed as that index fell to 3.9 in March from 5.4 in February. Unfilled orders entered an even larger contraction, dropping from +7.3 in February to -13.8 in March.
The Leading Indicators report for February was up 0.2%, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected

There is no economic data on tomorrow's schedule.

Nasdaq Composite +5.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.1% YTD
S&P 500 +1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.8% YTD

DJ30 -117.16 NASDAQ +9.55 SP500 -10.39 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1490/1.55 bln/1349 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1079/723.4 mln/1987 3:40 pm :

Natural gas slid lower today and remained weak after reporting bearish natural gas data from the EIA
Ultimately, Apr nat gas closed $0.10 lower at $2.82/MMBtu
WTI crude oil futures dropped following yesterday's Fed-fueled rally
May crude ended today's session $1.17 lower at $45.50/barrel
The dollar index remained strong today, but this didn't affect metals much
Apr gold closed $18.20 higher at $1169.30/oz, while May silver finished $0.60 higher at $16.13/oz
Copper was strong today... May contract gained $0.10 to $2.66/lb

1:08 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

MPEL (22.93 +4.82%): Initiated with a Buy at Brean Capital; tgt $31.
WYNN (128.24 +4.33%): Initiated with a Buy at Brean Capital; tgt $174.
CERN (73.94 +3.21%): Upgraded to Outperform at Robert W. Baird; tgt raised to $77.

Large Cap Losers

NUE (46.03 -6.58%): Issued Q1 guidance, sees Q1 GAAP EPS $0.10-0.15 vs $0.40 Capital IQ Consensus.
FCX (17.3 -5.1%): Reports this morning that output was halted at one of its Indonesia mine units amid strike.
POT (32.16 -4.57%): Confirmed that the Government of Saskatchewan made changes to Potash taxation and initiated a review; changes are expected to decrease 2015 pre-tax earnings by CDN $75-100 mln; Price target lowered at Miller Tabak.

Mid Cap Gainers

ESPR (117.55 +11.19%): Priced its ~1.75 mln share offering of common stock at $100/share.
MSCC (35.74 +3.06%): Price target raised to $40 at Stifel; Buy.
SLW (19.45 +2.32%): Reported Q4 EPS of $0.14 vs $0.14 Capital IQ consensus; revs declined 16% YoY to $140.4 mln vs $144.3 mln consensus.

Mid Cap Losers

RIG (14.33 -6.07%): Provided its monthly fleet summary; expects its first quarter 2015 results to include an estimated non-cash charge of $300 million to $325 million, net of taxes; has now announced plans to scrap a total of 16 floaters.
UPL (15.24 -6.5%): Oil & Gas names under heavy pressure with WTI crude futures down 3.3% & Nat Gas futures down 4.5% (WPX, PE also lower).
SWN (22.29 -5.79%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne Agee.

12:25 pm Microsoft and Fuji Xerox announce a broad patent cross-licensing agreement (MSFT) : This agreement covers a broad range of products and services offered by Microsoft and Fuji Xerox, including digital imaging, document management and mobile consumer products. Microsoft and Fuji Xerox have a long history of working together to bring high-quality, cutting-edge products to consumers. Contents of the agreement will not be disclosed. Fuji Xerox is a 75-25 joint venture between FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation and Xerox Corporation (XRX)

12:15 pm iRobot announces that its Board has authorized a stock repurchase program under which it may purchase up to $50 mln of its common stock beginning May 1, 2015 and ending April 30, 2016 (IRBT) : This plan will replace the current stock repurchase program when it ends on April 30, 2015.

11:51 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (233) outpacing new lows (47) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AB, ABM, ACIW, ACT, ADI, AET, AMAG, AMSG, ANTM, ANW, AOS, ARIA, ASPX, AVGO, AVX, AWH, AXL, BBC, BBP, BFR, BHV, BIB, BIIB, BIO, BKMU, BLUE, BMA, BMRN, BOOT, BTX, BURL, CACC, CAVM, CBPO, CENT, CENTA, CERN, CERU, CGI, CHKP, CI, CLNY, CNC, CNDO, CONE, COR, CORT, COWN, CPRX, CRESY, CRL, CSH, CTAS, CTB, CTLT, CTSO, CUK, CUTR, CVGW, DDS, DENN, DGRS, DHIL, DIS, DNBF, DOX, DRI, DTSI, DW, EBIX, ELLI, ELS, ESLT, ESPR, ESS, EVHC, EXLS, FB, FISV, FL, FLO, FLXN, FOLD, FUN, FWRD, G, GFF, GGAL, GIII, GILT, GM, GNMA, GOOD, GPN, GRX, GTT, HCHC, HDS, HELE, HLT, HNT, HPTX, HRTX, HTBK, HUM, HXL, HZNP, IBB, INAP, INCR, INCY, INFN, INSM, IPCC, IRCP, JAZZ, JBHT, JBL, JBLU, JCOM, JFC, JKHY, JOF, KMG, KNL, LAD, LBIO, LCI, LEG, LII, LOGM, LQ, LVNTA, MANH, MATX, MCO, MCS, MDVN, MGLN, MLR, MMS, MOH, MPWR, MRTX, MSCC, MTD, MTH, MTSI, NBIX, NCLH, NEWT, NHC, NICE, NLNK, NRZ, NVRO, NXPI, OLED, ONCE, OSIR, PARR, PAYC, PFPT, PGR, PKI, PLAY, PNK, PRFT, PRXL, PSCH, PSCT, PUK, QRVO, QURE, R, REGN, RGEN, RMD, ROG, ROL, RYL, SABR, SAGE, SBH, SBUX, SCHL, SCI, SCSS, SCVL, SEB, SERV, SFS, SKX, SMMT, SONC, SPR, SPTN, SRDX, STC, SUNE, SWKS, SYNT, TECH, TEVA, TLYS, TM, TMO, TREE, TRIL, TSRO, TWO, TWOU, UA, UFI, UHS, UNH, URBN, UWN, VAC, VG, VIPS, VRNT, VRTX, WBA, WCG, WERN, WM, WMS, WST, WWW, XL, ZAGG, ZFGN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ASCMA, ASPS, ATLS, AXPW, BANX, BIS, CH, CHK, CRCM, CTHR, DNOW, DRYS, EGY, EJ, EPM, FORD, GLF, GLOW, GOMO, GULTU, HNR, IEC, IPI, IRG, KBR, MAT, MDSY, MGN, MIL, MILL, NDRO, PBT, PFIE, PFL, RELL, RENN, RST, RYAM, SEED, SFE, SGF, SJT, TDW, TICC, UPIP, VNCE, WHLR

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IBB, IHF, IYH, XBI, XLY, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: GREK, SGG, VNM

6:31 am JinkoSolar Holding plans to build a solar cell and module manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia (JKS) : Located in Penang, Malaysia, the manufacturing facility once completed, will provide JinkoSolar with additional production capacity of 500MW for solar PV cells and 450MW for modules.

The Company has signed a tenancy agreement with Nationgate Technology Sdn. Bhd. for the workshops in which the production line is going to be built. JinkoSolar will invest ~$100 mln to build the plant including equipment and working capital which is expected to begin operations in May 2015.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 20-Mar-15Dow +168.62 at 18127.65, Nasdaq +34.04 at 5026.42, S&P +18.79 at 2108.06

The major averages ended the week on an upbeat note with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%) in the lead. The price-weighted index ended the week higher by 2.1% while the S&P 500 (+0.9%) gained 2.7% for the week.

Equity indices climbed throughout the session with trading volume running well above average due to today's quadruple witching. As a result, more than two billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Meanwhile, the Dollar Index (97.89, -1.37), which was a point of focus throughout the week, fell 1.4% to narrow its March gain to 2.5%. Notably, the euro gained 1.3%, climbing to 1.0800 against the greenback with the move partially supported by upbeat comments from the Eurogroup. Specifically, Greece has agreed to present a new reform plan within the next few days in order to receive funds needed to prevent a liquidity shortage.

Today's pullback in the dollar was a supportive factor for the commodity market. Crude oil settled higher by 2.4% at $46.58/bbl, but backed off its best level of the session after the latest Baker Hughes rig count registered its 15th consecutive weekly decline (-56 to 1069). Meanwhile, the energy sector (+1.4%) finished well ahead of other groups.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, financials (+1.3%) and consumer discretionary (+1.1%) outperformed with the discretionary sector rallying behind homebuilders after KB Home (KBH 15.26, +1.19) reported better than expected results. Shares of KBH jumped 8.4% while the broader iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.82, +0.54) gained 2.0%. Meanwhile, apparel and luxury retailers were a bit more mixed. Dow component Nike (NKE 101.98, +3.66) spiked 3.7% after beating bottom-line estimates while Tiffany & Co (TIF 82.99, -3.38) lost 3.9% after below-consensus revenue and light guidance overshadowed in-line earnings.

Also of note, the technology sector (+0.5%) slumped to the bottom of the leaderboard during the final minutes as Apple (AAPL 126.05, -1.45) fell to a fresh session low.

Over on the countercyclical side, the consumer staples sector (+1.2%) outperformed while health care (+0.8%) lagged. Despite today's underperformance, health care gained 4.5% for the week, ending ahead of other sectors. Volatility in the biotech space pressured the sector from its early high as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 366.52, +1.27) narrowed its gain to 0.4% after being up near 2.0% at the start. The early strength stemmed from a 9.8% spike in the shares of Biogen Idec (BIIB 475.98, +42.33) after the company issued an encouraging report on a developmental drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. For its part, the biotechnology ETF logged a 5.7% gain for the week.

Treasuries climbed throughout the morning, ending on their highs with the 10-yr yield lower by five basis points at 1.93%.

Monday's economic data will be limited to the Existing Home Sales report for February, which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Fed in Focus

The stock market rebounded from the previous week's decline with a Monday rally that sent the S&P 500 (+1.3%) back above its 50-day moving average (2,060). The benchmark index narrowed its March loss to 1.1% while the Nasdaq (+1.2%) and Russell 2000 (+0.6%) underperformed, but still logged solid gains to start the week. Unperturbed by disappointing economic data, equity indices rallied out of the gate and registered the bulk of their gains during the first hour of action. Countercyclical health care (+2.2%) and utilities (+1.7%) held the lead throughout the session, but most other sectors also posted solid gains. The only group that couldn't make it out of the red was the materials sector (-0.1%) as Dow component DuPont (DD) weighed after Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to 'Underperform' from 'Buy.'

The market ended Tuesday on a mixed note ahead of Wednesday's release of the latest policy directive from the Federal Reserve. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.2% while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.3% and 0.7%, respectively. Equity indices endured some selling in the early going, but the Nasdaq spent the day ahead of the broader market thanks to relative strength in the technology sector (+0.1%). Specifically, shares of Apple (AAPL) climbed 1.7%, which underpinned the sector and the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, most large cap components struggled, which was also the case with high-beta chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 0.7%. That being said, the daylong strength within the technology sector helped the broader market erase the bulk of its early decline. The Nasdaq received another measure of support from biotechnology with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) climbing 0.6% to a new record.

Equities spent the first half of the Wednesday session in the red, but surged into the green following the latest policy statement from the Federal Open Market Committee. The S&P 500 settled higher by 1.2% with all ten sectors ending in the green. Over the past few days, much of the discussion centered around Wednesday's FOMC Statement with participants speculating whether the central bank was going to remove its call for patience. Although the Fed took out "patient," the statement remained quite dovish as the Fed lowered its 2015 GDP forecast range to 2.3%-2.7% from 2.6%-3.0% that was expected in December. Furthermore, the central bank lowered its inflation forecast range to 0.6%-0.8% from 1.0%-1.6%. Staying on the inflation theme, the committee noted that it needs to be "reasonably confident" that inflation will move back towards the 2.0% objective before hiking rates. The S&P 500 spiked about 20 points immediately following the statement and continued its advance as the afternoon progressed. Similarly, Treasuries surged in reaction to the diminished likelihood of June rate hike with the 10-yr yield falling 10 basis points to 1.95%. The benchmark note continued its advance during electronic trading, pressuring its yield to the lowest level since early February (1.92%).

Thursday ended on a mixed note. The S&P 500 lost 0.5% after spending the entire session in negative territory while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq extended its week-to-date gain to 2.5% while the S&P 500 extended its weekly advance to 1.7%. Wednesday's dovish FOMC policy statement pressured the greenback, but the Dollar Index (99.23, +0.67) wasted no time, stringing together a swift comeback. The index added 0.7% on Thursday and returned to Tuesday's low. Notably, the euro retraced the bulk of Wednesday's move, returning below 1.0650 versus the dollar. Likewise, the dollar strength weighed on crude oil, sending the energy component lower by 2.5% to $45.50/bbl. In turn, this kept the energy sector (-1.7%) near the bottom of the barrel while the other commodity-related sector-materials (-1.7%)-finished just behind energy.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17749.31 18127.65 378.34 2.1 1.7
Nasdaq 4871.76 5026.42 154.66 3.2 6.1
S&P 500 2053.40 2108.06 54.66 2.7 2.4
Russell 2000 1232.14 1266.37 34.23 2.8 5.1

It was off to the races on Friday after Thursday's lack of movement, with all major indices moving higher into the weekend. The week ended on a rather quiet note news wise, although Fed news earlier in the week regarding the economic outlook and interest rates was plenty. Today's rally however, had more to do with a falling dollar index (-1.3%), which has served as headwind to the earnings of companies with multi-national operations.

All sectors closed in the green today. Surprisingly enough, the energy sector led the way (+1.5%), driven by a rally in crude (+1.8%), which also benefited in part from the weakening dollar.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.5%) underperformed the broader market, with Apple (AAPL 126.05, -1.45, -1.1%) and Salesforce.com (CRM 67.69, -1.19, -1.7%) bucking the broader market trend higher. Top performers in the sector were Teradata Corp (TDC 43.96, +1.23, +2.9%), Sandisk (SNDK 87.07, +2.35, +2.8%), Broadcom (BRCM 46.00, +1.12, +2.5%), Xerox (XRX 13.18, +0.34, +2.7%), and Electronic Arts (EA 57.28, 1.33, +2.4%).

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Yahoo (YHOO 45.04, +0.06, +0.1%): Announced a new local initiative to engage mobile developers through monthly meetups called Yodel Meetups. Starting March 26, Yodel Meetups will be held once a month in Yahoo's San Francisco office.Facebook (FB 83.80, +1.05, +1.3%): TechCrunch details possible upgrades to Facebook's messaging application.

Apple (AAPL 125.05, -1.45, +1.1%): Digitimes discusses that smartphone shipments this year may reach 1.401 bln. (Also related: Microsoft (MSFT 42.76, +0.48, +1.1%), Blackberry (BBRY 9.53, -0.18, -1.8%), Samsung (SSNLF), and Nokia (NOK 7.86, +0.08, +1%))
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Zillow (Z 107.15, -1.82, -1.7%): Announced it expects existing home sales to rise 1.3% to 4.88 million units in February (report due out Monday at 10:00 ET)

Cheetah Mobile (CMCM 17.53, -1.10, -5.9%): Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of RMB 0.59 per share, RMB 0.06 better than estimates. Revenues for the quarter rose 118.8% year/year to RMB 588.9 million, also above consensus.

SAP AG (SAP 72.76, +2.45, +3.5%): Disclosed that it sees FY15 on-IFRS operating profit to be in a range of EUR 5.6-5.9 billion at constant currencies. Additionally, it reaffirmed FY17 guidance (reported Q4/FY14 on 1/20).

Youku Tudou (YOKU 13.50, -1.65, -10.9%): Missed Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.10, beat on revenues. The Company noted that it sees Q1 revenuess in-line with consensus. Additionally, YOKU announced an SEC inquiry into its accounting on revenue recognition, nonmonetary exchanges of licensed content, and applications of ASC 920.

Analyst Action:

STMicroelectronics (STM 9.93, +0.35, +3.7%): upgraded to Equal-Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley

Ultra Clean Holdings (UCTT 7.80, -0.68, -8%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham

Tech Data (TECD 57.60, +0.20, +0.4%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham... target lowered to $63 from $73 at Brean Capital; Buy

Extreme Networks (EXTR 3.33, -0.15, -4.3%): downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James

LM Ericsson (ERIC 12.99, -0.02, -0.2%): downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley

WEX (WEX 107.22, +3.31, +3.2%): price target set to $120 at Oppenheimer; Outperform

Trimble Navigation (TRMB 25.92, +0.73, +2.9%): price target set to $29 at Goldman; Neutral

Cavium Networks (CAVM 73.81, +1.33, +1.8%): target raised to $80 from $67 at Wedbush; Outperform

Lam Research (LRCX 79.23, +0.28, +0.4%): target lowered to $93 from $95 at Needham; Buy

Youku (YOKU 13.50, -1.64, -10.9%): target lowered to $20 from $24 at Brean Capital; Buy

4:47 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:RTRX (22.34 +51.36%),ESPR (112.33 +51%),CORT (5.6 +40%),PRTA (38.66 +34.84%),INO (9.09 +29.12%),FOLD (11.61 +25.51%),JUNO (61.53 +24.33%),ATRA (38.78 +23.42%),AKRX (49.03 +18.77%),ITCI (27.64 +17.72%)

Materials:GFI (4.36 +18.16%)

Industrials:VLCCF (4.98 +20.29%)

Consumer Discretionary:CTRP (57.58 +31.31%),QUNR (36.71 +28.76%),TLYS (16.7 +27.09%),CNV (6.65 +18.54%)

Information Technology:VTSS (5.34 +37.28%),RALY (12.93 +17.65%)

Energy:EXXI (3.83 +25.57%),WLB (29.25 +19.34%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:RDNT (7.54 -16.13%),PGNX (6.06 -14.53%),EPZM (19.91 -13.51%),NKTR (12.02 -13.46%),AMRN (2.52 -13.1%)

Materials:MTL (1.15 -25.32%),SQM (18.86 -15.88%),CLF (4.3 -12.96%)

Industrials:CVEO (2.41 -17.47%),NMM (9.75 -17.16%)

Consumer Discretionary:VNCE (16.77 -19.14%),WTW (8.6 -17.86%)

Information Technology:DSKY (7.02 -35.12%),YOKU (13.5 -15.04%),MTSN (3.99 -14.38%),HIMX (6.85 -14.16%)

Financials:ASPS (13.33 -25.15%),EJ (5.1 -14.72%)

Energy:WG (3.07 -45.18%),HGT (5.79 -13.71%)

3:36 pm Earnings Preview for the week of March 23 - 27 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of March 23 - 27 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - FMSA
After Hours - FLXN

Tuesday:
Pre Market - HDS, MKC, IHS, GIII
After Hours - SCS, TRQ, SONC, CBK, AMPH, INGN, HQY

Wednesday:
Pre Market - LDOS, PAYX, YGE, APOL, LNN, DXLG, FRAN
After Hours - PVH, WOR, RHT, FIVE, PSUN, FNV, TGB, USDP, OTIV

Thursday:
Pre Market - ACN, CAG, SIG, CMC, LULU, FRED, CMGE, DANG, SCHL, WGO, CVGW, MEA, NEOG, SPCB
After Hours - GME, RH, OXM, SPKE, UPLD, CARA

Friday:
Pre Market - BBRY, FINL

12:26 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BIIB (467.32 +7.76%): Announced data from a pre-specified interim analysis of PRIME in which aducanumab demonstrated an acceptable safety profile and positive results on radiologic and clinical measurements in patients with prodromal or mild Alzheimer's disease; Price target raised at Barclays, Piper Jaffray, Cowen, others.
NKE (102.7 +4.45%): Reported Q3 (Feb) earnings of $0.89 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.84; revenues rose 7.0% year/year to $7.46 bln vs the $7.62 bln consensus; Worldwide futures orders up 2%, 11% growth excluding FX; Price tgt raised at Cowen, Credit Suisse, others.

Large Cap Losers

MAC (90.21 -3.52%): Confirmed it has received a revised, unsolicited proposal from Simon Property Group (SPG) for $95.50 per share in cash and stock; says its Board will review the Revised Proposal with its financial and legal advisors; SPG noted the bid was its 'best and final offer'.
TIF (83.07 -3.82%): Reported Q4 EPS in-line, missed on revs; guided Q1 and FY16 EPS below consensus; Price tgt lowered at Sterne Agee.

Mid Cap Gainers

CTRP (56.38 +22.19%): Missed Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 revs above consensus; Price tgt raised at Brean Capital.
SQM (19.46 +8.9%): Reports out that Israel Chemicals (ICL) may consider a bid for Sociedad Quimica y Minera.
OC (42.26 +6.39%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.

Mid Cap Losers

YOKU (13.88 -8.38%): Missed Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.10, beat on revs; sees Q1 revs in-line with consensus; announced SEC inquiry into its accounting on revenue recognition, nonmonetary exchanges of licensed content, and applications of ASC 920; Downgraded to Sell at Deutsche Bank.
THRX (16.43 -8.57%): FDA Advisory Committee voted against safety and efficacy of Theravance's BREO ELLIPTA (fluticasone furoate/vilanterol) for the treatment of asthma in children 12-17 years of age.
ARG (108.37 -4.11%): Lowered its fourth quarter ending March 31, 2015 revenue and EPS guidance; sees EPS in the range of $1.13 to $1.16 vs. previous guidance of $1.25 to $1.30 and the Capital IQ consensus of $1.27.

11:49 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New highs (100) outpacing new lows (2) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABC, ACT, ADI, AET, AKAM, ANTM, AVGO, BERY, BIIB, BMRN, BMY, BSX, CAH, CBG, CDK, CELG, CERN, CHKP, CI, CLNY, CME, CNC, CTSH, DG, DGX, DIS, DKS, DRI, DVA, ENDP, EQR, EVHC, EXPD, EXPE, FB, FISV, FL, FSL, FTNT, GM, HAIN, HBI, HCBK, HLT, HOLX, HON, HZNP, IBB, INCY, INTU, ISIS, JBL, JUNO, JWN, KSS, LEN, LLY, LQ, MAR, MCO, MHFI, MTG, NBIX, NCLH, NKE, NVAX, NVDA, NVO, NXPI, PAYX, RAX, ROST, RTN, RYL, SBH, SCI, SERV, SPF, SPR, ST, SUNE, SUSQ, SWKS, TEL, TGT, TMO, TOL, TRV, TWO, UA, UNH, URBN, VIPS, VNTV, VRSN, VRTX, WBA, WNR, XHR, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: TSU, YOKU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWJ, IBB, IHF, IHI, ITA, IWC, IWF, IWM, IYH, PPH, RTH, UWM, VTI, XBI, XLV, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SGG, VXX

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume.

7:00 am JinkoSolar Holding and Dupont (DD) sign collaboration agreement (JKS) : Areas of potential collaboration include technical development efforts to support continued improvements in the efficiency, durability and reliability of solar cells and panels, including through development and supply of advanced materials including DuPont (Areas of potential collaboration include technical development efforts to support continued improvements in the efficiency, durability and reliability of solar cells and panels, including through development and supply of advanced materials including DuPont Solamet PV19x series photovoltaic metallization pastes and DuPont Tedlar polyvinyl fluoride films, as well as co-marketing collaborations) Solamet PV19x series photovoltaic metallization pastes and DuPont Tedlar polyvinyl fluoride films, as well as co-marketing collaborations

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From Briefing.com: There were a handful of big movers on Monday. The stock market wasn't among them.

The major indices chopped around for most of the day before succumbing to selling interest late in the session that left all of the major indices in negative territory when the closing bell rang.

The big movers of note included the euro (up 1.5% to 1.0967 against the dollar), which powered higher in a continuation move after European Central Bank President Draghi said "growth is gaining momentum," the biotech stocks, which fell sharply in a fit of profit taking, and oil (+1.9% to $47.44/bbl), which had a roller-coaster trading session that ended on a high note.

The underperformance of the biotech sector, seen through the weakness of the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 358.57, -7.95, -2.2%), weighed on the Nasdaq and the broader market. Strikingly, the actively-traded semiconductor group struggled to get it in gear on Monday and acted as another weight on the broader market. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index declined 1.0%.

Despite the weakness in the influential semiconductor names, the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.1%) still managed to post a small gain and to outperform the market. Apple (AAPL 127.22, +1.32, +1.1%), which gained 1.1%, was helpful in that effort.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Accenture (ACN 91.54, +0.06, +0.1%): Announced it has enhanced its market-leading Accenture Life Insurance Platform by adding personalized SmartVideo capabilities that help life insurance and annuity carriers deliver dramatically improved customer experiences through digital channels.

Broadcom (BRCM 45.22, -0.78, -1.7%): Announced the industry's first 28 nanometer electronic dispersion compensation physical layer transceiver with support for long reach multimode.

eBay (EBAY 58.62, +0.69, +1.2%): Announced the appointment of two new independent directors in anticipation of completing its previously announced separation of eBay and PayPal. Tony Bates, President of GoPro, and Gail McGovern, President and CEO of the American Red Cross, have been appointed to eBay Inc.'s board of directors. Separately, the company noted that it continues to make solid progress on the separation of eBay and PayPal and remains on track to complete the transaction in the second half of 2015.

Fiserv (FISV 80.24, -0.05, -0.1%): Announced that Abbott Laboratories Employees Credit Union has expanded its relationship with the company by adding multiple digital solutions to drive efficiency and service for its members. In addition, the $700 million asset credit union has renewed its agreement to use the Portico account processing platform.

Microsoft (MSFT 42.85 -0.03, -0.1%): Company and Samsung Electronics have expanded their global partnership to bring Microsoft mobile productivity services to more consumers and business customers. Samsung is planning to pre-install Microsoft services and apps on its portfolio of Android devices and will deliver secured mobile productivity for businesses through a new Microsoft Office 365 and Samsung KNOX Business Pack.

TE Connectivity (TEL 73.07, -0.35, -0.5%); Company and Applied Micro Circuits (AMCC 5.49, unch) announced their collaboration to develop high-speed cable connectivity solutions for data center networks.

VeriSign (VRSN 65.97, +1.22, +1.9%): Announced a proposed offering of $400 million aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured notes due 2025. The company intends to use the proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, including, but not limited to, the repurchase of shares under its share repurchase program.

Western Union (WU 19.75, +0.55, +2.9%): Western Union Business Solutions, a division of The Western Union Company, in conjunction with Hyperwallet, announced the launch of a new global mass payments product. This new product integrates key strengths of each company that come together to help change the way large volumes of business-to-consumer payments are made.

Analyst Action:

Apple (AAPL 127.22, +1.32, +1.1%): target raised to $135 from $115 at Cowen... target raised to $180 from $160 at Cantor Fitzgerald

Avago Technologies (AVGO 134.55, +1.15, +0.9%): target raised to $160 from $131 at Citigroup; Buy

Cyber-Ark Software (CYBR 54.87, +6.18, +12.7%): Bank of America/Merrill Lynch initiated with a Buy rating and $60 price target

EMC (EMC 26.25, -0.45, -1.7%): downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray; target lowered to $27 from $30

Facebook (FB 84.45, +0.65, +0.8%): target raised to $92 from $84 at Piper Jaffray

NetApp (NTAP 36.64, -0.68, -1.8%): downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray; target lowered to $36 from $42

NVIDIA (NVDA 22.71, -0.76, -3.3%): downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs

SAP AG (SAP 73.20, +0.44, +0.7%): target raised to $72 from $68at RBC Capital Markets; Sector Perform

4:10 pm : The stock market began the trading week on a sleepy note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) and S&P 500 (-0.2%) surrendered their slim gains during the final hour while the Nasdaq Composite settled lower by 0.3% after lagging throughout the session.

Equity indices spent the entire Monday session near their flat lines while the Dollar Index (96.86, -1.05) extended its retreat that began late last week. The index fell 1.1% with the greenback giving up 1.4% to the euro (1.0966). The single currency rallied in the morning and saw little afternoon reaction to a joint press conference held by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The two leaders did not provide any specifics about their earlier meeting, suggesting the two sides remain at odds with regard to finding a sustainable solution for Greece.

Today's dollar pullback was a supportive factor for crude oil as the energy component climbed off its overnight low ($45.35/bbl) to end higher by 1.8% at $47.44/bbl. WTI crude spent the bulk of the day near its flat line, but spiked ahead of the pit close without any headlines to account for the move.

Interestingly, the energy sector (-0.2%) began among the leaders, but retreated steadily throughout the session. As for other cyclical groups, technology (+0.1%) and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) outperformed while financials (-0.4%) and industrials (-0.8%) struggled.

The industrial sector was pressured by transport stocks after Kansas City Southern (KSU 106.48, -9.21) lowered its guidance. The company cited slower year-to-date carload growth, devaluation of the Mexican peso against the dollar, and lower fuel surcharge revenue as reasons for the reduced outlook. Shares of KSU plunged 8.0% while the broader Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 2.0%.

On the flip side, the technology sector was underpinned by its top component-Apple (AAPL 127.21, +1.31)-and a spate of other large cap names while high-beta chipmakers lagged. NVIDIA (NVDA 22.71, -0.76) was a notable laggard, falling 3.2%, after Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock to 'Sell.' For its part, the PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 1.0%.

Furthermore, the relative weakness among chipmakers contributed to the underperformance of the Nasdaq Composite. The tech-heavy index had to contend with broad-based losses in the biotech space after Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 125.79, -5.21) reported below-consensus results from one of its trials while Gilead Sciences (GILD 100.26, -2.03) was clipped after Bloomberg reported that some patients who had been taking Gilead's hepatitis C drugs in combination with certain heart drugs have developed complications. Vertex and Gilead lost 4.0% and 2.0%, respectively while iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 358.28, -8.24) settled lower by 2.3%.

Biotechnology also weighed on the health care sector, keeping the group in-line with the market. The remaining countercyclical sectors displayed relative strength with utilities (+0.1%), telecom services (+0.1%), and consumer staples (+0.3%) ending ahead of the broader market.

Treasuries settled on their highs with the 10-yr yield down three basis points at 1.91%.

Today's participation was below average with roughly 716 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to existing home sales for February, which increased 1.2% from January to an annualized rate of 4.88 million units (Briefing.com consensus 4.90 million).

Supply problems continue exerting downward pressure on home sales. Inventories remained at a 4.6 months' supply at the current sales rate for the second consecutive month. During normal periods of market activity, inventories are generally maintained at 6.0 months' supply.

Tomorrow, February CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and core CPI (consensus 0.1%) will be released at 8:30 ET while the FHFA Housing Price Index will cross at 9:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the New Home Sales report for February (consensus 465K).


Nasdaq Composite +5.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.1% YTD
S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD

DJ30 -11.61 NASDAQ -15.44 SP500 -3.68 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1502/1.45 bln/1324 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1776/716.8 mln/1279 3:35 pm :

Copper surged 2.5% higher here in late-day trade, rising as high as $2.88/lb
In pit trade, May copper closed the day $0.03 higher at $2.79/lb
WTI crude oil futures rallied into the close, rising as high as $47.61/barrel
Crude held most of those gains, closing $0.86 higher at $47.44/barrel
Nat gas was in the red all day with the Apr contract losing $0.06 at $2.73/MMBtu
Precious metals continue to climb higher in electronic trade
Apr gold rose $3.20 in pt trade to $1187.70/oz and is now at $1190.40/oz
Meanwhile, May silver gained $0.03 to $16.90/oz and is now at $17.10/oz

4:32 pm Rambus licenses patents and technology solutions to IBM; terms confidential (RMBS) : Co announced it has signed both patent and technology license agreements with IBM. The patent license agreement authorizes IBM to integrate Rambus memory controller and serial link interface technologies. The technology license agreement will have Rambus develop and deliver high-performance memory interface design IP to enhance IBM systems and semiconductor offerings. Specific terms of the agreements are confidential.

12:49 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

FCX (19.16 +4.07%): Reports out that Freeport's mine in Grasberg has re opened following blockade.
WYNN (134.7 +3.63%): General strength in casino names today as well as rumors on the name of a potential activist stake whom would push Wynn to explore REIT options.
SPLS (16.8 +3.35%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS; tgt to $20 from $18.

Large Cap Losers

KSU (106.36 -8.06%): Updated FY15 guidance; now expects low single-digit revenue growth, reduced from the mid single-digit revenue growth (Capital IQ consensus calls for +5.6% growth) -- sees Q1 revs flat (cons +5.2%) -- sees Q1 EPS flat to slightly higher (cons +16%).
SNP (77.1 -3.94%): Reported FY14 EPS RMB0.40 vs RMB0.46 Capital IQ consensus; revenues declined 1.9% RMB2,825.9 bln vs RMB2,880.7 bln consensus.
NVDA (22.8 -2.85%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.

Mid Cap Gainers

THC (52.14 +5.08%): Confirmed it and United Surgical Partners International will combine their ambulatory surgery and imaging centers in new JV; Tenet also announced purchase of Aspen Healthcare.
GNW (7.78 +5.42%): Upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James.
WUBA (49.11 +4.42%): Stock higher following heavy activity in the April $50 calls.

Mid Cap Losers

IPGP (95.87 -4.13%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel.
OLN (28.16 -3.73%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS.
LULU (63.84 -2.89%): Price target lowered to $55 from $58 at Canaccord Genuity; firm has a Hold rating on the name.

12:19 pm Dow +28 and S&P +1.4 slightly extend pullback off morning high in midday trade -- Nasdaq Comp -6.5 (:TECHX) :

12:01 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (330) outpacing new lows (63) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AB, ABC, ABG, ABM, ACGL, ACHC, ACWI, ADPT, ADT, AEC, AET, AFG, AFL, AGRO, AHL, ALG, ALLE, ALV, AMBA, AMC, AMG, AMSG, APTS, ARE, ARW, ASMI, ASML, ATRA, AVGO, AWH, AXL, BABY, BDC, BFIN, BHLB, BKYF, BLKB, BNDX, BOFI, BOOT, BSET, BURL, CAH, CAJ, CAVM, CBG, CENT, CENTA, CFNL, CGI, CHD, CI, CISG, CIVI, CLX, CMN, CMT, CNC, CNK, CO, COBK, COKE, COL, CONE, COR, COTY, CRESY, CRI, CRWN, CSII, CSV, CTB, CTSO, CUNB, CVS, CXW, DDS, DEI, DGI, DGRS, DGX, DHIL, DKS, DNBF, DRI, DVA, DVAX, DXJS, DY, EBSB, EDN, EGBN, EL, ELGX, ELLI, ELS, ENR, ENSG, EOS, EQR, ESRT, ESS, ESSA, EVHC, EXLS, EXPE, EXR, FCBC, FCH, FDP, FFG, FLTX, FRSH, FRT, FSRV, GB, GILT, GM, GNCMA, GOOD, GPT, GPX, GRUB, GRX, GSBD, GY, HAIN, HASI, HBAN, HBI, HBOS, HCA, HCBK, HCC, HCHC, HELE, HIG, HMN, HOLX, HPP, HPT, HPTX, HTBK, HTLF, HUM, IART, IBP, ICLR, ICUI, IDTI, INDB, INN, IPCC, ISLE, ISSI, ITEK, JBL, JBLU, JEQ, JFC, JLL, JMP, JOF, JRN, JWN, KE, KMG, KNL, KONA, KR, KSS, KYO, LABL, LAD, LAMR, LBY, LCI, LDOS, LEA, LEAF, LEG, LFC, LH, LII, LLY, LOGM, LOW, LPNT, LTM, LVNTA, LXFT, LXU, MAN, MANH, MATW, MCK, MCO, MDVN, METR, MGLN, MLR, MLVF, MMS, MNK, MNRO, MOH, MRH, MRKT, MSCI, MSG, MTB, MTD, MTG, MTSC, MTSI, MXIM, MYRG, NEP, NHC, NRZ, NTRI, NXPI, OA, OEC, OFC, OLED, OLP, PAM, PARR, PAYX, PBF, PCTY, PFE, PGR, PINC, PKI, PLCE, PLUS, PNFP, PNK, PRFZ, PSCD, PSCF, PSCI, PSCT, PZE, Q, QRVO, QUNR, R, RDI, REV, RGA, RHP, ROG, ROIC, ROL, ROP, RRGB, RYL, SABR, SBH, SBRA, SCI, SCS, SCVL, SEMI, SF, SGC, SHOO, SIGI, SKX, SONC, SPOK, SSS, STC, STNR, STOR, STRZA, STWD, STZ.B, SUNE, SUSQ, SVU, SWKS, TA, TBNK, TEVA, TGT, THFF, TILE, TJX, TLYS, TM, TMO, TR, TRV, TSLF, TSRA, TSYS, TTC, TTGT, TWO, TWX, UDR, UFI, UHS, UHT, USAT, UVE, UWN, VAC, VG, VLRS, VRSN, VTSS, VTWO, VUSE, VYFC, WBS, WDFC, WFC, WMK, WMS, WSO, WSR, WST, WWW, XL, Y

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ARLP, ARTW, AXPW, BRS, BV, CARV, CHOP, CLIR, CNTF, COVS, CPAC, DXM, EAC, EGAN, EGY, EMMS, FULL, GLBS, GLOW, GLRI, GULTU, HEAR, HGT, JMI, LL, LND, LTBR, MDSY, MEIP, MILL, MNI, NVET, OPXA, PBT, PCM, PDI, PHT, PRGN, PRGX, PTNR, RELL, RENN, RLJE, RYAM, SFE, SHOS, SMTX, SNOW, SONS, SPDC, SXCP, TAOM, TIF, TST, VICL, VSCI, WHLR, WLFC, WTW, XONE, XPL, YOKU, ZAIS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWJ, IHF, KCE, KIE, MDY, PPH, RTH, VTI, XLY, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

11:30 am Microsoft and Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) have expanded their global partnership to bring Microsoft mobile productivity services to more consumers and business customers (MSFT) : Samsung is planning to pre-install Microsoft services and apps on its portfolio of Android devices and will deliver secured mobile productivity for businesses through a new Microsoft Office 365 and Samsung KNOX Business Pack.

8:30 am Ixia receives expected notice of non-compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule (XXIA) : Co announces that because the company has not yet filed its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Dec 31, 2014 with the SEC, on March 19, 2015 the co received a letter from NASDAQ notifying the co that it is not in compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5250(c)(1).

Co continues to devote substantial resources to and is far along in the process of completing the Form 10-K. Management does not anticipate that the Form 10-K will reflect any material adjustments to the co's previously announced preliminary financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended Dec 31, 2014.

8:01 am ON Semiconductor announces it will change its NASDAQ trading symbol to 'ON' - effective upon the market's open on April 6, 2015 (ONNN) :

7:32 am Solar Power signs 20 megawatts epc agreement with Inner Mongolia's Jingzhaolai PV Power (SOPW) :

Co announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, SPI Solar Power Engineering has signed an agreement with Jingzhaolai PV Power of Inner Mongolia to provide engineering, procurement and development services for its 20 megawatt utility-scale PV project located in Liangcheng County, Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia. Construction of the project is expected to begin in April 2015 with grid connection anticipated in June 2015.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market tried to make its way higher in early action, yet that move got snuffed out by a rebound in the U.S. Dollar Index (+0.1% at 97.15) and renewed weakness in some of the market's best-performing areas this year, namely the biotech and semiconductor groups.

Weakness in the latter two areas left buyers reluctant to get involved as the loss of their leadership was viewed as a profit-taking signal in general.

Every sector in the S&P 500 ended Tuesday lower despite investors learning that new home sales in February were much stronger than expected. Like Monday, selling interest picked up in late trading and the major indices closed at their lows for the day.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.3%) and the basic materials sector (-0.3%) fared the best among the ten economic sectors on an otherwise slow day for corporate news.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

EMC (EMC 25.81, -0.44, -1.7%): Disclosed that it has entered into a $2.5 bln commercial paper program

Fiserv (FISV 79.60, -0.64, -0.8%): Announced that it has completed its first tokenized transactions via its Accel debit payments network.

Google (GOOG 570.39, +11.58, +2.1%): Confirmed that Ruth Porat, currently Chief Financial Officer at Morgan Stanley (MS), will join its management team as CFO.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 33.31, -0.14, -0.4%): Announced the availability of the HP Helion Rack, a new pre-configured and pre-tuned private cloud solution, based on OpenStack and Cloud Foundry technologies integrated with HP server hardware

Qualcomm (QCOM 68.97, -1.10, -1.6%): Digitimes details news that Qualcomm is trying to win orders for the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Elsewhere in the technology space:

Amazon.com (AMZN 374.09, -1.02, -0.3%): Twitch says that there may have been unauthorized access to some Twitch user account information

Rambus (RMBS 12.76, +0.12, +1.0%): Company announced it has signed both patent and technology license agreements with IBM. The patent license agreement authorizes IBM to integrate Rambus memory controller and serial link interface technologies. The technology license agreement will have Rambus develop and deliver high-performance memory interface design IP to enhance IBM systems and semiconductor offerings. Specific terms of the agreements are confidential.

Sonus Networks (SONS 8.74, -4.42, -33.7%): Lowered Q1 revenue guidance to $47-50 mln from previous guidance of $74 mln; sees Q1 EPS in the range of ($0.34)-($0.29) versus previous guidance $0.03. The Company said it no longer expects to receive certain orders this quarter that had been expected to be received at the back end of the first quarter, and believes its planned cost reduction initiatives will help better align the Company's cost structure in light of these longer decision cycles. The Company expects to announce the results of its cost reduction review when it reports its financial results for the first quarter on April 22, 2015. Sonus currently anticipates that revenue for the full year will be up to 25% below the midpoint of its previous annual guidance of $326-$330 million.

Analyst Action:

Blackberry (BBRY 9.52, 0.00, unch): Rosenblatt initiated with a Sell rating

NICE Systems (NICE 59.28, -0.52, -0.8%): JMP Securities downgrades to Market Performfrom Market Outperform

Sonus Networks (SONS 8.74, -4.42, -33.7%): Barrington Research downgrades to Market Perform from Outperform... Wells Fargo downgrades to Market Perform from Outperform

4:10 pm : The stock market registered its second consecutive decline on Tuesday with the S&P 500 retreating 0.6%. The benchmark index ended in-line with the Dow Jones Industrial Average while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) outperformed slightly.

Equity indices traded near their flat lines through the first half of the session before sliding to lows during afternoon action. All ten sectors finished the day in negative territory with technology (-0.3%) registering the slimmest loss.

Also of note, the Dollar Index (97.15, +0.12) was on track for its third consecutive decline, but an early morning rebound following an in-line CPI report (+0.2%) helped the Index finish with a slim gain. Meanwhile, crude oil endured some intraday volatility before settling higher by 0.1% at $47.51/bbl.

Strikingly, crude's flat finish could not stop the energy sector (-0.8%) from ending the day among the laggards. Notably, Whiting Petroleum (WLL 30.91, -7.48) sank 19.5% after pricing a secondary share and note offering.

Elsewhere among influential sectors, financials (-0.9%) and health care (-0.9%) lagged while the remaining groups settled closer to their flat lines.

The top-weighted countercyclical group-health care-slumped during afternoon action after showing early strength that was fueled by biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 355.95, -2.33) was up more than 1.0% in the early going, but settled lower by 0.7% to extend this week's decline to 2.9%.

The afternoon pullback in biotechnology sent the Nasdaq into negative territory, but the index still finished ahead of the broader market thanks to the relative strength among several large cap names. Google (GOOGL 577.54, +12.17) was a clear standout, surging 2.2%, after announcing that Ruth Porat will become the company's new CFO after holding the same position at Morgan Stanley (MS 36.24, -0.07).

Similar to Google, social media names displayed strength with Facebook (FB 85.31, +0.88), LinkedIn (LNKD 264.16, +2.32), and Twitter (TWTR 51.47, +3.01) gaining between 1.0% and 6.2% with Twitter surging to its best level since late October.

In the Treasury market, the 10-yr note spent the bulk of the day near its flat line before spiking to a fresh high in the afternoon. The benchmark yield fell four basis points to 1.87%.

Today's participation was below average with roughly 735 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included CPI, FHFA Housing Price Index, and New Home Sales:

The CPI increased 0.2% in February after decreasing 0.7% in January, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected.
An uptick in energy prices catalyzed the first monthly increase in consumer prices since October. Energy prices rose 1.0% in February after declining 9.7% in January. A 2.4% increase in gasoline prices was a main contributor to higher energy prices.
Food prices increased 0.2% in February after reporting no change in January.
Excluding food and energy, core CPI increased 0.2% for the second consecutive month while the consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
The FHFA Housing Price Index for January rose 0.3%, which followed a revised increase of 0.7% (from 0.8%) in December
New home sales increased 7.8% in February to 539,000 from an upwardly revised 500,000 (from 481,000) in January while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 465,000
Higher mortgage rates didn't seem to harm sales as 593,000 new homes were sold, representing the highest rate since February 2008

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the Durable Orders report (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) will be reported at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +5.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.1% YTD

DJ30 -104.90 NASDAQ -16.25 SP500 -12.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1307/1.49 bln/1457 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1331/733.8 mln/1717

3:35 pm :

WTI crude oil consolidated near the unchanged line in afternoon trade, ultimately closing pit trading $0.09 higher at $47.53/barrel.
May natural gas was in positive territory all day, finished the session $0.08 higher at $2.81/MMBtu
Apr gold climbed back to today's high in afternoon trade, ending pit trading $3.80 higher at $1191.50/oz.
May silver rose $0.04 to $16.94/oz.
Copper inched lower in late-day trade, ending floor trading $0.01 higher at $2.80/lb

5:36 pm STMicroelectronics Correction - Co did not increase quarterly dividend (STM) : We earlier reported that the co's Supervisory Board approved an increase to the quarterly dividend. This comment was incorrect and has been deleted. See STM's announcement below:


STMicroelectronics has announced that its Supervisory Board has approved the Managing Board proposal to the 2015 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Shareholders to declare this year a cash dividend of US$0.40 per outstanding share of the Company's common stock, to be distributed in quarterly installments of US$0.10 in each of the second, third and fourth quarters of 2015 and first quarter of 2016 to shareholders of record at each respective date. The AGM will be held on May 27, 2015. Furthermore, ST's Supervisory Board resolved that the Company's dividend distributions, more recently decided on a semi-annual basis, will now be decided on an annual basis at ST's Annual General Meeting of Shareholders.

5:17 pm American Superconductor announces 1-for-10 reverse stock split (AMSC) : Co announced that a 1-for-10 reverse stock split has become effective, and that trading in the Company's common stock on a post-split basis will begin on Wednesday, March 25, 2015. Immediately following the reverse stock split, there will be approximately 9.6 million shares, par value $0.01 per share, of the Company's common stock issued and outstanding.

5:08 pm Photronics enters into strategic supply and technology license agreements with Micron (MU) (PLAB) : Co announced that it has entered into strategic supply and technology license agreements with Micron Technology (MU) whereby Photronics will receive outsourced photomask supply volume from Micron. Micron and Photronics will not renew their existing MP Mask joint venture after May 5, 2016, which is the ten year anniversary of its formation. The new agreement places the company in the majority merchant supplier position for Micron. Upon the conclusion of the MP Mask joint venture, Micron may elect to purchase the MP Mask assets or Photronics' equity interest in MP Mask, in which case Photronics will receive a payment based upon net book value as of May 5, 2016, which was approximately $93 million as of December 4, 2014.

Large Cap Gainers

NFLX (440.7 +3.69%): Price target raised to $500 from $450 at Cantor Fitzgerald; Firm has a Buy rating on the name.
GILD (102.74 +2.47%): Positive view profiled in Barron's.
CCE (44.16 +1.68%): Added to US 1 List at BofA/Merrill.

Large Cap Losers

OKE (47.37 -2.57%): Initiated with a Underperform at BofA/Merrill; tgt $45.
TSN (38.84 -2.41%): Poultry producers under pressure following a USDA report on chicken & egg production.
FCX (19.08 -1.29%): Cut its quarterly dividend to $0.05/share from previous $0.3125/share.

Mid Cap Gainers

ABMD (70.84 +15.32%): Announced its Impella 2.5 received FDA approval for elective and urgent high risk percutaneous coronary intervention procedures.
LINE (11.96 +5.73%): Announced a $1 bln equity commitment from Quantum Energy Partners to form strategic acquisition alliance.
NSM (30.94 +4.74%): To acquire $25 bln portfolio of mortgage servicing rights from Ocwen Financial (OCN).

Mid Cap Losers

WLL (31.03 -19.17%): Announced offering of 35 mln shares of common stock which priced at $30/share; also announced offering of $1.0 bln of 1.25% convertible senior notes due 2020.
IHS (111.25 -6.5%): Reported Q1 EPS in-line, missed on revs; lowered FY15 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.
DO (26.56 -4.47%): Price target lowered to $30 from $40 at FBR Capital.

11:44 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (171) outpacing new lows (36) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABC, ABCD, ABG, ABMD, ACG, AFAM, AHL, AHS, ALOG, ALV, AMOT, AMWD, ASML, ATE, ATRA, ATRC, AVB, AZO, BABY, BHLB, BRLI, BSET, BTX, CBMG, CHCO, CHE, CI, CIZ, CMN, CMT, CNK, COLM, COTY, CRWN, CSII, CSV, CTB, CUNB, CVGW, CVS, DGX, DHI, DTSI, DVAX, DW, EBSB, EFSC, EGBN, EL, ELLI, ENL, ENSG, EXLS, FB, FFG, FIX, FLEX, FLTX, FONE, FRSH, GIII, GNCMA, GRX, GY, HASI, HBNK, HCHC, HELE, HIFR, HILL, HMN, HNI, HXL, IART, IBP, ICFI, ICUI, IDTI, INDB, ING, INUV, IPCC, ITEK, JACK, JEQ, JOF, KEYS, KMG, KVHI, KYO, LABL, LCI, LH, LNCE, LOGM, LOW, LUX, LVNTA, LXFT, MCRL, MEI, MKC, MKC.V, MKL, MRH, MTG, MTSC, NTRI, NVO, OA, OLED, OVAS, PFNX, PINC, PKI, PLUS, PNK, POOL, PRMW, PSCD, PSCH, PSG, PSO, PZE, Q, QRVO, QUNR, REV, ROIC, ROST, RRGB, RTRX, RUTH, SBFG, SBH, SBRA, SCI, SCS, SCVL, SGC, SIGM, SONC, SPF, SPOK, SSB, STDY, STE, SUNE, SUPN, TA, TMO, TREE, TRVN, TSLF, TSYS, UHT, USAT, UWN, VASC, VG, VLGEA, VRSN, VTWO, WCIC, WDFC, WFD, WMS, WSO, WST, WWAV, WWW

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AMCF, ARLP, AXPW, BIOD, BRS, BV, CARV, CHOP, DWSN, DXM, EGAN, ETRM, FPP, GLF, HEAR, HOS, IKAN, LOCM, LOOK, MICT, MILL, OXGN, PCM, PERF, PFIE, PW, RELL, RLJE, SMTX, SNOW, SONS, SPDC, SWSH, TAOM, TDW, WTW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IHF

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SGG, VNM, VXX

7:31 am Solar Power has entered into a Joint Development Agreement with SG Panama Solar LLC to develop, build, own and operate solar assets (SOPW) : The agreement calls for SPI to provide technical and financial support to complete the development and implementation of over 100 megawatts of identified solar projects in the Republic of Panama by establishing a joint venture with SG Panama Solar LLC, in which SPI will hold a controlling interest.

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From Briefing.com: Wednesday was hump day and the stock market most definitely did not get over the hump. It fell back further, adding to this week's losses with a sizable retreat that saw each of the major indices decline at least 1.5% on the other side of a lousy Durable Orders report for February.

The selling was not unique to the stock market.

In general, there wasn't much demand for U.S. assets as the bond market and the dollar also lost ground in Wednesday's trading. The shared misery implied that there may have been some portfolio rebalancing activity at the end of the quarter shaping the action.

The S&P 500 information technology sector was a particularly weak spot. It declined 2.7%, which qualified it as the worst-performing sector. All 66 components finished lower and only four -- EMC Corp (EMC 25.68, -0.13, -0.5%), Fidelity National Information Services (FIS 67.54, -0.60, -0.9%), NetApp (NTAP 35.74, -0.11, -0.3%), and Yahoo (YHOO 44.20, -0.22, -0.5%) -- escaped with a loss that was less than 1.0%.

The biggest decliner in the sector on Wednesday was Lam Research (LRCX 72.76, -6.00, -7.6%), which suffered along with many other semiconductor-related companies in a broad-based selloff of the former highflying group. Avago Technologies (AVGO 124.43, -8.69, -6.5%), which had gained 32% for the year entering Wednesday's trading, was another big loser that contributed to a 4.6% decline in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Apple (AAPL 123.38, -3.31, -2.6%): TechChrunch reported that it has learned that Apple (AAPL) acquired database software company FoundationDB; financial terms were not available

Broadcom (BRCM 42.31, -2.28, -5.1%): Announced that Inspur Group, Shandong Cable Network's primary systems integrator, has selected Broadcom's Ultra HD system-on-chip and Wi-Fi SoC for a new line of 4Kp60 cable set-top boxes.

Facebook (FB 82.92, -2.39, -2.8%): Started its F8 Facebook Developers Conference on Wednesday... Unveiled Messenger Platform which allows users to access other apps and create content within Messenger. Messenger Business will allow users to contact businesses (e.g. change an order, track a package) via Messenger. Said 600 mln use FB Messenger; voice call feature now represents 10% of all VoIP calls.

Paychex (PAYX 49.20, -2.10, -4.1%): Reported Q3 (Feb) earnings of $0.46 per share, in-line with estimates. Revenues rose 8.3% year/year to $704.3 mln, which was slightly ahead of analysts' average expectation. Guidance is unchanged from that provided in June 2014 and is asfollows: Payroll service revenue 3% - 5%; HRS revenue 16% - 19%; total service revenue 8% - 10%; and net income 6% - 8%

VeriSign (VRSN 65.13, -1.16, -1.8%): Announced it has priced an offering of $500 million aggregate principal amount of 5.25% senior, unsecured notes due 2025. The company intends to use the proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including, but not limited to, the repurchase of shares under its share repurchase program.Elsewhere in the technology space:

Fortinet (FTNT 33.10, -1.05, -3.1%): Announced that its broad network security training and certification program is being adopted across the globe at rapid scale, as companies look to expand their knowledge and expertise in protecting critical assets from cyber attacks.

National Semiconductor (NSM 25.99, -5.15, -16.5%): Announced and priced a public offering of 17.5 mln shares of common stock; expects gross proceeds of ~$500 mln.

Lexmark International (LXK 43.27, +2.48, +6.1%): Announced a deal to acquire Kofax (KFX 10.95, +3.45, +46.0%) for $11.00 per share in cash for a total enterprise value of ~ $1 bln

Yelp (YELP 45.76, -1.28, -2.7%): Announced that it is now available for use by consumers in Taiwan

Analyst Action:

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 2.63, -0.15, -5.6%): UBS downgraded to Sell from Neutral

Micron (MU 26.57, -1.39, -5.0%): initiated with a Neutral at MKM Partners; target $33

Twitter (TWTR 49.50, -1.97, -3.8%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Pivotal Research Group; target $51

4:10 pm : The stock market registered its third consecutive decline on Wednesday with the S&P 500 ending lower by 1.5%. The benchmark index settled below its 50-day moving average (2,067) while the Nasdaq Composite (-2.0%) underperformed throughout the day.

The S&P 500 hovered near its flat line during the opening hour, but high-beta groups like biotechnology, chipmakers, and transport stocks began showing weakness early on and continued their retreat throughout the day. As a result, eight sectors settled in the red with five ending behind the benchmark index.

Most notably, the technology sector surrendered 2.7% with chipmakers enduring even more aggressive selling. All 30 components of the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-4.6%) finished in the red with ARM Holdings (ARMH 49.90, -3.31) and Lam Research (LRCX 72.75, -6.01) leading the slide with respective losses of 6.2% and 7.6% while heavyweight Intel (INTC 29.89, -0.90) tumbled 2.9%.

The sharp losses within the tech sector pressured the Nasdaq while biotechnology also weighed on the index. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 341.30, -14.65) slumped 4.1%, extending its week-to-date loss to 6.9%. Meanwhile, the health care sector (-1.8%) outperformed in the early going, but settled among the laggards. Shares of Merck (MRK 58.26, -0.37) contributed to the opening strength after announcing a new $10 billion share repurchase program, but ended lower by 0.5%. For its part, the health care sector narrowed its March gain to 0.8% while the remaining nine groups are down at least 1.1% for the month (consumer discretionary).

Elsewhere among countercyclical groups, the consumer staples sector (-0.2%) slipped into the red during the final hour, but still finished well ahead of the broader market thanks to a 34.9% surge in the shares of Kraft (KRFT 83.15, +21.83) after the company agreed to merge with H.J. Heinz. KRFT shareholders are expected to receive a special dividend of $16.50 when the deal closes.

Also of note, the industrial sector (-1.7%) lagged throughout the session amid broad weakness in transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average slid 2.0% to widen its Q1 decline to 4.6%. Airlines paced the retreat with four of five carriers losing more than 3.0%.

On the upside, the energy sector added 1.2% thanks to daylong strength in crude oil that sent the energy component higher by 3.5% to $49.19/bbl. WTI crude received a measure of support from dollar weakness as the Dollar Index (96.88, -0.32) slipped 0.3%.

Interestingly, Treasuries retreated alongside equities with the 10-yr yield climbing five basis points to 1.92%.

Economic data was limited to Durable Orders and MBA Mortgage Index:


Durable goods orders declined 1.4% in February after increasing a downwardly revised 2.0% (from 2.8%) in January while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.4%
Aircraft orders, which played a major role in the overall orders increase for January, reversed direction in February. Total aircraft orders -- defense and nondefense -- declined 14.0% in February after increasing 68.1% in January
Excluding transportation, durable goods orders declined 0.4% in February after declining a downwardly revised 0.7% (from 0.0%) in January. The consensus expected these orders to increase 0.3%.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 9.5% to follow last week's 3.9% decline

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 290K) will be reported at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +3.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.4% YTD
S&P 500 +0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.6% YTD

DJ30 -292.60 NASDAQ -118.21 SP500 -30.45 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 509/2.05 bln/2427 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 808/771.7 mln/2259 3:35 pm :

WTI crude oil futures rallied today in afternoon trading, climbing as high as $49.46/barrel
May crude finished today's pit trading session $1.66 higher at $49.19/barrel
However, oil is pulling back in electronic trade and is now +3% at $48.92/barrel
Natural gas futures remained consolidated after sliding lower this morning, ending today's session $0.07 lower at $2.74/MMBtu
Apr gold rose $5.70 today to $1197.20/oz, while May silver gained +$0.06 at $17.00/oz

5:51 pm Photronics promotes Dr. Peter Kirlin to CEO (PLAB) : Co announced that as part of a long-term succession planning process, Dr. Peter Kirlin has been promoted from President to Chief Executive Officer, effective May 4, 2015 and will join the Company's Board of Directors. Constantine ("Deno") Macricostas, Photronics' current Chairman and CEO, will continue on the Board of Directors as Executive Chairman.

12:40 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

KRFT (85.35 +39.18%): To merge with the H.J. Heinz Company to create The Kraft Heinz Company; Kraft shareholders to receive a special cash dividend of $16.50 per share upon closing.
TSO (92.92 +2.88%): Industry-wide strength in oil & gas refiners (VLO, PSX, MPC, others also higher).
EL (84.02 +0.79%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray; tgt raised to $100 from $75.

Large Cap Losers

QRVO (77.17 -7.26%): Sector wide weakness in semiconductors following an earlier downgrade at Advanced Micro (AMD) (SWKS, LRCX, AVGO, among others notably lower).
TSLA (193.83 -3.91%): Downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Credit Agricole.
GMCR (119.73 -3.35%): Heard OTR Global out cautious on the name. Mid Cap Gainers

LXK (43.59 +6.86%): Announced a deal to acquire Kofax (KFX) for $11.00 per share in cash for a total enterprise value of ~ $1 bln;
X (25.26 +2.31%): Announced it will consolidate its North American Flat-Rolled operations and temporarily idle its Granite City Works operations in Granite City, Ill.
HAIN (65.18 +2.72%): Strength in consumer staple food names following the Kraft (KRFT) merger news (PF, WWAV also higher).

Mid Cap Losers

APOL (21.38 -23.62%): Beat Q2 Consensus EPS Estimates by $0.06, missed on revs; guided Q3 revs below consensus; lowered FY15 guidance.
NSM (27.95 -10.26%): Announced and priced a public offering of 17.5 mln shares of common stock; expects gross proceeds of ~$500 mln.
NVAX (8.41 -9.14%): Announced a proposed public offering of $175 mln of common stock.

12:21 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (132) outpacing new lows (35) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABM, AFAM, AHL, AHS, ALOG, AMOT, AMWD, ARI, ATE, ATRC, BFIN, BHLB, CCBG, CDXS, CENT, CENTA, CI, CMT, COKE, CRWN, CSV, CTB, CUBI, DAX, DOX, EBSB, EFSC, EIG, EL, ESSA, FDP, FFG, FIX, FLEX, FLO, FSFG, GB, GPIC, GRX, GY, HAIN, HCHC, HEI.A, HELE, HILL, HMHC, HW, HXL, INT, INUV, ISLE, JACK, JRN, KFX, KMG, KRFT, KYO, LB, LMAT, LNCE, LNDC, LOGM, LQ, LWAY, MATW, MDT, MHLD, MLI, MOH, MSCI, MSG, MTSI, NCFT, NEWT, NHC, NVEE, OCUL, OTTR, OVAS, PBF, PF, PFNX, PKI, PNK, RALY, RDI, REPH, ROIC, ROP, RXDX, SBBX, SBFG, SBH, SCAI, SCVL, SFNC, SIGM, SJM, SNX, SPF, SPLP, SPTN, SSP, STBZ, STE, STMP, SURG, SYKE, TA, TERP, TILE, TSLF, TUMI, TWO, UFI, UHS, UHT, USAT, UVE, UWN, VLGEA, VLO, VYFC, WDFC, WETF, WFBI, WNR, WST, WTM, WWAV, WWW, XL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACRX, AMDA, APOL, ARLP, CARV, CCIH, CHEK, CLIR, CUR, DXLG, DXM, EGLE, ENLK, FPP, GOMO, IKAN, KUTV, LPTN, MAT, MCOX, NBS, NRT, OIBR.C, OXGN, PERF, PHT, PRGN, RXII, SHOS, SONS, SXC, SXCP, TGC, WHLR, WTW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWJ, MBB, PFF

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VNM

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From Briefing.com: The major indices overcame larger losses in the early going that stemmed from reports of military action in Yemen, which drove up oil prices, but still ended lower for the day.

Follow-through selling interest from Wednesday's sell-off, which weighed further on the semiconductor and biotech stocks, also contributed to the weakness.

Confronted with a first quarter revenue warning from leading flash storage company SanDisk (SNDK 66.20, -14.98, -18.5%), the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped another 1.4%. It is now down 7.6% for the week and 1.7% year-to-date.

Notwithstanding the disappointment from SanDisk, the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.1%) still managed to post a gain and to outperform the broader market with the help of strong gains in Accenture (ACN 94.17, +5.96, +6.8%) and Red Hat (RHT 75.37, +6.92, +10.1%) following their earnings reports.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Accenture (ACN 94.17, +5.96, +6.8%): Reported Q2 (Feb) earnings of $1.08 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 5.1% year/year to $7.49 bln, also ahead of estimates. Sees Q3 revenues of $7.35-7.60 bln, which assumes a foreign-exchange impact of negative 11 percent compared with the third quarter of fiscal 2014.Sees FY15 EPS of $4.66-4.76 versus prior guidance of $4.66 to $4.80. Raises constant currency revenue growth outlook; now sees net revenue growth in local currency to be in the range of 8-10%, compared with 5-8% previously. Accenture's business outlook for the full 2015 fiscal year now assumes a foreign-exchange impact of negative 8 percent compared with fiscal 2014; the previous foreign-exchange assumption was negative 5 percent.

Apple (AAPL 124.26, +0.88, +0.7%): NYTimes details news that Apple and Beats plan streaming service to compete with Spotify.

IBM (IBM 160.59, +1.39, +0.9%): Announced the Department of Health in England has chosen the company to enhance its electronic staff record system

Jabil Circuit (JBL 22.87, +0.10, +0.4%): Director disclosed purchase of 21,500 shares at $23.18-23.25 worth ~$499K (transaction date 3/25)

Red Hat (RHT 75.37, +6.92, +10.1%): Reported Q4 (Feb) earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose15.9% year/year to $463.9 ml, also ahead of estimates. Sees Q1 revenues of $469-474 mln and adjusted EPS of ~$0.41. Sees FY16 revenues of $1.99-2.02 bln and adjusted EPS of 1.79-1.82. Separately, Board of Directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $500 million of the Company's common stock from time to time on the open market or in privately negotiated transactions. The new program replaces the previous $300 million repurchase program that is scheduled to expire on March 31, 2015; $220 mln of it was used.

SanDisk (SNDK 66.20, -14.98, -18.5%): Company issued downside guidance for Q1 (Mar), saying it sees Q1 (Mar) revenues of ~$1.3 bln versus the previously forecasted revenue range of $1.40 billion to $1.45 billion. The change in first quarter revenue estimate is primarily due to certain product qualification delays, lower than expected sales of enterprise products and lower pricing in some areas of the business. The Company expects continued impact to its 2015 financial results from these factors as well as the previously identified supply challenges, and now forecasts 2015 revenue to be lower than the previous guidance. Other forecasts for the quarter and the year are withdrawn, and the Company will provide an update during its first quarter earnings call on April 15, 2015.Elsewhere in the technology space:

Amazon.com (AMZN 367.14, -3.82, -1.0%): Company announced unlimited cloud storage with Amazon Cloud Drive; two new storage plans for customers to securely store their existing content collections. Customers can choose either the Unlimited Photos Plan ($11.99/yr) or Unlimited Everything Plan ($59.99/yr) and only pay one flat fee per year.

Cree (CREE 35.03, -1.39, -3.8%): Introduced the LED Rural Utility Light Series, designed to deliver a combination of price, performance and quality to accelerate adoption of LED lighting across rural areas in North America.
Electro Scientific Industries (ESIO 6.30, -0.11, -2.0%): Announced that its Board of Directors has made two significant changes to its governance practices in order to be more responsive to shareholder interests. The Board amended the Company's bylaws to declassify the Board and also voted to terminate the shareholder rights agreement, which had been in place since May 2009, by accelerating the expiration date of the rights agreement to March 26, 2015.
FireEye (FEYE 39.30, +0.09, +0.4%): Announced that FireEye CEO and Chairman of the Board Dave DeWalt will call upon state leaders to place a higher priority on cyber defense at a meeting of the National Governors Association later this month.Analyst Action:

Apple (AAPL 124.26, +0.88, +0.8%): target raised to $145 from $140 at Credit Suisse; Outperform

ASML Holding (ASML 99.07, -5.56, -5.1%): downgraded to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank

BlackBerry (BBRY 9.31, +0.03, +0.5%): target lowered to $9.70 from $10.30 at Nomura; Neutral

Netflix (NFLX 418.26, -3.49, -0.9%): Argus initiates with Hold rating

Paychex (PAYX 49.01, -0.19, -0.3%): target raised to $46 from $44 at RBC Capital Markets; Underperform

Red Hat (RHT 75.36, +6.91, +10.1%): target raised to $85 from $75 at Mizuho... target raised to $83 from $77 at BMO Capital Markets... target raised to $80 from $75 at RBC Capital Markets; maintain Outperform... target raised to $86 from $75 at Susquehanna; Positive... target raised to $70 from $66 at Deutsche Bank; Hold... target raised to $78 from $74 at UBS; maintain Buy

SanDisk (SNDK 66.20, -14.98, -18.4%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BTIG... target lowered to $80 at Cowen; Market Perform... downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch


Taiwan Semi (TSM 23.20, +0.02, +0.1%: downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup

Twitter (TWTR 49.92, +0.42, +0.7%): target raised to $58 from $50 at Evercore ISI; Buy

4:10 pm : The major averages ended Thursday with modest losses after climbing off their opening lows. The S&P 500 shed 0.2% and settled below its 100-day moving average (2,057) while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) underperformed.

Equity indices could not avoid registering their fourth consecutive decline, but they were able to avoid settling on their lows. Still, the benchmark index will enter the Friday session down 2.5% for the week.

The market began the day under pressure after overnight reports revealed that coalition forces from ten countries, led by Saudi Arabia, carried out air strikes against rebel forces in Yemen. This followed yesterday's reports indicating Yemen's President Hadi fled his country by sea.

The news gave a boost to the dollar, but the yen also rallied against its peers, which signaled caution among participants in the foreign exchange market. The Dollar Index (97.36, +0.38) gained 0.4% as the greenback spiked 0.8% against the euro, sending the single currency from a morning high near 1.1050 to 1.0880. For its part, the dollar/yen pair slipped 0.3% to 119.20 after testing the 118.50 level in the morning.

In addition, the latest developments in the Middle East led to concerns about potential disruptions to the energy market. As a result, crude oil surged 4.6% to $51.43/bbl. However, the energy sector (-0.2%) could not make it out of the red.

Meanwhile, the remaining cyclical sectors ended in mixed fashion. Consumer discretionary (-0.6%) and industrials (-0.3%) underperformed while materials (+0.2%) and technology (+0.1%) registered slim gains.

In the technology sector, large cap names like Apple (AAPL 124.24, +0.86), IBM (IBM 160.59, +1.39), and Oracle (ORCL 42.99, +0.06) gained between 0.1% and 0.9% while Accenture (ACN 94.17, +5.69) and Red Hat (RHT 75.36, +6.91) posted respective gains of 6.8% and 10.1% after beating estimates.

The tech sector managed to turn positive despite notable weakness among chipmakers that sent the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 1.4%. The industry group struggled after SanDisk (SNDK 66.20, -14.97) lowered its Q1 revenue guidance below analyst estimates.

Elsewhere, another high-beta group-biotechnology-pressured the market in the early going, but was able to return near its flat line by the end of the session. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 340.81, -0.49) will enter tomorrow's affair down 6.8% for the week.

Treasuries spent the day in a steady retreat from their early morning highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield spiked eight basis points to 2.01%.

Today's participation was above average with more than 808 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to weekly initial claims, which declined to 282,000 from last week's unrevised 291,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 290,000.

After three weeks above 300,000, the 4-week moving average for initial claims has dropped below that threshold, suggesting the claims level is reestablishing a trend below 300,000.

Tomorrow, the third estimate of Q4 GDP will be released at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 2.4%) while the final reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for March (consensus 92.0) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +2.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.3% YTD
S&P 500 -0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.8% YTD

DJ30 -40.31 NASDAQ -13.16 SP500 -4.90 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1215/1.86 bln/1576 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1200/808.2 mln/1838

3:40 pm :

The dollar index rallied today off of its overnight lows, which weighed on some commodities
WTI rallied overnight on Saudi strikes in Yemen. May crude rallied as high as $52.48/barrel and closed the day $2.24 higher at $51.43/barrel
Nat gas held its losses today following its post-inventory sell-off. May nat gas ended today's session $0.05 lower at $2.69/MMBtu
Gold held gains, closing $7.70 higher at $1204.90/oz.
Meanwhile, May silver ended $0.14 higher to $17.14/oz. Copper slid lower all day as the dollar index gained strength, ultimately ending $0.02 higher at $2.81/lb

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 27-Mar-15Dow +34.43 at 17712.66, Nasdaq +27.86 at 4891.22, S&P +4.87 at 2061.02

The major averages registered their first advance of the week on Friday with the Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) ending ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.2%). Despite today's modest uptick, the two indices ended with respective losses of 2.7% and 2.2% for the week.

Overall, the final session of the week was fairly quiet with equity indices bouncing around narrow ranges. The S&P 500 spent the day in a ten-point channel with the bulk of the action occurring near its 100-day moving average (2,058). The benchmark index settled below that level on Thursday, but managed to reclaim that mark today.

Six of ten sectors registered gains with most countercyclical groups showing relative strength. The telecom services sector was an exception, ending flat, while consumer staples (+0.6%), utilities (+0.5%), and health care (+0.7%) posted gains.

Most notably, the third largest sector by weight-health care-was underpinned by biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 347.46, +6.65) surged 2.0%, but still ended the week lower by 5.2%. Today, however, the industry group did some heavy lifting and contributed to the outperformance of the Nasdaq even as large cap technology names struggled.

The technology sector (+0.2%) started in-line with the market, but slumped from its opening high in a move that coincided with Apple (AAPL 123.25, -0.99) turning negative. The stock settled lower by 0.8%, but managed to hold its 50-day moving average (122.67). Meanwhile, high-beta chipmakers traded in mixed fashion until the final hour when it was reported that Intel (INTC 32.00, +1.92) is in talks to acquire Altera (ALTR 44.41, +9.83). The two names soared 6.4% and 28.5%, respectively and the news set a fire under the entire chipmaker space with the PHLX Semiconductor Index surging 2.8%. It is worth noting that the late surge lifted the entire sector into positive territory.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, energy (-0.7%) and financials (-0.1%) lagged while consumer discretionary (+0.5%) and industrials (+0.4%) outperformed.

The energy sector ended the day at the bottom of the barrel, but still finished the week ahead of the remaining cyclical sectors (-0.7%). Crude oil factored into today's weakness as the energy component fell 5.0% to $48.87/bbl and continued its retreat during electronic trading. Despite the plunge, WTI crude gained 4.9% for the week.

Also of note, the financial sector (-0.1%) finished with a slim loss today, but ended the week behind the remaining nine sectors with a 3.0% loss.

On the flip side, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%) ended ahead of other cyclical groups with help from homebuilders and retailers. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.79, +0.46) gained 1.7% while SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 100.24, +0.82) advanced 0.8%.

Treasuries spent the day in a steady climb from their overnight lows with the 10-yr yield slipping four basis points to 1.96%.

Today's participation was below average with roughly 725 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Q4 GDP and Michigan Sentiment:

GDP growth in Q4 2014 was unrevised in the third estimate and remained at 2.2% after increasing 5.0% in Q3. The Briefing.com consensus expected a revision to 2.4%
Real final sales saw a slight upward revision to 2.3% from 2.1%, but nothing in the data altered the notion that economic growth trends slowed down significantly in the fourth quarter
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was revised up to 93.0 in the March final reading from a preliminary reading of 91.2 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a revision up to 92.0

On Monday, February Personal Income, Personal Spending, and core PCE Prices will be released at 8:30 ET while the Pending Home Sales report for February will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Stocks Pull Back

The stock market began the trading week on a sleepy note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) and S&P 500 (-0.2%) surrendered their slim gains during the final hour while the Nasdaq Composite settled lower by 0.3% after lagging throughout the session. Equity indices spent the entire Monday session near their flat lines while the Dollar Index (96.86, -1.05) extended its retreat that began during the previous week. The index fell 1.1% with the greenback giving up 1.4% to the euro (1.0966). The single currency rallied in the morning and saw little afternoon reaction to a joint press conference held by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The two leaders did not provide any specifics about their earlier meeting, suggesting the two sides remain at odds with regard to finding a sustainable solution for Greece.

Equity indices registered their second consecutive decline on Tuesday with the S&P 500 retreating 0.6%. The benchmark index ended in-line with the Dow Jones Industrial Average while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) outperformed slightly. Equities traded near their flat lines through the first half of the session before sliding to lows during afternoon action. All ten sectors finished the day in negative territory with technology (-0.3%) registering the slimmest loss. Also of note, the Dollar Index (97.15, +0.12) was on track for its third consecutive decline, but an early morning rebound following an in-line CPI report (+0.2%) helped the Index finish with a slim gain. Meanwhile, crude oil endured some intraday volatility before settling higher by 0.1% at $47.51/bbl. Strikingly, crude's flat finish could not stop the energy sector (-0.8%) from ending the day among the laggards. Notably, Whiting Petroleum (WLL) sank 19.5% after pricing a secondary share and note offering.

The market registered its third consecutive decline on Wednesday with the S&P 500 ending lower by 1.5%. The benchmark index settled below its 50-day moving average (2,067) while the Nasdaq Composite (-2.0%) underperformed throughout the day. The S&P 500 hovered near its flat line during the opening hour, but high-beta groups like biotechnology, chipmakers, and transport stocks began showing weakness early on and continued their retreat throughout the day. As a result, eight sectors settled in the red with five ending behind the benchmark index. Most notably, the technology sector surrendered 2.7% with chipmakers enduring even more aggressive selling. All 30 components of the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-4.6%) finished in the red with ARM Holdings (ARMH) and Lam Research (LRCX) leading the slide with respective losses of 6.2% and 7.6% while heavyweight Intel (INTC) tumbled 2.9%.

On Thursday, equities posted modest losses after climbing off their opening lows. The S&P 500 shed 0.2% and settled below its 100-day moving average (2,057) while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) underperformed. Equity indices could not avoid registering their fourth consecutive decline, but they were able to avoid settling on their lows. The market began the day under pressure after overnight reports revealed that coalition forces from ten countries, led by Saudi Arabia, carried out air strikes against rebel forces in Yemen. This followed Wednesday's reports indicating Yemen's President Hadi fled his country by sea. The news gave a boost to the dollar, but the yen also rallied against its peers, which signaled caution among participants in the foreign exchange market. The Dollar Index (97.36, +0.38) gained 0.4% as the greenback spiked 0.8% against the euro, sending the single currency from a morning high near 1.1050 to 1.0880. For its part, the dollar/yen pair slipped 0.3% to 119.20 after testing the 118.50 level in the morning. In addition, the latest developments in the Middle East led to concerns about potential disruptions to the energy market. As a result, crude oil surged 4.6% to $51.43/bbl. However, the energy sector (-0.2%) could not make it out of the red.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18127.65 17712.66 -414.99 -2.3 -0.6
Nasdaq 5026.42 4891.22 -135.20 -2.7 3.3
S&P 500 2108.06 2061.02 -47.04 -2.2 0.1
Russell 2000 1266.37 1240.41 -25.96 -2.0 3.0

The stock market managed to break this week's losing streak on Friday, but it did so in a furtive fashion.

The major indices danced gingerly in a narrow range for most of a thinly-traded session, but eventually resolved things with a late move to the upside that was catalyzed by a Wall Street Journal report that Intel (INTC 32.00, +1.92, +6.4%) is in talks to acquire Altera (ALTR 44.41, +9.83, +28.5%).

Soon thereafter, Fed Chair Yellen toed a prevailing Fed line, suggesting in a speech she gave in San Francisco that a rate rise may well be warranted this year, but that the timing of the first increase will be determined in light of incoming data on labor market conditions, inflation, and other aspects of the current expansion. She added, however, that she thinks it will be appropriate for monetary policy to remain accommodative for some time.

It was a favorable end to an otherwise tough week for the stock market, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq Composite, and S&P 500 decline 2.3%, 2.7%, and 2.2%, respectively.

The S&P 500 information technology sector dropped 2.6% for the week, but jumped 0.2% on Friday. The entirety of that gain was logged in the final 30 minutes of trading.

Similarly, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) was roughly flat for the day before the Intel-Altera M&A speculation hit, but took off in the wake of that report and ended up 2.8% on Friday. Notwithstanding that strong gain, the SOX Index still dropped 5.0% for the week.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Akamai Technologies (AKAM 71.29, +0.26, +0.4%): Announced the opening of its Toronto sales and services office. The new office at 901 King Street West will support employees focused on sales, services, engineering, and security, and will complement Akamai's existing Ontario location in Ottawa.

Google (GOOG 548.34, -6.83, -1.2%): Johnson & Johnson announced that its medical device company Ethicon has executed a definitive agreement to enter into a strategic collaboration with Google to advance surgical robotics to benefit surgeons, patients and health care systems. The collaboration was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation in California.The closing of the transaction is subject to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close duringthe second quarter of 2015. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Intel (INTC 32.00, +1.92, +6.4%): The Wall Street Journal reported late in Friday's trading session that Intel is in talks to acquire Altera (ALTR 44.41, +9.83, +28.5%).

Jabil Circuit (JBL 22.90, +0.03, +0.1%): Director bought ~22K shares at $23.21 worth ~$499K

Yahoo! (YHOO 45.09, +0.62, +1.4%): Company disclosed that on March 26, 2015, its Board of Directors approved an additional share repurchase program of $2.0 billion which will expire on March 31, 2018. The amount of shares of common stock authorized to be repurchased under the New Repurchase Program is in addition to the amount remaining under the Company's existing stock repurchase program announced in November 2013, which expires in December 2016. As of the date hereof, $726 million remains available under the Existing Repurchase Program. Elsewhere in the technology space:

BlackBerry (BBRY 9.46, +0.16, +1.7%): Reported Q4 (Feb) earnings of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 32.4% year/year to $660 mln, which was below expectations. On its call, Blackberry said it has seen analyst models of an FY16 loss of ($0.13) - ($0.08). The company noted that it intends to do better than those estimates. The Company continues to anticipate positive free cash flow and continues to target sustainable non-GAAP profitability some time in fiscal 2016.

Analyst Action:

Amazon.com (AMZN 370.56, +3.21, +0.9%): target raised to $430 from $405 at Citigroup; Buy

EMC (EMC 25.17, -0.64, -2.5%): downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest

FireEye (FEYE 39.81, +0.50, +1.3%): initiated with a Market Perform at Raymond James

Facebook (FB 83.30, +0.29, +0.4%): target raised to $96 from $93 at Robert W. Baird; Outperform... target raised to $98 from $88 at Barclays; Overweight

SanDisk (SNDK 64.59, -1.61, -2.4%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Evercore ISI

Yahoo! (YHOO 45.09, +0.62, +1.4%) initiated with an Overweight at Morgan Stanley; target $55

4:37 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:ABMD (70.31 +17.18%),IMGN (8.25 +10.89%)

Materials:AKS (4.49 +10.86%)

Industrials:NMM (11.08 +13.64%)

Consumer Discretionary:OXM (70.8 +21.27%),QUNR (41.78 +13.81%),FIVE (35.24 +10.61%)

Information Technology:KFX (10.92 +44.64%),ALTR (44.41 +20.19%),GLOB (21.07 +18.3%),STMP (67.58 +15.17%),RALY (14.88 +15.08%)

Energy:FMSA (6.72 +23.99%),CAK (0.52 +21.16%),AXAS (3.26 +12.03%),PGH (3.01 +11.07%),NOG (7.81 +10.78%),EPE (10.74 +10.61%)

Consumer Staples:KRFT (89.1 +43.85%),DPLO (33.72 +20.9%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:CLDN (21.09 -19.75%),CEMP (32 -19.54%),ESPR (90.65 -19.3%),SCMP (14.5 -18.95%),SGNT (22.83 -18.61%),IDRA (3.43 -18.06%),ZIOP (11.45 -17.6%),LBIO (11.2 -17.59%),ZSPH (40.93 -17.11%),KITE (59.78 -16.85%)

Consumer Discretionary:APOL (19.2 -30.83%)

Information Technology:SONS (8 -44.58%),SNDK (64.59 -25.82%),YGE (1.97 -17.57%),ROVI (18.48 -16.76%)

Financials:WRLD (74.98 -19.69%),ENVA (19.16 -19.05%),NSM (25.02 -16.43%)

Energy:WLL (30.5 -21.85%),BTU (5.13 -16.45%)

3:33 pm Earnings Preview for the week of March 30 - April 3 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of March 30 - April 3 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - UTIW, AIR, CALM, NCFT
After Hours - MDLY

Tuesday:
Pre Market - SAIC, CONN, MOV, VTNR
After Hours - SNX, DCO, LNDC, INGN, RGSE, FRPT, PRGN

Wednesday:
Pre Market - MON, AYI, UNF, IKGH
After Hours - SPWH, PRGS, SIGM

Thursday:
Pre Market - KMX, DANG, CVGW, PERY, SEAC
After Hours - MU, FC

12:53 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

BMRN (130.76 +13.16%): Trading higher on a report the company may be acquired by Shire (SHPG); Also had its price tgt raised at Deutsche Bank and UBS.
CCL (47.18 +6.22%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.11, missed on revs; guided Q2 EPS below consensus; lowered high end of FY15 EPS, reaffirmed net rev yield ex-FX.
KRFT (88.08 +4.37%): Upgraded to Buy at Canaccord Genuity.

Large Cap Losers

MT (9.58 -4.2%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup.

TSLA (184.01 -3.36%): Initiated with a Hold at Argus; also reports out that China Tesla's Model S registrations fell 45% month over month.
EMC (25.26 -2.15%): Downgraded to Sector Perform at Pacific Crest.

Mid Cap Gainers

OLN (32.86 +20.85%): Dow Chemical (DOW) announced it will spinoff of its chlor-alkali and downstream derivatives businesses to combine with Olin Corporation (OLN) in transaction valued at $5 bln.
ICPT (291.79 +3.22%): Price target raised to $400 from $300 at Deutsche Bank; Buy.
BBRY (9.54 +2.58%): Beat Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.08, missed on revs with 1.3 mln smartphones; reaffirmed target for FY16 non-GAAP profitability.

Mid Cap Losers

RIG (14.52 -5.32%): Sector-wide weakness in the energy sector with WTI crude declining 2.6% on the day (DNR, SDRL, CIE also lower).
ALGN (52.35 -4.09%): Co announced that Thomas Prescott will retire as president and CEO effective June 1, 2015.
WCC (67.62 -3.04%): Downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird.

11:55 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (65) outpacing new highs (47) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADPT, AMOT, AYI, AZO, BMRN, CBPO, CCL, CEA, CRWN, CUK, DK, DPLO, DRRX, ENSG, FBR, FIX, FSFG, GLOB, GY, HMPR, HPTX, IMH, INFN, KAI, KRFT, LEVY, MHF, MTN, OLN, PKI, PRSC, REV, ROLL, SABR, SBCF, SIG, SPTN, TA, TIK, TSLF, USAT, UWN, VASC, VRNT, WWAV, WWW, ZNH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACRE, ADEP, AI, ALIM, AMCF, APOL, ARDM, ARLP, AXPW, BAGR, BANX, BOSC, BTU, BV, CECE, CHCI, CHEK, CLTX, DSX, DV, DWSN, ELON, FBC, FHCO, FSAM, FULL, GLF, GRAM, IKAN, INPH, JMI, KBR, LAYN, MAT, MEIP, MICT, MLHR, MRVC, MSB, MSM, NBS, NTP, OB, OHRP, ONVO, OPXA, OXGN, PDI, PFMT, PKX, PM, PRGN, PRGX, RCS, REN, SCHN, SNDK, SNI, SONS, TDW, TSU, TWI, VIV, WIN, YUMA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: SGG, VNM

7:08 am BlackBerry beats by $0.08, misses on revs with 1.3 mln smartphones; reaffirms target for FY16 non-GAAP profitability (shares halted -- will resume at 7:30 ET) (BBRY) : Reports Q4 (Feb) earnings of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.04); revenues fell 32.4% year/year to $660 mln vs the $778.38 mln consensus.

The revenue breakdown for the quarter was ~42% for hardware, 47% for services and 10% for software. During the fourth quarter, the Company recognized hardware revenue on ~1.3 mln BlackBerry smartphones. ~1.6 mln BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers (Street ests near ~1.9 mln), with an ASP of $211 compared to $180 in the previous quarter. Non-GAAP gross margin of 48.3%, with a third consecutive quarter of positive hardware gross margin. Outlook: The Company continues to anticipate positive free cash flow. The Company is expanding its distribution capability, and expects traction from these efforts to manifest some time in fiscal 2016. The company continues to target sustainable non-GAAP profitability some time in fiscal 2016.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market extended its March decline on Tuesday, but was able to end the first quarter in the green. The S&P 500 (-0.9%) lost 1.7% for the month, but added 0.4% during the first quarter. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.9%) outperformed, losing 1.3% in March to narrow its Q1 gain to 3.5%. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.1%) lost 2.0% in March and shed 0.3% in Q1.

Equity indices started the day amid broad pressure while the Dollar Index (98.31, +0.33) added to yesterday's gain. The S&P 500 tried climbing off its opening low, but daylong weakness among heavily-weighted sectors like health care (-1.5%), industrials (-1.0%), and energy (-0.9%) prevented the index from turning positive. On the flip side, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.5%) held a modest gain into the afternoon, but slipped into the red during the final hour.

Still, the discretionary sector ended ahead of its peers with homebuilders contributing to the relative strength after DR Horton (DHI 28.48, +0.47) was upgraded to 'Positive' from 'Neutral' at Susquehanna. Shares of DHI gained 1.7% while the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 28.23, -0.03) surrendered its gain ahead of the close. Similarly, apparel and luxury retailers outperformed with Movado (MOV 28.49, +2.86) jumping 11.2% in reaction to better than expected results.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, industrials (-1.0%) were pressured by large cap names like Boeing (BA 150.08, -2.62) and General Electric (GE 24.81, -0.31) while the energy sector (-0.9%) lagged amid weakness in crude oil. WTI crude fell 1.9% to $47.72/bbl and locked in a 12.7% decline for the quarter. For its part, the energy sector lost 3.6% in Q1.

Once again, dollar strength was a headwind for oil as the Dollar Index added 0.3% for the day and ended the month higher by 2.7%. Furthermore, the index spiked more than 8.0% during the first quarter.

Nine of ten sectors ended the month in negative territory while health care (-1.5%) gained 0.8% in March. Biotechnology helped the sector end the month ahead of its peers, but the group contributed to today's underperformance. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 343.48, -7.84) lost 2.2%, but still added 1.8% in March.

Treasuries posted slim gains after a slow daylong climb. The 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 1.93%. For the month, the benchmark yield fell seven basis points from 2.00%.

Today's participation was better than average with roughly 950 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Chicago PMI, Consumer Confidence, and Case-Shiller 20-City Index:


The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index increased to 101.3 in March from an upwardly revised 98.8 (from 96.4) while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to hold at 96.4
Labor market improvements catalyzed the increase in confidence as initial claims levels returned to their sub-300,000 trend over the past couple of weeks
The Chicago PMI increased to 46.3 in March from 45.8 in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 52.0
Chicago PMI fell from 59.4 to 45.8 in February, which was immediately blamed on extreme weather conditions. As weather conditions returned to normal in March, manufacturing activities were expected to return to their previous expansionary cycle, but that did not happen
Conditions did improve modestly, but the overall index remained firmly in contraction for a second consecutive month, meaning the pullback that began in February was likely not the result of temporary weather problems
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for January rose 4.6%, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected
The previous month's increase was revised to 4.4% from 4.5%

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the ADP Employment report for March (Briefing.com consensus 225K) will cross the wires at 8:15 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the March ISM Index (consensus 52.5) and the Construction Spending report for February (expected -0.3%).

Nasdaq Composite +3.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.0% YTD
S&P 500 +0.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD

DJ30 -200.19 NASDAQ -46.56 SP500 -18.35 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1103/1.65 bln/1770 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1254/948.2 mln/1797 3:40 pm :

WTI crude oil pulled back below $48/barrel in afternoon trading
May crude ultimately closed $0.93 lower at $47.72/barrel
May natural gas lost $0.01 to $2.64/MMBtu
Copper futures were in the red all day and finished floor trading $0.04 lower at $2.74/lb
June gold fell $2.30 to $1183.20/oz, while May silver lost $0.08 to $16.60/oz

4:01 pm SunEdison and TerraForm Power (TERP) interconnect four solar farms in North Carolina totaling 26 Megawatts; TERP reiterates its 2015 guidance of $214 million of CAFD and dividends of $1.30 per share. (SUNE) : TerraForm Power (TERP) announced it acquired solar power plants comprising 168 MW from SunEdison (SUNE) during the first quarter of 2015. All of these power plants were on TerraForm Power's 3.4 GW call right list of SunEdison power plants which TerraForm Power has the option to purchase once completed.


Together, the plants are expected to contribute $17 million in cash available for distribution in 2015, and generate annualized unlevered CAFD of $24 million. Installation has been completed for all 168 MW in the portfolio. TERP has used its existing balance sheet liquidity to fund the acquisition of these call right power plants, and reiterates its 2015 guidance of $214 million of CAFD and dividends of $1.30 per share.12:52 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

CHTR (196.65 +7.23%): Announced it will acquire Bright House for ~$10.4 bln.
CBG (38.41 +5.49%): Announced it will acquire the Global WorkPlace Solutions business of Johnson Controls (JCI) for $1.475 bln.
UA (81.28 +1.72%): Price target raised to $85 from $82 at Deutsche Bank; firm has a Buy rating on the name.

Large Cap Losers

LRCX (69.62 -3.56%): Sector-wide weakness in semiconductors (ADI, AVGO, QRVO also lower).
CELG (116.18 -3.2%): Various Biotech pulling back following strong gains during yesterday's broad market rally (ALXN, BMRN, MDVN also lower).

Mid Cap Gainers

JCP (8.26 +5.49%): Price target raised to $14 from $13 at Piper Jaffray; firm maintains Overweight rating.
SFM (35.22 +4.98%): Added to Best Ideas List at Morgan Stanley; Overweight.
RCPT (165.67 +3.51%): Favorable commentary on Monday's Mad Money.

Mid Cap Losers

TCK (13.84 -9.4%): Issued statement responding to rumors, reported that it is not in discussions with Antofagasta (ANFGY) in relation to any form of transaction, and there are no other corporate developments that justify any significant movement in its share price.
ICPT (281 -5.04%): Announced a secondary offering of 1.2 mln shares of common stock; co expects gross proceeds of ~$338.4 mln.

11:38 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (134) outpacing new lows (63) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACG, AFAM, ALG, ALV, AMBA, AN, ANAC, AOS, ATRA, AXL, AZO, BCV, BFIN, BR, BSET, BUSE, CAMB, CBG, CBM, CBPO, CBPX, CCK, CCL, CDXS, CGNX, CHDN, CHTR, CIVI, CMT, CNK, COBK, CTB, CTRN, CUK, DHI, DK, DOX, DPLO, DST, ELGX, FBR, FCE.A, FCE.B, FDS, FICO, FLEX, FRPT, FWP, GCI, GIS, GMAN, GRUB, GRX, HIFR, HMN, HOLX, HPS, HXL, HZNP, IDI, INAP, INCR, INFN, INUV, ITG, JFC, JUNO, KAI, KAR, KMX, KNL, KSS, LAD, LBRDA, LBRDK, LBY, LEN, LEVY, LH, LII, MDCA, MERC, MGLN, MHF, MHK, MKC, MKC.V, MLR, MMS, MOH, MRH, MSO, MTH, MTN, MUSA, NICE, NLNK, NWHM, PBF, PNK, PRSC, Q, RAD, RALY, RARE, RCPT, REV, ROLL, RYL, SCVL, SHLM, SJM, SKX, SMMT, SPF, SPR, SPTN, STON, SXT, TBNK, TGT, TIK, TREX, TRIL, TUMI, TWOU, UHT, VIPS, VRSN, WAT, WBC, WMS, WU, ZNH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACTG, ADEP, ADGE, AMDA, ARCI, ATNM, BOSC, CANF, CEL, CEQP, CHEK, CLTX, CNNX, DSX, DWSN, EGI, EGL, EGLE, EGY, EOX, FENG, FF, FHCO, FNJN, FSAM, GOL, IMUC, IRG, ITEK, MILL, MIND, MPV, MSB, OHRP, OIBR.C, PHIIK, PKX, PM, PRGN, PTNR, RXII, SA, SHOS, SIFY, SJR, SNTA, SONS, SSYS, STN, TAOM, TCPI, TDW, TGC, UCTT, VALE.P, VSCI, VTG, WHLR, WPT, WRN, XPL, YGE, YOKU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: ITB, PFF, QAI, XHB, XRT

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX

9:26 am TerraForm Power acquires 168 mw of solar power plants from SunEdison (SUNE); reiterates its 2015 guidance of $214 mln of CAFD and dividend of $1.30/share (TERP) : The acquired portfolio includes US distributed generation power plants representing 15 MW and eleven utility-scale, ground mount plants in the UK comprising 153 MW. Together, the plants are expected to contribute $17 million in cash available for distribution in 2015, and generate annualized unlevered CAFD of $24 million. Installation has been completed for all 168 MW in the portfolio. TerraForm Power has used its existing balance sheet liquidity to fund the acquisition of these call right power plants, and reiterates its 2015 guidance of $214 million of CAFD and dividends of $1.30 per share.
8:33 am Emulex and Avago Technologies Limited announce a $8 per share cash tender offer for Emulex corporation shares (ELX) :

Avago Technologies Limited (AVGO) and Emulex Corporation (ELX) announced that Emerald Merger Sub, Inc., a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Avago, plans to commence its $8.00 per share cash tender offer for all shares of Emulex on April 7, 2015. The tender offer is pursuant to a merger agreement among Avago Technologies Wireless Manufacturing Inc., a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Avago, Purchaser and Emulex which provides for Avago USA to acquire Emulex in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $606 million, or $609 million net of cash and debt acquired. It is expected that the transaction will close in the second half of Avago's fiscal year ending November 1, 2015.

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From Briefing.com: Equity markets edged slightly higher ahead of Good Friday, although volume was relatively light. Tomorrow, cash equity markets are closed, but futures will trade in an abbreviated session, which could prove significant with the release of the March employment report expected at 8:30 ET.

All major indices finished in the green today, The S&P 500 rose 0.35%, Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.37%, Russell 2000 +0.32%, and the lagging NASDAQ Composite gained 0.14%.

Considering the underperformance of the heavily technology weighted NASDAQ Composite, it is little surprise that the S&P Technology Sector lagged the broader market, falling 0.06%. In fact, it was the only sector to post declines on the day. Motorola (MSI 62.51, -4.16, -6.2%), Qualcomm (QCOM 67.97, -1.46, -2.1%), Micron Technology (MU 26.73, -0.41, -1.5%), and Google (GOOGL 541.31, -8.18, -1.5%) lead the sector lower. On the other hand Autodesk (ADSK 59.82, +1.08, +1.8%), Western Union (WU 20.91, +0.35, +1.7%), Altera (ALTR 43.10, +0.69, +1.6%), and Seagate Technology (STX 52.45, +0.66, +1.3%).

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

F5 Networks (FFIV 113.71, -0.60, -0.5%): Announced its new Security Operations Center facility located at the company's headquarters in Seattle. The SOC supports customers using the Silverline cloud-based application services platform by providing 24/7 access to highly specialized F5 security experts who monitor global layer 4-7 attack activities in real time.

Alliance Data Systems Corporation (ADS 293.68, -0.90, -0.3%): Announced its Card Services business has signed an extension to the long-term agreement to continue providing private label credit card services for multi-channel retailer Talbots, Inc.

IBM (IBM 160.45, +1.27, +0.8%): Announced the availability of IBM Verse, an innovative new social messaging solution that incorporates built-in analytics to give people a new way to connect, communicate and find the right people and information fast. Additionally, IBM and China Telecom (CHA 66.99, +1.26, +1.9%) announced a partnership to accelerate mobile enterprise adoption for Chinese organizations

Accenture (ACN 94.18, +0.62, +0.7%): Announced it has expanded its Accelerated R&D Services by selecting Medidata Solutions' (MDSO 47.31, -1.23, -2.5%) cloud-based electronic data capture and management system, Medidata Rave to complement its cloud-based solution.

Motorola Solutions (MSI 62.51, -4.16, -6.2%) dropping in recent trade following headlines that company did not find any buyersElsewhere in the technology space:

FXCM (FXCM 2.15, +0.02, +0.9%): Announced it has repaid an additional $54 mln outstanding under credit agreement with Leucadia (LUK 22.48, +0.18, +0.8%); avoids contingent financing fee of $30 mln. The payment was funded in part with proceeds from the sale of FXCM Japan and the co has now repaid $66 million under the credit agreement. FXCM anticipates making an additional repayment of approximately $12 million towards the credit facility in the coming weeks.

Check Point Software (CHKP 82.49, +0.62, +0.8%): Announced its intention to acquire Lacoon Mobile Security; terms not disclosed. Lacoon is leading the industry in providing a solution to secure the entire mobile device, with the best advanced threat catch-rate for enterprise-grade mobile security platforms.

TiVo (TIVO 10.89, +0.24, +2.3%): Virgin Media announced confirmation of agreement extension with Tivo, extending for a further three years the existing five-year partnership with Virgin Media in the UK. As part of the new agreement, Virgin Media has committed to the development of next-generation solutions from TIVO. Further details of pricing and availability will be announced in due course.

Analyst Action:

Infinera (INFN 18.90, -0.43, -2.2%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

iDreamSky Technology (DSKY 7.28, +0.40, +5.8%): initiated Buy at RosenBlatt; price target $11

Mettler-Toledo (MTD 321.47, -3.62, -1.1%): initiated Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley

Cinedigm Digital Cinema (CIDM 1.56, -0.02, -1.3%): initiated Neutral at Macquarie

Micron (MU 26.73, -0.41, -1.5%): price target lowered to $30 from $36 at Morgan Stanley; Equal Weight... price target raised to $47 from $43 at Stifel; Buy... price target lowered to $50 from $60 at Needham; Strong Buy... price target lowered to $30 from $33 at Topeka Capital; Hold

Sigma Designs (SIGM 7.92, -0.32, -3.9%): price target raised to $10 from $8 at Needham; BuySandisk (SNDK 64.57, -0.57, -0.9%): price target lowered to $86 from $102 at Argus; Buy

WNS (WNS 23.96, +0.01, +0.04%): price target raised to $31 from $29 at Maxim Group; Buy

Facebook (FB 81.56, -0.11, -0.13%): price target raised to $97 from $91 at Citigroup; Buy

Skyworks (SWKS 96.51, -0.33, -0.3%): price target raised to $110 from $92 at Brean Capital

Qorvo (QRVO 77.79, -1.01, -1.3%): price target raised to $95 from $85 at Brean Capital4:15 pm : The major averages eked out modest gains on Thursday after spending the day inside narrow ranges. The S&P 500 gained 0.4% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) underperformed. The market ended the abbreviated week on a mixed note with the S&P 500 adding 0.3% while the Nasdaq shed 0.1% for the week.

Today's session was very quiet with the S&P 500 bouncing between its 100- (2,060) and 50-day moving averages (2,073). The index settled in the top half of its trading range, but it is worth noting that many participants chose to forego the session, evidenced by light trading volume. To that point, fewer than 700 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Still, nine of ten sectors registered gains with telecom services (+0.9%) spending the day ahead of its peers. Meanwhile, the remaining three countercyclical groups posted slimmer gains. Notably, the health care sector (+0.2%) registered a modest gain despite intraday weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 339.70, -0.38) shed 0.1%.

The relative weakness in biotechnology kept the Nasdaq Composite behind the S&P 500 while high-beta chipmakers also lagged. Micron (MU 26.72, -0.41) lost 1.5% after reporting a bottom-line beat and issuing below-consensus revenue guidance while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index slipped 0.3%.

Conversely, chipmakers also pressured the technology sector (-0.1%), which was the only group ending in the red. The modest loss was not entirely due to weakness among microchip names as several large cap components like Google (GOOGL 541.31, -8.18), Microsoft (MSFT 40.29, -0.43), and Qualcomm (QCOM 67.97, -1.46) dropped between 1.1% and 2.1%.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the energy sector (+0.2%) settled just above its flat line while crude oil endured a volatile session before ending lower by 1.8% at $49.10/bbl. On a related note, leaders from six countries and Iran agreed on a general framework for a deal that will require Iran to reduce its uranium stockpiles in exchange for the removal of sanctions that are currently in place. The deadline for the final agreement has been pushed back to June 30.

Also of note, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.9%) finished ahead of other cyclical groups thanks to broad strength. Homebuilders rallied with the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 28.61, +0.48) climbing 1.7% while media names like CBS (CBS 61.16, +1.54), Comcast (CMCSA 57.94, +0.88), and Time Warner (TWX 85.00, +2.20) also posted solid gains.

Treasuries spent the day in a steady slide from their early morning highs, sending the 10-yr yield higher by five basis points to 1.91%.

Economic data included ISM Index, Construction Spending, ADP Employment, and MBA Mortgage Index:


The ADP National Employment Report revealed that employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose by 189K in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 225K
The February reading was revised up to 214,000 from 212,000
The ISM Manufacturing Index declined to 51.5 in March from 52.9 in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decrease to 52.5
Nearly all of the regional manufacturing surveys pointed toward a sharp deceleration in the national manufacturing index so the drop in the ISM Index shouldn't have been much of a surprise
Production levels actually improved, albeit by a very small margin, as the related index increased to 53.8 in March from 53.7 in February
Construction spending declined 0.1% in February after declining a downwardly revised 1.7% (from -1.1%) in January while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline of 0.3%
The unseasonably harsh winter weather conditions, which were blamed for a significant downturn in new housing starts, had little to no effect on overall construction levels
Total private construction increased 0.2% in February after declining 1.1% in January
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 4.6% to follow last week's 9.5% spike

Tomorrow, the Nonfarm Payrolls report for March (Briefing.com consensus 250K) will be released at 8:30 ET even though the stock market will be closed.

Nasdaq Composite +3.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.1% YTD
S&P 500 +0.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD

Week in Review: Technical Levels in Focus

The major averages rallied throughout the Monday session with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.5%) ending in the lead while the S&P 500 (+1.2%) and Nasdaq (1.2%) followed not far behind. The key indices began the week on an upbeat note, aided by overnight news indicating China has loosened its lending requirements for purchases of second homes. In addition, Friday's dovish remarks from Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who said the Fed will move cautiously when raising rates, provided another measure of support. All ten sectors ended the day with solid gains while the S&P 500 surged above its 50-day moving average (2,070). Overall, cyclical sectors had the best showing, but countercyclical groups held their own. Health care and telecom services ended at the bottom of the leaderboard, but both groups still gained close to 1.0% apiece.

The stock market extended its March decline on Tuesday, but was able to end the first quarter in the green. The S&P 500 (-0.9%) lost 1.7% for the month, but added 0.4% during the first quarter. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.9%) outperformed, losing 1.3% in March to narrow its Q1 gain to 3.5%. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.1%) lost 2.0% in March and shed 0.3% in Q1. Equity indices started the day amid broad pressure while the Dollar Index (98.31, +0.33) added to yesterday's gain. The S&P 500 tried climbing off its opening low, but daylong weakness among heavily-weighted sectors like health care (-1.5%), industrials (-1.0%), and energy (-0.9%) prevented the index from turning positive. On the flip side, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.5%) held a modest gain into the afternoon, but slipped into the red during the final hour. Still, the discretionary sector ended ahead of its peers with homebuilders contributing to the relative strength after DR Horton (DHI) was upgraded to 'Positive' from 'Neutral' at Susquehanna. Shares of DHI gained 1.7% while the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB) surrendered its gain ahead of the close. As for the broader market, the S&P 500 slipped back below its 50-day moving average (2,071).

The major averages kicked off April with a retreat that sent the S&P 500 lower by 0.4%. The benchmark index settled in-line with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite, with the latter catching up during the final hour. Equity indices spent the entire day in the red and could not rally following upbeat economic data from overseas. Strangely, S&P 500 futures tumbled nearly 20 points overnight after China reported its first expansionary Manufacturing PMI (50.1; expected 49.7) in three months. Similar to China, most Manufacturing PMI readings from Europe also surpassed estimates with the region-wide reading rising to 52.2 (expected 51.9). Interestingly, S&P 500 futures rallied off their overnight lows, but could not climb above the spot where the overnight selling commenced. Once the cash session began, the S&P 500 quickly returned into the neighborhood of its overnight low and settled on its 100-day moving average (2,060).
DJ30 +65.06 NASDAQ +6.71 SP500 +7.27 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1723/1.46 bln/1124 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1945/699.8 mln/1107 3:45 pm :

WTI crude futures rise following agreement of initial framework with Iran
WTI crude oil futures have been climbing since and are now -1.1% at $49.52/barrel, well off its LoD of $48.11/barrel
May crude finished floor trading at $49.10/barrel, down $0.91/barrel
May nat gas rallied $0.11 to $2.71/MMBtu
June gold fell $7.50 to $1201/oz today, while May silver lost $0.34 to $16.72/oz

5:48 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:DYAX (27.05 +63.54%),ASPX (100.55 +41.8%),CTRX (59.26 +22.64%),EGRX (48.47 +22.15%),HZNP (25.97 +19.07%),ADXS (15.65 +19.01%),ATRA (43.18 +17.98%),BCRX (9.76 +17.59%),CBM (40.61 +16.26%),CNCE (15.57 +15.93%),LBIO (12.94 +15.54%),RCPT (169.31 +14.84%)

Consumer Discretionary:MOV (31.53 +27.91%),JCP (9.13 +19.66%),SQBG (12.01 +16.38%)

Energy:CAK (0.65 +24.76%),PBR (6.76 +18.6%),PBR.A (6.8 +17.65%),FMSA (7.76 +15.48%),MDR (4.18 +15.15%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:CTSO (7.71 -46.08%),BDSI (10.03 -27.79%),OVAS (35.06 -19.35%),CLDN (17.73 -15.93%),ZIOP (9.96 -12.98%),RPTP (10.48 -12.45%),PRQR (20.51 -11.97%),DRNA (21.29 -11.22%),KITE (53.95 -9.75%),FPRX (20.4 -9.45%)

Materials:AGI (5.68 -10.55%)

Industrials:UTIW (9.65 -22.86%),ALGT (161.9 -15.87%),DRYS (0.75 -9.63%)

Consumer Discretionary:WWE (13.73 -16.89%)

Information Technology:CARB (12.25 -14.34%),TRUE (15.71 -11.64%)

Energy:RIGP (11.8 -13.87%)

Telecommunication Services:PTNR (2.56 -12.63%),TKC (11.47 -10.95%)

3:35 pm Earnings Preview for the week of April 6 - 10 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of April 6 - 10 some of the bigger names include:

Monday: After Hours - SHLM

Tuesday: Pre Market - GBX, SCHN, ISCA
After Hours - PLAY, TISI

Wednesday: Pre Market - RAD, FDO, RPM, MSM, GPN, OMN
After Hours - AA, BBBY, PIR, DDC, APOG, MG, RECN, WDFC

Thursday: Pre Market - WBA, STZ, SYRG
After Hours - PSMT, RT, ANGO

12:56 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

KMX (74.79 +9.36%): Reported Q4 adj. EPS $0.65 (ex-$0.02 capitalized interest expense gain) vs. $0.60 Capital IQ consensus; rev +14% to $3.51 bln vs. $3.50 bln consensus.
RAI (73.05 +3.87%): Reports out speculating Reynolds deal with Lorillard (LO) will receive FTC approval.
CHU (16.7 +3.09%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
Large Cap Losers

SHPG (228.57 -1.82%): Under pressure after Hayman Capital, through the entity "Coalition For Affordable Drugs", filed a petition for Inter Parties Review on a patent controlled by Shire.
DAL (42.4 -1.99%): Reported March PRASM was flat and mainline completion factor was 99.3% vs 99.8% year ago; Projected March quarter fuel price per gallon $2.90-2.95.

Mid Cap Gainers

GNW (7.83 +6.75%): Reports out that Genworth is looking into possible sale of its GLAIC Life unit.
RAD (8.88 +3.58%): Reported March same store sales +4.3% vs +4.1% Retail Metrics consensus.
DKS (58.64 +3.27%): Upgraded to Positive from Neutral at Susquehanna.

Mid Cap Losers

NUVA (43.06 -5.57%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
ANET (66.66 -4.25%): Announced CFO Kelyn Brannon will leave the company for personal reasons.

12:06 pm Relative sector weakness (:TECHX) : Sectors that have underperformed the S&P in recent trade include: Industrial XLI, Semi SMH, Health XLV, Rail, Materials XLB, Retail XRT.

12:03 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (184) outpacing new lows (46) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AB, ABCB, ABG, ADXS, AGO, AHL, ALG, AN, ANSS, ARAY, ASR, ATNI, ATRA, AZO, BEP, BFIN, BGCP, BHLB, BHV, BIO, BKMU, BLKB, BONA, BR, BRKL, CAG, CAJ, CAMB, CATY, CBG, CBM, CBPO, CBPX, CBZ, CCL, CEA, CEB, CFI, CHA, CHDN, CI, CMPR, CMT, CSF, CSGS, CTB, CUBI, CW, CWST, DAX, DHI, DKS, DLX, DST, EFSC, EIG, ELGX, ENTG, ESLT, ESSA, EURN, EXPE, FCBC, FCHI, FDP, FDS, FFG, FICO, FLO, FMD, FRP, FRPH, FRPT, FSRV, GCI, GFF, GIII, GILT, GNCMA, HBOS, HCKT, HDS, HIFR, HMN, HNI, HRC, HSII, HTBK, IBKR, ICLN, ICUI, IIVI, IMH, IMKTA, INAP, INS, JBT, JFC, JHP, JKHY, JLL, KAI, KFY, KMG, KMX, KRFT, KSS, KVHI, LAMR, LEA, LEN, LEN.B, LHCG, LMNS, LNCE, LNDC, LO, MAN, MASI, MCBK, MCO, MCS, MERC, MGLN, MHLD, MLI, MMS, MOH, MRKT, MSCI, NHF, NORD, NVO, OFIX, OSBC, OSIS, PBH, PFBC, PNK, PRFT, QUNR, RAD, RALY, RDI, REV, RLGT, RNST, ROL, ROLL, RTRX, SHEN, SHI, SHOO, SIGM, SMMT, SPNS, SPOK, SPR, SPTN, SRLP, SSB, STRZA, SUBK, SUNE, SXT, SYBT, SYKE, TERP, THFF, TIK, TNP, TOL, TREX, TRI, TRIL, UAM, UCFC, USAT, USCR, VG, WFD, WU, XRM, ZNH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AMDA, ARCW, BOSC, DCTH, DPW, EBIO, ELTK, ETAK, EVRY, FENG, FNJN, FREE, FULL, GLRI, GRAM, GRMN, HEAR, ICON, IEC, IRG, ISDR, KCAP, KLAC, LINC, LPTN, MIND, MOMO, MVO, MXPT, NVTA, OCRX, OHRP, OPXA, PHII, RLJE, RXII, SINA, SKIS, TAOM, UACL, USEG, VALE, VALE.P, WRN, WTW, XPL

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FXI, GXC, HAO

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EGPT, FXA

[ReturntoSender]

Further Gains Difficult With Declining Profits, High Valuations

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/urban-carmel/stocks-declining-profits-high-valuations

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - Stock Market at a Decision Point (Weekend Newsletter)

http://investmenthouse2.com/cntdirplus.asp?name=IHDaily&zid=2770189&eeid=XFcqVytdVygELD4ZXlAyUFpZGFAqWg==

- Stocks rebound, though rather weakly.
- Key leadership groups biotechs and chips still struggling.
- Some great upside patterns, but the indices have to see money returning to sustain a new move.

I must apologize at the outset as I have virtually no voice this weekend after being the last holdout in the office against the 'crud' illness sweeping the nation. I thought I was in the clear, ready to sail into spring in great shape, but that nagging little hack Tuesday because full-fledged crud by the weekend. Lovely.

Thus, the report has to be abbreviated in order to stay somewhat cogent in gauging the market. I saved my voice, what little there is, for the plays. The plays we saw developing during the week, and they kept up their work through Friday so they were easy to select. Some interesting upside even as the indices struggled to wipe away the Wednesday selling to close out the week.

Wednesday was the issue. That session saw biotechs and chips, two key leadership groups, take some torpedo hits. The large cap NYSE ironically performed better that session, but that is only because they failed to make a decent move higher prior. The key tell for them was Thursday and Friday; they failed to put together any decent move when the Wednesday pressure subsided, leaving them locked in their ranges, needing a serious catalyst to break them higher.

RUTX, SP400, NASDAQ and SOX fared better, but that is only because they were higher when Wednesday hit. RUTX and SP400 held the 50 day EMA and bounced. They held where they had to and can continue the upside, but they patterns are not outstanding in terms of the recovery thus far. NASDAQ did the bare minimum, hanging onto the 50 day MA, and without some renewed bids is a bit precarious. SOX bounced sharply at the last line of support at the 200 day SMA, but that just got it to the 50 day EMA as it tries to shake off that double top break lower last Wednesday.

THE CHARTS

To view charts, click on link or paste URL into browser.

http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/sp500.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/NASDAQ.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/DJ30.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/RUTX.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/SP400.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/SOX.jpg


SP500 4.87, 0.24%
NASDAQ 27.86, 0.57%
DJ30 34.43, 0.19%
SP400 0.45%
RUTX 0.68%
SOX 2.83%

VOLUME: NYSE -10.5%, NASDAQ -17%.

A/D: 1.5:1 NYSE, 1.4:1 NASDAQ

LEADERSHIP

As noted, biotechs and chips, two big rally leaders, really struggled Wednesday. They rebounded Thursday and Friday, but the rebounds were not that convincing.

Biotechs: A big group and some broke their patterns, e.g. CELG, others used the selling to test prior moves, e.g. BIIB, while others used the selling to finish up patterns, e.g. PGNX. On the balance, there was not much of a recovery after the Wednesday selling, leaving this group near term more on the defensive.

Chips: Very similar to the biotechs though perhaps a better recovery in the big names. That didn't mean they returned to good buy positions, just put in bigger reflex moves. NXPI plunged to the 50 day EMA and bounced intraday Thursday and again Friday. Still, however, not great. AVGO may have recovered its form but it will have to prove it. AFOP held the 20 day EMA, bouncing back each time it undercut it. BRCM swan-dived to the 200 day SMA and bounced, but it was no assurance things were okay. This group is quite varied right now, but as with biotechs, near term defensive unless they can show something more.

Internet: One of the leadership groups for the most part still performing. Social still looks quite good, e.g. FB, TWTR. WUBA, LLNW look really positive to move higher.

Many groups are at an inflection point, i.e. they can break higher or lower.

Financials: JPM shows a pair of doji at the 200 day SMA, in position to bounce. C is trying to hold the 200 day SMA but that is problematic.

Retail: Some still solid, others struggling. BWLD has put in a rounded top and last week cracked. CMG is trying to use the 200 day SMA as support but has a lot of work ahead of it. Others look good in the trend, e.g. TJX, COST.

MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +27.86 points (+0.57%) to close at 4891.22
Volume: 1.622B (-16.79%)

Up Volume: 1.07B (+218.92M)
Down Volume: 578.05M (-541.95M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.41 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.26 to 1

New Highs: 40 (+20)
New Lows: 45 (-7)

S&P
Stats: +4.87 points (+0.24%) to close at 2061.02
NYSE Volume: 742.1M (-10.44%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.51 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.55 to 1

New Highs: 45 (+32)
New Lows: 30 (+7)

DJ30
Stats: +34.43 points (+0.19%) to close at 17712.66


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 15.07; -0.73
VXN: 16.89; -0.61
VXO: 16.07; -0.53

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.07; +0.1. Three of four above 1.0 on top of the prior long string of 1.0+ sessions. At least this shows the apprehension remains.


Bulls and Bears: So much for wringing out the bulls. Now the bullishness is running right back up.

Bulls: 56.6% versus 52.0% versus 53.46% versus 58.7% versus 59.5% versus
Not what you want to see, that is bulls spiking back up after a two week slide.

Bears: 1.41% versus 14.3% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 15.2% versus 16.3%

Okay, after one week bears fall right back into the rut at 14.1%.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 56.6%
52.0% versus 53.6% versus 58.7% versus 59.5% versus 56.6% versus 52.5% versus 49.0% versus 53.1% versus 49.0% versus 48.0% versus 50.5% versus 56.4% versus 52.5% versus 49.5% versus 51.5% versus 53.4% versus 56.5% versus 56.4% versus 55.5% versus 54.6% versus 47.0% versus 35.3% versus 37.8% versus 45.5% versus 47.5% versus 48.0% versus 52.5% versus 57.6% versus 56.1% versus 52.5%

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 14.1%
14.3% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 15.2% versus 16.3% versus 16.3% versus 17.4% versus16.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 13.9% versus 13.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 15.1% versus 16.3% versus 18.2% versus 17.3% versus 14.1% versus 15.1% versus 15.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.1% versus 13.3% versus 15.1% versus 16.2%


Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Right now bulls are coming back down from the 60 level that has consistently marked market tops over the past two years. The rapid decline in progress is pushing the bulls/bears lines toward one another. Still far from a cross with bulls falling faster than bears are rising, but bears are warming up to the notion of market weakness.


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 1.95% versus 2.01%. Flopping around like a fish on hot pavement, back and forth each session but holding the 50 day MA overall.
2.01% versus 1.92% versus 1.87% versus 1.91% versus 1.927% versus 1.97% versus 1.95% versus 2.06% versus 2.09% versus 2.10% versus 2.12% versus 2.10% versus 2.12% versus 2.11% versus 2.13% versus 2.20% versus 2.245% versus 2.11% versus 2.12% versus 2.12% versus 2.08% versus 1.98% versus 2.04% versus 1.96% versus 1.98% versus 2.06% versus 2.09% versus 2.11%


Euro/$: 1.0898 versus 1.0890 versus 1.0973 versus 1.0925 versus 1.0946 versus 1.0811 versus 1.0648 versus 1.0874 versus 1.0590 versus 1.0568 versus 1.0494 versus 1.0635 versus 1.0546 versus 1.0700 versus 1.0829 versus 1.0849 versus 1.1030 versus 1.1079 versus 1.1175 versus 1.1182 versus 1.1197 versus 1.1195 versus 1.1362 versus 1.1337 versus 1.1385 versus 1.1379 versus 1.1366

No movement on the Friday close as the dollar firmed up over the 50 day MA following the prior week's fall.


Oil: 48.87, -2.56. Backed off from the 50 day EMA test, but still at the higher end of the recent range, trying to make a new break higher.


Gold: 1199.90, -5.00. Still holding the rally up to the 50 day EMA.


$/JPY: 119.086 versus 119.167 versus 119.405 versus 119.72 versus 119.705 versus 120.02 versus 120.855 versus 120.04 versus 121.34 versus 121.39 versus 121.43 versus 121.28 versus 121.50 versus 121.80 versus 121.60 VERSUS 120.72 versus 120.14 versus 119.71 versus 119.74 versus 120.179 versus 119.63

Holding just below the 50 day MA after a three week fade.


MONDAY

Lots of data for the week starting with Personal Income and Spending Monday, checking out ISM and Factory orders midweek, Challenger Job Cuts Wednesday (need to see if it backs off any), and the March Jobs Report Friday. And don't forget, it will be April and Easter month so there will be some confessions of sorts in the form of earnings warnings.

There is also some overseas baggage to carry into Monday. The EU gave Greece's bailout program proposals the thumbs down as too 'piecemeal and vague' to satisfy international creditors. I guess Greece ends up cozy with Russia and Ras-Putin.

Lots of data to factor into the equation along with how the indices left themselves on Friday. Again, no index is in serious jeopardy but the upside has to show more than it did on the Friday bounce in order to sweep away the Wednesday selling.

It is definitely no done deal that the upside once again takes control as it has on just about every other occasion the market tested.

There are still plentiful upside setups ready to go if the market can hold and continue. Of course we want to take advantage of them if they show the moves and the market shows an overall improved bid.

There are some downside as well that can fall even if the market continues higher. These are stocks that are simply tired and showing a loss of momentum after extended moves.


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4891.22

Resistance:
5008.57 is the March 2015 post-bear market high
5132.52 is the 3/2000 all-time high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 4867
The March low at 4843
4816 is the 38% Fibonacci retracement of the February run
4815 is the December 2014 prior market peak
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4774 is the January high
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4631 is the October 2014 upside gap point
The 200 day SMA at 4612
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.
4566 is the lower gap point from late October
4563 and 4567 are the January lows
4547 is the December low
4486 is the July 2014 high
4372 is the March 2014 high
The August low at 4321
4316 is the lower gap point from October 2014
4289 is the July 2000 recovery high
4277 is the March lower gap point
4246.55 is the January 2014 peak


S&P 500: Closed at 2061.02

Resistance:
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
The 50 day EMA at 2071
2076 is the all-time high from November
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November
2094 is the December 2014 high, the prior all-time high
2126 is the lower trendline from 11/2012
2119.59 is the all-time high
2191 is the December 2012 up trendline

Support:
2011 is the September prior all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 2011
1991 is the July 2014 high
1972 is the December 2014 low
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high


Dow: Closed at 17,712.66

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 17,857
17,923 is the January 2015 lower high
17,991 is the early December interim
18,104 is the December high
18,289 is the all-time high

Support:
The March low at 17,620
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
The 200 day SMA at 17,323
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,341 is the May low
16,334 is the August 2014 low
16,257 is the January 2014 low
16,179 is the November 2013 peak.
15,855 is the October 2014 low
15,739 is the December 2013 low


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

March 27 - Friday
GDP - Third Estimate, Q4 (8:30): 2.2% actual versus 2.4% expected, 2.2% prior
GDP Deflator - Third, Q4 (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
Michigan Sentiment - Final, March (10:00): 93.0 actual versus 92.0 expected, 91.2 prior

March 30 - Monday
Personal Income, February (8:30): 0.3% expected, 0.3% prior
Personal Spending, February (8:30): 0.2% expected, -0.2% prior
PCE Prices - Core, February (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
Pending Home Sales, February (10:00): 0.4% expected, 1.7% prior

March 31 - Tuesday
Case-Shiller 20-city, January (9:00): 4.5% expected, 4.5% prior
Chicago PMI, March (9:45): 52.0 expected, 45.8 prior
Consumer Confidence, March (10:00): 96.2 expected, 96.4 prior

April 1 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 03/28 (7:00): 9.5% prior
ADP Employment Repor, February (7:15): 212K prior
ADP Employment Repor, February (8:15): 228K expected, 212K prior
ISM Index, March (10:00): 52.5 expected, 52.9 prior
Construction Spendin, February (10:00): -0.2% expected, -1.1% prior
Crude Inventories, 03/28 (10:30): 8.170M prior
Auto Sales, March (17:00): 5.2M prior
Truck Sales, March (17:00): 7.9M prior

April 2 - Thursday
Challenger Job Cuts, March (7:30): 20.9% prior
Initial Claims, 03/28 (8:30): 285K expected, 282K prior
Continuing Claims, 03/21 (8:30): 2423K expected, 2416K prior
Trade Balance, February (8:30): -$42.0B expected, -$41.8B prior
Factory Orders, February (10:00): -0.5% expected, -0.2% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 03/28 (10:30): 12 bcf prior

April 3 - Friday
Nonfarm Payrolls, March (8:30): 248K expected, 295K prior
Nonfarm Private Payr, March (8:30): 240K expected, 288K prior
Unemployment Rate, March (8:30): 5.5% expected, 5.5% prior
Hourly Earnings, March (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.1% prior
Average Workweek, March (8:30): 34.6 expected, 34.6 prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Oil prices were down and then they were up. Longer-dated Treasury prices were down and then they were up. Stock prices were down a smidgen early, then they were up for the majority of Tuesday's trade before some late selling drove them back into negative territory.

All in all, it was a fairly wishy-washy day for the capital markets, with the exception of the currency market where the dollar exhibited strength overnight and continued to strengthen during U.S. trading. It did so primarily at the expense of the euro and the yen whose weakness against the greenback drove a 1.2% gain in the U.S. Dollar Index.

The S&P 500 information technology sector for its part was up for most of the day, sporting modest gains, but followed form with the broader market and sold off late to finish with a loss (-0.2%) that was in-line with the S&P 500.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Adobe Systems (ADBE 75.69, -0.54, -0.7%): Announced the availability of its newest cloud offering, Adobe Document Cloud, a modern way to manage documents at home, in the office and across devices.

Altera (ALTR 41.34, +0.13, +0.3%): Company and TSMC (TSM 23.39, -0.15, -0.6%) announced that they have produced an innovative, UBM-free WLCSP technology that provides enhanced quality, reliability and integration for Altera's MAX 10 FPGA products.

Cisco (CSCO 27.40, +0.16, +0.7%): Announced new models of Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services, the industry's first threat-focused next-generation firewall, providing midsize companies, branch offices and industrial environments with the same advanced malware protection and threat detection capabilities deployed by large enterprise organizations.

Electronic Arts (EA 57.80, +0.68, +1.2%): Announced a new multi-title partnership along with Illumination Entertainment and Universal Partnerships & Licensing to bring the Minions and other characters from upcoming Illumination films to life in all-new mobile games.

FLIR Systems (FLIR 31.20, +0.06, +0.2%): Announced the availability of FLIR FX, a compact, versatile Wi-Fi-enabled HD camera that integrates unique cloud-based analytics and flexible application-specific mounts.

IBM (IBM 162.07, +0.03, +0.02%): Announced it has signed a multi-million dollar agreement with Coca-Cola Amatil to move its Asia Pacific customer planning and relationship management systems to the IBM Cloud.

Intel (INTC 31.25, +0.22, +0.7%): Will revise the presentation of its operating segments to reflect the combination of the PC Client Group and the Mobile and Communications Group to create the Client Computing Group. The new group was created to address all aspects of the client computing market segment and utilize Intel's intellectual property to offer compelling customer solutions. In addition, when the company reports its Q1 results on Tuesday April 14, it will also provide commentary on its goal to improve mobile profitability by $800 million in 2015.

Microsoft (MSFT 41.53, -0.01, -0.04%): Business Insider details news that Microsoft is developing a payment service.Elsewhere in the technology space:

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 2.69, -0.01, -0.4%): Announced that the AMD Embedded R-Series accelerated processing unit has been chosen to power the latest set-back-box (SBB) digital media players from Samsung Electronics

Arrow Electronics (ARW 60.68, -0.60, -1.0%): Announced a North American distribution agreement with Violin Memory (VMEM 3.79, -0.03, -0.8%), a global provider of flash storage platform solutions. The agreement will provide Arrow resellers with access to Violin's Flash Storage Platform solutions, all-flash product portfolio and enterprise data services. In turn, Violin Memory will leverage Arrow's sales support and technical expertise to continue its expansion into the all-flash array market in North America.

Twitter (TWTR 52.87, +2.03, +4.0%): Strength attributed to speculation that company has hired advisers to fend off a takeover.

Unisys (UIS 23.26, +0.04, +0.2%): Announced that the Forward! by Unisys Model 4150B server has been certified for operating the SAP HANA platform.

Analyst Action:

Paychex (PAYX 49.14, -0.08, -0.1%): target raised to $56 from $53 at Argus; maintain Buy

Salesforce.com (CRM 68.20, +0.26, +0.4%): target raised to $80 from $75 at Oppenheimer; maintain Outperform

Splunk (SPLK 62.10, +1.92, +3.2%): Piper Jaffray upgrades to Overweight from Neutral; target $77(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Microsoft)

4:15 pm : Equity indices halted their two-day win streak on Tuesday with the S&P 500 shedding 0.2%. The benchmark index surrendered its modest intraday gain during the final hour while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) settled just ahead.

The major averages climbed out of the gate and hit their session highs during the initial 90 minutes; however, relative weakness among influential sectors like consumer discretionary (-0.5%), financials (-0.4%), and consumer staples (-0.4%) prevented the market from eclipsing the early high. Instead, equities spent the afternoon in a sideways drift and slid into negative territory shortly ahead of the close.

Only two sectors finished the day in the green with health care (+0.3%) holding the lead into the afternoon. The countercyclical group underperformed yesterday, but today's strength was fueled by biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 341.92, +3.07) jumped 0.9% and helped the Nasdaq Composite display relative strength throughout the day.

In addition to receiving support from biotechnology, the tech-heavy Nasdaq benefited from strength among chipmakers. That being said, the PHLX Semiconductor Index ended just above its flat line after being up more than 0.8%. Similarly, the broader technology sector (-0.15%) settled just ahead of the broader market while its largest component-Apple (AAPL 126.01, -1.34)-lost 1.1%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, energy (+0.3%) outperformed, narrowing its 2015 decline to 1.2% as crude oil soared 3.5% to $53.89/bbl. Strikingly, oil spent the day in a steady climb even as the Dollar Index (97.95, +1.18) jumped 1.2%. Most notably, the greenback rallied 1.1% against the euro, sending the single currency to 1.0815.

Also of note, the industrial sector (-0.1%) could not stay out of the red, but that masked relative strength among transport stocks after FedEx (FDX 171.16, +4.49) announced it will acquire TNT Express (TNTEY 8.26, +1.71) for $4.8 billion. The Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 0.5% while FedEx spiked 2.7%, helping the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.03%) finish ahead of other indices.

On the downside, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.5%) was the weakest performer among cyclical groups. Homebuilders struggled throughout the day while retail names slumped during the afternoon. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 28.01, -0.50) lost 1.8% while SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 100.63, -0.88) settled lower by 0.9%.

Treasuries retreated throughout the morning, but backtracked from their lows throughout the afternoon. The benchmark 10-yr yield ticked down one basis point to 1.89%.

Today's participation was well below average with fewer than 650 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and Consumer Credit:


The February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.133 million from a revised rate of 4.965 million (from 4.998 million)
The Consumer Credit report for February was showed an increase of $15.50 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of $12.50 billion
The prior month's credit growth was revised to $10.80 billion from $11.60 billion

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while the FOMC minutes from the latest policy meeting will be released at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +3.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.0% YTD
S&P 500 +0.9 YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.3% YTD

DJ30 -5.43 NASDAQ -7.08 SP500 -4.29 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1324/1.46 bln/1483 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1359/647.2 mln/1710
3:45 pm :

Oil futures extended gains to above $54/barrel in afternoon trading activity
May crude ultimately closed $1.85 higher at $53.96/barrel.
may natural gas gained $0.03 to $2.68/MMBtu today.
Strength in the dollar index continued to weigh on select commodities such as gold and silver
June gold finished today's session -$8.10 to $1210.60/oz, while May silver closed $0.27 at $16.84/oz

12:40 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

SHPG (239.38 +4.16%): Announced a clear regulatory path forward for SHP465, an investigational treatment for adults with ADHD.
RYAAY (66.27 +3.67%): Reported March Traffic grew 28% to 6.67 mln customers; upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
FDX (171.33 +2.8%): Announced an offer to acquire Dutch pack delivery service TNT Express (TNTEY) for $4.8 bln.

Large Cap Losers

VTR (75.05 -2.41%): Sector wide weakness in REITs (GGP, PLD, VNO also lower).
GM (36.06 -1.65%): Canada GEN Investment Corporation filed to sell ~73.4 mln shares of General Motors common stock in an unregistered block trade.

Mid Cap Gainers

IGT (20.01 +13.15%): GTECH (GTKYY) And International Game Technology (IGT) announce completion of their combination; today marks first day trading under the unified IGT ticker.
CLVS (75.15 +9.48%): Received breakthrough therapy designation for Rucaparib for monotherapy treatment of advanced ovarian cancer in patients with BRCA-mutated tumors.
AXTA (30.53 +7.77%): Announced that Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) entered into a definitive stock purchase agreement to purchase 20 mln shares of Axalta stock from The Carlyle Group (CG) at $28.00 per share.

Mid Cap Losers

WWD (48.57 -5.54%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies.
ATHN (116.42 -4.7%): Shares under pressure after David Einhorn reiterated his bear case on Athena.
GEL (44.81 -4.56%): Announced and priced a 4 mln common unit public offering at $44.42/unit.

11:33 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (129) outpacing new lows (26) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABG, ACH, ACN, ACWI, ADXS, AEO, AFAM, AGO, AHL, AHS, ALR, ANAC, ANSS, AOS, ATRO, AXTA, BAM, BAMM, BCV, BIO, BIP, BLKB, BLMT, BONA, CAF, CBPX, CBZ, CCL, CDXS, CEA, CEB, CFI, CFRX, CGNX, CHA, CI, CIZ, CMN, CNC, CRRC, CSF, CSII, CTB, CUK, CWST, CYNO, DEG, DKS, DRA, DST, DTSI, DXJS, DYAX, EGRX, ELNK, ELOS, EPAM, ERI, EVHC, FCHI, FICO, FMD, FMS, FNRG, FRP, FRPT, FSRV, GILT, GRX, HBIO, HDS, HMN, HNI, HOFT, HOLX, HPI, HTLF, ICLN, INFA, ING, INSM, INUV, IPXL, JOF, KAI, KNL, KTWO, LEVY, LFC, M, MKC, MKC.V, MLR, MMS, MNTA, MOH, MRGE, NAT, NRZ, NYCB, OMAM, PAG, PRFZ, RMD, ROL, RXDX, SHI, SIGM, SIX, SMED, SPNS, SXT, SYKE, TA, TECH, TEVA, TGT, TREE, TRI, TXT, UTHR, VLGEA, WAT, WDFC, XL, XRM, YZC, ZBRA, ZNH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AXPW, BANX, BIOD, CACQ, EAC, ELTK, IEC, IGT, IKAN, IMUC, ITEK, KCAP, MYOS, OHRP, PRGX, RESN, SHOS, SPDC, STRM, TACT, THTI, TKC, TSU, VPCO, VRS, XGTI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWJ, FXI, GXC, HAO, TAN

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX

9:17 am Flextronics announces partnership withSunedison (SUNE) to manufacture its solar modules in Mexico (FLEX) : Flextronics will begin the full volume manufacturing in the first quarter of calendar 2015 at its center of excellence for solar module manufacturing facility in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

8:02 am Axcelis Tech announces follow on 'Purion Xe' high energy implanter order from 300mm foundry (ACLS) :

Co announced that it has received a follow on order for the Purion XE single wafer, high energy implanter. The system will support a capacity expansion at the customer's new 300mm foundry in Asia. The system is scheduled to ship in the second quarter.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market made an early effort to extend last week's gains, yet the buying interest soon petered out on profit-taking efforts. Additionally, there was some buyer hesitation on the understanding that the first quarter earnings reporting period will kick into full swing this week alongside some influential economic data that includes the Retail Sales, Producer Price Index, Housing Starts, Industrial Production, and Consumer Price Index reports for March.

The only sector to manage a gain on Monday was the financial sector (+0.3%), which will be in the spotlight Tuesday following earnings reports from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 62.07, +0.37, +0.6%) and Wells Fargo (WFC 54.59, +0.27, +0.5%).

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.3%) faded as the day progressed and finished near its lows for the session. Even so, it still managed to outperform the S&P 500, which fell 0.5%. Relative strength in Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 32.73, +0.62, +1.9%) and Facebook (FB 83.05, +1.01, +1.2%) lent a measure of support.

Intel (INTC 31.76, -0.17, -0.5%) and Linear Technology (LLTC 46.01, -0.49, -1.0%) will report their results after Tuesday's close.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Accenture (ACN 93.53, -1.16, -1.2%): UniCredit has signed a three-year contract with Accenture, under which Accenture will provide a wide range of services to UniCredit's IT organization in Italy, Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom.

Altera Corporation (ALTR 43.86, -0.66, -1.5%): Announced the company has joined the Industrial Internet Consortium, a collaborative industry organization facilitating development of a global ecosystem for the Internet of Things (IoT).

Automatic Data Processing (ADP 85.90, -0.44, -0.5%): Announced the launch of AdvancedMD Marketplace, which offers private practices a broad array of innovative products and services that operate seamlessly with the ADP AdvancedMD practice management and EHR product suite.

Broadcom (BRCM 44.58, +0.35, +0.8%): Traded higher amid speculation that it could be an acquisition target for Intel (INTC 31.76, -0.17, -0.5%).

Harris Corporation (HRS 80.35, -0.65, -0.8%): Received $27 million in orders from the U.S. Special Operations Command for Falcon III manpack and handheld tactical radios.

Microsoft (MSFT 41.76, +0.04, +0.1%): Announced their collaboration to bring innovative operational excellence to manufacturing with the help of Fujitsu devices powered by Windows 8.1 Pro, the Internet of Things services of FUJITSU Cloud A5 for Microsoft Azure, and the Fujitsu IoT/M2M (machine-to-machine) platform.

Qualcomm (QCOM 68.73, -0.43, -0.6%): Media reports indicated that Jana Partners wants Qualcomm to consider a breakup of the company. Qualcomm responded to statements made by JANA Partners, saying, "Prior reviews have concluded that the synergies provided by our business model create more value for stockholders than could be created through alternative corporate structures. We will continue to evaluate opportunities to enhance stockholder value and are committed to pursuing the right course of action for all of our stockholders."

Symantec Corp. (SYMC 24.15, -1.43, -5.6%): Announced the expansion of Incident Response Services into several new markets. As of April, Symantec's Incident Response Emergency Response service is available globally, and Symantec's Incident Response Retainer Services are available in North America, the UK and select Asia-Pacific regions.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 2.77, +0.01, +0.4%): Announced certification for Avid Media Composer 8.4 to support broadcast and digital content creation customers for successful HD and 4K workflows powered by AMD FirePro professional graphics, both for Microsoft Windows and the Mac Pro workstations.
Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 4.35, +0.31, +8.3%): Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that
Nokia (NOK 8.31, +0.25, +3.1%) might announce an agreement soon to purchase Alcatel's wireless assets. Those same sources said a full takeover of Alcatel Lucent has been examined, but that the asset sale was the most likely scenario.

Ambarella (AMBA 75.21, -0.59, -0.6%): Announced availability of the S2Lm-based battery-powered IP camera reference design

Brocade (BRCD 12.20, -0.01, -0.3%): Announced that CoxHealth has selected Brocade networking equipment and services to provide its five hospitals and 83 clinics with IT network infrastructure Ericsson (ERIC 12.95, +0.09, +0.7%): Has been selected to provide the online video platform to the over-the-top and live TV subscription video-on-demand service, currently being developed by Bonnier Broadcasting, a business area within the Bonnier Group.

Groupon (GRPN 7.24, -0.14, -1.9%): A Bloomberg report appearing in Crain's Chicago Business highlighted the view of Piper Jaffray analyst who said Groupon's market value, currently about $5 billion, should be closer to $6 billion.

Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (MXIM 35.08, -0.08, -0.1%): Announced the availability of a platform that aims to allow manufacturers to bring IO-Link factory automation designs to market
Semtech Corporation (SMTC 26.28, -0.18, -0.7%): Announced the addition of five new products as part of its new multi-rate UHD-SDI platform strategy
SINA (SINA 35.40, -2.11, -5.7%): Weakness attributed to reports that China is considering shutdown of SINA news service if censorship doesn't improve.

Worldwide semiconductor foundry market grew 16.1 percent in 2014, according to final results by Gartner. Among the top players, the leader, TSMC (TSM 23.33, -0.17, -0.8%), gained market share to reach 53.7 percent, up from 49.8 percent in 2013

Analyst Action:
ADTRAN (ADTN 18.67, -0.36, -1.8%): target lowered to $18.50 from $24 at MKM Partners; Neutral
Intuit (INTU 97.93, -0.96, -0.9%): upgraded to Hold from Sell at Evercore ISI; target to $98 from $77

Netflix (NFLX 474.69, +20.12, +4.5%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS, target raised to $565 from $370

Western Digital (WDC 95.53, -0.36, -0.3%): added to Jefferies Research Franchise Pick List; Buy
4:10 pm : The stock market ended Wednesday on a higher note, but not before making a couple appearances in the red. The S&P 500 added a modest 0.3% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) outperformed.

Equity indices climbed out of the gate with the Nasdaq receiving major support from biotechnology. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 notched its session high during the initial 30 minutes, but returned to its flat line shortly thereafter amid significant weakness in the energy sector (-1.0%).

The growth-sensitive energy space was pressured by a tailspin in crude oil futures after latest data from the American Petroleum Institute revealed that crude inventories increased by 10.9 million barrels since last week. As a result, total inventories have reached levels not seen at this time of the year in at least 80 years. WTI crude fell 6.5% to $50.44/bbl, erasing its Tuesday advance, and cutting into its gain from Monday.

Unlike energy, most of the remaining cyclical sectors ended near their flat lines while the consumer discretionary sector (+0.9%) outperformed after showing relative weakness yesterday. Today, however, the group enjoyed broad support, including relative strength among homebuilders. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 28.41, +0.40) climbed 1.4%.

Elsewhere, the health care sector (+0.9%) also displayed strength throughout the day, which was largely due to biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 352.01, +10.09) outperformed from the get-go and extended its gain after Mylan (MYL 68.36, +8.79) announced a proposal to acquire Perrigo (PRGO 195.00, +30.29) for $205/share. The news sent shares of PRGO higher by 18.4% while the biotech ETF advanced 3.0% and kept the Nasdaq in the lead.

Similar to biotechnology, the high-beta chipmaker space contributed to Nasdaq's strength with the PHLX Semiconductor Index advancing 0.7%. However, the technology sector (+0.2%) ended a bit behind the broader market following mixed action in large cap names. Google (GOOGL 548.84, +3.98) added 0.7% while Apple (AAPL 125.60, -0.41) lost 0.3% after Societe Generale downgraded the stock to 'Hold' from 'Buy.'

Treasuries ended the day on a modestly lower note with the 10-yr yield rising one basis point to 1.90%. The benchmark yield saw little reaction to the afternoon release of FOMC minutes that provided little clarity regarding the timing of the first rate hike.

According to the minutes, FOMC members were split over whether June would be the right time to begin raising rates. Several members believed that recent data and the outlook warranted a rate hike in June while others voiced concerns that the economic outlook would not be strong enough to support a rate hike in the near term.

The dollar was also discussed in the minutes with participants acknowledging that net exports would be hampered by the strong greenback. In addition, a few members voiced their belief that the dovish tone emanating from global central banks could lead to additional dollar strength.

Fittingly, the Dollar Index (98.02, +0.19) erased its intraday loss in reaction to the minutes, adding 0.2% for the day.

Today's participation was close to recent averages with roughly 750 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data reported this morning was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which ticked up 0.4% to follow last week's 4.6% increase.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 285K) will be released at 8:30 ET while the Wholesale Inventories report for February will cross at 10:00 ET (expected 0.2%).


Russell 2000 +4.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.5% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.5% YTD

DJ30 +27.09 NASDAQ +40.59 SP500 +5.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1814/1.56 bln/1004 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1864/747.6 mln/1170
3:35 pm :

Crude oil continued to hold its losses today, which began after the API reported bearish oil storage late yesterday
Overall, WTI crude fell over $3 since the API released its weekly storage data to below $50.50/barrel in recent trade
May crude finished the day $-3.52 lower at $50.44/barrel
In other energy, May nat gas lost $0.06 to $2.62/MMBtu
Metals lost ground as well with gold, silver and copper all posting modest losses
June gold fell $7.30 in pit trading today to $1203.30/oz, while May silver declined $0.37 to $16.47/oz
May copper closed $0.03 lower to $2.73/lb.

1:08 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

NFLX (481.41 +5.90%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS, target raised to $565 from $370 at UBS; mentioned positively at MKM Partners; co scheduled to report Q1 results after the close on April 15
PBR (8.2 +5.81%): Bloomberg reporting that co may divest assets to fund expenditures and debt payments
HST (20.32 +1.96%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Evercore ISI

Large Cap Losers

SYMC (24.37 -4.73%): Reversal in cyber security companies following gains seen in anticipation of a 60 Minutes report on the industry
BHP (44.1 -3.75%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup; placed on CreditWatch with negative implications by S&P
GE (27.71 -2.82%): Mentioned cautiously in Barron's article; pullback following strong gains seen Friday on news that co plans to sell its GE Capital Real Estate assets for ~$26.5 bln

Mid Cap Gainers

CLVS (88.23 +13.99%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman
JBLU (20.09 +5.49%): Reproted March traffic increased 9.2% from the prior year; technical strength
CCJ (15.68 +3.09%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill

Mid Cap Losers

SINA (35.36 -5.73%): Weakness attributed to reports that China is considering a shutdown of co's news service if censorship does not improve
TCK (13.25 -3.64%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS; co reached an agreement with Gibson Energy for the construction of a 500,000 barrel dedicated storage tank at the Gibson terminal in Hardisty, Alberta
FET (21.49 -3.37%): Downgraded to Undperform from Hold at Jefferies

11:39 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (193) outpacing new lows (23) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: A, AAIT, AAXJ, AB, ABC, ACGL, ACHC, ACWI, ADS, ADXS, AEO, AEPI, AERI, AGO, AIG, ALV, AMCX, AMOT, ANAC, AOD, APB, APOG, ARAY, ASMB, ATRA, AWH, AXTA, AZO, BAMM, BCV, BHV, BLDR, BONA, BTX, BX, BXMT, CAF, CBAN, CBF, CBM, CBPO, CDW, CDXS, CEB, CERN, CGNX, CHXF, CI, CLVS, CNR, COL, CRI, CRRC, CSGP, CSU, CUDA, CW, CYN, CYT, DCO, DDS, DFP, DHIL, DL, DNKN, DPLO, DTSI, DXCM, DXJS, EEMA, EGRX, EIG, EIGI, ELLI, ENDP, EPAM, ETM, EURN, EVHC, EWBC, FCHI, FDP, FONE, GIII, GIMO, GMED, GNE, GPN, GRX, GSH, HCA, HIFR, HILL, HMHC, HMN, HOFT, HRC, HRS, HTLF, HW, ICLN, IMAX, INAP, INCY, INTL, IPCM, IPKW, IPWR, IR, ISCA, ISRG, IVC, JBLU, JD, JEQ, JFC, KRNT, KTWO, LBY, LCI, LMAT, LUX, MACK, MASI, MCO, MDGN, MFLX, MNTA, MRGE, MTD, MTG, MYCC, NAP, NAT, NHTC, NOAH, NOW, NRZ, NVRO, OMCL, ORBK, PARR, PETS, PFE, PFNX, PKI, PLAY, PLT, PNQI, PRFZ, PRTO, PSCH, PZE, QLIK, RDY, REPH, RGA, SABR, SGC, SHOO, SHW, SIGM, SNPS, SQNM, STCK, STK, STON, STRZA, STZ, SVU, TANH, TDY, TGT, THQ, THRM, TLMR, TRK, TXMD, TXT, TYL, UA, ULTI, UTHR, VICR, VIPS, VRX, VTWG, VTWO, VUSE, WD, WETF, WWAV, XLS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: APOL, ARTW, CIDM, CLTX, CRVP, EAC, EQS, ICLD, IRG, ISDR, IVAC, LC, MVG, NSPH, PRKR, RGSE, SCHN, STRI, SVLC, TICC, TKC, VRS, ZEUS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: CUT, FXI, GXC, HAO, IHI, ITA, IWM, PIN, TAN, TAO, UWM

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ

7:04 am Micrel announce postponement of 2015 annual meeting from June 19, 2015 to August 4, 2015 (MCRL) : The postponement will allow the Board and the Company's management to further evaluate the Company's strategic alternatives. On January 20, 2015, the Company announced that its Board of Directors decided to undertake a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives to enhance value for shareholders.

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From Briefing.com: Tuesday produced a mixed day of trading on Wall Street following some disappointing retail sales data and some mixed earnings news that included better than expected results from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 63.06, +0.99, +1.6%), Wells Fargo (WFC 54.19, -0.40, -0.7%), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 100.52, -0.03, -0.03%), as well as warnings of earnings and/or sales shortfalls from Norfolk Southern (NSC 100.53, -4.34, -4.1%), Ethan Allen (ETH 25.64, -0.85, -3.2%), and Zillow (Z 91.65, -1.29, -1.4%).

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.4%) was the worst-performing sector on Tuesday as it fell prone to selling interest in front of Intel's (INTC 31.49, -0.24, -0.8%) report after the close and perhaps some tax-related selling in front of the deadline for filing 2014 individual tax returns.

The semiconductor stocks were among the market's weakest performers, evidenced by the 1.0% decline in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Akamai Technologies (AKAM 71.15, -0.19, -0.3%): Announced the integration of Adobe Primetime ad insertion capabilities into its network

Altera (ALTR 42.55, -1.31, -3.0%): Canadian Capital Management and TIG Advisors pressing company to pursue a sale to Intel, according to media reports

Apple (AAPL 126.36, -0.49, -0.5%): The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple purchased Linx, a camera technology company

F5 Networks (FFIV 113.35, -0.29, -0.3%): Announced a new cloud-delivered managed service to defend against web application attacks called The Silverline Web Application Firewall

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 32.52, -0.18, -0.6%): Announced a contract with the Arkansas Department of Human Services worth $190 mln to implement its interChange Medicaid Management Information System. The seven-year contract includes one base year with six one-year options and extends HP's nearly 30-year relationship in supporting the state of Arkansas. HP will continue to manage the state's legacy system until the new MMIS goes live.

IBM (IBM 162.30, -0.08, -0.1%): Company and Apple expand partnership in field of medical research; IBM also announced partnership with Medtronic, saying it will work together to combine powerful analytics and cognitive computing with diabetes medical devices and health data to develop a new generation of personalized diabetes management solutions. Separately, it was reported that IBM is going to acquire Phytel, a provider of integrated population health management software, and Explorys, a healthcare intelligence cloud company.

Intel (INTC 31.47, -0.26, -0.8%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q1 earnings of $0.41 per share, in-line with estimates. Revenues rose 0.1% year/year to $12.78 bln, which was just shy of analysts' average expectation. Intel said the PC business was down, offset by growth in data center, Internet of Things (IoT) and non-volatile memory businesses. For Q2, sees revenues of $12.7-13.7 bln, the midpoint of which is below analysts' average expectation. Gross margin expected to be 62 percent, plus or minus a couple of percentage points. For FY15, sees revenues flat year-over-year, which is in-line with estimates. Gross margin expected to be 61 percent, plus or minus a couple of percentage points; cuts capital expenditures to $8.2-9.2 bln from $9.5-10.5 bln; R&D plus MG&A spending ~$19.7 billion, plus or minus $400 million.

Linear Technology (LLTC 45.41, -0.60, -1.3%): Company was scheduled to report its quarterly results after Tuesday's close, but had not done so as of this posting.

Microchip Technology (MCHP 48.77, -0.76, -1.5%): Announced that the BMW Group is continuing to broaden the proliferation of MOST technology in its vehicle infotainment networks, using Microchip's Intelligent Network Interface Controllers

Microsoft (MSFT 41.64, -0.12, -0.3%): Company confirmed that it has acquired Datazen Software, which offers mobile business intelligence and data virtualization on Windows, iOS and Android devices; terms were not disclosed

Oracle (ORCL 42.73, -0.35, -0.8%): Announced that The Ministry of Health Brazil deployed Oracle Healthcare Master Person Index running on Oracle engineered systems to advance nationwide e-health initiatives
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 4.93, +0.58, +13.3%): Company and Nokia (NOK 7.96, -0.34, -4.2%) confirm that they are in advanced discussions with respect to a potential full combination, which would take the form of a public exchange offer by Nokia for Alcatel-Lucent. It was noted that there can be no certainty at this stage that these discussions will result in any agreement or transaction.

Zillow (Z 91.70, -1.24, -1.2%): On conference call, said it sees FY15 revenues of $690 mln, which is below analysts' average expectation

Analyst Action:

Amazon.com (AMZN 385.21, +2.85, +0.8%): target raised to $465 from $400 at Jefferies; Buy

Apple (AAPL 126.36, -0.49, -0.5%): target raised to $145 from $135 at Argus; Buy

Brocade (BRCD 11.84, -0.36, -3.0%): initiated with a Neutral at Wedbush; target $14

Computer Sciences (CSC 64.59, -0.81, -1.2%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

Qualcomm (QCOM 68.97, +0.24, +0.4%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

Seagate Technology (STX 55.76, +0.35, +0.6%): upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch; target $60

Western Digital (WDC 96.20, +0.70, +0.7%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Microsoft)

5:04 pm Linear Tech beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs in-line (LLTC) : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.55 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.53; revenues rose 6.9% year/year to $372.02 mln vs the $371.91 mln consensus.

Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities increased by $62.4 million over the second quarter of fiscal year 2015 to $1,135 million.

Operating margin as a percent of sales was 46.7% up from 44.9% reported last quarter; the book to bill ratio was positive for the quarter and bookings increased sequentially in all of co's major end markets with its largest end markets, industrial and automotive, showing the most gains

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of +2-5% sequentially (~$379.5-390.6 mln) vs. $387.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "We expect growth to continue in the June quarter although moderately tempered by worldwide macroeconomic conditions."

4:31 pm Rambus announces that its Cryptography Research division has licensed security technologies to Thales e-Security; agreement financial terms not disclosed (RMBS) : In this agreement, Thales will integrate DPA Countermeasure technologies developed by Cryptography Research into its line of hardware security modules to protect against side-channel and related attacks

4:10 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks End Mixed as Q1 Earnings Trickle In (:WRAPX) : The major averages ended Tuesday on a mixed note after spending the day near their flat lines. The S&P 500 added 0.2% while the Nasdaq settled lower by 0.2%.

Equity indices slipped during the opening hour after the March Retail Sales report (+0.9%; Briefing.com consensus +1.0%) came in below expectations. In addition to pressuring equities, the report weighed on the greenback, knocking the Dollar Index (98.81, -0.68) to a session low. The index climbed off its worst level, but still ended the day lower by 0.7%.

As for equities, the S&P 500 found support just above its 50-day moving average (2,081) and made a swift return into the green. The index received significant support from the energy sector (+1.8%), which ended well ahead of other groups. Crude oil contributed to the considerable strength, climbing 2.7% to $53.31/bbl.

Similar to energy, six other sectors finished in the green, but only two groups added more than 0.4%. Furthermore, the two outperformers-materials (+0.4%) and utilities (+0.6%)-account for less than 7.0% of the market.

Meanwhile, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.3%) spent the day in negative territory, largely due to weakness among chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 1.0% ahead of earnings results from Intel (INTC 31.49, -0.24) and Linear Technology (LLTC 45.42, -0.59).

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the financial sector (unch) spent the day near the broader market after two major components reported earnings. JPMorgan Chase (JPM 63.04, +0.97) spiked 1.6% after beating bottom-line estimates on light revenue while Wells Fargo (WFC 54.19, -0.40) lost 0.7% despite its better than expected earnings.

Similar to financials, the health care sector (+0.2%) settled near the broader market after Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 100.52, -0.03) reported a two-cent beat, but lowered its guidance, citing currency headwinds.

Also of note, industrials (-0.1%) ended little changed even though transport stocks displayed intraday weakness after Norfolk Southern (NSC 100.53, -4.34) lowered its guidance. The stock fell 4.1% while the Dow Jones Transportation Average narrowed its decline to 0.1% by the close.

Switching gears, Treasuries spiked following today's Retail Sales report, but surrendered the bulk of their gains during the session. The 10-yr note ended modestly higher with its yield down three basis points at 1.90%.

Today's trading volume was comparable to that observed in recent days with more than 675 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included retail sales, PPI, and business inventories:
Retail sales increased 0.9% in March after declining an upwardly revised 0.5% (from -0.6%) in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0% A significant portion of the increase resulted from a rebound in motor vehicle demand as sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers increased 2.7% in March after declining 2.1% in February

Excluding motor vehicle sales, retail sales increased 0.4% in March after an upward revision left sales flat (from -0.1%) in February while the consensus expected an increase of 0.7% Producer prices increased 0.2% in March after declining 0.5% in February, representing the first increase since October 2014 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2% Energy prices increased 1.5% in March after being flat in February. That was the first increase in energy prices since June 2014. Gasoline prices increased 7.2% in March and were the main contributor to the overall increase in energy costs. Food prices declined 0.8% in March after declining 1.6% in February. These prices haven't increased on a month-over-month basis since November 2014. Excluding food and energy, core PPI increased 0.2% in March after declining 0.5% in February while the consensus expected an increase of 0.1% Business inventories increased 0.3% in February after being flat in January, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected
Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the Empire Manufacturing report for April will cross the wires at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 7.3). The Industrial Production report for March will be released at 9:15 (consensus -0.3%) while the NAHB Housing Market Index for April will be reported at 10:00 ET (consensus 55). Also of note, the Federal Reserve will release its April Beige Book at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +5.1% YTD Russell 2000 +5.0% YTD S&P 500 +1.8% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD
4:10 pm Intel reports EPS in-line, revs in-line with lowered expectations; guides Q2 and FY15 revs in-line (INTC) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.41 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.41; revenues rose 0.1% year/year to $12.78 bln vs the $12.83 bln consensus. PC business down, offset by growth in data center, Internet of Things (IoT) and non-volatile memory businesses

On March 12, co lowered rev guidance to $12.5-13.1 bln from $13.2-14.2 bln citing weaker than expected demand for business desktop PCs and lower than expected inventory levels across the PC supply chain.

Gross margin 60.5% vs. '60% plus or minus a couple percent' guidanceCo issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $12.7-13.7 bln vs. $13.45 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Gross margin percentage: 62 percent, plus or minus a couple of percentage points.Co issues in-line guidance for FY15, sees FY15 revs of flat YoY, in-line with Capital IQ Consensus.

Gross margin percentage: 61%, plus or minus a couple of percentage points; cap-ex to $8.2-9.2 bln from $9.5-10.5 bln; R&D plus MG&A spending: ~$19.7 bln, plus or minus $400 million.
Co withdrew mid single digit rev growth and 62$ midpoint margin guidance when it warned last month.
1:39 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ALU (4.89 +12.42%): Confirmed it is advanced discussions with Nokia (NOK) with respect to a potential full combination, which would take the form of a public exchange offer by Nokia for Alcatel-Lucent
MT (9.94 +5.85%): Initiated with a Buy at Clarkson Capital; also seeing reports that co's steel will be used constructing a retail and leisure complex at Singapore's Changi airport
JBHT (91.06 +3.80%): Beat quarterly EPS by $0.06 ($0.78 vs $0.72 estimate), revs rose 2.4% yoy to $1.44 bln vs $1.54 bln estimate

Large Cap Losers

NSC (99.32 -5.29%): Sees Q1 EPS of ~$1.00 vs $1.29 estimate, revs of ~$2.6 bln vs $2.68 bln estimate; downgraded to Hold from Buy at TD Securities, target lowered to $110 from $120; target lowered to $109 from $115 at Deutsche Bank; target lowered to $113 from $116 at Cowen
NOK (7.91 -4.70%): Lower on confirmation that co is in discussions to acquire Alcatel-Lucent
WYNN (127.61 -4.48%): Weakness in large cap resorts and casino stocks: LVS, MPEL also lower

Mid Cap Gainers

WUBA (64.92 +27.72%): Seeing reports that co may merge with Ganji.com
AVP (9.07 +13.23%): Wall Street Journal reporting co exploring strategic alternatives
PRE (129.94 +9.06%): Confirmed that EXOR has submitted a proposal to acquire the company for $130 per share in cash

Mid Cap Losers

SANM (23.38 -5.65%): Downgraded to Underperform at Longbow
HZNP (27.71 -2.74%): Announced offering to sell 12 mln odrinary shares in an underwritten public offering
NBG (1.22 -2.40%): Seeing reports that Greece is preparing for default

11:55 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (117) outpacing new lows (33) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AB, ACGL, ADXS, AERI, AFAM, AGRX, AHL, AKER, ALU, ALV, AMSG, ANAC, APB, AWH, AXS, BAM, BCV, BLDR, BLMT, BLUE, BSFT, BTX, CAJ, CCCL, CDXS, CNXR, COWN, CSF, CYN, DCM, DENN, DHIL, DL, DOVR, DSGX, DTSI, DVCR, EIG, EIGI, ELLI, ELOS, ERI, ESLT, ETE, ETM, EURN, FNRG, GFF, GIB, GIMO, GS, GTWN, HCC, HMHC, HMN, HOFT, HTLF, ICLN, INFA, IPCM, IPKW, JBHT, JEQ, JPM, KBSF, LBY, LGND, LUX, LVNTA, MASI, MKL, MKTX, MNTA, MTG, NAP, NAT, NHTC, NORD, NPBC, NPD, NRZ, NVEE, NYCB, OZRK, PBIP, PLAY, PLT, PRE, PRTO, PZE, REPH, RGS, RIGL, RNG, RTIX, SABR, SFS, SHAK, SIMO, SMED, SNE, SRDX, STDY, STON, STRZA, SUPN, TAYD, TERP, TLMR, TRK, TXMD, VLTC, VR, WSH, WUBA, XRM, YORW

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: APOL, BIOD, CBYL, CDNA, CIDM, CNNX, ELTK, ESIO, FUEL, ICLD, IKAN, IRG, ISDR, IVAC, KIQ, MTBC, MXPT, OPXA, PBMD, PFIE, PNX, SCON, SIF, SIFY, SONS, SPDC, STRM, TGD, TKC, URRE, WRN, XPL, Z

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: CUT, MBB, TAN

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

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From Briefing.com: The major indices vacillated between positive and negative territory on Thursday before finishing the session with small losses.

Concerns about Greece's ability to repay its debts, weaker-than-expected Housing Starts data for March, and technical resistance at the upper end of trading ranges helped keep the indices in check.

The S&P 500 information technology sector declined 0.3% and underperformed the broader market with weakness in Apple (AAPL 126.17, -0.61, -0.5%) and the semiconductor group weighing. SanDisk (SNDK 67.91, -3.21, -4.5%) paced the latter following its disappointing earnings report and outlook.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Alliance Data (ADS 299.93, -2.27, -0.8%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $3.65 per share, comfortably ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 29.8% year/year to $1.6 bl, also ahead of estimates. For FY15, sees EPS of $14.90 (prior $14.80) and revenues of $6.5 bln. The company also announced its board of directors has approved an increase in authorization to acquire up to $1 bln of its common stock during 2015

Apple (AAPL 126.17, -0.61, -0.5%): Apple Watches will not be available for in store purchase in May, according to The Telegraph (Briefing Note: We verified this by contacting our local Chicago Apple store).

CA, Inc. (CA 31.85, +0.05, +0.1%): Company and Grupo Financiero Banorte, S.A.B. de C.V. announced that Banco Mercantil del Norte, S.A. is implementing CA Risk Analytics to better distinguish fraudulent transactions from legitimate transactions and deliver a more secure and seamless credit card user experience.

Citrix Systems (CTXS 65.38, -0.12, -0.2%): Announced partnerships with three bar associations, becoming a preferred technology vendor for online file sharing and storage.

Fidelity National Information Services (FIS 64.08, -0.23, -0.4%): CO-OP Financial Services has signed an agreement to purchase from a subsidiary of FIS its shares in Everlink Payment Services, Inc; terms not disclosed

MasterCard (MA 88.72, -0.53, -0.6%): Company announced it has reached a settlement with Target Corporation to resolve claims by MasterCard and its issuers related to the retailer's 2013 data breach. Under the agreement, Target will make available up to $19 million in alternative recovery offers to eligible banks and credit unions across the globe. These funds will settle their claims for operational costs and fraud-related losses on MasterCard-branded cards believed by MasterCard to have been affected by the data breach. Upon accepting the offer, each issuer will release MasterCard, Target and its acquiring banks from all claims related to the data breach. The settlement is contingent on, among other things, issuers representing at least 90 percent of the eligible MasterCard accounts accepting their alternative recovery offers, either directly or through their sponsoring issuers, by May 20, 2015. If the settlement is carried out, accepting issuers will be paid by the end of the second quarter of 2015.

Microsoft (MSFT 42.16, -0.10, -0.2%): Company and Yahoo! (YHOO 45.78, -0.03, -0.1%) announced that they have amended their search partnership to improve the search experience, create value for advertisers and establish ongoing stability for partners. The update reaffirms commitments made by both companies in the original 2009 agreement, while implementing changes to keep the partnership strong and productive. The update includes improvements in two core areas. First, Yahoo will now have increased flexibility to enhance the search experience on any platform, since the partnership is non-exclusive for both desktop and mobile. Yahoo will continue to serve Bing ads and search results for a majority of its desktop search traffic. Second, the update increases agility and sales focus. Microsoft will become the exclusive salesforce for ads delivered by Microsoft's Bing Ads platform, while Yahoo will continue to be the exclusive salesforce for Yahoo's Gemini ads platform. Integrating the sales teams with those responsible for engineering will allow both companies to service advertisers more effectively.

Salesforce.com (CRM 67.91, +0.70, +1.0%) Announced Heroku Elements, a marketplace of innovative, pre-integrated app components, services, and tools that empower developers to build engaging customer-facing applications.

Xilinx (XLNX 44.33, +0.43, +1.0%): Stock jumped reportedly on rumors that Intel (INTC 32.87, +0.04, +0.1%) may be interested in acquiring the company.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 2.87, +0.17, +6.3%): After Thursday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.09 per share, which was shy of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 26.3% year/year to $1.03 bln, also below estimates. For Q2 2015, AMD expects revenue to decrease 3 percent, plus or minus 3 percent, sequentially.

Baidu.com (BIDU 206.90, -3.87, -1.8%): Launched website for its self-developed operating system for smart watches, according to reports

Fairchild Semi (FCS 20.06, +1.08, +5.1%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with estimate. Revenues rose 3.4% year/year to $355.7 mln, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. For Q2, sees revenues of $360-380 mln. Company said order rates remain strong and that the company has a higher backlog level than a quarter ago, which supports its guidance for Q2. Company's manufacturing consolidation is on schedule to be completed early this summer and it expects it will drive significant improvement in its profitability going forward.

QLogic (QLGC 14.87, +0.12, +0.8%): Announced it has teamed with Lenovo to enhance Lenovo's inaugural Enterprise Briefing Center in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The two companies are collaborating on other centers, which will be announced later this year.

Taiwan Semi (TSM 23.24, -0.27, -1.2%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of NT$3.05 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 49.8% year/year to NT$222.03 bln. For Q2, sees revenues of NT$204-207 bln, which is below expectations. Management said it expects revenue in second half of the year will recover and that the full year will be double-digit growth over 2014.

Analyst Action:

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.96, -0.06, -1.5%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup... downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse... downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Natixis Bleichroeder... removed from Conviction Buy list at Goldman Sachs

Alibaba (BABA 84.06, -0.61, -0.7%): target lowered to $97 from $110 at Brean Capital; Buy
Apple (AAPL 126.17, -0.61, -0.5%): initiated with a Hold at Maxim Group; target $144
ASML (ASML 95.12, -1.02, -1.1%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup
Intel (INTC 32.87, +0.04, +0.1%): upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Bernstein
Netflix (NFLX 562.05, +86.59, +18.2%): target raised to $650 from $550 at Pivotal Research Group

Nokia (NOK 7.77, -0.07, -0.9%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup... downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse... upgraded to Neutral from Reduce at Natixis Bleichroeder... downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets; target lowered to $9 from $11... upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
SanDisk (SNDK 67.97, -3.15, -4.4%): target lowered to $70 from $80 at Cowen... target lowered to $75 from $78 at RBC Capital Markets; Outperform.. downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse... downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank... downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James... target lowered to $75 from $84 at Stifel; Buy... downgraded to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna
Seagate Tech (STX 55.96, -0.71, -1.3%): assumed with a Neutral at JP Morgan; target $57
VMware (VMW 84.64, -0.42, -0.5%): target raised to $112 from $102 at Monness Crespi & Hardt; Buy
Western Digital (WDC 97.83, -1.21, -1.2%): assumed with an Overweight at JP Morgan; target $105(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Microsoft and Yahoo!)

4:15 pm : The major averages ended Thursday on a modestly lower note, but they were able to climb off their opening lows. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% after spending the day in a 12-point range.

Equity indices struggled in the early going after an overnight report from the Financial Times indicated that Greek officials have asked the International Monetary Fund to reschedule debt repayments that will be due in May. The report was denied by Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, but European investors displayed caution, which contributed to the lower start in the U.S.

However, a batch of better than expected earnings offset the Greece-related news. The S&P 500 ranged near its low during the opening hour and climbed into the afternoon. The index spent about an hour in the green, but slipped back into the red before the close.

Only three sectors registered gains, but most of the decliners finished not far below their flat lines. The utilities (-0.6%) sector was the weakest performer, but that had little impact on the market since the sector makes up just 3.0% of the S&P 500.

Elsewhere among countercyclical groups, the consumer staples sector (+0.4%) spent the day atop the leaderboard thanks to better than expected earnings and upbeat guidance from Philip Morris (PM 84.96, +6.83).

Moving to the cyclical side, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.2%) outperformed with help from the shares of Netflix (NFLX 562.05, +86.59), which surged 18.2% to a new record high after the company beat bottom line estimates. The big spike in Netflix overshadowed losses among homebuilders brought on by a disappointing Housing Starts report. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.91, -0.53) lost 1.9%.

Similar to the discretionary sector, financials (+0.1%) held a slim gain throughout the day after two major components reported earnings. Citigroup (C 54.02, +0.81) gained 1.5% in reaction to its bottom-line beat while Dow component Goldman Sachs (GS 200.21, -0.89) shed 0.4% despite beating estimates and boosting its quarterly dividend to $0.65/share.

On the downside, the technology sector (-0.3%) could not make it out of the red as chipmakers weighed after SanDisk (SNDK 67.97, -3.15) missed earnings expectations and guided below consensus while Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM 23.24, -0.27) beat on the bottom line beat, but issued cautious revenue guidance for Q2. The two lost 4.4% and 1.2%, respectively while the PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 0.5%.

Treasuries spent some time on either side of their flat lines before ending just above the unchanged level. The 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 1.89%.

Today's participation was in-line with recent averages as roughly 740 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Housing Starts, and Philadelphia Fed Survey:


The initial claims level increased to 294,000 for the week ending April 11 from an upwardly revised 282,000 (from 281,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 280,000
Despite the increase, the four-week moving average was virtually unchanged at 283,000, a level last seen in 2000
Continuing claims fell to 2.268 million from an upwardly revised 2.308 million (from 2.304 million) while the consensus expected an increase to 2.325 million
Housing starts increased 2.0% in March to 926,000 from an upwardly revised 908,000 (from 897,000) in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 1.045 million
In February, housing starts dropped 15.3%, which was blamed on adverse weather, meaning starts should have rebounded in the hardest hit areas of the country
The Northeast did return to January levels, as expected, but the rebound in the Midwest was poor and remained well below previous trends
Furthermore, starts in the unaffected West (-19.3%) and South (-3.5%) fell to levels not seen since the first half of 2014, suggesting economic reasons and not weather bear responsibility for the lackluster start to the year
The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Survey increased to 7.5 in April from 5.0 in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 7.2

Tomorrow, March CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) will be reported at 8:30 ET while March Leading Indicators (expected 0.3%) and the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for April (expected 94.0) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +5.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.7% YTD
S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD

DJ30 -6.84 NASDAQ -3.23 SP500 -1.64 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1305/1.56 bln/1525 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1345/738.4 mln/1707 3:40 pm :

WTI oil rallied off its morning low to well over $57/barrel in trade today
May crude ultimately closed $0.46 to $56.71/barrel
May nat gas futures held gains following post-data rally. May NG closed near its HoD, ending $0.07 at $2.68/MMBtu
Copper also held earlier gains, closing near today's high. May copper ended pit trading $0.05 higher at $2.77/lb.
June gold finished $3.10 lower at $1198.20/oz, while May silver ended flat at $16.30/oz

4:42 pm Advanced Energy announces Thomas Liguori, currently CFO and executive vice president at Multi-Fineline Electronix, will join the co as CFO and executive vice president on May 18, 2015 (AEIS) :

4:21 pm Advanced Micro misses by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus (AMD) : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.09 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.06); revenues fell 26.3% year/year to $1.03 bln vs the $1.05 bln consensus.


Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of 0-6% decline to ~$968.2 mln - 1.030 bln vs. $1.14 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. AMD says 'For Q2 2015, AMD expects revenue to decrease 3 percent, plus or minus 3 percent, sequentially.'Non-GAAP gross margin of 32 percent, decreased 2 percentage points sequentially due to product mix and lower game console royalties in the first quarter.

12:58 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

NFLX (549.6 +15.59%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.77 per share, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.63; revenues rose 23.9% year/year to $1.57 bln vs the $1.57 bln consensus; Price target raised at Topeka, RBC Capital Mkts, Needham, numerous others.
PM (84.58 +8.26%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.15, beat on revs; raised FY15 EPS guidance.
UNH (121.32 +3.41%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.11, beat on revs; raised FY15 EPS and revenue guidance.

Large Cap Losers

SNDK (67.79 -4.68%): Missed Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.08, beat lowered rev expectations, guided Q2 and FY15 below consensus; Downgraded at Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Raymond James, others.
BLK (369.18 -1.99%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $4.89 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.38 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $4.51; revenues rose 2.0% year/year to $2.72 bln vs the $2.79 bln consensus, AUM of $4.774 trln +8% YoY.
SHW (283.2 -1.92%): Missed Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.06, missed on revs; guided Q2 EPS above consensus, revs in-line; reaffirmed FY15 guidance.

Mid Cap Gainers

PNRA (183.95 +12.22%): Increased share repurchase authorization to $750 mln; authorizes $500 mln of new debt to repurchase shares; signs letter of intent to sell and refranchise 73 company-owned cafes; price target raised at Miller Tabak and UBS.
RCPT (166.38 +5.09%): Reported positive results for maintenance period of Phase 2 TOUCHSTONE trial of Ozanimod in Ulcerative Colitis GLB; Study met all efficacy endpoints with statistical significance for patients on 1 mg dose after 32 weeks of treatment.
TSRO (62.15 +5.55%): Price target raised to $70 from $49 at Jefferies; firm maintained their buy rating.

Mid Cap Losers

PCRX (80.6 -12.76%): Announced receipt of a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice.
MTDR (27.8 -5.28%): Announced and priced a 7mln share public offering of common stock for expected gross proceeds of $189 mln.
ESV (25.55 -3.89%): Heard downgraded at Global Hunter.

12:04 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (126) outpacing new lows (22) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADRA, ADS, ADUS, AGO, AGRX, AIG, ALNY, ALV, AMCN, AMOT, ANAC, AOD, APB, ATRA, BBP, BLMT, BONA, BX, CAK, CBPO, CHMT, CI, CIZ, CKSW, CLVS, CNXR, COTY, CSH, CUBI, CYN, DDC, DEPO, DSGX, DXR, ECF, EGI, EIGI, ELNK, ENDP, ENTL, ERI, ESLT, EURN, EVHC, FAC, FCS, FOMX, FONE, GIB, GS, GSH, HAS, HDS, HEI.A, HILL, HMST, HZNP, ICLN, INGN, IPKW, IRDM, JRVR, JTPY, KFX, KMI, KRNT, LGND, LMAT, LOGM, MHLD, MNOV, MNTA, MRGE, MTU, NECB, NFLX, NGHC, NHF, NLS, NORD, NTT, OLED, ORBK, OSIS, PETS, PLAY, PNQI, PNRA, PULB, PVTB, QLIK, QQQC, QTM, RARE, RNG, SAGE, SASR, SCAI, SHAK, SHEN, SIMO, SKYY, SOHU, STON, SUBK, SUM, SUPN, TANH, TASR, THOR, TLMR, TRK, TRQ, TSRO, TTHI, TXMD, UFPI, ULTI, UN, UWN, VLRS, VRNT, WBC, WD, WTFC, XRM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ANY, CKX, FNRG, FTEK, GDDY, ISDR, KIQ, NLY, PAL, PBMD, PFIN, RCAP, RESN, RLJE, SPDC, STRM, SYPR, UCTT, VRS, VSCP, WPG, YUMA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: CUT, PSK, SKYY, TAN

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


8:41 am SunPower announces joint venture with Apple (AAPL) to provide solar power in China (SPWR) : SunPower Corporation today announced that it plans to partner with Apple to build two solar power projects totaling 40 megawatts in ABA Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefectures, Sichuan Province of the Peoples Republic of China. When complete, the two projects will be co-owned by Sichuan Shengtian New Energy Development Co., Ltd., SunPower's project development joint venture, and Apple.

7:35 am Fairchild Semi reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (FCS) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 3.4% year/year to $355.7 mln vs the $349.99 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $360-380 mln vs. $367.63 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."We grew sales in Q1 at the high end of our expectations while maintaining flat distribution channel inventory," said Mark Thompson, Fairchild's chairman, president and CEO."Sales into the automotive, industrial and appliance markets were robust. We also posted solid growth in our computing business as we continue to gain market share with power management solutions supporting server, storage and cloud applications. Demand from the mobile sector improved throughout the quarter as key customers began building their new smart phone models. Fairchild is also benefiting from higher content in these flagship models."Order rates remain strong and the co has a higher backlog level than a quarter ago, which supports its guidance for Q2.Co's manufacturing consolidation is on schedule to be completed early this summer and it expects it will drive significant improvement in its profitability going forward.
6:30 am Rudolph Tech has received multiple orders from a leading radio frequency filter manufacturer that includes five inspection and metrology tools in addition to process control software products (RTEC) :

5:09 am Taiwan Semi beats by NT$0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs below consensus (TSM) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of NT$3.05 per share, NT$0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of NT$3.01; revenues rose 49.8% year/year to NT$222.03 bln vs the NT$222.43 bln consensus.

Gross margin for the quarter was 49.3%, operating margin was 39.0%, and net profit margin was 35.6%.Shipments of 20-nanometer process technology accounted for 16% of total wafer revenues.28-nanometer accounted for 30% of total wafer revenues. Advanced technologies, defined as
28-nanometer and 20-nanometer technologies, accounted for 46% of total wafer revenues.

Guidance:

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of NT$204-207 bln vs. NT$220.85 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Q2 Gross profit margin is expected to be between 47.5% and 49.5%Q2 Operating profit margin is expected to be between 36.5% and 38.5%.Commentary and Capex


The management further expects revenue from second half of the year will recover and the full year will be double-digit growth over 2014.

Capex - The management also states 2015 capital budget to be between $10.5-11.0 bln.
4:17 am ARM Holdings announces acquisition of Wicentric and Sunrise Micro Devices (ARMH) : ARM announced the acquisition of Wicentric, a Bluetooth Smart stack and profile provider, and Sunrise Micro Devices, a provider of sub-one volt Bluetooth radio intellectual property. Terms of the agreements have not been disclosed. The IP of both companies will be integrated to form the ARM Cordio portfolio. This portfolio will complement ARM's existing processor and physical IP targeting end markets requiring low-power wireless communications such as the Internet of Things.

Wicentric is a privately held provider of Bluetooth Smart software solutions focused on enabling the development of low-power wireless products. Their product line includes Bluetooth protocol stack and profiles for creating interoperable smart products and the link layer for silicon integration.
SMD is a privately held provider of radio IP solutions including a pre-qualified, self-contained radio block and related firmware to simplify radio deployment. Central to all SMD radios is native sub-one volt operation. Operating below one volt enables the radio to run much longer on batteries or harvested energy.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: US equities tumbled on Friday, closing just above the 2015 break-even mark. Today's sell-off was in the wake of a plunge in Asian markets and rejuvenated Greece-related concerns in the EU.

In other news, the Bloomberg terminal experienced a widespread outage this morning, which could have caused some concerns as participants were unable to monitor markets with the proper efficiency. That said, it's little surprise then that S&P futures hit a pre-market low right around the time Bloomberg service was restored.

The S&P 500 information technology sector declined 1.4%, slightly lagging the broader market as the S&P 500 fell just 1.13% in comparison. Salesforce.com (CRM 65.81, -2.10, -3.1%), Yahoo (YHOO 44.45, -1.33, -2.9%), and Cognizant Tech (CTSH 60.70, -1.75, -2.8%) lead the sector lower, while Seagate Tech (STX 57.43, +1.47, +2.6%), EMC Corp (EMC 26.61, +0.56, +2.2%), and Western Digital (WDC 99.44, +1.1, +1.7%) bucked the overall market trend.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Seagate Tech (STX 57.43, +1.47, +2.6%): Reported Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.08 per share, $0.04 better than consensus of $1.04. Revenues fell 2.2% year/year to $3.33 bln vs the $3.42 bln consensus while gross margin was 28.9%.

Apple (AAPL 124.75, -1.42, -1.1%): The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple Pay may be introduced in Canada by November of this year.

Symantec (SYMC 24.24, -0.6, -0.2%): Reaffirmed FY15 adj. EPS $1.87-1.90 rev to $6.515-6.575 bln. Forecasted FY16 rev +0-2%, EPS +8-14%. The company is targeting 2-6% FY17 rev growth with Symantec Security +1-4% op margin 30-33%, Veritas rev +5-8%, op margin 29-30%. Additionally, the company announced it is on track for an early January target date to separate its Veritas business segment.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

UniPixel (UNXL 7.11, -0.53, -6.9%): has acquired, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Uni-Pixel Displays, Inc., the assets of Atmel Corporation's (ATML 8.20, -0.10, -1.2%) XSense touch sensors group, and has concurrently entered into patent and intellectual property licenses with Atmel, exclusive for a period of two years, for the use of XSense-related technologies.

58.com (WUBA 70.50, +2.93, +4.3%) announced that it has acquired a strategic stake in Falcon View Technology, the holding company of the PRC entities operating Ganji.com, a major online local services marketplace platform in China. Concurrently, 58.com also announced an ~$400 million additional investment by Tencent Holdings (TCEHY 19.85, -0.80, -3.9%).

GigaMedia (GIGM 0.90, +0.01, +1.1%): announces that it completed a disposal of securities investment during the period between April 13, 2015 and April 15, 2015 on Taiwan open market through block sales
Analyst Action:

Fleetmatics (FLTX 45.51, +0.07, +0.2%): upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray; price target raise to $57 from $41

EMC Corp (EMC 26.61, +0.56, +2.2%): upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Bernstein

FEI (FEIC 73.61, -3.52, -4.6%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill

New Relic (NEWR 32.01, -0.58, -1.8%): initiated with a Neutral at DA Davidson; price target $36

Hortonworks (HDP 21.10, -1.52, -6.7%): initiated with a Neutral at DA Davidson; price target $25

Tableau Software (DATA 95.07, -6.09, -6%): initiated with a Buy at DA Davidson; price target $127

CyberArk Software (CYBR 60.70, -0.42, -0.7%): initiated with a Market Outperform at JMP Securities; price target $72

GrubHub (GRUB 45.21, -0.12, -0.3%): initiated with a Buy at Sterne Agee; price target $56

Apple (AAPL 124.75, -1.42, -1.1%): initiated with an Outperform at FBR Capital; price target $185

Teradata (TDC 43.10, -0.64, -1.5%): initiated with a Neutral at DA Davidson

Seagate Tech (STX 57.43, +1.47, +2.6%): price target raised to $70 from $68 at Maxim Group; Buy

TCP International (TCPI 4.03, +0.58, +16.8%): price target lowered to $8 from $13 at Deutsche Bank

iGATE (IGTE 44.45, +2.11, +5%): price target raised to $55 from $47 at Maxim Group

ServiceNow (NOW 73.29, -9.55, -11.5%): target raised to $90 from $85 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy... target raised to $86 from $77 at Northland Capital; Outperform... price target lowered to $90 from $97 at Brean Capital; Buy

Sandisk (SNDK 67.01, -0.91, -1.3%): target lowered to $80 from $86 at Argus; Buy

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:GWPH (114 +24.84%),SNTA (2.93 +22.59%),ZIOP (11.92 +17.62%),SAGE (59.92 +16.55%)

Materials:RBY (1.13 +21.64%),KOP (22.97 +16.84%),AUQ (3.49 +16.72%)

Industrials:BLDR (12.99 +88.26%)

Consumer Discretionary:NFLX (571.55 +25.73%),JMEI (22.01 +25.13%),SHAK (61.67 +23.86%),SWHC (15.21 +18.09%)

Information Technology:WUBA (70.5 +30.24%)

Energy:CRR (38.98 +22.04%),PWE (2.44 +22%),NADL (1.62 +20.9%),CLNE (7.05 +18.09%),BXE (3.14 +18.05%),GTE (3.52 +17.33%),EVEP (16.42 +15.72%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:PFNX (15.12 -20.34%),PTX (8.35 -17.24%),HTWR (80.41 -14.88%),NVDQ (13.75 -11.69%),OTIC (31.86 -10.91%),HRTX (13.3 -10.56%),ARWR (7.08 -10.49%),AMRN (2.33 -10.04%)

Materials:TC (1.29 -10.42%)

Industrials:ZNH (46.53 -11.51%)

Consumer Discretionary:CORE (55.62 -13.89%),MPEL (22.03 -10.63%),PBY (8.6 -10.51%)

Information Technology:SMI (5.2 -13.76%),COUP (12.41 -11.36%),NOW (73.29 -10.99%)

Financials:OCN (7.7 -19.37%),ASPS (17.39 -15.29%)

Energy:YZC (10.3 -11.66%)

Consumer Staples:FWM (6.02 -12.88%)

3:31 pm Earnings Preview for the week of April 20 - 24 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of April 20 - 24 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - MS, HAL, STIl RCL, MTB, LII, HAS, CHKP

After Hours - IBM, RCI, CNI, STLD, SANM, PKG, LRCX, ZION, IEX, WWD, HXL, BRO, FTNT, MBFI, HLX

Tuesday:
Pre Market - VZ, UTX, LMT, WIT, DD, CS, TRV, BHI, KMB, MAN, SAP, GPC, OMC, ITW, SAH, DOV, CP, HOG, GCI, ABG, PNR, FITB, CLS, RF, NTRS, ATI, NVR, AMTD, UA

After Hours - AMGN, ACE, YUM, SYK, DFS, BRCM, FTI, VMW, NBR, URI, CMG, YHOO, ISRG, ILMN, CREE, IBKR, DLB, IRBT

Wednesday:
Pre Market - BA, KO, MCD, EMC, ABT, AN, TMO, BK, TEL, DHI, ALV, LAD, R, NLSN, STJ, APH, OC, CFG, TROW, NS, WAB, HBAN, TDY, TUP, ANGI, SIX

After Hours - T, QCOM, EBAY, FB, TXN, AMP, WFT, ORLY, USTR, TSCO, RJF, TMK, CCI, OII, AWH, CTXS, VMI, SKX, AHL, PLXS, CAKE, FFIV
Thursday:Pre Market - ERIC, GM, PG, NVS, DOW, CAT, PEP, JCI, UAL, MMM, AVT, UNP, RTN, ABBV, DHR, AEP, NUE, LLY, LUV, MO, FCX, BAX, IR, SWK, RS, BBT, CMS, CAM, HSY, WCC, DGX, JAH, DAN, BTU, DPS, ORI, ALK, PHM, MJN, FAF, BMS, HP, NDAQ, DPZ, DNKN

After Hours - AMZN, MSFT, GOOG, COF, SBUX, CBI, CB, PFG, RGA, RSG, NEM, TRN, HBI, RHI, FSL, JNPR, SWN, HUBG, BCR, LSTR, UIS, SFG, DV, ETFC, P, N

Friday:
Pre Market - INFY, AAL, LYB, AZN, XRX, LEA, DTE, STT, BIIB, TYC, IPG, SPG, AJG, VTR, AAN, BGG
Large Cap Gainers

STX (58.29 +4.16%): Beat Q3 consensus EPS estimates by $0.04, missed on revs, guided for Q4 rev of $3.2-3.3 bln vs. $3.43 bln with margin of ~28.5%; Price tgt raised to $70 at Maxim Group.
BMY (65.55 +2.94%): Announced that its CheckMate -057, a Pivotal Phase III Opdivo lung cancer trial was stopped early after Opdivo demonstrated superior overall survival compared to Docetaxel in patients with previously-treated non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer.

Large Cap Losers

NOW (70.78 -14.56%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 revs below consensus; raised low end of FY15 rev, in-line; Price tgt lowered at Brean Capital.
AXP (77.57 -4.13%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.12, missed on revs; Price tgt lowered at RBC Capital Mkts.

Mid Cap Gainers

CE (67.09 +15.39%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.41, missed on revs; raised FY15 EPS above consensus.
SUM (23.62 +6.93%): Announced a definitive agreement to acquire cement assets from Lafarge (LFRGY); initiated with a Positive at Susquehanna, tgt $28.
IGTE (44.63 +5.41%): Outperforming following reports the company may be an acquisition target.
Mid Cap Losers

AMD (2.49 -13.41%): Missed Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.03, missed on revs; guided Q2 revs below consensus; Downgraded at Ascendiant Capital Markets.
W (32.06 -7.15%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.
MTW (20.35 -6.48%): Guided Q1 below consensus; lowered Foodservice rev guidance; reaffirmed Crane guidance.

12:03 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (47) outpacing new highs (41) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADPT, ANAC, ARIA, ATRA, BCV, BLMT, CCK, CE, CHKE, COWN, CRC, CYT, DCM, DSGX, ESLT, EVM, FRP, GSH, HZNP, ICEL, IFV, ISL, JTPY, MFLX, MHLD, MIFI, MTU, NECB, NFLX, NWBO, PMD, QTM, RIGL, SAGE, SPPR, SUM, TASR, TREE, TROV, UWN, WUBA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACTG, AHC, AKBA, ATHX, AXP, CANF, CHCI, CHEK, CPAC, CRDC, CVSL, ERJ, FNRG, FORD, FREE, FTEK, GDDY, GLRI, HTR, ICLD, IDSA, IGT, INOV, IPDN, IRG, LPTN, LXP, MERU, MNI, MPV, NATH, OCRX, ORN, PERF, PESI, PFL, PFMT, PTNT, RESN, RLJE, ROVI, STRM, UCTT, VRS, WOWO, WPG, ZEUS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market seemed to have all it wanted Monday with the news that the People's Bank of China announced a 100 basis point reduction in the reserve requirement ratio for all Chinese banks. That move was larger than expected (in fact, it was the biggest cut since November 2008) and ignited another policy-driven party on Wall Street.

The major indices took off out of the gate and barely looked back. In the process, they recouped a significant portion of the losses they suffered on Friday.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.8%) led Monday's broad-based advance that saw all ten sectors record gains for the session.

A healthy showing from Apple (APPL 127.60, +2.85, +2.3%) and a big jump in IBM (IBM 166.16, +5.49, +3.4%) ahead of its earnings report proved to be a catalyst for the sector's outperformance, which was highlighted by gains in 60 of the 66 sector members.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:


Autodesk (ADSK 61.04, +0.69, +1.1%): Company and Mattel announced they have signed an exclusive agreement to power the Mattel toy line with cutting-edge 3D design and 3D printing technology. The joint initiative will provide a new immersive experience by combining beloved physical toys with digital adventures.
CA, Inc. (CA 31.70, +0.50, +1.6%): Announced a settlement and update on its AppDynamics litigation, saying it "...is pleased with the settlement of these cases, which includes substantial licensing payments from AppDynamics to CA."
Harris (HRS 79.30, +0.75, +1.0%): Announced $74 mln in orders from an international customer to deliver Falcon tactical radios
IBM (IBM 166.16, +5.49, +3.4%): After Monday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $2.91 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 11.9% year/year to $19.59 bln, which was slightly below estimates. Adjusting for currency (8%) and divested businesses (4%), revenues were flat year-over-year. Strategic imperatives revenue up more than 30% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up more than 20%, as reported. Cloud revenue up more than 75% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up more than 60% as reported. Business analytics revenue up more than 20% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up 12% as reported. Global Services revenues decreased 12% (down 2% adjusting for currency and divested businesses) to $12.2 billion. Services backlog of $121 billion, flat year-to-year adjusting for currency and divested businesses. Company reaffirmed guidance for FY15, saying it sees EPS of $15.75-16.50, excluding non-recurring items, and free cash flow flat year-over-year.

Lam Research (LRCX 71.99, +1.33, +1.9%): After Monday's close, reported Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.40 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 13.5% year/year to $1.39 bln, also topping estimates. For Q4, sees revenues of $1.41-1.51 bln, which is ahead of analysts' average expectation.

Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP 49.61, +0.41, +0.8%): Announced that AUDI AG is networking the Audi virtual cockpit system in its new TT Models using MOST technology. Specifically, it is deploying Microchip's OS81118 MOST150 Intelligent Network Interface Controller.

Qualcomm (QCOM 68.64, +1.53, +2.3%): According to re/code, sources it spoke to have indicated that Qualcomm is planning to have Samsung manufacture its next-generation Snapdragon 820 processor

Seagate Technology (STX 59.13, +1.70, +3.0%): Announced four Cray Inc. (CRAY 30.25, +0.74, +2.5%) customers will be among the first to implement Seagate's latest high performance computing storage technology.

Teradata (TDC 43.15, +0.05, +0.1%): Announced the launch of the Software-Defined Warehouse, an enhancement to the Teradata Database. The Software-Defined Warehouse enables organizations to consolidate multiple data warehouses into one system without sacrificing security or service level performance.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba Group (BABA 82.20, +0.30, +0.4%): Announced it received notices from Zhejiang Price Bureau that it has been fined ~$81,000 for matters related to Singles Day pricing by third-party sellers on its Tmall marketplace in 2013 and 2014 and ~$48,000 for pricing in other promotions in 2013 and 2015. The company noted it will be reinforcing pricing rules and regulations with its sellers in its daily operations and emphasizing these rules well in advance of its 2015 Singles Day activities.

Check Point Software (CHKP 85.88, +4.13, +5.1%): Before Monday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.95 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $373 mln, also ahead of estimates. Separately, the company also announced a new partnership with FireEye (FEYE 42.43, +1.59, +3.9%) to share threat intelligence.

Ericsson (ERIC 12.54, +0.11, +0.9%): Company and Intel (INTC 32.73, +0.26, +0.8%) Security are working together to make managed security solutions available for telecom operators to bundle with the existing services they provide to enterprises.

FireEye (FEYE 42.43, +1.59, +3.9%): Announced an expansion of its Fuel partner program with the launch of the FireEye Fuel Cyber Security Coalition, which brings together security and infrastructure vendors to create an ecosystem to better protect customers.

Sanmina (SANM 23.36, +0.22, +1.0%): After Monday's close, reported Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.50 per share, which was below analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 3.5% year/year to $1.53 bln, which was also shy of estimates. For Q3, sees EPS of $0.48-0.52 and revenues of $1.50-1.55 bln. Both estimates are below expectations.
The stock market seemed to have all it wanted Monday with the news that the People's Bank of China announced a 100 basis point reduction in the reserve requirement ratio for all Chinese banks. That move was larger than expected (in fact, it was the biggest cut since November 2008) and ignited another policy-driven party on Wall Street.

The major indices took off out of the gate and barely looked back. In the process, they recouped a significant portion of the losses they suffered on Friday.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.8%) led Monday's broad-based advance that saw all ten sectors record gains for the session.

A healthy showing from Apple (APPL 127.60, +2.85, +2.3%) and a big jump in IBM (IBM 166.16, +5.49, +3.4%) ahead of its earnings report proved to be a catalyst for the sector's outperformance, which was highlighted by gains in 60 of the 66 sector members.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Autodesk (ADSK 61.04, +0.69, +1.1%): Company and Mattel announced they have signed an exclusive agreement to power the Mattel toy line with cutting-edge 3D design and 3D printing technology. The joint initiative will provide a new immersive experience by combining beloved physical toys with digital adventures.
CA, Inc. (CA 31.70, +0.50, +1.6%): Announced a settlement and update on its AppDynamics litigation, saying it "...is pleased with the settlement of these cases, which includes substantial licensing payments from AppDynamics to CA."
Harris (HRS 79.30, +0.75, +1.0%): Announced $74 mln in orders from an international customer to deliver Falcon tactical radios
IBM (IBM 166.16, +5.49, +3.4%): After Monday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $2.91 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 11.9% year/year to $19.59 bln, which was slightly below estimates. Adjusting for currency (8%) and divested businesses (4%), revenues were flat year-over-year. Strategic imperatives revenue up more than 30% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up more than 20%, as reported. Cloud revenue up more than 75% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up more than 60% as reported. Business analytics revenue up more than 20% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up 12% as reported. Global Services revenues decreased 12% (down 2% adjusting for currency and divested businesses) to $12.2 billion. Services backlog of $121 billion, flat year-to-year adjusting for currency and divested businesses. Company reaffirmed guidance for FY15, saying it sees EPS of $15.75-16.50, excluding non-recurring items, and free cash flow flat year-over-year.

Lam Research (LRCX 71.99, +1.33, +1.9%): After Monday's close, reported Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.40 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 13.5% year/year to $1.39 bln, also topping estimates. For Q4, sees revenues of $1.41-1.51 bln, which is ahead of analysts' average expectation.

Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP 49.61, +0.41, +0.8%): Announced that AUDI AG is networking the Audi virtual cockpit system in its new TT Models using MOST technology. Specifically, it is deploying Microchip's OS81118 MOST150 Intelligent Network Interface Controller.

Qualcomm (QCOM 68.64, +1.53, +2.3%): According to re/code, sources it spoke to have indicated that Qualcomm is planning to have Samsung manufacture its next-generation Snapdragon 820 processor

Seagate Technology (STX 59.13, +1.70, +3.0%): Announced four Cray Inc. (CRAY 30.25, +0.74, +2.5%) customers will be among the first to implement Seagate's latest high performance computing storage technology.

Teradata (TDC 43.15, +0.05, +0.1%): Announced the launch of the Software-Defined Warehouse, an enhancement to the Teradata Database. The Software-Defined Warehouse enables organizations to consolidate multiple data warehouses into one system without sacrificing security or service level performance.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba Group (BABA 82.20, +0.30, +0.4%): Announced it received notices from Zhejiang Price Bureau that it has been fined ~$81,000 for matters related to Singles Day pricing by third-party sellers on its Tmall marketplace in 2013 and 2014 and ~$48,000 for pricing in other promotions in 2013 and 2015. The company noted it will be reinforcing pricing rules and regulations with its sellers in its daily operations and emphasizing these rules well in advance of its 2015 Singles Day activities.

Check Point Software (CHKP 85.88, +4.13, +5.1%): Before Monday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.95 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $373 mln, also ahead of estimates. Separately, the company also announced a new partnership with FireEye (FEYE 42.43, +1.59, +3.9%) to share threat intelligence.

Ericsson (ERIC 12.54, +0.11, +0.9%): Company and Intel (INTC 32.73, +0.26, +0.8%) Security are working together to make managed security solutions available for telecom operators to bundle with the existing services they provide to enterprises.

FireEye (FEYE 42.43, +1.59, +3.9%): Announced an expansion of its Fuel partner program with the launch of the FireEye Fuel Cyber Security Coalition, which brings together security and infrastructure vendors to create an ecosystem to better protect customers.

Sanmina (SANM 23.36, +0.22, +1.0%): After Monday's close, reported Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.50 per share, which was below analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 3.5% year/year to $1.53 bln, which was also shy of estimates. For Q3, sees EPS of $0.48-0.52 and revenues of $1.50-1.55 bln. Both estimates are below expectations.

Veeco Instruments (VECO 31.14, +0.24, +0.8%): Announced that the University of Cambridge has ordered the Propel Power Gallium Nitride Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition System for GaN-on-silicon power electronics and light emitting diode research and development.

VMware (VMW 84.27, -0.80, -0.9%): Announced two new open source projects built to enable enterprise adoption of cloud-native applications -- Project Lightwave, an identity and access management project that will extend enterprise-scale and security to cloud-native applications; and Project Photon, a lightweight Linux operating system optimized for cloud-native applications.

Analyst Action:

Amazon.com (AMZN 389.51, +13.95, +3.7%): target raised to $395 from $330 at Wedbush; Neutral

Applied Materials (AMAT 21.76, +0.27, +1.3%): added to Franchise Picks List at Jefferies
Nokia (NOK 7.61, -0.01, -0.1%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies
Seagate Tech (STX 59.13, +1.70, +3.0%): target raised to $68 from $65 at Needham; maintain Strong Buy
Symantec (SYMC 24.19, -0.05, -0.2%): upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies; target raised to $21 from $20
4:32 pm Ultra Clean Holdings beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (UCTT) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues fell 13.1% year/year to $125.3 mln vs the $125.46 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.04-0.07, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $112-117 mln vs. $127.39 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm IBM beats by $0.08, reports revs in-line; reaffirms FY15 guidance (IBM) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $2.91 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $2.83; revenues fell 11.9% year/year to $19.59 bln vs the $19.68 bln consensus; flat YoY adjusting for currency and divested businesses (8% and 4%, respectively.

Strategic imperatives revenue up more than 30% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up more than 20%, as reported: Cloud revenue up more than 75% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up more than 60% as reported; For cloud delivered as a service, annual run rate of $3.8 billion compared to $2.3 billion in the first quarter of 2014; Business analytics revenue up more than 20% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up 12% as reported;Global Services revenues decreased 12% (down 2% adjusting for currency and divested businesses) to $12.2 billion
Services backlog of $121 billion, flat year-to-year adjusting for currency and divested businesses.Co reaffirms guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $15.75-16.50, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $15.90 Capital IQ Consensus; FCF flat YoY.

4:10 pm Lam Research beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs above consensus (LRCX) : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.40 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.30; revenues rose 13.5% year/year to $1.39 bln vs the $1.37 bln consensus. Non-GAAP gross margin of 44.7%, non-GAAP operating margin of 19.9%. Shipments were $1,497 million, up 20% from the prior quarter.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $1.41-1.51 bln vs. $1.39 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees Q4 gross margin 43.1%-45.1%.

4:07 pm Rambus beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs below consensus (RMBS) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.08 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.06; revenues fell 6.9% year/year to $72.9 mln vs the $73.13 mln consensus.

Guidance: Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $70-$74 mln vs. $75.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Sanmina misses by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (SANM) : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.50 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.53; revenues rose 3.5% year/year to $1.53 bln vs the $1.6 bln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.48-0.52 vs. $0.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.50-1.55 mln vs. $1.64 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05 pm CalAmp acquires Crashboxx for $1.5 mln in upfront cash and future earn-out payments based on post-acquisition sales (CAMP) : Co announces it has acquired privately held Crashboxx, an early stage technology company focused on insurance telematics applications across the entire auto insurance lifecycle. Consideration for the acquisition was $1.5 mln in upfront cash and future earn-out payments based on post-acquisition sales.

4:10 pm : The stock market began the week on an upbeat note with the S&P 500 (+0.9%) erasing the bulk of its decline from Friday. The benchmark index reclaimed its 50-day moving average (2,086) at the start and spent the remainder of the day near its early high while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.2%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%) outperformed.

Global equity markets enjoyed a strong start to the week after the People's Bank of China lowered the reserve requirement ratio for all banks to 18.5% from 19.5%. The 100-basis point cut was the largest such move since November 2008 and was implemented in hopes of avoiding a slowdown in China's economic growth.

The easing news from China helped markets in Europe register broad gains with investors overlooking the latest Greece-related developments. Specifically, the Greek government has requested local governments to transfer their cash balances to the Bank of Greece as the troubled sovereign continues scrambling for funds ahead of the next IMF payment deadline. That being said, the euro slid about 0.7% to 1.0735 against the dollar while the Dollar Index (97.93, +0.41) advanced 0.4%.

All ten sectors registered solid gains with five groups adding more than 1.0%. The top-weighted technology sector (+1.8%) ended in the lead after climbing throughout the session with large cap components fueling the move. To that point, Apple (AAPL 127.60, +2.85), Google (GOOGL 544.53, +11.79), Facebook (FB 83.09, +2.31), and Microsoft (MSFT 42.90, +1.28) rallied between 2.2% and 3.1% while Dow component IBM (IBM 166.16, +5.49) jumped 3.4% ahead of its earnings report.

Speaking of earnings, investors received just a small batch of reports this morning, but the floodgates will open as the week continues. The consumer discretionary sector (+1.1%) ended among the leaders with an assist from Hasbro (HAS 74.16, +8.27), which surged 12.6% in reaction to better than expected earnings and revenue.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (+1.1%) also displayed relative strength with transport stocks doing some heavy lifting. The Dow Jones Transportation Average spiked 1.7% with all 20 components ending in the green. Railroads stood out with CSX (CSX 34.89, +1.59) soaring 4.8% while Kansas City Southern (KSU 107.37, +2.88) jumped 2.8% ahead of tomorrow's earnings report.

Another cyclical sector-financials (+0.5%)-could not catch up to the broader market even though Morgan Stanley (MS 36.96, +0.21) reported better than expected results. Shares of MS climbed 0.6% while other major financials posted comparable gains.

Treasuries spent the day in a slow retreat from their overnight highs with the 10-yr yield rising two basis points to 1.88%.

Today's participation was on the light side with fewer than 670 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic data today and tomorrow's session will also be free of noteworthy releases.


Nasdaq Composite +5.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.0% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD

DJ30 +208.63 NASDAQ +62.79 SP500 +19.22 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1964/1.52 bln/885 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2147/668.3 mln/890 3:35 pm :

Strength in the dollar index continued to help weigh on commodities today
Select commodities like oil traded more independently compared to showing the typical inverse correlation
June crude oil ultimately ended today's trading session $0.53 higher at $57.85/barrel. May nat gas lost $0.09 to $2.54/MMBtu
Metals continued to feel pressure from strength in the dollar today
June gold ended $9.60 lower at $1193.50/oz, while May silver fell $0.33 to $15.89/oz
May copper fell $0.05 to $2.73/lb

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market bent for a bit on Wednesday but it would not break. Riding the enthusiasm for a stronger than expected existing home sales report for March, the major indices scored modest gains and finished near their best levels of the session.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.1%) was the best-performing area, bolstered by broad-based buying interest that saw Apple (AAPL 128.62, +1.71, +1.4%) and the semiconductor stocks play a leading role. MasterCard (MA 91.20, +3.43, +3.9%) and Visa (V 68.01, +2.66, +4.1%) were also standouts following press reports that China is going to open up the banking card settlement industry to foreign competition.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumped 1.4% and is now up 3.0% for the week.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Amphenol (APH 56.80, -1.35, -2.3%): Before Wednesday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.57 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was slightly ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 6.5% year/year to $1.33 bln, also ahead of estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of $0.56-0.58 and revenues of $1.32-1.36 bln. Analysts' average expectations were higher for both Q2 EPS and revenue. For FY15, sees EPS of $2.41-2.47 and revenues of $5.50-5.62 bln.

CA Technologies (CA 31.90, +0.34, +1.1%): Company and BT announced that CA Secure Cloud has been integrated into BT's new managed identity service, BT Assure Cloud Identity.

Citrix Systems (CTXS 64.77, +0.55, +0.9%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.65 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 1.3% year/year to $760.8 mln, also ahead of estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of $0.80-0.83, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $785-795 mln. Both guidance ranges are below analysts' average expectations. For FY15, sees EPS of $3.55-3.60, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $3.22-3.25 bln.

Computer Sciences (CSC 65.83, +0.77, +1.2%): Announced that it has signed a new contract to deliver and co-manage a first-of-type Patient Care Co-ordination Centre in Trafford. CSC will be delivering the PCCC in partnership with the NHS Trafford Clinical Commissioning Group, providing a complete end-to-end offering. eBay (EBAY 56.78, +0.33, +0.7%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.77 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of expectations. Revenues rose 4.4% year/year to $4.45 bln, also beating estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of $0.71-0.73, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $4.4-4.5 bln. Revenue guidance is below analysts' average expectation. For FY15, reaffirms EPS of $3.05-3.15, excluding non-recurring items, and lowers FY15 revenues to $18.35-18.85 bln from $18.6-19.1 bln.

EMC (EMC 27.13, +0.81, +3.1%): Before Wednesday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was shy of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 2.4% year/year to $5.61 bln, also below estimates. For FY15, lowered EPS to $1.91 from $1.98, excluding non-recurring items, which is below analysts' average expectation; lowered FY15 revenues to $25.7 bln from $26.1 bln to reflect the impact of foreign currency exchange rates as of March 31, 2015.

F5 Networks (FFIV 120.47, +1.49, +1.3%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q2 (Mar) earnings of $1.59 per share, which was ahead of expectations. Revenues rose 12.4% year/year to $472.1 mln, also topping estimates. For Q3, said it sees EPS of $1.57-$1.60 and revenues of $475-$485 mln. Revenue guidance is light of analysts' average expectation. Co states: "We recognize that the US dollar's strength relative to the Euro and other currencies likely had an impact on the demand environment in EMEA and APAC in Q2. While it is difficult to assess future movements in exchange rates, we believe it is prudent to factor this impact into our revenue guidance for the current quarter."

Facebook (FB 84.63, +1.01, +1.2%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.42 per share, topping analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 41.6% year/year to $3.54 bln, which was shy of estimates. Non-GAAP operating margin was 52% compared to 57% for the first quarter of 2014. Daily active users (DAUs) were 936 million an increase of 17% y/y; Mobile DAUs were 798 million an increase of 31% y/y. Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.44 billion an increase of 13% y/y; Mobile MAUs were 1.25 billion an increase of 24% y/y. Revenue from advertising was $3.32 billion, a 46% y/y increase (mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 73% of advertising revenue).

Google (GOOG 539.36, +5.40, +1.0%): Google confirmed 2 mobile networks - Sprint (S 5.08, +0.10, +2.0%) and T-Mobile (TMUS 34.09, +0.74, +2.2%) - are partnering with Google to launch Project Fi, which Google said is a "...new technology that gives you better coverage by intelligently connecting you to the fastest available network at your location whether it's Wi-Fi or one of our two partner LTE networks. As you go about your day, Project Fi automatically connects you to more than a million free, open Wi-Fi hotspots we've verified as fast and reliable."

Harris (HRS 82.46, +0.53, +0.7%): Disclosed that it believes that there is a significant possibility that on April 23, 2015, it will receive a second request for additional information from the FTC and DOJ; continues to expect the XLS Merger to close in June 2015

Intuit (INTU 100.16, +2.92, +3.0%): Reported after Tuesday's close that TurboTax Online units grew 13% from prior year; now expects FY15 consumer tax revenue growth of ~8%, above prior guidance of +5-7%
MasterCard (MA 91.20, +3.43, +3.9%): Saw notable strength on reports that the China State Council plans to implement several measures to boost economy - including opening the banking card settlement industry.

Qualcomm (QCOM 68.94, +0.37, +0.5%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q2 (Mar) earnings of $1.40 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 8.2% year/year to $6.89 bln, also ahead of estimates. For Q3, sees EPS of $0.85-1.00 and revenues of $5.4-6.2 bln. Both guidance ranges are below expectations. For FY15, sees EPS of $4.60-5.00 and revenues of $25.0-27.0 bln.
Visa (V 68.01, +2.66, +4.1%): Saw notable strength on reports that the China State Council plans to implement several measures to boost economy - including opening the banking card settlement industry.

Xilinx (XLNX 44.37, +0.14, +0.3%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.58 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 8.2% year/year to $567 mln, which was just shy of expectations. For Q1, sees revenues flat to down 4% QoQ to ~$544.2-567 mln, which is below analysts' average expectation.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

ADTRAN (ADTN 16.61, -1.92, -10.4%): Before Wednesday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.10 per share, which was shy of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 2.9% year/year to $142.8 mln, also below estimates. Said it sees Q2 revenue growth in mid to high single digits, which is less than the growth rate expected by analysts

Alibaba Group (BABA 82.05, -0.37, -0.5%): Company's automobile business unit today established collaborative relationships with BMW MINI (BAMXY) and Jaguar Land Rover (TTM) aimed at enhancing customers' online car buying experience, while building a complete automobile value chain for China's car industry.

ASML (ASML 107.81, +10.06, +10.3%): Company announced that it has signed an agreement with one of its major US customers to deliver a minimum of 15 ASML EUV lithography systems to support increased development activity and pilot production of future-generation manufacturing processes. The customer intends to use EUV lithography for multiple processing steps in future process technology nodes. The delivery of the first two NXE:3350B EUV systems is expected before the end of 2015. The new systems will be in addition to the existing EUV development systems already at the customer. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Cree (CREE 32.36, -3.04, -8.6%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.22 per share, which was shy of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 1.0% year/year to $409.5 mln, which was ahead of estimates. For Q4, sees EPS of $0.24-$0.28 and revenues of $420-$440 mln.

LinkedIn (LNKD 259.35, +0.93, +0.4%): Filed patent for fact checking system that is able to verify the correctness of information VMWare (VMW 90.97, +5.57, +6.5%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.86 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 11.1% year/year to $1.51 bln. For Q2, expects non-GAAP operating margin to be approximately 30.25% and non-GAAP EPS to be between $0.90 and $0.92 per share. Total reported revenue to between $1.58-1.6 bln. For FY15, expects total revenue to be between $6.57-6.69 bln and non-GAAP EPS to be between $3.94 and $4.02 per share.

In industry news, Gartner says worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to reach $354 bln in 2015, a 4% increase from 2014, but down from the previous quarter's forecast of 5.4% growth. The strong dollar is causing system suppliers and system buyers to re-evaluate their strategies. System suppliers will raise prices in select regions such as Europe to keep their margins intact as well as de-feature some products to maintain current price points.

Analyst Action:

ADTRAN (ADTN 16.61, -1.92, -10.4%): target lowered to $17.50 from $18.50 at MKM Partners; Neutral

Altera (ALTR 42.78, -0.47, -1.1%): downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray

Amazon.com (AMZN 389.80, -1.38, -0.4%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt; target raised to $450 from $350

Broadcom (BRCM 46.18, +2.20, +5.0%): target raised to $52 from $50 at Cowen... target raised to $59 from $53 at Brean Capital; maintain Buy... target raised to $53 from $48 at Topeka Capital Markets; Buy... target raised to $56 at RBC Capital Mkts; Outperform... target raised to $54 from $52 at Susquehanna... target raised to $51 from $47 at Canaccord Genuity; Hold

Cree (CREE 32.36, -3.04, -8.6%): target lowered to $31 from $34 at Canaccord Genuity; Hold... target lowered to $31 at Deutsche Bank; Hold

Nokia (NOK 8.00, +0.16, +2.0%): upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays
SAP AG (SAP 74.43, +0.29, +0.4%) upgraded to Buy at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

VMware (VMW 90.97, +5.57, +6.5%): Goldman Sachs raises target to $102 from $92

Yahoo! (YHOO 43.97, -0.52, -1.2%): target lowered to $50 from $58 at FBR Capital... Oppenheimer cuts target to $58 from $59

Yelp (YELP 50.45, +1.14, +2.3%): target raised to $58 from $50 at Brean Capital; Buy
4:35 pm Texas Instruments misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS and rev below consensus (TXN) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.61 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.62; revenues rose 5.6% year/year to $3.15 bln vs the $3.2 bln consensus.

"Automotive and industrial markets were strong, as we expected they would be. Revenue, however, was in the bottom half of our range for two reasons. First was weak demand in the last month of the quarter in our personal electronics market, particularly PCs, and in our communications equipment market, particularly wireless infrastructure equipment. Second was a steep decline in the currency exchange rate for the euro relative to the U.S. dollar."Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.60-0.70 vs. $0.73 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $3.12-3.38 bln vs. $3.44 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"Our estimates assume continuing weakness in our communications equipment and personal electronics markets, particularly for wireless infrastructure equipment and PCs, respectively. We also do not expect a near-term rebound in foreign currency exchange rates."

4:33 pm MKS Instruments beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (MKSI) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.66 per share, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.53; revenues rose 3.9% year/year to $214 mln vs the $206.03 mln consensus.

Guidance: Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.53-$0.66 vs. $0.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $200-$220 mln vs. $212.29 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:31 pm Interdigital Comm confirms its Delaware District Court infringement trial against ZTE (ZTCOF) has reached a conclusion; the jury verdict found no patent infringement by ZTE (IDCC) : In an earlier trial in October 2014, a jury found that ZTE 3G and 3G/4G devices had infringed on IDCC patents. Co stated:
"While we're disappointed by today's jury decision, we feel overall that our Delaware actions against ZTE are successful in highlighting the strength of InterDigital's contributions to worldwide core wireless technology, and supporting our longstanding licensing program."

4:23 pm Xilinx beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs below consensus (XLNX) : Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.58 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.51; revenues fell 8.2% year/year to $567 mln vs the $569.53 mln consensus; gross margin 70%.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs flat to down 4% QoQ to ~$544.2-567 mln vs. $584.86 mln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin 69-70%.

4:07 pm Monolithic Power beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus (MPWR) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.37 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.36; revenues rose 22.3% year/year to $73.5 mln vs the $72.03 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $79-83 mln vs. $78.56 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

GAAP gross margin between 53.7% and 54.7%. Non-GAAP(1) gross margin between 54.5% and 55.5%. This excludes an estimated impact of stock-based compensation expenses of 0.3% and amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets of 0.5%. Other income of $200,000 to $300,000 before foreign exchange gains or losses.

4:05 pm Plexus reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (PLXS) : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.69 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.69; revenues rose 16.8% year/year to $651.3 mln vs the $645.06 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.71-0.79 vs. $0.77 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $670-700 mln vs. $665.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "While we guided sequential contraction in our Networking/Communications and Healthcare/Life Sciences sectors, both outperformed our expectations due to better than anticipated end-market demand."
4:10 pm : The major averages registered modest midweek gains with the S&P 500 (+0.5%) ending ahead of the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%).

Overall, the Wednesday session was very quiet as the key indices spent the day in a slow advance. Intraday trading volume highlighted that dynamic, but more than 735 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor by the close, representing the highest total of the week.

All ten sectors registered gains with the top-weighted technology sector (+1.1%) ending in the lead. The influential group was underpinned by daylong strength in shares of MasterCard (MA 91.20, +3.43) and Visa (V 68.01, +2.66) after it was reported China will allow foreign card processors to compete with UnionPay, which is the only company that processes yuan-denominated card payments at this time. Meanwhile, tech heavyweights like Apple (AAPL 128.62, +1.71), Google (GOOGL 549.18, +6.25), and Microsoft (MSFT 42.98, +0.35) joined the rally in progress.

On the earnings front, Broadcom (BRCM 46.18, +2.20) and VMWare (VMW 91.00, +5.60) posted respective gains of 5.0% and 6.6% after beating estimates while EMC (EMC 27.13, +0.81) rallied 3.1% despite missing estimates and guiding lower.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, financials (+0.7%) and energy (+0.6%) outperformed while the remaining sectors settled closer to their flat lines. Notably, the energy sector finished among the leaders even though crude oil fell 0.6% to $56.28/bbl.

Moving to the countercyclical side, the health care sector (+0.2%) was among the early leaders after Amgen (AMGN 169.10, +0.64) beat earnings estimates and guided higher; however, the stock narrowed its gain to 0.4% by the close after being up more than 2.5% at the start. Similarly, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 363.84, -0.66) surrendered its early gain and ended lower by 0.2%, which contributed to the underperformance of the Nasdaq Composite.

Going back to earnings, three Dow components reported their results today with Coca-Cola (KO 41.31, +0.53) and McDonald's (MCD 97.84, +2.97) posting respective gains of 1.3% and 3.1%. Shares of KO rallied in reaction to a bottom-line beat while McDonald's advanced despite missing earnings expectations. Also of note, Boeing (BA 151.19, -2.14) fell 1.4% after below-consensus revenue overshadowed better than expected earnings.

Treasuries slumped during morning action and extended their losses in the afternoon, sending the 10-yr yield higher by seven basis points to 1.98%.

Economic data included Existing Home Sales, FHFA Housing Price Index, and MBA Mortgage Index:


Existing home sales for March were reported to have increased 6.1% from February to an annualized rate of 5.19 million units while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 5.05 million
The FHFA Housing Price Index for February rose 0.7%, which followed an unrevised increase of 0.3% in January
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 2.3% to follow last week's 2.3% decline

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims will be released at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 288K) while the New Homes Sales report for March will cross the wires at 10:00 ET (consensus 520K).

Nasdaq Composite +6.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.1% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD

DJ30 +88.68 NASDAQ +21.07 SP500 +10.67 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1546/1.56 bln/1306 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1750/737.9 mln/1238 3:40 pm :

WTI crude oil futures ultimately ended today's session in the red following the API and EIA weekly storage data
June crude lost $0.41 today to $56.20/barrel
May nat gas ended with modest gains, rising $0.02 to $2.60/MMBtu
Following the morning sell-off in gold, silver and copper, losses held as all three commodities remained in negative territory for the rest of today's session
June gold lost $16.20 to $1186.80/oz, May silver -0.22% at $15.78/oz and May copper -0.03% to $2.67/lb.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Coming off Friday's record-setting finish for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, the stock market had a peppy start to the trading day on Monday. Early gains though were short-lived as profit-taking efforts set in that knocked the indices back into negative territory.

The biotech group paced the market-leading retreat. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 348.55, -15.15) fell 4.2% in a broad sweep of selling interest. Prior to Monday's trade, the IBB had risen 20% since the end of 2014.

Overall losses could have been worse if not for the relative strength of Apple (AAPL 132.65, +2.37, +1.8%), which jumped ahead of its highly-anticipated first quarter earnings report.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Apple (AAPL 132.65, +2.37, +1.8%): After Monday's close, AAPL reported Q2 earnings of $2.33 per share, $0.17 better than estimates. Revenues for the quarter rose 24.4% year/year to $58.01 billion vs the $56.1 billion consensus. Additionally, AAPL increased its share repurchase authorization to $140 billion from $90 billion, and increased its quarterly dividend to $0.52/share from $0.47/share.

Applied Materials (AMAT 19.97, -1.83, -8.4%): Company and Tokyo Electron announced that they have agreed to terminate their Business Combination Agreement. No termination fees will be payable by either party. The decision came after the U.S. Department of Justice advised the parties that the coordinated remedy proposal submitted to all regulators would not be sufficient to replace the competition lost from the merger. Based on the DoJ's position, Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron have determined that there is no realistic prospect for the completion of the merger. Applied Materials also announced that its Board of Directors has approved a new share repurchase program authorizing up to $3 billion in repurchases over the next three years beginning in the third quarter of fiscal 2015.

Facebook (FB 81.91, +0.38, +0.5%): Confirmed launch of video calling in messenger

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 33.05, -0.21, -0.6%): Awarded a ceiling $469 mln indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price contract for global content delivery services through the Department of Defense

Micron (MU 29.27, +0.07, +0.2%): Company announced that it intends to offer, subject to market and other considerations, $500 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2024 and $500 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2026. Company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to repay, repurchase or make other payments with respect to the extinguishment of its debt, including its convertible notes, and for general corporate purposes.\

Oracle (ORCL 43.61, +0.53, +1.2%): Company and Accenture (ACN 93.76, +0.36, +0.4%) announced the launch of a new business group. Through the group, Accenture and Oracle will deliver industry-specific solutions built on the Oracle Cloud.

Yahoo! (YHOO 44.36, -0.16, -0.4%): On CNBC, AOL, Inc. (AOL 40.24, -0.55, -1.4%) CEO Armstrong said merger with Yahoo! is a 'dead notion'
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Celestica (CLS 12.26, +0.06, +0.5%): Announced the terms of its previously announced substantial issuer bid pursuant to which it will offer to purchase for cancellation up to 29,914,529 of its subordinate voting shares for an aggregate purchase price not to exceed $350 mln. The Offer will be conducted through a "modified Dutch auction" within a price range of not less than US$11.70 per share and not more than US$13.30 per share (in increments of US$0.10 per share within that range).

Changyou.com (CYOU 28.95, -0.37, -1.3%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.97 per share, well ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 15.6% year/year to $209 mln, also ahead of estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of $0.56-0.65 and revenues of $180-190 mln.

Gigamon (GIMO 29.05, -0.70, -2.4%): Gigamon disclosed that, on April 20, 2015, it and Jabil Circuit (JBL 23.65, -0.04, -0.17%) entered into a manufacturing services agreement, which amends and restates the previous manufacturing services agreement. The term of the Agreement is for two years commencing on April 20, 2015 and will automatically renew for additional one-year terms, unless terminated by either party by giving written notice of non-renewal at least six months before the end of the then-current term.

Marvell Technology Group (MRVL 14.07, -0.24, -1.6%): Company announced that it now expects first quarter of fiscal 2016 revenue to be in the range of $710 million to $740 million compared to the previous expectation of $810 million to $830 million. The revised revenue outlook, which is well below analysts' average expectation, is primarily due to weaker than previously expected PC and storage markets and lower than expected emerging market demand. All other financial outlook expectations have been withdrawn and will be updated on the company's first quarter earnings call on May 21, 2015.

Nokia (NOK 7.64, -0.12, -1.6%): In response to false news reports, the company reaffirmed that it currently has no plans to manufacture or sell consumer handsets

Sohu.com (SOHU 67.65, +0.11, +0.2%): Reported Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.81 per share, which was better than analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 24.7% year/year to $455 mln, also ahead of estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of ($1.15-0.90) and revenues of $460-490 mln.

Analyst Action:

Amazon.com (AMZN 438.56, -6.54, -1.5%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus

Apple (AAPL 132.65, +2.37, +1.8%): initiated with a Buy at Brean Capital; target $160

Citrix Systems (CTXS 66.95, -0.04, -0.1%): target raised to $64 from $60 at Deutsche Bank; Hold

Rackspace (RAX 55.41, +0.77, +1.4%): target raised to $60 from $56 at Stifel

Semtech (SMTC 23.44, -0.16, -0.7%): target lowered to $29 from $32 at RBC Capital Markets; Outperform

Texas Instruments (TXN 55.56, +0.83, +1.5%): upgraded to Strong Buy from Market Perform at Raymond James; target $62

Twitter (TWTR 51.66, +0.84, +1.7%): target raised to $63 from $60 at Axiom Capital; Buy

Xerox (XRX 11.62, -0.37, -3.1%): target lowered to $13.20 from $15 at Brean Capital; Buy4:41 pm Apple beats on the top & bottom line as iPhones top expectations; Q2 margins top estimates; guides Q3 revs & gross margins in-line (AAPL) : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $2.33 per share, $0.17 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $2.16; revenues rose 24.4% year/year to $58.01 bln vs the $56.1 bln consensus. Co reports Q2 gross margins of 40.8% vs guidance of 38.5-39.5% (ests near ~39.6%) vs 39.3% last year.

Q2 iPhones 61.2 mln vs 57 mln ests vs 43.7 mln last year. Q2 iPads 12.6 mln vs 14 mln ests vs 16.4 mln last year. Q2 Macs 4.6 mln vs 4.6 mln ests vs 4.1 mln last year.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $46-48 bln vs. $47.09 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 gross margins of 38.5-39.5% vs 39.2% ests vs 39.4% last year. Co reported China revs of $16.82 bln vs America's of $21.32 bln. AAPL announced increased share repurchase authorization to $140 bln from $90 bln; increases quarterly dividend to $0.52/share from $0.47/share.
4:09 pm PMC-Sierra beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (PMCS) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 5.2% year/year to $133.07 mln vs the $133.32 mln consensus.

4:09 pm Cadence Design beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY15 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CDNS) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.23 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.21; revenues rose 8.7% year/year to $411.4 mln vs the $409.1 mln consensus.

Guidance:


Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.23-0.25, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.24 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $410-420 mln vs. $417.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $0.96-1.06, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.01 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 revs of $1.68-1.72 bln vs. $1.7 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:09 pm Amkor beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (AMKR) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues rose 6.7% year/year to $742.88 mln vs the $745.1 mln consensus.

Gross margin 18.2% vs 18.5% in prior yearCash and cash equivalents were $494 million, and total debt was $1.5 billion, at March 31, 2015.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.05-0.15 vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $725-775 mln vs. $801.43 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co sees Q2 gross margin of 16-19%.

"We expect demand will strengthen in the second half of 2015 driven by the launch of flagship mobile devices with high Amkor content. Our full year 2015 capital expenditure estimate of around $600 million, including around $150 million of spending for our new K5 facility, remains unchanged."

4:07 pm Rudolph Tech beats by $0.06, beats on revs (RTEC) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 26.3% year/year to $52.6 mln vs the $48.77 mln consensus.

4:10 pm : The stock market began the week with a pullback from record levels, but not before setting fresh intraday record highs during the opening minutes of action. The S&P 500 (-0.4%) registered its first decline in four sessions while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) underperformed.

Equity indices displayed modest gains in the early going to follow a relatively quiet weekend. It is worth noting that China's Shanghai Composite soared 3.0% after MNI reported the People's Bank of China is looking into purchasing local government bonds. Meanwhile, European markets began the day under pressure, but finished with solid gains amid optimism that followed reports Greece has reshuffled its negotiating team.

As for U.S. stocks, the S&P 500 held an eight-point gain at the start with cyclical sectors underpinning the early strength; however, biotechnology lagged from the early going and pressured the health care sector (-1.8%) to the bottom of the leaderboard. For its part, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 348.55, -15.15) lost 4.2% and contributed to the underperformance of the Nasdaq.

Biotechnology weighed on S&P 500 and the Nasdaq while the Dow (-0.2%) was able to end a little ahead since the price-weighted index does not contain any biotech listings. That being said, the largest Dow component by weight-Goldman Sachs (GS 196.52, -1.47)-lost 0.7% while the financial sector (-0.3%) settled a step ahead of the S&P 500.

Similar to financials, four of the remaining five cyclical groups settled ahead of the broader market while the consumer discretionary sector (-0.9%) underperformed. On the flip side, materials (+0.9%) and technology (+0.4%) spent the day in positive territory.

The materials sector enjoyed broad support, including a 4.6% spike in Dow component DuPont (DD 74.81, +3.29) after Institutional Shareholder Services recommended Nelson Peltz for the company's board of directors. Steelmakers and miners also rallied with Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 19.76, +0.40) and Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 35.79, +0.29) gaining 2.1% and 0.8%, respectively.

Elsewhere, the technology sector (+0.4%) kept the market from sliding deeper into negative territory thanks to solid gains among large cap components. Most notably, Apple (AAPL 132.65, +2.37) climbed 1.8% ahead of its quarterly report while chipmakers held up relatively well with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 0.3%. The modest uptick in the chip index masked an 8.4% plunge in the shares of Applied Materials (AMAT 19.97, -1.83) brought on by news that the company terminated its combination agreement with Tokyo Electron due to regulatory concerns.

Treasuries retreated throughout the morning, but reversed course to erase the bulk of their losses. The 10-yr yield ticked up a basis point to 1.92%.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 780 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Tomorrow, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for February will be reported at 9:00 ET (Briefing.com consensus 4.7%) while the April Consumer Confidence report will cross the wires at 10:00 ET (expected 102.2).

Nasdaq Composite +6.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.1% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD

DJ30 -42.17 NASDAQ -31.84 SP500 -8.77 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 933/1.99 bln/2113 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1149/781.5 mln/1927

3:40 pm :

Gold and silver futures held today's strong gains, ending near today's highs
June gold rallied $27.20 to $1202.50/oz, while May silver gained $0.72 (or +5%) to $16.36/oz
Natural gas futures remained in the red all day on mild weather, ending -$0.06 to $2.51/MMBtu
WTI crude oil lost gains, closing $0.16 lower at $56.99/barrel.
Brent/WTI crude oil spread is currently about $8/barrel.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Global equity markets stumbled on Wednesday in a sweep of profit taking. Europe led the losses following a spike in sovereign rates that was reportedly triggered by a disappointing 5-yr note auction in Germany.

The U.S. for its part struggled in the wake of a disappointing Q1 GDP report that showed growth rising just 0.2% on an annualized basis. That was below the Briefing.com consensus estimate that called for growth of 1.0% and the 2.2% growth rate reported for the fourth quarter.

Not even another dovish-sounding directive from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) could save the day.

Stocks sagged under the weight of a weak transportation group, continued weakness in Apple (AAPL 128.58, -1.98, -1.5%), and a lack of strong buying interest. Twitter (TWTR 38.49, -3.78, -8.9%) knew the latter all too well as it dropped sharply following its disappointing report and outlook provided on Tuesday.

The energy sector (+0.7%) was the standout performer for the day as it followed oil prices higher (+2.6% to $58.52/bbl).


The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.5%) trailed the broader market with losses registered by the majority of its components. Things could have been worse, yet Salesforce.com (CRM 74.65, +7.76, +11.6%) provided some offsetting support following press reports that it has been approached by a potential acquirer.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Adobe Systems (ADBE 76.65, +0.63, +0.8%): Company and Microsoft (MSFT 49.03, -0.12, -0.3%) announced a strategic partnership that will redefine how enterprises manage their marketing, sales and services to better engage with customers across all touch points. Adobe also announced it has acquired the Tumri advertising technology (also known as Ensemble) from Collective; terms were not disclosed

Corning (GLW 21.36, -0.71, -3.2%): Announced CAO Kirk Gregg will retire at the end of 2015. General Manager Lisa Ferrero will succeed Gregg, effective January 1, 2016

Harris (HRS 79.26, -1.83, -2.3%): The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has selected Harris Corporation (HRS) for an eight-year, single-award IDIQ contract with a potential value of $238 million to design and implement a system that will disseminate real-time, comprehensive weather pictures to all aviation users across the National Airspace System
MasterCard (MA 90.25, +0.02, +0.02%): Before Wednesday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.89 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 2.7% year/year to $2.23 bln, which was below estimates. Worldwide purchase volume during the quarter was up 12% on a local currency basis, versus the first quarter of 2014, to $783 billion

Microsoft (MSFT 49.03, -0.12, -0.3%): Company announced new features in Windows 10 and unveiled a set of software development kits (SDKs) to help developers bring their code for the Web, .NET, Win32, Android and iOS to Windows 10

NetApp (NTAP 36.80, +0.20, +0.6%): NetApp CTO will be resigning this summer, according to Register article

Salesforce.com (CRM 74.65, +7.76, +11.6%): Company's stock spiked on press reports that it has been approached by a potential acquirer. CNBC later reported that the company said it had no comment on M&A reports
Western Union (WU 20.39, -0.08, -0.4%): Announced the company has renewed its contract with U.S. Bank whereby U.S. Bank customers will continue to have access to Western Union Money Transfer services

Yahoo! (YHOO 43.28, -1.07, -2.4%): Yahoo! testing two messaging apps, according to Business Insider sources
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba (BABA 82.45, -2.63, -3.1%): Reuters details news that Alibaba has put a freeze on hiring.
Baidu (BIDU 219.00, -0.19, -0.1%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.22 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 34.0% year/year to $2.05 bln. For Q2, sees revenues of $2.64-2.702 bln which is in-line with estimates.

Ciena (CIEN 22.34, -0.01, -0.02%): Announced it has been selected to provide its converged packet optical solutions to Forsythe Data Centers for the metro fiber network connecting its new Retail managed hosting facility, to 350 East Cermak in Chicago

Cree, Inc. (CREE 32.35, -0.25, -0.8%): Announced the development and availability of a new XLamp XP-L High Intensity LED, a single-die LED that delivers over 100,000 candela with a 50mm diameter optic at 10 watts.

Flextronics (FLEX 12.22, +0.05, +0.4%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of expectations. Revenues fell 11.5% year/year to $5.95 bln which was below estimates. For Q1, sees EPS of $0.20-0.26, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $5.6-6.2 bln. Separately, company announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mirror Controls International (MCi) from private equity firm Egeria in an all cash transaction valuing its share capital at 457 million ($494 million USD). The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Flextronics' growth, margin, EPS and cash flow profile and is expected to close in the September quarter.

Glu Mobile (GLUU 5.40, +0.29, +5.7%): After Wednesday's close, reports Q1 (Mar) non-GAAP earnings of $0.02 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Non-GAAP revenues rose 32.8% year/year to $62.4 mln, well above the $50-52 mln prior guidance. Separately, the company announced that Tencent has agreed to purchase 21 million shares of Glu's common stock at a price of $6.00 per share for total consideration of $126 mln. The transaction will be completed in two tranches, with Tencent purchasing 12.5 million shares, and committing to purchase the remaining 8.5 million shares upon the expiration or termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. Tencent will own approximately 14.6% of the total shares on a fully-diluted and as converted basis immediately after completion of the investment.

Silicon Graphics (SGI 9.15, -0.42, -4.4%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q3 (Mar) loss of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was worse than analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 4.7% year/year to $118.5 mln, which was also below estimates. For Q4, sees EPS of (0.24) - (0.12) and revenues of $130-145 mln. Both guidance rnages are well below analysts' average expectations. For FY15, sees revenues of $500-515 mln, also below estimates. Company said, "...it now appears likely that revenue for one of our large DoD projects will be delayed one quarter, adding to what we believe will be a strong first half of fiscal 2016. Overall, we remain encouraged by our progress in diversifying our HPC business, entering the In-Memory market with our UV products and continuing our focus on operational excellence."
Unisys Corporation (UIS 22.46, +0.05, +0.3%): Announced the launch of it Unisys Global Innovation Center in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. The unit will be focused on the creation of tailored IT solutions for global application

Yelp (YELP 51.28, +0.06, +0.1%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was shy of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 55.1% year/year to $118.5 mln, also below estimates. For Q2, sees revenues of $131-134 mln, which is below average expectations. For FY15, reaffirms revenues of $574-579 mln and EBITDA of $102-105 mln versus prior guidance of $100-103 mln.
In industry news, International Data Corporation reported that vendors shipped a total of 336.5 million smartphones worldwide in the first quarter of 2015, up 16.7% from the 288.5 million units in 1Q14, but down by -10.9% from the 377.5 million units shipped in 4Q14. In the overall mobile phone market (smartphones plus feature phones), vendors shipped 458.9 million units worldwide, down -0.1% from the 459.3 million units shipped in 1Q14

Analyst Action:

Akamai Technologies (AKAM 75.13, -0.94, -1.2%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank... Canaccord Genuity raises its target to $78 from $75; Buy

Altera (ALTR 40.72, +0.57, +1.4%): downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird on April 24; target lowered to $36 from $40

Applied Micro Circuits (AMCC 5.35, +0.20, +3.5%): target raised to $10 from $8 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy
Cirrus Logic (CRUS 34.97, -0.16, -0.4%): target raised to $44 from $37.50 at Northland Capital; maintain Outperform
Corning (GLW 21.36, -0.71, -3.2%): downgraded to Sell from Underperform at Credit Agricole
Total System (TSS 40.22, +1.83, +4.7%): downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo

Twitter (TWTR 38.49, -3.78, -9.1%): target lowered to $39 from $48 at Nomura... RBC Capital Markets lowers target to $47 from $54; reiterates Sector Perform... Wunderlich Securities lowers price target to $40 from $50... Canaccord Genuity lowers target to $52 from $56; Buy... downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Rosenblatt... Barclays downgrades TWTR to Equal Weight from Overweight and lowers target to $44 from $60... target lowered to $60 from $65 at Deutsche Bank; Buy... target lowered to $50 from $58 at UBS
Western Digital (WDC 95.84, -2.06, -2.2%): target lowered to $125 from $131 at Maxim Group; maintain Buy... RBC Capital Markets lowers target to $109 from $116... Stifel lowers target to $125 from $140
Seagate Tech (STX 58.16, -0.84, -1.4%): initiated with a Buy at The Benchmark Company; target $65
4:30 pm TTM Tech reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; currently expect VIAS acquisition to close in Q2 2015 (TTMI) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues rose 12.8% year/year to $329.2 mln vs the $329 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line EPS guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.11-0.17, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $330-350 mln vs. $326.33 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20 pm Cascade Microtech beats by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CSCD) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.15 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues fell 5.9% year/year to $31.7 mln vs the $33.56 mln consensus.

Gross margin of 53.6%, up from 53.4% in Q4 2014 and up from 48.3% in Q1 2014.

Guidance: Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.14-$0.20 vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $34-$38 mln vs. $35.63 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:09 pm Intersil beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (ISIL) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.15; revenues fell 4.2% year/year to $134.2 mln vs the $133.3 mln consensus.

Gross margin improved again and was up to 59.9% on a GAAP basis and 60.2% on a non-GAAP basis.

Guidance: Co issues mixed guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.15-$0.17 vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 rev flat to up 3%, equating to approx $140.1-$144.3 mln vs. $143.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm CalAmp announces a proposed private offering of $125 mln in convertible senior notes due 2020 (CAMP) : Co expects to use a portion of the net proceeds from the offering of the notes to fund the cost of convertible note hedge transactions with the hedge counterparties. Co also expects to use the remainder of the net proceeds from the sale of the notes for general corporate purposes, which may include acquisitions, strategic transactions and working capital

4:06 pm Flextronics beats by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (FLEX) : Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.25; revenues fell 11.5% year/year to $5.95 bln vs the $6.26 bln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.20-0.26, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $5.6-6.2 bln vs. $6.51 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co announces acquisition of Mirror Controls International (See 16:03). Acquisition is not having an impact on co's guidance.

4:03 pm Flextronics to acquire Mirror Controls International from private equity firm Egeria in an all cash transaction valuing its share capital at 457 mln, or $494 mln USD; expected to be accretive to co's growth, margin, EPS and cash flow profile and is expected to close in the September quarter (FLEX) : Co announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mirror Controls International (MCi) from private equity firm Egeria in an all cash transaction valuing its share capital at 457 million ($494 million USD*).

Based in Woerden, the Netherlands, and with three highly automated manufacturing facilities in China, Mexico, and Ireland, MCi is a leading global manufacturer of glass and powerfold mirror actuators in the automotive market and generated ~200 million ($216 million USD*) in revenue over the past twelve months, historically growing over 20% year over year. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Flextronics' growth, margin, EPS and cash flow profile and is expected to close in the September quarter.

4:03 pm Coherent beats by $0.07, beats on revs (COHR) : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.94 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.87; revenues rose 2.3% year/year to $203.7 mln vs the $201.24 mln consensus.

Bookings received during the second fiscal quarter ended April 4, 2015 were $220.6 million. This result compares to bookings of $261.8 million in the same prior year period and $162.5 million in the immediately preceding quarter. The book-to-bill ratio was 1.08, and ending backlog expected to ship in the next 12 months was $315.3 million at April 4, 2015, compared to a backlog of $295.9 million at December 27, 2014 and a backlog of $303.8 million at March 29, 2014.

4:02 pm FormFactor beats by $0.01, beats on revs (FORM) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 26.6% year/year to $70.82 mln vs the $68.12 mln consensus.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the midweek session on a modestly lower note. The S&P 500 shed 0.4% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) underperformed throughout the session.

Equity indices struggled in the early going after the advance reading of Q1 GDP (0.2%; Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) missed expectations. However, that disappointment was partially offset by the FOMC directive, which did not stir concerns of a rate hike taking place in the near term. Instead, the FOMC reiterated that the current policy stance will remain appropriate until there is reasonable confidence among members that inflation will move back to the 2.0% objective.

Seven sectors registered losses while energy (+0.7%) outperformed throughout the session thanks to a 2.6% gain in crude oil, which settled at $58.52/bbl. The energy component was boosted by a storage report that showed a smaller than expected inventory build while dollar weakness also factored into the move higher. The Dollar Index (95.22, -0.88) fell 0.9%, registering its sixth consecutive decline. Most notably, the euro (1.1111) added 1.3% against the dollar.

On the flip side, countercyclical consumer staples (-0.8%) and health care (-0.8%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard, but health care managed to cut its loss in half thanks to modest gains in the biotech space. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 344.81, +0.31) added 0.1% to snap its three-day skid, but could not close above its 50-day moving average (348.51), which served as resistance for the second day in a row. Meanwhile, the broader health care sector slumped under the weight of Express Scripts (ESRX 84.79, -2.71) and Humana (HUM 168.05, -13.06) after both reported earnings. Express Scripts reported in-line and narrowed its guidance while Humana missed expectations.

Elsewhere, the technology sector (-0.5%) ended a bit behind the broader market, but that masked a late afternoon spike in Salesforce.com (CRM 74.65, +7.76) after Bloomberg reported the company has hired bankers to discuss potential offers. As for high-beta chipmakers, the group struggled with the PHLX Semiconductor Index losing 0.6%.

Similarly, another high-beta group-transport stocks-could not catch up to the broader market. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 1.2% with Norfolk Southern (NSC 103.18, -1.19) falling 1.1% after reporting in-line with its warning. However, airline stocks led the group lower amid rising fuel prices with Delta Air Lines (DAL 45.03, -1.17) sliding 2.5%.

Treasuries retreated throughout the day, but they trimmed their losses during afternoon action. The 10-yr note ended essentially where it traded just ahead of the FOMC Statement with the benchmark yield higher by four basis points at 2.05%.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 845 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included advance Q1 GDP, Pending Home Sales, and MBA Mortgage Index:


According to the advance estimate, Q1 2015 GDP increased 0.2% after increasing 2.2% in Q4 2014 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%
Even more disappointing, the downside miss on the top-line growth number masked an even worse overall trend. If not for an increase in inventories, GDP would have been negative in the first quarter. Real final sales declined 0.5% in the first quarter after increasing 2.3% in Q4 2014. That was the worst quarter since real final sales declined 1.0% in Q1 2014.
Personal consumption expenditures increased 1.9% in the first quarter, down from a 4.4% increase in Q4 2014
Goods spending increased a modest 0.2%, down from 4.8% in the fourth quarter
Services spending increased 2.8% after increasing 4.3% in the fourth quarter
Pending home sales for March rose 1.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.2%
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 2.3% to follow last week's 2.3% increase

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 290K), Personal Income/Spending data for March, and Q1 Employment Cost Index (consensus 0.6%) will be released at 8:30 ET while the Chicago PMI report for April (expected 50.0) will cross the wires at 9:45 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.5% YTD
S&P 500 +2.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD

DJ30 -74.61 NASDAQ -31.78 SP500 -7.91 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 881/1.73 bln/2118 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1016/847.7 mln/2036

3:40 pm :

Commodities had a number of catalysts today, including industry data, Fed data and morning econ data
WTI crude oil futures were sitting near the day's high, at the time, just ahead of the weekly EIA storage data
Following the data, WTI oil extended gains above $59/barrel, but closed the day +$1.47 at $58.52/barrel
Natural gas futures rallied 3% today to end at $2.60/MMBtu
Precious metals sold off today, extending losses post-Fed
June gold ended -$3.80 at $1210/oz, while May silver +$0.07 at $16.55/oz

11:54 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (87) outpacing new lows (60) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ALSK, AMG, AVY, BANR, BGCP, BK, BKSC, CATY, CBG, CEB, CFNL, CISG, CLGX, CMT, COL, CRI, CUBI, CYN, CYNO, CYOU, DDC, DHIL, DOVR, DOX, EBF, EEFT, ETFC, EVI, FAC, GNE, GSH, GT, HELE, HLT, HOT, HQY, HTLF, ING, INTL, IPWR, JBSS, JYNT, KALU, KMG, KTCC, LMAT, LOGM, LQ, LVLT, MA, MCGC, MSTR, NORD, NRZ, NTES, OEC, OMAM, OSHC, PKT, PNFP, QTM, RNG, SAR, SBBX, SBCF, SC, SEIC, SFG, SSB, SYKE, SYUT, TOWN, TPX, TRCB, TREE, TRQ, TSS, UBSI, USAT, USCR, VNTV, VRSK, VRX, WD, WTBA, WVVI, XPO

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AGNC, AHC, AIXG, AKAO, AMCF, ANIK, ASND, BAGR, BV, CALX, CBAY, CBLI, CEL, CIDM, CLDN, CPTA, DAR, DEST, DRYS, DXM, EMES, EOX, ESBK, FREE, FTK, FUEL, GLRI, GOV, HGT, HURN, ICON, IF, IKAN, LL, LPTN, LXP, MOBL, MSL, MTGE, NLY, NNVC, NVTA, OTEL, PESI, PKY, PRTS, PTNR, RYN, SAIA, SPW, SSYS, STRM, TGEN, UTIW, VIDE, VRS, VTNR, WPG, WYNN, XOMA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: TAO

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

9:05 am Integrated Silicon misses by $0.02, misses on revs (ISSI) : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues fell 1.0% year/year to $80.1 mln vs the $82.62 mln consensus.

"Revenue in Q2 reflected softer than anticipated demand across our end markets as well as reduced flash sales due to the ongoing wafer shortage. However, design activity in the quarter was strong, including a number of large DDR3 and mobile DRAM wins for automotive and industrial applications. We also secured our first design wins for RLDRAM3 memory and for our flash products in an automotive application. Additionally, analog revenue increased in the quarter compared to Q1 as we continue to gain customer traction with key new products, in particular for our higher margin business outside of China."
Co will not be providing financial guidance due to the pending acquisition.
8:06 am O2Micro reports EPS in-line, misses on revs (OIIM) : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.12 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.12); revenues fell 20.6% year/year to $13.1 mln vs the $13.67 mln consensus. Co sees Q2 revs of 10-16% QoQ vs +11.2% Capital IQ consnsus

7:12 am Silicon Labs beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SLAB) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.54 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.46; revenues rose 12.4% year/year to $163.7 mln vs the $159.16 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.50-0.56, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.53 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $164-169 mln, and anticipates another record in its IoT products, vs. $167.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

6:32 am United Micro beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line (UMC) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.32 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.28; revenues rose 18.8% year/year to $37.65 bln vs the $37.73 bln consensus.

Foundry revenue from advanced nodes: 9% from 28nm, 24% from 40nmFoundry capacity utilization rate: 93% During 1Q15, wafer shipments increased 3.5% sequentially, which led to foundry revenue of NT$36.00 billion.
Quarter-over-Quarter Guidance:

Foundry Segment Wafer Shipments: To remain flatFoundry Segment ASP in US$: To remain flatFoundry Segment Profitability: Gross profit margin will be in the mid-20 percentage rangeFoundry Segment Capacity Utilization: Approximately 90%2015 CAPEX for Foundry Segment: $1.8bnGuidance to New Business Segment: Revenue to be approximately NT$1.75bn and operating loss to be ~NT$280mn

Dialog Semiconductor plc (DLGNF) announced that its DA9210 IC will deliver precision power management to the MediaTek processor in HTC's latest smartphones, the HTC One M9+ and HTC One E9+

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: It was a down day all around for the equity market on the last day of April. Every major average finished lower by at least 1.0% and every sector in the S&P 500 finished in negative territory.

The broad-based weakness was fed by stepped-up profit-taking interest that kicked in as technical support levels were violated and as former leadership stocks/groups like Apple (AAPL 125.24, -3.40, -2.7%), the transports, the biotech issues, and consumer discretionary names remained on the defensive.

Pulled lower by Apple's weakness, the S&P 500 information technology sector (-1.6%) was the worst-performing sector in Thursday's trade. Apple, however, had plenty of company as 57 of the sector's 66 components lost ground.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Apple (AAPL 125.24, -3.40, -2.7%): According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple reportedly found defects in a watch component supplied by Chinese firm AAC Technologies Holdings that curtailed the availability of the watch.

Autodesk (ADSK 56.81, -2.74, -4.6%): Announced it is working with Microsoft (MSFT 48.64, -0.42, -0.9%) to embed its 3D printing platform in Windows 10, and that it intends to make its 3D modeling software interoperable with Microsoft's mixed reality environment
Automatic Data Processing (ADP 84.54, -0.85, -1.0%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.04 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 7.3% year/year to $3.03 bln. For FY15, raises EPS growth to +14% from +12-14% and lowers revenue growth to +7% from +7-8% due to FX (2% headwind). This forecast, the company said, anticipates at least 75 basis points of pretax margin expansion from 18.4% in fiscal 2014

Fidelity National Information Services (FIS 62.49, -1.66, -2.6%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.65 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was slightly below analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $1.54 bln, also below estimates. For FY15, sees EPS of $3.27-3.37 and revenues of $6.49-6.62 bln. Harris (HRS 80.23, +0.98, +1.2%): Company and Thales Defense & Security were awarded a ceiling $3,885,119,045 firm-fixed-price and cost reimbursable, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with options for rifleman radios and associated services. Funding and work location will be determined with each order with an estimated completion date of April 28, 2025.

Microsoft (MSFT 48.64, -0.42, -0.9%): According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft to purchase N-Trig for $30 mln

Visa (V 66.05, -1.29, -1.9%): After Thursday's close, reported Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.63 per share, a penny ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 7.8% year/year to $3.41 bln, which was ahead of estimates. Visa Inc. reaffirmed its financial outlook for the following metrics for fiscal full-year 2015: Constant dollar revenue growth of low double digits, with an expectation of two percentage points of negative foreign currency impact; Client incentives as a percent of gross revenues: 17.5% to 18.5% range; Annual operating margin: Mid 60s; Tax rate: Low 30s; Annual free cash flow greater than $6 billion. Annual diluted class A common stock earnings per share growth: Low-end of the mid-teens range.

Western Union (WU 20.28, -0.11, -0.5%): After Thursday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.39 per share, which was a penny ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 2.2% year/year to $1.32 bln. For FY15, sees EPS of $1.58-1.65. Company reaffirmed FY15 revenue guidance of a low to mid-single digit GAAP revenue decrease.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba (BABA 81.29, -1.16, -1.4%): Alibaba's Tmall Global announced the launch of a new "World Duty Free" service that allows Chinese tourists to prepay for their duty-free purchases before going on vacation.

Arrow Electronics (ARW 59.71, -3.25, -4.9%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.32 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 3.4% year/year to $5.01 bln, which was slightly below estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of $1.43-1.55 and revenues of $5.45-5.85 bln.
Brocade (BRCD 11.30, -0.52, -4.5%): Announced it is redefining networking for IP storage systems with the industry's first purpose-built storage connectivity portfolio for both data center and disaster recovery applications to help enterprise IT teams manage growth, mitigate risk, and reduce costs. EMC will continue to work to integrate new IP storage technology features to the EMC Connectrix family of network switches and management software.
Cypress Semiconductor (CY 13.33, +0.53, +4.1%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.45 per share, which includes a $107 mln adjustment for aged and excess inventory acquired through the merger with Spansion. Revenues rose 22.8% year/year to $209.1 mln, which was slightly below analysts' average expectation. CY closed a $5 billion merger with Spansion Inc. on March 12, earlier than anticipated. Says $8.4 million in annualized synergies already realized. Company raised synergy cost savings to $160 mln from $135 mln after closing Spansion merger. Sees Q2 non-GAAP EPS $0.11-0.15 and revenue of $475-500 mln.
FireEye (FEYE 41.30, -1.66, -3.9%): After Thursday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.48 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 69.5% year/year to $125.4 mln, also ahead of estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of ($0.50)-($0.47), excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $140-144 mln. Both guidance ranges are in-line with estimates. For FY15, sees EPS of ($1.85)-($1.75), excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $615-635 mln.
LinkedIn (LNKD 252.13, -5.02, -2.0%): After Thursday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.57 per share, a penny ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 34.9% year/year to $638 mln, also slightly ahead of estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of ~$0.28 and revenues of $670-675 mln. For FY15, lowers EPS to ~$1.90 from ~$2.95, which may not be comparable consensus expectations; lowers FY15 revenues to ~$2.90 bln from $2.93-2.95 bln. Shares of LNKD were trading 26% lower in after-hours action.

Nokia (NOK 6.58, -0.91, -12.2%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of 0.05 per share, in-line with expectations. Revenues rose 20.0% year/year to 3.2 bln vs the 3.01 bln consensus. 15% year-on-year net sales growth driven by growth in four out of our six regions, with non-IFRS operating margin declining to 3.2% from 9.3%. 21% year-on-year growth in Global Services net sales, primarily driven by strong growth in the network implementation business line. 10% year-on-year growth in Mobile Broadband net sales, primarily driven by overall radio technologies, particularly LTE. Company expects net sales for Nokia Networks to increase year-over-year in FY15.

OmniVision Technologies (OVTI 27.910, +1.35, +5.1%): Before Thursday's open, the company announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by a consortium composed of Hua Capital management Co., Ltd., CITIC Capital holdings Limited, and Goldstone Investment Co., Ltd. Under the terms of the agreement, OmniVision stockholders will receive $29.75 per share in cash, or a total of approximately $1.9 billion. the agreement was unanimously approved by OmniVision's Board of Directors.
NXP Semi (NXPI 96.08, +0.66, +0.6%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.35 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 17.7% year/year to $1.47 bln. For Q2, sees EPS of $1.33-1.43 and revenues of $1.49-1.54 bln.

Twitter (TWTR 38.96, +0.47, +1.3%): After Wednesday's close, Twitter disclosed that in connection with the acquisition of TellApart, it agreed to issue up to an aggregate of ~12.6 mln shares of its common stock as a portion of the consideration for all of the outstanding equity of TellApart IDC reports overall shipments for tablets and 2-in-1 devices fell to 47.1 million in 1Q15, a -5.9% YoY.
In industry news, IDC said Apple still leads the overall market despite five consecutive quarters of negative annual shipment growth. Apple shipped 12.6 million iPads in the first quarter, capturing 26.8% of the market in volume and declining -22.9% when compared to 1Q14. Samsung (19.1% share) maintained its second place in the market despite a -16.5% decline in shipments compared to the same period last year.

Analyst Action:

MasterCard (MA 90.21, -0.04, -0.04%): target raised to $105 from $91 at Susquehanna

Microsoft (MSFT 48.64, -0.42, -0.9%): target raised to $54 from $50 at RBC Capital Markets; Outperform
Salesforce.com (CRM 72.82, -1.83, -2.6%): target raised to $83 from $79 at Stifel; Buy... downgraded to Outperform from Buy at Credit Agricole

Yelp (YELP 39.39, -11.89, -23.8%): target lowered to $48 from $51 at UBS; Neutral... target lowered to $42 from $48 at Axiom Capital; Hold... downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets; target to $50 from $82... target lowered to $75 from $90 at Wunderlich; Buy... target lowered to $68 from $78 at Cantor Fitzgerald... downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch... target lowered to $55 from $80 at Needham; Buy... target lowered to $60 from $76 at Oppenheimer; Outperform... target lowered to $52 from $70 at Sun Trust Robonson Humphrey(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Microsoft)

5:05 pm Teradyne beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (TER) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.12; revenues rose 6.5% year/year to $342 mln vs the $331.38 mln consensus.

Orders in the first quarter of 2015 were $490 million of which $397 million were in Semiconductor Test, $66 million in System Test and $27 million in Wireless Test.

Co states: "On the capital return front, we repurchased 2.4 million shares and paid $13 million in dividends in the first quarter. For the full year, we remain on track to repurchase at least $300 million of the $500 million Board authorization."

Guidance: Co issues mixed guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.42-$0.48 vs. $0.36 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $470-$500 mln vs. $448.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:51 pm Aehr Test Systems announces an order receipt for an ABTS burn-in and test system from a Chinese customer (AEHR) : Co announced it has received an order from a new customer in China for immediate shipment of an ABTS burn-in and test system for high temperature operating life testing of devices for reliability characterization. The system is expected to ship within the next month.

4:38 pm QLogic beats by $0.02, misses on revs (QLGC) : Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues rose 15.0% year/year to $133 mln vs the $135.36 mln consensus.

4:35 pm AXT beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (AXTI) : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.03 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.04); revenues rose 2.6% year/year to $20.1 mln vs the $19.94 mln consensus.

4:31 pm First Solar and Caterpillar (CAT) announce a strategic alliance to develop an integrated photovoltaic solar solution for microgrid applications (FSLR) : Under the agreement, First Solar will design and manufacture a pre-engineered turnkey package for use in remote microgrid applications, such as small communities and mine sites. The package will feature Cat-branded solar panels manufactured by First Solar and will include a balance of system components.

Caterpillar will exclusively sell and support the integrated solution featuring Cat-branded solar panels through its worldwide Cat dealer network, along with its current offerings of generator sets and energy storage. Caterpillar expects to first market the new microgrid solution in the Asia Pacific, Africa, and Latin America regions, with the integrated PV solution, including Cat-branded solar panels, available for customers in that region in the second half of 2015
4:30 pm Brooks Automation beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (BRKS) : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.06; revenues rose 10.6% year/year to $139.3 mln vs the $132.83 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.08-0.12, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $136-142 mln vs. $138.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:29 pm SunPower beats by $0.05, misses on revs; Reiterates not guiding until ot sees more clarity in YieldCo biz (SPWR) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.08; revenues fell 37.0% year/year to $430.6 mln vs the $443.61 mln consensus.

Non-GAAP Gross Margin 20.5% compared to 22.0% in prior year period. SunPower believes that its underlying business fundamentals remain strong for 2015. However, in light of the company's announcement on Feb. 23, 2015 of its intention to form a joint YieldCo vehicle, 8point3 Energy Partners, with First Solar, and the pending S-1 registration statement, the company will withhold fiscal year 2015 guidance until the company can finalize the estimates regarding the impact of the proposed YieldCo vehicle on the company's expected financial performance. The company will provide an update at a later date.
4:28 pm Cohu beats by $0.10, beats on revs (COHU) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.07); revenues rose 4.9% year/year to $68.1 mln vs the $62.74 mln consensus.

4:17 pm Skyworks beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 above consensus (SWKS) : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $1.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.13; revenues rose 58.4% year/year to $762 mln vs the $751.82 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $1.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $800 mln vs. $781.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm JDS Uniphase beats by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (JDSU) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues fell 1.7% year/year to $410.7 mln vs the $418.12 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.09-0.13 vs. $0.16 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $413-433 mln vs. $444.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"JDSU delivered better-than-expected operating margin and EPS despite muted carrier spending that impacted our Network and Service Enablement businesses. We saw strength in optical components for datacom, achieving a record revenue quarter, and are encouraged by progress in our next generation service enablement solutions. Lumentum and Viavi Solutions are building momentum and we remain on plan to complete the spin in the third calendar quarter this year."
4:15 pm : The major averages ended April on a lower note, but managed to escape with monthly gains. The S&P 500 lost 1.0% and narrowed its April advance to 0.9% while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.6%) underperformed today and ended the month (+0.8%) just behind the benchmark index.

Equity indices faced selling pressure from the get-go with the largest sector-technology (-1.6%)-leading the daylong retreat. The influential group faced broad-based weakness with its top component-Apple (AAPL 125.15, -3.49)-sliding 2.7% after the Wall Street Journal reported that some watch components provided by AAC Technologies (AACAY 53.31, -2.79) may be defective. That being said, other sector members also struggled with Yelp (YELP 39.36, -11.92) cratering in reaction to its quarterly report. Shares of YELP tumbled 23.2% in reaction to disappointing earnings/revenue and cautious revenue guidance for Q2.

The tech sector contributed to the underperformance of the Nasdaq, but the index also faced significant weakness in the biotech group. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 333.66, -11.15) lost 3.2% and settled just above its 100-day moving average (331.05). The ETF dropped 2.8% in April while the health care sector (-1.5%) underperformed today and lost 1.4% for the month.

Elsewhere among influential groups, the industrial sector (-0.9%) ended ahead of the broader market, but that masked relative weakness among transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 1.3%, ending the month lower by 1.7%. On the earnings front, freight carrier Con-way (CNW 41.10, -1.40) lost 3.3% after reporting a one-cent beat on light revenue while shipper Kirby (KEX 78.53, -3.37) dropped 4.1% after its cautious guidance overshadowed a one-cent beat.

All ten sectors finished the day in negative territory with energy (-0.4%) succumbing to the pressure during late afternoon action. The sector displayed intraday strength thanks to crude oil's 1.8% advance to $59.63/bbl. For the month, the energy sector gained 6.6% while crude oil spiked 20.8% amid a pullback in the dollar.

Fittingly, the Dollar Index (94.78, -0.43) retreated again today, which represented the seventh consecutive decline. Greenback weakness was a recurring theme in April with the Dollar Index losing 3.5% for the month after posting nine monthly gains. The euro benefitted from the pullback in the dollar with the single currency rising from 1.0731 to 1.1225 in April.

Treasuries retreated in the morning, but reclaimed all of their losses during the day. The 10-yr yield ended at 2.04%, representing the highest level since mid-March.

Today's participation was above average with month-end flows likely responsible for the difference. As a result, more than a billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included initial claims, Personal Income/Spending data, Q1 Employment Cost Index, and Chicago PMI:


The initial claims level declined to 262,000 for the week ending April 25 from an upwardly revised 296,000 (from 295,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 290,000
According to the Department of Labor, there were no special factors that impacted the initial claims reading, which hit the lowest level since April 2000
Personal income growth was virtually flat in March after increasing 0.4% in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
That was the weakest personal income increase since December 2013
Personal spending increased 0.4% in March after increasing an upwardly revised 0.2% (from 0.1%) in February while the consensus expected an increase of 0.5%
The Employment Cost Index increased 0.7% in Q1 2015 after increasing a downwardly revised 0.5% (from 0.6%) in Q4 2014 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%
Wages and salaries increased 0.7% in the first quarter, up from a 0.6% increase in Q4 2014
Benefits spending growth held steady at 0.6%
The Chicago PMI increased to 52.3 in April from 46.3 in March while the Briefing.com Consensus expected an increase to 50.0
The increase ended two consecutive monthly contractions
The Production Index increased to 52.7 in April from 49.3 in March

Tomorrow, the ISM Index for April (Briefing.com consensus 51.9), March Construction Spending (expected 0.4%), and the final reading of the April Michigan Sentiment Index (consensus 96.0) will all be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +4.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.1% YTD

DJ30 -195.01 NASDAQ -82.22 SP500 -21.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 679/1.96 bln/2699 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 698/1.05 bln/2375

3:35 pm :

Natural gas futures surge higher on storage data, closing floor trading 6% higher at $2.75/MMBtu
WTI crude oil was strong as well, rally above the $59/barrel level, closing +$1.02 at $59.54/barrel'
Precious metals tanked today, but recovered some
June gold lost -2.3% (or -$27.80) to $1182.20/oz, while July silver closed -3.2% to $16.15/oz
July copper rallied +$0.08 to $2.88/lb

Large Cap Gainers

ROK (119.01 +5.95%): Beat Q2 consensus EPS estimates by $0.17, reported revs in-line; reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance, guided FY15 revs below consensus.
EQIX (260.43 +6.38%): Reported Q1 (Mar) results, revs in-line; guided Q2 revs above consensus; guided FY15 revs in-line; Price tgt raised at Canaccord Genuity.
ABC (115.63 +2.84%): Beat Q2 consensus EPS estimates by $0.26, beat on revs; guided FY15 EPS above consensus; announced new special $1 bln share repurchase program.

Large Cap Losers

BIDU (203.49 -7.08%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.11, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 revs in-line;
VALE (7.06 -2.75%): Reported Q1 results, Adjusted EBITDA was $1.602 billion; Gross revenues reached $6.358 bln and may not comp to $7.01 bln consensus.
ZMH (110.61 -4.1%): Reported Q1 EPS in-line, missed on revs; lowered FY15 EPS on FX; raised synergy, lowered accretion guidance for Biomet merger.

Mid Cap Gainers

WX (43.31 +9.65%): Announced receipt of proposal to acquire all outstanding shares for $46/ADS share in cash.
PPC (25.07 +4.11%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.82 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.77; revenues rose 1.7% year/year to $2.05 bln vs the $2.08 bln consensus.
COMM (29.61 +6.63%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.06, reported revs in-line; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance.

Mid Cap Losers

YELP (40.02 -21.95%): Missed Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.06, missed on revs; guided Q2 revs below consensus; reaffirmed FY15 revs guidance; Downgraded at RBC Capital Mkts, Northland Capital, BofA/Merrill, others.
PCRX (68.99 -15.99%): Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.21; revenues rose 59.1% year/year to $58.31 mln vs the $61.36 mln consensus; suspended its full year 2015 guidance for EXPAREL.
STM (7.97 -13.19%): Reported Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guided Q2 revs in-line; downgraded at Kepler Cheuvreux.

11:52 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (96) outpacing new highs (60) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABC, ALLE, APTS, ASH, ATRC, AVG, AVY, BGCP, BKSC, BLVD, CACC, CBS.A, CHMT, CKSW, CLBH, CLRO, CMT, COLM, CORI, COWN, CSGP, CYOU, DHIL, EQIX, ETFC, EURN, FIX, FPF, GSH, HF, HOLX, IGTE, INTL, IVZ, JBT, JCAP, KEN, LQ, LUX, MELI, MFLX, MLM, MYCC, NYCB, OEC, OSHC, PATK, PBHC, RDWR, SCI, STRZA, TASR, TILE, TPX, TREE, TSLF, VAC, VRX, WIFI, WX

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AIXG, AKAO, AP, ARDX, ARR, ASEI, ASND, AXE, BPI, BSI, BV, BVSN, BWEN, CALL, CBLI, CBYL, CDNA, CIDM, CIM, CLI, CUZ, DEST, DRYS, DSS, DV, DXM, EGL, EGP, EMMS, ERIC, FARO, FORR, FPO, FTEK, FUEL, GLRI, GOV, GRC, ICLD, IF, ISH, IVAC, LL, LPTN, LXP, MHGC, MNKD, MOBL, MPEL, MSL, MTGE, MXPT, NATH, NKTR, NLY, NNVC, NOK, NRP, NVDQ, NVTA, OCRX, OFG, OPXA, ORN, PANL, PCRX, PDII, PDM, PERF, PFMT, PKY, PNX, PRTS, PTBI, PTNT, QUIK, RDEN, RWLK, RYN, SJT, SNH, SPDC, SPW, SSYS, STRI, STRM, TCO, TSU, TTF, UPLD, UTIW, VTNR, VVUS, WPCS, WPG, XOMA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: TAO

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: IDX

8:04 am Cypress Semi reports Q1 results, misses on revs (CY) : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.45 per share, which includes a $107 mln adjustment for aged and excess inventory acquired through the merger with Spansion. This does not compare to the $0.07 CapIQ consensus. Revenues rose 22.8% year/year to $209.1 mln vs the $215.59 mln consensus.

CY closed a $5 billion merger with Spansion Inc. on March 12, earlier than anticipated. Says $8.4 million in annualized synergies already realized.

8:01 am Microvision misses by $0.01 (MVIS) : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.09 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.08). As of March 31, 2015, backlog was $18.7 million and cash and cash equivalents were $16.7 million. The cash balance includes funds received during the quarter of approximately $2.3 million from the exercise of previously issued warrants and $1.0 million from the sale of stock through an At-the-Market (:ATM) equity facility MicroVision established last June, which is now completed.

8:01 am OmniVision confirms it will be acquired by consortium for $29.75 per share, or ~$1.9 bln (shares halted) (OVTI) : The co announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by a consortium composed of Hua Capital Management Co., Ltd., CITIC Capital Holdings Limited, and GoldStone Investment Co., Ltd. Under the terms of the agreement, OmniVision stockholders will receive $29.75 per share in cash, or a total of approximately $1.9 billion. The agreement was unanimously approved by OmniVision's Board of Directors.

7:43 am DSP Group beats by $0.03, beats on revs (DSPG) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.06; revenues rose 16% year/year to $38.0 mln vs the $37.1 mln consensus.

6:26 am Cabot Micro misses by $0.10, misses on revs (CCMP) : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.55 per share, $0.10 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.65; revenues rose 5.4% year/year to $104.9 mln vs the $106.81 mln consensus.

"Looking ahead, some of our customers and industry reports are calling for softer semiconductor industry conditions during the June quarter compared to the March quarter. Through the first month of our third fiscal quarter we have also seen some softness in demand for our CMP consumables products. However, we are confident that we can continue to successfully manage our business over a range of demand environments, and believe that we are well positioned for the future."

4:55 am UTStarcom wins major contract to support carrier Wi-Fi system in Bangladesh (UTSI) : Co announced that it has been awarded a significant contract to support a major Carrier Wi-Fi system integration for Banglalion Communications, a WiMAX 4G operator in Bangladesh. This partnership further complements UTStarcom's efforts to expand its global footprint and will allow the Company to enter a new growth market.

As part of the contract, UTStarcom will supply the Carrier Wi-Fi solution to Banglalion Communications within Bangladesh. It will also include the Access Controller, Access Point and EMS management system. UTStarcom will also supply and integrate the Carrier Wi-Fi system equipped with a TD-LTE service and this will enable the operator to unify user and billing management
3:14 am Advanced Semi misses by NT$0.02; beats on revs (ASX) : Reports Q1 EPS NT$0.56 vs NT$0.58 Cap IQ consensus; revs increased 18% YoY to NT$64.66 bln vs NT$64.21 bln consensus

OUTLOOK
Based on our current business outlook and exchange rate assumptions, management projects overall performance for the second quarter of 2015 to be as follows:

IC ATM production capacity will be up 2%; blended IC ATM utilization should be flat to up 2%
IC ATM gross margin should stay relatively unchanged from the previous quarter
EMS business should reach a level between the results of the last two quarters
EMS gross margin might be slightly lower than the normalized margin in the previous quarter due to customer supply chain issues
1:42 am NXP Semi beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (NXPI) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.35 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.31; revenues rose 17.7% year/year to $1.47 bln vs the $1.48 bln consensus.

Non-GAAP Gross margin 48.5%

Guidance:

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.33-1.43 vs. $1.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.49-1.54 bln vs. $1.54 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Equities kicked off May with a bang as all indices moved higher, with the Nasdaq (+1.3%) leading the way. Friday was rather light in regards to news, besides the ISM Manufacturing Index, which was unchanged and remained at 51.5 in April. General consensus called for an increase to 51.9. Although results were slightly under expectations, the key production and order readings showed improvement.

The S&P 500 Information Technology Sector (+1.5%) also performed well, which shouldn't be much of a surprise since the heavily tech weighted Nasdaq was the top performer on the day. Top performances in the sector include, Avago Tech (AVGO 122.80, 5.92, +5.1%), Western Union (WU 21.25, +0.97, +4.8%), and Micron Tech (MU 28.99, +0.86, +3.1%).

Also worth noting, the Philadelphia SOX surged 2.8% higher led by NXP Semiconductor (NXPI 100.99, +4.87, +5.1%), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 98.30, +6.05, +6.6%), Teradyne (TER 20.30, +2.05, +11.2%) and Altera (ALTR 45.76, +4.08, +9.8%)

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

MasterCard (MA): Announced the expansion of its intellectual property relationship with First Performance Global. Through the global extension of a license for its proprietary MasterCard In Control technology, MasterCard will take an equity stake in First Performance. As a result, the two companies will collaborate on growing First Performance's ability to offer payment card issuers and processors self-service tools for cardholders.

Altera (ALTR 45.76, +4.08, +9.8%): NYPost article reports that Intel (INTC 33.42, +0.87, 2.7%) may soon resume takeover discussions

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Moneygram (MGI 8.30, +0.55, +7.1%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.11 per share, $0.03 worse than the $0.14 estimate. Revenues fell 11.8% year/year to $330.6 million vs the $334.69 million consensus. Additionally, MGI issued guidance for FY15, forecasting revenues of $1.45 billion vs the $1.4 bln consensus.
Monotype Imaging (TYPE 27.65, -4.76, -14.7%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with estimates of $0.26, on revenues tha fell 0.2% year/year to $46 million vs the $47.14 million consensus.
Heartland Payment Systems (HPY 52.15, +1.25, +2.5%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.62 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than consensus estimate of $0.60. Revenues rose 22.4% year/year to $190.3 million, excluding interchange, dues, assessments and fees, vs the $189.67 million consensus.

Analyst Action:

Immersion (IMMR 11.47, +0.64, +5.9%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Ascendiant Capital; price target $14
Cypress Semi (CY 13.34, +0.02, +0.2%): upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Needham
Western Union (WU 21.25, +0.97, +4.8%): upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo

Constant Contact (CTCT 27.51, -7.34, -21.1%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Rosenblatt... downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Barrington Research... downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse
Knowles (KN 19.03, -0.14, -0.7%): downgrade to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum; price target lowered to $16 from $23
PC Connection (PCCC 24.67, +0.38, +1.6%): downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Raymond James
Baidu.com (BIDU 202.47, +2.19, +1.1%) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies; price target lowered to $196 from $253

Bitauto Holdings (BITA 61.35, +1.87, +3.2%): initiated with a Buy at Credit Agricole

Citrix Systems (CTXS 66.94, -0.22, -0.3%),
New Relic (NEWR 32.98, +0.49, +1.5%),
Tableau Software (DATA 97.77, -0.07, -0.1%),

Qlik Tech (QLIK 34.91, +0.12, +0.3%): initiated with a Buy at Sun Trust
Teradata (TDC 45.01, +1.02, +2.3%),

Oracle (ORCL 44.37, +0.75, +1.75),
Hortonworks (HDP 20.01, -0.16, -0.8%),

ServiceNow (NOW 73.75, -1.11, -1.5%),
MicroStrategy (MSTR 182.68, +0.56, +0.3%),
Splunk (SPLK 66.71, +0.37, +0.6%),
VMWare (VMW 87.47, -0.63, -0.7%): initiated with a Neutral at Sun Trust
Activision Blizzard (ATVI 23.05, +0.24, +1%): price target raised to $27 from $24 at MKM Partners; Buy

Skyworks (SWKS 98.30, +6.05, +6.6%): price target raised to $120 from $116 at MKM Partners; Buy... price target raised to $110 from $96 at Craig Hallum; Buy... price target raised to $110 from $100 at Oppenheimer; Outperform

LinkedIn (LNKD 205.21, -46.92, -18.6%): price target lowered to $307 from $331 at Credit Suisse; Outperform... price target lowered to $250 from $300 at Stifel; Buy... Price target lowered to $250 from $300 at Needham; Buy... price target lowered to $230 from $300 at Axiom Capital; Buy... price target lowered to $285 from $300 at Monness Crespi & Hardt; Buy... price target lowered to $245 from $280 at Cantor Fitzgerald; Buy... price target lowered to $250 from $275 at Sun Trust; Buy... price target lowered to $260 from $300 at Wunderlich; Buy... price target lowered to $275 from $300 at RBC Capital; Outperform... price target lowered to $180 from $211 at FBR Capital; Market Perform... price target lowered to $172 from $208 at Brean Capital; BuyWeekly

Recap - Week ending 01-May-15

Dow +183.54 at 18024.06, Nasdaq +63.97 at 5005.39, S&P +22.78 at 2108.29

The stock market ended a defensive week on an upbeat note. The S&P 500 gained 1.1% to narrow its weekly decline to 0.4% while the Nasdaq (+1.3%) outperformed slightly today, but lost 1.7% since last Friday.

The final session of the week was very quiet with the bulk of the action taking place at the open when the S&P 500 spiked above its 50-day moving average (2,090). The benchmark index spent the bulk of the day near its morning high, but punched through that level during afternoon action to complete a full retracement of Thursday's decline.

Nine of ten sectors posted gains with materials (+1.7%) ending the day and the week (+2.0%) ahead of the remaining sectors. Today, the growth-sensitive group received support from Monsanto (MON 118.42, +4.46) as the stock spiked 3.9% after Bloomberg reported the company has approached Syngenta (SYT 77.95, +10.91) about a potential takeover. Steelmakers also contributed to the sector's strength with Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 35.74, +0.49) climbing 1.4%.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector-energy-spent the bulk of the session in the red, but turned positive during the afternoon. The sector added 0.3% today and finished the week with a 1.1% gain. Crude oil weighed on the sector in the early going, but the energy component narrowed its loss to 0.8% by the close to settle at $59.15/bbl. WTI crude recovered a portion of its decline after the latest Baker Hughes Rig Count showed that the pace of decline in active oil and gas rigs slowed to 27 from 31 observed last week.

However, crude oil could not return into the green as an uptick in the greenback weighed on the dollar-denominated commodity. To that point, the Dollar Index (95.15, +0.55) added 0.6% and registered its first advance in eight days after the previous seven sessions saw the index slide 3.6%.

Outside of energy, the financial sector (+0.8%) was the only other cyclical group that ended the day behind the broader market. Meanwhile, the top-weighted technology sector (+1.5%) outperformed even as LinkedIn (LNKD 205.21, -46.92) plunged 18.6% after its cautious guidance overshadowed a one-cent beat. However, LinkedIn's weakness was offset by most large cap names with the likes of Apple (AAPL 128.95, +3.80), Oracle (ORCL 44.37, +0.75), and Intel (INTC 33.42, +0.87) gaining between 1.7% and 3.0%.

Over on the countercyclical side, only the health care sector (+1.3%) finished the day ahead of the S&P 500 with help from biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 344.00, +10.34) spiked 3.1% after Gilead Sciences (GILD 105.03, +4.52) reported better than expected results.

Treasuries retreated throughout the day, sending the 10-yr yield higher by eight basis points to 2.11%.

Today's participation was below recent averages with roughly 720 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Construction Spending, ISM Index, and Michigan Sentiment:

Construction spending declined 0.6% in March after increasing an upwardly revised 0.1% (from -0.1%) in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.4%
Private construction spending increased 0.3% in March after declining 0.3% in February
Despite a rebound in the new housing starts, private residential construction declined 1.6% in March after increasing 0.2% in February
The ISM Manufacturing Index was unchanged and remained at 51.5 in April while the Briefing.com Consensus expected an increase to 51.9
Even though the overall index did not strengthen as the consensus expected, the key production and order readings showed improvement
The Production Index increased to 56.0 in April from 53.8 in March
The New Orders Index increased to 53.5 from 51.8
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was unrevised in the final April reading after sentiment rose from 93.0 in March to 95.9 in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected a revision up to 96.0
Unlike the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, which declined in April, relatively higher gasoline prices and volatility in the equity markets had no adverse effects on the Consumer Sentiment Index

Monday's data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of the Factory Orders report for March (Briefing.com consensus 2.1%).

Week in Review: Backing Off Record Highs

The stock market began the week with a pullback from record levels, but not before setting fresh intraday record highs during the opening minutes of action. The S&P 500 (-0.4%) registered its first decline in four sessions while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) underperformed. Equity indices displayed modest gains in the early going to follow a relatively quiet weekend. It is worth noting that China's Shanghai Composite soared 3.0% after MNI reported the People's Bank of China is looking into purchasing local government bonds. As for U.S. stocks, the S&P 500 held an eight-point gain at the start with cyclical sectors underpinning the early strength; however, biotechnology lagged from the early going and pressured the health care sector (-1.8%) to the bottom of the leaderboard. For its part, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 348.55, -15.15) lost 4.2% and contributed to the underperformance of the Nasdaq.

Equity indices ended the Tuesday session on a mixed note with the Dow (+0.4%) and S&P 500 (+0.3%) registering modest gains while the Nasdaq (-0.1%) settled in the red. Stocks spent the bulk of the trading day near their flat lines, save for a morning retreat, which was retraced in short order. The brief pullback occurred after a disappointing Consumer Confidence report and unfolded amid reports from Al Arabiya indicating that a U.S. cargo vessel was seized by Iran. The U.S. Navy promptly refuted the report with subsequent stories revealing that the cargo ship came from the Marshall Islands, which are under U.S. protectorate. Furthermore, the ship was released a couple hours after the initial stoppage. Although the major averages returned to their flat lines in short order, extending the rebound proved challenging even though nine sectors finished in the green. The top-weighted technology sector (+0.2%) was limited to a modest gain with its largest component-Apple (AAPL 130.56, -2.09)-falling 1.6% despite beating earnings and revenue estimates; however, the stock entered the session with a 6.3% gain since April 17, suggesting a strong report was already priced in.

The market ended the midweek session on a modestly lower note. The S&P 500 shed 0.4% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) underperformed throughout the session. Equity indices struggled in the early going after the advance reading of Q1 GDP (0.2%; Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) missed expectations. However, that disappointment was partially offset by the FOMC directive, which did not stir concerns of a rate hike taking place in the near term. Instead, the FOMC reiterated that the current policy stance will remain appropriate until there is reasonable confidence among members that inflation will move back toward the 2.0% objective. Seven sectors registered losses while energy (+0.7%) outperformed throughout the session thanks to a 2.6% gain in crude oil, which settled at $58.52/bbl. The energy component was boosted by a storage report that showed a smaller than expected inventory build while dollar weakness also factored into the move higher.

The major averages ended April on a lower note, but managed to escape with monthly gains. The S&P 500 lost 1.0% and narrowed its April advance to 0.9% while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.6%) underperformed today and ended the month (+0.8%) just behind the benchmark index. Equity indices faced selling pressure from the get-go with the largest sector-technology (-1.6%)-leading the daylong retreat. The influential group faced broad-based weakness with its top component-Apple (AAPL 125.15, -3.49)-sliding 2.7% after the Wall Street Journal reported that some watch components provided by AAC Technologies (AACAY 53.31, -2.79) may be defective. That being said, other sector members also struggled with Yelp (YELP 39.36, -11.92) cratering in reaction to its quarterly report. Shares of YELP tumbled 23.2% in reaction to disappointing earnings/revenue and cautious revenue guidance for Q2.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18080.14 18024.06 -56.08 -0.3 1.1
Nasdaq 5092.08 5005.39 -86.69 -1.7 5.7
S&P 500 2117.69 2108.29 -9.40 -0.4 2.4
Russell 2000 1267.54 1228.11 -39.43 -3.1 1.9

5:30 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Materials:RYAM (19.12 +24.8%),TAHO (14.02 +18.01%)

Industrials:CVEO (4.5 +31.2%),MRC (16.74 +21.66%),TWI (11.37 +21.09%),AAWW (51.95 +20.65%),GTI (4.83 +16.67%)

Consumer Discretionary:NTRI (23.25 +16.25%)

Information Technology:CKSW (12.43 +32.8%),GLUU (6.9 +26.61%),CYOU (34.51 +17.7%)

Financials:OCN (10.26 +32.56%),NBG (1.45 +17.89%),ASPS (26.94 +15.92%)

Energy:CRR (43.99 +39.21%),CLNE (10.27 +27.26%),PES (7.55 +22.76%),SDLP (15.66 +20.18%),CJES (17.4 +18.13%),SDRL (13.22 +16.07%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:CLDN (2.62 -80.85%),IG (5.22 -41.61%),ATRA (40.45 -32.46%),AERI (9.37 -27.2%),ADXS (17.07 -26.86%),CALA (9.82 -26.77%),ARAY (6.82 -25.23%),RGLS (13.47 -22.98%),HRTX (11.01 -22.36%),AKRX (43 -22.16%),TKMR (14.67 -21.76%),JUNO (44.82 -20.9%)

Industrials:AMOT (30.68 -25.24%)

Consumer Discretionary:MDCA (20.32 -28.45%),CTCM (3.35 -20.99%)

Information Technology:CTCT (27.51 -29.64%),SSYS (36.71 -28.41%),TWTR (37.84 -25.54%),YELP (39.76 -21.44%),LNKD (205.21 -21.36%)

3:32 pm Earnings Preview for the week of May 4 - 8 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of May 4 - 8 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - CMCSA, SYY, TSN, HNT, D, CTSH, HSIC, MGM, CNA, CVC, WLK, RLGY, ON, AMCX
After Hours - IM, THC, MUSA, DVA, UGI, EOG, APC, CAR, FNF, APU, MDU, XPO, VNO, KS, CXO, TXRH, RGR, DENN, AEGR

Tuesday:
Pre Market - HCA, DTV, EMR, TRW, ODP, K, SRE, EL, WNR, NGLS, WEC, DISCA, BLMN, HRS, SMG, AFSI, ZTS, H, ENR, SBH, NBL, TW, MNK, ICE, NTI, MDCO, ABMD
After Hours - DIS, PAGP, PAA, ALL, SLF, CYH, CTL, DVN, OKS, OKE, AGU, AIZ, MYL, FTR, Y, FISV, QUAD, DK, HLF, TSE, AXLL, EA, TMH, GRPN, KGC, PXD, CVG, FOSL, PZZA, DLR, ZU, VVUS

Wednesday:
Pre Market - BUD, ENB, BAM, CHK, WCG, OXY, HFC, VOYA, SE, KELYA, MSI, CEQP, LG, HSNI, CLH, XLS, XRAY, HAIN, CMLP, HSC, VSI, DDD, SODAAfter Hours - MET, ETE, ETP, PRU, FOXA, SXL, WFM, CZR, ATO, RIG, MRO, KND, NSIT, SUN, BGC, GMCR, DPM, TSLA, CF, WGL, ALB, VVC, SQNM, OSUR
Thursday:
Pre Market - MT, MFC, MGA, GLP, CNQ, TU, ALU, CDW, BABA, RRD, CORE, PPL, BDX, PCLN, APA, TA, NJR, HII, AEE, WIN, MPEL, NCLH, COTY, REGN, TAP, TIME, SNI, SEASAfter Hours - LBTYA, ED, CBS, MOH, MHK, BKD, NVDA, ALJ, CERN, POST, TGI, CA, TPC, RYI, SFM, MNST, OUTR, MCHP, MTD, GXP, NUAN, FTD, JAZZ, CROX, ZNGA, DATA

Friday: Pre Market - JD, CST, WWAV, HCN, BR, AOL, TRCO

1:17 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

SYT (77.41 +15.47%): Rumored to have been approached by Monsanto (MON) about a possible acquisition, according to reports.
EXPE (101.98 +8.23%): Reported Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.12 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 14.4% year/year to $1.37 bln vs the $1.35 bln consensus; Upgraded at RBC Capital Mkts.
ALTR (45.31 +8.71%): Renewed reports that Intel (INTC) may still make a move to acquire Altera; also reports that the standstill agreement is set to end June 1, which could allow Intel to pursue a hostile bid.

Large Cap Losers

LNKD (200.11 -20.63%): beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, reported revs in-line; issued guidance below consensus (including recent acquisitions, affecting comparability) -- lowered FY15 guidance; PT lowered at Brean Capital, FBR Capital, Wunderlich, Needham, others.
EC (16.7 -2.45%): Select weakness in various oil & gas names with WTI crude oil futures dropping 1.7% (CLR, FTI, HES also lower).
TSLA (221.52 -2%): Stock pulling back following run-up into last nights battery announcement.

Mid Cap Gainers

TER (20.23 +10.85%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.05, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS above consensus, revs in-line.
FEYE (44.59 +7.97%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.03, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guided FY15 EPS in-line, revs in-line; PT raised at Topeka Capital Mkts, Stifel, Piper Jaffray, others.
LEG (45.85 +7.96%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.04, beat on revs; guided FY15 EPS in-line, revs in-line.

Mid Cap Losers

CTB (36.29 -14.59%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.69 per share, $0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.73; revenues fell 16.7% year/year to $663.2 mln vs the $682.62 mln consensus.
DWA (24.74 -5.07%): Reported Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.20); revenues rose 13.1% year/year to $166.5 mln vs the $164.5 mln consensus.
FSLR (56.88 -4.68%): Missed Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.34, missed on revs; guided Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; PT lowered at Needham.

11:49 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (91) outpacing new highs (54) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ALTR, ATTU, AXJS, BCO, BFAM, BKSC, CCO, CFG, CHMT, CORI, CSH, CYOU, ELLI, ETE, EXL, EXPE, FAC, FDEF, FNFV, IART, IMAX, IMH, IPHI, IVZ, JBLU, JBT, JNPR, KALU, KCG, LCNB, LLNW, MCO, MFLX, MLM, MYCC, MZA, NAP, NTES, OEC, OMCL, PKI, RTI, SAR, SC, SEDG, SHAK, SUM, TASR, TSLF, VAC, VMC, VNTV, WU, YUM

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AERI, AHC, AKBA, ANR, AP, ASPN, BV, CALX, CBLI, CEL, CIA, CKP, CLI, CMLS, CTCM, CTRL, DAR, DCTH, DV, EAC, EGL, EGP, EPZM, ESIO, EZPW, FBRC, FPO, FREE, FTEK, GLRE, GOV, GRC, HDP, HTCH, IF, IKAN, IKNX, ISH, IVAC, KERX, LC, LIQD, LTRX, LXP, MHGC, MN, MNI, MTGE, MXPT, NNVC, NOK, NRP, NURO, OCLS, OFG, ONTY, OPXA, PANL, PCH, PDII, PFMT, PODD, POM, PTBI, RAS, RCPI, RDEN, RLOC, ROKA, RUSHA, RWLK, RYN, SAFM, SIF, SNR, SPDC, SRET, STRI, TAL, TAX, TRIV, TSU, TTF, TUES, UNXL, UTSI, VTNR, WPCS, YELP, YRCW, ZU

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: TAO

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DBA, FUD, JJA

7:33 am MoSys beats by $0.04, misses on revs (MOSY) : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.16); revenues fell 38.5% year/year to $0.8 mln vs the $1.16 mln consensus.


Gross margin for the first quarter of 2015 was 69 percent, compared with 76 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 and 57 percent for the first quarter of 2014.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Equity valuations are generally quite high and we could see a sharp jump in rates when the Federal Reserve hikes rates. Those viewpoints are nothing new. They have been uttered by plenty of pundits. The difference on Wednesday is that they were uttered by none other than Fed Chair Janet Yellen in a Q&A session moderated by IMF head Christine Lagarde at a "Finance and Society" conference in Washington.

The remarks set the tone for another day of weak action in the stock market, which was rattled simultaneously by rising bond rates, a lack of leadership, the three major indices failing to hold a posture above their 50-day simple moving averages, and Atlanta Fed President Lockhart (an FOMC voter) acknowledging that he is looking through the first quarter weakness and adding that conditions for a rate hike this year still exist.

By and large, there wasn't much interest Wednesday in owning U.S. assets. Stocks, bonds, and the dollar were all weak -- a condition that wasn't helped by the poor productivity report for the first quarter, which featured a 1.9% decline in productivity and a 5.0% jump in unit labor costs.

There was somewhat of a buyer's strike, although some late-day buying interest helped the major indices pare their losses.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.8%) continued to underperform the market in conjunction with Apple (AAPL 125.01, -0.79, -0.6%) continuing to underperform the market.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Accenture (ACN 93.00, -0.65, -0.7%): Accenture announces acquisition of independent Salesforce consulting services provider, Tquila UK; financial terms not disclosed

Altera (ALTR 44.18, -0.43, -1.0%): TIG Advisors urgers Altera shareholders to vote against Lead Independent Director T. Michael Nevens at the upcoming annual meeting of stockholders scheduled to be held on Monday, May 11, 2015, saying "Altera Board failed stockholders by rejecting a compelling and immediate value opportunity" and that it is "Concerned that Board may try to use upcoming foundry decision as a "poison pill" to ward off Intel and further entrench itself and Management." Separately, Altera said at Baird 2015 Growth Stock Conference that it does not see accelerated share repurchase and that it thinks consolidation in semi industry is "inevitable."

Apple (AAPL 125.01, -0.79, -0.6%): Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the Federal Trade Commission is looking at Apple's efforts to strike deals with music labels as it readies to launch the Beats Music streaming service. Separately, Apple filed for s potential notes offering of indeterminate size, saying it intends to use proceeds for general corporate purposes, including repurchases of its common stock and payment of dividends under its recently expanded program to return capital to shareholders, funding for working capital, capital expenditures and acquisitions and repayment of debt.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 28.97, +0.08, +0.3%): Company and Airbus Defence and Space announce a new global partner agreement comprising of access to sales and technology training, joint go-to-market activities, as well as joint solution and service development

Corning (GLW 21.07, +0.26, +1.3%): Company priced $375 mln of its senior unsecured notes that mature on May 8, 2018 at a coupon of 1.5% and $375 mln of senior unsecured notes that mature on May 15, 2022 at a coupon of 2.9%

IBM (IBM 170.05, -1.73, -1.0%): Company and Facebook (FB 78.10, +0.54, +0.7%) announce a collaboration whereby IBM's marketing cloud clients can now utilize Facebook's ad capabilities such as Custom Audiences, in combination with IBM's analytics and design features, including Journey Designer, to develop their marketing campaigns

Motorola Solutions (MSI 58.76, +0.16, +0.3%): Before Wednesday's open, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was well ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 0.4% year/year to $1.22 bln, which was also ahead of expectations. For Q2, sees adjusted EPS of $0.51-0.56. The high end of that range is below analysts' average expectation. Motorola Solutions expects a revenue decline of 3 to 5 percent compared with the second quarter of 2014. This assumes a $45 million unfavorable currency impact, which translates to revenue of flat to down 2 percent in constant currency. For FY15, sees adjusted EPS of $3.20-3.40. The midpoint is above analsyts' average expectation. The company's revenue outlook remains unchanged as revenue is expected to be flat to down 2 percent compared to 2014. This outlook translates to revenue growth of 1 to 3 percent in constant currency.

NVIDIA (NVDA 22.09, +0.06, +0.3%): Announced it will wind down its Icera modem operations in Q2 of 2016, and is open to a sale of the technology or operations

Red Hat (RHT 74.74, -0.25, -0.4%): VMTurbo earlier announced that Red Hat has made a strategic investment in the company. VMTurbo plans to use the funds to further develop its control platform, accelerate adoption of demand-driven control in OpenStack deployments, and increase support to VMTurbo's growing customer base. The funding agreement expands the ongoing collaboration between Red Hat and VMTurbo.

Western Union (WU 21.85, +0.90, +4.3%): Issued a formal statement noting that, "Although our policy is not to comment on market rumors or speculation, and that continues to be our policy on a going forward basis, in view of the high level of market activity in our stock today, Western Union states that current news reports indicating that our company is in discussions to acquire MoneyGram International, Inc. are not accurate."
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Activision Blizzard (ATVI 23.20, +0.49, +2.2%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.16 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was comfortably ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 8.9% year/year to $703 mln, but were well ahead of estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of $0.07 and revenues of $650 mln. Those estimates are below analysts' average expectations. For FY15, sees EPS of $1.20 and revenues of $4.425 bln.

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.58, +0.11, +3.2%): Has signed a five-year agreement with KPN to provide its new Rapport communications software, enabling the Dutch operator to consolidate a number of voice services, such as VoLTE, onto one platform

Borderfree (BRDR 13.93, +7.14, +105.2%): To be acquired by Pitney Bowes (PBI 22.24, -0.44, -1.9%). Under the terms of the definitive agreement, Pitney Bowes will commence a tender offer for all outstanding common shares of Borderfree, at $14.00 per share in cash or approximately $395 million in the aggregate, net of expected cash and investments on Borderfree's balance sheet at the time of closing

Checkpoint Systems (CKP 10.28, +0.04, +0.4%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.04 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectations. Revenues fell 12.8% year/year to $128.5 mln, which was below estimates. For FY15, sees EPS of $0.40-0.50 and revenues of $575-625 mln. The midpoints of those guidance ranges are below analysts' average expectations. Company said, "Like so many other U.S. multinational corporations, Checkpoint's reported top and bottom line results will continue to be impacted negatively by the strong U.S. Dollar. Though several of our selling currencies have weakened since we presented our initial guidance, we believe anticipated new business will offset the lost revenue from currency translation. Therefore we continue to expect 2015 results within our prior guidance range."

TripAdvisor (TRIP 76.80, -0.92, -1.2%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.54 per share, excluding non-recurring items, slightly below analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 29.2% year/year to $363 mln. Monthly unique visitors grew 31% year-over-year, reaching 340 million.

Twitter (TWTR 37.26, -0.16, -0.4%): CFO bought 6,700 shares at $37.50-38.00 worth ~$121K

Zynga (ZNGA 2.61, +0.11, +4.4%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 9.1% year/year to $183.3 mln, also topping estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of ($0.02), excluding non-recurring items, in-line with expectations, and revenues of $175-190 mln, which is above analysts' average expectation at the low end of the guidance range. Company sees Q2 Bookings in the range of $145 mln to $160 mln. Separately, Zynga announced a cost reduction plan expected to generate pre-tax savings of approximately $100 mln, excluding an estimated $18 mln to $22 mln pre-tax restructuring charge in the second quarter of 2015. As part of the plan, Zynga expects to complete a reduction of ~18% of our current workforce across its studios, including contractors, and implement additional cost reduction measures, including lowering costs and eliminating spend on outside and centralized services.

Analyst Action:

Alibaba (BABA 80.00, +0.46, +0.6%): initiated with a Hold at T.H. Capital

Electronic Arts (EA 60.93, +1.77, +3.0%): target raised to $66 from $61 at Brean Capital; Buy... target raised to $67 from $64 at Stifel; Buy... target raised to $67 at MKM Partners... target raised to $65 from $60 at UBS; Neutral

Fiserv (FISV 78.89, +1.41, +1.8%): target raised to $82 from $77 at RBC Capital Markets

4:53 pm Emcore reports Q2 results (EMKR) : Emcore reports Q2 earnings of breakeven vs ($0.02) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; revs $19.1 mln vs $18.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Anticipates Q3 revenue of $19 to $21 million for the remaining Broadband Fiber Optics business.

4:35 pm Newport beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (NEWP) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.36 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.30; revenues rose 6.7% year/year to $156.7 mln vs the $152.27 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $154-161 mln vs. $160.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We are encouraged by our first quarter performance, and expect to have record sales and non-GAAP net income again in 2015. Our business and the end markets we serve are well balanced, and although conditions in these markets vary, we are confident that Newport's overall trajectory is very positive. We will continue to efficiently allocate our capital to increase our earnings per share through accretive, strategic acquisitions, share buybacks and debt reductions." Commenting specifically on the second quarter of 2015, "In the second quarter, we expect our sales to increase year-over-year once again, despite the anticipated unfavorable impact of foreign exchange rates, to between $154 million and $161 million, and we expect to again achieve year-over-year increases in non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share."

4:21 pm Extreme Networks misses by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (EXTR) : Reports Q3 (Mar) loss of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.07); revenues fell 15.1% year/year to $120.4 mln vs the $118.66 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of ($0.04)- $0.00, excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.02) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $124.2-134.2 mln vs. $133.80 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Motorola Solutions (MSI 58.75, +0.16, +0.3%): target lowered to $61 at MKM Partners; Neutral

4:15 pm Atmel's CEO Steven Laub to retire as of August 31, 2015 (ATML) : The co. announced that its President and CEO, Steven Laub, has decided to retire as an officer and director as of August 31, 2015. He will continue to serve in his current capacities while an orderly leadership transition is accomplished. The board of directors will conduct the process to choose Laub's successor and will consider internal and external candidates for the position.

4:12 pm Atmel beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs below consensus (ATML) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues fell 6.1% year/year to $316.9 mln vs the $315.28 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 r... More SubjectMarksevs of $310-326 mln vs. $335.93 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Veeco Instruments beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY15 higher (VECO) : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.10); revenues rose 8.3% year/year to $98.34 mln vs the $96.98 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $(0.06)-0.33, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $100-150 mln vs. $128.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co raises FY15 revenue growth rate to +35% from +30%; new guidance computes to approximately $530 mln vs. $519.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05 pm SunEdison is awarded an 86 MW DC solar photovoltaic project in South Africa, by the South African Department of Energy (SUNE) : The 86 MW award represents 20% of the total solar allocated to preferred bidders in this round. The Droogfontein 2 solar power plant will be located 20 km south of Kimberly in the Northern Cape Province. Eskom, the South African national utility, will purchase the solar energy under a 20-year power purchase agreement

4:03 pm Emcore announces intention to commence a dutch auction tender offer for up to ~$45 million of common stock (EMKR) : Company intends to finance the share repurchase from proceeds from the sale of the Space Photovoltaics business and the Telecommunications Fiber Optics business

4:15 pm : The stock market registered its second consecutive decline on Wednesday with the S&P 500 (-0.5%) bouncing off its 100-day moving average (2,070).

Equity indices began the day with slim gains, but the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 quickly returned below their 50-day moving averages and continued lower throughout the day. Adding to the pressure were comments from Fed Chair Janet Yellen who reminded investors that equity valuations are "generally quite high" and that raising the fed funds rate is likely to be followed by a spike in Treasury yields.

Today's opening spike notwithstanding, the session was largely a repeat of yesterday's slide; however, the Nasdaq, which underperformed on Tuesday, retreated alongside the broader market today. The key indices cut their losses in half during the final hour, but nine sectors settled in the red with the countercyclical telecom services space (-1.2%) ending behind its peers.

More notably, the largest sector by weight-technology (-0.8%)-was the second-weakest performer with large cap names fueling the weakness. Shares of Microsoft (MSFT 46.28, -1.32) tumbled 2.8% while the likes of Apple (AAPL 125.01, -0.79), Google (GOOGL 535.08, -7.96), Oracle (ORCL 43.26, -0.66), and Intel (INTC 32.22, -0.42) lost between 0.6% and 1.5%. It is worth noting that unlike Intel, some other chipmakers outperformed with the PHLX Semiconductor Index shedding just 0.1%.

Elsewhere, biotechnology represented another high-beta group that fared a bit better than the broader market. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 340.72, +2.72) added 0.8%, but that was a small victory considering the ETF was up more than 1.7% at the start. That being said, the relative strength of biotechnology could not stop the health care sector (-0.5%) from ending among the laggards.

Similar to health care, two other countercyclical sectors-telecom services (-1.2%) and utilities (-0.6%)-underperformed throughout the day while the consumer staples sector (+0.2%) spent the day near its flat line.

Moving back to the cyclical side, only the materials sector (unch) finished near its flat line while the remaining growth-sensitive groups logged losses. For instance, the energy sector (-0.3%) spent the first half in the green, but slumped during the afternoon amid a pullback in oil. WTI crude was up more than 3.5% in the early going, but narrowed its gain to 0.8% at $60.93/bbl by the close.

Crude oil retreated even though today's storage report showed an inventory draw while an increase was expected. In addition, the energy component struggled even as the Dollar Index (94.13, -0.94) fell 1.0% to levels last seen in February.

Treasuries retreated through the morning and hovered near their lows during afternoon action. The benchmark 10-yr yield rose four basis points to 2.23%.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 800 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included ADP Employment, Productivity/Unit Labor Cost data, and MBA Mortgage Index:


The ADP National Employment Report revealed that employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose by 169K in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 189K
The March reading was revised down to 175,000 from 189,000
Nonfarm business productivity declined 1.9% in Q1 2015 after declining an upwardly revised 2.1% (from -2.2%) in Q4 2014 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline of 1.8%
This was the first time nonfarm business productivity declined for two consecutive quarters since Q2 and Q3 of 2006. Even during the Great Recession, productivity managed to inch ahead on an upward trend
Unit labor costs increased 5.0% in Q1 2015 after increasing 4.2% in Q4 2014
That was the biggest increase in unit labor costs since an 11.5% increase in Q1 2014
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 4.6% to follow last week's 2.3% decline

Tomorrow, the April Challenger Job Cuts report will be released at 7:30 ET while weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 280K) will be reported at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 15:00 ET release of the Consumer Credit report for March (consensus $16.00 billion).

Nasdaq Composite +3.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.1% YTD

DJ30 -86.22 NASDAQ -19.68 SP500 -9.31 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1333/1.98 bln/1767 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1012/802.7 mln/2103
3:40 pm :

WTI gave up its morning rally and closed up pit trading today below the $61/barrel level
June crude finished $0.56 higher at $60.94/barrel. June nat gas ended flat at $2.78/MMBtu
Metals lost some value today
June gold fell $2.80 to $1190.60/oz, while July silver lost $0.07 to $16.50/oz
July copper fell one cent to $2.92/lb

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From Briefing.com: Outside of the news that Verizon (VZ 49.62, -0.18, -0.4%) is going to acquire AOL (AOL 50.52, +7.93, +18.6%) for $4.4 billion, there wasn't a lot of corporate news to drive the information technology sector on Tuesday. Similar to Monday, though, there was a lot of action in the bond market to drive both the sector and the broader market.

The yield on the 10-yr Treasury note hit 2.36% in overnight action, moving higher in conjunction with sovereign bond yields in Europe. At that point, though, buyers emerged and helped drive the yield all the way back to 2.24%.

The improvement there helped calm an anxious equity market, which took a noticeable dip at the start of trading but then started to pare its losses with the drop in market rates and a test of its 50-day simple moving average.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all closed with modest losses, yet that was a moral victory of sorts for the bulls considering they were down as many as 180, 62, and 20 points, respectively, soon after the opening bell.

The S&P 500 information technology sector was down as much as 1.4% in the early going but finished with a loss of 0.5%. Weakness in the semiconductor space and a lackluster showing from Apple (AAPL 125.87, -0.46, -0.3%) weighed on matters.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 0.9%, pressured by losses in the likes of Intel (INTC 32.20, -0.49, -1.3%), Micron (MU 26.86, -0.89, -3.1%), SanDisk (SNDK 66.69, -1.08, -1.5%), and Lam Research (LRCX 76.82, -1.29, -1.5%). Despite the weakness on Tuesday, the SOX Index is still up 1.4% this month.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH 62.14, -0.54, -0.9%): Announced that Purdue Pharma has selected Cognizant to optimize its core IT platform

IBM (IBM 170.58, -0.57, -0.3%): Announced that the New Zealand Ministry of Health has adopted its government cloud service offering

Seagate Technology (STX 56.17, -0.59, -1.1%): Increased the size of its previously announced offering and prices $700 mln of 4.875% senior notes due 2027; offering was previously $400 mln
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba (BABA 86.77, +0.05, +0.1%): Cainiao, the logistics affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Limited, announced the availability of a delivery service in five Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Tianjin, that will deliver products to consumers within three hours after they place their orders. The logistics service will initially cover healthcare products ordered from Tmall.com but will be gradually expanded to cover other product categories. By the end of 2015, Cainiao plans to expand this service to 14 other major cities including Shenzhen, Nanjing, Chongqing, Wuxi, Qingdao, Shenyang and Xi'an, bringing the total number of cities covered by this innovative service to 19.

AOL (AOL 50.52, +7.93, +18.6%): To be acquired by Verizon (VZ 49.62, -0.18, -0.3%) for $50 per share, or ~$4.4 bln. The transaction will take the form of a tender offer followed by a merger, with AOL becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon upon completion. Verizon expects to fund the transaction from cash on hand and commercial paper. Verizon also continues to expect to return to pre-Vodafone transaction credit ratings in the 2018-2019 timeframe.

GoDaddy (GDDY): After Tuesday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) GAAP loss of $0.34 per share, slightly ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 17.5% year/year to $376.3 mln, which was ahead of estimates. Total Bookings of $498.7 million, up 13.7% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA of $93.9 million, up 17.8% year over year. For Q2, sees revenues of $390-395 mln and EBITDA $75-78 mln. For FY15, sees revenues of $1.595-1.605 bln and EBITDA $322-327 mln.

NETGEAR, Inc. (NTGR 30.68, -0.30, -0.7%): Announced that AT&T (T 33.66, +0.17, +0.7%) will bring the NETGEAR AirCard 779S Mobile Hotspot to market under the brand name, AT&T Unite Express for GoPhone.

Yelp (YELP 48.83, +0.21, +0.4%): At conference says it won't comment on rumors or speculation in regards to question about last week's story it has hired bankers to explore a sale.

YY (YY 63.28, -5.69, -8.6%): After Monday's close, reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.70 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was worse than analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 72.6% year/year to $185.56 mln, which was ahead of estimates. Company sees Q2 revenues of RMB 1.27-1.29 bln, which is shy of analysts' average expectation.

Analyst Action:

Avago Technologies (AVGO 122.95, +0.14, +0.1%): reinstated with an Overweight at Barclays; $145 target

Cisco Systems (CSCO 29.23, +0.02, +0.2%): target raised to $33 from $31 at RBC Capital Markets

Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.05, -0.04, -0.1%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

Micron (MU 26.86, -0.89, -3.1%): Drexel Hamilton downgraded to Hold from Buy

Netease.com (NTES 127.75, -1.14, -0.8%): target raised to $146 from $125 at T.H. Capital

Qorvo (QRVO 74.69, +0.13, +0.5%): target raised to $80 from $70 at Barclays

4:35 pm Zillow beats by $0.17, misses on revs; reaffirms FY15 guidance -- halted, trade will resume at 17:00 (Z) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.17 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.12); revenues rose 92.3% year/year to $127.3 mln vs the $135.17 mln consensus.


Marketplace Revenue of $108.9 million, including Real Estate Revenue of $93.3 million, Mortgages Revenue of $9.6 million and Trulia's Market Leader Revenue of $6.1 million. Display Revenue of $18.3 million.Co reaffirms guidance for FY15, sees FY15 revs of $690 mln vs. $678.01 mln Capital IQ Consensus,m which includes Market Leader's expected revenue of $40 million. The company expects pro forma Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $80 million to $85 million.
In March 2015, nearly 140 million unique users visited Zillow Group consumer brands Zillow, Trulia, StreetEasy and HotPads. Trulia integration on track for completion by year-end.4:08 pm Exar reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs below consensus; co announces review of strategic alternatives (EXAR) : Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 56.7% year/year to $43.86 mln vs the $45.88 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.10-0.12, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $40-43 mln vs. $48.22 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co also announced that its Board of Directors has unanimously decided to undertake a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives to enhance value for stockholders. Exar intends to conduct a thorough review and evaluation of strategic alternatives.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday session on a modestly lower note, which masked an early drop that had the S&P 500 (-0.3%) down as much as 20 points at the start.

Equity indices endured a shaky open after the overnight session featured more selling in European and U.S. bond markets; however, that pressure abated shortly before the opening bell with the U.S. 10-yr note marking its low at 8:00 ET. At that time, the benchmark yield marked a session high at 2.36% and began its daylong retreat that ended at 2.26% (-3 bps). The ensuing rally in Treasuries fostered a rebound in equities with the S&P 500 returning above its 50-day moving average (2,089) after sliding beneath that level at the start.

The S&P 500 ended the day not far below its flat line, but only two sectors finished the day with gains. The energy space (+0.4%) outperformed throughout the day thanks to a 2.5% gain in crude oil ($60.59/bbl), which was underpinned by a 0.5% decline in the Dollar Index (94.55, -0.46).

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (-0.1%) settled just below its flat line even though high-beta transport stocks lagged notably. The Dow Jones Transportation Average fell 1.2% with all 20 components registering losses while the largest sector member-General Electric (GE 27.03, +0.11)-gained 0.4%.

Meanwhile, the remaining cyclical sectors posted losses. The materials space (-1.0%) spent the day behind other groups while technology (-0.5%) and financials (-0.4%) prevented the broader market from turning positive. Similar to transport stocks, high-beta chipmakers displayed relative weakness throughout the day with the PHLX Semiconductor Index falling 0.9%.

As for large cap tech names, Microsoft (MSFT 47.35, -0.02) and Cisco Systems (CSCO 29.23, +0.02) outperformed while Google (GOOGL 538.73, -7.05) and Facebook (FB 77.46, -0.55) lagged. Also of note, Yelp (YELP 48.83, +0.21) settled lower by 0.4% after the Wall Street Journal contrasted the potential acquisition of the company with Verizon's (VZ 49.62, -0.18) purchase of AOL (AOL 50.52, +7.93) for $50/share or $4.40 billion. Recall that Yelp spiked 23.0% on Thursday after the Wall Street Journal reported the social media company is looking into a potential sale.

Similar to technology, the influential health care sector (-0.5%) presented a headwind throughout the day. The sector finished among the laggards even as the biotech group settled near the broader market with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 351.79, -0.50) reclaiming its 50-day moving average (349.96).

Today's participation was a bit light with fewer than 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the Treasury Budget and JOLTS:


The Treasury budget showed a surplus of $157.00 billion in April 2015, up from a surplus of $106.90 billion in April 2014 and roughly in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate that called for a surplus of $155.00 billion
The Treasury data are not seasonally adjusted, so the April surplus cannot be compared to the $52.90 billion deficit recorded in March
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for March showed that job openings decreased to 4.994 million from a revised rate of 5.144 million (from 5.133 million)

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while April Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and April Import/Export Prices will be reported at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the Business Inventories report for March (consensus 0.2%).

Nasdaq Composite +5.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.4% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.4% YTD

DJ30 -36.94 NASDAQ -17.38 SP500 -6.21 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1221/1.58 bln/1707 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1371/691.9 mln/1688 3:35 pm :

Following OPEC's monthly report and ahead of the weekly EIA storage report, WTI crude oil closed ended the day $1.49/barrel (or +2.5%) to $60.73/barrel
Corn and ultimately closed near the unchanged line following today's USDA WASDE report. Corn gained one cent to $3.61/bu, while wheat futures lost one cent to $4.81/bu
June natural gas rallied 3.6% today to $2.90/MMBtu
Metals gained today as well
June gold rose $9.80 to $1192.70/oz, while July silver gained $0.25 to $16.55/oz.

1:06 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

PLL (117.94 +18.76%): Reports out that the company is near a potential sale, with Thermo Fisher (TMO) and Danaher (DHR) mentioned as possible suitors.
EW (131.28 +3.31%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
HUM (171.52 +2.94%): Outperforming follow chatter the name may be targeted by Aetna (AET).

Large Cap Losers

VIPS (25.95 -5.01%): Under pressure following cautious blog mention.
GPS (38.42 -3.63%): Reported April same store sales -12% vs -7.0% Retail Metrics consensus with downside Q1 EPS guidance and prelim sales; Downgraded at FBR Capital.

Mid Cap Gainers

AOL (50.54 +18.67%): To be acquired by Verizon (VZ) for $50 per share in a $4.4 bln deal.
RARE (74.22 +10.41%): Price target raised to $78 from $68 at Canaccord Genuity; co reported Q1 results which showed a larger than expected loss.
CDK (53.4 +3.53%): Elliott Associates disclosed 7.6% active stake in 13D filing.

Mid Cap Losers

JOBS (29.96 -14.15%): Reported revenues increased 4.8% y/y to $73.9 mln; EPS of $0.39, ex items, compared to prior year of approx $0.36
RAX (46 -13.42%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, reported revs in-line; sees Q2 revs +1.5-2.5%; Downgraded at Morgan Stanley and Credit Argicole.
LDOS (39.24 -8.49%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.07, beat on revs; reaffirmed FY16 EPS guidance, revs guidance, which are below consensus estimates.

12:21 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (120) outpacing new highs (59) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACLS, AET, AFH, AHS, ALDW, AOL, AXS, BLUE, CATY, CDK, CNO, CORI, CSRE, ELNK, EMJ, FFNM, GDDY, HILL, INTG, IPAR, IPHI, IRMD, JNPR, KALU, KTWO, LOAN, LYG, MMAC, MOH, MTSL, NCOM, NHTC, NICE, NOAH, NVEE, PAHC, PAYC, PFSW, PINC, PLL, PNFP, PRE, PVTB, QCRH, QLIK, QTWO, RARE, RELY, RGEN, SAL, SBNY, SIGM, SIVB, SUM, TDS, TFX, VRTU, WIX, ZIXI

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEZS, AJX, AKAO, AMBR, APEI, ARG, ASCMA, ASEI, AVP, BDSI, BKH, BMR, BOI, BPTH, BREW, BSM, CBAY, CBLI, CDZI, CEL, CIM, CKP, CLTX, CNP, CNS, CRCM, CRD.B, CSAL, CVSL, DTF, DX, EDE, EE, EGL, EGP, EMMS, ENZ, ESI, ESIO, FBRC, FPT, FREE, FTK, FXEN, GBL, GLRE, GRC, GRVY, GTY, HCP, HOV, HTR, IDN, INPH, IO, IPDN, ISDR, ISH, KEM, LMIA, LPL, LPSN, LUNA, MDU, MDW, MIN, MNKD, MNTX, MTZ, MZF, NBD, NCS, NDLS, NMRX, NNVC, NOR, NPF, NSPR, NYRT, OFG, OHGI, ONTY, ORN, PCH, PCN, PKOH, PNF, PSB, QRHC, RFP, ROVI, RSO, RST, SBY, SGI, SHLO, SJT, SMCP, SNH, SNI, SPKE, SRT, STRI, TDC, TRCO, TROX, TTF, UACL, UFPT, VCLT, VPCO, VPG, VPV, VRTS, VSAR, WIN, WLKP, WPG, XPL, XRX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none
ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: LQD

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Following a record setting close yesterday, the S&P 500 (+0.08%) basically hovered the flat-line in Friday's session, but finished with a late rally into the close. Although the news wire was rather thin compared to a normal trading day, there were a couple economic data releases worth noting early in the session. Industrial production declined 0.3% in April, the fifth consecutive monthly decline. Additionally, Manufacturing production was flat after increasing 0.3% in March.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.34%) was actually the worst performing sector on the day, as many of the larger weighted names headed lower, like Apple (AAPL 128.75, -0.19, -0.15%), Google (GOOG 533.85, -4.55, -0.85%), Facebook (FB 80.42, -0.95, -1.2%), and Intuit (INTU 102.33, -1.49, -1.4%) all headed lower.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Alliance Data (ADS 297.48, -1.32, -0.44%): Reported performance data for April 2015, showing Average Receivables of ~$10.64 bln, up 33% Y/Y

Yahoo (YHOO 44.75, -0.20, -0.44%): Senator Investment Group disclosed that it closed its 2.5 mln share holding in the company... Discovery disclosed it has closed its 0.9 mln share holding.

Apple (AAPL 128.75, -0.19, -0.15%): Discovery Capital disclosed that it has decreased its position in AAPL from8 mln shares to 4.7 mln shares.

Mastercard (MA 93.22, -0.62, -0.66%): Discovery Capital disclosed that it has decreased its position from 2.1 mln to 0.4 mln shares.

Ebay (EBAY 59.41, -0.69, -1.15%): Discovery Capital disclosed that it has closed its 1 mln share holding.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba (BABA 88.46, +0.06, +0.07%): Economic Times Article reports Alibaba may soon partner with Foxconn (FXCNY 10.61, +0.30, +2.91%) to bid for Snapdeal stake... Discovery Capital disclosed that it has decreased its position from 29.3 mln to 10.7 mln shares

Integrated Silicon (ISSI 20.16, +0.02, +0.1%): Acknowledged unsolicited offer from Cypress Semiconductor (CY 13.07, -0.07, -0.53%), expects to participate or engage in discussions or negotiations with Cypress.

Youku Tudou (YOKU 23.45, +0.61, +2.7%): Marbridge Article reports iQiyi denies rumors of merger talks with Baidu (BIDU 192.98, +2.71, +1.42%), Tencent (TCEHY 21.03, +0.10, +0.48%), & YOKU

Gopro (GPRO 50.09, -0.53, -1.1%): Tiger Global disclosed that it has closed its 1.8 mln share holding.

King Digital (KING 15.07, +0.08, +0.53%): Tiger Global disclosed that it has closed its 5 mln share holding.
Analyst Action:

Inovalon (INOV 25.70, +1.75, +7.3%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman... initiated with a Buy at Tigress Financial

Gartner (IT 87.47, -0.57, -0.65%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

ON Semiconductor (ON 12.61, +0.17, +1.37%): initiated with a Buy at Needham; price target $17

Adobe Systems (ADBE 78.92, -0.51, -0.64%): initiated with an Overweight at JPO Morgan; price target $91

King Digital (KING 15.07, +0.08, +0.53%): price target lowered to $16 from $21 at Deutsche Bank; Hold... price target lowered to $19 from $20 at Stifel; Buy

MakeMyTrip (MMYT 17.93, -2.14, -10.66%): price target lowered to $25 from $35 at Deutsche Bank; Buy... price target lowered to $30 from $34 at Oppenheimer; Outperform

Luxoft Holding (LXFT 51.77, -0.52, -1%): price target raised to $58 from $55 at UBS; Buy

Glu Mobile (GLUU 6.70, +0.23, +3.55%): price target raised to $9 from $8 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy... price target raised to $9 from $7.50 at Piper Jaffray; Overweight

Upland Software (UPLD 7.41, +0.94, +14.53%): price target lowered to $12 from $16 at Needham; Buy

Applied Materials (AMAT 20.20, +0.34, +1.71%): price target lowered to $25 from $26 at Cowen; Outperform... price target lowered to $19 from $23 at RBC Capital; Sector Perform

NetApp (NTAP 35.40, -0.56, -1.56%): price target lowered to $38 from $41 at RBC Capital; Sector Perform

Weekly Recap - Week ending 15-May-15Dow +20.32 at 18272.56, Nasdaq -2.50 at 5048.29, S&P +1.63 at 2122.73

The stock market ended the Friday session on a flat note and completed its second consecutive weekly round trip. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) settled just above its flat line, inching up to a new closing record high at 2,122.73 while the Nasdaq (-0.1%) lagged throughout the day. For the week, the S&P 500 added 0.3% after being down nearly 1.5% for the week on Wednesday.

Overall, the final session of the week was very quiet with the benchmark index trading inside a seven-point range. Stocks dipped in the early going after four disappointing economic reports weighed on sentiment, but that pessimism was essentially offset by increased expectations that the Federal Reserve will refrain from raising rates in the near term due to the recent string of uninspiring data. To that point, Treasuries rallied throughout the day, sending the 10-yr yield lower by ten basis points to 2.14% while strength in the long bond dropped its yield 12 basis points to 2.93%. Thanks to today's surge, the benchmark 10-yr note reclaimed the remainder of its loss from the early portion of the week.

Seven sectors registered gains with rate-sensitive utilities (+1.3%) holding the lead throughout the session. Meanwhile, influential groups like health care (+0.2%), consumer discretionary (+0.8%), and energy (+0.4%) also ended in the green, but their strength was offset by weakness in top-weighted technology (-0.3%) and financials (-0.4%) as well as the fifth largest group by weight-industrials (-0.1%).

The financial sector ended at the bottom of the leaderboard with regional banks leading the retreat that was fueled by the flattening at the long end of the yield curve.

For its part, technology underperformed after leading the market's rebound from Wednesday's low. Large cap components like Apple (AAPL 128.75, -0.20), Google (GOOGL 546.49, -2.71), IBM (IBM 173.26, -0.79), and Microsoft (MSFT 48.30, -0.42) lost between 0.2% and 0.9% with comparable weakness among their peers overshadowing a decent showing from the chipmaker group. Applied Materials (AMAT 20.20, +0.34) gained 1.7% after reporting a one-cent beat while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.2%.

Similarly, the industrial sector was weighed down by some of its largest members like General Electric (GE 27.27, -0.14) and Boeing (BA 146.88, -1.08) while transport stocks rebounded after showing relative weakness earlier in the week. The Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 0.9% today, but still lost 1.1% for the week.

On the upside, the consumer discretionary sector enjoyed broad strength with retail stocks sending the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 98.64, +0.99) higher by 1.0%. Elsewhere, the energy sector (+0.4%) recovered from opening weakness as crude oil erased its overnight loss to end the week just below $60.00/bbl. The intraday recovery was assisted by a decline in the Dollar Index (-0.2%), which has surrendered 6.8% over the past five weeks.

Today's intraday participation was light, but that was masked by options expiration, which brought the final NYSE floor volume up to nearly 813 million shares by the close.

Economic data included Empire Manufacturing Index, Industrial Production/Capacity Utilization and Michigan Sentiment Index:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for May improved to 3.1 from April's -1.2 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 4.5
Industrial production registered its fifth consecutive monthly decline, falling 0.3% in April after declining an upwardly revised 0.3% (from -0.6%) in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
Manufacturing production was flat after increasing 0.3% in March, which was more-or-less in-line with the regional manufacturing surveys that showed minor contractions throughout the U.S.
Capacity utilization hit 78.2% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 78.4%
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index declined to 88.6 in the preliminary May reading from 95.9 in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 96.0
That was the lowest reading since October 2014 when the index hit 86.9
The Expectations Index fell to 81.5 in May from 88.8 in April while the Current Conditions Index declined to 99.8 from 107.0
The decline in sentiment was likely caused by increasing gasoline prices and some market volatility, which offset improvements in labor market conditions

Monday's data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of the NAHB Housing Market Index for May (Briefing.com consensus 57).

Week in Review: Stocks Roundtrip...Again

The stock market followed up Friday's broad-based rally with an outing on Monday that never got on track due to a variety of reasons like technical resistance near record highs, rising long term rates (10-yr yield 2.27%, 30-yr 3.03%), weakness in the energy sector (-2.1%), and global concerns related to China and Greece. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%), and S&P 500 (-0.5%) all ended the day in red figures. The Russell 2000 (+0.2%) finished off its highs for the day, but still managed to close the session higher.

The market ended the Tuesday session on a modestly lower note, which masked an opening drop that had the S&P 500 (-0.3%) down as much as 20 points. Equity indices endured a shaky open after the overnight session featured more selling in European and U.S. bond markets; however, that pressure abated shortly before the opening bell with the U.S. 10-yr note marking its low at 8:00 ET. At that time, the benchmark yield marked a session high at 2.36% and began its daylong retreat that ended at 2.26%. The ensuing rally in Treasuries fostered a rebound in equities with the S&P 500 returning above its 50-day moving average (2,089) after sliding beneath that level at the start. The S&P 500 ended the day not far below its flat line, but only two sectors finished the day with gains. The energy sector (+0.4%) followed Monday's weakness with some relative strength thanks to a 2.5% gain in crude oil ($60.59/bbl), which was underpinned by a 0.5% decline in the Dollar Index (94.55, -0.46).

The major averages ended the midweek session on a flat note after sliding from their opening highs. The S&P 500 settled just below its flat line to register its third consecutive decline while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) outperformed throughout the day. Prior to the open, the Retail Sales report for April (0.0%; Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) missed expectations for the fifth consecutive month. The economic disappointment helped Treasuries extend their overnight gains with the benchmark 10-yr yield hitting a morning low at 2.19%; however, Treasuries reversed from their morning highs and spent the day in a steady retreat (10-yr yield +3 bps to 2.28%) while the stock market followed suit. Only four sectors registered gains, but the top-weighted technology sector (+0.5%) held the lead throughout the session and prevented the S&P 500 from registering a larger loss. In addition, the sector fueled the Nasdaq's outperformance with large cap names like Intel (INTC 32.64, +0.39), Microsoft (MSFT 47.62, +0.27), and Qualcomm (QCOM 69.73, +0.95) climbing between 0.6% and 1.4%.

Stocks soared on Thursday with the S&P 500 climbing 1.1%. The benchmark index settled at a fresh record high of 2121.10 while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.4%) outperformed once again. Equity indices spiked out of the gate and spent the rest of the day in a slow drift higher with all ten sectors taking part in the advance. The top-weighted technology sector (+1.7%) followed Wednesday's outperformance with another strong showing that kept the group in the lead throughout the session. Large cap names like Apple (AAPL 128.95 +2.94), Google (GOOGL 549.20, +9.71), Microsoft (MSFT 48.72, +1.09), and Facebook (FB 81.37, +2.93) gained between 1.8% and 3.7%, which helped overshadow a 1.0% decline in the shares of Cisco Systems (CSCO 29.05, -0.30) after the company reported a one-cent beat and issued in-line guidance. It is worth noting that Cisco's report triggered a Sterne Agee CRT downgrade to 'Neutral.'

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18191.11 18272.56 81.45 0.4 2.5
Nasdaq 5003.55 5048.29 44.74 0.9 6.6
S&P 500 2116.10 2122.73 6.63 0.3 3.1
Russell 2000 1234.93 1243.95 9.02 0.7 3.3



5:19 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:RVNC (26.39 +29.62%),RARE (79.34 +25.94%),RDUS (46.23 +21.69%),BPMC (28.56 +21.02%),OPK (16.92 +19.75%),OCUL (26.27 +19.19%),NVRO (53.41 +17.75%),SPPI (6.68 +17.61%)
Materials:SSRI (6.55 +22.32%)
Industrials:PLL (123.7 +24.3%),ASGN (38.7 +17.84%)
Consumer Discretionary:RENT (66.33 +30.73%),CONN (39.99 +21.55%),BONA (10.53 +18.71%)
Information Technology:CMCM (30.53 +35.15%),QIWI (34.66 +21.23%),SEDG (37.35 +20.1%)
Energy:ROSE (24.18 +25.1%)
Consumer Staples:CALM (54.95 +27.79%)
Telecommunication Services:VIP (6.35 +17.38%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Healthcare:OREX (5.01 -27.07%),NLNK (39.69 -23.2%),RDNT (6.86 -21.96%),FGEN (20.38 -15.05%),RMD (56.2 -14.36%),FMI (37.09 -14.3%),NVCN (6.76 -14.1%),SGMO (11.51 -13.78%),KPTI (24.81 -13.67%),DEPO (20.54 -13.66%)
Industrials:BBSI (38.05 -18.05%)
Consumer Discretionary:KNDI (9.13 -27.42%),MMYT (17.93 -18.8%),APEI (23.26 -16.3%),ARCO (5.39 -14.85%)
Information Technology:RAX (44.37 -17.83%)
Energy:SD (1.18 -26.25%),MCF (16.52 -20.88%),JONE (9.85 -12.99%),MDR (4.61 -12.52%)

5:18 pm Transocean Board approves dividend of $0.60 per share (RIG) : Co announced that it's shareholders approved at the 2015 Annual General Meeting a U.S. dollar-denominated dividend of $0.60 per share, or approximately $218 million in the aggregate (based upon the number of currently outstanding shares), out of additional paid-in capital. The Board expects that the dividend will be payable in four quarterly installments set for June 2015, September 2015, December 2015, and March 2016.

4:58 pm Solar3D reportes Q1 loss of ($0.10) vs. a loss of ($0.43) in the prior year's quarter; reported revenue of $5.7 mil for Q1, an increase of 440% compared to $1.0 mln for Q1 2014 due to acquisitions and growth within those acquisitions (SLTD) : Solar3D reconfirms the guidance that total revenue is expected to be in the $40-45 million range and that it will be profitable. Management also continues to aggressively pursue accretive acquisition opportunities of $10-30 million revenue companies in California and Nevada.

4:15 pm Closing Market Summary: S&P 500 Ends Week at Fresh Record High (:WRAPX) : The stock market ended the Friday session on a flat note and completed its second consecutive weekly round trip. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) settled just above its flat line, inching up to a new closing record high at 2,122.73 while the Nasdaq (-0.1%) lagged throughout the day. For the week, the S&P 500 added 0.3% after being down nearly 1.5% for the week on Wednesday.

Overall, the final session of the week was very quiet with the benchmark index trading inside a seven-point range. Stocks dipped in the early going after four disappointing economic reports weighed on sentiment, but that pessimism was essentially offset by increased expectations that the Federal Reserve will refrain from raising rates in the near term due to the recent string of uninspiring data. To that point, Treasuries rallied throughout the day, sending the 10-yr yield lower by ten basis points to 2.14% while strength in the long bond dropped its yield 12 basis points to 2.93%. Thanks to today's surge, the benchmark 10-yr note reclaimed the remainder of its loss from the early portion of the week.

Seven sectors registered gains with rate-sensitive utilities (+1.3%) holding the lead throughout the session. Meanwhile, influential groups like health care (+0.2%), consumer discretionary (+0.8%), and energy (+0.4%) also ended in the green, but their strength was offset by weakness in top-weighted technology (-0.3%) and financials (-0.4%) as well as the fifth largest group by weight-industrials (-0.1%).

The financial sector ended at the bottom of the leaderboard with regional banks leading the retreat that was fueled by the flattening at the long end of the yield curve.

For its part, technology underperformed after leading the market's rebound from Wednesday's low. Large cap components like Apple (AAPL 128.75, -0.20), Google (GOOGL 546.49, -2.71), IBM (IBM 173.26, -0.79), and Microsoft (MSFT 48.30, -0.42) lost between 0.2% and 0.9% with comparable weakness among their peers overshadowing a decent showing from the chipmaker group. Applied Materials (AMAT 20.20, +0.34) gained 1.7% after reporting a one-cent beat while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.2%.

Similarly, the industrial sector was weighed down by some of its largest members like General Electric (GE 27.27, -0.14) and Boeing (BA 146.88, -1.08) while transport stocks rebounded after showing relative weakness earlier in the week. The Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 0.9% today, but still lost 1.1% for the week.

On the upside, the consumer discretionary sector enjoyed broad strength with retail stocks sending the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 98.64, +0.99) higher by 1.0%. Elsewhere, the energy sector (+0.4%) recovered from opening weakness as crude oil erased its overnight loss to end the week just below $60.00/bbl. The intraday recovery was assisted by a decline in the Dollar Index (-0.2%), which has surrendered 6.8% over the past five weeks.

Today's intraday participation was light, but that was masked by options expiration, which brought the final NYSE floor volume up to nearly 813 million shares by the close.

Economic data included Empire Manufacturing Index, Industrial Production/Capacity Utilization and Michigan Sentiment Index:


The Empire Manufacturing Survey for May improved to 3.1 from April's -1.2 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 4.5
Industrial production registered its fifth consecutive monthly decline, falling 0.3% in April after declining an upwardly revised 0.3% (from -0.6%) in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
Manufacturing production was flat after increasing 0.3% in March, which was more-or-less in-line with the regional manufacturing surveys that showed minor contractions throughout the U.S.
Capacity utilization hit 78.2% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 78.4%
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index declined to 88.6 in the preliminary May reading from 95.9 in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 96.0
That was the lowest reading since October 2014 when the index hit 86.9
The Expectations Index fell to 81.5 in May from 88.8 in April while the Current Conditions Index declined to 99.8 from 107.0
The decline in sentiment was likely caused by increasing gasoline prices and some market volatility, which offset improvements in labor market conditions

Monday's data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of the NAHB Housing Market Index for May (Briefing.com consensus 57).

Nasdaq Composite +6.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.2% YTD
S&P 500 +3.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.5% YTD

Week in Review: Stocks Roundtrip...Again

The stock market followed up Friday's broad-based rally with an outing on Monday that never got on track due to a variety of reasons like technical resistance near record highs, rising long term rates (10-yr yield 2.27%, 30-yr 3.03%), weakness in the energy sector (-2.1%), and global concerns related to China and Greece. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%), and S&P 500 (-0.5%) all ended the day in red figures. The Russell 2000 (+0.2%) finished off its highs for the day, but still managed to close the session higher.

The market ended the Tuesday session on a modestly lower note, which masked an opening drop that had the S&P 500 (-0.3%) down as much as 20 points. Equity indices endured a shaky open after the overnight session featured more selling in European and U.S. bond markets; however, that pressure abated shortly before the opening bell with the U.S. 10-yr note marking its low at 8:00 ET. At that time, the benchmark yield marked a session high at 2.36% and began its daylong retreat that ended at 2.26%. The ensuing rally in Treasuries fostered a rebound in equities with the S&P 500 returning above its 50-day moving average (2,089) after sliding beneath that level at the start. The S&P 500 ended the day not far below its flat line, but only two sectors finished the day with gains. The energy sector (+0.4%) followed Monday's weakness with some relative strength thanks to a 2.5% gain in crude oil ($60.59/bbl), which was underpinned by a 0.5% decline in the Dollar Index (94.55, -0.46).

The major averages ended the midweek session on a flat note after sliding from their opening highs. The S&P 500 settled just below its flat line to register its third consecutive decline while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) outperformed throughout the day. Prior to the open, the Retail Sales report for April (0.0%; Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) missed expectations for the fifth consecutive month. The economic disappointment helped Treasuries extend their overnight gains with the benchmark 10-yr yield hitting a morning low at 2.19%; however, Treasuries reversed from their morning highs and spent the day in a steady retreat (10-yr yield +3 bps to 2.28%) while the stock market followed suit. Only four sectors registered gains, but the top-weighted technology sector (+0.5%) held the lead throughout the session and prevented the S&P 500 from registering a larger loss. In addition, the sector fueled the Nasdaq's outperformance with large cap names like Intel (INTC 32.64, +0.39), Microsoft (MSFT 47.62, +0.27), and Qualcomm (QCOM 69.73, +0.95) climbing between 0.6% and 1.4%.

Stocks soared on Thursday with the S&P 500 climbing 1.1%. The benchmark index settled at a fresh record high of 2121.10 while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.4%) outperformed once again. Equity indices spiked out of the gate and spent the rest of the day in a slow drift higher with all ten sectors taking part in the advance. The top-weighted technology sector (+1.7%) followed Wednesday's outperformance with another strong showing that kept the group in the lead throughout the session. Large cap names like Apple (AAPL 128.95 +2.94), Google (GOOGL 549.20, +9.71), Microsoft (MSFT 48.72, +1.09), and Facebook (FB 81.37, +2.93) gained between 1.8% and 3.7%, which helped overshadow a 1.0% decline in the shares of Cisco Systems (CSCO 29.05, -0.30) after the company reported a one-cent beat and issued in-line guidance. It is worth noting that Cisco's report triggered a Sterne Agee CRT downgrade to 'Neutral.'

3:59 pm Integrated Silicon: Starboard Group delivers letter to the Board, express serious concerns regarding the events and circumstances leading up to the Cypress Semiconductor (CY) Offer (ISSI) : Highlights of the letter include:

"As the largest shareholder of ISSI, we are extremely disconcerted that Cypress was not contacted as part of the sale process that ISSI conducted between December 2014 and March 2015. ISSI's Merger Proxy Statement filed on April 27, 2015 (the "Merger Proxy") indicated that the Company had conducted a full and fair sale process, stating that over a three-month period your financial advisor, Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. ("Oppenheimer"), contacted 22 potential acquirors of ISSI. However, Cypress stated in its letter that "we would have preferred to participate in your sale process, but were not contacted." How could Oppenheimer run a full and fair process while failing to contact Cypress, whom any investor, advisor, or other participant in the semiconductor space would easily identify as one of the most likely strategic acquirors of ISSI in light of an obvious strategic fit and a history of significant and successful M&A?"
..."we would remind the Board that we have nominated five directors for election at the 2015 Annual Meeting, who, if elected, would constitute a majority of the Board. ISSI has not scheduled its 2015 Annual Meeting, but should it become necessary, we are prepared to compel ISSI to hold its 2015 Annual Meeting as soon as possible or undertake a consent solicitation to seek to replace a majority of the current Board.
3:41 pm Earnings Preview for the week of May 18 - 22 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of May 18 - 22 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - JASO, WPC
After Hours - A, URBN, TTWO, PLAB, RLGT, OFIX, LF, MOMO, NOAH

Tuesday:

Pre Market - WMT, HD, TJX, DKS, CMCM, RRGB, SSI, EJ, AINV, LEJU
After Hours - CSC, ADI, ADSK, DY, NDSN, QIHU, VSAT, HEI, ETSY, TEDU

Wednesday:
Pre Market - TGT, LOW, SPLS, HRL, AEO, ATTO, EV, CTRN, EVLV, SFUN
After Hours - LB, NTAP, CRM, WSM, RXN, SNPS, BRS, HGR, SCVL, YOKU, EGHT, XNET, WSTL

Thursday:
Pre Market - BBY, AAP, DLTR, BAH, PDCO, TTC, BONT, DCI, TSL, SMRT, BRC, CATO, BKE, MNRO, QSII, KIRK, NM
After Hours - HPQ, GPS, ROST, INTU, MRVL, BRCD, TFM, ARO, ACXM, JMEI, CRMT, OESX

Friday:
Pre Market - DE, CPB, FL, ANN, HIBB, MENT, TNP

12:50 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

NFLX (612.1 +4.3%): Reports out that the co is in talks to bring its content to China.
YUM (93.2 +3.53%): Upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; tgt raised to $108 from $83.
AMAT (20.3 +2.22%): Beat Q2 (Apr) consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, beat on revs; guided Q3 in-line; Jana Partners discloses an increased stake.

Large Cap Losers

GMCR (94.89 -7.94%): Under pressure after unveiling its Keurig Kold product, which is expected to cost between $299-$369 per unit; cautious analyst commentary on the anticipated launch weighs.
DE (88.65 -3.86%): Downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
SYMC (24.96 -3.65%): Missed Q4 (Mar) consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, reported revs in-line; guided Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guided FY16 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus.

Mid Cap Gainers

DAR (15.6 +10.72%): Reported Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.06; revenues fell 7.6% year/year to $874.7 mln vs the $907.69 mln consensus.
CBI (55.49 +8.95%): Reports out the co may be selected by Anadarko (APC) for a large LNG project in Africa.
CASY (89.16 +6.75%): Reported April 2015 same-store sales results; upgraded to Buy at Sidoti.

Mid Cap Losers

PAYC (35.48 -9.58%): Announced and priced its offering of 8 mln shares being sold by selling stockholders at $36.25 per share.
DDS (114.97 -7.43%): Reported Q1 (Apr) earnings of $2.66 per share, $0.12 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $2.78; revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $1.61 bln vs the $1.61 bln consensus; PT lowered at Telsey Advisory Group.
DDD (21 -4.59%): Announced a mutual separation agreement with its CFO Ted Hull, effective May 15, 2015.

12:44 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (175) outpacing new lows (42) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABT, ACGL, ACIW, ACLS, ACN, AET, AGO, ALDR, ALJ, ALN, ALR, AMAG, AMBA, AME, ANCX, ANTM, ASMI, ASML, ATSG, ATVI, AVID, AWH, AXTA, BANC, BBNK, BCO, BF.A, BKCC, BLMT, BRCM, BSQR, BX, CBF, CHKP, CIVI, CLBH, CMCM, CMT, CNIT, COLB, CRTO, CSCD, CSH, CTRX, CVG, CYNI, DEG, DGRW, DLPH, DXJS, EBF, EEFT, ELNK, EMKR, ERI, EWBC, EXPE, EXR, FDS, FFA, FFNM, FISV, FIX, FOMX, FRC, FULT, GPN, GS, GT, HASI, HME, HON, HOTR, HSII, IBKR, IFV, IMN, IMPV, IMS, ING, INTU, IPKW, IR, IT, JBL, JNPR, KTWO, LAMR, LEG, LII, LLNW, LO, LTM, LYG, MA, MCK, MDLZ, MKC, MMAC, MMI, MOH, NCLH, NDAQ, NEM, NFLX, NKE, NOAH, OBAS, OCR, OPK, ORBK, OZRK, PBHC, PFSW, PLAB, PLXS, PRMW, PSCC, QLGC, RAI, RARE, RBA, RE, REGN, RGEN, RHT, ROP, RTRX, SABR, SAGE, SAR, SBCF, SBNY, SC, SEDG, SEE, SEIC, SEV, SGU, SIRO, SIVB, SKX, SLM, SLTC, SNE, SNX, SPTN, SRLP, SRNE, SSFN, STRP, SUNE, SWK, TACO, TCX, THOR, THRM, TRR, TSS, TTMI, TW, TXT, USAT, UWN, V, VMC, VNQI, VOYA, VRNT, WAL, WBS, WINA, WNS, WPPGY, WTFC

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ADEP, AEGR, AUDC, BSM, BTU, CEL, CGEN, CIM, CLDN, CLTX, DARA, DDD, DEST, ENZ, FPT, FREE, GMCR, GV, IDN, LTRE, MCF, MDW, MMYT, NDLS, NEOT, NETE, NSPR, PLPC, POM, PTNT, RGSE, RLJE, RST, SGI, SGNL, SHOS, SMT, SSYS, SYX, VRTS, WILN, WYNN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: CROP, EWK, EWN, IGN, IGV, IYG, KBE, MOO, OEF, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ

9:09 am Emcore Announces a dutch auction tender offer for $45 mln of its common stock, at a price between $6.25-$6.75/share (EMKR) :

9:03 am Integrated Silicon acknowledges unsolicited offer from Cypress Semiconductor (CY), expects to participate or engage in discussions or negotiations with Cypress (ISSI) : As previously announced, ISSI entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger with Uphill Investment Co., pursuant to which Uphill agreed to acquire all of the outstanding common stock of ISSI for $19.25 per share in cash.

The ISSI Board of Directors has determined in good faith that the Cypress offer either constitutes or is reasonably expected to lead to a Superior Proposal (as defined in the Merger Agreement), and that the failure to participate or engage in discussions or negotiations with Cypress and/or furnish information to Cypress would reasonably be expected to be inconsistent with its fiduciary duties to the company stockholders under Delaware Law. Therefore, ISSI currently expects to participate or engage in discussions or negotiations with Cypress regarding the offer and/or furnish information to Cypress in compliance with the applicable terms of the Merger Agreement.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Update - Economic Data Remains Weak Overall (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

Market Summary Video, Plays and Play Videos, and Play Tables with play annotations will issue Monday, Wednesday and the Weekend.

Tuesday and Thursday reports will contain the market summary, chart links to view the index charts, and updated play tables.

Access to all current videos will remain assessable each day using the play links in the reports.

If any market circumstances arise where we see additional plays we want to prepare for the next session, we will of course issue those plays regardless of the day of the week.

MARKET SUMMARY

- A tame expiration Friday, but the indices again hold a solid upside surge.
- Economic data remains weak overall yet market tries to rally.
- Leadership is still there, still in good patterns, but still needing to really step up the effort.
- Bearish sentiment takes a more significant step higher.
- Many experts are worried about the market's future and economic future. Is this enough of a wall of worry?

Most of last week was spent watching to see if stocks could manage to hold the Friday upside surge. It wasn't pretty but they managed to hold enough so when the indexes surged on Thursday for no real reason the question then became can they hold the Thursday gain without immediately giving it back.

Friday wasn't pretty either, but the indexes did hold the move. Futures were higher early but steadily eroded toward the open. As trade began stocks immediately sold negative and held it into mid-afternoon. A bounce began with two hours left, however, and stocks dutifully recovered to the close and a mixed showing, though very much flat line, very much holding the Thursday move. Again, not pretty, but utilitarian.

SP500 1.63, 0.08%
NASDAQ -2.51, -0.05%
DJ30 20.32, 0.11%
SP400 -0.05%
RUTX -0.09%
SOX 0.17%

VOLUME: Pretty paltry for an expiration Friday. NYSE +16%, moving barely above average, NASDAQ -4%, still well below average. Wow, when expiration cannot get anyone excited you know you have low volume.

A/D: NYSE 1.4:1, NASDAQ decliners slightly led.

The internals were less than impressive, but they matched the action. Volume was up on NYSE, moving above average for the first time in over a week as SP500 showed a tight doji. You could call that churn, but it was expiration and that did push up volume. Basically you would say the action was a pause ahead of the weekend, after a strong upside surge, at least in terms of price.

Of course, the afterhours financial shows were all asking the same question: can the market hold this move given all the problems confronting it: Fed rate hikes, weakening economic data, articles suggesting the 'smart money' is buying protection now. News flash, those holding massively large positions in many stocks ALWAYS buy protection at new highs. Why? Because it is cheaper to do so.

Another news flash: it appears stock investors are not as concerned as bond investors about rate hikes. Bonds sold the past month, sold rather aggressively. They posted a bit of a bounce on Friday thanks to more atrocious economic data in terms of the Michigan Sentiment and misses form the New York PMI, Industrial Production, and Capacity Utilization, but they are pricing in higher rates.

It would appear investors, however, either don't think the Fed is all that serious or just don't care about one rate hike. After the litany of weaker economic reports last week (outside the so-called 'good' jobless claims report), the debate shifted from a June hike to a September or December hike. More than that, a lot of stock investors believe that even if the Fed does hike it will be more of a 'one and done' kind of move that is more for show than substance.

If that is your view, you won't give much concern to promises of a rate hike in the second half of the year that may very well just be a one hike and done scenario.

That mindset will have the opportunity to prove itself. Again. SP500 was a snake pit in late April and early May as day to day and intraday volatility spiked as the index surged back and forth. Just when it looked as if the uptrend was done when it crashed lower the first Tuesday and Wednesday of May, it surged upside that Friday. That move was tested, then Thursday it broke to a new closing high.

Despite the negatives, it broke to a higher high. It somewhat proved up that Friday recovery surge with yet another surge. Yet there are still many who do not believe the move. I cannot say I fully view it as a confirmation of the a new leg upside, but you know what I say about my feelings: they are nothing more than feelings as far as the stock market is concerned. The moves are what tells the story.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

Thursday saw a resumption of the upside with a solid price break pushing SP500 to a new closing high. DJ30 continued its superior pattern though it is still seeking that next new high. Friday it was another day to see if stocks could hold a gain. They did. Now the next big test is next week. Two good upside moves out of some pretty ugly volatility, not great volume, but some solid moves and leadership moving pretty well. Pretty well; the setups are better than the moves right now.

DJ30: Some pretty decent volume, but it was expiration so doesn't really count. What does count is DJ30 continues its solid upside pattern, still looking for a new all-time high, but just 16 points off it. No issues with this pattern of course, though the Dow leading, or at least sporting the best pattern, is not that inspiring for massive market upside. It's the Dow for goodness sake.

Now the DJ20 transports are not breaking to higher highs, and you are likely hearing from commentators about the DJ20 not confirming the Dow's move. For one, there is nothing to confirm yet because the DJ30 is not at a new high. Hopefully soon, but not yet. More importantly, DJ20 transports are prepped for a bounce off of a very important support level that has worked as the bottom of a trading range spanning back to late 2014.

SP500: Volume was up as SP500 traded modestly higher, showing a doji. That suggests some churn, but it was expiration and volume was up just modestly. Basically a day off after breaking to a new high. That works for now.

NASDAQ: Gapped upside Friday then closed flat on the day. Held the Thursday break over the mid-March high, the last resistance before the April all-time closing high. Got some help from AAPL finally, and there are many software and chip stocks in position to move higher.

SOX: A decent week, gapping through the 50 day SMA Thursday, clearing the upper trendline in its three month downward wedge/channel. A good start, there are chips in position to move.

SP400: Nice break higher Thursday, paused Friday. Cleared the February peak with the Thursday move. It is now in the middle 7 week lateral consolidation. That might not be great, but it is a vast improvement over SP400's position just two weeks back.

RUTX: Better off but still a lot of work as it is below the 50 day MA though just above the February high. Still in the teeth of resistance, still weak, but at least it is following the other indices though not making any great upside strides.


LEADERSHIP

Software: Some good moves on the week though a breather Friday. SPLK surged Wednesday and added Friday, making a higher rally high. FFIV put in a higher rally high on the week. VDSI started its breakout move. RHT is breaking out of its trading range. VMW was down on the week but has a great setup to move higher.

Semiconductors: Not great moves on the week but as with software, they are set to move. NXPI gave up the prior week's gain but has a solid pattern. QRVO broke higher off its test Thursday. BRCM rallied well. SWKS broke higher but gave it back Friday. AVGO excited the sector for a few minutes Thursday when it said it was looking for an acquisition, but that had a short half-life. Set up, and looking for something good from this group to help the market continue its upside break.

Biotechs: Still a very mixed group. AGIO moved up nicely on the week. CLVS exploded higher Thursday, gave some back Friday. AMGN had a good week though it gave up a pretty decent Friday upside gap.

Energy: Another very mixed group. ESV sold hard Thursday, checked up at the 50 day EMA Friday with a doji. CVX is holding the 50 day MA. RIG enjoyed a strong week. APC sold hard but trying to set up a bounce.

Metals: Another good week. AKS rallied again though gave some back to end the week. FCX put in another week of testing but looks good. SCHN is doing the same. As with other groups, set up to move, just waiting for the move.

Big Names: Thursday AAPL shook off some of its sleep though Friday it was flattish. GOOG was up some but finished the week weaker. AMZN is testing but it is struggling more to hang onto the 10 day EMA. SBUX enjoyed a much better week.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -2.5 points (-0.05%) to close at 5048.29
Volume: 1.628B (-3.81%)

Up Volume: 881.51M (-308.49M)
Down Volume: 706.94M (+177.64M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.2 to 1

New Highs: 116 (+3)
New Lows: 35 (+2)

S&P
Stats: +1.63 points (+0.08%) to close at 2122.73
NYSE Volume: 828.9M (+16.16%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.36 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 3.1 to 1

New Highs: 87 (-8)
New Lows: 13 (-11)

DJ30
Stats: +191.75 points (+1.06%) to close at 18252.24


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 12.38; -0.36
VXN: 13.89; -0.42
VXO: 12.86; -0.37

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.83; +0.04


Bulls and Bears: Bulls surge, bears fall right back down.

Bulls: 47.5% versus 52.5% versus 57.4%

This backs up the commentary about the worry in the market, and reflects the late April, early March volatility.

Bears: 15.8% versus 13.9% versus 13.9% versus 15.2%

This is the highest bears reading since October 2014. Finally some significant movement in bears as the notion of a Fed always at the market's back fades. This is a good part of that 'wall of worry' discussed in the report conclusion.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 47.5%
52.5% versus 57.4% versus 52.5% versus 50.5% versus 50.4% versus 54.5% versus 55.6% versus 52.0% versus 53.6% versus 58.7% versus 59.5% versus 56.6% versus 52.5% versus 49.0% versus 53.1% versus 49.0% versus 48.0% versus 50.5% versus 56.4% versus 52.5% versus 49.5% versus 51.5% versus53.4% versus 56.5%

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 15.8%
13.9% versus 13.9% versus 15.2% versus 13.9% versus 14.2% versus 14.2% versus 14.1% versus 14.3% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 15.2% versus 16.3% versus 16.3% versus 17.4% versus16.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 13.9% versus 13.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 15.1% versus 16.3% versus 18.2% versus 17.3% versus 14.1% versus 15.1% versus 15.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.1% versus 13.3% versus 15.1% versus 16.2%


Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Right now bulls are coming back down from the 60 level that has consistently marked market tops over the past two years. The rapid decline in progress is pushing the bulls/bears lines toward one another. Still far from a cross with bulls falling faster than bears are rising, but bears are warming up to the notion of market weakness.


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.15% versus 2.23%. A bit of a snapback rally after three weeks of hammering.

2.23% versus 2.28% versus 2.26% versus 2.283% versus 2.14% versus 2.18% versus 2.23% versus 2.17% versus 2.15% versus 2.11% versus 2.04% versus 2.05% versus 1.99% versus 1.92% versus 1.92% versus 1.94% versus 1.98% versus 1.91% versus 1.86% versus 1.86% versus 1.89% versus 1.88% versus 1.90% versus 1.93% versus 1.95% versus 1.95% versus 1.89% versus 1.89% versus 1.90% versus 1.86% versus 1.91% versus 1.86% versus 1.93% versus 1.96% versus 1.95% versus 2.01% versus 1.92% versus 1.87% versus 1.91% versus 1.927% versus 1.97% versus 1.95% versus 2.06%


Euro/$: 1.1449 versus 1.1408. A down week as the dollar bounced to the 10 day EMA Monday, then fell the rest of the week. A downtrend that finds resistance at the 10 day is a strong downtrend.

1.1408 versus 1.1311 versus 1.1207 versus 1.1152 versus 1.1207 versus 1.1266 versus 1.1349 versus 1.1189 versus 1.1147 versus 1.1215 versus 1.1220 versus 1.119 versus 1.0982 versus 1.0885 versus 1.0862 versus 1.0824 versus 1.0722 versus 1.0733 versus 1.0738 versus 1.0801 versus 1.0768% versus 1.0681 versus 1.0655 versus 1.0570 versus 1.0654 versus 1.0782 versus 1.0819 versus 1.0939 versus 1.0950 versus 1.0872 versus 1.0759 versus 1.0752 versus 1.0833 versus 1.0898 versus 1.0890 versus 1.0973 versus 1.0925 versus 1.0946 versus 1.0811 versus 1.0648 versus


Oil: 59.69, -0.19. Bounced off the 10 day EMA early week, then faded to Friday, but showing a nice doji with tail at the 10 day EMA. In position to rebound and continue the break upside.


Gold: 1225.30, +0.10. Took a breather, holding the Wednesday to Thursday surge out of the range and through the 200 day SMA. Seems gold thinks the Fed won't raise rates either.


$/JPY: 119.33 versus 119.18

119.18 versus 119.11 versus 119.93 versus 120.13 versus 119.75 versus 119.75 versus 119.43 versus 119.85 versus 120.12 versus 120.16 versus 119.41 versus 119.02 versus 118.45 versus 119.10 versus 118.91 versus 119.53 versus 119.90 versus 119.66 versus 119.26 versus 119.12 versus 119.03 versus 119.18 versus 119.39 versus 120.12 versus 120.20 versus 120.64 versus 120.15 versus 120.32 versus


MONDAY

Similar to the start of last week, this week finds the stocks indices sitting on a solid late week upside move, looking to again hold the move and more than that, build upon it. The market rallied, paused three days, and then rallied again. A second Friday rally would have been nice, but now we have to wait to this week to see again if stocks can build upon the two upside moves.

It is the nature of the current market that each upside rally, now with two of them building higher to new highs, is met with skepticism. GS is telling clients to sell in May and go away for a year. One economist voiced a concern many have, that is the financial crisis was not cured, just the ultimate effects delayed and that the real problems are coming home at some point. In short, there are a lot of fears as to what may be over the course of the year.

We have our doubts as well. The series of data this year suggest recession. When you get the sequence of declining data over several months that the economy is showing, recession comes to mind. Ever since October and QE's end the market has struggled. Now that does not necessarily mean it is economic; QE didn't fix the economy, just inflated asset prices in an effort to float the economy over the rocks until time healed all economic wounds as it typically does in our economy.

But this is not the typical, historic US economy. We have allowed it to be changed into a European like economy in terms of growth due to massive, massive amounts of new regulations that have impacted most severely the one area that always makes us the best: the small entrepreneur coming up with the new and better ideas that lead to new growth companies and the next wave of new and better jobs.

The CFR, Code of Federal Regulations, has grown to over 175,000 pages. These are the regulations the administrators write pursuant to the purposefully vague and general laws Congress drafts and passes, often without reading. Then the regulators make 'reasonable and just,' or 'generally fair and equitable' as the Supreme Court has allowed in its opinions. What is worse, if you break these rules, the agencies that wrote them act as your court with their 'administrative courts' that act without constitutional bounds. Oh you can get to the actual courts eventual, but you have to 'exhaust your avenues of recourse' through the administrative courts first and then you MAY get a hearing in front of the constitutional courts. Of course as most find out or know, your ability to fight the issue, and that means your money, is often EXHAUSTED long before you get to that point.

Thus if someone in some one of the thousands of government agencies decides they don't like you or your business, they can work the system to drive you out of business before you can really get started. And it doesn't even have to be that specific or that nefarious intent. The massive number of regulations starve small businesses of funding as the result of their incredibly complex and unforeseen results (Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley), or prevent them from obtaining the licensing they are required to have in order to give someone something as simple as a haircut or a shave (but you cannot give them both unless you have a barber's license and a hair cutting license). I know, some are going to day but you need to ensure that a hair cutter is good or that their shop is sanitary. Well, if they are NOT good no one will go there. You may get a bad haircut or get nicked with a razor, but it won't be a life altering event. And if sanitation is the worry, there are inspectors that can look at that; having a license to shave someone's face does not automatically guarantee that person is a hygiene freak.

Okay, that is a long way from where this started, but it gives the background for what I have been saying a long time: the economy is not the same economy it was in terms of its ability to create new and better jobs and thus increase our standard of living. Quite the opposite as we saw in the April jobs report where the net of all jobs created were part-time jobs as 200+K of full-time jobs were lost while 466K part-time jobs were created. That has the ripple effect of lower wages, lower disposable income, etc.

And of course the solution offered by our leaders, increasing the minimum wage, ultimately only hastens the demise of even those jobs where that wage is hiked: companies will in the near term cut jobs, try to survive with fewer workers, and either limp along or fold. Or, as will be the case for McDonalds and other large service companies, they will end up going fully automated and eliminated virtually all part-time jobs in exchange for a full-time systems operator and a few to keep the place clean. Hey, that solves a lot of your affordable care act issues as well, i.e. 50 employee cutoff level, etc.

So, yes, there may be a recession coming or actually already started. That is what has many worried about the stock market's future, near term and through the rest of they year.

Thus that makes each break upside somewhat suspect. Everyone wonders if this will be the one the sellers attack. They have been on the hunt since October; the market is much choppier with two big consolidation periods and the February rally sandwiched in between. The market is trying to launch another February-like run with the recent action, overcoming that severe late April volatility. Many indexes hit new highs recently but could not make the move stick. To their credit they are trying again, perhaps doing what they often do when worry is high, i.e. climbing that wall of worry.

As we have noted the past couple of weeks, there are stocks moving higher (e.g. metals) and stocks that are trending higher and setting up nicely to make better moves (software, semiconductors), and some old groups coming back around again (biotech). It will be up to those in position to make the next moves to go ahead and make them if the market is going to defy the May jinx and put on another February-like move.

Thus again everyone is watching how the market reacts to a sharp move upside. That the market generated another upside break similar to the previous Friday, without giving that Friday move back, would appear to answer that worry. Perhaps that it did not is a good thing, the old wall of worry issue, as noted above. While we don't love the economic situation and don't love all of the violent volatility in late April and early May, the market is finding buyers to break it higher. That still doesn't mean the deal is done, but it does fly in the face of the worries recently voiced by many. Of course, as I also say, it is all just a pretty picture until it makes the moves.

Have a great weekend!



SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 5048.29

Resistance:
5120 is the April 2015 post-bear market high
5132.52 is the 3/2000 all-time high

Support:
5042 is the March 2015 high
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5006 is the January to April pattern trendline
The 50 day EMA at 4959
4912 the mid-April China dip
The March lows at 4843 and 4825
4815 is the December 2014 prior market peak
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4774 is the January high
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
The 200 day SMA at 4710
4631 is the October 2014 upside gap point
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.
4566 is the lower gap point from late October
4563 and 4567 are the January lows
4547 is the December low


S&P 500: Closed at 2122.73

Resistance:
2126 is the April new all-time high

Support:
2119.59 is the February intraday prior all-time high
2115 is the late March lower high
2094 is the December 2014 high, the prior all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 2093
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November
2076 is the all-time high from November
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
The 200 day SMA at 2033
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1991 is the July 2014 high
1972 is the December 2014 low
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high


Dow: Closed at 18,272.56

Resistance:
18,289 is the all-time high

Support:
18,206 is the late March lower high
18,104 is the December high
17,991 is the early December interim
The 50 day EMA at 17,983
The January trendline at 17,979
17,923 is the January 2015 lower high
17,748 is the mid-April China margin selloff
The March low at 17,620
The 200 day SMA at 17,502
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

May 15- Friday
Empire Manufacturing, May (8:30): 3.1 actual versus 4.5 expected, -1.2 prior
Industrial Productio, April (9:15): -0.3% actual versus 0.1% expected, -0.3% prior (revised from -0.6%)
Capacity Utilization, April (9:15): 78.2% actual versus 78.4% expected, 78.6% prior (revised from 78.4%)
Mich Sentiment, May (10:00): 88.6 actual versus 96.0 expected, 95.9 prior
Net Long-Term TIC Fl, March (16:00): $17.6B actual versus $20.9B prior (revised from $9.8B)

May 18 - Monday
NAHB Housing Market , May (10:00): 57 expected, 56 prior

May 19 - Tuesday
Housing Starts, April (8:30): 1019K expected, 926K prior
Building Permits, April (8:30): 1065K expected, 1039K prior

May 20 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 05/16 (7:00): -3.5% prior
Crude Inventories, 05/16 (10:30): -2.191M prior
FOMC Minutes, 4/29 (14:00)

May 21 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 05/16 (8:30): 270K expected, 264K prior
Continuing Claims, 05/09 (8:30): 2250K expected, 2229K prior
Existing Home Sales, April (10:00): 5.24M expected, 5.19M prior
Philadelphia Fed, May (10:00): 8.0 expected, 7.5 prior
Leading Indicators, April (10:00): 0.3% expected, 0.2% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 05/16 (10:30): 111 bcf prior

May 22 - Friday
CPI, April (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.2% prior
Core CPI, April (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior

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From Briefing.com: Monday marked another record-setting session for the S&P 500, but this time it had company. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also established a new record closing high. Not surprisingly, Apple (AAPL 130.19, +1.42, +1.1%) had an influential hand in the record finishes for both.

Apple's outperformance came on the back of assertions from Carl Icahn that Apple should increase its share buyback activity and that the company's stock is worth $240 per share. That view lit a spark under Apple; and when it jumped noticeably around 11:00 a.m. ET, the rest of the market followed suit.

From that point on, the S&P 500 grinded its way higher in a low-volume affair that was led ultimately by the health care (+0.6%), financial (+0.6%), and information technology (+0.4%) sectors.

The semiconductor group was a standout area on Monday as it got a boost from the news that Altera (ALTR 46.93, +2.51, +5.7%) and Intel (INTC 33.40, +0.41, +1.2%) are engaged again in merger discussions.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:
Accenture (ACN 97.46, +0.44, +0.5%): To acquire Javelin Group, a UK-based retail strategy consulting and digital transformation services provider; terms not disclosed

Altera (ALTR 46.93, +2.51, +5.7%): The New York Post reported that talks have resumed between Altera and Intel (INTC 33.40, +0.41, +1.2%). On a related note, David Faber of CNBC indicated his sources said there were principal-to-principal talks between Intel and Altera last week.

Apple (AAPL 130.19, +1.42, +1.1%): According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Appeals Court upheld a $548 million judgment against Samsung Electronics for patent infringement; however, it was also ruled that Apple isn't eligible for perpetual coverage under U.S. trademark law, which could potentially lop off about $382 million from the original $930 million judgment. Separately, Carl Icahn sent a letter to CEO Tim Cook, pushing for a larger share buyback, and suggesting his firm's work points to Apple's stock being worth $240 per share.

Facebook (FB 80.88, +0.46, +0.6%): The Information reported, citing three people briefed on the plans, that Facebook is talking to game developers and may potentially introduce games into its Messenger app store.

Google (GOOG 532.30, -1.55, -0.3%): According to The Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter, Google will soon launch buy buttons on its search-results pages, raising its profile as an online marketplace.

Xerox (XRX 11.48, +0.11, +1.0%): Acquired Healthy Communities Institute; terms not disclosed. Healthy Communities Institute is a Berkeley, Calif.-based company with a cloud platform that puts socioeconomic and community health information at the fingertips of hospitals, public health agencies and community coalitions.
Elsewhere in the technology space:
Alibaba (BABA 87.11, -1.35, -1.5%): The USA Today reported that Kering, a luxury product maker whose brands include Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, has filed lawsuit against Alibaba for aiding the sale of counterfeit goods. Separately, in response to inaccurate news reports that Silver Lake has sold approximately half of its shares in Alibaba, Silver Lake confirmed that its fund continues to own over 85% of its original stake in the company and has not distributed any Alibaba shares from the fund to its limited partners.

Cree (CREE 31.48, +1.74, +5.8%): Company announced that Cree's wholly owned Power and RF subsidiary has submitted a draft registration statement on a confidential basis to the U.S. SEC for a potential initial public offering of the subsidiary's Class A common stock. The initial public offering is expected to commence after the Securities and Exchange Commission completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions. The Power and RF subsidiary is raising capital to invest directly in the business to support targeted future growth.

FireEye (FEYE 41.57, +0.20, +0.5%): Announced a strategic alliance with ACE Group, a global property and casualty insurer. The relationship brings together technical insight from FireEye, with ACE's Loss Mitigation Services program, a multi-tier offering that helps organizations understand and mitigate their cyber security risk. Company also announced a collaboration with Marsh, a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan (MMC), to offer its clients Marsh Cyber OASIS.

Nokia (NOK 6.96, +0.06, +0.9%): Bloomberg reports, citing people with knowledge of the matter, that several parties could potentially make a bid for the company's maps business. The article notes the unit could sell for as much as $4 billion based on insight from three anonymous people who spoke to Bloomberg.

Analyst Action:

Citrix Systems (CTXS 65.92, +0.31, +0.5%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman Sachs

Take-Two (TTWO 24.20, -0.49, -2.0%): target lowered to $31.29 from $34.99 at The Benchmark Company

YELP (YELP 46.56, -0.33, -0.7%): downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray

4:32 pm Photronics beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (PLAB) : Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding $0.02 per share benefit, relating to the reduction of a portion of a tax net operating loss valuation allowance for a foreign subsidiary that was no longer required, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 21.4% year/year to $127.3 mln vs the $126.9 mln consensus.

4:12 pm Agilent misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides JulQ EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY15 EPS in-line, revs in-line (A) : Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.39; revenues fell 2.5% year/year to $963 mln vs the $990.1 mln consensus.

Guidance:


Co issues in-line guidance for Q3 (Jul), sees EPS of $0.38-0.42, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.42 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $995 mln to $1.015 bln vs. $1.00 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $1.67-1.73, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.69 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 revs of $4.05-4.11 bln vs. $4.07 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Commentary:
"Agilent delivered solid earnings within guidance, along with excellent order momentum in the second quarter...We continue to make progress on streamlining our company...We delivered an adjusted operating margin of 18.3%, up 140 basis points. We are well positioned to deliver on our core growth and earnings guidance for the year."

4:06 pm Lam Research increases quarterly dividend to $0.30/share from $0.18/share (LRCX) :

12:40 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).



Large Cap Gainers

ALTR (47.12 +6.08%): Reports out that buyout talks have resumed with Intel (INTC).
ALNY (122.53 +2.24%): Announced it filed a Clinical Trial Application for ALN-AAT, an investigational RNAi therapeutic for the treatment of Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency-associated liver disease.
BMRN (124.69 +1.56%): Favorable commentary on Friday's Mad Money.

Large Cap Losers

RRC (59.44 -2.81%): Downgraded to Neutral at Goldman.
ENDP (82.14 -3.76%): Announced it would acquire privately-held Par from TPG in a transaction valued at $8.05 bln; accretion expected within first 12 months.

Mid Cap Gainers

CALM (60.01 +9.21%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at a boutique firm.
MEG (16.1 +4.27%): Positive view profiled in Barron's over the weekend.
PDCE (57.86 +5.09%): Initiated with a Conviction Buy at Goldman; $77 tgt.

Mid Cap Losers

WB (15.65 -5.72%): Downgraded to Hold at Summit Research.
ATW (32.24 -3.9%): Downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.
GPOR (45.97 -2.42%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.

11:57 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (166) outpacing new lows (62) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAC, AAWW, ABCD, ABT, ACLS, ACN, AET, AGO, ALDR, ALR, ALTR, ALV, AMAG, AMBA, AMCN, AME, ANCX, ANN, ANTM, AOS, APTS, ATSG, ATTU, AWH, AXS, AXTA, AZZ, BAMM, BF.A, BIO, BKCC, BLMT, BOH, BRCM, BX, CAG, CALM, CCK, CMT, CNIT, CRTO, CSCD, CSH, CSWC, CYNI, DGRW, DLPH, DSKX, DST, DTV, DXJS, EA, EBF, EBIX, EGBN, EGRX, ELNK, ELSE, ERN, EXR, FCB, FCS, FFA, GAME, GIMO, GS, GT, GTT, HASI, HCA, HCKT, HMST, HON, HOTR, IART, IBKR, ICCC, ICLN, IDTI, IMAX, IMN, IMPV, INBK, INS, IRMD, ISSI, ITRN, JBL, JNPR, JOF, JPM, KE, KRNT, LAMR, LBY, LII, LOAN, LTM, MCK, MCO, MEI, MFG, MFLX, MKL, MLVF, MMAC, MMI, MSCI, MTU, NBN, NCLH, NFLX, NHTC, NI, NKE, NPTN, ORBK, ORRF, PBHC, PERY, PF, PFSW, PGTI, PN, PPO, PSG, QQQC, RARE, RELY, RGEN, RHT, RTRX, SAR, SCOR, SEDG, SEE, SEIC, SEV, SGU, SJM, SKX, SLM, SLTC, SNX, SPR, SRLP, SSB, SSFN, SYNA, TACO, TCX, TDS, TRR, TSE, TTMI, UHS, UWN, VIAS, VRNT, VRX, WAL, WEBK, WNS, WWAV, YUM, ZBRA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACI, ALLT, ALXA, ANR, APOL, BBOX, BSM, BTU, CHCI, CKP, CLDN, CLTX, CPST, CRD.B, CSTM, DAVE, DGSE, EBIO, ETSY, FGEN, FNRG, FSAM, GMCR, GV, HGG, HH, I, IGT, IPDN, KOOL, LF, LMIA, LTRE, MDW, MPEL, MUH, MZF, NBD, NQP, NTX, NUM, NVDQ, NYLD, OPXA, PCN, PLPC, PRGN, PTNR, RCPI, REXI, RGSE, RSO, RXII, SD, SGNL, SOFO, SYX, UNXL, VDTH, VRS, WYNN, XONE

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, IGN, OEF, SPY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ
8:31 am Cree announces submission of draft registration statement for IPO of Power and RF business (CREE) : Co announced that Cree's wholly owned Power and RF subsidiary has submitted a draft registration statement on a confidential basis to the U.S. SEC for a potential initial public offering of the subsidiary's Class A common stock.


The initial public offering is expected to commence after the Securities and Exchange Commission completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions. The Power and RF subsidiary is raising capital to invest directly in the business to support targeted future growth.7:06 am JA Solar beats by $0.06, misses on revs with shipments at low end of guidance; reaffirms FY15 shipment guidance (JASO) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.07; rev +6% YoY to $388 mln vs. 417 mln consensus.


Total shipments were 681.5 megawatts vs. 680-750 MW guidance, an increase of 6.8% y/y and decrease of 28.5% sequentially.Outlook: For Q2, the Company expects total cell and module shipments to be in the range of 680 MW to 720 MW.Full year 2015 shipments are reaffirmed at 3.6 GW to 4.0 GW, including 200 MW of modules shipments to the Company's downstream projects. "Our first quarter shipments were in line with our expectations during a seasonally slow period. During the quarter, our gross margin held up well due to reduced material costs and high demand from the Japanese market, where pricing was better than expected. Shipments to Europe were also strong, growing both year over year and sequentially." Mr. Jin continued, "Moving forward, we expect to see stronger demand in the second half, particularly in China and North America."ARM (ARMH) and United Microelectronics (UMC) announced the availability of a new ARM Artisan physical IP solution on 55nm to accelerate the development of ARM processor-based embedded systems and Internet of Things applications.


Seems to me that there are still a lot of strong buy recommendations on MU. Hard to move up without the potential for upgrades. They have yet to event SUPER strong buy. RtS

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From Briefing.com: It was a mixed day of trading action on Tuesday with the major indices showing little change from where they began the day. The Dow Jones Industrial eked out another record closing high, gaining just over a point, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite suffered small losses.

The performance followed on the heels of a report that showed housing starts hitting their highest levels in April since November 2007. That news weighed on Treasury prices, which pushed up yields. The 10-yr note for its part slipped 11 ticks, raising its yield to 2.28%.

A solid showing from the financial (+0.6%) and health care (+0.5%) sectors lent support to the broader market while the information technology sector (-0.3%) underperformed.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Accenture (ACN 97.18, -0.28, -0.3%): The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced it is working with Accenture to deliver a biometric technology system for registering and verifying the identities of displaced persons around the world. Under the terms of the three-year contract, UNHCR will deploy Accenture's Biometric Identity Management System (BIMS) across UNHCR global operations.

Apple (AAPL 130.07, -0.12, -0.1%): The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Apple shelved its Ultra HDTV plans more than a year ago. The report came just a day after Carl Icahn pointed to the TV as one of the reasons why he thinks Apple could be worth $240 per share. Separately, Apple announced it has updated the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display to include the new Force Touch trackpad, faster flash storage, longer battery life and faster discrete graphics. It also introduced a new $1,999 configuration of the 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display, and lowered the price of the top-end iMac with Retina 5K display to $2,299.

Applied Materials (AMAT 19.97, -0.22, -1.1%): Announced its Applied Endura Cirrus HTX PVD system with breakthrough technology for patterning copper interconnects at 10nm and beyond.

Autodesk (ADSK 57.52, -0.88, -1.5%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q1 (Apr) earnings of $0.30 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 9.1% year/year to $646.5 mln, also ahead of estimates. For Q2, sees EPS of $0.14-0.19, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.32 Capital IQ Consensus and revenues of ~$600-620 mln vs. $650.15 mln. The high end of those estimate ranges is below analysts' average expectations. For FY16, lowers EPS to ~$0.95-1.10, excluding non-recurring items, from $1.05-1.20 and revenues to +2-4% to ~$2.56-2.61 bln (from +3-5%).

Computer Sciences (CSC 67.66, -0.61, -0.9%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q4 (Mar) earnings of $1.26 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 12.6% year/year to $2.91 bln. For FY16, sees EPS of $4.75-5.05, excluding non-recurring items. The midpoint is above analysts' average expectation. Company also announced that the Board of Directors has unanimously approved a plan to separate the company into two publicly traded, pure-play leaders: One to serve commercial and government clients globally, and the other to serve public sector clients in the U.S. Concurrent with the separation, CSC intends to pay a special cash dividend to shareholders of $10.50 per share at closing, which is expected by October 2015.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 33.40, +0.15, +0.5%): Reuters reported that HP plans to sell a 51% stake in its China H3C computing unit to Tsinghua Unigroup, citing a spokesman for Tsinghua. An HP spokeswoman in Singapore, the article said, could not immediately comment on the deal.

IBM (IBM 173.48, +0.42, +0.2%): Announced two new investments in WayBlazer and Sellpoints, designed to advance online travel and shopping apps powered by Watson. The financial terms of IBM's investments were not disclosed. The company also announced that United Business Group has chosen the IBM Cloud to transition its business into toward managed service offerings.
Lam Research (LRCX 80.74, +1.28, +1.6%): increases quarterly dividend to $0.30/share from $0.18/share

Microsoft (MSFT 47.50, -0.51, -1.1%): MVP Windows consumer apps Michael Gillett tweets 'Right now we're building Microsoft Edge for Windows 10, we'll see in the future if it makes sense for other platforms'

SanDisk (SNDK 67.26, -0.24, -0.4%): At JP Morgan conference says 15nm technology continues to ramp as expected and yields are strong; supply bit growth for FY15 will be in the range of 35-40% as planned; sees revenue bit growth 'well below 30%'.' Adds that second half revenue growth will be 'strong' and that enterprise revenue is expected to decline quarter-over-quarter in Q2; sees flattish enterprise revenues in the second half when compared to Q2.

Yahoo! (YHOO 40.98, -3.38, -7.6%): At J.P. Morgan TMT Conference, says some of the declines in legacy items had been larger than the company expected but believes it has stabilized. Separately, Bloomberg reported that the IRS is considering changes to its rules concerning spinoffs, which left investors concerned that a potential rule change could get in the way of the company's efforts to follow through on a tax-free spinoff of its Alibaba shares.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.76, -0.01, -0.3%): Has signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korean telecommunications provider, KT, under which the companies will collaborate to test technologies for the eventual introduction of 5G mobile networks and infrastructure capable of meeting the huge connectivity demands expected in the future.

Cypress Semiconductor (CY 13.66, +0.27, +2.0%): Cypress Semi sent letter to the CFO of Integrated
Silicon Solutions (ISSI 20.34, +0.06, +0.3%) 'conveying disappointment with the (ISSI) position regarding the terms of an Acceptable Confidentiality Agreement.'

Priceline (PCLN 1213.08, -3.76, -0.3%): Booking.com, an operating business of The Priceline Group, announced it will waive enforcement of its existing wide parity provisions with German accommodations with immediate effect and will amend its standard terms and other agreements with German accommodations by 1 July 2015 to be consistent with the binding commitments given to the French, Italian and Swedish National Competition Authorities. Separately, a Director sold 3K shares at $1194.40 worth ~$3.6 mln.

Ruckus Wireless (RKUS 10.95, -0.22, -2.0%): Announced the introduction of its new SmartZone software platform, a carrier-grade solution developed for and deployed by service providers around the globe, now extended to demanding enterprise customers.

Take-Two (TTWO 28.62, +4.42, +18.3%): After Monday's close, reported Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.49 per share, well ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 83.4% year/year to $427.7 mln, which was below estimates. For Q1, sees EPS of $0.25-0.35 and revenues of $325-350 mln. The high end of both ranges is ahead of analysts' average expectation. For FY16, sees EPS of $0.75-1.00 and revenues of $1.3-1.4 bln.

Twitter (TWTR 37.50, +0.22, +0.6%): Official Google blog posts that company is bringing tweets to Google Search on mobile devices.

Unisys Corporation (UIS 20.93, -0.13, -0.6%): Announced that TravelSky has signed a new contract with Unisys, to provide expanded processing power for TravelSky's reservation and distribution systems in China.

Analyst Action:

Akamai Technologies (AKAM 77.30, -0.64, -0.8%): downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer... target raised to $88 from $79 at UBS; Buy

Intuit (INTU 103.22, +0.88, +0.9%): target raised to $120 from $105 at RBC Capital Markets

MasterCard (MA 93.80, +0.72, +0.8%): upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest

Netease.com (NTES 140.34, -0.98, -0.7%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup

Priceline (PCLN 1213.08, -3.76, -0.3%): initiated with a Neutral at Guggenheim

Take-Two (TTWO 28.62, +4.42, +18.3%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sterne Agee CRT Xilinx upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest
(Disclosure; Briefing.com has a business relationship with Microsoft and Yahoo!)

4:05 pm Analog Devices beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; mid-point of JulQ EPS guidance below consensus, revs in-line (ADI) : Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.73 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.72; revenues rose 18.2% year/year to $821.0 mln vs the $819.8 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3 (Jul), sees EPS of $0.71-0.77, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.77 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $825-865 mln vs. $845.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We had a very successful second quarter driven by the quality of our innovation, the diversity of our business, and our strong execution...Looking ahead, our book to bill ratio was positive in the second quarter and we are seeing stable order rates across all our end markets. As a result, we are planning for sequential growth in the third quarter and for revenue to be in the range of $825 million to $865 million."

4:10 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday session on an unchanged note after spending the entire day near their flat lines. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) outperformed slightly, edging up to another record closing high.

Overall, the Tuesday session was a snoozer that saw the benchmark index bounce inside a five-point range that was expanded to nine points by the close. The index was able to set a fresh intraday record high at 2,133.02 during the afternoon, but returned near its session low by the close.

For the second day in a row, heavily-weighted health care (+0.5%) and financials (+0.7%) outperformed throughout the day and kept the benchmark index from dipping too far below its flat line. The health care sector outperformed even as biotechnology struggled to keep pace with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 360.60, +0.30) adding 0.1%.

Elsewhere, the financial sector continued its recent outperformance amid increasing Treasury yields that are expected to boost net interest margins for banks. Thanks to today's gain, the sector is now up 3.4% in May versus a 2.0% gain for the S&P 500.

Treasury yields rose once again today, but not before an overnight rally in global bonds that followed remarks from European Central Bank executive member Benoit Coeure who said the ECB plans to frontload its asset purchases in hopes of avoiding thin liquidity conditions in July and August. The remarks boosted global bonds and weighed on the euro, sending the single currency lower by 1.5% against the dollar to 1.1150. Furthermore, the timing of the comments from Mr. Coeure was viewed as controversial because the original speech was delivered on Monday evening, London time, when the ECB member appeared before a private group of hedge fund investors; however, the speech was not released to the public until this morning. In response, the European Central Bank blamed the delay on an "internal procedural error."

Despite rallying overnight, U.S. Treasuries surrendered their gains in the morning after the April Housing Starts report beat expectations (1.135 mln; Briefing.com consensus 1.019 mln). True to recent form, the better than expected data point was seen as a potential headwind to the market considering a strong showing from the housing sector is likely to be used as an argument in favor of the Fed hiking rates sooner rather than later. That being said, homebuilder stocks outperformed with iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.30, +0.19) climbing 0.7%. Meanwhile, the broader consumer discretionary sector settled just below its flat line.

Also of note, another cyclical sector-energy-lost 1.2%, and settled behind the remaining nine groups as crude oil weighed. WTI crude ended lower by 3.6% at $58.08 and surrendered its May gain with the 1.1% increase in the Dollar Index (95.29, +1.07) adding to the pressure.

Today's participation represented an improvement from yesterday as more than 720 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Housing Starts and Building Permits:


Housing starts increased 20.2% in April to 1.135 mln from an upwardly revised 944,000 (from 926,000) in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 1.019 mln
After the subpar first quarter, when housing starts plummeted to some of their worst levels since the middle of last year, construction levels rebounded significantly in April.
This was the first time starts reached 1.135 mln since November 2007 and it was the first time starts increased by at least 20.2% in a month since a 20.9% increase in February 1991.
Single-family starts increased 16.7% in April to 733,000 from 628,000 in March. That was the most single-family homes started since January 2008 when 773,000 were started.
Building permits rose to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.143 mln in April from a revised 1.038 mln for March (from 1.039 mln) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.065 mln

Tomorrow, the Weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while the FOMC minutes from the April 29 meeting will be released at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.4% YTD
S&P 500 +3.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.8% YTD

DJ30 +13.51 NASDAQ -8.41 SP500 -1.38 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1214/1.61 bln/1617 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1236/722.2 mln/1836 3:35 pm :

Strength in the dollar index continued to pressure commodities all day
WTI oil, natural gas, gold and copper futures all ended the day near today's lows
July crude oil closed up pit trading -2.4% at $57.99/barrel
June natural gas lost 2% to $2.95/MMBtu
June gold fell $20.70 today to $1206.90/oz, while July silver fell $0.65 to $17.08/oz
July copper fell $0.06 to $2.84/lb

11:44 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (215) outpacing new lows (88) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAWW, ABT, ACGL, ACIW, ACLS, ACN, AEIS, AET, AHS, ALV, AMAG, AMBA, AMCN, AMSG, ANSS, ANTM, AOS, APOG, ASB, ASML, AWH, AXTA, BBNK, BF.A, BHB, BIO, BK, BKCC, BLBD, BLKB, BLMT, BLOX, BOH, BONA, BRCM, BRKL, BTO, BX, CALM, CATY, CBF, CCK, CFG, CFO, CIEN, CMCM, CNMD, COL, CRTO, CRUS, CSGP, CYNI, CYNO, CYT, DATA, DGRW, DHIL, DLPH, DOOR, DSKX, DST, DXJS, EBIX, EGI, EGRX, ELNK, ERI, ETFC, EWBC, EXL, FCCO, FCS, FDS, FFA, FFKT, FHN, FNB, FOMX, FRC, FTNT, FULT, GPN, GS, GTT, HALO, HASI, HBAN, HCA, HMST, HOLX, HUBS, ICCC, IDCC, IDTI, IMAX, IMN, INBK, IPHI, ISBC, ISCA, IVC, JBL, JBLU, JNPR, JPM, KEN, KEY, KRNT, KWEB, LAMR, LBY, LDRH, LEG, LII, LPX, MAS, MASI, MCGC, MCK, MCO, MFG, MFLX, MHK, MIW, MKC, MKC.V, MKL, MMC, MMI, MOH, MSCI, NCLH, NDAQ, NFLX, NHF, NHTC, NI, NICE, NOAH, NPTN, NRZ, NTRS, NYCB, OCR, OLED, OPK, ORBK, OZRK, PANW, PBCT, PF, PFSW, PLAB, PLXS, PN, PNFP, PNRA, PPO, PRTO, PVTB, PZZA, QABA, RARE, RE, REGN, RGEN, RTRX, SBCF, SBNY, SC, SCHW, SCI, SCOR, SEE, SEIC, SEV, SHW, SIRO, SJM, SKX, SNE, SNPS, SNV, SPNS, SPR, SSB, SSFN, STI, SUM, SUSQ, SWKS, SYNA, TACO, TECH, THOR, TNP, TRQ, TSE, TSS, TTMI, TW, UHS, VAC, VNTV, WAL, WAT, WBS, WFC, WIBC, WIX, WNS, WPPGY, WTFC, XPO, ZSPH


Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACI, AEZS, ALXA, AMBR, AMIC, AMPE, ANCI, ANR, AP, APOL, ARCI, BANX, BJZ, BSM, BTU, CDI, CECO, CEQP, CHCI, CHEK, CIM, CLDN, CLTX, CPST, CPTA, CSAL, CTL, DEST, DSCO, DTF, EOX, EVJ, FGEN, FHCO, FREE, FSAM, FTEK, GMCR, GV, HGG, HGT, HIIQ, I, IGT, IHC, LTRE, MCF, MHI, MHR, MIN, MUH, MZF, NDLS, NEOT, NM, NMRX, NMY, NRP, NUM, NXJ, OPXA, ORN, PCN, PQ, QUMU, RCMT, RMGN, RST, SD, SGNL, SHLO, SKBI, SPDC, STB, TESS, TRIV, TROX, TSU, UNXL, VPCO, VRS, WBK, WHLR, WILN, WIN, WTW, YGE, YUMA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: DIA, IAI, IHF, IYF, IYG, KBE, KRE, MDY, OEF, PPH, UYG, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Similar to what has played out this week, the major indices meandered their way through the trading day on light volume and settled the session with small gains.

The S&P 500 for its part set a new record closing high, gaining 0.2% to 2130.82. The Dow Jones Industrial Average registered a fractional gain while the Nasdaq Composite led the pack with a 0.4% increase.

Apple (AAPL 131.39, +1.33, +1.0%), which was helped along by some supportive comments out of the analyst at Morgan Stanley, helped pace gains in the broader market and the information technology sector (+0.4%). The latter outperformed the S&P 500, bolstered in part by gains in the semiconductor space and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 33.83, +0.76, +2.3%), which jumped 2.3% ahead of its earnings report after Thursday's close.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Apple (AAPL 131.39, +1.33, +1.0%): CNBC.com highlighted a Morgan Stanley note in which the analyst kept her price target at $166 but wrote that "in a bull case" Apple's stock could be set to climb to $195.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 33.83, +0.76, +2.3%):The company and Tsinghua Holdings jointly announced a partnership under which, Tsinghua Holdings subsidiary, Unisplendour Corporation, will purchase a 51% stake in a new business called H3C, comprising H3C Technologies and HP's China-based server, storage and technology services businesses, for ~$2.3 bln, valuing the total business at $4.5 billion (net of cash and debt). Separately, after Thursday's close, HP reported reported Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.87 per share, excluding non-recurring items, slightly ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 6.8% year/year to $25.45 bln, which was below expectations. For Q3, sees EPS of 0.83-0.87, excluding non-recurring items. For FY15, sees EPS of $3.53-3.73, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with expectations. The company said its separation remains on track and that it expects associated dis-synergies of ~$400 to $450 million. The company also announced new future leadership appointments for both companies: Cathie Lesjak will become Chief Financial Officer of HP Inc.; with Lesjak's move to HP Inc., Tim Stonesifer will become CFO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Stonesifer currently serves as CFO of HP's Enterprise Group); and Chris Hsu has been selected to become Chief Operating Officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Intuit (INTU 104.16, +0.78, +0.8%): After Thursday's close, reported Q3 (Apr) earnings of $2.85 per share, excluding non-recurring items, comfortably ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 8.1% year/year to $2.19 bln, which was ahead of estimates. For Q4, sees EPS of ($0.12)-(0.10), excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $720-745 mln.

MasterCard (MA 92.90, -0.34, -0.4%): Disclosed CFO Martina Hund-Mejean entered into a pre-arranged stock trading plan to sell limited amount of shares of Class A common stock. The 10b5-1 Plan allows for the sale of a maximum of (1) 11,985 shares of Class A common stock associated with vested performance stock unit awards and (2) 64,880 shares of Class A common stock underlying vested stock option awards. Sales pursuant to the 10b5-1 Plan are expected to begin as early as August 6, 2015 and will end no later than December 31, 2015.

Oracle (ORCL 44.28, -0.01, -0.02%): Business Insider reported that an Oracle employee told it that the software company is cutting about 40% of the staff in its industry solutions group (50-60 people). The source also said employees laid off have been invited to apply for other positions. Oracle would not comment on the report.
Qualcomm (QCOM 70.09, +0.81, +1.2%): Announced an accelerated share repurchase agreement for $5 bln of its common stock, or ~57.7 mln shares. Qualcomm is funding the accelerated share repurchase with proceeds from its recently completed $10 billion debt offering.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Extreme Networks (EXTR 2.60, +0.04, +1.6%): Company is implementing its new solutions-based go-to-market strategy. As a first step to implementing the new operating plan, the company has begun to restructure its global workforce and implement other operating cost reductions. The company expects to incur a restructuring charge of $13-15 million for employee related termination benefits including severance payments and continuation of medical insurance benefits. These actions are expected to yield approximately $40 million in reduction to operating costs in fiscal 2016 including employee related expenses, professional and contractor fees and other discretionary spending. The company separately disclosed details of the restructuring plan, noting that the restructure plan provides for a reduction of approximately 285 positions or 18% of its global workforce, inclusive of contractors. The plan effects the majority of company departments, and both domestic and international locations.

Mobileye N.V. (MBLY 47.19, +1.09): Released clarification that it is not currently commencing work with Apple on an autonomous driving project.

Open Text (OTEX 42.44, -6.56, -13.5%): Company announced that Mark Barrenechea, President and CEO, has resumed full involvement in day-to-day operations of the Company after previously announcing on February 23, 2015, that he would reduce his involvement for approximately 100 days to seek treatment for Leukemia. The CEO Operating Committee that had been established to assist in the management of the Company's day-to-day operations has been disbanded. The Company also announced that it is initiating a restructuring program in conjunction with organizational changes to support its Cloud strategy and drive further operational efficiencies. For Q4 (Jun), sees EPS of $0.64-0.72, excluding non-recurring items, and revenues of $440-455 mln. The high end of both guidance ranges is below analysts' average expectations.

Qihoo 360 Tech. (QIHU 54.96, +1.37, +2.9%): Company and Huayuan Group announced a strategic partnership to develop smart home and security technology for Chinese real-estate. Under the agreement, Qihoo 360 will design and provide intelligent home security products and management systems for Huayuan's real-estate developments. These will include intelligent surveillance cameras, security routers, location- and health-tracking wearables, electrical appliance safety alarms, intelligent gas and fire alarms.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSM 24.24, -0.34, -1.2%): Digitimes, citing industry sources, reported that TSMC will manufacture fingerprint sensors for the next generation iPhone series. Separately, Digitimes reported, citing industry sources, that Qualcomm (QCOM 70.09, +0.81, +1.2%) may not be one of the company's top-5 clients in the second half of the year.

Analyst Action:

Alibaba (BABA 93.88, +3.18, +3.6%): initiated with a Outperform at Bernstein; target $120

Amazon.com (AMZN 431.63, +7.77, +1.9%): target raised to $520 from $450 at Morgan Stanley

Cree (CREE 30.56, +0.65, +2.1%): upgraded to Underperform from Sell at Credit Agricole

NetApp (NTAP 31.76, -3.57, -10.0%): downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; target lowered to $29 from $35... downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald; target lowered to $35 from $43... downgraded to Hold from Buy at Summit Research... Needham downgrades NTAP to Hold from Buy
Salesforce.com (CRM 72.91, +2.75, +3.8%): target raised to $72 from $66 at Wedbush... Brean Capital raises price target to $76 from $70... FBR Capital raises price target to $82 from $78; Outperform... target raised to $90 from $80 at Deutsche Bank... target raised to $85 from $80 at Canaccord Genuity

6:22 pm Vishay Precision announces expanded common stock repurchase program to 2 mln shares from 500k shares (VPG) : Co announced that its Board of Directors has approved an increase in the company's previously disclosed stock repurchase program from 500,000 to 2,000,000 shares of the company's common stock. As of May 20, 2015, the company has repurchased approximately 280,000 shares of outstanding common stock at a cost of approximately $4.0 million.

4:31 pm BlackBerry announces that its Board has authorized a share repurchase program to purchase for cancellation up to 12 mln BlackBerry common shares, or ~2.6% of the outstanding public float (BBRY) :

4:17 pm Hewlett-Packard beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS just below consensus; reaffirms FY15 EPS guidance; gives spin off guidance (HPQ) : Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.87 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.86; revenues fell 6.8% year/year to $25.45 bln vs the $25.67 bln consensus.

Personal Systems revenue was down 5% YoY with a 3.0% operating margin. Commercial revenue decreased 7% and Consumer revenue decreased 2%. Total units were up 2% with Notebooks units up 19% and Desktops units down 14%.
Printing revenue was down 7% YoY with an 18.3% operating margin. Total hardware units were down 4% with Commercial hardware units up 1% and Consumer hardware units down 6%. Supplies revenue was down 5%.
Enterprise Group revenue was down 1% YoY with a 14.5% operating margin. Industry Standard Servers revenue was up 11%, Storage revenue was down 8%, Business Critical Systems revenue was down 15%, Networking revenue was down 16% and Technology Services revenue was down 8%. Additionally, HP closed its acquisition of Aruba in May.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of 0.83-0.87, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.87 Capital IQ Consensus.

Co reaffirms guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $3.53-3.73, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $3.64 Capital IQ Consensus.

The separation remains on track and the co expects associated dis-synergies of ~$400 to $450 million. The company also announced new future leadership appointments for both cos:

Cathie Lesjak will become Chief Financial Officer of HP Inc.
Lesjak's move to HP Inc., Tim Stonesifer will become CFO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Stonesifer currently serves as CFO of HP's Enterprise Group.
Chris Hsu has been selected to become Chief Operating Officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

4:11 pm Marvell announces that Mike Rashkin has expressed his intention to retire as CFO (MRVL) : Co announced that after sixteen years with Marvell, Mike Rashkin has expressed his intention to retire as chief financial officer, a role that he has held since December 2013.
Mr. Rashkin served the Company in a variety of senior roles since 1999 and has been a key contributor to the success of the company since its formation. Mr. Rashkin's retirement will be effective May 22, 2015.

4:10 pm Marvell beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (MRVL) : Reports Q1 (Apr) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues fell 24.4% year/year to $724 mln vs the $726.7 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.10-0.12, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $710-740 vs. $775.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm : The major averages posted modest gain on Thursday, but the trading day was very quiet once again. The S&P 500 added 0.2% and settled at a new record high while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) outperformed.

Equity indices spent the initial minutes of the session near their flat lines, but they climbed to highs after the Existing Home Sales report for April (5.04 million; Briefing.com consensus 5.24 million) and the May Philadelphia Fed Survey ( 6.7; Briefing.com consensus 8.0) missed estimates. The ensuing advance was accompanied by a rally in Treasuries, suggesting increased expectations that the Federal Reserve will maintain its current dovish stance. Treasuries continued climbing into the afternoon (10-yr yield -6 bps to 2.19%) while the major averages spent the day near their late-morning highs.

Yesterday's session saw relative strength among countercyclical groups, but the opposite was true today as five of six growth-sensitive sectors registered gains while the financial sector (-0.2%) was the lone decliner on the cyclical side. Despite today's retreat, the sector remains higher by 0.6% for the week versus a 0.4% increase for the S&P 500.

Moving on, the energy sector (+0.9%) finished ahead of other cyclical sectors with help from crude oil, which surged 2.9% to $60.70/bbl. The energy component soared after the Energy Information Administration's storage report revealed the third consecutive weekly draw.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the industrial sector (+0.5%) received support from transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average rebounded from recent underperformance, climbing 0.6%, but the bellwether complex remains down 1.5% for the week.

Also of note, the consumer discretionary space (+0.4%) rallied with help from retailers after Best Buy (BBY 35.11, +1.33) and Williams-Sonoma (WSM 78.62, +0.73) reported better than expected results. The two names gained 3.9% and 0.9%, respectively while SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 99.54, +0.54) gained 0.6%.

Over on the countercyclical side, the telecom services sector (+0.7%) displayed strength throughout the day while consumer staples (+0.2%), health care (unch), and utilities (-0.1%) ended near their flat lines.

Today's participation was in-line with recent totals as fewer than 700 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Leading Indicators, Existing Home Sales, and Philadelphia Fed Survey:

The initial claims level increased to 274,000 for the week ending May 16 from an unrevised 264,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 270,000
Despite this week's increase, the four-week moving average fell to 266,250 from 271,750, which is the lowest level since April 2000
The continuing claims level declined to 2.211 mln for the week ending May 9 from a downwardly revised 2.223 mln (from 2.229 mln) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 2.250 mln
The Leading Indicators report for April was up 0.7% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
The March reading was revised up to 0.4% from 0.2%
Existing home sales for April were reported to have decreased 3.3% from March to an annualized rate of 5.04 million units while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 5.24 million
The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Survey dropped to 6.7 in May from 7.5 in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 8.0
Despite the decrease, the general business production growth outlook actually strengthened
Shipments exited a contraction as the related index increased to 1.0 in May from -1.8 in April

Tomorrow's data will be limited to the 8:30 ET release of the Consumer Price Index for April (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%).

Nasdaq Composite +7.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.3% YTD
S&P 500 +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.6% YTD

DJ30 +0.34 NASDAQ +19.05 SP500 +4.97 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1447/1.56 bln/1391 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1703/691.9 mln/1358

3:35 pm :

Energy commodities rose today with crude oil showing a particularly nice run
July crude oil ended the day +$1.73 to $60.70/barrel.
Meanwhile, June natural gas rose $0.03 to $2.95/MMBtu
Metals ended mixed with June gold losing $4.50 to $1203.90/oz and July silver rising $0.02 to $17.14/oz
July copper gained $0.02 To $2.85/lb

4:07 pm Brocade guides Q3 revenue below consensus; EPS In line (BRCD) : Revs $540-560 mln, Capital IQ consensus $561 mln
Non-GAAP Gross Margin 67-68%
Non-GAAP EPS $0.21-0.23, Capital IQ consensus $0.22

For Q3 15, we expect SAN revenue to be down 2% to 6% Qtr./Qtr. We typically see weaker sequential buying patterns from our OEM partners in our fiscal Q3 and expect some of the Q2 market and partner challenges to continue into Q3.
We expect our Q3 15 IP Networking revenue to be up 9% to 13% Qtr./Qtr., principally driven by growth in the U.S. public sector, including federal, and our IP growth initiatives.
We expect our Global Services revenue to be within a range of up 1% to down 1% Qtr./Qtr.
Our forecast for SteelApp product and support revenue for the second half of FY15 remains unchanged. We anticipate Q3 and Q4 revenue to be in the range of $5M to $7M per quarter, which is included in the outlook ranges above.

Q2 Results (Posted at 16:03)
Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.22 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues rose 1.9% year/year to $547 mln vs the $551.33 mln consensus. Reports Non-GAAP Gross Margin of 68.8% compared to 66.7% in prior year.

4:05 pm Fairchild Semi announces Board authorization for a new $150 million share buyback (FCS) :

4:03 pm Brocade beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line (BRCD) : Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.22 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues rose 1.9% year/year to $547 mln vs the $551.33 mln consensus. Reports Non-GAAP Gross Margin of 68.8% compared to 66.7% in prior year.

12:27 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (143) outpacing new lows (67) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABM, ABT, ACET, ACWI, ADBE, ADPT, AEC, AET, AHS, AIG, ALDR, ALN, ANSS, ATRI, AVEO, AVID, AVY, BANC, BCS, BLUE, BOH, BSQR, CAG, CBPO, CE, CF, CMT, COLB, CORI, CSFL, CVBF, CYOU, DM, DPLO, DY, EEFT, EGBN, EHIC, ERN, ESPR, ESRX, ESSA, EXL, EXPE, FCCO, FIX, FL, FLY, FNB, FNFV, FOMX, GEQ, GLOB, GRBK, GT, GTN, GTN.A, HILL, HMST, HNT, HSII, HUBS, IACI, IDI, IDTI, IMAX, IMN, IMPV, INTU, IRMD, ISBC, ISR, JOF, KIRK, KWEB, LBTYA, LYTS, MENT, MFG, MFLX, MGA, MGPI, MHK, MIDD, MKSI, MLNX, MMAC, MOH, MTSL, NBN, NTES, NTT, OCR, OLED, OPK, ORRF, OZRK, PBIB, PF, PHH, PKI, PLAB, PTC, QADA, QADB, QCRH, QLGC, QLIK, RBA, RE, REGN, ROP, SAGE, SCLN, SEM, SEV, SFG, SHAK, SIRO, SNPS, SNX, STRZA, SUM, SUNE, TCX, TMK, TMUS, TSE, TWC, UEPS, USPH, VAC, VC, VOD, VOYA, VRX, WEN, WIBC, WIX, WWAV, XPO, YOKU, ZSPH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACI, ACXM, ADEP, ALXA, AMBR, APAM, APOL, ARCI, BKE, BLIN, BOOM, BPK, CDI, CIM, CKP, CLI, CSAL, DEST, DGSE, DTF, EOX, ETF, FGEN, FNRG, FTEK, FTR, FXEN, GLPW, HK, HYGS, JOE, LL, LPTN, LTRX, MNI, NDLS, NETE, NNVC, NTAP, NUM, NVET, NYLD, NYRT, OTEX, RBCN, RCPI, RFP, RGSE, RXII, RXN, RYN, SCON, SKBI, SMRT, SPAR, SPEX, SRT, TRIV, TROX, TRX, UPIP, USAP, USEG, VPCO, WILC, WOWO, WTW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: PPH

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXX, VXZ

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Heading into Memorial Day weekend, volume in the equities markets was rather light, with Friday's volume making a weekly low. In tune with the light volume, news was thin on the day, and except for some comments by Fed Chair Janet Yellen spoke at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce there wasn't much worthy of moving the markets.

With that said, Yellen didn't announce anything that surprised participants. But rather she reiterated that the central bank is ready to begin raising rates this year, and that in order for the Fed to begin normalizing policy, it needs to see continued improvements in labor market conditions and there needs to be reasonable confidence that inflation will move back toward the 2.0% target over the medium term.

The S&P 500 Technology Sector (+0.02%) was able to outperform the broader market as it edged slightly higher into the extended weekend. Top performers in the sector include NetApp (NTAP 33.14, +1.37, +4.3%), Salesforce.com (CRM 75.01, +2.10, +2.9%), Hewlett Packard (HPQ 34.76, +0.93, +2.8%), and Intuit (INTU 106.76, +2.60, +2.5%).

It's worth noting as well that Semiconductors outperformed today, leading the Philadelphia SOX Index 0.3% higher. SunEdison (SUNE 30.67, +1.22, +4.1%), Analog Devices (ADI 67.10, +1.61, +2.5%), Avago Technologies (AVGO 132.64, +3.05, +2.4%), and Micron Technologies (MU 27.33, +0.43, +1.6%) were its leading constituents.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Apple (AAPL 132.54, +1.15, +0.8%): Re/Code reports that Apple plans to include local TV stations may delay the release of its TV service, and that it's unlikely to be announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8.

Exelis (XLS 24.82, +0.21, +0.9%): Shareholders approved acquisition by Harris (HRS 80.26, +0.94, +1.2%), DOJ terminates waiting period under HSR Acts; deal expected to close on May 29

Salesforce.com (CRM 75.01, +2.10, +2.9%): CNBC reported that Microsoft (MSFT 46.90, -0.52, -1.1%) and CRM had talks but could not agree on a price. However, CNBC also reports MSFT was willing to offer $55 billion for the company.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Mentor Graphics (MENT 25.77, +0.43, +1.7%): Reported Q1 earnings of $0.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the $0.18 estimate, on revenues that rose 7.9% year/year to $272.1 mln vs the $260.74 mln consensus.
Analyst Action:

Cree (CREE 30.47, -0.09, -0.3%): upgraded to Underperform from Sell at Credit Agricole

Salesforce.com (CRM 75.01, +2.10, +2.9%): upgraded ot Buy from Hold at Argus; price target $90... price target raised to $86 from $80 at MKM Partners; Buy... price target raised to $85 from $80 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy... price target raised to $72 from $66 at Wedbush; Neutral


TomTom (TMOAY 5.53): upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley

Equinix (EQIX 268.00, -0.22, -0.08%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Gabelli & Co... downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel

Smiths Group (SMGZY 18.54, -0.10, -0.5%): downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse

NetApp (NTAP 33.14, +1.34, +4.3%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham... downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald; price target lowered to $35 from $43... downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; price target lowered to $29 from $35... price target lowered to $44 from $48 at Maxim Group; Buy... price target lowered to $35 from $38 at RBC Capital Markets; Sector Perform

FEI (FEIC 81.15, +1.14, +1.4%): initiated with Buy at The Benchmark Company; price target $90

Intevac (IVAC 5.32, +0.10, -1.9%): initiated with Hold at The Benchmark Company; price target $6

TeleNav (TNAV 9.32, +0.42, +4.7%): initiated with Outperform at Northland Capital; price target $15

Vectrus (VEC 25.71, +0.93, +3.8%): initiated with Hold at Stifel

Open Text (OTEX 43.04, +0.59, +1.4%): price target lowered to $55 from $62 at The Benchmark Company; Buy...

Mobileye N.V. (MBLY 47.30, +0.11, +0.2%): price target raised to $70 from $62 at Citigroup; Buy

Synopsys (SNPS 49.35, -0.45, -0.9%): price target raised to $53 from $50 at Needham; Buy... price target raised to $55 from $53 at RBC Capital; Outperform

Web.com (WWWW 23.44, -0.13, -0.6%): price target raised to $28 from $24 at Northland Capital; Outperform

Youku Tudou (YOKU 30.75, +3.78, +14%): price target raised to $26 from $20 at Brean Capital; Buy

ComScore (SCOR 56.26, +0.28, +0.5%): price target raised to $58 from $53 at Telsey Advisory Group; Market Perform

4:48 pm Arch Coal receives continued listing standard notice from NYSE; taking steps to regain compliance with minimum share price standard (ACI) : Co announced that it received notice on May 21, 2015 from the New York Stock Exchange that it does not presently satisfy the NYSE's continued listing standard requiring the average closing price of a listed company's common stock to be at least $1.00 per share for any period of 30 consecutive trading days. In accordance with NYSE rules, the Company will respond to the NYSE within 10 business days of receipt of the notification with its intent to resolve the deficiency.

Weekly Recap - Week ending 22-May-15Dow -53.72 at 18232.02, Nasdaq -1.43 at 5089.36, S&P -4.76 at 2126.05

The stock market endured a range-bound Friday, which was a fitting end to a quiet week. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.2% after spending the day in a six-point range while the Nasdaq Composite (unch) outperformed slightly. For the week, the S&P 500 added 0.2% while the Nasdaq gained 0.8%.

Equity indices began the day with slim losses after the Core CPI for April (+0.3%; Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) showed the largest monthly increase since January 2013. The hotter than expected reading invited speculation that an uptick in inflation could provide ammunition for an argument favoring a rate hike in the near term, which kept a lid on equities today.

Furthermore, Fed Chair Janet Yellen spoke at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and reiterated that the central bank is ready to begin raising rates later this year. Once again, Ms. Yellen stated that in order to begin normalizing policy, the Fed needs to see continued improvements in labor market conditions and there needs to be reasonable confidence that inflation will move back toward the 2.0% target over the medium term.

Treasuries hit their session lows after Ms. Yellen's speech crossed the wires, but they returned to their intraday levels shortly thereafter. The 10-yr note settled in the middle of its intraday range, pushing the benchmark yield higher by two basis points to 2.21%.

Nine sectors ended the day in negative territory while technology (+0.02%) avoided a lower close by a hair and contributed to the daylong outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite. Shares of Apple (AAPL 132.54, +1.15) climbed 0.9%, underpinning the move, while Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 34.76, +0.93) gained 2.8% after reporting a one-cent beat and guiding Q3 earnings below consensus. Most other large cap sector members registered losses, but high-beta chipmakers offset some of that weakness with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 0.2%.

Elsewhere, industrials (-0.4%) lagged throughout the day with transport stocks responsible for the weakness. As a result, the Dow Jones Transportation Average fell 0.8%, extending this week's decline to 2.3%. The underperformance among transport names overshadowed a 4.3% spike in the shares of Deere (DE 93.33, +3.87) after the company beat bottom-line estimates on light revenue.

Similar to industrials, the energy sector (-0.4%) lagged throughout the day. Crude oil kept the sector under pressure, falling 1.7% to $59.66/bbl. For the week, WTI crude lost 1.5% while the energy sector fell 0.8%.

True to recent form, today's participation was well below average with just 604 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor, which represented the lowest total observed so far in 2015.

Economic data was limited to the Consumer Price Index:

The CPI index increased an in-line 0.1% in April after increasing 0.2% in March
After two consecutive months of increases, energy prices again turned negative in April with total energy prices falling 1.3% after increasing 1.1% in March
Food prices were flat in April after declining 0.2% in March
Excluding food and energy, core CPI increased 0.3% in April after increasing 0.2% in March while the consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
That was the largest monthly increase in core prices since a 0.3% gain in January 2013

Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday in observance of Memorial Day.

On Tuesday, April Durable Orders (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%) will be reported at 8:30 ET while the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for March (consensus 4.6%) and March FHFA Housing Price Index will both be released at 9:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of April New Home Sales (consensus 510K) and the Consumer Confidence report for May (consensus 94.0).

Week in Review: Stocks Inch to Fresh Records

The stock market kicked off the trading week on an upbeat note. The Nasdaq Composite led the way, climbing 0.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) and S&P 500 (+0.3%) underperformed, but still registered new record closing highs. The first session of the week featured a range-bound opening hour that was followed by a steady advance. Heavily-weighted financials (+0.5%) and health care (+0.5%) displayed relative strength from the start while another influential group-technology (+0.4%)-climbed ahead of the market during the early afternoon.

The major averages ended the Tuesday session on an unchanged note after spending the entire day near their flat lines. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) outperformed slightly, edging up to another record closing high. Overall, the Tuesday session was a snoozer that saw the benchmark index bounce inside a five-point range that was expanded to nine points by the close. The index was able to set a fresh intraday record high at 2,133.02 during the afternoon, but returned near its session low by the close. For the second day in a row, heavily-weighted health care (+0.5%) and financials (+0.7%) outperformed throughout the day and kept the benchmark index from dipping too far below its flat line. The health care sector outperformed even as biotechnology struggled to keep pace with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 360.60, +0.30) adding just 0.1%.

The market finished the midweek session on a flat note. The S&P 500 shed 0.1%, but still marked a fresh intraday record high at 2,134.72 while the Nasdaq Composite (unch) outperformed. Equity indices spent the first half of the session near their flat lines with the S&P 500 maintaining a seven-point range that was violated to the upside during afternoon action once the Federal Open Market Committee released the minutes from its April policy meeting. The index could not hold its afternoon gain and returned to the flat line by the close. Above all, the minutes revealed that some participants believed that the weakness observed in the first quarter could extend into Q2 with many officials characterizing a rate hike in June as "unlikely." However, the minutes did not rule out a near-term rate hike in its entirety. Treasuries retreated immediately following the release, but they returned to their afternoon levels shortly thereafter. The 10-yr note settled near its high with the benchmark yield slipping four basis points to 2.25%.

Equity indices posted modest gain on Thursday, but the trading day was very quiet once again. The S&P 500 added 0.2% and settled at a new record high while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) outperformed. The market spent the initial minutes of the session near its flat line, but climbed to highs after the Existing Home Sales report for April (5.04 million; Briefing.com consensus 5.24 million) and the May Philadelphia Fed Survey ( 6.7; Briefing.com consensus 8.0) missed estimates. The ensuing advance was accompanied by a rally in Treasuries, suggesting increased expectations that the Federal Reserve will maintain its current dovish stance. Treasuries continued climbing into the afternoon (10-yr yield -6 bps to 2.19%) while the major averages spent the day near their late-morning highs.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18272.56 18232.02 -40.54 -0.2 2.3
Nasdaq 5048.29 5089.36 41.07 0.8 7.5
S&P 500 2122.73 2126.06 3.33 0.2 3.3
Russell 2000 1243.95 1252.22 8.27 0.7 3.9


3:31 pm Earnings Preview for the week of May 25 - 29 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of May 25 - 29 some of the bigger names include:

Tuesday:
Pre Market - AZO, CAE, WUBA, SKYS, CYRN
After Hours - TDW, ZPIN, WDAY, FWM, VNET, TIVO, NMBL

Wednesday:
Pre Market - BMO, VAL, KORS, TIF, TOL, CHS, DSW, BWS, MOV, ROLL, THR
After Hours - COST, SPTN, ANW, UHAL, CPRT, PANW, SMTC, TLYS, PLKI, RENT

Thursday:
Pre Market - RY, TD, TECD, SIG, SDRL, FLO, OA, ANF, SAFM, FRED, EXPR, MOD, JKS, DANG, TITN, MIXT, CMCO, XCRA, IKGH, AMSC
After Hours - GME, AVGO, ULTA, DECK, OVTI, PSUN, SPWH, SPLK, BOOT, VEEV, BLOX, EXA

Friday:
Pre Market - BNS, BIG, GCO, DXLG, CCG, GHM

12:00 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (122) outpacing new lows (74) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABT, ABTL, ACET, AEC, AET, AGO, AHS, ALN, ALR, ANTM, AOS, ATRI, AVID, AZZ, BANC, BLOX, CASH, CBPO, CDNS, CF, CFG, CMRX, CMT, CORI, CRUS, CTRP, CVC, CYNI, DGX, DLPH, DY, EBIX, EFX, EGBN, EGRX, EL, ERN, ESRX, EXL, EXPE, FIX, FL, FOMX, FPXI, FRS, GAME, GEVA, GRBK, GS, GT, GTN, GTN.A, HMST, HNT, HUBS, IACI, IDTI, IMAX, IMPV, INTU, IRMD, KWEB, LBTYA, LBTYK, LEA, LONG, LTM, LVNTA, LYTS, MBTF, MENT, MFLX, MGA, MGPI, MOH, MSBF, NDAQ, NEP, NTT, NVMI, OLED, OUTR, PANW, PBIB, PCYC, PLAB, PLL, PLXS, PMC, PTC, PZZA, RDVY, REGN, RENN, RHT, ROP, SAGE, SBCP, SCOR, SHAK, SIEN, SIRO, STRZA, SUNE, SWKS, SYNA, TCX, TECH, TFX, TMK, TNK, TNP, TTC, TWC, USPH, VC, VOD, VOYA, VRX, XLS, YOKU, ZSPH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACI, ACST, AMBR, ARLP, BLIN, BOOM, BPK, CCD, CDI, CIM, CKP, CLI, CLTX, CRD.B, DAVE, DEST, DGSE, DSCI, DTF, DXM, ESIO, FELP, FHCO, FNRG, FPT, FTR, FXCM, HGG, HGT, HH, HYGS, INF, IO, JOE, LL, LPTN, MBII, MCF, MUH, MUJ, NDLS, NPF, NQP, NTX, NUM, NVET, NYRT, OESX, OMEX, QRHC, RFP, RGSE, RSO, RST, RXII, RYN, SGNL, SHLO, SKBI, SPEX, SRT, TC, TDC, THS, TROX, USAP, USEG, VPCO, VPV, WHZ, WILC, WIN, WPG, WTW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: HAO, IHF, XLK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: FUD, FXY, JJA, JO, VXX, VXZ

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Major indices all finished lower in May's final trading session, although they did manage to post gains on the month. Economic news was light today, aside from first quarter GDP data, which pointed to a contraction of 0.7%, down from the 0.2% increase observed in the preliminary reading. One would assume given the weakness shown by the GDP numbers that traders would view the data in a positive light, potentially leading to a further delay in rate hikes - at least that has been the case lately - buy the bad economic data.

Turning to the tech sector, the superstar today was the Philadelphia Sox Index (SOXX +0.3%), which was lead by M&A news, with Altera (ALTR 48.85, +1.85, +4%) and Intel (INTC 34.46, +0.45, +1.3%) near a deal, and Avago Tech (AVGO 148.07, +5.69, +4%) agreeing to purchase Broadcom (BRCM 56.85, +0.60, +1.1%). In all the market noise, one things for certain, M&A is heating up.

In the S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.75%) lagged the broader market today, even with the strength of of the Semiconductors, which is not surprising considering the underperformance of its larger constituents such as Google (GOOG 532.11, -7.67, -1.4%), Western Digital (WDC 97.36, -1.87, -1.9%), Qualcomm (QCOM 69.68, -0.92, -1.3%), and Visa (V 68.68, -0.88, -1.3%).

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Altera (ALTR 48.85, +1.85, +4%): Financial Times reported that Intel (INTC 34.46, +0.45, +1.3%) is nearing a $15 billion deal for Altera

Google (GOOG 532.11, -7.67, -1.4%): Pulse.io announced on its website that it has been acquired by Google

Apple (AAPL 130.32, -1.46, -1.1%): Digitimes reports that global smartphone shipments are expected to rise 13.6% in 2015. Related names: Blackberry (BBRY 9.80, -0.23, -2.3%), Samsung (SSNLF), Nokia (NOK 7.29, -0.09, -1.2%), and Microsoft (MSFT 46.89, -0.56, -1.2%)
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Equinix (EQIX 268.07, -1.12, -0.4%): The Boards of Equinix and TelecityGroup announced that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended cash and share offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of TelecityGroup.

Digital Ally (DGLY 14.89, -0.21, -1.4%): Announced it has received follow-on orders from Superior Ambulance for roughly 175 additional DVM-250Plus Event Recorders. The order, which will be shipped in the current quarter, will allow Superior to complete the outfitting of its over 400 ambulances and paratransit vehicles with Digital Ally DVM-250Plus Event Recorders and access to the Company's FleetVU Manager cloud-based asset tracking and telematics software storage and management systems.

Tyler Tech (TYL 121.48, -3.64, -2.9%): Acquired mobile hand-held solutions provider Brazos Technology Corporation. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Rosetta Stone (RST 7.62, +1.19, +18.5%): Confirmed its Board of Directors has received an expression of interest from RDG Capital Fund Management
Analyst Action:

Avago Tech (AVGO 148.07, +5.69, +4%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies... price target raised to $170 from $145 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy... price target raised to $175 from $140 at Craig Hallum; Hold... price target raised to $180 from $145 at Brean Capital; Buy

MagnaChip Semi (MX 7.17, +0.78, +12.2%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Topeka Capital; price target $9

Broadcom (BRCM 56.85, +0.60, +1.1%): downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie... downgraded to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna... downgraded to Hold from Buy at Topeka Capital; price target raised to $60 from $53... downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen; price target raised to $58 from $52... downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley... downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman... price target raised to $58 from $48 at UBS; Neutral... price target raised to $59 from $51 at Canaccord Genuity; Hold... price target raised to $67 fron $59 at Brean Capital; Buy

Tech Data (TECD 63.12, -1.37, -2.1%): downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James... price target raised to $71 from $63 at Brean Capital; Buy

Himax Tech (HIMX 6.26, -0.27, -4.1%): downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Chardan Capital; price target lowered to $4 from $5

Rally Software Development (RALY 19.42, -0.03, -0.2%): downgraded to Neutral from Buy at ROTH Capital

Marvell (MRVL 13.99, -0.21, -1.5%): initiated with Sell at Citigroup; price target $13

ExlService (EXLS 35.90, +0.20, +0.6%): initiated with Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey; price target $39

Descartes (DSGX 15.24, +0.05, +0.3%): price target raised to $18 from $17 at Barclays; Overweight

Skyworks (SWKS 109.36, +1.71, +1.6%): price target raised to $130 from $108 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy

Splunk (SPLK 67.62, -3.45, -4.9%): price target lowered to $83 from $86 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy

ePlus (PLUS 77.65, -6.83, -8.1%): price target raised to $90 from $85 at Canaccord Genuity; Buy

QAD (QADA 23.90, -1.41, -5.6%): price target raised to $28 from $25 at The Benchmark Company; Buy

OmniVision (OVTI 26.96, -0.15, -0.6%): price target raised to $29 from $27 at Wedbush; Neutral

VeriFone (PAY 38.16, +0.13, +0.3%): price target raised to $45 from $44 at Wedbush; Outperform

HubSpot (HUBS 50.80, -1.16, -2.2%): price target raised to $60 from $50 at Needham; Buy

NXP Semi (NXPI 112.28, +1.49, +1.3%): price target raised to $130 from $120 at Stifel; Buy

Ambarella (AMBA 90.21, +1.25, +1.4%): price target raised to $99 from $73 at Stifel; Buy

Activision Blizzard (ATVI 25.26, -0.47, -1.8%): price target raised to $30 from $26 at Stifel; Buy

Infoblox (BLOX 25.99, -0.33, -1.3%): price target raised to $30 from $28 at Piper Jaffray; Overweight

Palo Alto Networks (PANW 169.49, +3.12, +1.9%): price target raised to $185 from $170 at Imperial Capital; Outperform

NQ Mobile (NQ 4.11, -0.03, -0.7%): resumed with Buy at Rosenblatt; price target $8.10

Weekly Recap - Week ending 29-May-15Dow -115.44 at 18010.68, Nasdaq -27.95 at 5070.03, S&P -13.40 at 2107.39

The major averages registered their second consecutive decline on Friday, but they managed to end May in the green. The S&P 500 lost 0.6% today, but added 1.1% for the month while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) ended in-line with the S&P 500 on Friday, but gained 2.6% in May.

Equity indices spent the duration of the session in negative territory with heavily-weighted sectors like consumer discretionary (-0.7%), financials (-0.9%), industrials (-1.0%), and technology (-0.8%) exerting pressure on the market. Furthermore, uninspiring economic data and the lack of tangible progress between Greece and its creditors weighed on the overall sentiment.

To be sure, stocks climbed off their late-morning lows after Greece's Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis said his country will make its next debt payment to the International Monetary Fund. According to Mr. Stathakis, the country will pay EUR304 million next Friday. That headline was viewed as a positive sign considering deposit outflows in Greece have accelerated, dropping overall balances to levels not seen in more than ten years, according to reports.

The late-morning boost helped the S&P 500 reclaim more than 2/3 of its decline, but the index revisited its session low during afternoon action amid persistent weakness in some of the most influential sectors. Eight sectors ended the day in negative territory with industrials (-1.0%) spending the day behind its peers.

Once again, transport stocks struggled, evidenced by a 0.8% decline in the Dow Jones Transportation Average. The bellwether complex lost 2.2% for the week and surrendered 3.4% in May. Con-way (CNW 40.47, -1.42) was the weakest performer of the bunch, falling 3.4% after Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to 'Underperform.'

Elsewhere, the technology sector (-0.8%) slipped behind the broader market during afternoon action, but chipmakers showed relative strength. The PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.3% with Altera (ALTR 48.85, +1.88) spiking 4.0% amid renewed speculation the company may be acquired by Intel (INTC 34.51, +0.50). For the month, the PHLX Semiconductor Index soared 8.6% while the tech sector added 2.1%.

All ten sectors registered losses with energy (-0.1%) ending just below its flat line even as crude oil jumped 4.5% to $60.26/bbl. Over on the countercyclical side, health care (-0.2%) and utilities (-0.2%) outperformed while consumer staples (-0.7%), and telecom services (-0.5%) ended near the broader market.

Treasuries climbed into the afternoon, ending on their highs with the 10-yr yield down three basis points at 2.10%.

Today's participation was above-average with month-end flows contributing to the increased activity as more than a billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Q1 GDP, Chicago PMI, and Michigan Sentiment Index:

First quarter GDP was revised down to -0.7% in the second estimate from an originally reported +0.2% in the advance release, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected
That was the first contraction in GDP growth since Q1 2014
The real final sales component, which strips out volatile inventories, declined 1.1%. That topped the 1.0% decline from Q1 2014 and was the biggest real final sales drop since a 3.3% decline in Q1 2009, suggesting that economic growth trends in Q1 2015 were some of the worst seen since the Great Recession
The Chicago PMI declined to 46.2 in May from 52.3 in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 53.0
That was the third time the Chicago PMI has fallen below 50, the expansion/contraction threshold, in the last four months
With the exception of the Prices Paid Index (51.2 from 43.1), all of the sub-indexes declined and also contracted in May
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was revised up to 90.7 in the May final reading from 88.6 in the preliminary reading while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 89.0
The month-over-month decline in sentiment generally reflects higher gasoline prices while other factors that influence sentiment trends, like equity movements and labor market conditions, were largely flat in May

On Monday, Personal Income/Spending data for April and Core PCE Prices will be released at 8:30 ET while April Construction Spending and the May ISM Index will both be reported at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: Nasdaq Sets Fresh Record Close

Bond and equity markets were closed on Monday for Memorial Day.

On Tuesday, each of the major indices fell at least 1.0% as buyers proved to be a reluctant bunch. That reluctance started early and it continued for most of the session, which saw the S&P 500 flirt with testing support at its 50-day simple moving average (2096). The fact that the S&P 500 didn't pierce that level was perhaps the lone bright spot in Tuesday's action, which saw all ten sectors lose ground and all 30 Dow components end with a loss.

The major averages enjoyed a daylong rally on Wednesday that helped the S&P 500 (+0.9%) erase the bulk of its decline from Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite (+1.5%) closed at a fresh record high and turned its weekly decline into a 0.3% advance for the week. Equity indices began the session with modest gains and enjoyed an early surge amid reports that Greek officials and Eurogroup members have started crafting a staff-level agreement to secure funds for the country. However, those reports were refuted during the next hour with Bloomberg citing a Eurogroup official as saying the two sides have yet to begin working on a joint statement. Strikingly, the stock market all but ignored the prompt refutation and continued rising into the afternoon with the technology sector (+1.8%) pacing the move. The PHLX Semiconductor Index surged 3.9% after it was reported that Avago Technologies (AVGO 141.49, +10.19) is in advanced talks to acquire Broadcom (BRCM 57.13, +10.21). Shares of AVGO jumped 7.8% while Broadcom soared 21.8%.

The stock market spun its wheels throughout the Thursday session, ending on a modestly lower note. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% after spending the entire day in negative territory amid light volume. Equity indices began the day in the red with some residual damage to risk tolerance after China's Shanghai Composite tumbled 6.5% in reaction to more equity brokers increasing their margin requirements. Furthermore, repurchase operations conducted by the People's Bank of China stirred concerns that the central bank may be preparing to stop or slow its easing cycle. To be fair, the decline in the Shanghai Composite only caused the index to surrender its week-to-date gain. In either case, things did not get any more cheery by the start of the European session with signals from the G7 meeting in Dresden suggesting that wide-ranging differences remain between Greece and the creditor institutions. The PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.1% after Wednesday's rumor became Thursday's news and Avago Technologies (AVGO 142.38, +0.89) confirmed its acquisition of Broadcom (BRCM 56.25, -0.91) for $37 billion.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18232.02 18010.68 -221.34 -1.2 1.1
Nasdaq 5089.36 5070.03 -19.33 -0.4 7.1
S&P 500 2126.06 2107.39 -18.67 -0.9 2.4
Russell 2000 1252.22 1246.53 -5.69 -0.5 3.5


5:39 pm This week's biggest % gainers/losers (:SCANX) : The following are this week's top 20 percentage gainers and top 20 percentage losers, categorized by sectors (over $300 mln market cap and 100K average daily volume).

This week's top 20 % gainers

Healthcare:HRTX (19.76 +58.46%),FPRX (25.64 +27.88%),CLLS (42.9 +26.18%),IDRA (3.84 +22.68%),AMRN (2.31 +20.31%),HUM (214.65 +19.92%),RTRX (31.64 +18.9%),KANG (20.7 +17.88%),AGEN (8.18 +16.69%),PRTA (39.44 +15.86%),CCXI (8.67 +15.75%),MNKD (5.18 +14.6%)

Industrials:TITN (15.89 +17.97%)

Consumer Discretionary:SFXE (4.87 +18.2%)

Information Technology:RALY (19.42 +42.69%),BRCM (56.85 +20.3%),SIMO (35.46 +15.47%),VIMC (14.89 +13.58%)

Energy:MDR (5.46 +16.92%)

Utilities:NYLD (27.07 +14.9%)

This week's top 20 % losers

Materials:SID (1.91 -17.67%),CENX (11.18 -12.18%),GEF (38.19 -11.62%)

Industrials:URI (88.91 -15.24%),MY (3.09 -14.88%),TEX (24.73 -13.92%),EGLE (9.05 -13.06%)

Consumer Discretionary:TLYS (9.64 -26.8%),KORS (46.5 -24.55%),DANG (8.37 -21.85%),TOUR (16.69 -17.9%),QUNR (44.09 -15.76%),JMEI (22.53 -11.3%)

Information Technology:LEJU (7.56 -12.8%)

Energy:FRO (2.58 -13.71%),GTE (2.9 -12.91%),IO (1.42 -11.8%),CNX (27.84 -11.59%),ECR (6.3 -11.39%),TDW (24.54 -11.18%)

4:06 pm Lattice Semi subsidiary SiBEAM, Inc announces that Google ATAP has selected it as a partner for integrating touchless gesture sensing to smart devices (LSCC) :

4:04 pm Qualcomm subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies announces that its Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor will power Google's (GOOG) next-gen Project Tango smartphone development platform (QCOM) :

3:31 pm Earnings Preview for the week of June 1 - 5 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of June 1 - 5 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
After Hours - PVH

Tuesday:
Pre Market - MDT, DG, CBRL, CONN, SOL, AMWD, DAKT
After Hours - ABM, ASNA, GES, GIII, NCS, GWRE, AMBA, VMEM

Wednesday:
Pre Market - BF.B, NX
After Hours - FIVE, LF

Thursday:
Pre Market - NAV, SJM, MIK, JOY, CIEN, LE, CYBX
After Hours - THO, ESL, PAY, COO, IDT, DMND, ZUMZ, ALOG, ZOES, VNCE, RALY, SEAC

Friday:
Pre Market - YGE, LITB, IXYS

12:39 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

ALTR (48.99 +4.3%): Reports out the co is near a deal to be acquired by Intel (INTC) for $15 bln.
AVGO (147.04 +3.27%): Favorable commentary on Thursday's Mad Money; Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies; PT raised at Brean Capital, Craig Hallum, & Canaccord Genuity.
LLY (78.46 +2.68%): Announced a clinical trial collaboration with AstraZeneca (AZN) to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of MEDI4736 in combination with ramucirumab; also notable earnings activity in the name.

Large Cap Losers

VIPS (24.69 -2.72%): Underperforming following renewed cautious blog commentary.
POT (31.71 -1.93%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at TD Securities.
CMI (136.12 -2.25%): Under pressure following negative commentary from BofA/Merrill on the trucking industry.

Mid Cap Gainers

GME (44 +7.53%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.09, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS in-line; raised FY16 EPS guidance, just below consensus, reaffirmed comps. Price tgt raised at Telsey Advisory Group.
ALKS (61.98 +3.44%): Said it would present data from its phase 1 clinical study of ALKS 8700 for the treatment of multiple sclerosis; exposures comparable to Tecfidera, with favorable gastrointestinal tolerability.
NBR (14.9 +2.55%): Initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan.

Mid Cap Losers

GEF (37.75 -9.6%): Revised its FY15 EPS guidance to $1.65-1.75, down from previous guidance of $2.25 to $2.35; downgraded to Underperform at BofA/Merrill.
VEEV (27.63 -4.72%): Beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.02, beat on revs; guided Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guided FY16 EPS in-line, revs in-line.
URI (89.16 -6.1%): Downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
11:49 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (90) outpacing new lows (78) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ALJ, ALN, ALTR, AMAG, AMBA, ANAC, ANCX, ATTU, ATVI, AVGO, AVID, BCV, BF.A, BLOX, BSQR, CBIN, CBPO, CE, CIEN, CIVI, COHU, CSGS, CYNI, DATE, DRC, DRRX, EBAY, EGRX, EMKR, EPAM, FHN, FMBI, FOE, FTNT, FUN, GKNT, GTT, HMHC, HMPR, HOLX, HRTX, HSKA, HSP, IMPV, IMS, INNL, ISSI, KTWO, LLY, LOGI, LYTS, MDLZ, MFG, MMI, MOFG, MRTX, MTG, NEP, NFLX, NPTN, NUVA, NYCB, PBCT, PKBK, PLXS, PRAH, PZZA, Q, QTEC, RARE, RTRX, SAGE, SAL, SBUX, SEDG, SFG, SIMO, SKX, SNOW, SNX, SOXX, STRP, STRZA, SUNE, TCX, UEC, ULTA, VC, VIMC, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, ACI, AIQ, AMIC, ARO, ASM, AVH, AWX, AXE, BKK, BOOM, CBD, CCG, CEN, CKP, CLI, CNI, CNW, CP, CPA, CPST, CRD.B, CTL, CTP, CVSL, DAVE, DEJ, DXM, FAX, FHCO, FPO, GCO, GMCR, GRVY, HGG, HK, HNRG, IMRS, INF, ISH, KEM, KORS, KSU, LXFR, MPA, MUJ, MXWL, NAV, NCZ, NMRX, NOR, NRP, NSC, NTX, NUM, NVDQ, ORN, PFIS, PNX, PQ, PRI, RBCN, RELL, RLJE, SGI, SJR, SJT, STRM, TRMB, TROX, UE, USEG, VNCE, WPG, WRES, WYNN, XPL, YRCW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: PPH, SMH, SOXX

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: KOL

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: It was another thinly-traded session to begin the week, yet that didn't stop the major indices from posting modest gains.

A pickup in selling interest in the final hour curtailed the day's gains, which ramped up in mid-morning action following a test and successful defense of the S&P 500's 50-day exponential moving average in the 2104/2101 area. That test came after some stronger than expected data for construction spending and the ISM Index that overshadowed a disappointing Personal Income and Spending report for April.

There were only two sectors that ended the day lower -- telecommunication services (-0.5%) and energy (-0.2%) -- yet there wasn't a single sector that finished up or down more than 0.5%.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.3%) outperformed the S&P 500 (+0.2%) by a slim margin with M&A activity underpinning things. To that end, last week's speculation that Intel (INTC 33.91, -0.56, -1.6%) was close to acquiring Altera (ALTR 51.68, +2.83, +5.8%) was confirmed today with Intel announcing a $16.7 billion all-cash offer to acquire Altera.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:
CA, Inc. (CA 30.13, -0.32, -1.1%): Announced appointment of Otto Berkes as Chief Technology Officer, effective June 15, 2015. Berkes most recently served as the chief technology officer at HBO.

Corning (GLW 20.88, -0.04, -0.2%): Announced the availability of Corning Lotus NXT Glass, its third-generation glass composition for high-performance displays.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 29.20, -0.11, -0.4%): Announced Presidents Rob Lloyd and Gary Moore will be leaving Cisco. Chuck Robbins discussed the leadership transition, saying, "Today I am announcing that at the end of this fiscal year, Rob and Gary will be leaving Cisco. They will remain in their President roles until July 25th. Going forward, we will move to a flatter leadership team designed for the speed, innovation and execution that is required of us over the next decade....Looking ahead, I will announce my next generation organizational structure and my leadership team within two weeks. This simplified structure will allow us to move with speed to accelerate our innovation and help our customers transform in the digital age."

Cognizant Tech (CTSH 65.41, +0.69, +1.1%): Vice Chairman sold 100K shares at $64.42-64.75 worth ~$6.5 mln.

IBM (IBM 170.18, +0.53, +0.3%): Announced that Tata Sky, an Indian broadcast satellite television provider, has selected its MobileFirst Platform for launching mobile offerings in India.

Intel (INTC 33.91, -0.55, -1.6%): Confirmed it will acquire Altera (ALTR 51.69, +2.84, +5.8%) for $54 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $16.7 billion. Altera will become an Intel business unit to facilitate continuity of existing and new customer sales and support. Intel plans to continue support and development for Altera's ARM-based and power management product lines. The transaction is expected to be accretive to Intel's non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow in the first year after close. Intel intends to fund the acquisition, which is expected to close within six to nine months, with a combination of cash from the balance sheet and debt.

Microsoft (MSFT 47.24, +0.38, +0.8%): Announced that Windows 10 will be available July 29 in 190 countries.

Nvidia (NVDA 22.38, +0.25, +1.1%): Reuters reports that Nvidia said it expects its cloud computing revenue to hit $1 billion in the next two to three years.

Qualcomm (QCOM 69.41, -0.27, -0.4%): Subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies announces that its Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor will power Google's next-gen Project Tango smartphone development platform.

SanDisk (SNDK 68.24, -0.14, -0.2%): Launched two new, USB 3.0 flash drives -- the 128GB SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0 Flash Drive, the world's smallest USB 3.0; and the 256GB SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Drive, SanDisk's highest capacity USB flash drive to-date. Company also entered the portable SSD market with a family of high-performance drives, including the SanDisk Extreme 900 Portable SSDs.

Total System (TSS 41.18, -0.02, -0.1%): Sr EVP and CIO sold 103,992 shares at $41.12-41.35 worth ~$4.3 mln.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba Group (BABA 90.75, +1.43, +1.6%): Want China Times reports that Alibaba is going to sell Japanese cosmetics and other goods on Tmall beginning this summer through a collaboration with Yahoo Japan.

Blackberry (BBRY 9.51, -0.29, -3.0%): BlackBerry and Typo Products LLC, Typo Innovations LLC, Show Media LLC, Hallier Investments LLC, and Laurence Hallier have settled their outstanding legal disputes. As part of the settlement, Typo Products LLC, Typo Innovations LLC, Show Media LLC, Hallier Investments LLC, and Laurence Hallier have agreed to permanently discontinue selling anywhere in the world keyboards for smartphones and mobile devices with a screen size of less than 7.9 inches. Typo Products LLC, Typo Innovations LLC, Show Media LLC, Hallier Investments LLC, and Laurence Hallier may continue to sell keyboards for devices with a screen size of 7.9 inches or larger. Other terms of the settlement are confidential.

Infineon (IFNNY 13.07, -0.03, -0.2%): Bloomberg reported that Infineon said it has developed a radar sensor semiconductor and that it is working with Google to use the chip in applications for the Internet of things that includes wearables or automotive safety.

Integrated Silicon (ISSI 20.70, +0.18, +0.9%): After reviewing the revised Cypress (CY 13.82, +0.09, +0.7%) offer (including the Cypress comments to the merger agreement draft provided by ISSI on May 21, 2015) with its financial and legal advisors, ISSI remains concerned about the ability of Cypress to finance the approximately $680 million purchase price with only approximately $157 million in cash and cash equivalents and ~$494 million in debt on its balance sheet at March 31, 2015. ISSI has previously asked Cypress to provide it with a financing commitment letter to support the proposed purchase price. However, Cypress has not provided such letter. This letter is necessary for due diligence purposes so that ISSI can have customary assurances that the purchase price can be paid by Cypress. A letter sent to the ISSI board by Cypress said, "the Merger Agreement does not contain any financing conditions and includes a representation and warranty by Cypress that it will have all the funds available as and when needed to consummate the merger." As originally announced on March 12, 2015, ISSI continues to expect to close the transaction with Uphill in the third calendar quarter of 2015.

Lattice Semi (LSCC 6.46, +0.20, +3.2%): Subsidiary SiBEAM, Inc announces that Google ATAP has selected it as a partner for integrating touchless gesture sensing to smart devices.

Lexmark (LXK 45.65, -0.33, -0.7%): EVP sold 48K shares at $46.03-46.13 worth ~$2.2 mln.
SINA (SINA 50.21, +9.48, +23.3%): Company announced that it has entered into a legally binding subscription agreement with Mr. Charles Chao, Chairman of SINA's board of directors and Chief Executive Officer, for the issuance and sale of 11,000,000 newly issued ordinary shares of the Company to Mr. Chao. Pursuant to the agreement, Mr. Chao will subscribe for and purchase directly or through a special purpose vehicle beneficially owned and controlled by him, 11,000,000 newly issued ordinary shares of SINA for a total purchase price of approximately US$456 million in cash. Mr. Chao has agreed to subject all the shares he or his affiliate will acquire in the transaction to a contractual lock-up restriction for six months after the closing.

Unisys (UIS 20.57, +0.03, +0.1%): Named Tarek El-Sadany as SVP of Technology and Chief Technology Officer. El-Sadany was most recently vice president of Global Product Support Services for Oracle Corporation.

Analyst Action:

Altera (ALTR 51.68, +2.83, +5.8%): target raised to $54 from $52 at FBR Capital... target raised to $54 from $42 at Topeka Capital Markets

CA Tech (CA 30.13, -0.32, -1.1%): downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup

F5 Networks (FFIV 125.11, -0.58, -0.5%) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup

Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.06, -0.74, -2.7%): downgraded to Sell from Neutral at MKM Partners; target $22

Xilinx (XLNX 48.33, +0.91, +1.9%): upgraded to Strong Buy from Market Perform at Raymond James

4:10 pm : The stock market began June on a modestly higher note with the S&P 500 adding 0.2%.

Index futures spiked just before 7:00 ET, reacting to chatter that a deal between Greece and its creditors will be announced today. That rumor was struck down within 15 minutes of making the rounds, but equity futures did not retrace that morning spike until the cash market opened for action.

The major averages returned to their flat lines once the cash session began, but persistent relative strength among influential groups like health care (+0.4%), technology (+0.3%), consumer discretionary (+0.3%), and industrials (+0.4%) helped the market climb to a fresh high during the afternoon. However, it is worth noting that the Monday advance occurred amid light volume with just 665 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor. As for Greece, the country is expected to be presented with a final proposal prepared by leaders from France, Germany, and the EU.

Eight sectors registered gains with industrials (+0.4%) ending atop the leaderboard thanks to a rebound in transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average rallied 1.1% with airlines pacing the move after the Chief Executive Officer of Southwest Airlines (LUV 37.85, +0.88) said the company plans to limit its seat capacity growth. Shares of LUV gained 2.4% while the Dow Jones Transportation Average narrowed its Q2 decline to 4.0%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, consumer discretionary (+0.3%) and technology (+0.3%) also displayed relative strength with M&A activity underpinning the tech sector. Specifically, Altera (ALTR 51.68, +2.83) spiked 5.8% after agreeing to be acquired by Intel (INTC 33.90, -0.55) for $54/share in an all-cash transaction valued at $16.70 billion.

Overall, four of six cyclical sectors ended in-line with or ahead of the S&P 500 while energy (-0.2%) and materials (unch) struggled to keep pace. The energy sector was pressured in the early going by weakness in crude, but the sector narrowed its loss as the energy component also recovered its intraday decline, settling at $60.24/bbl.

Moving to the countercyclical side, consumer staples (unch) and telecom services (-0.5%) lagged throughout the session while health care (+0.4%) and utilities (+0.2%) registered gains. The health care sector finished among the leaders even as biotechnology spent the day among the laggards. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 364.81, -0.22) shed 0.1%.

Treasuries spent the day in a steady decline, sending the 10-yr yield higher by five basis points to 2.18%.

Economic data included Personal Income/Spending data, Core PCE Prices, Construction Spending, and the ISM Index:

Personal income increased 0.4% in April after being flat in March while the Briefing.com Consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
According to the wage data from the April employment report, aggregate earnings increased roughly 0.3%, which translated into a 0.2% increase in total employee compensation
Personal spending was flat in April after increasing an upwardly revised 0.5% (from 0.4%) in March while the consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
Core PCE prices rose 0.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 0.2%
Construction spending increased 2.2% in April after increasing an upwardly revised 0.5% (from -0.6%) in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.8%
That was the largest monthly increase in construction spending since a similar gain in May 2012
The ISM Manufacturing Index increased to 52.8 in May from 51.5 in April while the consensus expected an increase to 51.9
Despite poor regional manufacturing reports, the national index showed a fairly well rounded acceleration in manufacturing activities

Tomorrow, the Factory Orders report for April (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.8% YTD
S&P 500 +2.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD

DJ30 +29.69 NASDAQ +12.90 SP500 +4.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1432/1.77 bln/1437 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1638/664.6 mln/1428

3:35 pm :

WTI crude oil futures recovered in afternoon trade to erase most of its losses.
July crude ended today's session $0.02 lower at $60.24/barrel.
July nat gas gained $0.02 to $2.65/MMBtu
Precious metals lost steam following this morning's econ-driven surge
Aug gold ended today's session $1.60 lower to $1188.50/oz, while July silver fell $0.01 to $16.70/oz
Copper fell $0.01 today to $2.72/lb
Wheat futures surged higher today, closing 4% higher to $4.95/bushel ahead of the weekly USDA crop progress report

1:17 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).
Large Cap Gainers

ALTR (51.81 +6.06%): Finally confirmed reports it would be acquired by Intel (INTC) for $54/share, or ~$16.7 bln.
BMY (66.97 +3.67%): Rebounding from Friday's steep decline on the heels of further updated trials results; co also announced FDA acceptance of the BLA for Opdivo +Yervoy regimen, in patients with previously untreated advanced melanoma.
LNKD (201.95 +3.6%): Outperforming following renewed activist chatter.

Large Cap Losers

JNPR (26.97 -2.99%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at MKM Partners; tgt $22.
BRCM (55.77 -1.9%): Pulling back following confirmation of Intel (INTC)/Altera (ALTR) deal; some had speculated Intel may offer a competing bid for Broadcom following last week's announcement it would be acquired by Avago Tech (AVGO).
MGM (19.63 -2.09%): Casino names underperforming following data out of Macau that gross gaming revenues fell 37% y/y.

Mid Cap Gainers

SINA (50.69 +24.45%): Announced an agreement with its Chairman and CEO for a $456 mln investment in the form of newly issued shares.
GPRO (58.44 +5.37%): Announced the availability of its new HERO+ LCD camera, which features a touch screen display.
SF (54.86 +3%): Reports out it is in talks to purchase Barclay's (BCS) wealth management division.

Mid Cap Losers

ENBL (16.8 -5.62%): Announced that Lynn Bourdon has submitted his resignation and stepped down from his positions as President and CEO.
SHAK (78.89 -4.73%): Continued weakness following an additional cautious mention on Mad Money; shares down 18% since 5/22.
BBRY (9.48 -3.27%): Announced a settlement with Typo to resolve their outstanding litigation.

11:52 am Market View: Telecom- IYZ -0.90% & Materials- XLB -0.50% the weakest SPX large-cap sector ETFs approaching midday here with SPX now @ 2107.53 +0.16 (:TECHX) :

11:49 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (124) outpacing new lows (110) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCD, ADXS, AEC, AFSI, AGEN, ALN, ALTR, AMAG, AMCN, AMED, AOS, APTS, ATRC, AVGO, BCV, BFAM, BOOT, BSTC, CAPX, CBIN, CBPO, CBS.A, CE, CHE, CIVI, CLCD, CNC, COHU, COKE, CORI, CPK, CSGS, CVBF, DRC, DXPS, EBAY, EBS, EGRX, EMKR, EPAM, EQIX, ERN, FEYE, FNFV, FONE, FSI, FSL, FTAI, GLOB, GSBD, GTN, HALO, HOLX, HRTX, HSP, IACI, IDCC, IMGN, INCY, INFN, INNL, ISSI, IVC, LYTS, MDLZ, MFG, MKSI, MLVF, MMI, MNTA, MSBF, NEP, NPTN, NVEE, NVMI, NXPI, NYCB, OMCL, OMG, ON, ONTY, OPK, PANW, PAY, PBCT, PFSW, PHH, PN, PPO, PRAH, QCRH, QLGC, RENN, RPTP, RTRX, RXDX, SAGE, SAL, SBCP, SBUX, SEIC, SGU, SHLX, SIMO, SLAB, SMFG, SNPS, SOXX, SPR, SSNI, STRP, SUPN, SWKS, TCX, TMUS, TTMI, TW, TXTR, UEC, UEPS, UUU, VIMC, YLCO, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, AHC, AMBR, ANR, ARO, ASM, AVH, AVP, AXE, BIOS, BLT, BOOM, BOXC, BTU, BWINB, CCG, CEN, CENX, CKP, CLD, CLUB, CNS, CNW, CP, CPA, CRD.B, CTCM, CTL, CUR, CVSL, CZR, CZZ, DEJ, DOM, EDD, EQGP, ERJ, ESEA, ESIO, EVLV, FAX, FCO, FHCO, FPO, FSNN, GALT, GGB, GMCR, HART, HGG, HGT, HNRG, HWCC, ICAD, INF, INVE, IO, KIQ, KSU, LF, LL, MCF, MFV, MIND, MNI, MTRX, MXWL, NATH, NAV, NCS, NETE, NOR, NRP, NSC, NSPH, NVET, OFG, PGND, POT, PPSI, PQ, PRI, PSB, QUIK, QUMU, RBCN, RDS.B, REXI, RNO, RNWK, SHLO, SJT, SMRT, SMT, STB, SYX, TGH, TNC, TRCO, TRIV, TRMB, VKTX, VNCE, WILC, WPG, WTW, WYNN, YLCO, YRCW, ZQK

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: SMH, SOXX

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWM, FXY, JJG, KOL

8:31 am Altera confirms it will be acquired by Intel (INTC) for $54 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at ~$16.7 bln (shares halted) (ALTR) : Intel (INTC) confirmed it would acquire Altera for $54 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $16.7 billion.

Altera will become an Intel business unit to facilitate continuity of existing and new customer sales and support. Intel plans to continue support and development for Altera's ARM-based and power management product lines.
The transaction is expected to be accretive to Intel's non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow in the first year after close. Intel intends to fund the acquisition, which is expected to close within six to nine months, with a combination of cash from the balance sheet and debt.

Rumor/Smumor - Eating Crow now... RtS

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: It was another seesaw day of trading, marked by a downswing early, an upswing in mid-morning and early afternoon action, and then a downswing in the late afternoon. Ultimately, the market ended the session with modest losses that erased roughly half of Monday's modest gains.

The most interesting action of note occurred away from the stock market and in the currency market. Following a higher-than-expected CPI print for May out of the eurozone, the euro spiked 2.2% against the dollar to 1.1148. That pressured the U.S. Dollar Index (-1.5%) in a big way, which lent some support to dollar-denominated commodity prices.

The stock market for its part was a pretty mixed bag. The only sector that finished more than 1.0% away from where it started was the utilities sector (-1.4%). The rate-sensitive sector got hit as the yield on the 10-yr note jumped eight basis points to 2.26%.

That move occurred despite a weak Factory Orders report for April (-0.4%), which suggested there may have been some unwinding action on the part of European investors looking at higher yields at home and a strengthening euro that made ownership of Treasuries look a little less attractive than it did before the CPI report.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.3%) trudged through the day without a lot of fanfare and without a lot of leadership. Semiconductors were a pressure point, evidenced by the 1.2% decline in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index that can be largely attributed to profit taking after a big M&A-related run that has seen the index jump nearly 6% in the last month.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Adobe Systems (ADBE 79.82, -0.05, -0.1%): Confirmed Mixamo acquisition a San Francisco-based company that enables designers to create and customize a broad range of high quality 3D characters and animations; terms not disclosed.

Akamai Technologies (AKAM 75.46, +0.23, +0.3%): Company and Trustwave announced a new strategic alliance designed to help businesses more effectively fight a wide range of malicious online activities through vulnerability assessment, denial of service prevention and incident response.

Facebook (FB 80.45, +0.16, +0.2%): New York Times reported that Facebook will expand advertising on Instagram, opening the feed to all advertisers later this year

Google (GOOG 539.18, +5.19, +1.0%): to release M, the next version of Android

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 33.88, +0.12, +0.4%): Announced that DreamWorks Animation has selected HP to automate its IT infrastructure, by deploying the HP Datacenter Care-Infrastructure Automation solution. Also announced that its portfolio of Windows-based PCs currently shipping are expected to be able to upgrade to Windows 10 when available on July 29, 2015.

Jabil Circuit (JBL 23.97, -0.19, -0.8%): ViZn Energy Systems announced that it has entered into a strategic relationship with Jabil Circuit to manufacture ViZn's redox flow batteries in Jabil's manufacturing facilities.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.25, +0.19, +0.7%): At the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Global Tech Conference, management said it expects to gain market share over the next 3 years in the areas of routing, switching and security. Company expects Q3 and Q4 improvements in demand from carrier and web service clients, which is the basis for an improved outlook for the second half of 2015 (versus the first half of 2015, and the last half of 2014). Juniper is still targeting a 25% operating margin and reiterated its plan to achieve this target through 3-5% revenue growth over the next 3 years, with cost growth limited to less than that figure.

Microsoft (MSFT 46.92, -0.31, -0.7%): Confirmed that it has acquired 6Wunderkinder GmbH, the creator of the to-do list app, Wunderlist. Terms were not disclosed, although The Wall Street Journal cited a person familiar with the matter saying the reported the deal was for between $100 million and $200 million.

NetApp (NTAP 33.34, +0.19, +0.6%): Company announced George Kurian has been appointed by the board as chief executive officer and also appointed to the board of directors. Lead independent director Mike Nevens has been elected chairman of the board. These announcements follow the departure of Tom Georgens, the company's former chairman and chief executive officer. Mr. Kurian joined NetApp in 2011 and has served as the company's executive vice president, Product Operations where he was responsible for overseeing the strategy and development of NetApp's Product and Solutions portfolio since September 2013.

Qualcomm (QCOM 69.35, -0.07, -0.1%): Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm, and Allwinner Technology announced that they will be collaborating to further extend QTI's Snapdragon processors into the connected tablet segment which is experiencing strong growth. Qualcomm also announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Atheros, is launching the industry's first hybrid wireless range extender utilizing Qualcomm Atheros' leading HomePlug AV2 multi-input/multi-output Powerline and 802.11ac Wi-Fi technologies.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Celestica, Inc. (CLS 12.70, -0.11, -0.9%): Announced the preliminary results of its "modified Dutch auction" to purchase for cancellation up to $350 million of its subordinate voting shares. Shareholders of Celestica had the opportunity to tender Shares at a price of their choice between $11.70 and $13.30 per share, and approximately 28,498,588 Shares were properly tendered to the offer.

Cray (CRAY 31.05, -0.02, -0.1%): Announced the establishment of its European, Middle East and Africa headquarters at the Company's new office in Bristol, United Kingdom.

PMC-Sierra (PMCS 8.96, -0.10, -1.1%): Announced appointment of Edward Sharp as Chief Strategy and Technology Officer. Prior to joining PMC, Sharp was vice president of NetApp's (NTAP) Emerging Products Group.

Priceline (PCLN 1196.02, +29.36, +2.5%): At Goldman Sachs Conference, CEO said he remains bullish; and that law of large numbers is a headwind. Notes Priceline's core market is small countries where they don't speak English and that the Chinese will define the travel market 10 years from now. Ctrip (CTRP 77.04, -4.59, -5.6%) partnership/investment offers access to Chinese travelers who are primarily domestic (intra-China). Says Priceline is absorbing friction during a transition as new supply (sharing, Airbnb) comes on the market. Notes Demand for bookings 0-2 days out and 45+ days out is growing.

Progress Software (PRGS 26.57, +0.18, +0.7%): Announced the release of two new drivers for its DataDirect enterprise data connectivity suite. The new drivers for MongoDB and SparkSQL add to an already robust portfolio of drivers to better enable integration and support of more than 200 of the most popular data sources.

Ruckus Wireless (RKUS 10.87, +0.17, +1.6%): Announced that it is working with Smartac Group China Holdings to help build Ruckus Smart WiFi networks covering more than 300 passenger stations for three major railroad systems in China-Beijing, Guangzhou, and Lanzhou.

Unisys (UIS 20.95, +0.38, +1.9%): Received contract from Australia's New South Wales Government's Office of Finance and Services to provide IT services for clients of its current shared services provider.

Analyst Action:

Altera (ALTR 51.70, +0.02, +0.04%): downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James

Avago Technologies (AVGO 144.16, -2.46, -1.7%): initiated with a Buy at Drexel Hamilton; target $180

Intel (INTC 33.27, -0.64): downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital

Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.25, +0.19, +0.7%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research
4:05 pm Violin Memory misses by $0.01, misses on revs -- co will guide on call (VMEM) : Reports Q1 (Apr) loss of $0.22 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.21); revenues fell 33.1% year/year to $12.1 mln vs the $20.97 mln consensus.

The Company will provide second quarter fiscal year 2016 guidance during today's conference call. Guidance will be posted on Violin Memory's investor relations website at investor.violin-memory.com following the conclusion of the conference call

1:22 pm Integrated Silicon: Cypress Semi (CY) send letter to the Board of ISSI, indicating it strongly disagrees that its offer poses the regulatory or financing risks ISSI claimed (ISSI) : Co's letter stated:

"I am writing to respond to certain assertions in the June 1, 2015 press release issued by Integrated Silicon Solution, Inc. ("ISSI") regarding our offer to acquire all of the outstanding common stock of ISSI for $20.25 per share in cash. For the reasons described below, we strongly disagree that our offer poses the regulatory or financing risks you claim. Furthermore, on a comparative basis, we have a high degree of conviction that Cypress's proposal has far less timing and closing risk than the Agreement and Plan of Merger dated as of March 12, 2015 between ISSI and Uphill Investment Co. The concerns articulated in the June 1 press release about antitrust risk and overlap between Cypress and ISSI in what you characterize as the "SRAM market" are misleading. We appreciate that there will be antitrust review processes that may address competitive interaction in some SRAM applications. However, we believe that the antitrust agency reviewers will see this to be a fundamentally procompetitive transaction within an exceptionally dynamic industry populated by many far larger players and customers. As we said two weeks ago, we would have preferred to participate in your sale process, but were surprisingly not contacted. As such, we are simultaneously releasing this letter to the public as we believe that it is in the best interest of ISSI and its stockholders to have full information regarding our proposal."

11:44 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (83) outpacing new lows (67) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADPT, ADXS, ALN, AMED, ANCX, ATTU, BRSS, CBPO, CBS.A, CE, CFG, CLCD, CLS, COLL, COWN, CRIS, CSGS, CTSH, CVRS, DOX, EBAY, EBF, ERN, FCAP, FENX, FEYE, FLML, FOE, FSI, FTAI, GDDY, GSBD, GSIG, GSL, HMHC, HZNP, IPAR, IVC, JNP, LOGI, LYTS, MNTA, MSBF, MW, NAT, NPTN, NVEE, NYCB, NYLD, OLED, OMG, OPK, PFNX, PPO, PROV, QCRH, RARE, REGI, RENN, RPTP, RTRX, RXDX, SBCP, SBSA, SCI, SEDG, SGEN, SGMS, SGU, SIEN, SNFCA, STNR, SUPN, TCX, TNK, TTMI, TV, UCBA, UEPS, WBS, YLCO, ZAGG, ZBRA

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AEGR, AHC, AMBR, ARO, ASM, AZUR, BKK, BLT, BWG, CLUB, CSTM, CTL, CTP, CUR, CVSL, CZR, EARN, EDD, EQGP, EZPW, FCFS, FHCO, FSNN, GRVY, HEAR, ICAD, IF, IMRS, INF, IO, ISH, LMIA, LTRX, MFV, MNI, MPA, MXWL, NCS, NMRX, NSPH, NTX, OB, OGE, OGEN, ONDK, PSUN, QUMU, RDEN, RELL, RFIL, RMGN, RNO, SHLO, SHOS, SMT, SSN, TRIV, UCP, UFPT, VCLT, VPV, VRA, WBK, YRCW, ZAZA, ZQK, ZSAN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: LQD

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The new week started on a downbeat note with each of the major indices losing ground, none more so than the Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%), which got clipped by weakness in large-cap technology components.

The S&P 500 dropped 0.7%, falling a little more than 13 points to drive it below its 100-day moving average, which has been an influential source of support in 2015. A weak showing from the airline stocks, which knocked the Dow Jones Transportation Average lower by 2.1%, and relative weakness in Apple (AAPL 127.80, -0.85, -0.7%), which failed to get a boost from the news coming out of its developers conference, weighed heavily on the broader market.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-1.2%) was the weakest link in Monday's market. A poor showing from Intel (INTC 31.31, -0.53, -1.7%), which suffered its sixth straight losing session, and the semiconductor stocks in general, factored into the underperformance. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index declined 1.9%.


Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Accenture (ACN 94.77, -0.63, -0.7%): Etihad Airways announced the signing of a collaboration agreement with Accenture to support the implementation of its business transformation program. As part of the agreement, Accenture will provide strategy and management consulting services in the areas of human resources, finance, and procurement and supply management. Accenture will work with the airline's technology partner, SAP (SAP 73.42, -0.22, -0.3%), to implement a new enterprise resource planning software solution. It will also set up and operate a new testing center for these solutions.

Apple (AAPL 127.80, -0.85, -0.7%): Developers Conference got underway in San Francisco with Apple introducing a new Apple Music Service for $9.99/month after 3 month trial (available on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and PC starting June 30)... Says that iOS9 (public beta for iOS9 in July) will increase battery life, security and reduce memory space needed... Apple also noted that it will make Swift open source... Apple previewed watchOS 2, the first major software update for Apple Watch, giving developers the tools to build faster and more powerful apps running natively on Apple Watch. Starting today, developers can take advantage of innovative hardware features of Apple Watch including the Digital Crown, Taptic Engine and heart rate sensor, along with software APIs to build new app experiences... Apple News app very similar to Flipboard and has millions of topics; rivals Facebook Insant Articles
Applied Materials (AMAT 19.87, -0.28, -1.4%): Announced the election of Willem Roelandts as Chairman of the Board, effective immediately; Roelandts is currently Applied Materials' lead independent director.

Broadcom Corporation (BRCM 53.24, -1.11, -2.0%): Announced it has licensed MIFARE, a widely deployed protocol for contactless ticketing, transportation and access applications.

Cisco (CSCO 28.27, -0.31, -1.1%): Kansas City, MO., and Cisco signed an agreement to deploy a Smart+Connected City framework for coverage within city limits.

Corning (GLW 20.76, +0.05, +0.2%): Barron's profiled a positive view on Corning, suggesting it could have as much as 40% upside in the next 18 months.

eBay (EBAY 60.86, -2.37, -3.8%): Gave guidance for eBay Marketplace and Paypal businesses ahead of spin off:

Ebay: Sees FY15 sales +0-5% ex-FX, with 32-34% operating margin; sees +0-5% revenue growth ex-FX in FY16 with 31-35% operating margin and EPS growth faster than revenue.

Long term sees top line growth flat margins and EPS growth faster than revenue growth
PayPal: Sees FY15 FX-neutral revenue +15-18%, with non-GAAP operating margin -100 bps to 20-21%, mid-20% TPV growth and $1.6-1.8 bln FCF growth.

Sees medium term FX-neutral revenue growth ~15%; non-GAAP operating margin stable to growing

Google (GOOG 526.83, -6.50, -1.2%): Launched self-driving car project website

Intel (INTC 31.31, -0.53, -1.7%): President sold 47,394 shares at $32.69 worth ~$1.5 mln


Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba (BABA 88.29, -2.42, -2.7%): Aliyun, Alibaba Group's cloud computing arm, today announced the launch of Marketplace Alliance Program, a global partnership program that provides enterprises with access to Aliyun's full suite of cloud computing services and international partners.

Integrated Silicon (ISSI 20.35, -0.38, -1.8%): Company announced that Cypress Semiconductor (CY 12.70, -0.68, -5.2%) has failed to finalize a merger agreement by the deadline of June 7, 2015 imposed by Cypress, even after Cypress received the negotiated draft agreement from ISSI on Friday, June 5, 2015. ISSI said it believes a transaction with Cypress would be unlikely to close without substantial divestitures or other actions required by antitrust authorities. Company adds that Cypress' position is not in the best interest of ISSI's stockholders, and could not be accepted, since a merger closing would be highly uncertain.

Radware (RDWR 23.73, -0.52, -2.1%): Announced it has provided to Cisco Systems its distributed denial of service mitigation technology for the new Cisco Firepower 9300 appliance

Twitter (TWTR 36.46, -0.54, -1.5%): Filed for an offering of ~10.43 mln shares on behalf of selling shareholders

Analyst Action:

KLA-Tencor (KLAC 55.97, -1.00, -1.8%): target lowered to $64 from $70 at UBS

Micron (MU 25.92, -0.67, -2.5%): target lowered to $35 at UBS

Red Hat (RHT 78.24, +0.34, +0.4%): target raised to $85 from $80 at RBC Capital Markets

4:10 pm : The major averages began the new trading week on a cautious note with the S&P 500 (-0.7%) settling beneath its 100-day moving average (2,085) for the first time since late March. The benchmark index retreated into the afternoon while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) underperformed throughout the day.

Broadly speaking, the Monday session was very quiet with no corporate news to account for the decline; however, the continued lack of progress between Greece and its creditors weighed on investor sentiment in Europe and the U.S.

As for Greece, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis met with his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schaeuble, today, describing the meeting as "very helpful." That being said, Bloomberg reported there appear to be growing differences between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mr. Schaeuble with regard to the handling of the crisis.

Interestingly, the S&P 500 climbed off its session low in the afternoon once the Wall Street Journal reported that Greece's creditors have offered to extend the current bailout program until March 2016. The extension would be achieved by drawing EUR11 billion from the bank bailout fund. The news helped the benchmark index make a brief return above its 100-day average before sliding to a new low ahead of the close.

Nine sectors registered losses with all six cyclical groups ending in the red. The largest sector by weight-technology (-1.2%)-lagged throughout the day, which kept a lid on the overall market. Top-weighted components like Apple (AAPL 127.80, -0.85), Microsoft (MSFT 45.73, -0.41), and Google (GOOGL 543.48, -6.05) lost between 0.7% and 1.1% while high-beta chipmakers also struggled. Shares of Intel (INTC 31.30, -0.54) settled lower by 1.7% while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 1.9%.

Similarly, another high-beta group-transport stocks-kept the market under pressure with the Dow Jones Transportation Average losing 2.1%. The bellwether complex narrowed its June advance to 0.4% as all 20 components registered losses with JetBlue's (JBLU 19.02, -1.47) 7.2% plunge leading the way. For its part, the industrial sector (-0.7%) underperformed throughout the day.

Unlike technology and industrials, the remaining cyclical groups ended near the broader market while the four countercyclical sectors settled ahead of the S&P 500. Consumer staples (-0.1%) and telecom services (+0.2%) ended near their flat lines while health care (-0.4%) and utilities (-0.6%) settled just ahead of the broader market.

Interestingly, the utilities sector received no respite from today's strength in Treasuries that pressured the benchmark 10-yr yield to 2.39% (-2 bps).

Today's participation was on the light side with fewer than 685 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Tomorrow, the Wholesale Inventories report for April (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and the April Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey will both be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.2% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD

DJ30 -82.91 NASDAQ -46.83 SP500 -13.55 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1013/1.58 bln/1879 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 897/682.9 mln/2160

3:40 pm :

The dollar index continued to slide lower today, which provide price support to select commodities, such as gold
Natural gas rallied today, but this was largely due to current weather conditions.
July nat gas futures ended today's session 4.6% higher at $2.71/MMBtu
WTI sold off today following Iraq news/post-OPEC decision, ultimately ending the day $0.97 at $58.16/barrel
Aug gold gained $5.20 today to $1173.30/oz, while July silver lost $0.04 to $15.95/oz.
July copper rose $0.01 to $2.70/lb

11:47 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (187) outpacing new lows (137) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAC, ABG, ADPT, ADXS, AEIS, AFMD, AGEN, AHS, ALJ, ALLB, ALN, AMAG, AMBA, AMED, AMPH, AMSG, ANCX, ASB, ATTU, AVID, BANC, BANR, BBNK, BBP, BBT, BID, BKU, BKYF, BLMT, BLOX, BOFI, BOH, BOOT, CAF, CATY, CBSH, CBYL, CCXI, CFG, CFNL, CHE, CMT, COLB, COTY, COWN, CRI, CUBI, CVBF, CYBR, DCOM, DOVR, DOX, DPLO, DRRX, EFSC, EGRX, EHIC, ENSG, EROS, ETFC, EURN, EWBC, EXPR, FCSC, FEYE, FHN, FMBI, FMER, FNB, FNFG, FRC, FRME, FTNT, FULT, GDDY, GIII, GIMO, GLOB, GMED, GRIF, GTWN, HALO, HBK, HOMB, HTH, HZNP, IART, IDTI, IMPV, IMS, INDB, INFN, ISLE, IVC, JD, KEY, KWEB, LAD, LEG, LGND, LIOX, LTXB, LYV, MASI, MBFI, MBTF, MENT, MIC, MKSI, MMAC, MMI, MNTA, MORN, MS, MTSI, MXL, NAT, NFLX, NICE, NPTN, NVEE, NWBO, NYCB, OMCL, OMG, ONFC, ORBK, OZRK, PANW, PBCT, PBHC, PBIP, PFPT, PFSI, PGTI, PLAB, PN, PNC, PNFP, POWR, POZN, QABA, RDWR, REGN, RELY, RENN, RLGT, ROL, RPTP, SEIC, SF, SFG, SGEN, SGYP, SIEN, SINA, SIRO, SIVB, SKX, SNFCA, SNOW, SNPS, SNV, SNX, SOHU, SPWH, SRNE, SUNE, SUPN, TANH, TAST, TFX, TLMR, TPX, TXMD, UCBI, UEPS, VRTU, WAL, WBS, WIBC, WINA, WMS, WSFS, WTFC, ZIXI, ZNH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, AFB, AGNC, AMCF, ARR, BAX, BBN, BEP, BHK, BJZ, BKN, BLE, BLJ, BOTA, BOXC, BSMX, BTA, BTZ, BWG, BYM, CBL, CMU, CNI, CPN, CSI, CSTM, CTL, CTP, CXE, DPG, DTF, DX, EDE, EFC, EGF, ELLO, EVJ, EVP, FAM, FCO, FHY, FMY, FPT, GBAB, GG, GOV, GPL, HCP, HMY, HNRG, HTR, HTS, IF, INF, IQI, JMM, KIQ, KLAC, KTF, LE, LFVN, LOCM, LOR, MAV, MDIV, MFA, MFT, MFV, MGF, MHI, MPA, MQT, MTGE, MUH, MUI, MUJ, MUR, MYD, MYM, MZF, NBB, NBD, NEA, NID, NIM, NIQ, NMY, NPM, NQP, NRK, NRP, NSC, NTC, NTN, NTX, NUM, NUO, NVG, NXJ, NXN, NXP, OIA, PAI, PDLI, PG, PHT, PKX, PLTM, PNF, POT, PSB, PTY, PW, RFP, SBGL, SJI, SJR, SMT, SNR, SRET, SVBL, TAC, TRMB, TRP, UBA, UCP, USEG, UTI, VBF, VEDL, VIV, VNCE, VRA, WIA, WPC, YPRO, ZUMZ

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: KBE, KCE, KRE, XBI

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWM, IDX, KOL

10:22 am Intel continues breakdown off May peak (INTC) : The stock is down for the sixth session in a row with the morning extension to 31.47 leaving it modestly above a support zone at 31.38/31.28. This marks the 62% retrace of the March-May rally and a 10% drop off the May peak.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The major indices finished off their lows of the morning, but still ended Monday's session entrenched in negative territory.

The S&P 500 declined 0.5% as anxiousness over the dealings with Greece and weaker than expected industrial production data out of the U.S. combined to keep buyers sidelined for the most part.

There was some M&A activity that provided some support, yet it wasn't enough to overcome losses in nine of the ten economic sectors. The health care sector (+0.03%) was the only gainer on Monday.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.6%) trailed slightly behind the broader market in an otherwise slow news day for the group. Leading decliners included Citrix Systems (CTXS 70.03, -1.88, -2.6%), Computer Sciences (CSC 66.20, -1.55, -2.3%), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 31.71, -0.70, -2.2%), Micron (MU 24.24, -0.89, -3.5%), and SanDisk (SNDK 64.18, -1.92, -2.9%).

Notable news items from sector components included the following:
Accenture (ACN 95.76, -0.31, -0.4%): Company and Fast Retailing are forming a joint initiative to accelerate the digital innovation of consumer services for Fast Retailing's customers globally.

Alliance Data (ADS 299.46, -2.09): Card services performance update for May 2015 showed average receivables +33% year-over-year, with a delinquency rate of 3.9%. Company also announced net charge-offs of ~$41.2 mln.

Altera (ALTR 51.56, -0.03, -0.1%): Announced that its Arria 10 FPGAs have been chosen by Silkan, a provider of real-time data transmission, for its new deterministic real-time high-speed Ethernet interconnection technology.

Apple (AAPL 126.92, -0.25, -0.2%): An Apple executive told re/code that 71.5% of Apple Music's subscription revenue will be paid to music right owners in the U.S. and will average around 73% to music right holders outside the U.S.

Facebook (FB 80.71, -0.82, -1.0%): Introduced Moments, a private way to share photos
IBM (IBM 166.26, -0.73, -0.4%): Announced a major commitment to ApacheSpark, potentially the most important new open source project in a decade that is being defined by data. At the core of this commitment, IBM plans to embed Spark into its industry-leading Analytics and Commerce platforms, and to offer Spark as a service on IBM Cloud.

MasterCard (MA 93.30, -0.47, -0.5%): Announced it has become the first payment network to provide tokenization services to private label (store-branded) credit card issuers. BJ's Wholesale Club, Kohl's and JCPenney will be among the first retailers to bring mobile payments to their private label cardholders later this year.

Yahoo (YHOO 40.48, -0.05, -0.1%): Citing several sources who spoke to the paper, the New York Post reported that Yahoo will pay Katie Couric up to $10 million per year to remain Yahoo's global news anchor.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba (BABA 86.12, -0.51, -0.6%): Reuters reported Alibaba Group Holding is going to launch an online video streaming service in China in approximately two months, citing Alibaba's head of digital entertainment.

Marvell (MRVL 14.09, -0.20, -1.4%): Announced that Jazztel, a global telecommunications operator, will install a Marvell powered G.hn networking solution from Comtrend, to accelerate the deployment of their Fiber-To-The-Home network

Twitter (TWTR 34.67, -1.23, -3.4%): CNBC reported a statement indicating that Prince Alwaleed will support Jack Dorsey becoming CEO of Twitter

Analyst Action:

Amazon.com (AMZN 423.67, -6.25, -1.5%): Canaccord Genuity raised its target to $400 from $380

Ciena (CIEN 25.90, +0.26, +1.0%): target raised to $30 from $28 at RBC Capital Markets

EMC (EMC 26.94, -0.13, -0.5%): downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at FBR Capital; target lowered to $28 from $31

Jabil Circuit (JBL 24.08, -0.06, -0.3%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham; $29 target
Micron (MU 24.24, -0.89, -3.5%): downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; target lowered to $21 from $30

SanDisk (SNDK 64.18, -1.92, -2.9%): downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley

Teradata (TDC 37.50, -1.07, -2.8%): downgraded to Market Underperform from Market Perform at JMP Securities

Twitter (TWTR 34.67, -1.23, -3.4%): Axiom Capital lowers target to $40 from $45
(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Yahoo)

4:10 pm : The stock market began the new trading week on a cautious note with the S&P 500 sliding below its 100-day moving average (2,089). The benchmark index lost 0.5% and registered its second consecutive decline.

Equities notched their session lows during the opening hour after Sunday's talks between Greek officials and the country's creditors broke down without any progress. This left the situation essentially unchanged since last week with the two sides remaining at odds over cuts to state pensions/wages and the appropriate VAT levels.

The lack of progress between the two sides fueled the opening retreat, but the S&P 500 was able to cut its loss in half by midday. Equities held near their afternoon levels after Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung reported that Eurozone officials have agreed on a plan B in the event Greece is unable to come to terms with its creditors. According to the report, a special summit will be held on Friday night if this week passes without a deal. Furthermore, it is expected that capital controls will be imposed, but enforcement of those measures would be in the hands of the Greek parliament.

For the second day in a row, the lack of progress led to a widening in European yield spreads with demand for German bunds driving their yield down a basis point to 0.82% while Italy's 10-yr yield jumped 11 basis points to 2.33%. Similarly, Spain's 10-yr yield increased ten basis points to 2.38% as European investors showed safe-haven demand.

That safe-have demand kept Treasuries in the green throughout the day. The 10-yr note settled below its high, but still ended in the green with its yield down four basis points at 2.36%.

Nine of ten sectors registered losses with the top-weighted technology space (-0.6%) struggling throughout the day. The sector was pressured by some of its largest components like Microsoft (MSFT 45.48, -0.49), Oracle (ORCL 43.74, -0.60), and Facebook (FB 80.71, -0.82) while high-beta chipmakers fared relatively well even though the PHLX Semiconductor Index shed 0.2%. Micron (MU 24.24, -0.89) and SanDisk (SNDK 64.18, -1.92) kept the index near the broader market after both names were downgraded at Morgan Stanley. Micron lost 3.5% while SanDisk surrendered 2.9%.

Elsewhere, industrials (-0.8%) and materials (-0.7%) underperformed while the remaining cyclical sectors ended near the broader market. Notably, the consumer discretionary space (-0.5%) settled in-line with the S&P 500, which masked relative strength among homebuilders. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 26.94, +0.04) added 0.2% after Standard Pacific (SPF 8.82, +0.46) and Ryland Group (RYL 45.02, +2.23) agreed to a merger of equals.

Meanwhile, the countercyclical side looked a little better with the health care sector (+0.03%) eking out a slim gain. Similarly, the utilities sector (-0.2%) finished ahead of the broader market while telecom services (-0.6%) and consumer staples (-0.7%) underperformed.

Today's trading volume was below average with roughly 715 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Empire Manufacturing, Industrial Production/Capacity Utilization, and NAHB Housing Market Index:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for June registered a reading of -2.0, which was below the prior month's reading of 3.1 and below the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which was pegged at 6.0
Industrial production decreased 0.2% in May after declining a downwardly revised 0.5% (from -0.3%) in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
Manufacturing production declined 0.2% in May after increasing 0.1% in April, which was the first decline since a 0.2% drop in February
Capacity utilization hit 78.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 78.3%
The NAHB Housing Market Index for June rose to 59 from 54 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 56

Tomorrow, May Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.10 million) and Building Permits (consensus 1.10 million) will both be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.8% YTD
S&P 500 +1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.2% YTD

DJ30 -107.54 NASDAQ -21.13 SP500 -9.68 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1168/1.63 bln/1859 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1093/716.8 mln/1988

3:15 pm :

The dollar saw broad weakening after a mid-morning high near 95.4, which gave commodities broad support going into the close
The index has sold off in most recent trade, and is now slightly negative at -0.2% to 94.8
Crude has traded red all session, as OPEC production concerns outweighed a weakening dollar amidst a lack of positive catalysts. The July contract closed -0.6% to $59.55/barrel
Natural gas strength went unchallenged throughout the afternoon, as the commodity extended large morning gains.
Supply concerns emanating from a developing storm in the Gulf Coast, in addition to periphal drivers that included warmer weather forecasts in the Eastern US, drove Nat gas to close up 5.1% to $2.89/MMBtu
Precious metals lifted off the flat line in mid-morning trade, and supported by a falling dollar index closed modestly positive.
August gold closed +0.5% at $1185.60/oz and July silver ended +1.5% to $16.08/oz
Copper saw no positive lift from a weakening dollar, as sentiment remained focused on recent negative macro-econ data trends out of China. Copper closed -1.1% to $2.65/lb

11:55 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (167) outpacing new highs (85) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACFC, ADAP, AIG, ALDR, AMBA, AMCN, AMWD, ANN, ANTH, APOG, ATAI, BBT, BKYF, BNCL, BOOT, BPMC, BRSS, CASH, CHKE, CIEN, CLRO, CNC, CVRS, CYNI, DATA, EHIC, ESNT, ESXB, ETE, FCAP, FCB, FEYE, FFKT, FOLD, FRSH, GEVA, GLOB, GRO, GSIG, HQY, IKGH, IMAX, IMPV, INFN, IPHI, IRMD, ISSI, IXYS, JYNT, KALU, KMPH, LTXB, MAN, MCBK, MIC, MSBF, MSFG, MXL, NPTN, NWBO, OGEN, ORBC, ORBK, PCTY, PGTI, PMBC, RDHL, RELY, RMTI, RNG, RPTP, SBBX, SBNY, SHOP, SIGM, SINA, SIRO, SUSQ, TFSL, TRAK, VICL, WAFD, WMS, ZIXI, ZOES

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, ACST, ACTG, ACTX, AEGR, AHT, AP, APOL, ARLP, AUMN, AUY, AVA, AWF, AXE, BDN, BGR, BKH, BLT, BOOM, BSMX, BTU, CEL, CEN, CLBS, CLD, CNS, CNX, CPSH, CPTA, CTCM, CTP, CVSL, DDD, DDR, DELT, DNI, DPG, DPM, DXM, EDE, EE, EOX, ERA, ERC, ERH, ESL, ETR, EZPW, FCO, FDML, FGB, FIF, FPT, FREE, FSC, FSTR, FSYS, FTR, GDP, GG, GLF, GPL, GRMN, GRPN, GRR, GTY, GWR, HGT, HH, HMY, HOV, HTGC, HTR, I, IF, IO, IRC, IRET, ISD, ISH, ITC, JHI, JMM, JRI, KELYA, KLAC, KYE, LF, LFL, LOR, LXP, MARA, MDIV, MDU, MFV, MHI, MIN, MNR, MSI, MU, MYGN, NETE, NFJ, NOA, NOR, NTG, NWPX, NWS, NWSA, OFC, OGE, OKS, ONDK, ORN, PERI, PFL, PGP, PHT, PKX, PLTM, POT, PSB, PTNR, PTX, PVA, QEP, RELL, RESN, RLJE, RMT, ROYT, RYN, SB, SBGL, SIR, SJI, SMM, SMRT, SMTC, SPH, SPW, SRF, SRV, STR, SWSH, SXC, TAXI, TDC, TGP, THS, TLN, TRMB, TROX, TUTI, TWTR, VMEM, VPV, VSH, WING, WLT, WMT, WRES, WTS, WTW, ZAZA, ZQK, ZSAN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DBA, EGPT, EWM, IDX, KOL, PPLT, SGG

Market internals continue to weaken. New highs for the indexes with lower numbers of stock participating like last Friday ultimately are a lot more worrisome than P/E ratios of any kind to me. RtS

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: There was some early skittishness in the stock market that was attributed to concerns about Greece announcing it is going to refrain from offering the Eurogroup new reform proposals this week. The early weakness proved to be short-lived, however, as the buy-the-dip crowd emerged again, offering support at the lower bound of the 2080-2120 range the S&P 500 has been confined to mostly since early April.

Every sector finished higher in what was a deliberate buying effort that saw the indices creep higher throughout the day and end the session with gains between 0.5% and 0.7%.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.6%) performed in-line with the broader market.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Adobe Systems (ADBE 79.94, +1.04, +1.3%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q2 (May) earnings of $0.48 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 8.8% year/year to $1.16 bln, meeting estimates. For Q3, sees EPS of $0.45-0.51, excluding non-recurring items, which is below analysts' average estimate, and revenues of $1.175-1.225 bln. For FY15, sees EPS of $2.05, excluding non-recurring items, which is three cents shy of expectations, and revenues of $4.845 bln. Separately, company launched Adobe Stock, the industry's first stock content service to be integrated directly into the content creation process and the tools creatives use every day. Available through Adobe Creative Cloud, this new service radically simplifies buying and using stock content, including photos, illustrations and graphics.

Apple (AAPL): FT details news that Apple plans to hire journalists for news app

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH 62.72, -0.26, -0.4%): Announced that it has partnered with NTUC FairPrice, a major supermarket retailer in Singapore, to digitally transform its business and provide customers with a seamless multichannel shopping experience.

IBM (IBM 166.84, +0.58, +0.4%): Announced that it has opened its first cloud data center in Italy MasterCard (MA 94.15, +0.85, +0.9%): Filed mixed securities shelf offering for an undisclosed amount

Microchip Technology (MCHP 47.74, +0.15, +0.3%): Announced that Kia Motors Corporation is enriching its infotainment system with smart-phone connectivity in its flagship Kia K900 luxury sedan, using Microchip's OS81110 Intelligent Network Interface Controller

Yahoo (YHOO 40.63, +0.16, +0.4%): Marissa Mayer on BloombergTV said Yahoo is proceeding with the Alibaba (BABA 86.09, -0.03, -0.03%) spinoff as planned based on its understanding of a few key things: The IRS proposed changes do not apply to previously-approved rulings It doesn't seem that these proposed IRS changes are contemplating changing the applicable law; rather they are focused on the processes around these situations They were reassured that this was nothing specific to YHOO or in response to this transaction Elsewhere in the technology space:

Amazon.com (AMZN 427.76, +3.59, +0.9%): Amazon reportedly is looking in to crowd-sourced delivery. The Wall Street Journal reports Amazon is testing an app that would pay people to deliver packages.

Applied Micro (AMCC 7.07, +0.08, +1.1%): TheDeal.com ran an article suggesting the addition of long-time shareholder Christopher Zepf of Kingdom Ridge Capital to the Board of Directors raises the prospect of the company being more open to being acquired. The Deal said industry sources indicated Applied Micro could be an especially appealing target for Qualcomm (QCOM 66.46, -0.17, -0.3%).

Arrow Electronics (ARW 59.03, +0.34, +0.6%): Announced it has been selected as a global distribution partner for Macronix International, a provider of non-volatile memory semiconductor solutions.

Baidu.com (BIDU 205.00, -0.73, -0.4%): iQIYI, an independently operated subsidiary of Baidu, announced that the company's paid streaming subscribers have reached five million as of June 15, 2015, a 765% annual increase.

Ciena (CIEN 25.61, -0.29, -1.1%): Company and Cyan (CYNI 5.66, -0.04, -0.7%) announced that early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the "HSR Act") has been granted, effective June 15, 2015, for Ciena's planned acquisition of Cyan. The parties continue to expect that this transaction will close during the third quarter of calendar year 2015.

Dot Hill Systems (HILL 7.19, +0.01, +0.1%): Announced that it has been awarded a patent for its AssuredSAN hybrid array method of protecting metadata.

Nokia (NOK 7.14, +0.13, +1.9%): LG Electronics has agreed to take a royalty-bearing smartphone patent license from Nokia Technologies. The Korean company is the latest of more than 60 licensees for Nokia's 2G, 3G and 4G mobile communication technologies and the first major smartphone manufacturer to join the licensing program since Nokia divested its Devices & Services business to Microsoft in 2014. The detailed royalty payment obligations will be subject to commercial arbitration, expected to conclude within a 1-2 year timeframe.

SAP SE (SAP 72.96, +0.49, +0.7%): Unveiled innovations to its analytics portfolio with the 2.2 version of SAP Predictive Analytics software, now generally available, which extends the power of predictive analytics by enabling customers to get predictive insights on ultra-wide datasets to help make fast and accurate predictions in real time.

Analyst Action:

Corning (GLW 20.90, +0.52, +2.6%): upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets

Micron (MU 24.24, unch, 0.00%): target lowered to $37 from $39 at Mizuho

Twitter (TWTR 34.82, +0.15, +0.4%): MKM Partners downgrades to Neutral from Buy; target to $39 from $57

Zebra Tech (ZBRA 113.68, -0.58, -0.5%): Initiated with a Neutral at Robert W. Baird; target $125
(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Yahoo)

4:14 pm Adobe Systems beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY15 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (ADBE) : Reports Q2 (May) earnings of $0.48 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.45; revenues rose 8.8% year/year to $1.16 bln vs the $1.16 bln consensus. Digital Media Annualized Recurring Revenue grew to $2.35 billion exiting the quarter, driven by an increase in Creative ARR of $230 million to $2.02 billion.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.45-0.51, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.54 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.175-1.225 bln vs. $1.24 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Q3 Guidance: Expect Digital Media segment revenue to grow on a sequential basis. Expect Adobe Marketing Cloud revenue to grow approximately 21% on a YoY basisCo issues downside guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $2.05, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.08 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 revs of $4.845 bln vs. $4.88 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. FY15 Guidance: Expect Digital Media ARR of ~$2.925 billion by FY15 year-end. Expect Adobe Marketing Cloud annual bookings growth of ~30%. Expect Adobe Marketing Cloud second half FY15 YoY revenue growth of ~24%.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday session on an upbeat note with the S&P 500 adding 0.6%. In addition to posting a solid gain, the benchmark index reclaimed its 100-day moving average (2,089) after settling below that mark on Monday.

Equity indices began the day near their flat lines and rallied throughout the day, unperturbed by the lack of progress between Greece and its creditors. Furthermore, the rhetoric in Athens intensified with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras saying the International Monetary Fund bears "criminal" responsibility for the current state of the Greek economy. Mr. Tsipras' remarks were made in front of the Greek parliament with the premier adding that another round of elections is not in the cards.

Similar to U.S. equities, European stocks were able to rally despite the lack of positive developments. Meanwhile, Germany's 10-yr bund climbed, sending its yield lower by three basis points to 0.80% while the U.S. 10-yr note also rallied with its yield slipping four basis points to 2.32%.

All ten sectors posted gains with consumer staples (+1.1%) leading the advance. The sector rebounded from yesterday's underperformance amid broad strength while other countercyclical groups ended mixed with respect to the broader market. Similar to consumer staples, the telecom services sector (+0.8%) outperformed while health care (+0.5%) and utilities (+0.4%) settled behind the broader market.

The health care sector ended a bit behind the S&P 500 with biotechnology contributing to the underperformance. Still, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 364.38, +0.70) added 0.2%.

Moving to the cyclical side, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.6%) outperformed throughout the session while three of the remaining five growth-sensitive groups also displayed relative strength. The energy sector (+0.8%) rallied alongside crude oil, which rose 0.8% to $60.00/bbl.

Also of note, the industrial sector (+0.1%) turned positive during the late afternoon, but still ended behind the remaining nine sectors as transport stocks weighed. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 0.3%, extending this week's decline to 0.8%. United Continental (UAL 51.23, -1.02) was the weakest performer, falling 2.0%, while Con-way (CNW 40.30, -0.96) lost 1.6% after peer Oshkosh (OSK 46.71, -3.59) lowered its guidance.

Once again, today's participation was below average with roughly 640 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Housing Starts and Building Permits:


Housing starts declined 11.1% in May to 1.036 million from an upwardly revised 1.165 million (from 1.135 million) in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 1.100 million
In April, housing starts rose 22.1%, which was a historic, multi-decade high. It was only natural for housing starts to pull back following such a large increase
Even after the decline, May starts were above Q1 averages (978,000) and in-line with trends from Q4 2014 (1.055 million)
Building permits rose to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.275 million in May from a revised 1.140 million for April (from 1.143 million) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 1.100 million

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the latest FOMC policy statement will be released at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.4% YTD
S&P 500 +1.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.5% YTD

DJ30 +113.31 NASDAQ +25.58 SP500 +11.86 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1681/1.55 bln/1177 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1964/637.9 mln/1111 3:40 pm :

Following a +5% run higher yesterday, natural gas futures ended the day on a dull note
July nat gas futures closed floor trading flat at $2.89/MMBtu
Overall, in the energy space, the tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico is providing some uncertainty
This helped oil futures today, which rose modestly
July crude oil gained $0.45 at $60.00/barrel
Metals fell today as the dollar index remained higher
Aug gold lost $4.50 to $1181.10/oz, while July silver fell $0.11 at $15.97/oz
July copper declined $0.04 today to $2.61/lb

2:27 pm Solar3D receives $3 mln via two new agricultural solar contracts (SLTD) : Co announced today that it has just secured a $2 mln contract for the design and installation of an agricultural solar project for Payne Brothers Ranches in Woodland, California; and an approximately $1 mln contract to design and install a photovoltaic system for a large rice farm based in Pleasant Grove, California.

12:00 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (157) outpacing new lows (123) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ACET, ACGL, ACUR, ADAP, ADMS, AET, AGEN, AHS, ALDR, ALN, AMED, AMSG, AMWD, ANN, ANTH, APOG, ASB, ATAI, AVHI, BBT, BHBK, BKYF, BLKB, BOH, BOOT, BSTC, CBM, CBSH, CDK, CHE, CLBH, CNC, CNOB, CNR, COF, COLB, COT, COTY, CPIX, CRI, CYBR, CYNI, CYT, CZFC, DST, EGBN, EGRX, ENFC, ENSG, ENTG, ESNT, ESXB, FCAP, FCB, FCCY, FCSC, FEYE, FLXS, FNB, FRSH, FTNT, GEVA, GIL, GRBK, GTT, HBK, HBOS, HELE, HF, HNT, HRTX, IBKR, IMAX, IMPV, INDB, INFN, INGN, INSY, IXYS, KALU, KFY, KYTH, LBY, LGF, LMAT, LSBK, LTXB, MATW, MLAB, MNE, MNTA, MOFG, MSBF, MSFG, MTG, MXL, MYCC, NBIX, NHTC, NLS, NPTN, NTES, NYCB, OMCL, OPB, PANW, PBCT, PBH, PBIP, PCTY, PFPT, PGTI, PLMT, POZN, PRTA, PSCH, PSCT, QABA, QADA, RDN, RELY, RGA, RMTI, RNG, ROCK, ROL, RPTP, SBNY, SC, SGU, SHOP, SIMO, SOHO, SP, SPB, SPU, SPWH, SSNI, STI, SUSQ, TCB, TCX, TFSL, TILE, TPX, TRAK, UCBI, UEPS, UMPQ, VDSI, WAFD, WBS, WIBC, WMS, WTFC, XNCR, ZIXI

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, AAVL, ACP, ADAT, AHC, APOL, ARLP, AUMN, AUY, BDN, BGR, BJZ, BKH, BOI, BSMX, BTU, CBK, CCG, CHEK, CLD, CNP, CNX, CRT, CRVP, CSTM, CTP, CVSL, CVX, DDD, DDR, DELT, DNI, DPG, DXM, EE, EGO, EOD, ERC, FCEL, FGB, FMY, FSC, FSNN, FSTR, GDP, GFI, GG, GGB, GHM, GNL, GOGL, GTY, HGT, HIE, HOV, HTGC, HTR, IEP, IO, IRT, ISD, ISH, JRI, KEM, KODK, LF, LFL, LOR, LPL, LXP, MEIP, MFV, MGF, MHGC, MHR, MIN, MNR, MTR, NETE, NFJ, NGD, NOR, NSM, NWPX, NWS, NWSA, OAKS, OKS, ONDK, ORN, PFIE, PHT, PKX, PLTM, PTNR, RAS, RESN, RITT, RLJE, SBGL, SBLK, SINO, SIR, SJI, SNR, SPH, SRC, SRF, SRSC, STDY, SVBL, SXC, SXCP, SYNL, TRX, TUTI, TWTR, VXUP, WHLR, WLT, YUMA, ZQK, ZSAN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IHF, KBE, KRE

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: KOL, PPLT, SGG

9:03 am JinkoSolar Holding enters into a Memorandum of Understanding with Andalay Solar (JKS) : Co has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Andalay Solar, whereby JinkoSolar intends to license and manufacture solar modules using Andalay's Instant Connectframe technology. JinkoSolar is targeting to offer the new Jinko-branded modules in the second half of the year. JinkoSolar will be offering a 60 cell polycrystalline solution equipped with a black Andalay frame, which has passed the UL1703 Type 1 Fire Classification.

AEHR +3.2% (announced order for ABTS burn-in and test system from mobile chipset manufacturer in China)

[ReturntoSender]

- Post-FOMC euphoria half life flashes by, but perhaps just a test.
- Stock indexes testing the new highs. Now will they hold and bounce or just roll over as in April and May?
- Leaders continue to work quite well even as market gives back some gain.
- Earnings could be the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench, for this latest move.
- Looking for more of a test then we see if some buys are set up.

This weekend is my birthday so the summary will be shorter. The idea discussed Thursday is a test post-FOMC that leads to some better entries the coming week. Some semiconductors could present new buys along with more drugs/biotechs/healthcare. We have several we are looking at currently on the report, and we add some more this weekend, as well as some telecom, a chip, and other great patterns.

Friday some of the post-FOMC/Yellen the Greatest euphoria wore off. Stocks started modestly higher but could not hold the move, fading across the board. All fades were not equal, however, as RUTX was flat while SP400 and SOX were relative strength leaders. Growth continued to perform better.

SP500 -11.25, -0.53%
NASDAQ -15.95, -0.31%
DJ30 -99.89, -0.55%
SP400 -0.22%
RUTX flat
SOX -0.31%

VOLUME: Surged on an S&P rebalance. NYSE +122%, NASDAQ +25%

A/D: NYSE -1.4:1, NASDAQ -1.2:1


We said the market might give some better entry points early next week, and it looks as if that might be the case given the Friday fade. That is okay; there are a lot of good stocks that rallied hard, some that broke higher we missed, and others that just started upside but we could still use a test as a better entry. With the Friday follow up action to the post-FOMC rally, those might come around next week and give us some good entries just as we are looking for.

Thus Friday we stuck to the plan and did not enter any new positions. Not that we would have shunned a good move, we just didn't see moves that we just had to get in, moves that would not be there next week with a bit of a test.

NEWS/ECONOMY

After the FOMC meeting Thursday, it was somewhat poetic there was no scheduled economic data Friday. It was, appropriately, a very quiet news day.

There was of course news, it just was nothing too new.

No change in Greece. Lots of posturing, lots of talk, lots of rumors. Bottom line: no deal. It would be our guess that the US market is getting pretty comfortable with the idea Greece may not be bailed out, at least not by the EU/ECB/IMF. It might be Russia, China, or a combination thereof.

And of course the great IMF further undermined a deal by promising to continue funding the Ukraine even if it missed its repayment. So, the IMF is siding with Ukraine because it is against Russia, at the same time pissing off the Greeks and pushing them to side with Russia. Is that what the IMF and EU really want to accomplish? They are very close to doing just that.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

RUTX: After the new high posted Thursday, RUTX faded, but just 0.01 points. RUTX continues to demonstrate it is the leader, but the question is whether it holds the breakout. This is the EXACT action it showed in April when it broke to a new high, showed a tight doji the next session, then gapped downside. Hard. So, yes it looked quite good Friday, but recent history suggests that is not necessarily proof of anything.

SP400: The midcaps gave up some ground and the break to a new high, but not a collapse. Still a good pattern, but as with RUTX, the last time the midcaps put in a new high in May, they showed the same action, looked great, then four sessions later gapped downside.

COMPQX: Faded some of the Thursday break to a new all-time high, but still holding over the May prior peak. A solid move on the week, starting with that test lower Monday and intraday reversal. As with the RUTX and SP400, the trick for NASDAQ is to avoid the kind of selloff it put in after the new high in April. That was a fast and hard drop we would like to see it avoid. A pullback/test if fine; a flop is not.

SOX: Faded also on Friday but tapped the 10 and 20 day EMA and rebounded to cut the losses. SOX is attempting to recover leadership status, coming off a short double bottom at the 50 day SMA. Similar action to end April/start May with a short double bottom that jumped the index higher and started the move toward the June peak.

SP500: Faded the Thursday move, still holding over the 50 day EMA. Mid-range, coming off the double bottom, and now we see if SP500 can make the test and hold it to a new bounce.

DJ30: Mid-range as well, holding just over the 50 day EMA as it fades the three day bounce through the 50 day. Not leading, just following. Of course it needs something to follow, meaning the other indices need to hold and then rebound.

So with the recent history of new highs on the indexes, you can see why we wanted to wait for this week to see if the moves test a bit more, this time hold, then make new breaks higher.


LEADERSHIP:

Software: Extended, but continues its leadership role. VDSI put in a new high Friday. FEYE holds its gains along with CYBR, posting a modest test. SPLK rallied on the week.

Chips: Started breaking upside again in some cases last week. NXPI looks good to move. SWKS started upside. AVGO continues building a good pattern. QRVO rallied nicely to the prior peak.

Biotech/Drugs/Healthcare: Continued strength with some good patterns building for the next moves. XON posted a great week. TTPH put in a great recovery. HZNP, GLMD, ZIOP put in good moves. Others look solid, e.g. BRLI, AMRN, DYAX, KITE.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -15.95 points (-0.31%) to close at 5117
Volume: 2.287B (+24.9%)

Up Volume: 917.25M (-542.75M)
Down Volume: 1.48B (+1.086B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.22 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.34 to 1

New Highs: 154 (-18)
New Lows: 37 (0)

S&P
Stats: -11.25 points (-0.53%) to close at 2109.99
NYSE Volume: 1.9B (+122.87%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.43 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.02 to 1

New Highs: 100 (-11)
New Lows: 56 (+16)

DJ30
Stats: -99.89 points (-0.55%) to close at 18015.95


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 13.96; +0.77
VXN: 14.61; +0.73
VXO: 14.29; +0.93

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.93; +0.04

Bulls and Bears: Bulls fall back down to 48%ish, keeping the weekly back and forth tennis match between 48 and 51 going. Bears actually break higher over 16% for the first time in what has to be ages.

Bulls: 47.4% versus 51.5% versus 48.5% versus 50.6% versus 47.5%

Still bouncing back and forth in a range that is centering around 50.

Bears: 16.5% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 15.8% versus 13.9%

This week both bulls and bears move in the same direction in terms of both being a bit more negative.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 47.4%
51.5% versus 47.5% versus 51.5% versus 48.5% versus 50.5% versus 50.6% versus 47.5% versus 52.5% versus 57.4% versus 52.5% versus 50.5% versus 50.4% versus 54.5% versus 55.6% versus 52.0% versus 53.6% versus 58.7% versus 59.5% versus 56.6% versus 52.5% versus 49.0% versus 53.1% versus 49.0% versus 48.0% versus 50.5% versus 56.4% versus 52.5% versus 49.5% versus 51.5% versus53.4% versus 56.5%

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 16.5%
15.8% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 13.9% versus 13.9% versus 15.2% versus 13.9% versus 14.2% versus 14.2% versus 14.1% versus 14.3% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 14.1% versus 15.2% versus 16.3% versus 16.3% versus 17.4% versus16.3% versus 15.2% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 14.8% versus 13.9% versus 13.8%


Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Right now bulls are coming back down from the 60 level that has consistently marked market tops over the past two years. The rapid decline in progress is pushing the bulls/bears lines toward one another. Still far from a cross with bulls falling faster than bears are rising, but bears are warming up to the notion of market weakness.


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.26% versus 2.35%. Bonds put in a higher low on the week with the Friday fairly massive upside gap. Rallying off the lows from two weeks back, but a long way to go to even approach the peak from February.

Historical: 2.35% versus 2.32% versus 2.32% versus 2.36% versus 2.39% versus 2.39% versus 2.48% versus 2.433% versus 2.388% versus 2.40% versus 2.31% versus 2.37% versus 2.26% versus 2.18% versus 2.10% versus 2.137% versus 2.133% versus 2.13% versus 2.21% versus 2.19% versus 2.25% versus 2.294% versus 2.22% versus 2.15% versus 2.23% versus 2.28% versus 2.26% versus 2.283% versus 2.14% versus 2.18% versus 2.23% versus 2.17% versus 2.15% versus 2.11% versus 2.04% versus 2.05% versus 1.99% versus 1.92%


Euro/$: 1.1344 versus 1.1372. Modest gain but gave back much of the move on the session. The dollar is still down the past four weeks versus the euro, but perhaps attempting a double bottom spanning May to June.

Historical: 1.1372 versus 1.1339 versus 1.1243 versus 1.1284 versus 1.1254 versus 1.1268 versus 1.1325 versus 1.1277 versus 1.1288 versus 1.1119 versus 1.1241 versus 1.1272 versus 1.1144 versus 1.0922 versus 1.0985 versus 1.0945 versus 1.0904 versus 1.0878 versus 1.1012 versus 1.1111 versus 1.1093 versus 1.1149 versus 1.1314 versus 1.1449 versus 1.1408 versus 1.1311 versus 1.1207 versus 1.1152 versus 1.1207 versus 1.1266 versus 1.1349 versus 1.1189 versus 1.1147 versus 1.1215 versus 1.1220 versus 1.119 versus 1.0982 versus 1.0885 versus 1.0862 versus 1.0824 versus 1.0722


Oil: 59.97, -0.48. Gold continues to work laterally in its 7 week trading range.


Gold: 1201.90, -0.10. Holding the Thursday break higher toward the 200 day SMA. Up and now has to take out the 200 day SMA.


$/JPY: 122.675 versus 122.91. The dollar sold for the third session this week, breaking lower form the lateral consolidation at the 20 day EMA. Nothing like the Fed cheesing up on a rate hike, and more than that, bending over backwards to blunt the notion, has on the currency.

Historical: 122.91 versus 123.415 versus 123.39 versus 123.38 versus 123.41 versus 122.64 versus 124.31 versus 124.44 versus 125.50 versus 124.35 versus 124.26 versus 124.12 versus 124.81 versus 124.10 versus 123.85 versus 124.12 versus 124.15 versus 123.11 versus 121.53 versus 121.09 versus 121.35 versus 120.71 versus 119.99 versus 119.33 versus 119.18 versus 119.11 versus 119.93 versus 120.13 versus 119.75 versus 119.75 versus 119.43 versus 119.85 versus 120.12


MONDAY

Again, our primary plan of action is to let the market test a bit more post-FOMC and see if any new buys set up in the leading areas and emerging sectors. Three indexes broke to new highs the past week and are now testing. They did this in April and May and the results were less than positive. Thus we want to see the test, see it hold, and watch for leaders breaking back upside.

If they cannot hold the breaks to new highs we will be taking positions off the table. Fortunately we have banked quite a bit of gain on the way up in the event the move runs out of gas.

Pretty straightforward plan of action, but of course the market has a way of throwing curves when we prepare for fastballs.

Some of the potential curves are earnings reports. This week saw some of the first earnings trickle in and they were less than encouraging. ORCL whined about the dollar as it missed. KMX missed on the top line. RHT and SWHC beat, but they guided lower. FDX missed top and bottom line. ADBE guided lower. JBL missed top line, guided lower as well. Less than impressive early results.

This could be a problem for the stock market and it might start pricing in that possibility ahead of results. That is something to watch for and we will of course see it in the indexes' ability to hold the breaks higher and leaders holding their gains and patterns. It is summer, stocks typically struggle once midsummer, recover, then struggle in September into October. We have good moves in place but that does not mean they have to hold.

So this week we start watching for a bit more of a fade of last week's move, watching for the leaders to hold near support, and pick up some positions as they break back upside. Some good stocks are already in position, e.g. NXPI, BRLI, MOBI. CRM looks ready to test its break higher and possible present a good entry. There are quality patterns from quality stocks. We will let them set up, and if they show the 'buy me' action, then we act accordingly.

Thanks for letting me be brief today. Birthday, Father's Day, Anniversary this coming week; I try to cram them all in at once. More efficient.

Have a great Father's Day!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 5117.00

Resistance:
5120 is the April 2015 post-bear market high
5132.52 is the 3/2000 all-time high
5207 is the upper channel line

Support:
5042 is the March 2015 high
The 50 day EMA at 5029
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
The June low at 4974
4912 the mid-April China dip
The March lows at 4843 and 4825
4815 is the December 2014 prior market peak
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
The 200 day SMA at 4783
4774 is the January high
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4631 is the October 2014 upside gap point
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.
4566 is the lower gap point from late October
4563 and 4567 are the January lows
4547 is the December low


S&P 500: Closed at 2109.99

Resistance:
2115 is the late March lower high
2119.59 is the February intraday prior all-time high
2126 was the April prior all-time high
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 2101
2094 is the December 2014 high, the prior all-time high
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November
2076 is the all-time high from November
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
The 200 day SMA at 2050
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1991 is the July 2014 high
1972 is the December 2014 low
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
The December and January highs at 1848
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high


Dow: Closed at 18,105.95

Resistance:
18,206 is the late March lower high
18,289 is the March 2015 high, the prior all-time high
18,351 is the May 2015 all-time high

Support:
18,104 is the December high
The 50 day EMA at 17,998
17,991 is the early December interim
17,923 is the January 2015 lower high
17,748 is the mid-April China margin selloff
The June low at 17,715
The 200 day SMA at 17,651
The March low at 17,604
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

June 22 - Monday
Existing Home Sales, May (10:00): 5.26M expected, 5.04M prior

June 23 - Tuesday
Durable Orders, May (8:30): -0.5% expected, -1.0% prior (revised from -0.5%)
Durable Goods -ex tr, May (8:30): 0.6% expected, -0.2% prior (revised from 0.5%)
FHFA Housing Price I, April (9:00): 0.3% prior
New Home Sales, May (10:00): 525K expected, 517K prior

June 24 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 06/20 (7:00)
GDP - Third Estimate, Q1 (8:30): -0.2% expected, -0.7% prior
GDP Deflator - Third, Q1 (8:30): -0.1% expected, -0.1% prior
Crude Inventories, 06/20 (10:30)

June 25 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 06/20 (8:30): 271K expected, 267K prior
Continuing Claims, 06/13 (8:30): 2210K expected, 2222K prior
Personal Income, May (8:30): 0.5% expected, 0.4% prior
Personal Spending, May (8:30): 0.7% expected, 0.0% prior
PCE Prices - Core, May (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 06/20 (10:30): 89 bcf prior

June 26 - Friday
Michigan Sentiment - Final, June (10:00): 94.8 expected, 94.6 prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Optimism on a deal between Greece and its creditors sparked an early rally in US equities. What began as a jump in futures continued throughout the day as the all major indices spent the entire session in the green on Monday.

US Economic data was limited to Existing Home Sales, which increased 5.1% in May to 5.35 million SAAR from an upwardly revised 5.09 million (from 5.04 million) in April. It's worth noting that that was the most existing homes sold in one month since November 2009 when 5.44 million were sold. Much of the gain came from an increase in first-time home buyers who accounted for 32% of all sales in May, up from 30% observed in April, representing the largest contribution since September 2012.

The S&P Information Technology Sector lead the markets higher today, gaining 0.8% versus the S&P 500's 0.6% gain. Several well known names performed well in the space, including Adobe (ADBE 82.28, +2.58, +3.2%), Facebook (FB 84.74, +2.23, +2.7%), Sandisk (SNDK 65.48, +1.56, +2.4%), and Motorola (MSI 59.22, +1.17, +2%), which were the sectors top performers in today's session.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Cadence Design (CDNS 20.15, +0.08, +0.4%) and Applied Materials (AMAT 19.86, +0.14, -0.7%) announced a collaboration on a development program to optimize the chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP) process through silicon characterization and modeling for advanced-node designs at 14 nanometer and below. The joint development program will be focused on front end-of-line (FEOL) and wafer-level CMP modeling.

Synaptics (SYNA 93.55, -4.82. -4.9%) Digitimes reported that Apple (AAPL 127.61, +1.01, +0.8%) is developing in-house touch and display solutions for the next refresh of the iPhone.

Reuters reported over the weekend that Advanced Micro (AMD 2.62, +0.04, +1.6%) was considering options including possible breakup or spinoff. A subsequent Extreme Tech report suggested AMD denied the Reuters report.

Qualcomm (QCOM 67.37, +0.49, +0.7%) and Samsung (SSNLF) announced they should be cleared of alleged Nvidia (NVDA 21.78, +0.10, -0.4%) patent infringement, according to Bloomberg article
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Integrated Silicon (ISSI 22.51, +0.40, +1.8%): Cypress (CY 12.74, +0.06, +0.5%) increased its offer to acquire ISSI to $22.25 per share from $21.25 per share, while maintaining its previously outlined ticking fee of $0.10 per share per quarter beginning October 1, 2015. Additionally, Cypress will put into escrow through our lawyers today a merger agreement pre-negotiated with ISSI and signed by me to further demonstrate our sincerity and strong commitment to closing this transaction.

NXP Semi (NXPI 104.60, -0.02, -0.02%): Disclosed that it does not expect any obstacles in obtaining Committee on Foreign Investment clearance for its merger with Freescale Semi (FSL 42.27, +0.04, +0.1%) or the separate sale of its RF Power unit.

Sina Corp (SINA 58.30, +0.05, +0.1%): Morgan Stanley discloses 5.0% passive stake in 13G filing

Rosetta Stone (RST 8.61, +0.02, +0.2%): Roumell Asset Management disclosed a 5.5% active stake in a 13D filing. The firm also sent a letter to the Board in support of management team but believes the company should consider PE deal.

Analyst Action:

Connecture (CNXR 10.22, +0.72, +7.6%): Upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James

Micron (MU 24.63, +0.16, +0.7%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman; price target lowered to $19 from $27... initiated with an Outperform at Cowen; price target $34

Leju Holdings (LEJU 8.71, +0.09, +1%): Initiated with an Overweight at Barclays; price target $11.50

Gogo (GOGO 22.00, +0.49, +2.2%): Price target raised to $26 from $22 at UBS; Buy

Synaptics (SYNA 93.55, -4.82. -4.9%): Reiterated Outperform at Northland Capital

Nimble Storage (NMBL 30.85, +0.28, +0.9%): Price target raised to $36 from $32 at Monness Crespi & Hardt; Buy

IMS Health Holdings (IMS 31.86, +0.49, +1.6%): Price target raised to $35 from $32 at Topeka Capital; Buy

Adobe Systems (ADBE 82.28, +2.58, +3.2%): Price target raised to $95 from $85 at Argus; Buy

Facebook (FB 84.74, +2.23, +2.7%): Price target raised to $120 from $92 at Piper Jaffray; Overweight

Bankrate (RATE 10.97, -0.22, -2%): Resumed with a Buy at Needham; price target $14

4:10 pm : The stock market opened the new trading week on a higher note with the Dow and S&P 500 gaining 0.6% apiece while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) outperformed.

Equity indices spent the entire Monday session in the green with investor sentiment receiving a boost from reports indicating Greek officials submitted a new proposal to the Eurogroup. However, regional officials did not share the market's optimism with Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble saying he does not see anything new in the proposal. The Eurogroup met briefly today, setting the stage for tonight's emergency Euro Summit that was called by European Council President Donald Tusk.

Today's developments pressured global bonds with Germany's 10-yr bund yield spiking 12 basis points to 0.88%. Similarly, the U.S. 10-yr note retreated throughout the day, sending its yield higher by ten basis points to 2.36%.

Some of the outflows from the Treasury market made their way into equities as nine of ten sectors posted gains while the rate-sensitive utilities sector (-0.1%) was pressured by today's increase in yields.

Meanwhile, another countercyclical sector-health care (+0.8%)-spent the day among the leaders thanks to strength in biotechnology and insurance names. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 383.16, +5.68) gained 1.5% while Cigna (CI 162.65, +7.39) climbed 4.8% after rejecting Anthem's (ANTM 171.05, +5.99) offer at $184/share. Also of note, The Wall Street Journal reported that Aetna (AET 128.12, +4.05) offered to acquire Humana (HUM 189.94, -12.37) for an undisclosed amount.

Over on the cyclical side, three of six sectors-energy (+1.0%), financials (+0.8%), and technology (+0.7%)-settled ahead of the broader market with energy boosted by a 26.0% spike in the shares of Williams Companies (WMB 60.93, +12.59) after the company rejected an offer to merge with Energy Transfer Equity (ETE 65.06, -3.33) as part of an all-stock transaction valued at $64/share. For its part, crude oil erased its overnight loss to end higher by 0.6% at $60.01/bbl.

Elsewhere, the top-weighted technology sector received support from some of its largest components like Apple (AAPL 127.61, +1.01), Intel (INTC 32.26, +0.19), and Qualcomm (QCOM 67.36, +0.48) with the trio gaining between 0.6% and 0.8%.

Today's participation was below recent averages as fewer than 700 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Existing Home Sales, which increased 5.1% in May to 5.35 million SAAR from an upwardly revised 5.09 million (from 5.04 million) in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 5.26 million

That was the most existing homes sold in one month since November 2009 when 5.44 million were sold
Much of the gain came from an increase in first-time home buyers who accounted for 32% of all sales in May, up from 30% observed in April, representing the largest contribution since September 2012

Tomorrow, May Durable Orders (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%) will be reported at 8:30 ET while the FHFA Housing Price Index for April will be released at 9:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of May New Home Sales (consensus 525K)

Nasdaq Composite +8.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.3% YTD
S&P 500 +3.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.7% YTD

DJ30 +103.83 NASDAQ +36.97 SP500 +12.86 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1956/1.50 bln/1006 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1860/695.2 mln/1242
3:40 pm :

Gold and natural gas futures remained in the red all day, while strength in the dollar index helped contribute to this weakness
WTI crude oil posted modest gains today, ending just above the $60/level (up $0.37)
July nat gas, however, ended $0.09 at $2.73/MMBtu
Aug gold lost 1.5% today to $1180.40/oz, while July silver rose $0.03 to $16.15/oz

4:04 pm Ingram Micro acquires U.K.-based CANAI Group, and Portugal-based Clarity Technology; financial details not disclosed (IM) :

Established in 2001, CANAI specializes in retail, carrier and web-based trade-in processes, sustainable recovery, reuse and recycling of electronic products. Clarity Technology was established in 2008 and provides a range of services for the mobility industry including reverse logistics, repairs, parts and accessory management and diagnostics and repair avoidance.
11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New highs (68) outpacing new lows (3) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABT, ACN, ADBE, AET, AGO, ANN, ANTM, ATML, AXTA, BCS, CAG, CCL, CI, CMCSA, CMCSK, CNC, CNO, COF, CPB, CVS, DG, DIS, DLPH, EA, ESRX, EXAS, FHN, FNFG, FV, GCI, GEVA, GILD, GS, HALO, HBAN, HCA, HDS, HOLX, HZNP, IBB, ILMN, IMS, INFN, ING, JPM, LGF, MTG, NKE, NTRS, NVAX, PANW, PBCT, PGR, POST, QRVO, RAI, SC, SKX, SPR, STJ, SWK, TWX, VOYA, WFC, WMB, XL, XON, ZTS

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, EGO, GG

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EWK, EWN, IBB, IGV, IHF, IWC, IWF, IWM, IYF, IYG, IYH, IYK, KCE, UWM, UYG, VTI, XBI, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DBB, ENZL, PALL, PPLT, VXX, VXZ

8:02 am Integrated Silicon: Cypress (CY) increasing its offer to acquire ISSI to $22.25 per share from $21.25 per share (ISSI) :

Cypress is increasing its offer to acquire ISSI to $22.25 per share, while maintaining its previously outlined ticking fee of $0.10 per share per quarter beginning October 1, 2015. Additionally, Cypress will put into escrow through our lawyers today a merger agreement pre-negotiated with ISSI and signed by me to further demonstrate our sincerity and strong commitment to closing this transaction. "This Cypress proposal is clearly superior to an Uphill proposal at the same price per share, given our inclusion of a ticking fee and our mitigation of regulatory risk. We have gone to great lengths to systematically address ISSI's concerns by 1) demonstrating committed financing, 2) eliminating regulatory risk by agreeing to possible ISSI SRAM divestitures, 3) adding a ticking fee to compensate for any unforeseen delay in closing, and 4) adding a reverse break-up fee. Meanwhile, the Uphill Proposal is still plagued with significant governmental (:CFIUS) timing and closing risks along with mandated Taiwan divestitures... Our offer is now subject only to your countersigning the escrowed merger agreeme "

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market cooled off a bit from Monday's rally effort, yet the major indices all padded this week's gains with modest moves on Tuesday.

Once again, the negotiations between Greece and its creditors were a focal point and, once again, market participants placed their faith in the prospect of a deal getting done that will enable Greece to avoid a debt default and to remain in the eurozone.

The latter point notwithstanding, a definitive agreement continued to hang in the balance at Tuesday's closing bell, all but ensuring the same drama will play out again on Wednesday. Apart from the Greek matter, the market digested some mixed economic data that included a weaker than expected Durable Orders report for May and a stronger than expected New Home Sales report for May in addition to a series of better than expected purchasing managers' index readings out of the eurozone and China.

The S&P 500 for its part traded in a narrow band, meeting resistance at 2128, finding support at 2120, and settling near the middle of that band as it was unable to join the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 in reaching a new all-time high.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.03%) didn't have much to show for itself at the end of Tuesday's trading. A strong showing from Facebook (FB 87.88, +3.14, +3.7%) was offset by a weak showing from disk drive makers Seagate Technology (STX 52.29, -1.58, -3.0%) and Western Digital (WDC 88.62, -2.98, -3.3%), and a relatively weak outing from the semiconductor stocks.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:
Facebook (FB): Hit new all-time high in Tuesday's trading on above-average volume, which pushed its market capitalization ($246.3 bln) ahead of Wal-Mart ($233.7 bln)

First Solar (FSLR 51.49, +0.38, +0.7%): Announced that it has signed an agreement to supply its high performance photovoltaic modules to power the 200 megawatt AC second phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.

Fiserv (FISV 85.74, -0.30, -0.4%): Announced that PBC Credit Union has expanded its long-term relationship with Fiserv, upgrading its DataSafe account processing platform and adding integrated digital solutions to enhance member services.
Google (GOOG 540.72, +2.53, +0.5%): Announced that Google Play Music now has a free, ad-supported version.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.19, +0.17, +0.6%): Company and Ruckus Wireless (RKUS 11.34, +0.17, +1.3%) announced a new technology alliance to deliver open, wired and wireless networking solutions for enterprise, government and education customer segments.

Oracle (ORCL 41.71, +0.22, +0.5%): Announced the release of four products that underscore its commitment to provide communications service providers with a fully virtualized, network function virtualization-ready solution portfolio.

Seagate Technology (STX 52.29, -1.58, -3.0%): Announced that its Backup Plus family of external storage offerings will now include 200GB of OneDrive cloud storage.

TE Connectivity (TEL 69.56, +0.20, +0.3%): The European Commission earlier approved CommScope's (COMM 31.85, -0.01, -0.03%) acquisition of TE Connectivity's Broadband Network Solutions business

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alibaba (BABA 85.08, -0.60, -0.7%): Company and Ant Financial Services Group to invest RMB3 bln each to set up a JV aimed at capturing opportunities within China's local services market, with focus on the food and beverage segment.

Amazon.com (AMZN 445.99, +9.70, +2.1%): Outperformed on the back of some speculation that the company may spin off its web services unit.

Baidu.com (BIDU 212.09, +2.45, +1.1%): Company announced that it has filed a preliminary prospectus supplement with the SEC under an automatic shelf registration statement on Form F-3, pursuant to which the Company proposes to sell senior notes. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes. The joint bookrunners of the offering are Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C. and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC.

BlackBerry (BBRY 8.81, -0.39, -4.0%): Reported Q1 (May) adjusted loss of $0.05 per share, which was slightly worse than analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 31.9% year/year to $658 mln, which was alos below estimates. The revenue breakdown for the quarter was ~40% for hardware, 38% for services and 21% for software and technology licensing. Company recognized hardware revenue on ~1.1 million BlackBerry smartphones with an ASP of $240. The company continues to anticipate positive free cash flow and continues to target sustainable non-GAAP profitability some time in fiscal 2016. Separately, BlackBerry and Cisco (CSCO 28.78, -0.16, -0.6%) have entered into a long-term patent cross-licensing agreement covering their respective products and technologies. As part of the cross-licensing agreement, BlackBerry will receive a license fee from Cisco. Specific terms of the deal are confidential.

Integrated Silicon (ISSI 23.40, +0.89, +3.8%): Company has entered into a further amendment to the previously announced merger agreement with Uphill Investment Co. As a result of the amendment, the merger consideration was further increased to $23.00 per share in cash, from the $22.00 per share in cash pursuant to the Agreement of Merger dated as of March 12, 2015, as previously amended. Cypress Semiconductor (CY 12.68, -0.06, -0.5%) raised its offer to $22.25 from $21.25 yesterday after Uphill raised its offer to $22 on June 19.

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation (LSCC 6.36, +0.02, +0.3%): Announced its iCE40 LM FPGA has been integrated in the recently released ZTE Star 2 flagship smartphone to perform IR remote control, and sensor hub functions.

Twitter (TWTR 35.37, -0.18, -0.5%): President Adam Bain on CNBC said Project Lightning will better organize content on Twitter (via human creation).

Analyst Action:

Altera (ALTR 51.34, -0.07, -0.1%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton

BlackBerry (BBRY 8.81, -0.39, -4.0%): target lowered to $8.50 from $10 at MKM Partners

Groupon (GRPN 5.35, -0.09, -1.7%): Initiated with a Hold at Topeka Capital Markets

Micron (MU 24.49, -0.14, -0.6%): target lowered to $30 from $33 at MKM Partners

Western Digital (WDC 88.62, -2.98, -3.3%): downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan; target lowered to $92 from $105

4:10 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday session on a modestly higher note after spending the bulk of the day near their flat lines. The S&P 500 added 0.1% after trading inside an eight-point range.

Equity indices held modest gains at the start amid continued optimism that Greece will be able to come to terms with its creditors. On that note, the Eurogroup will hold its third meeting in six days tomorrow evening. In addition, better than expected Manufacturing (52.5; consensus 52.2) and Services PMI (54.4; consensus 53.6) readings for the eurozone contributed to the upbeat sentiment overseas.

Once the U.S. session got underway, the S&P 500 held a four-point gain, but surrendered that advance just one hour into the session as heavily-weighted sectors like technology (unch), industrials (-0.2%), and consumer staples (-0.5%) weighed.

The top-weighted technology sector was able to erase the majority of its loss before the final hour, but chipmakers struggled into the afternoon. The PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 0.6% with all but six components ending in the red. On the upside, SunEdison (SUNE 32.13, +0.93) bucked the trend, spiking 3.0%.

Elsewhere, the consumer discretionary sector was underpinned by retailers and homebuilders. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 101.69, +0.92) climbed 0.9% while iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.70, +0.05) added 0.2% following a better than expected New Home Sales report for May.

Also of note, the energy sector (+0.3%) struggled early, but finished among the leaders as crude oil held a solid gain throughout the day, ending the pit session higher by 1.7% at $61.02/bbl.

Similar to cyclical sectors, the four defensively-oriented groups ended the day in mixed fashion. Consumer staples (-0.5%) and utilities (-1.4%) struggled while health care (+0.2%) and telecom services (+1.3%) displayed relative strength. The health care sector eked out a slim gain even as biotechnology struggled with iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 383.25, +0.08) ending flat.

Moving on, Treasuries were little changed during afternoon action, but retreated this morning after Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell said that two rate hikes could take place before the end of the year if the economy doesn't suffer an unexpected slump. The 10-yr note revisited its flat line during the afternoon, but ultimately slipped into the middle of its range to send the benchmark yield higher by three basis points to 2.40%.

On a related note, the Dollar Index (95.40, +1.07) spiked 1.1% with the greenback jumping 1.6% against the euro (1.1170).

Today's participation was below average with fewer than 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Durable Orders, FHFA Housing Price Index, and New Home Sales:

Durable goods orders declined 1.8% in May after declining a downwardly revised 1.5% (from -1.0%) in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline of 0.5%
As expected, the entire decline can be traced to another big pullback in aircraft orders as Boeing (BA 144.43, -1.27) reported a big drop in sales in May, which translated into a 28.9% decline in defense and nondefense aircraft orders
Motor vehicle orders were flat after increasing 0.4% in April
Excluding transportation, durable goods orders increased 0.5% in May after a 0.3% decline in April (revised from -0.2%) while the consensus expected an increase of 0.6%
The FHFA Housing Price Index for April rose 0.3%, which followed an unrevised increase of 0.3% in March
New home sales hit their highest level since February 2008, increasing 2.2% in May to 546,000 from an upwardly revised 534,000 (from 517,000) in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 525,000
Regionally, there was a big disparity in demand trends with nearly the entire increase coming from an 87.5% spike in sales in the Northeast. Sales in the Midwest (-5.7%) and South (-4.3%) declined on a month-to-month basis. Sales in the West increased 13.1% to 138,000, but remain below January levels

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the third estimate of Q1 GDP will be reported at 8:30 ET (Birefing.com consensus -0.2%).

Nasdaq Composite +9.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.5% YTD
S&P 500 +3.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.8% YTD

DJ30 +24.29 NASDAQ +6.12 SP500 +1.37 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1589/1.50 bln/1234 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1791/673.9 mln/1284

3:40 pm :

The dollar index traded higher today, which helped weigh on select commodities.
Energy was strong in morning action, oil futures held gains following morning strength, while natural gas futures erased all of its gains and is now unchanged at $2.73/MMBtu
Aug crude oil ended today's session +1.01% at $61.02/barrel.
July nat gas lost $0.01 to $2.72/MMBtu
Aug gold fell $7.70 today to $1176.70/oz, while July silver really underperformed, losing 2.4% to $15.75/oz
Despite the strong dollar index, copper futures rose $0.04 to $2.61/lb

4:06 pm Sierra Wireless to acquire MobiquiThings for EUR 14 mln (SWIR) : Co announces an agreement to purchase all of the shares of MobiquiThings for 14 mln in cash, plus a performance-based earnout formula that extends into 2017. In 2015, MobiquiThings is expected to generate revenue of ~3.0 mln and breakeven Adjusted EBITDA. The transaction is expected to close in Aug 2015.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Global markets opened July with a bang amid reports that Greece is now ready to accept all creditor demands, however German Chancellor Angela Merkel says negotiations will not resume before Sunday referendum.

Nevertheless, US equities took note of this development, and the optimism of a deal sent major indices higher in the first trading session of July. Although there was not much news aside from the Greece headline, the S&P 500 gained 0.7% on the day while the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 0.8%

The S&P Information Technology Sector, which rose 0.6% on the day, performed relatively in-line with the broader market.

It's worth noting that tomorrow is the last trading session of the shortened holiday week. It should be little surprise then that the news wire was rather light today, and the same can be expected for tomorrow as many market participants take off early on vacation.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:
Paychex (PAYX 47.31, +0.43, +0.92%): Reported Q4 earnings of $0.44 per share on revenues that rose 8.3% year/year to $692.2 million. Additionally, total service revenue increased 8% to $681.4 million for the fourth quarter. PAYX also forecasted FY16 net income to be within the range of +8-9%, with total service revenues of +7-8%.

Harris Corp (HRS 77.38, +0.47, +0.6%): Announced that, effective the beginning of fiscal 2016, July 4, the company will be organizing its business segments following the recent acquisition of Exelis.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

WPCS Intl (WPCS 3.02, +1.48, +96%): Announced it was awarded $3.6 million in new contracts during the first two months of fiscal year 2016.

Jack Henry (JKHY 65.68, +0.98, +1.5%): Acquired Bayside Business Solutions, a provider of portfolio management systems for commercial lenders. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Analyst Action:

GrubHub (GRUB 31.67, -2.40, -7%): Initiated with a Buy at Guggenheim

Axcelis Tech (ACLS 3.03, +0.07, +2.4%): Initiated with a Buy at The Benchmark Company; price target $4.50

Zillow (Z 88.15, +1.41, +1.6%): Initiated with a Buy at Guggenheim

Splunk (SPLK 69.47, -0.15, -0.2%): Initiated with an Outperform at Raymond James; price target $80

Check Point Software (CHKP 80.21, +0.66, +0.8%): Initiated with a Market Perform at JMP Securities

Remark Media (MARK 4.16, +0.11, +2.7%): Initiated with a Buy at Maxim Group; price target $11

EPAM Systems (EPAM 73.82, +2.59, +3.6%): Initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan; price target $87

NQ Mobile (NQ 5.16, -0.12, -2.3%): Price target raised to $10 from $8.50 at Rosenblatt; Buy

Facebook (FB 86.91, +1.15, +1.3%): Price target raised to $100 from $92 at Cantor Fitzgerald; Buy

Intel (INTC 30.18, -0.24, -0.8%): Price target lowered to $38 from $40 at FBR Capital; Outperform

Lam Research (LRCX 82.27, +0.92, +1.1%): Price target raised to $98 from $93 at Cowen; Outperform

Cypress Semi (CY 11.68, -0.08, -0.7%): Resumed with an Overweight at Barclays; price target $15

5:55 pm Hewlett-Packard confirms filing the Form 10 registration statement in regards to its planned split; separation remains on track for November (HPQ) :

4:10 pm : The major averages spent the Wednesday session in a slow retreat from their opening highs, but they were able to keep more than half of their opening gains. The S&P 500 climbed 0.7% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) underperformed.

Equities surged out of the gate amid reports from Europe indicating Greece is now ready to accept all conditions in order to secure a bailout. The report sparked a rush to risk assets, but the Greek offer was met with a cool reception from Eurozone leaders. Most notably, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated that talks will not resume until after Sunday's referendum, adding that "a compromise at any price" is not worthwhile. Similarly, Eurogroup Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said he does not see the need for a resumption of talks ahead of Sunday's referendum.

Despite charging at the start, stocks began inching away from their highs about 30 minutes into the session after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reiterated his call for a 'no' vote during Sunday's referendum. A small pullback ensued as Mr. Tsipras' comments cast doubt on earlier speculation that the referendum could be cancelled altogether.

Nine sectors were able to end the day with gains while energy (-1.3%) struggled amid daylong weakness in crude oil that sent the energy component to levels not seen since late May. WTI crude settled lower by 4.2% at $56.94/bbl with greenback strength contributing to the move as the Dollar Index (96.25, +0.76) rose 0.8%.

Today's plunge in crude oil failed to boost airlines as the industry group was hit with broad-based selling interest after the Department of Justice confirmed a probe into potential collusion in the industry. Delta Air Lines (DAL 40.27, -0.81) and JetBlue (JBLU 20.04, -0.71) lost 2.0% and 3.4%, respectively, while the Dow Jones Transportation Average eked out a slim gain of 0.2% thanks to gains among shipping and railroad names.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, consumer discretionary (+1.0%) and financials (+1.3%) outperformed throughout the session. The financial sector held the lead into the close with Chubb (CB 119.99, +24.85) soaring 26.1% after agreeing to be acquired by ACE Limited (ACE 102.49, +0.81) for roughly $124.13/share in cash and stock. The acquisition boosted other insurers with Dow component Travelers (TRV 99.30, +2.64) jumping 2.7%.

Also of note, the technology sector (+0.6%) was among the early leaders, but the top-weighted group slipped behind the broader market during afternoon action. The retreat from early highs was paced by chipmakers with the PHLX Semiconductor Index narrowing its gain to 0.2% after being up 1.5% at the start.

Treasuries ended the day not far above their lows with the 10-yr yield climbing six basis points to 2.42%.

Today's participation was ahead of average as more than 840 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included ADP Employment, ISM Index, Construction Spending, and MBA Mortgage Index:

The ADP National Employment Report revealed that employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose by 237K in June, which was above the increase of 200K expected by the Briefing.com consensus
The May reading was revised up to 203,000 from 201,000
The ISM Manufacturing Index increased to 53.5 in June from 52.8 in May while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 53.2
A small acceleration in new orders growth (56.0 from 55.8) was not enough to keep the Production Activities index from falling to 54.0 in June from 54.5 in May
Construction spending increased 0.8% in May after a downwardly revised 2.1% (from 2.2%) increase in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
Typically, construction spending naturally pulls back after an outsized 2.0% monthly gain. Not only did construction spending remain on a positive track, but it easily topped what we considered to be inflated expectations.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 4.7% to follow last week's 1.6% increase

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 273K) and June Nonfarm Payrolls (consensus 230K) will both be reported at 8:30 ET while the Factory Orders report for May (consensus -0.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +5.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.4% YTD
S&P 500 +0.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD

DJ30 +138.40 NASDAQ +26.26 SP500 +14.32 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1610/1.68 bln/1332 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1926/840.9 mln/1191

3:40 pm :

WTI crude oil futures sold off today, losing $2.50/barrel to $56.94/barrel.
Aug natural gas also fell to, declining $0.05 to $2.78/MMBtu.
Heating oil and RBOB futures declined as well today.
Metals were mixed today with copper rising $0.02 to $2.63/lb, Aug gold falling $2.60 to $1169.20/oz and Sept silver losing $0.05 to $15.57/oz
Following a 10% rally yesterday, Sept corn futures closed today $0.02 higher to $4.24/bushel

11:58 am Cree (-2%) extends last week's break down to a near three year low (CREE) :

Last week the co guided Q4 and FY16 sales below consensus, citing pricing pressure; co also announced restructuring and a $500 mln stock buyback.
CREE is approaching long term support near the $25 level
LED equipment stocks Veeco (VECO) and Aixtron (AIXG) have also continued to sell off.
Lighting leader Acuity Brands (AYI) made a new all time high this morning following record Q3 results.

11:47 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (203) outpacing new highs (120) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCW, ACFC, ACGL, ACHC, ADPT, AF, AFG, AFMD, AFSI, AGII, AHL, AHS, ALDR, ALJ, ALR, ATTO, AWH, AYI, BIO, BNCN, BSET, BTO, CACC, CB, CENT, CENTA, CF, CFI, CMCSA, CMCSK, COKE, CTRV, DBVT, DCM, DMRC, DPZ, DST, DXCM, DY, EBF, ELECU, ELNK, EVI, FFIN, FL, FNB, GERN, GHC, GIG, GIL, GRBK, HALO, HCKT, HRTG, HSII, HSP, HTBI, HZNP, IBKR, IBP, ILMN, IMPV, IRMD, JOF, JRVR, LION, LJPC, LMAT, LPNT, MHLD, MIG, MORN, MRH, MTD, MTG, MTN, NGHC, NPK, NVEC, OCFC, OPB, ORIT, PAHC, PGR, PNFP, POST, PZZA, QABA, RDUS, RLH, RPTP, RUTH, SCLN, SFBS, SIVB, SRNE, STL, STRN, STS, SUBK, SWK, SYBT, TBNK, THG, TILE, TMK, TPX, TREE, TTPH, TWX, UBSI, UHS, USPH, VAC, VLY, VRTU, WRB, WSTG, WTFC, XNCR

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, ACAS, ACTG, ACV, AGNC, ALTV, AMID, AMTG, ANR, APIC, APOL, ARP, ATLS, ATW, BCX, BDN, BGR, BKH, BMR, BPK, BSI, BTU, CAMT, CBK, CECO, CEL, CHK, CIM, CLD, CNS, CNX, COP, CPPL, CRDS, CREE, CRK, CSAL, CSG, CVE, CVX, CXE, CYS, DDD, DDR, DELT, DMLP, DNN, DNR, DO, DPG, DPM, DRWI, DTLK, DX, EARN, ECT, EIA, ELTK, ENPH, EOX, EVEP, FHCO, FPL, FSC, FSFR, FXEN, GAI, GAS, GGB, GLF, GLRE, GLRI, GMCR, GMT, GOV, GRMN, GTY, HELI, HERO, HGT, HLX, HOV, HPJ, HR, HRZN, HTS, HTZ, I, IDE, IFT, IHD, IO, IRET, IRM, IRR, IVR, JMI, JOY, KEM, KODK, KYE, KYN, LECO, LINE, LPT, LSCC, MAV, MBSD, MDU, MEIL, MFA, MHE, MIND, MITT, MOLG, MTGE, MUJ, MUR, MVO, NETE, NIQ, NJV, NLY, NMA, NOR, NRG, NRP, NTIC, NXZ, NYLD, OFC, OFG, OHI, OII, OIS, ORIG, OUT, PAAS, PACD, PBI, PERI, PGH, PICO, PLG, PLPC, PLTM, PRTY, PSCF, QEP, RAIL, RGSE, RNWK, ROYL, RWT, SDPI, SE, SFM, SGI, SKBI, SKT, SLTC, SMRT, SNDK, SNH, SPNC, SRET, SRV, STAG, STR, STWD, STX, SVLC, SYNL, TAC, TAXI, TCK, TDC, THM, TRP, TRUE, TTHI, TUES, TUTT, UBA, UE, VCLT, VICL, VII, VJET, VKTX, VMEM, VPCO, WGBS, WLB, WMT, WRES, XCO, XENE, XOM, XONE, YLCO, YRCW, ZINC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AMJ, BND, EGPT, KOL, XME

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: As expected, Thursday's trading session was rather quiet, ending the abbreviated trading week on a cautious note with Sunday's referendum in Greece right around the corner

Despite opening on a higher note following a June Nonfarm Payrolls report that missed expectations (223,000; Briefing.com consensus 230,000), major indices retreated from their early levels, ultimately turning negative during late morning action.

Major indices later slipped below the flat line after the International Monetary Fund admitted that Greece will need approximately EUR50 billion in funds over the next three years and that a 20-year grace period should take place before any repayment begins.

Interestingly enough, the S&P 500 information technology sector edged higher in the quiet trading session, rising 0.2% on the day, led by eBay (EBAY 61.85, +1.43, +2.4%), Western Digital (WDC 80.87, +1.43, +1.8%), Avago Tech (AVGO 137.64, +2.14, +1.6%), and Micron (MU 19.07, +0.29, +1.5%).

From the list of leaders above, its clear that Semiconductors performed well on Thursday, which led to the outperformance of the Philadelphia Sox Index (+0.5%).

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Accenture (ACN 97.33, -0.73, -0.7%): Announced that Amadeus (AMADY) has agreed to acquire Navitaire, a wholly owned subsidiary of Accenture that provides technology and business solutions to the airline industry, for $830 million. Navitaire, which focuses on the low-cost and hybrid-carrier segments of the airline industry and has a global customer base of more than 50 operators, provides revenue-generation and cost-streamlining solutions in the areas of reservations, ancillary sales, loyalty, revenue management, revenue accounting and business intelligence.

Xoom (XOOM 25.05, +4.35, +21%): Announced it has reached an agreement to be acquired by Paypal (PYPL) for $25/share, or ~$890 mln. Due to anticipated one-time integration costs, the completion of the transaction is expected to be slightly dilutive to PayPal's non-GAAP earnings per share for FY 2016. PayPal intends to fund the transaction with cash on its balance sheet.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Stratasys (SSYS 34.56, +0.23, +0.7%): Announced the acquisition of RTC Rapid Technologies. This transaction aims to strengthen the company's presence in the important German Speaking Countries region of Germany, Switzerland and Austria and aligns with Stratasys' growth strategy for the region. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Yelp (YELP 38.18, -4.26, -10%): Bloomberg article reported that although the company has several interested buyers, it will not be pursuing a sale in the immediate future.

Analyst Action:
Xoom (XOOM 25.05, +4.35, +21%): Upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Compass Point; price target raised to $25 from $11... downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Buckingham Research... price target raised to $25 from $23 at Stifel; Buy

GrubHub (GRUB 30.69, -0.98, -3.1%): Upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital; price target lowered to $42 from $46

ASML (ASML 104.60, -1.05, -1%): Downgraded to Sell from Hold at Liberum

Lattice Semi (LSCC 6.09, +0.30, +5.1%): Initiated with a Buy at Sidoti; price target $11

Imperva (IMPV 67.00, -0.10, -0.2%): Price target raised to $76 from $61 at RBC Capital; Outperform

4:10 pm : The major averages ended an abbreviated trading week on a cautious note, which wasn't all that surprising since the weekend will feature a Sunday referendum in Greece. The S&P 500 shed 0.1%, widening its weekly decline to 1.2%, while small cap stocks endured more aggressive selling with the Russell 2000 losing 0.7% to end the week lower by 2.5%.

Equity indices held modest gains at the start after the Nonfarm Payrolls report for June missed estimates (223,000; Briefing.com consensus 230,000) with the wage component showing no monthly growth. The lack of wage growth was viewed as an argument in favor of the Federal Reserve delaying its first rate hike, evidenced by a surge in the Treasury market. The 10-yr note backed away from its high ahead of the close, but still ended firmly in the green with the benchmark yield slipping four basis points to 2.38%.

Despite opening on a higher note, stocks retreated from their early levels, turning negative during late morning action. Interestingly, the benchmark index slipped below its flat line after the International Monetary Fund admitted that Greece will need approximately EUR50 billion in funds over the next three years and that a 20-year grace period should take place before any repayment begins. The comments from the IMF are likely to galvanize the 'no' camp ahead of Sunday's referendum in Greece.

Six sectors ended the day in negative territory while energy (+0.4%), technology (+0.2%), telecom services (+0.3%), and utilities (+1.4%) posted gains. The utilities sector held the lead throughout the session thanks to the morning drop in Treasury yields. The rate-sensitive sector was the only group that ended the week in the green, adding 1.1% since last Friday.

For its part, the energy sector was able to end in the green even as crude oil surrendered its intraday gain, ending the pit session unchanged at $56.93/bbl. For the week, WTI crude surrendered 4.5% while the energy sector lost 1.9%.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the technology sector (+0.2%) struggled early on, but the group rallied into the close, lifting the benchmark index off its session low. Chipmakers led the afternoon rebound with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 0.5%.

There wasn't much in the way of corporate news today, but Health Net (HNT 71.57, +6.51) jumped 10.0% after agreeing to be acquired by Centene (CNC 74.44, -6.46) for roughly $78.57/share in cash and stock, which represents a 21.0% premium to Wednesday's closing price. Meanwhile, the broader health care sector (-0.3%) ended among the laggards while biotech names finished little changed with iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 370.17, +0.27) adding 0.1%.

Today's trading volume was well below average with roughly 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Nonfarm Payrolls, Initial Claims, and Factory Orders:

Nonfarm payrolls added 223,000 jobs in June after adding a downwardly revised 254,000 (from 280,000) in May while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 230,000
Government payrolls were flat, and the entire increase in payrolls came from the private sector as private payrolls increased by 223,000 while the consensus expected an increase of 225,000
Although the payroll data was not far from expectations, the details of the report highlight extreme weaknesses as average workweek and hourly earnings were both flat in June
Total aggregate earnings increased a minuscule 0.1% in June, down from a 0.5% gain in May
The unemployment rate fell to 5.3% in June from 5.5% while the consensus expected a decline to 5.4%; however, the entire decrease was due to a decline in labor force participation as opposed to employment growth
The initial claims level increased to 281,000 for the week ending June 27 from an unrevised 271,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 271,000
Despite the big increase, the four-week moving average increased by only 1,000 to 275,000, leaving the overall trend near a 15-year low
Factory orders declined 1.0% in May following a downwardly revised -0.7% (from -0.4%) decline in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline of 0.5%
Durable goods orders declined 2.2% in May, which was revised down from a 1.8% decline in the advance report
The entire decline resulted from continued weakness in the transportation sector with those orders declining 6.5% in May after falling 4.0% in April

Monday's data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of the ISM Services Index for June.

Nasdaq Composite +5.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.6% YTD
S&P 500 +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.5% YTD

Week in Review: All Eyes on Greek Referendum

On Monday, global markets were shaken after Greek leaders said 'no' to the Eurogroup's cash-for-reform proposal and investors around the world in turn said 'no' to buying stocks. Just about every major market closed down at least 2.0%. The hardest-hit markets were the European bourses, which included Germany's DAX Index (-3.6%) and Spain's IBEX (-4.6%). Japan's Nikkei dropped 2.9% while China's Shanghai Composite fell 3.3% despite the People's Bank of China cutting its benchmark lending and deposit rates by 25 basis points each to 4.85% and 2.00%, respectively. In comparison, the U.S. stock market fared reasonably well, yet that doesn't mean it did well. Hit with broad-based selling pressure, the S&P 500 declined 2.1% as buyers basically wanted no part of the day's action outside a few areas of specific interest. One area was the utilities sector (-0.6%), which traded with a modest gain for most of the day before ultimately feeling the gravitational pull of the weak market. Another area was the Treasury market, which attracted safe-haven flows. The 10-yr note surged more than a point and saw its yield drop 15 basis points to 2.33%.

On Tuesday, the stock market ended the final June session on a higher note, but that did not stop the S&P 500 (+0.3%) from registering a 2.1% loss for the month. Equity indices spent the first three hours of the day in a steady retreat from their opening highs with the S&P 500 making a momentary appearance in the red after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany cannot consider new proposals from Greece until after Sunday's referendum. However, the benchmark index climbed to a fresh high during afternoon action with the move taking place amid reports Greece could cancel its Sunday referendum if negotiations are resumed and an agreement could be reached on required prior actions. To that point, Eurogroup Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem acknowledged the receipt of a new proposal from the Greek government with the offer set to be reviewed at tomorrow's Eurogroup meeting. The speculation about a potential cancellation of the referendum had little impact on the euro, which spent the afternoon near its session low reached after Ms. Merkel's comments. The single currency slid 0.6% against the dollar to 1.1145.

The major averages spent the Wednesday session in a slow retreat from their opening highs, but they were able to keep more than half of their opening gains. The S&P 500 climbed 0.7% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) underperformed. Equities surged out of the gate amid reports from Europe indicating Greece is now ready to accept all conditions in order to secure a bailout. The report sparked a rush to risk assets, but the Greek offer was met with a cool reception from Eurozone leaders. Most notably, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated that talks will not resume until after Sunday's referendum, adding that "a compromise at any price" is not worthwhile. Similarly, Eurogroup Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said he does not see the need for a resumption of talks ahead of Sunday's referendum. Despite charging at the start, stocks began inching away from their highs about 30 minutes into the session after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reiterated his call for a 'no' vote during Sunday's referendum. A small pullback ensued as Mr. Tsipras' comments cast doubt on earlier speculation that the referendum could be cancelled altogether.

DJ30 -27.80 NASDAQ -3.91 SP500 -1.14 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1058/1.38 bln/1876 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1552/707.2 mln/1520

3:40 pm :

The dollar index remained in the red this afternoon, which helped out a handful of commodities
WTI crude oil futures was not one of them
WTI finished today's pit trading session one cent lower at $56.93/barrel, selling off from its HoD of $57.95/barrel
Crude continued to sell off in afternoon trade and just hit a new low for today near the $56.50/barrel area
Aug natural gas closed $0.04 higher at $2.82/MMBtu and remained in positive territory all day
Aug gold lost $5.08 today to $1163.40/oz, while Sept silver closed $0.01 lower at $15.56/oz
Sept copper ended unchanged at $2.63/lb

11:54 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (150) outpacing new highs (92) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCW, ACHC, AEC, AFMD, AHL, ALJ, ALR, AMCX, AME, AWH, BF.A, BOOT, BSET, CACC, CAG, CASH, CFI, CMCSA, CMCSK, CNC, COKE, CSTE, CTRV, DCM, DIS, DNKN, DTV, DY, EA, ELECU, ELLI, ENR, FCB, FDEF, FFNW, FL, FSV, GIG, GIS, GRBK, HIG, HLS, HMPR, HNT, HRTG, HTBI, IART, IBKR, IBP, ITRN, JOF, LEN.B, LION, LKQ, MDLZ, MFSF, MHK, MIG, MKL, MORN, MPC, NGHC, NJ, NKE, NPK, NVEE, PBCT, PENN, PLMT, PRGS, PRTO, PZZA, RLH, RUTH, SCLN, SFBS, SGYP, SKX, SNA, SPWH, STL, STRZA, TBNK, TPX, TTPH, TWX, UCBI, USNA, USPH, VLO, WRB, WSTG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAS, ADAT, AEZS, AHGP, ALTV, AMBC, AMBR, AMID, APIC, APOL, ASTI, AUY, AXLL, BBEP, BBK, BBRY, BGR, CAMT, CBA, CLD, CLDN, CLF, CMU, CNW, CPN, CPPL, CPST, CRK, CSAL, CSG, CTCM, CTRL, CVE, CVR, DDD, DNOW, DPG, EMO, ETRM, ETSY, EVJ, FAM, FDML, FELP, FIF, FPL, FSC, FSFR, FSYS, FTEK, FUEL, GCI, GER, GGB, GMCR, GMZ, GNRC, GOL, GRUB, GULTU, HKTV, HMY, HTCH, HTZ, ICB, IGT, INF, INTX, IPDN, IRR, ITRI, JMF, KEM, KYE, KYN, LC, LF, LFL, LMRK, LPL, MAV, MEI, MEP, MIND, MOBL, MXC, NAD, NAV, NJV, NMA, NPO, NRF, NRG, NTG, NXZ, OFG, OKS, ORN, OUT, PAA, PERI, PICO, PLG, PLUG, PSUN, QRHC, QUAD, RBCN, RCPI, REIS, RSO, SBLK, SD, SE, SFM, SFY, SGI, SGY, SJR, SLH, SMM, SMTC, SONS, SPEX, SRSC, SSYS, SVM, SXE, SYNL, TC, TECU, TEO, TGD, THM, TNDM, URRE, VCO, VICL, VII, VJET, WAVX, WDAY, WLT, WTS, WTW, X, XCO, XONE, XRX, YLCO

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EGPT, REMX, SLX, URA, XME

10:50 am Semiconductor Hldrs ETF continues to display intraday relative strength (SMH) : The SMH has edged to a new session high in recent trade. Top performing semi names include: AMD +5.6%, LSCC +5.5%, MU +2.7%, INTC +2.3%, CRUS +1.2%, MRVL +1.2%, TSM +1.1%, SNDK +1%, KLAC +0.7%.

10:27 am Freescale Semi and NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) shareholders approve merger (FSL) : The co's continue to expect the merger to close in the second half of calendar year 2015.

9:16 am Arch Coal announces two separate private debt exchange offers (ACI) : The first, a private offer to exchange new 6.25% Trust Certificates due 2021 and a cash payment for any and all of its outstanding 7.25% Senior Notes due 2020. Holders of approximately 56.9% of the aggregate principal amount of outstanding 2020 Notes have executed agreements with Arch committing to participate in the Exchange Offer and the Consent Solicitation referred to below. The second, a private offer to exchange new 6.25% Trust Certificates due 2021, 8.00% Senior Secured Notes due 2022 and 12.00% Senior Secured Second Lien Notes due 2023 for its outstanding 7.000% Senior Notes due 2019 ("Old 7.000% 2019 Notes"), 9.875% Senior Notes due 2019 and 7.250% Senior Notes due 2021

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From Briefing.com: Monday began with an overnight slide in the futures market after the Greek referendum produced 61.3% 'no' votes, rejecting the bailout terms previously proposed by eurozone creditors. The results of the referendum allowed Greece's Syriza party to stay in power, but Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis stepped down with Oxford-educated Euclid Tsakalotos assuming Mr. Varoufakis' place.

Domestically, the S&P 500 (-0.4%) began the session sharply lower, but an aggressive bid lifted the index back to its flat line about an hour after the opening bell. However, that rebound was short-lived, and faded into the afternoon.

Similar to the rest of the market, the S&P information technology index (-0.5%) had a rather choppy session to begin the week. To add some perspective to today's lack of definitive movement, none of the sector's constituents gained or lost more than 4% on the day. Micron Technologies (MU 18.32, -0.75, -3.9%) was the worst performer as it continues to plummet following disappointing earnings results.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Apple (AAPL 126.00, -0.44, -0.4%): Digitimes article reported that iPhone 6 sales may be slowing.

Western Union (WU 18.95,-0.04, -0.2%): Announced in collaboration with the MTN Group (MTNOY 18.19, -1.17, -6%) the launch of a new mobile money transfer service in Rwanda and Ivory Coast. The new service allows MTN customers in both countries to receive a Western Union Money Transfer transaction in their mobile wallet.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alliance Fiber Optic (AFOP 20.15, +1.59, +8.6%): Issued guidance for the upcoming quarter, forecasting Q2 revenues of $25 million, up from prior guidance of $22.5-24.5 million. The company also noted that it sees record quarterly gross margin and operating profits as well.

GoPro (GPRO 50.94, -0.81, -1.6%): Announced the launch of HERO4 Session -- 50% smaller and 40% lighter than GoPro's best-selling HERO4 Black and Silver cameras. HERO4 Session packs GoPro's image quality and performance into an exciting new low-profile form factor. HERO4 Session is compatible with existing GoPro mounts and will retail for $399.99 MSRP at authorized GoPro retailers around the world and on GoPro.com beginning July 12, 2015.

Mesa Laboratories, Inc (MLAB 90.47, -0.17, -0.2%): Announced it has acquired Infitrak for ~$21.6 million. Under the terms of the transaction, the company has acquired all of the outstanding shares of common stock of Infitrak, whose business involves providing consulting, packaging and measuring solutions for cold chain applications. The acquisition price for Infitrak consisted of cash consideration of $12,000,000 CDN (approximately $9,600,000 USD) which is subject to a minor working capital adjustment, and a future contingent payment of up to $15,000,000 CDN (approximately $12,000,000 USD), based on the growth of Infitrak's cold chain business during the first two years following the acquisition. The acquisition of Infitrak is expected to add approximately $5,500,000 to Mesa's revenues and to be accretive to diluted net income per share during the first twelve months.

Analyst Action:
Cognizant Tech (CTSH 59.96, -0.57, -0.9%): Upgraded to Buy from Outperform at Credit Agricole

Canon (CAJ 32.42, +0.46, +1.4%): Upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman

Allot Comms (ALLT 6.00, -1.08, -15.3%): Downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich; price target lowered to $6.50 from $12

Netsuite (N 88.35, -3.31, -3.6%): Downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray

VMWare (VMW 83.06, -2.14, -2.5%): Downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at FBR Capital; price target lowered to $90 from $96

InterXion (INXN 28.21, +0.26, +0.9%): Initiated with a Buy at BofA/Merrill; price target $31

GoPro (GPRO 50.94, -0.81, -1.6%): Initiated with a Neutral at Goldman; price target $60

FEI (FEIC 82.82, +0.09, +0.1%): Price target raised to $96 from $90 at Stifel; Buy

WNS (WNS 27.23, -0.19, -0.7%): Price target raised to $34 from $31 at Maxim Group; Buy

4:15 pm : Monday was a busy day for equities across the globe, beginning with an overnight slide in the futures market after the Greek referendum produced 61.3% 'no' votes, rejecting the bailout terms previously proposed by eurozone creditors. The results of the referendum allowed Greece's Syriza party to stay in power, but Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis stepped down with Oxford-educated Euclid Tsakalotos assuming Mr. Varoufakis' place.

With the referendum in the rear-view mirror, the focus now shifts to July 20, when Greece will have to make a EUR3.50 billion payment to the European Central Bank. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank adjusted haircuts on Greek collateral for Emergency Liquidity Assistance, but the details were not revealed in the press release. The continued uncertainty about Greece's future in the eurozone pressured European markets with Germany's DAX and Italy's MIB losing 1.5% and 4.0%, respectively.

Domestically, the S&P 500 (-0.4%) began the session just above its 200-day moving average (2,055), but an aggressive bid lifted the index back to its flat line about an hour after the opening bell. However, that rebound was short-lived, fading into the afternoon.

Nine of ten sectors ended the day in negative territory with the energy sector (-1.3%) spending the day behind other cyclical groups. The growth-sensitive group finished among the laggards while crude oil plunged into the pit close, settling lower by 7.8% at $52.48/bbl.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, financials (-0.4%) and technology (-0.4%) spent the day in negative territory, which kept the market under pressure. High-beta chipmakers contributed to the losses in technology with the PHLX Semiconductor Index falling 1.6% as 28 of its 30 components registered losses while Altera (ALTR 51.40, +0.06) eked out a slight gain while Qualcomm (QCOM 63.11, 0.00) ended flat.

Things looked a bit better on the countercyclical side with consumer staples (-0.1%) and utilities (+0.4%) ending ahead of the broader market while the telecom services sector (-1.1%) struggled. For its part, health care (unch) finished ahead of the broader market after biotechnology displayed some intraday strength. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 372.36, +2.01) advanced 0.5% after being up 1.5%.

Today's session was relatively quiet on the corporate front, but Humana (HUM 188.96, +1.46) rose 0.8% after agreeing to be acquired by Aetna (AET 117.43, -8.08) as part of a transaction valued at $230/share.

Treasuries held gains throughout the day, settling not far below their overnight highs with the 10-yr yield down nine basis points at 2.29%.

Monday's trading volume surpassed recent averages with more than 910 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Although today's main focus was on Greece, it is also worth noting that China's Shanghai Composite gained 2.4%, but that was after the index opened with an 8.0% advance in reaction to news that the People's Bank of China extended a lifeline to equity brokers through China Finance Securities in an attempt to stem the recent slide.

Economic data was limited to the June ISM Services Index, which increased to 56.0 in June from 55.7 in May while the Briefing.com consensus expected the index an increase to 56.3. Business activities accelerated as the related index increased to 61.5 in June from 59.5 in May.

Tomorrow, May Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$42.00 billion) will be released at 8:30 ET while the May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 15:00 ET release of the Consumer Credit report for May (consensus $17.60 billion).


Nasdaq Composite +5.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.4% YTD
S&P 500 +0.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.8% YTD

DJ30 -46.53 NASDAQ -17.27 SP500 -8.02 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1201/1.61 bln/1749 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1142/914.6 mln/1960
3:40 pm :

WTI crude oil, heating oil and RBOB futures all collapse following Greece/China concerns and ahead of the Iran nuclear deadline tomorrow
Aug crude oil futures shed 7.8% today to $52.48/barrel, heating oil futures dropped -7.1% and RBOB fell -5.1%
Aug natural gas futures, meanwhile, lost $0.06 to $2.76/MMBtu
Copper futures lost 3.4% today (or 9 cents) to $2.54/lb, which also got hit on Greece/China concerns
Precious metals gained today with Aug gold rising +$9.80 to $1173.20/oz and Sept silver climbing +$0.21 to $15.77/oz

4:49 pm TerraForm Power signs definitive agreement to acquire net ownership of 930 megawatt of wind power plants from Invenergy Wind for $2 bln; raises 2016 dividend target (TERP) : TerraForm Power intends to acquire net ownership of 460 MW of the wind power plants from Invenergy with the remaining 470 MW to be acquired by a new warehouse facility, for a combined $2.0 billion in aggregate consideration. Average unlevered CAFD of the acquired portfolio is anticipated to be $141 million annually over the next 10 years, generating a levered cash-on-cash return of approximately 8.4 percent.


Concurrent with today's announcement, TerraForm Power is raising its prior 2016 dividend target of $1.53 to 2016 dividend per share (DPS) guidance of $1.70, a 26 percent year-over-year increase compared to 2015 annual guidance. TerraForm Power is also updating its long-term DPS growth target to a 20 percent CAGR from its current first quarter dividend, driven by the increased visibility and growth provided by this transaction. The acquired portfolio is comprised of seven contracted wind farms located in the United States and Canada. The assets have a weighted average remaining contract life of 19 years and an average counterparty credit rating of AA. Invenergy will retain a 9.9 percent stake in the U.S. assets and will provide certain operation and maintenance services for these power plants.TerraForm expects to finance the direct acquisition of the 460 MW through a combination of cash on hand and new bond financing. TerraForm Power will also assume approximately $450 million in non-recourse project debt. These initial drop downs are expected to provide average CAFD of $71 million annually over the next 10 years.
4:22 pm Advanced Micro (halted, will resume at 16:35) lowers Q2 guidance, citing to weaker than expected consumer PC deamnd (AMD) : Co issues downside guidance for Q2 (Jun), lowers Q2 (Jun) revs to -8% QoQ to ~$947.6 mln (from -6% to flat) vs. $999.59 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

The sequential decrease is primarily due to weaker than expected consumer PC demand impacting the company's Original Equipment Manufacturer (:OEM) APU sales. The company expects second quarter channel sales and channel inventory reduction efforts to be in-line with the company's plans. The co anticipates non-GAAP gross margin to be ~28%, compared to the previous non-GAAP guidance of ~32% primarily due to a higher mix of Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment sales and lower than anticipated Computing and Graphics segment APU unit volumes due to weaker than expected OEM PC product demand. AMD will report second quarter 2015 results after market close on Thursday, July 16, 2015.

4:16 pm Advanced Micro lowers Q2 rev to -8% QoQ from -6% to flat QoQ (AMD) :

4:15 pm Advanced Micro (halted) lowers Q2 rev guidance (AMD) :

11:37 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (317) outpacing new highs (50) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAC, ABCW, AFMD, ALDW, ALJ, ALRM, AMCX, ANAC, ASBB, BOFI, CATB, CFMS, CMRX, CNTY, COLB, CSTE, CTRV, DIS, DY, ESNT, GIII, GIL, GTT, HRTG, JAKK, LJPC, MIDD, MIG, MKL, MPC, MTD, NAT, NBHC, NBIX, NJ, NMR, NVEE, OMG, PRGS, RDUS, SFBS, SP, SPB, STRN, THG, TPX, USPH, VGR, VLO, WRB

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, ABAC, ACAS, ACTG, ACTX, ACV, AEGR, AHC, AHGP, AIQ, AIT, AKS, ALLT, AMBC, AMBR, AMID, AMKR, ANDE, APIC, AR, ARP, ASTI, ATL, ATW, AUDC, AUY, AVH, AVP, AXE, BBEP, BBG, BCEI, BCX, BEN, BGR, BHP, BIOS, BLIN, BLJ, BLT, BOXC, BSI, BXLT, CAMT, CAPX, CAR, CBD, CBT, CENX, CGG, CH, CHK, CIDM, CLD, CLDN, CLF, CNAT, CNW, COP, CPA, CPN, CREE, CRK, CSAL, CSG, CSTM, CTCM, CTL, CTRL, CVE, CVR, CVX, CYAD, CZZ, DD, DEX, DHRM, DNN, DNR, DO, DPG, DTLK, EC, ECR, EDD, EGY, EMES, ENLK, ENPH, ERIC, ETSY, EXXI, FAM, FBP, FDML, FELE, FELP, FGB, FHCO, FIF, FMC, FSC, FSFR, FSTR, FTEK, FTR, FUEL, GCH, GCI, GDP, GEF, GER, GGB, GLF, GLRE, GMCR, GNL, GOL, GPT, GRMN, GROW, GRPN, GULTU, GWR, HART, HCLP, HEB, HERO, HK, HKTV, HLX, HMY, HOV, HPJ, HTGC, HTLD, HTZ, HWAY, HZN, IAF, IDE, IEP, IF, IFAS, IGD, IGT, IHD, IIIN, INF, INVE, IRR, ISIG, ITRI, JASN, JOY, KATE, KEM, KLIC, KNDI, KODK, KRO, KYE, LC, LECO, LFL, LGCY, LMIA, LMRK, LOR, LPL, LPTN, MDU, MEI, MEP, MGRC, MHG, MIND, MNTX, MOBL, MOD, MOLG, MSI, MSM, MT, MTR, MUR, MYJ, NATH, NAV, NBL, NFJ, NJV, NOA, NOV, NPO, NRF, NRP, NRT, NSPH, OFG, OHRP, OI, OII, OIS, OKE, OKS, ORIG, OTEX, OUT, PDLI, PDVW, PGH, PGN, PHG, PICO, PJC, PKE, PLG, PLTM, PLUG, PNF, PPT, PSCE, PSUN, PVA, QEP, QRHC, QUAD, RBCN, RCPI, RDS.A, RDS.B, RGDX, RGSE, RIO, RMT, RNN, RSO, RTK, RXN, SD, SDLP, SDPI, SE, SFY, SGI, SGY, SHG, SID, SKM, SLH, SMM, SMRT, SNDK, SONS, SPEX, SRSC, SRV, STX, SVLC, SWC, SWN, SXC, SXCP, SYNL, SZC, TAC, TAL, TBPH, TC, TCK, TDC, TDOC, TEO, TGB, TGP, THM, THW, TIVO, TKR, TROX, TRP, TRUE, TS, TSI, TTF, TTM, TTP, TYC, UNIS, UNXL, UPL, USEG, VCO, VECO, VEDL, VJET, VMEM, VRS, VSH, WAVX, WDAY, WG, WHLR, WHZ, WIN, WLB, WLT, WRES, WRLD, WTS, X, XONE, XRX, YLCO, YZC, ZINC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, DBB, ECH, EGPT, EWA, EWC, FXA, JO, KOL, PPLT, REMX, SLX, THD, URA, XME

9:04 am Silicom Limited sees Q2 and Q3 revenue below consensus (SILC) :

Co issues downside guidance for Q2 (Jun), sees Q2 (Jun) revs of $16.8-17.2 mln vs. $19.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues downside guidance for Q3 (Sep), sees Q3 (Sep) revs of $18-19 mln vs. $21.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Our shortfall for the second quarter reflects a softening of demand from some of our customers, due to longer-than-expected decision making processes together with the slower market deployment of our high-potential design wins and our new solutions for upcoming industry trends. We expect that the second quarter will be the low-point of our revenues.

"MagnaChip Semiconductor (MX) announced that it has started the co-development of an automotive MCU process with ABOV Semiconductor, Automotive Electronic Systems and Semiconductors Lab. of UNIST and Analog & Mixed Signal Integrated Circuit Lab. of SNU using MagnaChip's 0.18 micron automotive process.

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From Briefing.com: The stock market opened sharply lower on Tuesday as investors appeared to be concerned with the overseas uncertainty at the start of the session. That changed though just as markets across Europe closed for the day when a report was released suggesting a short-term debt deal could be offered to Greece, however, the report was attributed to an unnamed official, which should be met with caution.

The S&P 500 gained 0.6% after being down 1.2% at the start while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) underperformed throughout the day. Surprisingly, amid all of today's volatility, every sector closed in the green, although the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.04%) was the worst performing sector on the day, weighed down by semiconductors, which led to losses in the Philadelphia SOX index (-0.3%)

Autodesk (ADSK 53.29, +2.34, +4.6%), Electronic Arts (EA 69.89, +1.88, +2.8%), and First Solar (FSLR 45.12, +0.93, +2.1%) were the top performers in the sector.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:
Workday (WDAY 77.65, +0.97, +1.3%): An Information.com article was passed around suggesting that Microsoft (MSFT 44.30, -0.09, -0.2%) should purchase the company.

EMC's (EMC 26.60, +0.29, +1.1%) Announced that its Syncplicity business will be acquired by Skyview Capital. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, however EMC will remain a financial stakeholder in Syncplicity.

Western Union (WU 19.10, +0.15, +0.8%): Announced it has activated in-bound Western Union Money Transfer service into Greece, allowing customers to receive funds into their bank accounts from 31 countries across North America, Europe, CIS and Asia Pacific. Western Union Money Transfers will be credited based on the agreed send value into the bank accounts of customers; but the 60 per transaction per customer per day withdrawal limits imposed by the Greek Government will continue to apply.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Travelport Worldwide (TVPT 13.84, +0.02, +0.1%): Announced it has acquired Mobile Travel Technologies, a private company based in Dublin, Ireland. MTT provides an industry-leading mobile travel platform and product set that allows airlines, hotels, corporate travel management companies and travel agencies to engage with their customers through sophisticated, tailored mobile services including apps, mobile web and intelligent mobile messaging.
Samsung Elect (SSNLF): Noted it sees Q2 sales below consensus, and Q2 Operating Profit of KRW6.8 ~ 7.0 trln. Additionally, it sees revs declining to KRW47-49 trln. (down from KRW52.4 trln in 2Q14).

SIMO (SIMO 32.97, -0.97, -2.9%), Announced that based upon its preliminary second quarter financial results, revenue is expected to increase 7% to 9% sequentially, at the upper half of its original guidance range of a sequential increase of 5% to 10% that the company issued on April 28, 2015.

Digital Ally (DGLY 13.26, -0.18, -1.3%): Forecasts Q2 revenues +55% to ~$5.5 mln. The company also noted that, "While we expect our operations to be profitable in 2015 for the first time since 2008, we do not expect to achieve our previous forecast of $2.5 million in operating income because of increases in production headcount, production support personnel, and SG&A expenses associated with additional direct sales personnel, pre- and post-sale support staff, technical support and engineering resources."

Virgin America (VA 27.10, -0.44, -1.6%): announces a new technology partnership with ViaSat (VSAT 59.19, +0.66, +1.1%) to bring faster WiFi connectivity to the airline's 10 new A320 aircraft deliveries, beginning in September of this year Virgin America will begin installation of ViaSat's systems immediately -- with the first Ka-band antenna equipped aircraft to take flight in the continental U.S. in September 2015. Aircraft scheduled for Hawaii flights will be outfitted with ViaSat's hybrid Ku/Ka-band antenna in early 2016. During the beta period rollout of the ViaSat product, Virgin America will offer free WiFi access on its first ViaSat equipped aircraft. The airline will introduce pricing for the service in 2016.

Analyst Action:
Electronic Arts (EA 69.89, +1.88, +2.8%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS; price target raised to $80 from $65

Himax Tech (HIMX 8.52, +0.75, +9.7%): Upgraded to Buy from Sell at Chardan Capital; price target raised to $13 from $4

Marvell (MRVL 13.16, -0.10, -0.8%): Upgraded to Perform from Underperform at Oppenheimer

ARM Holdings (ARMH 48.61, +0.29, +0.6%): Upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley

Salesforce.com (CRM 70.26, +1.10, +1.6%): Upgraded to Buy from Hold at Brean Capital

Global Payment (GPN 105.24, +0.68, +0.7%): Upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Keefe Bruyette

Broadcom (BRCM 51.43, -0.16, -0.3%): Downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer

Box (BOX 17.57, -0.42, -2.3%): Initiated with a Perform at Oppenheimer

Tyler Tech (TYL 133.48, +3.01, +2.3%): Initiated with a Market Outperform at JMP Securities

Palo Alto Networks (PANW 171.51, -3.81, -2.2%): Price target raised to $210 from $180 at Dougherty & Co; Buy

Allot Comms (ALLT 5.68, -0.32, -5.3%): Price target lowered to $6 from $9 at Barclays; Underweight

Autodesk (ADSK 53.29, +2.34, +4.6%): Price target raised to $80 from $75 at Credit Suisse; Outperform

Advanced Micro (AMD 2.09, -0.38, -15.4%): Price target lowered to $2 from $2.20 at UBS; Sell... price target lowered to $2.50 from $3.20 at MKM Partners; Neutral... price target lowered to $2.50 from $3 at FBR Capital; Market Perform

Western Digital (WDC 79.82, +0.01, +0.01%): Price target lowered to $101 from $124 at Needham; Strong Buy

Silicom Limited (SILC 27.09, -0.12, -0.4%): Price target lowered to $45 from $60 at Needham; Buy

Seagate Tech (STX 47.82, +0.80, +1.7%): Price target lowered to $55 from $68 at Needham; Strong Buy

Fortinet (FTNT 40.61, +0.64, +1.6%): Price target raised to $50 from $46 at Oppenheimer; Outperform

4:30 pm Rambus renews its patent license agreement with Renesas Electronics Corporation (RMBS) : The new agreement extends the relationship between the companies until April 1, 2020, covering the use of Rambus patented memory, interface, and security technologies in a wide range of logic integrated circuit products offered by Renesas Electronics. Specific terms of the agreement are confidential.

4:10 pm : The stock market was on track for a sharp decline in the early going, but the opening weakness became a distant memory by the end of the trading day. The S&P 500 gained 0.6% after being down 1.2% at the start while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) underperformed throughout the day.

Equity indices struggled at the start amid rising macroeconomic uncertainty overseas. Greece was in the headlines this morning, but today's Eurogroup meeting ended rather quickly with Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem saying the Eurogroup expects Greece to submit a formal request for access to the European Stability Mechanism tomorrow. To that point, the Financial Times reported during the afternoon that Greece has indeed sent an ESM access request to the European Central Bank.

As for China, the Shanghai Composite lost 1.3% in the Tuesday session despite Monday's CNY1.80 trillion liquidity injection from the People's Bank of China and other emergency measures undertaken by the government. As a result nearly 25% of A-share listings have been halted over the past seven days as companies scramble to protect their market values.

Investors appeared to be concerned with the overseas uncertainty at the start of the session, but the heavy selling abated just as markets across Europe closed for the day. The S&P 500 then returned above its 200-day moving average (2,055) and continued its charge into positive territory. It is worth noting that afternoon action featured a report suggesting a short-term debt deal could be offered to Greece, but the report was attributed to an unnamed official, which should be met with caution.

Cyclical sectors displayed relative weakness at the start, but just about every growth-sensitive group erased its decline by the close. Top-weighted financials (+0.2%) and technology (+0.2%) spent the bulk of the session at the bottom of the leaderboard, but dip-buyers helped the two sectors erase their losses. That being said, high-beta chipmakers finished among the laggards with the PHLX Semiconductor Index shedding 0.3% after Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 2.09, -0.38) lowered its Q2 revenue guidance due to weaker than expected PC demand. For its part, AMD surrendered 15.4%.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the materials sector (-0.3%) spent the day behind other sectors while another commodity-related group-energy (+0.9%)-settled among the leaders. The energy sector outperformed while crude oil struggled to stay near its flat line after yesterday's 7.8% dive. WTI crude settled lower by 0.4% at $52.33/bbl, but climbed into the green in electronic trading.

Also of note, industrials (+0.8%) played a significant role in the turnaround with transport stocks leading the way. The Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 1.1% with all but three names ending in the green. Kansas City Southern (KSU 94.40, +2.75) spiked 3.0% after being upgraded to 'Buy' at UBS while Con-way (CNW 36.87, -0.16) was the weakest DJTA component, falling 0.4%.

Over on the countercyclical side, health care (+0.4%) and telecom services (+0.5%) ended with modest gains while consumer staples (+2.0%) and utilities (+2.5%) outperformed throughout the session.

Interestingly, the rate-sensitive utilities sector climbed into the afternoon even as selling in the Treasury market pressured the 10-yr note from its morning high. Still, the benchmark note ended in the green with its yield down three basis points at 2.26%.

Today's trading volume was heavier than usual with more than 950 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data released this morning included Trade Balance and JOLTS:

The U.S. trade deficit increased by $1.20 billion in May from April's downwardly revised $40.70 billion (from $40.90 billion) to $41.90 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to $42.50 billion
The goods deficit increased $1.20 billion in May from April's $60.30 billion to $61.50 billion while the services surplus was virtually unchanged at $19.60 billion
The May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.376 million from a revised rate of 5.109 million (from 5.367 million)

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, the FOMC Minutes from the June meeting will be reported at 14:00 ET, and the Consumer Credit report for May (Briefing.com consensus $18.20 billion) will cross at 15:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +5.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.6% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD

DJ30 +93.33 NASDAQ +5.52 SP500 +12.58 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1185/1.97 bln/1896 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1850/963.4 mln/1255

11:35 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (104) outpacing new highs (11) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: CAG, DIS, DNKN, EA, HOLX, HSP, LLY, MPC, NKE, SKX, VLO

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, ACAS, APA, AR, ATI, AUY, AVP, AXP, BABA, BBRY, BHP, CAR, CCJ, CHK, CIG, CNI, CNQ, CNW, CNX, COP, CP, CREE, CSAL, CVE, CVX, DD, DDD, DNR, DO, ECA, EMR, ERIC, ETP, FCX, FLR, FLS, FTR, GMCR, GOL, GRMN, GRPN, GSK, HES, HTZ, INTC, IRM, JOY, KATE, KLAC, KORS, MJN, MSI, MT, MU, MUR, NBL, NOK, NOV, NSC, NUE, NWS, NWSA, OI, OII, OKE, PAA, PBI, PHG, POT, PX, QCOM, QEP, RDS.A, RDS.B, RIO, RXN, SAN, SE, SID, SLW, SNDK, STX, SU, SVU, SWN, SYY, TCK, TDC, TLN, TOT, TRN, TS, TTM, TYC, URI, VALE, VALE.P, VIAB, WDC, X, XOM, XRX, YELP, YNDX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, AMJ, DBB, ECH, EGPT, ENZL, EPOL, EPP, EWA, EWC, EWM, EWP, EWY, FXA, HAO, IGE, IXC, IYE, JJC, JO, KOL, PALL, PFF, PPLT, REMX, SEA, SIVR, SLV, SLX, THD, URA, XME

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 62 stocks made 52 week highs and 485 stocks made 52 week lows.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages registered gains on Thursday, but not before enduring a daylong retreat from their opening highs. The S&P 500 was up more than 1.3% at the start, but narrowed its advance to 0.2% by the closing bell.

Equity indices charged out of the gate after the overnight session featured a rebound in China's Shanghai Composite, which climbed 5.8%. The advance occurred as officials in China continued introducing measures aimed at halting the recent market plunge with reports indicating a special taskforce targeting "hostile short-sellers" will be established by China's Public Security Ministry and China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Elsewhere, optimistic-sounding remarks from top Eurozone officials also contributed to the opening strength as European Council President Donald Tusk said he expects Greece to submit concrete, realistic reform proposals today. Mr. Tusk continued, saying the proposals must be matched by an offer from creditors that focuses on debt sustainability.

The opening spike sent the S&P 500 above its 200-day moving average (2,056), but the index returned below that mark during the afternoon. Cyclical sectors displayed broad strength in the early going, but the top-weighed technology sector (-0.3%) faded from its high during the afternoon, ending among the laggards. In general, large cap names held up well, but the largest stock by market cap-Apple (AAPL 120.07, -2.50)-surrendered 2.0%, contributing to the sector's afternoon pullback. In addition, high-beta chipmakers continued their recent woes with the PHLX Semiconductor Index falling 1.3% to extend this week's decline to 5.7%.

Meanwhile, the remaining cyclical sectors also pulled back from their highs, but they managed to end the day ahead of the broader market. The financial sector (+0.8%) had the best showing, settling in the top half of its trading range. The sector likely drew some strength from higher market rates as Treasuries retreated throughout the day with the 10-yr yield jumping 11 basis points to 2.31%.

Also of note, the industrial sector (+0.4%) finished among the leaders thanks to relative strength among transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average rose 0.6% to narrow this week's loss to 0.9%. JB Hunt (JBHT 84.02, +1.77) was a standout performer, rallying 2.2% after Longbow upgraded the stock to 'Buy' from 'Neutral.'

With the Q2 earnings season about to heat up, investors received the first few reports with Alcoa (AA 10.59, +0.09) climbing 0.9% after reporting a bottom-line miss on better than expected revenue. The company reaffirmed its global aluminum demand growth forecast of 6.0%.

Over on the countercyclical side, the consumer staples sector (+0.1%) ended among the laggards with PepsiCo (PEP 94.59, -1.02) surrendering 1.1% despite beating estimates and raising its earnings growth forecast.

Despite the higher finish, there were plenty of investors seeking downside protection today with the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 19.91, +0.25) climbing above yesterday's session high.

Today's participation was ahead of average with more than 800 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to weekly Initial Claims, which increased to 297,000 for the week ending July 4 from an upwardly revised 282,000 (from 281,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decrease to 276,000. Today's reading represented the highest level since the end of February when claims briefly surpassed 300,000.

The Department of Labor reported that there were no special factors that impacted the latest claims reading, but it is possible that the Independence Day holiday factored into the increase.

Tomorrow, the Wholesale Inventories report for May will be released at 10:00 ET (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%).


Nasdaq Composite +3.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.4% YTD
S&P 500 -0.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.5% YTD

DJ30 +33.20 NASDAQ +12.64 SP500 +4.63 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1919/1.71 bln/1050 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1777/806.2 mln/1298 3:45 pm :

WTI crude oil futures rise after five consecutive days of losses, ending the day +$1.16 to $52.78/barrel
In other energy, Aug natural gas rose $0.04 today to $2.72/MMBtu
Metals were mixed today
Aug gold fell $3.90 to $1159.60/oz, Sept silver rose $0.015 to $15.35/oz, while Sept copper gained $0.04 to $2.54/lb

2:15 pm QLogic (-21%) leading semiconductors (SMH -0.5%) lower after cutting Q1 guidance; chip stocks extend break down a five month low (QLGC) :

QLGC is -21% at a 9 month low after lowering Q1 guidance this morning: EPS to $0.16-0.17 from $0.23-0.27 vs. $0.25 Consensus; rev to $113 mln from $124-132 mln vs. $128.3 mln consensusCo cited lower than expected demand due to general weakness in the Company's traditional enterprise server and storage markets, and a build-up of inventory at certain of its OEM customers due to a slower next-generation server transition in enterprise environments. Last year HPQ accounted for 27% of rev with Dell at 17% and IBM at 11%.Semiconductors (SMH -0.5%) are the second weakest sector today (after Utilities XLU -1.2%) and are trading at a five month low after breaking through its 200 day moving average earlier in the week. The SMH is nearing the $52 level which has previously provided support. Chip stocks trading lower:IDTI -5%, IMOS -4%, SCON -4%, MXL -3.5%, ALTR -3.5% (antitrust concerns over INTC merger), AMKR -3.3%, MOSY -3%, ENPH -3%, SIGM -3%, AVGO -2.5%,QUIK -2.2%, EXAR -2.2%, MLNX -2% (defended at Stifel), AMD (also warned this week) -2%, MTSN -2%, SQNS -1.8%, TXN -1.7%, MXIM -1.6%, PMCS -1.6%, CCMP -1.6%, CRUS -1.8%, CAMT -1.7%, INTC -1.5%, CAVM -1.4%, MU -1.2%, ADI -1%, EMC -1%

11:45 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (109) outpacing new highs (49) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCD, ABCW, ADMS, AEC, ANAC, AYI, BHBK, BNCN, BOOT, BSET, CACC, CLGX, CNMD, CPK, CRV, DIS, EA, ESNT, EVI, FL, GKNT, GME, GNCMA, GWRE, HSP, JNP, LEN.B, MKTX, MYCC, NEO, NGHC, NVAX, NVR, OMG, PGR, PLL, PSCC, RARE, RE, RRGB, SIXD, SNA, SREV, TPX, TYL, ULTA, VIRT, WSFS, WST

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACV, ADAT, AEZS, AGI, AHC, AIRM, AIXG, ALLT, AMD, AQXP, ASTI, AUY, AXON, BIOA, BIOD, BLT, CAE, CALX, CAR, CH, CIG, CLW, CNS, CP, CRDS, CUI, DCI, DDC, DDD, DRWI, DTEA, EGO, ENPH, EOX, EVAL, EVY, FELP, FOR, FTEK, FTR, GALT, GIGM, GLPW, GOL, GWR, HMY, HTZ, IDN, IIIN, INTX, INVE, IPI, JASN, JOY, KRO, LINC, LOR, MEI, MILL, MKTO, MNTX, MOLG, MU, MVO, NATH, NFEC, NFG, NJV, NRG, NRP, NTAP, NTL, NTN, OESX, OFG, PAAS, PBM, PGH, PLPC, PNX, POT, PPT, PRI, PSUN, QUAD, RAS, RDEN, RNWK, RYAM, SLW, SMT, SRT, SVM, SVU, SZC, TGD, TKR, TTHI, TYPE, UNIS, URRE, VII, VLT, VMEM, VPCO, WG, WHLR, XBIT, XRA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: PALL, PPLT

8:06 am QLogic lowers Q1 guidance on lower demand from traditional enterprise server and storage markets and OEM inventory build with certain customers (QLGC) :

Co lowers Q1 guidance: EPS to $0.16-0.17 from $0.23-0.27 vs. $0.25 Consensus; rev to $113 mln from $124-132 mln vs. $128.3 mln consensus. The preliminary results reflect lower than expected demand due to general weakness in the Company's traditional enterprise server and storage markets, and a build-up of inventory at certain of its OEM customers due to a slower next-generation server transition in enterprise environments.

8:00 am Cree acquires Arkansas Power Electronics International; terms not disclosed (CREE) : Co announces the acquisition of APEI, a global leader in power modules and power electronics applications. Under the terms of the agreement, Cree will acquire APEI in a merger transaction. The transaction is not targeted to have a material impact on Cree's fiscal 2016 earnings.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market is two-for-two this week as it strung together another winning session on Tuesday, bolstered by a variety of factors that included some enthusiasm for potential M&A activity after The Wall Street Journal reported its sources claimed Tsinghua Group, a Chinese state-owned company, is preparing a $23 billion, or $21.00 per share, offer to acquire Micron Technology (MU 19.61, +2.00, +11.4%).

Micron's gain helped spearhead a 1.1% gain in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index and also added some luster to the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.4%), which performed in-line with the broader market.

Once again, there was some solid leadership from large-cap components, namely Google (GOOG 561.10, +14.55, +2.7%), Seagate Technology (STX 47.61, +1.33, +2.9%), and Sandisk (SNDK 55.49, +1.84, +3.4%), which rallied in response to the takeover speculation surrounding Micron.

Intel (INTC 29.65, -0.08, -0.3%), which reports its quarterly results after Wednesday's close, was a notable laggard along with Apple (AAPL 125.61, -0.05, -0.04%).

The Intel report will be a focal point on Wednesday, but leading up to the report all eyes and ears will be concentrated on Fed Chair Yellen's semiannual monetary policy report before the House Financial Services Committee at 10:00 a.m. That testimony will follow China's Q2 GDP report, which will be a driver of overnight action.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Applied Materials (AMAT 18.89, -0.42, -2.2%): Company hosted its 2015 Analyst Meeting, providing an update to the company's strategy for generating profitable growth. The company introduced its 2018 financial model targeting non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.00, assuming global wafer fab equipment spending in the $33.5 billion range.The key focal points in the presentation included: (1) Delivering profitable growth with highly differentiated materials engineering products and services (2) Gaining share in the fastest growing areas of the semiconductor equipment market and (3) Addressing more technology inflections than any other equipment company.

Computer Sciences (CSC 67.33, -0.04, -0.1%): Announced filing of form 10 for planned spin-off of U.S. Public Sector Business; Transaction expected to close by October 2015. The intent to separate CSC into two companies -- one to serve public sector clients in the U.S. and one to serve commercial and government clients globally -- was announced on May 19. The spin-off of the public sector business will be effected through a one-for-one distribution of the new entity's stock to CSC shareholders, and will include a special dividend of $10.50 per share at closing.

Electronic Arts (EA 72.25, -1.29, -1.8%): Comcast confirms partnering with Electronic Arts to develop an all new service that brings HD gaming experiences to the TV via X1

Jabil Circuit (JBL 20.50, +0.14, +0.7%): Company announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the management board of Saigon Hi-Tech Park in Vietnam. The agreement will allow the company to expand its current operation in the hi-tech park. The new facility, slated for groundbreaking in 2017, will focus on high-volume production of computing, storage, networking, telecommunications, automotive, digital home, mobility, point of sale, printing, industrial and energy sectors.

KLA-Tencor (KLAC 55.63, -0.69, -1.2%): Announced increase in its quarterly dividend to $0.52/share from $0.50/share

Micron (MU 19.61, +2.00, +11.4%): The Wall Street Journal reported that its sources said Tsinghua Unigroup, a state-owned Chinese company, is preparing to make a $23 billion, or $21.00 per share, offer to acquire Micron. Reuters cited an MU spokesman as denying that an offer was received. Early analyst reaction cast some doubt on the potential for the deal to materialize based on a belief that such an offer would be too low, opportunistic, and could face challenges from regulators.

Oracle (ORCL 40.78, -0.02, -0.1%): Said that on July 9, 2015, a federal court dismissed Rimini Street and Seth Ravin's claim that Oracle engaged in 'copyright misuse' through its software licenses. Additionally, the Court rejected Rimini's attempt to exclude Oracle's damages expert from testifying at trial in the first of the two cases between the companies. In that case, Oracle is suing Rimini for $209 million in lost profits. Trial begins September 14, 2015.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Check Point Software (CHKP 80.12, +0.18, +0.2%): Expanded its collaboration with VMware (VMW 84.31, +0.51, +0.6%) to extend security to enterprise private cloud environments through a new software-defined data center offering.

Freescale Semiconductor (FSL 38.82, +1.16, +3.1%): Announced a pre-certified Thread networking stack, compliant to the R1.0 specification recently released to Thread Group members, which will usher in a new level of compelling solutions for the connected home.

Newport (NEWP 18.27, +0.06, +0.3%): Reaffirmed guidance in presentation slides, saying it sees a year-over-year increase in Q2 (Jun) EPS and revenues of $154-161 million. Newport reported Q2 EPS of $0.34 last year. Company said it is optimistic about 2015 and beyond.

Twitter (TWTR 36.72, +0.94, +2.6%): There was some takeover speculation in Twitter, but Bloomberg TV later reported that this story was a fake.

Analyst Action:

Accenture (ACN 100.74, +0.19, +0.2%): downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird; target $110

Amazon.com (AMZN 465.57, +10.00, +2.2%): upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS

EMC (EMC 25.12, -0.83, -3.2%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Summit Research; target to $26 from $34

First Solar (FSLR 45.81, -0.20, -0.4%): resumed with an Overweight at JP Morgan... upgraded to Buy at Standpoint Research; target $60

Intel (INTC 29.64, -0.09, -0.3%): downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Bernstein

Micron (MU 19.61, +2.00, +11.4%): upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley

Visa (V 70.10, +0.58, +0.8%): target raised to $81 from $77 at Bernstein -- Top Pick

4:11 pm Mattson says that it has shipped its 100th plasma etch system since introducing its first etch product in 2009 (MTSN) :

4:09 pm Aehr Test Systems also announced that Gary Larson VP of Finance/CFO plans to retire effective Sept 8; intends to name Corp Controller Ken Spink to serve as interim CFO (AEHR) : Spink will assume these responsibilities upon the effectiveness of Mr. Larson's retirement and will work with Mr. Larson in transitioning these responsibilities.

4:04 pm Aehr Test Systems reports Q4 EPS of ($0.13) vs ($0.12) year ago on revs -10% y/y to $1.8 mln (no estimates); fiscal year-end backlog +100% y/y to $12 mln (AEHR) :

4:10 pm : The major average registered their fourth consecutive advance on Tuesday with the S&P 500 climbing 0.5%. The benchmark index reclaimed its 50-day moving average (2,100) at the start of the session while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) outperformed throughout the trading day.

Equity indices began near their flat lines after overnight reports from Vienna revealed that P5+1 negotiators agreed to a nuclear deal with Iranian representatives. The news had little impact on the market, but crude oil was down about 2.0% overnight amid expectations that global oil supplies will increase once Iran begins selling its oil on the open market. However, an intraday rebound resulted in crude oil climbing 1.7% to $53.06/bbl. Accordingly, the energy sector (+0.8%) climbed alongside crude oil to end the day among the leaders, while only the health care sector (+1.0%) had a better showing.

The influential health care space finished the day well ahead of other countercyclical groups even though Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 99.78, -0.49) slumped 0.5% despite reporting a two-cent beat. However, biotechnology filled the void with iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 387.94, +8.79) spiking 2.3%, which contributed to the relative strength in the Nasdaq.

Furthermore, high-beta chipmakers also helped the Nasdaq stay ahead of the broader market with the PHLX Semiconductor Index rallying 1.1%. Micron (MU 19.61, +2.00) was the standout performer, soaring 11.4% after the Wall Street Journal reported Micron may have received a $21.00/share takeover offer from Tsinghua Unigroup. As for large cap tech names, Apple (AAPL 125.61, -0.05), Microsoft (MSFT 45.62, +0.08), and Oracle (ORCL 40.78, -0.02) ended near their flat lines while Google (GOOGL 584.18, +12.45) outperformed, climbing 2.2%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, financials (+0.4%) spent the day behind the broader market even though JPMorgan Chase (JPM 69.04, +0.95) and Wells Fargo (WFC 57.25, +0.51) posted respective gains of 1.4% and 0.9% in reaction to earnings. JPMorgan Chase delivered a bottom-line beat on below-consensus revenue while Wells Fargo matched earnings expectations on revenue that missed estimates.

On the downside, the utilities sector (-0.1%) was the lone decliner, narrowing its July gain to 3.6%.

Treasuries spiked in the morning following a disappointing Retail Sales report. The 10-yr note settled just below its high with the benchmark yield falling five basis points to 2.40%.

Today's participation was in-line with recent totals as 680 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Retail Sales, Import/Export Prices, and Business Inventories:

Retail sales declined 0.3% in June after increasing a downwardly revised 1.0% (from 1.2%) in May while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
The motor vehicle manufacturers reported that unit sales declined to 17.2 million SAAR in June from 17.8 million SAAR in May, which translated into a sizable 1.1% decline in sales at motor vehicles and parts dealers
Excluding motor vehicles, retail sales declined 0.1% in June after increasing a downwardly revised 0.8% (from 1.0%) in May while the consensus expected an increase of 0.5%
Core sales, which exclude motor vehicle dealers, gasoline stations, and building material and supply stores, declined 0.1% in June after increasing 0.6% in May
Export prices, excluding agriculture, decreased 0.1% in June after increasing 0.7% in the prior reading
Excluding oil, import prices decreased 0.2%, which followed last month's unchanged reading
Business inventories increased 0.3% in May after increasing an unrevised 0.4% in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
The inventory changes from manufacturers (0.0%) and merchant wholesalers (0.8%) were known prior to the release. The only new information was that retailer inventories were flat in May after increasing 0.6% in April.
Inventory declines from motor vehicle and parts retailers (-0.2%) and furniture and appliances retailers (-0.3%) were offset by increases from general merchandise stores (0.5%) and building material and supply stores (0.2%)

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while June PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and July Empire Manufacturing survey (consensus 3.5%) will both be released at 8:30 ET. Industrial Production (consensus 0.2%) and Capacity Utilization (expected 78.1%) for June will be reported at 9:15 ET while the Federal Reserve's July Beige Book will cross at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.6% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.3% YTD

DJ30 +75.90 NASDAQ +33.38 SP500 +9.35 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1814/1.55 bln/1041 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1947/679.7 mln/1092

3:35 pm :

Crude oil prices were volatile following the Iran nuclear agreement deal
Ultimately, Aug crude oil closed +$0.88 to $53.06/barrel.
Natural gas futures rallied this morning, it appeared on hot weather forecasts
Aug nat gas finished the day -$0.02 at $2.84/MMBtu
AUg gold fell $2.20 today to $1153.40/oz, while Sept silver lost $0.13 to $15.32/oz
Copper ended unchanged at $2.54/lb

11:44 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (179) outpacing new lows (67) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, ABCD, ABG, ACAD, ADMS, AFMD, AGN, AIG, ALDW, ALJ, ALK, ALLB, ALXN, AMSF, AMZN, ANAC, ANSS, ASBB, ATRA, AVOL, AYI, BIB, BKS, BMRN, BMY, BRO, BSET, BYD, CASH, CBZ, CCL, CFNL, CGIX, CHCO, CHE, CHRS, CLFD, CLGX, CMN, COKE, CPHD, CRV, CS, CUBI, CUK, CVS, CXRX, CYNO, DBVT, DEPO, DNKN, DPLO, DST, DVAX, DY, EBAY, EEFT, EGBN, ELLI, ELNK, ERI, ESNT, ESXB, EURN, EW, FB, FCB, FISV, FIT, FRC, FRME, GAIN, GIL, GLOB, GTN, GTN.A, GUID, HALO, HAS, HCA, HF, HMPR, HOLX, HQH, HQL, HRTG, HSIC, HSP, IACI, IBB, IDI, ILMN, IMGN, INCY, ITRN, JBLU, JBSS, JLL, KMPR, LEG, LGND, LJPC, LNCE, LPNT, LXFT, MAN, MCO, MD, MDXG, MHLD, MTG, MTN, NAT, NBIX, NCLH, NGHC, NKE, NMR, NORD, NTRI, NVR, NWL, OMCL, OPB, ORLY, OSIR, PANW, PENN, PETS, PFNX, PLAY, PRTA, PSCD, Q, QADA, QLIK, QTWO, RARE, RDUS, RE, RLH, RMTI, RNST, RTRX, SBUX, SCHW, SEE, SFBS, SGU, SNA, SNPS, SPNS, SQBG, SREV, SSNC, STJ, STMP, STNG, SYN, TAST, TDOC, TDY, TFX, THG, THOR, TOWN, TPX, TREE, TSO, TWX, TXRH, TYL, UHS, ULTA, UVV, VLO, WD, WWAV, ZGNX

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AIXG, ALTV, AP, ASTI, AXON, BBEP, BBK, BBN, BEP, BIS, BTZ, BXLT, CHCI, CIG.C, CKP, CRDS, CVR, EIP, ELTK, ENOC, EPAX, EVO, FHCO, GMCR, GRAM, GWR, HTGM, IFMI, KBIO, KEM, LINC, LPL, LTRE, MFM, MILL, MTR, MYM, NAVI, NBD, NETE, NPP, NTRA, NVG, OAKS, PBT, PDBC, PERI, PGH, PKE, PMT, PNF, QUAD, ROYL, SFY, SMT, SSTK, STRI, SXCP, THTI, TTF, TTM, UNXL, VNCE, VXUP, WHZ, XBIT, ZBIO

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN, IBB, XBI, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: VXZ

8:32 am KLA-Tencor increases quarterly dividend to $0.52/share from $0.50/share (KLAC) :

6:51 am Micron remains higher by 12% on reports of $21 buyout offer from China's Tsinghua Unigroup, while MU denies receipt of an offer (MU) :

Early analyst reaction casts some doubt on the potential for the deal to materialize, suggesting the offer is too low, opportunistic and could face challenges from regulators.
Given the low price and initial denial from MU, it is also likely that MU management would not accept such a deal.

6:08 am Chipmos Technology announces Board authorization for a $25 mln share repurchase program (IMOS) :

2:34 am Applied Materials targets non-GAAP EPS of $2.00 in 2018 (AMAT) : Co hosted its 2015 Analyst Meeting, providing an update to the company's strategy for generating profitable growth.

The company introduced its 2018 financial model targeting non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.00, assuming global wafer fab equipment spending in the $33.5 billion range.
The key focal points in the presentation included:
Delivering profitable growth with highly differentiated materials engineering products and services
Gaining share in the fastest growing areas of the semiconductor equipment market
Addressing more technology inflections than any other equipment company

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From Briefing.com: The stock market tried to make it three-for-three this week but ultimately failed on account of some late-day selling pressure that arose amid reports of violent protests in Athens leading up to the Greek parliament's vote on the Eurogroup's austerity program.

That news came at the end of a very busy day of news, which featured among other things Fed Chair Yellen reiterating in her semiannual monetary policy testimony that a rate hike would be appropriate later this year if the economy evolves as the Federal Reserve expects.

Aided by a 0.9% gain in shares of Apple (AAPL 126.82, +1.21), the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.1%) managed to outperform the S&P 500 (-0.1%) by a small margin. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-0.6%), which outperformed on Tuesday, faded on Wednesday as talk of regulatory roadblocks took some of the shine off the speculation that a Chinese state-owned company may soon make an offer to acquire Micron Technology (MU 18.89, -0.72, -3.7%).

Notable news items from sector components included the following:
Alliance Data (ADS 300.03, -4.87, -1.6%): Provided an update on its Card Services segment for June, saying average receivables totaled $ 11,088,149 (in thousands). Delinquency rate as of June 30 was 4.1%.

Apple (AAPL 126.82, +1.21, +0.9%): Introduced the newest version of its iPod touch, starting at $199. The ultra-portable iPod touch features a new 8 megapixel iSight camera for beautiful photos, an improved FaceTime HD camera, the Apple-designed A8 chip with 10 times faster graphics performance, and improved fitness tracking with the M8 motion coprocessor. The new iPod touch starts at $199 (US) for the 16GB model, $249 (US) for 32GB and $299 (US) for 64GB, and the entire iPod family in its five new colors is available starting today through the Apple Online Store.

Intel (INTC 29.70, +0.05, +0.2%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.55 per share, which was ahead of analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 4.6% year/year to $13.2 bln, which was ahead of estimates. Gross margin was 62.5% versus guidance of 62%, plus or minus a couple of percentage points. For Q3, sees revenues of $13.8-14.8 bln, the midpoint of which is above analysts' average expectation, and gross margin of 63 percent, plus or minus a couple of percentage points. For FY15, lowers revenue guidance to down ~1% (from flat year-over-year) or ~$55.3 bln, yet that is still above analysts' average expectation. Gross margin percentage is raised to 61.5%, plus or minus a couple of percentage points, from 61%. Capex was lowered to $7.2-8.2 bln from $8.2-9.2 bln.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 26.15, +0.09, +0.4%): Appointed Bob Worral as SVP and Chief Information Officer Worrall joins Juniper Networks from NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA 19.75, -0.14, -0.7%), where he served as senior vice president and CIO. Company also announced that Susan Lovegren has been appointed senior vice president of human resources.

Microsoft (MSFT 45.78, +0.16, +0.4%): Introduced new PhotoDNA cloud service

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Amazon.com (AMZN 461.10, -4.47, -1.0%): Reported a Prime Day update, saying 'Prime Day peak order rates have already surpassed 2014 Black Friday'

ASML (ASML 106.69, +3.62, +3.4%): Before Wednesday's open, reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of 0.86 per share, which was above analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 0.6% year/year to 1.65 bln, which was also ahead of estimates. For Q3, sees revenues of EUR1.5-1.6 bln, which is ahead of analysts' average expectation, and gross margin of around 45%.

Nokia (NOK 6.65, -0.08, -1.3%): HERE, a Nokia company, announced that along with partners in the public and private sector it is forming the Open Mobile Ticketing Alliance, a one-of-a kind effort to develop global standards that would allow people to buy public transit tickets from a single app on their mobile devices in cities worldwide. The aim of the Open Mobile Ticketing Alliance is to enable the vision of 'Register once, travel anywhere' by developing open, interoperable standards with payment vendors and transit operators.

VMware (VMW 84.17, -0.14, -0.1%): Announced the VMware vCloud for NFV platform has been selected by Internet Initiative Japan (IIJI) to support a new Network Functions Virtualization virtual CPE service.

Analyst Action:
Amazon.com (AMZN 461.10, -4.47, -1.0%): target raised to $505 from $450 at Monness Crespi & Hardt... target raised to $500 from $490 at Nomura

eBay (EBAY 63.44, -0.15, -0.2%): target raised to $71 from $62 at The Benchmark Company

Electronic Arts (EA 72.50, +0.25, +0.4%): target raised to $79 from $72 at Piper Jaffray

Google A (GOOGL 583.96, -0.22, -0.04%): target raised to $710 from $614 at B. Riley & Co.

Intel (INTC 29.70, +0.05, +0.2%): target lowered to $35 from $45 at Jefferies -- Removed from Franchise Pick List

LinkedIn (LNKD 218.54, +4.66, +2.2%): upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays

NetApp (NTAP 31.14, +0.25, +0.8%): upgraded to Sector Weight from Underweight at Pacific Crest

Seagate Technology (STX 47.30, -0.31, -0.7%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum... target lowered to $64 from $67 at Maxim Group

SINA (SINA 42.22, -2.86, -6.3%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank

Western Digital (WDC 78.69, +0.33, +0.4%): upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum...target lowered to $121 from $125 at Maxim Group

Yahoo! (YHOO 38.38, -0.25, -0.7%): target lowered to $50 from $59 at Sun Trust Robonson Humphrey

4:33 pm Semtech announces a worldwide reduction in force to align operating expenses with business conditions; expects to reduce the total number of employees by ~8% (SMTC) : Co announced a worldwide reduction in force to align operating expenses with business conditions and leverage recent infrastructure investments. The actions, primarily targeted at sales, general and administrative expenses, are expected to reduce the total number of employees by ~eight percent.

Co expects to reduce its current annualized operating expenses by approximately $20.0 million once the reduction plan is fully executed. Semtech expects to record total charges related to these actions of approximately $3.5 million during the second and third quarters of fiscal year 2016. Charges expected to be settled in cash. Co stated that "Given our recent revenue decline driven primarily by weak Korean smartphone demand, we have made the very difficult decision to reduce our headcount and operating expenses."
4:13 pm Intel beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs towards high end of expectations; lowers FY15 rev slightly, above estimates, raises gross margin slightly, lowers cap-ex (INTC) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.55 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.50; revenues fell 4.6% year/year to $13.2 bln vs the $13.05 bln consensus. Gross margin 62.5% vs. 62% +/- couple % guidanceCo issues guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $13.8-14.8 bln vs. $14.07 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margin percentage: 63 percent, plus or minus a couple of percentage points.Co issues upside guidance for FY15, lowers FY15 revs to down ~1% (from flat YoY) to ~$55.3 bln vs. $54.7 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margin percentage raised to 61.5%, plus or minus a couple of percentage points, from 61%; lowers cap-ex to $7.2-8.2 bln from $8.2-9.2 bln. "We expect the launches of Skylake, Microsoft's Windows 10 and new OEM systems will bring excitement to client computing in the second half of 2015."
4:10 pm : The major averages snapped their four-day win streak on Wednesday as the market slipped into the red during afternoon action. It is worth noting that the late slip occurred amid reports of protesters clashing with riot gear-clad police in Syntagma Square in Athens ahead of this evening's parliamentary vote on the debt agreement with the eurozone. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% to narrow its weekly gain to 1.5%.

Equity indices started the day near their flat lines, seeing little reaction to a busy overnight session that featured the release of China's Q2 GDP (+7.0% year-over-year; consensus 6.9%) and news that the Bank of Japan lowered its GDP forecast for the fiscal year to 1.7% from 2.0%.

Stocks climbed out of the gate, but the S&P 500 could not extend too far above its flat line as most sectors displayed early losses; however, relative strength in financials (+0.8%), health care (+0.1%), and technology (+0.1%) kept the market in positive territory into the afternoon.

The financial sector held the lead throughout the session thanks to support from three large components. Specifically, Bank of America (BAC 17.68, +0.55) PNC (PNC 98.32, +0.82), and U.S. Bancorp (USB 45.53, +1.65) gained between 0.8% and 3.8% after reporting earnings. Bank of America and PNC reported better than expected results while U.S. Bancorp's report was in-line with estimates.

Unlike financials, the other two pockets of early strength could not hold gains into the afternoon. The health care sector ended right below its flat line, which masked relative strength in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 390.76, +2.82) added 0.7% after being up as much as 2.3% in the early going. Still, the industry group finished ahead of the broader market thanks to a 7.0% spike in Celgene (CELG 131.39, +8.54) after the company raised its guidance and announced the acquisition of Receptos (RCPT 230.08, +22.90) for $232/share in cash.

The intraday strength in biotechnology kept the Nasdaq Composite in the lead, but the index slipped behind the S&P 500 during afternoon action. The top-weighted tech sector (+0.1%) held up relatively well thanks to a 1.0% gain in the shares of Apple (AAPL 126.82, +1.21), but high-beta chipmakers struggled with the PHLX Semiconductor Index falling 0.6%. Industry heavyweight-Intel (INTC 29.70, +0.05)-fared better than its counterparts, adding 0.2% ahead of its quarterly report.

Elsewhere, the energy sector (-1.6%) spent the day behind the remaining groups, dropping to lows in late afternoon action. The growth-sensitive group was pressured by crude oil, which fell 3.1% to $51.40/bbl.

In all likelihood, greenback strength was a headwind for oil as the Dollar Index (97.15, +0.50) climbed 0.5%. The index spiked above its overnight high after the release of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's prepared remarks to the House Financial Services Committee. The testimony was largely uneventful with Ms. Yellen reiterating the Fed's intention to begin raising the fed funds rate in 2015 if economic conditions hold up.

Treasuries set their lows after the release of Chair Yellen's prepared remarks before advancing into the afternoon with the 10-yr yield falling five basis points to 2.35%.

Today's trading volume was ahead of totals observed earlier in the week as more than 750 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included PPI, Empire Manufacturing survey, Industrial Production, and the MBA Mortgage Index:


Producer prices increased 0.4% in June after increasing 0.5% in May while the Briefing.com Consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
Gasoline prices increased 4.3% in June after a 17.0% gain in May
Food prices rose 0.6% in June, down from a 0.8% increase in May
Excluding food and energy, core PPI increased 0.3% in June after increasing 0.1% in May while the consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for July registered a reading of 3.9, which was above the prior month's reading of -2.0 and above the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which was pegged at 3.0
Industrial production increased 0.3% in June after declining 0.2% in May while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
That was the first increase since a 0.2% gain in March, and the largest increase since a 1.1% gain in November 2014
The increase in industrial production came from a combination of warmer temperatures and higher energy prices, not a pickup in demand from the manufacturing sector
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 1.9% to follow last week's 4.6% increase

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 283K) will be reported at 8:30 ET while the Philadelphia Fed Survey for July (consensus 12.0) and July NAHB Housing Market Index (expected 59) will both be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.1% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.3% YTD

DJ30 -3.41 NASDAQ -5.95 SP500 -1.55 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1070/1.54 bln/1903 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1238/750.7 mln/1851 3:40 pm :

The dollar index traded higher today, which weighed on commodities such as oil, gold, silver and copper futures.
WTI crude oil futures slid lower today, ultimately ending -$1.66 at $51.40/barrel
Natural gas futures saw a boost, which was largely driven by weather forecasts. Aug nat gas finished today's session +$0.08 at $2.92/MMBtu
Aug gold lost $6.10 today to $1147.30/oz, while Sept silver fell $0.27 to $15.05/oz
Sept copper lost $0.02 to close at $2.52/lb

4:10 pm JDS Uniphase announces key dates regarding the separation of its Communications and Commercial Optical Products business segment (JDSU) : Co announced several key dates in connection with the separation of its Communications and Commercial Optical Products business segment as a separate public company to be named Lumentum Holdings Inc., and the special dividend distribution of ~80.1% of Lumentum's common stock to JDSU shareholders.

For every five shares of JDSU common stock held, JDSU shareholders will receive one share of Lumentum common stock. The special dividend distribution is expected to be effective at 12:01 am on Saturday, August 1, 2015. The distribution will be paid on the first trading day thereafter, Monday, August 3. The distribution of Lumentum common stock will complete the formal separation of CCOP from JDSU. After the distribution, Lumentum will be an independent, publicly-traded company
11:34 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (209) outpacing new lows (96) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAN, ABCD, ACAD, ACHC, ADMS, AEO, AFMD, AGN, AIG, AIZ, ALXN, AMAG, AVY, BBP, BCRX, BEAT, BIB, BIO, BKU, BMRN, BMY, BNCL, BOFI, BOOT, BRKL, BYD, CARA, CBM, CBSH, CBU, CBZ, CELG, CFNL, CGIX, CHCO, CHDN, CHE, CIVI, CLGX, CMRX, CNXC, COF, COKE, CPHD, CPRX, CRIS, CRWN, CTRX, CUBI, CVBF, CVS, DBVT, DEPO, DIS, DPLO, DWRE, EEFT, EFOI, EFSC, EGBN, EGRX, ELLI, ENH, EROS, ESNT, EURN, EW, EXPR, FB, FCB, FISV, FIT, FLML, FNB, FNBC, FOLD, FRC, FRME, FULT, FV, GD, GLOB, GNRT, GPI, GTN, GTN.A, GUID, HAIN, HALO, HCC, HDS, HFWA, HIG, HOMB, HPY, HQH, HQL, HRTX, HSIC, HTBK, IBB, IDI, ILMN, INCY, INN, INSM, ITCI, JRVR, KMPR, LION, LKQ, LNCE, LPNT, MAIN, MAN, MD, MDCO, MHK, MIDD, MKL, MMAC, MSCI, MTG, MTN, NAT, NBIX, NNA, NVAX, NVO, NWBO, ONFC, OPB, OPHT, PBH, PEGA, PFNX, PGC, PLAY, PLMT, PNFP, PRTA, PSCF, PTLA, Q, QADA, QGEN, QLIK, QQXT, RARE, RCPT, RDUS, REGN, RLH, RLI, RMTI, RNST, SASR, SBCF, SBNY, SCHW, SCL, SERV, SFBS, SGEN, SNPS, SPF, SQBG, SRNE, SSB, STBA, STBZ, STFC, STI, STNG, SUPN, SUSQ, SYF, SYN, TAI, TDG, TDY, TECH, THOR, TLMR, TMK, TPX, TREE, TSS, TTPH, TWOU, TWX, TYL, UBIO, UBSI, UNH, USAT, USCR, VGR, WAL, WD, WSBC, WSFS, WST, WTBA, XNCR, XON, YDKN, ZGNX, ZSPH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAU, ABX, ACV, AHC, AIXG, AP, ASA, ATI, AUY, AVP, BIS, BLT, BSI, CAFD, CBK, CKP, CMU, CPHR, CPPL, CXE, DDC, DLB, DMLP, DNN, DRWI, EGO, EMC, ENOC, ERA, EXFO, EZPW, FNV, FSTR, GBIM, GHM, GLPW, GRAM, GSV, GWR, HHS, HTCH, I, JCAP, KB, KEM, KGC, LECO, LTRE, MGH, MGRC, MHI, MJN, MNTX, NATH, NML, NOA, NRP, NWPX, NXP, NYLD, OAKS, OII, P, PCH, PKE, PKX, PMD, PMT, PPSI, RFP, ROYL, SGI, SHG, SHLD, SLH, SLW, STB, STRI, SUN, SWSH, SXCP, TKR, TMST, UNXL, USAP, VET, VGZ, VIAB, VII, WF, WY, XBIT, XCRA, XRA, YLCO, ZBIO

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN, IBB, IYH, XBI, XLV

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: FXA, FXC, GLD, IAU, PPLT

3:59 am ASML beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (ASML) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of 0.86 per share, 0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of 0.82; revenues rose 0.6% year/year to 1.65 bln vs the 1.61 bln consensus.

Q2 Gross Margin: 45.6%Guidance
Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of EUR1.5-1.6 bln vs. 1.49 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co guides Q3 gross margin of around 45%
3:29 am Nokia unit HERE launches Open Mobile Ticketing Alliance (NOK) : HERE, a Nokia company, announced that along with partners in the public and private sector it is forming the Open Mobile Ticketing Alliance, a one-of-a kind effort to develop global standards that would allow people to buy public transit tickets from a single app on their mobile devices in cities worldwide. The aim of the Open Mobile Ticketing Alliance is to enable the vision of 'Register once, travel anywhere' by developing open, interoperable standards with payment vendors and transit operators.

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From Briefing.com: It was a slow day for news overall, but a very busy day for news regarding Google (GOOG 672.93, +93.08, +16.1%), which soared 16.0% after its better-than-expected second quarter earnings report. That move added about $32 billion in market capitalization to the stock and had remnants of performance chasing by fund managers who distanced themselves over the last 52 weeks when GOOG shares hadn't done much of anything. Google A shares (GOOGL 699.62, +97.84), which carry voting status, jumped 16.3% and boosted their market capitalization by $28 billion.

Including Friday's gain, GOOG has risen 30% since its low on July 7 (i.e. just eight sessions ago).

Google made a huge difference for the broader market, evidenced by the fact that the S&P 500 eked out a 0.1% gain despite nine of its 10 sectors finishing with a loss. The lone winner of course was the S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.8%). That gain, however, belies an otherwise weak showing that saw 40 of the sector's 66 components lose ground on the day.

Facebook (FB 94.97, +4.12, +4.5%) rode Google's coattails, as did Yahoo! (YHOO 39.68, +0.77, +2.0%). Combined with a 0.9% gain in Apple (AAPL 129.62, +1.11, +0.9%), the sector had enough core strength to muscle its way to a nice gain that left it up 5.3% for the week and 5.2% year-to-date.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Adobe Systems (ADBE 82.10, -0.42, -0.5%): SEC filing showed Value Act Holdings L.P. sold 1,693,000 shares at $82.06-82.45 worth ~$139.2 mln

KLA-Tencor (KLAC 51.93, -0.65, -1.2%): Disclosed details from its July 14 analyst presentation, noting its sees Q4 bookings of $550-750 mln, revenue of $710-790 mln, and adjusted EPS of $0.78-1.02. Those ranges are all consistent with the guidance provided on June 26, 2015.

Xerox (XRX 10.82, +0.22, +2.0%): Announced changes in its Government Healthcare Solutions strategy resulting from review of future market opportunities Company said it will discontinue investment in and sales of the Xerox Integrated Eligibility System in order to concentrate more of its future software development efforts on the existing Health Enterprise implementations. As a result of the strategic change, Xerox will record a pre-tax non-cash software impairment charge of approximately $145 million (approximately $90 million after-tax or 8 cents per share) in its second-quarter 2015 results. It now expects second-quarter 2015 GAAP earnings from continuing operations of 9 to 11 cents per share, which is below the company's prior guidance. Excluding the impairment charge, adjusted earnings per share is expected to be in line with the company's prior guidance of 21 to 23 cents.

Analyst Action:

Google A (GOOGL 699.62, +97.84, +16.3%): target raised to $620 from $570 at Pivotal Research Group... Axiom Capital upgrades GOOGL to Buy from Hold and raises their tgt to $850 from $615... target raised to $750 from $600 at Rosenblatt

eBay (EBAY 66.29, +0.70, +1.1%): target raised to $70 from $65 at Mizuho... target raised to $62 from $57 at RBC Capital Mkts

Fairchild Semi (FCS 15.24, +0.17, +1.1%): upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at FBR Capital; tgt $20

Weekly Recap - Week ending 17-Jul-15The major averages finished an upbeat week on a mixed note with the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) posting a solid gain while the Dow (-0.2%) and S&P 500 (+0.1%) underperformed throughout the day. For the week, the Nasdaq spiked 4.3% while the Dow and S&P 500 climbed 1.8% and 2.4%, respectively.

Equity indices diverged at the start with the Nasdaq Composite receiving a boost from Google (GOOGL 699.62, +97.84) after the index heavyweight reported better than expected earnings. The stock soared 16.3% to a new record high, lifting the Nasdaq Composite to a fresh record close of its own (5,210.14). Furthermore, Google underpinned the technology sector (+1.8%) which was the only group that spent the entire day in positive territory.

Meanwhile, many other technology components struggled with high-beta chipmakers showing relative weakness throughout the day. The PHLX Semiconductor Index was down as much as 1.0%, but narrowed its loss to 0.2% by the close. For the week, the chipmaker index added 1.2% while the technology sector spiked 5.3%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, consumer discretionary (-0.2%) and financials (-0.2%) lagged throughout the day, which kept the S&P 500 below its flat line into the afternoon. Similarly, the energy sector (-1.1%) spent the day behind other groups as crude oil marked a new low for the week ($50.16/bbl) before erasing its loss by the pit close to end at $50.88/bbl.

Staying on the growth-sensitive side, the industrial sector (unch) slipped behind the S&P 500 during afternoon action after several sector components reported earnings. Transport stocks outperformed with Kansas City Southern (KSU 98.60, +6.05) spiking 6.5% after reporting a one-cent beat while JB Hunt (JBHT 85.69, -0.10) shed 0.1% after reporting a two-cent miss. For its part, the broader Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 0.7% to extend its weekly advance to 1.1%.

Moving to large cap industrial components, General Electric (GE 27.24, +0.20) and Honeywell (HON 105.54, +1.97) registered respective gains of 0.7% and 1.9% after the former reported in-line results while the latter beat estimates; however, their strength could not offset losses among the likes of Boeing (BA 146.84, -1.65), Caterpillar (CAT 83.16, -0.60), and Deere (DE 96.96, -0.37).

Things did not look much better on the countercyclical side where the utilities sector lost 1.1% while consumer staples (-0.1%), health care (-0.2%), and telecom services (-0.3%) registered slimmer losses.

Treasuries held modest gains throughout the day, ending near the middle of their trading ranges with the 10-yr yield lower by a basis point at 2.34%.

Today's participation was ahead of average as options expiration led to increased activity with more than 850 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included CPI, Housing Starts/Building Permits, and Michigan Sentiment:

The CPI increased 0.3% in June after a 0.4% increase in May while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
As expected, energy costs continued their upward move with prices rising 1.7% in June after a 4.3% increase in May
Gasoline prices made up the bulk of the increase, rising 3.4% in June after a 10.4% increase in May
Excluding food and energy, core CPI increased 0.2% in June after a 0.1% increase in May while the consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
Housing starts increased 9.8% in June from an upwardly revised 1.069 million (from 1.036 million) in May to 1.174 million while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 1.120 million
At first glance, the jump in starts looks impressive, but the entire increase came from the volatile multifamily construction sector
Multifamily construction increased 29.4% to 489,000 in June from 378,000 in May, which was the highest level since 501,000 units were started in April 1988
The University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index declined to 93.3 in the preliminary July reading from 96.5 in June while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decrease to 96.1
Consumer sentiment typically follows trends in gasoline costs, stock market movements, employment, and media reports
In this case, dire economic reports about Greece and the eurozone and some volatility in the equity market likely offset recent improvements in gasoline prices and employment conditions

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday or Tuesday.


Week in Review: Nasdaq Sets New Record High

The stock market began the trading week on an upbeat note with the S&P 500 registering the bulk of its 23-point gain shortly after the opening bell. The benchmark index padded that advance during the final hour, settling just below its 50-day moving average (2,100). Equity indices spiked at the start after lengthy weekend negotiations between Greek representatives and eurozone officials produced a framework for the third rescue package for Greece. The agreement, which includes EUR25 billion in bank recapitalization funds, was cheered by global equity markets with risk assets surging while outflows from the Treasury market weighed on the 10-yr note, sending its yield higher by three basis points to 2.43% after testing the 2.47% level in the early morning. All ten sectors ended in the green with five groups adding 1.0% or more. Heavily-weighted sectors fueled the advance with the technology sector (+1.6%) holding the lead throughout the session.

The major average registered their fourth consecutive advance on Tuesday with the S&P 500 climbing 0.5%. The benchmark index reclaimed its 50-day moving average (2,100) at the start of the session while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) outperformed throughout the trading day. Equity indices began near their flat lines after overnight reports from Vienna revealed that P5+1 negotiators agreed to a nuclear deal with Iranian representatives. The news had little impact on the market, but crude oil was down about 2.0% overnight amid expectations that global oil supplies will increase once Iran begins selling its oil on the open market. However, an intraday rebound resulted in crude oil climbing 1.7% to $53.06/bbl. Accordingly, the energy sector (+0.8%) climbed alongside crude oil to end the day among the leaders, while only the health care sector (+1.0%) had a better showing. Biotechnology led the sector higher with iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 387.94, +8.79) spiking 2.3%, which contributed to the relative strength in the Nasdaq.

The key indices snapped their four-day win streak on Wednesday as the market slipped into the red during afternoon action. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% to narrow its weekly gain to 1.5%. Equities started the day near their flat lines, seeing little reaction to a busy overnight session that featured the release of China's Q2 GDP (+7.0% year-over-year; consensus 6.9%) and news that the Bank of Japan lowered its GDP forecast for the fiscal year to 1.7% from 2.0%. Stocks climbed out of the gate, but the S&P 500 could not extend too far above its flat line as most sectors displayed early losses; however, relative strength in financials (+0.8%), health care (+0.1%), and technology (+0.1%) kept the market in positive territory into the afternoon. The financial sector held the lead throughout the session thanks to support from three large components. Specifically, Bank of America (BAC 17.68, +0.55) PNC (PNC 98.32, +0.82), and U.S. Bancorp (USB 45.53, +1.65) gained between 0.8% and 3.8% after reporting earnings. Bank of America and PNC reported better than expected results while U.S. Bancorp's report was in-line with estimates.

The stock market finished Thursday on a higher note with the Nasdaq Composite (+1.2%) settling at a new record high. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (+0.8%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) ended the day closer to their flat lines. Equity indices spiked at the start, responding to overnight strength in the futures market. Shortly after Wednesday's close, Intel (INTC 29.90, +0.21) and Netflix (NFLX 115.81, +17.68) reported better than expected results, which led to a surge in Nasdaq futures. Earnings notwithstanding, Nasdaq and S&P 500 futures received a second boost after the Greek parliament voted 229-64-6 in favor of austerity measures that will allow bailout negotiations to continue with the country expected to receive EUR86 billion in rescue funds. Furthermore, the European Central Bank, which held a policy meeting on Thursday, raised the country's allowance to Emergency Liquidity Assistance by EUR900 million, which will pave the way for Greek banks to open as soon as Monday.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17760.41 18086.45 326.04 1.8 1.5
Nasdaq 4997.70 5210.14 212.44 4.3 10.0
S&P 500 2076.62 2126.64 50.02 2.4 3.3
Russell 2000 1252.02 1267.09 15.07 1.2 5.2

3:33 pm Earnings Preview for the week of July 20 - 24 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of July 20 - 24 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - MS, HAL, GPC, SAH, LII, HAS, CALM, EXAS
After Hours - IBM, CNI, CCK, STLD, SANM, WERN, WWD, ZION, HXL, BRO

Tuesday:
Pre Market - VZ, UTX, INFY, NVS, LMT, TRV, SAP, MAN, BK, OMC, BHI, DOV, CP, HOG, ABG, PNR, FITB, RF, NVR, WSO, CFG, ATI, LXK, AMTN, WWW, EDU
After Hours - AAPL, MSFT, ACE, FTI, VMW, PKG, CMG, YHOO, HUBG, ISRG, ILMN, NAVI, GPRO, LLTC, KALU, HAWK, IBKR, IRBT

Wednesday:
Pre Market - BA, KO, EMC, WHR, AN, ABT, TMO, ITW, TEL, LAD, IPG, OC, STJ, APH, NTRS, PII, SLGN, BEAV, TUP, ARMH, JAKK, ANGI
After Hours - AXP, QCOM, TXN, AMP, WFT, DFS, NEM TSCO, URI, ESND, SNDK, FBHS, CCI, SFS, OII, VMI, PLXS, EFX, AWH, CAKE, FFIV, LOGI, DLB

Thursday:
Pre Market - WIT, GM, ABC, CMCSA, DOW, CAT, ABB, MMM, MCD, UNP, RTN, LUV, DHR, LLY, KMB, NUE, FCX, BMY, RCI, WM, GPI, VRX, RS, CELG, CAM, WCC, DGX, BSX, STM, R, DPS, DAN, FIS, SHPG, ADS, CMS, ALK, PHM, ORI, FAF, TROW, MJN, UA, NDAQ, DNKN,
After Hours - T, AMZN, FLEX, COF, SBUX, CBI, V, CB, RGA, PFG, SYK, RSG, TRN, CLS, FSL, JNPR, CA, LSTR, BCR, SWKS, SRCL, ETFC, TRIP, P, ATHN,

Friday:
Pre Market - AAL, JCI, ABBV, LEA, XRX, DTE, STT, BIIB, VFC, TEN, OCR, COL, SPG, ECA, MCO, VTR, AAN, WBC, NS, SAVE

1:42 pm OmniVision reconfirms July 23 for Special Meeting of Shareholders (OVTI) :

As previously disclosed, OmniVision is a party to a number of putative class action lawsuits related to the merger of Seagull Acquisition Corporation. On July 1, 2015, plaintiffs filed a motion seeking to enjoin the Merger until the defendants in the Litigation take certain purported corrective actions. Thereafter, OmniVision voluntarily postponed the previously announced special meeting of OmniVision stockholders in order to provide additional time for court resolution of that motion.
On July 16, 2105, the Court held a hearing on that motion. Following the hearing, the Court denied, in its entirety, plaintiffs' motion seeking to enjoin the Merger. As previously announced, the special meeting will be held on July 23, 2015.

12:12 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (270) outpacing new highs (157) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABG, AFMD, ALGN, ALGT, AMAG, AMCX, AMED, AMRB, AMWD, AMZN, ANAC, ANSS, ASBI, ASC, ATRI, BBP, BKS, BNCN, BOFI, BOOT, BRKL, BRO, BT, BTO, BYD, C, CARA, CASY, CBM, CEB, CEMP, CHRS, COWN, CPRX, CSBK, CSGP, CSL, CUK, CYNI, DEPO, DOX, DST, DXCM, EEFT, EFOI, ELLI, ELNK, EURN, EVH, FB, FHN, FLL, FLML, FOLD, FSB, FV, GAIN, GD, GLOB, GMED, GOOG, GOOGL, GRX, GTN, GTN.A, GWRE, HAS, HPY, HQL, HRTG, HZNP, IBP, ILMN, IMGN, IMPV, INCR, INDB, INN, JBLU, LGND, LHCG, LION, LKQ, LPCN, LUX, M, MD, MDCO, MDXG, MIDD, MLM, MMAC, MTB, MTN, NAT, NCLH, NFLX, NJ, NNA, NVLS, OCFC, ONEQ, OPHT, OSIR, PANW, PBH, PEGA, PGR, PLAY, PMC, PNQI, PRTA, PRTO, PSCH, PSMT, PTLA, QABA, QGEN, QLIK, QQQ, QTWO, REGN, REPH, RH, RLI, RMTI, SBNY, SBSA, SCHW, SCOR, SERV, SGU, SNBC, SNFCA, SPSC, SRNE, SSNC, STFC, STI, STNG, STRZA, SUBK, SYF, TGLS, TITN, TMK, TQQQ, TSCO, TSRO, TYL, UFCS, UFPI, V, VONG, WIFI, XENT, XNCR

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, AAU, ABX, ACV, ADAT, AGI, AHC, AKS, AMD, AMID, ANDE, APA, AQXP, ARO, ARP, ASA, ASTI, ATW, AUY, AVP, AXAS, AXLL, BBEP, BCEI, BGR, BKH, BLT, BRS, BSM, BTE, BTG, BTU, BVN, BWP, CAFD, CBAY, CBK, CCJ, CEF, CEN, CENX, CEQP, CFX, CHCI, CIG, CKH, CKP, CLD, CLF, CLIR, CMLP, CNQ, CNX, COH, COP, CPG, CPST, CRDS, CRK, CTIB, CTR, CVE, CVX, CZZ, DAR, DCI, DCTH, DDD, DFRG, DNR, DO, DRQ, DSCO, DTLK, DXM, ECA, EGO, EGY, EMES, EMR, ENLK, ENOC, EOG, EOX, ERA, ERF, ESIO, ESV, EXTR, EXXI, EZPW, FCFS, FCO, FCX, FELP, FEN, FIF, FLR, FLS, FMO, FNV, FPL, FRD, FSM, FSYS, GDP, GG, GGB, GGG, GGN, GLF, GLPW, GMZ, GNRC, GNT, GORO, GROW, HABT, HCLP, HELI, HES, HGT, HLX, HMY, HOS, I, IDN, IO, IROQ, IRR, IRWD, JMF, JMLP, JOY, KB, KEM, KGC, KLIC, KMF, KNOP, KORS, KRO, KYE, LALT, LECO, LINE, LIQD, LNCO, LODE, LPL, LTRE, MARPS, MCEP, MCF, MHI, MIE, MNTX, MOD, MPO, MRO, MUR, MVO, MXC, NADL, NAV, NBL, NCQ, NDRO, NML, NOV, NRP, NSLP, NTG, NWPX, NYLD, OII, OIS, ONVI, ORIG, PAA, PAAS, PBT, PCH, PCRX, PEO, PERI, PGH, PGN, PJC, PKE, PKX, POWI, PPC, PQ, PSAU, PSCE, PSUN, PVA, PXD, PZG, QEP, RFP, RGDX, RKDA, RMT, RNWK, RXN, RYAM, SA, SAFM, SE, SEP, SGI, SGY, SHLD, SLW, SMM, SMT, SPAR, SPEX, SQQQ, SRF, SRV, SSN, SUN, SVLC, SVM, SWC, SWI, SWSH, SXC, SXCP, TAHO, TCK, TESO, TGD, TGP, THM, TIL, TKR, TOO, TROX, TTF, TUES, TYG, UNT, UNXL, UPL, URG, USAP, USDP, VCF, VET, VIA, VIAB, VNR, VTN, WES, WG, WGBS, WLFC, WPX, WTI, WY, X, XCO, XRA, YLCO, YUMA, ZAZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN, IAI, IWF, IYF, OEF, QQQ, UYG, XBI, XLF, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AMJ, DIG, FXC, GDX, GLD, IAU, IGE, IYE, PALL, PPLT, SIL, SLX, VXX, VXZ, XES, XME

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From Briefing.com: It was a slow day for news overall, but a very busy day for news regarding Google (GOOG 672.93, +93.08, +16.1%), which soared 16.0% after its better-than-expected second quarter earnings report. That move added about $32 billion in market capitalization to the stock and had remnants of performance chasing by fund managers who distanced themselves over the last 52 weeks when GOOG shares hadn't done much of anything. Google A shares (GOOGL 699.62, +97.84), which carry voting status, jumped 16.3% and boosted their market capitalization by $28 billion.

Including Friday's gain, GOOG has risen 30% since its low on July 7 (i.e. just eight sessions ago).

Google made a huge difference for the broader market, evidenced by the fact that the S&P 500 eked out a 0.1% gain despite nine of its 10 sectors finishing with a loss. The lone winner of course was the S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.8%). That gain, however, belies an otherwise weak showing that saw 40 of the sector's 66 components lose ground on the day.

Facebook (FB 94.97, +4.12, +4.5%) rode Google's coattails, as did Yahoo! (YHOO 39.68, +0.77, +2.0%). Combined with a 0.9% gain in Apple (AAPL 129.62, +1.11, +0.9%), the sector had enough core strength to muscle its way to a nice gain that left it up 5.3% for the week and 5.2% year-to-date.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Adobe Systems (ADBE 82.10, -0.42, -0.5%): SEC filing showed Value Act Holdings L.P. sold 1,693,000 shares at $82.06-82.45 worth ~$139.2 mln

KLA-Tencor (KLAC 51.93, -0.65, -1.2%): Disclosed details from its July 14 analyst presentation, noting its sees Q4 bookings of $550-750 mln, revenue of $710-790 mln, and adjusted EPS of $0.78-1.02. Those ranges are all consistent with the guidance provided on June 26, 2015.

Xerox (XRX 10.82, +0.22, +2.0%): Announced changes in its Government Healthcare Solutions strategy resulting from review of future market opportunities Company said it will discontinue investment in and sales of the Xerox Integrated Eligibility System in order to concentrate more of its future software development efforts on the existing Health Enterprise implementations. As a result of the strategic change, Xerox will record a pre-tax non-cash software impairment charge of approximately $145 million (approximately $90 million after-tax or 8 cents per share) in its second-quarter 2015 results. It now expects second-quarter 2015 GAAP earnings from continuing operations of 9 to 11 cents per share, which is below the company's prior guidance. Excluding the impairment charge, adjusted earnings per share is expected to be in line with the company's prior guidance of 21 to 23 cents.

Analyst Action:

Google A (GOOGL 699.62, +97.84, +16.3%): target raised to $620 from $570 at Pivotal Research Group... Axiom Capital upgrades GOOGL to Buy from Hold and raises their tgt to $850 from $615... target raised to $750 from $600 at Rosenblatt

eBay (EBAY 66.29, +0.70, +1.1%): target raised to $70 from $65 at Mizuho... target raised to $62 from $57 at RBC Capital Mkts

Fairchild Semi (FCS 15.24, +0.17, +1.1%): upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at FBR Capital; tgt $20

(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Yahoo!)

4:16 pm Micrel announces that it intends to delist its common stock from Nasdaq, in connection with its merger with Microchip (MCHP); first step of merger expected to be completed in August, 2015 (MCRL) :

4:10 pm : The stock market began the week on a higher, albeit sleepy, note with the S&P 500 (+0.1%) testing its record close from May. The benchmark index backed away from its session high into the close, settling a bit behind the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%), which marked a fresh closing record high at 5,218.86.

Equity indices started the Monday session near their flat lines with the S&P 500 spending the initial hour in the red; however, influential sectors like technology (+0.5%), financials (+0.1%), and health care (+0.3%) displayed early strength, underpinning the broader market.

The S&P 500 was back in the green by 11:00 ET and slowly inched higher into the afternoon. Seven sectors ended the day with gains while energy (-1.3%), materials (-0.9%), and utilities (-0.5%) spent the session below their flat lines.

Notably, the energy sector retreated alongside crude oil, which fell 1.6% to $50.40/bbl. Meanwhile, the growth-sensitive sector struggled throughout the session, widening its July loss to 4.5%, even after Halliburton (HAL 40.75, +0.76) climbed 1.9% after reporting better than expected results.

On the upside, the technology sector held the lead throughout the session with gains among the likes of Apple (AAPL 132.07, +2.45), Facebook (FB 97.91, +2.94), and Visa (V 72.70, +1.82) overshadowing a 1.0% decline in the shares of Google (GOOGL 692.84, -6.78). Also of note, IBM (IBM 173.22, +0.71) gained 0.4% ahead of its quarterly report.

Interestingly, high-beta chipmakers could not keep pace with the technology sector, evidenced by a 0.7% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Similarly, high-beta transport stocks struggled (Dow Jones Transportation Average -0.4%) while the broader industrial sector (unch) settled just above its flat line. Lockheed Martin (LMT 205.13, +3.95) was in the news, spiking 2.0% after reporting better than expected results and announcing the acquisition of the Sikorsky helicopter unit from United Technologies (UTX 110.48, -0.26) for $9.0 billion in cash.

Elsewhere, Treasuries slipped into the red during overnight action and they settled near their overnight lows with the 10-yr yield rising two basis points to 2.37%.

Investor participation was relatively light today with 720 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's session was free of economic data and investors will not receive any data tomorrow either.


Nasdaq Composite +10.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.6% YTD
S&P 500 +3.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD

DJ30 +13.96 NASDAQ +8.72 SP500 +1.64 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 913/1.66 bln/1980 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 979/723.5 mln/2092 3:15 pm :

The dollar saw modest momentum in today's trading, rallying late in the afternoon, after a mid-day slump that failed to offer support to the broad commodity set
Overall, the dollar index is positive on the day by +0.2% to 98.02
Crude rallied from red to flat in early trade, as market participants tested the resolve of over-supply concerns.
The rally failed to materialize into positive territory however, as the September contract then saw an extended sell-off into the close, ending -1.6% to $50.40/barrel
Gold showed notable weakness all session, seeing almost no upward momentum from movements in the dollar. Silver fared better, but still booked losses into the close
August gold was -3.2% to $1106.80/oz and September silver was -1.3% to $14.78/oz
Copper tested its highs mid-day, near the $2.50 level in early afternoon trading. That move reversed going into the session's close however, and the metal finished -1.6% to $2.48/lb
Natural gas finished the day at -1% to $2.83/MMBtu
Agricultural closing commodities saw heavy losses, as market sentiment ahead of this afternoon's USDA Weekly Crop Progress Report drove corn to close -5.6% to $4.06/bu, wheat to end -5.2% to $5.34/bu and soybeans to finish -0.8% to $10.02/bu

4:08 pm IBM beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; reaffirms FY15 EPS guidance, raises FCF modestly (IBM) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $3.84 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $3.79; revenues fell 13.4% year/year to $20.81 bln vs the $20.94 bln consensus. Down 1% year-to-year adjusting for currency and the divested System x business (9 points and 4 points, respectively); down 13% as reported; Strategic imperatives revenue up more than 30% adjusting for currency and the divested System x business; up more than 20% as reported; Cloud revenue up more than 70% adjusting for currency and divested businesses; up more than 50% as reported; For cloud delivered as a service, annual run rate of $4.5 bln compared to $2.8 bln in the second quarter of 2014; Business analytics revenue up more than 20% adjusting for currency; up more than 10% as reported.Adj. gross margin +20 bps to 50.9%Co reaffirms guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $15.75-16.50, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $15.84 Capital IQ Consensus. IBM now expects a modest increase in free cash flow, improved from its prior expectation of flat year-to-year performance.
4:08 pm Rambus reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 revs below consensus (RMBS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.13 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues fell 4.8% year/year to $72.8 mln vs the $73.24 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $73-78 mln vs. $79.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Total operating costs and expenses for the second quarter of 2015 were $57.3 million, 4% higher than the previous quarter and 2% higher than the second quarter of 2014.4:04 pm Sanmina beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS & revs mid-points above consensus (SANM) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.49; revenues fell 4.1% year/year to $1.54 bln vs the $1.52 bln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.52-0.58 vs. $0.53 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $1.55-1.65 bln vs. $1.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"Our outlook for the fiscal fourth quarter reflects stabilization in the market. We remain confident the second half of the calendar year will continue to improve."
11:45 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (74) outpacing new highs (43) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABBV, AMZN, BAC, BMRN, BMY, BUD, C, COF, CTRX, DG, DIS, DRI, DXCM, EA, EBAY, EVHC, FB, FISV, FV, GD, HALO, HZNP, IBB, ILMN, INSY, KR, MA, MBLY, MS, NKE, NVO, NVS, PGR, QQQ, RAI, SBUX, SCHW, SERV, SKX, SUNE, TTWO, TWC, V

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, ABX, APA, AR, AU, AUO, AUY, AVP, AXLL, BVN, BWP, CIG, CNP, CNQ, CNX, COP, CPN, CVE, CVX, DAR, DDD, DNR, DO, ECA, EGO, EOG, EPD, ESV, FCX, FLR, GFI, GG, GGB, HES, HUN, JOY, KGC, KORS, LINE, MDU, MRO, MUR, NBL, NE, NUE, NYLD, OGE, OI, OII, OXY, P, PAA, PPC, PXD, QEP, RDC, RIG, RRC, SE, SFM, SID, SLW, SNH, SNI, SU, SWN, TAHO, TCK, TTM, VIAB, WPX, X, YELP, Z

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN, IBB, IHI, IWF, IYF, IYG, IYH, OEF, QQQ, UYG, XBI, XLF, XLV, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AMJ, DBC, DIG, DJP, EPU, EWC, EWY, FXA, FXC, GDX, GDXJ, GLD, IAU, IGE, IYE, KOL, PALL, PPLT, SGG, SIL, SLX, THD, URA, VXX, VXZ, XES, XLE, XME, XOP

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 189 stocks made 52 week highs and 381 stocks made 52 week lows.

8:32 am Arch Coal announces One-For-Ten reverse stock split (Effective 7/28) (ACI) : Co announced a one-for-ten reverse stock split of Arch's common stock. Arch's stockholders granted authority to the Arch Board of Directors to effect this reverse stock split at the company's annual meeting of stockholders on April 23, 2015. The reverse stock split is expected to take place after market close on July 27, 2015. It also is expected that Arch's common stock will begin trading on a split-adjusted basis on the New York Stock Exchange at the market open on July 28, 2015.

M&A news: VSLR +42.9% (SunEdison (SUNE) to acquire Vivint Solar for ~$2.2 bln; under the merger agreement, Vivint Solar stockholders will receive $16.50/share)

7:35 am Newport lowers Q2 EPS and rev guidance below consensus (NEWP) :

Co issues downside guidance for Q2 (Jun), sees EPS of $0.24-0.36 from $0.34 prior guidance vs. $0.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 (Jun) revs of $147-148 mln from $154-161 mln vs. $159.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The lower expected earnings are due to the lower sales level, a loss of ~$1.4 mln (or $0.02/share) from the company's newly acquired Femtolasers business, and an inventory charge of ~$1.1 mln (or $0.02/share).
Co said "We are implementing specific actions to improve our company's financial results going forward."

7:11 am Vivint Solar to be acquired by SunEdison (SUNE) for ~$2.2 bln, or $16.50/share (VSLR) : SunEdison (SUNE), Vivint Solar (VSLR) and TerraForm Power (TERP) announced that SunEdison and Vivint Solar have signed a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which SunEdison will acquire Vivint Solar for approximately $2.2 billion, payable in a combination of cash, shares of SunEdison common stock and SunEdison convertible notes.

SunEdison has entered into a definitive purchase agreement with a subsidiary of TerraForm Power which, concurrently with the completion of SunEdison's acquisition of Vivint Solar, will acquire Vivint Solar's rooftop solar portfolio, consisting of 523 megawatts (MW) expected to be installed by year-end 2015, for $922 million in cash (TERP Purchase Agreement). The 523 MW of residential solar projects are expected to provide a 10 year average unlevered CAFD of $81 million. Under the merger agreement, Vivint Solar stockholders will receive $16.50 per share, consisting of $9.89 per share in cash, $3.31 per share in SunEdison stock, and $3.30 per share in SunEdison convertible notes. SunEdison expects to issue approximately $370 million of its common stock and approximately $350 million of SunEdison convertible notes to Vivint Solar stockholders as merger consideration. SunEdison intends to fund the cash portion of the merger consideration primarily from the proceeds of a new $500 million secured debt facility and the completion of the $922 million sale of assets to TerraForm Power. To support the merger transaction, SunEdison has entered into a commitment letter with Goldman Sachs Bank USA for a $500 million. TerraForm Power has entered into a debt commitment letter with Goldman Sachs Bank USA for a $960 million unsecured bridge facility. Sees deal as immediately accretion to stockholders at initial drop down.SunEdison initiated 2016 annual guidance of 4,200 MW to 4,500 MW, a 50 percent increase from its prior outlook of 2,800 MW to 3,000 MW.TerraForm Power is raising its prior 2016 dividend per share guidance of $1.70 to $1.75, a 30 percent year-over-year increase compared to 2015 annual guidance. TerraForm Power is also initiating 2017 dividend per share guidance of $2.05, up from its prior target of $2.00.United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) announced that it has entered volume production for the Through-Silicon-Via technology used on the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, the flagship GPU product of the recently announced Radeon R 300 Series of graphics cards

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From Briefing.com: The major indices spent Tuesday retracing some of their recent gains, none more so than the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was done in by the negative response to IBM's (IBM 163.07, -10.15, -5.9%) unimpressive second quarter earnings report.

As the second highest-priced stock in the price-weighted average, Big Blue's big decline had an outsized impact on the Dow, which dropped 181 points, or 1.0%, on the day.

IBM also weighed on the broader market, yet relative strength in the energy (+0.1%) and financial (-0.1%) sectors enabled the S&P 500 (-0.4%) to turn in a better showing, albeit a negative one, than the Dow.

Similarly, the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) fared comparatively better, drawing some offsetting support once again from some of its most influential components, namely Microsoft (MSFT 47.28, +0.36, +0.8%), Facebook (FB 98.39, +0.48, +0.5%), and Qualcomm (QCOM 65.14, +1.35, +2.1%).


The relative strength in those components helped the S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.5%) contain its losses, yet the weight of IBM's loss and that of Apple (AAPL 130.75, -1.32, -1.0%) which traded lower ahead of its earnings report after the close, caused the sector to underperform the market by a small margin on Tuesday.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Accenture (ACN 100.39, -0.33, -0.3%): To acquire EnergyQuote JHA, a Pan-European energy management and procurement services provider; terms not disclosed

Akamai Technologies (AKAM 72.55, -0.93, -1.3%): Company and Telecom Italia (TI) announced a partnership agreement to offer Content Delivery Network and web optimization services and solutions to Italian companies. The initiative includes Telecom Italia offering and marketing, within the Italian market, of Akamai's suite of services for the distribution of video and Internet content.

Apple (AAPL 130.75, -1.32, -1.0%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.85 per share, which was four cents ahead of Street expectations. Revenues rose 32.5% year/year to $49.6 bln, which was slightly above estimates. iPhone units totaled 47.5 mln versus 35.2 mln last year, which was close to estimates that approximated 48 million. Q3 gross margins were 39.7% versus guidance of 38.5-39.5% and 39.4% last year. For Q4, sees revenues of $49-51 bln. The high end of that range is just under analysts' average expectation. Expects gross margin of 38.5-39.5%.... Shares of AAPL were trading 7.0% lower in after hours action.

Corning Incorporated (GLW 18.75, -0.16, -0.9%): Company announced that ZTE Corporation has chosen Antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass for its newest flagship smartphone in China, the ZTE AXON.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 30.66, +0.21, +0.7%): Announced that it has signed a 12-year power purchase agreement for 112 MW of wind power with SunEdison (SUNE). The 112 MW of locally generated wind electricity is sufficient to power 100 percent of HP's Texas-based data center operations

Microsoft (MSFT 47.28, +0.36, +0.8%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.62 per share, excluding $1.02/share in restructuring and impairment charges, which was better than analysts' average expectation. Revenues fell 5.1% year/year to $22.18 bln, also topping estimates. Devices and Consumer revenue grew 8% (up 11% in constant currency) to $9.0 billion (Office 365 Consumer subscribers increased to over 12.4 million, up 35% sequentially). Commercial revenue grew 5% (up 7% in constant currency) to $12.8 billion (Commercial cloud revenue grew 106% (up 111% in constant currency) driven by Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online, and is now on an annualized revenue run rate of $6.3 billion... Shares of MSFT were trading 3.8% lower in after hours action.

Qualcomm (QCOM 65.14, +1.35, +2.1%): The Information, citing people inside and outside of Qualcomm, reported that Qualcomm may announce thousands of layoffs this week. Separately, The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Qualcomm is likely to conduct a strategic review of its operations that might possibly involve a breakup of the company.

Yahoo! (YHOO 39.73, +0.19, +0.5%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.16 per share, which was short of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 0.3% year/year to $1.04 bln, slightly ahead of the average estimate. Q2 Adjusted EBITDA $262 mln versus guidance in the range of $240-260 mln. Q2 GAAP Search revenue +15% year-over-year; Q2 GAAP Display Revenue +15% year-over-year; Q2 GAAP Mavens Revenue (Growth investments that include mobile, video, native, and social) +60% year-over-year; Q2 Mobile GAAP Revenue +55% year-over-year. For Q3, sees revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs in the range of $1.00-1.04 bln. The high end of the rage is below analysts' average estimate. Non-GAAP operating income is expected to be between $50 mln and $90 mln... Shares of YHOO were trading 1.2% lower in after hours action.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.59, +0.03, +0.8%): To sell its EU industrial site to Selha Group; terms not disclosed

Applied Micro Circuits (AMCC 6.02, _0.03, +0.5%): Company announced that TSMC, a semiconductor foundry, will use its X-Gene processor technology as a cost and power saving option for implementing an open source Memcached solution.

Micrel (MCRL 13.96, 0.00, unch): Announced that it intends to delist its common stock from Nasdaq, in connection with its merger with Microchip (MCHP 43.80, -0.19, -0.4%); first step of merger expected to be completed in August, 2015.

Nokia (NOK 6.75, -0.03, -0.4%): Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Nokia might be very close to Maps unit sale to group of German luxury-car makers.

SAP AG (SAP 72.80, -1.66, -2.2%): Before Tuesday's open, reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of 0.80 per share, which was shy of analysts' average expectation. Revenues rose 19.7% year/year to 4.97 bln, which was ahead of expectations. Based on the strong momentum in SAP's cloud business, the company expects full-year 2015 non-IFRS cloud subscriptions and support revenue to be in a range of 1.95 - 2.05 billion at constant currencies (2014: 1.10 billion). The upper end of this range represents a growth rate of 86% at constant currencies. Concur and Fieldglass are expected to contribute approximately 50 percentage points to this growth. In addition, the company expects full year 2015 non-IFRS cloud and software revenue to increase by 8% - 10% at constant currencies (2014: 14.33 billion) and full-year 2015 non-IFRS operating profit to be in a range of 5.6 billion - 5.9 billion at constant currencies (2014: 5.64 billion).

VMware (VMW 83.19, -0.83, -1.0%): After Tuesday's close, reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.93 per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was ahead of analysts' average estimate. Revenues rose 4.4% year/year to $1.52 bln, which was shy of expectations. License revenues for the second quarter were $638 million, an increase of 4% from the second quarter of 2014, or up 9% year-over-year in constant currency.

YY, Inc. (YY 58.84, -0.46, -0.8%): Jun Lei, David Li disclose 17.9% active stake in 13D filing; have entered into a consortium agreement. The filing states, "On July 9, 2015, Mr. Lei and Mr. Li submitted a non-binding proposal to the Company's board of directors related to a proposed acquisition of all of the outstanding Shares of the Company not already beneficially owned by them for $68.50 in cash per ADS, or $3.425 in cash per Share of the Company. On July 20, 2015, Mr. Lei and Mr. Li entered into a consortium agreement, under which the Consortium Members have agreed to, among other things, form a consortium to work exclusively with each other to undertake a transaction to acquire all the outstanding Shares of the Company other than Shares owned by the Consortium Members or their affiliates."

In industry news, "IDC predicts that the public cloud computing will reach almost $70 billion in 2015 worldwide, with the top 5 verticals (discrete manufacturing, banking, professional services, process manufacturing, and retail) accounting for ~45% of the total spend for the market.The major opportunities for cloud within verticals come from the development of intelligent industry solutions.

Analyst Action:

ASML Holding (ASML 100.90, -0.10, -0.1%): upgraded to Accumulate from Neutral at SNS Securities

eBay (EBAY 28.60, +0.03, +0.1%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel

Facebook (FB 98.39, +0.48, +0.5%): added to US 1 List at BofA/Merrill

Newport (NEWP 16.04, +0.05, +0.3%): target lowered to $20 from $24 at Needham

Sanmina (SANM 21.28, +2.25, +11.8%): upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Longbow(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Yahoo!)

5:04 pm Linear Tech misses by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus; stock drops to $40/share following earnings/guidance (LLTC) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.54 per share, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.56; revenues rose 3.9% year/year to $379.5 mln vs the $385.24 mln consensus. EPS decreased on a sequential basis primarily due to a higher effective tax rate of 25.25% compared to 22.50% in the third quarter of fiscal 2015.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs falling 7-12% sequentially, which equates to ~$334-352.9 mln vs. $393.61 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."As we indicated last quarter, the June quarter is typically a strong quarter for us, though we had some concern with global macroeconomic conditions that tempered our expectations. As the quarter progressed, these conditions appeared to worsen and bookings slowed considerably. The bookings decline was broad based across all major markets and regions. Our largest market, Industrial, suffered the largest decline followed by the Computer market which appears to be weak for the entire industry. In the early weeks of the current quarter, bookings have improved.""However, due to the decline in bookings received in the June quarter, coupled with a sluggish global economic environment, we are preparing for a difficult first fiscal quarter. We are forecasting our revenue to decline sequentially in the 7-12% range.""We are optimistic that this will be a short cycle and that this is temporary weakness- experienced while our customers react to global uncertainties and adjust their inventories to match their cautiousness and end customer demand. Design activity remains robust and we see many opportunities where new, innovative products require our innovative analog solutions."
4:34 pm Apple beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line, misses iPhone estimates; guides Q4 revs just below consensus, margins in-line (AAPL) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.85 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.81; revenues rose 32.5% year/year to $49.6 bln vs the $49.39 bln consensus and $46-48 bln guidance. iPhones 47.5 mln vs ~48 mln ests vs 35.2 mln last yeariPads 10.9 mln vs ~10.8 mln ests vs 13.3 mln last yearMacs 4.8 mln vs ~4.7 mln ests vs ~4.4 mln last year Watches (not disclosed, as expected) ests 4.1 mlnAAPL sees Q4 gross margins of 38.5-39.5% vs ~39% ests vs 38% last year.Q3 gross margins of 39.7% vs ~39.5% ests (guidance 38.5-39.5% vs 39.4% last year). Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $49-51 bln vs. $51.03 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin 38.5-39.5% vs. ~39% ests.
Apple typically guides conservatively.
4:32 pm O2Micro announces it issued a patent for a significant Battery Protection invention (OIIM) :

4:14 pm Yahoo! misses by $0.03, beats on revs (YHOO) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.16 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.19; revenues rose 0.3% year/year to $1.04 bln vs the $1.03 bln consensus.

Q2 Adjusted EBITDA $262 mln, guidance in the range of $240-260 mln Q2 GAAP Search revenue +15% y/y, Q1 +20% y/y Q2 GAAP Display Revenue +15% y/y, Q1 +2% y/yQ2 GAAP Mavens Revenue (Growth investments that include mobile, video, native, and social) +60% y/y, Q1 +58% y/y Q2 Mobile GAAP Revenue +55% y/y, Q1 +61% y/yQ2 PC GAAP Revenue +5% y/y, Q1 -1.7% y/yQ2 Global SearchNumber of Paid Clicks +13% y/y, Q1 +21% y/y Price Per click +4% y/y, Q1 +3% y/yQ2 Global DisplayNumber of Ads Sold +9% y/y, Q1 +29% y/yPrice per Ad +10% y/y, Q1 -17% y/y
4:14 pm Microsoft beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line (MSFT) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.62 per share, excluding $1.02/share in restructuring and impairment charges, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.57; revenues fell 5.1% year/year to $22.18 bln vs the $22.06 bln consensus.


Device and Consumer:
Licensing revenues of $3.23 bln versus guidance of $3.2-3.4 bln
Computing and Gaming Hardware revenues of $1.93 bln versus guidance of $1.5-1.6 bln
Total Xbox revenue grew 27% based on strong growth in consoles, Xbox Live transactions and first party gamesPhone Hardware revenues of $1.23 bln versus guidance of $1.3-1.4 bln Commercial:Licensing revenues of $10.45 bln versus guidance of $10.5-10.6 bln
Commercial cloud revenue grew 88% (up 96% in constant currency) driven by Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online and is now on an annualized revenue run rate of over $8 billion
4:12 pm Exponent beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (EXPO) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.43 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.42; revenues rose 4.1% year/year to $75.3 mln vs the $75.76 mln consensus. Sees full year 2015 growth in revenues before reimbursements to be in the low single digits (consensus +5%) and EBITDA1 margin to be down approximately 50 basis points from the 25% achieved in 2014.

"We have previously indicated that we expected a major project to step down in the second half of 2015 to approximately half its run rate. As a result of a proposed resolution of this matter, our efforts going forward will be de minimis. While our underlying growth remains in the high single digits, it will be partially offset by the significant decline in this major project as well as our defense work. As a result, we expect full year 2015 growth in revenues before reimbursements to be in the low single digits and EBITDA1 margin to be down approximately 50 basis points from the 25% we achieved in 2014."
"We are optimistic about our long-term growth as our market position expands. We continue to be called upon to investigate the most significant accidents. We are also seeing strong growth in design consulting, regulatory support and risk management," concluded Dr. Johnston.

4:12 pm Illumina beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; raises FY15 EPS in-line, reaffirms revs below consensus (ILMN) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.80 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.77; revenues rose 20.5% year/year to $539.4 mln vs the $542.12 mln consensus.

Co raises EPS guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $3.39-3.45, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $3.44 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, from $3.36-3.42; continues to see FY15 revs growth of ~20%, which ~$2.23 bln vs. $2.26 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:11 pm GoPro beats by $0.09, beats on revs (GPRO) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.35 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues rose 71.7% year/year to $419.9 mln vs the $396.3 mln consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin came in at 46.4% vs 42.2% a year ago."With the introduction of HERO4 Session and HERO+ LCD, we've launched five new cameras in the past 10 months, exciting both new and existing customers and contributing to strong second quarter results...Our core business is enjoying terrific momentum as we charge forward into attractive adjacent markets."

4:11 pm iRobot beats by $0.16, beats on revs; guides Q3 below consensus; guides FY15 in-line; shares to resume trading at 16:30 ET (IRBT) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.24 per share, $0.16 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.08; revenues rose 6.4% year/year to $148.8 mln vs the $144.6 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.20-0.24 vs. $0.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $143-146 mln vs. $170.56 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $1.25-1.35 vs. $1.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 revs of $625-635 mln vs. $627.22 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Based on our Q2 results and our outlook for the rest of 2015, we are reaffirming our full year expectations. Although Q2 was above expectations, this was primarily due to timing. Predicting individual quarterly results is challenging, but our over performance in Q2 alleviates some pressure on the second-half ramp."

4:10 pm : The stock market retreated on Tuesday with the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) backing away from yesterday's record close. However, the tech-heavy index held up relatively well considering the Dow (-1.0%) and S&P 500 (-0.4%) registered wider losses.

The price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average paced the retreat with IBM (IBM 163.07, -10.15) and United Technologies (UTX 102.67, -7.81) largely responsible for the underperformance. The second largest index member-IBM-lost 5.9% following its bottom-line beat that was aided by a lower tax rate while the company's year-over-year revenue showed the 13th consecutive quarterly decline.

Separately, United Technologies fell 7.1% after below-consensus revenue and lowered earnings guidance for the year overshadowed an earnings beat. In addition to pressuring the Dow, shares of UTX weighed on the industrial sector (-1.1%), which ended behind the remaining cyclical groups. Interestingly, the sector finished among the laggards even though transport stocks displayed relative strength, sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 0.7%.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the energy sector (+0.1%) tried to resist the market-wide pressure, but could only eke out a slim gain while crude oil rose 0.9% to $50.87/bbl. Also of note, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.5%) settled just behind the broader market.

Just like the energy sector, high-beta chipmakers surrendered the bulk of their gains during afternoon action with the PHLX Semiconductor Index narrowing its advance to 0.1%. As for large cap tech components, Apple (AAPL 130.71, -1.36) lost 1.0% ahead of its earnings report. Investors will be most interested in iPhone sales and the pace of sales growth, but the report should also provide an early look at Apple Watch sales. Apple is the top-weighted stock in the market-cap weighted S&P 500 (3.98%), the top-weighted stock in the market-cap weighted Nasdaq 100 (13.9%), and the fifth highest-priced stock in the price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Over on the countercyclical side, health care (-0.4%) and consumer staples (-0.3%) settled near the broader market while telecom services (-1.7%) and utilities (-1.0%) underperformed throughout the session. The telecom sector ended at the bottom of the leaderboard as Verizon (VZ 46.97, -1.13) tumbled 2.4% despite reporting a bottom-line beat.

Treasuries made a brief appearance in the red this morning, but they rallied as stocks declined with the 10-yr yield falling three basis points to 2.34%.

Investors did not receive any economic data today, but tomorrow will include the release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index at 7:00 ET, followed by the FHFA Housing Price Index for May, which will be reported at 9:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the Existing Home Sales report for June, which will cross at 10:00 ET (Briefing.com consensus 5.40 million).


Nasdaq Composite +10.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.2% YTD
S&P 500 +2.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.5% YTD

DJ30 -181.12 NASDAQ -10.74 SP500 -9.07 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1159/1.60 bln/1686 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1225/762.3 mln/1857
3:35 pm :

The dollar index continued to remain weak today, which helped select commodities
Gold was not one of them. The precious metals slid lower today and finished the day with a modest loss of $3.50, closing at $1103.30/oz
However, in electronic trade, Aug gold fell below the $1100/oz
Sept silver ended the day unchanged at $14.78/oz
In other commodities, energy futures rose today, including oil, natural gas, heating oil and RBOB gasoline futures.
Natural gas closed pit trading $0.05 higher at $2.88/MMBtu and remains near today's high
WTI crude oil, however, pulled back from today's high, but finished $0.47 higher at $50.87/barrel

11:43 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (271) outpacing new highs (142) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABBV, ACGL, AF, AFG, AFSI, ALLB, ANAC, ASC, ATTU, ATVI, BCS, BF.A, BKU, BNCL, BOFI, BOH, BRKL, BSRR, BSTC, C, CASH, CATY, CBF, CBSH, CBU, CCL, CELG, CHRS, CME, COF, COT, CPRX, CRWN, CSGP, CSL, CUNB, CVBF, CYNO, DEPO, DERM, DPRX, EA, EEFT, EFII, ENH, EURN, EW, FB, FCF, FFIN, FHN, FITB, FIX, FNBC, FORTY, GAIN, GNRT, GTN, HAFC, HBAN, HCSG, HFWA, HOMB, HTBK, HTLF, IBP, INCR, INDB, ITRN, JAH, JHX, JRVR, LKFN, LKQ, MANH, MASI, MBFI, MBLY, MCO, MDLZ, MDSO, MLAB, MLM, MMSI, MMU, MTB, NEOG, NKE, NTRS, NVAX, NVR, NXST, OUTR, PAC, PLAY, PLMT, PNC, PNK, PNQI, POOL, POWR, PRE, PSCF, PSMT, PVTB, QLTY, RAI, RCL, RE, RLI, SBNY, SCHW, SFBS, SGU, SIVB, SKX, SNV, SRPT, STBA, SYF, SYK, TCX, THG, THOR, TSS, TTWO, UBSI, UCBI, UFPI, UHAL, USCR, VGR, VR, WAL, WASH, WD, WFC, WIFI, WIX, WSFS, WST, YDKN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, ACV, AIQ, AMBR, AMID, ANDE, APA, APPS, AQXP, ARCI, ARP, ATI, AUDC, AWF, AXAS, AXE, BBK, BBOX, BCEI, BCX, BGR, BKH, BLT, BSM, BTG, BTZ, CAFD, CBA, CBK, CBT, CEM, CEN, CENX, CFX, CHK, CIK, CKH, CKP, CLF, CLIR, CLUB, CNP, CNS, COH, COMT, CPA, CPN, CPST, CRDS, CRK, CTIB, CTR, CVSL, DAVE, DCI, DCTH, DDD, DELT, DNN, DOM, DOV, DRQ, DSE, DSS, DTLK, DXM, ECT, EIP, EMC, EMES, EMR, ENLC, ENOC, ENSV, EOG, EOX, ESIO, ETP, EVA, EVEP, EXK, EXTR, FCO, FDML, FEI, FEN, FGP, FHCO, FHY, FLS, FMN, FRD, FREE, FSC, FSD, FTEK, FULL, FUND, GDF, GEF, GER, GGB, GGN, GHM, GIFI, GLRE, GMLP, GMZ, GNRC, GNT, GROW, GULTU, HCLP, HDNG, HERO, HI, HIO, HLX, HMSY, HOV, HRZN, HTCH, HTY, HUN, IAG, IO, IRR, ITRI, JHS, JMF, JMT, JOY, KATE, KED, KGC, KLIC, KMF, KMM, KPTI, KST, KYN, LF, LNCO, LOCO, LRAD, LRE, LSCC, LTRE, LXK, MAV, MDCA, MFM, MGH, MHI, MHY, MIE, MIL, MNTX, MTR, MUR, MVO, MXC, NADL, NAV, NCV, NCZ, NDP, NETE, NFJ, NMI, NML, NOR, NRG, NRP, NRT, NTAP, NTG, NUM, OAKS, OGE, OI, OII, OTEX, PCI, PDVW, PEO, PFN, PGH, PHF, PMD, PNF, POWI, PPC, PQ, PTXP, PULM, PWE, PX, PXD, QUAD, RAIL, RDEN, RKDA, RMT, RNO, RNWK, ROYL, RTTR, RVT, RXN, SA, SAFM, SCM, SD, SDR, SFM, SID, SJR, SKM, SMRT, SNI, SONS, SPW, SRSC, SRV, SSYS, SU, SUN, SVLC, SVVC, SWSH, SXE, SYNL, SYX, TAC, TC, TEO, THM, THTI, TKR, TMST, TOO, TRCO, TTF, TTP, TUES, TYG, UNFI, USDP, UTIW, VCF, VECO, VHI, VIA, VICL, VNR, VSI, VTN, VVUS, WAVX, WG, WGBS, WHZ, WLFC, WPCS, WY, XCO, XCRA, XRA, YLCO, ZINC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN, IHI, IYF, IYG, IYH, UYG, XLF, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AMJ, IXC, KOL, THD, URA

7:38 am Verizon beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; sees FY15 revs growth of at least 3% (VZ) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.04 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.00; revenues rose 2.4% year/year to $32.22 bln vs the $32.47 bln consensus. Co issues guidance for FY15, sees FY15 revs growth of at least 3% (to $130.9 bln vs. $131.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus, co guided for 4% growth in January).Verizon expects a higher year-over-year growth rate in Q3 than in Q2 (consensus +4.3%). These growth estimates exclude revenue from AOL. Wireless: 1.1 million net retail postpaid connections added in the quarter; retail postpaid churn of 0.90 percent, the lowest in three years; 109.5 million total retail connections; 103.7 million total retail postpaid connections. 5.3 percent year-over-year increase in total revenues; 34.0 percent operating income margin. 56.1 percent segment EBITDA margin on service revenues (non-GAAP), and 43.9 percent segment EBITDA margin on total revenues (non-GAAP).
7:35 am Manpower beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line (MAN) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.33 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.27; revenues fell 8.7% year/year to $4.86 bln vs the $4.77 bln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3 including F/X impacts, sees EPS of $1.50-1.58 vs. $1.53 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. On a constant currency basis, revenues increased 7% and earnings per share increased 16%. Earnings per share in the quarter were negatively impacted 23 cents by changes in the foreign currencies compared to the prior year.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:24 pm Altera misses by $0.02, beats on revs (ALTR) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.23 per share, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.25; revenues fell 15.7% year/year to $414.2 mln vs the $410.04 mln consensus.

"Our wireless customers reduced demand on us this quarter, as expected, in reaction to continuing adverse market conditions. This pause in wireless spend more than offset growth across many of our vertical markets."

4:24 pm Skyworks beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q4 above consensus (SWKS) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.29; revenues rose 38.0% year/year to $810 mln vs the $801.84 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.51, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.42 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q4 revs of $875 mln vs. $858.89 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
4:21 pm Nanometrics reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (NANO) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.08; revenues rose 1.2% year/year to $48.6 mln vs the $47.55 mln consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.00-0.06, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $43-47 mln vs. $47.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:18 pm PMC-Sierra misses by $0.02, misses on revs; Announces steps to reduce costs (PMCS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues fell 1.6% year/year to $124.8 mln vs the $133.23 mln consensus.

Cost Reduction Steps

The Company also today initiated steps to reduce spending across the organization by approximately 14 percent. This reorganization involves a reduction in force of approximately 200 employees worldwide and other reductions that are together expected to result in approximately $40 million per year in savings. The full savings resulting from these workforce reductions will not be realized until the fourth quarter of the current year, although some impact from these measures will be noticeable in the Company's third quarter results.

4:17 pm Freescale Semi beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (FSL) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.57 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.51; revenues rose 0.6% year/year to $1.20 bln vs the $1.18 bln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.47-0.51, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.57 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.10-1.17 bln vs. $1.22 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Second quarter results represented record performance for Freescale...Gross margins of 48.1% established a new record and were 300 basis points ahead of the prior year's quarter. Gross margins have now increased sequentially for 10 consecutive quarters."

4:15 pm Amazon beats Q2 operating income and sales estimates/guidance; guides Q3 ~in-line (AMZN) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.19 per share, $0.30 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.11); revenues rose 19.9% year/year to $23.18 bln vs the $22.4 bln consensus and $20.6-22.8 bln guidance.Operating income $464 mln vs. ~$50 estimates and ($500)-50 mln guidance. AWS net sales +81% to $1.8 bln; operating income +408% to $391 mln.Co issues guidance for Q3: sees Q3 revs of $23.3-25.5 bln vs. $23.9 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Operating income (loss) is expected to be between $(480) million and $70 mln vs. ($240) mln ests, compared to $(544) million in 3Q14.
4:14 pm Juniper Networks beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (JNPR) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.40; revenues fell 0.6% year/year to $1.22 bln vs the $1.11 bln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of 0.50-0.54 vs. $0.46 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of 1.21-1.25 bln vs. $1.16 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Sees Non-GAAP gross margins in the range of 63.5-64.5%.

4:14 pm Microsemi reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (MSCC) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.68 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.68; revenues rose 8.5% year/year to $317.1 mln vs the $304.87 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.71-0.75 vs. $0.73 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs $328 mln +/- 2% or roughly $321.4-$334.5 mln vs. $317.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:03 pm Microsemi announces its Board of Directors has authorized a new share buyback plan, for up to $100 million of common stock; will be funded from available working capital (MSCC) :

4:13 pm Flextronics reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FLEX) : Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.23 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.23; revenues fell 16.2% year/year to $5.57 bln vs the $5.89 bln consensus. Adjusted operating income was $159 million, above the lower end of the guidance range of $150 to $190 million.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.22-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus EstimateCo sees Q2 revs of $5.9-6.5 bln vs. $6.22 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:11 pm Maxim Integrated beats by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (MXIM) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.39; revenues fell 9.3% year/year to $582.51 mln vs the $590.14 mln consensus. Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.38-0.44, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.42 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $545-585 mln vs. $600.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Celestica beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CLS) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.23 and toward the higher end of guidance of $0.20-0.26; revenues fell 3.7% year/year to $1.42 bln vs the $1.40 bln consensus and vs within prior guidance of $1.35-1.45 bln. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.28-0.34, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.40-1.50 bln vs. $1.44 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm : The stock market registered its third consecutive decline on Thursday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average surrendering 0.7% while the S&P 500 (-0.6%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) posted slimmer losses.

Equities spent the first two hours of action near their flat lines before sliding to session lows amid selling pressure in heavily-weighted sectors like consumer discretionary (-0.6%), financials (-0.8%), and industrials (-0.9%). That being said, all ten sectors ended the day with losses, but relative strength in the top-weighted technology sector (-0.3%) prevented the market from ending deeper in the red. Taking a look at the bigger picture, the S&P 500 settled below its 50-day moving average (2,103) for the first time in nearly two weeks.

Quarterly earnings were in focus on Thursday after more than 175 companies reported their results since Wednesday's closing bell. Broadly speaking, bottom-line beats were commonplace, but many companies failed to show year-over-year revenue growth.

Four Dow components were among those reporting and all four ended the day with losses. American Express (AXP 77.01, -1.98) and 3M (MMM 149.50, -5.91) lost 2.5% and 3.8%, respectively, after reporting bottom-line beats on below-consensus revenue while Caterpillar (CAT 76.88, -2.88) fell 3.6% in reaction to an in-line report and lowered guidance. For its part, McDonald's (MCD 97.09, -0.49) lost 0.5% despite reporting a three-cent beat.

The four Dow members pressured their respective sectors while technology (-0.3%) settled ahead of the broader market thanks to gains among chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index gained 1.5% after being up as much as 2.7% in the early going. Only five index members ended in the red while SanDisk (SNDK 63.70, +9.52) soared 17.6% after beating earnings and revenue expectations. As for large cap tech components, Apple (AAPL 125.16, -0.06) and Microsoft (MSFT 46.11, +0.57) registered gains while Qualcomm (QCOM 61.75, -2.44) dropped 3.8% after its cautious guidance overshadowed a bottom-line beat. Also of note, the company announced plans to reduce its semiconductor division by about 15%.

Similar to technology, the energy sector (-0.3%) finished ahead of the broader market even though crude oil lost 1.8%, ending the pit session at $48.39/bbl. Including today's decline, the energy sector is down 2.1% for the week and lower by 5.5% since the end of June.

Over on the countercyclical side, utilities (-1.5%) underperformed throughout the day while consumer staples (-0.4%), health care (-0.3%), and telecom services (-0.6%) settled closer to the broader market.

The modest loss in the health care sector masked a 2.2% spike in the shares of Cigna (CI 154.36, +3.29) after the Wall Street Journal reported the company is close to being acquired by Anthem (ANTM 155.21, +0.11) for about $188/share.

Treasuries maintained narrow ranges overnight, but climbed during the session with the 10-yr yield falling five basis points to 2.27%.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 835 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Initial Claims and Leading Indicators:


The initial claims level plummeted to 255,000 for the week ending July 18 from an unrevised 281,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 279,000
That was the lowest initial claims reading since November 1973 when claims dropped to 233,000
The BLS reported that there were no special factors that impacted this week's claims reading
The continuing claims level declined to 2.207 million for the week ending July 11 from an upwardly revised 2.216 million (from 2.215 million) while the consensus expected a decrease to 2.213 million
The Leading Indicators report for June was up 0.6% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the New Home Sales report for June, which will be released at 10:00 ET (Briefing.com consensus 550K).

Nasdaq Composite +8.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.3% YTD
S&P 500 +2.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.5% YTD

DJ30 -119.09 NASDAQ -25.36 SP500 -12.00 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 889/1.85 bln/1954 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 971/836.9 mln/2122 3:35 pm :

WTI crude oil futures sold off today
Front-month crude finished the day 2% lower at $48.39/barrel
In other energy, Aug natural gas dropped 3.1% today to $2.81/MMBtu
Metals showed a mixed day
Aug gold rose 0.2% to $1094.10/oz, while Sept silver fell -0.1% to $14.71/oz
Copper extends recent losses. Front-month Sept copper closed 2% lower today to $2.39/lb

11:46 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (335) outpacing new highs (189) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, ABT, ACN, ADPT, AF, AFOP, AFSI, AIG, ALGN, ALGT, ALK, AMBA, AMED, AMWD, ANSS, ANTH, AOS, ATRI, ATTU, AVG, AXDX, BABY, BBCN, BBT, BF.B, BGFV, BHLB, BK, BNCN, BRLI, C, CAKE, CARA, CASH, CBF, CBM, CEA, CELG, CLFD, CMG, CMN, CNBKA, CPRX, CRI, CRTO, CS, CSL, CVBF, CVS, CYNO, DATA, DERM, DRI, DSGX, DXCM, EEFT, EFSC, EFX, EGRX, ESGR, ETB, EURN, EVHC, EVR, FAF, FFIN, FHN, FIX, FL, FLML, FRME, FTNT, GLOB, GMED, GNCMA, GPI, GWRE, HAFC, HALO, HBAN, HCSG, HIFS, HOMB, HQL, HTBK, IBP, IMPV, INBK, INFN, INSM, INSY, ITEK, JBLU, JPM, JRVR, LAZ, LDRH, LGF, LGND, LKQ, LTXB, LYTS, MANH, MD, MHK, MKL, MLM, MMAC, MMI, MMS, MNST, MOFG, MRNS, MSCI, MTB, MYCC, NCLH, NDRM, NJ, NKE, NTRI, NTRS, NVR, NWBO, NYCB, OC, OMAB, OMCL, ORLY, PANW, PBIP, PENN, PFPT, PGTI, PLL, PNC, POST, PPBI, PRAH, PRTA, PSMT, PTLA, QGEN, QTS, RAI, RF, RJF, RLGY, RLI, SBUX, SCHW, SEIC, SGU, SIRO, SIVB, SKX, SNBC, SNV, SPLK, SRNE, STNG, STT, SUBK, SUSQ, TECH, TFX, TSCO, TTWO, TXMD, TYL, UA, UBSI, UEPS, UFPI, UHAL, ULTA, UN, VAC, VG, VRX, WFC, WIFI, WIX, WNS, WWAV, WWE, WYY, XENT, ZOES

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, ACP, AG, AGI, ALTV, AMBR, AMOV, AMX, ANGI, AP, APA, AR, ARCI, AREX, ARII, ARLP, ARR, ATE, ATLS, ATW, AU, AUMN, AUO, AUY, AXAS, BAP, BBD, BBK, BCE, BCX, BEAV, BGR, BHP, BIOS, BKH, BLT, BMO, BOX, BRS, BSI, BTZ, BWG, BWP, CAB, CAFD, CAT, CBA, CBL, CCC, CECE, CEM, CFX, CH, CHK, CHY, CIG, CIG.C, CIK, CLD, CLUB, CNNX, CNP, CNQ, CNS, COP, CPG, CPN, CRTN, CSAL, CTG, CTL, CU, CVA, CVE, CYBE, CYS, CZZ, DFRG, DLB, DNR, DO, DOM, DPG, DRD, DRQ, DVN, DWSN, DXM, DXPE, EARN, ECA, ECR, ECT, EDE, EDI, EFC, EFF, ELON, EMF, EMR, ENPH, ENSV, EOG, EOX, EPM, ERA, ERC, ERF, ESEA, ETP, EVA, EVAL, EVEP, EVLV, EVTC, FCX, FDML, FGP, FHY, FIF, FLDM, FLR, FLS, FOF, FOSL, FRD, FREE, FSM, FSTR, FTEK, FTGC, FTI, FTR, FXCM, FXEN, GDF, GDP, GEF, GEF.B, GHY, GIFI, GIM, GLOP, GLRE, GLT, GMT, GNT, GOL, GOV, GPRK, GRC, GROW, GRP.U, GST, GULTU, GWR, HDNG, HEES, HES, HGT, HIO, HIX, HK, HMSY, HNRG, HRZN, HSC, HUB.A, HYB, HYI, HYT, I, INF, INPH, INTC, INVE, IO, IPI, ITUB, IVH, JCS, JGW, JMLP, JONE, JOY, KED, KERX, KFS, KMM, KORS, KST, KT, KTF, L, LADR, LF, LPL, LRE, LSCC, LTRX, MAV, MCEP, MDIV, MDLY, MDU, MEP, MGRC, MHGC, MHR, MHY, MRO, MUR, MUX, MVO, MYM, NAK, NAO, NBL, NGD, NNI, NOV, NRF, NSC, NSLP, OAS, OGE, OI, OIBR, OIBR.C, OIS, ORC, OSK, OTTR, OXY, PBA, PBT, PCH, PDVW, PEO, PGH, PHF, PICO, PKE, PKX, PLTM, POT, PPP, PRGX, PSAU, PSCE, PSTI, PSUN, PTR, PVA, PWE, PX, QEP, RAIL, RAS, RBCN, RCPI, RDEN, RELL, RFP, RNO, RNWK, ROYT, RXN, RYAM, RYN, SA, SAND, SDPI, SGMO, SGY, SID, SIR, SJI, SJR, SKM, SMLP, SNI, SNR, SPH, SPIL, SPW, SQM, SRT, SVU, SVVC, SWN, SWSH, SXE, SYX, SZC, TAHO, TAL, TAT, TCK, TESO, TEX, TGD, TGP, THTI, TICC, TK, TKR, TLN, TOO, TRP, TSU, TYC, UMC, UNP, UPL, URI, USEG, UTI, UTIW, VALE.P, VIV, VLT, VMI, WAVX, WCC, WIN, WLFC, WLL, WPT, WPX, WRLD, WRN, WY, XOM, YLCO

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IHI, IYF, IYG, KBE, UYG, XLF, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DBC, DIG, DJP, EPU, EWY, IGE, ILF, IXC, IYE, IYM, JJC, JO, SIL, THD, UYM, VXX, XLE, XOP

8:09 am Cypress Semi beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line (CY) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.15 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.13; revenues rose 167.4% year/year to $491 mln vs the $487.71 mln consensus.
"We are pleased to announce strong financial results for the second quarter of 2015, our first full quarter as a combined company. Our non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.15 represents a record relative to the last 10 quarters of the Cypress and Spansion pro forma combination. Our sales force is actively cross-selling products from our expanded product portfolio. As a result, we have begun to see an increase in new opportunities at top-tier customers, particularly in the automotive market. We have continued to make excellent progress on integration. We have exited 19 of the 27 sites planned for closure, reduced our combined headcount by 833 people and achieved $51.6 million in annualized synergies in the second quarter-ahead of our plan to achieve $160 million in synergies..."
8:07 am Amtech Systems announces that its Kingstone Tech unit will sell shares in Kingstone Semi (ASYS) : Co announces that Kingstone Tech (of which Amtech owns 55%) has signed an agreement to sell shares in Kingstone Semi to a China-based venture capital firm. Proceeds from the sale of shares will be paid to Amtech and used to support the company's core strategic initiatives. Upon completion of the transaction, Amtech will receive approximately $8 million (pre-tax) for its shares and the repayment of a loan; and an additional $5.6 million (pre-tax) by March 31, 2016, for its exclusive sales and service rights; and will own 15% of the Hong Kong holding company (effectively a 10% beneficial ownership in the Shanghai operating entity).

In U.S. corporate news of note:


3M (MMM 155.40, -0.01): unch after reporting a three-cent beat on below-consensus revenue.
American Express (AXP 77.15, -1.84): -2.3% after reporting a bottom-line beat on below-consensus revenue.
Cigna (CI 158.00, +6.93): +4.6% after the Wall Street Journal reported the company is close to being acquired by Anthem (ANTM 160.04, +4.94) for about $188/share. Cirrus Logic (CRUS 33.91, +3.20): +10.4% in reaction to better than expected results and upbeat guidance. Credit Suisse (CS 30.20, +2.12): +7.6% after beating earnings and revenue estimates. F5 Networks (FFIV 126.00, +7.50): +6.3% after beating bottom-line estimates and guiding ahead of analyst expectations. Fortinet (FTNT 47.20, +4.90): +11.6% following above-consensus earnings and revenue. General Motors (GM 32.25, +1.95): +6.4% after beating earnings estimates and reaffirming its outlook.
Qualcomm (QCOM 63.10, -1.09): -1.7% after cautious guidance overshadowed a bottom-line beat. Also of note, the company announced plans to reduce its semiconductor division by about 15%.
Las Vegas Sands (LVS 56.75, +1.79): +3.3% despite missing earnings and revenue estimates.
SanDisk (SNDK 60.82, +6.64): +12.3% after beating earnings and revenue expectations. Southwest Airlines (LUV 37.25, +2.13): +6.1% following its one-cent beat. Texas Instruments (TXN 49.50, +0.20): +0.4% despite reporting a one-cent miss and guiding Q3 results below analyst estimates.
7:39 am Caterpillar reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; reaffirmed FY15 EPS in-line, lowered revs guidance below consensus (CAT) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.27; revenues fell 13.0% year/year to $12.32 bln vs the $12.68 bln consensus.

Caterpillar said that a challenging second half of the year is still expected -- low oil prices are a major factor.The economic and industry conditions that were expected at the beginning of the year are occurring.World economic growth is about as the company expected: severe weakness in mining continues, construction-related sales in China and Brazil are lower and new orders for oil-related applications declined. Co reaffirmed guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $4.70-5.00, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $4.96 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; lowered FY15 revs guidance to about $49 bln vs. $49.48 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, down from about $50 bln.The primary reason for the decrease from our initial outlook provided in January is due to the currency translation impact of a stronger U.S. dollar on our sales outside the United States.

4:11 am STMicroelectronics beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line (STM) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.04 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.01; revenues fell 5.6% year/year to $1.75 bln vs the $1.77 bln consensus. Co issues guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of +2.5% seq (+/-3.5pp), may not be comparable to $1.82 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Based upon our visibility and mixed market conditions, including weaker demand in components for PC applications and the economic environment in China, in the third quarter we anticipate revenues to grow sequentially by about 2.5% at the midpoint...We remain committed to our priorities to accelerate revenue growth and improve operating margins, and we continue to explore options for our Digital Product Group."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The tech sector was dominated by Amazon (AMZN 533.60, +51.42) quarterly results, reported last night. Tech/online retail name AMZN rallied big in after-hour trade last night, and continued that strength into early trade, making all-time highs. It was an impressive quarter by all means, reporting an EPS profit to the tune of $0.19 per share. Revenues were also strong for the company, ending the three month period up 19.9% over last year at $23.18 billion. The stock gave up most of the early-trading gains, though, and ended the session off the intraday highs but still in the green +9.80%.

Today/overnight in the technology space, there were earnings aplenty. Shares of many tech names saw either the highest of highs or the lowest of lows following quarterly results. Specifically, names like NetGear (NTGR 33.85, +5.10) and NetSuite (N 99.73, +7.71) traded higher following upbeat earnings. The lowest of lows came to the tune of names like Unisys (UIS 16.55, -3.20) and Constant Contact (CTCT 25.86, -3.67).

Among tech bellwethers, shares of CSCO and FB were relatively strong on no particular news. CSCO, a top weighted component of the HACK ETF, which was also notably strong today, ended the session up by about 1.54%. Social media giant FB traded higher today ending the session +1.63%; FB was mentioned positively last night by Cramer on Mad Money.

Also in social media, shares of Twitter (TWTR 35.42, -0.77) ended about 2.14% down following the company's announcement that it would introduce event based ad targeting. Twitter will report Q2 earnings this coming week on July 28, after the market closes.

Of broader importance, Semis were notably weak today. The SOX and SMH indexes were notably weak today and ended the session down 1.99% and 2.31% respectively. Among semi stocks, MXIM reported Q4 results last night after the close - ending a mixed quarter with EPS of $0.43 and revenues of $582.51 million. Also in semis, SWKS reported better than expected Q3 results, yet traded most of the day notably lower than the sector. Some analysts were out today noting better than expected earnings across the space, and that we may be seeing some profit taking.

In late action, the AT&T (T 34.30, +0.39)/DirecTV (DTV 93.55, +1.35) merger was approved by the FCC. This was largely expected as earlier this week, FCC Chairman passed along an approval recommendation to the FCC Commissioners.

It has been a rough week for equities, and the weekend couldn't come soon enough. The Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Dow all ended notably lower on the week. The XLK, SMH, and SOX mirrored the broader market weakness, as the first busy week in quarterly earnings draws to a close.

Notable news/earnings among Nasdaq 100 components:
DIRECTV (DTV 93.41, +1.22) -- FCC releases statement of commissioner Michael O'Rielly on the AT&T (T 34.30, +0.39)/DTV merger application; says 'process should not have taken this long'
Vodafone PLC (VOD 36.91, +0.72) reported Q2 revenues of EUR 10.113 bln -0.9% on reported basis. India: Service revenue increased 6.9% (Q4: 11.7%), with the growth rate slowing due to the impact of regulation, including an MTR cut. Excluding MTRs, service revenue grew by 10.6%* (Q4: 13.2%), with continued customer base growth and an acceleration in the take-up of 3G offsetting continued pressure on voice pricing.The company also reaffirmed certain FY16 outlook guidanceAltera (ALTR 49.10, -0.33) -- reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.23 per share on revenues fell 15.7% year/year to $414.2 mln

Intel (INTC 28.09, -0.50) - reports were out last night that discussed INTC might be a possible suitor for Qualcomm's (QCOM 61.65, -0.12) chip unit.QCOM, on July 22, announced a plan outlining strategic alternatives aimed at reviewing alternative for the corporate and financial structureYahoo! (YHOO 38.83, -0.38) in late trade, reports surfaced mentioning YHOO would introduce a new consumer product on July 29.

Other news in the tech space:
WAVX ( 0.24, -0.03) filed a hearing request before the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel regarding the Company's continued non-compliance with the minimum $1.00 bid price requirement.

CLS (12.82, +1.14) entered into an agreement for the sale of its property located in Toronto, Ontario, which includes the site of Celestica's corporate headquarters and its Toronto manufacturing operations. If the transaction is completed, the purchase price will be ~CDN$137 million.

SFE (17.21, -0.97) disclosed receipt of a Civil Investigation Demand-Documentary Material from the DOJ regarding its relationship with Advanced BioHealing.

LQDT (9.25, -0.35) announced the appointment of Jorge Celaya as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective August 10, 2015.

Notable analyst moves:
JNPR was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at MKM Partners,
INFY was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie,
MXIM was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill; CTCT was downgraded at Oppenheimer and Robert W. Baird, TRUE was downgraded at Craig Hallum, Goldman, RBC Capital Mkts, and JP Morgan

Weekly Recap - Week ending 24-Jul-15We saw more of the same this week, which is to say the equity market couldn't maintain the momentum of the prior week's strong gains. To wit, the S&P followed up a 2.4% gain last week with a 2.2% decline this week.

This roller-coaster action has been the modus operandi this year as market participants have grappled with valuation concerns, volatility in the economic data, and the Federal Reserve's stated hope to be able to raise the fed funds rate before the end of the year.

In the five sessions completed this week, there was only one that resulted in gains for all three major indices. That was Monday and the gains were quite modest with the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 14 points, the Nasdaq Composite increasing 9 points, and the S&P 500 jumping just 2 points. Over the remaining four sessions, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 would shed a total of 531, 130, and 49 points, respectively.

Those declines flowed primarily from a series of earnings reports from widely-held companies that were deemed either not good enough, disappointing, or really disappointing.

Apple (AAPL) fit the first bill. Its fiscal third quarter results actually exceeded consensus expectations for both revenue and earnings per share, yet the margin by which the company beat was not as large as quarters past; moreover, Apple followed its traditional form and issued conservative revenue guidance for its fiscal fourth quarter.

That combination took the wind out of its stock, which had risen ten points, or 9%, in the eight sessions leading up to its report.

Apple essentially fell victim to runaway expectations and felt the brunt of some profit taking following its report. In fact, Apple declined as much as 7% on the day of its earnings report. It would eventually pare some of those losses, but it still ended the week 4.0% lower, which was a major drag on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 considering it is the most heavily-weighted stock in both indexes.

Fellow Dow components Caterpillar (CAT) and 3M (MMM) dropped into the realm of posting disappointing results and/or guidance.

IBM (IBM), though, took the Dow cake in terms of producing really disappointing results. Big Blue dropped 10 points alone on Tuesday following its report, which featured the 13th straight year-over-year decline in quarterly revenue. That loss spearheaded a 181-point decline in the Dow on Tuesday. For the week, IBM fell nearly 13 points or 7.4%.

IBM's weakness paled in comparison to leading biotech company Biogen Idec (BIIB). It plummeted 22% on Friday after the company provided the really disappointing update that it is cutting its FY15 revenue and EPS guidance below current consensus estimates because of a moderation in demand for its multiple sclerosis drug TECFIDERA.

Biogen took the wind out of the biotech group's sales as valuation concerns kicked in following Biogen's disappointment. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) fell 4.0% on Friday and 5.0% for the week.

There were a decent number of pleasing earnings reports, too. Amazon.com (AMZN), Visa (V), Starbucks (SBUX), and Juniper Networks (JNPR) fit that bill to cite a few examples.

Still, their encouraging results and price gains at the end of the week weren't enough to overcome the shroud of disappointment that set in when the S&P 500 once again failed to break out to the upside and confirm the new high set previously by the Nasdaq Composite.

The understanding that Apple -- perhaps the most loved and widely-held stock around -- couldn't do that heavy lifting after its otherwise very good earnings results pretty much put a lid on buyers' enthusiasm the remainder of the week -- an enthusiasm that was tamped down further by some disappointing economic data late in the week, namely the Flash PMI report out of China, which hit a 15-month low, and the New Home Sales report for June in the U.S., which showed a 6.8% decline in sales to 482,000 units.

To be fair, the Existing Home Sales report for June on Wednesday was stronger than expected, with sales hitting their highest level since February 2007. That is the more important of the two housing reports this week since existing home sales account for roughly 90% of all home sales, yet the negative tone had been cast on Friday by Biogen and the Chinese PMI data by the time the new home sales results hit the wires, leaving market participants one more reason to take some money off the table.

The best report of the week, however, was the initial claims report. It can be stated as such knowing that the 255,000 initial claims for the week ending July 18 were the lowest level of initial claims since November 1973!

That good news got glossed over though due to the continued fallout in commodity prices, which some pundits feel are a harbinger of future economic weakness that has not been accounted for in stock prices. Crude futures for one fell 4.8% for the week to $48.45 per barrel and are in a bear market having fallen more than 20% now from their June peak. Gold futures, meanwhile, declined 4.0% to $1085.60/troy ounce.

In closing, then, the stock market had a tough week this week as economic growth and valuation concerns weighed on investor psychology.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18086.45 17568.53 -517.92 -2.9 -1.4
Nasdaq 5210.14 5088.63 -121.51 -2.3 7.4
S&P 500 2126.64 2079.65 -46.99 -2.2 1.0
Russell 2000 1267.09 1225.99 -41.10 -3.2 1.8


4:20 pm Closing Summary: Economic Growth and Valuation Concerns Clip Market (:WRAPX) : It can't be said that the week closed on a high note -- certainly not for the broader market anyway. There were some individual standouts like Amazon.com (AMZN 530.50, +48.32), Visa (V 74.80, +3.05), Starbucks (SBUX 57.32, +0.76), and Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.54, +1.05), which impressed investors with their earnings results, yet there were far more losers on Friday than winners as economic slowdown concerns and valuation concerns got the better of market participants.

The slowdown concerns were rooted in a variety of factors:

The Flash PMI reading for China dropping to a 15-month low of 48.2 in July and signaling a contraction in manufacturing activityWeaker than expected PMI readings out of Germany and France that pointed to a deceleration in growth momentumThe continued drop in crude futures ($48.13, -0.26), which traded further into bear market territory having fallen more than 20% from their June peak; andThe disappointing report on new home sales in the U.S., which declined 6.8% in June to 482,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 550,000)The valuation concerns, meanwhile, revolved in large part around two factors:
Biogen Idec (BIIB 299.85, -85.20) cutting its FY15 revenue and EPS guidance, which unleashed a wave of selling interest in that stock and peer companies in the highflying biotech group; andThe weak economic data, which raised questions about future earnings prospectsThe early strength in Amazon.com helped the market stand its ground for a bit, yet selling interest picked up steadily after the New Home Sales report at 10:00 a.m. ET. For most of the day thereafter, the major indices logged a progression of new lows before the steady selling activity subsided entering the final hour of trading.

There was some chatter that a proposal by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to raise the short-term capital gains tax on top-bracket payers was responsible for today's negative price action.

While such a headline might have contributed to the negative sentiment that was already in place in the wake of Biogen's warning and the disappointing economic data, it would be overstating things to list that proposal as the cause of today's weakness. That's because Mrs. Clinton hasn't even been elected president, let alone won her party's nomination. Moreover, passage of such a proposal is no sure thing if there is a Republican-controlled Congress on the other side of the 2016 presidential election.

The worst-performing areas of the day were a manifestation of the two bigger issues noted above. To that end, the health care sector (-2.5%) topped the list of losers as the weight of losses in the biotech space, evidenced by a 4.0% drop in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 378.01, -15.74), weighed heavily.

In turn, the economic worries showed up in the underperformance of the materials (-2.2%), energy (-2.0%), and industrials (-1.3%) sectors, as well as the front end of the Treasury yield curve, which is most sensitive to rate hike expectations.

Longer-dated maturities were little changed, but the 2-yr note saw its yield drop two basis points to 0.68%.

Elsewhere, gold futures settled down 0.8% at $1085.60/troy ounce, but ran back to $1100/troy ounce in extended action on short-covering interest before losing momentum.

NYSE volume was on the light side today at just 645 million shares. The lopsided nature of today's trade was seen in the A/D line, which favored decliners by a better than 2-to-1 margin at the NYSE and a 3-to-1 margin at the Nasdaq.

The earnings results will continue pour in next week, but economic data and the Federal Reserve will also be in the limelight with the Federal Open Market Committee policy decision on Wednesday and the advance estimate for Q2 GDP on Thursday.

3:34 pm Earnings Preview for the week of July 27 - 31 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of July 27 - 31 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - PHG, NSC, RPM, MGLN, QSR, POL, ROP, LECO
After Hours - HIG, BIDU, EMN, OMI, WRB, PRE, RE, SWFT, TMK, SWN, RCII, AMKR

Tuesday:
Pre Market - AUO, BP, F, UPS, PFE, MRK, LYB, DD, ARW, CNC, SVU, CMI, PCAR, NOV, IR, ECL, TXT, MMC, JEC, DHI, GLW, RAI, PCP, MAS, LH, AGCO, AKS, JBLU, NLSN, BTU, AXE, WYN, ARG, ALLY, SIRI
After Hours - ESRX, GILD, AFL, CHRW, X, APC, AIZ, NCR, AJG, AXS, WSH, GAS, CTXS, PNRA, EW, TWTR,

Wednesday:
Pre Market - UMC, SPIL, ANTM, HUM, GD, EXC, NOC, IP, ETN, PAG, MO, SO, GT, PCG, TRI, HUN, HLT, PX, HSIC, GIB, MA, CBG, LVLT, BEN, FDML, JAH, SPR, HES, ROK, AVY, JLL, BAH, HSP, AMT
After Hours - MCK, MET, SU, FB, MAR, WFM, LNC, WDC, UNM, BAX, PPC, ORLY, WMB, FNF, OI, NXPI, CNW, LRCX, AEL, NSIT, ASH, THG, FISV

Thursday:
Pre Market - SNE, RDS.A, FCAU, CAH, VLO, MPC, PG, BG, YNDX, BUD, EPD, COP, CI, TMUS, MDLZ, AZN, TWC, TEVA, FMS, CL, DLPH, OXY, ALU, PBF, NOK, CVE, LLL, SWK, ADP, XEL, APD, BLL, BWA, CCE, AVP, TEX, OSK, POT, ERJ
After Hours - BSAC, IM, INT, AMGN, FLR, MOH, EIX, UHS, BRCM, ES, EXPE, HBI, EEP, WU, YRCW, EVHC, FLS, LNKD, EA

Friday:
Pre Market - HMC, XOM, CVX, PSX, MT, ENB, FE, AON, STX, TYC, TRP, PEG, RCL, WY, RLGY, NWL, AEE, BERY

11:51 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (97) outpacing new highs (14) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AMZN, CIEN, FTNT, JNPR, LGF, PANW, PLL, QLIK, SBUX, SPLK, TWC, UNM, V, VRX

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, ABX, AMAT, AMX, APA, ASX, AU, AUY, AVP, AXLL, BBD, BBRY, BEN, BHP, BSMX, BVN, CAT, CIG, CMI, CNP, COG, COH, COP, CSAL, CTL, CVX, CX, DAR, DD, DOV, DVN, ECA, EGO, EMR, EOG, ESV, FCX, FLR, FLS, FTR, GFI, GG, GGB, GOL, GPOR, HES, HTZ, HUN, INTC, ITUB, JOY, KGC, KORS, L, MDU, MON, MRD, MRO, MT, MUR, NBL, NE, NEM, NSC, OAS, OI, OXY, PBI, POT, PPC, PX, RDC, RIO, RXN, RYN, S, SFM, SID, SLW, SNI, SVU, SWN, TAHO, TLN, TSU, TTM, TYC, URI, VALE, VALE.P, VIAB, VIV, WLL, WPX, WY, X, XOM

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN, KIE, RTH, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, DBC, DIG, DJP, EPU, EWA, EWC, EWY, EWZ, FXA, FXC, GDX, GDXJ, GLD, GSG, IAU, IDX, IEO, IGE, ILF, IXC, IYE, IYM, KOL, REMX, SGG, SIL, SIVR, SLV, SLX, THD, URA, UYM, XLE, XME

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 63 stocks made 52 week highs and 532 stocks made 52 week lows.

6:14 am Nokia receives approval from the European Commission for its pending acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) (NOK) : The proposed transaction was notified to the European Commission on June 19, 2015 and was cleared today without conditions following a Phase 1 review. The transaction remains subject to approval by Nokia shareholders, Nokia holding over 50.00% of the share capital of Alcatel-Lucent on a fully diluted basis upon completion of the public exchange offer, receipt of other regulatory approvals and other customary conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2016.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: After more than 5 days of weakness, the US markets have again returned to green. The S&P 500 led the way up as the index closed up 1.24% compared to yesterday's close. the Dow was also strong, ending the day up 1.09%, while the Nasdaq finished the day 0.98% higher. Strength peaked about an hour before the close, and only the Nasdaq spent a fraction of the morning in the red.

The weakness in China has dialed back, albeit still at a loss, as the Shanghai Composite ended the session down 1.7%, a loss but a tame loss comparatively. Weakness in Chinese ADRs didn't come to an end on this day, though, as shares of Baidu.com (BIDU), Alibaba (BABA), and Qihoo 360 Tech. (QIHU) all ended the session in the red. BIDU led the way lower, as the company's Q2 earnings disappointed.

Among notable S&P 500 Information Technology components, Micron (MU 19.75, +1.63) led the way, up +9.0% on the day. Micron and Intel (INTC 28.96, +0.61) announced a new memory unit with much faster speeds than NAND. Qualcomm (QCOM 63.10, +1.12) ended the session higher today by +1.8% as a Director disclosed intraday the purchase of 5,650 shares of stock. Akamai Tech (AKAM 73.65, +2.02) was also notably higher today, ending the session +2.8% ahead of quarterly earnings which will be announced tonight. Facebook (FB 95.29, +1.12) was also higher ahead of quarterly earnings, which are expected for tomorrow afternoon.

In late trade, shares of IBM (IBM 160.02, +0.95) disclosed an update to UK Pensions Trust litigation; The company appealed both the breach and remedies judgments, and a decision is not expected until at least 2016. This could result in an estimated non-operating one-time pre-tax charge of approximately $250 million, plus ongoing defined benefit related accruals.

Other news among sector components:
Visa (V 74.74, +0.88) confirmed a partnership with mobile and online payment provider Stripe through strategic investment.

Western Union (WU 18.64, +0.28) disclosed a settlement between its Paymap subsidiary and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; The co expects to record a non-recurring pre-tax charge of $35.3 mln in its Q2 report.

Oracle (ORCL 39.31, +0.80) announced that Maitland, a global independent third-party fund administrator, has selected Oracle FLEXCUBE Investor Servicing to support the expansion of its global transfer agency services.

Elsewhere in the tech space:
Sapiens Int'l (SPNS 10.86, +0.13) acquired Insseco, an insurance software provider in Poland; The co notes transaction will be accretive to earnings in the third quarter of 2015 and beyond. Sapiens will pay 34.3 million Polish Zloty ($9.1 million) as consideration in the transaction.

Code Rebel (CDRB 11.84, +1.24) acquired ThinOps Resources for $9.25 mln. ThinOps Resources is a management and technology consulting services firm based in Houston, Texas, which had revenue of over $2 million in 2015.

MicroStrategy (MSTR 202.01, +23.84) in addition to reporting earnings, announced the appointment of Phong Le as CFO effective on or about August 24, 2015.

Twitter (TWTR 36.54, +1.84) is relatively strong ahead of the company's Q2 results tonight after the market closes.

Notable tech earnings:
Corning (GLW 18.37, -0.08) reported Q2 earnings per share which were better than expected of $0.38, excluding non-recurring items; non-GAAP core revenues rose 0.2% year/year to $2.52 bln and were mostly in-line with expectations.

Companies reporting tonight after the close/tomorrow before the open: AKAM, ATML, BBOX, CALX, CSCD, CTXS, EEFT, GCA, IPHI, NATI, NCR, NVMI, RSYS, RUBI, SPOK, TSS, TWTR, ULTI, VDSI, VRTU, YELP/BAH, CARB, CDK, GIB, ESIO, LVLT, LFUS, MA, TYPE, SLAB, SPIL, SONS, SNCR, DATA, UMC, VNTV, WEX, WILN
Analyst actions:
MU was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Drexel Hamilton, BBRY was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley; YELP was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank, BIDU was at Credit Agricole and Brean Capital

4:22 pm Cascade Microtech beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CSCD) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.17; revenues rose 9.2% year/year to $36.0 mln vs the $35.6 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.17-0.23, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.20 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $35-39 mln vs. $37.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:16 pm Atmel misses by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q3 revs below consensus....stock halted, set to resume trading at 16:25 ET (ATML) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues fell 13.8% year/year to $306.35 mln vs the $318.0 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $283-303 mln vs. $334.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"Last quarter we delivered solid operating margins and earnings despite a weaker global semiconductor industry environment and the adverse impact of foreign exchange rates...Our attractive product portfolio and resilient operating model position us for meaningful margin expansion and increased cash generation once the industry resumes growth."

4:15 pm : The stock market snapped its five-day losing streak with a daylong Tuesday rally that sent the S&P 500 higher by 1.2%. The benchmark index tested its 100-day moving average (2,095) during afternoon action while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%) underperformed throughout the day.

Equity indices rebounded from losses registered over the past week, starting the day on an upbeat note after the overnight session saw more volatility in Asia. Specifically, China's Shanghai Composite was down as much as 5.1% at the start of the trading day, but narrowed its loss to 1.7% by the close. The turnaround off session lows coincided with a spike in S&P 500 futures in the wee hours of the morning.

All ten sectors posted gains with some of the recent underperformers leading the market higher. To that point, the energy sector surged 2.9% after sliding 4.3% over the past five days. The growth-sensitive sector was lifted by the shares of BP (BP 37.29, +1.24) after the industry giant reported a bottom-line miss on better than expected revenue. Another large sector member, LyondellBasell (LYB 92.46, +2.61) spiked 2.9% in reaction to a bottom-line beat. On a related note, crude oil rose 1.3% to $47.98/bbl, providing added support.

Similar to energy, the other commodity-related sector-materials (+2.1%)-finished well ahead of most other groups. Steelmakers underpinned the space after AK Steel (AKS 2.90, +0.38) soared 15.1% in reaction to a bottom-line beat, overshadowing losses in Dow component DuPont (DD 55.90, -0.83) after the company reported disappointing results.

Elsewhere among Dow members, Pfizer (PFE 35.35, +1.01) and Merck (MRK 57.52, +0.53) reported better than expected earnings, helping the health care sector (+1.8%) finish among the leaders. Furthermore, biotechnology also contributed to the strength in the sector, evidenced by a 2.5% gain in iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 382.84, +9.26).

The relative strength in biotechnology was not enough to pull the Nasdaq in-line with the broader market as several large cap technology sector (+0.9%) components underperformed. The likes of Cisco Systems (CSCO 28.21, 0.00), Google (GOOGL 659.66, +1.39), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 30.27, +0.02) ended little changed while Baidu.com (BIDU 168.03, -29.65) plunged 15.0% after the company reported disappointing results and issued cautious guidance.

To be sure, the slight underperformance in technology was not an issue for the broader market, which benefitted from relative strength in other areas like industrials (+1.9%). The cyclical sector rallied behind transport stocks after UPS (UPS 99.94, +4.82) and JetBlue Airways (JBLU 22.82, +0.47) reported earnings. UPS beat bottom-line estimates on light revenue while JetBlue delivered in-line results. The two stocks posted respective gains of 5.1% and 2.1% while the Dow Jones Transportation Average spiked 2.8%.

Treasuries retreated overnight and held modest losses throughout the day with the 10-yr yield climbing rising two basis points to 2.25%.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages as more than 900 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Case-Shiller 20-City Index and Consumer Confidence:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 90.9 in July from a downwardly revised 99.8 (from 101.4) in June while the Briefing.com consensus pegged the Index at 100.0
The reading was the lowest since September 2014 and well below the most pessimistic forecast (97.5) in the Briefing.com consensus
The Present Conditions Index fell to 107.4 in July from 110.3 in June while the Expectations Index dropped to 79.9 from 92.8
That was the lowest expectations reading since falling to 76.5 in February 2014
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for May rose 4.9% against a 5.6% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus
This followed the previous month's revised increase of 5.0% (from 4.9%)

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while Pending Home Sales for June will be reported at 10:00 ET (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%). Also of note, the Federal Reserve will release its latest policy directive at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.6% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.1% YTD

DJ30 +189.68 NASDAQ +49.43 SP500 +25.61 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1811/1.87 bln/1061 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2274/908.5 mln/833

3:40 pm :

The dollar index traded higher all day, which helped give select commodities a boost, such as copper and oil
Precious metals, however, were mixed today and showed more modest moves
Aug gold ended today's session flat at $1096.20/oz, while Sept silver rose 0.2% to $14.64/oz
Copper rose nicely today. The front-month Sept contract gained +2.1% to $2.41/lb during the session
Sept crude oil rose +1.1% today to end at $47.96/barrel, while in other energy, Aug natural gas also rose +1.1%, closing at $2.82/MMBtu

11:35 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (365) outpacing new highs (38) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AEC, BCR, BSTC, CDNS, CHE, CMG, CSRE, CTLT, EEI, EQIX, FBC, GIG, GPN, HIG, IOT, ITRN, LION, LUX, MAS, MCI, MSTR, NEOT, NTT, OGXI, PFBC, PGC, PGNX, PLL, PPBI, PRAH, RAI, RM, SFG, SUPN, TEVA, VLRS, VRX, YCB

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABEV, ACAS, ACI, ACP, ACTS, ADRE, AGM, AIQ, AMH, AMKR, AMOV, AMX, ANDE, APC, APIC, APP, APPS, APT, ARCW, AREX, ARII, ARMF, ARO, ARR, ASCMA, ASTI, ASYS, ATE, AUDC, AVL, AVP, AXLL, AXX, BAP, BBDO, BBG, BBOX, BCEI, BIDU, BIOS, BLT, BLW, BMO, BNS, BRS, BSI, BSM, BTE, BTH, BTU, BUFF, CAB, CALX, CAP, CC, CCJ, CCUR, CDI, CECE, CECO, CEQP, CFX, CGG, CHCI, CJES, CKEC, CKP, CLBS, CLC, CLIR, CLRX, CLW, CNQ, CPG, CPLA, CPN, CPST, CR, CRAI, CRK, CVEO, CVLT, CWEI, CYD, DAR, DAVE, DD, DDD, DEST, DNN, DNOW, DNR, DOM, DRD, DSS, DSU, DTEA, ECA, EDI, EFF, EGL, ENB, ENRJ, ENSV, ERA, ERC, ERF, ESIO, ESL, ESSX, EVA, EVTC, EXAR, FARO, FCEL, FCFS, FDML, FET, FLDM, FOSL, FREE, FSTR, FSYS, FTEK, GDP, GHI, GHM, GLDD, GOV, GPOR, GROW, GRUB, GSM, GST, GTE, GULTU, HBNC, HEES, HEQ, HHY, HI, HIIQ, HIO, HLX, HMSY, HOS, HOV, HPJ, HSC, HTLD, HTS, HUB.A, HY, HYB, HYGS, IBN, ICA, ICAD, IF, IIIN, IMMU, IMO, IMOS, INPH, IO, IPHS, IPI, IRDM, IRR, IRT, ISD, ISH, IVH, JASN, JGW, JHI, JIVE, JMLP, JOY, JRO, KBIO, KELYA, KGJI, KHI, KNDI, KODK, KOF, KOPN, KOS, KPTI, KSM, LADR, LBMH, LGI, LINE, LL, LOCO, LODE, LOR, LSCC, LTS, MCC, MCF, MCR, MGRC, MIND, MINI, MMT, MNI, MOBL, MOG.A, MOLG, MON, MRO, MSP, MTGE, MXC, MXWL, NADL, NCS, NDLS, NDRO, NETE, NNI, NOG, NOV, NR, NSL, NVTA, NXRT, OAS, OIBR, OIBR.C, OIS, ORIG, OTEX, PBA, PBYI, PCRX, PCTI, PDVW, PEBO, PFN, PICO, PKD, PKOH, POT, POWL, PPC, PPT, PQ, PRSN, PSCE, PSIX, PSUN, PWE, PXD, QEP, QRHC, QUAD, QUMU, RAIL, RAS, RATE, RBCN, RCS, RDEN, REXI, REXX, RL, RLOG, RNDY, RNET, RNN, ROYT, RTK, RWT, RXN, RY, RYAM, RYN, SAIA, SAMG, SBGL, SCD, SEMI, SFM, SFXE, SGY, SHLD, SID, SKBI, SLH, SMCP, SMRT, SNH, SNR, SONS, SORL, SPAR, SPDC, SQI, SRI, SRSC, SRT, STAG, STRA, STRI, SVVC, SWN, TAC, TAL, TAXI, TBPH, TD, TIVO, TK, TMST, TNGO, TORM, TROX, TRUE, TSU, TTF, TUES, TUMI, TUTI, TWIN, TYC, UNFI, UNVR, UNXL, URG, UTIW, VECO, VIAVV, VIV, VKTX, VOC, VRS, VSI, VTL, VVUS, WCC, WEA, WES, WGBS, WIA, WIW, WLB, WLFC, WLL, WOWO, WPX, WRN, WSTL, WTI, XCRA, XGTI, XONE, XTLY, YECO, YELP, ZA, ZINC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EIS

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EEB, EWZ, IDX, IYM, PBW, REMX, SGG, URA, XOP

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Major averages ended Wednesday trade higher by S&P 500 +0.73%, Dow +0.69%, Nasdaq +0.44%. Normal market upticks were interrupted today by the FOMC Statement at 2 p.m. ET. Only the Nasdaq spent a brief moment in the red, immediately following the statement, then all major averages returned to normal positive trading.

Last night, Twitter (TWTR 31.24, -5.30 -14.50%), Citrix Systems (CTXS 75.27, +5.64 +8.10%), Yelp (YELP 25.06, -8.45 -25.22%), Mastercard (MA 96.73, +1.57 +1.65%) and United Micro (UMC 1.72, -0.03 -1.71%) reported earnings results. TWTR reported earnings of $0.07 per share on revenues rose 60.8% year/year to $502 mln. TWTR also saw Q2 MAUs of 316 million, Ad revenues of $452 million, and Data licensing revenues of $50 million. YELP was hit hard today and saw multiple analyst downgrades following Q2 results which were lackluster at best.

The S&P 500 information technology sector index (+0.68%) ended the session up, slightly underperforming the broader market, as the solar sector led the way (Guggenheim Solar ETF 36.24, +0.97 +2.75%). Notable sector advancers include: SPWR +10.05%, ENPH, +6.04%, CSIQ +5.71%, FSLR +4.98%, TSL +3.99%, SCTY +3.61%, JASO +3.37%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology (+0.68%) sector also finished higher on the day. Notable standouts include: CTXS +8.10%, FSLR +4.98%, TSS +4.58%, FISV +2.53%, ADP +2.18%, WU +2.15%, MSFT +2.10%, FB +1.78%.

Notable news items related to sector components:
Akamai Tech (AKAM 73.21, -0.44 -0.60%) reported earnings of $0.57 per share on revenues rose 13.6% year/year to $541 mln.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.48, -0.09 -0.33%) cut stake to 4.5% from 9.6% in amended 13D filing; Expressed support for management and Board.

Microsoft (MSFT 46.29, +0.95 +2.10%) Microsoft announces Windows 10 is now available in 190 countries as a free upgrade.

Box (BOX 16.47, +0.06 +0.37%) hired Paul Chapman as its new Chief Information Officer. Chapman was most recently the CIO of HP Software for Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ 30.30, +0.03 +0.10%).

Qualcomm's (QCOM 63.17, +0.07 +0.11%) CEO and CFO disclosed purchase of 23,915 shares combined at $62.34-63.31 worth about $1.5 mln (transaction dates 7/28).

Elsewhere in the tech space:
VimpelCom (VIP 5.94, +0.81 +15.79%) ticked higher in today's session on reports that VIP and Hutchison Whampoa (HUWHY) might merge Italy assets in the mobile sector.

Nippon Telegr (NTT 38.98, +1.24 +3.29%) announced that it signed an agreement recently to wholly acquire PT. Cyber CSF, a data center service provider headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Wave Systems (WAVX 0.13, -0.08 -39.10%) announced that its Board of Directors and Senior Management have initiated a global restructuring of the Company's business in conjunction with a review of Wave's options for raising capital and pursuing customer transactions and other strategic alternatives.

One Horizon (OHGI 2.07, -0.03 -1.43%) entered into a Dribble Out Agreement with Mr. Mark White. Mr. White was the Chief Executive Officer of the Company from November 2012 to July 2014 and he currently owns 5,415,011 shares of common stock of the Company, representing approximately 16.44% of our issued and outstanding shares on the date of the Agreement.

Analyst actions:
FireEye (FEYE 47.54, +1.85 +4.05%) was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer and a target of $58, Citrix Systems (CTXS 75.27, +5.64 +8.10%) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird, Yelp (YELP 25.06, -8.45 -25.22%) was downgraded at Oppenheimer, Topeka Capital Markets, JMP Securities, BofA/Merrill, Morgan Stanley and Raymond James, Atmel (ATML 8.41, -0.14 -1.64%) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Dougherty & Company

Notable companies reporting earnings tonight/tomorrow morning:
DOX, ARRS, BKFS, BLKB, CAVM, CMPR, EQIX, FB, FARO, FICO, FISV, FORM, FORR, IMPR, NSIT, ISIL, IXYS, LRCX,LPSN, MANT, NCIT, NXPI, OTEX, PEGA, POWI, PTC, QUIK, ROG, RKUS, NOW, SSNC, SPRT, TER, WSTL, WDC/ACIW, ALU, ADP, CCMP, CEVA, CBR, CBB, DBD, ENTG, EXLS, IT, I, IDCC, IRDM, MMYT, MOBL, MWW, NTCT, NICE,NOK, OIIM, PRFT, SHOP, SSYS, TMUS, VG, YNDX
5:06 pm Teradyne beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TER) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.45; revenues fell 2.4% year/year to $513 mln vs the $487.58 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.35-0.41 vs. $0.37 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $450-480 mln vs. $457.74 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Orders in the second quarter of 2015 were $529 million of which $395 million were in Semiconductor Test, $84 million in Wireless Test, $45 million in System Test, and $5 million in Industrial Automation.

4:21 pm Intersil reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (ISIL) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.16 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.16; revenues fell 10.4% year/year to $132.44 mln vs the $136.39 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.12-0.15 vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $122-130 mln vs. $145.54 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:17 pm Altera announces a favorable US tax court opinion, with respect to its litigation with the IRS (ALTR) : Co announced that the United States Tax Court has issued a favorable opinion with respect to its litigation with the Internal Revenue Service filed with the Court in 2012. The litigation relates to the treatment of stock-based compensation expense in an inter-company cost-sharing arrangement with Altera's wholly owned subsidiary, Altera International.

The Court accepted Altera's position and concluded that the company is not liable for any tax or interest associated with the cost-sharing issue. Co currently expects to record, based upon its preliminary estimates, an aggregate favorable impact of $40 to $50 million to net income for fiscal years 2004 through 2007 for the reversal of previously recorded reserves related to the stock-based compensation cost-sharing issue.

4:16 pm Western Digital beats by $0.05, misses on revs -- guides on call (WDC) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $1.51 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.46; revenues fell 12.6% year/year to $3.19 bln vs the $3.26 bln consensus.

"I am satisfied with our execution and performance in the fourth fiscal quarter in light of the weak PC market."

4:15 pm Qorvo beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q3 below consensus (QRVO) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.06; revenues rose 23.1% year/year to $673.6 mln vs the $665.46 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $1.05-1.15, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.28 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q3 revs of $690-710 mln vs. $741.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.4:09 pm FormFactor beats by $0.02, beats on revs (FORM) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.09; revenues rose 9.6% year/year to $73.9 mln vs the $72.16 mln consensus.

4:08 pm Lam Research beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (LRCX) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $1.50 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.47; revenues rose 6.3% year/year to $1.48 bln vs the $1.46 bln consensus. Deferred revenue and profit balances at the end of June 2015 quarter increased to $518.1 million and $322.1 million, respectively, as compared to $485.2 million and $303.3 million at the end of the March 2015 quarter, respectively.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.60-1.80 vs. $1.39 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.525-1.675 bln vs. $1.42 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm : The stock market registered its second consecutive advance on Wednesday with the S&P 500 climbing 0.7% to extend its weekly gain to 1.4%. The benchmark index overtook its 100- (2,095) and 50-day moving averages (2,100) during morning action while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.4%) struggled to keep pace with the broader market.

Equity indices began the day with slight gains after China's Shanghai Composite spiked 3.4% overnight, which improved risk tolerance among global investors. The Dow and S&P 500 rallied throughout the session while the Nasdaq hovered near its opening levels into the afternoon before setting new highs ahead of the close.

The tech-heavy index was pressured by biotechnology as iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 377.43, -5.41) lost 1.4% despite better than expected earnings from Gilead Sciences (GILD 115.71, +2.64). Shares of GILD spiked 2.3% while the broader health care sector (+0.2%) settled among the laggards. Similar to biotechnology, high-beta chipmakers lagged, but the PHLX Semiconductor Index was able to end the day higher by 0.1%. On the earnings front, Twitter (TWTR 31.24, -5.30) sank 14.5% after the company's bottom-line beat was overshadowed by cautious commentary regarding user growth outlook.

Although the technology sector (+0.7%) struggled in the early going, the top-weighted sector closed the gap during afternoon action, ending in-line with the broader market. Similarly, the materials sector (+0.7%) settled near the S&P 500 while the other four cyclical sectors displayed relative strength.

Most notably, the industrial sector spiked 1.2% with transport stocks fueling the move after C.H. Robinson (CHRW 69.85, +3.12) beat bottom-line estimates on light revenue. The stock surged 4.7% while the broader Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 1.7% to extend this week's gain to 4.3%.

Elsewhere, the energy sector (+1.3%) settled ahead of industrials thanks to an intraday rally in crude oil that sent the energy component higher by 1.7% to $48.77/bbl. Also of note, Anadarko Petroleum (APC 76.28, +3.43) soared 4.7% after beating earnings expectations.

Today's advance in equities was accompanied by selling in the Treasury market that sent the 10-yr yield higher by three basis points to 2.28%. Treasuries spiked off their intraday lows after the latest policy statement from the FOMC called for more improvement in the labor market before raising rates. On a related note, the Dollar Index (97.16, +0.40) dipped immediately after the minutes crossed the wires, but rallied during the late afternoon at the expense of the euro (-0.8%), which slipped to 1.0980.

For the second day in a row, participation was ahead of average with more than 850 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data released this morning was limited to the MBA Mortgage Index and Pending Home Sales:


The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 0.8% to follow last week's 0.1% uptick
Pending home sales for June fell 1.8% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 272,000) and the advance reading of Q2 GDP (consensus 2.5%) will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD

DJ30 +121.12 NASDAQ +22.53 SP500 +15.32 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1610/1.73 bln/1246 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2245/857.3 mln/834 3:40 pm :

FOMC provided some additional volatility in the commodities space this afternoon
The initial reaction was a lower dollar index and modestly higher precious metals, oil and copper
However, that quickly reversed as the dollar index surged higher
Sept crude oil finished the day +1.7% at $48.77/barrel, while in other energy, Sept nat gas rose 1.4% to $2.86/MMBtu
Aug gold rose back above the $1100/oz area post-FOMC, but ended the day -0.3% at $1092.70/oz
Sept silver gained 0.5% to $14.71/oz, while Sept copper ended unchanged at $2.41/lb

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The Technology Sector is weighing on the broader market today. Shares of Apple (AAPL 114.63, -3.81 -3.22%) ended notably lower today, furthering the distance from the 200 day simple moving average with every minute of trade. AAPL's losses today bring the stock back to late-January 2015 levels, and about 14.79% lower than the all-time high from late-April of $134.54. In relation, AAPL supplier Skyworks (SWKS 88.56, -3.96) is among the weakest performers of the day, on no particular news-related action. SWKS, like AAPL crossed its 200 day simple moving average, and closed below it, at -4.28% on the day.

While AAPL and SWKS were lower on the day, Netflix (NFLX 121.03 +8.47) enjoyed a day of gains. The movie and TV show streaming giant finished Tuesday trade higher by +7.52%. The company was initiated with a Buy rating at Guggenheim, accompanied by a $160 target, about 32.20% higher from the closing price. Today's high of $122.79 also represented a new all-time high for the roughly 18 year old company, split-adjusted.

The weakness is not confined to the technology sector today, though, as almost every other sector (except Basic Materials, Cyclical Goods, and Non-Cyclical Goods) closed in the red. The S&P 500 2093.33, Dow Jones 17550.69, and Nasdaq 5105.55 all closed lower -- 0.22%, 0.27%, 0.19% respectively. The markets began the day higher, but by 11 a.m. ET, we were in the red. The pressure continues as all three major indices have finished the day lower in each of the past three trading session.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (703.68, -5.01 -0.71%) was also dragged down by top-weighted AAPL, but the technology giant was not the only tech name which closed lower on the session. FSLR +1.85%, ADSK +1.59%, MSFT +1.56%, YHOO +1.17%, EA +1.17%, TSS +1.14%, RHT +0.96%, ADS +0.88%, ADBE +0.81% were among the top leaders in the sector today, while QRVO -4.28%, SWKS -4.14%, LRCX -3.50%, AAPL -3.21%, AMAT -1.92%, AVGO -1.85%, WDC -1.70%, QCOM -1.52% were the top laggards.


Other notable news among sector components:
CA Tech (CA 29.03, +0.11 +0.38%) acquired ID management solutions provider, Xceedium, Inc; terms of the transaction were not disclosed, with closure expected this quarter.

Accenture (ACN 103.42, +0.21 +0.20%) acquired FusionX; financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to strengthen Accenture's Security practice and help clients accurately assess their ability to protect against, detect and, where necessary, respond to sophisticated and sustained cyber-attacks.

PayPal (PYPL 38.95, -0.44 -1.12%) named former United Continental's (UAL 58.95, +0.63 +1.08%) John Rainey as CFO, effective August 24, 2015.

Microchip (MCHP 42.79, +0.005 +0.01%) in addition to reporting earnings, announced the completion of the company's acquisition of Micrel (formerly MCRL).

Elsewhere in the technology space:
eLong (LONG 17.10, +2.88 +20.25%) announced that its Board of Directors has received a preliminary non-binding proposal letter, dated August 3rd, 2015, from Tencent Holdings (TCEHY 18.42, +0.12 +0.66%), proposing a "going-private" transaction to acquire all outstanding ordinary shares of eLong, not already beneficially owned by TCH Sapphire Limited which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tencent, the major shareholders in the Company accounting for at least 70% in voting power of the Company and certain members of Company management, for $18 in cash per American depositary share.

Ultra Clean Holdings (UCTT 8.02, +0.42 +5.53%) will acquire Miconex s.r.o., and expects the acquisition to be immediately accretive by about $0.01 to $0.02 to non-GAAP EPS for Q3 2015.
Sprint (S 3.49, +0.15 +4.49%) appointed Tarek Robbiati as CFO, Gnther Ottendorfer to Chief Operating Officer, Technology, and John Saw as Chief Technology Officer.

Digital Ally (DGLY 10.19, +0.39 +3.98%) received an order for 300 FirstVu HD body-worn video cameras from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, along with FirstVU HD orders from other agencies, during the month of July.

Marvell (MRVL 12.25, -0.23 -1.84%) confirmed the mixed ruling in its case against Carnegie Mellon; award reduced by more than $1.25 billion.

Zillow (Z 74.20, -2.30 -3.01%) named COO Kathleen Philips as CFO, promotes Chief Marketing Officer Amy Bohutinsky to Chief Operating Officer.

DragonWave (DRWI 0.26, -0.02 -8.47%) announced an agreement with Nokia (NOK 6.87, -0.06 -0.87%) to address the impact of reduced demand being experienced through this channel in the first half of FY16 including temporary cash flow measures as well as a new commercial arrangement for Support and Maintenance services. On the Q1 earnings call indicated it anticipated revenue growth of between 30% and 60% in Q2 relative to Q1. Co believes it will be within this guidance but at the lower end of the range given lower revenue than expected from India.

Notable earnings in the technology space:

Rudolph Tech (RTEC 12.84, +1.88 +17.15%) reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.23 per share on revenues which rose 38.2% year/year to $59.47 million.

Benefitfocus (BNFT 40.24, +3.92 +10.79%) reported Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.53 per share on revenues which rose 32.1% year/year to $42.7 million.

Sprint (S 3.49, +0.15 +4.49%) reported Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.01 per share on revenues which fell 8.7% year/year to $8.03 bln vs the $8.33 bln consensus.

Microchip (MCHP 42.79, +0.005 +0.01%) reported Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.69 per share on non-GAAP revenues which rose 0.5% year/year to $534.0 million. The company also issued downside guidance for Q2 (Sep), sees EPS in the range of $0.58-0.66 on Q2 revenues non-GAAP revs of $532-569 million.

TriNet Group (TNET 16.33, -10.36 -38.82%) reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.14 per share on revenues which rose 21.9% year/year to $640 million.

Companies reporting tonight/tomorrow morning: ATVI, ACLS, ECOM, CVG, EPAM, EXAR, G, GLUU, INAP, INVN, XXIA, JCOM, JIVE, MRCY, MB, NEWP, OCLR, PAYC, PCTI, RNET, SMCI, SYNC, TTGT, TRMB, UNXL, UNTD, ZEN, Z/ANSS, AVT, CTSH, GSIG, INXN, LDOS, LIOX, MSI, SPNS, WIX

Analyst Actions:

RTEC was upgraded at Barrington Research and Credit Suisse, BBOX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sidoti, MSTR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey, SSYS was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan;
ON was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush, XOOM was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays

4:35 pm Exar misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (EXAR) : Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.11; revenues rose 31.6% year/year to $40.42 mln vs the $41.8 mln consensus.

On a non-GAAP basis, gross margin was 49.5%, and operating income was $5.3 million, or 13.0% of revenue."Clearly the semiconductor industry was impacted in the June quarter by a weakening demand environment and resulting inventory correction, however we were able to meet our expectations for the quarter. While the near-term will likely be impacted by global uncertainties, we are confident in what we have achieved with new product development and innovative mixed signal solutions."Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.06-0.09, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.13 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of -5% to -9% sequentially (~$-36.9-38.4 mln) vs. $44.40 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"While we see modest growth in end customer demand, our outlook in the near term reflects the macro economic uncertainties and resulting inventory correction."
4:31 pm Super Micro Computer beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SMCI) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.57 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.56; revenues rose 34.0% year/year to $573.6 mln vs the $524.37 mln consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.49-0.59, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $520-580 mln vs. $524.72 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:24 pm Ixia beats by $0.09, beats on revs (XXIA) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.10; revenues rose 20.2% year/year to $131.6 mln vs the $119.82 mln consensus.

4:14 pm Axcelis Tech beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (ACLS) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.05 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.03; revenues rose 90.3% year/year to $78.4 mln vs the $71.2 mln consensus. Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.03-0.05 vs. $0.04 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $75-80 mln vs. $70.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:14 pm First Solar beats by $0.85, beats on revs; guides FY15 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (FSLR) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.93 per share, $0.85 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.08. The sequential increase in net income was due to higher systems project revenue, project cost improvements and a discrete tax benefit in the second quarter of approximately $42 million. ; revenues rose 64.6% year/year to $896 mln vs the $788.3 mln consensus. The increase in net sales from the prior quarter resulted from increased revenue recognition on the Silver State South project and the sale of majority interests in the North Star and Lost Hills-Blackwell projects.

Q1 bookings were 537MW compared to 593 MW in Q1;Year-to-date bookings of 1.4GWdc Co issues upside guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $3.30-3.60, excluding non-recurring items (Includes $0.16 of equity in earnings, primarily related to ownership interest in 8point3), vs. $2.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 revs of $3.5-3.6 bln vs. $3.42 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Gross Margin- 21% to 22% Operating Expenses $415M to $425M Operating Income $330M to $370M Effective Tax Rate 2% to 5% Net Cash Balance $1.2B to $1.4B Capital Expenditures $175M to $200M Working Capital $1.1B to $1.3B Shipments 2.8GW to 2.9GW

4:10 pm : The stock market registered its third consecutive decline on Tuesday with the S&P 500 shedding 0.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) underperformed.

Equity indices spent the first half of the trading day near their flat lines with the S&P 500 bouncing inside a six-point range. The benchmark index made a brief appearance in the green, but could not build on that momentary gain as the top-weighted technology sector (-0.7%) weighed. Specifically, Apple (AAPL 114.64, -3.80) was down as much as 4.4% in the early going, which kept a lid on the market. The tech heavyweight narrowed its loss to 3.2% by the close, ending near levels last seen in late January.

Similar to Apple, most large cap tech components registered losses while chipmakers also underperformed with the PHLX Semiconductor Index falling 1.1%. Including today's decline, the SOX index is down 7.2% in 2015.

Unlike technology, most other cyclical sectors traded in the green early on, but their gains faded during the afternoon. The S&P 500 marked a session low during afternoon action after Atlanta Fed President and FOMC voting member Dennis Lockhart said that, barring significant deterioration in economic data, the economy will be ready for a rate hike in September. The stock market recovered rather quickly from the move that occurred after Mr. Lockhart's comments while Treasuries settled near their lows with the 10-yr yield rising six basis points to 2.21%. On a related note, the Dollar Index (97.91, +0.41) charged to a fresh high, climbing 0.4%. The USD/CAD pair was in focus as continued weakness in the Canadian dollar drove the pair to a fresh 11-year high.

Although the S&P 500 returned to its intraday range, it could not push into the green as only two sectors-consumer discretionary (+0.3%) and materials (+0.4%)-registered gains. The discretionary sector was underpinned by retailers, evidenced by a 0.7% gain in SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 97.89, +0.67). On the earnings front, Coach (COH 31.40, +0.97) spiked 3.2% after beating earnings and revenue estimates.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.5%) struggled even as crude oil rose 1.1% to $45.76/bbl. Similarly, telecom services (-0.5%) and utilities (-1.7%) ended the day behind the broader market. The utilities sector ended at the bottom of the leaderboard, snapping its seven-day streak as higher market rates took some shine of the high-yielding sector.

Today's participation was in-line with average as roughly 790 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the Factory Orders report for June, which increased an in-line 1.8%. Durable goods orders increased 3.4% in June, which was unrevised from the advance durable goods report. These orders declined 2.3% in May.

As the advance report already showed, a majority of the increase in orders was the result of a 56.0% increase in defense and nondefense aircraft orders. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders were revised down from a 0.8% gain in the advance report to an increase of 0.6%.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while ADP Employment Change for July (Briefing.com consensus 220K) will be announced at 8:15 ET. The Trade Balance for June (consensus -$42.70 billion) will cross the wires at 8:30 ET while the ISM Services Index for July (expected 56.3) will be reported at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +7.8% YTD
S&P 500 +1.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.5% YTD

DJ30 -47.51 NASDAQ -9.84 SP500 -4.72 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1395/1.64 bln/1445 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1371/795.3 mln/1675 3:40 pm :

The dollar index rallied off its morning lows, which helped weigh on select commodities such as precious metals
Energy held some gains with Sept crude oil closing $0.51 higher at $45.76/barrel and Sept natural gas ending $0.06 higher to finish at $2.81/MMBtu
Precious metals finished the day mostly flat
Dec gold rose $1.40 in floor trading today to $1090.70/oz, while Sept silver rose $0.04 to $14.55/oz
Copper gained 0.8% to $2.36/lb

11:44 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (206) outpacing new highs (162) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, ABCB, ABMD, ACN, ACRE, ADPT, AF, AFSI, AIZ, ALK, AMRB, ANSS, ARL, ARMK, ASR, ATRC, AYI, AYN, BDX, BEAT, BF.A, BF.B, BFAM, BKFS, BLDR, BNCN, BOH, BUFF, BXLT, CARA, CASY, CBM, CBPO, CDW, CFNL, CHD, CHDN, CHE, CLX, CMG, CMRX, CPB, CRVP, CSFL, DCM, DHR, DIS, DORM, DSGX, DVAX, EFSC, EFX, EL, ELLI, ELNK, ELS, EVER, EVHC, EXEL, EXPE, EXPR, EXR, FAF, FBC, FCFP, FCSC, FFBC, FIX, FL, FNF, FNFG, FOLD, FSV, GIS, GLPG, GNC, GWB, HIFR, HIG, HPY, HRG, HRL, HSKA, HTBI, HTBK, HTLF, HW, IBCP, ICLR, INBK, INGR, INTG, IPCM, IRL, IRMD, IT, JHX, JLL, KAR, LION, LMNS, LXRX, MBTF, MD, MDLZ, MHLD, MKC, MMI, MRNS, MSTR, NBTB, NDRM, NEOS, NEOT, NFLX, NUVA, OCR, OGEN, PAC, PFBC, PFS, PLL, PRE, PRMW, PSA, QGEN, QLTY, QTS, RAI, RDY, REGN, RENX, ROL, RRGB, SABR, SEIC, SIGI, SKX, SKYW, SPP, SPR, SSNC, STNR, TAST, TDOC, THG, TMUS, TOWN, TREE, TWC, UHAL, USG, VGR, VLRS, VNTV, VRTX, WETF, WSM, WTM, WWAV, WWE, XL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAC, AAU, ABGB, ADAT, ADRO, AEZS, AGZD, AMAT, AMBC, AMCO, ANF, APIC, ARCW, AREX, ARII, ASTI, ASX, ATE, ATW, AU, AXON, BBD, BBG, BCEI, BEN, BKD, BONT, BOX, BOXC, BPI, BRKS, BRS, CADC, CAFD, CAP, CCD, CCM, CDE, CFD, CGG, CGNX, CIO, CKH, CKP, CLCD, CLD, CLNT, CMLP, CNAT, CNIT, CNX, COHU, CRAY, CRK, CRT, CTCM, CVX, DDD, DLNG, DNOW, DNR, DSCO, DTEA, DWSN, EARN, ECA, ECR, EEP, EGIF, EGL, ENLC, ENLK, ENPH, ENRJ, ERA, EROC, ETR, EXAR, FCEL, FELP, FOSL, FREE, FSTR, GFN, GLRE, GLT, GPS, GRAM, GRMN, GST, GULTU, H, HART, HCLP, HELI, HERO, HIIQ, HMY, HNRG, HOV, HTGM, ICL, ICON, IDSY, IIIN, INVE, IRR, ISIL, JGH, JONE, KBIO, KIN, KLIC, KNOP, KOOL, KORS, LC, LHO, LRE, LSCC, MAT, MDM, MDU, MDVX, MEIP, MGH, MGT, MMYT, MRIN, MVO, NAO, NAV, NBG, NDRO, NE, NEM, NFG, NGLS, NIHD, NL, NNVC, NRG, NSLP, NVTA, NYLD, NYLD.A, OIBR, OIBR.C, OKE, ONDK, ONVO, ORIG, PG, PKOH, PNX, PQ, PSEC, QRHC, RATE, REN, REX, RNET, RNWK, ROVI, ROYT, RPD, SBGL, SBR, SCM, SEMI, SGI, SHLD, SINO, SMTC, SPRT, SSYS, STXS, SWC, SWN, SYX, TAC, TECU, TGH, TINY, TK, TNET, TNGO, TORM, TRS, TTF, TWIN, UIS, UNIS, UNT, USAP, VECO, VPCO, VSH, WHZ, WPZ, WSTC, WTI, XOM, YDIV, YLCO, Z

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: PPLT, SGG, VXX, VXZ

6:58 am Kulicke & Soffa reports Q3 (Jun) results, misses on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus (KLIC) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.33 per share, including favorable tax benefits totaling $13.7 mln or $0.18 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.17; revenues fell 8.8% year/year to $164.6 mln vs the $166.25 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $135-145 mln vs. $187.93 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "The lower level of guidance largely stems from higher inventory levels throughout the semiconductor value chain and expectations for muted semiconductor unit growth. Ultimately, these broad industry conditions reduce the near-term necessity for capacity additions to the install base. Our exposure to new market opportunities combined with a relentless focus on operational efficiency are anticipated to drive fundamental business improvements and further enhance our ability to perform throughout the cycle. Our recent and aggressive efforts to return capital to investors further extends our ability to create and deliver ongoing, meaningful and sustainable value to shareholders."

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From Briefing.com: It appears, at least for today, that the panic has left shares of Apple (AAPL 115.40, +0.76) as the stock did not close down today; and as AAPL did not close down, neither did the technology space as a whole. Shares of AAPL traded in the range of $112.10-$117.44 today, and close higher by 0.66%. Shares still trade well off the company's 200 day simple moving average which stands around $121.04, but have taken a breather from the selling pressure.

Elsewhere in tech, shares of First Solar (FSLR 51.92, +7.42) took a monster leap today, as the stock ended Wednesday trading roughly 16.67% higher from yesterday's closing price. FSLR reported a monster quarter, as revenues beat expectations and came in around $896 million, up 64.6% year-over-year. The company also gave upside Fiscal Year 2015 EPS and revenue guidance, aiding the shares in their ascent.

The technology space (XLK 42.51, +0.41) finished higher on the day, ending Wednesday trade up 0.97%, with others finishing XLP +0.87%, XLV +0.84%, XLI +0.56%, XLB +0.50%, XLF +0.40%, XLU +0.25%, IYZ +0.03%, XLE -0.75%, XLY -1.08%. The markets began the day higher, and expect for a brief moment for the Dow Jones, we spent the entire day in the green; The Dow Jones also finished the day lower. The S&P 500 2099.84, Dow Jones 17540.47 and the Nasdaq 5139.94 finished the day +0.31%%, -0.06%, and +0.67% higher on the session.

The S&P 500 Information Technology (710.83, +7.15) sector also finished the day in positive territory +1.02%. Notable leaders in the sector were FSLR +16.67%, CTSH +6.40%, MSI +6.29%, while notable laggards included MU -0.53%, QRVO -0.42%, V -0.39%. As is evidence by the names which finished higher, earnings were in the forefront as the three names which finished highest on the day all reported either last night of this morning.

As such, FSLR helped solar names and the broader sector Guggenheim Solar ETF (TAN 35.59, +1.66) finished higher 4.89% on the day. Semiconductors were also notably stronger today, as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX 644.62, +7.44) finished the session higher by 1.17%, led by Marvell (MRVL 12.86, +0.60 +4.89%).

Other notable news items among sector components:

Red Hat (RHT 80.14, +1.10 +1.39%) confirmed the resignation of Mark Cook; It was announced that CFO Frank Calderoni will assume the duties of principal accounting officer until a successor is appointed.

Motorola Solutions (MSI 64.04, +3.82 +6.34%) confirmed a $1 billion investment from Silver Lake, and announced its intent to repurchase up to $2 bln of stock through a tender offer. Under the terms of the agreement, Silver Lake would purchase $1 billion aggregate principal amount of 2% convertible senior notes due 2020 with an initial conversion price of $68.50 per share. The initial conversion price represents a conversion premium of 17% over the volume-weighted average price of the company's common stock sale price of $58.55 per share on the New York Stock Exchange during the 30 trading days ended Aug. 4, 2015.

Facebook (FB 96.44, +2.38 +2.53%) announced alive video communications tool, which could potentially be competition to Twitter's (TWTR 28.48, -0.86 -2.93%) Periscope app.

Elsewhere in the tech space:
Finjan (FNJN 2.06, +0.45 +27.95%) announced a ruling in favor of it for nearly $40 mln as Blue Coat trial concludes.

Oclaro (OCLR 2.57, +0.44 +20.66%) disclosed that Dr. Richard Craig will be transitioning from his role as President of the Integrated Photonics Business to become Chief Scientist, effective October 1, 2015.

ChannelAdvisor (ECOM 11.44, +1.30 +12.82%) appointed Mark Cook, Vice President of Finance and Controller at Red Hat (RHT) as CFO, effective September 1, 2015.

One Horizon (OHGI 1.54, -0.71 -31.56%) announced and priced a $3 million public offering of common stock and warrants.

Glu Mobile (GLUU 4.50, -1.17 -20.63%) announced partnerships with Jason Statham and Nicki Minaj for the development of new games.

Dataram (DRAM 1.56, -0.31 -16.58%) disclosed the sale of 500,000 shares of common stock at $1.00 per share in a private placement; The company also announced that on August 3, it appointed Anthony Lougee as CFO effective August 17.

Notable earnings in the tech space:
Techtarget (TTGT 10.92, +2.47 +29.23%) reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.10 per share on revenues which rose 13.8% year/year to $29.76 million.

Paycom Software (PAYC 37.85, +5.80 +18.10%) reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.10 per share on revenues which rose 47.1% year/year to $49 million.

Oclaro (OCLR 2.57, +0.44 +20.66%) reported a Q4 (Jun) loss of $0.06 per share on revenues which fell 14.3% year/year to $82.19 million. The company also issued in-line guidance for Q1 (Sep), now sees Q1 revenues of $82-88 million.

Glu Mobile (GLUU 4.50, -1.17 -20.63%) reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.01 per share on non-GAAP revenues which rose 64.3% year/year to $57.5 million. The company also issued downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of ($0.02)-0.00 on Q3 non-GAAP revenues of $58-60 million.

Wix.com (WIX 22.87, -4.53 -16.53%) reported Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.21 per share on revenues which rose 43.4% year/year to $48.6 million.

PC-TEL (PCTI 5.97, -1.07 -15.20%) reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.02 per share on revenues which rose 5.5% year/year to $27.63 million.
Other movers on earnings: XXIA +15.93%, ZEN +13.70%, RATE +13.27%, ECOM +12.82%, ATVI +11.84%, ACLS +10.80%, MRCY +10.50%, SPNS +9.40%, LDOS +8.80%, RNET +8.24%, SMCI +8.14%, MB +8.01%, JCOM +6.54%, CTSH +6.40%, MSI +6.34%, G +6.25%, AVT +5.97%, SYNC +5.03%, GSIG +1.60%, LIOX +1.21%, INXN +1.04%, ANSS -1.27%, NEWP -1.67%, INAP -2.03%, Z -2.40%, CVG -3.72%, EPAM -3.90%, UNTD -6.45%, UNXL -7.17%, INVN -9.02%, EXAR -14.16%, JIVE -14.32%
Companies reporting tonight/tomorrow morning: ACXM, HIVE, AAOI, CSLT, CTL, CSGS, ECHO, GDDY, HDP, INOV, IL, ITRI, LMOS, MCHX, MRIN, MELI, MFLX, RLD, RP, FUEL, RST, SHOR, SGI, SSNI, SEMI, TTEC, TTMI, VEC, WK/ACTA, BCE, CCOI, CNSL, HILL, SATS, EXTR, GOGO, LQDT, MMS, MITL, MBLY, OTIV, RSTI, SUNE, TDC, WIN
Analyst Actions: MRVL was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup,
SCOR was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Telsey Advisory Group; AAPL was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
INVN was downgraded at Northland Capital and Barrington Research, TRMB was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at MKM Partners

4:30 pm Applied Optoelectronics beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (AAOI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.37; revenues rose 51.7% year/year to $49.6 mln vs the $49.6 mln consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.37-0.42, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $51-54 mln vs. $46.80 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm TTM Tech beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (TTMI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.14; revenues rose 49.7% year/year to $445.45 mln vs the $441.13 mln consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.14-0.21 vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $640-680 mln vs. $677.27 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:02 pm Silicon Graphics beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides FY16 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (SGI) : Reports Q4 (Jun) loss of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.20); revenues rose 7.6% year/year to $152.9 mln vs the $133.7 mln consensus. For FY16, co sees EPS of $0.25-0.35, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $600-625 mln vs. $627.6 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:15 pm : The stock market snapped its three-day skid on Wednesday with the S&P 500 climbing 0.3%. The benchmark index settled behind the Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%), but ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%), which ended in the red.

Equity indices began the day with gains, but the early strength was just a mirage for the Dow Jones Industrial Average as the price-weighted index retreated from its opening high and spent the afternoon near its flat line. Most notably, shares of Disney (DIS 110.53, -11.16) pressured the index throughout the day after the company reported earnings. Disney delivered a three-cent beat, but that was overshadowed by a poor showing from its media and parks & resorts segments.

In addition to pressuring the Dow, Disney's results broadsided other media names, resulting in a 1.1% decline for the consumer discretionary sector even as retailers outperformed with SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 98.99, +1.10) climbing 1.1%. Furthermore, Time Warner (TWX 79.80, -7.85) reported better than expected results, but the stock fell victim to industry-wide selling pressure, ending lower by 9.0%.

Discretionary sector notwithstanding, the energy space (-0.8%) finished in the red while seven of the remaining eight groups posted gains. As for energy, the growth-sensitive sector was among the early leaders, but slumped alongside crude oil, which settled lower by 1.4% at $45.11/bbl. Interestingly, the late-morning turn in oil coincided with the reversal in equities.

Despite the intraday reversal, the Nasdaq was able to end the day with more than half of its original gain thanks to the relative strength in the technology sector (+1.0%). The top-weighted group was underpinned by large cap names while Apple (AAPL 115.40, +0.76) erased an early loss to end higher by 0.7% after yesterday's drop widened its decline from mid-July highs to 13.8%. On the earnings front, Motorola Solutions (MSI 64.01, +3.79) spiked 6.3% after better than expected results overshadowed cautious guidance for Q3.

Moving to the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+0.9%) and health care (+0.7%) settled well ahead of the broader market while telecom services (unch) underperformed and utilities (+0.3%) ended in-line. For its part, the health care sector rallied alongside biotechnology with iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 386.72, +2.91) climbing 0.8%.

Treasuries notched their lows shortly after the opening bell on Wall Street, but they retraced about a third of their losses with the 10-yr yield rising four basis points to 2.27%.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 890 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included ADP Employment, Trade Balance, ISM Services, and MBA Mortgage Index:


The ADP National Employment Report revealed that employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose by 185K in July while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 220K
The June reading was revised down to 229,000 from 237,000
The U.S. trade deficit widened to $43.80 billion in June from a downwardly revised $40.90 billion (from $41.90 billion) in May while the Briefing.com consensus expected a deficit of $42.70 billion
The goods deficit increased to $63.50 billion in June from $60.60 billion in May while the services surplus was virtually unchanged at $16.70 billion
The ISM Non-manufacturing Index increased to 60.3 in July from 56.0 in June while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 56.3
That was the strongest reading since hitting 61.4 in August 2005
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 4.7% to follow last week's uptick of 0.8%

Tomorrow, the Challenger Job Cuts report for July will be released at 7:30 ET while weekly Initial Claims will be reported at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 271,000).

Nasdaq Composite +8.5% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.6% YTD

DJ30 -10.22 NASDAQ +34.40 SP500 +6.52 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1668/1.89 bln/1211 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1538/891.1 mln/1554 3:40 pm :

The dollar moved back near the flat line this afternoon, while energy held losses and precious metals were mixed/flat
WTI Sept crude oil ended the day -1.4% at $45.11/barrel, while Sept natural gas lost one cent to $2.80/MMBtu
Sept silver ended the day one cent higher to $14.56/oz and Dec gold lost -0.5% to finish at $1085.60/oz
Sept copper fell one cent today to $2.35/lb


11:40 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (248) outpacing new lows (199) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, ABCB, ABMD, ACFC, ACHC, ACN, ADPT, AFG, AHS, AIZ, ALDW, ALGT, ALJ, ALK, AMED, AMSF, AMSG, ARMK, ASR, ATR, ATVI, AYI, AZO, BAX, BCR, BDGE, BDX, BF.A, BF.B, BFAM, BHLB, BK, BLKB, BNCL, BNCN, BOFI, BOH, BTI, BTO, BWLD, BYD, CAKE, CARA, CASY, CBM, CDNS, CDW, CFMS, CFNL, CHD, CHDN, CHE, CHUY, CINF, CLX, CMG, CMN, CMRX, CPB, CRH, CRWN, CSFL, CTLT, CTSH, CTXS, CYT, DHR, DPS, DSGX, DXCM, DXJS, EA, EFOI, EFX, EGRX, EL, ELLI, ELNK, EMKR, EVER, EVH, EXEL, EXPE, EXPR, FAF, FCFP, FCSC, FDS, FFBC, FISV, FIT, FIX, FL, FNF, FNFG, FOLD, FTNT, G, GIS, GNC, GNCMA, GPN, GSL, GSOL, GWB, HAIN, HCSG, HD, HIG, HLS, HOMB, HPY, HRB, HRG, HRL, HRS, HTBI, HTBK, HTLF, HW, IBCP, ICLR, INGR, INSY, IRL, IT, JCOM, JKHY, JLL, JRVR, KAR, KFRC, LDRH, LGIH, LGND, LHCG, LII, LMCA, LMT, LNCE, MASI, MBTF, MD, MDLZ, MKC, MKC.V, MLM, MMI, MMS, MOH, MORN, MRNS, MSTR, NBHC, NBTB, NFLX, NKE, NTT, NUVA, NWL, OCR, OFIX, PAC, PCLN, PCTY, PFBC, PFG, PFS, PLAY, PLL, PLPM, PN, PPBI, PRMW, PSCH, PUB, QGEN, QLTY, QTS, QVCA, RAD, RDY, RMAX, ROL, RRGB, RSG, RTRX, SCHW, SCI, SCMP, SCOR, SEE, SEIC, SFST, SIGI, SKX, SKYW, SNA, SNFCA, SNPS, SNV, SPB, SPNS, SPR, SRCL, STZ, SUPN, TAST, TBNK, TDG, TDOC, TFSL, TISI, TMH, TMK, TMUS, TOWN, TREE, TRU, TTWO, TWC, UA, UBSH, UEPS, UHS, ULTI, USNA, UVE, UVV, VGR, VLRS, VMC, VR, VRSN, VRTX, VRX, VSTO, W, WBA, WDFC, WETF, WNS, WSM, WTM, WWAV, WWE, XXIA, ZLTQ

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABAC, ADAT, ADRO, AG, AGZD, AMSC, AMTG, AP, APT, ARCI, ARCW, AREX, ARP, ATEC, ATLS, AUO, AUY, AVAL, AVH, AXON, BBD, BBG, BLIN, BLT, BOXC, BVX, BXE, CANF, CBT, CC, CCM, CDE, CEF, CERE, CGG, CHK, CIG, CIO, CLCD, CMLP, CMO, CNAT, CNIT, CNS, CPAH, CVR, DAVE, DLNG, DMLP, DNOW, DNR, DQ, DRD, DTLK, DWSN, DX, EC, EDD, EEP, EGRW, ENLC, ENVA, EPC, ERF, EROC, ETR, EVOL, EXAR, FAM, FBZ, FCEL, FCH, FI, FOSL, FREE, FSTR, GCA, GHDX, GLT, GNW, GOV, GPRK, GSM, GULTU, H, HART, HES, HIIQ, HOV, HPJ, HSC, HST, HTGM, HYH, HZN, ICAD, ICL, IDSY, INVE, INVN, IVR, JGH, JIVE, KERX, KOOL, LAQ, LF, LINE, LL, LNCO, MDU, MEIP, MEMP, MGH, MHF, MHGC, MTGE, MTR, NBW, NDP, NDRO, NEWP, NGLS, NMI, NNVC, NOV, NR, NRCIA, NSLP, NSPH, NSU, NTC, NXRT, NXTD, NYLD, NYLD.A, NYMT, OIBR, OIBR.C, ONDK, ONE, ONVO, ORIG, PAA, PCTI, PGH, PSTI, PTX, PTXP, PWR, QRHC, QUAD, REN, RRC, RSO, RTK, SALE, SBR, SGF, SGI, SINO, SMLP, SNI, SODA, SOFO, STB, STON, STXS, SWN, TAC, TAHO, TAL, TGC, TGD, TGH, TINY, TNGO, TRCO, TROX, TRS, TSU, TWIN, UNT, UPL, VHI, VIA, VIAB, VNR, VOC, VPCO, VRS, VSH, VTNR, VXUP, WLFC, WMC, WNRL, XCO, ZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN, IGV, IHI, IYK, XLP, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: BWX, EWS, PALL, PPLT, SGG, VXX, VXZ

8:02 am Arch Coal announces the extension of private debt exchange offers for several Senior Note issuances, to August, 2015 (ACI) :

SunEdison, Inc. (SUNE) announced that it has closed financing and begun construction on one of its largest wind farms to date, the 300-megawatt South Plains II wind farm in Floyd County, Texas

7:06 am Motorola Solutions beats by $0.14, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; reaffirms FY15 EPS guidance, revs guidance (MSI) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.68 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.54; revenues fell 1.8% year/year to $1.37 bln vs the $1.34 bln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.68-0.73 vs. $0.83 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs down 2-3% yr/yr or roughly $1.39-1.42 bln vs. $1.43 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co reaffirms guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $3.20-3.40 vs. $3.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 rev flat to down 2% or roughly $5.76-5.88 bln vs. $5.81 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

7:02 am Motorola Solutions confirms $1 bln investment from Silver Lake, announces its intent to repurchase up to $2 bln of stock through a tender offer (MSI) : The company expects to use the Silver Lake investment to accelerate growth in its smart public safety solutions and services businesses through new partnerships, investments and acquisitions.

The co also announced its intent to repurchase up to $2 bln of stock through a tender offer. The company will fund the tender offer with a combination of existing cash on the company's balance sheet and a portion of the proceeds from the $1 billion strategic investment by Silver Lake.

Under the terms of the agreement, Silver Lake is purchasing $1 billion aggregate principal amount of 2% convertible senior notes due 2020 with an initial conversion price of $68.50 per share. The initial conversion price represents a conversion premium of 17% over the volume-weighted average price of the company's common stock sale price of $58.55 per share on the New York Stock Exchange during the 30 trading days ended Aug. 4, 2015.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:44 pm Google announces plans for new operating structure; will create a new company called Alphabet, which will replace Google Inc. as a publicly-traded entity (GOOG) : Co announced that Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Our two classes of shares will continue to trade on Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG. CEO Page's statement highlights included:


"We are creating a new company, called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President. What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. In addition, with this new structure we plan to implement segment reporting for our Q4 results, where Google financials will be provided separately than those for the rest of Alphabet businesses as a whole. I should add that we are not intending for this to be a big consumer brand with related products-the whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands."

See Complete Announcement

4:02 pm Rackspace reports EPS in-line, revs in-line, guides for Q3 and Q4 (RAX) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.20 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues rose 10.9% year/year to $489.4 mln vs the $490.53 mln consensus. For Q3, co expects revenue to grow between 2.0-3.5% on a constant currency basis and adjusted EBITDA margins to be between 33-34%. For Q4, co expects revenue to grow between 2.0-3.5%, on a constant currency basis. Co expects adjusted EBITDA margins to be between 33-34%. For the full year, co expects revenue to grow between 12-14%, on a constant-currency basis. Co expects adjusted EBITDA margins to be between 33-34%.

4:05 pm : The stock market began the trading week on a sharply higher note with the S&P 500 spiking 1.3% while the Dow (+1.4%) and Nasdaq (+1.2%) bookended the benchmark index.

Equity indices surged out of the gate after the overnight session featured a 4.9% spike in China's Shanghai Composite after below-consensus trade data from China was viewed as an argument in favor of more policy easing. The overnight strength carried over to the European session as regional indices rallied amid reports suggesting Greek officials and eurozone negotiators are nearing a final agreement on a third bailout package for Greece.

Once the opening bell rang on Wall Street, U.S. stocks perked up with the S&P 500 charging above its 50-day (2,096) and 100-day (2,098) moving averages. The benchmark index overtook both those levels during the opening hour, and inched to new highs during afternoon action with nine sectors ending in the green.

Cyclical sectors paced the opening rally and they continued showing relative strength into the afternoon. The industrial sector (+1.9%) was the early leader, thanks to a 19.1% surge in Precision Castparts (PCP 230.93, +37.05) after the company agreed to be acquired by Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 143.39, -0.16) for $235/share.

Meanwhile, another cyclical sector-energy (+3.1%)-took the lead during late morning action thanks to an intraday spike in crude oil. The energy component jumped 2.5% to $44.95/bbl with the move partially supported by dollar weakness as the Dollar Index (97.17, -0.40) fell 0.4%.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the top-weighted technology sector (+1.6%) settled among the leaders with chipmakers showing notable strength. The PHLX Semiconductor Index soared 2.5% with all but one component ending in the green.

Moving to the countercyclical side, the telecom services sector (+1.8%) settled ahead of the broader market while consumer staples (+0.4%), health care (+0.8%), and utilities (-0.4%) underperformed.

The utilities sector struggled throughout the day as higher Treasury yields made rate-sensitive utility stocks less appealing. The 10-yr note settled just above its low with the benchmark yield higher by seven basis points at 2.24%.

Today's participation was roughly in-line with average as 800 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic data today, but tomorrow, preliminary Q2 productivity (Briefing.com consensus 1.4%) and unit labor cost (consensus -0.1%) data will be released at 8:30 ET while June Wholesale Inventories will be reported at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +7.7% YTD
S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.2% YTD

DJ30 +241.79 NASDAQ +58.25 SP500 +26.61 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1981/1.63 bln/854 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2368/832.8 mln/738 3:40 pm :

Commodities largely help gains today, while a slide in the dollar index helped provide broad market strength
Energy futures gained, including Sept crude oil, which rose +2.5% to $44.95/barrel and Sept nat gas, which gained +1.4% to $2.84/MMBtu
Metals rallied as well, with copper and silver futures displaying a nice move
Sept silver gained +3% to $15.28/oz, while Sept copper rallied +3% to $2.40/lb
Dec gold climbed +0.9% to $1104.50/oz

1:42 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).

Large Cap Gainers

PCP (230.96 +19.13%): To be acquired by Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) for $235/share, or ~$37.2 bln.
FCX (11.46 +8.78%): Rallying amid a rebound in precious metal futures; announced it had entered into an at-the-market agreement to sell up to $1 bln in common stock .MMP (68.41 +6.79%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Large Cap Losers

ETR (69.03 -1.75%): Utilities and rate sensitive names underperforming amid strength in treasuries (EXC, SPG, EIX also lower).INTU (104.83 -0.58%) Downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James.

Mid Cap Gainers

GNW (5.42 +12.45%): CEO disclosed purchase of 30K shares at $4.99-5.00 worth ~$150K, CFO disclosed purchase of 15K shares at $4.99.DO (23.96 +8.91%): 10% owner Loews Corp purchased ~$4.8 mln in shares; recover in crude prices also helping energy names bounce.POST (62.94 +8.35%): Upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup.
Mid Cap Losers
GRPN (4.26 -3.95%): Continued weakness following Friday's quarterly report; Price target lowered at Brean Capital, Northland Capital, and UBS.
IPXL (46.18 -1.89%): Missed Q2 consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, beat on revs; lowered gross margin, R&D guidance; sold the US rights to the Daraprim brand to Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, for ~$55 mln.
12:41 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (163) outpacing new highs (116) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABMD, ABTL, ACLS, ACN, AFG, AGCO, AIZ, ALJ, AME, AQXP, ASBB, ASR, ATR, AVOL, AVY, AYI, BK, BKFS, BKU, BR, CBNJ, CCRN, CHE, CPB, CTAS, CUBE, CVT, DCM, DERM, DXJS, EBS, EEI, EFOI, EFSC, EFX, EGOV, EL, ELNK, EMKR, ESLT, EVER, EXR, FALC, FBHS, FDS, FGL, FL, FTNT, GPN, GSL, GSOL, GWB, HDB, HFC, HIG, HLF, HON, HRS, HSKA, HTBI, HXL, IBCP, IBP, ICLR, INBK, INGR, JCOM, JKHY, LII, LMT, LUX, MA, MAS, MHK, MKC, MKC.V, MLM, MPAA, MPG, NBN, NDAQ, NTT, NUAN, OCR, OME, ORLY, PGEM, PLL, PLNT, POST, PRA, PSA, QLTY, RCL, SCI, SEE, SEIC, SNPS, SRCL, STZ, SYA, TFSL, THG, TMK, TSO, ULBI, ULTI, UN, USCR, USG, VLO, VRTX, WRB, WSM, WTM, ZYNE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAMC, ACP, ADAP, ADAT, AMBC, AMCF, AMSC, ASX, AVL, BBGI, BDSI, BGH, BIOS, BPT, BTH, BVN, CAFD, CANF, CAPL, CELP, CHCI, CHY, CJES, CKX, CLCT, CMO, CNIT, CPPL, CPTA, CRC, CRTN, CZZ, DAEG, DAIO, DDS, DRD, DSCO, DXPE, EBIO, ELP, EMES, ENG, EQS, ESSX, ESTE, ETRM, EXAC, EXLP, FCH, FCX, FOGO, FONR, FUR, FWM, GALT, GOL, GPACU, GPRE, GRPN, HABT, HIE, HIIQ, HIX, HNW, ICON, IKNX, INPH, IPDN, IVR, JHY, JMG, JPEP, KCAP, KERX, KIQ, KOPN, KPTI, KRO, KST, LGI, LIVE, LOR, MCF, MFA, MFM, MOLG, MPLX, MRLN, MSTX, MTGE, NDRO, NEM, NHS, NIHD, NK, NL, NSLP, NSU, NXRT, NYMT, OAKS, OCIP, ONTX, OPGN, PCI, PCN, PDVW, PFN, PGH, PGN, PHII, PLTM, PNTR, PNX, POT, PPHM, PSIX, PSUN, PTXP, QTWW, RBCN, RCAP, RCPI, RESI, RIGP, RLOG, RNWK, RRC, RWC, RWT, SEMG, SFXE, SGM, SGNT, SID, SINO, SPP, SSH, STRI, SWSH, SXE, SYPR, TAS, TBIO, TC, TCCO, THW, TINY, TOO, TRP, TTOO, UAM, VCSH, VHI, VII, VPG, VTTI, WEA, WFM, WGBS, WPCS, ZA, ZAZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EIS, KIE

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EPU, EWM, OIL, SGG, USO, VXZ

8:31 am Solar3D announced that its SUNworks division has achieved $3,938,994 in residential sales for the month of July, a company record (SLTD) : The $3.9 million in new sales achieved by SUNworks represents a substantial jump in comparison to its previous monthly high of $2.7 million in March of 2015-an increase of over 45%.

The Company's new residential sales through the first seven months of 2015 total $12.7, an ~170% increase over the $4.7 million in sales through the first 7 months of 2014

8:31 am FuelCell Energy announces the sale of 5.6 MW of fuel cell modules to South Korean partner, POSCO Energy (FCEL) : The modules were delivered and FuelCell Energy recognized revenue from the 5.6 megawatt sale in the third fiscal quarter of 2015. Co also reported that The fuel cell component manufacturing building in Pohang, South Korea is completed and is concluding pre-production testing with full production expected to begin in the fall of 2015.

7:04 am DSP Group announces Board authorization for a new $10 million stock repurchase program (DSPG) :

6:11 am Chipmos Technology announces an acceleration for its $25 mln share repurchase program, and the initiation of a second repurchase program by a subsidiary (IMOS) : Under the accelerated start, the repurchases are expected to begin five business days from the date on which ChipMOS and its broker enter into a plan, which is anticipated to occur one business day after the Company reports results for the second quarter of 2015.

The Company also announced that a second share repurchase program has been authorized by the Board of Directors of ChipMOS Technologies, the Company's 58% owned subsidiary. Under the second program, 20,000,000 shares are authorized to be repurchased from the open market on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The repurchase price is set at or below NT$41.34 with the total amount up to NT$826,800,000 ($26.5 million).

6:01 am Chipmos Technology reports July 2015 revenues of ~NT$1.64 bln, down 15.8% Y/Y from ~NT$1.69 bln prior (IMOS) : Revenue for the month of July 2015 was NT$1,635.9 million or US$51.8 million, a decrease of 3.1% from the month of June 2015 and a decrease of 15.8% from the same period in 2014

1:31 am Advanced Semi reports July revs increased 8.1% YoY to NT$21.7 bln (down 12.7% sequentially) (ASX) :

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From Briefing.com: The markets finished another day of extreme losses with all three major indices lower by more than 1.0%. The Dow Jones 17404 finished down -1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite 5036 ended down -1.27%, and the S&P 500 2084 was lower by -0.95% on the session. Trading began in the red as concerns from China, which stemmed from a devaluing of the yuan overnight. In reaction, the USD/CNY pair was seeing notable strength today, sparking the largest one-day move in the pair since China ended a dual-currency system in 1994, stirring up concerns about the country's economic growth.

In relation, Chinese names were mostly all lower on today's session. Notable Chinese ADRs which ended lower on the session included JMEI -12.12%, QUNR -10.22%, LEJU -7.88%, SFUN -7.38%, CTRP -7.18%, ATHM -6.90%, JD -6.79%, NOAH -6.62%, YOKU -6.49%, JOBS -5.31%, CMCM -5.78%, MOBI -5.71%.

The big news of the day, though, could be Google's (GOOG/GOOGL) reorganization. The company announced yesterday after the market closed that it would reorganize the business, and as part of that reorganization, co-founder Lawrence Page will run the company as CEO, with Sergey Brin stepping in as President of an entirely new entity with a new moniker - Alphabet Inc. - encompassing the brands and services Google users have come to know and love.

Among the most important changes, Google - ahem, Alphabet - will now run things among the former Google's brands as separate entities, not as an umbrella organization. This essentially means that Alphabet will be the overseer of individual, separate companies which before were not exactly related. The company believes that this change will allow for more management scale.

As an integral part of this reorganization, Alphabet announced that Sundar Pichai - formerly head of product and engineering for the Internet businesses - would be stepping in as CEO of the now separate Google.

Another notable piece of the change comes in the form of shares. Hold onto that built-up energy, do not jump to conclusion, because essentially nothing will happen to shareholders' shares. Alphabet will now be the name of the traded entity, and all shares of the former Google will now register under the name Alphabet. The tickers GOOG and GOOGL will remain trading on the Nasdaq.

As it so happens, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (702.95, -11.86 -1.66%) also finished the session lower. The lone standouts in the sector were shares of GOOG, GOOGL, CRM, and ADBE, which finished in the green - all other names in the sector finished in the red. SYMC -6.85%, AAPL -5.15%, MU -4.99%, FSLR -3.81%, SNDK -3.16%, GLW -3.09%, HPQ -3.04%, EMC -3.04%, YHOO -3.01% were among the laggards of the day.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Symantec (SYMC 21.34, -1.57 -6.85%) announced that it will sell its information management business known as Veritas to an investor group led by The Carlyle Group (CG 24.28, -0.89 -3.54%) for $8 billion in cash. Separately, Bill Coleman and Bill Krause will become CEO and Chairman, respectively, of Veritas upon closing of the transaction.
Qorvo (QRVO 53.86, -0.67 -1.23%) announced the Board's authorization for a new $400 million common stock repurchase program.
Broadcom (BRCM 50.75, -0.72 -1.40%) and Avago (AVGO 124.21, -3.07 -2.41%) announced the expiration of the waiting period under the HSR acts; Closing of the transaction is still expected by the end of the first calendar quarter of 2016.
Elsewhere in the tech space:
Yodlee (YDLE 16.20, +3.60 +28.57%) aside from reporting earnings announced it will be acquired by Envestnet (ENV 29.38, -15.83 -35.01%) for $18.88 per share, or about $600 million. The deal price consists of $10.78 per share in cash and $8.10 per share in Envestnet stock, and is expected to be funded with available balance sheet cash, Envestnet stock, and up to $200 mln in committed debt financing.

Ntelos Holdings (NTLS 8.99, +1.68 +22.98%) announced Shenandoah Telecom (SHEN 42.94, +6.87 +19.05%) entered into an agreement to acquire NTLS for $9.25 per share in cash. Under the terms of the agreement, Shentel will acquire all of nTelos' stock and operations including wireless network assets, retail stores and approximately 298,000 retail subscribers in the nTelos Western Markets. Shentel will complete nTelos' plans to close down its Eastern markets and at closing Shentel will pay off nTelos' outstanding debt which was $523 million at June 30, 2015.
Vishay Precision (VPG 11.83, -0.60 -4.83%) announced it continues to finalize its 2Q Form 10-Q, and currently expects to file it and hold its earnings call by September 4, 2015.
CGI Group (GIB 37.43, -0.51 -1.34%) extended its IT services agreement with the National Bank of Canada to 2025, with an estimated contract value of $420 million.
Notable tech movers in reaction to earnings:
TubeMogul (TUBE 12.84, +1.45 +12.73%) reported a beat on the top and bottom lines of expectations for Q2 results. The company also issued Q3 guidance better than expected, and raised FY15 revenue guidance to better than expectations.
Rackspace (RAX 29.24, -2.49 -7.85%) reported EPS and revenues which were in-line with expectations for Q2. The company also guided for certain metrics for Q3 and Q4.
Symantec (SYMC 21.34, -1.57 -6.885%) reported Q1 results which missed expectations on the top and bottom lines. The company also concurrently with results announced the increase of the share repurchase authorization to $2.6 billion.
Take-Two (TTWO 30.59, -0.35 -1.13%) reported EPS which were worse than expected, and revenues which were better than expected for Q1. The company also guided Q2 EPS and revenues better than anticipated.
Companies reporting after the close/before the open tomorrow: CSC -1.77%, CREE -2.48%, CYBR -6.68%, OPWR -0.32%, FENG -5.52%, VIAV -5.80%/ATTO -1.97%, EZCH -1.75%, SOL -1.52%

Analyst actions:
GOOGL was upgraded at Stifel, Monness Crespi & Hardt, and Mizuho, ADBE was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts, RAX was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James; RAX was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Credit Agricole, SYMC was downgraded at Citigroup and Credit Suisse, INTU was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts
4:12 pm Cyber-Ark Software beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q3 above consensus; raises FY15 above consensus; acquires 20 person Israeli firm Cyberintel (CYBR) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues rose 70.9% year/year to $36.4 mln vs the $32.34 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.11-0.13, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.08 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q3 revs of $36-37 mln vs. $34.30 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues upside guidance for FY15, raises EPS to $0.62-0.65, excluding non-recurring items, from $0.40-0.44 vs. $0.42 Capital IQ Consensus; raises FY15 revs to $145-147 mln from $136-138 mln vs. $140.61 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co has acquired Cybertinel Ltd. an ~20 person Israel-based cyber security company. Cybertinel Ltd. specializes in cyber threat detection technology that will enhance CyberArk's ability to detect credential threats at the beginning stages of the attack cycle. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed
4:08 pm Cree misses by $0.16, reports revs in-line with June warning; guides Q1 in-line (CREE) :

Reports Q4 (Jun) loss of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.16 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.03); revenues fell 12.4% year/year to $382.2 mln vs the $378.49 mln consensus. Co lowered rev guidance to $375 from $420-440 mln on June 24.non-GAAP gross margin 21% vs. 37.9% last year.Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.18-0.23, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.20 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $410-430 mln vs. $418.90 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. non-GAAP gross margin targeted to be 32.0%+/-.

4:02 pm Viavi appoints Richard Belluzzo as interim President and CEO, effective immediately (VIAV) : The appointment follows the departure of Tom Waechter, who has stepped down as the company's president and chief executive officer and Board member to pursue other interests.


Belluzzo has served as a Board member since February 2005, and has been Chairman since November 2012. Belluzzo is currently U.S. Venture Partner for Innogest SpA and consults with The Gores Group, a private equity firm, and Bravosolution, a private cloud software company. As interim president and chief executive officer, Mr. Belluzzo will work with Viavi's Board and executive leadership to ensure that Viavi continues its ongoing transformation until a permanent chief executive officer is appointed. He will continue to serve as Chairman during the transition. 4:05 pm : Global equity markets retreated on Tuesday as investors responded to the overnight devaluation of China's yuan. Specifically, the People's Bank of China lowered the yuan fix by the largest amount on record, sending the USD/CNY pair higher by 1.9% to 6.3249.

The move invited renewed trepidations about the pace of economic growth in China while also feeding concerns that China's trading partners may feel compelled to respond by weakening their own currencies. For instance, the Japanese yen was in focus during the session amid speculation the Bank of Japan may be forced to step up its easing efforts to support the country's exporters. As a result, the dollar/yen pair climbed 0.4% to 125.07, nearing a 13-year high.

The major European indices lost between 1.1% and 2.7% with the retreat paced by exporter stocks while the S&P settled lower by 1.0% and retraced the bulk of its advance from Monday.

Today's selling sent the benchmark index back below its 50-day (2,096) and 100-day (2,098) moving averages with eight sectors registering losses. To little surprise, cyclical groups paced the slide, but the energy sector (-0.2%) spent the day in a steady rally off its opening low. The sector fought its way back to yesterday's highs even as crude oil plunged 4.2% to $43.08/bbl, settling at a six-year low.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector-materials (-1.9%)-ended at the bottom of the leaderboard with steelmakers showing broad weakness, evidenced by Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 27.22, -1.15), which fell 4.1%. On a somewhat related note, copper futures fell 2.6% to $2.338/lbs, erasing the bulk of their gain from yesterday.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the technology sector (-1.7%) displayed relative strength at the start, but could not stay ahead of the broader market into the afternoon. That being said, the early outperformance was due to a spike in the shares of Google (GOOGL 690.30, +27.16) after the company announced plans for a new operating structure. As part of the announced change, Google will create a new company called Alphabet, which will replace Google as a publically-traded entity and should make it easier to evaluate different segments of the company's business. Shares of GOOGL settled higher by 4.1% after being up more than 6.0% at the start. As for other tech heavyweights, Apple (AAPL 113.55, -6.17), Intel (INTC 28.99, -0.65), and Microsoft (MSFT 46.41, -0.92) lost between 1.9% and 5.2% as China-related concerns pressured the multinational companies.

On the upside, rate-sensitive telecom services (+0.1%) and utilities (+0.5%) ended in the green, benefitting from strength in the Treasury market that sent the 10-yr yield lower by nine basis points to 2.14%.

Today's participation was roughly in-line with recent averages as more than 830 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Productivity/Labor Cost data and Wholesale Inventories:


Nonfarm productivity increased 1.3% in Q2 2015 after declining an upwardly revised 1.1% (from -3.1%) in the first quarter while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.4%
The increase in second quarter productivity ended two consecutive quarterly declines.
Year-over-year, nonfarm productivity increased 0.3%, down from a 0.6% gain in Q1 2015
Unit labor costs increased 0.5% in the second quarter while the consensus expected an increase of 0.1%; however, the reported increase was the smallest rise since a 0.1% increase in Q3 2014
Wholesale inventories increased 0.9% in June after a downwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.8%) in May while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
Wholesale sales increased 0.1% in June after a 0.2% increase in May while durable sales declined 1.1% in June, which resulted mostly from a 2.8% decline in automotive sales. Nondurable sales increased 1.2% on strong demand for farm products (3.6%) and petroleum (3.7%)
The inventory-to-sales ratio increased to 1.30 in June from 1.29 in May

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for June will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 14:00 ET release of the Treasury Budget for July (Briefing.com consensus -$149.00 billion).

Nasdaq Composite +6.4% YTD
S&P 500 +1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.4% YTD

DJ30 -212.33 NASDAQ -65.01 SP500 -20.10 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 853/1.76 bln/2047 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1155/830.3 mln/1962 3:35 pm :

Commodities saw some broad market weakness today following Chinese Yuan devaluation.
In current trade Oil was the big story today with WTI front-month Sept crude oil falling 4.1% to end floor trading at $43.12/barrel.
Sept nat gas rallied in afternoon trade, closing up 0.4% higher to $2.85/MMBtu
Copper held losses, ending today's session -3% at $2.33/lb.
Sept silver ended near the unchanged mark at $15.29/oz (up 1 cent), while Dec gold rose 0.3% at $1108.10/oz

11:55 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (237) outpacing new highs (55) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABTL, ADBE, AFAM, AIZ, ALDW, ALJ, ATNI, AVOL, AZO, BEE, CDNS, CIGI, CINF, DVAX, EBS, EFSC, ELNK, EMKR, EXR, FBHS, FORD, FORTY, FSFG, HSKA, IBP, ICUI, IMPR, INFN, JLL, LION, LNCE, LOXO, LPCN, MLVF, MMI, MWW, NVAX, OME, PLPM, POST, PTLA, RCPT, SCOR, SHEN, SKYW, SPNS, SYA, TFSL, TGLS, TI.A, TMK, USG, VNTV, WRB, XL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAIT, AAXJ, ABGB, ACP, ACV, ADAP, ALIM, AMSC, AMTG, APEI, ARMF, ARTX, ASCMA, ASX, AVL, AXON, BAP, BBDO, BEN, BGX, BICK, BIOS, BOI, BPT, BRN, BTH, BWA, BWG, CALA, CANF, CBT, CG, CHN, CIG, CIK, CJES, CMLS, CMO, CNCO, CNIT, CNNX, CNX, CNXC, COMT, CPG, CPPL, CPSI, CPTA, CRDS, CRTN, CSII, CTRE, CUB, CXP, DAVE, DGRE, DGSE, DPW, DQ, DRYS, DSCI, DTEA, DV, DXKW, DXPE, EBIO, EBR, EDD, EEMA, EGAS, ELP, EMES, EMF, EMR, ENG, ENI, ENSV, ENV, ENVA, ETRM, EVV, FBP, FBZ, FCH, FCX, FHY, FMSA, FOSL, FSD, FSFR, FTAI, FTF, FTW, FUR, GALT, GLBL, GMCR, GMZ, GNL, GPACU, GRAM, GRMN, GRR, HELI, HEP, HIBB, HIE, HPJ, HWCC, HYB, HYGS, HYI, IAE, IAF, IF, IGD, IHD, IMUC, INPH, IVR, JMG, JPEP, KCG, KEYW, KMM, KOPN, KRO, KVHI, LALT, LEE, LGI, LOCO, LOR, LXK, MCC, MCF, MDLY, MG, MHY, MIL, MOC, MRLN, MTGE, NDRO, NFJ, NHS, NLST, NRG, NRX, NSLP, NSU, NTIC, NXRT, NYMT, OAKS, OIBR, OIBR.C, ONE, ONVO, PACB, PCI, PCN, PDI, PFL, PFN, PHF, PHI, PIM, PKO, PKX, PNTR, PNX, POT, PSIX, PSTI, PSUN, QTWW, RADA, RBCN, RCAP, RCPI, REXI, RL, RLOG, RNWK, RRMS, RWC, SBS, SCD, SGF, SGM, SID, SJR, SKBI, SMT, SNR, SOHO, SORL, STAR, STML, SYPR, TAC, TAS, TBIO, TEI, TFM, TG, THW, TIVO, TORM, TPUB, TRP, TRST, TTF, TTM, TTOO, TUP, TWN, UIS, UQM, VIDI, VLT, VNOM, VPG, VTVT, VVUS, WBK, WFM, WG, WHLR, WRLD, WSR, XOM, XONE, YDIV, YUME, ZFC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: CHN, DBB, EEB, ENZL, EPP, EWA, EWM, EWS, EWT, EWY, EWZ, IDX, ILF, JNK, OIL, PBW, SEA, THD, USO, VWO

8:21 am Broadcom and Avago (AVGO) announce expiration of the waiting period under the HSR acts; Closing of the transaction is still expected by the end of the first calendar quarter of 2016 (BRCM) : The expiration of the HSR Act waiting period satisfies one of the conditions to the closing of the proposed transaction, which remains subject to approval by Avago and Broadcom shareholders, antitrust clearance in certain foreign jurisdictions and other customary closing conditions.

8:01 am Qorvo announces Board authorization for a new $400 mln common stock repurchase program (QRVO) :


7:30 am Vishay Precision continues to finalize its 2Q Form 10-Q, and currently expects to file it and hold its earnings call by September 4, 2015 (VPG) : Co's current expectation are that the principal line items impacted in the company's Indian subsidiary's financial statements, and consequently in the company's consolidated financial statements, are: property and equipment, net; cost of goods sold, including depreciation expense; foreign currency re-measurement gains and losses; and foreign currency translation gains and losses recorded as a component of accumulated other comprehensive income within stockholders' equity.

7:09 am JA Solar beats by $0.12, beats on revs; guides Q3 shipments (JASO) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.27 per share, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.15; revenues rose 11.9% year/year to $436.8 mln vs the $398.65 mln consensus. Total shipments were 790.8 megawatts ("MW"), an increase of 16.0% y/y and 16.0% sequentially. Co had guided for 680 MW to 720 MW.


"We were pleased to close out the first half of the year with shipments higher than previous expectations due to strong demand in several key markets. Solid shipment growth was largely driven by demand in China, which represented 45% of our total shipments during the second quarter. Additionally, we continue to make progress on the establishment of our new cell manufacturing plant in Malaysia."Guidance: Co expects Q3 total cell and module shipments to be in the range of 900 MW to 950 MW. Based on the latest project development and permitting status, the Company now expects to ship 150 MW of modules to its downstream projects in 2015. JASO previously guided for full year 2015 shipments of 3.6 GW to 4.0 GW, including 200 MW of modules shipments to the company's downstream projects.

You know Don after seeing that stellar earnings growth over the last year I'm thinking yesterday's rally was all over nothing. Or maybe I mean the rally over the last year until we got this 15% decline was over nothing. How much can we depend on earnings expectations to be matched going forward?

I wish I could say I thought estimates would be met.

RtS

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From Briefing.com: The story again begins in China, as the People's Bank of China again overnight made a move to devalue the yuan - this as they did the same thing during last night's session. As such, the PBoC fixed the yuan 1.6% lower and then stepped in to support the currency late in the session, sending the USD/CNY pair up 1.0% to 6.3870.

This move by China again led to volatility in US securities - at least this morning. The three major indices began the session in the red, but ended all green, as the Dow Jones fell triple digits for the second session in a row, but reversed early losses to end the session down by less than 1 point. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also displayed a notable reversal today, ending +0.10% and +0.15% respectively on the session.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (+0.54%) performed about in-line with the broader market, as shares of Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS +8.73%) helped the way up, while shares of Yahoo! (YHOO -4.08%) weakened as a result of Alibaba's (BABA -5.08%) mixed Q1 report.

BABA reported EPS in the period which slightly beat expectations, while revenues for the period fell short of what was expected. BABA also announced a $4 billion share buyback, and the company noted that ex-the impact of the suspended online lottery business and the SME loan business it transferred to Ant Financial, revenue would have increased by 36% year-over-year.

More news items among sector components:
Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS +8.73%) announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wayne, Pennsylvania-based SunGard. Under the terms of the agreement, FIS will acquire 100% of the equity of SunGard. FIS will issue a combination of cash and stock valuing the company at an unaffected enterprise value of $9.1 billion, including the assumption of SunGard debt, which FIS expects to refinance. The combined company will have over $9.2 billion in annual revenues.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ -0.75%) introduced the expected members of the boards of directors for both Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. Upon completion of the separation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise will provide the technology solutions customers need to optimize their traditional IT, while helping them build a secure, cloud-enabled, mobile-ready infrastructure that is uniquely suited to their needs. Hewlett Packard Enterprise will be led by current HP chief executive officer Meg Whitman. HP Inc. will be a leading personal systems and printing company with a strong innovation pipeline across areas such as 3D printing and new computing experiences. HP Inc. will be led Dion Weisler, who currently runs the Printing and Personal Systems Group at HP.

BlackBerry (BBRY +2.38%) and Paypal (PYPL -1.70%) introduced new money transfer features through BBM platform.

FLIR Systems (FLIR -1.98%) announced that Amit Singhi has joined the Company as Senior Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial Officer, replacing interim CFO Dave Muessle, who will remain Vice President, Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

CYREN (CYRN -6.67%) priced its upsized underwritten public offering of 6,666,666 common shares at $1.65/share.

Numerex Corp. (NMRX +2.89%) appointed Marc Zionts as its Chief Executive Officer, effective September 1, 2015.

Viavi (VIAV -4.96%) in addition to reporting earnings, appointed Richard Belluzzo as interim President and CEO, effective immediately.

SunEdison (SUNE +6.51%) and TerraForm Power (TERP +8.02%) announced the syndication of a $280 million, 7 year term loan facility of TerraForm Private Warehouse.

Sprint (S +0.65%) extended employment agreement with CEO Marcelo Claure from August 18, 2015 until May 31, 2019.

AT&T (T -1.85%) disclosed adjustment to accounting for customer set-up and installation costs following acquisition of DirecTV; cumulative effect will increase retained earnings by $3.3 billion, total assets by $4.4 billion, and deferred taxes liability by $1.1 billion.

Notable movers in reaction to earnings:

Opower (OPWR +12.30%) reported a beat on expectations on the top and bottom lines for Q2. The company also guided Q3 EPS better than anticipated, with revs guided about in-line. Also, raised FY15 EPS guidance above expectations.

EZchip (EZCH +11.50%) reported Q2 EPS which was better than anticipated with revs in-line with expectations.

Cree (CREE +5.52%) reported a miss on EPS and in-line revs for Q4. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revs in-line with expectations.

Cyber-Ark Software (CYBR -1.69%) reported a beat on the top and bottom line of expectations for Q2. The company also guided Q3 EPS and revs better than anticipated.

Notable tech names reporting earnings tonight/tomorrow morning: CACI +0.32%, CSCO -0.43%, LXFT +2.50%, MXPT -1.55%, NTES -0.26%, UPLD -1.43%, XNET +0.44%/CRNT +0.79%

Analyst actions:

GOOGL was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
SMI was upgraded to Buy from Underperform at BofA/Merrill,
ZBRA was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
CSC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey, NEWR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson, CBR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Noble Financial;
VIAV was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
NTLS was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James

4:18 pm SunEdison signs a definitive agreement with Dominion (D) to establish a JV for Four Brothers, a 420 megawatt (MW) DC, or 320 megawatt AC, solar project in Utah (SUNE) : The co. announced they have signed a definitive agreement with Dominion (D), establishing a joint venture (:JV) for Four Brothers, a 420 megawatt (MW) DC, or 320 megawatt AC, solar project in Utah, developed by SunEdison.

The project is now under construction and fully financed with an expected commercial operation date of mid-2016. The Four Brothers project is contracted under long-term power purchase agreements for 20 years with PacifiCorp (A-/A3), a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) EnergyUnder the terms of the JV, Dominion will invest approximately $500 mln to acquire 50 percent of the cash equity and 99 percent of the tax equity in Four Brothers, including funding of construction. SunEdison will contribute the remaining portion of the capital required to complete the project, which it has fully financed through a $150 million four-year term loan with Deutsche Bank. The total $650 million financing package fully funds the project for completion and long-term ownership. Four Brothers generates ~$40 million dollars of unlevered cash available for distribution (CAFD) to Dominion and SunEdison. SunEdison's 50 percent interest in the Four Brothers project is on the Call Right Projects List for TerraForm Power (TERP)
4:16 pm Western Digital announces the retirement of Chairman Tom Pardun, with former Chairman Matthew Massengill appointed as his successor (WDC) : The co. announced that Chairman Tom Pardun, 71, will retire after 22 years of service on its board of directors, in compliance with the company's mandatory retirement-age policy for directors. Matthew Massengill, 54, a former chairman, president and chief executive officer of the company and a director since 2000, has been appointed to succeed Pardun as chairman. Len Lauer, 58, chairman and chief executive officer of Memjet and a Western Digital director since 2010, was named lead independent director of the WDC board. The changes will become effective at the company's next annual meeting of shareholders in November 2015.

4:10 pm Cisco Systems beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 in-line (CSCO) :

Reports Q4 (Jul) earnings of $0.59 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.56; revenues rose 3.9% year/year to $12.84 bln vs the $12.66 bln consensus. Product revenue and service revenue each increased 4%. In terms of total revenue by geographic segment, Americas was up 7%, while both EMEA and APJC were flat. Product revenue growth was led by Collaboration and Data Center at 14% each. Switching and NGN Routing grew by 2% and 3%, respectively. On a non-GAAP basis, total gross margin and product gross margin were 62.1% and 61.0% respectively. The decrease in non-GAAP product gross margin as compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2015 was driven by pricing and product mix partially offset by productivity.Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.55-0.57, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of +2-4% to ~$12.49-12.73 bln vs. $12.56 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Non-GAAP gross margin 61-62%.Product Backlog -- was ~$5.1 billion at the end of fiscal 2015 as compared to ~$5.4 billion at the end of fiscal 2014.
4:03 pm SolarEdge Technologies beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (SEDG) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.22; revenues rose 120.6% year/year to $98.4 mln vs the $95.15 mln consensus. GAAP gross margin of 28.7% for fiscal Q4 2015 and 25.2% for fiscal year 2015

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $108-112 mln vs. $101.67 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday session on a slightly higher note despite showing considerable weakness at the start of the trading day. The S&P 500 added 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) settled just ahead.

Equity indices faced selling pressure at the start after the overnight session featured another move to devalue China's yuan. Specifically, the People's Bank of China fixed the yuan 1.6% lower and then stepped in to support the currency late in the session. Following the intervention, the USD/CNY pair ended higher by 1.0% at 6.3870 while the continued tinkering with the exchange rate by the PBoC fueled a continuation of Tuesday's risk-off move across global markets.

The selling pressure persisted until the end of the European session with major equity indices across the old continent losing between 1.4% and 3.4%. Regional markets notched their session lows not long before the close, after Germany's Bild reported that the German government views the third Greek bailout package as insufficient. This was a noteworthy shift, considering just yesterday the market had believed the bailout agreement was all but complete. The eurogroup will attempt to extinguish the latest fire during a Friday meeting in Brussels.

Once equity markets in Europe closed, U.S. indices rallied steadily off their lows with the S&P 500 swiftly returning above its 200-day moving average (2,075). Thanks to the intraday recovery, seven sectors registered gains while three groups finished in the red, but above their early lows.

Most notably, the financial sector (-0.9%) finished well behind the broader market amid growing expectations the Fed may be inclined to delay its first rate hike past September due to the recent actions undertaken by the People's Bank of China. Sector heavyweights like Bank of America (BAC 17.52, -0.27), Citigroup (C 56.91, -0.73), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.24, -0.99) narrowed their losses by the close, but still surrendered between 1.3% and 1.5%.

Another clue that suggested the market may be shifting its rate-hike expectations was the weakness in the Dollar Index (96.24, -0.99), which fell 1.0%, returning to levels last seen in mid-July. On a related note, Treasuries surged overnight, but retreated throughout the day, ending with slight gains. As a result, the benchmark 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.13% after testing the 2.05% level in early morning action.

Outside of financials, consumer discretionary (-0.4%) and telecom services (-0.5%) ended in the red with retailers pressuring the discretionary sector, evidenced by a 0.5% slide in SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 96.35, -0.51). On the earnings front, Fossil (FOSL 60.67, -1.44) lost 2.3% after missing revenue estimates and guiding fiscal-year 2015 earnings below analyst expectations.

On the upside, the energy sector (+1.9%) led the rebound while crude oil endured a volatile session, but settled higher by 0.3% at $43.23/bbl and continued climbing during electronic trading.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, technology (+0.5%) was largely responsible for the intraday rebound as the sector rallied behind Apple (AAPL 115.24, +1.75). The largest stock by market cap plunged 5.5% yesterday and opened lower by 3.5% today, but climbed to settle with a gain of 1.5%. In other tech names, there was plenty of strength among high-beta chipmakers with the PHLX Semiconductor Index climbing 0.6%. Cree (CREE 26.59, +1.39) was among the leaders, spiking 5.5% despite missing earnings estimates and reporting revenue in-line with its warning from June.

Similar to chipmakers, the high-beta biotech group outperformed during afternoon action, which contributed to the rebound. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 370.16, +2.99) climbed 0.8% while the broader health care sector tacked on 0.1%.

Today's session invited the strongest trading volume of the week with more than 910 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

On the economic front, the June Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed a decrease in openings to 5.249 million from 5.357 million while the Treasury Budget statement for June showed a deficit of $149.20 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$149.00 billion).

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 271K), July Retail Sales (consensus 0.5%), and July Import/Export Prices will be reported at 8:30 ET while the June Business Inventories report (expected 0.3%) will be released at 10:00 ET.


Nasdaq Composite +6.1% YTD
S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.4% YTD

DJ30 -0.33 NASDAQ +7.60 SP500 +1.98 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1265/1.93 bln/1629 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1527/912.1 mln/1567
3:40 pm :

Grains got hammered today on the monthly USDA WASDE report. Corn lost 4.9% to $3.69/bu, wheat dropped -2.6% to $4.94/bu and soybeans tanked -6.4% to $9.10/bu
The dollar index continued to trade in negative territory, which helped keep commodities mostly propped up, such as copper, precious metals and natural gas
However, natural gas has largely been driven by weather forecasts and oil has been driven by many variables, particularly the oversupply issues.
Today, Sept nat gas rallied 3% to $2.93/MMBtu.
Sept crude oil ended the session 0.3% higher to $43.23/barrel.
In current trade, gold, silver, copper and natural gas futures are all sitting near today's highs.
The dollar index is currently -1.1%.
Dec gold rose 1.4% today to $1123.70/oz, while Sept silver gained+1.2% at $15.48/bu. Copper climbed 1%.


11:53 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (358) outpacing new highs (33) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABMD, ACFC, ALDW, ALJ, ASBB, ATRI, BKFS, BZC, CONE, DHI, ELNK, FIS, HCKT, HFC, INGN, LGIH, MLVF, NDRM, NTI, PBF, PEBK, PFIN, PGND, PLL, PLPM, SKYW, TREE, TSE, UFAB, USCR, VLO, W, WFBI

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, AAIT, AAVL, AAXJ, ABEV, ABGB, ABUS, ACTX, ACV, ADAT, ADRE, AGM, AI, AMH, AMSC, AMTG, AOSL, APF, APOL, APP, ARCO, ARDC, ARGS, ARMF, ARWR, ASCMA, ASX, ATHM, ATI, AVH, AWF, AXJS, AXLL, BABA, BAP, BBD, BBDO, BCA, BDC, BEN, BG, BGB, BGH, BGX, BIDU, BIND, BITA, BKD, BKE, BLCM, BLW, BLX, BOI, BPI, BSM, BTH, BWA, CALA, CANF, CATB, CBD, CBT, CCD, CEE, CET, CG, CH, CHI, CHN, CHY, CIBR, CIK, CIO, CJES, CLDN, CMLS, CMRE, CNAT, CNCO, CNIT, CNXC, COHU, CPA, CPL, CPN, CPPL, CPSI, CRD.B, CRDS, CREE, CSII, CSLT, CSPI, CSX, CTRE, CXW, CYD, CZZ, DAR, DCIX, DDS, DEJ, DGRE, DHF, DLB, DNI, DPW, DQ, DRYS, DSCI, DTEA, DV, DXKW, DXPE, EAD, EBR, EDD, EDF, EDI, EEMA, EEML, EFF, EGAS, EGIF, EMCG, EMES, EMF, EMIF, EMR, ENI, ENPH, ENRJ, ENSV, ENVA, EOC, EOD, EPIQ, ERC, ESL, EVDY, EVK, EVV, EXAC, EXAR, FAV, FBP, FBZ, FCX, FDML, FENG, FEO, FHY, FOF, FOSL, FRPT, FSD, FTAI, FTF, FTW, FUR, GASS, GDF, GEO, GHI, GIM, GLBL, GLBS, GLRE, GLT, GMT, GNRC, GRAM, GRMN, GRPN, GRR, GSM, GTLS, HCOM, HGSH, HHY, HIO, HLX, HPQ, HSGX, HUN, HWCC, HYB, HYI, HYT, IAE, IAF, ICA, IEP, IF, IGD, IHD, IID, INB, INTX, INVN, IO, ITUB, IVH, IVR, IVTY, JFR, JGH, JHY, JLS, JMG, JRO, JSD, JW.A, KCAP, KCG, KEX, KF, KMM, KNDI, KOF, KOPN, KST, KVHI, LDF, LGI, LHO, LITB, LMNR, LNKD, LOCO, LOR, LXK, MCF, MCRN, MDLY, MDVX, MFRI, MGT, MHY, MIL, MM, MMYT, MOBL, MOV, MPW, MRIN, MSF, MSP, MUSA, MXE, MXF, NAVI, NCS, NEP, NFJ, NHS, NIHD, NK, NLST, NRF, NRG, NSC, NSL, NTRA, NWSA, NYLD, OAKS, OCAT, OFG, ONDK, ONE, OTIV, OXGN, PACB, PCF, PCN, PFL, PFN, PHI, PHMD, PIM, PKO, PMCS, PPHM, PRTY, PSG, PSIX, PSUN, PTR, QCLN, QTWW, RADA, RESI, REXI, RL, RNWK, SAH, SBS, SCD, SFM, SFXE, SGF, SGM, SGMO, SGNT, SID, SJR, SLTC, SMT, SMTC, SNHY, SNR, SODA, SORL, SSTK, STAR, STML, SUNE, SVVC, SYMC, SZC, TFM, TG, TIPT, TIVO, TPUB, TROX, TRST, TSU, TTF, TTM, TUP, TWN, TWO, UBIO, UIS, UTIW, UTX, VEDL, VGGL, VIAV, VIDI, VIV, VLT, VTVT, VVUS, WBK, WCC, WFM, WG, WLFC, WSR, XONE, YHOO, YLCO, YNDX, ZA, ZFC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, CHN, ECH, EEB, EPP, EPU, EWA, EWM, EWS, EWT, EWY, EWZ, HYG, IDX, ILF, JNK, PBW, PHO, REMX, SEA, TAN, THD, VWO

8:40 am Hewlett-Packard announces expected Board lineup for both Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP ahead of split (HPQ) : As the co prepares to separate into two industry-leading companies on November 1, 2015, it introduced the expected members of the boards of directors for both Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. Each board will include members of the current HP board, as well as several new directors chosen after a review of personal and professional qualifications


Hewlett Packard Enterprise will be led by current HP chief executive officer Meg Whitman. HP Inc. will be led Dion Weisler, who currently runs the Printing and Personal Systems Group at HP. In addition, current Board member James Skinner has announced that he has resigned from the Board, effective upon completion of the separation, due to the increased workload of his new role as Executive Chairman of Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA)For Hewlett Packard Enterprise: The board of directors of Hewlett Packard Enterprise will be chaired by Pat Russo, who joined the HP board in 2011 and currently serves as its lead independent director.
The Hewlett Packard Enterprise board of directors is expected to include: Dan Ammann, President, General Motors (GM), Marc Andreessen, Co-founder, AH Capital Management, Michael J. Angelakis, Senior Advisor to the Executive Management Committee, Comcast Corporation (CMCSA); former Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, Comcast Corporation, Leslie A. Brun, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sarr Group, Pamela Carter, former President, Cummins (CMI) Distribution, Klaus Kleinfeld, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Alcoa (AA), Raymond J. Lane, Partner Emeritus, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Ann M. Livermore, former Executive Vice President, HP Enterprise Business, Raymond E. Ozzie, Chief Executive Officer, Talko, Gary M. Reiner, Operating Partner, General Atlantic, Lip-Bu Tan, Chairman, Walden International; President and Chief Executive Officer, Cadence Design Systems (CDNS), Meg Whitman, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, HP
For HP:Meg Whitman will chair the board of directors for HP Inc. The HP Inc. board of directors is expected to include: Shumeet Banerji, Founder, Condorcet, LP; former Chief Executive Officer, Booz & Company (BAH), Carl Bass, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director, Autodesk (ADSK), Robert R. Bennett, Managing Director, Hilltop Investments (HTH); former President and Chief Executive Officer, Liberty Media (LMCA), Charles V. "Chip" Bergh, President and Chief Executive Officer, Levi Strauss & Co., Stacy Brown-Philpot, Chief Operating Officer, TaskRabbit, Stephanie A. Burns, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dow Corning Corporation, Mary Anne Citrino, Senior Advisor, Blackstone (BX), Rajiv Gupta, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rohm and Haas Company, Stacey Mobley, former Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer
and General Counsel, DuPont (DD), Subra Suresh, President, Carnegie Mellon University, Dion Weisler, Executive Vice President, HP8:31 am Solar3D to acquire Elite Solar for $7.15 mln (SLTD) : Co has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Elite Solar, a Durham, California-based solar systems provider. Elite Solar designs and installs photovoltaic systems for residential, commercial, agricultural and municipal customers.


Elite Solar's revenue for 2015 is expected to approach $20 million, an increase of 140% over the 2014 figure. Elite Solar also expects EBITDA to be $2.2 million in 2015. Solar3D will pay $7.15 million for the company, with $2.5 million to be paid in cash and $4.65 million in common stock. The purchase agreement calls for additional consideration should certain sales and EBITDA milestones are met. The transaction is expected to close on or before November 1, 2015.

7:51 am EZchip beats by $0.08, reports revs in-line; NPS-400 remains on tack; announces five new tier-1 design wins (EZCH) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues rose 28.1% year/year to $28.3 mln vs the $28.03 mln consensus.

"NPS-400 remains on track to tape-out this month with customer samples expected in the fourth quarter of 2015. Interest in NPS remains elevated, and we are very pleased to report five Tier-1 design wins in our new target markets for white boxes and data centers, as well as in our traditional carrier router markets, to commence following sample availability.""We are seeing changes in the competitive landscape for high-end merchant NPUs, which we believe could lead to a significant strengthening of our market leading position. To the best of our knowledge, there is no NPU-based roadmap within other merchant silicon vendors. This could position EZchip to become the only high-end merchant NPU vendor in the market able to satisfy the growing demand from both traditional networking vendors as well as from new white box customers,"

7:07 am SunEdison and TerraForm Power (TERP) announce the syndication of a $280 million, 7 year term loan facility of TerraForm Private Warehouse (SUNE) : TerraForm Private Warehouse was formed by SunEdison to hold 521 MW of acquired operating assets from Atlantic Power for a maximum period of 7 years. TerraForm Private Warehouse was formed by SunEdison to hold 521 MW of acquired operating assets from Atlantic Power for a maximum period of 7 years.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The equity markets again spent most of the morning session in the red, as the People's Bank of China held a press conference in the overnight session to attempt to calm investors of the uncertainty in the yuan adjustments. Officials noted that the currency modification was 'almost complete' as Asian markets rebounded in reaction to the quelling of the rumors that of a 10.0% devaluation was afoot.

US indices spent most of the morning session below flat lines, as pressure among commodities - particularly oil - held us below yesterday's closing values. However, all three major indices rebounded and by midday were enjoying healthy gains. Tech mirrored the broader market movements today as the SPDR Technology ETF (XLK 42.21, -0.12 -0.28%) spent the morning session in the red and rebounded midday. At the end of the session, we were split, as the Dow Jones (17408.25, +5.74, +0.03%) closed higher, the Nasdaq Composite ended today's session below flat lines (5033.56, -10.83 -0.21%) and the S&P 500 also ended lower on the session (2083.39, -2.66 -0.13%).

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector's (704.96, -1.70 -0.24%) trading session shaped up much like that of the broader market. Shares of Yahoo! (YHOO 35.94, +1.45 +4.20%) enjoyed a modest rebound today on the back of yesterday's losses, while notable laggards in the sector included ***.

Sector component Cisco (CSCO 28.70, +0.80 +2.87%) reported earnings last night, while Applied Materials (AMAT 17.06, -0.24 -1.39%) is set to report tonight.
Other notable news items among sector components:
Western Digital (WDC 81.57, -1.59 -1.91%) announced the retirement of Chairman Tom Pardun, with former Chairman Matthew Massengill appointed as his successor.

Qualcomm (QCOM 62.03, -0.55 -0.88%) has completed its acquisition of CSR plc (CSRE). The acquisition, which was completed at an enterprise value of approximately $2.2 billion ($2.4 billion equity value), complements the company's current offerings by adding a compelling portfolio of new products, sales channels and a large number of customers in the areas of IoE and automotive - both key growth priorities for Qualcomm Technologies.

IBM (IBM 155.07, -1.09 -0.70%) announced that its cloud-based MaaS360 platform is the first Enterprise Mobility Management solution to receive a Provisional Authorization to Operate (P-ATO) from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Joint Authorization Board (JAB).

Akamai (AKAM 73.84, -0.08 -0.11%) received a favorable court ruling in the patent suit with Limelight Networks (LLNW 2.67, -0.59 -18.10%).

Elsewhere in the tech space:
Planar Systems (PLNR 6.13, +1.48 +31.83%) has entered into a merger agreement with Leyard Optoelectronic in which Leyard would acquire the company for $6.58 per share, valuing PLNR at $156.8 million. Closing of the acquisition, which is subject to specified conditions, is expected to occur in the fourth calendar quarter of 2015.

One Horizon (OHGI 1.68, +0.29 +21.73%) signed an agreement to be the exclusive supplier of Voice over IP services to KeyIdea Information Technology Co., Ltd, a renowned manufacturer of satellite equipment in China. KeyIdea will commence operations of their new maritime satellite service in the fourth quarter of 2015 and will supply their crew-calling services exclusively using the Aishuo platform.

SunEdison (SUNE 14.99, +0.74 +5.19%) announced it has signed a definitive agreement with Dominion (D 74.93, +0.44 +0.59%) establishing a joint venture (JV) for Four Brothers, a 420 megawatt (MW) DC, or 320 megawatt AC, solar project in Utah, developed by the company. The project is now under construction and fully financed with an expected commercial operation date of mid-2016. D will invest about $500 million to acquire 50% of the cash equity and 99% of the tax equity in Four Brothers, including funding of construction. SUNE will contribute the remaining portion of the capital required to complete the project, which it has fully financed through a $150 million four-year term loan with Deutsche Bank.

Sprint (S 3.88, 0.00 0.00%) announced Softbank's (SFTBY 30.15, -0.17 -0.58%) wholly owned US subsidiary, Galaxy Investment Holdings, acquired 22,873,301 shares at a weighted average price of $3.80.

Coupons.com (COUP 9.69, +0.24 +2.54%) announced Jennifer Ceran has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer, effective September 8, 2015. Ceran comes to COUP from Box, Inc., (BOX 14.56, +0.19 +1.32%) where she served as Vice President of Finance for the cloud-based, enterprise content management company.

Notable tech names with quarterly results:
Cisco (CSCO 28.70, +0.80 +2.87%) reported Q4 earnings of $0.59 per share on revenues which rose 3.9% year/year to $12.84 billion. Also issued in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.55-0.57 and sees Q1 revenues of +2-4% to ~$12.49-12.73 billion.

Luxoft (LXFT 67.57, +6.03 +9.80%) reported Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.61 per share on revenues which rose 31.9% year/year to $148.1 million; core verticals continued to produce healthy annual growth with financial services posting 38% growth, technology posting 59% growth, telecom posting 21% growth, and automotive and transport posting 24% growth. Also raised guidance for FY16, sees EPS to at least $2.55 from at least $2.52 on revenues to at least $640.3 million.

Notable earnings out tonight after the close: AMAT -1.45%, AZPN +0.79%, GLOB +2.22%, KING -2.75%, PCTY +5.16%, ANY -15.08%, YY -0.51%

Analyst actions:
YHOO was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein, MSFT was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel, QLIK was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank; PLNR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Lake Street

4:09 pm Applied Materials reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides OctQ EPS below consensus, revs in-line (AMAT) : Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.33 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.33; revenues rose 9.9% year/year to $2.49 bln vs the $2.54 bln consensus. For Q4 (Oct), sees EPS of $0.27-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 rev growth to be flat to +7% sequentially which computes as $2.49-2.66 bln vs. $2.52 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Non-GAAP operating margin came in at 20.8% vs 21.1% in the prior year period and 19.5% in Q2 (Apr).
"Applied is focused on profitable growth and the results show in our third- quarter performance when we delivered our highest ever 300mm semiconductor equipment orders and record revenue in services...Our highly differentiated materials engineering products help customers accelerate major technology inflections including 3D NAND, and this quarter we generated the highest flash memory orders in our history."

4:05 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday session on a modestly lower note after spending some time on both sides of the unchanged level. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a slight gain (+0.03%).

Before delving into the details of today's session, it is worth noting that the People's Bank of China tried to calm investor fears during overnight action by holding a press conference. During that conference, bank officials said the yuan adjustment "is almost complete" and called the rumors of a 10.0% devaluation "nonsense." Markets across Asia posted gains while European indices ended mostly higher.

Once the U.S. session got going, stocks slipped from their opening levels, but the early weakness was largely isolated to the energy sector (-1.4%), which retreated alongside crude oil. The energy component faced selling pressure throughout the day, notching a fresh six-year low under $42.00/bbl during intraday action before inching up to settle lower by 2.3% at $42.25/bbl.

The daylong weakness in the energy sector was not enough to keep the market in negative territory as the four largest sectors displayed modest strength at the start and helped the market climb out of the red; however, only two groups were still in the green once the closing bell rang. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.6%) and financials (+0.3%) held their gains throughout the day while technology (-0.2%), and health care (-0.2%) slipped ahead of the close.

Notably, the discretionary sector received broad support from automakers, homebuilders, and retailers after the Retail Sales report for July beat expectations. On the earnings front, News Corp (NWSA 15.19, +1.07) spiked 7.6% after reporting a two-cent beat on light revenue while other media names ended mixed. Meanwhile, the homebuilder group displayed notable strength with iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 28.66, +0.43) spiking 1.5%. Despite today's outperformance, the discretionary sector remains lower by 2.4% so far in August, which puts the group behind the other nine sectors.

Elsewhere, financials (+0.3%) displayed relative strength throughout the session as the sector rebounded from yesterday's underperformance. Heavyweights like Citigroup (C 57.30, +0.39) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.55, +0.31) gained near 0.6% apiece while the sector narrowed its week-to-date loss to 0.4%.

Also of note, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.2%) settled in-line with the market while chipmakers struggled, evidenced by a 1.0% decline in PHLX Semiconductor Index. Advanced Micro (AMD 1.79, -0.11) was a clear soft spot in the chipmaker index as the stock fell 5.8%.

As for large cap tech names, Cisco Systems (CSCO 28.70, +0.80) spiked 2.9% after beating bottom-line estimates on light revenue while other influential components ended in mixed fashion.

Treasuries retreated during overnight action and they added to their losses during the session. The benchmark 10-yr yield rose six basis points to 2.13%.

Today's participation was a bit below recent averages as 750 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Retail Sales, Import/Export Prices, and Business Inventories:

Weekly initial claims increased to 274,000 from a downwardly revised 269,000 (from 270,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 271,000
The four-week moving average fell to 266,250 from 268,000, representing the lowest level since April 2000, when it also reached 266,250
Continuing claims increased to 2.273 million from an upwardly revised 2.258 million (from 2.255 million) while the consensus expected a decline to 2.247 million
Retail sales increased 0.6% in July while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%
An upward revision lifted June sales to the flat line from -0.3%
Motor vehicle demand played a large part in the increase in sales growth as motor vehicle manufacturers reported unit sales increased to 17.6 million SAAR in July from 17.0 million SAAR in June. That gain pushed up sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers by 1.4% after declining 1.5% in May
Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.4% in July after increasing an upwardly revised 0.4% (from -0.1%) in June
Export prices, excluding agriculture, decreased 0.4% in July after decreasing 0.1% in the prior reading
Excluding oil, import prices decreased 0.3%, which followed last month's decrease of 0.2%
Business inventories increased 0.8% in June after an unrevised 0.3% gain in May while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
The inventory changes from manufacturers (0.6%) and merchant wholesalers (0.9%) were known prior to the release. The only new information was that retailer inventories increased 0.9% in June after a 0.2% gain in May
Retailer inventory growth was strong across the board as all sectors reported growth above 0.5%, with the largest gains coming from motor vehicles (1.4%), building materials (1.0%), and furniture (0.9%)

Tomorrow, July PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) will be reported at 8:30 ET while July Industrial Production (consensus 0.3%) and Capacity Utilization (expected 78.0) will both be released at 9:15 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for August (expected 93.7).

Nasdaq Composite +6.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 UNCH YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.3% YTD

DJ30 +5.74 NASDAQ -10.83 SP500 -2.66 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1259/1.52 bln/1595 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1215/747.8 mln/1836

3:45 pm :

The big story was in oil today.
WTI crude oil futures broke below the widely watched Mar. 2015 multi-year low print of $42.03 in the continuous futures contract.
At the end of today's pit trading session, Front-month Sept WTI crude oil closed -2.3% at $42.25/barrel.
In other energy, Sept nat gas dropped 5% to end at $2.79/MMBtu.
Precious metals pulled back some today, while copper ended unchanged at $2.35/lb
Dec gold slipped -0.7% at $1115.70/oz, while Sept declined -0.5% at $15.40/oz

11:41 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (168) outpacing new highs (67) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAOI, AAP, ABMD, AFG, AIZ, ALDW, ALJ, ALR, AVOL, AZO, BLKB, BR, BZC, CACB, CARA, CENT, CHMA, CINF, CIVI, CRH, DEI, DHI, DXCM, EBS, EFSC, ELLO, EROS, EXR, FBHS, FIS, FLO, FORTY, GPN, GRBK, HCKT, HD, HFC, HIG, IMPR, INGR, LGIH, LII, LXFT, MLM, MLVF, MRKT, NVR, OCR, ORLY, PBF, PFG, PPBI, PRA, PSA, RCPT, SRCL, STZ, TOWN, TSO, ULTI, USG, VLO, VNTV, W, WSM, XL, XRAY

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABEV, AEG, AETI, AGM, AMH, AP, ARCO, ARGS, ATI, AVAL, AVH, AVL, AXLL, BAP, BBD, BBDO, BGMD, BIOS, BIT, BITA, BLX, BOI, BOOM, BRS, BTE, CADC, CBD, CEE, CELP, CH, CJES, CKX, CMLS, CNIT, CPA, CPL, CRD.A, CRD.B, CSPI, CTRE, CXW, DAEG, DHF, DLB, DPW, DRAM, DTEA, DXPE, EAD, EBR, EDD, EDF, EDI, EFF, ELP, EMD, EMES, ENSV, ERC, EXAC, EXAR, FBZ, FCFS, FELP, FF, FMC, GDF, GGB, GHI, GLF, GLRI, GMCR, GOGL, GRAM, GRR, GSM, HBM, HHY, HIO, HLX, HUN, HWCC, HYB, HYT, IAE, ICA, IEP, IHD, IID, IKNX, IO, IPDN, ISIG, ITUB, IVH, JASN, JFR, JGH, KEX, KRO, KST, KVHI, LDF, LFL, MEMP, MIL, MJN, MOG.B, MRLN, NAVI, NCS, NDRO, NHLD, NRF, NRX, NTN, NTRA, OCAT, ONE, OXGN, PCM, PCN, PFN, PKO, PKX, PMCS, POT, PRXI, PSIX, PWE, RADA, RCMT, RELL, REXI, SBS, SFXE, SGNT, SID, SPP, STAR, SXC, SXE, TBBK, TG, THW, TIVO, TKC, TKF, TRCO, TRMB, TROX, TRT, TSU, TTM, TWIN, TWN, UNXL, VEDL, VIV, WCC, WEA, WFM, WLFC, WSCI, XHR, XONE, YNDX, ZA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EIS, XHB

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, DBC, DJP, ECH, ENZL, EPU, EWZ, GSG, ILF, OIL, USO

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From Briefing.com: The equity market capped off an eventful week of trading with modest gains for each of the major indices.

Buying efforts were helped along by some encouraging industrial production data that overshadowed some weaker than expected second quarter GDP readings from the eurozone. Additionally, there was a small measure of relief that the Chinese yuan stabilized after getting hit hard in recent sessions following an orchestrated devaluation by China.

There wasn't a lot of news out of the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.5%) on Friday, yet that didn't stop it from outperforming the broader market.

Apple (AAPL 116.00, +0.85, +0.7%) played a pivotal role in driving the technology sector higher and found support from other sector leaders like Cisco (CSCO 29.03, +0.33, +1.2%), Facebook (FB 94.42, +0.99, +1.1%), Salesforece.com (CRM 72.99, +1.59, +2.2%), and Seagate Technology (STX 52.02, +0.65, +1.3%).

Semiconductor-related issues, however, kept gains in check as Applied Materials (AMAT 16.65, -0.40, -2.4%) traded lower following its earnings report and Micron (MU 16.93, -0.77, -4.3%) got clipped following some cautious-sounding remarks at its Analyst Day.

For the week, the S&P 500 information technology sector gained 0.7%, performing in-line with the S&P 500.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Akamai Technologies (AKAM 73.36, -0.48, -0.7%): Company announced that in a unanimous decision the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sitting en banc held that Limelight Networks, Inc. is liable for direct infringement of a content delivery patent asserted by Akamai. In 2008 a jury had returned a verdict that Limelight was infringing the patent and awarded Akamai over $45 million in damages. Today's ruling reinstates liability for infringement, which had been overturned in a post-trial ruling that has been the subject of appellate proceedings since.

Apple (AAPL 116.00, +0.85, +0.7%): Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Apple is now aiming for a 2016 introduction of a live TV service delivered via the Internet. Separately, Reuters reported the U.S. Court of Appeals will not reconsider the decision upholding the ruling that Samsung infringed Apple design patents.

Applied Materials (AMAT 16.65, -0.40, -2.4%): After Thursday's close, reported Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.33 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with estimates. Revenues rose 9.9% year/year to $2.49 bln, which was below analysts' average expectation. For Q4 (Oct), sees EPS of $0.27-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, and revenue growth to be flat to +7% sequentially which computes as $2.49-2.66 bln.

Micron (MU 16.93, -0.77, -4.3%): Stock came under pressure after company said at its Analyst Day that is navigating challenging circumstances at the moment but does see some positives emerging. Noted that it continues to see pricing pressure due to historic underperformance by PC. Expects DRAM bit growth to come in around 25%; expects 2016 growth to be about the same as it projects 24%. Sees CapEx of approximately $5.6 bln in 2016 (Prior FY guidance for 2015 has been $3.6-4.0 bln).

Elsewhere in the technology sector:

Applied Micro Circuits (AMCC 5.85, -0.30, -5.0%): Company announced that Douglas Ahrens, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will resign from AppliedMicro effective Aug. 21, 2015, in order to pursue a CFO role with a privately-held company in the software industry. In connection with Mr. Ahrens' departure, AppliedMicro has appointed Karen M. Rogge to serve as interim CFO commencing Aug. 24, 2015. Ms. Rogge has been a senior financial and operations executive at technology companies, as well as emerging companies, for the past four decades. AppliedMicro has retained a search firm and is in the process of identifying a permanent successor. In conjunction with the announcement, the company reiterated guidance provided for the September quarter, saying it sees Q2 (Sep) EPS of ~($0.03) and revenues of ~$39 mln. Company added that it is, "...heartened by our increasing customer traction and remain confident about AppliedMicro's growth prospects for the balance of fiscal 2016 and beyond."

YY, Inc. (YY 61.06, +0.60, +0.9%): After Thursday's close, reported Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.85 per share, excluding non-recurring items, topping analysts' average expectation by six cents. Revenues rose 61.4% year/year to $218.9 mln, which also topped expectations. Gross margin was 38.6% in the second quarter of 2015 compared with 49.5% in the corresponding period of 2014. The decrease in gross margin year-over-year was primarily attributable to the change in the Company's business mix to include new business lines involving user-generated content, and higher revenue-sharing fees in music and entertainment, as well as increased investments in Huya broadcasting.

Analyst Action:
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 1.84, +0.05, +2.2%): initiated with a Hold at Topeka Capital Markets; target $2

Alibaba (BABA 74.76, -0.35, -0.5%): Alibaba target lowered to $101 from $112 at UBS

Alliance Data (ADS 273.78, +4.86, +1.7%): upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan

Weekly Recap - Week ending 14-Aug-15

Dow +69.15 at 17477.40, Nasdaq +14.68 at 5048.23, S&P +8.16 at 2091.54

The stock market ended a volatile week on a modestly higher note with the S&P 500 adding 0.4%. The benchmark index extended its weekly gain to 0.7% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) underperformed, ending the week higher by 0.1%.

The first four trading days of the week were jam-packed with macroeconomic events, but the Friday affair was very quiet with fewer than 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Equity indices began the final session of the week near their flat lines and spent the first two hours of action alternating between gains and losses. However, heavily-weighted sectors like financials (+0.7%) and industrials (+0.6%) displayed relative strength from the early going while the top-weighted technology sector (+0.5%) contributed to the afternoon strength.

The financial sector continued its rebound off Wednesday's low with today's move lifting the influential sector to a weekly gain of 0.3%. Meanwhile, industrials received support from transport stocks, evidenced by a 0.7% increase in the Dow Jones Transportation Average. The bellwether complex gained 0.8% for the week with 19 of 20 components contributing to today's advance. Freight carrier Con-way (CNW 37.45, +0.71) was the top performer, climbing 1.9% while shipper Matson (MATX 40.79, -0.05) shed 0.1%.

Elsewhere, the technology sector overcame relative weakness among high-beta chipmakers with large cap components like Apple (AAPL 116.00, +0.85), Google (GOOGL 689.37, +2.86), and Microsoft (MSFT 47.00, +0.27) gaining between 0.4% and 0.7% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 0.6% and contributed to the underperformance in the Nasdaq.

Similarly, biotechnology names also weighed on the Nasdaq, but iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 364.06, -2.33) was able to narrow its loss to 0.6% by the close. The ETF surrendered 1.3% for the week while the health care sector added 0.3% today, ending the week flat.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.2%) was among the early leaders, but retreated as crude oil slid from its morning high. The energy component added 0.5% and settled at $42.47/bbl, but still lost 3.6% for the week. Meanwhile, the energy sector climbed 3.2% during the week, ending ahead of the remaining nine groups.

Treasuries registered slim losses after slipping in reaction to a July PPI report that came in just ahead of expectations. The 10-yr note ended just below its flat line with the benchmark yield adding one basis point to 2.20%.

Also of note, today's eurogroup meeting with Greek representatives produced an agreement, which puts Greece on track to receive EUR13 billion in bailout funds next week.

Economic data included PPI, Industrial Production, and the Michigan Sentiment Index:

Producer prices increased 0.2% in July after increasing 0.4% in June while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
Energy prices, which provided the bulk of the gain in June, fell 0.6% in July. Gasoline prices increased 1.5%, but that was offset by big declines in the prices of home heating oil (-9.5%), liquefied petroleum (-4.3%), diesel fuel (-2.6%), and residential natural gas (-2.4%)
Food prices fell 0.1% in July after increasing 0.6% in June
Excluding food and energy, core prices increased 0.3% for a second consecutive month in July while the consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
The entire increase in core prices resulted from a 0.4% increase in services prices
Industrial production increased 0.6% in July after increasing a downwardly revised 0.1% (from 0.2%) in June while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%
That was the largest increase since a 0.9% increase in November 2014
Manufacturing production increased 0.8% in July after declining 0.3% in June
Nearly the entire increase in industrial production resulted from historic gains in the auto industry. Excluding autos, total industrial production was flat in July and manufacturing production increased only 0.1%
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index declined to 92.9 in the preliminary August reading from 93.1 in July while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 93.7
Concerns over a downward trending stock market were offset by improvements in labor market conditions, as shown by the historic lows in the initial claims level, and lower gasoline prices
Both the Current Conditions (107.1 from 107.2) and Expectations (83.8 from 84.1) Indices were virtually unchanged in August

On Monday, the Empire Manufacturing Index for August will be released at 8:30 ET while the August NAHB Housing Market Index will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Week in Review: China Seizes the Spotlight

The stock market began the trading week on a sharply higher note with the S&P 500 spiking 1.3% while the Dow (+1.4%) and Nasdaq (+1.2%) bookended the benchmark index. Equity indices surged out of the gate after the overnight session featured a 4.9% spike in China's Shanghai Composite after below-consensus trade data from China was viewed as an argument in favor of more policy easing. The overnight strength carried over to the European session as regional indices rallied amid reports suggesting Greek officials and eurozone negotiators are nearing a final agreement on a third bailout package for Greece. Once the opening bell rang on Wall Street, U.S. stocks perked up with the S&P 500 charging above its 50-day (2,096) and 100-day (2,098) moving averages. The benchmark index overtook both those levels during the opening hour, and inched to new highs during afternoon action with nine sectors ending in the green.

Global equity markets retreated on Tuesday as investors responded to an overnight devaluation of China's yuan. Specifically, the People's Bank of China lowered the yuan fix by the largest amount on record, sending the USD/CNY pair higher by 1.9% to 6.3249. The move invited renewed trepidations about the pace of economic growth in China while also feeding concerns that China's trading partners may feel compelled to respond by weakening their own currencies. For instance, the Japanese yen was in focus during the session amid speculation the Bank of Japan may be forced to step up its easing efforts to support the country's exporters. As a result, the dollar/yen pair climbed 0.4% to 125.07, nearing a 13-year high. The major European indices lost between 1.1% and 2.7% with the retreat paced by exporter stocks while the S&P settled lower by 1.0% and retraced the bulk of its advance from Monday. The day's selling sent the benchmark index back below its 50-day (2,096) and 100-day (2,098) moving averages with eight sectors registering losses. To little surprise, cyclical groups paced the slide, but the energy sector (-0.2%) spent the day in a steady rally off its opening low. The sector fought its way back to Monday's high even as crude oil plunged 4.2% to $43.08/bbl, settling at a six-year low.

The market ended Wednesday on a slightly higher note despite showing considerable weakness at the start of the trading day. The S&P 500 added 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) settled just ahead. Equity indices faced selling pressure at the start after the overnight session featured another move to devalue China's yuan. Specifically, the People's Bank of China fixed the yuan 1.6% lower and then stepped in to support the currency late in the session. Following the intervention, the USD/CNY pair ended higher by 1.0% at 6.3870 while the continued tinkering with the exchange rate by the PBoC fueled a continuation of Tuesday's risk-off move across global markets. The selling pressure persisted until the end of the European session with major equity indices across the old continent losing between 1.4% and 3.4%. Regional markets notched their session lows not long before the close, after Germany's Bild reported that the German government views the third Greek bailout package as insufficient. This was a noteworthy shift, considering the market had believed the bailout agreement was all but complete. Once equity markets in Europe closed, U.S. indices rallied steadily off their lows with the S&P 500 swiftly returning above its 200-day moving average (2,075). Thanks to the intraday recovery, seven sectors registered gains while three groups finished in the red, but above their early lows.

The stock market ended the Thursday session on a modestly lower note after spending some time on both sides of the unchanged level. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a slight gain (+0.03%). Overnight, the People's Bank of China tried to calm investor fears by holding a press conference, during which bank officials said the yuan adjustment "is almost complete" and called the rumors of a 10.0% devaluation "nonsense." Markets across Asia posted gains while European indices ended mostly higher. Once the U.S. session got going, stocks slipped from their opening levels, but the early weakness was largely isolated to the energy sector (-1.4%), which retreated alongside crude oil. The energy component faced selling pressure throughout the day, notching a fresh six-year low under $42.00/bbl during intraday action before inching up to settle lower by 2.3% at $42.25/bbl.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17373.38 17477.40 104.02 0.6 -1.9
Nasdaq 5043.54 5048.23 4.69 0.1 6.6
S&P 500 2077.57 2091.54 13.97 0.7 1.6
Russell 2000 1206.90 1212.69 5.79 0.5 0.7

3:32 pm Earnings Preview for the week of August 17 - 21 (:SUMRX) : Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of August 17 - 21 some of the bigger names include:
Monday:
Pre Market - EL, CYRN
After Hours - HTHT, ANW, MTZ, A, URBN, RELY, FN

Tuesday:
Pre Market - WMT, HD, TJX, DKS, CMCM, HAIN, TSL, EROS
After Hours - ADI, DV, LZB, SINA, PLAB, WB, TEDU, RPD

Wednesday:
Pre Market - TGT, LOW, SPLS, HRL, AEO, EV, CTRN, EARS, BZUN
After Hours - LB, SPTN, NTAP, KEYS, SNPS, JMEI, YOKU, SMTC, PLKI, MOMO

Thursday:
Pre Market - TECD, TTC, BONT, RGS, JKS, SSI, MSG, SMRT, LANC, OSIS, CATO, BKE, AMWD, PERY, KIRK, CYBX, DATE
After Hours - HPQ, GPS, ROST, CRM, SCSC, INTU, MRVL, BRCD, NDSN, TFM, MENT, NWY, TUES, JBSS, UEPS, CRMT, ARAY

Friday:
Pre Market - DE, FL, HIBB

11:53 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (183) outpacing new highs (65) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAN, ABTL, ACRE, ADBE, AIMT, AME, BLKB, BYD, CDL, CENT, CHFN, CIVI, CO, CPS, CTXS, DXCM, EBMT, EFOI, EFSC, ELNK, EVER, FBHS, FSV, GME, GPN, GRBK, GSBD, HCKT, HFFC, HSP, HTBI, IBP, INGN, INGR, JBLU, KMPH, LGIH, LII, MAN, MAS, MKC, MMAC, MRVC, NDAQ, NECB, OA, OCLR, PBH, PFG, POST, PRA, PRMW, QLTY, SCOR, SOCB, SRG, SRPT, TBNK, TDG, TGLS, TSS, TTEC, UHAL, USCR, VNTV

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, AAVL, ABUS, ADRE, ADRO, AEG, AEZS, AGM, AI, AKBA, AMAT, AMCF, AMOV, AMSC, AMX, ANF, ANY, AOSL, AP, APOL, ARGS, ATI, AVAL, AVH, AVL, AXLL, BAP, BBDO, BDR, BETR, BIOD, BIOS, BIT, BLCM, BPI, BRS, BTE, BTX, BUFF, CALA, CBD, CBK, CH, CHLN, CIB, CJES, CKP, CLNT, CMLS, CPA, CPG, CPHR, CPL, CPLA, CRD.B, CRTN, CTG, CXW, DAEG, DRYS, DTEA, DTLK, DV, DVN, DXPE, EDF, EDI, EFF, ELP, ENI, ENSV, EOC, ERC, ESTE, EVOK, EVV, EXAR, FC, FCFS, FF, FMC, FSTR, GBIM, GEO, GHI, GIM, GLF, GNRT, GOL, GPS, GRAM, GRP.U, GTLS, GULTU, HART, HBM, HCOM, HELI, HUN, HWCC, HYB, IAE, IAF, ICA, IGD, IID, IKNX, INFU, IPDN, ISIL, JFR, JGH, JMG, JSD, KEX, KIQ, KMM, KPTI, KST, LFL, LOCK, LOCO, LSCC, MBII, MDVX, MHH, MJN, MMYT, MPET, MRLN, MRO, NAVI, NFJ, NHS, NK, NLST, NSPH, NYNY, OBCI, OCAT, OIBR, OIBR.C, PCM, PES, PFN, PMCS, PRSN, PRTY, PSG, PWE, RCPI, RELV, RNWK, SBGL, SBLK, SFXE, SID, SINO, SLTC, STKS, SWM, TAS, TBBK, TC, TFM, TG, THW, TIL, TIVO, TPUB, TRCO, TSU, UNT, USLM, UTIW, WFM, WHZ, WYNN, XCRA, XGTI, XONE, YNDX, ZFC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: EIS, KIE, XHB

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, DJP, ECH, ENZL, EPU, EWM

9:07 am Applied Micro also reiterates guidance provided for the September quarter (AMCC) : Prior guidance: Q2 (Sep) EPS of ~($0.03) vs. ($0.03) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 (Sep) revs of ~$39 mln vs. $39.13 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "We are heartened by our increasing customer traction and remain confident about AppliedMicro's growth prospects for the balance of fiscal 2016 and beyond." (reported earnings late July; next qtr expected late October)

9:00 am Applied Micro announces the resignation of CFO Douglas Ahrens, effective Aug. 21, 2015 (AMCC) : Co announced that Douglas Ahrens, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will resign from AppliedMicro effective Aug. 21, 2015, in order to pursue a CFO role with a privately-held company in the software industry. In connection with Mr. Ahrens' departure, AppliedMicro has appointed Karen M. Rogge to serve as interim CFO commencing Aug. 24, 2015. Ms. Rogge has been a senior financial and operations executive at technology companies, as well as emerging companies, for the past four decades. AppliedMicro has retained a search firm and is in the process of identifying a permanent successor.

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From Briefing.com: All three major induces began morning trade in the red as morning weakness following the worse than expected August Empire Manufacturing survey (-14.9) extended into the 10 a.m. ET hour. We turned green about an hour into the trading session as the major indices bounced off early morning support levels. The Nasdaq Composite finished the day up 0.9% to 5091, the S&P 500 also ended Monday up by about 0.5% to 2102, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished Monday trade up 0.4% to 17545.

The day was also peppered with credit card metrics, which led the Financials (XLF 25.30, +0.05 +0.20%) higher on the session - NAHB Housing Market Index data, which for August rose to 61 from 60, leading Homebuilders (XHB 38.57, +0.43 +1.13%) higher on the session.

In a broader sense, all of the major sectors finished in the green today, with US Telecom (IYZ +1.31%) leading the pack, and Consumer Staples (XLP +0.10%) lagging, but still finished in the green -- IYZ +1.31%, XLV +1.01%, XLY +0.96%, XLB +0.57%, XLU +0.48%, XLI +0.46%, XLE +0.20%, XLF +0.20%, XLP +0.10%.

Among notable news today, Amazon (AMZN 535.47, +3.95 +0.74%) CEO Jeff Bezos responded to a NY Times article which suggested harsh working conditions at the company. In the article, some current and former employees issued statements on their experience working for the retailer. Bezos responded to the piece, asking that any employee who sees issues at the company to come forward and report them. The stock finished higher on the session, continuing a nearly two week period of sustained trade.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector was strong on the session, led by AVGO +2.92%, XRX +2.90%, AMAT +2.34%, LRCX +2.31%, ADP +2.06%, SWKS +2.05%, BRCM +1.96%, FIS +1.68%, MU +1.59%. As is evidence by the aforementioned list, semiconductors were strong on the session, as quarterly earnings are expected from Philadelphia Semiconductor index components Marvell (MRVL 12.43, -0.01 -0.04%) and Analog Devices (ADI 59.51, +0.67 +1.14%) this week.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Accenture (ACN 103.48, +0.03 +0.03%) announced an agreement to acquire the management consulting unit of Schlumberger (SLB 83.50, -0.36 -0.43%), Schlumberger Business Consulting; financial terms were not disclosed.

Also acquired Total Logistics, an independent logistics and supply chain consultancy; financial terms of this transaction were also not disclosed.

Alliance Data (ADS 271.32, -2.46 -0.90%) reported July card services up 34% year-over-year to $11.2 billion from $8.39 billion.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

6D Global Technologies (SIXD 2.96, -0.07 -2.15%) closed $10 million equity financing through the issuance of unregistered Series A Preferred Stock to an institutional investor.

InterCloud Systems (ICLD 1.97, +0.12 +6.49%) has been selected by one of the world's largest Tier 1 communications service providers based in the United States as a prime vendor to deliver outsourced professional services and support for their wireline and wireless next generation voice, data, and transport infrastructure solutions. The contract term is for three years with two one-year options, and is projected to be worth at least $9 million during the base term, with expansion to over $15 million.

Top Image Systems (TISA 4.29, +0.25 +6.19%) announced that the company has signed a large multi-year, multi-million dollar SaaS contract with a top 5 U.S. bank. Based on a SaaS business model, the deal provides TIS both high visibility into revenues as well as a stable, consistent source of revenues against the bank's steady multi-year stream of transactions.

Digital Ally (DGLY 7.73, -0.17 -2.12%) announced an extension of its statewide contract with the State of Michigan. The Company has supplied the Michigan State Police with its DVM-800 and DVM-500Plus In-Car Video Systems for the past five years, and the one-year extension will increase the cumulative contract value since its inception to about $7.3 million.

Dataram (DRAM 1.50, 0.00) announced Anthony Lougee has been promoted from Controller and Chief Accounting Officer to CFO and Corporate Secretary, effective August 17, 2015.

Brooks Automation (BRKS 10.92, -0.14 -1.27%) has expanded its Contamination Control Solutions business with the acquisition of Contact Co. Contact, based in Kanagawa, Japan, provides automated cleaner products for wafer carrier devices used in the global semiconductor markets and generated about $5 million of revenue in its most recent fiscal year.

Analyst actions:
MU was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at Wells Fargo, SINA was upgraded to Buy from Hold at T.H. Capital,
IPHI was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
MU was downgraded at BofA/Merrill and Wedbush, CSCO was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley
4:10 pm SunEdison and West Street Infrastructure Partners announce the formation of a new $1 billion warehouse investment vehicle, to fund construction costs and to acquire operating assets (SUNE) : Co and West Street Infrastructure Partners III announced the formation of a new $1 billion warehouse investment vehicle, the WSIP Warehouse, to fund construction costs and to acquire operating assets. TerraForm Power (TERP) will have an exclusive call right over the warehoused assets.

The WSIP Warehouse is a $1 billion investment vehicle with $300 million equity committed, subject to certain conditions, by WSIP, the infrastructure fund managed by Goldman Sachs (GS). The debt structuring will be led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank and will provide commitments for $700 million of debt in the form of a $500 million, five-year term loan and a $200 million, four-year revolving credit facility. SunEdison has the option to expand the facility by up to $1 billion to a total of $2 billion. The decision to add additional warehouse capacity was completed following an analysis by SunEdison of its financing requirements through 2016 and after exploring alternative debt and equity transactions. SunEdison continues to explore financing alternatives, including upsizing its existing warehouse facilities and adding new warehouse facilities

4:09 pm Agilent beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS and revs below consensus (A) :

Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.44 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.41; revenues rose 0.5% year/year to $1.01 bln vs the $1 bln consensus. Orders $953 mln, down 6% (up 3% on a core basis) YoY. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.45-0.49, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.50 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $1.03-1.05 bln vs. $1.07 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
4:08 pm Closing Market Summary: Biotechnology Leads Stocks Higher (:WRAPX) : The stock market began the trading week on an upbeat, albeit quiet, note with the S&P 500 climbing 0.5%. The benchmark index turned an opening ten-point loss into an eleven-point gain while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) displayed relative strength throughout the session.

Equity indices faced some short-lived weakness at the start of the session after the August Empire Manufacturing survey came in well below expectations (-14.9; Briefing.com consensus 5.0). The report was met with a rally in the Treasury market while equity futures slipped, leading to the lower open.

Despite the early pressure, the major averages were back in the green just 90 minutes after the opening bell and they continued inching higher during afternoon action. The health care sector (+1.0%) was among the early pockets of relative strength as biotechnology rallied throughout the day. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 371.67, +7.61) climbed 2.1%, contributing to the outperformance of the Nasdaq.

Unlike health care, the remaining countercyclical sectors could not keep pace with the market. The utilities sector (+0.5%) settled just behind while consumer staples (+0.1%) and telecom services (+0.4%) underperformed.

Over on the cyclical side, energy (-0.1%) and financials (+0.2%) underperformed while the remaining six groups ended in-line with or ahead of the broader market. The consumer discretionary sector (+1.0%) was a noteworthy area of strength thanks to sector-wide support. Retailers climbed with SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 97.60, +0.70) rising 0.7% while homebuilders rallied across the board. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 29.17, +0.46) gained 1.6%, ending at levels last seen in August 2007.

Stock-specific news was limited today, but it is worth noting that Zulily (ZU 18.74, +6.17) spiked 49.1% after agreeing to be acquired by Liberty Interactive (QVCA 29.80, -0.46) for $18.75/share.

On the downside, the energy sector spent the entire trading day near its flat line as crude oil added to its recent losses, falling 1.5% to $41.87/bbl. Including today's decline, WTI crude is now down 11.9% since the end of July.

As mentioned earlier, today's trading volume was well below average with fewer than 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Empire Manufacturing and NAHB Housing Market Index:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for August registered a reading of -14.9, which was below the prior month's reading of 3.9 and below the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which was pegged at 5.0 New orders fell to -15.7 from -3.7 while shipments declined -13.8 from +8.2 The NAHB Housing Market Index for August rose to 61 from 60, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected Tomorrow, July Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.200 million) and Building Permits (consensus 1.257 million) will both be reported at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.5% YTD
S&P 500 +2.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.6% YTD

11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (220) outpacing new highs (105) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCB, ACFC, ACRE, ADBE, AFG, ALGT, ALK, AME, AMSG, ANSS, ATR, BYD, CASY, CBNJ, CDNS, CENT, CENTA, CO, CONE, CUBE, DHI, ELNK, ELS, EVER, EXR, FAF, FBHS, FCFP, FIS, FL, FORTY, FSFG, FSV, GPN, GSBD, HCKT, HD, HOLX, HSP, IMKTA, IMPR, INFN, JBLU, KRNY, LG, LGIH, LII, LMT, LNTH, MAS, MBLY, MCFT, MHK, MHO, MKC.V, MLM, MOH, MSTR, MWW, NDAQ, NVR, OC, OCR, OME, OTEL, PAYC, PBH, POST, PPBI, PRA, PRXL, PSA, QLTY, RNR, SCOR, SGBK, SIGI, SNPS, SPNS, SRG, SRPT, SSS, STMP, SVA, SYK, TAST, TBNK, TDG, TE, THG, TOL, TPX, TREE, TSE, TSS, UFPI, UHAL, ULTA, VMC, VNTV, WRB, WSM, WSO, XL, XUE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, AAMC, AAXJ, ABGB, ABUS, ACP, ADRE, AEG, ALIM, ALTV, AMCO, AMX, ANF, AP, APOL, ARO, ASTI, ASX, ATHM, ATI, ATW, AVAL, AVH, AVL, AWF, BBD, BCA, BDSI, BETR, BGH, BGX, BIOS, BIT, BITA, BMO, BNS, BOI, BOOM, BPT, BRS, BSMX, BTE, CBD, CDOR, CEE, CERU, CETC, CFD, CG, CH, CJES, CLDN, CLNT, CMLS, CNET, CNQ, COMT, CPA, CPG, CPHR, CPL, CRCM, CU, CVEO, CVGI, CZZ, DAEG, DGRE, DHF, DHY, DISCA, DRYS, DTLK, DV, DVN, EAD, EBR, EC, EDD, EDF, EDI, EEMA, EEME, EFF, EMD, EMF, EOC, ERC, EVAL, EXH, FELP, FEO, FF, FSAM, FTF, FTW, GFN, GIM, GLF, GPS, GST, HART, HBM, HCOM, HGSH, HGT, HHY, HIBB, HIX, HLX, HNW, HPQ, HUN, HWCC, HYI, HYT, IAE, IF, IHD, IID, IPDN, ISD, ISDR, JGH, JSD, KERX, KEX, KIO, KIQ, KST, LDF, LOCO, LPL, MARA, MDVX, MEIL, MEMP, MHH, MJN, MPET, MRLN, MRO, MTR, MU, MXF, NADL, NDRO, NFEC, NLST, NOR, NOV, NSL, NSU, NTAP, NTIC, NTL, OCIP, OIBR, OIBR.C, OIS, PDI, PDS, PER, PES, PFIE, PG, PGH, PKX, PSG, PSIX, PTR, PVA, PWE, RLOG, SAN, SBGL, SBLK, SBW, SFXE, SGF, SGNL, SGNT, SID, SJR, SLTC, SPDC, SPE, SPN, SVVC, SXC, SZC, TAC, TAL, TBIO, TC, TDF, TFM, THW, TKF, TLI, TPUB, TROX, TRP, TSU, TTM, TWIN, TWN, UIS, UNT, UTIW, VALE.P, VIDI, VIV, VLT, VOC, WHZ, WLDN, WYNN, YNDX, ZFC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: ITB, KIE, XHB

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, DBB, DBC, DJP, ECH, EEB, EEM, EPU, EWM, EWT, EWW, EWY, EWZ, EZA, GAF, GSG, ILF, JJC, OIL, THD, USO, VWO

8:33 am Arch Coal announces extension of private debt Exchange Offers (ACI) : The Exchange Offers, previously set to expire at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on August 14, 2015, has been extended and is now set to expire at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on August 28, 2015.

6:31 am Brooks Automation acquires automated cleaner product company, Contact Co; terms not disclosed (BRKS) : Contact Co., based in Kanagawa, Japan, provides automated cleaner products for wafer carrier devices used in the global semiconductor markets and generated ~$5 million of revenue in its most recent fiscal year.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The markets are seeing red again, on back to back sessions weighed down today by more volatility in the Chinese markets. In addition, the continued drop in crude oil futures seems to be taking us lower on the Wednesday session. WTI Oct. Crude Oil prices dipped below $41 per barrel today, speeding the markets lower at about midday as the morning gave us a crude oil inventory build of 2.62 million barrels, when consensus was calling for a draw. We finished Wednesday trade with the Dow Jones Industrial Average leading the way lower by 163 points (-0.93%) to 17348, the S&P 500 following lower by 17 (-0.83%) to 2079, and the Nasdaq Composite lower by 40 (-0.80%) to 5019.

Due out today were the July 2015 Fed minutes, were leaked early, initially taking the markets higher. In the leaked minutes, the Fed even noted the spillover volatility from China and recent declines in oil prices pose some concerns. As noted, the markets took a run up to flat lines following the leak, but quickly reversed those gains and returned to earlier levels just as fast as the initial run up. The minutes noted that rate hike conditions are 'approaching,' but that the labor market still has room to go before such a time.

Notable sector movers included XLE -2.76%, XLB -1.27%, XLI -0.93%, XLP -0.92%, XLF -0.91%, XLK -0.66%, IYZ -0.47%, XLV -0.41%, XLY -0.18%, XLU +0.42%, with only Utilities managing to stay out of the hole. Energy was led lower on the session on oil weakness, while weakness in Materials' (XLB 45.12, -0.56 -1.23%) components LYB -1.46%, PPG -1.98% and DOW -1.39% led the sector lower.

In particular today, Solar stocks (TAN 31.85, -1.26 -3.81%) were getting hit hard on the back of sector component Canadian Solar's (CSIQ 20.21, -4.48 -18.15%) Q2 results. The stock traded lower today in spite of the better than expected results as Q3 and FY15 revenue guidance fell short of what the street was expecting. Sector component JinkoSolar Holdings (JKS 21.42, -1.83 -7.87%) also traded lower on the session, ahead of Q2 results slated for tomorrow morning.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (702.50, -6.05 -0.85%) performed in-line with the broader market - albeit with slightly tamer losses. Components dragging the sector down today were SNDK -5.43%, STX -5.03%, FSLR -3.27%, EA -3.03%, MU -2.93%, HPQ -2.29%, while shares of SWKS +1.79%, SYMC +0.97%, ADI +0.83%, GOOGL +0.77%, GOOG +0.73%, ALTR +0.65% helped tame the overall losses.

Other news items among sector components:
Seagate Technology (STX 49.43, -2.62 -5.03%) entered a definitive agreement to acquire Dot Hill
Systems (HILL 9.68, +4.50 +86.87%) in an all-cash transaction valued at $9.75 per share, or a total of about $694 million. Seagate expects the transaction to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings in FY16.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 27.80, -0.45 -1.59%) provided an update on litigation with Arista (ANET 79.54, -0.34 -0.43%) in which the company noted that they believe all patents covered in the suit were produced by individuals who worked for CSCO and who are now at Arista, or by individuals at CSCO who worked with executives who are now at Arista.

PayPal (PYPL 37.19, -0.80 -2.11%) acquired mobile-commerce firm Modest - financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Elsewhere in the technology space:
Toshiba (TOSBF 3.17, +0.26 +8.93%) issued a notice of a change to its management team, as CEO Masashi would cease to serve as Chairman of the Board. The company is considering outside candidates for the inclusion to the Board. The company will therefore reduce the Board size to 11 from 16 members and increase the ration of outside directors to above 50%. The company also disclosed its current status for past financial results, from FY08-FY14.

Eltek (ELTK 1.10, +0.06 +5.77%) announced it received several orders from three U.S. customers in the medical device sector, amounting to $1.1 million since the beginning of Q3.

Remark Media (MARK 4.14, +0.05 +1.10%) acquired Vegas.com for an undisclosed amount. The deal would develop partnerships and strengthen the company's presence for millennial travelers.

Web.com (WWWW 21.52, -2.25 -9.47%) disclosed it discovered an unauthorized breach to one of its computer systems on August 13, 2015. Credit card information from about 93,000 customers may have been compromised.

Elephant Talk (ETAK 0.33, -0.04 -11.84%) announced it is exploring strategic alternatives for its ValidSoft subsidiary. The company is evaluating joint venture, strategic disposition, or merger of the subsidiary which provides security software and transaction verification technology to clients.

Synacor (SYNC 1.53, -0.07 -4.38%) announced the acquisition of certain assets from Zimbra for about $24.5 million. Subsequently, the company revised its FY15 revenue guidance up to $102-108 million versus prior guidance of $97-102 million. The company also raised FY15 EBITA guidance to $4-6 million from $3.5-5 million. Zimbra is a collaborative software suite that includes email servers and web clients.

Analyst actions:
GOOG/GOOGL was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Atlantic Equities,
INTU was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank, MRVL was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Ladenburg Thalmann,
ADI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey,
MBT was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup, COHU was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sidoti; HILL was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti

4:33 pm Semtech reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (SMTC) :

Reports Q2 (Jul) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.24; revenues fell 13.7% year/year to $125.7 mln vs the $124.37 mln consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.21-0.27, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $110-120 mln vs. $129.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05 pm NetApp beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides OctQ EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (NTAP) :

Reports Q1 (Jul) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.23; revenues fell 10.3% year/year to $1.34 bln vs the $1.32 bln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q2 (Oct), sees EPS of $0.55-0.60, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.46 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.40-1.50 bln vs. $1.39 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

NetApp clustered Data ONTAP node shipments increased 114% YoY
All Flash FAS units grew 137% YoY; fifth consecutive quarter of triple-digit growth
Co says $484 million was returned to shareholders in share repurchases and cash dividends.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday session on a lower note after enduring a volatile day that included opening weakness, an afternoon rebound, and a slide from rebound highs. When the dust settled, the S&P 500 ended lower by 0.8%, turning a slim weekly gain into a 0.6% week-to-date loss.

Equities stumbled at the start after the overnight session featured more uninspiring action in China. Specifically, the Shanghai Composite climbed 1.2%, but not before being down more than 5.0% in the early going. The wild turnaround was followed by a retreat across European markets while U.S. equities opened in the red and continued their slide with the energy sector (-2.8%) pacing the move.

The growth-sensitive group extended its weekly loss to 3.2% while crude oil fell to a new low for the year, ending the pit session lower by 4.3% at $40.80/bbl. Similarly, the other commodity-related sector-materials (-1.2%)-ended at the bottom of the leaderboard amid weakness in steelmakers. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 25.63, -0.75) lost 2.8%. That being said, mining shares represented a pocket of strength, evidenced by a 2.9% spike in Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 15.20, +0.43). On a related note, gold futures climbed 1.2% to $1130.70/ozt.

The early selling pressured the S&P 500 below its 200-day moving average (2,078), but the benchmark index crawled back above that mark during afternoon action and charged to an intraday high after the minutes from the July FOMC meeting crossed the wires about 20 minutes ahead of the scheduled release time.

Overall, the minutes appeared to be quite dovish with members "generally agreeing" that more information is needed before hiking rates. Furthermore, most members believed that "conditions for policy firming had not yet been achieved," but they agreed that conditions were nearing that point.

The minutes were followed by a spike in the Treasury market, sending the 10-yr note to its high (10-yr yield -8 bps to 2.12%) while the Dollar Index (96.37, -0.67) fell 0.7%.

Interestingly, the afternoon rebound dissolved just as fast as it had crystalized with the S&P 500 returning to its pre-FOMC levels roughly 45 minutes after hitting its rebound high.

Eight sectors ended the day in negative territory while rate-sensitive telecom services (+0.01%) and utilities (+0.4%) eked out gains thanks to lower yields.

Meanwhile on the cyclical side, the aforementioned energy and materials struggled throughout the day while other growth-sensitive groups fared a bit better. Technology (-0.9%) and financials (-0.9%) ended essentially in-line with the broader market while the consumer discretionary sector (-0.2%) spent the day ahead of the benchmark index. Select restaurant names displayed gains with Yum! Brands (YUM 86.08, +1.88) spiking 2.2% after naming a new CEO for its division in China. Also of note, Lowe's (LOW 74.37, +1.35) climbed 1.9% despite missing bottom-line estimates and reaffirming its guidance.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 810 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to CPI and the MBA Mortgage Index:

Total CPI rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) in July while Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, also rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%)
The indexes for food (+0.2%) and energy (+0.1%) helped push up the all items index while a 0.4% increase in the shelter index was the key driver behind the increase in the all items index, excluding food and energy
On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 0.2% and core CPI is up 1.8%
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 3.6% to follow last week's 0.1% uptick

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 272,000) will be reported at 8:30 ET while July Existing Home Sales (consensus 5.42 million), July Leading Indicators (expected 0.2%), and the Philadelphia Fed survey for August (consensus 0.2%) will all be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.7% YTD

DJ30 -162.61 NASDAQ -40.29 SP500 -17.31 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 743/1.66 bln/2141 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 763/822.6 mln/2299

3:35 pm :

In commodities, the big story is WTI crude falling below $41/barrel briefly
WTI oil is now at a 6 -year low. Both brent and WTI crude oil fell sharply today
In electronic trade, both are still sitting near today's lows
Sept WTI crude oil finished the floor session -4.4% at $41.25/barrel
In other energy, Sept natural gas gained one cent to finish at $2.71/MMBtu
Following the FOMC minutes headlines earlier, the dollar index sold off, which gave some commodities a boost
However, it really wasn't a notable boost.
In recent trade, the euro spiked further, which caused the dollar index to push lower
In current trade, the index is -0.7% at 96.37, near today's new low now, which is helping gold and silver futures remain near today's high in electronic trade
?In floor trading, Dec gold ended the day +1.0% at $1128.00/oz, while Sept silver finished +2.6% at $15.19/oz
Since the close, gold has inched higher by a few dollars and just hit a new high for today

12:12 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (63) outpacing new highs (8) (:SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ARMK, DHI, FBHS, FIS, LEN, SPF, TOL, USG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, AAXJ, ABEV, ABY, AMH, ASX, ATHM, ATI, AUO, BBD, BG, BHP, BP, BSMX, CIG, CNQ, CNX, COP, CVE, CVX, DOV, DVN, ECA, FCX, FTI, GGB, GOL, GRPN, HPQ, HUN, KLAC, LC, MEOH, MJN, MRO, MT, MU, MUR, NAVI, NOV, NTAP, PBR.A, PG, PX, QCOM, RDS.B, RIO, SAN, SDRL, SPIL, SPN, STO, TCK, TTM, UMC, VALE, VALE.P, WFM, WFT, WMT, WYNN, XOM, YNDX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: XHB

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, BKF, BNO, CHN, DBC, DJP, EEB, EEM, EGPT, EPP, EPU, EWC, EWS, EWT, EWW, EWY, EWZ, EZA, GAF, GSG, HYG, IDX, ILF, IXC, JJC, JNK, KOL, OIH, OIL, PBW, REMX, SEA, SLX, THD, USO, UYM, VNM, VWO, XES

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 27 stocks made 52 week highs and 424 stocks made 52 week lows.

12:01 pm iRobot receives a $4 mln order from the US Navy for the company's odel 110 FirstLook robots and accessories; orders to be completed by February 2016 (IRBT) :

QLogic (QLGC) announced a strategic distribution agreement with ASI, a distributor of solution building I/O and reference architecture blueprints. QLogic and ASI will work together to provide increased sales and profitability to resellers who deliver optimized server and storage networking infrastructure solutions

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Well, the only word that can explain today's trading action (and the week for that matter) is RED. Red, red, red - the markets were seeing red this week like the Pamplona Bull Run had come one month late. On a more serious note, US markets saw pressure from the get-go today as triple digit losses in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-3.12%) are becoming more of a reliable occurrence than old age. Today, the Dow fell at one point more than 525 points, and finished the day near lows of 16459. Not to be outdone, the S&P 500 (-3.19%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-3.52%) also saw their fair share of losses on the session, both ending Friday trade (and the week) lower.

The S&P 500 ripped eclipsed its 200 day simple moving average yesterday, and today seems like it is not looking back. As mentioned earlier, the Dow continued ripping lower this week shedding ?more than 1000 points in the five-day span, touching levels not seen since . The Nasdaq also ripped through its 200 day sma yesterday, and today continued the downward trend.

Notable tech names Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 27.49, +0.14 +0.51%), which is recently to be split into two companies, Salesforce.com (CRM 69.25, +1.43 +2.11%), and Intuit (INTU 89.28, -13.65 -13.26%) reported quarterly results in the overnight session.

Other notable tech names seeing pressure on the session include social media giant Facebook (FB 86.06, -4.50 -4.97%) which like the broader market, has seen a week of losses. Google (GOOG/GOOGL 612.48, -34.35 -5.31%) which has pared back to back session toward the downside to end near late July levels. And semiconductor name SunEdison (SUNE 10.72, -1.38 -11.40%), which since the middle of July has seen a downtrend consistently almost every session.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (-4.21%) traded lower with the broader market. Other sectors performed XLK -3.82%, XLE -3.56%, XLY -3.20%, XLF -3.10%, XLV -3.04%, XLI -2.76%, XLP -2.63%, XLB -2.39%, XLU -1.21%, IYZ -0.89%, underperforming from top to bottom.

Notable news items among sector components:
Google (GOOG/GOOGL) published a blog update which noted the company will bring Tweets to Google search via mobile devices.

Sergey Brin disclosed in a blog post that Google's Life Sciences Unit will become a standalone company under the new Alphabet umbrella.


Ambarella (AMBA 89.76, -7.28 -7.50%) Citron Research reiterated their cautious view on the stock via their Twitter page noting the next step for the stock is $70.

Teradata (TDC 30.18, +0.55 +1.86%) added $500 million to its share repurchase authorization, combined to the existing $360 million still remaining on the current outstanding authorization.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Siliconware Precision (SPIL 6.43, +1.25 +24.13%) Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASX 4.94, +0.24 +5.11%) announced it plans to commence on August 24, 2015, tender offers in the Republic of China and the United States for common shares and American Depositary Shares of SPIL at a price of NT$45 per common share and NT$225 per ADS payable in the equivalent amount of U.S. dollars, respectively.

InterCloud Systems (ICLD 1.87, +0.03 +1.63%) announced it continues to see an influx of new purchase orders and long term contracts across its business segments; The backlog of business is now at an all-time high of over $38 million.

VirnetX Holding (VHC 3.27, -0.46 -12.33%) filed a universal shelf registration statement to sell up to $100 million of equity, debt or other types of securities; also enters into $35 million ATM agreement to sell common stock.

GigOptix (GIG 1.65, -0.50 -23.26%) announced a public offering of common stock; size and terms not disclosed, but to include up to 282K shares offered by certain officers and directors. The company then priced a public offering of ~9.218 million shares of common stock at $1.70 per share.

Notable names in reaction to earnings:

Salesforce.com (CRM) reported Q2 EPS and revenues which were better than expected at $0.19 per share and $1.63 billion. The company also guided mixed for Q3, EPS of $0.18-0.19 on revenues of $1.69-1.70 billion. For the FY16 period, CRM sees EPS of $0.70-0.72 on revenues of $6.660-6.625 billion - in-line and above expectations, respectively.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) reported Q3 EPS which were better than expected at $0.88, and revenues which were in-line at $25.35 billion. The company also guided Q4 EPS worse than expected at $0.92-0.98.

Intuit (INTU) reported Q4 EPS which beat expectations at a loss of $0.05 per share, and revenues which missed expectations at $696 million. Also, the company issued EPS for Q1 guidance which was in-line at $0.03-0.04 on worse than expected revenues of $660-680 million.

Analyst actions:
CRM was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Pivotal Research Group,
SYMC was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley, CMPR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Cantor Fitzgerald,
BRCD was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman, AMKR was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse; INTU was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at First Analysis Sec, TSU was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
INGIY was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley

Weekly Recap - Week ending 21-Aug-15

Dow -530.94 at 16459.75, Nasdaq -171.45 at 4706.04, S&P -64.84 at 1970.89

The stock market wrapped up a defensive week with a Friday plunge that sent the S&P 500 (-3.2%) lower by 65 points to levels not seen since late October. For the week, the S&P 500 lost 5.8% while the Nasdaq Composite underperformed, diving 3.5% today to extend its weekly decline to 6.8%.

Equities stumbled out of the gate as investor sentiment continued deteriorating after the overnight session included more selling in China with the Shanghai Composite falling 4.3% to extend its weekly decline to 11.2%. Continued concerns about the country's economy fueled today's dive after the preliminary Caixin Manufacturing PMI (47.1; consensus 47.7) dropped near 6.5-year lows while the output component dropped to 46.6, its lowest level in four years.

The selling pressure persisted through European trade and remained heavy during the New York session. The daylong retreat began with an opening dive that sent the S&P 500 lower by almost 20 points. The index followed that with an eight-point uptick, but that was met with a 30-point slide. Another rebound ensued, but the move was limited to 14 points, and followed by 17-point retreat. The index then strung a 12-point advance, but once again, that was retraced by a 35-point slide to a fresh low into the close.

All ten sectors registered losses with five groups losing 3.0% or more. Top-weighted sectors like technology (-3.8%), consumer discretionary (-3.2%), and health care (-3.0%) paced the daylong tumble while other heavily-weighted groups also contributed to the market-wide pressure.

The technology sector suffered from losses among large cap components with the likes of Apple (AAPL 106.05, -6.60), Google (GOOGL 644.03, -35.45), Facebook (FB 86.06, -4.50), Intel (INTC 26.58, -0.95), and Microsoft (MSFT 43.07, -2.59) diving between 3.5% and 5.9%. Unlike Intel, high-beta chipmakers held slimmer losses than the broader market during the day, but the PHLX Semiconductor Index ended lower by 2.7% due to heavy selling in the afternoon.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector was broadsided by retailers while recent high-flyers like Amazon (AMZN 494.50, -21.28) and Netflix (NFLX 103.96, -8.53) lost 4.1% and 7.6%, respectively. The two listings contributed to the relative weakness in the Nasdaq while biotech names also retreated, but iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 339.84, -10.98) ended ahead of the Nasdaq with a 3.1% decline.

Also of note, the energy sector (-3.6%) finished near the bottom of the barrel as crude oil registered its eight consecutive weekly decline. The energy component fell 2.1%, settling at $40.45/bbl after briefly dipping below the $40.00/bbl mark. For the week, crude oil sank 6.2%.

The Friday drop caught many participants by surprise, evidenced by a daylong rally in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 28.17, +9.03), which rocketed higher by nine points to levels last seen in mid-October as investors showed relentless demand for downside protection.

Interestingly, the considerable weakness in equities was not met by significant strength in the Treasury market. To be sure, Treasuries did advance, but the 10-yr note notched its high well before the low in stocks. As a result, the benchmark 10-yr yield fell two basis points to 2.05%.

Today's participation was well above average as more than 1.3 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor. It is worth noting that the total was boosted in part by flows related to August options expiration.

Investors did not receive any economic data today and Monday's session will also be quiet on the economic front.

Week in Review: China Returns to Headlines

The stock market began the trading week on an upbeat, albeit quiet, note with the S&P 500 climbing 0.5%. The benchmark index turned an opening ten-point loss into an eleven-point gain while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) displayed relative strength throughout the session. Equity indices faced some short-lived weakness at the start of the session after the August Empire Manufacturing survey came in well below expectations (-14.9; Briefing.com consensus 5.0). The report was met with a rally in the Treasury market while equity futures slipped, leading to the lower open. Despite the early pressure, the major averages were back in the green just 90 minutes after the opening bell and they continued inching higher during afternoon action. The health care sector (+1.0%) was among the early pockets of relative strength as biotechnology rallied throughout the day. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 371.67, +7.61) climbed 2.1%, contributing to the outperformance of the Nasdaq.

After enjoying a broad-based spike on Monday, the market surrendered more than half of that gain on Tuesday. The S&P 500 lost 0.3%, narrowing its weekly advance to 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) underperformed. Although the Tuesday session produced a different outcome than Monday's affair, investor participation remained below-average with fewer than 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor. Equities began the day with modest losses after the overnight session featured a resumption of heavy selling in China that sent the Shanghai Composite lower by 6.2%. There was no clear-cut reason for the plunge, but some pointed to a better than feared Housing Starts report, which could keep the People's Bank of China from implementing additional stimulus measures. The overnight weakness was followed by a shaky session in Europe while U.S. indices made a brief appearance in the green before revisiting their morning lows. The S&P 500 slid below its 100-day moving average (2,098) during midday action and hit its session low just a point below the 50-day average (2,095) before settling just above that level.

The stock market ended the Wednesday session on a lower note after enduring a volatile day that included opening weakness, an afternoon rebound, and a slide from rebound highs. When the dust settled, the S&P 500 ended lower by 0.8%, turning a slim weekly gain into a 0.6% week-to-date loss. Stocks stumbled at the start after the overnight session featured more uninspiring action in China. Specifically, the Shanghai Composite climbed 1.2%, but not before being down more than 5.0% in the early going. The wild turnaround was followed by a retreat across European markets while U.S. equities opened in the red and continued their slide with the energy sector (-2.8%) pacing the move. The growth-sensitive group extended its weekly loss to 3.2% while crude oil fell to a new low for the year, ending the pit session lower by 4.3% at $40.80/bbl. Similarly, the other commodity-related sector-materials (-1.2%)-ended at the bottom of the leaderboard amid weakness in steelmakers. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 25.63, -0.75) lost 2.8%. That being said, mining shares represented a pocket of strength, evidenced by a 2.9% spike in Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 15.20, +0.43). On a related note, gold futures climbed 1.2% to $1130.70/ozt. The early selling pressured the S&P 500 below its 200-day moving average (2,078), but the benchmark index crawled back above that mark during afternoon action and charged to an intraday high after the minutes from the July FOMC meeting crossed the wires about 20 minutes ahead of the scheduled release time. Overall, the minutes appeared to be quite dovish with members "generally agreeing" that more information is needed before hiking rates. Furthermore, most members believed that "conditions for policy firming had not yet been achieved," but they agreed that conditions were nearing that point.

The market registered its third consecutive decline on Thursday with the S&P 500 (-2.1%) slashing below its 200-day moving average (2,078). The benchmark index slid to levels not seen since early February while the Nasdaq Composite (-2.8%) displayed relative weakness throughout the day. The daylong selloff was brought on by a heightened sense of uncertainty among investors, pulling the S&P 500 into the red for 2015 (-1.1%). To be sure, some of the uncertainty (rate-hike speculation, concerns about the global economy, plunging commodity prices) had been brewing for a while, whereas today's session reminded investors about ongoing concerns related to China and Greece. Overnight, China's Shanghai Composite tumbled 3.4% amid reports the country's official GDP target could be lowered to 6.5% from 7.0%. Sellers maintained control despite a CNY120 billion injection from the People's Bank of China into capital markets. As for Greece, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned from his post and called for a snap election, set for September 20, just three days after the FOMC concludes its September meeting. It is worth noting that there are indications Greece's minority parties could try to form a coalition government, which would block the September 20 vote.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17477.40 16459.75 -1017.65 -5.8 -7.6
Nasdaq 5048.23 4706.04 -342.19 -6.8 -0.6
S&P 500 2091.54 1970.89 -120.65 -5.8 -4.3
Russell 2000 1212.69 1156.79 -55.90 -4.6 -4.0

4:20 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Dive Amid Continued Global Growth Concerns (:WRAPX) :

The stock market wrapped up a defensive week with a Friday plunge that sent the S&P 500 (-3.2%) lower by 65 points to levels not seen since late October. For the week, the S&P 500 lost 5.8% while the Nasdaq Composite underperformed, diving 3.5% today to extend its weekly decline to 6.8%.

Equities stumbled out of the gate as investor sentiment continued deteriorating after the overnight session included more selling in China with the Shanghai Composite falling 4.3% to extend its weekly decline to 11.2%. Continued concerns about the country's economy fueled today's dive after the preliminary Caixin Manufacturing PMI (47.1; consensus 47.7) dropped near 6.5-year lows while the output component dropped to 46.6, its lowest level in four years.

The selling pressure persisted through European trade and remained heavy during the New York session. The daylong retreat began with an opening dive that sent the S&P 500 lower by almost 20 points. The index followed that with an eight-point uptick, but that was met with a 30-point slide. Another rebound ensued, but the move was limited to 14 points, and followed by 17-point retreat. The index then strung a 12-point advance, but once again, that was retraced by a 35-point slide to a fresh low into the close.

All ten sectors registered losses with five groups losing 3.0% or more. Top-weighted sectors like technology (-3.8%), consumer discretionary (-3.2%), and health care (-3.0%) paced the daylong tumble while other heavily-weighted groups also contributed to the market-wide pressure.

The technology sector suffered from losses among large cap components with the likes of Apple (AAPL 106.05, -6.60), Google (GOOGL 644.03, -35.45), Facebook (FB 86.06, -4.50), Intel (INTC 26.58, -0.95), and Microsoft (MSFT 43.07, -2.59) diving between 3.5% and 5.9%. Unlike Intel, high-beta chipmakers held slimmer losses than the broader market during the day, but the PHLX Semiconductor Index ended lower by 2.7% due to heavy selling in the afternoon.

Elsewhere, the discretionary sector was broadsided by retailers while recent high-flyers like Amazon (AMZN 494.50, -21.28) and Netflix (NFLX 103.96, -8.53) lost 4.1% and 7.6%, respectively. The two listings contributed to the relative weakness in the Nasdaq while biotech names also retreated, but iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 339.84, -10.98) ended ahead of the Nasdaq with a 3.1% decline.

Also of note, the energy sector (-3.6%) finished near the bottom of the barrel as crude oil registered its eight consecutive weekly decline. The energy component fell 2.1%, settling at $40.45/bbl after briefly dipping below the $40.00/bbl mark. For the week, crude oil sank 6.2%.

The Friday drop caught many participants by surprise, evidenced by a daylong rally in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 28.17, +9.03), which rocketed higher by nine points to levels last seen in mid-October as investors showed relentless demand for downside protection.

Interestingly, the considerable weakness in equities was not met by significant strength in the Treasury market. To be sure, Treasuries did advance, but the 10-yr note notched its high well before the low in stocks. As a result, the benchmark 10-yr yield fell two basis points to 2.05%.

Today's participation was well above average as more than 1.3 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor. It is worth noting that the total was boosted in part by flows related to August options expiration.

Investors did not receive any economic data today and Monday's session will also be quiet on the economic front.

Nasdaq Composite -0.6% YTD
S&P 500 -4.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -7.7% YTD

Week in Review: China Returns to Headlines

The stock market began the trading week on an upbeat, albeit quiet, note with the S&P 500 climbing 0.5%. The benchmark index turned an opening ten-point loss into an eleven-point gain while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) displayed relative strength throughout the session. Equity indices faced some short-lived weakness at the start of the session after the August Empire Manufacturing survey came in well below expectations (-14.9; Briefing.com consensus 5.0). The report was met with a rally in the Treasury market while equity futures slipped, leading to the lower open. Despite the early pressure, the major averages were back in the green just 90 minutes after the opening bell and they continued inching higher during afternoon action. The health care sector (+1.0%) was among the early pockets of relative strength as biotechnology rallied throughout the day. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 371.67, +7.61) climbed 2.1%, contributing to the outperformance of the Nasdaq.

After enjoying a broad-based spike on Monday, the market surrendered more than half of that gain on Tuesday. The S&P 500 lost 0.3%, narrowing its weekly advance to 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) underperformed. Although the Tuesday session produced a different outcome than Monday's affair, investor participation remained below-average with fewer than 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor. Equities began the day with modest losses after the overnight session featured a resumption of heavy selling in China that sent the Shanghai Composite lower by 6.2%. There was no clear-cut reason for the plunge, but some pointed to a better than feared Housing Starts report, which could keep the People's Bank of China from implementing additional stimulus measures. The overnight weakness was followed by a shaky session in Europe while U.S. indices made a brief appearance in the green before revisiting their morning lows. The S&P 500 slid below its 100-day moving average (2,098) during midday action and hit its session low just a point below the 50-day average (2,095) before settling just above that level.

The stock market ended the Wednesday session on a lower note after enduring a volatile day that included opening weakness, an afternoon rebound, and a slide from rebound highs. When the dust settled, the S&P 500 ended lower by 0.8%, turning a slim weekly gain into a 0.6% week-to-date loss. Stocks stumbled at the start after the overnight session featured more uninspiring action in China. Specifically, the Shanghai Composite climbed 1.2%, but not before being down more than 5.0% in the early going. The wild turnaround was followed by a retreat across European markets while U.S. equities opened in the red and continued their slide with the energy sector (-2.8%) pacing the move. The growth-sensitive group extended its weekly loss to 3.2% while crude oil fell to a new low for the year, ending the pit session lower by 4.3% at $40.80/bbl. Similarly, the other commodity-related sector-materials (-1.2%)-ended at the bottom of the leaderboard amid weakness in steelmakers. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 25.63, -0.75) lost 2.8%. That being said, mining shares represented a pocket of strength, evidenced by a 2.9% spike in Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 15.20, +0.43). On a related note, gold futures climbed 1.2% to $1130.70/ozt. The early selling pressured the S&P 500 below its 200-day moving average (2,078), but the benchmark index crawled back above that mark during afternoon action and charged to an intraday high after the minutes from the July FOMC meeting crossed the wires about 20 minutes ahead of the scheduled release time. Overall, the minutes appeared to be quite dovish with members "generally agreeing" that more information is needed before hiking rates. Furthermore, most members believed that "conditions for policy firming had not yet been achieved," but they agreed that conditions were nearing that point.

The market registered its third consecutive decline on Thursday with the S&P 500 (-2.1%) slashing below its 200-day moving average (2,078). The benchmark index slid to levels not seen since early February while the Nasdaq Composite (-2.8%) displayed relative weakness throughout the day. The daylong selloff was brought on by a heightened sense of uncertainty among investors, pulling the S&P 500 into the red for 2015 (-1.1%). To be sure, some of the uncertainty (rate-hike speculation, concerns about the global economy, plunging commodity prices) had been brewing for a while, whereas today's session reminded investors about ongoing concerns related to China and Greece. Overnight, China's Shanghai Composite tumbled 3.4% amid reports the country's official GDP target could be lowered to 6.5% from 7.0%. Sellers maintained control despite a CNY120 billion injection from the People's Bank of China into capital markets. As for Greece, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned from his post and called for a snap election, set for September 20, just three days after the FOMC concludes its September meeting. It is worth noting that there are indications Greece's minority parties could try to form a coalition government, which would block the September 20 vote.

3:30 pm Earnings Preview for the week of August 24 - 28 (:SUMRX) :

Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of August 24 - 28 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - TOUR
After Hours - PINC, QUNR

Tuesday:
Pre Market - BBY, BMO, VAL, TOL, SAFM, DSW, PLCE, SOL, EJ, SXI, DAKT, LEJU
After Hours - DY, JKHY, HEI, SLH, GSM, LCI, NMBL

Wednesday:
Pre Market - RY, BF.B, ANF, CHS, EXPR, EVLV
After Hours - PVH, AVGO, WSM, GES, WDAY, PSEC, VNET, TLYS, NQ

Thursday:
Pre Market - TD, DG, SJM, SIG, PDCO, SDRL, BURL, TIF, MIK, FLWS, MOV, DXLG, IKGH
After Hours - GME, ULTA, MRVL, CAL, ADSK, ARO, OVTI, SPWH, SWHC, SPLK, BEBE, VEEV, ZOES, VMEM

Friday:
Pre Market - BNS, BIG, RGS

11:57 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (137) outpacing new highs (1) (:SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: RCPT

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AA, AAXJ, ABB, ABY, ALB, AMAT, AMX, AR, ATHM, ATI, AUO, AVP, BABA, BBBY, BBD, BBRY, BEN, BG, BHP, BIDU, BP, BSMX, BWA, CBS, CFX, CHS, CIE, CIG, CLR, CMI, CNI, CNQ, CNW, CNX, COG, COP, CP, CPN, CSX, CVE, CVX, CX, DD, DISCA, DISCK, DOV, DVN, ECA, FAST, FCX, FLR, FLS, FTI, GGB, GLW, GNW, GPS, GRMN, GRPN, GRUB, HAL, HPQ, HSBC, HUN, IBN, IGT, INTC, JMEI, JOY, KATE, KLAC, KSS, LC, LNKD, LVS, MAT, MEOH, MFA, MFC, MJN, MON, MOS, MRO, MT, MU, MUR, NAVI, NBL, NOK, NOV, NSC, PAH, PBR.A, PG, PNR, POT, PX, QCOM, QEP, RDC, RDS.A, RDS.B, RES, RRC, RY, SAN, SBS, SCTY, SDRL, SE, SFM, SNDK, SNI, SPN, SPWR, STO, STR, SUNE, TD, TSM, TTM, TV, TWTR, UMC, UNP, URI, UTX, VIV, WDAY, WFM, WFT, WLL, WMT, WYNN, XOM, YHOO, YNDX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: SMN

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, BJK, BKF, BNO, CHN, DBA, DBC, DIG, DJP, EEB, EEM, EGPT, EPP, EPU, EWA, EWC, EWH, EWM, EWS, EWT, EWW, EWY, EWZ, EZA, GAF, GSG, GULF, GXC, HYG, IDX, IEO, IGE, ILF, IXC, IYE, IYM, JJA, JNK, KOL, OIH, OIL, PBD, PBW, PHO, REMX, RJA, SEA, SLX, SOCL, TAN, TAO, THD, UHN, USO, UYM, VNM, VWO, XES, XLB, XLE, XOP

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 5 stocks made 52 week highs and 863 stocks made 52 week lows.

9:00 am QLogic announces that the Board has appointed Christine King as Executive Chairman and Jean Hu as acting CEO (QLGC) :

Prasad Rampalli has resigned his positions as president and chief executive officer in order to pursue other opportunities.

King has served as a member of the board of directors since 2013 and previously served as president and CEO of Standard Microsystems Corporation and AMI Semiconductor
Hu has served as senior vice president and chief financial officer since 2011 and will continue in that role and retain her CFO responsibilities while serving as acting CEO

8:13 am ASM Intl NV announces that the voluntary delisting of its common shares from the Nasdaq Stock Market has become effective (ASMI) : The ASMI Common Shares, which are held in the U.S. as New York Registry Shares,are now eligible for trading on the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol ASMIY.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Global equity markets began the last full week of August with a broad-based tumble that began overnight in Asia and continued into the U.S. session. When the dust settled, the S&P 500 ended lower by 3.9% after opening with a 5.3% loss while the Nasdaq Composite lost 3.8% after starting the day with an 8.8% decline. The Monday retreat began unfolding shortly after Asian markets opened for action with continued concerns about global economic growth weighing on investor sentiment. China's Shanghai Composite paced the overseas weakness, plunging 8.5%, after the weekend went by without direct policy intervention from the People's Bank of China. Instead, pension funds managed by local governments were allowed to invest in the stock market, but that development was all but ignored.

There was no respite during the European session as equity indices across the old continent faced daylong pressure with France's CAC, Germany's DAX, and UK's FTSE losing between 4.7% and 5.4%. Notably, an extension of recent selling in the DAX resulted in the index widening its slide from record highs to 22.0%, representing bear market territory.

Once the U.S. session got going, a chaotic first hour ensued, featuring wide spreads, low liquidity, and a mad dash for volatility protection. In fact, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 40.03, +12.00) did not produce any quotes during the first 30 minutes of the session, but once quotes resumed, the index soared past levels seen during the May 2010 flash crash. The VIX notched its high just below 53.50%, but retreated into the 40.00% area by the close.

Today's selling was far-reaching with just 136 NYSE listings ending in the green while 3079 names posted losses. Given that dynamic, it wasn't surprising to see all ten sectors end the day in negative territory with losses ranging from 3.1% (telecom services) to 5.2% (energy).

The energy sector finished the day behind other groups, widening its Q3 decline to 20.5% as crude oil contributed to the persistent weakness.The energy component was clipped by the overarching global macro concerns, tumbling 5.4% to $38.25/bbl.

Crude was unable to draw support from greenback weakness even as the Dollar Index fell 1.7%. Most notably, the dollar slid 2.8% against the yen (118.60) and surrendered 1.8% to the euro (1.1595) as the unwinding of carry trades took a toll on the dollar. Meanwhile, Treasuries rallied overnight, hitting their best levels around 9:30 ET before retreating from those highs. The 10-yr note ended the day with a gain, sending its yield lower by four basis points to 2.04%.

The intraday retreat in Treasuries occurred as stocks attempted a recovery, but the market met renewed selling and returned into the lower half of its trading range by the close.

Monday's aggressive selloff invited above-average participation with more than 1.6 billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic data today, but a few reports will be released tomorrow. The Case-Shiller 20-city Index for June (Briefing.com consensus 5.1%) and the June FHFA Housing Price Index will both be released at 9:00 ET while July New Home Sales (consensus 511K) and August Consumer Confidence (expected 93.1) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -4.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.6% YTD
S&P 500 -8.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -10.9% YTD

DJ30 -588.47 NASDAQ -179.79 SP500 -77.68 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 289/2.15 bln/2841 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 136/1.61 bln/3079
3:35 pm :

Commodities plunged today following the overnight Asia sell-off. Oil prices tanked and remain near today's lows in electronic trade.
In today's floor session, WTI crude oil lost -5.4% to finish at $38.25/barrel.
WTI extended losses in electronic trading, while Brent crude oil just hit a new low for today.
Sept natural gas, on the other hand, fell -1.1% to close at $2.65/MMBtu.
Silver fell sharply today, leading losses in the metals space, falling -3.9% in floor trading to end at $14.73/oz. Dec gold lost -0.5% to $1153.40/oz.
Sept copper fell -2.2% today to $2.26/lb

Yield Curve Steepens in Equity Market Panic

U.S. Treasuries soared this morning as investors scrambled to find safe havens from the rout in global equity markets. Governments are closing higher but well off of their best levels, with the long end of the curve giving back most of its gains. The U.S. Dollar Index took its worst losses today since the 5-point move on March 18th. Today, the index is down 1.65% to 93.44Yield Check:2-yr: -5 bps to 0.62%5-yr: -6 bps to 1.43%10-yr: -4 bps to 2.04%30-yr: unch at 2.76%News:Overnight, the Shanghai Composite declined -8.49% to 3,210, putting its losses from the June high at 38%. Prior to the weekend, rumors had circulated that the People's Bank of China might slash the required reserve ratio (:RRR). The central bank disappointed on that front
Before the U.S. equity market open (09:30 ET), the futures contracts on the S&P 500, the Nasdaq-100, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average went limit-down
WTI crude declined to touch a new post-crisis low of $37.75/bbl.
Commodities:
WTI crude: -6.18% to $37.95/bbl.
Gold: -0.58% to $1,152.90Copper: -2.63% to 2.2430/lb.Currencies:
EUR/USD: +1.69% to $1.1581
USD/JPY: -2.73% to 118.71
Both the euro and yen spiked against the dollar as markets pushed through stop orders. That was the largest range for USD/JPY in at least one yearData Out Tuesday:
June Case-Shiller 20-City Index (09:00 ET)
June FHFA Housing Price Index (09:00 ET)
July New Home Sales (10:00 ET)
August Consumer Confidence (10:00 ET)
Treasury Auction:
$26 bln 2-year note auction (13:00 ET)1:23 pm Notable movers of interest (:SCANX) :

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

Large Cap Gainers
SYT (83.64 +9.21%): Reports out that Monsanto (MON) has raised its bid to acquire Syngenta.
SWKS (83.77 +5.94%): Semi's rally in the face of broad market weakness (MU, NXPI, ARMH, ASML, INTC, FSL, AVGO also higher).
NFLX (106.65 +2.59%): Rallying back from heavy losses earlier in today's sessions, announced a partnership with Softbank (SFTBY) in preparation for Netflix's Japan launch in September.

Large Cap Losers
ACH (7.89 -5.23%): Chinese names underperforming after the Shanghai Composite dropped 8.5%, Hang Seng fell 5.2% (BIDU, CEO, NTES also lower).
COG (22.97 -5.82%): Energy names among worst performers with crude oil falling over 3% (PBR, MPC, E also lower).
BHP (33.21 -4.24%): Continued pressure in miners as metals slump amid global rout.

Mid Cap Gainers
GAS (61.81 +29.15%): To be acquired by Southern Company (SO) for $66/share in a $12 bln deal.
CIE (8.12 +12.15%): Announced it would sell its 40% participating interest in Blocks 21/09 and 20/11 offshore Angola for $1.75 bln to Empresa Pblica.
SUNE (11.4 +6.3%): Bouncing back from a multi-session downtrend after three Directors bought 34,800 shares at $10.68-11.80 worth ~$399K.

Mid Cap Losers
MOMO (12.57 -8.78%): Chinese internet names hit especially hard on China's steep sell off (WB, QIHU, YY, MR, WX, YOKU, CMCM also lower).
SLH (42.62 -5.9%): Pulling back following last week's gains related to the company exploring strategic alternatives; Solera reports Tuesday after the close.
MDVN (87.57 -4.22%): Will acquire all worldwide rights to talazoparib from BioMarin (BMRN) for $410 mln upfront.
11:38 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (357) outpacing new highs (1) (:SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: RCPT

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: A, AA, AAPL, AAXJ, ABB, ABEV, ACE, ACM, ACWI, ADP, ADSK, ADT, AEG, AES, AFL, AKRX, ALB, ALL, AMAT, AMH, AMP, AMT, AMX, APA, APC, AR, ARCC, ASML, ASX, ATHM, ATML, AUO, AVP, AXP, AZN, BA, BABA, BAC, BAX, BBBY, BBD, BBL, BBRY, BBY, BCE, BDN, BEAV, BEN, BG, BHI, BHP, BIDU, BIIB, BKD, BP, BRFS, BRK.B, BRX, BSBR, BSMX, BUFF, BWA, CA, CAB, CAR, CAT, CBL, CBS, CCJ, CFG, CFX, CHK, CHKP, CHS, CIE, CIG, CIM, CIT, CL, CLR, CMI, CNI, CNQ, CNX, COF, COG, COH, COP, COST, CP, CPGX, CPN, CSX, CTL, CUZ, CVE, CVX, CX, DAN, DD, DDR, DE, DFS, DISCA, DISCK, DISH, DO, DOV, DOW, DRH, DVN, ECA, EMC, EMN, EMR, EOG, EPD, EQT, ERIC, ESRX, ESV, ETN, ETP, F, FAST, FCX, FDX, FLR, FLS, FOSL, FOX, FOXA, FTI, FV, GE, GGB, GIS, GLW, GM, GMCR, GNW, GOL, GPOR, GPS, GRMN, GRPN, GRUB, GSK, HAL, HAR, HCA, HES, HOG, HOT, HP, HPQ, HSBC, HST, HSY, HTZ, HUN, IBM, IBN, IGT, INTC, IP, IRM, ITUB, ITW, IVZ, JBL, JCI, JD, JNJ, JOY, JPM, JUNO, KATE, KKR, KLAC, KMI, KO, KORS, KSS, KSU, L, LC, LGF, LHO, LLTC, LM, LNG, LNKD, LQ, LRCX, LUK, LVS, MAT, MCD, MCK, MDT, MDU, MDVN, MEOH, MET, MFA, MFC, MJN, MON, MOS, MPEL, MRK, MRO, MRVL, MS, MSFT, MT, MTW, MU, MUR, NAVI, NBL, NBR, NCR, NE, NGLS, NOK, NOV, NRF, NSC, NTAP, NUE, NWS, NWSA, NYCB, NYLD, OI, OII, OKE, OKS, ORCL, OXY, PAA, PAGP, PAH, PAY, PBI, PBR, PBR.A, PCAR, PDM, PEP, PG, PH, PNR, POT, PSEC, PSO, PWR, PX, PXD, PYPL, QCOM, QEP, QQQ, RAX, RDS.A, RDS.B, RES, RGC, RIG, RIO, RL, RRC, RY, RYN, SAN, SAVE, SBH, SBS, SCCO, SCTY, SDRL, SE, SFM, SFUN, SLB, SLM, SM, SNDK, SNH, SNI, SPN, SPWR, SRE, STO, STR, STWD, SU, SUNE, SWN, SXL, SYMC, T, TAP, TCK, TD, TDC, TERP, TEX, TIF, TOT, TRIP, TRMB, TRN, TROW, TRP, TS, TSM, TSU, TTM, TV, TWO, TWTR, TWX, TXT, TYC, UMC, UNM, UNP, UPS, URI, UTX, VALE, VALE.P, VIAB, VIPS, VIV, VZ, WDAY, WDC, WFM, WFT, WLL, WMT, WPZ, WY, WYNN, X, XL, XOM, XRX, XYL, YHOO, YNDX, ZBH, ZNGA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: SMN, TLH

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, AMJ, BJK, BKF, BNO, CHN, COW, CROP, CUT, DBA, DBB, DBC, DIA, DIG, DJP, DVY, ECH, EEB, EEM, EFA, EGPT, ENZL, EPOL, EPP, EPU, EWA, EWC, EWH, EWM, EWP, EWS, EWT, EWU, EWW, EWY, EWZ, EZA, EZU, FAN, FDN, FUD, FXA, FXC, FXI, GAF, GREK, GSG, GULF, GXC, HAO, HYG, IAI, ICF, IDX, IEO, IGE, IGN, IHF, ILF, IOO, ITA, IXC, IYE, IYF, IYH, IYJ, IYK, IYM, IYT, IYZ, JJA, JJC, JJG, JNK, JO, KCE, KOL, KRE, MDY, MES, MOO, NLR, OEF, OIH, OIL, PALL, PBD, PBW, PFF, PHO, PIN, PPA, PPH, PSK, QAI, QQQ, REMX, RJA, SDY, SEA, SGG, SLX, SMH, SOCL, SOXX, TAN, TAO, THD, UHN, URA, USO, UYM, VGK, VNM, VTI, VWO, XES, XLB, XLE, XLF, XLI, XLK, XLV, XME, XOP

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 13 stocks made 52 week highs and 1973 stocks made 52 week lows.

7:31 am Action Semi will purchase up to 48 mln of its ADS ordinary shares through a dutch auction tender offer, between $1.80 and $2.10 per share; offer expiration occurs on Sept. 22, 2015 (ACTS) :

Some of the data above was posted well before the close of the market. The market was very volatile today so some recovery efforts from the opening slaughter of stocks were more successful than others.

RtS

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The markets ended the session mixed, but the week overall higher. The Nasdaq Composite was the sole gainer on the day, ending up 15.62 to 4,828.33 for a gain of 0.32%. The S&P 500 finished Friday trade just above flat lines with a gain of 1.21 to 1988.87, +0.06%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the sole laggard on the day, ending the session lower by 11.76 to 16,643.01 or -0.07%. The first two hours of trade were mostly tame, as small losses were maintained but saw a brief spike above flat lines to at about the 11:30 a.m. ET time-stamp. The markets ended the session, and the week on a high note, though, as all three major indices closed near HoDs, erasing early-week losses as the S&P 500 ended the week up 0.9%, the Nasdaq ended up 2.5% and the Dow Jones was up 1.1% on the week.

The market reaction to the August Michigan Sentiment of 91.9, which was slightly tamer than expected, was also quite muted. In addition, commentary from the meeting of Fed officials at Jackson Hole seems to suggest a more reserved view for a rate hike in September.

In a market that was split, it's not difficult to imagine that sector gains were also split. Market sectors finished XLE +2.26%, IYZ +0.74%, XLB +0.58%, XLY +0.04%, XLI +0.04%, XLP -0.21%, XLU -0.30%, XLF -0.46%, XLV -0.57%, with Technology (XLK +0.20%) ending lower. The most notable sub-sector of technology which finished higher on the session was Solar (TAN 30.10, +0.41 +1.38%). Sector components VSLR +7.36%, TERP +4.70%, JKS +4.50%, SCTY +3.83%, CSIQ +3.29%, SUNE +1.98%, SPWR +1.89% finished higher on the session, resisting the broader market selloff.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (676.62, +1.61) also had a choppy day. The sector finished higher by 0.24% as notable names INTC +2.53%, TEL +2.01%, AKAM +1.99%, TXN +1.98%, QRVO +1.92%, MU +1.85%, ORCL +1.74%, FB +1.43% weighted the sector toward HoDs.
Other notable news items among sector components:
Autodesk (ADSK 47.52, -2.48 -4.96%) in addition to reporting earnings, signed an agreement to acquire San Francisco-based IoT developer SeeControl, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Automatic Data (ADP 78.41, +0.38 +0.49%) announced that it intends to initiate a $2 billion debt offering at a future date, and authorized the potential purchase an additional 25 million shares of its common stock.

Harris (HRS 77.54, +0.48 +0.62%) increased its quarterly dividend by 6% to $0.50 from $0.47 per share.

Mobil TeleSystems (MBT 7.38, -0.06 -0.81%) and Google (GOOG 630.38, -7.23 -1.13%) signed of a strategic marketing agreement to promote mobile Internet technologies and Google search services in Russia.

Elsewhere in the technology space:
Tessera Tech (TSRA 32.97, -0.43 -1.29%) announced the acquisition of Ziptronix, Inc. for $39 million in cash. Ziptronix's intellectual property has been licensed to Sony (SNE 25.87, +0.01 +0.04%) for volume production of CMOS image sensors - an estimated $8.3 billion market according to Gartner. Ziptronix's technology is also relevant to next-generation stacked memory, 2.5D FPGAs, RF Front-End and MEMS devices, among other semiconductor applications. Inclusive of CMOS image sensors, TSRA expects the annual market size to which this technology applies to exceed $15 billion by 2019.

Synopsys (SNPS 47.10, +0.16 +0.34%) entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement (ASR) with Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC 16.34, -0.10 -0.61%) to repurchase an aggregate of $100 million of Synopsys stock.

Siliconware Precision (SPIL 5.99, -0.32 -5.07%) concluded its review regarding the tender offer conditions offered by ASE (ASX 4.91, -0.10 -2.00%). The company recommends shareholders not to tender their shares and/or ADRs. Also, the company and formed a strategic alliance through a share exchange whereas Hon Hai will hold 840,600,000 SPIL shares, accounting for 21.24% shares of SPIL, post capital increase; and SPIL will hold 359,230,769 Hon Hai shares, accounting for 2.20% shares of Hon Hai, post capital increase.

In reaction to earnings:

Veeva Systems (VEEV 26.43, +2.27 +9.40%) reported Q2 (Jul) earnings of $0.13 per share on revenues which rose 29.7% year/year to $98.11 million. For Q3 (Oct), VEEV sees EPS of $0.11-0.12 and Q3 revenues of $101.5-103.0 million.

OmniVision (OVTI 24.49, +0.94 +3.99%) reported Q1 (Jul) earnings of $0.46 per share on revenues which fell 18.9% year/year to $329.89 million. OVTI also issued downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.25-0.40 on Q2 revenues of $300-330 million.

Violin Memory (VMEM 1.84, -0.59 -24.28%) reported Q2 (Jul) loss of $0.19 per share on revenues which fell 17.7% year/year to $15.3 million.

Autodesk (ADSK 47.52, -2.48 -4.96%) reported Q2 (Jul) earnings of $0.19 per share on revenues which fell 4.3% year/year to $610 million. ADSK issued downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.05-0.10 on Q3 revenues of $580-600 million. ADSK also issued downside guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $0.60-0.72 on revenues of $2.465-2.505 billion.

Analyst actions:

AKAM was upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities, ASML was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Berenberg, HIMX was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse; VIVHY was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup

Weekly Recap - Week ending 28-Aug-15

After enduring a whirlwind week, the major averages ranged near their flat lines throughout the Friday session, ending little changed. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) eked out slim gains while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) underperformed throughout the day. Despite the sideways action on Friday, the rally on Wednesday and Thursday allowed the S&P 500 to end the week higher by 0.9% while the Nasdaq jumped 2.5% for the week.

With one more session remaining in August, the S&P 500 is on track to lose 5.8% for the month while the Nasdaq is down 6.2% since the end of July.

Equities began today's affair with losses in most sectors, but the energy space (+2.3%) was an early standout following yesterday's 10.0% spike in crude oil. The energy component wasn't done there, rallying 6.3% today to end the pit session at $45.22/bbl. For the week, WTI crude gained 10.6% after dipping below $38.00/bbl on Monday.

The early strength in the energy sector served as an encouraging factor and other sectors began climbing in sympathy shortly after the start. The advance briefly placed the S&P 500 above its flat line, but the index slid back into the red after Federal Reserve vice chair Stanley Fischer appeared on CNBC.

Mr. Fischer's appearance did not provide that much fresh insight as he indicated that a September rate hike remains a possibility and that it's still too early to make the call right now; however, that was enough for the jittery market to slide back into negative territory. That move coincided with a jump in the Dollar Index (96.12, +0.37) while Treasuries surrendered their intraday gains, ending the day unchanged with the 10-yr yield at 2.18%.

The slide from highs was fairly broad-based and it pulled the energy sector from its high. Still the group ended with a solid gain while other sectors joined energy in the green during the final hour thanks to a broad surge that lifted the market back into positive territory. For the week, the energy sector jumped 3.7%, ending ahead of the technology sector, which spiked 2.9% for the week. The top-weighted group saw a stunning reversal after being down 6.9% at its lowest point on Monday.

Although the volatility appeared to have subsided on Friday, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 26.16, +0.06) was up almost three points before a late unwind saw the gauge surrender its entire increase. That being said, the VIX remains elevated at 26.00%, indicating that investors remain on the lookout for large swings.

With the broad market stumbling about like an overserved sailor, stock-specific news had been largely ignored this week. However, investors did receive a few earnings reports since Thursday's closing bell. Retail names posted mixed results with Aeropostale (ARO 0.92, -0.34) and bebe stores (BEBE 1.35, -0.52) missing bottom-line estimates while Big Lots (BIG 48.58, +6.58), Gamestop (GME 42.49, -3.71), and Ulta Salon (ULTA 159.00, -1.24) reported bottom-line beats.

Once again, participation was well above average with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Personal Income/Spending data and Michigan Sentiment:

Personal income increased 0.4% for a fourth consecutive month in July while the Briefing.com Consensus expected an increase of 0.4%
Wages and salaries increased 0.5% in July after increasing 0.2% in June, which was slightly weaker than what was implied in the July employment report
Personal spending increased 0.3% for a second consecutive month in July, following an upward revision to June spending (from 0.2% to 0.3%) while the consensus expected an increase of 0.4%
Core PCE prices increased 0.1% for a fourth consecutive month in July
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was revised down to 91.9 in the final July reading from a preliminary reading of 92.9 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a revision up to 93.0
The move in consumer sentiment was opposite of the trend in the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, which spiked to 101.5, its highest level since January

Monday's data will be limited to the 9:45 ET release of the Chicago PMI for August (Briefing.com consensus 54.7).

Week in Review: Volatility Rears Ugly Head

Global equity markets began the last full week of August with a broad-based tumble that began overnight in Asia and continued into the U.S. session. When the dust settled, the S&P 500 was down 3.9% after opening with a 5.3% loss while the Nasdaq Composite lost 3.8% after starting the day with an 8.8% decline. The Monday retreat began unfolding shortly after Asian markets opened for action with continued concerns about global economic growth weighing on investor sentiment. China's Shanghai Composite paced the overseas weakness, plunging 8.5%, after the weekend went by without direct policy intervention from the People's Bank of China. Instead, pension funds managed by local governments were allowed to invest in the stock market, but that development was all but ignored. There was no respite during the European session as equity indices across the old continent faced daylong pressure with France's CAC, Germany's DAX, and UK's FTSE losing between 4.7% and 5.4%. Notably, an extension of recent selling in the DAX resulted in the index widening its slide from record highs to 22.0%, representing bear market territory. Once the U.S. session got going, a chaotic first hour ensued, featuring wide spreads, low liquidity, and a mad dash for volatility protection. In fact, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 40.03, +12.00) did not produce any quotes during the first 30 minutes of the session, but once quotes resumed, the index soared past levels seen during the May 2010 flash crash. The VIX notched its high just below 53.50%, but retreated into the 40.00% area by the close. The selling was far-reaching with just 136 NYSE listings ending in the green. Given that dynamic, it wasn't surprising to see all ten sectors end the day in negative territory with losses ranging from 3.1% (telecom services) to 5.2% (energy). The energy sector finished the day behind other groups, widening its Q3 decline to 20.5% as crude oil contributed to the persistent weakness. The energy component was clipped by the overarching global macro concerns, tumbling 5.4% to $38.25/bbl.

Equity indices ended the Tuesday session on a lower note despite starting the day with a sharp spike. The S&P 500 lost 1.4% after being up 2.9% while the Nasdaq Composite surrendered 0.4% after being up 3.6%. The market began the day with a broad-based spike after most global stock markets rebounded during overnight action. Interestingly, the rebound did not include China's Shanghai Composite as the index lost 7.6%. After the close, the People's Bank of China cut its main lending rate 25 basis points to 4.6% and lowered its reserve requirement ratio 50 basis points to 18.0%. The PBoC rate-cut announcement took place well after Asian markets ended for the day, but the news was met with a spike in S&P futures. Once the trading day began, the S&P 500 rallied through the first two hours of action, but returned into the middle of its trading range during the afternoon, and fell to lows during the final 60 minutes of the session. In some ways, the selling during the final hour resembled action observed on Monday morning as liquidity dried up notably and bid-ask spreads widened past typical levels. The S&P 500 surrendered nearly 40 points during the final hour, pulling all sectors into the red. Interestingly, the utilities sector (-3.2%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard as the rate-sensitive group suffered from higher yields intraday and extended its losses during afternoon selling. More notably, heavily-weighted sectors like financials (-1.7%), industrials (-1.6%), and health care (-1.4%) underperformed throughout the day while consumer discretionary (-0.4%) and technology (-1.2%) surrendered their gains after being up more than 3.0% apiece.

The stock market rebounded from six days of consecutive losses on Wednesday with the S&P 500 spiking 3.9%. The benchmark index narrowed its weekly loss to 1.5% while the Nasdaq gained 4.2%, trimming this week's decline to 0.2%. Equity indices began the day on a higher note after index futures rallied during overnight action. That advance occurred even as China's Shanghai Composite lost 1.3%, seeing little response to Tuesday's rate cut from the People's Bank of China. Once the trading day begun, the key indices spent the first three hours of action in a slow slide from their highs. The market saw little immediate reaction to comments from FOMC vice chair William Dudley, who said that a case for a rate hike in September seems less compelling than it was a few weeks ago. Despite the comments from Mr. Dudley, the market continued dripping from highs, but the S&P 500 was able to reverse course upon hitting the 1,880 level. Although there was nothing special about that mark, it is worth noting that the turn occurred as the dollar began rallying against the euro and yen, suggesting the return of carry flows. The greenback continued climbing alongside equities into the late afternoon, pushing the Dollar Index higher by 0.7%.

The market registered its second consecutive advance on Thursday with the S&P 500 jumping 2.4% while the Nasdaq Composite (+2.5%) outperformed slightly.The market endured a late afternoon swoon, but was able to return to its high by the close. Equities began the trading day on an upbeat note after the overnight session featured a rally across major global equity markets. China's Shanghai Composite took part in that move, soaring 5.3%, but the spike was reportedly aided by an intervention from the People's Bank of China. Once the U.S. session got going, stocks followed the lead from Asia, rallying across the board with the energy sector pacing the advance. The growth-sensitive sector surged 5.0% while crude oil settled on its high, spiking 10.3% to $42.53/bbl., which represented the largest gain since 2009. Similar to energy, the remaining nine sectors posted solid gains. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 surrendered 30 points in just an hour but reclaimed all 30 of those points during the next 30 minutes or so, highlighting the elevated volatility that has been in place as of late. To that point, at their Monday lows, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 were down 6.6%, 8.8%, and 5.3%, respectively. At their highs on Thursday, they were up 8.4%, 12.3%, and 6.6% from those lows, respectively.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 16459.75 16643.01 183.26 1.1 -6.6
Nasdaq 4706.04 4828.32 122.28 2.6 1.9
S&P 500 1970.89 1988.87 17.98 0.9 -3.4
Russell 2000 1156.79 1162.91 6.12 0.5 -3.5

5:06 pm Earnings Preview for the week of August 31 - September 4 (:SUMRX) :

Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of August 31 - September 4 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
After Hours - MTRX, BV, ADEP

Tuesday:
Pre Market - DLTR, QIWI, SAIC, DCI
After Hours - QIHU, BOBE, SCVL, HRB, GWRE, AMBA, AVAV, EXA

Wednesday:
Pre Market - NAV, GIII, ISLE, VRA
After Hours - ABM, CTLT, NCS, OXM, FIVE, SEAC, OOMA

Thursday:
Pre Market - MDT, CPB, GEF, JOY, GCO, CIEN, LE, MEI, XCRA, HOFT
After Hours - UTIW, MRVL, ESL, PAY, COO, BLOX

12:21 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (29) outpacing new highs (20) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCD, ABCW, ATVI, AXGN, CBNJ, CVGW, DLA, DY, ECACU, EVBS, FALC, FBNK, GB, MBTF, SCMP, SIG, SPWH, SRPT, SWHC, TANH,

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ARO, ASTI, BEBE, BGMD, BTH, BWEN, CSI, DCIX, DXM, EDE, ESCR, GSAT, HHS, IGI, INTX, LALT, LMBS, MDVX, MEIL, NIQ, OMEX, QUAD, RGS, SAFT, SGNL, UIHC, UNIS, VHI, VMEM,

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: None

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: None

4:14 am Siliconware Precision concludes its review regarding the tender offer conditions offered by ASE (ASX); recommend shareholders not to tender their shares and/or ADRs (SPIL) :

Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL) held both a Review Committee meeting and a Board of Directors meeting to discuss and review the tender offer by Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASX) to purchase the Company's common shares and/or American depositary receipts.

The conclusions of the Review Committee and the Board of Directors are consistent. They both recommend shareholders not to tender their shares and/or ADRs. The reasons are as followings:

ASE proposed to offer NTD 45 cash per common share (US dollar equivalent of NTD 225 cash per ADR (each representing 5 of the Company's common shares), collectively the "Proposed Cash Considerations") to acquire the common shares and ADRs of the Company, with a maximum number of 779,000,000 shares (including common shares represented by ADRs) and a minimum number of 155,818,056 shares (not including common shares represented by ADRs).
If using the average closing price of NTD 44.87 within the last 90 trading days prior to August 21, 2015 as the calculation basis, the tender offer price premium is only 0.29%. Considering the Company's operations, market price of shares, earning per share, book value per share, future development, distributed earnings in recent years and an independent expert's opinion to the reasonableness of the tender offer price, the reasonableness of the tender offer price is questionable.
Considering the Company's operations, market price of shares, earning per share, book value per share, future development, distributed earnings in recent years and an independent expert's opinion to the reasonableness of the tender offer price, the reasonableness of the tender offer price is questionable.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - Market is Building for a Bottom

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Stock indices pause Friday after a sharp rebound to the sharp selling.
- V turn with the bottom already in? More upside before a test? End of the initial bounce?
- Lots of bear flags in the market, from the indices to stocks.
- Sentiment indicators fall into the bullish category, internals already there. Again, it is just up to the indices and stocks to set their patterns.

The past week saw the spectrum of market moves. Monday witnessed the largest point drop ever on the Dow 30. Tuesday the market tried to rally but failed, closing flat, looking something like a prize fighter stunned by a knockdown from what was considered an unworthy opponent. Wednesday the fighter jumped back up with new life and the Dow surged to its third largest single day rally ever. Add on Thursday's gain and the Dow posted its best two-day move in . . . a long time.

Those moves undid the damage from Monday, but not the prior week's Wednesday to Friday bomb lower.

SP500 1.21, 0.06%
NASDAQ 15.61, 0.32%
DJ30 -11.76, -0.07%
SP400 0.46%
RUTX 0.81%
SOX 0.68%

VOLUME: NYSE -17%, NASDAQ -18%.

A/D: NYSE 1.9:1, NASDAQ 2:1.

Indeed, Friday was a day we thought might show a pause after a surge upside and it did. DJ30 shows a hangman doji at the 10 day EMA, a key litmus of strength on a rebound move. The 10 day EMA will act as resistance in a developing and stronger downtrend.

SP500 shows the same pattern, that hangman doji at the 10 day EMA. SP400 and RUTX are also testing the 10 day EMA, not with doji but still at that key first test level.

NASDAQ and SOX made it through the 10 day EMA but volume was lower on the recovery, indeed for all of the indices. Still, that was above average volume, just not as many buyers as the sellers on the downside.

Many of the big name stocks that led the prior upside move rebounded as well, showing the same kind of massive gap lower and rebound back upside. Some made it back to their ranges, others are at some point along the route back upside. Some look well-positioned as of the Friday close, some do not. Perhaps all will continue to recover after what is being called the second flash crash (Monday morning), continuing on their way in disregard of the carnage.

Certainly we left some of the recovering positions continue, e.g. PCLN, part of the BWLD. Others we decided to close as they were at resistance similar to the DJ30, e.g. NOC. Others fared a bit better, but not great, and we opted to take them off after the bounce and will look for other entry points up or down. To wit, SBUX, FB, V. They could continue higher, but after the big rebounds from even bigger selling, we took the recovery and will see what develops.

If the rebound is serious, it should continue to give the market more of a relief move into the coming week to provide a better base when the original plunge is tested. The more time it spends in recovery, the better the foundation when stocks test the prior lows.

Thus the rebound move can certainly continue this week. The index and stock recovery is at the crossroads, the first test of the rebound. If the sellers are in charge, the move fails and stocks dive back lower and the bottoming process is extended if stocks cannot hold the prior lows. If the rebound holds, stocks continue higher and the ultimate setup for the upside is better and occurs sooner.

At this stage of the rebound, initiating new upside is on a case by case basis. Certainly some stocks are still in position to where they can generate solid returns from a good risk/reward position. If the upside continues and there is no second selloff, then the move continues and we let what positions we have ride while at the same time playing new upside opportunities as they arise. Likely not the scenario, but as soon as you discount it, you miss it.

More of our plays focus on the downside given the rebound to resistance. If the market fails, those plays make you money. Even if the move holds at the prior low and THIS is the setup for the bottom, we make some good money on that test and then there will be some good upside double bottoms and inverted head and shoulders to take advantage of the upside.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SP500: Friday a hangman doji below the 10 day EMA after the sharp Wednesday and Thursday gains. Almost a perfect 50% Fibonacci retracement of the August dive lower. First major test of that decline and a very important one given the severity of the drop. Important first challenge of the recovery. Note also that SP500 is just showing its own death cross as the 50 day SMA moves below the 200 day.

DJ30: Same pattern as SP500, showing an even tighter doji at the 10 day EMA. This rebound is just below the 61% Fibonacci Retracement of the August drop.

NASDAQ: Overcame a soft open and reversed to a modest gain on lower, average volume. That put it just over the 10 day EMA and the 61% Fibonacci Retracement, as well as the top of the December/January range. A bit more promise here, but a 530 point bounce from the Monday low is a lot in any direction.

SP400: Three day recovery to the 10 day EMA on the Friday close. No doji at that point just a lower volume move. Has filled the gap lower from Monday, between the 38% and 50% Fibonacci retracement of the August dive lower. Lots of overhead resistance.

RUTX: Up through the 10 day EMA on the Friday close but that puts it still below the 50% Fibonacci Retracement. On the rebound, closing at the session high. Still, a long way to go through a lot of overhead.

SOX: Continued its move through the 10 day EMA up to the 20 day EMA on the Friday close. At the 61% Fibonacci Retracement, looking at filling the gap from two Thursdays back. The 618-620 level is important resistance on this rebound attempt.


LEADERSHIP

Very mixed. Upside to end the week but the moves are mostly rebound moves lacking a solid pattern other than a possible V bottom. Not the best odds but it does work sometimes. Still, there are lots and lots of bear flags, the rebounds to resistance after a sharp selloff.

Big Names: Mostly rebounds from sharp selling though some fared better. All need some more work. AAPL rebounded to the early August lows and plenty of resistance. AMZN made it to the trading range post-gap and is in decent shape to continue. FB is to the 50 day MA, can continue higher, but a critical resistance level from the July and August gaps. PCLN enjoyed a solid Friday as it works toward the 1280 key resistance. MSFT has rebounded, but just to the 10 day EMA and the June low. As you can see, still lots of work needed.

Chips: Some rebounds of course, but some chips look as if they could test just a bit and then be ready for further moves higher. Remember, they sold first and hardest, falling over 20% from the peak. Oversold, rebounded, and a test sets them in interesting upside position. LRCX can test this initial move, hold near 70, and be in good shape. AVGO made a good initial move, and a test of the 120 level is a great setup. QRVO is setting up an inverted head and shoulders. It too needs a test of 51 and a bounce to set the right shoulder.

Metals: Sold hard early and some may be harbingers of a future rebound by the overall market. New leaders? A stretch, but perhaps. AKS is bouncing off a double bottom. SID is bouncing for the first time, showing some better MACD. NEM is trying to form a second bottom to a double bottom. FCX is showing tremendous volume off a lower low and higher MACD.

Retail: After showing great leadership this group is struggling across most of its sectors. COST is in a bear flag. ROST ditto at the 20 day EMA. Even ULTA is struggling, showing an ugly reversal Friday below the 50 day EMA.

Biotech: Big names are struggling: AMGN, CELG. Other smaller names are working. TTPH is jumping off its 50 day EMA. DYAX is holding its move off its 200 day. XON is bouncing off its 200 day but volume is not that strong. A test of the initial move, however, leaves it in great position.

Financial: At the crossroads on the bounce. JPM moved through the 200 day SMA and is testing. WFC made it to the 10 day EMA showing a doji and a big bear flag. MA big bear flag after recovering to the gap point below the 50 day EMA.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +15.62 points (+0.32%) to close at 4828.32
Volume: 1.873B (-18.37%)

Up Volume: 1.37B (-770M)
Down Volume: 554.57M (+347.59M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.99 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 3.4 to 1

New Highs: 25 (+3)
New Lows: 30 (-25)

S&P
Stats: +1.21 points (+0.06%) to close at 1988.87
NYSE Volume: 1B (-16.67%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.9 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 8.26 to 1

New Highs: 5 (0)
New Lows: 19 (-10)

DJ30
Stats: -11.76 points (-0.07%) to close at 16643.01


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

As with the internal indicators and their moves on last week's market dive, the sentiment indicators are reaching extremes as well. Bulls below 35%. Put/call ratio eight straight sessions over 1.0. VIX spiking past all peaks subsequent to 2008.

That sets the stage for a rebound and we have seen one. Their effect is typically delayed, however, and the recent rebound is likely NOT the ultimate move they trigger. The technical picture still has to put in its work to set up good patterns to lead higher. That is why the sentiment indicators often show their hand well before the market makes a sustainable move.

VIX: 26.05; -0.05
VXN: 28.75; +0.29
VXO: 25.52; -0.63

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.28; +0.08

Recent history: Eight straight over 1.0. 14 over, 7 below. More puts, a lot more, than calls even as the market bounces. That is, ultimately for the move, a good indication of negative sentiment.


Bulls and Bears: This is where it gets interesting as the bulls plummet below 35%, a key level, below which suggests sentiment is negative enough to produce a bounce.

Bulls continuing falling harder and faster than bears rise, but bears have broken the ice and are bouncing smartly. They may not make it over 35%, but they don't have to do that to have bulls and bears cross, a very powerful upside indication.

Bulls: 31.6% versus 37.7% versus 40.2% versus 42.2% versus 43.3% versus 49.0%

Bears: 22.5% versus 18.4% versus 18.6% versus 17.5% versus 17.5% versus 15.6%

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 31.6%
37.7% versus 40.2% versus 42.2% versus 43.3% versus 49.0% versus 43.7% versus 44.8% versus 49.5% versus 51.6% versus 45.5% versus 47.4% versus 51.5% versus 47.5% versus 51.5% versus 48.5%

Background: Last undercut 35%, the threshold for bullishness, in early June 2012.

Bears: 22.5%
18.4% versus 18.6% versus 17.5% versus 17.5% versus 15.6% versus 15.6% versus 15.6% versus 15.4% versus 15.4% versus 16.5% versus 16.5% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 13.9%

Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Right now bulls are coming back down from the 60 level that has consistently marked market tops over the past two years. The rapid decline in progress is pushing the bulls/bears lines toward one another. Still far from a cross with bulls falling faster than bears are rising, but bears are warming up to the notion of market weakness.


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.18% versus 2.18%. Over the 50 day EMA after gapping sharply lower Tuesday, falling below the 200 day.

Historical: 2.18% versus 2.19% versus 2.13% versus 2.01% versus 2.05% versus 2.08% versus 2.12% versus 2.20% versus 2.15% versus 2.20% versus 2.19% versus 2.15% versus 2.14% versus 2.24% versus 2.17% versus 2.27% versus 2.15% versus 2.19% versus 2.29% versus 2.25% versus 2.23% versus 2.27% versus 2.27% versus 2.32% versus 2.34% versus 2.37% versus 2.34% versus 2.35% versus 2.35% versus 2.40% versus 2.44% versus 2.42% versus 2.31% versus 2.206% versus 2.26% versus 2.29% versus 2.38% versus 2.42%


Euro/$: 1.1180 versus 1.1243. Dollar was stronger again, pushing the euro back toward the 200 day SMA after its big surge the prior week.
Historical: 1.1243 versus 1.1413 versus 1.1490 versus 1.1595 versus 1.1362 versus 1.1237 versus 1.1132 versus 1.1032 versus 1.1080 versus 1.1110 versus 1.1154 versus 1.1165 versus 1.10448 versus 1.0966 versus 1.0906 versus 1.0953 versus 1.0978 versus 1.0936 versus 1.0983 versus 1.1058 versus 1.1092 versus 1.0977 versus 1.0992 versus 1.0927 versus 1.0944 versus 1.0927 versus 1.0825 versus 1.0836 versus 1.0880 versus 1.0946 versus 1.1005 versus 1.0999 versus 1.1157 versus 1.1032 versus 1.11069


$/JPY: 121.73 versus 121.06. Still working higher, moving through the 200 day SMA.

Historical: 121.06 versus 119.93 versus 118.97 versus 118.58 versus 122.06 versus 123.39 versus 123.79 versus 124.39 versus 124.44 versus 124.32 versus 124.41 versus 124.15 versus 125.08 versus 124.36 versus 124.74 versus 124.78 versus 124.31 versus 123.99 versus 123.89 versus 124.15 versus 123.99 versus 123.56 versus 123.26 versus 123.79 versus 123.89 versus 123.96 versus 123.88 versus 124.31 versus 124.07 versus 124.13 versus 123.78 versus 123.38 versus 123.42 versus 122.76 versus 121.29 versus 120.66


Oil: 45.22, _2.66. Strong two day move up through the 10 and 20 day EMA. Sold to support, was too oversold, rebounding.

Gold: 1134.00, +11.40. Bouncing after selling back from the initial move off the early August low.


MONDAY

As discussed in the Market Summary, the rebound is at its first test. Strong initial move, now at resistance, not yet with the leadership in patterns. The sentiment has hit extremes, internals hit extremes early week. Now the market has to go through the process of building a pattern and leaders it can ride higher.

Typically that means a test of the low and the question now is whether that test starts near the Thursday/Friday highs or higher with a continued upside move this coming week. Further upside helps set up a better bottom and it may even never look back similar to the Ebola low in October 2014. If it does that it has to prove it but that works if it does; we will get plenty of buys off that.

That said, there are not that many great upside patterns in leadership caliber stocks. Possibilities are setting up, but many are not there yet. That is where the test of the sharp selloff comes in. That likely sets double bottoms in quality stocks as well, perhaps some inverted head and shoulders (e.g. QRVO).

Until then we see many, many downside setups, most showing bear flags. That suggests the market has a test coming and it may be off of this move through Friday. It will show us, and to that end we are looking at several downside plays this week to be ready for a selloff from last week's upside move.

Have a great weekend!



SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4828.32

Resistance:
The March lows at 4843 and 4825
4912 the mid-April China dip
The 200 day SMA at 4913
The June low at 4974
The 50 day EMA at 4982
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5042 is the March 2015 high
The lower trendline is at 5125

Support:
4815 is the December 2014 prior market peak
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4774 is the January high
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4631 is the October 2014 upside gap point
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.
4566 is the lower gap point from late October
4563 and 4567 are the January lows
4547 is the December low
4370 to 4300 (March 2014 peak to June gap point)
4185 to 4130 (May 2014 gap point to October 3014 low)
4292 is the August 2015 low

S&P 500: Closed at 1988.87

Resistance:
The 10 day EMA at 1989
1991 is the July 2014 high
2011 is the September prior all-time high
2046 is the July closing low
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
The 50 day EMA at 2061
The 200 day SMA at 2075
2076 is the all-time high from November
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November
2094 is the December 2014 high, the prior all-time high
The lower channel line at 2103
2115 is the late March lower high
2119.59 is the February intraday prior all-time high
2126 was the April prior all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high

Support:
1972 is the December 2014 low
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
1867 is the August 2015 low
1862 is the October 2014 closing low
The December and January highs at 1848
1829 us the October 2014 intraday low
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high


Dow: Closed at 16,643.01

Resistance:
16,653 is the 10 day EMA
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
17067 is the December 2014 low
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
The 50 day EMA at 17,378
17,515 is the early July closing low
17,585 to 17,579, the March intraday lows, helping mark the bottom of the Dow's The February to July trading range.
June low at 17,715
The March low at 17,786
17,748 is the mid-April China margin selloff and the bottom of the 5 month trading range

Support:
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,333 is the August 2014 low
16,117 is the October 2014 closing low
16,026 is the April 2014 low
15,855 is the October 2014 intraday low
15,372 is the February 2014 closing low
14,803 is the October 2013 low

ECONOMIC CALENDAR

August 28 - Friday
Personal Income, July (8:30): 0.4% actual versus 0.4% expected, 0.4% prior
Personal Spending, July (8:30): 0.3% actual versus 0.4% expected, 0.3% prior (revised from 0.2%)
PCE Prices - Core, July (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
Michigan Sentiment -, August (10:00): 91.9 actual versus 93.0 expected, 92.9 prior

August 31 - Monday
Chicago PMI, August (9:45): 54.7 expected, 54.7 prior

September 1 - Tuesday
ISM Index, August (10:00): 52.6 expected, 52.7 prior
Construction Spendin, July (10:00): 0.6% expected, 0.1% prior
Auto Sales, August (17:00): 5.8M prior
Truck Sales, August (17:00): 8.4M prior

September 2 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 08/29 (7:00): 0.2% prior
ADP Employment Chang, August (8:15): 201K expected, 185K prior
Productivity-Rev., Q2 (8:30): 2.7% expected, 1.3% prior
Unit Labor Costs -Re, Q2 (8:30): -0.8% expected, 0.5% prior
Factory Orders, July (10:00): 0.9% expected, 1.8% prior
Crude Inventories, 08/29 (10:30): -5.452M prior

September 3 - Thursday
Challenger Job Cuts, August (7:30)
Initial Claims, 08/29 (8:30): 273K expected, 271K prior
Continuing Claims, 08/22 (8:30): 2261K expected, 2269K prior
Trade Balance, July (8:30): -$43.1B expected, -$43.8B prior
ISM Services, August (10:00): 58.4 expected, 60.3 prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 08/29 (10:30): 69 bcf prior

September 4 - Friday
Nonfarm Payrolls, August (8:30): 217K expected, 215K prior
Nonfarm Private Payr, August (8:30): 212K expected, 210K prior
Unemployment Rate, August (8:30): 5.2% expected, 5.3% prior
Hourly Earnings, August (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
Average Workweek, August (8:30): 34.6 expected, 34.6 prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The week ended on a tough note for the major indices, whichcame under selling pressure after foreign markets suffered large losses onFriday and the August employment report created an opening for the FederalReserve to raise the fed funds rate at its September 16-17 meeting.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 were down 348, 76, and 40points, respectively, at their lows of the session, which were establishedaround 2:45 p.m. ET. Some late buyinginterest helped pare the losses entering the three-day weekend, yet the Dow(-1.7%), Nasdaq (-1.1%), and S&P 500 (-1.5%) still ended with lossesgreater than 1.0%.

Markets in the U.S. will be closed Monday in observance ofLabor Day.

Friday's trade saw every sector close the day in negativeterritory. The S&P 500 informationtechnology sector (-1.5%) performed in-line with the market, but as the mostheavily-weighted sector, it succeeded in helping to keep a lid on things.

For the week, the S&P 500 information technology sectordeclined 3.3%.

Notable news items from sector components included thefollowing:

Accenture (ACN94.45, -1.16, -1.2%): Signed a six-yearcontract with Glencore Queensland, a subsidiary of Glencore plc, to providesourcing and procurement services for Glencore's Australian copper and zincbusinesses. It is expected that the contract will deliver cost savings toGlencore of more than $300 million over the next six years.

Apple(AAPL 109.27, -1.10, -1.0%): Citing reliable sources, 9to5Mac reported thatApple will release a 21.5 inch iMac with 4K display this fall.

Facebook(FB 88.26, +0.11, +0.1%): WhatsApp founder Jan Koum announced that Facebook'sWhatsApp now has 900 mln monthly active users.

Google(GOOG 600.70, -5.55, -0.9%): Citing people familiar with the plan, TheInformation reported that Google is hoping to get government approval soon toenter mainland China to sell mobile services.

Intel(INTC 28.52, -0.56, -1.9%): Barron's carried a positive article on the company,saying its stock offers 25% upside.

Microsoft(MSFT 42.61, -0.89, -2.1%): Company is considering spending billions to revampheadquarters, according to Bloomberg sources.

Qualcomm(QCOM 54.29, -1.26, -2.3%): Considering a sale of its augmented reality unitVuforia, according to sources spoken to by Re/Code.
Elsewhere in the technology sector:

Amazon (AMZN 499.00, -5.72, -1.1%): Amazon Web Services has reached an agreement to acquire Elemental Technologies, aprovider of software-defined video solutions for multiscreen contentdelivery. The acquisition brings together Elemental's leading video solutionswith the AWS Cloud platform to provide media and entertainment companies with arange of integrated solutions to efficiently and economically scale videoinfrastructures as the media industry increasingly moves to internet baseddelivery. The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of2015. Terms were not disclosed, althougha report in The Information said it was for more than $500 million in cash.

BlackBerry (BBRY 7.28, -0.18,-2.4%): Company announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement toacquire Good Technology for $425 million in cash. Good has expertise inmulti-OS management with 64% of activations from iOS devices, followed bya broad Android and Windows customer base. Good's technology is expectedto integrate with BlackBerry's enterprise portfolio and trusted globalnetwork, creating a comprehensive management solution for all mobile devicesthat protects customers' security and privacy. BlackBerry expects the transaction tobe completed toward the end of the company's 2016 fiscal third quarter andanticipates the acquisition to be accretive to earnings andcash flow within the first year after closing. BlackBerry also expects to realize~$160 mln in GAAP revenue fromGood in the first year, including the impact of an expected write-down ofcertain deferred revenue of Good.

Analyst Action:

Ciena(CIEN 22.51, -0.47, -2.1%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank

Twitter(TWTR 28.15, -0.15, -0.5%): target lowered to $40 from $45 at Canaccord Genuity

Priceline(PCLN 1245.25, +4.88, +0.4%): initiated with Buy at Redburn

Weekly Recap - Week ending 04-Sep-15Dow -272.38 at 16102.38, Nasdaq -49.58 at 4683.92, S&P -29.91 at 1921.22

The stock market finished the first week of September on a defensive note after a daylong retreat pressured the S&P 500 (-1.5%) back to Wednesday's opening levels. The benchmark index lost 3.4% for the week while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.1%) outperformed, ending the week lower by 3.0%.

Equity indices slumped out of the gate, responding to the overnight weakness in the futures market. To that point, index futures began marching lower during the Asian session, setting pre-market lows after this morning's release of the Nonfarm Payrolls report for August. At first glance, the report appeared mediocre as the headline number came in below expectations (173,000; Briefing.com consensus 217,000); however, better than expected hourly earnings growth (+0.3%; consensus +0.2%) and a drop in the Unemployment Rate (to 5.1% from 5.3%) meant that the report is unlikely to deter the Federal Reserve from raising the fed funds rate as early as this month.

Treasuries fell from their overnight highs immediately after the report, but the 10-yr note found support on its flat line. The benchmark instrument traded little changed as the equity market opened, but returned to its overnight high as equities retreated throughout the day. Thanks to the intraday strength in Treasuries, the 10-yr yield fell four basis points to 2.12%.

Interestingly, the Dollar Index (96.27, -0.13) only saw a brief spike back to its flat line after the jobs report before setting a fresh session low. The greenback surrendered about 0.2% to the euro (1.1145) and gave up 0.9% against the yen (119.05).

In some ways, today's retreat was not that surprising since the U.S. market will be closed for Labor Day on Monday while potentially-volatile trading will resume in China after a two-day holiday. As a result, today's action at the NYSE floor generated a trading volume of 828 million, which was a bit below totals observed earlier this week.

Today's daylong retreat induced some demand for volatility protection, evidenced by the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 27.87, +2.26), which returned near its closing level from August.

All ten sectors finished the day in negative territory with financials (-1.9%) and materials (-2.0%) ending at the bottom of the leaderboard. Elsewhere, the health care sector (-1.3%) finished a bit ahead of the broader market thanks to relative strength in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 337.79, -0.84) shed 0.3%, which helped the Nasdaq settle ahead of the S&P 500. Meanwhile, large cap Nasdaq components traded in-line with the broader market.

Elsewhere, the energy sector surrendered 1.7% on Friday, widening its weekly decline to 3.1%. On a related note, crude oil slid 0.7% to $45.97/bbl, ending the week higher by 1.7%.

Taking another look at the August Nonfarm Payrolls report:

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 173,000 (Briefing.com consensus 217,000)
July nonfarm payrolls revised to 245,000 from 215,000
June nonfarm payrolls revised to 245,000 from 231,000
Private sector payrolls increased by 140,000 (Briefing.com consensus 210,000)
July private sector payrolls revised to 224,000 from 210,000
June private sector payrolls revised to 218,000 from 227,000
Unemployment rate was 5.1% (Briefing.com consensus 5.2%) versus 5.3% in July
The U6 unemployment rate, which accounts for the total unemployed plus persons marginally attached to the labor force and the underemployed, was 10.3% versus 10.4% in July
Persons unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 27.7% of the unemployed versus 26.9% in July
Average hourly earnings increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) after a 0.2% increase in July
Aggregate earnings were up 0.7% versus a downwardly revised 0.4% increase in July.
Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 2.2% versus 2.1% in July
The average workweek was 34.6 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.6) versus a downwardly revised 34.5 hours in July

Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday in observance on Labor Day.

Week in Review: Volatility Persists

The trading week began on a defensive note with all eyes on crude oil after the energy component soared more than 10.0% on Friday. Specifically, crude prices were down 3.6% in early trading to $43.60 per barrel. They would settle the day up 8.8% at $49.20 per barrel, representing a huge 13.0% swing from low to settlement price. The reversal in oil prices triggered a reversal in the S&P 500 energy sector, which was down 2.6% shortly after the start of trading. It would end the day up 1.1%, which left it as the best-performing sector in the S&P 500, as well as the only sector to finish the day in positive territory. For its part, the S&P 500 surrendered 0.8%.

On Tuesday, the market began September on a defensive note with a broad-based retreat that sent the S&P 500 lower by 3.0%. The benchmark index widened its Q3 loss to 7.0% while the Dow (-2.8%) and Nasdaq Composite (-2.9%) spent the day just ahead of the S&P 500. Equity indices slumped at the start, responding to the overnight weakness in the futures market. To that point, index futures began retreating shortly after Monday's closing bell and extended their losses during the Asian session with disappointing manufacturing data from China contributing to the cautious posture. Specifically, the official Manufacturing PMI slipped to 49.7 from 50.0 while the Caixin Manufacturing PMI ticked up to 47.3 from 47.2, but both readings came in below 50.0, which signifies contraction. The Shanghai Composite began the month with a 1.2% slide while the disappointing data from China reminded global investors about the persistent growth concerns.

The stock market snapped its two-day skid on Wednesday with the Nasdaq Composite leading the advance. The tech-heavy index climbed 2.5% while the Dow (+1.8%) and S&P 500 (+1.8%) registered slimmer gains. Although the market ended the midweek session on a higher note, the advance did not feature the characteristics of a sharp bounce. Instead, stocks traded in sideways fashion before spiking to new highs during the final 30 minutes of the day. Nine sectors posted gains while the utilities space (UNCH) underperformed amid higher Treasury yields. The 10-yr note slumped in the morning, briefly retraced its loss during the session, and fell back to lows into the close. As a result, the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 2.19%.

Thursday ended on a cautious note ahead of Friday's release of the Nonfarm Payrolls report for August (Briefing.com consensus 217,000). The S&P 500 added 0.1% after being up as much as 1.3% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%) underperformed throughout the session. Equities climbed steadily through the first hour of action as global investors rushed into risk assets after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi indicated the ECB's quantitative easing program may be extended. To that point, the ECB made no changes to its policy course, but the central bank will now be allowed to buy up to 33.0% of any particular issue, up from the previous limit of 25.0%. On a related note, the ECB lowered its 2015 GDP forecast for the eurozone to 1.4% from 1.5%. The news from Europe pressured the euro, sending the single currency lower by 0.8% against the dollar to 1.1125. The euro remained in the neighborhood of its low throughout the day while stocks reached their highs during the first 90 minutes of the day before pulling back.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 16643.01 16102.38 -540.63 -3.2 -9.7
Nasdaq 4828.32 4683.92 -144.40 -3.0 -1.1
S&P 500 1988.87 1921.22 -67.65 -3.4 -6.7
Russell 2000 1162.91 1136.17 -26.74 -2.3 -5.7


3:32 pm Earnings Preview for the week of September 7 - 11 (:SUMRX) :

Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of September 7 - 11 some of the bigger names include:

Tuesday: Pre Market - YGE, NSSCAfter Hours - CASY, MW, PBY, HELI, KFY, PSUN, PLAY, LAYN, TPLM, SPA, TIVO, AVNW, FCEL, HQY, PPHM
Wednesday: Pre Market - HDS, BKS, HOV, JW.A, CONN, TITN, NX, FRAN, SNOW, MBUUAfter Hours - ZQK, PANW, PAHC, OLLI, KKD, IRET, BOX, SIGM, DTEA, LMNR, APIC, EPM
Thursday: Pre Market - LULU, CBK, SKISAfter Hours - RH, FNSR, DDC, ZUMZ, ACET, EGAN

11:45 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (136) outpacing new highs (12) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AMRB, BGS, BRSS, CBNJ, CFI, DSGX, EEI, ENVI, HILL, JNP, MTS, ULBI

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ABX, ACC, AES, AEZS, AGM, ALB, APAM, APPS, AUY, AVA, AVAV, BDC, BEBE, BGMD, BKH, BLX, BPI, BWEN, CCG, CDI, CDOR, CFMS, CHA, CHU, CID, CIO, CLCD, CLMS, CNIT, COO, CPA, CPHI, CRD.A, CRD.B, CVA, CWT, DDR, DSWL, DUK, EDE, EDR, EGO, EPR, ESEA, ESL, ETR, EVY, FARO, FDML, FLDM, FORR, FSAM, FSM, FSTR, FUL, GBL, GBSN, GEO, GHL, GIGA, GOLD, GTY, HCN, HCP, HKTV, HMY, HSBC, IRC, IRT, IVAC, KAMN, KERX, KRO, LADR, LILA, LILAK, LNT, MC, MG, MITL, MNR, MPW, MT, MVC, NAVI, NNI, NNN, NPO, NRG, OFC, OHI, PCH, PCL, PEBO, PGRE, PHK, PJC, PKOH, PKY, PMT, PPP, PTR, PUK, RCAP, RDNT, RGLD, RIF, RPAI, RPT, SAN, SBRA, SFXE, SGI, SGMO, SJI, SNC, SNP, SWAY, SXCP, SXE, TAC, TEF, THTI, TITN, TROX, TWI, UACL, UTI, UTIW, VNCE, VSAR, VSEC, VTR, WRI, ZAIS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: ENZL, EWP, FXA, JJG, NLR, RJA, XLU

Friday: Pre Market - KR, MFRM, BRC

Large Cap Gainers

MU (16.81 +1.3%): Seeing notable volume and continued strength following yesterday's $400 mln deal in the semi space that saw peer Pericom Semi (PSEM) get acquired.

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Chart of the Day - Earnings:

http://www.chartoftheday.com/20150909.htm?H

With Q2 earnings largely in the books (over 97% of S&P 500 firms have reported), today's chart provides some long-term perspective on the current earnings environment by focusing on 12-month, as reported S&P 500 earnings. Today's chart illustrates the dramatic nature of the earnings plunge during the financial crisis as well as the recovery that followed -- a recovery that took earnings from levels not seen since the Great Depression to a new record high. Over the past two quarters, however, S&P 500 inflation-adjusted earnings have declined by a significant 12% from their record highs -- a significant concern going forward.

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From Briefing.com: The markets ended the session in the red, in spite of opening gains which lasted until about midday. The markets ended with the Nasdaq Composite least in the red at -55.40 points to 4,756.53. The S&P 500 followed down 27.37 points to 1,942.04 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the worst performer, ending Wednesday trade down 239.11 points to 16,253.57. The three major indices all but erased yesterday's gains, as the Nasdaq reclaimed last week's levels, and the Dow and S&P 500 returned to the low end of yesterday's range. The last hour of trading saw heavy selling, as all three major indices surrendered early gains to finish near the lows of the day.

Also impacting trading today was the July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey which showed an increase in openings to 5.753 million from 5.323 million.

In terms of technology, it begins and ends with Apple (AAPL 110.15, -2.16) today, as the tech-giant hosted the all-important Fall update to an array of product lines. Most notably, AAPL announced a new version of the immensely popular iPhone line, introduced new iPad updates, unveiled an update to Apple TV, and an updated to the Apple Watch OS. Investor sentiment during the conference played out much like the broader market played out today. At the start of the conference, shares ticked to session highs, but gains were quickly given up as the buying gave way to what can only be explained as muted impressions.

Media coverage of the AAPL event was difficult to get away from, but there were other moves in technology today that were worth noting. For example, RBC Capital Markets was out mixed on communication names Finisar (FNSR 14.75, -0.62), Lumentum (LITE 18.79, +1.02) and Ciena (CIEN 22.71, -0.23). The firm posted an upgraded to CIEN to Outperform while downgrading both LITE and FNSR to Sector Perform citing limited catalysts and the distancing of possible consolidation as reasons for the move to the sidelines.

Also in the news today was the IRS' rejection of Yahoo!'s (YHOO 31.52, +0.62) tax-free spinoff of the company's Alibaba (BABA 64.04, +3.13) stake. The regulatory body noted that it has not concluded that the proposed spinoff was taxable and therefore was not ruling adversely on the request. Subsequently, certain analysts lowered their respective targets on the name citing uncertainty around the future of the spinoff and the current ruling.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (664.11, -9.00) traded most of the day in the green, only to close as the broader market did - in the red. Components FB +1.02%, STX +0.99% led the early morning action to the upside, while names like MU -3.31%, MA -3.15%, QRVO -2.82%, FSLR -2.81%, LRCX -2.81%, XLNX -2.74%, ADI -2.60%, CA -2.46%, CRM -2.44% helped the sector finish lower on the day.

But the day cannot go by it seems anymore without talking at least a bit about China. The flavor of the day today was news in the overnight session the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to lower corporate tax rates by at least 3.3%. As such, the Shanghai Composite closed the session higher by 2.3% and Japan's Nikkei rallied 7.7% in overnight trade.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Micron (MU 16.95, -0.58) and Intel (INTC 29.24, -0.26) announced the amendment and restatement of existing supply agreements and a new supply agreement under which the price of 3D NAND flash memory products sold to Intel is determined on a cost-plus basis. The term of the agreement is for three years. Under one of the agreements, MU will supply INTC with 3D NAND flash memory products from MU's Singapore facility. Under an additional Wafer Supply Agreement, MU will supply INTC with a specified amount of 3D NAND flash memory each week for a period of one year.

Accenture (ACN 95.52, -1.60) announced it has been selected by Horizon Pharma plc (HZNP 28.43, -1.29) to support the transformation of its business operations and help enable strategic growth across the company's healthcare lines of business. As such, ACN will deploy the SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (SAP S/4HANA) solution as the digital foundation for Horizon Pharma's global enterprise resource planning system.

Accenture (ACN) also announced it is collaborating with Salesforce (CRM 69.03, -1.73) to extend the complete Accenture CAS software suite to the Salesforce Platform.

Cisco (CSCO 25.94, -0.36) Investments announced a $10 million investment into Monk's Hill Ventures' innovation fund for start-up companies.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Flex (FLEX 10.81, +0.26) announced the acquisition of NEXTracker for about $245 million. The transaction is expected to be accretive to FLEX's growth, margin, EPS and cash flow generation.

Arris (ARRS 27.48, +0.75) announced the company expects to see $0.60-0.65 EPS accretion from the previously announced Pace acquisition. The new expectations are about $0.20 higher than the original estimations.

Intersil (ISIL 10.63, -0.21) announced the acquisition of Great Wall Semiconductor for an initial consideration of $19 million. The transaction is expected to be neutral to 2015 non-GAAP earnings.

Alibaba (BABA) announced the establishment of sports groups. Together with Sina Corp (SINA 38.03, +0.24) and Yunfeng Capital, BABA's sports group expects to integrate e-commerce, media, marketing, video, home entertainment, cloud computing and other Internet-enabled technologies to form a sports platform that will participate in different aspects of the professional sports industry, including sports copyrights, sports media, events, ticketing, etc.

Partner Comms (PTNR 4.64, flat) announced the appointment of Yuval Keinan as Deputy CEO effective in 2016.

RADCOM (RDCM 10.90, +0.01) announced the order of $4.3 million from a Tier 1 service provider as the second tranche of a previously announced three-year, $13 million contract.

Code Rebel (CDRB 9.69, +0.06) announced Tom Moreno has been appointed President, replacting Christopher Sawicki.

Analyst actions:

FLEX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS, CIEN was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets;
LITE and FNSR were downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets, MOBL was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman, JBL was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS, SAP was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Societe Generale, FCS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow

4:08 pm Sigma Designs beats by $0.06, beats on revs (SIGM) :

Reports Q2 (Jul) earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.06; revenues rose 36.2% year/year to $58.3 mln vs the $55.69 mln consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin in the second quarter of fiscal 2016 was 50.5%. This compares with a non-GAAP gross margin of 53.8% in the previous quarter, and 53.7% for the same period in fiscal 2015.The sequential decline in non-GAAP gross margin was expected as increasing sales in the SmartTV target market influenced the second quarter revenue mix.4:06 pm Agilent to acquire Seahorse Bioscience for $235 mln in cash; transaction expected to be accretive in FY16 (A) :

Co and Seahorse Bioscience announced they have signed a definitive agreement under which Agilent will acquire Seahorse Bioscience, a provider of instruments and assay kits for measuring cell metabolism and bioenergetics.

Agilent is acquiring Seahorse Bioscience for $235 million in cash. Seahorse's FY15 revenue is estimated to be $49 million. The transaction is expected to be accretive in FY16 to Agilent and will be debt financed.The acquisition is expected to be completed by Nov. 1, 2015.
4:10 pm : The stock market ended Tuesday on a defensive note despite enjoying an upbeat start to the session. The S&P 500 began the day with a 15-point gain, which morphed into a 27-point loss by the close. The benchmark index surrendered 1.4% while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.2%) settled a bit ahead.

Equity indices hit their highs shortly after the opening bell with the early move fueled by strengthening risk appetite overseas. To that point, Asian markets posted solid gains with China's Shanghai Composite jumping 2.3% amid continued speculation about government involvement in the market while Japan's Nikkei soared 7.7%, registering its largest one-day gain since October 2008, after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to lower the corporate tax rate by at least 3.3%.

The positive vibes carried into the European session, but the demand for equities began receding once the U.S. market opened. The S&P 500 spent the first 90 minutes of the day in a slow retreat from its high and hovered near its flat line into the early afternoon. The index then dipped into negative territory alongside Apple (AAPL 110.15, -2.16) as the largest stock by market cap slid to a session low in reaction to the company's underwhelming product refresh event. Shares of Apple settled lower by 1.9% while the broader technology sector (-1.3%) had a better showing than its leading component, ending just ahead of the market. Like Apple, most large cap components ended in the red, but Facebook (FB 90.44, +0.91) added 1.0%.

Staying in the tech sector, high-beta chipmakers struggled throughout the session, but despite today's 1.8% loss, the PHLX Semiconductor Index remains higher by 2.5% for the week. Meanwhile, another high-beta group-biotechnology-displayed relative weakness throughout the session. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 344.22, -7.55) lost 2.2%, trimming this week's gain to 2.1%. On a related note, the health care sector lost 1.6%.

Moving back to the cyclical side, the energy sector (-1.9%) struggled throughout the day as renewed weakness in oil prices took its toll on the commodity-sensitive sector. The energy space is now down 0.5% for the week while crude oil tumbled 3.9% today to $44.15/bbl.

Elsewhere, Treasuries retreated overnight, hitting their lows shortly after 9:00 ET; however, a daylong rally erased that entire loss. As a result, the 10-yr note settled on its high with the benchmark yield down one basis point at 2.18%.

Today's participation was slightly stronger than yesterday as more than 905 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the MBA Mortgage Index and JOLTS:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 6.2% to follow last week's 11.3% spike
The July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed an increase in openings to 5.753 million from 5.323 million

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 275K) and August Import/Export Prices will be reported at 8:30 ET while the Wholesale Inventories report for July (expected 0.3%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +0.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.6% YTD
S&P 500 -5.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.8% YTD

DJ30 -239.11 NASDAQ -55.40 SP500 -22.37 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 897/1.79 bln/1979 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 748/905.6 mln/2317 3:40 pm :

Commodities remained weak today with many holding losses despite in reversal in the dollar index in afternoon trade.
The dollar is now in the red, currently -0.02%. Oil prices slid lower late in today's session and currently remains near today's low. Oct WTI crude finished -3.7% at $44.16/barrel.
Natural gas slid lower in morning and afternoon trade and ended the day -2.2% at $2.65/MMBtu.
Gold and silver remained in the red in afternoon trade, finishing the day with losses. Dec gold closed -1.7% at $1102/oz, while Dec silver -1.1% at $14.58/oz.

3:30 pm Apple issues official press releases, confirming, expanding on today's product announcements (AAPL) :

Apple Watch: With Hermes (HESAF), Apple introduced Apple Watch Herms, a new collection of Apple Watch in stainless steel with leather bands in distinctive styles from HermsThe Single Tour with the 38 mm stainless steel case comes in fauve Barenia leather, noir box leather and capucine Swift leather, while the Single Tour with 42 mm stainless steel case comes in fauve Barenia leather and noir box leather. Apple also introduced new Apple Watch cases and bands, available starting today,
including new gold and rose gold aluminum Apple Watch Sport models. In addition, watchOS 2 arrives as a free update on September 16. Apple Watch Herms starts at $1,100 for the 38 mm stainless steel case with the Single Tour

iOS9: Apple announced its latest operating system would be available as a free download on September 16.

iPad Pro: Apple introduced the all-new iPad Pro, featuring a 12.9-inch Retina display with 5.6 million pixels, the most ever in an iOS device, and improved performance with the new 64-bit A9X chip, said to rival most portable PCs. Apple also introduced Apple Pencil for iPad Pro, a precision input device available for purchase separately, aimed to make drawing and sketching feel remarkably fluid and natural. In addition, Apple's new Smart Keyboard extends the utility of iPad Pro, offering a full-sized keyboard in a thin, durable design. iPad Pro starts at $799 for the 32GB with Wi-Fi model and $1079 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular 128GB model

Apple TV: Apple announced its all-new Apple TV. The new Apple TV's remote features Siri, so you can search with your voice for TV shows and movies across multiple content providers simultaneously. The new Apple TV will be available at the end of October starting at $149 for a 32GB model and $199 for a 64GB model

iPhone 6S/6S Plus: Apple announced iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, the most advanced iPhones ever, adding a powerful new dimension to iPhone's revolutionary Multi-Touch interface. The new iPhones introduce 3D Touch, which senses force to enable intuitive new ways to access features and interact with content. iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus feature Retina HD displays made from the strongest glass on any smartphone and 7000 series aluminum, the same alloy used in the aerospace industry, in metallic finishes that now include rose gold.

12:20 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (63) outpacing new highs (55) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAN, AGX, AMWD, BEAT, BECN, BFAM, BLD, BLDR, BRSS, BWLD, BYLK, CASY, CBF, CBNJ, CDW, CENTA, CLBH, COMM, CVC, DSGX, DY, ECACU, EFOI, FIZZ, FSFG, GB, HIHO, HRB, INGN, JBLU, JE, LANC, LGIH, LJPC, LOXO, LPCN, MPB, MSI, NAVB, PAC, PLAY, POST, RCL, RYAAY, SFG, SLP, SPWH, SWHC, TE, TECD, TPX, UCBA, VMC, VNTV, VRTU

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAMC, ACC, AEZS, ANCI, APPS, ARTW, AUY, AVAV, BBGI, BBOX, BEBE, BUFF, CDI, CIG.C, CLW, CPA, CRTN, DFRG, EBR, ESEA, EVOL, EXAM, FARO, FPP, FSM, FSTR, GBSN, GPRO, GTY, KGC, LEE, LINC, LNG, MEIL, MHR, MOCO, PCH, PERF, PPP, PSUN, PWE, RCAP, RCON, RGLD, RMCF, RRMS, SBRA, SNC, SWAY, SXCP, SYNL, THST, TIGR, TKC, TTPH, UACL, VMEM, VXUP, WIA, WIW, WYY, YGE, ZAIS

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: TIP

9:15 am Xcerra agrees to sell its semiconductor test interface board business to Shenzhen Fastprint Circuit Tech Co for $23 mln (XCRA) : Co and Shenzhen Fastprint have signed a definitive agreement for the purchase and sale of the assets and certain liabilities exclusively and primarily related to the Interface Board Business, along with the transfer of the employees associated with that business for a purchase price of $23 million, $2.3 million of which is payable upon the first anniversary of the closing of the transaction. The deal is expected to close by October 30, 2015.


SUNE +2.7% (initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer),

7:15 am Kulicke & Soffa lowered Q4 rev guidance due to broad based industry softness (KLIC) :

Co lowered Q4 rev to $100-110 mln from $135-145 mln vs $140.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus due to broad-based industry softness. The industry has continued to experience high inventory levels and low equipment utilization rates. The Company believes this softer industry environment is largely driven by reduced demand within consumer and communication segments such as PCs, tablets and smartphones. This lower end market demand is anticipated to limit near-term semiconductor unit growth and decrease the industry's immediate need for incremental production equipment. The Company will continue to be vigilant in reviewing its cost structure and has initiated measures to address the current market situation, including execution of near-term operational improvements. The co expects to continue to return capital to shareholders through its existing repurchase program. Additional details on the progress of these initiatives will be provided during the Company's fourth fiscal quarter results conference call scheduled on Nov 17, 2015. 7:13 am Fairchild Semi follow-up: FCS cuts guidance citing incrementally weaker demand environment (FCS) :

Co issues downside guidance for Q3 (Sep), sees Q3 (Sep) revs of $340.00 mln vs. $364.33 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, down from prior guidance of $355-375 mln.

Adjusted gross margin is expected to be within the previous guidance range of 34.0% to 35.0%.
Operating expenses are now forecast to be $90 to $92 mln compared to the previous guidance of $95 to $97 mln.
FCS also announced today it has initiated a program to structurally reduce operating expenses by approximately $30 to $34 mln annually which is expected to be implemented by the middle of the fourth quarter of 2015.
"Given the incrementally weaker demand environment, we are taking decisive steps to reduce operating expenses to our target model of 25% of sales at the current revenue level."

Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) is driving next-generation, multi-gigabit broadband access toward mainstream adoption with the industry's first 10 Gbps Internet plus 10 Gbps Wi-Fi enabled home gateway solution.

We are working towards a retest of the bottom in my humble opinion. Once there if we see an 80% upside day I will buy something. I would like a clear 90% upside day. The Investors Intelligence Poll showing more bears than bulls is huge though. It's been years since that happened.

RtS

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From Briefing.com: Qorvo (QRVO) has completed its $400 million share repurchase program authorized by its Board of Directors
7:05 am JinkoSolar Holding's JinkoSolar Power subsidiary signs a line of credit of up to RMB10 bln strategic agreement with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Jiangxi Provincial branch (JKS) : According to the terms of the agreement, ICBC Jiangxi Provincial branch will provide Jinko Power line of credit of up to RMB10 billion within three years. The financial instruments will include but are not limited to working capital loans, supply chain financing loans, and project loans. The final amount drawn will depend on Jinko Power's projects financing needs.
7:04 am Canadian Solar enters into a long term product supply agreement with Vivint Solar (VSLR) (CSIQ) : Co has entered into a long term product supply agreement with Vivint Solar (VSLR), a leading provider of distributed solar energy to residential and commercial customers in the United States. This contract, which allows for Canadian Solar to supply Vivint Solar with high efficiency CS6P polycrystalline modules for residential and commercial installations, will give the Company the ability to reach additional customers within these market segments and expand its consumer base.
6:03 am Chipmos Technology reports August, 2015 revenue of $48.9 million, down 18.7% Y/Y (IMOS) : Revenue for the month of August 2015 was NT $1,588.6 million or $48.9 million, a decrease of 2.9% from the month of July 2015 and a decrease of 18.7% from the same period in 2014.

5:21 am Canadian Solar secures financing for 200 MW Tranquillity Solar Power Project in CA (CSIQ) :

Co announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Recurrent Energy has closed on a combined construction and term debt facility, with a syndicate of six banks, for the 200-megawatt Tranquillity Solar Power Project in California. The project, developed by Recurrent Energy, is currently under construction.

With NORD/LB as the Coordinating Lead Arranger, six banks, including Rabobank, Santander, KeyBanc, CIT, and CIBC, will provide project-level construction debt, LC facilities and a back-leveraged term facility, totaling $337 million.
The Tranquillity project, covering an area of 1,900 acres in Fresno County, is expected to reach commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2016.
The project is expected to generate enough clean solar energy to power ~55,000 homes

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/inplay-briefing-com-055139997.html

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From Briefing.com: The markets finished Thursday trading action all in the green. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended the session as the leader, as Thursday traded closed with the index up 39.72 points to 4796.25 for a gain of +0.84%. The S&P 500 also ended trading with notable gains, ending up 10.25 points to 1952.29 for a gain of +0.53%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also finished trading with modest gains, albeit lagging the other indices to close up 77.83 points to 16331.40 for gains of +0.47%.

In today's action, Technology (XLK 40.27, +0.40) was the notable leader, trailing only Healthcare (XLV 70.18, +0.67) at the closing bell. Notable technology bellwether names which outperformed the broader market today included LNKD +3.46%, TWTR +1.95%, INTU +1.92%, INFY +1.91%, NOK +1.87%, QCOM +1.86%, FB +1.70%. Notably, shares of tech-giant Apple (AAPL 112.57, +2.42) experienced honeymoon action today, trading higher post-event.

Among other technology names which posted gains on today's session, Cybersecurity (HACK 26.82, +0.30) name Palo Alto Networks (PANW 177.40, +12.23) traded higher today in reaction to quarterly earnings. The company reported a beat on the top and bottom line of fourth quarter expectations last night after the bell. Shares traded today in a range between 179.68 and 170.00, at one point higher on the day by about 8.78%.

Software (IGV 95.79, +0.83) names HubSpot (HUBS 46.87, +0.74), Zendesk (ZEN 21.36, +0.76), SolarWinds (SWI 40.82, +1.11), Imperva (IMPV 62.67, +0.86), and Proofpoint (PFPT 58.08, +1.50) saw increased trading action as Morgan Stanley took action on the sector today. The firm upgraded HUBS, ZEN and SWI to Overweight and initiated PFPT with an Overweight, and IMPV with an Equal Weight. The targets on the initiations were above current trading values, suggesting the firm sees at least a small price appreciation in the near term.

In other news, hardware name Seagate Tech (STX 49.22, -0.88) announced the commitment of a restructuring plan intended to realign its cost structure with the current macroeconomic business environment. As such, the company outlined a plan that would effectively reduce about 2% of its global workforce. Shares of STX traded the majority of Thursday noticeably lower, as research firms UBS and The Benchmark Company took cautious views on the name post-announcement.

In other trading action, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (671.00, +6.89 +1.04%) also posted modest gains today. The sector traded almost the entire day Thursday in the green with names KLAC +4.32%, SWKS +1.91%, SYMC +1.88%, LRCX +1.86%, AKAM +1.64%, NVDA +1.57% leading the way up, and QRVO -4.54%, PYPL -2.65%, STX -1.76%, WDC -1.40%, YHOO -1.17%, HRS -0.61%, ADI -0.46% edging the sector lower.

Notable news items among sector components:
IBM (IBM 146.20, +1.15) announced the acquisition of software provider StrongLoop. Financial terms of said deal were not disclosed.

Qorvo (QRVO 53.98, -2.57) has completed its $400 million share repurchase program authorized by its Board of Directors.

Applied Materials (AMAT 15.56, +0.10) announced the entry into a five-year $1.5 billion credit agreement with JP Morgan Chase Bank. Proceeds from said borrowing are available to be used for general corporate purposes. The Credit Agreement is scheduled to expire on September 3, 2020, at which time all outstanding amounts thereunder, if any, will become due and payable.

Zayo Group (ZAYO 28.40, +0.04) announced that it is teaming up with Salesforce (CRM 69.74, +0.71) to enable customers to connect directly to their Salesforce environments via Zayo's high-bandwidth, fiber-based connections.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Freescale Semi (FSL 36.50, -0.70) announced the acquisition of Ottawa, Canada-based CogniVue Corp. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

RADCOM (RDCM 10.84, -0.06) announced the appointment of Heli Bennun as its Board Chairman, replacing Zohar Zisapel.

SolarCity (SCTY 48.12, +1.01) and Kaua'I Island Utility Cooperative announced the signing of a power purchase agreement for electricity from the first utility-scale solar array and battery storage system.

Identiv (INVE 4.47, +0.11) announced certain changes to its executive management team and Board of Directors including the appointment of Steven Humphreys as CEO.

Wi-LAN (WILN 1.96, -0.01) announced that the company's subsidiary, Orthopedic Innovations Inc. has entered into a patent license agreement with Smith & Nephew Inc. (SNN 36.30, +0.27), a global medical technology business.

AT&T (T 32.75, -0.03) and Tata Motors' (TTM 25.99, +0.67) Jaguar Land Rover North America enter a multi-year agreement for infotainment wireless connectivity. AT&T connectivity will power Jaguar Land Rover's "infotainment" features like a Wi-Fi hot spot, connected navigation and a suite of apps.

Atlantic Tele-Network (ATNI 73.57, -0.22) announced the company increased its dividend to $0.32 from $0.29 per share.

Analyst actions:

NEWR, HUBS, ZEN and SWI were upgraded to Overweight at Morgan Stanley, EXTR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Wunderlich, AXE was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Longbow, AVGO was upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities; CVT, VRNS, JIVE were downgraded to Underweight at Morgan Stanley, STX was downgraded to Sell from Hold at The Benchmark Company, EBAY was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald,
MTD was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill

(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Yahoo!)
4:04 pm Finisar misses by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (FNSR) :

Reports Q1 (Jul) earnings of $0.23 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues fell 1.9% year/year to $314 mln vs the $318.66 mln consensus. "Revenues for our first fiscal quarter were $314.0 million compared to $320.0 million in the prior quarter; however, the prior quarter had the benefit of an additional week. Taking that into consideration, the first fiscal quarter had a higher average weekly revenue relative to the prior quarter... Strength in revenue was primarily driven by 40 gigabit transceivers for datacom applications".

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.20-0.26 vs. $0.28 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $304-324 mln vs. $327.87 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co separately announced the departure of CEO Eitan Gertel; Executive Chairman Jerry Rawls to assume the title of Chief Executive Officer.
12:03 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (140) outpacing new highs (24) (:SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADUS, ALK, CLBH, CSFL, EDAP, ENVI, HCAC, HIHO, ITI, JE, LOXO, NVET, OTEL, PSBH, RYAAY, SFG, SPWH, SWHC, TE, TOWN, TRR, ULBI, VLRS, ZSPH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAMC, ACC, AEZS, AG, AIN, AMT, APAM, APWC, ATEC, ATU, AUY, AVAV, AVP, AXLL, BBD, BDN, BNTCW, BRS, BSBR, BUFF, BXC, CAI, CBD, CBL, CCG, CDI, CHMI, CIG, CLW, CNV, CPA, CPL, CRMT, CRS, CYAD, DAIO, DDR, DFRG, DNR, DRWI, DRYS, EBR, EGP, ENRJ, EPIQ, FBSS, FBZ, FDML, FORR, FPP, FRPT, FSTR, FTAI, FVE, GBSN, GIGA, GILT, GRSHU, GTY, HCAC, HGR, HHS, HMY, HP, HR, HTA, IRT, ITG, ITUB, KAMN, KERX, KKD, KLIC, KS, LEE, MHR, MPEL, MR, MT, MVC, MWE, NGL, NRG, NSLP, NWPX, NYLD, NYLD.A, OIBR, OIBR.C, OOMA, PBR.A, PCH, PCL, PDFS, PERF, PHIIK, PHK, PPP, PRGN, PSTR, PWE, QIHU, RCAP, RPT, SGI, SNH, SNHY, SRC, SRE, STAY, STKL, SXCP, SXE, SYNL, TGI, THRX, THST, TKC, TROX, TSU, TTPH, TWI, UGP, ULTR, VHI, VIV, VMEM, VNCE, VRNT, VRTS, WIA, WIW, WMAR, WPC, WPG, WPP, WYNN, XPO, YGE, ZN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWZ, JO

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InvestmentHouse - Market Ends the Week Calmer (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Market ends the week calmer. Calm before the storm?
- Index patterns are all less than appealing, but more stocks improve and set up for an eventual bottom.
- Market getting down to the lick log with another 'the most important FOMC meeting of our lives.'
- Keep emotions at bay, think, profit.

Volatility calmed last week. Not so much Tuesday and Wednesday as the indices again moved in huge swings, but Thursday and Friday the ranges were much narrower. Calmer action as they worked laterally, still holding the reflex move off the late August low, thus far fighting off attempts to sell it.

Sign of strength, of an impending move higher? It can be read that way. Some groups of stocks are setting up very interesting bottoming patterns, e.g. semiconductors, software, while other leaders never really collapsed and are strengthening: BWLD, AMZN, PCLN, GOOG. Sentiment continues to show extremes with bulls and bears crossing over, i.e. more bearish than bullish investment advisors. Tepper made what could be another one of his opposite the market move sentiment calls Thursday when he said it was a good time to sell stocks. $33+B left the markets from mutual funds and ETF's the past two weeks.



Improving patterns is part of the bottoming process. Extreme sentiment as well. They do not mean there won't be a test of the August low. If you look at index charts on a close line basis it certainly looks as if the indices need that test of that prior low. A move such as that sets up a great bottoming pattern to go along with the stocks that are already showing the signs of putting in bottoms themselves.

Last week didn't answer either question but it was another week doing a good job of setting up that resolution. At this juncture the indices have enough 'bounce time' on this relief move to make a test of the August low a big enough base to support a solid move higher. If it takes a bit more time, that works even better.

Friday the indices posted a gain, offsetting the Wednesday selling and the Thursday push. Lower volume, narrow breadth. Just biding time until the weekend and next week's FOMC meeting.

SP500 8.76, 0.45%
NASDAQ 26.09, 0.54%
DJ30 102.69, 0.63%
SP400 0.56%
RUTX 0.41%
SOX 0.08%

VOLUME: NYSE -17%, NASDAQ -9%.

A/D: NYSE 1.2:1, NASDAQ 1.3:1.

Friday experienced a dearth of news, a veritable dustbowl of interesting stories. Goldman said oil could fall to $20/bbl. Anything is possible. US PPI was flat, the core rose 0.3%, and core final demand rose 0.9% year/year. Eggs were up 23%; it is said they could be $6 a dozen by year end. Apparel rose 7%. No inflation, yeah verily they are saying there is deflation in the US . . . unless you eat and apparently feel the compulsion to wear clothes.

The real stories the market awaits are the China weekend data (retail sales, capital investment, industrial production) and the FOMC meeting Thursday. Be still my heart.

The real lick log is the two-day FOMC policy decision on Thursday, but China could set the tone leading into it. Some say a hike is priced in, others say not. Looking at the August plunge, gold, and bonds, I would say the market has done a pretty good job of pricing in a 25BP one and done hike as Fischer and Dudley imply. 25BP is hardly a recession instigator, and if the Fed says it is not going into a regular schedule of hikes the market likely can handle that truth.

The market can handle it, but the trip to that point is always the interesting aspect. NASDAQ and SOX sport some of the better stock setups and NASDAQ is the only index thus far to avoid the 'death cross.' SOX was first, but it is so far past that it was in the consolidation phase ahead of everyone else. Still, all of the index patterns are worrisome and frankly have to overcome typical historical trends to avoid another downside move. The improvement is there, it would simply appear the work is not quite done.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

The trading ranges narrowed Thursday and Friday as the indices all worked laterally last week. While some sport some modestly different looks, they are basically all the same: rebounded from the selling, avoided an immediate selloff attempt, working laterally for roughly two weeks, bumping key resistance levels. They often test the prior lows but don't have to. If the Fed acts this week, that gives them the perfect reason to test and sets up the 'pat' downside drop to set a double bottom in the fall. Seems too contrived, but it often works that way. The close line charts suggest it. Still, watch for 'in your ear.'


"He won't want to load the bases, so expect low and away . . . but watch out for in your ear." Shoeless Joe Jackson to Moonlight Graham in 'Field of Dreams' (1989)


NASDAQ: Continues holding near that late August gap point and the late 2014 peaks/March 2015 lows. Big name NASDAQ stocks and semiconductors are helping NASDAQ hold near that level the past four sessions. Shows promise but when you look at the close line chart NASDAQ, and indeed all of the indices, have a heavy look that almost begs for the test of that prior low. NASDAQ avoided a drop last week, showing relative strength thanks to its 'names,' but that is not a breakout. It is very much part of an overall bottoming process that often sees the need for that test of the lows or even lower. Note, however, that the other indices can do the work for NASDAQ, i.e. they can sell off while NASDAQ remains relatively strong and avoids the plunge. The benefits of housing leaders investors still want.

SP500: Very well-defined pennant forming the past three weeks. Instead of forming off an upside flag pole, it is forming off of an inverted flag pole. As you would expect, the opposite result, a break lower, is the typical resolution. Typical, but assume nothing, prepare for all possibilities. And of course, a possibility is that a consolidation works to chase out the remaining sellers. Just look how negative sentiment is in terms of bulls/bears, fund outflows, and of course, Tepper.

DJ30, RUTX, and SP400 all sport almost identical patterns to SP500.

SOX: SOX more resembles NASDAQ in that it is holding near the top of its range versus the neatly formed pennants. Indeed, Tuesday SOX broke through the gap point and the top of its post-selloff range. Wednesday it gapped even higher and looked strong, only to hit the 50 day MA's and reversed to negative. Not quite ready for prime time breakout. Thursday and Friday it muddled laterally. Nicely improving patterns in the SOX is supporting it at the upper levels, and as with NASDAQ, while it would likely not escape another drop by all the market, it could fare much better thanks to the money being put into its stocks as the bottoming patterns indicate. SOX also shows that this pattern can resolve to the upside, the pennant that it first formed that is. That suggests the other indices could do the same.



LEADERSHIP

I would not say Friday saw any new breakthroughs in leadership, but it did show more solid work in the semiconductors as well as in some of the big names on NASDAQ. Metals remains solid, at least some of them, and I would suggest that some of the industrial equipment stocks and some energy stocks are about to bounce. Telecom sports some good stocks and software is attempting a revival. There are plenty of areas already setting up some good patterns or are getting to that point. All of this is positive but it does not mean any bell has rung.


Big Names: AMZN continues to perform well. BWLD punched out a new high on the week. PCLN holds an important break higher. CMG shook out some sellers and holds near its high. SBUX started to recover, moving easily through the 50 day SMA. NFLX is still suffering from its excesses.

Software: VDSI is perking up as we expected, just got bored with it. VRSN (security) looks very good. PANW gapped upside on the week. BLKB is near highs but its pattern continues to round out on top. RHT is broken for now. Some interesting patterns, but overall work to be done.

Telecom: UBNT remains strong. TSYS is trying to move.

Semiconductors: A list of good patterns. SLAB, LRCX, QRVO (still hanging in), MXL, AMKR, ATML, MU. Most are well off highs but have the 'turning the corner' patterns or true bottoming patterns such as the inverted head and shoulders.

Energy: A bottom process in place. DO, RIG (offshore drilling). UNT (onshore drilling). GPOR. All showing rising MACD on the lows.

Industrials: Trying to set up double bottoms and the like, showing rising MACD, e.g. CAT.

Financial: Patterns mirror the indices, so whichever way they break, the market follows, at least SP500, DJ30, SP400. WFC, JPM, BAC. All are interchangeable right now.

Metals: Stealth recovery continues. Hearing nothing on 'Fast Money' or the financial stations about these stocks. SID, FCX.

Social: FB is a new play from Thursday as it sets up and shows great relative strength. TWTR remains in a nice pattern. LNKD put on a solid bounce last week.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +26.09 points (+0.54%) to close at 4822.34
Volume: 1.641B (-8.82%)

Up Volume: 898.5M (-301.5M)
Down Volume: 746.34M (+114.69M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.28 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.42 to 1

New Highs: 35 (+5)
New Lows: 85 (+17)

S&P
Stats: +8.76 points (+0.45%) to close at 1961.05
NYSE Volume: 833M (-16.7%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.17 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.15 to 1

New Highs: 9 (+1)
New Lows: 146 (+33)

DJ30
Stats: +102.69 points (+0.63%) to close at 16433.09


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 23.2; -1.17
VXN: 25.02; -1.42
VXO: 23.79; -2.03

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.21; +0.02. Continues to show downside hedging and fear. The sheer number of 1.0+ closing shows the downside worry is getting extreme.

Recent history: 16 of 17 sessions over 1.0. 22 over, 7 below the past 29 sessions.


Bulls and Bears: Bulls continue their decline, bears continue their rise, this time they have crossed over, something not done since 2011. That is a powerful rally signal though the rally ensues after the cross, typically not right on it.

Bulls: 25.7 versus 27.8 versus 31.6%

Bears: 27.9 versus 26.8% versus 22.5%

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 25.7%
27.8% versus 31.6% versus 37.7% versus 40.2% versus 42.2% versus 43.3% versus 49.0% versus 43.7% versus 44.8% versus 49.5% versus 51.6% versus 45.5% versus 47.4% versus 51.5% versus 47.5% versus 51.5% versus 48.5%

Background: This is the lowest since the 2008 and 2009 market plummet.

Bears: 27.9%
26.8% versus 22.5% versus 18.4% versus 18.6% versus 17.5% versus 17.5% versus 15.6% versus 15.6% versus 15.6% versus 15.4% versus 15.4% versus 16.5% versus 16.5% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 13.9%

Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Getting close.


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.18% versus 2.23%. Back and for last week but still trending lower after the massive gap lower the last week of August. Still appears to not have much belief the Fed will not hike rates.

Historical: 2.23% versus 2.18% versus 2.19% versus 2.13% versus 2.17% versus 2.19% versus 2.16% versus 2.21% versus 2.18% versus 2.19% versus 2.13% versus 2.01% versus 2.05% versus 2.08% versus 2.12% versus 2.20% versus 2.15% versus 2.20% versus 2.19% versus 2.15% versus 2.14% versus 2.24% versus 2.17% versus 2.27% versus 2.15% versus 2.19% versus 2.29% versus 2.25%


Euro/$: 1.1338 versus 1.1278. Euro spikes higher again after the 50 day EMA test.

Historical: 1.1278 versus 1.1217 versus 1.12093 versus 1.1148 versus 1.1122 versus 1.1220 versus 1.1299 versus 1.1216 versus 1.1180 versus 1.1243 versus 1.1413 versus 1.1490 versus 1.1595 versus 1.1362 versus 1.1237 versus 1.1132 versus 1.1032 versus 1.1080 versus 1.1110 versus 1.1154


$/JPY: 120.58 versus 120.73. Dollar lost some ground Friday after a Tuesday to Wednesday recovery took it back to bump the 200 day SMA from below.

Historical: 120.73 versus 120.39 versus 119.98 versus 119.04 versus 120.15 versus 120.25 versus 119.59 versus 121.24 versus 121.73 versus 121.06 versus 119.93 versus 118.97 versus 118.58 versus 122.06 versus 123.39 versus 123.79 versus 124.39 versus 124.44 versus 124.32


Oil: 44.63, -1.29. Goldman says oil could fall to $20/bbl. Didn't do it Friday as oil holds the two week pennant test after the initial rally from late August. Still looks as if it wants to climb off of that low.

Gold: 1103.30, -6.00. Tough week, the second down week as gold has lost its upside mojo on the August bounce. As with bonds, gold does not appear to believe the Fed will pass on a rate hike.


MONDAY

Fed week and yet another 'biggest Fed meeting in our lifetime' hype. Over 25BP? Seriously? And be clear, it IS over 25BP because the Fed desperately wants to at least get above 0% but it is petrified to go any further with any kind of tightening. You would think the Fed would hike given the data it watches, but with pressure from around the world (IMF, World Bank, Larry Summers, Paul Krugman) and now even Larry Kudlow, will Yellen keep the resolve to get off of zero? As the very old TV commercial pushing women's hair care products would say, only her hairdresser knows. Or in the case of others, those monitoring the server in the bathroom. I don't want to go too far here; don't want to get accused of 'Trumping' any female readers, whether actual, transgender, or those that just 'identify with' females. What a complicated world we live in. Makes the stock market seem easy.



Ah the stock market. It is really working on putting in a bottom. Bottoming patterns are in progress, some already in position, just waiting for the trigger.

That trigger may be the final flush out, when stocks drop, either precipitously or in a slow 'bleeding from a thousand cuts' fashion. By the way, still waiting to hear that description trotted out; it will happen if we get a two to three week slow test lower and lower each day. When that trigger hits, these stocks in the better patterns will jump and be off. Leaders lead, right?

The FOMC decision could be the catalyst for a decline or it could be the catalyst for the break higher. It could be both in one: the news that pushes the weak hands to sell out and that in turn triggers the rebound.



We need to try to keep the emotions in check and stay above the fray, thinking our way through it. Given what appears to be upward pressure or support from big name stocks and others building good upside patterns, any break lower of significance we want to use to take gain or otherwise close out the downside lest we don't get a ton of downside and get caught hanging on too long. Remember, downside often happens fast, particularly if you are near an inflection point, i.e. when there are signs of bottoming as we have now.

That said, don't be trigger happy and close out on the first sign of a drop; be patient and let it work. If it is a cataclysmic drop that hits a support point (the prior low perhaps) and starts to reverse, take some off. If that holds and builds, take the rest off. If it closes on the session low, let it run. If it opens higher the next session, see if it fails and rolls back over; it often does. If it opens lower, let it ride, but when that lower open selloff shows support, particularly at a logical bounce point, start taking some downside off the table.

For the upside, given we like the bottoming action we are seeing, we let them hang in as long as they can hold the pattern together on the session closes. They are forming up for a reason: big money wants them and is putting money in them as they appear sold out, e.g. the semiconductors. That tends to help them weather the selling as long as the bigger players remain in. These stocks can suffer some intraday jogs lower but they should close decently. We will try to hang in them as much as we can.

At the same time we look for new opportunities and they are out there. We have several current plays that are still a go if they can make the moves, and we are adding more almost each session as more set up patterns. If these stocks can keep it together during any selling, they are fire tested and are ones we want to be in as they likely form up the next market leadership on an upside move.

The import of that? Others can rebound sharply, but leaders breakout sharply and then they tend to sustain the move time and time again, rising, testing, rising, testing, etc. in a very clockwork manner. We can sit back and let them do the work for us as we troll for others setting up to do the same.

We still have to see what China does with its data this weekend, but that is all part of the 'noise' that contributes to what we are seeing ongoing right now in terms of the bigger picture process in progress. China data and the FOMC will help focus the energies on the process, but that is all they do. They act as the trigger for the market move that is already set up.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4822.34

Resistance:
The March lows at 4843 and 4825
4837 is the late August 2015 rebound high
4912 the mid-April China dip
The 50 day EMA at 4913
The 200 day SMA at 4916. A 'death cross' but just the 50 day EMA and many discount that.
The June low at 4974
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5042 is the March 2015 high
The lower trendline is at 5145

Support:
4815 is the December 2014 prior market peak
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4774 is the January high
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4631 is the October 2014 upside gap point
4614 is the September 1 intraday low
4610 is the September 2014 post-bear market high.
4566 is the lower gap point from late October
4563 and 4567 are the January lows
4547 is the December low
4370 to 4300 (March 2014 peak to June gap point)
4185 to 4130 (May 2014 gap point to October 3014 low)
4292 is the August 2015 low


S&P 500: Closed at 1961.05

Resistance:
1972 is the December 2014 low
1989 is the last August closing high
1991 is the July 2014 high
1994 is the late August recovery peak
2011 is the September prior all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 2027
2046 is the July closing low
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
The 200 day SMA at 2071
2076 is the all-time high from November
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November
2094 is the December 2014 high, the prior all-time high
2115 is the late March lower high
2119.59 is the February intraday prior all-time high
2126 was the April prior all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high

Support:
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1883.57 is the early March high.
1867 is the August 2015 low
1862 is the October 2014 closing low
The December and January highs at 1848
1829 us the October 2014 intraday low
The April 2014 low at 1814
1808 is the November and December 2013 twin peaks
1775.22 is the October prior all-time high


Dow: Closed at 16,433.09

Resistance:
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,665 is the late August 2015 closing high
16,670 is the December 2014 peak and the recent August 2015 relief bounce peak. Key level.
16,736 is the penultimate all-time high from May 2014
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 17,060
17067 is the December 2014 low
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
17,515 is the early July closing low
17,585 to 17,579, the March intraday lows, helping mark the bottom of the Dow's The February to July trading range.
June low at 17,715
The March low at 17,786
17,748 is the mid-April China margin selloff and the bottom of the 5 month trading range

Support:
16,117 is the October 2014 closing low
16,026 is the April 2014 low
15,855 is the October 2014 intraday low
15,372 is the February 2014 closing low
15,370 is the August 2015 intraday low
14,803 is the October 2013 low


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

September 8 - Tuesday
Consumer Credit, July (15:00): $19.1B actual versus $18.0B expected, $27.0B prior (revised from $20.7B)

September 9 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 09/05 (7:00): -6.2% actual versus 11.3% prior
JOLTS - Job Openings, July (10:00): 5.753M actual versus 5.323M prior (revised from 5.249M)

September 10 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 09/05 (8:30): 275K actual versus 275K expected, 281K prior (revised from 282K)
Continuing Claims, 08/29 (8:30): 2260K actual versus 2257K expected, 2259K prior (revised from 2257K)
Export Prices ex-ag., August (8:30): -1.3% actual versus -0.5% prior (revised from -0.4%)
Import Prices ex-oil, August (8:30): -0.4% actual versus -0.3% prior
Wholesale Inventories, July (10:00): -0.1% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.7% prior (revised from 0.9%)
Natural Gas Inventories, 09/05 (10:30): 68 bcf actual versus 94 bcf prior
Crude Inventories, 09/05 (11:00): 2.570M actual versus 4.670M prior

September 11 - Friday
PPI, August (8:30): 0.0% actual versus -0.1% expected, 0.2% prior
Core PPI, August (8:30): 0.3% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.3% prior
Michigan Sentiment, September (10:00): 85.7 actual versus 91.5 expected, 91.9 prior
Treasury Budget, August (14:00): -$64.4B actual versus -$62.0B expected, -$128.7B prior

September 15 - Tuesday
Retail Sales, August (8:30): 0.3% expected, 0.6% prior
Retail Sales ex-auto, August (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.4% prior
Empire Manufacturing, September (8:30): 0.3 expected, -14.9 prior
Industrial Production, August (9:15): -0.2% expected, 0.6% prior
Capacity Utilization, August (9:15): 77.8% expected, 78.0% prior
Business Inventories, July (10:00): 0.1% expected, 0.8% prior

September 16 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 09/12 (7:00): -6.2% prior
CPI, August (8:30): -0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
Core CPI, August (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
NAHB Housing Market , September (10:00): 61 expected, 61 prior
Crude Inventories, 09/12 (10:30): 2.570M prior
Net Long-Term TIC Flows, July (16:00): $103.0B prior

September 17 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 09/12 (8:30): 275K expected, 275K prior
Continuing Claims, 09/05 (8:30): 2254K expected, 2260K prior
Housing Starts, August (8:30): 1160K expected, 1206K prior
Building Permits, August (8:30): 1159K expected, 1119K prior
Current Account Bal., Q2 (8:30): -$112.2B expected, -$113.3B prior
Philadelphia Fed, September (10:00): 6.5 expected, 8.3 prior
Natural Gas Inventories, 09/12 (10:30): 68 bcf prior
FOMC Rate Decision, September (14:00): 0.25% expected, 0.25% prior

September 18 - Friday
Leading Indicators, August (10:00): 0.2% expected, -0.2% prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The markets closed today's session lower after two straight days of gains to end last week. The S&P 500 led the broader market losses, shedding 8.04 points into the close to finish down -0.41% to 1953.00. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also ended weaker today, down 62.13 points, or -0.38%, to 16370.96. Rounding out the broader market weakness, the Nasdaq Composite finished Monday trade lower by 16.58 points, or -0.34%, to 4805.76. A small spike into the close brought all three major indices off lows of the day, as the broader market lived at the bottom of today's trading range for almost the entirety of the session.

Today's trading action saw the Technology sector (XLK 40.36, -0.10 -0.25%) lower, as with every other sector in the market. Broader market pressure put the hurt on gains across the board, as out of the 10 largest market cap technology companies, only Apple (AAPL 115.31, +1.10 +0.96%), Facebook (FB 92.31, +0.26 +0.28%) and Taiwan Semi (TSM 20.04, +0.14 +0.68%) traded in the green on the session.

Large cap names were hurting today, as the FOMC rate decision coming on Thursday looms on the horizon. As previously mentioned, large-cap name AAPL traded higher today, outperforming the broader market as the company's pre-order numbers for the recently announced iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus came in on pace to top last year's weekend sales record. It is worth noting, though, that the sales numbers do not reflect units in China, as the devices in last year's measurements were not available in China during the first weekend.

On a lack of economic data today, the most notable standout among technology sub-sectors was semiconductors. The Philadelphia Semiconductor index (SOX 617.67, +1.86 +0.30%) trade higher on the session as notable component Xilinx (XLNX 42.83, +0.90 +2.15%) traded to highs following an upgrade at Goldman. Other notable components displaying strength in sympathy were NXPI +2.09%, KLAC +1.89%, SWKS +1.52%, MXIM +0.97%, LRCX +0.93%.

In terms of the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (673.21, -1.88 -0.28%), large cap names SNDK +0.67%, PYPL +0.66%, TXN +0.55%, CTXS +0.34%, BRCM +0.30, NVDA +0.18%, WDC +0.14% edged the way higher, outperforming the broader market on the session. Names like FSLR -5.31%, YHOO -3.50%, EBAY -2.17%, CSCO -1.27%, STX -1.25%, IBM -1.17%, V -1.06% were laggards, trading down with the broader market today.

Other news items among sector components:

To help mitigate cybersecurity risks associated with connected automobiles while encouraging technological progression and innovation, Intel (INTC 29.40, -0.07 -0.25%) announced the establishment of the Automotive Security Review Board. The board will encompass top security industry talent across the globe with particular areas of expertise in cyber-physical systems.

Wi-LAN's (WILN 2.02, +0.02 +1.00%) Open Network Systems subsidiary announced it has entered into a patent license agreement with Xerox (XRX 10.32, -0.11 -1.05%). The licensed patents relate to networking capabilities of non-standard devices. The licensed technologies enable devices, including point of sale terminals, printers and smart TVs, to communicate on a network.

Qualcomm (QCOM 54.31, -0.35 -0.64%) announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Life has acquired Capsule Technologies, a provider of medical device integration and clinical data management solutions with more than 1,930 hospital clients in 38 countries. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Google (GOOG 623.24, -2.53 -0.40%) hired TrueCar's (TRUE 5.76, -0.15 -2.54%) President to be CEO of its self-driving car unit.

Alibaba (BABA 62.60, -2.03 -3.14%) exhibited trading pressure in response to a cautious Barron's report out over the weekend. Following the report, BABA issued a response condemning the 'factual inaccuracies and selective use of information, and the conclusions he draws are misleading.'

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Solera (SLH 53.66, +4.21 +8.51%) announced it will be acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $55.85 per share in cash. The total consideration will be about $6.5 billion, including existing debt.

Datalink (DTLK 5.94, +0.24 +4.21%) announced a share repurchase program for up to $10 million of common stock.

Nokia (NOK 6.62, +0.11 +1.69%) along with Interphase (INPH 0.17, -0.10 -36.91%) announced the sale of certain assets of INPH's to NOK for $833K. The company also disclosed received CFIUS clearance for the proposed acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.53, +0.06 +1.73%). With the conclusion of the CFIUS process and the previously announced antitrust clearance by the U.S. Department of Justice, the companies have received the required regulatory approvals for the proposed transaction in the United States.

TrueCar (TRUE 5.76, -0.15 -2.54%) in addition to the aforementioned executive addition to Google, announced that President John Krafcik will resign effective September 15, 2015.

SMTP (SMTP 4.74, -0.08 -1.68%) announced it has named Rick Carlson as it CEO effective October 1, 2015.

FXCM (FXCM 0.85, -0.03 -4.41%) announced the completion of the sales of its FXCM Asia Limited to Rakuten Securities for about $38 million. The company also noted it anticipates repaying $33 million outstanding under its credit agreement with Leucadia (LUK 20.32, -0.50 -2.40%).

Analyst actions:
ADI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Evercore ISI, USAT was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Barrington Research, XLNX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman; MRVL was downgraded at Needham, B. Riley & Co and Morgan Stanley, SLH was downgraded at Barrington Research, Robert W. Baird and Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey, TI was downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Nomura,
PGI was downgraded to Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James

4:05 pm : The stock market began the week on a lower note with the S&P 500 surrendering 0.4% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) outperformed slightly.

Overall, the Monday affair was very quiet with many investors sticking to the sidelines ahead of Thursday's FOMC policy announcement, which could feature a fed funds rate hike. To that point, fewer than 800 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor versus a 20-day average of 984 million.

A cautious tone was set during overnight action after China and Japan both released disappointing industrial production reports. Equity bulls attempted to turn the tide during European action, but their efforts were not successful with the selling spilling into the U.S. session.

The key indices hit their lows shortly after 13:00 ET and remained near those levels until the close. Nine sectors registered losses while the utilities space (+0.3%) eked out a slim gain, which was aided by strength in Treasuries that sent the 10-yr yield lower by two basis points to 2.17%.

On the downside, energy (-0.8%) and materials (-1.3%) spent the day behind the remaining sectors, responding to general weakness in the commodity market. To that point, crude oil gave up 1.5%, sliding to $44.07/bbl while copper (-1.6% to $2.41/lb) and silver (-1.0% to $14.36/ozt) also posted losses. Gold was an outlier, climbing 0.4% to $1107.70/ozt. Mining stocks saw some intraday strength in response, but the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 13.12, -0.09) lost 0.7%.

Elsewhere among influential sectors, financials (-0.3%), health care (-0.4%), and technology (-0.3%) settled near the broader market.

The top-weighted tech sector spent the day just ahead of the benchmark index thanks to a 1.0% spike in the shares of Apple (AAPL 115.30, +1.09) after the company's spokesman said iPhone pre-orders are on pace to top last year's weekend sales record. However, it is worth noting that the forecast presented by Apple includes sales from China while last year's iPhone release was not available in China during the first weekend.

Unlike Apple, most of the remaining large cap tech components registered losses while high-beta chipmakers outperformed. The PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.3% with roughly 2/3 of its components ending in the green.

On a separate note, Solera (SLH 53.66, +4.21) spiked 8.5% after agreeing to be acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $55.85/share in cash, which translates to roughly $6.50 billion. Investors did not receive any economic data today.

Tomorrow, August Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and the September Empire Manufacturing Index (consensus 0.3) will be reported at 8:30 ET while August Industrial Production (consensus -0.2%) and Capacity Utilization (expected 77.8%) will cross the wires at 9:15 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of the Business Inventories report for July (expected 0.1%).

Nasdaq Composite +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.3% YTD
S&P 500 -5.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.2% YTD

DJ30 -62.13 NASDAQ -16.58 SP500 -8.02 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1073/1.36 bln/1745 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 980/761.4 mln/2046 3:30 pm :

Commodities are trading lower today overall. According to the Bloomberg Commodity Index, commodities are about 0.4% lower today.
The dollar index is modestly higher today, which is therefore only providing slightly pressure overall on commodities.
Oil prices slid lower today, which follows two widely-followed montly oil market report.. this morning's OPEC oil report and Friday's oil market report from the IEA.
By the end of today's pit session, Oct oil fell -1.5% to close at $44.07/barrel.
In other energy, Oct natural gas ended +2.6% at $2.76/MMBtu.
Gold climbed higher, but not much. However, it closed near today's high, finishing +0.4% at $1107.70/oz.
Silver, on the other hand, lost steam today and ultimately closed -1% at $14.36/oz.
Meanwhile, in industrial metals, copper declined -1.6% to $2.41/lb. All metals noted are Dec contracts.

11:59 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (150) outpacing new highs (50) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AMWD, APPF, BEAT, BLD, BLDR, CALD, CART, CBNJ, CBZ, CCS, CDW, CNCE, DERM, DLA, DVAX, EDAP, ENVI, EQIX, EVBS, FALC, GB, HILL, INGN, IVTY, JBLU, JNP, LOXO, MAMS, MCZ, MDCO, OFLX, OTEL, PAC, PATK, PLAY, RCL, SFBS, SITO, SLP, SPRO, SPWH, SRPT, SSBI, TE, TECD, TRR, TYL, VLRS, WCG, XUE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAT, AETI, AEZS, AGTC, AIN, ALB, AM, ATEC, ATU, ATW, AXLL, BBG, BBGI, BCBP, BEBE, BP, BRS, BSBR, BUI, CAI, CAS, CASI, CDE, CECE, CGI, CHKE, CIDM, CMLS, CNHI, CNNX, CNXR, CPA, CPPL, CRMT, CRS, CYD, DAR, DCO, DD, DFRG, DNR, DRYS, ECR, ENLC, EQGP, ESEA, ESMC, EVY, FES, FMSA, FRPT, FTAI, FWM, GASS, GGN, GLU, GNT, GOL, GOLD, GWR, HGR, HP, HUN, IMN, IMO, INPH, ITG, JMG, JOY, KMT, KS, LF, MFRI, MFRM, MHR, MINI, MN, MOD, MPLX, MT, MVC, MWE, NCV, NCZ, NEWP, NL, NPO, NSH, NSPH, NWPX, NXJ, NXZ, OBCI, OCIP, OHAI, OREX, ORN, ORRF, PBR, PBR.A, PCH, PERF, PHIIK, PHK, PJC, PRGN, PTR, PWE, QTM, RBCN, RCON, RPTP, SAN, SCX, SGNT, SJT, SLRC, SLW, SMM, SNHY, SRF, STKL, SYNL, TAL, TCCO, TEF, TGD, TGI, TIGR, TKC, TKF, TLN, TMST, TRIB, TROX, TWI, UNT, VHI, VXUP, WIA, WIW, WMAR, WOR, WPP, WYNN, X, XCRA, YLCO, ZINC, ZUMZ

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none


4:14 am Nokia receives CFIUS clearance for proposed acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) (NOK) :

Nokia announced that it has obtained clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for its proposed acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU). With the conclusion of the CFIUS process and the previously announced antitrust clearance by the U.S. Department of Justice, the companies have received the required regulatory approvals for the proposed transaction in the United States.

Both companies will continue to work closely with the few remaining antitrust authorities in the relevant jurisdictions to conclude their regulatory reviews as quickly as possible. The proposed transaction remains subject to approval by Nokia shareholders, Nokia holding over 50.00% of the share capital of Alcatel-Lucent on a fully diluted basis upon completion of the public exchange offer, receipt of the remaining regulatory approvals and other customary conditions. The proposed transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2016

3:31 am Sony and Technicolor (TCLRY) form joint patent licensing program for digital television and computer display monitor (SNE) :

Technicolor and Sony announced a joint patent licensing program for digital television and computer display monitor.

Technicolor will be the exclusive licensing agent of the combined portfolio that covers DTV and CDM. The license is offered for the convenience of both existing and new licensees, enabling them to obtain a single license as an alternative to negotiating separate licenses.

eSilicon Corporation announced that the GDSII Explorer tool now provides support for registered users specifying Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMI) as their foundry of choice.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The markets ended Wednesday trade on a relative lull. In the last few moments of trading, the Nasdaq Composite managed to dip just below flat lines to end the session lower, as did the other two major indices. Declines were led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which ended lower by 50.58 points, or -0.31%, to close at 16279.89. The S&P 500 also dipped lower on the session, ending down 3.98 points, or -0.20%, to close down 1938.76. The Nasdaq Composite attempted to strong-arm its way into the green on the session, but eventually closed lower with the others, losing 3.98 points, or -0.08%, to end at 4752.74.

Early fluctuation following European Central Bank President Mario Draghi's comments lasted from bell to bell. Draghi noted that the ECB needs more time to decide whether to step up stimulus measures. Draghi also spoke to many of the concerns outlined by the Fed earlier. He noted that downside risks continue to increase and that the ECB remains ready to act.

In reaction to Draghi's comments, the Euro posted some strength as the common currency advanced 0.5% versus the dollar. Draghi also noted that the central bank remains ready to ramp up its bond purchase program, which could hypothetically push the euro lower.

In U.S. equities, the Technology (XLK 39.88, +0.10 +0.25%) space traded much of the session in the green. Coming off yesterday's broad declines, names like MSI +1.83%, FIS +1.52%, FISV +1.27%, FB +1.09%, FTR +1.04%, V +1.00% led the sector higher. Edging the sector off daily highs, names like MU -3.89%, AMAT -3.28%, KLAC -3.08%, LRCX -2.97%, FSLR -2.36%, YHOO -2.17%, LVLT -1.82%, SNDK -1.60%

The technology sub-sector Software was the best performer on the day, as the PowerShares Dynamic Software (PSJ ) closed with the best percentage gains among notable ETFs. To the ETF's credit, names like LOGM +5.22%, CYBR +4.92%, QTWO +1.84%, DATA +1.27%, EA +1.12% outperformed, but TSRA -1.03%, ACIW -0.46%, CDK -0.35%, CDNS -0.14% took the edge off the top.

Also on the session, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (669.33, +1.60 +0.24%) finished Wednesday slightly higher by %. Trading in the red only briefly today, the sector was led higher by names like PYPL +2.43%, QRVO +1.46%, ADBE +0.99%, ADS +0.97%, INTU +0.85%, AAPL +0.81%.

Other notable news items among sector components:


Facebook's (FB 93.97, +1.01 +1.09%) Instagram announced it has surpassed 400 million users.

Accenture (ACN 97.86, +0.19 +0.19%) acquired Sagacious Consultants, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sagacious Consultants is an electronic health record consulting practice.
Zscaler, the Internet security company, today announced the closing of its latest financing, a $25 million continuation of its oversubscribed Series D round from Google (GOOG 622.36, -0.33 -0.05%) Capital. This latest round of financing brings the company's total funding raised in the Series D to $110 million.

GoPro (GPRO 32.64, -0.67 -2.01%) announced it is bringing immersive, spherical videos to Facebook's (FB) News Feed.

TSYS (TSS 46.75, +0.10 +0.21%) announced that it has extended its payments agreement with ING Bank (ING 13.96, -0.07 -0.50%) for their commercial card portfolio. TSYS has been supporting ING Bank N.V. since 2009 with the TS2 processing platform, as well as providing additional services.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

TeleComm Sys (TSYS 3.47, +0.11 +3.27%) was awarded a five-year contract extension valued at about $68 million from the Department of Defense.

Digital Ally (DGLY 6.80, -0.18 -2.58%) re-launched its Laser Ally laser detection and ranging speed detection product line.

Aviat Networks (AVNW 1.13, +0.04 +3.67%) will provide microwave solutions to a Tier 1 mobile operator in the United States.

2U (TWOU 37.20, -1.31 -3.40%) announced a 3.1 million share public offering of common stock by the company, and a 400,000 common share offering by selling stockholders.

SunEdison (SUNE 9.31, -1.06 -10.22%) signed a power purchase agreement with Equinix (EQIX 2883.89, +0.44 +0.15%) for 105 megawatts of new solar power.

Open Text (OTEX 45.21, -0.13 -0.29%) announced Chief Accounting Officer Sujeet Kini has resigned effective October 16.

ReneSola's (SOL 0.98, -0.01 -1.40%) Board authorized a $20 million ADS repurchase program.

TigerLogic (TIGR 0.26, -0.10 -27.80%) to voluntarily withdraw its common stock from Nasdaq listing. The Company is currently taking the steps necessary so that its common stock may be quoted for trading in the OTCQX US Market, operated by OTC Markets, Inc., under its current trading symbol "TIGR" following the withdrawal from trading on the NCM.

Analyst actions:

SWKS was upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Charter Equity,
BIDU was upgraded to Buy from Underperform at Credit Agricole,
DAKT was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
INTC was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Bernstein,
VIVHY was upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies,
MTNOY was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman,
SMGZY was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Numis;
LPL was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill

4:10 pm : The major averages registered their second consecutive retreat on Wednesday with the S&P 500 shedding 0.2% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) ended just ahead.

Overall, the midweek session was a choppy affair that saw the benchmark index spend some time on both sides of its flat line. That trading dynamic resulted from mixed performance among the ten sectors as three top-weighted groups-technology (+0.2%), financials (+0.1%), and health care (-0.1%)-displayed flashes of intraday strength while most of the remaining sectors struggled.

Most notably, commodity-sensitive energy (-1.4%) and materials (-2.1%) finished at the bottom of the leaderboard while the industrial sector (-0.7%) also kept the market under pressure. Altogether, the three sectors responded negatively to last night's release of China's preliminary September Caixin Manufacturing PMI, which fell to a 6.5-year low of 47.0 from 47.3 (expected 47.5).

It is worth pointing out that the energy sector was also pressured by crude oil, which climbed in the morning, but reversed from its best level in a move that coincided with equities retreating from their morning highs. WTI crude continued its retreat into the afternoon, ending the pit session lower by 3.8% at $44.53/bbl.

On the upside, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.2%) settled in the lead thanks to gains among large cap names like Apple (AAPL 114.32, +0.92), Google (GOOGL 653.29, +0.09), Intel (INTC 28.74, +0.07), and Microsoft (MSFT 43.87, -0.03). However, high-beta chipmakers did not fare as well as Intel, evidenced by a 0.7% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Elsewhere, financials (+0.1%) and health care (-0.1%) displayed intraday strength, but the health care sector could not stay in the green into the close as renewed weakness in biotechnology took a toll on the countercyclical sector. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 332.82, -2.58) surrendered 0.8%, extending this week's decline to 6.7%.

Today's choppy action in the stock market had little impact on Treasuries as the 10-yr note spent the day in the red, pushing its yield up two basis points to 2.15%.

Investor participation was on the light side with fewer than 800 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which surged 13.9% to follow last week's 7.0% decrease.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 271K), August Durable Orders (expected -2.0%) will be reported at 8:30 ET while August New Home Sales (expected 515,000) will be announced at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +0.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.3% YTD
S&P 500 -5.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.7% YTD

DJ30 -50.58 NASDAQ -3.98 SP500 -3.98 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1219/1.49 bln/1646 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1255/763.2 mln/1795

3:40 pm :

Commodities were lower today, led by oil prices. The overall Bloomberg Commodity Index is about 0.6% in current trade
Despite an initial move higher following the weekly EIA storage data, oil prices collapsed today, falling as low as
By the end of today's session, Nov WTI crude lost 3.8% to close at $44.53/barrel, near its LoD of $44.44/barrel
Oct nat gas only fell one cent to $2.57/MMBtu
Metals, on the other hand, had a better day
Copper end flat at $2.30/lb, while precious metals rose
Dec gold climbed 0.6% at $1131.70/oz, while Dec silver +0.1% at $14.79/oz

12:08 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (259) outpacing new highs (26) (SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADEP, AKO.B, AMSG, BGS, CBNJ, CCRN, CNCE, CSFL, CVT, EDUC, FBC, FLO, FNFG, HFWA, HRTX, IMPV, MATR, MCZ, MSEX, NBN, NSEC, RYAAY, SLP, SMED, TAST, UHAL

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ABEV, ACAS, ACW, ADTN, AEG, AES, AGTC, AIR, AKS, ALIM, AM, AMCO, AMG, APAM, APPS, ARC, ARCB, ARG, ARO, ATI, ATU, ATW, AVH, AVL, AXAS, AXLL, BBD, BBOX, BBVA, BCC, BEBE, BEN, BETR, BITI, BKD, BKE, BOJA, BOOM, BSBR, BTE, BWA, BWEN, CAFD, CAI, CAS, CAT, CBD, CCJ, CETC, CFX, CG, CGNT, CHEF, CHSP, CIG, CIG.C, CIR, CKP, CNHI, CNX, CPGX, CPPL, CQH, CR, CRMT, CRS, CTG, CU, CVA, CVGI, CZZ, DAVE, DB, DCIX, DDC, DELTW, DGI, DHX, DNR, DRYS, DWA, EBR, ECR, EEQ, EIGI, EMES, EMR, EQGP, EQM, FAST, FCH, FDML, FLDM, FLR, FMSA, FOGO, FREE, FSTR, FWM, GASS, GIGA, GLOG, GLOP, GLPW, GLRE, GMLP, GNK, GRIF, GSIT, HBM, HCLP, HIFR, HK, HNSN, HOS, HP, HSC, HSGX, HST, HSTM, HT, HUN, HWCC, HZO, I, IDSY, ININ, IP, IPHS, IPI, JOY, KAMN, KEYW, KMT, KS, KSS, LITE, LNG, LNN, LWAY, LXFR, LXU, M, MANT, MCFT, MDM, MELI, MEOH, MITL, MJN, MNK, MNKD, MOD, MOG.A, MON, MOS, MPEL, MSL, MSM, MT, MTSC, MUR, MXPT, NAV, NEP, NEWP, NEWS, NHF, NPO, NSLP, NSM, NSPR, NTK, NWPX, NWSA, OLN, OMED, OZM, PBR, PBR.A, PCH, PDFS, PDS, PERF, PICO, PJC, PKE, PLCM, PLTM, POT, PSIX, PSTR, PTR, PVA, PWE, QIWI, RBC, RCAP, RCON, RRTS, SAMG, SAN, SBS, SCHN, SD, SEP, SGNT, SGOC, SJT, SNCR, SNHY, SPW, SRF, SRV, SWFT, SWN, SXC, SXE, TDW, TEF, TERP, TEX, TG, TGI, THRX, TIME, TKR, TLK, TLN, TRIB, TRMB, TROX, TSU, TWI, TWIN, TX, UGP, ULTR, UNIS, UPL, USAP, UTI, UTX, VECO, VIV, VJET, VNCE, VRNT, VSCP, WCC, WDC, WDR, WOR, WPP, WPRT, X, XPO, XRA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EWP, EWZ, JO, MOO, PPLT, XME

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: In all, the markets ended today's session all lower. Losses were led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average (16201.32, -78.57 -0.48%) followed by the Nasdaq Composite (4734.48, -18.27 -0.38%) and the S&P 500 (1932.24, -6.52 -0.34%). A late rally was not enough to take the major averages higher, but all three were noticeably higher off daily lows. Losses are piling up, though, as this makes three straight days of daily percentage losses for the major indices.

From the get-go, the broader market action was toward the downside as at lows, the Dow was down more than 200 points. The markets finished off morning lows, though, and the sectors finished as such: XLU +0.81%, XLE +0.44%, XLP +0.13%, XLK +0.00%, IYZ -0.11%, XLY -0.25%, XLB -0.27%, XLI -0.68%, XLF -0.71%, XLV -1.05%. In that mix, Technology was essentially a no-story as the sector finished the session flat.

In all, almost every sub-sector in Technology was lower today. Leading the declines, North American Tech/Multimedia Networking ETF (IGN 36.05, -0.06 -0.18%) traded with some notable weight down. Names in the ETF that held the sector down today were UBNT -6.32%, CIEN -1.97%, XXIA -1.87%, HRS -1.24%, INFN -1.06%, SATS -0.83%, QCOM -0.52%.

Among the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (669.32, -0.01 -0.00%) components, large cap names QRVO -2.68%, ADI -2.17%, SWKS -2.01%, ADBE -1.86%, YHOO -1.34% took the sector lower. The sector did however trade briefly above flat lines, after trading the entire session in the red. The sector closed down, though, as broader market trading action took it lower.

Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM 144.41, +0.73 +0.51%) expanded the industry's largest and most diverse set of cognitive APIs, technologies and tools for developers who are creating products, services and applications embedded with Watson.

Autodesk (ADSK 47.05, +0.13 +0.28%) acquired netfabb, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal is also not expected to impact previously issued guidance.
Alba Leasing, one of Italy's top leasing companies, has chosen Accenture (ACN 97.77, -0.12 -0.12%) to support its digital transformation program under a new agreement the companies have signed.

ACN also announced an increase to its semi-annual dividend to $1.10 from $1.02 per share. The Board also approved an additional $5 billion in share repurchase authority.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 25.41, +0.13 +0.51%) confirmed it will set up a Joint Venture with Inspur, and that both CSCO and Inspur will contribute an initial $100 million to the deal.

Harris Corporation (HRS 71.55, -0.93 -1.28%) has received a $21 million order from a Latin American nation for Falcon III tactical radios that will be used to establish high data rate networks as part of a military communications modernization program

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Synchronoss Tech (SNCR 35.74, +2.37 +7.10%) reiterated that it has a multi-year contract in place with

Verizon (VZ 44.09, +0.11 +0.25%) focused primarily on the company's Personal Cloud offering and related services. The company also stated that there has been no change to said agreement.

Gilat Satellite (GILT 3.63, -0.32 -8.10%) lowered FY15 projections due to recent decisions by its customers to delay several large-scale projects. Based on preliminary estimates, revenues for the second half of 2015 are expected to be between $120-130 million and second half EBITDA is expected to be between $8-10 million. As a result, revenues for the full year of 2015 are expected to be between $210-220 million and EBITDA between $6-8 million.

RigNet (RNET 26.67, -0.34 -1.26%) was awarded a contract to provide remote communications solutions to a premium offshore driller across its entire global fleet of existing and newbuild rigs.

Paylocity (PCTY 30.64, -1.34 -4.19%) announced an offering of 3.74 million shares of common stock by selling shareholders.

Dataram (DRAM 1.6+3, +0.11 +7.24%) regained compliance with Nasdaq listing requirements, in regards to its prior shareholder-equity deficiency.

SuperCom (SPCB 8.03, +0.15 +1.90%) approved a one million share repurchase program.

Shanda Games (GAME 6.66, -0.05 -0.75%) entered into an amended and restated merger agreement related to the 'going private' transaction.

Relm Wireless (RWC 4.67, -0.27 -5.47%) announced that its Board of Directors has terminated the proposed reincorporation to be voted on by its shareholders at a special meeting scheduled for Sept. 30, 2015. The special meeting therefore has been cancelled.

NCI (NCIT 14.33, +0.13 +0.92%) was awarded a cost-plus-fixed-fee task order valued at $14.5 million to provide a diverse range of engineering, architecture, integration and readiness support services to the U.S. Army.

Q2 Holdings (QTWO 25.98, -2.82 -9.78%) launched a follow-on public offering by the company and certain shareholders. Offering is to sell an aggregate of 3,798,996 shares, consisting of 853,409 shares to be offered by Q2 and 2,945,587 shares to be offered by the selling stockholders.

Jive Software (JIVE 4.71, +0.02 +0.43%) named David Puglia as its new chief marketing officer (CMO). Puglia's credentials include serving at public companies such as Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.55, +0.01 +0.25%) and Oracle (ORCL 36.06, +0.07 +0.19%).

MercadoLibre (MELI 92.52, -0.07 -0.08%) obtained approval from the Argentine Industry Secretary for income tax and payroll exemptions under a new software development law.

BSQUARE (BSQR 7.56, +0.41 +5.73%) entered into a two-year, $12 million credit agreement with JPMorgan Chase.

Companies that reported last night or this morning:

Accenture (ACN) reported Q4 EPS and revs which were better than expected; the company also guided Q1 revenues worse than expected. In addition to the results, ACN announced an 8% dividend raise to $1.10 per share. The company also added $5 billion to the share buyback allotment.

Analyst actions:

NMBL was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Longbow,
QLYS was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Macquarie

7:00 pm Verizon introduces new iPhone upgrade plan (VZ) : Veizon announced that if its customers purchase either the iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus with Verizon's Device Payment option beginning Friday, September 25, they are eligible to get a new iPhone every year. The new program allows one to turn in their phone and upgrade to a new iPhone every year.

4:59 pm Coherent CFO Helene Simonet to retire effective February 1 (COHR) : Simonet says she is committed to assisting in Coherent's search for a new CFO and to ensure an orderly transition

4:15 pm Marvell announces restructuring of its mobile platform business, expects the initiative to result in annualized operating expense savings in the range of $170-220 mln (MRVL) :

Based on preliminary estimates for the first half of fiscal 2016, the Company's mobile platform generated roughly $122 million in revenues and roughly $13 million in gross profit. The successful restructuring of the mobile business is currently expected to result in annualized operating expense savings in the range of $170 million to $220 million. Included in this operating expense savings is estimated share based compensation in the range of $15 million to $20 million.

The downsizing of the mobile platform organization is currently expected to result in an approximately 17% reduction in global headcount. The restructuring will begin immediately and the Company expects the major activities to take place through the end of fiscal 2016. As a result, the Company expects to incur total charges of approximately $100 million to $130 million.
The major components of the total charge include severance and employee-related costs expected to be incurred in the third and fourth quarters of fiscal 2016 and are expected to be in the range of $45 million to $55 million. Other major components include facilities and asset impairment charges in the range of $30 million to $40 million and an inventory write down charge in the range of $25 million to $35 million.

4:05 pm Jabil Circuit beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q1 above consensus (JBL) :

Reports Q4 (Aug) earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.44; revenues rose 15.4% year/year to $4.68 bln vs the $4.55 bln consensus.
Diversified Manufacturing Services revenue: $7.1 billion, an increase of 39% year-over-year.
Electronics Manufacturing Services revenue: $10.8 billion, an increase of 1% year-over-year.
Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.72-0.88, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.59 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $5.1-5.3 bln vs. $4.94 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05 pm : The stock market finished Thursday on a modestly lower note after erasing the bulk of its early loss. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.3% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%) underperformed.

The final standing represented a notable shift from the morning dynamic that saw equity indices gap down at the start amid selling in Europe. To that point, markets in France and Germany both lost near 2.0% apiece with automakers facing continued pressure. BMW was among the weakest performers in Germany, falling 5.2%, with company executives pushing back against insinuations that the company may have taken a page out of Volkswagen's playbook, saying they are ready to provide vehicles for testing on demand.

To be sure, the losses among automakers were not the culprit behind the slide in Europe, but they represented another source of pressure in market that has been wrestling with persistent growth concerns surrounding China. Those concerns were echoed by Caterpillar (CAT 65.80, -4.40) as the manufacturer of heavy machinery lowered its guidance and announced plans to reduce its workforce by 4,000 to 5,000 people by the end of next year. Shares of CAT settled lower by 6.3%, keeping the industrial sector (-0.7%) among the laggards throughout the day.

The industrial sector finished the day in negative territory, but the cyclical group put a notable dent in its opening decline, climbing off lows alongside the broader market. As for the S&P 500, the benchmark index hit its low just after 11:00 ET, which was followed by a steady march higher that accelerated during the late afternoon.

Similar to industrials, heavily-weighted financials (-0.7%) and health care (-1.1%) underperformed into the close, but their losses were outweighed by an intraday rally in energy (+0.4%), technology (unch), and consumer staples (+0.1%). In addition, the utilities sector (+0.8%) displayed relative strength throughout the day, building on its gain even as Treasuries slipped from their highs with the 10-yr yield narrowing its loss to two basis points at 2.13% after testing the 2.09% level in the morning.

Elsewhere, the energy sector turned positive with help from crude oil, which rallied 0.9% to $44.94/bbl after briefly dipping below $44.00/bbl in the morning. The energy sector narrowed this week's loss to 1.5% while WTI crude will enter the Friday session little changed for the week.

Also of note, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.3%) settled in-line with the broader market even though homebuilders displayed relative strength after KB Home (KBH 14.60, +0.15) reported a one-cent beat on better than expected revenue. KB Home settled higher by 1.1% while iShares Dow Jones US HomeConstruction ETF (ITB 27.21, +0.07) added 0.3%.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages as more than a billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Durable Orders, and New Home Sales:

Weekly initial claims increased to 267,000 from an unrevised 264,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 271,000
Layoff trends remain extremely low as the four-week moving average dropped to 272,000 from 273,000, remaining at levels normally associated with full employment
Durable goods orders declined 2.0% in August after increasing a downwardly revised 1.9% (from 2.2%) in July while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline of 2.0%
As expected, the transportation sector weighed down durable goods demand with total transportation orders declining 5.8%, paced be falling orders for motor vehicles (-1.6%) and aircraft (-3.5%)
Excluding transportation, durable goods orders were flat in August after increasing an unrevised 0.4% while the consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
New home sales increased 5.7% in August to 552,000 from an upwardly revised 522,000 (from 507,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 515,000
That was the most new homes sold since 593,000 homes were sold in February 2008; however, at that time, sales were trending down
Demand was strongest in the Northeast, where sales increased 24.1%. Sales in the South (7.4%) and West (5.4%) were also positive while sales in the Midwest declined 9.1%

Tomorrow, the third estimate of Q2 GDP will be released at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 3.7%) while the final reading of the Michigan Sentiment survey for September (consensus 87.0) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +0.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.4% YTD
S&P 500 -6.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -9.0% YTD

DJ30 -78.57 NASDAQ -18.27 SP500 -6.51 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1269/1.84 bln/1716 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1234/1.00 bln/1842

3:35 pm :

Gold and silver futures held gains today, which came after this morning's rally
By the end of today's session, Dec gold closed +2.0% at $1153.90/oz, while Dec silver ended +2.4% at $15.14/oz
Oil prices recovered off of today's low and is now near today's high along with natural gas
Nov crude oil closed the session +0.9% at $44.94/barrel, while Oct nat gas rose +0.8% to $2.59/MMBtu
Dec copper ended today flat at $2.30/lb

11:39 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (121) outpacing new highs (2) (SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ATVI, CUBE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABB, ABEV, ACAS, ADM, AEG, AES, ALSN, AMT, APA, AR, BBD, BBVA, BEAV, BEN, BKD, BP, BRFS, BSBR, BWA, CAT, CBS, CCJ, CF, CFX, CG, CIG, CIT, CMA, CMI, CNHI, CNX, CPGX, CPN, CVA, DAN, DB, DE, DFS, DO, EMR, EPD, ETE, FAST, FE, FLR, FLS, FMC, GPOR, GRMN, GRUB, GSK, HES, HSBC, HST, HUN, IP, IR, ITUB, JEC, KMI, KSS, LNG, LRCX, M, MEOH, MJN, MNK, MON, MOS, MPEL, MT, MUR, MWE, MYL, NSAM, NUE, NWSA, NYLD, OXY, PAA, PAH, PAY, PBR, PBR.A, PH, PHG, PNR, POT, PX, QCOM, RDS.A, RDS.B, SAN, SAP, SBH, SBS, SDRL, SLM, SNI, STX, SWFT, SWN, SXL, TCK, TEF, TERP, TEX, TIF, TRMB, TSU, TYC, UL, UTX, VIV, WDC, WMB, WPZ, WYNN, X, XPO, YHOO

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AMJ, EFA, EWG, EWP, EWU, EWZ, EZU, FXC, IDX, ILF, IYM, MOO, NLR, SLX, UNG, VGK, XME

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 16 stocks made 52 week highs and 494 stocks made 52 week lows.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The markets closed the beginning of the week with sharp losses. Leading the way down, the Nasdaq Composite sliced 142.53 (-3.04%) points off Friday's close, ending the session at 4543.97. Notable weakness in tech names AAPL and MSFT took the index lower. The S&P 500 was also quite weak on the session, closing Monday trade down 49.57 points (-2.57%) to 1881.77. Weakness in components GE, FB and JNJ helped the index close near session lows. The most shallow of losses were seen today in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which closed lower by 312.78 points (-1.92%) to 16001.89. Notable names which took that index lower included CAT, CVX and DD.

In addition, market data in the form of Pending Home Sales Index disappointed. For August, the index fell 1.4% year-over-year. Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE) was up just 0.3% year-over-year while the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, was up 1.3% and fell well short of the Fed's 2.0% inflation target.

The bears ruled that market today, as the all three major indices traded lower from bell to bell. Champion of the downtrend today was the Biotech sector, which as a heavily-weighted section of the Nasdaq Composite, took that index lower by worse than 3.3% at the worst point.

Every sector was down on the day. We finished XLE -3.99%, XLV -3.87%, IYZ -3.31%, XLB -3.11%, XLY -2.88%, XLF -2.32%, XLK -2.29%, XLI -1.97%, XLP -1.50%, with not a single sector posting gains. The best performing sector was Utilities-XLU -0.49%, which posted the shallowest of losses, but did not manage to stay out of the red.

Declines were helped by pressure relating to reports that industrial profits in China declined 8.8% year-over-year in August and an acknowledgment from International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Christine Lagarde that the IMF's global growth forecasts of 3.3% this year and 3.8% next year are no longer realistic.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (652.43, -15.75 -2.36%), gains were only had by a handful of names. Only Symantec (SYMC 20.00, +0.06 +0.30%) managed to slip out of the weakness. Today's session cannot go without mentioning the notable beat on expectations by Apple (AAPL 112.44, -2.27 -1.98%) today in regards to iPhone 6S and 6S Plus model sales. The tech-giant reported the sales of more than 13 million new models just three days after launch. Shares traded lower however, as the broader market brought the stock down.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Apple (AAPL) announced the sale of more than 13 million new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus units. "Sales for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have been phenomenal, blowing past any previous first weekend sales results in Apple's history."

Microsoft (MSFT 43.29, -0.65 -1.48%) acquired Adxstudio, a provider of Web portals. Financial terms of said deal were not disclosed.

Qualcomm (QCOM 52.54, -0.68 -1.28%) announced its intention to invest up to $150 million in Indian startup companies across all stages as part of its commitment to India during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Digital Economy event in San Jose.

IBM (IBM 142.52, -2.90 -1.99%) announced plans to globally expand its business solutions capabilities with new, cloud-based Industry Platforms to simplify and accelerate clients' digital transformation journeys.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Yelp (YELP 21.38, -0.79 -3.56%) elected Diane Irvine as non-executive board chairperson effective immediately.

Cabot Micro (CCMP 38.40, -2.59 -6.32%) announced the acquisition of NexPlanar Corporation for about $142 million. Under the acquisition agreement, Cabot Microelectronics will purchase 100% of the stock of NexPlanar for a purchase price of approximately $142 million, plus up to an additional $2.3 million depending upon treatment of certain unvested stock options held by NexPlanar security holders.

Elephant Talk (ETAK 0.47 flat) announced Chairman and CEO roles will be separated and also announced the addition to the Board of Directors.

Sprint (S 3.98, -0.32 -7.44%) announced it will not participate in the 600 MHz incentive auction.

Aspen Tech (AZPN 37.07, -1.06 -2.78%) named Karl Johnsen as CFO effective October 1, 2015.

MiX Telematics (MIXT 4.95, +0.01 +0.20%) announced Basic Energy (BAS 3.61, -0.42 -10.42%) renewed the contract for the next five years for the fleet management and driver behavior solutions.

Park City (PCYG 10.43, -0.17 -1.60%) announced the appointment of Todd Mitchell as the new CFO effective September 28, 2015.

Liquidity Services (LQDT 6.79, -0.74 -9.83%) announced the agreement to sell its Jacobs Trading business to Tanager Acquisitions for about $17 million.

Vodafone PLC (VOD 31.12, -1.70 -5.18%) announced that the discussions with Liberty Global (LBTYA 43.09, -4.87 -10.15%) regarding a possible exchange of selected assets have terminated.

Lumentum (LITE 16.92, -0.06 -0.35%) announced it inadvertently filed a draft of its 10-K due to an administrative error.

Alpha and Omega Semi (AOSL 7.88, +0.12 +1.55%) announced the preliminary agreement with the state authority of Chongqing, China. The company formed a joint venture for a new power semiconductor manufacturing facility.

QLogic (QLGC 9.73, -0.06 -0.61%) sees $5-6 million pre-tax charges, including $3-4 million of cash charges, in connection with restructuring plan.

Alteva (ALTV 4.46, -0.06 -1.35%) announced the resignation of CFO Brian Callahan. Following this executive management move, Andrea McHugh was appointed interim CFO.

Unisys (UIS 12.12, -0.99 -7.55%) announced it will not proceed with the previously announced senior secured notes offering.

Analyst actions:

ATML was upgraded to Strong Buy from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
INFY was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Societe Generale,
KN was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at FBR Capital;
MELI was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup,
QRVO was downgraded to Sector Perform from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
MB was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
TEO was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman

4:32 pm Microsoft change the reporting of its financial results (MSFT) : Beginning in fiscal year 2016, the company will report revenue and operating income based on three operating segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. To aid investors with the transition, for the first quarter results only, revenue and gross margin will also be provided for the operating segments that Microsoft reported during fiscal year 2015.

4:20 pm : The new week got off to a very poor start for the major indices, which experienced steady selling pressure from the opening bell in a trend-down day. Global growth concerns were at the heart of Monday's pullback along with another dastardly performance by the biotechnology sector.

The growth concerns were triggered anew by a caustic research note on the business prospects for commodity producer Glencore (GLCNF 1.07, -0.41), an 8.8% year-over-year decline in China's industrial profits, a disappointing 1.4% monthly decline in pending U.S. home sales for August, and a declaration from International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Christine Lagarde that the IMF's forecasts for global growth of 3.3% this year and 3.8% next year are no longer realistic due principally to the weakness in emerging markets.

These factors, and an allegation from famed investor Carl Icahn that there could be another financial catastrophe looming with the persistence of the Federal Reserve's policy rate near the zero bound, cast a pall on investor sentiment that hung over the capital markets all day.

To that end, oil (-2.7% to $44.47 per barrel) and other commodity prices got knocked back noticeably, high-yield bond prices continued to weaken, cyclical sectors like the energy (-3.6%), materials (-3.2%), and consumer discretionary (-2.9%) sectors were among the hardest hit areas, and Treasuries rallied in a flight-to-safety bid.

In turn, investors sought downside protection, evidenced by the 17% surge in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 27.58, +3.96), and generally shied away from buying much of anything in the equity market.

All ten sectors finished lower. The health care sector (-3.8%) fared the worst as price control concerns continued to percolate on the back of reports that lawmakers in Washington are working to get a subpoena to obtain documents from Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 166.50, -32.97) that discuss big price increases for two heart drugs.

That news compounded the recent selling pressure in the biotech group, which had to contend with the double whammy of valuation concerns. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 290.61, -19.63) dropped 6.3% and is now down 27.5% from its July high.

The weakness in the biotech space took a heavy toll on the Nasdaq Composite (-3.0%) and Russell 2000 (-2.9%). Separately, the weight of large losses in market darlings Facebook (FB 89.21, -3.56), Amazon.com (AMZN 504.06, -20.19), Netflix (NFLX 99.47, -2.77), and Google (GOOG 594.89, -17.08) -- the so-called "FANG" stocks -- took a big bite out of the Nasdaq and the broader market.

Today's negative disposition was cemented in the fact that Apple (AAPL 112.44, -2.27) couldn't escape the selling pressure even though it announced record sales of more than 13 million units of its iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus just three days after launch.

The Personal Income and Spending report for August was decent, showing a 0.3% increase in income (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and a 0.4% jump in spending (Briefing.com +0.3%) on top of modest upward revisions to July's data for both series. The report also revealed subdued inflation pressures, which were painted by a miniscule 0.3% year-over-year increase in the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE) and a modest 1.3% year-over-year increase excluding food and energy.

The latter news also helped underpin the Treasury market and particularly the back end of the curve. The 10-yr note yield dropped seven basis points to 2.09%.

There were two Fed officials who gave speeches today during market hours -- New York Fed President Dudley and Chicago Fed President Evans. Both men are voting members on the 2015 Federal Open Market Committee, yet their somewhat opposing views failed to alter today's downtrend. To wit, stocks traded lower after both presentations in which Mr. Dudley said he thinks the Fed should be able to raise rates before the end of the year and Mr. Evans said a later liftoff would create better positioning for economic challenges.

The major indices closed just off their worst levels of the day on heavy volume. Reflecting the entrenched negative bias, decliners led advancers by nearly a 9-to-1 margin at the NYSE and a nearly 6-to-1 margin at the Nasdaq.DJ30 -312.78 NASDAQ -142.53 SP500 -49.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 455/2.15 bln/2520 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 320/1.03 bln/2808

3:45 pm :

Commodities sold off today and held losses. Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, extended losses from this morning and are now -1.3%
Nov crude oil finished today's session -2.7% at $44.47/barrel. In other energy, Nov nat gas rose +1.5% to $2.67/MMBtu
Metals lost steam today, led by silver
Dec silver closed up today's pit session -3.6% at $15.08/oz
Dec gold fell -1.2% to end at $1131.40/oz, while Dec copper ended -1.3% at $2.28/lb.

11:58 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (125) outpacing new highs (1) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: FLO

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAS, ALXN, AMT, AR, BAX, BBBY, BBL, BBRY, BBVA, BEN, BHP, BKD, BUFF, CAT, CBL, CBS, CCJ, CF, CFX, CIE, CIT, CMI, CNHI, CNX, CPGX, CYH, DAN, DB, DE, DFS, DO, DRH, DSW, DVA, EMN, EPD, EQT, ESV, ETE, ETP, FAST, FLR, FMC, GLNG, GPOR, GPRO, GPS, GRPN, GRUB, GSK, HES, HOT, HP, HPQ, HST, HUN, IP, IR, IVZ, KMI, KOS, KSS, LHO, LUK, M, MDVN, MJN, MNK, MOS, MPEL, MT, MTW, MUR, MWE, MYL, NE, NRF, NRG, NSAM, NUE, NWS, NWSA, NYLD, PAA, PAGP, PAH, PCAR, PH, PHG, POT, PPG, RAX, RDS.A, RDS.B, RIO, SAN, SBH, SDRL, SHO, SLM, STWD, STX, SUNE, SWFT, SWN, SXL, TCK, TERP, THC, TIF, TRMB, TRP, TRQ, TTM, TV, TWX, VALE.P, WDC, WMB, WPZ, WYNN, XPO, YHOO, YPF, ZBH

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AMJ, BJK, DBB, EWU, EZA, HYG, IDX, IYM, JNK, KOL, MOO, PPLT, REMX, SEA, SLX, VGK, XLB, XME, XOP

8:30 am Apple has sold more than 13 mln new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models a new record (and above ests near 10-12 mln) (AAPL) :

Co has sold more than 13 million new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models, a new record, just three days after launch. Expectations were for sales in the 10-12 million range, so this number surpassed expectations."Sales for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have been phenomenal, blowing past any previous first weekend sales results in Apple's history."iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will be available in more than 40 additional countries beginning October 9 including Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Taiwan. The new iPhones will be available in over 130 countries by the end of the year. Analyst comments: QRVO -4% (downgraded to Sector Perf at Pac Crest), MB -2.8% (downgraded to Equal Wt at Morgan Stanley)

ATML +6.6% (Cypress Semi (CY) is considering offer to acquire ATML, according to Reuters)

SunEdison (SUNE) announced the completion of three solar canopy systems for the City of Fremont, Calif. The systems are expected to generate 1.2 megawatts DC of clean, reliable electricity for the city.

Finisar (FNSR) announced the world's first 100G QSFP28 SWDM4 module, which operates over standard, duplex multimode fiber.


JinkoSolar Holding (JKS) announced that it will supply TSK Electrnica y Electricidad, S.A. with 49.8MW of PV solar modules for the largest solar PV plant in Mexico.

5:28 am Cabot Micro to acquire NexPlanar Corporation for ~$142 mln (CCMP) :

NexPlanar Corporation is a privately-held, U.S. based company that specializes in the development, manufacture and sale of advanced CMP pad solutions for the semiconductor industry.

Under the acquisition agreement, Cabot Microelectronics will purchase 100% of the stock of NexPlanar for a purchase price of approximately $142 million, plus up to an additional $2.3 million depending upon treatment of certain unvested stock options held by NexPlanar security holders. Its trailing four quarter revenue is approximately $22 million, and it has nearly tripled its revenue over the past two years.Qualcomm (QCOM) announced its intention to invest up to $150 million in Indian startup companies across all stages as part of its commitment to India during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Digital Economy event in San Jose. STMicroelectronics (STM) announced next-generation satellite navigation to today's drivers with the launch of enhanced, always-available, always-accurate 3D positioning on its TESEO III automotive-navigation ICs. EMCORE (EMKR) announced that it has expanded its offerings of laser diode and Avalanche Photodiode optical chips for the high-speed telecom Gigabit Passive Optical Network Fiber-To-The-Home market and uncooled digital datacom applications.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The markets finished the day split as both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 managed to climb out of the hole in the final hour of the trading day. The Dow managed the most notable gains on Tuesday, as the index added 47.24 points (+0.30%) to end at 16049.13. The S&P 500 also finished in the green, with gains of 2.32 points (+0.12%) to 1884.09. The Nasdaq Composite was the only index to close below flat lines today, ending lower by 26.65 points (-0.59%) to 4517.32. Action was mostly around break even today, as early losses quickly turned to early gains followed by a period of calm into midday. The final hour of trade saw the S&P 500 and the Dow trade red-to-green, while the Nasdaq shallowed losses.

Sectors finished the day with Healthcare (XLV +0.92%) posting the most notable strength. Others finished split, with XLI +0.66%, XLB +0.39%, XLF +0.18%, XLU +0.02% posting gains and XLP -0.04%, XLE -0.15%, XLY -0.33%, XLK -0.44%, IYZ -1.23% rounding out the losses.

Market data, led by a strong September Consumer Confidence number of 103.0 (versus August of 101.5), took the markets higher in red-to-green fashion only a half an hour after the open. Also today, the July S&P Case-Shiller 20-city Index posted a 4.96% gain over last year's result.

Of note on the day, tech-giant Apple (AAPL 110.00, -2.44 -2.17%) saw relative weakness on the heels of an initiation at Sterne Agee CRT. Analysts posted a $150 12-month target on the name, but shares instead saw relative weakness today as the Technology (XLK 38.73, -0.17 -0.44%) sector also posted late losses, coming off early gains to close below flat lines.

Despite notable weakness in AAPL, other tech names TDC +3.55%, YHOO +2.39%, MU +2.28%, GLW +2.14%, MCHP +1.98%, V +1.98%, LRCX +1.76%, NVDA +1.72%, INTC +1.70% posted solid gains. Micron (MU 14.39, +0.32 +2.31%) saw strength on the session following an analyst upgraded at Wells Fargo. The firm took shares to an Outperform rating. Also seeing notable strength on the session, Yahoo! (YHOO 28.26, +0.66 +2.39%) provided an update on the company's Alibaba (BABA 57.82, +0.43 +0.75%) stake spin off. The company still expects the spin off to be completed in Q4, and that said spin off is no longer held back by the receipt of a favorable ruling from the IRS.

In terms of the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (648.84, -3.59 -0.55%), names like PYPL -5.02%, SYMC -3.25%, FB -2.85%, CTXS -2.37%, ADSK -1.95% held the sector lower. Paypal continued weakness from the past two sessions, inching further away from the 50 day simple-moving average. Social Media (SOCL 17.01, +0.04 +0.24%) name Facebook (FB 86.67, -2.54 -2.85%) also posted the third straight day of losses on no notable news.

Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM 142.47, -0..05 -0.04%) announced plans to acquire Meteorix, a Workday (WDAY 70.70, +0.15 +0.21%) services partner. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Microsoft (MSFT 43.45, +0.16 +0.37%) announced the company will change the reporting of its financial results. Beginning in FY16, the company will report revenue and operating income under three operating segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 25.04, +0.13 +0.52%) announced it will work with leading global premium airline, British Airways, to build a private cloud data center and IP/MPLS core backbone using Juniper Networks technology.

HGST, a Western Digital company (WDC 69.37, +1.12 +1.64%), announced that HGST entered a strategic relationship with Commvault (CVLT 34.03, -0.04 -0.12%). Key Solution Benefits Include: Lowest cost per terabyte for cloud-scale data backup, an archive environment that seamlessly grows to multi-petabyte scale, instant access to data, overcoming the limitations of traditional tape backups

Harris (HRS 71.07, +0.79 +1.12%) was awarded a $390 million contract to supply a new specialized handheld radio to US Special Operations Forces. The contract is five-year based on an additional one-year option.

Microchip Technology (MCHP 41.68, +0.82 +2.01%) announced that its MOST50 Intelligent network Interface Controllers are powering the infotainment systems of the new Toyota (TM 114.25, -0.97 -0.84%) Vellfire executive-lounge vehicles

Oracle (ORCL 35.49, +0.05 +0.14%) Health Sciences announced that 93 emerging biopharma organizations worldwide have become new customers in the past year, adopting Oracle Health Sciences solutions

Elsewhere in the technology space:

GSE Systems, Inc. (GVP 1.47, -0.02 -1.24%) commenced a company-wide restructuring program. The actions are expected to involve an overall reduction of about 36 positions globally and be substantially complete by October 2015. In connection with these actions, the company expects to record total pre-tax charges of about $2.6 million in the third quarter of 2015, which include an asset impairment charge of about $1.4 million related to the write-down of capitalized software development costs.

Veeva Systems (VEEV 22.83, -0.42 -1.81%) acquired Zinc Ahead for about $130 million. Transaction includes amounts to pay off outstanding indebtedness and expenses at closing, and $10 million of deferred consideration payable over three years to non-institutional shareholders and option holders.

TTM Tech (TTMI 6.01, -0.22 -3.53%) announced the consolidation of its manufacturing operations, with the plans to close three facilities. The company also re-affirmed certain Q3 guidance.

Rudolph Tech (RTEC 12.08, +0.37 +3.16%) acquired Stella Alliance, but the financial terms of said transaction were not disclosed. The Company does not expect the transaction to have an impact on the results of operations for the 2015 third quarter.

Genpact (G 22.50, -0.08 -0.35%) was chosen by Boeing (BA 128.89, +0.76 +0.59%) as its strategic partner to streamline its international finance and accounting processes.

Imation (IMN 2.15, -0.05 -2.27%) announced a series of actions to accelerate its strategic transformation. The Board of Directors has authorized plans to wind down the non-European operations of the company's legacy tape media business and Consumer Storage and Accessories segment, and to end the long-term license agreement with TDK Corporation. Imation will leverage cash from the wind down to reinvest in its Tiered Storage and Security Solutions segment.

Equinix (EQIX 268.98, -1.51 -0.56%) announced that its Board of Directors has declared a special dividend of $627.0 million, or $10.95 per share based on the number of shares currently outstanding.

Monster Worldwide (MWW 6.41, +0.15 +2.40%) announced the sale of 50.01% ownership position in JobKorea for about $85 million.

RigNet (RNET 26.39, +2.22 +9.18%) announced that it has been awarded a contract to provide remote communications solutions to a premium offshore driller across its entire global fleet of existing and newbuild rigs.

Majesco's (MJCO 4.71, +0.01 +0.29%) Software and Solutions India subsidiary entered into a Joint Venture Agreement with Mastek.

Infoblox (BLOX 15.80, -0.21 -1.31%) announced that EVP, Engineering Sohail Parekh and EVP, Marketing David Gee have resigned.

Quantum (QTM 0.70,-0.04 -6.08%) named Bassam Tabbara as Chief Technology Officer, formerly served as the company's CTO and co-founder.

Digital Turbine (APPS 0.12, -0.01 -12.27%) announced and priced a proposed public offering of 7.6 million share of common stock, as $1.57 per share.

MeetMe's (MEET 1.60, +0.04 +2.56%) Board of Directors authorized a $1 million share repurchase program.

In reaction to earnings:

Comtech Telecom (CMTL 21.30, -4.92 -18.76%) reported Q4 EPS and revs which were worse than expected. Q4 EPS came in at $0.34 on revenues of $77.46 million. The company also issued downside guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.34-1.50 on revenues of $300-310 million.

Synnex (SNX 81.67, -0.83 -1.01%) reported a mixed Q3. SNX saw better than expected EPS of $1.47 on revenues which came in roughly in-line with expectations at $3.33 billion. The company also issued guidance for Q4 of EPS in the range of $1.74-1.79 on revenues of $3.48-3.58 billion. The company also raised the quarterly dividend by 60% to $0.20 per share.

Analyst actions:

MU was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
IMI was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Northland Capital;
ARMH was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Natixis Bleichroeder,
IMN was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Lake Street

4:09 pm Cray is awarded a contract to provide a Cray XC40 supercomputer, to the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics at Kyoto University (CRAY) :

4:10 pm : The stock market ended Tuesday on an uninspiring note after surrendering the bulk of its intraday gain. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) added two points after showing an eight-point gain during the opening hour.

Equity indices rallied at the start, but the rebound from yesterday's 2.6% dive in the S&P 500 hit resistance right beneath the 1,900 level, at which point most sectors began backing away from their morning highs. The health care sector (+0.9%) held the lead throughout the day, but the influential group also retreated from its high as market-wide selling pressure grew heavier during the afternoon.

That being said, the sector was able to finish in the green while biotech names showed strength in the early going, but the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 289.48, -1.13) surrendered its gain in the afternoon, settling lower by 0.4% to widen this week's decline to 6.7%. Following today's drop, the former high-flying ETF is down 15.4% for September.

Outside of health care, industrials (+0.6%), financials (+0.4%), and materials (+0.4%) also finished ahead of the broader market while the remaining groups struggled. The consumer discretionary space (-0.3%) underperformed throughout the day amid weakness in apparel retailers and homebuilders. To that latter point, the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 25.71, -0.44) ended lower by 1.7%.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, energy (unch) began the day behind health care, but the commodity-related group retreated into the afternoon even though crude oil rose 1.7% to $45.24/bbl.

Also of note, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.6%) traded in-line with the market during morning action, but fell to lows in the afternoon. Shares of Apple (AAPL 109.06, -3.38) were largely responsible for the retreat as the stock fell 3.0%. Meanwhile, other large cap components finished closer to their flat lines while high-beta chipmakers outperformed with the PHLX Semiconductor Index climbing 0.7%.

Taking a look at the bigger picture, the S&P 500 settled 17 points above its low from August 24 with just one trading day remaining in September. The intraday slide from highs invited some demand for volatility protection, but a spike off session lows during the final 30 minutes of the day, pressured the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 26.54, -1.09) back into the middle of today's range.

Meanwhile, Treasuries held slim losses during morning action, but they rallied intraday to send the 10-yr yield lower by five basis points to 2.05%.

Today's participation was ahead of average with more than 980 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Consumer Confidence and Case-Shiller 20-City Index:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index increased to 103.0 in September from a downwardly revised 101.3 (from 101.5) while the Briefing.com consensus expected a drop to 96.0
The September reading hit its highest level since reaching 103.8 in February
In a clearly unexpected move, consumers shrugged off the negative effects of the downward-trending stock market and instead focused on lower gasoline prices and a generally improving labor market
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for July rose 5.0% for the second consecutive month, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while September ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 200K) will be reported at 8:15 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 9:45 ET release of the Chicago PMI for September (consensus 52.9).

Nasdaq Composite -4.6% YTD
S&P 500 -8.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -10.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.1% YTD

11:47 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session- New lows (94) outpacing new highs (1) (SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: RAI

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: A, ABBV, ACAS, ADM, AES, AMT, APA, AR, BABA, BAX, BBBY, BEAV, BEN, BUFF, CBS, CIT, CMCM, CNHI, CNP, CNX, COH, CTL, DB, DD, DE, DSW, DVN, EMN, ENB, EQT, ETE, ETP, GPOR, GPRO, GPS, GS, GSK, HES, HOT, HPQ, HSBC, HUN, IP, IR, IVZ, KMI, KSS, LQ, LVS, M, MDVN, MNK, MPEL, MTW, MUR, MWE, NBG, NRG, NSAM, NWS, NWSA, NYLD, PAA, PAH, PH, PRU, RAX, RGC, RRC, RRD, SBH, SE, SNI, STWD, SUNE, SVU, SWFT, SWN, TERP, THC, TRIP, TRMB, TRP, TSU, TV, TWX, TYC, VALE, VALE.P, WLK, WMB, WYNN, XRX, YPF

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AMJ, BJK, EFA, EWG, EWU, EZU, FXC, HYG, JNK, PPLT, REMX, TAN, VGK

Note: To reduce the list of stocks making 52 week highs/lows to a manageable size we have filtered out stocks below $2 bln in market cap and below 1 mln average volume. Without this filter 14 stocks made 52 week highs and 603 stocks made 52 week lows.

8:51 am Axcelis Tech announces multiple orders for 'Purion M' implanter from several specialty device manufacturers; reaffirms Q3 guidance and sees continued market share growth in FY16 (ACLS) :

Co announces that it has received orders for the Company's Purion M medium current implanter from three leading specialty device chipmakers. The systems, ranging in wafer sizes from 150-300mm, will be used in high volume production of image sensors, power devices and specialty logic chips supporting automotive, mobile and the Internet of Things market spaces. The first system has shipped, with revenue expected in the fourth quarter.Co reaffirms guidance for Q3 (Sep), sees EPS of $0.03-0.05 vs. $0.04 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 (Sep) revs of $75-80 mln vs. $78.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "We remain confident that Axcelis will exit 2015 with 17-20% market share of the implant market. We also expect continued market share growth in 2016 as the Purion product family enters volume production at additional memory and non-leading edge logic and foundry fabs."Microchip Technology (MCHP) announced that its MOST50 Intelligent network Interface Controllers are powering the infotainment systems of the new Toyota (TM) Vellfire executive-lounge vehicles

6:31 am Rudolph Tech acquires Stella Alliance; terms not disclosed (RTEC) : Stella Alliance is a Massachusetts-based semiconductor inspection technology intellectual property portfolio company. The Company does not expect the transaction to have an impact on the results of operations for the 2015 third quarter. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Kulicke & Soffa (KLIC) disclosed in a regulatory filing that on September 28, 2015, Joyce Soo Li Lam, resigned from her position as Vice President, Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer, effective on October 3, 2015. The Company appointed Jonathan H. Chou as the Company's Principal Accounting Officer effective on October 4, 2015, a role he previously held from December 2010 to June 2014.

ASML Holding NV (ASML) announced the first shipment of its new TWINSCAN NXT:1980Di immersion lithography system to support increasingly demanding multiple-patterning performance requirements.

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From Briefing.com: The markets closed the session mixed. Leading the way higher on the session, the S&P 500 finished the day up 3.79 points (+0.20%) to 1923.82. The Nasdaq Composite also posted gains today, as the index closed up 6.92 points (+0.15%) to 4627.08, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the lone laggard, shedding 12.69 points (-0.08%) at the close to end 16272.01. The markets spent most of the session in the red, as Initial Claims data increased to 277,000 from an unrevised 267,000. Despite this increase, the four-week moving average declined to 271,000 from 272,000.

Notable weakness today in Semiconductors (SOX 595.62, -7.11 -1.18%) stemmed from a cautious DigiTimes story regarding concerned Integrated Circuit (IC) suppliers to the new Apple (AAPL 109.58, -0.72 -0.65%) iPhones. The article suggested concerns that despite the opening success of the phones, that suppliers fear AAPL may downwardly adjust its chip orders for the smartphones for the fourth quarter. Names in the space experiencing weakness today were QRVO -3.15%, ASML -2.28%, MXIM -2.19%, TXN -2.18%, MRVL -2.10%, MCHP -2.09%, NVDA -1.95%.

On the other hand, strength in tech today came from the Software (IGV 95.79, +1.16 +1.23%) sector. The sector was propped up by the Tyler Tech's (TYL 164.39, +15.17 +10.17%) acquisition of New World Systems Corporation for $670 million in cash and stock. Other components posting notable strength on the day were CRM +5.01%, WDAY +4.85%, NOW +3.07%, DATA +3.03%, FEYE +2.73%, VMW +2.32%, SSNC +2.31%, ZEN +2.08%, CUDA +1.99%, ADBE +1.86%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (663.26, -0.29 -0.04%) finished the session about flat. Names which traded higher on the session included EBAY +1.92%, ADBE +1.86%, RHT +1.82%, PYPL +1.42% while STX -4.33%, QRVO -3.15%, TDC -2.90%, ADI -2.61%, AVGO -2.30% edged the sector lower.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Microsoft (MSFT 44.62, +0.36 +0.81%) and Google (GOOG 611.29, +2.87 +0.47%) reportedly agree to drop about 20 patent lawsuits related to smartphone/Xbox, according to a Bloomberg report.

Apple (AAPL) announced that former Boeing (BA 130.61, -0.34 -0.26%) CFO James Bell will join its Board of Directors.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 25.35, -0.26 -1.02%) priced certain offerings by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) of nine series of senior unsecured notes in an aggregate principal amount of $14.6 billion. The Board of Directors of Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ) approved the previously announced separation of HP into two independent companies: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Company and HP Inc. The separation is expected to be completed on November 1, 2015. Following the split, each HP stockholder will receive one share of HPE common stock for every one share of HP common stock held. Hewlett Packard Enterprise shares will begin trading on the NYSE November 2, 2015.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Tyler Tech (TYL 164.39, +15.08 +10.10%) acquired New World Systems Corporation for $670 million in cash and stock. The company expects the deal to be immediately accretive to non-GAAP EPS.

Insight Enterpr (NSIT 25.04, -0.81 -3.13%) acquired BlueMetal, a design, application development, and data visualization firm. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Wi-LAN's (WILN 1.86, +0.04 +2.29%) Collabo Innovations announced a license agreement with ON Semiconductor (ON 9.29, -0.11 -1.17%). The license resolves litigation pending in the District of Delaware.

Newtech (NEWT 18.21, +1.78 +10.83%) declared a special dividend of $3.29 per share.

ReneSola (SOL 1.08 +0.11 +11.11%) repurchased $36 million of its convertible notes due March 2018 with a put option. The company also repurchased about 807,000 ADSs.

MaxLinear (MXL 12.00, -0.44 -3.54%) announced that it has emerged favorably from an international trade patent investigation.

China Techfaith Wireless (CNTF 0.57 +0.00 +0.92%) received a letter from private investors, requesting the implementation of a broad plan to maximize shareholder value.

Viavi (VIAV 5.50, +0.13 +2.42%) announced the settlement agreement with Sandell Asset Management. Sandell owns about 5.1% of outstanding shares, and as part of the agreement will include two new candidates joining the Board. The company also renounced share repurchase program for proceeds of $100 million. The company also agreed that it will propose equity compensation updates based on stock price appreciation.

Atlantic Tele-Network (ATNI 73.56, -0.37 -0.50%) agreed to acquire all of the membership interests of Caribbean Assets Holdings for $145 million. The company expects the transaction to be modestly accretive to net income for the first full year post-close.

Pericom Semi (PSEM 17.98, -0.27 -1.48%) said it was evaluating Montage Tech's (MONT) revised unsolicited offer.

Acacia Research (ACTG 8.62, -0.46 -5.07%) entered into a settlement and patent license agreement with

Alcatel Lucent (ALU 3.59, -0.06 -1.64%). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

FXCM (FXCM 8.01, -0.69 -7.93%) commented on a cybersecurity incident involving the company. Specifically, the company was a victim of a cyber-attack involving the unauthorized access to customer information. Also, the company enacted a 1-10 reverse split today.

Interphase (INPH 0.04, -0.12 -70.75%) announced it has ceased operations and commenced bankruptcy proceedings to initiate liquidation of the assets of the company.

TheStreet.com's (TST 1.63, -0.04 -2.40%) CFO John Ferrara to resign effective Oct. 15, 2015.

Evolving Systems (EVOL 5.93, -0.07 -1.08%) acquired privately held Sixth Sense Media for $10 million in cash. The company expects accretion of said deal to revenues by about 20% in 2016.

EarthLink (ELNK 7.77, -0.01 -0.13%) extended its high-speed service agreement with Time Warner Cable (TWC 181.85, +2.48 +1.38%) until Oct. 31, 2017.

Interdigital Comm (IDCC 50.30, -0.30 -0.59%) announced the expansion of the Convida Wireless joint venture with Sony (SNE 24.72, +0.22 +0.90%) to include 5G technologies.

HealthEquity (HQY 28.96, -0.59 -2.00%) elects Robert Selander as non-executive Chairman of the Board.

Action Semi (ACTS 1.77, +0.22 +14.19%) reported prelim results from its tender offer for the purchase of up to 84 million of outstanding shares. The company further expects the offering to be fully subscribed at $2.30 per ADS.

WPCS Intl (WPCS 1.39, +0.01 +0.72%) filed for an approximate 2.13 million share common stock offering by selling shareholders.

Elephant Talk (ETAK 0.42, -0.01 -2.33%) retained Dawson James Securities as advisor to the Special Committee of the Board in connection with the previously announced strategic alternatives in respect to the subsidiary ValidSoft UK.

Analyst actions:

TYL was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Maxim Group,
WDC was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Argus,
MSFT was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at BofA/Merrill,
SNDK was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
EZCH was downgraded to Hold from Buy at The Benchmark Company

6:03 pm Microsoft and ASUSTeK announce expansion of an earlier patent licensing agreement (MSFT) : Co and ASUSTeK Computer (ASUUY) announce the expansion of an earlier patent licensing agreement between the companies. The deal includes a broad cross-license covering, for example, ASUS Android-based phones and tablets and Microsoft software, devices and services. It paves the way for closer integration between the two companies, including pre-installation by ASUS of Microsoft Office productivity services on ASUS Android smartphones and tablets. The agreement also facilitates technology sharing toward the development of new, innovative product solutions.

5:21 pm Barracuda Networks announces its Board has authorized the purchase of up to $50 mln of its common stock through September 30, 2017 (CUDA) :

4:04 pm CalAmp beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line; narrows FY16 rev guidance in-line with consensus (CAMP) :

Reports Q2 (Aug) earnings of $0.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.26; revenues rose 17.9% year/year to $69.81 mln vs the $68.06 mln consensus.

Consolidated gross margin was 36.2% in the fiscal 2016 second quarter, compared to 34.6% in the second quarter last year.Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.26-0.30, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.28 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $71-76 mln vs. $72.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $281-289 mln (narrowed from $280-290 mln) vs. $283.00 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Our increasing scale, impressive roster of global enterprise customers and ongoing strategic investments position us well to sustain our momentum into fiscal 2017 and beyond."

4:04 pm Micron beats by $0.05, beats on revs (MU) :

Reports Q4 (Aug) earnings of $0.37 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.32; revenues fell 14.8% year/year to $3.6 bln vs the $3.56 bln consensus.

Revenues for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 were 7 percent lower compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2015 primarily due to a 7 percent decline in DRAM average selling prices and relatively flat DRAM sales volume. Non-Volatile trade revenues for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 also declined 7 percent compared to the third quarter primarily as a result of lower sales volume. The company's overall consolidated gross margin of 27 percent for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 was 4 percent lower compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2015 primarily due to lower average selling prices for DRAM.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended Thursday on a modestly higher note after climbing off its intraday low. The S&P 500 (+0.20%) settled within four points of its unchanged level while the Dow (-0.08%) and Nasdaq (+0.15%) underperformed.

Equities began the first session of Q4 just above their flat lines after a pre-market retreat caused S&P 500 futures to surrender a 25-point gain. The early morning slide from pre-market highs gathered steam following a Bloomberg report indicating the Bank of Japan does not plan to introduce additional stimulus at this time.

In addition to pressuring stocks, the report gave a boost to the yen, sending the dollar/yen pair to a session low near 119.50; however, the currency pair was able to claw its way back into the 120.00 range in the afternoon while stocks also climbed off their lows.

Five sectors ended the day in the green with the health care sector (+0.9%) finishing among the leaders. Biotechnology, meanwhile, struggled to keep pace with the broader sector, but a late rally in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 305.60, +2.27) helped the ETF end higher by 0.8% after being down as much as 2.1% at its lowest point.

The early underperformance in biotechnology kept the Nasdaq behind the broader market into the afternoon while the technology sector also struggled. To be fair, the tech sector trimmed its loss to 0.1% during the afternoon, while high-beta chipmakers could not follow suit, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 1.2%. As for top-weighted tech names, Apple (AAPL 109.58, -0.72) lost 0.7% while Google (GOOGL 642.00, +3.63) added 0.6%.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the materials sector (+1.1%) held the lead throughout the session while the consumer discretionary space (+0.7%) rallied behind automakers and homebuilders. Ford (F 13.67, +0.10) and General Motors (GM 30.67, +0.65) posted respective gains of 0.7% and 2.2% after reporting solid September sales while the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 26.45, +0.35) climbed 1.3%.

Also of note, the energy sector (+0.1%) settled just behind the broader market after being up more than 2.0% at the start. That early strength was brought on by a sharp morning spike in crude oil, but the energy component surrendered its entire gain, ending lower by 0.9% at $44.75/bbl after briefly crossing above $47.00/bbl. The intraday turnaround developed shortly after it was reported the Senate Banking Committee approved a bill to roll back the ban on crude oil exports.

Treasuries registered slim gains after spending the day near their flat lines with the 10-yr yield ticking down one basis point to 2.04%.

Today's participation was ahead of recent averages with more than 950 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Construction Spending, and ISM Index:

Weekly initial claims increased to 277,000 from an unrevised 267,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 270,000
Despite the larger-than-expected increase, the four-week moving average declined to 271,000 from 272,000, which is a level consistent with an employment sector nearing full employment
The continuing claims level declined to 2.191 million from an upwardly revised 2.244 million (from 2.242 million), representing the lowest reading since November 2000
The ISM Manufacturing Index declined to 50.2 in September from 51.1 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decline to 50.6
If there is one bit of solace in the data, it is that manufacturing conditions -- nationally -- managed to stay in an expansion mode, albeit barely. The same could not be said for the regional data from the Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys, which showed sharp contractions in every area of the country.
With the exception of Customer Inventories -- which are reportedly too high -- all of the sub-indices either declined or were unchanged in September. That included a notable drop in both the Production (51.8 from 53.6) and New Orders (50.1 from 51.7).
Construction spending increased 0.7% in August after increasing a downwardly revised 0.4% (from 0.7%) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%
Private construction spending increased 0.7% in August, down from a 1.1% increase in July
Most of the August private construction gain came from the residential sector as residential construction spending rose a solid 1.3% in August after increasing 0.6% in July

Tomorrow, the September Nonfarm Payrolls report will be released at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 205,000) while August Factory Orders (consensus -1.0%) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -2.3% YTD
S&P 500 -6.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -8.9% YTD

DJ30 -12.69 NASDAQ +6.92 SP500 +3.79 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1210/1.94 bln/1794 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1500/960.3 mln/1544

3:45 pm :

The dollar index traded lower today, but this only helped select commodities
WTI oil futures sold off rapidly from today's high and finished the day in the red
Nov crude ultimately ended -0.9% at $44.75/barrel.
In other energy, Nov natural gas slid sharply lower today, ending -3.6% at $2.44/MMBtu
Metals lost steam as well
Dec gold dropped -0.2% to finish the day at $1113.60/oz, while Dec silver fell -0.3% to close at $14.49/oz
Copper lost recent momentum, falling -1.7% today to $2.30/lb

12:01 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (221) outpacing new highs (20) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, ABCB, CBNJ, CBOE, CVC, FCVA, GSBC, HRB, JAXB, JE, LABL, LKFN, NCI, NVDA, PACEU, PSEM, RAI, SLP, TYL, ULBI

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAT, ACPW, ACTA, ADSK, AEGR, AEY, AIN, AIQ, AIRM, AJX, AMBC, AMBR, ANGO, APPY, ARAY, ARCO, ARG, ARTW, ASEI, ASTE, ASYS, AT, ATEC, ATRO, AVNW, AXE, AXLL, BBEP, BCC, BCEI, BGX, BITI, BLT, BLX, BNTCW, BOBE, BRKR, BRS, BWINB, CATB, CBK, CBYL, CDI, CECE, CETC, CG, CGG, CHSP, CIR, CKP, CLCD, CLMS, CLNT, CNFR, CNX, COHR, CPST, CRDC, CRR, CSAL, CSG, CSLT, CVGI, DAR, DCA, DCIX, DDS, DE, DNAI, DO, EFF, ESL, EVH, EYES, FBRC, FDEU, FENX, FES, FHY, FLXN, FNSR, FOE, FRGI, FSYS, FULL, FXCM, GCO, GGN, GI, GIGM, GLDD, GSIT, GSM, HCLP, HH, HMY, HNSN, HSGX, HSNI, HWCC, HY, HYF, I, IGT, IILG, IMN, INPH, IO, JCTCF, KAMN, KEG, KHI, KKD, KND, KONA, KSS, LNN, LORL, LXU, MAT, MCRB, MITL, MOS, MSM, MT, NANO, NAV, NAVI, NC, NEWS, NNI, NSM, NSPR, OUT, OXGN, OZM, PCO, PCRX, PDFS, PEBO, PETX, PGH, PHIIK, PIR, PJC, PLM, POZN, PPG, PPSI, PRSN, PRTY, PSTI, PVA, PW, QLTI, QUAD, R, RAIL, RAX, RBC, RCG, RCII, REDF, RELV, RESI, RGLS, RIBT, RKDA, RMGN, ROYT, RRTS, RTK, RWT, RXN, SAIA, SBLK, SCON, SFE, SFY, SGNL, SIF, SIFY, SKUL, SKY, SLM, SMT, SMTC, SONS, SSE, SSYS, STV, SWFT, TBIO, TBPH, TCS, TDY, TEF, TESO, THR, TKC, TTHI, TTPH, TUMI, UCP, UEIC, USLM, UTI, VECO, VGGL, VLT, VMI, VSI, VTA, WGO, WING, WSTC, WWW, X, YECO, YLCO, ZINC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: HYG, JNK, UNG

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The markets ended Monday trading extending gains from early trade. Most notable on the session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted gains of 304.06 points (+1.85%) to 16776.43. Also strong on Monday was the S&P 500 which equaled the Dow strength, adding 35.69 points on the session, (+1.83%), to close 1987.05. The Nasdaq Composite rounded out the three major US indices with solid gains of 73.49 points (+1.56%) to end 4781.26. The strength posted today eliminated all of last week's losses as all three indices are better than +4.8% in the five day trading span.

The rally comes on the back of Friday gains, and global market strength. European markets boasted notable gains on the day as well, as the IBEX- (+3.6%), CAC-(+3.5), FTSE-(+2.8%) and the Nikkei-(+1.6%) all finished in the green. Strength among Asian equities stemmed from the Bank of Japan, as the central bank will begin a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday. To that end, the yen pulled back about 0.5% versus the dollar today, landing the dollar/yen pair higher to 120.50 as the pair had spent the majority of the past two weeks near the 120.00 level.

Technology (XLK 40.87, +0.79) as a whole traded middle of the ladder among other sectors in the market. Sectors ended IYZ +3.42%, XLE +3.02%, XLI +2.84%, XLB +2.61%, XLF +2.11%, XLK +1.92%, XLP +1.71%, XLY +1.48%, XLU +1.29%, XLV +0.26%. Market data was limited today to the ISM Services Index, which declined 56.9 in September from 59.0.

As a sub-sector, Social Media (SOCL 18.47, +0.55 +3.07%) posted notable strength today on the back of Twitter's (TWTR 28.16, +1.85 +7.03%) announcement that it had selected co-Founder Jack Dorsey as CEO, his second stint in such an office. The company replaced former CEO and Chairman Richard Costolo with Dorsey, but the Chairman seat remains vacant. The appointment ends a nearly 3 month search for the new CEO, and ends Dorsey's stay as interim CEO. The company also appointed Adam Bain as Chief Operating Officer.

Also today, Internet (FDN 69.74, +1.75 +2.57%) names posted notable strength. Chief among them was Google (GOOG 641.47, +14.56, +2.32%), which as of today traded under the name Alphabet Inc. The search-engine giant also announced an investment in messaging company Symphony, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

In addition, the S&P 500 Information Technology (686.32, +12.97 +1.93%) sector also posted notable gains on the session. Sector components which outperformed the broader market today were MU +10.62%, JNPR +4.90%, HPQ +4.26%, CSCO +4.23%, LLTC +4.11%, SYMC +3.97%, MCHP +3.92%, STX +3.84%. Also today, shares of Apple (AAPL 110.78, +0.40 +0.36%) traded lower in early trade following a cautious Digitimes report noting Japanese iPhone sales have not kept up with demand observed after the previous release. The stock rebounded about midday, though, and finished above flat lines.
Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM 149.04, +4.46 +3.08%) acquired Cleversafe, a developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software and appliances. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Xerox (XRX 9.97, +0.12 +1.22%) announced that CFO Kathryn Mikells is stepping down to pursue other professional opportunities.

Diageo plc (DEO 110.38, +0.65 +0.59%) appointed Mikells as CFO effective Nov. 9.

Wind River, an Intel (INTC 31.22, +0.71 +2.33%) company, introduced the latest version of Wind River Linux. Wind River Linux 8 brings together the flexibility and interoperability of open source along with improved user experience and scalability for addressing the opportunities and challenges of IoT. The company also introduced new features for Wind River Open Virtualization.

FireEye (FEYE 31.88, -1.18 -3.57%) and F5 Networks (FFIV 122.94, +3.11 +2.60%) announced a global partnership to defend against the evolving security threats to the enterprise. The agreement also includes a unified approach to worldwide sales, deployment and support, thereby helping to ensure the best possible end-to-end experience for customers.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 28.50, +1.33 +4.90%) announced that AT&T (T 33.43, +0.79 +2.42%) has selected Juniper Networks Contrail Networking to provide software-defined networking capabilities in its AT&T Integrated Cloud infrastructure.

Google (GOOG) has partnered with Assurant (AIZ 79.68, +1.43 +1.83%) Solutions to develop and launch a mobile phone protection program in the U.S. called Nexus Protect.

Marvell (MRVL 9.13, +0.06 +0.61%) announced its continued collaboration with Google (GOOG) in enabling Chromecast 2.0 and Chromecast Audio powered by Marvell's ARMADA 1500 Mini Plus (88DE3006) and advanced Avastar 88W8887 solutions.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

GoDaddy (GDDY 26.04, +0.37 +1.44%) announced customers pointing a domain name to social media sites increased 37% over the last 18 months.

Viacom (VIAB 45.46, +1.13 +2.55%) and AT&T (T) reached a multi-year distribution agreement for VIAB's media networks both AT&T's U-verse TV and DIRECTV platforms.

GigOptix (GIG 1.84, +0.10 +5.75%) received a $6.1 million order for the next two years with supplier of advanced aerospace and defense products.

Tyler Tech (TYL 168.82, +0.81 +0.48%) announced a $30 million agreement with Cook County, Illinois for its iasWorld appraisal and tax admin software solution.

Fusion Telecom Int'l (FSNN 2.07, +0.09 +4.55%) acquired RootAxcess. The company expects the ddeal to be immediately accretive to FSNN's earnings and cash flow.

SunEdison (SUNE 9.04, +0.77 +9.31%) announced a proposed series of actions to optimize business operations in alignment with current and future market opportunities.

VASCO Data Security (VDSI 17.40, -0.44 -2.47%) named former Groupon (GRPN 3.60, +0.19 +5.57%) EMEA CFO Mark Hoyt as CFO.

Kulicke & Soffa President and CEO Bruno Guilmart to step down effective today. Guilmart plans to retire but will serve as an advisor to the Board of Directors until calendar year end 2015.

Relx (RELX 17.59, +0.03 +0.17%) to sell its Cordell Information unit in Australia to Corelogic (CLGX 38.73, +0.85 +2.24%). Financial terms were not disclosed.
Siliconware Precision (SPIL 6.28, -0.01 -0.16%) responded to Advanced Semi's (ASX 5.43, +0.01 +0.28%) preliminary injunction. SPIL stated that ASE is claiming to be making a 'financial investment' in the company, but SPIL would note that ASE has yet to formally register as a shareholder of the company, and that ASE seeks to prevent the company from holding the extraordinary shareholders meeting.

ASX then issued an open letter to SPIL shareholders. The letter highlighted ASX is not alone in opposing the proposals to be voted upon at the meeting.

Telenor (TELNY 57.23, +1.20 +2.14%) to divest stake in VimpleCom (VIP 4.08, +0.03 +0.74%), of which the company holds a 33% stake.

Novatel Wireless (MIFI 2.39, +0.12 +5.29%) filed for about a 13.07 million share offering of common stock for selling shareholders.

Action Semi (ACTS 1.72, -0.03 -1.71%) purchased 83,999,299 shares at $2.30 per ADS under the previously disclosed 84 million share tender offer.

Analyst actions:

TWTR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Axiom Capital,
JNPR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel;
FEYE was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray,
LRCX and AMAT were downgraded to Underperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts

4:33 pm Silicon Motion sees Q4 revs +8-10% sequentially (up from previous guidance of +5-10% sequentially) vs Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of +7.6% ($93.81 mln) (SIMO) : Gross margin (non-GAAP) is expected to be near the mid-point of the company's original guidance range of 50% to 52%. The Company will release its full third quarter 2015 results after the market closes on October 28, 2015.

4:05 pm : The stock market enjoyed an upbeat start to the trading week with the S&P 500 returning near its rebound high from the middle of September. The benchmark index climbed 1.8% while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%) followed not far behind.

The Monday buying frenzy was not fueled by quarterly earnings as the first portion of the reporting period is still two weeks away. Instead, the advance was a continuation of the Friday rally, which was predicated on the belief that a disappointing September Nonfarm Payrolls report would prevent the Federal Reserve from raising rates at the October meeting. In that same vein, the bad-is-good dynamic appeared to be on display overseas as Japan's Nikkei (+1.6%), Germany's DAX (+2.7%), and France's CAC (+3.5%) vaulted higher even though Services PMI readings in Japan (51.4; prior 53.7) and the eurozone (53.7; expected 54.0) disappointed.

With global investors showing hope for more monetary stimulus, the spotlight will be on the Bank of Japan considering the central bank will begin a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday. Last week, Bloomberg reported that the BoJ is not looking to increase the size of its quantitative and qualitative easing program, but some investors remain hopeful for a surprise to the contrary. The yen retreated about 0.5% against the dollar today, sending the dollar/yen pair up to 120.50 after spending the bulk of the past two weeks near 120.00.

All ten sectors finished the day in positive territory, but the health care space (+0.3%) struggled to stay in the green as biotechnology weighed. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 313.20, -2.33) was in for another volatile session, surrendering an early gain to end lower by 0.7% after being down more than 2.0%. That being said, biotechnology's underperformance only left its mark on the Nasdaq as the tech-heavy index lagged throughout the day. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 overcame that weakness with ease.

Cyclical sectors were at the forefront of the Monday advance with energy (+3.0%) holding the lead throughout the session. The sector rallied behind crude oil early on and continued its charge into the afternoon even as WTI crude retreated from its best level of the day, ending higher by 1.6% at $46.26/bbl.

Elsewhere, top-weighted technology (+1.9%) and financials (+2.1%) spent the day just ahead of the broader market while the industrial sector (+2.8%) was nearly as strong as energy. Transport stocks went along for the ride with the Dow Jones Transportation Average spiking 2.3% to register its fifth consecutive advance.

Also of note, the technology sector managed to spend the day ahead of the broader market even though Apple (AAPL 110.78, +0.40) struggled to keep pace. The sector heavyweight underperformed after Digitimes reported that new iPhone sales in Japan have not kept up with demand observed after the previous release.

Today's rally in equities coincided with daylong selling in the Treasury market that pushed the 10-yr note below Friday's low. As a result, the benchmark yield rose seven basis points to 2.06%.

Trading volume was well above average as more than a billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the ISM Services Index, which declined to 56.9 in September from 59.0 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a drop to 58.0. Although many of the sub-categories in the index showed sharp declines in September, there wasn't a prevalence of contractions like those that plagued the ISM Manufacturing Index. The services sector remains much more robust than the manufacturing sector.

Tomorrow, the August Trade Balance will be reported at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus -$44.50 billion).

Nasdaq Composite +1.0% YTD
S&P 500 -3.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.9% YTD

DJ30 +304.06 NASDAQ +73.49 SP500 +35.68 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2346/1.85 bln/638 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2745/1.05 bln/376

3:35 pm :

Oil prices were a big story today after more catalysts hit the commodity.
Oil prices rose today after Russia said it was ready to talk about global oil markets if an OPEC/non-OPEC meeting were to arise, among other catalysts.
Separately, Russia airstrikes in Syria are providing more tension on geopolitical issues.
By the end of today's floor trading session, Nov crude oil rose +1.6% to $46.28/barrel.
In other energy, Nov natural gas gained one cent to finish at $2.46/MMBtu.
Some metals lost some steam in afternoon activity, but still closed a little higher.
Silver came back, however, and ended the day near today's high, finishing +0.48 at $15.72/oz.
Dec gold ended +$1.20 to $1137.90/oz. Dec copper, meanwhile, ended +$0.03 at $2.36/lb

12:05 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (72) outpacing new lows (50) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAME, AAP, ABTL, ACGL, ARTNA, ATO, AWR, BGSF, BNK, CBOE, CBZ, CENT, CENTA, CHFN, COR, CRWN, CSFL, CTRV, CUBE, DSGX, ELS, ENVI, EPAM, EQC, FBC, FCN, FCVA, FIZZ, FLTX, FNFG, GCI, GPN, GSBC, HDB, HILL, HNNA, HRB, HRL, HTBI, INFY, JE, JKHY, LABL, LG, MAA, MCZ, MNRO, NCI, NEWR, NKE, NVDA, OGS, OSIS, PBY, POOL, PSA, RLH, SFST, SMED, SNX, SSRI, TACT, TSN, TYL, UCBA, ULBI, UVE, VRSK, VRSN, WDFC, WGL, XUE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACPW, ARCI, ARO, ARTW, ASCMA, BGT, BIND, BOX, CATB, CCCR, CDZI, CETC, CGNT, CHEF, CPSI, CPST, ESSX, FDEU, FSI, GKOS, GROW, HGSH, IMN, ISRL, LNTH, MDVX, MSL, NCTY, NSPR, NTRA, NVLS, NWLI, NXTD, ORIG, PRGN, PRKR, PVA, RBCN, RBY, RCG, RJF, SIEN, STDY, TDOC, TDY, TRMR, VRNG, VVR, ZAZA, ZSAN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: None

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: None

Marvell (MRVL) announced its continued collaboration with Google (GOOG) in enabling Chromecast 2.0 and Chromecast Audio powered by Marvell's ARMADA 1500 Mini Plus (88DE3006) and advanced Avastar 88W8887 solutions.

6:30 am Kulicke & Soffa President and CEO Bruno Guilmart to step down (KLIC) : The co announced that it has agreed with Bruno Guilmart that he will step down as President, Chief Executive Officer and as a Director of the Company effective today. Mr. Guilmart plans to retire but will serve as an advisor to the Board of Directors until calendar year end 2015. The Board has named Jonathan H. Chou, Kulicke & Soffa's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, to fill the role of interim Chief Executive Officer and it has formed a committee to conduct a search for a permanent successor among external and internal candidates.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:31 pm Ultratech receives large multiple system order for fan-out wafer-level packaging application (UTEK) : The co announced that it has received a large multiple-system order from a leading semiconductor manufacturer for its advanced packaging AP300 lithography systems. Ultratech will begin shipping the systems in Q4FY15 to the customer's facility in Taiwan. The strong demand for thin mobile communication devices such as smartphones and tablets continues to drive growth in WLP

4:30 pm QuickLogic sees Q3 below consensus (limited coverage) (QUIK) :

Co sees Q3 EPS ($0.08) vs ($0.07) two analyst estimate; revs $4.2 mln vs $5.00 mln two analyst estimate. The primary reason for this shortfall to guidance was an unexpected and temporary decline of mature product revenue, which totaled ~$1.3 million. New product revenue was ~$2.9 million. Increased shipments of sensor processing and display bridge solutions were offset by a larger than expected decline in smart-connectivity solutions. Sensor processing solutions are expected to increase again in Q4 2015. Due to lower mature product revenue, and a notable increase in display bridge shipments to Samsung, we anticipate reporting non-GAAP gross margin of ~30%. "We have shipped the first samples of our revolutionary EOS sensor processing system, and continue to anticipate initiating production shipments during the first half of 2016. We are also particularly pleased with our recent design win at Runtastic, and we look forward to announcing more design wins with customers that have high brand recognition in the U.S., Europe and Asia."

4:25 pm Xilinx beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides DecQ revs in-line but mid-point of guidance is above consensus (XLNX) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.48 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.46; revenues fell 12.7% year/year and fell 4% sequentially to $527.6 mln vs the $527.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3 (Dec), sees Q3 revs up +3-7% on a sequential basis, which we compute as $543-565 mln vs. $546.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.


The markets ended Wednesday with notable losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted the worst losses today, shedding 157.14 points (-0.92%) to 16924.75. The S&P 500 was down 9.45 points (-0.47%) at the end of trading to 1994.24. The Nasdaq Composite rounded out the bunch lower by 13.76 points (-0.29%) to 4782.85. Two makes a streak, as all three major US indices have posted losses in back-to-back sessions.

Weakness extended from the overnight session as the majority of European indices traded lower -- FTSE (-1.2%), DAX (-1.2%), MIB (-1.0%), CAC (-0.7%), IBEX (-0.06%) and the ASE (-0.3%).

In the scheme of sector movement, XLK (41.36, -0.08 -0.19%) finished roughly middle of the pack. Other sectors ended Wednesday trade XLB +0.83%, XLE +0.82%, XLU -0.02%, XLV -0.19%, IYZ -0.67%, XLF -0.74%, XLY -1.02%, XLI -1.04%, XLP -1.16% with only Energy and Materials managing to stay above water.

The story of the session was Semis (SOX 645.70, +23.42 +3.76%), as the sector produced not one but two M&A rumors pegged to names like Analog Devices (ADI 60.99, +4.94 +8.81%), Maxim Integrated (MXIM 38.33, +3.62 +10.43%) and SanDisk (SNDK 68.70, +6.93 +11.22%). The sector was notably strong today, not spending a single tick below flat lines. Also of note in the sector, Blue Chip name Intel (INTC 32.80, +0.76 +2.37%) posted a Q3 beat on the top and bottom lines, and traded red-to-green today as the broader sector strength aided the name out of the red.

On the flip of that coin, Social Media (SOCL 18.41, -0.17 -0.91%) names were notably weaker today as the only news of note came from Twitter (TWTR 29.38, +0.32 +1.10%) which named Omid Kordestani as Executive Chairman of the Board. Kordestani is the former Chief Business Officer at Google (GOOG 651.16, -1.14 -0.17%).

Other notable news items among sector components:

Aruba Networks, an HP company (HPQ 29.42, +0.19 +0.65%) announced that Science Applications International (SAIC 42.22, +0.27 +0.64%) is upgrading to Aruba Networks' ClearPass Policy Management and AirWave solutions for a company-wide network overhaul

Cisco (CSCO 27.82, -0.03 -0.11%) announced plans with SK Broadband to deploy a next-generation converged cable access platform across its national footprint. SK Broadband is a Tier 1 Internet broadband service provider in Korea with five million subscribers.

IBM (IBM 150.01, +0.39 +0.26%) announced that Bluemix, its cloud computing platform, will be available in China via a collaboration with 21Vianet Group (VNET 19.55, +0.18 +0.93%).

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Twitter (TWTR) named Omid Kordestani as Executive Chairman of the Board. Kordestani is the former Chief Business Officer at Google (GOOG).

Bazaarvoice (BV 4.40, -0.51 -10.39%) announced that Austin Ventures has notified the company of its intent to distribute the common stock of the company held by Austin Ventures to its partners. As of August 11, AV held 10,693,525 shares of common stock.

Blucora (BCOR 12.58, -2.23 -15.06%) confirmed it will acquire HD Vest Financial for about $580 million. The deal is expected to be immediately accretive to BCOR's EPS. The company also announced it has initiated a process to explore the divestiture of Infospace and Monoprice. The company also announced Bill Ruckelshaus has resigned from the CEO and President roles. In addition, BCOR updated its Q3 guidance, sees Q3 adj. EPS loss of $0.15-0.12 on revenues of $84-85 million.

Zendesk (ZEN 19.53, -0.76 -3.75%) announced the acquisition of French firm We Are Cloud SAS for $45 million in cash. The company does not expect the deal to have a material impact on its FY15 revenues or non-GAAP operating loss.

Science Applications (SAIC) was awarded a prime contract worth more than $70 million by the FAA for support services of the Office of Aviation Safety

Trimble Navigation (TRMB 17.77, +0.65 +3.80%) has acquired privately held Swedish firm Pocket Mobile; financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Telecomm Sys (TSYS 3.67 flat) received a delivery order from the U.S. Army for up to $223.4 million if all options are exercised. The initial funding on this order is $9.9 million for the base 12-month period starting September 2015.

Shopify (SHOP 33.64, +0.52 +1.57%) partnered with Uber to offer UberRUSH delivery services to SHOP merchants. The UberRUSH program will begin with a select number of Shopify merchants located in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco and will be rolled out to additional cities over time.

Support.com (SPRT 1.25, +0.04 +3.31%) announced Board approval for the adoption of a stockholder rights plan.

Ingram Micro (IM 29.07, +0.06 +0.21%) to acquire DOCdata Nederland and DOCdata International for about $175 million. The company is expected to contribute in excess of $150 million in annual services revenue to Ingram Micro and to contribute 5 to 7 cents to 2016 non-GAAP earnings per share.

Rocket Fuel (FUEL 4.87, -0.06 -1.22%) President Richard Frankel's role to conclude effective October 16.

Ormat Tech (ORA 36.83, +0.75 +2.08%) and Toshiba (TOSBF 2.78, -0.02 -0.71%) announced that the two companies have signed a strategic collaboration to develop geothermal power generation systems.

Rapid7 (RPD 20.58, -2.43 -10.56%) acquired machine data search technology firm Logentries for $68 million consisting of $36 million in cash and $32 million in RPD equity.

Ebix (EBIX 25.81, +0.80 +3.20%) expanded its existing credit facility from $190 to $240 million to fund its growth and share repurchase initiatives.

FXCM (FXCM 10.02, +0.60 +6.37%) reported Sept. customer trading metrics, showing retail customer trading volume of $326 billion.

Ubisoft (UBSFY 5.19, +0.43 +9.03%) acquired mobile-title firm Longtail Halifax; financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In reaction to earnings:

Intel (INTC) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at $0.64 and $14.46 billion, respectively. Gross margins were in-line with guidance of 63%, and SaaS revenues were $556 million, up4$ QoQ. Client Computing Group revenues were up 13% QoQ to $8.5 billion. The company gave Q4 guidance for revenues of $14.3-15.3 billion on gross margins of 62% plus or minus a couple of percentage points.

ASML (ASML 87.27, -0.04 -0.05%) reported Q3 EPS which was better than anticipated at 0.75 on revenues which came in in-line at 1.55 billion, and rose 17.2% year-over-year. The company also issued downside guidance for Q4 revenues of about 1.4 billion.

Linear Tech (LLTC 43.72, +2.56 +6.22%) reported Q1 EPS and revenues which came in in-line with expectations. LLTC saw EPS of $0.46 on revenues of $341.92 million. The company also issued upside guidance for Q2 revenues of flat to up 3% sequentially to $341.9-352.2 million.

ADTRAN (ADTN 14.51, -0.95 -6.14%) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at $0.19 on revenues which missed at $158.08 million.

Analyst actions:

SAP was upgraded to Buy from Hold at HSBC Securities,
EA was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at MKM Partners;
GPRO was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray, JMP Securities downgraded
TWTR and ORCL to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform

4:10 pm : The major averages ended the midweek session on a lower note with the S&P 500 (-0.5%) registering its second consecutive decline. The benchmark index settled near its worst level of the day while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) outperformed.

Equities displayed modest gains in the early going, but relative weakness in several influential sectors prevented the S&P 500 from holding its early gain. The index made another brief appearance above its flat line during the early afternoon, but slid to lows before the closing bell.

The reasons for today's retreat were not particularly difficult to find as economic data reported this morning disappointed while quarterly earnings received since yesterday's closing bell did not inspire confidence either.

Eight sectors registered losses with four falling 1.0% or more. The financial sector (-1.0%) settled among the laggards after showing relative weakness throughout the day. Three major components reported earnings with Bank of America (BAC 15.64, +0.17) adding 0.8% in reaction to a bottom-line beat on in-line revenue while JPMorgan Chase (JPM 59.99, -1.56) and Wells Fargo (WFC 51.50, -0.36) surrendered 2.5% and 0.7%, respectively. JPMorgan Chase reported in-line earnings on below-consensus revenue while Wells Fargo delivered a one-cent beat.

Wells Fargo's report highlighted a quarter-over-quarter decline in mortgage originations, which was roughly in-line with seasonal trends. That being said, the news was met with selling in the homebuilder space that sent the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 26.86, -0.69) lower by 2.5% while the consumer discretionary sector (-1.0%) ended among the laggards.

With the Q3 earnings season heating up, investors have begun receiving reports from the technology sector. Today, the focus was on Intel (INTC 32.80, +0.76) as the stock erased its early loss to end higher by 2.4% after the company reported better than expected results, but lowered its capital expenditures guidance.

Elsewhere among semiconductor names, SanDisk (SNDK 68.70, +6.93) soared 11.2% after Bloomberg reported the company is exploring a sale with Micron (MU 18.82, +0.64) and Western Digital (WDC 83.19, -1.18) identified as potential suitors. A separate report from Bloomberg indicated that Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS 16.35, +2.21) has hired bankers in preparation for a sale.

The M&A speculation was not done there as the late afternoon featured reports indicating Analog Devices (ADI 60.99, +4.94) may merge with Maxim Integrated (MXIM 38.33, +3.62). The two names posted respective gains of 8.8% and 10.4% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index surged 3.8%.

Moving to the countercyclical side, the health care sector (-0.3%) settled a bit ahead of the broader market while the consumer staples sector (-1.1%) struggled with shares of Wal-Mart (WMT 60.03, -6.70) diving 10.0% after the company's Chief Financial Officer said operating expenses are expected to exceed sales growth during fiscal year 2016.

The retreat in stocks lured some money into the Treasury market. The 10-yr note climbed to a high during the late afternoon, sending its yield lower by seven basis points to 1.98%.

Today's session saw the strongest volume of the week as more than 860 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included PPI, Retail Sales, Business Inventories, and MBA Mortgage Index:

Producer prices declined 0.5% in September after being unchanged in August while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decrease of 0.3%
Final demand for goods declined 1.2% in September after decreasing 0.6% in August, representing the largest decline since a 1.9% drop in January
Excluding food and energy, core PPI declined 0.3% in September after increasing 0.3% in August while the consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
Retail sales increased 0.1% in September after a downward revision resulted in no growth (from 0.2%) in August while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
The one bright spot in September was the motor vehicle sector as spending at auto dealers rose 1.8%, which was in-line with the impressive reports from the motor vehicle manufacturers that were released a couple of weeks ago
Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.3% in September after declining a downwardly revised 0.1% (from +0.1%) in August while the consensus expected a decline of 0.1%
Business inventories were flat for a second consecutive month in August following a slight downward revision (from 0.1%) in July. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
Manufacturer (-0.3%) and merchant wholesalers (0.1%) already reported their August results. The only piece of new information was that retailer inventories increased 0.3% in August after increasing 0.7% in July
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index tumbled 27.6% to follow last week's 25.5% spike

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 269K), September CPI (consensus -0.2%), and October Empire Manufacturing survey (expected -8.0) will be released at 8:30 ET while the Philadelphia Fed Survey for October will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. Also of note, the September Treasury Budget (consensus $95.00 billion) will be released at 11:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +1.0% YTD
S&P 500 -3.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.6% YTD

3:40 pm :

The dollar index has been sliding lower all day, which has been giving a boost to commodities
Gold and silver were strong today. Gold inching higher all day basically, while silver futures held gains after running higher this morning
Copper ran higher today along with gold. Dec copper gained +0.4% to end at $2.41/lb
Dec gold ran +1.2% to $1180.00/oz, while Dec silver +1.3% to $16.13/oz
WTI crude oil prices recovered off of morning lows, closing the day -0.1% at $46.64/barrel
Nov nat gas gained +0.8% to $2.52/MMBtu

Tomorrow before the open look for the following companies to report:

UNH, TSM, C, GS, PM, USB, PPG, BBT, KEY, FRC, VAC, FCS, WGO, MTG, WBS, PSG, BX, WNS, LNN, HOMB, NORD

11:40 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (52) outpacing new highs (28) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ALTR, ATVI, AWK, BZC, COB, CSH, CTAS, ECL, EDGE, EDUC, EFSC, ENVI, FDI, FOXF, GAME, HCSG, LBRDK, MB, MCD, MCI, MO, NVDA, NVX, PFGC, PMCS, SGL, UBSH, VIRT

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABUS, ACST, ADTN, APAM, BIIB, BKE, BLCM, BNTCW, BV, CFX, COSI, CPHD, DWTR, ETSY, EXAS, GEN, GPRO, GROW, HTWR, IDT, ISH, JWN, KGJI, KKD, M, MGLN, MNKD, NRX, NTRA, NVLS, OPHC, OPY, OSTK, PETX, PPC, PRXI, PULM, QDEL, RLYP, RNN, RT, SBH, SDPI, SXC, VICL, VMW, VOXX, WDR, WMT, WWW, ZFGN, ZSAN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

7:09 am Pericom Semi: Montage Technology files preliminary proxy materials to solicit shareholder votes against the proposed acquisition of Pericom by Diodes Inc (DIOD) (PSEM) : In the preliminary proxy materials filed, Montage outlines: "We are soliciting proxies from Pericom shareholders to vote 'against' the Diodes acquisition proposal, the golden parachute compensation proposal and the adjournment proposal. We believe the proposed acquisition of Pericom by Diodes does not provide adequate value to Pericom shareholders. Our $18.50 per share all-cash proposal is a superior alternative for Pericom shareholders because, among other things, it provides significantly greater financial value to Pericom shareholders than the proposed combination with Diodes."

3:36 am ASML beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs below consensus (ASML) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of 0.75 per share, 0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of 0.73; revenues rose 17.2% year/year to 1.55 bln vs the 1.56 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of ~1.4 bln vs. 1.56 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The co further stated it expects a gross margin of around 45%, R&D costs of about 270 million, SG&A costs of about 90mln and an effective annualized tax rate of around 11%.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:33 pm SanDisk now higher by 7.3% in after-hours, following Bloomberg report suggesting co is in talks to be acquired by Western Digital (WDC) (SNDK) :

This follows Bloomberg reports last week suggesting SNDK was exploring a sale with Micron (MU) and Western Digital (WDC) identified as potential suitors. See 16:24 comment for details.

4:20 pm Rambus misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus (RMBS) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.14 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.15; revenues rose 5.9% year/year to $73.8 mln vs the $76.21 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $71-77 mln vs. $83.50 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Achieving revenue in this range will require that the Company sign new customer agreements for patent and solutions licensing among other matters.

4:12 pm IBM beats by $0.04, misses on revs; lowers FY15 guidance (IBM) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $3.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $3.30; revenues fell 13.9% year/year to $19.28 bln vs the $19.64 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Down 1% adjusting for currency (9 points) and the divested System x business (4 points). Revenues from the Software segment were down 10% to $5.1 bln (down 3% adjusting for currency) compared with the third quarter of 2014. Revenues from the company's strategic imperatives --- cloud, analytics, and engagement --- increased 17% year-to-year (up 27% adjusting for currency and the divested System x business Services backlog of $118 billion, up 1% adjusting for FXCo issues downside guidance for FY15, lowers EPS to $14.75-15.75, excluding non-recurring items, from $15.75-16.50 vs. $15.68 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; lowers FCF to flat from a modest increase YoY.


4:04 pm Flex reports Q2 revenue of $6.317 bln, better than Capital IQ consensus $6.167 bln; Reports Q2 EPS ex-item of $0.27, $0.02 better than $0.25 Capital IQ consensus; Guides Q3 in line (FLEX) :

For the third quarter ending December 31, 2015, revenue is expected to be in the range of $6.2 to $6.8 billion Capital IQ consensus $6.580 and adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $0.28 to $0.34 per diluted share, Captal IQ consensus $0.28.GAAP earnings per share is expected to be lower than the adjusted EPS guidance provided herein by approximately $0.06 per diluted share for estimated intangible amortization and stock-based compensation expense.

The Technology (XLK 42.13, +0.16 +0.38%) sector closed the session at highs as late session buying took the sector higher. Sectors ended the session as follows -- XLY +0.47%, XLP +0.44%, XLK +0.38%, XLV +0.32%, IYZ +0.21%, XLI +0.13%, XLU +0.07%, XLF -0.08%, XLB -0.75%, XLE -1.96% with Technology trailing only Consumer Staples and Consumer Discretionary.

The broader market on the other hand, closed in a flurry. Buying pressure at the close edged all three major US indices higher when Monday trading came to a conclusion. The Nasdaq Composite posted the strongest session, edging higher by 18.78 points (+0.38%) to 4905.47. The Dow Jones Industrial Average followed, higher by 14.57 points (+0.08%) to 17230.54. The S&P 500 edged just higher as the session closed, posting gains of 0.55 points (+0.03%) to 2033.66.

Networking (IGN) names were notably weak on the session, as sector components Ixia (XXIA 13.98, -1.02 -6.80%) and Ubiquiti Networks (UBNT 32.06, -2.09 -6.12%) were both downgraded today. Other notably weak names in the sector included LITE -2.42%, PANW -2.22%, HRS -1.63%, QCOM -1.35%.

Outperforming the broader market today were Internet (FDN 71.93, +0.42 +0.59%) names. Blue chip names like Priceline (PCLN 1376.13, +39.56 +2.96%), Netflix (NFLX 101.69, +2.70 +2.73%) and Expedia (EXPE 130.45, +3.07 +2.41%) added to the strength of the sector.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (707.45, +2.17 +0.31%), widely held names like INTC +1.66%, PYPL +1.60%, V +1.30%, WDC +1.21%, FB +0.99%, EA +0.81%, GOOGL +0.67%, AAPL +0.62%, GOOG +0.59% held the sector higher, staving off early session and midday weakness.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Microsemi (MSCC 35.33, -2.03 -5.43%) proposed to acquire PMC-Sierra (PMCS 11.73, +1.49 +14.55%) for $11.50 per share in cash and stock deal. The bid is in opposition to the earlier bid for the company by

Skyworks (SWKS 77.83, -1.77 -2.22%) to acquire PMCS for $10.50 per share.

Freddie Mac (FMCC 2.37, -0.08 -3.27%) and Intuit's (INTU 94.08, +0.46 +0.49%) Quicken Loans entered a partnership. Terms of said deal were not disclosed.

Micron's (MU 19.16, +0.66 +3.57%) CEO D. Mark Durcan has requested a voluntary and temporary base salary reduction of 50% to $525,000 effective as of Oct. 18, 2015.

Square (SQ) confirmed it has hired Jackie Reses to lead Square Capital, the company's business financing service. Reses most recently served as Yahoo's (YHOO 33.50, +0.13 +0.39%) Chief Development Officer, where she focused on revenue and product partnerships, strategic acquisitions, and operational and people transformation.

Applied Materials (AMAT 15.81, -0.02 -0.16%) announced it plans to establish a new R&D laboratory in Singapore in collaboration with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research. The S$150 million joint investment will focus on developing advanced semiconductor technology to fabricate future generations of logic and memory chips.

Western Digital (WDC 80.48, +0.96 +1.21%) to integrate substantial portions of its HGST and WD subsidiaries following decisions by China's Ministry of Commerce. The company also announced the appointment of Mike Cordano as President and COO.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

AT&T's (T 33.63, -0.20 -0.59%) DirecTV reported an error in financial statements relating to Venezuelan subsidiary, about $1.1 billion charge added to restated financials.

Imation (IMN 1.97, +0.03 +1.55%) to explore new alternative uses for excess capital. The company has concluded that initiatives should not be limited solely to areas of historical focus and that it should consider opportunities to diversify its business activities.

WEX (WEX 96.12, +4.01 +4.35%) to acquire Electronic Funds Source for about $1.1 billion in cash and 4 million shares of common stock. The deal is expected to be immediately accretive to adjusted net income.

I.D. Systems (IDSY 3.22, +0.01 +0.31%) secured a multi-year renewal and expansion contract with Knight Transportation (KNX 25.45, +0.19 +0.75%).

Windstream (WIN 6.94, +0.09 +1.31%) agreed to sell its data center business to TierPoint for $575 million in cash.

Qumu (QUMU 3.23, -0.41 -11.26%) President and COO Vern Hanzlik to succeed Sherman Black as CEO effective today.

21Vianet (VNET 20.30, +0.06 +0.30%) appointed Steve Zhang as CEO effective October 19, 2015.

Science Applications (SAIC 42.44, +0.11 +0.26%) was awarded a $757 million systems and computer resources support task order from the US Army.

Model N (MODN 10.04, +0.01 +0.10%) agrees to acquire channel data management solution provider, Channelinsight. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Nokia (NOK 7.01, -0.01 -0.14%) received antitrust clearance from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce for its proposed acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.78, +0.02 +0.53%).

TeleComm Sys (TSYS 4.05, +0.25 +6.58%) received the delivery order with a $91 million ceiling contract value from the US Army for SNAP deployment satellite systems sustainment.

Bridgeline Digital (BLIN 1.29 -0.04 -3.35%) entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement under which it may sell up to an aggregate of 680,884 shares of common stock at $1.00 per share.

Telecom Italia (TI 12.20, +0.39 +3.30%) confirmed EUR 3 billion plan, announces resumption of contracts with MetroWeb.

Lumos Networks (LMOS 12.51, +0.09 +0.72%) named Thomas Ferry as interim Chief Technology Officer effective Oct. 12, 2015.

Infosys (INFY 17.92, -0.12 -0.67%) to acquire Noah Consulting for $70 million.

Arris (ARRS 28.73, -0.24 -0.83%) provided an update on the pending merger with Pace, warns the closing may not occur until late December or 1Q16.

Ciber (CBR 3.43, -0.08 -2.28%) was granted a motion to dismiss the Hawaii Department of Transportation's complaint for ignoring the law and a lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Diebold (DBD 35.80, +2.25 +6.71%) in talks with Wincor Nixdorf regarding a potential business combination valued at roughly $1.8 billion. Diebold (DBD) filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission and District Court in Ohio, alleging that Nautilus Hyosung infringed on its ATM patents.

Analyst actions:

VOD was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie;
ORCL was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
STX was downgraded to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna,
QUMU was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann,
SMSI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
UBNT was downgraded to Mkt Underperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities,
TEF was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
XXIA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich

4:10 pm : The stock market began the trading week on a quiet note with the major averages spending the Monday session inside narrow ranges. The S&P 500 settled just above its flat line after climbing off its opening low while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) outperformed.

In some ways, the range-bound action was a bit of a surprise considering investors received China's Q3 GDP report over the weekend. The growth report proved to be a mixed bag as GDP beat estimates (+6.9%; consensus 6.8%), but dipped below the official target growth rate of 7.0% year-over-year.

Asian markets took the data in stride with China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng both ending flat; however, the slowdown in the year-over-year growth rate weighed on commodities, sending crude oil lower by 3.0% to $45.90/bbl.

The sell-off in crude oil futures pressured the energy sector (-2.0%) while a major sector component-Halliburton (HAL 37.36, -0.45)-lost 1.2% in reaction to better than expected earnings on below-consensus revenue.

Similar to energy, the materials sector (-0.8%) ended well behind the broader market while the remaining sectors fared better. The top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%) eked out a modest gain while another influential group-financials (unch)-ended just below its flat line despite a 4.8% dive in the shares of Morgan Stanley (MS 32.32, -1.63) brought on by a disappointing earnings report.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, the discretionary space (+0.5%) outperformed throughout the day thanks to strength in retail names. Also in the discretionary sector, Weight Watchers (WTW 13.92, +7.13) soared 105.0% after announcing Oprah Winfrey will purchase newly-issued shares representing 10.0% of all shares outstanding.

Moving to the countercyclical side, the health care sector (+0.3%) settled among the leaders after enduring a volatile session that mirrored the price action in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 315.94, +1.62) was up more than 2.0% at the start, but surrendered that gain after presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission, requesting an inquiry into drug pricing. The biotech ETF returned into the green by the closing bell, ending higher by 0.5%.

Similar to stocks, Treasuries maintained narrow ranges throughout the day with the 10-yr yield ending flat at 2.03%.

Today's participation was a bit below average as just over 800 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for October, which rose to 64 from a downwardly revised 61 (from 62) while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at 62. Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to September Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.15 million) and Building Permits (consensus 1.17 million) with both data points set to cross at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +3.6% YTD
S&P 500 -1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.4% YTD

DJ30 +14.57 NASDAQ +18.78 SP500 +0.55 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1410/1.47 bln/1393 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1430/805.9 mln/1665

3:40 pm :

The dollar index continued to trade higher today, which helped weigh on commodities today
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, fell 1.4% today
Nov WTI crude oil futures slid lower today and was in the red all day
Nov crude ended today's session -3% at $45.90/barrel
Nov natural gas closed +0.4% at $2.44/MMBtu
Metals got hit today too
Dec gold ended floor trading -0.9% at $1172.70/oz, while Dec silver closed -1.6% at $15.84/oz
Dec copper finished -1.7% at $2.36/lb

11:35 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (77) outpacing new lows (40) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABTL, ACGL, ADEP, AEPI, AKO.A, AKO.B, APDN, ARTNA, AVB, BMRC, BNK, BSQR, BZC, CALM, CDW, CENT, CINF, CLX, CMN, COB, COR, CRM, CSH, DEA, DEI, DPS, EBF, EGBN, ELS, ENVI, EQC, FF, FONR, GAME, GE, GLOB, HA, HOMB, HRL, HTBI, IGLD, IPHI, JJSF, K, KINS, LG, LOXO, MPWR, MRKT, MSEX, MTS, MXL, NDAQ, NKE, NVX, NYRT, OGS, OME, PMCS, PNY, PRA, PRMW, PSA, RENX, RNR, SBUX, SHEN, SIFI, SIGI, TOWN, TSS, UBSH, UDR, V, VLRS, VRTU, WTR

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AMS, ATRS, BDE, BNSO, BSI, CPAH, CPSS, CTMX, CUR, CVA, DRWI, FSC, GLDD, GNCA, HCLP, ISH, KSU, LITE, LNG, MFRM, MOKO, MSL, MSM, MYRG, NGL, NNBR, NTRA, ORN, PERF, PWR, SAVE, SIEB, STX, SXC, SYRX, TDY, VXUP, WAYN, WCC, WILC

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

6:15 am PMC-Sierra: Microsemi Corporation (MSCC) proposes to acquire PMC-Sierra for $11.50/share, or ~$2.4 bln; believes its offer constitutes a 'superior proposal' over the Skyworks (SWKS) deal (PMCS) :

Microsemi Corporation (MSCC) announced that it submitted an offer to acquire PMC-Sierra in a cash and stock transaction. Based on the closing stock price of Microsemi on Oct. 16, 2015, the transaction is valued at $11.50 per PMC share, representing a premium of ~50% to the closing price on Oct. 5, 2015, the last trading day prior to the announcement of PMC's proposed acquisition with Skyworks Solutions (SWKS)

Microsemi believes its cash and stock proposal would provide PMC shareholders with a substantial premium and immediate cash value, as well as the opportunity to participate in the significant upside potential of a global analog and mixed-signal leader with a highly diversified platform for growth and profitability. Microsemi believes its proposal constitutes a "Superior Proposal" under the terms of PMC's merger agreement with Skyworks. Under the terms of Microsemi's proposal, PMC shareholders will receive $8.75 in cash and 0.0736 of a share of Microsemi common stock for each share of PMC common stock held at the close of the transaction. The implied total transaction value is approximately $2.4 billion and the implied enterprise value is $2.2 billion, net of PMC's net cash balance as of June 27, 2015. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Microsemi's non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow. Microsemi anticipates achieving more than $100 million in annual cost synergies with greater than $75 million of those to be realized in the first full quarter of combined operations. Microsemi currently estimates more than $0.60 of non-GAAP EPS accretion in the first full year after closing the transaction.

For reference, earlier this month PMCS and Skyworks entered into a deal for Skyworks to acquire PMC-Sierra for $10.50/share

4:44 am Western Digital to integrate substantial portions of its HGST and WD subsidiaries following decision by China's Ministry of Commerce; Mike Cordano named President and COO (WDC) :

The co announced a decision from China's Ministry of Commerce, which enables the company to integrate substantial portions of its HGST and WD subsidiaries under Western Digital Corporation. As a unified entity, Western Digital hopes to further drive its ability to innovate and lead in the changing data storage industry.

The agency's decision is the result of an ongoing dialogue regarding the "hold separate" restriction associated with Western Digital's acquisition of HGST in March 2012. As part of the agreement with MOFCOM, and in order to leverage the rich storage industry heritage of each long-standing brand, Western Digital will continue to offer both HGST and WD product brands in the market and maintain separate sales teams for two years from the date of the decision.

Integration activities will begin immediately and are expected to continue over the next 24 months. Western Digital expects the integration of corporate and other key functions, including research and development, heads and media operations, engineering and manufacturing, will result in significant opportunities for growth, synergies and cost savings consistent with the levels previously outlined by the company.

The company also announced today that Mike Cordano, formerly president of the HGST subsidiary, has been appointed president and chief operating officer of Western Digital by the company's board of directors. Jim Murphy, who previously served as president of the WD subsidiary, will lead the Storage Devices business unit, which includes the company's HDD and SSD products. Jim Welsh and Dave Tang will lead the company's Content Solutions and Storage Solutions business units, respectively. Steve Milligan will continue to serve as chief executive officer of Western Digital Corporation and oversee all business and corporate functions, including an Advanced Technology organization led by Steve Campbell, former chief technology officer for HGST.

Applied Materials (AMAT) announced it plans to establish a new R&D laboratory in Singapore in collaboration with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research. The S$150 million joint investment will focus on developing advanced semiconductor technology to fabricate future generations of logic and memory chips.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The broader market finished Wednesday with modest losses. The Nasdaq Composite led the way lower by 40.85 points (-0.84%) to close 4840.12. The S&P 500 ended lower by 11.83 points (-0.58%) to 2018.94. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 48.50 points (-0.28%) to end Wednesday 17168.61. Economic data on the Wednesday session was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which jumped 11.8% to follow last week's 27.6% decline.

The Technology (XLK 41.70, -0.32 -0.76%) sector ended the session with notable losses. The sector traded most of the morning session in the green, but around midday turned negative, and finished near lows of the day. Other sectors finished as follows XLP +0.02%, XLI +0.02%, XLU -0.20%, XLY -0.47%, XLF -0.72%, XLK -0.76%, XLB -0.89%, XLV -0.91%, IYZ -1.13%, XLE -1.23%.

As a subsector, Cloud Computing (SKYY 29.36, -0.57 -1.92%) was weak on the session as large components VMware (VMW 55.42, -13.34 -19.40%) and EMC (EMC 25.77, -1.72 -6.26%) announced the plans for the new cloud business jointly owned 50:50 by the two -Vitrustream. Virtustream's financial results to be consolidated into VMware financial statements beginning in Q1 2016. Other names displaying weakness in the sector today included RAX -3.72%, TDC -3.31%, WIT -3.01%, BCOV -2.80%.

Combating the weakness in the broader market, Semiconductor (SOX 653.24, +1.37 +0.21%) names were notably strong. M&A was active in the space today, as deals between both SNDK/WDC and KLAC/LRCX.

SanDisk (SNDK 76.78, +1.59 +2.11%) agreed to be acquired by Western Digital (WDC 71.44, -3.42 -4.57%) for $86.50 per share, or about $19 billion. In regards to the

KLA-Tencor (KLAC 63.98, +10.12 +18.79%) acquisition by Lam Research (LRCX 70.79, +0.76 +1.09%), the company would be acquired for about $67.02 per share or about $10.6 billion.

Internet (FDN 69.89, -1.30 -1.83%) names were also notably weak today as key holding Yahoo! (YHOO 31.12, -1.71 -5.21%) reported less than stellar results. Other names in the sector which posted weakness included Twitter (TWTR 29.30, -1.61 -5.22%), following a downgraded at Morgan Stanley, CSOD -4.67%, GRPN -3.45%, PYPL -2.98%,. LNKD -2.33%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (699.46, -5.51 -0.78%) sector, trading action lasted in positive territory for most of the morning. The afternoon was a different story, as the sector fell at about noon into negative territory and closed near session lows. Names which posted notable weakness today were RHT -1.85%, ADSK -1.67%, NVDA -1.30%, GOOGL -1.21%, MSFT -1.19%, HPQ -1.16%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

SanDisk (SNDK) has agreed to be acquired by Western Digital (WDC) for $86.50 per share, or about $19 billion. If the previously announced investment in Western Digital by Unisplendour Corporation Limited closes prior to this acquisition, Western Digital will pay $85.10 per share in cash and 0.0176 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock; and if the Unisplendour transaction has not closed or has been terminated, $67.50 in cash and 0.2387 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock.

Qualcomm's (QCOM 58.97, -0.03 -0.05%) Capsule subsidiary received FDA 510(k) clearance for SmartLinx Vitals Plus, a patient monitoring system that integrates vital signs monitoring and clinical documentation into one scalable platform.In addition to reporting quarterly results,

EMC (EMC) and VMware (VMW) announced the plan to form a new cloud services business called Virtustream headed by Rodney Rogers as CEO.

Yahoo! (YHOO) and Alphabet's (GOOG 642.61, -7.67 -1.18%) Google entered into a Google Services Agreement under which Google will provide Yahoo with search advertisements through Google's AdSense for Search service, web algorithmic search services through Google's Websearch Service, and image search services.

KLA-Tencor (KLAC) in addition to reporting quarterly results, announced it will be acquired by Lam Research (LRCX) for about $67.02 per share, or about $10.6 billion. The deal is expected to be accretive to LRCX's non-GAAP earnings and free cash flow per share during the first 12 months post-closing.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Ingram Micro (IM 28.77, -0.25 -0.86%) agreed to acquire Brazilian Group ACAO. The company expects $300 million in annual value-added solutions revenues, and for the deal to be modestly accretive to 2016 FY non-GAAP EPS.

SolarWinds (SWI 58.31, +8.11 +16.16%) will be acquired by Silver Lake Partners and Thoma Bravo for $60.10 per share in cash, or about $4.5 billion.

Blonder Tongue Labs (BDR 0.50, -0.18 -26.50%) said it continued to experience lower than anticipated sales during Q3, and that the company's liquidity position has not improved.

Trend Micro (TMICY 36.17, +0.32 +0.89%) has acquired HP TippingPoint for about $300 million. The agreement encompasses security technology, intellectual property, industry expertise, as well as a large, loyal enterprise customer base.

Nokia (NOK 6.94, -0.02 -0.29%) received all required regulatory approvals to proceed with the filing of its public exchange offer for Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.74, -0.01 -0.27%).

Telecomm Sys (TSYS 3.82, -0.17 -4.26%) received $5 million in incremental funding from the U.S. Army for sustainment of AN/TSC-198A SNAP, VS Aperture Terminals. Combined with the initial funded contract value of $18.6 million, this brings funding to date to $23.6 million.

Westell Tech (WSTL 1.14 flat) appointed Mike Moran as SVP and Chief Technology Officer. Prior to joining WSTL, Moran served in a variety of aspects with Tellabs (TLAB).

Blackbaud (BLKB 61.24, -1.19 -1.91%) appointed Mary Beth Westmoreland as Chief Technology Officer.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Tremor Video (TRMR 1.85, -0.05 -2.63%) named John Walsh as Chief Technology Officer.

KLA-Tencor (KLAC) reported Q1 EPS and revenues which beat expectations. KLAC saw Q1 EPS of $0.71 on revenues of $643 million.

Cree (CREE 23.96, -0.95 -3.81%) reported a beat on the top and bottom lines of Q1 expectations. The company saw EPS of $0.21 on revenues of $425.5 million. Also, CREE guided Q2 EPS of $0.21-0.26 on revenues of $425-445 million.

VMware (VMW) reported Q3 EPS in-line with preannouncements; the company saw EPS of $1.02 on revenues of $1.67 billion. The company also guided Q4 EPS of $1.23-1.27 on revenues of $1.825-1.875 billion. VMW also sees FY15 revenues of $6.60-6.66 billion on EPS of $4.04-4.08. FY16 revenues are expected to grow high single digits to low double digits.

Zix Corp (ZIXI 5.00, +0.32 +6.84%) beat on the top and bottom lines of Q3 expectations. The company saw EPS of $0.07 on revenues of $14.0 million.

SanDisk (SNDK) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations; the company saw EPS of $1.09 on revenues of $1.45 billion.

Analyst actions:

Yahoo! (YHOO) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which missed expectations. For Q3, YHOO saw EPS of $0.15 on revenues of $1 billion. Guided Q4 revenues of $1.16-1.12 billion.

SMGZY upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
TWTR was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
YHOO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho,
VMW was downgraded at Atlantic Equities, Maxim Group, Monness Crespi & Hardt, Raymond James, Susquehanna, Pacific Crest, Nomura, BofA/Merrill, Sterne Agee CRT,
MU was downgraded to Hold from Strong Buy at Needham,
HIMX was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital,
SWI was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities,
CVG was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti,
ZG was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Guggenheim

4:10 pm : The stock market ended Wednesday on a lower note after enduring a shaky session. The S&P 500 lost 0.6% after failing to overtake its 100-day moving average (2,038) for the second day in a row. Just like yesterday, the Nasdaq Composite (-0.8%) underperformed while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) displayed relative strength.

Equities began the day with modest gains, but the S&P 500 notched its high during the opening minutes of the session and returned to its flat line in short order. The index traded just above the unchanged level into the afternoon, but slid to lows shortly after 13:00 ET. The S&P 500 staged a late charge to its flat line, but could not overtake that level, dropping to a new low instead.

Although the market spent another day inside a relatively narrow range (21 S&P points), the same could not be said about the health care sector, which ended lower by 0.9% after showing a 1.0% gain at the start that briefly morphed into a 2.5% decline. The intraday volatility was brought on by a swoon in the biotech space after Citron Research published a report on Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 118.61, -28.13), calling into question the company's relationship with Philidor RX, which is a specialty pharmacy. According to Citron, Valeant appears to have created a network of specialty pharmacies modeled after Philidor, whose purpose was to generate phantom sales of VRX products. Shares of Valeant were down nearly 40.0% during afternoon action, but they narrowed their loss to 19.2% after a brief trading halt was lifted. Valeant responded to Citron's allegations during the trading halt, calling them "erroneous." It is worth noting that the afternoon rebound was aided by comments from fund manager Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management who told CNBC that his fund bought an additional two million shares in VRX today. As for the remainder of the biotech space, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 304.48, -1.48) ended off its low, but still surrendered 0.5%. Notably, Biogen (BIIB 276.34, +10.53) spiked 4.0% after the company beat estimates, raised its guidance, and announced a restructuring plan.

Similar to the health care sector, energy (-1.0%), materials (-0.9%), and technology (-0.8%) ended among the laggards while most of the remaining sectors fared a bit better. The top-weighted technology sector settled behind the broader market, which masked a 0.2% uptick in the PHLX Semiconductor Index after SanDisk (SNDK 76.78, +1.59) agreed to be acquired by Western Digital (WDC 71.44, -3.42) for $86.50/share. Shares of SanDisk jumped 2.1% while another index component-KLA-Tencor (KLAC 63.98, +10.12)-surged 18.8% after agreeing to be acquired by Lam Research (LRCX 70.79, +0.76) for $67.02/share.

On the upside, the industrial sector (+0.1%) displayed relative strength throughout the day thanks to a 1.6% gain in Boeing (BA 141.19, +2.31) after the Dow component reported better than expected results and boosted its guidance.

Unlike stocks, Treasuries advanced into the afternoon, holding the bulk of their gains into the close with the 10-yr yield sliding four basis points to 2.03%.

Today's participation was in line with average as more than 830 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor. Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which jumped 11.8% to follow last week's 27.6% plunge.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 265,000) will be released at 8:30 ET while the August FHFA Housing Price Index will cross the wires at 9:00 ET. Also of note, September Leading Indicators (consensus -0.1%) and Existing Home Sales (expected 5.39 million) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +2.2% YTD
S&P 500 -1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.9% YTD

DJ30 -48.50 NASDAQ -40.85 SP500 -11.83 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 734/1.74 bln/2094 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 879/835.2 mln/2176

3:40 pm :

The dollar index climbed higher today, which helped weigh on commodities today
Dec WTI crude oil remained in the red today, ultimately closing out today's session -2.4% at $45.22/barrel following weekly storage data
In other energy, Nov nat gas lost 3.2% to $2.40/MMBtu
After gold sold off earlier today, the precious metals held losses. Dec gold finished the day -0.9% at $1167.10/oz
Dec silver ended -1% at $15.73/oz, while Dec copper lost -0.4% to $2.36/lb.

4:36 pm Unisys beats by $0.53, misses on revs (UIS) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.67 per share, $0.53 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.14 (3 estimates); revenues fell 16.2% year/year to $739.2 mln vs the $769.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Operating profit margin of 1.2%; 7.2% before restructuring charges of $17 million and pension expense of $27 million.

4:35 pm Texas Instruments beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above, rev in-line (TXN) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.76 per share, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.67; revenues fell 2.1% year/year to $3.43 bln vs the $3.28 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.64-0.74 vs. $0.62 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q4 revs of $3.07-3.33 bln vs. $3.12 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Revenue declined 2 percent from a year ago. While our overall demand remained weak, revenue was stronger than we expected. "Our core businesses of Analog and Embedded Processing each grew year over year. Together, they comprised 85 percent of third-quarter revenue and have delivered nine consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth. "Gross margin was 58.2 percent of revenue, reflecting the quality of our product portfolio, as well as the efficiency of our manufacturing strategy, including the benefit of 300-millimeter analog production."

4:10 pm Seagate Tech appoints David H. Morton Jr. Executive VP and CFO effective immediately (STX) :

Co promotes David H. Morton, Jr. to Executive VP and CFO effective immediately.

Patrick O'Malley, Co's current CFO, will remain with the Co as executive VP with responsibility for a broad range of strategic and operational issues. Morton most recently served as Seagate's senior vice president, treasurer and principal accounting officer responsible for overseeing Seagate's corporate finance, treasury and accounting activities.

4:07 pm Seagate Tech announces Board approval for a 17% increase in the company's targeted regular cash dividend; to increase from $2.16 to $2.52 per share annually (STX) :

4:07 pm Mellanox Tech beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs in-line (MLNX) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.75 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.71; revenues rose 42.0% year/year to $171.4 mln vs the $168.64 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $171-176 mln vs. $172.30 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Exponent declares a quarterly cash dividend of $0.15 per share; approves an additional $35 mln in share repurchases, with a total authorization now of ~$50 mln (EXPO) :

11:31 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (94) outpacing new lows (84) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAP, ADEP, AMRK, ASR, ATNI, BBCN, BCOM, CB, CBZ, CDW, CINF, CLI, CLX, CNCE, CSBK, CTS, EFSC, EFX, EGHT, ENVI, EQIX, ESXB, EXPD, EXPE, EXR, FDEF, FISV, FNLC, GSBC, GT, HA, HAFC, HCKT, HFWA, HOMB, HTBI, IGLD, IM, IPHI, JNPR, KRNY, LB, LEA, MANH, MATW, MATX, MLHR, MO, MTS, MXL, NDAQ, NEO, NI, NPK, NVR, NWBI, OGS, OZRK, PAC, PFS, PFSW, PGR, PRA, PSA, QCRH, RNR, RNST, ROCK, RRM, RSG, SFNC, SHOR, SIGI, SIRI, SIX, SKYW, SSS, STRS, SWI, SYKE, TBNK, TE, TFSL, TNK, TOWN, TRV, UBOH, UVE, VRSN, WAFD, WCN, WGL, WTM, WTR

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAVL, ADMS, AGIO, AKRX, AMTX, APPY, ASCMA, ASTE, ATOS, ATRS, BBLU, BCOR, BDE, BKD, BOJA, CBIO, CIT, CPHD, CREE, CSTM, CUR, CXRX, DEST, DK, DOM, EAT, ENDP, ENZN, EPZM, EXP, FATE, FDEU, FLKS, FOGO, FRGI, FSC, FSI, GI, GNK, I, IBM, IMMY, LDRH, LIFE, LNTH, LOB, MFRM, MSLI, NEOS, NGL, NNBR, NTRA, OLLI, ORN, PAH, PCTI, PETX, PII, PMTS, PSO, PSTI, PTCT, RCG, RGNX, RNN, SIEN, SLGN, SMSI, SNTA, SSTK, SVU, SXC, SYRX, TLN, TNDM, TOR, TUMI, USAP, VMW, VRX, VSAR, WCC, WSCI, WWW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: UNG

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From Briefing.com: 6:14 pm EZchip: Raging Capital confirms it opposes Mellanox (MLNX) and EZchip merger (EZCH) : Raging Capital Management, one of the largest shareholders of EZchip Semiconductor (EZCH) owning approximately 6.5% of the ordinary shares outstanding, issued a letter to EZchip shareholders expressing its strong opposition to the $25.50 per share buyout offer from Mellanox Technologies (MLNX). Raging Capital intends to not only vote against the Mellanox acquisition but to vigorously oppose the deal by soliciting proxies from the shareholders against approval of the acquisition at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of EZchip scheduled to be held on November 12, 2015. In addition, Raging Capital has nominated Ken Traub and Paul McWilliams for election to the EZchip Board at the General Meeting. In light of its significant concerns with the Mellanox acquisition, Raging Capital believes representation on the Board is necessary to protect the interests of all shareholders and intends to also solicit proxies for the election of Messrs. Traub and McWilliams at the General Meeting.

4:24 pm Freescale Semi beats by $0.05, misses on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus (FSL) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.54 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49; revenues fell 7.7% year/year to $1.12 bln vs the $1.14 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $0.95-1.0 bln vs. $1.13 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."The fourth quarter will pose challenges as market conditions have continued to weaken. Our results will be impacted in the quarter by normal seasonal declines in our automotive related businesses, continued weakness in wireless infrastructure and enterprise spending which will negatively impact our RF and Digital Networking businesses and weak end-demand in industrial which will lead to lower Microcontroller revenues."

4:20 pm Altera misses by $0.11, misses on revs (ALTR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.20 per share, $0.11 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.31; revenues fell 20.0% year/year to $399.57 mln vs the $429 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Market conditions globally were quite varied this quarter as some vertical markets produced good growth while others were weak. In spite of these headwinds we saw double-digit new product growth plus continued strength in data center demand,"

4:20 pm Maxim Integrated misses by $0.16, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (MXIM) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.16 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.41; revenues fell 3.1% year/year to $562.5 mln vs the $564.19 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.29-0.35, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $490-520 mln vs. $552.59 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.90-day backlog is $329 mln.Remains on track to reduce costs by $180 mln annually.

4:19 pm QLogic beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (QLGC) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.14; revenues fell 18.9% year/year to $103.35 mln vs the $102.75 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.24-0.28 vs. $0.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $115-121 mln vs. $115.24 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:18 pm Juniper Networks beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS, revs just above consensus (JNPR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.57 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.53; revenues rose 10.9% year/year to $1.25 bln vs the $1.23 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.57-0.60 vs. $0.57 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $1.27-1.31 bln vs. $1.28 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:16 pm Microsoft beats by $0.08, beats on revs (MSFT) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.67 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.59; adj. revenues fell 6.6% year/year to $21.66 bln vs the $21.04 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes declined 3% (up 4% in constant currency) to $6.3 billion, with the following business highlights:Office commercial products and cloud services revenue grew 5% in constant currency with Office 365 revenue growth of nearly 70% in constant currency and continued user growth across our productivity offerings Office 365 consumer subscribers increased to 18.2 million, with ~3 million subscribers added in the quarterRevenue in Intelligent Cloud grew 8% (up 14% in constant currency) to $5.9 billion, with the following business highlights:Server products and cloud services revenue grew 13% in constant currency, with revenue from premium products and services growing double-digitsAzure revenue and compute usage more than doubled year-over-year Revenue in More Personal Computing declined 17% (down 13% in constant currency) to $9.4

4:13 pm AT&T beats by $0.05, misses on revs; guides FY15 EPS above consensus (T) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.74 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.69; revenues rose 18.6% year/year to $39.1 bln vs the $41.02 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues upside guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $2.68-2.74 (Prior $2.62-2.68), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.64 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Raises free cash flow outlook for 2015 to the $15 billion range or better.

4:07 pm Ultra Clean Holdings reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (UCTT) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.10; revenues rose 4.9% year/year to $122.82 mln vs the $124.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus. "Global demand for our products this quarter was influenced by the beginning of the industry-wide semiconductor pullback. With the addition of our second accretive acquisition in the last three quarters, we are adding important manufacturing capabilities to our growing portfolio to position us to outpace the semiconductor equipment market when the ramp of next-generation technologies begins."Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of ($0.04)-(0.01), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.09 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $98-103 mln vs. $124.61 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Alphabet beats by $0.14, beats on revs (GOOG) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $7.35 per share, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $7.21; revenues rose 13.0% year/year to $18.68 bln vs the $18.42 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP Operating Margin- Q3 33%; Q2 was 32%. Aggregate paid clicks- Q3 +23%; Q2 +18%. Paid Clicks on Google websites- Q3 +35%; Q2 +30%. Paid clicks on member sites- Q3 -5%; Q2 -9%. Aggregate cost per click- Q3 -11%; Q2 -11%; CPC on Google sites- Q3 -16%; Q2 -16%. CPC on member sites- Q3 -4%; Q2 -3%. Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC)- Q3 21%; Q2 23% of revenue.FX Impact- Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the third quarter of 2014 through the third quarter of 2015, our revenues in the third quarter of 2015 would have been $1,291 million higher with a constant currency growth rate of 21% year over year. This includes a foreign exchange rate impact of $1,577 million, offset by hedging gains of $286 million related to our foreign exchange risk management program. Our constant currency revenues are presented in the financial tables following this release as well as in the accompanying materials on the Investor Relations website.


From Briefing.com: The broader market closed Thursday trading with notable gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 320.55 points (+1.87%) to end 17489.16. The S&P 500 was also notably strong Thursday, ending up 33.57 points (1.66%) to close 2052.51. The Nasdaq Composite followed closely, higher by 79.93 points (+1.65%) to 4920.05. The markets gapped higher on the session, never dipping into negative territory as blue chip names began reporting quarterly earnings. All three major US indices surged to highs in a session with slightly higher than average volume.

The Technology space (XLK 42.64, +0.94 +2.25%) ended Thursday with gains of more than 2%. Quarterly results dictated trading today, as blue chip names like AT&T (T 33.96, +0.36 +1.07%), Alphabet (GOOG 651.79, +9.18 +1.43%) and Microsoft (MSFT 48.03, +0.83 +1.76%) sit on the docket for after the close tonight.

In the Thursday session, Semiconductors (SOX 675.94, +22.70 +3.47%) continued strength from yesterday's session ahead of component Altera (ALTR 52.80, +0.28 +0.53%) and Maxim Integrated's (MXIM 39.12, -0.32 -0.81%) quarterly results.

Also notably strong today were Software (IGV 102.08, +2.67 +2.69%) names as Citrix Systems (CTXS 80.58, +8.66 +12.04%) ,Proofpoint (PFPT 62.21, +6.80 +12.27%) and ServiceNow (NOW 77.95, +4.93 +6.75%) all reported quarterly results. All three names beat on the top and bottom lines, respectively, in regards to analyst expectations. The sector has been strong in the month of October, adding about 8% month-to-date.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (715.98, +16.52 +2.36%) sector, stocks like Texas Instruments (TXN 58.09, +6.19 +11.93%) and eBay (EBAY 27.58, +3.37 +13.92%) led the way higher following quarterly results. This quarter marked EBAY's first three month period following the Paypal (PYPL 34.79, +0.96 +2.84%) spin-off. Other names like GLW +5.33%, CTSH +5.33%, SWKS +5.18%, AVGO +4.02%, ACN +3.84%, TEL +3.63%, NVDA +3.61%, MCHP +3.60%, APH +3.27%, ORCL +3.19% were also strong on the session.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Seagate Tech (STX) announced Board approval for a 17% increase in targeted annual dividend. Result will have a $2.52 dividend, up from $2.16. The company also appointed David Morton Jr. as EVP and CFO effective immediately.

Citrix Systems (CTXS) appointed Exec Chairman Robert Claderoni as Interim President and CEO effective immediately.

Visa (V 76.42, +0.97 +1.29%) increased quarterly dividend to $0.14 from $0.12 per share.

Apple (AAPL 115.47, +1.71 +1.50%) announced two new programs aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of its manufacturing partners in China. The programs will avoid over 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution in the country between now and 2020, equivalent to taking nearly 4 million passenger vehicles off the road for one year.

Fixnetix, a CSC (CSC 65.90, +1.06 +1.63%) company, announced the release of iX-eCute Zero Latency, a risk management and trading gateway supporting electronic trading for investment banks, prime brokers, hedge funds and proprietary trading firms.

IBM (IBM 144.09, +3.17 +2.25%), in collaboration with NVIDIA (NVDA 28.40, +0.99 +3.61%) and Mellanox (MLNX 45.84, +2.51 +5.79%), and the Science and Technology Facilities Council Hartree Centre announced plans for the UK's first POWER Acceleration and Design Center designed to help UK businesses exploit high performance computing on OpenPOWER systems for Modelling & Simulation and Big Data Analytics.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Science Applications (SAIC 42.79, +1.17 +2.81%) was awarded NASA's Langley Information Technology Enhanced Services II contract valued at $200 million.

Benchmark Electronics (BHE 20.56, -1.90 -8.46%) acquired Secure Communications Systems, Inc. for about $230 million in cash. The company expects the deal to be immediately accretive to the company's margins and EPS.

Ruckus Wireless (RKUS 12.85, +0.35 +2.80%) acquired secure Wi-Fi onboarding software provider Cloudpath Networks. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cypress Semi (CY 9.76, +0.32 +3.39%) announced a new $450 million stock repurchase program.

NCI (NCIT 14.80, +1.25 +9.23%) was awarded a five-year cost-plus-fixed-fee contract valued at $211 million from the US Army.

LG Display (LPL 9.66, -0.56 -5.48%) plans to acquire the OLED Light business of LG Chem for KRW 160 billion.

Unisys (UIS 14.45, +1.88 +14.96%) was awarded two contracts to provide services to the EU worth about $53 million.

Electronics For Imaging (EFII 45.82, +0.77 +1.71%) reported a favorable outcome in its patent lawsuit with Componex.

IMS Health Holdings (IMS 29.75, -0.72 -2.36%) and Quintiles Transitional (Q 67.69, -1.10 -1.60%) announced a global strategic alliance.

DST Systems' (DST 118.83, +6.29 +5.59%) Argus Health Systems business announced a renewed relationship with Cigna (CI 129.49, -7.12 -5.21%) for the provision of pharmacy solutions services.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Texas Instruments (TXN) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which topped expectations; Q3 EPS was $0.76 on revenues which fell 2.1% year-over-year to $3.43 billion. The company also guided Q4 EPS better than expected at $0.64-0.74 and revenues in-line at $3.07-3.33 billion.

eBay (EBAY) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at $0.43 on revenues which were in-line at $2.1 billion. The company also guided Q4 EPS and revenues in-line.

Rogers Comms (RCI 39.90, +2.11 +5.58%) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations. The company saw Q3 EPS of CC$0.92 on revenues of CC$3.38 billion.

Alliance Data (ADS 294.79, +18.56 +6.73%) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which were better than expected at $3.95 and $1.59 billion, respectively. The company also reaffirmed FY15 EPS and revenues guidance and guided FY16 EPS and revenues in-line with what was expected.

CA Tech (CA) reported Q2 EPS and revenues which came in in-line with expectations. Q2 saw EPS of $0.56 on revenues of $1 billion.

Unisys (UIS) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at $0.67 on revenues which missed expectations at $739.2 million.

Analyst actions:

TXN was upgraded to Buy from Mkt Perform at Charter Equity,
OCLR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
DTLK was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum;
SNDK was downgraded at UBS, Argus, Morgan Stanley, and Piper Jaffray,
KLAC was downgraded at Needham, UBS and Piper Jaffray,
LPL was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie,
VMW was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer,
EMC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
SWI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
SANM was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman

12:00 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (123) outpacing new lows (92) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAME, ACXM, AEPI, AF, ASR, ATR, ATVI, AVGR, BBCN, BDGE, BNY, BRSS, CALL, CAM, CB, CBNJ, CBU, CBZ, CCU, CDW, CHFN, CINF, CLI, CLX, COR, CTS, CTXS, DPS, DRAD, EEFT, EFSC, EGHT, ENR, ENVI, ESXB, EVER, EXPD, EXPO, EXR, FBNK, FCVA, FISV, FLO, FMX, FN, FNLC, GABC, GE, GSBC, HA, HAFC, HCKT, HD, HRL, HTBI, IGLD, IM, IPCM, ISBC, JBT, JJSF, K, KMB, KRNY, LII, LMT, MATW, MATX, MCD, MCI, MESG, MNRO, MO, MORE, MSI, MTS, MXL, NAVG, NBBC, NBTB, NDAQ, NOC, NP, NVDA, NWBI, ONFC, ORI, OVTI, PAC, PEP, PRK, PSA, RAI, RNR, ROCK, RRM, RSG, RTN, SAP, SFNC, SIGI, SKYW, SPRO, STL, SYKE, SYY, TBNK, TIS, TOWN, TRV, TSS, TTWO, TYL, UBOH, UFCS, UFPI, VCF, WAFD, WCN, WD, WTM, XRAY, XUE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACAT, ACST, ADMS, APOL, ASCMA, ATI, ATOS, ATRS, AXP, BCOR, BDE, BHE, BIOD, BKD, BLMN, BOJA, BSI, CAB, COSI, CYAD, CYH, DAN, DAVE, DNAI, DNKN, DOM, EMG, ENDP, ENTL, ENZN, EVH, EVHC, EXAR, EXP, FATE, FDEU, FRGI, FSC, GEN, GHDX, GI, GNCA, GNK, HLS, JAZZ, KND, KONA, LDRH, LOB, LPNT, MBCN, MBUU, MDVX, MIRN, MKSI, MSL, MW, MYL, MYRG, NEOS, NGL, NNBR, NRP, OCIP, OIBR, OZM, PEN, PETX, PHM, PSG, PSO, PTCT, RCKY, RKDA, RLOC, RLYP, RNN, SBH, SGM, SMSI, SSTK, SYRX, THC, TMH, TNDM, TUMI, TWER, USG, UTEK, VCEL, WAYN, WMGI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IYK

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: UNG

4:10 pm : It was a running of the bulls on Thursday and "re-examine" was the trigger that sparked the charge. The S&P 500 soared 1.7%, overtaking its 100-day moving average (2,038) in the process. The benchmark index settled near its best level of the day, registering its first close above the 100-day average since August 17, as hopes for more stimulus overshadowed mixed corporate earnings.

The stock market was off to the races after equity futures revved higher an hour before the opening bell. The pre-market activity took place in response to comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who addressed the media following the latest ECB policy meeting. During his press conference, Mr. Draghi said that the central bank will "re-examine" its asset purchases at the December meeting. This was immediately interpreted as a harbinger of more monetary easing in the near future, sending the euro lower while European equities and U.S. futures spiked. Those moves accelerated after Mr. Draghi revealed that the governing council had discussed lowering the deposit facility rate at today's policy meeting. Markets in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy jumped between 2.0% and 2.5% while the euro slid throughout the session to 1.1110 against the dollar after trading just above 1.1300 prior to Mario Draghi's press conference. As a result, the Dollar Index (96.44, +1.37) spiked 1.4%, returning to levels last seen in late September.

Nine sectors ended the day with gains of 1.2% or more, masking the mixed nature of quarterly reports released between yesterday's closing bell and today's open. For instance, Caterpillar (CAT 70.88, +1.98) spiked 2.9% despite missing estimates and lowering its earnings guidance while 3M (MMM 156.00, +6.18) jumped 4.1% after missing revenue estimates, lowering its guidance, and announcing restructuring plans that will involve 1,500 layoffs worldwide. Meanwhile, American Express (AXP 72.50, -4.01) also delivered a disappointing report, but did not get lifted by the tide, falling 5.2%.

To be fair, a few companies delivered better than expected reports with McDonald's (MCD 110.87, +8.33) surging 8.1% to a fresh all-time high and Texas Instruments (TXN 58.09, +6.19) spiking 11.9% after both beat their respective estimates. Texas Instruments contributed to a 3.5% spike in the PHLX Semiconductor Index, which in turn, underpinned the technology sector (+2.3%). That being said, even the two standouts of the day fit an all-too-familiar theme of bottom-line beats combined with sluggish revenue growth.

Elsewhere, PulteGroup (PHM 18.16, -1.29) and Kinder Morgan (KMI 29.75, -1.67) posted respective losses of 6.6% and 5.3% in reaction to disappointing reports; however, their weakness was overshadowed by the broad market strength.

Similarly, Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 109.87, -8.74) had another woeful showing, tumbling 7.4% to extend its two-day loss to 24.7% after Citron Research voiced concerns of potential accounting fraud at the biotech company. On a related note, the health care sector (-0.6%) spent the day in negative territory.

Treasuries bounced around their flat lines throughout the day with the 10-yr yield respecting a six-basis point range before ending unchanged at 2.03%.

Today's trading volume was well above average with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Existing Home Sales, Leading Indicators, and FHFA Housing Price Index:

The weekly initial claims level increased to 259,000 for the week ending October 17 from an upwardly revised 256,000 (from 255,000) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 265,000
The four-week moving average fell to 263,250 from 265,250, representing the lowest level since December 1973
Existing home sales increased 4.7% in September to 5.55 million from a downwardly revised 5.30 million (from 5.31 mln) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 5.39 million
Unfortunately, the growth in sales may not stable, considering much of the gain resulted from an increase in all-cash and investor demand
All-cash sales accounted for 24% of all sales in September, up from 22% in August. Individual investors purchased 13% of existing homes in September, up from 12% in August
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index declined 0.2% (consensus -0.1%) in September after a downward revision resulted in no change (from 0.1%) in August
The FHFA Housing Price Index for August rose 0.3%, which followed an unrevised increase of 0.6% in July

There is no economic data on tomorrow's schedule.

Nasdaq Composite +3.9% YTD
S&P 500 -0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.1% YTD

DJ30 +320.55 NASDAQ +79.93 SP500 +33.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1879/1.98 bln/1020 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2315/1.03 bln/785 3:40 pm :

The dollar index continued to climb higher today, which helped weigh in commodities today
However, commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are currently near the unchanged line overall
WTI oil came back some as floor trading came to a close, erasing some of today's losses.
Dec crude ended the day +0.4% at $45.39/barrel.
In other energy, Nov natural gas futures traded in the red all day following the release of the weekly EIA storage data
The data was actually bullish, but overall storage continues to weigh on the market
Nov nat gas ended -0.8% at $2.38/MMBtu today
Silver and copper mostly held gains today. Dec silver closed +0.7% at $15.84/oz, while Dec copper finished +0.8% at $2.38/lb
Dec gold slipped $1 to end at $1166.10/oz

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From Briefing.com: The broader market ended the session with modest gains for the second day in a row. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite posted the most extreme gains Friday, as blue chip names in the technology sector reported quarterly results. The Nasdaq ended Friday up 111.81 points (+2.27%) to 5021.86. The S&P 500 followed that strength, ending higher by 22.64 points (+1.10%) to 2075.15. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rounded out the bunch with modest gains, adding 157.54 points (+0.90%) to 17646.70.

The strength in US equities came off a strong showing in the European markets, as the UK's FTSE: + 1.1%, Germany's DAX: + 2.9%, France's CAC: + 2.5%, Spain's IBEX: + 1.1%, Portugal's PSI: + 1.0%, Italy's MIB Index: + 0.5%, Irish Ovrl Index: + 1.6%, Greece ASE General Index: + 0.3% all closed with gains.

The Technology (XLK 43.83, +1.19 +2.79%) sector closed the session near highs of the day. The sector posted blue chip quarterly earnings from names across the board. Other sectors finished as follows XLV +2.14%, IYZ +1.15%, XLF +1.09%, XLB +0.83%, XLY +0.49%, XLI +0.37%, XLP -0.16%, XLE -0.23%, XLU -1.76%.

Strength on the day stemmed from the US Tech sector (IYW 109.88, +3.39 +3.18%) which posted modest gains, outperforming the broader market. Names like cloud and mobile application service provider athenahealth (ATHN 163.37, +35.28 +27.54%) and blue chip names Alphabet (GOOG 702.00, +50.21 +7.70%) and Microsoft (MSFT 52.87, +4.84 +10.08%) helped the sector boast gains on Friday.

Internet (FDN 73.48, +1.96 +2.74%) names were also strong on the session, as components Netgear (NTGR 41.85, +9.15 +27.98%), Juniper Networks (JNPR 31.49, +1.73 +5.81%) and Amazon (AMZN 599.03, +35.12 +6.23%) all reported quarterly results which topped expectations.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector ( 737.78, +21.80 +3.04%) posted gains which outperformed the broader market. The majority of the sector was held up by better than anticipated earnings, while only a few names finished below flat lines.
Other notable news items among sector components:

Alphabet (GOOG) in addition to reporting quarterly results announced a $5 billion share buyback.

NetSuite (N 85.02, -6.70 -7.30%) announced that Charlotte Tilbury, a manufacturer and retailer of high-end skincare and cosmetics, has selected NetSuite OneWorld to run its mission-critical business operations

Visa (V 77.07, +0.65 +0.85%) announced the commercial launch of its Visa Checkout service in Brazil.

Harris (HRS 76.49, +0.49 +0.64%) declared a quarterly cash dividend of 50 cents per share on its common stock, payable December 4, 2015 to shareholders of record November 19, 2015.

IBM (IBM 144.68, +0.59 +0.41%) and Wipro Ltd. (WIT 12.24, +0.10 +0.82%) announced a collaboration in which Wipro will use the IBM Bluemix cloud development platform for the agile creation and deployment of mobile, analytics and machine learning solutions for clients around the world. As part of the effort, Wipro has committed to train and engage 15,000 of its developers on the platform through a massive online open course across 58 countries.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Twitter (TWTR 30.28, +1.13 +3.88%) confirms specfics of CEO Jack Dorsey's transfer of 1/3 of his holdings to an employee equity pool.

Lexmark (LXK 35.25, +2.37 +7.21%) confirmed earlier reports that it is exploring strategic alternatives.

Intelsat (I 6.20, +0.14 +2.31%) announced the election of its CEO Stephen Spengler to its Board of Directors effective today.

Equinix (EQIX 294.84, +0.22 +0.07%) and Telecity (TLEIY 33.24 flat) confirmed the European Commission has entered into a period of market testing based upon commitments proposed. The timetable for the review has been extended.

Radware (RDWR 14.74, +0.25 +1.73%) was awarded a $1.5 million contract for a cyber-attack mitigation solution form a global cloud hosting company.

RealD (RLD 10.20, +0.12 +1.19%) announced that the Japanese Patent Office's Reexamination Board has ruled that its patent is valid in its litigation with MasterImage.

InterCloud Systems (ICLD 1.69, -0.02 -1.17%) said it was recently awarded more than $1.3 million in new next-gen IT services contracts.

Unwired Planet (UPIP 0.81, +0.05 +7.00%) announced changes to Board of Directors and the creation of a strategic committee to evaluate risks and opportunities to strategy alternatives.

Quality Systems (QSII 15.05, +2.19 +17.03%) announced the Board's approval for the sale of its NextGen Healthcare subsidiary's Hospital Solutions Division to QuadraMed Affinity Corporation. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Inteliquent (IQNT 22.13, +0.98 +4.63%) announced a $50 million repurchase program.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Alphabet (GOOG) reported Q3 EPS which was better than expectations at $7.35 per share on revenues which were also better than expected at $18.68 billion.

Microsoft (MSFT) reported Q1 EPS which came in better than expected at $0.67 on revenues which were better than anticipated at $21.66 billion. The company also gave revenue guidance under its new reporting segments of around $24.8-25.4 billion.

AT&T (T 33.74, -0.22 -0.65%) reported Q3 EPS which was better than expected at $0.74 on revenues which missed expectations at $39.1 billion. The company also guided FY15 EPS better than anticipated at $2.68-2.74, up from prior $2.62-2.68.

Juniper Networks (JNPR) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at $0.57 per share and $1.25 billion, respectively. The company also guided Q4 EPS of $0.57-0.60 and revenues for the period of $1.27-1.31 billion.

Freescale Semi (FSL 39.71, -0.88 -2.17%) reports Q3 EPS better than anticipated at $0.54 on revenues which were worse than expected at $1.12 billion. The company also guided Q4 revenues worse than anticipated at $0.95-1.0 billion.

Netgear (NTGR) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at $0.67 per share and $341.9 million. The company also guided Q4 revenues of $335-350 million.

Fortinet (FTNT 34.91, -8.33 -19.26%) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at $0.14 on revenues which were mostly in-line at $260.1 million.

Analyst actions:

AAPL was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Maxim Group,
MSFT was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
KLAC was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup,
NTGR was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Raymond James;
FEYE was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush,
SYNA was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Dougherty & Company,
UCTT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
AMAT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
SANM was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup,
VSH was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup,
PLXS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
FSL was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Bernstein

Weekly Recap - Week ending 23-Oct-15

Dow +157.81 at 17646.97, Nasdaq +11.81 at 4931.86, S&P +22.65 at 2075.16

The stock market ended the week on an upbeat note thanks to an opening spike that was extended during afternoon action. The S&P 500 jumped 1.1%, extending its weekly gain to 2.1%, while the Nasdaq surged 2.3% to end the week higher by 3.0%.

Quarterly earnings released last evening ensured a higher start for the major averages while a surprise rate cut from the People's Bank of China supercharged the opening move higher. Specifically, the central bank lowered its one-year lending rate by 25 basis points to 4.35% and cut its reserve requirement ratio by 50 basis points for qualifying institutions, representing the sixth rate cut since November. With most of the action taking place before the opening bell, stocks drifted near their highs into the afternoon, building on their gains during the final hour of action.

Last evening, Alphabet (GOOGL 719.33, +38.19), Amazon (AMZN 599.03, +35.12), and Microsoft (MSFT 53.03, +5.00) delivered better than expected quarterly earnings, setting the stage for today's rally.

Alphabet and Microsoft helped the technology sector (+3.1%) spend the day well ahead of its peers while Amazon's strength helped the discretionary sector (+0.4%) end the day in positive territory even as apparel retailers struggled across the board. Retailers slumped in sympathy with Skechers (SKX 31.65, -14.54) and V.F. Corp (VFC 63.75, -9.46) after both companies reported disappointing results. The two names posted respective losses of 31.5% and 12.9% while SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.99, -0.63) fell 1.4%.

Similar to the discretionary sector, seven other groups ended the day behind the broader market while health care (+2.0%) outperformed thanks to a rebound in biotechnology as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 316.28, +10.17) spiked 3.3%.

Although the market ended well above its flat line, it is worth noting that only 59.0% of NYSE-listed issues posted gains, suggesting the presence of some softness beneath a seemingly strong surface. To that point, investors used today's strength to increase their hedges, evidenced by the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.40, -0.05), which essentially held its ground.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.2%) struggled as crude oil lost 1.8%, falling to $44.59/bbl. For the week, the energy sector surrendered 1.0% while WTI crude fell 5.7%.

Elsewhere, the utilities sector (-1.8%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard as higher Treasury yields reduced the relative attractiveness of high-yielding utility names.

Speaking of Treasuries, the 10-yr note notched its low during morning action and hovered near its low into the close with the 10-yr yield rising six basis points to 2.09%.

On a related note, the Dollar Index (97.18, +0.80) spiked in reaction to the news from China, extending its advance into the close to end higher by 0.8%.

Investors did not receive any economic data today while Monday's data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of the September New Home Sales report (Briefing.com consensus 550K).

Week in Review: S&P 500 Regains 100-Day Moving Average

The stock market began the trading week on a quiet note with the major averages spending the Monday session inside narrow ranges. The S&P 500 settled just above its flat line after climbing off its opening low while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) outperformed. In some ways, the range-bound action was a bit of a surprise considering investors received China's Q3 GDP report over the weekend. The growth report proved to be a mixed bag as GDP beat estimates (+6.9%; consensus 6.8%), but dipped below the official target growth rate of 7.0% year-over-year. Asian markets took the data in stride with China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng both ending flat; however, the slowdown in the year-over-year growth rate weighed on commodities, sending crude oil lower by 3.0% to $45.90/bbl. The sell-off in crude oil futures pressured the energy sector (-2.0%) while a major sector component-Halliburton (HAL 37.36, -0.45)-lost 1.2% in reaction to better than expected earnings on below-consensus revenue.

Tuesday also ended on a quiet note after the market spent the session inside a narrow trading range. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) underperformed throughout the day. The Tuesday affair was very quiet with the S&P 500 spending the majority of the session near its flat line. The benchmark index opened with a modest loss and rallied into the green during morning action, but could not climb above its 100-day moving average (2,039), which served as resistance. The index followed that short-lived rally with a return into the red, where it settled for the day. Six sectors ended the day with gains, but top-weighted technology (-0.3%) and health care (-1.5%) struggled, which kept the market under pressure. Notably, the technology sector could not overcome the relative weakness in the shares of IBM (IBM 140.68, -8.54) after Big Blue reported below-consensus revenue and lowered its guidance, which overshadowed a bottom-line beat.

Equities ended Wednesday on a lower note after enduring a shaky session. The S&P 500 lost 0.6% after failing to overtake its 100-day moving average (2,038) for the second day in a row. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite (-0.8%) underperformed and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) displayed relative strength. Stocks began the day with modest gains, but the S&P 500 notched its high during the opening minutes of the session and returned to its flat line in short order. The index traded just above the unchanged level into the afternoon, but slid to lows shortly after 13:00 ET. The S&P 500 staged a late charge to its flat line, but could not overtake that level, dropping to a new low instead. Although the market spent another day inside a relatively narrow range (21 S&P points), the same could not be said about the health care sector, which ended lower by 0.9% after showing a 1.0% gain at the start that briefly morphed into a 2.5% decline. The intraday volatility was brought on by a swoon in the biotech space after Citron Research published a report on Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 118.61, -28.13), calling into question the company's relationship with Philidor RX, which is a specialty pharmacy.

Thursday proved to be a running of the bulls with "re-examine" representing the trigger that sparked the charge. The S&P 500 soared 1.7%, overtaking its 100-day moving average (2,038) in the process. The benchmark index settled near its best level of the day, registering its first close above the 100-day average since August 17, as hopes for more stimulus overshadowed mixed corporate earnings. The stock market was off to the races after equity futures revved higher an hour before the opening bell. The pre-market activity took place in response to comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who addressed the media following the latest ECB policy meeting. During his press conference, Mr. Draghi said that the central bank will "re-examine" its asset purchases at the December meeting. This was immediately interpreted as a harbinger of more monetary easing in the near future, sending the euro lower while European equities and U.S. futures spiked. Those moves accelerated after Mr. Draghi revealed that the governing council had discussed lowering the deposit facility rate at today's policy meeting. Markets in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy jumped between 2.0% and 2.5% while the euro slid throughout the session to 1.1110 against the dollar after trading just above 1.1300 prior to Mario Draghi's press conference. As a result, the Dollar Index (96.44, +1.37) spiked 1.4%, returning to levels last seen in late September.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17215.97 17646.70 430.73 2.5 -1.0
Nasdaq 4886.69 5031.86 145.17 3.0 6.2
S&P 500 2033.11 2075.15 42.04 2.1 0.8
Russell 2000 1162.31 1166.06 3.75 0.3 -3.2

3:32 pm Earnings Preview for the week of October 26 - 30 (:SUMRX) :

Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of October 26 - 30 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - PHG, XRX, LH, ROP, SOHU, CHKP
After Hours - HIG, BRCM, XL, WRB, RE, PRE, SWFT, TMK, IACI, RCII, AMKR, CR, EW, CAKE, AVB

Tuesday:
Pre Market - BP, F, CMCSA, YNDX, UPS, NVS, PFE, MRK, HCA, TMUS, CNC, DD, CMI, PCAR, BMY, IR, WM, TXT, BABA, MMC, RAI, GPI, HUN, GLW, BAX, MAS, SEE, AKS, JBLU
After Hours - AAPL, ESRX, GILD, AFL, EIX, CHRW, CNI, CBG, OMI, UHS, APC, AIZ, FNF, NCR, OI, FISV, AJG, CINF, WSH, PNRA, TWTR, AKAM

Wednesday:
Pre Market - NMR, UMC, WBA, FCAU, ANTM, VLO, GD, MDLZ, NOC, IP, ARW, SO, AN, NEE, PCG, NOV, OXY, TEL, HLT, ADP, NSC, SAH
After Hours - INT, TSO, SU, AMGN, MAR, LNC, WDC, UNM, ABX, PPC, ORLY, WMB, NEM, HBI, NXPI, CNW, NSIT, ARRS, THG, ACGL, CNO, HUBG, FMC, GPRO, SPWR

Thursday:
Pre Market - SNE, RDS.A, MCK, ABC, NVO, MPC, AET, BG, SAN, EPD, JCI, COP, AVT, TWC, PAG, MO, TEVA, FMS, GT, DLPH, ALU, NOK, XEL, SHW, PBF, LLL, CVE, PX, APD, MA, CHTR, JAH, PPL, BLL
After Hours - BSAC, IM, FLR, SBUX, FE, MOH, BIDU, RGA, EMN, RSG, GNW, EXPE, WU, YRCW, FSLR, FLS, EA, LEG, SEM, LNKD, COLM

Friday:
Pre Market - XOM, PSX, CVS, CVX, BUD, EXC, ABBV, ETN, CL, STX, AON, MYL, PEG, WY, CPN, NWL, COL, UFS, TDS, LPNT
After Hours - CCJ

11:38 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (206) outpacing new lows (85) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAME, ABCB, ACGL, ACN, ADBE, ADP, AEPI, AF, AGII, ALGN, AMZN, ATHN, ATNI, ATR, ATVI, AVB, AZO, BBCN, BDGE, BGS, BNCL, BR, BRSS, BYD, CACB, CALL, CAM, CBNJ, CBU, CBZ, CCU, CDL, CDW, CHDN, CHE, CHFN, CINF, CLX, CNBKA, CONE, COST, CRWN, CSBK, CTS, CUNB, CWBC, DAL, DMND, DPS, DRAD, DWTR, EEFT, EFII, EFSC, EGHT, ENVI, EQIX, ESXB, EVC, EVER, EXPD, EXPO, EXR, FB, FBIZ, FBNK, FCBC, FDP, FDS, FF, FGL, FISV, FLO, FN, FR, FRC, FRME, GABC, GAME, GE, GENC, GNCMA, GOOG, GOOGL, GT, HA, HAFC, HBNC, HCKT, HCSG, HD, HEOP, HOMB, HPY, HRL, HSIC, ICE, IDTI, IGLD, INGR, IPHI, ISBC, JAXB, JBT, JJSF, JKHY, JNPR, KINS, KMB, KRNY, LANC, LB, LDL, LEA, LII, LKFN, LKOR, LMT, LOXO, LXFT, MA, MANH, MATW, MATX, MCD, MKC, MNRO, MO, MPWR, MRCY, MSFG, MSFT, MTS, MXL, MYGN, NAVG, NBBC, NBHC, NBTB, NCLH, NDAQ, NI, NOC, NP, NSSC, NTGR, NVDA, NVR, NWBI, OA, OCLR, OGS, ONFC, ORI, ORLY, OVTI, PAYX, PCBK, PEP, PFBC, PFS, PFSW, PGR, POOL, PRK, PSA, RAI, RCL, RENX, RNR, RRM, RTN, SAP, SBUX, SFBS, SHEN, SHOR, SIRO, SIX, STL, STRP, STRS, STZ, SYKE, TBNK, TFSL, THG, TIS, TOWN, TRV, TSN, TSS, TTC, TTWO, UDR, UFPI, UVE, V, VRSN, VVI, WAFD, WAL, WGL, XRAY, XTLY, XUE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACTG, AMS, BBLU, BHE, BKE, BOOT, CAB, CBAY, COG, CRR, CVA, DEST, DOM, DSW, EMES, ENTL, ENZN, EVH, EXP, FCFS, FEYE, FINL, FOSL, FREE, GHL, GOGL, HCLP, HEB, HOTR, HURN, INOD, JWN, KSS, KSU, LNTH, MPLX, MW, MWE, NBY, NGL, NM, NRG, NRP, NTRA, OCUL, OIBR, OSTK, P, PAH, PEB, PEIX, PSO, QDEL, RGNX, RLOC, RMCF, RNN, RPRX, SAVE, SCON, SCSS, SIEN, SPPI, SQQQ, SRCL, SSYS, STRT, SWFT, SWN, SXC, SYRX, TOR, TWER, UCTT, URBN, USG, UTEK, VDTH, VFC, VXUP, WGBS, WHR, WLB, WMT, WWW

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IYK, XLK, XLP
ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: UNG

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From Briefing.com: The markets ended Monday split, as the Nasdaq Composite was the only index which managed to stay out of the red. The Nasdaq ended higher on the session by 2.84 points (+0.06%) to 5034.70. The S&P 500 posted losses of 3.97 points (-0.19%) to 2071.18. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also ended below flat lines, down 23.65 points (-0.13%) to 17623.05. Market data today came in the form of New Home Sales, which for September hit an annualized rate of 468,000, down from the revised August rate of 529,000 (from 552,000).

The Technology (XLK) sector posted notable losses as the sector did not manage to climb out of the red for the entire session. Names which held the sector down were STX -3.89%, MU -3.83%, HPQ -3.31%, ADI -3.29%, AAPL -3.25%, WDC -3.14%, BRCM -3.14%, WIN -3.06%. Other sectors finished as follows: XLY +0.70%, XLV +0.39%, XLP -0.20%, XLI -0.22%, XLU -0.36%, XLK -0.39%, XLF -0.41%, IYZ -0.43%, XLB -0.82%, with Energy lagging XLE -2.45%.

Semiconductors (SOX 670.19, -13.52 -1.98%) as a whole were weak today, as ATML -10.90%, QRVO -9.20%, SWKS -5.62%, NXPI -4.87%, AVGO -4.61%, ON -4.27% led the way lower on no particular news. A number of semi names report quarterly results this week, though, with Broadcom (BRCM 51.46, -1.67 -3.14%) leading the way tonight. BRCM is set to be acquired by Avago Tech (AVGO 123.61, -5.97 -4.61%) for $37 billion. Of note, some semi names may have seen pressure today as Apple (AAPL 115.28, -3.80 -3.19%) supplier Dialog Semi (DLGNF 36.50, -8.08 -18.12%) reported quarterly results.

Some notable strength today came in the form of the Social Media (SOCL 19.20, +0.18 +0.95%) sector, which posted modest gains in the face of a split broader market. Component Changyou.com (CYOU 20.83, +2.89 +16.11%) posted a top and bottom line beat for Q3, taking the sector higher. Blue chip names also saw strength in the sector, as YELP +8.29%, ANGI +6.77%, YNDX +6.28%, P +5.17%, WB +2.22%, TWTR +2.01%, GOOGL +1.64% all ended the session above flat lines.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology (735.42, -2.36 -0.32%) sector spent the entirety of the session in the red. Names which held the sector down today included QCOM -2.49%, JNPR -1.94%, GLW -1.59%, LLTC -1.48%, CSCO -1.36%, HRS -1.29%, MCHP -1.22%, SNDK -1.21%, EA -1.12%, INTC -0.89%, FLIR -0.76%, IBM -0.71%, as semis again pressured trading action.

Other notable news items among sector components:

The United Services Automobile Association (USAA) plans to switch accounts to Visa (V 78.18, +1.11 +1.44%) from Mastercard (MA 99.63, -0.16 -0.16%).

Oracle (ORCL 38.37, +0.30 +0.79%) introduced its Exa Your Power Program to help customers migrate Oracle Database from IBM Power systems to Oracle Engineered Systems using Intel technology.

Microsoft (MSFT 54.25, +1.38 +2.61%) opened the doors to its first flagship store in the heart of Manhattan at Fifth Ave. and 53rd St. The five-floor, 22,369 square-foot store features an assortment of products and in-store services familiar at the company's more than 110 retail locations, while offering new interactive experiences to customers

Yahoo (YHOO 33.38, +0.21 +0.64%) announced that Bob Lord will join as the Company's Chief Information Security Officer. Lord was most recently the CISO-in-Residence at Rapid 7.YHOO also announced that it saw 33.6 million streams of Sunday's NFL game over 15.2 million unique viewers. Corning Incorporated (GLW 17.32, -0.28 -1.59%) announced that Samsung (SSNLF 1050, flat) has chosen Corning Lotus NXT Glass for its line of low- temp. polysilicon, organic light-emitting diode panels.

TASER (TASR 23.56, +1.20 +5.37%) announced a partnership agreement with Microsoft (MSFT 54.25, +1.38 +2.61%) to bring together the combined capabilities of the Microsoft Azure's cloud platform, and Windows 10 devices with TASER's Axon Platform and Evidence.com solution.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Pericom Semi's (PSEM 17.35, -0.49 -2.75%) Board unanimously rejected the unsolicited revised offer from Montage Technology Group. The company reaffirmed the recommendation in support of the transaction with Diodes (DIOD 22.79, -0.89 -3.76%).

Oi SA (OIBR 0.55, 9, +0.04 +8.91%) received a proposal from Letter One to enter into exclusive negotiations with respect to a potential transaction with the objective of a possible consolidation of the Brazilian telecommunications sector.

Ctrip.com (CTRP 90.78, +16.44 +22.11%) announced that it has completed a share exchange transaction with Baidu (BIDU 166.24, +8.64 +5.48%), and as a result of the transaction, Baidu will own ordinary shares of Ctrip representing about 25% of Ctrip's aggregate voting interest, and Ctrip will own ordinary shares of

Qunar (QUNR 42.65, +3.13 +7.92%) representing about 45% of Qunar's aggregate voting interest.

Digi Intl (DGII 12.07, -10.33 -2.66%) announced the sale of Etherios for $9 million in cash payable ($4 million at closing, $3 million on the first anniversary of closing and $2 million on the second anniversary of closing) to West Monroe Partners.

TASER International (TASR) announced its disruptive entry into the in-car video market with Axon Fleet. Axon Fleet will be available for pre-orders starting this week and available for shipment in Q1 2016.

Agilent Technologies (A 36.83, -0.28 -0.75%) introduced the Agilent 5977B High Efficiency Source GC/MSD System, a tandem gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer that delivers lower limits of detection than any other instrument in its class.

Comtech Telecom (CMTL 23.75, -0.51 -2.10%) was awarded a $3.2 million contract from a US military integrator for the supply of traveling wave tube amplifiers.

TiVo Research, a subsidiary of TiVo (TIVO 9.23, -0.09 -0.97%) confirmed that it will be giving away basic TV ratings data for free for anyone starting in the first quarter of 2016

Solaria announced that SunEdison (SUNE 7.79, +0.02 +0.26%) has agreed to license Solaria's manufacturing technology to cost effectively mass produce its new line of UH efficiency 400 watt solar modules

xG Technology (XGTI 0.76, +0.19 +34.21%) received an order from Department of Defense agency for xMax mobile broadband wireless equipment and services. The order was received following field evaluations conducted at a Technical Experimentation Event that took place at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Indiana

CEVA (CEVA 23.50, -0.23 -0.97%) announced that Vatics, a multimedia SoC solutions provider in Taiwan, has licensed the CEVA imaging and vision DSP for its next-generation SoCs targeting surveillance and smart network cameras.

Diebold (DBD 37.47, +0.61 +1.65%) divested its North American electronic security business to Securitas with a purchase price of $350 million.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Changyou.com (CYOU) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations. The company saw EPS of $1.3 on revenues which rose 4.3% YoY to $188.9 million. The company also guided Q4 EPS and revenues worse than expected with EPS in the range of $0.56-0.65 per share and $145-155 million.

Sohu.com (SOHU 48.50, +3.15 +6.95%) reported Q3 EPS of $1.27 on revenues which beat expectations at $522.1 million and grew 21.3% YoY. The company also guided Q4 EPS of ($0.65)-($0.40) on revenues of $435-465 million.

Xerox (XRX 10.03, -0.31 -3.00%) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at $0.24 on revenues which missed expectations and fell 7.2% YoY to $4.45 billion. XRX also guided Q4 EPS in-line with anticipations at $0.28-0.30. In addition, the Board of Directors authorized a review of the company's business portfolio and capital allocation options, with the goal of enhancing shareholder value.

Silicom Limited (SILC 32.48, -1.04 -3.10%) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations. EPS came in at $0.57 on revenues which rose 22.3% YoY to $19.41 million.

Check Point Software (CHKP 80.98, +0.55 +0.68%) reported Q3 EPS was better than expected on revenues which were in-line. EPS was $1.04 on revenues which rose 9.0% YoY to $403.9 million.

Companies scheduled to report tonight after the bell/tomorrow before the open: TWOU, AMKR, BRCM, CDNS, CTS, IDTI, KN, MSTR, MPWR, PMCS/AIXG, AXE, AVX, CVLT, GLW, CTG, GRUB, IPGP, LXK, TMUS, YNDX

Analyst actions:

AMAT was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Nomura,
CVLT was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray;
HPY was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
KLAC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura,
PGI was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
INGIY was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill

4:14 pm PMC-Sierra beats by $0.02, beats on revs -- co being acquired by Skyworks (SWKS) (PMCS) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.11; revenues fell 1.4% year/year to $133.6 mln vs the $130.84 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Q3 Storage product revenues reached a quarterly record of $97.6 mln, or 73% of revenues.

4:13 pm Integrated Device to acquire ZMDI for $310 mln; transaction will add $20 mln of quarterly revenues and be accretive to earnings in first full quarter following close (IDTI) : Co announced an agreement to acquire privately held ZMDI (Zentrum Mikroelektronik Dresden AG) for total consideration of $310M in cash. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the board of directors of both companies, with closing expected before calendar end. The transaction adds $20 mln of quarterly revenues to IDT at 57% gross margins and will be accretive to earnings in first full quarter following close

4:13 pm Amkor beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (AMKR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.04; revenues fell 9.7% year/year to $734 mln vs the $725.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of ($0.02)-$0.05 vs. $0.08 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $660-710 mln vs. $740.84 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"In response to the generally soft end market demand for electronic devices, we expect customers to cautiously manage inventories through the fourth quarter of 2015," said Kelley.
"We are tightly controlling capital expenditures and working capital in line with the demand environment. Accordingly, we are reducing our estimate of full year 2015 capital expenditures from around $550 million to around $525 million, including around $150 million of spending for our new K5 facility."

4:13 pm Giga-tronics reports Q2 prelim revenue of $2.9-3.1 mln compared to quarterly net sales ranging from $4.3-5.1 mln over the past four quarters (GIGA) :

Net loss for the second quarter is expected to be between $1.0 mln to $1.4 mln. These preliminary, unaudited financial results are based on management's initial review of operations for the quarter ended September 26, 2015, and remain subject to change based on management's ongoing review of the second quarter results.
In Q2, co experienced delays in shipments due to late arriving materials from its suppliers and technical issues associated with the new Advanced Signal Generator.
Many of the delayed Q2 shipments have been delivered to customers this month, including multiple units of the Advanced Signal Generator.Co's Q2 ending backlog remained substantial at $15.8 mln, of which $6.5 mln is shippable within a year.

4:11 pm Broadcom beats by $0.04, beats on revs -- being acquired by Avago (AVGO) (BRCM) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.77 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.73; revenues fell 3.2% year/year to $2.19 bln vs the $2.14 bln Capital IQ Consensus. In light of Broadcom's pending transaction with Avago (AVGO), Broadcom has discontinued conducting conference calls with analysts and investors to discuss its financial results.

4:08 pm Integrated Device beats by $0.04, beats on revs (IDTI) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.35 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.31; revenues rose 23.6% year/year to $169.5 mln vs the $166.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Revenue growth was driven by a strong rebound in sales of our communications products, continued market leadership in memory interface, as well as solid contributions from our wireless charging business

4:07 pm Cadence Design beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs slighly below consensus; guides FY15 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (CDNS) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.26; revenues rose 8.5% year/year to $434 mln vs the $429.31 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.28-0.30 vs. $0.28 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $434-444 mln vs. $446.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $1.06-1.08 vs. $1.04 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY15 revs of $1.695-1.705 bln vs. $1.7 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:03 pm Monolithic Power beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs in-line (MPWR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.55 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 16.5% year/year to $91.2 mln vs the $90.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Non-GAAP gross margin was 55.1%, compared with 54.9% in the third quarter of 2014. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $84-88 mln vs. $85.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Sees Non-GAAP R&D and SG&A expenses between $25.0-26.0 mln. This excludes an estimate of stock-based compensation expenses in the range of $9.2 million to $10.2 million.

3:57 pm Pericom Semi: Montage Technology Group responds to PSEM's rejection of its proposed acquisition, reiterates commitment to its $18.50/share cash offer (PSEM) :

Highlights of Montage's response:

"We are disappointed, and frankly quite surprised, that the Pericom Board of Directors would reject our superior $18.50 per share all cash offer and deny their shareholders the value of our offer. Montage's offer of $18.50 per share in cash represents a highly attractive premium of approximately 52% to the unaffected closing price on September 2, 2015, and a premium of approximately 9% to Diodes Incorporated ("Diodes") offer, which we believe Pericom's Board is irrationally defending.... In light of the apparent intransigence of the Pericom Board, Montage will solicit votes against the Diodes transaction so that Pericom shareholders can decide for themselves whether they would prefer to receive the significantly higher value offered by Montage. Montage will begin to mail its definitive proxy materials shortly to Pericom shareholders."Large Cap Losers

SWKS (77.99 -5.52%): Semiconductors underperforming after Dialog Semi (DLGNF) reported its Q3 sales which landed near the low end of its previous guidance range and fell short of analyst estimates, guided for Q3 revs below expectations (NXPI, AVGO, BRCM, FSL, MU, ADI also lower).

12:17 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (129) outpacing new lows (95) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAME, ABCB, ACN, ADBE, ADP, AGII, AMSWA, AMWD, ATNI, AZO, BBCN, BLKB, BNCL, BSQR, CACB, CALL, CB, CBNJ, CBZ, CCU, CEVA, CHDN, CINF, CNBKA, CNO, CONE, CORE, CTAS, CTRP, CTXS, DRAD, EBF, EDGW, EDN, EFSC, ENVI, EVC, EXLS, EXPD, FB, FBIZ, FBNC, FISV, FLO, FONR, FRC, FSBW, GABC, GAME, GGAL, GIG, GSBC, HBNC, HCKT, HCSG, HOMB, HRB, HSIC, HTBI, ICE, IGLD, IPG, JAXB, JBT, JKHY, JNPR, KEP, KRNY, LMT, MANH, MATW, MCD, MEET, METR, MLHR, MO, MTN, MTS, NBBC, NBHC, NKSH, NWBI, ORLY, OZRK, PAM, PAYX, PBY, PCBK, PCLN, PNY, POOL, PSA, PSCU, QTS, RAI, RCL, ROP, SBUX, SHBI, SIFI, SIGI, SIRI, SIRO, SKYW, SSS, STL, STRS, SVBI, TBNK, TFSL, TOWN, TRV, TSS, TTC, TTWO, UFCS, ULTI, V, VIRT, VNTV, VVI, WAFD, WAL, WGL, WNS, WSFS, WSO, XRAY, XUE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AIMT, AMS, ATLS, ATOS, AVH, BDR, BKD, BOOT, CAB, CBYL, CRDC, CRR, CSTM, CUR, DECK, DK, DOM, ENZN, ERA, ESMC, FCFS, FDEU, FMSA, FOSL, FREE, FRGI, GLRE, GNK, GNMK, GNVC, GOGL, HBI, HBIO, HEB, IFON, JMP, JWN, KIQ, KODK, LPSN, M, MCEP, MHR, MPLX, MWE, NC, NETE, NGL, NM, NNBR, NRG, NRP, NSPR, NTG, OLLI, ORIG, ORN, OSTK, OZM, PSG, PSUN, PTCT, PULM, PXLW, QDEL, RCKY, REDF, REE, RGNX, RICE, RKDA, RLOC, ROYT, RPRX, RRC, SAVE, SCON, SDPI, SIEN, SVU, SXC, SYRX, TLN, TOR, TST, TWER, UNIS, UPL, USAP, USG, VCEL, VOXX, WDC, WLB, WMT

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: UNG

8:37 am EZchip mails letter to shareholders, reiterates its support for the merger proposal with Mellanox Tech (MLNX), says Raging Capital's interests are not aligned with other EZChip shareholders (EZCH) : Since the public announcement of the merger agreement on September 30, 2015, the Board has not been approached by any other potential buyer.

8:30 am Pericom Semi's Board unanimously rejects the unsolicited revised offer from Montage Technology Group; reaffirms recommendation in support of transaction with Diodes (DIOD) (PSEM) :

Co's Board of Directors, after continued consultation with its independent financial advisors and outside legal counsel, has unanimously rejected the unsolicited revised acquisition offer that Pericom received from Montage Technology Group Limited.

Consistent with its fiduciary duties to the Company's shareholders, the Board determined that Montage's revised offer is inferior to the transactions contemplated by Pericom's previously announced Merger Agreement with Diodes Incorporated (DIOD) and that Montage's revised offer is not in the best interests of Pericom's shareholders. The Board cited Financing and Regulatory and Timing risk as factors in its decision


4:05 pm : The stock market began the trading week on a quiet note with the S&P 500 (-0.2%) spending the session inside a nine-point range. The benchmark index settled right above the midpoint of that range while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) outperformed throughout the session.

Generally speaking, the Monday affair was very quiet and free of noteworthy earnings. Accordingly, the benchmark index opened with a two-point loss and traded in sideways fashion until the closing bell. Seven sectors registered losses between 0.2% (consumer staples and industrials) and 2.5% (energy) while consumer discretionary (+0.8%), health care (+0.5%), and telecom services (+0.1%) outperformed.

Notably, the energy sector fell to the bottom of the leaderboard at the start and remained there throughout the day. The daylong retreat caused the sector to narrow its October gain to 9.0% while crude oil fell 1.4% to $43.98/bbl.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, heavily-weighted financials (-0.3%) and technology (-0.3%) underperformed while the consumer discretionary sector (+0.8%) displayed relative strength thanks to a rebound in retail names. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.23, +0.24) added 0.5%.

On the downside, the technology sector kept the market under pressure after spiking more than 3.0% on Friday. Chipmakers paced today's pullback with the PHLX Semiconductor Index sliding 2.0%.

That being said, the Nasdaq was able to overcome the weakness in technology thanks to relative strength in biotech. To that point, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 317.01, +0.73) advanced 0.2% while the health care sector added 0.5%.

Unlike stocks, Treasuries inched higher throughout the session with the 10-yr yield slipping three basis points to 2.06%.

Unsurprisingly, today's participation was below average with fewer than 850 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the New Home Sales report for September, which hit an annualized rate of 468,000. This was down from the revised August rate of 529,000 (from 552,000), and worse than the rate of 550,000 that had been broadly expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The September report was a bit surprising, considering the latest homebuilder surveys have shown strong improvement in current and expected sales growth. The September drop in sales brought inventories back into alignment with sales trends.

Tomorrow, the September Durable Goods (Briefing.com consensus -1.3%) report will be released at 8:30 ET, August Case-Shiller 20-city Index (expected 0.2%) will be released at 9:00 ET, and October Consumer Confidence (expected 102.5) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.3% YTD
S&P 500 +0.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.8% YTD

DJ30 -23.98 NASDAQ +2.84 SP500 -3.99 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1093/1.60 bln/1785 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1158/811.5 mln/1906

3:40 pm :

Energy futures were weak today led by natural gas futures which tanked
Nov natural gas futures dropped a sharp 9.6% today, ending at $2.06/MMBtu
Ample supply and near-term weather forecasts continue to pressure prices
Dec WTI crude oil dropped 1.3% today to end at $44.03/barrel. In electronic trade, crude is back below $44/barrel
Metals, however, closed out the day with some gains
Dec gold rose +0.3% today to $1166.10/oz, while Dec silver climbed +0.6% at $15.91/oz

8:22 am Silicom Limited beats by $0.13, beats on revs (SILC) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.57 per share, $0.13 better than the single analyst estimate of $0.44; revenues rose 22.3% year/year to $19.41 mln vs the $18.5 mln single analyst estimate.

8:05 am Canadian Solar follow-up; co raises guidance to reflect higher than expected solar demand (CSIQ) :

Co issues upside guidance for Q3 (Sep), sees Q3 (Sep) revs of $805-815 vs. $610.54 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, up from previous guidance for $570-620 mln. For the third quarter of 2015, Canadian Solar now expects its total solar module shipments to be in the range of approximately 1.18 GW to 1.23 GW, compared to its previous guidance, which was in the range of 970 MW to 1.02 GW.Gross margin for the third quarter of 2015 is expected to be at or slightly above the high end of previous guidance, which was in the range of 12% to 14%.Updated guidance reflects higher than expected solar demand in the quarter and the sale of 51% of the 200 MW Tranquillity solar power project in California by the Company's wholly owned subsidiary, Recurrent Energy, to Southern Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company (SO).

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The broader market closed mid-week trading higher. The Nasdaq Composite led the way higher today, adding 65.54 points (+1.30%) to 5095.69. The S&P 500 also posted strong gains, up 24.46 points (+1.18%) to 2090.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rounded out the bunch up 198.09 points (+1.13%) to 17779.52. Economic data today was limited to the MBA Mortgage Index which fell 3.5% to follow last week's 11.8% spike. Strength in US equities came on the back of strength in foreign markets, as everything from the PSI to the CAC was higher by more than 1.0% when the markets closed.

Also today, the Federal Reserve left rates unchanged at 0 to 0.25%. Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in September suggests that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace. Inflation is anticipated to remain near its recent low level in the near term but the Committee expects inflation to rise gradually toward 2 percent over the medium term as the labor market improves further and the transitory effects of declines in energy and import prices dissipate.

The Technology (XLK 44.06, +0.65 +1.50%) sector closed Wednesday action near session highs. The sector did not touch negative territory all session, seeing only mild pressure following the Fed release. Other sector finished XLF +2.51%, IYZ +2.31%, XLE +2.22%, XLB +1.51%, XLK +1.50%, XLY +0.95%, XLV +0.83%, XLI +0.80%, XLP -0.57%, XLU -1.06% with only Consumer Staples and Utilities lagging the broader market.

Networking (IGN 38.73, +1.00 +2.65%) stocks posted notable strength today as names like TSS +5.96%, HRS +5.05%, AVGO +4.61%, FSLR +3.44%, TDC +3.24% took the sector higher. Most notably, sector component Infinera (INFN 21.12, +2.82 +15.41%) reported better than expected Q3 results, with revenues up more than a third.

Semiconductors (SOX 677.21, +11.50 +1.73%) also turned in another day of outperformance. Sector component Teradyne (TER 20.34, +1.79 +9.65%) finished the day higher as the company reported quarterly results last night. For the Q3 period, TER beat on the bottom line with EPS of $0.40 on revenues which fell 2.5% YoY, and were mostly in-line with expectations at $466.0 million. Sector names Maxim Integrated (MXIM 42.01, +3.56 +9.26%) and Texas Instruments (TXN 58.67, +0.63 +1.09%) also finished higher as there were reports that TXN was in talks to acquire MXIM.

The S&P 500 Information Technology ( 742.57, +11.16 +1.53%) sector closed today near highs of the day. Blue chip name Apple (AAPL 119.27, +4.72 +4.12%) posted better than expected results for the Q4 period, helping the sector higher today. Other names which posted gains on the session included: YHOO +2.58%, FIS +2.54%, CTXS +2.36%, CTSH +2.19%, IBM +2.15%, NTAP +2.10%, EA +1.99%, HPQ +1.93%, WU +1.87%, V +1.74%, ACN +1.72%, MA +1.69%, QCOM +1.66%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM 140.83, +2.97 +2.15%) to acquire The Weather Company's B2B mobile and cloud-based web properties. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Fiserv (FISV 96.59, +1.16 +1.22%) announced that CFO Thomas Hirsch will retire on March 31, 2016.

Verizon (VZ 46.48, +0.31 +0.67%) Enterprise Solutions is adding HP (HPQ 27.98, +0.53 +1.93%) and Verizon Cloud to its Secure Cloud Interconnect service, essentially doubling the size of its footprint in the Asia-Pacific region and increasing the number of cloud providers, giving clients a seamless way to connect, manage and secure their multi-cloud environments.

BroadSoft (BSFT 31.34, +1.59 +5.34%) today announced that its BroadWorks, BroadCloud and UC-One unified communication and collaboration solutions are now compatible with Microsoft (MSFT 53.98, +0.29 +0.54%) Lync and Microsoft Skype for Business.

VeriSign (VRSN 80.90, +1.07 +1.34%) announced that XYZ, the registry operator behind .xyz, had defeated VRSN in a lawsuit dating back to Dec. 2014. The summary judgement victory for XYZ noted there were not triable issues for a jury.

Elsewhere in the technology sector:

FEI (FEIC 70.19, -6.28 -8.21%) in addition to reporting quarterly earnings, announced an agreement to acquire DCG Systems for $160 million in cash. The deal is expected to be slightly accretive to 2016 GAAP EPS.

Toshiba (TOSBF 2.89, +0.03 +1.12%) announced that it has entered into a non-binding MOU that confirms the intent to negotiate and transfer to Sony (SNE 28.97, +0.37 +1.29%) certain Toshiba owned semiconductor fabrication facilities, equipment and related assets.

CGI Group (GIB 36.90, +0.33 +0.90%) expanded its outsourcing agreement with DB Schenker to cover more mission-critical applications. The 4-year extension is valued at about SEK65 million.

TrueCar (TRUE 6.25, +0.07 +1.13%) projected total new vehicle sales including fleet deliveries will hit 1,427,500 units in October, up 11.4% year-over-year.

InterCloud Systems (ICLD 1.68, -0.03 -1.75%) received a new contract valued at $500K.

Fifth Third (FITB 19.66, +0.91 +4.85%) confirmed it entered into an agreement with Vantiv (VNTV 50.92, +3.93 +8.36%) under which a portion of its Tax Receivable Agreement with VNTV was terminated and settled in full for consideration of a cash payment in the amount of $48.9 million from VNTV.

USA Tech (USAT 2.67, +0.10 +3.89%) commented on a class action filed against the company, alleging misleading statements by management. The company believes the claims 'lack merit.'
beIN SPORTS has entered a new content distribution agreement with go90 and Verizon (VZ) FiOS, giving customers greater access to live international soccer.

Harmonic (HLIT 5.85, +0.15 +2.63%) reported that CFO Carolyn Aver will be leaving the company and that Harold Covert has been appointed as the new CFO effective immediately.

Natl Instruments (NATI 30.58, +2.16 +7.60%) acquired Micropross for about $108 million. The deal is expected to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings in 2016.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Apple (AAPL) reported Q4 EPS and revenues which beat expectations. For Q4, EPS was $1.96 on revenues which rose 22.3% YoY to $51.5 billion. The company also guided Q1 revenues of $75.5-77.5 billion. iPhones sold in the period numbered 48.1 million and iPads were 9.9 million with Macs sold of 5.7 million.

Twitter (TWTR) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations. The company saw EPS of $0.10 on revenues which rose 57.6% YoY to $569 million. TWTR also issued downside guidance for Q4 in the range of $695-710 million.

NCR Corp (NCR 26.28, +1.92 +7.88%) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at $0.78 on revenues which missed and fell 2.1% YoY to $1.61 billion. The company also issued upside guidance for FY15 EPS of $2.70-2.80 (prior $2.60-2.80) and decreased revenue guidance to 3-4% due to challenges in developing markets.

Infinera (INFN) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which were better than expected. Q3 EPS was $0.22 and revenues were up 33.9% YoY to $232.5 million.

VASCO Data Security (VDSI 19.51, +1.83 +10.35%) reported a top and bottom line beat on Q3 expectations. EPS came in $0.34 on revenues which grew 14.1% YoY to $60.03 million.

DHI Group (DHX 9.00, +1.09 +13.78%) reported a beat on the top and bottom line of expectations for Q3. The company saw Q3 EPS of $0.12 on revenues which fell 3.7% YoY to $65.1 million.

Akamai Tech (AKAM 62.91, -12.64 -16.73%) reported Q3 EPS better than anticipated at $0.62 on revenues which rose 10.6% YoY to $551 million.

United Micro (UMC 1.87, -0.05 -2.60%) reported earnings of NT$0.14 per share on revenues which fell 7.1% YoY to NT$35.32 billion.

Companies reporting tonight/tomorrow morning: AFOP, ARRS, ATML, BLKB, CACI, CAVM, CMPR, CRUS, DMRC, ECHO, ESIO, ELLI, EQIX, FFIV, FORM, FORR, GPRO, NSIT, ISIL, INVN, MANT, NCIT, NXPI, OTEX, PSEM, PLXS, POWI, PTC, QRVO, QUIK, ROG, ROVI, SGI, SIMO, SWI, SPRT, TTMI, VECO, WSTL, WDC, YELP/ALU, ALLT, AVT, CCMP, DBD, EXLS, IMS, IQNT, I, IRDM, KEM, LDOS, MMYT, MA, MWW, NTCT, NICE, NOK, NTLS, STM, TZOO

Analyst action:

TWTR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
AAPL was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
AIXG was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Kepler;
GRUB was downgraded at Susquehanna and RBC Capital Mkts,
AKAM was downgraded at Craig Hallum, JP Morgan, Cowen and Canaccord Genuity,
SPIL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies,
MRVL was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup

4:50 pm Integrated Device announces a private offering of $325 mln in convertible senior notes due 2022 (IDTI) : Co expects to use a portion of the net proceeds from the offering to repurchase shares of the Company's common stock.The Company intends to use any remaining net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes.

4:26 pm SunPower beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs above consensus (SPWR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.02); revenues fell 37.3% year/year to $441.4 mln vs the $428.89 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $1.25-1.30 bln vs. $1.22 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The company's fourth quarter fiscal 2015 non-GAAP guidance is as follows: Gross margin of 28 percent to 29 percent, EBITDA of $300 to $325 million MW deployed in the range of 275 MW to 305 MW. On a GAAP basis:Revenue of $300 million to $350 million, Gross margin of 5 percent to 6 percent and Net loss per diluted share of $1.25 to $1.15. Fourth quarter 2015 GAAP guidance includes the impact of the company's holdco strategy and deferrals due to real estate accounting.The company is also raising its fiscal year 2015 EBITDA guidance to $475 million to $500 million, an increase from its previous guidance of $425 million to $475 million.

2016 Outlook

"In relation to working capital, we increased inventory in the third quarter in preparation to meet our significant 2016 backlog while adding assets to our holdco asset base. With solid industry fundamentals, a diversified end channel strategy, new product introductions and further commitment to our manufacturing cost reduction roadmaps, we are well positioned for profitable growth in 2016."

4:25 pm Western Digital reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (WDC) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $1.56 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.56; revenues fell 14.8% year/year to $3.36 bln vs the $3.35 bln Capital IQ Consensus. "We continue to benefit from our strong product and technology positioning in today's storage market. I am very excited about our future and ability to create long term value in the evolving storage ecosystem, especially in light of our three recent announcements regarding the planned investment in our company by Unisplendour, the MOFCOM decision and our planned acquisition of SanDisk."

4:24 pm TTM Tech beats by $0.07, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS midpoint below consensus, revs below consensus (TTMI) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.17; revenues rose 88.3% year/year to $652 mln vs the $661.74 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 was $87.6 million, or 13.4% of net sales, compared to adjusted EBITDA of $59.7 million, or 13.4% of net sales, for Q2 and $43.6 million, or 12.6% of net sales, for Q3.Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.21-0.27 vs. $0.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $640-680 mln vs. $695.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:17 pm FormFactor beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line (FORM) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.06 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.03; revenues fell 10.8% year/year to $65.9 mln vs the $65.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus."Our continued focus on cost control and operational execution enabled FormFactor to deliver a 6th consecutive quarter of non-GAAP profitability and cash generation, despite well-publicized industry demand headwinds. In addition, we experienced strengthening demand towards the end of Q3 with continued momentum into Q4, as customers increasingly rely on FormFactor to enable their new product introductions and ramps."

4:10 pm Intersil beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ISIL) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.15 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.14; revenues fell 10.6% year/year to $128.4 mln vs the $126.38 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.12-0.15 vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $123-131 mln vs. $126.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:09 pm Atmel reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus (being acquired by Dialog) (ATML) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.08 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.08; revenues fell 23.5% year/year to $286.5 mln vs the $293.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $266-286 mln vs. $297.64 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.sees non-GAAP gross margin between 47.0 and 48.0%; sees non-GAAP operating expenses between $98 and $102 million

4:09 pm F5 Networks beats by $0.10, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (FFIV) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.84 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.74; revenues rose 7.7% year/year to $501.3 mln vs the $506.44 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.58-1.61 vs. $1.71 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $480-490 mln vs. $507.10 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Plexus beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (PLXS) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.70 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.68; revenues rose 0.4% year/year to $669 mln vs the $663.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.41-0.48, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.72 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $600-625 mln vs. $675.49 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."Looking forward to fiscal 2016, while our visibility is limited, we anticipate a challenging start to the year due to market sector weakness, particularly in Networking/Communications and Industrial/Commercial, in the first half of the fiscal year. We are guiding fiscal first quarter 2016 revenue of $600 to $625 million with diluted EPS in the range of $0.41 to $0.48."

4:06 pm Power Integrations beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs in-line (POWI) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.51; revenues fell 1.4% year/year to $88.9 mln vs the $88.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $86-92 mln vs. $88.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Westell Tech beats by $0.04, beats on revs (WSTL) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) loss of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the single analyst estimate of ($0.05); revenues rose 7.6% year/year to $25.5 mln vs the $21.35 mln single analyst estimate.

4:06 pm Veeco Instruments announces a $100 million share repurchase program (VECO) :


4:01 pm Cirrus Logic beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus; adds $200 mln to buyback (CRUS) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.65 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.59; revenues rose 46% year/year to $306.8 mln vs the $300.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $370-400 mln vs. $353.50 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Adds $200 mln to buyback.

4:05 pm Mellanox Tech announces that its CEO and CFO have each adopted a 10b5-1 trading plan, to sell a portion of their shares (MLNX) : The co announced that Eyal Waldman, president and CEO, and Jacob Shulman, CFO, have each adopted a stock trading plan to sell a portion of their ordinary shares of the co in an orderly manner. In accordance with 10b5-1 rules, Mr. Waldman and Mr. Shulman will have no discretion over sales under their respective plans. Under Mr. Waldman's plan, Waldo 2 Holdings, a general partnership of which Mr. Waldman is a general partner, may sell up to 194,924 shares, the majority of which are options which will expire in 2016, for the benefit of Mr. Waldman subject to satisfaction of certain conditions. If the conditions are met, sales under the plan may commence in January 1, 2016 and would be completed by December 31, 2016. Under his plan, Mr. Shulman may sell up to 26,979 shares, subject to satisfaction of certain conditions. If the conditions are met, sales under the plan may commence in January 1, 2016 and would be completed by December 31, 2016.

4:10 pm : The stock market snapped its two-day skid on Wednesday, but not before seeing some intraday volatility. The S&P 500 added 1.2% while the Russell 2000 (+2.9%) outperformed.

Equity indices rallied out of the gate in response to a batch of mostly better than expected earnings. That lengthy list was headlined by Apple (AAPL 119.28, +4.73) with the top-weighted stock spiking 4.1% in reaction to better than expected earnings and revenue. For its part, the broader technology sector (+1.5%) settled ahead of the broader market while most other cyclical sectors also showed relative strength. None more so than the energy space (+2.2%), which spent the day in the lead after struggling over the past two days.

The growth-sensitive energy sector rallied behind crude oil, which spiked 6.3% to $45.93/bbl. Thanks to today's rally, the sector has narrowed this week's loss to 1.5%. Similarly, the materials space (+1.5%) also outperformed today after struggling earlier in the week.

After rallying through the first two hours of the session, the market hovered near its high until the 14:00 ET release of the latest policy statement from the Federal Reserve, which called for no change to the current policy stance.

That being said, the Federal Reserve took out a key line from its statement, which referred to global developments having the potential to restrain economic growth in the U.S. With that line being left out of the October statement, the Fed has left the door open to a potential rate hike in December.

Accordingly, the policy statement was met with a slide in stocks and Treasuries while the Dollar Index (97.65, +0.75) spiked to levels last seen at the start of October. The index remained near its high until the close while Treasuries settled near their lows with the 10-yr yield rising five basis points to 2.09%. Stocks, however, charged back to their highs after making a brief appearance near their flat lines immediately after the Fed statement crossed the wires.

It is worth noting that most sectors settled above their early afternoon highs while the financial sector (+2.4%) never missed a beat, charging to a fresh session-best shortly ahead of the close.

Elsewhere, the health care sector (+1.0%) settled a bit behind the market, but it is worth noting that today's underperformance followed two days of relative strength. The countercyclical sector extended this week's gain to 3.2% despite a struggling biotech group. That struggle was a distant memory by the close with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 331.79, +4.14) ending higher by 1.3% while one of its top components-Gilead Sciences (GILD 108.13, -2.83)-fell 2.6% despite reporting better than expected earnings and revenue.

Today's participation was ahead of average with more than 960 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data released today was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which fell 3.5% to follow last week's 11.8% spike.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 264,000) and the advance reading of Q3 GDP (consensus 1.6%) will be released at 8:30 ET while the September Pending Home Sales report (expected 0.6%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.6% YTD
S&P 500 +1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.1% YTD

DJ30 +198.09 NASDAQ +65.55 SP500 +24.46 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2409/1.96 bln/627 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2421/982.9 mln/652

3:35 pm :

Following the FOMC statement, the dollar index surged higher and hit a new high for today
This weighed on select commodities, including gold and silver. Post-FOMC, gold sharply surrendered all gains and began to post notable losses
At the end of pit trading, Dec gold finished 0.9% higher at $1176.40/oz
Now, following the FOMC results, Dec gold is -0.8% at $1156.00/oz, while Dec silver is +0.6% at $15.97/oz
Oil futures surged higher today, finishing pit trading +6.3% at $45.93/barrel. Dec natural gas lost -3.1% to $2.29/MMBtu
Here in electronic trade, Dec crude oil is +6.3% at $45.92/barrel

11:29 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (136) outpacing new lows (112) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCB, ACN, ACXM, AFL, AGII, BBCN, BCOM, BDGE, BKFS, CACB, CAM, CBZ, CCL, CEVA, CHFC, CHMT, CIA, CIGI, CINF, CLI, CMN, CORE, CRWN, CSBK, CSH, CTAS, CTXS, CUBE, CVCO, CWBC, DCOM, DMND, DPS, EA, EBF, EGBN, EGHT, ESSA, FBC, FBNC, FBNK, FCBC, FFIC, FIS, FISV, FIZZ, FLTX, FMX, FR, FRME, FSV, GPN, GSBC, HCSG, HRB, HSIC, HSII, HTBI, ICE, IGLD, ISBC, JAXB, JBSS, JBT, JMG, JNPR, JRVR, KRNY, LANC, LDL, LDOS, LEA, LII, MAA, MAS, MATW, MORE, MRCY, MSG, MTN, MYGN, NAVG, NCLH, NHTC, NOC, NP, NSA, NWBI, OA, OCFC, OMI, ORI, ORRF, OZRK, PAM, PATK, PAYX, PEGA, PFGC, PFS, PGR, PRK, PSA, PSX, RLI, ROCK, ROP, RSYS, RTN, SFBS, SIGI, SIRI, SIRO, SPG, SRCE, SSD, SSRI, SSS, SUBK, SYBT, SYKE, TE, TOWN, TRV, TSS, TTC, TTWO, ULTI, V, VNTV, VVI, WAFD, WCN, WSFS, XRAY, YDKN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AGNC, AIQ, AIT, ATOS, AVH, AVNW, BCOR, BGFV, BIOD, BNTC, BOOM, CGI, CHMI, CLBS, CMI, CMLS, CNMD, COSI, CSTM, DAR, DDD, DNAI, DOM, DV, DWSN, EAT, ECHO, ELGX, EMMS, ENV, EXAC, FCAP, FDEU, FDML, FEIC, FLDM, FLIR, FMSA, FRGI, FSAM, FUEL, GNK, GNMK, GNRT, GOGL, GULTU, HAIN, HCLP, HNRG, HTLD, HTS, HWAY, IPI, ISSC, JMP, KODK, LENS, LGCY, LIQD, LNTH, LOB, LPTN, LRN, MCUR, MIL, MRTN, MSL, NETE, NIHD, NRF, NRP, NXTD, OCIP, OHGI, OZM, PCO, PERF, PMD, PSIX, PSO, PTCT, PULM, RCII, RLOC, RNWK, RPRX, RVLT, RWT, SAH, SAIA, SCON, SJT, SMRT, SMSI, SQQQ, SSE, SXC, SXCL, TDC, TECH, TLN, TOR, TUMI, UNIS, USAP, VDTH, VPCO, VRNG, WEX, WLB, WMT, ZFGN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: none

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The major indices registered modest losses on Thursday inwhat could best be described as a day of profit taking. The S&P 500 information technology sector(-0.3%), which has been the hottest area going for the broader market over thelast month, underperformed on Thursday.

The weakness in the sector was paced by losses in themajority of sector components, although Apple (AAPL 120.53, +1.26, +1.1%) was anotable and influential exception there, which helped to contain the overallfallout.

The weakest area was the semiconductor space, evidenced bythe 3.0% decline in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

It would be remiss not to add that the SOX Index was up 16%over the last month prior to Thursday's trading. Profit taking from a short-term overboughtcondition hit home, then, with 26 of the 30 index components losing ground andmany of those decliners shedding at least 2.0% for the day.

Notable news items from sector components included thefollowing:

Cisco Systems (CSCO29.14, -0.23, -0.8%): Announced its intent Wednesday to acquire 1 Mainstream;terms not disclosed. 1 Mainstream Inc is aprivately held company that offers a cloud-based video platform designed toquickly launch live and on-demand OTT video services to a variety of connecteddevices. The acquisition is expected to be complete in the second quarter ofCisco's current fiscal year.

Corning (GLW 18.85,+0.03, +0.2%) announces $1.25 bln accelerated share repurchase. The ASR is executed pursuant to the $2 bln sharerepurchase program authorized by company's board of directors on July 15, 2015, which wassupplemented by an additional $4 bln share repurchase program authorized onOctober 26, 2015. Under the termsof the ASR, Corning has agreed to repurchase in total $1.25 bln of its commonstock from Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, with an initial delivery of ~53.1Mshares based on current market prices. The program is expected to becompleted in 1Q16. Co expects to finance the ASR with cash on hand.

F5 Networks (FFIV110.08, -11.26, -9.3%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.84 per share,excluding non-recurring items, which was well above analysts' averageexpectation; revenues rose 7.7% year/year to $501.3 mln, which was belowestimates. For Q1, sees EPS of$1.58-1.61 and revenues of $480-490 mln. The high end of both guidance rangesis below analysts' average expectations. Separately, named Edward J. Eames as Chief Operations Officer. Prior to becoming the Company's COO, Eames served as theCompany's Executive Vice President of Business Operations from January 2001.

First Solar (FSLR 50.99, +0.14, +0.3%): Companyand the Sacramento Municipal Utility District have announced the formalexecution of a power purchase agreement for offtake of a 10.8 megawattsolar project to be built on the site of the decommissioned Rancho Seco NuclearGeneration Station. The co also announced that they have signed a powerpurchase agreement with Austin Energy allowing the municipally ownedelectricity provider to obtain low-cost solar power generated by First Solar's119 megawatt AC East Pecos Solar Project.

Intel (INTC 34.03, -0.68, -2.0%): CFO sold 220,620 shares at$34.37-34.43 worth ~$7.7 mln

MasterCard (MA 100.59,+0.50, +0.5%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.91 per share, excludingnon-recurring items, which was $0.04 better than expectations; revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $2.53 bln andwere slightly below estimates. Adjusted for currency, net revenueincreased 8%. On call, said it sees 8-10% FX headwind for FY15income and revenue; reaffirms FY16-18 outlook given at last month's InvestorDay: low double digit net revenue CAGR, mid-teens EPS CAGR

Visa (V 78.51, -0.36, -0.5%): According tosources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, the company is in advancednegotiations to buy Visa Europe for ~$22 bln

Western Digital (WDC67.82, +0.30, +0.4%): After Wednesday'sclose, reported Q1 (Sep)earnings of $1.56 per share, in-line with estimates; revenuesfell 14.8% year/year to $3.36 bln, which was slightly above expectations. Companysaid, "We continue to benefit from our strong product and technologypositioning in today's storage market. I am very excited about our future andability to create long term value in the evolving storage ecosystem, especiallyin light of our three recent announcements regarding the planned investment inour company by Unisplendour, the MOFCOM decision and our planned acquisition ofSanDisk."

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Cirrus Logic (CRUS30.33, -1.29, -4.1%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.65 per share,excluding non-recurring items, topping analysts' average expectation;revenues rose 46% year/year to $306.8 mln, also beating estimates. For Q3,sees Q3 revs of $370-400 mln, which is comfortably above analysts' averageexpectation at the low end of the guidance range. Adds $200 mln to buyback.

Electro Scientific (ESIO4.95, +0.06, +1.2%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q2 (Sep) loss of $0.03 per share, excludingnon-recurring items, which was better than expected; revenues rose8.5% year/year to $46.5 mln, also topping estimates. For Q3, sees EPS of ($0.10)-($0.05) andrevenue of ~$45 mln. The guidance forboth EPS and revenue was shy of analysts' average expectation.

Fairchild Semi (FCS 16.56, -0.99, -5.6%):STMicroelectronics (STM 6.79, -0.42, -5.8%) says on conference call thatcontrary to rumors, it does not have any current plans to make any offer forFairchild

LinkedIn (LNKD 217.00,+3.7, +1.8%): After Thursday's close, reported Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.78 per share, well aheadof analysts' average estimate; revenues rose 37.2% year/year to $779.6 mln,also topping estimates. For Q4, sees EPS of ~$0.74, which is ahead of currentexpectations, and revenues of $845-850 mln, which is in-line with estimates.

Nokia (NOK 7.32, +0.68,+10.2%): Before Thursday's open, reported Q3 (Sep) earnings of 0.08 per share, toppingexpectations; revenues fell 1.7% year/year to 3.04 bln and were belowestimates. Reaffirms its FY15 outlook of increased revenues year-over-year incontinued operating segments and Nokia Networks operating margin. Additionally, co announced a plannedEUR 7 billion program to optimize Nokia's capital structure and return excesscapital to shareholders, ahead of planned public exchange offer forAlcatel-Lucent securities.

Twitter (TWTR 29.06, -1.81, -5.9%): JessicaVerrilli to return to Twitter as Sr Director of Corporate Development &Strategy; Had recently left company for Google Ventures

Yelp (YELP 22.95, +0.88, +4.0%): After Wednesday's close, reported Q3(Sep) earnings of $0.03 per share, coming up shy of expectations;revenues rose 40.1% year/year to $143.6 mln, which was ahead of estimates. ForQ4, sees revenues of $149.5-154.5 mln vs. $152.03 mln, in-line with estimates. AdjustedEBITDA is expected to be in the range of $20 million to $24 million. For FY15, sees revenues of $545.5-551.5mln vs. $545.75 mln. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $72million to $76 million.

Analyst Action:

Akamai Tech (AKAM61.11, -1.80, -2.9%): FBR Capital downgrades AKAM to Underperform from Mkt Performand lowers their tgt to $49 from $59 Alibaba(BABA 82.22, -0.13, -0.2%): downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research

ArrowElectronics (ARW 54.94, -1.08, -1.9%): downgraded to Outperform from Buy atCredit Agricole

F5Networks (FFIV 110.08, -11.26, -9.3%): downgraded to Market Perform at BMOCapital Markets... RBCCapital Markets downgrades FFIV to Sector Perform from Outperform and lowers itstarget to $125 from $130... downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham...target lowered to $115 from $135 at Wunderlich... Oppenheimer lowers itstarget to $120 from $133

Teradyne(TER 19.38, -0.96, -4.7%): downgraded to Sector Weight at Pacific Crest

4:45 pm Cray beats by $0.42, beats on revs; guides FY15 revs in-line; guides FY16 revs above consensus (CRAY) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.48 per share, $0.42 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues rose 20.1% year/year to $191.4 mln vs the $140.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Total non-GAAP gross profit margin for the third quarter of 2015 was 35%, compared to 31% for the third quarter of 2014. Co states, "...We had an excellent quarter as we outperformed our revenue target and delivered strong operating results. Our momentum in the market continues to build as we were awarded several new contracts around the world. We are also releasing our preliminary 2016 outlook today, with continued expectations for strong growth and increasing profitability..."Co issues in-line guidance for FY15, sees FY15 revs of $715 mln vs. $715.66 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees non-GAAP gross margin to be in the 30-33% range and total non-GAAP operating expenses are anticipated to be in the range of $180 million.Co issues upside guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $825 mln vs. $772.97 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Non-GAAP gross margin for 2016 is expected to improve and to be in the low-to-mid 30% range. Non-GAAP operating expenses for 2016, when compared to 2015, are anticipated to grow 13-15%.

4:35 pm Ixys misses by $0.01, misses on revs (IXYS) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.16 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the single analyst estimate of $0.17; revenues fell 7.2% year/year to $80.25 mln vs the $82.56 mln single analyst estimate.Gross profit margin for the quarter ended September 30, 2015 was 32.4%, an increase of 210 basis points from the gross profit margin in the September 30, 2014 quarter

4:30 pm Ingram Micro beats by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (IM) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.67 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.63; revenues fell 6.4% year/year to $10.52 bln vs the $10.72 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.00-1.07 vs. $1.08 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $12-12.6 bln vs. $13.02 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.For the 2015 fourth quarter, foreign exchange headwinds are expected to negatively impact worldwide revenue by approximately 6% , or by more than $800 mln, and to negatively impact non-GAAP earnings per diluted share by $0.10 when compared to the 2014 fourth quarter.

4:27 pm AXT beats by $0.02, misses on revs (AXTI) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) net of breakeven, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.02); revenues fell 20.6% year/year to $18.37 mln vs the $20.09 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:25 pm SolarCity beats by $1.74, beats on revs (SCTY) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.20 per share, $1.74 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($1.94); revenues rose 95.1% year/year to $113.85 mln vs the $111.43 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Cost per Watt Achieves New Record Low of $2.84 PowerCo Platform

TTM Energy Production: 1.5 Terawatt-Hour (TWh), up 75% year-over-year Cumulative MW Installed: 1,674 MW, up 86% year-over-year Cumulative Customers: 298,030, up 77% year-over-year Estimated Nominal Contracted Payments Remaining: $8.9 billion, up 115% year-over-year Net Retained Value: $3.3 Billion, or approximately $33 per basic share.DevCo

Crosses Annualized Run Rate of 1 GW in Installations in 3Q MW Installed: Record 256 MW, up 86% year-over-year; residential up 69% year-over-year MW Booked: 345 MW, up 50% year-over-year Net Increase in Nominal Contracted Payments Remaining: $1.2 billion, up 47% year-over-year DevCo Cost: $2.84 per Watt, down (2%) year-over-year Unlevered IRR: 12% forecast from Q3 2015 installations based on all-in costs including SG&A Economic Value Creation: $239 Million forecast from our incremental Q3 2015 installations Q4 2015 Guidance

Installations of 280 to 300 MW in the fourth quarter. This would represent year-over-year growth of 58%-69% and would translate into full-year 2015 installations of 878-898 MW. This is below the low end of our prior annual guidance as we are cognizant of the inherent uncertainty in the record amount of commercial installations we have planned in December, particularly in light of potential weather-related disruptions and the holiday season. Q4 2015 GAAP revenue guidance Operating Lease and Solar Energy Systems Incentive Revenue of $70-76 million, up 48% year-over-year at the midpointSolar Energy System and Component Sale Revenue is expected to range between $30-32 mln (Total Revenue guidance is $100-108 mln, Capital IQ consensus $117 mln). Operating Lease and Solar Energy Systems Incentive Gross Margin is expected to range between 30% - 32% (or 35% - 37% excluding the impact of approximately $4 million in amortization of intangibles).Non-GAAP Loss Per Share (before Income (Loss) Attributable to Noncontrolling Interests and Redeemable Noncontrolling Interestst is expected to range between ($2.60) -- ($2.75), Capital IQ consensus ($2.15)FY2016 Guidance Introduction

Co is introducing preliminary 2016 guidance of 1.25 GW Installed, representing a year-over-year growth of approximately 41% as compared to the midpoint of 2015 guidance.Expect to announce meaningful reductions to our 2017 cost targets by next earnings call. Expect to generate greater cash flow and position for continued growth that is less susceptible to competitive or regulatory developments than that of any other provider in the category.

4:25 pm Mattson beats by $0.03, beats on revs (MTSN) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.03 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.00); revenues rose 1.3% year/year to $38.9 mln vs the $36.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:23 pm Cascade Microtech reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CSCD) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.19 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.19; revenues rose 9.5% year/year to $35.8 mln vs the $36.99 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.22-0.28 vs. $0.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $37-40 mln vs. $39.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:22 pm Nanometrics beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (NANO) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.03; revenues rose 68.3% year/year to $45.68 mln vs the $45.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $(0.10)-0.00, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $39-43 mln vs. $47.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. 4:22 pm Cohu beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs in-line (COHU) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.09; revenues fell 26.3% year/year to $67.5 mln vs the $65.99 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of approximately $63 mln vs. $63.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20 pm Lattice Semi reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus (LSCC) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.04 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.04); revenues rose 26.9% year/year to $109.82 mln vs the $112.09 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs (-3% to +3% from Q3) of ~$106.53-113.11 mln vs. $119.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margin percentage for the fourth quarter of 2015 is expected to be approximately 57.0% plus or minus 2% on a non-GAAP basis.

4:17 pm ON Semiconductor reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q1 (Mar) revs below consensus (ON) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.23 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.23; revenues rose 8.5% year/year to $904.2 mln vs the $906.75 mln Capital IQ Consensus.GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin of 34.1%Co issues downside guidance for Q1 (Mar), sees Q1 (Mar) revs of $830-870 mln vs. $882.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:14 pm First Solar beats by $1.76, beats on revs; guides FY15 EPS above consensus (FSLR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $3.38 per share, $1.76 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.62; revenues rose 42.9% year/year to $1.27 bln vs the $1.11 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues upside guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $3.5-3.6 bln (Unchanged) vs. $3.32 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Gross Margin 24-25% (Prior 21-22%)Operating Expenses $395-405 mln (Prior ($415-425 mln)Operating Income $450-490 mln (Prior ($330-370 mln)EPS $4.30-4.50 (Prior ($3.30-3.60)Net Cash Balance $1.3-1.4 bln (Prior $1.2-1.4 bln)CapEx $175-200 mln (Unchanged)
Working Capital $1.1-1.2 bln (Prior $1.1-1.3 bln)Shipments 2.8-29 GW (Unchanged)

4:10 pm Extreme Networks beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (EXTR) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.07 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.03; revenues fell 8.8% year/year to $125 mln vs the $125.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Inventory ending Q1 was $61.7 million, an increase of $3.7 million from the prior quarter.Cash and investments ended the quarter at $82.0 million, as compared to $76.2 million from the prior quarter Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.06-$0.10 vs. $0.06 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $130-$140 mln vs. $131.86 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees non-GAAP gross margin between 54.7% and 55.7%.

4:08 pm LinkedIn beats by $0.33, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (LNKD) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.78 per share, $0.33 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.45; revenues rose 37.2% year/year to $779.6 mln vs the $756.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of ~$0.74 vs. $0.66 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $845-850 mln vs. $846.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."Q3 was a strong quarter for LinkedIn. Our member-facing product pipeline has never been stronger, and recent roll-outs are driving continued positive engagement trends. In terms of our business lines, Talent Solutions performed well, while Marketing Solutions remained stable. We also made good progress in Sales Solutions and lynda.com, our more nascent opportunities, which are future growth drivers for the company."Q3 cumulative members grew 20% to 396 million, and last week reached the 400 million member milestone. Unique visiting members grew 11% to an average of 100 million per month, and member page views grew 33%. This has yielded 20% year over year growth in page views per unique visiting member, continuing a pattern of accelerated growth throughout 2015.

4:06 pm AXT acquires automated equipment from Hitachi Metals for undisclosed amount; not expected to have a meaningful impact on the cost of operations going forward (AXTI)


4:15 pm : The stock market spun its wheels through the bulk of the Thursday affair, but a final-hour charge helped the S&P 500 end little changed while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%) underperformed throughout the session.

Equities followed Wednesday's roller-coaster ride with a range-bound Thursday session that saw weakness in heavily-weighted cyclical sectors while health care (+0.5%) surrendered the bulk of its gain into the close; however, the market maintained its range through the afternoon as technology (-0.3%) cut its opening loss in half while energy (+0.5%) and consumer discretionary (+0.3%) outperformed.

Most notably, the technology sector (-0.4%) struggled from the start and the bulk of its weakness could be found in the semiconductor group where NXP Semiconductor (NXPI 73.00, -17.92) plunged 19.7% after below-consensus revenue and concerns about the company's inventories overshadowed a bottom-line beat and an expanded share buyback. Also of note, STMicroelectronics (STM 6.79, -0.42) fell 5.8% after issuing disappointing guidance and denying interest in Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS 16.56, -0.99). Meanwhile, the PHLX Semiconductor Index dove 3.0% after ending yesterday's session above its 200-day moving average (673.21).

Staying in the tech space, GoPro (GPRO 25.62, -4.59) sank 15.2% to a fresh all-time low in reaction to an uninspiring guidance while Cirrus Logic (CRUS 30.33, -1.29) dropped 4.1% despite beating estimates and issuing better than expected revenue guidance.

Similar to technology, growth-sensitive financials (-0.3%) and industrials (-0.1%) underperformed while consumer discretionary (+0.3%) outperformed with help from media names. Charter Communications (CHTR 193.33, +9.23) was a standout performer, spiking 5.0%, in reaction to solid results.

Also of note, the energy sector (+0.5%) displayed relative strength throughout the day while crude oil oscillated near its flat line to end little changed near $46.00/bbl. Earnings contributed to increased activity in the sector with ConocoPhillips (COP 53.62, +0.28), Marathon Petroleum (MPC 51.24, +1.40), Tesoro (TSO 108.99, +3.71), and Suncor Energy (SU 29.48, +1.01) jumping between 0.5% and 3.6% after beating estimates. On the downside, Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A 52.56, -0.46) fell 0.9% after missing earnings estimates on better than expected revenue.

In addition to energy, the health care sector (+0.5%) provided a measure of support throughout the day. That being said, the sector backed away from its high during afternoon action amid a turnaround in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 328.55, -3.24) ended lower by 1.0%, masking a 6.0% surge in Allergan (AGN 304.38, +17.18) after the company confirmed it has been approached by Pfizer (PFE 34.77, -0.68) about a potential merger.

Unlike stocks, Treasuries slid throughout the session with the 10-yr yield rising eight basis points to 2.17%.

Today's participation was right in line with average as roughly 850 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included GDP, Initial Claims, and Pending Home Sales:

GDP increased 1.5% in the third quarter, down from a 3.9% gain in Q2 2015 while the Briefing.com consensus an increase of 1.6%
Even though the headline growth level was on the lighter side, the overall economy looked pretty healthy in the third quarter with the drag resulting from a substantial pullback in inventory growth; however, that was a normal reaction following two consecutive quarterly gains
Excluding inventories, real final sales rose 3.0%, which was in-line with normal potential growth patterns
The weekly initial claims level increased to 260,000 from an unrevised 259,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 264,000
The four-week moving average fell below 260,000 for the first time since 1973
The continuing claims level declined to 2.144 mln from an upwardly revised 2.181 mln (from 2.170 mln) while the consensus expected an increase to 2.185 mln
Pending home sales for September fell 2.3% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%.

Tomorrow, September Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), Personal Spending (expected 0.2%), core PCE Prices (consensus 0.1%), and Q3 Employment Cost Index (consensus 0.5%) will all be reported at 8:30 ET while October Chicago PMI (consensus 49.0) and the final reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for October (expected 92.6) will be released at 9:45 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +7.1% YTD
S&P 500 +1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.2% YTD

DJ30 -23.72 NASDAQ -21.42 SP500 -0.94 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 968/1.76 bln/1877 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1191/848.5 mln/1855 3:35 pm :

The dollar index remain in the red today, but this didn't give commodities a boost as it normally would
Gold, silver, copper and natural gas futures currently remain near today's lows
Dec gold closed out of today's floor trading session -2.5% at $1147.50/oz, while Dec silver shed -4.4% at $15.56/oz
Dec copper slid -1.7% to $2.32/lb
Natural gas was volatile today, starting the day off strong and holding gains following the weekly EIA storage data, which was bullish for nat gas.
However, following this, nat gas (Dec) would lost steam and finished the day off -1.3% at $2.29/MMBtu

11:59 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (166) outpacing new lows (87) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAME, AAP, ABCB, ABTX, ACET, ACGL, ACXM, ALLE, AMNB, AMRB, AMWD, AMZN, APLE, AROW, ASGN, AVY, AYI, AZO, BANR, BBCN, BCPC, BKU, BLKB, BNCL, BNK, BOCH, BR, BSQR, BUSE, BYD, BZC, CACI, CAM, CBNJ, CBOE, CFFN, CHDN, CIGI, CINF, CLI, CMN, CNCE, CNO, COLB, CSGS, CSH, CWBC, DCOM, DMND, EA, EBSB, EDU, EDUC, EGHT, ERI, EXLS, EXR, FB, FBC, FCB, FF, FFBC, FIS, FISI, FMS, FNFG, FPRX, FR, FRME, FSB, FULT, GGAL, GNCMA, GPN, GWB, HALL, HOMB, HPY, HRB, HSIC, HSII, ICE, IGLD, INGR, IPG, IPHI, JBT, JKHY, KFY, KRNY, LANC, LDOS, LEA, LII, LKFN, LMCA, MA, MAA, MAS, MBWM, MDAS, MEET, MENT, METR, MORE, MSFG, MTN, MTS, MYGN, NAVG, NBBC, NBHC, NHTC, NP, OA, OCLR, ONFC, ORI, ORLY, OSIS, OZRK, PAM, PATK, PFGC, PFSW, PGC, PGR, POOL, PRA, PRE, PRMW, PSCC, PSX, PVTB, QCRH, RCI, RITT, RLI, RNST, RVNC, SFNC, SIG, SIGI, SIRO, SNBC, SNV, SRCE, SSB, STE, STL, SXI, SYKE, TBK, THG, TRV, TSS, TTEC, ULBI, VGR, VLY, VVI, WAL, WDFC, WNS, XRAY, YDKN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACTG, AEZS, AGFS, AGNC, AIQ, ARCB, ARCI, ATOS, BBOX, BBW, BLMN, BNSO, BTU, CAMT, CCCR, CHU, CSTM, DDD, DIN, DOM, EVAR, EVH, EXC, EYEG, FCN, FE, FFIV, FSAM, GNC, GNRT, GOGL, GPRO, GSI, GYRO, HBIO, HLS, HNH, HNRG, HTLD, HTS, IILG, IPAS, KFS, KONA, KRNT, LNTH, LOB, LQ, MCUR, MDXG, MRTN, MSL, MYE, NC, NRP, ONCY, OZM, PLXS, PPC, PRXI, PSIX, PSTI, RCII, RLOC, RMCF, ROG, ROKA, ROVI, RP, RRC, SBLK, SDPI, SGNL, SIEN, SJT, SMSI, SMTP, TLN, TPH, TST, UAMY, UQM, USAP, VECO, VKTX, VSI, XRX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EPOL,

6:25 am Cabot Micro beats by $0.03, beats on revs (CCMP) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.50 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.47; revenues fell 13.9% year/year to $100.14 mln vs the $98.17 mln Capital IQ Consensus. 5:52 am Canadian Solar signs $100 mln two-year senior secured term loan, issues warrants to the lenders (CSIQ) : In connection with the term loan, Canadian Solar issued the lenders warrants to purchase up to 1,348,040 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $24.48 per share. The warrants will expire two years from the date of the closing, on October 25, 2017. The term loan facility may be increased by up to an additional $100.0 million, subject to customary conditions. The term loan is being used to retire a bridge loan used to finance the acquisition of Recurrent Energy LLC and for general corporate purposes.

4:39 am Nokia beats by EUR0.02, misses on revs; announces EUR7 billion program to optimize capital structure (NOK) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of 0.08 per share, 0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of 0.06; revenues fell 1.7% year/year to 3.04 bln vs the 3.29 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Reaffirms its FY15 outlook of increased revs YoY in continued op segments and Nokia Networks op marginAdditionally, co announced a planned EUR 7 billion program to optimize Nokia's capital structure and return excess capital to shareholders. , ahead of planned public exchange offer for Alcatel-Lucent securitiesThis program would consist of approximately EUR 4 billion in shareholder distributions and approximately EUR 3 billion of de-leveraging. In addition, Nokia accelerated its annual operating cost synergy target related to the Alcatel-Lucent transaction. Nokia now targets to achieve approximately EUR 900 million of operating cost synergies in full year 2018, compared to its earlier target to achieve approximately EUR 900 million of operating cost synergies in full year 2019.

4:31 am STMicroelectronics beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs below consensus (STM) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.08; revenues fell 6.5% year/year to $1.76 bln vs the $1.76 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of down 6% sequentially vs. $1.77 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

3:47 am NXP Semi beats by $0.08, misses on revs; expands buyback to up to 20 mln shares (NXPI) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $1.57 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.49; revenues rose 0.5% year/year to $1.52 bln vs the $1.55 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of down in the low double to mid-teens range , may not be comparable to $1.61 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Share repurchase update:NXP repurchased approximately 1.8 million shares in the third quarter of 2015 for a total cost of approximately $158 million. Effective October 29, 2015, NXP expanded its existing stock repurchase program; NXP may repurchase up to twenty million shares of its common stock

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Friday attracted some sellers, but it wasn't until theafternoon session that the bid to take some money off the table kicked in.

The S&P 500 information technology sector was apacesetter in the afternoon retreat, yet that was understandable given that itwas vulnerable to profit-taking interest given how far it had advanced duringthe month. That would be 11.4% to beexact.

Accordingly, a 0.7% decline onFriday left it among the worst-performing sectors on Friday, yet it still had avery good month -- in fact, the third best month -- of any sector in the S&P500.

The semiconductor stocks, which got hit hard on Thursday,bounced back a bit on Friday and helped limit the losses. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index increased 0.9% to endthe month up 9.9%.

Notable news items from sector components included the following:

Apple(AAPL 119.50, -1.03, -0.9%): plans to begin selling iPad Pro on November 11,according to 9to5Mac

Electronic Arts (EA 752.07,-3.99, -5.3%): Reported Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.65 per share, excludingnon-recurring items, which was well ahead of expectations;non-GAAP revenues fell 6.1% year/year to $1.15 bln but surpassed analysts'average estimate. For Q3, seesEPS of $1.75, excluding non-recurring items and revenues of $1.775 bln. For FY16, raises EPS to ~$3.00,excluding non-recurring items, from $2.85, and FY16 revenues to ~$4.5 blnfrom $4.45 bln.

First Solar (FSLR 57.07, +6.08, +11.9%): Reported Q3 (Sep) earnings of $3.38 per share, blowingpast analysts' average expectation; revenues rose 42.9%year/year to $1.27 bln, also topping estimates. For FY15, sees revenues of $3.5-3.6 bln,which is unchanged from prior guidance and above analyst expectations.

Microsoft (MSFT 52.64, -0.72,-1.4%): announces the pricing of its offering of $13 billion of seniorunsecured notes. Microsoft intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, which may include, among other things, funding for working capital, capital expenditures, repurchases of capital stock, acquisitions, and repayment of existing debt. The notes consist of the following tranches: $1.75 billion of 1.300 percent notes due November 3, 2018 $2.25 billion of 2.000 percent notes due November 3, 2020 $1.00 billion of 2.650 percent notes due November 3, 2022 $3.00 billion of 3.125 percent notes due November 3, 2025 $1.00 billion of 4.200 percent notes due November 3, 2035 $3.00 billion of 4.450 percent notes due November 3, 2045 $1.00 billion of 4.750 percent notes due November 3, 2055

Seagate Tech (STX 38.06, unch,0.00%): Reported Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.54 per share, whichwas short of analysts' average expectation; revenues fell 22.7%year/year to $2.92 bln, in-line with estimates. Guidedfor Q2 revenues of $2.9-3.0 bln, which is below expectations, and non-GAAPgross margin 25.5-26.0%.

Western Union (WU 19.25, +0.24,+1.3%): Reported Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.45 per share, slightlyahead of analysts' average expectation; revenues fell 2.9%year/year to $1.4 bln. For FY15,sees EPS of $1.60-1.67, excluding non-recurring items, which is in-line withestimates. Revenue is projected to grow low to mid-single digit in constantcurrency and decrease low to mid-single digit in GAAP revenue.
Elsewhere in the technology space:

Baidu (BIDU 187.47, +18.48, +10.9%): AfterThursday's close, reported Q3 (Sep) earnings of $1.43 per share, excludingnon-recurring items, which was $0.13 ahead of analysts' averageexpectation; revenues rose 36.0% year/year to $2.89 bln. Sees Q4revenues of $2.864-2.950 bln, which is slightly below expectations. Separately, company said its board of directors authorized a new sharerepurchase program on October 22 under which the Company may repurchase up to$2 billion of its shares over the next 24 months.

Nokia (NOK 7.42, +0.10, +1.4%): NokiaNetworks and China Mobile (CHL) have announced a comprehensive frameworkagreement for mobile communications equipment and services valued at more than$1 bln (EUR930 million). Deliveriesunder the agreement commenced in Q1 2015, and will continue in 2016. Framework agreement includes NokiaNetworks 4G TD-LTE technology and wireless network equipment, core solutions,software and services.

PMC-Sierra (PMCS 11.92, +0.28,+2.4%): Company and Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (SWKS 77.24, +2.61, +3.5%) enteredinto an amended and restated merger agreement under which Skyworks has agreedto acquire PMCS for $11.60 in cash per share of PMCS common stock, an increasefrom its previous agreement to acquire PMCS for $10.50 in cash per share ofPMCS common stock. The amended and restated merger agreement alsoprovides for an increase in the termination fee from $70.0 mln to $88.5 mln.Thetransaction is expected to close in the first half of calendar 2016, subject toPMCS shareholder approval. Later in theday Microsemi (MSCC 36.01,-0.77, -2.1%) announcedthat it has increased its proposal to acquire PMC-Sierra in a cash andstock transaction that equates to $11.88 per share. Under the terms ofMicrosemi's proposal, PMC shareholders will receive $9.04 in cash and 0.0771xof a Microsemi common share for each PMC common share held at the close of thetransaction.

Analyst Action:

Alibaba (BABA 83.83,+1.61, +2.0%): MKM Partners raises its target to $105 from $85

Electronic Arts (EA72.07, -3.99, -5.3%): MKM Partners raises its target to $84 from $82

LinkedIn(LNKD 240.87, +23.87, +11.0%): targetraised to $285 from $230 at Axiom Capital... target raised to $189 from$180 at FBR Capital... upgraded to Buy at Sterne Agee CRT... Stifel raises tgt to $270 from $250... Mizuhoraises tgt to $285 from $240... target raised $25 to $275 at CanaccordGenuity MasterCard(MA 98.99, -1.60, -1.6%): target raised to $114 from $108 at RBC Capital Markets

NVIDIA(NVDA 28.37, +0.69, +2.5%): upgraded to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley

Weekly Recap - Week ending 30-Oct-15Dow -92.26 at 17663.54, Nasdaq -20.53 at 5053.75, S&P -10.05 at 2079.36

The stock market ended the week on a lower note, but that did not stop the S&P 500 from posting its largest monthly gain since October 2011. The benchmark index lost 0.5% on Friday, but surged 8.3% for the month while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%) outperformed, spiking 9.4% in October.

Broadly speaking, the Friday session was very quiet with the market showing a modest loss during morning action, which turned into a slim afternoon gain; however, a late slide from session highs ensured a lower finish for the S&P 500.

Despite the lower finish, only five of ten sectors posted losses, but relative weakness in heavily-weighted groups like financials (-1.3%), technology (-0.8%), and consumer staples (-1.1%) was enough to keep the market pressured.

The financial sector retreated throughout the day, narrowing its October gain to 6.1%. Meanwhile, the top-weighted technology space (-0.8%) also underperformed, but the influential sector surged 10.7% in October. Large cap names like Apple (AAPL 119.50, -1.03), Google (GOOGL 737.39, -7.46), and Microsoft (MSFT 52.64, -0.72) struggled on Friday, masking relative strength in the PHLX Semiconductor Index, which rose 0.9%. ON Semiconductor (ON 11.00, +0.72) was a notable standout, soaring 7.0%, in reaction to better than expected results.

Elsewhere, the consumer staples sector (-1.1%) retreated amid disappointing earnings and/or guidance from Colgate-Palmolive (CL 66.35, -2.88), CVS Health (CVS 98.78, -5.02), and Boston Beer (SAM 219.42, -25.52). The three names lost between 4.2% and 10.4% while the broader sector narrowed its October gain to 5.6%.

On the flip side, the energy sector (+0.7%) finished in the lead after struggling at the start. However, the sector climbed during the afternoon to extend its October gain to 11.3%. Crude oil contributed to the afternoon rally as WTI crude rose 1.2% to $46.60/bbl while earnings also played a part. To that point, Chevron (CVX 90.88, +0.99), ExxonMobil (XOM 82.74, +0.51), and Phillips 66 (PSX 89.10, +2.67) all delivered better than expected results.

Unlike stocks, Treasuries spent the bulk of the day in the green with the 10-yr yield slipping three basis points to 2.15%.

Today's participation was ahead of average with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor with month-end flows contributing to the increased activity.

Economic data included Employment Cost Index, Personal Income/Spending data, Chicago PMI, and Michigan Sentiment:

Employment costs increased 0.6% in Q3 2015, up from a 0.2% increase in the second quarter while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%
Despite the big quarterly gain, year-over-year trends were unchanged with total compensation increasing only 2.0% in the third quarter, which matched the rate of increase from the second quarter
Personal income increased 0.1% in September after increasing an upwardly revised 0.4% (from 0.3%) in August while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
Personal spending rose 0.1% in September after increasing 0.4% in August while the consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
The Chicago PMI increased to 56.2 in October from 48.7 in September while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 49.0
That was the best reading in the Chicago PMI since reaching 59.4 in January
The Production Index increased to 63.4 in October from 43.6 in September, representing the largest one-month gain since August 2014
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was revised down to 90.0 in the final October reading from 92.1 in the preliminary report while the Briefing.com consensus expected a revision up to 92.6
Despite the downward revision, sentiment remains stronger than the final September (87.2) level
The Current Conditions Index was revised down to 102.3 in the final October reading from 106.7 while the Expectations Index was revised down to 82.1 from 82.7

Monday's economic data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of September Construction Spending and the October ISM Index.

Week in Review: Stocks Register Fifth Consecutive Weekly Gain

The stock market began the week on a quiet note with the S&P 500 (-0.2%) spending the session inside a nine-point range. The benchmark index settled right above the midpoint of that range while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) outperformed throughout the session. Generally speaking, the Monday affair was very quiet and free of noteworthy earnings. Accordingly, the benchmark index opened with a two-point loss and traded in sideways fashion until the closing bell. Seven sectors registered losses between 0.2% (consumer staples and industrials) and 2.5% (energy) while consumer discretionary (+0.8%), health care (+0.5%), and telecom services (+0.1%) outperformed.

The market endured its second consecutive retreat on Tuesday, but the overall trading dynamic was very similar to the range-bound affair from Monday. The S&P 500 lost 0.3% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) outperformed throughout the session. In some ways, the cautious posture was not all that shocking considering investors were on hold ahead of Wednesday's release of the October FOMC policy directive from the FOMC. Nine sectors ended the Tuesday affair in negative territory with cyclical groups showing relative weakness across the board. The energy sector (-1.2%) spent its second consecutive day behind the remaining nine groups as lower oil prices weighed. To that point, WTI crude fell 1.8% to $43.22/bbl. Similar to energy, the industrial sector (-1.0%) surrendered close to 1.0% while the remaining cyclical sectors posted slimmer losses.

Equity indices snapped their two-day skid on Wednesday, but not before seeing some intraday volatility. The S&P 500 added 1.2% while the Russell 2000 (+2.9%) outperformed. The key indices rallied out of the gate in response to a batch of mostly better than expected earnings. That lengthy list was headlined by Apple (AAPL 119.28, +4.73) with the top-weighted stock spiking 4.1% in reaction to better than expected earnings and revenue. For its part, the broader technology sector (+1.5%) settled ahead of the broader market while most other cyclical sectors also showed relative strength. None more so than the energy space (+2.2%), which spent the day in the lead after struggling over the past two days. After rallying through the first two hours of the session, the market hovered near its high until the 14:00 ET release of the latest policy statement from the Federal Reserve, which called for no change to the current policy stance. That being said, the Federal Reserve took out a key line from its statement, which referred to global developments having the potential to restrain economic growth in the U.S. With that line being left out of the October statement, the Fed has opened the door to a potential rate hike in December.

The stock market spun its wheels through the bulk of the Thursday affair, but a final-hour charge helped the S&P 500 end little changed while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%) underperformed throughout the session. Equities followed Wednesday's roller-coaster ride with a range-bound Thursday session that saw weakness in heavily-weighted cyclical sectors while health care (+0.5%) surrendered the bulk of its gain into the close; however, the market maintained its range through the afternoon as technology (-0.3%) cut its opening loss in half while energy (+0.5%) and consumer discretionary (+0.3%) outperformed. Most notably, the technology sector struggled from the start and the bulk of its weakness could be found in the semiconductor group where NXP Semiconductor (NXPI 73.00, -17.92) plunged 19.7% after below-consensus revenue and concerns about the company's inventories overshadowed a bottom-line beat and an expanded share buyback. Also of note, STMicroelectronics (STM 6.79, -0.42) fell 5.8% after issuing disappointing guidance and denying interest in Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS 16.56, -0.99).

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17646.70 17663.54 16.84 0.1 -0.9
Nasdaq 5031.86 5053.75 21.89 0.4 6.7
S&P 500 2075.15 2079.36 4.21 0.2 1.0
Russell 2000 1166.06 1161.86 -4.20 -0.4 -3.6


3:32 pm Earnings Preview for the week of November 2 - 6 (:SUMRX) :

Of the companies reporting earnings for the week of November 2 - 6 some of the bigger names include:

Monday:
Pre Market - CAH, SYY, HNT, V, ECL, ETR, D, EL, CNA, CLX, KBR, NBL, CHD, GVA, CTB, MCY, NSP, DO
After Hours - AIG, ALL, CYH, THC, CAR, ES, SANM, ALJ, MDU, PXD, CBT, GPRE, AMC, VNO, FIT

Tuesday:
Pre Market - EMR, ODP, K, SRE, TRP, WNR, MOS, HRS, EXPD, NGLS, FIS, DISCA, FTR, MHFI, NCLH, ZTS, WLK, MLM, AFSI, H, AXLL, BLMN, VMC, NI, SMG
After Hours - PAGP, PAA, DVN, DVA, CBS, OKE, X, OKS, TX, DK, CVC, ASH, AFG, TSLA, QUAD, CERN, HLF, MTZ, ATVI, DPLO, TMH, WR, GRPN, AMSG, ZNGA

Wednesday:
Pre Market - TWX, FOXA, NRG, AGN, CDW, WCG, CTSH, BDX, CHK, CST, HSIC, VOYA, WEC, AVP, KELYA, MSI, SE, KORS, REGN, CLH, TW, HSNI, TMHC, WEN, VSI, SSYS, SODA, BSFT, CRK
After Hours - MET, ETE, PRU, ETP, QCOM, CTL, FB, SLF, SUN, WRK, MUSA, WFM, SXL, CSC, XPO, KND, CAA, TS, RIG, DYN, MRO, BKD, TSE, BGC, ALB, ANDE, UHAL, AWK, CF, GDDY

Thursday:
Pre Market - ENB, MGA, DUK, AZN, AES, BCE, HFC, TU, GLP, CORE, CNQ, AGU, RRD, CELG, CNP, RL, PWR, HII, RLGY, APA, SYMC, CC, WIN, CSTM, COTY, WR, TAP, MPEL, SFM, THS, TIME, ENDP, CROX
After Hours - DIS, KHC, ED, CBI, EOG, MHK, BLDR, NVDA, LNT, MRC, SWKS, GXP, MNST, HAIN

Friday:
Pre Market - MY, HUM, CI, BAM, AEE, SATS, TPH, PMC, HZNP, SSP
After Hours - KRO

12:33 pm PMC-Sierra: Microsemi (MSCC) increases its bid to acquire PMC-Sierra to $11.88/share in cash and stock (PMCS) :

Microsemi (MSCC) announced that it has increased its proposal to acquire PMC-Sierra in a cash and stock transaction. Under the terms of Microsemi's proposal, PMC shareholders will receive $9.04 in cash and 0.0771x of a Microsemi common share for each PMC common share held at the close of the transaction.

The implied enterprise value is $2.3 billion, net of PMC's net cash balance as of Sept. 27, 2015. Based on the closing stock price of Microsemi on Oct. 29, 2015, the transaction is valued at $11.88 per PMC share. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Microsemi's non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow. Microsemi anticipates achieving more than $100 million in annual cost synergies with greater than $75 million of those to be realized in the first full quarter of combined operations. Microsemi estimates approximately $0.60 of non-GAAP EPS accretion in the first full year after closing the transaction.The raised bid follows this morning's news that Skyworks (SWKS) had raised its bid to acquire PMCS to $11.60/share in cash from $10.50/share in cash. Last week, Microsemi proposed to acquire PMC-Sierra for $11.50/share.

11:39 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (105) outpacing new highs (91) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAME, ABTX, AIZ, AMRB, AMZN, AOS, ATO, ATR, AYI, AZO, BKU, BNK, BOCH, BR, BUSE, BZC, CACI, CCF, CORE, COST, CSH, CVCO, DGII, EDUC, EME, EXPE, FCB, FIS, FIX, FLO, FMS, FSB, FXCB, G, GSB, GWB, HPY, HRB, HSIC, IM, JAXB, JKHY, KFY, LANC, LDOS, LII, LYV, MAA, MDWD, MEET, MENT, MLVF, NHTC, NP, NUTR, ONFC, OSIS, PCLN, PFSW, PMCS, POOL, PRA, PRMW, PSX, QCRH, QLC, RLI, ROP, RSG, SAP, SBUX, SHEN, SIG, SMP, SSD, SSS, STE, SXI, TGS, TI, TI.A, TTWO, UBOH, USCR, USM, UVE, VSCP, WCN, WNS, WSFS, XIN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAN, ABUS, ACSF, ACTG, ADTN, AGTC, AHGP, ARNA, ATOS, BBOX, BCBP, BCOR, BLCM, BLMN, BNSO, BNTC, BOOM, BRFS, BTU, CALX, CBAY, CENX, CLRX, CMLS, CMO, CNX, COSI, CPSI, CSTM, CTRL, DAR, DEST, DGI, DIN, DV, EAT, ECOL, ELGX, ENPH, ENSV, ENZN, EROS, FEYE, FREE, FRGI, GKOS, GLF, GNRT, GTLS, GYRO, HBIO, HNH, HOS, IPI, JASN, KONA, LIQD, LOB, LRN, MCUR, MOD, MOKO, MSB, NEPT, NFEC, NM, NRP, OCIP, OEC, OMCL, ONCY, OPGN, OPTT, PDFS, PEBO, PFBX, PLXS, PSTI, RAS, RFP, ROG, RPRX, RTIX, RUN, SBLK, SCTY, SIEB, SJT, SMSI, SQQQ, SWN, SXCP, TANH, TBIO, TDW, THR, TINY, TLN, TMST, USAP, UUUU, WAC, WDC, WING, ZFGN

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN, XLY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: UNG


8:32 am Interdigital Comm beats by $0.41, beats on revs (IDCC) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.68 per share, $0.41 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.27; revenues rose 29.4% year/year to $100.4 mln vs the $79.05 mln two analyst estimate.Recurring revenue was $78.6 million, consisting of current patent royalties and current technology solutions revenue, representing an increase of 7% compared to recurring revenue of $73.2 million in third quarter 2014. This increase in recurring revenue was primarily attributable to a 16% increase in per-unit royalties, driven by increased shipments by Pegatron Corporation and our other Taiwan-based licensees. "The ongoing market strength of our licensees continues to drive recurring revenue growth, even as we work to expand our licensee base," said William J. Merritt, President and CEO of InterDigital. "That growth, coupled with our careful expense management, highlights the tremendous operating leverage of our business, which positions us very strongly as revenues expand.

"8:03 am Seagate Tech misses by $0.03, reports revs in-line with preannouncement (STX) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.54 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.57; revenues fell 22.7% year/year to $2.92 bln vs the $2.92 bln Capital IQ Consensus."While lower than planned nearline enterprise demand temporarily impacted our financial results, we are pleased with the momentum we have across our products, which will be further supported by the newly acquired assets of Dot Hill and our ability to now completely integrate the Samsung hard drive business. As we look forward, we are focused on delivering storage solutions for a significant range of existing, growing and emerging areas, and believe we have the right strategy and portfolio to deliver value to shareholders."

6:50 am Nokia and China Mobile (CHL) agree to to a $1 bln contract for mobile communications equipment and services (NOK) :

Nokia Networks and China Mobile (CHL) have announced a comprehensive framework agreement for mobile communications equipment and services valued at more than $1 bln (EUR930 million).

Deliveries under the agreement commenced in Q1 2015, and will continue in 2016Framework agreement includes Nokia Networks 4G TD-LTE technology and wireless network equipment, core solutions, software and services

4:09 am UTStarcom expects Q3 revs ahead of prior guidance (UTSI) : The co announced that it expects Q3 revs of $25-27 mln vs $20.22 mln two analyst estimate and prior guidance for $18-22 mln. The company will host a conference call to discuss the Company's financial results for the third quarter 2015 before U.S. markets open on Monday, November 9, 2015.

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed the session with slight losses across the board. Leading the way to the downside, the Nasdaq Composite shed 14.74 points (-0.29%) to close 5127.74. The S&P 500 was also weak today, lower by 2.38 points (-0.11%) to 2099.93. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rounded out the trio lower by 4.15 points (-0.02%) to 17863.43. The three major US indices all traded higher initially today, but edged lower about an hour into trading as the Biotechnology (IBB) sector pulled back. The back-to-back declines come ahead of the Employment Report for October which is scheduled to come out tomorrow morning.

Market data today came in the form of Initial claims data, which for the week ending October 31, increased 16,000 to 276,000 from an unrevised 260,000 the prior week. The preliminary third quarter productivity report showed nonfarm business productivity increased 1.6% quarter to quarter versus 3.5% in the second quarter.

The Technology (XLK 44.19, -10.13 -0.29%) sector finished the session slightly below flat lines. The sector began the session much like the broader market, in the green, before surrendering initial gains as the Biotech sector sold off an hour into trading. Notably weaker today in the sector were names like MU -5.33%, WIN -3.76%, AVGO -2.46%, MCHP -2.20%. Qualcomm (QCOM 51.07, -9.19 -15.25%) led the way lower today as the company reported a beat on the top and bottom lines of expectations for its Q4 period, but was dragged lower on tame Q1 guidance. Other sectors finished as follows XLF +0.41%, XLY +0.36%, XLI +0.13%, XLP -0.02%, XLV -0.32%, XLB -0.51%, IYZ -0.53%, XLE -0.85%, XLU -0.86%.

Notably weak today were Cybersecurity (HACK 26.75, -0.80 -2.90) names as FEYE and AVG both reported quarterly results. Other names which were dragged down by the weakness included GUID -17.04%, KEYW -7.10%, FTNT -5.10%, CYBR -4.55%, PANW -3.89%, SPLK -3.69%, CUDA -3.46%, WYY -2.39%, CHKP -2.39%, PFPT -1.31%

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (744.68, -2.38 -0.32%), action swung to the downside much like the broader market about an hour into trading. The sector saw names like QRVO -3.20%, PYPL -2.37%, CSC -1.62%, BRCM -1.32%, FFIV -1.27%, IBM -1.23%, RHT -1.19% all edge lower Thursday. Leading the way to the downside today was Teradata (TDC 25.58, -4.21 -14.13%) as the company reported mixed Q3 results. TDC saw in-line Q3 EPS of $0.55 on a miss on revenues of $606 million. The company also issued tame guidance for the FY15 period.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Computer Sciences (CSC 67.00, -1.10 -1.62%) announced Board approval for the spin-off of its Public Sector business and announced a special cash dividend of $10.50/share.

Autodesk (ADSK 63.49, +5.66 +9.79%) Sachem Head Capital Management disclosed a 5.7% active stake in a 13D filing; Sachem Head intends to engage with management.

Accenture (ACN 106.09, -0.43 -0.40%) is accelerating its research and development agenda in artificial intelligence across its global network of Accenture Technology Labs, by opening the newest lab in Dublin and committing a significant portion of its global R&D capabilities, to help clients across industries integrate intelligent systems to improve operations and create new growth opportunities.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Virtusa (VRTU 52.02, -5.53 -9.61%) in addition to reporting quarterly results, agreed to acquire majority interest in Polaris Consulting & Services, Ltd. for about $270 million. The deal is estimated to be (-$0.08) dilutive to 4Q16 EPS and slightly dilutive FY 2017 EPS and accretive thereafter.

Castlight Health (CSLT 3.62, -1.68 -31.70%) in addition to reporting quarterly results, named John Doyle as Chief Operating Officer. CSLT also announced that it and Anthem (ANTM 136.04, +0.70 +0.52%), on behalf of itself and its affiliated companies have entered into a strategic arrangement whereby CSLT will power Anthem's transparency services and the companies will collaborate on sales efforts.

Iteris Holdings (ITI 2.53, +0.05 +2.02%) was awarded $8.9 million 511 traveler information contract by the San Francisco Bay area MTC.

Agilent (A 38.30, -0.04 -0.10%) announced a formal agreement with Thermo Fisher (TMO 134.95, -0.30 -0.22%) to exchange instrument controls to improve the productivity and user experience of customers using software and instruments from both companies.

CACI Intl (CACI 100.32, -0.26 -0.26%) received a $38.5 million task order to continue providing defense health readiness engineering support for the Theater Medical Information Program.

Plexus (PLXS 36.92, +1.05 +2.93%) announced its intention to close its Freemont, Ca manufacturing facility. The closing is expected to result in the separation of about 200 employees.

Cellcom Israel (CEL 7.16, -0.36 -4.79%) acquired Golan Telecom for ?1.17 billion.

RealNetworks (RNWK 4.42, +0.03 +0.68%) disclosed it has commenced the elimination of about 60 positions worldwide (10% workforce).

First Data (FDC 16.31, +0.17 +1.05%) announced an offering of $1.5 billion of senior secured notes due 2024.

Travelport Worldwide (TVPT 14.03, -0.49 -3.37%) upsized an announced offering by the company and selling shareholders. The offering is for 850K (unchanged) shares being offered by the company, and 9.15 million (upsized from 5.15 million) shares by selling shareholders.

NXP Semi (NXPI 79.50, -0.48 -0.60%) announced that its $2.7 billion Senior Secured Term Loan Facility- used for its acquisition of Freescale- will have a 2020 maturity and be priced at Libor +3%.

AVG Tech (AVG 20.26, -3.82 -15.86%) in addition to reporting quarterly results, announced that John Little will transition from his role as Chief Financial Officer.

ACI Worldwide (ACIW 23.35, -0.89 -3.67%) agreed to acquire eCommerce payment company, PAY.ON for cash and stock valuing the company at 180 million.

Rocket Fuel (FUEL 4.19, -0.80 -16.03%) appointed Randy Wootton as CEO.

iPass (IPAS 1.01, +0.03 +3.06%) announced the approval for a $3 million share repurchase program.

In reaction to quarterly earnings:

GoDaddy (GDDY 32.41, +4.98 +18.16%) reported Q3 EPS of ($0.04) on revenues which rose 15.2% year-over-year to $411.1 million. The company saw bookings increase 14.1% to $475.6 million.

Mitel Networks (MITL 8.80, +1.15 +15.03%) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations; EPS was $0.12 for the period, and revenues rose 7.2% year-over-year to $290.7 million. The company also guided Q4 EPS better than expected at $0.22-0.27, issued in-line revenues guidance for Q4 of $315-340 million.

Qualcomm (QCOM) reported Q4 beat on the top and bottom lines. EPS was $0.91 and revenues were $5.46 billion for the period. The company also guided Q1 EPS worse than expected at $0.80-0.90 and revenues in-line at $5.2-6.0 billion.

Facebook (FB) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations; EPS was $0.57 and revenues were $4.5 billion. Daily active users were 1.01 billion, Mobile DAUs were 894 million. The company also guided for FY15 non-GAAP expense growth of about 50%. Also sees CapEx of $2.5-2.7 billion for the period.

BCE Inc (BCE 56.45, +0.15 +0.27%) reported Q3 EPS which was better than expected at CC$0.93 and revenues which were in-line at CC$5.34 billion. Also guided FY15 EPS C$3.28-3.38 (unchanged).

Telus (TU 31.83, -1.43 -4.30%) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at CC$0.66 on revenues which were in-line at CC$3.15 billion. The company also reaffirmed FY15 EPS guidance of C$2.40-2.60. Also, TU announced additional restructuring and the reduction of about 1,500 positions.

Castlight Health (CSLT) reported Q3 loss per share of ($0.17) on revenues of $19.5 million. The company also issued guidance for the Q4 period with EPS expectations at ($0.17)-($0.16) and revenues of $20.7-21.0 million.

FireEye (FEYE 22.46, -6.66 -22.87%) reported Q3 EPS of a loss per share of ($0.37) on revenues of $165.6 million. The company also issued upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of ($0.38)-($0.36) on gross billings of $240-260 million.

Virtusa (VRTU) reported Q2 EPS which beat expectations at $0.50 on revenues of $143 million (up 21.5% year-over-year). The company also guided Q3 EPS of $0.54-0.56 and revenues of $150-153 million. Also, VRTU sees FY16 EPS of $2.15-2.21 on revenues of $584.6-591.6 million.

Stocks reporting after tonight's close/before tomorrow's open: AMBR AAOI ANET ABTL AVNW RATE WIFI BRKS CALD ECOM CTCT CSOD CYBR DMD DIOD ELON EXAR FICO FXCM GSAT GLOB GLUU INAP KTOS MTD MSCC MITK MFLX UEPS NEWR EGOV NVDA PCTY PXLW PLT PRO QRVO QUMU SREV SWIR SWKS SLH DATA TTWO TRMR TRUE TCX UBNT OLED VRNS WK YUME/EBIX SATS IMN

Analyst actions:

INXN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
EIGI was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
HDP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey;
KING was downgraded at Stifel and Wedbush,
FEYE was downgraded at BofA/Merrill, Wells Fargo and FBR Capital,
LPSN was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
NMRX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti,
CSLT was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Leerink Partners,
AVG was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight JP Morgan,
ORCL was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at FBR Capital,
SPNS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at ROTH Capital,
CSGS was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at First Analysis Sec

5:21 pm Novatel Wireless reports Q3 results; issues outlook (MIFI):

Novatel Wireless prelim Q3 ($0.04) vs ($0.05) two analyst estimate; revs +23% YoY to $54.6 mln vs $56.28 mln two analyst estimate.Novatel Wireless sees Combined Company Q4 ($0.08)-($0.05) vs $0.00 two analyst estimate; sees revs $66-72 mln vs $76.36 mln two analyst estimate.

5:06 pm Sierra Wireless misses by $0.03, misses on revs; guidesQ4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (SWIR):

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.23 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.26; revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $154.6 mln vs the $159.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.09-0.11 vs. $0.30 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $148-151 mln vs. $165.63 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:41 pm Skyworks reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q1EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SWKS):

Reports Q4 (Sep) adj earnings of $1.52 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.52; revenues rose 22.6% year/year to $880.8 mln vs the $879.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.60 vs. $1.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $925-930 mln vs. $921.43 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co sees non-GAAP gross margin in the range of 51%

4:32 pm Qualcomm and Huizhou TCL Mobile Communication Co., Ltd.sign 3G/4G Chinese patent license agreement (QCOM):

QCOM has granted Huizhou a royalty bearing patent license tomanufacture and sell certain sub units.

The royalties payable by TCL are consistent with the terms of the rectification plan submitted by Qualcomm to China's National Reform and Development Commission.

4:29 pm Exar reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 EPSin-line, revs in-line; guides FY16 EPS above consensus, revsin-line (EXAR):

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.06 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues fell 14.1% year/year to $37.2 mln vs the $36.99 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Co issues in-line EPS guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.06-0.08, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.06 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees upside Q3 revs guidance, sees guidance flat to up 3%, which equates to ~$38.3 mln vs. $37.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co issues guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $0.30-0.34, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.28 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $153-156 mln vs. $153.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:24 pm NVIDIA beats by $0.11, beats on revs; guides Q4 revsabove consensus (NVDA):

Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.46 per share, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.35; revenues rose 6.5% year/year to $1.3 bln vs the $1.18 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $1.30 bln (+/- 2%) vs. $1.21 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Announces 18% increase in quarterly dividend to $0.115 from $0.0975 per share.

4:15 pm Pericom Semi: Montage Technology Group Limited files aninvestor presentation with the SEC relating to its offer to acquirePericom; underscores financing certainty and lack of regulatoryrisk (PSEM):


4:05 pm Brooks Automation agrees to acquire BioStorageTechnologies for $127 mln in cash; expects it to become accretiveto Co's non-GAAP earnings within the first half of fiscal 2016 (BRKS):


4:04 pm Microsemi reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q1EPS in-line, revs below consensus (MSCC):

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.73 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.73; revenues rose 8.4% year/year to $328.8 mln vs the $327.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.70-0.74, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.72 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $325-329 mln vs. $323.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

12:06 pm Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows thissession - New lows (113) outpacing new highs (104) (SCANX): Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCD, ACXM, ADBE, AMZN, ATVI, AVNU, AWAY, AZO, BABY, BECN, BNCN,BOCH, BOKF, BWXT, BYD, CBF, CBU, CCRN, CHE, CHFC, COHR, CONE, CORE,CPS, CSFL, CSGS, CTRP, CUBI, CYTK, DEA, DHR, DMND, DRAD, DY, EBAY,EVBN, EXPE, EXTR, FB, FFG, FOXF, FRBA, FULT, G, GCI, GDEN, GNCMA,GOOG, GOOGL, HA, HUBS, IBOC, IM, INGR, IRMD, ISLE, JKHY, LFUS,LNCE, MATR, MATX, MPWR, MXL, NAZ, NFBK, NHC, NILE, NOW, NP, NTI,NYRT, OME, ONFC, PAR, PAYC, PCBK, PCLN, PDCE, PEGA, PLUS, PNQI,RHT, RIVR, RNR, SHOR, STL, SVBI, TPX, TSO, UBOH, UFPI, USCR, V, VC,VLO, VLY, VRSN, WCN, WDFC, WSFS, WST, WTR, XUE, YCB

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AHGP, AMFW, ARC, ARPI, ATRS, AVP, BEP, BIOL, BNTC, CBMX, CCO,CIDM, CKH, CNAT, CNL, CPST, CREG, CROX, CSLT, CVA, DAVE, DIN, EAT,EMMS, ENBL, ENOC, ENVA, ERA, ETRM, EVAR, EVGN, EVTC, EXAM, FARO,FC, FDEU, FEYE, FREE, FUEL, GI, GNK, GNRT, GPOR, GSI, GSL, GYRO,HAIN, HCP, HDP, HMHC, JYNT, KFS, KND, LADR, LBY, LCI, LIQD, LLEX,LPSN, MITT, MNKD, MOSY, MYRG, NM, NMRX, NRX, NSH, NSM, NTK, OESX,OPGN, ORN, PDLI, PEIX, PHI, PPP, PRCP, PSIX, PSO, QCOM, RGLD, RLOC,ROKA, SALT, SBAC, SBLK, SCX, SEMG, SGM, SJT, SMMT, SPAR, SYRX, TDC,TDW, TGD, TIME, TPH, TUMI, TWIN, UNXL, URG, UUUU, VRX, WAB, WAC,WFM, WILN, WING, WMC, WPT, WRK, WSCI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: FDN, IGV, XLK,

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: COW, DBB, EPOL,

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From Briefing.com: The broader market ended Tuesday split, as only the Tech heavy Nasdaq Composite closed below flat lines on the session. To that end, the Nasdaq edged lower by 12.06 points (-0.24%) to 5083.24. The Dow Jones Industrial Average for its part closed higher by 27.73 points (+0.16%) to 17758.21. The S&P 500 was also higher today, advancing 3.14 points (+0.15%) to 2081.72. The Dow and S&P edged higher in the final hour of action, as Utilities and Energy helped the two toward the end of the session. Market data today was limited to Import/Export Prices which declined 0.3% in October after a 0.5% decline in the prior reading and Wholesale Inventories which increased 0.5% in September on top of an upwardly revised 0.3% increased (from 0.1%).

In Technology (XLK 43.62, -0.29 -0.66%), action was staunchly to the downside as the sector did not mark a single tick above yesterday's closing price. The sector traded lower as names like AVGO -5.25%, WDC -4.55%, STX -4.55%, FSLR -4.32%, WIN -4.29%, BRCM -3.27% finished in the red, while names like TSS +2.46%, V +2.03%, HPQ +1.80%, INTU +1.40%, FB +1.33%, JNPR +1.27%, FISV +1.13%, YHOO +0.92% managed to escape the session in positive territory. Sector component Windstream (WIN) announced the latest network expansion as part of the company's 2015 network expansion strategy. Overnight, component First Solar (FSLR) reported full Q3 results (prelim results were announced Oct. 29), taking the stock lower on today's session. On the flip side, sector component HP (HPQ) announced the availability of the world's first native quad UHD/4K display support for breakthrough graphics performance.

Semiconductors (SOX 657.96, -11.98 -1.79%) dictated trading in the sector today, as component SunEdison (SUNE 5.77, -0.63 -22.03%) reported quarterly results in the overnight session. The miss on the bottom line of the company's results, in addition to certain operating metrics missing their mark caused the stock to remain under pressure today, as the broader market also traded in the red mostly from start to finish. Other components which ended lower today were SWKS -5.32%, AVGO -5.25%, QRVO -3.33%, ON -2.48%, ASML -2.30%, TSM -1.96%, NVDA -1.91%, MRVL -1.91%, MU -1.86%

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (734.90, -5.33 -0.72%), trading was also pressured by broader market action at the open but did not recover. Names which finished down with the sector included SNDK -1.57%, MCHP -1.37%, QCOM -1.27%, MSFT -1.20%, APH -0.84%, LRCX -0.75%, SYMC -0.75%, CSCO -0.71%. A notable laggard on the session was bellwether Apple (AAPL 116.77, -3.80) which slipped 3.15% today as a cautious analyst note circulated early in the session citing concerns about the company's iPhone Asian supply chain checks.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Microsoft (MSFT) announced plans to offer commercial cloud services from the UK. Microsoft Azure and Office 365 will be generally available from local UK-based data centers in late 2016 with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online following shortly thereafter.

Symantec (SYMC 19.97, -0.15 -0.75%) entered into a $500 million accelerated share repurchase program, as expected per the company's Q2 report.
The USAF awarded Harris (HRS 79.05, -0.44 -0.55%) a $40 million nine-month extension of the Network and Space Operations and Maintenance contract to support the Air Force Satellite Control Network at two network control locations in the U.S. and at antenna sites throughout the world. The contract was initially awarded during 1Q16.

Microsemi (MSCC 36.914, -1.03 -2.71%) was informed that its proposal to acquire PMC-Sierra (PMCS 11.89, +0.14 +1.19%) constitutes a superior proposal, under the terms of PMSC's merger agreement with
Skyworks (SWKS 80.37, -4.52 -5.32%).

AT&T (T 32.79, -0.05 -0.15%) will offer Apple's (AAPL 116.77, -3.80 -3.15%) iPad Pro with Wi-Fi + Cellular starting tomorrow at www.att.com and in AT&T stores.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Rackspace (RAX 30.33, +3.24 +11.96%) in addition to reporting quarterly results, announced a proposed $350 million offering of senior notes due 2024.

Science Applications (SAIC 45.99, +0.35 +0.77%) announced it is one of two awardees for a contract to provide technical services for SSC Pacific for a potential value of $94 million for all awardees.

Unwired Planet (UPIP 0.88, -0.01 -1.13%) appointed Jim Wheat as CFO effective immediately.

Zayo Group Holdings (ZAYO 24.55, -1.24 -4.81%) will acquire Viatel's infrastructure and non-Irish enterprise businesses, for 95 million.

ZAYO will also reorganize into two principal operating units: Strategic Business Segments and Global Sales and Customer Success.

Microsemi Corporation (MSCC) signed a reseller agreement with Thales e-Security. The agreement makes the company a certified reseller of Thales nShield HSMs.

Syntel (SYNT 47.51, -0.55 -1.14%) announced that CFO Arvind Godbole will retire. The firm will search for a permanent replacement.

Xplore Tech (XPLR 5.96, +0.28 +4.93%) named interim CFO Tom Wilkinson as permanent CFO.

Edgewater (EDGW 7.96, -0.04 -0.50%) rejected the unsolicited, all-stock proposal from AMERI Holdings for $8.50 per share, calling it grossly inadequate.

Taiwan Semi (TSM 22.51, -0.45 -1.96%) reported October revenues of NT$81.74 billion and approved a capital appropriations following the Board meeting.

Fusion Telecom Int'l (FSNN 2.22, +0.01 +0.45%) offered an update on its cost efficiency initiative, stating it will surpass its $3 million in annual savings goal.

Remark Media (MARK 4.15, -0.02 -0.48%) filed for an offering of about 14.23 million shares of common stock for selling stockholders.

Giga-tronics (GIGA 1.18, -0.01 -0.84%) reported Q2 sales decreased 39% y/y to $3.1 million. The company reported a non-GAAP net loss of $1.2 million or $0.18 per share compared to net income of $262,000 or $0.03 in prior year period; also received a $1.4 million order.

Trimble Navigation (TRMB 22.58, +0.49 +2.22%) will acquire privately held Agri-Trend. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

AVG Tech (AVG 19.59, +0.39 +2.03%) adopted a 1.6 million share repurchase program.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Rackspace (RAX) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at $0.26 and $503.06 million, respectively. The company also guided revenue growth to be 2-3% quarter-over-quarter on a constant currency basis. Also expects adjusted EBIDTA margins to be 33-34%.

Jive Software (JIVE 5.11, +0.43 +9.19%) reported better than expected EPS for Q3 with a loss per share of $0.03. Also reported revenues which were mostly in-line at $49.1 million. JIVE also guided Q4 EPS slightly better than expected at ($0.06)-($0.04) on revenues which are expected mostly in-line at $49-50 million.

RigNet (RNET 22.80, -8.95 -28.19%) reported Q3 GAAP EPS loss of $0.62 per share on revenues which fell 24.5% year-over-year to $66.32 million.

SunEdison (SUNE) reported Q3 EPS loss of $0.91 per share, missing expectations. Revenues were better than expected at $476 million.

Textura (TXTR 23.62, -5.81 -19.74%) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at $0.07 on revenues which missed expectations and rose 37.2% year-over-year to $22.5 million. The company also issued Q4 guidance of EPS in the range of $0.06-0.09 on revenues of $23-24 million.

ViaSat (VSAT 63.08, -2.92 -4.42%) reported Q2 EPS and revenues which missed expectations at $0.30 and $353.3 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow before the open: ALRM, DOX, HCKT, LXFT, OPWR, FENG/GIB, CYRN, MGIC

Analyst actions:

VIP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
NEWT was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James;
TXTR was downgraded at Oppenheimer and Northland Capital,
ADSK was downgraded at Rosenblatt and Morgan Stanley,
RNET was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti,
WYY was downgraded to Hold ffrom Buy at Craig Hallum,
SMT was downgraded to Sector Underperform from Sector Perform at CIBC,
BKFS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
BITA was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Credit Agricole,
CYBR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
KING was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
CEVA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich

4:00 pm Lattice Semi appoint Glen Hawk COO (LSCC) : Hawk previously served as the co's Corporate VP, Chief Marketing Officer

4:15 pm : The stock market ended Tuesday on a mixed note as the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) settled with a modest loss while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) and S&P 500 (+0.2%) overcame the weakness in the technology sector (-0.7%), eking out slim gains.

Equities stumbled at the start of the trading day with the opening move paced by the largest stock in terms of market cap. Specifically, Apple (AAPL 116.73, -3.84) fell 3.2% in reaction to a Credit Suisse report, which indicated the tech giant has cut its orders for iPhone 6s components by as much as 10.0%. Shares of Apple slid below their 100-day moving average (117.33) after struggling with the 200-day average (122.06) over the past few days. Meanwhile, supplier names like CirrusLogic (CRUS 29.43, -2.78), Broadcom (BRCM 51.45, -1.74), AvagoTechnologies (AVGO 119.86, -6.64) lost between 3.3% and 8.6% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 1.8%.

Apple's weakness kept the technology sector (-0.7%) deep in the red throughout the session, which in turn, weighed on the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, six of the remaining nine sectors settled in the green. That included the health care sector (+1.0%), which gathered steam late in the day while biotechnology recovered from early weakness. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 331.96, +1.38) climbed 0.4% after being down more than 1.0% in the early going.

Elsewhere, influential sectors like consumer discretionary (+0.7%) and financials (+0.5%) held slim gains in morning action, but extended higher in the afternoon. Also of note, the energy sector (+0.2%) settled just above its flat line while crude oil rallied 0.8% to $44.21/bbl. Meanwhile, the other commodity-linked sector-materials (-0.7%)-spent the day at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Staying on the cyclical side, the industrial sector (unch) struggled throughout the day with transport stocks responsible for some of the weakness. However, the Dow Jones Transportation Average returned to unchanged by the end of the day. It is worth noting Norfolk Southern (NSC 88.57, -0.05) shed just 0.1% after surging 11.0% yesterday with today's downtick taking place after Canadian Pacific (CP 139.95, -2.23) denied interest in NSC.

Treasuries snapped their six-day skid with the 10-yr note settling near its high, dropping the benchmark yield three basis points to 2.32%.

Today's participation was just below average with about 820 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Import/Export Prices and Wholesale Inventories:

Export prices, excluding agriculture, decreased 0.3% in October after decreasing 0.5% (revised from -0.6%) in the prior reading
Excluding oil, import prices decreased 0.3%, which followed last month's decrease of 0.2% (revised from -0.3%)
Wholesale inventories increased 0.5% in September on top of an upwardly revised 0.3% increase (from 0.1%) for August
The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.1%
Wholesale sales increased 0.5% after declining 0.9% in August
The inventory-to-sales ratio held steady versus the prior month at 1.31, but is up from 1.20 in the same period a year ago

Investors will not receive any economic data tomorrow and the bond market will be closed for Veterans Day.

Nasdaq Composite +7.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.2% YTD

DJ30 +27.73 NASDAQ -12.06 SP500 +3.14 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1398/1.74 bln/1491 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1748/823.2 mln/1330

3:35 pm :

The dollar index trended strong in early trade, before seeing a modest pull-back from mid-day highs most recently
Sentiment ahead of this week's US employment data and moderate moves in the Euro and Yen drove a good portion of the dollar's action this session
The index is now holding gains for the day at +0.3% to 99.28
Gold closed near-unchanged, avoiding a sell-off seen in the more-industrial silver. The December contract ended $0.50 higher at $1088.40/oz
Copper and silver both closed negative for the day, following underwhelming Chinese copper-import data which showed a 4.2% Y/Y decline (for the first 10 months of this year)- re-affirming market conviction of weakness in global industrial demand for base metals.
Copper closed $0.01 lower (-0.4%) to $2.22/lb, with silver $0.03 lower (-0.1%) to $14.37
Crude rallied to highs near the $44.70/barrel level in mid-morning trade, amidst (and despite) a report by the IEA which called for a base-case of $80/barrel in 2020 and included the expectation for tepid demand growth in the intermediate-term.
The report stated that "developing Asia, a region in which India takes over from China as the largest source of consumption growth, is the leading demand centre for every major element of the world's energy mix in 2040-oil, gas, coal, renewables and nuclear. By 2040, China's net oil imports are expected to be nearly five times those of the United States, while India's easily exceed those of the European Union."
December WTI held a good portion of its gain going into the close, ending up $0.37 (+0.8%) to $4.24/barrel. Natural gas closed $0.03 higher (+1.3%) at $2.33/MMBtu
Agricultural commodities were driven to increased volatility this session, by the release of the USDA WASDE report mid-session
The report included a bearish view for corn, and calls for a fall in the world supply estimates for soybeans and wheat
Corn closed $0.08 lower (-2.2%) at $3.60/bushel, Wheat closed $0.08 lower (-1.6%) at $4.93/bushel and Soybeans closed $0.16 lower (-1.8%) at $8.58/bushel


1:52 pm Pericom Semi: Montage Technology Group reports that proxy firm Egan-Jones recommends shareholders vote against the Diodes Incorporated (DIOD) transaction (PSEM) :


11:50 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (148) outpacing new highs (63) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAME, ABCB, ATHN, BABY, BANR, BDGE, BHLB, BNCN, BNK, BOCH, BSFT, CABO, CALL, CPS, DCOM, DMND, DSGX, FCLF, FLIC, FLTX, FNBC, FNWB, FRBK, GABC, GCI, GE, GENC, GSV, GWB, HOMB, IBOC, INDB, KINS, KRNY, MDR, MITK, MLVF, MPAA, OCAT, OLBK, OMI, ORI, OSBC, PAYX, PFSW, PRMW, QABA, RMAX, SGBK, SHOR, SIFI, SPHS, TCBK, TECD, TFSL, TSYS, UCFC, VC, WAFD, WST, ZIOP, ZIXI, ZSPH

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACTG, ADUS, AEGR, AFT, AHGP, AMTX, APT, ARLP, ASCMA, AVL, AVP, AYA, BBL, BBRG, BDE, BGX, BID, BKE, BLMN, BREW, BRFS, BVN, CCO, CDI, CGG, CGIX, CHMI, CMLS, CNL, CNP, CNV, CPST, CREG, CTIC, CVA, CX, DAVE, DDC, DDD, DEST, DPW, DXYN, EAC, EFF, EGLE, EMITF, ENOC, ENPH, ENSV, ESMC, ETRM, ETSY, EVEP, FDEU, FEI, FFIV, FLOW, FMI, FSTR, FTD, FTGC, FTK, GEN, GILT, GKOS, GLBS, GLF, GNK, GNRT, GRPN, GRSHU, GTIM, IBM, IILG, INVT, IPHS, JCAP, JCS, JGW, JSD, KEN, LCI, LF, LIQD, MCUR, MHR, MNKD, NDLS, NGL, NOR, NRF, NRX, NSAM, NSH, NSL, NSPH, NSPR, NTK, NVS, OMCL, OSTK, OZM, PEIX, PICO, PRAA, PRGN, RAS, RDY, REXI, RNET, ROSG, RPRX, RTK, RWT, SB, SBLK, SCTY, SEMI, SJT, SNTA, SOHO, SUNE, SWIR, SXC, SXCP, TAS, TEU, TK, TLYS, TOO, TTGT, TU, TWER, TWIN, TXTR, URG, VAC, VALE, VBND, VCSH, VHI, VKTX, VPCO, WDC, WILN, WLH, XGTI, XHR

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: COW, DBB, DJP, JJC, PPLT


Amtech Systems (ASYS) solar subsidiary, Tempress Systems, won an order from a new customer in Taiwan, a repeat order from an existing customer in Taiwan and installed 800MW of its next-generation solar diffusion systems at a leading Chinese solar cell and module manufacturer.

7:03 am Microsemi was informed that its proposal to acquire PMC-Sierra (PMCS) constitutes a superior proposal, under the terms of PMSC's merger agreement with Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) (MSCC) :

Co announced that it was informed last night that its reiterated proposal to acquire PMC-Sierra (PMCS) in a cash and stock transaction constitutes a "Superior Proposal" under the terms of PMC's merger agreement with Skyworks Solutions (SWKS).Under the terms of the MSCC reiterated proposal, PMC shareholders will receive $9.04 in cash and 0.0771x of a share of Microsemi common stock for each share of PMC common stock held at the close of the transaction.The merger agreement submitted by Microsemi on Monday in support of its reiterated proposal is the same in all material respect to the previous merger agreement submitted by Microsemi on Oct 30, 2015.However, in support of its intent to consummate the transaction without delay by the end of the calendar year, Microsemi shortened the time to file an Exchange Offer with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

6:42 am Canadian Solar beats by $0.24, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs above consensus (CSIQ) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.24 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.29; revenues fell 7.1% year/year to $849.8 mln vs the $811.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Total solar module shipments were 1,198 MW, of which 1,150 MW were recognized in revenue, compared to 809 MW recognized in revenue in the second quarter of 2015. Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $930-980 mln vs. $806.27 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees gross margin between 13% and 15%. Sees total module shipments in the range of approximately 1,300 MW to 1,350 MW, including approximately 170 MW of shipments to the Company's utility-scale solar projects that may not be recognized in the fourth quarter 2015 revenue.

6:07 am SunEdison misses by $0.21, beats on revs (SUNE) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.91 per share, $0.21 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.70); revenues rose 1.5% year/year to $476 mln vs the $467.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

6:02 am Chipmos Technology reports October revenue of ~NT$1.6 bln, -17.4% Y/Y (IMOS) :

Revenue for the month of October 2015 was NT$1,603.6 million or US$49.4 million, an increase of 0.1% from the month of September 2015 and a decrease of 17.4% from the same period in 2014.

4:20 am EZchip: Raging urges shareholders to vote against Mellanox (MLNX) merger; believes EZchip is worth much more than $25.50 (EZCH) : Raging Capital Management, the largest shareholder of EZchip Semiconductor (EZCH), owning approximately 6.7% of the ordinary shares outstanding, issued a letter to EZchip shareholders today urging them to vote against the merger with Mellanox Technologies (MLNX), and vote for the election of Raging Capital's two highly qualified director nominees, Ken Traub and Paul McWilliams.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Broader market action today ended modestly lower. All three major US indices closed the session (-0.32%). The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower 55.99 points to 17702.22, the S&P 500 was lower by 6.72 points to 2075.00, and the Nasdaq Composite rounded out the bunch down 16.22 points to 5067.02. The markets did manage to eke out of the red briefly between noon and 1 p.m., but the gains would not hold and action returned to the downside. Market data today was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which fell 1.3% to follow last week's 0.8% decline.

Among Technology (XLK 43.60, -0.02 -0.05%) names closed just below flat lines as a spike to the downside at the market close took the sector into negative territory. Action was mostly in positive territory today, as names like XRX +6.55%, MSI +2.46%, QCOM +1.11%, TEL +1.02%, ADBE +1.03%, FB +1.02%, TXN +1.00%, VRSN +0.99%, GOOG +0.97% took action higher. Other sector finished XLU +0.87%, XLI +0.13%, XLB +0.09%, XLP -0.14%, XLF -0.33%, IYZ -0.54%, XLY -0.59%, XLV -0.99%, XLE -2.11%.

Specifically, Networking (IGN 37.63, +0.29 +0.78%) names were higher on the session as component Lumentum (LITE 17.95, +1.41 +8.52%) reported better than expected Q3 results. Other names in the subsector which posted gains on the session included INFN +2.54%, IDCC +0.93%, UBNT +0.90%, FNSR +0.83%, HRS +0.51%, FFIV +0.46%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (734.63, -0.27 -0.04%), action played out on Wednesday much like the broader Technology sector. A small spike to the downside at the close took the sector into negative territory as most of the trading action up to that point was positive. Names which helped the sector, in spite of the last-second dip lower included RHT +0.82%, LLTC +0.73%, CRM +0.59%, INTU +0.52%, CA +0.50%, TSS +0.39%, ADP +0.26%, MSFT +0.26%.
Other notable news items among sector components:

SAP AG (SAP 79.34, +1.04 +1.33%) announced the availability of the SAP Vehicles Network solution in Europe.

Super Micro Computer (SMCI 26.18, -3.07 -10.50%) announced the release the industry's broadest range of Server Building Block Solutions supporting the new Intel (INTC 32.86, -0.35 -1.05%) Xeon processor E3-1200 v5 family (formerly codenamed Skylake-S) and Intel Xeon processor D-1500.

Western Union (WU 19.28, -0.14 -0.72%) announced the appointment of Elizabeth G. Chambers as Chief Strategy and Product Officer.

Electronic Arts (EA 71.30, +0.47 +0.66%) to release EA SPORTS UFC 2 in Spring 2016, EA says no updates to prior FY16 guidance.

Avago Tech (AVGO 119.95, +0.09 +0.08%) and Broadcom (BRCM 51.91, +0.46 +0.89%) shareholders approved merger.

Skyworks (SWKS 79.10, -1.27 -1.58%) announced new $400 million stock repurchase program.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Trimble Navigation (TRMB 22.46, -0.12 -0.53%) acquired privately held Telog Instruments, Inc. for undisclosed sum.

Checkpoint Systems (CKP 6.39, +0.01 +0.16%) appointed James Lucania as Chief Financial Officer.
Turlock Irrigation District and SunPower (SPWR 25.62, -0.59 -2.25%) announced a 20-year PPA under which TID will buy clean renewable solar power from SPWR. To serve the agreement, SPWR is starting construction this month on a 54-megawatt solar photovoltaic power plant at the company's Rosamond Solar site in Kern County, which is expected to be operational by the end of 2016.

Evolving Systems (EVOL 5.72, +0.40 +7.52%) reported another wireless operator in Africa has selected to use its Dynamic SIM Allocation solution.

Marathon Patent Group's (MARA 1.48, -0.05 -3.27%) subsidiary, Selene Communication Technologies, entered into a settlement and license agreement with Trend Micro (TMICY 37.25, -0.37 -0.97%).

Broadridge Financial (BR 56.94, -0.08 -0.14%) acquired QED Financial Systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Hughes Network Systems, LLC, a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (SATS 41.56, -0.55 -1.31%), and Telesat announced a 15-year agreement for Ka-band capacity on Telesat's new Telstar 19 VANTAGE satellite, planned for launch in early 2018. The agreement calls for Telesat to deliver Ka-band capacity of 31 Gbps on T19V covering many countries in South America, which Co will utilize to expand its broadband satellite services for consumers.

Nokia (NOK 7.31, +0.09 +1.25%) converted 750 million of convertible bond into Nokia shares.

Super Micro Computer (SMCI) filed to delay its Form 10-Q. The company has determined that certain contracts for product extended warranties were recorded as revenue in prior periods instead of being deferred and amortized over the contractual period.

Electro Scientific's (ESIO 5.04, -0.13 -2.51%) Chief Accounting officer Kerry Mustoe to retire effective December 18.

Sigma Designs (SIGM 9.73, +0.17 +1.78%) acquired privately-held Bretelon for about $22 million in cash.

Lumentum (LITE) in addition to reporting quarterly results, filed to delay its Form 10-Q.

NTT Group (NTT 39.06, +0.28 +0.72%) and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PHI) agreed on a collaboration partnership on November 5 to provide Nexcenter solutions in the Philippines and promote cross-selling.

Lattice Semi (LSCC 5.07, -0.02 -0.39%) appointed Glen Hawk as COO.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Hackett Group (HCKT 18.28, +2.35 +14.75%) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at (pro forma) EPS of $0.20 on revenues which rose 11.3% YoY to $67.2 million.

Alarm.com (ALRM 16.57, +2.00 +13.73%) reported Q3 EPS which was better than expected at $0.14 on revenues which also came in ahead of expectations at $54 million. In addition, ALRM raised FY15 EPS and revenue guidance to $0.20-0.21 from $0.13-0.14 and $197.7-200.1 million from $193.9-195.3 million, respectively.

CGI Group (GIB 40.61, +1.78 +4.58%) reported EPS and revenues ahead of expectations at CC$0.82 and CC$2.59 billion, respectively. At the end of September, the backlog stood at $20.7 billion, a $2.5 billion increase from last year.

Amdocs (DOX 55.56, -4.54 -7.55%) reported Q4 EPS which beat expectations at $0.84 on revenues which were mostly in-line at $927.8 million. DOX also guided Q1 EPS in the range of $0.82-0.88 and revenues of $905-945 million, both worse than expected.

Phoenix New Media Limited (FENG 4.69, -0.21 -4.29%) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which were better than expected at $0.08 and $61.4 million, respectively. The company issued guidance for Q4 revenues between 368 million-388 million (-5.7% to -0.6% sequentially versus Q3 revenues).

Lumentum (LITE) reported Q3 EPS which was better than expected at $0.26 on revenues which came in about in-line at $212.6 million. The company also issued in-line guidance for the Q4 period of EPS in the range of $0.26-0.30 on revenues of $212-222 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: DTRM, NTES/CLFD, PMTS, HIMX, MMS, NTWK, OTIV, RSTI

Analyst actions:

SCON was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Ladenburg Thalmann,
TSL was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
ORCL was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
SNDK was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Bernstein,
EMC was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
TISA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at The Benchmark Company,
FENG was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie


4:00 pm Atmel: Elliott Management increases stake in Dialog Semi (DLGNF), reiterations its intention to vote against Dialog's pending acquisition of Atmel (ATML) :

4:05 pm : The stock market spent the Wednesday session inside a narrow range before ending with a modest loss. The S&P 500 shed 0.3% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) settled in line with the benchmark index after showing relative strength intraday.

Overall, the midweek affair was very quiet as the stock market bounced around its flat line while the bond market was closed for Veterans Day. The subdued activity was evidenced by below-average trading volume as fewer than 800 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Four sectors ended the day above their flat lines, but their gains were overshadowed by a significant decline in the energy sector (-1.9%) while other influential groups like health care (-0.9%), consumer discretionary (-0.5%), and financials (-0.2%) also struggled.

The energy sector marched lower throughout the day, pressured by a 2.9% drop in crude oil, which fell to $42.96/bbl, representing the lowest settlement since late August. Similar to crude, other commodities finished the day in negative territory despite modest dollar weakness that sent the Dollar Index (98.98, -0.31) lower by 0.3%. The greenback ended little changed against the euro despite morning news that indicated the European Central Bank will examine a possible extension of quantitative easing purchases to municipal bonds.

Elsewhere, the health care sector held its own in the early going, but slipped into the close with biotechnology showing comparable weakness. To that point, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 326.85, -5.11) lost 1.5% to end the day just above its 50-day moving average (325.61).

Also of note, the consumer discretionary sector struggled since the start with retailers largely responsible for the weakness after disappointing guidance from Macy's (M 40.44, -6.58) overshadowed better than expected earnings. Macy's tumbled 14.0% while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.62, -1.03) lost 2.3%.

Unlike the discretionary sector, the consumer staples space outperformed throughout the day with Roundy's (RNDY 3.57, +1.39) surging 63.8% after agreeing to be acquired by Kroger (KR 37.03, -0.24) for $3.60/share in cash, which represents a 65.0% premium to Tuesday's closing price.

Today's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which fell 1.3% to follow last week's 0.8% decline.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 269,000) will be released at 8:30 ET while September Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and October Treasury Budget (consensus -$130.00 billion) will be reported at 10:00 ET and 14:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +7.0% YTD
S&P 500 +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.1% YTD

DJ30 -55.99 NASDAQ -16.22 SP500 -6.72 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1018/1.55 bln/1815 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1304/784.6 mln/1740

3:40 pm :

Commodities ended the day lower today
Bloomberg Commodity Index is currently down 0.5%
Oil, nat gas, gold and silver futures all remain near today's lows
Dec crude finished the day -down 3% at $42.96/barrel, while Dec nat gas lost -3% as well to finish at $2.26/MMBtu
Copper ended unchanged at $2.22/lb
But in the precious metals market, Dec gold fell -0.3% to $1085/oz and Dec silver dropped -0.6% to $14.29/oz

11:36 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (174) outpacing new highs (126) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADP, AIZ, AKR, ALDW, AMH, AMRK, AMZN, AVOL, BDGE, BECN, BHLB, BNCN, BOCH, BRKL, CACB, CACI, CAJ, CASY, CBOE, CDR, CFNL, CHFC, CNO, CPS, CSBK, CUK, DCOM, DGICB, DMND, DSGX, ECT, EDUC, EFII, EFSC, EGBN, EGHT, ENLK, FBC, FCBC, FLTX, FLY, FNWB, FRBK, FRM, FULT, GE, GOOGL, GSBC, GWB, HCKT, HF, HOMB, HQY, HSII, HSKA, HTHT, IBCP, IBOC, ICE, IM, INDB, INGR, JAXB, KRNY, LGL, LKFN, LLL, LNCE, LXFT, MBWM, MDR, METR, MFSF, MHG, MLVF, MTN, NFBK, NQI, NWL, NXC, OCAT, OLBK, OME, OMI, OPB, ORI, OZRK, PAR, PAYX, PBA, PFBC, RIVR, RMAX, RNST, RVNC, SBGI, SFBS, SFNC, SGBK, SHEN, SHOR, SIFI, SIRI, SNA, SNV, SNX, SOCB, STWD, TCBK, TECD, TFSL, THFF, TMP, TTC, TTI, UHAL, V, VC, VOXX, WAFD, WAL, WFBI, WFD, WSFS, XRS, YDLE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACSF, ADM, ADUS, AHGP, AMDA, AMFW, AMTX, ARCW, ARLP, ATI, AZUR, BBL, BBOX, BFY, BID, BIOD, BOBE, BONT, BOOT, CC, CDI, CFX, CGG, CGIX, CHS, CLMS, CMLS, CNL, CNP, CPST, CREG, CROX, CVA, CVM, DAKP, DAR, DDC, DDD, DECK, DEST, DXYN, ECPG, EFF, EGLE, ELOS, ENBL, ENOC, ENSV, ENVA, EPIQ, ERA, ESMC, EVAR, EVDY, EVRI, FMI, FREE, FRPT, FTK, FUEL, GLBS, GNK, GNRT, GPS, GRH, GSI, HDNG, HIBB, IILG, IMN, IPI, JGW, JMLP, JSD, JWN, KMI, KONA, KSS, KTCC, KYN, M, MARA, MCUR, MDVX, MEMP, MIE, MNKD, MSB, MSLI, MTOR, NAZ, NDLS, NES, NETE, NFEC, NM, NML, NMM, NOR, NRX, NSH, NSL, NSPH, NTK, NWPX, ONTX, OXGN, OZM, PAA, PDVW, PEIX, PER, PERY, PRAA, PRGN, PRTY, QUAD, RCAP, RCKY, REE, REXI, RICE, RNET, ROKA, ROSG, ROYT, RPRX, RRMS, RTK, SB, SBLK, SBRA, SCTY, SEDG, SEMG, SGMS, SJT, SKUL, SLM, SMM, SMRT, SMT, SNTA, SRF, SSYS, STX, SUNE, SWIR, SXC, SXCL, SXCP, SYRX, TC, TDW, TERP, TEU, TINY, TK, TLYS, TWIN, UAE, UEIC, UPL, URBN, URG, UUUU, VGGL, VKTX, WDC, WILN, WLH, WRN, WTT, XGTI

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DJP, PPLT, TIP

6:02 am Ascent Solar enters into two definitive agreements to raise $35 million from an accredited private investor (ASTI) :

Pursuant to the Agreements, the Company will issue up to $2.8 million of a principal amount of the Company's newly designated Series E 7% Convertible Preferred Stock, and enter into a Committed Equity LinePurchase Agreement with the Investor whereby the Company has the right to sell to Investor, and Investor is obligated to purchase from the Company, up to $32.2 million of the Company's common stock.

The Company issued 1,000 shares of Series E Preferred Stock to Investor in exchange for $1 million, and will issue an additional 500 shares of Series E Preferred Stock to Investor in exchange for $500,000.

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From Briefing.com: The broader market ended the Wednesday session surging to highs of the day. On the back of comment from the October FOMC meeting, and market data, all three major US indices closed well above flat lines. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led the way higher, adding 89.19 points (+1.79%) to close 5075.20. The S&P 500 closely followed, higher by 33.14 points (+1.62%) to 2083.58. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rounded out the bunch up 247.66 points (+1.42%) to end 17737.16.

Market data reported this morning was limited to Housing Starts, which declined 11.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.060 million units from a downwardly revised 1.191 million in September (from 1.206 million), and weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which posted a reading of +6.2% on the back of last week's 1.3% decline. In addition, markets surged to highs as the October FOMC meeting minutes showed that a large majority of Federal Reserve officials were open to a December rate hike.

For its part, the Technology (XLK 43.68, +0.63 +1.46%) sector closed much like the broader market, surging to highs as the bell rang. Sector component Teradata (TDC 28.19, +1.66 +6.26%) closed with notable gains today as the company was mentioned by a sell side analyst as potentially being up for sale. TDC did not, however, confirm this speculation. Other sectors finished the session XLV +1.95%, XLB +1.78%, XLF +1.78%, XLY +1.71%, XLE +1.65%, XLI +1.39%, XLP +1.38%, IYZ +1.33%, XLU +0.64% led by Healthcare.

Broader strength in the Semiconductor (SOX 662.14, +6.32 +0.96%) industry today was predicated on the early morning news that ON Semiconductor (ON 9.89, -0.85 -7.91%) would buy fellow chip-maker Fairchild Semi (FCS 19.40, +1.52 +8.50%) for $20 per share in cash, or about $2.4 billion. The deal led to broader strength across the sector, with names like SUNE +7.62%, NXPI +4.45%, SWKS +4.23%, CREE +4.20%, AVGO +3.16%, QRVO +2.92%, MCHP +2.75%, NVDA +2.46% finishing higher on the session.

Also posting a strong session, Internet (FDN 75.82, +1.19 +1.59%) names closed with marked gains. Component Rackspace (RAX 27.34, +1.17 +4.47%) closed the session near highs as the company announced after-hours last night the pricing of an offering of $500 million (from $350 million) 6.5% senior notes due 2024. Other names in the sector that closed with gains included TRIP +7.12%, RAX +4.47%, EXPE +3.65%, AMZN +3.15%, NFLX +3.01%, TWTR +2.66%, FB +2.51%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (734.35, +11.57 +1.60%) closed higher today. Names like AVGO +3.16%, QRVO +2.92%, WDC +2.85%, HPQ +2.71%, XRX +2.53%, WU +2.52%, MU +2.16%, V +2.07%, GOOG +2.03%, GOOGL +1.88% helped the sector outperform as component Qualcomm (QCOM 48.00, -4.98 -9.40%) managed to closed well lower on an unfavorable report alleging violation of Korean competition law. Notable names Apple (AAPL 117.29, +3.60 +3.17%) closed near session highs as the company was added this morning to Goldman's Conviction Buy List.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Citrix Systems (CTXS 70.54, -7.88 -10.05%) updated on its operations review, stating that a spinoff of the GoTo family of products into a public company is in the best interest of shareholders. The company also gave FY16 guidance of revenue growth of 1-2% or roughly $3.28-3.31 billion. Also, CTXS expects FY15 non-GAAP EPS of $4.0-4.50. In addition, the company named Tim Minahan as Chief Marketing Officer.

Bottomline Technologies (EPAY 28.96, +0.53 +1.86%) announced a strategic alliance with Visa (V 80.46, +1.63 +2.07%) that will create a way for businesses to pay and get paid. Visa's commercial card solution, Visa Payables, and Bottomline's payment network, Paymode-X, will join to create Paymode-X with Visa Payables.

CA Tech (CA 28.04, +1.14 +4.24%) increased its dividend to $1.02 per share for the year. The company also announced an additional $750 million share repurchase program.

Qualcomm (QCOM) announced the receipt of a report from Korea Fair Trade Commission alleging it violates Korean competition law.

Motorola Solutions (MSI 71.98, +0.93 +1.31%) increased its dividend to $0.41 from $0.34 per share.

Ericsson (ERIC 9.55, +0.07 +0.74%), with Vodafone (VOD 33.58, +0.07 +0.21%) and Qualcomm (QCOM), conducted world's first live testing of advanced LTE Carrier Aggregation of LTE in licensed and unlicensed bands on a commercial mobile network.

Autodesk (ADSK 61.25 flat) and ZWCAD Software settled outstanding litigation in the Hague and the US District Court of the Northern District of California.

Oracle (ORCL 38.70, +0.57 +1.49%) introduced a series of new innovations within the Oracle Marketing Cloud. The new innovations enable marketers to orchestrate relevant mobile interactions for consumers and salespeople, clearly attribute revenue to marketing activities and optimize the experience for individual customers.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Fairchild Semi (FCS) to be acquired by ON Semiconductor (ON) for $20 per share in cash, or about $2.4 billion.

OSI Systems (OSIS 93.04, +7.70 +9.02%) received a multi-year framework contract, to provide the RTT 110 explosives detection system to airports in France.

TiVo (TIVO 8.90, +0.20 +2.36%) announced that CEO Tom Rogers will relinquish his position on January 31, 2016. A search committee has been formed to find a replacement.

VimpelCom (VIP 3.68, +0.07 +1.94%) to divest stake in Zimbawe subsidiary for $40 million.

Rackspace (RAX) priced an upsized offering of $500 million of 6.500% senior notes due 2024.

Analyst actions:

SHOP was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
CA was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research;
FCS was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
CTXS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho

4:34 pm Semtech misses by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (SMTC) :

Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.24; revenues fell 22.2% year/year to $115.8 mln vs the $115.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Q3 GAAP Gross Profit Margin of 60.1% and 60.3% on a Non-GAAP Basis. Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.14-0.18, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $113-119 mln vs. $114.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co sees Q4 Non-GAAP gross profit margin is expected to be in the range of 59.0% to 60.0%.

4:31 pm Motorola Solutions announces it will voluntarily delist its shares from the Chicago Stock Exchange; will continue to list on NYSE (MSI) :

4:05 pm : The stock market ended the midweek session on a broadly higher note with the Nasdaq Composite leading the way. The tech-heavy Index spiked 1.8% while the S&P 500 (+1.6%) followed not far behind, charging back above its 200-day moving average (2,065).

Equity indices climbed out of the gate, continuing their steady charge into the afternoon and through the release of FOMC minutes from the October meeting, which left little doubt that the Fed is poised to raise rates at the December meeting. Specifically, the minutes indicated that "it may well become appropriate to initialize the normalization process at the next meeting, provided that unanticipated shocks do not adversely affect the economic outlook."

To be fair, it would be hard to categorize the statement as hawkish if one were to judge solely based on the market's reaction to the commentary as Treasuries charged back to unchanged (10-yr yield 2.27%) while the dollar ticked lower against the euro.

All ten sectors ended the day in positive territory with eight groups adding more than 1.0%. The financial sector (+1.8%) settled near the top of the leaderboard, driven higher by solid gains among the likes of Bank of America (BAC 17.84, +0.41), Citigroup (C 54.98, +1.49), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.45, +1.32). The three names gained between 2.0% and 2.8%, benefiting from rising rate hike expectations.

Elsewhere, the energy sector (+1.6%) also posted a solid gain, but not before seeing some intraday volatility. The commodity-sensitive group led at the start, but made a brief appearance in the red amid a late-morning pullback in crude oil. WTI crude ended higher by 0.4% at $41.95/bbl after sliding from its session high near $41.53/bbl. Interestingly, the pullback developed after the latest storage report from the Energy Information Administration showed a smaller than expected inventory build (252,000 barrels; expected 2.0 million barrels).

Staying on the cyclical side, the top-weighted technology sector (+1.6%) settled in line with the broader market, masking a 3.2% spike in the shares of Apple (AAPL 117.29, +3.60), which was brought on by news that Goldman Sachs added the stock to its Conviction Buy List. Also of note, the PHLX Semiconductor Index gained 1.0%, overshadowing an 8.5% surge in Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS 19.40, +1.52) after the company agreed to be acquired by ON Semiconductor (ON 9.89, -0.85) for $20/share.

Over on the countercyclical side, the health care sector (+2.0%) spent the bulk of the session in a position of relative strength while consumer staples (+1.4%), telecom services (+0.8%), and utilities (+0.7%) underperformed. As for health care, the sector was boosted by biotechnology, evidenced by a 2.9% spike in iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 338.74, +9.60), which registered its fourth consecutive advance.

Today's participation was ahead of average as more than 850 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data reported this morning was limited to Housing Starts and MBA Mortgage Index:

The October Housing Starts report was a disappointment as starts declined 11.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.060 million units from a downwardly revised 1.191 million in September (from 1.206 million)
The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.173 million
The downturn was driven by a 25.1% decline in multifamily starts, which followed on the heels of an 18.1% increase in September. A natural pullback was expected after the big September increase, yet the drop was more pronounced than many had thought.
There wasn't a pickup in single-family starts either as they dropped 2.4% to 722,000, led by a 6.9% decline in the South
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 6.2% to follow last week's 1.3% decline

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 272,000) and the November Philadelphia Fed Survey (expected -1.0) will be reported at 8:30 ET while the October Leading Indicators report (consensus 0.6%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.2% YTD
S&P 500 +1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.6% YTD

DJ30 +247.66 NASDAQ +89.19 SP500 +33.14 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1995/1.82 bln/927 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2373/868.2 mln/699

3:30 pm :

Precious metals climbed modestly higher following the FOMC minutes
In pit trading, however, Dec gold finished +0.10 higher at $1068.70/oz, while Dec silver -0.5% to $14.10/oz
Currently, gold is $1070.50 and silver is $14.15/oz
WTI crude oil has been climbing higher since it's late-morning LoD of $41.28/barrel.
Jan crude finished floor trade at $41.95/barrel, which is $0.18 higher, but rose at high as $42.21/barrel by 3:15pm ET
Natural gas futures consolidated in the afternoon session... no real action. Dec nat gas closed the day -0.9% to $2.35/MMBtu

3:33 pm Pericom Semi's Board unanimously rejects the revised acquisition offer from Montage Technology Group Limited; says offer 'still suffers from fundamental flaws and significant risks' (PSEM) :

The Board noted:

"The increased $17.75 per share purchase price provided by the Diodes (DIOD) transaction represents a substantial premium which is backed by fully committed financing from a U.S. bank. After months of negotiations and repeated opportunities to revise its offer, Montage has proven unable or unwilling to obtain fully committed financing, instead presenting Pericom with inadequate one-page financing letters that, despite the Company's numerous requests, Montage has failed to make available to Pericom shareholders. Despite Montage's revised offer, these inadequate one-page financing letters have remained unchanged and no new financing commitments have been presented to Pericom. Considering these and other factors, the Pericom Board unanimously reaffirmed its recommendation that shareholders vote the WHITE proxy card "FOR" the Diodes Merger Agreement to lock in the substantial premium that would be realized upon the prompt closing of the Diodes Merger Agreement."

11:40 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (162) outpacing new highs (51) (SCANX) :

Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAME, ACRS, AGRO, ANGI, ARG, AYI, BCOM, CAC, CCRN, CMN, CWST, DMTX, EBS, EDUC, EFX, EGHT, ESLT, FBC, FBHS, FCLF, FLIC, FRBK, GAME, GDEN, HCKT, HD, IDTI, IGLD, MAS, MITK, MPWR, MSI, NCTY, OC, OLBK, OMI, OSIS, OVBC, PARR, PBF, PCBK, PCL, PE, RIVR, RNG, STZ, TAP, TTI, VC, VII, VRSN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: AAMC, AAN, ABUS, ACSF, ACTG, AGI, AIQ, ANGO, APT, ARC, ARDC, ARES, ASA, ASNA, ASTC, ATOS, AUPH, AZUR, BBW, BEBE, BGI, BGX, BIOD, BNTC, BOBE, BONT, BSI, BSL, BVN, CARB, CDE, CEF, CETC, CGIX, CLUB, CMLS, CNAT, CNIT, CPRX, CPST, CREG, CTIC, CYRX, DELT, DSX, DYN, EGLE, ENI, ENRJ, ENSV, ENVA, EQT, ESEA, EVAR, EVER, EXC, FINL, FRGI, FSAM, FTAI, FTGC, FWM, GARS, GASS, GFI, GILT, GLBL, GLPI, GLRE, GOGL, GPOR, GPRO, GSI, HBIO, HIE, HNI, HNSN, HOS, HSGX, HSNI, ICLD, ICON, IPHS, JCS, JYNT, KKD, KLXI, KOOL, LLNW, MCUR, MIK, MSTX, MUA, MXPT, NAO, NETE, NMBL, NMM, NRG, NSL, NTCT, NVGS, ONTX, OSTK, OZM, PAAC, PBYI, PED, PEG, PEIX, PERF, PETX, PGLC, PQ, PRGN, QCOM, QUAD, RACE, RADA, RBY, RCII, REV, RKDA, RLJ, RMGN, ROKA, RRGB, RUN, SALT, SB, SBLK, SBRA, SEMI, SGNL, SJT, SKUL, SMCI, SRG, SSH, SSI, STR, STRP, STV, SUNE, TAT, TERP, THR, TLN, TLYS, URG, UUUU, VCEL, VMEM, VRX, VSLR, WING, WIW, WPG, WRES, WSM, WTT, XHR

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DBB, DBC, DJP, FXF, JJC, JJG, PPLT, RJA

7:02 am PMC-Sierra: Microsemi (MSCC) increases its offer to acquire PMC-Sierra; new offer valued at $12.05/ PMCS share (PMCS) :

Microsemi Corporation (MSCC) announced that it has increased its proposal to acquire PMC-Sierra in a cash and stock transaction.

Under the terms of Microsemi's proposal, PMC shareholders would receive $9.22 in cash and 0.0771x of a share of Microsemi common stock for each share of PMC common stock. Based on the closing stock price of Microsemi on Nov. 17, 2015, the transaction is valued at $12.05 per PMC share. The revised proposal is expected to be immediately accretive to Microsemi's non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow. Microsemi anticipates achieving more than $100 million in annual cost synergies with greater than $75 million of those to be realized in the first full quarter of combined operations. Microsemi estimates approximately $0.60 of non-GAAP EPS accretion in the first full year after closing the transaction.

6:16 am Qualcomm announces receipt of report from Korea Fair Trade Commission alleging it violates Korean competition law (QCOM) :

The co confirmed that it has recently received the Korea Fair Trade Commission's staff-generated Case Examiner's Report, which commences a process that affords Qualcomm the ability to respond to allegations and defend itself. The ER alleges, among other things, that we do not properly negotiate aspects of our licenses, and that our practice of licensing our patents only at the device level and requiring that our chip customers be licensed to our intellectual property violate Korean competition law. The ER proposes remedies including modifications to certain business practices and monetary penalties.

Qualcomm states the allegations and conclusions contained in the ER are not supported by the facts and are a serious misapplication of law and it intends to vigorously defend itself at the Commission hearings and remain hopeful that the Commission will reject the conclusions of the Examiner's Report. The company expects the process to take some time.

6:11 am Fairchild Semi to be acquired by ON Semiconductor (ON) for $20/share in cash, or ~$2.4 bln (FCS) :

Following consummation, the transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to ON Semiconductor's non-GAAP earnings per share and free cash flow, excluding any non-recurring acquisition related charges, the fair value step-up inventory amortization, and amortization of acquired intangibles. ON Semiconductor anticipates achieving annual cost savings of $150 million within 18 months after closing the transaction.

The transaction is not subject to a financing condition. ON Semiconductor intends to fund the transaction with cash from the combined companies balance sheet and $2.4 billion of new debt. The debt financing commitment also includes provisions for a $300 million revolving credit facility which will be undrawn at close. ON Semiconductor remains committed to its share repurchase program, and the agreed upon financing provides flexibility to continue share repurchases going forward.The transaction has been unanimously approved by ON Semiconductor's and Fairchild's boards of directors and is expected to close late in the second quarter of 2016.

3:42 am EZchip: Raging Capital comments on shareholder opposition to proposed EZchip merger; views 'Go Shop' a victory for shareholders (EZCH) :

Raging Capital Management, the largest shareholder of EZchip Semiconductor (EZCH), owning ~7.2% of the ordinary shares outstanding, commented today on EZchip's decision to postpone the shareholder vote on the Company's proposed sale to Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) and to include a "Go Shop" provision in its agreement with Mellanox

"EZchip's decision to amend the agreement with Mellanox to allow for a Go Shop provision supports our strong belief that the original process to sell EZchip was both flawed and incomplete. While we believe EZchip should not have entered into the contract with Mellanox to begin with, now that they have belatedly agreed to a Go Shop process, we intend to hold the Board and management accountable if this process is not conducted in a manner that gives other interested parties a full and fair opportunity to make superior proposals."

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed Thursday action with all three major US indices in negative territory. The S&P 500 was the worst laggard, shedding 2.34 points (-0.11%) to close 2081.24. The Nasdaq Composite closed slightly lower today, down 1.56 points (-0.03%) to 5073.64. Rounding out the bunch, the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted the most tame of losses, down 4.41 points (-0.02%) at the close to 17732.75.

Market data today came in the form of Initial Claims, Philadelphia Fed Survey and Leading Indicators. The latest initial claims report for the week ending November 14 fell by 5,000 to 271,000. Manufacturing conditions in the Philadelphia Fed region improved in November as the General Business Activity Index rose to 1.9 from -4.5 in October. Also, the leading indicators report for October was up 0.6%.

In Technology (XLK 43.88, +0.20 +0.46%), trading took the sector into positive territory. Component Salesforce.com (CRM 80.61, +3.26 +4.21%) led the way higher as it reported a solid Q3 print. The company also issued upside guidance for the coming period, and and as a result shares saw increased buying. Other sectors closed Thursday as follows XLU +1.08%, XLI +0.44%, XLP +0.26%, XLF +0.16%, XLY +0.12%, IYZ +0.00%, XLB -0.11%, XLE -1.34%, XLV -1.68%.

For back-to-back sessions, Semiconductor (SOX 663.63, +1.48 +0.22%) names have been in play. Today, component Intel (INTC 34.30, +1.14 +3.44%) took the sector higher as the company issued guidance and increased its dividend at an Investor Day. Other components which finished higher included MRVL +3.42%, ON +2.12%, MU +1.67%, CREE +1.42%, ARMH +1.31%, QCOM +0.81%.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector closed the session with modest gains. Despite the sector ending the day in positive territory, component Yahoo! (YHOO 32.62, -0.35 -1.08%) closed in the red as the company received a letter from Starboard Value which stated the firm thought the spin-off of Aabaco Holdings was not the best alternative. Other components which closed negative in spite of the sector strength were WDC -3.47%, FB -1.40%, XRX -1.04%, QRVO -1.01%, BRCM -0.88%, FFIV -0.63%, ACN -0.56%, SNDK -0.45%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Fiserv (FISV 96.66, +0.64 +0.67%) announced its Board of Directors has authorized it to repurchase an additional 15 million shares of the company's common stock.

Motorola Solutions (MSI 72.45, +0.47 +0.65%) announced it plans to voluntarily withdraw the listing of its common stock from the Chicago Stock Exchange, and will continue to be listed on the NYSE.

Western Union (WU 19.08, -0.42 -2.15%) confirmed it has submitted a non-binding, indicative proposal to potentially acquire online payments services provider OzForex Group Limited, which is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

Yahoo! (YHOO) was sent a letter from Starboard Value. Among other items, Starboard noted, 'The proposed spin-off of Aabaco Holdings is not Yahoo's best alternative.'

Intel (INTC) made comments at an Investor Meeting. The company provided 2016 guidance to the tune of growth in the mid-single digit range. The company also expects gross margins of 62%, plus or minus a couple of percentage points and capital spending of $10 billion. Also, announced an increase to the annual dividend to $1.04 from $0.96 per share beginning in Q1.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) Match Group (MTCH 14.75, +2.75 +22.92%) and Square (SQ 13.07, +4.07 +45.22%) made their initial opening public trades today.

Limelight Networks' (LLNW 1.65, +0.02 +1.23%) CFO Pete Perrone to resign effective December 4.

InterCloud Systems (ICLD 1.38, +0.25 +22.12%) announced it was awarded net contracts valued at more than $2.3 million. The company also issued senior convertible notes for gross proceeds of $500,000. The company also entered into an exchange agreement with GPB Life Science Holdings wherein the company would exchange a portion of certain senior notes on Dec. 3.

Equinix (EQIX 286.11, -6.98 -2.38%) priced an offering of 2,604,167 shares of common stock at $288.00 per share. The company also announced a $1 billion offering of Senior Notes Due 2026.

Vodafone (VOD 33.71, +0.13 +0.39%) announced its intention to raise around 500 million of new debt issuance of non-dilutive equity-linked bonds due 2020.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Lionsgate (LGF 36.22, -1.55 -4.10%) both each made an equity investment into Tubi TV, provider of free movies and TV shows.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Salesforce.com (CRM) reported Q3 EPS which was better than expected at $0.21 per share on revenues which were mostly in-line at $1.71 billion. The company also issued upside guidance for the Q4 period of EPS in the range of $0.18-0.19 on revenues of $1.782-1.792 billion. For the FY17 period, revenues are expected to be in the range of $8.0-8.1 billion.

NetApp (NTAP 30.97, -0.07 -0.23%) reported Q2 EPS which was better than expected at $0.61 on revenues which fell 6.4% YoY to $1.45 billion. NTAP also issued in-line guidance for Q3 in the range of $0.66-0.71 and revenues in the range of $1.40-1.50 billion.

Liquidity Services (LQDT 6.80, -1.08 -13.71%) reported a mixed Q4 with better than anticipated EPS of $0.07 and worse than expected revenues of $79.3 million. The company also issued downside guidance for the Q1 period, calling for EPS in the range of ($0.09)-0.00.

Analyst actions:

STX was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum,
ON was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
FCS was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse;
FCS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
LEJU was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie

4:10 pm Agilent increases its quarterly cash dividend $0.015/share from $0.10/share to $0.115/share (A) :

4:09 pm Intuit beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q2 above consensus; raises FY16 EPS guidance (INTU) :

Reports Q1 (Oct) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.04); revenues rose 16.5% year/year to $713 mln vs the $670.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.17-0.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.05 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $880-900 mln vs. $826.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues upside guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $3.45-3.50 from $3.40-3.45, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $3.43 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday session on a flat note after spinning its wheels throughout the day. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% after spending the day in an eight-point range while the Nasdaq Composite (unch) outperformed slightly. Despite today's sluggish performance, the S&P 500 is set to enter Friday with a solid week-to-date gain of 2.9%.

Equities began the trading day just below their flat lines due to daylong weakness in two relatively large sectors. To that point, health care (-1.6%) and energy (-1.3%) struggled from the start with the health care space responding to a 5.7% dive in the shares of UnitedHealth (UNH 110.57, -6.68) after the insurer lowered its guidance, citing exposure to public exchanges. To be fair, UNH was not the only soft spot as biotech names also lagged with iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 333.42, -5.32) ending lower by 1.6%.

For its part, the energy sector struggled throughout the day, ending well behind the broader market despite an afternoon rebound in crude oil, which narrowed its loss to 0.5%, ending the pit session at $40.54/bbl.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, the discretionary space ended just above its flat line, which masked a 2.1% slide in the shares of Best Buy (BBY 30.66, -0.67) after the electronics retailer issued cautious guidance. Speaking of guidance, chipmaker heavyweight, Intel (INTC 34.30, +1.14), surged 3.4% after guiding in-line and boosting its annual dividend by eight cents to $1.04. Intel's outperformance contributed to a 0.4% gain in the top-weighted technology sector while the PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.2%. The chipmaker index was held back from registering a larger gain due to a 12.0% plunge in SunEdison (SUNE 2.86, -0.39) after Blackstone denied having interest in backstopping SUNE.

Similar to technology, the industrial sector (+0.4%) ended well ahead of the broader market. Transport stocks contributed to the relative strength, evidenced by a 1.0% gain in the Dow Jones Transportation Average.

Moving back to the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+0.3%), telecom services (+0.5%), and utilities (+1.0%) held gains throughout the day, ending near their highs.

Unlike stocks, Treasuries climbed into the afternoon before surrendering about a third of their gains. That being said, the 10-yr note settled comfortably in the green with its yield slipping three basis points to 2.24%.

Today's participation was below recent averages as fewer than 800 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data reported today included Initial Claims, Philadelphia Fed Survey, and Leading Indicators:

The latest initial claims report didn't provide any real surprises as initial claims for the week ending November 14 fell by 5,000 to 271,000 (Briefing.com consensus 272,000) without any special factors driving the slight improvement
Continuing claims for the week ending November 7, meanwhile, dipped by 2,000 to 2.175 million (Briefing.com consensus 2.164 million)
The four-week moving average for initial claims bumped up to 271,000 from 268,000
Manufacturing conditions in the Philadelphia Fed region improved in November, evidenced by the General Business Activity Index rising to 1.9 from -4.5 in October while the Briefing.com consensus estimate called for a reading of -1.0
This was the first positive reading in three months
The dividing line between expansion and contraction for this particular survey is 0.0, so it can be said manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia Fed region is back in expansion territory, albeit only slightly
The Leading Indicators report for October was up 0.6%, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected

Investors will not receive any economic data tomorrow.

Nasdaq Composite +7.1% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.0% YTD

DJ30 -4.47 NASDAQ -1.56 SP500 -2.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1264/1.65 bln/1576 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1585/790.7 mln/1478

3:10 pm :

The dollar trended lower all session, being particularly pressured in early trade by the release of US unemployment data
Initial unemployment claims were in-line with estimates (271K vs. 272K est.), while continuing claims were slightly high (2.18 mln vs. 2.16 consensus)
The index modestly regained some of its early losses this afternoon, but is still down at -0.6% to 99.04
Oil traded positive overnight, before seeing a steep sell-off in early trading on yesterday's EIA inventory data figure (a 252K build) and a bearish stance reiteration from Goldman Sachs. The January contract traded in a relatively narrow range into the close, finishing -0.4% to $41.78/barrel
Natural gas trended near the flat-line going into this morning's data, and saw muted initial reaction upon EIA reports of a 15 bcf build (lower than the 49 bcf 4 wk avg)
Negative sentiment weighed more heavily as the session progressed however, with natural gas closing strongly lower at -3.4% to $2.27/MMBtu
Precious metals saw strong gains on the US employment data, most of which were held throughout the session. Gold closed +0.9% to $1078.1/oz and silver closed +0.9% to $14.95/oz. Copper closed near-flat at $2.07/lb

11:39 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (138) outpacing new highs (95) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ADBE, AFL, AIZ, ANGI, AOS, AVY, AYI, BANC, BCOM, BDGE, BHBK, BOCH, BRKR, BT, CASY, CBAN, CBOE, CLI, CMN, COST, CRM, CSFL, CTRP, CWST, DHR, DMND, DSGX, EBS, EDU, EDUC, EXTR, FBHS, FLIC, GDEN, GOOG, GPN, GT, GWB, HD, HPY, HRL, HSIC, IDTI, IM, IMPV, JKHY, KITE, LION, LMT, LNCE, LYTS, MAA, MAS, MBWM, MITK, MKL, MORE, MPV, MPWR, MSI, MYOK, NBIX, NOW, NTES, OC, OMI, PAC, PACB, PARR, PAYX, PCBK, PCL, PCTY, PFPT, PRTA, PSCF, RENX, RNG, ROP, RTN, SJM, SNPS, SPKE, STBZ, STL, TRV, UBOH, UHAL, UVSP, V, VC, VMC, VYGR, WDFC, ZIXI

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACTG, ADK, AEHR, AEZS, AFT, AMAG, AMID, ARCI, ASNA, ASTC, AZUR, BBW, BEBE, BGI, BGX, BIOD, BKE, BONT, CETC, CGG, CHCI, CHK, CIX, CKH, CLVS, CNAT, CNIT, COYN, CPRX, CRDC, CREG, CUBA, DCO, DEST, DGLY, DRWI, DSX, DWRE, DXI, EAT, EBIO, ECC, EFF, ENI, ENPH, ENVA, ESCA, EVAR, EVEP, FREE, FSAM, FTSL, FULL, GASS, GDP, GEOS, GLRE, GRAM, GROW, HERO, HNW, HOS, HSGX, IMMY, INVE, JCS, KED, KIN, KIRK, KMF, KYE, KYN, LEU, LIFE, LLNW, LQDT, LTRX, MEMP, MESO, MICT, NAO, NBG, NML, NMM, NRG, NRP, NRT, NSPH, NSPR, OIIM, ONTX, OPGN, PAA, PACEU, PDII, PDVW, PMTS, PQ, PRGN, PW, QKLS, RACE, RBCN, RMGN, ROYL, RRGB, RTK, SB, SFXE, SGNT, SJT, SMRT, SMT, SPDC, SPTN, SPU, SRF, SRG, SSH, SSI, SWN, SXCP, SXE, TCS, TDW, TGA, TIME, TLN, TLYS, TOO, TPLM, TTP, TWI, UUUU, WLB, WRN, WTT, ZX

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: DDB, JJC

8:41 am Atmel: Dialog Semi (DLGNF) shareholders approve acquisition of Atmel, transaction expected to close in Q1 of 2016 (ATML) : The transaction remains subject to approval of Atmel's stockholders and other customary conditions.

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From Briefing.com: The broader market finished Tuesday action slightly higher. Leading the way, the S&P 500 closed the session up 2.55 points (+0.12%) to 2089.14. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also edged higher, up 19.51 points (+0.11%) to close 17812.19. The Nasdaq Composite rounded out the bunch barely higher on the session, adding only 0.33 points (+0.01%) to 5102.81. Market data today came in the form of Q3 GDP, Consumer Confidence and Case-Shiller 20-City Index. The GDP report showed an upward revision to 2.1% from the advance estimate of 1.5%. The Consumer Confidence reading checked in at 90.4 for November, down from the upwardly revised 99.1 for October. Case-Shiller 20-City Index rose 5.5%, following the previous increase of 5.1%.

In Technology (XLK 43.95, +0.01 +0.02%), the session closed with only slight gains as the broader market action caused the sector to eke out above flat lines. Component Analog Devices (ADI 60.42, +3.62 +6.37%) reported better than expected Q4 results, and ended near the top of the best performers in the sector. Other sectors finished the day XLE +2.14%, XLB +0.83%, IYZ +0.44%, XLV +0.31%, XLP +0.26%, XLU -0.14%, XLI -0.16%, XLY -0.21%, XLF -0.28%.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology (740.09, +0.11 +0.01%) sector edged slightly higher at the close on a day which had most of the trading action in the red. Component HP (HPQ 14.65, +0.42 +2.95%) ended higher on the session ahead of the company's first reported quarter as a separate company.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Micron's (MU 15.63, +0.31 +2.02%) Scott DeBoer entered into a prearranged trading plan for the sale of up to 111,250 shares of the company's stock beginning in January 2016.

Xerox (XRX 10.61, -0.14 -1.30%) Carl Icahn disclosed a 7.13% active stake in a 13D filing. Icahn noted he intends to have discussions with management relating to improving operational performance and pursuing strategic alternatives.

Skyworks (SWKS 79.72, +2.00 +2.57%) terminated its offer to acquire PMC-Sierra (PMCS 11.60, -0.26 -2.19%).

VeriSign (VRSN 88.54, -1.64 -1.82%) previewed its December presentation at the Credit Suisse Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. The company noted there was a higher volume of gross additions during Q3 in international markets and in particular Asia.
everBe, a management consulting and cloud services company, has been selected by Unibail-Rodamco to lead its deployment of Workday Human Capital Management and provide subsequent support services. everBe is a Workday (WDAY 82.70, +2.22 +2.76%) Services Partner.

Fiserv (FISV 95.23, -1.03 -1.07%) announced that National Bonds, the leading sharia'a-compliant savings and investments company in the United Arab Emirates, has selected AML Risk Manager for the effective detection, investigation and resolution of financial crimes and to ensure regulatory compliance.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Silicon Labs (SLAB 52.99, +1.61 +3.13%) acquired wireless mesh networking firm Telegesis for $20 million. The company expects the acquisition to be slightly accretive on a non-GAAP basis.

GSI Technology (GSIT 4.20, +0.05 +1.20%) acquired privately held MikaMonu Group for $5 million in cash.

Maxim Integrated (MXIM 38.72, +0.26 +0.68%) entered into a supply agreement with Tower Semiconductor (TSEM 15.69, -0.12 -0.76%) to procure minimum quantities of silicon wafers.

TASER (TASR 19.31, +1.07 +5.87%) secured a bid to outfit 22K London metropolitan police officers with axon body cameras.

Uni-Pixel (UNXL 0.71, -0.76 -51.65%) priced its offering of 9.6 million units at $0.85 per unit.

Leidos (LDOS 57.58, +0.65 +1.14%) received a contract with a total ceiling value of $661.8 million by the U.S. Army.

BCE Inc (BCE 56.49, -1.51 -2.60%) announced a CAD$750 million bought deal offering.

SunEdison (SUNE 4.12, +1.12 +37.33%) amended its Margin Loan and Letter Agreement, reducing and waiving for a specified time period the market value trigger price of the Class A common stock of TerraForm Power (TERP 8.83, +0.46 +5.50%).

West Corp (WSTC 25.51, +0.17 +0.67%) reported entering into an incremental $250 million term loan due 2021.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Tech Data (TECD 68.09, -7.64 -10.09%) reported Q3 EPS and revenues which missed expectations at $1.28 per share and $6.43 billion, respectively. The company also issued downside guidance for Q4 revenues as they see the period ending with $7.05-7.25 billion.

Brocade (BRCD 9.31, -0.78 -7.73%) reported Q4 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at $0.26 per share and $588.83 million. The company also issued downside guidance for the Q1 period of EPS in the range of $0.23-0.25 per share on revenues of $550-570 million.

Analog Devices (ADI) reported Q4 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at $1.03 per share and $978.7 million, respectively. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revenues in-line at $0.65-0.73 and $805-855 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: VNET, HPE, HPQ, QADA, TIVO, VEEV/DATE

Analyst actions:

NMBL was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at DA Davidson,
BOX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill;
BLOX was downgraded at Deutsche Bank and Needham,
TSYS was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital,
BRCD was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan

4:17 pm SolarCity names COO Tanguy Serra to the new role of President, CFO Brad Buss to retire in 2016 (SCTY) : Buss will remain as CFO through the completion of SolarCity's financial reporting for the fiscal year 2015-expected in early February-and will remain in an advisory role until later in 2016 to ensure a smooth transition.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday session on a flat note, overcoming an opening retreat that was fueled by a military incident, which is likely to invite geopolitical implications going forward. The S&P 500 added 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite (unch) underperformed.

Early this morning, it was reported that the Turkish military shot down a Russian fighter jet, which allegedly violated Turkish airspace on the country's border with Syria. This marked the first time that a NATO member downed a Russian plane since the 1950s and Russian military officials said that both pilots were killed by Syrian opposition fighters after ejecting from the plane. The Russian defense ministry called the incident a "hostile act" while President Vladimir Putin has terminated all Russian military cooperation with Turkey. Mr. Putin denied the incursion into Turkey, saying the action represented "backstabbing by accomplices of terrorists" and that it "goes beyond [the] fight against terror."

The news was met with a spike in Treasuries and the 10-yr note then notched a new high shortly after the release of the second estimate of Q3 GDP (+2.1%; Briefing.com consensus +2.0%); however, the 10-yr note spent the rest of the day in a slow retreat from morning highs to end with a small gain that lowered the benchmark yield one basis point to 2.24%.

Meanwhile, stocks opened in the red and fell to new lows after a disappointing November Consumer Confidence report crossed the wires (90.4; consensus 99.6); however, a turnaround ensued shortly thereafter with the rally uninterrupted by late-morning news of another terrorist attack in Tunisia, which prompted the country to invoke a State of Emergency. The market climbed into the green during early afternoon action, but briefly slipped back to unchanged in a knee-jerk reaction to reports of a hostage situation in Northern France, which was later said to have no connection to the Paris attacks. The S&P 500 climbed to a new high during the final hour, but slipped back to its flat line into the close.

Nine sectors started the day in negative territory, but only four groups--financials (-0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.2%), industrials (-0.2%), and utilities (-0.1%)--remained in the red when the closing bell rang. On the upside, the energy sector (+2.1%) spent the day well ahead of its peers thanks to strength in crude oil. To that point, WTI crude surged 2.7% to $42.91/bbl after marking a session high at $43.45/bbl.

Elsewhere, the materials sector (+0.8%) also settled well ahead of the broader market while other pockets of strength included health care (+0.3%), materials (+0.8%), and consumer staples (+0.3%). In the staples sector, Campbell Soup (CPB 51.33, +1.54) surged 3.1% after the company reported better than expected earnings and boosted its earnings guidance; however, the sales outlook was lowered due to currency headwinds.

Over on the cyclical side, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.2%) could not keep pace with the market as restaurant and media names weighed while apparel and luxury retailers fared well after two components reported their results. Tiffany & Co (TIF 79.32, +2.77) erased an opening loss to settle higher by 3.6% after reporting a one-cent beat on below-consensus revenue combined with lowered earnings guidance. Meanwhile, Signet Jewelers (SIG 134.89 -5.76) lost 4.1% after missing estimates and guiding Q4 earnings towards the low end of expectations.

Today's session invited above-average participation as more than 893 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data released today included second estimate of Q3 GDP, Consumer Confidence, and Case-Shiller 20-City Index:

The second estimate for third quarter GDP showed an upward revision to 2.1% from the advance estimate of 1.5% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.0%
The upward revision was the result of the decrease in private inventory investment being smaller than previously estimated. Accordingly, the change in private inventories subtracted only 0.59 percentage points from third quarter GDP growth versus 1.44 percentage points as indicated in the advance estimate
There was a downward revision, though, to personal consumption expenditures, which increased 3.0% versus a previously estimated 3.2%
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index checked in at 90.4 for November, which was down sharply from an upwardly revised 99.1 reading for October (from 97.6) and well below the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which stood at 99.6
The downturn was driven by a drop in both the Present Situation Index (from 114.6 to 108.1) and the Expectations Index (from 88.7 to 78.6)
The September Case-Shiller 20-City Index rose 5.5% (Briefing.com consensus +5.2%) to follow the previous increase of 5.1%

Tomorrow will be very busy on the economic front starting with the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index. At 8:30 ET, investors will receive weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 272,000), October Personal Income/Spending Data, and October Durable Orders (consensus 1.5%). The September FHFA Housing Price Index will be released at 9:00 ET while the final reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for November (consensus 93.1) and October New Home Sales (consensus 504,000) will both be reported at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.7% YTD
S&P 500 +1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.2% YTD

DJ30 +19.51 NASDAQ +0.33 SP500 +2.55 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1671/1.79 bln/1137 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1886/893.3 mln/1165

3:40 pm :

Oil and natural gas futures displayed a nice recovery from its early morning lows,
Jan crude oil finished the day +2.7% at $42.91/barrel
The dollar index remained in the red today, which helped give an overall boost to commodities today
Metals saw a benefit from the weakness in the dollar today
Gold and silver remained mostly consolidated, but closed higher
Dec gold rose +0.7% to $1073.80/oz, while Dec silver rose +0.9% at $14.15/oz
Dec copper ended +1.5% at $2.05/lb

11:52 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New lows (139) outpacing new highs (56) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: ABCB, AFCO, AMWD, BBCN, BECN, BHBK, CASM, CIA, CPB, CPE, CPRT, DY, EBS, ESLT, EXTR, FIVN, FNWB, FSB, FSV, FXCB, GVA, HD, HRL, IBCP, IMPV, INST, IROQ, JBL, LDOS, MATW, MKL, MXL, MYOK, NBBC, NCTY, NUAN, PBF, PBH, PBSK, SFBS, SMBC, STZ.B, TATT, TSN, TSO, TTI, TTS, UFPI, UHAL, USCR, VGR, VLO, VTN, VYGR, XRS, XUE

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ACP, ACTG, AGI, AMFW, ANGO, ARCX, ARDC, ARDM, ARLP, ASYS, BBBY, BBOX, BCS, BDCV, BGB, BGX, BID, BLOX, BRCD, BSL, BSPM, CAR, CCM, CCO, CEQP, CGG, CHCI, CHOP, CHS, CMI, CNP, CNXR, COG, CTRN, CVGI, DAKT, DB, DCIX, DOM, DTRM, EMMS, ENBL, EQT, ERB, ESEA, ESSX, EVLV, EVOL, EXC, FELP, FTSL, FULL, FUR, FXCM, GLP, GLPI, GNOW, GOGL, GPOR, GPRO, GROW, GTIM, HHY, HIE, HTS, I, IDT, INTT, INVT, IPI, JSD, KEN, KIN, LBTYA, LBTYK, LHO, LIFE, LUK, LYG, MCC, MEMP, MOKO, NAO, NBY, NMBL, NMIH, NNI, NRZ, NWPX, NXTD, OBCI, OEC, OGE, OPY, PEB, PERF, PFMT, PSTI, QKLS, R, RACE, RAS, RBCN, RBS, RESI, RICE, RLJ, RMGN, RNO, ROYL, RTIX, RVP, RWT, RYI, SATS, SCOR, SGNT, SNMX, SRF, STML, SVVC, SXE, SYRX, TAS, TCI, TCS, TERP, TMST, UNXL, USEG, UTG, VGGL, VHC, VKTX, WMLP, X, XBIT, XCRA, XRA

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EPOL, KOL, PPLT, UNG

9:26 am SunEdison sells the equity interests in a 425 MW portfolio of solar projects located in India to TerraForm Global (GLBL) for $231 mln (SUNE) :

The co and TerraForm Global (GLBL) announced that they have entered into an agreement for SunEdison to sell TerraForm Global a series of projects located in India for the aggregate equity consideration of $231 mln subject to purchase price adjustments in favor of both SunEdison and TerraForm Global. These projects will replace a portion of the projects and the associated CAFD that were part of TerraForm Global's initial portfolio, which have subsequently been terminated acquisitions.

Commenting on the transaction, GLBL stated "We are pleased to be able to add these accretive assets with 20 year contracted cash flows to TerraForm Global's portfolio and believe they are critical to achieving our 2016 dividend guidance.""

8:04 am Analog Devices beats by $0.20, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ADI) :

Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $1.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.20 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.83; revenues rose 20.2% year/year to $978.7 mln vs the $910.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.65-0.73, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.71 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $805-855 mln vs. $838.66 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co notes that Q1 is their seasonally slower quarter


SunEdison (SUNE) signed 20-year PPAs w/ LA County in a deal that will see nine government facilities powered with 6.2 megawatts DC of solar energy. Construction for all nine projects is targeted for completion during the second half of 2016.

7:09 am Xcerra misses by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (XCRA) :

Reports Q1 (Oct) loss of $0.01 per share, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.01; revenues fell 23.2% year/year to $78.4 mln vs the $88.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of ($0.13)-($0.08) vs. ($0.06) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $70-75 mln vs. $77.70 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."We see business conditions continuing to remain challenging through our fiscal second quarter, but overall, we expect calendar 2016 to be a growth year for the Company. Several factors contribute to this outlook including customer feedback, share gains in our core businesses, and expected revenues from new market opportunities. While we continue to keep tight control over expenses, our resources are deployed to aggressively compete and win the new business opportunities currently underway."

7:02 am Canadian Solar announces it will supply 112 MW of Canadian Solar CS6P-265P PV modules to Sunrun (RUN) (CSIQ) :

7:01 am PMC-Sierra: Microsemi Corporation (MSCC) enters into a definitive agreement to acquire PMC-Sierra for $9.22 in cash and 0.0771 shares of MSCC stock (PMCS) :

Microsemi Corporation (MSCC) and PMC-Sierra announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsemi will acquire PMC for $9.22 in cash and 0.0771 of a share of Microsemi common stock for each share of PMC common stock through an exchange offer. The transaction is valued at $2.5 billion.

The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Microsemi's non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow. Microsemi anticipates achieving more than $100 million in annual cost synergies with greater than $75 million of those expected to be realized in the first full quarter of combined operations. Microsemi currently estimates approximately $0.60 of non-GAAP EPS accretion in the first full year after closing the transaction. Microsemi intends to fund the transaction and repay its existing credit facility with existing cash, $2.7 billion in new transaction debt and $0.6 billion in Microsemi common stock. The transaction is expected to close in 1Q16

5:19 am Skyworks reaffirms guidance following termination of merger agreement with PMCS (SWKS) :

Co reaffirms guidance for Q1 (Dec), sees EPS of $1.60 vs. $1.60 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Skyworks' upwardly revised mid-term target operating model remains unchanged from the annualized non-GAAP earnings per share of $8.00 it provided on its Q4 FY2015 earnings conference call on November 5, 2015.Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS) announced it will unveil the Thyro-PX SCR thyristor power controller at the annual SPS IPC Drives event in Nuremberg

3:06 am PMC-Sierra: Skyworks (SWKS) terminates offer to acquire PMC-Sierra (PMCS) :

Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) announced that it decided not to modify its amended and restated merger agreement with PMC-Sierra (PMCS), entered into on October 29, 2015.

PMC terminated the amended and restated merger agreement and, as a result, Skyworks is entitled to an $88.5 million termination fee from PMC

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed today's pre-Thanksgiving holiday session mixed following a late-day selloff. The Nasdaq Composite outperformed, closing higher by 13.33 points (+0.26%) to 5116.14 while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average traded in-line with one another the entirety of today's session, ultimately closing flat.

Market data was heavy today in light of tomorrow's market closure, with important economic data including weekly initial and continuing claims, monthly personal income and spending results, durable goods, and weekly crude inventories being released. October's durable goods data came ahead of estimates showing a 3.0% gain vs. the 1.5% Briefing.com consensus while the weekly initial and continuing claims were in-line with expectations.

Technology (XLK 43.81, -0.41) underperformed, having traded lower nearly the entire day despite broad market strength. Component Electronic Arts (EA 69.51, +2.45) was a top gainer as video game producers outperformed in today's session. The move higher coincides with the broad strength seen in retail ahead of the heavy shopping weekend, as well as this morning's announcement from Sony (SNE 26.51, -0.45) that its PlayStation4 had cumulatively sold through more than 30.2 mln units worldwide as of November 22. The other sectors closed as follows, XLV +0.54%, XLY +0.50%, XLP +0.26%, XLF +0.08%, XLI 0.00%, IYZ -0.30%, XLK -0.32%, XLU-0.61%, XLB -0.63%, & XLE -0.81%.

The S&P IT (737.29, -2.80) sector closed lower this evening, dragged down by HP (HPQ 12.64, -2.00) which reported quarterly results last night. The report, which was HP's last quarterly report as a consolidated company following this month's spin-off of its enterprise business, fell short of street expectations across the board. Conversely, its spin-off, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 14.12, +0.43) led the sector higher after its individual results exceeded estimates.

As a reminder, the U.S. markets are closed tomorrow in observance of Thanksgiving, and will re-open Friday for a shortened session.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Integrated Silicon (ISSI 22.90, +0.14) announced the receipt of various Taiwan, Chinese approvals for its pending acquisition by Uphill Investment, and that it expects the closing of the transaction on or prior to December 10

Computer Sciences (CSC 29.46, -0.10) announced it had entered into a binding scheme agreement to acquire UXC Ltd for ~$308 mln. The announcement follow's last month statement that it had entered into exclusive negotiations with UXC to conduct due diligence ahead of a formal, agreed upon offer

OmniVision (OVTI 29.17, +0.28) announced it had received all necessary approvals from governmental authorities in Taiwan in connection with the proposed acquisition by a consortium led by Hua Capital. OmniVision expects the acquisition to close in the third or fourth fiscal quarter of 2016

United Online (UNTD 11.32, +0.30) rejected B. Riley's unsolicited $12.50/share takeover proposal and announced it would undertake a 'comprehensive' review of strategic alternatives

comScore (SCOR 42.02, +1.08) released a report forecasting 14% growth in 2015 US holiday digital commerce spending via desktop and mobile devices

Diodes (DIOD 21.79, +1.08) announced it had completed its ~$413 mln acquisition of semiconductor peer

Pericom Semi following a brief bidding war with Montage Technology Group
The FTC issued a ruling, requiring NXP Semiconductors (NXPI 84.48, +1.14) to divest its RF Power amplifier assets as a condition of its pending acquisition of Freescale Semi (FSL 35.90, +0.35)

Earnings reports:

Veeva Systems (VEEV 28.73, +1.37) reported Q3 earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.11; revenues rose 27.6% year/year to $106.9 mln vs the $103.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus. The company issued guidance for Q4, saying it sees EPS of $0.11, vs. $0.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Q4 revs of $109-111 mln vs. $110.01 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

QAD (QADA 23.31, -2.69) reported Q3 earnings of $0.24 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.21; revenues fell 8.1% year/year to $68.04 mln vs the $72.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus. The co lowered guidance for FY16, saying it now sees EPS of $0.68 (Prior 0.84) vs. $0.84 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $279 mln (Prior $295 mln) vs. $295.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

HP reported Q4 earnings of $0.93 per share, $0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.97; revenues fell 9.5% year/year to $25.71 bln vs the $26.72 bln Capital IQ Consensus. The co issued downside guidance for Q1, saying it sees EPS of $0.33-0.38 vs. $0.42 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. It also lowered its guidance for FY16, saying it now sees EPS of 1.59-1.69 (Prior guidance $1.67-1.77) vs. $1.71 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

TIVO (TIVO 9.77, +0.46) reported Q3 earnings of $0.06 per share, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.08; revenues rose 16.7% year/year to $102.8 mln vs the $101.17 mln Capital IQ Consensus and $100-103 mln guidance. Tivo issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $101-104 mln vs. $102.61 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise reported Q4 revenues of $14.1 bln vs $13.5 bln Capital IQ consensus; reported FY15 Non-GAAP EPS of $1.84 vs $1.86 Capital IQ consensus. Offered guidance saying it sees Q1 EPS of $0.37-0.41 vs $0.43 Capital IQ consensus and reaffirmed its FY16 outlook of $1.85-1.95 vs $1.91 Capital IQ consensus

Notable Analyst Actions:

SunEdison (SUNE 3.25, -0.87) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS
Netease.com (NTES 169.43, +4.45) was initiated with a Buy at Goldman; tgt $190
Alliance Data (ADS 286.40, +0.95) was upgraded/resumed to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray
Palo Alto Networks (PANW 182.21, -0.64) was upgraded to Buy at Argus

4:34 pm NXP Semi confirms FTC approval for its merger with Freescale (FSL) (NXPI) :

Co announces it has received approval from the FTC of the United States to complete its merger with FSL.4:10 pm : The stock market ended Wednesday on a flat note with trading volume running well below average as some market participants got an early jump on the Thanksgiving holiday, which will keep capital markets in the U.S. closed on Thursday. The S&P 500 settled just below its flat line while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) outperformed.

Investors received a boatload of economic data this morning, but there was little response in the market as stocks opened flat and inched higher to establish narrow trading ranges that held throughout the day. For instance, the S&P 500 spent the session in a seven-point range with seven sectors offsetting gains in three groups that outperformed throughout the day.

Heavily-weighted health care (+0.5%) and consumer discretionary (+0.5%) seized the lead in the early going and held their ground into the close. The health care sector received support from biotechnology, evidenced by a 1.1% spike in iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 338.85, +3.58).

Biotechnology was not the only high-beta group that displayed relative strength as chipmakers also outperformed the broader technology sector (-0.3%) with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 0.1% after showing a larger gain intraday. As for the tech sector, the top-weighted group was weighed down by several large names. Apple (AAPL 118.03, -0.85) lost 0.7%, but more notably, HP (HPQ 12.64, -2.00) sank 13.7% after missing estimates and guiding Q1 earnings below analyst expectations.

Similar to technology, industrials (unch) lagged during the trading day, but the market came back to the economically-sensitive sector in afternoon action. The industrial sector ended flat even though Deere (DE 80.00, +3.66) soared 4.8% after beating earnings expectations and issuing upside Q1 net sales guidance.

Also of note, the consumer discretionary sector received broad support with apparel retailers getting a boost after Guess? (GES 20.86, +1.32) beat bottom-line estimates. Elsewhere in the sector, homebuilders rallied throughout the day even though the October New Home Sales report came in below estimates (495,000; Briefing.com consensus 504,000). The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 28.84, +0.27) surged 1.0%.

Similar to stocks, Treasuries spent the day inside narrow ranges, ending with slim gains that pressured the 10-yr yield to 2.23% (-1 bp).

To little surprise, trading volume was well below average with 661 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Personal Income/Spending, Durable Orders, Michigan Sentiment, New Home Sales, and FHFA Housing Price Index:

Initial claims for the week ending November 21 were 260,000, down 12,000 from the prior week's revised level of 272,000 (from 271,000) while the Briefing.com consensus estimate expected no change at 272,000
There were no special factors influencing the weekly initial claims reading, which has been bounded between 250,000 and 300,000 since July 2014
Continuing claims increased to 2.207 million from a downwardly revised reading of 2.173 million (from 2.175 million)
October personal income rose 0.4%, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected
Personal spending increased 0.1% while the consensus expected a reading of 0.3%
Core PCE prices were flat while the consensus expected an increase of 0.2%
The October Durable Goods Orders report showed a 3.0% gain and a 0.5% increase in durable orders excluding transportation while Briefing.com consensus estimates for those measures were 1.5% and 0.5%, respectively
The report was driven primarily by transportation orders, which featured an 81% increase in nondefense aircraft and parts orders that followed on the heels of declines in both August and September
The final reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for November was lowered to 91.3 from a preliminary reading of 93.1 (consensus 93.1)
The Current Economic Conditions Index was 104.3 versus 102.3 in October while the Index of Consumer Expectations rose to 82.9 from 82.1 in October
New home sales in October rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 495,000 (consensus 504,000) from a downwardly revised September reading of 447,000 (from 468,000)
The FHFA Housing Price Index for September rose 0.8%, which followed an increase of 0.3% in August

Tomorrow, bond and equity markets will be closed for Thanksgiving while Friday's session will end at 13:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD

DJ30 +1.20 NASDAQ +13.33 SP500 -0.27 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1872/1.44 bln/956 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1847/661.2 mln/1184 3:40 pm :

WTI crude oil and natural gas futures recovered off of today's lows
However, gains were limited as the dollar index remained in positive territory today
By the end of today's session, Jan crude oil closed +0.2% at $43.00/barrel
Dec natural gas lost 0.9% to finish at $2.30/MMBtu
Dec silver ended the day back near the flat line at $14.16/oz, while gold remained in the red. Dec gold closed -0.3% at $1070.30/oz
Dec copper ended unchanged at $2.05/lb

12:45 pm Index Changes Reminder: Phibro Animal Health (PAHC) will replace Pericom Semi (PSEM) in the S&P SmallCap 600 after the close of trading (:INDXCH) :


11:34 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (119) outpacing new lows (77) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AC.WD, AEPI, ALRM, AMWD, ANGI, AOS, AVD, AYI, AZZ, BANC, BECN, BFAM, BHBK, BUD, BWXT, CALD, CASY, CCRN, CIA, CINF, CNCR, CORE, CPB, CPRT, CTMX, CVT, DEA, DHIL, EBIX, EGBN, EME, EPAY, ESLT, EW, EXR, EXTR, FBC, FBHS, FCB, FIBK, FIVN, FLXS, FMBI, FNLC, FPRX, FR, FSB, FSV, FXCB, GCI, GDEN, GT, HAWK, HD, HLI, HRL, HUB.A, IBOC, IDTI, IIIN, IMKTA, INGR, INST, KRNY, LAD, LDOS, LMAT, LMT, LOW, LXFT, MDWD, MNST, MPWR, MRCY, MTN, MXL, MYOK, NBBC, NBTB, NCTY, NEO, NKE, NSA, NTES, NUAN, NUTR, OCAT, ORIT, OVTI, PBF, PBSK, PBY, PCL, PRTA, PSA, RBCAA, ROP, SBGI, SBNY, SFBS, SHOR, SIX, SRI, STBA, STBZ, STL, STZ, TCBK, THFF, TSN, TSS, TTS, UBSH, VGR, WDFC, WST, XRS, ZAGG, ZIXI

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ABGB, ABY, ACP, AHGP, ANGO, APU, ARCI, BBL, BBOX, BPI, CBAY, CDRB, CGG, CNXR, CPST, CVO, DDC, DXI, EMMS, ESBK, ESEA, EVAR, FELP, FULL, FWM, FXCM, GLBL, HIE, HIFR, HNP, HRT, I, KED, KMF, KYE, KYN, LBTYA, LBTYK, LLEX, MIL, MOSY, MT, NAO, NBY, NMBL, NMM, NRT, NXTD, OCIP, OOMA, OTIV, PBT, PQ, PRGN, PRKR, PSTI, PXS, QKLS, RBS, RESI, ROYL, SAUC, SXC, TCK, TERP, TLP, TPLM, TYG, UPL, USEG, VALE, VALE.P, VXUP, WMLP, WPZ, WRES, YLCO

ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: none

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EPOL, FXF, KOL, PPLT

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: On the final trading day of November, the broader market finished in the red. Losses were led by the S&P 500, which lost 9.70 points today (-0.46%) to 2080.41. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 78.57 points lower (-0.44%) to 17719.92, and the Nasdaq Composite was also lower, down 18.86 points (-.0.37%) to 5108.67. Market data today came in the form of Chicago PMI for November of 48.7 from 56.2 in October, and Pending home sales for October which rose 0.2%.

At the end of the action today, Technology (XLK 43.96, +0.05 +0.11%) was slightly higher. Shares of Computer Sciences (CSC 31.33, +2.42 +8.37%) were active today as the company completed its spin-off of CSRA (CSRA 30.47, +1.26 +4.31%), and announced quarterly dividends for both companies. Also in the green today despite the broader market action was Seagate Tech (STX 35.94, +1.32 +3.81%) which gained following a positive Barron's mention.

On the back of the IMF's addition of the Chinese yuan to the basket of currencies that form the Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, Chinese Tech (CQQQ 36.92, +0.39 +1.07%) was strong today. Names like NQ Mobile (NQ 4.21, +0.24 +6.05%), Weibo (WB 18.60, +0.73 +4.09%) and 21Vianet (VNET 20.83, +0.85 +4.25%) were strong today despite the Nikkei -0.69%, and the Hang Seng -0.33% both finishing lower.

Ending the session weaker were Telecom (FCOM 26.78, -0.03 -0.11%) names as TMUS -3.77%, SHEN -3.30%, EGHT -2.88%, S -2.14%, VG -1.53% all closed in the red on no specific news.

The S&P 500 Information Technology (738.69, +0.39 +0.05%) sector barely managed gains as the sector fell to near flat lines, albeit edging higher. The sector managed to eke out gains in spite of the broader market action lower. Names like YHOO +2.64%, MU +2.44%, ADI +1.95%, EBAY +1.68%, SWKS +1.37%, MCHP +1.24%, WDC +1.10%, NVDA +1.05% outperformed the sector.
Other notable news items among sector components:

Swatch SA (SWGAY 17.44, +0.19 +1.13%) and Visa (V 79.01, -0.83 -1.04%) together with Visa Europe have signed an agreement giving eligible Visa cardholders in the U.S., Switzerland and Brazil the ability to tap and pay with Swatch's new pay-by-the-wrist watch, Swatch Bellamy. Slated to launch in early 2016, Swatch Bellamy can be used globally, anywhere contactless, NFC-based Visa payments are accepted.

Limelight Networks (LLNW 1.69, +0.01 +0.60%) filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Akamai (AKAM 57.61, -0.09 -0.50%) and XO Communications.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

NXP Semi (NXPI 93.46, +5.10 +5.77%) announced Peter Kelly, NXPI's current CFO, will retire in 2017. Subsequently, Dan Durn will become EVP and CFO of the company.

Integrated Silicon (ISSI 22.89, -0.01 -0.04%) received a favorable jury verdict in litigation brought by GSI Technology (GSIT 4.00, -0.19 -4.53%).

SuperCom (SPCB 4.60, -3.10 -40.26%) issued downside Q3 revenue guidance of $5.5-6.1 million due in part by the inability of the company to recognize more than $10 million of revenues with foreign government customers. The company noted it expects to recognize that revenue in 2016.

GigaMedia's (GIGM 0.67, +0.01 +1.52%) Chairman Mo-Na Chien announced his retirement effective December 1. Collin Hwang, the company's current CEO will assume the role of Chairman effective December 1. In addition, two Board members, King Wai Alfred Wong and Dirk Chi-Ching Chen will resign effective December 1.

B.O.S. Better Online Solutions (BOSC 2.23, -0.04 -1.76%) signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition of iDnext Ltd. The transaction consummation expected in January 2016.

Partner Comms (PTNR 4.44, -0.18 -3.90%) acknowledged the filing of two class action lawsuits against the company and its 012 Smile Telecom subsidiary.

Analyst actions:

MSFT was upgraded to Strong Buy from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
ZAYO was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie;
CYOU, SOHU were downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman

4:34 pm Market Internals (:MKTIN) :

S&P500 down to 2080 (-0.46%). Dow down to 17720 (-0.44%). Nasdaq down to 5109 (-0.37%). Action came on higherthan average volume (NYSE 1332 mln vs. avg. of 935; NASDAQ 2236 mln vs.avg. of 1903), with decliners outpacing advancers (NYSE 1382/1766,NASDAQ 1346/1531) and new highs outpacing new lows (NYSE 98/63,NASDAQ 132/50).


Relative Strength:

Gold Miners -GDX +2.08%, Oil Services -OIH +1.449%, Teucrium Corn ETV-CORN +1.29%, Semiconductor ET-SMH +1.11%, China Large-Cap -FXI +1.097%, Sweden -EWD +1.07%, S&P Metals & Mining -XME +1%, Thailand Capped In-THD +0.93%, Bank Plc iPath ETNs li-INP +0.84%, Global X Colombia -GXG +0.81%

Relative Weakness:

United States Diesel Heating Oi-UHN -5.55%, Coffee Sub-JO -4.03%, Rare Earth Strat-REMX -3.64%, Brazilian Real Strat-BZF -2.98%, Cotton Sub-BAL -2.3%, S&P Retail -XRT -2.24%, S&P Retail -XRT -2.24%, Global X FTSE Greece 20 -GREK -1.91%, Latin America 40 -ILF -1.865%, Indonesia -IDX -1.65%

4:10 pm : The stock market began the trading week on a modestly lower note with the S&P 500 surrendering 0.4% after spending the day in a 13-point range. Today's session marked the end of November, a month during which the S&P 500 added 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.1% month-to-date) outperformed.

Equities held slim gains at the start of the trading day, but the early strength faded quickly, sending the S&P 500 below its flat line where the index remained into the afternoon. The S&P 500 tried to stage a rebound during afternoon action, but that move was followed by a slip to new lows. The benchmark index settled near its worst level of the day, masking gains in five of ten sectors.

For instance, energy (+0.4%) and technology (+0.1%) outperformed from the start, but their strength could not lift the overall market. The energy sector settled in the lead even though crude oil surrendered a solid intraday gain to end lower by 0.2% at $41.63/bbl. For the month, WTI crude tumbled 10.7% while the energy sector lost 0.8%.

As for technology, the top-weighted sector received support from chipmakers, evidenced by a 1.0% spike in the PHLX Semiconductor Index, which gained 2.2% for the month.

Similar to energy and technology, materials (+0.2%), utilities (+0.2%), and telecom services (+0.4%) posted gains, but it is worth noting that together the three sectors account for no more than 9.0% of the entire market.

On the downside, the health care sector (-1.3%) was pressured by daylong weakness in biotechnology as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 334.37, -6.64) surrendered 2.0%.

Elsewhere, consumer discretionary (-0.8%) and industrials (-0.7%) also struggled throughout the trading day. Retailers endured heavy selling amid reports of sluggish sales growth on Black Friday with SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.57, -0.99) falling 2.2%. Even Target (TGT 72.51, -0.93) lost 1.3% despite making upbeat comments about the start of the holiday shopping season.

Staying in the discretionary space, Staples (SPLS 12.07, -0.24) ended lower by 2.0% after the New York Post reported the company's acquisition of Office Depot (ODP 6.59, -0.16) is likely to hit a regulatory road block.

Similar to stocks, Treasuries spent the day in a very narrow range. The 10-yr note held a modest loss during overnight action, but it ticked into the green in the morning to end on its high with the benchmark yield down one basis point at 2.21%.

On a separate note, the International Monetary Fund announced that China's yuan will be added to the special drawing rights basket, meaning five currencies will be represented in the SDR starting from October 1, 2016. Following the move, the yuan will make up almost 11.0% of the SDR, which is a smaller weighting than the currency had been expected to receive.

Today's intraday participation was very light, but a late surge in activity took place just before the closing bell to push the final NYSE floor volume above the 1.1 billion share mark.

Economic data included Chicago PMI and Pending Home Sales:

The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for November dipped to 48.7 from 56.2 in October while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 55.0
New orders were largely responsible for the pullback as the related index fell to 44.1, its lowest level since March, from 59.4 in October
Other components saw little change with Employment and Supplier Deliveries holding above 50 while Order Backlogs have remained below 50 for the tenth consecutive month, which represents ongoing contraction
Pending home sales for October rose 0.2% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.7%

Tomorrow, October Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%) and the November ISM Index (consensus 50.4) will both be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD

DJ30 -78.57 NASDAQ -18.86 SP500 -9.70 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1347/2.04 bln/1536 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1330/1.28 bln/1745

3:30 pm :

The dollar has traded higher all session, currently holding modest gains of +0.2% 100.21 to (down from mid-day highs near 100.30) following an underwhelming Chicago PMI figure this morning (48.7 vs. a 55 consensus) and ahead of tomorrow's ISM index reading- expected to be near 50.4.
Crude rallied mid-morning and into the early afternoon, reaching as high as $42.60/barrel, before slumping back to near-flat into the close.
Sentiment ahead of Friday's OPEC meeting and ahead of tonight's Chinese Manufacturing PMI figure drove sentiment throughout most of the day.
January Crude closed down 0.2% to $41.63/barrel. Meanwhile natural gas closed positive (+0.9% to $2.23/MMBtu)- largely on mildly bullish weather-driven demand sentiment.
Gold closed moderately higher at +0.6% to $1,065.3/oz- following a sustained rally that began in early trade. Silver closed near-flat at +0.1% to $14.09/oz
Copper fell by 1.4% to $2.06/lb

11:29 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (173) outpacing new lows (71) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AAAP, ABCB, ABTL, ACAS, ACXM, ADBE, AEGN, AFG, AFH, AHL, ALKS, ALLE, AMWD, AOS, AWR, AYI, BABY, BGS, BKCC, BOCH, BWXT, BXS, CASY, CBM, CBNJ, CBOE, CCRN, CHFC, CMN, CNCR, CORE, CPB, CRVL, CSC, CSFL, CUBE, CVI, DEA, DHIL, DPS, DSGX, EFII, EFX, EGHT, EIG, EME, EW, EXLS, EXR, EXTR, FBC, FCB, FCF, FFG, FIBK, FIVN, FIZZ, FMBI, FNBC, FPRX, FR, FRBK, FXCB, GABC, GDEN, GERN, GFF, GT, GVP, HFWA, HPY, HRL, IBCP, IBOC, IDTI, IHC, INST, INWK, IOSP, IT, JAXB, JBL, KCLI, KFY, KINS, KRNY, LANC, LAWS, LKFN, MAA, MANH, MBWM, MCBC, MDWD, MELR, METR, MGPI, MKC, MKTX, MLVF, MNST, MORE, MPWR, MRCY, MTN, NAII, NBBC, NBTB, NCTY, NHC, NSA, NTGR, NUTR, NVR, OME, OMI, ORMP, OSBC, PACEU, PBF, PE, PFBC, PLAB, POST, PPBI, PRTA, PSA, PSB, RENX, RNG, ROP, SASR, SBCF, SBNY, SFBS, SGBK, SHBI, SHOR, SKYY, SNA, SOCB, SPKE, SRI, STBA, STBZ, STL, STZ, TCBK, THFF, TLMR, TMP, TOWN, TOWR, TSN, TSS, TTC, TTS, UBSH, UDR, USLB, VGR, VNTV, VTN, WDFC, WFD, WK, WSFS, WTR, XLNX, XRS, XUE, YDKN, ZAGG

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: ARDM, ATV, BBL, BHP, BSPM, BTU, CAR, CCCR, CCO, CHCI, CIB, DAVE, DPW, DRAM, DTRM, DYN, ESBK, FDEU, FELP, FWM, GDEF, GDP, GLNG, GRAM, HERO, HKTV, HNP, HTBX, I, IRS, ISHG, KMF, LUK, MIL, NCQ, NRG, NVS, NWPX, OCIP, OIBR, PBA, PERF, PRGN, PRXI, PSTI, PTXP, PXS, QAT, QKLS, REE, ROSG, SMLR, SPCB, SPTN, SQBG, STV, SWN, TC, TGA, TLN, UNXL, USEG, UUUU, VALE, VALE.P, VKTX, WPZ, WRES, XBIT, YLCO, ZX
ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: PSK, SKYY
ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: AFK, EPOL, KOL, PPLT

8:36 am Canadian Solar subsidiary closes on a combined construction and long term debt facility for ~$275 mln (CSIQ) : Southern Company subsidiary Southern Power announced the acquisition of a controlling interest in the 157-megawatt (MW) Roserock solar facility from Recurrent Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar Inc., which will retain the remaining interest in the project. The project is expected to enter commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2016.

8:03 am Integrated Silicon received favorable jury verdict in litigation brought by GSI Technology (GSIT) (ISSI) :

Following a four-week trial in San Jose, California, the jury rejected GSI's claims against ISSI, including trade secret misappropriation and unfair competition. Other GSI claims, including antitrust allegations, were dismissed in pre-trial rulings. "We invested a lot of time and effort to defend this case. However, after more than two years plus a several week jury trial, we are very pleased with this favorable verdict."
ISSI was represented in this litigation by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. The verdict remains subject to potential post-trial motions and/or a potential appeal by GSI.

4:38 am NXP Semi CFO to retire in 2017; appoints Dan Durn as replacement (NXPI) :

NXP Semiconductors announced that effective December 7, 2015 Dan Durn will become executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer of NXP.

Peter Kelly, NXP's current CFO, has expressed a desire to retire in 2017 and the appointment of Durn is part of the succession plan for the company.
Kelly will continue to be a key member of the NXP Management Team. In his new role Mr. Kelly will focus on Strategy and M&A, as well as ensuring a successful integration with Freescale.
Before joining NXP, Durn was senior vice president and CFO of Freescale Semiconductor (FSL)

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The broader market closed the first trading day of December with all three major US indices at moderate gains. The S&P 500 led U.S. markets, closing +1.1% to 2,102.63, while the Nasdaq and Dow Jones closely trailed at +0.9% to 5,156.31 and +1% to 17,888.35 respectively. Broad sector strength was seen across the S&P 500, with Healthcare, Consumer Discretionary and Financials leading into the positive close.

Economic data was light today, with the US ISM Index coming in slightly below estimates at 48.6 (vs. a 50.4 consensus). On the horizon, the market will look toward tomorrow's release of EIA inventory data for WTI and of the Fed's Beige Book for language regarding a potential December rate hike.

For its part, Technology (XLK) closed today's action +0.9% to $44.35, with familiar names Alphabet (GOOG) (+3.5% to $767.04) , Facebook (FB) (+2.7% to $107.09), Microsoft (MSFT) (+1.5% to $55.22) and Oracle (ORCL) (+0.7% to $39.23) being among the largest gainers. Weakness in the sector predominated in the Domestic Telecom segment, with AT&T (T) (+0.3% to $33.77) and Verizon (VZ) (+0.3% to $45.58) showing moderate losses. Other sectors closed as follows: XLF +1.1%, XLB +0.7%, XLU +0.8%, XLP +0.9%, XLI +0.5%, XLV +1.7%, XLE +0.8%, XLY +1%,

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector closed higher +1.1% to $746.82 for the session, in-line with strength in the broader market.

Notable news items among sector components:

Harris (HRS) (+1% to $83.99) received a $113 million US Navy radar upgrade contract.

FLIR Systems (FLIR) acquired DVTEL, a video surveillance tech company, for about $92 million.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) (+5.1% to $15.61) announced HPE Synergy, the first platform designed to run both traditional and cloud native applications for organizations seeking the benefits of running a hybrid infrastructure.
EDF Renewable Energy's 175--megawatt Pilot Hill wind project located in Kankakee and Iroquois Counties in Illinois has closed structured equity financing from GE (GE) unit, GE Energy Financial Services, and

MetLife (MET). Pilot Hill Wind Project, which has achieved commercial operations and is located about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, will power 100% of the energy needs of Microsoft (MSFT) Chicago data center. Microsoft has committed to purchase the output under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Microsoft (MSFT) formed a partnership w/ Microsoft Azure as a preferred public cloud partner for HPE customers, while HPE will serve as a preferred partner in providing infrastructure and services for Microsoft's hybrid cloud offerings.

Vonage Holdings (VG) (+0.3% to $6.47) was granted 3 patents by the USPTO

Corning (GLW) (+0.5% to $18.82) announced it will invest in a Gen 10.5 LCD glass substrate facility in Hefei.

Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD) (-0.8% to $35.63) and ADP (ADP) (+1.5% to $87.56) expanded their partnership. As part of the agreement, Cornerstone's learning and performance management solution for small businesses, Cornerstone Growth Edition, is expected to be made available to ADP customers via the ADP Marketplace in early 2016.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

AT&T (T) was awarded a 5-year blanket purchase agreement from the General Services Administration's Office of Fleet Management, to offer fleet management services to federal agencies.

Citrix Systems' (CTXS) (+1.5% to $77.83) Director by Deputization, Elliot Mgmt Corp. bought 31,550 shares at $76.61-76.63 worth ~$2.4 mln

Straight Path Comms (STRP) (-9.7% to $10.84) confirmed a favorable patent ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, while giving commentary on allegations regarding renewal of spectrum licenses.

In reaction to quarterly results:

NQ Mobile (NQ) (-17.1% to $3.49) reported Q3 EPS in-line with expectations at $0.01 per share on worse than expected revenues of $87.9 million. The company also suspended the practice of providing revenue guidance.

Infoblox (BLOX) (+22% to $18.35) reported Q1 EPS and revenues which were better than anticipated at $0.13 per share and $94 million, respectively. The company also guided Q2 EPS and revenues better than anticipated at $0.12-0.14 and $93-95 million, respectively. BLOX also issued upside guidance for FY16 revenues in the range of $370-380 million, in addition to the announcement of a $100 million share repurchase program.

Quarterly earnings on the docket for tonight/tomorrow morning: APIC, GWRE/SAIC

Analyst actions:

ALU and NOK were upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
RAX was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts,
WIN was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
CPSI was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Deutsche Bank,
TSM was upgraded to Buy from Hold at HSBC,
KKPNY was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Nomura;
ERIC was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
CSC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey,
TLEIY was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
SMGZY was downgraded to Reduce from Hold at HSBC

4:19 pm Microchip provides the break-out of its net sales derived from organic growth versus growth derived from acquisitions (MCHP) :

"Over a six year period from CY2009 to CY2015, with our December 2015 quarter net sales projected at our guidance mid-point, Microchip's total net sales grew at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.3%, including acquisitions. Over the same period, excluding acquisitions, Microchip's net sales grew at a CAGR of 8.3%, versus the semiconductor industry's CAGR of 6.7%. Thus, Microchip's organic net sales grew at a higher rate than the industry over this period and our acquisitions augmented our organic growth, resulting in more than doubling our growth rate. We have also posted on our website a comparison of Microchip's results compared to the results of many of our microcontroller and analog/mixed signal competitors. Our organic net sales grew faster than all of them except for one, despite most of them also having acquisition growth. In fact, our total net sales grew at more than twice the rate of any of our competitors included in our analysis....Our growth rate evidences the success of our "elbow-out" acquisition strategy that we have often shared with investors, where our organic sales growth is better than the market and acquisitions are adding further growth and not replacing the organic growth."

"From an earnings perspective, our non-GAAP earnings per share grew at a CAGR of 17.3% over the same six year period. Additionally, the earnings per share derived from our organic growth excluding acquisitions grew at a CAGR of 11.6% per year"

4:10 pm : The stock market began December on an upbeat note with the S&P 500 climbing 1.1% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) settled just behind.

All in all, the Tuesday session was very quiet as the S&P 500 marked its high during the opening hour and inched above that level during afternoon action. The index briefly slipped from the morning high after today's economic data showed that the ISM Index (48.6; Briefing.com consensus 50.4) registered its first contractionary reading (below 50) in 36 months.

The disappointing report was met with a spike in Treasuries that sent the 10-yr note to a fresh high. The benchmark instrument settled on its best level of the day, pressuring its yield six basis points to 2.15%.

All ten sectors posted gains with heavily-weighted groups like health care (+1.7%), technology (+1.1%), consumer discretionary (+1.0%), and financials (+1.3%) ending in the lead.

Interestingly, the health care sector settled well ahead of the broader market as strength in hospital names like Tenet Healthcare (THC 34.93, +1.74) and Universal Health Services (UHS 125.30, +3.78) masked relative weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 336.16, +1.79) added 0.5% after being down nearly 1.0% at the start of the trading day.

Elsewhere among influential groups, technology (+1.1%) settled in-line with the broader market, overshadowing a 0.8% decline in the shares of Apple (AAPL 117.34, -0.96), which slipped to a one-week low. Meanwhile, high-beta chipmakers outperformed throughout the day, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.4%.

Staying on the cyclical side, the industrial sector (+0.6%) held a modest gain throughout the day as relative strength in transport stocks overshadowed losses among heavy machinery names. The Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 1.3% while Caterpillar (CAT 71.56, -1.09) and Joy Global (JOY 13.33, -2.02) posted respective losses of 1.5% and 13.2% after Joy Global was downgraded to 'Underperform' from 'Neutral' at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

Today's advance took place amid trading volume that was close to average as 845 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Construction Spending and ISM Index:

Construction spending increased 1.0% month-over-month in October while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.7%
Construction spending is up a solid 13.1% year-over-year, which is the sixth straight month of double-digit growth
The strength in October was fueled by a 0.8% increase in private construction spending and a 1.4% increase in public construction
The ISM Index for November indicated a decline to 48.6 from 50.1 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick to 50.4
This was the first below-50 reading in 36 months, indicating contraction in activities

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while November ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 185,000) will be reported at 8:15 ET. Q3 Productivity (consensus 2.2%) and Unit Labor Cost data (expected 1.2%) will be released at 8:30 ET and the Federal Reserve's December beige book will cross the wires at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.9% YTD
S&P 500 +2.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.2%

DJ30 +168.43 NASDAQ +47.64 SP500 +22.22 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1676/1.84 bln/1197 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2196/844.8 mln/890

3:40 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, traded higher today while the dollar index remained in negative territory
Jan WTI crude oil was volatile in the afternoon session, closing up the day +0.4% at $41.78/barrel
Dec nat gas recovered some, ending the day unchanged at $2.23/MMBtu
Precious metals recovered some as well in afternoon trade with Feb gold closing today's session -0.2% at $1063.40/oz and Mar silver -0.1% at $14.07/oz
Mar copper rose 0.5% to $2.07/lb

11:40 am Stocks/ETFs that traded to new 52 week highs/lows this session - New highs (146) outpacing new lows (77) (SCANX) : Stocks that traded to 52 week highs: AFG, AFH, ALLE, ALTR, AOSL, ATVI, BANC, BKCC, BWXT, BXS, BYM, CACI, CBNJ, CBU, CCF, CMPR, CNO, COBZ, CPB, CPS, CSBK, CYT, DHIL, DSGX, EBAY, EDUC, EFX, EGBN, ELS, EMKR, EPAY, ERIE, EXLS, EXR, FCF, FFG, FFIC, FIBK, FISV, FIZZ, FMBI, FNLC, FR, FRBK, FULT, FXCB, GABC, GDEN, GIGA, GT, GVA, GVP, HELE, HFFC, HLI, HNNA, HRL, HSIC, HUB.A, IDLB, IDTI, INWK, IPCC, IPHI, IT, JBL, JKHY, KCLI, KFY, LDOS, LEA, LGIH, LXFT, MANH, MBWM, MCBC, MDRX, METR, MGPI, MKC, MKC.V, MLVF, MNRO, MPWR, MSFT, MXL, NAII, NAZ, NBBC, NBTB, NFBK, NRIM, NSA, NUTR, NVDA, NVRO, NWBI, NWL, ORIT, OVTI, PAYX, PCL, PE, PEN, PGI, PLAB, PRE, PROV, PSB, RENX, RIVR, RNR, SASR, SBCF, SFNC, SGBK, SHBI, SKYY, SLCT, SMG, SNA, SSRG, STBA, STBZ, STL, SWI, TLMR, TOWN, TOWR, TSS, TTI, TYL, UBSH, USLB, VLY, VNTV, VR, VTN, WINS, WK, WSBF, WSFS, WTR, XLNX, XUE, YDKN

Stocks that traded to 52 week lows: APU, ARCB, ARLP, ATLS, AVNW, BBEP, BDL, BSPM, CAMT, CAR, CEN, CHCI, CLRB, CLUB, CMI, COG, COMT, CPST, CVGI, CVRS, DCIX, DSX, DTRM, EMITF, EMMS, ENLK, EPIX, EQT, ESBK, FTSM, FWM, GDP, GER, GSI, HIFR, HKTV, I, ICA, JOY, KED, LLEX, MGIC, MTBC, NFG, NGLS, NS, NTN, NWPX, NXTD, NYH, OCIP, OTIV, PCO, PEGI, PETX, PRKR, PTSI, REXX, RLOG, ROSG, ROYT, RPD, RPRX, SMT, SPH, STV, TEAR, TRGP, TWER, URRE, VALE, WPRT, WPZ, WRES, WRN, WSCI, ZX
ETFs that traded to 52 week highs: IGV, KIE, SKYY

ETFs that traded to 52 week lows: EPOL, UNG

ST (STM) has now delivered more than one billion general- purpose STM32 microcontrollers based on ARM (ARMH) Cortex cores; co has passed the 500 mln milestone for shipments of ST33 secure microcontrollers built around the ARM SecurCoreSC300 processor.

6:52 am Corning announces it will invest in a Gen 10.5 LCD glass substrate facility in Hefei (GLW) :

The firm announced that with the support of the Hefei government, Corning will locate a Gen 10.5 glass manufacturing facility adjacent to the BOE Technology Group Co. plant in the Hefei XinZhan General Pilot Zone in Anhui Province, China. Glass substrate production from the new facility is expected to support BOE's plan to begin mass production of LCD panels for large-size televisions by the third quarter of 2018.

The total investment for the facility is $1.3 billion. Corning's investment will be composed primarily of equipment and precious metals. Corning's net outlay of $460 million, which is net of government and commercial incentives, is expected to be $290 million in cash and $170 million of currently owned precious metals. As part of this investment, Corning and BOE have entered into a long-term supply agreement that commits BOE to the purchase of Gen 10.5 glass substrates from the Corning manufacturing facility in Hefei.

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From Briefing.com: The broader market action began the week notably lower. Declines come following a back and forth end to last week which saw Thursday and Friday exchange losses and gains, respectively. The markets closed with the Nasdaq Composite leading the way lower when it was all said and done. The index shed 40.46 points (-0.79%) today to 5101.81. The S&P 500 closed off Friday's highs lower by 14.62 points (-0.70%) to 2077.07. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted the most shallow of losses among the three, declining 117.12 points (-0.66%) to 17730.51 even as WTI Crude Oil Futures lost 5.9% to close at $37.63/barrel. The sole market data out today came at 3 p.m. ET when October Consumer Credit was released to show an increase of $16.0 billion.

In the Technology (XLK 44.35, -0.22 -0.49%) sector, Monday trading slightly off session lows as the slight gains in the broader market as the bell rang allowed the tech space to escape modestly lower. On the session, MU -4.19%, ADBE -3.22%, TDC -3.10%, XRX -2.96%, MSI -2.40%, ADSK -2.36% underperformed other components while STX +1.89%, CTL +1.57%, WIN +1.03%, AVGO +0.86% managed to withstand the broader market action. Other sectors closed XLU +0.45%, XLP +0.28%, XLY -0.42%, IYZ -0.44%, XLI -0.49%, XLV -0.56%, XLF -0.93%, XLB -1.79%, XLE -3.80%.

Internet (FDN 76.12, -0.99 -1.28%) names were among the worst performers today as the sector succumbed to broader market selling. Component Groupon (GRPN 2.86, -0.20 -6.54%) was especially weak as the company announced on Friday night that Jay Sullivan was appointed as Chief Product Officer and that Chief Technology Officer Sri Viswanath will resign.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (745.99, -4.27 -0.57%) outperformed the S&P 500 as a whole with trading only edging above flat lines only as the session began. Components like PYPL -1.29%, V -1.06%, EBAY -1.02%, TXN -0.90%, MA -0.89%, ORCL -0.87%, GOOGL -0.80%, YHOO -0.66%, AAPL -0.63% could not stay out of the red, while QCOM +0.17%, INTC +0.14%, JNPR +0.10%, GLW +0.06%, CSCO +0.04% managed slight gains.
Other notable news items among sector components:

Analog Devices (ADI 58.50, -0.71 -1.20%) updated its prior net interest expense disclosure following its $850 million senior unsecured note offering.
In connection with their previously announced business combination transaction, Avago Tech (AVGO 148.83, +1.27 +0.86%) and Broadcom (BRCM 57.77, +0.25 +0.43%) announced that they intend to commence the election period for BRCM shareholders on or about Dec. 11, 2015 in preparation for a transaction closing targeted for Feb. 1, 2016. They also announced that all regulatory approvals that are a condition to closing under the merger agreement have been obtained.

Harris (HRS 83.84, -0.43 -0.51%) was awarded an $800 million expeditionary warfare IDIQ contract from the US Army.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

AT&T (T 34.28, +0.17 +0.48%) employees represented by the Communications Workers of America vote to ratify four-year contract with AT&T Southeast wireline operations.

Cvent (CVT 36.88, +0.55 +0.14%) announced the sale of its consumer ticketing assets to Vendini, Inc. The company does not expect the divestiture to have a significant impact on previously provided guidance for adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP net income.

Vringo (VRNG 2.87, -0.34 -10.59%) reached a settlement with ZTE Corp (ZTCOF 2.13, -0.23 -9.75%). ZTE will pay VRNG a lump sum of $21.5 million, ZTE granted worldwide license of certain patents.

Groupon (GRPN) announced that Jay Sullivan was appointed as Chief Product Officer. The company also disclosed that Chief Technology Officer Sri Viswanath will resign.

GoDaddy (GDDY 33.94, +1.26 +3.86%) acquired the majority of domain names in the Worldwide Media domain portfolio. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Nxt-ID (NXTD 0.36, -0.40 -10.00%) received a non-compliance notice from Nasdaq relating to the minimum bid price requirement. The company has until May 31 to regain compliance.

Comtech Telecom (CMTL 21.48, -0.26 -1.20%) subsidiary Typhoon Acquisition commenced a tender offer for TeleCommunication Systems (TSYS 4.96, +0.01 +0.20%) at $5.00 per share.

ePlus (PLUS 88.69, +0.40 +0.45%) acquired the businesses of IGX Acquisition Global. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Lantronix (LTRX 1.15, +0.03 +2.68%) appointed Jeffrey Benck President and CEO effective immediately.

FARO Tech (FARO 29.54, -0.44 -1.47%) announced the appointment of Dr. Simon Raab as Interim President and CEO.

Jiayuan.com (DATE 7.34, +0.34 +4.86%) to be acquired by LoveWorld Inc. for $7.56/share.

Analyst actions:

MSI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Gabelli & Co,
ARMH was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital
(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Yahoo!)

4:10 pm : The major averages began the trading week on a cautious note with the Dow (-0.7%), Nasdaq (-0.8%), and S&P 500 (-0.7%) registering comparable losses.

Equity indices retreated through the first two hours of the trading day and the lack of intraday bargain hunting kept the key averages near their lows into the afternoon. The S&P 500 erased a third of its advance from Friday, but managed to settle above its 200-day moving average (2,065).

Cyclical sectors were at the forefront of today's retreat with energy (-3.7%) diving to the bottom of the leaderboard at the start of the trading day. The growth-sensitive group accelerated its slide during the late morning as crude oil cracked a new low for the year, dipping beneath the $38.00/bbl mark. The energy component settled lower by 5.9% at $37.63/bbl after sliding from its overnight high near $39.75/bbl.

Similarly, the other commodity-related sector-materials (-1.8%)-also settled well behind the broader market while other cyclical groups posted slimmer losses. For instance, the industrial sector (-0.4%) ended ahead of the S&P 500 with airlines contributing to the relative strength. Delta Air Lines (DAL 51.78, +2.00) was a standout performer, spiking 4.0%, but the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.9%) settled behind the S&P 500 as losses in most DJTA components overshadowed gains in airline names.

Likewise, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.5%) ended ahead of the broader market with restaurant names showing general strength, which masked a 1.7% drop in the shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 551.75, -9.45) after the company forecast a decline in Q4 comparable sales stemming from the recent E. coli incident. Furthermore, the stock was downgraded at Cowen and Guggenheim following the guidance update.

Meanwhile, the consumer staples sector (+0.3%) held a modest gain throughout the day, largely thanks to a 72.0% surge in Keurig Green Mountain (GMCR 88.89, +37.19) after the company agreed to be acquired by an investor group led by JAB Holding Company for $92/share, which translates to roughly $13.90 billion.

Similar to consumer staples, utilities (+0.3%) and telecom services (+0.6%) posted gains while the fourth countercyclical sector-health care (-0.6%)-could not make it out of the red.

Treasuries climbed throughout the morning to end the day near their highs with the 10-yr yield down four basis points at 2.23%.

Today's retreat invited above-average participation with more than 925 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the Consumer Credit report which showed a $16.00 billion increase in October, bolstered almost entirely by a $15.80 billion increase in nonrevolving credit. The Briefing.com consensus estimate expected consumer credit to increase by $18.60 billion. The change in September consumer credit was revised slightly lower to $28.50 billion from $28.90 billion.

Tomorrow's data will be limited to the October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.7% YTD
S&P 500 +0.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.0% YTD

DJ30 -117.12 NASDAQ -40.46 SP500 -14.65 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 656/1.77 bln/2253 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 608/927.7 mln/2477

3:35 pm :

Commodities took a hit today, especially the energy space
WTI crude oil futures lost 5.9% to close at $37.63/barrel, which follows weakness from Friday's OPEC meeting
Jan nat gas lost 5%, on current weather outlooks, to close at $2.07/MMBtu
Metals posted more modest losses
Feb gold fell 0.8% today to close at $1075.30/oz, while Mar silver lost -1.2% to $14.35/oz
Mar copper traded -1.9% to $2.04/lb today

9:03 am Flex announces an exchange offer for up to $600 mln of its unregistered 4.750% Notes due 2025, for registered, equivalent notes of the same type, coupon and maturity (FLEX) :

9:00 am NXP Semi closes Freescale (FSL) acquisition; reaffirms deal expected to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings in 2016, and NXP anticipates achieving cost savings of $200 mln in 2016 with a clear path to $500 mln of annual cost synergies (NXPI) :

In connection with their previously announced business combination transaction, Avago Technologies Limited (AVGO) and Broadcom Corporation (BRCM) announced that they intend to commence the election period for Broadcom shareholders on or about December 11, 2015 in preparation for a transaction closing targeted for February 1, 2016. They also announced that all regulatory approvals that are a condition to closing under the merger agreement have been obtained.

8:38 am Marvell follow-up: MRVL guides below consensus; still in the process of assessing which transactions should be considered as "pull-in" transactions (MRVL) :

Co issues downside guidance for Q3 (Oct), sees EPS of $0.05 vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 (Oct) revs of $674 mln vs. $732.85 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Q3 non-GAAP gross margin percentage was 46.1%, compared to 48.9% in 2Q16 and 51% in 3Q15.
In Q3, storage revenue declined 16% sequentially reflecting lower demand from HDD customers but was offset slightly by better-than-expected SSD controller sales. Networking revenue in the third quarter of fiscal 2016 declined 8% sequentially reflecting continued weak demand for enterprise networking products while mobile and wireless revenue grew 15% sequentially on stronger smartphone demand, particularly in the low-end.
MRVL anticipates mobile handset platform-related revenue to decline through fiscal year 2017 due to the restructuring actions announced on September 24, 2015.
MRVL is in the process of assessing which transactions should be considered as "pull-in" transactions for which revenue is properly recognized in a quarter but would have been expected to be received and earned in the subsequent quarter. This process includes continued assessment of the amount of revenue recognized in the second quarter of fiscal 2016 derived from pull-in transactions, which is subject to the Audit Committee's investigation. Although the Company believes revenue attributable to "pull-ins" was properly recognized in the second and third quarters of fiscal 2016, the amount of "pull-ins" has had an impact on the revenue attributable to each such quarter.
MRVL is halted, resumes trading at 9:00 ET.

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed the session with losses across the board. The Dow Jones Industrial Average led the way lower, losing 162.51 points (-0.92%) on the day to close 17568.00. The S&P 500 followed, down about 13.48 points (-0.65%) to 2063.59. The Nasdaq Composite closed just barely in the red, albeit losing 3.57 points (-0.07%) as the bell rang to end 5098.24. Market data today was limited to the October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which showed that job openings declined to 5.383 million from a revised mark of 5.534 (from 5.526 million).

In Asian markets, China reported disappointing trade data as the November surplus narrowed to $54.10 billion (expected surplus of $63.60 billion) with exports falling 6.8% year-over-year. The news rekindled concerns about the pace of global growth, which has pressured commodities. As such, the QQQC and the CQQQ both finished in the red, down about 2.1% and 0.5% respectively. For context, both the Nikkei (-1.04%) and the Hang Seng (-1.34%) closed in the red today.

Technology (XLK 44.24, -0.11 -0.25%) traded to lows of the day as the session got underway, but regained some of those losses as Tuesday progressed. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 49.48, -2.95 -5.63%) was active as the company received and subsequently responded to two Statements of Objections from the European Union. Other sectors closed as such -- IYZ +0.37%, XLV +0.22%, XLU -0.14%, XLP -0.26%, XLY -0.30%, XLE -1.03%, XLF -1.26%, XLI -1.60%, XLB -1.89%.

Semi (SOX 679.03, -5.82 -0.85%) names were again among the most actively traded today as component Fairchild Semi (FCS 20.62, +1.09 +5.58%) acknowledged the receipt of an unsolicited proposal to be acquired for $21.70 per share in cash. Other names which closed lower with the sector included MRVL -7.37%, CAVM -4.09%, MXIM -2.81%, SUNE -1.71%, MU -1.68%, LLTC -1.38%, TXN -1.17%, CREE -1.09%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (), action turned lower quickly as the session began, and broader market weakness kept a lid on the sector the entire day. Component Lam Research (LRCX 80.40, +2.51 +3.22%) posted gains as shares were added to the US 1 List at BofA/Merrill premarket.

Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM 138.05, -1.49 -1.07%) acquired cloud based video service provider, Clearleap, Inc. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

FIS (FIS 63.05, -0.46 -0.72%) announced the resolution and dismissal of patent infringement claims brought against the company by Fiserv (FISV 94.67, +0.07 +0.07%) in 2012.

Cognizant (CTSH 62.01, +0.01 +0.02%) announced a commitment of $40 million (Rs 260 crore) to help residents, its employees and business partners in Chennai, India, with relief and rehabilitation in the aftermath of recent flooding.

Qualcomm (QCOM): The EU sent two Statements of Objections on exclusivity payments and predatory pricing to QCOM.

QCOM later responded to the EU documents, stating the company requests information from Taiwan Fair Trade Commission and that its practices have always complied with European competition laws.

eBay Enterprise (EBAY unit 28.78, -0.26 -0.91%) announced Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW 23.31, -0.19 -0.81%) successfully implemented eBay Enterprise In-Store Pickup and Ship-to Store in 467 stores. The addition of In-Store Pickup and Ship-to Store represents a major milestone in DSW's omnichannel journey and customer-centric goal to deliver any shoe, anywhere, any time.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Fairchild Semi (FCS) acknowledged the receipt of an unsolicited proposal to be acquired for $21.70 per share in cash. The company said the Board will review and consider the proposal.

L-3 Communications (LLL 124.21, -1.27 -1.01%) to sell its National Security Solutions Business to CACI International (CACI 103.03, +3.68 +3.70%) for $550 million in cash.

InterCloud Systems (ICLD 1.15, -0.13 -10.16%) commenced a review of its strategic alternatives in response to the receipt of multiple unsolicited offers to purchase certain of its key assets.

TerraForm Power (TERP 8.66, +0.58 +7.18%) David Tepper's Appaloosa boosted its active stake to 9.5% (Prior 9.25%). The firm also sent a letter to the company's CEO Brian Wuebbels following meeting, as they believe Vivint Solar's (VSLR 8.39, -0.17 -1.99%) transaction poses a serious threat to TERPs prospects.

Harmonic (HLIT 4.49, -0.76 -14.48%) signed a binding offer to acquire Thomson Video Networks for $90 million. The company also announced a $125 million private offering of senior notes due 2020.

RigNet (RNET 21.78, +0.54 +2.54%) was awarded a new master services agreement with a leading US independent oil and gas operator for the delivery of communications systems and infrastructure.

Inventergy (INVT 1.31, +0.32 +32.73%) announced a 1:10 reverse stock split. The split reduced the number of outstanding shares of the company's common stock from about 42.2 million shares to about 4.2 million shares.

Flex (FLEX 10.94, -0.19 -1.71%) acquired product development company Farm Design. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

GrubHub (GRUB 24.17, -0.05 -0.21%) acquired Delivered Dish. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Benchmark Electronics (BHE 21.46, +0.27 +1.27%) authorized and additional $100 million share repurchase program.

Analyst actions:

A and FEIC were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
FEYE was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
WBMD was downgraded to Outperform from Top Pick at RBC Capital Mkts,
MTSN was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum

5:42 pm SunPower announces intention to offer $350 mln aggregate principal amount of senior convertible debentures (SPWR) : Co intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, including, but not limited to, pursuing its HoldCo and YieldCo strategies, capital expenditures, working capital, retirement of existing indebtedness and to fund potential acquisitions of complementary businesses.

4:20 pm Analogic reports Q1 in-line with downside preannouncement; reaffirms lowered guidance (ALOG) :

Reports Q1 (Oct) earnings of $0.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.55; revenues fell 2.8% year/year to $115 mln vs the $115 mln two analyst estimate. Co guided for Q1 EPS of $0.55 vs. $0.77 consensus, rev $115 mln vs. $122.3 mln consensus on Novemer 18. "As we previously announced, our first quarter revenue was impacted by delays in revenue recognition, timing of new product introductions and foreign currency. In fiscal 2016 we expect a return to growth in the second half, yielding low-single-digit revenue growth for the year. With our focus on costs, we continue to expect an improvement in non-GAAP operating margin of ~1 pt."

3:16 pm Sigma Designs beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line (SIGM) :

Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.09; revenues rose 14.5% year/year to $61.6 mln vs the $61.55 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Q3 Non-GAAP gross margin was 51.7%. This compares with 51.4% in Q3 of last year. The sequential improvement in non-GAAP gross margin was due primarily to product mix.

4:05 pm : The stock market endured a shaky session on Tuesday, but the key indices managed to recover a portion of their losses by the close. The S&P 500 settled in the middle of its trading range, surrendering 0.7%, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) outperformed throughout the day.

Equity indices began the day under heavy pressure after the overnight session featured some disappointing economic data from China. Specifically, the country's November trade surplus narrowed to $54.10 billion from $61.64 billion (expected surplus of $63.30 billion) as exports fell 6.8% year-over-year (consensus -5.0%; previous -6.9%) and imports declined 8.7% (expected -12.6%; last -18.8%).

The smaller than expected trade surplus re-invited the same global growth concerns that have been plaguing the market throughout the year. Accordingly, commodities retreated with crude oil falling more than 2.0% before pulling back. The energy component made a brief appearance in the green, but could not avoid a lower close, slipping 0.3% to $37.51/bbl after marking a session low near $36.64/bbl.

The rebound in crude helped alleviate some of the pressure in the stock market, but the S&P 500 could not return above its 200-day moving average (2,064), which served as resistance.

Nine of ten sectors ended in the red while health care (+0.2%) eked out a slim gain thanks to relative strength in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 330.59, +6.31) rallied 2.0%, which helped the Nasdaq end the day near its flat line.

Similarly, the technology sector (-0.2%) contributed to the relative strength in the Nasdaq, but the top-weighted sector could not stay out of the red as high-beta chipmaker names weighed. To that point, the PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 0.9%.

Unlike technology, most of the remaining cyclical sectors ended among the laggards with energy (-1.5%) widening this week's decline to 5.1% while the industrial sector (-1.6%) was pressured by transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average tumbled 2.8% with Southwest Air (LUV 45.04, -4.47) diving 9.0% after the company lowered its Q4 on unit revenue guidance.

Treasuries notched their highs during the opening retreat in the stock market, but the 10-yr note slipped into the red in the late afternoon, pushing its yield up one basis point to 2.23%.

Today's participation was a bit above average as more than 915 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to the October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which showed that job openings decreased to 5.383 million from a revised reading of 5.534 million (from 5.526 million).

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the October Wholesale Inventories report (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.7% YTD
S&P 500 +0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.6% YTD

DJ30 -161.64 NASDAQ -3.57 SP500 -13.47 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1148/1.73 bln/1737 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1013/931.6 mln/2078

3:40 pm :

The dollar index slid lower today, which helped give some commodities some strength
After almost running $2/barrel to $38.58/barrel this morning, Jan crude oil reverse and consolidated in afternoon trade, closing the day out at $37.51/barrel, down $0.12.
Jan natural gas recovered and closed today's session unchanged at $2.07/MMBtu
Gold and silver remained consolidated today following overnight losses
Feb gold ended floor trading +$0.20 at $1075.50/oz, while Mar silver closed -1.5% at $14.13/oz

9:02 am Flex acquires product development company Farm Design; terms not disclosed (FLEX) : Farm Design is a full-service, ISO 13485-certified and FDA-compliant product development company with more than 40 years of experience providing complete development and design services for medical device and diagnostic companies

Dataram (DRAM) approved the reincorporation of the Company to the State of Nevada from the State of New Jersey. Granted the Board of Directors the authority, in its sole direction, to effect a reverse stock split of the co's issued and outstanding common stock by a ratio of not less than one-for-two and not more than one-for-ten at any time prior to December 3, 2016.

7:31 am Fairchild Semi acknowledges receipt of an unsolicited proposal to be acquired for $21.70/share in cash, says Board will review and consider the proposal (FCS) :

As previously announced on November 18, 2015, Fairchild entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated as of November 18, 2015, under which a wholly owned subsidiary of ON Semiconductor (ON), has agreed to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Fairchild common stock for $20.00 per share in cash.

Fairchild's board of directors, in consultation with its legal and financial advisors, will carefully review and consider the Proposal. Fairchild remains subject to the Merger Agreement and Fairchild's board of directors has not changed its recommendation in support of the Merger Agreement.

7:03 am Canadian Solar secures a new $97.2 mln senior non-recourse project finance credit facility, for the construction of the Kumamoto Mashiki solar power plant in Japan (CSIQ) :

6:24 am Qualcomm responds to two Statements of Objections from the European Commission, announces request of information from Taiwan Fair Trade Commission (QCOM) :

Co issued a statement responding to the two Statements of Objections from the European Commission relating to separate matters involving its chipset business "We look forward to demonstrating that competition in the sale of wireless chips has been and remains strong and dynamic, and that Qualcomm's sales practices have always complied with European competition law."

Separately, the co disclosed that the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission has requested information from Qualcomm, and has initiated an investigation into whether the co's patent licensing arrangements violate the Taiwan Fair Trade Act. This matter is in its early stages. The co believes it complies with the Act and will cooperate with the TFTC's investigation.Dialog Semiconductor (DLGNF) announced its support for WeChat's communications protocol, with the launch of Dialog's WeChat SDK. STMicroelectronics (STM) announced that its efforts to enrich the IoT development ecosystem have been further strengthened by the recent adoption of its STM32 Nucleo Development Kit by the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science at Peking University and for the Xiao Gang Pao IoT development system by JUMA, an IoT software platform company.

4:13 am Benchmark Electronics authorizes additional $100 mln share repurchase program (BHE) :

Co announced its Board of Directors approved the repurchase of up to an additional $100 million of the Company's outstanding shares of common stock.

This repurchase program is in addition to the current 2014 repurchase program, which also authorized the Company to purchase up to $100 million of its outstanding common shares.

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From Briefing.com: The broader market action took us higher on Thursday, rebounding from back-to-back losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with the best gains today, edging up 82.45 points (+0.47%) to 17574.75. The Nasdaq Composite was closed behind, higher by 22.31 points (+0.44%) on Tuesday to 5045.17. The S&P 500 rounded out the bunch higher by 4.61 points (+0.23%) to 2052.23. Economic data reported Thursday included Initial Claims and Export Prices. Initial Claims for the week ending December 5 increased by 13,000 to 282,000 while continuing claims for the week ending November 28 jumped by 82,000 to 2.243 million. Export prices, excluding agriculture, declined 0.6% in November after declining 0.3% in the prior reading.

For Technology (XLK 43.71, +0.12 +0.28%), trading ended just above flat lines as trading nearly dipped into the red at the close but resisted last minute selling and ultimately grabbed modest gains. Shares of component IBM (IBM 136.78, +0.17 +0.12%) were slightly higher on the session as the company announced an agreement with SK Holdings to develop cloud solutions. Other sectors ended Thursday XLV +0.75%, XLE +0.64%, XLI +0.47%, XLY +0.34%, XLP +0.12%, XLF +0.08%, IYZ -0.34%, XLB -0.75%, XLU -1.65% with Healthcare leading all gains.

Social Media (SOCL 20.02, +0.17 +0.86%) names were strong from start to finish on Thursday. Component Twitter (TWTR 25.91, +1.60 +6.58%) traded strong today as the company confirmed plans to test promoted tweets on logged-out user experience.

The S&P 500 Information Technology (734.86, +1.51 +0.21%) sector closed today modestly higher as last minute selling almost took the sector into the red. Shares of Alphabet (GOOG 749.46, -2.15 -0.29%) were slightly lower today as the company's Verily Life Sciences (formerly Google Life Sciences) division announced the formation of Verb Surgical with Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ 102.64, +0.49 +0.48%) Ethicon.

Other notable news among sector components:

Wind River, a unit of Intel (INTC 34.77, -0.04 -0.11%), has introduced a reference design for a virtual business customer premises equipment, following extensive collaboration with four Network Functions Virtualization software partners including Brocade (BRCD 8.83, -0.05 -0.56%), Check Point (CHKP 84.80, -0.49 -0.57%), InfoVista and Riverbed (RVBD 20.99, -0.01 -0.05%).

IBM (IBM) and Korean IT services company SK Holdings C&C announced an agreement to develop cloud solutions and services for enterprises across a variety of industries. Jointly, the companies intend to drive over $200 million as a result of this collaboration over the next five years.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) announced the formation of Verb Surgical, an independent surgical solutions company, in collaboration with Verily Life Sciences (formerly Google (GOOG) Life Sciences). In the coming years, Verb Surgical aims to develop a comprehensive surgical solutions platform that will incorporate robotic capabilities and medical device technology for operating room professionals.

Pandora (P 13.05, +0.02 +0.15%) announced its availability on Apple (AAPL 116.17, +0.55 +0.48%) TV.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

LoJack (LOJN 5.20, +1.72 +49.64%) received offer to be acquired by CalAmp (CAMP 20.59, +2.03 +10.94%) for $5.50 per share, or about $113 million.

Twitter (TWTR) confirmed plans to test promoted tweets on the logged-out user experience.

Digital Ally (DGLY 5.34, +0.79 +17.36%) reported that the USPTO has rejected a challenge by Taser International (TASR 17.73, +1.10 +6.61%) aimed at the firm's '292 patent.

Inventergy (INVT 2.47, +1.16 +88.55%) provided an update outlining current strategy. The company's current assets cover various market segments totaling over $200 billion in relevant annual revenue of potential licensees.

Spark Networks (LOV 3.93, -0.07 -1.75%) announced the appointment of Shailen Mistry as Chief Technology Officer effective January 4, 2016.

Atlassian (TEAM -- Nasdaq 27.99, +6.99 +33.29%) priced its 22 million share IPO at $21/share, above the revised expected range of $19-20. Shares began trading today at $27.67.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Methode Electronics (MEI 30.55, -3.50 -10.28%) reported Q2 EPS which beat expectations at $0.54 on revenues which missed, and fell 9.3% year-over-year to $208.4 million. The company also lowered their FY16 EPS and revenue guidance.

Ciena (CIEN 20.04, -4.07 -16.88%) reported Q4 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at $0.42 and $692 million, respectively. The company also guided Q1 and FY16 revenues worse than expected.

Comtech Telecom (CMTL 19.63, -1.27 -6.08%) reported Q1 EPS and revenues which were worse than anticipated; EPS was $0.15 and revenues fell 16.1% year-over-year to $64.12 million. Management guided FY16 EPS in-line and reaffirmed FY16 revenue guidance.

Analyst actions:

CYBR was upgraded to Overweight from Underweight at JP Morgan,
CIEN was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Northland Capital;
AMAT was downgraded to Outperform from Buy at Credit Agricole,
QLYS was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
SCMWY was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman

4:10 pm : The stock market ended Thursday on a higher note, putting an end to its three-day skid. The S&P 500 climbed 0.2%, but could not hold posture above its 50-day moving average (2,054). Meanwhile, the Dow (+0.5%) and Nasdaq (+0.4%) settled ahead of the benchmark index.

The Thursday advance did not occur without some theatrics as the S&P 500 marked a morning high during the first 90 minutes of the day and followed that with a return to its flat line. The benchmark index charged to a fresh high in the early afternoon, but backtracked from that level to end in the lower third of today's range.

Equity indices spent the first hour of action near their flat lines, but the energy sector (+0.6%) displayed relative strength from the start, which underpinned today's advance. The sector narrowed this week's loss to 3.2%, ending in the lead even though crude oil fell 1.0% to $36.80/bbl. The energy component continued sliding in electronic trade, which forced some backtracking in the sector. It is worth noting that the prolonged weakness in oil prices prompted Chevron (CVX 89.30, +1.70) and ConocoPhillips (COP 49.22, +0.75) to cut their respective capital expenditure budgets for 2016 by 24.0% and 25.0%, respectively.

The energy sector was the only pocket of strength in the early going, but the growth-sensitive group held its ground even as the S&P 500 retreated from its opening high during the early afternoon. The benchmark index approached its flat line around 12:15 ET, but did not dip below its opening levels thanks to late morning strength in high-beta groups. Specifically, biotechnology, chipmakers, and transport stocks got off to a sluggish start, but all three areas settled ahead of the broader market, which contributed to the afternoon push to a fresh session high.

The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 329.41, +4.21) spiked 1.3% while the broader health care sector gained 0.8%, narrowing this week's loss to 0.6%. Elsewhere, the Dow Jones Transportation Average climbed 0.6% with airlines rebounding from recent weakness, helping the industrial sector (+0.5%) end among the leaders.

For its part, the PHLX Semiconductor Index gained 0.6% with all but eight components ending in the green; however, that strength was overshadowed by a mixed showing from large cap members of the technology sector (+0.2%).

On the downside, materials (-0.8%) and utilities (-1.7%) spent the day in negative territory with the materials space pulling back after yesterday's 3.1% surge.

Treasuries spent the day inside narrow ranges, slipping to lows just ahead of the close. The 10-yr note settled on its low with the benchmark yield rising two basis points to 2.23%.

Today's participation was relatively light with fewer than 850 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Import/Export Prices, and Treasury Budget:

Initial claims for the week ending December 5 increased by 13,000 to 282,000 (Briefing.com consensus 269,000) while continuing claims for the week ending November 28 jumped by 82,000 to 2.243 million (Briefing.com consensus 2.167 million)
There were no special factors influencing initial claims, which have remained bounded between 250,000 and 300,000 since July 2014
Export prices, excluding agriculture, decreased 0.6% in November after decreasing 0.3% in the prior reading
Excluding oil, import prices decreased 0.3%, which followed last month's decrease of 0.3%
The November Treasury Budget showed a deficit of $64.60 billion
The Treasury data are not seasonally adjusted, so the November deficit cannot be compared to the October deficit of $136.50 billion
Total receipts in November were $205.00 billion while total outlays were $269.50 billion
Receipts were $13.50 billion more than November 2014 receipts while total outlays were $21.30 billion more than November 2014

Tomorrow, November CPI (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) and November Retail Sales (consensus +0.3%) will be reported at 8:30 ET while October Business Inventories (expected +0.1%) and the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for December (consensus 91.6) will both be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.5% YTD
S&P 500 -0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.3% YTD

DJ30 +82.45 NASDAQ +22.31 SP500 +4.61 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1598/1.62 bln/1317 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1493/848.9 mln/1537

3:10 pm :

The dollar rallied higher all session, seeing only a brief pause following the release of underwhelming US unemployment and import/export price data
Heading into the commodity closes, the index continued to trend higher and is now near its HoD at +0.6% to 97.96
Crude fell below the flat-line in early trade- pressed by the stronger dollar and mixed interpretations of OPEC's December Monthly Oil Report.
WTI gradually extended that sell-off into the close, finishing the day at losses of -1% to $36.80/barrel
Natural gas spiked to moderate positives early in the session (following a larger-than-expected build of 76 bcf), but failed to hold those gains in subsequent trading.
The January contract slumped back to strong losses shortly after the initial spike, which it held into the close. Nat gas ended -1.9% to $2.02/MMBtu
Precious metals fell to the consistently strengthening dollar, with gold closing -0.4% to 1072.20/oz and silver finishing -0.4% to $14.12/oz
Copper trended in a moderate range all session on a lack of immediate catalysts, closing at $2.07/lb

7:32 am LoJack receives offer to be acquired by CalAmp (CAMP) for $5.50/share, or ~$113 mln (shares halted) (LOJN) :

CalAmp (CAMP) announced that it has made an offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock of LoJack for $5.50 per share in cash, in a transaction valued at approximately $113 million.

"For nearly two years, we have tried to engage with LoJack in friendly discussions regarding a combination of our two companies, and in the past 14 months we have made three all-cash offers to LoJack. To our disappointment, and to the detriment of LoJack's shareholders, LoJack has not demonstrated willingness to move toward actively negotiating a transaction with us. We are excited by the prospect of combining our two businesses and believe our $5.50 per share cash offer provides LoJack shareholders with a substantial premium for their investment in LoJack, while also eliminating the risks associated with LoJack continuing to operate on a standalone basis...The Board of Directors of CalAmp unanimously supports this offer and believes, with close cooperation and focus among our respective teams, we can move expeditiously to complete due diligence and execute a definitive agreement. We look forward to LoJack's careful and serious consideration of our offer and remain ready to engage with LoJack's Board of Directors to complete this transaction."

7:31 am CalAmp goes public with offer to acquire LoJack (LOJN) at 58% premium; raises Q3 guidance (CAMP) :

Co raises Q3 EPS to $0.29-0.31 from $0.26-0.30 vs $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus; revs $74-75 mln from $71-76 mln vs $73.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co has made an offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock of LoJack (LOJN), a provider of vehicle theft recovery systems and advanced fleet management solutions, for $5.50 per share in cash, in a transaction valued at ~$113 million. "For nearly two years, we have tried to engage with LoJack in friendly discussions regarding a combination of our two companies, and in the past 14 months we have made three all-cash offers to LoJack. To our disappointment, and to the detriment of LoJack's shareholders, LoJack has not demonstrated willingness to move toward actively negotiating a transaction with us... We look forward to LoJack's careful and serious consideration of our offer and remain ready to engage with LoJack's Board of Directors to complete this transaction."

7:06 am Ciena beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q1 and FY16 revs below consensus (CIEN) :

Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.38; revenues rose 17.1% year/year to $692 mln vs the $683.53 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Gross margin 44.9% vs. ~44% guidanceCo issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $555-590 mln vs. $634.75 mln Capital IQ Consensus; adj. gross margin ~44%. Co issues downside guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs +8-9% to ~$2.64-2.67 bln vs. $2.77 bln Capital IQ Consensus; adj. gross margin in mid-40% range and adj. operating margin 11-12%.

SunEdison (SUNE) announced that it has signed a 10-year agreement with Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator to supply 5 megawatt-20 megawatt-hours-of battery storage to the province.

6:35 am Methode Electronics beats by $0.01, misses on revs; lowers FY16 EPS, revs guidance (MEI) :

Reports Q2 (Oct) earnings of $0.54 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.53; revenues fell 9.3% year/year to $208.4 mln vs the $213.11 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co lowers guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $2.06-2.18 (Prior $2.07-2.22) vs. $2.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $805-825 mln (Prior $830-865 mln) vs. $837.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.The Company expects earnings in the third quarter to be lower than in the fourth quarter due to the effect of the holidays and continued weakness in its non-automotive businesses. Additionally, it anticipates fourth-quarter earnings will be in line with the second quarter.

6:02 am Chipmos Technology reports November revenues of NT 1.58 bln, -19.1% Y/Y (IMOS) :

3:47 am SunPower prices $400 mln of its 4.00% Senior Convertible Debentures due 2023 (SPWR) :

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From Briefing.com: Broader market moves took all three major indices higher at the close after bouncing around from red-to-green virtually the entire session. When it was all said and done, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with the most notable gains, adding 106.83 points (+0.62%) to 17372.04. The S&P 500 followed, higher by 9.71 points (+0.48%) at the close to 2022.08. The Nasdaq Composite rounded out the trio up 18.76 points (+0.38%) to 4952.23. An up and down session took the indexes lower by more than -1.0% at one point, only to stage a comeback on some choppy trading action as markets moved about 2% from bottom to top as the bell rang.

Essentially, the selling into midday was mirrored by the action in the oil markets. WTI Crude Oil Futures retreated into midday action, when they staged a comeback off multi-year lows to end the session in positive territory at $36.34/bbl, or +2.0%. This, when taken with the fact that futures dipped near the $34.60/bbl area in the overnight session tells the story as to why markets were weak at the open.

Among Technology (XLK 43.13, +0.33 +0.77%) names, action ended much like the broader market, as a flurry of buying at the close took the sector from red-to-green. Component Micron (MU 13.66, -0.38 -2.71%) traded near the bottom of the sector today as the company acquired the remaining interest in Inotera Memories of Taiwan. The deal is expected to be immediately accretive to EPS. Other sectors closed the session XLP +0.99%, XLV +0.65%, XLE +0.53%, XLY +0.51%, XLU +0.50%, XLI +0.36%, XLF +0.21%, IYZ -0.39%, XLB -1.32%.

Solar (TAN 28.38, +1.69 +6.33%) names were strong today, as component SolarCity (SCTY 41.59, +4.55 +12.28%) announced its new corporate office in Utah has opened. Other names in the sector which outperformed today included TSL +11.62%, TERP +10.94%, SPWR +8.17%, ENPH +6.19%, SUNE +5.78%, FSLR +5.70%, SEDG +5.38%, CSIQ +5.03%, HQCL +4.60%, JKS +3.61%, VSLR +3.02%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (724.24, +4.58 +0.64%) traded in-line with the broader market as trading only turned to positive territory in the final hour of the session. Blue chip names dictated trading on the session today, with names like FB +2.49%, ADBE +2.01%, MSFT +2.00%, GOOGL +1.62%, MA +1.55%, CSCO +1.26%, GOOG +1.20%, ORCL +1.18%, IBM +1.01%, V +1.00% finishing at the top of the heap, and STX -6.42%, WDC -4.36%, XRX -1.79%, RHT -1.39%, QCOM -1.33%, AVGO -1.32%, YHOO -0.97%, WU -0.77%, MSI -0.69%, AAPL -0.62% finishing with the worst losses.

Other notable news items among sector components:

VMware (VMW 57.25, -1.80 -3.05%) announced the resignation of Pamela Craig and Dennis Powell from the Board effective immediately. Also, elected Donald Carty as a member of the Board. The company also announced it will not be participating in the formation of the Virtustream Cloud Services Business previously announced by EMC and VMware on October 20, 2015.

Corning (GLW 18.07, -0.61 -3.27%) entered into a 25-year power purchase agreement for solar- generated electricity produced by Duke Energy Renewables.
Etihad Airways and Cognizant (CTSH 59.76, +1.46 +2.50%), a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, announced a strategic agreement to drive digital transformation across the airline and its equity partners. Under the three-year, multi-million dollar deal, Cognizant will help Etihad Airways define its digital strategy and customer service along a guest's travel journey across the group.

Qualcomm (QCOM 46.83, -0.63 -1.33%) disclosed bylaw amendments to implement proxy access commencing with the 2017 annual meeting of stockholders.

Applied Materials (AMAT 18.05, -0.27 -1.47%) disclosed bylaw amendment effective immediately including new Section for Proxy Access.

EMC (EMC 25.76, -0.15 -0.58%) announced the end to the 'go shop' period. The company announced no additional proposals were received.

Accenture (ACN 106.36, +1.06 +1.01%) has been selected to help Deppon Logistics Co design a new agile sales and operations organization that will benefit from advanced customer insights.

Micron (MU) acquired the remaining interest in Inotera Memories of Taiwan. The deal is expected to be immediately accretive to EPS.MU announced it has entered into a memorandum of understanding to grant Nanya Technology an option to license Micron 1x and 1y DRAM technologies. This new license agreement is in addition to Micron's existing license agreement for 20 nanometer technology with Nanya.AT&T (T 33.60, +0.43 +1.30%) announced customers can get two of the most popular smartphones, including Samsung (SSNLF 1100, flat) Galaxy S6, for the price of one. The offer also applies to iPhone 6s (AAPL 112.48, -0.70 -0.62%).

Elsewhere in the technology space:

FXCM (FXCM 8.08, +2.78 +52.45%) reported certain updates in regard to the company's relationship with Leucadia and its stock repurchase program. The company confirms that discussions with Leucadia remain ongoing.

Advanced Semiconductor (ASX 5.18, -0.13 -2.45%) submitted an offer to acquire Siliconware Precision (SPIL 7.69, +0.54 +7.55%) for NT$275 per ADS share.

Atmel (ATML 8.72, +0.26 +3.07%) received an unsolicited proposal to be acquired $9.00 per share.Dialog Semi (DLGNF 37.15, flat) later acknowledged Atmel's receipt of an unsolicited acquisition proposal.

MagnaChip Semi (MX 4.22, -0.65 -13.35%) disclosed a class action settlement with payment by the company of $23.5 million.

Fairchild Semi (FCS 20.09, -0.56 -2.71%) determined that the unsolicited proposal received on December 7 for $21.70 per share in cash would not reasonably be expected to result in a 'Superior Proposal'.

FireEye (FEYE 20.55, -0.50 -2.38%) announced agreement with Ingram Micro (IM 30.67, -0.47 -1.51%) to market to sell and support FireEye security products throughout the U.S. and Canada. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Jason Inc. (JASN 3.10, -0.20 -6.06%) named Jeffry Quinn as CEO effective immediately.

Angie's List (ANGI 9.07, -0.31 -3.30%) promoted Darin Brown to Chief Technology Officer.

Palo Alto Networks (PANW 183.69, -1.34 -0.72%) appointed Naveen Zutshi as Chief Information Officer.

Trina Solar (TSL 10.66, +1.11 +11.68%) received a preliminary non-binding proposal to be acquired by CEO and Shanghai Xingsheng Equity Investment & Management for $11.60 per ADS.

HollySys (HOLI 21.99, +0.18 +0.83%) announced high-speed rail signaling contract win valued at $75.5 million. The delivery of the products are expected to be finished by June 2016.

Rudolph Tech (RTEC 14.18, -0.41 -2.81%) reported that a leading foundry in Asia has placed an order for over $15 million in multiple NSX 330 Systems.

Analyst actions:

HPE upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
CPSI upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey;
GPRO was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
DLGNF was downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC Securities

4:05 pm : The stock market began the trading week on a higher note, but not before showing some late morning volatility. The S&P 500 climbed 0.5% after briefly dipping below the 2,000 mark while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) underperformed slightly.

Equity indices slumped out of the gate with cyclical sectors fueling the early weakness. That selling was congruent with a retreat in the oil market, but a reversal in crude futures helped halt the slide in equities. The stock market spent the afternoon near its flat line, rallying to a fresh high during the final 15 minutes of the session.

Crude oil was in focus throughout the day as the energy component probed the $34.60/bbl area in overnight action before rallying to end the day higher by 2.0% at $36.34/bbl. The late morning reversal underpinned the energy sector (+0.8%), which rebounded from last week's 6.6% dive.

The energy sector climbed into the green with relative ease, but the same could not be said for most of the remaining cyclical groups. The technology sector (+0.6%) was an exception as the top-weighted group climbed ahead of the broader market during the afternoon after showing relative weakness at the start. That early weakness could be traced back to the shares of Apple (AAPL 112.48, -0.70) as the tech giant struggled after Morgan Stanley lowered its iPhone sales forecast. Apple settled lower by 0.6% after being down more than 2.0% in the early going.

The uptick in the tech sector masked relative weakness among high-beta chipmakers. Accordingly, the PHLX Semiconductor Index settled lower by 0.7% with most of its components ending in the red.

Staying on the high-beta theme, transport stocks also struggled while biotechnology benefited from the late afternoon strength. The Dow Jones Transportation Average surrendered 0.5%, widening its December loss to 7.6%, while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 320.84, +0.95) gained 0.3%.

On the corporate front, Jarden (JAH 54.09, +1.41) spiked 2.7% after agreeing to be acquired by Newell Rubbermaid (NWL 42.15, -3.13) for $60/share in cash and stock.

The oil-driven rebound off late morning lows masked continued weakness in the corporate bond space. High-yield remained weak with iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate ETF (HYG 78.83, -0.69) falling 0.9%, while investment grade debt also faced some pressure, evidenced by a 0.7% decline in iShares Investment Grade Corp Bond ETF (LQD 114.35, -0.85).

Treasuries retreated throughout the day, ending on their lows with the 10-yr yield rising ten basis points to 2.23%.

Today's participation was ahead of average as more than a billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Tomorrow, November CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) and December Empire Manufacturing Index (expected -5.9) will be reported at 8:30 ET while December NAHB Housing Market Index (consensus 63) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +4.6% YTD
S&P 500 -1.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.4% YTD

DJ30 +103.29 NASDAQ +18.76 SP500 +9.57 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1064/1.97 bln/1902 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 812/1.05 bln/2327

3:10 pm :

The dollar index trended higher overnight, but was unable to hold those gains (made against both Yen and Euro) as early/mid-AM extended selling pressure drove the index down to near 97.3. Resistance at that level was enough to allow a moderate rally to develop in afternoon trade, which saw the index climb back to near-flat going into commodity closes.
Precious metals traded down overnight, before seeing a modest tailwind throughout the session to close moderately lower. Sentiment ahead of Wednesday's FOMC rate hike decision drove both metals' trading today, with gold closing -1.2% to $1063.40/oz and silver finishing -1.4% to $13.70/oz.
Crude was pressed below the $35/barrel point in early trade on large volume amidst commentary from the Iranian Deputy Oil Minister- who indicated that supply agreements have been established for when sanctions get lifted in early January.
Commentary from Russian Acting Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov- which indicated the country is preparing for for further oil price declines in 2016- also put temporal pressure on prices.
As the session progress however, WTI reversed trend and lifted back above the flat-line- to a positive close of +2% to $36.34/barrel.
Natural gas traded in muted fashion at strong losses, as calls for increased warmer near-term US weather patterns drove the January contract to close -5% at $1.89/MMBtu
Copper closed the session -0.5% lower at $2.11/lb

4:15 pm F5 Networks appoints Chairman John McAdam as President and Chief Executive Officer (FFIV) :

Co announced that John McAdam, Chairman of the F5 Board of Directors, has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer. McAdam joined F5 in July 2000, and served as the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer until his retirement in July 2015. In connection with this appointment, McAdam will remain a member of the F5 Board but will step down as Chairman in order to focus on his executive duties and actively lead the Company forward. Alan Higginson, who currently serves as F5's Lead Independent Director, has been appointed Non-Executive Chairman of the Board. All actions are effective immediately.

McAdam succeeds Manuel Rivelo who has resigned from his position of President and Chief Executive Officer, and as a member of the F5 Board of Directors, for matters regarding personal conduct unrelated to the operations or financials of the Company.

8:32 am Corning enters into a 25-year power purchase agreement for solar- generated electricity produced by Duke Energy Renewables. (GLW) : Corning will purchase 62.5% of the expected output of the facility, estimated tobe 120,300 megawatt hours per year, beginning in the first quarter of 2016. Thatamount of electricity is equivalent to the annual power used by approximately10,000 U.S. homes.The new solar farm being constructed by Duke Energy (DUK) Renewables is located in Conetoe, North Carolina, and will be the largest solar-generating facilitycompleted to date east of the Mississippi River.

7:31 am Fairchild Semi determines that the unsolicited proposal received on December 7 for $21.70/share in cash would not reasonably be expected to result in a 'Superior Proposal' (FCS) : Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS) announced that its board of directors, after conducting a review and considering the advice of its legal and financial advisors, has concluded that the unsolicited proposal received on December 7, 2015, to acquire Fairchild for $21.70/share in cash would not reasonably be expected to result in a "Superior Proposal" as defined in Fairchild's Agreement and Plan of Merger with ON Semiconductor Corporation (ON).

6:33 am Rudolph Tech reports that a leading foundry in Asia has placed an order for over $15 million in multiple NSX 330 Systems (RTEC) : The systems will be used for inspection of next-generation fan-out wafer level packaging products, including whole-wafer inspection and post-saw inspection. The systems will begin shipping in the fourth quarter of 2015 with the majority shipping in the first quarter of 2016.

6:11 am Siliconware Precision: Advanced Semiconductor (ASX) submits an offer to acquire SPIL for NT$275/ADS share (SPIL) :

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASX) announced that its board of directors has approved and submitted a proposal to Siliconware Precision Industries to acquire all SPIL shares for cash. The terms and conditions of our Proposal are as follows:

Price: NT$55 per common share (or NT$275 per American depositary share). All directors and management of SPIL will be retained and their current compensation and benefits maintained. SPIL must terminate or cancel the Tsinghua Deal. Co stated: "We have asked that SPIL review our Proposal and send us a written response no later than December 21, 2015 to confirm whether SPIL is willing to discuss as soon as possible a 100% share exchange transaction in accordance with our Proposal."

6:06 am Atmel: Dialog Semi (DLGNF) acknowledges Atmel's receipt of an unsolicited acquisition proposal (ATML) :

Dialog Semiconductor (DLGNF) announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form F-4 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its previously announced proposed acquisition of Atmel. The registration statement contains a draft prospectus and proxy statement in connection with the proposed acquisition. The definitive versions of the prospectus and proxy statement will be filed publicly with the SEC and mailed to stockholders of Atmel prior to the time the Atmel shareholder meeting is scheduled.

Dialog also acknowledged Atmel's recent announcement of its receipt of an unsolicited proposal to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Atmel common stock. Atmel's board of directors has determined to engage in discussions with the potential acquirer, consistent with its rights under the Dialog merger agreement. Atmel's board of directors has not determined whether the proposal constitutes a "Company Superior Proposal" under the terms of the Dialog merger agreement, and the Dialog merger agreement remains in full effect and Atmel's board of directors continues to recommend the Dialog transaction to its stockholders.

5:50 am Trina Solar receives preliminary non-binding proposal to be acquired by CEO and Shanghai Xingsheng Equity Investment & Management for $11.60 per ADS (TSL) :

Co received a preliminary non-binding proposal letter from Jifan Gao (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company) and Shanghai Xingsheng Equity Investment & Management to acquire all of the outstanding shares of the Company not owned by the Buyer Group, including ordinary shares represented by ADSs, for $0.232 in cash per ordinary share, or $11.60 in cash per ADS

Represents a premium of approximately 21.5% above the closing price of the Company's ADSs on December 11The Board has formed a special committee consisting of two independent directors, Messrs. Sean Shao and Qian Zhao, to consider the proposal

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed modestly off session highs ahead of tomorrow's FOMC announcement, where it is widely expected to call for the first fed funds rate hike since 2006. The advance was led by the S&P 500 which added 21.47 points (+1.06%) to closed 2043.41. The Dow Jones Industrial Average grabbed gains of 156.41 points (+0.90%) to 17524.91. The Nasdaq Composite also closed higher, up 43.13 points (+0.87%) to 4995.36. Today's market data came in the form of Consumer Price Index, which was unchanged for November while core CPI increased 0.2%. Empire Manufacturing Survey for December improved to -4.7 from -10.7 in November. The NAHB Housing Market Index slipped to 61 from 62.

Technology (XLK 43.32, +0.19 +0.44%) names were higher on the session as tech names in general saw help from the broader market today. Component Symantec (SYMC 20.18, +0.64 +3.28%) finished the day near the top of the gainers list as the company was upgraded in the overnight session by Morgan Stanley to an Overweight rating. By comparison, all others sectors finished in the green today XLE +2.52%, XLF +2.34%, XLV +1.30%, IYZ +1.00%, XLU +0.79%, XLP +0.64%, XLB +0.55%, XLY +0.55%, XLI +0.02%.

Semi (SOX 666.47, +9.97 +1.52%) names saw increased buying today as TerraForm Global (GLBL 4.74, +0.01 +0.21%) issued an update regarding the company's acquisitions referred to in the Form S-1 on August 5, 2015. In addition, component SunEdison (SUNE 4.95, +0.56 +12.76%) saw increased buying as the company requested GLBL forfeit its right to purchase certain call right projects from the agreement between the two.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (727.29, +3.05 +0.42%) also closed higher, as broader market action took the sector to the green at the bell and never looked back. Notably in the sector, component Apple (AAPL 110.49, -1.99 -1.77%) showed weakness as the company retreated following supplier Dialog Semi.'s (DLGNF 37.15, flat) guidance. In contrast, shares of chip name Qualcomm (QCOM 48.02, +1.19 +2.54%) were strong today as the company raised guidance for the Q1 period.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Qualcomm (QCOM) decided current structure remains the best option for the company following comprehensive review. The company also raised Q1 EPS guidance and as a result, QCOM now expects to be at or modestly above the high end of the prior GAAP and Non-GAAP earnings per share guidance ranges for the fiscal first quarter of $0.80-0.90.

Alliance Data (ADS 267.99, -1.90 -0.70%) reported November card services performance data, showing average receivables +23% year-over-year to about $12.47 billion.

Accenture (ACN 106.70, +0.32 +0.30%) acquired Beacon Consulting Group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SAP (SAP 78.26, +0.78 +1.01%) announced that Wipro (WIT 12.01, +0.13 +1.09%) is extending its SAP footprint by deploying SAP's next-generation business suite, SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA, and other solutions from SAP.

IBM (IBM 137.79, +1.86 +1.37%) announced the opening of its global headquarters for Watson Internet of Things, launching a series of new offerings, capabilities and ecosystem partners designed to extend the power of cognitive computing to the billions of connected devices, sensors and systems that comprise the IoT.

Microchip Technology (MCHP 46.07, +1.46 +3.27%) announced that Audi will use its MOST150 technology to network the Audi virtual cockpit system, in the latest model year of its A4 Sedans.

TSYS (TSS 55.74, +0.95 +1.73%) signed a payments agreement with Atlanticus to support its loan origination platform, Fortiva. Financial terms of the long-term agreement were not disclosed.

F5 Networks (FFIV 99.74, +3.44 +3.57%) appointed Chairman John McAdam as President and Chief Executive Officer.

NVIDIA (NVDA 32.97, +0.40 +1.23%) confirmed ITC patent ruling - the company lost a patent case against Samsung (SSNLF 1100, flat) and Qualcomm (QCOM).

Elsewhere in the technology space:

ManTech (MANT 30.85, -0.21 -0.68%) received a prime contract to provide software engineering support to system fielding from US Army with the potential total value of $34 million.

M/A-COM Tech (MTSI 37.47, +0.33 +0.89%) acquired Aeroflex's (ARX) diode business for $38 million in cash.

CDK Global (CDK 46.45, -0.02 -0.04%) announced a plan to return $1 billion in capital to its shareholders by the end of 2017 and entered into $250 million accelerated share repurchase agreement.

TerraForm Global (GLBL) issued update, cautioned that certain of its pending acquisitions are expected to be delayed in their closing until 1Q16.

Boeing (BA 146.53, +3.48 +2.43%) added AT&T (T33.81, +0.21 +0.63%) CEO, Randall Stephenson, as a new director of the Board effective Feb. 2016.

Vishay Precision (VPG 11.76, +0.29 +2.53%) acquired Stress-Tek for about $20.0 million.

Palo Alto Networks (PANW 185.75, +2.06 +1.12%) announced an amended agreement with Flextronics (FLEX 11.04, +0.21 +1.94%). The new agreement replaced in its entirety the existing Flextronics Manufacturing Services Agreement.

FXCM (FXCM 6.76, -1.29 -16.02%) reported November monthly metrics, showing retail customer trading volume of -12% year-over-year to $298 billion.

Dialog Semi (DLGNF) lowered its Q4 revenues guidance to $390-400 million from $430-460 million.

In reaction to quarterly results:

FactSet (FDS 162.59, -6.57 -3.88%) reported Q1 GAAP EPS at the low end of the guidance range with revenues up 11.5% YoY to $270.5 million. The company also guided Q2 EPS and revenues in-line with expectations.

VeriFone (PAY 26.49, +0.04 +0.15%) reported Q4 EPS which beat expectations at $0.49 on revenues which were in-line at $514 million. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revenues worse than expected and FY16 EPS and revenues toward the low end of anticipations.

Applied DNA Sciences (APDN 3.93, +0.31 +8.56%) reported a GAAP loss per share of $0.02 and revenues of $3.98 million, both of which were better than expected.

Analyst actions:

TXN upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
WNS upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
SYMC was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
PAY was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
WSTC was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
ADI was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer

4:10 pm : The stock market enjoyed a broad-based rally on Tuesday, which lifted the S&P 500 (+1.1%) back above its 100-day moving average (2,030). The benchmark index extended this week's gain to 1.5% ahead of tomorrow's FOMC announcement, which is widely expected to call for the first fed funds rate hike since 2006.

Overnight, the early portion of the Asian session was highlighted by some caution among investors, but the overall sentiment began improving once the attention shifted to Europe. Accordingly, markets in France (+3.2%), Germany (+3.1%), and the UK (+2.5%) soared amid broad support.

Contributing to the upbeat sentiment was a rally in crude oil as the energy component climbed despite greenback strength that sent the Dollar Index (98.22, +0.62) higher by 0.6%. As for oil, WTI crude surged 2.7% to $37.32/bbl, taking the energy sector (+2.9%) along for the ride.

The growth-sensitive energy sector settled atop the leaderboard, but despite today's surge, the sector is still down 7.8% for the month. Similarly, the financial sector (+2.4%) was also at the forefront of today's advance after showing relative weakness as of late. The economically-sensitive group narrowed its December loss to 2.0% versus a 1.8% month-to-date decline for the S&P 500. Recent concerns about the high-yield bond space were masked by a 1.6% spike in iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate ETF (HYG 80.12, +1.29), which returned to its range from Friday.

Staying on the cyclical side, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.4%) settled behind the broader market as Apple (AAPL 110.49, -1.99) slid 1.8% to extend yesterday's retreat. However, the relative weakness in the top tech component was partially offset by gains among semiconductor names. The PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 1.5% with Qualcomm (QCOM 48.02, +1.19) surging 2.5% after the company boosted its guidance and announced plans to maintain its organizational structure.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (+0.1%) could not keep pace with the market after 3M (MMM 148.13, -9.50) lowered its guidance. The Dow component settled lower by 6.0% while another sector member-Deere (DE 77.24, -1.70)-slumped 2.2% after peer AGCO (AGCO 46.04, -3.38) cut its earnings and revenue outlook.

Today's rally in stocks was met with selling interest in the Treasury market. The 10-yr note settled near its session low, pushing the benchmark yield to 2.27% (+5 bps).

Investor participation was ahead of average as more than 940 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included CPI, Empire Manufacturing, and NAHB Housing Market Index:

The Consumer Price Index was unchanged in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) while core CPI increased 0.2% in November (consensus +0.2%)
On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 0.5%, representing the highest level since December 2014
On a year-over-year basis, core CPI is up 2.0%, representing the highest level since May 2014
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for December improved to -4.7 from -10.7 reported in November while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of -5.9
The NAHB Housing Market Index slipped to 61 from 62 while the consensus expected an improvement to 63

Tomorrow, weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while November Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1.15 million) and Housing Starts (consensus 1.135 million) will be reported at 8:30 ET. The November Industrial Production report (consensus 77.5%) will cross the wires at 9:15 ET and the latest policy decision from the Federal Open Market Committee will be released at 14:00 ET (consensus 0.5%).

Nasdaq Composite +5.5% YTD
S&P 500 -0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.0% YTD

DJ30 +156.41 NASDAQ +43.13 SP500 +21.47 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2160/1.85 bln/852 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2468/942.8 mln/663

3:30 pm :

The dollar saw broad strength all session, a reversal from the negative overnight trend-driven by in-line US economic data ahead of tomorrow's FOMC meeting.
The index traded up to its HoD going into the commodity closes- with notable pressure being put on gold and copper. The dollar is now +0.6% to 98.31
Crude lifted the flat-line going into the open of pit trading, and saw a set of modest rallies (in the early-am and mid-day) that pressed the January contract to gains for the session. Sentiment ahead of tonight's API data, tomorrow's EIA inventory report and headlines surrounding the end of a US oil export ban were prime drivers this session.
The January contract closed +2.7% to $37.32/barrel- near its HoD.
Natural gas trended moderately lower in early price action, but saw progressively heavier selling as the session wore on- closing at strong losses for the day.
Unchanged near-term forecasts calling for warm national weather trends consumed market sentiment, as Nat gas closed -3.7% to $1.82/MMBtu
Gold and copper were both driven to losses by strength in the dollar, while silver stood more robust, closing green for the session.
Gold finished -0.2% to $1061.50/oz, copper at -2.4% to $2.06/lb and silver +0.5% to $13.77/oz

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From Briefing.com: The broader market ended Thursday in a rapid sell-off. The S&P 500 closed with the worst losses today, shedding 4 points at the close to end down 31.18 points (-1.50%) to 2041.89. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 30 points as the bell rang to end down 253.25 points (-1.43%) to 17495.84. The Nasdaq Composite ended Thursday with the shallowest of losses, ending down 68.58 points (-1.35%) to 5002.55.

Market data today came in the form of weekly initial claims which declined by 11,000 to 271,000. Philadelphia Fed's Manufacturing Index slipped back into negative territory in December with a reading of -5.9 versus -1.9 in November. The current account deficit for the third quarter totaled $124.10 billion. The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.4% in November on top of an unrevised 0.6% increase in October.

Among other sectors, Technology (XLK 43.22, -0.69 -1.57%) ended the session at the lows of the day. Component Accenture (ACN103.26, -5.82 -5.34% ) traded lower today following the company's mixed Q1 results. ACN reported a top line beat and a bottom line miss for the period, and guided for Q2 revenues and FY16 EPS. Other sectors ended Thursday action XLU +0.21%, XLV -1.07%, XLP -1.29%, IYZ -1.31%, XLF -1.43%, XLY -1.65%, XLI -1.66%, XLB -2.00%, XLE -2.46% with only Utilities escaping with gains.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (724.96, -11.86 -1.61%) also closed at session lows as the broader market sold off into the close. Component Apple (AAPL 108.98, -2.36 -2.12%) today announced the appointment of Jeff Williams as COO. Other components in play today included HPQ -2.94%, TXN -2.65%, WDC -2.56%, STX -2.47%, ADI -2.45%, AVGO -2.36%, GLW -2.32%, NTAP -2.21%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Apple (AAPL) announced executive changes, including the naming of Jeff Williams as Chief Operating Officer.

The Oracle (ORCL 36.93, -1.98 -5.09%) Board of Directors announced it has unanimously elected Rene James to the company's Board of Directors. The election is effective as of December 16, 2015 and increases the size of the Board to 13 directors.

Microsoft (MSFT 55.70, -0.43 -0.77%) detailed plans to launch Windows 10 for public sector customers in China.

Harris (HRS 83.12, -0.44 -0.53%) received a three-year, $54 million ceiling, single-award IDIQ contract from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to provide electronic warfare technology and engineering services for the Advanced Decoy Architecture Project. Contract was awarded during 1Q16. Harris will provide ADAP payloads designed to lure missiles away from their intended targets with advanced electronic techniques and research engineering services

Fiserv (FISV 92.91, -0.73 -0.78%) announced that Utah Community Credit Union has extended its relationship with FISV by selecting the DNA account processing platform and several integrated solutions from the company to position the credit union for future growth.

FIS (FIS 59.91, -2.12 -3.42%) announced the collaboration with The Venture Center to launch the FinTech Accelerator.

Teradata (TDC 26.82, -0.75 -2.70%) announced that a large, diverse ecosystem of alliance partners have tested their solutions for compatibility and will support Teradata Database 15.10.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Trina Solar Limited (TSL 10.59, -0.44 -4.03%) announced the restructuring in its system business unit. The change is designed to reflect the company's strategy and ambitions to become a first-tier global player in the downstream business. The company's SBU will be split into two separate units: a China SBU and an international SBU.

Intelsat S.A. (I 3.79, flat) reported the appointment of its Chief Executive Officer and Board member, Stephen Spengler, as Acting Chief Financial Officer effective December 16, 2015, the effective date of resignation of Michael McDonnell, its former Chief Financial Officer.

IMS Health Holdings (IMS 25.51, -0.20 -0.78%) announced a $250 million share repurchase authorization.

AVG Tech (AVG 20.10, +0.14 +0.70%) amended its 1.6 million share repurchase program to cover obligations under its employee stock options incentive and restricted share units plans.

Elephant Talk (ETAK 0.28, +0.04 +19.15%) appointed Gary Brandt as Chief Restructuring Officer and Dr. Armin Hessler as Chief Operating Officer.

Tremor Video (TRMR 2.01, flat) announced the partnership with Moat that enables Tremor Video clients to optimize campaigns with MRC-accredited metrics powered by Moat.

Cinedigm Digital Cinema (CIDM 0.27, -0.02 -6.73%) received a letter from Nasdaq regarding the failure to regain compliance with the $1 minimum bid rule. The company intends to file a request for a hearing.

Hutchinson Tech. (HTCH 3.56, -0.12 -3.26%) disclosed it received request for further information from the FTC in connection with the review of the merger transactions.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Oracle (ORCL) reported Q2 EPS which beat expectations at $0.63 on revenues which were mostly in-line with expectations yet fell 6.4% year-over-year to $8.99 billion. The company also guided Q3 non-GAAP EPS in constant currency in the range of $0.63-0.66 with Q4 total revenues in the range of +1% to +3%.

Accenture (ACN) reported Q1 EPS which missed anticipations at $1.28 on revenues which beat and rose 1.4% year-over-year to $8.01 billion. The company also guided Q2 revenues in the range of $7.50-7.75 billion. ACN also reaffirmed FY16 EPS in the range of $5.09-5.24.

Jabil Circuit (JBL 23.64, -0.27 -1.13%) reported Q1 EPS which beat expectations at $0.85 on revenues which were mostly in-line with what was expected and rose 14.4% year-over-year to $5.21 billion. The company also guided Q2 EPS of $0.54-0.70 and Q2 revenues of $4.4-4.7 billion. Looking further ahead, JBL sees FY16 EPS of $2.65 with revenues of about $20 billion.

Analyst actions:

QCOM, ADTN, COMM were upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
AMX was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan,
MU, WB were upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
TER was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Evercore ISI,
CACI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at BB&T Capital Mkts;
RNG, BCE, RCI were downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
STWRY was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
TU was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
GLW was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
HOLI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

4:18 pm Marvell receives supplemental notice from NASDAQ for failure to file its Form 10-Q, requests that it submit an update to its compliance plan (MRVL) :

The co announced that, as a result of its previously announced delayed filing of its Form 10-Q for the third quarter of fiscal 2016, in accordance with the rules of The NASDAQ Stock Market, on December 14, 2015, it received a supplemental notice from NASDAQ that the Company does not comply with NASDAQ's listing rules for continued listing. In its supplemental notice, NASDAQ requested that the Company submit an update to its compliance plan previously filed with NASDAQ by January 13, 2016.

The Company intends to comply with this request and intends to take all necessary steps to achieve compliance with the NASDAQ continued listing requirements as soon as practicable

4:15 pm AT&T and IBM (IBM) announce an extension of their relationship, whereby AT&T will transition its managed application and managed hosting services unit to IBM (T) : Cos announced they are expanding their long-term strategic relationship to bring businesses a full suite of advanced networking, application and hosting services. Under the agreement, AT&T will transition its managed application and managed hosting services unit to IBM (IBM). IBM will then align these managed service capabilities with the IBM Cloud portfolio. IBM will also acquire equipment and access to floor space in AT&T data centers currently supporting the applications and managed hosting operations.

4:10 pm : The stock market stumbled on Thursday, erasing its entire post-Fed advance. The S&P 500 lost 1.5%, falling below its 50- and 200-day moving averages (2,062), while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.4%) settled just a step ahead.

Equity indices held slim gains at the open after the overnight session saw a broad rally in Japan (+1.6%), France (+1.1%), and Germany (+2.6%); however, that bullish sentiment faded in a flash, pulling stocks lower through the first two hours of the session. The key indices ranged near their morning lows into the late afternoon, hitting new lows into the close.

The Thursday retreat was not a huge surprise considering a higher fed funds rate will translate into increased borrowing costs. Furthermore, the resulting dollar strength is expected to be a negative for U.S.-based companies that conduct a large portion of their activities overseas.

Fittingly, the greenback was on the rise today, climbing 0.7% against the euro (1.0808) while the yen (122.50) resisted some of the pressure, but still slid 0.4% against the dollar. As a result, the Dollar Index (99.23, +0.65) gained 0.7%, returning into the neighborhood of this year's high (100.51).

Today's dollar strength did no favors to crude oil as the energy component fell 1.7% to $34.95/bbl. The settlement price masked the fact that oil was down more than 2.8%, marking a session low ($34.64/bbl) just above its worst level from Monday ($34.53/bbl). Accordingly, the energy sector (-2.5%) paced today's retreat.

However, energy was not the only weak spot as every other cyclical sector settled behind the broader market. The top-weighted technology space (-1.6%) had to contend with relative weakness in Apple (AAPL 108.98, -2.36) as the largest stock by market cap fell 2.1% and returned into the neighborhood of yesterday's session low. Meanwhile, another large tech component-Oracle (ORCL 36.93, -1.98)-surrendered 5.1% after the company's sluggish revenue growth overshadowed a bottom-line beat.

Staying on the earnings front, FedEx (FDX 151.84, +3.01) spiked 2.0% after reporting better than expected earnings and reaffirming its guidance. It is worth noting that the company voiced some concern about the domestic economy, lowering its 2015 GDP growth forecast to 2.4% from 2.5%. FedEx represented a bright spot in the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-2.0%), but heavy losses in other index components caused the bellwether complex to widen its December loss to 7.0%.

Things looked a bit better on the countercyclical side where consumer staples (-1.3%), telecom services (-1.0%), and health care (-1.1%) registered slimmer losses than the broader market while the utilities sector (+0.1%) outperformed thanks to lower yields.

Interestingly, Treasuries spent the day in the green, hitting their highs just ahead of the close. The 10-yr note ended near its best level of the session, sending the benchmark yield lower by six basis points to 2.24%. Investors will keep a close watch on the bond market going forward, considering prolonged strength in Treasuries would be indicative of bond traders doubting the Fed's ability to continue raising rates.

Today's participation was above average as more than 920 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Philadelphia Fed Survey, Current Account balance, and Leading Indicators:

Weekly Initial claims declined by 11,000 to 271,000 (Briefing.com consensus 276,000), remaining bounded in the 250,000 to 300,000 range where they have been since July 2014
Continuing claims for the week ending December 5 decreased by 7,000 to 2.238 million (Briefing.com consensus 2.211 million)
The Philadelphia Fed's Manufacturing Index slipped back into negative territory in December with a reading of -5.9 (Briefing.com consensus 2.0) versus 1.9 in November. A number below zero denotes contraction
This was the third negative reading in the diffusion index for current activity in the last four months, reflecting weaker manufacturing conditions in the region
The diffusion index for future general activity is still positive, yet it showed a huge drop from 43.4 in November to 23.0 in December, representing the lowest reading since November 2012
The current account deficit for the third quarter totaled $124.10 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $114.20 billion
The second quarter deficit was revised to $111.10 billion from $109.70 billion
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 0.4% in November on top of an unrevised 0.6% increase in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%)
The difference between the expected number and the actual number can be traced back directly to the contribution from building permits, considering they were much stronger than expected in November, running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.289 million versus the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 1.150 million

Investors will not receive any economic data tomorrow.

Nasdaq Composite +5.6% YTD
S&P 500 -0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.4% YTD

DJ30 -253.25 NASDAQ -68.58 SP500 -31.18 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 978/1.73 bln/1942 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1047/932.1 mln/2006

3:35 pm :

The dollar traded at gains all session following yesterday's FOMC rate hike, extending overnight gains in late afternoon trade and putting pressure on the metals complex.
Notably, the morning release of US unemployment data (lower initial claims than expected at 271K vs. 276K est, and relatively weak continuing claims) gave peripheral support to the index's direction, and the dollar is now +0.9% to 99.29
Crude traded modestly negative early this session (on momentum from a larger than expected EIA build yesterday), but saw more focused selling pressure as the day progressed. February WTI closed just above its LoD at -1.3% to $36.29/barrel.
Precious metals sold-off heavily on the dollar's strength, seeing no significant relief from open to close. Gold closed -2.5% to $1049.50/oz and silver finished -3.8% to $13.70/oz
Natural gas closed at strong losses of -1.7% to $1.76/MMBtu, following a smaller than expected build in inventories (at 34 bcf vs. 42 bcf est. via the EIA).
Copper closed at -1.9% to $2.04/lb

10:02 am Apple announces executive changes, names Jeff Williams as Chief Operating Officer (AAPL) : Williams joined Apple in 1998 as head of worldwide procurement and since 2010 has overseen Apple's entire supply chain, service and support, and the social responsibility initiatives which protect more than one million workers worldwide. In addition, the co announced that Johny Srouji is joining Apple's executive team as senior vice president for Hardware Technologies. Phil Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, will expand his role to include leadership of the revolutionary App Store across all Apple platforms. Apple also announced that Tor Myhren will join Apple in the first calendar quarter of 2016 as vice president of Marketing Communications

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From Briefing.com: The broader market ended Friday in a sell-off, much like yesterday. Action took all three major US indices to lows of the day as the bell rang, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding 367.39 points (-2.10%) to close 17128.45. The S&P 500 closed down 36.37 points (-1.78%) to 2005.52. The Nasdaq Composite ended the week down 79.47 points (-1.59%) to 4923.08. For the year, the Nasdaq remains positive at about +3.9% -- the S&P 500 extended yearly losses this week, now down about -2.6% YTD -- the Dow is down even further this year, losing -3.9% so far.

Also closing in the red today, Technology (XLK 42.10, -0.90 -2.10%) sank to session lows as the bell rang. Component IBM (IBM 134.91, -1.84 -1.35%) reported the expansion and extension of relationships with two existing clients, but shares ultimately finished in the red. Other sectors closed today XLF -2.67%, XLP -1.77%, XLE -1.73%, XLY -1.57%, XLI -1.52%, XLV -1.45%, XLB -1.27%, XLU -1.24%, IYZ -1.21%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (710.20, -14.76 -2.04%) closed out the week with losses in back-to-back sessions. Component Apple (AAPL 106.03, -2.95 -2.71%) today confirmed a partnership with China UnionPay to bring Apple Pay to China. Shares ultimately finished in the red as broader market pressure weighed on action. Other components which closed the session in the red included CTXS -3.80%, HPQ -3.28%, ADBE -3.07%, MA -3.06%, V -3.01%, EA -3.01%, INTC -2.95%, MSFT -2.82%, TXN -2.81%, INTU -2.35%, FIS -2.27%, EBAY -2.10%, FB -2.05%.
Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM) and AT&T (T 33.63, -0.40 -1.18%) announced an extension of their relationship, whereby AT&T will transition its managed application and managed hosting services unit to IBM.

IBM (IBM) and Box (BOX 14.00, +0.04 +0.29%) expanded their strategic partnership.

Rambus (RMBS 11.61, -0.07 -0.60%) to collaborate with Microsoft researchers in the exploration of future memory requirements for quantum computing.

Apple (AAPL) confirmed partnership with China UnionPay to bring Apple Pay to China.

Microsoft (MSFT 54.13, -1.57 -2.82%) acquired data analytics firm Metanautix. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Qihoo 360 Tech. (QIHU 73.00, +1.19 +1.66%) entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by a consortium of investors in an all-cash transaction valued at about $9.3 billion, or $77.00 per share.

GSI Group (GSIG 13.36, -0.52 -3.75%) acquired RFID solutions firm SkyeTek for $2.6 million in cash.

Synopsys (SNPS 44.77, -0.45 -1.00%) acquired privately held software firm Goanna Software. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
AT&T (T) increased quarterly dividend to $0.48 from $0.47 per share.

Synchronoss Tech (SNCR 35.89, -0.25 -0.69%) entered into a new contract with AT&T (T), adding two more years to the remaining one year on its existing contract.

CoreLogic (CLGX 34.26, -1.65 -4.59%) to acquire FNC Inc for $475 million. The deal is expected to be accretive to 2016 financial results.

Criteo (CRTO 39.00, +1.06 +2.79%) announced Founder, Chairman and CEO JB Rudelle to become Executive Chairman.

Power Integrations (POWI 47.36, -0.47 -0.98%) was awarded $139.8 million in damages from Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS 20.01, -0.04 -0.20%).

Fairchild Semi (FCS) commented on the damages award granted to Power Integrations (POWI). The company expects the damages to be overturned or significantly reduced in further proceedings and appeals.

Marvell (MRVL 8.56, +0.09 +1.12%) received supplemental notice from NASDAQ for failure to file its Form 10-Q. In its supplemental notice, NASDAQ requested that MRVL submit an update to its compliance plan previously filed with NASDAQ by January 13, 2016.

TheStreet.com (TST 1.64, +0.04 +2.50%) appointed Larry Kramer as non-Executive Chairman of the Board effective immediately.

Vantiv (VNTV 46.67, -1.87 -3.85%) partnered with Fragmob. The partnership provides mutual corporate clients of the two companies with payment processing features offering increased security and embedded into the Fragmob Direct Selling mobile app.

DHI Group (DHX 8.97, +0.06 +0.67%) authorized a new $50 million stock repurchase program.

PC Connection (PCCC 22.42, -0.19 -0.84%) declared a special cash dividend of $0.40 per share.

In reaction to quarterly results:

BlackBerry (BBRY 8.61, +0.81 +10.38%) reported Q3 loss per share which was better than expected at ($0.03) on revenues which fell 30.9% year-over-year to $548 and beat expectations. The company also guided Q4 revenues better than expected as it sees sequential Q4 revenue growth (from $548 million). The company also reaffirmed positive free cash flow guidance.

Red Hat (RHT 81.40, +2.54 +3.22%) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at $0.48 on revenues which rose 14.8% year-over-year to $523.6 million. The company reported Subscription revenue from Infrastructure-related offerings for the quarter was $373 million, an increase of 12% in U.S. dollars year-over-year and 18% measured in constant currency. RHT also issued guidance for Q4, as they see EPS of $0.47 per share and revenues of $535-539 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results next week: PAYX, CAMP, MU

Analyst actions:

MSFT was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman,
CRM was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush;
TXN was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Bernstein,
TSU was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
AIXG was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley

Weekly Recap - Week ending 18-Dec-15Before the market opened yesterday, recent IPO ReWalk (RWLK) announced that the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs issued a national coverage policy for its robotics exoskeleton system. Specifically, the policy put forth by the VA provides veterans with spinal cord injury access to referral and evaluations at every RWLK training center. Veterans who meet the physical criteria will then be referred for training on use of the device and successful candidates will be eligible to obtain a ReWalk personal system. The news sent the stock roaring higher by 83% yesterday, and with shares up another 27% today, the two-day gain total now stands at a staggering 138%.


Israel-based RWLK is the developer of the aforementioned exoskeleton system that allows wheel-chair bound individuals with mobility impairments the ability to stand and walk again. The exoskeleton, called ReWalk, uses its tilt-sensor technology and on-board computer and motion sensors to drive motorized legs that power movement.

Current ReWalk designs are intended for people with paraplegia, a spinal cord injury resulting in complete or incomplete paralysis of the legs, who have the use of their upper bodies and arms. RWLK currently offers two products: ReWalk Personal and ReWalk Rehabilitation. ReWalk Personal is designed for everyday use by individuals at home and in their communities, and is custom-fit for each user. ReWalk Rehabilitation is designed for the clinical rehabilitation environment where it provides valuable exercise and therapy. It also enables individuals to evaluate their capacity for using ReWalk Personal in the future.

The company began marketing ReWalk Personal in Europe with CE mark clearance at the end of 2012 and received FDA clearance to market it in the United States in June 2014. ReWalk is the first exoskeleton cleared by the FDA for personal use. In the future, it will need to obtain approval from the applicable regulatory agency of any additional jurisdiction in which it seeks to market ReWalk.

RWLK's strategy has been to generate revenue from a combination of self-payors and third party payors. But, with a system costing upwards of $70,000, RWLK's commercial success has always hinged on its ability to find commercial coverage to cover some or most of the costs. Since its September 12, 2014 IPO, this has been a major focus of investors and has acted as a headwind to the stock as the company struggled to make much progress here. But, of late, the company has been making some strides, and yesterday's announcement was the company's most significant win yet.

In its Q3 report, RWLK commented that it increased commercial reimbursement submissions by 68% from Q2 to 99 pending insurance claims. Of these 99 claims, it had received ten favorable reimbursement decisions as of the end of Q3. That was a record quarterly result for the company, and it may indicate that the ReWalk system is gaining more acceptance in the commercial insurance market. Further, the VA's decision to cover the costs of new systems may encourage more insurance providers in the private sector to consider coverage of these systems.

Due to the initial difficulties RWLK has had in gaining meaningful traction from third party payors, its financial results have been quite weak. In Q3 (reported on November 5), it reported a loss per share of ($0.53), which was $0.04 worse than expected, as revenue fell 20% year/year to $1.2 million. During the quarter, it placed 23 ReWalk systems during the third quarter of 2015 compared to 27 systems during the prior year quarter. But, again, as news circulates that the VA will be covering ReWalks, demand should begin to increase materially.

In short, yesterday's news looks like a potential game-changer for RWLK. Even with this two-day surge, the company still only has a valuation of about $180 million. At the moment, analysts are forecasting revenue of only $13 million next year, but those estimates are bound to go up, perhaps substantially. And lastly, RWLK has a solid balance sheet with no debt and cash and equivalents of $31.2 million.

7:07 am BlackBerry beats by $0.12, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs above consensus; reaffirms positive FCF (BBRY) :

Reports Q3 (Nov) adj. loss of $0.03 per share, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.15); revenues fell 30.9% year/year to $548 mln vs the $487.98 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees sequential Q4 rev growth (from $548 mln) vs. $529.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
The company continues to anticipate positive free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA.
"To sustain our current direction, we are stepping up investments to drive continued software growth and the additional PRIV launches."

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From Briefing.com: The broader market began the abbreviated week spiking into the close as all three major US indices turned modest gains into near highs of the day. The Nasdaq Composite led the way, up 45.84 points (+0.93%) to 4968.92. The S&P 500 closed higher 15.60 points (+0.78%) to 2021.15, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 123.07 points (+0.72%) to 17251.62.

Technology (XLK 42.60, +0.50 +1.19%) ended Monday at the highs of the day, as broader market buying took the sector into positive territory and never dipped into the red. Component Intel (INTC 34.24, +0.38 +1.11%) closed the session slightly higher as the company received a written notice from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce that it has approved the acquisition of Altera (ALTR 53.92, +1.07 +2.02%). Other sectors closed the session XLP +1.13%, XLF +0.99%, IYZ +0.92%, XLV +0.91%, XLB +0.90%, XLI +0.77%, XLY +0.50%, XLE +0.10%, XLU -0.07% with only Utilities closing below flat lines.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (717.73, +7.50 +1.06%) regained some of the late-week losses from last week today, albeit still lower than Friday's open mark. Component Avago Tech (AVGO 145.80, +5.60 +3.99%) closed Monday's action near session highs as shares were upgraded this morning to a Top Pick rating from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts. Other components which finished notably better than the broader market today included FSLR +3.67%, PYPL +3.14%, MU +2.88%, QCOM +2.80%, NVDA +2.35%, CSC +2.35%, HRS +1.98%, STX +1.76%, XLNX +1.68%, MCHP +1.65%, TXN +1.60%, CTSH +1.50%, XRX +1.48%, CSCO +1.39%.
Other notable news items among sector components:

Ericsson (ERIC 9.51, +0.38 +4.16%) and Apple (AAPL 107.33, +1.30 +1.23%) have agreed on a global patent license agreement between the two companies. The agreement includes a cross license that covers patents relating to both companies' standard-essential patents, and grants certain other patent rights. In addition, the agreement includes releases that resolve all pending patent-infringement litigation between the companies.

Microsoft (MSFT 54.83, +0.70 +1.29%) acquired technology from mobile app maker Talko, and subsequently, employees from Talko will join the Skype team. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Oracle (ORCL 36.42, +0.07 +0.19%) agreed to settle FTC charges which asserted that it deceived consumers about Java software updates.

Salesforce (CRM 77.29, +0.26 +0.34%) signed a 12-year wind energy agreement for 40 megawatts of a new West Virginia wind farm through a virtual power purchase agreement. The electricity generated under the agreement is expected to be 125,000 megawatt hours annually. The wind farm is expected to be operational by December 2016.

Yahoo! (YHOO 32.97, +0.01 +0.05%) and NBC Sports Group announced a renewal of their digital sports partnership.

Intel (INTC) received written notice from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce that it has approved the proposed acquisition of Altera (ALTR).

Harris (HRS 84.35, +1.64 +1.98%) received $66 million in orders to provide a Middle East nation with Falcon III wideband tactical radios and accessories

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Cimpress (CMPR 81.66, -0.24 -0.29%) to acquire WIRmachenDRUCK GmbH, a German web-to-print company, for about 140 million, plus potential earnouts.

CSRA (CSRA 27.36, -0.10 -0.36%) won a $115 million contract to develop software for the US Courts Case Management Office.

Netsol (NTWK 8.36, +1.96 +30.62%) signed contract currently valued at more than $100 million.

HollySys (HOLI 22.21, +1.02 +4.81%) filed about 776.8K ordinary share shelf offering by a selling stockholder.

Siliconware Precision (SPIL 7.81, +0.29 +3.86%) issued a preliminary response to Advanced Semi's (ASX 5.54, +0.11 +2.03%) proposal letter.

Analyst actions:

AVGO was upgraded to Top Pick from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
FARO was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
CIEN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies

4:10 pm : The stock market began the trading week a higher note thanks to a final-hour rally that lifted the market back to its opening high. The S&P 500 added 0.8% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) outperformed slightly.

Overnight, Asian markets had a mixed showing with China's Shanghai Composite (+1.8%) outpacing other regional indices thanks to stimulus hopes. Meanwhile, European indices flashed solid intraday gains, but they slid into the close with Spain's IBEX diving 3.6% due to political uncertainty stemming from general elections that took place over the weekend. Mariano Rajoy's Partido Popular came out on top, receiving 123 votes, but forming a lasting coalition government may be a challenge considering the runner-up Socialist party has ruled out forming a joint government with PP. Spain's 10-yr note sold off in response, sending its yield higher by nine basis points to 1.79%.

Once the attention shifted to the U.S., equity indices spiked out of the gate, hitting their session highs during the opening hour of the trading day. All ten sectors took part in the rally, but the market ran into some resistance that coincided with renewed selling in crude oil, which ended the day lower by 1.3% at $35.79/bbl. Furthermore, the intraday selling in oil may have rekindled concerns about the high-yield debt space. To that point, the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate ETF (HYG 79.28, -0.25) opened in the green, but slumped to lows, dragging the broader market with it.

The late morning pullback returned the market into the bottom half of its trading range where action was confined until the final hour rally placed the S&P 500 just below its early high. The energy sector (+0.1%) ended the day just above its flat line while the remaining cyclical groups posted stronger gains.

The top-weighted technology sector (+1.1%) spent the day among the leaders thanks to a strong showing from high-beta microchip names. Avago Technologies (AVGO 145.80, +5.60) spiked 4.0% after RBC Capital Markets upgraded the stock while the broader PHLX Semiconductor Index rallied 1.9%.

Similar to technology, industrials (+0.8%) and financials (+0.9%) had a strong showing while the consumer discretionary sector (+0.4%) underperformed. Dow component Disney (DIS 106.59, -1.13) lost 1.1% despite a strong opening weekend for the latest installment of the Star Wars franchise while Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 522.01, -19.07) surrendered 3.5%, dropping to a new low for the year amid reports the Center for Disease Control is investigating new E. coli cases at company restaurants.

Treasuries showed losses overnight, but climbed into the green during morning action. The 10-yr note eked out a modest gain, pressuring its yield to 2.20% (-1 bp).

Today's participation was in line with recent averages as roughly 900 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic data today, but tomorrow, the third estimate of Q3 GDP will be released at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 2.0%) while October FHFA Housing Price Index and November Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.30 million) will be reported at 9:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +4.9% YTD
S&P 500 -1.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.1% YTD

DJ30 +123.07 NASDAQ +45.84 SP500 +15.60 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1835/1.51 bln/1108 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2009/898.7 mln/1040

3:15 pm :

The dollar was pressed to session lows in mid-day trade, breaking down to near the 98.7 level, as both strength in the Euro and Yen won out against the struggling dollar.
Underwhelming BOJ stimulus measures, and a firming Euro (as the market re-assessed the outcome of Spanish elections) were primary drivers of index weakness.
The dollar closed at modest losses into the commodity closes, and is now -0.4% to 98.39
WTI traded in in a moderate, negative range for most of the session, as a lack of fresh catalysts failed to give price momentum a solid direction.
Media coverage was bearish for most of the day, with articles focusing on potentially depressed heating oil demand, and potential increases in both US/Russian production.
The February contract finished at the mid-point of its daily range (between $36.10 - $35.35) at -1.3% to $35.79/barrel
Natural gas rallied sharply mid-morning, on a more bullish revision to near-term national weather forecasts. The close of +7.9% to $1.91/MMBtu established one of the largest gains of the year for the depressed commodity.
Metals closed broadly higher- aided by a fledgling dollar and potentially bullish production cuts (for copper) out of China. Gold closed +1.5% to $1080.70/oz, silver +1.5% to $14.30/oz and copper at +1.4% to $2.14/lb


9:49 am Aixtron cautious of 'false news release', reaffirms FY15, FY16 guidance (AIXG) : The co announced that the news circulated on purpose by unidentified sources today is false. AIXTRON says it has not published any news today regarding an upcoming short-term change of guidance among others. The 2015 and 2016 guidance published with the ad-hoc announcement of December 9, 2015 remain in place. For investigation of this incident, the company is in contact with the Federal Financial Supervisory Authorit

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From Briefing.com: On the shortened Holiday session, the broader markets closed in a heap of selling. When the bell rang, the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted the worst losses, shedding 50.44 points (-0.29%) to 17550.18. The S&P 500 also ended down, lower by 3.30 points (-0.16%) to 2060.99. The Nasdaq Composite was the lone gainer, adding 2.56 points (+0.05%) today to close 5048.49. Market data today was limited to Weekly Initial Claims which posted a reading of 267,000 versus last weeks revised 272,000 (from 271,000). Weekly Continuing Claims came in at 2.19 million compared to last week's revised 2.24 million.

On Thursday, Technology (XLK 43.25, -0.02 -0.05%) was choppy, albeit closing the session with modest losses. Names which gained on the session included WIN +1.98%, HRS +1.87%, WDC +1.49%, MU +1.26%, FSLR +1.13%, QCOM +1.04% and names which lost FLIR -1.07%, YHOO -0.99%, CA -0.72%, CTL -0.58%, RHT -0.56%, AAPL -0.53%. Other sectors ended the session XLV +0.10%, XLI -0.04%, XLU -0.07%, XLF -0.08%, XLP -0.10%, XLB -0.23%, XLY -0.27%, IYZ -0.45%, XLE -0.90%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (727.49, -0.95 -0.13%) was red-to-green then just as quickly green-to-red, but ultimately finished lower.

News items among sector components:

SunEdison (SUNE 5.92, +0.53 +9.83%) provided a December business update in that it stated it has successfully renegotiated the Vivint Solar (VSLR 9.82, +0.03 +0.31%) acquisition. The company also noted key assumptions which include EBITDA of $1.186 billion.

Salesforce.com (CRM 77.83, -0.21 -0.27%) disclosed last night it will acquire SteelBrick, to become wholly-owned subsidiary.

InterActiveCorp (IACI 61.964, +0.32 +0.52%) disclosed as of Dec. 21, 2015, Ms. Sonali De Rycker informed the company that she was resigning from the Board of Directors effective as of Dec. 31, 2015. Ms. De Rycker will continue to serve on the BoDs of the company's subsidiary, Match Group (MTCH 14.09, +0.06 +0.43%).

SunEdison (SUNE) disclosed it is in discussions relating to a new second lien credit facility up to $650 million.

Open Text (OTEX 48.98, -0.03 -0.06%) appointed Stephen Murphy as President. The company also announced that CEO Mark Barrenechea will assume the role of Chief Technology Officer.

Cognizant Tech's (CTSH 60.73, +0.33 +0.55%) Board disclosed the extension of the previous stock repurchase program from December 31, 2015 to December 31, 2017.

Moneygram (MGI 6.86, -0.01 -0.15%) disclosed it is speaking with Wal-Mart (WMT 60.83, -0.23 -0.38%) regarding about provision to keep offering MGI products in WMT stores.

ComScore (SCOR 41.20, +0.25 +0.61%) and Rentrak (RENT 46.86, +0.73 +1.58%) announced the merger closing is now expected by the end of January.

DST Systems' (DST 115.10, -0.06 -0.05%) Alps subsidiary announced the acquisition of Kaufman Rossin Fund Services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Richardson Elec (RELL 5.70, -0.02 -0.35%) announced Wendy Diddell has been promoted to EVP and COO.

1:15 pm : The stock market completed an abbreviated trading week on a flat note as the sleepy Thursday session produced a slightly lower finish for the S&P 500 (-0.2%) while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) settled just above its flat line. For the week, the S&P 500 gained 2.8% and the Nasdaq advanced 2.6%.

The Thursday half-session had the makings of a range-bound affair from the start, considering index futures spent the night inside narrow ranges. The overnight action saw mixed trade in Asia while yen strength pressured the dollar/yen pair to 120.30, where the pair traded through the New York session. Similarly, the few European markets that were open ended the day on a mixed note and there was no news on the Spanish political front.

Once the opening bell rang, the energy sector (-0.9%) slumped to the bottom of the leaderboard and remained there into the close. The sector halved its loss intraday, but returned to its low by the end of the day while crude oil climbed 1.6% to $38.08/bbl. Despite today's decline, the energy sector gained 4.8% for the week and crude oil advanced nearly 10.0%.

Outside of energy, the remaining sectors spent the bulk of the session near their flat lines, climbing into the green during the final hour; however, a late wave of selling sent the entire market to its opening low. The health care sector (+0.1%) settled in the lead thanks to strength in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 339.79, +1.12) climbed 0.3%, which kept the Nasdaq ahead of the S&P 500 throughout the day.

To be fair, the Nasdaq also drew strength from chipmakers, evidenced by a 0.4% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Meanwhile, the broader technology sector (-0.1%) was held back by large cap names like Apple (AAPL 108.03, -0.58), Alphabet (GOOGL 765.84, -2.67), and Microsoft (MSFT 55.67, -0.15).

Above all, today's session saw very limited participation with fewer than 400 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Treasuries are on track to register slim gains with the bond market set to close in an hour. The 10-yr yield is lower by a basis point at 2.25%.

The weekly initial claims report was slightly better than expected, with claims for the week ending December 19 dropping by 5,000 to 267,000 (Briefing.com consensus 271,000). However, it was no different from what has been seen in these weekly reports for some time. Initial claims have been bounded between 250,000 and 300,000 since July 2014. The four-week moving average for initial claims increased by 1,750 to 272,500.

Continuing claims for the week ending December 12 decreased by 47,000 to 2.195 million (Briefing.com consensus 2.238 mln). That left the four week moving average at 2.211 million, up 10,000 from the prior week.

Bond and equity markets will be closed tomorrow and Monday's session will be free of economic data.

Merry Christmas from everyone at Briefing.com!

Nasdaq Composite +6.6% YTD
S&P 500 +0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.3% YTD

Week in Review: Stocks Trot Higher on Light Volume

The stock market began the abbreviated trading week on a higher note thanks to a final-hour rally that lifted the market back to its opening high. The S&P 500 added 0.8% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) outperformed slightly. Overnight, Asian markets had a mixed showing with China's Shanghai Composite (+1.8%) outpacing other regional indices thanks to stimulus hopes. Meanwhile, European indices flashed solid intraday gains, but they slid into the close with Spain's IBEX diving 3.6% due to political uncertainty stemming from general elections that took place over the weekend. Mariano Rajoy's Partido Popular came out on top, receiving 123 votes, but forming a lasting coalition government will be a challenge considering the runner-up Socialist party has ruled out forming a joint government with PP. Spain's 10-yr note sold off in response, sending its yield higher by nine basis points to 1.79%. Once the attention shifted to the U.S., equity indices spiked out of the gate, hitting their session highs during the opening hour of the trading day. All ten sectors took part in the rally, but the market ran into some resistance that coincided with renewed selling in crude oil, which ended the day lower by 1.3% at $35.79/bbl.

The stock market registered its second consecutive advance on Tuesday with the S&P 500 climbing 0.9%. The benchmark index returned above its 100-day moving average (2,026) while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) underperformed throughout the day. Overall, the Tuesday affair was very quiet, which was evidenced by light trading volume as fewer than 850 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor. Equity indices ranged near their flat lines through the first two hours of the session, climbing to new highs during the afternoon. All ten sectors ended the day with gains, paced by the energy sector (+1.2%), which settled among the leaders. To little surprise, the rally in the energy sector was underpinned by crude oil as the commodity advanced 1.0% to $36.14/bbl. Similarly, another commodity-linked sector-materials (+1.2%)-spent the day near the top of the leaderboard while most other cyclical groups posted slimmer gains.

The major averages enjoyed a broad-based rally on Wednesday and the steady climb was undoubtedly facilitated by light trading volume ahead of Thursday's abbreviated Christmas Eve session. The S&P 500 spiked 1.2%, ending right above its 50-day (2,063) moving average, and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) followed not far behind. Equity indices registered roughly half of their gains right at the open, rallying behind the energy sector (+4.4%), which held a solid lead throughout the day thanks to a rally in crude oil. The energy component surged 3.8% to $37.50/bbl, catching a second wind from bullish inventory data; however, it wasn't just energy, as every other sector ended the day comfortably in the green.DJ30 -50.44 NASDAQ +2.56 SP500 -3.30 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1527/657.8 mln/1192 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1649/382.6 mln/1343


6:01 am Anadigics and GaAs Labs extend the offering period for the purchase of ANAD shares from Dec. 23 to Jan. 8, 2016 (ANAD) :

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed today with gains of better than 1.0% on all three major US indices. The strong session was led by the Nasdaq Composite which added 66.95 points (+1.33%) to 5107.94. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was also strong today, higher by 192.71 points (+1.10%) to 17720.98. The S&P 500 rounded out the trio advancing 21.86 points (+1.06%) to 2078.36. Investors received market data today in the form of Consumer Confidence for December, which rose to 96.5 from 90.4 and the Case-Shiller 20-city Index which rose 5.5% in October on top of the previous month's 5.5% increase.

In the Technology (XLK 43.81, +0.59 +1.37%) sector, action quickly whipped to the upside and never looked back, finishing just under session highs. Component Apple (AAPL 108.74, +1.92 +1.80%) traded to near six-session highs as the company was the subject of a Digitimes article out overnight which had an unfavorable view on the company's Q4 iPhone shipments. Other sectors closed the session XLV +1.22%, XLY +1.16%, XLF +1.04%, XLI +0.96%, XLB +0.94%, XLP +0.87%, IYZ +0.85%, XLE +0.69%, XLU +0.55% led by Tech and Healthcare.

On a day of relatively weak volume, Semis (SOX 679.78, +8.03 +1.19%) outperformed the broader market. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 50.88, +1.30 +2.62%) traded higher as the company signed a 3G/4G Chinese patent license agreement with Haier and Beijing Tianyu Communication Equipment Company. Other components closed the session MXIM +2.51%, NVDA +1.63%, CAVM +1.58%, ADI +1.52%, INTC +1.46%.

Tuesday finished with the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (737.69, +9.76 +1.34%) just off session highs, the sub-sector outperformed the broader S&P index. Tech bellwether Alphabet (GOOGL 793.96, +11.72 +1.50%) traded to all-time highs today during the session as the stock barely failed to eclipse the $800-level. Also on the move today, e-commerce retailer Amazon (AMZN 693.97, +18.77 +2.78%) made all-time highs today, and finished just off session highs as the stock gains almost 3% on the day.Other components which finished higher today included HPQ +1.98%, CTXS +1.95%, CSCO +1.68%, CRM +1.59%, IBM +1.58%, GLW +1.54%, CTSH +1.50%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Apple (AAPL) a Digitimes report was out overnight detailing Q4 iPhone shipments from production lines are said to be 5-10% lower than originally expected.

Qualcomm (QCOM) signed a 3G/4G Chinese patent license agreement with Haier and Beijing Tianyu Communication Equipment Co.

Andersen Group, Inc. (ANDR 45.22, -0.59 -1.29%) disclosed a settlement agreement with HP (HPQ 11.86, +0.23 +1.98%).

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Rambus (RMBS 11.97, +0.09 +0.76%) renewed a patent license agreement with Toshiba (TOBSF 1.94, +0.05 +2.65%) for three years.

Qihoo 360 Tech. (QIHU 72.83, +0.10 +0.13%) appointed Jie Chen as COO effective immediately.

New Relic (NEWR 36.50, -0.50 -1.35%) disclosed it entered into a separation agreement with COO Chris Cook.

GigaMedia (GIGM 3.25, +0.25 +8.33%) confirmed CEO Collin Hwang has purchased a total of 173,523 shares in the past two weeks.

NQ Mobile (NQ 3.71, +0.05 +1.23%) updated on its NationSky divestment. The company said it has now received 100% of the overall purchase price in cash.

Wi-LAN (WILN 1.28, +0.03 +2.41%) entered into a multi-year license agreement with Kyocera (KYO 47.08, +0.59 +1.27%). The agreement resolved litigation pending in the Eastern District of Texas.

4:15 pm : The stock market enjoyed a broad-based rally on Tuesday, which lifted the S&P 500 (+1.1%) back into positive territory for the year (+1.0%). The benchmark index was outperformed by the Nasdaq (+1.3%) for the bulk of the day, as technology would lead the advance. Once again it was a very quiet day with fewer than 573 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Equity indices spiked out of the gate following a jump in oil prices heading into the opening hour. This led to a large initial uptick in commodity-sensitive sectors like energy (+0.7%) and materials (+0.9%). Their rally was short-lived, however, as the struggling sectors couldn't hold the lead. On a related note, WTI crude was able to end its day near its high, climbing 2.8% to $37.86/bbl.

In sectors, technology (+1.3%), health care (+1.2%), consumer discretionary (+1.1%), and financials (+1.1%) lead the pack, while utilities (+0.5%), energy (+0.7%), and telecommunications (+0.7%) rounded out the leaderboard.

The highly-weighted technology sector advanced thanks in large part to a strong showing from large-cap components Apple (AAPL 108.74, +1.92), Alphabet (GOOGL 793.96, +11.72), and Facebook (FB 107.26, 1.33) as the three rallied from 1.3-1.8%. The other major contributor to technology's position atop the leaderboard was the high-beta chipmaker group, which outperformed the broader market with the PHLX Semiconductor Index ending the day higher by 1.2%.

In the health care space, biotechnology was one of the sector's best performers with iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 343.11, +5.89) advancing 1.8% on the day. Elsewhere, sector large-caps AbbVie (ABBV 59.45, +0.70) and Pfizer (PFE 32.83, +0.41) kept pace with the sector.

It was a relatively quiet day with economic data being limited to Consumer Confidence and Case-Shiller 20-City Index:

The Consumer Confidence report for December rose to 96.5 from 90.4 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 93.5
The December survey marked the first increase in consumer confidence since September thanks to an improvement in the Present Situation Index (115.3 from 110.9) and the Expectations Index (83.9 from 80.4)
The Case-Shiller 20-city Index rose 5.5% in October to follow the previous month's 5.5% increase while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 5.4%

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to last week's MBA Mortgage Index at 7:00 ET and the 10:00 ET release of the Pending Home Sales report for November (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%).

Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.7% YTD

DJ30 +192.71 NASDAQ +66.95 SP500 +21.86 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2028/1.271 bln/864 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2277/572.4 mln/793

3:35 pm :

In commodities, front-month Feb natural gas futures extended yesterday's notable gains on new weather outlooks
Energy futures just closed floor trading, with Feb nat gas ending +5% at $2.37/MMBtu
Feb WTI crude oil rallied as well, ending the day +3% at $37.89/barrel.
Note: API weekly storage data will be released after the close today at 4:30pm ET. Tomorrow morning at 10:30am ET, the weekly EIA storage oil data will be released
Copper posted a nice run as well with the front-month Mar contract closing +3% at $2.14/lb
Feb gold ended today's session unchanged at $1068.10/oz, while Mar silver rose three cents to $13.94/oz

12:01 pm Vivint Solar announced alliance to offer residents of Massachusetts the opportunity to become BlueWave community solar members (VSLR) : Vivint Solar and BlueWave will sell community solar memberships in Southeastern and Central Massachusetts where BlueWave is constructing two solar farms. These projects are located in Oxford and Fairhaven, Massachusetts, which will provide electricity savings to nearly 250 customers as early as March 2016. (SUNE)

10:15 am SolarCity slides under last week's low along the $50-mark (SCTY) : Failure to hold in this 49/50 vicinity will bring next key support in play down near its 20-day moving averages and the mid-December breakaway gap near 44/45.

7:30 am Qualcomm signs 3G/4G Chinese patent license agreements with Haier and Beijing Tianyu Communication Equipment Co (QCOM) : The agreements between Qualcomm and both Haier and Beijing Tianyu Communication Equipment Co are similar. Under the terms of the agreement, Qualcomm has granted the companies a royalty-bearing patent license to manufacture and sell 3G WCDMA and CDMA2000 (including EV-DO), and 4G LTE subscriber units for use in China. The royalties payable by the companies are consistent with the terms of the rectification plan submitted by Qualcomm to China's National Reform and Development Commission.

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed the session at lows of the day as selling took hold on a day with light volume. The Nasdaq Composite led losses, down about 42.09 points (-0.82%) to 5065.85. The S&P 500 was down 15.00 points (-0.72%) to 2063.36. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted the most tame losses today, shedding only 117.11 points (-0.66%) to 17603.87. Market data today was limited to the November Pending Home Sales report which showed a 0.9% decline in the month, following a revised increase of 0.4% from 0.2% in October.

In the Technology (XLK 43.44, -0.34 -0.84%) sector, trading closed at session lows as a sell-off into the close exacerbated losses which the sector was already experiencing. Other sectors closed XLE -1.35%, IYZ -1.32%, XLB -0.93%, XLI -0.84%, XLY -0.80%, XLF -0.70%, XLV -0.42%, XLP -0.35%, XLU -0.09% with not a single sector managing gains.

Solar (TAN 30.60, -0.13 -0.42%) names were in play today as component SunEdison (SUNE) announced both the acquisition of a 33% ownership in a 3336 megawatt DC portfolio from Dominion (D), and the elimination of all outstanding $336 million 3.75% Senior Notes due 2020. Other solar names in play today included SEDG +4.00%, SCTY +2.13%, TERP +1.64%, SOL -5.85%, YGE -4.62%, DQ -3.69%, JASO -2.40%.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (731.94, -5.75 -0.78%) also closed at session lows as we close in on the final day on trading for the year. Other components closed the session QRVO -2.51%, YHOO -1.97%, PYPL -1.62%, TXN -1.51%, ADI -1.33%, AAPL -1.31%, INTC -1.27%, MU -1.26% V -1.09%.

Notable news items among sector components:
India's CCI approved the acquisition of Broadcom (BRCM 58.22, -0.10 -0.17%) by Avago Tech (AVGO 147.37, -0.57 -0.39%).

BRCM later announced a tender offer for $1.6 billion in Senior Notes.

Fairchild Semi (FCS 20.75, +0.74 +3.70%) disclosed in 14D9/A filing that it received a revised, unsolicited proposal from the Party G Group to acquire all of the outstanding common stock at $21.70 per share.

FCS then later confirmed the receipt of the revised, unsolicited $21.70 per share proposal.

SunEdison (SUNE 5.06, +0.04 +0.80%) acquired a 33% ownership interest in a 336 megawatt DC portfolio of operating solar power plants from Dominion (D 68.70, +0.06 +0.09%), transfers interest to Terra Nova Renewable Partners.

SUNE also announced an agreement to extinguish all of its outstanding $336 million aggregate principal amount of 3.75% Guaranteed Exchangeable Senior Secured Notes due 2020.

Transcat (TRNS 9.57, +0.47 +5.16%) acquired Spectrum Technologies for $11.25 million in cash.

Wi-LAN (WILN 1.30, +0.01 +0.78%) entered into a patent license agreement with Toshiba (TOSBF 2.06, +0.12 +5.98%) relating to image sensing technology.

Echo Global Logistics (ECHO 20.89, +0.54 +2.65%) authorized a $50 million repurchase program of common stock and 2.50% convertible senior notes due 2020 through December 31, 2017.

Anadigics (ANAD 0.60, +0.01 +1.69%) announced that GaAs Labs has matched the $0.54 per share offer price of a competing bidder.

Perion Network (PERI 3.70, -0.02 -0.54%) filed an offering for about 4.436 million ordinary shares by selling shareholders.

Logitech Intl SA (LOGI 15.54, +0.13 +0.84%) announced that its Lifesize division has separated from the company to become Lifesize, a private entity.

Jupai Holdings (JP 9.83, +0.04 +0.41%) entered into a share purchase agreement with Julius Baer (JBAXY 9.78, +0.38 +4.04%) and SINA Hong Kong (SINA 49.31, -0.79 -1.58%).

Cheetah Mobile (CMCM 16.06, -0.12 -0.74%) entered into a new strategic cooperation agreement with

Tencent (TCEHY 19.44, -0.19 -0.97%).

Siliconware Precision (SPIL 7.78, -0.12 -1.52%) announced it formally received a public tender offer prospectus and relevant documents from Advanced Semiconductor (ASX 5.61, -0.13 -2.26%) to acquire up to 24.71% of the common shares.

China Telecom's (CHA 46.61, -0.66 -1.40%) CEO and Chairman Chang Xiaobing resigned following an investigation by regulators over 'suspected serious disciplinary violations'.
(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Yahoo!)

4:20 pm : The major indices ended Wednesday on a negative note after the market faced substantial selling pressure into the close with all the major indices settling near their lows. Despite the retreat today, the S&P 500 (-0.7%) was able to stay in positive territory for the year (+0.2%). The benchmark index outperformed the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.8%), which narrowed its 2015 advance to 7.0%.

Equity indices slipped into the open after overnight selling pressure in oil drove the commodity below the $37.00/bbl price level. This price action came after the American Petroleum Institute reported that crude stockpiles rose by 2.9 million barrels versus a decrease of 3.6 million barrels last week. An hour after the open, the Energy Information Administration disclosed a build of 2.629 million barrels on their weekly crude inventory report versus an expected draw of 2.457 million barrels. The commodity fell 2.9% on the day, ending at $36.80/bbl.

Accordingly, the commodity-sensitive energy (-1.5%) and materials (-1.0%) sectors posted the largest losses while utilities (-0.2%), consumer staples (-0.4%), healthcare (-0.5%), industrials (-0.8%), technology (-0.8%), consumer discretionary (-0.8%), and financials (-0.8%) outperformed.

In the energy space, large-components Exxon Mobil (XOM 78.11, -1.05) and Chevron (CVX 90.09, -1.16) kept pace with the decline in the broader sector, while pipeline and equipment companies such as Kinder Morgan (KMI 14.54, -0.56) lead the losses thanks to a corresponding drop in natural gas. The other energy component declined 5.3% today and ended at $2.25/MMbtu.

Elsewhere, in the health care group (-0.5%), the influential sector was helped by large-cap components Merck & Co. (MRK 53.22, -0.09) and AbbVie, Inc. (ABBV 59.80, +0.35) as the two helped the sector stay ahead of the broader market. Merck lost 0.2% and AbbVie added 0.8%. Meanwhile, biotechnology finished behind the sector, evidenced by a 0.7% decline in iShare Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 340.86, -2.25).

In Treasuries, the benchmark note spent most of its day near its low, but investor participation was well below average, leaving the 10-yr yield unchanged at 2.30% On a somewhat related note, Puerto Rico's Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla stated that the island will default on a $35.90 million payment due to the Infrastructure Finance Authority and a $1.40 million payment due to its Public Finance Corporation. However, Puerto Rico will pay $328.70 million to settle its general obligations, thus avoiding fallout from defaulting on debt backed by constitutional guarantees.

Once again, today's participation was very light with fewer than 600 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

It was a quiet day with economic data limited to November Pending Home Sales, which fell 0.9% from a revised increase of 0.4% (from 0.2%) in October. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5% in November.

Tomorrow's economic data includes, weekly Initial (Briefing.com consensus 270,000) and Continuing Claims (Briefing.com consensus 2213k), which will be released at 8:30 ET while the Chicago PMI for December (Briefing.com consensus 50.1) will cross the wires at 9:45 ET.

Nasdaq +7.0% YTD
S&P 500 +0.2% YTD
Dow Jones -1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.7% YTD

DJ30 -117.11 NASDAQ -42.09 SP500 -15.00 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 828/1.144 bln/2032 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 907/545.6 mln/2177

3:45 pm :

Oil prices sold off overnight following the bearish API data. Prices remained in the red today with the front-month Feb crude oil ending -3.4% at $36.60/barrel
Nat gas futures sold off sharply following new weather reports that showed warmer than expected outlooks
Feb nat gas ultimately ended the day -7% at $2.21/MMBtu
Metals lost some steam today with the dollar index trading higher
Feb gold slipped a little, closing at $1059.60/oz and Mar silver closing -0.6% at $13.44/oz
Mar copper fell one cent to $2.13/lb

1:01 pm Ascent Solar provides clarification on article; says 'was incorrectly included in a SeekingAlpha post dated 12/29/15' (ASTI) : The SeekingAlpha article incorrectly stated that Ascent Solar had entered into a legal settlement and patent license agreement with Reflectix Inc. The article has since been amended to correctly state that Acacia Research Corporation, not Ascent Solar, has entered into an agreement with Reflectix. On December 29th, Ascent Solar did announce the Company was awarded its second patent of December 2015, pertaining to the Company's solar manufacturing process, and continued leadership in thin-film CIGS solar technology; this information is correctly presented on the company's website and now on SeekingAlpha .

1:01 pm Broadcom announces the tender offer for $1.6 bln in Senior Notes (BRCM) : Co announces that it is offering to purchase for cash any and all of its outstanding $500 mln 2.7% Senior Notes due 2017, $500 mln 2.5% Senior Notes due 2022, $350 mln Senior Notes due 2024, and $250 mln 4.5% Senior Notes due 2034.

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From Briefing.com: The broader market kicked off 2016 on a somber note as the three major US indices all closed with losses worse than -1.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost the most, shedding 104.32 points (-2.08%) today to close 4903.09. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 276.09 points (-1.58%) to 17148.94, and the S&P 500 lost 31.28 points (-1.53%) to 2012.66 today. Economic data today came in the form of the December ISM Index which declined to 48.2 from 48.6 and Construction Spending which decreased to -0.4% month-over-month growth in November.

Trading began the session on a down note as the Asian markets posted volatility akin to what we saw for the better part of the Spring-to-Fall seasons. For instance, in 2015, the Shanghai Composite Index advanced nearly 50% from the beginning of March to the middle of June reaching highs near the 5166-level. The late-summer collapse took the Composite from those levels to a low in late-August near 2930, a nearly 43% decline. The volatility in the overnight session showed many of the same colors - mainly red - as trading was halted on the Shanghai Composite, ending an early day as a 6.9% one-day decline triggered market circuit breakers.

In the Technology (XLK 42.27, -0.56 -1.31%) space action rebounded off daily lows to close at the highs of the day, albeit at a loss. A few news items trickled in regarding some of the bellwether names in the sector, including Intel (INTC 33.99, -0.46 -1.34%) which acquired drone company Ascending Technologies for terms which were undisclosed. Other sectors closed the session IYZ -2.26%, XLF -1.93%, XLV -1.80%, XLY -1.72%, XLB -1.57%, XLI -1.34%, XLP -1.27%, XLU -0.21%, XLE -0.03% led by weakness in Telecoms.

To no surprise, Chinese Tech names (QQQC 21.76, -0.86 -3.80%) were expressly weak as the aforementioned broader market weakness took its toll on the Chinese Tech sector. Names like ATHM -8.45%, SOHU -6.35%, NTES -5.03%, WB -3.28%, NQ -2.76% were down today, underperforming the broader US indices.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (710.26, -11.22 -1.56%) performed much like the broader index. Component FLIR Systems (FLIR 28.75, +0.68 +2.42%) managed to withstand the broader market action to the downside today, as the name was upgraded premarket to Buy at Goldman. Other names in the sector which did not fare as well included YHOO -5.59%, PYPL -4.01%, EBAY -3.82%, EA -3.81%, CSC -3.18%, CTSH -3.17%, XRX -3.10%, MA -2.62%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
According to a company blog post, Intel (INTC) acquired drone company Ascending Technologies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed

EMC (EMC 25.59, -0.09 -0.35%) disclosed a restructuring plan consisting of a reduction in the workforce. In relation, a total charge resulting from this plan is expected to be about $250 million.

Facebook's (FB 102.22, -2.44 -2.33%) Oculus confirmed pre-orders for Rift will open on January 6.

Accenture (ACN 101.83, -2.67 -2.56%) acquired Netherland-based supplier of cloud advisory and tech services CRMWaypoint. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Micron's (MU 14.33, +0.17 +1.20%) President Mark Adams will resign for personal health reasons on February 1.

Fidelity Investments, Visa (V 75.70, -1.85 -2.39%), and U.S. Bank (USB 41.48, -1.19 -2.79%) announced a new long-term card-issuing program that will offer Visa branded credit-card products to U.S. consumers. Under the new card program, U.S. Bank will issue the Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature Card and the Fidelity Investments 529 College Rewards Visa SignatureCard4. U.S. Bank has also agreed to acquire Fidelity's existing co-brand credit card portfolio with about $1.6 billion in associated balances.
According to reports, Activision Blizzard (ATVI 37.62, -1.09 -2.82%) has acquired Major League Gaming for $46 million.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Sequans Communications' (SQNS 2.18, +0.08 +3.91%) Colibri LTE chipset platform has passed AT&T's (T 34.35, -0.06 -0.17%) ADAPT chipset verification program and is approved to operate on AT&T's 4G LTE network.

RADCOM's (RDCM 14.22, -0.69 -4.63%) CEO David Ripstien announced his retirement. Yaron Ravkaie has been named the new CEO. RDCM also guided Q4 revenues lower than expected at about $2.7-3.0 million and announced an $18 million order for its MaveriQ solution.

Mesa Laboratories, Inc. (MLAB 100.10, +0.60 +0.60%) acquired certain assets and liabilities of two of its European distributors by the company's subsidiary, Mesa France. The deal is expected to add about $300,000 to the company's revenues and be accretive to EPS.

Heartland Payment Systems (HPY 93.58, -1.24 -1.31%) sold its SmartLink Division to EchoSat. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Wipro (WIT 11.20, -0.34 -2.90%) appointed TK Kurien as the EVP and Abidali Neemuchwala as the CEO and Member of the Board of the company. Both these appointments are effective February 1, 2016.

Infoblox (BLOX 18.28, -0.11 -0.60%) appointed Janesh Moorjani as CFO effective immediately.

Anadigics (ANAD 0.68, +0.04 +6.67%) announced that a competing bidder has made a further amended offer to acquire the company at $0.68 per share; the previous offer was $0.58 per share.

Nokia (NOK 7.17, +0.15 +2.14%) gained 80% control of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.92, +0.09 +2.35%) through exchange offer. The French stock market authority, Autorit des Marchs Financiers, published the interim results of the initial offer period of NOK's public exchange offer for ALU securities in France and in the United States, and has declared the offer successful.

Frontier Communications' (FTR 4.65, -0.02 -0.43%) Executive Chairman Maggie Wilderotter to be succeeded by Lead Director Pamela Reeve effective April 1.

Orange (ORAN 16.62, -0.01 -0.06%) and Groupama entered into exclusive negotiations for the creation of Orange Bank. These negotiations could result in the acquisition by Orange of a 65% stake in Groupama Banque, enabling it to benefit from an existing operational infrastructure for the launch of Orange Bank.

Analyst actions:

DCM was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Nomura, ANET was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer, QSII was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James, FLIR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman, KN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum, EQIX was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo; PYPL was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt, CHKP was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo, USM and TDS were downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan

4:15 pm : The stock market ended its first session of 2016 broadly lower, following opening selling pressure that wouldn't ease until the last half hour of trading. The S&P 500 (-1.5%) finished ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.6%) and the Nasdaq (-2.1%), but the benchmark index fell below its 100-day moving average (2024). The major averages stumbled into the open after overseas concerns in China and the Middle East weighed down futures.

The selloff in futures began with weak economic data concerning manufacturing growth in China. Overnight, December's Caixin Manufacturing PMI was reported in at 48.2 versus an expected 48.9. This miss lead to heavy selling in the Shanghai Composite that eventually pushed the index lower by 6.9% before triggering a halt to trading under its circuit breaker provisions.

In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia suspended diplomatic relations with Iran following a protester-started fire at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran. This unrest followed the execution of a Shiite cleric by the Saudi Arabian government over the weekend. The initial news caused an increase interest in oil, but the commodity was unable to maintain today's advance and WTI crude ended its pit session down 0.8% at $36.76/bbl.

Today's selling was paced by financials (-2.1%), health care (-1.9%), consumer discretionary (-1.8%), materials (-1.7%), and technology (-1.6%) while energy (-0.2%), utilities (-0.3%), and telecom services (-0.5%) outperformed

The financial sector showed relative weakness from the start of the trading session with large cap-components JPMorgan Chase (JPM 63.62, -1.97) and Wells Fargo (WFC 52.91, -1.45) each outpacing the losses in the broader sector with declines of 3.0% and 2.7% respectively.

Elsewhere, the top-weighted technology sector ended in line with the S&P 500 even though Apple (AAPL 105.35, +0.09) was able to rebound off its session low (102.00), ending higher by 0.1%. In other tech names, Alphabet (GOOGL 759.44, -18.57) was also able to pull off of its low, trimming its loss to 2.4%, while high-beta chipmakers outperformed the broader sector for most of the day. The PHLX Semiconductor Index ended the session lower by 1.1%.

In the consumer discretionary space, Amazon (AMZN 636.98, -38.91) ended its day near its low following a downgrade at Monness Crespi & Hardt from Buy to Netural. The downgraded cited continued strength in the company but a possibly better entry point to enter or expand a position in the company.

Today's selloff invited above average participation with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Meanwhile in Treasuries, the benchmark note spent the bulk of its day on its high before retreating. The yield on the 10-yr fell three basis points to 2.24%.

It was a relatively quiet day on the economic front with data being limited to the December ISM Index and Construction Spending:

The ISM Index for December declined to 48.2 from 48.6 (Briefing.com consensus 49.0)
Construction spending decreased to -0.4% month-over-month growth in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%).
This release was lower than expected and included a revision from 1.0% to 0.3% month-over-month growth in October.

Investors will not receive any economic data of note tomorrow.

Russell 2000 -2.3% YTD
Nasdaq -2.1% YTD
Dow Jones -1.6% YTD
S&P 500 -1.5% YTD

DJ30 -276.09 NASDAQ -104.32 SP500 -31.28 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 653/1.998 bln/2380 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 981/1.08 bln/2113

3:40 pm :

Commodities displayed some decent volatility today following China's negative economic data
Also, the dollar index climbed higher during today's session, off overnight lows, which also helped weigh on commodities
Oil rallied this morning on news of Middle East tension, but this was short-lived and Feb crude never recovered back above $37
Feb crude oil ended today's session -0.9% at $36.81/barrel
In other energy, Feb nat gas slid 0.4% lower to $2.33/MMBtu
Copper fell today on China's econ data. Mar copper closed -2.8% at $2.08/lb
Feb gold closed today's session +15.80 at $1075.40/oz, while Mar silver gained +0.3% at $13.85/oz

10:19 am SunEdison displays a solid recovery effort as it reverses initial opening weakness from below the $5-mark (SUNE) :

10:06 am BlackBerry announces that Ford Motor (F) has ported its open source SmartDeviceLink technology to the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment (BBRY) :

9:02 am FuelCell Energy announces 5.6 megawatt fuel cell project with Pfizer (PFE) (FCEL) : Co announces plans for the installation of a 5.6 megawatt fuel cell power generation system for Pfizer (PFE) to provide reliable and low carbon electricity and steam for its 160 acre R&D facility in Groton, CT. Pfizer will purchase the power and steam under a 20 year power purchase agreement. The fuel cell installation is expected to be fully operational by summer 2016.

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From Briefing.com: Broader market action took the Dow and S&P higher on the day, with the Nasdaq finishing in the red. The S&P 500 closed with the strongest gains today, up 4.05 points (+0.20%) to 2016.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 9.72 points (+0.06%) to 17158.66, and the Nasdaq Composite edged lower by 11.66 points (-0.24%) to 4891.43. Weakness in Asia again pressured US markets as the Shanghai Composite was again the subject of volatility. The index closed down -0.3%, trading up and down all day as the People's Bank of China injected $20 billion in cash through open market operations.

When the bell rang, the Technology (XLK 42.16, -0.11 -0.26%) sector finished modestly lower. Action managed to come briefly into positive territory twice on the session, after the initial opening market action, spending most of the afternoon session in the red. E-commerce name Amazon (AMZN 633.79, -3.20 -0.50%) revealed the success of Cyber Monday, on which the company saw orders of about 23 million items worldwide, a 40% increase. Also underway today in the tech sector was the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The event is basically an electronics trade show where companies can interact directly with the consumers through previewing new products and the announcement of new products, and this year runs through January 9. Other sectors closed the session IYZ +0.85%, XLU +0.72%, XLP +0.64%, XLV +0.48%, XLF +0.39%, XLE +0.38%, XLI +0.27%, XLB -0.05%, XLY -0.13% as Telecoms led the advance and Tech led the decline.

Particularly strong today, Social Media (SOCL 19.48, +0.18 +0.93%) names finished with gains as reports from Re/Code suggested component Twitter (TWTR 21.92, -0.64 -2.84%) may expand the character limit to 10,000. Also from TWTR, through the company's blog, announced Conversational Ads whereby advertisers can engage further with customers through 'call to action' buttons. Other SOCL names which displayed relative strength included GRPN +4.51%, YHOO +2.55%, LNKD +1.53%, YY +1.45%, YNDX +1.25%, NTES +1.01%, SINA +0.77%, FB +0.50% GOOGL +0.28%.

Also weak today was the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (707.25, -3.01 -0.42%) which finished in the red like the broader market. Most notably today, shares of Apple (AAPL 102.71, -2.64 -2.50%) were weaker as a Nikkei article out midday suggested Q1 iPhone 6S and 6S Plus production could be cut by 30%. Other components which displayed relative weakness today included QRVO -6.29%, SWKS -5.95%, AVGO -3.35%, VRSN -3.03%, TDC -2.78%, NTAP -2.38%, QCOM -1.96%, BRCM -1.95%, CSC -1.86%, EA -1.75%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
A Nikkei article highlighting the possibility that Apple's (AAPL) Q1 iPhone 6S and 6S Plus production could be cut by 30% took the stock lower today.

Amphenol (APH 50.30, -0.57 -1.12%) disclosed it entered into the amendment agreement related to acquisition of Fidji Luxembourg Sarl which received antitrust approval from the People's Republic of China on December 28, 2015.

Activision Blizzard (ATVI 37.14, -0.48 -1.28%) announced the acquisition of the business of Major League Gaming, a company that streams premium live gaming events; terms not disclosed.

Nvidia (NVDA 32.89, +0.52 +1.61%) launched NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 -- the world's most powerful engine for in-vehicle artificial intelligence. The NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 allows the automotive industry to use artificial intelligence to tackle the complexities inherent in autonomous driving.

Harman (HAR 96.00, +2.89 +3.10%) announced a connected car collaboration with Microsoft (MSFT 55.05, +0.25 +0.46%) at CES 2016. This project will introduce new mobile productivity services, as well as utilize existing products, services and technologies, including cloud platforms, telematics and driver productivity, to offer better convenience, safety and reliability for drivers and greater operating efficiency for auto manufacturers.

Nissan Motor (NSANY 20.60, +0.15 +0.73%) and Microsoft (MSFT) announced that all Nissan LEAF models and Infiniti models in Europe will have Connect Telematics Systems by Microsoft Azure. Nissan CTS is coupled to Azure, allowing a remote connection to the vehicle.

VMware (VMW 57.02, +0.69 +1.23%) announced an expansion of its collaboration with Intel Security (INTC 33.83, -0.16 -0.47%) to include joint solutions for customers using the AirWatch by VMware Enterprise Mobility Management platform.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Amazon (AMZN) announced that more than 23 million items were ordered worldwide from sellers on Amazon on Cyber Monday, +40% increase year-over-year.
According to a Re/Code article, social media name Twitter (TWTR) may expand its character limit to 10,000. Also, per the company's blog, details about a new advertising system were revealed. Conversational Ads were announced which use a 'call to action' button to engage customers.

Avid Tech (AVID 7.71, +0.33 +4.47%) anticipates its Q4 bookings will come in at $191 million exceeding expectations.

AT&T (T 34.59, +0.24 +0.70%) extended exclusive agreement with BMW (BAMXY 33.02, -0.66 -1.96%), and announced a partnership with Ford (F 13.72, -0.25 -1.79%).

General Motors (GM 32.43, -0.88 -2.64%) is exploring a new mapping technology from Mobileye (MBLY 36.12, -3.82 -9.56%) that could use crowd-sourced real-time data collected by OnStar for precise localization and high-definition lane data that supports fully autonomous driving.

WEX (WEX 81.70, -3.70 -4.33%) disclosed that it and Electronic Funds Source have each received a second request from the FTC in relation to their pending merger.

Orange (ORAN 16.53, -0.09 -0.54%) confirmed renewed discussions with the Bouygues Telecom.

Checkpoint Systems (CKP 6.14, +0.09 +1.49%) announced that effective January 1, Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer Farrokh Abadi was no longer with the company.

SunEdison Semiconductor (SEMI 7.28, -0.47 -6.06%) disclosed an amended credit agreement.

Audiocodes (AUDC 4.12, +0.05 +1.23%) acquired Active Communications Europe.

Analyst actions:

JNPR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank,
EQIX was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
FLIR was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
TSS was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse;
JNPR and FFIV were downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer,
MSI and JNPR were downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Bernstein,
VRSN was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup,
AEIS was downgraded to Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James,
TTEC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey

4:20 pm : The stock market endured a shaky session on Tuesday with the S&P 500 trading inside a 16-point range. The benchmark index spent some time in negative territory, but settled within the upper-end of its trading range, adding 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) underperformed throughout the entire day.

A defensive pre-market affair focused on the Asian session, during which the Shanghai Composite lost 0.3% despite a $20 billion infusion from the People's Bank of China through open market operations. Oil was able to muster an uptick that coincided with a rebound in European indices, but the energy component was unable to maintain that price level.

Equity indices at home began their day higher as the stock market looked to rebound from its poor start to 2016. This rally was short-lived, however, as continued pressure in oil would contribute to a choppy day for the major averages. WTI crude remained weak into the pit close, ending lower by 2.3% at $35.95/bbl.

The countercyclical sectors topped the leaderboard with telecom services (+1.0%), utilities (+0.8%), consumer staples (+0.7%) and health care (+0.6%) ending in the lead while technology (-0.4%), consumer discretionary (-0.2%), materials (UNCH), and industrials (+0.2%) rounded out the sectors.

Looking at health care, the sector was helped by large-cap constituents Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY 68.35, +1.32) and Eli Lilly (LLY 84.11, +1.24) as the two posted respective gains of 2.0% and 1.5%. Interestingly, Eli Lilly rallied despite lowering its guidance for 2016. Elsewhere in the space, biotechnology underperformed evidenced by iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 326.96, +0.09). The ETF neared its 50-day average, hitting a high of 330.97, before retreating with the broader market after the open. The biotech ETF ended the day unchanged after being up 1.3% at the start.

In technology, Apple (AAPL 102.71, -2.64) plummeted 2.6% after Nikkei reported Apple is expected to reduce iPhone 6s and 6s Plus production by 30% in Q1. Elsewhere in the sector, the news weighed on high-beta chipmakers, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 1.0%. The index was hurt by poor performances from Avago Technologies (AVGO 137.52, -4.76) and Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 73.29, -4.64) as the two declined 3.4% and 6.0%, respectively.

Treasuries traded near their highs during the retreat from the opening highs in the stock market, but the 10-yr note ended flat with its yield unchanged at 2.25%.

Today's participation was a bit below average as fewer than 850 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic data of note today, but tomorrow the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the ADP Employment Change for December (Briefing.com consensus 190k) will cross the wires at 8:15 ET. The Trade Balance for November (Briefing.com consensus -$44.70 billion) will be released at 8:30 ET while Factory Orders for November (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%) and December ISM Services (Briefing.com consensus 56.4) will both be reported at 10:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off by the 14:00 ET release of the FOMC Minutes from the December policy meeting.

Nasdaq -2.3%
Russell 2000 -2.2%
Dow Jones -1.5%
S&P 500 -1.3%

DJ30 +9.72 NASDAQ -11.66 SP500 +4.05 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1508/1.755 bln/1378 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1811/838.0 mln/1275

3:40 pm :

The dollar index continues to trade higher, which is helping weigh on commodities and commodity-related stocks
The dollar index is +0.5% at 99.40 in current activity
In energy, front-month Feb crude oil finished the day -2.3% at $35.95/barrel
In other energy, Feb natural gas futures closed -0.4% at $2.32/MMBtu, but is now back at the unchanged line
Feb gold gained $2.80 to $1078.30/oz today, while Mar silver rose 0.9% at $13.98/oz
Copper held gains, closing the session +1%.

3:02 pm Synaptics down almost -10% as Apple supplier concerns arise today, tests the $70-mark this afternoon (SYNA) : Other names under pressure include SWKS -6%, CRUS -7%, AVGO -3.7%, INVN -5%, QCOM -2%, ARMH -2%, NXPI -2.7%, TXN -1.4%

Analyst comments: FSLR +4.3% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman),JCP +1.9% (upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup),CLR +1.5% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill),CLNE +1.4% (upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Raymond James),FMS +1.3% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS),RLYP +0.7% (initiated with a Buy at BTIG Research)

8:11 am Broadcom (being acquired by Avago (AVGO) announces new chips at CES (BRCM) : Broadcom (BRCM, being acquired by Avago AVGO) announced the industry's highest performing Near Field Communications (:NFC) controller -- the BCM20797, its latest and lowest power Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo chip for mobile platforms and accessories -- the BCM43012 delivers up to 3X longer battery life compared to Broadcom's previous combo chips and the industry's first 64bit quad-core processor for high-end routers -- BCM4908.

7:37 am Fairchild Semi Board determines revised unsolicited proposal from China Resources and Hua Capital of $21.70/share in cash would reasonably be expected to result in a 'Superior Proposal' (FCS) : Co Board, after consultation with its legal and financial advisors, has determined that a revised unsolicited proposal received on December 28, from China Resources Microelectronics and Hua Capital Management to acquire Fairchild for $21.70/share in cash would reasonably be expected to result in a "Superior Proposal" as defined in the co's Agreement and Plan of Merger with ON Semiconductor (ON).

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Another big gap down today. Here are some reasons from Leavitt Brothers. RtS

http://leavittbrothers.com/blog/index.php/2016/01/06/before-the-open-jan-6-5/

The dollar is flat. Oil and copper are down. Gold is up, silver is flat. Bonds are up.

Today’s gap down will pretty much destroy the consolidation patterns the Dow, Nas and S&P 500 have been forming. The Russell small caps and S&P 400 have been in downtrends for several months, but the three former have enabled the bulls to cling to something. Not any more.

Oil is going to gap down and immediately test its low from a couple weeks ago.

I started putting together a list of things I don’t like about the market. It’s too long to put into one report, so I’m going to break it up in little bit size pieces and post a little each day. My reasons, which I’ll get into include:

Lagging small caps – this has been the case since last June. The small caps don’t have to lead, but they do need to keep up. It’s not a good sign when money flow into larger, safe-havens.

Weak breadth – I’ve talked about this weekly for many months. The AD line, AD volume line, new highs, bullish percent charts, percentage of stocks above their 200-day moving averages. Absent improvement, the market’s upside will be limited.

Deflationary pressures – declining oil is nice for a while, but eventually it causes problems. Cooper is very weak. So is gold, although I’m not sure if gold matters. A little inflation ideal. Lots of inflation is bad. Deflation is very bad too.

Falling junk bonds – a sign investors are losing confidence.

Higher rates – companies will have to refinance their debt at higher rates, and if it’s true that much of the market’s gains are due to M&A activity and stock buybacks, higher rates will make future gains much harder to come by.

High margin debt – this has been the case for a very long time, so it’s not a “tipping point” issue, but if the ball gets rolling, unwinding the leverage could get ugly.

Defensive leadership – last year’s leaders are starting to sputter while some defensive groups have perked up recently.

High percentage of unprofitable IPOs – you’ve heard about unicorns, start-ups valued at $1 billion. Right now we have the highest percentage of unprofitable unicorns since 2007…reminiscences of the dot com bubble days.

High percentage of stock ownership as a percentage of assets – despite the rebound in housing, the general public is heavily invested in the stock market, as a percentage of their assets. It’s not that people aren’t diversified, it’s that they’re much less diversified than historical norms.

Strong dollar – the dollar is in consolidation mode. If it breaks out and runs, the market will fall.

Bonds could break out – a breakout of TLT, signalling a preference for bonds over stocks, would be another tough hurdle for the market to overcome.

From a trading standpoint, weak breadth is what bothers me most. The market can’t move up much when a small percentage of stocks participate. Absent improvement, the market will move sideways and down. More after the open.

Stock headlines from barchart.com…

Apple (AAPL -2.51%) fell nearly 3% in pe-market trading after the Nikkei Asian Review reported that Apple would reduce Q1 output of its latest iPhones by about 30%.

Freeport-McMoRan (FCX +2.44%) tumbled over 4% in pre-market trading after Moody’s Investors Service placed the company’s debt under review for possible downgrade.

Oracle (ORCL -0.31%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Evercore ISI.

Landec Corp. (LNDC -0.34%) reported Q2 EPS of 7 cents, higher than consensus of 6 cents, although Q2 revenue of $140.4 million was below consensus of $143.2 million.

Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD +0.66%) fell over 2% in after-hours trading after it announced an offering of $10.5 million of common stock.

Gilead (GILD +1.28%) said it terminated a Phase 2 study of its Simtuzumab in patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis saying the study showed no evidence of a treatment benefit.

Sonic Corp. (SONC -0.10%) climbed over 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 24 cents, better than consensus of 23 cents.

NuVasive (NUVA +2.28%) said it will acquire Ellipse Technologies MGEC in a transaction valued at $410 million.

Acadia (ACAD -0.46%) slid 4% in after-hours trading after it proposed a $300 million secondary offering of stock.

Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI -1.27%) rose 1% in after-hours trading after the company said it added 2.3 million new subscriptions in 2015, more than expectations of 2.0 million.

Epizyme (EPZM -1.05%) slumped 10% in after-hours trading after it proposed an offering of $120 million in stock.

Conatus Pharmaceuticals (CNAT -2.05%) surged over 15% in after-hours trading after it said its Emricasan drug in a Phase 2 liver cirrhosis study showed significant reductions in liver biomarkers versus a placebo after 3 months of treatment.

Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…

Today’s Economic Calendar
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:15 ADP Jobs Report
8:30 Gallup U.S. Job Creation Index
8:30 International Trade
9:45 PMI Services Index
10:00 Factory Orders
10:00 ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
2:00 PM FOMC minutes

Today’s Earnings here

Other…

today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com

this week’s Earnings

this week’s Economic

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed the session at lows of the day. Losses were led today by the S&P 500 which lost 21.06 points (-1.08%) today to close 1922.03. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 167.65 (-1.02%) to 16346.45. The Nasdaq Composite lost just under 1%, shedding 45.79 points (-0.98%) to 4643.63. On the week, the three major US indices all lost more than 5.5%, with the Nasdaq (-7.3%) the worst among the three, the Dow followed down (-6.2%) on the week, and the S&P was just shy of -6.0% at (-5.98%) in the first five days of 2016. Economic data today included December nonfarm payrolls, which increased by 292,000. Private sector payrolls increased 275,000 and the unemployment rate was 5.0% versus 5.0% in November. November Wholesale Inventories fell 0.3% following last month's revised decrease of 0.3% (from -0.1%).

As the week came to a close, Technology (XLK 40.09, -0.32 -0.79) ended Friday at session lows. Shares of component Texas Instruments (TXN 50.36, -1.34 -2.59%) displayed weakness today as it was reported in late trade that TXN and Analog Devices (ADI 49.98, -0.44 -0.87%) were no longer interested in a Maxim Integrated (MXIM 32.33, -1.93 -5.63%) takeover, according to Bloomberg. Other sectors closed the session XLF -1.56%, XLV -1.51%, XLE -1.29%, XLY -1.08%, XLI -1.02%, XLB -1.01%, IYZ -0.87%, XLP -0.77%, XLU -0.05% with Financials leading the way down.

Pressured most by the broader market today were Semi (SOX 600.47, -9.78 -1.60%) names. The sector closed the session lower as Gartner reported worldwide semiconductor revenues declined 1.9% in 2015. Names in the sector which were weaker today included ASML -2.68%, CAVM -2.68%, MCHP -2.65%, QRVO -2.52%, AMAT -2.44%, MU -2.42%, NVDA -2.17%, XLNX -2.05%, TER -2.05%, CREE -1.91%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (670.88, -5.39 -0.80%) grabbed modest losses, and also finished at the lows of the day. Component Microsoft (MSFT 52.33, +0.16 +0.31%) managed to stave off the selling action today, as shares finished in the green following a positive mention at Barron's this afternoon and an initiation at BMO Capital this morning with an Outperform rating. Other components which closed today higher included YHOO +1.56%, EA +1.07%, FLIR +0.87%, AAPL +0.53%, FFIV +0.34%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Avon Products (AVP 2.79, -0.23 -7.46%) selected Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 13.54, -0.19 -1.42%) to lead hybrid infrastructure transformation.
Lenovo (LNVGY 17.93, +0.25 +1.41%) announced the development of the first consumer mobile device with Project Tango in collaboration with Alphabet's (GOOG 714.47, -11.92 -1.64%) Google. Available in summer 2016, the new smartphone, powered by the Qualcomm (QCOM 45.88, -0.26 -0.57%) Snapdragon processor, turns the screen into a magic window that can overlay digital information and objects onto the real world.
Salary.com announced that it has been acquired from IBM (IBM 131.57, -1.29 -0.97%) by its founding team. Under the leadership of the returning management team, Salary will deliver next generation analytical tools that further enable companies to manage their compensation expenditures as well as provide the market at large with the most accurate, objective information related to employee compensation.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

InterCloud Systems (ICLD 0.90 +0.00 +1.04%) announced that during the last few weeks of the calendar year it was awarded over $2.3 million in new contracts.

Imation (IMN 1.24, +0.06 +5.08%) divested its corporate headquarters facility for a gross purchase price of $11.5 million and its Memorex trademark and two associated trademark licenses for $9.4 million.

Microsemi (MSCC 29.00, -0.69 -2.32%) priced $450 million senior notes offering.

Euronet (EEFT 73.09, +1.43 +2.00%) announced the Board's authorization of a $100 million stock repurchase program through December 10, 2017.

SunEdison (SUNE 3.41, +0.08 +2.40%) announced it has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Watervliet, New York for close to 1 megawatt DC of solar power.

In reaction to quarterly earnings results:

Barracuda Networks (CUDA 10.74, -5.69 -34.63%) reported Q3 EPS of $0.07 on revenues which rose 13.7% YoY to $80.1 million. The company also reported gross bookings of $89 million with expectations in the range of $101-103 million.

Synnex (SNX 79.49, -3.95 -4.73%) reported Q4 EPS which beat expectations at $1.80 on revenues which beat expectations at $3.55 billion. The company also issued guidance for Q1 in the form of EPS in the range of $1.34-1.39 on revenues of $3.23-3.33 billion. The company also anticipates a negative currency impact on revenues of about $55 million in Q1.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results next week: PRGS, DSKY, QTM, INFY, TSM, WNS, ELRC, INTC

Analyst actions:

POWI and VEC were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sidoti,
CALX and ADTN were upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel, VNTV and GPN were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey,
CRUS was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
SUNE was upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at Avondale;
FNSR and LITE were downgraded at Barclays, INVN was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Rosenblatt, CUDA was downgraded to Morgan Stanley, JMP Securities and Pacific Crest,
HOLI was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse

Weekly Recap - Week ending 08-Jan-16

The first week of 2016 was not particularly kind to the stock market as global equity indices careened lower to begin the New Year. The S&P 500 tumbled 4.9% through Thursday, representing the worst four-day start to the year in the history of the index. Things did not improve much on Friday as stocks surrendered their opening gains, going out on their lows with the S&P 500 falling 6.0% for the week while the Nasdaq (-7.3%) underperformed.

While the S&P 500 clearly struggled to start the year, other global equity markets had an even more difficult time as China's CSI 300 index plunged 9.9% during a week that featured two early closures after the index declined 7.0%, tripping its circuit breakers. The second instance took place on Thursday, ending the session before the opening hour was up. As a result, Chinese officials removed the circuit breaker mechanism after implementing it at the beginning of the week.

The volatility in Chinese (and global) equities occurred as the People's Bank of China took almost daily steps to devalue the yuan with Thursday's move pushing the currency to a five-year low against the dollar at 6.5646. On Thursday afternoon, Reuters reported that PBoC advisers have voiced support for devaluing the yuan by as much as 15.0% against the dollar, which added to the worries that deflationary pressures may be exported from China to other economies.

The resulting growth concerns manifested themselves through continued weakness in oil prices as WTI crude surrendered 10.8% for the week, settling at its lowest level since December 2008. To be fair, there was a pocket of strength in the commodity space as gold futures rallied 3.5% to $1,097.50/ozt.

Back in the U.S., the Friday session saw a morning rebound after the December Employment Situation report (292K; Briefing.com consensus 200K) beat estimates, but the headline reading masked the lack of wage growth in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). The combination of strong headline payroll growth and nonexistent wage growth gave market participants some hope that the Federal Reserve's rate hike path may be even more gradual than first thought; however, San Francisco Fed President John Williams appeared on CNBC in the early afternoon, suggesting that four rate hikes in 2016 may still be appropriate. Mr. Williams is not a voting member this year, but the market retreated after his comments nonetheless.

All ten sectors ended the first week of 2016 in the red. The utilities sector shed just 0.4% while other countercyclical groups like consumer staples, telecom services, and health care posted respective weekly losses of 2.9%, 3.0%, and 5.6%. On the cyclical side, energy and materials lost 6.8% and 7.8%, respectively, while the consumer discretionary sector outperformed, falling 5.9%.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17425.03 16346.45 -1078.58 -6.2 -8.3
Nasdaq 5007.41 4643.63 -363.78 -7.3 -2.0
S&P 500 2043.94 1922.03 -121.91 -6.0 -6.6
Russell 2000 1135.89 1046.39 -89.50 -7.9 -13.1

5:05 pm Anadigics: GaAs Labs extends tender offer for shares of Anadigics until January 25 (previously scheduled to expire at 11:59pm today) (ANAD) :

The tender offer, which was previously scheduled to expire at 11:59 PM on January 8, 2016, has been extended until January 25, 2016, unless further extended.

2:15 pm Earnings preview for the week of January 11 (:SUMRX) :

Confirmed companies reporting earnings for the week of January 11th include:
Monday (January 11)
Pre-Market: SHLM, APOL
After-Hours: AA, TISI, VOXX, LMNR

Tuesday (January 12)
Pre-Market: IHS
After-Hours: CSX, PRGS

Wednesday (January 13)
Pre-Market: SVU
After-Hours: CLC

Thursday (January 14)
Pre-Market: TSM, INFY, JPM, FRC, WNS
After-Hours: INTC, OZRK

Friday (January 15)
Pre-Market: WFC, C, USB, PNC, BLK, RF, FAST


Analyst comments: SGNL +17.6% (initiated with a Buy at Rodman & Renshaw; tgt $4 on favorable MyPRS view),SUNE +12.6% (upgraded to Hold from Sell at Axiom Capital),ARC +2.3% (initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co),PHM +1.7% (upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James),AA +1.7% (upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie),FL +1.5% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill),MSFT +1.1% (initiated with an Outperform at BMO Capital)

Qorvo (QRVO 42.73, -2.91): -6.4% after the Apple supplier was downgraded at Cowen with a price target reduction to $125 from $130. This move comes after the company lowered Q3 revenue guidance to $620 million from $720-730 million late yesterday. The firm also sees below consensus Q4 revenue as well.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The broader market closed out Tuesday with notable gains. The advance today was led by the Nasdaq Composite which added 47.93 points (+1.03%) to 4685.92. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average followed closely together, with the former up 15.01 points (+0.78%) to 1938.68 and the latter up 117.65 points (+0.72%) to 16516.22. In economic data today was limited to the November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey which showed that job openings increased to 5.431 million from October's revised 5.349 million figure (from 5.383 million).

The Technology (XLK 40.83, +0.48 +1.19%) sector closed out the session with notable gains, as broader market action took the sector higher in the final two hours of action. Component Cognizant Tech (CTSH 59.65, +3.53 +6.29%) was the best performer today as the company reaffirmed guidance for the FY15 (Dec) period as it sees EPS of at least $3.03. Other sectors closed today XLV +1.28%, XLY +1.11%, XLI +0.80%, XLF +0.77%, XLP +0.55%, XLE +0.24%, XLB +0.15%, XLU -0.39%, IYZ -0.62% with Healthcare and Tech leading the advance.

Software (IGV 97.89, +1.10 +1.14%) names were among the top performers today as the sector managed almost the entire session above flat lines. Component Activision Blizzard (ATVI 37.12, +0.91 +2.51%) saw relative strength as it was disclosed that King Digital (KING 17.84, +0.02 +0.11%) had approved the acquisition by ATVI of the company's King by ABS Partners unit. Other names in the sector which closed higher included NOW +3.13%, CTXS +2.79%, TTWO +2.59%, ATVI +2.51%, MSTR +2.45%, WDAY +2.35%, EA +2.20%.

At the end of the day, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (683.49, +8.40 +1.24%) was also held up by the broader market today, as action managed to stay out of the red for the entire day. Components which displayed relative strength with the broader sector included AKAM +3.12%, APH +2.51%, TSS +2.29%, HRS +2.27%, CA +2.18%, INTC +1.93%, FB +1.91%, ACN +1.79%, FIS +1.78%, CRM +1.75%, YHOO +1.72%.
Other notable news items among sector components:

King Digital (KING) has approved the acquisition by Activision Blizzard's (ATVI) King by ABS Partners unit.

VirnetX Holding's (VHC 2.56, +0.56 +27.75%) pending litigation against Apple (AAPL 99.96, +1.43 +1.45%), in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, the court issued a comprehensive order with rulings on all of the pending Daubert and Dispositive motions.

Datalink (DTLK 6.51, -0.09 -1.36%) has achieved the Cisco (CSCO 25.35, +0.08 +0.32%) Master Service Provider designation with the introduction of its Cisco Powered Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Cisco Powered Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) offerings.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Ultra Clean Holdings (UCTT 5.50, +0.74 +15.55%) reaffirmed its fourth quarter 2015 revenue guidance. The company expects revenue for the fourth quarter of 2015 to be at the high end of the range of $98.0 million to $103.0 million.

Equinix (EQIX 314.92, +2.04 +0.65%) obtained permanent financing and terminated Bridge Credit Agreement with JPMorgan effective January 8, 2016.

Jack Henry (JKHY 77.90, +1.17 +1.52%) announced David Foss will be named president and CEO on July 1.

Orange (ORAN 17.13, +0.62 +3.76%) to acquire Cellcom Liberia. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Aspen Tech's (AZPN 36.28, +0.12 +0.33%) ATI Global Optimisation LTD subsidiary announced a recommended all cash offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of KBC Advanced Technologies plc. KBC shareholders will receive 185p in cash for each share. The transaction values KBC at about 158 million or about $230 million at the current exchange rate.

Anadigics (ANAD 0.68, +0.05 +9.52%) announced GaAs Labs has made a superior offer to acquire the company at $0.66 per share. The prior bid was $0.62 per share.

ClearOne (CLRO 11.60, +0.04 +0.35%) was awarded a new patent on technology for adaptively configuring beam-forming microphone arrays.

ManTech (MANT 28.57, +0.14 +0.49%) has been awarded a contract by the Department of Defense to support the defense and Intelligence Community's growing needs for modernization. The deal is for a base period of 1 year, followed by 4 option years. The total projected value is more than $200 million.

Upland Software (UPLD 6.95, +0.13 +1.91%) acquired substantially all of the assets of a California-based website analytics provider. The consideration paid was about $8.2 million in cash payable at closing (net of $0.2 million of cash acquired) and a $1.2 million cash holdback payable in 12 months. The deal is expected to add about $4.5 million to UPLD's revenues in 2016 and will be accretive to Adjusted EBITDA per share within the first year of closing.

Fabrinet (FN 23.29, +0.06 +0.26%) named Dr. Hong Hou as Chief Technical Officer effective today.

Spark Networks (LOV 3.75, flat) reported its total average subscribers grew 1.4% in Q4 to 200,023 users.

Analyst actions:

AAPL was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
INTC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho,
CIEN was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
FIS was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
CA was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
UCTT was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum;
FFIV was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank,
TELNY was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan

4:50 pm Progress Software beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY16 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (PRGS) :

Reports Q4 (Nov) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49; Non-GAAP revenues rose 17.9% year/year to $115.4 mln vs the $115.93 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.27-0.29, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.30 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Non-GAAP Q1 revs of $92-94 mln vs. $97.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.59-1.65, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Non-GAAP FY16 revs of $427-433 mln vs. $427.93 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
The negative currency translation impact on Progress's fiscal year 2016 business outlook compared to 2015 exchange rates is ~$7.0 mln on non-GAAP revenue and $0.02 to $0.03 on non-GAAP earnings per share. The negative currency translation impact on Progress's fiscal Q1 2016 business outlook compared to 2015 exchange rates is ~$3.0 mln to $4.0 mln on non-GAAP revenue and $0.01 to $0.02 on non-GAAP earnings per share.

4:44 pm IDC reports worldwide PC shipments totaled 71.9 mln units in Q4 of 2015, -10.6% YoY (XLK) :

Although total shipments were in line with already conservative expectations, the news nonetheless ended 2015 as the first year below 300 million units since 2008. The holiday quarter achieved a modest uptick compared to the third quarter, but the year-on-year decline in 2015 shipments was nevertheless the largest in history, surpassing the decline of -9.8% in 2013.
Detachable tablets, which are counted separately from PCs, are growing quickly but from a small base. Adding those units to PC shipments would boost growth by roughly 6 percentage points in the fourth quarter and 3 percentage points for all of 2015, bringing year-on-year growth for 4Q15 to a decline of about -5% and -7.5% for all of 2015.
IDC Release (related stocks: AAPL, HPQ, HPE, MSFT, IBM, LNVGY)

4:20 pm : The stock market ended its volatile Tuesday affair on a positive note, with the S&P 500 advancing 0.8%. The stock market fixated on oil prices today after mostly quiet overseas sessions. Despite the moderate advance, the rally remained muted for most of the day thanks to ongoing commodity concerns. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+1.0%) outperformed the benchmark index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%).

Oil rested on its overnight low until reports of a terrorist attack in Turkey pushed the energy-component higher. WTI crude was able to mount a rally into the U.S. open, but was unable to maintain that momentum. Declines in oil were mirrored across equities for the most of the day as WTI crude ended its pit session lower by 3.1% at $30.44/bbl. However, the energy component climbed in electronic trade and the stock market rallied alongside.

On the leaderboard, technology (+1.2%), health care (+1.2%), consumer discretionary (+1.0%), and industrials (+0.7%) lead the pack. On the flipside, energy utilities (-0.5%), telecom services (-0.4%), materials (+0.2%), energy (+0.4%), and consumer staples (+0.5%) underperformed.

In the heavily-weighted technology sector, large-cap components saw relative strength with increased buying interest following the recent selloff. Cornerstones, Alphabet (GOOGL 745.34, +12.27), Facebook (FB 99.37, +1.86), and Apple (AAPL 99.96, +1.43) sported advances between 1.5% and 1.9%. Elsewhere in the space, the high-beta chipmakers ended in liine with the broader market, evidenced by the 0.8% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor index. Inside the index Intel (INTC 32.68, +0.62) outperformed with a gain of 1.9% thanks to resumed coverage at JPMorgan Chase with an 'Overweight' designation.

Looking at the consumer discretionary space, large-cap constituents there also showed relative strength with Starbucks (SBUX 59.46, +1.64) rising 2.8% after the company announced that it's on pace to have 2000 stores in China after looking to add 500 in 2016. Other influential sector members like Disney (DIS 101.46, +1.54) and Netflix (NFLX 116.58, +1.61) added 1.5% and 1.6%, respectively.

Switching to health care , the insurance sub-sector lead the space with Anthem Inc. (ANTM 135.60, +7.24), UnitedHealth Group (112.26, +2.68), and Aetna (AET 109.15, +4.08) outperforming with gains between 2.5% and 5.6%. Elsewhere in the group, biotechnology paced the advance evidenced by the 1.6% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 296.21, +4.52).

Treasuries ended just below their highs with the 10-yr yield slipping seven basis points to 2.10%.

Trading volume remained heavy with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor once again.

On the economic front, the November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.431 million from October's revised 5.349 million figure (from 5.383 million).

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the Federal Reserve's January Beige Book and the December Treasury Budget will cross the wires at 14:00 ET.

Russell 2000 -8.1% YTD
Nasdaq -6.4% YTD
S&P 500 -5.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.2%

DJ30 117.65 NASDAQ +47.93 SP500 +15.01 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1520/1.945 bln/1427 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1474/1.102 bln/1602

3:45 pm :

WTI oil prices dropped below$30/barrel today for a short moment as the bloodbath continues
However, this move was short-lived and Feb WTI closed -3.1% at $30.44/barrel
Natural gas was notably weak today, tanking 5.4% at $2.26/MMBtu
In electronic trade, nat gas is now down 6%
Gold and silver spent today's session in the red. Feb gold lost $10.80 to end at $1085.20/oz, while Mar silver slipped 1% to $13.76/oz
Copper remains under $2, ending the day -0.7% at $1.96/lb

9:29 am Anadigics announces that GaAs Labs has made a superior offer to acquire the company at $0.66/share (prior bid was $0.62/share -- see 1/6 7:47) (ANAD) :

Co announces that affiliates of GaAs Labs delivered to the Company, on January 7, 2016, two proposed further amendments to the previously announced November 11, 2015 agreement and plan of merger pursuant to which GaAs Labs offered to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Anadigics common stock on a fully diluted basis for $0.35/share net in cash, pursuant to an all-cash tender offer and second-step merger.
The first proposed amendment, among other things, if approved by the Company's Board of Directors, would have amended the GaAs Labs Merger Agreement to increase the Termination Fee. If the first proposed amendment were approved by the Company's Board of Directors, GaAs Labs proposed a second amendment to increase the per-share offer price to $0.62 net in cash
On January 8, 2016, another Excluded Party (Party B), whose January 5, 2016 proposed merger agreement was referenced in the Company's January 6, 2016 announcement, delivered to the Company two alternative further revised proposed merger agreements pursuant to which Party B offered, subject to the varying terms thereof, to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Anadigics common stock on a fully diluted basis for either $0.68 per-share net in cash or $0.70 per-share net in cash, respectively, pursuant to an all-cash tender offer and second-step merger.

8:04 am Axcelis Tech sees Q4 revs above consensus; EPS in-line with (ACLS) :

Co issues guidance for Q4 (Dec), sees EPS of $0.00-0.01 vs. $0.00 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 (Dec) revs of ~$70 mln vs. $62.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co sees gross margins in the low 30% range and operating profit of ~$2 million.
Cash balance will be ~$85 million.

6:03 am Super Micro Computer sees Q4 EPS and revs above consensus (SMCI) :

Co issues upside guidance for Q2 (Dec), sees EPS of $0.69-0.72 vs. $0.59 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. This is above previous guidance of $0.54-0.64
Co sees Q2 (Dec) revs of $637-639 mln vs. $600.10 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. This is above previous guidance range of $580-630 mln

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The broader market stepped down the staircase today, as the session began with modest gains but that action would not hold. All three major US indices slowly ticked lower as the session progressed, with all three closing near lows of the session as the final bell rang. Action turned to the red about an hour into the day, and action never came back as the Nasdaq Composite saw losses of 159.85 points (-3.41%) today to close 4526.06. The S&P 500 was also down today to the tune of 48.40 points (-2.50%) to 1890.28. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with the most modest of losses among the three, albeit shedding 364.81 points (-2.21%) to end 16151.41 on the day.

Economic data today consisted of the MBA Mortgage Index, which showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 21.3% in mortgage applications. Also today, the Federal Reserve's January Beige Book crossed the wires at 2 p.m. ET. The Beige Book highlighted that economic activity has expanded in nine of twelve regions, and that the outlook for future growth remains mostly positive.

Technology (XLK 39.73, -1.10 -2.69%) also jogged lower today, it seemed like making new lows as the minutes ticked by. Shares of component Microchip (MCHP 41.31, -0.54 -1.29%) ended the session in the red as the company confirmed Atmel's (ATML 7.96, +0.28 +3.65%) determination of MCHP's superior proposal. Other sectors ended today XLY -3.37%, XLV -2.97%, IYZ -2.74%, XLF -2.60%, XLI -2.41%, XLE -2.40%, XLB -2.31%, XLP -1.83%, XLU -0.05% with Consumer Discretionary posting the worst losses.

Internet (FDN 65.82, -2.87 -4.18%) names also displayed relative pressure today as action began the session, but displayed weakness as the broader market turned lower. Shares of component Netflix (NFLX 106.56, -10.02 -8.59%) pressured the sector as the stock saw some heavy volume to the downside today as cautious analyst commentary on the name circulated after the market opened. Other components which showed weakness today included TRUE -7.11%, AMZN -5.84%, JCOM -5.74%, TRIP -5.71%, ETFC -5.51%, EXPE -4.94%, TWTR -4.79%, DWRE -4.66%, N -4.52%.

In-line with the broader market index, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (664.42, -19.07 -2.79%) finished near session lows. Holding steady with the broader market trend, shares of component Qualcomm (QCOM 46.10, -0.42 -0.90%) displayed modest weakness today as the company announced an agreement to form a Joint Venture with TDK Corp. to enable the delivery of certain RF filters and modules. Other components which displayed pressure today included QRVO -9.80%, ADSK -7.15%, SWKS -6.71%, FSLR -5.90%, MU -5.19%, AVGO -5.09%, CTXS -4.97%, WDC -4.53%, YHOO -4.07%, VRSN -4.04%, SNDK -4.00%, FB -3.95%, HRS -3.95%, ORCL -3.65%, GOOG -3.51%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Qualcomm (QCOM) and TDK Corporation announced an agreement to form a joint venture to enable delivery of RF front-end modules and RF filters into fully integrated systems for mobile devices and fast-growing business segments, such as Internet of Things, drones, robotics, automotive applications and more, under the name RF360 Holdings Singapore

According to a company blog post, Microsoft (MSFT 51.64, -1.14 -2.16%) acquired various technology assets from Event Zero. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Atmel Board determined the Microchip (MCHP) $8.15 per share proposal was 'superior' to the existing merger agreement with Dialog Semi (DLGNF 32.00, flat).

Orange (ORAN 16.79, -0.34 -1.98%) to acquire Airtel's subsidiaries in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone.

Multi-Fineline (MFLX 12.86, -3.54 -21.59%) expects Q4 sales of about $169 million, slightly below the company's previous guidance range and expects Q1 to decline 30% sequentially.

PFSWeb (PFSW 11.59, -0.42 -3.50%) raised its 2015 guidance to a range between $183-187 million, +32%-35% from 2014 and an increase from the previous 2015 guidance range of $180-186 million. PFSW also reaffirmed 2016 guidance targeting 2016 service fee equivalent revenue to range between $220-230 million, and adjusted EBITDA to range between $23-25 million.

TiVo (TIVO 7.86, -0.01 -0.13%) named Naveen Chopra as interim CEO effective January 30.

Analyst actions:

InterCloud Systems (ICLD 0.72, +0.08 +12.50%) CEO released a letter to shareholders. The letter held that the company expects to see continued growth in 2016 and that the pipeline of sales opportunities remains strong.

FXCM (FXCM 14.15, -2.78 -16.42%) reported December and Q4 metrics. The company said ongoing sales process may not be completed in Q1 as previously indicated.

WebMD Health (WBMD 53.21, +3.00 +5.97%) disclosed that revenue and Adjusted EBITDA are expected to be slightly above the high end of the ranges provided in the November 3, 2015.

QCOM was upgraded to Positive from Neutral at Susquehanna,
MSFT was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
CSOD was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at FBR Capital,
BKFS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill;
CMPR was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays, I was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
DLGNF was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan

5:40 pm Atmel lowers Q4 rev guidance on weaker than expected billings; sees Q4 EPS below consensus (ATML) : Co issues downside guidance for Q4 (Dec), sees EPS of $0.06 vs. $0.07 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; lowers Q4 (Dec) revs to $261-262 mln from $266-286 mln vs. $276.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be ~47.3 to 47.7%, at the midpoint of the original outlook of 47.0 to 48.0% The lower revenue was the result of weaker than expected billings, primarily in Asia, as distributors reduced inventory levels due to uncertainties associated with the company's ongoing acquisition processBriefing Note:

Earlier today, ATML Board determined Microchip (MCHP) $8.15/share proposal as 'superior' to existing merger agreement with Dialog Semiconductor (DLGNF).4:25 pm : The major averages ended their midweek session sharply lower with the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-3.4%) trailing the S&P 500 (-2.5%). Equity indices surrendered their opening gains amid continued growth concerns that also pressured crude oil from its overnight high. Including today's tumble, the benchmark index has surrendered 7.5% since the beginning of 2016 while the Nasdaq has slid 9.6%.

Overnight, oil advanced from yesterday's low with better than expected December trade data from China contributing to the advance. China's trade report showed a surplus of $60.1 billion versus the expected $51.3 billion. Despite the beat, this represented the sixth consecutive month of year-over-year declines in exports. While this was not good enough to boost China's Shanghai Composite (-2.4%), it was sufficient in helping the battered commodity rally.

At the beginning of our trading day, oil was up more than 3.0%, contributing to early strength in equities. The energy-component would lose momentum shortly after the open once the weekly EIA gasoline inventories showed a build of 8.438 million barrels. WTI crude showed a loss of 1.1% before ending its pit session unchanged at $30.43/bbl. On a related note, crude inventories rose 0.243 million barrels compared to an expected increase of 2.504 million barrels.

Another reminder of the persistent growth concerns came from rail company CSX (CSX 22.35, -1.35), which issued lower 2016 guidance when it reported Q4 earnings after yesterday's close. The company cited global and industrial slow down trends that would affect their core business, leading to an expected decline in year-over-year earnings. The transports reeled from this guidance, evidenced by the 3.7% decline in the Dow Jones Transportation Average which is now down 10.5% on the year. Fellow rail company Norfolk Southern (NSC 71.44, -4.49) suffered a 5.9% decline while Avis (CAR 27.19, -2.11) posted the worst loss in the index, falling 7.2%.

Sectors like, consumer discretionary (-3.4%), health care (-2.9%), technology (-2.8%), financials (-2.6%), and industrials (-2.3%) paced the retreat while utilities (UNCH), telecom services (-1.1%), consumer staples (-1.7%), and energy (-1.8%) outperformed.

Once again, today's retreat saw the biggest losses among names that enjoyed strength in 2015. To that point, discretionary component Netflix (NFLX 106.56, -10.02) sank 8.6% following a report from ITG Research which revised revenue estimates for the company, citing domestic subscriber weakness. Elsewhere in the space, Amazon (AMZN 581.81, -36.08) declined 5.8%.

Switching to the technology space, large-cap constituents Facebook (FB 95.44, -3.93) and Alphabet (GOOGL 719.57, -25.77) showed relative weakness with respective declines of 4.0% and 3.5%. Fellow large-caps Microsoft (MSFT 51.64, -1.14) and Apple (AAPL 97.39, -2.57) fared better than the sector, but could not stay out of the red. Elsewhere in the space, the high-beta chipmakers underperformed, evidenced by the 3.1% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Looking at the health care space, biotechnology showed relative weakness with a decline of 5.4% in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 280.14, -16.06).

Treasuries ended their day near their highs with the yield on the 10-yr note lower by four basis points at 2.07%.

Trading volume remained heavy with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor once again.

Today's economic data included the MBA Mortgage Index, the December Treasury Budget, and the Federal Reserve;s January Beige Book.

The MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 21.3% in mortgage applications.
The December Treasury Budget showed a deficit of $14.4 billion.
The Treasury data are not seasonally adjusted, so the December deficit cannot be compared to the November deficit of $64.6 billion.
Total receipts in December were $349.6 billion while total outlays were $364.1 billion.
Receipts were $14.3 billion more than December 2014 receipts while total outlays were $30.6 billion more than December 2014.
The yearly deficit increased by $16.3 billion to $477.8 billion.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 275k) and December import/export prices will be released at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 -11.1% YTD
Nasdaq -9.6% YTD
S&P 500 -7.5%
Dow Jones -7.3%

1:13 pm Cadence Design and Arrow Electronics (ARW) announce collaboration (CDNS) :

Collaboration will bring integrated design tools to engineers, helping them accelerate the pace of new product development and get products to market faster and cheaper.

As part of the collaboration, the companies plan to allow engineers using the Cadence OrCAD suite of printed circuit board (:PCB) design tools to access Arrow's comprehensive online component and reference design data available through SiliconExpert.

9:24 am RFMD chip stocks set to open lower after Qualcomm (QCOM) signs competitive JV with Japanese TDK Corp (SWKS) : RFMD stocks: QRVO -8%, SWKS -4%, AVGO -1%, NXPI -1%. These companies are in the AAPL supply chain.

9:19 am Microchip confirms Atmel (ATML) determination of MCHP's proposal being superior; notes merger expected to be immediately accretive (MCHP) : If Microchip and Atmel execute a merger agreement on the terms proposed by Microchip, the transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Microchip's non-GAAP earnings per share following the closing of such transaction.

8:33 am Atmel Board determines Microchip (MCHP) $8.15/share proposal as 'superior' to existing merger agreement with Dialog Semiconductor (DLGNF) (ATML) :

The binding Microchip agreement provides for Microchip's acquisition of all outstanding shares of Atmel common stock at a purchase price of $8.15 per share, consisting of $7.00 in cash and a fraction of a share of Microchip common stock having a value of $1.15, based on a ten-day average of the closing price of Microchip's common stock measured as of the day before the closing of the proposed transaction (with cash being substituted for Microchip common stock to the extent that the aggregate number of shares of Microchip stock issued in exchange for Atmel stock would exceed 13 mln shares). On January 12, 2016, Atmel notified Dialog that Atmel's Board intends to terminate the Dialog merger agreement and enter into a definitive merger agreement with Microchip in the binding form delivered to Atmel. Consistent with the Dialog merger agreement, Atmel's board will consider in good faith any changes to the Dialog mergeragreement or other arrangements that Dialog may offer in writing and would be legally binding upon Dialog by January 19, 2016. Microchip's offer will remain open and binding until 10:00 PM California time on Tuesday, January 19, 2016. If Atmel terminates the Dialog merger agreement, it will be required to pay a termination fee in the amount of $137,300,000 to Dialog. There can be no assurance that Atmel will terminate the Dialog merger agreement or enter into the Microchip merger agreement.

8:31 am Capstone Turbine received order for two C1000 microturbines to provide clean power for offshore oil company operating in South China Sea; expected to be commissioned in mid-2016 (CPST) :

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - Bullard's Thursday Save Erased From the Books (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Bullard's Thursday save erased from the books as indices probe lower lows.
- Economic data in US shows the dramatic slowing the stock market forecast, but facts cannot get in the way of the true believers.
- Market is now in a downtrend and the mindset has to change from the 6 year upside run, at least until the Fed tries to change things once more with additional QE.
- Market internals, sentiment, technical setup is primed for a bounce. We plan some obvious upside to take gain offered but eye the downside setup when the move stalls. Once it starts, that is.

Well, IF SP500 is going to complete a head and shoulders pattern, it has at least given itself a very good contra-trend window to bounce back up. Recall that the apex of what we view as a potential left shoulder is around 1990 - 1995. Given SP500 closed at 1880, that is a nice 110 point move upside. Pop the champagne!

Friday the stock market sold hard once more, turning down from the Thursday bounce almost before the tickers stopped Thursday night. A plethora of negatives greeted traders and investors and gave many, many reasons to jettison more stocks. I will go into those over the weekend because the news is simply not good, and the reasoning we heard all session long as to what was happening and what it meant was simply astounding. In any event, the Thursday rebound evaporated and stocks dove lower with the SP500 lows undercutting the summer 2015 'flash crash 2' lows.

SP500 -41.51, -2.16%
NASDAQ -126.58, -2.74%
DJ30 -390.97, -2.39%
SP400 -1.49% -- relative strength leader. Much rejoicing, yeah.
RUTX -1.75%
SOX -4.53%

VOLUME: NYSE +15%, NASDAQ +8%. Big volume but it was also expiration. Suffice it to say the market sold on heavier and heavier volume all week.

A/D: NYSE -4.7:1, NASDAQ -4.7:1. Okay not so big, but that was the closing numbers. On the session lows NYSE breadth sported an extreme -10:1 along with NASDAQ's rather extreme -8.6:1. THAT is extreme and is the kind of action that leads to rebounds . . . along with the help from other indicators that are also at extreme levels.

New Lows: NYSE 887, NASDAQ 641. Yep that is extreme.

The astounding thing is the responses of guests on the financial stations. All Friday long they trotted out experts who dogmatically stuck to the talking points laid out by those in control of our markets, e.g. the FOMC that is now the arm of the administration. I won't go into that latter relationship, but it was as if I was watching the State of the Union all over again in terms of the detachment from reality spouted by these experts.

The main theme they all proffered: the stock market, the bond market, the oil market all have it wrong. There is nothing, according to these oh so sage guardians of economic truth, wrong with the economy. Look at the jobs. Look at corporate earnings. All is well. All is well.

After the retail sales for December disaster (control group -0.3% versus +0.3% expected; weakest year/year sales since 2009), CNBC's other bald guy, Steve Liesman (hell of a name in this context) argued with Joe Kernan about how the economy was so strong, pointing adamantly to the 297K jobs created in December.


Look at all the jobs! Look at all the jobs!
No, it should be 'look at all the crappy jobs!'

Unfortunately Joe Kernan could not effectively argue the other side. Sure there are jobs. Jobs that pay so low that people have to work two to three jobs to just get by. We have replaced salaried, head of household jobs with minimum wage jobs. Good thing we have created another couple million more than the other jobs had in 2007 because people have to work them, something the December report proved given the surge in people taking those jobs who already worked one or two jobs. I wanted 'Mr. Wonderful' from Shark Tank to come out and famously say 'smell the bankruptcy!' Liesman is so married to the mantra he cannot see the truth behind the numbers he quotes.

Then there was one poor mixed up youngster who exclaimed "the US is not in recession so stocks should be rising!" My word. What are they teaching now? There was also an older analyst who said the market selling was a "sentiment driven reaction." I found myself saying 'he should know better . . . or went to school at Princeton.'

Stocks react? No, stocks LEAD economic action. Stocks price in, even with Fed intervention though with less sharpness, future earnings and economic activity months in advance. They don't wait for the economy to fall and go 'gee I guess I had better sell now that the economy is lower.' Is it any coincidence that stocks formed a 15 month top starting October 2014, the EXACT month the Fed stopped QE, then crashed last summer WELL BEFORE the economic data started to seriously roll over as seen in November through present?

I digress, of course, but I believe it is important to understand that these people are out there and in some cases managing money. They put their cockeyed theories to work, and while they may appear right for a short period, they end up getting utterly slaughtered in the slaughterhouse the stock market can be.

Now, this all ties together. It just so happens that this very well could be the time where they all feel that this is just the market run amuck in the near term and is going to bounce right back. With SP500 at the summer 2015 lows, the neckline in a potential head and shoulders, this is the range where it should bounce to form that pattern. It is the level we talked about last week, the perfect level, to launch such a move and complete the pattern.

See how the market uses that sentiment, how it plays upon emotions, luring those in who swear this is just a short term reaction and using a relief bounce to suck them in? Oh sure, we will play a relief bounce as well but we do it expecting it to end around 1990. If not, cool, we let it run. We have been around the stock market and the economy long enough, however, to have seen this all before.

The entire stock recovery was driven by the Fed. QE, zero rates. Free money that was used to buy back stock, pay dividends so people would want to buy big corporation stock, buy other companies (beats making capital and personnel investments). It was a circle of money that went from the Fed to financial institutions and large corporations and back again and again, pushing the stock market higher on nothing. 'Seinfeld' was a show about nothing. This entire move from 2009 was a stock market mega rally about nothing. Well, at least nothing economically; it was indeed about free money.

The point: After that long and hopefully somewhat interesting and intriguing explanation, if our model holds, the market as measured by SP500, has a 5% to 6% upside move ahead of it. Many will jump in as a sign of a bottom given a hold at the summer lows as well as other support from old trendlines. Hey, maybe it turns out to be the bottom. Unlikely given the massive top over it, but you have to remain open to the possibilities. What did Spock say? When you eliminate the possible you have to consider the impossible? In any event, we would buy in with them, let them push positions back up to that prior level, and if the market stalls, we get out, pocket the gains, and load up once again on downside plays.

Friday we used the selling to the prior lows, and the hold of those on the close by SP500, as an opportunity to take some downside gains on AAPL, AMZN, GOOG. We even bought some CYBR as it showed a solid session in a down market. We did not have the desire to pick up any DIA or SPY, figuring if the market bounces off of this potential neckline there is enough room for us to make very good money without sticking our neck out over the weekend.


NEWS/ECONOMY

Where to start? Friday a veritable data deluge swamped investors. Outside of a peculiar Michigan Sentiment beat (perhaps they were very upbeat about their chances of winning the power ball jackpot?) the data was atrocious. The market formed a large top, and now the data is tumbling in 'support' of that top.

Retail Sales, December. Declining.

-0.1% versus 0.1% expected versus 0.4% November (from 0.2%)

Year/year: 2.2%, the weakest since 2009, a renowned banner year for the economy.

Control Group (feeds directly to GDP): -0.3% versus +0.3% expected. GDP forecasts will have to be cut amid all of this supposed economic strength, and indeed, after hours, the Atlanta Fed cut its Q4 GDP forecast to 0.6% growth, down from 0.8% reported just 8 days ago.

With the weakest year/year retail sales report since 2009 still freshly stinging, Steve Liesman could not let the facts of every economic indicator rolling over except for the LAGGING employment indicator change his views. So married to the love of Fed and the Princeton school of Keynesian economics, Mr. Liesman bitterly clings to his dogma that all of those low pay hourly jobs would no doubt spur an economic renaissance to the exclusion of one of the most well-known economic maxims: jobs lag the overall economy.

Thus, while even more indicators crashed as Friday's data releases revealed, the Keynesian economic manipulators simply cannot admit to the facts. Of course if they did then they would be admitting their entire money supply manipulation theory was a pile of horse dung. And I don't mean to offend horse dung.


Holiday Sales Sag.

The National Retail Federation reported its hard numbers on the 2015 holiday season, finally ending the speculation.

3.0% versus 3.7% expected. The lowest since the 2013 holiday season.

Just a tad bit disappointing. Where did that gasoline tax cut go that was supposed to fuel spending and recharge the season? It went to unaffordable healthcare program that is siphoning off consumers' disposable income.


WMT to shutter stores, lay off employees.

It certainly is not going to WMT. Friday the massive retailer announced it is closing 269 stores in the US and Latin America, many in Brazil. The closures will impact at least 16,000 employees. WMT said it would help those employees impacted to get on with other stores left open, but just how many employees can a store absorb? Perhaps the flood of immigrants to Europe and their absorption into that society provides a case study for WMT. Perhaps not.

Of course this comes after WMT raised its lowest wage employees, axing hundreds of salaried management positions. So, how is that working for it? Does not seem so grand a plan, a discount retailer whose mantra is lower and lower prices hiking wages for low level jobs beyond what the economics will bear. So, WMT closes stores and lays off workers. It is eating itself from within.


New York Empire PMI: -19.4 versus -3.5 versus -6.2 (from -4.6)

This is the sharpest decline since 2008 and the largest expectations miss ever. The last time the NYE PMI was at this level was back in 2008 and before that in 2001.


Industrial Production tumbles the most since . . . 2008.

Notice how EVERYTHING is falling the fastest it has fallen in the past 8 years, the time of the financial crisis? That tells you how bad things are.

December: -0.4% versus -0.2% expected versus -0.9% November (from -0.6%)

Year/year: -1.8%, also the fastest since May 2008 and a level never seen outside of a recession.

Capacity Utilization tumbles

Utilization, December: 76.5 versus 76.9 expected versus 76.9 prior (from 77.0)

Just not enough business to keep the production facilities running.


Business Inventories, November: -0.2% versus 0.0% expected, -0.1% October (from 0.0%)

Sales: -0.2% versus -0.2% October

Inventory to Sales: Remains at 1.38:1, matching the highest since 2008

Year/year: -1.4%


Summary: The economic data continues to weaken, falling as fast as and to levels seen since 2008 during the height of the financial crisis. How on earth can that be read as indication of a strong economy? Those in favor right now cannot give up their ideology and those in power do not want them to or lest they reveal that the policies in place are based on incorrect theories and assumptions.

Indeed, in my lifetime I have never seen such a denial of clear fact and such fury in supporting the denials. What is to be gained from believing things are improving when not? I am not sure, other than power, but I do know as I have said before, until the policies change the outcome cannot.

What does that mean market-wise? The market is pricing in an economic recession of some sort. The market does that until it senses a turn that will lead to expansion and earnings growth. OR, as Art Cashin said Friday, until the Fed goes back to QE or some other form of free money stimulus at which time the market prices in the free money. That is why, since QE ended in October 2014, the market has formed a 15 month top and has broke down. No QE, no change in fiscal policies, no growth, and therefore the market is taking out the pricing that QE caused.


THE MARKET

TECHNICAL PICTURE

I can go into great detail as to each index and the intricacies of the moves. As this juncture, however, we all know the score.

The market has put in a year-plus top. It broke lower once, rebounded to a lower high, broke down again. Friday SP500 joined SP400 and RUTX in undercutting both the August and September lows. From the late December lower high it was down 10.75%. It rebounded to close at those lows as well as a pair of important trendlines. The pattern it is forming is a large 6 month head and shoulders and is at support, ready to bounce to form the right shoulder. That pattern is in line with the overall negative market top and break lower.

The internals are at extremes. New lows 887 on NYSE, 641 on NASDAQ. Breadth -10:1 NYSE on the Friday low, -8.6:1 on NASDAQ.

Sentiment is at extremes. Put/Call ratio over 1.0 for 11 sessions straight. Bulls and bears below and above 35%, respectively, and have crossed over.

The only indicator that has not spiked out of sight is VIX. It hit 30.95 on the Friday high, not a historically high blowout. It matched the early September peak but was well off the 53 intraday spike in August. BUT, that was the flash crash, and the selling occurred in a three day window with a one-day binge. The current selling is a 12 session event to test those levels, and VIX has surpassed other interim levels and is in our opinion high enough.

The summation of all of these factors points to a market still in the longer term process of heading lower. Near term, however, the probabilities of a relief bounce, likely to the SP500 1990-1995 level, are much higher than a serious new downside decline. The latter can occur if there is sufficient provocation from world events, but in a technical and sentiment sense, the market is in excellent position to bounce. Now it is a matter of something sparking the move to cover shorts.


CHARTS

SP500: Undercut the August and September lows (1857.83 intraday low) and reversed to hold above the August closing low. SP500 is also holding two trendlines. One is from the October 2014 low and runs through the 2015 summer lows. The second is from . . . the March 2009 low through the 2011 closing lows and the 2012 June and November lows. When you put all of the indicators together, it certainly looks as if SP500 is poised for a bounce up to the mid-September closing peak at 1995 to form the apex of a right shoulder to its forming head and shoulders pattern. MACD is not racing higher, but it is attempting to hold above the August/early September low even as SP500 undercuts those prices. We want to play that bounce of 115 points with S&P options, take the gain, then load up on the downside.

NASDAQ: Undercut the September lows as well as the August closing low. Reversed off the lows but FAILED to recover either month's closing low. That said, if you look at a close line chart you see NASDAQ forming the same pattern, though not as clean, as SP500, a head and shoulders. Further, you know what often happens when there is a breach of support: people freak that support was broken, but the algos use it as a trading opportunity and buy, producing a false breakdown. We will have a front row seat to see if they are still playing that same game. If they are, we are playing it as well with some QLD or other index derivatives as well as choice names that are in position to move and can move well.

SOX: Gapped lower to a tight candlestick doji, undercutting the September low, closing just below those lows Still well above the August lows.

DJ30: Same pattern as SOX, below the September lows but well above the August lows.

RUTX: New lows on the week, indeed new lows for 2016, 2015 and 2014. It is at some support from a 2013 mini-peak and mini-dip during its ascent straight up that year, but that is nothing special as there are many of those that year.

SP400: On a different timeframe than SP500, but SP400 is working on its own head and shoulders starting back in Q1 2014. This last bomb lower undercut the two 2014 lows by a bit, and it is in position to make the bounce IF the buyers return.


LEADERHIP

We are looking across the entire market to identify sectors that are moving upside. We are not finding any of significance. Moves are scattered within sectors or are your typical bear market sectors, e.g. water utilities. Most of what we see are sectors already in bear markets from the prior year or the big name stocks in the throes of finally selling off after leading well after all other groups gave up.

The key for us now is to play upside when the probabilities favor an upside play. That will be the minority of the time. There are no doubt good patterns out there, e.g. ROVI, DDC, AMSC, but those are case-by-case stocks, AND even those are subject to the random sell program that sees a stock moving higher in a bear market and wants to short it. Or an analyst who feels it is too high in an overall weak market and needs to be downgraded on 'valuation.' Those stocks simply don't have the favor of the trend working for them anymore.

So, when the probabilities do get right, yes you look at upside plays that have held up and look solid to move higher; it is easier for them to do so as they already have buyers. Big moves can be made, however, on the beaten up stocks that are favorites. Indeed, they can siphon money away from stocks in solid uptrends when an overall relief bounce occurs.

What does all of that mean? There really are no leaders in the market right now, at least not the kind we want to play because there is not enough return in those stocks. We always watch for sectors that show signs of moving into leadership, and when that happens then we can prepare for a new uptrend. Right now that is not the case, and thus the bounce that appears to be setting up is nothing but a relief move to play on a bounce/trade basis and then sold.

Thus we look at stocks that can bounce when it is time to bounce. That time would appear to be now. And what bounces the most? Those quality stocks beaten down, e.g. MMM. Big Names that everyone loves, e.g. GOOG. Our goal is to pick a handful of those in great position and patterns to bounce and that people like to buy on a bounce OR that need to be covered on a bounce. We play those along with index derivatives on bounces, then play them downside on the flip-flop as the truckers used to say in the 1970's.

Big Names: GOOG is in the gap zone and if the market bounces then GOOG bounces to test the break. Prefer just downside on this one, letting it set back up. FB is holding the 200 day SMA the past two sessions and may be ready to try a bounce perhaps to 100; kind of tight. NFLX is at the 200 day SMA as well, making a round trip from mid-November back to 102. Maybe can bounce. AMZN has just about filled the gap from October. Could be a good bounce play in a short covering rally. AAPL is trying to find buyers the past week as it tests the August opening low. Interesting but the upside may be limited.

Energy: XEC looks very good for a bounce. GPOR ditto.

Electronics: AMSC is going lone wolf.

Utilities: EQT actually can make money.

Biotechs: Big names are beaten down and still don't look ready to rally. AMGN indeed looks ready to roll back over.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -126.59 points (-2.74%) to close at 4488.42
Volume: 2.685B (+8.02%)

Up Volume: 315.28M (-1.605B)
Down Volume: 2.49B (+1.874B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 4.7 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.16 to 1

New Highs: 8 (-1)
New Lows: 641 (+99)

S&P
Stats: -41.51 points (-2.16%) to close at 1880.33
NYSE Volume: 1.425B (+14.92%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 4.73 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.07 to 1

New Highs: 6 (0)
New Lows: 887 (+197)

DJ30
Stats: -390.97 points (-2.39%) to close at 15988.08


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 27.02; +3.07
VXN: 29.13; +3.17
VXO: 27.75; +3.08

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.52; +0.5

Recent history: 26 of 36 sessions above 1.0. Twelve straight at 1.0 or above. Definitely back to a point to support a rebound.


Bulls and Bears: Bulls plunged far below 35% while bears surged to 35.7%. A double bonus. Bears are over 35%, a bullish signals the same as bulls below 35%. In addition, bulls and bears crossed over, a very powerful upside signal. Last week we wondered if a crossover would come this week and it certainly did.

Bulls: 28.6 versus 34.7. Below 35% is bullish.

Bears: 35.7 versus 31.6. Above 35% is bullish.


Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 28.6%
34.7% versus 36.7% versus 37.8% versus 44.9% versus 41.2% versus 45.4% versus 43.3% versus 45.3% versus 46.9% versus 43.7% versus 37.5% versus 36.5% versus 30.2% versus 24.7% versus 26.0% versus 26.8% versus 25.7% versus 27.8% versus 31.6% versus 37.7% versus 40.2% versus 42.2% versus 43.3% versus 49.0% versus 43.7% versus 44.8% versus 49.5

Background: Bulls hit their lowest level in 2015 since the 2008 and 2009 market plummet.

Bears: 35.7%
31.6% versus 29.6% versus 29.6% versus 27.6% versus 26.8% versus 26.8% versus 28.9% versus 28.1% versus 29.2% versus 31.3% versus 31.2% versus 34.4% versus 35.1% versus 30.2% versus 26.8% versus 27.9 versus 26.8% versus 22.5% versus 18.4% versus 18.6% versus 17.5% versus 17.5% versus 15.6% versus 15.6% versus 15.6% versus 15.4% versus 15.4% versus 16.5% versus 16.5% versus 15.8% versus 14.9% versus 15.8% versus 13.9%

Background: Over 35% for bears is the threshold to be really be a good upside indicator. The best indication is when bears cross up through bulls as the two merge. Both occurred in fall 2015.


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.03% versus 2.09%. Bonds continue the breakout though the 10 year did close off the early high that took it below 2%.

Historical: 2.09% versus 2.07% versus 2.105% versus 2.17% versus 2.11% versus 2.15% versus 2.18% versus 2.25% versus 2.18% versus 2.24% versus 2.27% versus 2.30% versus 2.30% versus 2.23% versus 2.26% versus 2.24% versus 2.20% versus 2.19% versus 2.24% versus 2.29% versus 2.27% versus 2.23% versus 2.13% versus 2.23% versus 2.21% versus 2.23% versus 2.23% versus 2.27% versus 2.33% versus 2.18%

EUR/USD: 1.0917 versus 1.0869. Dollar struggling but the euro tried to breakout but failed to hold the move.

Historical: 1.0869 versus 1.0879 versus 1.0851 versus 1.0854 versus 1.0921 versus 1.0937 versus 1.0789 versus 1.0748 versus 1.0835 versus 1.0934 versus 1.0928 versus 1.0972 versus 1.0963 versus 1.0917 versus 1.0953 versus 1.0920 versus 1.0868 versus 1.0818 versus 1.08334 versus 1.0934 versus 1.0992 versus 1.0987 versus 1.0944 versus 1.1029 versus 1.0892 versus 1.0844 versus 1.0872 versus 1.0948 versus 1.0595 versus 1.0625 versus 1.0566 versus 1.0592


USD/JPY: 117.02 versus 118.06. Breaking to a lower low after testing the 10 day EMA this past week.

Historical: 118.06 versus 117.72 versus 117.50 versus 117.73 versus 117.71 versus 117.24 versus 117.58 versus 118.25 versus 119.02 versus 119.397 versus 120.495 versus 120.45 versus 120.345 versus 120.295 versus 120.86 versus 121.01 versus 121.33 versus 122.30 versus 122.68 versus 122.35 versus 121.64 versus 120.85 versus 121.64 versus 121.40 versus 122.97 versus 123.28 versus 123.15 versus 122.49


Oil: 30.68, -0.53. Oil gapped upside then rolled back over, still struggling to get higher. Trend lower remains a trend for now.

Gold: 1088.60, +10.30. Trying to hold the handle, closing just over the 50 day SMA.


TUESDAY

The stock indices have set up a good bounce opportunity with extreme internals, extreme enough sentiment, and a good technical setup to bounce. We want to play the bounce with sensible plays that can make us money, take the gains, then look downside.

The question is whether the market wants to start the week with another test lower and reversal again. It would actually be our preference to start weak on Tuesday and building into the rebound versus a gap higher that will once again be a target for short sellers. Let the market go down a bit more, show the shorts it is not going to head lower than it has. That sets up a foundation for a decent short covering led relief move.

Thus, if there is early weakness or basically flat trade Tuesday, we like the upside if the market starts a solid move off of that. If there is early strength we want to see how that tests and how it holds the move, i.e. how the shorts treat it. If they don't want to sell further, okay then. While we certainly want to play a very tradable move up to SP500 1990 -1995 to capture some money for the taking, that move is not going to be the big move for the rest of the year. That move can make us some good money but in the bigger picture it is not where we are going to make most of our money for the year. Accordingly a bit of caution is warranted until the market shows it is bouncing.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4488.42

Resistance:
4517-4506 from the September 2015 and August 2015 closing lows
4615 from September 2014 highs, October 2014 upper gap point, late August 2015 low.
The 10 day EMA at 4681
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4774 is the January high
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4814 is the gap point from last week.
4815 is the December 2014 prior market peak
The March lows at 4843 and 4825
4828 is the late August peak
4837 is the late August 2015 rebound high
4902 is the July 2015 low
The 50 day EMA at 4905
4912 the mid-April China dip
4916 is the mid-November 2015 low
4920 is the lower gap point from mid-October
The 200 day SMA at 4969
The June low at 4974
4999 is the October upper gap point
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5042 is the March 2015 high
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak
5164 is the June 2015 peak, 5175 is the August intraday peak
5232 is the July high

Support:

4485 are the twin July 2014 peaks
4352 is the March 2014 peak
4292 is the August 2015 low


S&P 500: Closed at 1880.33

Resistance:
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1905 is the August 2014 low
1913 is the early September 2015 closing low testing the bounce from the August selling
The 10 day EMA at 1940
1972 is the December 2014 low
1989 is the last August closing high
1991 is the July 2014 high
1995 is the September 2015 recovery peak
2011 is the September prior all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 2015
2040 is the March 2015 closing low
2046 is the July 2015 closing low
The 200 day SMA at 2055
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014
2094 is the December 2014 high, the prior all-time high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2119.59 is the February intraday prior all-time high
2126 was the April prior all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high

Support:
1883.57 is the early March high.
1872 is the September 2015 test low of the August low
1867 is the August 2015 low
1862 is the October 2014 closing low


Dow: Closed at 15988.08

Resistance:
16,026 is the April 2014 low
16,058 is the early September 2015 low
16,117 is the October 2014 closing low
16,368 is the August 2014 low
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
The 10 day EMA at 16,530
16,589 is the December 2013 all-time high
16,632 is the April 2014 all-time high
16,665 is the late August 2015 closing high. Key, key level.
16,670 is the December 2014 peak and the recent August 2015 relief bounce peak.
16,736 is a prior all-time high from May 2014
16,933 is the September 2015 recovery peak
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
17067 is the December 2014 low
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
The 50 day EMA at 17,165
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
The 200 day SMA at 17,467
June 2015 low at 17,715
17,748 is the mid-April China margin selloff and the bottom of the 5 month trading range
The March low at 17,786
17,978 is the November 2015 peak

Support:
15,666 is the August 2015 low
15,372 is the February 2014 low


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

January 15 - Friday
Retail Sales, December (8:30): -0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.4% prior (revised from 0.2%)
Retail Sales ex-auto, December (8:30): -0.1% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.3% prior (revised from 0.4%)
PPI, December (8:30): -0.2% actual versus -0.1% expected, 0.3% prior
Core PPI, December (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.3% prior
Empire Manufacturing, January (8:30): -19.4 actual versus -3.5 expected, -6.2 prior (revised from -4.6)
Industrial Production, December (9:15): -0.4% actual versus -0.2% expected, -0.9% prior (revised from -0.6%)
Capacity Utilization, December (9:15): 76.5% actual versus 76.9% expected, 76.9% prior (revised from 77.0%)
Michigan Sentiment, January (10:00): 93.3 actual versus 92.6 expected, 92.6 prior
Business Inventories, November (10:00): -0.2% actual versus 0.0% expected, -0.1% prior (revised from 0.0%)

January 19 - Tuesday
NAHB Housing Market , January (10:00): 61 expected, 61 prior
Net Long-Term TIC Fl, November (16:00): -$16.6B prior

January 20 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 01/16 (7:00): +21.3% prior
CPI, December (8:30): 0.0% expected, 0.0% prior
Core CPI, December (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
Housing Starts, December (8:30): 1197K expected, 1173K prior
Building Permits, December (8:30): 1200K expected, 1289K prior
Crude Inventories, 01/16 (10:30): 0.234M prior

January 21 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 01/16 (8:30): 280K expected, 284K prior
Continuing Claims, 01/09 (8:30): 2263K prior
Philadelphia Fed, January (8:30): -4.0 expected, -5.9 prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 01/16 (10:30): -168 bcf prior

January 22 - Friday
Existing Home Sales, December (10:00): 5.12M expected, 4.76M prior
Leading Indicators, December (10:00): -0.1% expected, 0.4% prior

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From Briefing.com: The broader market was all green when the day was done. The advance was led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which added 115.94 points (+0.74%) to 15882.68. The S&P 500 was also strong, adding 9.66 points (+0.52%) today to close 1868.99. The Nasdaq Composite was also higher, but only just so, as it took gains under 1 points (+0.01%) today, ending 4472.06. Market data today consisted of Initial Claims, which for the week ending January 16 were up 10,000 to 293,000. Continuing claims for the week ending January 9 were down 56,000 to 2.208 million. The Philadelphia Fed Index for January checked in at -3.5 versus -10.2 in December.

Today's trade kicked off with mixed action as weakness in Asia and a choppy futures market took all three indices higher at the open. The advances faded quickly off the open, but finished strong as the oil and energy markets gained steam. For context, the front month March Crude oil contract finished the session up 4.2% to $29.54/barrel. Crude rallied following the Energy Information Administration's weekly inventory report which saw inventory build 3.979 million barrels with gasoline inventories showing a 4.563 million barrel build.

Technology (XLK 39.31, +0.24 +0.61%) was also higher today as the early gains were quickly surrendered, but the broader market action in the latter part of the session pressured the sector to the upside. Component Xilinx (XLNX 46.78, +3.70 +8.59%) led the action to the upside on Thursday as the company reported a mixed Q3, but beat expectations on the top line with revenues of $566 million. Other sector ended XLE +3.11%, XLY +1.28%, XLB +0.88%, XLI +0.44%, XLP +0.39%, IYZ +0.31%, XLU -0.09%, XLV -0.30%, XLF -0.43% led to the upside by Energy with weakness in Financials.

Semis (SOX 587.56, +8.62 +1.49%) were again the best outperformers on the session as action was in the green all day. Component ON Semiconductor (ON 8.39, +0.12 +1.45%) displayed strength today as the company extended its tender offer to acquire Fairchild Semi (FCS 20.28, +0.07 +0.35%). Other SOX components which displayed relative strength today included SUNE +9.40%, MU +7.96%, CREE +5.32%, SWKS +2.71%, MRVL +2.53%, ASML +2.46%, QCOM +2.44%.

At the end of the session, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (654.00, +2.18 +0.33%) was at an even 645 when the bell rang as broader market action dictated trading trends today. Component F5 Networks (FFIV 89.51, -0.51 -0.57%) was slightly weaker today as the company reported a mixed Q1, but beat expectations on the bottom line with EPS of $1.73; FFIV also issued downside guidance for the Q2 period. Shares of FFIV were also upgraded this morning at Citigroup. Other components which finished the day higher with the sector included HPQ +4.08%, FSLR +3.20%, APH +2.73%, WU +2.48%, YHOO +1.84%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Citrix Systems (CTXS 65.42, -1.08 -1.62%) appointed Kirill Tatarinov as President and CEO.

Visa (V 71.56, +0.86 +1.22%) appointed Lynne Biggar as EVP and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer effective February 1.

ACI Worldwide (ACIW 18.70, -0.13 -0.69%) divested its Community Financial Services Business to Fiserv (FISV 89.64, +0.69 +0.78%).

Apple (AAPL 96.30, -0.49 -0.51%) announced the creation of Europe's first iOS App Development Center in Italy, to give students practical skills and training on developing iOS apps for the world's most innovative and vibrant app ecosystem.

MariaDB Corporation, a 'leader' in open-source relational database solutions for high availability, scalability, and performance, announced it has received $9 million in equity financing to support accelerating sales and advanced technology development. Intel (INTC 29.66, +0.07 +0.24%) Capital and California Technology Ventures were among the investors in the $9 million equity financing.

IBM (IBM 122.91, +1.05 +0.86%) confirmed it has acquired Ustream. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

FireEye (FEYE 14.79, -0.08 -0.54%) announced Q4 total billings, total revenue and non-GAAP loss per share are expected to be within previously issued guidance range. Also announced acquisition of privately held iSIGHT Partners for $200 million. The deal is expected to be slightly accretive to FY16 operating income and cash flow.

Unwired Planet (UPIP 10.37, +1.41 +15.74%) won German cellular patent infringement case against

Samsung (SSNLF 1025, flat), LG Electronics and Huawei.

GrubHub (GRUB 19.42, -0.99 -4.85%) expanded its delivery service to the Los Angeles market.

Alarm.com (ALRM 16.39, +0.47 +2.95%) extended its technology partnership with Monitronics International.

Proofpoint (PFPT 57.32, +1.35 +2.41%) and Palo Alto (PANW 144.60, -2.30 -1.57%) will team up to provide customers with extended protection from and intelligence into the sophisticated attacks targeting users, data and content via email and social media.

SunEdison (SUNE 2.56, +0.21 +9.17%) disclosed it entered into purchase agreement amendment. The company also clarified the rights and obligations of SUNE.

ON Semiconductor (ON) extended tender offer to acquire Fairchild (FCS).

Cypress Semi (CY 8.22, +0.58 +7.59%) reaffirmed its Q4/FY15 guidance. The company also confirmed previously announced buyback to commence Jan 22.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Verizon (VZ 45.87, +1.42 +3.19%) reported EPS for the Q4 period which beat expectations at $0.89 per share; VZ had revenues in Q4 of $34.25 billion. The company saw Service revenues increase 1.4% in Q4 and Wireless retail postpaid net additions of 1.5 million. VZ also reaffirmed FY16 adj, earnings plateauing at a level comparable to 2015.

F5 Networks (FFIV) reported Q1 EPS which beat expectations at $1.73 on revenues which rose 5.8% year-over-year to $489.5 million. The company also guided Q2 EPS in the range of $1.61-1.64 and revenues in the range of $480-490 million.

Logitech Intl SA (LOGI 14.73, +1.01 +7.36%) reported Q3 EPS which beat expectations at $0.41 on revenues which was worse than expectations at $621 million. LOGI also raised FY16 non-GAAP operating income guidance to about $170 million from $150 million. Also, LOGI sees retail sales of 7-9%, up from 7% growth.

Xilinx (XLNX) reported Q3 EPS which was in-line at $0.49 on revenues which were better than expected at $566 million. The company also issued guidance for the Q4 period at EPS of about $0.51-0.54 on revenues of flat QoQ from $566 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: EGHT, DGII, MXIM

Analyst actions:

TEF was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Macquarie,
HOLI was upgraded to Neutral from Reduce at Nomura,
ASML was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Bryan Garnier,
ADTN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
FFIV was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup,
VIVHY was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Societe Generale

4:05 pm Maxim Integrated reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q3 mostly below estimates (MXIM) :

Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.32 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.32; revenues fell 9.2% year/year to $510.8 mln vs the $505 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.38-0.44, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.46 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $535-575 mln vs. $569.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"In our March quarter, we expect continued growth in Automotive, a sequential increase in our Communications & Data Center and Consumer businesses and a seasonal uptick in Industrial."

4:10 pm : The major averages ended the Thursday session off their highs, as a rebound fizzled out in afternoon action, leaving the key indices near the middle of their trading ranges. The rebound in equities took place along with a similar effort in crude oil. The commodity and the stock market lost some of their momentum once the energy component traded above the $30.00/bbl price level. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) lead the S&P 500 (+0.5%) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (UNCH).

Ahead of today's session, the European Central Bank left its deposit facility rate and refinancing operations rate unchanged at -0.3% and 0.05%, respectively. However, ECB President Mario Draghi stated that the central bank "will need to review and therefore possibly reconsider" its monetary policy stance in March as downside risks have increased in 2016. Mr. Draghi's comments invited heavy speculation regarding future stimulus provisions, lifting futures to new highs.

Oil was able to rally in unison with equity futures, as the oversold commodity sought to recover from a 20.0%+ decline since the start of 2016. WTI crude continued its rally despite poor readings from the Energy Information Administration's weekly inventory report. The report showed an inventory build of 3.979 million barrels (expected 2.811 million barrels) while the gasoline inventories report showed a 4.563 million barrel build (expected 1.378 million barrels). WTI crude was up more than 6.3% before it ticked down from its high into the commodities pit session close, ending 4.2% higher at $29.54/bbl.

In front of the pack, energy (+2.9%), telecom services (+2.4%), consumer discretionary (+1.4%) and materials (+0.9%) lead while financials (-0.3%), health care (-0.3%), and utilities (UNCH) trailing.

Looking at the energy sector, component Kinder Morgan (KMI 13.88, +1.87) climbed 15.6% today, thanks to positive price action in crude oil. Additionally, the company reported above-consensus Q4 earnings. Elsewhere in the group, Dow components Chevron (CVX 81.05, +2.07) and Exxon Mobil (XOM 74.10 +0.92) underperformed the space with respective advances of 2.6% and 1.3%.

Moving to the health care space, heavyweight UnitedHealth Group (UNH 113.50, -1.29) trailed the sector with a decline of 1.1%. This came after the company helped the health care sector top the leaderboard yesterday. On a related note, biotechnology showed relative weakness throughout today's session. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 278.75, -6.74) slid 2.4%% after yesterday's 3.5% climb.

In the technology space (+0.6%), large-cap constituents Apple (AAPL 96.30, -0.49) and Microsoft (MSFT 50.48, -0.31) were unable to make any headway. Meanwhile, data storage names posted some of the steepest declines with Seagate Technology (STX 27.56, -1.66) and Western Digital (WDC 43.94, -1.85). The two names declined 5.7% and 4.0%, respectively. Elsewhere the high-beta chipmakers showed relative strength, evidenced by the 1.5% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

In specific industry news, rail companies struggled following Union Pacific's (UNP 71.00 -2.61) disappointing earnings results this morning. The company fell 3.6% after announcing that revenue fell 15.4% year-over-year in Q4. The company cited uncertainty in the energy market and the relative strength of the dollar for the shortfall. Fellow rail company, Norfolk Southern (NSC 70.07, -1.11) felt some of the same headwinds, as it ended its day lower by 1.6%.

Treasuries retreated for most of the session as the rally in equities and oil kept buying suppressed. During the afternoon retreat, the benchmark note was able to move off its low, but the 10-yr yield still ended higher by three basis points at 2.01%.

Today's trading session was true to recent form, generating volume of more than 1.1 billion shares at the NYSE floor.

Economic data has included weekly initial/continuing claims and the January Philadelphia Fed Survey.

Initial claims for the week ending January 16 were higher than expected, rising 10,000 to 293,000 (Briefing.com consensus 280,000).
There were no special factors influencing initial claims, which have been bounded between 250,000 and 300,000 since July 2014. The latest reading, however, is the highest level of claims since the first week of July 2015.
With the latest reading, the four-week moving average for initial claims increased by 6,500 to 285,000, which is the highest average since July 11, 2015.
Continuing claims for the week ending January 9 were lower than expected, falling by 56,000 to 2.208 million (Briefing.com consensus 2.252 million).
The four-week moving average for continuing claims increased by 3,250 to 2.228 million.
The Philadelphia Fed Index for January checked in at -3.5 versus -10.2 in December. ( Briefing.com consensus -4.0).
While the headline number was better than expected, it still doesn't qualify as good considering a number below zero still connotes a contraction in manufacturing conditions.
The diffusion index for future general activity fell from a revised reading of 24.1 for December to 19.1 for January. In other words, confidence in the outlook is still positive but weakening.
The business outlook survey for January, the improvement was driven by the shipments index, which moved from a contractionary reading of -2.1 for December to an expansionary reading of 9.6 for January.

Tomorrow's economic data will include December Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.12 million) and December Leading Indicators (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) with both set to cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 -12.1% YTD
Nasdaq -10.7% YTD
Dow Jones -8.9% YTD
S&P 500 -8.6% YTD

DJ30 +115.94 NASDAQ +0.37 SP500 +9.66 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1678/2.147 bln/1337 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2005/1.167 bln/1077

3:40 pm :

The dollar index lost steam today after surging higher this morning, giving select commodities some help
WTI crude oil futures rallied this morning, despite some bearish storage data, running from around $28/barrel to just over $30/barrel
At the end of floor trading, front-month Mar crude oil closed +4.2% at $29.54/barrel
In other energy, Mar natural gas closed the day +0.9% at $2.14/MMBtu
Gold remained in negative territory all day, finishing its session -$7.90 at $1098.30/oz. Mar silver lost -0.4% to close at $14.09/oz
Mar copper, on the other hand, rallied 2% to end at $2.00/lb

7:51 am Xilinx last night also disclosed mgmt benefits in the event of a change of control (XLNX) : Xilinx entered into an amendment to the employment letter agreement between the Company and Moshe Gavrielov, the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer. If the Company terminates Mr. Gavrielov's employment other than for Cause, the consummation of a Change of Control, then subject to a general release signed by Mr. Gavrielov becoming effective, Mr. Gavrielov will receive the following severance benefits: a) twenty-four months of base salary and two years of target bonus, payable in a lump sum; b) 100% accelerated vesting of time-based equity compensation awards, etc... On January 19, 2016, the Company also entered into a Change of Control Agreement with each of its named executive officers:; CFO, and multiple VPs.

XLNX is +8% premarket; stock has been a rumored M&A candidate.

7:10 am Verizon beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; reaffirms FY16 adj. plateauing at a level comparable to 2015 (VZ) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.89 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.88; revenues rose 3.2% year/year to $34.25 bln vs the $34.12 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Wireless:
Service revenues plus installment billings increased 1.4%; wireless operating income margin was 28.6 percent, up from 23.5 percent in fourth-quarter 2014.
Verizon Wireless reported 1.5 million retail postpaid net additions in fourth-quarter 2015. Verizon added 906,000 4G smartphones to its postpaid customer base in fourth-quarter 2015. Postpaid phone net adds totaled 449,000 as net smartphone adds of 713,000 were partially offset by a net decline of basic phones. Tablet net adds totaled 960,000 in the quarter, and net prepaid devices declined by 157,000.
Wireline: Consumer revenues were $4.1 billion, an increase of 2.6% YoY. Fios revenues represented 80.4% of the total.
Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS comparable to $3.99, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $3.97 Capital IQ Consensus. Verizon, on a consolidated basis, expects to mitigate 2016 earnings pressures resulting from the sale of high-margin wireline operations to Frontier Communications (FTR)(expected to close at the end of the first quarter), from the continued shift of the wireless customer base to device payment plans and from the ramping of new business models. As previously stated, Verizon expects full-year 2016 adjusted earnings to plateau at a level comparable to its strong full-year 2015 adjusted earnings. Additionally, for 2016, the company expects: Consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin consistent with full-year 2015. Consolidated capital spending of between $17.2 billion and $17.7 billion. This includes ~$150 million for the properties to be sold to Frontier.

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InvesmentHouse Weekend Market Update:

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Second day of the bounce holds as the relief move firms.
- Hope of further stimulus in Japan, China, and even the US (really?) has the market bounce working for now.
- Davos elites' words show their lack of understanding of what they tell us they understand.
- Lack of leadership in good patterns still points to just a relief move but that works.

The Wednesday reversal and the extreme internals and sentiment finally started yielding results. Thursday's gain was mostly frittered away. Friday, however, futures rallied very early and held the moves to the open. Stocks gapped higher and pretty much held the moves to the close. Oh there was a midday fade but it was really not that bad, just coming back to the pre-market levels. Stocks rallied back to near session highs at the close.

SP500 37.91, 2.03%
NASDAQ 119.12, 2.66%
DJ30 210.83, 1.33%
SP400 2.46%
RUTX 2.34%
SOX 1.85%

VOLUME: NYSE flat; NASDAQ -12%. NYSE trade was more or less flat, still holding above average. NASDAQ trade fell to the lowest in 12 sessions, still slightly above average. Lower volume on the rallies is characteristic of a relief move. No surprise there.

A/D: 8.4:1 NYSE, 43:1 NASDAQ. Impressive breadth, not typically characteristic of a relief move. Of course all stocks have been hammered lower so more stocks can rebound on an oversold bounce.

For once a strong price move following a reversal held. Okay, not the first time a good move higher occurred during the last could of weeks; 6 sessions back a strong reversal off a strong drop looked quite promising. The promise was broken the next session with a massive drop. Now the market has two upside days following the reversal. That is also not new in rebound attempts during this selling, but thus far this move is acting more like the rebound we were looking for, the one that bounces SP500 toward that mid-September high at 1990ish. Extremely negative internals, sentiment, and down 12+% from the late December low. It was ripe and Thursday and Friday were a good start.

Okay, so the stage was set. What was the trigger, or in common stock market 'analysis' on the financial stations, what was the cause?

What has caused all of the stock market moves since March 2009? Stimulus or the hope of stimulus. Friday speculation of more stimulus from around the world, from Kuroda in Japan this coming week, from China at any time, and even some conciliatory language from Chairman Yellen at this week's FOMC meeting.

It worked for the session, but will it work beyond a market bounce? Speculation, that is. It will take more than stimulus speculation to right the market such that new highs are reached. The economic condition is bad and worsening and won't change without major policy changes. That will take an election and then the right policies. If that is done, the next President could preside over a major economic expansion, a real one, as small business returns to the US. If anything were to happen before that, it would take more Fed easy money such as a return to QE. There is a lot of talk of negative rates, but negative rates will not have the same effect. It will force the rest of the money supply out of time assets (e.g. interest accounts), but it won't have the same impact as wanton QE.

So where does that leave this bounce? In the bounce category. Without a serious driver from the economy or the Fed's free money there is not much to push stocks upside. The large corporations did better thanks to QE and free money, but they are not doing as well now that QE ended 15 months ago and the economy continues to slide. Of course the small business climate remains horrid as the US still loses more businesses than it creates in this sixth year of this great recovery. Lower wages, poor job quality, higher costs (e.g. healthcare thanks to the Affordable Care Act) has pushed the middle class below 50% for the first time since the industrial revolution. Despite the glowing self-praise heard at the State of the Union Address a couple of weeks back, the state is not good.

That is extraordinarily perplexing to the ultra-wealthy class. Friday Blackstone's billionaire CEO Steven Schwartzman, in Davos of course skiing and carousing between 'hard-hitting' meetings regarding world affairs, expressed exasperation at the psyche of the average citizen: "I find the whole thing astonishing and what's remarkable is the amount of anger whether it's on the republican or democratic side. Bernie Sanders, to me, is almost more stunning than some of what's going on in the republican side. How is that happening? Why is that happening?"

If there was EVER a "let them eat cake" Marie Antoinette moment for modern times, that was it. Nothing at all against wealth, but wealth coupled with a lack of understanding of the real world issues that inhibits others from creating wealth and joining the wealthier classes IS a real problem. It is the fallacy of Davos where elites gather not to discuss solutions to class division, access to markets, etc., but to maintain their relative rank in the world wealth and power order.

Why are people angry? Look at the facts below the headlines and you will see the issues. I see the current average American mindset much like that of revolutionary times: we are being set upon by all form of regulation (EPA, ACA), taxation, limitation, confiscation (zero tolerance, IRS levy, asset forfeiture, eminent domain) even as we elect, both democrats and republicans, representatives to effect specific policies. Yet, neither side is acting once in DC, at least not acting pursuant to the positions taken to get elected. What is this? Taxation (and confiscation, regulation, incarceration) without representation. There is a revolt taking place in America. Thus far it is contained mostly to the primary selection process, but it is also erupting elsewhere, e.g. Black Lives Matter, militia actions in Oregon, Nevada, and elsewhere, Occupy movement, the Tea Party. The change of this administration has spawned massive counter-movement for change in different directions.



Some of the Schwartzman homes: St. Tropez, Palm Beach, Water Mill. Nice places, good for Schwartzman, but his comments show a complete lack of understanding regarding the plight of the average citizen.

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From Briefing.com: The first trading session of February brought a lot of red to begin the sessionbut not the kind February is known for. However, broader market action ended Monday split, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both finished in the red, and the Nasdaq managed to stave off the selling as the markets closed. Leading the weakness, the Dow lost 17.12 points (-0.10%) to 16449.18. The S&P 500 was down less than 1 point (-0.04%) to 1939.38. The Nasdaq Composite, however, closed higher by 6.41 points (+0.14%) to 4620.37.

Market data today came in the form of the personal income reading which rose 0.3% in December while personal spending was unchanged. The PCE Price Index declined 0.1% month-over-month while the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, was unchanged. The January ISM Index was up 48.2 for January and construction spending increased just 0.1% in December.

Weaker with the broader market, Chinese Tech (QQQC 19.86, -0.37 -1.83%) names were down in the dumps as overnight, China released two unsurprisingly weak manufacturing figures with Manufacturing PMI coming in at 49.4 (expected 49.6) and the Caixin PMI survey hitting 48.4 (expected 48.0). Both data points showed further contractions in China's manufacturing sector and worked to move global growth concerns back to the forefront of the market. Component Sohu.com (SOHU 48.41, -1.98 -3.93%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.34 on better than expected revenues of $466.1 million. Other QQQC components which were seeing red today included BIDU -1.33%, VNET -0.42%, QIHU -0.03%.

Technology (XLK 41.39, +0.15 +0.36%) flirted with negative territory, but only just as action began the session in the red but losses would not last. Component Seagate Tech (STX 30.41, +1.36 +4.68%) posted another strong session following last week's quarterly results, edging higher today also. Other sectors finished XLU +0.95%, XLY +0.61%, IYZ +0.43%, XLB +0.41%, XLP +0.33%, XLV +0.15%, XLI -0.24%, XLF -0.41%, XLE -1.67% with Utilities leading and Energy lagging.

On the upside, Social Media (SOCL 18.50, +0.23 +1.26%) names were aflutter as shares of component Twitter (TWTR 17.91, +1.11 +6.61%) were optimistic (compared to prior sessions) with the name being the subject of M&A chatter as the day progressed. A Fortune report out after midday refuted the rumors Silver Lake was interested in the streaming-news company. Other SOCL names which had secret admirers today included LNKD +3.97%, WB +2.56%, FB +2.51%, JIVE +2.01%, YNDX +1.34%, ANGI +1.30%.

Investors were also in love with components of the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (687.49, +1.33 +0.19%), as action took the sector higher. Other components which displayed relative weakness today included EBAY +2.05%, ADSK +1.77%, QCOM +1.70%, FIS +1.57%, GOOGL +1.24%, GOOG +1.22%, LRCX +1.16%, PAYX +1.02%, SWKS +1.02%, QRVO +0.93%, INTU +0.90%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Symantec (SYMC 19.75, -0.09 -0.45%) completed the sale of Veritas for $5.3 billion. The company also authorized a $2 billion increase to its capital return program.

Broadcom (BRCM 54.67, flat) completed its acquisition of Avago Technologies (AVGO 137.68, +3.97 +2.97%).

Marathon Patent Group (MARA 1.92, +0.12 +6.67%) announced the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the USPTO issued a final decision upholding the patentability of certain asserted claims of Marathon subsidiary Clouding Corp.'s U.S. Patent No. 5,944,839 that were challenged by EMC Corporation (EMC 24.52, -0.25 -1.01%) in the inter partes review, IPR2014-01309.

MasterCard (MA 88.63, -0.14 -0.16%) announced the appointment of Alexander N.M. Niejelow as a SVP of public policy effective February 8, 2016.

IBM (IBM 124.83, +0.04 +0.03%) announced continuing momentum for its social business offerings with clients around the world ushering in the next era of collaboration with IBM Verse and Connections. IBM also announced expanded capabilities in its collaboration portfolio with new innovations that make it easier for clients to gain and share business insights across teams.

Texas Instruments (TXN 52.83, -0.10 -0.19%) introduced the first single-chip 100-V high-side FET driver for high-power lithium-ion battery applications, delivering advanced power protection and control.

Fiserv (FISV 94.37, -0.19 -0.20%) announced the $4.3 billion United Nations Federal Credit Union (UNFCU), based in New York City, has selected the DNA core account processing platform with integrated surround solutions from Fiserv.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Yahoo! (YHOO 29.57, +0.06 +0.20%) is planning a 15% workforce reduction as part of a cost cutting plan.

Accenture (ACN 106.28, +0.74 +0.70%) has developed a virtual reality experience to demonstrate the potential of the technology for rugby fans, and potential applications outside of game-playing.
According to a Financial Times article, Apple (AAPL 96.43, -0.91 -0.93%) acquired virtual reality startup Flyby. Financial Times noted the secret research unit may develop a product to compete with Microsoft's (MSFT 54.71, -0.38 -0.69%) Hololens and Samsung's (SSNLF 1025, flat) Gear VR.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Nokia (NOK 6.34, -0.86 -12.01%) received a favorable patent license award with Samsung (SSNLF). NOK then updated their outlook to include the award. The company expects to report net sales of about EUR 400 million in the fourth quarter 2015 and about EUR 1 020 million for the full year 2015. Also NOK expects to receive about EUR 1.3 billion of cash during years 2016 - 2018 related to its settled and ongoing arbitrations in Nokia Technologies, including this award.

Littelfuse (LFUS 102.32, +0.42 +0.41%) announced EVP and CFO Philip Franklin will retire after 17 years of service with the company. Meenal Sethna, SVP, finance, will succeed Franklin as CFO. Franklin will transition the CFO responsibilities to Ms. Sethna at the end of March and will remain with the company through July in an advisory role.

Ku6 Media (KUTV 0.86, +0.16 +22.86%) received a preliminary non-binding proposal to go private for $1.08 per share from Shanda Interactive Entertainment.

Virtusa (VRTU 45.08, +0.36 +0.81%) purchased multiple foreign currency forward contracts designed to hedge fluctuation in the Indian rupee against the U.S. dollar and U.K. pound sterling.

Analyst actions:

MU was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman,
MMS was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond James,
PTC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sterne Agee CRT,
EXTR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
KT was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan;
XRX was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
NOK was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill

5:10 pm Pixelworks sees Q4 EPS and revs below consensus; Bruce Walicek has resigned as President and CEO; Todd DeBonis appointed COO (PXLW) :

Co issues downside guidance for Q4 (Dec), sees EPS of ($0.11) vs. ($0.09) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 (Dec) revs of $13.5 mln vs. $13.99 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Looking ahead, the challenging market environment continues to impact our results and will likely contribute to greater than normal seasonal weakness in the first quarter of 2016."Co also announced that effective immediately Bruce Walicek has resigned as President and Chief Executive Officer and as a Director from the board for personal reasons. Mr. Walicek will remain as a consultant to the Company for a period of up to six months. Pixelworks' Board of Directors has commenced efforts to promptly identify and select a candidate to succeed Walicek as CEO. Until such time that a permanent CEO is appointed, Stephen Domenik will assume these duties and serve as interim CEO. Domenik has served as a Director on Pixelworks' board since August 2010 and previously acted as a strategic consultant to the Company in 2013. Former worldwide sales executive of TriQuint, Todd DeBonis appointed COO.

4:09 pm Luminex reports Q4 (Dec) results, revs in-line; guides Q1 revs in-line; guides FY16 revs in-line (LMNX) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.56 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.13; revenues rose 4.0% year/year to $60.45 mln vs the $60.22 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

263 multiplexing analyzers were shipped during the quarter, which included 78 MAGPIX systems, 137 LX systems, and 48 FLEXMAP 3D systems.Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $60-62 mln vs. $61.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $245-255 mln vs. $251.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:09 pm Integrated Device reports EPS in-line, beats on revs (IDTI) :

Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.35 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.35; revenues rose 17.5% year/year to $177.6 mln vs the $175.0 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Co delivered its ninth consecutive quarter of YoY revenue growth, driven by strong demand for its communications infrastructure products. "With our continued focus on operational excellence, we achieved a non-GAAP operating margin of 29.4%, and record free cash flow of 30% of revenue on a trailing twelve-month basis." "The integration of recently acquired ZMDI is progressing well, and we are already leveraging the combined product portfolios into potent customer cross-selling opportunities. Additionally, as synergies are realized over the coming year, we expect the acquisition to provide meaningful revenue and EPS accretion, while supporting IDT's target operating model."

4:08 pm Alphabet beats by $0.58, beats on revs (GOOG) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $8.67 per share, $0.58 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $8.09; revenues rose 18.5% year/year to $21.33 bln vs the $20.76 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Aggregate paid clicks- Q4 +31%; Q3 +23%. Paid Clicks on Google websites- Q4 +40%; Q3 +35%. Paid clicks on member sites- Q4 +2%; Q3 -5%. Aggregate cost per click- Q4 -13%; Q3 -11%. CPC on Google sites- Q4 -16%; Q3 -16%. CPC on member sites- Q4 -8%; Q3 -4%. Revenue SegmentsGoogle Website revenue +20% y/y Google Network Member websites +7% y/y Google Advertising +17% y/y Google Other Revenues +24% y/y Operating Expense as % of revenue 36% compared to 37% in prior year Free Cash Flow $4.31 bln compared to $2.81 bln in prior year TAC As a % of revenue 21% compared to 22% in prior year

4:06 pm Rudolph Tech beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (RTEC) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.16 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.15; revenues rose 3.0% year/year to $51.1 mln vs the $51.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:20 pm : The major averages were able to end their first session of the week on a mixed note despite starting this morning under some selling pressure. Today's session saw a divergence with the recent tradition of equities trading in lockstep with the direction of oil, as the major indices staged a rally off their lows despite a larger loss in crude. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.1%) was able to end ahead of the S&P 500 (UNCH) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%).

Equities charged back to their flat lines during afternoon action with the move stemming in part from an understanding that the coming week has a number of potential catalysts that could move the market. Conversely, a number of negative announcements were likely not bad enough to elicit a defensive response. Factors that contributed to today's action included:

Fed Vice Chairman Fischer's speech which provided little additional insight on last week's policy statement
The final member of F.A.N.G., Alphabet (GOOGL 770.77, +9.42) rallying ahead of its earnings report
Non-farm payroll data is set to be released on Friday; and
Weak economic data internationally and domestically which may delay additional rate hikes

China released two weak manufacturing figures overnight with Manufacturing PMI coming in at 49.4 (expected 49.6) and the Caixin PMI survey hitting 48.4 (expected 48.0). Both data points showed further contractions in China's manufacturing sector but were anticipated to be weaker. This data worked to depress global equity markets, U.S. futures, and oil prices. To be fair though, growing skepticism of potential production cuts from OPEC and non-OPEC states may have worked to further depress prices. WTI crude ended its pits session lower by 6.2% at $31.65/bbl.

Seven of ten sectors were able to finish their trading day in positive territory with countercyclical telecom services (+0.9%) and utilities (+1.0%) leading the pack. Meanwhile, energy (-1.9%) financials, (-0.6%), and industrials (-0.3%) were unable to move into positive territory.

The energy space underperformed during today's session as commodity prices continued to weigh on the group. While independent oil and gas companies like Anadarko Petroleum (APC 38.25, -0.84) faced larger headwinds, even large-cap Exxon Mobil (XOM 76.29, -1.56) felt pressure ahead of its earnings release tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, pipeline company Kinder Morgan (KMI 15.19, -1.26) declined 7.7% in the wake of oil's rout and a 6.5% decline in natural gas ($2.15/MMbtu).

Financials continued their decline from January as they underperformed on the possible inability for the broader market to support a rate hike. Money center banks underperformed in response, with Bank of America (BAC 13.96, -0.18) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 58.86, -0.64) sliding 1.3% and 1.1%, respectively.

In the heavily-weighted technology space, Facebook (FB 115.09, +2.88) continued to outperform after disclosing its fourth quarter beat last week. Meanwhile, Alphabet showed relative strength as it climbed 1.2%.

On the merger and acquisition front, Alere (ALR 54.11, +16.91) climbed 45.5% on news that the company will be acquired by Abbott Laboratories (ABT 38.45, +0.60) for $56.00 a share. Elsewhere, Dominion (D 70.18, -1.99) agreed to acquire Questar (STR 24.99, +4.60) for $25 per share.

Today's participation was slightly below recent averages with less than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Treasuries ended their day near their lows as equities rallied. The yield on the benchmark note ended higher by three basis points at 1.95%.

Today's economic data has included PCE Prices for December, Construction Spending for December, and the January ISM Index.

Personal income rose 0.3% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%)
Personal spending was unchanged (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).
Personal consumption expenditures decreased $0.7 billion, or less than 0.1%, so with rounding it gets logged in the report as 0.0 for the month-over-month change.
The personal savings rate jumped to 5.5% from 5.3% in November and stands at its highest level in three years.
PCE Price Index declined 0.1% month-over-month while the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, was unchanged (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) after a 0.2% increase in November.
December readings, the PCE Price Index is up 0.6% year-over-year versus 0.4% in November and the core PCE Price Index is up 1.4%, holding steady with the year-over-year reading for November.
The January ISM Index, edged up to 48.2 for January (Briefing.com consensus 48.3)from a downwardly revised reading of 48.0 (from 48.2) for December.
January marked the fourth straight month that the ISM Index has been below 50.0. (The dividing line between expansion and contraction). the manufacturing sector has been hurt by the dollar's strength, weak global demand, and falling commodity prices that have crimped investment spending.
New orders and production indexes reached expansion territory. The new orders index increased to 51.5 from 48.8 while the production index rose to 50.2 from 49.9.
The imports index also logged a notable increase, rising to 51.0 from 45.5. Conversely, the employment index fell to 45.9 from 48.0, and the export index dropped to 47.0 from 51.0.
Construction spending increased just 0.1% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%)
Construction spending for November was revised down to a decline of 0.6% from a previously reported decline of 0.4%.
Private construction spending was the big drag in December. It declined 0.6% month-over-month due to a 2.1% drop in nonresidential construction. Residential construction was up 0.9% month-over-month.
Public construction spending, which accounted for 27% of total construction spending in December, increased 0.9% on the back of a 2.2% uptick in nonresidential spending.

There will be no economic data of note tomorrow.

Russell 2000 -9.0%
Nasdaq -7.7%
Dow Jones -5.6%
S&P 500 -5.1%

DJ30 -17.12 NASDAQ +6.41 SP500 -0.86 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1436/1.845 bln/1477 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1508/990 mln/1556

3:30 pm :

Energy futures sold off today and held losses.
Crude oil prices felt pressure on the weak economic data out of China and on daily news/updates that show a coordinated global oil production cut with OPEC and non-OPEC members are less likely to happen than a week ago.
As a result, Mar WTI crude oil closed floor trading -6.2% at $31.65/barrel today
Recent strength in natural gas prices came from the snowstorm that hit the Northeast, which was clearly quite unfavorable for the region
However, recent weather forecasts have improved and is now basically weighing on prices today.
At the end of pit trading, Mar natural gas closed 6.5% lower at $2.15/MMBtu
In electronic trade, nat gas remains near today's low
Given the weak dollar today, precious metals received some upside benefit. Apr gold gained $11.20 to close at $1128.10/oz, while Mar silver finished +0.5% at $14.34/oz. Mar copper, on the other hand, slipped one cent to close at $2.06/lb.


Advancers & Decliners
NYSE AMEX NASDAQ BB
Advancing Issues 1,492 (48%) 707 (50%) 1,284 (48%) 73 (33%)
Declining Issues 1,559 (50%) 670 (47%) 1,334 (50%) 100 (46%)
Unchanged Issues 90 (3%) 46 (3%) 73 (3%) 46 (21%)
Total Issues 3,141 1,423 2,691 219
New Highs 75 13 23 5
New Lows 37 19 96 32
Up Volume 1,886,620,305 (44%) 180,908,712 (24%) 1,008,469,868 (52%) 72,178,967 (20%)
Down Volume 2,336,953,528 (55%) 565,115,320 (75%) 910,580,330 (47%) 186,856,876 (53%)
Unchanged Volume 57,823,457 (1%) 8,933,643 (1%) 27,005,970 (1%) 93,732,149 (27%)
Total Volume 4,281,397,2901 754,957,6751 1,946,056,1681 352,767,9921

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Action on Tuesday led all three major US indices lower, led by a slide in the Nasdaq Composite. The index fell 103.42 points (-2.24%) to 4516.95. The S&P 500 was lower by 36.35 (-1.87%) to 1903.03. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 295.64 points (-1.80%) today to end at 16153.54. The stock market moved in tandem with oil prices in the early going today, as a second day of sharp declines in crude jolted the pair back into sync. Actin ended with March Crude Oil Futures down in floor trading by -7.3% to $29.95/barrel.

Technology (XLK 40.65, -0.74 -1.79%) was also down today when the markets closed as action finished just higher off the lows. Shares of Alphabet (GOOG 764.65, +12.65 +1.68%) bucked the trend today, ending the session as the only component with its head above water. GOOG reported Q4 EPS and revenues which came in better than expected, and traded with notable strength today following that release. Other sectors closed the session XLU +0.44%, XLB -0.67%, XLP -1.28%, XLV -1.44%, XLY -1.94%, XLI -2.01%, IYZ -2.29%, XLF -2.77%, XLE -3.33% as Utilities were the only sector that managed to escape with gains.

Today, Networking (IGN 31.49, -1.39 -4.23%) names were pressured by a component's quarterly results. Plantronics (PLT 32.55, -132.21 -27.28%) reported a mixed Q3 period and gave Q4 EPS and revenue guidance which was not received well by investors. Other components which displayed weakness today included COMM -6.86%, QCOM -6.42%, PLCM -5.84%, ARRS -4.30%, MSI -3.71%.

For its part, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (673.58, -13.91 -2.02%) underperformed the broader market. Harris (HRS 78.24, -8.48 -9.79%) underperformed the broader market today following the company's mixed Q2 report. Other components closed the session ADS -5.94%, STX -5.92%, CRM -5.73%, EA -5.51%, AKAM -5.21%, XRX -5.09%, WDC -4.68%, SWKS -4.51%, TDC -4.36%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM 122.94, -1.89 -1.51%) signed an agreement to acquire Aperto -- a digital agency with headquarters in Berlin. Upon completion of this transaction, Aperto will to join the IBM Interactive Experience (IBM iX) team, supporting IBM's growth in the largest economy in Europe.IBM announced InspireOne Technologies and TEXTIENT as the first two India-based partners to join the IBM Watson Ecosystem.TE Connectivity (TEL 54.81, -2.40 -4.20%) to acquire the Creganna Medical group for $895 million in an all cash transaction. The company expects $0.03 accretion to TE's adjusted EPS in the first full fiscal year. Upon completion of the transaction, the business will be reported as part of TE's Industrial Solutions segment and is expected to close in 3Q16.

Harris (HRS) named Rahul Ghai as SVP and CFO effective February 11, 2016.

Alliance Data's (ADS 194.29, -12.10 -5.86%) Epsilon has signed a new multi-year agreement with Lamps Plus, the nation's largest lighting retailer.

Salesforce (CRM 64.52, -3.92 -5.73%) named Vice Chairman and President Keith Block its COO.

Citrix Systems (CTXS 66.27, -4.63 -6.53%) elected Kevin Parker as Chairman of the Board for the soon-to-be formed company comprised of the Citrix "GoTo" product line, effective upon separation in late 2016.

Western Digital's (WDC 46.89, -2.30 -4.68%) HGST Active Archive System has been certified with the FXT 5000 Series Edge Filer family from Avere.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

FireEye (FEYE 13.93, -0.48 -3.33%) acquired Invotas International. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

TowerJazz (TSEM 12.25, -0.28 -2.23%) acquired Maxim's (MXIM 32.39, -1.11 -3.31%) Fabrication Facility in San Antonio.

Silicon Labs' (SLAB 42.97, -2.04 -4.53%) President Bill Bock notified the company of his decision to resign from his position as an employee and President effective as of February 16, 2016. Silicon Laboratories' Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Tyson Tuttle, will resume the title of CEO and President. Mr. Bock will retain his seat on SLAB's board of directors.

LoJack (LOJN 6.42, +1.06 -19.78%) to be acquired by CalAmp (CAMP 17.21, +0.30 +1.77%) for $6.45 per share in cash or about $134 million. The transaction is expected to be highly accretive to CAMP's earnings in the first 12 months following consummation of the transaction.

Digital Ally (DGLY 6.07, flat) announced that the USPTO has issued another patent relating to its revolutionary auto-activation technology for law enforcement cameras.

Hortonworks (HDP 10.38, -0.02 -0.19%) priced a follow-on offering of 8,425,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $9.50 per share.

Nimble Storage (NMBL 6.96, +0.49 +7.57%) confirmed it surpassed 7,500 customers that have deployed the Nimble Storage Adaptive Flash platform, an increase of more than 2,500 customers in just the last 12 months.

Turtle Beach (HEAR 0.95, -0.28 -22.76%) priced an underwritten public offering of 5.0 million shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $1.00 per share and a separate, concurrent, side-by-side private placement of 1.7 million shares of its common stock at a price of $1.00 per share. Insiders intend to purchase an aggregate of $3.15 million of common stock at the offering price in the Offering and in the private placement.

NQ Mobile (NQ 3.42, -0.20 -5.52%) announced the appointment of Mr. Justin Chen as its President and General Counsel effective as of February 2, 2016.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Alphabet (GOOG) reported Q4 EPS and revenues which beat expectations at $8.67 and $21.33 billion, respectively. The company also reported Aggregate paid clicks of Q4 +31%, and Q3 +23%.

Harris (HRS) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $1.49 on worse than expected revenues, which declined 52.8% YoY, of $1.84 billion. The company also narrowed guidance for the FY16 period to $5.70-5.80 from $5.60-5.80. Also, for the FY16 period, HRS sees revenues of $7.60-7.68 billion, down from a range of $7.67-7.83 billion.

Integrated Device (IDTI 18.67, -6.83 -26.78%) reported in-line Q3 EPS of $0.35 on revenues which rose 17.5% YoY and came in better than expected at $177.6 million.

Littelfuse (LFUS 111.60, +9.28 +9.07%) reported Q4 EPS and revenues which were better than expected at $1.21 and $220.02 million, respectively. LFUS also issued in-line Q1 EPS and revenue guidance of $1.21-1.35 and $213-223 million, respectively.

Plantronics (PLT) reported Q3 EPS which was better than expected at $0.83 on worse than expected revenues of $225.7 million. The company also issued downside guidance for Q4 EPS of $0.50-0.60 on revenues guidance which at the mid-point was worse than expected at $200-210 million.

Companies reporting after the close/before tomorrow's open: DOX, ACLS, ESIO, FEIC, FISV, IXYS, JKHY, MANH, MTCH, NANO, OCLR, TNAV, TSRA, ULTI, VIAV, XCOM, YHOO/ADP, CDK, CEVA, DHX, IMS, KLIC, RDWR, SLAB, SNCR, VNTV, WILN

Analyst actions:

IDTI was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush;
TWTR was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Stifel,
NOK was downgraded to Underperform from Buy at Credit Agricole,
PLT was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Raymond James,
RSTI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow,
IDTI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill

4:43 pm Yahoo! reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; Announces Pursuit of Reverse Spin (YHOO) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.13; revenues fell 15.0% year/year to $1 bln vs the $948.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Q3 Maven (Mobile, Video, Native and Social) Revenue +26% y/y; Q3 +43% y/y Q3 Mobile revenue represented 33% y/y of traffic-driven revenue; Q2 20% y/y Q3 Search Revenue: Gross search revenue -7% y/y; Q3 +2% y/y Number of Paid Clicks increased -10% y/y; Q3 +5% y/y Price-per-Click +3% y/y; Q3 -2% y/y Q3 Display Revenue: GAAP display revenue +13% y/y; Q3 +14% y/y Number of Ads Sold +8% y/y; Q3 +8% y/y Price-per-Ad +6% y/y; Q3 +8% y/.YHOO recorded a $4,461 million non-cash goodwill impairment charge as a result of our annual goodwill impairment test conducted in the fourth quarter of 2015.Management Plans

"The Board also believes that exploring additional strategic alternatives, in parallel to the execution of the management plan, is in the best interest of our shareholders. Separating our Alibaba stake from our operating business continues to be a primary focus, and our most direct path to value maximization. In addition to continuing work on the reverse spin, which we've discussed previously, we will engage on qualified strategic proposals."For consumer products, Yahoo will consist of three global platforms: Search, Mail, and Tumblr, and four verticals: News, Sports, Finance and Lifestyle in growth markets like the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. For advertisers, Yahoo will be defined by two core offerings: Gemini and BrightRoll.
The Company will shift most of the resources in this area toward more forward-leaning mobile search investments, positioning it to redefine search for mobile devices, which will help drive sustainable long-term growth and differentiation.
Focus on engagement growth and improved monetization for the core consumer products, together with the syndication of mobile tools through the Yahoo Mobile Developer Suite, Yahoo expects to drive long-term sustainable revenue growth and reach more than $1.8 billion in Mavens GAAP revenue in 2016. already seen the benefits of this in Q4.In Q4 the Company closed Yahoo Screen and shifted away from original scripted content. In 2016, Yahoo will consolidate some Digital Magazines under one of our four core verticals, while others will be shut down. The Company will also exit legacy products, including Games and Smart TV, which have not met growth expectations.Yahoo plans to reduce our workforce by roughly 15 percent and exit five offices in Dubai, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Milan. It's expected that most of these changes will take place in Q1, but by the end of 2016, the Company anticipates having approximately 9,000 employees and fewer than 1,000 contractors. Result in savings in short term operating expense of $400 million annually.As a result of this four-point plan, Yahoo is expected to return to modest and accelerating growth in 2017 and 2018.

4:10 pm FEI beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus; guides FY16 revs above consensus (FEIC) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.17 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.11; revenues rose 2.7% year/year to $272.57 mln vs the $266.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $215-225 mln vs. $237.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues upside guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $1.02-1.05 bln vs. $1.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.The company's backlog of orders at the end of the fourth quarter of 2015 was $591 million, compared with $536 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2014 and $562 million at the end of the third quarter of 2015. Bookings for the fourth quarter of 2015 were a record $294 million, resulting in a book-to-bill ratio of 1.08-to-1.

4:08 pm Tessera Tech beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus, guides FY16 revenue inline with consensus (TSRA) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.57 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.52; revenues rose 3.2% year/year to $61.8 mln vs the $61.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.41-$0.46 vs. $0.50 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $55-$59 mln vs. $59.20 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co issues inline guidance for FY16, sees revenue of $250-$270 mln vs. $256.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co states that this guidance "does not contemplate the completion of all open legal and greenfield matters or significant upside to the FotoNation business."During 4Q15, the company repurchased approximately 776 thousand shares of common stock for an aggregate amount of $25.3 mln, bringing total repurchases for FY15 to approximately 3.3 mln shares for an aggregate amount of $119.2 mln. As of December 31, 2015, the company had approximately $25.9 mln remaining under its current repurchase program. Subsequently, on January 27, 2016, the Board of Directors approved an additional $200 mln share repurchase authorization.

4:07 pm Nanometrics beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (NANO) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) net of breakeven, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.05); revenues rose 7.5% year/year to $42.68 mln vs the $40.98 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.01-0.09, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.02 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $44-48 mln vs. $43.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Axcelis Tech reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ACLS) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.01 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.01; revenues rose 12.8% year/year to $70.5 mln vs the $69.93 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.00-0.01 vs. $0.01 two analyst estimate; sees Q1 revs of in the mid $60 million range vs. $64.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20 pm : The stock market ended its Tuesday affair under heavy selling pressure as the major indices followed oil's rout to close near their session lows. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (-2.2%) ended behind both the S&P 500 (-1.9%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.8%).

Today's selloff was underpinned by:

Substantial losses in biotechnology
Weakness from market cornerstones Apple (AAPL 94.48, -1.95) and Exxon Mobil (XOM 74.59, -1.70)
The market's inability to capitalize on positive earnings from Alphabet (GOOG 764.65, +12.65); and
Hawkish remarks from Kansas City Fed President and FOMC voting member Esther George

Ahead of today's session, oil sold off in the wake of yesterday's disappointing manufacturing data, diminishing speculation for production cuts between OPEC and non-OPEC states, and Iran announcing that it will be increasing its crude exports to 2.3 million barrels a day in its next fiscal year. Oil was able to close its day off its low but ended beneath the $30.00/bbl price level. WTI crude closed its pits session lower by 5.3% at $29.95/bbl.

The energy sector (-3.3%) rounded out the leaderboard while financials (-2.6%) and industrials (-2.0%) followed. On the flipside, utilities (+0.4%) and materials (-0.7%) outperformed.

In the heavily-weighted technology space (-2.0%), Alphabet was unable to lift the broader sector or the market despite its earnings beat. However, the company surpassed Apple in terms of market capitalization in the S&P 500. The high-beta chipmakers showed relative weakness today, as the PHLX Semiconductor Index declined 3.4%. The group saw headwinds from a Goldman Sachs research note, which cut smartphone growth estimates for 2016 and 2017. This note was consistent with Qualcomm's (QCOM 43.15, -2.96) Q1 guidance, which forecast a 16.0% to 25.0% drop in chipset sales year-over-year.

Large-cap Exxon Mobil fell 2.2% after reporting that revenue declined 31.5% year-over-year in its Q4 earnings report. This set the tone for the beleaguered energy sector as fellow energy giant Chevron (CVX 81.24, -4.05) tumbled 4.8%. Including today's performance, the group has fallen 8.0% in 2016.

Biotechnology continued to anchor the health care space (-1.5%), evidenced by the 2.8% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 261.01, -7.52). Component Gilead (GILD 82.70, -1.34) narrowly underperformed the group ahead of the company's earnings results after today's close.

Money center banks faced continued headwinds from the broader market's potential inability to support a rate hike. Bank of America (BAC 13.23, -0.73) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 57.03, -1.83) declined 5.2% and 4.9%, respectively. On a related note, the yield on the benchmark note is down more than 40 basis points (from 2.29%) since the Fed's rate hike decision on December 16th. Treasuries ended today on their highs as selling pressure in equities continued throughout the second half of the session. The yield on the 10-yr note ended nine basis points lower at 1.86%.

Despite the defensive positioning in the bond market, Kansas City Fed President and FOMC voting member Esther George stated that "economic growth, steady job gains and modestly higher core rates of inflation will warrant further [rate] increases" during her speech.

Today's participation was true to recent form with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic data today, but auto and truck sales were reported throughout today's session.

Tomorrow's economic data includes the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the ADP Employment Change for January (Briefing.com consensus 190k) being released at 7:00 ET and 8:15 ET, respectively. Meanwhile, January's ISM Services Index (Briefing.com consensus 55.0) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 -11.2% YTD
Nasdaq -9.8% YTD
Dow Jones -7.3%
S&P 500 -6.9%

DJ30 -295.64 NASDAQ -103.42 SP500 -36.35 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 583/1.996 bln/2433 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 603/1.038 bln/2485

3:40 pm :

Energy futures traded notably lower today with oil and gas extending sharp losses from yesterday (each fell over 6%)
Today, oil and natural gas each fell over 7%
Oil has been reversing this week as the chances of a global oil production cut appears to be diminishing, while nat gas is selling off mostly on improved weather forecasts
Mar crude oil today close floor trading -7.3% at $29.95/barrel and Mar NG lost 7.3% to end at $2.02/MMBtu
However, in the metals space, Apr gold ended the day unchanged at $1127.30/oz as the weak dollar helped areas outside of energy.
Mar silver only lost four cents to $14.30/oz and Mar copper ended flat at $2.06/lb.

bury, Associated British Foods, and InterContinental Hotels up between 0.3% and 1.2%.

7:13 am DSP Group beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line (DSPG) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.05; revenues fell 9.1% year/year to $33.77 mln vs the $34.04 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Co said, "In the first quarter of 2016, we expect a temporary slowdown in revenues due to decreasing demand for cordless telephony products, which will be partially mitigated by growth from new products."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Wednesday trading ended split as the Dow and S&P 500 was higher, but the Nasdaq dragged. The Dow Jones Industrial Average led the way higher by 183.12 points (+1.13%) to 16336.66 as March Crude Oil Futures ended today's session higher by 8% to $32.29/barrel. The S&P 500 was higher by 9.50 points (+0.50%) to 1912.53. The Nasdaq Composite was weak today, down 12.71 points (-0.28%) to 4504.24. A late session surge took all three US indices for a ride, as dovish remarks from New York Fed President and FOMC voting member William Dudley impacted the markets. President Dudley stated that conditions have tightened since the December rate increase and that additional strength from the dollar could have "significant consequences".

Market data today came in the form of the MBA Mortgage Index, which showed a seasonally adjusted decline of 2.6% in mortgage applications. Additionally, the January ADP Employment Change showed 205,000 positions were added to private sector payrolls in January. The ISM non-Manufacturing Index for January dipped to 53.5 from an upwardly revised 55.8 reading for December (from 55.3).

Technology (XLK 40.60, -0.05 -0.12%) also displayed weakness, ending just below flat lines. Shares of component Autodesk (ADSK 49.56, +3.67 +8.00%) were particularly strong today as the company announced a restructuring plan to accelerate the transition to the cloud and subscription businesses. As part of the transition, ADSK will reduce staff by 10% and as a result will taking pre-tax charges of $85 million to $95 million in connection with the restructuring. Other sectors finished the middle of the week XLE +3.56%, XLB +3.36%, XLI +1.62%, XLU +1.24%, IYZ +1.21%, XLV +0.66%, XLF +0.10%, XLP -0.22%, XLY -0.26% led by a rebound in Energy.

Networking (IGN 32.01, +0.54 +1.72%) names displayed relative strength today as component Viavi (VIAV 5.85, +0.82 +16.30%) reported better than expected Q2 results. The company also authorized a $100 million stock repurchase program. Other components which displayed relative strength included FNSR +6.2%, INFN +5.6%, PLT +5..3%, CIEN +4.6%.

Social Media (SOCL 17.98, -0.16 -0.88%) names were pressured today by component Yahoo!'s (YHOO 27.68, -1.38 -4.75%) quarterly results and guidance. The company reported in-line Q4 EPS, and better than expected revenues. However, the story of the report was the worse than expected Q1 and FY16 guidance. Other components which displayed weakness today included LNKD -5.99%, DMD -4.99%, GOOGL -4.04%, NTES -3.37%, P -3.19%, YELP -2.54%.

Action in the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (671.06, -2.52 -0.37%) displayed relative weakness as the sector finished just below flat lines. Shares of component Fiserv (FISV 94.89, +1.85 -1.99%) were modestly higher today as the company reported in-line Q4 EPS but worse than expected revenues. Also, FISV gave in-line FY16 EPS guidance. Other components which were HPQ -2.33%, MCHP -1.99%, TEL -1.84%, EA -1.73%, FB -1.68%, ACN -1.66%, MSFT -1.58%, AVGO -1.41%, TXN -0.77%.

Other news items among sector components:

Autodesk (ADSK) announced a restructuring plan that will accelerate the move to the cloud and its transition to a subscription-based business model. ADSK plans to reduce staffing levels in the near-term by about 10%, or about 925 positions, and to consolidate certain leased facilities. ADSK also expects these actions will result in additional cost savings in fiscal 2017 and beyond, while reinvesting a portion of the savings in areas critical to its platform and business model transition. ADSK anticipates taking pre-tax charges of $85 million to $95 million in connection with the restructuring. It also expects to be at the high end or exceed its guidance ranges for billings, revenue, non-GAAP EPS, and net subscription additions for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.

IBM (IBM 124.72, +1.78 +1.45%) signed an agreement to acquire ecx.io -- a full-service digital agency headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Arista Networks (ANET 61.95, +4.31 +7.48%) responded to the Initial Determination made by the Administrative Law Judge today in their International Trade Commission Investigation No. 337-TA-944 with

Cisco (CSCO 23.10, +0.27 +1.18%).

Yahoo! (YHOO) announced an aggressive strategic plan to simplify the company, narrowing its focus on areas of strength to better fuel growth, drive revenue and increase efficiency in 2016 and beyond. The Board will pursue reverse spin concurrent with other strategic alternatives.

Corning's (GLW 18.38, +0.29 +1.60%) Board of Directors increased GLW's quarterly dividend of $0.135 from $0.12 per share.

Xilinx (XLNX 48.55, +0.05 +0.10%) announced a new Data Center Ecosystem Investment Program to be administered through its corporate venture arm, Xilinx Technology Ventures.

Accenture (ACN 102.10, -1.75 -1.69%) has completed its acquisition of Formicary, a leading provider of systems integration and technology consulting services for trading platforms in the UK and North America.

Qualcomm's (QCOM 44.73, +1.58 +3.66%) Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and Deutsche Telekom (DTEGY 17.48, +0.30 +1.75%) announced through the aggregation of licensed and unlicensed spectrum bands, recent testing demonstrated LTE Licensed-Assisted Access' (LAA) ability to extend coverage and increase network capacity, while delivering seamless mobility, for an enhanced end user experience. It also ensures a fair coexistence with Wi-Fi in unlicensed spectrum.

Salesforce (CRM 65.34, +0.82 +1.27%) introduced the next generation of its Customer Success Platform, Salesforce Lightning, and previewed its product strategy for the first half of its current fiscal year.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

Amdocs (DOX 55.56, +0.53 +0.96%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.195 from $0.17 per share. Additionally, DOX added $750 million to the existing share repurchase plan.

Viavi (VIAV 5.85, +0.82 +16.30%) appointed Oleg Khaykin as CEO.

DragonWave (DRWI 0.08, -0.00 -4.49%) confirmed 1:25 reverse share split.

GrubHub (GRUB 19.08, +0.12 +0.63%) expanded its delivery service to Washington D.C.

Zillow (ZG 19.51, -0.30 -1.51%) to acquire Naked Apartments for $13 million in cash.

Marketo (MKTO 17.68, -0.28 -1.56%) named Jason Hoffman Chief Security Officer.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Automatic Data (ADP 82.15, -0.02 -0.02%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.74 on revenues which rose 5.8% year-over-year to $2.81 billion. The company also raised its bookings forecast for 2016 - and now sees worldwide bookings growth of at least 12% compared to the prior forecast of at least 10% growth.

Yahoo! (YHOO) reported Q4 EPS which was in-line at $0.13 on revenues which were better than expected yet fell 15.0% year-over-year to $1 billion.

Fiserv (FISV) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $1.00 on worse than expected revenues of $1.37 billion. The company also issued in-line guidance for FY16 EPS of $4.32-4.44 per share.

Amdocs (DOX) reported in-line Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.86 and $921.51 million, respectively. The company also gave in-line Q2 EPS and revenue guidance of $0.84-0.90 and $905-945 million, respectively.

Match Group (MTCH 10.66, -1.53 -12.55%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.24 on worse than expected revenues of $267.6 million.

Viavi (VIAV) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.11 and $232.1 million, respectively. The company also gave in-line Q3 EPS and revenue guidance of $0.07-0.09 and $210-226 million, respectively.

Companies reporting quarterly results tonight/before the open tomorrow: HIVE BRKS CACI CDNS CSGS EXAR GLUU GPRO IMPV IVAC MCHP NXPI SPSC TTWO WSTL XCOM/ARW BCE BR CARB IT GRUB HIMX LVLT LQDT MMS RSTI SQNS TDC UTEK WILN

Analyst actions:

INTC upgraded to Neutral,
SWKS to Buy at Goldman, NPTN upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
ESIO upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
SYNT upgraded to Buy from Hold at Maxim Group,
STWRY upgraded to Hold from Sell at Kepler;
YHOO downgraded at Rosenblatt and Axiom Capital,
ISIL downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup,
MCHP, TXN, SEMI downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
TER, QRVO downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

4:16 pm Cisco Systems announces intent to acquire Jasper Technologies for $1.4 bln in cash, assumed equity awards, & retention based incentives (CSCO) : Jasper Technologies is a privately held company based in Santa Clara that delivers a cloud-based IoT service platform to help enterprises and service providers launch, manage and monetize IoT services on a global scale. Both companies will host a joint investor and press call on February 3 at 2:00 PM PST to discuss the proposed transaction.

4:11 pm Exponent beats by $0.04, beats on revs (EXPO) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.36 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.32; revenues rose 0.1% year/year to $73.68 mln vs the $71.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Exponent announced that it increased its quarterly cash dividend from $0.15 per share to $0.18 per share and reiterated its intent to continue to pay quarterly dividends. Additionally, the Company continues an active stock repurchase program with $46.8 mln currently authorized and available."Looking forward to fiscal 2016, we expect growth in revenues before reimbursements to be in the mid-single digits. We believe our underlying growth will be in the high single digits, but will be partially offset by the completion of a major project during the third quarter of 2015. We expect that 2016 EBITDA1 margin will decline approximately 50 to 100 basis points as compared to 2015, as a result of slightly lower utilization."

4:11 pm Cadence Design beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guides FY16 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CDNS) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.29; revenues rose 4.2% year/year to $441.1 mln vs the $440.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.26-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $440-450 mln vs. $433.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.15-1.25, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $1.79-1.84 bln vs. $1.81 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Exar reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (EXAR) :

Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.07 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.07; revenues fell 15.6% year/year to $37.4 mln vs the $37.34 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.08-0.10, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.09 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of +0-5% QoQ to $37.4-39.3 mln vs. $38.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05 pm Westell Tech misses by $0.01, misses on revs (WSTL) :

Reports Q3 (Dec) loss of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the single analyst estimate of ($0.04); revenues rose 43.9% year/year to $20.2 mln vs the $21.25 mln single analyst estimate."Westell's third quarter results showed continued progress in executing our growth and operational turnaround strategy. Revenue grew 44% compared to the same quarter last year, while down sequentially as expected. Additionally, Intelligent Site Management revenue grew to its highest quarterly level in two years, contributing to a CSG segment gross margin above 40%,"

4:15 pm : The stock market ended a volatile Wednesday session on a mixed note as the major averages rallied off their opening lows. Today's advance can be attributed to a lockstep rally in oil, an easing of the strong dollar, and dovish remarks from New York Fed President and FOMC voting member William Dudley. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.1%) finished ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.5%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%).

Today's session began on a lower note as equities sold off after January's reading of the ISM Service Index showed a faster than expected deceleration in the service sector. Relief from the heavy selling pressure came from an unexpected source, as oil rebounded despite bearish readings from both the API and EIA weekly inventory reports. Oil was able to rally as participants viewed a nosedive in the U.S. Dollar Index to be more beneficial to the commodity than the impact from a larger than expected inventory build. WTI crude closed its session 8.0% higher at $32.29/bbl.

Divergence in monetary policy between central banks had strengthened the U.S. dollar through 2015, but a string of poorer than anticipated economic data has called future rate increases into question. Underpinning this idea were statements from New York Fed President and FOMC voting member William Dudley, who stated that financial conditions have tightened since December's rate increases and that additional strength from the dollar could have "significant consequences" for the U.S. economy.

Commodity-sensitive materials (+3.3%) and energy (+4.0%) were able to top the leaderboard throughout the day while heavyweights financials (-0.1%), consumer discretionary (-0.3%), and technology (-0.4%) underperformed.

The energy space was able rally as strength from oil pushed the sector higher. Energy giant Exxon Mobil (XOM 78348, +3.89) outperformed in the group with a gain of 5.2% as the company recovered from yesterday's post-earnings sell off. Anadarko Petroleum (APC 42.49, +3.23) was able to continue its strong showing from yesterday's earnings report, climbing 8.2%.

The beleaguered financial sector saw early pressure but was able to shape a nice reversal in the afternoon. Supporting this move was a reversal in money center banks like Bank of America (BAC 13.03, -0.20) and Wells Fargo (WFC 47.60, -0.85), both of which were down more than 3.9% before ending their days with respective losses of 1.5% and 1.8%.

In the heavyweight technology space, Facebook (FB 112.69, -1.92) ended its post-earnings winning streak. The stock lost 2.0% today but remains up 19.3% since last Wednesday's report. Alphabet (GOOGL 749.38, -31.53) continued to struggle to capitalize on its earnings beat, declining 4.0%.

In the health care space (+0.5%), biotechnology showed early weakness but ended the day ahead of the broader sector. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 264.00, +2.99) ended its day higher by 1.2%.

Today's participation followed recent tradition with more than a billion shares changing hands on the NYSE floor.

Treasuries ended their day on their lows with the yield on the 10-yr note higher by three basis points at 1.88%.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, the ADP Employment Change for January, and January's ISM Services Index:

The MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted decrease of 2.6% in mortgage applications from last week's reading of an increase of 8.8%.
The January ADP Employment Change showed 205,000 positions were added to private sector payrolls in January (Briefing.com consensus 190,000).
The job gains were centered in small and medium-sized businesses, which showed increases of 79,000 and 82,000, respectively.
They came almost entirely from the service-providing sector, which produced 192,000 new positions, including 44,000 in the professional and business sector.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for January dipped to 53.5 (Briefing.com consensus 55.0) from an upwardly revised 55.8 reading for December (from 55.3).
This report is bothersome from a broader standpoint since it lends weight to the notion that the manufacturing slowdown is having a spillover effect on the services side of the economy, which accounts for the vast majority of GDP.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index has been trending lower since last July when it peaked at 59.6.
The January reading is the lowest level for the index since March 2014, yet it still marks the 72nd consecutive month of being above 50.0.
The providers of the report indicate that a reading above 48.9 for the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index, over a period of time, generally indicates an expansion of the overall economy, and that the past relationship suggests the January reading of 53.5 corresponds to real GDP growth of 1.8% on an annualized basis.

Tomorrow's economic data includes the 7:30 ET release of the Challenger Job Cuts report while weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 275k), the preliminary Q4 Productivity (Briefing.com consensus -1.7%) and Unit Labor Cost (Briefing.com consensus 3.8%) will all be reported at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 10:00 ET release of Factory Orders for December (Briefing.com consensus -2.6%).

Russell 2000 -11.1% YTD
Nasdaq -10.1% YTD
S&P 500 -6.4% YTD
Dow Jones -6.3% YTD

DJ30 +183.12 NASDAQ -12.71 SP500 +9.50 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1460/2.147 bln/1573 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1929/1.156 bln/1103

3:40 pm :

Another volatile day in commodities
WTI oil futures initially sold off a little, temporarily falling below $30/barrel following EIA storage data, which showed a build in oil and gasoline inventories
However, WTI oil quickly reversed course and ripped up near $32/barrel
Mar crude oil ended today's session +8% at $32.29/barrel
In other energy, Mar nat gas rose 1% to $2.04/MMBtu
Notable weakness in the dollar gave metals a hand
Mar silver rallied 3% to close floor trading at $14.73/oz, while Apr gold ended +1% at $1141.30/oz
Mar copper gained 2% to $2.10/lb

3:14 pm Marvell issues statement on Starboard's 13-D filing (MRVL) :

"Marvell regularly engages with our shareholders to understand their perspectives on the company and on our long-term growth strategy, and we welcome all constructive input. We will carefully review any suggestions Starboard or their advisors may have, as we would with any other shareholder."

"We are focused on executing our strategy as our Audit Committee is moving toward completion of the previously disclosed independent investigation of certain accounting and internal control matters and we progress toward regaining compliance with our SEC reporting obligations. The Board of Directors has engaged international executive search firms to conduct searches for additional board members and a permanent Chief Financial Officer."

10:21 am Corning increases quarterly dividend to $0.135/share from $0.12/share (GLW) : "Shareholders can expect to see us increase their dividend payments by at least 10% annually through 2019. We also plan to continue our aggressive share repurchase as part of the plan to sustain and increase shareholders' value."

Xilinx (XLNX) announced a new Data Center Ecosystem Investment Program to be administered through its corporate venture arm, Xilinx Technology Ventures. Investments made through this initiative will focus primarily on technologies that expand Xilinx's data center products. As part of this program, Xilinx recently completed its first data center ecosystem investment in TeraDeep. Through this investment, TeraDeep will continue to work closely with Xilinx to further optimize its solutions on Xilinx-based FPGA boards

7:07 am Silicon Labs beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SLAB) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.63 per share (exceeded the high end of guidance), excluding non-recurring items, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.48; revenues fell 1.2% year/year to $160.1 mln vs the $158.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.42-0.48, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.45 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $157-162 mln vs. $158.21 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."Strong top line performance combined with favorable opex drove a solid beat in fourth quarter EPS," said Tyson Tuttle, CEO of Silicon Labs. "During 2015, we made significant progress in laying the foundation for our continued success as a leading supplier of silicon, software and solutions for a more connected world. Our strategic growth products, including IoT, Infrastructure and Broadcast automotive, all delivered record revenue in 2015."

7:00 am Kulicke & Soffa beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus; announces product launch, receives market acceptance of packaging reflow system (KLIC) :

Reports Q1 (Dec) net of breakeven, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.10); revenues rose 1.0% year/year to $108.5 mln vs the $95.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $130-140 mln vs. $129.13 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co announced the launch of its IConn MEM PLUS High Performance Wire Bonder series.Co announced today that it has received its first purchase order for its APAMA (Advanced Packaging with Adaptive Machine Analytics) Advanced Packaging solution from a strategic, technology focused customer.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The broader market action took the three major US indices all higher. The advance was led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which added 79.92 points (+0.49%) today to close 16416.58. The S&P 500 was up 2.92 points (+0.15%) to 1915.45, and the Nasdaq Composite rounded out the bunch up 5.32 points (+0.12%) to 4509.56. Bellwether GoPro (GPRO 9.78, -0.93 -8.68%) was sharply lower today as the company reported worse than expected Q4 results and gave worse than expected guidance. Also, the company announced a new CFO, and shares did not react well to the quarterly report.

The January Challenger Job Cuts were released today, showing a mark of 75,114, up 41.6% year-over-year. Also, Initial Claims came in for the week ending January 30 showing an increase of 8,000 to 285,000. Continuing Claims for the week ending January 23 declined by 18,000 to 2.255 million. The preliminary report on Q4 productivity showed productivity declined at a 3.0% annual rate, the largest drop in productivity since Q1 of 2014. Q4 unit labor costs increased 4.5%, reflecting a 1.3% increase in hourly compensation. Also, factory orders declined 2.9% in December on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.7% decline (from -0.2%) for November.

Technology (XLK 40.65, +0.05 +0.12) held up well today, as the sector closed just above flat lines. Level 3 (LVLT 50.02, +3.25 +6.95%) reported quarterly results before the bell this morning as EPS came in slightly below expectations and revenues were unchanged versus the prior year. Other sectors ended XLB +2.78%, XLI +1.73%, IYZ +0.91%, XLF +0.86%, XLE -0.05%, XLU -0.43%, XLV -0.55%, XLY -0.58%, XLP -0.92% today.

Semis (SOX 607.72, +10.61 +1.78%) were strong today as the SMH and XSD also finished near the top in terms of percentage gains on the session. Component NXP Semi (NXPI 76.31, +5.53 +7.81%) was higher when the day was done as the company beat expectations for its Q4 earnings report before the markets opened today. Other SOX names which outperformed included CREE +5.39%, QRVO +4.64%, MU +4.37%, AVGO +3.62%, SUNE +2.14%, ARMH +2.10%, QCOM +2.08%, TXN +2.01%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (671.84, +0.78 +0.12%) was also modestly higher when the bell rang, holding onto slight gains. Component Teradata (TDC 25.57, +1.88 +7.94%) finished with notable gains as the company reported quarterly results ahead of the open and consolidated the early rally nicely. Other components finished the day TEL +2.04%, CSC +2.01%, TSS +1.92%, CSCO +1.90%, FISV +1.82%, AMAT +1.68%, XLNX +1.67%, NTAP +1.67%, WU +1.56%, INTC +1.47%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Cisco Systems (CSCO 23.54, +0.44 +1.90%) to acquire Jasper Technologies for $1.4 billion in cash, assumed equity awards, & retention based incentives.

VirnetX Holding (VHC 7.06, +2.27 +47.39%) announced a jury in the United States Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, in the case VirnetX Inc., et al. v. Apple Inc., (AAPL 96.60, +0.77 +0.80%) No. 6:12-cv-00855, has awarded VirnetX $625.6 million in a verdict against AAPL for infringing four VHC patents, marking the second time a federal jury has found AAPL liable for infringing VHC's patented technology.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

The European Commission cleared the acquisition of SanDisk (SNDK 69.86, +0.05 +0.07%) by Western Digital (WDC 49.14, +1.10 +2.29%).

Glu Mobile (GLUU 2.67, +0.66 +32.84%) partnered with Taylor Swift on the development of a new mobile game.

Cascade Microtech (CSCD 20.21, +4.93 +32.26%) to be acquired by FormFactor (FORM 6.86, -0.99 -12.61%) for about $21.13 per share in cash and stock.

ON Semiconductor (ON 8.49, +0.22 +2.66%) extended its tender offer to acquire Fairchild Semi (FCS 20.66, flat).

Advanced Semi (ASX 5.35, +0.18 +3.48%) extended the tender offer to acquire Siliconware Precision (SPIL 7.71, +0.02 +0.26%) until March 17 from previous February 16 expiry.

Synchronoss Tech (SNCR 22.34, -4.38 -16.39%) announced a $100 million share repurchase plan.In reaction to quarterly results:

GoPro (GPRO) named Brian McGee as Chief Financial Officer.

BCE Inc (BCE 57.57, +0.83 +1.46%) reported in-line results for the Q4 period. EPS was CC$0.72 and revenues rose 1.4% year-over-year to CC$5.6 billion. The company also issued in-line guidance for FY16 EPS of C$3.45-3.55 on revenues up 1-3% to roughly C$21.7-22.2 billion.

Teradata (TDC) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $0.70 while revenues were better than expected, yet fell year-over-year to $719 million. The company also guided FY16 EPS better than expected at $2.35-2.50, yet guided revenues worse than expected at $2.315-2.360 billion.

NXP Semi (NXPI) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.25 per share and $1.58 billion, respectively. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revenues in-line with expectations at $1.05-1.15 and $2.15-2.27 billion, respectively. Gartner (IT 83.99, -2.32 -2.69%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.92 on in-line revenues which rose 10.2% year-over-year to $643.8 million. IT also sees worse than expected GAAP EPS for FY16 of $2.15-2.37 on revenues of $2.39-2.45 billion.

MAXIMUS (MMS 50.41, -2.04 -3.89%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.40 and $556.7 million, respectively. The company also reaffirmed their FY16 EPS and revenue guidance of $2.40-2.70 and $2.4-2.5 billion, respectively.

Imperva (IMPV 41.95, -7.53 -15.22%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.20 on revenues which were also better than expected, and which rose 41.4% year-over-year to $72.7 million. IMPV also issued guidance for Q1 EPS of ($0.32)-($0.26) with revenues of $58-$60 million. For FY16,

IMPV issued mixed guidance with worse than expected EPS of $0.17-0.23 and better than expected revenues of $302-307 million. GoPro (GPRO) reported worse than expected Q4 adjusted EPS of a loss of $0.08 per share.

GPRO also saw Q4 revenues in-line with the warning of $436.6 million. The company guided Q1 revenues worse than expected at $160-180 million on non-GAAP gross margins of 35-37%. Also, GPRO issued downside FY16 guidance for revenues of $1.35-1.50 billion.

FormFactor (FORM) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.10 and $71.78 million, respectively.

Companies reporting after the close: ACXM ASYS TEAM ECOM CTCT ECHO EGAN G IPHI LNKD LITE MTD MOBL MPWR MFLX UEPS NTGR NSR NEWR EGOV PCTY PXLW POWI QRVO RNG SQI SWIR DATA TTMI UBNT

Analyst actions:

YHOO was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
AMBA was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Dougherty & Company, CDNS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson,
CDK was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Barrington Research,
CHU was upgraded to Buy from Hold at HSBC;
GPRO was downgraded at Sterne Agee CRT and Dougherty & Company, SNCR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
MTCH was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays, CYOU was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse

5:07 pm Texas Instruments will webcast a review / update of the Capital Management Strategy on February 9 at 11am ET (TXN) :


4:48 pm Sierra Wireless misses by $0.02, misses on revs; guides FY16 below consensus; TSX approves normal course issuer bid for ~10% of shares (SWIR) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.08 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.10; revenues fell 2.9% year/year to $144.8 mln vs the $149.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $0.60-0.80, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.97 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $630-670 mln vs. $674.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "In the fourth quarter of 2015, our revenue was slightly below our expectations, as we experienced softer demand at select OEM customers. We believe this reflects increased caution on the part of some customers in the face of an uncertain macro-economic environment. Notwithstanding the current environment, we expect our business to gain strength over the course of the year as we enter commercial production on a number of new customer programs, and continue to bring new industry-leading products and solutions to market."Pursuant to the Bid, Sierra Wireless may purchase for cancellation up to 3,149,199 of its common shares, or ~9.7% of the Common Shares outstanding as of the date of this announcementThe Board of Directors of the Company today appointed Kent Thexton as Chair of the Board of Directors to succeed Charles Levine who will continue to serve as an independent Director

4:20 pm TTM Tech beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (TTMI) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.24; revenues rose 71.1% year/year to $668.9 mln vs the $655.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Adjusted EBITDA was $95.8 millionCo issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.05-0.11, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $570-610 mln vs. $599.75 mln two analyst estimate.

4:13 pm LinkedIn beats by $0.16, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 and FY16 EPS and rev below consensus (LNKD) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.94 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.16 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.78; revenues rose 34.0% year/year to $862 mln vs the $857.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ~$0.55, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.74 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of ~$820 mln vs. $866.50 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues downside guidance for FY16, sees EPS of ~$3.05-3.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $3.73 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $3.6-3.65 bln vs. $3.91 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. In the quarter, cumulative members grew 19% to 414 million, unique visiting members grew 7% to an average of 100 million per month, and member page views grew 26%. This yielded 17% year over year growth in page views per unique visiting member, continuing a pattern of strong engagement growth over the past several quarters. Mobile in particular grew 3x faster than overall member activity, and now represents 57% of all traffic to LinkedIn.

4:11 pm Qorvo beats by $0.09, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, lowers revs guidance, below consensus (QRVO) :

Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $1.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.94; revenues rose 56.3% year/year to $620.7 mln (in-line with Jan 7 forecast of $620) vs the $620.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.90-0.95 vs. $0.92 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; lowers guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of ~$600 mln vs. $620.64 mln Capital IQ Consensus EstimateOn Jan 7, the company guided for Q3 and for Q4, issuing Q3 revenue guidance of ~$620 mlnAlso, on Jan 7, so said it sees Q4 revenue being flat QoQ (implying ~$620 mln)Today, the co gave guidance of $600 mln

4:05 pm Power Integrations beats by $0.05, misses on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus (POWI) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.58 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.53; revenues rose 0.8% year/year to $87.3 mln vs the $89.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $81-87 mln vs. $89.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate (specific guidance was $84 mln, plus or minus $3 mln

4:05 pm Monolithic Power beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line; also announced $50 mln buyback (MPWR) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.51 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49; revenues rose 14.8% year/year to $86.9 mln vs the $85.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $81-85 mln vs. $81.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees non-GAAP gross margin between 54.5% and 55.5%. This excludes an estimated impact of stock-based compensation expenses of 0.4% and amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets of 0.6%. Co also announces $50 mln stock repurchase program

4:15 pm : The stock market ended its Thursday session on a modestly higher note as shaky trading in oil weighed on the market as a whole. Today's trade saw the continued influence of a few other repeat players, as central bank policies, mixed earnings results, and weaker than expected economic data remained in focus ahead of tomorrow's Employment Situation Report for January. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+054%) was able to end its day ahead of both the S&P 500 (+0.2%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%).

After yesterday's close, Fed Governor Lael Brainard argued for a gradual pace to future rate hikes as, "recent developments reinforce the case for watchful waiting". This dovish tone was echoed internationally as the Bank of England left their existing policy stance unchanged. Shortly before today's open, futures were anchored by a collection of weaker than expected data. Initial jobless claims were reported above analyst expectations, nonfarm productivity came in below estimates, and unit labor costs rose faster than expected.

A rally in crude oil was able to lift futures as the commodity climbed above the $33.00/bbl price level heading into today's session. The rally in the energy component acted as a counterweight to the detrimental data for part of the session. However, as speculation regarding production cuts between OPEC and non-OPEC states declined, so did the commodity. Despite tailwinds from a falling dollar, WTI crude ended its day 2.1% lower at $31.62/bbl.

Only four sectors were able to end their day in positive territory with materials (+2.8%), industrials (+1.7%), and financials (+0.9%) leading the pack. On the flipside, consumer staples (-0.9%) and consumer discretionary (-0.6%) ended with the largest losses.

Money center banks were able to help the larger rebound effort in the financial sector, as JPMorgan Chase (JPM 58.40, +0.99) and Wells Fargo (WFC 48.25, +0.65) outperformed. Elsewhere, MetLife (MET 39.75, -2.20) underperformed the broader sector after missing analyst expectations in it Q4 earnings report.

The industrials space was able to take advantage of the weakening U.S. Dollar Index. Constituents saw an easing of currency headwinds that US companies have faced when attempting to gain pricing power, as falling import prices have negatively affected their core businesses. Large-caps General Electric (GE 29.18, +0.51) and Boeing (BA 123.61, +1.74) showed relative strength with gains of 1.8% and 1.4%, respectively.

In the consumer discretionary space, retailers showed relative weakness after the group reported same store sales before today's open. L Brands (LB 88.57, -6.60) declined 6.9% after reporting that it missed its January estimates. Meanwhile, Kohl's (KSS 41.52, -9.61) plunged 18.8% after the company reported that sales were volatile in Q4 and that January was particularly soft as lower demand for cold-weather goods led to lower store traffic.

Energy (UNCH) companies ConocoPhillips (COP 35.32, -3.31) and Occidental Petroleum (OXY 66.98, -1.15) both reported earnings misses before today's session. Occidental was able to limit its losses after it stated that maintaining operations funding and dividends are the company's top priority. Meanwhile, ConocoPhillips declined 8.6% after it announced that it would be cutting its dividend.

In the health care space (-0.5%), biotechnology showed relative strength today, evidenced by the 0.3% uptick in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 264.69, +0.69). Celgene (CELG 101.93, +2.44) lead the sub-group after climbing 2.5% today.

Investor participation was true to recent form with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Treasuries ended their day near their highs with the yield on the 10-yr note lower by three basis points at 1.85%

Today's economic data included the Challenger Job Cuts report, weekly Initial Claims, the preliminary Q4 Productivity and Unit Labor Cost and December's Factory Orders.

January Challenger Job Cuts totaled 75,114 up 41.6% year-over-year
Initial claims for the week ending January 30 increased by 8,000 to 285,000 (Briefing.com consensus 275,000).
This reading remains true to the range of 250,000 to 300,000 which has bounded the reading since July 2014.
Today's reading pushed up the four-week moving average from 282,750 to 284,750, which is the highest since July 2015.
Continuing claims for the week ending January 23 decreased by 18,000 to 2.255 million (Briefing.com consensus 2.253 million).
The four-week moving average increased by 5,250 to 2.253 million.
The preliminary report on Q4 productivity showed productivity decreased at a 3.0% annual rate (Briefing.com consensus -1.7%)
This was the largest drop in productivity since the first quarter of 2014.
Output increased a mere 0.1% while hours worked increased 3.3% while productivity is up just 0.3% year-over-year.
Annual average productivity increased 0.6% from 2014 to 2015, with output and hours increasing 2.8% and 2.2%, respectively.
Productivity has increased at an annual rate of less than 1.0% in each of the last five years well below the long-term rate of 2.1% from 1947 to 2015.
Fourth quarter unit labor costs increased 4.5% (Briefing.com consensus +3.8%), reflecting a 1.3% increase in hourly compensation and a 3.0% decrease in productivity.
That was the largest jump in unit labor costs since the fourth quarter of 2014.
Third quarter nonfarm business productivity was revised down to 2.1% from 2.2% while unit labor cost growth was revised up to 1.9% from 1.8%.
Factory orders declined 2.9% in December (Briefing.com consensus -2.6%) on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.7% decline (from -0.2%) for November.
That is the largest month-over-month decline since December 2014. This the fourth decline in the last five months for factory orders, which are down 6.6% year-over-year.
New orders for manufactured durable goods were down 5.0% versus a previously reported 5.1% decline in the Durable Orders report for December.

Tomorrow's economic data includes the January Nonfarm Payrolls report (Briefing.com consensus 188k) and December's Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$43.5 billion), which will be reported at 8:30 ET. Meanwhile, December Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $16.50 billion) will cross the wires at 15:00 ET.

Russell 2000 -10.6% YTD
Nasdaq -9.9% YTD
S&P 500 -6.3% YTD
Dow Jones -5.8% YTD

DJ30 +79.92 NASDAQ +5.32 SP500 +2.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1790/2.011 bln/1194 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1955/1.169 bln/1091

3:40 pm :

The dollar index traded lower today, which only helped select commodities today, such as the metals space
Energy, on the other hand, was trading on other catalyst
Oil started the day strong, but lost steam and sunk to new lows on the day
Mar crude ultimately ended the session -2.1% at $31.62/barrel, closing near its LoD
Mar nat gas lost steam following the weekly storage data, finishing -3.4% at $1.97/MMBtu
In the metals space, Apr gold and Mar silver closed out the day near its highs
Gold finished +1.4% at $1157.60/oz, while silver +0.9% at $14.87/oz
Mar copper gained 1.4% to $2.13/l

9:01 am Ultratech beats by $0.04, misses on revs (UTEK) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.14 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.18); revenues fell 41.4% year/year to $28.3 mln vs the $33.75 mln Capital IQ Consensus.At December 31, 2015, UTEK had $251.9 mln in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. Working capital was $315.4 mln and stockholders' equity was $12.89 per share based on 26,522,276 total shares outstanding as of December 31, 2015.

7:14 am FormFactor beats by $0.02, beats on revs, announced $352 mln acquisition of Cascade Microtech (CSCD) (FORM) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.10 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.08; revenues rose 0.7% year/year to $71.78 mln vs the $70.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

7:11 am Cascade Microtech beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (Being acquired by FormFactor (FORM)) (CSCD) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.25; revenues rose 12.9% year/year to $40.41 mln vs the $40 mln single analyst estimate. Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.10-0.16 vs. $0.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $33-37 mln vs. $35.79 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

7:05 am iRobot sells Defense and Security business to Arlington Capital Partners for up to $45 mln; reaffirms its Q4 and FY15 EPS guidance; expects Q4 and FY15 revs at top end of guidance (IRBT) :

iRobot announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Defense and Security business to Arlington Capital Partners for up to $45 million in total consideration, including a contingent payment based on achieving certain milestones. The transaction is expected to close in the next few months.

This transaction enables iRobot to solidify its position as the leader in diversified Home Robots and focus on technologies for the connected home.The company reaffirmed its Q4 guidance for EPS of $0.53-0.58/share ($0.57 Consensus) and full-year 2015 EPS guidance of $1.35-1.40 ($1.44 Consensus) provided on October 20, 2015.Co expects Q4 revenues to be at high end of guidance range of $200-205 mln ($202.3 mln Consensus) and full-year 2015 results to be at the high end of the range of $610-615 mln ($612.2 mln Consensus), following a successful holiday season for the new Roomba 980 Series robot.

7:01 am Cascade Microtech to be acquired by FormFactor (FORM) for ~$21.13/share in cash&stock (shares halted) (CSCD) :

Cascade stockholders will be entitled to receive $16.00 in cash and 0.6534 of a share of FormFactor common stock. The transaction values Cascade at $21.13 per share, or $352 million in equity value. The 2015 revenues of the combined company on a pro forma basis would be over $426 million. This transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to FormFactor's earnings per share. The combined company expects to realize $10 million to $12 million in annualized cost synergies.Under the terms of the definitive agreement, FormFactor will acquire Cascade for approximately $352 million in aggregate consideration, consisting of $270 million in cash and approximately 10.4 million shares of FormFactor common stock, valued at $7.85 per share.Cascade common stockholders are expected to own approximately 15% of the combined company. FormFactor intends to fund the cash consideration for the transaction using approximately $120 million of cash on hand and approximately $150 million in debt financing. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies. The transaction is expected to close in mid-2016.

6:48 am Siliconware Precision: Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASX) extends the tender offer until March 17 from previous February 16 expiry (SPIL) :

6:37 am Wi-LAN beats by $0.05, misses on revs; to implement Normal Course Issuer Bid (WILN) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.08; revenues rose 17.6% year/year to $26 mln vs the $28.84 mln two analyst estimate.The Board has approved the implementation of a Normal Course Issuer Bid to repurchase for cancellation up to 10% of the publicly held issued and outstanding common shares of the Company, subject to the receipt of regulatory and other approvals.

6:01 am Fairchild Semi: ON Semiconductor (ON) extends tender offer to acquire Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS) : Offer between ON Semiconductor (ON) and Fairchild will now expire one minute following 11:59 pm, New York City time, on Feb 18, 2016, unless further extended as required or permitted by the merger agreement. All other terms and conditions of the Offer remain unchanged.

2:34 am NXP Semi beats by $0.23, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (NXPI) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.25 per share, $0.23 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.02; revenues rose 5.1% year/year to $1.58 bln vs the $1.54 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.05-1.15 vs. $1.07 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $2.15-2.27 bln vs. $2.24 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tech-stocks-briefing-com-155520118.html?u

Super Bowl 50 slump...curse...whatever you want to call it, today was tough. A day out of the big game, the Nasdaq Composite touched its worst level since the Fall of 2014. Action was decidedly to the downside today as the market spent the entirety of the session on the defense. Winners were hard to come by, especially in the technology sector where action was led lower today by the likes of bellwether names like FB -4.2%, MSFT -1.5%, VZ -0.5%, QCOM -0.3%, GOOG -0.1%. Upon further review, the ruling at the start of the session was reversed as the markets posted a late-session comeback (albeit still ending lower). Able to close the gap, the late-day comeback was led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which shed 177.92 points (-1.10%) today to end 16027.05. The S&P 500 was down 26.61 points (-1.42%) to 1853.44. Leading the way lower today was the Nasdaq, which lost 79.39 points (-1.82%) to 4283.75.

Technology (XLK 38.93, -0.57 -1.44%) again was an underperformer, but finished well off the daily lows. Tech name Yelp (YELP 16.06, -2.04 -11.27%) was volatile in the afternoon session as early an earnings leak too the stock on a wild ride as the session progressed into afternoon trade. Other sectors closed the session IYZ -3.26%, XLB -2.63%, XLF -2.53%, XLY -1.94%, XLV -1.37%, XLI -0.84%, XLE -0.52%, XLU -0.34%, XLP -0.26% with Telecom ending the worst performer.

Software (IGV 83.83, -3.07 -3.53%) names were pressured today by component Cognizant Tech's (CTSH 54.05, -4.49 -7.867%) worse than expected guidance. The company reported better than expected Q4 results, but the tepid Q1 and FY16 guidance pressured the stock and more broadly the sector. Other IGV components which displayed weakness included PCTY -17.7%, SPLK -11.9%, ZEN -11.6%, N -10.3%, PFPT -10.3%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (638.73, -10.61 -1.63%) also displayed relative weakness, albeit ending well off daily lows. Component Cisco Systems (CSCO 22.93, +0.04 +0.17%) was upgraded this morning to a Neutral rating from an Underperform at Macquarie. Shares outperformed the broader market and the broader sector today, ending as one of the only four other components which were in the green. Other components which were weak today included WDC -8.61%, CTSH -7.67%, CRM -7.62%, MU -7.55%, ADSK -5.89%, HPQ -5.45%, ADBE -5.38%, V -5.27%, VRSN -5.15%, AKAM -5.14%, AVGO -5.06%.

Other notable news items among sector components:


In conjunction with an early earnings release, Yelp (YELP) reported that CFO Rob Krolik will be stepping down and departing the company in the coming months. Krolik will continue to serve as the CFO until a replacement is found.

GoPro (GPRO 10.99, +1.03 +10.34%) entered into a new collaborative patent licensing agreement with Microsoft's (MSFT 49.41, -0.75 -1.50%) licensing unit.

The Board of OzForex Group Limited announced that it has terminated discussions with Western Union (WU 17.41, -0.15 -0.85%) in relation to the preliminary, non-binding, indicative conditional proposal to acquire 100% of the shares of OFX via scheme of arrangement previously announced on 19 November 2015.

Royal DSM announced a new, multi-year agreement between Corning (GLW 17.96, -0.38 -2.05%) that will provide fiber solutions to the telecommunications industry.

eBay's (EBAY 22.48, -0.72 -3.10%) StubHub announced the upcoming launch of its new ticketing platform, which offers partners a reimagined rightsholder branded experience, full market visibility, data ownership and the listing of primary and secondary ticket inventory in a single marketplace.

Microchip (MCHP 41.22, -1.00 -2.37%) announced the introduction of automotive-grade NOR Flash products with wider voltage and a larger temperature range.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

BroadSoft (BSFT 28.87, -2.24 -7.20%) acquired Transera. For 2016, BSFT expects the acquisition to contribute about $7-8 million in revenue and be about $0.02 to $0.03 dilutive to our non-GAAP earnings.

Orange (ORAN 16.65, -0.23 -1.36%) to acquire Millicom International Cellular (MIICF 42.73, -0.97 -2.22%) subsidiary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Trimble (TRMB 19.03, -0.28 -1.45%) announced the acquisition of London/New York based Sefaira Ltd., expanding TRMB's Design-Build-Operate (DBO) portfolio to include tools for designing high-performing buildings early in the conceptual phase of a project. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

During the session, social media name Yelp (YELP) reported Q4 EPS of $0.11 on revenues which rose 39.9% year-over-year to $153.7 million. The company also guided Q1 revenues better than expected at $154-157 million and FY16 revenues better than expected at $685-700 million.

Cognizant Tech (CTSH) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.80 on revenues which rose 17.9% year-over-year to $3.23 billion. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revenues worse than expected at $0.79-0.80 and $3.18-3.24 billion, respectively. Also, CTSH issued worse than expected FY16 EPS guidance of $3.32-3.44 on in-line revenues of $13.65-14.20 billion.

ON Semiconductor (ON 7.40, -0.65 -8.07%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.19 on revenues which fell 2.8% year-over-year to $840.3 million. The company also guided Q1 revenues in-line at $800-840 million.

WEX (WEX 60.14, -7.41 -10.97%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.15 and $212.6 million, respectively. WEX also reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenue guidance of $0.80-0.88 and $190-200 million, respectively. For FY16, WEX also sees worse than expected EPS and revenue of $3.80-4.10 and $860-890 million, respectively.

Virtusa (VRTU 37.39, -5.35 -12.52%) reported Q3 EPS of $0.54 and revenues which rose 22.4% year-over-year to $150.6 million. The company also issued worse than expected guidance for Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.44-0.46 and $172-175 million, respectively.

Companies reporting quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: GIG, MXL, MODN, QLYS/ALLT, BHE, ENTG, FIS, VSH

Analyst actions:

CSCO was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Macquarie,
GLOB was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
PLUS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sidoti,
ULTI was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at FBR Capital;
DATA was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/inplay-briefing-com-055139997.html#

4:06 pm Advanced Energy appoints Grant Beard as Chairman (AEIS) :

Co announces that Terry Hudgens has decided to retire and not stand for re-election to the board.Beard has been a director of the company since 2014 and is the chair of the board's nominating & governance committee.4:20 pm : The stock market ended its first session of the week with moderate losses despite strong buying interest in the final hour of trade. Today's trade was dominated by concerns regarding slowing global growth, a decline in oil, and the ability to sustain further fed funds rate hikes. Trade saw a flight from risk assets to safe-haven investments amid growing uncertainty. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.8%) ended its day behind both the S&P 500 (-1.4%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.1%).

Over the weekend, China released data that showed a $100 billion decline in its foreign exchange reserves, moving the reserves to their lowest level since May 2012. This weighed on global markets as they began to question how much longer the People's Bank of China can prop up the yuan. On a related note, China's Shanghai Composite is closed for the week for the Lunar New Year.

Ahead of today's session European regional indices responded to growing uncertainty of the future of the fed funds rate, which was blurred after the January Employment Situation Report revealed misses in headline metrics but could still be used to justify rate increases due to shrinking unemployment and wage growth. European markets followed our rout with a day-long decline of their own. European banks led the decline with Deutsche Bank (DB 15.54, -1.35) falling 8.0% amid concerns over the state of the bank's balance sheet and derivative exposure. The decline widened Deutsche Bank's 2016 dive to 38.7% and was so jarring that the bank came out with a press release defending its capital position, saying it has roughly EUR1 billion in 2016 payment capacity, enough to pay EUR350 million in Tier 1 coupons that will mature in April.

Oil succumbed to early selling pressure from the European session and surrendered the $30.00/bbl during U.S. pre-market trading. WTI crude was able to reclaim this level during today's session but was unable to close its pit session above that mark. WTI crude settled lower by 3.8% at $29.94/bbl. Elsewhere in commodities, gold remained on a torrid pace, extending its 2016 gain to 6.7% amid growing fears that the Fed may have committed a policy error. Today, the yellow metal climbed 3.5% to $1,197.50/ozt.

The commodity-sensitive materials sector (-2.7%) ended its day behind the other groups with financials (-2.6%) and consumer discretionary (-2.0%) following. The countercyclicals led throughout the day with telecom services (-0.4%) and consumer staples (-0.3%) showing the slimmest losses.

The financial sector mirrored concerns in Europe as the economically-sensitive group retreated following the decline in European banks. Money center banks Bank of America (BAC 12.27, -0.68) and Citigroup (C 37.81, -2.05) showed relative weakness with respective losses of 5.3% and 5.1%. Including today's performance, the group has declined 6.2% in February and 14.6% since the end of 2015.

The heavyweight technology space (-1.6%) recovered from early weakness with market cornerstones leading a rally during the final hour. Facebook (FB 99.75, -4.32), and Microsoft (MSFT 49.41, -0.75) climbed off their worst levels, but still ended lower by 4.2% and 1.5%, respectively. Yelp (YELP 16.06, -2.04) surrendered 11.3% after releasing its Q4 earnings during the session. The company reported an EPS miss on in-line revenue. Yelp also announced that CFO Rob Krolik will be stepping down by December 15 or when a replacement is found.

Biotechnology continued to show relative weakness in the health care space (-1.4%), evidenced by the 3.2% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 248.12, -8.12).

In the commodity sensitive energy space, Chesapeake Energy (CHK 2.21, -0.85) plunged 27.8% after early reports stated that the company hired attorneys for restructuring measures. The stock rebounded slightly after the company announced that they will not be pursuing bankruptcy and that Kirkland & Ellis will advise them on ways to strengthen its balance sheet.

On the currency front, the yen rallied 0.9% against the dollar in safe-haven trade. The pair traded at 115.70 at the close of U.S. trade.

Safe-haven investments outperformed today with gold and bonds rallying. The yield on the 10-yr ended the session lower by eight basis points at 1.76%

Today's participation was true to recent form with more than a billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any noteworthy data today and tomorrow's economic news will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of the Wholesale Inventories report for December (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%).

Russell 2000 -14.7% YTD
Nasdaq -14.5% YTD
S&P 500 -9.3% YTD
Dow Jones -8.0% YTD

DJ30 -177.92 NASDAQ -79.39 SP500 -26.61 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 808/2.147 bln/2294 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 624/1.315 bln/2476 3:40 pm :

The dollar index continued to slide lower today, which helped give a boost to some commodities
However, oil prices sold off back below $30/barrel today following news that the meeting with Saudi Arabia and Venezuela didn't result in much
Ultimately, Mar crude closed the day -3.8% at $29.71/barrel
Nat gas rallied today, closing with gains of +4% to $2.14/MMBtu (Mar)
Precious metals showed impressive gains today, closing near today's highs
Mar silver rallied +4% to $15.44/oz while Apr gold ran +3.5% to $1197.90/oz

6:23 am Taiwan Semi comments on the February 6 earthquake in Taiwan, expects minimal impact (TSM) :

The co announced that the earthquake of 6.4 magnitude which struck southern Taiwan at 3:57 am on February 6, 2016 did not cause any serious personnel injuries nor any structural or facility damage to the Company's Fab 14 and Fab 6 manufacturing sites in the Tainan Science Park. The earthquake also did not cause equipment to shift position.

Damage to wafers in progress remains under assessment, but TSMC's initial estimate is that more than 95 percent of the tools can be fully restored to normal in two to three days. The company is deploying personnel from Hsinchu and Taichung sites to support recovery in Tainan, and does not expect the earthquake to affect first quarter 2016 wafer shipment by more than 1 percent. ChipMOS Technologies (IMOS) confirmed that none of its employees were harmed by an earthquake that occurred at 3:57 AM local time Saturday in Southern Taiwan. Co reports only very minor impact.

3:10 am ON Semiconductor beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs in-line (ON) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.19 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.18; revenues fell 2.8% year/year to $840.3 mln vs the $839.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $800-840 mln vs. $839.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Backlog levels for the first quarter of 2016 represent approximately 80 to 85 percent of our anticipated first quarter 2016 revenue. Average selling prices for the first quarter of 2016 are expected to be down approximately two percent when compared to the fourth quarter of 2015.

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed out the first day back from the Presidents' Day weekend with solid gains. The Nasdaq Composite led the way higher, up nearly 98.44 points (+2.27%) to 4435.96. The S&P 500 advanced 30.80 points (+1.65%) to 1895.58. The 'laggard' on the day was the Dow Jones Industrial Average which gained 'only' 222.57 points (+1.39%) to 16196.41. Today's market data came in the form of the Empire Manufacturing Survey which showed a reading of -16.6 for February. In addition, the NAHB Housing Market Index for February was 58, down from a revised 61 in January (from 60).

Technology (XLK 39.97, +0.70 +1.78%) was higher for the entire session. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 46.73, +2.17 +4.87%) was upgraded this morning to an Outperform rating at Bernstein as they had a favorable view on the company's royalty rate outlook. Other sector action ended XLY +2.42%, XLI +2.01%, XLV +1.88%, XLF +1.61%, XLB +1.53%, IYZ +1.37%, XLE +0.99%, XLP +0.80%, XLU +0.64%.

Social Media (SOCL 16.53, +0.66 +4.16%) names were strong today as component Groupon (GRPN 4.08, +1.19 +41.18%) was aided by a 13F stake disclosed by Alibaba (BABA 66.29, +5.40 +8.87%) in which the BABA now holds 32,972,000 shares of GRPN. Other SOCL names higher today included WB +12.08%, NTES +8.82%, RENN +8.42%, YHOO +8.28%, UNTD +8.12%, YELP +7.46%, CYOU +6.83%.

Semis (SOXX 80.17 +2.72 +3.51%) were also among the best performing sectors in tech today as Micron (MU 10.81, +0.79 +7.88%) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho before the market opened; Micron held its Analyst Day on Friday and Mizuho called for a bottom in the stock at the moment. Other stocks in the green in the sector included QRVO +8.60%, SWKS +6.61%, ON +6.22%, MRVL +5.92%, TSM +4.95%, NVDA +4.90%, ADI +4.90%, CREE +4.76%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (657.98, +12.22 +1.89%), action was also decidedly to the upside. Component NetApp (NTAP 23.09, +1.20 +5.48%) displayed relative strength today ahead of the company's quarterly results which are scheduled for tomorrow after the market closes. Other components finished the session JNPR +6.27%, STX +4.85%, WU +4.78%, HPQ +4.14%, AVGO +3.76%, TSS +3.68%, AKAM +3.53%, VRSN +3.52%, FSLR +3.41%, +3.38%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Alphabet (GOOG 691.00, +8.60 +1.26%) filed a 330,240 share Class C capital stock shelf offering by selling stockholders.

Fiserv (FISV 94.35, +1.28 +1.38%) announced former TE Connectivity (TEL 55.50, +1.01 +1.85%) CFO and EVP, Robert Hau, was appointed CFO effective March 14, 2016.

Telefonica Business Solutions has become one of the first service providers to offer the Cisco (CSCO 25.84, +0.73 +2.91%) portfolio of collaboration cloud services as a fully integrated service.

Harris (HRS 73.46, +1.41 +1.96%) received a $12 million order to provide the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) with Harris Falcon III tactical vehicular radios, intercom systems and handheld radios, as part of a communications modernization program.

IBM (IBM 122.74, +1.70 +1.40%) unveiled the new IBM z13s mainframe. IBM also announced in connection to the mainframe the security embedded into hardware, intelligent security capabilities and an expanded partner ecosystem.

Accenture (ACN 96.91, +2.21 +2.33%) launched four new digital network offerings - Digital Network Deployment Services, Service Experience Engineering and Management Services, Field Installation and Repair Services Transformation, and Next Generation Enterprise Services.

Calix (CALX 5.99, +0.32 +5.64%) is using the Oracle (ORCL 35.68, +0.15 +0.41%) Cloud Platform to significantly speed the development and delivery of innovative new services such as Web content management and customer portals for its customers, which include many of the world's leading service providers.

Microchip (MCHP 41.63, +1.22 +3.02%) launched its MPLAB Xpress Cloud-based Integrated Development Environment.

Computer Sciences (CSC 27.64, +0.0.2 +0.07%) intends to redeem all outstanding 6.50% Senior Notes due 2018.

Elsewhere in the technology sector:

Vodafone (VOD 30.26, +0.36 +1.20%) and Liberty Global (LBTYA 35.28, +2.45 +7.46%) formed a JV to combine their Dutch operations.

Gogo (GOGO 10.08, -3.81 -27.43%) responded to the declaratory judgment action filed against it by

American Airlines (AAL 397.95, +4.90 +1.25%) last Friday.

Fairchild Semi's (FCS 19.87, -0.59 -2.88%) Board of Directors reaffirmed their commitment to the ON Semiconductor (ON 7.51, +0.44 +6.22%) agreement. The BoDs also determined the proposal from China Resources and Hua Capital was not superior.

SAP SE (SAP 75.74, +2.06 +2.80%) announced plans to accelerate its leadership position in the cloud with innovations built on the SAP HANA platform, predictive capabilities and mobile business intelligence that aim to enable users to benefit from consumer-grade experience and enterprise-scale performance. With the acquisition of the Roambi suite of solutions and related key assets, SAP intends to bring mobile access to analytics to everyone.

Baidu.com's (BIDU 157.52, +4.79 +3.14%) special committee retained financial and legal advisors to evaluate the previously announced acquisition offer for its stake in Qiyi.com.

Agilent (A 37.07, +0.85 +2.35%) filed a debt securities shelf offering for an undisclosed amount.

Journal Media (JMG 499.50, +1.50 +0.30%) received recommendation from Glass Lewis that shareholders vote 'for' merger with Gannett (GCI 15.34, +0.76 +5.21%).

Alibaba (BABA) filed a 13F showing a 32,972,000 share position in Groupon (GRPN).

VisionChina Media (VISN 9.40, +0.20 +2.17%) to divest its subway mobile TV ad business for $119 million.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Sonus Networks (SONS 6.93, +1.61 +30.14%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.23 and $76.33 million, respectively. SONS also guided Q1 EPS and revenues better than expected at ($0.03)-($0.01) and $58-59 million, respectively. SONS also expects FY16 EPS of $0.20-0.27 and revenues for FY16 of $255-265 million.

Liberty Global (LBTYA) reported Q4 OCF +2.5% to $2.19 billion. Revenues were down -0.3% to $4.6 billion.

Yandex N.V. (YNDX 13.57, +0.62 +4.79%) reported worse than expected EPS for Q4 of RUB 11.24 on revenues which were better than expected and grew 23.4% year-over-year to RUB 18.09 billion.

Companies reporting quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: A, DIOD, HLIT, IMPR, SAAS, MXWL, PDVW, RAX, VDSI, ZEN, ZIXI/ADI, SCOR, CYRN, GCI, MGIC, PCLN, SPNS, SHOP, TMUS

Analyst actions:

QCOM was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein,
MU was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho,
PANW was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson,
VIAB was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
DISH was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Barclays,
MTCH was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at BTIG Research,
COMM was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James;
SUNE was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
ARMH was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie,
WEB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank

4:17 pm Vishay increases quarterly dividend to $0.0625/share from $0.06/share (VSH) :
4:10 pm Rackspace beats by $0.09, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs below consensus; guides FY16 revs below consensus (RAX) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.31 per share, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.22; revenues rose 10.7% year/year to $522.8 mln vs the $521.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 of 2015 was $184 million, for a margin of 35.1 percent, up 11.0 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014.Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $517-521 mln vs. $530.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues downside guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $2.08-2.16 bln vs. $2.21 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Guidance Details: Excluding the expected negative impact of currency movements and a small divestiture, we expect our normalized year-over-year growth rate for the quarter to range between 9.2 percent and 10.2 percent.... Excluding the expected negative impact of currency movements and a small divestiture, we expect our normalized growth rate for the year to range between 6 percent and 10 percent. Adjusted EBITDA margins are expected to range between 33 percent and 35 percent for the first quarter and the full year.

4:09 pm Diodes beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (DIOD) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues fell 4.2% year/year to $214.4 mln vs the $202.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $214-235 mln vs. $214.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Eexpect non-GAAP gross margin to be 28-32%. Non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately 24.5-26.5%. Expect interest expense to be approximately $3.4 million.

4:09 pm Agilent beats by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY16 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (A) :

Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.46 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.43; revenues were unchanged from the year-ago period at $1.03 bln.Adjusted operating margin was 20.2% for the first quarter, up 200 basis points over a year ago. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.37-$0.39 vs. $0.42 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $965-$985 mln vs. $1.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.81-$1.87 vs. $1.89 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $4.10-$4.12 bln vs. $4.16 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Harmonic reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; guides FY16 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus (HLIT) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.01); revenues fell 19.7% year/year to $86.6 mln vs the $83.74 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ($0.03)-(0.02), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.01) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $82-86 mln vs. $85.60 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues downside EPS guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $0.09-0.12, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $400-415 mln vs. $393.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:02 pm Analog Devices increases quarterly dividend to $0.42/share from $0.40/share; increases share buyback to $1 bln (ADI) :

In addition, BoDs approved an increase to co's share repurchase authorization to $1 bln. As of January 30, 2016, the Company had $415 million remaining under its previous authorization.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended its first session of the week on a higher note, with the major indices continuing their rally from the end of last week. Today's trade saw a departure from the recent trend of equities trading lockstep with oil, as well as a persisting appetite for risk in recently sold off sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (+2.3%) ended ahead of the S&P 500 (+1.7%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.4%).

U.S. futures were able to capitalize on positive sentiment out of Europe and Asia thanks in part to dovish comments and a positive view on the banking sector from the President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi. In remarks on Monday, the central bank President defended the banks' capital position and reiterated that the ECB is prepared to do its part to help bolster growth in the region. This sentiment paired with a deal between OPEC and non-OPEC members on a production level freeze was enough to boost futures overnight.

However, market sentiment soured on this deal shortly before the U.S. open, as market participants appeared to favor a production cut agreement. Additionally, doubt over whether Iran and Iraq will participate in the freeze has taken some shine off the deal. Regardless, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar, and Venezuela have proposed a freeze in production at January levels. WTI crude ended its pit session lower by 1.0% at $29.05/bbl.

All ten sectors were able to end their day in positive territory with consumer discretionary (+2.5%), industrials (+2.0%), technology (+1.9%), financials (+1.8%), and health care (+1.8%) leading the pack. These also happen to be the heaviest weighted sectors in the S&P 500, and they outweighed relative weakness in energy (+0.8%).

In the consumer discretionary space, large-cap Priceline (PCLN 1110.68, +52.67) outperformed ahead of its earnings report before tomorrow's open. Meanwhile, diversified media companies showed relative strength after last week's rough outing. On that note, Viacom (VIAB 34.29, +1.48) rebounded 4.5% after falling 18.1% since its February 8 earnings report.

Money center banks demonstrated relative strength in the financial sector. Morgan Stanley (MS 23.72, +0.63) outperformed after receiving several upgrades including an upgrade at JP Morgan from "Neutral" to "Overweight". Conversely, American International Group (AIG 52.06, -0.94) pulled back slightly from Friday's 4.9% rally.

The high-beta chipmakers outperformed in the heavyweight technology space. Sub-group constituents Micron Technology (MU 10.81, +0.79) and Qorvo (QRVO 40.78, +3.23) helped lead the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+3.5%) with gains of 7.9% and 8.6%, respectively. Meanwhile, large cap Apple (AAPL 96.55, +2.56) outperformed.

In the health care space, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY 62.18, +1.98) gained 3.3% after Barron's voiced a positive view on the stock over the weekend. Biotechnology had a better showing than the broader health care sector, evidenced by a 3.0% climb in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 258.72, +7.53).

Treasury yields fluctuated in a narrow range today as the rally in equities went on throughout the day. The yield on the 10-yr note ended its session higher by three basis points at 1.78%.

Today's participation was close to recent averages with more than 1.2 billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the Empire Manufacturing Survey for February and the NAHB Housing Market Index for February.

The Empire Manufacturing Survey showed a reading of -16.6 for February (Briefing.com consensus -9.9) versus a prior reading of -19.4. Granted the pace of slowdown decelerated in February, yet things are still a long way from being in a state of expansion in the New York Fed region
The NAHB Housing Market Index for February came in at 58 from a revised 61 in January (from 60) while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at 60.0.

After today's session FOMC voting member and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren is scheduled to speak at 19:30 ET.

Tomorrow's economic data includes the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index while January PPI (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%), January Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1171k), and January Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1200k) will be released at 8:30 ET. Separately, the January Industrial Production Report (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 76.6%) will cross the wires at 9:15 ET. Finally, the FOMC minutes from the January 27th meeting will be released at 14:00 ET.DJ30 +222.57 NASDAQ +98.44 SP500 +30.80 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2503/1.934 bln/609 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2534/1.206 bln/577

3:40 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are still in the red and are currently -1%
WTI pulled back a large amount from its $31.53/barrel high for today. Mar crude finished floor trading -1% at $29.05/barrel
In other energy, Mar natural futures slipped -3.6% to $1.90/MMBtu
Mar copper had a nice day, rising 1% to $2.05/lb, while precious metals lost steam
Mar silver fell 3% to $15.33/oz, while Apr gold lost -$31.50 to $1207.90/oz

11:39 am Cisco Systems continues strong performance (CSCO) : The aggressive gap higher start last Thursday has been appreciably extended again (is a top performing Dow component) with it reaching up near its early Jan gap between 25.74 and 25.82 (session high 25.74). Note that the top of the gap lines up with its Nov trough while the Dec low and 50% retrace of the entire Oct-Feb slump are at 25.96/25.97.

8:01 am Fairchild Semi Board of Directors reaffirms commitment to ON Semiconductor (ON) agreement; determines proposal from China Resources and Hua Capital is not superior (FCS) :

FCS's board of directors determined that the unsolicited proposal received on December 28, 2015, from China Resources Microelectronics and Hua Capital Management to acquire FCS does not constitute a "Superior Proposal" as defined in the co's Agreement and Plan of Merger with ON Semiconductor (ON). FCS reaffirmed its commitment to ON Semiconductor agreement, under which a wholly owned subsidiary of ON Semiconductor agreed to acquire all of the outstanding shares of FCS common stock for $20.00 per share in cash.

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC), a global leader in computing and connectivity solutions, today announced that XS Inc., a leading supplier of customized solutions for enterprise and hyper scale data center customers, has selected AppliedMicro's X-Gene 2 server CPU for its next-generation V-Raptor servers.

Microchip Technology (MCHP) announced its MPLAB Xpress Cloud-based Integrated Development Environment is now available

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From Briefing.com: The broader market closed Thursday lower, snapping the three day winning streak. The worst losses were in the Nasdaq Composite which lost 46.53 points (-1.03%) today to close 4487.54. The S&P 500 was lower 8.99 points (-0.47%) to 1917.83, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 40.40 points (-0.25%) to 16413.43. Action was mild (by recent standards) in all three major US indices. Lateral, mixed trade persisted over the first hour of action but a slide in crude oil after its inventory data led to a decline into mid-morning and the three indices never recovered.

Market data today came in the form of the initial claims reading which showed claims falling by 7,000 to 262,000 for the week ending February 13. Continuing claims for the week ending February 6 were up 30,000 to 2.273 million. Also, the Philadelphia Fed Index showed a slight improvement with a reading of -2.8 for February versus -3.5 for January. The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index declined 0.2% in January.

Technology (XLK 40.63, -0.15 -0.37%) was an under-performer today, eking just above flat lines several times in the session, only to quickly surrender those gains. Bucking the trend, component NVIDIA (NVDA 30.04, +2.38 +8.60%) was notably higher today following the company's better than expected Q4 results and better than expected Q1 revenue guidance. Other sectors closed today XLU +1.64%, IYZ +0.25%, XLI -0.06%, XLB -0.29%, XLP -0.45%, XLF -0.57%, XLV -0.62%, XLY -0.66%, XLE -1.25% with Utilities and Telecoms leading the upside and Energy lagging.

Software (IGV 89.16, -1.10 -1.22%) names were also weak today as component Tyler Tech (TYL 124.19, -22.55 -15.37%) performed the worst following the company's mixed Q4 and worse than expected FY16 guidance. Other IGV names which under-performed today included MSTR -4.65%, PFPT -4.32%, ULTI -3.48%, CRM -2.84%, ZEN -2.81%, IMPV -2.74%, EA -2.49%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (668.83, -4.44 -0.66%), action was mostly in the red save for the first hour or so of the session. Shares of IBM (IBM 132.47, +6.37 +5.05%) were notably strong today following a pre-market upgrade of the shares to an Overweight rating at Morgan Stanley. Components which finished the session lower included QRVO -2.84%, AVGO -2.76%, SWKS -2.57%, LRCX -2.14%, GOOGL -1.98%, INTU -1.92%, AAPL -1.90%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM) Watson Health announced plans to acquire Truven Health Analytics for $2.6 billion.
IBM also announced it and SoftBank (SFTBY 22.99, -1.12 -4.67%) began general availability of six cognitive services in the Japanese language that can be used to create IBM Watson-powered apps in the region.
Alliance Data's (ADS 197.43, +4.86 +2.52%) BoDs approved a $500 million increase in the company's recently announced stock repurchase program, resulting in an aggregate authorization of up to $1 billion during 2016.
Electronic Arts (EA 58.35, -1.49 -2.49%) announced the pricing of an offering of senior notes.
NEC & Juniper Networks (JNPR 24.00, +0.43 +1.82%) expanded JV into Latin America, Europe, Middle-East, & Asia-Pacific with Retail as a Service, Surveillance as a Service, & Internet of Things initiatives.
Red Hat (RHT 65.35, -0.99 -1.49%) will bring DevOps to networking by extending Ansible - its powerful IT automation and DevOps platform - to include native agentless support for automating heterogeneous network infrastructure devices using the same simple human and machine readable automation language that Ansible provides to IT teams.
Qualcomm (QCOM 49.08, +0.67 +1.38%) and SpiderCloud Wireless announced the planned development of LTE-U, LTE-LAA, and MulteFire systems for enterprises and public venues.
Efma, an association of 3,300 financial services companies from more than 130 countries, and Accenture (ACN 98.52, -0.53 -0.54%) have launched "Innovation in Insurance," a program to identify and award the most-innovative insurance initiatives and projects around the world.
In addition to reporting quarterly results, NetApp (NTAP 23.93, +0.38 +1.61%) detailed plans to reduce workforce by 12%.
King Digital (KING 17.99, +0.01 +0.06%) confirmed the High Court of Ireland approved the acquisition by subsidiary of Activision Blizzard (ATVI 28.88, -0.57 -1.94%). The deal is expected to take effect on February 23 2016.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Ingram Micro (IM 36.34, +6.69 +22.56%) to be acquired by Tianjin Tianhai for $38.90 per share in cash, or about $6 billion.
SunEdison (SUNE 1.51, -0.16 -9.58%) sold its Kuching facility and plans to close its Pasadena facility. The company expects about $437 million in Q4 charges as a result.
Endurance International (EIGI 10.28, +0.91 +9.71%) disclosed a restructuring plan in connection with its acquisition of Constant Contact (CTCT). Said actions are expected to require a restructuring charge estimated at about $18-22 million.
SunEdison Semiconductor (SEMI 5.57, +1.89 +51.36%) to explore a range of strategic alternatives following the receipt of an unsolicited preliminary indication of interest.
SeaChange (SEAC 5.36, -0.21 -3.77%) implemented certain cost-saving actions with respect to its Timeline Labs operations. The company anticipates these actions will result in restructuring and severance charges of about $1 million in Q1 of 2017.
Aspen Tech (AZPN 32.98, +1.02 +3.19%) will not revise its previously announced 185 pence per share offer for KBC Advanced Technologies.
ComScore's (SCOR 38.57, +1.23 +3.29%) Board approved the repurchase of up to $125 million of the company's common stock.
Anadigics (ANAD 0.73, +0.05 +7.28%) declared a competing bidder's proposal to acquire the co for $0.78 per share a 'superior offer' to the previously announced offer of $0.66 per share.
Quality Systems (QSII 14.84, +0.44 +3.06%) appointed Jamie Arnold, Jr as CFO effective March 1.
Marvell (MRVL 9.28, -0.02 -0.22%) and Carnegie Mellon University have settled their patent infringement lawsuit. MRVL will pay $750 million to university.

In reaction to quarterly results:

NVIDIA (NVDA) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.52 and $1.4 billion, respectively. NVDA also gave Q1 revenue guidance which was better than expected at $1.235-1.285 billion.
DISH Network (DISH 43.17, -2.90 -6.29%) reported a Q4 GAAP EPS loss of $0.27 on revenues which rose 3.4% year-over-year to $3.81 billion. The company activated about 2.773 million gross new Pay-TV subscribers in 2015 compared to about 2.601 million in 2014.
NetApp (NTAP) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.70 on worse than expected revenues which also fell 10.3% year-over-year to $1.39 billion. The company also guided Q4 EPS and revenues worse than expected at $0.55-0.60 and $1.35-1.50 billion, respectively.
Synopsys (SNPS 44.00, +0.39 +0.89%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.68 on revenues which rose 4.9% year-over-year to $568.6 million. SNPS also guided Q2 EPS and revenues better than expected at $0.78-0.81 and $595-610 million, respectively.
Tyler Tech (TYL) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.59 on better than expected revenues of $158.9 million. The company also guided FY16 EPS worse than expected at $3.33-3.45 and guided FY16 revenues at $765-780 million.
Arris (ARRS 21.33, -2.91 -12.00%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.62 on worse than expected revenues of $1.1 billion. ARRS also guided Q1 EPS worse than expected at $0.37-0.42 and guided Q1 revenues better than expected at $1.56-1.61 million.
Brocade (BRCD 9.67, +1.15 +13.50%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.29 and $574 million, respectively. The company guided for Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.22-0.24 and $542-562 million, respectively, on the conference call.
Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AFOP MDRX AMAT ANET EQIX INAP MCHX MRIN MDCA TSYS TRUE YUME/COMM TDS USM

Analyst actions:

AMZN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity, MRVL was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research, IBM was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley, LXK was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse, BRCD was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Wunderlich, RHT was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup, TSM was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley, TI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill; IM was downgraded at Needham and Citigroup, NTAP was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird, HOLI was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan, TWER was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson

4:16 pm Novatel Wireless reports Q4 net loss per share of ($0.04) vs. ($0.05) two analyst estimate; Revenue increased 4.9% to $58.1 mln vs. $69.4 mln estimate, issues downside Q1 guidance (MIFI) :

Overall non-GAAP gross margin increased to 35.4% in 4Q15, compared to 23.8% in 4Q14, as the company continues its transition toward an improved mix of higher margin IoT offerings.
Guidance: Co issues downside guidance for 1Q16, sees loss per share of ($0.09)-($0.06) vs. ($0.05) single analyst estimate; sees revenue of $59-$64 mln vs. $68.7 mln estimate.

4:10 pm Novatel Wireless to sell telematics hardware business to Micronet Enertec Technologies (MICT) for $24 mln (MIFI) :

Novatel Wireless will receive $12 million in cash upon the closing of the transaction and will receive two payments of $6 million on each of the first and second anniversaries of the date of completion of the transaction.

In addition, Novatel Wireless and Micronet will enter into a manufacturing and supply agreement whereby Novatel Wireless will agree to purchase products from Micronet following the closing of the transaction.
Each company's Board of Directors has approved the proposed transaction, which is expected to close by the end of the first quarter 2016.

4:08 pm Univ Elec beats by $0.06, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus (UEIC) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.91 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.85; revenues rose 17.1% year/year to $162.1 mln vs the $163.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.46-0.54, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.60 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $153-161 mln vs. $143.90 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05 pm Applied Materials beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (AMAT) :

Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.26 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.25; revenues fell 0.7% year/year to $2.26 bln vs the $2.24 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Non-GAAP gross margin was 42.4%; operating margin was 17.8%.
Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.30-0.34 vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs +5-10% sequentially, which equates to $2.37-2.48 vs. $2.28 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"As the market moves into the sweet spot for Applied's materials engineeringtechnology, we see strong demand for our semiconductor, display and servicebusinesses," said Gary Dickerson, president and CEO. "We are maintaining apositive outlook for 2016 as our customers make strategic, inflection-driveninvestments that play to our strengths."

4:15 pm : The major averages ended the day on a modestly lower note as equity indices pulled back from a three day rally. Today's loss of momentum can be attributed to the financial sector moving from leader to laggard, short-term overbought conditions, volatile oil trade, and key earnings misses. A final hour sell off pushed the major indices to their worst levels of the day as investors demonstrated increased risk aversion. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.0%) was the worst performer while the S&P 500 (-0.5%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) registered slimmer losses.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (-0.6%) was under pressure today after dovish remarks from St. Louis Fed President and FOMC voting member James Bullard called into question future fed funds rate hikes. Overnight, President Bullard voiced his opinion that the Fed can afford to be more patient in raising its policy rate. This weighed on the sector as continued low rates would limit banks' earnings prospects.

The benchmark index had trimmed its February loss from 4.9% to 1.2% over the past three trading days, with the consumer discretionary space (-0.7%) and technology (-0.7%) trimming their respective monthly losses from 6.4% and 6.2% to 2.3% and 2.5%. Today's action saw a pullback from the three-day rally.

On the commodities front, volatile oil trade weighed on the broader market as a bearish reading from the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report offset some additional speculation regarding whether OPEC and non-OPEC states could agree to a production cap agreement. The EIA inventory report showed a 2.147 million barrel build in crude inventories compared to last week's 0.754 barrel draw. This forced WTI crude to pare most of its gain, ending the day higher by 0.1% at $30.68/bbl. As a result, energy (-0.9%) settled with the worst loss of the day.

Dow component Wal-Mart (WMT 64.12, -1.99) tumbled 3.0% after defensive guidance overshadowed a bottom-line beat. The retail giant posted the worst performance in the composite while also leading the broader consumer staples sector (-0.5%) lower. Elsewhere in the Dow, IBM (IBM 132.45, +6.35) outperformed after receiving an upgrade at Morgan Stanley from "Equal-Weight" to "Overweight". The upgrade cited IBM's faster than expected move to analytics and cloud-focused business.

In the heavyweight technology space, fellow large names were not able to draw on IBM's success as Apple (AAPL 96.26, -1.86), Facebook (FB 103.47, -1.73), and Alphabet (GOOGL 717.51, -14.46) all displayed relative weakness. NVIDIA (NVDA 30.04, +2.38) outperformed, surging 8.6%, in the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-0.6%) after reporting above-consensus results with better than expected guidance for Q1.

Biotechnology underperformed, evidenced by a 2.6% tumble in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 259.42, -6.90). To be fair though, health care component Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 104.24, +1.74) was the only large-cap able to maintain traction in positive territory.

Today's trade saw a retreat to risk-off assets with the Treasury Complex, gold, and the yen rallying to end the day. Meanwhile, utilities (+1.6%) and telecom services (+1.1%) saw a revival in interest that had led the spaces to the best performances in volatile January and February. The yield on the 10-yr note ended its day seven basis points lower at 1.74% while gold ended higher by 2.3% at $1,238.60/ozt. On the foreign exchange front, the dollar/yen pair ended lower by 0.7% at 113.25.

Today's participation was in the neighborhood of the recent average with 1.05 billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly initial claims report, the February Philadelphia Fed Survey, and January Leading Indicators:

The latest initial claims report showed claims falling by 7,000 to 262,000 (Briefing.com consensus 274,000) for the week ending February 13.
That is the lowest initial claims reading in the last 12 weeks and places claims at the lower end of the 250,000-300,000 range they have been pinned at since July 2014.
The Department of Labor said there were no special factors influencing the initial claims data, which pushed the four-week moving average down 8,000 to 281,250.
Continuing claims for the week ending February 6 increased by 30,000 to 2.273 million (Briefing.com consensus 2.237 mln)
The four-week moving average for this series up 13,500 to 2.263 million, which is the highest level since the week of August 28, 2015.
The Philadelphia Fed Index showed some slight improvement with a reading of -2.8 for February (Briefing.com consensus -2.9) versus -3.5 for January.
The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 0.0. February marked the sixth straight month the general business activity index has been below zero, signalling that there has been a persistent contraction in regional manufacturing activity.
Strikingly, the indexes for all business indicators showed lower readings than the prior month and only one index -- the shipments index -- registered a reading above zero. Specifically, the shipments index dropped to 2.5 from 9.6 in January.
The closely-watched new orders index fell to -5.3 from -1.4 while the number of employees index declined to -5.0 from -1.9. The indexes for both prices paid (to -2.2 from -1.1) and prices received (to -4.5 from -2.8) also fell deeper into negative territory.
Separately, the diffusion index for future general activity dipped to 17.3 from 19.1. That index has been trending lower since last summer and is now at its lowest level since November 2012.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index declined 0.2% in January (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) showed slight improvement from the downwardly revised 0.3% decline (from -0.2%) for December.
The decline in January was paced by large negative contributions from stock prices (-0.27 percentage points), initial claims (-0.11 percentage points), and the ISM New Orders Index (-0.08 percentage points).
Eight of the ten indicators are known ahead of time, so the variability to the consensus estimate typically revolves around building permits, which are usually released a day ahead of the report, and the Conference Board's estimate for manufacturers' new orders, nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft.
The Leading Economic Index increased 0.3% for the six-month period ending in January versus a 1.8% growth rate seen during the previous six months. Separately, the Coincident Economic Index increased 0.3% in January while the Lagging Economic Index increased 0.1%.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the 8:30 ET release of January CPI (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) and Core CPI (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). DJ30 -40.40 NASDAQ -46.53 SP500 -8.99 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1129/1.762 bln/1796 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1562/1.053 bln/1480

3:40 pm :

Oil futures are sliding lower in electronic trade and just hit a new low for the day
In floor trade, Mar crude finished the day +0.1% at $30.68/barrel
In other energy, despite positive weekly EIA storage data, Mar nat gas reversed and closed -5% at $1.85/MMBtu
Precious metals got a boost today, but copper slipped one cent to $2.07/lb
Apr gold gained +1.3% to $1226.70/oz, while Mar silver rose +0.3% to $15.42/oz

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 19-Feb-16The stock market rebounded from two weeks of losses with the S&P 500 climbing 2.8% during the holiday-shortened week. The benchmark index fared better than the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.6%), but worse than the Nasdaq Composite, which spiked 3.9%.

The advance in U.S. equities occurred alongside gains in overseas markets like Japan's Nikkei (+6.8%), Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+5.3%), China's Shanghai Composite (+3.1%), Germany's DAX (+4.8%), and France's CAC (+5.7%). Even Italy's MIB managed a 2.4% gain for the week despite a 1.4% drop on Friday that was highlighted by aggressive selling in bank stocks.

U.S. stocks also struggled at the start of Friday's session, but the S&P 500 was able to end the day little changed thanks to relative strength in top-weighted sectors like technology and financials. For the week, the two sectors gained 3.8% and 2.5%, respectively, with the financial sector narrowing its 2016 loss to 12.2%.

The holiday-shortened week started with a three-day rally that lifted stocks off their February lows. True to recent form, the move occurred alongside an advance in crude oil with the commodity seeing a boost amid reports that a production freeze agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC members may be in the cards. WTI crude ended the week higher by 7.8% at $31.74/bbl with short covering likely contributing to the surge. Separately, dovish comments from FOMC voting members Eric Rosengren and James Bullard contributed to the rally in equities.

Interestingly, the advance in stocks and oil took place without the presence of risk-on undertones in the foreign exchange market. To that point, the Japanese yen registered its third consecutive weekly gain (+0.4%) against the dollar, pressuring the dollar/yen pair to 112.63 after a brief test of the 114.80 area early in the week. The currency pair ended the week fewer than 200 pips above its 2016 low of 110.96 that was notched on February 11. For its part, the Dollar Index (96.63, -0.32) snapped its two-week skid, ending the week higher by 0.7%.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 15973.84 16391.99 418.15 2.6 -5.9
Nasdaq 4337.51 4504.43 166.92 3.8 -10.0
S&P 500 1864.78 1917.78 53.00 2.8 -6.2
Russell 2000 971.83 1010.01 38.18 3.9 -11.1

5:04 pm Anadigics receives from II-VI (IIVI) a proposed amendment to the merger agreement that increases the offer price to $0.73/share (prior offer $0.66/share) (ANAD) :

Co announces IIVI delivered to the Company for consideration by the Company's Board of Directors a set of proposed amendments and agreements to the previously announced January 15, 2016 agreement and plan of merger pursuant to which an affiliate of II-VI has offered to acquire all of the outstanding shares of ANADIGICS common stock on a fully diluted basis for $0.66 per share net in cash, pursuant to an all-cash tender offer and second-step merger. Among the proposed amended terms set forth in the February 18, 2016 II-VI Proposed Amendment is the increase from $0.66 to $0.73 of the per-share

4:53 pm Violin Memory: Imation (IMN) and Clinton Group send letter to VMEM Board; believes that VMEM should be sold to a strategic buyer (VMEM) :

"As we have stated previously in our communications to shareholders, Clinton Group and Imation believe that Violin Memory should be sold to a strategic buyer. As we expect the process to conclude in the coming weeks, we would expect the Board of Directors to engage in meaningful discussions about the Company's options with its largest common shareholders and bondholders to decide the fate of the Company."The broader market closed Friday action mixed. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the lone outperformer today, with the index adding 16.89 points (+0.38%) to close 4504.43. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the underperformer today as the index lost 21.44 points (-0.13%) to close 16391.99. The S&P 500 was down today, less than 1 point (-0.00%), to close 1917.78. Today's finish takes the three major US indices to -10.1%, -6.0% and -6.2% YTD, respectively.

In Technology (XLK 40.66, +0.03 +0.07%) action was modestly to the upside as component Applied Materials (AMAT 18.38, +1.21 +7.05%) reported better than expected Q1 results and gave better than expected Q2 guidance last night after the market closed, pushing the stock higher today. Other sectors closed the day XLY +0.28%, XLP +0.16%, XLF +0.00%, XLV -0.11%, XLI -0.19%, XLE -0.23%, XLU -0.67%, IYZ -0.97%, XLB -1.16%.

Among the best performing tech sub-sectors, Software (IGV 90.40, +1.26 +1.41%) was notably strong as component Mentor Graphics (MENT 18.96, +0.84 +4.64%) saw upside following an announcement by the company that it would repurchase 8,060,145 shares of stock owned by Carl Icahn at $18.12 per share. Other IGV names which displayed strength today included PFPT +7.13%, ZNGA +6.99%, ROVI +6.84%, QLIK +6.01%, WDAY +5.70%, VRNT +5.25%, IMPV +4.98%, ATVI +4.54%, ADSK +4.52%, PCTY +4.40%, CUDA +4.07%.

When the day was done, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (670.33, +1.50 +0.22%) was modestly higher as component Yahoo! (YHOO 30.04, +0.62 +2.11%) posted a strong session on premarket news that the company formed a Strategic Review Committee to lead the strategic alternatives process. Also YHOO hired Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and PJT Partners to aid in the process. Other components which closed higher on the session included QRVO +3.56%, ADS +3.51%, NTAP +2.97%, LRCX +2.95%, TSS +2.93%, CA +2.88%, JNPR +2.38%, EA +2.09%, MSI +1.88%, SWKS +1.55%, NVDA +1.33% KLAC +1.30%, AVGO +1.26%, EBAY +1.19%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Yahoo! (YHOO) announced the formation of a Strategic Review Committee to lead the review of strategic alternatives alongside consideration of a reverse spin. As such, the company hired Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, PJT Partners to aid in the process.

Qualcomm (QCOM 49.42, +0.34 +0.69%) and Lenovo (LNVGY 17.10, +0.20 +1.18%) signed 3G/4G China patent license agreement.

KLA-Tencor (KLAC 65.69, +0.84 +1.30%) and Lam Research (LRCX 69.77, +2.00 +2.95%) shareholders approved the pending merger. The transaction is expected to close mid-2016.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

VimpelCom (VIP 3.65, -0.08 -2.14%) reached a $795 million settlement with authorities regarding Uzbekistan investigation.

Booz Allen Hamilton's (BAH 26.81, +0.35 +1.32%) CFO Kevin Cook will retire. To be replaced by Lloyd Howell, Jr. effective July 1.

Yandex N.V. (YNDX 12.67, -0.41 -3.13%) to acquire its Moscow HQ. The company will as a result issue 12.9 million new shares, and expects the transaction to be immediately accretive.

Mentor Graphics (MENT) to repurchase 8,060,145 shares of stock owned by Carl C. Icahn at $18.12 per share.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Equinix (EQIX 299.37, +9.06 +3.12%) increased its quarterly dividend to $1.75 per share from $1.69 per share.

Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI 55.13, -0.19 -0.34%) raised their quarterly dividend by 9% to $0.25 per share.

magicJack VocalTec (CALL 7.81, +0.03 +0.39%) to launch New SMB subsidiary. The company plans to make a investment in the new subsidiary of about $10-12 million in 2016.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Vodafone (VOD 30.57, -0.39 -1.26%) placed 2.88 billion of mandatory convertible bonds. Bonds will be issued in two tranches, one with an 18 month maturity and the other with a 3 year maturity.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Telephone & Data (TDS 22.58, -1.25 -5.25%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.148 per share from $0.141 per share.

Applied Materials (AMAT) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.26 on revenues which fell 4% year-over-year to $2.26 billion. AMAT also guided Q2 EPS and revenues better than expected at $0.30-0.34 and $2.37-2.48 billion, respectively.

Equinix (EQIX) reported Q4 funds from operations of $2.14 on revenues which rose 14.5% year-over-year to $730.5 million. EQIX also guided Q1 revenues in the range of $838-842 million. Also, EQIX guided FY16 revenues of $3.55 billion.

Commscope (COMM 24.05, +1.52 +6.75%) reported EPS for Q4 of $0.42 on worse than expected revenues which rose 38% on a year-over-year basis to $1.14 billion. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revenues worse than expected at $0.32-0.37 and $1.075-1.15 billion, respectively. COMM also guided FY16 EPS of $2.25-2.35 and revenues of $4.90-5.05 billion.

Arista Networks (ANET) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.80 and $245.4 million, respectively. ANET also guided Q1 revenues in-line at $232-240 million.

Telephone & Data (TDS) reported better than expected Q4 GAAP EPS loss of $0.01 on revenues which came in worse than expected at $1.27 billion. TDS also guided FY16 revenues of $5.04-5.29 billion.

Allscripts Healthcare (MDRX 12.15, -0.27 -2.17%) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $0.13 on worse than expected revenues of $345.6 million. MDRX guided FY16 EPS at $0.55-0.62 and guided FY16 revenues worse than expected at $1.43-1.46 billion.

US Cellular (USM 35.28, -1.77 -4.78%) reported better than expected GAAP EPS at a loss per share of $0.02 on worse than expected revenues of $987 million. The company also guided FY16 revenues in-line at $3.9-4.1 million.

TrueCar (TRUE 5.04, -0.73 -12.65%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of a loss per share of $0.06 and $63.59 million, respectively. TRUE also gave worse than expected Q1 and FY16 revenue guidance of $60-62 million and $270-275 million, respectively.

Analyst actions:

AMAT was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
VRTU was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey;
IM was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
SUNE was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
TRUE was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities,
SYNT was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
BELFB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
INAP was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum

4:11 pm Closing Market Summary: Indices End Up Week on a Mixed Note (:WRAPX) :
[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages ended an up week on a mixed note as investors deliberated the effect of hotter than expected CPI data on future fed funds rate hikes. Meanwhile, a fresh dose of weakness from the oil patch and some disappointing earnings results and guidance added fodder to today's early selling. The major averages were able to recover from their lows and end with the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) leading both the S&P 500 (UNCHF) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%). The indices managed respective weekly gains of 3.9%, 2.8%, and 2.6%.

Prior to the opening bell, market participants received hotter than expected CPI data that showed a flat reading for total CPI in January (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) and a 0.3% month-over-month increase in core CPI (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). While the Fed favors the PCE Price Index when discerning inflation trends, it will certainly view this CPI data as a marker of progress toward achieving its inflation target. That understanding raised some doubts about the Fed holding off on another rate hike this year. Currently, the fed funds futures market estimates the likelihood of a rate increase through 2016 as below 50.0%.

A broad-based decline followed this uncertainty as sectors trimmed their gains from earlier in the week. Four sectors were able to remain in positive territory for the day with consumer discretionary (+0.3%), technology (+0.2%), consumer staples (+0.2%), and financials (+0.1%) ending above their flat lines. Meanwhile, commodity-sensitive materials (-1.1%) and telecom services (-0.7%) settled with the largest losses.

A decline in crude oil pushed the energy sector to the bottom of the leaderboard for most of the day, as the energy-component slipped 3.5% to $31.74/bbl to end its week. In the energy space, independent oil and gas companies posted some of the largest losses. On that note, Anadarko Petroleum (APC 35.35, -1.68) plunged 4.5% after the company had its senior debt downgraded to Ba1 from Baa2 by Moody's.

In the heavyweight technology space, the high-beta chipmakers demonstrated relative strength with component Applied Materials (AMAT 18.38, +1.21) leading the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.5%). Applied Materials rallied 7.1% after reporting bottom-line results above analyst expectations while issuing better than expected earnings guidance for the second quarter.

Industrial component Deere (DE 76.96, -3.35) surrendered 4.2% after lowering its full year 2016 revenue estimates by 10.0%. This tumble also followed an earnings beat on lighter than expected revenue. Dow component Caterpillar (CAT 65.41, -0.71) demonstrated relative weakness as it traded lower in sympathy with the broader industrial sector (-0.2%).

Retailers and apparel names underperformed in the consumer discretionary space (+0.3%) after V.F. Corp. (VFC 58.55, -2.70) and Nordstrom (JWN 49.17, -3.55) both missed bottom line results and issued below consensus guidance. The discretionary sector was the top performer of the week, spiking 4.3%.

The Treasury complex ended the day slightly lower after retracing the bulk of its early losses. The yield on the 10-yr note ended higher by one basis point at 1.75%.

On the currency front, the U.S. Dollar Index (96.63, -0.32) ended its day lower as pressure from the strengthening yen weighed. The dollar/yen pair slipped 0.6% to 112.64.

Today's participation was comparable to the recent average with more than 1.13 billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Taking another look at the January CPI Report:

In January total CPI was unchanged (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) as a 2.8% drop in the energy index was offset by increases across-the-board for all items less food and energy.That would be core CPI and it increased 0.3% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%).With the January readings, total CPI is up 1.4% year-over-year on an unadjusted basis while core CPI is up 2.2%. In fact, that is the highest 12-month change in core CPI since June 2012 and it exceeds the 1.9% average annualized increase over the last 10 years.
The Fed favors the PCE Price Index when discerning inflation trends, yet it will certainly view the CPI data as a marker of progress toward achieving its inflation target.
The largest price increases contributing to core inflation in January were seen in the price indexes for apparel (+0.6%) and medical care services (+0.5%), yet a 0.3% increase for the shelter index certainly carried some influential weight in pushing up core inflation. These are trends that consumers might not like to see, yet they are precisely what the Fed is hoping to see.There is no economic data of note set to be released on Monday.

Russell 2000 -11.1% YTD
Nasdaq -10.0% YTD
S&P 500 -6.2% YTD
Dow Jones -5.9% YTDWeek in Review: Oil and Stocks Climb, But So Does Yen

The stock market rebounded from two weeks of losses with the S&P 500 climbing 2.8% during the holiday-shortened week. The benchmark index fared better than the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.6%), but worse than the Nasdaq Composite, which spiked 3.9%.

The advance in U.S. equities occurred alongside gains in overseas markets like Japan's Nikkei (+6.8%), Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+5.3%), China's Shanghai Composite (+3.1%), Germany's DAX (+4.8%), and France's CAC (+5.7%). Even Italy's MIB managed a 2.4% gain for the week despite a 1.4% drop on Friday that was highlighted by aggressive selling in bank stocks.

U.S. stocks also struggled at the start of Friday's session, but the S&P 500 was able to end the day little changed thanks to relative strength in top-weighted sectors like technology and financials. For the week, the two sectors gained 3.8% and 2.5%, respectively, with the financial sector narrowing its 2016 loss to 12.2%.

The holiday-shortened week started with a three-day rally that lifted stocks off their February lows. True to recent form, the move occurred alongside an advance in crude oil with the commodity seeing a boost amid reports that a production freeze agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC members may be in the cards. WTI crude ended the week higher by 7.8% at $31.74/bbl with short covering likely contributing to the surge. Separately, dovish comments from FOMC voting members Eric Rosengren and James Bullard contributed to the rally in equities.

Interestingly, the advance in stocks and oil took place without the presence of risk-on undertones in the foreign exchange market. To that point, the Japanese yen registered its third consecutive weekly gain (+0.4%) against the dollar, pressuring the dollar/yen pair to 112.63 after a brief test of the 114.80 area early in the week. The currency pair ended the week fewer than 200 pips above its 2016 low of 110.96 that was notched on February 11. For its part, the Dollar Index (96.63, -0.32) snapped its two-week skid, ending the week higher by 0.7%.

12:02 pm KLA-Tencor and Lam Research (LRCX) shareholders approve pending merger; transaction expected to close mid-2016 (KLAC) :


6:01 am Fairchild Semi: ON Semiconductor (ON) extends $20/share cash tender offer to March 3 (from February 18) (FCS) :

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From Briefing.com: On the final trading day of February, the markets closed with modest losses. A sell-off into the close, and negative action during the final two hours of the trading day, took stocks into the red. Action ended with the S&P 500 at the bottom, shedding 15.82 points (-0.81%) to 1932.23. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 123.47 points (-0.74%) to close 16516.50. The Nasdaq Composite posted the shallowest of losses, down 32.52 points (-0.71%) to close 4557.95.

Today, market data came as the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index registered a 47.6 reading for February. Also, Pending Home Sales for January ticked down by 2.5% as the December reading was revised to 0.9% from 0.1%.

Ahead of today's session, U.S. futures and global equity markets fell as pressure from China and Europe weighed. Concerns from China centered on a 2.9% loss in the Shanghai Composite after the G-20 summit yielded little joint action. Meanwhile, a negative reading in CPI growth from the eurozone echoed recent slowing growth and weakening inflation concerns. Futures and global markets received a reprieve after the Asian session when the People's Bank of China announced that it would be lowering its reserve requirement ratio by 50 basis points (to 17.0%) in order to boost liquidity in the Chinese banking system. As a result, futures lifted from their lows and the cash market was able to open higher.

In connection, Chinese tech (QQQC 19.73, -0.27 -1.35%) names were mostly lower as the Nikkei -1.0%, Hang Seng -1.3% and Shanghai -2.9% all finished in the red. Some QQQC components in the red today included WB -5.28%, SINA -3.04%, SOHU -2.80, SMI -2.59%, VNET -2.34%.

In the Technology (XLK 40.97, -0.29 -0.70%) sector, action was mostly indicative of the broader market as a sell-off into the close took the sector into negative territory. Shares of Broadsoft (BSFT 36.89, +5.42 +17.22%) were especially strong today as they company reported better than expected Q4 results this morning. Other sectors finished the session IYZ +1.47%, XLU +0.28%, XLP -0.33%, XLY -0.52%, XLB -0.62%, XLI -0.63%, XLF -1.08%, XLE -1.14%, XLV -1.59% with Telecoms leading the positive action, and Healthcare lagging the others.

Internet (FDN 65.33, -0.26 -0.40%) names were mostly strong today, albeit for the sell-off into the close. Component Ebix (EBIX 37.03, +2.76 +8.05%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues this morning before the open, and the stock was strong all session. Other FDN components which displayed relative strength included GRPN +6.46%, VEEV +3.98%, SONS +3.73%, LPSN +3.43%, N +2.76%, ELNK +2.73%, BV +2.28%, TRUE +2.07%, PYPL +1.73%, YHOO +1.34%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (675.63, -4.54 -0.67%) was also higher for most of the session, until the final hour sell-off. Component SanDisk (SNDK 72.26, +0.18 +0.25%) was modestly higher today as ISS recommended in a report that stockholders of SNDK vote FOR the proposal to approve the adoption of the Agreement and Plan of Merger with Western Digital (WDC 43.53, -0.36 -0.82%). Shares were positive for the entire day, however, despite broader market action. Other components which closed the session lower with the broader sector included RHT -3.87%, CRM -2.83%, FISV -2.40%, AKAM -2.30%, FIS -2.08%, TSS -2.02%, MSI -1.83%, XLNX -1.79%, ADBE -1.67%, VRSN -1.62%, EBAY -1.57%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Harris (HRS 78.02, +1.47 +1.92%) was one of three awardees of a multi-award IDIQ contract to supply HMS Manpack radios to the U.S. Army. The IDIQ contract consists of a five-year base and an additional five-year option and has a ceiling of $12.7 billion.

Also, HRS will sell aerostructures business to Albany International (AIN 36.62, +0.16 +0.44%) for $187 million in cash and the assumption of a $23 mln capitalized lease.

Western Union (WU 18.26, -0.20 -1.08%) appointed Jacqueline Molnar as Chief Compliance Officer, leading all of Western Union's global AML / CFT, Sanctions and Consumer Protection compliance programs.

Dell Inc. and EMC (EMC 26.13, +0.08 +0.31%) announced that the European Commission (EC) has granted unconditional clearance to the companies' proposed combination. The EC announced the clearance on Feb. 29, 2016.

IBM (IBM 131.03, -0.97 -0.73%) Security announced to acquire Resilient Systems, Inc. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SanDisk (SNDK) announced that Institutional Shareholder Services, ISS, has recommended in a report that stockholders of SNDK vote FOR the proposal to approve the adoption of the Agreement and Plan of Merger with Western Digital (WDC).

Elsewhere in the tech space:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Tribune Media (TRCO 35.90, +2.93 +8.89%) initiated a process to explore the full range of strategic and financial alternatives to enhance shareholder value. The strategic and financial alternatives under consideration include, but are not limited to, the sale or separation of select lines of business or assets, strategic partnerships, programming alliances and return of capital initiatives.TRCO also authorized a new stock repurchase program under which the company may repurchase up to $400 mln of its outstanding Class A common stock. TRCO also entered into new and amended employment agreements with three senior executives. Peter Liguori, the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer, entered into a new two-year employment agreement. The Company named Chandler Bigelow as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The Company also expanded the scope of responsibilities of Tribune Media's General Counsel, Eddie Lazarus, by naming him Chief Strategy Officer.RealPage (RP 20.05, +0.21 +1.06%) amended a credit facility, lender commitments increased to $325 million from $200 million.

Imation (IMN 0.86, -0.06 -6.72%) postponed its Q4 earnings release to March 15 from February 29.

II-VI (IIVI 21.95, +0.34 +1.57%) increased its offer price for Anadigics (ANAD 0.84, -0.00 -0.87%) to $0.85 per share (previous offer of $0.81) after co determined competing bidder's proposal of $0.85 per share to be 'superior offer' on Feb. 25.

TransAct Tech (TACT 7.24, -0.09 -1.23%) announced its Board of Directors has approved a $5.0 million stock repurchase program. TransAct is now authorized to repurchase up to $5.0 million of its outstanding shares of common stock from time to time on the open market, depending on market conditions, share price and other factors. The share repurchase authorization expires on December 31, 2017.

Youku Tudou (YOKU 27.38, -0.01 -0.02%) said proxy firms Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis & Co recommended shareholders vote for previously announced merger with Alibaba (BABA 68.81, +1.90 +2.84%) for $27.60 per share.

Avid Tech (AVID 7.65, +0.17 +2.27%) announced a new $105 million senior secured credit facility.

Fortinet (FTNT 28.40, +0.29 +1.03%) signed a cyber partnership agreement with NATO.

Trimble Navigation (TRMB 23.26, -0.31 -1.32%) sold its The Omega Group assets to TriTech Software Systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Tribune Media (TRCO) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.63 on slightly better than expected revenues of $547.6 million. The company also guided for better than expected FY16 revenues of $2.25-2.28 billion.

Atmel (ATML 8.08, -0.01 -0.12%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.06 and revenues which fell 24.5% to $261.3 million.

Broadsoft (BSFT) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.04 and $89.6 million, respectively. The company also issued guidance for the Q1 period of EPS of $0.20-0.32 and revenues of $70-74 million. For FY16, BSFT expected EPS of $1.90-2.10 on revenues of $332-340 million.

Ebix (EBIX) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.65 and $70.2 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: ACTA APIC BZUN CKEC OPWR RNET TNET TUBE WDAY

Analyst actions:

SKYAY was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman;
EQIX was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
SSP was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
IM was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Credit Agricole,
SNDK was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
KEYW was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts

4:31 pm Rambus signs licensing agreement with The Athena Group (RMBS) : This agreement allows Athena customers to obtain, directly from Athena, advanced countermeasure solutions that rely on Rambus Cryptography Research patents to protect against side-channel attacks.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended its first session of the week and the last session of February under selling pressure as the heavyweight health care (-1.6%) and financial (-1.1%) spaces weighed on the broader market. Today's trade saw a brief departure from equities trading in tandem with oil, along with investors eyeing weaker than expected economic data at home and overseas. Meanwhile, a safe haven bid in the last hour of trade highlighted concerns ahead of a data-heavy week. The S&P 500 (-0.8%) ended its day behind both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.7%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.7%). For the month, the S&P 500 shed 0.4% while the Nasdaq lost 1.1% and the Dow gained 0.3%.

The influential health care sector (-1.6%) underperformed throughout today's session as weakness from large-cap constituents as well as biotechnology dropped the group to the bottom of the leaderboard. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 254.09, -7.40) ended its session lower by 2.8%. For the month of February, the sub-group plummeted 4.9% while the broader sector ended lower by 0.7% over the same period. Elsewhere in the space, Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 65.80, -14.85) tumbled 18.4% after CNBC reported that the SEC is investigating the company. Additionally, the company postponed its earnings release and call.

The economically-sensitive financial group (-1.1%) recovered from some early weakness and managed to trade in-line with the broader market for part of the afternoon, but lost traction as money center banks and investment brokerages weighed. On that note, Wells Fargo (WFC 46.92, -1.15) tumbled 2.4%. Conversely, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 134.17, +2.25) climbed 1.7% after reporting better than expected operating earnings in Q4. The financial sector ended February lower by 3.2%, bringing its year-to-date decline to 11.9%.

The broader market received an early boost from a rally in crude oil, but was unable to maintain that momentum once the commodity's pit session ended. Even the commodity-sensitive energy (-1.2%) and materials (-0.6%) were unable to finish in the green after being up by as much as 0.6% and 1.2%, respectively. For its part, WTI crude ended its day higher by 3.3% at $33.82/bbl, finishing the month little changed.

In the energy group (-1.2%), independent oil and gas names posted some of the largest declines of the day with EOG Resources (EOG 64.74, -2.76) falling 3.8%. Separately, the space was hurt by a 4.5% decline in natural gas, which ended at $1.71/mmbtu.

Countercyclical utilities (+0.2%) outperformed today and consumer staples (-0.4%) followed on the leaderboard.

The Treasury complex was bid higher as equities slipped to their worst levels of the day. For its part, the yield on 10-yr note ended its session lower by three basis points at 1.74%.

On the currency front, the U.S. Dollar Index (98.16, +0.01) surrendered most of its gain as the greenback weakened against the yen. The dollar/yen pair ended lower by 1.1% at 112.80.

Today's participation was within the recent average with more than 1.266 billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included Chicago PMI for February and Pending Home Sales for January:

The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index registered a 47.6 reading for February. That was below the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 52.0 and well below the prior month's reading of 55.6. A number below 50 denotes contraction.
The last six readings for this index dating back to September have been 47.8, 52.6, 47.7, 42.9, 55.6, and 47.6, respectively, so what the February report reveals is that the strength in January was likely little more than a brief snapback in activity from a depressed base of readings in more recent months.
The downturn in February saw four of the five barometer components decline versus January: New Orders (from 58.8 to 51.7), Production (from 62.5 from 44.0), Employment (from 48.9 to 45.2) and Prices Paid (from 43.7 to 41.1).
The employment index, which saw its fifth straight monthly reading below 50.0, is at its lowest level since November 2009.
The Prices Paid Index, meanwhile, is at its lowest level since July 2009 with falling oil and commodity prices playing a part there.
Pending home sales for January ticked lower by 2.5% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.7%. Meanwhile the December reading was revised to 0.9% from 0.1%

Separately, New York Fed President and FOMC voting member William Dudley will speak at 23:30 ET.

Tomorrow's economic data will include Construction Spending for January (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) and the ISM Index for February (Briefing.com consensus 49.0), which will both cross the wires at 10:00 ET. DJ30 -123.88 NASDAQ -32.52 SP500 -15.85 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1378/1.784 bln/1637 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1600/1.266 bln/1448

3:40 pm :

The dollar index slid a little this afternoon to end near the unchanged mark
Energy finished today's trading session mixed with oil posting gains, natural gas tanking and RBOB and heating oil rising
Apr crude oil rose 3.3$ today to $33.82/barrel, while Apt natural gas slipped 5% to end the day at $1.71/MMBtu
Copper recovered today, ending one cent higher at $2.13/lb
In precious metals, Apr gold rose 1.2% today to $1234.60/oz, while May silver rallied 1.2% to $14.90/oz

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From Briefing.com: 4:21 pm Hewlett Packard Enterprise beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line; reaffirms FY16 EPS guidance (HPE) :

Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.41 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.40; revenues fell 2.5% year/year to $12.72 bln vs the $12.65 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Enterprise Group revenue was $7.1 billion, up 1% year over year, up 7% in constant currency, with a 13.4% operating margin. Servers revenue was down 1%, up 5% in constant currency, Storage revenue was down 3%, up 3% in constant currency, Networking revenue was up 54%, up 62% in constant currency, and Technology Services revenue was down 9%, down 3% in constant currency. Enterprise Services revenue was $4.7 billion, down 6% year over year, flat in constant currency, with a 5.1% operating margin. Infrastructure Technology Outsourcing revenue was down 8%, down 2% in constant currency, and Application and Business Services revenue was down 3%, up 3% in constant currency. Software revenue was $780 million, down 10% year over year, down 6% in constant currency, with a 17.4% operating margin. License revenue was down 6%, down 2% in constant currency, support revenue was down 13%, down 9% in constant currency, professional services revenue was down 7%, down 2% in constant currency, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue was down 9%, down 7% in constant currency.Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.39-0.43, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.42 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.85-1.95, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.87 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05 pm Broadcom Intl beats by $0.11, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (AVGO) :

Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $2.41 per share, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.30; revenues rose 7.5% year/year to $1.78 bln vs the $1.76 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $3475-3625 bln vs. $3.56 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Gross Margin expected to be in the range of 58-60%.CapEx is expected to be $210 mln.Following Avago's acquisition of Broadcom Corporation ("BRCM") on February 1, 2016, Broadcom Limited became the ultimate parent company of Avago and BRCM. This is the first release of financial results following the Acquisition and relates solely to the predecessor, Avago, for the fiscal periods prior to the Acquisition.

Thursday trading was capped off by modest gains across the board. The slightly higher bias was led by the S&P 500 which added 6.95 points (+0.35%) to 1993.40. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also closed up, advancing 44.58 points (+0.26%) to close 16943.90. The Nasdaq Composite was the laggard (albeit finishing about flat lines as well), as the index was higher by 4.00 points (+0.09%) to 4707.42.

Market data today included the initial claims reading for the week ending February 27, which showed a slight bump in claims to 278,000, up 6,000 versus last week. Continuing claims for the week ending February 20 increased 3,000 to 2.257 million. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported non-farm labor productivity declined at a 2.2% annual rate during Q4. Unit labor costs in the non-farm business sector increased 3.3% in Q4, and factory orders were up 2.9% in January.

Action in the Technology (XLK 42.31, flat) sector was flat when Thursday was done as component Western Union (WU 19.09, +0.64 +3.44%) ended the session near highs of the day following an upgrade to Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey. Other sectors closed XLE +1.51%, XLI +0.71%, XLF +0.68%, XLB +0.61%, XLU +0.60%, XLY +0.59%, XLP +0.50%, IYZ -0.20%, XLV -0.28% today led by Energy, while Healthcare lagged.

Solar (TAN 23.85, -0.11 -0.46%) were again in play today as component SunEdison (SUNE 1.51, -0.27 -15.36%) announced the suspension of the payment of quarterly dividends on preferred stock. The shares spent the entirety of the day in the red, ending near lows. Other TAN names which under-performed today included TERP -6.32%, CSIQ -4.00%, JKS -3.89%, VSLR -3.89%, DQ -1.48%, SEDG -1.32%.

When the bell rang, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (697.25, -0.45 -0.06%) was modestly lower, but an uptrend into the close made things interesting as component Intel (INTC 30.58, +0.04 +0.13%) was modestly higher following an upgrade to Outperform at Robert W. Baird. Other notable sector components which finished the day EA -1.95%, ADBE -1.33%, MSFT -1.13%, GOOGL -1.07%, AKAM -1.01%, INTU -0.93%, GOOG -0.89%, QCOM -0.89%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

TE Connectivity (TEL 60.48, +1.20 +2.02%) approved an additional $1.0 billion share repurchase.

TEL also entered into an enterprise license agreement to leverage ANSYS' (ANSS 86.26, +0.19 +0.22%) engineering simulation software. The agreement provided TEL with enterprise-wide licenses to the ANSYS structures, fluids and high-frequency electromagnetics suites as well as access to high-performance computing solutions.

Broadcom Intl (AVGO 137.33, +0.36 +0.26%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.49 per share from $0.44 per share.

eBay (EBAY 23.94, +0.22 +0.93%) priced $1.5 billion senior unsecured notes offering.
Encompass will supply HP (HPQ 11.11, +0.21 +1.93%) imaging and computing parts for out-of-warranty repairs primarily in: Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Puerto Rico, Central America and the Caribbean. Distribution will be handled through the company's partnership with Global Smart Business (GSB), which licenses the Encompass brand and goes to market outside the U.S. as Encompass International.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

SunEdison (SUNE) suspended payment of quarterly dividends on the Company's 6.75% Series A Perpetual Convertible Preferred Stock.

SuperCom (SPCB 4.96, +0.13 +2.69%) acquired Safend Ltd. and expects EPS accretion. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Perceptron (PRCP 5.23, -0.21 -3.86%) announced a broadly focused financial improvement plan designed to reduce fixed costs, improve the company's profitability and cash flow and further its ability to capture the value of the business diversification strategy begun in 2014. The company now expects revenue for our third fiscal quarter, ending March 31, 2016, will be in the range of $16 million to $19 million, and anticipate fourth-quarter revenue will be slightly higher sequentially.

Angie's List (ANGI 8.60, +0.22 +2.63%) announced the details of its new Profitable Growth Plan at a meeting with investors and financial analysts in New York. The Company is also issuing financial guidance for fiscal 2016. ANGI has historically charged its members a fee to access its ratings and reviews. The company's new Profitable Growth Plan transforms this legacy business model by removing the ratings and reviews paywall and enabling consumers to access this service for free. The company will also be introducing new freemium and premium tiered offerings with additional high value services. Early pilot results from these changes have shown significant increases in consumer engagement and service provider value, including increases in consumer registrations, total profile views, reviews and originations. For the FY16 period, ANGI expects revenues in the range of $345-355 million and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $31-35 million on FCF of about break-even.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, SINA (SINA 43.00, -0.75 -1.71%) announced a $500 million buyback program through the end of June 2017.

Synopsys (SNPS 45.87, -0.02 -0.04%) has acquired WinterLogic. The terms of the deal, which is not material to Synopsys financials, have not been disclosed.

Synchronoss Tech (SNCR 29.49, -0.52 -1.73%) to acquire privately held Openwave Messaging Inc. The acquisition is not expected to have a material impact to the company's revenue and non-GAAP EPS for the 2016 fiscal year.

In reaction to quarterly results:

SINA (SINA) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.35 and worse than expected revenues of $256.2 million. SINA also guided FY16 revenues of $850-950 million.

Cable ONE (CABO 449.90, +32.63 +7.82%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $4.44 and $203.4 million, respectively.

Tech Data (TECD 74.16, +1.18 +1.62%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $2.29 and $7.48 billion, respectively. TECD also guided Q1 EPS in-line at $0.90-0.98 and guided for worse than expected revenues of $5.85-6.05 billion.

Ciena (CIEN 16.99, -3.71 -17.92%) reported better than expected EPS for Q1 of $0.18 on revenues which rose 8.3% year-over-year to $573.1 million. CIEN also guided Q2 revenues of $615-645 million.

Semtech (SMTC 21.00, +1.967 +8.64%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.17 and $118.6 million, respectively. For the Q1 period, SMTC sees better than expected revenues and EPS of $124-132 million and $0.26-0.30, respectively.

Stratasys (SSYS 24.53, +3.64 +17.42%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS at a loss per share of $0.01 and better than expected Q4 revenues of $173.4 million. For the FY16 period, SSYS sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $0.17-0.43 and $700-730 million, respectively.

Trina Solar (TSL 10.46, +0.03 +0.29%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.43 and $961.9 million, respectively.

Perficient (PRFT 20.17, +1.68 +9.09%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.37 and $133.7 million, respectively. In Q1, PRFT sees slightly better than expected revenues of $120-125 million. For FY16, EPS is expected to come in in-line at $1.40-1.52 and revenues are expected to be above anticipations at $505-535 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: AMBA AVGO CKP MENT NMBL UNXL XTLY XOXO

Analyst actions:

INTC was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
INXN was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
ITRI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Argus,
TSS was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Credit Agricole;
SUNE was downgraded at Needham and Macquarie,
CKP was downgraded to In-Line from Outperform at Imperial Capital;
PCOM target was lowered at RBC Capital to $17,
SMTC target was raised at MKM Partners, RBC Capital and Drexel Hamilton;
PRFT target was raised to $25 at Maxim Group

4:20 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a higher note with the S&P 500 gaining 0.4% ahead of tomorrow's release of the February Employment Situation Report. The benchmark index managed to erase a nine-point loss, climbing to its best level by the end of the day. Today's action saw relative strength from commodity-sensitive energy (+1.3%), which managed to outweigh the underperformance of the heavyweight technology (-0.1%) and health care (-0.4%) spaces. Meanwhile, a bid higher in safe haven assets did not detract from an upswing in equities while the greenback lost some ground today.

On the leaderboard, energy (+1.3%) managed to lead the pack while industrials (+0.6%) and financials (+0.5%) followed. Meanwhile, the heavily-weighted health care (-0.4%) and technology (-0.1%) were the only two spaces to end in the red.

The energy sector (+1.3%) showed resilience today as the sector outperformed despite a volatile and ultimately flat showing from WTI crude ($34.57/bbl). On that note, independent oil and gas name ConocoPhillips (COP 38.56, +2.07) managed to add to its advance while oil was up and maintained its footing when oil swung lower. Separately, energy giants Exxon Mobil (XOM 82.40, -0.30) and Chevron (CVX 87.53, +0.39) ended on opposing sides of their flat lines.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (+0.6%) outperformed today as farm and construction names like Deere (DE 83.67, +1.83) and Caterpillar (CAT 71.75, 2.37) traded higher in sympathy with Joy Global (JOY 16.09, +2.77). Joy boosted sentiment for the sub-group after the company maintained its full-year earnings and revenue guidance, which was viewed as better that feared. Meanwhile, Norfolk Southern (NSC 77.00, +0.00) and Union Pacific (UNP 80.01, +0.51) outperformed, helping the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.1%) solidify its position in positive territory for the year (year-to-date +1.2%).

Biotechnology contributed to early and prolonged weakness in the health care sector as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 264.24, -3.88) surrendered 1.5%. Today's loss in the ETF extended its year-to-date decline to 21.9%. This compares to a 6.8% in the broader sector for the year. Additional weakness in the sector spawned from Abbott Labs (ABT 38.82, -0.52) and Eli Lilly (LLY 73.25, -0.77), which lost 1.3% and 1.0%, respectively.

In the technology space, large-cap constituents pulled back from their recent outperformance as Alphabet (GOOGL 731.59, -7.89) and Microsoft (MSFT 52.35, -0.60) surrendered 1.1% apiece. The two names have climbed 5.1% and 7.5% since the February 11 low in the S&P 500. Separately, the broader technology sector widened its 2016 decline to 3.4%.

The countercyclical sectors were able to recover from some early relative weakness as utilities (+0.6%), consumer staples (+0.5%), and telecom services (+0.3%) ended on their best levels. The three sectors sport the largest year-to-date advances of 6.9%, 2.2%, and 11.2%, respectively.

The Treasury complex ended its day higher despite the afternoon rally in equities. On that note, the yield on the 10-yr note slipped one basis point at 1.83%.

On the currency front, the euro/dollar pair rose 0.9% to 1.0966 while the dollar/yen pair ticked up 0.1% to 113.62, but retreated from its overnight high of 114.28.


Today's trading volume was heavier than the recent average with more than 1.12 billion shares changing hands at they NYSE floor.
Today's economic data included weekly initial claims, Q4 Productivity, Unit Labor Cost data, January Factory Orders, and ISM Services for February:

Initial claims data for the week ending February 27 showed a slight bump in claims to 278,000 (Briefing.com consensus 270,000), up 6,000 from the prior week's unrevised level.
There were no special factors influencing the latest reading, which kept initial claims pinned in the same 250,000 - 300,000 range they have been in since July 2014.
The four-week moving average for initial claims decreased 1,750 to 270,250.
Continuing claims for the week ending February 20 increased 3,000 to 2.257 million, which was basically in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate.
The four-week moving average for continuing claims pushed slightly lower to 2.257 million.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported nonfarm labor productivity decreased at a 2.2% annual rate during the fourth quarter (Briefing.com consensus -3.3%) versus a preliminary 3.0% decrease.
The updated productivity number was the byproduct of output increasing 1.0% and hours worked increasing 3.2%. From the fourth quarter of 2014 to the fourth quarter of 2015, productivity increased just 0.5%.
Unit labor costs in the nonfarm business sector increased 3.3% in the fourth quarter per the revised data versus a preliminary 4.5% increase. The revision reflected a 1.1% increase in hourly compensation and the 2.2% decrease in productivity.
Unit labor costs have increased 2.1% over the last four quarters.
Factory orders increased 1.6% in January. That was lower than the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 2.0%, but well above the unrevised 2.9% decline for December, which was the largest month-over-month decline since December 2014. Total factory orders are down 3.3% year-over-year.
Excluding transportation, factory orders declined 0.2% on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.9% decline (from -0.8%) for December. On a year-over-year basis, factory orders excluding transportation are down 5.1%.
New orders for manufactured durable goods increased 4.7%, which was down slightly from the 4.9% increase seen in the Durable Goods Orders report for January. New orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business investment -- were up 3.4% versus an originally reported 3.9% increase seen in the Durable Goods orders report.
New orders for manufactured nondurable goods declined 1.4% following a downwardly revised 1.1% decline (from -0.8%) for December. That was the third straight monthly decline in orders for manufactured nondurable goods.
Shipments of manufactured durable goods increased 2.0% after an upwardly revised 1.8% decrease (from -2.1%) for December.
The inventory-to-shipments ratio for all manufacturing industries slipped to 1.36 from a downwardly revised 1.37 (from 1.38) for December.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the Employment Situation Report for February (Briefing.com consensus 190k) and the Trade Balance for January (Briefing.com consensus -$44.0 billion).

Nasdaq Composite -6.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.3% YTD
Dow Jones -2.8% YTD
S&P 500 -2.5% YTD

DJ30 +44.58 NASDAQ +4.00 SP500 +6.95 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1796/1.779 bln/1094 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2312/1.129 bln/722

3:45 pm :

Despite huge gains in many oil and gas stocks, Apr WTI oil prices ended the day flat at $34.57/barrel
Natural gas futures extend weakness, reversing the rally post-EIA data. Apr nat gas finished today's session -2.4% at $1.64/MMBtu
Metals performed better, which found some help from weakness in the dollar
Apr gold finished today's floor session +1.3% at $1258.10/oz, while May silver rose +0.8% to close at $15.14/oz
Apr copper rose as well, gaining +1.4% to end at $2.21/lb

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From Briefing.com: 5:11 pm ON Semiconductor finalizes pricing of new secured debt facilities (ON) :

The secured debt facilities consist of $2.2 billion of first lien term loans and a $600 million revolving credit facility. At acquisition closing, ON Semiconductor expects to draw $200 million from the revolving credit facility.

ON Semiconductor intends to use the proceeds of the secured debt facilities, together with cash-on-hand, to (i) pay the cash consideration in connection with the acquisition of Fairchild Semiconductor International, (ii) effect the repayment of any amounts under Fairchild's outstanding credit facility, as well as certain existing indebtedness of ON Semiconductor, and (iii) pay fees and expenses related to the transaction. Additionally the revolving credit facility will be used for general corporate purposes.

4:18 pm Adobe Systems beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY16 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (ADBE) :

Reports Q1 (Feb) earnings of $0.66 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.61; revenues rose 24.4% year/year to $1.38 bln vs the $1.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Digital Media segment revenue grew by 33 percent year-over-year to a record $932 million, with Creative revenue growing 44 percent year-over-year to a record $733 million. Strong Creative Cloud adoption drove Digital Media Annualized Recurring Revenue to $3.13 billion exiting the quarter, an increase of $246 million. Adobe Marketing Cloud achieved strong bookings growth, and record revenue of $377 million that represents year-over-year growth of 21 percent. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.64-0.70, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.65 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.365-1.415 bln vs. $1.39 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.In Digital Media, we expect to add approximately $275 million of net new Digital Media ARR during Q2, with strong year-over-year Digital Media segment revenue growth.targeting approximately 17% year-over-year Adobe Marketing Cloud revenue growth in Q2, with continued momentum in bookings.Co issues upside guidance for FY16, sees EPS of approx $2.80 (Prior approx $2.70), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.76 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of Approx $5.8 bln vs. $5.74 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Digital Media segment revenue growth of above 20% (Prior approx 20%)
Digital Media ARR approx $4.0 bln exiting 2016 (Prior approx $3.875 bln))
Marketing Cloud revenue growth of approx 20% (Reaffirm)
Marketing Cloud bookings growth of approx 30% *Reaffirm)

Q3 Comments- in Q3 we expect a slight sequential increase in both total revenue and Digital Media ARR. We also expect Q3 Marketing Cloud revenue growth of less than 20% year-over-year due to the large amount of perpetual revenue in the year-ago quarter

Q4 Comments- In Q4 we expect seasonally strong sequential growth in both total revenue and Digital Media ARR. And we expect Q4 Marketing Cloud revenue growth greater than 20% year-over-yearThe broader market finished soundly in positive territoryamid follow through from yesterday's Fed decision and subsequent commentary.The Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed, gaining 155.73 points (+0.90%)to 17481.40. Today's gains for the Dow pushed it into positive territory for2016, while the S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite still remain in the red forthe year.

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From Briefing.com: Action in the broader markets ended today with modest gains. The tepid advance was led by the Nasdaq Composite, which added 13.23 points (+0.28%) to close 4808.87. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 21.57 points (+0.12%) to 17623.87 when the day was finished. The S&P 500 posted the most reserved gains today, up 2.02 points (+0.10%) when the bell rang to close 2051.60. The wires were hit with a few M&A updates this morning, but a quiet active session was only interrupted by the Apple (AAPL 105.91, -0.01 -0.01%) event this afternoon. By all means, the news and earnings wires were nothing to write home about, and a modest finish to the three major indices toed the line of that timeless idiom.

Technology (XLK 43.74, +0.15 +0.34%) sector trading was mostly in the green as component FLIRSystems (FLIR 33.36, +0.90 +2.77%) announced a $38 million contract award from an internationalmilitary customer. The work is expected to be completed by Q2 of 2017. Othersectors closed XLI +0.59%, XLV +0.58%, XLB +0.46%, XLP +0.06%, XLY +0.05%, XLU -0.10%, XLF -0.18%, XLE -0.35%, IYZ -0.53% as Industrials were the best performer and Telecoms lagged.

Chinese Tech (QQQC 21.36, +0.16 +0.73%) names were especially volatile today, asthe Hang Seng closed up +0.20% and the Shanghai Composite closed up +2.15% in theovernight session. Reports that the company would offer ZTE (ZTCOF 1.81, +0.26 +16.58%) relief onexport restrictions sent the stock higher today. Other components whichdisplayed strength included SMI +1.82%, NQ +1.60%, SINA +0.69%, VNET +0.65%, NTES +0.57%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector (726.38, +2.33 +0.32%) ended Monday near highs of the session with component Juniper Networks (JNPR 25.80, -0.59 -2.24%) resisting the broader sector, as trading in the name was lower today following a premarket downgrade of the stock at Sun Trust RbsnHumphrey to a Reduce rating. Other components which displayed relative strengthincluded PYPL +4.39%, CTXS +1.23%, QCOM +1.20%, AMAT +1.17%, CA +1.11%, RHT +1.09%, IBM +1.05%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

At Apple's (AAPL) device even today, the company unveiled a new 4' iPhone model, named the iPhone SE; announced new bands for the Apple Watch, and lowered the starting price on the Watch to $299 from $399; also confirmed the new 'CareKit' application and a smaller 9.7' iPad Pro; an update to the phone's operation software was also announced today (iOS 9.3).

Western Union (WU 19.10, -0.03 -0.16%) will launch remittance services from across the world into Cuba following U.S. regulatory and policy changes that allow Cubans and non-Cubans to send remittances via Western Union to this island nation.

Oracle (ORCL 41.61, +0.13 +0.31%) filed for a mixed securities shelf offering.

CSC (CSC 31.58, +0.14 +0.45%) and 360Globalnet, a UK-based digital insurance solutions provider, announced a new relationship, which includes a strategic investment by CSC in 360Globalnet. Under the terms of the agreement, CSC will have exclusive worldwide rights to resell to the insurance industry all 360Globalnet offerings including the company's advanced digital, cloud-based claims solutions that let customers easily manage the end-to-end claims process via the Internet.

FLIR Systems (FLIR) was awarded new contracts by a key international military customer totaling $38 million for FLIR man-portable multispectral targeting systems and integrated mobile long-range multispectral imaging and command and control systems. Work under these contracts will be performed out of multiple FLIR facilities and is expected to be completed by 2Q17.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

ComScore (SCOR 30.24, -0.26 -0.85%) received notice of non-compliance with NASDAQ listing standards for failure to file form 10-K for year-end December 31.

Intelsat (I 2.81, +0.21 +8.08%) announced a $1 billion proposed offering of senior secured notes due 2024.

Broadridge Financial (BR 57.69, -0.29 -0.50%) made a strategic investment and entered into a referral, sales and marketing alliance with LiquidX.

Analyst actions:

HPE was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie,
QLIK was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Keybanc Capital Mkts,
SYMC was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray;
INTC was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein,
NTAP was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie,
RSTI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Northcoast,
JNPR was downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey

4:15 pm : The stock market began the week on a higher note as the major averages recovered from a weaker-than-expected February Existing Home Sales reading (5.08 million; Briefing.com consensus 5.37 million) and volatile oil trade. Today's advance was owed to key sector leadership from the heavyweight health care (+0.5%) space and boosted investor sentiment, courtesy of increased M&A activity. To be fair though, an uptick in oil probably helped matters. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) finished ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) and the S&P 500 (+0.1%).

Today's trade got off to a shaky start as market participants eyed volatile oil trade in the wake of last week's increase to the Baker Hughes Rig Count. Meanwhile, today's Existing Home Sales Report reading showed a 7.1% decline in existing home sales month-over-month. These two concerns dampened investor sentiment and pushed the averages to their lowest levels. However, a rebound in the heavily-weighted health care (+0.5%) space assisted a rebound effort in the broader market.

Six of ten sectors ended their day in positive territory with countercyclical telecom services (+0.6%) and health care (+0.5%) leading the upside. Meanwhile, commodity-sensitive materials (-0.5%) and energy (-0.5%) rounded out the leaderboard while the financial sector (-0.2%) settled just below its flat line.

In the health care space (+0.5%), Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 28.98, +2.00) outperformed after announcing a search for a new CEO and naming investor Bill Ackman to its Board of Directors. Biotechnology was able to take advantage of the boost in sentiment as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 256.46, +5.12) rebounded 2.0%, narrowing its March loss to 2.0%.

The broader consumer discretionary sector (UNCH) ended its day off its low after recovering from the initial sell off following the Existing Home Sales Report. Both Home Depot (HD 131.01, -0.34) and Lowe's (LOW 75.22, +0.29) were able to end the first session of the week near their flat lines after recovering from respective losses of 0.8% apiece. On the flipside, the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 26.53, -0.31) tumbled 1.2%.

On the commodities front, WTI crude ended its day higher by 1.0% ($41.57/bbl), extending its month-to-date climb to 23.2%. This compares to a 11.2% gain in the energy sector (-0.5%) over that period. Meanwhile, oil and gas pipeline companies displayed relative weakness while oil field service name Schlumberger (SLB 74.89, +1.37) outperformed.

On the M&A front, Starwood Hotels (HOT 84.19, +3.62) climbed 4.5% after the company received a revised merger proposal from Marriott (MAR 72.30, -0.86), at $85.36 per share. Separately, IHS (IHS 122.09, +11.38) and Markit (MRKT 33.51, +4.02) agreed to a merger of equals after IHS reported an earnings beat.

The U.S. Dollar Index (95.37,+ 0.28) extended its gain as the yen and the euro slipped against the dollar. The euro/dollar pair ticked down 0.2% to 1.1242 after ticking off the 1.1237 level. Meanwhile, the dollar/yen pair climbed off the overnight low near 111.25 to trade at 111.91 (+0.3%).

The Treasury complex tumbled to fresh lows at the start of the day and continued to fall as stock rallied off their lows. The yield on the 10-yr note ended the day higher by five basis points at 1.92%.

Today's participation fell beneath the recent average with fewer that 812.09 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

On the economic front, today's data was limited to Existing Home Sales for February:

After hitting their highest annual rate in six months in January, total existing home sales declined 7.1% in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.08 million. That was below the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 5.37 million and the lowest number of existing homes sold since November 2015. Single-family sales fell 7.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.51 million.
Sales were down in all regions, led by the Northeast (-17.1%) and the Midwest (-13.8%). Those downturns were blamed on the lull in contract signings in January due to the large East Coast blizzard and the slump in the stock market. Sales in the West and in the South were down 1.8% and 3.4%, respectively.
Supply and affordability were touted as the main headwinds for existing home sales, although there was an acknowledgment that households are anxious about the economy losing steam.
The median sales price increased 4.4% versus last year to $210,800, which is the 48th consecutive month of year-over-year gains. All-cash sales slipped to 25% of sales from 26% of sales in January and the same period a year ago.
The share of first-time buyers dipped to 30% in February versus 29% a year ago; however, February marked the lowest share of first-time buyers since November 2015.
Unsold inventory is at a 4.4-month supply at the current sales pace. That is up slightly from a 4.0-month supply in January, yet well below the 6-month supply that is typically seen during normal periods of buying and selling.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to January's FHFA Housing Price Index, which will be released at 9:00 ET. DJ30 21.57 NASDAQ +13.23 SP500 +2.02 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1477/1.4388 bln/1406 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1522/812.09 mln/1497

3:40 pm :

Natural gas futures were weak again following recent rally
It's not shocking given the supply/demand combo of plenty of supply and slim demand, which worsened following a mild winter
At the end of today's session, Apr nat gas finished -3.7% at $1.83/MMBtu
WTI oil recovered off of overnight lows below $41/barrel and gained buying interest throughout the day
May crude finished floor trading +1% at $41.57/barrel
Metals ended mixed with Apr gold closing -0.8% at $1244.20/oz, while May silver closed +0.3% at $15.85/oz
May copper finished +0.4% at $2.29/lb

1:58 pm Apple confirms release of 9.7 inch iPad Pro (AAPL) :

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro comes in silver, space gray, gold and a new rose gold metallic finish, and starts at $599 for the 32GB with Wi-Fi model and $729 (:US) for the 32GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model. Both iPad Pro sizes are available in offerings of 32GB, 128GB and a new 256GB capacity, the highest of any iOS device.Devices will begin shipping on March 31.

1:42 pm Apple confirms release of iPhone SE (AAPL) :

iPhone will feature the 64-bit A9 chip, introduced in iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, offers iPhone SE customers two times faster CPU and three times faster GPU performance compared to iPhone 5s.Axcelis Technologies (ACLS) announces that it has shipped a follow on order for the Purion XE high energy implanter to a major chipmaker in the Asia Pacific region. The system will be used to support volume production of advanced NAND Flash devices. The system shipped in the first quarter

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From Briefing.com: 5:26 pm CenturyLink to sell $1 bln of newly-issued unsecured eight-year senior notes (CTL) : The senior notes due 2024 were priced at par with an annual coupon rate of 7.5%. The sale of these notes is expected to be completed April 6, 2016, subject to customary closing conditions. CenturyLink intends to use the net proceeds from this offering, together with additional borrowings under its revolving credit facility and available cash, if any, to provide the total amount of funds required to fully retire at maturity on June 1, 2016 all $1.184 billion aggregate principal amount of 7.082% Notes issued by its wholly-owned subsidiary, Embarq Corporation.

4:31 pm SolarCity closes new tax equity fund to finance over $131 mln in residential, commercial and military solar projects; financing partner was not disclosed (SCTY) :

4:19 pm Red Hat beats by $0.05, beats on revs; issues in-line/upside guidance but billings disappoint (RHT) :

Reports Q4 (Feb) earnings of $0.52 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.47; revenues rose 17.3% year/year to $544 mln vs the $537.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus. RHT reports Q4 Billings of $764 mln vs Street Expectations of approx $770 mln.Subscription revenue from Infrastructure-related offerings for the quarter was $391 million, an increase of 15% in U.S. dollars year-over-year and 18% measured in constant currency. Subscription revenue from Application Development-related and other emerging technologies offerings for the quarter was $89 million, an increase of 38% in U.S. dollars year-over-year and 43% measured in constant currency. Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.50, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.50 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $558-566 vs. $553.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues upside guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $2.22-2.26, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $2.38-2.42 bln vs. $2.36 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Broader market action was up and down today as marco news left investors racing to safe haven bonds and modestly avoiding equities in search for strength. Leading the session as the lone gainer, the Nasdaq Composite added 12.79 points (+0.27%) to close 4821.66. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 41.30 points (-0.23%) when the bell rang to end 17582.57. Somewhere in the middle (albeit in the red), the S&P 500 closed Tuesday down 1.80 points (-0.09%) to 2049.80. Today's gains brought the Nasdaq closer to break-even on the year, yet still a far cry from a stone's throw away.

Futures slipped in the early morning hours following reports of a pair of terror acts in Belgium's capital of Brussels. Two explosions were set off, one at the Brussels airport and the other taking place in the city's metro system. Currently, reports indicate that 30 people have been killed in the two attacks while 186 more were injured. The explosions occurred four days after the capture of Salah Abdeslam, a suspect in November's Paris attacks, and recently ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.

As a result, the cash markets struck an initial defensive posture as all ten sectors began in negative territory. The way Technology (XLK 43.79, +0.05 +0.11%) began the session was not the way it ended as the sector managed to escape from the red and post slight gains. Component Western Digital (WDC 51.34, +2.05 +4.16%) was strong today following the company's announcement that Revera installed the HGST Active Archive System as its cloud-scale data repository for Revera Vault. Other sectors closed Tuesday XLV +1.00%, IYZ -0.10%, XLY -0.17%, XLF -0.31%, XLU -0.33%, XLE -0.55%, XLI -0.57%, XLP -0.59%, XLB -1.14% with Healthcare leading the strength and Materials lagging.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (727.20, +0.82 +0.11%) , trading ended just above flat lines as the morning saw the sector firmly in the red, but losses would not hold. Component Symantec (SYMC 18.82, -0.03 -0.16%) announced a $1 billion accelerated repurchase program as part of the $5.5 billion capital return program. Other sector components which finished in the green today included QRVO +2.19%, STX +1.37%, HRS +1.35%, FFIV +1.31%, AVGO +1.22%, RHT +1.08%, MSI +0.81%, AKAM +0.80%, CRM +0.79%, AAPL +0.76%.

Other notable news items among sector component:

Symantec (SYMC) started a $1 billion accelerated repurchase program. Today's announced program is part of $5.5 bln capital return program.

Salesforce.com (CRM 72.85, +0.60 +0.83%) announced that former European Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, was appointed to the company's Board effective May 1.

ScanSource's (SCSC 39.75, -0.07 -0.18%) ScanSource Networking and Security entered into a distribution agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 17.51, -0.20 -1.13%).

IBM (IBM 148.12, -0.51 -0.34%) opened Bluemix Garage in Nice, France to aid European organizations.

Adobe (ADBE 92.56, +0.06 +0.06%) and comScore (SCOR 30.54, +0.30 +0.99%) announced a global strategic partnership to provide new insights into the media consumption behaviors of digital audiences.

Western Digital (WDC) announced that Revera installed the HGST Active Archive System as its cloud-scale data repository for Revera Vault.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

CalAmp (CAMP 17.64, -1.59 -8.27%) announced the completion of the company's LoJack (LOJN) acquisition. Also, CAMP gave prelim Q4 results of EPS of about $0.32 and revenues of about $71 million. Additionally, CAMP gave guidance for the Q1 period for revenues in the range of $86-94 million. Management also commented on the pending patent lawsuit with Omega Patents.

Avnet (AVT 44.73, +0.73 +1.66%) priced its offering of $550 million aggregate principal amount of 4.625% Notes due 2026 in a registered offering.

Intelsat's (I 2.53, -0.28 -9.96%) Intelsat Jackson Holdings S.A. priced $1.25 billion aggregate principal amount of 8.00% senior secured notes due 2024 at an offering price of 100%.

Vivint Solar (VSLR 3.32, -0.04 -1.19%) closed a $200 million term facility to be used for residential solar projects.

Analyst actions:

VIVHY was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Exane BNP Paribas;
AMZN was downgraded to Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James,
YHOO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
CAMP was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti

4:15 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday session on a mixed note as a rebound in the health care space (+0.9%) and the outperformance of the technology sector (+0.1%) outweighed the initial selling pressure following news of a terrorist attack in Brussels. Meanwhile, sustained strength from the energy sector (-0.3%) also helped support the move higher in the broader market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) ended its day behind the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%).

Today's session began on a shaky note as investors turned to safe havens following reports of terror attacks in Belgium's capital of Brussels. Explosions at the Brussels airport and a crowded metro station resulted in at least 30 deaths and more than 200 injuries. Terrorist organization ISIS has since claimed responsibility for the attack. Because of the attack, the major indices all opened beneath their flat lines and risk averse assets received a bid.

The consumer discretionary space (-0.2%) and the industrial sector (-0.3%) showed early weakness as lodging names and airlines displayed heavy losses. However, an extended rally in the recovering health care group (+0.9%) and sector leadership from the influential technology space (+0.1%) helped support the broader market. As a result, the remaining sectors were lifted from their session lows.

Health care (+0.9%), technology (+0.1%), and materials (+0.1%) ended in the green while consumer staples (-0.8%), telecom services (-0.5%), and financials (-0.3%) ended with the largest losses.

The heavily-weighted health care space (+0.9%) boosted investor sentiment as biotechnology extended this week's rebound effort. To that point, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 263.10, +6.61) extended its weekly gain to 5.0%. Meanwhile, health care large caps also outperformed with AbbVie (ABBV 57.50, +1.49) and Pfizer (PFE 30.38, +0.31) gained 2.7% and 1.0%, respectively.

In the technology space, heavyweight component Apple (AAPL 106.72, +0.81) gained 0.8% in the wake of yesterday's flat showing following its product event. Separately, data storage names like Western Digital (WDC 51.34, +2.05) and Seagate Technology (STX 37.04, +0.50) outperformed while the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-0.1%) ended modestly lower.

The energy sector (-0.3%) was able to avoid larger losses despite a downturn in oil. WTI crude ended its day lower by 0.3% at $41.45/bbl after reports indicated that Libya will not take part in a proposed supply cut between OPEC and non-OPEC countries. To be fair though, oil and gas pipeline companies ended with the largest gains as the names likely benefited from the 1.6% jump in natural gas ($1.86/mmbtu).

The U.S. Dollar Index (95.63, +0.35) ended off its best level of the day, but the greenback still remained higher against the yen and the euro. The dollar/yen pair traded higher by 0.3% (112.31) after rallying off the 111.55 level. Meanwhile, the euro/dollar pair finished its day lower by 0.2% at 1.1219.

The yield on the 10-yr note slipped to 1.88% (-4 bps) at the beginning of today's session, but Treasuries sold off as stocks rallied. The yield on the 10-yr note ended higher by two basis points at 1.94%.

Once again, today's volume was on the lighter side as fewer than 819.21 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the FHFA Housing Price Index for January, which rose 0.5% month-over-month after increasing a revised 0.5% (from 0.4%) in December.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the February New Homes Sales Report (Briefing.com 511k), which will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. DJ30 -41.30 NASDAQ +12.79 SP500 -1.80 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1394/1.441 bln/1488 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1392/818.2 mln/1594

3:40 pm :

Despite the dollar rallying to new highs, commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, increased to 81.23
WTI crude oil futures spiked initially in morning trade and then dropped and consolidated for the rest of the day, erasing yesterday's gains
At the end of today's session, May crude closed -0.3% at $41.45/barrel
Natural gas initially declined in morning trading, but then rallied to close at a new high of the day
Apr natural gas finished floor trading +1.6% at $1.86/MMBtu
Apr gold dropped early and consolidated the rest of the day to close modestly up +0.4% at $1248.50/oz
May silver rallied in morning trade before dropping midday and consolidating the rest of the day to close +0.3% higher at $15.89/oz
Base metal copper rallied in the morning before consolidating at parity with yesterday's close to finish the day flat at $2.29/lb

Trina Solar (TSL) announces that the co's 40MW of solar PV modules has been operational in the largest solar project in the Philippines, which has started to generate clean & safe solar electricity. The Project was developed by Helios Solar Energy, a joint venture between local solar project developer Gregorio Araneta & Equis Pte, Asia's largest independent renewable energy developer & investor according to the co

Integrated Device Technology (IDTI) announces that IDT & Samsung (SSNLF) have teamed to deliver wireless charging for the Galaxy S7, Samsung's newest smartphone. According to Integrated, the IDT technology includes all of the hardware & software needed to enable mobile devices to be charged without a wired connection. Along with the Galaxy S7, IDT previously announced that it had joined with Samsung to provide wireless charging for the Galaxy S6 edge+ & Galaxy Note5 smartphones, as well as the Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch charging pad

JinkoSolar Holding (JKS) announces that it has supplied 24MW of high-efficiency PID-free Eagle modules to Gunkul Engineering Public Co, a power producer & EPC co in Thailand, for a project in southern Thailand. The project has been connected to the grid & is operating. According to JinkoSolar, The 'superior' performance of JinkoSolar's products, their adaptability to the local environment, & ability to prevent unnecessary power loss could protect the project from region's extreme environment effect & maximize the customer's return on investment

7:02 am Vivint Solar closes a $200 mln term facility to be used for residential solar projects (VSLR) :

The non-recourse facility is secured by the cash flows available to Vivint Solar from its portfolio of installed residential solar systems supported by long-term customer contracts.

The financing is accessible in two tranches, an initial, shorter-term tranche of $75 million priced at LIBOR plus 5.5%, and a second tranche of $125 million that can be drawn over time to fund future growth. If Vivint Solar elects to draw on the second tranche, pricing will increase to LIBOR plus 8.0% and the term will extend to 4 years on the entire $200 million facility.This financing structure was designed to provide immediate liquidity with the option to upsize and fund anticipated future growth beyond 2016. "This is the first step in a series of anticipated financing activities that were put on hold as a result of the now terminated SunEdison merger."

7:01 am Unwired Planet confirms UK High Court issues second judgment in favor of Unwired Planet; Samsung (SSNLF) and Huawei infringe another Unwired Planet standards-based patent (UPIP) :

Co announced the UK High Court once again ruled that cell phone manufacturers Samsung and Huawei infringe a valid standards-essential patent (SEP) held by Unwired Planet. The trial on this patent was held in February 2016. Justice Colin Birss ruled that Unwired Planet's patent EP (UK) 1 230 818 is valid and is infringed by wireless telecommunication networks which operate in accordance with the relevant GSM standards, 3GPP TS 45.008 release 5 (dated April 2006), and release 8 (dated September 2011).Unwired Planet received ~$1.9 million in initial reimbursements as a result of prevailing in the first case and paid ~$3.1 million due to a ruling for the defendants in the second case. The amount of reimbursement in this case is not yet known. Further, whether the defendants will ask the court for, or be granted, permission to appeal is also unknown at this time.

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From Briefing.com: 4:11 pm Sigma Designs beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line (SIGM) :

Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $0.02 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.05); revenues fell 6.0% year/year to $51.5 mln vs the $51.27 mln Capital IQ ConsensusNon-GAAP gross margin in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 was 49.6%. This compares with a non-GAAP gross margin of 51.7% in the previous quarter, and non-GAAP gross margin of 50.8% for the same period in fiscal 2015.

4:03 pm Microsemi confirms sale of 'non-strategic component of a board level systems and packaging business' to Mercury Systems (MRCY), reaffirms Q2 guidance (MSCC) :

Q2 guidance: EPS of $0.62-0.68 vs $0.65 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; revs $435-455 mln vs $444.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate

4:10 pm : The stock market spent the Wednesday session under selling pressure as a tumble in crude oil fueled a retreat in the broader market. Meanwhile, hawkish commentary from St. Louis Fed President Bullard (FOMC voting member), the underperformance of the heavyweight financial sector (-0.8%), and some below-consensus earnings results led the averages to their worst levels of the day. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.1%) ended the Wednesday affair behind both the S&P 500 (-0.6%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%).

Before the opening bell, crude oil abandoned the $41.00/bbl price level after the API weekly inventory report showed a larger-than-expected build. Later, the energy component and the major averages carved out fresh session lows following the release of the Department of Energy's more influential stockpile data. The report showed that crude oil levels increased by 9.35 million barrels (consensus 3.09 million barrel) over the last week. By the end of its pit session, oil had surrendered 4.3% ($39.79/bbl).

Separately, hawkish commentary from St. Louis Fed President Bullard added to uncertainty in the broader market. President Bullard argued that rising inflation expectations would call for more rate hikes and that an April hike is not off the table. President Bullard's hawkish note raised speculation that there may be growing dissent on the FOMC with regards to the direction of the fed funds rate.

Heavily-weighted technology (-0.6%), consumer discretionary (-0.6%), health care (-0.6%), and financials (-0.8%) all joined energy (-2.1%) on the bottom of the leaderboard. Conversely, countercyclical utilities (+0.7%) and consumer staples (UNCH) ended above their flat lines.

Commodity-sensitive energy (-2.1%) displayed broad weakness as independent oil and gas names, refiners, and pipeline companies all showed steep losses. The broader sector has tumbled 2.9% thus far this week, but remains higher by 8.5% in the month of March. On a month-to-date basis WTI crude remains up 17.4%.

In the heavyweight technology space (-0.6%), data storage names displayed relative weakness as Western Digital (WDC 48.72, -2.62) and Seagate Technology (STX 34.80, -2.24) plummeted 5.1% and 6.1%, respectively. Additionally, the high-beta chipmakers underperformed, evidenced by the 1.3% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

The health care space (-0.6%) fell as biotechnology retraced yesterday's rebound effort. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 254.26, -8.68) surrendered all of its gain from yesterday and trimmed its week-to-date gain to 1.5%. Separately, health care provider and Dow component UnitedHealth (UNH 129.79, +1.77) ended at the top of the price-weighted index.

Meanwhile, Nike (NKE62.44, -2.46) had the worst showing in the Dow. The consumer discretionary name (-0.6%) fell after reporting disappointing top-line results for the third quarter. Elsewhere in the group, media name Time Warner (TWX 70.69, 2.13) plunged 2.9%.

The Treasury complex ended its day broadly higher as the group gained amid the downturn in equities. The yield on the 10-yr note ended its day lower by five basis points at 1.88%.

Today's participation was once again on the lighter side, with fewer than 839 million shares changing hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the February New Homes Sales Report:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted downtick of 3.3%, compared to last week's 3.3% decline.
New home sales, which are counted when a contract is signed, were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 512,000 in February, up 2.0% from an upwardly revised level of 502,000 (from 494,000) for January. The February number was nearly spot-on with the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 511,000.
As expected, sales in the West saw a huge reversal from the weakness in January, surging 38.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 151,000. January sales, which fell 32.7%, were reportedly impeded by abnormally wet weather.
Notwithstanding the big uptick in the West, total new home sales growth was still only modest due to a 4.1% decline in sales in the South, which is the biggest region for new home sales, accounting for 55% of new home sales in February. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales in the South are down 14.3%.
The Northeast saw the biggest drop in February, with sales declining 24.2%, and was followed by the Midwest, which saw sales slump 17.9% from January. Those downturns are apt to be blamed on inclement winter weather conditions. The March report will reveal if that in fact was the case.
The median sales price of new houses sold in February was $301,400, up 6.2% from January and up 2.6% from the same period a year ago.
At the current sales pace, there is a 5.6-month supply of new homes for sale, which is unchanged from January.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 268k) and Durable Goods Orders for February (Briefing.com consensus -2.9%), which will both cross the wires at 8:30 ET. DJ30 -79.98 NASDAQ -52.80 SP500 -13.09 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 584/1.587 bln/2323 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 778/838.3 mln/2259

3:35 pm :

The dollar index experienced a steady and unidirectional climb all day, weighing heavily on commodities.
WTI Crude Oil futures fell sharply lower and closed near the low of the day below $40/bbl
Natural gas futures fell 4%, giving back all of yesterday's gains to finish notably lower at $1.79/MMBtu
Gold staged a modest recovery today off yesterday's lows
Silver fell in morning trading and consolidated to end the day near its lows around $15.27/oz
Copper closed 2% lower at $2.24/lb

Today, the three major US indices traded entirely in the red. The negative action was led by the Nasdaq Composite, which shed 52.80 points (-1.10%) today to close 4768.86 as healthcare names VRTX -7.6%, GILD -3.9%, REGN -3.4% and CELG -2.7% weighed on the index. The S&P 500 was also weak today, down 13.09 points (-0.64%) to close 2036.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted the most tame losses today, yet still lost 79.98 points (-0.45%) to end Wednesday 17502.59.

The major averages were pressured all session as crude oil broke down, as May Crude Oil futures fell $1.78 (-4.3%) to $39.79/barrel. Hawkish commentary from Fed President and FOMC voting member James Bullard and some disappointing earnings results have also kept pressure on equities. On the market data front, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted down-tick of 3.3% compared to last week's 3.3% decline. Also, new home sales, which are counted when a contract is signed, were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 512,000 in February.

Action in Technology (XLK 43.50, -0.29 -0.66%) was entirely in the red on Wednesday as component Red Hat (RHT 72.55, -3.16 -4.17%) displayed relative weakness following the company's better than expected Q4 print; what dragged the stock down today might have been the Q4 billings, which came in worse than Street expectations at $764 million. Other sectors managed to finish XLU +0.74%, XLP +0.02%, XLI -0.65%, XLY -0.71%, XLV -0.71%, XLF -0.75%, IYZ -1.24%, XLB -1.24%, XLE -2.19% with Utilities leading the advance and Energy lagging on the aforementioned weakness in oil.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (722.80, -4.38 -0.60%), trading was strikingly similar to that of the overall market as the session began with modest losses which eventually expanded and held until the bell. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 34.43, +0.58 +1.71%) bucked the broader market trend, edging higher as the company entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement with Barclays Bank. Other sector names which under-performed today included MU -6.91%, STX -6.05%, WDC -5.10%, QRVO -4.31%, FSLR -4.29%, TDC -3.14%, AKAM -2.86%, NTAP -2.84%, AMAT -2.41%, QCOM -1.98%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

According to a Bloomberg report, Oracle (ORCL 40.75, -0.63 -1.52%) sued Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 17.46, -0.05 -0.29%) alleging copyright infringement.

NVIDIA (NVDA) entered an accelerated share repurchase agreement with Barclays Bank.
According to a NYTimes report, Square (SQ 12.59, -0.47 -3.60%) and Facebook (FB 112.54, +0.29 +0.26%) plan to partner regarding targeted advertising.

Shares of Nuance Communications (NUAN 17.95, -1.20 -6.27%) displayed weakness following a

TechCrunch article stating Alphabet's (GOOG 738.06, -2.69 -0.36%) Google will open access to competitive voice recognition service.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

SolarCity (SCTY 22.36, -2.41 -9.73%) closed a new tax equity fund to finance over $131 million in residential, commercial and military solar projects. The financing partner was not disclosed.

CenturyLink (CTL 31.02, -0.60 -1.90%) to sell $1 billion of newly-issued unsecured eight-year senior notes.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Red Hat (RHT) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.52 and $544 million, respectively. For Q4, RHT reported Billings of $764 million, slightly below Street expectations. Additionally, RHT guided for Q1 EPS of $0.50 on revenues of $558-566 million. For the FY17 period, RHT sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $2.22-2.26 and $2.38-2.42 billion, respectively.

On Track Innovations (OTIV 0.95, +0.03 +3.26%) reported a better than expected Q4 adjusted loss per share of ($0.03) on revenues which rose +3.6% versus last year and came in better than expectations at $5.7 million.

HealthEquity (HQY 24.36, +1.91 +8.51%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.07 and $35.89 million, respectively. For the FY17 period, HQY expects in-line EPS and revenues of $0.45-0.47 and $170-174 million, respectively.

Analyst actions:

IPHI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank;
ORBK was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research,
TU was downgraded to Hold from Buy at TD Securities,
FICO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti;
SQ was initiated with an Outperform at Credit Agricole

SUNE -16.8% (following 25% decline on Tuesday, also target lowered to Street-low $0.22 from $0.39 at Axiom Capital ),

7:42 am Vishay Precision to close its facility in Alajuela, Costa Rica; will result in annual savings of $1.2 mln, with a charge of ~$600k in the current quarter (VPG) :

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From Briefing.com:The shortened week ended split. The session was led higher by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite which added 4.64 points (+0.10%) to close 4773.50. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also edged higher 13.90 points (+0.08%) to end 17516.49. The lone under-performer was the S&P 500 which lost less than one point (-0.04%) to end 2035.97. The way Thursday began was far from the way it ended, as stocks were pressured by weak economic data and a soft overnight session overseas. This week's abbreviated action takes the indices to -4.7%, +0.5% and -0.4% YTD, respectively.

Market data today came in the form of the initial claims reading which for the week ending March 19 was 265,000, up 6,000 from the prior week. Continuing claims for the week ending March 12 were 2.179 million, down 39,000 from last week. The Durable Goods Orders report for February was a disappointment, partly because it contained downward revisions for January but also because almost every category, excluding transportation, registered a month-over-month decline in new orders.

Thursday trading ended with Technology (XLK 43.62, +0.12 +0.28%) in the green as the final hour of trading took the sector from negative territory to modestly above flat lines. Component Yahoo! (YHOO 34.86, +0.06 +0.17%) traded mostly in the red today, yet managed to eke out gains in the final moments of the session as shareholder Starboard Value LP nominated a slate of nine candidates for election to YHOO's Board of Directors. Other sectors closed the session IYZ +0.64%, XLE +0.49%, XLU +0.27%, XLY +0.13%, XLB +0.00%, XLV -0.04%, XLP -0.11%, XLI -0.29%, XLF -0.62% as Telecoms led the positive bias with Financials under-performing.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (723.78, +0.98 +0.14%), the bias was to the downside yet the sector managed to edge higher in the final moments of trading. Component Accenture (ACN 114.30, +6.64 +6.17%) ended the session at all-time highs following the company's better than expected Q2 report and raised FY16 EPS guidance. Other sector components which displayed relative strength today included CTSH +2.13%, IBM +1.75%, RHT +0.96%, ADS +0.94%, CRM +0.92%, CSC +0.66%, XRX +0.66%, EBAY +0.66%, GLW +0.60%, APH +0.55%, ORCL +0.54%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Mesosphere closed $73.5 million in a Series C funding round led by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 17.57, +0.11 +0.63%), with Microsoft (MSFT 54.21, +0.24 +0.44%) joining as a new strategic investor. The round brings Mesosphere's total funding to date to nearly $126 million and supports the company's accelerating growth as DCOS becomes the de facto standard for enterprises operating containers and distributed systems in production.

Starboard Value LP, one of the largest shareholders of Yahoo! (YHOO) with an ownership interest in about 1.7% of YHOO's outstanding shares, representing an investment of about $570 million, is nominating a slate of nine highly qualified candidates for election to YHOO's Board of Directors at the 2016 Annual Meeting. Later, YHOO announced its intention to review the aforementioned nominees and respond in due course.

Oracle (ORCL 40.97, +0.22 +0.54%) expanded its cloud portfolio, releasing new Oracle Cloud services over the past several months to help companies transition to the cloud. The new services enhance the breadth and depth of Oracle's extensive cloud portfolio across all layers of the stack -- SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.

A Re/Code article detailed the potential Apple (AAPL 105.67, -0.46 -0.43%) expansion of its Pay services to websites by the end of the year.
Shareholder ValueAct sold 2.11 million shares of Adobe (ADBE 92.52, +0.36 +0.39%). Holdings in the company now total 9.7 million.

Broadcom's (AVGO 153.00, +0.01 +0.01%) CFO Anthony Maslowski to take a leave of absence for health reasons.

Elsewhere in the technology space:

According to a Variety article, Outerwall's (OUTR 37.22, +1.51 +4.23%) RedBox plans to introduce a streaming service.

Barracuda Networks (CUDA 14.26, -0.10 -0.70%) acquired Sookasa. The aggregate consideration payable in exchange for all of the outstanding equity interests of Sookasa was $250,001 and the issuance of 10,000 shares of the company's common stock, which includes the repayment of certain indebtedness of Sookasa.

INTL FCStone (INTL 26.52, +0.49 +1.88%) increased its credit facility to $205 million from $140 million.

Mercury (MRCY 18.81, +2.32 +14.07%) to acquire the embedded security, RF and Microwave and custom microelectronics businesses of Microsemi (MSCC 38.54, +1.48 +3.99%) for $300 million. The company expects the deal to be highly accretive and expects to raise FY17 target financial model.

Edgewater (EDGW 7.61, +0.55 +7.79%) entered an agreement with Lone Star under which the firm will appoint two new directors to the Board.

NQ Mobile (NQ 4.88, +0.53 +12.18%) updated investors regarding the FL Mobile divestment. Dr. Vincent Wenyong Shi, Chairman of FL Mobile Jiutian Technology will acquire a 22% equity interest in FL Mobile for RMB880 million.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Accenture (ACN) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $1.34 on revenues which also came in above expectations and rose 6.0% versus last year to $7.95 billion. ACN reported new bookings for Q2 of $9.5 billion. Additionally, ACN guided Q3 revenues in the range of $8.10-8.35 billion. The company also issued upside guidance for the FY16 period for EPS in the range of $5.21-5.32 (up from prior guidance of $5.09-5.24), and revenue growth of about 8-10%, equating to about $33.5-34.1 billion.

Sigma Designs (SIGM 6.31, -1.51 -19.31%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.02 on revenues which fell 6.0% versus last year and were in-line with Street expectations at $51.5 million. Also, SIGM guided for FY17 revenues in the range of $52-56 million, slightly above expectations.

Analyst actions:

SNDK was downgraded to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna,
CGNX was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Credit Agricole,
MBT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC;
LXFT, VNTV, PYPL were initiated with a Neutral at Sterne Agee CRT,
AKAM was initiated at RBC Captial and Stifel,
TMUS was initiated with a Mkt Perform at FBR Capital

Weekly Recap - Week ending 25-Mar-16

After posting five consecutive weekly gains, the stock market ended the holiday-shortened week on a lower note with hawkish commentary from St. Louis Fed President and FOMC voting member James Bullard putting a damper on investor sentiment. The S&P 500 lost 0.7% for the week.

Mr. Bullard said that a rate hike in April is not off the table, but that sentiment remains at odds with the fed funds futures market, which sees only a 14.0% chance of a rate hike at the upcoming policy meeting. The market sees a 40.0% chance of a hike in June while expectations for a hike in July are running at 51.0%.

However, it wasn't just Mr. Bullard's tone that weighed on the market as crude oil retreated notably, falling 4.1% for the week. To be fair, dollar strength was likely a contributing factor as the Dollar Index rose 1.4%, erasing its entire decline from the previous week.

All in all, the past week's action was underscored by below-average trading volume as many participants got an early start on the Easter Holiday. Furthermore, it wouldn't be too difficult to argue that the market was simply due for a pullback after surging nearly 10.0% in the previous five weeks.

Seven of ten sectors finished the week in negative territory with energy (-2.4%), financials (-1.9%), materials (-1.7%), and industrials (-1.0%) leading the decline while health care (+0.6%), utilities (+0.6%), and telecom services (+0.5%) eked out slim gains for the week.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17599.42 17515.73 -83.69 -0.5 0.5
Nasdaq 4795.65 4773.50 -22.15 -0.5 -4.7
S&P 500 2049.50 2035.94 -13.56 -0.7 -0.4
Russell 2000 1101.67 1075.10 -26.57 -2.4 -5.4

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From Briefing.com: 6:23 pm TerraForm Global President and CEO Brian Wuebbels resigns effective immediately (GLBL) :

The board has formed an office of the chairman to lead TerraForm Global on an interim basis. The office of the chairman will be led by Peter Blackmore, an independent director and chairman of the Company. Independent directors Christopher Compton, Hanif Dahya and Jack Jenkins-Stark will also join the office of the chairman. The office of the chairman will report to the board and its committees in a substantially similar manner as a chief executive officer. All other key executives will remain in their roles, including Rebecca Cranna, executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Yana Kravtsova, general counsel, senior vice president and secretary.

In addition, the board has appointed Mr. Ilan Daskal to be a member of the board, effective immediately.

6:20 pm TerraForm Power President and CEO Brian Wuebbels resigns effective immediately (TERP)

The board has formed an office of the chairman to lead TerraForm Power on an interim basis. The office of the chairman will be led by Peter Blackmore, an independent director and chairman of the Company. Independent directors Christopher Compton, Hanif Dahya and Jack Jenkins-Stark will also join the office of the chairman. The office of the chairman will report to the board and its committees in a substantially similar manner as a chief executive officer. All other key executives of the Company will remain in their roles, including Rebecca Cranna, executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Sebastian Deschler, general counsel, senior vice president and secretary.

In addition, the board has appointed Ilan Daskal to be a member of the board, effective immediately. Daskal has recently been appointed chief financial officer designee and executive vice president of SunEdison (SUNE), with a scheduled start date of no later than April 4, 2016.

5:02 pm TerraForm Global files to delay Form 10-K, as expected (GLBL) : The Company's delay in filing the Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, is due principally to the need to complete all steps and tasks necessary to finalize the Company's annual financial statements and other disclosures required to be in the filing.

4:14 pm Micron beats by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (MU) :

Reports Q2 (Feb) loss of $0.05 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.09); revenues fell 29.6% year/year to $2.93 bln vs the $3.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus.The company's overall consolidated gross margin of 20 percent (Guidance 17-20%) for the second quarter of fiscal 2016 was 5 percent lower compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2016 primarily due to lower average selling prices partially offset by manufacturing cost reductions for Non-Volatile products.

DRAMMobile was in the low 30% rangePC segment was in the mid 20% range Server business was in the high teens percent range

NANDNAND/Non-Volatile Memory gross margin declined slightly in the quarter, consistent with expectations

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of (0.12)-(0.05), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.03 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $2.9-3.2 bln vs. $3.19 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross Margin 17.5-20.0%; Operating Expense $565-620 mln;
Operating Income ($60 mln)-$20 mln
Comments
PC DRAM remains under pressure; however there are signs of demand stabilizing.
We are on track with the qualification of several new technologies including 20nm DDR4 and low-power DDR4, as well as 3D NAND.
The majority of Micron's growth will occur in the latter half of our FY 2016.
We expect Micron to be above the market in DRAM For trade NAND, we expect to be below the market

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday affair on a higher note as cautious remarks from Fed Chair Yellen boosted risk appetite for the second day in a row. Additional focal points for today's trade included relative strength from the heavyweight technology (+0.7%) and financial (+0.6%) sectors, wavering oil trade, and a continued downturn in biotechnology. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) in-line with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) and the S&P 500 (+0.4%).

Equity indices opened their day sharply above their flat lines as global bourses rallied in response to yesterday's dovish remarks from Fed Chair Yellen. Ms. Yellen's cautious tone boosted risk appetite overseas and at home as she advocated a more gradual path to interest rate normalization. Furthermore, an early rally in crude oil worked to buttress the opening move higher.

However, risk appetite waned when WTI crude slipped from its session high. The slide in oil corresponded to the release of a better than expected reading from the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report. Despite a smaller than expected build in crude stockpiles (2.30 million barrels; expected 3.30 million) and a larger than estimated draw from gasoline inventories (2.51 million barrels; expected 2.17 million), the energy component folded to selling pressure at its session high ($39.80/bbl). However, WTI crude was able to end its day in positive territory, settling up 0.2% at $32.86/bbl.

The major averages moved higher following the conclusion of oil's pit session and seven of ten sectors were able to end their day in the green. On the top of the leaderboard, the heavily-weighted technology (+0.7%) and financial (+0.6%) sectors led while consumer discretionary (+0.6%) and materials (+0.5%) followed.

In the influential technology space (+0.7%), Apple (AAPL 109.56, +1.88) extended its March gain to 12.2% after the tech giant received an upgrade to "Outperform" and a price target increase ($135) at Cowen. Elsewhere in the group, Salesforce.com (CRM 74.30, +2.00) jumped 2.8% after announcing a blank purchase agreement with various departments of the U.S. government that totaled $603 million.

Insurance names gained in the financial sector (+0.6%) after MetLife (MET 44.73, +2.27) had its "Too Big to Fail" designation removed by a district court. The company rallied 5.4% while Prudential (PRU 72.95, +1.43) and American International Group (AIG 54.52, +1.13) traded higher in sympathy with the name.

In the consumer discretionary space (+0.6%), above-consensus bottom-line results from Carnival (CCL 52.37, +2.73) helped lift the resort and leisure sub-group. Elsewhere, Amazon (AMZN 598.69, +4.83) extended its week to date advance to 2.5% while Netflix (NFLX 102.19, -1.94) fell 1.9%.

On the bottom of the leaderboard, countercyclical utilities (-0.2%), health care (-0.1%), and telecom services (UNCH) underperformed.

Biotechnology continued to weigh on the broader health care sector (-0.1%) as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 254.94, -1.67) slipped 0.7%. Today's decline in the broader ETF followed a leg lower for Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 27.07, -1.91). The pharmaceutical company dove 6.6% after requesting another extension to file its 10-K form.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.84, -0.32) slipped further today as the euro and the yen extended their recent gain over the greenback. The euro/dollar pair gained 0.4% and ended at 1.1334 while the dollar lost 0.2% (112.45) against the yen.

The Treasury complex fell to session lows during the height of the rally in equities and slowly marched off those levels as the major averages slipped from their highs. The yield on the 10-yr note ended its day higher by two basis points at 1.82%.

Today's participation fell beneath the recent average as fewer than 700 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the the ADP Employment Change for March:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 1.0% to follow last week's 3.3% drop
The ADP Employment report for March came in just ahead of expectations (200K; Briefing.com consensus 196K).
This report is a prelude to the more influential March Employment Situation report, which will be released on Friday morning (Briefing.com consensus 200K).

Tomorrow's economic data will include March's Challenger Job Cuts and weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 265k), which will cross the wires at 7:30 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively. The day's data will be capped off with the 9:45 ET release of the Chicago PMI for March (Briefing.com consensus 49.9).

Nasdaq Composite -2.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones +1.7% YTD

DJ30 +83.55 NASDAQ +22.67 SP500 +8.94 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1757/1.576 bln/1075 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1893/800.17 mln/1119

3:35 pm :

The dollar index lost steam in early afternoon trade but staged a small rally 30 min before the stock market closes
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were down -0.5% at 78.93
Crude oil initially rallied after inventory data showed a smaller-than-expected build of +2.299 mln barrels compared to estimates for +3.3 mln barrels, but has since declined and closed near the lows for the day
May crude oil futures closed down -2.6% at $38.36/barrel
Natural gas dipped as low as $1.96/MMBtu before rallying to a new high of the day, giving up some of those gains near the close
May natural gas futures closed up +2.6% at $1.99/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold quickly dropped below yesterday's previous close and consolidated in that area the rest of the day before staging a modest rally near the close
June gold futures closed up +0.5% $1226.80/oz, gold futures have switched their front month to June as indicated by the active amount of volume in those contracts
Silver plummeted below the previous day's close and traded near parity with the previous close before ending slightly up for the day
May silver futures closed +0.1% higher at $15.21/oz
Base metal copper plummeted in early morning trading before consolidating in a tight range all day
May copper futures closed -2.7% lower at $2.19/lb

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com: Trading was strong today, as S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average turned in a solid Wednesday session , as both touched their best marks of the year so far during the session. When the day was done, Wednesday was led by the Nasdaq Composite, which added 22.67 points (+0.47%) to close 4869.29 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which also ended up (+0.47%) by adding 83.55 points to close 17716.66. The S&P 500 also ended with solid gains, higher by 8.94 points (+0.44%) to close 2063.95 when the bell rang. Market data today consisted of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which fell 1.0% to follow last week's 3.3% drop. Also, the ADP Employment report for March came in just ahead of expectations at 200,000.

Technology (XLK 44.45, +0.26 +0.59%) posted a strong performance as well, as component Salesforce.com (CRM 74.30, +2.00 +2.77%) displayed relative strength on the heels of a $603 million government Blanket Purchase Agreement. Other sectors as measured by the S&P finished the day XLP +0.66%, XLY +0.64%, XLF +0.58%, XLB +0.44%, IYZ +0.43%, XLE +0.19%, XLI +0.18%, XLV +0.01%, XLU -0.24% with Consumer Staples leading the charge to the upside and Utilities ending the session as the lone laggard.

Trading in the technology space as measured by the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (738.27, +5.13 +0.70%) was in the green for the entirety of the session as component Apple (AAPL 109.56, +1.88 +1.75%) outperformed on the heels of a Cowen upgrade to Outperform. Other names in the sector which finished in the green today included CRM +2.77%, V +1.86%, AVGO +1.82%, CSC +1.67%, TXN +1.67%, XLNX +1.31%, CSCO +1.28%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

eBay (EBAY 24.04, -0.06 -0.25%) acquired Cargigi. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Alphabet (GOOG 750.53, +5.76 +0.77%) commenced an exchange offer for Google issued notes.

NetApp (NTAP 26.66, -0.60 -2.20%) named former Altera (ALTR) CFO, Ron Pasek, as CFO of the company effective April 11.

Salesforce.com (CRM) announced a $603 million government Blanket Purchase Agreements.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

T-Mobile US (TMUS 38.44, +0.01 +0.03%) agreed to sell $1 billion of 6.000% Senior Notes due 2024.
In addition to reporting quarterly results, Verint Systems (VRNT 33.49, -1.70 -4.83%) announced a $150 million share repurchase program.

Checkpoint Systems (CKP 10.24, -0.04 -0.39%) shareholder Wynnefield Capital stated their strong opposition to the 'take under' sale of Checkpoint to CCL Industries.

GameLoft (GLOFY 32.55, flat) filed a complaint against the declaration of compliance related to the takeover bid by Vivendi (VIVHY 21.48, +0.28 +1.32%).

Tremor Video (TRMR 1.78, flat) announced a $15 million share repurchase program.

CenturyLink (CTL 31.87, +0.28 +0.89%) acquired NetAura. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Konica Minolta (KYO 44.09, -0.26 -0.59%) announced an agreement to acquire a majority stake in MOBOTIX. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.Also, KYO acquired 100% ownership of SGS Tool through a share purchase agreement.RADCOM (RDCM 13.29, -0.27 -1.99%) filed for $50 million ordinary share shelf offering.

ModusLink Global Solutions (MLNK 1.50, -0.01 -0.66%) named Warren Lichtenstein as its interim CEO.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Paychex (PAYX 53.29, -1.20 -2.20%) reported in-line Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.50 and $752.6 million, respectively. Also, PAYX reaffirmed FY16 net income guidance of +8-9% on total service revenues of +7-8% and payroll service revenues of +4-5% with Human Resource Services revenues of +10-13%.

Verint Systems (VRNT) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.90 on worse than expected revenues which fell 10.7% versus last year to $281.8 million. Also, the company issued guidance for FY17 EPS and revenues to come in worse than expected at 'similar to the year-end January 31, 2016' which equates to about $3.04 and revenues 'similar to the year-end January 31, 2016' which equates to about plus or minus 2% to about $1.11-1.15 billion.

Upland Software (UPLD 6.85, +0.02 +0.29%) reported in-line EPS for the Q4 period at $0.01 on revenues which were better than expected and rose 6.7% versus last year to $17.6 million. In addition, UPLD issued in-line guidance for Q1 period revenues of $17.1-18.1 million. Also, the company sees FY16 revenues in-line with Street expectations at $70-74 million.

Companies scheduled to report tonight: MU, PRGS, ANY

Analyst actions:

AAPL was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen,
MDRX was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
IMASY was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Berenberg;
VRNT was downgraded to Hold at Deutsche Bank and to Underperform at Credit Suisse,
CMP was downgraded to Hold from Buy at BB&T Capital Mkts,
FORM was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
INOV was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
TERP was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan;
P, YELP, SQ were initiated at Mizuho,
PYPL was initiated with a Mkt Perform at Bernstein,
GIMO was initiated with a Hold at Stifel,
SCON was initiated with a Neutral at Rodman & Renshaw

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a flat note with the S&P 500 slipping 0.2% ahead of tomorrow's release of the March Employment Situation Report (Briefing.com consensus 200k). Other contributing factors for today's decline included weakness from the oil pit and the underperformance of the heavyweight financial sector (-0.2%). The benchmark index (-0.2%) ended its day in-line with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) and behind the Nasdaq Composite (UNCH).

The equity market began its day on a flat note as cautious trading overseas and indecision from the oil pit took center stage at the open. International bourses adopted a risk-off posture as they set their sights on tomorrow's influential Employment Situation Report for March. However, a rebound in crude oil and some early sector leadership from the heavily-weighted health care (-0.2%), technology (-0.2%), and financials (-0.2%) would lift the indices to their best levels of the day.

Nevertheless, the rebound in crude would not last as the energy component returned to its intraday low ($38.19/bbl) shortly before the conclusion of its pit session. As a result, WTI crude ended its day lower by 0.2% at $38.29/bbl while the broader market ended in the lower half of its trading range.

On the leaderboard, materials (-0.9%), industrials (-0.4%), consumer staples (-0.3%), and financials (-0.2%) trailed while utilities (+0.5%) and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) outperformed.

The commodity-sensitive materials space (-0.9%) ended its day on the bottom of the board after the release of the quarterly grain stockpile report from the USDA. The report showed that inventories of soybeans and wheat grew a respective 15.0% and 20.0% since last year. Agrochemical names such as Monsanto (MON 87.74, -3.35) and Mosaic (MOS 27.00, -1.12) ended their day with the steepest losses.

Life insurance names underperformed in the financial sector (-0.2%) as they pulled back from yesterday's rally that followed a favorable ruling for MetLife (MET 43.94, -0.79). On that note, the stock surrendered 1.8% after rallying 5.4% yesterday.

In the influential technology space (-0.2%), large cap names pulled back from their recent highs while the high-beta chipmakers underperformed. The PHLX Semiconductor ended its day lower by 0.6% as the sub-group fell in sympathy with Micron Technology (MU 10.47, -0.01). The chipmaker slid as much as 2.9% after guiding its third quarter earnings estimates below analysts' estimates. Conversely, tech heavyweight and Dow component IBM (IBM 151.45, +3.04) topped the price-weighted index.

Biotechnology outperformed throughout today's session as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 260.81, +5.87) extended its month to date gain to 1.6%. Conversely, weakness from drug manufactures Pfizer (PFE 29.64, -0.43) and Allergan (AGN 268.03, -6.91) weighed on the broader health care sector.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.62, -0.22) ended off its low as the greenback regained some ground against the yen and the euro. The euro/dollar pair gained 0.4% and ended at 1.1383 after trading as high as 1.1411. Separately, the dollar gained 0.1% (112.56) against the yen.

The Treasury complex inched towards session highs throughout the afternoon with the yield on the 10-yr note ending its day lower by five basis point at 1.77%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 974 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's data included weekly initial claims and the Chicago PMI for March:

Initial claims for the week ending March 26 rose by 11,000 to 276,000 (Briefing.com consensus 265,000).
Despite the headline increase, the series remains inside a 250,000-300,000 range that has been in effect since July 2014.
Including today's release, initial claims have now been below the 300,000 mark for 56 consecutive weeks.
There were no special factors influencing the report and the four-week moving average moved up by 3,000 to 263,250.
Continuing claims for the week ending March 19 were 2.173 million, down 7,000 from the upwardly revised prior week level of 2.180 million (from 2.179 million).
The four-week moving average for the series fell 14,500 to 2.191 million.
The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index registered a 53.6 reading for March, which was above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 49.9 and well above the prior month reading of 47.6.
Today's reading lifted the index above 50, which is the demarcation line between contraction and expansion in activities.
Over the past seven months (including February), the index registered four contractionary readings, making today's report a welcome sight; however, the series will need to continue expanding in coming months in order to make a run at last year's highs.
The March improvement was driven by snapbacks in Production and Employment components of the report. The Production Index spiked to 53.7 from 44.0 while Employment surged to 52.8 from 45.2, reaching its highest level since April 2015.
Furthermore, New Orders (to 55.6 from 51.7) and Order Backlogs (to 49.7 from 45.3) also improved, underpinning the headline increase. Despite the improvements, Backlogs remained below 50 to continue a stretch that dates back to January 2015.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 8:30 ET release of the Employment Situation Report for March (Briefing.com consensus 200k). Separately, the ISM Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 50.6), Construction Spending for February (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), and the final reading of Michigan Consumer Sentiment (Briefing.com consensus 90.5) will each cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -2.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.9% YTD
S&P 500 +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones +1.5% YTD

DJ30 -31.57 NASDAQ +0.57 SP500 -4.19 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1400/1.571 bln/1447 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1668/974.9 mln/1353

3:30 pm :

The dollar rallied off its 5-month low in afternoon trading, putting pressure on commodities
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity index, are down -0.2% at 78.83
Crude oil was volatile, trading briefly to a high of the day around $39.00/barrel before pulling back and closing nearly unchanged on the day
May crude oil futures closed down -0.2% at $38.29/barrel
Natural gas plummeted following EIA storage data that showed a draw of -25 bcf, compared to expectations for a draw of -23 bcf
In the middle of the trading day nat gas futures staged a rally, but still closed down -1.5% at $1.96/MMBtu
Gold was trending slightly downward all day, but managed to close higher
June gold futures closed up +0.7% at $1235.90/oz
Silver rallied in the afternoon before consolidating slightly lower, closing above yesterday's closing price
May silver futures closed up +1.8% at $15.48/oz
Copper staged a rally midday but still closed lower on the day
May copper futures closed down -0.5% at $2.18/lb

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com: Trading was back and forth toward the end of the session today, as a sell-off in the final five minutes of the session took indices lower. Action was heading for modest losses in the S&P and Dow, with modest gains in the Nasdaq but all three major indicated retreated to near lows of the day as the bell rang. Thus, action today ends Q1 trading as the first three months of 2016 have come to a close. This quarter, the Dow and S&P managed to eke out slight gains and the Nasdaq closed the three month action down about -2.8%. Trading today closed with the Nasdaq Composite managing gains of less than a point (+0.01%) to close 4869.85. The S&P 500 edged 4.21 points lower (-0.20%) to close 2059.74, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 31.57 points (-0.18%) to end Q1 17685.09.

Today's market data included the initial claims reading for the week ending March 26, which rose by 11,000 to 276,000. Also, the continuing claims report for the week ending March 19 was 2.173 million, down 7,000 from the last report. Additionally, the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index registered a 53.6 reading for March, well above last month's reading of 47.6.

For the majority of the morning, the Technology (XLK 44.36, -0.09 -0.20%) sector was in the green. However, action turned to the red just before 1 p.m. ET and finished just shy of session lows. Component IBM (IBM 151.45, +3.04 +2.05%) displayed notable strength today on the back of the company's announcement this morning that the company plans to acquire Bluewolf Group. Other sectors closed the session XLU +0.59%, IYZ +0.07%, XLE -0.05%, XLY -0.11%, XLF -0.22%, XLI -0.23%, XLV -0.31%, XLP -0.52%, XLB -0.84% with Utilities managing to stay out of the red and Materials posting the most extreme losses.

When the bell rang, the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (737.12, -1.14 -0.15%) closed in the red as a sell-off in the final minutes of trading took away what would have been a finish in the green. Component Micron (MU 10.47, -0.01 -0.10%) displayed modest weakness following the company's mixed Q2 report and tepid Q3 EPS guidance. Other names in the space which displayed relative weakness included FLIR -2.46%, TXN -1.63%, QRVO -1.60%, AVGO -1.55%, MCHP -1.31%, VRSN -1.17%, PYPL -1.13%, INTC -1.10%.
Other notable news items among sector components:

Yahoo! (YHOO 36.81, +0.25 +0.68%) amended certain bylaws. An amendment was added to permit certain shareholders to nominate director nominees. Also, the amendments also held that any nominee submit a written questionnaire with respect to the background, qualifications, stock ownership and independence of the nominee, as well as representations regarding certain voting commitments or third party compensation arrangements.

IBM (IBM) announced plans to acquire Bluewolf Group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Western Digital (WDC 47.24, +1.10 +2.38%) priced $1.875 billion of senior secured notes due 2023 and $3.35 billion of senior unsecured notes due 2024.

Fiserv (FISV 102.58, +0.50 +0.49%) and Bank of Ceylon expanded their relationship. The bank has also chosen Communicator from Fiserv to further streamline the integration between Signature and third-party solutions.

In a press release out overnight, the European Commission approved the acquisition of Xchanging by Computer Sciences (CSC 34.39, +0.36 +1.06%).

Elsewhere in the tech space:

FXCM (FXCM 10.74, -0.21 -1.92%) entered into a white label partnership with Halifax New Zealand to offer retail FX and CFD trading to customers throughout New Zealand.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Progress Software (PRGS 24.12, -1.47 -5.74%) announced the planned retirement of CFO Chris Perkins. Additionally, the company's Board of Directors authorized a new $100 million share repurchase program, increasing the total authorization to $203 million.

TerraForm Power (TERP 8.65, +0.27 +3.22%) and TerraForm Global's (GLBL 2.38, +0.20 +9.17%) President and CEO Brian Wuebbels resigned effective immediately.

Zayo Group Holdings (ZAYO 24.24, -0.04 -0.16%) offered $350 million of its 6.375% senior notes due 2025 through an add-on to existing issue.

LRAD (LRAD 1.66, +0.01 +0.61%) received a $7.4 million contract award from the US Navy.

Points International (PCOM 8.71, +0.06 +0.69%) appointed Michael D'Amico as CFO.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Micron (MU) reported a better than expected Q2 loss per share of $0.05 on revenues which fell 29.6% versus last year to $2.93 billion yet were slightly worse than expected. Also, the company gave worse than expected Q3 EPS at a loss between ($0.12)-($0.05), with revenues in-line at $2.9-3.2 billion.

Sphere 3D (ANY 1.24, -0.05 -3.88%) reported a better than expected loss per share of $0.10 for the Q4 period. ANY also reported worse than expected revenues for the period which rose 99.3% versus last year to $18.87 million.

Progress Software (PRGS) reported worse than expected EPS and revenues for the Q1 period of $0.27 and $90.2 million, respectively. Management also guided Q2 EPS and revenues worse than expected at $0.26-0.29 and $93-96 million, respectively.

Analyst actions:

AMAT was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Exane BNP Paribas;
MU was downgraded to Mkt Perform at Bernstein and to Neutral at Macquarie,
RAX was downgraded to Sell from Underperform at Credit Agricole,
ASML was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Exane BNP Paribas;
KS was initiated with a Buy at Standpoint Research,
FSLR and SPWR were initiated with a Neutral at Mizuho,
EXPE and PCLN were initiated with a Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
ADBE was initiated with a Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
MIFI was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 01-Apr-16The major averages enjoyed another round of weekly gains as the first quarter came to a close. The S&P 500 gained 1.8% for the week while the Nasdaq Composite outperformed, climbing 3.0% since last Friday.

Although the Nasdaq showed relative strength during the week, the tech-heavy index remains down 1.9% for the year versus a 1.4% gain in the S&P 500.

The first two days of the week were very quiet with investors sitting on their hands ahead of Fed Chair Janet Yellen's speech that was scheduled for Wednesday. Ms. Yellen spoke before the Economic Club of New York and her remarks were interpreted as decidedly dovish. All in all, Fed Chair Yellen echoed her recent comments in the speech, which was a relief for the market that was becoming concerned about the Fed Chair assuming a more hawkish posture, akin to St. Louis Fed President and FOMC voting member James Bullard.

Over the past couple weeks Mr. Bullard was quoted by various outlets as cautioning that the next rate hike is not far off and that a hike in April is entirely possible. However, all those worries were cast aside after Ms. Yellen's speech focused heavily on global growth concerns and emphasized the importance of employing a cautious approach to raising rates. As a result, stocks, Treasuries, and gold surged at the expense of the dollar.

By putting so much emphasis on international developments, Fed Chair Yellen essentially moved the goalposts, indicating the Fed is no longer targeting just "progress towards 2.0% inflation and an unemployment rate below 6.5%," but also looking to maintain global economic stability.

As the week wore on, investors received the Employment Situation report for March (215K; Briefing.com consensus 200K), which showed average hourly earnings growth of 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). This report strengthened the rate hike argument, but Fed Chair Yellen's speech was still fresh in the minds of investors. Accordingly, stocks began Friday under pressure, but rallied off their lows as investors weighed domestic economic conditions against the global growth picture.

On Friday afternoon the fed funds futures market priced in a 53.0% chance of the next rate hike taking place in September after assigning a 41.3% chance to a September hike on Thursday.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17515.73 17793.02 277.29 1.6 2.1
Nasdaq 4773.50 4914.54 141.04 3.0 -1.9
S&P 500 2035.94 2072.82 36.88 1.8 1.4
Russell 2000 1079.54 1117.70 38.16 3.5 -1.6

Broader market action left the three major US indices near session highs. The beginning of the second quarter commenced with slight losses, but the negative action would not hold and all three major US indices went red-to-green at about 10:30 a.m. ET. The day ended with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ending 44.69 points (+0.92%) higher to 4914.54. The S&P 500 closed up 13.04 points (+0.63%) to 2072.78. Rounding out the bunch, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 107.66 points (+0.61%) to close 17792.75. This week's action took the indices -1.9%, +1.4% and +2.1% YTD, respectively.

As it were, the Technology (XLK 44.70, +0.34 +0.77%) sector notably strong, ending the day near session highs. Component Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS 65.00, +1.69 +2.67%) was notably strong as the stock was upgraded to a Buy rating from Neutral at Goldman premarket. Other sectors closed the session IYZ +1.37%, XLV +1.14%, XLP +1.06%, XLB +0.96%, XLF +0.89%, XLI +0.47%, XLY +0.42%, XLU +0.38%, XLE -1.34% with upside being driven by Telecoms and the lone laggard being Energy.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (743.45, +6.33 +0.86%) sector, trading was weak to begin Friday but losses would not hold and the sector ended near highs. Component Adobe Systems (ADBE 95.16, +1.36 +1.45%) also turned in an out-performing session despite shareholder ValueAct disposing of a majority of its stake in the company, leaving the firm holding only 6,000 share of the name. Other components which finished the day higher included MU +5.35%, CRM +2.57%, AVGO +2.14%, PYPL +2.07%, TSS +1.93%, FB +1.72%, NVDA +1.46%, V +1.45%, MA +1.45%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Harris (HRS 77.80, -0.06 -0.08%) was awarded a $17 million order to supply tactical radios to Middle-East nation.

Adobe Systems (ADBE) shareholder ValueAct disposed of a majority of its stake after selling 8.73 million shares. The firm now only holds 6,000 shares in the company.

Red Hat (RHT 75.52, +1.01 +1.36%) announced the availability of a no-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription, available as part of the Red Hat Developer Program.

Qualcomm (QCOM 50.88, -0.26 -0.51%) and Ricardo entered into a Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging technology license agreement. Ricardo licensed QCOM's Halo technology to commercialize WEVC systems for Plug-In Hybrid and Electric Vehicles.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

United Online (UNTD 11.46, -0.08 -0.69%) announced the sale of StayFriends for EUR 16 million.

Marvell (MRVL 9.94, -0.37 -3.59%) filed to delay the company's Form 10-K. Also, the company expressed that it expects to incur a net loss for fiscal 2016.

Rovi (ROVI 17.40, -3.11 -15.16%) entered into the extension of its existing Interactive Program Guide License and Distribution Agreement and Patent License Agreement with Time Warner Cable (TWC 205.03, +0.41 +0.20%), which was scheduled to expire March 31.

ROVI, DISH Network (DISH 46.29, +0.03 +0.06%), and Echostar (SATS 43.94, -0.35 -0.79%) agreed to a standstill during which the parties have agreed not to pursue litigation against each other.

ROVI filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Comcast (CMCSA 61.87, +0.79 +1.29%) in the Eastern District of Texas.

SunEdison (SUNE 0.46, -0.08 -14.85%) disclosed the receipt of a subpoena from the Department of Justice, informal inquiry from SEC.

SunPower (SPWR 22.49, +0.15 +0.67%) announced the purchase agreement award of 500 Megawatts of solar in Mexico.

Zayo Group Holdings (ZAYO 24.29, +0.05 +0.21%) upsized its offering and priced $550 million of 6.375% Senior Notes due 2025.

ON Semiconductor (ON 9.70, +0.11 +1.15%) extended the previously announced tender offer to acquire

Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS 20.00, flat) for $20.00 per share to April 14, 2016.

Orange (ORAN 16.48, -0.90 -5.18%) confirmed the end of discussions with Bouygues.

Analyst actions:

NFLX was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Atlantic Equities,
FIS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
JCOM was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
ALRM was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
VNTV was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman;
BOX was initiated with a Buy at Drexel Hamilton

4:10 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks End Week Higher as Jobs Fall In-Line (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended an upbeat week on a higher note as investors focused on the largely in-line reading of the March jobs report. Additional factors that impacted today's trade included a downturn in oil, a transitory rebound in the dollar, and leadership from the heavily-weighted health care (+1.3%), technology (+0.9%), and financial (+0.8%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) finished the day ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) and the S&P 500 (+0.6%).

Today's session started on a wobbly note as investors adopted a risk-off posture ahead of and immediately following the release of the Employment Situation Report for March. The reading of the report showed progress towards the Fed's dual mandate, as nonfarm payrolls increased by 215,000 (Briefing.com consensus 200,000) and average hourly earnings ticked higher by 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%). However, the near-term impact of this report is likely to be diminished considering recent dovish commentary from Fed Chair Janet Yellen. In remarks made on Wednesday, Ms. Yellen had acknowledged strong employment readings, but still called for a cautious path towards interest rate normalization given global economic concerns.

The broader market staged a rebound off its low as heavily-weighted health care (+1.3%), technology (+0.7%), and financials (+0.8%) moved up the leaderboard in the opening hour. The groups were able to maintain their leadership positions throughout the session and finished their day ahead of the broader market.

Conversely, the energy sector (-1.4%) ended its day with the largest loss as a slump in oil weighed on the sector. The energy component was pressured throughout the day as commentary from Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman cast doubts on the country's participation in a supply freeze agreement. Additionally, early strength from the dollar also weighed. WTI crude ended its day lower by 4.0% at $36.76/bbl.

Biotechnology outperformed in the countercyclical health care (+1.3%) as the group rebounded from its difficult start to the year. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 268.31, +7.50) gained 2.8% as the sub-group moved higher in sympathy with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN 405.25, +44.81). Regeneron spiked 12.4% today after reporting positive results in two phase-three trials of its Dupilumab medication. The broader health care space extended its week to date gain to 1.9%.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.8%) also rebounded from larger losses today, as the space trimmed its 2016 decline to 4.8%. The group demonstrated broad strength as credit service names and investment brokerage companies outperformed. On that note, Dow component Goldman Sachs (GS 159.82, +2.84) topped the price-weighted index.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.7%) underperformed today as the sector pulled back from larger year to date gains. Major airlines showed the largest losses in the index as American Airlines (AAL 39.52, -1.49) and United Continental (UAL 56.72, -3.14) surrendered 3.6% and 5.3%, respectively, after receiving downgrades at Deutsche Bank.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.58, +0.00) surrendered early gains, falling to its flat line in the early afternoon. The euro gained 0.1% against the dollar and ended at 1.1394 while the dollar/yen pair finished at 111.63 (-0.8%).

The Treasury complex traversed a narrow range today as the yield on the 10-yr fluctuated between 1.77% (UNCHF) and 1.80% (+3 bps). The yield on the 10-yr note ended higher by one basis point at 1.78%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 958 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the Employment Situation Report for March, ISM Index for March, Construction Spending for February, and the final reading of Michigan Consumer Sentiment:

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 215,000 (Briefing.com consensus 200,000)February nonfarm payrolls revised to 245,000 from 242,000 Private sector payrolls increased by 195,000 (Briefing.com consensus 195,000)February private sector payrolls revised to 236,000 from 230,000 Unemployment rate was 5.0% (Briefing.com consensus 4.9%) versus 4.9% in FebruaryThe U-6 unemployment rate, which accounts for the total unemployed plus persons marginally attached to the labor force and the underemployed, was 9.8% versus 9.7% in FebruaryMarch hourly earnings were up 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) after being down 0.1% in February.Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 2.3% versus 2.2% in February
The average workweek was unchanged at 34.4 (Briefing.com consensus 34.5)
The labor force participation rate was 63.0% versus 62.9% in February
The ISM Index for March checked in at 51.8, up from 49.5 in February and above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 50.6.A number below 50.0 denotes contraction, which is where the index has been trapped for five consecutive months prior to today's release. The five-month streak of readings below 50 was the longest stretch of this kind since 2009.The March improvement was driven by increases in most sub-indices of the report. The New Orders Index rose to 58.3 from 51.5; the Imports Index rose to 49.5 from 49.0; the Exports Index increased to 52.0 from 46.5; the Supplier Deliveries Index rose to 50.2 from 49.7; and the Prices Index surged to 51.5 from 38.5.
Although the vast majority of components improved, the Employment Index slipped to 48.1 from 48.5.
Total construction spending was down 0.5% in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Furthermore, construction spending in January was revised up to 2.1% from 1.5%.Total construction spending is up 10.3% year-over-year, with private construction spending up 10.6% and public construction spending up 9.2%.The final reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for March increased to 91.0 (Briefing.com consensus 90.5) from the preliminary reading of 90.0. Despite the upward revision, the March reading marked a downturn from the final reading of 91.7 for February and a similar showing in January (92.0).Monday's economic data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of Factory Orders for February (Briefing.com consensus -1.7%).

Nasdaq Composite -1.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.6% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD
Dow Jones +2.1% YTD

Week in Review: Stocks Climb as Fed Chair Remains Dovish

The major averages enjoyed another round of weekly gains asthe first quarter came to a close. The S&P 500 gained 1.8% for the week whilethe Nasdaq Composite outperformed, climbing 3.0% since last Friday.

Although the Nasdaq showed relative strength during theweek, the tech-heavy index remains down 1.9% for the year versus a 1.4% gain inthe S&P 500.

The first two days of the week were very quiet withinvestors sitting on their hands ahead of Fed Chair Janet Yellen's speech thatwas scheduled for Wednesday. Ms. Yellen spoke before the Economic Club of NewYork and her remarks were interpreted as decidedly dovish. All in all, FedChair Yellen echoed her recent comments in the speech, which was a relief forthe market that was becoming concerned about the Fed Chair assuming a morehawkish posture, akin to St. Louis Fed President and FOMC voting member JamesBullard.

Over the past couple weeks Mr. Bullard was quoted by variousoutlets as cautioning that the next rate hike is not far off and that a hike inApril is entirely possible. However, all those worries were cast aside after Ms.Yellen's speech focused heavily on global growth concerns and emphasized theimportance of employing a cautious approach to raising rates. As a result,stocks, Treasuries, and gold surged at the expense of the dollar.

By putting so much emphasis on international developments,Fed Chair Yellen essentially moved the goalposts, indicating the Fed is nolonger targeting just "progress towards 2.0% inflation and an unemploymentrate below 6.5%," but also looking to maintain global economic stability.

As the week wore on, investors received the EmploymentSituation report for March (215K; Briefing.com consensus 200K), which showedaverage hourly earnings growth of 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). Thisreport strengthened the rate hike argument, but Fed Chair Yellen's speech wasstill fresh in the minds of investors. Accordingly, stocks began Friday underpressure, but rallied off their lows as investors weighed domestic economic conditionsagainst the global growth picture.

On Friday afternoon the fed funds futures market priced in a53.0% chance of the next rate hike taking place in September after assigning a41.3% chance to a September hike on Thursday.

4:29 pm Microchip announces that Atmel (ATML) shareholders approved merger with Microship (MCHP) : Microchip expects to close the merger on Monday, April 4, 2016. Microchip also announced that the average closing price of Microchip common stock based on the ten trading days ending on April 1, 2016 was $48.439 per share and, based on such price and the terms of the merger agreement, Microchip will issue a total of approximately 10.1 million shares to the stockholders of Atmel in the transaction with each share of Atmel common stock being exchanged for $7.00 per share in cash and $1.15 of Microchip common stock.

8:04 am SunPower announces purchase agreement award of 500 Megawatts of solar in Mexico (SPWR) :

Co has been awarded power purchase agreements with CFE, Mexico's state-owned electric utility, to deliver one terawatt-hour of energy, equivalent to approximately 500 megawatts, over the term of the agreements. SunPower's awards from the auction include almost 400 megawatts in Yucatan and more than 100 megawatts in Guanajuato, and their associated clean energy certificates. The auction was held as a result of Mexico's sweeping energy sector reform, which opened the market for energy companies to compete as generation providers. incorporated ~$0.35-0.40/share contribution from SpringCastle for the full year.

7:10 am BlackBerry beats by $0.07, misses on revs (shares halted -- will resume at 7:30 AM ET) (BBRY) :

Reports Q4 (Feb) loss of $0.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.10); GAAP revenues fell 29.7% year/year to $464 mln vs the $564.86 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Non-GAAP revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 was $487 mln with GAAP revenue of $464 mln. GAAP revenue reflects a purchase accounting write down of deferred revenue associated with recent acquisitions. The non-GAAP revenue breakdown for the quarter was ~32% for software and services, 29% for service access fees, and 39% for hardware and other revenue. Co reported Q4 adjusted EBITDA of $78 mln. Outlook: The company expects to grow software and services at around 30 percent. The Company continues to anticipate positive free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA for the full 2017 fiscal year.


JinkoSolar Holding (JKS) announces that it will supply METKA-EGN USA with 57.65 MW of PV solar modules for the largest solar PV plant in Puerto Rico. JinkoSolar will deliver the 57.65 MW of PV solar modules for the project located in the municipality of Isabela, Puerto Rico. The owner of the project is Oriana, a subsidiary of Sonnedix USA, and a member of the Sonnedix group of companies according to JinkoSolar

6:34 am Tesla Motors trading higher by 7.5% following Model 3 unveil (TSLA) :

Tesla is trading higher by 7.5%% at $247 in early trading, following the unveiling of the Model 3 last night. As expected, the Model 3 is priced at $35K before options, at least 215 miles of range and zero to 60 mph in under 6 seconds. The Model 3 will include autopilot and autopilot safety features. Model 3 production is scheduled to begin in late 2017.CEO Elon Musk indicated that TSLA had collected 115K Model 3 reservations already.Note that Tesla may also release Q1 deliveries today. Tesla previously guided for Q1 deliveries up 60% year over year to 16,000 EVs (Model S and Model X).

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From Briefing.com: 4:22 pm Microchip completes Atmel (ATML) acquisition; provides updated Q4 guidance with Microchip sales between the mid-point and high end of guidance and EPS to be near the high end of guidance (MCHP) :

Microchip expects Q4 net sales for fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016 to be an all-time record and between the mid-point and high end of the guidance of $552.0 mln to $568.5 mln vs. $560.31 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Microchip also expects its non-GAAP earnings per share to be near the high end of its February 3, 2016 guidance of $0.65-0.69 vs. $0.67 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Microchip also announced that Atmel's sales and earnings for the quarter ending March 31, 2016 are expected to be significantly lower than Atmel's December 31, 2015 quarterly results. Specifically, Atmel's net sales are expected to be in the range of $219 mln to $221 mln in its quarter ended March 31, 2016, down 15.8% at the mid-point from Atmel's net sales in the quarter ended December 31, 2015. In calendar year 2015, Atmel's distributors where revenue is recognized on a sell-in basis increased their inventory levels significantly and the inventory in this sales channel saw a severe inventory contraction in the March 2016 quarter. Prior to the acquisition closing, Atmel recognized revenue in the Americas and Europe based on sell-through from distribution, but recognized revenue in Asia based on sell-in to distribution. Based on sell-through revenue recognition, Atmel's March 31, 2016 quarter net sales are expected to be between $250 mln to $253 mln, down 6.1% at the mid-point from its net sales based on sell-through in the quarter ended December 31, 2015. Following the closing of the acquisition, GAAP net sales from Atmel will continue to be reflected based on sell-in revenue recognition in Asia until the contracts with distributors are changed to support revenue recognition based on sell-through. This process is expected to take a few quarters to implement based on Microchip's experience with prior acquisitions. Microchip also announced that in consolidating Atmel's results, it expects to treat the mobile touch business of Atmel as an asset held for sale and will report the net profit/loss of this business below the operating line of Microchip's income statement. For reference, for the quarter ending March 31, 2016, the net sales for Atmel's mobile touch business is expected to be about $6 mln to $7 mln on a GAAP revenue basis (sell-in revenue recognition in Asia) compared to $18 mln in the December 2015 quarter.

4:02 pm Aehr Test Systems announces follow-on order of more than $500,000 for multiple WaferPak full-wafer contactors for its FOX-15 Multi-wafer Burn-In and test system (AEHR) : The WaferPak contactors are expected to ship over the next several months.

Broader market action was modestly lower today. Trading began with slightly losses, and action briefly peeked above flat lines near 10 a.m. ET. Sellers took hold then, and the three major indices gradually ticked lower as the afternoon progressed, eventually coming to a stop just off session lows. The worst performer today was the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite which shed 22.75 points (-0.46%) to close 4891.79. The S&P 500 was down 6.65 points (-0.32%) to close Monday 2066.13. Posting the most shallow losses on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 55.75 points (-0.31%) to end the day 17737.00.

Technology (XLK 44.53, -0.17 -0.38%) sector trading was mostly in the red, as was the broader market, as component Intel (INTC 32.00, -0.45 -1.39%) was notably weak following a premarket downgrade at Exane BNP Paribas to a Neutral rating from an Outperform. Other sectors finished as follows: XLV +1.20%, IYZ +0.55%, XLP +0.04%, XLU -0.42%, XLF -0.48%, XLE -0.74%, XLY -0.78%, XLI -1.13%, XLB -1.30%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (739.66, -3.79 -0.51%) sector, trading was also notably weak as component Yahoo! (YHOO 37.02, +0.54 +1.48%) led the way higher following a NY Post article out over the weekend suggesting Softbank (SFTBY 24.35, -0.06 -0.23%) wants to gain control of various company assets. Other names which finished trading in the red included FB -3.02%, ADS -2.90%, CTSH -2.15%, MU -2.09%, CSC -1.66%, PYPL -1.55%, JNPR -1.45%, PAYX -1.33%, HPQ -1.31%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 18.04, -0.36 -1.96%) sold its equity stake in Mphasis to Blackstone (BX 27.40, -0.73 -2.60%) for about $825 million.

Microchip (MCHP 48.38, +0.10 +0.21%) announced that Atmel (ATML 8.14, +0.02 +0.25%) shareholders approved merger with MCHP.

Finjan Holdings (FNJN 0.89, -0.02 -2.20%) announced the stay was lifted in case of FNJN v. Symantec (SYMC 18.60, +0.19 +1.03%).

A NY Post report suggested that Softbank (SFTBY) wants to gain control of various Yahoo! (YHOO) assets.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Ruckus Wireless (RKUS 13.24, +3.24 +32.40%) to be acquired by Brocade (BRCD 9.19, -1.45 -13.63%) for $14.43 per share in cash and stock, or about $1.5 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, RKUS stockholders will receive $6.45 in cash and 0.75 shares of BRCD common stock for each share of RKUS common stock. BRCD expects the transaction to be accretive to its non-GAAP earnings by its first quarter of fiscal 2017.

GigOptix (GIG 2.58, -0.14 -5.15%) to acquire Magnum Semiconductor in a cash and stock transaction valued at about $55 million. The company also expects the deal to be immediately accretive to its FY16 financial results.

Groupon (GRPN 4.29, +0.37 +9.44%) announced a $250 million investment from Atairos, which will explore collaboration opportunities with Comcast (CMCSA 61.43, -0.19 -0.27%). Additionally, the company's Board added $200 million to repurchase program.

Zayo Group Holdings (ZAYO 24.52, +0.23 +0.95%) acquired privately held Clearview International for about $19 million.

Net 1 UEPS Techs (UEPS 8.99, -0.12 -1.32%) acquired a 60% stake in Masterpayment and signed strategic co-operation agreement with Bank Frick. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Analyst actions:

RKUS was downgraded at BTIG Research and Craig Hallum,
INTC was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Exane BNP Paribas,
CVG was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti,
CNSL was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at DA Davidson,
ILIAY was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Kepler;
OTEX was initiated with a Buy at TD Securities,
MKTO was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum,
CSIQ and SEDG were initiated with an Overweight at Barclays

4:15 pm : The major averages began the week on a lower note as the broader market pulled back from its impressive finish to the first quarter. Additional factors to today's decline included a slide in crude oil prices, hawkish remarks Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren (an FOMC voter), and the underperformance of the heavily-weighted technology (-0.5%), financial (-0.5%), and industrial (-1.0%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) finished the day behind the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%), and the S&P 500 (-0.3%).

The equity market drifted lower to begin the day as a slump in the oil patch outweighed a quiet overnight session. Meanwhile, hawkish commentary from Boston Fed President Rosengren pushed the major averages to fresh morning lows as he alluded to a rate hike taking place before the financial markets expect to see one. Furthermore, President Rosengren stated that expectations of one or zero interest rate hikes in 2016 might be "too pessimistic."

Equity indices recovered to their flat lines by the early-afternoon, but were unable to hold these levels as the heavyweight technology (-0.5%), financial (-0.5%), and industrial (-1.0%) sectors extended their losses. Additionally, crude oil spent most of the afternoon drifting towards fresh session lows. WTI crude ended its day lower by 2.8% at $35.72/bbl.

Eight sectors finished their day beneath their flat lines as industrials (-1.0%), materials (-1.0%), and consumer discretionary (-0.9%) led to the downside while health care (+1.0%) and telecom services (+0.7%) sported the only gains of the day.

In the industrial space (-1.0%), heavyweight constituents General Electric (GE 31.23, -0.70) and Danaher (DHR 93.78, -1.1.88) demonstrated relative weakness after both were downgraded from "Outperform" to "Market Perform" at Bernstein.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.9%) underperformed as rail names and JetBlue (JBLU 20.41, -0.92) weighed on the index. JetBlue was initially reported to be in contention to acquire Virgin America (VA 55.11, +16.21), but Alaska Air (ALK 78.92, -3.09) won its bid for the company with its offer of $57/share in an all cash transaction.

In the influential technology space (-0.5%), Facebook (FB 112.55, -3.51) weighed on the broader sector after cautious commentary from Deutsche Bank warned against the company's first quarter earnings. Elsewhere, the high-beta chipmakers underperformed, evidenced by the 0.9% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. The index slipped as Intel (INTC 32.00, -0.45) declined 1.4% in response to a downgrade at Exane BNP Paribas.

On top of the leaderboard, the health care space (+1.0%) outperformed to continue its recent rebound effort. The sector has gained 2.3% since the beginning of April, but remains down 3.8% since the beginning of 2016. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 270.65, +2.34) underperformed the broader sector, but trimmed its 2016 loss to 18.3%. Meanwhile, positive results from Edwards Lifesciences' (EW 105.08, +15.16) PARTNER II Trial of its SAPIEN 3 valve helped boost the broader sector.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.57, -0.05) ended its session above its session low as the greenback fell against the euro and the yen. The euro ended unchanged against the dollar at 1.1391. Meanwhile, the dollar/yen lost 0.3%, slipping to 111.34.

The retreat in the equities was enough to cause a momentary uptick in the Treasury complex, but the yield on the 10-yr note ended its day unchanged at 1.77%.

Today's participation fell beneath the recent average as fewer than 801 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.



Today's economic data was limited to Factory Orders for February:

New orders for manufactured goods in February declined 1.7%, as expected, marking the third time in the last four months that they have been down.
January was the exception in that string, yet it was shown today as well that factory orders for January were up only 1.2% versus a previously reported 1.6% increase.
Excluding transportation, factory orders declined 0.8% on top of a downwardly revised 0.6% decline in January (from -0.2%) and are down 3.4% year-over-year.
The downturn in orders in February, coupled with the downward revisions for January, underscore an economy that has failed to gain any excitable momentum in the first quarter after growing at an annualized rate of just 1.4% in the fourth quarter.
The inventories-to-shipments ratio was unchanged at 1.37.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the February Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$46.20 billion) and the ISM Service Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 54.0), which will be released at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000 -2.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones +1.8% YTD

DJ30 -55.75 NASDAQ -22.75 SP500 -6.65 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1138/1.555 bln/1684 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 801/800.3 mln/2230

3:30 pm :

The dollar index rallied off of today's lows, putting downward pressure on commodities in afternoon trading
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are currently down about -1.0% at 77.19
Crude oil briefly spiked in the green before a steady and prolongued downtrend the rest of the day, closing notably lower in the afternoon
May WTI crude oil futures closed down $1.04 (-2.8%) at $35.72/barrel
Crude oil is down -13.8% from this year's high of $41.45/barrel seen on Mar 22, 2016
Natural gas spiked to new highs of the day around $2.07/MMBtu in early trading before entering a downtrend the rest of the day, bouncing off today's low at $1.98/MMBtu and closing near the midpoint of the initial rally
May natural gas futures closed up $0.05 (+2.6%) at $2.00/MMBtu
Natural gas has rallied about +13% off of its 1-month low of $1.77/MMBtu seen a few weeks ago
In precious metals, gold closed near its low of the day
June gold futures closed down $4.10 (-0.3%) at $1219.40/oz
Silver consolidated and moved slightly lower, closing near its low of the day
May silver futures closed $0.12 lower (-0.8%) at $14.94/oz
Base metal copper plummeted in early morning trading before entering into a modest recovery, still closing lower for the day
May copper futures closed $0.02 lower (-0.9%) at $2.14/lb

8:46 am Ruckus Wireless to be acquired by Brocade (BRCD) for $14.43/share in cash and stock, or ~$1.5 bln (RKUS) :

Brocade (BRCD) and Ruckus Wireless announced that Brocade has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ruckus Wireless, Inc. in a cash and stock transaction.

Under the terms of the agreement, Ruckus stockholders will receive $6.45 in cash and 0.75 shares of Brocade common stock for each share of Ruckus common stock. Based on the closing price of Brocade's stock on April 1, 2016, the transaction values Ruckus at a price of $14.43 per common share, or approximately $1.5 billion, and may fluctuate until close. Net of estimated cash acquired, the transaction value is approximately $1.2 billion. Brocade expects the transaction to be accretive to its non-GAAP earnings by its first quarter of fiscal 2017. The Ruckus organization will be led by current Ruckus CEO, Selina Lo, and report directly to Brocade CEO, Lloyd Carney.Brocade also announced that its Board of Directors has increased the authorization to repurchase its common stock under its existing stock repurchase program by $800 million, bringing the total remaining amount authorized under the program to approximately $1.7 billion.


8:45 am Marvell receives Nasdaq Staff Determination Letter; will remain listed pending hearing on April 14 (MRVL) : As a result of its delayed filing of its Form 10-K for fiscal 2016, as disclosed in the Form 12b-25 filed on March 31, 2016, Marvell received notice from the Listing Qualifications Staff of The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC that this matter serves as an additional basis for delisting Marvell's securities from the Nasdaq Stock Market, which will be considered at Marvell's upcoming hearing before the Nasdaq Hearings Panel. Marvell is scheduled for a hearing before the Panel on April 14, 2016. The Panel granted Marvell's request for the Company's shares to remain trading on Nasdaq pending the hearing and a final determination following the hearing.

ASML +1.6% (target raised to $105 at RBC Capital Mkts)

8:02 am Ruckus Wireless sees Q1 EPS and revenue at high end of prior range (RKUS) : Raises Q1 EPS to $0.09-0.10 from $0.08-0.10 vs $0.09 Capital IQ Consensus; revs $98-101 mln from $96-101 mn vs $98.38 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

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From Briefing.com: 4:06 pm Cree lowers Q3 guidance due to lower lighting product revenue -- stock is halted and will resume trade at 16:25 (CREE) : Cree lowers Q3 adj. EPS to $0.13-0.15 from $0.22-0.29 vs $0.24 Capital IQ Consensus; revs $367 mln from $400-430 mln vs $414.80 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Lighting Products revenue is estimated to be ~$187 million, lower than previously targeted due primarily to lower commercial orders driven by three main factors: customer service disruptions related to our ERP system conversion, new product delays, and a slower than forecast calendar Q1. LED Products revenue is estimated to be in-line with the expectations for this segment in the Company's previously announced revenue targets at ~$151 million. GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins are estimated to be below the Company's previously announced targets at ~29.7% and 30.5%, respectively. "I believe we've addressed the root causes that led to our recent business challenges. While it's premature to provide specific targets at this time, the order rate in commercial lighting improved in March, and we're optimistic that this, combined with demand for new products, will begin to drive growth in fiscal Q4."

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a lower note as global growth concerns and new rules regarding tax inversion mergers dominated today's trade. Additionally, fluctuating oil price and the underperformance of the heavily-weighted financial (-1.4%) and health care (-1.2%) spaces provided for some continued weakness in the broader market. The S&P 500 (-1.0%) finished its day behind both the Nasdaq Composite (-1.0%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.8%).

Equity indices opened their day sharply lower after global bourses struck a risk-off posture in response to a weak showing from Japan's Nikkei (-2.4%) and some below-consensus economic data out of Europe. Predominantly, disappointing German Factory Orders for February (-1.2%; expected +0.5%) and a weaker than expected reading of the March Markit Composite PMI (53.1; expected 53.7) for the eurozone dampened investor sentiment.

Furthermore, the U.S. Treasury Department surprised investors after yesterday's close, announcing new regulations regarding inversion mergers. The new provisions aim to make it more difficult for companies to complete corporate tax inversions through mergers by targeting serial inverters and the potential tax advantages of "earnings stripping." The news struck a chord with Allergan (AGN 236.55, -41.00), which is attempting to merge with Pfizer (PFE 31.36, +0.64) in an inversion-type deal.

A positive reading of the March ISM Index (54.5; Briefing.com consensus 54.0) helped offer a momentary reprieve from selling pressure, but the averages were unable to extend their rebound effort. A leg lower in crude oil and relative weakness from the financial (-1.4%) and health care (-1.2%) sectors brought the averages back towards their lows by the afternoon.

All ten sectors finished the day in the red with utilities (-1.9%), financials (-1.4%), and health care (-1.2%) rounding out the leader board.

In the heavyweight health care space (-1.2%), health care plan names and generic drug manufactures displayed relative weakness. The generic drug manufacturer sub-group traded lower in sympathy with Allergan after its merger with Pfizer was put in jeopardy. Meanwhile, health care plan companies underperformed after yesterday's release of the latest policy and payment updates for Medicare Health and Drug Plans.

The financial sector (-1.4%) demonstrated broad-based weakness as the group extended its 2016 decline to 6.7%. Wells Fargo (WFC 47.51, -0.99) and Bank of America (BAC 13.19, -0.32) outpaced the losses in the broader sector while Morgan Stanley (MS 24.38, -0.66) extended its weekly loss to 4.5%.

On the flipside, industrials (-0.6%), consumer staples (-0.7%), and materials (-0.7%) finished with the slimmest losses.

The commodity-sensitive energy sector (-0.8%) recovered from a 1.1% decline as the group tracked the trajectory of crude oil. On that note, WTI crude ended its day higher by 0.6% at $35.94/bbl ahead of tonight's stockpile data from the American Petroleum Institute. Separately, Baker Hughes (BHI 39.36, -2.11) saw increased pressure after reports indicated that the Department of Justice may file an antitrust suit in order to block the company's merger with Halliburton (HAL 34.40, +0.40).

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.63, +0.12) recovered from its worst level of the day as the greenback gained against the euro and trimmed its loss against the yen. The euro/dollar pair slipped 0.1% to 1.1383 while the dollar lost 0.9% against the yen (110.35).

The Treasury complex ended its day near its high with the yield on the 10-yr note dropping four basis points to 1.72%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 1.04 billion shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included February Trade Balance, ISM Service Index for March, and February JOLTs:

The latest trade data showed the U.S. trade deficit widened to $47.1 billion in February (Briefing.com consensus -$46.2 bln) from $45.9 billion in January.
That was due to imports increasing by $3.0 billion from January and exports increasing by only $1.8 billion.
On the surface, it sounds good to say that both exports and imports increased, yet there wasn't necessarily the strongest of demand accompanying those figures.
The uptick in exports was driven primarily by a $1.1 billion increase in consumer goods, almost all of which stemmed from exports of gem diamonds ($0.6 bln), pharmaceutical preparations ($0.3 bln), and artwork ($0.2 bln).
Similarly, the uptick in imports was driven by a $3.6 billion increase in consumer goods, more than half of which was owed to pharmaceutical preparations ($1.3 bln) and toys, games, and sporting goods ($0.6 bln).
The real trade deficit widened to $63.3 billion from $61.8 billion. The first quarter average of $62.6 billion is above the fourth quarter average of $60.1 billion, which is a negative factor for GDP computations.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index edged up to 54.5 in March from 53.4 in February. The March reading was above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 54.0 and is the highest reading this year; however, the index stood at 56.9 in the same period a year ago.
The Non-Manufacturing Index report follows on the heels of the ISM Manufacturing Index, which also surprised to the upside.
The faster pace of growth in March should temper some of the festering concerns about a potential spillover effect from the slowdown on the manufacturing side of the economy, which had been building with five straight sub-50 readings for the ISM Manufacturing Index and a slower pace of growth for the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index over the same period. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0.
The improvement in March for the Non-Manufacturing Index was aided by upticks in several component indexes, namely new orders (from 55.5 to 56.7), employment (from 49.7 to 50.3), prices (from 45.5 to 49.1), and new export orders (from 58.5 to 53.5).
The import index (from 55.5 to 53.0) was the only index to turn down from February. The indexes for inventories and the backlog of orders were both unchanged at 52.5 and 52.0, respectively.
March marked the 74th straight month of expansion for the non-manufacturing sector.
The February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.445 million from a revised 5.604 million (revised from 5.541 million) in February.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the release of the Federal Open Market Committee's latest Minutes, which will cross the wires at 7:00 ET and 14:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000 -3.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -3.3% YTD
S&P 500 +0.1% YTD
Dow Jones +1.0% YTD

DJ30 -133.68 NASDAQ -47.86 SP500 -20.96 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 821/1.560 bln/1985 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 883/1.048 bln/2127

3:30 pm :

The dollar index sees a steep decline off its morning highs, bouncing off the low of the day
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity index, are down -0.3% at 76.97
Crude oil consolidated and traded around yesterday's close nearly all day before experiencing an abrupt and notable spike right before the close
Crude oil may have spiked at the end of the day on headlines that there was an explosion at an oil well located in Northern Iraq
May crude oil futures closed up $0.22 (+0.6%) at $35.94/barrel
EIA petroleum inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
Natural gas was downtrending all day, bouncing off its lows around $1.93/MMBtu to close slightly above the low for the day
May natural gas futures closed down $0.05 (-2.5%) at $1.95/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold dropped slightly in the morning and consolidated around this area the rest of the trading day above yesterday's close
May gold futures closed up $10.50 (+0.9%) at $1229.90/oz
Silver drifted lower slightly with little notable movement in afternoon trade
May silver futures closed up $0.17 (+1.1%) at $15.11/oz
Base metal copper dropped lower in the morning but spiked back to break-even at close
May copper futures closed flat at $2.14/lb


Trading today left certain of the three major US indices with their worst losses in more than a month. Ending at session lows, the S&P 500 lost 20.96 points (-1.01%) to close 2045.17. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite finished close behind, shedding 47.68 points (-0.98%) to end 4843.93. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 133.68 points (-0.75%) today to end 17603.32. Volume was tepid, but only just so as 1,048 million shares exchanged hands on the NYSE floor versus an average of 1,066 million. Comparatively, on the NASDAQ floor about 1,560 million shares were traded compared to the average near 1,821 million.

The latest economic data showed the US trade deficit widened to $47.1 billion in February from $45.9 billion in January. The ISM non-manufacturing index edged up to 54.5 in March from 53.4 in February. Also, the February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings declined to 5.445 million from a revised 5.604 million in February. All three indices revisited their session lows as President Obama endorsed the Treasury Department's policy change regarding tax-inversions. The new regulations seek to make it more difficult for companies to invert through mergers and will target serial inverters and the potential tax advantages of earnings stripping.

Technology (XLK 44.07, -0.46 -1.03%) sector action was no different as component Cisco (CSCO 27.58, -0.56 -1.99%) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill and subsequently displayed relative weakness. Other sectors ended Tuesday XLU -1.87%, XLF -1.42%, IYZ -1.31%, XLV -1.30%, XLY -0.85%, XLE -0.68%, XLP -0.67%, XLB -0.63%, XLI -0.62% as Utilities and Financials lagged the rest, and Industrials posted the most shallow losses.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (731.80, -7.86 -1.06%) sector, component First Solar (FSLR 62.42, -4.82 -7.17%) performed the worst as the company entered into a framework agreement for 231.6 megawatts DC of FSLR's thin film modules. Other names in the space which were pressured today included WDC -4.63%, AKAM -3.96%, MU -3.70%, HRS -2.51%, ADS -2.19%, STX -2.06%, ADSK -1.86%, YHOO -1.65%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Microchip (MCHP 48.65, +0.27 +0.56%) completed the Atmel (ATML) acquisition. In addition, the company provided updated Q4 guidance with sales between the mid-point and high end of guidance and EPS to be near the high end of guidance.

Accenture (ACN 114.13, -1.33 -1.15%) to acquire a majority stake in IMJ Corporation, a full-service digital agency.

Fiserv (FISV 100.97, -1.45 -1.42%) announced that Cuscal Limited, a leading provider of end-to-end payments solutions in Australia, has chosen Integrated Currency Manager, Device Manager and Terminal Connect from FISV.

Salesforce (CRM 74.58, -1.11 -1.47%) along with NEC Corporation (NIPNY 2.42, flat) announced CRM has signed an agreement to establish a second data center in the Kansai region of Japan, selecting NEC as its service provider.

Avnet (AVT 43.59, -0.48 -1.09%) expanded its distribution agreement with Red Hat (RHT 74.06, -1.18 -1.57%) to include Brazil. Avnet began distributing Red Hat in 2007, and has helped the company expand its market presence in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K.

Intel (INTC 31.90, -0.10 -0.31%) acquired YOGITECH S.p.A. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Marvell's (MRVL 10.88, +1.26 +13.10%) CEO Sehat Sutardja and President Weili Dai to depart from their management positions effective immediately.

First Solar (FSLR) and a subsidiary of Silicon Ranch Corporation have entered into a framework agreement for 231.6 Megawatts (MW) DC of FSLR's advanced technology thin film modules for use in Silicon Ranch projects to be constructed in 2017 and early 2018.

Ingram Micro (IM 35.43, -0.28 -0.78%) to acquire Ensim for undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to close in the next 30 days.

Comcast (CMCSA 61.13, -0.30 -0.49%) expanded its digital store offering in a content licensing agreement with Walt Disney's (DIS 97.00, -1.68 -1.70%) The Walt Disney Studios.

Telus (TU 31.96, -0.24 -0.75%) to invest $4.5 billion through 2019 to extend advanced communications infrastructure across British Columbia.

Ku6 Media (KUTV 0.97, +0.10 +11.56%) to be acquired by Shanda Investment Holdings in a going-private transaction valued at $1.08 per ADR cash.

TubeMogul (TUBE 13.25, +0.26 +2.00%) hired Robert Gatto as COO effective Mar 30. The company also appointed Keith Eadie to Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer.

ServiceNow (NOW 63.65, -0.63 -0.98%) to acquire ITapp in an all-cash transaction expected to close this month.

TerraForm Global (GLBL 2.24, +0.06 +2.75%) filed a complaint asserting claims against SunEdison (SUNE 0.32, +0.11 +54.64%), Ahmad Chatila, Martin Truong and Brian Wuebbels.

A Bloomberg article was out this morning suggesting Twitter (TWTR 17.05, -0.05 -0.26%) won a deal with the NFL to live stream ten Thursday Night Football games. The article was later confirmed on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's Twitter page.

Verizon (VZ 54.09, -0.33 -0.61%) redeemed about $2.2 billion debt securities.

GoDaddy (GDDY 30.10, -2.36 -7.27%) announced a proposed follow-on class A common stock offering of 16.5 million shares by selling stockholders.

Analyst actions:

MRVL was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Brean Capital;
RKUS was downgraded at Dougherty & Co, Needham, Stifel, Macquarie and RBC Capital Mkts,
CSCO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
TEF was downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Nomura;
TRUE was initiated with a Hold at Topeka Capital Mkts,
LOGI and NTGR were initiated with a Neutral at Sterne Agee CRT,
MOBL was initiated with a Buy at Sterne Agee CRT,
RUBI was initiated with a Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald,
T and S were initiated with an Outperform at Macquarie,
VZ, TMUS and SHEN were initiated with a Neutral at Macquarie

9:03 am STMicroelectronics surpasses 2 bln unit sales of its STM8 microcontrollers, less than two years after reaching one bln unit sales, noting particularly strong success in China (STM) :

Aided by accelerating STM8 sales, ST's share of the general-purpose microcontroller market has grown to 12.7% in 2015 from 8.2% in 2013, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics."The STM8 has become one of the world's most popular microcontrollers, and is a sturdy pillar of our strategy," said Daniel Colonna, Microcontrollers Marketing Director, STMicroelectronics. "As with all of our MCUs, we are committed to supporting STM8 for the long term, and we'll continue to strengthen our market position."

8:31 am Marvell CEO Sehat Sutardja and President Weili Dai to depart from their management positions, effective immediately (MRVL) :

Sutardja and Dai will remain on the Board of Directors, with Dr. Sutardja continuing as Chairman. The Board, in conjunction with a leading executive search firm, will conduct a search for a new CEO and President.

The Board has formed an Interim Office of the Chief Executive to oversee day-to-day leadership of the Company's operations. The Interim Office of the Chief Executive will be headed by Maya Strelar-Migotti, Executive Vice President, Smart Networked Devices and Solutions Business Group and Dr. Pantelis Alexopoulos, Executive Vice President of the Storage Business Group, as Interim Co-Chief Executive Officers. Each has the authority to exercise all powers of the Chief Executive Officer. As previously announced, on February 22, the Audit Committee approved the engagement of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the Company's new independent public accounting firm. On March 1, the Company reported the results of the Audit Committee's independent investigation of certain accounting and internal control matters. With these two key matters completed, the Company says it is working diligently to complete the preparation and filing of its Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2016 and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the second and third quarters of fiscal 2016 as soon as practicableMicrosemi (MSCC) and D-Link, which specializes in the design, development, and manufacture of networking and connectivity products for mass consumers, small to medium business and enterprise market segments worldwide; announced their collaboration to develop D-Link's mydlink Smart Alarm Detector. The Wi-Fi based detector monitors and identifies the sounds of standard UL-certified smoke or carbon monoxide alarms using Microsemi's ZL38062 sound classifier audio processor as the primary integrated circuit of the device

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday affair on a higher note as the major averages rallied in lockstep with crude oil throughout today's session. Other factors that contributed to today's advance included persistent leadership from the heavily-weighted health care (+2.7%) sector and the FOMC minutes from the March meeting that fell largely in-line with expectations. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%) ended its day ahead of both the S&P 500 (+1.1%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%).

The broader market was able to shake some early risk-off tendencies as investors weighed a rally in crude against the imminent release of the minutes from the FOMC's latest meeting. The energy component extended an early rally following the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report. The report showed that crude oil stockpiles had decreased by 4.93 million barrels, compared to the estimated 3.15 million barrel build. As a result, WTI crude ended its day higher by 5.0% at $37.74/bbl.

On the central bank front, the minutes from the March FOMC meeting indicated that an April rate hike was discussed at the meeting, but ongoing concerns regarding global economic and financial developments warranted a more cautious approach. Meanwhile, the committee produced diverging opinions on whether the recent uptick in inflation was transitory or if it represented a firming trend.

The heavily-weighted health care space (+2.7%) ended its day ahead of commodity-sensitive energy (+2.1%) and the consumer discretionary (+0.9%) sector while countercyclical telecom services (-1.0%) and utilities (-0.1%) were the only two sectors to end beneath their flat lines.

In the heavyweight health care group (+2.7%), biotechnology outperformed as it rebounded from larger year to date losses. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 285.71, +16.07) ended its day higher by 6.0%. The beleaguered sub-group traded higher with Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 34.17, +5.44). Valeant gained 18.9% after Pershing Square contended that Valeant's assets are not fairly reflected in its stock price. Separately, Allergan (AGN 244.74, +8.19) rebounded 3.5% after yesterday's tumble that followed new policies regarding corporate inversions.

Commodity-sensitive energy (+2.1%) displayed broad based strength, as the sector was the main beneficiary of today's rally in oil. Pipeline companies and independent oil and gas names finished with some of the largest gains in the sector. Conversely, refiners underperformed in the space after gasoline inventories showed a build instead of an expected draw. On that note, Valero Energy (VLO 61.68, -1.46) declined 2.3%.

In the consumer discretionary space (+0.9%), Amazon (AMZN 302.08, +15.94) gained 2.7% after the online retailer announced a new e-reader. On the flipside, the lodging and leisure sub-groups underperformed after Wynn Resorts (WYNN 89.55, -1.37) preannounced revenue results that disappointed investors.

Rail names underperformed in the industrial (+0.2%) group as CSX (CSX 24.85, -0.19), Union Pacific (UNP 78.35, -0.27), and Kansas City Southern (KSU 85.88, -0.70) ended with losses between 0.3% and 0.8%. Elsewhere, machinery companies underperformed following Cummins (CMI 106.43, -1.59) being downgraded to "Neutral" at Buckingham Research.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.49, -0.25) surrendered its overnight gains as the greenback ended lower against the yen and the euro. The euro gained 0.1% against the dollar and finished at 1.1399. Separately, the dollar/yen pair lost 0.5% (109.77).

The Treasury Complex ended its day off its low as the yield on the 10-yr note rose three basis points to 1.75%.

Today's participation fell in-line with the recent average as more than 844 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 2.7%.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 270k) and Consumer Credit for February (Briefing.com consensus $14.40 billion), which will be released at 8:30 ET and 15:00 ET, respectively. DJ30 +112.73 NASDAQ +76.78 SP500 +21.49 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2029/1.600 bln/789 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2286/844.6 mln/736

3:30 pm :

The dollar index rallies off its low of the day in afternoon trading, although commodities are largely in the green for the day
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.9% at 77.65
Crude oil rallies notably higher and closes near its high of the day after the release of petroleum inventory data
Weekly EIA petroleum inventory data showed a surprise draw of -4.937 mln barrels, compared to expectations for a build of +3.1 mln barrels
Yesterday, API inventory data showed a draw of -4.3 mln barrels, compared to a build of +8.8 mln barrels reported last week
May crude oil futures closed up $1.80 (+5.0%) at $37.74/barrel
Natural gas continues yesterday's downtrend, ending near the low of the day in pit trading
May natural gas futures closed down $0.04 (-2.1%) at $1.91/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold saw an initial spike up in the morning before dropping and consolidating lower to end pit trading down on the day
May gold futures closed down $5.80 (-0.5%) at $1224.10/oz
Silver spiked briefly above the previous day's closing price before plummeting sharply and consolidating lower to finish pit trading down on the day
May silver futures closed down $0.05 (-0.3%) at $15.06/oz
Base metal copper traded at parity with the previous day's close most of the afternoon
May copper futures closed flat at $2.14/lb

Broader market trading was strong after morning action that was split. Pushing into the close, the three major US indices ticked to session highs led by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite which was up 76.78 points (+1.59%) to end 4920.71. The S&P 500 also finished strong, adding 21.49 points (+1.05%) today to close 2066.66. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 112.73 points (+0.64%) today to post the mildest session of the three, albeit finishing 17716.05. Of note, the latest FOMC minutes were released today at 1 p.m. ET, and highlighted that members were mixed on an April rate hike. Also, market data came today in the form of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 2.7%.

As it were, the Technology (XLK 44.47, +0.40 +0.91%) sector was strong as well. Shares of component Cisco Systems (CSCO 28.00, +0.42 +1.52%) were upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan one day after receiving a downgrade to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLV +2.69%, XLE +2.16%, XLB +1.15%, XLY +0.95%, XLP +0.79%, XLF +0.54%, XLI +0.49%, IYZ +0.32%, XLU -0.12% with Healthcare and Energy grabbing healthy gains and Utilities ending as the lone laggard.

On varying ends of the spectrum today, in the Semiconductor (SOX 678.22, +6.89 +1.03%) sector, component SunEdison (SUNE 0.37, +0.04 +13.39%) posted back-to-back sessions of solid gains while component Cree (CREE 24.81, -4.24) shed 14.6% and was a notable performer following the company's updated guidance for Q3 EPS.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (739.51, +7.73 +1.06%) sector, action capped off Wednesday near session highs. Component eBay (EBAY 25.43, +1.04 +4.26%) showed relative strength following an update about certain investments made by the company and subsequent price adjustments to support the changes. Other names in the space which displayed strength included AKAM +3.09%, HPQ +2.76%, STX +2.62%, WU +2.13%, ADS +2.12%, HRS +1.91%, TDC +1.79%, FIS +1.67%, V +1.61%, AVGO +1.62%, PYPL +1.58%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM 150.02, +0.02 +0.01%) and SAP AG (SAP 79.19, +1.33 +1.71%) announced plans across both companies to drive the modernization of clients' systems and processes and accelerate them into the digital economy.

Qualcomm (QCOM 50.62, +0.55 +1.10%) entered into a new 3G and 4G Chinese Patent License Agreement with Zhuhai Ewpe Information Technology, a subsidiary of Gree Electric Appliances. Under the terms of the agreement, QCOM has granted EWPE a royalty-bearing patent license to develop, manufacture and sell 3G WCDMA and CDMA2000 and 4G LTE subscriber units for use in China.

eBay (EBAY) gave details of its Spring Seller Update. The company disclosed a significant investment in Anchor Store benefits with price adjustments to support said changes.

Nokia (NOK 5.85, +0.11 +1.92%) will begin actions to reduce company personnel globally as part of its synergy and transformation program. As previously announced, Nokia is targeting EUR 900 million of operating cost synergies to be achieved in full year 2018 related to the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU 3.47, +0.01 +0.29%).

Total System (TSS 48.49, +0.58 +1.21%) will provide the payment providers it services across Europe with TSYS AlertsSM, a solution that helps cardholders monitor their accounts and prevent fraudulent activity with real-time, on-demand information using cardholder-driven communication preferences that include push notifications, SMS text messaging, voice messages and email.

NVIDIA (NVDA 35.80, +0.05 +0.14%) announced that Pascal architecture-based NVIDIA Tesla GPU accelerators will power an upgraded version of the Piz Daint system at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) in Lugano, Switzerland.

Amphenol (APH 58.40, +0.19 +0.33%) increased the size of its commercial paper program by $500.0 million to permit the issuance of commercial paper notes in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $2.0 billion outstanding at any time.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Verizon (VZ 53.52, -0.57 -1.05%) to acquire an approximate 24.5% stake in AwesomenessTV.

MTS Systems (MTSC 52.06, -7.17 -12.11%) to acquire Sensor Producer PCB Group for $580 million. The deal is expected to be accretive in fiscal 2017.

KEYW Holding's (KEYW 6.75, +0.41 +6.47%) The KEYW Corporation received a prime contract to provide advanced cyber training content development, delivery, and training infrastructure to a U.S.-based customer. The contract is valued at $152 million for a 5 year period.

Tangoe (TNGO 7.85, +0.28 +3.70%) to acquire ownership of Vodafone's (VOD 31.34, +0.68 +2.22%) existing TEM technology and transfer majority of Vodafone's TEM employees.

Diebold (DBD 27.42, -0.12 -0.44%) announced the pricing of $400 million 8.5% senior notes due 2024 at 100% of principal amount in connection with planned acquisition of Wincor Nixdorf (WNXDY 12.13, flat).

Vivint Solar (VSLR 3.08, +0.63 +25.97%) to provide a business update for investors and analysts through a conference call to be held on Thursday, April 14 at 5:00 p.m. ET.

In reaction to earnings/guidance:

Global Payment (GPN 70.86, +5.71 +8.76%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.70 on in-line revenues which rose 6.2% versus last year to $497 million. Additionally, GPN raised the lower end of the guidance range for FY16 EPS to $2.93-3.00 from $2.90-3.00. Also, GPN now expects to report constant currency adjusted net revenue growth at the upper end of 10% to 12% compared to fiscal 2015.

Cree (CREE) guided Q3 EPS to $0.13-0.15 from $0.22-0.29 and revenues to $367 million, down from previous guidance of $400-430 million.

Analyst actions:

CSCO and CDK were upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan,
CHU was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
TEF was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse;
MRVL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research,
FEIC, CDNS and AMAT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson,
NVDA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
TKC was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
SIMO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann,
CCOI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup;
AAPL was initiated with a Strong Buy at Needham,
KS was initiated with an Underperform at BofA/Merrill

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From Briefing.com: 4:36 pm Alcoa beats by $0.04, misses on revs; lowers FY16 aluminum demand growth to +5% from +6%; spin off on track for 2H (AA) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) adj. earnings of $0.07 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.03; revenues fell 15.0% year/year to $4.95 bln vs the $5.15 bln Capital IQ Consensus, including a 5.7% revenue increase related to acquisitions and organic growth, more than offset by a 20.7% revenue decline primarily from continued low alumina and aluminum prices, foreign exchange impacts and divested, curtailed or closed operations Arconic Segments (Value-Add) Overview Revenue of $3.3 billion, down 2.2% year-over-year, reflects: o 6.7% revenue increase predominantly related to acquisitions, offset by 8.3% revenue decline from metal and foreign exchange impacts and 0.6% revenue decline from divested or closed operations After-tax operating income of $269 million, up 8% year-over-year, adjusted EBITDA of $537 million, up 7% year-over-year, and record adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.4%. New Alcoa Segments (Upstream) Overview

Third-party revenue of $1.7 billion, down 32.2% year-over-year, reflects: 4.5% revenue increase from organic growth more than offset by 26.1% revenue decline due to lower pricing and foreign exchange impacts and 10.6% revenue decline predominantly related to curtailed or closed operationsTotal revenue of $2.1 billion, after-tax operating income of $22 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $185 million

Profitable Alumina and Primary Metals segments despite 19% price decline in the Alumina Price Index, and flat aluminum pricing, sequentially; year-over-year declines of 40 and 26%, respectively
In 2016, Alcoa projects an ~1.1 million metric ton global aluminum deficit as 5% global aluminum demand growth (revised from 6%) outweighs 2% global aluminum supply growth (revised from 3%). In addition, the Company projects a global alumina deficit of 1.4 million metric tons.Aerospace +6-8% from +8-9% (market transition); Alcoa projects solid growth in all its other end markets.Value add segments separation on track for 2H.

4:18 pm Juniper Networks follow-up: Lowers guidance due to weaker Enterprise market and timing of certain orders from U.S. and EMEA Tier 1 Telecoms (JNPR) :

Co issues downside guidance for Q1 (Mar), sees EPS of $0.35-0.37 vs. $0.44 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, down from prior guidance of $0.42-0.46; sees Q1 (Mar) revs of $1.090-1.100 bln vs. $1.18 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, down from prior guidance of $1.15-1.19 bln. Lowered guidance is due primarily to weaker than anticipated demand from Enterprise and timing of deployments of certain U.S. and EMEA Tier 1 Telecoms. "Although we expect results to be lower than our initial guidance for the first quarter, we remain constructive on fiscal 2016 and expect growth from new products to contribute to our topline, coupled with our ongoing focus on cost discipline to drive non-GAAP operating margin expansion for the full year," stated Rami Rahim, chief executive officer of Juniper Networks.


Broader market trading closed Monday with modest losses as all three major US indices lost steam in the final moments of trading. Action was modestly lower as the action was led to the downside by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite which lost 17.29 points (-0.36%) to 4833.40. The S&P 500 was down 5.61 points (-0.27%) as the bell rang to end 2041.99. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted the most tepid decline, losing only 20.55 points (-0.12%) to end 17556.41.

Up until the final moments, the positive bias today was preempted by developments out of Europe where plans progressed on a proposed state bad-bank fund in Italy. The fund is designed to limit a possible contagion effect from bad loans made by Italian banks. The development helped lift futures as investors shrugged off a cooler than expected reading of China's March PMI. Action was helped higher by advances in crude oil futures, leadership from the Financial and Material sectors.

Technology (XLK 43.77, -0.12 -0.27%) finished near flat lines, but managed slight losses as component Seagate Tech (STX 34.97, +1.74 +5.24%) outperformed as the stock was initiated with a Market Perform at Cowen ahead of the bell this morning and was the subject of a positive Barron's article from the weekend. Other sectors ended the beginning of the week XLB +0.45%, XLF +0.41%, XLI +0.04%, XLY -0.37%, XLE -0.42%, XLU -0.43%, IYZ -0.52%, XLP -0.71%, XLV -0.76% as the heavily weighted Financials sector helped outperform while Healthcare was the worse performer.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (727.82, -1.38 -0.19%) sector, trading also lost momentum as the session wound up, ending just below flat lines. Components TSS +1.22%, NTAP +1.20%, YHOO +1.14%, FLIR +1.03%, QCOM +0.87% were among the best performers in the sector today, while names like ADS -3.98%, QRVO -2.54%, AKAM -2.52%, MU -2.52%, EA -1.68%, SWKS -1.67%, FB -1.48% lagged. Other names in the space which finished higher included ***.

Other notable news items among sector components:

SanDisk (SNDK 76.79, +0.27 +0.35%) introduced an upgraded all-flash storage platform with the introduction of the InfiniFlash IF150 system, the latest addition to its InfiniFlash family, which is transforming data centers around the world.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Twitter (TWTR 16.50, -0.15 -0.87%) acquired employee and manager feedback tool provider Peer.

TerraForm Power (TERP 9.50, -0.09 -0.94%) disclosed a lawsuit filed against it by D.E. Shaw Composite Holdings, L.L.C. and Madison Dearborn Capital Partners.

Ingram Micro (IM 35.12, +0.08 +0.23%) expanded its distribution agreement with Dropbox to channel partners across Europe, Australia and New Zealand with plans to extend the offering into additional markets soon.

United Micro (UMC 2.00, -0.02 -0.74%) issued guidance for Q1 revenues which was slightly better than expected.

Cadence Design (CDNS 23.23, -0.18 -0.77%) to acquire Rocketick Technologies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Black Box (BBOX 13.40, +0.10 +0.75%) acquired technology and development team from privately-held Cloudium Systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

InterXion (INXN 33.74, +0.08 +0.24%) announced its intent to offer 150 million of 6.00% Senior Secured Notes due 2020.

Net 1 UEPS Techs (UEPS 11.68, +2.73 +30.50%) received a $107 million equity investment at a 20.6% premium per share to close on April 8.

Mobile TeleSystems (MBT 8.98, +0.42 +4.91%) announced a new dividend policy targeting the payout of RUB 25.0 - 26.0 per share.

Rovi (ROVI 17.48, -0.02 -0.11%) appointed Ted Schremp as Chief Marketing Officer.

SuperCom (SPCB 3.59, -0.22 -5.77%) displayed relative weakness after reporting worse than expected Q4 EPS and revenues.

Analyst actions:

GOOG was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Pivotal Research,
TSS was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Keefe Bruyette;
QLIK was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup and to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank,
FLTX was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie,
AFOP was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
YRD was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura,
GTOMY was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse;
WDC and STX were initiated with Market Performs at Cowen,
NXPI was initiated with a Buy at Nomura,
DWRE was initiated with a Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
MSTR was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup

4:10 pm : The stock market began the week on a lower note as the major averages sunk into negative territory in a final-hour sell off. Today's action featured an uptick in crude oil, positive sentiment from overseas, and the underperformance of the heavily-weighted health care (-0.7%) space. Today also marks the beginning of the first quarter earnings reporting period with Alcoa (AA 9.74, +0.37) kicking things off after the close. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%) ended its day behind the S&P 500 (-0.3%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%).

The equity market gapped up to begin its day as more news regarding Italy's planned bad-bank fund boosted investor sentiment. The fund is aimed at limiting a possible contagion effect from bad loans originated by Italian banks and is expected to improve balance sheets of those banks. Separately, an extended rally in crude oil added support to the opening move higher.

However, the major averages pulled back from their opening highs as health care (-0.7%) slipped beneath its flat line and the remaining gainers pared earlier gains. Additionally, despite an uptick in WTI crude, the commodity-sensitive energy space (-0.1%) was unable to end above its flat line.

By the end of the day, eight sectors were in the red with health care (-0.7%), consumer staples (-0.7%), and telecom services (-0.6%) rounding out the leaderboard. Conversely, materials (+0.5%), and financials (+0.3%) finished with the only gains.

In the economically-sensitive financial sector (+0.3%), money center banks outperformed ahead of key earnings reports from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 58.20, +0.46), Bank of America (BAC 12.97, +0.09), and Citigroup (C 41.12., +0.65). The three are scheduled to report earnings on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, respectively. Separately, Goldman Sachs (GS 152.20, +1.92) gained 1.3% after the Attorney General of New York announced a $5 billion settlement with the company for deceptive practices leading up to the financial crisis.

The energy sector (-0.4%) ended its day on a lower note as WTI crude gained 1.8% ($40.47/bbl). In the space, Baker Hughes (BHI 41.74, -1.37) ended its day lower by 3.2% after Barron's issued cautious commentary on the company. Conversely, Chesapeake Energy (CHK 4.50, +0.74) gained 19.7% after having its borrowing base reaffirmed at $4 billion. The company also increased collateral under its loan amendment.

Biotechnology underperformed in the health care space (-0.7%), evidenced by the 1.7% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 272.70, -4.65). The space pulled back along with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN 396.14, -8.80) and Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 31.35, -2.32) as the two names ended with respective losses of 2.2% and 6.9%.

The U.S. Dollar Index (93.98, -0.25) ended its day lower, but managed to tick off its worst level of the day. The dollar lost 0.2% against the yen and finished at 107.91. Meanwhile, the euro/dollar pair finished at 1.1408 (+0.1%).

The Treasury complex ended its day on a flat note with the yield on the 10-yr note finishing at 1.72%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 888 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tomorrow's economic data will include Import and Export Prices for March and the Treasury Budget for March, which will be released at 8:30 ET and 14:00 ET, respectively. DJ30 -20.55 NASDAQ -17.29 SP500 -5.61 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1400/1.413 bln/1438 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1798/888.6 mln/1226

3:30 pm :

The dollar index edged higher in the afternoon, but did not appear to put pressure on commodities in afternoon pit trading
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are currently up +0.3% at 79.28
Crude oil finds support near $40/barrel in afternoon trading and edges higher, closing near its high of the day to extend Friday's notable gains even further
May crude oil futures rose $0.72 (+1.8%) to $40.47/barrel
The Doha meeting between OPEC & non-OPEC members is scheduled to take place April 17 and is regarded as a near-term catalyst to move oil prices
Weekly EIA crude oil inventory data is scheduled to be released this Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
Last week's inventory showed a surprise draw of -4.937 mln barrels, compared to expectations for a build of +3.1 mln barrels
Natural gas traded sideways in the afternoon, consolidating lower and adding more losses on to Friday's decline
May Natural Gas closed $0.08 lower (-4.0%) at $1.91/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas inventory data will be released this Thursday at 10:30 am ET
Last week's data showed a build of +12 bcf, compared to expectations for a build of around +7 bcf
In precious metals, gold dropped briefly in the afternoon before rallying and closing near the high of the day
June gold futures ended today's session up $14.00 (+1.1%) to $1258.10/oz
Silver traded sidways in the afternoon after its morning rally, ending higher for the day
May silver futures closed today's session $0.59 higher (+3.8%) at $15.98/oz
Base metal copper ends unchanged
May copper futures closed flat at $2.09/lb




12:22 pm Verizon provides update on union strike 'threat' (VZ) :

"We do not take strike threats lightly," said Bob Mudge, president of Verizon's wireline network operations. "For more than a year, we've been preparing in the event union leaders order our employees to walk off the job. If a strike takes place, whether it's one day, two weeks or longer, we are ready."

Highlights of the wireline proposal include:

A 6.5% wage increase over the term of the contract Access to quality and affordable healthcare benefits Competitive retirement benefits including a 401k with a company matchVerizon approached these negotiations with a goal of preserving good jobs while also making critical changes needed to legacy contracts. Verizon's 36,000 employees covered under these contracts currently have a wage and benefit package that averages more than $130,000 a year. Over 99 percent of these employees support the wireline business which in 2015, contributed about 29 percent of Verizon's revenue but less than 7 percent of the Company's operating income. As it has in the past, union leadership has resisted making changes. Verizon's unions in the East have struck in two out of the past four bargaining cycles (most recently in 2011), meaning the leadership of these unions took the workers out on strike 50% of the time. "A strike in this case is not going to change the issues on the table that need to be addressed," said Reed. "Union leaders need to take an honest look at what Verizon is proposing."

12:07 pm Ingram Micro expands distribution agreement with Dropbox to Europe, Australia, & New Zealand, plans to extend into additional markets soon (IM) : The co has extended the reach & availability of Dropbox to the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace in the U.S., Canada, and Netherlands, with Australia and New Zealand coming this month. Channel partners in these regions can now purchase, provision, configure, and manage Dropbox through a single automated portal.

9:02 am Cadence Design to acquire Rocketick Technologies, terms undisclosed (CDNS) :

Rocketick Technologies is an Israel-based provider of multi-core parallel simulation.

The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, and is not expected to have a material impact on Cadence's fiscal 2016 results of operations. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Rocketick is backed by investments from Intel Capital and other strategic and financial investors

3:37 am United Micro sees Q1 revs above consensus (UMC) :

Co issues upside guidance for Q1 (Mar), sees Q1 (Mar) revs of NT$34.4 bln vs. NT$33.84 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.This represents a decline of 8.6%March revs were NT$12.9 bln, an increased of 1.6%

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From Briefing.com: 4:32 pm Ultratech receives follow-on order from major foundry for laser spike anneal system (UTEK) : Co announces a follow-on order from a major foundry for its LSA101 laser spike anneal system. Ultratech's LSA101 system will be used for 28-nm production and is expected to ship in 2Q16. The industry is experiencing a second wave of growth in the advanced planar node technologies, including 28-nm logic.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday affair on a higher note as better than feared earnings results from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 61.79, +2.51) and CSX (CSX 26.03, +1.04) boosted their respective sectors and the broader market. Additionally, today's trade saw a downturn in crude oil, below-consensus readings of economic data, and the outperformance of the heavily-weighted financial (+2.3%), industrial (+1.4%) consumer discretionary (+1.4%), and technology (+1.4%) spaces. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%) ended its day ahead of both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.1%) and the S&P 500 (+1.0%).

Today's session started on a higher note as equity futures and international bourses responded to an above-consensus reading of exports out of China (+11.5% year-over-year; consensus +2.5%). Meanwhile, positive earnings reports at home outweighed some negative economic data and a downturn in crude oil. On that note, March PPI, Retail Sales for March, and Business Inventories for February all either came in below-consensus or contained negative revisions to prior reports.

The major averages slipped from their highs after the release of the Department of Energy's weekly stockpile data. Weekly inventories showed that crude oil stockpiles rose by 6.63 million barrels (consensus 1.85 million barrels). As a result, WTI crude ended its day lower by 1.0% at $41.70/bbl. To be fair though, the energy component has gained 8.9% in April, and the potential production cut meeting will be held on Sunday.

The downturn in crude oil did not cause the broader market to rollover as heavily-weighted sectors maintained momentum throughout the day. On that note, the beleaguered financial sector (+2.3%) ended its day in the front of the pack while industrials (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+1.4%), and technology (+1.4%) followed.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+2.3%) moved higher in sympathy with JPMorgan Chase. The company reported a top and bottom-line beat in the first quarter. However, the company's report didn't paint a rosy picture, as revenue declined 3.7% year-over-year and the company increased its loan loss provisions from $959 million to $1.80 billion. Elsewhere in the group, Citigroup (C 44.25, +2.35) outperformed after its "living will" was approved by regulators. The company has until July 1, 2017 to revise shortcomings in its plan.

In the industrial space (+1.4%), rail names and airlines displayed relative strength today. Among the rail names, CSX outperformed after reporting bottom-line results that fell in-line with analysts' expectations. Elsewhere, Delta Airlines (DAL 48.04, +1.41) gained 3.0% ahead of its earnings release tomorrow morning.

Media names and electronics retailers outperformed in the consumer discretionary space (+1.4%) as large cap Disney (DIS 99.48, +2.13) gained 2.2%. Meanwhile, Best Buy (BBY 32.16, +1.34) and GameStop (GME 31.47, +1.38) jumped a respective 4.4% and 4.6%.

Countercyclical telecom services (-1.0%), consumer staples (-0.8%), and utilities (-0.7%) finished beneath their flat lines while energy (+0.4%) and health care (+0.9%) finished with the slimmest gains.

On the central bank front, the Federal Reserve released its April Beige Book, which described overall economic activity across the twelve Fed Districts as expanding within a "modest" or a "moderate" range. Most districts reported job gains, which in turn looks to be leading to an uptick in wage growth. Elsewhere, manufacturing activity increased in most districts, although, expectations for continued expansion remained mixed. As for inflation, the Beige Book described continued optimism for slow and steady growth in 2016.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.79, +0.83) ended beneath its session high as the dollar trimmed its gain against the euro and the yen. The euro/dollar pair slipped 0.9% against the dollar and finished at 1.1277. The dollar/yen pair ended its day at 109.29 (+0.6%).

The Treasury complex concluded its day on its highs as the yield on the 10-yr note sank two basis points to 1.76%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 983 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, March Core PPI, Retail Sales for March, February Business Inventories, and the Fed's Beige Book for April:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 10.0%
The Producer Price Index for final demand declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%).Excluding food and energy, producer prices were also down 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after being unchanged in February.
The March data underscore that inflation continued to run cool at the producer level, which should presumably help keep consumer prices in check.
A 0.2% decline in prices for final demand services acted as a drag on the final demand index, but was offset in part by a 0.2% increase in prices for final demand goods.
On an unadjusted basis, prices for final demand are down 0.1% year-over-year. Final demand prices less food and energy are up 1.0% year-over-year on an unadjusted basis.
The Retail Sales report for March was pretty lackluster, offering further evidence that consumer spending and economic activity overall was pretty weak in the first quarter.
Plagued by a 2.1% decline in auto sales, total retail sales declined 0.3% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.1) after being unchanged in February.
Excluding autos, retail sales were up a weaker than expected 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) after also being unchanged in February. A 1.4% gain in building material sales and a 0.9% jump in gasoline station sales helped offset a 0.9% drop in apparel sales and a 0.8% decline in sales at food services and drinking places.
Core retail sales, which exclude auto, gasoline station, and building material sales, were flat following a 0.4% increase in February. Core retail sales factor into the computation for the goods component of personal consumption expenditures in the GDP report. So, it's not very good news here.
Total business inventories declined 0.1% in February (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%). The negative surprise with this report was the downward revision to January business inventories, which were revised to show a decline of 0.1% versus a previously reported reading of being unchanged.
The decline in business inventories in February combined with the decline in January will factor negatively in the computation for first quarter GDP, which stood most recently at just 0.1% according to the Atlanta Fed's GDP Now model forecast.
Manufacturers' inventories (-0.4%) and merchant wholesaler inventories (-0.5%) were already known. Retailer inventories were the only unknown and they increased 0.6% on top of a 0.4% increase in January.
The breakdown of retailer inventories showed increases in all major areas, with the exception of furniture, home furnishings, electronic and appliance stores (-0.1%). The biggest uptick in inventories was seen for motor vehicle and parts dealers (+1.3%).
The total business inventory-to-sales ratio stood at 1.41 in March, which was unchanged from the upwardly revised reading for February (from 1.40) and up from 1.37 in the same period a year ago.

Tomorrow's economic data will include Core CPI for March (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) and weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 268k), which will both cross the wires at 8:30 ET. DJ30 +187.03 NASDAQ +75.33 SP500 +20.70 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2258/1.776 bln/620 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2366/983.7 mln/689

3:30 pm :

The dollar index sees an intra-day rally, consolidating above 94.70 in afternoon pit trading
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.4% at 81.24
Crude oil exhibited notable volatility, staging an early afternoon rally after the release of EIA storage data, briefly hitting a level above yesterday's closing price before plummeting to close near the midpoint of the earlier rally, lower on the day
May Crude Oil futures fell $0.42 (-1.0%) to $41.70/barrel
API data released yesterday evening showed a larger-than-expected inventory build of +6.2 mln barrels, compared to estimates for a build of +1.0 mln barrels
EIA crude oil inventory data released at 10:30 am ET showed a build of +6.634 mln (consensus called for a build of +1.4 mln)
The April 17 Doha meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC members is approaching, regarded as a near-term catalyst to move oil prices
Natural gas gains in afternoon trade before dropping to lows of the day
May Natural Gas closed $0.02 higher (1.0%) at $2.03/MMBtu
EIA natural gas storage data is scheduled to be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold consolidates into a modest uptrend before dropping sharply near the close of pit trading, closing near its low of the day
June gold ended today's session down $12.80 (-1.0%) to $1248.10/oz
Silver sees a modest downtrend with consolidation most of the day, closing slightly above yesterday's closing price
May silver closed today's session $0.10 higher (+0.6%) at $16.32/oz
Base metal copper closes near its high of the day
May copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.9%) at $2.17/lb

The broader market pushed into the green on back-to-back days with gains of +1% across all three major US indices. Leading the way higher, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite again was the top dog, adding 75.33 points (+1.55%) to close 4947.42. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended higher by 187.03 points (+1.06%) to 17908.28. Rounding out the trio, the S&P 500 was up 20.70 points (+1.00%) to 2082.42.

Action was led by the heavily-weighted Financial (XLF 22.93, +0.51 +2.27%) sector, which displayed strength on the back of bellwether JPMorgan Chase's (JPM 61.79, +2.46 +4.15%) better than expected quarterly results. In other news, market data today came in the form of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 10.0%. The Producer Price Index for final demand declined 0.1%, while excluding food and energy, producer prices were down 0.1%. The Retail Sales report for March showed core retail sales were flat following a 0.4% increase in February. Also, total business inventories were down 0.1% in February.

Trading in the Technology (XLK 44.54, +0.48 +1.09%) sector was no different as stocks in the space finished near session highs. Component Verizon (VZ 51.29, -0.66 -1.27%) was under pressure today as the company disclosed the strike of about 36,000 workers. The majority of the workers were employed in the wireline segment. Other sectors as measured by the S&P finished Wednesday XLF +2.27%, XLI +1.49%, XLY +1.41%, XLB +0.99%, XLV +0.94%, XLE +0.47%, IYZ +0.33%, XLU -0.61%, XLP -0.77% led by Financials and Industrials, with Utilities and Consumer Staples finishing below flat lines.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (742.01, +10.05 +1.37%) sector, action was higher at the open, and it never looked back. Component Apple (AAPL 112.04, +1.60 +1.45%) broke out above its 200 day simple moving average following news that a former design team member was hired at GoPro (GPRO 13.90, +2.22 +19.01%) as Vice President of Design. Other names in the space which finished on modest gains included MU +6.98%, ADS +5.25%, QRVO +4.95%, HPQ +3.44%, JNPR +3.30%, SWKS +3.26%, TDC +3.23%, ADSK +3.20%, EA +2.87%, EBAY +2.70%, PYPL +2.62%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Facebook (FB 110.51, -0.10 -0.09%) was pressured in today's trade as cautious comments from Credit Agricole, which was on a call with FB's ad partner AdParlor, indicated a larger than seasonal drop in Q1 advertising spending on FB. The report was then disputed in late trading, with headlines crossing that AdParlor said the metrics were unauthorized, taken out of context and inaccurate.

GoPro (GPRO) named former Apple (AAPL) design team member Danny Coster as Vice President of Design.

Nexenta and SanDisk (SNDK 76.75, +0.07 +0.09%) announced their joint All Flash Software-Defined Storage solution has been deployed at GleSYS Internet Services AB (GleSYS), a next-generation cloud platform provider.

Teradata (TDC 25.28, +0.79 +3.23%) announced that Think Big, a global Teradata consulting practice with leadership expertise in deploying Apache Spark and other big data technologies, is expanding its data lake and managed service offerings using Apache Spark.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 17.50, +0.26 +1.51%) introduced a new compute platform for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), educational institutions and branch offices that is managed and updated through the cloud -- the HPE ProLiant Easy Connect Managed Hybrid solution.

PAREXEL (PRXL 66.47, +1.58 +2.43%) and EMC (EMC 25.74, +0.09 +0.35%) entered into an alliance to offer an end-to-end Regulatory Information Management (RIM) and Regulatory Content Management solution.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Verizon (VZ) confirmed certain CWA and IBEW union employees went on strike as of 6 a.m. ET today.

Demand Media (DMD 5.86, +0.62 +11.83%) completed the sale of its Cracked business to Scripps (SSP 15.58, +0.32 +2.10%) for $39 million in cash.

Behrman Capital announced that its portfolio company Data Device Corporation entered into an agreement to acquire the Microelectronics Business of Maxwell Tech (MXWL 6.32, +0.17 +2.76%) for a total consideration of $21 million.

Shopify (SHOP 29.80, +0.03 +0.10%) to acquire privately held Kit CRM Inc. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Avid Technology's (AVID 6.14, +0.15 +2.50%) CFO, EVP and Chief Administrative Officer informed the company that he intends to resign from his position, effective immediately following the company's announcement of its financial results for the first quarter of 2016 and its earnings call. Until the company finds a replacement, it intends to name Ilan Sidi as CFO on an interim basis, effective upon Mr. Frederick's resignation.

Logitech Intl SA (LOGI 16.39, +0.30 +1.86%) agreed to acquire Jaybird LLC of Salt Lake City, Utah, for about $50 million in cash, with an additional earn-out of up to $45 million based on achievement of growth targets over the next two years.

Gogo (GOGO 11.16, +0.35 +3.24%) filed for mixed securities shelf offering for itself and selling shareholders.

CoreLogic (CLGX 34.25, +0.65 +1.93%) named James Balas as the company's CFO.

Analyst actions:

S was downgraded to Underweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
CSC was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
WDC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow,
GIB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Desjardins,
ADTN was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital

8:01 am EMCORE Corporation announces favorable ruling from Sumitomo arbitration (EMKR) :

Co announces the receipt of a favorable ruling from the International Court of Arbitration tribunal relating to its ongoing dispute with Sumitomo Electric Industries.
On April 12, 2016, a three member arbitration panel rejected SEI's claims. The panel ruled that EMCORE owes SEI none of the amounts SEI sought in the arbitration and that the Company is entitled to collect the $1.9 mln it is holding in escrow.
The Company is also entitled to recover over $2.5 mln in fees and costs. At December 31, 2015, EMCORE had accrued for $3.4 mln of liabilities relating to potential claims, in addition to the $1.9 mln it held in escrow for these claims.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 15-Apr-16

The stock market continued its recent show of strength over the past week as the S&P 500 climbed 1.6% since Friday to extend its 2016 gain to 1.8%. The Nasdaq outperformed slightly, climbing 1.8% for the week, but the tech-heavy index remains down 1.4% for the year.

Equity indices started the week on a quiet note, but buyers were not hard to find as the S&P 500 extended to a fresh high for the year on Wednesday. The index powered along even though economic data released during the week disappointed. For instance, the March Retail Sales report showed a 0.3% decline (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) while March Core PPI (-0.1%; Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and March Core CPI (0.1%; Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) also missed estimates. To be fair, cooler than expected inflation data can be viewed as something that may keep the Fed on hold for longer.

Interestingly, the disappointing Retail Sales report prompted the Atlanta Fed to raise its GDPNow forecast for the first quarter to 0.3% from 0.1% on April 8. The Atlanta Fed noted that March retail sales boosted the first-quarter real consumer spending growth forecast to 1.8% from 1.6%.

The past week marked the start of the first-quarter earnings season, which was largely unassuming. Alcoa (AA) kicked things off with a bottom-line beat on light revenue while major financials like JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C) followed later in the week. Overall, bottom-line beats were not hard to come by, but Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase reported respective revenue declines of 8.0%, 11.1%, and 3.7%.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17576.96 17897.25 320.29 1.8 2.7
Nasdaq 4850.69 4938.22 87.53 1.8 -1.4
S&P 500 2047.60 2080.63 33.03 1.6 1.8
Russell 2000 1094.00 1128.20 34.20 3.1 -0.7

Broader market trading closed Friday with modest losses. Action was led to the downside today by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which lost 28.97 points (-0.16%) to end 17897.46. The Nasdaq Composite was also down (-0.16%), shedding 7.67 points to 4938.22. The S&P 500 ended down 2.05 points (-0.10%) to 2080.73. This week's action took the three major US indices +2.7%, -1.4% and +1.8% YTD, respectively. Today's move was predicated on mostly average volume as 1,015 million shares were traded on the NYSE floor versus an average of around 1,033 million. This, compared to about 1,538 million shares being exchanged on the NASDAQ floor versus an average of about 1,754 million leaves little to the imagination as to the sentiment of investors midway through April.

Market data today came in the form of the Empire Manufacturing Survey which jumped 9.6 for April from 0.6 for March. The Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report for March disappointed with total production down 0.6% and total industry capacity utilization at just 74.8%. The manufacturing capacity utilization rate of 75.1% is 3.4 percentage points below its long-run average; meanwhile, the utilization rate of 73.7% for both mining and utilities is the lowest over the histories for each of those series. Also, the preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for April dropped to 89.7 from 91.0 in March and 95.9 in the same period last year.

The session ended with trading in the Technology (XLK 44.34, -0.15 -0.35%) sector modestly in the red. Component Apple (AAPL 109.85, -2.25 -2.01%) was under pressure today as the stock saw a negative reaction to a report out intraday highlighting a possible iPhone production slowdown. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLP +0.62%, IYZ +0.58%, XLU +0.56%, XLB +0.46%, XLY +0.28%, XLI +0.14%, XLV -0.07%, XLF -0.35%, XLE -1.35% as Materials and Telecoms outperformed and Energy and Tech were among the worst performers.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (737.77, -3.44 -0.46%) sector, trading was also modestly lower. Component Micron (MU 10.69, +0.29 +2.79%) displayed relative strength today on the heels of the company's upsized and priced offering of $1.25 billion of its 7.500% senior secured noted due 2023. Other components in the sector that were modestly lower included STX -5.61%, QRVO -3.81%, WDC -3.18%, SWKS -2.23%, AVGO -2.10%, NTAP -2.03%, TDC -1.98%, QCOM -1.47%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Micron (MU) upsized and priced $1.25 billion of its 7.500% senior secured notes due 2023.

Harris (HRS 77.39, -0.26 -0.33%) was awarded a $20 million in orders from the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command to modernize defense force communications for several Middle East and North African Nations. The orders were received under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.

Apple (AAPL) shares were under pressure at midday as the company was the subject of a Nikkei Asian Review report which suggested an extended iPhone production cut during Q2.

SanDisk (SNDK 75.76, -0.13 -0.17%) introduced the 128GB SanDisk Extreme PLUS microSDXC card, one of the first microSD cards to carry the Works with GoPro (GPRO 13.77, -0.03 -0.22%) verification.

Yahoo! (YHOO 36.51, -0.66 -1.78%) amended its change in control employee severance plans that, together, cover all full time employees of YHOO, including YHOO's Amended and Restated Change in Control Employee Severance Plan for Level I and Level II Employees.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Mitel (MITL 7.12, -0.76 -9.64%) announced the acquisition of Polycom (PLCM 12.02, -0.25 -2.04%) in a cash and stock transaction valued at about $1.96 billion or $13.68 per share. MITL also updated its 1Q16 guidance following the deal, and transaction expected to be accretive to earnings in FY17.

Ixia (XXIA 10.19, -2.01 -16.48%) shares were weighed down by the company's guidance cut and now expects Q1 revenues in the range of $108-111 million versus prior guidance in the range of $121-126 million. Further, XXIA now expects non-GAAP EPS in the range of $0.05-0.08 versus prior expectations in the range of $0.10-0.14. The company noted the guidance change was due in part to the marked slowdown in network test spending from the company's North America network equipment manufacturer customers in March.

SunEdison (SUNE 0.37, -0.21 -36.76%) released a presentation to principles for the 2nd lien lenders with business plan scenarios. Detailed, SUNE noted negotiations with respect to such potential financing transactions are still ongoing.

Bats Global Markets (BATS 23.00, +4.00 +20.3%), a US equity security and options exchange, opened for trading today at $22.88, up from the IPO pricing level of $19 per share.

Analyst actions:

MU upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
INFN upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman;
SSYS and DDD downgraded at Citigroup,
MIME downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
LPL downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie

4:12 pm Closing Market Summary: Energy Lags as Financials Break Winning Streak (:WRAPX) :

The major averages ended an upbeat week on a lower note as a week-long rally in the heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.3%) came to an end. Other focal points for today's trade included some below-consensus domestic economic data, a slide in crude oil, and the underperformance of the heavily-weighted technology (-0.5%) space. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) ended its day in-line with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) and behind the S&P 500 (-0.1%).

Equities stumbled at the start of the session as implications from some above-consensus economic data out of China weighed on expectations for continued easing from the People's Bank of China. Meanwhile, economic readings at home did little to bolster investors' risk appetite as Industrial Production (-0.6%; Briefing.com consensus +0.0%) for March, Capacity Utilization (74.8%; Briefing.com consensus 75.5%) for March, and the preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey (89.7; Briefing.com consensus 92.0) for April all missed expectations.

A downturn in crude oil also pressured the broader market as the energy component pared gains ahead of this weekend's summit between oil producers in Doha, Qatar. OPEC and non-OPEC members will meet to discuss a possible production cap agreement meant to combat the ongoing supply glut. To be fair though, expectations for an agreement are mixed and the impact of such an agreement is difficult to gauge. WTI crude ended its day lower by 2.5% at $40.40/bbl, but gained 1.6% since last Friday.

The major averages carved out fresh lows in the afternoon after heavily-weighted technology (-0.5%) joined energy (-1.3%), financials (-0.3%), and health care (UNCHF) on the bottom of the leaderboard.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (-0.3%) spent its day pulling back from larger weekly gains. On that note, money center banks broke their recent winning streak as Bank of America (BAC 14.00, -0.14) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 61.87, -0.72) ended the day with losses of 1.0% and 1.2%, respectively. Elsewhere, Citigroup (C 44.92, -0.06) reported a bottom-line beat in the first quarter, but surrendered a 3.5% gain to end beneath its flat line. However, Citigroup ended the week higher by 11.0%, compared to a 4.0% gain in the broader sector.

In the heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.5%), large cap constituent Apple (AAPL 109.85, -2.25) slipped 2.0% after Nikkei reported that the company will extend its iPhone production cut into the second quarter. Elsewhere, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-0.9%) finished lower as suppliers for the smartphone underperformed.

Six sectors ended the day above their flat lines with utilities (+0.7%), consumer staples (+0.6%), materials (+0.4%), and consumer discretionary (+0.3%) outperforming.

Retailers outperformed in the consumer discretionary space (+0.3%), evidenced by the 0.8% gain in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.34, +0.35). The sub-group was rebounding from larger losses in the prior week. To that point, the ETF gained 3.4% on a week to date basis, after sliding 4.7% following last week's disappointing same-store sales readings.

The Treasury complex ended its day off its high as the safe haven group pulled back when equities trimmed their loss in the final hour. The yield on the 10-yr note finished at 1.75% (-4 bps). This represents a decline of three basis points from last Friday's settlement.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than one billion shares have changed hands on the NYSE floor. The increased participation was due to April options expiration.

Today's economic data included Empire Manufacturing for April, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for March, and the preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for April:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey jumped to 9.6 for April from 0.6 for March. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 0.0.
The April reading is the highest in more than a year and was led by increases in the new orders, prices paid, and prices received indexes. Notably, the six-month outlook improved for the third month in a row.
The Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report for March disappointed with total production down 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) and total industry capacity utilization at just 74.8% (Briefing.com consensus 75.5%). One can glean from this report that first quarter GDP isn't going to be anything special.
March was the second straight month that industrial production declined 0.6% after February was revised down from an originally reported 0.5% decline. On a year-over-year basis, industrial production is down 2.0%.
A significant portion of the decrease in March can be traced to the indexes for mining and utilities, which fell 2.9% and 1.2%, respectively. The drop in mining output was the largest since September 2008.
Manufacturing output was down 0.3% following a downwardly revised 0.1% decline (from +0.1%) in February. The production of durables was down 0.4% in March while the output of nondurable manufacturing edged lower following a 0.5% decrease in February.
The Federal Reserve released its annual revision to the index of industrial production and capacity utilization on April 1. With the revision, the February reading for capacity utilization, which was previously reported to be 76.7%, was revised to 75.4%. It was marked down again to 75.3% with the March report.
The manufacturing capacity utilization rate of 75.1% is 3.4 percentage points below its long-run average; meanwhile, the utilization rate of 73.7% for both mining and utilities is the lowest over the histories for each of those series.
The preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for April dropped to 89.7 (Briefing.com consensus 92.0) from 91.0 in March and 95.9 in the same period a year ago.
The lower reading for April marks the fourth straight monthly decline. Notably, the downturn was driven more by the Index of Consumer Expectations, which fell to 79.6 from 81.5, than it was by the Current Economic Conditions Index, which dipped to 105.4 from 105.6.
The report summary indicates that consumers reported a slowdown in expected wage gains, weakening inflation adjusted income expectations, and growing concerns that slowing economic growth would reduce the pace of job creation.
Based on the indication from the data, it was said that inflation-adjusted personal consumption expenditures will increase 2.5% in 2016.

Monday's economic data will be limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for April (Briefing.com consensus 59).

Nasdaq Composite -1.4%
Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD
S&P 500: +1.8% YTD
Dow Jones +2.7%

Week in Review: Back to Winning Ways

The stock market continued its recent show of strength overthe past week as the S&P 500 climbed 1.6% since Friday to extend its 2016gain to 1.8%. The Nasdaq outperformed slightly, climbing 1.8% for the week, butthe tech-heavy index remains down 1.4% for the year.

Equity indices started the week on a quiet note, but buyerswere not hard to find as the S&P 500 extended to a fresh high for the yearon Wednesday. The index powered along even though economic data released duringthe week disappointed. For instance, the March Retail Sales report showed a0.3% decline (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) while March Core PPI (-0.1%;Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and March Core CPI (0.1%; Briefing.com consensus0.2%) also missed estimates. To be fair, cooler than expected inflation datacan be viewed as something that may keep the Fed on hold for longer.

Interestingly, the disappointing Retail Sales report promptedthe Atlanta Fed to raise its GDPNow forecast for the first quarter to 0.3% from0.1% on April 8. The Atlanta Fed noted that March retail sales boosted thefirst-quarter real consumer spending growth forecast to 1.8% from 1.6%.

The past week marked the start of the first-quarter earningsseason, which was largely unassuming. Alcoa (AA) kicked things off with a bottom-line beat on light revenue while majorfinancials like JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C) followed later in theweek. Overall, bottom-line beats were not hard to come by, but Bank of America,Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase reported respective revenue declines of 8.0%,11.1%, and 3.7%.

3:14 pm Seagate Tech (-5.7%) extends yesterday's weakness to 3+ year low after warning late Wednesday; Western Digital (WDC) -3% (STX) :

STX dividend seemingly at risk with stock sporting a 9.8% yield.
Peer Western Digital (WDC) testing support at $40 near February lows.

1:22 pm Benchmark Electronics: 4.9% shareholder Engaged Capital releases presentation to shareholders with plan to improve BHE's valuation by over 50% (BHE) :

The presentation is in connection with Engaged Capital's campaign to elect three directors at the upcoming May 11, 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders.
Engaged Capital has a credible plan to correct underperformance at BHE: Install a rigorous, disciplined approach to capital allocation; Work with outside consultants to increase and accelerate the pursuit of working capital efficiencies; Align executive compensation with shareholders; Increase transparency, align financial reporting with peers, and increase analyst coverage; Add new, highly qualified board members aligned with shareholders: Robert K. Gifford, Jeffrey S. McCreary, and Brendan B. Springstubb.

1:11 pm Apple suppliers seeing weakness following report of extended iPhone production cut during Q2 (see 13:05) (AAPL) :

Related supplier stocks showing weakness: QRVO -1.6%, AVGO -1.5%, NXPI -1.2%, SWKS -0.5%, CRUS -0.5%, TXN -0.4%, QCOM -0.3%
Other possible related stocks: INVN, SHCAY, SSNLF, SNE
Briefing Note: Apple made a similar production cut last quarter. The iPhone 7 is scheduled to be released this Fall. It is normal for sales for fall off ahead of major product introductions.

10:29 am SemiLEDs announces 1:10 reverse split; to trade ex-split at open on Apr 18, 2016 (LEDS) :

SanDisk (SNDK) introduced the 128GB SanDisk Extreme PLUS microSDXC card, one of the first microSD cards to carry the Works with GoPro (GPRO) verification. The new, higher capacity SanDisk Extreme PLUS microSDXC card is verified to deliver optimal performance and reliability when used with GoPro cameras, even under extreme conditions.

2:55 am Super Micro Computer sees Q3 EPS and revs below consensus (SMCI) :

Co issues downside guidance for Q3 (Mar), sees EPS of $0.33-0.35 vs. $0.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate and compares to the Company's previous guidance of $0.43-0.53; sees Q3 (Mar) revs of $530-533 mln vs. $557.27 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate and compares to the Company's previous guidance range of $530-580 mln.
Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 14.8% to 14.9% primarily due to lower demand with some large customers and the channel which led to lower cost absorption based on lower utilization as well as product mix.

2:49 am Micron upsizes and prices $1.25 bln of its 7.500% senior secured notes due 2023 (MU) :

The size of the offering was increased from the previously announced $1.0 bln in aggregate principal amount.

[ReturntoSender]

OPEC Doha Meeting Provides No Freeze (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Stock indices break higher Wednesday then stall into Friday.
- OPEC Doha meeting provides no freeze, no cut, no nothing.
- US data shows some improvement then more backsliding
- SOX gave up the break through resistance and now can NASDAQ hold its move
- Oil versus earnings: market seeking the next catalyst, though it still has the Fed.

This weekend we waited on releasing the Market Summary given the significance of the OPEC Doha meeting. Friday a draft agreement was leaked that had no enforcement mechanisms and excluded Iran. Today the meeting's start was delayed because Saudi Arabia demanded a rewrite of the draft agreement to include Iran as a necessary part of a freeze. Just now the word has hit: meeting over, no agreement, the parties probably meet again in June.

It is almost as if Saudi Arabia does not get what it wants then it will go back to Plan A, i.e. producing as much as it can in order to drive prices lower and shut down the US domestic shale fracking that has managed to hang on thanks to recovering oil prices. That has happened before, and I don't know if you remember or not, but back in the 1980's, Iran was a major holdout as well and Saudi Arabia decided to teach it a lesson along with the upstart US domestic industry.

On the news, Saudi Arabia stocks are down the most in three weeks.

As an aside before we get into the meat of the market, has anyone been counting the number of serious earthquakes the past week? Last night a 7.8 in Ecuador. This on top of a 7.0 in Japan (one of four majors there), an 8.2 in Chile, a 6.9, 6.7 and two 6.4's in Vanauatu (south Pacific), a 6.9 in Burma, a 6.6 in Afghanistan, and a 6.2 off Guatemala Friday. The 'Ring of Fire' is burning as are other areas in Asia. The experts are suggesting a major quake or quakes of 8.0 or larger are signaled by all of this activity. I guess they know; my understanding was the more smaller ones you had, the more stress released thus making a big one less likely. Nothing to do with the markets of course, but something that keeps people on edge. No matter how many machines and algos trade it, they are programmed by people and thus have emotional biases built in. Thus emotion continues to play a role in market moves.

Overall Friday there was little market changed just as there was little on Thursday. Wednesday saw the important move for the week, a break higher from the two week lateral consolidation. NASDAQ gapped above resistance and held the move into Friday. The Dow is holding a move to the top of the November/December 2015 range while the SP400 similarly tests the November/December peaks. SOX tried the December 2015 peak and has retreated near term.

SP500 -2.05, -0.10%
NASDAQ -7.67, 0.16%
DJ30 -28.97, -0.16%
SP400 0.38%
RUTX 0.21%
SOX -0.85%

VOLUME: NYSE +13%, NASDAQ +2.3%. Expiration so cannot read much into the trade levels.

A/D: NYSE 1.2:1, NASDAQ -1.1:1

In short, the indices broke higher with NASDAQ clearing some resistance (just to face more resistance) and DJ30 continuing to look strong as it takes on higher resistance. Technically they are extended and still at resistance levels below the prior highs. On the other hand, the Fed over the past three weeks has more or less, pledged to support the financial markets, purportedly because the rest of the world is in the crapper.

To end last week, however, the data suggested that Europe was not totally dead and China was stronger than expected with stronger retail sales and an in line GDP. Cramer from CNBC even said "China is fine." That begs the question: if the rest of the world 'is fine,' then why is the Fed not hiking? Perhaps a meeting with the President Monday reiterated that it would be in the nation's 'best interest' if the Fed did not hike during an election year or otherwise let anything disrupt the market's gains? I would not be surprised.

US Data: Some better, some not

New York PMI, April: 9.56 vs 2.3 expected versus 0.6 March. A second month of improvement and much better than expected. Maybe a turn . . . ?

Industrial Production: -0.6 versus 0.0 expected versus -0.6 prior (from -0.5)

Capacity Utilization: 74.8 versus 75.5 expected versus 75.3 prior (from 75.4)

Missing expectations again with write downs of prior levels. Consider also wholesale and business inventories. Both declined but sales are declining faster. That means manufacturing is really tailing off. The regional PMI reports are important but they are also sentiment surveys based upon feelings versus hard data. Thus far the hard data has not caught up to the sentiment, but of course there is a lag as you have to feel better to have the guts to start producing more.


Consumer Sentiment

Michigan Sentiment, Preliminary April: 89.7 versus 92.0 expected versus 91.0 March

Gallup sentiment: -14, weakest since 11/2015. Outlook is -22, indicating that 59% of the adults feel the economy is worsening.

Higher gas prices were a main component of the Gallup survey and bolsters our belief that one of the few perqs the average citizen got from the recovery is lower gasoline prices thanks to a stronger dollar. Those started to dissipate as the national average for gasoline climbed to $2.11/gallon over the past two weeks.


Costs: More on the CPI

Costs, we are told, are just so low we should all be thankful. Yet the same costs keep rising, e.g. rents (3.7%), education, food (though it took a month off), and healthcare.

The increase in rents alone was more than any gain in disposable income thanks to minimum wage hikes. On top of that you have to add in rising healthcare costs.

Yes, the Affordable Care Act has failed, as most legislation sporting such lofty titles, to deliver affordable care. It is no surprise simply because it defies market principles, yet it always surprises those true believers when the data comes in.

CPI showed medical care costs growing at the fastest pace in 3 years. It is now 2016 and the ACA effectiveness was pushed back time and again, not coming fully effective even yet. Nonetheless, in 2014 most of the provisions became effective. Not surprisingly and as predicted, as soon as the provisions became effective, the backend loaded costs have showed up. Medical care costs are exploding higher, and companies such as THC cannot stay in markets because they cannot charge enough for policies thanks to the 80%/20% payout ratio of payouts to profits the ACA requires.

Is this bad? Not really; it is the plan: put a doomed system in place, then when it fails say 'well, we just have to go to single payer (i.e. the government) systems.



THE MARKET

CHARTS

As with Thursday, no change in relative position. The indices broke higher Wednesday from the two week lateral consolidation below resistance, NASDAQ moving through nearest resistance with DJ30 bumping to make a clean break. Still sitting on top of a two month run and thus far overcoming any selling attempts, even a few distribution sessions the prior two weeks. It would appear the Fed is mightier, for now, than the sell button.

NASDAQ: A pair of doji after breaking past 4820 Wednesday. 5,000 is the next real test if the bids hold. Lots of overhead resistance still, but thus far trusting in the Fed.

DJ30: Broke to a higher closing high Thursday over the November 2015 peak but faded that move slightly by Friday. Still at the top of the range and still no volume with MACD putting in what looks to be a lower high. Technically a folding lawn chair ready to fall in on itself, but thus far with the Fed continually talking up the market, no cigar for the sellers.

SP500: Broke to a higher rally high Wednesday, but that is still well off the December and even higher November 2015 highs (2117 the later, closed Friday at 2080). Low volume, questionable MACD, but as with the other indices, the Fed is providing the boost thus far.

RUTX: Rallied to the 200 day SMA last week and closed just below it Friday. New rally highs for sure but also smack dab in the lower portion of the September through December lateral range. At some pretty serious resistance, but that has not stopped the indices thus far.

SP400: Broke to a higher rally high Wednesday and closed at a higher rally high Friday. 1473 marks the top of the November/December 2015 twin peaks. Closing at 1464.77, SP400 is ready to test the next resistance.

SOX: Broke to a new rally high past 680 and 685 Wednesday but was immediately rejected, gapping lower Thursday and selling further Friday. Not a major rollover, but certainly the buyers left after that resistance break. SOX broke resistance with NASDAQ and SOX has retreated some. Very important to watch its action this week as the market often follows SOX' lead.


LEADERSHIP

Financial: After the false break and drop, financial stocks rebounded on the JPM earnings and are still holding gains. A new group coming up and we are looking at NOAH and WETF this week as possible plays.

Energy: Many of the smaller stocks tested to end last week, ending in great position to move higher, e.g. WLL, UNT. Now we will see how they perform after the OPEC non-deal.

Metals: Steel finished the week well with new breakouts from AKS, SID on the week and good Friday sessions to boot. FCX was solid with a new upside break and CENX (aluminum) looks good as well. Precious metal stocks took a fast drop but are not bad at near support, e.g. NEM.

Biotech/Drugs: Still looking solid overall. CRMD enjoyed a strong week. ZIOP remains strong. CELG, BIIB look ready to try and bounce again.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -7.67 points (-0.16%) to close at 4938.22
Volume: 1.718B (+2.28%)

Up Volume: 815.12M (+55.51M)
Down Volume: 847.75M (-9.88M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.04 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.02 to 1

New Highs: 64 (+8)
New Lows: 22 (+10)

S&P
Stats: -2.05 points (-0.1%) to close at 2080.73
NYSE Volume: 1B (+13.38%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.14 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.26 to 1

New Highs: 74 (-1)
New Lows: 6 (+3)

DJ30
Stats: -28.97 points (-0.16%) to close at 17897.46


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 13.62; -0.1
VXN: 16.05; -0.55
VXO: 13.87; -0.04

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.8; -0.06

8 of the last 18 above 1.0. After a spike of several 1.0 sessions, a streak of sub-1.0.


Bulls and Bears: Bulls rebounded back upside after a one-week backfill. Still very confident. Bears no so much so in their downside conviction, falling back to 27.8 from three weeks back. Retreated from well over 35% and still weakening.

Bulls: 45.4 versus 43.3

Bears: 27.8 versus 28.9

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 45.4%
43.3% versus 47.4% versus 44.4% versus 39.4% versus 36.4% versus 34.7% versus 26.5% versus 24.7% 34.0% versus 29.2% versus 26.8% versus 28.6% versus 34.7% versus 36.7% versus 37.8% versus 44.9% versus 41.2% versus 45.4%

Background: Bulls hit their lowest level in late 2015 and 2016 since the 2008 and 2009 market plummet.

Bears: 27.8%
28.9% versus 27.8% versus 30.3% versus 35.4% versus 34.3% versus 35.7% versus 39.8% versus 39.2% versus 38.1% versus 35.4% versus 36.1% versus 35.7% versus 31.6% versus 29.6% versus 29.6% versus 27.6% versus 26.8% versus 26.8% versus 28.9% versus 28.1% versus 29.2% versus 31.3% versus 31.2% versus 34.4% versus 35.1% versus 30.2% versus 26.8% versus 27.9 versus 26.8% versus 22.5% versus 18.4% versus 18.6% versus 17.5%

Background: Finally back below 35% after spiking to 39.8 three weeks back.


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 1.753% versus 1.79%. Faded to the 20 day EMA then bounced sharply Friday, putting in a higher low.

Historical: 1.79% versus 1.76% versus 1.77% versus 1.72% versus 1.72% versus 1.691% versus 1.75% versus 1.72% versus 1.77% versus 1.79% versus 1.77% versus 1.82% versus 1.80% versus 1.88% versus 1.90% versus 1.88% versus 1.94% versus 1.92% versus 1.89% versus 1.90% versus 1.91% versus 1.97% versus 1.966% versus 1.979% versus 1.927% versus 1.88%


EUR/USD: 1.1285 versus 1.1264

Historical: 1.1264 versus 1.1278 versus 1.1389 versus 1.1410 versus 1.1397 versus 1.1370 versus 1.1396 versus 1.13792 versus 1l1392 versus 1.1391 versus 1.1382 versus 1.1339 versus 1.1295 versus 1.1195 versus 1.1178 versus 1.1177 versus 1.1217 versus 1.1243 versus 1.1272 versus 1.1313 versus 1.1227 versus 1.1112 versus 1.1103 versus 1.1149 versus 1.1106 versus 1.1107 versus 1.1017 versus 1.0999 versus 1.0961 versus 1.0865 versus 1.0866 versus 1.0880 versus 1.0940 versus 1.102


USD/JPY: 108.762 versus 109.65. Dollar turned sharply lower Friday after a four session bounce back up to the 10 day EMA.

Historical: 109.65 versus 109.29 versus 108.505 versus 107.95 versus 108.175 versus 108.425 versus 109.84 versus 110.45 versus 111.313 versus 111.620 versus 112.60 versus 112.415 versus 112.71 versus 113.425 versus 113.612 versus 112.83 versus 112.445 versus 112.298 versus 111.90 versus 111.605 versus 111.46 versus 112.58 versus 113.11


Oil: 41.75, -0.90. Oil fell in anticipation of the weekend OPEC meeting. It will likely trade lower on the no-deal outcome.


Gold: 1234.60, +5.30. Gold is fighting to hold up but really suffered Wednesday and Thursday as it dropped back to the 50 day SMA, hanging on to close there Friday. Was looking as if it would pull out of the toppy pattern, but has yet to break free and hold the move.


MONDAY

Oil looks as if it will be under pressure post-OPEC meeting. The Canadian Loonie is down hard versus the dollar, backtracking all of last week's gain. According to those that figure these sort of things, that means oil opens below $39/bbl (closed at 41.75 Friday).

Lower oil used to be considered a good thing but with the overwhelming bulk of quality job creation in the US dependent upon the oil and gas industry, the demise of oil prices and thus the shale fracking industry is a blow to US economic gains. Of course, without those jobs, jobs already on the tail the past 1.5 years, I think the consumer would not mind lower energy prices and a stronger dollar. Now Joe citizen may get a lower dollar and stronger energy prices, that old double whammy.

Weaker oil is imbued by many to mean weaker stocks. Thus if the oil open holds you would expect lower prices Monday in the US as the stock indices again test the Wednesday break higher from the lateral consolidation on the large cap indices.

SOX will be an important indicator as it made higher highs and immediately gave them up. If it falls harder and NASDAQ reverses its breakout over resistance, that means the buyers have to regroup. That gives the sellers an opening to try again. Thus far they have failed to muster lasting strength, but after some distribution sessions the past two weeks, the market is susceptible to selling if the resistance slams the door.

On top of the oil news and the market technical setup the earnings season opens up full throttle. Last week the earnings helped boost the indices past the two week consolidation to higher recovery highs. After the oil deal disappointment (as if that was a surprise?) it looks as if it will take some good earnings to boost the market back up.

For the new week we have a mix of upside and downside. As has been the case, some sectors are getting money pushed their way while others are experiencing money leaving. Overall market direction has been stable, giving trades both ways. After the Doha meeting and combined with earnings, maybe one side will finally win out (the upside is trying, e.g. the Wednesday break higher) here at resistance and we can go one-sided. It does seem apparent that the market is at an important point and set to make an important break. It would appear from a technical view that it would break lower, but with the Fed providing the wind in the sails, it is hard to buck the upside.

Thus we will watch these individual plays and pick up positions accordingly. Still quite a few stocks coming off of rounded bottoms, and those have provided fairly easy money thus far.

Have a great day!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4938.22

Resistance:
4960 is the September 2015 intraday high, an important reversal point for NASDAQ.
4999 is the October upper gap point
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5042 is the March 2015 high
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak

Support:
4920 is the lower gap point from mid-October 2015, the January 2016 lower gap point
4916 is the mid-November 2015 low
4899 - 4902 from the September 2015 peak, July 2015 low
4894 is the September 2015 closing high
The 200 day SMA at 4852
4836 is the March 2016 peak
The March 2015 lows at 4843 and 4825
4815 is the December 2014 peak
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4774 is the January 2-15 high
The 50 day EMA at 4772
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4637 is the February intraday high
4736 is the early January lower gap point downside, the last downside gap in the selloff.
4620 is the February 1 closing high
4615 from September 2014 highs, October 2014 upper gap point, late August 2015 low.
4517-4506 from the September 2015 and August 2015 closing lows
4485 are the twin July 2014 peaks
4471 is the January 2016 closing low
4425 is the late February intraday low
4363 is the February upper gap point
4352 is the March 2014 peak
4313 is the January 2016 intraday low
4292 is the August 2015 low
4212 is the February intraday low
4116 is the October 2014 low


S&P 500: Closed at 2080.73

Resistance:
2094 is the December 2014 high, the prior all-time high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2119.59 is the February intraday prior all-time high
2126 was the April prior all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high

Support:
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2046 is the July 2015 closing low
2040 is the March 2015 closing low
2023 is the November 2015 low
2020 is the September 2015 intraday high
The 50 day EMA at 2017
The 200 day SMA at 2014
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1995 is the September 2015 recovery peak
1991 is the July 2014 high
1972 is the December 2014 low
1947 is the February 2016 intraday high, the late February peak
1940 is the January 2016 recovery bounce peak closing high
1913 is the early September 2015 closing low testing the bounce from the August selling
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1891 is last week's intraday low prior to the miraculous reversal.
1872 is the September 2015 test low of the August low
1867 is the August 2015 low
1862 is the October 2014 closing low
1859 is the January 2016 closing low
1820 is the October 2014 intraday low
1815 is the April 2014 low
1812 is the January 2016 intraday low
1772 are the Q4 2013 highs and lows


Dow: Closed at 17,897.46

Resistance:
17,978 is the November 2015 peak
18,100 to 18,181: interim peaks in the December 2014 to July 2015 range
18,288 from March 2015
18,351 is the all-time high from May 2015

Support:
The March low at 17,786
June 2015 low at 17,715
17,748 is the mid-April China margin selloff and the bottom of the 5 month trading range
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
The 50 day EMA at 17,282
17,265 is a December 2015 closing low
17,245 is the November 2015 closing low
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
The 200 day SMA at 17,114
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,933 is the September 2015 recovery intraday peak
16,740 is the mid-September peak and potential apex for a right shoulder to a head and shoulders pattern
16,736 is a prior all-time high from May 2014
16,670 is the December 2014 peak and the recent August 2015 relief bounce peak.
16,665 is the late August 2015 closing high
16,632 is the April 2014 peak
16,621 is the late February 2016 peak
16,589 is the December 2013 former all-time high
16,526 is the early January resistance
16,511 is the January 2016 intraday high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,466 is the January 2016 recovery closing peak.
16,368 is the August 2014 low
16,117 is the October 2014 closing low
16,058 is the early September 2015 low
16,026 is the April 2014 low
15,855 is the October 2014 intraday low
15,766 is the January closing low
15,666 is the August 2015 closing low
15,450 is the January 2016 intraday low
15,372 is the February 2014 low
15,370 is the August 2015 low


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

April 15 - Friday
Empire Manufacturing, April (8:30): 9.6 actual versus 2.3 expected, 0.6 prior
Industrial Productio, March (9:15): -0.6% actual versus 0.0% expected, -0.6% prior (revised from -0.5%)
Capacity Utilization, March (9:15): 74.8% actual versus 75.5% expected, 75.3% prior (revised from 75.4%)
Michigan Sentiment - Preliminary, April (10:00): 89.7 actual versus 92.0 expected, 91.0 prior
Net Long-Term TIC Fl, February (16:00): $72.0B actual versus -$11.9B prior (revised from -$12.0B)

April 18 - Monday
NAHB Housing Market , April (10:00): 59 expected, 58 prior

April 19 - Tuesday
Building Permits, March (8:30): 1200K expected, 1167K prior
Housing Starts, March (8:30): 1170K expected, 1178K prior

April 20 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 04/16 (7:00)
Existing Home Sales, March (10:00): 5.30M expected, 5.08M prior
Crude Inventories, 04/16 (10:30): 6.634M prior

April 21 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 04/16 (8:30): 263K expected, 253K prior
Continuing Claims, 04/09 (8:30): 2171K prior
Philadelphia Fed, April (8:30): 9.9 expected, 12.4 prior
FHFA Housing Price I, February (9:00): 0.5% prior
Leading Indicators, March (10:00): 0.4% expected, 0.1% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 04/16 (10:30): -3 bcf prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:14 pm IBM beats by $0.26, beats on revs; reaffirms FY16 EPS guidance (IBM) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $2.35 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.26 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.09; revenues fell 4.6% year/year (-2% ex-FX) to $18.68 bln vs the $18.29 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Cognitive Solutions (includes solutions software and transaction processing software) -- revenues of $4.0 billion, down 1.7%, up 0.4% adjusting for currency.
Global Business Services (includes consulting, global process services, application management) -- revenues of $4.1 billion, down 4.3%, down 2.3% adjusting for currency.
Technology Services and Cloud Platforms (includes infrastructure services, technical support services, integration software) -- revenues of $8.4 billion, down 1.5%, up 1.9% adjusting for currency.
Systems (includes systems hardware and operating systems software) -- revenues of $1.7 billion, down 21.8%, down 20.6% adjusting for currency.
Q1 revs from the company's strategic imperatives --- cloud, analytics and engagement --- increased 14% year to year (up 17% adjusting for currency).Total cloud revenues (public, private and hybrid) for the quarter increased 34% (up 36% adjusting for currency). Cloud revenue over the trailing 12 months was $10.8 billion. The annual exit run rate for cloud delivered as a service -- a subset of the total cloud revenue -- increased to $5.4 billion from $3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2015. Revenues from analytics increased 7% (up 9% adjusting for currency). Revenues from mobile increased 88% (up 93% adjusting for currency) and from security increased 18% (up 20% adjusting for currency).
Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS of at least $13.50, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $13.54 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. IBM had previously expected a free cash flow realization of GAAP net income which implied a full-year free cash flow range of $11 billion to $12 billion. The company now expects free cash flow to be at the high end of that range at the same base level of operating (non-GAAP) EPS.
"In the first quarter, we invested $3.6 billion in acquisitions and capital expenditures, and returned $2.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and gross share repurchases."

4:09 pm Rambus beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs below consensus (RMBS) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.12; revenues fell 0.3% year/year to $72.7 mln vs the $73.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus, down 5% from the fourth quarter of 2015 primarily due to lower patent and technology royalty revenue from various customers. As compared to the first quarter of 2015, revenue was down slightly primarily due to lower patent royalty revenue, offset by higher revenue from security technology development projects, including revenue from the acquisition of SCS.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $72-77 mln vs. $78.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Achieving revenue in this range will require that the Company sign new customer agreements for mobile payments software and solutions licensing among other matters.

4:04 pm Applied Optoelectronics issues downside guidance for 1Q16 (AAOI) :

Co issues downside guidance, sees revenue of $50-$50.5 mln vs. the $52.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus, and compared to prior guidance of $50-$54 mln. Sees a loss per share of ($0.06)-($0.04) vs Capital IQ Consensus of $0.23. This is below the previous non-GAAP net income guidance range of $3.8-$5.0 mln, and non-GAAP fully diluted earnings per share guidance range of $0.21 to $0.28, which was based on approximately 17.8 mln shares.

Co states: "We expect first quarter revenue to be within our guided range, representing at least 65% year-over-year growth, however our bottom line results were impacted by higher than expected cost of goods sold and research and development costs. These additional costs were incurred due to lower than anticipated yields on certain longer-reach 40G light engines and redesign activities associated with manufacturing cost reduction efforts."

4:20 pm Netflix beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus (NFLX) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.06 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.03; revenues rose 24.5% year/year to $1.96 bln vs the $1.97 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.02, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.05 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
See 16:10 for Key Metrics

Key Excerpts from Shareholders Letter

US revenue rose 18% y/y, reflecting 14% growth in average paid memberships and a 3% increase in ARPU.
Our Q1 international contribution loss of $104 million came in better than forecast due to the timing of content spend.
Our established markets around the world are all growing, and in early Q1 we added 130 more countries. By expanding broadly at once, we are learning more quickly about how best to please consumers across a wide variety of cultures and markets. In most of these markets, so far, Netflix is offered only in English and payment methods are limited primarily to international credit cards. In the coming quarters, we will add more local languages, content, payment options and customer support.
In the US, our Q2 net adds forecast of 0.5 million is inline with prior years (0.5, 0.6, 0.6, and 0.9 million from 20122015), taking into account a modest impact from the beginning of ungrandfathering
We expect Q2 international contribution loss to improve sequentially primarily due to recent favorable currency movements. We anticipate that international contribution losses in the second half of 2016 will be similar to the first half, as ongoing investments offset improved profitability in our more mature markets.
The increase in ARPU will allow us to invest more in content next year, and we are taking up our expected spend from about $5B in 2016 to over $6B on a P&L basis in 2017 (more on a cash basis).
We are now turning our attention to mobile specific encodes, with a desire to deliver better video at lower bandwidth to these devices, which are increasingly important in our newest markets.
We currently have $2.4 billion of long term debt. With our low debt to enterprise value of 5%, our plan is to raise additional capital through the high yield market later in 2016 or in early 2017.

The broader market closed the session near highs of the day. Action was led to these highs by the S&P 500, which added 13.61 points (+0.65%) today to close 2094.34. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 106.70 points (+0.60%) when the session ended to 18004.16. The Nasdaq Composite posted the shallowest of gains today, ultimately ending up 21.80 points (+0.44%) to 4960.02.

The session began on a lower note as the major averages took a leg lower this morning following lackluster results from this weekend's oil producers meeting in Doha, Qatar. The meeting concluded without a supply cap resolution as Saudi Arabia refused to cap it output unless Iran agreed to the same terms. The three major US indices were able to stage an early reversal off the Doha weakness, however, as oil bounced off early lows, driving select sectors up. Economic data today came in the form of the NAHB Housing Market Index for April which marked 58 from an unrevised 58 in March.

Technology (XLK 44.53, +0.19 +0.43%) trading was much like the broader market -- a weak open did not last long, and the sector went red-to-green, only to end near highs of the day. Component Cvent (CVT 35.23, +13.93 +65.40%) saw some nice upside today following a deal which was announced this morning which took the company private for $36 per share, or $1.65 billion. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLE +1.65%, XLY +0.94%, XLV +0.93%, XLF +0.74%, IYZ +0.58%, XLP +0.58%, XLB +0.46%, XLU +0.39%, XLI +0.09% as all ended above flat lines.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (740.67, +2.89 +0.39%) sector, action closed Monday just off session highs. Component Qorvo (QRVO 47.16, -0.58 -1.21%) bucked the broader sector trend today following news of an acquisition by the company if privately-held GreenPack Technologies; financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the deal is expected to close in the current quarter. Other names in the space which closed the day higher included PYPL +2.75%, TSS +2.03%, MU +1.87%, V +1.71%, AKAM +1.61%, FIS +1.48%, ADBE +1.46%, MSFT +1.46%, FFIV +1.35%, WDC +1.33%, FSLR +1.29%, CRM +1.26%, ADSK +1.21%.
Other notable news items among sector components:

Open Text (OTEX 54.60, +0.58 +1.07%) to acquire certain customer experience software and services assets from HP (HPQ 12.67, +0.15 +1.20%) for $170 million. The Customer Experience software business being acquired is expected to generate between $85m and $95m of annualized revenues, be immediately accretive and be on the OpenText operating model within the first 12 months after closing. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 and is subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.

Belden's (BDC 63.81, +0.31 +0.49%) Grass Valley entered into a MOU with Cisco (CSCO 28.19, +0.29 +1.04%) to develop IP workflow solutions for broadcast that will improve customers' business agility.

Qualcomm (QCOM 51.55, +0.49 +0.96%) signed a new 3G and 4G Chinese patent license agreement with Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific Co., Ltd., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Coolpad Group Limited. Under the terms of the agreement, Qualcomm has granted Yulong a royalty-bearing patent license to develop, manufacture and sell 3G WCDMA and CDMA2000 and 4G LTE terminals for use in China.

Teradata (TDC 24.79, +0.10 +0.41%) announced the creation of its Global IoT Analytics unit within Teradata Labs, based in the United States, UK and India, and focused on developing innovations to derive the greatest value from the Analytics of Things (AoT).

Qorvo (QRVO) to acquire privately-held GreenPeak Technologies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the deal is expected to close in the current quarter.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Cvent (CVT) to be acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $1.65 billion or $36 per share in cash.

GoDaddy's (GDDY 30.70, +0.05 +0.16%) CTO Elissa Murphy announced her resignation effective May 17.

SuperCom (SPCB 4.41, +0.09 +2.08%) acquired PowaPOS. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

GigPeak (GIG 3.01, +0.08 +2.73%) filed for about 6.9 million common share offering by selling shareholders.

Newtech (NEWT 12.29, -0.09 -0.73%) upsized and priced $35 million aggregate principal amount (previously $25 million) of 7.00% Notes due 2021.

Names reporting quarterly results this week:

ADS, AFOP, AMD, AMTD, ANGI, APH, ARMH, ASML, BHE, CAMP, CHKP, CLGX, CLS, CTXS, DLB, DST, EFII, EMC, ERIC, ETFC, FCS, FFIV, FICO, GIG, GOOG, IBM, IMS, INTC, IQNT, LLTC, LRCX, MANH, MLNX, MRVL, MSFT, MTSN, MXIM, NFLX, NOW, PFPT, PLCM, PLXS, PTC, QCOM, RMBS, SILC, SPSC, SYNT, TEL, TZOO, UCTT, UIS, UTEK, V, VMW, VZ, YGE, YHOO

Analyst actions:

UCTT was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham, WDDYF was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse; AEIS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham, ARMH was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies, SYNT was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird, NTAP was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Sterne Agee CRT; IMMR was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street; QRVO, AVGO, SWKS were initiated at Cowen


4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Monday affair on a higher note as the major averages recovered from some early oil-fueled selling. Today's move higher was buttressed by the outperformance of the heavily-weighted health care (+0.9%), consumer discretionary (+0.9%), and financial (+0.7%) sectors. The S&P 500 (+0.7%) ended its day ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%).

Today's session began on a lower note as investors ruminated over the inability of OPEC and non-OPEC members to come together and agree on a supply cap. Accordingly, oil slid overnight as crude for May delivery dropped to $37.61 while June delivery fell to $39.00. However, oil prices rebounded off these levels as news of an oil and gas worker strike in Kuwait boosted the energy component. To be fair though, it's likely that today's trade also featured a fair amount of short-covering. May delivery crude ended at $39.78/bbl (-1.2%) while the June contract finished at $41.17/bbl (-1.4%).

The energy sector (+1.6%) trimmed an opening 1.6% decline and passed heavily-weighted health care (+0.9%), consumer discretionary (+0.9%), and financials (+0.7%) on the leaderboard. As a result, the major averages spent the bulk of the afternoon trading near or establishing new intraday highs. On that note, the Dow Jones climbed above the 18,000 level for the first time in 2016.

In commodity-sensitive energy (+1.6%), ConocoPhillips (COP 45.00, +1.30) and Marathon Oil (MRO 13.36, +0.35) helped lead among independent oil and gas names. Meanwhile, Williams Companies (WMB 16.68, -0.87) declined 5.0% as concerns over the ability to close its merger with Energy Transfer Equity (ETE 9.87, +0.90) mounted. Elsewhere, refining names underperformed the broader sector.

The biotechnology sub-group outperformed in the health care space (+0.9%). Biotechnology moved higher with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN 422.38, +15.65) as the stock extended its April gain to 17.2%, compared to a gain of 4.2% in the broader sector. Meanwhile, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 284.97, +4.36) has gained 9.3% over that period of time. Separately, Dow components UnitedHealth (UNH 127.81, +0.48) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 110.93, +0.75) gained a respective 0.4% and 0.7% ahead of their earnings releases before tomorrow's open.

In the consumer discretionary space (+0.9%), auto names displayed relative strength as Ford (F 13.25, +0.31) and General Motor (GM 31.31, +0.75) benefited from some positive commentary from Barron's. Meanwhile, Disney (DIS 101.48, +2.89) climbed 2.9% after receiving an upgrade to "Buy" from "Hold" at Pivotal Research Group. On the flipside, Netflix (NFLX 108.40, -3.11) surrendered 2.8% ahead of this evening's earnings report.

Conversely, utilities (+0.3%), industrials (+0.3%), technology (+0.4%), and materials (+0.5%) rounded out the board. The technology sector (+0.2%) ended its day with a slim uptick as Dow component Apple (AAPL 107.48, -2.37) weighed. The tech giant was the worst performer in the price-weighted index. Elsewhere, IBM (IBM 152.53, +0.81) gained 0.5% ahead of its first quarter earnings release.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.49, -0.20) ended above its session lows as the euro gained 0.2% against the greenback (1.1311). Meanwhile, the dollar/yen pair finished flat at 108.78.

The Treasury complex finished off its low as the yield on the 10-yr note climbed two basis points to 1.77%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 830 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for April:

The NAHB Housing Market Index for April came in at 58 from an unrevised 58 in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at 59.0.

Tomorrow's economic data will include March Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1200k) and Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1170k), which will both cross the wires at 8:30 ET.

Dow Jones +3.3% YTD
S&P 500 +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.0% YTD



DJ30 +106.70 NASDAQ +21.80 SP500 +13.61 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1880/1.510 bln/949 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2221/829.9 mln/810

3:30 pm :

The dollar index bounces off its intra-day lows around 94.40 and is currently trending higher around the 94.49 level but not appearing to weigh on commodities
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.4% at 80.68
Crude oil initially opens notably lower before staging a morning rally before reversing from its intra-day high around $41.60/barrel to close still lower for the day
June Crude Oil futures fell $0.58 (-1.4%) to $41.17/barrel
The Doha, Qatar meeting caused increased volatility in the crude oil futures markets, crude was initially down -6% before recovering most of those losses
Major oil producers at The Doha, Qatar meeting failed to come to an agreement to freeze oil output at Jan levels
A big catalyst in the meeting was the political tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran
Previously, Saudi Arabia said it would cut production without Iran's involvement, now Saudi Arabia said it would be willing to freeze output only if all OPEC members did as well
Iran decided not to show up to Sunday's meeting at the last minute. What Iran is saying is that it will continue to increase oil production after economic sanctions were lifted earlier in the year and continue to do so until the country has a similar level of pre-sanction market share
Mohammed Saleh al Sada, Qatar's oil minister, said that the group needs more time, so, we will have to see what may come of this
The next OPEC meeting will be held this June
In addition, Kuwaiti oil and gas workers went on strike, which has slashed oil production by almost 2/3, as workers are protesting proposed wage cuts
Output was cut, at least temporarily, to 1.1 mln barrels/day from a more normal 3 mln barrels/day
Crude oil futures have switched their front month to June, as indicated by the active amount of volume in the contracts
Natural gas spikes and consolidates higher in afternoon pit trading
May Natural Gas closed $0.04 higher (+2.1%) at $1.94/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold sees a brief rally above the previous session's close before consolidating lower, closing pit trading nearly unchanged
June gold ended today's session up $0.60 (+0.1%) to $1235.10/oz
Silver continues its downtrend in afternoon pit trading
May silver closed today's session $0.06 lower (-0.4%) at $16.26/oz
Base metal copper inches up in afternoon pit trading
May copper closed $0.01 higher (+0.5%) at $2.16/lb

9:05 am Rubicon Tech confirms that Paragon Technologies submitted notice to nominate two candidates for its Boards (RBCN) :

Co confirmed that Paragon Technologies which owns 30,000 (~0.1%) of the outstanding shares of Rubicon, has submitted notice to nominate two candidates, Hesham Gad and Jack Jacobs, to stand for election to the Rubicon Board of Directors at the Company's 2016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
The Nominating and Governance Committee previously interviewed and thoroughly vetted Paragon's proposed director candidates and indicated willingness to appoint Jacobs to the Rubicon Board to avoid a costly proxy contest.

Unfortunately, Paragon rejected the offer and instead demanded the appointment of both of its nominees.

7:31 am Qualcomm signs new 3G & 4G Chinese patent license agreement with Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific Co (QCOM) :

Co announces that it has signed a new 3G and 4G Chinese patent license agreement with Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Coolpad Group Limited.
Under the terms of the agreement, Qualcomm has granted Yulong a royalty-bearing patent license to develop, manufacture and sell 3G WCDMA and CDMA2000 and 4G LTE terminals for use in China. The royalties payable by Yulong are consistent with the terms of the rectification plan submitted by Qualcomm to China's National Development and Reform Commission.

Qorvo (QRVO) announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held GreenPeak Technologies, a leader in ultra-low power, short range RF communication technology. Terms were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in the current quarter.

[ReturntoSender]

Latest Updates
Weekly Recap - Week ending 22-Apr-16The past week saw the S&P 500 notch a fresh high for the year before registering its second consecutive weekly gain. The benchmark index added 0.5% for the week while the Nasdaq underperformed, shedding 0.7%.

From Briefing.com: Investors did not receive any market-moving data during the past week, which kept the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast for the first quarter unchanged at 0.3%. The advance estimate of first-quarter GDP will be reported on Thursday at 8:30 ET, a day after the Federal Open Market Committee announces its latest policy decision.

The Fed meeting will be the highlight of next week, but the fed funds futures market remains convinced that there is just a 1.0% chance of a rate hike being announced on Wednesday.

Investors received the first heavy batch of first-quarter earnings during the past week and the results have been mixed relative to lowered expectations. Disappointing results from Alphabet (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) kept the Nasdaq behind the S&P 500 while economically-sensitive rail carriers like Union Pacific (UNP) and Norfolk Southern (NSC) topped market expectations, masking year-over-year declines in revenue.

The advance in stocks was accompanied by some selling in the Treasury market that sent the benchmark 10-yr yield to 1.88% from the previous week's settlement at 1.75%.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17897.46 18003.95 106.49 0.6 3.3
Nasdaq 4938.22 4906.23 -31.99 -0.6 -2.0
S&P 500 2080.73 2091.63 10.90 0.5 2.3
Russell 2000 1130.92 1143.10 12.18 1.1 0.6

Trading ended the week with a tepid Friday session split. Action was mostly sideways, save for the first hour and a half of the day which took us into negative territory. The remainder of the day, the three major US indices climbed out of lows eventually ending mixed. Leading the modest advance, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 21.23 points (+0.12%) to 18003.75. The S&P 500 ended little changed, higher less than a point (+0.00%) to 2091.58. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite on the other hand, was a notable underperformer as the index spent most of the day well under action in the other two indices, ultimately ending down 39.66 points (-0.80%) to 4906.23. This week's action takes the three major US indices -0.3%, -0.4% and -0.7% respectively.

Action in the Technology (XLK 43.49, -0.72 -1.63%) sector capped off the week with a negative session. Component Alphabet (GOOG 718.77, -40.37 -5.32%) was an underperformer today following the company's worse than expected Q1 results - specifically, GOOG reported EPS of $7.50 on revenues which rose 17.4% versus last year to $20.26 billion. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended Friday IYZ +1.48%, XLE +1.45%, XLF +0.94%, XLU +0.89%, XLB +0.70%, XLP +0.37%, XLI +0.25%, XLV +0.21%, XLY -0.20% with Telecoms and Energy leading the advance and Tech posting the worst losses.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (722.71, -14.00 -1.90%) sector, Friday trading was notably to the downside. Component Microsoft (MSFT 51.78, -4.00 -7.17%) was the worst performing name in the space following the company's worse than expected Q3 EPS and in-line revenues; additionally, the company guided Q4 revenues worse than expected. Other names in the space which felt the Friday pressure included RHT -1.68%, ADBE -1.64%, CTXS -1.34%, EBAY -1.17%, CA -1.08%, INTC -1.03%, ADSK -0.88%, CRM -0.87%, ORCL -0.71%, AVGO -0.67%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Visa (V 79.11, -1.68 -2.08%) reached a preliminary agreement to amend transaction with Visa Europe, cash consideration payable in transaction increased by 1.75 billion.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 17.49, +0.02 +0.14%) was awarded about $443 million contract from the US Air Force.

Accenture (ACN 113.95, -0.53 -0.46%) filed about a 28.4 million common stock offering on behalf of selling shareholders.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Advanced Micro (AMD 3.99, +1.37 +52.29%) announced a JV with THATIC to develop SoCs tailored to the Chinese server market that will complement AMD's own offerings. The $293 million licensing agreement is a meaningful step in AMD's IP monetization strategy intended to accelerate AMD's growth and better monetize its valuable assets. Payments are contingent upon the JV achieving certain milestones. AMD also expects to receive royalty payments from the JV's future product sales.

NIDEC (NJ 17.76, +0.03 +0.17%) to acquire about 94.8% of the shares of ANA IMEP S.A. from its major shareholder. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Orange (ORAN 16.88, -0.12 -0.74%) to acquire a 65% stake in Groupama Banque. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Baidu.com (BIDU 190.76, -1.98 -1.03%) formed a self-driving car team in Silicon Valley focused on research, development and testing.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Microsoft (MSFT) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS of $0.62 on in-line revenues which rose 1.6% versus last year to $22.08 billion. Additionally, MSFT guided Q4 revenues worse than expectations on the conference call -- By segment, MSFT sees Productivity and Business Processes revenues of $6.5-6.7 billion, Intelligent Cloud segment revenues of $6.5-6.7 billion, Personal Computing revenues of $8.7-9.0 billion. The total of these suggests total Q4 revenues of $21.7-22.4 billion -- the company also expect FX to negatively impact YoY growth in Q4 by 3 points.

Alphabet (GOOG) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of $7.50 on in-line revenues which rose 17.4% versus last year to $20.26 billion. Additionally, GOOG announced aggregate paid clicks for Q1 were up 29% with paid clicks on Google websites up 38% in Q1.

Visa (V) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.68 on in-line revenues which were up 6.4% versus last year to $3.63 billion. The company also lowered guidance for net revenue growth to 7-8% (prior guidance was for growth in the high single-digit to low double-digit range on a constant dollar basis). Additionally, V lowered EPS growth guidance to low double-digits on a constant dollar basis, with an expectation of about 4 percentage points of negative foreign currency impact (prior guidance for EPS growth was in low-end of the mid-teens range on a constant dollar basis, with an expectation of about 4 percentage points of negative foreign currency impact).

Maxim Integrated (MXIM 37.31, +0.79 +2.16%) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS of $0.41 on in-line revenues which fell 3.8% versus last year to $555 million. MXIM also guided Q4 EPS and revenues in-line at $0.45-0.51 and $555-595 million, respectively.

Advanced Micro (AMD) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues - loss per share of $0.12 and revenues which fell 19.2% versus last year to $832 million. AMD also guided Q2 revenues better than expected at growth of 12-18% sequentially to about $932-982 million.

Proofpoint (PFPT 56.78, +3.09 +5.76%) reported a better than expected Q1 loss per share of $0.09 on revenues which also came in ahead of expectations and rose 36.8% versus last year to $79 million. PFPT also guided Q2 EPS in-line at ($0.08)-($0.07) and revenues ahead of expectations at $83.5-84.5 million. Additionally, PFPT guided FY16 EPS and revenues ahead of expectations at ($0.15)-($0.13) and $350.5-353.5 million, respectively.

Analyst actions:

AMD was upgraded to Buy at MKM Partners and Craig Hallum and to Neutral at Exane BNP Paribas,
CHU was upgraded to Buy from Reduce at Nomura,
CHT was upgraded to Hold from Reduce at HSBC Securities;
UTEK was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson

4:48 pm SunEdison (:SUNEQ): U.S. Bankruptcy Court approves first day motions (SUNE) :

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has granted the relief requested by the Company in key first day motions related to ordinary course business activities. This includes the continuation of employee wages and benefits, work on ongoing projects, and certain vendor payments. Some of these motions were granted on an interim basis and the Bankruptcy Court has scheduled a final hearing for May 10, 2016.

The Court also granted interim approval for the Company to access up to $300 million in debtor-in-possession (:DIP) financing from a consortium of first and second lien lenders in support of continuing business operations.

4:11 pm Closing Market Summary: Indices Mixed as Tech Slumps to End Week (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended a mixed week on a wobbly note as disappointing earnings results from the likes of Alphabet (GOOG 718.77, -40.37) and Microsoft (MSFT 51.78, -4.00) weighed on the technology (-1.9%) sector. The major averages ended off their lows as crude oil extended its recent rally and the heavyweight financial sector (+1.0%) outperformed. The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.8%, ending the week lower by 0.7% while the S&P 500 (UNCHF) locked in a weekly gain of 0.5%.

Equity indices spent the bulk of their trading day in negative territory, pressured by heavily-weighted technology (-1.9%) and consumer discretionary (-0.3%). The two sectors traded behind the market for the entire session and helped waylay a larger rebound attempt. For its part, crude oil added support to the broader market as the energy component finished the day higher by 1.4% ($43.77/bbl).

The major averages would carve out new session lows in the late morning, spurred on by growing losses in the heavyweight health care space (+0.2%). However, the broader market would stage a recovery in the afternoon, as eight sectors extended their gains. By the end of the session, energy (+1.3%), financials (+1.0%), utilities (+0.9%), and telecom services (+0.8%) topped the leaderboard. Meanwhile, technology (-1.9%) and consumer discretionary (-0.3%) finished with the only losses.

In the technology space (-1.9%), Alphabet (GOOG 718.77, -40.37) fell 5.3% after it disappointed investors with a bottom-line miss in the first quarter. Particularly, participants focused on rising investments in its mobile search platform and increasing traffic acquisition costs. Meanwhile, Microsoft (MSFT 51.78, -4.00) fell 7.2% as slowing consumer PC sales and weaker than expected fourth-quarter revenue guidance preyed on investor confidence. The broader sector trimmed its 2016 gain to 0.2%.

The consumer discretionary space (-0.3%) also suffered from some unsatisfactory quarterly results as large cap Starbucks (SBUX 57.68, -2.96) fell 4.9% after missing comparable store sales growth forecasts. The coffee chain did report in-line results for the first quarter though. Elsewhere, Dow component McDonald's (MCD 125.50, -0.29) ended its session lower despite reporting top-and-bottom-line results that came in above analysts' estimates. The company saw global comparable sales rise 6.2%, which was also above estimates.

In the energy space (+1.3%), independent oil and gas companies outperformed as crude oil extended its weekly gain to 8.3%. On the flipside, oilfield service name Schlumberger (SLB 79.93, -0.34) underperformed the sector as participants weighed falling global activity against largely in-line results. Schlumberger noted that total North American revenue fell 25.0%, while its U.S. land rig count declined by 31.0%.

The financial sector (+1.0%) extended its weekly gain to 2.8% as better than expected results from E*TRADE (ETFC 26.14, +0.80) and SunTrust Banks (STI 41.96, +2.09) capped off a strong week.

On the currency front, the U.S. Dollar Index (95.11, +0.51) ended its day broadly higher as the yen and euro weakened against the greenback. The dollar/yen pair jumped 2.0% (111.63) after comments from Japanese officials alluded to the possibility that the Bank of Japan may apply negative interest rates to bank loans. For its part, the euro/dollar pair fell 0.6% to 1.1226.

Treasuries ended the day lower with the yield on the 10-yr note rising two basis points to 1.88%. This represents a 13-basis point gain from last Friday's settlement at 1.75%.

Today's trading volume was strong with more than one billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Monday's economic data will be limited to March New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 521k), which will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Dow Jones +3.3% YTDS&P 500 +2.3% YTDRussell 2000 +0.8% YTDNasdaq Composite -2.0% YTDWeek in Review: S&P 500 Continues Higher While Nasdaq Lags

The past week saw the S&P 500 notch a fresh high for theyear before registering its second consecutive weekly gain. The benchmark indexadded 0.5% for the week while the Nasdaq underperformed, shedding 0.7%.

Investors did not receive any market-moving data during thepast week, which kept the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast for the first quarter unchangedat 0.3%. The advance estimate of first-quarter GDP will be reported on Thursdayat 8:30 ET, a day after the Federal Open Market Committee announces its latestpolicy decision.

The Fed meeting will be the highlight of next week, but thefed funds futures market remains convinced that there is just a 1.0% chance ofa rate hike being announced on Wednesday.

Investors received the first heavy batch of first-quarter earningsduring the past week and the results have been mixed relative to loweredexpectations. Disappointing results from Alphabet (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) kept theNasdaq behind the S&P 500 while economically-sensitive rail carriers like Union Pacific (UNP) and Norfolk Southern (NSC) topped marketexpectations, masking year-over-year declines in revenue.

The advance in stocks was accompanied by some selling in theTreasury market that sent the benchmark 10-yr yield to 1.88% from the previousweek's settlement at 1.75%.

4:01 pm Rubicon Tech shareholder Paragon Technologies initiates a proxy contest to elect two directors to Board (RBCN) :

Paragon's director candidates would replace Don N. Aquilano and Donald R. Caldwell, the two directors up for election on Rubicon's five-member staggered board. Paragon states, "In our meetings with members of the board, we did not hear answers to these questions. We were shocked to encounter a complacent attitude, hope instead of plans for a better future, and an acknowledgement that the company's current path is a "Hail Mary" pass. We repeatedly heard the directors passively express the hope that the stock will not "go to zero."

3:38 pm Ultratech comments on notice received from an affiliate of Neuberger Berman (UTEK) :

Ultratech issued a statement in response to a notice received from an affiliate of Neuberger Berman that it intends to nominate two nominees for election to Ultratech's Board of Directors at the Company's 2016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The statement is as follows:

'The Board and management of Ultratech are committed to strong corporate governance and maintaining an open dialogue with our stockholders and welcome constructive input. We are disappointed by Neuberger's nominations, especially in light of our willingness to work cooperatively with them. The Company has engaged in numerous discussions with Neuberger over the past several months in order to understand Neuberger's views and recommendations. Based on input from Neuberger, we have taken action on succession planning and are in the process of refreshing the Board based upon a plan approved by the Board.''Our Board's Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee has met with and thoroughly vetted Neuberger's proposed candidates. However, neither candidate had the applicable business and industry expertise that would be relevant to a semiconductor capital equipment company. The Committee is currently looking to add a Director who has more relevant semiconductor capital equipment and related industries experience and/or operational experience with the Company's key customers. Based on referrals from other stockholders, the Company is currently in the final stages of selecting a Director candidate who meets these criteria.''The Ultratech Board and management team remain focused on enhancing shareholder value. The Company is very pleased with the first quarter 2016 financial results that were reported yesterday, and the guidance given for the second quarter of 2016. Following the earnings report issued yesterday morning, Ultratech's stock price reached an intra-day 52 week high of $22.97, and through the year to date is up by 11.91%, as compared to the SOXX index which is up by 0.63% and the Russell 2000 index which is down by 0.01%.

'1:46 pm Benchmark Electronics updated investor presentation Highlighting the merits of its strategy and proven track record (ongoing proxy battle) (BHE) :

Benchmark's presentation highlights the strategic actions the Company's Board of Directors and management have taken to enhance shareholder value. These actions include a continued shift of Benchmark's portfolio towards higher value, higher margin markets, to deliver sustainable growth and higher profit margins which in turn generate higher returns on capital for its shareholders. Furthermore, the presentation addresses Engaged Capital's misleading calculations regarding the value creation potential of its "plan". Not only does Engaged Capital continue to promote its flawed working capital analysis as the cornerstone of its "plan," but it demonstrates a troubling lack of understanding of basic corporate finance principles and takes credit for potential benefits from the company's existing operational plan and working capital initiatives.

12:38 pm Intel drops back to new session low near this week's trough and its 200 day sma at 31.25/31.22 -- session low 31.25 (INTC) : The SMH opened on a firmer note but has been working steadily lower off the first hour highs with INTC weighing on the action. The 50 day sma comes into play below at 31.06.

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From Briefing.com: 4:34 pm MKS Instruments beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; NEWP deal expected to close on Friday (MKSI) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.33; revenues fell 14.1% year/year to $183.68 mln vs the $177.19 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.41-0.54, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.51 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $185-205 mln vs. $199.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."We are pleased with our first quarter performance, which was marked by stronger than anticipated revenue from our semiconductor customers. These results were driven by improving industry fundamentals and MKS' strong position in 3D NAND. Moreover, we continue to make progress in broadening our technology and product portfolio and expanding our served available markets. Our pending acquisition of Newport Corporation (NEWP) has passed all necessary regulatory reviews, we successfully secured financing for the acquisition, and subject to approval by the Newport stockholders, we anticipate closing the transaction this Friday."

4:12 pm Cadence Design CFO Geoff Ribar to retire, effective March 31 (CDNS) : The co has initiated a search to identify its next CFO.

4:09 pm Sanmina beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SANM) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.63 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.56; revenues increased 1% year/year to $1.61 bln vs the $1.59 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Non-GAAP Operating Margin 4.10% compared to 4.00% in Q4. Repurchased 4.0 million common shares for $74.7 million Inventory turns were 6.5x Cash cycle days were 44.6 days Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.61-0.65 vs. $0.61 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.625-1.675 bln vs. $1.64 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Cadence Design beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY16 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CDNS) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.27; revenues rose 8.9% year/year to $447.86 mln vs the $444.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.27-0.29 vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $445-455 mln vs. $447.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.15-1.25 vs. $1.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $1.79-1.84 bln vs. $1.82 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

CLOSING 4:10 pm : The stock market ended a quiet session on a lower note as investors maintained a risk-off posture ahead of a busy week. Today's decline can be attributed to a downturn in crude oil, presumed profit-taking, and the underperformance of the heavily weighted industrial sector (-0.6%). The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) finished in-line with the S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%).

The equity market opened under selling pressure as investors set their sights on this week's Fed meeting. The FOMC will begin its two-day policy meeting tomorrow, and is largely expected to leave interest rates unchanged. However, participants will be looking for clues regarding the central bank's assessment of the economy and any possible changes to the Fed's path towards interest rate normalization. As a result, today's session saw limited interest in risk assets as investors looked to lock in gains after the broader market's recent run.

The key indices hit their lows in the late morning and briefly bounced off those levels through the early morning. The averages would trim their losses further in the final hour of trade. By the end of the session, six sectors remained in negative territory while countercyclical consumer staples (+0.7%) and telecom services (+0.3%) ended with the largest gains.

The commodity-sensitive energy (-1.1%) and materials (-0.6%) spaces rounded out the leaderboard while industrials (-0.6%), health care (-0.4%), and financials (-0.3%) followed.

The energy space (-1.1%) experienced broad-based weakness as the broader sector pulled back along with crude oil. On that note, WTI crude ended its day lower by 2.4% at $42.72/bbl. Meanwhile, Halliburton (HAL 40.04, -0.80) declined 2.0% after announcing its first-quarter revenue ahead of schedule and postponing its conference call until May 3. The company cited an April 30 deadline for its proposed merger with Baker Hughes (BHI 45.04, -1.39) as reason for its delayed call.

In the industrial space (-0.6%) transport names displayed relative weakness, evidenced by the 1.2% decline in the Dow Jones Transportation Average. American Airlines (AAL 37.00, -1.21) underperformed among major airlines as investors continued to focus on below-consensus second quarter unit revenue figures and competition among value airlines. Separately, Union Pacific (UNP 87.61, -2.02) declined by 2.3% as the name pulled back from its recent post-earnings gain. The stock has gained 4.5% since reporting on April 21.

Generic drug names displayed relative weakness in the health care space (-0.4%). The sub-group traded lower in sympathy with Perrigo (PRGO 99.40, -21.95), which lowered its first quarter and full-year earnings estimates below consensus. Furthermore, Perrigo also moved lower after reports indicated that CEO Joseph Papa was departing the company to head up Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 35.16, -0.82).

In the consumer discretionary space (+0.2%), media names outperformed after the Justice Department and the FCC approved Charter Communication's (CHTR 207.01, +9.10) proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC 209.63, +8.18).

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.83, -0.29) ended off its session low as the yen and the euro gained against the greenback. The dollar/yen pair finished at 111.22 (-0.5%) while the euro gained 0.3% against the dollar (1.1261).

The Treasury complex finished its day moderately lower as the yield on the 10-yr note rose to 1.90% (+1 bps).

Today's participation fell in-line with the recent average as more than 861 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to March New Home Sales:

New home sales in March ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 511,000 (Briefing.com consensus 521,000).
That was down 1.5% from February, which saw an upward revision to 519,000 from a previously reported 512,000
Taking into account the February revision, the March result was pretty much in-line with economists' expectations, so the headline disappointment isn't as big as it might appear at first blush.
Moreover, new home sales in March were up 5.4% versus the same period a year ago.
The latter point notwithstanding, sales activity moderated in March, evidenced by a sales pace that was below the prior 3-month average of 526,000.
Interestingly, the moderation in sales occurred with a 1.8% year-over-year decline in the median sales price to $288,000.
At the current sales pace, the inventory of unsold new homes stands at a 5.8 months' supply, which is closing in on the 6.0-months' supply that is typically associated with normal periods of buying and selling.
In March 2015, there was a 5.1 months' supply of unsold homes.

Tomorrow's economic data will include Durable Goods Orders for March (Briefing consensus +1.7%) and February Case-Schiller 20-city Index (Briefing.com consensus +5.6%), which will be released at 8:30 ET and 9:00 ET, respectively. Finally, April Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 96.7) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Dow Jones +3.2% YTD
S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.2% YTD

DJ30 -26.64 NASDAQ -10.44 SP500 -3.79 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1044/1.446 bln/1783 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 996/861.0 mln/2019

3:30 pm :

The dollar index stages a modest rally off its lows of the day around the 94.70 level, weighing on commodities, still down -0.3% at 94.81
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.2% at 82.88
After an initial morning rally, crude oil sees a largely uni-directional downtrend in afternoon pit trading, consolidating/closing near its lows for the day
June crude oil futures fell $1.05 (-2.4%) to $42.72/barrel
Contributing factors that may be helping to keep oil prices above $40.00/barrel include:
Positive CFTC Commitment of Traders (COT) report on Friday (spec funds boost bullish bets the most since last May, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission) COT report showed WTI crude light sweet oil contracts rose 8,733 contracts to 297,733 (short contracts on managed money side was 75,862)
Weakness in dollar index
Gasoline demand has been improving as summer driving season approaches
Natural gas trades notably lower in the morning, bouncing off its low of the day around $2.16/MMBtu, closing just above this level, still lower on the day
June natural gas closed $0.08 lower (-3.5%) at $2.19/MMBtu
Natural gas production in the lower 48 United States averaged 72.2 bln cubic feet per day in Mar, which is down just over 1 Bcf/d compared to the Feb avg. On a month-over-month basis, Mar natural gas production was down nearly 2% from Feb
In precious metals, gold drifts away from its highs of the day in the afternoon, after testing resistance around the $1242.50/oz level 4 times
June gold ended today's session up $10.90 (+0.9%) to $1240.30/oz
Silver ends near its lows of the day, still modestly higher
May silver closed today's session $0.10 higher (+0.6%) at $17.01/oz
Base metal copper edges lower to end afternoon pit trading
May copper futures closed $0.01 lower (-0.4%) at $2.25/lb
Agriculture futures experienced notable movement in afternoon pit trading
The National Agricultural Statistics Service will be releasing a crop report today at 4 pm ET, a contributing factor to the notable gains seen in grain prices in afternoon pit trading
July corn closed $0.13 higher (+3.5%) at $3.84/bushel
July wheat closed $0.12 higher (+2.6%) at $4.78/bushel
July soybeans closed $0.26 higher (+2.6%) at $10.10/bushel

Broader market action capped off the Monday session on a leg higher, albeit in a losing effort. The markets were led to the downside by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite which lost 10.44 points (-0.21%) to 4895.79. The S&P 500 was down 3.79 points (-0.18%) at the end of the day to close 2087.79. Rounding out the bunch, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended well higher from daily lows, which saw the index down 148 points at the worst, shedding only 26.51 points (-0.15%) to end 17977.24. The lone economic piece of data today came in the form of the New Home Sales reading for March which marked a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 511,000.

In the overnight session, global markets slipped as investors booked some profits following cautious commentary out of China and ahead of central bank meetings at the Fed and the Bank of Japan. On that note, the FOMC is scheduled to begin its two-day April policy meeting tomorrow. The central bank is widely expected to leave its key fed funds rate unchanged, but investors will be looking for clues as to the path of future rate hikes. Additionally, pressure in crude oil weighed on the energy markets as June Crude Oil Futures fell -2.4%.

As the bell rang, trading in the Technology (XLK 43.42, -0.07 -0.16%) sector was modestly lower with the broader market. Component Total System (TSS 51.51, +0.51 +1.00%) displayed relative strength in the face of a weak broader market following news that the company signed a long-term renewal agreement with HealthEquity (HQY 25.68, -0.67 -2.54%). Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended the day XLP +0.69%, XLU +0.19%, XLY +0.11%, XLF -0.21%, XLB -0.34%, XLV -0.39%, XLI -0.48%, IYZ -0.51%, XLE -1.12% as Consumer Staples led the positive action and Energy weighed.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (721.69, -1.01 -0.14%) sector, action took a leg higher as the bell rang but ultimately ended in the red. Shares of component Xerox (XRX 9.68, -1.49 -13.34%) were slammed following the company's mixed Q1 report and tepid Q2 EPS guidance; additionally, XRX announced plans to file for a split of the Business Process Outsourcing as soon as July. Other notable names in the space which underperformed today included FSLR -1.87%, TEL -1.68%, QRVO -1.42%, HRS -1.33%, V -1.23%, PYPL -1.22%, SWKS -1.09%, TDC -1.09%, MU -1.03%, ADS -1.01%, LLTC -0.95%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Xerox (XRX) announced plans to spin off the company's Business Process Outsourcing business in July, 2016 through a Form 10 registration statement.

Otis Elevator Company and its parent company, United Tech (UTX 105.20, -0.50 -0.47%), are exploring opportunities with Microsoft (MSFT 52.11, +0.33 +0.64%) for a strategic alliance to accelerate development of digital solutions for smart building equipment, such as elevators, to improve energy efficiency and make people more productive. The alliance has potential to use Microsoft technology to extend the benefits of connectivity and remote monitoring.

Microsoft (MSFT) announced that Jabil (JBL 17.83, -0.12 -0.67%) built its predictive analytics solution on Microsoft Azure Machine Learning. The new platform predicts errors or failures on the assembly floor before they occur, saving its customers time and money while delivering superior quality and shortened product lead times throughout the entire supply chain.

Microsoft (MSFT) and Rolls-Royce (RYCEY 9.80, -0.09 -0.86%) are collaborating to bring new capabilities to Rolls-Royce customers. Rolls-Royce will integrate Microsoft Azure IoT Suite and Cortana Intelligence Suite into its service solutions to expand its digital capabilities to support the current and next generation of Rolls-Royce intelligent engines.

Teradata (TDC 26.32, -0.29 -1.09%) to sell its marketing applications business to Marlin Equity Partners for $90 million. TDC also estimates that it will incur costs and charges in the range of about $265 to $315 million related to the business transformation (prior $182 to $230 million).

SAP (SAP 79.95, -0.24 -0.30%) introduced SAP Asset Intelligence Network and the SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service solution to help equipment manufacturers, service providers and asset operators benefit from the Internet of Things as the proliferation of sensors and smart devices transforms asset management.

Total System (TSS) signed a long-term renewal agreement with HealthEquity (HQY) to provide payments processing services for the company's healthcare payments portfolio.

Texas Instruments (TXN 59.02, +0.34 +0.58%) announced the availability of 600-V gallium nitride 70-mO field-effect transistor power-stage engineering samples, making TI the first and only semiconductor manufacturer to publicly offer a high-voltage driver-integrated GaN solution.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Silicon Motion (SIMO 39.56, -0.76 -1.88%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.15 per share from $0.1475 per share.

Rubicon Tech (RBCN 0.70, flat) shareholder Paragon Technologies initiated a proxy contest to elect two directors to Board.

Littelfuse (LFUS 119.41, -0.74 -0.62%) authorized a 1 million share repurchase program.

MaxPoint Interactive (MXPT 1.93, -0.05 -2.53%) announced a 1:4 reverse split. The shares will trade split-adjusted as of the open tomorrow.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Changyou.com (CYOU 19.19, +0.86 +4.69%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.58 on in-line revenues which fell 37.8% versus last year to $129.8 million. Additionally, CYOU guided Q1 EPS ahead of expectations at $0.56-0.65, yet guided Q1 revenues worse than expectations at $120-130 million.

First Data (FDC 179.50, -4.70 -2.55%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.24 on in-line revenues which rose 3.0% versus last year to $2.78 billion.

Xerox (XRX) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of $0.22 on better than expected revenues which fell 4.2% versus last year to $4.28 billion. XRX also guided Q2 EPS in-line at $0.24-0.26 and left FY16 EPS guidance unchanged at $1.10-1.20.

Names reporting quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AFOP, CDNS, CMP, KN, MKSI, NXPI, SANM/AIXG, AXE, AVX, GLW, CTG, ENTG, FLIR, LXK, TMUS

Analyst actions:

WDAY was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest;
IDTI was initiated with a Buy at Needham

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From Briefing.com: 4:45 pm Apple suppliers seeing downside reaction following earnings (AAPL) : Suppliers seeing weakness following earnings include: SWKS -4.0%, QRVO -3.9%. CRUS -3.0% (also reported its own earnings), AVGO -2.2%, NXPI -2.0%, QCOM -1.1%, INVN -0.9%, TXN -0.6%,4:39 pm Cirrus Logic beats by $0.17, beats on revs; guides JunQ revs below consensus (CRUS) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.17 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.21; revenues fell 9.1% year/year to $232.0 mln vs the $226.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1 (Jun), sees Q1 revs of $220-250 mln vs. $257.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Non-GAAP gross margin was 49.8%

4:37 pm Apple misses by $0.10, misses on revs; guides Q3 revs, gross margin below consensus; raises dividend 10%; raises buyback 25% to $175 bln (AAPL) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $1.90 per share, $0.10 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.00; revenues fell 12.8% year/year to $50.56 bln vs the $51.98 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margins of 39.4% vs 39.6% ests vs 40.8% last year (guidance 39-40%). iPhones 51.2 mln vs 51.5 mln ests vs 61.2 mln last year.iPads 10.2 mln vs 9.9 mln ests vs 12.6 mln last year.Macs 4.0 mln vs 4.6 mln ests vs 4.5 mln last year.Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $41-43 bln vs. $47.35 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin 37.5-38.0% vs 39.2% ests vs 39.7% last yearThe Board has increased its share repurchase authorization to $175 billion from the $140 billion level announced last year. The Company also expects to continue to net-share-settle vesting restricted stock units. The Board has approved an increase of 10% to the Company's quarterly dividend, and has declared a dividend of $0.57 per share, payable on May 12, 2016 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 9, 2016. 2.3% dividend yield at after hours price of $99/share.

4:25 pm KLA-Tencor beats by $0.18, misses on revs; KLAC is being acquired by LRCX for approx $67.02/share (announced on 10/21/15) (KLAC) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.15 per share, $0.18 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.97; revenues fell 3.5% year/year to $712 mln vs the $721.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus. guidance excludes the Company's recently announced acquisitions.

4:08 pm Nanometrics beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS, revs above consensus (NANO) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.16 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues fell 5.7% year/year to $47.49 mln vs the $46.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus.An accelerating customer ramp and tool-of-record positions at every major 3D-NAND manufacturer led to a record 3D-NAND sales quarter, exceeding the prior record quarter by approximately 70%. As previously announced, the first quarter was also a record for 3D-NAND bookings, both in aggregate and for three customers individually.Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.21-0.30 vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $52-57 mln vs. $49.00 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Cascade Microtech beats by $0.06, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CSCD) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the two analyst estimate of $0.14; revenues rose 9.8% year/year to $34.8 mln vs the $35.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Gross margin of 59.4%, up from 56.3% in Q4 2015, and up from 53.6% in Q1 2015: Q1 2016 sets a new record for gross margin overall and for each segment due primarily to favorable product mix.Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.20-0.26 vs. $0.22 two analyst estimate; sees Q2 revs of $38-42 mln vs. $38.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm iRobot beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS & revs below consensus; guides FY16 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (IRBT) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.06 better than the two analyst estimate of $0.07; revenues rose 10.8% year/year to $130.8 mln vs the $128.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.06-0.14 vs. $0.31 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $145-150 mln vs. $154.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.20-1.40 vs. $1.45 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $630-642 mln vs. $633.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:04 pm AT&T beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line (T) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.72 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.69; revenues rose 24.4% year/year to $40.53 bln vs the $40.4 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Cash from operations of $7.9 billion; free cash flow of $3.2 billion, up 17% year over year Adjusted margins expand in every domestic segment 2.3 million North American wireless net adds driven by connected devices, Mexico and Cricket; 712,000 branded (postpaid and prepaid) phone net adds Total churn of 1.42% in U.S., stable year over year; postpaid churn of 1.10% Business Solutions revenues up 0.3% year over year; wireless revenues up 2.3% Strategic business services revenues of $2.8 billion, up nearly $250 million 328,000 U.S. DIRECTV net adds; total video subscribers decline slightly.

4:04 pm Intersil reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ISIL) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.15; revenues fell 3.7% year/year to $129.3 mln vs the $128.32 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.15-0.17 vs. $0.17 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $130-136 mln vs. $134.33 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:03 pm Cree beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CREE) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.14; revenues fell 10.4% year/year to $366.9 mln vs the $366.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.16-0.22 vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $370-395 mln vs. $390.80 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Non-GAAP gross margin targeted to be 31.5%+/-."Q3 operating results were in-line with the preliminary estimates we provided on April 5th," stated Chuck Swoboda, Cree Chairman and CEO. "I believe we've addressed the root causes that led to our recent business challenges. We improved customer responsiveness in March, and we're optimistic that this, combined with new product momentum, will drive sequential growth in fiscal Q4." At the end of the session, the broader market was mixed. Upside was led by the S&P 500 which added 3.91 points (+0.19%) to 2091.70. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 13.08 points (+0.07%) to 17990.32. The Nasdaq Composite lost 7.48 points (-0.15%) to 4888.31. Economic data today included durable goods orders, which for March increased 0.8%; excluding transportation, orders declined 0.2%. Additionally, the Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for February rose 5.4% following last month's unrevised reading of 5.7%. Also, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index registered a 94.2 reading for April versus a downwardly revised 96.1 reading (from 96.2) for March.

Trading in the Technology (XLK 43.25, -0.17 -0.39%) sector was lower as morning strength dwindled as the day progressed, ultimately closing in a losing effort. Component Corning (GLW 19.22, -1.75 -8.35%) was notably weak following its Q1 results; the company reported in-line Q1 EPS of $0.28 and worse than expected revenues of $2.17 billion. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLE +1.60%, XLI +0.89%, XLB +0.81%, XLF +0.64%, XLY +0.24%, XLU +0.15%, IYZ +0.13%, XLV -0.38%, XLP -0.40% with Energy leading the advance on the back of a +2.9% gain in June crude oil futures.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (718.85, -2.83 -0.39%) sector, tepid trading ended with the sector modestly below flat lines. Component FLIR Systems (FLIR 31.31, -2.61 -7.69%) was particularly weak following the company's mixed Q1 print; the company reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of $0.30 and better than expected revenues of $379.5 million. Other names in the space which displayed relative weakness included GOOG -2.08%, MSFT -1.29%, FB -1.22%, ADS -1.09%, TDC -1.06%, EA -0.91%, AAPL -0.69%, CRM -0.39%, YHOO -0.35%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Intuit (INTU 103.92, +1.56 +1.52%) announced season-to-date through April 23, TurboTax Online units grew 15% versus the comparable prior-year period; as such, INTU now expects full-year fiscal 2016 consumer tax revenue growth of 8 to 9%, exceeding the high end of the previous guidance range of 5 to 7%.

eBay (EBAY 24.49, +0.27 +1.11%) Enterprise and Innotrac (INOC) have joined forces to become Radial, the largest omnichannel commerce technology and operations provider.

Adobe (ADBE 96.15, +0.35 +0.37%) and Box (BOX 13.06, -0.13 -0.99%) are teaming up to make working with digital documents in the enterprise an effortless experience.

Seagate (STX 27.00, +0.71 +2.70%) is now shipping in volume its 10TB helium enterprise drives- the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD.

IBM (IBM 149.08, +0.27 +0.18%) increased its quarterly dividend to $1.40 per share from $1.30 per share.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Nokia (NOK 5.91, -0.01 -0.17%) to acquire Withings S.A. for EUR 170 million.

Global Payment (GPN 73.19, -0.10 -0.14%) entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement for an aggregate of $50 million in common stock.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Cadence Design's (CDNS 23.53, -0.27 -1.13%) CFO Geoff Ribar has decided to retire effective March 3.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, T-Mobile US (TMUS 39.33, -1.85 -4.49%) filed for a mixed securities shelf offering. The size of said offering was not disclosed.

TerraForm Power (TERP 10.97, +0.43 +4.08%) and TerraForm Global (GLBL 3.10, +0.10 +3.33%) abolish the Office of the Chairman and confirm and ratify that Peter Blackmore is serving as Chairman and Interim CEO.

In reaction to quarterly results:

T-Mobile US (TMUS) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.56 and $8.6 billion, respectively. Additionally, the company raised guidance for FY16 branded postpaid net adds to 3.2-3.6 million from 2.4-3.4 million. TMUS also increased its adjusted EBITDA guidance to $9.7-10.2 billion from $9.1-9.7 billion.

NXP Semi (NXPI 86.69, +3.35 +4.02%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $1.14 on revenues which rose 51.6% versus last year and were in-line with Street expectations at $2.22 billion. NXPI also guided Q2 EPS and revenues in-line at $1.30-1.40 and $2.3-2.4 billion.

Corning (GLW) reported in-line Q1 EPS of $0.28 and revenues which were worse than expected and fell 10.7% versus last year to $2.17 billion. The company also sees Q2 core equity earnings of $50-70 million.

FLIR Systems (FLIR) reported mixed Q1 results; EPS for the period were worse than expected at $0.30 on better than expected revenues which rose 10.2% versus last year to $379.5 million. The company also reaffirmed FY16 EPS and revenue guidance at $1.60-1.70 and $1.6-1.65 billion, respectively.

Cadence Design (CDNS) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.28 on revenues which rose 8.9% year-over-year to $447.86 million and came in in-line with anticipations. The company also guided Q2 EPS and revenues in-line at $0.27-0.29 and $445-455 million, respectively. CDNS also guided FY16 EPS and revenues in-line at $1.15-1.25 and $1.79-1.84 billion, respectively.

Knowles (KN 14.94, +1.93 +14.83%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.08 and $185.3 million, respectively. For Q2, KN expects in-line EPS in the range of $0.08-0.14 and revenues of $180-200 million.

Companies scheduled to report results tonight/tomorrow morning: AKAM AAPL T CUDA CSCD CRUS CREE EBAY EEFT FTNT ISIL KLAC MKTO MRCY NANO NCR TSS TWTR ULTI VNTV ZIXI/GIB DHX DSPG LDOS OSIS SLAB SONS STM UMC WEX

Analyst actions:

PANW was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Wunderlich,
SMGZY was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse;
XRX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Brean Capital,
FDC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
CMPR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald,
CMCM was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley;
ADS was initiated with a Neutral at Susquehanna,
FLEX was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
AGYS was initiated with a Buy at Sidoti

7:35 am Aixtron misses by EUR 0.04, misses on revs; reaffirms FY16 revs guidance (AIXG) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of 0.14 per share, 0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of (0.10); revenues fell 46.9% year/year to 21.4 mln vs the 34.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of EUR 170 mln-200 mln vs. 185.64 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.FY/16 Order Intake Similar to FY/15 Level (Currency Adjusted). With 2016 Revenues at High End of Range: Slight Improvement of EBIT, Earnings and Free Cash Flow in 2016 compared to 2015

7:09 am Entegris beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ENTG) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.15; revenues rose 1.4% year/year to $267 mln vs the $258.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.18-0.22 vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $270-285 mln vs. $274.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

6:56 am Corning reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; sees Q2 core equity earnings of $50-70 mln (GLW) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.28 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues fell 10.7% year/year to $2.17 bln vs the $2.24 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Performance in Display Technologies, Environmental Technologies, Specialty Materials, and Life Sciences met or exceeded company expectations. Demand for Optical Communications products continues to be strong; manufacturing software implementation issues partially interrupted cable production and impacted first-quarter sales and profit. "Production is expected to recover in the second quarter. We expect that the company's performance for the remainder of the year will show significant improvement from first-quarter results, and that second-quarter results will reflect the strong underlying trends in our businesses." Core equity earnings are expected to be between $50-70 million in Q2, depending on the closing date of the strategic realignment of Dow Corning announced in December 2015. The company expects the realignment to close by June.

2:08 am NXP Semi beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (NXPI) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.14 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.11; revenues rose 51.6% year/year to $2.22 bln vs the $2.21 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.30-1.40 vs. $1.32 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $2.3-2.4 bln vs. $2.33 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co's Commentary on outlook: "...While we anticipate many of the headwinds experienced in the second half of 2015 should begin to generally subside in the coming quarters, the overall demand environment currently continues to be subdued."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:45 pm Apple suppliers seeing downside reaction following earnings (AAPL) : Suppliers seeing weakness following earnings include: SWKS -4.0%, QRVO -3.9%. CRUS -3.0% (also reported its own earnings), AVGO -2.2%, NXPI -2.0%, QCOM -1.1%, INVN -0.9%, TXN -0.6%,4:39 pm Cirrus Logic beats by $0.17, beats on revs; guides JunQ revs below consensus (CRUS) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.17 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.21; revenues fell 9.1% year/year to $232.0 mln vs the $226.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1 (Jun), sees Q1 revs of $220-250 mln vs. $257.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Non-GAAP gross margin was 49.8%

4:37 pm Apple misses by $0.10, misses on revs; guides Q3 revs, gross margin below consensus; raises dividend 10%; raises buyback 25% to $175 bln (AAPL) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $1.90 per share, $0.10 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.00; revenues fell 12.8% year/year to $50.56 bln vs the $51.98 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margins of 39.4% vs 39.6% ests vs 40.8% last year (guidance 39-40%). iPhones 51.2 mln vs 51.5 mln ests vs 61.2 mln last year.iPads 10.2 mln vs 9.9 mln ests vs 12.6 mln last year.Macs 4.0 mln vs 4.6 mln ests vs 4.5 mln last year.Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $41-43 bln vs. $47.35 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin 37.5-38.0% vs 39.2% ests vs 39.7% last yearThe Board has increased its share repurchase authorization to $175 billion from the $140 billion level announced last year. The Company also expects to continue to net-share-settle vesting restricted stock units. The Board has approved an increase of 10% to the Company's quarterly dividend, and has declared a dividend of $0.57 per share, payable on May 12, 2016 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 9, 2016. 2.3% dividend yield at after hours price of $99/share.

4:25 pm KLA-Tencor beats by $0.18, misses on revs; KLAC is being acquired by LRCX for approx $67.02/share (announced on 10/21/15) (KLAC) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.15 per share, $0.18 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.97; revenues fell 3.5% year/year to $712 mln vs the $721.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus. guidance excludes the Company's recently announced acquisitions.

4:08 pm Nanometrics beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS, revs above consensus (NANO) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.16 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues fell 5.7% year/year to $47.49 mln vs the $46.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus.An accelerating customer ramp and tool-of-record positions at every major 3D-NAND manufacturer led to a record 3D-NAND sales quarter, exceeding the prior record quarter by approximately 70%. As previously announced, the first quarter was also a record for 3D-NAND bookings, both in aggregate and for three customers individually.Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.21-0.30 vs. $0.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $52-57 mln vs. $49.00 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Cascade Microtech beats by $0.06, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CSCD) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the two analyst estimate of $0.14; revenues rose 9.8% year/year to $34.8 mln vs the $35.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Gross margin of 59.4%, up from 56.3% in Q4 2015, and up from 53.6% in Q1 2015: Q1 2016 sets a new record for gross margin overall and for each segment due primarily to favorable product mix.Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.20-0.26 vs. $0.22 two analyst estimate; sees Q2 revs of $38-42 mln vs. $38.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm iRobot beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS & revs below consensus; guides FY16 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (IRBT) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.06 better than the two analyst estimate of $0.07; revenues rose 10.8% year/year to $130.8 mln vs the $128.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.06-0.14 vs. $0.31 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $145-150 mln vs. $154.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.20-1.40 vs. $1.45 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $630-642 mln vs. $633.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:04 pm AT&T beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line (T) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.72 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.69; revenues rose 24.4% year/year to $40.53 bln vs the $40.4 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Cash from operations of $7.9 billion; free cash flow of $3.2 billion, up 17% year over year Adjusted margins expand in every domestic segment 2.3 million North American wireless net adds driven by connected devices, Mexico and Cricket; 712,000 branded (postpaid and prepaid) phone net adds Total churn of 1.42% in U.S., stable year over year; postpaid churn of 1.10% Business Solutions revenues up 0.3% year over year; wireless revenues up 2.3% Strategic business services revenues of $2.8 billion, up nearly $250 million 328,000 U.S. DIRECTV net adds; total video subscribers decline slightly.

4:04 pm Intersil reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ISIL) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.15; revenues fell 3.7% year/year to $129.3 mln vs the $128.32 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.15-0.17 vs. $0.17 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $130-136 mln vs. $134.33 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:03 pm Cree beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CREE) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.14; revenues fell 10.4% year/year to $366.9 mln vs the $366.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.16-0.22 vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $370-395 mln vs. $390.80 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Non-GAAP gross margin targeted to be 31.5%+/-."Q3 operating results were in-line with the preliminary estimates we provided on April 5th," stated Chuck Swoboda, Cree Chairman and CEO. "I believe we've addressed the root causes that led to our recent business challenges. We improved customer responsiveness in March, and we're optimistic that this, combined with new product momentum, will drive sequential growth in fiscal Q4." At the end of the session, the broader market was mixed. Upside was led by the S&P 500 which added 3.91 points (+0.19%) to 2091.70. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 13.08 points (+0.07%) to 17990.32. The Nasdaq Composite lost 7.48 points (-0.15%) to 4888.31. Economic data today included durable goods orders, which for March increased 0.8%; excluding transportation, orders declined 0.2%. Additionally, the Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for February rose 5.4% following last month's unrevised reading of 5.7%. Also, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index registered a 94.2 reading for April versus a downwardly revised 96.1 reading (from 96.2) for March.

Trading in the Technology (XLK 43.25, -0.17 -0.39%) sector was lower as morning strength dwindled as the day progressed, ultimately closing in a losing effort. Component Corning (GLW 19.22, -1.75 -8.35%) was notably weak following its Q1 results; the company reported in-line Q1 EPS of $0.28 and worse than expected revenues of $2.17 billion. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLE +1.60%, XLI +0.89%, XLB +0.81%, XLF +0.64%, XLY +0.24%, XLU +0.15%, IYZ +0.13%, XLV -0.38%, XLP -0.40% with Energy leading the advance on the back of a +2.9% gain in June crude oil futures.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (718.85, -2.83 -0.39%) sector, tepid trading ended with the sector modestly below flat lines. Component FLIR Systems (FLIR 31.31, -2.61 -7.69%) was particularly weak following the company's mixed Q1 print; the company reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of $0.30 and better than expected revenues of $379.5 million. Other names in the space which displayed relative weakness included GOOG -2.08%, MSFT -1.29%, FB -1.22%, ADS -1.09%, TDC -1.06%, EA -0.91%, AAPL -0.69%, CRM -0.39%, YHOO -0.35%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Intuit (INTU 103.92, +1.56 +1.52%) announced season-to-date through April 23, TurboTax Online units grew 15% versus the comparable prior-year period; as such, INTU now expects full-year fiscal 2016 consumer tax revenue growth of 8 to 9%, exceeding the high end of the previous guidance range of 5 to 7%.

eBay (EBAY 24.49, +0.27 +1.11%) Enterprise and Innotrac (INOC) have joined forces to become Radial, the largest omnichannel commerce technology and operations provider.

Adobe (ADBE 96.15, +0.35 +0.37%) and Box (BOX 13.06, -0.13 -0.99%) are teaming up to make working with digital documents in the enterprise an effortless experience.

Seagate (STX 27.00, +0.71 +2.70%) is now shipping in volume its 10TB helium enterprise drives- the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD.

IBM (IBM 149.08, +0.27 +0.18%) increased its quarterly dividend to $1.40 per share from $1.30 per share.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Nokia (NOK 5.91, -0.01 -0.17%) to acquire Withings S.A. for EUR 170 million.

Global Payment (GPN 73.19, -0.10 -0.14%) entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement for an aggregate of $50 million in common stock.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Cadence Design's (CDNS 23.53, -0.27 -1.13%) CFO Geoff Ribar has decided to retire effective March 3.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, T-Mobile US (TMUS 39.33, -1.85 -4.49%) filed for a mixed securities shelf offering. The size of said offering was not disclosed.

TerraForm Power (TERP 10.97, +0.43 +4.08%) and TerraForm Global (GLBL 3.10, +0.10 +3.33%) abolish the Office of the Chairman and confirm and ratify that Peter Blackmore is serving as Chairman and Interim CEO.

In reaction to quarterly results:

T-Mobile US (TMUS) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.56 and $8.6 billion, respectively. Additionally, the company raised guidance for FY16 branded postpaid net adds to 3.2-3.6 million from 2.4-3.4 million. TMUS also increased its adjusted EBITDA guidance to $9.7-10.2 billion from $9.1-9.7 billion.

NXP Semi (NXPI 86.69, +3.35 +4.02%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $1.14 on revenues which rose 51.6% versus last year and were in-line with Street expectations at $2.22 billion. NXPI also guided Q2 EPS and revenues in-line at $1.30-1.40 and $2.3-2.4 billion.

Corning (GLW) reported in-line Q1 EPS of $0.28 and revenues which were worse than expected and fell 10.7% versus last year to $2.17 billion. The company also sees Q2 core equity earnings of $50-70 million.

FLIR Systems (FLIR) reported mixed Q1 results; EPS for the period were worse than expected at $0.30 on better than expected revenues which rose 10.2% versus last year to $379.5 million. The company also reaffirmed FY16 EPS and revenue guidance at $1.60-1.70 and $1.6-1.65 billion, respectively.

Cadence Design (CDNS) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.28 on revenues which rose 8.9% year-over-year to $447.86 million and came in in-line with anticipations. The company also guided Q2 EPS and revenues in-line at $0.27-0.29 and $445-455 million, respectively. CDNS also guided FY16 EPS and revenues in-line at $1.15-1.25 and $1.79-1.84 billion, respectively.

Knowles (KN 14.94, +1.93 +14.83%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.08 and $185.3 million, respectively. For Q2, KN expects in-line EPS in the range of $0.08-0.14 and revenues of $180-200 million.

Companies scheduled to report results tonight/tomorrow morning: AKAM AAPL T CUDA CSCD CRUS CREE EBAY EEFT FTNT ISIL KLAC MKTO MRCY NANO NCR TSS TWTR ULTI VNTV ZIXI/GIB DHX DSPG LDOS OSIS SLAB SONS STM UMC WEX

Analyst actions:

PANW was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Wunderlich,
SMGZY was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse;
XRX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Brean Capital,
FDC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
CMPR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald,
CMCM was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley;
ADS was initiated with a Neutral at Susquehanna,
FLEX was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
AGYS was initiated with a Buy at Sidoti

7:35 am Aixtron misses by EUR 0.04, misses on revs; reaffirms FY16 revs guidance (AIXG) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of 0.14 per share, 0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of (0.10); revenues fell 46.9% year/year to 21.4 mln vs the 34.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of EUR 170 mln-200 mln vs. 185.64 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.FY/16 Order Intake Similar to FY/15 Level (Currency Adjusted). With 2016 Revenues at High End of Range: Slight Improvement of EBIT, Earnings and Free Cash Flow in 2016 compared to 2015

7:09 am Entegris beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ENTG) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.15; revenues rose 1.4% year/year to $267 mln vs the $258.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.18-0.22 vs. $0.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $270-285 mln vs. $274.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

6:56 am Corning reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; sees Q2 core equity earnings of $50-70 mln (GLW) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.28 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues fell 10.7% year/year to $2.17 bln vs the $2.24 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Performance in Display Technologies, Environmental Technologies, Specialty Materials, and Life Sciences met or exceeded company expectations. Demand for Optical Communications products continues to be strong; manufacturing software implementation issues partially interrupted cable production and impacted first-quarter sales and profit. "Production is expected to recover in the second quarter. We expect that the company's performance for the remainder of the year will show significant improvement from first-quarter results, and that second-quarter results will reflect the strong underlying trends in our businesses." Core equity earnings are expected to be between $50-70 million in Q2, depending on the closing date of the strategic realignment of Dow Corning announced in December 2015. The company expects the realignment to close by June.

2:08 am NXP Semi beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (NXPI) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.14 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.11; revenues rose 51.6% year/year to $2.22 bln vs the $2.21 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.30-1.40 vs. $1.32 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $2.3-2.4 bln vs. $2.33 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co's Commentary on outlook: "...While we anticipate many of the headwinds experienced in the second half of 2015 should begin to generally subside in the coming quarters, the overall demand environment currently continues to be subdued."

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From Briefing.com: 4:32 pm Texas Instruments beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TXN) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.65 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.62; revenues fell 4.5% year/year to $3.01 bln vs the $2.98 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.67-0.77 vs. $0.71 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $3.07-3.33 bln vs. $3.18 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Revenue for the quarter was in the upper half of our expected range. Compared with a year ago, notable market activity for our products included continuing strength in automotive, as well as improvement in industrial and communications equipment. Revenue was down 5 percent due to weakness within the personal electronics market, which declined as expected. "Our core businesses of Analog and Embedded Processing comprised 87 percent of first-quarter revenue. From a year ago, Analog revenue declined 8 percent while Embedded Processing revenue grew 8 percent. Operating margin increased in both businesses. "Gross margin of 60.6 percent was a new record, reflecting the quality of our product portfolio, as well as the efficiency of our manufacturing strategy, including the benefit of 300-millimeter Analog production.

4:27 pm Xilinx beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs flat QoQ; raises quarterly dividend 6.5% to $0.33/share (XLNX) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.54 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.52; revenues rose 0.7% year/year to $571 mln vs the $566.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.545-0.565 vs. $0.56 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of flat QoQ from $571 mln vs. $577.86 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:25 pm Infinera beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line (INFN) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.19 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.17; revenues rose 31.0% year/year to $244.82 mln vs the $246.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 50.2% compared to 48.3% in the fourth quarter of 2015 and 47.8% in the first quarter of 2015. Non-GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 12.3% compared to 12.7% in the fourth quarter of 2015 and 12.2% in the first quarter of 2015.

4:22 pm TTM Tech beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TTMI) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the two analyst estimate of $0.08; revenues rose 77.2% year/year to $583.3 mln vs the $584.97 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.16-0.22, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.20 two analyst estimate; sees Q2 revs of $580-620 mln vs. $607.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:21 pm Cavium Networks reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (CAVM) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.25 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.25; revenues rose 0.1% year/year to $101.9 mln vs the $102.01 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:19 pm FormFactor reports EPS in-line, revs in-line (co warned on March 29); guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (FORM) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.11); revenues fell 24.3% year/year to $53.6 mln vs the $53.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Co had previously warned on March 29... co lowered Q1 EPS to ($0.12)-(0.10) from $0.03-0.07; rev to $53-54 mln from $65-70 mln Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.10-0.14, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $76-80 mln vs. $75.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Update on Pending Acquisition of Cascade Microtech:

The Company also provided an update on its pending merger with Cascade Microtech. The two companies have cleared the Hart-Scott Rodino waiting period and have filed the S-4 registration and proxy statement on April 1st. As previously communicated, the co is on track to close the acquisition of Cascade Microtech by mid-2016On April 26th, Cascade Microtech reported quarterly revenue of $34.8 million, record gross margin of 59.4%, and income from operations of $2.9 million. Cascade Microtech also provided second quarter revenue guidance of $38-42 million.

4:13 pm First Solar beats by $0.63, misses on revs; guides FY16 EPS in-line, reaffirms FY16 revs guidance; Announces leadership transition (FSLR) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.60 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.63 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.97; revenues rose 80.7% year/year to $848 mln vs the $940.04 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $4.10-4.50 (Prior $4.10-4.50), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $4.24 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $3.8-4.0 bln vs. $3.95 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

FY16 Outlook
Gross Margin raised to 18-19% from 17-18%.Operating Expenses reaffirmed at $380-400 mlnOperating Income raised to $300-370 mln from $260-330 mlnOperating Cash Flow raised to $500-700 mln from $400-600 mlnCapEx reaffirmed at $300-400 mlnShipments reaffirmed at 2.9-3.0 GW.

Leadership Transition

Co announced that current Chief Financial Officer Mark R. Widmar has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2016. He will also join the First Solar Board of Directors at that time. As part of a transition plan, Mr. Widmar will succeed James A. Hughes, who plans to step down as Chief Executive Officer effective June 30, 2016. Mr. Hughes will continue to support the company in an advisory role and remain on the Board.

4:12 pm SanDisk beats by $0.28, beats on revs (SNDK) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.82 per share, $0.28 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 2.5% year/year to $1.37 bln vs the $1.21 bln Capital IQ Consensus.In light of the pending acquisition of SanDisk by Western Digital Corporation (WDC), SanDisk will not hold a conference call to discuss its financial results.

4:11 pm Newport shareholders approves its acquisition by MKS Instruments (MKSI); expects that the transaction will close on April 29 (NEWP) :

4:10 pm : The stock market ended its Wednesday affair on a mixed note as the major indices moved higher following the March policy statement from the Federal Open Market Committee. Other contributing factors to today's trade included below-consensus quarterly results from Apple (AAPL 97.82, -6.53), the underperformance of the technology sector (-0.8%), and a rally in crude oil. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) ended its day behind the S&P 500 (+0.2%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%).

The stock market opened its day on a lower note as disappointing results and guidance from the likes of Apple (AAPL 97.82, -6.53) and Twitter (TWTR 14.86, -2.89) pressured the heavily-weighted technology sector (-0.8%) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq. However, the major averages were able to lift from their opening levels as investors eyed an uptick in oil and the impending rate decision from the FOMC.

The stock market carved out session lows mid-morning as participants weighed the latest stockpile data from the Department of Energy. The weekly inventory report showed a smaller-than-expected build in crude inventories (1.99 million barrels; est. 2.36 million), but a larger-than-expected build in gasoline stockpiles (1.60 million barrels; est. -0.40 million). WTI crude initially tumbled following the data, but reversed off its low ($43.88/bbl). The energy component ended its day higher by 2.9% at $45.21/bbl.

The latest policy directive from the FOMC struck a dovish tone and in turn helped the averages continue their advance off their lows. The FOMC voted 9-1 to leave its key interest rate unchanged. Furthermore, the committee voiced its concern for slowing economic conditions and diminishing inflation expectations in the near term.

Seven sectors ended above their flat lines as countercyclical telecom services (+1.9%) led energy (+1.7%) and utilities (+1.4%). Conversely, heavily-weighted technology (-0.8%), consumer discretionary (-0.1%) and health care (-0.1%) rounded out the board.

The energy space (+1.7%) demonstrated broad-based strength as pipeline companies, oilfield services names, and independent oil and gas companies gained. Conversely, ConocoPhillips (COP 48.11, +0.03) underperformed the broader market ahead of tomorrow morning's quarterly report. Meanwhile, Baker Hughes (BHI 46.94, +1.14) jumped 2.5% after reporting below-consensus results for the first quarter. In its report, Baker Hughes also estimated that its U.S. rig count would not stabilize until the second half 2016.

Influential technology (-0.8%) ended well off its low as the high-beta chipmakers outperformed. To that point, the PHLX Semiconductor Index ended higher by 1.0%. Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL 97.82, -6.53) finished off its lows as investors weighed a 10.0% increase to the stock's dividend and a $175 billion addition to the company's share buyback program. Separately, Facebook (FB 108.89, +0.13) ended higher by 0.1% ahead of this evening's quarterly earnings report.

In the health care space (-0.1%), Anthem (ANTM 144.76, -2.31) displayed relative weakness after disappointing investors with its 2016 guidance. However, the company did beat top- and bottom-line estimates for the first quarter. Elsewhere, biotechnology underperformed, evidenced by the 1.4% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 277.49, -3.91).

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.50, -0.07) ended near its flat line as participants look ahead to the latest policy statement from the Bank of Japan. The euro/dollar pairs ended at 1.1313 (+0.2%) while the dollar finished higher by 0.2% against the yen (111.52).

The Treasury complex ended its day near its high with the yield on the 10-yr note falling seven basis point to 1.86%.

Today's participation was above the recent average with more than 971 million shares changing hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included March Pending Home Sales:

Pending home sales for March climbed 1.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 0.3%. Meanwhile, the February reading was revised lower to 3.4% from 3.5%.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the advance reading of Q1 GDP (Briefing.com consensus +0.9%) and weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 259k), which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET.

Dow Jones +3.5% YTD
S&P 500 +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.6% YTD
Nasdaq -2.9% YTD

DJ30 +51.23 NASDAQ -25.17 SP500 +3.45 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1559/1.759 bln/1362 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2131/971.1 mln/888

3:30 pm :

The dollar index exhibited notable volatility this afternoon, currently down -0.7% at the 94.50 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.6% at 84.31
Crude oil staged an early afternoon rally off its low of the day around $43.79 after the release of EIA petroleum inventory data, closing near its high of the day
June crude oil futures rose $1.27 (+2.9%) to $45.21/barrel
EIA crude oil inventory released today showed a build of +1.999 mln, compared to consensus for a build of +2.4 mln
Gasoline inventories had a build of +1.608 mln
Distillate inventories had a draw of -1.695 mln
API data released yesterday after market close showed a draw of -1.1 mln barrels, compared to estimates for a build of +800,000 barrels
Natural gas reverses off its low, briefly trading above the previous session's close before consolidating lower to end afternoon pit trading
June Natural Gas closed $0.01 lower (-0.5%) at $2.15/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold experienced a notable selloff in the afternoon, but quickly recovered to close higher on the day
June gold ended today's session up $7.10 (+0.6%) to $1250.50/oz
Silver trended modestly lower in the afternoon, still closing above the previous session's closing price
May silver closed today's session $0.19 higher (+1.1%) at $17.30/oz
Base metal copper drifted lower in afternoon pit trading
May copper closed $0.02 lower (-0.9%) at $2.22/lb

4:11 pm Extreme Networks beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (EXTR) : Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.02; revenues rose 4.1% year/year to $125.3 mln vs the $122.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.08-0.12, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.09 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $137-147 mln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $141.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "Growth was driven by continued penetration of targeted education and hospitality/public venue enterprise customers in North America, and successful execution of our software-driven solutions selling approach for wireless and wired enterprise campus networking."

4:06 pm Facebook beats by $0.15, beats on revs (FB) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.77 per share, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.62; revenues rose 51.8% year/year to $5.38 bln vs the $5.26 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Advertising revenue increased 57% y/y to $5.2 bln.Daily active users (DAUs)- DAUs were 1.09 billion on average for March 2016, an increase of 16% year-over-year. Mobile DAUs- Mobile DAUs were 989 million on average for March 2016, an increase of 24% year-over-year. Monthly active users (MAUs- MAUs were 1.65 billion as of March 31, 2016, an increase of 15% year-over-year. Mobile MAUs- Mobile MAUs were 1.51 billion as of March 31, 2016, an increase of 21% year-over-year. Mobile advertising revenue- Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 82% of advertising revenue for the first quarter of 2016, up from 73% of advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2015. Capital expenditures- Capital expenditures for the first quarter of 2016 were $1.13 billion. Free cash flow for the first quarter of 2016 was $1.85 billion.Following the Fed Policy Statement today, broader market action ended on a higher note (albeit split). The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted the best advance, adding 51.23 points (+0.28%) to close 18041.55. The S&P 500 closed up 3.45 points (+0.16%) to 2095.15. The lone laggard was the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite which lost 25.14 points (-0.51%) to 4863.14 on the heels of some disappointing earnings among tech companies.







As mentioned, the Federal Open Market Committee left rates unchanged as widely expected, and removed the reference from its statement to global events posing risks to the economic outlook. Additionally, economic data was light, as the only figure released was the pending home sales reading for March which climbed 1.4%.

As it were, the Technology (XLK 43.04, -0.21 -0.49%) sector was lower all day, ultimately finishing near high, though. Component eBay (EBAY 25.27, +0.78 +3.18%) was one of the best performers today following the company's solid Q1 performance, reporting both EPS and revenues which beat Street expectations; also, EBAY guided Q2 mixed. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed today XLE +1.90%, XLU +1.45%, XLB +0.84%, IYZ +0.83%, XLI +0.71%, XLP +0.48%, XLF +0.17%, XLY -0.10%, XLV -0.11% as Energy was the outperformer as June Crude Oil Futures were up 2.9% and Tech and Healthcare finished at the bottom of the pack.

Semis (SOX 681.26, +6.84 +1.01%) were also strong today following components Cree (CREE 26.00, +1.41 +5.73%) and KLA-Tencor's (KLAC 72.23, +0.39 +0.54%) quarterly results. On tap for quarterly results tonight, semi names CAVM, SNDK, TER, TXN and XLNX are expected to release the latest quarterly results. Other names in the space which displayed relative strength today included MRVL +4.22%, ASML +2.94%, ARMH +2.85%, NXPI +2.60%, NVDA +2.28%, INTC +1.11%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (712.80, -6.05 -0.84%), trading ended in the red, pressured by lackluster quarterly results among select holdings. Component Apple (AAPL 97.82, -6.53 -6.26%) finished the day well lower following its disappointing Q2 print which was compounded by worse than expected Q3 guidance and tepid iPhone, iPad and Mac sales; the company reported worse than expected Q2 results and guided Q3 revenues worse than expected. Other names in the space which were notably weak today included EA -3.03%, FLIR -1.53%, MSFT -0.97%, CRM -0.68%, GOOGL -0.54%, ADBE -0.53%, YHOO -0.43%, INTU -0.39%, GOOG -0.32%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting to quarterly results, Apple (AAPL) announced authorization of a $50 billion increase to the capital return program - total now stands at $250 billion by the end of March 2018. Additionally, the company raised its quarterly dividend to $0.57 from $0.52 per share.

Accenture (ACN 115.48, +0.87 +0.76%) has been selected Sky (SKYAY 55.95, -1.30 -2.27%) to ensure viewers have an optimal experience when streaming and watching shows through the newly launched premium TV service, Sky Q. The Accenture StormTest platform will provide Sky customers with a consistent service through continuous monitoring and testing.

Yahoo! (YHOO 36.95, -0.16 -0.43%) reached an agreement with Starboard Value LP and its affiliates under which four new independent directors, Tor R. Braham, Eddy W. Hartenstein, Richard S. Hill, and Jeffrey C. Smith, Starboard's CEO and Chief Investment Officer, will join the board, effective immediately. Jeff Smith will also join the Strategic Review Committee. Additionally, Starboard has withdrawn its director nominees for Yahoo's board as part of the agreement.

Bsquare (BSQR 6.26, +0.03 +0.48%) extended the terms of its distribution agreement for Microsoft (MSFT 50.94, -0.50 -0.97%) Windows Embedded, including IoT products such as Windows 10 IoT, through June 30, 2017.

Elsewhere in the tech space:
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Comcast (CMCSA 61.30, +0.25 +0.41%) could possibly be in discussions regarding a possible purchase of Dreamworks Animation (DWA 32.20, +5.08 +18.73%) for $3 billion.

Upland Software (UPLD 7.02, -0.33 -4.49%) acquired Advanced Processing & Imaging platform for an undisclosed sum. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to the company's adjusted EBITDA per share.

Guidance Software (GUID 5.04, +0.06 +1.20%) announced a North American distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics (ARW 65.10, +0.43 +0.66%).

Vantiv (VNTV 56.49, +2.19 +4.03%) promoted Stephanie Ferris to CFO.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Apple (AAPL) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.90 and $50.56 billion, respectively. Also, AAPL reported iPhone unit sales of 51.2 million for Q2, down from 61.2 million YoY; iPad sales in Q2 were 10.2 million, down from 12.6 million a year ago; Mac sales in Q2 were 4.0 million, down from 4.5 million last year. For Q3, AAPL guided worse than expected revenues in the range of $41-43 billion; also, gross margins in Q3 are expected in the range or 37.5-38.0% (worse than Street expectations).

AT&T (T 38.72, +0.63 +1.65%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.72 on in-line revenues which rose 24.4% versus last year to $40.53 billion.

eBay (EBAY) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.47 and $2.14 billion, respectively. EBAY guided Q2 EPS worse than expected at $0.40-0.42; EBAY sees Q2 revenues ahead of expectations at $2.14-2.19 billion. For the FY16 period, the company sees revenues of $8.6-8.8 billion.

CGI Group (GIB 47.00, -0.63 -1.32%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of C$0.90 on in-line revenues of C$2.75 billion.

KLA-Tencor (KLAC) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.15 and worse than expected revenues of $712 million.

Twitter (TWTR 14.86, -2.89 -16.28%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.15 on worse than expected revenues which rose 36.5% to $595 million. TWTR also guided Q2 revenues worse than expectations at $590-610 million. They see adjusted EBITDA in the range of $145-155 million for Q2.

Comcast (CMCSA) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.84 on in-line revenues which rose 5.2% versus last year to $18.79 billion. Cable Communications revenue increased 6.7%, customer relationships increased by 269,000, a 35.5% increase from the first quarter of 2015 and high-speed internet customers increased by 438,000.

Total System (TSS 52.69, +0.76 +1.46%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.66 and $739.4 million, respectively. The company also gave FY16 EPS and revenue guidance of $2.78-2.85 and $4.18-4.26 billion, respectively.

Cree (CREE) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.17 on in-line revenues of $366.9 million. The company also issued in-line guidance for the Q4 period on EPS of $0.16-0.22 and revenues of $370-395 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AFOP AMKR AVG BKFS BLKB CACI CAVM CMPR DTLK DWRE DMRC DLB ECHO EXTR FB FSLR FORM FORR HTCH INFN KS LLNW LOGI MANT MSTR NCIT NTGR OTEX OSIS PYPL RNG SNDK SGI SIMO SPRT TER TXN TTMI TYL XLNX/AUO ADP AVT BCOR CCMP CRCM CLFD COMM CY DBD IQNT I IDCC IPGP IRDM LVLT MA MITK SFE SQNS SPIL TZOO WNS YNDX

Analyst actions:

TSS was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
STM was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum,
KT was upgraded to Buy from Hold at HSBC;
TWTR was downgraded at JP Morgan and BofA/Merrill,
AKAM was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
SPIL was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
SKM was downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC,
MIICF was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan;
PSTG was initiated with a Buy at Needham8:45 am Marvell announces agreement with Starboard regarding the composition of its Board, will add five new independent directors (MRVL) :

The co announced that it has entered into an agreement with Starboard Value LP, which has a beneficial ownership of ~6.5% of the Company's outstanding common stock, regarding the composition of Marvell's Board of Directors. Under the terms of the agreement, Marvell's Board of Directors will elect Peter A. Feld, Richard S. Hill and Oleg Khaykin to the Board. Starboard will designate an additional independent director to be added to the Marvell Board as soon as practical, subject to the reasonable approval of the Board.

Marvell will also elect Robert E. Switz to the Board. Mr. Feld, Mr. Hill, Mr. Khaykin and the additional independent director named in accordance with the agreement will stand for election as nominees of Marvell at the Marvell 2016 annual meeting of shareholders, together with Mr. Switz and incumbent independent directors Juergen Gromer, John Kassakian, Arturo Krueger and Randhir Thakur.
The Board of Directors will elect a non-executive Chairman of the Board from among the independent members of the Board.
Separately, Marvell's Board has commenced a search to identify a Chief Executive Officer. The search will be overseen by the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of the Board of Directors, which will be chaired by Mr. Feld, and of which Mr. Krueger, Dr. Thakur and Mr. Khaykin will be members. The Company has retained an executive search firm to assist in identifying candidates.As part of the agreement, Starboard has agreed to vote all of its shares in favor of the Marvell nominees at the 2016 annual general meeting of shareholders and has entered into other customary standstill and voting commitments.


7:08 am Silicon Labs beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q2 in-line ex-patent sale (above including patent sale) (SLAB) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) adj. earnings of $0.51 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.45; revenues fell 1.0% year/year to $162 mln vs the $159.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus. IoT revenue exceeded expectations and established a new record, increasing to $70.9 million, or 5.5% sequentially Infrastructure revenue established a new record, increasing to $31.6 million, or 3.3% sequentially Broadcast revenue declined to $38.4 million, or 3.1% sequentially Access revenue declined to $21.1 million, or 6.7% sequentially.Co issues in-line guidance for Q2 excluding $5 mln in patent sales rev ($0.09 EPS), sees EPS of $0.52-0.59, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.54 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $163-168 mln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $165.09 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. 6:14 am United Micro misses by $0.11, beats on revs (UMC) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.02 per share, $0.11 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.13; revenues fell 8.6% year/year to $34.4 bln vs the $33.84 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Q2 quarter-over-quarter guidance: Wafer Shipments: To increase by approximately 5% ASP in NTD: To increase by 1-2% Profitability: Gross profit margin will be in low 20% range Foundry Segment Capacity Utilization: Approximately high 80% range 2016
CAPEX for Foundry Segment: US$2.2bn
"Looking into 2Q16, new product launches in wireless devices will serve as a positive catalyst, leading to stronger end market demand. As a result, we foresee a significant increase in 28nm shipments for the second quarter. We also expect to receive many new 28nm tape outs during 2016 that include mobile and consumer applications, which will further diversify our 28nm product pipeline and contribute to 28nm revenue growth."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:34 pm Western Digital misses by $0.08, misses on revs (WDC) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.21 per share, $0.08 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.29; revenues fell 20.5% year/year to $2.82 bln vs the $2.88 bln Capital IQ Consensus.The company generated $485 mln in cash from operations during the third fiscal quarter, ending with total cash and cash equivalents of $5.9 bln.The company indicated that it continues to expect to complete its planned acquisition of SanDisk in the June quarter.

4:25 pm Super Micro Computer beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (SMCI) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.36 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.35; revenues rose 13.1% year/year to $532.7 mln vs the $530.85 mln Capital IQ Consensus.GAAP and Non-GAAP gross margin for the third quarter was 14.9% compared to 16.3% in the same period a year ago.Free cash flow for the nine months ended March 31, 2016 was $67.7 mln, primarily due to an increase in the company's cash provided by operating activities and partially offset by the cash used in the development and construction of improvements on the company's properties. Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.46-$0.58 vs. $0.61 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $580-$640 mln vs. $635.91 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:24 pm Juniper Networks reports Q1 in-line with downside preannouncement; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (JNPR) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.37 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.38; revenues rose 2.9% year/year to $1.1 bln vs the $1.11 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Preannounced: Lowered Q1 EPS to $0.35-0.37 from $0.42-0.46; rev to $1.09-1.10 from $1.15-1.19 bln on April 11.Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.44-0.50, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.16-1.22 bln vs. $1.2 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:23 pm Pixelworks beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs in-line (PXLW) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.14 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.15); revenues fell 22.2% year/year to $11.2 mln vs the $11.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $11.5-12.5 mln vs. $12.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees gross profit margin of approximately 48% to 50% on a GAAP basis and non-GAAP basis; and operating expenses of $8.5 million to $9.5 million on a GAAP basis and $7.5 million to $8.5 million on a non-GAAP basis.Concurrently, the Company's board of directors announced the promotion of Todd DeBonis to president and chief executive officer of Pixelworks, effective immediately, replacing interim CEO Stephen Domenik, who will continue to serve as a director on the Board.

4:21 pm MaxLinear acquires certain assets and the assumption of certain liabilities related to Microsemi Corporation's (MSCC) Broadband Wireless Division for ~$21 mln in cash; expects EPS accretion in 2017 (MXL) :

These acquired assets and assumed liabilities specifically address wireless infrastructure markets, including wideband RF transceivers and synthesizers for 3G, 4G, and future 5G cellular base station and remote radio head unit platforms.

Co paid ~$21.0 million in cash and assumed certain liabilities in exchange for the acquired assets. Co may record charges for amortization of purchased intangible assets in 2Q16, and expects that it will incur incremental transaction-related deal expenses and expenses associated with post-closing transition services related to the acquisition.
The amounts of these charges have not yet been determined.
Excluding the charges referenced above, co currently expects this transaction to be ~neutral to GAAP and non-GAAP EPS in 2016 and to become accretive to GAAP and Non-GAAP EPS in 2017

4:20 pm Applied Micro beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (AMCC) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) loss of $0.02 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.03); revenues rose 11.0% year/year to $41.11 mln vs the $41.04 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:18 pm Microsemi beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (MSCC) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.67 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.65; revenues rose 52.1% year/year to $444.3 mln vs the $444.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.69-0.75 vs. $0.78 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $420-440 mln vs. $464.99 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Non-GAAP gross margin was a record 61.0 percent for the second quarter of 2016, up 390 basis points from the 57.1 percent reported in both the second quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016.

4:18 pm Coherent beats by $0.05, beats on revs (COHR) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $1.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.99; revenues fell 1.9% year/year to $199.9 mln vs the $197.44 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:17 pm Flex beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FLEX) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues fell 3.0% year/year to $5.77 bln vs the $5.84 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1 (Jun), sees EPS of $0.25-0.29, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $5.50-5.90 bln vs. $5.88 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:15 pm Brooks Automation beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (BRKS) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.07 per share, $0.02 better than the two analyst estimate of $0.05; revenues fell 2.9% year/year to $135.3 mln vs the $135.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.10-0.14 vs. $0.13 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $140-147 mln vs. $152.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12 pm Amazon beats on the top and bottom line; guides Q2 sales midpoint above consensus, operating income in-line (AMZN) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.07 per share, $0.47 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.60; revenues rose 28.2% year/year to $29.13 bln vs. $28.0 bln consensus; operating income $1.1 bln vs. ests of ~$545 mln and $100-700 mln guidance.NA operating income +131% to $588 mln; net slaes +27% to $17 blnAWS operating income +210% to $604 mln; sales +64% to $2.6 bln.Co issues in-line guidance for Q, sees Q revs of 28.0-30.5 bln vs. $28.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus; operating income of $375-975 mln vs ~$850 mln estimate.

4:08 pm CyberOptics reports profitable Q1 and confident will post strong Q2 y/y sales and profitability (CYBE) :

Co reports Q1 EPS $0.33 vs ($0.12) year ago; revs 105.3% y/y to $19.5 mln (no estimates). The co ended Q1 with a backlog of $17.7 mln, up from $15.0 mln at the end of 2015, making the co confident should post strong year-over-year sales growth and profitability in this year's second quarter. "Sensor sales rose 106% in the first quarter, benefiting from orders for 3D MRS-enabled sensors as well as a rebound in sales of legacy 2D LaserAlign sensors to our traditional OEM customers. Our 3D sensor sales were generated under long-term supply agreements with KLA-Tencor (KLAC) and Nordson YESTECH (NDSN), our newest OEM customer that we announced in March. Sales to KLA are expected to continue growing as the company incorporates our 3D sensors into a growing portion of its back-end semiconductor packaging inspection systems. Nordson YESTECH introduced its 3D MRS-equipped AOI system at the IPC APEX Expo trade show in March to a very favorable reception. This causes us to believe our Nordson supply agreement should be a positive contributor to our future sales growth."

4:07 pm Power Integrations beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (POWI) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.50 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.42; revenues rose 3.3% year/year to $85.3 mln vs the $84.35 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2 revs of $88-94 mln vs. $90.13 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:01 pm Cohu beats by $0.01, beats on revs (COHU) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.06 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.05; revenues rose 3.8% year/year to $65.8 mln vs the $64.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Cash used in operations totaled $1.5 mln for 1Q16 and total cash and investments at the end of the first quarter were $114.5 mln.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair under selling pressure as the influential technology sector (-1.4%) reversed early gains to end on the bottom of the leaderboard. Other contributing factors in today's trade included investor disappointment regarding the Bank of Japan's latest policy statement, an increase in M&A activity, an in-line reading of the advance estimate of Q1 GDP (+0.5%; Briefing.com consensus +0.9%), and the underperformance of the heavily-weighted technology (-1.4%), financial (-1.1%), and consumer discretionary (-1.1%) spaces. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.2%) ended behind the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-1.2%) and the S&P 500 (-0.9%).

Today's session began under pressure as investors ruminated over the latest policy statement from the Bank of Japan and the advance reading of Q1 GDP. Overnight, the Bank of Japan surprised investors when it voted to leave its monetary policy unchanged. Participants had been expecting further easing measures from the central bank, given the recent rally in the yen and diminishing inflation expectations.

On the home front, the advance estimate of Q1 GDP (+0.5%; Briefing.com consensus +0.9%) missed the Briefing.com consensus, but fell roughly in-line with the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model (+0.6%). While this number was in-line with market expectations it was still a a far cry from the Atlanta Fed's original estimate for the first quarter (+1.2%).

The major averages lifted from their opening levels as they found support from a rally in dollar-denominated commodities and early strength in the technology (-1.4%) and consumer discretionary (-1.1%) sectors. However, a final hour sell off would push the indices to new lows as the technology (-1.4%), energy (-1.4%), and financial (-1.1%) sectors rounded out the leaderboard. Conversely, countercyclical consumer staples (UNCH), utilities (-0.1%), and health care (-0.6%) finished in front of the pack.

In the energy space (-1.4%), independent oil and gas names demonstrated relative weakness as the broader sector succumbed to profit-taking pressure. The energy space is up 8.8% in the month of April, compared to a gain of 0.8% in the benchmark index over that period. Meanwhile, the energy component ended its pit session at $46.04 (+1.8%), but dropped to the $45.58/bbl level in electronic trade. Separately, Dow components Exxon Mobil (XOM 88.03, -0.43) and Chevron (CVX 102.40, -1.45) ended the day lower by a respective 0.5% and 1.4% ahead of tomorrow morning's quarterly reports.

The technology sector (-1.4%) helped lead the reversal in the broader market as heavily-weighted Apple (AAPL 94.80, -3.01) extended its post-earnings decline to 9.2%. Today's decline in the tech giant followed activist investor Carl Icahn revealed that he closed his position in the stock. Separately, fellow large caps Alphabet (GOOG 691.02, -14.82) and Microsoft (MSFT 49.93, -1.01) also fell to new lows in the final hour. Elsewhere, Facebook (FB 116.73, +7.84) trimmed early gains, but still ended the day higher by 7.2% after beating estimates for the quarter.

In the financial sector (-1.1%), asset management names demonstrated relative weakness as the sub-group traded lower in sympathy with Invesco (IVZ 31.49, -1.24). The company sank 3.8% after missing top- and bottom-line estimates for the first quarter. Separately, CME Group (CME 92.33, -2.13) fell 2.3% after reporting in-line results for the first quarter. The company also reported that the total average volume reached a record of 16.9 million contracts per day in the first-quarter of 2016.

The U.S. Dollar Index (93.75, -0.63) ended near its lows as the euro and the yen gained against the greenback. The euro/dollar pair finished higher by 0.3% (1.1355) while the dollar lost 3.0% against the yen (108.10).

The Treasury complex ended on its highs as the yield on the 10-yr note finished its day at 1.83% (-2 bps).

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than one billion shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the advance reading of Q1 GDP and weekly initial claims:

First quarter real GDP increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of just 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus 0.9%). That was below expectations and the weakest quarter of growth since the first quarter of 2015, which was up just 0.6%.
The GDP Deflator was up 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%).
This was not an uplifting GDP report, yet the market knew that was likely to be the case with the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model tracking at 0.6%. Accordingly, the reaction to the headline print has been muted.
Personal consumption expenditures growth was a weak 1.9% in the first quarter; meanwhile, gross private domestic investment declined 3.5%, exports were down 2.6%, imports were up 0.2%, and government spending was up 1.2%.
There was a 1.27 percentage point contribution to Q1 GDP from personal consumption expenditures, which flowed almost entirely from a 1.24 percentage point contribution from spending on services.
Gross private domestic investment subtracted 0.6 percentage points as a 0.76 percentage point drag from nonresidential investment weighed heavily. Net exports subtracted 0.34 percentage points, and government spending added 0.2 percentage points.
The change in private inventories, which factors into the overall change in gross private domestic investment, subtracted 0.33 percentage points.
Real final sales of domestic product, which excludes the change in inventories, were up a scant 0.9% versus the prior 10-quarter average of 2.4%.
Initial claims for the week ending April 23 increased by 9,000 to 257,000 (Briefing.com consensus 259,000).
That was roughly in-line with expectations and marked the 60th straight week that claims have been below 300,000, which is the longest since 1973. In other words, no change really in the underlying trend.
The four-week moving average for initial claims decreased by 4,750 to 256,000, which is the lowest average since December 8, 1973.
Continuing claims for the week ending April 16 decreased by 5,000 to 2.130 million.
That dropped the four-week moving average to 2.158 million, which is the lowest average since November 11, 2000.

Tomorrow's economic data will include Core PCE Prices for March (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), Personal Income for March (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), Personal Spending for March (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), and the Q1 Employment Cost Index (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%), which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Meanwhile, Chicago PMI for April (Briefing.com consensus 53.3) and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April (Briefing.com 90.0) will cross the wires at 9:45 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Dow Jones +2.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -4.0% YTD

DJ30 -210.79 NASDAQ -57.85 SP500 -19.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1001/1.970 bln/2085 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1037/1.00 bln/1944

3:30 pm :

The dollar index trends lower, trading near its lows of the day, down -0.7% around the 93.76 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.6% at the 84.84 level
Crude oil sees a sustained rally all day, closing near today's highs in afternoon pit trading
June crude oil futures rose $0.83 (+1.8%) to $46.04/barrel
Natural gas plummets after the release of EIA nat gas storage data, closing near the lows of the day, making this the fourth consecutive day of losses
June natural gas closed $0.07 lower (-3.3%) at $2.08/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory released this morning showed a build of +73 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +70 bcf
Working gas in storage was 2,557 Bcf as of Friday, April 22, 2016, according to EIA estimates
Stocks were 870 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 832 Bcf above the five-year average of 1,725 Bcf. At 2,557 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range
In precious metals, gold consolidates into an uptrend in the afternoon, closing near today's highs in afternoon pit trading
June gold ended today's session up $7.10 (+0.6%) to $1250.50/oz
Silver moved in tandem with gold, continuing its uptrend after an initial morning spike, closing near its highs of the day as well
May silver closed today's session $0.19 higher (+1.1%) at $17.30/oz
Base metal copper drifted lower in afternoon pit trading
May copper closed $0.02 lower (-0.9%) at $2.22/lb
When Thursday was finished, trading all three major US indices were in the midst of a dive into negative territory. Action swung to the downside around midday, ending with the Nasdaq Composite losing the most, down 57.85 points (-1.19%) to 4805.29. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was also weak, lower by 210.79 points at days end (-1.17%) to 17830.76. The S&P 500 rounded out the bunch shedding 19.34 points (-0.92%) to 2075.81.

Facebook (FB 116.73, +7.84 +7.20%) was the talk of the Street today as the company reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.77 and $5.38 billion, respectively. The name led the Technology (XLK 42.50, -0.54 -1.25%) sector's best gainers as the overall sector ended the session near lows. Other sectors as measured by the S&P finished today XLP +0.10%, XLU -0.15%, XLV -0.48%, IYZ -0.85%, XLB -0.94%, XLI -0.96%, XLF -1.06%, XLY -1.08%, XLE -1.49% as Consumer Staples were the only sector managing gains and Energy led those in the red.

Select Internet (FDN 68.81, +0.06 +0.09%) names were higher following stellar quarterly results; BCOR, NTGR and DRWE all outperformed the broader market following better than expected quarterly prints. The sector reaped the benefits of their good fortune, as LNKD +3.50%, EIGI +2.40%, SONS +1.91%, TRUE +1.29%, CSOD +1.28% were also above flat lines when the day was done.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (703.04, -9.76 -1.37%) sector, Xilinx (XLNX 43.23, -4.12 -8.70%) finished as the worst performer following the mostly better than expected Q4 results. The company issued tepid guidance for the Q1 period, though, and raised the quarterly dividend payout. Other names in the space which displayed relative weakness included ADI -2.98%, NVDA -2.98%, EBAY -2.57%, FFIV -2.49%, CSCO -2.39%, GOOGL -2.27%, IBM -2.26%, CTXS -2.21%, GLW -2.12%, ADBE -2.09%, INTU -2.07%, INTC -2.05%, MSFT -1.98%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Facebook (FB) announced the proposal of a new class of common stock. The adoption of the proposal is subject to the approval of FB's stockholders at their 2016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be held on June 20, 2016.

On a CNBC segment, activist Carl Icahn stated that he is no longer long Apple (AAPL 94.81, -3.01 -3.08%) stock.

Oracle (ORCL 40.33, -0.52 -1.27%) is offering free use of Oracle Social Cloud for companies and organizations using social media toward recovery and rebuilding efforts in areas affected by the Kumamoto Earthquakes.

Cypress Semi (CY 9.04, -0.01 -0.11%) and Broadcom Ltd (AVGO 147.99, -3.54 -2.34%) announced the signing of a definitive agreement under which CY will acquire AVGO's Wireless Internet of Things (IoT) business and related assets in an all-cash transaction valued at $550 million. Under the terms of the deal, Cypress will acquire Broadcom's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee IoT product lines and intellectual property, along with its WICED brand and developer ecosystem.

Cognizant (CTSH 59.73, -0.85 -1.40%) announced an exclusive strategic partnership and the acquisition of an ownership interest of 49% in ReD Associates. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In addition to reporting quarterly results, Symantec (SYMC 16.86, -1.25 -6.90%) announced the resignation of CEO Michael Brown. Additionally, SYMC postponed and rescheduled the May 26 Analyst Day to a later date.

Oracle (ORCL) to acquire Textura (TXTR 26.00, +6.11 +30.72%) for $26.00 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $663 million, net of Textura's cash.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Priceline (PCLN 1317.59, -36.15 -2.67%) announced that Darren Huston has resigned from the company, effective immediately. The company has appointed former CEO and current Chairman Jeffery Boyd as Interim Chief Executive Officer and President of PCLN while the Board conducts a search to name a successor.

Open Text (OTEX 56.00, +1.85 +3.42%) to acquire ANXeBusiness for about $100 million. The company expects earnings accretion from the deal immediately.

Manhattan Assoc (MANH 61.52, -4.15 -6.32%) announced that on April 25, 2016, its EVP, CFO, and Treasurer, Dennis Story, notified the company that he will be leaving to pursue personal and other business interests. Mr. Story will continue to serve Manhattan in his current role through the end of the Company's second fiscal quarter, which is June 30, 2016. Later, it was announced that Story would be filling the CFO role at Benefitfocus (BNFT 38.29, +0.45 +1.19%).

Knowles (KN 13.40, -1.61 -10.73%) announced a $125 million convertible senior notes offering in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Facebook (FB) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.77 and $5.38 billion, respectively. Also, advertising revenue increased 57% versus last year to $5.2 billion.

MasterCard (MA 97.18, -1.20 -1.22%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.86 and $2.45 billion, respectively. The company also reaffirmed FY16 at low end of longer term outlook: low double digit net revenue CAGR, mid-teens EPS CAGR and operating margins greater than 50%.

Texas Instruments (TXN 58.69, -0.85 -1.43%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.65 on in-line revenues which fell 4.5% versus last year to $3.01 billion. TXN also guided Q2 EPS in-line at $0.67-0.77 and sees Q2 revenues in-line at $3.07-3.33 billion.

PayPal (PYPL 40.07, +0.06 +0.15%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.37 and $2.45 billion. For Q2, the company sees EPS of $0.34-0.36 and revenues of $2.57-2.62 billion. PYPL also reaffirmed FY16 guidance in the range of EPS $1.45-1.50 and reveneus of $10.5-10.7 billion.

Level 3 (LVLT 54.20, +0.11 +0.20%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.35 and $2.05 billion, respectively. LVLT also lowered their FY16 adjusted EBITDA growth guidance of 10-12% from 9-12%.

Xilinx (XLNX) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.54 and in-line revenues which rose 0.7% versus last year to $571 million. XLNX also sees Q1 EPS in-line with expectations at $0.545-0.565 and sees revenues flat sequentially from $571 million.

First Solar (FSLR 57.02, -5.01 -8.08%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $1.66 and worse than expected revenues which rose 80.7% versus last year to $848 million. The company also guided FY16 EPS in-line at $4.10-4.50 (up on the low end from $4.00-4.50).

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ATEN AMZN AMCC AZPN BIDU EPAY BCOV BRKS COHR COHU DGII ELLI EXLS EXPE FLEX GIMO GRPN IPHI NSIT JNPR LNKD LOGM MRVL MSCC MOBL NATI NPTN N NSR P PCCC PDFS PXLW POWI QLIK ROVI RKUS SQI SHOR SWKS SMCI SYNA TRMB VDSI VRSN WDC/IM MGI TYPE STX TDS USM

Analyst actions:

MANT was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform;
AMX was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan, to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill, and to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup,
SYMC was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
OSIS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at The Benchmark Company,
SGI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti,
INFN was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup and to Neutral from Buy at MKM Partners,
AVT was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Credit Agricole,
CHT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
AMKR was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
WEX was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
HOLI was downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Nomura,
YAHOY was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at Credit Agricole


9:02 am AU Optronics misses by NT$0.17, misses on revs (AUO) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of NT$0.57 per share, NT$0.17 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of (NT$0.40); revenues fell 25.4% year/year to NT$71.14 bln vs the NT$72.39 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Outlook: Beginning from March, the market demand has shown signs of recovery, benefiting from the inventory preparation for the coming sports events and the Labor Day sales in China. Looking forward to the second quarter, the business momentum is expected to continue. AUO will keep promoting high value-added products, including curved TV panels, bezel-less TV panels, and integrated touch panels for notebook PCs, industrial PCs and cars. By continuing to pursue product strategies of "differentiation", "quality optimization" and "value enhancement", it is hoped that AUO can stand out from its peers in the panel industry with ever-intensifying competition.

8:33 am Interdigital Comm beats by $0.05, beats on revs (IDCC) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.79 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.74; revenues fell 2.4% year/year to $107.8 mln vs the $101.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus.In 1Q16, the company had free cash flow of $6.6 mln, compared to $7.5 mln of negative free cash flow in 1Q15.During 1Q16, the company repurchased 0.9 mln shares of common stock for $40.4 mln. From April 1-April 27, 2016, the company repurchased an additional 0.1 mln shares at a cost of $5.3 mln, bringing the total number of shares repurchased under the company's current $400 mln stock repurchase program to 6.4 mln shares at a cost of $294.8 mln.

8:14 am Cypress Semi beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 in-line; acquires Broadcom's (AVGO) wireless IoT business for $550 mln; Advanced Semi Engineering (ASX) invests $60 mln, licenses Deca's FOWLP technology (CY) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues fell 6.8% year/year to $425.2 mln vs the $425.18 mln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin was 36.9%, above guidance but below our long-term goal, primarily because "we continue to run our wafer fabs at a rate lower than actual demand to burn off excess inventory, and because of inefficiencies in ex-Fujitsu manufacturing, which is being integrated now."Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.10-0.14, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $440-470 mln vs. $454.42 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Cypress will acquire Broadcom's (AVGO) Wireless Internet of Things (IoT) business and related assets in an all-cash transaction valued at $550 million. Cypress will acquire Broadcom's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee IoT product lines and intellectual property, along with its WICED brand and developer ecosystem. Broadcom's IoT business unit, which employs approximately 430 people worldwide, generated $189 million in revenue during the last twelve months. The acquisition strengthens Cypress's position in key embedded systems markets, such as automotive and industrial, and establishes it as a leader in the high-growth consumer IoT market, a segment that includes wearable electronics and home automation solutions. Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASX) and Deca Technologies, a subsidiary of Cypress announced the signing of an agreement whereby ASE will invest $60 million in Deca and will license Deca's M-Series Fan-out Wafer-Level Packaging (:FOWLP) technologies and processes. As part of the agreement, ASE and Deca will jointly develop the M-Series fan-out manufacturing process and will expand production of chip-scale packages using this technology. The technology is required for the reduced size and power consumption needed for portable Internet of Things (IoT) applications and smartphones. Deca's version of it uses autoline technology developed by SunPower to decrease cost and manufacturing cycle time. CY CEO, T.J. Rodgers, will step down this week and that a search-both internal and external-would be launched to replace him. In the interim, daily operational activities will be taken over by an Office of the CEO comprised of four current Cypress EVPs: Hassane El-Khoury (EVP, Programmable Systems Division), Dana Nazarian (EVP, Memory Products Division), Joe Rauschmayer (EVP, Manufacturing) and Thad Trent (CFO). Rodgers will remain on the Cypress Board and become a project leader working on key technical projects.

8:05 am Broadcom sells Wireless IoT business and related assets in an all-cash transaction valued at $550 million to Cypress Semiconductor (CY) (AVGO) :

Under the terms of the deal, Cypress will acquire Broadcom's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee IoT product lines and intellectual property, along with its WICED brand and developer ecosystem.

Broadcom's IoT business unit, which employs ~430 people worldwide, generated $189 mln in revenue during the last twelve months. The transaction, which has been approved by the board of directors of Cypress and Broadcom, is expected to close in 3Q16, subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals. Cypress expects the transaction to be accretive within a year of closing and to improve its gross margin, earnings and long-term revenue potential.

8:03 am Cypress Semi announces CEO T.J. Rodgers will step down this week (CY) :

In the interim, daily operational activities will be taken over by an Office of the CEO comprised of four current Cypress EVPs: Hassane El-Khoury (EVP, Programmable Systems Division), Dana Nazarian (EVP, Memory Products Division), Joe Rauschmayer (EVP, Manufacturing) and Thad Trent (CFO). Rodgers will remain on the Cypress Board and become a project leader working on key technical projects

8:03 am IPG Photonics misses by $0.07, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (IPGP) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.92 per share, $0.07 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.99; revenues rose 4.1% year/year to $207.2 mln vs the $209.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Gross margin increased to 55.2% from 54.2%.Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.10-$1.25 vs. $1.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $235-$250 mln vs. $253.53 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co states that this guidance is based upon current market conditions and expectations, and assumes exchange rates relative to the U.S. Dollar of Euro 0.90, Russian Ruble 70, Japanese Yen 113 and Chinese Yuan 6.51, respectively.

6:10 am Cabot Micro misses by $0.08, misses on revs (CCMP) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.41 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49; revenues fell 5.4% year/year to $99.2 mln vs the $102.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus. "Looking ahead, we continue to expect stronger semiconductor industry demand in the second half of our fiscal year, and through the first month of our third fiscal quarter orders for our CMP products have notably strengthened. With our continued focus on executing our strategic initiatives, strengthening and growing our current business, and building our pipeline of new business opportunities, we are confident that we are well positioned to deliver profitable growth for our company, particularly with improving near term demand conditions, and in light of longer term industry trends."

3:53 am Siliconware Precision misses by $0.38, misses on revs (SPIL) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.39 per share, $0.38 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.77; revenues fell 7.2% year/year to $19.3 bln vs the $19.77 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Capital expenditures for the first quarter of 2016 totaled NT$ 3,080 million.

3:20 am Siliconware Precision and Tsinghua Unigroup terminate the strategic alliance agreement and share subscription agreement (SPIL) :

Siliconware Precision Industries had previously resolved to conduct a private placement of common shares pursuant to a board resolution on December 11, 2015 and had on even date executed a Share Subscription Agreement and Strategic Alliance Agreement with Tsinghua Unigroup

Upon consideration of subjective and objective factors of the Company and Unigroup, the Company's board of directors resolved to terminate the Private Placement on April 28, 2016 and execute a termination agreement with Unigroup, mutually agreeing to terminate the aforementioned Share Subscription Agreement and Strategic Alliance Agreement.To this end, the Company's board of directors will authorize the chairman and/or another designated person to represent the Company in executing a termination agreement with Unigroup and to fully handle all matters relating to terminating the Private Placement

3:11 am Benchmark Electronics: ISS finds a 'compelling case' for Engaged Capital's nominees (BHE) :

Engaged Capital, an investment firm specializing in enhancing the value of small and mid-cap North American equities and a 4.9% shareholder of Benchmark Electronics announced that Institutional Shareholder Services has recommended that Benchmark shareholders vote on the BLUE Engaged Capital proxy card to elect Engaged Capital's director candidates, Robert Gifford and Jeffrey McCreary, at the Annual Meeting of BHE.

ISS endorsed Engaged Capital's case for change and recommended that shareholders vote on Engaged Capital's BLUE proxy ISS validated Engaged Capital's contention that BHE's investor communications are ineffective, highlighting the Secure acquisition as a recent example of BHE's failure to be transparent with shareholdersEngaged Capital urges all BHE shareholders to vote for change on the BHE Board by voting the BLUE proxy card for all three Engaged Capital nominees

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From Briefing.com: 4:09 pm Cray beats by $0.12, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus; guides FY16 revs in-line (CRAY) : Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.13 per share, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.25); revenues rose 32.9% year/year to $105.5 mln vs the $100.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Overall gross profit margin for 1Q16 was 38%, compared to 30% for 1Q15. Total non-GAAP gross profit margin percentage for 1Q16 was consistent with the GAAP result for the same period. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $100 mln vs. $120.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $825 mln vs. $826.34 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. However, company says "there is an increased level of risk to achieving this target. This increased risk is driven by the Company's reliance on key third-party components, some of which have already been delayed, and the level and timing of new orders." Non-GAAP gross margin for the year is expected to be in the range of 33%.

4:08 pm Maxwell Tech misses by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (MXWL) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.11); revenues rose 1.4% year/year to $35.2 mln vs the $34.6 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2016, compared with $3.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2015 and $(4.9) million for the prior year quarter. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $34-36 mln vs. $34.97 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Co sees Q2 Non-GAAP gross margin for the second quarter of 2016 is expected to be in the range of 30% to 32%.

4:05 pm Ixia beats by $0.03, beats on revs (XXIA) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues fell 6.9% year/year to $112.7 mln vs the $109.6 mln Capital IQ Consensus. (Pre-announced Q1 EPS of $0.05-0.08 & $108-11 mln on April 14 versus $0.12/$123.4 mln Capital IQ consensus at that time)."We believe we are well positioned to capitalize on the growing technology trends across enterprise, service provider, and cloud networks by leveraging our security expertise and IP across our test and visibility products."

4:15 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday affair under pressure as the Nasdaq Composite (-1.1%) and the S&P 500 (-0.9%) erased yesterday's modest gains. Today's trade centered on a downtick in oil, concerns over global growth, continued swings in the currency market, and weakness in the financial (-1.3%) sector.

The major averages began the day on a wobbly note as renewed selling pressure from the oil pit and below-consensus economic data from overseas forced macroeconomic concerns back into focus. On that note, disappointing manufacturing PMI readings from China (49.4 in April from 49.7 in March) and the U.K. (49.2 in April from 50.7 in March) both showed larger than expected contractions in April.

The European Commission underscored the unsettling developments when it cut its 2016 euro area GDP (to 1.6% from 1.7%) and inflation forecasts (to 0.2%; from 0.5%). As a result, investors assumed a risk-off posture during the European session and bid safe haven Treasuries, gold, and the yen higher. On the home front, risk-off trade would bring the benchmark index to a session low by the late morning.

The stock market ticked off its low after midday, as all ten sectors trimmed their losses. The benchmark index would end off its low despite all ten sectors ending in the red. Rounding out the board, commodity-sensitive energy (-2.2%) and materials (-1.7%) trailed financials (-1.3%), telecom services (-1.0%) and consumer discretionary (-0.9%).

The energy space (-2.2%) trimmed its year-to-date gain to 9.6% as it surrendered to pressure in oil. WTI crude ended its day lower by 2.5% ($43.64/bbl) as investors ruminated over supply increases from OPEC states and looked forward to the API's latest inventory report. The API will release its latest stockpile data at 16:35 ET. In the broader sector, Halliburton (HAL 40.44, -1.61) declined by 3.8% after beating bottom-line estimates for the quarter. To be fair though, the company recorded asset impairments and severance costs of approximately $2.1 billion.

In the financial sector (-1.3%), money center banks displayed relative weakness as they traded lower in sympathy with a downturn in European banks. Furthermore, banks likely underperformed due to their exposure to oil and gas loans. On that note, JPMorgan Chase (JPM 62.56, -1.23) and Citigroup (C 45.57, -1.11) declined 1.9% and 2.4%, respectively. Elsewhere, MetLife (MET 44.79, -1.05) fell 2.3% after receiving a $25 million fine from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for omissions and negligent misrepresentations regarding its variable annuity replacements.

The industrial sector (-0.8%) displayed broad-based weakness. United Technologies (UTX 102.13, -2.24) fell 2.2% after receiving a downgrade to "Sector Perform" from "Outperform" at RBC Capital Markets. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-1.2%) displayed relative weakness as Expeditors International (EXPD 47.39, -2.87) slid 5.7% after missing top- and bottom-line estimates for the quarter.

In the heavyweight technology sector (-0.8%), Apple (AAPL 95.18, +1.54) outperformed as it rebounded from an eight-day losing streak. Elsewhere, Fidelity National (FIS 71.29, +4.11) gained 6.1% after reporting a bottom-line beat on light revenue for the first quarter. Conversely, the high-beta chipmakers underperformed, evidenced by the 1.2% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

The U.S. Dollar Index (92.95, +0.32) ended on its high as the greenback gained against the Canadian dollar and trimmed losses against the yen and euro. The dollar/yen pair ended flat at 106.45 after falling as low as 105.55 overnight. Meanwhile, the euro lost 0.2% against the dollar (1.1508) while the dollar/Canadian dollar pair finished higher by 1.5% (1.2717).

The Treasury complex settled near its session high as the yield on the 10-yr note fell seven basis points to 1.80%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 975 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to April Auto and Truck Sales.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the April ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 196k), which will be released at 7:00 ET and 8:15 ET, respectively. Meanwhile, preliminary Q1 Productivity (Briefing.com consensus -1.4%), Unit Labor Cost (Briefing.com consensus 2.6%), and the March Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$41.4 Billion) will all be released at 8:30 ET. Finally, the day's data will be capped off with March Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) and April ISM Services (Briefing.com consensus 54.5) both crossing the wires at 10:00 ET.

Dow Jones +1.9% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0 YTD
Russell 2000 -1.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -4.9% YTD

DJ30 -140.25 NASDAQ -54.37 SP500 -18.06 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 752/1.815 bln/2391 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 741/975 mil/2287

3:30 pm :

The dollar index rallies all day with little variation, weighing on commodities, currently up +0.3% around the 92.94 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -1.4% at 83.58
Crude oil consolidates around the morning lows, closing down on the day
June crude oil futures fell $1.11 (-2.5%) to $43.64/barrel
Natural gas stages an afternoon rally, consolidating and closing higher on the day
June natural gas closed $0.05 higher (+2.5%) at $2.09/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold trends slightly lower, closing just below its recent year-to-date highs
June gold ended today's session down $4.10 (-0.3%) to $1291.80/oz
Gold is trading near a key level of resistance below $1300/oz, just under its year-to-date highs
Silver trades sideways, directionless in afternoon trading after this morning's drop
July silver closed today's session $0.21 lower (-1.2%) at $17.49/oz
Base metal copper inches lower in afternoon pit trading
July copper closed $0.05 lower (-2.2%) at $2.22/lb
Corn and wheat futures end pit trading notably lower following the USDA weekly crop progress report released late yesterday
July corn closed $0.13 lower (-3.3%) at $3.79/bushel
July wheat closed $0.17 lower (-3.5%) at $4.71/bushel
The USDA reports that U.S. farmers have planted 45% of corn crop ,up from 30% a week ago and above 5-year avg of 30%, while wheat plantings rose to 54%, up from 42% a week ago and above 5-year avg of 39%


Yesterday's strength was given back in action today as the broader market was led lower by the Nasdaq Composite which shed 54.37 points (-1.13%) to 4763.22. The S&P 500 was also lower, losing 18.06 points (-0.87%) to 2063.37. Rounding out the trio, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 140.25 points (-0.78%) today to end 17750.91. Stocks which led the Nasdaq 100 lower today included SBAC -5.9%, TSLA -3.9%, JD -3.5%, REGN -3.4%, and INCY -3.1%.

Broad weakness permeated US equities, helped along by a -2.5% drop in June Crude Oil Futures and renewed concerns over the state of the global economy weigh on the major averages. Futures slipped overnight following negative economic data out of China and Europe. China's Caixin Manufacturing PMI (49.4) reading disappointed investors and also marked the 14th consecutive contraction in the purchasing managers' index. The April figure came in below the March reading of 49.7. Elsewhere, the U.K. Manufacturing PMI also missed expectations when it dropped to 49.2 in April from the March reading of 50.7. The EU Commission added to the negative sentiment after it lowered its GDP and inflation estimates for the eurozone in 2016. The EU Commission now sees 2016 GDP growth coming in at 1.6% (revised from 1.7%) while inflation estimates for the year were revised to 0.2% from 0.5%.

Weakness in the Technology (XLK 42.05, -0.39 -0.92%) sector was also notably weak today, never overcoming flat lines. Shares of telecom firm CenturyLink (CTL 30.57, -0.91 -2.89%) were notably weak today on the heels of a premarket downgrade to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLE -2.36%, XLB -1.65%, XLF -1.28%, IYZ -1.20%, XLY -0.92%, XLI -0.81%, XLV -0.31%, XLP -0.19%, XLU -0.08% as the worst losses were out of the Energy space, while Utilities managed the most modest session.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (695.63, -5.77 -0.82%) sector, trading began the session near flat lines but quickly succumbed to broader market pressure. Shares of financial payment tech firm Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS 71.29, +4.11 +6.12%) bucked the broader trend and ended the session higher on the back of the company's mixed Q1 report; conversely, shares of communications firm Harris (HRS 76.43, -4.43 -5.48%) were the worst performing component today following its Q3 report and subsequent tepid guidance. Other stocks in the sector which closed the day lower included STX -5.08%, WDC -3.65%, FSLR -3.65%, HPQ -3.38%, CRM -3.04%, JNPR -2.74%, RHT -2.65%, FFIV -2.60%, MU -2.50%, CTXS -2.40%.

Other news items among sector components:

Microsoft (MSFT 49.78, -0.83 -1.64%) acquired IoT firm Solair. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Adobe Systems (ADBE 93.62, -1.28 -1.35%) acquired Livefyre. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the company noted expectations for the deal to close within the next few months.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

IMS Health Holdings (IMS 25.92, -0.95 -3.54%) and Quintiles Transnational (Q 67.46, -1.61 -2.33%) to merge. Under the terms of the merger agreement, IMS shareholders will receive a fixed exchange ratio of 0.384 shares of Q common stock for each share of IMS common stock.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, GrubHub (GRUB 24.65, -1.89 -7.12%) announced the acquisition of LAbite. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company subsequently entered into a $185 million credit facility.

SolarCity (SCTY 26.45, -3.10 -10.49%) announced a $227 million investment from John Hancock.

MiX Telematics (MIXT 4.60, +0.53 +13.02%) entered into an agreement to repurchase all of its shares currently held by Imperial Holdings Limited. MIXT expect the transaction will be earnings and value accretive for shareholders.

Tessera Tech (TSRA 31.00, +1.35 +4.55%) signed a license and development agreement with Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASX 4.91, -0.04 -0.81%).

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Cognex (CGNX 41.13, +5.92 +16.81%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.075 per share from $0.07 per share.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Qualys (QLYS 25.71, -0.28 -1.08%) appointed Melissa Fisher as CFO effective immediately.

Vivint Solar (VSLR 2.87, -0.35 -10.87%) appointed David Bywater as CEO on interim basis to succeed current CEO Greg Butterfield, who is stepping down from his role.

Vishay (VSH 12.55, +0.44 +3.63%) announced a $100 million stock repurchase authorization.

Marvell (MRVL 9.65, -0.10 -1.03%) appointed Richard Hill as Chairman of the Board effective May 1.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.79 and worse than expected revenues which rose 40.3% versus last year to $2.18 billion. Additionally, FIS reaffirmed FY16 EPS guidance in the range of $3.70-3.80.

Sprint (S 3.67, +0.17 +5.00%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of (-$0.14) and better than expected revenues which were down 2.5% versus last year to $8.07 billion. The company also reaffirmed FY16 EBITDA guidance of $9.5-10 billion.

SBA Comm (SBAC 99.03, -6.16 -5.86%) reported better than expected funds from operations of $1.45 and in-line revenues which fell 2.5% versus last year to $399.8 million. Additionally, SBAC issued downside Q2 and FY16 revenue guidance of $396-406 million and $1.608-1.643 billion, respectively.

Harris (HRS) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.45 and in-line revenues which rose 60.8% versus last year to $1.91 billion. HRS also guided FY16 EPS slightly worse than expected at 'about $5.70' and revenues of 'about $7.5 billion.'

IMS Health Holdings (IMS) reported better than expected EPS and revenues of $0.42 and $774 million, respectively. The company also guided Q2 EPS in-line at +2-3%, and sees better than expected Q2 revenues of +7.5-8.5% to about $798-805 million. Further, IMS guided FY16 better than expected for EPS of +4-6% to about $1.58-1.61 and revenues of +9-11% to about $3.18-3.24 billion.

GrubHub (GRUB) reported in-line Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.20 and $112.2 million, respectively. Also, GRUB sees Q2 revenues in-line at $109-111 million, and raised the low end of FY16 revenues guidance to $450-465 million from $445-465 million. GRUB also reaffirmed FY16 EBITDA guidance in the range of $122-130 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: CALX CALD CRAY ENPH EPIQ FARO GLUU IMPR IL XXIA JKHY MTCH MXWL MB NTRI OCLR PAYC PLT PRO QUMU RSYS RUBI TNAV VIAV WU ZEN ZG/CRTO INXN KLIC NVMI OIIM ORBK PCLN SHOP WIX YGE

Analyst actions:

IVAC was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Maxim Group,
AXTI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum;
BRCD and ALLT were downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich,
SBAC was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
CTL was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
QLYS was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
TXTR was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Barrington Research,
OPWR was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at Avondale;
CAVM was initiated with a Buy at Brean Capital

12:02 pm Amkor and Cadence Design Systems (CDNS) expand collaboration (AMKR) :

Co announced the expansion of its collaboration with Cadence Design Systems to streamline semiconductor package verification with the joint development of a package assembly design kit for Amkor's SLIM and SWIFT advanced fan-out package technologies.

As a leader in electronic design automation, Cadence will provide Amkor with PADK development support based on the Cadence Physical Verification System software tool. This integrated solution allows Amkor's customers to shorten the SLIM and SWIFT design and verification cycles. 1

0:05 am Semiconductor Hldrs ETF slides to new session low (SMH) : The SMH has extended to 52.16 in recent trade which leaves the ETF modestly above last week's seven week low (52.12) and its 200 day sma (52.04) -- AMD, MU, TSM, AVGO, LSCC, ASML, MCHP, LRCX, ADI, INTC, TER.

7:49 am KEMET misses by $0.03, beats on revs; board authorizes a debt repurchase plan, initially up to $20 mln (KEM) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the two analyst estimate of $0.07; revenues fell 5.0% year/year to $183.9 mln vs the $180.8 mln two analyst estimate."We ended the year on a solid note with a strong finish with our cash flow exceeding our earlier forecasts...Overall, in a challenging economic environment, our operational excellence continued to improve margins and meet or exceed customer expectations."Co says finishing the fiscal year in this position has allowed its Board of Directors to authorize a debt repurchase plan, initially up to $20 mln over the course of FY17, which began April 1, 2016, to facilitate lower interest payments and position the company to accomplish its strategic objectives.

7:33 am Vishay beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (VSH) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.16; revenues fell 3.8% year/year to $570.6 mln vs the $559.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $540-580 mln. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $565-605 mln vs. $580.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co says a broad recovery of orders from all regions resulted in higher revenues than expected. The automotive market and several industrial product sectors continue to do well. The point of sales of distribution improved during Q1 and inventory turns for Vishay products at distributors recovered.

7:17 am SolarCity announces $227 mln investment from John Hancock (SCTY) :

Co announced that it has completed its first cash equity transaction with partner John Hancock Financial.

John Hancock is investing $227 million in a diversified portfolio of residential, commercial and industrial solar power projects that collectively represent 201 megawatts of generation capacity. Co retains a minority share of annual cash flows throughout the contract term as well as 99% of post-contract cash flows. The transaction raised $3.00 of financing per watt of solar generation capacity for SolarCity including tax equity investments, upfront rebates and prepayments; a blend of $3.24/watt for residential projects and $2.35/watt for commercial projects.

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From Briefing.com: 4:39 pm Microchip increases quarterly dividend to $0.3595/share from $0.359/share (MCHP) :

4:36 pm Transocean beats by $0.41, beats on revs (RIG) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.69 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.41 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues fell 34.4% year/year to $1.34 bln vs the $1.10 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Contract drilling revenues for Q1 decreased $345 million sequentially to $1.11 billion due primarily to reduced activity associated with stacked and idle rigs, and rig disposals."Despite the challenging environment, the Transocean team delivered strong operating performance, and solid financial results, adding over $200 million to our cash balance in [Q1]...As we work through [Q2], and the balance of the year, we will continue to prepare ourselves for the eventual industry recovery by taking the necessary steps to both maximize internal efficiencies, and further differentiate Transocean in the eyes of our customers through superior safety and operational performance."

4:24 pm FEI reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; reaffirms FY16 guidance (FEIC) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.56 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.56; revenues rose 3.6% year/year to $229 mln vs the $221.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.80-0.90 vs. $0.87 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $250-260 mln vs. $246.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $3.55-3.70 vs. $3.68 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $1.02-1.05 bln vs. $1.03 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:22 pm CenturyLink beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (CTL) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.71 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.68; revenues fell 1.1% year/year to $4.4 bln vs the $4.43 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Approximately 16,900 CenturyLink PrismTM TV customers were added during first quarter 2016; added nearly 150,000 addressable homes in new and existing service areas, ending the quarter with more than 3.3 million addressable homes. Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.57-0.62 vs. $0.63 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $4.38-4.43 bln vs. $4.42 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:22 pm Microchip beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides JunQ EPS in-line, revs in-line (MCHP)

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.70 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.68; non-GAAP revenues rose 3.9% year/year to $568.4 mln vs the $563.6 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $560.25-568.50 mln.Co issues in-line guidance for Q1 (Jun), sees EPS of $0.70-0.79, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.79 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 non-GAAP revs of $799.1-841.9 mln vs. $836.0 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."Our March quarter financial results were very strong amidst a weak semiconductor industry backdrop...We achieved the high end of our net sales guidance provided on April 4, 2016, establishing a new record in the process, and we exceeded the high end of our guidance for non-GAAP gross margin percentage, operating profit percentage and non-GAAP [EPS]."

4:16 pm Veeco Instruments beats by $0.14, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (VECO) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.29); revenues fell 20.7% year/year to $78 mln vs the $76.17 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of ($0.29)-($0.14) vs. ($0.16) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $70-83 mln vs. $87.00 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:02 pm Qorvo beats by $0.12, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (QRVO) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $1.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.92; revenues fell 4.2% year/year to $608.1 mln vs the $599.32 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ~$1.05, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.95 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of ~$650 mln vs. $625.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; ~gross margin 50%.

4:01 pm QuickLogic reports EPS in-line, misses on revs (QUIK) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.08 per share, in-line with the two analyst estimate of ($0.08); revenues fell 52.0% year/year to $2.95 mln vs the $3.3 mln single analyst estimate. 4:10 pm : The stock market spent the Wednesday session under pressure as vacillating oil prices fueled a retreat in the broader market. Meanwhile, mixed economic data clouded the economic picture while a rebound in the dollar contributed to a risk-off posture. Furthermore, relative weakness from the heavily-weighted industrial (-1.3%), health care (-1.0%), and financials (-0.8%) spaces contributed to selling pressure. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.8%) finished behind both the S&P 500 (-0.6%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%).

The trading day began on a lower note as investors weighed a slew of economic reports from overseas and the United States. Lackluster readings of Services PMIs from Germany, France, and the eurozone weighed on global equities while a below-consensus reading of the U.S. ADP National Employment Report for April (156,000; Briefing.com consensus 196,000) pushed equity futures back towards their lows.

The cash market found little relief despite an above-consensus reading of the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for April (55.7; Briefing.com consensus 54.5). The datapoint was masked by a recent string of weaker than expected economic data, which mars prospects of a sharp pick-up in economic growth heading into the second half of the year. Furthermore, renewed pressured from the greenback weighed on dollar-denominated commodities and on the possibility of increased earnings prospects.

The major averages ended off their lows despite seven sectors finishing beneath their flat lines. The commodity-sensitive energy (-1.3%) space traded in-line with industrials (-1.3%) and behind materials (-1.0%), health care (-1.0%), and financials (-0.8%). Conversely, countercyclical utilities (+1.1%), consumer staples (+0.3%), and telecom services (+0.2%) finished with the only gains.

The energy space (-1.3%) sank to the bottom of the leaderboard after investors ruminated over larger than expected builds in crude oil (2.78 million barrels; consensus: 1.69 million barrels) and gasoline (0.53 million barrels; consensus: -0.14 million barrels) stockpiles. WTI crude ended its day higher by 0.3% ($43.78/bbl), but well off its opening level ($44.84/bbl). In the group, Marathon Petroleum (MPC 36.22, -1.77) ended lower by 4.7% as refining names underperformed. On the flipside, Noble Energy (NBL 35.59, +0.38) ended higher by 1.1% after beating bottom-line results for the first quarter.

In the industrial space (-1.3%), airlines continued their recent losing streak as Delta Air Lines (DAL 41.43, -1.49) and American Airlines (AAL 33.21, -1.37) finished with respective losses of 3.5% and 4.0%. Elsewhere, Cummins (CMI 114.44, -4.16) fell 3.5% after a report indicated that class-8 truck orders declined 39.0% year-over-year in April.

Biotechnology underperformed in the health care space (-1.0%), evidenced by the 2.9% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 258.03, -7.72). The sub-group was led lower by Biogen (BIIB 263.12, -10.59), which extended its May loss to 4.3%. Elsewhere, Anthem (ANTM 138.73, -2.69) fell 1.9% after announcing that CFO Wayne DeVeydt will step down.

The U.S. Dollar Index (93.22, +0.28) finished off its session high, as the greenback gained against the euro, yen, and Canadian dollar. The euro/dollar pair finished lower by 0.1% at 1.1492 while the dollar gained 0.3% against the yen (106.91). Separately, the dollar jumped of 1.2% against the Canadian dollar (1.2873).

The Treasury complex finished on its high as the yield on the 10-yr note fell three basis points to 1.77%. This represents a six basis point move since last Friday's settlement at 1.83%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 992 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, April ADP Employment Change, preliminary Q1 Productivity, Unit Labor Cost, March Trade Balance, March Factory Orders, and April ISM Services:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted decrease of 3.4%. This compares to last week's -4.1% reading.
The ADP Employment Change report was a disappointment, showing an estimated 156,000 positions were added to private sector payrolls in April (Briefing.com consensus 196,000)
Briefly, the decline in productivity in the first quarter followed on the heels of an upwardly revised decline of 1.7% (from -2.2%) in the fourth quarter.
First quarter productivity declined 1.0% (Briefing.com consensus -1.4%)
Unit labor costs jumped 4.1% (Briefing.com consensus +2.6%), reflecting a 3.0% increase in hourly compensation and a 1.0% decrease in productivity.
On a year-over-year basis, productivity is up just 0.6% while unit labor costs are up 2.3%. That's a relationship with stagflation written on it.
The trade deficit for March narrowed sharply to $40.4 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$41.4 bln) from $47.0 billion in February.
That was a function of imports falling more than exports. Specifically, imports were $217.1 billion, $8.1 billion less than February imports, while exports were $176.6 billion, $1.5 billion less than February exports.
The import weakness was concentrated in consumer goods, which decreased by $5.1 billion on less demand for just about every category of consumer goods, and in capital goods, ex automotive, which decreased by $1.6 billion.
The export weakness also can be traced to consumer goods, which fell by $1.6 billion, yet almost all of that decline was related to lower exports of pharmaceutical preparations (-$0.8 bln) and gem diamonds (-$0.7 bln).
On a year-over-year basis, imports are down 9.2% while exports are down 5.4%.
The month of March marked the 14th straight month that exports have declined year-over-year.
New orders for manufactured durable goods increased 1.1% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following a downwardly revised 1.9% decline (from -1.7%) in February.
Excluding transportation, factory orders rose 0.8% after declining 0.9% in February. Shipments increased 0.5% in March, breaking a streak of eight consecutive monthly decreases.
Shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft -- a metric used in the GDP computation -- also increased 0.5% after declining 1.8% in February and 1.4% in January.
Orders for durable goods increased 0.8% in March while orders for nondurable goods increased 1.5%.
Notwithstanding the overall increase in orders for manufactured goods, new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business spending -- were up just 0.1% after declining 2.7% in February.
Total inventories for all manufacturing industries increased 0.2%, which was the first increase after eight straight monthly decreases. The inventories-to-shipments ratio held steady at 1.37.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for April was better than expected at 55.7 (Briefing.com consensus 54.5) and up from the March reading of 54.5.
It followed on the heels of the ISM Manufacturing Index report for April, which not only fell shy of economists' median estimate but also checked in below the prior month's reading.
The dividing line between expansion and contraction for the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index is 50.0. April marked the 75th consecutive month that it has been above 50.0.
The most important takeaway from the April report is that it reflected faster growth from March. That's important because the non-manufacturing side of the economy is significantly larger than the manufacturing side of the economy, and it's important because this is a second quarter number. Market participants are anxious to see faster growth after real GDP increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of just 0.5% in the first quarter.
The improvement in the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index in April was fueled by an uptick in the New Orders Index to 59.9 from 56.7.
In turn, the Employment Index rose to 53.0 from 50.3, marking the second straight month it has been above 50.0.
The Prices Index increased to 53.4 from 49.1, which is an indication that prices increased for the first time in three months.
The biggest drag for the month was the New Export Orders Index, which slipped to 56.5 from 58.5.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to Challenger Job Cuts for April and weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 259k), which will be released at 7:30 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively. DJ30 -99.65 NASDAQ -37.58 SP500 -12.25 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 960/1.767 bln/2076 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1196/992.03 mln/1813

3:30 pm :

The dollar index consolidates near the highs of the day, currently up +0.3% around the 93.21 level, weighing on commodities
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.3% at 83.35
Crude oil plummets after the release of EIA petroleum storage data, briefly consolidating below the previous day's close and staging a late day rally into the close
June crude Oil futures rose $0.14 (+0.3%) to $43.78/barrel
Crude oil inventories had a build of +2.784 mln (consensus called for a build of 500k-800k)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +0.536 mln
Distillate inventories had a draw of -1.261 mln
API inventory data released yesterday evening showed a build of +1.265 mln barrels, compared to expectations for a build of ~+0.5 mln barrels
Natural gas consolidates and trades sideways with little volatility in afternoon pit trading
June Natural Gas closed $0.05 higher (+2.4%) at $2.14/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold trends lower, closing near the lows of the day
June gold ended today's session down $17.60 (-1.4%) to $1274.20/oz
Silver sees a similar move to gold, closing near the lows of the day after a uni-directional downtrend all day
July silver closed today's session $0.19 lower (-1.1%) at $17.30/oz
Base metal copper inches lower to end pit trading
July copper closed $0.03 lower (-1.4%) at $2.19/lb
Back-to-back losses in the broader market were led by the Nasdaq Composite which lost 37.58 points (-0.79%) to end 4725.64. The S&P 500 closed down 12.25 points (-0.59%) to 2051.12. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 99.65 points (-0.56%) to end 17651.26. The market was weighed lower by mixed economic data, dollar strength and weak action in crude oil. Specifically, June Crude Oil futures ended the day modestly higher (+0.3%) after spending most of the session below flat lines as the weekly EIA inventory report showed higher than consensus build of 2.78 million barrels.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which showed a seasonally adjusted decline of 3.4%. The ADP Employment Change report was a disappointment, as only an estimated 156,000 positions were added to private sector payrolls in April. Unit labor costs jumped 4.1%, reflecting a 3.0% increase in hourly compensation and a 1.0% decline in productivity.

The trade deficit for March narrowed sharply to $40.4 billion from $47.0 billion in February. Imports were $217.1 billion, $8.1 billion less than February imports, while exports were $176.6 billion, $1.5 billion less than February exports. New orders for manufactured durable goods increased 1.1% in March following a downwardly revised 1.9% decline in February. The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for April was better than expected at 55.7 and up from the March reading of 54.5.

Technology (XLK 41.93, -0.12 -0.29%) was also weaker today, following the broader market pressure lower. Component Windstream (WIN 9.31, +0.62 +7.13%) was a notable outperformer today on the eve of the company's Q1 earnings report; conversely, component Teradata (TDC 24.41, -0.63 -2.52%) was notably weak ahead of its Q1 results which are scheduled for tomorrow morning. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed action XLU +1.17%, XLP +0.30%, IYZ +0.00%, XLY -0.45%, XLF -0.78%, XLV -0.96%, XLB -1.01%, XLI -1.23%, XLE -1.44% as Utilities led today's advance while Energy was the worst performer.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (692.58, -3.04 -0.44%) sector, trading finished near the middle of the daily range as the sector fell on the open and never looked back. Component Western Union (WU 19.01, -0.82 -4.14%) was among the worst performing components following the company's worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenue results. Other names in the space which closed with notable weakness included SWKS -2.67%, ADSK -2.67%, HRS -2.66%, VRSN -2.56%, TDC -2.56%, FLIR -2.41%, NVDA -2.28%, FSLR -2.02%, CSCO -1.56%, INTU -1.49%, TXN -1.35%.

Other notable news items among sector components:


8:38 am NetList announces Inphi's (IPHI) decision not to seek further appeal to the US Supreme Court following the Federal Circuit's denial of Inphi's petition for rehearing in January (NLST) :
Fiat Chrysler (FCAU 7.83, -0.13 -1.63%) confirmed plans to integrate Alphabet's (GOOGL 711.37, +2.93 +0.41%) Google's self-driving technology into 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans.

IBM (IBM 144.25, +0.12 +0.08%) Research is making quantum computing available to members of the public, who can access and run experiments on IBM's quantum processor.

Harris (HRS 74.40, -2.03 -2.66%) received a $12 million order to upgrade the U.S. Air Force's tactical radios currently used to provide multiband communications on Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD 33.14, -0.43 -1.28%) announced the appointment of Brian Swartz to replace Perry Wallack as CSOD's CFO effective on or before June 1, 2016.

Comtech Telecom (CMTL 23.80, -0.14 -0.58%) announced that its government solutions segment has received incremental funding in the amount of $5.8 million to further support its Secret Internet Protocol Router and Non-secure Internet Protocol Router Access Point (SNAP) Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) hardware and sustainment services delivery order.

2U, Inc. (TWOU 26.97, -1.19 -4.23%) announced that Jim Shelton, president and chief impact officer, has decided to leave the company to join the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to lead the education efforts effective June 1, 2016.

Sizmek (SZMK 2.58, -0.03 -1.15%) rescheduled the date for its Q1 earnings call to take place on May 10, 2016. Previously, the call had been scheduled for May 12; management will host call at 5:00 pm ET on May 10 to review the results.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Priceline (PCLN 1253.04, -101.60 -7.50%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $10.54 and $2.15 billion, respectively. The company also issued worse than expected Q2 EPS guidance in the range of $11.60-12.50.

Western Union (WU) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.37 and $1.3 billion, respectively. Additionally, the company guided in-line FY16 EPS in the range of $1.58-1.70.

Jack Henry (JKHY 83.08, +1.63 +2.00%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.68 and $333.2 million, respectively.

Paycom Software (PAYC 40.05, +1.77 +4.62%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.33 and $90.1 million, respectively. PAYC also guided Q2 and FY16 revenues better than expected at $69-71 million and $320-322 million (from prior $309-311 million).

Shopify (SHOP 29.61, -1.14 -3.71%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS at a loss per share of $0.06 on revenues which were also ahead of expectations and grew 94.7% versus last year to $72.7 million. SHOP also guided Q2 revenues better than expected at $79-81 million. The company also sees higher than prior FY16 revenues of $337-347 million (up from $320-330 million).

Zillow (ZG 4834.00, -15.00 -0.31%) reported worse than expected Q1 adjusted loss of $0.13 per share, and reported better than expected Q1 revenues which rose 46.1% versus last year to $186 million. The company guided Q2 revenues better than expected at $203-208 million. Further, ZG sees FY16 revenues ahead of expectations at $825-835 million.

Cray (CRAY 31.02, -7.89 -20.28%) reported better than expected Q1 loss per share of $0.13; CRAY also reported better than expected revenues which rose 32.9% versus last year to $105.5 million. CRAY also guided Q2 revenues worse than expectations at $100 million. The company also issued in-line FY16 revenue guidance in the range of $825 million.

Match Group (MTCH 12.81, +1.65 +14.78%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.11 and $285.3 million, respectively. MTCH also guided Q2 Dating revenue growth of 4-5% sequentially and sees FY16 Total Dating revenues of $1.10-1.14 billion on single digit non-dating revenue growth.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: HIVE DOX ARRS BNFT CTL CPSI CSOD CSGS EQIX FEIC FICO FLTX GDDY HDP HUBS INOV INST ITRI KTOS LPSN MCHP NEWP QRVO QUIK RP RST SEDG TRIP VRNS VECO WBMD WK XOXO XCOM YUME ZNGA/ACIW ACTA IOTS ANSS BITA BR CDK CBB CCOI SCOR CNSL EPAM IT G IMN KVHI LIOX LQDT LFUS LMOS MMS MITL MBLY MWW NTCT NICE PRFT RSTI TDC TVPT VG WIN

Analyst actions:

PLT was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Raymond James;
CRAY was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham and Craig Hallum,
MSI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Northcoast,
GRUB was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
GLUU was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at ROTH Capital,
IL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum;
SCTY was initiated with a Buy at Guggenheim


Co has cleared the final hurdle in the years-long reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 7,532,537, with Inphi's decision not to seek further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court following the Federal Circuit's denial of Inphi's petition for rehearing in January.Co also announced that the PTAB issued decisions last week again confirming the validity of 15 total claims in the IPR of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,001,434 and 8,359,501 brought by SanDisk (SNDK).The PTAB denied SanDisk's request for rehearing of the '434 in its entirety, again confirming the validity of the 14 claims found patentable last December. With respect to the '537, the USPTO will now go through the administrative process of issuing a certificate with the 60 claims that survived the five year reexamination process. The certificate will likely be issued later this year, at which time the patent is available for enforcement.

8:35 am Kopin reports Q1 EPS of ($0.11) vs ($0.09) single analyst estimate; revs fell 29% YoY to $6.1 mln vs $5.00 mln two analyst estimate (KOPN) : "We have been working with several large Asian companies to integrate the Whisper chip into their products, and we expect to announce design wins late this year. In our military group we have been selected by a major U.S. Military prime contractor to supply eyepiece assemblies for the U.S. Army's FWS-I program, the next generation of thermal weapon sights. Finally, the Solos direct marketing campaign is scheduled to launch this quarter, with unit delivery starting late this summer."

7:06 am Kulicke & Soffa beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (KLIC) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues rose 7.7% year/year to $156.4 mln vs the $135 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $195-205 mln vs. $161.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."Our broadening product offerings continues to be closely aligned with major industry trends which are driving capacity and capability requirements. As we have in the March quarter, we expect to continue benefiting from new System-In-Package demand requirements through the near term. In the longer-term we are well positioned to participate in growth associated with the Automotive, Industrial and Advanced Packaging segments."

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - Stocks Tried to Start a Bounce (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- After a week of pullback, stocks try to start a bounce.
- Jobs Report is talked up by those who believe in bad numbers while others
shake their head at the substantive change in the US jobs market.
- NASDAQ big names show some life though not great patterns. At the same
time the 'revenge of the nerd' stocks continues with the recent leaders.
- Looks as if the market will try some upside but still not that convinced
any move can overcome the market top.

An oversold yet noncommittal market traded modestly lower pre-market. The
Jobs Report, despite the spin meisters' attempts to paint a 'strong' jobs
market, rang hollow. Stocks initially sold on the 160K non-farm payrolls
and falling participation, but there was no sharp break lower. As the
market opened stocks staved off further weakness and put in a slow, steady
low to high move into the close. Indeed, in the last hour stocks
accelerated as it was clear the sellers were not interested.

A bit oversold and at the next support, the indices found enough lack of
selling to bounce off that support. Again, as the gains held, the advance
accelerated late session. Of course 0.3% to 0.5% gains are not exactly big
moves for this market.

SP500 6.51, 0.32%
NASDAQ 19.07, 0.40%
DJ30 79.92, 0.45%
SP400 0.43%
RUTX 0.61%
SOX 0.11%

VOLUME: NYSE +0.1%; NASDAQ -3%.

A/D: NYSE -1.1:1, NASDAQ 1.2:1. Clearly a large cap day, and when you look
at the NASDAQ big names you see the best moves in those stocks.

As the breadth shows, not a lot of stocks were surging. There were
recoveries but it was spotty, and some that were up earlier in energy,
commodities and the like were unable to hold their moves. Big names were
getting money, something of an anomaly in more recent times.

That in itself makes Friday appear more like an anomaly than a pattern that
is ready to continue. Maybe it will. Perhaps traders see the jobs data as
something that will prompt the Fed to stay easy and actively support stocks.
If that is the case, then those big names indeed become more alluring.

At the same time, bonds sold and yields rallied, suggesting that the data
was not really that weak, that the Fed would remain in a tightening mindset.
Perhaps; the Fed Funds Futures contract virtually priced out a June hike and
indeed, you have to go out to February 2017 to get a 50+% forecast of a rate
hike. That, however, is subject to wide variance; the farther out you go,
it becomes more and more arbitrary.

The stock indices, after 2+ weeks of downside in some cases, found next
support Wednesday, held Thursday, and posted modest Friday bounces. Logical
place to bounce as we pointed out Wednesday and Thursday.

That said, the Friday bounces were not in themselves proof of anything.
Rather modest gains, volume light, narrow breadth. We were not buying the
move. The big NASDAQ names still have rather ugly patterns though there are
some possible trades, e.g. AAPL, GOOG. Overall they are not really strong
enough to engender a lot of excitement unless they can show more.

So, we opted to wait through Friday and see the market's take on the FOMC,
the dollar, the economy, with a particular aim at watching to see if money
stays in the market. You know that by watching stocks that have built
decent patterns continuing to do so and actually making the moves higher.
Metals are kind of lonely right now, and you can say the same about many
energy stocks. Materials are getting some money pushed their way and rails
have some interesting patterns. Hate to say it, but even DIS has a good
setup; hey, may not like its policies, but I will make money off of it and
use it to NOT go to a DIS movie. Ha!

The indices are at some support, they can bounce, but overall their patterns
are, to understate it, worrisome. What you have to see is the money
rotating again, moving into areas with good patterns and breaking them
higher. That shows money is not leaving the market, and the only reason for
that is the market believes the Fed has its back. If it does that, we make
those plays upside where the money is going, downside where it is leaving.
If it leaves all the market, well, we go there. That is, however, for next
week to show as the market tries the move off of this test of support.


NEWS/ECONOMY

Jobs numbers weak again as even low wage jobs are now fewer.

The 'great jobs machine' is still labeled such by Mark Zandi of ADP.
Looking at the real numbers, I would say that Zandi is one engaged in the
'fiction peddling' the President scorns as he tries touting how great his
lousy economy is. Facts are not fiction that is peddled. Facts stand for
themselves unlike the self-aggrandizing view of the recovery this
administration attempts to sell a populace that knows all too well just how
bad this recovery has been and remains.

Non-Farm Payrolls: 160K versus 191K expected versus 208K prior (from 215K).

Unemployment rate: Steady at 5.0% as expected.

Hourly earnings: 0.3% versus 0.3% exp versus 0.2% prior (from 0.3%). 2.5%
year/year.

This appears nicer, but it also reflects a rising minimum wage that will
reduce the total number of jobs. Okay, we are going to pay people more for
working a no to low skill job, one that is supposed to be for students and
young people who are on the way to their permanent jobs. Instead, because
this economy cannot generate nearly enough full-time jobs, these jobs are
converted into careers. As no one can make a living at these wages, a
higher rate is mandated by government. So, you get more money for a job
that doesn't throw off enough income to justify it at a higher wage, so 1)
there are less of those jobs, 2) they still cannot provide a decent living,
and 3) they are on the way out as fast as possible as companies seek to
automate as many of these jobs as possible.

Participation: 62.8% versus 63.0% prior. After the heralded return of
higher participation rates, they flop right back down, pushing the 'out of
workforce' figure to over 94M again as 562,000 left the workforce.

Jobs lost: -316K overall with 253K of those jobs being full-time jobs.


The Report's theme: the same one, i.e. poor job quality yet again as this
economy cannot produce in number any quality, breadwinner jobs. There is no
investment other than stock buybacks. That is not going to create new
business requiring more employees. Indeed, as we have seen, many companies
continue cutting staff (is there anyone left to fire from full-time jobs?)
in order to improve the bottom line in an economy where sales beats are rare
and highly celebrated.


Jobs gains/losses by age group: More of the same story.

Age 20-24: -155K

Age 25-54: -284K

Age 55-69: +166K

WMT brought back the job of the greeter, but that was hardly necessary. The
55-69 work group has scored the most gains in the entire recovery.

So, through the entire recovery from 12/2007:

Combining ages 16 to 54: -3.5M jobs from 12/2007.

55-69: +8.1M jobs from 12/2007.

Total 55-69 workers: 34.4M (all-time high), a full 22.8% of the total 151M
workers counted by the establishment survey.


The best and the worst: No change at the top . . . or at the bottom.

Since 12/2014:

Segment with the highest number of net jobs created: Waiters and bartenders
at 450K.

Segment with the least number of net jobs created: Manufacturing at 0.0K


Since 12/2007:

Waiters and bartenders: +1.6M

Manufacturing: -1.5M


THE MARKET

The indices bounced off of support after 2.5 weeks of declines, holding
where they had to. It was not, however, an overly strong session. It is up
to this week to show if a real bounce can set in. The indices are near term
oversold and set to bounce, and indeed some good moves appeared from NASDAQ
big names, some energy, materials. If the money keeps coming their way, the
market can bounce again.

CHARTS

SP500/DJ30: Both held at the converging 50 day MA's starting Wednesday,
both put in decent bounces Friday. MACD rolled over on the last high,
putting in a lower peak as stocks put in a higher high. That indicates
momentum has slowed. The pattern could, particularly with this weaker
momentum, develop a head and shoulders top spanning the late March to
present prices. SP500/DJ30 are holding the neckline and attempting a
bounce. The key move on a bounce is at the late March/early April high. A
failure there is a move you want to play to the downside. Of course, the
head and shoulders is a pattern that often tries to set up but also often
does not get fulfilled. Watching for a bounce this coming week and we will
see how much strength it musters.

NASDAQ: Up Monday after selling back for a week, then spent the rest of the
week selling. Friday NASDAQ gapped lower then reversed to a gain. Volume
was lower but remained just above average. The big names helped NASDAQ post
the bounce, making the difference after being mostly absent for a couple of
weeks. Oversold, due for a bounce but 4800-4820 is resistance on a further
bounce (closed at 4735.

SOX: Sold to a lower low on this selloff, undercutting the early March low.
It reversed to positive, showing a good shakeout move. Still below the 200
day SMA but oversold. If it bounces it has resistance at 655.

RUTX: Sold to the 50 day MA's on the week, held the 50 day SMA on the
Friday low, reversed nicely for a gain. After a run higher up the 20 day
EMA from March, a bit deeper test was in order and this move to the 50 day
EMA keeps the upside trend intact. The question for RUTX, and for all of
the indices, is whether there is enough reason to rally again and take on
resistance and prior highs. Economics are weak, and that leave . . .
central banks and the trust that central banks are going to back the market.

SP400: Held over the 50 day MA's on its fade last week, bounced Friday with
the market. Closed at the late March high. Important level to take out,
but SP400 put in a nice pullback and a higher low.


LEADERSHIP/KEY SECTORS

Big Names: Putting in some upside. GOOG looks as if it can put in a
tradable bounce. AAPL ditto. SBUX showing the same action as AAPL, i.e.
attempting a double bottom off two intraday reaches lower. NFLX shows the
same action. Any of these could be ready to move higher this week.

Energy: Some good moves, others holding up well. They may get the money
right back. Drillers did well, e.g. RIG, ATW, UNT. Others are set up well:
SPN, NBL, NOV.

Materials: Some life. LPX (lumber). MAS bouncing up off the 50 day MA's
on volume.

Retail: Bouncing from some ugly selling. WMT defied the odds and surged
back through the 50 day MA. Others may be ready to try to bounce after
selloffs, e.g. JWN, KSS; not much more than bounces likely. COST sold hard.

Financial: Still in the nice pullbacks. JPM, GS, MS, BAC.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: +19.06 points (+0.4%) to close at 4736.16
Volume: 1.8B (-2.7%)

Up Volume: 1.01B (+171.85M)
Down Volume: 822.38M (-177.62M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.22 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.75 to 1

New Highs: 35 (-5)
New Lows: 88 (+27)

S&P
Stats: +6.51 points (+0.32%) to close at 2057.14
NYSE Volume: 950M (+0.11%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.82 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.11 to 1

New Highs: 136 (+2)
New Lows: 36 (+8)

DJ30
Stats: +79.92 points (+0.45%) to close at 17740.63


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 14.72; -1.19
VXN: 17.54; -1.6
VXO: 15.26; -1.32

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.19; -0.01

Eight straight at 1.0 or better as the indices hit a high and then started
to peel back. 18 of the last 32 above 1.0. More than enough 1.0+ readings
to support a move back upside.


Bulls and Bears: Another week of downside took some air out of the bulls,
pumped up bears just a bit. Still diverging after crossing back to head to
their respective corners.

Bulls: 40.2 versus 44.3

Bears: 21.7 versus 20.6

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 40.2
44.3% versus 47.4% versus 41.2% versus 45.4% versus 43.3% versus 47.4%
versus 44.4% versus 39.4% versus 36.4% versus 34.7% versus 26.5% versus
24.7% 34.0% versus 29.2% versus 26.8% versus 28.6% versus 34.7% versus 36.7%
versus 37.8% versus 44.9% versus 41.2% versus 45.4%

Bears: 21.7
20.6% versus 21.7% versus 27.8% versus 27.8% versus 28.9% versus 27.8%
versus 30.3% versus 35.4% versus 34.3% versus 35.7% versus 39.8% versus
39.2% versus 38.1% versus 35.4% versus 36.1% versus 35.7% versus 31.6%
versus 29.6% versus 29.6% versus 27.6% versus 26.8% versus 26.8% versus
28.9% versus 28.1% versus 29.2% versus 31.3% versus 31.2% versus 34.4%
versus 35.1% versus 30.2% versus 26.8% versus 27.9 versus 26.8% versus 22.5%
versus 18.4% versus 18.6% versus 17.5%


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 1.78% versus 1.74%. A more definitive move the past week
as TLT bounced off the double bottom at the 50% Fibonacci retracement of the
December to February rally.

Historical: 1.74% versus 1.77% versus 1.80% versus 1.87% versus 1.83% versus
1.83% versus 1.86% versus 1.94% versus 1.90% versus 1.88% versus 1.86%
versus 1.95% versus 1.79% versus 1.77% versus 1.75% versus 1.79% versus
1.76% versus 1.77% versus 1.72% versus 1.72% versus 1.691% versus 1.75%
versus 1.72% versus 1.77% versus 1.79% versus 1.77% versus 1.82% versus
1.80% versus 1.88%


EUR/USD: 1.1405 versus 1.1399. Euro posted a higher rally high on the week
and then faded to the 20 day EMA and the early April consolidation. Good
test, in position to continue the move.

Historical: 1.1399 versus 1.14864 versus 1.14864 versus 1.1478 versus
1.15306 versus 1.1450 versus 1.1382 versus 1.1329 versus 1.1293 versus
1.1261 versus 1.2249 versus 1.1289 versus 1.1295 versus 1.1360 versus 1.1317
versus 1.1285 versus 1.1264 versus 1.1278 versus 1.1389 versus 1.1410 versus
1.1397 versus 1.1370 versus 1.1396 versus 1.13792 versus 1l1392 versus
1.1391 versus 1.1382 versus 1.1339 versus 1.1295 versus 1.1195


USD/JPY: 107.10 versus 107.41. Bounced off the lower low, but not a really
impressive move as USD holds in a downtrend, but oversold and in position ot
break higher with higher MACD.

Historical: 107.41 versus 107.126 versus 107.312 versus 106.16 versus
106.33 versus 107.36 versus 109.35 versus 111.36 versus 111.79 versus 109.46
versus 109.135 versus 109.06 versus 108.762 versus 109.65 versus 109.29
versus 108.505 versus 107.95 versus 108.175 versus 108.425 versus 109.84
versus 110.45


Oil: 44.56, +0.24. Faded on the week, but holding the 20 day EMA as oil
continues its trend higher.


Gold: 1289.70, +17.40. After breaking out of the 3 month range the prior
Friday, gold tested all week, moving back to the 10 day EMA then rebounding
Friday. Excellent upside action.


MONDAY

The bulk of earnings are over. The Jobs Report is out. The FOMC met a week
back. It is May. What could be out there to drive stocks higher? A belief
the Fed stands behind the market and will overcome weak economic data to
keep financial assets pumped up.

Kind of thin what with the indices just coming off a flirt with the prior
highs. Yet they are trying to set up another upside move. The NASDAQ big
names are showing a series of short double bottoms, indicating some money
moving their way. Perhaps it is just a short bottom attempt that runs out
of money, but the patterns are there. We will be looking at some of them a
trades.

Others show good patterns such as DIS, some materials, some energy. If
these areas continue setting up show upside breaks, we will look at playing
them as well.

Not looking for new highs; the index patterns are still in a huge topping
pattern, and they will have to prove if they can do more than bounce. Thus
we play a bounce if it presents again, and if the indices keep moving higher
and higher, well okay then.

Not pessimists, just pragmatists, looking to take what the market gives us.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 4736.16

Resistance:
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4774 is the January 2-15 high
The 50 day EMA at 4799
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4815 is the December 2014 peak
The March 2015 lows at 4843 and 4825
The 200 day SMA at 4835
4836 is the March 2016 peak
4894 is the September 2015 closing high
4899 - 4902 from the September 2015 peak, July 2015 low
4916 is the mid-November 2015 low
4920 is the lower gap point from mid-October 2015, the January 2016 lower
gap point
4960 is the September 2015 intraday high, an important reversal point for
NASDAQ.
4999 is the October upper gap point
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5042 is the March 2015 high
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak

Support:
4637 is the February intraday high
4736 is the early January lower gap point downside, the last downside gap in
the selloff.
4620 is the February 1 closing high
4615 from September 2014 highs, October 2014 upper gap point, late August
2015 low.
4517-4506 from the September 2015 and August 2015 closing lows
4485 are the twin July 2014 peaks
4471 is the January 2016 closing low
4425 is the late February intraday low
4363 is the February upper gap point
4352 is the March 2014 peak
4313 is the January 2016 intraday low
4292 is the August 2015 low
4212 is the February intraday low


S&P 500: Closed at 2057.14

Resistance:
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014
2094 is the December 2014 high, the prior all-time high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2119.59 is the February intraday prior all-time high
2126 was the April prior all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high

Support:
2046 is the July 2015 closing low
The 50 day EMA at 2044
2040 is the March 2015 closing low
2023 is the November 2015 low
2020 is the September 2015 intraday high
The 200 day SMA at 2013
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1995 is the September 2015 recovery peak
1991 is the July 2014 high
1972 is the December 2014 low
1947 is the February 2016 intraday high, the late February peak
1940 is the January 2016 recovery bounce peak closing high
1913 is the early September 2015 closing low testing the bounce from the
August selling
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1891 is last week's intraday low prior to the miraculous reversal.
1872 is the September 2015 test low of the August low
1867 is the August 2015 low
1862 is the October 2014 closing low
1859 is the January 2016 closing low
1820 is the October 2014 intraday low
1815 is the April 2014 low
1812 is the January 2016 intraday low
1772 are the Q4 2013 highs and lows


Dow: Closed at 17,740.63

Resistance:
17,748 is the mid-April China margin selloff and the bottom of the 5 month
trading range
June 2015 low at 17,715
The March low at 17,786
17,978 is the November 2015 peak
18,100 to 18,181: interim peaks in the December 2014 to July 2015 range
18,288 from March 2015
18,351 is the all-time high from May 2015

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 17,549
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
17,265 is a December 2015 closing low
17,245 is the November 2015 closing low
17,152 is the mid-July post bear market high
The 200 day SMA at 17,116
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,933 is the September 2015 recovery intraday peak
16,740 is the mid-September peak and potential apex for a right shoulder to
a head and shoulders pattern
16,736 is a prior all-time high from May 2014
16,670 is the December 2014 peak and the recent August 2015 relief bounce
peak.
16,665 is the late August 2015 closing high
16,632 is the April 2014 peak
16,621 is the late February 2016 peak
16,589 is the December 2013 former all-time high
16,526 is the early January resistance
16,511 is the January 2016 intraday high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,466 is the January 2016 recovery closing peak.
16,368 is the August 2014 low
16,117 is the October 2014 closing low
16,058 is the early September 2015 low
16,026 is the April 2014 low
15,855 is the October 2014 intraday low
15,766 is the January closing low
15,666 is the August 2015 closing low
15,450 is the January 2016 intraday low
15,372 is the February 2014 low
15,370 is the August 2015 low


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

May 6 - Friday
Nonfarm Payrolls, April (8:30): 160K actual versus 207K expected, 208K prior
(revised from 215K)
Nonfarm Private Payrolls, April (8:30): 171K actual versus 191K expected,
184K prior (revised from 195K)
Unemployment Rate, April (8:30): 5.0% actual versus 5.0% expected, 5.0%
prior
Hourly Earnings, April (8:30): 0.3% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.2% prior
(revised from 0.3%)
Average Workweek, April (8:30): 34.5 actual versus 34.5 expected, 34.4 prior
Consumer Credit, March (15:00): $29.6B actual versus $18.0B expected, $14.2B
prior (revised from $17.3B)

May 10 - Tuesday
JOLTS - Job Openings, March (10:00): 5.445M prior
Wholesale Inventories, March (10:00): 0.2% expected, -0.5% prior

May 11 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 05/07 (7:00): -3.4% prior
Crude Inventories, 05/07 (10:30): 2.784M prior
Treasury Budget, April (14:00): $156.7B prior

May 12 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 05/07 (8:30): 270K expected, 274K prior
Continuing Claims, 04/30 (8:30): 2121K prior
Import Prices ex-oil, April (8:30): -0.1% prior
Export Prices ex-ag., April (8:30): 0.3% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 05/07 (10:30): 68 bcf prior

May 13 - Friday
PPI, April (8:30): 0.3% expected, -0.1% prior
Core PPI, April (8:30): 0.1% expected, -0.1% prior
Retail Sales, April (8:30): 0.8% expected, -0.3% prior
Retail Sales ex-auto, April (8:30): 0.5% expected, 0.2% prior
Business Inventories, March (10:00): 0.2% expected, -0.1% prior
Michigan Sentiment, Preliminary May (10:00): 90.0 expected, 89.7 prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm Nuance Communications beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line; raises FY16 EPS, in-line, lowes rev slightly (NUAN) : Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.35; revenues fell 0.1% year/year to $487.4 mln vs the $490.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Net new bookings +3%Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.35-0.38, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.36 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $483-497 mln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $496.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY16, raises EPS to $1.48-1.56 from $1.41-1.51, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; lowers FY16 revs to 1.975-2.005 bln from $1.98-2.03 bln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Harmonic misses by $0.08, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; guides FY16 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (HLIT) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.11 per share, $0.08 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.03); revenues fell 21.3% year/year to $81.8 mln vs the $83.98 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Bookings were $109.6 mln, compared with $101.0 mln for 4Q15 and $97.3 mln for 1Q15.Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of ($0.05)-($0.02) vs. $0.00 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $103-$108 mln vs. $103.74 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees gross margin of 50-51%.Co issues guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $0.09-$0.12 vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $400-$415 mln vs. $407.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees gross margin of ~55%.

4:06 pm Rubicon Tech misses by $0.12, misses on revs (RBCN) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.38 per share, $0.12 worse than the single analyst estimate of ($0.26); revenues fell 51.7% year/year to $4.3 mln vs the $4.67 mln two analyst estimate.Q2 guidance: The Company expects second quarter revenue and GAAP loss per share to be similar to the first quarter (consensus -$0.23). Revenue growth is expected to resume in the third quarter primarily from increasing PSS wafer sales (consensus calls for $6.1 mln). "We expect meaningful increases in six-inch PSS sales over the course of this year because of our large diameter capability and vertical integration. We are working diligently to reduce wafer cost in order to fully benefit from this opportunity."Excess sapphire capacity in the market continues to depress sapphire pricing. As a consequence, the Company has been limiting the amount of two and four-inch core sold in recent quarters due to the particularly challenging pricing. The Company continues to work with developers of some very interesting potential new applications for sapphire which could open up new markets. Equities finished with gains today, building on the split session from yesterday. Action ended at highs of the day, and when it was all said and done the Nasdaq Composite was up 59.67 points (+1.26%) to 4809.88. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 222.44 points (+1.26%) to 17928.35. The S&P 500 added 25.70 points (+1.25%) to end 2084.39. Market data today came in the form of wholesale inventories which increased 0.1% in March after declining a downwardly revised 0.6% in February. Additionally, the March Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.757 million from a revised 5.608 million in February.

The major averages gapped up to begin the day as investors weighed positive development from overseas. In Japan, finance minister Taro Aso was able to talk down yen strength for the second day, warning of intervention if the Japanese economy appears threatened by the continued strength of its currency. Elsewhere, China's April CPI data (+2.3% year-over-year) fell in-line with expectations while Germany's Trade Balance Report for March showed export growth (+1.9%).

Technology (XLK 42.80, +0.55 +1.30%) finished flat yesterday, but was middle of the rung in terms of sector gainers today. Component Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS 73.85, +2.11 +2.94%) was an out-performer today following FY18 guidance in a slide presentation. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended Tuesday action XLE +1.76%, XLI +1.72%, XLB +1.67%, XLF +1.43%, IYZ +1.31%, XLY +1.28%, XLP +0.99%, XLV +0.84%, XLU +0.10% with Energy leading the way on the back of a +2.9% advance in June Crude Oil Futures.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (706.86, +9.23 +1.32%) sector, yesterday's modest gains were backed up by a strong session as the sector capped off the day near highs. Component Western Digital (WDC 38.37, +1.41 +3.81%) was higher today following the Ministry of Commerce of China approval of the WDC/SanDisk (SNDK 76.57, +1.06 +1.40%) acquisition. Other names in the space which closed in the green today included AKAM +3.63%, GLW +2.84%, CTXS +2.52%, FFIV +2.43%, QRVO +2.24%, MU +2.23%, STX +2.07%, TDC +2.02%, ADBE +2.02%, NTAP +2.00%, CSCO +1.96%, JNPR +1.94%.

Other news items among sector components:

Accenture (ACN 116.94, +1.47 +1.27%) acquired OPS Rules, a boutique analytics consulting company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
According to a Wall Street Journal article, and later confirmed on the company's website, HP (HPQ 11.61, +0.18 +1.57%) announced the launch of a tech startup investment arm of the company.

Total System (TSS 53.23, +0.39 +0.74%) announced that Ecobank deployed the latest version of the PRIMESM payments solution platform, PRIME 4, to support its acquirer processing of MasterCard (MA 97.64, +0.92 +0.95%), Visa (V 79.20, +0.98 +1.25%) and UnionPay International point-of-sale (POS) transactions across 28 countries in Middle Africa.

Broadcom Limited (AVGO 144.61, +2.21, +1.55%) announced a new generation of 5A gate drive optocoupler devices, the ACPL-352J and ACNW3430, designed for a wide range of industrial applications including motor drives and power inverters.

IBM Research (IBM 149.97, +2.63 +1.78%) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County announced plans for a multi-year collaboration to create the Accelerated Cognitive Cybersecurity Laboratory (ACCL), which will be housed within the College of Engineering and Information Technology at UMBC.

SanDisk (SNDK) and Western Digital (WDC) announced the MOFCOM has approved the acquisition of SNDK by WDC.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Cinedigm Digital Cinema (CIDM 1.60, -0.40 -20.00%) effected a 1:10 reverse stock split of its Class A common stock at the open of trading today.

TubeMogul (TUBE 12.21, -0.68 -5.28%) appointed Ron Will as CFO; current CFO Paul Joachim was promoted to Chief Admin Officer effective May 11.

Baidu.com (BIDU 166.21, -3.28 -1.94%) reported on an examination of its search ranking practices by PRC regulators that followed news reports and critical public comments regarding those practices.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Nokia (NOK 5.31, -0.38 -6.68%) reported in-line Q1 EPS of 0.03 but worse than expected revenues which fell 8.6% versus last year to 5.6 billion. The company also announced expectations for a FY16 non-IFRS net sales decline year-over-year, FY16 Non-IFRS financial income and expense of about EUR 300 million, and FY16 Capital expenditures of about EUR 650 million.

Rackspace (RAX 23.39, +0.85 +3.77%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.34 and in-line revenues of $518.1 million. RAX also guided Q2 revenues at $519-524 million and FY16 revenues at $2.08-2.16 billion.

Zebra Tech (ZBRA 51.46, -11.12 -17.77%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $1.01 and $847 million, respectively. For the Q2 period ZBRA sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of $1.00-1.20 and $867-894 million, respectively. For the FY16 period, ZBRA expects revenues to be in the range of -3% to +1% to about $3.56-3.70 billion.

Convergys (CVG 27.83, +1.03 +3.84%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.50 and worse than expected revenues of $722.2 million. CVG also guided FY16 revenue growth of about zero percent versus prior guidance of about 1% growth.

Echostar Holdings (SATS 41.09, +1.51 +3.82%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.54 and $816.35 million, respectively.

SolarCity (SCTY 17.82, -4.69 -20.84%) reported a worse than expected Q1 loss per share of $2.56 and better than expected revenues of $122.57 million. The company also guided Q2 EPS and revenues worse than expected at ($2.80)-($2.70) and $135-143 million, respectively.

MaxLinear (MXL 18.47, +2.04 +12.42%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.47 on in-line revenues which rose 190.1% versus last year to $102.7 million. The company also guided Q2 revenues of $100-104 million.

SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG 19.17, -3.42 -15.14%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.51 and $125.2 million, respectively. SEDG also guided Q2 revenues in-line at $125-134 million.

Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS) guided in a slide presentation for FY18 EPS in the range of $4.70-5.10, mostly in-line with expectations.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ALRM ATTO BBOX CSLT DGLY ESIO EA EVRI FIVN HCKT HLIT JIVE KEYW CALL MTSC NEWR NUAN QTM QNST FUEL RBCN SCSC VEC/CSIQ MTLS YGE

Analyst actions:

SCTY was downgraded to Mkt Perform at Avondale and to Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
CHKP was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
RAX was downgraded to Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James;
BATS was initiated at Barclays, Sandler O'Neill, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Goldman, Keefe Bruyette, JP Morgan and Jefferies

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair broadly higher as the S&P 500 (+1.3%; month-to-date +0.9%) erased its monthly loss. Focal points of today's trade included positive data from overseas, a rebound in oil prices, a largely range-bound session in the U.S. dollar, and the outperformance of the heavily-weighted industrial (+1.7%) and financial (+1.4%) sectors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.3%) ended ahead of the benchmark index (+1.3%) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+1.3%).

The stock market began its day with a broad-based rally after most global equity markets traded higher in overnight action. In Germany, the DAX gained 0.7% after Germany's Trade Balance Report for March revealed that export growth (+1.9%; consensus -0.1%) for the month beat analysts' estimates. In Asia, the yen received another reprieve from finance minister Taro Aso. The minister issued another warning of intervention in the currency market should the recent strength in the yen threaten Japan's economy.

The major averages extended their opening gains in lockstep with oil. The energy component climbed throughout the session as it rebounded from yesterday's 2.6% decline. WTI crude ended its day higher by 2.9% at $44.70/bbl. Oil still remains lower by 4.4% since last month's settlement at $46.76/bbl. Supply disruptions in Canada and Nigeria have been widely credited for the increased buying interest.

Equities extended their rally through the afternoon as the six cyclical sectors outperformed. On that note, commodity-sensitive energy (+1.8%) and materials (+1.7%) led industrials (+1.7%), financials (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+1.3%), and technology (+1.3%) followed.

In the industrial space (+1.7%), farm equipment names and aerospace companies outperformed. Caterpillar (CAT 72.51, +1.73) and Deere (DE 83.81, +3.23) gained a respective 2.4% and 4.0% after the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates Report elicited a bullish response in agriculture names. Meanwhile, rail companies outperformed in the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.2%) as CSX (CSX 26.37, +0.52) and Norfolk Southern (NSC 90.31, +2.03) gained 2.0% and 2.3%, respectively.

The financial sector (+1.4%) traded higher in sympathy with European banking names after Credit Suisse (CS 13.90, +0.56) reported better than feared quarterly results. Elsewhere, investment brokerages outperformed as Goldman Sachs (GS 161.42, +3.91) and Charles Schwab (SCHW 28.01 +0.74) jumped 2.5% and 2.7%, respectively. Elsewhere, Leucadia National (LUK 17.71, +0.99) gained 5.9% after it agreed to buy ITG Investment Research from Investment Technology (ITG 18.89, +0.30) for $12 million in cash. Investment Technology does not expect to book a material loss or gain from the deal.

In the consumer discretionary space (+1.3%), Amazon (AMZN 703.24, +23.494) hit a new 52-week intraday high (704.55) after ChannelAdvisor disclosed positive April same stores sales for the company. Separately, Amazon received a price target increase to $1000 from $770 at Deutsche Bank. Elsewhere, Walt Disney (DIS 106.60, +1.26) gained 1.2% ahead of this evening's quarterly report.

The heavyweight technology sector (+1.3%) ended ahead of the broader market as large caps Alphabet (GOOG 723.18, +10.28) and Microsoft (MSFT 51.02, +0.95) outperformed. Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL 93.39, +0.60) ended behind the broader sector as a report from Nikkei weighed. The article received a bearish response as it cited increased competition in the Chinese smartphone market.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.24, +0.10) finished flat with the greenback gaining against the euro and the yen, but falling against the commodity-sensitive Canadian dollar. The euro/dollar pair finished lower by 0.1% at 1.1370 while the dollar gained 0.9% against the yen (109.28). The dollar/Canadian dollar pair ended lower by 0.4% (1.2914) as it benefited from an uptick in oil.

The Treasury complex ended flat with the yield on the 10-yr note unchanged at 1.75%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 831 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the March Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and Wholesale Inventories for March:

Wholesale inventories increased 0.1% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after declining a downwardly revised 0.6% (from -0.5%) in February.
This was the first time in six months that there was an increase in wholesale inventories.
The modest uptick was fueled by a 0.5% increase in nondurable inventories, which was powered by a 2.0% increase in drug inventories and a 3.3% jump in petroleum inventories.
Durable inventories were down 0.1%. That decline was led by a 2.0% drop in metals inventories and a 1.6% drop in electrical inventories. A 1.0% jump in automotive inventories acted as a major offset.
Wholesale sales increased 0.7% following an unrevised 0.2% decline in February.
The wholesale inventories to sales ratio held steady at 1.36, but was up from 1.32 in the same period a year ago.
On a year-over-year basis, wholesale sales are down 2.0% while wholesale inventories are up 0.3%.
The March Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.757 million from a revised 5.608 million (revised from 5.445 million) in February.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the 14:00 ET release of the April Treasury Budget.

Nasdaq Composite -3.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.6% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones +2.9% YTD

DJ30 +222.44 NASDAQ +59.67 SP500 +25.70 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1983/1.604 bln/967 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2310/831.0 mln/700

3:30 pm :

The dollar index continues its morning rally, trading +0.2% at the 94.28 level, not appearing to weigh on commodities overall
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +2.0% at 83.36
Crude oil closes near a fresh high of the day after a steady morning rally and an afternoon of sideways action
June crude oil futures rose $1.25 (+2.9%) to $44.70/barrel
EIA petroleum inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
API inventory data is scheduled to be released after the market close today
Natural gas sees a notable rally, briefly sinking in the afternoon before spiking back up near its highs of the day to close pit trading
June natural gas closed $0.06 higher (+2.9%) at $2.16/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold sees an afternoon spike above the previous session's close, closing near the high of the day
June gold ended today's session down $2.10 (-0.2%) to $1264.70/oz
Silver sees an afternoon spike
July silver closed today's session $0.01 higher (+0.1%) at $17.09/oz
Base metal copper inches lower in afternoon pit trading
July copper closed $0.02 lower (-1.0%) at $2.09/lb
July corn closed $0.12 higher (+3.3%) at $3.80/bushel
US corn yield is projected to be down to 168 bushels per acre, down 0.4 bushels y/y
July wheat closed $0.03 higher (+0.7%) at $4.61/bushel
Wheat production projected to be -3% y/y to 1.998 bln bushels
July soybeans closed $0.53 higher (+5.2%) at $10.80/bushel
Soybean futures at one point in today's session hit its exchange limit of $0.65
The U.S. soybean crush for 2016/17 is projected at 1,915 million bushels, up 35 million from 2015/16. Domestic soybean meal disappearance is projected to increase with expected gains in U.S. meat production. With limited gains for competing exporters, U.S. soybean meal exports are projected at 12.0 million short tons, up 0.5 million from 2015/16
July sugar closed flat at $0.16/lb
Fertilizer stocks: (POT, +3.4%), (MOS, +4.1%), (CF, -0.4%), (AGU, +3.5%), (IPI, +22.5%), (UAN, +5.4%), (TNH, +2.8%), (RNF, +0.0%), (RTK, +2.4), (BG, +0.7%)
Farm machinery: (DE, +3.7%), (AGCO, +2.3%), (CNH, +1.2%), (TITN, +4.5%)
Seed names: (MON, +2.5%), (SYT, -0.5%), (DD, +1.3%), (DOW, +1.3%)
Irrigation (LNN, +2.4%)
Related ETFs: JJG (grains ETF), CORN (corn ETF) and WEAT (wheat ETF), SOYB (soy ETF)

10:40 am iRobot responds to ISS' report regarding the election of directors to the Board (IRBT) :

'We strongly believe that ISS reached the wrong conclusion.''iRobot is an innovative consumer technology company that commands 62% market share in the highly competitive robotic vacuuming segment. Maintaining this market share requires vision, technological prowess and significant investment. We spend 12% of our revenue on R&D, similar to other technology-enabled consumer products companies. The rewards for our shareholders are tangible and attractive: 47% gross margins and strong revenue growth, driven by our proven ability to create and enter new market segments.''ISS' report starts from the mistaken premise that technology and innovation are not core to iRobot's success or future. We flatly disagree. We do not believe iRobot would be well-served by operating like traditional, low-tech consumer products companies that regularly change packaging, colors and flavors, but offer limited technological innovation. ISS does not recognize that 62% market share, and the profits and cash flow that come with it, are not a given. We earn it through our R&D and technology leadership every quarter and every year. We believe long-term shareholder value would be put at risk if iRobot were to substantially cut R&D spending, as suggested by ISS and Red Mountain. The iRobot Board must continue to act as a responsible steward of the Company's future. We urge you to support our nominees and business plan.''Our nominees -- Mohamad Ali and Michael Bell - bring deep technology experience in software development, cloud computing and SaaS, and the Internet of Things, which will be instrumental to iRobot's next chapter of growth. We are confident that Messrs. Ali and Bell bring the experience necessary to continue driving innovation and profit for years to come.'

8:15 am SanDisk & Western Digital (WDC) announce the Ministry of Commerce of China has approved the acquisition of SanDisk by Western Digital Tech (SNDK) : All necessary regulatory approvals for the acquisition have now been received and the transaction is expected to close on Thursday, May 12, 2016.

7:33 am Vishay Precision misses by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q2 revs below two analyst estimate; reaffirms FY16 EPS guidance (VPG) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 worse than the two analyst estimate of $0.17; revenues were unchanged from the year-ago period at $56.6 mln. New products -- advanced sensors' revenue grew approximately 95% in the first quarter 2016 from the first quarter 2015, and approximately 42% from the fourth quarter 2015.Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $57-62 mln vs. $62.95 mln two analyst estimate. Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $0.80-1.00, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.97 two analyst estimate.

3:33 am Nokia reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; provides update on cost reductions (NOK) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of 0.03 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of 0.03; revenues fell 8.6% year/year to 5.6 bln vs the 5.75 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Nokia's Networks business: 8% y/y net sales decrease in Q1 2016. Performance was primarily due to Ultra Broadband Networks, which declined 12% y/y and 27% sequentially, consistent with outlook for a greater than normal seasonal decline in the wireless infrastructure market in Q1 2016. IP Networks and Applications grew on a year-on-year basis.Nokia Technologies: 27% year-on-year net sales decrease in Q1 2016.Nokia launches headcount reductions as part of global synergy and transformation program. The headcount reductions are expected to take place between now and the end of 2018, consistent with Nokia's synergy target timeline.Nokia plans to acquire Withings to accelerate entry into Digital Health - Withings has ~200 employees and will be part of our Nokia Technologies business.The planned transaction values Withings at EUR 170 million, would be settled in cash and is expected to close in early Q3 2016 subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.Nokia also issued new shares to settle the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent (:ALU) shares from the Alcatel-Lucent depositaryOutlookFY16 non-IFRS net sales: Decline YoY, FY16 Non-IFRS financial income and expense: Expense of ~EUR 300 million, FY16 Capital expenditures: ~EUR 650 million

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From Briefing.com: 4:08 pm Exar misses by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (EXAR) : Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.08 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.09; revenues fell 16.1% year/year to $36.78 mln vs the $38.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.09-0.13 vs. $0.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $39.4-$41.2 mln vs. $39.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Cree files counterclaims in the US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina against Feit Electric to stop infringement of two patents related to LED bulbs (CREE) :

4:20 pm : The stock market ended its day broadly lower as weaker-than-expected earnings and guidance weighed on retail names and the broader consumer discretionary sector (-2.0%). Other focal points of today's action included an upswing in oil, weakness in the dollar, a broken support (2074/76) level in the S&P 500 (-1.0%), and the underperformance of the heavily-weighted health care (-1.3%) and financial (-1.1%) sectors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.2%) finished behind the benchmark index (-1.0%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-1.0%).

Equity indices began under pressure as weaker than expected earnings results and guidance from the likes of Walt Disney (DIS 102.29, -4.31), Macy's (M 31.38, -5.61) and Fossil (FOSL 28.44, -11.66) dampened investor sentiment. However, the major averages ticked off their opening lows ahead of the Department of Energy's weekly stockpile report.

The inventory data came in above consensus with larger-than-expected draws in crude oil (-3.41 million barrels; est. +0.71 million) and gasoline (-1.23 million barrels; est. -0.71 million) stockpiles. In response, the energy component jumped off the $44.20/bbl level, bringing the broader market with it. However, the upswing in equities would prove to be short-lived. The benchmark index fell back to its morning low and continued to test support at 2074/76. The benchmark index would break that support in afternoon trade.

The major averages ended near their lows with nine sectors finishing in negative territory. The heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (-2.0%), health care (-1.3%), and financial (-1.1%) sectors rounded out the board while the remaining decliners ended with losses between 0.1% (energy) and 0.7% (industrials).

Retail names ended with the largest losses in the consumer discretionary space (-2.0%). Macy's (M 31.38, -5.61) and Fossil (FOSL 28.44, -11.66) led the group lower following disappointing results and guidance. The two names surrendered 15.2% and 29.1%, respectively. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.72, -1.94) lost 4.4% as it traded lower in sympathy with the names. Elsewhere, Kohl's (KSS 38.70, -2.48) and Nordstrom (JWN 45.43, -3.43) underperformed ahead of tomorrow's quarterly reports.

In the health care space (-1.3%) biotechnology demonstrated relative weakness, evidenced by the 3.0% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 256.10, -7.95). The ETF trimmed its weekly gain to 0.3%, compared to the 0.2% loss in the broader sector.

Real estate investment trusts underperformed in the financial sector (-1.1%). In the sub-group, Macerich (MAC 77.64, -3.78) and Simon Properties (SPG 203.24, -1068) fell 4.6% and 5.0%, respectively.

The commodity-sensitive energy space (-0.1%) fell beneath its flat line in the final hour as the broader sector erased a 0.7% gain. Independent oil and gas names ended with the largest gains as ConocoPhillips (COP 43.68, +0.81) and Devon Energy (DVN 32.54, +1.00) gained a respective 1.9% and 3.2%. WTI crude ended its pit session higher by 3.4% at $46.20/bbl.

The U.S. Dollar Index (93.82, -0.40) ended off its low as the greenback pared losses against the yen and the euro. The euro/dollar pair finished higher by 0.5% at 1.1423 while losing 0.8% against the yen (108.44).

The Treasury complex ended off its high with the yield on the 10-yr note falling three basis points to 1.73%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 922 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the Treasury Budget for April:

The MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 0.4%. This compares to last week's reading of -3.4%.
Bolstered by individual tax receipts, the Treasury Budget for April showed a surplus of $106.5 billion; however, that was much less than the surplus of $156.7 billion seen in the same period a year ago.
The Treasury data are not seasonally adjusted, so the April surplus cannot be compared to the March deficit of $108.0 billion.
Total receipts in April were $438 billion while total outlays were $332 billion.
Receipts were $33 billion less than receipts in April 2015. A large portion of that difference can be attributed to a lower level of individual tax receipts this year ($266 billion) versus last year ($288 billion). Total outlays, meanwhile, were $17 billion more than last year.
The 12-month deficit is $510.9 billion versus $460.6 billion in March.

Tomorrow morning the Bank of England will announce its latest policy decision at 7:00 ET.

On the home front, tomorrow's economic data will be limited to weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 270k) and Import and Export Prices for April, which will all be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -4.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.9% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones +1.6% YTD

DJ30 -217.23 NASDAQ -49.19 SP500 -19.93 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 850/1.713 bln/2130 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1096/922.4 mln/1886

3:30 pm :

The dollar index drops even further in the afternoon, currently down -0.5% around the 93.83 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +1.6% at 84.71
Crude oil spikes above the previous day's close after the release of EIA petroleum storage data showed an unexpected draw compared to estimates
June crude oil futures rose $1.50 (+3.4%) to $46.20/barrel
API data released yesterday after the bell showed U.S. crude oil inventories had a build of +3.45 mln barrels vs consensus for a build of +300,000 barrels
EIA data released this morning at 10:30 am ET showed crude oil inventories had a draw of -3.410 mln (consensus called for a build of about +0.4 mln)
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -1.231 mln
Distillate inventories had a draw of -1.647 mln
Natural gas sees an afternoon rally, closing slightly above the previous session's closing price
June natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.5%) at $2.17/MMBtu
EIA natural gas storage data is scheduled to be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold stages a rally off its lows of the day around $1272.70/oz, closing notably higher
June gold ended today's session up $11.00 (+0.9%) to $1275.70/oz
Gold is currently up about +20% since the beginning of 2016
Silver drifts modestly lower in the afternoon, still holding on to its initial morning gains, closing pit trading higher
June silver closed today's session $0.23 higher (+1.4%) at $17.32/oz
Base metal copper inches up in afternoon trade
June copper closed $0.01 higher (+0.5%) at $2.10/lb
The broader market sold-off following yesterday's strong session. Leading the lower bias, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 217.23 points (-1.21%) to end 17711.12. The Nasdaq Composite followed, down 49.19 points (-1.02%) to 4760.69. Rounding out the trio, the S&P 500 finished with losses just under 1%, shedding 19.93 points (-0.96%) to end 2064.46. Slightly after midday, the market digested the latest Treasury Budget report, which was bolstered by individual tax receipts. The Treasury Budget for April showed a surplus of $106.5 billion; however, that was much less than the surplus of $156.7 billion seen in the same period a year ago. Also, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 0.4% compared to last week's reading of -3.4%.

Today's session began on a choppy note as investors weighed below-consensus quarterly reports and guidance, weakness from global bourses, and vacillating oil trade. Overseas, Italian banking names anchored European indices as the group moved lower following weaker-than-expected results from Banco Popolare. Meanwhile, WTI crude slipped as investors digested disappointing stockpile data from the American Petroleum Institute and reports indicating that production from Canada's oil sands region is scheduled to pick up.

The stock market carved out session highs mid-morning as participants reviewed the latest inventory data from the Department of Energy. The weekly report showed larger-than-expected draws in crude inventories (-3.41 million barrels) and gasoline stockpiles (-1.23 million barrels). June Crude Oil Futures ended the session +3.4% to $46.20 per barrel.

In the scope of other sectors, Technology (XLK 42.49, -0.31 -0.72%) ended Wednesday near session lows and around the middle of the pack. Component Electronic Arts (EA) was the best performing name in the space today following a Q4 earnings and revenue beat, and a better than expected FY17 EPS and revenue guide. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed today XLU +0.37%, XLE +0.31%, IYZ -0.32%, XLB -0.35%, XLP -0.80%, XLI -0.83%, XLF -1.07%, XLV -1.20%, XLY -2.01% as Utilities and Energy were able to escape losses.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (702.11, -4.75 -0.67%) sector, trading managed modest gains toward the beginning of the session but sold-off with the broader market. Component Alphabet (GOOG 715.29, -7.89 -1.09%) was notably weak following an afternoon article from Politico suggesting the FTC may re-open its prior investigation regarding Google's dominance of Internet search. Other names in the space which were modestly weak today included WDC -4.25%, STX -2.75%, AKAM -2.41%, V -2.23%, XRX -2.21%, ADP -2.07%, EBAY -1.74%, QRVO -1.39%, MSI -1.38%, JNPR -1.30%, RHT -1.29%, PAYX -1.29%, MA -1.26%, CSCO -1.22%.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

GrubHub (GRUB 24.85, +0.09 +0.36%) completed its acquisition of LAbite. Further, GRUB updated guidance for Q2, as they now see revenues of $113-115 million, up from prior $109-111 million. Also, they see adjusted EBITDA of $30-32 million versus prior $29-31 million. GRUB also noted expectations for FY16 revenues of $465-480 million, up from prior $450-465 million. They also see adjusted EBITDA of $125-133 million, up from the prior $122-130 million.

SNC-Lavalin (SNCAF 37.19, flat) and CGI (GIB 45.40, +0.36 +0.80%) jointly announced a twelve-year IT outsourcing agreement valued at $500 million

Maxim Integrated (MXIM 36.40, -0.11 -0.30%) announced the retirement of Kip Hagopian as MXIM's Chairman of the Board. William Sullivan, currently a member of MXIM's Board, will assume the Board Chair position effective immediately. Mr. Hagopian will continue to serve on the Board, in a non-Chair director capacity, until the end of MXIM's 2016 fiscal year, June 25, 2016.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Rocket Fuel (FUEL 2.57, -0.12 -4.46%) filed for a $50 million mixed securities shelf offering.

TerraForm Global (GLBL 2.57, -0.08 -3.02%) amended its credit and guaranty agreement with Goldman Sachs Bank USA.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Canadian Solar (CSIQ) announced current CFO Michael Potter decided to leave the company to pursue other interests. As such, Huifeng Chang has been named CFO effective May 22.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Electronic Arts (EA) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and non-GAAP revenues of $0.50 and $924 million, respectively. EA also guided FY17 EPS and non-GAAP revenues ahead of expectations at about $3.50 and about $4.9 billion.

Nuance Communications (NUAN 16.72, -0.49 -2.85%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.38 and in-line revenues which fell 0.1% versus last year to $487.4 million. For Q3, NUAN sees in-line EPS and revenues of $0.35-0.38 and $483-497 million, respectively. For the FY16 period, NUAN raised EPS guidance to $1.48-1.56 from $1.41-1.51 and lowered revenue guidance modestly to $1.975-2.005 billion from $1.98-2.03 billion.

New Relic (NEWR 25.95, +0.06 +0.23%) reported in-line earnings at a loss per share of $0.24 for Q4. For the period, the company reported better than expected revenues which rose 57.3% versus last year to $52.5 million.

ScanSource (SCSC 40.15, +1.43 +3.69%) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.64 and $798.4 million, respectively. For Q4, SCSC expects to report EPS worse than expected at $0.70-0.74 and revenues in-line at $900-950 million.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 17.38, +1.92 +12.42%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.39 and $721.4 million, respectively. For Q2, CSIQ sees revenues better than the Street expectations at $710-760 million. The company also guided FY16 revenues ahead of expectations at $3.2-3.6 billion, up from $2.9-3.1 billion.

Alarm.com (ALRM 21.53, -1.07 -4.73%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.12 and $59 million, respectively. For FY16, ALRM sees EPS in-line at $0.47-0.49, up from $0.46-0.48. Also, ALRM sees better than expected revenues for FY16 in the range of $239-242.5 million, up from $236-239.5 million.

KEYW Holding (KEYW 7.93, +0.96 +13.77%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.05 and worse than expected revenues which rose 6.9% versus last year to $73.6 million. KEYW also guided for FY16 revenues in the range of $285-305 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: CA PMTS EXAR NTES RPD SINA WB YRD/HIMX

Analyst actions:

FIS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sterne Agee CRT,
QIHU was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
IDTI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
TLK was upgraded to Buy from Reduce at HSBC;
ATTO was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse;
CGNX, NATI and IPGP were initiated with a Mkt Perform at FBR Capital,
TRMB was initiated with an Outperform at FBR Capital

9:01 am Maxim Integrated Chairman Kip Hagopian retires; William Sullivan to assume Chairman role effective immediately (MXIM) :

Mr. Hagopian will continue to serve on the Board, in a non-Chair director capacity, until the end of Maxim's 2016 fiscal year, June 25, 2016.

William Sullivan, who will assume the position of Chairman, is a veteran of more than two decades at Hewlett-Packard (HP), and from 2005 to 2015, served as Chief Executive Officer of Agilent Technologies, a global provider of scientific instruments, software, services and consumables in life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemical markets, after its spin-out from HP.

6:10 am Canadian Solar beats by $0.21, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus; guides FY16 revs above consensus (CSIQ) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.39 per share, $0.21 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.18; revenues fell 16.2% year/year to $721.4 mln vs the $662.89 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Total solar module shipments were 1,198 MW, of which 1,172 MW were recognized in revenue, compared to 1,398 MW recognized in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2015, and first quarter shipment guidance in the range of 1,085 MW to 1,135 MW. Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $710-760 mln vs. $700.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Guidance: For the second quarter of 2016, the Company expects total module shipments to be in the range of ~1,200 MW to 1,250 MW, including ~30 MW of shipments to the Company's utility-scale solar projects that may not be recognized in second quarter 2016 revenue. Co issues raised guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $3.2-3.6 bln from $2.9-3.1 bln vs. $3.16 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. For the full year 2016, the Company maintains its guidance for total module shipments to be in the range of ~5.4 GW to 5.5 GW, with ~5.0 GW recognized in revenue.

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From Briefing.com: 4:21 pm Xilinx authorizes repurchase of up to an aggregate of $1 bln of the Company's debt and equity securities (XLNX) :

4:14 pm TerraForm Power receives notification letter from Nasdaq listing qualifications stating co is not in compliance because it has not yet filed its form 10-Q & remains delinquent in filing its form 10-K (TERP) : The notification letter stated that TerraForm Power had until May 16, 2016 to submit a plan to Nasdaq as to how it plans to regain compliance with Nasdaq's continued listing requirements. TerraForm Power submitted its compliance plan to Nasdaq today, May 16, 2016.

4:09 pm Agilent beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 in-line; raises FY16 guidance above consensus (A) :

Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.44 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.39; revenues rose 5.8% year/year to $1.02 bln vs the $0.98 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Second-quarter revenue of $495 million from Agilent's Life Sciences and Applied Markets Group (:LSAG) increased 5 percent year over year (up 8 percent on a core basis(2)), led by strong growth in pharma, food and environmental markets. LSAG's Q2 operating margin was 19.0 percent. Second-quarter revenue of $346 million from the Agilent CrossLab Group (ACG) grew 8 percent year over year (up 10 percent on a core basis). Both services and consumables continued to see solid growth worldwide. ACG's operating margin was 21.5 percent for the quarter. Second-quarter revenue of $178 million from Agilent's Diagnostics and Genomics Group (:DGG) increased 5 percent against a tough year-over-year compare (also up 5 percent on a core basis), reflecting strength in its diagnostics and genomics businesses. DGG's operating margin for the quarter was 15.0 percent.Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.45-0.47, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.47 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.03-1.05 bln vs. $1.04 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues upside guidance for FY16, EPS to $1.88-1.92 from $1.81-1.87, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.86 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; FY16 revs to $4.16-4.18 bln from $4.10-4.12 bln vs. $4.13 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The week's action began with a strong Monday session as equities rebounded off last week's negative bias. Trading left the Nasdaq Composite higher by 57.78 points (+1.22%) to 4775.46. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted gains of 175.39 points (+1.00%) to 17710.71, helped by a +3.3% advance to June Crude Oil Futures. Rounding out the trio, the S&P 500 closed up 20.05 (+0.98%) to 2066.66. Market data today came in the form of the Empire Manufacturing Survey for May which posted a reading of -9.0. Also, the NAHB Housing Market Index for May came in at 58 from an un-revised 58 in April.

Today's session began on a higher note as investors shrugged off disappointing economic data from the U.S. and China. Over the weekend, China reported that April Industrial Production (+6.0%), Retail Sales (+10.1%) and Fixed Investment (+10.5%) each missed expectations. Meanwhile, the U.S. Empire Manufacturing Survey for May (-9.0) also came in below consensus.

Last week's mostly flat action in the Technology (XLK 42.80, +0.59 +1.40%) sector is far behind it as the space posted nice gains on the back of component Apple (AAPL 93.88, +3.36 +3.71%) took back some recent losses on the back of a 9.8 million share accumulation by Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 212780.00, +640.00 +0.30%) which was disclosed in the company's Q1 13F filing. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLB +1.72%, XLE +1.69%, XLV +1.36%, XLI +1.24%, IYZ +0.98%, XLP +0.64%, XLY +0.63%, XLF +0.52%, XLU +0.12% with Materials finishing the day at the top and Utilities ending modestly higher.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (706.97, +9.70 +1.39%) sector, trading finished near highs on the back of strong component performance. To that end, component NVIDIA (NVDA 42.19, +1.21 +2.95%) posted a strong session on the back of a positive Barron's report from Saturday. Other names in the space which finished the day higher included GLW +2.78%, SWKS +2.75%, YHOO +2.74%, ADSK +2.09%, LLTC +1.98%, EA +1.89%, AVGO +1.86%, AKAM +1.72%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Facebook (FB 118.67, -1.14 -0.95%) announced on their facebook for business page that they are extending to advertisers the ability to create video ads to be displayed through the Audience Network.

Corning (GLW 19.21, +0.52 +2.78%) announced the extension of the tender offer for shares of Alliance

Fiber Optic (AFOP 18.53, +0.02 +0.11%).

Dow Chemical (DOW 51.60, +1.05 +2.08%) and Dow Corning Corporation announced that Robert Hansen, chairman, CEO and President, has announced his intention to retire from Dow Corning Corporation upon the completion of DOW's ownership restructure transaction with Corning (GLW), which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2016. Dow Corning is a joint venture between DOW and GLW.

Xilinx (XLNX 43.51, +0.60 +1.40%) named Lorenzo Flores as CFO effective upon Jon Olson's retirement from the position of CFO on or about May 19, 2016.

Lam Research (LRCX 73.46, -0.88 -1.18%) and KLA-Tencor (KLAC 67.90, -0.70 -1.02%) each received a request for additional information and documentary material from the United States Department of Justice in connection with the proposed transaction between the companies.

Accenture (ACN 117.15, +1.71 +1.48%) and IPsoft announced the creation of an Accenture Amelia practice, designed to accelerate client adoption of artificial intelligence to improve business outcomes and create new growth opportunities for their businesses.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

AT&T (T 39.28, +0.13 +0.33%) to acquire Quickplay Media. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

TerraForm Global (GLBL 2.71, +0.10 +3.63%) received a letter which appears to claim a notice of default. The aforementioned notice appears to allege the failure of operating to comply with its obligations under the Indenture to timely furnish an annual report for fiscal year 2015.

Chipmos Technology (IMOS 17.29, +0.13 +0.76%) secured about $410.2 million in new credit facilities.

Digital Realty Trust (DLR 97.28, +2.88 +3.05%) entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a portfolio of eight high-quality, carrier-neutral data centers in Europe, five in London, two in Amsterdam and one in Frankfurt, from Equinix (EQIX 348.60, +4.23 +1.23%). The total purchase price is approximately $874 million, which represents a multiple of approximately 13 times the anticipated full-year 2016 portfolio EBITDA. In connection with this transaction, DLR has granted EQIX an option to acquire the company's facility at 114 rue Ambroise Croizat in Paris and its associated business, for a purchase price of about $215 million, before closing costs and prorations.

Digital Realty Trust (DLR) then later announced the commencement of an underwritten registered public offering of 11,500,000 shares of its common stock in connection with the EQIX deal.

RADCOM (RDCM 12.50, -0.45 -3.47%) commenced a $20 million common stock offering. Zohar Zisapel has agreed to purchase up to $5.6 million of the ordinary shares.

Telus (TU 31.63, +0.32 +1.02%) announced Doug French will replace John Gossling as CFO effective immediately.

Remark Media (MARK 4.61, +0.08 +1.81%) entered into a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of China Branding Group Limited, including its operating subsidiaries. The transaction is expected to close by June 30, 2016 subject to customary closing and financing conditions, including approval of CBG shareholders. Per the terms of the acquisition, MARK will acquire CBG for $7.5 million in cash plus warrants to purchase 6.25 million shares of Remark Media common stock at a $10 strike price.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Leju Holdings (LEJU) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of a loss per share of $0.04. Revenues were better than expected at $113 million, and the comapny reaffirmed FY16 revenue guidance in the range of $660-690 million.

Virtusa (VRTU) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.55 and $171.8 million. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revenues worse than expected at $0.14-0.18 and $202.5-207.5 million, respectively. VRTU also guided FY17 EPS of $2.10-2.30 and revenues of $890-920 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: A, MXPT/CYRN

Analyst actions:

NOK was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity;
WB was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
BLOX was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at DA Davidson,
BITA was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley


Closing Numbers: 4:15 pm : The S&P 500 (+1.0%) began its week on a higher note as the index reclaimed its 50-day simple moving average (2056.09). Today's trade featured an upswing in the oil pit, weakness in the dollar, an uptick in M&A activity, and a rebound in the heavyweight technology (+1.4%), health care (+1.4%), and industrial (+1.1%) sectors. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+1.2%) finished in front of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.0%) and the benchmark index (+1.0%).

The major averages began their day on a higher note as investors weighed a rally in crude oil against negative economic data. Over the weekend, Chinese retail sales, industrial production, and fixed asset investment all missed consensus estimates and showed deceleration on a year-over-year basis in April. Separately, the U.S. Empire Manufacturing Survey for May returned to contraction territory. However, weakness following the data subsided by the time the cash market opened.

Equity averages marched higher through the session as a rally in crude oil and sector leadership from technology (+1.4%), health care (+1.4%), and industrials (+1.1%) helped lend support to the broader market. All ten sectors finished their day above their flat lines as energy (+1.6%), technology (+1.4%), materials (+1.4%), and health care (+1.4%) led the pack. On the flipside, countercyclical utilities (+0.1%), telecom services (+0.4%), and consumer staples (+0.5%) showed the slimmest gains.

The energy space (+1.6%) enjoyed broad-based strength as the rally in crude oil helped the sector trim its May loss to 1.9%. In the group, Anadarko Petroleum (APC 49.17, +1.45) outperformed after Barron's offered a positive profile on the company. Meanwhile, Williams Companies (WMB 20.59, +1.24) gained 6.4% after filing a lawsuit against Energy Transfer Equity (ETE 12.79, +0.15) seeking to prevent ETE from avoiding its obligations under their merger agreement. WTI crude ended its day higher by 3.3% at $47.72/bbl.

In the heavyweight technology space (+1.4%), large cap Apple (AAPL 93.88, +3.36) gained 3.7% after Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 141.85, +0.45) disclosed that it acquired 9.8 million shares of the tech company. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway also added to its position in IBM (IBM 149.46, +1.74) and offered financing to a consortium of investors looking to bid on Yahoo! (YHOO 37.48, +1.00). Elsewhere, the high-beta chipmakers outperformed, evidenced by the 1.6% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

The health care space rebounded 1.4%, trimming its May loss to 2.9%. Major drug manufactures outperformed with Bristol-Myers (BMY 72.83, +1.65) and Eli Lilly (LLY 78.29, +1.96) gaining 2.3% and 2.6%, respectively. Elsewhere, Pfizer (PFE 33.38, +0.19) ticked higher by 0.6% after announcing that it would acquire Anacor Pharmaceuticals (ANAC 100.67, +36.64) for $99.25 a share. Separately, biotechnology outperformed, evidenced by the 3.1% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 261.67, +7.77).

Retail names outperformed the broader consumer discretionary space (+0.6%), evidenced by the 0.8% increase in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.38, +0.34). The ETF rebounded from last week's 4.1% decline. Conversely, Amazon (AMZN 710.66, +0.74) underperformed as the stock pulled from its post-earnings rally. Amazon has gained 18.1% since reporting above-consensus results for its first quarter on April 28.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.55, -0.05) ended lower as commodity-sensitive currencies and the euro gained against the greenback. The dollar/Canadian dollar pair ended at 1.2906 (-0.3%) while the euro gained 0.1% against the dollar (1.1319).

The Treasury complex finished near its low as the yield on the 10-yr note rose five basis points to 1.75%.

Today's participation was below the recent averages as fewer than 860 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the Empire Manufacturing Survey for May and the May NAHB Housing Market Index:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for May hasn't helped turn the tide of sentiment. It was very disappointing with a reading of -9.0 (Briefing.com consensus +6.2; prior +9.6).
The reading resulted primarily from large drops in the indexes for new orders (to -5.5 from 11.1), shipments (to -1.9 from 10.2), unfilled orders (to -6.3 from -1.0), and the average employee workweek (to -8.3 from 1.9).
A number below zero for this report connotes contraction, so it's readily apparent that business conditions for manufacturers in the New York Fed region worsened in May.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for May came in at 58 from an unrevised 58 in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at 59.0.

Tomorrow's economic data will include April Core CPI (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), April Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1135k), and April Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1130k), which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, April Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and April Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.0%) will be released at 9:15 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -4.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.7% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones +1.6% YTD

DJ30 +175.39 NASDAQ +57.78 SP500 +20.05 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2180/1.582 bln/586 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2322/859.8 mln/699

3:30 pm :

The dollar index rallies off its morning lows, still in the red for the day, currently down -0.01% around the 94.55 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.8% at 85.14
Crude oil closes near its 6-month highs, boosted by a number of bullish contributing factors cited below:
June crude oil futures rose $1.50 (+3.3%) to $47.72/barrel
Goldman Sachs made bullish comments about WTI crude, suggesting the oil market has gone to a supply deficit situation
Nigerian supply concerns after Nigerian output has been curtailed substantially on unrest there
Venezuelan oil production concerns amid political instability in the region
Reminders:
API inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow after the bell
Weekly EIA petroleum inventory data is scheduled to be released this Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
The next OPEC meeting is scheduled to take place on June 2, 2016
Natural gas plummets for the third trading session in a row
June natural gas closed $0.07 lower (-3.3%) at $2.03/MMBtu
A slurry of recent milder weather forecasts and a relatively cool summer raise doubts about near-term demand for natural gas
In precious metals, gold sees a steep morning drop, trading almost near parity with the previous session's close
June gold ended today's session up $2.00 (+0.2%) to $1274.60/oz
Silver also sees a steep morning drop off its initial highs, still closing modestly up on the day
July silver closed today's session $0.03 higher (+0.2%) at $17.15/oz
Base metal copper inches higher in afternoon pit trading
July copper closed $0.02 higher (+1.0%) at $2.09/lb


7:38 am Apple: Warren Buffett discloses new 9.8 mln share stake in Berkshire Hathaway's latest quarterly holdings filing (AAPL) : Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway disclosed holding 9.8 mln shares as of the end of Q1.

6:12 am Chipmos Technology secures ~$410.2 mln in new credit facilities (IMOS) :

The first credit line is an ~$257.9 mln, five-year, floating rate, secured, non-revolving credit line. The second is an ~$152.3 mln unsecured, floating rate, revolving credit line. Co expects to use the proceeds from the Credit Facility to refinance its existing bank debt and to provide additional working capital for general corporate purposes.

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The major averages ended Tuesday on a lower note, erasing yesterday's gains. Today's trade featured a hotter-than-expected reading of April CPI (+0.4%; Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), hawkish commentary from FOMC members, a breach of the 50-day simple moving average (2056.90) in the S&P 500 (-0.9%), and the underperformance of consumer discretionary (-1.2%), health care (-1.1%), and technology (-1.1%). The Nasdaq Composite (-1.3%) ended behind both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.0%) and the benchmark index (-0.9%). Today's session began on a lower note as investors looked to the possible rate hike implications stemming from a hotter-than-expected reading of inflation in April. Meanwhile, Home Depot (HD 132.00, -3.34) came under pressure despite reporting above-consensus quarterly results. Additionally, the market maintained a negative bias after disclosures that George Soros placed bearish bets on the broader market by doubling his put position on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY 204.85, -1.92) and boosting his holdings in gold.

The S&P 500 (-0.9%) tested and briefly defended support near its 50-day simple moving average (2056.90) in the late morning, but was unable to do so again when that level was re-tested in the afternoon. As a result, the major averages extended their losses through the final hour. Nine sectors ended in the red with consumer staples (-1.9%), utilities (-1.7%), consumer discretionary (-1.2%), and health care (-1.1%) rounding out the leaderboard.

In the consumer staples sector (-1.9%), Kraft Heinz (KHC 82.16, -3.71) displayed relative weakness, losing 4.3%. Meanwhile, Hormel Foods (HRL 38.80, -1.44) ended lower by 3.6% ahead of tomorrow morning's earnings report. The broader sector trimmed its May gain to 0.3%, trailing only technology (-1.1%; month-to-date +0.4%) over that time.

Drug manufacturers displayed relative weakness in the health care space (-1.1%) as the sub-group moved lower in sympathy with AbbVie (ABBV 60.25, -2.20). The company fell 3.5% after receiving a negative ruling regarding its patent on a dosing regimen involving its rheumatoid arthritis medication. Conversely, Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 29.08, +2.03) gained 7.5% after Citron's Andrew Left confirmed that he has opened a long position in the stock.

In the consumer discretionary space (-1.2%), Home Depot declined 2.5% despite topping analysts' estimates for the quarter. Fellow home improvement name Lowe's (LOW 76.07, -0.93) slipped 1.2% ahead of tomorrow morning's quarterly report.

Interest rate-sensitive real estate investment trusts (REITs) underperformed in the financial sector (-0.7%). The sub-group was pressured by the hotter-than-expected CPI reading and hawkish commentary from FOMC members. San Francisco Fed President Williams, Atlanta Fed President Lockhart, and Dallas Fed President Kaplan each said that an interest rate hike may be warranted sooner than the market currently anticipates one. For the June Fed meeting, the likelihood of a rate increase, as measured by the fed funds futures market, jumped to 15.0% from yesterday's 3.8% estimate.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.52, -0.01) ended slightly lower as the euro and the yen ended flat against the greenback. The dollar/yen pair finished higher by 0.1% at 109.09 while the euro ended at 1.1316 against the dollar. Separately, pound sterling gained 0.4% against the dollar (1.4462).

The Treasury complex ended on a mixed note with the yield on the 10-yr note ending higher by one basis point at 1.76%.

Today's participation was above the recent averages as more than 1.02 billion shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included April Core CPI, April Housing Starts, April Building Permits, April Industrial Production, and April Capacity Utilization:

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for April produced a headline surprise, with total CPI rising 0.4% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increasing 0.2% as expected.
The seasonally adjusted all items increase was broad-based, with the indexes for food, energy, and all items less food and energy rising in April.
The move, though, was powered by a 3.4% increase in the index for energy, which featured an 8.1% jump in the gasoline index.
A 0.3% increase in the shelter index and a 0.3% increase in the medical care services index were big drivers of the 0.2% increase in core CPI; however, those increases were mitigated somewhat by a 0.3% decline in the indexes for new vehicles, used cars and trucks, and apparel.
Over the last 12 months, CPI is up 1.1% on an unadjusted basis versus 0.9% in March. Core CPI is up 2.1% versus a 2.2% increase seen in March.
It's possible the Fed could use the uptrend in CPI as a basis for raising the fed funds rate in June, although we suspect the fed funds futures market still isn't going to be buying into that notion.
Housing starts increased 6.6% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.172 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.135 mln). The starts rate for March was revised up to 1.099 million from 1.089 million.
Building permits increased 3.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.116 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.130 mln). Permits for March were revised down to 1.077 million from 1.086 million.
Total housing starts are 1.7% below the April 2015 rate while total building permits are 5.3% below the April 2015 estimate.
Single-family starts increased 3.3% in April to 778,000, led by a 12.8% gain in the Midwest and a 9.0% increase in the South. Both the Northeast (-1.8%) and the West (-14.1%) saw a drop in single-family starts.
The rise in permits was driven by an 8.0% increase in permits for multi-family units, although permits for single-family units increased 1.5%.
The number of homes under construction increased to 999,000 from 994,000 in March. This will be a positive input for Q2 GDP forecasts.
After a string of largely disappointing data, the Industrial Production report for April proved to be a positive surprise as production increased at a faster than expected rate of 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%).
Capacity utilization also surprised to the upside, coming in at 75.4% (Briefing.com consensus 75.0%).
The April reading represented the first increase in three months while the previous month's reading was revised down to -0.9% from -0.6%. On a year-over-year basis, industrial production is down 1.1%.
Most notably, the utilities index spiked 5.8% while the final products index increased 1.0% on the back of a 1.2% growth in consumer goods.
The only category that registered a decline in April was mining. The mining index fell 2.3% and is now down 13.4% year-over-year. The decline in mining was not enough to offset the spike in utilities, leading to a 0.3% uptick in manufacturing output.
Looking at capacity utilization, total industry capacity grew 1.0% year-over-year with utilities showing the largest sequential increase (up 420 basis points to 78.6%). Mining capacity utilization declined to 72.5% from 74.0%, which represents a new record low.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index; however, the the Federal Open Market Committee will release the minutes from the April 27 meeting at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -5.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.0% YTD
S&P 500 +0.2% YTD
Dow Jones +0.6% YTD

DJ30 -180.73 NASDAQ -59.73 SP500 -19.45 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 797/1.747 bln/2336 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1067/1.029 bln/1925

3:30 pm :

The dollar index declines in afternoon pit trading, currently down -0.1% around the 94.53 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.7% at 85.72
Crude oil sees an afternoon spike ahead of today's scheduled API data to be released after the bell, closing at a 2016 high
June crude oil futures rose $0.58 (+1.2%) to $48.30/barrel
Contributing factors to the rally in oil include:
Goldman Sachs made bullish comments about WTI crude, suggesting the oil market has gone to a supply deficit situation
Nigerian supply concerns after Nigerian output has been curtailed substantially on unrest there
Venezuelan oil production concerns amid political instability in the region
Oil investor T. Boone Pickens believes supply & demand are now balanced, expects $50-$60/barrel oil prices as early as 2 months from now
API inventory data is scheduled to be released today after the bell
Weekly EIA petroleum inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
The next OPEC meeting is scheduled to take place on June 2, 2016
Natural gas trends lower in the afternoon after an initial morning spike, recovering near the close and ending in the green
June natural gas closed $0.02 higher (+1.0%) at $2.05/MMBtu
EIA natural gas data is scheduled to be released this Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold sees an afternoon of consolidation and stages a brief rally near the close of pit trading
June gold ended today's session up $2.00 (+0.2%) to $1276.60/oz
Silver trades sideways in the afternoon after opening higher in morning pit trading
July silver closed today's session $0.09 higher (+0.5%) at $17.24/oz
Base metal copper ends pit trading unchanged for the day
July copper closed flat at $2.09/lb


Yesterday's gains did not hold as equities finished Tuesday near lows. Action was led to the downside by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, which lost 59.73 points (-1.25%) today to end 4715.73. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 180.73 points (-1.02%) to 17529.98. The S&P 500 finished with the tamest losses, shedding only 19.45 points (-0.94%) to 2047.21. Today was a relatively heavy day as volume goes, with about 1,747 million shares exchanging hands on the NASDAQ floor versus the average volume of about 1,648 million, and about 1,029 million shares traded on the NYSE floor versus the average near 956 million.

The stock market traded on a lower note today as investors digested a hotter-than-expected reading of April CPI (+0.4%) and an uptick in June crude oil futures (+1.2%). The CPI data showed that in April CPI increased 0.4%, pushing the year-over-year increase to 1.1%. Futures moved lower following the datapoint as investors looked to the implications this may have on the Fed's decision to continue raising rates. The likelihood of a rate increase, as measured by the fed funds futures market, briefly jumped to 11.3% before falling to 7.5%.

To that end, the remaining market data which was released today included housing starts, which increased 6.6% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.172 million units. Building permits increased 3.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.116 million. Permits for March were revised down to 1.077 million from 1.086 million. After a string of largely disappointing data, the Industrial Production report for April proved to be a positive surprise as production increased at a faster than expected rate of 0.7%. Capacity utilization also surprised to the upside, coming in at 75.4%.

Also weak today, the Technology (XLK 42.33, -0.47 -1.10%) sector closed near lows. Component Microsoft (MSFT 50.51, -0.96 -1.87%) was notably weak as the company jointly announced with SAP SE (SAP 76.96, -0.87 -1.12%) plans to deliver broad support for the SAP HANA platform deployed on Microsoft Azure, simplify work through new integrations between Microsoft Office 365 and cloud solutions from SAP, and provide enhanced management and security for custom SAP Fiori apps. Other sectors as measured by the S&P finished Tuesday XLE +0.47%, XLI -0.48%, XLB -0.51%, XLF -0.57%, XLV -1.04%, XLY -1.13%, IYZ -1.62%, XLU -1.70%, XLP -1.96%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (699.38, -7.59 -1.07%) sector, trading ended notably weaker, erasing most of yesterday's gains. Component F5 Networks (FFIV 103.83, -3.50 -3.26%) was the weakest today as they stock was downgraded to a Sector Weight from an Overweight rating at Pacific Crest. Other names in the space which finished the day lower included FLIR -2.95%, EBAY -2.23%, EA -1.94%, VRSN -1.91%, ADSK -1.86%, JNPR -1.78%, ADP -1.56%, INTU -1.52%, TDC -1.47%, GOOG -1.43%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Xilinx (XLNX 43.53, +0.02 +0.05%) authorized the repurchase of up to an aggregate of $1 billion of the company's debt and equity securities.

SAP SE (SAP) and Microsoft (MSFT) announced joint plans to deliver broad support for the SAP HANA platform deployed on Microsoft Azure, simplify work through new integrations between Microsoft Office 365 and cloud solutions from SAP, and provide enhanced management and security for custom SAP Fiori apps.

F5 Networks (FFIV) introduced software-based solutions that enable customers to seamlessly integrate availability and security services, simplify device management, and better orchestrate IT infrastructure. Among the solutions introduced -- BIG-IP 12.1 software, BIG-IQ Centralized Management 5.0 and iWorkflow 2.0.

An HP (HPQ 11.53, -0.11 -0.95%) subsidiary and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 113.83, -0.59 -0.52%) announced a collaboration to develop products and solutions with a focus on personalization of instrumentation and software for patient-specific healthcare devices.

Computer Sciences (CSC 34.01, -0.38 -1.10%) signed a new 'next-generation IT' outsourcing agreement with BAE Systems (BAESY 28.09, -0.21 -0.74%). The agreement extended the current relationship to November 2021 and is valued at $600 million.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

TerraForm Power (TERP 8.99, -0.03 -0.33%) received a notification letter from Nasdaq listing qualifications stating the company is not in compliance because it has not yet filed its form 10-Q & remains delinquent in filing its form 10-K.

Dangdang (DANG 5.55, +0.21 +3.93%) announced that the board of directors received a lowered non-binding proposal from Ms. Peggy Yu Yu, Chairwoman of the Board, and Mr. Guoqing Li, Chief Executive Officer and director of the company, to acquire all of the outstanding shares of DANG at $6.50 per ADS or $1.30 per common share in cash, subject to certain conditions. The previous bid by the Chairwoman and CEO was for $7.812 per share.

CGI Group (GIB 45.33, -0.35 -0.77%) entered into a 10-year agreement with Sears Canada (SRSC 3.26, -0.01 -0.31%). The monetary value of the deal to CGI is about $200 million.
Corvex Management disclosed a 9.95% active stake in Pandora (P). The firm also issued a letter to shareholders suggesting a sale.

Trimble (TRMB 23.59, -0.15 -0.63%) sold its Trimble Energy Transmission Solutions (TETS) business to GeoSpatial Innovations, Inc. (GSI), a leading engineering software provider to electric and natural gas utilities in North America. Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed.

NQ Mobile (NQ 4.52, +0.45 +11.06%) announced an update on the FL Mobile Divestment pursuant to the binding framework agreement announced on August 26, 2015, between the company and Beijing Jinxin Rongda Investment Management, a subsidiary of Tsinghua Holdings, in connection with the company's divestment of its entire stake of FL Mobile Inc., NQ Mobile's majority owned Cayman Islands subsidiary. Pursuant to the Agreement, Shenzhen Prince will acquire 64.87% equity interest in FL Mobile beneficially owned by the company for a cash consideration of RMB3,243.5 million. Shenzhen Prince will purchase the remaining equity interest in FL Mobile held by Dr. Shi and Jinxin Hengrui by issuing its common stock to them. The Transaction values the entire FL Mobile business at RMB5 billion. The company will receive all cash for the FL Mobile Divestment consisting of RMB880.0 million from Dr. Shi for the sale of 22.0% equity interest in FL Mobile previously announced on March 24, 2016; RMB656.5 million from Jinxin Hengrui for the sale of 13.13% equity interest in FL Mobile previously announced on May 6, 2016; and RMB3,243.5 million from Shenzhen Prince for the sale of 64.87% equity interest in FL Mobile in the Transaction announced today.

Extreme Networks (EXTR 3.40, -0.01 -0.29%) announced the appointment of Drew Davies as EVP and CFO effective June 1.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Agilent (A 44.41, +1.47 +3.42%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.44 and $1.02 billion, respectively. Additionally, A guided Q3 EPS of $0.45-0.47 and revenues in the range of $1.03-1.05 billion. The company also raised FY16 EPS guidance to $1.88-1.92 from $1.81-1.87, and they also raised their expectations for FY16 revenues to $4.16-4.18 billion from $4.10-4.12 billion.

CYREN (CYRN 1.86, +0.11 +6.29%) reported a worse than expected Q1 loss per share of $0.05 and in-line revenues which rose 5.7% versus last year to $7.4 million.

MaxPoint Interactive (MXPT 8.24, +0.14 +1.73%) reported a better than expected Q1 loss per share of $1.48 on revenues ex-TAC which rose 15.3% versus last year to $19.36 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ACXM, ITRI, VSAT/ADI, BAH, MMYT, PLAB

Analyst actions:

FFIV was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest;
SCWX was initiated at Barclays, UBS, Morgan Stanley, BofA/Merrill, Citigroup, JP Morgan, Goldman, Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey, Pacific Crest, Stifel, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Mkts,
NXPI and MCHP were initiated with a Buy at Credit Agricole,
ISIL, LLTC, MXIM, TXN and INTC were initiated with an Underperform at Credit Agricole,
AVGO and QCOM were initiated with an Outperform at Credit Agricole

8:32 am Ultratech forms a research collaboration with Professor Thomas J. Webster, Ph.D. at Northeastern University, to study the use of nano-materials produced via ALD for medical applications (UTEK) : The initial research has focused on inhibiting bacterial growth and inflammation and promoting cell and tissue growth.

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From Briefing.com: 4:47 pm Tessera Tech subs file legal proceedings for patent infringement against Broadcom (AVGO) (TSRA) : Co announced today that it and certain of its subsidiaries filed legal proceedings for patent infringement in both domestic and international jurisdictions against Broadcom and, in some cases, against certain of Broadcom's customers and distributors.

The proceedings are in the United States International Trade Commission, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, and courts in Germany and the Netherlands, alleging infringement of a total of eight patents. Tessera first reached out to Broadcom several years ago to explore technical collaboration on semiconductor technology development, and subsequently to discuss licensing Tessera's intellectual property. Following a series of in-depth licensing discussions, the parties were unable to reach a licensing arrangement.'Today's actions were not taken lightly and are made only after years of effort to reach a fair and equitable resolution without litigation. At this point, we believe that litigation is necessary to defend our intellectual property rights. As we have said in connection with other legal matters, we remain willing to negotiate a resolution that fairly compensates Tessera and its shareholders for our valuable intellectual property. However, we are also fully prepared to proceed through the entirety of the legal process, and we remain very confident in our ability to achieve a positive outcome.'The Company expects 2016 litigation expense will remain within its current target operating model based on anticipated case activity for the remainder of the year.

4:15 pm : The S&P 500 (-0.2%) began its week on a flat note with the index traversing a narrow eight-point range. Focal points for today's action included hawkish commentary from FOMC members, a downtick in the dollar, a modest loss in oil, and the underperformance of the heavily-weighted health care (-0.5%) sector. The benchmark index (-0.2%) finished behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%).

The major indices began their day on a choppy note as investors ruminated over a string of hawkish remarks from members of the Federal Open Market Committee. Over the weekend, Boston Fed President and FOMC voter Eric Rosengren kept the door open for a June rate hike when he stated that criteria for the next hike are "on the verge" of being met. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard and San Francisco Fed President John Williams also echoed this sentiment when they each stated that an interest rate hike could be argued for sooner than the market expects.

Oil rebounded from a session low before the cash market opened, but pressured equities as it hovered beneath its flat line. The energy component ended lower by 0.6% ($48.12/bbl). Meanwhile, countercyclical utilities (-1.0%) and telecom services (-0.7%) showed the largest losses as rate-sensitive groups continued to struggle.

Equities established new lows in the final hour of trade as heavily-weighted health care (-0.5%) and consumer discretionary (-0.4%) joined utilities (-1.0%) and telecom services (-0.7%) on the bottom of the leaderboard. On the flipside, materials (+1.2%) and consumer staples (UNCH) ended at the front of the pack.

In the materials space (+1.2%), Monsanto (MON 106.00, +4.48) gained 4.4% after receiving an offer to be acquired by Bayer (BAYRY 95.48, -4.72) for $122 per share in cash. Monsanto shares have risen 17.3% since reports first indicated that Bayer was interested in the company on May 11.

The high-beta chipmakers outperformed as the sub-group moved higher on reports that Apple (AAPL 96.43, +1.21) requested 78 million units of the iPhone 7 from its suppliers, which is more than what was previously expected. Elsewhere, Red Hat (RHT 74.80, +1.63) gained 2.2% after receiving positive commentary from Barron's.

Biotechnology outperformed in the health care group (-0.5%), evidenced by the 0.7% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 266.03, +1.85). Conversely, CIGNA (CI 126.15, -5.13) fell 3.9% after headlines signaled that there were disagreements with Anthem (ANTM 133.18, -2.55) over their potential merger. Furthermore, the Department of Justice recently voiced concerns regarding the merger of the two health care providers.

In the consumer discretionary sector (-0.4%), retail names continued to underperform as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 40.87, -0.39) lost 1.0%. On that note, ETF components Best Buy (BBY 33.00, +0.66) and AutoZone (AZO 742.08, -19.48) are scheduled to report earnings tomorrow morning.

The U.S. Dollar Index (95.29, -0.05) pulled back as the greenback trimmed its gain over commodity currencies and the euro. The euro/dollar pair finished flat at 1.1218 while the dollar gained 0.3% against the Canadian dollar (1.3148). Separately, the dollar lost 0.8% against the yen (109.27).

Treasuries ended on a mixed note with the yield on the 10-yr note ending at 1.83% (-1 bps). Meanwhile, the yield on the 2-yr note rose one basis point to 0.89%. The 2-yr yield has increased by 11 basis points since April's settlement (0.78%) while the yield on the 10-yr note has dropped one.

Today's participation fell below the recent average as fewer than 800 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic data today.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the April New Home Sales Report (Briefing.com consensus 521,000), which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -4.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.2% YTD
S&P 500 +0.2% YTD
Dow Jones +0.4% YTD

DJ30 -8.01 NASDAQ -3.78 SP500 -4.28 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1494/1.714 bln/1335 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1481/799.0 mln/1515

3:30 pm :

The dollar index turns negative, giving up its initial morning gains, down -0.1% around the 95.23 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.6% at 84.38
Crude oil stages a modest rally off its afternoon lows around $47.60/barrel, still extending last session's losses & closing in the red for the day
July crude oil futures fell $0.30 (-0.6%) to $48.12/barrel
Crude oil reminders:
Friday afternoon's Baker Hughes total U.S. rig count was down 2 to 404 rigs following last week's decline of 9 rigs
Demand for gasoline is high as memorial day weekend approaches
Steady U.S. oil production drop, just under 8.8 mln barrels a day
The next OPEC meeting is scheduled to take place on June 2, 2016
EIA petroleum inventory data is scheduled to be released at 10:30 am ET on Wednesday, API data is scheduled to be released Tuesday after the bell
Natural gas turns negative after its initial notable morning +2.5% rally (possibly due to short covering), shedding half of last session's gains
June natural gas closed $0.01 lower (-0.5%) at $2.05/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data is scheduled to be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold consolidates near its afternoon highs as the dollar turns negative, finishing just below the previous session's close
June gold ended today's session down $1.20 (-0.1%) to $1251.30/oz
Silver sees a brief rally off its afternoon lows, managing to close at a loss for the day
July silver closed today's session $0.10 lower (-0.6%) at $16.42/oz
Base metal copper ends afternoon pit trading unchanged
July copper closed flat at $2.06/lb

4:01 pm SunPower and Total (TOT) sign power purchase agreement for the supply of 300 gigawatt hours per year of clean solar energy to Metro of Santiago (SPWR) :

Equity indices began the day on a choppy note as investors deciphered commentary from Fed officials. St. Louis Fed President Bullard struck a hawkish tone this morning when he contended that there was a better case for continuing the Fed's path toward interest rate normalization, as opposed to holding steady at this juncture. Additionally, the FOMC voter voiced his belief that the U.S. labor market is at or beyond full employment. This matched comments from fellow FOMC voter Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, who stated that criteria for the next hike are "on the verge" of being met.

The markets closed Monday all in the red. Despite trading in positive territory for the majority of the day, a broader sell-off in the final moments of the session took all three major US indices into the red. Losses were led by the S&P 500 which closed lower by 4.28 points (-0.21%) to 2048.04. The Nasdaq Composite followed, down 3.78 points (-0.08%) to 4765.78. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the most modest decliner today, shedding only 8.01 points (-0.05%) to 17492.93.

Technology (XLK 42.62, -0.05 -0.12%) backed up Friday's impressive session with modest losses Monday. Component Micron (MU 11.14, +0.34 +3.15%) was notably strong today as the company disclosed this afternoon executive officer Brian Shirley entered into a 10b5-1 trading plan for up to 48,750 shares of stock over a 12-month period beginning in July 2016. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Monday XLB +1.17%, XLP +0.10%, XLF -0.09%, XLI -0.18%, XLE -0.26%, XLY -0.35%, XLV -0.40%, IYZ -0.42%, XLU -0.89% with Materials and Consumer Staples the only sectors managing to stave off losses.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (706.47, -0.73 -0.10%) sector, trading followed the broader market lower at the end of the day. Component Apple (AAPL 96.43, +1.21 +1.27%) traded in the green all session as the stock was the subject of a premarket article suggesting the company asked suppliers for 78 million iPhone 7 units. Other names in the space which closed higher included ***.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Symantec (SYMC 16.92, flat) filed for a $500 million shelf offering of convertible notes by selling security holders.According to UDN,

Apple (AAPL) has asked for 78 million iPhone 7 units from suppliers.

Avnet (AVT 39.27, +0.02 +0.05%) announced an expanded, exclusive distribution agreement with

Broadcom Limited (AVGO 148.10, +1.37 +0.93%). Under the new agreement, Avnet will serve as the exclusive broadline distributor for Broadcom in the Americas and EMEA regions. Avnet will also continue its franchise in Asia.

CSC (CSC 35.00, flat) to acquire Aspediens, Europe's leading provider of technology-enabled solutions for the service-management sector and a preferred partner of ServiceNow (NOW 70.23, +0.23 +0.33%). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Intuit's (INTU 104.62, +1.59 +1.54%) QuickBooks announced a strategic alliance with BDO USA, LLP. Under the alliance, BDO will use Intuit QuickBooks as a technology partner to provide online accounting services to its small business clients.
According to Two Big Ears, Facebook (FB 115.97, -1.368 -1.18%) acquired the company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

FactSet (FDS 156.24, +0.86 +0.55%) entered into a definitive agreement to sell its market research business focused on advisor-sold investments and insurance, consisting of Market Metrics and Matrix Solutions, to Asset International, a portfolio company of Genstar Capital. The total purchase price is about $165 million, subject to certain working capital adjustments, with an additional earn-out of $10 million based on the achievement of certain growth targets over the next two years.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 18.54, +0.48 +2.66%) closed a 36.4 million ($52 million) project financing facility with BayernLB to refinance a portfolio of four solar power plants, totaling 40.2 megawatts in the UK. This financing facility with BayernLB is non-recourse project finance, with a term of 17 years.

Pegasystems (PEGA 25.75, +0.14 +0.55%) increased its share repurchase program from about $24 million, the amount remaining in the current program, to $50 million.

Xura (MESG 24.61, +3.63 +17.30%) entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by affiliates of Siris Capital Group, LLC in a transaction reflecting an equity value of about $643 million. In addition, as part of the transaction, Xura's existing credit facility will be refinanced. Under the terms of the agreement, Siris will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Xura's common stock for $25.00 per share in cash.

RigNet (RNET 12.95, -0.05 -0.38%) to restructure its TSI business into its Managed Services business.

Actions Semi (ACTS 1.79, +0.27 +17.89%) announced its Board of Directors has received a preliminary non-binding proposal letter, dated May 19, 2016, from Mr. Hsuan-Wen Chen, former CEO of the company, and certain of his affiliates and affiliated entities, that proposes a "going-private" transaction involving the acquisition of all of the outstanding equity interest of ACTS not already owned by the Consortium Members at price of $2.00 per American depositary share or $0.333 per ordinary share, each ADS represents six ordinary shares.

Aixtron (AIXG 6.25, +0.77 +14.05%) receives takeover offer from Fujian Grand Chip and Grand Chip Investment GmbH, a 100% direct subsidiary of FGC, valued at 670 million. Pursuant to the agreement, GCI will launch a voluntary public takeover offer to acquire all of the outstanding ordinary shares, including all ordinary shares represented by AIXTRON ADS. Under the terms of the agreement, AIXTRON shareholders will be offered 6.00 Euros in cash per each ordinary share.

21Vianet (VNET 13.99, -0.46 +3.18%) announced that Tus-Holdings Co., Ltd., a large integrated enterprise established in reliance on Tsinghua University, has, through its affiliated investment vehicle, entered into definitive share subscription agreement to make $388 million equity investment in the company. Pursuant to the Share Subscription Agreement, an affiliated investment vehicle of Tus-Holdings will make a $388 million investment in 21Vianet, with a share subscription price of about $2.712 per ordinary share, or $16.274 per ADS.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Vivint Solar (VSLR 2.69, +0.17 +6.75%) closed a tax equity investment fund with a new investor, with an aggregate funding commitment of $75 million, which will enable the company to install more than 45 megawatts of residential solar energy systems.

Micron (MU 11.14, +0.34 +3.15%) disclosed today that on May 16, 2016, Brian Shirley, an executive officer of the company, entered into a prearranged trading plan under Rule 10b5-1 , which provides for the sale of up to 48,750 shares of the company's stock over a 12-month period beginning in July 2016.

Ebix (EBIX 44.58, +0.09 +0.20%) announced a 3:1 stock split. The company anticipates a record date of approximately July 15, 2016. Anticipates shares will begin trading split-adjusted on or about August 1, 2016.

ReneSola (SOL 1.42, +0.19 +15.45%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.06 and $260.7 million. SOL also guided Q2 revenues ahead of expectations at $280-290 million, and reaffirmed FY16 revenue guidance in the range of $1.0-1.2 billion.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: ZPIN

Analyst actions:

SQ was upgraded to Buy from Outperform at Credit Agricole,
OLED was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman;
VSAT was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Drexel Hamilton,
IMASY was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley;
RDCM was initiated with a Buy at Needham,
BNFT and ULTI were initiated with a Neutral at Goldman,
INTU and CSOD were initiated with a Buy at Goldman

8:01 am Vivint Solar closes tax equity investment fund with a new investor, with an aggregate funding commitment of $75 mln (VSLR) : The co announced today it closed a tax equity investment fund with a new investor, with an aggregate funding commitment of $75 million, which will enable the company to install more than 45 megawatts of residential solar energy systems.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday session on a mixed note after the S&P 500 (-0.1%) tested and failed to clear resistance at the 2102/2104 price level. Today's trade also featured positive economic data, a reversal in crude oil, strengthening in the dollar, and the underperformance of the financial (-0.3%) and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) sectors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) finished behind the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%).

Today's session began on a choppy note as the major averages consolidated after last week's leg higher. Equities abandoned a slim lead when the benchmark index tested and was rejected by the 2102/2104 price level. As a result, indices ebbed lower through the afternoon as the heavyweight financial (-0.3%) and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) spaces lagged the broader market.

The benchmark index found support near the 2090/2092 price level and trimmed its loss in the final half hour of trade. Six sectors finished the day in the red with energy (-0.6%), materials (-0.5%), consumer staples (-0.5%) leading to the downside. Conversely, safe haven utilities (+0.6%) and telecom services (+0.5%) led health care (+0.1%) and technology (+0.1%) on the positive side of the leaderboard.

The energy space (-0.6%) abandoned a modest gain as a reversal in oil weighed on the broader sector. The energy component began its day on a higher note, testing the $50.00/bbl price level, but was unable to maintain this level. WTI crude ended its pit session lower by 0.5% at $49.10/bbl. Reports cited commentary from a UAE oil minister as a contributing factor for the reversal. On a side note, OPEC will be meeting June 2 in Vienna, Austria for its biannual meeting.

The financial sector (-0.3%) experienced broad-based weakness as the group trimmed its monthly gain. The broader sector gained 1.8% in May compared to a 1.5% uptick in the benchmark index. In the group, Bank of America (BAC 14.79, -0.09) declined by 0.6% after gaining 2.5% last week. The broader sector trailed only health care (+0.1%; month-to-date +2.0%) and technology (+0.1%; month-to-date +5.3%) on a monthly basis.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.1%), Royal Caribbean (RCL 77.39, -0.38) and Carnival (CCL 47.74, -0.86) extended their recent losing streaks as they weighed on the leisure sub-group. Elsewhere, Dow components Home Depot (HD 132.12, -1.13) and Disney (DIS 99.22, -1.07) fell 0.9% and 1.1%, respectively.

Large cap component Apple (AAPL 99.82, -0.53) weighed on the technology space (+0.1%) as the company pulled back from a gain of 5.4% last week. Adding to the name's difficult session was a report from Nikkei, which stated that the new iPhone will only feature small changes. Separately, Cognizant Technology (CTSH 61.44, -1.02) underperformed and trimmed its May advance to 5.3%.

The U.S. Dollar Index (95.86, +0.34) ended off its best level of the day as the euro lost ground to the greenback. The euro/dollar pair ended lower by 0.1% (1.1129) while the dollar lost 0.4% against the yen 110.72.

Treasuries finished flat as the yield on the 10-yr note ended unchanged at 1.85%. The yield on the benchmark note rose two basis point from its April settlement at 1.83%.

Today's volume was above the recent average as more than 1.439 billion shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included Personal Income and Personal Spending for April, April core PCE Prices, Case-Shiller 20-city Index for May, May Chicago PMI, and May Consumer Confidence:

The Personal Income and Spending report brought some more good news for the growth pickup story. It showed a 0.4% increase in personal income (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and a sizable 1.0% increase in personal consumption expenditures (PCE) (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%). That was the largest month-over-month increase in spending since August 2009.
In brief, the Personal Income and Spending report for April is certainly on the Fed's rate-hike side.
The personal savings rate as a percentage of disposable income fell to 5.4% from 5.9%.
With a 0.8% increase in aggregate earnings seen in the Employment Situation report for April, it appears that consumer spending out of savings helped drive the strong increase in personal spending in April.
The PCE Price Index was up 0.3% while the core PCE Price index, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.2%.
On a year-over-year basis, the PCE Price Index is up 1.1%, compared to 0.8% in March, while the core PCE Price Index is up 1.6%, the same as in March.
Real PCE increased 0.6% after being unchanged in March. That is definitely a positive input as it relates to second quarter GDP forecasts and should be seen favorably by the Federal Reserve, along with the progress of the PCE Price Index toward the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation target.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for March rose to 5.4%, which was above the Briefing.com consensus of 5.1%.
This followed the previous month's unrevised reading of 5.4%.
The bulk of the economic data seen of late has been quite supportive of a pickup in growth in the second quarter. The Chicago PMI report for May was not. It fell to 49.3 (Briefing.com consensus 50.9) from 50.4 in April.
The May reading is the lowest since February and below 50.0, which is the dividing line between expansion and contraction for manufacturing activity in the Chicago Fed region.
This is the sixth time it has been in contraction over the past six months.
The main source of the disappointment was a 6.6-point drop in the Production Index and a downturn in the New Orders Index, both of which fell below 50.0.
Four of the five components that make up the business barometer were below 50.0. Only supplier deliveries was above 50.0.
Inventories dropped 11.7 points to 37.9, which is the lowest reading for that index since November 2009.
While that could possibly suggest a need to replenish inventories, the survey exposed some doubt about that possibility as a special question revealed 68.7% of respondents did not plan to increase business investment over the next six months.
In other words, there is some heightened uncertainty about the outlook that could leave manufacturers reluctant to build inventories since there doesn't appear to be much faith right now in the demand outlook.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence report for May fell to 92.6 from 94.7 in April (Briefing.com consensus 96.2).
The downturn was fed by a drop in both the Present Situation Index, which fell from 117.1 to 112.9, and the Expectations Index, which declined from 79.7 to 79.0.
Clearly, the biggest driver of things was consumers' assessment of current conditions.
The downgraded view flowed from an uptick in the percentage of respondents saying jobs are "hard to get" (from 22.8% to 24.4%) and saying business conditions are "bad" (from 18.2% to 21.6%).
Consumers' outlook for the labor market was less favorable as those anticipating fewer jobs increased from 16.7% to 18.1%. The proportion expecting a reduction in income, though, held steady at 12.4%.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the MBA Mortgage Index and the May ADP Employment Change Report (Briefing.com consensus 180k), which will be released at 7:00 ET and 8:15 ET, respectively. Separately, the ISM Service Index for May (Briefing.com consensus 50.4) and Construction Spending for April (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. Finally, the day's data will be capped off with the Fed's Beige Book for June at 14:00 ET while May Auto and Truck sales will be reported throughout the day.

S&P 500 +2.6% YTD
Dow Jones +2.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.2% YTD

Equity indices opened their day on a modestly higher note as investors weighed the potential rate hike implications of the Personal Income and Spending report for April. Participants received in-line readings of April Personal Income (+0.4%) and Core PCE prices (+0.2%) while Personal Spending for April (+1.0%) surprised to the upside. The datapoints are especially significant following last Friday's comments from Fed Chair Yellen, which indicated that a rate hike could be appropriate in the coming months.

The market came back from a long weekend to a mixed Tuesday. The final trading session of May ended with the Nasdaq Composite the lone out-performer, adding 14.55 points (+0.29%) to 4948.06. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the worst performer today, losing 86.09 points (-0.48%) to 17787.13 as July Crude Oil Futures fell -0.5%. Finishing between the two others, the S&P 500 was lower by 2.11 points (-0.10%) to 2096.

The abbreviated week began with modest gains in the Technology (XLK 44.21, +0.05 +0.11%) sector as the final hour of trading brought action back from the red. Component Apple (AAPL 99.86, -0.49 -0.49%) held a modestly lower bid the entire day, and finished the session with some average losses, snapping the stocks recent winning streak; AAPL was the subject of a Nikkei report this morning that detailed a possible three-year future model cycle, and noted the dearth of changes in the upcoming fall iteration of the flagship iPhone. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed trading XLU +0.66%, IYZ +0.64%, XLV +0.24%, XLI -0.02%, XLY -0.10%, XLF -0.25%, XLE -0.39%, XLB -0.51%, XLP -0.64% as Utilities led the advance and Consumer Staples were among the laggards.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (733.54, +0.89 +0.12%) sector, action was slightly higher despite afternoon weakness. Component Micron (MU 12.72, +0.41 +3.33%) was among the best performers in the sector today as shares were upgraded this morning to an Outperform rating from a Neutral at Robert W. Baird. Other names in the space which ended with modest gains included STX +4.16%, WDC +3.45%, ADS +3.32%, GLW +1.85%, NVDA +1.79%, JNPR +1.65%, HPQ +1.59%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

IBM (IBM 153.74, +0.90 +0.59%) announced Weta Workshop upgraded and expanded its implementation of high-speed transfer software from Aspera, an IBM company, to meet growing demand for high-volume transfers of large 2D and 3D design and video files.

Qualcomm (QCOM 54.92, -0.35 -0.63%) announced at COMPUTEX 2016 that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., introduced end-to-end GigaDSL products that enable broadband operators to seamlessly transition deployments from VDSL to Gigabit access technologies.

Motorola Solutions (MSI 69.27, -0.23 -0.33%) introduced WAVE 7000 to a marketplace that requires high-performance PTT across broadband and land mobile radio networks to keep teams more connected than ever. The solution is now available globally.

Apple (AAPL) was the subject of a Nikkei report which suggested the company would extend the iPhone product cycle to three years. The article also noted that changes to the new iPhone which is set to be released this fall will be minor.

Elsewhere in the Tech space:

Verizon (VZ 50.90, +0.29 +0.57%) confirmed it reached an 'agreement in principal' with the company's wireline employees and a small number of wireless employees in the Northeast.

Marketo (MKTO 35.23, +3.03 +9.41%) to be acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $35.25 per share in cash, or about $1.79 billion.

Dangdang (DANG 6.27, +0.24 +3.98%) to be acquired by its parent company in a going-private transaction for cash consideration of $6.70 per ADR in a transaction valued at about $556 million on a fully-diluted basis.

SciQuest (SQI 17.64, +4.37 +32.93%) to be acquired by Accel-KKR for $17.75 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at about $509 million.

Parkervision (PRKR 3.32, +0.01 +0.30%) announced that Brickell Key Investments exercised its right to provide an additional $2 million in funding under the Feb. 26 agreement.

Electro Rent (ELRC 13.10, +2.55 +24.17%) to be acquired by Platinum Equity for $13.12 per share in all cash transaction of about $323.4 million.

KVH Industries (KVHI 8.47, -0.01 -0.12%) announced Peter Rendall will leaving to pursue other opportunities and that John McCarthy has been appointed interim CFO effective immediately.

PC Connection (PCCC 22.99, -0.02 -0.09%) acquired Softmart, a global supplier of information technology and service solutions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company expected it to be accretive.

Zayo Group Holdings (ZAYO 27.78, -0.22 -0.79%) announced that co-Chief Operating Officer Chris Morley is being named Chief Operating Officer of Zayo Group, while co-COO and co-founder Matt Erickson will depart Zayo Group in late July.

Broadsoft (BSFT 43.60, -0.24 -0.55%) acquired Intellinote. The company expects the acquisition to be dilutive by about $0.04 to its non-GAAP earnings for 2016.

Earnings ahead this week:

Tonight - TIVO, WDAY; Wed. morning - DAKT, SCWX; Wed. afternoon - BOX, GWRE, SMTC, VRNT; Thur. morning - CIEN, YGE; Thur. afternoon - AMBA, BV, AVGO, CMTL, MRVL

Analyst actions:

MU was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
LITE was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
PHI was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse;
WDAY was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cross Research,
FEIC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at The Benchmark Company,
MKTO was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
KVHI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Chardan Capital Markets;
ZG was initiated with a Neutral at Mizuho

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The major averages ended their day on a higher note as investors deciphered recent remarks from Fed Chair Yellen about the economic outlook and monetary policy. Other focal points for today's trade included strength from the oil patch, continued softness in the dollar, relative weakness in safe-haven areas, and key sector leadership from the heavily-weighted industrial (+0.8%) and financial (+0.6%) sectors.

The major indices ended the session off their best levels of the day as selling interest picked up just ahead of the close. In doing so, the S&P 500 (+0.5%) failed to close above its prior intraday high this year of 2111.05, yet it still logged a new closing high for the year.

The benchmark index managed to set a new intraday high for the year (2113.36) following mixed remarks from Fed Chair Yellen.

Ms. Yellen stated in prepared remarks that she remains positive on the economic outlook of the U.S. economy and warned that too much significance should not be assigned to one monthly report. However, Ms. Yellen also stated that last Friday's Employment Situation Report was concerning on balance.

Cues for a potential rate hike "in the coming months" were noticeably absent from her speech, but she maintained that further gradual increases in the federal funds rate are likely to be appropriate and conducive to meeting and maintaining the Fed's dual mandate.

Eight sectors ended the session with gains. The commodity-sensitive energy (+2.0%) and materials (+0.9%) sectors led the way, followed by the industrial (+0.8%), financial (+0.6%) and health care (+0.6%) sectors. On the other side of the board, the countercyclical utilities (-0.2%) and telecom services (UNCH) sectors were the only two sectors to end the day with a loss.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) ended ahead of the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) and the S&P 500 (+0.5%).

The energy space (+2.0%) showed broad-based strength as oil prices increased 2.1% ($49.73/bbl, +$1.04). The energy component benefited from a softening dollar and potential supply worries out of Nigeria. In the group, ConocoPhillips (COP 42.52, +1.34) and Anadarko Petroleum (APC 53.28, +1.89) gained 3.0% and 3.7%, respectively.

In the industrials sector (+0.8%), aerospace names outperformed as they traded higher in sympathy with Boeing (BA 131.90, +4.52). The Dow component gained 3.6% and led the price-weighted index as investors weighed a potential contract with Iranair. Conversely, Delta Air Lines (DAL 41.28, -0.29) and CSX (CSX 26.50, -0.14) ended at the bottom of the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.6%).

The financials sector (+0.6%) finished off its best level of the day, yet it recouped a good portion of its 1.4% loss from Friday. The sector saw broad-based strength with regional banks, asset management companies, and life insurance names leading the advance. Rate-sensitive real estate investment trusts (REITs) underperformed as Equity Residential (EQR 63.62, -1.35) and Welltower (HCN 69.82, -1.50) lost 2.1% apiece.

In the consumer discretionary space (+0.1%), Dow component Home Depot (HD 129.19, -2.55) finished at the bottom of the price-weighted index, held back by some bearish commentary at Cleveland Research.

Biotechnology finished ahead of the broader market as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 286.07, +4.30) gained 1.5%. Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 28.85, -0.02) ended flat ahead of Tuesday morning's quarterly earnings report.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.00, -0.03) ended slightly lower, coughing up some overnight gains. The euro/dollar pair finished flat at 1.1362 while the dollar gained 1.0% against the yen (107.62).

Losses were seen across the yield curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose three basis points to 1.73% while the yield on the 2-yr note increased two basis points to 0.80%.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tuesday's economic data will include the revised estimate for first quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus 4.0%), which will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, Consumer Credit for April (Briefing.com consensus $18.5 billion) will be released at 15:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +3.7% YTD
S&P 500 +3.2% YTD
Dow Jones +2.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -0.8% YTD

DJ30 +113.27 NASDAQ +26.20 SP500 +10.28 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2122/1.523 bln/859 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2118/857.3 mln/928

3:30 pm :

The dollar index breaches the 94.00 level to the downside, boosting commodities, currently down -0.1% around 93.93
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +1.1% at 88.11
Crude oil closes near 7-month highs, supported by comments from the Fed, last week's EIA data showing a draw on all fronts, Canadian production still struggling to ramp up to pre-wildfire levels, & a weak dollar
July crude oil futures rose $1.04 (+2.1%) to $49.73/barrel
Natural gas surges, continuing last week's notable uptrend after stalling in the previous session, closing at highs of the session
July natural gas closed $0.07 higher (+2.9%) at $2.47/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold sees marked volatility after the Fed speech, briefly trading below the 1242 level before bouncing back and consolidating near the highs of the day
August gold ended today's session up (+0.4%) $4.40 to $1247.40/oz
Silver sees an afternoon of consolidation, closing higher on the day
July silver closed today's session $0.09 higher (+0.6%) at $16.45/oz
Base metal copper inches up as the dollar wanes
July copper closed $0.01 higher (+0.5%) at $2.12/lb
Grain prices close notably higher ahead of today's USDA crop report, scheduled to be released at 4 pm ET today
July corn closed $0.08 higher (+1.9%) at $4.27/bushel
July wheat closed $0.11 higher (+2.2%) at $5.07/bushel
July soybeans closed $0.05 higher (+0.4%) at $11.39/bushel
July sugar closed $0.01 higher (+5.6%) at $0.19/lb
Weather continues to play a notable role in grain prices, as crops are in the emergence stage
Weather Update:
In the Corn Belt, cool, breezy weather is arriving across the upper Midwest, accompanied by isolated showers
Across the remainder of the Corn Belt, warm, dry weather favors crop growth and late-season planting efforts
In the South, the interaction between Tropical Storm Colin and a cold front is resulting in locally heavy showers from the central Gulf Coast to the southern Atlantic region
In the West, isolated showers are confined to the northern Inter-mountain region. Elsewhere, hot, dry weather is promoting fieldwork and a rapid crop development pace. Record-setting heat persists in the Northwest.

Today's session began on a higher note as investors weighed diminished expectations regarding the pace of interest rate normalization in the coming months. Participants reviewed their assessment on the short-term path of the fed funds rate following Friday's below-consensus reading of the Employment Situation Report for May. The fed funds futures market currently assesses the likelihood of a rate hike at the June meeting at 6.0%, declining from Thursday's pre-jobs data reading of 21.0%.

The broader market kicked off the week with modest gains, as the session was decidedly positive following Fed Chair Janet Yellen's remarks today regarding a disappointing May jobs report on Friday, Chair Yellen largely stuck to her outlook, calling for a gradual increase in rates over time, while acknowledging the weak May jobs data. She noted that there is a great deal of uncertainty in the outlook. Clearly, the Fed remains data dependent. A June rate hike is off the table after Friday's dismal jobs report and ahead of the Brexit vote, which has the potential to dislocate financial markets. To that end, the broader market began the week in the green, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average helped us higher, adding 113.27 points (+0.64%) to 17920.33. The Nasdaq Composite followed, up 26.20 points (+0.53%) to 4968.71, and the S&P 500 closed the session with a 10.28 points (+0.49%) advance to end 2109.41.

Following Friday's modestly lower finish, the Technology (XLK 44.03, +0.09 +0.20%) sector took back most of the losses. Components XRX +2.39%, AKAM +1.83%, FSLR +1.83%, CSC +1.52%, YHOO +1.28%, ADS +1.27%, TXN +1.26% all out-performed. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLE +2.21%, XLB +1.03%, XLI +0.95%, XLF +0.60%, XLV +0.54%, IYZ +0.42%, XLY +0.25%, XLP +0.11%, XLU -0.14% as Energy posted the best gains on the back of a nearly +2.1% day in July Crude Oil Futures.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (729.89, +2.23 +0.31%) sector, action was religiously to the upside, ending just off session highs. Component HP (HPQ 13.67, +0.23 +1.71%) was a notable out-performer today as the company announced a collaboration with Smurfit Kappa (SMFKY 27.29, +0.09 +0.33%) to develop the recently announced digital corrugated post-print solution, the HP PageWide C500 Press. Other names in the space which closed modestly higher today included HRS +1.18%, TEL +1.13%, STX +1.06%, CTXS +0.96%, WU +0.87%, ORCL +0.87%, V +0.75%, AAPL +0.73%, MSFT +0.66%.
Other notable news items among sector components:

Activision Blizzard (ATVI 37.76, -0.05 -0.13%) filed for about 171.9 million common share shelf offering for selling shareholders. The proposed max offering price is $38.48 per share.

Activision Blizzard's (ATVI) Blizzard Entertainment and Facebook (FB 118.79, +0.32 +0.27%) announced functionality in the form of Facebook login collaboration on certain Blizzard PC titles.

HP Inc. (HPQ) announced Smurfit Kappa (SMFKY) entered into a strategic collaboration agreement with HP to further develop the recently announced digital corrugated post-print solution, the HP PageWide C500 Press.

Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS), a business unit of Cubic (CUB 41.42, +0.88 +2.17%), announced the launch of NextTraffic, a transportation and traffic management solution using Microsoft's (MSFT 52.13, +0.34 +0.66%) Azure Cloud.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 18.90, +0.54 +2.94%) has teamed with Paramount Pictures (VIAB 45.43, +0.43 +0.96%) to imagine technology 250 years into the future for the upcoming Star Trek Beyond feature film from Paramount Pictures and Skydance set for worldwide release beginning July 20. The upcoming film will include several futuristic concept technologies created exclusively for the movie based on HPE's The Machine, a groundbreaking research project being developed by the company. Also in connection with the film, HPE will debut a new advertising campaign featuring The Machine, the first prototype of which is slated to launch later this year.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Yingli Green Energy (YGE 4.60, +0.86 +22.99%) anticipates its net income for Q1 turned positive for the first time since 3Q2011. Further, the company sees shipments at the high end of guidance and gross margins higher sequentially.

Baidu (BIDU 174.62, +0.88 +0.51%), Tencent (TCEHY 22.57, +0.49 +2.22%) and JD.com (JD 23.32, +0.34 +1.48%) jointly announced they have entered into definitive agreements pursuant to which BIDU, TCEHY and JD each agrees to invest $50 million in Bitauto Holdings (BITA 22.95, +2.49 +12.17%).

Priceline (PCLN 1349.10, +47.39 +3.64%) named Brett Keller as Interim Chief Executive Officer of its subsidiary, priceline.com, effective immediately.

KFit Holdings Pte Ltd signed a deal to acquire Groupon (GRPN 3.58, +0.06 +1.70%) Indonesia at an undisclosed fee. The acquisition will see KFit enter the Indonesian market with Groupon Indonesia as a wholly-owned subsidiary of KFit, while Groupon Inc will become a strategic shareholder of KFit.

Rambus (RMBS 12.31, +0.03 +0.24%) to acquire the assets of Semtech's (SMTC 24.16, +0.26 +1.09%) Snowbush IP for $32.5 million as well as additional payments based upon specific new product sales through the end of 2022. This acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close during the third quarter of 2016. These acquired technologies will be part of the Rambus Memory and Interfaces Division and Rambus expects this acquisition to be accretive within 18-24 months.

ManpowerGroup (MAN 79.06, +0.27 +0.34%) signed a purchase agreement with Ciber (CBR 1.56, +0.37 +31.09%) to acquire its Dutch business. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CTS Corp (CTS 18.65, +0.28 +1.52%) will implement additional organizational changes in North America. Starting next year, CTS will phase out production at its Elkhart plant by mid-2018 and transition the existing location into a Research and Development Center supporting the company's global operations. Certain actions are also being taken at other locations to simplify operations. About 230 employees will be impacted over the course of the transition.

Zetta Jet selected ViaSat (VSAT 74.01, +0.93 +1.27%) to supply global in-flight internet service for its customers desiring faster, more reliable in-flight connectivity on its Bombardier Global ultra-long range business aircraft.

eFuture Holding (EFUT 5.63, +0.18 +3.30%) announced receipt of an unsolicited preliminary non-binding proposal to acquire all the remaining outstanding ordinary shares from its controlling shareholder, Shiji (Hong Kong) Limited, which presently owns 2,744,857 shares, represented 52.37% of the outstanding ordinary shares as of June 5, 2016, for $6.32 in cash per share. Earlier this year, Shiji nominated and appointed six members of the Board of Directors, who are presently serving on the Board of a total eleven members.

Aspen Technology (AZPN 39.54, +0.45 +1.15%) acquired Fidelis Group, LLC of Lake Jackson, Texas. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Pandora (P 12.17, -0.35 -2.80%) announced a partnership with Music Reports to manage the mechanical licensing and royalty administration for its upcoming interactive streaming service.

Helios & Matheson (HMNY 7.21, +6.17 +600.00%) and Zone Technologies announced plans to merge.

T-Mobile US (TMUS 43.07, -0.56 -1.28%) announced a customer program called Stock Up which will reward customers with TMUS shares for recommending T-Mobile to their friends. Customers can earn up to 100 shares of TMUS a year for every primary account holder who takes their recommendation and switches to TMUS.

Analyst actions:
GRUB was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt; QLIK was downgraded at Mitsubishi UFJ and SunTrust, CUDA was downgraded to Mkt Underperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities; SNPS and CDNS were initiated with Outperform ratings at RBC Capital Mkts, CGNX was initiated with a Mkt Perform at Bernstein

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:05 pm : The stock market snapped its three-day winning streak, but the Thursday decline was modest in scope as the S&P 500 shed just 0.2% after climbing off its morning low.

Equity indices faced some early selling pressure as market participants were reminded about the presence of global growth concerns after the Bank of Korea unexpectedly lowered its key interest rate to 1.25% from 1.50% and China reported a 0.5% month-over-month decline in CPI (expected -0.2%).

Markets in China and Hong Kong could not respond to the weak inflation data due to holiday closures, but the commodity market appeared to take notice as copper and crude oil retreated. Copper futures fell to a four-month low, dropping 1.2% to $2.036/lb while crude oil settled lower by 1.4% at $50.53/bbl, finishing the day just above yesterday's session low.

Weakness in commodities kept energy (-0.5%) and materials (-0.6%) at the bottom of the leaderboard while other cyclical sectors also struggled. Financials (-0.8%) spent the entire session behind the other nine groups while technology (-0.1%) and industrials (unch) rebounded during afternoon action to end little changed.

The top-weighted tech sector was underpinned by a 0.7% gain in the shares of Apple (AAPL 99.65, +0.71) while industrials settled ahead of the broader market thanks to relative strength in airlines and logistics names. American Airlines (AAL 33.40, +0.89) climbed 2.7%, but the broader Dow Jones Transportation Average still finished lower by 0.2%.

Another influential sector, health care (-0.2%), showed some early strength, but could not stay in positive territory as biotechnology weighed. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 273.58, -4.95) lost 1.8%. Meanwhile, other countercyclical groups had a better showing with consumer staples (+0.4%), telecom services (+0.6%), and utilities (+0.9%) posting gains.

The consumer staples sector was boosted by J.M. Smucker (SJM 143.22, +10.51), which soared 7.9% in reaction to better than expected results. The defensively-oriented group extended its 2016 gain to 6.6% while utilities pushed their 2016 advance to 16.3%.

Treasuries finished the day near their highs despite the intraday rebound in equities with the 10-yr yield sliding two basis points to 1.68%. On a related note, demand for Germany's 10-yr bund pressured its yield to a record low of 0.026% before ending flat at 0.037%.

Today's participation was below average as fewer than 800 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Initial Claims and Wholesale Inventories:

Initial claims for the week ending June 4 were 264,000 (Briefing.com consensus 265,000), a decrease of 4,000 from the prior week
There were no special factors influencing the initial claims reading, which remained below 300,000 for the 66th straight week
The four-week moving average for initial claims dropped to 269,500 from 277,000
Continuing claims for the week ending May 28 decreased by 77,000 to 2.095 million. That is the lowest level of continuing claims since October 21, 2000, lowering the four-week moving average for this series to 2.145 million from 2.163 million
Wholesale inventories increased 0.6% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) after increasing an upwardly revised 0.2% (from 0.1%) in March
The increase in April was fueled by a 1.3% increase in nondurable inventories, which was powered by a 2.2% increase in drug inventories and a 7.5% jump in farm products inventories
Wholesale sales increased 1.0% following a downwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.7%) in March
The wholesale inventories to sales ratio dipped to 1.35 from 1.36, but was up from 1.31 in the same period a year ago

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for June (Briefing.com consensus 94.0) and the May Treasury Budget. The two reports will be released at 10:00 ET and 14:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000 +4.6% YTD
S&P 500 +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.0% YTD

DJ30 -19.86 NASDAQ -16.03 SP500 -3.64 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 895/1.49 bln/2052 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1151/790.3 mln/1863

3:30 pm :

The dollar index holds onto this mornings gains, currently up +0.4% around the 93.97 level, weighing on certain commodities overall
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.7% at 89.88
Crude oil gives up the majority of yesterday's gains, consolidating & closing just off of its highs of 2016 reached in the previous session
July crude oil futures fell $0.70 (-1.4%) to $50.53/barrel
IEA monthly data is scheduled to be released June 14
Natural gas surges following EIA storage data that showed a smaller-than-expected build compared to estimates
July natural gas closed $0.15 higher (+6.1%) at $2.62/MMBtu
July natural gas futures were trading around $2.46/MMBtu right before the release of the data
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +65 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +77 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 2,972 Bcf as of Friday, June 3, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 660 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 722 Bcf above the five-year average of 2,250 Bcf.
At 2,972 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold ends near its highs of the day even as the dollar holds onto its early morning gains
August gold ended today's session up $10.30 (+0.8%) to $1272.50/oz
Silver extends yesterday's notable +3.7% gains, closing higher despite strength in the dollar
July silver closed today's session $0.27 higher (+1.6%) at $17.27/oz
Base metal copper stages a modest afternoon rally after an overnight plummet, still closing lower for the day
July copper closed $0.02 lower (-1.0%) at $2.04/lb

4:30 pm Applied Materials announces new $2 bln share repurchase program (AMAT) :

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a lower note as investors favored risk-off trade ahead of key central bank decisions and next week's "Brexit" referendum. Additional factors contributing towards today's decline included strengthening in the dollar, a leg lower in oil, the violation of technical support at the S&P 500's (-0.2%) 50-day simple moving average (2076), and weakness in the heavily-weighted financial (-1.5%) and consumer discretionary (-0.3%) sectors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) finished behind the benchmark index (-0.2%) and behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%).

U.S. equity indices opened on a choppy note as investors weighed on-going developments in "Brexit" polling. Overnight, European indices trended lower as polling showed building momentum around the U.K.'s "Leave" camp. In response, risk assets continued to fall out of favor in Europe while sovereign bonds saw increased demand. On that note, the yield on the 10-yr Bund fell into negative territory, marking an all-time low (-0.034%).

The benchmark index surrendered a modest early gain before breaching technical support at its 50-day simple moving average (2076). The major averages slipped through the morning as pressure from the oil pit and the heavyweight financial (-1.5%) and consumer discretionary (-0.3%) groups weighed on the broader market. The S&P 500 (-0.2%) notched a new session low in the final hour of trade (2064.04) before settling below its 50-day simple moving average.

Four sectors ended beneath their flat lines as financials (-1.5%), materials (-0.8%), and consumer discretionary (-0.3%) rounded out the leaderboard. Conversely, telecom services (+0.5%), utilities (+0.5%), and consumer staples (+0.3%) ended with the largest gains.

In the economically-sensitive financial sector (-1.5%), money center banks underperformed as the group responded to a downturn in European banks. Credit Suisse (CS 11.80, -0.29) and Deutsche Bank (DB 14.73, -0.45) ended lower by 2.4% and 3.0%, respectively. It is worth noting that Deutsche Bank notched a fresh all-time low during today's session (14.59). Meanwhile, credit service names underperformed after Synchrony Financial (SYF 26.45, -3.99) raised its net charge-off estimates for the year. The stock fell 13.1% following the news. Dow component American Express (AXP 61.07, -2.60) rounded out the price-weighted index as it traded lower in sympathy with Synchrony.

Home Depot (HD 125.24, -2.59) and Lowe's (LOW 76.08, -1.42) also struggled today after the Retail Sales Report for May (+0.5%; Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) revealed that building materials, garden equipment, and supplies dealers saw sales decline 1.8% on a month-over-month basis. Nevertheless, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.08, -0.12) ended its day in-line with the broader consumer discretionary sector (-0.3%).

The countercyclical sectors outperformed today with telecom services (+0.5%), utilities (+0.5%) and consumer staples (+0.3%) each seeing a modest bid from safe haven inflows. On that note, the three groups top the monthly leaderboard, gaining between 1.9% and 3.2%. This compares to a loss of 1.0% in the benchmark index over that time. Elsewhere, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 20.54, -0.43) ended lower by 2.1% while gold ended its pit session higher by 0.1% ($1,288.40/ozt; +$1.50).

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.94, +0.57) finished off its best level of the day, but the greenback ended with sizable gains against the euro and the pound. The euro/dollar pair ended lower by 0.8% (1.1206) while the pound lost 1.1% against the dollar (1.4108). Persistent strength in the dollar pressured dollar-denominated commodities as oil ended its day lower by 0.8% ($48.49/bbl; -$0.39).

The Treasury complex ended lower with the yield on the 10-yr note rising one basis point to 1.62%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 881 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included Import and Export Prices for May, May Retail Sales, and Business Inventories for April:

Import prices increased 1.4% in May due primarily to higher fuel prices. Excluding fuel, they were up 0.3%.
May marked the second straight month of increases for nonfuel import prices, which are still down 1.7% year-over-year.
Export prices were up 1.1% in May. Excluding agriculture, they advanced 1.0%.
It was the third straight month of increases for nonagricultural export prices, which are down 4.4% year-over-year.
These price trends are starting to move in the Fed's preferred direction, yet they won't change anything with respect to this week's meeting, which is widely expected to result in a decision to leave the target range for the fed funds rate unchanged.
Retail sales increased 0.5% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) while retail sales excluding autos increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%).
Notably, there were no revisions to the prior month, which saw the strongest monthly sales gain since Mach 2015.
Core retail sales, which exclude auto, gasoline station, building equipment, and food services sales, were up 0.4% after a 1.0% increase in April.
That is a favorable development for second quarter GDP since these sales factor into the computation of the goods component for personal consumption expenditures.
The main pockets of weakness in May were sales at building material, garden equipment and supplies dealers (-1.8%), miscellaneous store retailers (-1.2%), and department stores (-0.9%).
Conversely, the strongest increases were logged by gasoline stations (+2.1%), nonstore retailers (+1.3%), and sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores (+1.3%).
Total business inventories increased 0.1% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after a downwardly revised 0.3% increase (from +0.4%) in March.
Manufacturers' inventories (-0.1%) and wholesaler inventories (+0.6%) were already known. Retailer inventories were the only unknown and they declined 0.1% on the heels of a 0.9% increase in March.
The biggest drivers of the decline in retailer inventories were general merchandise store (-0.5%) and furniture, home furnishings, electronics and appliance store (-0.5%) inventories.
Motor vehicle dealer inventories rose 0.1% while food and beverage stores and clothing and clothing accessories stores inventories increased 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively.
The total business inventory-to-sales ratio was 1.40 in April versus 1.41 in March. In the April period a year ago, it was 1.37.

Tomorrow's economic calendar includes the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index. Meanwhile, May Core PPI (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) and Empire Manufacturing for June (Briefing.com consensus -1.6) will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. At 9:15 ET, Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.2%) will each be released. Finally, the day's data will be capped off with the June FOMC Rate Decision and April Net Long-Term TIC Flows, which will be reported at 14:00 ET and 16:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite -3.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.5% YTD
Dow Jones +1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.1% YTD

DJ30 -57.66 NASDAQ -4.89 SP500 -3.74 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1172/1.772 bln/1908 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1046/881.1 mln/1994

3:35 pm :

Energy futures end the day mostly lower today with everything closing in negative territory except for natural gas
WTI crude finished the day -0.8% at $48.49/barrel, while natural gas rose 0.8% to $2.61/MMBtu
Heating oil slipped, falling -0.7% to $1.50/gallon, while RBOB fell -0.7% to $1.52/gallon
All are on July contracts
Moving over to metals, Aug gold rose $1.50 to $1288.40/oz, while July silver fell two cents to $17.43/oz
July copper fell one cent to $2.04/lb

The major U.S. averages opened under pressure as investors weighed the potential macroeconomic implications of upcoming policy statements from the Fed and Bank of Japan, as well as the increased likelihood of a potential Brexit. Additionally, during the session investors received a few pieces of economic data:

Import prices increased 1.4% in May due primarily to higher fuel prices. Excluding fuel, they were up 0.3%
Export prices were up 1.1% in May. Excluding agriculture, they advanced 1.0%
Retail sales were up 0.5% in May while retail sales excluding autos increased 0.4%
Core retail sales, which exclude auto, gasoline station, building equipment, and food services sales, were up 0.4% after a 1.0% increase in April
Total business inventories gained 0.1% in April after a downwardly revised 0.3% increase (from +0.4%) in March

Broader market trading ended Tuesday with a modestly lower finish, albeit higher off lows of the day. Action was led to the downside by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which lost 57.66 points (-0.33%) today to end 17674.82. The S&P 500 closed lower by 3.74 points (-0.18%) to 2075.32, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 4.89 points (-0.10%) today, ending 4843.55.

The negative bias from Monday persisted in the Technology (XLK 43.57, +0.10 +0.23%) sector following yesterday's blockbuster deal between Microsoft (MSFT 49.83, -0.31 -0.62%) and LinkedIn (LNKD 191.63, -0.58 -0.30%). However, generally negative trading in the sector turned higher in the final hour of action, and the sector turned in a modestly positive finish. Component Symantec (SYMC 18.77, +0.56) continued yesterday's strength which stemmed from the acquisition of Blue Coat, as the stock turned in a +3.08% day. On the flip side of the coin, component Xerox (XRX 9.73, -0.13 -1.32%) was notably weaker today as the company announced that Ashok Vemuri is set to become the CEO of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company upon the completion of the separation of Xerox into two publicly-traded companies. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLU +0.53%, XLP +0.39%, XLV +0.15%, XLI +0.02%, XLE -0.06%, XLY -0.26%, XLB -0.74%, XLF -1.48% with Utilities leading the way higher and Financials posting some significant losses.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (718.17, +0.93 +0.13%) sector, Tuesday began with some modest gains but action quickly turned lower and ultimately ended higher as the broader market eased off lows as the bell rang. Component Apple (AAPL 97.46, +0.12 +0.12%) was slightly higher today following yesterday's WWDC and the announcement that came across in the overnight session that the company would be offering Apple Pay in France later this year through a partnership with Orange (ORAN 15.98, -0.46 -2.80%). Other names in the space which ended the day in the green included YHOO +2.55%, ATVI +2.07%, PYPL +1.70%, QRVO +1.38%, CTSH +0.92%.
Other notable news items among sector components:

Orange (ORAN) confirmed its commitment to mobile payment in France by offering Orange Cash customers Apple (AAPL) Pay, which is transforming mobile payments with an easy, secure and private way to pay that's fast and convenient later this year.

Xerox (XRX) announced Ashok Vemuri will become the CEO of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company upon the completion of the separation of Xerox into two publicly-traded companies. Vemuri will join Xerox effective July 1, 2016 and serve as CEO of Xerox Business Services, LLC and an executive vice president of Xerox Corporation until the separation is complete.

Eurobank Ergasias S.A. will streamline its technology operations and pursue a digital transformation using a new infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) technology platform provided by Accenture (ACN 118.09, +1.01 +0.86%) under a ten-year agreement that involves the bank's subsidiaries in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Ukraine. Accenture will provide technology transformation and delivery services for an "intelligent infrastructure" based on an advanced IaaS platform that will support the bank's core functions, including deposits and loans, online banking, transaction processing, and credit card and debit services.

IBM (IBM 151.06, -0.22 -0.15%) and VMware (VMW 61.52, -1.27 -2.02%) announced they are continuing to expand their strategic partnership by enabling VMware Horizon Air customers to take advantage of cloud-hosted desktop and application services via the IBM Cloud.

Mentor Graphics (MENT 21.60, -0.09 -0.41%) announced it will support the Xilinx (XLNX 46.96, +0.64 +1.38%) Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC devices with its broad embedded tools and software portfolio, including the Mentor Embedded Linux and Android OS, Nucleus real-time operating system (RTOS), Mentor Embedded Hypervisor, and Mentor Embedded Multicore Framework products.
XLNX also announced Android 5.1 (Lollipop) support for the Zynq UltraScale+ Multi-Processor SoC (MPSoC).

Brocade (BRCD 8.86, +0.02 +0.23%) and Harris (HRS 80.98, +0.37 +0.46%) announced the formation of a strategic partnership designed to deliver cybersecurity solutions for advanced protection of an organization's critical assets.

Western Digital (WDC 46.40. +0.12 +0.26%) and CTERA Networks announced a certified solution for IT organizations to build private clouds that combine enterprise-grade file sharing, data protection, and branch office file storage capabilities with cost-effective object storage and cloud orchestration.

On the company's blog, Facebook (FB 114.94, +0.99 +0.87%) confirmed the Oculus Touch will launch with more than 30 full, made-for-VR games later this year, including 20 new titles designed for Touch.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

NXP Semi (NXPI 87.37, -0.03 -0.03%) to sell its Standard Products business to Beijing Jianguang Asset Management for about $2.75 billion.

DST Systems (DST 117.03, +1.16 +1.00%) to sell its North American Customer Communications business to Broadridge Financial (BR 64.28, +1.13 +1.79%) for $410 million in cash. The company expects the deal to result in a $1.15 reduction to annual EPS. DST also announced a new $300 million share repurchase plan.

CenturyLink (CTL 26.68, -0.21 -0.78%) acquired ElasticBox. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Web.com's (WEB 17.71, -0.08 -0.45%) COO Jason Teichman announced his resignation effective July 5 to pursue other opportunities.

Wins Finance (WINS 11.40, -0.98 -7.92%) entered into a sale-leaseback arrangement with LiaoningSG Automotive Group valued at RMB 200 million.

Pegasystems (PEGA 27.69, +0.46 +1.69%) appointed Ken Stillwell as CFO and CAO effective July 7, 2016.

Sonus Networks (SONS 8.49, -0.34 -3.85%) announced Mark Greenquist has resigned as CFO effective June 15, 2016 to take a similar role at a leading e-commerce platform company. Susan Villare, VP of Financial Planning and Analysis, will fulfill the duties as interim CFO while SONS considers both internal and external candidates. Further, the company reaffirmed guidance for Q2 total revenues of $59-60 million and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.03-0.04. Also, SONS reaffirmed guidance for FY16 total revenues $255-265 million and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.27-0.34.

ManTech (MANT 35.72, -0.24 -0.67%) announced the acquisition of Oceans Edge's cyber business. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Nuance Communications (NUAN 16.27, -0.58 -3.44%) commenced an offering to qualified institutional buyers of $300 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2024.

In reaction to quarterly results:

pdvWireless (PDVW 19.25, -0.02 -0.10%) reported a worse than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.47 and better than expected revenues of $0.95 million.

Yingli Green Energy (YGE 4.04, -0.21 -4.94%) reported Q1 EPS of $0.60 on revenues which came in ahead of expectations yet fell 22.2% versus last year to $364.6 million.

Digital Turbine (APPS 1.04, -0.03 -2.80%) reported a worse than expected loss per share for Q4 of $0.09 on in-line revenues which rose 125.5% versus last year to $23 million.

Analyst actions:

VG was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
LNKD was downgraded at Needham, Goldman, Cantor Fitzgerald, Jefferies, Piper Jaffray, Axiom Capital, and First Analysis Sec,
CGNX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
CDNS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
APPS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann;
GPRO was initiated with a Neutral at Longbow,
TRMB and GDDY were initiated with an Outperform at Raymond James,
GIG was initiated with a Buy at Needham,
OSIS was initiated with a Market Outperform at CJS Securities

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended its Wednesday affair under selling pressure as investors responded to a shift in rate hike expectations following the Federal Open Market Committee's policy statement for June. Other contributing factors for today's trade included a downtick in oil, softening in the dollar, and the underperformance of the health care (-0.7%) and technology (-0.3%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) ended in-line with S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%). Equity indices ticked higher at the beginning of the session as investors eyed a rebound in overseas equity markets. European bourses recovered from short-term oversold conditions with Germany's DAX trimming its monthly loss to 6.4%. The regional rebound was also attributed to an uptick in polling numbers for those in the Brexit "Remain" camp. The U.S. equity market gained traction in the first hour of trade with the benchmark index eventually testing resistance near 2080/2082.

The major averages pulled back from these levels as investors digested a mixed reading of the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report. The report showed that crude oil inventories (-0.93 million barrels; consensus -2.26 million) missed estimates while gasoline inventories (-2.62 million barrels; consensus -0.24 million) surprised to the upside. The energy component finished its day lower by 1.2% ($47.93, -$0.56).

The broader market would briefly return to its high in the afternoon as participants ruminated over the latest policy statement from the FOMC. The June policy statement struck a dovish tone as the central bank voted to leave its key policy rate unchanged. Furthermore, the Fed lowered its projected path for the fed funds rate in 2017 (to 1.6% from 1.9%) and 2018 (to 2.4% from 3.0%). Overall, the uncertainty exhibited by the statement proved to be a negative for the market as stocks slumped into the close.

The equity market ended its day under broad-based selling pressure as six sectors finished in the red. In the back of the pack, utilities (-0.7%), health care (-0.7%), and energy (-0.3%) underperformed. On the flipside, materials (+0.4%), consumer discretionary (+0.3%), and financials (+0.1%) led.

Retail names outperformed in the consumer discretionary space (+0.3%) after Kohl's (KSS 35.19, +0.70) received bullish commentary at Cleveland Research. The sub-group also received a boost from PVH (PVH 97.38, +3.00), which gained 3.2% after signaling that its department store business has improved since reporting its first-quarter results. Elsewhere, Viacom (VIAB 42.20, +0.99) outperformed among media names after reports indicated that Sumner Redstone's daughter is discussing the sale of its Paramount Pictures holding to Alibaba (BABA 78.39, +0.62).

The heavyweight health care space (-0.7%) demonstrated relative weakness as Allergan (AGN 239.14, -4.96) declined 2.0%. Meanwhile, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 262.34, -0.15) ended ahead of the broader sector, but still showed a loss of 0.1%.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.60, -0.22) climbed off its low as the greenback trimmed its losses against the euro and pound. The euro gained 0.5% (1.1263) against the dollar while the pound rebounded 0.6% against the dollar (1.4201).

The Treasury complex ended the day higher as the yield on the 10-yr note slipped three basis points to 1.58%.

Today's participation came in above the recent average as more than 877 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, May Core PPI, Empire Manufacturing for June, May Industrial Production, May Capacity Utilization, and April Net Long-Term TIC Flows:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted decrease of 2.4% in mortgage applications.
The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.4% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) while the index for final demand, less food and energy, increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%).
This report, if nothing else, demonstrates how the rebound in energy prices holds the potential to invite higher inflation readings in coming months due to easier price comparisons.
The uptick in producer prices was driven predominately by prices for final demand goods, which were up 0.7% due in large part to a 2.8% increase in prices for final demand energy.
On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand is down 0.1% year-over-year versus unchanged for the 12 months ended in April.
However, the index for final demand, less food and energy, is up 1.2% year-over-year versus a 1.0% year-over-year increase seen in March.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for June, it popped 15 points to 6.0 (Briefing.com consensus -1.6), driven by a healthy rebound in the index for new orders (from -5.5 to 10.9).
A number above zero connotes expansion in regional manufacturing activity.
In turn, the index for future business conditions increased six points to 34.8.
After showing a spike in April, the Industrial Production report for May disappointed, declining 0.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick of 0.1%.
Capacity utilization was also short of estimates, hitting 74.9% (Briefing.com consensus 75.2%).
The May reading represents the fourth decline in the past five months. The previous month's increase was revised down to 0.6% from 0.7%. On a year-over-year basis, industrial production is down 1.4%.
The consensus expected to a see a downturn related largely to an expected pullback in utilities production (after a big gain last month) and continued weakness in mining.
Part of that turned out to be true as utilities production declined 1.0%; however, mining activity ticked up 0.2%.
The mining index was the only one to register an uptick while all other categories declined.
Final products declined 0.7%, nonindustrial supplies fell 0.3%, construction dropped 0.3%, and materials ticked down 0.2%.
Total industry capacity was up 0.8% year-over-year, but declined to 74.9% from 75.3% in April.
Manufacturing capacity decreased 40 basis points to 75.2% and utilities capacity fell 90 basis points to 78.4%.
Mining capacity increased 40 basis points to 73.1%.

Tomorrow's economic data will include Core CPI for May (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 269k), the Philadelphia Fed Survey for June (Briefing.com consensus 0.7), and the first quarter Current Account Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$125.4B) each crossing the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, the June NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 59) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -3.4% YTD
Dow Jones +1.2% YTD
Russell +1.2% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD

DJ30 -34.65 NASDAQ -8.62 SP500 -3.82 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1674/1.649 bln/1321 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1842/877.2 mln/1183 3:45 pm :

WTI crude oil futures extended losses in electronic trade, hitting a new LoD
July crude oil finished floor trading session is now -1.2% at $47.93/barrel, but is now -2.1% at $47.47/barrel
In other energy, July natural gas closed -0.4% at $2.60/MMBtu
Looking over at the metals space, Aug gold finished today's pit session unchanged at $1288.40/oz
July silver rose 0.4% to $17.50/oz, while July copper futures held most of today's gains, closing +2.5% at $2.09/lb.

Today's session began on a higher note as global bourses snapped their recent losing streak. European bourses outperformed as equities responded to a shift in the latest round of Brexit polling. However, futures pulled back in the final hour as investors digested a hotter-than-expected reading of the Producer Price Index for May (+0.4%).

4:19 pm Marvell receives supplemental notice from Nasdaq regarding its continued listing rule requiring timely filing of all required periodic reports (MRVL) : The Company says it is working diligently to complete the preparation and filing of its Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2016 and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the second and third quarters of fiscal 2016 and the first quarter of fiscal 2017 as soon as practicable.

4:07 pm Jabil Circuit beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS and rev well below consensus; announces $400 mln buyback (JBL) :

Reports Q3 (May) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.15; revenues fell 1.1% year/year to $4.31 bln vs the $4.18 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.15-0.35, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.53 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $4.15-4.35 bln vs. $4.65 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Diversified Manufacturing Services Decrease net revenue 20 percent year-on-year.

Electronics Manufacturing Services Consistent net revenue year-on-year. "Our Electronics Manufacturing Services business performed ahead of plan supported by near-perfect execution during the quarter," said CEO Mark Mondello. "However as expected, our third quarter results also reflected a soft environment within our mobility business.

These challenges will continue to negatively impact our Diversified Manufacturing Services business for the balance of our fiscal year."As part of a framework to increase capital returns to shareholders over the next two fiscal years, Jabil's Board of Directors authorized a $400 million share repurchase program. The overarching capital allocation framework is designed to return ~40% of cash flows from operations through dividends and share repurchases over the next two years, not to exceed $1 billion in total. "This framework announced today reflects our confidence in our ability to generate in excess of $2 billion of cash flows from operations over the next two fiscal years."

4:00 pm QLogic to be acquired by Cavium (CAVM) for ~$15.50/share ($11.00/share in cash & 0.098 in stock), or ~$1.36 bln (QLGC) :

Cavium (CAVM) and QLogic announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for Cavium to acquire all of the outstanding QLogic common stock for approximately $15.50 per share, comprised of $11.00 per share in cash and 0.098 of a share of Cavium common stock for each share of QLogic common stock (valued at approximately $4.50 based on the volume weighted average Cavium trading price for the three trading days beginning June 10, 2016), through an exchange offer.

The transaction values QLogic at approximately $1.36 billion in equity value, inclusive of approximately $355 million of cash on QLogic's balance sheet, and has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.The transaction will be funded with a combination of $220 million balance sheet cash, $750 million of committed financing, which includes $650 million of term loan and $100 million of short-term bridge debt, and $400 million in new Cavium equity. Cavium sees the acquisition providing $0.60 to $0.70 of accretion to Cavium's CY 2017 non-GAAP EPS: The combined company will have nearly $900 million in LTM revenue, with strong profitability and cash flow generation. There are $45 million of identified annualized cost synergies across COGS and operating expenses expected to be realized by the end of 2017. The transaction is expected to create significant value for the shareholders of both companies.Additional market data came in the form of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted decrease of 2.4% in mortgage applications. Further, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for June, popped 15 points to 6.0 driven by a healthy rebound in the index for new orders (from -5.5 to 10.9). After showing a spike in April, the Industrial Production report for May disappointed, declining 0.4%. Capacity utilization was also short of estimates, hitting 74.9%. Lastly, total industry capacity was up 0.8% year-over-year, but declined to 74.9% from 75.3% in April.

The late-afternoon session was dictated by the Fed actions. Investors learned that there was no upgrade to the median economic projections for 2016, 2017, or 2018. Actually, the change in real GDP growth for 2016 and 2017 was marked down slightly while the projection for core PCE inflation was marked up slightly.

Investors also learned that the median federal funds rate projection was cut from 1.9% to 1.6% for 2017, slashed from 3.0% to 2.4% for 2018, and lowered from 3.3% to 3.0% for the longer run. The median projection for 2016 was left unchanged at 0.90%. Further, while there was no rate hike today, the directive sure didn't make it sound as if there is going to be one in July. To that end, the Federal Reserve maintained the target range for the federal funds rate at 1/4 to 1/2 percent.

Trading capped off the Wednesday session with an impressive turn into negative territory. The bias had cemented itself in positive territory leading into the all-important Fed rate decision, and initially it appeared that the reaction was muted. However, as Fed Chair Janet Yellen began her press conference, action quickly turned lower and finished with an move from green-to-red which gave up nearly 30 points in the Nasdaq Composite and about 100 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Trading in the three major US indices finished the day led lower by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which lost 34.65 points (-0.20%) to end 17640.17. The S&P 500 was off Tuesday's close by 3.82 points (-0.18%) to 2071.50, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 8.62 points (-0.18%) to 4834.93.

The unwinding of the markets flowed through to Technology (XLK 43.48, -0.09 -0.21%) as the sector finished the day in the red. Component Cisco (CSCO) was among the worst performers today on the back of a premarket downgrade at Goldman Sachs; shares were taken to a Neutral rating from a Buy ahead of the bell, sending the stock lower to start, a move the name was never able to recover from. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLB +0.45%, IYZ +0.29%, XLY +0.28%, XLF +0.13%, XLI +0.04%, XLE -0.24%, XLP -0.30%, XLU -0.63%, XLV -0.69% as Materials out-performed and Healthcare took the market move the hardest.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (716.21, -1.96 -0.27%) sector, trading mirrored the broader market collapse in the final half-hour. Component Salesforce.com (CRM 81.99, +0.90 +1.11%) traded modestly higher today, bucking the broader market trend, as the stock was initiated with an Outperform rating at BMO Capital this morning; shares reacted higher initially upon the rating initiation, and never looked back. Other names in the space which ended in negative territory included CSRA -1.86%, INTC -1.65%, CTSH -1.60%, ORCL -1.00%, CTXS -1.00%, TDC -0.88%, PYPL -0.86%, MA -0.82%, XLNX -0.57%, ACN -0.54%, V -0.51%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Stonegate Bank (SGBK 31.57, +0.09 +0.29%) announced the issuance of MasterCard (MA 93.34, -0.81 -0.86%) credit cards for use in Cuba.

Texas Instruments (TXN 61.69, -0.21 -0.34%) introduced two new automotive motor drivers that support high-performance powertrain applications. The DRV8305-Q1, a highly integrated three-phase brushless DC gate driver, and the UCC27211A-Q1, a high-current half-bridge gate driver.

Alliance Data (ADS 207.95, -1.03 -0.49%) updated on its Card Services segment. The company noted it is tracking to its guidance of a 5.1% principal loss rate for 2Q16 and 5.0% for FY16.

Autodesk (ADSK 56.61, +0.90 +1.62%) announced several updates to its Forge platform, including new cloud application development tools and services and three investments at Forge DevCon, the company's inaugural event for cloud developers.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

EBIX (EBIX 47.22, -0.50 -1.05%) announced sending a letter to Patriot National's (PN 8.75, +1.83 +26.45%) board outlining an offer to acquire 100% of its outstanding stock for $9.50 per share.

Demand Media (DMD 5.40, +0.24 +4.65%) undertook certain actions to streamline its studioD business, which develops and executes content marketing strategies and creates custom content for third-party brands, publishers and agencies, and better align this business with DMD's existing Content & Media service offering. As part of the studioD Realignment, it reduced the staffing within its studioD business by 35 full-time employees. The remaining studioD employees are being integrated into the Company's core Content & Media businesses, where studioD will focus on creating and distributing sponsored and native content for brands and advertisers. The Company expects to incur charges of about $900,000 primarily in the second quarter of 2016 for severance and other termination benefits incurred in connection with the studioD Realignment. Further, following the studioD Realignment and DMD's recent sale of its Cracked.com humor website business, the company's board of directors and management is considering re-initiating repurchases of its common stock pursuant to its existing stock repurchase plan, under which repurchases of up to $50.0 million were previously authorized.

GoDaddy (GDDY 32.63, -0.11 -0.34%) filed for about 4.2 million common share offering. The proposed max offering price is $31.55 per share.

YY Inc. (YY 38.82, +0.68 +1.78%) announced that the special committee of the company's board of directors received a letter from Mr. Jun Lei, Chairman of the Board, and Mr. David Xueling Li, director and CEO of YY, stating that the Buyer Group would withdraw the non-binding going private proposal dated July 9, 2015, with immediate effect. The letter stated that, having given due consideration to recent unfavorable market conditions, the Buyer Group had determined not to proceed with the Proposal. In addition, YY announced that the Board has authorized a program under which YY over the next 12 months may repurchase up to an aggregate of $200 million worth of its shares and its convertible senior notes due in 2019.

Intellicheck Mobilisa (IDN 1.56, -0.35 -18.32%) announced an agreement relating to the sale of 1,200,000 shares of common stock at a public offering price of $1.75 per share together with the issuance of 600,000 five year warrants to purchase common stock with an exercise price of $2.20. The gross proceeds from the offering, excluding any proceeds on the exercise of the warrants, are expected to be about $2,100,000, before deducting the underwriting discount and estimated offering expenses.
Nectar Services Corp. and Sonus Networks (SONS 8.80, +0.31 +3.65%) announced an integrated solution to provide complete Session Border Controller (SBC) monitoring and diagnostics for joint customers.

Orange (ORAN 15.93, -0.05 -0.31%) and Iliad SA's (ILIAY 9.80, -0.42 -4.08%) Free Mobile have been engaged in discussions regarding the progressive reduction and end of the national roaming agreement between the two operators. An agreement for the end of the national roaming service was signed on 15 June 2016. This provides for the progressive limitation of services by Free Mobile, from January 2017, for its customers roaming on Orange's network. This agreement expires at the end of 2020. This contract will be communicated to the French regulator, Arcep, which must verify its coherence with the outline recommendations published on 25 May 2016.

Nuance Communications (NUAN 16.34, +0.07 +0.43%) priced a $300.0 million of its 6.000% senior notes due 2024.

Analyst actions:

LNKD was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura and to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
CSCO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
CMPR was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Barrington Research,
CMP was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Keybanc Capital Mkts,
MKTO was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities,
BR was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at Avondale;
N, WDAY were initiated with a Market Perform at BMO Capital,
CRM was initiated with an Outperform at BMO Capital,

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 17-Jun-16

After spending two weeks inside narrow ranges, the stock market faced selling that resulted in the S&P 500 surrendering 1.2% for the week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed, falling 1.9%.

Investors focused on commentary from central banks, which wasn't surprising, considering the Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, and Swiss National Bank all held their policy meetings. All four stood pat, keeping their key interest rates unchanged. However, all four cited a litany of growth concerns that fueled strong demand for sovereign debt and a somewhat surprising aversion to stocks. Surprising, because dovish commentary from several major central banks has been known to elicit a strong bullish response in recent years.

To little surprise, a potential "Brexit" was cited frequently ahead of the June 23 referendum. The long-running storyline took a tragic turn after Labour MP Helen "Jo" Cox was murdered on Thursday. This prompted a two-day suspension of campaigning by both sides and the pound rallied back to last week's levels after hitting a five-week low early on Thursday.

Sovereign debt was in strong demand into Thursday morning, but some selling developed into the weekend. Germany's 10-yr yield dropped to a record low of -0.038%, ending the week at 0.018%, while the Swiss 30-yr yield marked a record low at -0.004%, settling at 0.034% for the week. The global risk aversion was also visible in the foreign exchange market where the dollar/yen pair slid to 104.20, registering its lowest weekly close since August 2014.

On Friday, St. Louis Fed President and voting FOMC member James Bullard said that he believes only one rate hike will be warranted through 2018. The born-again dove had voiced support for four rate hikes as recently as mid-January.

In sum, the fed funds futures market started to get comfortable with the theory that there will be no hikes in 2016, pricing in just a 45.0% chance of a rate hike in December. The probability of a rate hike in July receded to 10.0% from 23.0% at the end of last week.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 17865.34 17675.16 -190.18 -1.1 1.4
Nasdaq 4894.55 4800.34 -94.21 -1.9 -4.1
S&P 500 2096.07 2071.22 -24.85 -1.2 1.3
Russell 2000 1163.93 1144.73 -19.20 -1.6 0.8

After starting the day with mild losses, the major U.S.indices continued to drag in negative territory for the duration of today's quiettrade. The S&P 500 lost 6.77 points (-0.33%), closing at 2071.22 (-1.19%this week), while the NASDAQ Composite dropped 44.58 points (-0.92%), closingat 4800.34 (-1.92% this week). This week's pullback trims the Dow JonesIndustrial Average's 2016 gains to 1.44%.

Ahead of the open, economic data came in the form of May Housing Starts (1164K vs. the 1150kBriefing.com consensus) and May Building Permits (1138K vs. the 1150kBriefing.com consensus). The mixed report, while not impacting the broadermarket, helped the SPDR Housing ETF (XHB 33.38, +0.22 +0.66%) outperform otherindustries in today's trade.
Despite stocks trading relativelysideways, with news flow extremely light, volume was heavy due to thequarterly quadruple witching.

The S&P 500Information Technology (711.22, -6.73 -0.94%) sector was today's second worstperforming sector, trailing only Health Care, which dropped 1.1%. Oracle (ORCL39.68, +1.04 +2.69%) was the S&P IT's top gainer following quarterlyresults, while Linear Tech (LLTC 46.15, -1.55 -3.25%) was its biggest declinerfollowing cautious commentary out of Cleveland Research.
Notable news itemsamong tech names

Infoblox (BLOX 18.68,-0.22 -1.16%) detailed actions aimed at accelerating profitability andpositioning the company for long term leadership in DDI and DNS security; willreduce workforce by 12%

Synaptics (SYNA53.85, -6.65 -10.99%) implemented a reduction in force program to reduce its headcountglobally by ~9%

RealPage (RP 22.25,-0.50 -2.20%) acquired substantially all of the assets of eSupply Systems for$7.1 mln

Electronics ForImaging (EFII 44.50, +0.35 +0.79%) acquired privately held Optitex for up to~$52.8 mln; the deal is expected to contribute $4-6 mln in revs in FY16

PSAV (PSAV) postponedits IPO citing unfavorable equity market conditions

The WSJ reported thatSalesforce.com (CRM 80.50, -1.14 -1.40%) was the other company bidding forLinkedIn (LNKD 190.80, -0.53 -0.28%) ahead of Monday's announcement it hadagreed to be acquired by Microsoft (MSFT 50.13, -0.26 -0.52%)

The WSJ reported thatChina regulators had ordered Apple (AAPL 95.533, -2.22 -2.28%) to halt sales ofiPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in Beijing following an adverse patent decision.CNBC and other outlets subsequently reported that sales continue despite thepatent ruling.

Earnings Announcements

Finisar (FNSR 18.74,+1.16 +6.60%) beat Q1 consensus EPS estimates by $0.04, reported revs in-line;guided Q1 EPS above consensus, revs mid-point above consensus

Oracle (ORCL 39.68,+1.04 +2.69%) missed Q4 consensus EPS estimates by $0.01, beat on revs; sees Q1SaaS and PaaS accelerating to +75-80%

Analyst Actions

PayPal (PYPL 36.970.00, 0.00%) was initiated with a Outperform at Oppenheimer; tgt $43

Commscope (COMM 32.56,+0.22 +0.68%) was initiated with a Buy at BTIG Research; tgt $41

Mobileye N.V. (MBLY 39.17,+2.35 +6.38%) was initiated with a Buy at Berenberg; tgt $51

4:22 pm Closing Market Summary: Indices Slip, Extending Weekly Losses (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended a volatile week on a modestly lower note as investors eyed a downturn in the heavily-weighted health care (-1.1%) and technology (-0.9%) sectors. As a result, the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.9%) finished behind the S&P 500 (-0.3%). For the week, the two indices lost a respective 1.9% and 1.2%.

Equity indices began on a choppy note as investors weighed a rebound in global bourses against recent remarks from St. Louis Fed President and FOMC voter James Bullard. The Fed President announced earlier this morning that he has re-thought his global economic outlook, projecting that one rate hike may be appropriate through 2018. This accentuates diminished rate-hike expectations from the FOMC's June Policy Statement, which showed a lowered projection for the fed funds rate in 2017 (to 1.6% from 1.9%) and 2018 (to 2.4% from 3.0%).

On the other hand, global bourses saw a reprieve from their recent sell-off as participants weighed developments in the ongoing Brexit campaign. Both camps agreed to suspend their respective campaigns for another day following yesterday's fatal attack on MP Jo Cox. As a result, safe havens swooned while risk assets rebounded.

The benchmark index fell through the morning, eventually finding support near the 2062 area. Equities advanced steadily through the afternoon, but the S&P 500 (-0.3%) sputtered out short of its flat line and its 50-day simple moving average (2078.02). Five sectors ended in the red with health care (-1.1%), technology (-0.9%), and consumer staples (-0.5%) rounding out the board. Commodity-sensitive energy (+0.8%) led countercyclical telecom services (+0.6%) in front of the pack.

The health care space (-1.1%) extended its weekly decline to 2.1% as Dow component Merck (MRK 55.89, -1.61) and the biotechnology group weighed. Merck lost 2.8% today after rallying 2.5% on Thursday. In the biotechnology sub-group, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN 354.21, -12.31) and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 86.73, -3.68) lost 3.4% and 4.1%, respectively. Regeneron was pressured after Canaccord Genuity made bullish comments regarding a competitor's medication. Meanwhile, Vertex fell after the U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence failed to recommend the company's cystic fibrosis drug.

In the technology sector (-0.9%), Apple (AAPL 95.33, -2.22) underperformed after reports indicated that regulators in China ordered the company to halt sales of its iPhone 6 due to a patent dispute. The company said its products remain available for sale and that an appeal will be filed. Elsewhere, Alphabet (GOOG 691.72, -18.64) fell to a multi-month low (688.45) after Citigroup issued cautious commentary regarding the company's second-quarter results.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.6%) trimmed its weekly loss to 2.3% as rail names outperformed. Additionally, the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 21.54, +0.07) rebounded 0.3%, trimming its weekly loss to 9.0%.

The commodity-sensitive energy sector (+0.8%) trimmed its loss to 0.1% as WTI crude rebounded. The energy component finished its day higher by 4.0% ($48.02/bb; +$1.84). For the week, the commodity lost 2.1%.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.17, -0.40) ended near its low as the euro and the pound gained against the dollar. The euro finished higher by 0.5% against the buck (1.1277) while sterling climbed 1.1% against the dollar (1.4354).

The Treasury complex ended near its low as the yield on the 10-yr note rose three basis points to 1.61%.

Today's volume was above the recent average with more than two billion shares changing hands on the NYSE floor. The increased total was due to quadruple witching, which marks the expiration of index options, index futures, stock options, and single-stock futures.

Economic data was limited to the Housing Starts and Building Permits Report for May:

Housing starts decreased 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.164 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.150 mln) in May.
This follows a revised April estimate of 1.167 million (from 1.172 mln)
Building permits increased 0.7% to 1.138 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.150 mln) from the revised April rate of 1.130 million (from 1.116 mln).
Altogether there wasn't anything overwhelming about the monthly report.
Arguably, it was a bit disappointing considering that there was minimal growth (+0.3%) in single-family starts to 764,000 and that permits for single-family units -- a leading indicator -- were down 2.0%, led by declines in the Northeast (-8.9%), the West (-5.1%), and the Midwest (-3.5%).
The South was the only region to see an increase in permits for single-family units (+0.8%).
A 33.3% decline in starts in the Northeast, all of which was owed to a decline in multi-unit starts, was the big drag on total housing starts. A 14.7% decline in single-family starts in the Midwest also weighed.
Notwithstanding the relatively soft monthly figures, total housing starts were up 9.5% year-over-year. Building permits, however, were down 10.1% on the same basis given large drops in permits for multi-unit dwellings.
On a good note for second quarter GDP forecasts, the number of units under construction at the end of the period jumped to 1.019 million from 1.001 million in April.
The second quarter average for this metric is 2.5% above the first quarter average.

There is no economic data of note scheduled for release on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite -4.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.8% YTD
S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Dow Jones +1.4% YTD

Week in Review: Sovereign Debt Rallies; Stocks Slide

After spending two weeks inside narrow ranges, the stockmarket faced selling that resulted in the S&P 500 surrendering 1.2% for theweek. The tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed, falling 1.9%.

Investors focused on commentary from central banks, whichwasn't surprising, considering the Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, Bank ofEngland, and Swiss National Bank all held their policy meetings. All four stoodpat, keeping their key interest rates unchanged. However, all four cited alitany of growth concerns that fueled strong demand for sovereign debt and asomewhat surprising aversion to stocks. Surprising, because dovish commentaryfrom several major central banks has been known to elicit a strong bullishresponse in recent years.

To little surprise, a potential "Brexit" was citedfrequently ahead of the June 23 referendum. The long-running storyline took atragic turn after Labour MP Helen "Jo" Cox was murdered on Thursday. This prompteda two-day suspension of campaigning by both sides and the pound rallied back tolast week's levels after hitting a five-week low early on Thursday.

Sovereign debt was in strong demand into Thursday morning,but some selling developed into the weekend. Germany's 10-yr yield dropped to arecord low of -0.038%, ending the week at 0.018%, while the Swiss 30-yr yieldmarked a record low at -0.004%, settling at 0.034% for the week. The globalrisk aversion was also visible in the foreign exchange market where thedollar/yen pair slid to 104.20, registering its lowest weekly close sinceAugust 2014.

On Friday, St. Louis Fed President and voting FOMC memberJames Bullard said that he believes only one rate hike will be warranted through2018. The born-again dove had voiced support for four rate hikes as recently asmid-January.

In sum, the fed funds futures market started to get comfortablewith the theory that there will be no hikes in 2016, pricing in just a 45.0%chance of a rate hike in December. The probability of a rate hike in July recededto 10.0% from 23.0% at the end of last week.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market began its week on a higher note as investors eyed a rally in global equities following a reversal in Brexit polls. However, the equity indices finished off their highs due to a sell off in the final hour. Focal points for today's trade included a bid in risk assets, softening in the dollar, a rebound in oil, and relative strength in the heavily-weighted industrial (+0.9%) and consumer discretionary (+0.9%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) finished ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) and the benchmark index (+0.6%). Global investors shed their risk-off posture overnight as participants eyed a shift towards the "Remain" camp in the latest round of Brexit polling. In response, the major U.S. indices gapped higher at the start of the session with the S&P 500 (+0.6%) rallying to the 2100 area within the first hour of trade. The benchmark index failed to clear resistance at that psychological level, and ticked lower through the remainder of the session. However, it is worth mentioning that the broader market lost momentum in the late morning, which corresponded with the close of European markets.

Equities continued to slip through the afternoon with the benchmark index failing to maintain support near the 2092/2093 price level. The fading conviction in the final hour of trade was likely related to concerns that there could be another shift in Brexit polling overnight, as well as the recognition that Fed Chair Yellen will be providing the first day of her semiannual monetary policy testimony on Tuesday in front of the Senate Banking Committee.

Nine sectors ended in the green with energy (+0.9%), industrials (+0.9%), and consumer discretionary, (+0.9%) leading the pack. On the flipside, the countercyclical utilities sector (-0.4%) ended with the only loss while telecom services (+0.2%) finished with the slimmest gain.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.1%) demonstrated relative strength as rail names and logistic companies outperformed. On that note, CSX (CSX 27.01, +0.26) and Kansas City Southern (KSU 89.33, +1.32) gained 1.0% and 1.5%, respectively. Airline names rebounded as the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 21.83, +0.29) rebounded 1.4% after declining 6.6% last week.

Separately, Dow component Boeing (BA 132.75, +2.93) ended at the top of the price-weighted average.

The high-beta chipmakers outperformed in the technology sector (+0.5%), evidenced by the 1.2% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. NVIDIA (NVDA 47.56, +0.84) gained 1.8% after announcing that it launched its latest graphics processor unit for data centers. On a side note, the name notched a new all-time high ($48.17) earlier in the session.

In the consumer discretionary space (+0.9%), travel companies outperformed after Expedia (EXPE 107.19) received an upgrade to "Buy" at Atlantic Equities. Priceline (PCLN 1341.96, +32.72) and TripAdvisor (TRIP 64.66, +1.58) gained 2.5% apiece.

The U.S Dollar Index (93.65, -0.56) ended lower by 0.6% as the euro, commodity currencies, and the pound sterling rebounded against the dollar. The euro/dollar pair ended higher by 0.3% (1.1308) while the pound rallied 2.3% against the buck (1.4685). Finally, the dollar lost 0.6% against the Canadian dollar (1.2811). Oil prices benefited from the dollar's weakness and improved market sentiment, jumping 2.9% ($49.40/bbl; +$1.38) for the session.

The Treasury complex settled near its lows. The yield on the 10-yr note rose six basis points to 1.67% as some of last week's safe-haven positioning trades were unwound.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tomorrow's economic calendar is again noticeably light, but Fed Chair Yellen is scheduled to begin her biannual testimony before Congress at 10:00 ET. Ms. Yellen will be addressing the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite -3.4% YTD
S&P 500 +1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.9% YTD
Dow Jones +2.2% YTD

DJ30 +129.71 NASDAQ +36.88 SP500 +12.03 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2207/1.642 bln/754 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2371/883.0 mln/687 3:30 pm :

The dollar index is down -0.6% around the 93.66 level, boosting commodities across the board
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.8% at 89.45
Crude oil closes just shy of the $50/barrel mark ahead of tomorrow's regularly scheduled API data
July crude oil futures rose $1.38 (+2.9%) to $49.40/barrel
EIA crude oil inventory data is scheduled to be released Wednesday at 10:30 am ET.
Monthly IEA data is scheduled to be released July 13.
API inventory data will be released tomorrow at 4:00 pm ET.
Natural gas surges +5% to close at multi-month highs amid looming concerns over potential emergency reductions in electricity due to a heat wave in Southern California
July natural gas closed $0.13 higher (+5.0%) at $2.75/MMBtu
A contributing factor to today's notable rally is the warning of potential rolling blackouts today and tomorrow after Friday's announcement from California's electric grid operator that they may call for emergency reductions in electricity use due to a heat wave in Southern California.
In precious metals, gold closes near highs of the day, just shy of the previous session's closing price as the dollar shows marked weakness
August gold ended today's session down $2.70 (-0.2%) to $1292.20/oz
Silver trades flat in the afternoon after a modest early morning rally, closing higher on the day
July silver closed today's session $0.09 higher (+0.5%) at $17.51/oz
Base metal copper holds onto its early morning gains, closing notably higher on the day as the dollar weakens
July copper closed $0.04 higher (+2.0%) at $2.09/lb
Grain futures close notably lower ahead of today's weekly crop report
July corn closed $0.17 lower (-3.9%) at $4.21/bushel
July wheat closed $0.07 lower (-1.5%) at $4.74/bushel
November soybeans closed $0.11 lower (-1.0%) at $11.36/bushel
Soybean futures have changed their front month to Nov from July, as indicated by the active amount of volume in the contracts
The crop report is due out at 4 pm ET.

The major averages gapped higher to begin the day, notching a session high in the first half hour of trade. However, equities slipped from that level when the benchmark index tested, but failed to clear resistance near the 2100 price area. Additionally, global bourses rebounded overnight as participants responded to a shift in the probability of a potential Brexit. Polls released over the weekend indicated that the "Remain" camp has reclaimed its advantage over the "Leave" group ahead of Thursday's referendum. In response, investors have adopted a risk-on posture while safe-have assets have been pressured.

Stocks were generally higher today, rebounding from last week's bleak affair which saw all three major US indices shed worse than 1% for the week. Trading cooled off at the close, taking all three indices off daily highs. The leader today was the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite which added 36.88 points (+0.77%) to 4837.21. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged higher by 129.71 points (+0.73%) to 17804.87, and the S&P 500 was up 12.03 points (+0.58%) to 2083.25 when the day was done.

An impressively higher trade permeated the Technology (XLK 43.26, +0.21 +0.49%) sector as well, rebounding off a Friday session which saw the XLK shed -1.6% at lows, and -1.2% at the bell. Component Twitter (TWTR 16.34, +0.24 +1.49%) enjoyed a strong session today as the company announced the acquisition of privately held Magic Pony Technology for an undisclosed sum. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLI +0.92%, XLY +0.90%, XLE +0.87%, XLV +0.63%, XLF +0.57%, XLB +0.57%, XLP +0.32%, XLU -0.38% with Industrials leading the advance and Utilities lagging.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (715.03, +3.81 +0.53%) sector, trading was higher today, cooling off toward the close. Component HP Inc. (HPQ 13.07, -0.05 -0.38%) was higher for most of the morning, ultimately ending the day modestly lower following the announcement that business-software firm Open Text (OTEX 60.30, +1.81 +3.09%) would acquire certain of HP's communications assets for $315 million; further, OTEX expects the deal to generate about $110-125 million in annualized revenues and be immediately accretive to earnings. Other names in the space which closed higher included EBAY +3.28%, SWKS +3.10%, CTSH +2.94%, QRVO +2.72%, ADBE +2.52%, SYMC +2.50%, HPE +2.32%, WDC +2.19%, RHT +2.04%, INTU +1.89%, TDC +1.88%, NTAP +1.81%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Open Text (OTEX) announced it will acquire the Customer Communications Management (CCM) assets from HP Inc. (HPQ), including HP Exstream, HP Output Management, HP TeleForm and HP LiquidOffice. OTEX expects this acquisition to complement OpenText StreamServe, OpenText MediaManager, OpenText TeamSite, and OpenText MediaBin. The purchase price was $315 million, and is expected to generate between $110-125 million in annualized revenues, and be immediately accretive to earnings and on the OTEX operating model by the end of Q1 of 2017. Further, the deal is expected to close in Q1 of 2017.

Accenture (ACN 119.05, +1.48 +1.26%) announced it has acquired Maglan, a privately-held Israeli cybersecurity company specializing in offensive cyber simulation, vulnerability countermeasures, cyber forensics and malware defenses, and IT security research and development with a focus on threat intelligence. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

NVIDIA (NVDA 47.56, +0.84 +1.80%) introduced the NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPU accelerator for PCIe servers, which delivers massive leaps in performance and value compared with CPU-based systems.

Yahoo! (YHOO 37.29, +0.35 +0.95%) announced the launch of Yahoo Storytellers, a content marketing studio for brands and agencies that leverages Yahoo's editorial expertise, extensive data, and native advertising through Yahoo Gemini.

The Department of Defense issued a correction to last week's contract announcement, which was erroneously granted to Harris (HRS 83.17, +1.26 +1.54%) for the amount of $1.7 billion. The DoD's release late Friday after the market closed stated the contract has yet to be awarded.

Oracle (ORCL 39.73, +0.05 +0.13%) announced that Pfizer (PFE 34.50, +0.28 +0.82%) has selected Oracle Health Sciences InForm Cloud Service and the Oracle Siebel Clinical Trial Management and Monitoring Cloud Service to help manage and monitor its more than 300 clinical trials a year and continue to provide best-in-class solutions.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Twitter (TWTR) acquired machine learning and visual processing firm Magic Pony Technology; financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ModusLink Global Solutions (MLNK 1.43, +0.05 +3.62%) appointed Warren Lichtenstein as Executive Chairman, Jim Henderson as CEO and Louis Belardi as CFO. The company also outlined plans for the achievement of annual cost savings of $12 million which it expects to generate into positive EBITDA in FY17.

West Corp (WSTC 20.72, -0.11 -0.53%) amended a credit agreement governing its senior secured credit facilities. The agreement established a new 5 year $300 million credit facility.

Magic Software (MGIC 6.73, +0.11 +1.66%) acquired a 60% stake in Roshtov Software Industries for about $21 million in cash.

Gartner (IT 99.47, +0.82 +0.83%) entered into secured 5-year term loan facility of up to $600 million and a secured 5-year revolving credit facility of up to $1.2 billion.

Cypress Semi (CY 10.18, -0.44 -4.14%) announced a $250 mln private offering of convertible notes due 2022 to institutional investors.

iPass (IPAS 1.22, -0.03 -2.40%) announced stockholder approval of the appointment of Michael Tedesco as Chairman.

RADCOM (RDCM 12.94, +0.40 +3.19%) named former Amdocs Head of Finance, Ran Vered, as its new CFO.

Crossroads (CRDS 5.39, -0.01 -0.19%) effected a 1:20 reverse stock split today.

Analyst actions:

YELP was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank,
SYMC was upgraded to Buy from Sell at UBS,
IMASY was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
SCTY was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays;
GLW was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup,
MSI was initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup,
TYL was initiated with an Overweight at Pacific Crest,
WIFI was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street,
MBT was initiated with an Outperform at Credit Suisse

4:31 pm Marvell names Matthew Murphy as President and CEO, effective July 11 (MRVL) : Mr. Murphy joins Marvell from Maxim Integrated, where he spent the past 22 years with responsibilities in sales and business unit leadership roles.

4:11 pm Ultratech sends letter to shareholders 'urging' them to vote for all of their Director nominees on the white proxy card (UTEK) :

Highlights of letter (as stated by Ultratech):

Neuberger Berman has previously launched a proxy fight to try to replace two members of the Board. In its letter to Mr. Zafiropoulo, dated Aug 4, 2015, Neuberger expressed its desire to discuss issues including Board refreshment and management succession planning.The nominating and corporate governance committee continues to evaluate potential candidates who possess strong track records and relevant expertise to join the Board.The Board thoroughly vetted Neuberger's nominees and determined they were not additive to the Ultratech Board.Neuberger has failed to disclose material negative histories and other facts regarding its two Director nominees.

11:22 am Lam Research displays relative strength as price attempts to breakout over its 3-month resistance along the 83/84 vicinity (LRCX) : Note similar price action in KLAC breaking out over its 3-month resistance along the $73 area as LRCX is in the process of acquiring the company.

10:28 am NVIDIA (+3%) breaks out to fresh all time highs (NVDA) : NVDA +35% since beat and raise report on May 12.

6:50 am Cypress Semi announces a $250 mln private offering of convertible notes due 2022 to institutional investors (CY) : The co expects to use the net proceeds of the offering of the notes and an additional $450.0 mln term loan under its existing credit facility to pay the cost of the capped call transactions, finance the purchase price and costs associated with the previously announced acquisition of Broadcom's (BRCM) Wireless Internet of Things biz and certain related assets, repay ~$107.0 mln in revolving loans under Cypress' existing credit facility, and pay fees & expenses related to the foregoing.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a flat note as fears regarding a potential Brexit remained in focus. Additional factors contributing towards today's trade included strengthening in the dollar, weakening in oil prices, largely in-line commentary from Fed Chair Janet Yellen, and sector leadership from heavily-weighted technology (+0.7%) and financials (+0.5%). The S&P 500 (+0.3%) ended its day ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%). Equity indices opened on a higher note as investors weighed developments in the latest round of Brexit polling. European indices extended their recent winning streak as an ORB poll for the Telegraph showed that the "Remain" camp maintains a lead over the "Leave" faction. However, a Survation poll showed that the referendum remains highly contested with both camps polling within one percentage point of one another.

The benchmark index slipped from its opening high as investors weighed testimony from Fed Chair Janet Yellen. The central bank head struck a cautious tone, stating that uncertainties persist in her economic outlook. Specifically, Chair Yellen cited that improvements in the labor market have slowed while global developments need to be monitored. The commentary fell largely in-line with market expectations, mirroring similar remarks from last Wednesday's post-FOMC press conference.

The S&P 500 carved out a session high in the final ninety minutes of trade, but failed to clear technical resistance at the 2093 price level. As a result, the benchmark index ended its day off its best level as six sectors finished in the green. The commodity-sensitive energy (+1.1%) sector led telecom services (+0.7%), technology (+0.7%), and financials (+0.5%) while materials (-0.3%), health care (-0.3%), and consumer discretionary (-0.2%) ended in the back of the pack.

The heavily-weighted technology sector (+0.7%) demonstrated relative strength as Dow component Microsoft (MSFT 21.19, +1.12) outperformed. The name jumped 2.2% and finished at the top of the price-weighted index. Elsewhere, Western Digital (WDC 48.87, +1.26) gained 2.7% after announcing that it would collaborate with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 19.76, +0.38) and VMware (VMW 60.98, +0.21) on the production of rack servers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.3%) finished behind the broader sector while component Micron (MU 12.75, +0.42) outperformed.

In the financial sector (+0.5%), rate-sensitive real estate investment trusts outperformed as American Tower (AMT 109.44, +2.02) gained 1.9%. Elsewhere, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 143.53, +1.86) advanced 1.3% while Wells Fargo (WFC 47.23, +0.30) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 62.95, +0.58) led money center bank names.

Biotechnology underperformed in the health care space (-0.3%), evidenced by the 1.5% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 254.79, -3.74). In the sub-group, Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 85.27, -1.45) and Celgene (CELG 96.86, -2.43) fell 1.7% and 2.5%, respectively.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.12, +0.51) gained 0.5% as the pound, euro, and yen lost ground to the greenback. The sterling lost 0.5% against the buck (1.4617) while the euro declined 0.6% (1.1250) against the dollar. Separately, the dollar gained 0.9% against the safe haven yen (104.86). The uptick in the dollar weighed on commodities as WTI crude finished its pit session lower by 0.3% ($49.77/bbl; -$0.15).

The Treasury complex settled lower as the yield on the 10-yr note rose one basis point to 1.70%.

Today's volume was below the recent average as fewer than 831 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tomorrow's data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the FHFA Housing Price Index, which will be released at 7:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively. Finally, Existing Home Sales for May (Briefing.com consensus 5.50 million) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite -3.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.6% YTD
S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones +2.3% YTD

DJ30 +24.86 NASDAQ +6.55 SP500 +5.65 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1249/1.559 bln/1672 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1683/831.2 mln/1291 3:30 pm :

The dollar index extends this morning's gains, up +0.5% around the 94.07 level, weighing on select commodities
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -1.0% at 88.58.
Crude oil reverses off its afternoon lows to close near its highs of the day, still lower ahead of tonight's API inventory data
August crude oil futures fell $0.15 (-0.3%) to $49.77/barrel.
Crude oil futures have changed their front months to August from July, as indicated by the active amount of volume in the contracts.
API inventory data is scheduled to be released today after the bell.
EIA petroleum inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
EIA natural gas inventory data is scheduled to be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
Natural gas sees an afternoon of consolidation, inching higher into the close after clocking in +5% gains in the previous session
July natural gas closed $0.02 higher (+0.7%) at $2.77/MMBtu.
In precious metals, gold trades sideways in the afternoon, dropping near its lows of the day into the close
August gold ended today's session down $19.80 (-1.5%) to $1272.40/oz.
Silver sees a similar move to gold, seeing an afternoon of consolidation and then falling into the close as the dollar extends its momentum
July silver closed today's session $0.19 lower (-1.1%) at $17.32/oz.
Base metal copper inches higher despite the dollar staging a recovery above the 94.07 level
July copper closed $0.03 higher (+1.4%) at $2.12/lb.

Equity indices opened the day on a higher note as a positive bias in global bourses buttressed U.S. markets. The move higher in equities followed the latest batch of polls for Thursday's Brexit referendum. An ORB poll for the Telegraph showed that the "Remain" camp leads the "Leave" camp while a Survation Brexit poll indicated that the two sides remain in a close race.

For its part, the S&P 500 xxx pulled back after the opening half hour as investors listened to testimony from Fed Chair Yellen. The Fed Chair maintained that a cautious approach to interest rate normalization remains prudent as uncertainties regarding global developments and a slowdown in U.S. hiring pose potential headwinds to the U.S. economy. The benchmark index notched a session high following the prepared remarks, but pulled back as European markets closed.

Broader market trading ended the day with modest gains. Trading was led higher by the S&P 500 which added 5.65 points (+0.27%) to 2088.90. The Nasdaq Composite was up 6.55 points (+0.14%) to 4843.76, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by 24.86 (+0.14%) to 17829.73. In terms of volume, it was a relatively sluggish affair today, as only 1,559 million shares traded hands at the NASDAQ floor versus the 1,679 million average, and at the NYSE, 831 million shares traded hands versus an average near 941 million.

The Technology (XLK 43.53, +0.27 +0.62%) sector managed a fairly bullish session, trading higher with the broader market. Component Western Digital (WDC 48.87, +1.26 +2.65%) posted a solid session as the company announced a new software flash solution with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 19.76, +0.38 +1.96%), VMware (VMW 60.98, +0.21 +0.35%) and SanDisk. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended the day XLE +1.2%, XLF +0.6%, XLP +0.3%, XLU +0.1%, XLI -0.1%, XLY -0.2%, XLB -0.3%, XLV -0.4% as Energy and Tech led the advance and Healthcare was notably weak.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (719.73, +4.72 +0.66%) sector, action was decidedly positive today as the sector rode the broader market coat tails. Component Facebook (FB 114.38, +1.01 +0.89%) posted a modestly higher Tuesday as the company's Instagram app announced it achieved 500 million users, and FB renewed its partnership with Mondelez Int'l (MDLZ 44.48, +0.25% +0.57%). Other names in the sector which closed Tuesday higher included xxx.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Adobe (ADBE) reported quarterly results which were mixed, but guided to the dismay of investors -- Q2 (May) earnings of $0.71 per share, excluding non-recurring items, on revenues which rose 20.4% versus last year to $1.4 billion. Additionally, ADBE issued in-line guidance for Q3, as they see EPS of $0.69-0.75, excluding non-recurring items, on revenues of $1.42-1.47 billion. The company also reaffirmed guidance for FY16 on EPS of about $2.80, excluding non-recurring items, with revenue expectations in the area of about $5.8 billion.

Visa Inc. (V 77.33, -0.01 -0.01%) announced the completion of its acquisition of Visa Europe Ltd.

Facebook's (FB) Instagram announced the achievement of 500 million users.

Mondelez International (MDLZ) renewed its global strategic partnership with Facebook (FB).

Western Digital (WDC) announced a new software-defined, all-flash storage solution, with HPE (HPE) ProLiant DL Rack Servers and VMware (VMW) Virtual SAN running SQL Server 2016 workloads. Leveraging SanDisk's (SNDK) enterprise-grade flash storage products, the virtualized storage and server infrastructure solution offers industry-leading performance for SQL Server 2016 database, demonstrating online transaction processing (OLTP) performance results of 2.4 million New Orders Per Minute (NOPM).

Network-1 Technologies, Inc. (NTIP 2.84, +0.14 +5.19%) announced that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued its Final Written Decisions in the four pending Inter Partes Review proceedings relating to challenges made by Alphabet's (GOOG 695.94, +2.23 +0.32%) Google and YouTube to the patentability of four of Network-1's patents relating to content identification.

The Western Union (WU 18.94, -0.06 -0.32%) has grown its reach in Mexico with the ability to send money from the United States directly into nearly all bank accounts in Mexico1, amplifying funds-out options in the fourth largest remittance market in the world.

HP Inc (HPQ) issued guidance in the after hours session, initially pushing the stock higher but gains would not hold and the stock pulled back into negative territory in extra trading. HPQ sees Q3 non-GAAP diluted EPS from continuing operations $0.43-0.46 and reaffirmed FY16 non-GAAP diluted net EPS from continuing operations $1.59-1.65. Further, HPQ guided for the full year fiscal 2016; HP estimates free cash flow to be in the range of $2.0 to $2.3 billion. With net capital expenditures expected to be $0.5 billion, cash provided by operating activities is estimated to be in the range of $2.5 to $2.8 billion.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

American Science & Engineering (ASEI 36.88, +4.54 +14.04%) to be acquired by OSI Systems (OSIS 57.48, +4.80 +9.11%) for $37.00 per share in cash, or about $269 million.

Communications Sales & Leasing (CSAL 28.29, +0.13 +0.46%) announced the planned disposition by former parent Windstream (WIN 9.35, +0.20 +2.19%) of its remaining stake.

Neustar (NSR 24.46, +0.44 +1.83%) announced its intention to separate into two independent and publicly traded companies.

Verizon (VZ 54.10, +0.34 +0.63%) purchased privately-held Telogis. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Marvell (MRVL 10.09, -0.05 -0.49%) named former Maxim Integrated (MXIM 37.44, +0.43 +1.16%) EVP, Matthew Murphy, as President and CEO effective July 11.

xG Technology (XGTI 1.52, -0.27 -15.05%) announced the effectiveness of a 1:12 reverse stock split.

Oi SA (OIBR) requested a judicial reorganization after debt agreement talks with creditors breaks down.

Cypress Semi (CY 10.03, -0.15 -1.47%) priced a $250 million offering of convertible senior notes due 2022 in a private placement.

Tencent (TCEHY 22.22, +0.20 +0.91%) to acquire a majority equity interest in Supercell from Softbank (SFTBY 27.75, +0.21 +0.76%) for total consideration of about $8.6 billion.

Softbank's (SFTBY) President and COO, Nikesh Arora, to step down.

JD.com (JD 21.13, +0.07 +0.33%) and Mellanox (MLNX 48.15, +0.21 +0.44%) established a 'Joint Innovation Lab' JV.

Analyst actions:

ERIC was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman,
OSIS was upgraded to Buy from Hold at The Benchmark Company;
ALRM was downgraded to In-Line from Outperform at Imperial Capital

4:47 pm Interdigital Comm guides for Q2'16 revs $75-77 mln ($86 mln Consensus) (IDCC) : This revenue guidance does not include the amounts collected from Huawei in second quarter 2016 that were due and outstanding under the arbitration awards at the time of payment. The company will recognize the related revenue from these payments, including both a current and a past sales component, in the period in which it believes the revenue to be fixed and determinable. The company currently expects to reach that conclusion, and recognize the related revenue, no later than third quarter 2016.

4:14 pm Adobe Systems beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs a tad light; reaffirms FY16 guidance (ADBE) :

Reports Q2 (May) earnings of $0.71 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.68; revenues rose 20.4% year/year to $1.4 bln vs the $1.4 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Digital Media segment revenue grew by 26 percent year-over-year to a record $943 million, with Creative revenue growing 37% year-over-year to a record $755 million. Strong Creative Cloud and Document Cloud adoption drove Digital Media Annualized Recurring Revenue to $3.41 billion exiting the quarter, a quarter-over-quarter increase of $285 mln vs. $275 mln guidance. Adobe Marketing Cloud achieved record revenue of $385 million that represents year-over-year growth of 18% vs. +17% guidance.Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.69-0.75, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.71 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.42-1.47 bln vs. $1.47 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Expect strong year-over-year Digital Media segment revenue growth; net new Digital Media ARR of ~$285 million; ~7% year-over-year revenue growth with Adobe Marketing Cloud.Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS of ~$2.80, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.84 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of ~$5.8 bln vs. $5.83 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Also reaffirms: Digital Media segment revenue growth of above 20% Digital Media ARR approx $4.0 bln exiting 2016 Marketing Cloud revenue growth of ~20% Marketing Cloud bookings growth of ~30%.

4:08 pm HP updates financial outlook for FY16 (HPQ) :

Sees Q3 non-GAAP diluted EPS from continuing operations $0.43-0.46 ($0.39 Consensus)Co reaffirms FY16 non-GAAP diluted net EPS from continuing operations $1.59-1.65 ($1.59 Consensus)For the full year fiscal 2016, HP estimates free cash flow to be in the range of $2.0 to $2.3 billion. With net capital expenditures expected to be $0.5 billion, cash provided by operating activities is estimated to be in the range of $2.5 to $2.8 billion.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages began the week on a higher note as the S&P 500 (+0.3%) settled above its previous all-time closing high at 2130.82. The broader market continued its recent rally as participants remained upbeat following a headline beat in Friday's Employment Situation Report for June. Additionally, positive developments overseas, a downturn in safe havens, and strong sector leadership from the heavyweight technology (+0.6%), financial (+0.6%), industrial (+0.6%), and consumer discretionary (+0.6%) sectors lifted the averages. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) finished ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and the S&P 500 (+0.3%). Today's session began on a higher note as investors eyed a continued rebound in overseas bourses. Global equity markets climbed overnight, boosted by a positive reading of the U.S. Employment Situation Report for June (287K; Briefing.com consensus 175K) and political developments out of Japan. The June employment report sparked risk appetite, indicating a rebound in labor markets without spurring concerns of a sooner-than-expected move from the Fed. In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's LDP won a supermajority, paving the way to an easier approval process of potential future stimulus measures.

Equity indices climbed at the start of the session as the benchmark index surpassed its prior all-time intraday high within the first half-hour of trade. The S&P 500 briefly pulled back, finding support near the 2134 price level. The market climbed through the session, buoyed by leadership from heavily-weighted technology (+0.6%), financials (+0.6%), industrials (+0.6%), and consumer discretionary (+0.6%). The broader market finished off its best level of the day as eight sectors ended above their flat line. In front of the pack, technology (+0.6%), financials (+0.6%), and industrials (+0.6%) outperformed. On the flipside, countercyclical health care (-0.2%), telecom services (-0.1%), and utilities (-0.1%) ended with the only losses.

The high-beta chipmakers demonstrated relative strength, evidenced by the 1.1% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. In the index, NVIDIA (NVDA 52.02, +1.17) and Skyworks (SWKS 64.64, +1.73) outperformed, gaining 2.3% and 2.8%, respectively. In the broader technology sector (+0.6%), Alphabet (GOOG 715.09, +9.46) climbed 1.3% while Twitter (TWTR 17.71, -0.37) slipped 2.1%. Twitter struggled after SunTrust downgraded the stock from "Buy" to "Neutral."

In the economically-sensitive financial sector (+0.6%), money center banks outperformed ahead of their respective earnings reports. JPMorgan Chase (JPM 62.27, +0.44) is scheduled to report Thursday morning. Elsewhere, Capital One (COF 66.26, +1.55) led credit service names. The broader sector sports the slimmest monthly gain (month-to-date: +0.8%) and remains the only sector in negative territory for the year (year-to-date: -3.4%).

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.4%) finished the day ahead of the broader market as airline names outperformed. In the group, Delta Air Lines (DAL 38.12, +0.75) and United Continental (UAL 42.41, +0.93) gained 2.1% apiece. Separately, C.H. Robinson (CHRW 71.86, -2.57) rounded out the index after being downgraded to "Sell" at UBS. In the broader industrial sector (+0.6%), Dow component Boeing (BA 132.04, +1.95) led after announcing a number of aircraft sales and raising its 20-year outlook. The company estimates that airplane demand will total 39,260 in the next two decades.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.59, +0.29) ended modestly higher as the greenback gained against commodity currencies and the yen. The dollar/Canadian dollar pair finished higher by 0.6% (1.3126) amid a downturn in crude oil, which finished its day lower by 1.3% ($44.77/bbl; -$0.59). Separately, the dollar gained 2.2% against the safe-haven yen (102.82).

The Treasury complex settled at its low as equities extended their advance. The yield on the 10-yr note finished higher by seven basis points at 1.43%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 789 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic data today and Tuesday's data will be limited to Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) for May, which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +4.8% YTD
Dow Jones +4.6% YTD
S&P 500 +4.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -0.4% YTD

DJ30 +80.19 NASDAQ +31.88 SP500 +7.26 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1956/1.575 bln/937 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2065/788.0 mln/934 3:30 pm :

The dollar index holds onto this morning's gains, currently up +0.3% around the 96.56 level, weighing on commodities overall
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.4% at the 86.08 level
Crude oil falls below $45/barrel handle support ahead of tomorrow's API data
August crude oil futures fell $0.59 (-1.3%) to $44.77/barrel
EIA petroleum data will be released Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell
IEA monthly data will be released July 13th
Natural gas plummets and closes at fresh lows of the session after hitting year-to-date highs last week
August natural gas closed $0.10 lower (-3.6%) at $2.70/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold drifts slightly below the previous day's close as the dollar index gains momentum
August gold ended today's session down $1.50 (-0.1%) to $1356.90/oz
Silver ends afternoon pit trading just shy of 2-year highs, the gold:silver ratio is near 2-year lows as gold trades nearly flat
September silver closed today's session $0.23 higher (+1.2%) at $20.30/oz
Base metal copper holds onto this morning's gains, finishing afternoon pit trading higher for the day
September copper closed $0.03 higher (+1.4%) at $2.15/lb
4:27 pm VOXX Intl misses by $0.08, reports revs in-line (VOXX) :

Reports Q1 (May) loss of $0.18 per share, $0.08 worse than the single analyst estimate of ($0.10); revenues fell 5.4% year/year to $155.5 mln vs the $155 mln single analyst estimate. Excluding the impact of EyeLock, the Company would have reported a net loss for the Fiscal 2017 first quarter of $1.5 million as compared to a net loss of $0.7 million for the corresponding year-ago period."Gross margins showed improvement during the quarter and we believe we're on track to deliver higher margins this Fiscal year. Expenses are expected to be down, even with the addition of EyeLock and increased investments in R&D to drive new technologies across each of our segments. With that said, we continue to focus on cost controls and believe the Company remains positioned for profitability this Fiscal year."

4:12 pm Seagate Tech follow up: STX raises guidance on better than expected demand for the company's HDD product portfolio (STX) :

Co issues upside guidance for Q4 (Jun), sees Q4 (Jun) revs of $2.65 bln vs. $2.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, well above guidance of $2.3 bln on better than expected demand for the company's HDD product portfolio. Co expects to report gross margin of 25% and non-GAAP gross margin of approximately 25.8% for the fiscal fourth quarter 2016. The difference in the company's gross margin from its forecast was driven by better than expected demand for the company's enterprise HDD portfolio and cost containment execution.STX expects to report HDD unit shipments of approximately 37 mln, reflecting approximately 62 exabytes, average capacity per drive of 1.7 terabytes and average selling price per unit of $67 for the fiscal fourth quarter 2016.In addition to the Company's restructuring actions announced June 29, 2016, the company announced today an additional restructuring plan for continued consolidation of its global footprint across Asia, EMEA and the Americas. The plan includes reducing the company's global headcount by approximately 6,500 employees, or 14% of its global headcount by the end of fiscal year 2017. The total pretax charges for the plan will be approximately $164 million in fiscal year 2017.

4:07 pm Alcoa beats by $0.05, beats on revs (AA) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.15 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.10.The Company is forecasting improvement in the second half of 2016 as new platforms ramp up, and a strong 2017. Large commercial aircraft deliveries declined approximately 1 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2016, but are expected to rise 6 percent in the second half of 2016 compared to the first. As a result, Alcoa forecasts full-year 2016 deliveries to be flat to up 3 percent, followed by strong double-digit growth in 2017. In automotive, Alcoa continues to forecast global automotive production growth of 1 to 4 percent.

This includes 1 to 4 percent growth in North America, where the United States continues to record strong sales, particularly in the light truck segment. The global outlook is driven by a variety of factors, including low fuel prices, sustained demand, stable consumer confidence and recovery of global economies. On June 29, 2016, Alcoa Upstream Corporation (to be renamed Alcoa Corporation prior to separation) filed an initial Registration Statement on Form 10 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Value-Add segments (other than the rolling mill operations in Warrick, IN and Saudi Arabia) will remain in the existing company, which will be named Arconic Inc.

The separation is on track to be completed in the second half of 2016.
The major averages gapped higher at the start of the session with the benchmark index carving out a new all-time intraday high within the first hour of trade. Equities have shown resilience this afternoon, climbing to new highs despite a downturn in crude oil and strengthening in the dollar.

Additionally, global bourses moved higher overnight as investors responded to Friday's stronger-than-expected reading of the Employment Situation Report for June. The report signaled a rebound in U.S. labor markets while maintaining tepid expectations regarding the speed and path of interest rate normalization from the Fed. Additionally, Japan's Nikkei (+4.0%) added to the positive bias after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's coalition won a supermajority in the country's election. The additional seats will make it easier for policymakers to approve potential future stimulus measures.

Trading in the broader market today was capped off by a modestly soft finish. Of note today, the S&P 500 hit an all-time intraday high of $2143.16 and closed at an all-time high today at 2137.16, up 7.26 points (+0.34%). The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite claimed the top spot in terms of percentage advance today, higher by 31.88 points (+0.64%) to 4988.64, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 80.19 points (+0.44%) to 18226.93.

As it were, the advance in the Technology (XLK 44.38, +0.25 +0.57%) sector out-paced the broader market trade higher as components Twitter (TWTR 17.71, -0.37 -2.05%) and Yahoo! (YHOO 37.96, +0.22 +0.58%) were both downgraded by two firms to essentially 'Neutral' ratings, yet traded opposite on the session. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Monday IYZ +1.03%, XLI +0.63%, XLY +0.58%, XLF +0.57%, XLB +0.49%, XLE +0.19%, XLP +0.02%, XLU -0.08%, XLV -0.27% as Telecoms and Industrials boasted solid gains and Healthcare was modestly lower.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (730.93, +4.61 +0.63%) sector, trading began the day in a hurry to the upside and held onto nice gains all day. Component Apple (AAPL 96.98, +0.30 +0.31%) was modestly higher today as it was announced that AAPL will receive a fully paid up non-exclusive license to the '227 Patent for its full term, which expired in 2016, along with certain rights to other patents in Network-1's (NTIP 2.79, -0.03 -1.06%) portfolio. NTIP will receive $25 million from AAPL for the settlement and fully paid up license. Other components which closed the day higher included QRVO +3.05%, SWKS +2.75%, NVDA +2.30%, ATVI +2.20%, PYPL +2.11%, FSLR +1.95%, GPN +1.71%, LRCX +1.71%, CSRA +1.58%, HPE +1.58%, AVGO +1.43%, GOOG +1.34%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Network-1 (NTIP) disclosed the settlement of patent litigation with Apple (AAPL) related to patent '227. Under the terms of the agreement, AAPL will receive a fully paid up non-exclusive license to the '227 Patent for its full term, which expired in 2016, along with certain rights to other patents in NTIP's portfolio. NTIP will receive $25 million from Apple for the settlement and fully paid up license.

IBM (IBM 155.33, +0.87 +0.56%) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 19.34, +0.30 +1.58%) were awarded $142 million in DoD contracts.

Akamai Technologies (AKAM 56.24, -0.14 -0.25%) announced the appointment of Monique Bonner as Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President.

Accenture (ACN 115.46, +0.35 +0.30%) and RoboValley announced a five-year collaboration designed to advance the development of the next generation of robotics technology. Accenture will invest 500,000 to facilitate international robotics research and development and knowledge sharing, becoming RoboValley's Crown Partner.

According to an eBay (EBAY 24.86, +0.25 +1.02%) release, the company acquired Israel-based SalesPredict. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

In addition to lowering Q4 EPS guidance, Avnet's (AVT 38.80, -2.45 -5.94%) CEO Rick Hamada stepped down. The company subsequently appointed William Amelio as Interim CEO.

TiVo (TIVO 10.32, +0.08 +0.78%) and Rovi (ROVI 17.36, +0.31 +1.82%) received regulatory clearance for proposed transaction. ROVI's acquisition of TIVO remains on schedule to close in Q3.

Synnex (SNX 96.76, +2.70 +2.87%) to acquire Minacs Group for about $420 million.

Sanmina's (SANM 27.74, +0.19 +0.69%) Chief Business Officer Charles Kostalnick to resign effective on or about July 21.

According to a Reuters report, Imperva (IMPV 48.14, +3.38 +7.55%) hired bankers to consider strategic options.

According to a Nintendo News report, Nintendo's (NTDOY 27.85, +7.12 +34.35%) latest mobile game, Pokemon Go, will surpass Twitter (TWTR 17.71, -0.37 -2.05%) in Daily Active Users.

Telus (TU 32.78, -0.08 -0.24%) announced plans to invest $111 million in its communications infrastructure across the Greater Montreal area, in line with its previously announced FY16 capex guidance.

Thomson Reuters (TRI 41.48, +0.59 +1.44%) to sell its intellectual property and science business to private equity funds affiliated with Onex (ONEXF 61.03, -0.05 -0.08%) and Baring Private Equity Asia for $3.55 billion in cash.

Analyst actions:

ADP was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein,
HDP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson;
TWTR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at both Monness Crespi & Hardt and SunTrust,
YHOO was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Pivotal Research and to Neutral from Buy at SunTrust,
AVT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow,
ECHO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS;
ECHO was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
FTR was initiated with an Underperform at Macquarie,
CTL was initiated with a Neutral at Macquarie,
WBMD was initiated with a Neutral at Mizuho

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The major averages extended their recent rally to a third session as investors eyed potential stimulus measures out of the United Kingdom and Japan. The broader market maintained its risk-on approach, bidding up oil, growth sectors, and beleaguered currencies while selling off safe-haven assets. The S&P 500 (+0.7%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) each carved out all-time intraday and closing highs while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) turned positive for the year.

U.S. equities began the day on a higher note, responding to a continued rebound in overseas bourses. Japan's Nikkei (+2.5%) paced the rebound after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a potential stimulus package could total JPY10 trillion. Separately, the Bank of England's Mark Carney added to stimulus speculation when he stated that a monetary response remains available should Britain's post-Brexit outlook worsen. The Bank of England is scheduled to meet this Thursday.

The broader market gapped up at the start of the session with the benchmark index (+0.7%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) each notching new, all-time intraday highs during the first half hour of trade. The major averages pulled back soon thereafter in a move that corresponded with a short-lived downturn in crude oil. The benchmark index found support near the 2147 price level and exhibited a mostly positive bias for the remainder of the day.

The major indices ended the day off their highs with seven sectors finishing in positive territory. The energy (+2.3%) and materials (+1.9%) sectors finished ahead of the heavily-weighted financial (+1.2%), technology (+1.0%), and industrials (+0.9%) sectors. The defensive-oriented telecom services (-0.3%), health care (-0.5%), and utilities (-1.4%) sectors trailed the action and were the only sectors that lost ground on Tuesday.

The commodity-sensitive energy (+2.3%) sector ended its day on top of the leaderboard, rallying in conjunction with a 4.4% gain in oil futures ($46.74, +$1.97). OPEC's monthly report facilitated some buying interest after the cartel raised its demand outlook for 2016 and 2017. OPEC now estimates that global demand will increase by one million barrels per day by 2017. Separately, Alcoa (AA 10.69, +0.55) boosted the materials (+1.9%) sector after it beat analysts' estimates for the second quarter.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+2.2%) displayed relative strength as the major airlines outperformed. United Continental (UAL 46.16, +3.75) rallied 8.8% after raising its second-quarter unit revenue guidance. American Airlines (AAL 34.66, +3.50) spiked 11.2% after announcing that its consolidated pre-tax income will increase by $200 million due to co-branded credit cards.

The financial sector (+1.2%) displayed broad-based strength, trading higher in sympathy with European banking names. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS 4.87, +0.15) and Barclays PLC (BCS 7.95, +0.28) settled higher by 3.2% and 3.7%, respectively. Dow component JPMorgan Chase (JPM 63.20, +1.93), which announced it will be raising the pay for 18,000 minimum wage workers, outperformed the price-weighted average. JPMorgan Chase will report its quarterly results before the open on Thursday.

Data storage names led in the technology space (+1.0%) after Seagate Technology (STX 29.35, +5.26) increased its second quarter guidance due to better than expected demand for its HDD product portfolio. The stock surged 21.8%. The high-beta chipmakers also displayed relative strength, evidenced by the 1.3% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.49, -0.08) ended its day modestly lower as the euro and pound each rebounded against the greenback. The euro/dollar pair finished higher by 0.1% (1.1063) while the pound climbed 2.0% against the buck (1.3251).

The Treasury complex finished on a lower note and saw broad-based selling pressure. The yield on the 10-yr note ended the day higher by seven basis points at 1.51%.

Today's trading volume was above the recent average as more than 952 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included May wholesale inventories and the May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey:

Wholesale inventories increased 0.1% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after increasing an upwardly revised 0.7% (from 0.6%) in April.
Taking into account the upward revision to the prior month, May wholesale inventories were largely in-line with expectations.
The increase in May was driven by a 0.2% increase in nondurable inventories, which was aided by a 1.2% increase in apparel inventories and a 5.9% jump in farm products inventories.
Durable inventories were up 0.1%, bolstered by a 1.6% increase in professional equipment inventories and a 1.1% increase in electrical inventories.
Wholesale sales increased 0.5% following a downwardly revised 0.8% increase (from 1.0%) in April.
The wholesale inventories to sales ratio dipped to 1.35 from 1.36, but was up from 1.31 in the same period a year ago.
On a year-over-year basis, wholesale sales are down 2.5% while wholesale inventories are up 0.5%.
Wholesale inventories are just one component of total business inventories.
Manufacturing and retail inventories make up the rest of total business inventories.
The market doesn't typically pay much attention to this release since the full business inventories release comes a few days later.
The May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings came in at 5.500 million from a revised 5.845 million (from 5.788 million) in April.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and Import/Export Prices for May, which will cross the wires at 7:00 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively. The Fed's Beige Book for July and the Treasury Budget for June will both be released at 14:00 ET. DJ30 +120.74 NASDAQ +34.18 SP500 +14.98 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2096/1.69 bln/803 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2141/952.4 mln/897

3:30 pm :

The dollar index loses momentum, down -0.1% around the 96.46 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +1.6 at the 87.49 level
Crude oil rallies and closes at fresh highs of the session ahead of tonight's API data
August crude oil futures rose $1.97 (+4.4%) to $46.74/barrel
Monthly IEA data is scheduled to be released tomorrow
EIA petroleum inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
API data will be released today after the close
Natural gas sees a morning surge, consolidating just below its high of the session
August natural gas closed $0.03 higher (+1.1%) at $2.73/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold drops and consolidates around its afternoon lows, despite weakness in the dollar
August gold ended today's session down $21.30 (-1.6%) to $1335.60/oz
Silver futures see notable declines in the afternoon, easing off of 2-year highs hit last week to end lower along with gold for the day
September silver closed today's session $0.13 lower (-0.6%) at $20.17/oz
Base metal copper surges to close at highs of the session in afternoon pit trading
September copper closed $0.06 higher (+2.8%) at $2.21/lb
Grain futures close higher after the release of the WASDE Report
December corn closed $0.03 higher (+0.8%) at $3.60/bushel
September wheat closed $0.06 higher (+1.4%) at $4.36/bushel
November soybeans closed $0.29 higher (+2.7%) at $10.86/bushel
Wasde Highlights:
Global ending stocks:
Global corn ending stocks rose 1.6% to 208.39 million metric tons
Global wheat ending stocks fell 1.6% to 253.70 mmt
Global soybean ending stocks rose 1.2% at 67.10 mmt
In the U.S.:
Corn yield expectations for the 2016/17 crop season remained unchanged at 168.0 bushels per harvest acre
Wheat saw a big boost in yield expectations, rising 6% to 51.3 bu per harvested acre
Soybeans yields were unchanged, along with corn, at 46.7 bu per harvested acre
U.S. ending stocks:
Corn rose 3.6% to 2.081 bln bushels
Wheat rose 5.2% to 1.105 bln bushels
Soybean rose 12% to 290 mln bushels
4:48 pm SolarCity announces collaboration with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PCG) (SCTY) : PG&E is teaming up with SolarCity to install smart inverters and battery storage systems for residential rooftop solar customers. The demonstrations will evaluate how PG&E can enhance the stability and power quality of the grid and optimize solar generation and power-flow management through the coordinated use of distributed energy resources like solar with smart inverters and battery storage. The demonstration is expected to commence this September and end in December 2017.

4:03 pm SemiLEDs reports Q3 results (no estimates); guides Q4 rev (LEDS) :

Q3 EPS ($1.06) vs ($0.77) last year; revs $2.4 mln, -18% YoY (no estimates).
Co sees Q4 rev $2.0-2.5 bln."The transition toward the fabless business model has taken longer than we anticipated; however, we still believe it is the right model... This should help us to lower our cash needs while evaluating other potential business opportunities."Equity indices climbed at the beginning of the session as the benchmark index and Dow Jones Industrial Average each notched all-time intraday highs. Global bourses tilted to the upside overnight as Japan's Nikkei (+2.5%) paced the advance. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe fueled risk appetite when he announced that the latest stimulus package from the country could total JPY10 trillion. Across the pond, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney added to the policy stimulus fervor when he commented that options remain available to the central bank should Britain's outlook worsen. Additionally, a rally in crude oil added to the bullish tenor as investors responded to optimistic comments from OPEC regarding demand in 2016 and 2017.

Market data today came in the form of the wholesale inventories reading which increased 0.1% in May after increasing an upwardly revised 0.7% (from 0.6%) in April. Additionally, the May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings declined to 5.500 million from a revised 5.845 million (from 5.788 million) in April.

Broader market movements took all three major US indices higher, closing out Tuesday with widespread gains. The broader market now boasts a three-day winning streak with action today being led higher by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite which added 34.18 points (+0.69%) to 5022.82. The S&P 500 added 14.98 points (+0.70%) to 2152.14, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 120.74 points (+0.66%) to 18347.67. By those numbers, the Dow and the S&P closed at record highs today, and the Nasdaq pulled out of negative territory to take a breather in the green, YTD.

Another strong session out of the Technology (XLK 44.75, +0.37 +0.83%) sector as gains were had across the board, and the sector finished near highs of the day. Component Seagate Tech (STX 29.40, +5.31 +22.04%) performed the best out of all components as the company raised certain guidance owing to better than expected demand for the company's HDD product portfolio. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLE +2.48%, XLB +1.82%, XLF +1.26%, XLI +0.92%, IYZ +0.67%, XLV +0.49, XLY +0.39%, XLP -0.54%, XLU -1.37% as Energy led the surge higher and Utilities under-performed.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (737.95, +7.01 +0.96%) sector, a comfortably positive bias permeated most components as holding Oracle (ORCL 41.42, +0.64 +1.57%) turned in a solid session as the stock was upgraded ahead of the open this morning to an Outperform rating from a Market Perform at BMO Capital. Other names in the space which ended higher today included WDC +4.77%, MU +4.67%, HPQ +4.26%, TDC +4.15%, ADSK +3.41%, CSRA +3.32%, NTAP +3.03%, LRCX +2.21%, GLW +2.19%, WU +1.94%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Seagate Tech (STX) raised guidance on better than expected demand for the company's HDD product portfolio. Specifically, the company raised guidance for Q4 revenues of $2.65 billion well above prior guidance of $2.3 billion. STX expects to report HDD unit shipments of about 37 million, reflecting about 62 exabytes, average capacity per drive of 1.7 terabytes and average selling price per unit of $67 for the fiscal fourth quarter 2016.

Symantec (SYMC 21.02, +0.22 +1.06%) to name Michael Fey as President and Chief Operating Officer upon closing of the previously announced acquisition of Blue Coat.

Xerox (XRX 9.67, +0.17 +1.79%) shares were in play today as reports of a potential RR Donnelley & Sons (RRD 18.81, +0.36 +1.95%)/XRX merger with XRX's copy unit.

IBM (IBM 157.04, +1.71 +1.10%) announced plans to establish the first IBM Center for Blockchain Innovation in Singapore.

Accenture (ACN 116.50, +1.04 +0.90%) has opened an Accenture Digital Hub in Tokyo, Japan to support the digital transformation of clients by helping them embrace open innovation.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 23.10, +0.24 +1.05%) announced that eBay Classifieds Group (EBAY 25.13, +0.27 +1.09%) has deployed Juniper Networks Contrail Networking to build automated and highly scalable virtual overlay networks, enabling its customers to easily buy, sell, trade and connect.

Western Union (WU 19.98, +0.38 +1.94%) announced the renewal of its relationship with Rite Aid (RAD 6.87, -0.01 -0.15%).

Shutterstock (SSTK 55.24, +6.54 +13.43%) announced an API integration with Alphabet's (GOOG 720.64, +5.55 +0.78%) Google. The image licensing deal provides Google's digital and mobile display advertising products, including Adsense, Adwords, and Admob, with access to Shutterstock's collection of more than 90 million images for license.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Imperva (IMPV 47.58, -0.56 -1.16%) lowered Q2 guidance citing impacts by extended sales cycles across most geographies and verticals predominantly relating to larger deals. Specifically, the company lowered guidance to Q2 (Jun) EPS of $(0.20) to $(0.22), prior $(0.02) to $(0.04) and lowered Q2 revenue guidance to $57.5-58.0 million, prior $65.5-66.5 million.

Twitter (TWTR 18.10, +0.39 +2.20%) and Bloomberg announced a live streaming partnership.

Network-1 (NTIP 2.77, -0.02 -0.72%) disclosed a settlement of patent litigation with Alcatel-Lucent Entities and ALE.

Helios & Matheson (HMNY 9.77, +0.30 +3.17%) and Zone Technologies signed a definitive agreement and plan of merger.

FARO Techs (FARO 34.05, +0.27 +0.80%) to acquire BuildIT Software & Solutions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

8x8 (EGHT 15.19, +0.29 +1.95%) received three new patents related to networked contact centers, data storage and conferencing.

Blackbaud (BLKB 70.61, +1.63 +2.36%) acquired Attentive.ly. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Analyst actions:

STX was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley,
ORCL was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital Mkts,
MITK was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham;
EMC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho,
MGI and TSM were downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
VOD was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
CTSH was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at SunTrust,
NTGR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Rosenblatt,
SYMC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research,
TSM was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura;
LXFT, INFY, GLOB were initiated with a Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
ACN, CTSH, EPAM were initiated with an Overweight at Pacific Crest,
FTV was initiated with a Neutral at JP Morgan,

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday affair on a flat note as the broader market spent most of the session consolidating after its recent rally. The S&P 500 (UNCH) ended its day narrowly above its flat line, extending its winning streak to a fourth session. Additional factors impacting today's trade included a downturn in oil, softening in the dollar, a rebound in safe havens, and the underperformance of the heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (-0.5%) and technology (-0.1%) sectors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) ended ahead of the benchmark index (UNCH) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%). U.S. equities began the day on a choppy note, responding to a weakening rally overseas. European markets ended their session on a flat note as investors looked ahead to a Thursday policy meeting at the Bank of England. Governor Mark Carney previously stated that policy meetings over the next two months should be viewed as one meeting, raising concerns that the central bank will not offer further easing measures until August. Additionally, crude oil added to the cautious tone after the American Petroleum Institute reported a surprise crude oil build in its weekly inventory report (+2.2 million barrels; last: -6.73 million barrels).

The major averages ebbed lower throughout the morning as investors ruminated over the Department of Energy's latest stockpile data. The Energy Information Administration reported that crude oil inventories declined by 2.54 million barrels, compared to the estimated 2.95 million barrel draw. Furthermore, the report also showed that gasoline inventories rose by 1.21 million barrels, compared to the estimated 0.43 million barrel draw. In response, WTI crude extended its decline, ending the day lower by 4.0% ($44.87/bbl; -$1.87).

Equity indices ticked higher in the afternoon, essentially ignoring the release of the Fed's Beige Book for July. The Beige Book reported that economic activity continued to expand at a modest pace, but that inflationary pressures remained subdued. The major indices finished off their best levels of the day with seven sectors in the green. The defensively-oriented telecom services (+0.8%), utilities (+0.8%), and consumer staples (+0.5%) ended in the front of the pack while energy (-0.7%), consumer discretionary (-0.5%), and technology (-0.1%) rounded out the board.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.5%), Michaels Stores (MIK 27.13, -1.75) underperformed after announcing that it would conduct a secondary stock offering of 11 million shares. The company also lowered its second-quarter guidance below analysts' estimates. Elsewhere, heavyweight Amazon (AMZN 742.63, -5.58) declined by 0.8% after yesterday's "Prime Day" sale. However, the company reported that worldwide orders increased by 60.0% year-over-year.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (UNCH) ended its day near its flat line as investors looked ahead to key earnings reports later in the week. On that note, JPMorgan Chase (JPM 63.16, -0.04) will report tomorrow morning while Citigroup (C 43.33, -0.11) and Wells Fargo (WFC 48.27, -0.08) will both release their earnings ahead of Friday's opening bell.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.7%) displayed relative strength as rail names outperformed. In the group, CSX (CSX 28.21, +1.19) jumped 4.4% after the company reported a bottom-line beat on in-line revenue. The company released its report early, looking to clarify incorrect information that was released via Twitter. On the flipside, airlines underperformed as the group pulled back from their yesterday's rally. Delta Air Lines (DAL 39.56, -0.65) slipped 1.6% ahead of tomorrow morning's earnings call.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.32, -0.12) ended near its high as the buck gained ground against commodity currencies and the pound. The dollar/Canadian dollar pair finished higher by 0.5% (1.2977) while sterling lost 0.8% against the greenback (1.3138).

Treasuries enjoyed a bid throughout today's session as yields fell throughout the complex. The yield on the 10-yr note settled at 1.47%, sliding four basis points.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average as fewer than 815 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, Import/Export Prices for June, and the Treasury Budget for June:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 7.2% in mortgage applications.
Import prices increased 0.2% in June while export prices increased 0.8%.
Notwithstanding the headline increases, this report hasn't kicked up any noticeable inflation dust for the Federal Reserve.
The uptick in import prices was driven by a 6.2% increase in fuel prices.
Excluding fuel, import prices actually declined 0.3%, which was the largest monthly drop since the index declined 0.3% for six consecutive months from July to December 2015.
On a year-over-year basis, nonfuel import prices are down 1.8%.
Higher export prices in June were led by a 2.4% jump in agricultural export prices.
Excluding agriculture, export prices increased 0.5%.
That is the fourth straight monthly increase in nonagricultural export prices, yet they are still down 3.8% year-over-year.
The Treasury Budget for June showed a surplus of $6.3 billion versus a surplus of $50.5 billion in June 2015.
The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the June surplus cannot be compared to the $52.5 billion deficit registered in May.
Total receipts in June were $329.6 billion while total outlays were $323.3 billion.
Receipts were $13.4 billion less than receipts in June 2015. Total outlays, meanwhile, were $48.7 billion more than the same period a year ago.
The 12-month deficit widened to $523.6 billion from $479.3 billion in May.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 265k) and Core PPI for June (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), which will each be released at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +5.8% YTD
Dow Jones +5.4% YTD
S&P 500 +5.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite UNCH YTD

DJ30 +24.45 NASDAQ -17.09 SP500 +0.28 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1175/1.515 bln/1650 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1390/814.2 mln/1605 3:30 pm :

The dollar index is down -0.2% around the 96.25 level, aiding select commodities in afternoon pit trading
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.6% at 86.98
Crude oil plummets to end near session lows after the release of mixed EIA storage data
August crude oil futures fell $1.87 (-4.00%) to $44.87/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released this Friday at 1 pm ET
API data released yesterday evening showed a build of +2.20 mln barrels compared to last week's draw of -6.736 barrels
Monthly IEA data highlights:
Global oil supplies rose by 0.6 mb/d in June, to 96 mb/d, after outages curbed OPEC and non-OPEC supplies in May, while production was 750 kb/d below as higher OPEC output only partially offset non-OPEC declines, the newly released IEA Oil Market Report (OMR) for July informs subscribers. Non-OPEC supplies are set to decline by 0.9 mb/d in 2016, to 56.5 mb/d, before rising 0.2 mb/d in 2017.
Growing uncertainty over the global economy and the related dollar strength weighed, but the downside was limited by further declines in US production and inventories. OPEC crude output rose by 400 kb/d in June to an eight-year high of 33.21 mb/d, including newly re-joined Gabon. Saudi Arabia ramped up to a near-record rate of 10.45 mb/d and Nigerian flows partially recovered.
EIA crude oil inventory highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -2.546 mln (consensus called for a draw between -2.2 mln and -3.2 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +1.213 mln
Distillate inventories had a build of +4.058 mln
Natural gas extends the previous session's gains, closing slightly above yesterday's close ahead of tomorrow's inventory data
August natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.4%) at $2.74/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold sees an afternoon of consolidation after an early morning surge, as the dollar loses momentum
August gold ended today's session up $7.80 (+0.6%) to $1343.40/oz
Silver futures end near year-to-date highs as the dollar index holds onto its morning losses
September silver closed today's session $0.24 higher (+1.2%) at $20.41/oz
Base metal copper closes higher for the fourth consecutive session
September copper closed $0.03 higher (+1.4%) at $2.24/lb

4:34 pm Rambus announces that its Cryptography Research Division and Boeing (BA) have signed a license agreement for the inclusion of advanced differential power analysis countermeasures in Boeing products (RMBS) :

4:34 pm Microsoft announces professional degree program (MSFT) : On Wednesday at the Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft Corp. announced the Microsoft Professional Degree (:MPD) program, the first program of its kind to offer employer-endorsed, university-caliber curriculum for professionals at any stage of their career. MPD is a Microsoft-led initiative that provides professionals with real-world knowledge and hands-on experience to grow their skills in critical fields. The initial MPD offering is in data science, with all courseware available on edX.org, the nonprofit online learning destination founded by Harvard University and MIT.

4:13 pm Ultratech responds to Neuberger Berman and recommends stockholders vote for director nominees - Arthur Zafiropoulo, Michael Child, Paramesh Gopi, Nicholas Konidaris, Dennis R. Raney, Henri Richard and Rick Timmins (UTEK) :

"Contrary to the recent public statements made by Neuberger, Ultratech has provided responses to the points raised. In addition, in order to make sure its stockholders had all the facts about Neuberger's director nominees, Ultratech factually outlined the numerous concerns of its Board of Directors that arose from the thorough vetting of Ronald Black and Beatriz Infante....Beginning in 2015, Ultratech's Board and management team have been actively engaged with Neuberger regarding its issues. Instead of continuing to work with Ultratech to identify candidates with the right credentials to serve on the Company's Board, Neuberger chose to end the constructive dialogue and launch a costly and distracting proxy fight. Ultratech remains willing to engage with Neuberger and recently reached out to Neuberger in an attempt to resolve this contest. Unfortunately, based on these discussions, the Company believes Neuberger is more interested in a contested vote as opposed to reaching a mutually agreeable resolution for the benefit of all stockholders."Ultratech has publicly committed to a process by which it will refresh its Board. This process led to the nomination of Dr. Paramesh Gopi to stand for election at the 2016 Annual Meeting, with Joel Gemunder stepping down from the Board. Furthermore, the Board will add a highly-qualified director candidate for each of the following two to three years, resulting in an average tenure of the directors of approximately 10 years following the 2019 Annual Meeting.4:11 pm Ultratech issues a response to Neuberger Berman's most recent letter, remains willing to engage with Neuberger in an attempt to resolve matters (UTEK) :

Highlights of letter (as stated by Ultratech):

Ultratech remains willing to engage with Neuberger and recently reached out to Neuberger in an attempt to resolve this contest. Based on these discussions, the co believes Neuberger is more interested in a contested vote as opposed to reaching a mutually agreeable resolution for the benefit of all stockholders.Ultratech believes that Neuberger is required to disclose all of the relevant facts concerning their nominees to Ultratech stockholders so that Ultratech stockholders can make an informed decision.The Ultratech Board unanimously recommends that stockholders vote on the WHITE proxy card FOR all seven of the Company's director nominees.Equity futures inched higher overnight as investors continued to eye potential stimulus measures while shrugging off weakening economic conditions. Japan's Nikkei (+0.8%) outperformed despite weaker-than-expected readings of Industrial Production in June (-2.6%; expected -2.2%) and Capacity Utilization in May (-2.4% month-over-month; last -1.0%). Separately, European bourses ended their day little changed as participants looked ahead to Thursday's Bank of England meeting.

The major averages inched higher at the start of the session, attempting to extend their recent rally. However, the broader market pulled back when the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report disappointed investors. The EIA reported that crude inventories (-2.54 million barrels) shrank slower than expected while gasoline inventories (+1.21 million barrels) also missed expectations.

Additional economic data today included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 7.2% in mortgage applications. Also, import prices increased 0.2% in June while export prices increased 0.8%. Data was capped off today by the June Treasury Budget announcement, which showed a surplus of $6.3 billion versus a surplus of $50.5 billion in June 2015 and the Fed Beige Book which highlighted that economic activity continues to expand at a modest pace.

It was fun while it lastedthe broader market snapped the recent winning streak today, coming off all-time highs in the early part of the session. While the majority of afternoon trade was spent up and down in and out of gains and losses, the markets ultimately ended mixed as gains were led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which added 24.45 points (+0.13%) to 18372.12. The S&P 500 also finished in the green, albeit modestly, as the index was higher by less than one point (+0.01%) to 2152.43. The Nasdaq Composite was the lone laggard today, down 17.09 points (-0.34%) to 5005.73. Four of the top five Nasdaq 100 components posted losses today, as Apple (AAPL -0.56%), Alphabet (GOOGL -0.42%), Alphabet (GOOG -0.51%), Microsoft (MSFT +0.56%), and Amazon (AMZN -0.75%) could perhaps be the reasoning for the sector under-performance.

Where the broader market broke, however, the Technology (XLK 44.76, +0.01 +0.02%) sector did not falter as the space resisted the broader market pressure. Component Level 3 (LVLT 56.29, +1.91 +3.53%) finished higher today on the back of some M&A chatter in the name that circulated this afternoon, yet was never confirmed. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended today XLU +0.79%, XLP +0.56%, IYZ +0.52%, XLB +0.27%, XLI +0.24%, XLF +0.00%, XLV -0.04%, XLY -0.49%, XLE -0.86% with Utilities leading in positive territory and Energy felt the broader market pressure.

The S&P 500 Information Technology (737.27, -0.68 -0.09%) sector closed out the day in the green after a brief stint in negative territory as component Facebook (FB 116.78, -1.15 -0.98%) ended modestly lower following cautious commentary from Citron Research. Other notable movers in the sector today included QRVO -2.29%, ADS -1.75%, FSLR -1.68%, FLIR -1.56%, ATVI -1.29%, FFIV -1.23%, HPE -0.96%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Intuit (INTU 115.92, -0.42 -0.36%) named Lucas Watson as executive vice president, chief marketing and sales officer.

TSYS (TSS 54.62, -0.08 -0.15%) announced that Lloyds Banking Group (LYG 2.99, -0.03 -0.99%) renewed its agreement with TSYS to continue to process the bank's UK commercial card portfolio.

Alphabet (GOOG 716.98 -3.66 -0.51%) acquired Kifi. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cadence Design (CDNS 25.51, -0.07 -0.27%) announced that its implementation and sign-off tools have achieved certification on the Intel (INTC 35.01, +0.07 +0.20%) third-generation 10nm tri-gate process for customers of Intel Custom Foundry.

Intel (INTC) Security announced the expansion of its extensive partner ecosystem through the Intel Security Innovation Alliance.

Electronic Arts (EA 77.62, -1.89 -2.38%) announced it will host a conference call on July 19, 2016 to discuss changes to the way in which it externally reports its financial performance in response to the SEC's Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations regarding use of non-GAAP financial measures that were released on May 17, 2016. EA noted it will not be discussing any business results on the call.

Facebook (FB) underperformed today amid cautious commentary from Citron Research.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Amazon (AMZN 742.63, -5.58 -0.75%) confirmed earlier reports of Prime Day success - Customer orders surpassed Prime Day 2015 by more than 60% worldwide and more than 50% in the U.S.

SolarCity (SCTY 24.22, -0.39 -1.58%) announced a collaboration with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PCG 64.56, +0.86 +1.35%).

Imprivata (IMPR 19.01, +4.51 +31.10%) to be acquired by Thoma Bravo for $19.25 per share in cash.

FXCM (FXCM 9.20, +0.01 +0.11%) filed for $125 million mixed securities shelf offering.

ExlService (EXLS 54.23, +0.42 +0.78%) named Mike Toma as Chief Technology Officer.

Net Element (NETE 2.14, +0.28 +15.05%) disclosed it entered into a $10 million purchase agreement with ESOUSA Holdings.

Nokia (NOK 5.89, +0.30 +5.37%) and Samsung (SSNLF 1220, flat) expanded their patent license agreement. NOK expects the result to have a positive impact on net sales starting in Q3.
M&A chatter circulated in Level 3 (LVLT) this afternoon, pushing the stock higher.

Analyst actions:

P was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray;
YELP was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
XPLR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital,
EMC was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie,
KEYW was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Maxim Group,
SCOR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti,
IMPR was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray;
FICO was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty & Co,
ETFC was initiated with a Buy at Buckingham,
FTV was initiated with a Buy at UBS

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a higher note as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) and the S&P 500 (+0.5%) extended their recent jaunts to all-time highs. Today's positive bias can be attributed to hints of further policy easing and stronger-than-expected quarterly results from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 64.12, +0.96). Additionally, a rebound in oil futures, a risk-on posture, and strong sector leadership from the heavily-weighted financial (+0.9%), technology (+0.8%), and industrial (+0.7%) sectors added to the bullish tone. The major averages jumped at the start of the session, trading higher alongside an extended rally in global markets. The Bank of England helped support the latest round of buying interest when committee members indicated that the central bank was likely to provide further policy stimulus next month. The Bank of England was widely expected to lower its benchmark lending rate at today's meeting, but opted to examine incoming data to determine the specific size and nature of future stimulus. Separately, Dow component JPMorgan added to the bullish tone when it reported top- and bottom-line beats ahead of the open.

The benchmark index notched a session high in the first hour of trade (2168.99), but pulled back soon thereafter when it failed to clear technical resistance near the 2168 price level. Equities ebbed lower through the morning as heavily-weighted financials (+0.9%), technology (+0.8%), and industrials (+0.7%) trimmed some early gains. The S&P 500 (+0.5%) inched back towards its high in the afternoon, finishing its day five points off its best level. Nine sectors finished above their flat lines with financials (+0.9%), materials (+0.8%), and technology (+0.8%) leading the pack while countercyclical utilities (-0.7%), consumer staples (+0.1%), telecom services (+0.2%), and health care (+0.4%) rounded out the leaderboard.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.1%) finished ahead of the broader market as a rally in airlines boosted the index. The sub-group traded higher in sympathy with Delta Air Lines (DAL 40.98, +1.42) after it reported above-consensus bottom-line results and said that revenue per available seat mile is expected to turn positive by the end of the year. Elsewhere, CSX (CSX 29.05, +0.84) extended its post-earnings winning streak, jumping 3.0%.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+0.9%) topped the leaderboard as results from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 64.12, +0.96) bolstered the broader sector. Life insurance names, investment brokerages, and money center banks each finished with solid gains. Additionally, Wells Fargo (WFC 48.94, +0.67) and Citigroup (C 44.45, +1.12) gained a respective 1.4% and 2.6% ahead of tomorrow morning's quarterly reports. Separately, Dow component Goldman Sachs (GS 162.54, +4.62) finished at the top of the price-weighted index.

In the technology sector (+0.9%), heavyweight component Apple (AAPL 98.79, +1.92) outperformed after supplier Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM 27.11, +0.22) reported a bottom-line beat and raised its revenue guidance for the third quarter. Other Apple suppliers also outperformed as Skyworks (SWKS 67.39, +2.04) and Qorvo (QRVO 59.31, +2.64) rallied 3.1% and 4.7%, respectively. Elsewhere, LINE Corp (LN 41.58, +8.74) experienced heavy demand on its first day of public trading, jumping 26.6% from its Monday pricing at $32.84.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.11, -0.11) ended modestly lower as the buck lost ground against commodity currencies and the pound. The dollar/Canadian dollar pair finished lower by 0.6% (1.2898) as crude oil rebounded 1.8% ($45.66/bbl; +0.79). Meanwhile, Sterling gained 1.5% against the dollar (1.3337) as participants reacted to the Bank of England's surprise decision to maintain its monetary policy stance.

Treasuries were pressured at the beginning of the session as investors weighed a hotter-than-expected reading of June PPI (0.5%; Briefing.com consensus: +0.3%). The yield on the 10-yr note rose five basis points to 1.53%.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average as fewer than 815 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims and PPI for June:

Initial claims for the week ending July 9 were unchanged at 254,000 (Briefing.com consensus 265,000), marking the 71st straight week that initial claims have been below 300,000.
There were no special factors influencing the latest initial claims reading, which lowered the four-week moving average for the series from 264,750 to 259,000.
That is the lowest level since April 2016.
Continuing claims for the week ending July 2 increased by 32,000 to 2.149 million.
The four-week moving average for this series still dipped from 2,146,250 to 2,143,000.
The Producer Price Index (PPI) for June revealed a 0.5% increase in the PPI for final demand (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), which was driven by a 0.4% jump in prices for final demand services.
The index for final demand goods increased 0.8%, which was the largest monthly increase since May 2015 and was led by a 4.1% uptick in prices for final demand energy.
The index for final demand less foods and energy ("core PPI") advanced 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%).
That was the third straight monthly increase in core PPI and the largest monthly gain since January.
On a year-over-year basis, PPI for final demand is up 0.3% after being down 0.1% in May while core PPI is up 1.3% after being up 1.2% in May.
This is an inflation report that is apt to be seen favorably by the Federal Reserve as price trends are moving in the Fed's preferred direction.

Tomorrow's economic data will include Empire Manufacturing for July (Briefing.com consensus 5.0), Retail Sales for June (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and CPI for June (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) each crossing the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.0%) and Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) will be released at 9:15 ET. Finally, the day's data will be capped off with the 10:00 ET release of Business Inventories for May (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Sentiment Index for July (Briefing.com consensus 93.0).

Dow Jones +6.2% YTD
S&P 500 +5.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +0.5% YTD

DJ30 +134.22 NASDAQ +28.33 SP500 +11.31 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1586/1.49 bln/1276 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1728/815.3 mln/1289 3:30 pm :

The dollar index is down -0.2% at 96.07, boosting commodities overall
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.2% at 87.12
Crude oil closes above the $45/barrel handle of support after yesterday's notable post-EIA sell-off
August crude oil futures rose $0.79 (+1.8%) to $45.66/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET
Natural gas sees an initial spike after the release of its inventory number, but ultimately closes in the red
August natural gas closed $0.01 lower (-0.4%) at $2.73/MMBtu
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +64 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +58 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 3,243 Bcf as of Friday, July 8, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 507 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 586 Bcf above the five-year average of 2,657 Bcf.
At 3,243 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold sees an afternoon of consolidation on lighter than avg volume, closing near session lows despite dollar weakness
August gold ended today's session down $11.30 (-0.8%) to $1332.10/oz
Silver trades near parity with the previous session's close, consolidating along with gold and closing slightly lower for the day
September silver closed today's session $0.09 lower (-0.4%) at $20.32/oz
Base metal copper closes afternoon pit trading unchanged
September copper closed flat at $2.24/lb

Global bourses extended their recent rally as investors looked to potential policy stimulus measures from the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England. Japan's Nikkei (+1.0%) extended its recent winning streak amid reports that the country is on the verge of revealing a large stimulus package. Separately, investors shrugged off news that the Bank of England held off on cutting its benchmark interest rate. The central bank was widely expected to cut its policy rate by 25 basis points (to 0.25%). However, bank committee members indicated that expectations remain high for an August rate cut.

Market data today came in the form of initial claims for the week ending July 9 which were unchanged at 254,000, marking the 71st straight week that initial claims have been below 300,000. Continuing claims for the week ending July 2 increased by 32,000 to 2.149 million. The Producer Price Index (PPI) for June revealed a 0.5% increase in the PPI for final demand, which was driven by a 0.4% jump in prices for final demand services. The index for final demand less foods and energy ("core PPI") advanced 0.4%.

The major averages notched session highs in the first hour of trade as equity markets looked to continue their recent risk rally. The broader market grabbed another session of gains as all-time highs were set in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500. To that end, the Dow led all three major US indices today, higher by 134.29 (+0.73%) to 18506.41. The Nasdaq Composite added 28.33 points (+0.57%) to 5034.06, and the S&P 500 was up 11.32 points (+0.53%) to 2163.75.

Technology (XLK 45.05, +0.29 +0.65%) was again among the best performing sectors in the markets as component Alliance Data (ADS 212.55, +3.12 +1.49%) out-performed following a long-term agreement with The Children's Place (PLCE 83.16, +0.15 +0.18%). Other sectors as measure by the S&P closed today XLF +0.94%, XLB +0.89%, XLI +0.76%, XLE +0.51%, XLV +0.43%, XLY +0.41%, IYZ +0.03%, XLP -0.02%, XLU -0.65%, led by Financials and Materials.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (743.22, +5.95 +0.81%) sector, trading ended just off highs as component Cree (CREE 27.74, +2.66 +10.61%) was notably higher on the back of the sale of its Wolfspeed Power & RF division to Infineon Technologies (IFNNY 15.18, +0.42 +2.84%) for $850 million in cash; additionally, the company announced preliminary Q4 revenue expectations at the upper end of its target range at about $388 million. Other names in the space which displayed relative out-performance included QRVO +4.66%, EBAY +3.82%, SWKS +3.12%, HPE +2.51%, FSLR +2.49%, ADSK +2.27%, AVGO +2.15%, AAPL +1.98%, PYPL +1.73%, ADS +1.47%, IBM +1.43%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Microsoft (MSFT 53.74, +0.23 +0.43%) announced the Microsoft Professional Degree (MPD) program, the first program of its kind to offer employer-endorsed, university-caliber curriculum for professionals at any stage of their career.

The European Commission takes further steps in investigations alleging Alphabet's (GOOG 720.95, +3.97 +0.55%) Google's comparison shopping and advertising-related practices breach EU rules.

MasterCard (MA 91.45, +1.11 +1.23%) commented on the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal ruling in the Sainsbury's Supermarkets (JSAIY 12.32, +0.20 +1.63%) case. "On first look, we are grateful that the court found that significant benefits flow to both retailers and cardholders from interchange in the UK. What's interesting is that the court concluded that a lawful level of credit interchange for the UK market would be over 65% higher than the 30bps rate cap imposed in the 2015 Interchange Fee Regulation ("IFR")...While we are disappointed to see liability as part of the finding, we note that in awarding a limited portion of the claimed damages, the court concluded that Sainsbury's did not pass through interchange costs to consumers in the form of higher prices." As a result, the company expects to take a pre-tax charge of approximately US$90 million as a special item in its second quarter 2016 financial results reflecting the judgment.

Accenture (ACN 116.77, -0.06 -0.05%), the University of Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development and The Rural Development Company launched the first solar-powered microgrids in the northern KwaZulu-Natal district of uMkhanyakude, South Africa, as part of the Connectivity, Electricity and Education for Entrepreneurship (CE3) program.

Alliance Data Systems (ADS) announced its Columbus, Ohio-based card services business signed a new long-term agreement to provide private label credit card services for Secaucus, N.J.-based The Children's Place, Inc. (PLCE).

Elsewhere in the tech sector:

Communications Workers of America has notified AT&T (T 42.77, +0.18 +0.42%) that Mobility employees failed to ratify a four-year contract. The parties have agreed to meet in a continuing effort to reach an agreement.

Cree (CREE) announced an agreement to sell its Wolfspeed Power and RF division, which includes the silicon carbide substrate business for power, RF and gemstone applications, to Infineon Technologies AG (IFNNY) for $850 million in cash. Additionally, the company announced that preliminary revenue results for Q4 were at the upper end of the company's target range at about $388 million.

Hollysys' (HOLI 18.80, -0.07 -0.37%) wholly owned subsidiary, Concord Corporation Pte. Ltd., signed a significant contract with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to provide the engineering, supply, installation, testing and commissioning for part of Power Distribution System Package for Doha Metro Phase 1. The contract is approximately valued at QAR 227 million, or USD $62.3 million.

FairPoint Communications (FRP 16.27, +0.33 +2.07%) announced that CFO and EVP, Ajay Sabherwal, has tendered his resignation. Mr. Sabherwal's resignation will be effective following a structured transition and the filing of the company's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2016. Karen Turner has accepted a promotion to replace Mr. Sabherwal as CFO after previously serving as Executive Vice President, Operational Support.

Telus (TU 33.62, +0.26 +0.78%) to acquire the Canadian business of Nightingale Informatix. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

EarthLink (ELNK 6.73, -0.05 -0.74%) acquired Boston Retail Partners, LLC. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

WNS (WNS 26.64, -1.01 -3.65%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.45 on better than expected revenues which also rose 10.4% versus last year to $148 million. The company also issued downside guidance for FY17 EPS of $1.78-1.89 on revenues which, at the mid-point, were worse than expectations at $541-569 million.

Taiwan Semi (TSM 27.11, +0.22 +0.82%) reported better than expected earnings for Q2 of NT$0.15 and better than expected revenues of NT$221.81 billion. The company also issued upside guidance for Q3 revenues of NT$254-257 billion.

Analyst actions:

AMX was upgraded to Market Perform at Itau BBA;
TSM was downgraded to Outperform at Daiwa,
CA was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho,
IMPR was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Leerink Partners,
AEIS was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
BRCD was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
TI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC;
FTV was initiated with a Hold at Stifel,
LN was initiated with a Buy at Jefferies,
IMPV was initiated with a Hold at Evercore ISI
(Disclosure: Briefing.com has a business relationship with Microsoft)

3:23 pm Semiconductor Hldrs ETF continues to display relative strength, notches new session high (SMH) : The SMH is up for the seventh session in a row with its hitting 59.97 in recent trade today. An extension target and its 2015 / 15 year high come into play slightly above at 60.03/60.13. Some top performers today include: CREE, QRVO, CRUS, AVGO. AMD, ASML, NVDA, AMAT, MCHP, MRVL, TSM.

CY +5.6% (Betaville report suggesting the company is attracting multiple potential buyers and previously rejected Summitview $14 / share bid)

6:35 am Infineon confirms deal to acquire Cree's (CREE) Wolfspeed Power and RF division for $850 mln (IFNNY) : The business to be acquired by Infineon has generated pro-forma revenues of US Dollar 173 million in the twelve months ending March 27, 2016. The acquisition will be immediately accretive to Infineon's adjusted earnings-per-share and margin. Infineon will fund the transaction with bank financing of US Dollar 720 million and US Dollar 130 million of cash-on-hand. Infineon will maintain its strong balance sheet after the cash- and debt-financed transaction. Infineon's capital structure will stay well within the previously communicated targets of Euro 1 billion gross cash plus 10 to 20 percent of revenue, and no more than two times the gross debt-to-EBITDA.

5:58 am Cree to sell its Wolfspeed Power & RF division to Infineon Technologies (IFNNY) for $850 mln in cash, sees prelim Q4 revenue results at the upper end of its target range at ~$388 mln (CREE) :

The Wolfspeed Power and RF division includes the silicon carbide substrate business for power, RF and gemstone applications The business to be acquired by Infineon generated pro-forma revenue of $173 million in the last twelve months ending March 27, 2016*. Both Cree's Board of Directors and Infineon's Supervisory Board have approved the transaction. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC served as the company's financial adviser on the transaction. The closing of the transaction is expected by the end of calendar year 2016, and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, including HSR and CFIUS clearance. The Company targets approximately $585 million of net proceeds after tax and other deal related costs. Q4 Business Update:

Commercial lighting gained momentum in Q4, as orders increased, customer service improved significantly and nine new products or significant upgrades were released. LED Products also executed well, delivering solid quarter over quarter revenue growth. Preliminary revenue results for Q4 were at the upper end of the Company's target range at ~$388 mln vs $382.87 mln Capital IQ Consensus EstimateLighting Products revenue was in line with the expectations for this segment in the Company's previously announced revenue targets at approximately $197 million. LED Products revenue was higher than the expectations for this segment in the Company's previously announced revenue targets at approximately $160 million due in part to the benefit of licensing revenue. Wolfspeed revenue was in line with the expectations for this segment in the Company's previously announced revenue targets at approximately $31 million.

4:22 am Taiwan Semi beats by NT$0.15, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (TSM) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of NT$2.80 per share, NT$0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of NT$2.65; revenues rose 8.0% year/year to NT$221.81 bln vs the NT$217.47 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Gross margin for the quarter was 51.5%Shipments of 16/20-nanometer accounted for 23% of wafer revenues, and 28-nanometer process technology accounted for 28% of total wafer revenues. Advanced technologies, defined as 28-nanometer and more advanced technologies, accounted for 51% of total wafer revenues.

Outlook:

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of NT$254-257 bln vs. NT$252.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Gross profit margin is expected to be between 50-52%Operating profit margin is expected to be between 39.5% and 41.5%.The management also states 2016 capital budget to be between $9.5-10.5 billion.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - Can Central Banks Keep The Market Afloat? - (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Very quiet expiration session but things get interesting afterhours with a
Turkey coup attempt.
- New high for DJ30 Friday, other indices bumping resistance, a bit tired.
- Mixed economic data: retail sales beat but in the big picture are still
just not good.
- CPI not too hot; not too cold.
- Can central banks keep the markets afloat with yet another major
geopolitical event and the specter of more?

After a solid move higher continued this past week, it looked as if the
stock indices would head to the weekend quietly, sitting on the nice gains
that pushed SP500 and DJ30 to new all-time highs and pushed the other
indices to next resistance. Not new highs for the 'other' indices, but they
broke through resistance and continued higher to the next level. The
central bank throw in for the world stock markets as well as the surprising
upgrade in global economic data worked well as the indices posted very solid
moves higher. Solid action to slip into the weekend holding the gains even
after another terror attack in France resulted in dozens upon dozens of
deaths earlier in the week.

SP500 -2.01, -0.09%
NASDAQ -4.47, -0.09%
DJ30 10.14, 0.05%
SP400 -0.03%
RUTX 0.26%
SOX -0.08%

VOLUME: NYSE +4%, NASDAQ -3.7%. Not a lot of fireworks for expiration, and
indeed the entire week showed lower volume. Very calm for an expiration
week and a big market recovery after a big market selloff.

A/D: NYSE 1.2:1, NASDAQ 1.1:1

Impressive strength, and given the response to the various problems arising,
we figured there was nothing that would really impact the market advance.

Then right after the close reports of a coup in Turkey. Okay, a partial
coup. The military, supporting more secular Islam, took over some broadcast
stations and an airport. The President says the coup will fail. It did.
Almost immediately after it failed the Turkey president said it was the work
of the US. Hmm. Seems he might be protesting too much, trying to shift
scrutiny from the truth. It is now believed by many to be an orchestrated
coup so the power-hungry president can use it to strip more freedoms and at
the same time have 'proof' of the need to round up more of those who
disagree with his hunger for more power.

Immediately on the news US futures fell, bonds rallied, gold surged, oil
jumped. Okay, maybe the central bank-aided moves are not bulletproof.
After word a few hours later that the coup appeared to be failing, futures
started to climb back.

It looked as if markets might get a catalyst to play to a test of the nice
break higher that pushed through resistance for all of the indices though
not all managed new highs. A strong move with not much rest could use the
overseas turmoil to test the big move higher.

Of course central banks will have to be vigilant. They had to promise
stimulus on Brexit. Japan promised itself stimulus because of Brexit, as
tangential as that may be to Japan. China continued devaluing the yuan.
The US said it was ready to act though officially it did not change its
stance one way or the other.

With the central banks at the ready, world turmoil might cause near term
upset, but then, if it subsides, the central banks can bring the world
markets back along with the governments that put out the economic data the
markets await with Pavlovian anticipation.

What do I mean? The sudden spike in economic data just after several
jarring events starting with the Brexit vote. China GDP surprises with a
6.7% gain, topping expectations. US retail sales June jump 0.6% versus 0.2%
expected. Industrial Production also surprises at 0.6% from -0.3% and 0.3%
expected. At the same time this week saw business inventories jump as sales
fell, regional manufacturing reports are sliding back to stall speed (New
York to 0.55 from 6.01), and the goods sold and shipped around the US are
down 15 consecutive months to a 6 year low (Cass Freight Index).

It is a case of what I have talked about frequently: the headline data looks
good enough, albeit the 2.6% year/year retail sales is just above recession
levels, but the underlying data does not show the same thing. It is easy to
report the data in such a way that looks good while the data below does not
support the same conclusion.

Thus you have the central banks ready to prop up markets and the data
reporters ready to do the same with 'friendly' headlines.

At some point the central banks will run out of oil in their magic stock
market lamps, but for now they have not as evidenced by the post-Brexit
buying that sent stocks higher despite 17 weeks of outflows from equity
mutual funds.

On that note, this past week did mark the first week in 18 that funds moved
back into the market versus leaving. Just in time for the more potentially
market roiling news.


Will the Fed continue holding off on hikes?

Another point I was going to cover tonight was just how long the Fed could
hold off hiking rates given the improvement in the economic indicators they
watch with the stock markets surging upside post-Brexit.

Brexit, Nice, and now Turcoup and who knows what else coming. Perhaps China
takes some aggressive action in the South China Sea now that the UN tribunal
says China doesn't own it? After all, Virginia City is not the capital of
Virginia, not even in the same state; now THAT is precedent for the
decision.

With the world burning in one way or another, the Fed has all the cover it
needs to keep on not keeping on with the rate hikes. The rest of the
world's central banks want just that, the IMF is begging the Fed not to
hike, and I am sure others want the same thing. So, I guess the US will
head toward negative interest rates and US citizens will start buying a lot
of vaults and safes just as they are in Europe and Japan where they prefer
to keep the money under the mattress so to speak versus pay to keep it in a
bank that, when push comes to shove and it all goes in the toilet again,
will just take the money out of your account in a 'patriotic donation' to
the government.


NEWS/ECONOMY

Retail Sales, June: 0.6% vs 0.2% exp vs 0.2% May (from 0.5%) Of course, it
is easy to have big jumps when you revise the prior month sharply lower.

Overall year/year: 2.7%

Ex-auto & gas: 0.7% vs 0.4% vs 0.4%

Control group: 0.5%

This looks better and is better. It will be heralded as a good sign. Given
this economy, any improvement is good. BUT (you knew it was coming), at
2.7%, this is JUST over recessionary levels. Sales cannot break higher and
hold a trend higher.

Interestingly, food and drink establishments slowed their sales yet this is
the largest jobs creating area in this economy.


CPI, June: 0.2% vs 0.3% exp vs 0.2% prior
Core: 0.2% as expected vs 0.2% prior. Year/year: 2.3% vs 2.2% prior.
Matches February and that is the highest since 9/2008.

Empire State Manufacturing, July: 0.55 vs 5.0 exp vs 6.01 June. At least
it was not negative . . . Not a great showing for the start of Q3.


China: GDP 6.7%, beating expectations. This appears to have halted the
slide of GDP BUT many are questioning what it cost to get this number. In
other words, the debt escalation. Rabbobank already estimated Chinese debt
at 3x the size of its economy. With private investment at 0% for the quarter
where did it come from? Government money pushed into state-owned companies,
of course the most inefficient place to put the money.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

Virtually no change in the indices though DJ30 forged to another new high
with a powerful 0.05% move. Better get a bucket of ice water ready to cool
it off with moves like that. Of course it did put in some impressive
sessions on this move; Friday was just a pause form the look of it. For the
other indices as well.

DJ30: Doji though a new closing high, culminating a 7 of 8 session surge to
a new high. Strong move, new high, a test would be logical and if futures
continue descending as they are tonight, moving in a second leg lower after
the initial drop, looks as if the Dow will give it a shot at a test.

SP500: The other index at new highs, and the first to reach a new high, is
SP500. A doji here as well to end the week after an impressive three week
surge off the Brexit low. Broke through to a new high, now the 10 day EMA
is coincident with the old high, kind of a perfect testing point. But for
the Turkey news I would say it may not even try that level. Now it might.

NASDAQ: Rallied to a recovery high to Tuesday then started to struggle.
Managed to move higher to close the week but each session closed off the gap
higher point. Running low on momentum for now and even without Turcoupkey
NASDAQ likely would test.

SP400: Very similar to NASDAQ in the action on the week: surging early then
starting Wednesday a bit of a struggle. Nothing major, just a great move
that is a bit tired as it bumped into the prior all-time high. A test of
the June high/10 day EMA rising up below it (1525) is logical even in a
market that is hardly logical given all the monetary stimulus.

RUTX: Surged through Tuesday, worked laterally Wednesday to Friday in a
tight range. RUTX moved up to the bottom of the summer 2015 range and has
stalled for now. It is holding its gains, working in a nice lateral test,
not looking heavy.

SOX: Rally through Thursday, a modest loss Friday, holding in a tight
range. Closing at 723.65, SOX is still well below the 2015 interim highs
(730, 735) and the June post-2000 high (751). Nice break through the June
resistance as SOX works on recovering those prior highs. With the Fed and
central banks in the game and likely staying in the game thanks to events
such as Nice and Turcoupkey, after a test SOX can easily continue toward
those highs.


LEADERSHIP

Many groups took a day off, but not all, e.g. metals. The market has more
leadership as of course groups started to turn up as the move continued and
spread out. An upside move has to have leadership, and typically broad
leadership, to be successful. Of course there are always the FANG-style
rallies where just a few large caps control market direction, but now that
is not the case.

Metals: Solid moves pretty much across the board. SID rallied 4% on
stronger volume. AKS and SCHN were up but their moves were tamer. CENX
cooled its ingots with a pair of doji after a big move higher earlier. FCX
added over 1% to a big early week move. Precious metal stocks were flat
Friday but enjoyed a decent enough week though not the same as the prior
week.

Big Names: A mixed week for sure and a mixed session each day of the week.
FB closed the week on the 50 day SMA with a lateral move testing the prior
week upside. AMZN tested on the week, fading in an easy test of its new
high. AAPL jumped Thursday through the 50 day EMA, flat Friday; maybe
starting something. GOOG cleared the 200 day SMA but couldn't do anything
with it Wednesday to Friday but it did hold the move. SBUX bounced off the
50 day EMA on the week.

Rails: Great week, took some time off Friday. NSC surged into Thursday,
faded just modestly Friday and on very low trade. UNP surged as well, doji
Thursday, sold back some Friday but on light trade. Strong break higher.
CSX reported great results and blasted higher through Thursday. A bit of a
sharp drop Friday but not bad.

Financial: Great week with GS leading the surge upside and moving close to
the 200 day SMA and the April high. MS made it to the 200 day SMA Friday on
the open. JPM reported a beat and gapped Thursday, flat Friday, holding
below the early June peak. Other bank results were not so great. WFC
gapped lower and sold 2.5% Friday. BAC and C were up nicely on the week and
held steady Friday.

Software: Sports some solid patterns still. ROVI put in four lateral
sessions in a tight range, prepping the next upside move. CYBR continued
higher through Friday. BLKB punched out a higher high, faded Friday. RHT
recovered to the 50 day MA's through Thursday but then turned lower Friday;
kind of weak looking with a downside ABCD pattern. CRM in a nice easy
lateral test of the 10 day EMA.

Chips: Not bad, good week. AVGO gapped higher Monday, continued upside in
the channel into Friday. LRCX continued its run this week though ran into
some resistance. AMKR rallied early week, coasted into Friday. NVDA put in
a new high on the week, testing Friday.

Biotechs/Drugs: Some good moves on the week but a lot of struggles. Friday
a bit better. BIIB put in a strong upside move. EXAS faded to end the week
but surged Wednesday and let us take some nice gain. GILD has an
interesting double bottom set up. BLUE had a tougher week but it also is
set up very nicely in a 1-2-3 fade to near support. EYES looks in great
shape to move higher. OPHT shot higher Friday.

Oil: Back and forth week. CWEI broke through the 200 day SMA, let us take
some gain, faded to end the week but still very solid. CVX put in a higher
high on the week. Same with XOM and BP. APC as well but faded to the 20
day EMA Friday. Lots of stocks just holding on, biding time: PTEN, SPN,
COG, HAL. Had good runs, a bit winded, trying to consolidate as oil tries
to keep from selling farther after selling a bit more after the break below
the 50 day MA's, then bouncing back to test them as of Friday.


MARKET STATISTICS

NASDAQ
Stats: -4.47 points (-0.09%) to close at 5029.59
Volume: 1.572B (-3.66%)

Up Volume: 767.82M (-272.18M)
Down Volume: 803.18M (+257.93M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.12 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.24 to 1

New Highs: 109 (-70)
New Lows: 25 (-1)

S&P
Stats: -2.01 points (-0.09%) to close at 2161.74
NYSE Volume: 874.2M (+4.31%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.19 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.31 to 1

New Highs: 125 (-70)
New Lows: 8 (+4)

DJ30
Stats: +10.14 points (+0.05%) to close at 18516.55


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 12.67; -0.15
VXN: 14.29; -0.37
VXO: 11.68; -0.57

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.85; +0.23

5 of 5 below 1.0, 14 of last 23 over 1.0.
18 of the last 35 below 1.0. 34 of 55 over 1.0.


Bulls and Bears: Massive drop in bulls, but of course that was immediately
countered by the recovery, so this reading is all in flux right now.

Bulls: 52.5 versus 47.1. Highest level since early 2015, by a long shot.
Around 60 is where an upside move has topped over the past 18 years.

Bears: 24.7 versus 24.5. Somewhat opposite of the bulls, bears actually
became more numerous with the rally.

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 52.5% versus 47.1%
47.1% versus 41.6% versus 47.5% versus 45.9% versus 47.3% versus 45.4%
versus 35.4% versus 40.2 versus 39.2 versus 40.2% versus 44.3% versus 47.4%
versus 41.2% versus 45.4% versus 43.3% versus 47.4% versus 44.4% versus
39.4% versus 36.4% versus 34.7% versus 26.5% versus 24.7% 34.0% versus 29.2%
versus 26.8% versus 28.6% versus 34.7% versus 36.7% versus 37.8% versus
44.9% versus 41.2% versus 45.4%

Bears: 24.7%
24.5% versus 23.8% versus 23.2% versus 23.5% versus 23.8% versus 23.7%
versus 24.0% versus 21.7% versus 21.6% versus 21.7 versus 20.6% versus 21.7%
versus 27.8% versus 27.8% versus 28.9% versus 27.8% versus 30.3% versus
35.4% versus 34.3% versus 35.7% versus 39.8% versus 39.2% versus 38.1%
versus 35.4% versus 36.1% versus 35.7% versus 31.6% versus 29.6%


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 1.58% versus 1.53%. Broke below the 20 day EMA for the
first time on this pullback, now reaching the upper gap point from late
June. After hours on the Turkey coup attempt bonds rallied off the Friday
selling but not a game changer at this point. Just for reference, the prior
Friday bonds closed at 1.36%.

Historical: 1.53% versus 1.47% versus 1.51% versus 1.434% versus 1.36%
versus 1.39% versus 1.373% versus 1.367% versus 1.44% versus 1.475% versus
1.51% versus 1.468% versus 1.46% versus 1.57% versus 1.74% versus 1.68%
versus 1.70% versus 1.67% versus 1.61% versus 1.57% versus 1.58% versus
1.62% versus 1.61% versus 1.64% versus 1.68% versus 1.70% versus 1.72%
versus 1.73% versus 1.70% versus 1.80% versus 1.84% versus 1.85%


EUR/USD: 1.1035 versus 1.1117. Held up during the session but then the euro
broke back below the 200 day SMA on the Turkey news.

Historical: 1.1117 versus 1.1099 versus 11061 versus 1.10588 versus 1.10502
versus 1.10634 versus 1.10891 versus 1.1056 versus 1.11396 versus 1.1106
versus 1.11256 versus 1.10736 versus 1.10226 versus 1.1101 versus 1.14070
versus 1.13324 versus 1.1251 versus 1.13131 versus 1.13749 versus 1.12778
versus 1.12554 versus 1.12731 versus 1.2104 versus 1.1297 versus 1.12526
versus 1.13149 versus 1.1412 versus 1.13570


USD/JPY: 104.85 versus 105.314. Dollar dropped against yen after making it
just through the 50 day MA's Thursday.

Historical: 105.31 versus 104.74 versus 102.686 versus 100.59 versus
100.768 versus 101.15 versus 100.89 versus 102.497 versus 103.128 versus
102.912 versus 102.60 versus 101.93 versus 102.32 versus 106.73 versus
104.87 versus 104.788 versus 103.98 versus 104.58 versus 104.12 versus
104.68 versus 105.62 versus 106.085 versus 106.019 versus 106.933 versus
106.966 versus 106.66 versus 107.347 versus 107.72 versus 106.55 versus
106.66 versus 108.86 versus 109.99 versus 111.285


Oil: 46.65, +1.15. Gapped upside to the 50 day EMA, the same level it
rallied to on Tuesday but immediately gave up. Still in a 6 week fade off
the early June high. Has definitely turned to backfilling the move after
doubling off the February panic low. Friday we learned there were more rigs
turning in the US (+6 to 357). That is the most since 12/2011.


Gold: 1327.40, -4.80. Closed lower but was up on the Turkey news. On the
week, a nice pullback to the 20 day EMA, testing the break to a higher high.
Very normal test.


MONDAY

After the initial drop on Turkcoup futures were recovering. We will see how
Asian markets respond but I would not be surprised that, regardless of the
initial reaction, the markets find their support even if they test first.
The central banks are again all in and there is enough world turmoil and the
threat of more to keep the Fed on hold.

Leadership remains good enough for now and there are new highs on DJ30 and
SP500. Of course that means watching if the other indices can follow along
with SP400 in best position to post the next new high though it might want
to test first. It also means watching DJ20, the transports, and whether
they follow with their own new high and confirm the DJ30 new high or if they
roll over with a lower high in an uncomfortable look similar to 2006/2007.
DJ20 is over 1250 points from a new high and indeed has not passed the twin
tops from Mary and April. If it makes a lower high here, not good news
longer term.

For now we have some new upside plays to consider along with a downside
play. Again, leadership is good enough and with the central banks backing
the move, that is really all it needs until the point is reached the central
banks have no more marginal efficacy. Not at that point yet. So, we will
see how stocks react when the markets start opening, and perhaps get the
chance to use a bit of a respite as an entry point.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 5029.59

Resistance:
5042 is the March 2015 high
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak

Support:
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower
4999 is the October upper gap point
4980 is the June 2016 peak
4969 is the April 2016 recovery high
4960 is the September 2015 intraday high, an important reversal point for
NASDAQ.
4920 is the lower gap point from mid-October 2015, the January 2016 lower
gap point
4916 is the mid-November 2015 low
4899 - 4902 from the September 2015 peak, July 2015 low
4894 is the September 2015 closing high
The 50 day EMA at 4867
4836 is the March 2016 peak
The 200 day SMA at 4828
4815 is the December 2014 peak
4811 is the November 2014 peak (intraday)
4774 is the January 2-15 high
4751 is the January 2015 lower high
4684 is the May 2016 test low
4637 is the February intraday high
4620 is the February 1 closing high
4615 from September 2014 highs, October 2014 upper gap point, late August
2015 low.
4574 is the June 2015 low
4517-4506 from the September 2015 and August 2015 closing lows
4485 are the twin July 2014 peaks
4471 is the January 2016 closing low
4425 is the late February intraday low
4363 is the February upper gap point
4352 is the March 2014 peak
4313 is the January 2016 intraday low
4292 is the August 2015 low
4212 is the February intraday low


S&P 500: Closed at 2161.74

Resistance:

Support:
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2126 was the April 2015 prior all-time high
2120 is the June 2016 peak
2119 is the February 2015 intraday high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2111 is the April 2016 recovery high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2094 is the December 2014 high
The 50 day EMA at 2091
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2046 is the July 2015 closing low
2040 is the March 2015 closing low
The 200 day SMA at 2032
2026 is the May 2016 low
2023 is the November 2015 low
2020 is the September 2015 intraday high
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1995 is the September 2015 recovery peak
1991 is the July 2014 high
1972 is the December 2014 low
1947 is the February 2016 intraday high, the late February peak
1940 is the January 2016 recovery bounce peak closing high
1913 is the early September 2015 closing low testing the bounce from the
August selling
1905 is the August 2014 low
1902 from early May was the intraday all-time high.
1897 is the prior all-time high hit in April 2014
1891 is last week's intraday low prior to the miraculous reversal.
1872 is the September 2015 test low of the August low
1867 is the August 2015 low

Dow: Closed at 18,516.55

Resistance:

Support:
18,351 is the all-time high from May 2015
18,288 from March 2015
18,168 is the April 2016 recovery high
18,100 to 18,181: interim peaks in the December 2014 to July 2015 range
18,016 is the June 2016 peak
17,978 is the November 2015 peak
The 50 day EMA at 17,852
17,600 is the rough bottom of the April to June range.
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.
The 200 day SMA at 17,349
17,265 is a December 2015 closing low
17,245 is the November 2015 closing low
17,152 is the mid-July 2014 post bear market high
17,068 is the early July 2014 peak
17067 is the December 2014 low
17,063 is the June 2016 low
16,970 is the June 2014 former all-time high
16,946 is the June 2014 peak
16,933 is the September 2015 recovery intraday peak
16,740 is the mid-September peak and potential apex for a right shoulder to
a head and shoulders pattern
16,736 is a prior all-time high from May 2014
16,670 is the December 2014 peak and the recent August 2015 relief bounce
peak.
16,665 is the late August 2015 closing high
16,632 is the April 2014 peak
16,621 is the late February 2016 peak
16,589 is the December 2013 former all-time high
16,526 is the early January resistance
16,511 is the January 2016 intraday high
16,506 is the March 2014 peak
16,466 is the January 2016 recovery closing peak.
16,368 is the August 2014 low


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

July 15 - Friday
Empire Manufacturing, July (8:30): 0.55 actual versus 5.0 expected, 6.0
prior
Retail Sales, June (8:30): 0.6% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
(revised from 0.5%)
Retail Sales ex-auto, June (8:30): 0.7% actual versus 0.4% expected, 0.4%
prior (no revisions)
CPI, June (8:30): 0.2% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.2% prior (no
revisions)
Core CPI, June (8:30): 0.2% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior (no
revisions)
Capacity Utilization, June (9:15): 75.4% actual versus 75.0% expected, 74.9%
prior (no revisions)
Industrial Production, June (9:15): 0.6% actual versus 0.2% expected, -0.3%
prior (revised from -0.4%)
Business Inventories, May (10:00): 0.2% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.1%
prior (no revisions)
Michigan Sentiment, July (10:00): 89.5 actual versus 93 expected, 93.5 prior

July 18 - Monday
NAHB Housing Market , July (10:00): 61.0 expected, 60 prior
Net Long-Term TIC Flow, May (16:00): -$79.6B prior

July 19 - Tuesday
Building Permits, June (8:30): 1150K expected, 1138K prior
Housing Starts, June (8:30): 1165K expected, 1164K prior
Building Permits, June (8:30): 1150K expected, 1138K prior

July 20 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 07/16 (7:00): 7.2% prior
Crude Inventories, 07/16 (10:30): -2.546M prior

July 21 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 07/16 (8:30): 265K expected, 254K prior
Continuing Claims, 07/09 (8:30): 2149K prior
Philadelphia Fed, July (8:30): 5.0 expected, 4.7 prior
FHFA Housing Price I, May (9:00): 0.2% prior
Existing Home Sales, June (10:00): 5.50M expected, 5.53M prior
Leading Indicators, June (10:00): 0.3% expected, -0.2% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 07/16 (10:30): 64 bcf prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:52 pm Yahoo! misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line; will update guidance in presentation (YHOO) : Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.10; revenues fell 19.3% year/year to $842 mln vs the $836.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Mavens (Mobile, Video, Native and Social) rev +26% to $504 mln vs. +7% in Q1.Search rev fell 13% adjusted for change in rev presentation. The number of Paid Clicks decreased 24% vs. -21% in Q1. Price-per-Click increased 8% vs. +7% in Q1.GAAP display revenue was $470 mln, down 7% vs. -1% in Q1. The number of Ads Sold increased 9% vs. +8% in Q1. Price-per-Ad decreased 15% vs. -6% in Q1.Will update Q3, FY16 guidance in presentation. "In addition to our efforts to improve the operating business, our board has made great progress on strategic alternatives."

4:23 pm EMC beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line (EMC) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.45 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.42; revenues rose 0.3% year/year to $6.02 bln vs the $6 bln Capital IQ Consensus."We had a strong second quarter and are well positioned as we look forward to combining with Dell to establish the world's largest privately-controlled, integrated technology company. We expect the transaction to happen under the original terms and within the originally announced timeframe, following the result of tomorrow's Special Meeting of Shareholders, regulatory approval from China and completion of customary closing conditions."

4:20 pm VMware beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; will guide on CC at 17:00 ET (VMW) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.97 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.96; revenues rose 11.3% year/year to $1.69 bln vs the $1.68 bln Capital IQ Consensus. License revenues for the second quarter were $644 million, an increase of 1% from the second quarter of 2015.Operating cash flows for the second quarter were $577 million. Free cash flows for the quarter were $539 million.

Co will guide for Q3 on the conference call which begins at 17:00 ET

4:14 pm Netflix beats by $0.07, misses on revs; sees Q3 EPS below consensus; reports disappointing Net Additions and guidance (NFLX) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.02; revenues rose 19.5% year/year to $1.97 bln vs the $2.11 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Q2 Domestic Net Additions 0.16 mln vs 0.50 mln guidance; Q3 guidance is for 0.30 mln, expectations were in the 0.75-0.80; Q1 adds was 2.23 mln

Q2 International Net Additions 1.52 mln vs 2.00 mln guidance; For Q3 NFLX expects addition of 2 mln, expectations were in the range of 2.70-2.85 mln; Q1 Adds was 4.51 mln Sees Q3 EPS $0.05 vs. $0.08 Consensus.See 16:06 for additional metrics.Key Excerpts from Letter

Gross additions were on target, but churn ticked up slightly and unexpectedly, coincident with the press coverage in early April of our plan to ungrandfather longer tenured members and remained elevated through the quarter. We think some members perceived the news as an impending new price increase rather than the completion of two years of grandfathering. Churn of members who were actually ungrandfathered is modest and conforms to our expectationsOn earnings, we slightly underforecast the quarter, ending Q2 with operating income of $70 million and net income of $41 million against a forecast of $47 million and $9 million with the variance largely due to lowerthanexpected content and other costs.Similarly, we don't believe market saturation is a key factor in the US given that we experienced similar performance over the same period in multiple countries with differing levels of Netflix market penetration.
Our global membership forecast for Q3 includes an impact from the spectacle of the Olympics, on par with what we experienced four years ago, and does not include any boost in the US from the Comcast X1 launch due to uncertainty on timing.
We expect US contribution margin to improve year over year in both Q3 and Q4 and we anticipate meeting our 40% US contribution margin target by 2020, or even earlier.Unfortunately, this year the regulatory climate in China for our service has become more challenging. Disney's streaming service, launched in conjunction with Alibaba, was closed down, as was Apple's movie offering. We continue to explore options and, in the meantime, have plenty of work to do in our newly opened markets.Continued US growth will be a part of it and there is no change to our view that in the US Netflix can reach 60-90 million members. We continue to expect to run around breakeven on a net income basis in 2016 and to generate material profits in 2017 and beyond.We still plan to raise additional capital through the high yield market later in 2016/early 2017.

4:13 pm IBM beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; reaffirms FY16 EPS guidance (IBM) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $2.95 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.89; revenues fell 2.8% year/year to $20.24 bln vs the $20.06 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $13.50 vs. $13.51 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Reaffirms previously provided free cash flow guidance.Second-quarter revenues from the company's strategic imperatives --- cloud, analytics and engagement --- increased 12% year to year. Cloud revenues (public, private and hybrid) for the quarter increased 30%. Cloud revenue over the trailing 12 months was $11.6 billion. The annual run rate for cloud as-a-service revenue --- a subset of total cloud revenue --- increased to $6.7 billion from $4.5 billion in the second quarter of 2015. Revenues from analytics increased 5% (up 4% adjusting for currency). Revenues from mobile increased 43 percent and from security increased 18%.

4:09 pm Super Micro Computer slashes Q4 (Jun) guidance, announces $100 mln repurchase program (shares halted) (SMCI) :

The co said it now sees Q4 EPS of $0.15-0.17 (Prior Guidance $0.46-0.58) vs $0.50 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; revs $520-524 mln (Prior guidance $580-640 mln) vs $599.49 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Revenue was lower than expected primarily due to weaker than expected orders from some of the company's larger accounts. Revenue was also adversely impacted by pricing, timing of purchase decisions and certain business and shipping delays resulting from the Company's global roll out of SAP and the implementation of the Company's new global corporate structure.Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 14% primarily due to lower cost absorption due to lower utilization as well as product mix."We are disappointed to report that our performance was well below our forecast. Although we have been growing well in mid-size accounts during the past quarters and improving our SAP and global operations, our business has become more dependent on larger customers which has created more volatility in our results. We will provide more details on the fourth quarter financial performance at the time of our earnings call"The Company also announced that the Company's Board of Directors has adopted a program to repurchase from time to time at management's discretion up to $100 million dollars of the Company's common stock in the open market or in private transactions during the next 12 months at prevailing market prices.

4:07 pm Rambus beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs below consensus (RMBS) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.13; revenues rose 5.1% year/year to $76.5 mln vs the $74.42 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $75-80 mln vs. $83.80 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Achieving revenue in this range will require that the Company sign new customer agreements for mobile payments software and solutions licensing among other matters.

4:06 pm Netflix sinks below $85 on disappointing Net Additions and Net Additions guidance, despite earnings beat (NFLX) :

4:15 pm : The stock market endured a sleepy start to the week as the S&P 500 (+0.2%) occupied a narrow nine-point range for the duration of today's session. Investors favored a wait-and-see approach today, adopting caution ahead of the plethora of quarterly reports that are scheduled to be released before the end of the week. Additional focal points impacting today's trade included softening in the dollar, weakness from the oil pit, and strong sector leadership from the heavyweight technology (+0.7%), financial (+0.4%), and consumer discretionary (+0.3%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) ended ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.2%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%).

The major averages began the session on a choppy note as mixed performances from global markets and a downturn in crude oil elicited modest selling pressure. European bourses consolidated overnight, pausing as investors eyed an unsuccessful coup in Turkey. Members of the Turkish military attempted to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the weekend, beginning their failed attempt shortly ahead of Friday's closing bell. The attempted upheaval was largely shrugged off by global markets as U.S. investors shifted their focus to upcoming quarterly reports and news on the M&A front.

The benchmark index found support near the 2161 area, which also corresponded with a rebound in crude oil. Equities inched higher through the morning as heavily-weighted technology (+0.7%) paced the advance. The influential sector benefited from news that ARM Holdings (ARMH 66.17, +19.09) agreed to be acquired by Softbank (SFTBY 26.22, -2.22). However, the S&P 500 (+0.2%) was unable to clear technical resistance near the 2067 price level and ended modestly beneath that point. Five sectors ended in the green as technology (+0.7%), materials (+0.7%), and financials (+0.4%) outperformed. Conversely, consumer staples (-0.2%), industrials (-0.1%), and energy (-0.1%) rounded out the board.

The PHLX Semiconductor Index (+1.5%) demonstrated relative strength as the price-weighted index moved higher in sympathy with ARM Holdings (ARMH 66.17, +19.09). ARM Holdings rallied 40.6% after announcing that it would be acquired by Softbank (SFTBY 26.22, -2.22) for approximately $31.4 billion. In the broader technology sector (+0.7%), large cap components Facebook (FB 119.37, +2.51) and Alphabet (GOOG 733.78, +13.93) outperformed, gaining 2.2% and 1.9%, respectively. On the flipside, Yahoo! (YHOO 37.95, +0.23) ended behind the sector as investors look ahead to tomorrow evening's quarterly report.

The economically-sensitive financial (+0.4%) space continued its recent winning streak as participants examined a positive earnings report from Bank of America (BAC 14.11, +0.45). The company beat bottom-line estimates for the quarter and reported that trading and sales revenue increased 12.0% year-over-year. Life insurance names also helped lead the group as MetLife (MET 43.09, +0.48) jumped 1.3%. Elsewhere, Dow component Goldman Sachs (GS 163.33, +1.39) moved higher by 1.1% ahead of tomorrow morning's earnings report.

In the consumer discretion space (+0.3%), retail names outperformed, evidenced by the 1.6% advance in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.44, +0.70). The group traded higher in sympathy with Coach (COH 43.37, +1.07) after Robert W. Baird upgraded the stock to "Outperform" from "Neutral." Meanwhile, Netflix (NFLX 98.81, +0.42) ticked higher by 0.4% ahead of this evening's quarterly results.

The heavily-weighted health care sector (UNCH) finished behind the broader market as the health care plan sub-group underperformed. Dow component UnitedHealth (UNH 140.75, -0.58) finished behind the price-weighted index, slipping 0.4%. The company is scheduled to release its earnings report ahead of tomorrow's open. Additionally, Merck (MRK 59.02, -0.61) lost 1.0% after being downgraded to "Market Perform" from "Outperform" at BMO Capital.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.55, -0.03) finished narrowly beneath its flat line as commodity currencies, the euro, and the pound each gained ground against the buck. The dollar/Canadian dollar pair ended higher by 0.2% (1.2946) while the single currency gained 0.4% against the dollar (1.1074).

Treasuries ended off their session lows, but yields still showed modest upticks throughout the complex. The yield on the 10-yr note finished at 1.59%, rising three basis points.

Today's trading volume was below with the recent average as fewer than 723 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for July:

The NAHB Housing Market Index for July came in at 59 from an unrevised 60 in June while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at 61.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1165k) and Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1150k) for June, which will each be released at 8:30 ET.

Dow Jones +6.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.4% YTD
S&P 500 +6.0% YTD
Nasdaq +1.0% YTD

DJ30 +16.50 NASDAQ +26.19 SP500 +5.15 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1592/1.43 bln/1265 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1886/722.2 mln/1104 3:30 pm :

The dollar index is down -0.03% around the 96.55 level, not appearing to affect commodities overall
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.2% at the 86.53 level
Crude oil sees a modest recovery above the $45/barrel handle of support in afternoon trade, closing lower ahead of tomorrow's API data
August crude oil futures fell $0.59 (-1.3%) to $45.35/barrel
EIA petroleum data will be released on Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released on Friday at 1 pm ET
Natural gas drops into negative territory in the afternoon, closing near session lows, giving back all of the previous session's gains and more
August natural gas closed $0.04 lower (-1.5%) at $2.72/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold sees an afternoon of consolidation after a brief rally, as the dollar index weakens
August gold ended today's session up $1.80 (+0.4%) to $1329.30/oz
Silver sees a modest afternoon rally, closing near its highs but still in the red for the day
September silver closed today's session $0.09 lower (-0.5%) at $20.07/oz
Base metal copper inches higher in afternoon pit trading
September copper closed $0.01 higher (+0.5%) at $2.24/lb

Index futures inched higher overnight as investors weighed mixed performances from global equity markets and a failed coup attempt in Turkey. Members of the Turkish military attempted to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the weekend, commencing the failed attempt shortly ahead of Friday's close. The effort was defeated over the weekend and global equity markets have largely shrugged off the event. Then, the major averages inched higher at the start of the session, restrained in part due to a downturn in crude oil. The energy component slid at the start of the day, briefly surrendering the $45.00/bbl price level. August crude oil futures fell $0.59 (-1.3%) to $45.35/barrel.

Broader market trading closed the Monday session at highs. During the session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average notched an all-time high of $18,556.13 but ultimately closed off that mark, still higher by 16.50 points (+0.09%) to 18533.05. The Nasdaq Composite was the best performer today, ending up 26.20 points (+0.52%) to 5055.78, the the S&P 500 added 5.15 points (+0.24%) to 2166.89.

For its part, the Technology (XLK 45.31, +0.30 +0.67%) sector was the best performer today as components CenturyLink (CTL 30.92, -0.40 -1.28%) and Alliance Data (ADS 211.30, -1.87 -0.88) under-performed following pre-market downgrades. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLB +0.66% XLY +0.38% XLF +0.34% XLU +0.29% XLE +0.07% XLV +0.04% XLI -0.09% XLP -0.11% IYZ -0.75% with Materials leading the way higher and US Telecoms lagging.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (747.48, +5.44 +0.73%) sector, the week began with solid gains as components Alphabet (GOOGL 753.20, +17.57 +2.39%), Facebook (FB 119.37, +2.51 +2.15%) and Qualcomm (QCOM 55.35, +0.60 +1.10%) posted strong session of their own. Other names in the space which outperformed included STX +4.33%, CSRA +2.41%, QRVO +2.09%, SWKS +1.94%, FLIR +1.69%, MU +1.60%, NTAP +1.11%, AAPL +1.06%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Accenture (ACN 114.14, -0.95 -0.83%) and Tricentis entered into an alliance relationship that integrates the Tricentis Tosca Testsuite into Accenture's application testing services.

Texas Instruments (TXN 65.19, +0.34 +0.52%) introduced the 5.7-kVRMS isolated dual-channel gate driver, the first of a new gate driver family in TI's isolation portfolio.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 23.15, +0.07 +0.30%) announced that Saudi Telecom Company has deployed Juniper Networks Contrail Networking to create automated cloud services for its customers.

Elsewhere in the tech sector:

Softbank (SFTBY 26.19, -2.25 -7.91%) confirmed its merger offer to acquire ARM Holdings (ARMH 66.17, +19.09 +40.55%) for GBP24.3 billion ($31.4 billion).

Parkervision (PRKR 5.98, +2.45 +69.41%) entered into a settlement and patent license agreement with

Samsung Electronics (SSNLF 1220, flat) for the perpetual, worldwide license of ParkerVision's current patent portfolio.

Immersion (IMMR 7.50, +0.48 +6.84%) amended its license agreement with Samsung Electronics (SSNLF).

SolarCity (SCTY 26.14, +1.10 +4.39%) disclosed it has raised $345 million in tax equity from four separate partners in June and July to finance new solar projects.

Luxoft Holding (LXFT 53.64, +0.64 +1.21%) acquired INSYS Group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Itron (ITRI 44.08, +0.03 +0.07%) settled patent litigation claims brought by TransData for an undisclosed amount.

Marvell (MRVL 10.08, +0.08 +0.80%) named Richard Hill as Interim Principal Executive Officer.
The S&P upgraded Intelsat S.A. (I 2.95, +0.11 +3.87%) to 'CCC' from 'SD' following the completion of its previously announced tender offer; Outlook Negative.

Helios & Matheson (HMNY 8.09, -0.99 -10.90%) filed for a $50 million mixed securities shelf offering.

Connecture's (CNXR 2.38, +0.03 +1.28%) President and Chief Product Officer Robert Douglas Schneider to resign effective July 29 for personal reason.

SK Telecom's (SKM 21.89, +0.08 +0.37%) acquisition of shares of CJ HelloVision and merger of SK Broadband and CJ HelloVisionby was denied by Korean FTC.

Tech companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning:
EMC, IBM, NFLX, RBMS, VMW, YHOO/ERIC, AMTD, WIT

Analyst actions:

GRPN was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray;
NTDOY was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank,
ARMH was downgraded at The Benchmark Company, Numis and Credit Suisse,
INFY was downgraded at Credit Suisse and Nomura,
QLIK and CHU were downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies,
I was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Raymond James,
FTR and CY were downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
CTL was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
ADS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
EMC was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
SSYS was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray;
TWLO was initiated at Canaccord Genuity, William Blair, JMP Securities, Pacific Crest, JP Morgan and Goldman,
YNDX was initiated with a Buy at HSBC,
NTES was initiated with a Buy at Brean Capital

12:46 pm Superconductor to conduct a 1:15 reverse split effective tomorrow (SCON) :

9:41 am Semiconductor Hldrs ETF gaps up to highest level since 2001 amid M&A news (SMH) : The M&A news (SFTBY is looking to acquire ARMH +42%) has led to a gap higher start and new 15 plus year high -- CRUS +1.8%, AMD +1.3%, AVGO +1.2%, TSM +1.3%, ASML +1.1%, LSCC +1.3%, CREE +1%, MCHP +0.9%.

7:00 am SolarCity discloses that it has raised $345 mln in tax equity from four separate partners in June and July to finance new solar projects (SCTY) : In addition to the $345 million in new funds, SolarCity also expanded its existing debt aggregation facility to $760 million, an increase of $110 million. SolarCity added two new lenders to the facility, which accounted for $70 million of the $110 million upsize. SolarCity also expanded its solar renewable energy credit financing facility to accept five years of hedged SRECs, significantly lowering its cost of financing for SRECs and drawing more capital from the facility. SolarCity's capital markets team has raised more than $1.5 billion in project financing to date in 2016

3:08 am ARM Holdings: Softbank (SFTBY) confirms merger offer to acquire ARMH for GBP24.3 bln ($31.4 bln) (ARMH) :

The boards of directors of SoftBank Group (SFTBY) and ARM Holdings (ARMH) are pleased to announce that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended all cash acquisition of the entire issued and to be issued share capital of ARM by SoftBank (or, at SoftBank's election, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SoftBank).

Under the terms of the Acquisition

Each ARM Shareholder will be entitled to receive: for each ARM Share: 1,700 pence in cash The price of 1,700 pence per ARM Share represents a premium of: ~43.0% to the closing price of 1,189 pence per ARM Share~42.9 % to the closing price per ARM ADR of $47.08, on 15 July 2016 (being the last Business Day prior to this Announcement);The consideration values the entire existing issued and to be issued share capital of ARM at ~24.3 bln (or $31.4 bln).The Acquisition is not subject to any anti-trust or regulatory conditions

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From Briefing.com: 4:13 pm Microsoft beats by $0.11, beats on revs; guides on the call (MSFT) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.69 per share, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.58;

non-GAAP revenues rose 2.1% year/year to $22.64 bln vs the $22.14 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

The current quarter effective tax rate reflected a favorable mix of our income between the U.S. and foreign countries, as well as benefits associated with distributions from foreign affiliates. As such, the non-GAAP tax rate was 15%.

Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes grew 5% (up 8% ex-FX) to $7.0 bln vs. $6.5-6.7 bln guidance: Office commercial products and cloud services revenue grew 5% (up 9% ex-FX) driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 54% (up 59% ex-FX)

Office consumer products and cloud services revenue grew 19% (up 18% ex-FX) with Office 365 consumer subscribers increasing to 23.1 mln Dynamics products and cloud services revenue grew 6% (up 7% ex-FX) with Dynamics CRM Online paid seats growing more than 2.5x year-over-year Revenue in Intelligent Cloud grew 7% (up 10% ex-FX) to $6.7 bln vs. $6.5-6.7 bln guidance:

Server products and cloud services revenue increased 5% (up 8% ex-FX) driven by double-digit annuity revenue growth Azure revenue grew 102% (up 108% ex-FX) with Azure compute usage more than doubling year-over-year Enterprise Mobility customers nearly doubled year-over-year to over 33,000, and the installed base grew nearly 2.5x year-over-year Revenue in More Personal Computing declined 4% (down 2% ex-FX) to $8.9 bln vs. $8.7-9.0 bln guidance:

Windows OEM non-Pro revenue grew 27% (up 27% ex-FX), outpacing the consumer PC market, and Windows OEM Pro revenue grew 2% (up 2% ex-FX)
Surface revenue increased 9% (up 9% ex-FX) driven by Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book
Phone revenue declined 71% (down 70% ex-FX)
Xbox Live monthly active users grew 33% year-over-year to 49 mln
Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs grew 16% (up 17% ex-FX) with continued benefit from Windows 10 usage.

Microsoft returned $6.4 bln to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends.

4:11 pm Exponent misses by $0.05, misses on revs, guides for 1-2% FY16 revenue growth before reimbursements (EXPO) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.38 per share, including a modest tax benefit, $0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.43; revenues before reimbursements fell 2.6% year/year to $73.33 mln vs the $77.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

FY16 Guidance
Revenues before reimbursements are expected to be down 1% to 2% for the year as compared to 2015. Underlying growth is expected to be in the low single digits, excluding the impact of the major project completion in the third quarter of 2015. 2016 EBITDA margin is expected to decline ~200 to 250 basis points as compared to 2015, as a result of lower utilization.

4:10 pm Marvell beats by $0.02, misses on revs (MRVL) :

Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $0.11 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.09; revenues fell 28.2% year/year to $616 mln vs the $652.43 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin percentage for 4Q16 was 51.9%, compared to 46.0% for 3Q16 and 51.8% for 4Q15.

Cash flow from operations for 4Q16 was $53 mln, compared to $67 mln in 3Q16 and $155 mln reported in4Q15.

MRVL made no share repurchases in 4Q16. In FY16, under the company's authorized share repurchase program, MRVL repurchased approximately 19.7 mln shares for about $261 mln. The remaining authorized amount for share repurchases at the end of FY16 was approximately $183 mln.

4:20 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a mixed note, responding to a lukewarm batch of earnings reports and a negative bias in global bourses. Today's trade also featured a downturn in oil futures, strengthening in the dollar, and weakness from the heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (-0.2%) and health care (-0.2%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%) finished behind the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%).

Equity indices began the day on a lower note as global markets tilted to the downside. European indices led the losses as disappointing earnings results and a below-consensus reading of Germany's July ZEW Economic Sentiment Survey (-6.8; consensus: 9.0) weighed. Additionally, the International Monetary Fund added to the negative tone when it cut the United Kingdom's 2016 projected growth rate to 1.7% (from 1.9%). The organization also trimmed its global growth estimate for the year to 3.4% (from 3.5%).

The benchmark index gapped down at the start of the session, notching a morning low near the 2160 price level. Sellers were unable to press equities much farther as investors looked to the remainder of a busy earnings week. The major averages ticked off their lows in the final hour while eight sectors finished in the red. The materials (-0.7%), energy (-0.6%), and telecom services (-0.4%) sectors led the losses while the remaining decliners finished with losses between 0.1% (technology) and 0.2% (consumer discretionary).The heavyweight financial (+0.1%) and industrial (+0.1%) groups ended with the only gains.

The energy space (-0.5%) displayed relative weakness as the group responded to a leg lower in oil futures. August crude ended its day lower by 1.5% ($44.67/bbl; -$0.68), extending its July decline to 7.4%. In the sector, oilfield service names underperformed as Halliburton (HAL 44.99, -0.62) and Baker Hughes (BHI 45.74, -1.12) declined by 1.4% and 2.4%, respectively. Halliburton is scheduled to release its quarterly report tomorrow morning.

The countercyclical health care group (-0.2%) underperformed as health care service providers weighed. In the group, Aetna (AET 115.15, -3.21) and Humana (HUM 153.38, -6.26) lost a respective 2.7% and 3.9% after reports indicated that the government may seek to block their proposed merger. The same reports signaled that similar actions might be taken regarding the potential Anthem (ANTM 132.06, -2.94) and Cigna (CI 130.30, -2.83) deal. On the flipside, Dow component Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 125.25, +2.11) ended at the top of the price-weighted index.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.2%), Netflix (NFLX 85.84, -12.97) tumbled 13.1% after subscriber growth for the second quarter missed analysts' estimates. The company also lowered its outlook for net subscribers in the coming quarter. Separately, restaurant names outperformed as Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 415.31, +6.41) and McDonald's (MCD 126.50, +2.70) gained 1.6% and 2.2%, respectively.

The technology space (-0.1%) finished its day in-line with the benchmark index as Oracle (ORCL 41.08, -0.56) and Microsoft (MSFT 53.09, -0.87) weighed on the group. Microsoft sank 1.6% ahead of this evening's quarterly report. Conversely, Yahoo! (YHOO 38.17, +0.22) gained 0.6% after it was reported that five bidders have presented final-round offers for the web portal.

The U.S. Dollar Index (97.05, +0.48) ended broadly higher as the euro and the pound each lose ground to the greenback. The single currency ticked lower by 0.5% against the dollar (1.1019) while sterling slipped 1.2% against the buck (1.3095). Separately, the dollar gained 0.7% against the commodity-sensitive Canadian dollar (1.3028).

The Treasury complex settled near its session high as the yield on the 10-yr note slipped three basis points to 1.56%.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average as fewer than 736 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to Housing Starts and Building Permits for June:

Housing starts jumped 4.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.189 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.165 million) in June on the heels of a downwardly revised 1.135 million (from 1.164 million) in May.
Building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.153 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.150 million) while the prior month saw a small downward revision to 1.136 million from 1.138 million.
By and large, then, the starts and permits data for June were largely as expected when factoring for the downward revisions to May.
The trouble there is that neither starts nor permits have exhibited any real growth in recent months.
With the latest report, the three-month moving average for starts stands at 1.160 million versus 1.167 million in February.
The three-month moving average for permits rests at 1.140 million versus 1.184 million in February.
The improvement in starts in June was fueled by a 4.4% pickup in single-family starts and a 5.4% increase in multi-unit starts.
The Northeast was the main driver of the improvement in single-family starts, logging a 31.6% increase.
Single-family starts, though, were up in all regions, including a 7.3% gain in the Midwest, a 3.1% increase in the West, and a 0.5% uptick in the South.
Permits for single-family units increased 1.0% and were up 2.5% for multi-unit dwellings.
The Northeast again led the way, with permits up 13.7% for single-family units; however, the West was the only other region to show a gain in single-family permits (+0.6%).
The Midwest was flat and the South was down 0.3%.
The number of units under construction at the end of the period was 1.015 million, up slightly from 1.013 million in May.
That left the second quarter average for units under construction at 1.008 million versus 985,000 in the first quarter.
The higher second quarter average will factor favorably in the residential investment component for second quarter GDP.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index. DJ30 +25.96 NASDAQ -19.41 SP500 -3.11 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 989/1.533 bln/1860 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1222/735.9 mln/1744

3:30 pm :

The dollar index is up +0.5% around the 97.06 level, weighing on commodities overall
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.9% at the 85.75 level
Crude oil extends yesterday's losses, closing near session lows ahead of tonight's API data
August crude oil futures fell $0.68 (-1.5%) to $44.67/barrel
EIA petroleum data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
API data will be released today at 4:30 pm ET
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Natural gas finishes afternoon pit trading near parity with the close of the previous session after a notable drop in the previous session
August natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.4%) at $2.73/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold stages a modest afternoon rally, consolidating near its afternoon highs despite notable strength in the dollar index
August gold ended today's session up $3.20 (+0.2%) to $1332.50/oz
Silver sees losses for the second session in a row as the dollar index holds onto this morning's gains
September silver closed today's session $0.06 lower (-0.3%) at $20.01/oz
Base metal copper inches up to close higher for the second consecutive session in afternoon pit trading
September copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.9%) at $2.26/lb
The major averages began the day under modest selling pressure, responding to a downturn in European averages and a leg lower in oil futures. European indices pulled back amid a batch of corporate earnings following an impressive run. The Euro Stoxx 50 (-0.61%) has rebounded 5.7% since Britain's decision to leave the European Union. Participants also weighed the recent decision by the IMF to lower its global growth estimate to 3.4% for 2016 (from 3.5%) and its decision to lower the United Kingdom's projected growth rate to 1.7% (from 1.9%).


Market data on Tuesday came in the form of housing starts which jumped 4.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.189 million units in June on the heels of a downwardly revised 1.135 million (from 1.164 million) in May. Additionally, building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.153 million while the prior month saw a small downward revision to 1.136 million from 1.138 million.

Broader market trading closed Tuesday mixed, but a slight advance as the bell tolled took all three slightly higher. Action was led higher by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which added 25.96 points (+0.14%) to 18559.01, this all while August crude oil futures fell $0.68 (-1.5%) to $44.67/barrel. The worst performer today was the Nasdaq Composite which lost 19.41 points (-0.38%) to 5036.37; perhaps expediting the decline, Nasdaq 100 component Netflix (NFLX 85.84, -12.97 -13.13%) reported mixed results and soft subscriber numbers and guidance. The S&P 500 finished in the middle, albeit lower by 3.11 points (-0.14%) to 2163.78.

Also snapping a recent winning streak, the Technology (XLK 45.25, -0.06 -0.13%) sector closed the day at about the middle of the range as component F5 Networks (FFIV 120.60, +4.78 +4.13%) out-performed on reports the company could be a potential Thoma Bravo takeout target. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day IYZ -0.93%, XLB -0.59%, XLE -0.56%, XLV -0.22%, XLY -0.18%, XLU -0.17%, XLP -0.07%, XLF +0.04%, XLI +0.05% with US Telecoms posting the weakest session and Industrials managing to hold off the selling.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (746.60, -0.88 -0.12%) sector, the session was in the red for all but a few moments toward the start of the day as components IBM (IBM 159.58, -0.28 -0.18%), EMC (EMC 28.11, +0.57 +2.07%) and Yahoo! (YHOO 38.17, +0.22 +0.58%) all reported quarterly results last night; the three ended Tuesday traded split. Other names in the space which closed lower included EA -2.25%, WDC -1.77%, XRX -1.54%, ATVI -1.47%, ORCL -1.34%, AVGO -1.11%, MU -0.90%, APH -0.86%.


Other notable news items among sector components:

CSC (CSC 48.22, -0.41 -0.84%) and IBM (IBM) announced a collaboration in which IBM will provide its Cloud Managed Services for z Systems -- IBM Cloud for z -- and associated mainframe hardware, software, monitoring and governance support to CSC clients who are moving to the cloud and want a more secure, scalable, flexible information technology infrastructure at significantly reduced operational costs.

Western Digital (WDC 51.20, -0.92 -1.77%) announced that its G-Technology product lines are getting more capacity and increased performance to keep up with the growing needs of creative professionals and consumers capturing vast amounts of high-resolution content, including video and digital photography.

Accenture (ACN 113.37, -0.77 -0.67%) acquired MOBGEN, an end-to-end digital services company that combines mobility strategy, creativity and technology to deliver solutions that drive engagement for global brands with their customers, employees and partners. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

EMC (EMC) announced that, based on a preliminary vote tally from the Special Meeting of Shareholders held earlier today, EMC shareholders approved the merger agreement among Denali Holding Inc., Dell Inc., Universal Acquisition Co., and EMC, and approved the other two proposals described in EMC's proxy statement relating to today's meeting.

Yahoo! (YHOO) modestly out-performed today on the back earnings and reports that suggested as many as 5 bidders and as few as 3 could be vying for the company's core business.

According to the NYPost, F5 Networks (FFIV) could be a potential Thoma Bravo takeout target.

Elsewhere in the tech sector:

Silver Spring Networks (SSNI 12.52, -0.02 -0.16%) appointed Ayse Ildeniz as COO and named Donald Reeves III as Chief Technology Officer.

Science Applications (SAIC 59.41, +0.29 +0.49%) was awarded a $41.46 million DoD contract for the establishment of a total supply chain management initiative supporting various classes of spare parts.

Orange Digital Ventures (ORAN 15.72, -0.24 -1.50%) announced its participation in PayJoy. This investment comes as part of PayJoy's Series A-funding round alongside several VCs including Union Square Ventures (USV), Draper Nexus Ventures, Fenway Summer Ventures, Core Innovation Capital, among others.

Qlik Tech's (QLIK 29.96, +0.07 +0.23%) pending acquisition by Thoma Bravo was cleared by the EU.

In reaction to quarterly results:

IBM (IBM) reported better than expected Q2 EPS on revenues which came in in-line with expectations and fell 2.8% versus last year at $20.24 billion. IBM reaffirmed guidance for FY16, sees EPS of "at least $13.50.' IBM also reaffirmed previously provided free cash flow guidance.

Netflix (NFLX) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.09 on worse than expected revenues which rose 19.5% versus last year to $1.97 billion. NFLX guided Q3 EPS of $0.05, worse than market expectations. Additionally, NFLX's Q2 domestic net additions were 0.16 million vs 0.50 million guidance. Further, NFLX gave Q3 guidance for domestic net adds of 0.30 million, expectations were in the 0.75-0.80 million range. Also, NFLX's Q2 international net additions were 1.52 million vs 2.00 million guidance. Also, for Q3 NFLX expects additions of 2 million vs expectations in the range of 2.70-2.85 million.

VMware (VMW 68.23, +5.66 +9.05%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.97 on in-line revenues which rose 11.3% versus last year to $1.69 billion. Further, management guided on the conference call for Q3 total revenues of $1.738-1.788 billion on non-GAAP EPS expectations of $1.08-1.11. For FY16, the company sees total revenues of $6.95-7.05 billion on non-GAAP EPS expectations of $4.27-4.33.

EMC (EMC) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.45 on in-line revenues which rose 0.3% versus last year to $6.02 billion.

Ericsson (ERIC 7.08, -0.46 -6.10%) reported worse than expected EPS and revenues for Q2 of SEK0.83 and SEK 54.11 billion, respectively.

Wipro (WIT 11.04, -0.81 -6.84%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of INR 8.33 and INR 135.99 billion.

Yahoo! (YHOO) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS of $0.09 on in-line revenues which fell 19.3% versus last year to $842 million. Further, YHOO sees Q3 revenues ex-TAC $840-880 million and EBITDA of $190-220 million. The company also reaffirmed FY16 revenues guidance of $3.4-3.6 billion and adj. EBITDA of $700-800 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: MANH, MRVL, MSFT/APH, ASML, TEL

Analyst actions:

STX was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup,
PSTG was upgraded to Neutral from Negative at Susquehanna,
AUO and LPL were upgraded to Buy from Neutral BofA/Merrill,
UBSFY was upgraded to Buy from Hold at The Benchmark Company,
KS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Dundee,
ORAN was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James;
NFLX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS,
ARMH was downgraded at Raymond James, Pacific Crest and Exane BNP Paribas,
SMCI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel;
FDC was initiated with an Overweight at Piper Jaffray,
HUBS was initiated with a Buy and ZEN was initiated with a Hold at Stifel,
MBLY was initiated with a Neutral at JP Morgan

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From Briefing.com: 4:04 pm Plexus beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (PLXS) : Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.82 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.77; revenues fell 0.3% year/year to $667.61 mln vs the $655.43 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

ROIC for the fiscal third quarter of 2016 was 13.0%.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.76-0.84, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.80

Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $655-685 mln vs. $676.86 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Mellanox Tech beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs in-line (MLNX) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.87 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.82; revenues rose 31.7% year/year to $214.8 mln vs the $212.76 mln Capital IQ Consensus

Non-GAAP gross margins of 71.4 percent, unchanged from the first quarter of 2016

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $221-227 mln vs. $226.67 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:11 pm Intel beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs ~in-line; reaffirms FY16 guidance (INTC) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.59 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.53; revenues rose 2.6% year/year to $13.53 bln vs the $13.55 bln Capital IQ Consensus; non-GAAP gross margin 61.8% vs. ~61% guidance at midpoint.

Client Computing Group revenue of $7.3 bln, down 3% sequentially and down 3% year-over-year; volume -15%, ASP +13% Y/Y

Data Center Group revenue of $4.0 bln, up 1% sequentially and up 5% year-overyear; volume +5% ASP -1% Y/Y.

Internet of Things Group revenue of $572 mln, down 12% sequentially and up 2% year-over-year
Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group revenue of $554 mln, down 1% sequentially and down 20% year-over-year

Intel Security Group revenue of $537 mln, flat sequentially and up 10% year-over-year
Programmable Solutions Group revenue of $465 mln, up 30% sequentially. Note the comparable period did not include $99 mln of revenue as a result of acquisition-related adjustments.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $14.4-15.4 bln vs. $14.69 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin ~62% (+/- couple %).

Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees mid single digit rev growth (consensus +3.6%) vs. $57.33 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin 62% (+/- couple %).

4:11 pm F5 Networks beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FFIV) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.81 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.79; revenues rose 2.7% year/year to $496.52 mln vs the $495.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.92-1.95 vs. $1.92 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $515-525 vs. $517.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"The Americas and Asia Pacific both contributed strong sequential revenue growth, while EMEA revenues were down from the prior quarter against the backdrop of the UK's referendum to withdraw from the

European Union. Reflecting steadily increasing deployment of our products in public and private cloud environments, software sales continued to grow as a percentage of overall product revenue. Our expanding footprint in public and private clouds also contributed to sequential growth in sales of our security products during the quarter."

4:14 pm Qualcomm beats by $0.19, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (QCOM) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.16 per share, $0.19 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.97; revenues rose 2.9% year/year to $6 bln vs the $5.58 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

MSM chip shipments were 201 mln vs 225 mln in prior year; total reported device sales $62.6 bln vs. $60.4 bln in prior year.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.05-1.15 vs. $1.08 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $5.4-6.2 bln vs. $5.73 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Sees MSM chip shipments of 195-215 mln and total reported device sales of $57.0-65.0 bln.

"We delivered strong results this quarter, with EPS well ahead of our guidance based on meaningful progress with licensees in China," said Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated

"Our chipset business is also benefiting from a strong new product ramp across tiers, particularly with fast growing OEMs in China. We are executing well on our strategic priorities, and we remain confident that our focused investments in 5G and other advanced technologies will create a strong foundation for long-term earnings growth."

4:21 pm eBay beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; raises FY16 guidance; announces $2.5 bln buyback (EBAY) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.42; revenues rose 5.7% year/year to $2.23 bln vs the $2.17 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
"Q2 was another good quarter where we delivered strong results and had acceleration in growth"

The Marketplace platforms delivered $19.8 billion of GMV and $1.8 billion of revenue in the second quarter.
Marketplace revenue was up 3% on an FX-Neutral basis and 1% on an as-reported basis, driven by accelerating GMV growth of 5% on an FX-Neutral basis and 3% on an as-reported basis as well as growth in Marketing Services & Other revenue.

StubHub growth accelerated in the quarter, with GMV of $1.1 billion, up 35%, and revenue of $225 million, up 40%, aided by strength across multiple genres and the continued benefit from ongoing product innovation.

The Classifieds platforms delivered another quarter of strong performance with revenue of $207 million, up 15%, primarily driven by the Automotive and Real Estate verticals across several key geographies, including Germany and Canada.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.42-0.44, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.44 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $2.16-2.19 bln vs. $2.14 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues guidance for FY16, raises EPS to $1.85-1.90 from $1.82-1.87, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.86 Capital IQ Consensus; raises FY16 revs to $8.85-8.95 bln from $8.6-8.8 bln vs. $8.81 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

In July 2016, eBay's board of directors authorized an additional $2.5 billion stock repurchase program, with no expiration from the date of authorization.4:15 pm : The stock market ended the midweek affair on a higher note as above-consensus quarterly results from Microsoft (MSFT 55.91, +2.82) facilitated a bid in the heavyweight technology sector (+1.4%). Investors maintained a decidedly risk-on approach, bidding cyclical sectors and the beleaguered biotechnology sub-group. The S&P 500 (+0.4%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) each carved out new all-time closing highs while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%) notched a new 2016 closing high.

Equities began the day on a modestly higher note as investors responded to a positive bias in global bourses. Germany's DAX (+1.6%) paced the advance as participants examined better-than-expected corporate earnings reports. German software company SAP (SAP 83.71, +4.39) outperformed after topping analysts' estimates for the quarter and reaffirming its outlook. The company also stated that it has yet to see any impact from last month's surprise Brexit vote. On that note, the European Central Bank is scheduled to meet Thursday, marking its first meeting since the referendum. The central bank is widely expected to leave its policy stance unchanged.

The major averages ratcheted higher after the first hour of trade, corresponding to a reversal in crude oil. WTI crude erased an early loss as investors weighed the latest inventory data from the Department of Energy. The EIA reported that crude oil inventories fell by 2.34 million barrels (estimate: -2.10 million barrels) while gasoline inventories rose by 0.91 million barrels (estimate: -0.83 million barrels). The benchmark index finished off its session high with six sectors in positive territory. In front of the pack, technology (+1.4%), health care (+0.9%), and consumer discretionary (+0.4%) led while energy (-0.2%), utilities (-0.4%), and consumer staples (-0.5%) rounded out the board.

The technology sector (+1.4%) paced today's advance as Dow component Microsoft (MSFT 55.91, +2.82) rallied 5.3%. The stock finished on top of the price-weighted index after impressing investors with its cloud service business. The high-beta chipmakers also outperformed as Marvell (MRVL 11.23, +1.38) surged 14.1% after beating bottom-line estimates. Separately, Qualcomm (QCOM 55.82, +0.68) and Intel (INTC 35.69, +0.54) gained a respective 1.2% and 1.5% ahead of this evening's quarterly reports.

In the health care space (+0.9%), biotechnology displayed relative strength, evidenced by the 2.4% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 276.54, +6.55). In the group, Mylan Labs (MYL 47.20, +2.27) jumped 5.1% after announcing the launch of its Crestor generic in the United States. In the broader sector, Intuitive Surgical (ISRG 703.05, +31.15) rallied 4.6% after reporting above-consensus quarterly results and receiving several price target increases.

Media names underperformed in the consumer discretionary space (+0.4%) as Dow component Disney (DIS 98.22, -1.25) weighed. The stock slipped 1.3% after it was downgraded to "Hold" from "Buy" at Stifel. Elsewhere, 21st Century Fox (FOXA 27.00, -0.75) fell 2.7% amid uncertainty regarding Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Reports indicated that 21st Century Fox is reviewing allegations of sexual assault after a lawsuit was filed against Mr. Ailes.

The U.S. Dollar Index (97.11, +0.05) finished modestly higher as it gained against the euro, commodity currencies, and the yen. The euro/dollar pair ended lower by 0.1% (1.1014) while the dollar ticked higher by 0.3% against the commodity-sensitive Canadian dollar (1.3062). Separately, the dollar jumped 0.8% against the safe-haven yen (106.93).

The Treasury complex settled off its session low, but the yield on the 10-yr note rose two basis points to 1.58%.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average as fewer than xxx million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted decrease of 1.3% in mortgage applications after rising 7.2% in the prior week.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 265k) and the July Philadelphia Fed Survey (Briefing.com consensus 5.0), which will both be released at 8:30 ET. Separately, the FHFA Housing Price Index for May will cross the wires at 9:00 ET. Finally, the day's data will be capped off with Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.50 million) for June and June Leading Indicators (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), which will both be reported at 10:00 ET.

Dow Jones +6.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.5% YTD
S&P 500 +6.3% YTD
Nasdaq +1.7% YTD

DJ30 +36.02 NASDAQ +53.56 SP500 +9.24 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1972/1.69 bln/900 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2026/732.3 mln/957

3:30 pm :

The dollar index is trading flat, around the 96.12 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.7% at the 85.16 level
Crude oil surges to session highs after the release of petroleum inventory data
September crude oil futures rose $1.06 (+2.4%) to $45.73/barrel
Crude oil futures have changed their front months to September from August, as indicated by the active amount of volume in the contracts
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -2.342 mln (consensus called for a draw between -1.3 mln and -1.7 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of 0.911 mln
Distillate inventories had a draw of 0.214 mln
Weekly rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Natural gas ends near session lows ahead of tomorrow's inventory number
August natural gas closed $0.07 lower (-2.6%) at $2.66/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold extends yesterday's losses as the dollar trades flat
August gold ended today's session down $13.20 (-1.0%) to $1319.30/oz
Silver sees an afternoon of consolidation near its morning lows as the dollar index trades flat
September silver closed today's session $0.40 lower (-2.0%) at $19.61/oz
Base metal copper ends pit trading unchanged
September copper closed flat at $2.26/lb

Index futures ticked higher alongside European bourses overnight as investors weighed a collection of better than expected quarterly reports and looked ahead to tomorrow's European Central Bank policy meeting. Software name SAP (SAP 83.71, +4.39 +5.53%) added to the positive bias after beating top- and bottom-line estimates for the quarter. Additionally, the EIA reported that crude oil inventories declined by 2.34 million barrels, compared to the estimated 2.10 million barrel draw. As a result, September crude oil futures finished the day up $1.06 (+2.4%) to $45.73/barrel.

Market data today was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which showed a seasonally adjusted decrease of 1.3% in mortgage applications after rising 7.2% in the prior week.

The broader market closed Wednesday with the S&P and Dow notching new all-time highs. To that end, the advanced today was led by the Nasdaq Composite, which did not make a new all-time high today, yet still advanced 53.56 points (+1.06%) to 5089.93. The S&P 500 added 9.24 points (+0.43%) to 2173.02, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by 36.02 (+0.19%) to 18595.03.

Through half of the week, the Technology (XLK 45.80, +0.55 +1.22%) sector closed near highs as component Verizon (VZ 55.62, -0.08 -0.14%) was among the few under-performers today following a premarket downgrade at Oppenheimer to a Perform rating. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLV +0.91%, XLY +0.42%, XLI +0.19%, XLF +0.17%, XLB +0.04%, XLE -0.14%, IYZ -0.26%, XLP -0.36%, XLU -0.58% as Tech led all sectors higher and Utilities were the worse performer.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (756.94, +10.34 +1.38%) sector, trading closed near highs with action decidedly to the upside all day as component Microsoft (MSFT 55.91, +2.82 +5.31%) out-performed the broader market on the back of a better than expected Q4 top and bottom line. Other notable movers in the sector today included TDC +3.93%, TEL +3.83%, MU +2.80%, XRX +2.51%, CSCO +2.37%, YHOO +1.91%, LRCX +1.91%, EBAY +1.85%, ACN +1.83%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

According to a company announcement, Facebook (FB 121.92, +1.31 +1.09%) Messenger surpassed 1 billion monthly active users.

Telecom Italia (TI 7.54, -0.02 -0.26%) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 20.06, +0.27 +1.36%) were awarded the Consip tender for a EUR 500 million contract with Italy's Public Administration.

NovoCure (NVCR 11.89, +0.32 +2.77%) provided notice of non-renewal to Harris (HRS 86.03, +0.71 +0.83%) of their Strategic Supplier Agreement. The agreement will terminate on July 21, 2017.
RSA, The Security Division of EMC (EMC 28.17, +0.06 +0.21%), has announced the results of research that demonstrates organizations in Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) investing in detection and response technologies are better poised to defend against today's advanced threats, in comparison to those primarily utilizing perimeter-based solutions. The results of the second annual RSA Cybersecurity Poverty Index found that 74% of survey respondents in the APJ region face a significant risk of cyber incidents -- closely aligned to the global average of 75%.

Cognizant (CTSH 58.72, +1.05 +1.82%) announced that Kern Health Systems (KHS) has modernized and transformed its technology infrastructure and operations using Cognizant's deep healthcare and technology consulting expertise, coupled with its market-leading TriZetto software.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Orange (ORAN 15.67, -0.05 -0.32%) completed its acquisition of Log'in Internation. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Verizon (VZ) announced the U.S. General Services Administration has awarded contract extensions under the agency's Networx program.

Valencell announced a non-exclusive patent license agreement with Samsung (SSNLF). Under this patent license agreement, Valencell has licensed hearable patents owned by Valencell to Samsung for use in its hearable devices.

JD.com (JD 22.66, +0.24 +1.07%) announced partnerships with several of Japan's leading home and kitchenware brands to tap into fast-growing demand from Chinese consumers for premium Japanese-made homeware and home appliances. Japanese brands including Tiger, Pearl Life and Nishikawa Sangyo are working with JD.com to sell their products directly to Chinese consumers.

Omnicell (OMCL 36.32, +0.82 +2.31%) announces that Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital has selected the company's medication automation solutions to streamline provider workflows and enhance patient care at its facility in Valencia, Calif.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Microsoft (MSFT) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.69 and better than expected revenues which rose 2.1% versus last year to $22.64 billion. MSFT also issued guidance for Q1 revs including -- Productivity and Business Processes revenues of $6.4-6.6 billion; Intelligent Cloud segment revenues of $6.1-6.3 billion; Personal Computing revenues of $8.7-9 billion; Summing these gives total revenue guidance of $21.2-21.9 billion.

Marvell (MRVL 11.23, +1.38 +14.06%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.11 on revenues which fell 28.2% versus last year to $616 million and missed expectations.

SAP AG (SAP) reported better than expected Q2 GAAP EPS of EUR 0.68 on revenues which increased 5% year-over-year to EUR 5.24 billion.

Manhattan Assoc (MANH 61.31, -1.44 -2.29%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.49 on in-line revenues which rose 11.3% versus last year to $154.9 million. The company also issued guidance for FY16 EPS of $1.78-1.81 vs prior guidance of $1.73-1.76. MANH also reaffirmed prior FY16 revenue guidance of $615-620 million.

Tech companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: BKFS, EBAY, FFIV, INTC, MLNX, PLXS, PTC, QCOM/ADS, BHE, DST, FCS, SYNT, UTEK

Analyst actions:

WDAY, YELP, SPLK were downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
ERIC was downgraded to Mkt Underperform from Mkt Perform at Charter Equity,
VZ was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer,
AMTD was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank;
TTGT was initiated with a Buy at Sidoti

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From Briefing.com: 4:34 pm Celestica beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (CLS) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues rose 4.8% year/year to $1.49 bln vs the $1.46 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.27-0.33 vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.475-1.575 bln vs. $1.46 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:21 pm Advanced Micro beats by $0.03, beats on revs, Issues upside Q3 revenue guidance (AMD) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.05 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.08); revenues rose 9.0% year/year to $1.03 bln vs the $0.95 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Gross margin was 31%, down 1 percentage point sequentially, due primarily to a higher mix of semi-custom SoC sales.

Non-GAAP operating income was $3 mln, compared to non-GAAP operating loss of $55 mln in 1Q16, primarily due to higher sales.

Outlook: For 3Q16, AMD expects revenue to increase 18% sequentially, plus or minus 3%. At +18%, that would equate to revenue of $1.21 bln vs. Capital IQ Consensus of $1.12 bln.

4:21 pm Skyworks increases quarterly dividend to $0.28/share from $0.26/share, announces new $400 mln repurchase program (SWKS) : This newly authorized stock repurchase program replaces in its entirety the $400 million stock repurchase program that was approved by the Board of Directors on November 10, 2015, and had approximately $73 million of repurchase authority remaining.

4:20 pm Skyworks beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides SepQ EPS above consensus, revs in-line (SWKS) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.21 and above prior guidance of $1.21; revenues fell 7.2% year/year to $751.7 mln vs the $750.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs $750 mln prior guidance.

Co issues guidance for Q4 (Sep), sees EPS of approx $1.43, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revenue growth +10-11% sequentially which we compute as $827-834 mln vs. $830.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Skyworks exceeded expectations in the third fiscal quarter of 2016 driven by increasing global demand for high-speed connectivity coupled with strong operational execution...Our highly integrated solutions are enabling a broad array of applications ranging from streaming media to e-commerce to cloud-based services."

4:08 pm Flex reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FLEX) :

Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.27 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.27; revenues rose 5.6% year/year to $5.88 bln vs the $5.7 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

GAAP gross margin increased approximately 60 basis points and adjusted gross margin increased over 50 basis points on a year-over-year basis.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.26-$0.30 vs. $0.30 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $5.8-$6.2 bln vs. $6.14 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:04 pm Ingram Micro announces that after consultation with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, the company's elected to submit a joint voluntary notice to the Committee, which will be filed in due course (IM) : The co announced that after consultation with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (:CFIUS), the co and Tianjin Tianhai Investment Company, Ltd. (Tianjin Tianhai) have elected to submit a joint voluntary notice to the Committee, which will be filed in due course. The companies continue to expect the transaction to close in the H2 2016 as previously announced. The companies also said that they are maintaining steady progress in receiving the required competition authority approvals in various jurisdictions, obtaining early termination of the waiting period under the U.S. HSR Act and antitrust authority approval from the Ministry of Commerce People's Republic of China (:MOFCOM), as well as approvals from antitrust authorities in Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey

4:03 pm Maxim Integrated beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line; increases dividend by 10% (MXIM) :

Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.49 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.48; revenues fell 2.8% year/year to $566.12 mln vs the $575.54 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.44-0.50 vs. $0.47 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $540-580 mln vs. $568.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Quarterly dividend increased 10% to $0.33 per share

4:15 pm : The major averages ended the Thursday affair under moderate selling pressure, pulling back from their recent rally to new all-time highs. The heavyweight industrial group (-1.0%) paced the retreat as weaker-than-expected quarterly reports and guidance weighed on the sector. Additionally, a leg lower in oil futures and the weakness in the financial (-0.5%) and technology (-0.5%) groups added to the negative tone. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) finished in-line with the S&P 500 (-0.4%) and behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%).

The major averages began the day on a flat note as investors weighed a plethora of earnings reports and recently-released economic data. The European Central Bank released its latest policy statement this morning, deciding to maintain its assets purchase program and its interest rate corridor. The decision was largely expected after the Bank of England stated earlier in the month that it was too early to assess the economic impact of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union. However, ECB President Mario Draghi stated that the central bank is ready to act should the need arise.

Equity indices teetered near their flat lines into the late morning as leadership from heavily-weighted technology (-0.5%) and health care (+0.4%) kept the market afloat. However, the benchmark index ebbed lower through the afternoon as a persistent downturn in crude oil weighed on equities. The S&P 500 (-0.4%) violated technical support near the 2166 price level in the early afternoon, drifting to the 2160 area. The major averages inched off that level in the final hour as eight sectors finished in the red. Materials (-0.6%), energy (-0.9%), and industrials (-1.0%) underperformed while the remaining decliners finished with losses between 0.3% (consumer staples) and 0.5% (technology). Conversely, health care (+0.4%) and utilities (+0.6%) finished above their flat lines.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-1.3%) finished well behind the benchmark index as airlines lagged. The U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 22.25, -0.79) fell 3.4% as disappointing results and guidance from Southwest Air (LUV 37.32, -4.71) weighed. The company stated that third-quarter revenue per available seat mile is expected to decline between 3.0% and 4.0% year-over year. Separately, Union Pacific (UNP 90.93, -3.19) underperformed among rail names after lowering its full-year volume estimates.

Defense names underperformed in the broader industrial sector (-1.0%) as Lockheed Martin (LMT 254.14, -2.53) and Raytheon (RTN 134.90, -3.28) fell by 1.0% and 2.4%, respectively. Today's loss extended Lockheed's post-earnings retreat to 0.8%. Elsewhere, General Electric (GE 32.59, -0.19) ticked lower by 0.6% ahead of tomorrow morning's earnings report. The broader sector has declined 0.9% this week, compared to a 0.2% gain in the benchmark index.

The high-beta chipmakers displayed relative weakness, evidenced by the 1.3% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. In the group, Intel (INTC 34.27, -1.42) fell by 4.0% after disappointing investors with its top-line results. Conversely, iPhone supplier Qualcomm (QCOM 59.98, +4.16) rallied 7.5% after beating top- and bottom-line estimates for the quarter.

The heavyweight health care sector (+0.4%) outperformed amid relative strength in biotechnology. The sub-group traded higher in sympathy with Biogen (BIIB 282.45, +20.04) after the company reported top- and bottom-line beats for the quarter. Health care service plans also outperformed after Humana (HUM 171.53, +13.12) increased its outlook for the year. However, it is worth mentioning that the sub-group was under early selling pressure after the Department of Justice announced that it is seeking to block mergers between Anthem (ANTM 139.00, +3.53) & Cigna (CI 140.32, +7.21) and Aetna (AET 118.30, +1.81) & Humana.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.94, -0.26) settled modestly lower as the euro and the yen gained ground against the greenback. The single currency ticked higher by 0.1% against the buck (1.1022) while the dollar/yen pair finished lower by 1.1% (105.76). The move in the yen was prompted by commentary out of Japan, which called into question the size and nature of potential easing measures.

The Treasury complex finished higher with yields slipping throughout the group. The yield on the 10-yr note settled lower by three basis points at 1.56%.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average as fewer than 803 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims, July Philadelphia Fed Survey, FHFA Housing Price Index for May, Existing Home Sales for June, and June Leading Indicators:

Initial claims for the week ending July 16 were 253,000 (Briefing.com consensus 265,000), a decrease of 1,000 from the prior week.
The initial claims reading was the lowest it has been since mid-April, which belies the fact that initial claims are close to their lowest levels over the past 45 years.
This suggests employers are very comfortable with the size of their existing workforces even if they are not altogether comfortable increasing their headcount with new, full-time employees.
There were no special factors influencing the initial claims reading, which held below 300,000 for the 72nd straight week -- the longest streak since 1973!
The four-week moving average for initial claims fell to 257,750 from 259,000
Continuing claims for the week ending July 9 dropped to 2.128 million from 2.153 million in the prior week.
The four-week moving average for continuing claims dropped to 2.141 million, a decrease of 2,750 from the prior week.
The Philadelphia Fed Index produced a headline disappointment for July, falling to -2.9 (Briefing.com consensus 5.0) from 4.7 in June.
The indexes for new orders, shipments, and unfilled orders all moved back into an expansion mode.
New orders rose from -3.0 to 11.8; shipments increased from -2.1 to 6.3; and unfilled orders jumped from -12.6 to 1.9.
The current employment index remained in a state of contraction; however, the pace of contraction slowed noticeably, evidenced by a reading of -1.6 for July versus -10.9 for June.
Separately, there was an uptick in the diffusion index for future general business activity, which increased four points to 33.7, bringing it close to its five-year average of 35.9.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for May rose 0.2%, which followed an increase of 0.3% in April.
Existing home sales increased 1.1% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million (Briefing.com consensus 5.50 million).
The most encouraging aspect of the June report was that first-time buyers accounted for 33% of home sales, which was up from 30% in May and marked the highest share since July 2012.
The high-price obstacle didn't go away in June, which produced a 4.8% increase in the median existing-home price for all housing types to $247,700.
That is the 52nd straight month of year-over-year gains and tops May's peak median sales price of $238,900.
Price support continues to be underpinned by limited supply and it doesn't sound as if there will be a meaningful break in the pricing trend on the near horizon.
To that end, unsold inventory is at a 4.6-month supply at the current sales pace versus 4.7 months in May.
Individual investors, who account for many cash sales, purchased only 11% of homes in June, which is the lowest since July 2009. Their reduced interest is likely a reflection of high-price constraints.
Single-family home sales increased 0.8% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million while existing condominium and co-op sales rose 3.2% to 650,000 units on the same basis.
On a regional basis, existing home sales declined 1.3% in the Northeast, increased 3.8% in the Midwest, remained unchanged in the South, and jumped 1.7% in the West.
Existing home sales in May were revised from 5.53 million to 5.51 million.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for June increased 0.3%, which was right in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate and followed on the heels of an unrevised 0.2% decline for May.
Every component index contributed to the monthly increase, with the exception of the average workweek in manufacturing (-0.07 percentage points) and average consumer expectations for business conditions (unchanged).
The largest contributors to the Leading Economic Index for June were average weekly initial claims (0.15 percentage points) and the interest rate spread (0.14 percentage points).
The two components estimated by the Conference Board -- manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and materials and nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft -- were tagged as contributing 0.02 percentage points and 0.03 percentage points, respectively.
Over the first half of the year, the Leading Economic Index increased 0.3% (about a 0.6% annual rate), which is roughly the same pace seen in the second half of 2015, according to the Conference Board.
Separately, the Coincident Economic Index increased 0.3% in June after being unchanged in May. The Lagging Index, meanwhile, decreased 0.1% on the heels of a 0.4% increase in May.

There is no economic data of note scheduled to be released tomorrow.

Dow Jones +6.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.0% YTD
S&P 500 +5.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.3% YTD

DJ30 -79.24 NASDAQ -16.03 SP500 -7.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1064/1.72 bln/1769 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1255/802.0 mln/1724

3:30 pm :

The dollar index is down -0.3% at the 96.94 level, boosting select commodities in afternoon trade
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, -0.2% at the 84.95 level
Crude oil closes near session lows ahead of tomorrow's rig count data
August crude oil futures fell $1.02 (-2.2%) to $44.71/barrel
Weekly rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET
Natural gas surges to close near session highs after the release of EIA data, which showed a smaller-than-expected build compared to Consensus
August natural gas closed $0.03 higher (+1.1%) at $2.69/MMBtu
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +34 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be build a of +40 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 3,277 Bcf as of Friday, July 15, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 471 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 559 Bcf above the five-year average of 2,718 Bcf.
At 3,277 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold erases nearly all of the previous session's losses as the dollar index turns red
August gold ended today's session up $11.80 (+0.9%) to $1331.10/oz
Silver sees an initial morning rally, consolidating around its highs in the afternoon, closing near highs as the dollar weakens
September silver closed today's session $0.20 higher (+1.0%) at $19.81/oz
Base metal copper closes pit trading unchanged for the second trading day in a row
September copper closed flat at $2.26/lb

Today's session began on a choppy note as participants ruminated over a mixed set of earnings results and the latest policy statement from the European Central Bank. The ECB policy statement and press conference went largely as expected, indicating that more easing measures remain available should Brexit-related issues arise. Separately, today's economic data came in mostly above consensus, but failed to spark another round of buying interest.

Market data today included initial claims for the week ending July 16 which were 253,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the prior week. Continuing claims for the week ending July 9 dropped to 2.128 million from 2.153 million in the prior week. Also, the Philadelphia Fed Index produced a headline disappointment for July, falling to -2.9 from 4.7 in June. The FHFA Housing Price Index for May rose 0.2%, which followed an increase of 0.3% in April. Existing home sales increased 1.1% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million. Finally, the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for June increased 0.3%, following an unrevised 0.2% decline for May.

Stocks slid today after opening the session split, ending slightly off lows of the day. Action was led to the downside by the Dow Jones Industrial Average as the index lost 77.80 points (-0.42%) to 18517.23m snapping its nine session winning streak; also weighing om the index, September crude oil futures fell $1.02 (-2.2%) to $44.71/barrel. Additionally, the Dow was hurt by all but two of the top ten holdings ended in the green -- MMM -0.64%, INTC -3.98%, GS -1.06%, UNH -0.10%, BA -0.88%, HD -0.98%, JNJ +0.01%, MCD +0.89%, TRV -0.25%, CVX -0.19%.The S&P 500 edged 7.85 points (-0.36%) lower today to close 2165.17, and the Nasdaq Composite finished modestly down 16.03 points (-0.31%) to 5073.90.

Similar action in the Technology (XLK 45.54, -0.26 -0.57%) sector saw modest gains melt away as the day progressed, ultimately ending near lows as component Intel (INTC 34.27, -1.42 -3.98%) was the worst sector performer following the company's Q2 report. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day IYZ -1.50%, XLI -1.02%, XLE -0.99%, XLB -0.61%, XLF -0.51%, XLP -0.29%, XLY -0.27%, XLV +0.29%, XLU +0.60% as Telecoms lagged and Utilities managed to escape Thursday with modest gains.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (753.12, -3.82 -0.50%) sector, trading closed the day just off session lows as component eBay (EBAY 29.93, +2.94 +10.89%) posted a strong session on the back of its quarterly report. Other names in the space which under-performed included MU -3.02%, ACN -2.68%, ADBE -2.09%, LRCX -2.07%, SYMC -2.03%, NVDA -1.84%, VRSN -1.79%, EA -1.72%, RHT -1.66%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, F5 Networks (FFIV 121.86, +0.39 +0.32%) named Ben Gibson as CMO.

Qorvo (QRVO 60.10, -0.70 -1.15%) disclosed consent of independent registered public accounting firm.

Accenture (ACN 112.36, -3.12 -2.70%) has completed the first phase of an overhaul of premium German car manufacturer BMW's (BMWYY 27.67, +0.09 +0.31%) Chinese website, ensuring that the new design provides an optimized customer experience and meets a growing demand that BMW is seeing for mobile web usage in China.

MasterCard (MA 92.46, -0.84 -0.90%) entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 92.4% of VocaLink Holdings Limited for about 700 million (about $920 million), after adjusting for cash and certain other estimated liabilities. VocaLink's existing shareholders have the potential for an earn-out of up to an additional 169 million (about $220 million), if performance targets are met.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Fitbit (FIT 12.80, -0.17 -1.31%) was lower following reports of an unfavorable ITC patent ruling versus Jawbone.

Monotype Imaging (TYPE 19.80, -5.12 -20.55%) to acquire Olapic for about $130 million. The company expects the deal closing to occur in Q3.

Nuance Communications (NUAN 16.04, -0.29 -1.78%) to acquire TouchCommerce for $215 million. The company noted the transaction is not expected to have a material impact on NUAN's fiscal 2016 revenues.

Littelfuse (LFUS 119.16, -1.49 -1.23%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.33 per share from $0.29 per share.

Expedia (EXPE 116.58, -0.61 -0.52%) acquired travel photo sharing website Trover. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Net Element (NETE 2.21, +0.03 -1.38%) to acquire a majority interest in PayStar and Nexcharge.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Intel (INTC) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.59 and in-line revenues which rose 2.6% versus last year to $13.53 billion. Additionally, the company guided Q3 revenues of $14.4-15.4 billion on gross margins of about 62% plus or minus a couple percentage points. INTC also reaffirmed FY16 guidance for mid-single digit revenue growth.

Qualcomm (QCOM 59.93, +4.11 +7.36%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.16 on better than expected revenues which rose 2.9% versus last year to $6 billion. For Q4, the company sees in-line EPS of $1.05-1.15 on in-line revenues of $5.4-6.2 billion.

eBay (EBAY) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.43 on better than expected revenues which rose 5.7% versus last year to $2.23 billion. EBAY also guided Q3 EPS in-line at $0.42-0.44 on better than expected revenues of $2.16-2.19 billion. For FY16, the company raised EPS guidance to $1.85-1.90 from $1.82-1.87 and raised revenue guidance to $8.85-8.95 billion from $8.6-8.8 billion.

Alliance Data (ADS 228.85, +13.83 +6.43%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $3.68 anf $1.75 billion, respectively. The company guided Q3 EPS of $4.42 on revenues of $1.78 billion. ADS also raised guidance for FY16 EPS to $16.85 from $16.75 and raised FY16 revenue guidance to $7.15 billion from $7.1 billion.

F5 Networks (FFIV) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.81 on in-line revenues which rose 2.7% versus last year to $496.52 million. The company also gave in-line guidance for Q4 EPS of $1.92-1.95 and revenue guidance of $515-525 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: EGHT, AMD, T, CLS, ETFC, FLEX, MXIM, P, PYPL, PLCM, PFPT, SIMO, SWKS, V

Analyst actions:

QCOM was upgraded to Buy from Mkt Perform at Charter Equity,
ARMH was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Bernstein;
FFIV was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
TER was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
BKFS was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt

Cree (CREE) and Avnet (AVT) announce a strategic agreement that expands coverage in the Americas for the distribution of Cree's comprehensive portfolio of innovative LED components including high-power, Chip-on-Board, high brightness and LED modules. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

7:04 am Benchmark Electronics misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line; offers Q3 guidance (BHE) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.31 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.32; revenues fell 12.8% year/year to $579.34 mln vs the $582.92 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of 0.33-0.38 vs. $0.35 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $570-600 mln vs. $600.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Q2 Bookings:New program bookings were $105 to $130 million; 12 engineering awards supporting early engagement opportunities; 33 manufacturing wins across all market sectors."While our third quarter outlook reflects caution from customer forecasts, we remain committed to delivering higher returns on invested capital through better operating margins and working capital management."

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 22-Jul-16The stock market flirted with its first weekly decline in four weeks, but steady buying interest on Friday helped equities secure yet another round of weekly gains. The S&P 500 added 0.6% while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.4%) outperformed.

Quarterly earnings were in focus throughout the week, but more results will be released in coming weeks with 75.4% of S&P 500 members still due to report their earnings. So far, blended earnings for the second quarter are down 3.6% with energy (-78.2%) and materials (-10.1%) showing the largest blended declines while sectors like telecom services (+6.1%) and consumer discretionary (+8.5%) have shown blended earnings growth.

Next week will feature more quarterly reports, but central banks will be back in the spotlight, starting with a Wednesday policy statement from the Federal Reserve. The Fed will be followed by the Bank of Japan, which will announce the results of its meeting on Friday.

Investors have not shown much concern about the upcoming Fed meeting, considering the fed funds futures market implies just a 2.4% chance of a rate hike being announced on Wednesday. Rate hike expectations for the next two meetings remain subdued while the implied probability of a rate hike in December sits at 47.8%.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18516.55 18570.85 54.30 0.3 6.6
Nasdaq 5029.59 5100.16 70.57 1.4 1.9
S&P 500 2161.74 2175.03 13.29 0.6 6.4
Russell 2000 1205.31 1212.73 7.42 0.6 6.8

4:18 pm Closing Market Summary: Low Volume Affair Extends Recent Bull Run (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended an upbeat week on a higher note as the major averages soared to new all-time highs. The broader market maintained its bullish posture as investors examined a hodgepodge of quarterly earnings reports. Other focal points impacting today's trade included strengthening in the dollar, weakness from the oil pit, and key sector leadership from the technology (+0.5%), consumer discretionary (+0.5%), and financial (+0.6%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) finished in-line with the S&P 500 (+0.5%) and ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%).

Equity indices began the day on a choppy note as participants eyed a relatively flat finish in global bourses. Across the pond, the first batch of post-Brexit regional PMI readings came in on a mixed note as the United Kingdom's July Manufacturing PMI (49.1; last: 52.1) and July Services PMI (47.4; expected last: 52.3) each showed noticeable contractions. On the flipside, eurozone PMI fared better, but July Manufacturing PMI (51.9; last: 52.8) and July Services PMI (52.7; last: 52.8) both declined from their June readings.

The benchmark index slipped during the first hour of trade, finding its bearings after the preliminary reading of U.S. Markit Manufacturing PMI (52.9; last: 51.3) for July came in better than expected. The major averages rallied off their opening low as heavily-weighted industrials (+0.1%) and technology (+0.5%) erased their opening losses. All ten sectors finished in the green as financials (+0.6%), telecom services (+1.3%), and utilities (+1.3%) led the pack. The remaining gainers ended with upticks between 0.1% (industrials) and 0.5% (consumer discretionary).

The financial sector (+0.6%) extended its weekly gain to 0.7%, compared to a gain of 0.6% in the benchmark index. In the group, asset management companies outperformed as they rebounded alongside Bank of New York Mellon (BK 39.19, +0.59). Additionally, Dow component American Express (AXP 64.28, +0.85) outperformed as it rebounded in sympathy with Visa (V 79.91, +1.12). The credit service name beat bottom-line estimates for the quarter and announced an additional $5 billion in share buybacks. Separately, E*TRADE (ETFC 25.81, +0.59) climbed 2.3% as investors responded to a 10.5% increase in revenue year-over-year.

The consumer discretionary space (+0.5%) outperformed as restaurant names gained alongside Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 442.48, +24.41). The stock rallied 5.8% after reporting better-than-feared quarterly results. Elsewhere, Panera Bread (PNRA 215.54, +5.59) and Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD 140.77, +6.12) gained 2.7% and 4.6%, respectively. The two names are slated to report earnings next Tuesday. On the flipside, 21st Century Fox (FOXA 27.11, -0.07) underperformed after Fox News CEO Roger Ailes resigned from his position.

In the technology space (+0.5%), Dow component Microsoft (MSFT 56.57, +0.77) outperformed, extending its weekly advance to 5.3%. The high-beta chipmakers ended the day in-line with the broader sector as the group moved higher in sympathy with Advanced Micro (AMD 5.84, +0.62). The stock spiked 11.9% after beating estimates for the quarter and raising its third-quarter outlook. On the flipside, Skyworks (SWKS 64.81, -6.11) underperformed as inventory fears outweighed positive quarterly results.

The heavily-weighted industrial sector (+0.1%) finished above its flat line as rail names and airlines rebounded. Union Pacific (UNP 92.85, +1.92) jumped 2.1% after falling 3.4% yesterday. Dow component General Electric (GE 32.06, -0.53) rounded out the price-weighted index after reporting a 16.0% loss in organic orders. Elsewhere, Honeywell (HON 115.61, -3.05) finished lower by 2.6% after its top line failed to impress investors.

The U.S. Dollar Index (97.36, +0.36) settled higher as the yen, euro, and pound each slipped against the greenback. The dollar/yen pair finished higher by 0.2% (106.07) while the single currency ticked lower by 0.4% against the buck (1.0978). Separately, sterling fell 1.0% against the dollar (1.3098).

The Treasury complex finished on a mixed note with the yield on the 10-yr note rising one basis point to 1.56%.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average as fewer than 733 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today. Monday's economic calendar will also be empty, but data will pick up later in the week with a Wednesday release of the FOMC's July Policy Statement.

Week in Review: Stocks Climb to Record(er) Highs

The stock market flirted with its first weekly decline infour weeks, but steady buying interest on Friday helped equities secure yetanother round of weekly gains. The S&P 500 added 0.6% while the NasdaqComposite (+1.4%) outperformed.

Quarterly earnings were in focus throughout the week, butmore results will be released in coming weeks with 75.4% of S&P 500 membersstill due to report their earnings. So far, blended earnings for the secondquarter are down 3.6% with energy (-78.2%) and materials (-10.1%) showing thelargest blended declines while sectors like telecom services (+6.1%) andconsumer discretionary (+8.5%) have shown blended earnings growth.

Next week will feature more quarterly reports, but centralbanks will be back in the spotlight, starting with a Wednesday policy statementfrom the Federal Reserve. The Fed will be followed by the Bank of Japan, whichwill announce the results of its meeting on Friday.

Investors have not shown much concern about the upcoming Fedmeeting, considering the fed funds futures market implies just a 2.4% chance ofa rate hike being announced on Wednesday. Rate hike expectations for the nexttwo meetings remain subdued while the implied probability of a rate hike inDecember sits at 47.8%.

Russell 2000 +6.8% YTDDow Jones +6.6% YTDS&P 500 +6.4 YTDNasdaq Composite +1.9%
Broader market action ended the week modestly off highs. The S&P 500 made another all-time high, ending up 9.86 points (+0.46%) to 2175.03. The Nasdaq Composite led all major US indices today, gaining 26.26 points (+0.52%) to 5100.16, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 53.62 points (+0.29%) to 18570.85. This week's moves left the indices +6.4%, +1.8% and +6.6% YTD, respectively. There hasn't been many investors dipping their toes in the water as of late, though, as tepid volume continued this week with a Friday affair where about 732 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor versus an average near 947 million, and 1,513 million shares were exchanged at the NASDAQ floor versus an average of about 1,707 million.

Rebounding off morning weakness, the Technology (XLK 45.83, +0.29 +0.64%) sector ended near highs as component Skyworks (SWKS 64.81, -6.11 -8.62%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS, but the stock sold-off as pressure from Apple (AAPL 98.66, -0.77 -0.77%) related to iPhone demand took the stock lower. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed IYZ +2.63%, XLU +1.33%, XLF +0.64%, XLP +0.47%, XLY +0.42%, XLE +0.31%, XLB +0.27%, XLV +0.20%, XLI +0.19% with every sector experiencing some level of gains.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (757.00, +3.88 +0.52%) sector, trading capped off the third full week in July with gains as component PayPal (PYPL 37.42, -2.71 -6.75%) reported its Q2 results, but shares likely sold-off on a deal the company announced with Visa (V 79.91, +1.12 +1.42%), as shareholders are worried the agreement might dent profit margins. Other names in the sector that closed higher included NVDA +2.72%, CTXS +2.18%, ADSK +2.08%, QCOM +2.04%, EBAY +1.87%, NTAP +1.85%, ADBE +1.79%, CSRA +1.71%, RHT +1.62%, JNPR +1.58%, HPE +1.52%, WDC +1.45%, MSFT +1.38%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

PayPal (PYPL) and Visa (V) announced a U.S. strategic partnership that will result in an improved and more seamless payment experience for Visa cardholders and will offer greater choice in how consumers pay with the PayPal and Venmo wallets. The partnership puts PYPL and V on a new path, with the companies working more collaboratively to accelerate the adoption of safe, reliable and convenient digital payments for consumers and merchants. Further, the arrangement is designed to carry significant benefits for issuing financial institutions, acquirers, and merchants.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Skyworks (SWKS) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.28 per share from $0.26 per share. In addition, the BoDs authorized the repurchase of up to $400 million of common stock. This newly authorized stock repurchase program replaces in its entirety the $400 million stock repurchase program that was approved by the Board of Directors on November 10, 2015, and had about $73 million of repurchase authority remaining.

According to reports, Verizon (VZ 56.10, +0.73 +1.32%) is close to a deal to acquire Yahoo!'s (YHOO 39.38, +0.53 +1.36%) internet business; reports suggest a $5 billion price tag.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Ingram Micro (IM 34.26, -0.74 -2.11%) and Tianjin Tianhai Elect announced the deal remains on track to close in the second half of 2016.

TrueCar's (TRUE 8.99, +0.11 +1.24%) Chief Risk Officer John Stephenson will resign effective July 31.


Methode Electronics (MEI 34.73, +0.08 +0.23%) named John Hrudicka as CFO and VP of corporate finance effective July 25, succeeding Douglas Koman who is retiring.

BlackBerry (BBRY 6.88, +0.04 +0.58%) won a U.S. patent infringement lawsuit brought by Mobile Telecommunications.

According to the company's website, Workday (WDAY 79.97, +1.79 +2.29%) acquired operational analytics and data discovery company Platfora. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

ComScore (SCOR 26.71, -1.05 -3.78%) announced that co-founder Dr. Magid Abraham will resign as executive Chairman effective in 2018.

In reaction to quarterly results:

AT&T (T 43.11, +0.59 +1.39%) reported in-line Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.72 and $40.5 billion. T added 2.1 million wireless customers in the period and stated they are on track to meet or exceed full-year guidance.

Visa (V) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.69 on in-line revenues which rose 3.2% versus last year to $3.63 billion. Additionally, the company reaffirmed FY16 guidance of low double digit adjusted EPS ex-FX and 7-8% revenue growth, ex-FX.

PayPal (PYPL) reported in-line Q2 EPS of $0.36 on better than expected revenues which rose 15.4% versus last year to $2.65 billion. Further, PYPL guided in-line Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.33-0.35 and $2.62-2.67 billion, respectively. For FY16, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $1.47-1.50 and $10.75-10.85 billion, respectively.

Skyworks (SWKS) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.24 on in-line revenues of $751.7 million. The company sees Q4 EPS of about $1.43, modestly ahead of expectations on in-line revenue growth of 10-11% to about $827-834 million.

Maxim Integrated (MXIM 38.35, +0.64 +1.70%) reported mixed Q4 results with better than expected EPS of $0.49 and worse than expected revenues of $566.12 million. MXIM sees Q1 EPS and revenues in-line at $0.44-0.50 and $540-580 million, respectively.

Advanced Micro (AMD 5.84, +0.62 +11.88%) reported a better than expected Q2 loss per share of ($0.05) on better than expected revenues which grew 9.0% versus last year to $1.03 billion. AMD also issued upside Q3 revenue guidance of an 18% sequential increase, plus or minus 3%.

Proofpoint (PFPT 72.15, +6.88 +10.54%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.06 and $89.9 million, respectively. The company gave upside guidance for Q3 EPS of $0.04-0.06 and revenues of $93.5-94.5 million. For FY16, PFPT also sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $0.06-0.10 and $361.5-363.5 million, respectively.

Qumu (QUMU 3.40, -1.16 -25.44%) was weaker today as the company reported preliminary Q2 results which were below expectations. QUMU now sees Q2 EPS of ($0.48) versus prior expectations of ($0.40) and revenues of $6.5 million versus prior expectations for $8.7 million. The company pegged the lowered outlook on, 'several enterprise opportunities that would have enabled us to attain our revenue guidance were delayed into the second half of the year.'

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results Monday morning: EEFT, SILC, S
Analyst actions:

SINA was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies;
PFPT was downgraded to Sector Weight and P was downgraded to Underweight at Pacific Crest,
TWTR was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
FB was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BTIG Research,
ETFC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
PYPL was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
ADS was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital,
SOHU was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup;
CMTL was initiated with a Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann,
PYTCY was initiated with a Buy at Berenberg

4:05 pm Monolithic Power names Bernie Blegen as CFO (MPWR) : Blegen has served as interim chief financial officer since March 2016

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From Briefing.com: 4:35 pm Texas Instruments beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TXN) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.76 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.72; revenues rose 1.3% year/year to $3.27 bln vs the $3.2 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Gross MArgin was 61.2%
Q2 Free Cash Flow $911 mln
Free Cash Flow as a percentage of revenue TTM is 30.0%

Returns $382 mln in dividend, $527 mln in share repurchase for a total return of $909 mln in the quarter.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.81-0.91, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.81 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $3.34-3.62 bln vs. $3.38 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:09 pm Cadence Design beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS & revs below consensus; guides FY16 in-line (CDNS) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.29 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues rose 8.9% year/year to $453.02 mln vs the $449.51 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.27-0.29 vs. $0.31 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $440-450 mln vs. $457.20 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.17-1.23 vs. $1.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $1.80-1.83 bln vs. $1.82 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Sanmina beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SANM) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.63 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.62; revenues rose 8.5% year/year to $1.67 bln vs the $1.65 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP Operating Margin 3.7%
Cash flow from operations was $81.5 million
Inventory turns were 6.7x
Cash cycle days were 42.6 days

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.64-0.68, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.67 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $1.675-1.725 bln vs. $1.72 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Smith Micro Software acquires iMobileMagic; terms not disclosed (SMSI) : With the acquisition, Smith Micro gains new mobile operator customers in Europe and Asia, as well as a team of mobile software developers in Braga, Portugal.

4:06 pm Electronics For Imaging misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line; reaffirms FY16 revs guidance (EFII) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.56 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.57; revenues rose 21.2% year/year to $245.65 mln vs the $247.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $1 bln vs. $1.01 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:03 pm Monolithic Power reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line (MPWR) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.54 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 15.5% year/year to $94.08 mln vs the $93.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $104-108 mln vs. $104.10 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees GAAP gross margin between 54.0% and 55.0%. Non-GAAP gross margin between 54.8% and 55.8%

4:15 pm : The stock market began the week on a lower note, pulling back alongside a sustained downturn in crude oil. Participants maintained a cautious posture ahead of upcoming macroeconomic events and influential earnings reports. Additional focal points impacting today's trade included softening in the dollar and weakness from the heavyweight industrial (-0.6%) sector. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) finished behind the S&P 500 (-0.3%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%).

U.S. equities began the day on a choppy note, responding to a lack of conviction in European averages. Regional bourses slipped through the session as participants favored a cautious approach ahead of July policy statements from the Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan. The Federal Reserve is set to deliver its latest policy statement on Wednesday while the Bank of Japan is scheduled to conclude its two-day policy meeting on Friday. Additionally, the European Central Bank will release bank stress test results later in the week.

U.S. equities pulled back through the morning as oil extended an early loss. The energy component slipped from the $43.30/bbl price level at the start of the session, eventually carving out a session low ($42.98/bbl) near midday. The S&P 500 (-0.5%) moved lower lockstep with oil, finding support near the 2163/2165 price level. The broader market ticked higher in the final hour as nine sectors trimmed their losses. The commodity-sensitive energy sector (-2.0%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard, following industrials (-0.6%), and telecom services (-0.4%).

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.9%) displayed relative weakness as airline names extended their recent rout. The U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 22.42, -0.21) declined by 0.9% as JetBlue Airways (JBLU 17.28, -0.30) underperformed ahead of tomorrow morning's earnings release. Separately, Kansas City Southern (KSU 96.41, -1.43) and Canadian Pacific (CP 146.91, -2.25) weighed on the rail sub-group.

In the heavily-weighted industrial sector (-0.6%), diversified machine names underperformed. Roper (ROP 163.33, -9.98) declined by 5.8% after missing estimates and lowering its earnings guidance for the full year. Elsewhere, Dow component General Electric (GE 31.64, -0.42) extended its post-earnings decline to 2.9%.

The countercyclical health care sector (-0.1%) finished ahead of the benchmark index as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 282.26, +1.36) extended its monthly gain to 9.7%. Gilead Sciences (GILD 88.55, +2.00) displayed relative strength ahead of this evening's earnings release. Conversely, health care servicers underperformed as Aetna (AET 117.84, -2.62) and Cigna (CI 140.21, -5.79) declined 2.2% and 4.0%, respectively.

In the technology sector (-0.2%), Yahoo! (YHOO 38.32, -1.06) finished lower by 2.7% after agreeing to sell its operating business to Verizon (VZ 55.87, -0.23) for approximately $4.83 billion in cash. Separately, Dow component Apple (AAPL 97.34, -1.32) demonstrated relative weakness after being downgraded to "Sell" from "Hold" at BGC Financial.

The U.S. Dollar Index (97.27, -0.20) ended near its session low as the yen, pound, and euro each gained against the buck. The euro/dollar pair finished higher by 0.1% (1.0991) while the dollar lost 0.3% against the yen (105.79). Separately, sterling gained 0.2% against the dollar (1.3135).

Treasuries finished on a mixed note as the yield on the 10-yr note settled unchanged at 1.57%.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average as fewer than 757 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 9:00 ET release of the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for May (Briefing.com consensus 5.4%). Separately, Consumer Confidence for July (Briefing.com consensus 96.0) and New Home Sales for June (Briefing.com consensus 560k) will both cross the wires at 10:00 ET. DJ30 -77.79 NASDAQ -2.53 SP500 -6.55 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1197/1.639 bln/1684 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1102/756.0 mln/1859

3:30 pm :

The dollar index is down -0.2% around the 97.25 level, not appearing to aid commodities in afternoon trade
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.8% at the 83.92 level
Crude oil slides and closes near 3-month lows ahead of tomorrow's API data
September crude oil futures fell $1.08 (-2.4%) to $43.13/barrel
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell
EIA petroleum data will be released Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released on Friday at 1 pm ET
Monthly IEA data will be released Aug 11
Natural gas plummets to close near session lows, giving back over half of Friday's gains
September natural gas closed $0.07 lower (-2.5%) at $2.71/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold sees an afternoon of consolidation before trending lower for the day
August gold ended today's session down $3.70 (-0.3%) to $1319.50/oz
Silver futures trade nearly flat, rallying to afternoon highs around $19.75/oz before pulling back & consolidating near parity with the previous session's close
September silver closed today's session $0.02 lower (-0.1%) at $19.65/oz
Base metal copper inches lower to end afternoon pit trading
September copper closed $0.01 lower (-0.5%) at $2.22/lb

Equity futures were little changed overnight as global bourses settled on a mixed note. Japan's Nikkei (UNCH) finished flat as investors displayed little conviction ahead of Friday's policy statement from the Bank of Japan. European markets finished mostly lower while Germany's DAX outperformed after the release of the July IFO Business Climate survey (108.3).

The major averages ebbed lower at the start of the session as a downturn in crude oil pulled commodity-sensitive energy to the bottom of the leaderboard. The energy component fell from the $43.40/bbl price level at the start of the session, and September crude oil futures ended Monday down by $1.08 (-2.4%) to $43.13/barrel. The pullback in the broader market was limited as investors look ahead to tomorrow evening's earnings report from top-weighted Apple (AAPL 97.34, -1.32 -1.34%) and Wednesday's July policy statement from the FOMC.

Monday trading ended with the a modestly lower bias. Higher action into the close made the day slightly better to look at as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down at one point during the day more than 118 points, yet finished the day only 77.79 points (-0.42%) off Friday's close to 18493.06. The S&P 500 was lower by 6.55 points (-0.30%) to 2168.48, and the Nasdaq Composite could not quite make it above flat lines, shedding 2.53 points (-0.05%) today to end 5097.63.

When the day was done, Technology (XLK 45.77, -0.06 -0.13%) was about middle of the pack versus other sectors as measured by the S&P -- XLE -1.99%, XLI -0.53%, XLF -0.21%, XLU -0.17%, XLB -0.16%, XLP -0.11%, XLV -0.11%, XLY +0.16%, IYZ +0.52% dragged lower by Energy and Industrials. Component Micon (MU 13.92, +0.79 +6.02%) out-performed today in light of what many were deeming a "poison pill" stockholder protection rights agreement in which the company declared a dividend of one right for each share.

The S&P 500 Information Technology (756.06, -0.95 -0.13%) sector closed the session about middle of the daily trading range as component Yahoo! (YHOO 38.32, -1.06 -2.69%) under-performed following confirmation of a deal between the company and telecom firm Verizon (VZ 55.87, -0.23 -0.41%) for VZ to acquire the operating business of YHOO for about $4.83 billion in cash. Other components in the space which closed lower today included V -1.21%, ADSK -0.95%, ADBE -0.75%, MA -0.70%, QCOM -0.69%, SYMC -0.68%, WDC -0.63%, APH -0.56%, STX -0.44%, CRM -0.44%.

Other notable news items among components:

Yahoo! (YHOO) confirmed it will sell its operating business to Verizon (VZ) for about $4.83 billion in cash.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 24.06, +0.29 +1.22%) announced it is part of Verizon (VZ) Enterprise Solutions' tech partner ecosystem. With Juniper's Cloud CPE solution serving as a foundational engine for Verizon's Virtual Network Services, enterprises will have greater choice in selecting the right solution for their needs.

Micron (MU) declared dividend of one right for each share of common stock outstanding at the close of business on August 1.

LinkedIn (LNKD 191.94, +1.99 +1.05%) in proxy statement scheduling the special meeting to vote on its pending acquisition by Microsoft (MSFT 56.73, +0.16 +0.28%) disclosed an email received from Party A (The other bidder whom was reported to be Salesforce (CRM 82.19, -0.36 -0.44%)), in which it said it would have made a 'bid much higher' should the two have continued talks.

Tele2 has selected Nokia's (NOK 5.81, -0.05 -0.85%) Cloud Packet Core solution to transform its core network to meet growing customer demand for high performance mobile broadband services.

Teradata (TDC 28.31, +0.10 +0.35%) has purchased Big Data Partnership, an EMEA-based services provider of big data solutions and training.

Norsat (NSAT 6.25, -0.19 -2.95%) received an approximate $3.8 million order from Harris Corp (HRS 85.50, -10.6 -1.22%) for its compact and efficient ATOM series Solid State Power Amplifiers.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Zayo Group Holdings (ZAYO 29.27, -0.45 -1.51%) announced the completion of term loan repricing. $361 million tranche made fungible with existing term loan B-1.

Ericsson's (ERIC 7.44, +0.08 +1.09%) CEO stepped down. The company announced current CFO will assume the CEO position, and it has initiated a search for new CEO.

Monolithic Power (MPWR 73.21, +1.13 +1.57%) named Bernie Blegen as CFO.

E*TRADE (ETFC 24.99, -0.82 -3.18%) to acquire Aperture New Holdings, the parent co of OptionsHouse, for $725 million in cash. The company expects earnings accretion from the deal in 2018.

Straight Path Comms (STRP 23.90, -7.05 -22.78%) updated investors on investigation into allegations regarding the circumstances under which certain of its 39 GHz spectrum licenses were renewed by the FCC.

Liberty Interactive (QVCA 26.76, -0.07 -0.26%) has completed the spin-off of its subsidiary CommerceHub (CHUBA 12.96, -0.57 -4.21).

Nintendo (NTDOY 29.00, -3.42 -10.55%) provided the impact of Pokmon GO. The company made no change to its financial forecast.

Netflix (NFLX 87.66, +1.77 +2.06%) and 20th Century Fox Television Distribution (FOXA 26.85, -0.26 -0.96%) today announced their first global SVOD licensing agreement.

Twitter (TWTR 18.65, +0.28 +1.52%) announced a live streaming partnership for MLB Games, NHL games and nightly highlights program from 120 sports.

Baidu (BIDU 160.25, -0.63 -0.39%) announced that the special committee of its board of directors received a letter from Mr. Robin Yanhong Li, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu, and Mr. Yu Gong, chief executive officer of Qiyi.com, Inc., who led a consortium of potential buyers, stating that the Buyer Group would withdraw the non-binding proposal, dated February 1, 2016, to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Qiyi.com, Inc. beneficially owned by Baidu, with immediate effect. The letter stated that as the Buyer Group and Baidu had not been able to reach an agreement on transaction structure and purchase price after rounds of discussions and negotiations, the Buyer Group had determined not to proceed with the Proposal.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Sprint (S 5.90, +1.30 +28.26%) reported in-line Q1 EPS and revenues at a loss per share of $0.08 and $8.01 billion, respectively. The company added 173,000 postpaid phone net additions in the period and reaffirmed FY16 operating income guidance of $1 billion to $1.5 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $9.5 billion to $10 billion.

Silicom Limited (SILC 35.12, +3.82 +12.20%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.63 and $26 million, respectively.

Scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: CDNS, CMP, CLGX, EFII, GIG, MPWR, SANM, TXN/AXE, AUDC, CHKP, CVLT, CTG, EEFT, FIS, MBLY, RDWR, VZ

Analyst actions:

NTDOY was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
OCLR, NPTN, LITE, INFN were upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Needham,
HPE was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
IBM and QCOM were downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research,
DATA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank,
FLIR was downgraded to Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James;
ZAYO and LVLT were initiated with a Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
QTWO was initiated with an Equal Weight at Morgan Stanly

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:57 pm Applied Micro misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line (AMCC) :

Reports Q1 (Jun) loss of $0.03 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.02); revenues rose 9.8% year/year to $41.5 mln vs the $41.51 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We are pleased with the progress we've made in both our base Connectivity business as well as our Computing business. Our PAM4 single lambda 100/400G FinFET technology continues to lead the market, while our X-Gene product line gained meaningful traction and was deployed at top hyperscale data center customers."

4:48 pm Lam Research beats by $0.16, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (LRCX) :

Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $1.80 per share, $0.16 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.64; revenues rose 4.4% year/year to $1.55 bln vs the $1.53 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin of 46.6%, non-GAAP operating margin of 23.2%, and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $1.80.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.67-1.87 vs. $1.74 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.55-1.70 bln vs. $1.59 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Sees shipments of $1.625-1.775 bln

"We believe that our underlying fundamentals and multi-year outperformance opportunity remain strong on a standalone basis, and subsequent to closing our merger with KLA-Tencor [KLAC] we are focused on further strengthening that position and accelerating innovation for the benefit of our customers."

4:34 pm MKS Instruments beats by $0.24, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (MKSI) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.72 per share, $0.24 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.48; revenues rose 49.5% year/year to $325.9 mln vs the $288.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.64-0.86 vs. $0.67 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $345-385 mln vs. $359.76 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:19 pm Infinera beats by $0.03, beats on revs, co will guide on the earnings call today at 5:00 pm ET - shares halted (INFN) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.21 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.18; revenues rose 24.8% year/year to $258.82 mln vs the $255.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 50.4% compared to 50.2% in the first quarter of 2016 and 47.4% in the second quarter of 2015.

Non-GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 13.2% compared to 12.3% in the first quarter of 2016 and 13.0% in the second quarter of 2015.

"While I am very pleased with our second quarter and year to date financial results, demand is softening in certain areas of our business and we face a difficult near-term revenue outlook," said Tom Fallon, Infinera's Chief Executive Officer. "Despite the current challenges, I am confident that by continuing to deliver the differentiated technologies and superior service that our customers have come to expect, we will earn significant market share over time across all of the markets that we serve."

Co will guide on the earnings call today at 5:00 pm ET

4:17 pm Marvell misses by $0.06, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS, revs above consensus (MRVL) :

Reports Q1 (Apr) earnings of $0.01 per share, $0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.07; revenues fell 25.3% year/year to $540.82 mln vs the $574.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

GAAP gross margin percentage for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 was 52.1 percent, compared to 50.9 percent for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 and 51.5 percent for the first quarter of fiscal 2016.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.10-0.12 vs. $0.09 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $625-635 mln vs. $587.18 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; GAAP and Non-GAAP

Gross Margins are expected to be in the range of 52 percent to 54 percent.

The preparation and filing of the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 ended April 30, 2016 has not yet been completed. The Company is working diligently to complete the preparation and filing of the Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2017 as soon as practicable, at which time Marvell believes it will regain full compliance with Nasdaq continued listing requirements.

4:05 pm Coherent misses by $0.04, beats on revs (COHR) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.07 per share, $0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.11; revenues rose 16.1% year/year to $218.8 mln vs the $211.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:03 pm Cirrus Logic beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (CRUS) :

Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.44 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.29; revenues fell 8.2% year/year to $259.4 mln vs the $236.67 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $380-410 mln vs. $322.30 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; GAAP gross margin expected to be in the range of 47-49%.4:15 pm : The stock market ended Wednesday on a mixed note, responding to a positive bottom-line reading from top-weighted Apple (AAPL 103.03, +6.36) and the latest policy statement from the Federal Open Market Committee. Other contributing factors impacting today's trade included weakness from the oil patch, softening in the dollar, and the outperformance of the heavily-weighted health care (+0.4%) and technology (+0.8%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) ended ahead of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (UNCH) and the S&P 500 (-0.1%).

Equity indices gained at the start of the session as investors responded to better-than-expected quarterly results from Apple (AAPL 103.03, +6.36) and further easing measures from Japan. Top-weighted Apple boosted the influential technology sector (+0.8%) after reporting above-consensus bottom-line results and issuing better-than-expected guidance for the fourth quarter. Separately, Japan's Nikkei (+1.7%) paced the advance overseas after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unveiled a fiscal stimulus package totaling JPY28 trillion. The terms of the stimulus package are expected to be compiled next month, but there are doubts about how much direct stimulus will be involved.

The major averages pulled back from their opening highs shortly after the release of a disappointing weekly inventory report from the Department of Energy. The report showed a surprise increase in crude oil inventories (+1.67 million barrels; estimated: -2.25 million barrels) while gasoline stockpiles (+0.45 million barrels; consensus +0.03 million) also missed their mark. In response, the energy component fell from the $43.00/bbl price level, ending its day lower by 2.4% ($41.90/bbl; -$1.01).

The broader market hovered near its session low through the afternoon as investors looked ahead to the release of the FOMC's July policy statement. The statement struck a somewhat hawkish tone, indicating that near-term risks to the economic outlook had diminished. However, investors appear somewhat skeptical of the potential for a rate hike by the end of the year. The fed funds futures market currently reflects the implied probability of an interest rate hike at the December meeting at 46.8%, ticking down from yesterday's estimate of 51.5%.

The benchmark index ended off its low as technology (+0.8%), telecom services (+0.7%), and health care (+0.4%) led the advance. On the flipside, consumer staples (-1.5%), utilities (-1.2%), and energy (-1.0%) rounded out the board.

The influential technology sector (+0.8%) demonstrated relative strength as large cap component Apple (AAPL 103.03, +6.36) rallied 6.6%. Additionally, heavily-weighted Facebook (FB 123.34, +2.12) jumped 1.8% ahead of this evening's earnings report. The high-beta chipmakers finished ahead of the broader market as Cavium Networks (CAVM 46.84, +3.11) topped the price-weighted index. The company reported an in-line quarter, but raised its earnings estimates above consensus.

Biotechnology outperformed in the health care space (+0.4%) evidenced by the 2.4% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 287.03, +6.75). Allergan (AGN 260.24, +11.29) helped lead the ETF after Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA 55.16, +0.85) announced that its acquisition of Allergan's generic division should close next week.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-1.5%) displayed relative weakness as rail names and freight companies underperformed. Norfolk Southern (NSC 90.14, -2.61) fell 2.8% after reporting that overall volume declined 7.0% year-over-year. However, the company did top bottom-line estimates. Separately, C.H. Robinson (CHRW 38.35, -3.79) lost 5.3% after quarterly revenue failed to meet analysts' estimates. The company reported that its top line shrank 6.9% year-over-year.

In the consumer staples sector (-1.5%), beverage names underperformed as Coca-Cola (KO 43.40, -1.48) lost 3.3%. The company lowered its full-year earnings estimates below consensus. SABMiller (SBMRY 56.25, -1.40) ended lower by 2.4% amid reports that the company has ordered employees to halt integration work with Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD 121.94, -4.66). The move followed yesterday's revised bid for the company.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.81, -0.36) finished near its session low as the euro and the pound gained against the greenback. The single currency gained 0.6% against the dollar (1.1054) while cable jumped 0.5% (1.3195). The two currencies notched highs against the dollar after the release of the FOMC's July policy statement. Separately, the dollar/yen ended higher by 0.5% (105.20).

Treasuries ended higher as yields declined throughout the complex. The yield on the 10-yr note slipped six basis points to 1.51%.

Today's trading volume was above the recent average as more than 960 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, Durable Orders for June, and Pending Home Sales for June:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted decrease of 11.2% in mortgage applications after declining 1.3% in the prior week.
Durable goods orders declined 4.0% in June (Briefing.com consensus -1.0%) on top of a downwardly revised 2.8% decline in May (from -2.2%).
Excluding transportation, orders were down 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.4% decline in May (from -0.3%).
The June report was particularly disappointing since it revealed order declines in just about every category -- and a number of categories, including primary metals, registered a second consecutive monthly decline in orders.
The notable exception in June was orders for motor vehicle and parts, which increased 2.6%. The only other area to see in an increase in orders was electrical equipment, appliances and components (+0.8%).
Nondefense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft, were up 0.2% after a 0.5% decline in May.
This metric is seen as a proxy for business spending, so it holds a little silver lining for June; however, it would be remiss not to mention that they are down 3.8% year-over-year.
Shipments of these goods, which factor into GDP computations, declined 0.4% in June after falling 0.5% in May.
On a year-over-year basis, durable goods orders are unchanged. Excluding transportation, they are down 1.1%.
Pending Home Sales for June rose by 0.2% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 1.1%. Separately, the May decline was unrevised at 3.7%.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 260k) and June International Trade in Goods (Briefing.com consensus -$61.2 billion), which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +7.3% YTD
Dow Jones +6.0% YTD
S&P 500 +6.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +2.6% YTD

DJ30 -1.58 NASDAQ +29.76 SP500 -2.60 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1692/1.939 bln/1298 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1399/960.8 mln/1592 3:30 pm :

The dollar index is down -0.3% around the 96.85 level, boosting select commodities
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are down -0.7% around the 83.13 level
Crude oil reverses initial morning gains & plummets to 3-month lows after EIA data showed a surprise build compared to Consensus
August crude oil futures fell $1.01 (-2.4%) to $41.90/barrel
EIA data highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +1.671 mln (consensus called for a draw between -1.6 mln and -2.6 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +0.452 mln
Distillate inventories had a draw of -0.780 mln
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Monthly IEA data will be released Aug 11
Natural gas drifts lower and consolidates around its lows of the session ahead of tomorrow's inventory number
August natural gas closed $0.02 lower (-0.8%) at $2.66/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold sees an initial morning bounce and an afternoon of sideways trading, closing near highs of the day
August gold ended today's session up $5.80 (+0.4%) to $1326.60/oz
Silver futures see a sustained uptrend, closing near its highs of the session as the dollar index loses momentum
September silver closed today's session $0.31 higher (+1.6%) at $19.99/oz
Base metal copper extends yesterday's losses in afternoon pit trading
September copper closed $0.04 lower (-1.8%) at $2.19/lb
The earnings season remains in full-swing as stronger-than-expected bottom-line results from top-weighted Apple (AAPL 102.95, +6.28 +6.50%) helped buoy the broader market ahead of the release of the July FOMC policy statement. Equity markets notched highs at the start of the session, responding to a positive bias in global bourses. Japan's Nikkei (+1.7%) paced the advance in overseas markets after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unveiled a JPY28 trillion fiscal stimulus package. The announcement precedes Friday's policy statement from the Bank of Japan.


Market data ahead of the Fed included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which showed a seasonally adjusted decrease of 11.2% in mortgage applications after declining 1.3% in the prior week. Also, durable goods orders declined 4.0% in June on top of a downwardly revised 2.8% decline in May (from -2.2%). Excluding transportation, orders were down 0.5% on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.4% decline in May (from -0.3%). Additionally, Pending Home Sales for June rose by 0.2% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 1.1%. Separately, the May decline was unrevised at 3.7%.

To little surprise, the FOMC policy statement left the fed funds target range at 0.25% to 0.50%. The statement did not raise concerns that policymakers are in a rush to raise rates, but it was noted that near-term risks to the economic outlook have diminished. Kansas City Fed President Esther George dissented, voting for a 25-basis point hike to a range between 0.50% and 0.75%.

Wednesday ended mixed after the Fed statement. Leading the way higher was the Nasdaq Composite, which added 29.76 points (+0.58%) to 5139.81. The S&P 500 was the worst performer today, shedding 2.60 points (-0.12%) to 2166.58. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.58 points (-0.01%) today to close 18472.17.

The Technology (XLK 46.25, +0.36 +0.78%) sector led all others higher but finished just off HoDs. Component Akamai Tech (AKAM 50.51, -7.58 -13.05%) was the worst performer in the sector today as the company reported a modest Q2 and guided Q3 revenues below market expectations. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLV +0.45%, XLB +0.12%, XLF -0.04%, IYZ -0.26%, XLY -0.31%, XLI -0.39%, XLE -0.98%, XLU -1.15%, XLP -1.49% as Tech led all others higher, and Consumer Staples lagged.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (765.10, +5.85 +0.77%) sector, trading mirrored the Tech sector and broader market. Component Juniper Networks (JNPR 22.57, -1.65 -6.81%) was another earnings play; the stock was lower today following the report which beat on the top and bottom lines. JNPR guided light for Q3, however, possibly creating the catalyst for the stock pressure. Other names in the space which ended higher included QRVO +4.36%, QCOM +1.89%, ADSK +1.48%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

LogMeIn (LOGM 83.62, +13.87 +19.89%) confirmed it will merge with Citrix's (CTXS 87.98, -1.35 -1.51%) GoTo family of products in a $1.8 billion deal.

Corning (GLW 21.49, -0.22 -1.01%) in addition to reporting quarterly results, GLW announced a $2 billion accelerated repurchase program.

IBM (IBM 161.83, -0.29 -0.18%) filed a mixed securities shelf offering for undisclosed amount.

IBM Security (IBM) announced a new app for IBM QRadar which analyzes the usage patterns of insiders, including employees, contractors and partners, to determine if their credentials or systems have been compromised by cybercriminals.

Qualcomm (QCOM 62.51, +1.16 +1.89%) and Lear (LEA 116.44, +1.54 +1.34%) entered into a Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging license agreement.

Alphabet (GOOG 741.77, +3.35 +0.45%) acquired LaunchKit. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

EPIQ Systems (EPIQ 16.35, +1.93 +13.38%) to be acquired by OMERS Private Equity and funds managed by Harvest Partners for $16.50 per share in cash.

Aehr Test Systems (AEHR 1.82 +0.02 +1.11%) received $4 million in follow-on orders for its Advanced Burn-in and Test Systems.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Cavium Networks (CAVM 46.84, +3.11 +7.11%) named Raghib Hussain as COO.

Broadridge Financial (BR 68.18, -0.19 -0.28%) signed an agreement with SEI (SEIC 45.71, -5.37 -10.51%) that will provide SEI private banking clients access to Broadridge's global securities class action services.

LG Display (LPL 13.98, +1.01 +7.79%) announced a KRW 1.99 trillion investment in small and medium-sized OLED display production facility.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Apple (AAPL) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.42 on mostly in-line revenues which fell 14.6% versus last year to $42.36 billion. Additionally, iPhone sales were 40.4 million, iPad sales were 9.95 million and Mac sales were 4.2 million in the period. AAPL also issued upside guidance for Q4 revenues of $45.5-47.5 billion on gross margins of 37.5-38%.

T-Mobile US (TMUS 45.64, +0.66 +1.47%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.25 and $9.2 billion. Reported total net additions of 1.9 million in the quarter. Also raised customer outlook and narrowed adjusted EBITDA target for 2016 - guidance range for branded postpaid net additions increased to 3.4-3.8 million from 3.2-3.6 million and adjusted EBITDA target was narrowed to $9.8-10.1 billion from $9.7-10.2 billion, respectively.

ARM Holdings (ARMH 66.20, -0.03 -0.05%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of GBP 0.09 on revenues which rose 17.1% versus last year yet missed market expectations at GBP 267.6 million.

Corning (GLW) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.37 on in-line revenues of $2.36 billion.

Level 3 (LVLT 52.65, -3.34 -5.97%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.53 on worse than expected revenues of $2.06 billion. Also, LVLT reaffirmed 2016 guidance of adjusted EBITDA growth of 10-12% and free cash flow of $1.0-1.1 billion.

Linear Tech (LLTC 59.23, -3.26 -5.22%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.54 on in-line revenues of $373.77 million.

Citrix Systems (CTXS) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.20 and $843 million, respectively. The company also guided Q3 EPS and revenues above market expectations at $1.18-1.20 and $820-830 million, respectively. For FY16, the company sees EPS of $5.00-5.10 versus prior guidance of $4.90-5.00 on revenues of $3.37-3.39 billion, up from prior $3.34-3.36 billion.

Twitter (TWTR 15.77, -2.68 -14.53%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.13 on revenues which rose 19.9% versus last year to $602 million. Monthly Active Users were 313 million, up 3% versus last year. Advertising revenues were $535 million, an 18% increase versus a year ago. Sees Q3 revenues worse than market expectations at $590-610 million and sees FY16 adjusted EBITDA margins of 26-27% versus prior 25-27%.

Akamai Tech (AKAM) reported in-line Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.64 and $572.1 million, respectively. Guided Q3 revenues worse than market expectations at $566-578 million.

Juniper Networks (JNPR) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.50 and $1.22 billion. The company also guided Q3 EPS and revenues in-line at $0.48-0.54 and $1.22-1.28 billion, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AMCC ARRS AXTI CA CMPR CRUS COHR DLB ECHO FB FORR GPRO GRPN INFN KS LRCX LLNW LPSN LOGI MANT MB MKSI NATI NCIT NTGR NTRI NXPI OTEX QTM NOW SPSC SSNC SPRT TER TTMI TYL WSTL XLNX/ACIW ADP BCE BCOR CCMP CLFD COMM DBD EXLS FCS GPN GRUB IPGP IRDM KEM LDOS MA MITK NTCT NICE SFE SQNS TZOO VNTV WILN YNDX

Analyst actions:

AAPL was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
LLTC was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Raymond James and to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup,
ADI was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman and to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
LOGM was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
SPWR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Guggenheim,
MBLY was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Dougherty & Company,
DASTY was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Societe Generale; T
WTR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Axiom Capital, Cantor Fitzgerald and Canaccord Genuity,
VZ was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Hilliard Lyons,
CTXS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
CLGX was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
AKAM and LOGM were downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
LLTC was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:49 pm Ixys misses by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs in-line (IXYS) : Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.14 per share, $0.05 worse than the single analyst estimate of $0.19; revenues fell 1.7% year/year to $80.64 mln vs the $79.93 mln single analyst estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of at least $80.65 mln vs. $80.97 mln single analyst estimate.

4:36 pm Ingram Micro beats by $0.12, beats on revs, gross margin +88 bps y/y to 7.1% (IM) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.61 per share, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49; revenues fell 4.1% year/year to $10.12 bln vs the $9.74 bln Capital IQ Consensus.2016 second quarter worldwide sales were negatively impacted versus last year by nearly $200 million, or 2 percent, related to the company negotiating a favorable change in contract terms with some customers in Europe, as highlighted earlier this year, which leads to recognizing these sales on a net basis versus a gross basis as the company did in the second quarter of last year. Last year's second quarter sales also benefited from approximately $125 million, or 1 percent, in North American mobility distribution business that the company elected to exit this year due to profitability levels that did not meet the company's objectives. Recent acquisitions contributed approximately 2 percentage points of growth to 2016 second quarter worldwide sales. Gross margin increased 88 basis points year-over-year to 7.10 percent. A better mix of high value business and solid operating leverage across most regions more than offset continued strategic investment, particularly in cloud and commerce and fulfillment solutions in international markets.Earlier in the year, Ingram Micro announced it will be acquired by Tianjin Tianhai Investment Co. for $38.90 a share in cash.

4:30 pm Ultra Clean Holdings beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (UCTT) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.08; revenues rose 10.5% year/year to $129.83 mln vs the $125.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.11-0.14, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $133-138 mln vs. $127.18 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:29 pm Cypress Semi reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CY) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.12; non-GAAP revenue came in at $456.4 mln vs the $455.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.12-0.16, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 non-GAAP revs of $510-540 mln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $475.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:23 pm Intersil beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ISIL) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.16 and at the high end of $0.15-0.17 prior guidance; revenues rose 1.2% year/year and 3.7% sequentially to $134.0 mln vs the $133.35 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $130-136 mln. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.18-0.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $135-140 mln vs. $138.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Revenue improved sequentially due to strength in the company's I&I products. Aerospace revenue achieved a recent record, while automotive revenue was near record levels in the quarter. Both I&I power and industrial analog were up again sequentially as a result of improving end market demand.

4:20 pm Pixelworks beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs below consensus (PXLW) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.03 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.08); revenues fell 16.6% year/year to $12.58 mln vs the $12.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $13-14 mln vs. $14.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Gross profit margin of approximately 48% to 50% on both a GAAP basis and non-GAAP basis; Operating expenses of $8 million to $9 million on a GAAP basis and $7 million to $8 million on a non-GAAP basis.

4:19 pm Western Digital beats preannounced earnings, beats on revs (WDC) :

Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.79 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.71; revenues rose 9.5% year/year to $3.5 bln vs the $3.45 bln Capital IQ Consensus. On July 6, co preannounced Q4 EPS $0.72 from $0.65-0.70 guidance vs $0.68 Capital IQ Consensus; revs $3.46 bln from $3.35-3.45 bln vs $3.41 bln Capital IQ ConsensusCo guides on their call, which begins at 5:00 pm ET.

4:16 pm Rudolph Tech beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (RTEC) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.24; revenues rose 5.4% year/year to $62.7 mln vs the $60.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.27-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $59-63 mln vs. $61.30 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:13 pm Microsemi beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (MSCC) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.73 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.72; revenues rose 36.0% year/year to $431.4 mln vs the $430.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.83-0.97, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.86 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $438-458 mln vs. $444.32 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12 pm Luminex beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus; guides FY16 revs above consensus (LMNX) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.33 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.18; revenues rose 8.9% year/year to $64.17 mln vs the $61.0 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $67-70 mln vs. $62.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues upside guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $261-269 mln vs. $251.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Note: This revised full year revenue guidance factors in a contribution from Nanosphere of between $13-16 mln in the second half of 2016. "Another record quarterly revenue result, driven by a strong performance in our partner business, along with healthy gross margins and overall profitability, reflect the strength of our business and our ability to execute well...Clearly, we are excited about the addition of Nanosphere. The excellent strategic fit and high growth potential will reward customers and shareholders alike."

4:09 pm Alphabet beats by $0.38, beats on revs (GOOG) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $8.42 per share, $0.38 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $8.04; revenues rose 21.3% year/year to $21.5 bln vs the $20.77 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Non-GAAP Operating Margin 35% compared to 34% in Q1Cost of revenues as a % 38% compared to 37% in prior yearCapEx $2.123 bln compared to $2.515 bln in prior year period.Free Cash Flow $6.997 bln compared to $4.581 bln in prior year.Other Bets revenue $185 mln compared to $74 mln in prior year; Operating Loss $859 mln compared to $660 mln in prior year.Aggregate Paid Clicks Q2 +29%;-Q1 +29%;Q4 +31%; Q3 +23%. Paid Clicks on Google websites- Q2 +37%;Q1 +38%; Q4 +40%; Q3 +35%. Paid clicks on member sites- Q2 0%;Q1 +2%; Q4 +2%; Q3 -5%. Aggregate cost per click- Q2 -7%; Q1 -9%; Q4 -13%; Q3 -11% CPC on Google sites- Q2 -9%;Q1 -12%; Q4 -16%; Q3 -16%. CPC on member sites- Q1 -8%; -8%; Q4 -8%; Q3 -4%.

4:09 pm Amazon beats on the top and botton line; guides Q3 revs in-line (AMZN) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.78 per share, $0.66 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.12; revenues rose 31.1% year/year to $30.4 bln vs the $29.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus and $28.0-30.5 bln guidance.Operating income $1.3 bln vs. $375-975 mln guidance and $900 mln estimate.North American sales +28% to $16.52 bln; operating income +102% to $702 mln.International sales +29% to $9.8 bln; op. income ($135) mln.AWS sales +58% to $2.9 bln; operating income +126% to $718 mln.Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $31.0-33.5 bln vs. $31.66 bln Capital IQ Consensus; operating income is expected to be between $50 million and $650 million vs. $800 mln est, compared with $406 million in third quarter 2015.

4:07 pm Power Integrations beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line (POWI) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.60 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.50; revenues rose 14.0% year/year to $97.2 mln vs the $90.98 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $96-$102 mln vs. $96.31 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 50.0-50.5%. Non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $31 mln.

4:05 pm Brooks Automation beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (BRKS) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.16 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.13; revenues rose 1.8% year/year to $147.53 mln vs the $144.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.14-0.17 vs. $0.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $146-151 mln vs. $153.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:04 pm Cohu beats by $0.01, beats on revs (COHU) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.22 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.21; revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $76.4 mln vs the $73.93 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:03 pm CyberOptics reports Q2 EPS of $0.29 versus ($0.11) last year; revs +81% YoY to $18.6 mln (no ests) (CYBE) :

"CyberOptics ended the second quarter with a backlog of $14.7 million. As stated previously, our quarterly results will fluctuate somewhat on a sequential basis, reflecting the pace of new orders for our 3D products and customer acceptances of our MX600 backlog...For the quarter ending September 30, we are forecasting sales of $13 to $15 million, which represents another period of profitability and robust year-over-year sales growth. We also are forecasting strongly improved year-over-year sales and earnings for the fourth quarter."

4:25 pm : The major averages ended Thursday's session with some fight, but ultimately closed the day mixed and with modest changes. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) outperformed on the back of Facebook's (FB 125.00, +1.66) glowing earnings report and some dealmaking that included Oracle (ORCL 41.19, +0.26) acquiring NetSuite (N 108.41, +16.84) for $9.3 billion in cash.

Overall, there was an air of hesitation in the air ahead of some key happenings, including earnings reports from Amazon.com (AMZN 752.61, +15.94) and Alphabet (GOOG 745.91, +4.14) after Thursday's close, a policy decision from the Bank of Japan, and the stress test results from the European Banking Authority on Friday.

Other limiting factors included the continued slide in oil prices, underlying frustration with the Fed's uncertain policy outlook, a cautious-sounding outlook from Ford (F 12.71, -1.13), and a nagging sense the market may be due for a consolidation phase after its strong run off the June 27 post-Brexit low. Even so, sellers didn't show a lot of conviction today as the market continued to exhibit an inclination to buy on dips versus selling on strength.

Equities began the day on a choppy note, responding to a plethora of quarterly earnings reports and yesterday's policy statement from the Federal Open Market Committee. The Fed voted to maintain its key policy rate, but left its larger policy intentions open ended.

On the earnings front, technology (+0.4%) heavyweight Facebook blew past analysts' estimates for the quarter while Ford disappointed investors with its bottom-line result and a warning regarding its full-year outlook.

The major averages went on the defensive in early action, weighed down by a retreat in oil futures. WTI crude fell from the $42.00/bbl price level at the start of the session and slipped to the $41.10/bbl area shortly before midday.

The S&P 500 retreated to the 2160 area where it found support and clawed its way back from there before seeing a slight dip into the close.

The heavily-weighted financial (+0.2%) and technology (+0.2%) sectors helped lead the afternoon reversal. Six sectors ended above the flat line, with the consumer staples sector (+0.5%) logging the biggest advance. The telecom services (-0.7%), energy (-0.2%), materials (-0.1%), and health care (-0.04%) sectors ended in negative territory.

The relative strength in the consumer staples sector was fueled by Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD 125.92, +3.98), which rallied 3.3% ahead of tomorrow morning's earning release. The stock also benefited from reports that indicated that major shareholders of SABMiller PLC (SBMRY 57.55, +1.30) approve of Anheuser-Busch InBev's revised takeover offer for the company. Separately, Molson Coors Brewing (TAP 97.75, +4.62) gained 5.0% as its stands to acquire SABMiller PLC's interest in MillerCoors in the transaction.

In the consumer discretionary space, Amazon.com outperformed ahead of this evening's earnings report. Elsewhere, Dow component Home Depot (HD 137.96, +1.65) topped the price-weighted index while automakers underperformed alongside Ford.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.69, -0.36) ended modestly lower as the euro and the commodity-currencies gained ground against the buck. The euro/dollar pair finished higher by 0.2% (1.1077) while the greenback lost 0.2% against the Canadian dollar (1.3158). The dollar/yen pair finished flat (105.40) ahead of tomorrow's policy statement from the Bank of Japan.

Treasuries finished on a mixed note. The short-end of the Treasury curve saw some modest buying interest while the long end lagged. The yield on the 10-yr note finished higher by one basis point at 1.50%.

Today's trading volume was in-line with the recent average as more than 853 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims and International Trade in Goods for June:

Initial claims for the week ending July 23 increased by 14,000 to 266,000 (Briefing.com consensus 260,000).
Overall, there is nothing in this report that will make the market anxious about a weakening in labor market conditions.
There were no special factors influencing the claims reading, which remained below 300,000 for the 73rd straight week.
The four-week moving average for initial claims dropped by 1,000 to 256,500.
Continuing claims for the week ending July 16 were 2.139 million, up 7,000 from the prior week.
The four-week moving average for continuing claims decreased by 7,000 to 2.135 million, which is the lowest average since November 11, 2000.
June International Trade in Goods showed a deficit of $63.30 billion, compared to the May deficit of $60.59 billion.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the advance estimate for Q2 GDP (Briefing.com consensus +2.6%), which will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. The Chicago PMI for July (Briefing.com consensus 54.0) and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for July (Briefing.com consensus 90.0) will be released at 9:45 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000 +7.3% YTD
S&P 500 +6.2 % YTD
Dow Jones +5.9 % YTD
Nasdaq +3.0% YTD

DJ30 -15.82 NASDAQ +15.17 SP500 +3.48 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1381/1.800 bln/1577 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1527/853.0 mln/1429

3:30 pm :

The dollar index is down -0.3% around the 96.73 level, aiding select commodities
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.3% around the 83.40 level
Crude oil ends near session lows for the six consecutive trading session on the heels of its inventory data
August crude oil futures fell $0.77 (-1.8%) to $41.13/barrel
This is the 6th consecutive session crude has declined
Rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET
Monthly IEA data will be released on Aug 11
Natural gas surges to multi-week highs after EIA data showed a smaller-than-expected build compared to Consensus
August natural gas closed $0.20 higher (+7.5%) at $2.86/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold ends near session lows after an initial morning rally, as the dollar index eases off its morning lows
August old ended today's session up $5.90 (+0.4%) to $1332.50/oz
Silver reverses its initial morning gains along with gold, closing near session lows, still up on the day on a weak dollar
September silver closed today's session $0.24 higher (+1.2%) at $20.23/oz
Base metal copper reverses this morning's losses and inches higher to close in the green
September copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.9%) at $2.21/lb

Today's session began on a choppy note as participants ruminated over a mixed set of earnings results and yesterday's policy statement from the Federal Open Market Committee. The Fed maintained its key interest rate, but failed to offer strong hints regarding policy intentions. However, the Fed did voice a more optimistic view of the U.S. economy, stating that near-term risks to the economic outlook had diminished. Separately, the Bank of Japan will be issuing its latest policy statement tonight.

Market data out today came in the form of initial claims for the week ending July 23 increased by 14,000 to 266,000. Also, continuing claims for the week ending July 16 were 2.139 million, up 7,000 from the prior week. Lastly, June International Trade in Goods showed a deficit of $63.30 billion, compared to the May deficit of $60.59 billion.

Thursday closed on a third-straight session of mixed trading. Leading action higher, the Nasdaq Composite added 15.17 points (+0.30%) to close 5154.98. The S&P 500 also was up, higher by 3.48 points (+0.16%) at the close to 2170.06. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the lone laggard, shedding 15.82 points (-0.09%) today to end 18456.35.

A modest session by the Technology (XLK 46.28, +0.03 +0.06%) sector closed with the space just above flat lines. Component Automatic Data (ADP 91.73, -3.20 -3.37%) reported a mixed quarter and ultimately ended in the red as the FY17 EPS guide came in light. Component Facebook (FB 125.00, +1.66 +1.35%) also stood on decent gains today following its latest quarterly results, which beat on the top and bottom lines of market expectations. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLP +0.44%, XLU +0.39%, XLF +0.21%, XLY +0.18%, XLE +0.01%, XLI -0.03%, XLV -0.09%, XLB -0.14%, IYZ -0.87% as Consumer Staples out-performed and Telecoms lagged.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (767.72, +2.62 +0.34%) sector, trading was capped off by a session which tucked in just below highs of the day as late day strength pulled the sector out of the red. Component Oracle (ORCL 41.19, +0.26 +0.64%) was modestly higher following news out this morning that the company acquired NetSuite (N 108.41, +16.84 +18.39%) for $109 per share in cash. Other names in the space which finished higher with the sector included RHT +1.07%, CRM +1.02%, V +0.84%, SYMC +0.79%, TDC +0.67%, FISV +0.65%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Oracle (ORCL) to acquire NetSuite (N) for $109.00 per share in cash, or about $9.3 billion. ORCL expects the deal to be immediately accretive on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. The deal is expected to close in 2016. The closing is subject to a condition that a majority of NetSuite's outstanding shares not owned by executive officers or directors of NetSuite, or persons affiliated with Larry Ellison, his family members and any affiliated entities, be tendered in the tender offer.

Accenture (ACN 112.08, -1.63 -1.43%) acquired Tecnilgica, a Spanish company specializing in the use of emerging and open source technologies to build innovative omni-channel experiences for a wide range of mobile, web, touchscreens, wearables and IoT enabled devices. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

MasterCard (MA 96.01, +2.26 +2.41%) and PayPal (PYPL 37.22, flat) renewed card program with multi-year extension of co-branded consumer credit card program in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
SJ Semiconductor and Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm (QCOM 62.43, -0.08 -0.13%), jointly announced that SJSemi has begun mass production of 14nm wafer bumping for Qualcomm Technologies.

Cognizant (CTSH 57.89, -0.36 -0.62%) has acquired Idea Couture, a privately-held firm that offers a broad range of digital innovation, strategy, design and technology services. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The Western Union Company (WU 20.20, -0.19 -0.93%) announced the completion of the primary recommendations made by the monitor pursuant to the Southwest Border settlement agreement, dated February 11, 2010.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Avnet (AVT 41.09, -0.24 -0.59%) raised its offer to acquire Premier Farnell to 1.85 per share.

Splunk (SPLK 62.12, +2.62 +4.40%) Chief Marketing Officer Steven Sommer to retire effective September 15, 2017.

MINDBODY (MB 17.13, -0.13 -0.75%) Co-Founder and COO, Robert Murphy, stepped down. Current CFO Brett White has been given the additional role of COO, Murphy will remain a member of the Board.

Hutchinson Tech. (HTCH 2.00, -0.04 -1.96%) disclosed the receipt of letter from the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, which has opened an investigation relating to the sale of suspension assemblies for use in hard disk drives.

Sony (SNE 30.68, +0.29 +0.95%) announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding regarding the transfer of its battery business.

FICO (FICO 115.60, -1.91 -1.63%) announced a $250 million stock repurchase program.

Communications Systems (JCS 7.34, +0.13 +1.80%) to acquire the health information technology business unit of Constellation. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Facebook (FB) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.97 and $6.44 billion, respectively. Daily active users were 1.13 billion, up 17% versus last year and mobile advertising revenues were about 84% of total advertising revenues, a 76% increase versus last year.

MasterCard (MA) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.96 and $2.69 billion, respectively.

Automatic Data (ADP) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.69 and worse than expected revenues which rose 7.6% versus last year to $2.9 billion. The company also guided FY17 EPS below market expectations at $3.59-3.65 on revenues of $12.52-12.75 billion.

NXP Semi (NXPI 84.35, -3.09 -3.53%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.39 and $2.37 billion, respectively. Gave revenue guidance for Q3 of $2.42-2.47 billion.

Lam Research (LRCX 93.08, +1.12 +1.22%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.80 and $1.55 billion, respectively. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revenues in-line at $1.67-1.87 and $1.55-1.70 billion, respectively.

Xilinx (XLNX 51.09, +1.25 +2.51%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.61 on in-line revenues which rose 4.7% versus last year to $574.9 million. XLNX also guided SeptQ revenues about flat sequentially.

GoPro (GPRO 13.02, +1.45 +12.53%) reported a better than expected Q2 loss per share of $0.52 on better than expected revenues which fell 47.4% versus last year to $220.8 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ATEN GOOG AMZN BIDU BCOV BRKS COHU CY DTLK DGII ELLI EXPE FICO FTNT GIMO GSIT IM ISIL INVN IXYS MTD MSCC MSTR MOBL NSR PCCC PDFS PXLW POWI QSII ROVI RTEC SBAC SYNA UCTT VDSI VRSN WDC/CTS HTCH MGI MOSY XRX

Analyst actions:

AAPL was upgraded to Buy from Long Term Buy at Hilliard Lyons,
MRVL was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Northland Capital,
TRIP was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Raymond James,
TSS was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at First Analysis Sec,
MTCH was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
AXTI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham;
INFN was downgraded at Northland Capital, Jefferies, Raymond James, JP Morgan and Nomura,
FB was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
ATVI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at MKM Partners,
N was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson,
TERP was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at Avondale,
LVLT was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan;
NTCT and CRAY were initiated with Overweight ratings at Pacific Crest,
MLNX and SMCI were initiated with a Sector Weight ratings at Pacific Crest

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 29-Jul-16The past week told the tale of three markets as the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 1.2%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.8%, and the S&P 500 set an intraday record high, but finished the week essentially where it started (-0.1%).

Quarterly earnings were largely responsible for the differential in returns with the Nasdaq benefiting from upside surprises reported by heavyweights like Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Facebook (FB), and Celgene (CELG). Conversely, the Dow was pressured by weak results from ExxonMobil (XOM) and disappointing comparable sales results from McDonald's (MCD). The broader S&P 500 split the difference between the Dow and Nasdaq.

In addition to receiving a boatload of earnings, investors had to recalibrate their expectations for monetary stimulus from global central banks. The Federal Reserve made no changes to its policy stance and only hinted at the possibility of a rate hike in the near term. The central bank shared its lukewarm outlook on Wednesday, two days before the Friday release of the advance reading of second-quarter GDP, which missed estimates (1.2%; Briefing.com consensus 2.6%). Also on Friday, the Bank of Japan called for just slight adjustments to policy, undershooting market expectations for aggressive stimulus measures. The Japanese yen rallied in response, pressuring the dollar/yen pair to a two-week low near 102.00.

Rate hike expectations receded throughout the past week. Since last Friday, the implied probability of a rate hike in December, estimated by the fed funds futures market, declined from 47.8% to 33.0%. The fed funds futures market does not expect the Federal Reserve to depart from its current target range until after July 2017.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18570.85 18432.24 -138.61 -0.7 5.8
Nasdaq 5100.16 5162.13 61.97 1.2 3.1
S&P 500 2175.03 2173.60 -1.43 -0.1 6.3
Russell 2000 1212.73 1219.94 7.21 0.6 7.4

Today's slight uptick in the market has masked a busy 24 hours that has included the release of a highly-anticipated, but underwhelming, policy statement from the Bank of Japan, a raft of quarterly earnings, and a disappointing advance reading of second-quarter U.S. GDP (1.2%). To no one's shock, the disappointing GDP report has been viewed as an argument in favor of delaying the next rate hike, opening the door to an advance in equities. To be sure, investors received a few quarterly reports that have underpinned the move, which has been paced by the Nasdaq Composite.


Economic data today, aside from the GDP reading, included the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) dipped to 55.8 in July from 56.8 in June. Also, the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report for July checked in at 90.0, down from the final June reading of 93.5.

In the final trading session on July, the markets ended mixed (as has been the pattern of late). Action was led by the S&P 500 which added 3.54 points (+0.16%) to 2173.60. The Nasdaq Composite was up 7.15 points (+0.14%) to 5162.13, aided by the strong period from Alphabet (GOOG 768.79, +22.88 +3.07%). Rounding out the trio, modestly lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 24.11 points (-0.13%) to 18432.24. This month's movements leave the three major US indices +6.3%, +3.1% and +5.8% YTD, respectively.

For its part, the Technology (XLK 46.46, +0.18 +0.39%) held pace with the broader market advance, ending on a modest downtick, but still well off lows of the session. Component Xerox (XRX) outperformed despite a mixed earnings report. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended Friday trading IYZ +1.17% XLE +1.02% XLU +0.60% XLP +0.50% XLV +0.20% XLY +0.11% XLF -0.17% XLI -0.29% XLB -0.51% as Telecoms pushed higher and Industrials were among the worst performers.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (768.72, +1.00 +0.13%) sector, the session edged slightly lower as we limped into the weekend. A session of awe out of storage device name Western Digital (WDC 47.51, -6.19 -11.53%) had the stock down about -12.4% at lows following a better than expected quarterly report which was marred by SanDisk acquisition costs. Other names in the space which modestly outperformed today included NVDA +1.64%, RHT +1.16%, MSFT +0.84%, ACN +0.65%, APH +0.59%, CA +0.57%, HPQ +0.50%, JNPR +0.31%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Microsoft (MSFT 56.68, +0.47 +0.84%) disclosed in a 10-K that it will eliminate an additional 2,850 roles globally.

Facebook (FB 123.94, -1.06 -0.85%) received a Statutory Notice of Deficiency from the IRS that could result in an additional federal tax liability of about $3-5.0 billion.

According to Reuters, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 21.02, +0.71 +3.50%) has piqued the interest of several private equity firms that want to acquire certain HPE assets, which the company has weighed divesting for $6-8 billion.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Expedia (EXPE 116.65, -2.62 -2.20%) said it may explore an IPO of trivago.

Benefitfocus' (BNFT 43.00, -1.49 -3.35%) CFO Dennis Story resigned for personal reasons. The company also expects to exceed Q2 guidance.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, FICO (FICO 126.64, +11.04 +9.55%) announced a new $250 million stock repurchase program.

Vectrus (VEC 31.15, +0.32 +1.04%) was awarded a $47 million US Army contract modification.

Wins Finance's (WINS 20.40, +0.05 +0.25%) President Richard Xu resigned.

Shopify (SHOP 34.27, flat) filed for a $500 million mixed securities shelf offering.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Amazon (AMZN 758.81, +6.20 +0.82%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $1.78 on better than expected reveneus which rose 31.1% versus last year to $30.4 billion. AMZN also guided Q3 revenues in-line with market expectations at $31.0-33.5 billion.

Alphabet (GOOG) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $8.42 on better than expected revenues which rose 21.3% versus last year to $21.5 billion.

Baidu.com (BIDU 159.60, -6.03 -3.64%) reported in-line Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.22 and $2.75 billion, respectively (also in-line with previous guidance); the company also guided Q3 revenues worse than market expectations at $2.714-2.796 billion.

Expedia (EXPE) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.83 on worse than expected revenues of $2.2 billion.

SBA Comm (SBAC 115.00, +2.52 +2.24%) reported better than expected Q2 funds from operations of $1.48 on revenues which fell 1.3% versus a year ago to $405.5 million. The company also gave Q3 revenue guidance of $406.5-416.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of $278-293 million. For FY16, the company now sees revenues of $1.63-1.65 billion, up from prior $1.61-1.64 billion. Also sees FY16 adjusted EBITDA of $1.12-1.13 billion, up from prior $1.11-1.12 billion.

Western Digital (WDC) reported better than pre-announced Q4 EPS of $0.79 on revenues of $3.5 billion.

Xerox (XRX 10.30, +0.40 +3.99%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of $0.22 on better than expected revenues of $4.28 billion. The company also guided Q2 EPS in-line at $0.24-0.26. Also reaffirmed FY16 EPS guidance of $1.10-1.20.

Fortinet (FTNT 34.69, -2.48 -6.67%) reported in-line Q2 EPS of $0.14 on better than expected revenues of $311.4 million. Total billings rose 26% versus a year ago to $373.8 million. Also guided Q3 revenues in the range of $319-324 million on gross margins of 73-74%; also sees EPS of $0.17-0.18. For FY16, the company raised their revenue guidance to $1.274-1.284 billion from $1.260-1.270 billion.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results Monday morning: BSFT, CYOU, DSPG, FDC, MEET, SOHU

Analyst actions:

N was upgraded to Hold at Societe Generale, to Mkt Perform at Raymond James, to Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley and to Neutral at Goldman,
INVN was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Northland Capital,
WDC was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird;
N was downgraded to Hold at Deutsche Bank, to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts and to Neutral at JP Morgan,
GRUB was downgraded to Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt, to Neutral at BofA/Merrill and to Hold at Maxim Group,
BIDU was downgraded to Hold at T.H. Capital,
RTEC was downgraded to Neutral at Dougherty & Co,
VNTV was downgraded to Equal Weight at Barclays and to Outperform at CLSA,
CLS was downgraded to Neutral at Macquarie,
FRP was downgraded to Hold at Drexel Hamilton,
ADP was downgraded to Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
PDFS and TER were downgraded to Hold at Craig Hallum,
MSTR was downgraded to Mkt Perform at JMP Securities,
EMC was downgraded to Mkt Perform at Bernstein

The past week told the tale of three markets as the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 1.2%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.8%, and the S&P 500 set an intraday record high, but finished the week essentially where it started (-0.1%).

Quarterly earnings were largely responsible for the differential in returns with the Nasdaq benefiting from upside surprises reported by heavyweights like Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Facebook (FB), and Celgene (CELG). Conversely, the Dow was pressured by weak results from ExxonMobil (XOM) and disappointing comparable sales results from McDonald's (MCD). The broader S&P 500 split the difference between the Dow and Nasdaq.

In addition to receiving a boatload of earnings, investors had to recalibrate their expectations for monetary stimulus from global central banks. The Federal Reserve made no changes to its policy stance and only hinted at the possibility of a rate hike in the near term. The central bank shared its lukewarm outlook on Wednesday, two days before the Friday release of the advance reading of second-quarter GDP, which missed estimates (1.2%; Briefing.com consensus 2.6%). Also on Friday, the Bank of Japan called for just slight adjustments to policy, undershooting market expectations for aggressive stimulus measures. The Japanese yen rallied in response, pressuring the dollar/yen pair to a two-week low near 102.00.

Rate hike expectations receded throughout the past week. Since last Friday, the implied probability of a rate hike in December, estimated by the fed funds futures market, declined from 47.8% to 33.0%. The fed funds futures market does not expect the Federal Reserve to depart from its current target range until after July 2017.

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From Briefing.com: 4:38 pm Microchip beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus, co says it's tracking well ahead of our prior FY17 EPS guidance (MCHP) :
Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.84 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.75; non-GAAP revenues rose 58.1% year/year to $844 mln vs the $821.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus and above prior guidance of $799.1-841.9 mln.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.83-0.91, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.80 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 non-GAAP revs of $844-877.8 mln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $838.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

FY17 Outlook: "We are tracking well ahead of our guidance for non-GAAP [EPS] for fiscal 2017 which we commented on in our May 4, 2016 earnings conference call."

"We achieved strong revenue growth in the microcontroller businesses of both core Microchip and Atmel in the June quarter...All microcontroller business units for Microchip, as well as for Atmel, outperformed our expectations in the June quarter. Atmel's customers felt reassured about Microchip's plans to continue to support Atmel's microcontroller products going forward and launched their new products with confidence."

4:20 pm Rackspace beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs above consensus; guides FY16 revs above consensus (RAX) :
Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.22; revenues rose 7.0% year/year to $523.6 mln vs the $521.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $534-539 mln vs. $530.39 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees revs of $510-515 mln ex-FX and ex-divestitures

Co issues upside guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $2.13-2.15 bln vs. $2.11 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees revs of $2.06-2.08 bln ex-FX and ex-divestitures.

4:19 pm Rackspace sells its Cloud Sites business unit to Liquid Web; terms not disclosed (RAX) : Liquid Web is a global provider of professional cloud and application hosting services with over $90 million in annual revenue. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2016.

4:08 pm Vivint Solar beats by $0.71, beats on revs (VSLR) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.71 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.59); revenues rose 116.6% year/year to $34.94 mln vs the $27.21 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
MW Booked of approximately 74 MWs for the quarter, approximately flat year-over-year.
MW Installed of approximately 61 MWs, down 6% year-over-year.
Total cumulative MWs installed were approximately 575 MWs.
Installations were 8,641 for the quarter, down 7% year-over-year; Cumulative installations were 84,872.
Estimated Nominal Contracted Payments Remaining increased by approximately $191 million during the quarter and was approximately $2.3 billion, up 56% year-over-year.
Estimated Retained Value increased by approximately $103 million during the quarter to approximately $1.1 billion, up 64% year-over-year; Estimated Retained Value per Watt was $1.95
Cost per Watt was $2.94, down from $3.34 in the first quarter of 2016 and down from $3.00 in the second quarter of 2015.

4:10 pm : The stock market began the week on a quiet note as the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) settled behind the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%). The benchmark index meandered in an eight-point trading range as a rally in crude oil helped counter weakness from the heavyweight consumer discretionary (-0.3%) and health care (-0.9%) sectors.

U.S. equities began the day on a modestly higher note, responding to a positive bias in global bourses. Asia-Pacific indices outperformed as participants reacted to Friday's above-consensus reading of the U.S. Employment Situation Report for July. The employment data showed continued improvement to the hiring landscape as nonfarm payrolls (255K; Briefing.com consensus 185K) handily beat estimates for the second consecutive month. Conversely, there was no negative response to China's disappointing Trade Balance Report after the People's Bank of China suggested potential "innovative" stimulus measures.

The major averages pulled back through the opening hour as the heavyweight technology (UNCH), consumer discretionary (-0.3%), and health care (-0.9%) sectors weighed on the broader market. The move to the downside was limited though, as investors eyed a rebound in crude oil. WTI crude rallied 3.0% ($43.07/bbl; +$1.24) amid reports that several members of OPEC are attempting to revitalize a production freeze agreement. The energy component extended its August gain to 3.6%.

The benchmark index carved out a session low in the afternoon (2177.85), but recovered in the final hour to end just below its flat line. Seven sectors ended in the red with heavily-weighted industrials (UNCH) and technology (UNCH) showing the slimmest losses. On the flipside, financials (+0.1%), materials (+0.2%), and energy (+1.2%) outperformed.

The countercyclical health care sector (-0.9%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard as pharmaceutical names weighed. In the group, Bristol-Myers (BMY 60.30, -2.98) extended its two-session losing streak to 19.9%. The company came under pressure last Friday after announcing that its Opdivo medication failed to meet its primary endpoints. Biotechnology also underperformed after Allergan (AGN 248.31, -5.54) reported mixed quarterly results and updated its outlook to reflect the sale of the Actavis Generics division to Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA 53.30, -0.91).

Influential Netflix (NFLX 95.11, -1.92) weighed on the consumer discretionary space (-0.3%) after reports indicated that Alibaba (BABA 85.00, +0.41) is not seeking to invest in the company. Separately, Chinese streaming service Leeco announced that it is looking to add additional U.S. employees. Amazon (AMZN 766.56, +0.58) finished flat after Wal-Mart (WMT 73.34, -0.42) agreed to purchase Amazon competitor Jet.com. Wal-Mart agreed to pay $3 billion in cash for the company. Elsewhere, on the M&A front, Mattress Firm (MFRM 63.75, +34.01) spiked after Steinhoff offered to acquire the company for $64 per share.

The PHLX Semiconductor Index (-0.2%) ended behind the broader technology sector (UNCH) as Qorvo (QRVO 54.30, -0.75) continued to underperform. The name has been under pressure after reporting its quarterly results on August 2. Separately, ON Semiconductor (ON 10.11, +0.12) ended higher by 1.2% after beating analysts' estimates for the quarter and offering in-line guidance for the third quarter.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.39, +0.19) settled modestly higher as the greenback gained ground against the pound and yen. Sterling lost 0.2% against the buck (1.3042) while the dollar/yen pair ended the day higher by 0.6% (102.44). Elsewhere, the dollar lost 0.1% against the commodity-sensitive Canadian dollar (1.3165).

Treasuries ended a quiet session on a flat note as the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finished flat at 1.59%.

Participation was below the recent average as fewer than 772 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the preliminary estimate of second quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus 1.7%), which will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, Wholesale Inventories for June (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +8.3% YTD
S&P 500 +6.7% YTD
Dow Jones +6.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.1% YTD

DJ30 -14.24 NASDAQ -7.98 SP500 -1.98 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1389/1.473 bln/1542 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1696/772.9 mln/1255

3:30 pm :

The dollar index held onto its morning gains, +0.2% around the 96.39 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were up +0.6% around the 84.32 level
Crude oil rallies most of the day, seeing a notable sell-off into the close, still closing well in the green ahead of tomorrow's API data
September crude oil futures rose $1.24 (+3.0%) to $43.07/barrel
Monthly IEA data will be released Aug 11
Weekly EIA data will be released Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell
Natural gas declines & closes lower for the third consecutive trading session
September natural gas closed $0.02 lower (-0.7%) at $2.75/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold ends lower while silver trades nearly flat in afternoon pit trading
December gold ended today's session down $3.30 (-0.3%) to $1341.20/oz
September silver closed today's session $0.02 higher (+0.1%) at $19.82/oz

Global markets tilted to the upside overnight as investors responded to Friday's stronger-than-expected reading of the Employment Situation Report for July. The report reduced concerns regarding the U.S. employment picture, indicating that headline nonfarm payrolls (255K) increased faster-than-expected. The report also showed positive strides in average hourly earnings (+0.3%). On the flipside, China's Trade Balance Report for July disappointed with imports (-12.5%) and exports (-4.4%) contracting more than expected.

To begin the week, the broader market began with a slight advance but pared gains to end the session in the red. The S&P 500 notched a new all-time high intraday today at $2185.44, but finished well off that mark. To that end, the Nasdaq Composite was the worst performer today, shedding 7.98 points (-0.15%) to 5213.14. The S&P 500 lost 1.98 points (-0.09%) to 2180.89, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 14.24 points (-0.08%) to 18529.29 despite a strong session from September crude oil futures which rose $1.24 (+3.0%) to $43.07/barrel.

About middle of the pack, the Technology (XLK 47.04, -0.01 -0.02%) sector retreated yet finished just lower following a late-day advance. Component Cognizant Tech (CTSH 58.31, -1.40 -2.34%) was notably weak today following a premarket downgrade at Nomura to a Neutral rating as the firm highlighted their cautious view on the FY16 guidance reduction from last week. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Monday XLE +1.33%, XLB +0.21%, XLI +0.14%, XLF +0.12%, XLU -0.04, XLP -0.11%, XLY -0.33%, IYZ -0.39%, XLV -0.85% with the best performer being Energy and Healthcare posting the worst session in general.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (781.09, -0.15 -0.02%) sector, trading capped off the Monday affair barely in negative territory. Names in the space which turned in slight losses included CSRA -1.52%, TSS -1.52%, QRVO -1.36%, FLIR -1.19%, HPE -1.19%, FISV -1.14%, AVGO -1.04%, SWKS -0.92%, AKAM -0.89, GPN -0.80%, ACN -0.80%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

CSRA Inc. (CSRA 25.84, -0.40 -1.51%) has developed a strategic alliance with Docker, a provider of open container platforms.
According to GeekWire, Apple (AAPL 108.37, +0.89 +0.83%) acquired AI startup Turi. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Qualcomm (QCOM 61.58, -0.42 -0.68%) entered into a new 3G and 4G Chinese Patent License Agreement with vivo Communication Technology Co., Ltd. Under the terms of the agreement, Qualcomm has granted vivo a royalty-bearing patent license to develop, manufacture and sell 3G WCDMA and CDMA2000 and 4G LTE complete devices for use in China. The royalties payable by vivo are consistent with the terms of the rectification plan submitted by Qualcomm to China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
According to Alphabet's (GOOG 781.76, -0.46 -0.06%) Google, the company acquired commerce platform provider Orbitera. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Rambus (RMBS 13.59, -0.08 -0.59%) named Martin Pilling as interim Chief Financial Officer amid ongoing search for permanent CFO.
Ciena (CIEN 19.98, -0.24 -1.19%) repurchased about $205 million in aggregate principal amount of its outstanding 0.875% Convertible Senior Notes due 2017 in a private transaction.
Payment Data Systems' (PYDS 1.65, -0.05 -2.94%) Co-Founder and CEO Michael Long retired; the company also named Louis Hoch as CEO.
Tesla (TSLA 226.16, -3.87 -1.68%) updated investors regarding the Gigafcatory in a 10-Q filed on Friday after the close. The company stated that their current expectations and the Gigafactory may take longer to bring online than they had previously anticipated.
ScanSource (SCSC 42.28, +0.68 +1.63%) to acquire Intelisys Communications for about $83.6 million in cash, plus earn-out payments. The company also lowered their Q4 net sales expectations to be about $880-885 million vs prior guidance of $900-950 million.
Fairchild Semi (FCS 19.86, +0.19 +0.97%) filed to delay Form 10-Q following discovery of embezzlement by a former non-management employee at its Korean subsidiary. The company stated it does not expect the matter to affect pending acquisition by ON Semiconductor (ON 10.11, +0.12 +1.20%).
LightPath (LPTH 1.91, +0.06 +3.24%) to acquire ISP Optics Corporation for $18 million.
BCE (BCE 62.80, +0.02 +0.03%) to acquire full ownership of the data center operator Q9 Networks in a transaction valued at about $675 million.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Ebix (EBIX 55.05, +0.27 +0.49%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.70 and better than expected revenues which increased 12% compared to last year to $72.6 million.
ON Semiconductor (ON) reported Q2 net income of $0.13 on revenues which increased 7% year-over-year to $350 million.
Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: CSLT CSC CNXR CVG DTSI ELNK IPHI MXL MCHP MIME MODN MTSC NPTN NUAN PFSW RAX RPD RNET ROG SREV SINA TUBE TWLO VSLR WBMD WB/IOTS BITA BR SATS MWW RSTI VRTU VPG ZBRA

Analyst actions:

INAP was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum; CCOI and CBB were downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James, SHEN was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at FBR Capital, CTSH was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura, TTEC was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo; ORCL, HDP and DATA were initiated with Buy ratings at Rosenblatt, LN was initiated with an Overweight at Morgan Stanley

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From Briefing.com: 4:49 pm SolarCity (being acquired by Tesla) beats by $0.19, beats on revs; guides Q3 below consensus; lowers FY16 installation guidance (SCTY) : Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $2.32 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.19 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($2.51); revenues rose 80.7% year/year to $185.8 mln vs the $147.31 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Preannounced 201 MW installed vs. 185 MW guidance.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of ($2.55-2.65), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($2.34) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $155-168 mln vs. $173.77 mln Capital IQ

Consensus Estimate. For Q3 2016 we expect to install 170 MW, as the softer Q1 2016 bookings feed their way into installation throughput. Driven by the pick-up in bookings we have seen in Q2 and July as well as C&I's seasonally strongest period, we expect to install between 315 and 415 MW in Q4 2016 (C&I experiencing a significant uptick in MW Deployed including some projects already under construction C&I).

Expect total 2016 MW Installed of 900-1,000 MW (down from 1.0-1.1 GW), with the mid-to-high end of the range assuming an improvement in residential sales productivity. As our infrastructure had been built to handle ~1.25 GW of annual capacity, we will be reducing our cost structure to accommodate our current forecasted volume run rate and positioning ourselves to report one of the lowest Cost per Watt in our history in the fourth quarter of 2016. Cash balance expected to increase by the end of Q3 2016 (as compared to the end of Q2 2016) and to further increase by the end of Q4 2016 (as compared to the projected closing balance as of the end of Q3 2016)Being acquired by TSLA for

0.11 TSLA shares per SCTY share.4:31 pm Rambus signs an agreement with Idaho Scientific, LLC to license its Differential Power Analysis for use in Idaho Scientific's security IP Cores for FPGAs and defense ASICs (RMBS) :

4:23 pm SunPower reports Q2 (Jun) results, beats on revs; Lowers guidance, announces restructuring due to industry conditions (SPWR) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.22 per share, may not be comparable to the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.24); revenues rose 6.7% year/year to $401.8 mln vs the $347.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Industry Warnings
"However, while the long-term fundamentals for solar power remain strong, we see a number of near-term industry challenges, primarily in our power plant segment, that we expect to impact our business and financial performance in the second half of 2016. The extension of the Investment Tax Credit, as well as the bonus depreciation credit, while beneficial to the long-term health of the industry, has reduced the urgency to complete new solar projects by the end of 2016, with many customers adopting a longer-term timeline for project completion. Additionally, near-term economic returns have deteriorated due to aggressive PPA pricing by new market entrants, including a number of large, global independent power companies.

We are also seeing customer project IRRs rising in the near term as buyers have increased their hurdle rates due to industry conditions. Finally, the continued market disruption in the YieldCo environment has impacted our assumptions related to monetizing deferred profits. "As a result, we have proactively decided to streamline our power plant development segment while shifting investment to our distributed generation (DG) segments".

Impact from Realignment
As a result of the announced realignment, the company expects the following:

Workforce reduction of approximately 15 percent or 1,200 employees, primarily related to its Philippine facility closure
Restructuring charges totaling $30-$45 million
Substantial portion of charges to be incurred in the third quarter of 2016 with more than 50 percent of the total charges to be cash
Annual operating expense reductions of approximately 10 percent

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $750-850 mln, may not be comparable to $1.12 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Gross margin of 16.5 percent to 18.5 percent
EBITDA of $115 million to $140 million
MWs deployed in the range of 380 MW to 420 MW.
Co issues downside guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $3.0-3.2 bln, may not be comparable to $3.28 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Gross margin of 10.5 percent to 12.5 percent
EBITDA of $275 million to $325 million
Capital expenditures of $225 million to $245 million
GW deployed in the range of 1.45 GW to 1.65 GW.

4:10 pm Diodes reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 revs in-line (DIOD) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.20 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.20; revenues rose 7.8% year/year to $236.6 mln vs the $235.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Gross profit margin was 31.6%, compared to 28.8% in 1Q16 and 31.6% in 2Q15.Achieved $16.4 mln of cash flow from operations, and $0.9 mln of free cash flow, including $15.5 mln of capital expenditures. Net cash flow was ($44.5) mln, which includes the pay down of $40 mln of long-term debt.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $242-$258 mln vs. $248.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co expects GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin to be 32.5%, plus or minus 1%. Non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately 24% of revenue, plus or minus 1%.

4:09 pm Harmonic beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY16 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus (HLIT) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) net of breakeven, ex-items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.04) and vs prior guidance of $(0.05)-(0.02); GAAP revenues rose 5.5% year/year to $108.76 mln vs the $104.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $102-107 mln. Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.01-0.03, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.03 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 GAAP revs of $104.5-109.5 mln vs. $105.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues mixed guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $0.01-0.06, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 GAAP revs of $408-418 mln vs. $406.9 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:02 pm Lattice Semi misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs below consensus (LSCC)

Reports Q2 (Jun) net of breakeven, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.01; revenues fell 6.9% year/year to $99.2 mln vs the $100.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Gross margin for the second quarter of 2016 was 59.1% on a non-GAAP basis vs. 55-59% guidance, as compared to 60.0% for the first quarter of 2016 and 56.9% for the second quarter of 2015Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $110-116 mln vs. $124.34 mln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin 50-54%.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a flat note as the Nasdaq (+0.2%) settled ahead of the S&P 500 (UNCH) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (UNCH). The major averages ended relatively unchanged as a downturn in crude oil and weakness in the consumer discretionary space (-0.3%) prevented the market from vaulting higher. Other contributing factors impacting today's trade included softening in the dollar and sector leadership from heavily-weighted technology (+0.2%) and health care (+0.2%).

The major averages began the day on a higher note as investors responded to a positive bias in global markets and a mixed set of economic data. The preliminary reading of the second quarter productivity report missed expectations as unit labor costs (+2.0%; Briefing.com consensus +1.7%) and productivity (-0.5%; Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) each disappointed. Conversely, wholesale inventories for June (+0.3%; Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) beat estimates while the May reading featured a positive revision (to 0.2%; from 0.1%).

Equity indices rose through midday as the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.2%) and the benchmark index (UNCH) each carved out new all-time intraday highs. However, the major averages slipped from these levels after the S&P 500 (UNCH) was unable to clear technical resistance near the 2184/2186 price level. The leg lower in the broader market also corresponded with increased selling in oil. WTI crude ended its session lower by 0.8% ($42.74/bbl; -$0.33) as investors look ahead to the Department of Energy's latest stockpile data. The EIA will release its weekly inventory report tomorrow at 10:30 ET.

The S&P 500 (UNCH) finished modestly higher, maintaining footing near its flat line. Four sectors ended in the red with materials (-0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.3%), and energy (-0.5%) underperforming. Conversely, technology (+0.2%), health care (+0.2%), and consumer staples (+0.2%) lead the pack.

The countercyclical health care sector (+0.2%) displayed relative strength, gaining alongside pharmaceutical names. Heavyweight component Bristol-Myers (BMY 61.61, +1.31) ended higher by 2.2%, trimming its weekly loss to 2.6%. Elsewhere, Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 28.16, +5.71) surged 25.4% after announcing plans to amend its debt covenants and improvements to its dermatology business. However, the company did miss analysts' estimates for the quarter. Elsewhere, Mylan Labs (MYL 79.92, +1.39) outperformed ahead of this evening's quarterly report.

Influential technology (+0.2%) outperformed as large cap components Alphabet (GOOG 784.26, +2.50) and Apple (AAPL 108.81,+ 0.44) gained 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively. The high-beta chipmakers finished ahead of the broader sector as Microchip (MCHP 60.63, +4.00) topped the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.8%). The company reported top- and bottom-line beats and also raised its third-quarter guidance. The price-weighted index extended its August gain to 1.6%, which compares to an uptick of 0.4% in the benchmark index.

Retail names underperformed in the consumer discretionary space (-0.2%) as quarterly results from the likes of Coach (COH 40.52, -0.93) and Wayfair (W 38.80, -9.45) weighed. Wayfair plunged 19.6% after reporting below-consensus results and lowering its full-year guidance below consensus. Elsewhere, Gap (GPS 24.01,- 1.61) declined by 6.3% after reporting disappointing July same-store sales.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.4%) ended behind the broader market as Avis Budget (CAR 38.34, -0.44) underperformed. The name was under pressure, moving lower in sympathy with Hertz Global (HTZ 44.96,- 2.35). Hertz reported below-consensus bottom-line results last evening. Separately, rail names underperformed as Union Pacific (UNP 93.07, -0.79) declined by 0.8%.

The U.S. Dollar Index (96.14, -0.26) settled off its session low as commodity currencies, the euro, and the yen gained against the buck. The dollar lost 0.3% against the commodity-sensitive Canadian dollar (1.3119) while the single currency gained 0.2% against the buck (1.1113). The dollar finished lower 0.5% against the safe-haven yen (101.91).

Treasuries enjoyed a healthy bid throughout today's session as yields slid throughout the complex. The yield on the 10-yr note ended lower by five basis points at 1.54%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 731 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the preliminary estimates of second quarter Productivity/Unit Labor Costs and Wholesale Inventories for June:

The preliminary second quarter productivity report showed productivity declining 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) after decreasing an unrevised 0.6% in the first quarter.
The second quarter decline was the result of output increasing 1.2% and hours worked increasing 1.8%.
Unit labor costs were up 2.0% (Briefing.com consensus +1.7%) on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.2% decline (from +4.5%) in the first quarter.
The uptick in the second quarter reflected a 1.5% increase in hourly compensation and a 0.5% decline in productivity.
On a year-over-year basis, second quarter productivity was down 0.4% while unit labor costs were up 2.1%.
This report included benchmark revisions, but even more importantly, it included a clear message that productivity in the U.S. is really weak.
That's a key economic point because rising productivity is the key to a rising standard of living.
Wholesale inventories increased 0.3% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after increasing an upwardly revised 0.2% (from 0.1%) in May.
Wholesale inventories are just one component of total business inventories.
Manufacturing and retail inventories make up the rest of total business inventories.
The market doesn't typically pay much attention to this release since the full business inventories release comes a few days later.
The increase in wholesale inventories in June was driven by a 1.1% increase in nondurable inventories, which offset a 0.3% decline in durable inventories.
Notably, the majority of nondurable businesses saw a decline in inventories in June, yet a 4.9% increase in inventories of drugs and a 4.0% increase in inventories of farm products led to the overall increase.
In the same vein, just about every durable business saw a drop in June inventories, highlighted by a 0.1% decline in both manufacturing and automotive inventories.
The only durable areas to see an uptick inventories were lumber (+1.8%) and hardware (+1.0%).
Wholesale sales increased 1.9% in June following an upwardly revised 0.7% increase (from +0.5%) in May.
The wholesale inventories-to-sales ratio fell to 1.33 from 1.35 in May, and remains slightly above the 1.33 ratio seen in June 2015.
On a year-over-year basis, wholesale sales are down 0.6% while wholesale inventories are up 0.2%.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which will be released at 7:00 ET. Separately, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for June and the Treasury Budget for July will cross the wires at 10:00 ET and 14:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000 +8.4% YTD
S&P 500 +6.7% YTD
Dow Jones +6.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.4% YTD

DJ30 +3.76 NASDAQ +12.34 SP500 +0.85 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1642/1.526 bln/1261 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1563/730.4 mln/1375 3:30 pm :

The dollar index extended its morning losses, -0.3% around the 96.15 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were down -0.7% around the 83.75 level
Crude oil reversed initial morning gains in the afternoon to close near lows of the day ahead of API data
September crude oil futures fell $0.33 (-0.8%) to $42.74/barrel
API data will be released today after the bell
Rig count data will be released on Friday at 1 pm ET
Weekly EIA inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
Monthly IEA data will be released on Aug 11
Natural gas ended lower for the fourth consecutive session after the release of the EIA short-term energy outlook report
September natural gas closed $0.13 lower (-4.7%) at $2.62/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver traded higher as the dollar index fell
December gold ended today's session up $5.50 (+0.4%) to $1346.70/oz
September silver closed today's session $0.03 higher (+0.2%) at $19.85/oz
Base metal copper inched lower in afternoon pit trading
September copper closed $0.01 lower (-0.5%) at $2.15/lb

The major averages gained at the start of the session as investors shrugged off some mixed domestic economic data. The preliminary reading of the second quarter productivity report disappointed as unit labor costs (+2.0%) and productivity (-0.5%) each missed their mark. Separately, wholesale inventories increased 0.3% in June on the heels of an upwardly revised May report (to 0.2%; from 0.1%).

Trading ended the Tuesday session higher, rebounding off yesterday's modestly lower affair. The markets were led by the Nasdaq Composite which added 12.34 points (+0.24%) to 5225.48. Helping the sector higher, Nasdaq 100 components CTRP +2.9%, MYL +2.9%, TSLA +1.3%, SBAC +1.3%, KHC +1.2% and AAL +0.7% all finished in the green. The S&P 500 was up less than a point (+0.04%) when the day was finished to 2181.74, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 3.76 points (+0.02%) to 18533.05. On the way to the higher finish, both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 notched new all-time highs.

Among positive sectors, Technology (XLK 47.14, +0.10 +0.21%) turned in a day modestly above flat lines as strength persisted throughout the entire session. Component Microchip (MCHP 60.63, +4.00 +7.06%) performed the best in the sector today following the company's better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues and solid guidance. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed trading XLP +0.31%, XLV +0.24%, IYZ +0.12%, XLF +0.08%, XLU -0.02%, XLI -0.03%, XLY -0.30%, XLB -0.31%, XLE -0.53% led by the Consumer Staples and Healthcare sectors, and lagged by Energy -- ahead of tonight's API data.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (782.57, +1.48 +0.19%) sector, action was also higher, rebounding off yesterday's barely negative session. Component Skyworks (SWKS 67.00, +1.06 +1.61%) was in the green today following a premarket upgrade at CLSA to an Outperform rating. Other notable components which traded in the green today included AVGO +1.68%, ADSK +1.63%, ATVI +1.58%, XLNX +1.46%, GPN +1.28%, HRS +0.92%, NTAP +0.84%, QCOM +0.67%, PAYX +0.63%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Microchip (MCHP) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.36 per share from $0.3595 per share.
IBM (IBM 161.77, -0.27 -0.17%) and Vodafone (VOD 30.87, -0.05 -0.16%) India announced a multi-million dollar five year agreement for IBM to manage IT services support for Vodafone India's IT infrastructure and applications environment.
Seagate (STX 32.49, -0.12 -0.37%) announced two flash units including a 60 terabyte (TB) Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) solid-state-drive (SSD) - the largest SSD ever demonstrated - and the 8TB Nytro XP7200 NVMe SSD.Elsewhere in the tech space:

Randstad (RANJY 21.42, flat) and Monster Worldwide (MWW 3.50, +0.73 +26.35%) announced an agreement under which Randstad will acquire Monster for $3.40 per share in cash, or a total purchase price of about $429 million (enterprise value).Giga-tronics (GIGA 1.03, -0.03 -2.83%) received a $1.9 million order for non-recurring engineering services associated with its Microsource business unit from an aerospace company.In addition to reporting quarterly results, FORM Holdings (FH 2.06, -0.04 -1.90%) to acquire 100% of XpresSpa. The transaction will be funded with common and preferred equity and warrants in FORM Holdings. In addition, XpresSpa's indebtedness will remain outstanding following the closing of the transaction. Mistral Equity Partners, the majority shareholder of XpresSpa, and other existing XpresSpa holders, will participate in a private placement into FORM Holdings common stock of $1.73 million, at $2.31 per share, which FORM Holdings will then invest in XpresSpa. XpresSpa equity holders will receive 2.5 million shares of common stock in FORM Holdings, five-year warrants to purchase 2.5 million shares of FORM Holdings common stock, at an exercise price equal to $3.00 per share, and $23.75 million of FH's newly issued convertible preferred stock. The FORM Preferred Stock shall be initially convertible into an aggregate of 3.95 million shares of FH Common Stock, which equals a $6.00 per share conversion price, and each holder of FORM Preferred Stock shall be entitled to vote on an as converted basis.
In addition to reporting quarterly results, Rapid7 (RPD 15.65, +1.69 +12.11%) announced CFO Steven Gatoff will transition out of the company for personal family reasons effective January 2017. The company has already initiated a search to identify a successor and Mr. Gatoff has committed to supporting a thorough and orderly transition.
EarthLink (ELNK 6.26, -0.65 -9.41%) announced a partnership with VeloCloud. The partnership is part of EarthLink's strategy to help clients transform their business by deploying solutions that deliver more personalized customer experiences, reduce cost, and increase sales. EarthLink's full-service SD-WAN offering will launch to market in fall 2016.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Microchip (MCHP) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.84 on better than expected revenues of $844 million. Q2 guidance for EPS was better than expected at $0.83-0.91 and revenue guidance was also better than market expectations at $844-877.8 million. Management also gave commentary to FY17 EPS guidance, stating the company is tracking well ahead of their guidance for non-GAAP EPS for fiscal 2017.Broadridge Financial (BR 68.63, +0.14 +0.20%) reported in-line EPS for Q4 of $1.45 and worse than expected revenues of $974.5 million. For FY17 EPS, the company is below market expectations at growth of 9-14% to about $2.98-3.11 and better than expected revenue guidance at growth of about 43-45% to about $4.142-4.2 billion. Computer Sciences (CSC 47.76, -0.26 -0.54%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.53 on better than expected revenue which rose 7.0% compared to last year to $1.93 billion. The company also reaffirmed FY17 EPS guidance of $2.75-3.00. Nuance Communications (NUAN 14.62, -1.68 -10.31%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.38 on in-line revenues of $484.9 million. For Q4, the company sees EPS and revenues worse than market expectations at $0.37-0.41 and $498-512 million, respectively.
Rackspace (RAX 30.66, +2.05 +7.17%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.28 on in-line revenues of $523.6 million. Also, the company guided Q3 and FY16 revenues ahead of market expectations at $534-539 million and $2.13-2.15 billion, respectively.
WebMD Health (WBMD 54.47, -4.97 -8.36%) reported in-line Q2 EPS of $0.39 and better than expected revenues of $167.58 million. The company also guided Q3 revenues in-line at $168-171 million. For FY16, the company sees EPS of $1.78-1.90 and revenues of $695-708 million. MaxLinear (MXL 17.30, -4.60 -21.00%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.50 on in-line revenues of $101.7 million. For Q3, the company sees revenues of $94-98 million. Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: CYBR APPS DIOD EPIQ EVRI FLTX HCKT HLIT KEYW LSCC LITE CALL MCHX PCTY PDVW FENG QNST RBCN SCTY SEDG SPWR TTGT VRNS VEC VSAT YELP YRD YUME/AVT CYRN MGICAnalyst actions:

SWKS was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at CLSA, WNS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at SunTrust; CNXR was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley and to Mkt Perform at Raymond James, FEYE was downgraded to In-Line from Outperform at Imperial Capital, MODN and TUBE were downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities, INFY was downgraded to Hold at HSBC, WIT was downgraded to Reduce at HSBC, FLTX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup; MELI was initiated with a Neutral at Goldman

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the midweek affair on a modestly lower note as weakness from the oil patch applied pressure to the broader market. For the most part, equities endured another quiet session as the quarterly earnings reporting season continues to taper off. Today's trade also featured a bid in Treasuries, softening in the dollar, and relative weakness from the heavily-weighted technology (-0.3%), health care (-0.4%), and financial (-0.8%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%) settled behind the S&P 500 (-0.3%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%). The major averages vacillated at the start of the session as investors responded to a modest downturn in global markets and a mixed set of U.S. quarterly earnings reports. European averages paced the retreat as weaker-than-expected stockpile data from the American Petroleum Institute weighed on the energy component. Conversely, OPEC's Oil Market Report for August added some early support to the commodity. The oil collective increased its demand outlook for 2016, estimating that demand growth will average 1.22 million barrels per day.

The major averages yielded to selling pressure in the late morning as investors pored over the Energy Information Administration's latest stockpile data. The Department of Energy reported that crude oil inventories rose by 1.055 million barrels (estimated: -1.025 million barrels), but that gasoline inventories fell by 2.807 million barrels (estimated: -1.063 million barrels). In response, WTI crude slipped from the $42.00/bbl price level and ended its day lower by 2.3% ($41.76/bbl; -$0.98).

The S&P 500 (-0.3%) endured a range-bound session, maintaining a meager 11-point trading range. The index finished near its worst level of the day while four sectors ended above their flat lines. In front of the pack, countercyclical consumer staples (+0.4%) and telecom services (+0.3%) outperformed while energy (-1.4%) financials (-0.8%), health care (-0.4%), and technology (-0.3%) ended with the largest losses.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (-0.8%) demonstrated broad-based weakness as the group saw pressure from declining long-term interest rates. In the group, Wells Fargo (WFC 48.18, -0.75) and Bank of America (BAC 14.81, -0.38) declined 1.5% and 2.5%, respectively. Elsewhere, MetLife (MET 40.15, -1.13) weighed on the life insurance sub-group, extending its post-earnings loss to 8.1%. The broader sector trimmed its monthly gain to 0.9% and returned to negative territory on a year-to-date basis (UNCH).

Biotechnology weighed on the health care space (-0.4%) as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 288.81, -5.75) ended lower by 2.0%. In the ETF, Mylan Labs (MYL 48.79, -1.13) underperformed after reporting a mixed quarter. The group also traded lower in sympathy with specialty pharmaceutical name Perrigo (PRGO 86.00, -9.09). The company disappointed investors with its quarterly results and guidance. The broader ETF sports a monthly loss of 0.2%, which compares to a decline of 1.0% in the broader sector.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.4%) ended its day behind the benchmark index as cautious revenue guidance from Southwest Air (LUV 36.99, -0.47) weighed. Southwest trimmed its revenue per available seat mile guidance for the third quarter ahead of today's open. The broader U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 22.13, -0.17) ended the day lower by 0.8%.

In the consumer discretionary (+0.2%) sector, retail names outperformed as they gained alongside Fossil (FOSL 30.57, +0.21) and Ralph Lauren (RL 103.14, +8.07). The two names reported above-consensus quarterly results and issued better-than-expected guidance. Separately, Dow component Disney (DIS 97.86, +1.19) ended higher by 1.2% after topping bottom-line estimates for the quarter.

The U.S. Dollar Index (95.65, -0.53) finished broadly lower as the pound, euro, and yen each ended with gains against the greenback. The pound/dollar pair gained 0.1% (1.3013) while the single currency advanced 0.6% against the dollar (1.1176). Elsewhere, the dollar lost 0.6% against the safe-haven yen (101.29) as investors reacted to a positive reading of Japan's Core Machinery Orders for June (+8.3% month-over-month; expected 3.1%).

Treasuries ended higher as yields slid throughout the complex. The yield on the 10-yr note settled lower by four basis points (1.51%).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 745 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for June, and the Treasury Budget for July:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 7.1% in mortgage applications after declining 3.5% in the prior week.
The June Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increase to 5.624 million from a revised 5.514 million (from 5.500 million) in May.
The Treasury Budget for July showed a deficit of $112.8 billion versus a deficit of $149.2 billion in July 2015.
The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the July deficit cannot be compared to the $6.3 billion surplus registered in June.
Total receipts in July were $210.0 billion while total outlays were $322.8 billion.
Receipts were $15.5 billion less than receipts in July 2015. Total outlays, meanwhile, were $51.9 billion less than the same period a year ago.
The 12-month deficit narrowed to $487.2 billion from $523.6 billion in June.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 266k) and Import/Export Prices for July, which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +7.7% YTD
S&P 500 +6.4% YTD
Dow Jones +6.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.9% YTD

DJ30 -37.39 NASDAQ -20.90 SP500 -6.25 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 994/1.524 bln/1953 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1311/744.0 mln/1639 3:30 pm :

The dollar index held onto initial morning losses, down -0.5% around the 95.67 level, aiding precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, -0.6% around the 83.23
Crude oil remained volatile post-EIA, initially rallying 1% after the release before reversing and closing at fresh session lows
September crude oil futures fell $0.98 (-2.3%) to $41.76/barrel
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +1.06 mln (consensus called for a draw between -800K & -1.75 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -2.81 mln (consensus called for a draw between -1.0 & -1.2 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a draw of -1.96 mln
Monthly IEA data will be released tomorrow
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released on Friday at 1 pm ET
Natural gas ended near session lows ahead of tomorrow's inventory data
September natural gas closed $0.06 lower (-2.3%) at $2.56/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver saw a boost as the dollar index took a dive
December gold ended today's session up $5.00 (+0.4%) to $1351.70/oz
September silver closed today's session $0.34 higher (+1.7%) at $20.19/oz
Base metal copper gave up a portion of its initial morning gains, still closing higher on the day
September copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.9%) at $2.17/lb

Today's session began on a choppy note as investors eyed quiet overseas action. Global bourses tilted to the downside as limited macro data kept participants focused on movements in the commodity market. Oil futures were at the forefront after weekly inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute showed a larger-than-expected build in crude oil of 2.09 million barrels.

Additionally, the energy component managed to erase an overnight loss following the release of OPEC's Oil Market Report for August. The report indicated that the oil collective raised its demand growth forecast for this year while maintaining its demand outlook for 2017. However, the reprieve for oil futures would prove to be short-lived. The energy component yielded to mounting selling pressure shortly after the Department of Energy reported mixed inventory data as September crude oil futures closed down $0.98 (-2.3%) to $41.76/barrel.

Market data today came in the form of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 7.1% in mortgage applications after declining 3.5% in the prior week. Also, the June Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.624 million from a revised 5.514 million (from 5.500 million) in May. Lastly, the Treasury Budget for July showed a deficit of $112.8 billion versus a deficit of $149.2 billion in July 2015. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the July deficit cannot be compared to the $6.3 billion surplus registered in June. The 12-month deficit narrowed to $487.2 billion from $523.6 billion in June.

At the end of the Wednesday session, trading ended lower as oil pulled the markets into the red. Leading the session to the downside, the Nasdaq Composite lost 20.90 points (-0.40%) to 5204.58. (Not) helping the cause, Nasdaq 100 components LRCX -4.5%, BMRN -3.9%, INCY -3.5%, VRTX -3.0%, MYL -2.3% and BIIB -1.8% all finished in the red, pushing the index lower. The S&P 500 was down 6.25 points (-0.29%) to 2175.49, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 37.39 points (-0.20%) to 18495.66. Dow components XOM -1.8%, CVX -1.2%, NKE -1.2% and AXP -1.0% all finished in negative territory, aided the index decline.

Technology (XLK 46.99, -0.15 -0.32%) was an underperformer today as the sector began near flat lines and sellers took hold following yesterday's rally. Component KLA-Tencor (KLAC 69.47, -7.94 -10.26%) was the worst performer today in spite of reporting better than expected Q4 results, but non-GAAP EPS and revenue guidance for Q1 was worse than expectations. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLP +0.37%, XLY +0.21%, XLB +0.02%, XLU +0.02%, XLI -0.05%, XLV -0.34%, IYZ -0.75%, XLF -0.79%, XLE -1.09% with the Energy component lagging and Consumer Staples posting back to back strong sessions.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (779.92, -2.65 -0.34%) sector, trading was near lows as the modest morning turned lower and never looked back. Component CSRA (CSRA 26.28, +0.46 +1.78%) was strong ahead of its quarterly results which are expected tonight after the close. Other names in the space that underperformed with the broader market FSLR -7.20%, WDC -4.66%, LRCX -4.48%, STX -3.42%, MU -1.93%, AMAT -1.42%, CRM -1.16%, INTC -1.15%, TDC -1.11%, RHT -1.09%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Intel (INTC 34.53, -0.39 -1.12%) signed a definitive agreement to acquire Nervana Systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Accenture (ACN 113.22, +0.34 +0.30%) was chosen by Skanska to help manage its Oracle (ORCL 41.09, -0.01 -0.01%) Fusion applications in Sweden and Finland for greater operational efficiencies and enhanced application management services. The agreement is for a three-year duration. Financial terms were not disclosed.

KLA-Tencor (KLAC) and Lam Research (LRCX 89.11, -4.18 -4.48%) announced that obtaining regulatory clearances in one or more of the remaining jurisdictions may extend beyond Oct 20, 2016.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

ComScore (SCOR 27.20, +1.16 +4.45%) appointed co-founder Gian Fulgoni as CEO, and appointed David Chemerow as CFO. The company also filed to delay its Form 10-Q, stating the internal investigation is substantially complete.

Fortinet (FTNT 32.92, -0.27 -0.81%) signed an agreement with the Korea Internet & Security Agency to conduct two-way information sharing on cyber threat intelligence.

Rambus (RMBS 13.59, -0.21 -1.52%) signed an agreement with Idaho Scientific, LLC to license its Differential Power Analysis for use in Idaho Scientific's security IP Cores for FPGAs and defense ASICs.

Magal Security (MAGS 5.33, -0.03 -0.56%) filed $25 million mixed securities offering.

Energous (WATT 13.01, +0.84 +6.90%) announced a $20 million private placement.

Cavium Networks (CAVM 48.49, -0.68 -1.38%) announced the extension of an offer to exchange all outstanding shares of common stock of QLogic Corporation (QLGC 15.69, -0.18 -1.13%) for $11 per share in cash and 00.098 shares of common stock for each share of QLogic common stock.

ManTech (MANT 40.03, +0.18 +0.45%) was awarded $110 million for two task orders by the General Services Administration Federal Acquisition Service on behalf of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to provide cybersecurity.

Enphase Energy (ENPH 1.83, -0.15 -7.58%) announced the resignation of CFO, Kris Sennesael.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Avnet (AVT 40.99, -0.49 -1.18%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.86 on revenues which fell 8.4% compared to last year to $6.23 billion. AVT also guided Q1 EPS and revenues in-line at $0.84-0.94 and $5.8-6.4 billion, respectively.

ViaSat (VSAT 74.75, -0.23 -0.31%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.23 and $363.1 million, respectively.

Yelp (YELP 36.83, +4.19 +12.84%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.16 and $173.4 million, respectively. For Q3, the company sees better than expected revenues of $180-184 million. For FY16, YELP sees better than expected revenues of $700-708 million.

SolarCity (SCTY 24.38, -0.17 -0.69%) reported a better than expected Q2 loss per share of $2.32 on better than expected revenues of $185.8 million. For Q3, SCTY sees worse than expected EPS of ($2.55)-($2.65) on worse than expected revenues of $155-168 million. For FY16, the company sees total MW Installed of 900-1,000 MW (down from 1.0-1.1 GW).

Paylocity (PCTY 45.55, -0.81 -1.75%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.01 on better than expected revenues which rose 49.5% compared to last year to $59.8 million. For Q1, PCTY sees in-line EPS of $0.01-0.03 and better than expected revenues of $63.0-64.0 million. For FY17, PCTY sees in-line EPS of $0.35-0.38 and better than expected revenues of $296.0-298.0 million.

Lumentum (LITE 31.82, -0.31 -0.96%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.41 on better than expected revenues which rose 15.7% compared to last year to $241.7 million. For Q1, LITE sees EPS of $0.40-0.46 and revenues of $245-255 million.

SunPower (SPWR 10.31, -4.47 -30.24%) reported a Q2 loss per share of $0.22 on better than expected revenues of $401.8 million. For Q3, the company sees revenues of $750-850 million. For FY16 the company sees revenues of $3.0-3.2 billion.

SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG 16.82, -1.80 -9.67%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.44 on worse than expected revenues which rose 26.8% compared to a year ago to $124.8 million. For Q1, SEDG sees in-line revenues of $130-139 million.

ComScore (SCOR 27.20, +1.16 +4.45%) sees 1H2016 revenues of $214-218 million. (filed to delay the Form 10-Q).

KLA-Tencor (KLAC) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.77 and $919.17 million, respectively. Sees Q1 non-GAAP EPS of $0.90-1.10 on revenues of $695-755 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: PMTS, CSRA, DTRM, GLOB, MXPT, WSTL/AIXG, HIMX, MTLS

Analyst actions:

YELP was upgraded to Outperform at Raymond James, to Neutral at BofA/Merrill, to Buy at Axiom Capital and to Buy at Mizuho,
LOGI was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley,
VRNS was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
HLIT was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Drexel Hamilton;
SPWR was downgraded to Hold at Deutsche Bank, to Neutral at Credit Suisse, to Neutral at Janney, to Perform at Oppenheimer and to Neutral at JP Morgan,
YRD was downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Nomura,
KEYW was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Noble Financial,
TTGT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
MCHX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital,
G was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
TECD was initiated with a Neutral at Northcoast,
IMASY was initiated with a Buy at Goldman

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 12-Aug-16The stock market ended the second week of August on a flat note, but not before creeping into record territory. The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 set new intraday record highs, finishing the week just above their flat lines. The S&P 500 added 0.1% while the Dow and Nasdaq climbed 0.2% apiece.

The past week was not particularly exciting as summer doldrums set in, leading to narrow ranges and limited trading volume. To that point, average daily NYSE floor volume checked in at just 728 million shares, which was well below the 20-day average of 808 million.

A few more quarterly reports crossed the wires during the week with retailers receiving some added focus. The likes of Macy's (M), Nordstrom (JWN), Kohl's (KSS), and Ralph Lauren (RL) enjoyed big gains after beating expectations, but Friday's release of the July Retail Sales report told a different tale. The report showed that retail sales were unchanged in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) after being up 0.8% in June (revised from 0.6%). Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) to follow a 0.9% increase in July (revised from 0.7%).

All in all, rate hike expectations, estimated by the fed funds futures market, have receded a bit more. The implied probability of a hike in March 2017 ticked down from last week's 51.2% to 50.1%.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18543.53 18576.47 32.94 0.2 6.6
Nasdaq 5221.12 5232.89 11.77 0.2 4.5
S&P 500 2182.87 2184.05 1.18 0.1 6.9
Russell 2000 1231.09 1227.50 -3.59 -0.3 8.1

4:14 pm Closing Market Summary: Nasdaq Notches High on Range Bound Friday (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended a flat week on a similar note as disappointing readings of July retail sales (0.0%; Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and July PPI (-0.4%; Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) stalled the major averages in record territory. The S&P 500 (-0.1%; week-to-date: +0.1%) ended the week flat while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%; week-to-date: +0.2%) finished slightly ahead of the broader market.

The benchmark index meandered in a narrow seven-point range, pressured by weaker-than-expected economic data. The Retail Sales Report for July offered a disappointing preview of consumer spending for the third-quarter. Recall that consumer spending was a strong point for second-quarter GDP growth. The negative reading also contributed to a downward revision to the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast for the third quarter (to 3.5%; from 3.7%). Separately, the Producer Price Index for July (-0.4%; Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) also came in below consensus, indicating a continued lack of upward pricing pressure.

Retailers managed to shrug off the weaker-than expected retail sales report, focusing on better-than-expected earnings results from J. C. Penney (JCP 10.55, +0.61) and Nordstrom (JWN 51.38, +3.82). The two department store names beat bottom-line estimates, extending the rally in the broader SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.51, +0.25). Today's trade also featured a rally in crude oil futures, softening in the dollar, and the underperformance of the heavily-weighted financial (-0.2%), health care (-0.2%), and industrial (-0.3%) sectors.

The S&P 500 (-0.1%) settled in the middle of today's trading range as seven sectors ended in the red. The commodity-sensitive energy sector (+0.7%) led amid a 2.2% ($44.46/bbl; +$0.96) gain in crude oil futures. Conversely, industrials (-0.3%), telecom services (-0.4%), and materials (-1.2%) rounded out the leaderboard.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.5%) finished behind the benchmark index as airlines weighed. Southwest Air (LUV 36.52, - 0.72) remained pressured after cutting its third-quarter revenue per available seat mile guidance on Wednesday. The stock declined 3.5% this week, which compares to a loss of 0.8% in the broader Transportation Index.

The heavyweight financial sector (-0.2%) displayed relative weakness as expectations for a rate hike by the end of the year diminished. The fed funds futures market currently estimates the likelihood of an interest rate hike at the December meeting at 38.7%. This compares to yesterday's implied probability of 51.9%. The shift in rate hike expectations also contributed to a bid in Treasuries, which also pressured the economically-sensitive sector. The financial space finished the week lower by 0.6%, returning to negative territory for the year (-0.1%).

In the health care sector (-0.3%), Dow component Merck (MRK 63.35, -0.28) extended its week-to-date loss to 0.8%, pulling back from last Friday's 10.4% rally. On the flipside, Anthem (ANTM 130.19, +1.99) and Cigna (CI 133.31, +6.69) outperformed. The names rose after reports indicated that settlement offers might be entertained in their antitrust case. The U.S. Department of Justice moved to block their proposed merger on July 21.

The PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.5%) outperformed as NVIDIA (NVDA 63.04, +3.34) led the price-weighted index. The company reported above-consensus quarterly results last evening. In the broader technology sector (-0.1%), Microsoft (MSFT 57.94, -0.36) underperformed after CEO Satya Nadella disclosed the sale of 143,000 shares. Separately, Coatue Management reported that it reduced its position in the Dow component, cutting its equity exposure to ~4.9 million shares from ~10.8 million.

The U.S. Dollar Index (95.74, -0.12) recovered some early losses as the greenback trimmed its decline against the euro and the yen. The euro ended higher by 0.2% against the buck (1.1161) while the dollar/yen pair finished lower by 0.7% (101.29).

Treasuries ended higher, benefiting from declining rate hike expectations. The yield on the 10-yr note settled lower by five basis points (1.51%). Separately, the yield on the 2-yr note slipped four basis points to 0.71%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 693 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included July PPI, July Retail Sales, the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for August, and Business Inventories for June:

The Producer Price Index for July featured a 0.4% decline in the final demand index (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) following a 0.5% increase in June. The downturn in July was paced by prices for final demand services, which fell 0.3%. The index for final demand goods, meanwhile, decreased 0.4%. On a year-over basis, the final demand index is down 0.2% versus a 0.3% increase seen in June.Excluding food and energy, the final demand index declined 0.3% on the heels of a 0.4% increase in June. That left the index up 0.7% year-over-year, which is a slowdown from the 1.3% growth rate seen in June.

The Retail Sales report for July showed no change in total retail sales (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) after an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from 0.6%) in June. Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) following an upwardly revised 0.9% increase (from 0.7%) in June.Gasoline station sales (-2.7%) were the main drag and helped break a string of three consecutive monthly increases in retail sales. Other weak spots included sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores (-2.2%), food and beverage stores (-0.6%), building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers (-0.5%), clothing and accessories (-0.5%), food services and drinking places (-0.2%), general merchandise stores (-0.1%), and electronics and appliance stores (-0.1%).Motor vehicle and parts dealers (+1.1%) provided an influential offset of sorts, but by and large there was a slowdown in sales across most categories following some relatively strong sales performances in June.

Core retail sales, which exclude auto, gasoline station, building material, and food services sales, and which factor into the goods component for personal consumption expenditures in the GDP report, were flat.Total business inventories increased 0.2% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) following an unrevised 0.2% increase in May.

The key takeaway from the report is that business inventories continue to remain at an elevated level relative to sales.This points to ongoing difficulties in achieving pricing power and perhaps some more conservative approaches to increasing inventory investment.Manufacturers' inventories (-0.1%) and wholesaler inventories (+0.3%) were already known. The total business inventory-to-sales ratio for June dipped to 1.39 from 1.40 in May, yet that was still above the 1.37 ratio seen in the same period a year ago.The preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for August checked in at 90.4 (Briefing.com consensus 90.2) versus the final reading of 90.0 for July.

From our vantage point, the key takeaway from the report is that there wasn't any significant change in consumer sentiment.This comes despite the stock market rally and the stronger-than-expected employment data seen for July and August.The improvement in August was fed by the Index of Consumer Expectations, which jumped to 80.3 from 77.8 in July. The Current Economic Conditions Index, meanwhile, dropped to 106.1 from 109.0.Monday's economic data will include Empire Manufacturing for August (Briefing.com consensus 4.0) and the August NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 59), which will be released at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively. The day's data will be capped off with the 16:00 ET release of Net Long-Term TIC Flows for June.

Week in Review: Inching Higher

The stock market ended the second week of August on a flatnote, but not before creeping into record territory. The Dow, Nasdaq, andS&P 500 set new intraday record highs, finishing the week just above theirflat lines. The S&P 500 added 0.1% while the Dow and Nasdaq climbed 0.2%apiece.

The past week was not particularly exciting as summerdoldrums set in, leading to narrow ranges and limited trading volume. To thatpoint, average daily NYSE floor volume checked in at just 728 million shares, whichwas well below the 20-day average of 808 million.

A few more quarterly reports crossed the wires during theweek with retailers receiving some added focus. The likes of Macy's (M), Nordstrom (JWN), Kohl's (KSS), and Ralph Lauren (RL) enjoyedbig gains after beating expectations, but Friday's release of the July RetailSales report told a different tale. The report showed that retail sales wereunchanged in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) after being up 0.8% in June (revisedfrom 0.6%). Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus0.2%) to follow a 0.9% increase in July (revised from 0.7%).

All in all, rate hike expectations, estimated by the fedfunds futures market, have receded a bit more. The implied probability of ahike in March 2017 ticked down from last week's 51.2% to 50.1%.

Equities began the day on a defensive note as a weaker-than-expected July Retail Sales Report (0.0%) weighed on the broader market. The report offered a disappointing prelude to third-quarter consumer spending, which was one of few bright spots in second-quarter GDP. In addition, July PPI (-0.4%) also missed expectations, which has pushed out rate hike expectations, as estimated by the fed funds futures market.

Market data was out today in the form of the Producer Price Index for July which featured a 0.4% decline in the final demand index following a 0.5% increase in June. As mentioned, the Retail Sales report for July showed no change in total retail sales after an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from 0.6%) in June. Core retail sales, which exclude auto, gasoline station, building material, and food services sales, and which factor into the goods component for personal consumption expenditures in the GDP report, were also flat. Further, total business inventories increased 0.2% in June following an unrevised 0.2% increase in May. Lastly, the preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for August checked in at 90.4 versus the final reading of 90.0 for July.

Following a day with record closings, the markets ended Friday split. Leading trade to the upside today, the Nasdaq Composite added 4.50 points (+0.09%) to 5232.90. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, on the other hand, was the worst performer, shedding 37.05 points (-0.20%) to 18576.47, and the S&P 500 lost 1.74 points (-0.08%) to 2184.05. Despite the split Friday close, the market still posted a solid week, and ended the second week of August with YTD gains of +4.5%, +6.6% and +6.8%, respectively.

When Friday came to a close, the Technology (XLK 47.11, -0.08 -0.17%) sector ended near the middle of the daily range, albeit in a losing effort. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 63.04, +3.34 +5.59%) was one of the better performers today following the Q2 beat and better than expected Q3 guide from last night after the bell. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended XLE +0.56%, XLP +0.35%, XLU +0.14%, XLY -0.05%, XLV -0.25%, XLI -0.27%, XLF -0.29%, IYZ -0.88%, XLB -1.06%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (782.08, -0.55 -0.07%) sector, trading ended close to highs and well off lows of the day. Component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 21.89, +0.10 +0.46%) managed to eke out gains following the announced acquisition by the company of Silicon Graphics (SGI 7.69, +1.71 +28.60%) for $7.75 per share. Other names in the space which closed lower with the sector included CSRA -2.11%, VRSN -1.68%, FLIR -1.40%, XRX -1.31%, MSI -1.30%, EBAY -0.99%, IBM -0.97%, INTU -0.94%, STX -0.63%, ADBE -0.62%, MSFT -0.62%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Silicon Graphics (SGI) will be acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) for $7.75 per share in cash.

Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS 80.04, -0.46 -0.57%) priced senior notes offering - $750 million 2.250% Senior Notes due 2021; $1,250 million 3.000% Senior Notes due 2026 and $500 million 4.500% Senior Notes due 2046.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

BATS Global (BATS 25.25, -0.11 -0.43%) announced plans to acquire Javelin SEF. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Tencent (TCEHY 24.01, +0.33 +1.39%) and PCCW made a strategic investment in STX Entertainment. Financial terms were not disclosed.

ViaSat (VSAT 74.33, -0.14 -0.19%) was awarded a $33 million US Air Force contract.

CenturyLink's (CTL 29.96, -0.46 -1.51%) Qwest Corp sold $850 million of 6.5% Notes due 2056.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Acacia Communications (ACIA 95.67, +27.97 +41.31%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.77 and $116.2 million, respectively. For Q3, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $0.64-0.76 and $120-128 million, respectively.

NVIDIA (NVDA) reported better than expected Q2 non-GAAP EPS and revenues of $0.53 and $1.43 billion, respectively. Additionally, for Q3 NVDA sees revenues ahead of market views at about $1.65-1.71 billion.

Itron (ITRI 48.21, +4.52 +10.35%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.44 and $498 million, respectively.

Viavi (VIAV 7.30, -0.03 -0.41%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.10 and $224 million, respectively. For Q1, VIAV expects EPS and revenues in-line at $0.06-0.08 and $201-217 million, respectively.

Luxoft Holding (LXFT 53.76, -1.91 -3.43%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of $0.62 on in-line revenues of $178.05 million. LXFT also reaffirmed FY17 EPS and revenue guidance of at least $2.85 and at least $781 million, respectively.

Silicon Graphics (SGI) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.08 and $122.71 million, respectively.

Analyst actions:

NVDA was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets,
BBRY was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
AKAM was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
INVN was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
TSS was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
SMI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
CUDA was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at DA Davidson,
SPWR was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
AZPN was downgraded to Mkt Underperform from Mkt Perform at Avondale,
SGI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham;
AVGO was initiated with an Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
SHOP was initiated with a Neutral BofA/Merrill

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market began the week on a higher note as the Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%), and the S&P 500 (+0.3%) each carved out new all-time closing highs. The benchmark index traversed a narrow seven-point trading range as a rally in crude oil buoyed the broader market. Today's trade also featured weakening in the dollar and the outperformance of the heavily-weighted technology (+0.5%), financial (+0.6%), and industrial (+0.6%) sectors.

U.S. equities began the day on a higher note, shrugging off negative economic data at home and from overseas. Japan's second-quarter GDP disappointed with growth coming in flat quarter-over-quarter (expected: 0.2%). However, the response was fairly muted as participants mulled recent fiscal stimulus measures and looked forward to potential action from the Bank of Japan. Central bank policy remained in focus as investors ruminated over a disappointing reading of the U.S. Empire Manufacturing Survey for August (-4.2; Briefing.com consensus 4.0). Investors added the disappointing reading to the recent string of soft data, which might keep policy rate normalization on hold.

The broader market advanced through the afternoon, trading higher alongside crude oil. The energy component benefited from speculation regarding potential price stabilization measures from OPEC and non-OPEC members. Reports indicated that Russia is holding discussions regarding such measures with producers inside and outside of the oil cartel. WTI crude ended its day higher by 2.9% ($45.73/bbl; +$1.27), extending its month-to-date advance to 10.0%.

The S&P 500 (+0.3%) settled off its high after the benchmark index failed to clear technical resistance near the 2191/2193 price level. Despite the minor pullback, seven sectors ended in the green with commodity-sensitive energy (+0.6%) and materials (+1.0%) outperforming. The remaining advancers ended with gains between 0.1% (health care) and 0.6% (industrials). Conversely, defensively-oriented consumer staples (-0.2%), telecom services (-0.3%), and utilities (-1.6%) ended with the only losses.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.6%) finished ahead of the broader market as airlines outperformed in the index. United Continental (UAL 48.01, +0.91) and American Airlines (AAL 35.87, +0.95) ended higher by 1.9% and 2.7%. Meanwhile, the broader U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 22.51, +0.27) trimmed its monthly loss to 0.1%. In the broader industrial sector (+0.6%), Dow component Boeing (BA 134.66, +1.59) outperformed, gaining 1.2%.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+0.6%) displayed relative strength as the group moved higher with rising Treasury yields. Treasuries ended the day near their lows as yields rose through the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note settled higher by four basis points at 1.56%. In the group, investment brokerages and life insurance names displayed relative strength as Morgan Stanley (MS 29.66, +0.49) finished higher by 1.7%.

In the technology sector (+0.7%), top-weighted Apple (AAPL 109.51, +1.33) outperformed, bolstering the broader sector. The stock has rallied 13.3% since beating bottom-line estimates for the quarter on June 26. Twitter (TWTR 20.86, +1.32) jumped 6.8% on reports indicating that the company is in talks to have its app supported by Apple TV. On the flipside, Salesforce.com (CRM 78.92, -2.71) slipped 3.3% after announcing that it would postpone its earnings call until August 31 (from August 29).

The U.S. Dollar Index (95.60, -0.12) finished off its low as the greenback held losses against the euro and commodity currencies. The single currency gained 0.2% against the buck (1.1186) while the dollar/Canadian dollar pair ended lower by 0.3% (1.2918). Separately, the dollar was unchanged against the safe-haven yen (101.23).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 723 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the Empire Manufacturing Survey for August and the NAHB Housing Market Index for August:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for August registered in at -4.21, which was below the prior month's reading of 0.55. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 4.0.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for August came in at 60 from a revised 58 in July (from 59) while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at 59.0.

Tomorrow's economic data will include July CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%), July Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1,167k), and July Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1,153k), which will each be released at 8:30 ET. The July Industrial Production Report (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and July Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.7%) will both cross the wires at 9:15 ET.DJ30 +59.58 NASDAQ +29.12 SP500 +6.10 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2042/1.411 bln/908 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1965/722.4 mln/1035

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were up 1.4% around the 85.24 level
Crude oil rallied for the third consecutive trading session ahead of tomorrow's API data
September crude oil futures rose $1.27 (+2.9%) to $45.73/barrel
The next OPEC meeting is scheduled to take place Sept 26-28 in Algeria
Weekly EIA data will be released Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Natural gas finished pit trading modestly higher, extended Friday's gains
September natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.4%) at $2.60/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold & silver reversed slightly to finish just off of session highs
December gold ended today's session up $4.10 (+0.3%) to $1347.60/oz
September silver closed today's session $0.16 higher (+0.8%) at $19.85/oz

Global markets tilted to the upside overnight, shrugging off a weaker-than-expected reading of Japan's GDP growth for the second quarter (0.0% quarter-over-quarter). The response was largely muted as investors considered recent fiscal stimulus measures and eyed potential stimulus from the Bank of Japan. On the home front, a disappointing reading of the U.S. Empire Manufacturing Survey for August (-4.2) also failed to elicit selling interest. Investors likely viewed the weak reading as further evidence that the Fed will remain on hold for the time being.

Equity indices marched higher through the first half of trade, gaining alongside crude oil futures. Oil prices have advanced amid continued speculation regarding price stabilization measures from OPEC and non-OPEC producers. Reports indicated that Russia is discussing potential actions with producers inside and outside of OPEC. At the end of floor trading, September crude oil futures rose $1.27 (+2.9%) to $45.73/barrel.

Market date today included the aforementioned US Empire Manufacturing Survey reading, and the NAHB Housing Market Index for August which came in at 60 from a revised 58 in July (from 59).

Stocks began the week on a higher note. Trading ended with decent gains all around as the Nasdaq Composite led all indices higher, up 29.12 points (+0.56%) to 5262.02; aiding the advance, Nasdaq 100 components ILMN +3.8%, BIDU +3.0%, NXPI +2.9%, AAL +2.7%, JD +2.7% all finished well higher today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 59.58 points (+0.32%) to 18636.05, and the S&P 500 was the most modest gainer today, up only 6.10 points (+0.28%) to 2190.15. At some point on the session, all three major US indices carved out new all-time highs -- ATH: Dow $18668.44, S&P $2193.81, Nasdaq $5271.36.

Among other S&P sectors, Technology (XLK 47.33, +0.22 +0.47%) was relatively strong today, but better gains were had elsewhere in the S&P. Specifically, Semiconductor (SOXX 107.23, +1.44 +1.36%) names dominated positive territory. SOXX components MU +4.09%, SWKS +2.92%, NXPI +2.89%, ON +2.77%, TER +2.59%, MRVL +2.50%, QRVO +2.16%, AVGO +1.78% all capped the session with healthy gains. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLB +1.01% XLE +0.80% XLF +0.67% XLI +0.67% XLY +0.20% XLV +0.17% IYZ -0.03% XLP -0.25% XLU -1.53% led to the upside by Materials and Energy, with Utilities lagging.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (785.86, +3.78 +0.48%) sector, Monday ended near highs. Component Salesforce.com (CRM 78.92, -2.71 -3.32%) was especially weak today following a press release detailing the change of timing for the upcoming Q2 earnings conference call; the timing was changed to Wednesday, August 31, 2016 from Monday August 29, 2016 due to a 'scheduling conflict.' Other names in the space which were higher when the day was done included WDC +3.45%, JNPR +3.01%, EA +2.65%, TEL +2.05%, ADSK +1.86%, LRCX +1.75%, KLAC +1.70%, HPQ +1.68%, ADI +1.63%.
Today in the tech space

According to a Wall Street Journal story, Workday (WDAY 83.65, +0.16 +0.19%) is expected to announce a multi-year deal to use IBM's (IBM 161.88, -0.07 -0.04%) cloud computing services.

E*TRADE (ETFC 25.47, +0.25 +0.99%) commenced an offering of up to $400 mln of fixed-to-floating rate non-cumulative perpetual preferred stock.

Gogo (GOGO 11.69, +0.51 +4.56%) will work with China Telecom Satellite to offer in-flight connectivity service on International flights operating in and out of China starting in October.

Imprivata (IMPR 19.15, +0.01 +0.05%) announced that University of Utah Health Care will implement its PatientSecure.

Vectrus' (VEC 32.11, +0.19 +0.60%) Matthew Klein resigned as Principal Accounting Officer, but will continue to serve as CFO.

SunEdison (SUNEQ 0.50, -0.01 -16.94%) filed to delay its 10-Q.

Maxim Integrated (MXIM 40.99, +0.08 +0.20%) filed a mixed securities shelf offering.

TerraForm Power's (TERP 12.17, +0.25 +2.10%) Operating, LLC announced the extension of consent solicitation to August 19, 2016.

Analyst actions:

CYBR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman;
PI was initiated at Needham, Pacific Crest, Piper Jaffray and RBC Capital Mkts,
MGT was initiated with a Buy at Ascendiant Capital Markets

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:16 pm Cree misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line with preannouncement; guides Q1 with and without Wolfspeed business, being sold to Infineon (IFNNY) (CREE) : Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.20; revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $388.4 mln vs the $384.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co preannounced rev $388 mln vs. $383 mln consensus on July 14 when it announced sale of Wolfspeed to Infineon (IFNNY).Co issues guidance for Q1 including Wolfspeed, sees EPS of $0.10-0.16 on revs of 356-378, may not be comparable to $0.21 and $387 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; some analysts have put Wolfspeed business into discontinued operations but this is unclear.Excluding Wolfspeed, which co is selling to Infineon (IFNNY) for $850 mln in cash; Q1 guidance is for non-GAAP EPS of $0.06-0.11 on rev of $310-330 mln.

4:25 pm : The stock market ended a relatively quiet session on a lower note as volatility in the foreign exchange market and some hawkish-sounding talk from a few Federal Reserve officials pressured the major averages out of record territory.

The Nasdaq Composite (-0.7%) finished behind the S&P 500 (-0.6%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%). Mid-cap and small-cap stocks, though, bore the brunt of the selling interest, evidenced by the S&P 400 Midcap Index and the Russell 200 dropping 1.0% and 0.9%, respectively.

The future path of interest rate normalization was in focus as investors weighed the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) reading. The CPI was unchanged in July, as expected. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, ticked higher by 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI was up 0.8% in July while core CPI was up 2.2%, versus gains of 1.0% and 2.3%, respectively, in June.

Despite the tempered inflation rates, rate-hike expectations inched higher following remarks from New York Fed President William Dudley (an FOMC voter) and Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart (non-FOMC voter).

Mr. Dudley stated that a rate hike remains on the table at the FOMC's September meeting while adding that he thinks the fed funds futures market appears too complacent with regard to future hikes and that current high valuations in the Treasury market are concerning. Separately, Mr. Lockhart said he was unable to rule out at least one rate hike before the end of the year.

In response, the implied probability of an interest rate hike at the September meeting increased to 18.0% from 9.0% in the prior session. The implied probability of an interest rate hike at the December meeting rose to 54.2% from yesterday's implied probability of 41.9%.

The perspective from those two officials weighed on the Treasury market, which saw price weakness across the curve. Investors will be looking for further clues on possible rate-hike timing when the FOMC Minutes from the July meeting are released on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. ET.

The S&P 500 (-0.4%) settled the day at its low for the session as nine sectors settled with losses.

The defensively-oriented telecom services (-2.0%) and utilities (-1.2%) were the biggest laggards while the remaining decliners showed losses between 0.3% (financials) and 0.9% (health care). The commodity-sensitive energy sector (+0.2%) finished above its flat line, responding in kind to a 1.8% increase in crude oil futures ($46.57/bbl, +$0.84).

Biotechnology demonstrated relative weakness in the health care sector (-0.7%) as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 291.09, -4.12) declined 1.4%. Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 100.00, -2.48) underperformed after halting a study involving its VX-661 and ivacaftor therapy. In the broader health care sector, Dow component Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 120.33, -1.98) slipped 1.6%.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.3%), Dow component Home Depot (HD 136.23, -0.83) underperformed despite beating bottom-line estimates for the quarter and raising its full-year outlook. The increased guidance was largely in-line with analysts' consensus expectations. TJX (TJX 77.97, -4.80) declined by 5.8% as its disappointing guidance overshadowed better-than-expected quarterly results. Lowe's (LOW 81.48, -0.06) inched lower by 0.1% ahead of the company's earnings report tomorrow morning.

The influential technology sector (-0.6%) finished in-line with the broader market, trimming its monthly gain to 1.7%. Microsoft (MSFT 57.44, -0.32) displayed relative weakness after several money managers noted decreased exposure to the stock in recently released 13F forms. Apple (AAPL 109.38, -0.10) for its part slipped 0.1% even though Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a 55.0% increase in its equity stake in the company. The top-weighted component trimmed its post-earnings advance to 13.2%.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.79, -0.94) ended off its worst level as the euro and yen pared gains against the greenback. The single currency advanced 0.9% against the buck (1.1279) while the dollar/yen pair ended lower by 1.0% (100.28).

Treasuries ended the day near their lows. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note settled higher by two basis points at 1.57% while the yield on the 2-yr note edged up two basis points to 0.75%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 730 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the CPI, Housing Starts and Building Permits, and Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization reports for July:

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July was unchanged, as expected, after increasing 0.2% in June. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was up just 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after a 0.2% increase in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer inflation pressure eased in July, which will leave the market inclined to think that the Fed is going to hold off on a rate hike at its next meeting.
On an unadjusted basis, CPI was up 0.8% year-over-year in July while core CPI was up 2.2%. Those growth rates mark a slowdown from June when they stood at 1.0% and 2.3%, respectively.
Housing starts in July were up 2.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.211 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.167 million). Building permits declined 0.1% to 1.152 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.153 million).
The key takeaway from the report -- and a source of relative disappointment -- is that there was little to no growth in the single-family sector
In terms of starts, single-family starts were up just 0.5% to 770,000 while single-family permits actually declined 3.7% to 711,000.
Industrial production increased 0.7% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.4% increase (from 0.6%) in June. The Capacity Utilization Rate increased to 75.9% (Briefing.com consensus 75.7%) from an unrevised 75.4% in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that the improvement in July was driven by increases across all major industry groups, which is an encouraging focal point for third quarter growth prospects, assuming the strength is maintained
Manufacturing output increased 0.5%, which was its largest gain since July 2015; mining output increased 0.7%; and utilities output surged 2.1% for the second consecutive month as hotter temperatures increased air conditioning demand.

For further detail on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the 7:00 a.m. ET release of the MBA Mortgage Index and the 2:00 p.m. ET release of the FOMC Minutes from the July meeting. Tucked in between the Department of Energy will release its closely-followed inventory report at 10:30 a.m. ET.

Russell 2000 +8.6% YTD
S&P 500 +6.6% YTD
Dow Jones +6.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.4% YTD

DJ30 -84.03 NASDAQ -34.90 SP500 -12.00 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 891/1.547 bljn/2099 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 918/729.7 mln/2019

3:30 pm :

The dollar index extended its initial morning losses further, down -0.8% around the 94.81 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are up +0.6% around the 85.72 level
Crude oil closed at fresh 5-week highs, extended gains for the fourth consecutive session
September crude oil futures rose $0.84 (+1.8%) to $46.57/barrel
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Algeria on Sept 26-28
EIA petroleum data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
API data will be released after the bell today
Rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Natural gas rallied for the third trading session in a row
September natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.4%) at $2.61/MMBtu
EIA natural gas data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver inched higher as the dollar exhibited notable weakness
December gold ended today's session up (+0.7%) $8.80 to $1356.40/oz
September silver closed today's session $0.03 higher (+0.2%) at $19.88/oz
Base metal copper closed at today's highs in afternoon trade
September copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.9%) at $2.17/lb

Equity indices began the day under modest selling pressure as investors weighed a negative bias in global bourses and some largely in-line U.S. housing and inflation data. Japan's Nikkei (-1.6%) paced the retreat overnight, undercut by a strengthening in the yen. Separately, the euro saw a fair amount of buying interest, helped in part by Germany's ZEW Current Conditions Survey for August (57.6) checking in ahead of estimates.

Additionally, the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July came in flat. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.1% in July, compared to the year-over-year reading to 2.2% from 2.3% in June. Despite the tempered inflation trend, fed funds rate hike expectations ticked up a bit following remarks from New York Fed President and FOMC voter William Dudley, who stated that a rate hike remains possible at the FOMC's September meeting and that the fed funds futures market appears too complacent.

Also, housing starts in July were up 2.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.211 million units. Building permits declined 0.1% to 1.152 million. Further, industrial production increased 0.7% in July on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.4% increase (from 0.6%) in June. The Capacity Utilization Rate increased to 75.9% from an unrevised 75.4% in June.

At the end of Tuesday, trading carved out new lows. The sellers took hold as the bell rang and all three major US indices capped off the Tuesday session at LoDs, led by the Nasdaq Composite which shed 34.90 points (-0.66%) to 5227.11. Aiding the decline today, heavily weighted Nasdaq 100 components INCY -3.4%, VRTX -2.4%, REGN -2.2%, ILMN -2.1% and CELG -2.1% all under-performed benchmark index. The S&P 500 lost 12.00 points (-0.55%) to 2178.15, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower by 84.03 points (-0.45%) to 18552.02.

Also peeling off Monday strength, the Technology (XLK 46.99, -0.34 -0.72%) sector traded in a relatively wide range today, albeit ending at a loss. Component VeriSign (VRSN 75.97, -5.84 -7.14%) was the weakest component today as the company announced the upside trigger was met for the six-month interest payment period from Aug. 15, 2016, to Feb. 14, 2017. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended the day IYZ -1.50%, XLU -1.18%, XLV -0.89%, XLY -0.57%, XLB -0.53%, XLI -0.44%, XLP -0.44%, XLF -0.25%, XLE +0.16% as Telecoms lagged following the start of the second round of the FCC's spectrum auction, and Energy was the lone sector that managed to withstand the selling.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (781.49, -4.37 -0.56%) sector, trading took a slide into the slide and ended just shy of LoDs. Component Activision Blizzard (ATVI 39.31, -2.17 -5.23%) was also weak today in light of shareholder ASAC II (CEO Robert Kotick) announcement of their lowered active stake to 2.7% from 5.3%. Other names in the space which finished lower today included CSRA -2.91%, JNPR -2.54%, GPN -1.88%, EA -1.80%, AVGO -1.79%, FSLR -1.54%, FIS -1.50%, ADS -1.50%, GLW -1.43%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

According to BeyondCore, Salesforce.com (CRM 77.96, -0.96 -1.22%) will acquire the company for an undisclosed amount.

NVIDIA (NVDA 62.60, -0.38 -0.60%) introduced NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080, 1070 and 1060 GPUs for notebooks, now available worldwide.
CaribShopper announced a partnership with eBay (EBAY 30.83, -0.22 -0.71%).

VeriSign (VRSN) announced that the upside trigger on its 3.25% junior subordinated convertible debentures due 2037 has been met for the six-month interest payment period from Aug. 15, 2016, to Feb. 14, 2017. As a result, contingent interest will be paid on the Notes for that six-month interest payment period. Contingent interest of about $7.7 million on the $1.25 billion outstanding principal amount of the Notes, or about $6.1750 per $1,000 principal amount of the Notes, will be paid on Feb. 15, 2017, to the holders of record as of Feb. 1, 2017.

According to Engadget, Intel (INTC 35.21, +0.30 +0.86%) announced a new wireless VR headset, Project Alloy.

Investor ASAC II (CEO Robert Kotick) lowered its active stake in Activision Blizzard (ATVI) to 2.7% from 5.3%.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Shopify (SHOP 38.37, -0.71 -1.82%) filed a preliminary prospectus supplement to its short form base shelf prospectus dated August 5.; 7.5 million Class A subordinate voting shares will be offered for sale under the Offering.

Vicon (VII 0.76, -0.01 -1.32%) filed to delay its 10-Q. The company does not expect significant changes in results of operations.

Elephant Talk (ETAK 0.13, +0.00 +1.51%) reached an agreement in principle with its senior secured lender to increase and restructure its existing $6 million. The company also reaffirmed its relationship with its largest customer.

Quintiles Transnational (Q 76.11, -0.40 -0.52%) merger with IMS Health Holdings (IMS 29.30, -0.26 -0.88%) was approved by the EU.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Alarm.com (ALRM 29.96, -2.97 -9.02%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.15 and $64.42 million, respectively. For FY16, ALRM sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $0.49-0.51 and $242.3-245.8 million, respectively.

Fabrinet (FN 39.79, -2.51 -5.93%) reported in-line Q4 EPA of $0.60 on better than expected revenues of $276.4 million. For Q1, FN sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $0.70-0.72 and $306-310 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: VNET, CREE, JKHY, OSIS/ADI, JASO

Analyst actions:

SHEN was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James;
RUBI and TUBE were downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at First Analysis Sec,
ALRM was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
LXFT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS;
GRUB was initiated with a Hold at Jefferies

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm Cisco Systems beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (CSCO) : Reports Q4 (Jul) earnings of $0.63 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.60; revenues fell 1.6% year/year to $12.64 bln vs the $12.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Revenue by geographic segment:
Americas up 3%
EMEA up 3%
APJC down 2%

Product Revenue
Security at 16%
Collaboration, Wireless and Switching product revenue increased by 6%, 5%, and 2%, respectively
Service Provider Video, NGN Routing and Data Center product revenue decreased by 12%, 6%, and 1%, respectively

Non-GAAP total gross margin and product gross margin were 64.6% and 63.9% (Guidance for 63-64%), respectively. The increase in non-GAAP product gross margin compared with 63.2% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 was primarily due to continued productivity improvement and to a lesser extent product mix, partially offset by pricing.

Deferred Revenue was $16.5 billion, up 8% in total, with deferred product revenue up 8%, driven largely by subscription-based and software offerings, and deferred service revenue was up 9%.

Product Backlog was approximately $4.6 billion at the end of fiscal 2016, an increase of 1% compared with the balance at the end of fiscal 2015 (excluding the SP Video CPE Business).

Days Sales Outstanding in Accounts Receivable (:DSO) was 42 days at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016, compared with 38 days at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of 0.58-0.60, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.60 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of -1-1% y/y (Approx $12.15-12.39 bln) vs. $12.49 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Revenue normalized to exclude SP Video CPE Business for Q1 FY2016)
Sees Q1 Gross Margin in the range of 63-64%.

4:12 pm NetApp appoints Jean English as Chief Marketing Officer (NTAP) : Most recently, she was the global VP for IBM Cloud Marketing and led the go-to-market transformation for IBM's cloud business.

4:11 pm Agilent beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides OctQ EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (A) :

Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.49 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.47 and above prior guidance of $0.45-0.47; revenues rose 3.0% year/year to $1.04 bln vs the $1.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $1.03-1.05 bln.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4 (Oct), sees EPS of $0.50-0.52, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.54 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $1.05-1.07 bln vs. $1.09 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co's adjusted operating margin was 20.6%, up 70 basis points over a year ago.
"These results, in a challenging global economic environment, reflect the strength of Agilent's scale and broad differentiated portfolio of products and services."

4:04 pm NetApp beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q2 in-line (NTAP) :

Reports Q1 (Jul) earnings of $0.46 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.36; revenues fell 3.1% year/year to $1.29 bln vs the $1.26 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Clustered Data ONTAP deployed on 32% of installed base systems

Deferred revenue and financed unearned services revenue up 8% year-over-year
FCF of $192 million, up more than 100% year-over-year
$228 million returned to shareholders in share repurchases and cash dividends

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.51-0.56, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.54 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.265-1.415 bln vs. $1.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the midweek affair on a flat note as market participants walked back recently-adjusted rate hike expectations for the year. The change in thinking followed some dovish remarks from St. Louis Fed President Bullard (an FOMC voter) and less hawkish-than-feared minutes from the FOMC's July meeting. The S&P 500 (+0.2%) settled above its flat line, recovering from a 0.5% loss intraday.

The future path of interest rate normalization remained in focus as investors looked to substantiate yesterday's somewhat hawkish remarks from New York Fed President Dudley (an FOMC voter) and Atlanta Fed President Lockhart (not an FOMC voter). The two fed officials pushed forward rate hike expectations, signaling that at least one rate hike remains possible before the end of the year.

The prospect of a sooner-than-expected rate hike was enough to keep buying interest under wraps through the first half of trade. Vacillating oil prices, some strengthening in the dollar, and weakness in the heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (-0.3%) and technology (-0.3%) sectors also helped keep the broader market in check.

The market shifted gears shortly after midday as reports indicated that German Chancellor Merkel signaled that there would be some scope for tax cuts in the Germany's next legislative session. That headline seemed to stoke some risk appetite as investors eyed potential fiscal stimulus measures, which have been lacking in the midst of very aggressive monetary policy accommodations.

St. Louis Fed President Bullard (an FOMC voter) also helped elicit some buying interest after he suggested that the Fed may only be likely to raise rates one time between now and late 2018. The comments echoed remarks made by Mr. Bullard in the past, citing trend growth remaining under 2.0%.

The Fed minutes for July also helped to brush away lingering rate hike angst.

The minutes indicated that the Federal Open Market Committee was split on whether or not an interest rate hike would be appropriate in the coming months. The committee agreed that economic data and labor markets had improved, but the sustainability of hiring and inflation continuing to run below the two percent objective worried some members. Several members said they preferred to defer another increase in the fed funds rate until they were more confident that inflation was moving closer to two percent on a sustained basis.

The market's initial impression of the minutes skewed toward the dovish side of things, evidenced by a downturn in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 12.21, -0.43, -3.4%), a dip in the U.S. Dollar Index (94.78, -0.02, -0.02%), an uptick in Treasury prices across the curve, and an upturn in the S&P 500 utilities sector (+1.5%) after their release.

The S&P 500 finished the session near its high, finding technical support near the 2168 price level, which marked a rising 20-day moving average.

Seven sectors ended in the green with industrials (+0.3%), financials (+0.4%), and utilities (+1.4%) leading the advance. The heavily-weighted health care sector (+0.2%) performed in-line with the market, but got a boost from M&A speculation. Medivation (MDVN 66.48, +1.26) jumped 1.9% after the company confirmed that it received indications of interest from several parties. Biotechnology heavyweight Gilead Sciences (GILD 80.70, +1.45) climbed 1.8%, trimming its post-earnings loss to 8.9%.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.2%), retail names underperformed as Lowe's (LOW 76.88, -4.60) and Target (TGT 70.63, -4.58) declined by 5.6% and 6.4%, respectively. The two came under pressure after disappointing investors with their quarterly results and/or guidance. Wal-Mart (WMT 72.93, +0.04) ended higher by 0.1% ahead of tomorrow morning's earnings report.

The technology sector (-0.1%) ended the day modestly lower as Dow component Cisco Systems (CSCO 30.72, -0.40) pressured the group. Cisco fell 1.3% after reports indicated that the company might be planning to layoff between 9,000 and 14,000 employees. The company is scheduled to report earnings after today's close. The high-beta chipmakers finished the day flat as Analog Devices (ADI 64.20, -0.68) weighed on the PHLX Semiconductor Index (UNCH). The stock fell 1.1% despite beating quarterly estimates and issuing in-line guidance for the fourth quarter.

Treasuries ended the day on a higher note, enjoying a decent bid across the complex. The yield on the 10-yr note slipped two basis points to 1.55%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 765 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index:

The MBA Mortgage Index showed that mortgage applications fell 4.0% in the week ending August 13 after a 7.1% increase in the prior week.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 265k) and the Philadelphia Fed Survey for August (Briefing.com consensus 0.5), which will each be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. The Leading Indicators report for July (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) will conclude the day's data, crossing the wires at 10:00 a.m. ET.

Russell 2000 +8.1% YTD
S&P 500 +6.8% YTD
Dow Jones +6.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.4% YTD

DJ30 +21.92 NASDAQ +1.55 SP500 +4.07 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1173/1.605 bln/1718 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1553/765.6 mln/1419

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, +0.2% around the 85.87 level
Crude oil closed higher for the fifth consecutive session, hit fresh 5-week highs post-EIA
September crude oil futures rose $0.24 (+0.5%) to $46.81/barrel
The next OPEC meeting will be in Algeria on Sept 26-28
Rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -2.509 mln (consensus called for a build of ~450K barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -2.724 mln (consensus called for a draw of ~1.7 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a build of +1.939 mln
Natural gas snapped its 3 day loss streak ahead of tomorrow's inventory data
September natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.4%) at $2.62/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold & silver futures gave up nearly all of the previous session's gains
December gold ended today's session down $8.00 (-0.6%) to $1348.40/oz
September silver closed today's session $0.24 lower (-1.2%) at $19.64/oz
Base metal copper held onto its initial morning losses, erased yesterday's gains
September copper closed $0.02 lower (-0.9%) at $2.15/lb

The major averages began the day under modest selling pressure as investors responded to a downturn in European markets, where investors reacted apprehensively to increased expectations regarding the speed and path of interest rate normalization in the U.S. and a downturn in crude oil.

New York Fed President Dudley (an FOMC voter) and Atlanta Fed President Lockhart (not an FOMC voter) each struck a somewhat hawkish tone yesterday, indicating that at least one rate hike is still a possibility before the end of the year. St. Louis Fed President Bullard (an FOMC voter) is beginning a speech now on the economy and monetary policy.

During the session, the Fed released the minutes from the July 26-27 FOMC meeting. Those minutes mimicked many of the other minutes from FOMC meetings in that they highlighted a range of opinions on economic, financial market, and monetary policy conditions without offering a strong view of any consensus opinion, other than the one that prevailed in the vote to leave the fed funds rate unchanged at the July meeting.

Further, a recent report that German Chancellor Merkel indicated there would be scope for tax cuts in the next German legislative session helped drive the rebound efforts, as investors are cognizant that fiscal stimulus has been lacking in the midst of very aggressive monetary policy accommodation.

The lone bit of market data today came in the form of the MBA Mortgage Index which showed that mortgage applications fell 4.0% in the week ending August 13 after a 7.1% increase in the prior week.

Wednesday action ended higher following the aforementioned FOMC minutes. Trading was led by the S&P 500 which added 4.07 points (+0.19%) to 2182.22. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 21.92 points (+0.12%) to 18573.94, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.55 points (+0.03%) to 5228.66.

On a split day as far as the S&P sectors go, Technology (XLK 46.97, -0.02 -0.04%) ended barely in negative territory. Component Analog Devices (ADI) was one of the weaker names in the space following what was generally a strong Q3 report. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the middle of the week XLU +1.49% XLF +0.33% XLE +0.30% XLI +0.29% XLP +0.27% XLV +0.20% XLB -0.08% XLY -0.23% IYZ -0.56% as Utilities and Financials led positive trading and Telecoms continued their recent losing streak.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (781.19, -0.30 -0.04%) sector, trading came close to flat lines as the bell rang, but the sellers held on and the sector finished in the red. Component Alliance Data (ADS) was among the worst performing names today following a premarket downgrade to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse. Other names in the space which under-performed today included NVDA -2.32%, WDC -2.29%, FSLR -2.25% CRM -2.10% STX -2.09% HPE -1.95% QRVO -1.30% CSCO -1.29% XRX -1.12% JNPR -1.07% VRSN -0.99% ADBE -0.89%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Apple (AAPL 109.22, -0.16 -0.15%) announced a commitment by major supplier Lens Technology to run its Apple operations on entirely renewable energy.

AT&T (T 41.86, -0.10 -0.24%) stated it is working with global tech companies to bring 5G to market sooner. Named preliminary discussions underway with China Mobile (CHL), Intel (INTC), Qualcomm (QCOM),

Nokia (NOK) and Vodafore (VOD) among others.

HP Inc. (HPQ 14.50, +0.09 +0.62%) launched a new family of gaming products -- the OMEN X Desktop, OMEN 17 Laptop, OMEN X Curved Display and OMEN with SteelSeries accessories.

CA Technologies (CA 33.93, -0.23 -0.67%) announced CA Privileged Access Manager is the first and only security solution for controlling, monitoring and auditing privileged user access to attain Common Criteria certification outlined in the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) Protection Profile for Enterprise Security Management -- Policy Management.

KLA-Tencor (KLAC 69.64, +0.45 +0.65%) introduced three advanced reticle inspection systems that address 10nm and below mask technologies: the Teron 640, Teron SL655 and Reticle Decision Center (RDC).

Elsewhere in the tech space:

E*TRADE (ETFC 25.23, -0.16 -0.63%) priced $400 million of preferred stock. ETFC will use the proceeds to finance the purchase of OptionsHouse

MeetMe (MEET 5.32, +0.30 +5.98%) reiterated its Q3 and FY16 guidance. Was possibly in response to recent volatility in the share price and in anticipation of upcoming investor meetings.

Camtek (CAMT 2.45, +0.03 +1.37%) announced it will reorganize its current mode of operation with respect to its functional inkjet technology (FIT) activity. As a result, the company expects to record one-time re-structuring costs of $300-400 thousand. All financial related implications will be recorded in the third quarter financial results.

According to Bloomberg, Sprint (S 6.01, -0.04 -0.66%) shareholder Softbank (SFTBY 25.40, +0.29 +1.15%) may be looking at a potential merger between S and T-Mobile US (TMUS 46.38, +0.14 +0.30%).

RingCentral (RNG 22.93, +0.09 +0.39%) named David Sipes as Chief Operating Officer.

Nuance Communications (NUAN 14.58, -0.28 -1.88%) filed for an approximate 6.15 million share common stock offering by selling shareholders with proposed maximum offering price per share of $14.98. Also announced the closure of TouchCommerce acquisition.

Shopify (SHOP 38.74, +0.37 +0.96%) priced an offering by the company and selling shareholders of 7.5 million shares of Class A stock at $38.25 per share.

Amazon's (AMZN 764.63, +0.59 +0.08%) Twitch announced a deal to acquire Curse. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Vivint Solar (VSLR 3.25, -0.04 -1.22%) expanded solar energy system sales and financing to Connecticut, Maryland and South Carolina.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Analog Devices (ADI) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.82 and $869.59 million, respectively. The company also gave in-line guidance for Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.84-0.94 and $910-970 million, respectively. Gross margins were 66.0% of revenues.

Cree (CREE 23.38, -4.10 -14.92%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.19 on in-line (with pre-announcement) revenues of $388.4 million. For Q1, the company sees EPS of $0.10-0.16 on revenues of $356-378 million (including Wolfspeed); excluding Wolfspeed, the company sees non-GAAP EPS of $0.06-0.11 on revenues of $310-330 million.

21Vianet (VNET 9.20, -1.31 -12.46%) reported a worse than expected loss per share of $0.17 on better than expected revenues of $137.1 million. For Q3, VNET sees revenues ahead of expectations at RMB 900-940 million, and sees FY16 revenues of RMB 3.62-3.66 billion.

Jack Henry (JKHY 85.94, -2.46 -2.78%) reported Q4 EPS of $0.84 on better than expected revenues of $366.97 million.

OSI Systems (OSIS 68.23, +7.58 +12.50%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.55 on worse than expected $221.5 million. The company also guided FY17 EPS ahead of market expectations at $2.60-2.90 on in-line revenues of $865-895 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: A, CACI, CSCO, NTAP, NTES, SNPS/CSIQ, PLAB

Analyst actions:

CREE was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital,
VNET was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
ASML was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
ADS was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse;
HPE was initiated with a Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
MTSC was initiated with a Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
HLTOY was initiated with a Sell at Berenberg

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 19-Aug-16The stock market had to contend with another range-bound week, which ended on a slightly lower note. The S&P 500 ended the week just below its flat line while the Dow (-0.1%) and Nasdaq (+0.1%) were also little changed.

Investors received a few more quarterly reports over the past week with the bulk of the latest batch coming from the retail sector, which is traditionally left for the tail end of each reporting period. All in all, the results were better than feared with Gap (GPS), Foot Locker (FL), L Brands (LB), and Urban Outfitters (URBN) beating estimates.

In addition to hearing from apparel retailers, market participants received some cautious-sounding quotes from influential fund managers. Carl Icahn said he is "More hedged than ever" while Paul Singer noted that he believes the bond market is broken, and warned of a sharp downturn that could be sudden and would likely ripple through to other asset classes.

Investor participation remained light with an average of 756 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor per day.

There has been a bit of a shift in rate hike expectations over the past week and the fed funds futures market is once again suggesting that a hike could take place by the end of 2016. The implied probability of a hike in December ended the week at 53.5%.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18576.47 18552.57 -23.90 -0.1 6.5
Nasdaq 5232.89 5238.38 5.49 0.1 4.6
S&P 500 2184.05 2183.87 -0.18 -0.0 6.8
Russell 2000 1229.82 1236.86 7.04 0.6 8.9

4:14 pm Closing Market Summary: Indices Flat, Ending Range-Bound Week (:WRAPX) :

The major averages ended a flat week on a similar note as early selling gave way to a partial rebound in afternoon action. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) settled behind the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and slightly behind the Nasdaq Composite ( UNCHF).

Equity indices began the day under moderate selling pressure as investors adjusted U.S. rate hike expectations and responded to a downturn in European markets. European bourses tilted to the downside as weakness in Italian banking names weighed on regional indices. Additionally, reports indicated that U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May hopes to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by April 2017. The move would begin formal talks for the country's withdrawal from the European Union.

On the central bank front, San Francisco Fed President Williams (not an FOMC voter) surprised market participants last evening by stating that the Fed should get back to hiking rates sooner rather than later. Recall that Mr. Williams published a letter earlier in the week, calling on central banks to reexamine their policy framework. Separately, Dallas Fed President Kaplan (not an FOMC voter) indicated that the Fed has room to maneuver on rates, but that a lower neutral rate does limit the central bank's policy options.

The prospect of a sooner-than-expected rate hike helped keep a lid on buying interest at the open. The benchmark index violated technical support near the 2178/2180 price level before finding its bearings near its 20-day simple moving average (2175.80).

The broader market marched off that level through the afternoon as heavily-weighted industrials ( UNCHF), consumer discretionary ( UNCHF), and technology (+0.2%) helped lead the rebound effort. Seven sectors ended in the red with defensively-oriented telecom services (-0.9%) and utilities (-1.2%) rounding out the leaderboard.

The influential technology space (+0.2%) ended near the front of the pack as top-weighted Apple (AAPL 109.36, +0.28) outperformed. The Dow component erased a 0.7% decline, ending higher by 0.3%. The early selling followed reports of a string of insider sales. Chipmakers led in the sector as Applied Materials (AMAT 29.64, +1.96) jumped 7.1%. The semiconductor name topped bottom-line estimates for the quarter and raised its fourth-quarter outlook above consensus.

In the industrial space ( UNCHF), Deere (DE 87.32, +10.38) demonstrated relative strength, surging 13.5%. The company beat bottom-line estimates for the quarter and increased its net income guidance for the full-year. Courier names also outperformed in the group as FedEx (FDX 168.63, +1.44) and JB Hunt Transportation (JBHT 83.53, +1.15) moved higher by 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively. Conversely, Emerson (EMR 52.98, -1.69) ended lower by 3.1% after announcing the acquisition of Pentair's (PNR 65.79, -0.74) valve control business.

The consumer discretionary space ( UNCHF) ended flat while retail names displayed relative strength. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.94, +0.19) finished higher by 0.4% as above-consensus earnings results from Gap (GPS 26.89, +1.01), Ross Stores (ROST 65.06, +2.18), and Foot Locker (FL 68.49, +6.81) boosted the sub-group. Separately, Dow component Nike (NKE 58.90, +1.69) ended at the top of the price-weighted index.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.48, +0.32, 0.34%) ended off its session high as the greenback gained against the yen, euro, and pound. The dollar/yen pair ended higher by 0.3% (100.14) while the single currency declined 0.2% against the buck (1.1326). Separately, cable declined 0.7% (1.3085), but rebounded from the 1.3020 price level.

The Treasury complex settled off session lows while yields gained across the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note rose five basis points (0.75%) while the yield on the 10-yr note ended at 1.58% (+4 bps).

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 824 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today and investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Russell 2000 +8.8% YTDS&P 500 +6.9% YTDDow Jones +6.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.6% YTD
Week in Review: Range-Bound Once Again

The stock market had to contend with another range-boundweek, which ended on a slightly lower note. The S&P 500 ended the week just below its flat line while theDow (-0.1%) and Nasdaq (+0.1%) were also little changed.

Investors received a few more quarterly reports over thepast week with the bulk of the latest batch coming from the retail sector,which is traditionally left for the tail end of each reporting period. All inall, the results were better than feared with Gap ( GPS), Foot Locker ( FL), L Brands ( LB), and Urban Outfitters ( URBN) beating estimates.

In addition to hearing from apparel retailers, marketparticipants received some cautious-sounding quotes from influential fundmanagers. Carl Icahn said he is "More hedged than ever" while Paul Singer notedthat he believes the bond market is broken, and warned of a sharp downturn thatcould be sudden and would likely ripple through to other asset classes.

Investor participation remained light with an average of 756 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor per day.

There has been a bit of a shift in rate hike expectationsover the past week and the fed funds futures market is once again suggestingthat a hike could take place by the end of 2016. The implied probability of ahike in December ended the week at 53.5%.

The major averages began the day under selling pressure as a downturn in European markets and a pause in the recent oil rally weighed on equities. Italy's MIB (-2.2%) led the retreat in Europe as relative weakness from the country's banking sector weighed on the index. Separately, reports indicated that U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May hopes to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by April 2017. The action would begin formal talks regarding the country's withdrawal from the European Union.

San Francisco Fed President Williams (not an FOMC voter) stated last evening that the Fed should get back to hiking rates sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, Dallas Fed President Kaplan (not an FOMC voter) indicated that the Fed has space to maneuver on a rate hike, but that a lower neutral rate narrows that room.

The week came to a close with a more negative note. Stocks were down, albeit in moderation, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 45.13 points (-0.24%) to 18552.57. The heavily-weighted commodity index was lower despite a modestly higher session from crude oil; October crude oil futures rose $0.19 (+0.4%) to $49.07/barrel. The S&P 500 was down 3.15 points (-0.14%) to 2183.87, and the Nasdaq Composite finished lower by 1.77 points (-0.03%) to 5238.38. This week's jostling left the three major US indices +6.5%, +6.8% and +4.6% YTD, respectively.

Technology (XLK 47.04, +0.08 +0.17%) ended a pressured past five days on a high note as the space managed to climb out of morning losses. Component Applied Materials (AMAT 29.64, +1.96 +7.08%) was the best performer today in the sector following strong Q3 results and Q4 EPS and revenue guidance which came in ahead of expectations. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Friday XLU -1.22%, IYZ -0.97%, XLE -0.83%, XLP -0.24%, XLV -0.08%, XLF -0.04%, XLI -0.03%, XLY +0.06%, XLB +0.14% with Utilities returning to the red after two sessions of gains.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (783.36, +1.57 +0.20%) sector, trading capped off the week on the positive side of flat lines as morning losses would not hold. Component Symantec (SYMC 23.72, +0.61 +2.64%) was an out-performer today on the heels of a premarket upgraded to a Buy rating from Neutral at Citigroup. Other names in the space which outperformed included NTAP +2.45%, QRVO +1.87%, KLAC +1.75%, WDC +1.72%, TEL +1.68%, FLIR +1.53%, CSRA +1.15%, AKAM +1.15%, VRSN +1.15%, JNPR +1.13%, APH +1.12%, EA +0.96%, STX +0.81%.

Notable news items in the tech space:

ComScore (SCOR 27.47, +0.08 +0.29%) received expected notification of deficiency from Nasdaq related to delayed quarterly report on Form 10-Q.

Marvell (MRVL 12.15, +0.50 +4.29%) announced Jean Hu as new CFO effective August 22, 2016.

FXCM (FXCM 9.42, -0.75 -7.37%) the CFTC charged Forex Capital Markets, LLC with under-capitalization, failing to timely report under-capitalization violation, and guaranteeing against customer losses.

TerraForm Power (TERP 11.41, -0.17 -1.55%) disclosed the termination of a purchase and sale agreement relating to the Comanche solar project.

Zebra Tech (ZBRA 68.89, +2.04 +3.05%) named Colleen O'Sullivan as Chief Accounting Officer.

Monster Worldwide's (MWW 3.78, +0.34 +9.88%) largest shareholder MediaNews Group voices opposition to its proposed sale to Randstad North America.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Mentor Graphics (MENT 23.49, +1.33 +6.00%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.15 and $254.34 million. For Q3, MENT sees EPS of about $0.42 on revenues of about $310 million.

Applied Materials (AMAT) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.50 on in-line revenues which rose 13.3% compared to a year ago to $2.82 billion. Additionally, the company sees Q4 EPS of $0.61-0.69 on revenues of $3.2-3.36 billion.

Cheetah Mobile (CMCM 11.75, -0.08 -0.68%) reported a worse than expected loss per share for Q2 of RMB 0.44 on revenues which rose 20.2% year-over-year to RMB 1.05 billion.

Analyst actions:

SYMC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
ANGI was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James;
NTES was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse

4:30 pm TerraForm Power Operating, LLC launches amended and restated consent solicitation related to senior notes ( TERP) :

Co has launched the amended and restated solicitation of consents from holders of record as of 5pm ET August 16, 2016 of its 5.875% Senior Notes due 2023 and its 6.125% Senior Notes due 2025 to obtain waivers relating to certain reporting covenants under the indenture dated as of January 28, 2015 with respect to the 2023 Notes, and the indenture dated as of July 17, 2015 with respect to the 2025 Notes, in each case among TerraForm Power, as issuer, the Guarantors party thereto and U.S. Bank National Association, as trustee, and to effectuate certain amendments to the respective Indentures. The Consent Solicitation amends and restates the terms of the solicitation of consents of holders of the Notes by TerraForm Power, as set forth in the Consent Solicitation Statement and the related Letter of Consent, each dated June 24, 2016, and as extended. Any holder that previously consented to the consent solicitation as set forth in the Consent Solicitation Statement and the related Letter of Consent, each dated June 24, 2016 (prior to the amendment and restatement on the date hereof), is required to re-submit its consent to the Proposed Waiver and Amendments by properly completing and executing the Letter of Consent in accordance with the instructions set forth in the Consent Solicitation Statement and the related Letter of Consent in order to receive the Consent Fee.The Proposed Waiver would waive any and all Defaults or Events of Default existing as of the Waiver Effectiveness Date, and the consequences thereof, with respect to any failure to comply with the respective Indentures, the respective Notes or the respective Note Guarantees that may have occurred, directly or indirectly, as a result of, arising from, relating to or in connection with a failure to comply with the covenants set forth in Section 4.03 of the respective Indentures other than those under Section 4.03(a)(3) thereof relating to current reports on Form 8-K and (ii) compliance with the Annual and Quarterly Reporting Covenants, in each case from the Waiver Effectiveness Date until 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on December 6, 2016 if TerraForm Power has not, by the Waiver Effectiveness Date, filed with the SEC or made publicly available all annual and quarterly reports that would have been required to be so filed or made publicly available pursuant to the Annual and Quarterly Reporting Covenants and cured each Default or Event of Default in connection therewith.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended a relatively quiet session on a slightly higher note as an above-consensus reading of the New Home Sales Report for July and better-than-expected earnings results from the retail sub-group bolstered the broader market. The Nasdaq Composite finished higher by 0.3%, narrowly missing a new all-time closing high (previous: 5262.02). The S&P 500 settled behind the tech-heavy index, adding 0.2%. Equity indices jumped at the start of the session as a strong performance from European bourses and a better-than-expected quarterly report from Best Buy (BBY 39.23, +6.43) bolstered the broader market. The benchmark index tested resistance near the 2193/210 area, but was unable to clear that price level despite a stronger-than-expected reading of new home sales for July.

The report showed that new home sales increased 12.4% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted rate of 654,000 (Briefing.com consensus 580,000). The report added to recent upbeat housing data, but may have also elicited some fears regarding a sooner-than-expected rate hike.

The S&P 500 (+0.2%) found support at the 2185/2188 price level as eight sectors finished in positive territory. The consumer discretionary (+0.5%) and materials (+0.8%) sectors ended atop the leaderboard while technology (+0.4%) and energy (+0.4%) followed. Conversely, countercyclical consumer staples (-0.1%) and utilities (-0.5%) ended in the red.

Retail names outperformed in the consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%), evidenced by the 1.0% gain in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 46.16, +0.46). The group drafted higher following positive quarterly results and guidance from Best Buy (BBY 39.23, +6.43). Separately, Toll Brothers (TOL 31.91, +2.58) rallied 8.8% after beating revenue estimates for the quarter and narrowing its full-year guidance. The homebuilder also benefited from the positive New Home Sales Report. The broader iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 29.49, +0.75) settled higher by 2.6%.

The commodity-sensitive energy space (+0.4%) gained alongside crude oil futures. The energy component shrugged off opening hour weakness after reports indicated that Iran could be more willing to participate in potential OPEC actions to stabilize the oil market. The news was probably taken with a grain of salt, but still led to a good deal of short covering. WTI crude ended its day higher by 1.5% ($48.15/bbl; +$0.73).

The technology sector (+0.4%) displayed relative strength as software companies and networking names outperformed. Dow component Cisco Systems (CSCO 30.98, +0.35) rebounded 1.1% after sliding 1.1% last week. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.5%) finished slightly ahead of the broader sector as Applied Materials (AMAT 29.95, +0.90) outperformed. The stock is up 8.2% since the company reported better-than-expected bottom-line results and upbeat fourth-quarter guidance on August 18.

Treasuries ended on a flat note with yields relatively unchanged throughout the complex. The yield on the 10-yr note finished flat at 1.54%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 716 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the New Home Sales Report for July:

New home sales increased 12.4% month-over-month in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 654,000, which was well above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 580,000 and up 31.3% from the same period a year ago
July 2016 marked the strongest pace of new home sales since October 2007

For more details on this economic release, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the FHFA Housing Price Index for June, which will be released at 7:00 ET and 9:00 ET, respectively. The day's data will be capped off with the Existing Home Sales Report for July (Briefing.com consensus 5.54 million), crossing the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +10.0% YTD
S&P 500 +7.0% YTD
Dow Jones +6.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.1% YTD

DJ30 +17.88 NASDAQ +15.47 SP500 +4.26 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1852/1.429 bln/986 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2019/715.9 mln/940

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, +0.5% around the 86.07 level
Crude oil reversed initial -1% morning losses to close near 4-week highs
October crude oil futures rose $0.73 (+1.5%) to $48.15/barrel
Headlines that Iran is willing to negotiate with other OPEC members to stabilize oil prices is a contributing factor to today's continuation rally
Other contributing factors affecting the price of oil include:
Reports that Iraq is increasing oil exports by around 150K barrels per day (+5%) as a pipeline dispute is being resolved
Increased exports out of China
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Algeria from Sept 26-28
Cautious analyst comments yesterday out of Barclays downplaying the 25% rally during the first several weeks of Aug
Short-covering, which was a factor behind the gains earlier this month, may be getting exhausted following the 20%+ increase
Friday's rig count data which showed that the total U.S. rig count was up 10 to 491 rigs following last week's increase of 17 rigs
200-300K barrels of oil are expected to come back online in Libya near-term
"Shoulder season" has begun as refineries undergo seasonal maintenance between Aug & Oct, demand is expected to drop
Production in Nigeria is expected to increase following a ceasefire, as militants appear willing to negotiate with the government
Natural gas extended yesterday's rally ahead of Thursday's inventory number
September natural gas closed $0.08 higher (+3.0%) at $2.76/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold & silver inched higher as the dollar traded nearly unchanged
December gold ended today's session up $2.60 (+0.2%) to $1346.00/oz
September silver closed today's session $0.07 higher (+0.4%) at $18.92/oz
Base metal copper added onto the previous session's losses in afternoon pit trading
September copper closed $0.02 lower (-0.9%) at $2.12/lb

The stock market traded on a higher note today as investors respond to a better-than-expected reading of the New Home Sales Report for July and strong performances from European bourses.

European markets led to the upside overnight as participants weighed mixed PMI readings from the eurozone. Overall, Manufacturing PMI readings came in slightly below-consensus while Services PMI readings came in slightly ahead of estimates. The combination demonstrated limited disruption from the Brexit vote in June.

Additionally, stronger-than-expected quarterly results from electronic retailer Best Buy (BBY 39.23, +6.43 +19.60%) have also helped underpin today's action. The company reported top- and bottom-line earnings beats and increased its full-year profit guidance.

The major averages notched session highs shortly after the release of the New Home Sales Report for July. The report showed that new home sales increased 12.4% month-over-month, rising to a seasonally adjusted rate of 654,000. The broader market pulled back slightly since the release, but the major averages continued to hold the bulk of today's advance through to the close.

Stocks rebounded off yesterday's weakness, but jogged lower off morning highs. The three major US indices all eventually closed in positive territory led by the Nasdaq Composite, which quietly made a new all-time high, and ended up 15.48 points (+0.30%) to 5260.08. The S&P 500 added 4.26 points (+0.20%) to 2186.90, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by 17.88 points (+0.10%) to 18547.30.

The majority of S&P sectors finished in the green today, and one of the leaders was the Technology (XLK 47.20, +0.18 +0.38%) sector which ended just under highs. Component Accenture (ACN 115.48, +1.72 +1.51%) was modestly higher today following news out that the company acquired Redcore, an Australian-based consulting company. Other sector as measured by the S&P closed Tuesday XLB +0.86%, XLE +0.70%, XLY +0.50%, IYZ +0.31%, XLF +0.12%, XLV +0.09%, XLI +0.08%, XLP -0.20%, XLU -0.44%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (785.76, +2.87 +0.37%) sector, trading pushed higher as the bell rang and the sector never looked back. Component Microsoft (MSFT 57.89, +0.22 +0.38%) was slightly higher today after news was out that LinkedIn (LNKD 191.82, +0.05 +0.03%) shareholders approved the acquisition by MSFT. Other names in the space which displayed relative strength included AMAT +3.10%, CSRA +2.52%, SWKS +1.60%, ACN +1.51%, HPQ +1.39%, ATVI +1.30%, CA +1.29%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

LinkedIn (LNKD) confirmed shareholders approved acquisition by Microsoft (MSFT).

Micron (MU 16.18, -0.014 -0.06%) executive Brian Shirley entered into a prearranged trading plan for the sale of up to 162,257 shares of stock beginning in October.

Accenture (ACN) to acquire Redcore, a privately held Australia-based consulting company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

EDGE3 Technologies announced a new IP licensing agreement with Microsoft (MSFT). This relationship encompasses a broad range of technologies focused on gestural and movement tracking using time-of-flight (TOF) camera sensors, with use cases spanning automotive-based gesture tracking, virtual reality (VR) gaming, and augmented reality (AR).

Microsoft (MSFT) and Lenovo (LVNGY) announced a deepening of their strategic relationship. Lenovo will load Microsoft's productivity apps - including Microsoft Office, OneDrive and Skype - on select Lenovo devices that use the Android operating system. Lenovo expects to ship millions of these Android-based devices worldwide over the next several years. This expanded collaboration between Microsoft and Lenovo also includes a patent cross-licensing agreement that covers Lenovo and Motorola devices.

Western Digital (WDC 46.50, +0.36 +0.78%) announced that Ovation Data Services, Inc. has selected the joint HGST Active Archive System and Versity Storage Manager solution to build a private storage cloud for media and entertainment and oil and gas industries as these organizations require fast and frequent access to their current and historical file-based data assets.

IBM (IBM 160.26, +0.25 +0.16%) announced new, cost-conscious, enterprise class, all-flash storage designed to provide small, midsized organizations and global enterprises with primary storage for cloud or cognitive applications and workloads. New models include the IBM Storwize V7000F and IBM Storwize 5030F; the new solutions will be available worldwide from IBM and through IBM Business Partners beginning early September. Pricing begins at $19,000.

Integrated Device (IDTI 20.19, +0.07 +0.35%) announced a new high-performance computing solution for telecommunications "edge" networks that combines its RapidIO technology with IBM's (IBM) POWER8-based servers.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

AT&T (T 40.85, -0.06 -0.15%) was awarded a 5-year contract by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division. AT&T will serve as its primary mobility provider.

CommerceHub (CHUBA 12.24, -1.26 -9.33%) to expand its existing partnership with Walmart (WMT 71.97, -0.73 -1.00%), integrating directly with Walmart's online third-party marketplace.

RADA Electronic Industries (RADA 0.60, +0.03 +5.63%) announced its selection by an Asian military force of its Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radar (MHR) based RPS-42 aerial surveillance radar systems. The order is of a significant size to RADA and strategically important. The order is expected to be received during the third quarter of 2016 and delivered by mid-2017. The order is expected to contribute a few million dollars to RADA's revenues in both 2016 and 2017.

Tableau Software (DATA 62.22, +7.35 +13.40%) appointed Adam Selipsky as president and CEO effective September 16. Christian Chabot, Tableau's co-founder and current CEO, will continue to serve as chairman of Tableau's board of directors. Selipsky currently serves as Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Support for Amazon Web Services (AMZN 762.45, +2.97 +0.39%).

Xtera Communications (XCOM 0.35, -0.34 -49.48%) received a notice of termination of the Master Manufacturing Agreement between the company and NSG Technology, Inc. (FXCNY 7.17, flat), dated as of January 1, 2013, pursuant to the default and termination provisions contained therein. The company uses

Foxconn, an independent contract manufacturer, to manufacture and assemble its products. In the Notice, Foxconn cited that it was terminating the Agreement due to Xtera's non-payment of the outstanding accounts receivable, as well as unpaid material and inventory liabilities, in each case under the Agreement.

magicJack VocalTec's (CALL 6.33, +0.03 +0.48%) Directors received a letter from Kanen Wealth Management detailing their requests for the company to begin a $50 million stock buyback program in addition to adding two new board members.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Hanwha Q CELLS (HQCL 13.71, +0.22 +1.63%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.92 on worse than expected revenues which rose 88.8% compared to a year ago to $638 million. The company also reaffirmed FY16 total module shipments of 4,800 to 5,000 MW on $180 million in CapEx.

Trina Solar (TSL 10.54, +0.02 +0.19%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.42 and $961.6 million, respectively. For Q3, the company expects to ship 1.55 to 1.65 GW of PV modules. For FY16, TSL sees shipments of 6.30 to 6.55 GW.

NQ Mobile (NQ 4.33, -0.17 -3.78%) reported better than expected Q2 earnings of $0.08 per ADS. The company also reported revenues which fell 18.0% compared to a year ago but beat market expectations at $83.7 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: INTU, NMBL/SOL
Analyst actions:

SQ was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
MDRX was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Leerink Partners;
TLND was initiated with a Neutral at JP Morgan, Citigroup and Goldman,
UNXL was initiated with a Speculative Buy at The Benchmark Company

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm HP beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus (HPQ) : Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.48 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.45; revenues fell 3.8% year/year to $11.89 bln vs the $11.49 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Personal Systems net revenue was flat year over year (up 2% in constant currency) with a 4.4% operating margin. Commercial net revenue decreased 3% and Consumer net revenue increased 8%. Total units were up 4% with Notebooks units up 12% and Desktops units down 6%.

Printing net revenue was down 14% year over year (down 10% in constant currency) with a 20.4% operating margin. Total hardware units were down 10% with Commercial hardware units down 2% and Consumer hardware units down 14%. Supplies revenue was down 18% (down 13% in constant currency).

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.34-0.37, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.40 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Lowers FY16 EPS to $1.59-1.62 from $1.59-1.65 vs. $1.61 consensus."

Although the markets remain challenged, we have the innovation and executional rigor needed to continue to take profitable share and invest in the right opportunities to drive long-term success for the company."

The major averages slipped at the beginning of the session as investors responded to a downturn in crude oil and a weaker-than-expected Existing Home Sales Report for July. Crude oil futures were under pressure overnight after the American Petroleum Institute reported a larger-than-expected build in crude oil stockpiles. Separately, existing home sales for July came in at an annualized rate of 5.39 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.54 million), declining 3.2% from June's unrevised 5.57 million units.

Crude oil extended its loss after the Department of Energy confirmed API's disappointing inventory data. The EIA disclosed that crude oil stockpiles rose by 2.50 million barrels (consensus: -0.45 million) while gasoline inventories increased by 0.03 million barrels (consensus: -1.66 million). As a result, WTI crude ended its day lower by 2.9% ($46.76/bbl; -$1.39), extending its week-to-date loss to 4.7%.

The benchmark index extended its loss near midday as a downturn in the biotechnology sub-group pressured the heavily-weighted health care (-1.6%) sector. The S&P 500 (-0.5%) violated its 20-day simple moving average (2177.84) in the final hour, finding support near the 2170 price level. Nine sectors ended in the red with materials (-1.2%) and health care (-1.6%) acting as noticeable laggards. Conversely, the utilities (UNCH) sector finished the day flat.

Biotechnology weighed on the health care space (-1.6%), evidenced by the 3.4% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 286.23, -9.95). In the ETF, Mylan Labs (MYL 43.15, -2.47) led to the downside after a White House spokesperson and the American Medical Association each voiced concerns regarding the company's drug pricing practices. Several U.S. lawmakers have criticized Mylan for excessive costs associated with the company's EpiPen device. The stock has declined 11.3% this week, which compares to a loss of 1.4% in the broader sector.

In the technology sector (-0.5%), large cap components Facebook (FB 123.48, -0.89) and Apple (AAPL 108.03, -0.82) underperformed, losing 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively. Top-weighted Apple was under pressure after reports indicated that co-founder Steve Wozniak is cautious about the notion of removing a headphone jack from the upcoming model of the iPhone. Intuit (INTU 109.85, -3.99) declined 3.5% as cautious first-quarter guidance overshadowed above-consensus fourth-quarter results.

The consumer discretionary space (-0.5%) displayed relative weakness as retail names pressured the sector. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.62, -0.54) ended lower by 1.2% as quarterly results from La-Z-Boy (LZB 24.24, -3.96) and Express (EXPR 11.94, -4.09) weighed on the sub-group.

The U.S. Dollar Index (94.76, +0.22, +0.24%) ended higher as the yen and euro lost ground to the greenback. The dollar gained 0.2% against the safe-haven yen (100.47) while the single currency slipped 0.4% against the buck (1.1266).

Treasuries ended on a mixed note as the long end of the curve displayed relative weakness. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finished higher by one basis point at 1.56%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 737 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, the FHFA Housing Price Index for June, and the Existing Home Sales Report for July:

The MBA Mortgage Index showed that mortgage applications fell 2.1% in the week ending August 20 after a 4.0% decline in the prior week.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for June rose 0.2%, which followed an increase of 0.2% in May.
Existing home sales in July declined 3.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.39 million (Briefing.com consensus 5.54 million) from June's unrevised sales pace of 5.57 million
June's sales pace was the highest since February 2007.
Existing home sales are being crimped due to limited inventory and high prices, both of which are leading to reduced buyer traffic in general and the tepid involvement of first-time buyers specifically.

For further details on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 265k) and Durable Goods Orders for July (Briefing.com consensus 3.5%), which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +8.9% YTD
S&P 500 +6.4% YTD
Dow Jones +6.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.2% YTD

DJ30 -65.82 NASDAQ -42.38 SP500 -11.46 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 969/1.570 bln/1921 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 870/736.2 mln/2091 3:30 pm :

The dollar index was +0.3% around the 94.77 level, weighing on commodities
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, -1.2% around the 85.07 level
Crude oil extended initial post-API losses after EIA data showed inventory builds on all fronts
October crude oil futures fell $1.39 (-2.9%) to $46.76/barrel
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Algeria from Sept 26-28
API data showed a build of 4.46 mln barrels of oil, compared to last week's draw of 1.0 mln barrels
EIA petroleum inventory data:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +2.502 mln (consensus called for a draw of -0.47 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +36k (consensus called for a draw of ~1.17 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a build of 122k
Natural gas rallied for the third consecutive session ahead of tomorrow's inventory number
September natural gas closed $0.04 higher (+1.5%) at $2.8/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver see a notable drop as the dollar index trades higher
December gold ended today's session down $16.10 (-1.2%) to $1329.90/oz
September silver closed today's session $0.37 lower (-2.0%) at $18.55/oz
Base metal copper traded notably lower in afternoon pit trading
September copper closed $0.04 lower (-1.9%) at $2.08/lb


Today's session began on a choppy note in the wake of another low-volume affair overseas. Foreign and domestic markets have been thinly-traded in recent days as participants favor caution ahead of Friday's seminal remarks from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Ms. Yellen is expected to offer insight into whether or not a fed funds rate hike is in the cards before the end of the year. The fed funds futures market has ticked higher in recent days, reflecting the odds of a September rate hike at 24.0%. The implied probability of a September rate hike at the end of last week registered at 18.0%.The major averages inched lower following a below-consensus reading of existing home sales for July and as crude oil futures extended their losses. Existing home sales for July came in at an annualized rate of 5.39 million units, declining 3.2% from June's unrevised reading of 5.57 million units. Crude oil futures extended overnight losses following the release of the Department of Energy's weekly inventory data. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles increased by 2.501 million barrels while gasoline inventories rose by 0.036 million barrels. To that end, October crude oil futures fell $1.39 (-2.9%) to $46.76/barrel

Market data today included the MBA Mortgage Index reading which showed that mortgage applications fell 2.1% in the week ending August 20 after a 4.0% decline in the prior week. Also, the FHFA Housing Price Index for June rose 0.2%, which followed an increase of 0.2% in May.

Wednesday took back all of yesterday's gains and then some. The three major indices were trading with modest losses until about two hours left in the session when losses steepened. The downside was led by the Nasdaq Composite which shed 42.38 points (-0.81%) to 5217.69. The S&P 500 was down 11.46 points (-0.52%) to 2175.44, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 65.82 points (-0.35%) to 18481.48.

Among the worst performing sectors today, Technology (XLK 46.97,-0.23-0.49%) ended just off lows as action took a small leg higher in the final moments. Component Intuit (INTU 109.85, -3.99 -3.50%) was an under-performer today following some better than expected Q4 results, but tepid Q1 guidance. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLV -1.57%, XLB -1.16%, XLY -0.48%, XLE -0.40%, XLI -0.30%, XLP -0.16%, IYZ -0.06%, XLF -0.04%, XLU -0.04%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (781.55, -4.21 -0.54%) sector, trading was lower for most of the day, but bounced off its bottom in the final minutes. Component HP Inc. (HPQ 14.40, -0.17 -1.17%) made new post-split highs, and new YTD highs during the session and ahead of its quarterly print. Other names in the space which under-performed today included MU -4.14%, WDC -2.34%, STX -1.70%, ADS -1.64%, YHOO -1.62%, NVDA -1.54%, FISV -1.34%, TDC -1.31%, KLAC -1.29%, LRCX -1.27%, VRSN -1.26%.

News of note among sector components:

CSRA (CSRA 25.76, -0.30 -1.15%) received an indefinite-delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide logistics integration and weapon systems logistics network support for the U.S. Air Force. The single award IDIQ contract has an $88 million ceiling over a five-year period.

Amazon.co.uk (AMZN 757.25, -5.20 -0.68%) announced the launch of an Unlimited Storage plan in the UK for a flat fee of GBP55 per year.

TripAdvisor (TRIP 61.93, -0.71 -1.13%) acquired New York-based social mapping platform, Citymaps. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

FXCM (FXCM 8.97, -0.40 -4.27%) and certain officers were named defendants in a securities class action lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 8, 2015. On August 18, 2016, the District Court granted the company's motion to dismiss all the claims asserted in the complaint against defendants. The Plaintiffs were given thirty days to file an amended complaint, should they choose to do so.

CommScope (COMM 29.95, +0.76 +2.60%) has announced the increase in the size of the previously announced sale of shares of its common stock on an underwritten basis by an affiliate of The Carlyle

Group (CG 16.08, -0.12 -0.74%) from 7 million shares to 10 million shares. In addition, the underwriter will have an option to purchase up to 1,500,000 additional shares from Carlyle. CommScope will not receive any of the proceeds from the offering of shares by Carlyle.

ARRIS' (ARRS 26.66, -0.33 -1.22%) Board has appointed Bruce McClelland as CEO effective September 1, 2016. McClelland also was appointed to serve on the Board of Directors effective the same date. Outgoing CEO Bob Stanzione will become ARRIS Executive Chairman in addition to continuing to serve as Chairman of the Board of the Company.

INTL FCStone (INTL 35.48, -0.66 -1.83%) authorized for fiscal year 2017 the repurchase of up to 1 million shares of its outstanding common stock from time to time in open market purchases and private transactions, commencing on October 1, 2016 and ending on September 30, 2017, subject to the discretion of the senior management team to implement the company's stock repurchase plan, and subject to market conditions and as permitted by securities laws and other legal, regulatory and contractual requirements and covenants.

Fitbit (FIT 14.81, -0.07 -0.47%) confirmed the ITC determination in favor of the company. The ruling held that FIT did not misappropriate Jawbone trade secrets.

Interlink Electronics (LINK 11.00, flat) announced that David Burnett has joined the company as CFO.

In reaction to quarterly results:

ReneSola (SOL 1.23, -0.04 -3.15%) reported better than expected Q2 adjusted EPS of $0.05 per ADS on revenues which were worse than expected and fell 6.9% compared to a year ago to $250 million. For Q3, the company sees revenues of $200 million and for FY16 SOL now sees $900 million-$1.1 billion (from $1-1.2 billion), both of which were worse than market expectations.

Nimble Storage (NMBL 8.77, -0.05 -0.57%) reported a better than expected Q2 loss per share of $0.19 on better than expected revenues of $97.1 million. For Q3, NMBL sees in-line EPS and revenues of ($0.17)-($0.19) and $100-103 million, respectively.

Intuit (INTU) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.08 and $735.35 million. For Q1, INTU expects EPS of $0.01-0.03 and revenues of $740-760 million, both of which are worse than market expectations. For FY17, the company sees EPS of $4.30-4.40 on revenues of $5.0-5.1 billion, both of which came in in-line with expectations.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: HPQ, WDAY/JKS, LEJU, TECD

Analyst actions:

LVLT was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at MoffettNathanson,
NTAP was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman,
ON was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Longbow;
CSIQ was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays,
SEAC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Lake Street;
CHKP was initiated with a Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
CMTL was initiated with a Neutral wat Citigroup,
LN was initiated with a Neutral wat JP Morgan

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From Briefing.com: 4:21 pm ON Semiconductor confirms FTC clearance of its pending acquisition of Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS), discloses transaction with Littelfuse (LFUS) (ON) : The co announced that the FTC has accepted a proposed consent order for public comment and has terminated the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period applicable to ON Semiconductor's proposed acquisition of Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS). Under the proposed consent order and in order to satisfy the FTC's remaining concerns, prior to the closing of the acquisition of Fairchild, the FTC required that ON Semiconductor dispose of its planar insulated gate bipolar transistor business, which business generated less than $25 million in revenue during fiscal year 2015.

In satisfaction of this requirement, ON Semiconductor announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with respect to the divestiture of the Ignition IGBT business to Littelfuse (LFUS) and has also entered into a separate definitive agreement with Littelfuse to sell its transient voltage suppression diode and switching thyristor product lines, for a combined $104 million in cash. No manufacturing assets will be transferred by ON Semiconductor in connection with the divestiture of the Ignition IGBT business or the sale of the TVS and thyristor businesses, and both asset sales are expected to close on August 29, 2016.

4:16 pm Brocade beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides OctQ EPS in-line, revs in-line (BRCD) :

Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.21 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.16 but at the high end of prior guidance of $0.19-0.21; revenues rose 7.0% year/year to $590.7 mln vs the $573.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Note: These results include approximately two months of financial results from Ruckus Wireless, which was acquired on May 27, 2016.Co issues in-line guidance for Q4 (Oct) in an 8-K filing, sees EPS of $0.21-0.23, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $630-650 mln vs. $640.9 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co expects SAN product revenue in Q4 (Oct) to be up +1-4% sequentially as co expects a seasonal improvement although not as strong as co typically experiences.SAN product revenue of $282 mln in Q3 (Jul) was down 9% YoY. The decline was primarily the result of lower Fibre Channel director sales, which decreased 23%, partially offset by fixed-configuration switch sales which increased 3%. Sequentially, SAN product revenue decreased 5%.
"Against the backdrop of a mixed macro environment, we posted solid results, with total revenue at the high end of our outlook range...During Q3, we also continued the momentum of new product innovations across our portfolio, building a solid foundation for business growth and expansion of our addressable markets.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended a choppy session on a modestly lower note as investors maintained a cautious posture ahead of tomorrow's speech from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) finished behind the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%).

The benchmark index traversed a narrow ten-point trading range as equity indices continued to languish below recently-established record highs. The Thursday affair was hallmarked by thin trading conditions, a hodgepodge of earning results, and deviating sector leadership from the heavily-weighted technology (+0.1%), financial (+0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.4%), and health care (-0.8%) sectors.

Equities began the session on a lower note as global markets tilted to the downside. European bourses underperformed following a weaker-than-expected reading of Germany's IFO Business Climate survey for August. However, relatively light volume and the potential market-moving nature of Chair Yellen's Friday remarks also likely contributed to increased volatility in overseas markets.

The major U.S. indices stumbled at the start of the session as disappointing quarterly results and/or guidance from the likes of Dollar Tree (DLTR 85.50, -9.43), Dollar General (DG 75.61, -16.18), and Signet Jewelers (SIG 83.44, -12.06) weighed on investor sentiment. Early morning Fed speak may have also dampened risk appetite after a few officials talked up the potential of a rate hike in the near term.

The S&P 500 (-0.1%) briefly fell to the 2170/2171 price level before reversing back towards its flat line. However, the broader market was unable to maintain its footing near those levels and slipped back towards its low in the final hour. The benchmark index finished in the bottom of today's trading range, but five sectors still ended in the green. The telecom services (+0.4%) and materials (+0.5%) sectors settled in front of the pack while consumer staples (-0.4%), consumer discretionary (-0.4%) and health care (-0.8%) underperformed.

The countercyclical health care sector (-0.8%) ended its day at the bottom of the leaderboard as biotechnology underperformed. In the group, Mylan Labs (MYL 42.85, -0.30) finished lower by 0.7% as participants weighed fresh criticisms of the drug maker. Mylan surrendered a 4.5% gain as recently-announced initiatives to lower the cost of its EpiPen device were deemed insufficient. Separately, St. Jude Medical (STJ 77.82, -4.06) declined 5.0% after Muddy Waters Capital issued bearish commentary on the name and disclosed a short position in the stock. The firm cited potential cyber security vulnerabilities for its negative view on St. Jude.

Retail names underperformed in the consumer discretionary space (-0.3%) as disappointing results and guidance from Dollar Tree (DLTR 85.50, -9.43), Dollar General (DG 75.61, -16.18), and Signet Jewelers (SIG 83.44, -12.06) overshadowed positive reports from Tiffany & Co (TIF 73.28, +4.41) and Guess? (GES 18.20, +3.30). The broader SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.36, -0.26) ended lower by 0.6%, extending its week-to-date loss to 1.3%.

In the technology space (+0.1%), the high-beta chipmakers outperformed, evidenced by the 0.4% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. In the group, Micron (MU 16.20, +0.69) jumped 4.5% after Nomura increased its price target on the stock to $20 from $16. In the broader sector, Salesforce.com (CRM 80.16, +2.34) gained 3.0% amid takeover rumors. The broader sector gained 0.1%, extending is month-to-date advance to 1.8%.

Treasuries ended on a lower note as yields rose through the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finished higher by one basis point (1.58%) while the yield on the 2-yr note finished at 0.79% (+2 bps).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 697 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims and Durable Goods Orders for July:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending August 20 slipped to 261,000 (Briefing.com consensus 265,000) from the prior week's unrevised reading of 262,000.
Continuing claims for the week ending August 13 were 2.145 million, down 30,000 from the prior week's unrevised reading.
Durable goods orders increased 4.4% in July (Briefing.com consensus +3.5%) on the back of a 10.5% increase in transportation equipment orders, which was fueled by an 89.9% increase in nondefense aircraft and parts orders.
Orders for the manufacturing sector have picked up again after declining in both May and June.
Excluding transportation, orders were up 1.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), paced by gains in nearly all categories.

For further details on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the second estimate of Q2 GDP (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%) and July International Trade in Goods, which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for August (Briefing.com consensus 90.6) will be released at 9:45 ET.

Russell 2000 +9.0% YTD
S&P 500 +6.3% YTD
Dow Jones +5.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.1% YTD

DJ30 -33.07 NASDAQ -5.49 SP500 -2.97 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1489/1.380 bln/1322 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1651/696.3 mln/1305

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, are trading nearly flat, -0.02% around the 85.05 level
Crude oil reversed initial losses despite comments from the Saudi minister regarding lack of meaningful production freeze talks
October crude oil futures rose $0.57 (+1.2%) to $47.33/barrel
Natural gas closed near session highs after EIA data showed a smaller-than-expected build compared to Consensus
September natural gas closed $0.05 higher (+1.8%) at $2.85/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Working gas in storage was 3,350 Bcf as of Friday, Aug 19, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +11 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +18 bcf.
Stocks were 275 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 350 Bcf above the five-year average of 3,000 Bcf.
At 3,350 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold ended around 4-week lows as the dollar index traded nearly flat
December gold ended today's session down $5.40 (-0.4%) to $1324.50/oz

The stock market trades on a flat note at midday as investors continue to favor a cautious approach ahead of tomorrow's remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.

The major averages began the day on a lower note as a downturn in global markets and some weaker-than-expected earnings results kept a lid on equities. European markets paced the retreat overnight as a lackluster reading of Germany's IFO Business Climate survey for August pressured regional bourses. On the home front, disappointing quarterly reports from the likes of Dollar Tree (DLTR 85.50, -9.43 -9.93%), Dollar General (DG 75.48, -16.31 -17.77%), and Signet Jewelers (SIG 83.44, -12.01 -12.58%) helped limit early buying interest in retail sub-group and the broader market.

Market data today included the initial jobless claims reading for the week ending August 20 which slipped to 261,000 from the prior week's unrevised reading of 262,000. Continuing claims for the week ending August 13 were 2.145 million, down 30,000 from the prior week's unrevised reading. Additionally, durable goods orders increased 4.4% in July on the back of a 10.5% increase in transportation equipment orders, which was fueled by an 89.9% increase in nondefense aircraft and parts orders.

The broader market has struggled to maintain traction above its flat line amid light volume and ahead of potentially market-moving remarks from Ms. Yellen.

After yesterday's losses, trading on Thursday also ended in the red. Leading the way lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 33.07 points (-0.18%) to 18448.41. The energy component was weaker despite gains in crude oil; to that end, October crude oil futures rose $0.57 (+1.2%) to $47.33/barrel. The S&P 500 lost 2.97 points (-0.14%) to 2172.47, and the Nasdaq Composite was down by 5.49 points (-0.11%) to 5212.20.

Technology (XLK 47.03, +0.10 +0.21%) rebounded off yesterday's weakness, posting gains today with the sector barely escaping the draw of flat lines in the final moments of trading. Component HP (HPQ) was modestly lower today following its latest quarterly report and guidance. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session IYZ +0.50%, XLB +0.49%, XLF +0.21%, XLU +0.06%, XLI -0.02%, XLE -0.27%, XLY -0.33%, XLP -0.38%, XLV -0.84%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (782.52, +0.97 +0.12%) sector, trading was in the red for certain points of the morning but action turned higher an hour and a half into the day and held onto those gains into the close. Component Micron (MU 16.20, +0.69 +4.45%) was strong today following a target raise at Nomura. Other names in the space which outperformed included CRM +3.01%, WDC +2.27%, STX +1.49%, GPN +1.47%, SWKS +1.42%, QRVO +1.10%, ADS +1.08%, AKAM +1.07%, ADSK +0.84%, LRCX +0.81%, VRSN +0.79%, ATVI +0.79%, CSCO +0.74%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, HP Inc. (HPQ) displayed the world's only PCs with integrated privacy screens. HP Sure View, a new option on the HP EliteBook 1040 and HP EliteBook 840, helps protect against visual hacking with the press of a single button.

Facebook's (FB 123.89, +0.41 +0.33%) WhatsApp updated its privacy policy as part of its plan to test ways for people to communicate with businesses in the months ahead, signaling the company may be ready to start looking at monetizing the messaging service

According to Bloomberg, Apple (AAPL 107.57, -0.46 -0.43%) is developing a video sharing and editing application to compete with Snapchat/Facebook, among other social networking features for iOS.

IBM (IBM 158.63, -0.42 -0.26%) announced the opening of a new IBM Cloud Data Center in Korea, in collaboration with SK Holdings C&C.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Marin Software's (MRIN 2.49, -0.11 -4.23%) Board decided to reappoint Founder/Chairman Christopher Lien as CEO and David Yovanno has stepped down from Board and CEO position.

Proofpoint (PFPT 76.50, +0.76 +1.00%) acquired Return Path's email fraud protection business unit for about $18 million.

xG Technology (XGTI 0.43, -0.12 -22.34%) filed for about 833.3K share common stock offering by selling shareholders.

Wins Finance (WINS 25.56, +0.63 +2.53%) received a letter of resignation from Amy He pursuant to which Ms. He resigned as CFO. Ms. He indicated that her resignation was not the result of any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to the company's operations, polices or practices.

KongZhong (KZ 6.55, +0.14 +2.18%) received a revised non-binding proposal letter, dated August 25, 2016, from Mr. Leilei Wang, chairman and CEO, and IDG-Accel China Growth Fund II L.P., who, together with certain other parties, formed a buyer group to acquire all of the outstanding ordinary shares not owned by them or their affiliates for $7.18 in cash per American depositary share, or about $0.1795 per ordinary share.

Amazon (AMZN 759.22, +1.97 +0.26%) announced a car research platform, Amazon Vehicles, designed for customers to get the information they need when shopping for vehicles, parts, and accessories.

In reaction to quarterly results:

HP (HPQ) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.48 and $11.89 billion, respectively. For Q4, HPQ sees EPS worse than market expectations at $0.34-0.37.

Workday (WDAY 85.33, +5.68 +7.13%) reported a worse than expected Q2 loss per share of $0.04 on better than expected revenues of $377.7 million. For Q3, WDAY guided revenues worse than market expectations at $398-400 million. The company sees subscription revenues in the range of $331-333 million.

Tech Data (TECD 73.28, -7.02 -8.74%) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.42 and $6.35 billion, respectively. For Q3, TECD sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of $1.20-1.30 and $6.25-6.45 billion, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: ADSK, EPAY, BRCD, UEPS, PSTG, QADA, SPLK, ZAYO

Analyst actions:

NFLX was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at William Blair,
BATS was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Raymond James;
HPQ was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Maxim Group,
S was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Buckingham Research,
DATA was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Captial Mkts,
WDAY was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at First Analysis Sec,
INFN was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup,
MRIN was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel;
CREE was initiated with a Buy at Roth Capital,
EFII was initiated with a Buy at Stifel,
TWLO was initiated with a Hold at Argus

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 26-Aug-16The stock market spent the bulk of the week inside a narrow range, but Friday was a bit more active as participants responded to remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who spoke at the Kansas City Fed Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

During her speech, Ms. Yellen said that the case for a rate hike has strengthened in recent months, but she also noted that business investment remains soft and subdued foreign demand has restrained exports. Furthermore, Chair Yellen noted that future policymakers should explore the possibility of purchasing a broader range of assets. Overall, Ms. Yellen's speech could be deemed as hawkish or dovish depending on which elements one chose to focus on.

Ms. Yellen was followed by Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer, who appeared on CNBC and indicated that more than one rate hike could take place, but more data needs to be analyzed before that decision is made. Stocks retreated after these comments while rate hike expectations were pulled forward.

According to the fed funds futures market, the implied likelihood of a September rate hike increased to 36.0% from 21.0% on Thursday while the implied probability of a rate hike in December increased to 63.7% from yesterday's 51.7%.

The S&P 500 lost 0.7% for the week while the Nasdaq (-0.4%) outperformed slightly.

The first half of the trading week was very quiet even though participants received a few more quarterly reports from retailers. Best Buy (BBY), Guess? (GES), and PVH (PVH) surpassed estimates while Express (EXPR), Dollar General (DG), and Dollar Tree (DLTR) disappointed.

Although Friday's focus was squarely on the speech from Fed Chair Yellen, investors also received the second estimate of second-quarter GDP, which was revised down to 1.1% from 1.2%, as expected, while the GDP Price Deflator was revised up to 2.3% (Briefing.com consensus 2.2%) from 2.2%. There was no real change to second-quarter GDP, which everyone had already realized was quite disappointing despite the strong pickup in consumer spending.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18552.57 18396.98 -155.59 -0.8 5.6
Nasdaq 5238.38 5218.92 -19.46 -0.4 4.2
S&P 500 2183.87 2169.16 -14.71 -0.7 6.1
Russell 2000 1236.86 1238.88 2.02 0.2 9.1

4:18 pm Market Internals (:MKTIN) :

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down to 18395.4 ( -0.29%). The Nasdaq Composite ended higher at 5218.92 ( 0.13%) and the S&P 500 closed down at 2169.04 ( -0.16%). Action came on lower than average volume(NYSE 797 mln vs avg. of 900 mln; Nasdaq 1472 mln vs avg. of 1687 mln), w/ decliners outpacing advancers (NYSE 1206/1820, NASDAQ 1337/1497) andnew highs outpacing new lows (NYSE 196/11, NASDAQ 145/27).

Relative Strength:

S&P 500 VIX ST Futures-VXX +1.05%, U.S. Nat Gas -UNG +0.95%, Vietnam -VNM +0.87%, Nasdaq Biotechs-IBB +0.82%, Livestock-COW +0.739%, S&P Bank -KBE +0.738%, Emerging Middle East & Africa-GAF +0.35%, Provident Financial Services-PFS +0.14%, Indian Rupee -ICN +0.0471%, Emerging Markets Eastern Eur-ESR +0%

Relative Weakness:

Grains Subindex-JJG -2.333%, Utilities Select-XLU -2.05%, Greece 20-GREK -2.045%, South Africa-EZA -2.01%, Teucrium Corn-CORN -1.9046%, Poland-EPOL -1.87%, Mexico-EWW -1.75%, Singapore-EWS -1.597%, U.S. Home Construction -ITB -1.16%, Steel -SLX -1.11%

4:13 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Mixed as Investors Examine Rate Commentary (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended a downbeat week on a flat note as commentary from the Jackson Hole Symposium boosted U.S. rate hike expectations and weighed on the major averages. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) settled behind the S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%).

Equity indices enjoyed a modest bid at the start of the session as investors pored over a less-hawkish-than-feared interpretation of Fed Chair Yellen's seminal address. Chair Yellen indicated that the case for a rate hike had improved in recent months, but she also acknowledged that monetary policy is not on a preset course.

Investors initially shrugged off the commentary, evidenced by a transitory decline in the fed funds futures market. The implied probability of a rate hike at the September meeting briefly fell to 18.0%, slipping from the prior session's estimate of 21.0%. Additionally, equities and Treasuries rallied to session highs while the U.S. Dollar Index (95.49, +0.72, 0.76%) carved out a session low.

The broader market shifted gears near midday when Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer resuscitated concerns regarding the speed and path of interest rate normalization. In a CNBC interview, Mr. Fischer indicated that more than one rate hike could take place before the end of the year. However, the Fed Vice Chair conditioned the potential hikes on a steady improvement in economic data. In response, the implied probability of a rate hike at the September meeting rose to 36.0% while the odds of an interest rate hike at the December meeting moved to 63.7%.

The S&P 500 (-0.2%) pared losses in the final hour, reclaiming technical support near the 2168/2171 price level. Despite the rebound, seven sectors ended in the red with the defensively-oriented telecom services (-1.1%) and utilities (-2.1%) sectors rounding out the leaderboard. On the flipside, heavily-weighted financials (+0.1%), technology (+0.1%), and health care (+0.4%) outperformed.

The countercyclical health care sector (+0.4%) ended in front of the pack, narrowing its week-to-date loss to 1.8%. Biotechnology displayed relative strength as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 285.14, +2.27) rebounded 0.8%. In the group, Amgen (AMGN 171.97, +1.74) outperformed while Mylan Labs (MYL 43.03, +0.18) recovered 0.4%. Mylan was under pressure this week as investors weighed criticisms regarding the price of its EpiPen device. Conversely, St. Jude Medical (STJ 78.01, +0.19) ended higher by 0.2% after responding to yesterday's bearish commentary from Muddy Waters Capital.

In the technology sector (+0.1%), the high-beta chipmakers outperformed, evidenced by the 0.5% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Micron (MU 16.51, +0.31) rallied 1.9%, sporting a week-to-date gain to 1.6%. This compares to a gain of 0.5% in the price-weighted index. Separately, large cap component Facebook (FB 124.96, +1.07) outperformed.

The consumer discretionary space (-0.3%) demonstrated relative weakness as retail names underperformed. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.02, -0.34) ended lower by 0.8%, extending its week-to-date loss to 2.0%. Dow component Nike (NKE 59.00, -0.24) settled lower by 0.4% after being downgraded to "Neutral" from "Buy" at B. Riley & Company. Separately, Big Lots (BIG 50.57, -2.37) underperformed as investors evaluated mixed quarterly results.

Treasuries ended on a lower note as yields rose through the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finished higher by four basis points (1.62%) while the yield on the 2-yr note finished at 0.84% (+5 bps).

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 797 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the second estimate of Q2 GDP, July International Trade in Goods, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for August:

Second quarter GDP was revised down to 1.1% from 1.2%, as expected, while the GDP Price Deflator was revised up to 2.3% (Briefing.com consensus 2.2%) from 2.2%.There was no real change to second quarter GDP, which everyone had already realized was quite disappointing despite the strong pickup in consumer spending.July International Trade in Goods showed a deficit of $59.32 billion, compared to the June deficit of $64.5 billion.The final reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for August dipped to 89.8 (Briefing.com consensus 90.6) from the preliminary reading of 90.4. The reading checked in just below the final reading of 90.0 for July.For further details on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Monday's economic data will include July Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), and Core PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), which will each be released at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +9.0% YTDS&P 500 +6.1% YTDDow Jones +5.6% YTDNasdaq Composite +4.2% YTD Week in Review: All Eyes on Jackson Hole

The stock market spent the bulk of the week inside a narrow range,but Friday was a bit more active as participants responded to remarks fromFederal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who spoke at the Kansas City Fed EconomicSymposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

During her speech, Ms. Yellen said that the case for a ratehike has strengthened in recent months, but she also noted that businessinvestment remains soft and subdued foreign demand has restrained exports. Furthermore,Chair Yellen noted that future policymakers should explore the possibility ofpurchasing a broader range of assets. Overall, Ms. Yellen's speech could bedeemed as hawkish or dovish depending on which elements one chose to focus on.

Ms. Yellen was followed by Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer,who appeared on CNBC and indicated that more than one rate hike could takeplace, but more data needs to be analyzed before that decision is made. Stocksretreated after these comments while rate hike expectations were pulledforward.

According to the fed funds futures market, the impliedlikelihood of a September rate hike increased to 36.0% from 21.0% on Thursdaywhile the implied probability of a rate hike in December increased to 63.7%from yesterday's 51.7%.

The S&P 500 lost 0.7% for the week while the Nasdaq (-0.4%) outperformed slightly.

The first half of the trading week was very quiet eventhough participants received a few more quarterly reports from retailers. BestBuy (BBY), Guess? (GES), and PVH (PVH) surpassed estimates while Express(EXPR), Dollar General (DG), and Dollar Tree (DLTR) disappointed.

Although Friday's focus was squarely on the speech from FedChair Yellen, investors also received the second estimate of second-quarterGDP, which was revised down to 1.1% from 1.2%, as expected, while the GDP PriceDeflator was revised up to 2.3% (Briefing.com consensus 2.2%) from 2.2%. Therewas no real change to second-quarter GDP, which everyone had already realizedwas quite disappointing despite the strong pickup in consumer spending.

The major averages began the day on a modestly higher note as investors weighed mixed performances from global bourses and waited to hear from speakers at the Kansas City Fed's Economic Symposium. Japan's Nikkei (-1.2%) led to the downside overnight as disappointing inflation data spurred questions regarding the efficiency of monetary policy in dealing with slow consumer spending.

Equity indices notched session highs in the first hour of trade as investors responded to less-hawkish-than feared commentary from Fed Chair Yellen. Ms. Yellen stated that the case for increasing the fed funds rate has strengthened, but that monetary policy is not on a preset course. As such, Chair Yellen failed to offer a timetable for a rate hike despite her upbeat read on the U.S. economy. In response, equities and Treasuries rallied in lockstep while the dollar slipped.

The bullish response would prove to be short-lived as commentary from Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer renewed fears regarding a sooner-than-expected fed funds rate hike. Mr. Fischer stated that there was a chance that the Fed could hike rates twice before the end of the year, but followed the remarks by stating that the Fed needs to see a steady improvement in economic data.

Additional economic data today included the second quarter GDP was revised down to 1.1% from 1.2%, as expected, while the GDP Price Deflator was revised up to 2.3% from 2.2%. Also, July International Trade in Goods showed a deficit of $59.32 billion, compared to the June deficit of $64.5 billion. Lastly, the final reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for August dipped to 89.8 from the preliminary reading of 90.4.

Pressured by the latest round of Fed comments out of Jackson Hole, the broader market posted modest losses today albeit for the Nasdaq Composite which climbed out of the red in the final hour of action. Friday came to a close with the Nasdaq up 6.71 points (+0.13%) to 5218.92. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted the worst session, losing 53.01 points (-0.29%) to 18395.40, and the S&P 500 was down 3.43 points (-0.16%) to 2169.04. This weeks movements take the three major US indices +4.2%, +5.6% and +6.1% YTD, respectively.

The Technology (XLK 47.05, +0.02 +0.04%) sector as a whole today jockeyed between gains and losses as investors attempted to digest the latest round of Fed speak. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed today XLV +0.38%, XLF +0.12%, XLY -0.28%, XLI -0.29%, XLE -0.34%, IYZ -0.50%, XLP -0.51%, XLB -0.57%, XLU -2.07%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (783.65, +1.13 +0.14%) sector, trading escaped losses as buyers came out from the bushes in the final moments of action. Component Autodesk (ADSK 68.87, +5.17 +8.12%) was notably strong today following its latest quarterly print. Names in the space which managed modest gains today included ADSK +8.12%, STX +3.99%, MU +1.91%, TDC +1.70%, AKAM +1.37%, FSLR +1.32%, AMAT +1.08%, WDC +1.06%, MA +0.92%, FB +0.86%, NVDA +0.81%.

Notable news in the tech space:

Rackspace (RAX 31.50, +1.31 +4.34%) agreed to be acquired by Apollo Global (APO 18.46, -0.01 -0.05%) for $32.00 per share in cash, or approximately $4.3 billion. In connection with the transaction, funds managed by Searchlight Capital Partners, L.P. will make a strategic equity investment in the acquired company. The transaction has a total value of $4.3 billion, which includes the assumption of $43 million of net cash. Upon completion of the transaction, Rackspace will become a privately held company.

BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY 7.97, -0.01 -0.13%) announced the amendment of the indenture governing its 6% unsecured convertible debentures to permit optional redemption prior to November 13, 2016. The company also announced it entered into an agreement pursuant to which Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited and other institutional investors will subscribe for 3.75% unsecured convertible debentures of BlackBerry on a private placement basis for an aggregate subscription price of $605 million.

BT Group's (BT 26.03, -0.16 -0.61%) unit EE announced an exclusive offer that includes six months of

Apple (AAPL 106.94, -0.63 -0.59%) Music membership for new and upgrading EE pay monthly customers.

Bottomline Tech (EPAY 23.39, +2.57 +12.34%) announced a $60 million stock repurchase program.

Covisint (COVS 2.18, +0.10 +4.55%) reached an agreement with Dialectic Capital Management, will appoint three new independent directors to the Board.

Littelfuse (LFUS 126.99, +1.95 +1.56%) to acquire the product portfolio of transient voltage suppression diodes, switching thyristors, and insulated gate bipolar transistors for automotive ignition applications from ON Semiconductor (ON 11.03, +0.02 +0.18%) for $104 million; LFUS expects earnings accretion from the deal.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Brocade (BRCD 9.24, -1.22 -11.66%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.21 and $590.7 million, respectively. For Q4, BRCD sees EPS of $0.21-0.23 on revenues of $630-650 million. BRCD also noted expectations for SAN product revenue in Q4 (Oct) to be up +1-4% sequentially as they see a seasonal improvement although not as strong as co typically experiences.

Autodesk (ADSK) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.05 and $550.7 million, respectively. For Q3, the company sees EPS and revenues coming in ahead of market expectations at ($0.27)-($0.22) and $470-475 million, respectively. For FY17, the company also sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at ($0.70)-($0.55), up from prior ($0.95)-($0.55) and $2.0-2.05 billion, up from $1.95-2.05 billion.

Zayo Group Holdings (ZAYO 28.49, -0.75 -2.56%) reported a Q4 loss of $0.13 per share on revenues which came in ahead of market expectations at $507.3 million.

Splunk (SPLK 58.52, -6.58 -10.11%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.05 and $212.8 million, respectively. For Q3, the company sees revenues of $228-230 million. For FY17, the company sees revenues in the range of $910-914 million.

Analyst actions:

SPLK was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
LEJU was downgraded to Sell from Underperform at CLSA;
RNG and EGHT were initiated with Neutral ratings at Robert W. Baird,
MEET was initiated with a Buy at Loop Capital,
IT was initiated with an Outperform at Macquarie,
FDS initiated with a Neutral at Macquarie,
RPD was initiated with a Buy at Rosenblatt,
CYBE was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Monday affair on a higher note as investors responded to a largely in-line Personal Income and Spending Report for July by walking back fed funds rate hike expectations. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) finished ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.5%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%).

The major averages marched higher at the start of the session, bolstered by positive economic data that did not raise concerns of a sooner-than-expected fed funds rate hike. Personal income in July rose 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) while personal spending increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). The core PCE Price Index increased 0.1% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), signaling a year-over-year increase of 1.6%. The report as a whole did little to change the projected growth rate of third-quarter GDP.

The Personal Income and Spending Report took on extra significance after last week's Jackson Hole Symposium. Federal Reserve Chair Yellen indicated that the case for a rate hike had strengthened in recent months while Fed Vice Chair Fischer acknowledged that this view could be consistent with more than one rate hike before the end of the year. However, the Fed Vice Chair conditioned the potential hikes on a steady improvement in economic data. The fed funds futures market reflects the implied probability of a fed funds rate hike at the September meeting at 21.0%, falling from Friday's reading of 33.0%

The benchmark index ended off its session high, but reclaimed its 20-day simple moving average (2178.21). All ten sectors ended in the green with utilities (+0.8%), telecom service (+0.8%), materials (+1.0%), and financials (+1.0%) leading the pack. Conversely, heavily-weighted technology (+0.3%) and health care (+0.3%) ended with the slimmest gains.

The financial sector (+1.0%) enjoyed a broad-based rally as money center banks, investment brokerages, and real estate investments trusts paced the advance. Wells Fargo (WFC 49.56, +1.05) ended higher by 2.2% while Dow component Travelers (TRV 118.48, +1.34) finished ahead of the price-weighted index. Elsewhere, the iShares Dow Jones Real Estate ETF (IYR 82.52, +0.77) rebounded 0.9% after losing 0.9% in the prior session. The broader sector has gained 2.7% this month, topping the monthly leaderboard.

In the influential technology sector (+0.3%), Apple (AAPL 106.82, -0.12) ended lower by 0.1% after reports indicated that the company will be subject to fines associated with back taxes from holdings in Europe. Separately, headlines also indicated that Apple sent out invites to a September 7 press event. The company is expected to reveal the next installment of its iPhone device at the event.

Biotechnology underperformed in the health care sector (+0.3%), evidenced by the 0.5% loss in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 283.87, -1.27). The group remains pressured following recent calls for the industry to adjust its drug-pricing practices. On that note, Mylan Labs (MYL 43.22, +0.19) ended higher by 0.4% as investors mulled over the company's decision to produce a generic version of its EpiPen device. Conversely, Gilead Sciences (GILD 78.17, -1.60) declined 2.0%, notching a new two-year low (77.63).

The U.S. Dollar Index (95.59, +0.02, +0.02%) ended flat, erasing an overnight gain. The euro lost 0.1% against the dollar (1.1185).

Treasuries ended on a higher note as yields slipped through the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finished lower by seven basis points (1.57%) while the yield on the 2-yr note finished at 0.81% (-4 bps).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 643 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included July Personal Income/Personal Spending and Core PCE Prices for July:

The Personal income and Spending Report for July had the potential to be market moving, yet it didn't create any fireworks as the key components were all right in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimates.
The report didn't alter the outlook for Q3 GDP growth to exceed 3.0% and it doesn't alter the understanding that inflation continues to undershoot the Fed's 2.0% objective.

For further details on this economic release, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for June (Briefing.com consensus 5.1%) and August Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 97.0), which will be released at 9:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000 +9.5% YTD
S&P 500 +6.7% YTD
Dow Jones +6.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.5% YTD

DJ30 +107.59 NASDAQ +13.41 SP500 +11.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1795/1.303 bln/1069 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2145/642.0 mln/827

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was trading flat around the 95.55 level, after surging +0.7% on Friday post-Yellen
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, -0.6% around the 84.46 level
Crude oil erased all of Friday's post-rig count data gains, closed near the midpoint of session lows
October crude oil futures fell $0.68 (-1.4%) to $46.96/barrel
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil include:
Iran's comments over the weekend that they would only participate in oil price stabilization talks if other OPEC members acknowledged their right to regain all pre-sanction market share.
Reports that Iraq's government would consider selling crude through Iran should talks with in the Kurdish region on an oil revenue-sharing agreement fail
Note Iraq increased oil exports by around 150k barrels per day as a pipeline dispute is being resolved
Those factors are adding to growing skepticism surrounding the Sept upcoming OPEC meeting after previous meetings have failed to result in action to stabilize oil prices
The informal OPEC meeting will take place in Algiers, Algeria during the International Energy Forum from Sept 26-28, the next official OPEC meeting will be Nov 30 in Vienna, Austria
Additionally, Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih stated in an interview last Thursday that he does not believe any 'intervention of significance' in the oil market is necessary.
Continued dollar strength amid growing expectations for a near-term interest rate increase by the Fed
This week's oil catalysts include weekly inventory data (API Tuesday afternoon, EIA is Wednesday morning)
The Morgan Stanley Energy Summit 2016 will take place Aug 29-30, notable presenters include Oasis Petroleum (OAS) & Helix (HLX).
Natural gas ended near session lows after seeing gains in the previous 2 sessions
October natural gas closed $0.02 lower (-0.7%) at $2.89/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold & silver closed near session highs as the dollar struggled to find direction
December gold ended today's session up $0.40 (+0.03%) to $1327.00/oz
September silver closed today's session $0.12 higher (+0.6%) at $18.77/oz
Base metal copper futures ended at session lows, down 8% since its July high
September copper closed $0.01 lower (-0.5%) at $2.07/lb

Equity indices opened their day on a modestly higher note as investors examined the Personal Income and Spending report for July. Participants received in-line readings of July Personal Income and Personal Spending while Core PCE prices rose 0.1%. Core PCE Prices signaled an increase of 1.6% year-over-year, falling short of the Fed's 2.0% target. Overall, the report did little to change the projected growth rate of third-quarter GDP.

The PCE Price Index, which is the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, remained in focus after last week's Jackson Hole Symposium. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen indicated that the case for a rate hike has strengthened in recent months while Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer acknowledged that this view could be consistent with more than one rate hike before the end of the year. Both Fed officials stressed the importance of the continued improvement of incoming economic data. On that note, the Employment Situation Report for August is scheduled to be released on Friday.

To start off the week, the broader market closed in a positive fashion. Leading the action higher today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 107.59 points (+0.58%) to 18502.99. The S&P 500 was up 11.34 points (+0.52%) to 2180.38, and the Nasdaq Composite rounded out the trio higher by 13.41 points (+0.26%) to 5232.33. Highly weighted Dow names that aided the advance today included MSFT +0,1%, XOM +0.7%, JNJ +0.7%, GE +0.4% and JPM +1.1%.

All 11 S&P sectors were in the green today, with Technology (XLK 47.23, +0.18 +0.38%) posting a relatively decent session ending just off highs. Component Micron (MU 16.91, +0.40 +2.42%) posted a solid session on the back of positive commentary out of Stifel and Deutsche Bank; we would also note the stock was downgraded to Hold at Standpoint Research. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed IYZ +1.16%, XLB +0.90%, XLF +0.87%, XLU +0.81%, XLI +0.72%, XLE +0.68%, XLP +0.59%, XLY +0.35%, XLV +0.22%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (785.92, +2.27 +0.29%) sector, Monday action ended about the middle of the range as stocks were higher all day. Component Harris (HRS 92.62, +1.78 +1.96%) was an out-performer today as the company increased their quarterly dividend, much to the delight of investors. Other names in the space which out-performed today included SYMC +1.73%, FB +1.26%, STX +1.20%, TDC +1.02%, APH +0.93%, IBM +0.88%, QCOM +0.86%, INTC +0.82%, TSS +0.74%, CSCO +0.73%, GLW +0.69%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

VMware (VMW 75.23, +0.98 +1.32%) and IBM (IBM 159.72, +1.39 +0.88%) announced the availability of industry-first cloud services that enable organizations to quickly and easily move enterprise workloads to the cloud.

Fiserv, Inc. (FISV 103.28, -0.19 -0.18%) and Randolph Savings Bank renewed and expanded their relationship. The bank extended its agreement for the Cleartouch bank platform with a long-term renewal and added several Fiserv solutions to expand its digital banking capabilities, support continued growth and enhance the customer experience.

Harris (HRS) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.53 per share from $0.50 per share.
According to Bloomberg, Apple (AAPL 106.82, -0.12 -0.11%) may face 'billions of arrears' in an Irish Tax Case.

Apple (AAPL) sent out invites to its September 7 iPhone 7 event in San Diego.
According to the Financial Times, Alphabet's (GOOG 772.15, +2.61 +0.34%) YouTube live streaming views increased 80% year-over-year.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

GCL-Poly Energy (GCPEF 0.15, +0.00 +2.00%) agreed to acquire SunEdison's (SUNEQ 0.05, +0.00 +5.99%) solar materials business for $150 million.

Wipro (WIT 10.17, -0.18 -1.74%) and Stibo Systems announced a partnership for Master Data Management Solutions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Ixys (IXYS 11.51, -0.07 -0.60%) promoted Uzi Sasson to CEO and suspended the company's quarterly stock dividend program.

FARO Techs (FARO 34.06, +0.44 +1.31%) acquired Laser Projection Technologies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rightside (NAME 9.50, -1.41 -12.92%) disclosed entry into new Google Services Agreement, effective as of August 1.

Intelsat (I 3.12, +0.27 +9.47%) disclosed the execution of confidentiality agreements with certain unaffiliated investment funds holding, or serving as investment advisor with respect to, 6-3/4% Senior Notes due 2018 to facilitate discussions in respect of a potential transaction.

Analyst actions:

TMUS was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
KLAC was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen;
MU was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research,
RAX was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
KTOS was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts;
NFLX was initiated with a Sell at Axiom Capital,
TTEC was initiated with a Neutral at Sidoti

4:16 pm Skyworks appoints Kris Sennesael as CFO ( SWKS) : Sennesael most recently served as chief financial officer for Enphase Energy (ENPH). Donald Palette, who has been Skyworks' chief financial officer since 2007, will serve in an advisory role for a transitional period.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended a relatively quiet session on a flat note after the S&P 500 (-0.2%) spent the day inside a meager 12-point trading range. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) settled slightly behind both the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) and the benchmark index.

Equity indices began the day on a choppy note as top-weighted Apple (AAPL 106.00, -0.82) demonstrated early weakness. The tech giant underperformed in the wake of a tax ruling from the European Commission, which ordered Apple to pay up to EUR13 billion in back taxes to Ireland after it was found that Apple received an undue tax benefit. However, both the Irish government and Apple have announced that they will appeal the decision.

The major averages backpedaled through the afternoon as strengthening in the U.S. Dollar Index (96.07, +0.49, +0.51%) and a downturn in crude oil weighed on the broader market. Crude oil erased an early gain after reports indicated that Iran's Deputy Minister of Industry stated that the country could increase oil production to four million barrels per day by the end of the year. The reports fueled some uncertainty regarding the potential success of supply limiting measures that could be announced after next month's OPEC meeting. WTI crude ended the day lower by 1.3% ($46.34/bbl; -$0.62).

The S&P 500 (-0.2%) settled off its session low, but was unable to reclaim its 20-day simple moving average (2179.16). Nine sectors ended in negative territory with consumer staples (-0.6%), consumer discretionary (-0.6%), and utilities (-1.0%) rounding out the leaderboard. On the flipside, the heavyweight financial sector (+0.8%) finished with the only gain.

Retail names underperformed in the consumer discretionary sector (-0.6%), evidenced by the 1.6% loss in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.50, -0.73). The group moved lower following disappointing quarterly results from G-III Apparel (GIII 33.14, -8.63) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 18.29, -4.66). The retailer ETF has declined 1.3% month-to-date, which compares to a loss of 1.2% in the broader sector.

The heavyweight health care sector (-0.4%) ended behind the broader market as pharmaceutical names underperformed. Bristol-Myers (BMY 57.24, -1.52) fell 2.5%, extending its August loss to 23.5%. The name tumbled at the beginning of the month after announcing that its lung-cancer treatment, Opdivo, failed to meet its primary endpoints. Conversely, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 283.29, -0.58) ended slightly ahead of the broader sector.

In the technology (-0.2%) sector, large cap names underperformed as Alphabet (GOOG 769.09, -3.06), Facebook (FB 125.84, -0.70), and Apple (AAPL 106.00, -0.82) lost between 0.4% and 0.8%. Separately, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-0.2%) finished in-line with the broader market while Cypress Semiconductor (CY 11.75, +0.62) outperformed. The stock jumped 5.6% on M&A rumors.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+0.8%) outperformed as Dow components JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.50, +0.55) and Goldman Sachs (GS 169.37, +3.15) topped the price-weighted index. Conversely, rate-sensitive real estate investment trusts underperformed. Public Storage (PSA 223.77, -1.97) and Realty Income (O 65.44, -0.73) ended lower by 0.9% and 1.1%, respectively.

On the M&A front, Agrium (AGU 95.76, +6.28) and Potash (POT 18.00, +1.95) announced that they have entered into discussions regarding a potential merger. The two posted respective gains of 7.0% and 12.2% while peer Mosaic (MOS 30.45, +2.50) climbed 8.9%.

Treasuries ended on a mixed note with the short end of the curve demonstrating relative strength. The yield on the 30-yr bond ended higher by two basis points (2.23%) while the yield on the 2-yr note settled lower by one basis point (0.79%). The benchmark 10-yr yield rose one basis point to 1.57%.

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 737 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for June and Consumer Confidence for August:

The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for June fell to 5.1%, which was in-line with the Briefing.com consensus of 5.1%. This followed the previous month's revised reading of 5.3%, which fell from 5.2%.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for August checked in at 101.1 (Briefing.com consensus 97.0) versus a downwardly revised 96.7 (from 97.3) for July.
Consumers are feeling more upbeat than they were the month before about business and employment conditions, as well as personal income prospects.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the ADP Employment Change Report for August (Briefing.com consensus 170k), which will be released at 7:00 ET and 8:15 ET, respectively. The day's data will be capped off with Chicago PMI for August (Briefing.com consensus 54.5) and Pending Home Sales for July (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%), crossing the wires at 9:45 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000 +9.6% YTD
S&P 500 +6.5% YTD
Dow Jones +5.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.3% YTD

DJ30 -48.69 NASDAQ -9.34 SP500 -4.26 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1501/1.430 bln/1343 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1442/736.0 mln/1501

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was up +0.5% around the 96.08 level, weighing on commodities overall
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, -1.0% around the 83.66 level
Crude oil saw increased volatility, initially rallied & reversed gains in the early afternoon to close near session lows
October crude oil futures fell $0.62 (-1.3%) to $46.34/barrel
EIA data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
API data will be released today at 4:30 pm ET
Factors affecting the price of oil include:
Iran supply headlines appear to be the catalyst behind the reversal, as there were some headlines indicating Iran's Deputy Minister of Industry suggested Iran is looking to increase production to 4 mln barrels per day by the end of the year.
Iran currently produces around 3.85 mln barrels per day, so this isn't a huge jump, but it does go against recent indications that they could participate in a potential supply freeze at the September OPEC meeting.
Oil had been trading higher earlier this morning amid weather concerns, with oil and gas companies in the Gulf of Mexico shutting down production that consisted of ~168k barrels/day of oil and 190 mln cubic ft/day of natural gas as a precaution against an expected tropical storm.
Additionally, there were reports of ISIS setting fire to a number of wells in Northern Iraq, potentially curtailing some supply and adding support to oil this morning.
Natural gas ended near session lows ahead of Thursday's inventory number
October natural gas closed $0.06 lower (-2.1%) at $2.83/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold & silver declined as the dollar index surged to session highs
December gold ended today's session down $10.90 (-0.8%) to $1316.10/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.10 lower (-0.5%) at $18.67/oz
Base metal copper snapped its 3-day loss streak, closed modestly higher for the day
December copper closed $0.01 higher (+0.5%) at $2.08/lb

The major averages began the day on a choppy note as a downturn in top-weighted Apple (AAPL 106.00, -0.82 -0.77%) pressured the broader market. The technology heavyweight slipped after the European Commission concluded that Ireland afforded an undue tax benefit to Apple. The European Commission ordered Apple to pay up to EUR 13 billion in back taxes to Ireland, but the Irish government and Apple have since announced that they will appeal the decision.

Also, the Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer spoke earlier this morning, stating that the pace of interest rate normalization will depend on the quality of incoming economic data. Mr. Fischer's statements echoed previous remarks, but have nonetheless improved the odds for a rate hike ahead of Friday's release of the Employment Situation Report for August. The report is expected to show that 180,000 nonfarm payrolls were added. The fed funds futures market estimates the implied probability of a rate hike at the September meeting at 24.0%, rising from 21.0% in the prior session.

Additionally, crude oil has also been in focus amid reports that Iran's Deputy Minister of Industry suggested the country could increase its production to four million barrels per day by the end of the year. The report may have cast some doubt on the likelihood of supply limiting measures that could be announced after next month's OPEC meeting. Oil went green to red today, pressured at the close with October crude oil futures down $0.62 (-1.3%) to $46.34/barrel.

Further, market data out today included the Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for June which fell to 5.1%, following the previous month's revised reading of 5.3% (from 5.2%). Also, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for August checked in at 101.1 versus a downwardly revised 96.7 (from 97.3) for July.

The broader market was pressured from the get-go, ending modestly off lows though. Leading the decline, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 48.69 points (-0.26%) to 18454.30. The S&P 500 was down 4.26 points (-0.20%) to 2176.12, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 9.34 points (-0.18%) to 5222.99.

Among the worst performing sectors today, Technology (XLK 47.07, -0.16 -0.34%) finished near the middle of the daily range but was pressured all day. Component Visa (V 81.17, +0.30 +0.37%) announced a partnership with Uber to provide Uber Local Offers which would give customers discounts when paying with their Visa card on file with Uber at local merchants. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLU -1.05%, XLP -0.59%, XLY -0.55%, XLE -0.34%, XLV -0.34%, XLI -0.27%, XLB -0.24%, IYZ -0.12%, XLF +0.90%, XLFS +0.91% with only Financials escaping with gains.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (784.06, -1.86 -0.24%) sector, trading began the day in the green but fell within the first hour below flat lines, and sellers held on for the remainder of the day. Components LRCX -1.44%, FLIR -1.25%, HPE -1.19%, MU -1.01%, RHT -0.99%, TXN -0.96% ended lower today.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Apple (AAPL): The EU confirmed Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to EUR 13 billion to AAPL.
According to CNBC, Alphabet's (GOOG 769.09, -3.06 -0.40%) Google is favored to win PayPal's (PYPL 37.00, -0.29 -0.78%) cloud business.

Skyworks (SWKS 74.20, -1.02 -1.36%) appointed Kris Sennesael as CFO.

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals and Qualcomm (QCOM 62.94, -0.04 -0.06%) through its subsidiary, Qualcomm Life, Inc., announced a new collaboration to develop a connectivity solution for the RESPIMAT inhaler, the platform inhaler for the Boehringer Ingelheim family of respiratory therapies, to help improve COPD treatment outcomes.

Uber and Visa (V) announced Uber Local Offers, a new way for riders to earn discounted rides by simply using the same Visa credit card on file with Uber at their favorite local merchants.

Ericsson (ERIC 7.31, -0.02 -0.27%) and Cisco (CSCO 31.54, -0.04 -0.13%) announced an agreement to supply and install IP networks for C&W Communications, which operates the retail brand Flow, in three Caribbean markets. The plans include an upgrade to the IP backbone network in the Bahamas to improve performance and support an increase of traffic, and a new business-to-business IP/MPLS network in Jamaica and Barbados.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, ScanSource (SCSC 35.49, -7.22 -16.90%) announced a $120 million three-year authorization to repurchase shares of common stock.

Natl Instruments (NATI 28.06, -0.18 -0.64%) elected Alex Davern to serve as CEO and President effective January 1, 2017.

Sequans Communications (SQNS 1.79, -0.02 -1.21%) announced an agreement to deliver Sequans' LTE Cat 1 technology and products to T-Mobile's (TMUS 46.10, -0.63 -1.35%) machine-to-machine (M2M) and IoT customers.

Communications Systems (JCS 5.63, -0.09 -1.57%) named Mark Fandrich as CFO effective August 29, 2016.

Flex (FLEX 13.29, +0.20 +1.53%) received approval to purchase up to 20% of its outstanding shares. Additionally, the Board authorized management to purchase shares in an aggregate amount of up to $500 million.

Aspen Tech (AZPN 45.97, +0.46 +1.01%) announced a $100 million accelerated share repurchase program.

Square (SQ 12.07, +0.06 +0.50%) named former SolarCity (SCTY 20.69, -0.77 -3.59%) VP, Ajmere Dale, as Chief Accounting Officer.

Imperva (IMPV 45.56, -1.08 -2.32%) announced that the Imperva SecureSphere Web Application Firewall and SecureSphere Database Firewall have been selected for inclusion in the Department of Homeland Security Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Tools/Continuous Monitoring as a Service Blanket Purchase Agreement.

In reaction to quarterly results:

ScanSource (SCSC) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.51 on in-line revenues which rose 3.6% compared to a year ago to $887.5 million. For Q1, the company sees EPS and revenues worse than expected at $0.60-0.68 and $875-925 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: PANW, VEEV

Analyst actions:

VMW was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at SunTrust,
FTNT and CUDA were upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
TECD was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at BofA/Merrill;
ADSK was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Rosenblatt,
MANT was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
IMPV was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest;
EBAY was initiated with a Long-Term Buy at Hilliard Lyons,
IPHI was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan

4:20 pm FEI shareholders approve acquisition by Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), transaction expected to be completed by end of 2016 (FEIC) :

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From Briefing.com: 4:12 pm Hewlett Packard Enterprise completes the sale of its equity stake in Mphasis Limited to private equity funds managed by Blackstone (BX) (HPE) : Blackstone purchased 100% of HPE's stake in Mphasis for INR 430 per share, or approximately $825 million. In conjunction with the sale, HPE also entered into a five-year renewal of its existing master services agreement with Mphasis, whereby Mphasis will continue to provide strategic service delivery capabilities to HPE.

4:10 pm VeriFone beats by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY16 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (PAY) :

Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.40; revenues fell 3.3% year/year to $493 mln vs the $515.79 mln Capital IQ Consensus."We are managing through what we believe are difficult but temporary local market and lingering EMV adoption issues. Our outlook for Q4 now assumes a significantly slower EMV rollout, and we are projecting fiscal year 2017 consolidated revenues to be approximately 3% below fiscal year 2016 levels. That said, we are relentlessly executing the long-term vision for Verifone to transform from a box shipper to a services provider."Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.28-0.29, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.50 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $460 mln vs. $536.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.64-1.65, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.85 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $2.0 bln vs. $2.1 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Broadcom beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q4 rev in-line with midpoint above consensus (AVGO) :

Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $2.89 per share, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.76; revenues rose 117.3% year/year to $3.8 bln vs the $3.76 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Non-GAAP gross margin 60.4% vs. 59-61% guidance.Co issues guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $4.025-4.175 bln vs. $4.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus; non-GAAP gross margin 59.5-61.5%."We are expecting an even stronger performance in the fourth quarter, driven by robust growth in our wireless segment."

4:03 pm Verizon CFO Fran Shammo announces plans to retire effective Nov 1; Matthew Ellis to succeed Shammo (VZ) : Verizon's Board of Directors today appointed Matthew Ellis to succeed Shammo as executive vice president and CFO. Ellis is currently senior vice president and CFO - Operations Finance, responsible for providing financial support to Verizon's wireless and wireline business units.

4:01 pm Plexus announced collaborative effort with Indiana Integrated Circuits to support the development of a production level Quilt Packaging assembly process (PLXS) : Plexus to provide microelectronic design, assembly & test for IIC's proprietary "Quilt Packaging" microchip integration technology.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a flat note as the S&P 500 (UNCH) clawed back the bulk of today's loss. Trading conditions continued to be on the lighter side as market participants wind down recent vacation schedules and look ahead to tomorrow's Employment Situation Report for August.

Equity indices sputtered at the start of the session as a string of weaker-than-expected economic data weighed on the broader market. The ISM Manufacturing Index for August indicated a contraction, falling to 49.4 (Briefing.com consensus 52.2) from July's reading of 52.6. Additionally, negative revisions to second quarter Productivity (-0.6%; from -0.5%) and Unit Labor Costs (+4.3%; from: +2.0%) weighed on the broader market's outlook for corporate earnings.

The disappointing economic data led to a negative revision of the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast for the third quarter. The model now estimates that GDP growth for the third quarter will come in at 3.2%, declining from the August 29 estimate of 3.5%.

The major averages notched session lows shortly before midday as an extended downturn in crude oil weighed on the broader market. The energy component fell from the $44.35/bbl price level as investors eyed growth concerns associated with a pullback in manufacturing activity. The energy component ended its session lower by 3.4% ($43.17/bbl; -$1.54), extending its week-to-date loss to 9.4%.

The broader market recovered losses in the second half as a rebound in the heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (+0.2%) and technology (+0.4%) sectors boosted the broader market. The S&P 500 (UNCH) jostled near the 2170 price level, settling with six sectors in the green. The health care (-0.2%), energy (-0.3%), financial (-0.4%), and utilities (-0.4%) sectors rounded out the board while consumer discretionary (+0.2%), telecom services (+0.3%), and technology (+0.4%) outperformed.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (-0.4%) displayed relative weakness, responding to negative economic data and uncertainty ahead of tomorrow's Employment Situation Report for August. The Briefing.com consensus expects the employment reading will show that 180,000 nonfarm payrolls were added in August, following July's reading of 255,000. The report has taken on added significance as participants continue to adjust rate hike expectation for the year. In the group, Dow component American Express (AXP 64.86, -0.72) finished at the bottom of the price-weighted index.

In the health care space (-0.2%), health care plan names underperformed while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 281.44, +0.55) narrowed its week-to-date loss to 1.3%. In the ETF, Mylan Labs (MYL 41.92, -0.44) continued to underperform, sinking 1.0%. The broader sector has declined 0.6% this week, leading only energy (-0.3%; week-to-date: -1.4%) over that time.

Retail names underperformed in the consumer discretionary space (+0.2%) as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.21, -0.26) declined by 0.6%. The sub-group was under pressure as investors pored over a mixed set of same-store sales data for August. L Brands (LB 74.81, -1.40) underperformed after reporting that August same-store sales increased 2.0%. Separately, Ford (F 12.44, -0.16) fell by 1.3% after announcing that U.S. sales declined by 8.4% year-over-year.

The high-beta chipmakers demonstrated relative strength, evidenced by the 0.9% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Marvell (MRVL 12.87, +0.47) finished at the top of the price-weighted index. For the week, the index has gained 0.9%, which compares to an advance of 0.3% in the broader sector.

Treasuries ended on a mixed note with the short end of the curve demonstrating relative strength. The yield on the 2-yr note ended lower by three basis points (0.78%) while the yield on the 30-yr bond settled flat at 2.23%. For its part, the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note slipped one basis point to 1.57%

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 805 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included August Challenger Job Cuts, weekly initial claims, revised estimates for second quarter Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, Construction Spending for July, and the ISM Index for August:

August Challenger Job Cuts reported in at 32,200, which compares to the prior month's reading of 45,300.
Initial jobless claims increased by 2,000 to 263,000 for the week ending August 27. There were no special factors driving the report, which produced the 78th straight week that initial claims have been below 300,000.
Continuing claims for the week ending August 20 increased by 14,000 to 2.159 million. That uptick drove the four-week moving average to 2.160 million from 2.155 million the week before.
Second quarter productivity was revised down to a decline of 0.6% from a preliminary decline of 0.5%. The revision was in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate.
Unit labor costs were revised up to 4.3% (Briefing.com consensus +2.1%) from the preliminary reading of 2.0%.
The report signals that corporate profit margins are at risk with productivity down and unit labor costs up.
Total construction spending was unchanged in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) following an upwardly revised 0.9% increase (from -0.6%) for June.
On a year-over-year basis, total construction spending is up 1.5%, which is the slowest pace of growth since November 2011.
The total value of construction put in place increased 0.9% versus June, so that will remain a positive input for Q3 GDP forecasts.
The ISM Manufacturing Index for August produced a big headline disappointment, falling to 49.4 (Briefing.com consensus 52.2) from 52.6 in July. A number below 50.0 denotes a general contraction in the manufacturing sector.
The report plants a negative seed for third quarter GDP growth prospects and also supports the notion held by many market participants that the Federal Reserve should refrain from raising the fed funds rate at this month's FOMC meeting.

For further details on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the Employment Situation Report for August (Briefing.com consensus 180k) and the Trade Balance for July (Briefing.com consensus -$43.0 billion), which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, Factory Orders for July (Briefing.com consensus +2.0%) will be released at 10:00 ET. DJ30 +18.42 NASDAQ +13.99 SP500 -0.09 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1500/1.451 bln/1337 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1400/804.4 mln/1538

3:40 pm :

Energy futures take a hit in Thursday's session
Following today's weekly storage data, natural gas futures took a hit and ended the day down 3.1% at $2.80/MMBtu
WTI oil futures were weak as well, extending recent losses and is down 11% since last Friday
Today, Oct crude oil ended the session -3.4% at $43.17/barrel
Looking over at metals...
Dec gold rose 0.4% to $1317/oz, while Dec silver closed 1.3% higher at $18.95/oz
Dec copper ended unchanged at $2.08/lc
Moving over to the agriculture market, some grains, such as wheat and corn are sitting at multi-year lows
Wheat is at a 10-year low currently, while corn is at a 7-yr. low
Today, Dec corn rose 2.5% to $3.23/bushel, Dec wheat gained 0.8% to $3.94/bu and Nov soybeans climbed 0.4% to $9.45/bu

Equities indices began the day under pressure as investors pored over a mixed set of global manufacturing data. Positive reports from China and the United Kingdom helped bolster things overnight, but negative domestic data pushed those reports to the backburner. The ISM Manufacturing Index for August fell to 49.4 from July's reading of 52.6. A number below 50.0 indicates contraction in the manufacturing sector and could act as a headwind for third-quarter GDP growth prospects.

Market data today included August Challenger Job Cuts which came in at 32,200 compared to the prior month's reading of 45,300. Also, Initial jobless claims increased by 2,000 to 263,000 for the week ending August 27. There were no special factors driving the report, which produced the 78th straight week that initial claims have been below 300,000. Additionally, second quarter productivity was revised down to a decline of 0.6% from a preliminary decline of 0.5%. Total construction spending was unchanged in July following an upwardly revised 0.9% increase (from -0.6%) for June. Finally, the aforementioned ISM Manufacturing Index for August produced a big headline disappointment, falling to 49.4 from 52.6 in July. A number below 50.0 denotes a general contraction in the manufacturing sector.

The first day of September ended a mixed affair. Action was led to the upside today by the Nasdaq Composite which added 13.99 points (+0.27%) to 5227.21. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also finished in positive territory, up 18.42 points (+0.10%) to 18419.30, and the S&P 500 shed less than a point (-0.00%) to 2170.86.

Technology (XLK 47.14, +0.15 +0.32%), in context, fared moderately well as only Materials out-paced gains in Tech. Component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 22.16, +0.68 +3.17%) was the best performer today as a Reuters article circulated suggesting the company may sell its software unit for $8-10 billion. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed today XLB +0.41%, XLY +0.20%, XLI +0.09%, XLP +0.04%, XLV -0.26%, XLE -0.29%, XLF -0.41%, XLU -0.51%, XLFS -0.52%, IYZ -0.75%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (785.64, +2.74 +0.35%) sector, trading ended higher after a brief portion of the day in negative territory. Component Salesforce.com (CRM 75.94, -3.51 -4.42%) was lower today in reaction to quarterly results which were mixed and guidance which came in worse than expected. Other names in the space which closed moderately higher today included NVDA +2.95%, CSRA +2.76%, ADS +2.74%, KLAC +2.15%, ATVI +1.89%, FSLR +1.64%, AMAT +1.51%, MCHP +1.44%, LRCX +1.40%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Charter Comm (CHTR 268.82, +11.61 +4.51%) to join the S&P 500, replacing EMC (EMC 28.86, -0.13 -0.45%) after the close on September 7.

According to Reuters, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) might sell if software unit for $8-10 billion.
According to Bloomberg, private equity firm TPG is among those parties bidding for Intel's (INTC 36.02, +0.13 +0.36%) McAfee unit and could be valued at $3 billion.

HP Inc. (HPQ 14.50, +0.13 +0.90%) debuted two new PCs, HP Pavilion Wave and HP Elite Slice. HP Pavilion Wave will start at $549.99 and is expected to be available at select retailers and HP.com on September 23, 2016, and the HP Elite Slice will start at $699 and is expected to be available in September 2016.

Harris (HRS 92.85, -0.13 -0.14%) filed a mixed securities shelf offering.

Salesforce (CRM) announced the expansion of its Wave Analytics portfolio with new apps built by Salesforce and independent software vendors (ISVs) in its ecosystem.

According to Digital Trends, Alphabet's (GOOG 768.78, +1.73 +0.23%) Google might introduce a new photo creation tool. Shares of Shutterfly (SFLY 50.04, -0.18 -0.36%) traded lower today in reaction.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Digital Turbine (APPS 1.25, -0.16 -11.51%) named Barrett Garrison as CFO effective September 12, 2016.

Advanced Micro (AMD 7.35, -0.05 -0.68%) amended its Wafer Supply Agreement with Globalfoundries for the period from Jan. 1, 2016 to Dec. 31, 2020.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Box (BOX 13.98, +0.24 +1.75%) acquired Wagon Analytics. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Softbank (SFTBY 33.14, +0.53 +1.64%) announced a partnership agreement with Niantic for Nintendo's (NTDOY 28.01, +0.73 +2.71%) Pokmon GO.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Itron (ITRI 50.95, +3.32 +6.97%) announced restructuring activities in order to improve operational efficiencies, reduce expenses and improve competitiveness. The Company estimates pre-tax restructuring charges of $55 million to $65 million, with about $16 million to $19 million related to closing or consolidating facilities and operations and about $39 million to $46 million associated with severance and other one-time termination benefits. Of the total estimated charge, more than 90% is expected to result in cash expenditures.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Ciena (CIEN 23.17, +1.72 +8.02%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.42 on revenues which rose 11.2% compared to last year to $670.6 million. For Q4, CIEN sees revenues in the range of $700-730 million.

Itron (ITRI) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.65 and $513.02 million, respectively. For FY16, ITRI sees better than expected EPS of $2.20-2.45 on revenues of $1.95-2.00 billion.

Salesforce.com (CRM) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.24 on in-line revenues of $2.04 billion. For Q3, CRM sees EPS and revenues worse than market expectations at $0.20-0.21 and $2.11-2.12 billion, respectively. For FY17, CRM expects EPS and revenues of $0.93-0.95 and $8.275-8.325 billion (from $8.26-8.32 billion).

SMTC Corp (SMTC 27.49, +0.89 +3.35%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.35 on revenues which rose 8.1% compared to a year ago to $135.9 million. The company sees EPS and revenues for Q3 of $0.34-0.38 and $134-142 million, respectively.

Box (BOX) reported a better than expected Q2 loss per share of $0.14 on revenues which also came in ahead of expectations and rose 30.2% year-over-year to $95.7 million. For Q3, the company sees EPS of ($0.20)-($0.19) and revenues of $100-101 million. For FY17, BOX sees EPS and revenues of ($0.69)-($-0.67) (from ($0.78)-($0.75)) and $394-396 million (from $391-395 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: AMBA, AVGO, SEAC, PAY

Analyst actions:

WEX was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at CLSA;
ININ was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital and to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital,
MBT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC,
BT was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 02-Sep-16The stock market saw another week of limited movement, but managed to erase the bulk of last week's loss nonetheless. The S&P 500 added 0.5% thanks to a Friday rally, which took root after the release of a disappointing Employment Situation report for August.

According to the report, only 151,000 nonfarm payrolls were added, which was short of the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 180,000. Furthermore, average hourly earnings edged up just 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), leaving the year-over-year growth rate at 2.4%, which was down from 2.6% in July. The dollar dipped after the release, but rebounded as the day wore on.

As for the fed funds futures market, the initial reaction to the report saw a dip in near-term rate hike expectations, but only a portion of that move held. The implied likelihood of a hike in September ticked down to 21.0% from 24.0% while the probability of a December hike improved to 54.2% from 53.6% on Thursday.

In sum, the Employment Situation report was not weak enough to convince investors that a September rate hike is out of the question. The Treasury market agreed with that assessment, leading to some steepening in the yield curve on Friday as the long end underperformed.

With Labor Day around the corner, the upcoming weeks are expected to feature increased volume as market participants return from vacations.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18396.98 18491.96 94.98 0.5 6.1
Nasdaq 5218.92 5249.90 30.98 0.6 4.8
S&P 500 2169.16 2179.98 10.82 0.5 6.7
Russell 2000 1238.88 1251.28 12.40 1.0 10.2

5:27 pm Samsung establishes US product exchange program for the Galaxy Note7 in response to recent battery cell issues (SSNLF) :

"While there have been only a small number of reported incidents, Samsung is taking great care to provide customers with the support they need. Samsung has identified the affected inventory and stopped sales and shipments of those devices. For customers who have Galaxy Note7 devices, Samsung will voluntarily replace their current device with a new one from today...As a gesture of appreciation, consumers will receive a $25 gift card or bill credit from select carrier retail outlets when choosing a Galaxy S7 family device or the Galaxy Note7 within the exchange program."

4:26 pm MagnaChip Semi extends shareholder rights plan six months to March 5, 2017; continues to consider and evaluate strategic alternatives (MX) : The Rights Agreement is designed to ensure fair and equitable treatment of all MagnaChip shareholders in the event of an unsolicited acquisition offer. The Board has determined that Amendment No. 2 is in the best interest of MagnaChip shareholders, as the Board, with assistance from its Strategic Review Committee, continues to consider and evaluate strategic alternatives that may be available to the Company.

4:13 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Gain Following August Jobs Report (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended the week on a modestly higher note as an inconclusive reading of the Employment Situation Report for August left fed funds rate hike expectations up in the air. The S&P 500 (+0.4%) finished in-line with the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%). The three indices ended the week higher between 0.5% and 0.6%.

Today's session began on a higher note as weaker-than-expected headline figures from the August employment report spurred buying interest in the broader market. The report indicated that 151,000 nonfarm payrolls were added in August (Briefing.com consensus 180,000) while the July number was revised to 275,000 (from 255,000). Separately, average hourly earnings came in cooler-than-expected, rising 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). The implied probability of an interest rate hike at the September Fed meeting fell to 18.0% shortly after the release of the report.

Participants walked back the knee-jerk reaction throughout the session, eyeing the longer-term trend in labor market data. The monthly nonfarm reading missed consensus estimates, but job growth has still averaged 232,000 over the past three months. Separately, remarks from the likes of Bill Gross and Richmond Fed President (a non-FOMC voter) Jeffrey Lacker worked to keep the possibility of a rate hike in play. The implied probability for a rate hike at the September meeting rebounded to 21.0% by the end of the session, slipping from the prior session estimate of 24.0%.

The S&P 500 (+0.4%) settled off its best level of the day, testing technical support near the 2173/2176 price level. All ten sectors ended in the green with materials (+0.8%), energy (+0.8%), and utilities (+1.2%) leading the pack. Conversely, countercyclical health care (+0.1%) and telecom services (+0.1%) finished with the slimmest gains. Other focal points impacting today's trade included a rebound in crude oil and sector leadership from heavily-weighted financials (+0.5%).

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+0.5%) ended ahead of the benchmark index, extending this week's gain to 2.0%. Money center banks rebounded in the space as investors responded to a steepening yield curve and a reversal in rate hike expectations. JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.49, +0.28) and Citigroup (C 47.51, +0.15) finished higher by 0.4% apiece.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.4%) ended in-line with the broader market as shipping names and airlines outperformed. The U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 22.75, +0.27) ended higher by 1.4% as investors mulled August operational results from Delta Air Lines (DAL 37.17, +0.35) and Alaska Air (ALK 68.21, +0.95). The broader transportation index ended the week higher by 1.6%.

In the consumer discretionary sector (+0.2%), lululemon athletica (LULU 68.57, -8.09) weighed on the retail sub-group, sinking 10.6%. The name reported in-line quarterly results, but issued full-year guidance that was a bit light relative to expectations. Separately, Gap (GPS 23.92, -0.63) ended lower by 2.6% after reporting that same-store sales fell 3.0% in August. This compares to last August's decline of 2.0%.

The heavily-weighted health care sector (+0.1%) finished near its flat line as biotechnology underperformed. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 280.61,- 0.83) was under pressure after Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton unveiled plans to combat "unjustified price hikes" in the pharmaceutical industry. The plan includes making alternative medications available and fining drug makers for excessive price increases for long-standing treatments.

Treasuries ended on a lower note with the long end of the curve demonstrating relative weakness. The yield on the 2-yr note ended higher by one basis point (0.79%) while the yield on the 10-yr note settled higher by three basis points (1.60%).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 782 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the Employment Situation Report for August, the Trade Balance for July, and Factory Orders for July:

The August employment report showed a deceleration in the labor market from recent months.Nonfarm payrolls increased by 151,000 (Briefing.com consensus 180,000). Over the past three months, job gains have averaged 232,000 per month.July nonfarm payrolls revised to 275,000 from 255,000Private sector payrolls increased by 126,000 (Briefing.com consensus 175,000)July private sector payrolls revised to 225,000 from 217,000Unemployment rate was 4.9% (Briefing.com consensus 4.8%) versus 4.9% in JulyPersons unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 26.1% of the unemployed versus 26.6% in JulyAugust average hourly earnings were up 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) after being up 0.3% in JulyOver the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 2.4% versus 2.6% for the 12-month period ending in JulyThe average workweek was 34.3 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.5) versus 34.4 hours in JulyThe labor force participation rate was 62.8% versus 62.8% in JulyThe July Trade Balance Report showed a narrowing in the trade deficit to $39.5 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$43.0 billion) from a downwardly revised $44.7 billion deficit (from -$44.5 billion) for June. Net exports will provide a positive contribution to third quarter GDP as the real trade deficit of $58.3 billion for July was 4.3% less than the second quarter average.New orders for manufactured goods increased 1.9% in July (Briefing.com consensus +2.0%) following a downwardly revised 1.8% decline (from -1.5%) for June. Excluding transportation, orders were up 0.2% after a 0.4% increase for June.Transportation equipment orders (and particularly nondefense aircraft and parts orders ) drove much of the strength in July factory orders.For further details on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday in observance of Labor Day. Tuesday's economic data will be limited to ISM Services for August (Briefing.com consensus 54.7), which will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +10.0% YTDS&P 500: +6.7% YTDDow Jones: +6.1% YTDNasdaq Composite: +4.8% YTDWeek in Review: Stocks Climb Ahead of Labor Day

The stock market saw another week of limited movement, but managedto erase the bulk of last week's loss nonetheless. The S&P 500 added 0.5%thanks to a Friday rally, which took root after the release of a disappointing EmploymentSituation report for August.

According to the report, only 151,000 nonfarm payrolls wereadded, which was short of the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 180,000.Furthermore, average hourly earnings edged up just 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus0.2%), leaving the year-over-year growth rate at 2.4%, which was down from 2.6%in July. The dollar dipped after the release, but rebounded as the day wore on.

As for the fed funds futures market, the initial reaction tothe report saw a dip in near-term rate hike expectations, but only a portion ofthat move held. The implied likelihood of a hike in September ticked down to21.0% from 24.0% while the probability of a December hike improved to 54.2%from 53.6% on Thursday.

In sum, the Employment Situation report was not weak enoughto convince investors that a September rate hike is out of the question. The Treasurymarket agreed with that assessment, leading to some steepening in the yieldcurve on Friday as the long end underperformed.

With Labor Day around the corner, the upcoming weeksare expected to feature increased volume as market participants return fromvacations.

The stock market got off to a roaring start on Friday,boosted by a belief that a September rate hike is a lot less likely followingthe release of a disappointing Employment Situation report for August. Thereport missed headline expectations (151,000; Briefing.com consensus 180,000) andaverage hourly wage growth (+0.1%; Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) also missedestimates.

That combination was met with a retreat in the dollar, ajump in Treasuries, and a quick drop in rate hike expectations. Accordingly,stocks spiked out of the gate with the technology sector keeping pace with thebroader market. However, session highs were notched during the opening 30minutes and a pullback ensued as participants considered that maybe the jobsreport was not weak enough to keep the Fed on hold. After all, average hourlywages remain up 2.4% year-over-year and this is the longest stretch of jobgrowth on record. That recognition opened the door to a near-full retracement of thedrop in rate hike expectations while the dollar advanced and the Treasury yieldcurve steepened.

As for the technology sector (XLK 47.35, +0.21), the groupwas beholden to moves in the broader market for the most part. Semiconductornames, however, struggled throughout the day, sending the PHLX SemiconductorIndex lower by 0.2%. Broadcom (AVGO 173.11, -3.98) weighed despite beating earningsestimates. The stock fell 2.3% while NVIDIA (NVDA 62.53, -0.62) was also amongthe semi laggards, surrendering 1.0%. The remaining sectors also posted gains: XLF +0.5%, XLV +0.1%, XLY +0.2%, XLI +0.5%, XLE +1.1%, XLP +0.8%, XLB +1.0%,XLU +1.3%, IYZ +1.2%

Other notable news among sector components:

Samsung (SSNLF) Galaxy Note 7 recalled due to 35 reports of "battery issues." Reports of burning/melting batteries circulated; T-Mobile (TMUS 47.29, +1.04) suspended sales.

Renewed M&A chatter surrounding Cypress Semiconductor (CY 12.19, +0.12).

VeriSign (VRSN 79.02, +4.21) spiked on Cowen tweet about net domain adds tracking well for Q3
Elsewhere in the tech space:

MGT Capital Investments (MGT 3.33, +0.12) disclosed entry into subscription agreement, pursuant to which it sold 450k restricted shares at $3.00/share

Chinese regulators to probe Comcast (CMCSA 66.15, +0.26) acquisition of DreamWorks on anti-trust grounds

Verizon (VZ 52.88, +0.32) filed for mixed securities shelf offering

TIM Participacoes (TSU 12.98, +0.04) Board members elected Adrian Calaza for CFO
In reaction to quarterly results:

Ambarella (AMBA 66.99, -4.79) beat second-quarter earnings and revenue estimates, guided Q3 in line with expectations, and reaffirmed guidance for the fiscal year.

Broadcom (AVGO 173.11, -3.98) beat earnings/revenue estimates and guided Q4 revenue in the neighborhood of market expectations.

SeaChange (SEAC 2.91, +0.15) reported in-line results, but guided cautiously for Q3 and the full year.

VeriFone (PAY 16.81, -3.29) beat earnings estimates on light revenue, but issued defensive guidance for Q4.

Analyst actions:

MELI was upgraded to Overweight at JP Morgan;
ININ was downgraded to Hold at Craig Hallum;
CIEN was downgraded to Hold at Drexel Hamilton and to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley;
PAY downgraded to Neutral at Piper Jaffray

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From Briefing.com: 4:12 pm Hewlett Packard Enterprise beats by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus; confirms plans to spin off and merge non-core software assets with Micro Focus in $8.8 bln deal (HPE) : Reports Q3 (Jul) earnings of $0.49 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.45; revenues fell 3.9% year/year to $12.21 bln vs the $12.61 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Enterprise Group revenue was $6.5 billion, down 8% year over year, flat when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 12.6% operating margin. Servers revenue was down 4%, down 2% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Storage revenue was down 8%, down 5% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Networking revenue was down 22%, up 12% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and

Technology Services revenue was down 7%, up 1% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.
Enterprise Services revenue was $4.7 billion, down 5% year over year, down 3% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with an 8.3% operating margin. Infrastructure Technology Outsourcing revenue was down 6%, down 3% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and Application and Business

Services revenue was down 4%, down 3% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.
Software revenue was $738 million, down 18% year over year, down 3% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 17.8% operating margin. License revenue was down 28%, down 17% adjusted for divestitures and currency, support revenue was down 17%, flat when adjusted for divestitures and currency, professional services revenue was down 8%, up 1% adjusted for divestitures and currency, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue was down 5%, up 17% adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Financial Services revenue was $812 million, up 1% year over year, net portfolio assets were up 7%, and financing volume was down 6%. The business delivered an operating margin of 9.9%.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.44-0.49, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.60 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise also announced plans for a spin-off and merger of its non-core software assets with Micro Focus in a transaction valued at ~$8.8 billion.

4:05 pm Hewlett Packard Enterprise confirms plans for a spin-off and merger of its non-core software assets with Micro Focus in a transaction valued at approximately $8.8 bln (HPE) :

The combination of these software assets -- which includes HPE's Application Delivery Management, Big Data, Enterprise Security, Information Management & Governance and IT Operations Management businesses -- and Micro Focus' highly complementary portfolio will create one of the world's largest pure-play software companies. In addition, HPE and Micro Focus announced plans for a commercial partnership that will name SUSE as HPE's preferred Linux partner and will bring together HPE's Helion OpenStack and Stackato solutions with SUSE's OpenStack expertise to provide best-in-class enterprise-grade hybrid cloud offerings for HPE customers.

The combination of HPE's software assets with Micro Focus is expected to create a business with annual revenues of approximately $4.5 billion. Micro Focus expects to improve the margin on HPE's software assets by approximately 20 percentage points by the end of the third full financial year following the closing of the transaction, while also investing in key growth areas like big data and security. As owners of 50.1 percent of the combined company, HPE shareholders will share in the value of these operational improvements, as well as future growth of earnings.

At the completion of the transaction, currently expected to occur by the second half of HPE's fiscal year 2017, HPE shareholders will own American Depositary Shares representing 50.1% of the equity of the new combined company (which will continue under the name Micro Focus) on a fully diluted basis. This equity stake in Micro Focus is valued at approximately $6.3 billion based on the closing price of Micro Focus shares as of market close on September 5, 2016. HPE will also receive a $2.5 billion cash payment prior to the completion of the merger, resulting in total consideration to HPE and its shareholders of approximately $8.8 billion. The transaction is expected to be tax-free to HPE.

To recognize the $8.8 billion of value and unlock a more attractive financial profile for HPE going forward, HPE expects to incur one-time after-tax separation costs of approximately $700 million, with the vast majority occurring in fiscal year 2017. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of required regulatory approvals and the approval of the transaction by Micro Focus' shareholders.

4:07 pm Intel confirms $4.2 bln deal with TPG to establish a newly formed, jointly-owned, independent cybersecurity company (INTC) :

The new company will be called McAfee following transaction close. TPG will own 51 percent of McAfee and Intel will own 49 percent in a transaction valuing the business at approximately $4.2 billion. TPG is making a $1.1 billion equity investment to help drive growth and enhance focus as a standalone business.

Under the terms of the agreement, TPG will own 51 percent of a newly-formed cybersecurity company in a multi-step transaction valuing Intel Security at approximately $4.2 billion, based on an equity value of approximately $2.2 billion plus McAfee net debt of approximately $2 billion. The debt initially will be financed by Intel until completion of audited financial statements for McAfee (expected within three to five months of close). The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017, subject to certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Chris Young will be appointed CEO of the new company upon closing of the transaction.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended a quiet midweek session on a flat note as participants employed some caution ahead of tomorrow's policy statement from the European Central Bank. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.2%) settled slightly ahead of the S&P 500 (UNCH) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%).

The major averages rose at the start of the session, responding to a positive bias in European markets. Regional bourses ended in the green as investors examined a mixed set of economic data ahead of tomorrow's policy decision from the ECB. The central bank is scheduled to release its September rate decision at 7:45 ET while ECB President Draghi is scheduled to offer remarks at 8:30 ET.

Equity indices pulled back after the first hour as some strengthening in the U.S. Dollar Index (94.97, +0.15, +0.16%) weighed on dollar-denominated oil and the broader market. The greenback benefited from some softening in sterling, following accommodative remarks from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. Mr. Carney addressed parliament today, indicating that post-Brexit recession risks have receded. However, the BoE governor went on to note that the central bank has further room to maneuver monetary policy, if needed.

The benchmark index found support near its 20-day simple moving average (2180.21), climbing off that level for the remainder of the session. Six sectors ended in the green with technology (+0.2%), telecom services (+0.2%), and energy (+0.3%) outperforming. Conversely, materials (-0.1%), health care (-0.1%), and consumer staples (-0.9%) led to the downside.

The influential technology sector (+0.2%) finished ahead of the broader market as top-weighted Apple (AAPL 108.38, +0.68) outperformed. The Dow component jumped 0.6% after unveiling the iPhone 7 and a new iteration of the Apple Watch. Meanwhile, fellow heavyweight Facebook (FB 131.05, +1.32) rose 1.0% after Morgan Stanley issued some bullish commentary on the name. Conversely, the high-beta chipmakers underperformed, evidenced by the 0.7% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

In the energy sector (+0.3%), refining names outperformed ahead of this evening's inventory report from the American Petroleum Institute. Phillips 66 (PSX 79.59, +0.48) and Valero Energy (VLO 56.09, +0.82) ended higher by 0.6% and 1.5%, respectively. The Department of Energy's more influential inventory report will be released tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. ET. For its part, WTI crude ended its pit session higher by 1.4% ($45.48/bbl; +$0.63).

Biotechnology led in the health care space (-0.1%) as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 286.10, +2.01) ended higher by 0.7%. In the ETF, Gilead Sciences (GILD 78.22, +0.34) outperformed after noting that it continues to examine potential M&A options, but would prefer to partner with a more mature company with a revenue stream. Meanwhile, Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX 30.27, +0.80) and Progenics Pharmaceuticals (PGNX 6.34, +0.18) gained after the two unveiled the first FDA approved Relistor tablets for commercial sale in the United States.

In the consumer staples space (-0.9%), grocery store names weighed as the sub-group moved lower in sympathy with Sprouts Farmers Market (SFM 19.68, -3.13). The stock was under pressure after cutting its third-quarter and full-year guidance. Kroger (KR 31.32, -1.35) and Whole Foods (WFM 29.08, -1.62) fell in sympathy with the name, declining 4.1% and 5.3%, respectively.

Treasuries ended on a flat note with yields little changed through the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note ended flat (0.73%) while the yield on the 10-yr note settled lower by one basis point (1.53%).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 803 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey:

The MBA Mortgage Index showed that mortgage applications increased 0.9% in the week ending September 3. This followed a 2.8% gain in the prior week.
The July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings came in at 5.871 million from a revised 5.643 million (from 5.624 million) in June.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 265k) and Consumer Credit for July (Briefing.com consensus $16.0 billion), which will cross the wires at 8:30 ET and 15:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000: +11.0% YTD
S&P 500: +7.0% YTD
Dow Jones: +6.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +5.5% YTD

DJ30 -11.98 NASDAQ +8.02 SP500 -0.33 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1732/1.719 bln/1153 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1861/802.9 mln/1103

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was +0.1% around the 94.95 level after yesterday's -1.1% decline, weakening precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were up +0.7% around the 83.93 level
Crude oil saw notable volatility for the second consecutive session ahead of tomorrow's EIA inventory data
October crude oil futures rose $0.63 (+1.4%) to $45.48/barrel
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil include:
Yesterday, Iran's President came out with comments in support of measures to aid in an oil price recovery
Non-OPEC producer Russia & Saudi Arabia (the two largest producers in the world collectively responsible for ~20% of global oil production) agreed to form a coalition to track oil markets and recommend action to OPEC members, announced after the G-20 Summit
Saudi Arabian oil minister has stated that he does not see the need for a production freeze at current price levels after the G-20 announcement
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Algiers, Algeria from Sept 26-28
China released data on its strategic petroleum reserves, totalled 31.97 mln tons equal to 33-36 days of China's imports, China notes they have been stockpiling oil in anticipation of a future oil price recovery
Upcoming Data:
API data will be released today after the bell
EIA petroleum data will be released tomorrow at 11:00 am ET, 30 min after natural gas inventory data
Monthly IEA data will be released Sept 13
Natural gas extended yesterday's losses ahead of tomorrow's inventory number
October natural gas closed $0.04 lower (-1.5%) at $2.68/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver ended near session lows as the dollar inched higher
December gold ended today's session down $4.90 (-0.4%) to $1349.00/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.28 lower (-1.4%) at $19.85/oz
Base metal copper closed pit trading modestly higher for the day
December copper closed $0.01 higher (+0.5%) at $2.10/lb


The stock market endured another quiet session on Wednesdaywith the S&P 500 (UNCH) spending the day inside an 11-point range. Thebenchmark index finished a step behind the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%), remaining up 0.3% for the week.

Investors did not receive any market-moving data and thingswill remain quiet on the economic front for the remainder of the week. As forrate hike expectations, the fed funds futures market projects a 52.4% chance ofa rate hike in December.

The technology sector (+0.2%) settled just ahead of thebroader market while chipmakers struggled to keep pace, sending the PHLXSemiconductor lower by 0.7%.

In the broader tech sector, Apple (AAPL 108.38, +0.68) added 0.6% following its product refresh presentation.During the event, Apple unveiled a water-resistant iPhone 7 with stereospeakers and longer battery life. Although the features are new to Appleproducts, other manufacturers have been selling water-resistant devices andphones with similar speaker placement for some time.

In addition to presenting the new phone and a new version ofits Watch, Apple announced that Nintendo's (NTDOY 36.32, +8.12) Super Mario Run will be available through the App Store. Shares ofNintendo rallied 28.8% in reaction to the news.

The Apple press event was today's focal point, maskingrelative strength among hard drive manufacturers after Western Digital (WDC 53.30, +5.75)boosted its guidance. The stock spiked 12.1% while peer Seagate (STX 36.51, +2.04) advanced 5.9%.

Taking a glance at other sectors: XLF UNCH, XLV UNCH, XLY UNCH, XLI +0.1%, XLE +0.6%, XLP -0.9%, XLB -0.1%, XLU UNCH, IYZ +0.8%

Other news among sector components:

Fleetmatics (FLTX 59.99, +0.06) acquired Inosat, terms not disclosed Microchip (MCHP 60.78, -1.49) narrowed Q2 sales and earnings guidance
AMD (AMD 6.84, -0.50) plans to commence concurrent offerings of $600 million in stock and $450 million in debt
MasterCard (MA 99.57, +0.78) guided for low double digit revenue growth on currency neutral basis

Elsewhere in the tech space:

F5 Networks (FFIV 120.42, -4.01) EVP of Product Development and CTO Karl Triebes resigned
IBM (IBM 161.64, +1.29) received favorable ruling in case over timing of a write-down related to semi unit sale In reaction to quarterly results:

HealthEquity (HQY 34.56, +0.70) beat estimates and raised full-year 2017 revenue guidance SecureWorks (SCWX 13.97, -0.43) beat estimates and reaffirmed its guidance for the full year Sigma Designs (SIGM 7.67, -0.63) beat earnings estimates, but guided below expectations Analyst actions:

VMW downgraded to Neutral at Goldman, IPHI downgraded to Market Perform at Northland Capital, ISIL downgraded to Hold at Stifel, and MXIM downgraded to Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets

3:00 pm Apple issues official release confirming the iPhone 7 & iPhone 7 Plus, its new AirPods wireless headphones, and that Apple Pay will soon be available in Japan (AAPL) :

iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus: "Apple today introduced iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, the best, most advanced iPhone ever, packed with unique innovations that improve all the ways iPhone is used every day. The new iPhone features new advanced camera systems that take pictures like never before, more power and performance with the best battery life ever in an iPhone, immersive stereo speakers, wide color system from camera to display, two new beautiful finishes, and is the first water and dust resistant iPhone. iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will be available in more than 25 countries beginning Friday, September 16."

New AirPods wireless headphones: "Apple today introduced AirPods, innovative new wireless headphones that use advanced technology to reinvent how we listen to music, make phone calls, enjoy TV shows and movies, play games and interact with Siri, providing a wireless audio experience not possible before."

Apple Pay in Japan: "Apple today announced that iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch Series 2 will bring customers in Japan the ability to use Apple Pay, an easy, fast and secure way to pay for everything in their daily routines, beginning in October."

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From Briefing.com: 4:06 pm Finisar beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (FNSR) :

Reports Q1 (Jul) earnings of $0.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.30; revenues rose 8.7% year/year to $341.3 mln vs the $333.66 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Sales of telecom products increased by $22.0 million, or 29.0%, compared to the preceding quarter. This increase was due to higher sales of wavelength selective switches, coherent receivers, and 100G transceivers, as well as a rebound in demand for other telecom products including amplifiers and 10G transceivers, both tunable and fixed wavelength.

Sales of datacom products increased by $0.5 million, or 0.2%, compared to the preceding quarter, primarily driven by growth in demand for 100G transceivers including CFP, CFP2, CFP4, and QSFP28 form factors, partially offset by a decline in sales of transceivers for wireless applications and 40G transceivers.

Datacom revenue, excluding transceivers for wireless applications, increased 3.1% over the preceding quarter. Sales of 100G transceivers for datacom applications increased 21.8% over the preceeding quarter, and 115.8% over the first quarter of the prior fiscal year.

Non-GAAP gross margin improved to 33.1% compared to 30.6% in the preceding quarter.
Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.44-0.50, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.32 Capital IQ

Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $355-375 mln vs. $344.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Expects Q2 non-GAAP gross margin of approximately 34% & non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 14.3% to 15.3%4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair modestly lower as the latest directive from the European Central Bank and commentary from ECB President Mario Draghi raised some concerns regarding the future of the central bank's asset purchase program. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) finished behind the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) and the S&P 500 (-0.2%).

The major averages began the day on a lower note as inaction from the European Central Bank weighed on European bourses. The central bank held its key interest rates at record lows and maintained the size and scope of its asset purchases. During his press conference, President Draghi noted that the central bank did not see a need to expand the asset purchase program at this time. However, the central bank did affirm plans to continue purchasing assets through March 2017 or beyond, if needed.

Equities retraced opening losses through the first half of trade, benefiting from a rally in crude oil futures. The energy component rallied throughout the session as investors pored over a better-than-expected reading of the Department of Energy's weekly inventory data. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles fell by 14.51 million barrels (consensus: +0.22 million) while gasoline inventories declined by 4.21 million barrels (consensus: -0.71 million). WTI crude ended the day higher by 4.8% ($47.66/bbl; +$2.18).

Sellers pressed the broader market shortly after midday as heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (-0.8%) and technology (-0.9%) weighed. The benchmark index managed to maintain technical support near the 2180/2175 price level, finishing the day above its 20-day simple moving average (2180.50). Seven sectors ended in the red with consumer staples (-0.5%), consumer discretionary (-0.8%), and technology (-0.9%) leading to the downside. Conversely, health care (+0.1%), utilities (+0.4%), and energy (+1.7%) topped the board.

The influential technology sector (-0.9%) lagged as top-weighted Apple (AAPL 105.52, -2.84) fell 2.6%. The Dow component was under pressure after announcing that it will no longer release iPhone pre-orders figures. However, the company did reaffirm its fourth-quarter guidance. Meanwhile, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 21.38, -0.71) declined by 3.2% after reporting a mixed quarter and issuing below-consensus guidance for the fourth quarter.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.8%), department store names underperformed following the Goldman Sachs 23rd Global Annual Retailing Conference. Kohl's (KSS 43.01, -1.16) and Macy's (M 36.00, -1.19) ended lower by 2.7% and 3.2%, respectively. Elsewhere, Dow component Nike (NKE 56.17, -1.55) ended behind the price-weighted index, declining 2.7%. The stock was under pressure after being downgraded to "Neutral" from "Overweight" at Piper Jaffray.

Biotechnology demonstrated relative strength, evidenced by the 0.7% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 288.03, +1.93). The sub-group finished ahead of the broader health care space (+0.1%) as Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN 130.06, +4.97) outperformed. Meanwhile, Mylan Labs (MYL 40.57, +0.26) rebounded 0.7%. In the broader sector, Eli Lilly (LLY 79.89, +1.30) jumped 1.7% after being upgraded to "Overweight" at JP Morgan.

Treasuries ended sharply lower with the long end of the curve demonstrating relative weakness. The yield on the 10-yr note rose seven basis points (1.61%) while the yield on the 2-yr note ticked higher by three basis points (0.77%).

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 818 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims and Consumer Credit for July:

Initial claims for the week ending September 3 dipped by 4,000 to 259,000 (Briefing.com consensus 265,000).
The latest report marked the 79th straight week that initial claims have been below 300,000 and it dropped the four-week moving average for the series to 261,250 from 263,000.
Continuing claims for the week ending August 27 decreased by 7,000 to 2.144 million.
The four-week moving average for continuing claims fell to 2.154 million from 2.158 million.
Total outstanding consumer credit increased by $17.7 billion in July (Briefing.com consensus $16.0 billion) after increasing an upwardly revised $14.5 billion (from $12.3 billion) in June.
In the preceding 12-month period leading up to July, consumer credit had risen by an average of $17.3 billion.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to Wholesale Inventories for July (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%), which will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +10.7% YTD
S&P 500: +6.7% YTD
Dow Jones: +6.1% YTD
Nasdaq: +5.0% YTD

DJ30 -46.23 NASDAQ -24.44 SP500 -4.86 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1401/1.693 bln/1436 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1342/818.1 mln/1610

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, +1.5% around the 85.15 level
Crude oil surged & closed at session highs, extended this morning's post-API gains after EIA data reported notable draws in both crude oil & gasoline inventories
October crude oil futures rose $2.18 (+4.8%) to $47.66/barrel
Yesterday's API data showing an inventory draw of 12.08 mln barrels, compared to last week's build of 0.942 mln barrels and to expectations for a draw of ~100k barrels for the week ending Sept 2.
EIA petroleum inventory highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -14.513 mln (consensus called for a build of +0.23 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -4.211 mln (consensus called for a draw of -0.17 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a build of +3.382 mln
Factors affecting the price of oil include:
Oil's recent rally was first sparked by API data yesterday evening which showed an inventory draw of 12.08 mln barrels, compared to last week's build of 0.942 mln barrels and to expectations for a draw of ~100k barrels for the week ending Sept 2. This was the largest single draw since 1999.
Gains were further exacerbated by EIA inventory data which showed a surprise large inventory draw in oil & gasoline inventories, a contributing factor to this anomaly is the recent shut downs near the Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Hermine as companies took precautions, disrupting production.
The next OPEC meeting will be held in Algiers, Algeria from Sept 26-28, oil prices will continue to see reactions from comments from OPEC & non-OPEC oil producers
Russia and Saudi Arabia agreed to form a coalition to track the oil markets and to provide recommendations, Russia & Saudi Arabia are the 2 largest oil producers in the world, responsible for 20% of global oil production
Natural gas erased yesterday's losses after EIA data showed a smaller-than-expected build compared to Consensus
October natural gas closed $0.13 higher (+4.9%) at $2.81/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +36 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +43 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 3,437 Bcf as of Friday, Sept 2, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 196 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 306 Bcf above the five-year average of 3,131 Bcf.
At 3,437 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold & silver extended the previous session's losses as the dollar traded nearly flat
December gold ended today's session down $7.70 (-0.6%) to $1341.30/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.17 lower (-0.9%) at $19.68/oz

DJ30 -44.55 NASDAQ -24.06 SP500 -4.29 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1372/1445.41 mln/1446 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1336/539.12 mln/1588

The stock market ended Thursday on a modestly lower note withthe Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) leading the retreat amid relative weakness intechnology. For its part, the S&P 500 shed 0.2%.

Today's big event was the early-morning release of theSeptember policy statement from the European Central Bank. The statement itselfwas not a big surprise as the ECB elected to maintain its policy stance, butcomments from ECB President Mario Draghi were perceived as somewhat hawkish.Specifically, Mr. Draghi said that policymakers are not considering additionalstimulus measures at this time. These remarks were followed by a decline inglobal bonds and equities.

All in all, the weakness in stocks was contained for the mostpart as only two sectors lost more than 0.5%. The top-weightedtechnology space was among the laggards, surrendering 0.9%.

Apple (AAPL 105.52, -2.84) weighed on the sector and the broader market,falling 2.6%, after a downgrade at Wells Fargo. In addition, the company said itwill not comment on iPhone pre-orders, saying the metric is not representativeof consumer demand. Most other large cap sector components also struggled, but faredbetter than the top-weighted Apple.

Also of note, Twitter (TWTR 18.70, -1.17) plunged 5.9% after a morning report from CNBC hinted that cost cutting measures would be discussed at thecompany's Board of Directors meeting.

Taking a glance at other sectors: XLF -0.1%, XLV +0.1%, XLY -0.9%, XLI -0.1%, XLE +1.9%, XLP -0.6%, XLB -0.4%, XLU +0.3%, IYZ UNCH

Other news among sector components:

Apigee (APIC 17.41, +1.07) to be acquired by Alphabet for $17.40/share or $625 million
Microsoft (MSFT 57.43, -0.23) expected to introduce Surface All-In-One PC, according to The Verge Elsewhere in the tech space:

Immersion (IMMR 8.24, +0.39) appointed Nancy Erba as CFO
Logitech (LOGI 21.89, -0.02) approved annual dividend increase of 10.0% to CHF0.56 per share Yandex (YNDX 21.85, -0.16) terminated agreement to acquire Moscow headquarters, citing changing market conditions Intel (INTC 36.44, -0.02) confirms $4.20 billion deal with TPG to establish a jointly-owned cybersecurity company Accenture (ACN 112.30, -2.82) entered into an agreement to acquire New Energy Group, terms not disclosed In reaction to quarterly results:

Science Applications (SAIC 69.65, +3.95) beat earnings estimates
Bazaarvoice (BV 4.76, +0.44) beat earnings and revenue estimates Verint Systems (VRNT 38.10, +2.94) beat earnings expectations and guided below consensus Guidewire Software (GWRE 62.59, -1.31) beat earnings estimates, but guided below expectations Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 21.38, -0.71) beat bottom-line expectations, but guided lower Analyst actions:

AAPL and HPE downgraded to Market Perform at Wells Fargo, SIGM downgraded to Sell at BWS Financial, and WU downgraded to Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 09-Sep-16The S&P 500 spent the first four days of the week inside a 14-point range, but a Friday sell off pressured the index below its 50-day moving average (2164.0) for the first time since early July. The benchmark index lost 2.4% for the week, narrowing its third-quarter gain to 1.4%.

The first four days of the week were fairly quiet, but Thursday evening featured comments from DoubleLine Capital's Jeffrey Gundlach, who said, "this is a big, big moment," sharing his belief that interest rates have bottomed.

Mr. Gundlach's thesis was put to a test almost immediately as North Korea conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test on Friday. The development was met with condemnation from North Korea's neighbors, but surprisingly, global bonds did not benefit from a risk-off bid. Instead, selling in the Japanese, Italian, and German 10-yr notes drove their respective yields up to -0.03%, 1.25%, and 0.01%. For its part, the U.S. 10-yr yield rose eight basis points to 1.67% on Friday, adding six basis points for the week.

In addition to the comments from Mr. Gundlach, investors digested remarks from Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, who said that a reasonable case can be made for continuing gradual tightening of policy. Mr. Rosengren, who is an FOMC voter, also said the labor market could exceed full employment next year.

Rate hike expectations edged up when compared to last Friday. The implied likelihood of a rate hike in September inched up to 24.0% from last week's 21.0% while the implied probability of a December hike climbed to 58.4% from 54.2%.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18491.96 18085.45 -406.51 -2.2 3.8
Nasdaq 5249.90 5125.91 -123.99 -2.4 2.4
S&P 500 2179.98 2127.81 -52.17 -2.4 4.1
Russell 2000 1251.28 1216.50 -34.78 -2.8 7.1

4:13 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Tumble with Interest Rates in Focus (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended an otherwise flat week on a sharply lower note as increasing interest rates spurred selling interest in the broader market. The Nasdaq Composite (-2.5%) settled in-line with the S&P 500 (-2.5%) and behind the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-2.1%). The three indices ended the week with losses between 2.2% and 2.4%.

Global markets tilted to the downside as participants responded to a negative set of economic data and news that North Korea carried out another nuclear test. However, the negative headlines failed to elicit a bid in the bond market. The counterintuitive move in bonds incited further angst regarding yesterday's policy statement from the European Central Bank and rising fed funds rate hike expectations.

The ECB released its September policy statement yesterday, holding its monetary policy stance steady. The central bank opted to keep its key interest rates at record lows while maintaining the size and scope of its asset purchases. Furthermore, ECB President Mario Draghi struck a hawkish tone, indicating that the Governing Council didn't discuss extending the asset purchase program at the latest meeting.

DoubleLine's Jeffrey Gundlach added to rate angst, stating after yesterday's close that it's time to get defensive on bonds. The bond fund manager argued that a shift in longer-term inflation risk will drive monetary policy going forward. On that note, Boston Fed President, and FOMC voter, Eric Rosengren struck a somewhat hawkish tone today, stating that there is a reasonable case for continuing on the gradual path towards interest rate normalization. Furthermore, Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo said that he wouldn't foreclose the possibility of a rate hike this year.

The benchmark index remained under heavy pressure throughout today's session, carving out a session low in the final hour of trade. All ten sectors ended with sharp losses as energy (-2.8%), materials (-2.9%), telecom services (-3.4%), and utilities (-3.8%) finished on the bottom of the leaderboard. Conversely, financials (-1.9%) and health care (-2.0%) ended with the narrowest losses.

The PHLX Semiconductor Index (-3.7%) finished well behind the benchmark index, retracing its August gain. The index rallied 4.5% in August, but has declined 4.1% thus far in September. Skyworks (SWKS 66.76, -4.67) finished at the bottom of the index. The iPhone supplier declined 8.6% since Apple (AAPL 103.13, -2.39) unveiled the iPhone 7 on September 7.

The commodity-sensitive energy (-2.8%) space finished in the red as crude oil ended its day lower by 3.7% ($45.88/bbl; -$1.78). However, WTI crude finished the week higher by 3.4%. The energy component was under pressure as participants dialed back the potential impact of yesterday's inventory report from the Department of Energy. In the sector, Williams Cos (WMB 30.04, -1.11) lost 3.6% after Enterprise Products (EPD 26.81, -0.44) announced that it is no longer pursuing a combination with the company.

Biotechnology displayed relative weakness in the health care sector (-2.0%), evidenced by the 3.3% loss in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 278.63, -9.40). Biogen (BIIB 296.10, -11.63) underperformed in the ETF after the stock was removed from the focus list at Goldman Sachs. Conversely, Gilead Science (GILD 78.08, -0.90) fell 1.2% after Gabelli issued a bullish note on the name.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (-1.9%) finished ahead of the broader market, benefiting from rising rate hike expectations and some steepening in the yield curve. The fed funds futures market indicates that the odds of a rate hike at the September meeting have increased to 24.0% from 18.0% in the prior session.

Treasuries ended sharply lower with the long end of the curve demonstrating relative weakness. The yield on the 10-yr note rose seven basis points (1.67%) while the yield on the 2-yr note ticked higher by one basis point (0.78%).

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than one billion shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to Wholesale Inventories for July:

Wholesale inventories were unchanged in July, as expected, following an unrevised 0.3% increase in June.The report won't have any material sway on economists' third quarter GDP forecasts since the reading was in-line with the consensus estimate. For more on this economic release, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

There is no domestic economic data of note scheduled for Monday.

Russell 2000: +7.7% YTDS&P 500: +4.1% YTDDow Jones: +3.8% YTDNasdaq Composite: +2.4% YTD Week in Review: Stocks and Bonds Retreat

The S&P 500 spent the first four days of the week insidea 14-point range, but a Friday sell off pressured the index below its 50-daymoving average (2164.0) for the first time since early July. The benchmarkindex lost 2.4% for the week, narrowing its third-quarter gain to 1.4%.

The first four days of the week were fairly quiet, butThursday evening featured comments from DoubleLine Capital's JeffreyGundlach, who said, "this is a big, big moment," sharing his beliefthat interest rates have bottomed.

Mr. Gundlach's thesis was put to a test almost immediately asNorth Korea conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test on Friday. Thedevelopment was met with condemnation from North Korea's neighbors, butsurprisingly, global bonds did not benefit from a risk-off bid. Instead,selling in the Japanese, Italian, and German 10-yr notes drove their respectiveyields up to -0.03%, 1.25%, and 0.01%. For its part, the U.S. 10-yr yield rose eight basis points to 1.67% on Friday, adding six basis points for the week.

In addition to the comments from Mr. Gundlach, investorsdigested remarks from Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, who said that areasonable case can be made for continuing gradual tightening of policy. Mr.Rosengren, who is an FOMC voter, also said the labor market could exceed fullemployment next year.

Rate hike expectations edged up when compared to lastFriday. The implied likelihood of a rate hike in September inched up to 24.0%from last week's 21.0% while the implied probability of a December hike climbedto 58.4% from 54.2%.

The stock market ended the week on a defensive note, retreatingalongside sovereign bonds. The S&P 500 lost 2.5%, but the top-weightedtechnology sector (-2.3%) settled a bit ahead of the benchmark index.

The slide in sovereign bonds was somewhat surprising,considering North Korea conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear testovernight. Normally, this type of an act would be expected to spark a bid inbonds, but the opposite was true on Friday. It is important to note that thisfollows Thursday's comments from DoubleLine Capital's Jeffrey Gundlach, whosaid, "this is a big, big moment," sharing his belief that interestrates have bottomed.

In addition to the comments from Mr. Gundlach, investorsdigested remarks from Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, who said that areasonable case can be made for continuing gradual tightening of policy. Mr.Rosengren, who is an FOMC voter, also said the labor market could exceed fullemployment next year.

As for the tech sector, the top-weighted group finished justahead of the broader market, which masked relative weakness among chipmakers.The PHLX Semiconductor Index tumbled 3.7%, erasing the bulk of its August gain.

Most tech sector components ended in negative territory, butnetworking names fared a bit better than the overall market after Finisar (FNSR 26.20, +2.97) reported better than expected results. Elsewhere, top-weighted Apple (AAPL 103.13, -2.39)lost 2.3% to end the week lower by 4.3%.

Taking a glance at other sectors: XLF -1.9%, XLV -2.0%, XLY -2.4%, XLI -2.8%, XLE -3.0%, XLP -2.7%, XLB -2.9%, XLU -3.8%, IYZ -3.3%

Other news among sector components:

Seagate Technology (STX 36.09, -0.22) announced secondary block trade transaction of 12.50 million ordinary and existing sharesMasterCard (MA 98.15, -1.83) after being sued in the UK for $19 billion over allegations of excessive fees Elsewhere in the tech space:

MGT Capital (MGT 3.40, -0.38) shareholders approved all eight proposals at the company's 2016 annual meeting
Cisco Systems (CSCO 30.85, -0.62) confirmed the SEC and DoJ decided not to bring enforcement actions for violations involving Russian business activities United Micro (UMC 1.86, -0.01) reported a 6.1% year-over-year in August revenue AMD (AMD 5.89, -0.33) priced convertible note and common stock offerings Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM 28.59, -1.20) reported a 40.7% year-over-year surge in August revenue In reaction to quarterly results:

Finisar (FNSR 26.20, +2.97) beat earnings estimates and guided ahead of market expectations Violin Memory (VMEM 1.01, -0.59) missed single-analyst estimate Xactly (XTLY 14.26, -0.56) beat earnings estimates and raised full-year earnings and revenue guidance eGain Communications (EGAN 2.92, -0.18) beat bottom-line expectations Analyst actions:


EGAN upgraded to Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann; APIC downgraded to Neutral at Nomura, AUO and LPL downgraded to Market Perform at Bernstein, SAIC downgraded to Hold at Drexel Hamilton


5:10 pm Samsung Confirms engagement with Consumer Product Safety Commission in response to Note7 battery issue; also urges Note7 users to power down their devices and immediately participate in exchange program (SSNLF) : The terms of the CPSC approved recall will be announced as they are available.

5:09 pm NetSuite: Oracle (ORCL) extended its tender offer in connection with the acquisition of NetSuite (N) until October 6 to facilitate the completion of outstanding antitrust reviews (N) : (previously set to expire at 12:00 Midnight, Eastern time, at the end of September 15, 2016)

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From Briefing.com: 4:31 pm Action Semi enters into definitive merger agreement for going private transaction at $2.20/share in cash (shares halted) (ACTS) : The merger consideration represents a premium of 49.7% to the closing price of the co's ADSs on May 18, 2016, the last trading day prior to the co's announcement of its receipt of a "going-private" proposal, and a premium of 40.6% to the volume weighted average closing price of the co's ADSs during the 30 trading days prior to its receipt of a "going-private" proposal. The Buyer Consortium intends to fund the merger through available cash of the co and its subsidiaries.

The co's board of directors, acting upon the unanimous recommendation of a committee of independent and disinterested directors established by the Board approved the Merger Agreement and the merger and resolved to recommend that the co's shareholders vote to authorize and approve the Merger Agreement and the merger. The Special Committee negotiated the terms of the Merger Agreement with the assistance of its independent financial and legal advisors.

The merger, which is currently expected to close during the last quarter of 2016, is subject to customary closing conditions including the approval of the Merger Agreement by an affirmative vote of holders of Shares representing at least two-thirds of the voting power of the Shares present and voting in person or by proxy at a meeting of the co's shareholders which will be convened to consider the approval of the merger agreement and the merger

4:29 pm Amkor names Megan Faust CFO (AMKR) :

Ms. Faust joined Amkor in 2005 and brings more than 20 years of finance and accounting experience to her new position as CFO, including her service as Corporate Controller of Amkor since 2010.

Ms. Faust succeeds Joanne Solomon, who has left the co to pursue other opportunities.

4:10 pm : The stock market began the week on a sharply higher note as market participants dialed back rate hike expectations for the coming months. The major averages finished broadly higher, retracing the lion's share of Friday's losses. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.7%) settled slightly ahead of the S&P 500 (+1.5%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.3%).

Interest rates remained in focus at the start of the session as participants mulled over a continued downturn in global bond markets. Early weakness was attributed to persistent uncertainty regarding the future path of global monetary policy. Recall that last week the European Central Bank disappointed investors by voting to leave its monetary policy stance unchanged. Furthermore, ECB President Mario Draghi indicated that the Governing Council did not discuss expanding the asset purchase program at the central bank's latest meeting.

Equity indices shook weakness in the opening hour of trade as Atlanta Fed President (non-FOMC voter) Dennis Lockhart and Minneapolis Fed President (non-FOMC voter) Neel Kashkari struck divergent tones on the future path of interest rate normalization. Mr. Lockhart signaled that recent data seriously warrants the discussion of raising rates. However, Mr. Kashkari stated that there's no urgency in raising rates at this time.

The major averages notched fresh session highs shortly after Fed Governor Lael Brainard reaffirmed her dovish stance. Governor Brainard stated that the case for preemptive tightening is less compelling given persistently low inflation and continued slack in the labor market. Ms. Brainard continues to advocate a cautious approach given the limited nature of the Fed's policy toolkit. In response, the implied probability of a rate hike at the September meeting fell to 15.0% from 24.0% in the prior session.

The benchmark index settled near its best level of the day, testing resistance near the 2160 price level. All ten sectors ended in the green with technology (+1.7%), utilities (+1.7%), consumer staples (+1.9%), and telecom services (+2.0%) leading the pack. On the flipside, the commodity-sensitive energy (+0.9%) and materials (+1.0%) sectors finished at the bottom of the leaderboard.

The defensively-oriented consumer staples sector (+1.9%) outperformed as the group recovered from last Friday's 2.1% decline. In the group, Dow component Wal-Mart (WMT 71.94, +1.64) demonstrated relative strength after being upgraded to "Outperform" from "Market Perform" at Cowen. Meanwhile, Philip Morris International (PM 100.64, +3.10) ended higher by 3.2% after Goldman added the stock to its conviction buy list. The broader sector trimmed its month-to-date loss to 1.4%.

In the technology sector (+1.7%), HP (HPQ 14.49, +0.54) gained 3.9% after announcing that it will acquire Samsung's (SSNLF 1250.00, 0.00) printer business for approximately $1.05 billion. Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL 105.44, +2.31) gained 2.2%, recovering from last week's 4.3% decline. The stock was under pressure after unveiling its iPhone 7 device last Thursday. The PHLX Semiconductor Index finished higher by 2.0%, narrowing its month-to-date loss to 2.2%.

Biotechnology outperformed in the health care space (+1.6%), evidenced by the 3.0% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 287.11, +8.48). In the ETF, Mylan Labs (MYL 41.33, +1.44) rebounded 3.6%. The sub-group also benefited from reports that activist investor Starboard has taken a 4.6% stake in Perrigo (PRGO 95.23, +6.52).

The financial sector (+1.2%) ended behind the broader market as investors trimmed rate hike expectations and as Treasury yields pulled back. In the group, Wells Fargo (WFC 48.54, -0.18) underperformed as the stock continues to see weakness from last Thursday's settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Office of the LA City Attorney.

Treasuries ended modestly higher, recovering from relative weakness at the start of the session. The yield on the 2-yr note fell two basis points to 0.77% while the yield on the 10-yr note ticked down to 1.67% (-1 bps).

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 992 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the Treasury Budget for August, which will be released at 14:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +8.6% YTD
S&P 500: +5.6% YTD
Dow Jones: +5.2% YTD
Nasdaq: +4.1 % YTD

DJ30 +239.62 NASDAQ +85.98 SP500 +31.23 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2074/1.832 bln/789 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2159/992.3 mln/843 3:30 pm :

The dollar index was down -0.2% around the 95.16 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were nearly flat (+0.07%) around the 84.08 level
Crude oil closed a volatile session near highs of the day ahead of tomorrow's monthly IEA report
October crude oil futures rose $0.41 (+0.9%) to $46.29/barrel
Monthly IEA data will be released tomorrow morning
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell
Weekly EIA data will be released Wed at 10:30 am ET
Rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Algiers, Algeria from Sept 26-28
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil include:
OPEC released its monthly market report this morning, revised FY17 non-OPEC supply estimates upward by 0.35 mb/d to 56.52 mb/d.
Non-OPEC oil supply in 2016 is now expected to contract by 0.61 mb/d, following an upward revision of 0.18 mb/d from the August MOMR to avg 56.32 mb/d. This has been mainly due to a lower-than-expected decline in US tight oil and a better-than-expected performance in Norway, as well as the early start-up of Kashagan field in Kazakhstan.
World oil demand growth in 2016 is now anticipated to increase by 1.23 mb/d after a marginal upward revision, mainly to reflect better-than-expected OECD data for the first half of the year. Oil demand in 2016 is expected to avg 94.27 mb/d.
Demand for OPEC crude in 2016 is estimated to stand at 31.7 mb/d, some 1.7 mb/d over last year. In 2017, demand for OPEC crude is forecast at 32.5 mb/d, an increase of 0.8 mb/d over the current year.
Natural gas erased all of Friday's losses, closed near 2-week highs
October natural gas closed $0.12 higher (+4.3%) at $2.91/MMBtu
Weekly EIA inventory data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver closed lower for the fourth consecutive session, despite the dollar index declining
December gold ended today's session down $9.00 (-0.7%) to $1325.60/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.36 lower (-1.9%) at $19.00/oz

Today's session began on a lower note as participants responded to a downturn in global markets. Equities pulled back overnight, picking up where U.S. markets left off on Friday. The mover lower was facilitated by growing uncertainty regarding the path of global monetary policy and rising interest rates. Recall that Treasuries tumbled following Thursday's disappointing policy statement from the European Central Bank. The central bank opted to maintain its monetary policy stance, leaving interest rates and asset purchases unchanged.

The broader market trimmed losses in the first hour of trade as participants mulled recent commentary from Atlanta Fed President (non-FOMC voter) Dennis Lockhart and Minneapolis Fed President (non-FOMC voter) Neel Kashkari. President Lockhart indicated that incoming data warrants a serious discussion regarding a potential interest rate hike while President Kashkari believes there's no urgency in raising rates at this time. Both Fed officials took a somewhat standoffish approach, offering no real time table. In response, the implied probability of a rate hike at the September meeting fell to 21.0% from 24.0% in the prior session.

The Monday session was capped off with firm gains as all three major US indices posted a recovery off last week's weakness. Leading the charge higher, the Nasdaq Composite gained just shy of 86 points (+1.68%) to 5211.89. The S&P 500 added a solid 31.23 points (+1.47%) to 2159.04, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was hampered (albeit modestly) by early weakness in the energy complex, specifically as October crude oil futures rallied off morning lows to end up $0.41 (+0.9%) to $46.29/barrel. To that end, the Dow staved off selling pressure to advance 239.62 points (+1.32%) to 18325.07.

Technology (XLK 46.93, +0.77 +1.67%) finished the first trading day of the week firmly in the green. Component HP Inc. (HPQ 14.49, +0.54 +3.90%) was the strongest gainer today following the acquisition of Samsung Electronics (SSNLF 1250, flat) printer business for $1.05 billion plus equity investment payments through open market purchases. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended the day IYZ +3.35%, XLP +1.88%, XLU +1.77%, XLV +1.48%, XLY +1.40%, XLI +1.28%, XLF +1.12%, XLE +0.99%, XLFS +0.97%, XLB +0.95% with all areas showing strength.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology sector (781.81, +13.05 +1.70%), trading jogged higher and higher as the session progressed, ultimately ending near highs. Component Microsoft (MSFT 57.05, +0.84 +1.49%) finished with an equally impressive session of its own following recent weakness as news that the company entered a six-year agreement with HP Inc. (HPQ) to deploy Dynamics to HPQ employees drove the stock higher. Other names in the space which out-performed included ADS +3.75%, ATVI +2.77%, LRCX +2.63%, AMAT +2.53%, NTAP +2.51%, QRVO +2.44%, SWKS +2.37%, AVGO +2.30%, XRX +2.29%, MCHP +2.29%, AAPL +2.24%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

HP Inc. (HPQ) to acquire Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.'s (SSNLF) printer business in a deal valued at $1.05 billion. The acquisition is expected to be accretive in the first full year following closing, with cost synergies and a strong financial model. The transaction is expected to close within 12 months pending regulatory review and other customary closing conditions. After closing, Samsung has agreed to make a $100 million to $300 million equity investment in HP through open market purchases.

Microsoft (MSFT) entered a six-year agreement with HP Inc. (HPQ) to deploy Microsoft Dynamics to thousands of employees across HP, dramatically enhancing collaboration across marketing, sales and service operations. With Dynamics, as well as Azure, Office 365 and other Microsoft Cloud solutions, HP has invested in the sales and service collaboration platform it needs to deliver a seamless sales experience for customers and partners while increasing the company's performance and economies.

Qualcomm (QCOM 62.25, +1.73 +2.86%) announced the opening of Qualcomm Communication Technologies (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., a semiconductor test facility in the Waigaoqiao (WGQ) free-trade zone in Shanghai, and its first foray into providing manufacturing services for semiconductors.

CSRA (CSRA 26.78, +0.58 +2.21%) was awarded a contract to continue providing systems engineering and technical assistance support for the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization (JIAMDO). The single-award contract was won as a recompete and is valued at $53 million, over a five-year period.

Oracle (ORCL 40.68, +0.65 +1.62%) extended its tender offer in connection with the acquisition of

NetSuite (N 110.05, +0.04 +0.04%) until October 6 to facilitate the completion of outstanding antitrust reviews.

Sanofi (SNY 39.82, +0.63 +1.61%) and Verily Life Sciences LLC, (formerly Google Life Sciences), an

Alphabet (GOOGL 798.82, +10.34 +1.31%) company, announced the launch of Onduo, a joint venture created through Sanofi and Verily's diabetes-focused collaboration.

Equinix (EQIX 366.00, +3.22 +0.89%) was selected by the Monet Submarine Cable investors to provide U.S. facilities and services for the next-generation cable landing station architecture to support the Monet Submarine Cable System. Monet is a planned submarine cable that is currently designed to deliver over 60 terabits of capacity between the U.S. and Brazil. Monet is owned by Algar Telecom, Angola Cables, Antel and Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Verizon (VZ 52.57, +0.75 +1.45%) acquired Sensity Systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SolarCity (SCTY 17.80, +1.03 +6.14%) raised $305 million in its second cash equity transaction. A private investment fund affiliated with Quantum Strategic Partners Ltd. and advised by Soros Fund Management LLC provided the equity investment in a portfolio of residential, commercial and industrial solar projects. The transaction also included a fully amortizing, 18-year loan that was syndicated to five high-quality institutional investors.

MediaNews Group Inc., the largest shareholder of Monster Worldwide (MWW 3.52, +0.08 +2.33%), with an ownership interest of 11.6% of Monster's outstanding shares, delivered an open letter to Monster shareholders. Among other points, the shareholder noted, "We want to reiterate that we will not tender our shares in the current tender offer and we intend to exercise our appraisal rights to receive the actual value of our shares -- not the undervalued Randstad price -- in the event the current Randstad deal closes."

Open Text (OTEX 65.15, +5.38 +9.00%) to acquire Dell EMC's Enterprise Content Division, including Documentum for $1.62 billion. ECD offers a suite of leading Enterprise Content Management solutions with deep industry focus, including the Documentum, InfoArchive, and LEAP product families. The company expects the deal to be immediately accretive to earnings and sees the closing of said deal within 90-120 days.

Syntel (SYNT 45.72, +5.03 +12.36%) announced that its Board of Directors has declared a special cash dividend of $15 per share. In connection with the one-time repatriation, the Company expects to recognize a one-time tax expense of about $264 million (net of foreign tax credits) in the third quarter of 2016. The special cash dividend will be funded through dividends to the company by U.S. subsidiaries, the one-time repatriation of about $1.24 billion of cash held by the company's foreign subsidiaries and a portion of borrowings under a new senior credit facility. The company has expanded its borrowing capacity to $500 million under the new senior credit facility while paying in full and terminating the $200 million prior existing senior credit facility. In connection with the one-time repatriation, the company expects to recognize a one-time tax expense of about $264 million (net of foreign tax credits) in the third quarter of 2016. As a result of the additional tax expense and anticipated changes to "other income" which will result from the issuance of the special cash dividend, the company is revising its outlook for 2016 EPS from the previously announced $2.55 to $2.70 earnings per share to a loss of $0.60 to $0.75 per share. There is no update at this time to the outlook for 2016 revenue or margins.

Tesla Motors (TSLA 198.30, +3.83 +1.97%) detailed Autopilot Version 8 in blog post, stating onboard radar will be used to provide 'more advanced signal processing'.

TerraForm Global (GLBL 3.58, -0.08 -2.19%) and TerraForm Power (TERP 13.28, +0.12 +0.91%) received non-compliance Nasdaq letters and requested hearings.

Intelsat S.A. (I 2.83, +0.18 +6.79%) powered by its satellite backbone, updated the in-service date for the Intelsat 33e satellite, successfully launched on 24 August 2016. The in-service date is being adjusted from fourth quarter 2016 to first quarter 2017.

NXT-ID (NXTD 3.40, -0.69 -16.85%) announced the effective date of a 1:10 reverse stock split. The reverse split became effective after the close of trading on NASDAQ on Friday, September 9, 2016. The shares began trading on a split-adjusted basis commencing at the open this morning.

Dangdang (DANG 6.60, +0.07 +1.07%) shareholders approved the going private transaction at $6.70 per share, and the company expects transaction to close as soon as practicable.

Analyst actions:

P was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at SunTrust;
TRUE, RUBI were downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
PAY was downgraded to In-Line from Outperform at Imperial Capital;
PANW was initiated with a Buy at Rosenblatt,
DMD was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday affair sharply lower as rising long-term interest rates pressured the broader market. The upswing in interest rates was led by growing uncertainty surrounding the future path and effectiveness of global central bank policy. The S&P 500 (-1.5%) settled behind the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.4%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-1.1%). Equity indices began the session under pressure as investors continued to mull over central bank policy here at home and from overseas. Fed Governor Lael Brainard reaffirmed a dovish stance in the prior session, stating that the case for preemptive tightening has become less compelling. In response, the implied probability of a rate hike at the September meeting fell to 15.0% from 24.0% at the start of the week.

The dovish posture failed to carry over buying interest into today's session as participants responded to mixed performances from global markets and a downturn in crude oil. The energy component was under pressure after the International Energy Agency's monthly report struck a bearish tone. The IEA cut its global demand growth forecast for 2016 to 1.3 million barrels per day (previous: 1.4 million barrels) while the group also trimmed its 2017 growth estimate to 1.2 million barrels (previous: 1.4 million barrels). The negative revisions cast doubt on the potential timetable for an oil market rebalancing.

The benchmark index notched a session low (2120.27) shortly after midday, finishing narrowly above that level. All ten sectors ended in the red with financials (-1.8%), materials (-1.9%), telecom services (-2.0%), and energy (-2.9%) acting as notable laggards. Conversely, technology (-0.6%) and consumer staples (-1.4%) ended with the narrowest losses.

The commodity-sensitive energy sector (-2.9%) ended broadly lower amid a sustained downturn in crude oil. WTI crude finished lower by 3.0% ($44.92/bbl; -$1.37). In the group, oilfield service names underperformed with Baker Hughes (BHI 48.34, -1.36) and Halliburton (HAL 41.11, -1.29) losing 2.8% and 3.0%, respectively. On a side note, the American Petroleum Institute is slated to release its weekly inventory report this evening while the Department of Energy is scheduled to release its more influential inventory report tomorrow at 10:30 ET.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (-1.8%) was under pressure as participants reassessed rate hike expectations for the year. In the group, Wells Fargo (WFC 46.96, -1.58) declined 3.7%. The name has been under pressure since announcing a settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last Thursday. The broader sector has declined 2.8% this month and currently sports a year-to-date loss of 0.2%.

Biotechnology underperformed in the health care space (-1.5%), evidenced by the 1.6% loss in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 282.62, -4.49). The ETF was under pressure after rallying 3.0% in the prior session. In the ETF, Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 95.27, -2.59) underperformed after Raymond James issued a "Market Perform" designation on the stock.

The influential technology space (-0.6%) finished ahead of the benchmark index as top-weighted component Apple (AAPL 108.12, +2.68) led. The Dow component rallied 2.6% after T-Mobile (TMUS 45.34, -0.59) and Sprint (S 6.56, -0.36) reported bullish pre-order data for the iPhone 7. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (-0.9%) also finished ahead of the broader market as iPhone suppliers drafted higher on the news. Broadcom (AVGO 165.24, +0.76) and Skyworks (SWKS69.36, +1.02) ended higher by 0.5% and 1.5%, respectively.

Treasuries ended sharply lower with the long end of the curve demonstrating relative weakness. The yield on the 2-yr note rose two basis points to 0.79% while the yield on the 10-yr note jumped six basis points to 1.72%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than one billion shares changed hands on the NYSE floo

Today's economic data was limited to the Treasury Budget for August:

The Treasury Budget for August showed a deficit of $107.1 billion versus a deficit of $64.4 billion in August 2015. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the August deficit cannot be compared to the $112.8 billion deficit registered in July.
Total receipts in August were $231.3 billion while total outlays were $338.4 billion.
Receipts were $20.5 billion more than receipts in August 2015. Total outlays, meanwhile, were $63.2 billion more than the same period a year ago.
The 12-month deficit widened to $529.9 billion from $487.2 billion in July.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index. Meanwhile, Import/Export Prices for August will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000: +6.8% YTD
S&P 500: +4.1% YTD
Dow Jones: +3.7% YTD
Nasdaq: +3.0% YTD

DJ30 -258.32 NASDAQ -56.63 SP500 -32.02 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 539/1.897 bln/2392 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 338/1.006 bln/2734 3:30 pm :

The dollar index was up +0.5% around the 95.61 level, weighing on commodities overall
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -1.3% around the 83.02 level
Crude oil erased yesterday's gains, closed near session lows below the $45.00/barrel handle support ahead of tonight's API data
October crude oil futures fell $1.37 (-3.0%) to $44.92/barrel
IEA data highlights:
The IEA lowered global demand forecasts for FY16 by ~100k barrels per day for FY16 to +1.3 mln barrels a day. The IEA also lowered FY17 demand growth forecasts to +1.2 mln barrels per day, about 200k less than previous estimates.
Decline in oil demand in China and Europe were also cited by the IEA as factors influencing the updated forecast.
Saudi Arabia takes the top spot from US shale as the world's largest producer.
IEA estimated that the U.S. had shut in 460k barrels a day of production, while Saudi Arabia pumped out an extra 400k barrels a day.
OPEC producer United Arab Emirates increased oil production by 20k barrels per day to 3.09 mln barrels, its highest output level ever.
Data reminders:
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Algiers, Algeria from Sept 26-28
API data will be released today after the bell
Weekly EIA petroleum data will be released Wed at 10:30 am ET
Rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Natural gas ended afternoon pit trading unchanged ahead of Thursday's EIA inventory data
October natural gas closed flat at $2.91/MMBtu
Weekly EIA data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver traded modestly lower & in tandem with each other as the dollar index surged
December gold ended today's session down $1.60 (-0.1%) to $1324.00/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.02 lower (-0.1%) at $18.98/oz

Today's session began on a lower note as a lack of carry over buying interest and a downturn in crude oil weighed on index futures. Global bourses finished on a mixed note, shrugging off the positive bias from yesterday's rebound here at home. China's Shanghai Composite (+0.1%) finished little changed despite a string of stronger-than-expected economic data. Meanwhile, European markets finished with losses, carving out lows during the U.S. session.

A bearish reading of the International Energy Agency's monthly report also contributed to early weakness. The IEA lowered its global demand growth forecast for 2016 to 1.3 million barrels per day (previous: 1.4 million barrels) while also cutting its 2017 estimates to 1.2 million barrels (previous: 1.4 million barrels). The disappointing outlook has called into question the potential timetable for an oil market re-balancing. At the end of the session, October crude oil futures fell $1.37 (-3.0%) to $44.92/barrel.

In terms of market data, the Treasury Budget for August announced today showed a deficit of $107.1 billion versus a deficit of $64.4 billion in August 2015. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the August deficit cannot be compared to the $112.8 billion deficit registered in July.

The major averages ended the Tuesday affair sharply lower as rising long-term interest rates pressured the broader market. The upswing in interest rates was led by growing uncertainty surrounding the future path and effectiveness of global central bank policy. Leading the three major US indices lower today, the S&P 500 was down 32.02 points (-1.48%) to 2127.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 258.32 points (-1.41%) to 18066.75, and the Nasdaq Composite posted the most tame session, shedding only 56.63 points (-1.09%) to 5155.25.

To that end, every S&P sector turned in a negative session today with Technology (XLK 46.59, -0.34 -0.72%) posting the softest losses. Component Intuit (INTU) was among the worst performers today following a premarket downgrade of the stock to an Underweight rating from an Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLE -2.86%, IYZ -2.51%, XLB -1.86%, XLF -1.77%, XLI -1.47%, XLY -1.42%, XLFS -1.41%, XLU -1.38%, XLV -1.34%, XLP -1.23% as the Energy complex lagged.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (776.87, -4.94 -0.63%) sector, action turned lower to start and never recovered. Component Apple (AAPL 108.12, +2.68 +2.55%) turned in a solid performance today on the back of some favorable pre-order numbers for the company's latest iPhone iteration. Other names in the space which managed to stave off the weakness today included PYPL +2.81%, SWKS +1.49%, AVGO +0.46%, QRVO +0.30%, WDC +0.11%, EA +0.04%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Apple (AAPL) posted a strong session in the midst of a broader market sell-off following favorable pre-orders announced by both Sprint (S 6.56, -0.36 -5.20%) and T-Mobile US (TMUS 45.34, -0.59 -1.28%).

Facebook (FB 127.21, -1.48 -1.15%) confirmed details of Messenger Platform v1.2 including the beginning of messages with payments.

NVIDIA (NVDA 59.87, -0.88 -1.45%) unveiled a palm-sized, energy-efficient artificial intelligence (AI) computer that automakers can use to power automated and autonomous vehicles for driving and mapping.
The U.S. Federal government has awarded Accenture (ACN 110.53, -2.23 -1.98%) Federal Services

FedRAMP certification for the Accenture Federal Cloud ERP solution, determining that its enterprise resource planning solution is compliant with federal security requirements.

CTERA Networks announced a $25 million investment round led by Bessemer Venture Partners with additional participation from Cisco (CSCO 31.06, -0.38 -1.21%), and with Vintage Investment Partners joining as a new investor.

Alliance Data (ADS 213.41, -3.08 -1.42%) announced a card services performance update. Detailed in the release, net charge offs as a % of average receivables were 4.1% for the month ending August 31, 2016. ADS noted this measure was tracking to its guidance of 4.9% to 5.0% principal loss rates for the third quarter and full year 2016, respectively.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Pandora Media (P 14.10, -0.19 -1.33%) announced the signing of direct licensing agreements for recorded music with Merlin Network, Sony Music (SNE 32.16, -0.51 -1.56%), and Universal Music Group along with The Orchard and over 30 other independent labels/distributors. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Intersil (ISIL 21.70, +1.94 +9.82%) to be acquired by Renesas (RNECF 6.08, +0.43 +7.61%) for $22.50 per share in cash, or about $3.2 billion.

FXCM (FXCM 9.25, +0.07 +0.76%) reported August 2016 retail customer trading volumes were down 18% compared to a year ago to $270 billion.

Action Semi (ACTS 2.08, +0.07 +3.48%) entered into a merger agreement for going private transaction at $2.20 per share in cash.

Cincinnati Bell (CBB 4.08, -0.16 -3.77%) announced it plans to offer $425 million aggregate principal amount of its Senior Notes due 2024.

XO Group (XOXO 18.40, -0.19 -1.02%) acquired proposal story platform How He Asked. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Sanmina (SANM 26.91, -0.15 -0.55%) announced a $150 million stock repurchase program.

Mimecast (MIME 15.60, -1.48 -8.67%) filed a $80 million ordinary share offering by selling shareholders.

Luxoft Holding (LXFT 52.11, -1.30 -2.43%) acquired Pelagicore AB. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Vivint Solar (VSLR 2.98, -0.20 -6.29%) received an unfavorable ruling in a lawsuit against SunEdison (SUNEQ 0.04, +0.00 +2.87%) related to failed merger, according to the Wall Street Journal.

RADA Electronics (RADA 0.54, -0.02 -3.53%) to commence a 1:2 reverse split, effective tomorrow.

Sphere 3D (ANY 0.63 +0.03 +5.45%) announced they are exploring a formal non-binding expression of interest to sell certain assets and other options to increase shareholder value, in late stage discussions to seek additional access to capital.

Analyst actions:

WDC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Longbow,
TXN was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein,
KLAC was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
SYMC and QLYS were upgraded to Buy at Wunderlich,
OTEX was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital;
NFLX was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie,
MOBL and CHKP were downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich,
INTU was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
PRGS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann,
ISIL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton;
XRX and SBAC were initiated with Buy ratings at SunTrust,
ROG was initiated with a Buy at Needham,
XPLR was initiated with a Buy at Maxim Group,
BR was initiated with an Overweight at Atlantic Equities

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the midweek affair on a mixed note as investors favored a cautious approach ahead of a plethora of economic data and the latest policy statement from the Bank of England. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) ended ahead of both the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%).

Equity indices gyrated at the start of the session as investors continued to mull a recent resurgence of volatility and a downturn in crude oil futures. The energy component was under pressure as participants responded to a mixed reading of the American Petroleum Institute's weekly inventory report. The API reported that crude oil stockpiles rose by 1.4 million barrels (last: -12.0 million barrels) while gasoline inventories fell by 2.4 million barrels (last: -2.40 million barrels).

The broader market shook early weakness in the opening hour as investors looked to confirm the inventory reading with the Department of Energy's more influential stockpile data. The EIA reported that crude oil inventories declined by 0.55 million barrels (consensus: +3.80 million) after falling 14.51 million barrels in the prior week. Meanwhile, gasoline inventories increased by 0.56 million barrels (consensus: +0.34 million). WTI crude initially spiked on the news, but was unable to maintain position above the $45.00/bbl price level. Crude oil ended its day near its low, sliding 3.0% ($43.58/bbl; -$1.34).

The S&P 500 (-0.1%) moved lower with crude oil, but managed to stay in positive territory amid strength in the top-weighted technology sector (+0.4%). The benchmark index carved out a session low in the final hour of trade as seven sectors finished in the red. The consumer staples (-0.3%), financial (-0.3%), and energy (-1.2%) sectors ended at the bottom of the leaderboard while consumer discretionary (UNCH), utilities (+0.5%) and technology (+0.6%) led.

The influential technology sector (+0.6%) outperformed as Dow component Apple (AAPL 111.83, +3.88) rallied 3.6%. The name displayed relative strength as bullish pre-order data for the iPhone 7 elicited a bid for the second session in a row. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.9%) also outperformed as iPhone suppliers led. Broadcom (AVGO 169.61, +4.37) and Skyworks (SWKS 72.40, +3.04) finished at the top of the index, gaining 2.6% and 4.4%, respectively.

In the health care space (-0.1%), biotechnology outperformed amid recent M&A news. Allergan (AGN 244.81, +4.71) rallied 2.0% after announcing that it would acquire Vitae Pharmaceuticals (VTAE 20.85, +12.75) for $21 per share in cash. Allergan also benefited from a bullish note from Mizuho. Conversely, McKesson (MCK 167.70, -8.14) fell 4.6% after the Department of Justice requested more information regarding the company's contribution and sale agreement with Change Healthcare.

In the financial sector (-0.3%), Wells Fargo (WFC 46.52, -0.44) erased a modest gain after reports indicated that California and New York may investigate the bank for its sales tactics. Separately, Dow component American Express (AXP 63.48, -0.88) finished at the bottom of the price-weighted index. The financial sector has declined 1.0% this week, leading only materials (-0.2%; week-to-date: -1.2%) and energy (-1.2%; week-to-date: -3.1%).

Treasuries ended higher with the short end of the curve demonstrating relative strength. The yield on the 2-yr note fell four basis points to 0.76% while the yield on the 10-yr note declined three basis points to 1.70%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 878 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and Import/Export Prices for August:

The MBA Mortgage Index showed that mortgage applications increased 4.2% in the week ending September 10. This followed a 0.9% gain in the prior week.
Lower prices for agricultural and nonagricultural exports led a 0.8% decline in export prices in August while lower fuel prices paced a 0.2% decline in import prices.
Excluding agriculture, export prices declined 0.4% after increasing a revised 0.2% (from +0.3%) in July.
Excluding fuel, import prices were unchanged after increasing an unrevised 0.3% in July.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 263k), Retail Sales for August (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%), PPI for August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), the Philadelphia Fed Survey for September (Briefing.com consensus 0.0), the second quarter Current Account Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$122.8 billion), and Empire Manufacturing for September (Briefing.com consensus 0.0) each crossing the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus -0.3%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.7%) for August will be released at 9:15 ET while Business Inventories for July (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +6.7% YTD
S&P 500: +4.0% YTD
Dow Jones: +3.5% YTD
Nasdaq: +3.3% YTD

DJ30 -32.29 NASDAQ +18.52 SP500 -1.19 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1408/1.734 bln/1428 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1420/878.1 mln/1566

3:30 pm :

The dollar index extended this morning's decline, -0.3% around the 95.33 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.4% around the 82.69 level
Crude ended a volatile session at fresh session lows, extended yesterday's post-IEA decline following mixed EIA data
October crude oil futures fell $1.34 (-3.0%) to $43.58/barrel
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -0.559 mln (consensus called for a build of +3.80 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +0.567 mln (consensus called for a build of +0.34 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a build of +4.619 mln
Data reminders:
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Algiers, Algeria from Sept 26-28
Natural gas ended pit trading slightly in the red after a session of sideways trading ahead of tomorrow's inventory data
October natural gas closed $0.02 lower (-0.7%) at $2.89/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver reversed yesterday's losses as the dollar index headed lower
December gold ended today's session up $2.00 (+0.2%) to $1326.00/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.09 higher (+0.5%) at $19.07/oz
Base metal copper found direction in afternoon pit trading after 5 consecutive sessions of trading nearly flat
December copper closed $0.05 higher (+2.4%) at $2.15/lb

The major averages began the day on a choppy note as participants assessed the chances of a rebound following yesterday's retreat. Global bourses settled on a mostly lower note as investors favored a cautious approach ahead of tomorrow's policy statement from the Bank of England. Meanwhile, falling interest rates relieved some persistent rate angst as sovereign bonds retraced a portion of yesterday's rout.

Crude oil contributed to early weakness, erasing a modest overnight gain ahead of today's session. The energy component was under pressure following a mixed reading of the American Petroleum Institute's weekly inventory report. However, equities and crude oil shrugged off the reading in the opening hour as participants looked ahead to the Department of Energy's more influential inventory report. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles fell by 0.55 million barrels (consensus: +3.80 million) while gasoline inventories rose by 0.56 million barrels (consensus: 0.34 million). The energy component carved out a new low shortly thereafter. As it were, October crude oil futures ended down $0.74 (-1.6%) around the $44.15/barrel level.

Rebounding off yesterday's weakness, the broader market was in the green for the majority of the session but ultimately ended mixed. The lone out-performer today was the Nasdaq Composite which added 18.52 points (+0.36%) to 5173.77. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 31.98 points (-0.18%) to end 18034.77, and the S&P 500 was down 1.25 points (-0.06%) to 2125.77.

Leading the day in positive territory, the Technology (XLK 46.81, +0.22 +0.47%) sector pared gains in late trading yet still finished firmly in the green. Component Apple (AAPL 111.83, +3.88 +3.59%) posted fresh YTD highs today following positive commentary to start the week and in recent news today was the subject of a few conference calls regarding iPhone pre-order levels at AT&T (T 39.89, -0.08 -0.20%) and Verizon (VZ 51.49, +0.04 +0.08%). Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended today mixed XLU +0.39%, XLY +0.01%, IYZ +0.00%, XLV -0.04%, XLI -0.09%, XLB -0.23%, XLF -0.29%, XLP -0.30%, XLFS -0.79%, XLE -1.10%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (781.35, +4.48 +0.58%) sector, trading was modestly lower off highs of the day, but strength held on. Component Cognizant Tech (CTSH 54.03 -0.97 -1.76%) was among the worst performers today following a premarket downgrade at CLSA to an Underperform rating from Outperform. Other names in the space which ended lower included TSS -1.45%, FLIR -1.20%, IBM -1.13%, FISV -0.96%, MSI -0.81%, WDC -0.73%, MA -0.68%, ACN -0.66%, XRX -0.61%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
The Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation and IBM (IBM 154.05, -1.76 -1.13%) announced a partnership that will enable Finland to utilize Watson cognitive computing to help doctors improve the health of its citizens, and strengthen and develop the Finnish innovation and business ecosystem in the fields of health and well-being. To facilitate the collaboration, IBM intends to establish a Watson Health Center of Excellence in Finland, the first Nordic Healthcare Competence Center, and the first National Imaging Center of Excellence outside the United States in Finland. These centers are expected to employ 150 people over the next few years.

Activision Blizzard (ATVI 43.66, +0.25 +0.58%) announced a private transaction to offer senior unsecured notes in two series.\

Cisco Systems (CSCO 31.00, -0.06 -0.19%) priced $6.25 billion of Senior Unsecured Notes in 5 separate tranches.

NVIDIA (NVDA 60.40, +0.53 +0.89%) priced $2.0 billion notes offering consisting of $1.0 billion of 2.20% notes due 2021 and $1.0 billion of 3.20% notes due 2026.

CloudCraze, an enterprise digital commerce solution built natively on Salesforce (CRM 73.82, +0.76 +1.04%), was selected as the commerce platform for Repsol (REPYY 13.33, -0.19 -1.41%). This strategic initiative will provide Repsol, specifically its Chemicals Division, with a solution to enable B2B commerce on the cloud.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Liberty Global plc (LBTYA 32.12, -0.31 -0.96%) revealed a multi-year partnership with Netflix (NFLX 97.01, +0.92 +0.96%) which will lead to Netflix's content being made available to Liberty Global video customers across more than 30 countries around the world.

Zebra Tech (ZBRA 65.12, -1.06 -1.60%) sold its wireless LAN business to Extreme Networks (EXTR 4.01, +0.26 +6.93%) for $55 million in cash.

SAP AG's (SAP 88.32, +0.17 +0.19%) Concur to acquire travel search company Hipmunk. The transaction is expected to close in October 2016.

IMS Health (IMS 30.03, +0.17 +0.57%) announced the pricing of its offering of $1.75 billion equivalent in gross proceeds of senior notes, consisting of $1.05 billion of U.S. Dollar notes and 625 million of Euro notes to be issued by its wholly owned subsidiary, IMS Health Incorporated. The offering was upsized from the previously announced $1.5 billion equivalent aggregate principal amount. The net proceeds from the notes offering will primarily be used to extinguish certain of the issuer's and Quintiles' (Q 77.90, +0.37 +0.48%) existing indebtedness in connection with the previously announced proposed merger between IMS Health and Quintiles.

Amdocs (DOX 59.00, -1.52 -2.51%) announced the acquisition of three privately owned companies for about $260 million. The acquisitions are expected to contribute 1.5% to 2.0% to total company revenue for FY17.

ADTRAN (ADTN 18.15, -0.06 -0.33%) acquired key fiber access products, technologies and service relationships from subsidiaries of CommScope (COMM 29.50, +0.09 +0.31%). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Glu Mobile (GLUU 2.18, -0.09 -3.96%) acquired Poke Radar for $500,000 in cash.

SolarCity (SCTY 16.89, -0.17 -1.00%) issued a statement on joint agreement to grandfather 32,000 Nevadans. The company urged the Public Utilities Commissioners to ratify agreement to customers and all Nevada solar customers as soon as possible.

Amazon (AMZN 761.09, +0.08 +0.01%) announced that Alexa, Echo, and the all-new Echo Dot are now available for customers in the UK and Germany.

Cellcom Israel (CEL 7.61, +0.03 +0.40%) announced that a purported class action was filed against 013 Netvision Ltd., the company's wholly owned subsidiary, and two other Israeli international calls operators, alleging that the defendants unlawfully charge random customers with excessive and unreasonable prices for outgoing calls from Israel.

In reaction to quarterly results:

FFIV was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
ISIL was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup;
ISIL was downgraded to Hold at Deutsche Bank and to Neutral at B. Riley & Co.,
CTSH was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at CLSA,
APIC was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan;
GRPN was initiated with a Hold at Loop Capital,
VG was initiated with an Outperform at Robert W. Baird

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From Briefing.com: 4:07 pm Oracle misses by $0.03, reports revs in-line (ORCL) :
Reports Q1 (Aug) earnings of $0.55 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.58; revenues rose 1.9% year/year to $8.61 bln vs the $8.69 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

SaaS and PaaS revenue +82% y/y; expected to grow 75-80%.

Software and Cloud 5% y/y; expected to grow 5-7%.

Non-GAAP Operating Margin 39%

Short-term deferred revenues were $9.5 billion, up 4% in U.S. dollars and up 5% in constant currency compared with a year ago. Operating cash flow on a trailing twelve-month basis was $13.7 billion.

Co expects gross margins to climb toward 62% in Q3 (Long term target remains 80%)

"Next week at Oracle OpenWorld, we will introduce the second generation of our Infrastructure as a Service," said Larry Ellison, Oracle Chairman and CTO.Co guides on its conference call at 5pm ET.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a broadly higher note as participants dialed back rate hike expectations following a barrage of economic data. Today's rally also featured continued strength from top-weighted Apple (AAPL 115.57, +3.80), a rebound in crude oil futures, and another mixed performance from the Treasury complex. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.5%) settled ahead of the S&P 500 (+1.0%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.0%). The major averages shook weakness in the opening hour of trade as a weaker-than-expected reading of the Retail Sales Report for August stymied rate hike expectations for the coming months. The report indicated that retail sales declined 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) in August while retail sales excluding autos fell 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). Softening in discretionary spending will likely negatively impact third quarter GDP forecasts.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) for August also appeared to ease fears regarding a sooner-than-expected fed funds rate hike. The report showed that the PPI was flat in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) while core PPI rose an in-line 0.1% over that time. The reading signaled some firming in inflation at the producer level, but also that inflation rates continue to tread below the Fed's target. On a side note, the Consumer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) is slated to cross the wires at 8:30 ET tomorrow.

Equities rallied throughout the session, reveling in diminished rate hike odds. The fed funds futures market estimates the odds of a rate hike at the September meeting at 12.0%, falling from 15.0% in the previous session. The implied probability of a rate hike at the December meeting fell to 46.2% from 52.9%. Additionally, the Bank of England failed to rock the boat when it opted to maintain its monetary policy stance. It is worth noting, however, that the central bank indicated that further easing could be on the way.

The S&P 500 (+1.0%) settled near its session high, testing resistance near the 2150 price level. All ten sectors ended in the green with telecom services (+1.1%), health care (+1.1%), energy (+1.1%), and technology (+1.7%) leading the advance. Conversely, materials (+0.6%) and financials (+0.7%) ended at the bottom of the leaderboard.

The heavily-weighted technology sector (+1.7%), outperformed as Dow component Apple (AAPL 115.57, +3.80) extended its recent winning streak. The stock rallied 3.4% after the company confirmed that it sold out of first run models of the iPhone 7 plus. Credit Suisse also increased its iPhone 7 sales estimates and restated its "Outperform" designation on the stock. Separately, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+2.3%) outperformed as iPhone supplier Skyworks (SWKS 77.02, +4.62) rallied 6.4%. The price-weighted index sports a week-to-date gain of 4.4%.

Biotechnology settled ahead of the health care group (+1.1%), evidenced by the 1.5% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 290.15, +4.22). In the ETF, Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 93.10, +2.98) led after Stifel raised its price target on the stock to $109 from $105. Meanwhile, Mylan Labs (MYL 41.49, +0.65) trimmed its month-to-date loss to 2.1%. The broader sector has jumped 1.1% this week, which compares to a gain of 0.9% in the benchmark index.

In the financial sector (+0.7%), Wells Fargo (WFC 46.15, -0.37) underperformed following yesterday's report that Federal prosecutors in California and New York are investigating the bank's sales practices. Conversely, MetLife (MET 44.50, +0.72) jumped 1.6% amid continued steepening in the yield curve. The broader sector erased a modest year-to-date loss and now sports a gain of 0.1% over that time.

Treasuries ended on a mixed note with the short end of the curve demonstrating relative strength. The yield on the 2-yr note fell two basis points to 0.74% while the yield on the 10-yr note finished flat at 1.70%. The spread between the 2-yr and 10-yr note expanded to 96 basis points from 89 on Friday.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 819 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims, retail sales for August, PPI for August, the Philadelphia Fed Survey for September, the second quarter current account balance, Empire Manufacturing for September, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, and Business Inventories for July:

Jobless claims for the week ending September 10 were 260,000 (Briefing.com consensus 263,000), up 1,000 from the prior week and the 80th straight week they have been below 300,000.
Continuing claims for the week ending September 3 were 2.143 million, also up 1,000 from the prior week.
Total retail sales declined 0.3% in August (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) after increasing a revised 0.1% (from 0.0%) in July.
Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) after declining a downwardly revised 0.4% (from -0.3%) in July.
Total PPI was unchanged (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) after declining 0.4% in July. Core PPI, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) after declining 0.3% in July.
Producer pricing trends are improving, yet inflation rates still remain comfortably below the Fed's comfort level.
The Philadelphia Fed Index checked in at 12.8 (Briefing.com consensus 0.0) versus 2.0 in August. That marked the first time since last August that the index has registered two consecutive positive readings.
The current account deficit for the second quarter totaled $119.9 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $122.8 billion. The first quarter deficit was revised to $131.8 billion from $124.7 billion.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey was little changed at -2.0 in September (Briefing.com consensus 0.0) versus -4.2 in August. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 0.0.
Industrial production declined 0.4% in August (Briefing.com consensus -0.3%), which wasn't a complete surprise, after increasing a downwardly revised 0.6% (from +0.7%) in July.
The capacity utilization rate dropped to 75.5% (Briefing.com consensus 75.7%) from 75.9%.
Total business inventories were unchanged in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) following an unrevised 0.2% increase in June. Sales were down 0.2% after increasing 1.0% in June.
Inventory-to-sales ratio for July held steady at 1.39

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include CPI for August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) and the preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for September (Briefing.com consensus 91.5), which will cross the wires at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively. Separately, Net Long-Term TIC Flows for July will be released at 16:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +7.9% YTD
S&P 500: +5.1% YTD
Nasdaq: +4.8% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.5% YTD

DJ30 +177.71 NASDAQ +75.92 SP500 +21.49 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2095/1.777 bln/764 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2255/819.8 mln/712 3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, turned positive in the afternoon, +0.5% around the 83.08 level
Crude oil saw a volatile session, swinging between gains and losses before ending near the midpoint of session highs ahead of tomorrow's rig count data
October crude oil futures rose $0.27 (+0.6%) to $43.85/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET
The next OPEC meeting is scheduled to take place in Algiers, Algeria from Sept 26-28
Natural gas ended pit trading higher on the heels of EIA storage data which showed a smaller-than-expected build vs. Consensus
October natural gas closed $0.03 higher (+1.0%) at $2.92/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +62 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +63 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 3,499 Bcf as of Friday, September 9, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 184 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 299 Bcf above the five-year average of 3,200 Bcf.
At 3,499 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold erased all of yesterday's gains, silver traded lower as the dollar index traded nearly flat
December gold ended today's session down $7.90 (-0.6%) to $1318.10/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.03 lower (-0.2%) at $19.04/oz
Base metal copper extended yesterday's gains in afternoon pit trading
December copper closed $0.01 higher (+0.5%) at $2.16/lb

Equities began the day on a choppy note as investors poredover a raft of economic data. The Retail Sales Report for August came in weakerthan expected, adding to concerns surrounding third quarter GDP. Retail salesdeclined 0.3% in August while retail sales excluding autos fell 0.1%.Meanwhile, the Producer Price Index (PPI) continues to signal a tepid inflationtrend. PPI was flat in August while core PPI rose an in-line 0.1%.

The two readings took their toll on rate hike expectationsfor the coming months. The fed funds futures market indicates that the impliedprobability of a rate hike at the September meeting fell to 12.0% from 15.0% inthe previous session. The odds of a rate hike at the December meeting havedeclined to 47.4% from 52.9%. However, the U.S. Dollar Index (95.30, -0.04 -0.04%) treaded water amid a downturn in the pound. Sterling has been underpressure as investors respond to the Bank of England's latest policy decision.The central bank opted to maintain its monetary policy stance, but indicatedthat further easing could be on the way. In addition, the dollar has beenresilient against the euro after a morning decline.

Additionally, market data today included jobless claims forthe week ending September 10 which were 260,000, up 1,000 from the prior weekand the 80th straight week they have been below 300,000. As mentioned, totalretail sales declined 0.3% in August after increasing a revised 0.1% (from0.0%) in July. Total PPI was unchanged after declining 0.4% in July. Core PPI,which excludes food and energy, was up 0.1% after declining 0.3% in July. ThePhiladelphia Fed Index checked in at 12.8 versus 2.0 in August. That marked thefirst time since last August that the index has registered two consecutivepositive readings. The current account deficit for the second quarter totaled$119.9 billion while the first quarter deficit was revised to $131.8 billionfrom $124.7 billion. Also, the Empire Manufacturing Survey was little changedat -2.0 in September versus -4.2 in August. The dividing line between expansionand contraction is 0.0. Industrial production declined 0.4% in August, whichwasn't a complete surprise, after increasing a downwardly revised 0.6% (from+0.7%) in July. Lastly, total business inventories were unchanged in July followingan unrevised 0.2% increase in June. Sales were down 0.2% after increasing 1.0%in June.

In general, the broader market jogged higher as the sessionprogressed today ending barely below highs. Leading the way to the upside today, the Nasdaq Composite enjoyed gains of 75.92 points (+1.47%) to 5249.69. The S&P 500 was up 21.49 points (+1.01%) to 2147.26, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 177.71 points (+0.99%) to 18212.48. Halfway through September, the three major US indices stand +4.8%, +5.1% and +4.5% respectively.

Technology (XLK 47.58, +0.77 +1.64%) was again the best performer among S&P sectors as Apple (AAPL 115.57, +3.80 +3.40%) continued to fresh nine month highs as investors pushed the stock on continued iPhone pre-order commentary. Component Global Payment (GPN 76.05, +2.53 +3.44%) was among the best performers today following a premarket upgrade at Goldman to a Buy rating from a Neutral. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed ThursdayIYZ +1.35%, XLE +1.26%, XLV +0.99%, XLFS +0.91%, XLP +0.81%, XLI +0.79%, XLU +0.76%, XLRE +0.76%, XLY +0.73%, XLF +0.67%, XLB +0.64%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (794.66, +13.31 +1.70%) sector, trading held pace with the broader market step higher. Component Intel (INTC 36.56, +0.94 +2.64%) was higher today on the back of a collaboration deal with pharmaceutical name Teva (TEVA 51.90, -0.05 -0.10%) to develop a wearable device for use in Huntington disease. Every current S&P 500 IT component finished the day in the green, led by SWKS +6.38%, NVDA +3.79%, HPE +3.60%, EA +3.14%, MU +3.07%, ADSK +2.87%, ADI +2.84%, QRVO +2.58%, WDC +2.48%, AMAT +2.45%, PYPL +2.18%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Accenture (ACN 110.72, +0.92 +0.84%) has agreed to purchase a 47.4% shareholding in OCTO Technology (ISIN code FR0004157428), a technology consultancy specializing in digital transformation and software development, with the intention to acquire the remaining shares. Under the terms of the agreement, Accenture will purchase the shareholding in OCTO from Franois Hisquin, founder and CEO of OCTO, other OCTO partners and Financire Arbevel at a price of 22.50 per share and 1.7222 per equity warrant. Following the closing of the acquisition, Accenture will make a voluntary cash tender offer to acquire the remaining shares and equity warrants at the same prices.

Teva Pharma (TEVA) announced a collaboration with Intel (INTC) to develop a unique wearable device and machine learning platform for use in Huntington disease.

Salesforce.com (CRM 73.99, +0.17 +0.23%) to acquire GravityBank. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Activision Blizzard (ATVI 44.59, +0.93 +2.13%) priced $650 million of 2.300% senior notes due 2021 and $850 million of 3.400% senior notes due 2026.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Pandora Media (P 13.31, flat) launched Pandora Plus for $4.99 per month. Service includes more skips, replays and solution for offline listening.

Viavi Solutions' (VIAV 7.47, -0.04 -0.53%) Board authorized an increase to its stock repurchase program from up to $100 million to up to $150 million of the common stock through open market or private transactions before December 31, 2017. The company also reaffirmed 1Q17 EPS and revenue guidance of $0.06-0.08 and $201-217 million, respectively.

Agilent (A 45.44, +0.58 +1.29%) announced an offering of a series of senior notes under an automatic shelf registration statement.

Sequans Communications (SQNS 1.71, -0.19 -10.00%) announced and later priced an offer of newly issued American Depositary Shares in an underwritten public offering of about 15.2 million ordinary shares, at a price of $1.65 per ADS for net proceeds of about $22.9 million.

Violin Memory (VMEM 0.90, -0.05 -6.15%) filed 10-Q with going concern qualification. The company expects to incur net losses and negative cash flows from operations for at least the next twelve months.

PC-TEL (PCTI 5.01, -0.05 -0.99%) Chairman and CEO Marty Singer to retire. David Neumann will become CEO in 2017.

Telus (TU 32.01, +0.41 +1.30%) to offer $600 million notes with 2.80% interest rate maturing in 2027.

JinkoSolar Holding's (JKS 15.94, +0.38 +2.44%) JinkoSolar entered into a Master Module Supply Agreement with Con Edison Development. Financial details were not not disclosed.

Fabrinet (FN 42.56, +1.18 +2.85%) acquired Exception Global CEM Solutions for about $13.5 million in cash.


RADA Electronic Industries (RADA 1.13, +0.20 +21.52%) received new orders totaling over $11 million since the beginning of 2016.
According to the IDC, worldwide smartwatch market will see modest growth in 2016 before swelling to 50 million units in 2020.

Analyst actions:

GPN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
EXTR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson;
CTSH was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
SYNT was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at William Blair,
APIC was downgraded to Sector Weight at Pacific Crest, to Neutral at Credit Suisse, and to Neutral at Roth Capital;
PYPL was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum,
ADSK and PTC were initiated with Buy ratings at Evercore ISI,
ANSS was initiated with a Hold at Evercore ISI,
CYBR was initiated with a Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
ACXM was initiated with a Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald,
SYMC and NOW were initiated with Buy ratings at Guggenheim,
CHKP was initiated with a Neutral at Guggenheim

6:34 pm Agilent prices series of senior notes in an aggregate principal amount of $300 mln in public offering conducted under automatic shelf registration statement (A) : The notes will mature in September 2026 and will bear interest at an annual rate of 3.050 percent. The offering is expected to close on September 22, 2016, subject to customary closing conditions. Agilent intends to use the proceeds from the offering to repay all amounts outstanding under its revolving credit facility and for general corporate purposes thereafter.

6:18 pm Sprint confirms Samsung (SSNLF) Galaxy Note7 customers can get replacement devices beginning next week (S) :

4:16 pm Samsung to recall ~1 mln Galaxy Note7 smartphones (SSNLF) :

Name of Product: Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphones sold prior to September 15, 2016Description: This recall involves the Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphone sold before September 15, 2016.Hazard: The lithium-ion battery in the Galaxy Note7 smartphones can overheat and catch fire, posing a serious burn hazard to consumers.Remedy: Replace, RefundUnits: About 1 million

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From Briefing.com: 5:02 pm Rambus: Rahul Mathur has accepted the position of Sr. VP and CFO (RMBS) : Prior to joining Rambus, Mr. Mathur served as senior vice president of finance at Cypress Semiconductor (CY).

4:17 pm IBM also announced extended Red Hat (RHT) collaboration for next-generation cloud platforms and plans for new facility in Boston expected to open in mid-2017 (IBM) : Through joint engineering and deeper product collaboration, the two companies plan to deliver solutions built on key components of Red Hat's portfolio of open source products. The move will help position IBM Power Systems as a featured component of Red Hat's hybrid cloud strategy spanning platform infrastructure located both on and off premises.

4:05 pm Autodesk authorizes share repurchase program of up to 30 mln shares of common stock (ADSK) : Co announced a program to repurchase up to 30 million shares of the company's common stock, in addition to the approximately 1.5 million shares that remained at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2017 under previously announced share repurchase programs. The share repurchase program does not have an expiration date.

4:15 pm : The stock market began the week on a flat note as participants displayed a lack of conviction ahead of key policy statements from the Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) settled behind both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (UNCH) and the S&P 500 (UNCH).

The major averages advanced at the start of the session as a rebound in crude oil futures and a positive bias in global markets facilitated a higher start to the trading week. Oil was in focus as renewed speculation surrounding a production cap agreement boosted the energy component. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro made headlines over the weekend, stating that oil producers are close to reaching a deal to stabilize oil markets. However, the comments were taken with a grain of salt following contradictory reports from OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo. The oil cartel is scheduled to meet on September 26-28.

The benchmark index notched a session high in the first half hour of trade, testing but failing to clear technical resistance near the 2150/2151 price level. The broader market walked back early gains through the session as the heavily-weighted technology (-0.2%) and health care (-0.4%) sectors came under pressure. The broader market notched a session low shortly after midday, but managed to settle above that level. Four sectors ended in the green with industrials (+0.3%), financials (+0.5%), and utilities (+1.0%) leading. Conversely, technology (-0.2%), health care (-0.4%), and telecom services (-0.7%) underperformed.

The financial space (+0.5%) finished ahead of the benchmark index, rebounding from recent losses. Wells Fargo (WFC 46.01, +0.58) jumped 1.3% after Robert W. Baird upgraded the stock to Outperform from Neutral. The broader sector displayed relative strength as participants assessed the rate hike picture in coming months. The implied probability of a rate hike at the September meeting sits at 12.0% while the odds of a rate hike at the December meeting registers at 55.0%. Rate hike expectations increased last week following some firming inflation data.

In the energy sector (-0.1%), refining names outperformed amid reports of gasoline shortages on the East coast of the United States. Phillips 66 (PSX 80.35, +1.26) and Tesoro (TSO 83.54, +1.56) ended higher by 1.6% and 1.9%, respectively. Separately, Dow component Chevron (CVX 98.04, +0.20) finished ahead of the price-weighted index. For its part, crude oil settled higher by 0.6% ($43.90/bbl; +$0.28).

Homebuilders outperformed in the consumer discretionary space (-0.1%), evidenced by the 0.9% gain in the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.52, +0.25). The sub-group gained following a stronger-than-expected reading of the NAHB Housing Market Index for September. Lennar (LEN 45.09, +0.75) jumped 1.7% ahead of tomorrow morning's earnings report. Separately, General Motors (GM 31.72, +0.75) rallied 2.4% after being upgraded to "Overweight" at Morgan Stanley.

In the health care space (-0.4%), biotechnology gained after Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT 48.94, +20.79) received conditional approval from the FDA for the company's muscular dystrophy treatment. On the flipside, Merck (MRK 61.33, -0.95) ended lower by 1.5%.

On the M&A front, Infoblox (BLOX 26.35, +3.52) spiked 15.4% after announcing that Vista Equity Partners will acquire the company for $26.50 per share or approximately $1.6 billion. Separately, Isle of Capri (ISLE 22.04, +5.11) rallied 30.2% after Eldorado Resorts (ERI 13.84,- 0.41) agreed to acquire the name for $23.00 per share or approximately $1.7 billion.

Treasuries ended on a lower note with yields rising through the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note rose one basis point to 0.77% while the yield on the 10-yr note also increased one basis point (1.70%).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 760 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for September:

The NAHB Housing Market Index for September rose to 65 from a revised 59 in August (from 60) while the Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at 59.

Tomorrow's economic data will include Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1186k) and Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1160k) for August, which will each be released at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000: +8.5% YTD
S&P 500: +4.7% YTD
Nasdaq: +4.6% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.0% YTD

DJ30 -3.63 NASDAQ -9.54 SP500 -0.04 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1693/1.65 bln/1172 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2042/759.5 mln/927

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was -0.3% around the 95.84 level, aiding precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.5% around the 83.61 level
Crude oil rallied off of 1-month lows hit in the previous session ahead of tomorrow's API data after comments from the Venezuelan President & export concerns in Libya
November crude oil futures rose $0.28 (+0.6%) to $43.90/barrel
Factors affecting the price of oil include:
Shipments originally expected to resume at the ports of Ras Lanuf & Sidra last week in Libya have now been delayed by ongoing conflict in the region.
Statements from Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro that OPEC & non-OPEC members are nearing a potential deal to restrict output.
However, comments from OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo over the weekend conflict with what was said by Maduro, as Barkindo suggested that no deal to freeze output will be reached at next week's meeting as the talks are informal and will not be a decision-making meeting.
Upcoming data to keep in mind:
The next OPEC meeting is scheduled to take place in Algiers, Algeria from Sept 26-28.
API data will be released tomorrow at 4:30 pm ET.
EIA data will be released at 10:30 am ET.
China is expected to release oil trade data this Wed, potentially contributing to further volatility in oil prices
Rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Natural gas erased the majority of Friday's gains ahead of Thursday's inventory data
October natural gas closed $0.02 lower (-0.7%) at $2.93/MMBtu
EIA weekly storage data will be released on Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver ended near session highs as the dollar index dropped
December gold ended today's session up $7.30 (+0.6%) to $1317.70/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.42 higher (+2.2%) at $19.28/oz

Today's session began on a higher note as participants responded to a rebound in crude oil futures and a positive bias in global markets. The move higher in oil was facilitated by renewed speculation surrounding a potential output agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC members. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro resuscitated supply freeze speculation, indicating that oil producers are close to reaching a deal to stabilize oil markets. The oil cartel is scheduled to meet on September 26-28.

The broader market narrowed its gain shortly before midday as the benchmark index tested, but failed to clear resistance near the 2150 price level. The move lower in the broader market lacked a specific catalyst, but appears to be associated with anxiety ahead of policy meetings from the Bank of Japan and Federal Reserve. However, it is widely believed that the Fed will hold steady at the September meeting. The fed funds futures market shows that the odds of a U.S. rate hike register at a mere 12.0%.

Market data today was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for September which rose to 65 from a revised 59 in August (from 60).

The broader market closed Monday lower as all three major US indices jogged into the red as the bell rang. Leading the losses, the Nasdaq Composite shed 9.54 points (-0.18%) to 5235.03. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3.63 points (-0.02%) to 18120.17, and the S&P 500 was lower by less than a point (-0.00%) to 2139.12. Pressuring the Nasdaq today, top Nasdaq 100 components KHC -2.2%, EXPE -1.6%, VRTX -1.6%, NFLX -1.4%, REGN -1.4% and SBUX -1.4% all finished the day firmly in the red.

Posting modest losses today, the Technology (XLK 47.12, -0.09 -0.19%) sector began in the green, yet the latter half of the day tailed off with only flashes of positive trading, never returning to opening gains. Component Red Hat (RHT 75.94, +2.14 +2.90%) was the best performer today in a down sector as the stock showed relative strength ahead of Wednesday's quarterly print. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLRE +1.03%, XLU +0.99%, XLF +0.68%, XLI +0.44%, XLFS +0.39%, XLB +0.15%, IYZ +0.06%, XLE -0.01%, XLY -0.08%, XLP -0.21%, XLV -0.36% with Healthcare lagging the rest.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (790.15, -1.90 -0.24%) sector, trading was back and forth but ultimately ended in the red as sellers pressured the sector to near lows of the day. Component PayPal (PYPL 40.01, -0.69 -1.70%) had a tough session on the back of a premarket downgraded to a Hold rating from Buy at Canaccord Genuity. Other names in the space which closed slightly lower today included WU -1.62%, SYMC -1.47%, INTC -1.35%, AAPL -1.17%, FSLR -1.15%, YHOO -1.10%, LRCX -0.87%, TSS -0.87%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Alphabet (GOOG 765.70, -3.18 -0.41%) announced the release of Google Trips, a travel planning app that some were suggesting will be competition for TripAdvisor (TRIP 60.00, -1.29 -2.10%).

Salesforce.com (CRM 73.00, -0.29 -0.40%) filed for a 354,473 share offering by selling stockholders.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 31.02, +0.18 +0.58%) disclosed two trusts related to Executive Chairman John Chambers adopted a pre-arranged stock trading plan.

Applied Materials (AMAT 30.30, +0.25 +0.83%) and the Institute of Microelectronics announced a five-year extension of their research collaboration at the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Packaging in Singapore.

Oracle (ORCL 39.23, +0.31 +0.80%) acquired Palerra. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Accenture (ACN 110.50, +0.62 +0.56%) and Oracle (ORCL) announced that infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings will now be available through the Accenture Oracle Business Group, adding to the already-existing software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) capabilities. The expansion of capabilities further positions Accenture as Oracle's largest global systems integrator (GSI) and a leader in Oracle Public Cloud.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Tech Data (TECD 84.80, +15.46 +22.30%) to acquire the Technology Solutions business from Avnet (AVT 41.89, +2.68 +6.83%) for $2.4 billion in cash and 2.785 million shares of Tech Data common stock, in a transaction valued at about $2.6 billion. Tech Data also expects to realize about $200 million in present value of tax benefits. The transaction is expected to be significantly accretive to TECD's non-GAAP EPS in the first year after closing. TECD expects to achieve annual cost savings of about $100 million within two years after closing, primarily from efficiencies related to technology platforms, as well as duplicative functions and corporate expenses.

Infoblox (BLOX 26.35, +3.52 +15.42%) to be acquired by private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners. Under the terms of the agreement, Infoblox stockholders will receive $26.50 per share of common stock in cash, which represents a 33% premium to Infoblox's average closing share price over the last 60 trading days, and a 73% premium to Infoblox's unaffected closing price as of May 11, 2016, when media reports of interest in acquiring Infoblox were first published. The transaction values Infoblox at about $1.6 billion. The agreement was unanimously approved by Infoblox's Board of Directors. The transaction is expected to close in Infoblox's fiscal second quarter, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

WebMD Health (WBMD 49.02, -2.95 -5.68%) announced that the Board of Directors has appointed Steven Zatz, M.D., its President, to serve as its CEO, effective immediately. WBMD also announced an increase in the amount available under WebMD's existing stock repurchase program to $50 million, an increase of about $35 million over the amount remaining from prior authorizations.

Tessera Tech (TSRA 33.48, +0.04 +0.12%) entered into a settlement agreement with St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company.

Science Applications (SAIC 67.85, +1.00 +1.50%) was awarded an estimated $700 million fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment, indefinite-quantity contract for chemicals, packaged petroleum, oils and lubricants.

TerraForm Power (TERP 13.45, +0.40 +3.07%) and TerraForm Global (GLBL 3.76, +0.36 +10.59%) reported preliminary Q2 results and later announced the exploration into strategic alternatives.

MGT Capital Investments (MGT 2.52, -0.74 -22.70%) received a subpoena from the SEC requesting certain information from the company.

Zebra Tech (ZBRA 68.77, +1.51 +2.25%) appointed Tom Bianculli to its newly created Chief Technology Officer position to advance its leadership in the growing market of Enterprise Asset Intelligence (EAI).

Exar (EXAR 9.11, +0.12 +1.33%) appointed Gary Meyers as Chairman effective immediately.

Bitauto Holdings (BITA 26.52, +0.88 +3.43%) appointed Cynthia He as CFO effective immediately.

Analyst actions:

BKFS was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Keefe Bruyette;
PYPL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
WU was downgraded to Negative from Neutral at Susquehanna,
ANET was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at MKM Partners,
CALD was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Dougherty & Company,
BLOX was downgraded to Neutral at Piper Jaffray, to Market Perform at William Blair, and to Mkt Perform at JMP Securities

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:21 pm Floor Talk: A Sigh of Rate-Hike Relief (:TALKX) : The Federal Reserve might still raise the target range for the fed funds rate before the year is done, but it didn't do that today and the market breathed a sigh of relief over it.

That may sound strange given the understanding ahead of time that the fed funds futures market placed only a 15% probability on a rate hike at today's meeting; nonetheless, there was still some tension in the market pertaining to the possibility of the Fed springing a rate-hike surprise on the market.

That didn't occur and a non-rate hike rally ensued with intermarket dynamics suggesting as much:

Stock marketEvery sector ended the day higher, with the utilities sector (+2.1%) leading the way and the financials sector (+0.7%), which stands to benefit from a rate hike and a steeper yield curve, trailing the action.Bond marketThe yield on the 2-yr note, which hit 0.80% just before the Fed announcement, traded back down to 0.77%. The yield on the 10-yr note, which stood at 1.68% just before the Fed announcement, traded back down to 1.66% in a curve-flattening tradeCurrency marketThe U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.5% to 95.50. It stood at 95.85 just before the Fed announcement, but a pop in the euro after the decision reined it back in. That pop was presumably driven an unwinding of some policy divergence trades as the Fed was perceived to be less hawkish than feared
Commodity market

Riding the strength of oil (+2.9% to $45.34/bbl) and bolstered by the weaker dollar, commodity indexes pushed higher

The CBOE Volatility IndexThe index hit an intraday peak of 15.65 shortly before 1:00 p.m. ET, but cratered to 13.18 by the time the stock market closedTomorrow is a new day and new attitudes could prevail, yet the action in the capital markets on Wednesday after the Fed decision revolved around an understanding that the fed funds rate is going to remain unchanged for the time being.

4:20 pm Red Hat beats by $0.01, beats on revs and billings; guides Q3 and FY17 EPS and revs above consensus (RHT) :

Reports Q2 (Aug) earnings of $0.55 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 19.0% year/year to $599.8 mln vs the $589.97 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Billings were approximately $573 mln vs. expectations for around $558 mln.Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.58 vs. $0.57 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $613-623 mln vs. $611.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues upside guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $2.23-2.25 vs. $2.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $2.415-2.535 bln vs. $2.4 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."We continued to close a record number of deals over $1 million in our second quarter, which are up more than 60% year over year. This further demonstrates our customers' commitment to Red Hat and the broad demand for our expanding technology portfolio as enterprises embrace digital transformation and the hybrid cloud."

4:06 pm Jabil Circuit beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line; discloses restructuring plan (JBL) :

Reports Q4 (Aug) earnings of $0.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.25; revenues fell 6.0% year/year to $4.4 bln vs the $4.26 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.54-0.74 vs. $0.61 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of 4.8-5.8 bln vs. $4.88 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"In fiscal 2017, we'll continue to deliver upon our recently communicated capital return framework, ensure our global operations are efficiently managed to support our customers and continue to aggressively grow key areas of our business," added Mondello.

In addition, Jabil announced its intention to realign the Company's global capacity and administrative support infrastructure in order to optimize organizational effectiveness in a more moderate growth environment. The company estimates that the realignment shall result in approximately $195 million in total charges over a two year period. It is currently estimated that $120 million to $150 million will be recorded in fiscal year 2017 and the balance during fiscal year 2018. Jabil estimates that the cash component of these actions is $50 million of which $25 million will be incurred in fiscal year 2017.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the midweek affair broadly higher as participants responded to the latest policy statements from the Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan. The S&P 500 (+1.1%) finished slightly ahead of the Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%).

The broader market began the day on a higher note as a leg higher in crude oil and an accommodative policy decision from the Bank of Japan boosted risk appetite. The central banked opted to maintain its key policy rate (-0.10%) while shifting away from a monetary base target. Instead the central bank will establish interest rate controls designed to steepen the yield curve through quantitative and qualitative easing flows. The foreign exchange market appeared disappointed with the plan as the yen strengthened throughout the session. The dollar/yen pair finished lower by 1.2% (100.52).

Equity indices extended their gains in the opening hour as participants pored over weekly inventory data from the Department of Energy. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles declined by 6.20 million barrels (consensus: +3.35 million) while gasoline stockpiles fell by 3.20 million barrels (consensus: -0.57 million). The benchmark index gained lockstep with crude oil, but was unable to clear technical resistance near the 2150/2153 price level. The broader market retraced the bulk of its opening gain by midday. The energy component settled higher by 2.6% ($45.22/bbl; +$1.17).

The major averages recovered in the final hour of trade, notching new session highs as participants mulled over the latest policy statement from the FOMC and commentary from Fed Chair Janet Yellen. The FOMC opted to leave the target range for the fed funds rate unchanged at 0.25% to 0.50%. However, three committee members dissented, indicating that they supported an interest rate hike at the September meeting. Additionally, the committee lowered rate hike expectations going forward, estimating one rate hike in 2016, two to three in 2017, and three in 2018.

The benchmark index finished near its best level of the day, climbing above technical resistance near the 2160 price level. All eleven sectors ended in the green with telecom services (+1.3%), materials (+1.5%), utilities (+2.1%), and energy (+2.1%) leading the advance.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.8%) finished ahead of the broader market as FedEx (FDX 173.86, +11.21) led the index. The stock jumped 6.9% after reporting a top- and bottom-line beat and increasing its full-year earnings outlook. On the flipside, airline names rounded out the group after American Airlines (AAL 34.67, -0.48) was downgraded to "Market Perform" from "Outperform" at Raymond James. The broader U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 22.38, +0.02) inched higher by 0.1%.

In the influential technology sector (+1.1%), the high-beta chipmakers outperformed, evidenced by the 1.4% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Meanwhile, Adobe Systems (ADBE 107.78, +7.16) notched a new all-time high (108.22) after beating top- and bottom-line estimates for the quarter and issuing above-consensus fourth-quarter guidance. Conversely, top-weighted Apple (AAPL 113.55, -0.02) finished behind the broader sector.

Health care providers outperformed in the health care sector (+1.0%) as Anthem (ANTM 128.59, +2.83) rallied 2.3%. The stock rebounded after being removed from the US 1 List at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch in the prior session. Separately, biotechnology extended its recent winning streak as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 297.53, +1.83) advanced 0.6%. This follows yesterday's 1.4% gain.

The financial space (+0.7%) finished behind the broader market as participants continued to adjust rate hike expectations for the year. The fed funds futures market indicates that the implied probability of a rate hike at the November meeting has declined to 14.5% (from 22.0%) while the probability of a rate hike at the December meeting rose to 63.4% (from 59.2%). In the group, Wells Fargo (WFC 45.83, -0.73) fell 1.6% after being downgraded to "Neutral" from "Overweight" at JP Morgan.

Treasuries ended on a mixed note with the long end of the curve outperforming. The yield on the 2-yr note finished flat (0.77%) while the yield on the 10-yr note declined four basis points (1.65%).

Today's participation was roughly in-line with the recent average as more than 873 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications declined 7.3% in the week ending September 17. This followed a 4.2% gain in the prior week.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 262k) and the FHFA Housing Price Index for July, which will cross the wires at 8:30 ET and 9:00 ET, respectively. Separately, Existing Home Sales for August (Briefing.com consensus 5.50 million) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +9.6% YTD
S&P 500: +5.8% YTD
Nasdaq: +5.8% YTD
Dow Jones +5.0% YTD

DJ30 +163.74 NASDAQ +53.83 SP500 +23.36 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2063/1.836 bln/792 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2600/873.7 mln/416

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was -0.4% around the 95.64 level after the FOMC announced the FFR will be unchanged as expected, aided commodities
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.7% around the 84.91 level
Crude oil extended yesterday's rally, broke above & closed over the $45.00/barrel resistance zone post-EIA
November crude oil futures rose $1.26 (+2.9%) to $45.34/barrel
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Algiers, Algeria from Sept 26-28
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil include:
Last night's API data showed API data showed a surprise draw of -7.5 mln barrels of oil for the week ended Sept 16, compared to last week's build of +1.438 mln barrels.
Oil service worker strike in Oslo, Norway potentially threatening production.
Yesterday's statements from Russia's OPEC envoy discussing they are willing to cooperate on a potential 1-year deal to stabilize oil prices.
EIA inventory data showed surprise draws for both crude oil & gasoline inventories, crude oil inventories showed a draw of -6.20 mln (consensus called for a build of about +3.35 mln barrels) & gasoline inventories showed a draw of -3.20 mln (consensus called for a draw of about -0.57 mln barrels).
A weakening dollar after the FOMC announcement, -0.4% around the 95.64
Natural gas futures closed at 1.5-year highs for the second consecutive session ahead of tomorrow's inventory number
October natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.3%) at $3.06/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
Contributing factors affecting the price of natural gas include:
Yesterday, EVA released its Aug coal stockpile report showing a decline of utility stocks by over 9 mln to 164 mln tons on continued strong summer coal burn of 75 mln tons vs shipments of 66 mln tons. The Aug drawdown was above the historical five-year avg stockpile decline of over 5 mln tons
Coal stocks showing notable gains include: ADES, +1.3%; ARLP, +3%; BHP, +3%; CNX, +5%; HW, +1%; CLD, +20%; TCK, +2%; YZC, +1%
In precious metals, gold's gains were outpaced by silver as the dollar collapsed after the FOMC announced the Fed Funds Rate will be unchanged
December gold ended today's session up $13.50 (+1.0%) to $1331.50/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.49 higher (+2.5%) at $19.76/oz
Base metal copper inched lower in afternoon pit trading
December copper closed $0.01 lower (-0.5%) at $2.15/lb

Equity indices began the day on a higher note as an accommodative policy statement from the Bank of Japan stoked risk appetite. The central bank voted to maintain its key lending rate (-0.10%), but also announced changes to its monetary policy framework. The central bank will shift away from its monetary base target, moving toward interest rate controls. The policy includes plans to keep the yield on Japan's 10-yr note near 0.00%, which should result in some steepening in the yield curve. The Bank of Japan also indicated that it is committed to maintaining easing measures until inflation is above the target rate, in a sustainable fashion. However, the response in the currency market was the opposite of what the Bank of Japan hoped to see.

An upswing in crude oil futures also contributed to early strength. The energy component was bid overnight as investors responded to a better-than-expected reading of the American Petroleum Institute's weekly inventory report. Oil extended its winning streak after the Department of Energy confirmed the bullish reading with its more influential inventory report. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles fell by 6.20 million barrels while gasoline inventories declined by 3.20 million barrels. The session ended with November crude oil futures up $1.26 (+2.9%) to $45.34/barrel.

The lone piece of market data today came in the form of the MBA Mortgage Index which indicated that mortgage applications declined 7.3% in the week ending September 17. This followed a 4.2% gain in the prior week.

Stocks ended Wednesday near highs as the Federal Reserve policy statement launched stocks, and action never looked back. Leading the way higher today, the S&P 500 added 23.36 points (+1.09%) to 2163.12. The Nasdaq Composite closed at a new all-time high today, ultimately higher by 53.83 points (+1.03%) to 5295.18, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 163.74 points (+0.90%) to 18293.70.

Following the Fed, Technology (XLK 47.62, +0.53 +1.13%) surged to highs as modest gains were turned into a +1% session. Component Adobe Systems (ADBE 107.78, +7.16 +7.12%) was the best performer today in the sector on the back of the company's better than expected Q3 report. All 11 S&P sectors closed higher today, landing with XLE +2.36%, XLU +2.03%, XLB +1.52%, XLI +1.30%, XLRE +1.15%, XLV +1.00%, XLY +0.97%, XLF +0.67%, IYZ +0.66%, XLFS +0.59%, XLP +0.55% higher at the bell.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (798.65, +8.64 +1.09%) sector, trading surged higher with the broader market and closed at highs. Component Apple (AAPL 113.55, -0.02 -0.02%) was the lone underperformer among sector components today following unconfirmed chatter than the company might purchase McLaren Technology Group and LIT Motors. Other names in the space which outperformed today included JNPR +5.26%, MU +4.37%, ADSK +4.22%, CSRA +3.78%, STX +3.26%, YHOO +3.15%, WDC +3.14%, HPQ +3.09%, NVDA +2.81%, GPN +2.55%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Microsoft (MSFT 57.76, +0.95 +1.67%) announced a $40 billion share buyback and increased its dividend to $0.39 from $0.36 per share.

Intuit (INTU 110.78, +1.81 +1.66%) reaffirmed guidance for Q1 (Oct), sees EPS of $0.01-0.03 on revenues of $740-760 million. Further, INTU sees QuickBooks Online subscribers of about 1.6 million in the period. The company also reaffirmed guidance for FY17 (Jul) with expectations for EPS of $4.30-4.40 on revenues of $5.0-5.1 billion. The company also sees QuickBooks Online subscribers of 2.0 million to 2.2 million for the period.

CA Tech (CA 32.72, +0.40 +1.24%) to acquire BlazeMeter. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Samsung (SSNLF 1250, flat) announced that over 500,000 new Galaxy Note7 replacement devices have arrived in the U.S. and have been shipped to carrier and retail stores.

IBM (IBM 115.53, +1.08 +0.70%) announced the opening of a new cloud data center in Fetsund, 30 km outside Oslo, Norway, the industry's first cloud data center in the region.
According to an FT article, Apple (AAPL) might acquire McLaren Technology Group. Also, the NY Times later suggested AAPL might also buy LIT Motors.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Commscope (COMM 30.64, -0.19 -0.62%) announced the sale of 10 million shares of common stock by affiliate of The Carlyle Group (CG 15.65, +0.13 +0.84%).

Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 30.89, +0.55 +1.81%) was awarded a five-year time and materials task order with a maximum ceiling value of $268,000,000 if all options are exercised.

Inteliquent (IQNT 15.79, +0.45 +2.93%) appointed Eric Carlson as interim Principal Financial Officer and interim Principal Accounting Officer effective Sept 24. The company stated it is in the process of identifying a candidate to serve as CFO.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Adobe Systems (ADBE) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.75 and $1.46 billion, respectively. For Q4, the company sees EPS of $0.83-0.89 on revenues of $1.55-1.60 billion. This raises FY16 EPS expectations to $2.94-3.00 from $2.80, and revenue expectations to $5.80-5.85 billion from $5.8 billion.

Airgain (AIRG 16.05, -0.07 -0.43%) reported Q2 EPS of $0.15 on revenues of $9.86 million.

Stocks slated to report quarterly results tonight: JBL, RHT

Analyst actions:

JBL was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS,
NTES was upgraded to Buy at Daiwa;
DTSI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Dougherty & Company, and to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
WIX was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
FICO was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays,
AIRG was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich;
SPLK was initiated with a Neutral at Mizuho

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a higher note as participants continued to mull over yesterday's policy decision and guidance from the Federal Reserve. The broader market maintained its risk-on posture for a second session as the Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) finished ahead of both the S&P 500 (+0.7%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%). The Federal Reserve sparked a risk rally in global markets after voting to leave the target range of the fed funds rate unchanged (0.25% to 0.50%) at yesterday's policy meeting. Investors shook off persisting concerns regarding a potential September rate hike and also adjusted their rate hike expectations for the years ahead. The FOMC lowered its median projections for the fed funds rate to 0.6% for 2016, 1.1% for 2017, and 1.9% for 2018.

It is also worth noting that the committee reported that the case tightening has strengthened in recent months as three members supported a hike at yesterday's meeting. This leaves the door open for a potential rate hike before the end of the year. The implied probability of a rate hike at the December meeting registers at 58.4% after beginning the week at 55.0%.

The benchmark index notched a session high in the opening hour of trade, testing but failing to clear technical resistance near the 2180 price level. The broader market pulled back shortly thereafter as market leadership shifted away from commodity-sensitive energy (+0.2%) and materials (+0.3%) and towards defensively-oriented consumer staples (+0.9%), telecom services (+1.1%), and real estate (+1.9%). This also corresponded with a slight recovery in the U.S. Dollar Index (95.41, -0.25, -0.27%). Dollar-denominated commodities finished mostly higher with WTI crude ending up 2.2% ($46.33/bbl; +$0.99) on the day.

The broader market finished in the upper end of today's trading range as all eleven sectors settled in the green. The heavily-weighted industrial (+0.8%), consumer discretionary (+0.8%), and health care (+0.8%) sectors finished behind consumer staples (+0.9%), telecom services (+1.1%), and real estate (+1.9%). On the flipside, the financial sector (+0.3%) rounded out the leaderboard.

The consumer discretionary space (+0.8%) finished ahead of the broader market as heavily-weighted Amazon (AMZN 804.70, +14.96) displayed relative strength. The name jumped 1.9% after being upgraded to "Buy" from "Hold" at Argus. Meanwhile, Carnival (CCL 46.84, +1.02) and Royal Caribbean (RCL 70.99, +3.13) outperformed after the European Commission proposed a Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement with Cuba. Recall that Carnival opened new routes to Cuba earlier in the year.

In the health care space (+0.8%), Mylan Labs (MYL 42.59, +0.68) rallied 1.6% after CEO Heather Bresch testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday. Ms. Bresch addressed the ongoing controversy regarding Mylan's EpiPen pricing. Mylan has gained 0.5% in September after falling 9.5% in the prior month. The broader iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 300.08, +2.55) finished slightly ahead of the health care sector, ticking higher by 0.9%.

The financial sector (+0.3%) underperformed as investors eyed a downturn in long term Treasury yields and diminished rate hike expectations. Wells Fargo (WFC 45.72, -0.11) declined 0.2% after a group of U.S. Senators asked the Labor Department to investigate the bank. Wells Fargo has lost 10.0% in September amid ongoing concerns over prior sales practices. Conversely, the real estate sector (+1.9%) outperforms as rate-sensitive real estate investment trusts have displayed relative strength so far this month.

Treasuries ended on a mixed note with the long end of the curve outperforming. The yield on the 2-yr note finished flat (0.77%) while the yield on the 10-yr note declined three basis points (1.62%).

Today's participation was roughly in-line with the recent average as more than 833 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims, the FHFA Housing Price Index for July, Existing Home Sales for August, and Leading Indicators for August:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending September 17 decreased by 8,000 to 252,000 (Briefing.com consensus 262,000).
Continuing claims for the week ending September 10 decreased by 36,000 to 2.113 million.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for July rose 0.5%, which followed an increase of 0.2% in June.
Existing home sales decreased 0.9% month-over-month in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.33 million (Briefing.com consensus 5.50 million), up 0.8% from last year.
Existing home sales in July were revised down to 5.38 million from 5.39 million.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index declined 0.2% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) on the back of an upwardly revised 0.5% increase (from 0.4%) for July.
This was the second time over the last four months that the index has been negative.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

There is no economic data scheduled to be released tomorrow.

Russell 2000: +11.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +6.6% YTD
S&P 500: +6.5% YTD
Dow Jones: +5.6% YTD

4:04 pm Novatel Wireless to sell mobile broadband business for $50 mln in cash to T.C.L. Industries Holdings, to restructure into public holding company (shares halted; will resume 4:30 p.m. ET) (MIFI) :

Co entered into an agreement with T.C.L. Industries Holdings, a Hong Kong company, whereby MIFI will sell to TCL its mobile broadband business for a cash payment of $50 mln payable at closing. The closing of the transaction is subject to the receipt of various regulatory authority approvals, as well as the approval of MIFI's stockholders and convertible noteholders. The closing of the transaction is expected to occur in the first quarter of 2017.

MIFI then intends to undertake a holding company restructuring, which will result in Newco, a newly-formed wholly-owned subsidiary of MIFI, owning all of the capital stock of MIFI. Pursuant to the proposed

Restructuring, a newly-formed, direct, wholly-owned subsidiary of Newco and an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of MIFI will be merged with and into MIFI, with MIFI surviving as a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of Newco. Each share of the common stock of MIFI issued and outstanding immediately prior to the merger of MIFI with Merger Sub will automatically convert into an equivalent corresponding share of the common stock of Newco, having the same designations, rights, privileges, qualifications and limitations as the corresponding share of MIFI common stock being converted. Accordingly, upon consummation of the

Restructuring, MIFI's current stockholders will become stockholders of Newco, and the current directors and senior executive management team of MIFI will be the directors and senior executive management team of
Newco.

Shares are slated to resume at 4:30 p.m. ET

Techstocks: Equities began the day on a higher note as global markets reveled in diminished fed funds rate hike expectations. The Federal Reserve voted 7-3 to maintain the target range of the fed funds rate (0.25%-0.50%) while also lowering rate hike expectations for the years ahead. However, the three dissenting members of the committee signaled that there still remains a chance for a rate hike before the end of the year. The implied probability of a rate hike at the December meeting registers at 63.4% after beginning the week at 55.0%.

Market data today included initial jobless claims, which for the week ending September 17 decreased by 8,000 to 252,000. Also, the FHFA Housing Price Index for July rose 0.5%, which followed an increase of 0.2% in June. Existing home sales were down 0.9% month-over-month in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.33 million, up 0.8% from last year. Lastly, the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index declined 0.2% in August on the back of an upwardly revised 0.5% increase (from 0.4%) for July.

Stocks extended their Fed Statement rally today, ending with decent gains all around. Leading the rally today, the Nasdaq Composite added 44.34 points (+0.84%) to 5339.52. The S&P 500 was up 14.06 points (+0.65%) to 2177.18, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by 98.76 (+0.54%) to 18392.46.

All 11 S&P sectors were in the green today with Technology (XLK 47.91, +0.29 +0.61%) ending somewhere in the middle of the pack as a subsector of tech, Telecom (IYZ) was the best performer. Component Red Hat (RHT 80.02, +2.98 +3.87%) was one of the better performing names today as the company's Q2 report beat market expectations on the top and bottom lines. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session IYZ +1.97%, XLRE +1.97%, XLP +0.88%, XLV +0.76%, XLY +0.73%, XLI +0.71%, XLU +0.61%, XLB +0.32%, XLFS +0.29%, XLF +0.21%, XLE +0.12%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (803.07, +4.42 +0.55%) sector, trading was higher for most of the day, ending just off highs of the session. Component Alphabet (GOOG) held onto some decent gains on no particular catalyst, as the broader sector surged on the back of the broader market. Other names in the space which outperformed today included FSLR +4.08%, ACN +1.75%, FFIV +1.60%, CTSH +1.42%, APH +1.20%, PAYX +1.16%, ADS +1.13%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Cisco (CSCO 31.66, +0.30 +0.96%) and Salesforce (CRM 74.59, +0.41 +0.55%) announced a strategic alliance to enable business users to be more productive than ever before. The two companies will jointly develop and market solutions that join Cisco's collaboration, IoT and contact center platforms with Salesforce Sales Cloud, IoT Cloud and Service Cloud.

Accenture (ACN 113.66, +1.96 +1.75%) entered into an agreement to acquire Kurt Salmon. The acquisition will expand Accenture Strategy's capabilities in delivering end-to-end strategy consulting services to top retailers and private equity firms in a world disrupted by digital.
According to Reuters, Facebook's (FB 130.08, +0.14 +0.11%) Instagram has an advertising base of more than 500,000 in seven months.

Neustar (NSR 27.47, +0.76 +2.85%) announced a new advanced marketing analytics partnership with Facebook.

According to TechCrunch, Apple (AAPL 114.62, +1.07 +0.94%) acquired Tuplejump, a 'machine learning company.'

Oracle (ORCL 39.51, flat) announced the US District Court granted the company a permanent injunction against continued copyright infringement by Rimini Street.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Jabil Circuit (JBL 22.40, -1.33 -5.60%) announced a restructuring plan which would result in about $195 million in total charges over a two-year period. It is currently estimated that $120 million to $150 million will be recorded in fiscal year 2017 and the balance during fiscal year 2018. Jabil estimates that the cash component of these actions is $50 million of which $25 million will be incurred in fiscal year 2017.

Hutchinson Tech. (HTCH 3.97, +2.48 +166.44%) announced that the FTC granted early termination under the HSR Act for the pending acquisition by TDK Corporation. The merger was expected to close no later than October 5.

Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI 61.51, +1.69 +2.83%) and AT&T (T 41.11, +0.54 +1.33%) reached a multi-year, multi-platform agreement for continued distribution of SNI channels both live and on-demand for DIRECTV and AT&T U-verse customers. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Inovalon (INOV 15.58, -0.12 -0.76%) to acquire Creehan & Company for about $105 million plus additional contingent payments of up to $25 million.

Interdigital Comm (IDCC 79.61, +1.88 +2.42%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.30 per share from $0.20 per share.

Starz (STRZA 31.69, +0.11 +0.35%) agreed in principle to multi-year extensions of its affiliation agreements with both DIRECTV and AT&T Services (T), subject to the entry into definitive agreements with each of

DIRECTV and AT&T. In addition, in connection with and as a condition to these extensions, Lions Gate Entertainment (LGF 20.99, +0.02 +0.10%) has agreed in principle to issue to AT&T three $16.67 million annual installments of equity following the completion of the proposed merger between Starz and Lions Gate, subject to the entry into a definitive agreement with AT&T. Starz has been advised that Lions Gate is expected to treat the annual issuance or payment as a reduction of Starz Networks' revenue. Starz has further been advised that Lions Gate signed a new multi-year agreement covering transactional video-on-demand, pay-per-view and electronic-sell-through with DIRECTV and AT&T simultaneously with the entrance into the agreement in principle described above.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Red Hat (RHT) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.55 on better than expected revenues of $599.8 million; billings were about $573 million. For Q3, RHT guided EPS of $0.58 on revenues of $613-623 million. For the FY17 period, the company sees EPS of $2.23-2.25 on revenues of $2.415-2.535 billion.

Jabil Circuit (JBL) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.28 on better than expected revenues of $4.4 billion. The company also guided for Q1 EPS of $0.54-0.74 on revenues of $4.8-5.8 billion.

Analyst actions:

ON was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley,
AMZN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Argus;
CBS was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Telsey Advisory Group,
SYNT was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Barrington Research,
JBL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham and to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research;
NLST was initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co., IL was initiated with a Mkt Perform at JMP Securities, FORM was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages began the week on a lower note as a downturn in the heavily-weighted financial sector (-1.5%) pressured the broader market. Participants also looked to move to the sidelines ahead of an oil producers meeting and the first U.S. presidential debate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.9%) finished in-line with both the Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) and the S&P 500 (-0.9%).

The major averages began the day under pressure as European indices led to the downside. Deutsche Bank (DB 11.85, -0.90) weighed on financial names after German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that the bank would not be eligible for state aid in the event of a capital shortfall. Recall that the bank has been under pressure after the U.S. Department of Justice asked Deutsche Bank to settle its mortgage-backed securities probe for $14 billion. The stock tumbled 7.1% and ended at a fresh all-time low.

Participants favored a risk-off stance throughout the session, bidding Treasuries, gold, and safe-haven currencies. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.49, +2.20) jumped more than two points as investors sought some portfolio insurance ahead of some key macro events. On that note, oil producers arrived in Algiers, Algeria today to kick off the International Energy Forum. The meeting is in focus as participants look for potential supply control measures from OPEC and non-OPEC members. The forum will run through September 28. WTI crude settled higher by 3.0% ($45.85/bbl; +$1.32).

The benchmark index notched a session low in the final hour of trade. Ten sectors ended in the red with consumer discretionary (-1.1%), health care (-1.2%), and financials (-1.5%) acting as the largest laggards. Conversely, defensively-oriented real estate (+0.2%) finished with the only gain.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (-1.5%) rounded out the leaderboard as the group moved lower in sympathy with European banking names. The space was also under pressure amid some flattening in the yield curve and the proposal of some stricter capital requirements for global systemically important banks. JPMorgan Chase (JPM 65.78, -1.47), Citigroup (C 45.89, -1.26), and Bank of America (BAC 15.09, -0.43) fell between 2.2% and 2.8%. The broader sector extended its 2016 loss to 1.5%, trailing the remaining sectors.

In the health care sector (-1.2%), Dow component Pfizer (PFE 33.64, -0.62) declined by 1.8% after announcing that it will not separate its Innovative Health & Essential Health divisions. Mylan Labs (MYL 41.18, -0.88) ended lower by 2.1% after reports indicated that there may be discrepancies between EpiPen profit data and previous information provided to Congress on the profitability of the device. The group also saw some selling interest ahead of this evening's debate.

Apparel name Nike (NKE 54.40, -0.75) weighed on the consumer discretionary space (-1.1%) after being removed from JP Morgan's Focus List. Meanwhile, Dow component Disney (DIS 91.96, -1.31) fell by 1.4% after headlines indicated that the company is debating making an offer to acquire Twitter (TWTR 23.37, +0.75).

The PHLX Semiconductor Index (-1.0%) finished behind the broader technology sector (-0.7%) as iPhone suppliers underperformed. Cirrus Logic (CRUS 51.32, -1.07) and Skyworks (SWKS 72.82, -1.95) finished lower by 2.0% and 2.6%, respectively.

Treasuries ended on a higher note with the long end of the curve outperforming. The yield on the 2-yr note finished lower by three basis points (0.73%) while the yield on the 10-yr note finished lower by four basis points (1.58%).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 775 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the New Home Sales Report for August:

New home sales declined 7.6% month-over-month in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 609,000 (Briefing.com consensus 585,000), but remained 20.6% higher than the estimate for the same period a year ago.
The annual sales pace in August was the highest since January 2008.

For more on this economic release, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for July (Briefing.com consensus 5.1%) and Consumer Confidence for September (Briefing.com consensus 98.0), which will be released at 9:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000: +9.3% YTD
S&P 500: +5.0% YTD
Nasdaq: +5.0% YTD
Dow Jones +3.8% YTD

DJ30 -166.62 NASDAQ -48.26 SP500 -18.59 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 689/1.544 bln/2191 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 854/774.7 mln/2169

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was -0.2% around the 95.28 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, +0.6% around the 84.86 level
Crude oil erased the majority of Friday's post-rig count decline as the International Energy Forum is underway, where the informal OPEC meeting is expected to be held on the sidelines this Wed
November crude oil futures rose $1.32 (+3.0%) to $45.85/barrel
The informal OPEC meeting is scheduled to take place this Wed on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Algiers, Algeria, the Forum itself is taking place from Sept 26-28
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell
Weekly EIA data will be released Wed at 10:30 am ET
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Natural gas closed near 1.5 year highs, erasing all of Friday's losses ahead of Thursday's EIA data
November natural gas closed $0.04 higher (+1.3%) at $3.06/MMBtu
EIA weekly natural gas data will be released this Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold inched higher as silver dropped, increasing the gold:silver ratio as the dollar traded nearly flat
December gold ended today's session up $2.30 (+0.2%) to $1344.20/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.23 lower (-1.2%) at $19.59/oz
The gold:silver ratio is at ~68.6, at close of pit trading on Friday the ratio was at ~67.7

Today's session began on a lower note as equities moved lower lockstep with global bourses. Japan's Nikkei (-1.3%) underperformed overnight amid continued strengthening in the yen. The move higher in the safe-haven currency came on the heels of last week's policy decisions from the Bank of Japan and recent accommodative remarks from BoJ Governor Kuroda. Separately, a downturn in Deutsche Bank (DB 11.85, -0.90 -7.06%) pressured European banking names. The stock underperforms after German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the bank would not receive a bailout if it faced capital concerns.

The broader market extended its loss after the first hour of trade. There was a higher expectation for volatility in today's action as participants look to developments in Algiers, Algeria and keep an eye on the potential impact of this evening's U.S. presidential debate. Oil producers are meeting on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum to discuss a possible output deal, but expectations for a deal remain in flux. At the end of the day, November crude oil futures were up by $1.32 (+3.0%) to $45.85/barrel.

The lone piece of economic data today was the new home sales reading, which showed a 7.6% decline month-over-month in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 609,000, but remained 20.6% higher than the estimate for the same period a year ago.

Trading capped off Monday lower as the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed triple digits for the second session in a row, losing 166.62 points (-0.91%) today to 18094.83. The Nasdaq Composite lost 48.26 points (-0.91%) today to end 5257.49, and the S&P 500 was down 18.59 points (-0.86%) to 2146.10. .

Technology (XLK 47.21, -0.28 -0.59%) as a whole ended lower, but was not the worst performing sector in the S&P. Components Seagate Tech (STX 37.20, +0.74 +2.03%) and Western Digital (WDC 57.01, +1.08 +1.93%) resisted the broader selling, however, as favorable commentary out of Cleveland Research propped the two up. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLF -1.65%, XLFS -1.60%, IYZ -1.31%, XLV -1.16%, XLY -1.10%, XLP -0.84%, XLE -0.53%, XLI -0.50%, XLB -0.47%, XLU -0.26%, XLRE +0.21%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (790.18, -5.17 -0.65%) sector, trading ended modestly off lows, albeit still in a losing effort. Component Alliance Data (ADS 211.44, -5.55 -2.56%) was among the worst performers in the space today following a premarket downgrade to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest. Other names in the space which under-performed today included GOOG -1.61%, QRVO -1.60%, GOOGL -1.51%, ADI -1.50%, INTC -1.45%, CSRA -1.36%, NTAP -1.35%, EBAY -1.25%, YHOO -1.19%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
According to reports, Disney (DIS 91.96, -1.31 -1.40%) is working with an adviser to pursue a potential bid for Twitter (TWTR 23.37, +0.75 +3.32%). In later trade, Microsoft (MSFT 56.90, -0.53 -0.92%) was floated as a potential acquirer of TWTR.

LogMeIn (LOGM 89.80, +0.09 +0.10%) announced the early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act (HSR Act) for its proposed merger with Citrix Systems' (CTXS 84.56, -0.35 -0.41%) GetGo subsidiary, a wholly owned subsidiary consisting of Citrix's GoTo family of products.

Adobe (ADBE 107.26, -0.21 -0.20%) and Microsoft (MSFT) announced plans for a strategic partnership to help enterprise companies embrace digital transformation and deliver compelling, personalized experiences through every phase of their customer relationships.

Accenture (ACN 113.73, +0.64 +0.57%) has entered into an agreement to acquire DayNine. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Accenture (ACN) and Brandtone announced a next generation trade promotion solution to help consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies have access to enhanced visibility, management and control of their promotional campaigns as they seek to capitalize on the significant growth in Asia Pacific.

Elsewhere in the tech sector:

CBOE Holdings (CBOE 66.59, -3.71 -5.28%) and Bats Global (BATS 30.35, -1.45 -4.56%) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement, which has been approved by the Board of Directors of each company by unanimous votes of the members of the boards present, under which CBOE Holdings has agreed to acquire Bats in a cash and stock transaction valued at about $32.50 per Bats share, or a total of about $3.2 billion, consisting of 31% cash and 69% CBOE Holdings stock, based on CBOE Holdings' closing stock price of $70.30 per share on September 23, 2016. The transaction is expected to be accretive to CBOE's adjusted EPS in the first year following the completion of the transaction and deliver attractive returns on invested capital.

Ericsson (ERIC 6.90, -0.03 -0.43%) and Liberty Global (LBTYA 33.25, -1.18 -3.43%) confirmed a new two-year deal between VTR in Chile and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico, both part of LiLAC Group (LILA 28.05, -0.19 -0.67%). Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Actua (ACTA 12.20, +1.93 +18.79%) entered into an agreement with an investor group led by Vista Equity Partners under which it will sell GovDelivery for $153 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments, including working capital, cash, debt and other items.

Pandora (P 13.99, -0.10 -0.71%) announced that Nick Bartle will join P as Chief Marketing Officer, effective October 3, 2016.

ON Semiconductor (ON 11.61, -0.10 -0.85%) approved the implementation of a cost-reduction plan, which is expected to result in a charge of about $21 -24 million.

TerraForm Global (GLBL 4.16, -0.04 -0.95%) and TerraForm Power (TERP 13.73, -0.75 -5.18%) made information available concerning claims against SunEdison (SUNEQ 0.05, -0.00 -2.31%). TerraForm Global previously announced that it would have to file its proofs of claim in the SunEdison bankruptcy and that it intended to begin settlement discussions to resolve claims consensually, in part to facilitate the exploration of strategic alternatives for TerraForm Global.

Analyst actions:

T was upgraded to Hold from Reduce at HSBC,
DBD was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
ERIC was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse,
NTAP was upgraded to Buy at Cross Research,
ACN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Societe Generale,
IBM was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Societe Generale;
NTAP was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank,
BATS was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Keefe Bruyette,
IDCC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
ADS was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
TWTR was downgraded to Underperform from Perform at Oppenheimer, and to Reduce from Buy at Standpoint Research,
APPS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital,
IMPV and HIMX were downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura;
CYBR was initiated with a Market Perform at Cowen,
ETFC and AMTD were initiated with Equal Weight ratings at Morgan Stanley,
BOX and TLND were initiated with Buy ratings at Rosenblatt,
CTSH was initiated with a Buy at Societe Generale

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a higher note as a reversal in the economically-sensitive financial (+0.9%) sector fostered a rebound in the broader market. Other factors impacting today's trade included regrouping after last evening's U.S. presidential debate and strong sector leadership from heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (+1.0%) and technology (+1.2%). The Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) led the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) and the S&P 500 (+0.6%).

Equity indices rose at the start of the session as investors eyed a rebound in the financial space (+0.9%). The group fell 1.5% on Monday as a downturn in European banking names weighed. Deutsche Bank (DB 11.92, +0.07) plunged 7.1% in the prior session after German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that the bank would not be eligible for state aid in the event of a capital shortfall. The news continued to weigh on the stock during the overnight session, but shares erased today's losses by afternoon trade. U.S.-listed issues of Deutsche Bank finished higher by 0.6%.

The turnaround in beleaguered financials helped boost risk appetite in the broader market while heavily-weighted industrials (+0.8%), consumer discretionary (+1.0%), and technology (+1.2%) also displayed strength. The broader market was in rally mode after the first U.S. presidential debate went off without major surprises. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 13.11, -1.39, -1.23%) declined more than one point after carving out a session high of 14.63% on Monday.

Oil prices remained a weak spot for the second day in a row as the energy component was pressured by developments from Algiers, Algeria. Reports from the International Energy Forum indicated that OPEC and non-OPEC producers were unable to reach a supply control agreement. Furthermore, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih stated that he does not expect to reach an agreement during tomorrow's meeting. The energy minister did indicate that the topic could be revived in time for the oil cartel's November 30 meeting. WTI crude finished the day lower by 2.6% ($44.67/bbl; -$1.18).

The benchmark index narrowed its week-to-date loss to 0.2% as eight sectors finished in the green with consumer discretionary (+1.0%) and technology (+1.2%) leading the pack. Conversely, defensively-oriented utilities (-1.3%) and real estate (-0.8%) trailed energy (-0.5%) on the bottom of the leaderboard.

In the technology sector (+1.2%), Alphabet (GOOG 783.01, +8.80) and Microsoft (MSFT 57.95, +1.05) finished higher by 1.1% and 1.9%, respectively. The two names rose following recent speculation that they are mulling takeover offers for Twitter (TWTR 23.72, +0.35). Recall that Salesforce.com (CRM 70.05, -0.14) and Disney (DIS 91.72, -0.24) have also been identified as parties expressing interest in Twitter. Separately, the PHLX Semiconductor Index ended higher by 1.7%, erasing a modest monthly loss.

The consumer discretionary space (+1.0%) also displayed relative strength as F.A.N.G. members Amazon (AMZN 816.11, +16.95) and Netflix (NFLX 97.07, +2.51) outperformed after receiving target price increases from JP Morgan. Separately, Dow component Nike (NKE 55.34, +0.94) rallied 1.7% ahead of this evening's quarterly earnings report.

Domestic banking names paced the advance in the financial sector (+0.9%) as Citigroup (C 46.37, +0.48) and Bank of America (BAC 15.29, +0.20) rebounded 1.1% and 1.3%, respectively. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo (WFC 45.09, +0.21) inched higher by 0.5% after multiple sources signaled that the company is considering executive compensation clawbacks. On a related note, CEO John Stumpf is slated to appear before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday.

Treasuries ended on a higher note with the long end of the curve outperforming. The yield on the 2-yr note finished flat (0.75%) while the yield on the 10-yr note finished lower by two basis points (1.56%).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 827 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for July and Consumer Confidence for September:

The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for July rose 5.0%, which was below the Briefing.com consensus of 5.1%. This followed the previous month's unrevised reading of 5.1%.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for September checked in at 104.1 (Briefing.com consensus 98.0) after an upwardly revised 101.8 reading (from 101.1) for August.
The September number is the highest since August 2007.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and Durable Orders for August (Briefing.com consensus -1.9%), which will cross the wires at 7:00 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively. The Department of Energy will release its weekly inventory report tomorrow at 10:30 ET.

Russell 2000: +9.6% YTD
Nasdaq: +6.0% YTD
S&P 500: +5.7% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.6% YTD

DJ30 +133.47 NASDAQ +48.22 SP500 +13.83 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1886/1.601 bln/977 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1752/826.8 mln/1232

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.9% around the 84.14 level
Crude oil ended near 1-week lows after comments from the joint conference in Algiers squashed hopes for a production freeze/cut at this particular meeting
November crude oil futures fell $1.18 (-2.6%) to $44.67/barrel
This morning, Goldman Sachs lowered their 4Q16 oil forecast to $43/bbl from $50/bbl previously.
Highlights of the joint conference in Algiers:
The Saudi Energy minister stated he does not expect an agreement to be reached during tomorrow's talks, notes agreement possible by November
Notes the gap in views between OPEC nations is narrowing
Saudi Arabia can withstand the current oil environment with oil at current price levels
Doesn't think there is a need for a significant adjustment or cut
Russia & Saudi Arabia will meet again in October to discuss the oil markets and any potential actions needed
Saudi Energy minister commented that once Consensus is reached between production in Iran, Lybia, & Nigeria then a freeze can happen
Russian oil supply to remain flat
Data reminders:
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30
Weekly EIA data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
API data will be released tonight after the bell
Monthly IEA data will be released Oct 11
Natural gas ended nearly unchanged ahead of Thursday's inventory number
November natural gas closed $0.01 lower (-0.3%) at $3.05/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas storage data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, silver's decline outpaced gold, the gold:silver ratio increased for the third consecutive session
December gold ended today's session down $14.00 (-1.0%) to $1330.20/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.42 lower (-2.1%) at $19.17/oz
The gold:silver ratio is ~69.4 vs. yesterday's ~68.6 level
Base metal copper extended its early morning decline, closed at fresh session lows
December copper closed $0.03 lower (-1.4%) at $2.17/lb

The major averages advanced at the start of the session, shrugging off weakness from the oil pit. The energy component has been under pressure as participants reassess expectations for a potential supply control deal at the International Energy Forum. Officials from both Iran and Saudi Arabia have downplayed the forum today, characterizing the event as a "consultative" meeting. However, the energy forum will run through tomorrow and volatility in the energy complex is expected to remain elevated. To that end, when the bell rang, November crude oil futures were down by $1.18 (-2.6%) to $44.67/barrel

Economic data today included the Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for July, which rose 5.0%. This followed the previous month's unrevised reading of 5.1%. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for September checked in at 104.1 after an upwardly revised 101.8 reading (from 101.1) for August.

The broader market rebounded today off recent weakness, driven by the Tech sector. The Nasdaq Composite was the best performer today, adding 48.22 points (+0.92%) to 5305.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 133.47 points (+0.74%) to 18228.30, and the S&P 500 gained 13.83 points (+0.64%) to 2159.93.

Leading all S&P sectors today, Technology (XLK 47.73, +0.52 +1.10%) finished the session near highs as the space stepped higher as the day progressed. Component Cisco Systems (CSCO 31.48, +0.41 +1.32%) was the subject of a Bloomberg report which detailed the possible $4 billion investment by the company in Mexico. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended Tuesday XLY +1.02%, XLFS +0.93%, XLF +0.79%, XLV +0.72%, XLI +0.70%, XLP +0.42%, IYZ +0.37%, XLB +0.30%, XLE -0.65%, XLRE -0.87%, XLU -1.30% with Utilities losing big in an overall up session.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (799.26, +9.08 +1.15%) sector, the session was higher for the entirety. Components FSLR +4.94% MU +3.69% NVDA +3.42% STX +3.28% WDC +3.25% FFIV +2.85% YHOO +2.55% AVGO +2.50% ADI +2.46% ADBE +2.27% trended higher today.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Oracle (ORCL 39.30, +0.27 +0.69%) received clearance from the Department of Justice to acquire NetSuite (N 109.83, +0.94 +0.86%).

Activision Blizzard's (ATVI 44.21, +0.23 +0.52%) Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. and NetEase (NTES 244.15, +2.94 +1.22%) jointly announced the extension of their collaboration in mainland China to January 2020. The renewed operation agreement includes Blizzard's World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch, as well as new content for these games during the agreement period.

Cognizant (CTSH 54.40, +0.25 +0.46%) will establish a Cognizant Digital Works Collaboratory in Melbourne, Australia.
The European Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice (eu-LISA) has selected Accenture (ACN 116.13, +2.40 +2.11%), Safran Identity & Security and Atos to provide application and infrastructure services for the E.U. Visa information System (VIS) and for the Biometric Matching System (BMS) underpinning VIS.

Fiserv (FISV 100.61, +0.36 +0.36%) partnered with FCTI Inc., a nationwide ATM network company, to provide transaction processing for nearly 8,000 ATM terminals at franchise- and corporate-owned 7-Eleven stores across the United States.

Microsoft (MSFT 57.95, +1.05 +1.85%) and Bank of America (BAC 15.29, +0.20 +1.33%) will collaborate on blockchain technology.

Workday (WDAY 89.79, +1.47 +1.66%) and Microsoft (MSFT) announced a partnership between Office 365 and WDAY's finance and HR applications.

Visa (V 82.16, +0.35 +0.43%) in partnership with Oracle (ORCL), introduced Visa Advertising Solutions, a new suite of products to help merchants understand whether their digital advertising efforts are influencing consumer purchase decisions online and in-stores.

Salesforce (CRM 70.05, -0.14 -0.20%) announced that Eli Lilly (LLY 80.88, +1.36 +1.71%) has expanded its use of the Salesforce Platform to develop more innovative and intuitive apps that are designed to personalize patient support programs, unite care teams and ultimately improve patient outcomes.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 22.92, +0.13 +0.57%) unveiled details of its upcoming HPE | Microsoft (MSFT) Azure Stack solution, which is expected to become available in mid-2017.

According to Bloomberg, Cisco Systems (CSCO) plans a $4 billion investment in Mexico.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

WebMD Health (WBMD 50.25, -0.15 -0.30%) announced that the Board of Directors has appointed Blake DeSimone, its SVP of Finance, as its CFO. Mr. DeSimone succeeds Peter Anevski who is leaving the company. WebMD also announced that it expects its financial results for Q3 and full year of 2016 to be around the high end of its financial guidance issued on August 8, 2016.

Turtle Beach (HEAR 1.42, +0.03 +2.16%) announced plans to restructure the Hypersound business to substantially lower operating costs.

Ubisoft (UBSFY 7.50, +0.04 +0.54%) acquired mobile publisher Ketchapp. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Expedia's (EXPE 113.10, +4.01 +3.68%) HomeAway brand issued a press release announcing that John Kim will become president of HomeAway while its co-founder and current CEO, Brian Sharples, will move into the role of Chairman through January 2017.

In relation to the CBOE (CBOE 66.91, +0.32 +0.48%) and Bats Global Markets (BATS 30.28, -0.07 -0.23%) merger agreement, a wholly-owned subsidiary of KCG Holdings (KCG 15.44, -0.02 -0.13%) holds 13,233,742 shares of BATS Common Stock (or approximately 13.8% of the total outstanding shares of Bats Common Stock based on 95,679,427 shares outstanding as of the April 15, 2016 initial public offering). In connection with its sale of shares in the initial public offering of BATS in April 2016, KCG agreed to a lock-up agreement that restricts KCG's ability to transfer shares of BATS Common Stock for a period of time following the initial public offering. Pursuant to the terms of the lock-up agreement, about 4.4 million shares of BATS Common Stock held by KCG will be released from the lock-up on October 13, 2016.

Sonus Networks (SONS 8.75, +0.29 +3.43%) announced its acquisition of Taqua, LLC in an all-cash transaction for an initial cash consideration of $20 million with the potential for additional cash payments if certain annual revenue thresholds are exceeded. SONS also reconfirmed certain Q3 guidance. For Q3, the company sees EPS of $0.08-0.09 on revenues of $63-65 million.

Perion Network (PERI 1.24, -0.01 -0.80%) announced that Josef Mandelbaum will be leaving his position as CEO after a transition period of up to several months. The Board of Directors has begun a search for the company's next CEO and the Board and Josef are committed to a seamless transition. The Board of Directors has begun a search for the next CEO and the Board and Josef are committed to a seamless transition.

In reaction to quarterly results:

FactSet (FDS) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $1.69 on revenues which were in-line with market expectations and rose 9.7% compared to a year ago to $287.3 million. FDS also guided Q1 EPS of $1.68-1.72 and revenues of $286-292 million.

Synnex (SNX) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.73 and $3.67 billion, respectively. For Q4, SNX sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $2.06-2.11 and $3.83-3.93 billion, respectively.

Analyst actions:

SSNC was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
BATS was upgraded to Sector Perform from Underperform at RBC Capital Markets,
ORAN was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
SKYAY was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Kepler;
CBOE was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets,
FDS was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James;
EFII was initiated with a Buy at Needham,
NNDM was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street,
GIB was initiated with a Neutral at Macquarie

4:19 pm TerraForm Global reaches agreement with subsidiaries of SunEdison (SUNEQ) to buy certain assets from a third party buyer (GLBL) :

The third party sale transaction is being conducted in connection with SunEdison's (SUNEQ) bankruptcy process and includes the 425 MW India portfolio of solar energy projects for which the Company made a prepayment to SunEdison in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The Third Party Sale Transaction also includes the Bora Bora project in India and certain assets in Uruguay that were previously committed to be transferred to the Company by SunEdison but were not transferred prior to SunEdison's filing for bankruptcy protection. The Company has agreed not to pursue claims against a third-party buyer relating in any way to the assets included in the Third Party Sale Transaction.
However, the Company has retained all of its claims against SunEdison and its affiliated persons. As a condition to the Company's consent to the Third Party Sale Transaction, the Company and certain subsidiaries of SunEdison that directly or indirectly own the assets to be subject to the Third Party Sale Transaction have entered into a proceeds sharing arrangement pursuant to which the Company is entitled to receive a portion of the cash proceeds received by the SunEdison parties in the Third Party Sale Transaction. The amount of cash proceeds the Company will receive from this arrangement is dependent on various factors and is limited; the Company does not expect the proceeds to exceed $10 million.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The major averages ended the midweek affair on a higher note as a leg higher in crude oil boosted risk appetite in the broader market. The energy component rallied in afternoon trade amid reports that OPEC reached a production cap agreement. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) finished ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.5%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%). Equity indices began the day on a choppy note as volatility from the oil pit weighed on the broader market. Crude oil was in focus as a negative reading of the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report weighed on the energy component. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles fell by 1.88 million barrels (consensus: +2.99 million) while gasoline inventories rose by 2.02 million barrels (consensus: +0.17 million). Oil ticked lower following the data, falling to the $44.50/bbl price level.

The energy component staged a reversal shortly after midday as Reuters reported that OPEC agreed to lower its production to 32.5 million barrels per day from approximately 33.2 million barrels. However, the reduction will not go into effect until OPEC meets on November 30. Nevertheless, WTI crude rallied into its pit close, finishing higher by 5.4% ($47.07/bbl; +$2.40).

The rebound in oil boosted risk appetite as heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (+0.3%), technology (+0.3%), and financials (+0.5%) each erased modest losses. The benchmark index finished at its best level of the day, testing technical resistance near the 2168/2173 price level. Eight sectors ended in the green with industrials (+0.7%), materials (+1.0%), and energy (+4.3%) leading the pack. Conversely, countercyclical health care (-0.1%), utilities (-0.3%), and telecom services (-1.0%) lagged.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.5%) finished behind the broader market as participants responded to commentary from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. Chair Yellen testified before the House Financial Services Committee today, keeping the majority of her remarks centered on regulatory policies. Ms. Yellen indicated that the Fed is exploring stricter capital requirements for Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIBs) while also looking to lower regulatory requirements for community banks. The commentary initially spurred some risk aversion among GSIBs, but the group recovered before the close. JPMorgan Chase (JPM 66.71, +0.35) and Citigroup (C 46.87, 0.50) finished higher by 0.5% and 1.1%, respectively. Separately, Wells Fargo (WFC 45.31, +0.22) finished in-line with the sector despite reports that the California State Treasurer sanctioned the bank for prior sales practices.

Biotechnology underperformed in the health care space (-0.1%), evidenced by the 0.8% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 295.08, -2.40). In the ETF, Mylan Labs (MYL 40.22, -1.09) fel 2.6% after the company indicated in the prior session that that there may be discrepancies between EpiPen profit data and previous information provided to Congress on the profitability of the device. The EpiPen manufacturer remains in the spotlight following the recent drug pricing controversy. The biotechnology ETF narrowed its monthly gain to 5.1%, which compares to a gain of 0.2% in the broader sector.

In the consumer discretionary space (+0.3%), media names outperformed after reports indicated that Sumner Redstone's National Amusements is pushing for Viacom (VIAB 36.56, +1.09) and CBS (CBS 54.15, +2.10) to hold merger talks. Conversely, retail names underperform as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 43.31, -0.28) ended lower by 0.6%. Dow component Nike (NKE 53.25, -2.09) finished lower by 3.8% after the company's futures orders and gross margins came in below consensus.

Treasuries ended on a lower note with yields rising through the curve. The yield on the 10-yr note finished higher by one basis point at 1.57%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 903 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the Durable Goods Orders report for August:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications declined 0.7% in the week ending September 24. This followed a 7.3% decline in the prior week.
Total durable goods orders were unchanged in August (Briefing.com consensus -1.9%), which was better than expected, while orders excluding transportation were down 0.4%, as expected.
Total orders growth for July was revised down to 3.6% from 4.4% while growth in orders excluding transportation was also revised down to 1.1% from 1.5%.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the third estimate of second quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus 1.3%), the third estimate for the second quarter GDP deflator (Briefing.com consensus 2.3%), weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 259k), and International Trade in Goods for August, which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, Pending Home Sales for August (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +10.5% YTD
S&P 500: +6.2% YTD
Nasdaq: +6.2% YTD
Dow Jones: +5.3% YTD

DJ30 +110.94 NASDAQ +12.84 SP500 +11.44 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1714/1.672 bln/1142 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2273/903.9 mln/727 3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +1.2% around the 85.14 level
Crude oil surged near 3-week highs after OPEC reached a deal to cut production in Nov to 32.5 mln barrels/day, compared to July production levels around 33.1 mln barrels/day
November crude oil futures rose $2.40 (+5.4%) to $47.07/barrel
OPEC meeting highlights:
OPEC members announced a deal to cut production to 32.5 mln barrels/day, about 600k less than July production levels of 33.1 mln barrels.
Details will be announced at the official OPEC meeting to be held in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
Earlier this morning, Qatar president stated market rebalancing is taking longer than expected, may not happen until the second half of 2017, now more urgency to ensure a quick rebalancing.
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -1.882 mln (consensus called for a build of about +3.00 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +2.027 mln (consensus called for a build of about +0.18 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a draw of -1.915 mln
Natural gas extended yesterday's losses ahead of tomorrow's inventory data
November natural gas closed $0.05 lower (-1.6%) at $3.00/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold's decline outpaced the drop in silver, the gold:silver ratio snapped its 3-day streak
December gold ended today's session down $6.30 (-0.5%) to $1323.90/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.04 lower (-0.2%) at $19.13/oz
The gold:silver ratio is ~69.2, compared to yesterday's level of ~69.4
Base metal copper inched notably higher in afternoon pit trading
December copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.9%) at $2.19/lb

Equity indices began the day on a choppy note as participants eyed a mixed performance from global markets and an upswing in crude oil. The energy component rebounded overnight as investors responded to a better-than-expected reading of the American Petroleum Institute's weekly inventory report. However, crude oil futures briefly erased their gain after the Department of Energy's more influential inventory data failed to confirm the reading.

The energy component staged a reversal shortly after midday as Reuters reported that OPEC agreed to lower its production to 32.5 million barrels per day from about 33.2 million barrels. However, the reduction will not go into effect until OPEC meets on November 30. Nevertheless, WTI crude rallied into its pit close, finishing higher by 5.4% ($47.07/bbl; +$2.40).

The economically-sensitive financial sector (XLF 19.31, +0.09 +0.47%) was also in focus today as participants mull over recent commentary from Fed Chair Janet Yellen. Ms. Yellen addressed the House Financial Services Committee today, keeping the majority of her remarks centered on regulatory policies. Chair Yellen stated that the Federal Reserve is exploring stricter capital buffers for Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIBs) while looking to lower regulatory hurdles for community banks. The policies are just ideas, but appear to have created some risk aversion in the sector and the broader market.

Additionally, market data today included the MBA Mortgage Index which indicated that mortgage applications declined 0.7% in the week ending September 24. This followed a 7.3% decline in the prior week. Also, total durable goods orders were unchanged in August, which was better than expected, while orders excluding transportation were down 0.4%, as expected.

Today's action began in the green and quickly turned lower as the market started to fall into a relative lull. Midday losses were quickly turned around, however, on the aforementioned Reuters headlines regarding the OPEC agreement. These headlines drove stocks into the green once again, as all three major US indices ended the session with gains, led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which added 110.94 points (+0.61%) to 18339.24. The S&P 500 was higher by 11.44 points (+0.53%) to 2171.37, and the Nasdaq Composite edged up 12.84 points (+0.24%) to 5318.55.

Technology (XLK 47.80, +0.07 +0.16%) escaped Wednesday with gains as the sector spent the majority of the session in the red, but climbed out of negative territory in the final moments of action. Component Paychex (PAYX 57.50, -2.77 -4.60%) was the worst performer in the sector today on the back of a FY17 guidance cut and mostly in-line Q1 results. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended the session XLE +4.34%, XLB +1.14%, XLI +0.78%, IYZ +0.77%, XLRE +0.69%, XLF +0.57%, XLFS +0.43%, XLY +0.30%, XLP +0.17%, XLV -0.15%, XLU -0.18%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (801.79, +2.53 +0.32%) sector, trading was weaker during midday, but finished in the green. Component Alphabet A (GOOGL 810.06, -0.67 -0.08%) were modestly weaker today as the stock was downgraded to an Underperform rating at Wedbush. Other names in the space which outperformed today included CRM +2.24%, CA +2.02%, TDC +1.84%, RHT +1.83%, GLW +1.29%, XRX +1.28%, WU +1.18%, ADSK +1.03%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Motorola Solutions (MSI 76.79, +0.47 +0.62%) was awarded a $70 million firm-fixed-price, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for the Europe Enterprise Land Mobile Radio system.

Harris (HRS 91.95, +0.37 +0.40%) was awarded a $92.8 million single award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for Harris Radio Communication Systems.

Harris (HRS) and Boeing (BA 132.23, +0.91 +0.69%) are developing next-generation avionics technology for current and future military aircraft to improve and protect aviators' missions.

NVIDIA (NVDA 66.78, +0.24 +0.36%) and TomTom (TMOAY 4.33, flat), the Dutch mapping and navigation group, announced they are partnering to develop artificial intelligence to create a cloud-to-car mapping system for self-driving cars.

Super Micro Computer (SMCI 23.59, +0.8 +0.34%) announced the general availability of its SuperServer solutions optimized for NVIDIA (NVDA 66.78, +0.24 +0.36%) Tesla P100 accelerators with the new Pascal GPU architecture.

Akamai Tech (AKAM 52.28, -0.37 -0.70%) acquired Concord Systems, Inc., a provider of technology for the high performance processing of data at scale, in an all cash transaction. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Samsung Electronics (SSNLF 1550.00, flat) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 23.04, +0.12 +0.52%) announced a partnership that will provide carriers with integrated network functions virtualization (NFV) infrastructure and virtual network functions (VNF) solutions.

IBM (IBM 158.29, +1.52 +0.97%) announced that Bank Sohar selected IBM Cloud and mobile to accelerate its digital transformation.

IBM (IBM) announced that Clarient Global LLC has selected VMware (VMW 73.85, +0.25 +0.34%) Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud to continue to enhance its existing SoftLayer private cloud implementation for its Clarient Entity Hub platform.

Mastercard (MA 101.51, +0.06 +0.06%) launches Mastercard Developers, a solution that enables Mastercard partners to access a diverse range of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) across payments, data and security.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, BlackBerry (BBRY 8.33, +0.45 +5.71%) appointed Steven Capelli as CFO. The company also announced a newly formed joint venture PT BB Merah Putih to license BlackBerry software and services for the production of handsets for the Indonesian market.

SolarCity (SCTY 20.48, +0.49 +2.45%) partnered with Citi (C 46.87, +0.50 +1.08%) to create two separate funds to finance more than $347 million in solar projects. The company also promoted EVP of Global Capital Markets Radford Small to the role of CFO, reporting to CEO Lyndon Rive.

Harmonic (HLIT 5.83, +1.17 +25.11%) entered into a warrant agreement with Comcast (CMCSA 66.68, +0.51 +0.77%) which provides Comcast with the opportunity to acquire shares of common stock of Harmonic based on specific CableOS and other Harmonic product sales.

TerraForm Global (GLBL 4.05, -0.05 -1.22%) reached an agreement with subsidiaries of SunEdison (SUNEQ 0.05, -0.00 -0.92%) to buy certain assets from a third party buyer.

TerraForm Power (TERP 14.01, -0.02 -0.14%) settled litigation with Appaloosa.

Straight Path Comms (STRP 25.65, -0.37 -1.42%) received an FCC letter requesting additional documents and information regarding the 39 GHz and 28 GHz spectrum licenses.

In reaction to quarterly results:

BlackBerry (BBRY) reported better than expected Q2 net of breakeven on revenues which fell 28.2% compared to a year ago to $352 million. BBRY also issued upside guidance for FY17, sees EPS of ($0.05)-0.00, excluding non-recurring items.

Paychex (PAYX) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.60 on revenues which were modestly ahead of market expectations and grew 8.6% compared to last year to $785.5 million. Management also lowered payroll service revenue growth expectations to 3-4% from 4%. PAYX also lowered net income growth guidance to about 7% from growth of 8-9% to reflect the impact of the discrete tax items recognized in the respective first quarter of fiscal years 2017 and 2016.

Analyst actions:

WDAY was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Wedbush;
GOOGL was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Wedbush,
TWTR was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Loop Capital,
TWTR was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Mizuho,
T was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS,
BIDU was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank,
SHOP was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley;
CHKP was initiated with an Overweight at Piper Jaffray,
VSM was initiated with an Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a lower note as concerns regarding Deutsche Bank's (DB 11.48, -0.82) capital position weighed on the major averages. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.1%) finished slightly behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) and the S&P 500 (-0.9%).

Equity indices began the day on a quiet note, looking to consolidate after yesterday's oil-fueled risk rally. The benchmark index occupied a narrow nine-point trading range through the first half of trade as participants mulled over a recently-minted production cap agreement. OPEC surprised participants yesterday by announcing that it would limit production to between 32.5 million and 33.0 million barrels per day. However, specific terms of the agreement will not be released or put into effect until the oil collective meets on November 30.

The broader market broke lower near midday as reports indicated that approximately ten hedge funds have reduced their exposure to Deutsche Bank in recent days. The stock was down as much as 9.1%, ending lower by 6.7%. The German lender issued a statement in the afternoon, asserting that there had been recent outflows from its hedge fund business, but that Deutsche Bank's prime brokerage division remains profitable. Recall that capital concerns increased after the U.S. Department of Justice requested that the bank pay $14 billion to settle civil claims associated with the residential mortgage-backed securities crisis. The major averages notched session lows shortly after midday as heavily-weighted financials (-1.5%) and health care (-1.8%) led to the downside. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.9%, testing technical support near the 2153/2151 price level. All eleven sectors finished in the red with utilities (-1.5%), financials (-1.5%), and health care (-1.8%) underperforming while energy (-0.1%) led to the upside.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (-1.5%) moved lower in sympathy with Deutsche Bank (DB 11.48, -0.82) as participants expressed concerns over the global banking landscape. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo (WFC 44.37, -0.94) declined 2.1% after CEO John Stumpf testified before the House Financial Services Committee. The congressional hearing was again heated as lawmakers questioned the sales tactics that led to the creation of more than two million fake deposit and credit-card accounts. The broader space extended its monthly loss to 4.2%, trailing the remaining sectors.

In the health care sector (-1.8%), biotechnology underperformed, evidenced by the 3.1% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 285.87, -9.21). Mylan (MYL 38.47, -1.75) fell 4.4% after the CMS indicated that it had previously informed the company that it had misclassified its EpiPen device under the Medicaid Drug Rebate program. Recall that a group of U.S. lawmakers have recently pushed for the DoJ to investigate Mylan for this misclassification.

In the technology sector (-0.6%), the high-beta chipmakers outperformed, evidenced by the 1.3% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. NXP Semiconductor (NXPI 96.12, +13.88) rallied 16.9% after reports indicated that Qualcomm (QCOM 67.45, +4.00) could be looking to acquire the company. Conversely, Apple (AAPL 112.17, -1.78) underperformed after it was removed from Barclay's Top Pick list. The firm also lowered its 2016 smartphone revenue and unit growth estimates for Apple.

The commodity-sensitive energy sector (-0.1%) finished at the top of the board as crude oil extended its rally. WTI crude finished higher by 1.4% ($47.73/bbl; +$0.66), showing marked resilience to the downturn in the broader market.

Treasuries ended on a higher note with yields slipping through the curve. The yield on the 10-yr note finished lower by one basis point at 1.56%.

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 971 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the third estimate of second quarter GDP, weekly initial claims, International Trade in Goods for August, and Pending Home Sales for August:

The third estimate for second quarter GDP checked in at 1.4% (Briefing.com consensus 1.3%), up from the second estimate of 1.1%. The GDP Deflator was unchanged at 2.3%.
Initial claims for the week ending September 24 increased by 3,000 to 254,000 (Briefing.com consensus 259,000), marking the 82nd straight week they have been below 300,000.
Continuing claims for the week ending September 17 decreased by 46,000 to 2.062 million.
The Advance International Trade in Goods report for August showed a narrowing in the goods deficit to $58.4 billion from an upwardly revised $58.8 billion (from -$59.3 billion) in July.
Pending Home Sales for August fell by 2.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%. Separately, the July reading was revised to 1.2% from 1.3%.

Tomorrow's economic data will include Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and Core PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) for August, which will each be released at 8:30 ET. Separately, Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 52.0) and the final reading of the University of Michigan Sentiment Index for September (Briefing.com consensus 90.0) will cross the wires at 9:45 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000: +9.2% YTD
S&P 500: +5.2% YTD
Nasdaq: +5.2% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.1% YTD

DJ30 -195.79 NASDAQ -49.39 SP500 -20.24 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 700/1.777 bln/2196 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 925/971.3 mln/2377 3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.1% around the 85.22 level
Crude oil extended yesterday's notable +5.4% surge, closing at 3-week highs for the second consecutive session after yesterday's OPEC announcement to cut production
November crude oil futures rose $0.66 (+1.4%) to $47.73/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET
Monthly IEA data will be released on Oct 11
Reminder: OPEC announced yesterday that they would reduce output by 32.5 mln barrels/day, compared to July's production levels of around 33.1 mln barrels/day. Details will be announced at the next official OPEC meeting on November 30 in Vienna, Austria.
Natural gas ended lower after EIA data showed a smaller-than-expected build compared to Consensus
November natural gas closed $0.04 lower (-1.3%) at $2.96/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +49 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +55 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 3,600 Bcf as of Friday, September 23, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 90 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 220 Bcf above the five-year average of 3,380 Bcf.
At 3,600 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold's gains are outpaced by the rally in silver, the gold:silver ratio ended near parity with the previous sesson's close
December gold ended today's session up $2.20 (+0.2%) to $1326.10/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.07 higher (+0.4%) at $19.20/oz
The gold:silver ratio was at ~69.1, compared to yesterday's pit trading close ratio of ~69.1

Today's session began on a choppy note as equity indices found it difficult to build on yesterday's post-OPEC rally. The oil cartel announced yesterday afternoon that it would limit production to between 32.5 million and 33.0 million barrels per day. However, the official terms of the agreement will not be released or implemented until OPEC members meet on November 30. The clandestine nature of the agreement has understandably bred some concerns regarding whether the collective will honor this accord. Today, November crude oil futures were up $0.66 (+1.4%) to $47.73/barrel.

A number of Federal Reserve officials also contributed to early weakness, indicating that a rate hike might soon be appropriate. Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker (FOMC voting member in 2017) stated ahead of the session that the Fed should raise rates sooner rather than later while Kansas City Fed President Esther George (an FOMC voter) continues to favor the removal of policy accommodation. Odds of an interest rate hike before the end of the year improved with the implied probability of a rate hike at the December meeting rising to 57.4% from yesterday's estimate of 53.1%.

There were a few points of market data today, headlined by the third estimate for second quarter GDP checked in at 1.4%, up from the second estimate of 1.1%. The GDP Deflator was unchanged at 2.3%. Also, initial claims for the week ending September 24 increased by 3,000 to 254,000, marking the 82nd straight week they have been below 300,000. Additionally, the Advance International Trade in Goods report for August showed a narrowing in the goods deficit to $58.4 billion from an upwardly revised $58.8 billion (from -$59.3 billion) in July. Lastly, Pending Home Sales for August fell 2.4%. Separately, the July reading was revised to 1.2% from 1.3%.

Following yesterday's strength which was tied to Reuters reporting that OPEC had reached a production agreement, the broader market ended the Thursday affair on a lower note as concerns regarding Deutsche Bank's (DB 11.48, -0.82 -6.67%) capital position weighed on the major averages. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the worst performer today, shedding 195.79 points (-1.07%) to 18143.45. The S&P 500 was down 20.24 points (-0.93%) to 2151.13, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 49.39 points (-0.93%) to 5269.15.

Technology (XLK 47.53, -0.29 -0.61%) finished among sectors with modest losses today as the session held onto flat lines for the majority of the morning but lost momentum into the close. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 67.45, +4.00 +6.30%) was higher today on speculation that the company may make a bid for NXP Semi (NXPI 96.12, +13.88 +16.88%). Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLV -1.76% XLU -1.48% XLFS -1.44% XLF -1.40% XLRE -1.23% XLP -0.98% XLI -0.81% XLB -0.77% IYZ -0.77% XLY -0.51% XLE -0.17% as Healthcare and Utilities weighed.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (797.28, -4.51 -0.56%) sector, trading edged lower today, modestly off lows of the session. Component eBay (EBAY 32.30, +0.45 +1.41%) was among the best performers today on the back of a premarket upgrade to Buy at Deutsche Bank. Other names in the space which underperformed today included TDC -2.75%, YHOO -2.56%, TSS -2.14%, QRVO -1.72%, AAPL -1.56%, TEL -1.55%, KLAC -1.55%, ADBE -1.54%, VRSN -1.52%, CA -1.50%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

According to the Wall Street Journal, Qualcomm (QCOM) may be in discussions with NXP Semi (NXPI) to acquire the company for more than $30 billion.

Qualcomm (QCOM) announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI), and SK Telecom (SKM 22.60, +0.05 +0.22%) announced the first over-the-air technology demonstration of eLAA (Enhanced Licensed Assisted Access) and LAA (Licensed Assisted Access) that utilizes both licensed and unlicensed spectrum at SK Telecom's Corporate R&D Center in Bundang, Korea.

Analog Devices (ADI 63.74, -0.19 -0.30%) entered into a new term loan facility and an amended and restated revolving credit agreement. The company's new term loan facility will consist of a 3-year unsecured term loan facility in the principal amount of $2.5 billion and a 5-year unsecured term loan facility in the principal amount of $2.5 billion.

IBM (IBM 158.11, -0.18 -0.11%) to acquire Promontory Financial Group, a global market-leading risk management and regulatory compliance consulting firm. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CSRA (CSRA 27.06, -0.03 -0.11%) was awarded a contract by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to upgrade the agency's PeopleSoft Human Capital Management system. The new, single-award contract is valued at $38.9 million including a one-year base period and four, one-year extension options.

Green Dot (GDOT 22.91, -0.12 -0.52%) announced the launch of the Green Dot Platinum Visa (V 81.92, -1.05 -1.27%) Secured Credit Card, a secured credit card that is designed to help people with no prior credit history or those with poor credit scores build a positive credit history.

Microsoft (MSFT 57.40, -0.63 -1.09%) announced it has formed the Microsoft AI and Research Group, bringing together Microsoft's world-class research organization with more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers focused on the company's AI product efforts.

Epsilon, an Alliance Data (ADS 212.95, -1.26 -0.59%) company, has signed a new, multi-year agreement with CNO Financial (CNO 15.55, -0.31 -1.95%), a national holding company to insurance brands Bankers Life, Washington National and Colonial Penn.

Samsung Electronics (SSNLF 1550.00, flat) and SAP SE (SAP 89.54, -2.54 -2.76%) held the opening ceremony for a joint research center where engineers will conduct R&D for memory solutions to be used in next-generation in-memory computing.

NetSuite (N 109.85, -0.32 -0.29%) announced a host of product enhancements to NetSuite OneWorld, delivering deep global financial capabilities designed for Australia and New Zealand-headquartered businesses and multinational companies in both countries. Additionally, co announced that Paycorp, a leading Australian provider of enterprise payment processing solutions, has joined the NetSuite SuitePayments program.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Compass Minerals (CMP 73.73, -0.29 -0.39%) issued a new $450 million senior secured term loan, which matures July 1, 2021, and carries an interest rate of LIBOR plus 2%.

WEX Inc. (WEX 107.24, -0.22 -0.20%) announced that WEX Australia has entered into a multi-year fuel card system processing contract with Caltex (CTXAY 46.60, flat). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Mimecast (MIME 1910, +1.81 +10.47%) priced a secondary public offering by selling shareholders of 4 million ordinary shares at $16.50 per share.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 14.12, +0.51 +3.75%) announced commercial operation of the 60 MWac/78 MWp Barren Ridge solar photovoltaic (PV) project developed by the company's wholly owned subsidiary Recurrent Energy.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Accenture (ACN 121.64, +4.99 +4.28%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $1.31 on revenues which were up 7.6% compared to a year ago to $8.49 billion. The company also guided Q1 revenues of $8.40-8.65 billion. For FY17, the company sees GAAP EPS of $5.75-5.98 on revenue growth of 5-8% to about $34.53-35.51 billion.

Progress Software (PRGS 27.21, -1.19 -4.19%) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS of $0.44 on worse than expected revenues of $102.4 million. For Q4, the company sees EPS of $0.55-0.58 on revenues of $123-126 million.

Analyst actions:

EBAY was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank,
BBRY was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Macquarie,
NMBL was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo;
FIT was downgraded to Underweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
MANT was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
IMPV was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Buckingham Research,
SONS was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Cowen;
SIMO, SLAB, MX, IDTI, HIMX, KN, AMBA and CEVA were initiated with Buy ratings at Roth Capital,
FTV was initiated with a Neutral at Goldman,
GRPN was initiated with a Neutral at Boenning & Scattergood,
NTES was initiated with a Hold at Jefferies

4:25 pm CalAmp reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q3 below consensus excluding the satellite business (CAMP) :

Reports Q2 (Aug) earnings of $0.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.27; revenues rose 29.6% year/year to $90.5 mln vs the $92.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2017 included $31.9 million from LoJack products and services and $6.7 million from the Satellite segment. Co issues downside guidance for Q3 excluding the satellite segment that ceased operations at the end of Q2, sees EPS of $0.24-0.30, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.32 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $81-87 mln vs. $95.01 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.The Company remains cautious in the very near-term as macro conditions in North America have continued to result in softer-than-expected demand from key customers for MRM telematics products. Though CalAmp has experienced weakness through the first half of this year, the company is seeing some firming of demand and is optimistic that the company will see MRM product revenues begin to improve later this fiscal year and into fiscal 2018.One of the largest telematics service providers in North America has chosen various CalAmp LMU and TTU telematics device lines for its range of fleet and asset management solutions. This recent development follows another significant customer win in the first quarter with Omnitracs.

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From Briefing.com: 4:47 pm SunEdison responds to TerraForm Power (TERP) and TerraForm Global (GLBL) press release from yesterday (SUNEQ) : SunEdison states, " While SunEdison disagrees with many of the statements, claims and allegations made by the Yieldcos in their press releases, SunEdison confirms that settlement discussions with the Yieldcos have commenced, and adds that such settlement discussions relate both to alleged claims asserted by the Yieldcos against SunEdison, as well as meaningful claims that the SunEdison estate is reviewing and may assert against the Yieldcos. Like any similar situation with any other creditor in their Chapter 11 cases, SunEdison will actively pursue the dismissal or settlement of proofs of claims in the bankruptcy cases -- although no date has been established yet in the bankruptcy cases for objecting to proofs of claims. In addition, as the Yieldcos disclosed in their press releases, SunEdison and the Yieldcos are engaged in a collaborative sale process to sell either SunEdison's ownership interests and other rights in the Yieldcos or the entirety of the equity in the Yieldcos."

4:10 pm : The stock market began the week on a modestly lower note as the major averages pulled back following last Friday's relief rally. Factors impacting today's trade included weakness in European financial names, an uptick in interest rates, and relative weakness from the heavily-weighted technology (-0.4%) and financial (-0.4%) sectors. The S&P 500 (-0.3%) settled in-line with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) and slightly behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%).

Equity indices began the day under pressure as a mixed performance from European bourses weighed on the broader market. Shares of Deutsche Bank (DB 12.98, -0.11) continued to be in focus after the German lender failed to confirm whether or not it had reached a revised settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Recall that the stock rallied 14.0% on Friday after AFP reported that the bank was close to reducing its fine to $5.4 billion from $14 billion.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May also contributed to early selling interest after she confirmed that the UK will invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March 2017. The decision resuscitated fears regarding the terms and/or restrictions the UK will face in accessing the common market. Sterling declined 1.0% against the dollar in response, finishing the day near the 1.2850 price level. The UK's FTSE (+1.2%) outperformed amid strength from exporters.

The ISM Manufacturing Index for September spurred a downturn in the Treasury market as the better-than-expected economic data boosted rate hike odds. The September ISM Index rose to 51.5 (Briefing.com consensus 50.4) after registering at 49.4 in August. The data led to some early positioning in the fed funds futures market, but the implied probability of a rate hike at the December meeting finished at 62.1%, rising from the prior session's reading of 61.7%.

The benchmark index finished in the middle of today's trading range, bouncing off support near its 20-day simple moving average (2155.81) in the final hour. Eight sectors settled in the red with financials (-0.4%), consumer staples (-0.6%), utilities (-1.4%), and real estate (-1.8%) acting as the largest laggards.

In the financial sector (-0.4%), Wells Fargo (WFC 43.83, -0.45) underperformed after U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton argued that the lender bullied employees into committing fraud. Mrs. Clinton also contended that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be afforded new powers in order to deal with "bad corporate actors." The banking name tumbled 12.8% in September after it was reported that two million credit and deposit accounts were opened illegally.

Health care providers underperformed in the health care space (-0.2%) as Cigna (CI 128.01, -2.31) and Anthem (ANTM 122.90, -2.41) declined by 1.8% and 1.9%, respectively. The names continued to show weakness after last week's speculation that a judge who is presiding over their merger hearing may break the hearing up into two separate phases. Separately, biotechnology erased an early loss as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 290.00, +0.54) finished ahead of the broader market.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.1%), auto names ended on a mixed note after reporting auto and truck sales for September. General Motors (GM 32.04, +0.27) ended higher by 0.9% after reporting a smaller-than-expected decline in monthly U.S. sales. Meanwhile, Toyota Motor (TM 115.26, -0.80) declined by 0.7% even though the company reported that U.S. sales rose 1.5% year-over-year while a decline was expected.

Treasuries finished near their worst levels as yields rose through the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note increased three basis points (0.90%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose two basis points (1.62%).

Today's participation was below the recent average as fewer than 800 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to August Construction Spending and the September ISM Index:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for September checked in at 51.5 (Briefing.com consensus 50.4). The September reading was better than expected and up from 49.4 in August.
The dividing line between expansion and contraction for this measure of national manufacturing activity is 50.0.
Total construction spending declined 0.7% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) following a downwardly revised 0.3% decline (from 0.0%) for July.
On a year-over-year basis, total construction spending is down 0.3%.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

There is no economic data of note scheduled to be released tomorrow.

Russell 2000: +9.6% YTD
Nasdaq: +5.9% YTD
S&P 500: +5.7% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.8% YTD

DJ30 -54.30 NASDAQ -11.13 SP500 -7.07 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1177/1.461 bln/1663 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1243/798.0 mln/1725

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was +0.2% around the 95.69 level, weighing on precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.3% around the 85.60 level
Crude oil reversed its initial morning losses, ending higher for the fourth consecutive session & breaking out to fresh 1-month highs on the heels of last week's unexpected OPEC production cut
November crude oil futures rose $0.70 (+1.5%) to $48.81/barrel
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30
Weekly EIA petroleum storage data will be released Wed at 10:30 am ET
Monthly IEA data will be released Oct 11
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell
Reminder: Last week in Algiers on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum, OPEC unexpectedly announced they would reduce output to 32.5 mln barrels/day, compared to July's production levels of around 33.1 mln barrels/day.
Natural gas ended nearly unchanged ahead of Thursday's inventory data
November natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.3%) at $2.92/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold's decline was outpaced by the drop in silver; the gold:silver ratio increased
December gold ended today's session down $4.30 (-0.3%) to $1312.70/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.40 lower (-2.1%) at $18.83/oz
The gold:silver ratio was at ~69.7, compared to Friday's pit trading closing ratio of ~68.5
Base metal copper erased all of Friday's gains in afternoon pit trading
December copper closed $0.02 lower (-0.9%) at $2.19/lb

Equity indices slipped at the start of the session as developments in Europe continued to weigh on risk appetite here at home. Deutsche Bank (DB 12.98, -0.11 -0.84%) remains in focus as the German lender has yet to confirm last week's report that it is close to reaching an agreement to settle claims related to the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) crisis. AFP reported last week that the bank's MBS settlement with the Department of Justice could be reduced to $5.4 billion from $14 billion. Meanwhile, Brexit fears resurfaced after UK Prime Minister Theresa May confirmed that the country will invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March 2017.

The ISM Manufacturing Index for September signaled that manufacturing moved back to expansionary territory, registering at 51.5. Recall that a reading of 50.0 marks the dividing line between expansion and contraction. The positive economic data has also spurred some selling interest in Treasuries as participants adjust their rate hike expectations ahead of this Friday's Employment Situation Report for September. Other data today included the total construction spending reading, which showed a 0.7% decline in August following a downwardly revised 0.3% decline (from 0.0%) for July.

To that end, the broader market began the fourth quarter with modest losses across the board, retreating off Friday's strength as the three major US indices closed the day near their respective midpoints of the daily trading range. The declines were led by the S&P 500 which lost 7.07 points (-0.33%) today to end 2161.20. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 54.30 points (-0.30%) to 18253.85, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 11.13 points (-0.21%) to 5300.87. Helping the Nasdaq stay out of too much trouble today, Nasdaq 100 components like TSLA +4.7%, NFLX +4.1%, AAL +3.0%, FOXA +2.1% and BMRN +2.0% all staged healthy sessions with the backdrop of a soft session in the broader market.

As sectors go, Technology (XLK 47.64, -0.14 -0.29%) ended Monday about the middle of the daily range as the space never recovered from opening losses. Component Cognizant Tech (CTSH 50.40, +2.69 +5.64%) was the best performer today following the acquisition of Akastor's (AKKVY 0.71, flat) Frontica IT business for NOK1.025 billion. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed out the day XLRE -1.92%, XLU -1.37%, XLP -0.62%, XLF -0.47%, XLFS -0.39%, XLE -0.08%, XLB -0.08%, XLV -0.08%, XLY -0.06%, IYZ -0.06%, XLI +0.09%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (798.63, -3.09 -0.39%) sector, the fourth quarter began with modest losses despite starting the session near flat lines. Component Teradata (TDC 29.44, -1.56 -5.03%) was the worst performing name in the sector as UBS downgraded the stock to a Sell rating in the premarket. Other names in the space which displayed weakness included QRVO -2.85%, FSLR -2.33%, QCOM -2.03%, ADSK -1.59%, AVGO -1.42%, MSI -1.35%, NTAP -1.28%, CTXS -1.24%, TEL -1.23%, CRM -1.14%, ACN -1.07%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Twitter (TWTR 24.00, +0.95 +4.12%) was higher today in reaction to a Bloomberg report out Friday evening suggesting Alphabet's (GOOGL 800.38, -3.68 -0.46%) Google hired adviser to consider a bid for the company.

According to a Bloomberg report, NXP Semi (NXPI 102.76, +0.75 +0.74%) hired bankers which would suggest the pursuit of a sale amid interest from Qualcomm (QCOM 67.11, -1.39 -2.03%) and others.

VirnetX Holding (VHC 4.10, +1.04 +33.99%) received a $302.4 million verdict against Apple (AAPL 112.52, -0.53 -0.47%) for infringing on 4 patents.

Microsoft (MSFT 57.42, -0.18 -0.31%) confirmed lower pricing for Azure effective October 1. General Purpose Instances: Prices of Dv2 series VMs will be reduced by up to 15%. Also lowering prices of our A1 and A2 Basic VMs by up to 50%. Compute Optimized Instances: Prices of F series will be reduced up to 11%. Av2 series: In November 2016, will introduce new A series virtual machines (Av2), with prices up to 36% lower than the A series Standard VM prices available today.

F5 Networks' (FFIV 124.38, -0.26 -0.21%) CTO Karl Triebes, who previously announced plans to resign, will continue his employment to provide consulting services to the company through a separation date of January 1, 2017.

IBM (IBM 157.61, -1.24 -0.78%) announced a five-year partnership with Majesco, a global provider of core insurance software, consulting and services for insurance business transformation, to jointly offer a new cognitive, cloud-based platform to help insurance carriers worldwide create new services on IBM Cloud.

Facebook (FB 128.77, +0.50 +0.39%) unveiled its new 'Marketplace' to connect buyers and sellers.

FLIR Systems (FLIR 31.59, +0.17 +0.54%) reached a definitive asset purchase agreement to acquire the business of Point Grey Research, Inc. for about $253 million in cash. The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2016, and the company anticipates the business and related transaction costs will be about $0.01 dilutive to its 2016 EPS and accretive for 2017.

Amazon's (AMZN 836.74 -0.57 -0.07%) live streaming video platform Twitch launched Twitch Prime.

TE Connectivity (TEL 63.59, -0.79 -1.23%) appointed current President Terrence Curtin as the successor of Tom Lynch as CEO effective March 9, 2017.

Cognizant Tech (CTSH) acquired Akastor's (AKKVY) Frontica IT business for NOK1.025 billion.
Following the separation of Xerox (XRX 10.12, -0.01 -0.10%) into two companies, Conduent Incorporated, the new business process services company, will trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol CNDT. Xerox will continue to trade on the NYSE as XRX.

Rambus Inc. (RMBS 12.43, -0.07 -0.56%) signed a license agreement with Xilinx (XLNX 53.93, -0.41 -0.75%). In addition, the two companies will evaluate potential collaboration on the use of Rambus' CryptoManager platform, and Rambus will also explore the use of Xilinx FPGAs in the Rambus Smart Data Acceleration (SDA) research program. Specific terms of the agreement are confidential.

The Western Union Company (WU 20.61, -0.21 -1.01%) announced the launch of its mobile platform in Canada for domestic and cross-border money transfers, available for iOS and Android.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

First Data (FDC 13.29, +0.13 +0.99%) to sell all its Australian retail ATM and managed services ATM portfolio for about $55 mln to DirectCash Payments.

Kulicke & Soffa (KLIC 12.96, +0.03 +0.23%) named Fusen Chen President and CEO effective October 31, 2016.

Plantronics (PLT 51.58, -0.38 -0.73%) named Joe Burton as CEO, effective Oct 2.

Shopify (SHOP 43.03, +0.11 +0.26%) acquired privately held Boltmade. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Marvell (MRVL 13.02, -0.25 -1.88%) announced the appointment of Dave Caron as corporate controller & Chief Accounting Officer effective today.

TriNet Group's (TNET 21.85, +0.22 +1.02%) Vice President and CFO Bill Porter plans to retire.

Plexus (PLXS 46.76, -0.02 -0.04%) promoted Steve Frisch to COO.

Analyst actions:

LOGM was upgraded to Overweight from Underweight at Barclays,
NTES was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at CLSA;
ORAN was downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC,
CTXS and TDC were downgraded to Sell from Hold at UBS,
IMPV was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BTIG Research,
NTGR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at BWS Financial,
CAMP was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Aegis Capital;
OCLR was initiated with a Buy at Jefferies,
GDDY was initiated with a Buy at Summit Redstone,
ALRM was initiated with a Buy at Roth Capital,
VSM was initiated with an Outperform at Credit Suisse, an Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley and a Buy at Seaport Global Securities

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From Briefing.com: 4:06 pm Micron beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line (MU) : Reports Q4 (Aug) loss of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.11); revenues fell 10.6% year/year to $3.22 bln vs the $3.19 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We are seeing improving market conditions in terms of both slowing supply growth and improving demand across a number of key segments," said Micron CEO Mark Durcan.

Revenues for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 were 11 percent higher compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2016.

DRAM sales volumes were up approximately 20 percent, while NAND sales volumes were up approximately 12 percent.

DRAM average selling prices declined approximately 6 percent, while NAND average selling prices were relatively unchanged.

The company's overall consolidated gross margin of 18 percent for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 was slightly higher compared to the third quarter due to increases in gross margin of DRAM products.

4:01 pm Aehr Test Systems regains compliance with the Nasdaq $2.5 mln minimum stockholders' equity requirement for continued listing (AEHR) :

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a lower note as rising interest rates and a stronger dollar pressured the major averages. The S&P 500 (-0.5%) finished in-line with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%) and behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%).

Equity indices began the day on a choppy note as renewed Brexit concerns continued to plague the foreign exchange market. Sterling fell 0.9% against the greenback (1.2726) after UK Prime Minister Theresa May reminded investors that the UK remains on course to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March 2017. The pound notched a new 31-year low (1.2720) against the dollar, which in turn helped support the UK's FTSE (+1.2%). Weakness in cable also led to an early downturn in the euro, which contributed to gains in European bourses.

The single currency reversed course near midday when reports indicated that the European Central Bank is nearing a consensus on tapering its quantitative easing program ahead of its planned conclusion. Recall that the ECB contributed to rate jitters in September when President Mario Draghi indicated that an extension of the asset purchase program past March 2017 was not discussed at the most recent policy meeting. The euro/dollar pair rallied to the 1.1240 price level before erasing its gain. The single currency ended lower by 0.1% against the dollar (1.1202).

The news of potential tapering on the horizon led to a downturn in sovereign bonds, which boosted rates globally. Defensively-oriented sectors extended early losses as participants unwound some crowded trades in real estate (-1.6%), telecom services (-1.7%), and utilities (-2.2%). The benchmark index rallied in the final hour of trade, narrowing its loss to 0.5%. Heavily-weighted financials (+0.3%) finished with the only gain.

The financial sector (+0.3%) led the advance as steepening in the yield curve boosted earnings prospects for the group. Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, who is not an FOMC voter, kept the rate hike conversation alive, saying that the fed funds rate should be higher given current inflation and unemployment rates. Mr. Lacker also advocated pre-emptive rate hikes in order to sustain economic stability. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 33.54, +0.31) finished higher by 0.9%. Conversely, Wells Fargo (WFC 43.75, -0.08) ended behind the group after reports indicated that fraudulent account activity may have impacted small business owners in addition to consumer banking customers.

In the technology sector (-0.2%), Dow component Apple (AAPL 113.00, +0.48) displayed relative strength, advancing 0.4%. Fellow heavyweight Alphabet (GOOG 776.43, +3.87) also outperformed after its recent hardware launch event. The tech giant unveiled a number of devices including new smartphones and a smart home hub. The high-beta chipmakers finished slightly behind the broader sector, evidenced by the 0.3% loss in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Micron (MU 17.80, +0.07) finished ahead of the price-weighted index as participants looked forward to the company's earnings release this evening.

The consumer staples sector (-0.9%) underperformed as defensively-oriented groups remained pressured by rising rates. Dollar Tree (DLTR 76.43, -3.10) declined 3.9% after being downgraded to "Neutral" from "Buy" at Cleveland Research. Meanwhile, Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS 86.86, -3.90) fell 4.3% after being downgraded to "Hold" from "Buy" at Evercore ISI. The broader sector extended its weekly loss to 1.5%.

Treasuries finished near their worst levels as yields rose through the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note increased two basis points (0.82%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose six basis points (1.69%).

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than 876 million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index. Meanwhile, the ADP Employment Change Report for September (Briefing.com consensus 171k) and the August Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -39.1 billion) will be released at 8:15 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively. The day's data will be capped off with Factory Orders for August (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) and ISM Services for September (Briefing.com consensus 52.8), which will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +9.1% YTD
Nasdaq: +5.6% YTD
S&P 500: +5.2% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.3% YTD

DJ30 -85.40 NASDAQ -11.22 SP500 -10.71 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1093/1.563 bln/1761 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 834/876.1 mln/2142 3:30 pm :

The dollar index surged +0.4% around the 96.11 level, weighing on precious metals in particular
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.5% around the 85.14 level
Crude oil snapped its 4-day OPEC-fueled streak & retreated from fresh 1-month highs hit earlier in the session ahead of a slurry of data including API and EIA
November crude oil futures fell $0.13 (-0.3%) to $48.68/barrel
Crude took a hit this morning after headlines crossed about Iran & Lybia increasing production. These two countries are exempt from last week's OPEC production cut and are seeking to further ramp up production in the near future.
Reminder: Last week in Algiers on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum, OPEC unexpectedly announced they would reduce output to 32.5 mln barrels/day, compared to July's production levels of around 33.1 mln barrels/day.
The next official OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30, where details of the recently annouced production cut are expected to be released.
Weekly EIA data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
API data will be released after the bell today
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Monthly IEA data will be released on Oct 11
Natural gas extended yesterday's modest rally ahead of Thursday's inventory data
November natural gas closed $0.04 higher (+1.4%) at $2.96/MMBtu
Weekly EIA inventory data is scheduled to be released this Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold dropped to its lowest level since mid-June, saw its losses outpaced by the decline in silver; The gold:silver ratio extended yesterday's gains
December gold ended today's session down $42.80 (-3.3%) to $1269.90/oz
December silver closed today's session $1.05 lower (-5.6%) at $17.78/oz
The gold:silver ratio was at ~71.4, compared to yesterday's pit trading closing ratio of ~69.7
Base metal copper inched lower in afternoon pit trading
December copper closed $0.02 lower (-0.9%) at $2.17/lb

Equity indices began the day on a choppy note, shrugging off a positive bias in global markets. Japan's Nikkei (+0.8%) extended its winning streak amid softening in the yen and upbeat commentary from Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda. Meanwhile, the UK's FTSE (+1.2%) paced the advance in Europe as the pound extended its recent loss. Sterling slipped to a 31-year low (1.2720) against the dollar overnight after UK Prime Minister Theresa May stated yesterday that the country will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March 2017.

The benchmark index maintained a narrow 12-point trading range through the first half as rising rates, a stronger dollar, and developments in Europe restricted risk appetite. The U.S. Dollar Index (96.11, +0.37 +0.38%) floated off its session high after the euro narrowed its loss against the greenback. The move was prompted by reports that the European Central Bank is nearing a consensus on tapering its quantitative easing program before the anticipated end. ECB President Draghi stated during his most recent press conference that there was no discussion of extending the asset purchase program beyond March 2017. Furthermore, it makes sense to taper purchases in a way similar to what the Federal Reserve did in 2014.

While there was no economic data announced today, the World Trade Organization recently cut its global trade forecast for 2016, citing in part a reduced level of imports to the U.S. On Wednesday market participants will catch a glimpse of how U.S. trade fared in August with the release of the Trade Balance report.

When the day was done, the three major US indices were lower again. Starting the week off with back to back losing sessions, the S&P 500 shed 10.71 points (-0.50%) to 2150.49. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 85.40 points (-0.47%) to 18168.45, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 11.22 (-0.21%) to 5289.66. The highlight of the day was Alphabet (GOOGL 802.79, +2.41 +0.30%) company Google's live streamed smartphone unveiling event. The company announced a $649 phone called Pixel, along with a Wifi solution and VR headset. Only time will tell if the Pixel can break into the historically Apple-centric (AAPL 113.00, +0.48 +0.43%) smartphone market.

Technology (XLK 47.47, -0.17 -0.36%) again finished middle of the ladder among other S&P sectors, and was modestly off lows. Component Akamai Tech (AKAM 54.64, +0.93 +1.73%) was among the best performers today in a weaker sector as the company announced the acquisition of Soha Systems for an undisclosed sum. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Tuesday XLU -2.09%, XLRE -1.52%, XLB -1.36%, XLE -1.02%, XLP -0.85%, XLI -0.84%, IYZ -0.78%, XLY -0.34%, XLV -0.19%, XLFS +0.40%, XLF +0.42%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (797.34, -1.30 -0.16%) sector, ended just below flat lines as midday weakness took the sector off gains. Component Salesforce.com (CRM 72.63, +2.11 +2.99%) was the best performing name across the space as the company's Investor Day got underway today and will run through the week; additionally, the company announced the acquisition of data management platform Krux. Names in the space which underperformed today included XRX -2.77%, FLIR -2.53%, ACN -2.17%, ADS -1.93%, HPQ -1.85%, XLNX -1.61%, NTAP -1.44%, WU -1.36%, TSS -1.32%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

At the company's live streaming event today, Alphabet (GOOGL 802.79, +2.41 +0.30%) announced its new smartphone, Pixel, which will be available for pre-order starting at $649 in two sizes, 5' and 5.5' exclusively from Verizon (VZ 51.26, -0.62 -1.20%). The company also announced the new Daydream VR headset starting at $79. Lastly, the company unveiled its new Google Wifi system, the next step after the OnHub platform from a year ago; built to enable easy, no-lag streaming throughout the home, Google Wifi will be available for pre-order in November for $129 for a single pack or $229 for a three-pack at select retail stores.

Salesforce.com (CRM) to acquire data management platform Krux. CRM expects the deal to close in the fourth fiscal quarter ending January 31, 2017.

Xactly (XTLY 15.73, +0.07 +0.45%) announces pre-built integrations with Salesforce (CRM) through the Xactly Connect Open Platform. Enabling a seamless flow of data and extending functionality between Salesforce and Xactly, customers can get the intelligence they need to power better selling.

Daimler (DDAIF 71.40, +1.75 +2.51%) announces AT&T (T 39.90, -0.87 -2.13%) will provide cellular service for the new Detroit Connect Truck Data Center. Co will also collaborate with Microsoft (MSFT 57.24, -0.18 -0.31%) to establish a new cloud-based back office environment for all Detroit Connect services, including new features, such as Detroit Connect Remote Updates.

ABB (ABB 22.57, +0.05 +0.22%) and Microsoft (MSFT) announced a strategic partnership to help industrial customers create new value with digital solutions. Customers will benefit from the unique combination of the Microsoft Azure intelligent cloud and ABB's deep domain knowledge and extensive portfolio of industrial solutions.

Jack Henry & Associates (JKHY 83.95, -1.45 -1.70%) Payment Solutions group has partnered with Visa (V 82.73, -0.13 -0.16%) to deliver faster P2P (person-to-person) payments to a recipient's Visa debit card.

ZAGG (ZAGG 8.12, +0.11 +1.37%) introduces the Slim Book Pro and Rugged Book Pro keyboard cases for the 9.7-inch Apple (AAPL) iPad Pro.

Veeva Systems (VEEV 40.31, -0.91 -2.21%) announces the integration of Veeva Vault with Microsoft Office Online (MSFT) delivering real-time, collaborative authoring in a compliant way.

Akamai Tech (AKAM) acquired Soha Systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Intel Security (INTC 37.54, -0.12 -0..32%) launched its 2017 consumer security lineup featuring security innovations to better protect the devices people use every day against the latest threats. The centerpiece of the new portfolio is a next-generation anti-malware engine that offers more efficient and effective detection by offloading analysis to the cloud.

IBM (IBM 156.46, -1.15 -0.73%) unveiled a $200 million investment in the new global headquarters for its Watson Internet of Things business in Munich, new IoT capabilities around Blockchain and security and an array of clients that are driving real outcomes by using Watson IoT technologies to draw insights from billions of sensors embedded in machines, cars, drones, ball bearings, pieces of equipment and even hospitals.

Western Union (WU 20.33, -0.28 -1.36%) filed a debt securities shelf offering for an undisclosed amount.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Ericsson (ERIC 7.16, -0.01 -0.14%) confirmed changes to operations in Sweden, including the intentions to reduce 3,000 positions in production, research and development and sales and administration.

Criteo (CRTO 36.63, +0.87 +2.43%) provided additional information on its acquisition of HookLogic. The purchase price was $250 million, and the company sees positive financial impact from said deal in midterm.

Cypress Semi (CY 11.88, -0.12 -1.00%) adopted a restructuring plan on September 27 and expects to eliminate about 500 positions from its global workforce. The company will take charges related to the restructuring plan in the range of about $40-50 million, primarily in the third and fourth quarters of 2016.

FORM Holdings (FH 3.00, -0.07 -2.28%) partnered with Digital Ally (DGLY 5.74, -0.07 -1.20%) as the exclusive third party supplier of DGLY's Fleet Vu solution. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Elephant Talk (ETAK 0.16, +0.00 +3.24%) announced the divestiture of its ValidSoft subsidiary.

Marchex's (MCHX 2.59, -0.16 -5.82%) CEO Pete Christothoulou resigned effective immediately and Anne Devereux-Mills assumed responsibilities as Chairman. The company also reaffirmed Q3 revenue guidance.

Monotype Imaging (TYPE 20.69, -1.12 -5.14%) updated guidance following acquisition of Olapic.

Analyst actions:

FISV was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
SWKS was upgraded to Buy from Mkt Perform at Charter Equity,
TSM was upgraded to Neutral from Negative at Susquehanna,
AVT was upgraded to Strong Buy at Raymond James;
GRUB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
CUDA was downgraded to Underperform from In-Line at Imperial Capital,
PHI was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup,
SPLK was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Guggenheim;
BRCD and HUBS were initiated with Buy ratings at DA Davidson,
PFPT was initiated with a Neutral at DA Davidson,
GWRE, HUBS and VEEV were initiated with Neutral ratings at Goldman,
SHOP was initiated with a Buy at Goldman,
IQNT was initiated with a Buy at Drexel Hamilton

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:53 pm Dialog Semi. reports prelim Q3 revenue above guidance of approx $345 mln vs $309 mln estimate (DLGNF) :

Co reports preliminary Q3 2016 revenue of ~$345 mln, 13% above the mid-point of the July Q3 2016 outlook range and 5% above Q3 2015. On 28 July 2016, Dialog indicated that it expected revenue in Q3 2016 to be in the range of $290 to $320 million. The higher than expected preliminary revenue reported today is partially the result of delivery dates for certain Q4 Mobile Systems orders being pulled forward into Q3 to accommodate a public holiday in China during the first week of October. Dialog will review its Q4 2016 and full year guidance during the coming weeks. The company is currently finalising the financial accounts for Q3 2016 and will publish full results on Thursday, 3 November 2016.

Upside sales guidance is boosting AAPL, AVGO, QCOM in after hours

4:13 pm Alcoa completes 1:3 reverse stock split, shares to begin trading on split-adjusted basis tomorrow morning (AA) :

4:10 pm Semtech confirms agreement with Comcast (CMCSA) to deploy trial LoRaWAN network in the United States, deal provides warrant for Comcast to acquire up to $30 mln of common stock; co updates Q3 guidance as a result (shares halted) (SMTC) :

The co confirmed that it has entered into an agreement with Comcast (CMCSA) regarding the intended trial deployment by Comcast of a low-power wide-area network in the United States, based on Semtech LoRa Wireless Radio Frequency Technology. The LoRaWAN-based network trial deployment is expected to commence in the calendar fourth quarter of 2016 in Philadelphia and San Francisco, and target "smart" enterprise, government and consumer Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as metering, asset tracking, building and public venue management, security, food safety, vending, and waste management. Upon successful completion of the trials, the network could be expanded to up to 30 U.S. cities within a period of 30 months.

To facilitate an accelerated build-out of the network in at least 30 major cities across the country, Semtech has agreed to grant Comcast a Warrant to purchase 1,086,957 shares of Semtech's common stock at a purchase price per share equal to $0.01. This Warrant will vest in several phases based upon successful completion of milestones which are generally tied to regional coverage targets as follows:

10% will vest on the Warrant issue date; 10% will vest once at least 50% of the population of two target cities have LoRaWAN coverage; 26% will vest once at least 50% of the population of 10 target cities have LoRaWAN coverage; 27% will vest once at least 50% of the population of 20 target cities have LoRaWAN coverage; 27% will vest once at least 50% of the population of 30 target cities have LoRaWAN coverage

This Warrant is expected to vest over a period of 30 months and is valued at approximately $30 mln based on the average closing price of Semtech's common stock over the 10-trading day period ending Oct. 4, 2016. In accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"), any expense related to this Warrant is expected to be recorded as a reduction to net sales since it is being granted to a customer.

Accordingly, Semtech expects to record a reduction to its GAAP net sales of approximately $3.8 mln in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017 which is expected to reduce GAAP earnings per diluted share for this same period by approximately $0.06. As a result of these items, Semtech is updating its GAAP outlook for the third quarter of fiscal year 2017 and now expects GAAP net sales to be in the range of $130-138 mln compared to the prior range of $134-142 mln (vs $138.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate). GAAP earnings per diluted share are now expected to be in the range of $0.43-0.47 compared to prior range of $0.49-0.53.

4:03 pm Semtech: Comcast (CMCSA) announces machineQ, will use Semtech's LoRa Wireless Radio Frequency Technology to deploy network trials in Philadelphia and San Francisco later this year (shares halted) (SMTC) :

Comcast (CMCSA) announced machineQ, a new business trial venture focused on building business-to-business solutions and a platform for the Internet of Things. As a part of machineQ, Comcast will work with select commercial partners in proof of concepts to use its network to enable partners to gather, transmit, and analyze data from connected devices distributed throughout their organizations.

Comcast will use Semtech Corporation's globally-proven LoRa Wireless Radio Frequency Technology to deploy network trials in Philadelphia and San Francisco later this year. These trials will focus on enabling use cases such as utility metering, environmental monitoring (e.g., temperature, pollution, noise), and asset tracking through LoRa Technology-enabled devices and network services.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the midweek affair on a higher note as a rally in crude oil futures and financials (+1.5%) outweighed some lingering rate jitters. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) finished ahead of the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) and the S&P 500 (+0.4%).

Index futures climbed in pre-market action, receiving a boost after the release of a weaker-than-expected reading of the ADP National Employment Report for September. The report indicated the addition of 154,000 (Briefing.com consensus 171k) private sector payrolls in September, but it is worth remembering that the Employment Situation Report, which will be released on Friday, carries a lot more influence. The September Employment Situation Report will be released on Friday at 8:30 ET (Briefing.com consensus 176,000). The hiring landscape remains in focus as participants continue refining their rate hike expectations.

Interest rates edged higher, keeping a lid on the market after the ISM Services Index for September handily beat expectations. The index jumped to 57.1 (Briefing.com consensus 52.8) from 51.4 in August. The Treasury complex sold off in response as yields moved higher across the curve. The increase in interest rates pressured defensively-oriented real estate (-1.9%), telecom services (-1.8%), utilities (-0.3%), and consumer staples (-0.2%) for a second straight session.

A rally in crude oil also contributed to strength in growth-sensitive sectors. The energy component extended an early lead after the Department of Energy confirmed a positive reading from the American Petroleum Institute. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles declined by 2.97 million barrels (consensus: +2.56 million) while gasoline inventories rose by 0.22 million barrels (consensus: +0.70 million). WTI crude finished the day higher by 2.2% ($49.76/bbl; +$1.08).

The benchmark index finished off its session high, testing technical resistance near the 2160 price level. Seven sectors settled in the green with financials (+1.5%), energy (+1.4%), and materials (+0.7%) leading the advance.

The heavily-weighted financial (+1.5%) sector topped the leaderboard as steepening in the yield curve improved the earnings potential for the group. The spread between the 2-yr yield and 10-yr yield expanded to 89 basis points. Money center banks and life insurance names outperformed as MetLife (MET 45.74, +0.87) and Wells Fargo (WFC 44.76, +1.01) gained 2.7% and 2.9%, respectively. The broader group has gained 1.5% this week, leading the remaining sectors on the weekly leaderboard.

The high-beta chipmakers outperformed in the technology sector (+0.4%), evidenced by the 0.8% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Broadcom (AVGO 173.97, +4.92) gained 2.6% after receiving an "Outperform" designation at Bernstein. Micron (MU 17.77 -0.02) settled modestly lower as a disappointing gross interest margin masked a bottom-line beat. Separately, Twitter (TWTR 24.75, +1.23) gained 5.6% after reports indicated that the company could receive takeover bids as early as this week. Recall that Alphabet (GOOG 780.44, +4.01), Microsoft (MSFT 57.85, +0.61), Disney (DIS 93.08, +0.49), and Salesforce.com (CRM 67.72, -4.91) have previously been cited as potential suitors.

Retail names displayed relative strength in the consumer discretionary space (+0.4%) as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.05, +0.64) gained 1.3%. In the group, apparel retailers led as Nordstrom (JWN 52.83, +1.18) and Gap (GPS 22.50, +0.72) moved higher by 2.4% and 3.5%, respectively. Conversely, discount retailers underperformed for a second session as Dollar Tree (DLTR 76.43, -3.10) weighed on the group.

Treasuries finished near their worst levels as yields rose through the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note increased one basis point (0.83%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose three basis points (1.72%).

Today's participation was above the recent average as more than xxx million shares changed hands on the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly MBA Mortgage Index, ADP Employment Report for September, August Trade Balance, Factory Orders for August, and ISM Services for September:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications rose 2.9% in the week ending October 1. This followed a 0.7% decline in the prior week.
ADP said an estimated 154,000 positions (Briefing.com consensus 171,000) were added to private sector payrolls in September, almost all of which came from the Service-providing sector (151,000).
Small businesses added 34,000 jobs, midsized businesses increased their payrolls by 56,000 positions, and large businesses added 64,000 jobs.
The Trade balance report for August showed a widening in the deficit to $40.7 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$39.1 billion) from $39.5 billion in July.
Factory orders increased 0.2% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) following a downwardly revised 1.4% increase (from 1.9%) in July. Total manufacturing shipments were unchanged after declining 0.4% in July.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI increased to 57.1 in September (Briefing.com consensus 52.8) from 51.4 in August.
September marked the highest reading for the index since October 2015.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to September Challenger Job Cuts and weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 258k), which will be released at 7:30 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000: +9.9% YTD
Nasdaq: +6.2% YTD
S&P 500: +5.7% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.9% YTD

DJ30 +112.58 NASDAQ +26.36 SP500 +9.24 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1953/1.614 bln/889 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1804/962.1 mln/1162

3:45 pm :

WTI crude oil ends the day strong following API/EIA weekly oil storage data
Nov WTI crude oil finished today's session +2.2% at $49.76/barrel
Nov natural gas futures rose back above the $3/MMBtu level again today, closing +2.7% at $3.04/MMBtu
Moving over to the metals...
Dec gold closed out today's session -0.1% at $1268.20/oz, while Dec silver ended -0.5% at $17.69/oz
Dec copper slipped one cent to $2.16/lb

Interest rates remained in focus as investors pored over a mixed set of economic data. The ADP National Employment Report for September came in below consensus, indicating that 154,000 jobs were added in September. Conversely, the ISM Services Index for September topped expectations, rising to 57.1 from 51.4. This was the highest reading since October 2015.

The fed funds futures market ticked higher following the mixed data, but the needle remains little changed ahead of Friday's Employment Situation Report for September. The government employment report is expected to show that 176,000 nonfarm payrolls were added. The fed funds futures market indicates that the implied probability of a rate hike at the November meeting is 16.6%, rising from 14.5% in the prior session. The odds of a rate hike in December have increased to 64.3% from 63.4% yesterday.

An extended rally in crude oil has also contributed to early strength. The energy component gained ground overnight after the American Petroleum Institute reported its weekly inventory data. Oil added to its winning streak after the Department of Energy confirmed the reading with its more influential inventory data. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles declined by 2.97 million barrels while gasoline inventories rose by 0.22 million barrels. At the end of the session, November WTI crude oil futures were +2.2% at $49.76/barrel.

Market data today included the MBA Mortgage Index which indicated that mortgage applications rose 2.9% in the week ending October 1. This followed a 0.7% decline in the prior week. As mentioned, the ADP said an estimated 154,000 positions were added to private sector payrolls in September, almost all of which came from the Service-providing sector (151,000). Also, the trade balance report for August showed a widening in the deficit to $40.7 billion from $39.5 billion in July. Additionally, factory orders increased 0.2% in August following a downwardly revised 1.4% increase (from 1.9%) in July. Total manufacturing shipments were unchanged after declining 0.4% in July. Lastly, as mentioned, the ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI increased to 57.1 in September from 51.4 in August.

The stock market ended on a higher note but modestly off highs of the day. The session was led higher by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which added 112.58 points (+0.62%) to 18281.03. The Nasdaq Composite was up 26.36 points (+0.50%) to 5316.02, and the S&P 500 rounded out the trio higher by 9.24 points (+0.43%) to 2159.73. Large cap Dow components which held the sector higher included XOM +0.9%, JNJ +0.3%, JPM +1.6%, PG +0.6% and PFE +0.5%.

Technology (XLK 47.64, +0.17 +0.36%) continued the recent trend, finishing middle of the pack among other S&P sectors but ending positive for the first time in October. Component Salesforce.com (CRM 68.42, -4.21 -5.80%) was the worst performer today on the back of continued, and unconfirmed, speculation that the company would make a bid for Twitter (TWTR 24.87, +1.35 +5.74%). Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLF +1.61%, XLE +1.53%, XLFS +1.51%, XLB +0.70%, XLI +0.64%, XLY +0.44%, XLV +0.38%, XLP -0.10%, XLU -0.21%, IYZ -0.59%, XLRE -1.86%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (800.87, +3.53 +0.44%) sector, Wednesday ended above the 800-level for the first time in October. Component Micron (MU 17.70, -0.10 -0.56%) turned in a modestly lower session following mostly better than expected earnings. Other names in the space which closed higher included FSLR +4.00%, GPN +3.40%, TSS +3.09%, AVGO +2.62%, ADSK +2.51%, AKAM +2.46%, JNPR +2.43%, TDC +2.06%, HPE +1.83%, HPQ +1.76%, ADS +1.68%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Shares of both Twitter (TWTR) and Salesforce.com (CRM) were active today amid the latest round of speculation that CRM would make an attempt at purchasing TWTR. CRM's CEO Mark Benioff appeared on CNBC, not acknowledging, but not refuting the merger talks as he said the company looks at everything, and passes on most things (when asked about M&A).

NVIDIA (NVDA 68.23, -0.07 -0.10%) and FANUC Corporation announced a collaboration to implement artificial intelligence on the FANUC Intelligent Edge Link and Drive system to increase robotics productivity and bring new capabilities to automated factories worldwide.

Harris (HRS 91.79, +0.53 +0.58%) announced the U.S. Army has placed an initial order of about $10 million for the company's Falcon III AN/VRC-118 Mid-tier Networking Vehicular Radios.

Accenture (ACN 118.21, -0.03 -0.03%) to acquire Defense Point Security. Financial terms were not disclosed. Also, startup incubator 1776 selected ACN to provide guidance and insights to its roster of digital health startups. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company also announced it has teamed with Adobe (ADBE 108.80, +0.41 +0.38%) to launch new digital marketing solutions for financial services organizations in North America and Europe. The newly released solutions are designed to help financial services clients attract, engage and retain high-value customers by creating relevant digital experiences that grow sales and revenue while improving retention and loyalty.

CSRA (CSRA 26.61, -0.32 -1.19%) announced it was one of seven companies to win a new indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity award to modernize the application, database and infrastructure used to administer and pay contracts issued to defense companies. The contract has a $142 million ceiling over a 10 year period.

The Safariland Group, the parent company of VIEVU, a leading provider of body worn video cameras used by thousands of law enforcement agencies in 17 countries, announces it has satisfied its contract to provide body worn cameras to the Miami-Dade Police Department, enabling the MDPD to achieve its goal of deploying more than 1,000 body worn cameras by the end of September 2016. The video data collected from the body worn cameras provided to the MDPD officers equipped with the body worn cameras will be uploaded, stored, and managed on VIEVU Solution, the industry's most flexible and mobile-friendly evidence management system built on the Microsoft (MSFT 57.64, +0.40 +0.70%) Azure Government Cloud.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Twilio's (TWLO 61.47, +0.53 +0.87%) Chief Operating Officer Roy Ng transitioned to Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations effective immediately.

AT&T (T 39.16, -0.26 -0.66%) and Communications Workers of America reached a tentative agreement in national internet contract negotiations (covers nearly 1,200 employees in 16 states).

Network-1 (NTIP 2.74, -0.00 -0.10%) announced the settlement of patent litigation with Polycom (PLCM) which agreed to license NTIP's Remote Power Patent for Power over Ethernet products through March 2020.

QTS Realty Trust (QTS 50.27, -0.39 -0.77%) acquired the sole rights to VMware vCloud Government Service from VMware (VMW 74.00, +1.55 +2.14%). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Nokia (NOK 5.71, -0.07 -1.21%) has acquired Eta Devices, a US-based start-up specializing in power amplifier efficiency solutions for base stations, access points and devices. Eta Devices will bolster Nokia's push to enhance base station energy efficiency, an increasingly important area for operators on the path to 4.9G and 5G.
Acacia Communications (ACIA 113.54, +11.54 +11.31%) filed an amended S-1 for offering of 4.5 million shares and raised Q3 guidance to EPS of $0.83-0.90 on revenues of $130-133 million; ACIA recently raised guidance on 9/26 for EPS of $0.72-0.81 on revs of $127-131 million.
According to The Verge, a Samsung (SSNLF 1600.00, +50.00 +3.23%) replacement smartphone caught fire while on a Southwest Airlines (LUV 39.10, -0.06 -0.15%) flight.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Micron (MU) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.05 on revenues which fell 10.6% compared to last year to $3.22 billion. The company also guided Q1 EPS in the range of $0.13-0.21 on revenues of $3.55-3.85 billion.

Global Payments (GPN 79.04, +2.60 +3.40%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.86 on revenues which increased 52.5% compared to last year to $817.3 million. The company also raised FY17 EPS guidance to $3.45-3.55 from $3.40-3.50.

Analyst actions:

GIMO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson and to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
ATEN was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson,
IDCC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Dougherty;
NFLX was initiated with a Buy at Loop Capital,
AVGO was initiated with an Outperform at Bernstein,
ADS was initiated with an Overweight at Atlantic Equities,
TEAM was initiated with an Outperform at Cowen

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended Thursday relatively flat as some interest rate volatility and some caution ahead of the September employment report on Friday kept a lid on things. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) settled slightly behind the S&P 500 (+0.05%). Long-term interest rates continued their recent climb despite some dovish-sounding minutes from the European Central Bank's (ECB) September meeting and accommodative jawboning from ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio.

Mr. Constancio briefly rallied global bond markets when he denied reports from earlier in the week that suggested the central bank has held discussions about tapering its asset purchase program. That headline boost proved to be short-lived, however, as Treasury prices soon started to fade again, pushing yields back up.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note, which slipped back to 1.71% after the Constancio headline first hit, finished higher by four basis points at 1.74%.

The stock market took the afternoon boost in long-term rates in stride. While there weren't any big gains (or losses) from a sector standpoint, the real estate (+0.2%), consumer staples (+0.1%), utilities (unch), and telecom services (-0.1%) sectors, otherwise known as "yield plays," held up reasonably well and finished off their worst levels of the day. Those four groups have lost between 1.6% and 3.7% this week, with the 10-yr note yield climbing 14 basis points since last Friday's close.

Stock market participants, by and large, showed limited conviction ahead of Friday's employment report.

The Employment Situation Report for September is in focus as participants try to assess the fed funds rate hike picture for the remainder of the year. The Briefing.com consensus expects the jobs report to show that 176,000 positions were added to nonfarm payrolls and that average hourly earnings increased 0.2%. The report is slated to cross the wires on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, which is when the media should also be busy reporting on Hurricane Matthew, a Category 4 storm that is expected to hit Florida's east coast Thursday night.

Six sectors ended in the green today with materials (+0.8%) and technology (+0.2%) leading the advance. Today's trade also featured an uptick in crude oil ($50.44/bbl; +$0.68; +1.4%) and weakness in the heavily-weighted health care (-0.4%) space.

Biotechnology underperformed inside the health care sector (-0.4%) as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 284.16, -6.64) fell 2.3%. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY 36.21, -34.09) pressured the group after it announced that it was discontinuing Revusiran developments. The stock plunged 48.5% on the news. Mylan (MYL 36.84, -1.19) underperformed amid continued scrutiny of its EpiPen. Reports indicated that the company misclassified the device under the Medicaid Drug Rebate program.

The financial sector (+0.1%) outperformed as a steepening in the yield curve was seen as improving the earnings potential for the group. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 34.20, +0.03) rose 0.1%, extending its weekly gain to 2.4%. MetLife (MET 47.15, +1.16) jumped 2.5% after confirming that Brighthouse Financial filed forms with the SEC to distribute common stock to MetLife shareholders. This is a crucial step in MetLife's plan to separate into two publicly traded companies.

In the technology space (+0.2%), top-weighed Apple (AAPL 113.89, +0.84) gained 0.7% after Canaccord Genuity issued a bullish note on iPhone sales. On the flipside, Twitter (TWTR 19.87, -5.00) tumbled 20.2% after reports signaled that Apple (AAPL 113.89, +0.84), Alphabet (GOOG 776.86, +0.39), and Disney (DIS 92.83, +0.38) are unlikely to pursue bids for Twitter.

Today's participation was below the recent average as more than 796 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to Challenger Job Cuts for September and weekly initial claims:

September Challenger Job Cuts reported in at 44,300, which compares to the prior month's reading of 32,200.
For the week ending October 1, initial claims decreased by 5,000 to 249,000 (Briefing.com consensus 258,000).
Continuing claims for the week ending September 24 fell by 6,000 to 2.058 million.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 8:30 a.m. ET release of the Employment Situation Report for September. The Briefing.com consensus expects the report to show an increase of 176,000 in nonfarm payrolls. Meanwhile, August Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) and August Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus$18.0 billion) will cross the wires at 10:00 a.m ET and 3:00 p.m. ET, respectively. DJ30 -12.53 NASDAQ -9.17 SP500 +1.04 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1110/1.520 bln/1712 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1297/795.5 mln/1632

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was +0.6% around the 96.71 level, weighed on precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.2% around the 85.51 level
Crude oil extended yesterday's post-EIA rally and ended above the $50.00/barrel resistance zone ahead of tomorrow's rig count data
November crude oil futures rose $0.68 (+1.4%) to $50.44/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
Crude oil futures extended their rally after headlines crossed about oil ministers from OPEC and non-OPEC producers gathering in Istanbul to discuss details of last week's OPEC production cut to 32.5 mln barrels/day, compared to July production levels around 33.1 mln barrels/day.
The next official OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30
Natural gas ended nearly unchanged after an initial drop below the $3.00/MMBtu support level after EIA data showed a larger-than-expected build compared to Consensus
November Natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.3%) at $3.05/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Working gas in storage was 3,680 Bcf as of Friday, September 30, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +80 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +70 bcf.
Stocks were 74 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 205 Bcf above the five-year average of 3,475 Bcf.
At 3,680 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold dropped to multi-month lows, outpaced by the losses in silver, the gold:silver ratio increased for the third consecutive session
December gold ended today's session down $15.10 (-1.2%) to $1253.10/oz
As noted earlier, there aren't any direct headlines moving precious metals or the underlying Gold Miners (GDX, GDXJ). Continued strength in the US Dollar and Treasury Yields plays a role, which fueled this week's breakdown in gold prices to 3-month lows.
The 200-day simple moving average is challenged, along with the bullish gap zone from mid-June, bringing some buyers off the sidelines to play a bounce. The headlines that ECB Vice President Constancio has refuted the reports from earlier in the week that the ECB is looking at tapering its asset purchases also helped. Whether they can maintain this strength off morning lows for a bigger retracement remains to be seen.
The gold:silver ratio was ~72.3, compared to yesterday's pit trading close ratio of ~71.7
December silver closed today's session $0.35 lower (-2.0%) at $17.34/oz

Equity indices began the day under modest selling pressure as rising global interest rates continued to weigh. The latest round of selling pressure came despite some dovish-sounding minutes from the September 8 ECB meeting. The minutes did not mention a potential tapering of the bank's asset purchase program. However, participants evidently remained concerned about the notion that ECB officials might have begun discussing potential tapering measures after the meeting.

The stock market reversed course in a precipitous manner, though, shortly before midday following reports that ECB Vice President Constncio denied the earlier reports suggesting ECB officials have held discussions.

Market data today included the September Challenger Job Cuts report, which came in at 44,300 compared to the prior month's reading of 32,200. Additionally, for the week ending October 1, initial claims decreased by 5,000 to 249,000.

When Thursday came to a close, the stock market had traded at a stable, albeit split clip for the majority of the session. Thus was the design of the close, as only the S&P 500 managed gains, up 1.04 points (+0.05%) to 2160.77. The Nasdaq Composite was pressured the most, shedding 9.17 points (-0.17%) to 5306.85, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 12.53 points (-0.07%) to 18268.50. Top weighted S&P 500 components XOM +0.05%, FB +0.21%, JPM +0.27%, PG +0.42%, GOOGL +0.23% and WFC +0.42% helped the index escape the clutches of negative territory.

Technology (XLK 47.75, +0.11 +0.23%) finished the Thursday affair modestly in the green, but was bested only by Materials among S&P sectors. Component Lam Research (LRCX 100.19 +4.02 +4.18%) was the best performing component today on the back of news out last night after the close which confirmed that LRCX and KLA-Tencor (KLAC 71.79, +0.58 +0.81%) had terminated their merger agreement. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended the session XLB +0.82%, XLRE +0.19%, XLP +0.19%, XLE +0.14%, XLY +0.07%, XLFS +0.06%, XLI +0.05%, XLF +0.05%, XLU -0.04%, IYZ -0.35%, XLV -0.44% with Healthcare, Telecoms and Utilities lagging.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (802.67, +1.80 +0.22%) sector, the Thursday session ended on a plateaued positive tick. Component Salesforce.com (CRM 71.26, +2.84 +4.15%) was another hot name today as the rumor mill was again warm with speculation that CRM was the lone remaining bidder for Twitter (TWTR 19.87, -5.00 -20.10%) after Disney (DIS 92.83, +0.38 +0.41%) and Alphabet's (GOOG 776.86, +0.39 +0.05%) Google reportedly ducked out of the running. Other names in the space which performed well today included SWKS +2.05%, FIS +1.83%, QRVO +1.54%, FISV +1.12%, QCOM +1.05%, APH +0.96%, AAPL +0.74%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

KLA-Tencor (KLAC) and Lam Research (LRCX) have agreed to terminate their proposed merger agreement. The parties decided to it was not in the best interests of their respective stakeholders to continue pursuing the merger after the U.S. DoJ advised KLAC and LRCX that it would not continue with a consent decree that the parties had been negotiating. No termination fees will be payable by either company in connection with the termination of the Merger Agreement.

Twitter (TWTR) had a volatile session following a Re/Code report that Alphabet's (GOOG) Google will not move forward with an offer for the company and that Apple (AAPL 113.89, +0.84 +0.74%) is unlikely to be a possible bidder. Re/Code further reported that Disney (DIS) has decided not to make a formal offer for TWTR as well.

Alliance Data's (ADS 214.05, -2.23 -1.03%) Epsilon signed a new multi-year agreement with Red Roof for email marketing services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Western Union Company (WU 20.40, +0.10 +0.49%) rolled out Western Union Money Transfer services across OXXO, Mexico's largest convenience store chain geographically.

Monotype (TYPE 21.33, +0.12 +0.57%) partnered with Alphabet's (GOOG) Google to create a typography project -- Google Noto. Google Noto now covers more than 800 languages and 100 writing scripts, which includes letters in multiple serif and sans serif styles across up to eight weights, as well as numbers, emoji, symbols and musical notations.

eBay (EBAY 32.14, -0.01 -0.03%) to acquire image recognition technology company Corrigon Ltd. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cognizant (CTSH 51.21, +0.31 +0.61%) has been selected by Future Group as a strategic partner for Future Consumer.

Microsoft (MSFT 57.74, +0.10 +0.17%) and Powel AS announced a pilot project that will help create a more efficient, flexible and intelligent grid of the future.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Semtech (SMTC 27.66, -0.08 -0.29%) confirmed an agreement with Comcast (CMCSA 65.41, -0.39 -0.59%) to deploy trial LoRaWAN network in the United States. The deal provides warrant for CMCSA to acquire up to $30 million of common stock. As such, updated its GAAP outlook for Q3 of fiscal year 2017 and now expects GAAP net sales to be in the range of $130-138 million compared to the prior range of $134-142 million. GAAP earnings per diluted share are now expected to be in the range of $0.43-0.47 compared to prior range of $0.49-0.53.

AT&T (T 39.11, -0.05 -0.13%) announced a new multi-year relationship with Amazon (AMZN 841.66, -2.70 -0.32%) Web Services to integrate cloud and networking capabilities. Financial details were not disclosed.

Samsung (SSNLF 1600.00, flat) agreed to acquire Viv Labs for an undisclosed amount.

Science Applications (SAIC 69.05, +0.42 +0.61%) was awarded a $575 million contract by the U.S. Army Corps.

ATRM Holdings (ATRM 1.85, +0.35 +23.33%) acquired certain assets of Edgebuilder Wall Panels and Glenbrook Lumber & Supply. Consideration for the acquisition includes $4 million in cash (including $3 million paid at closing and $1 million in deferred payments to be made in quarterly installments over the next year), and 100,000 shares of ATRM common stock.

Consolidated Comms Illinois (CNSL 24.82, +0.08 +0.32%) completed refinancing of secured term debt resulting in extension of maturities, significant interest savings and an increase to its revolving loan facility.

DTS (DTSI 42.43, +0.02 +0.05%) acquired Arctic Palm Technology for an undisclosed amount.

Gogo (GOGO 10.91, -0.36 -3.19%) shares were active today following an update from Verizon (VZ 50.26, -0.01 -0.02%) on its commercial connectivity trials. VZ has deemed its 4G LTE 700 MHz network safe for in-flight wireless connectivity.

According to Bloomberg, NXP Semi (NXPI 103.49, +0.99 +0.97%) and Qualcomm (QCOM 67.54, +0.70 +1.05%) could be less than 10% apart regarding value of an M&A deal.

Analyst actions:

KLAC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley & Co.,
BAH was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
CBB was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Gabelli & Co,
JASO, YGE and TSL were upgraded to Buy from Sell at Axiom Capital,
SCTY was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Axiom Capital;
IMPV was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson;
TTD was initiated with a Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald,
TUBE was initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
GIMO was initiated with a Mkt Perform at JMP Securities,
SQ was initiated with a Mkt Perform at Keefe Bruyette

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended Wednesday on a flat, and relatively mixed, note as the minutes from the FOMC's September policy meeting failed to disturb an otherwise quiet trading session. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) settled a hair below its 100-day simple moving average (2139.44) while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) finished on a slightly lower note.

Rising bond yields and a strengthening dollar remained focal points in today's action as investors looked to substantiate their rate hike outlook with the minutes from the FOMC's September 20-21 meeting.

Bond yields and the greenback rose through the first half of trade as a solidifying rate hike outlook provided support. Market participants continued to discount the possibility of a November rate hike while betting on a policy shift at the December meeting. According to the CME's Fed Watch Tool, the probability of a rate hike at the November meeting is just 9.3% while the probability of a hike at the December meeting sits at 69.9%.

The minutes from the FOMC's September policy meeting indicated that there were a number of arguments for raising rates in September, but that the committee opted to wait for further data. All in all, there wasn't really any "new" news in the minutes, which essentially reinforced preconceived policy notions held by the market ahead of their release.

Those notions revolved around a belief that the next hike in the target range for the fed funds rate will most likely occur at the December 13-14 FOMC meeting, barring any big economic potholes hit along the way.

The U.S. Dollar Index (97.92, +0.23, +0.24%) tested, but failed to clear the psychological 98.00 price level while the yield on the 10-yr note finished higher by one basis point at 1.77%.

Although long-term rates rose again today, the real estate (+1.3%), utilities (+1.0%), telecom services (+0.6%), and consumer staples (+0.5%) sectors -- so-called "yield plays" -- all outperformed on Wednesday in a move that had the semblance of being a bounce from short-term oversold conditions. For instance, entering Wednesday's trade, the S&P 500 utilities sector had fallen 9.4% over the last three months.

The S&P 500 (+0.1%) finished the session off its high, having failed earlier in the day to clear technical resistance in the 2144/2146 area.

Eight sectors finished in positive territory while three -- health care (-0.6%), energy (-0.4%), and materials (-0.2%) -- ended the day with a loss.

Retail names outperformed in the consumer discretionary space (+0.4%), evidenced by the 0.8% gain in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 43.68, +0.33). Separately, Amazon (AMZN 834.09, +3.09) finished ahead of the broader market after Cantor Fitzgerald raised its price target on the stock to $1,000 from $835.

The financial sector (+0.2%) displayed relative strength on a slight steepening in the yield curve and extended its gain for the month to 1.1%, helped also by insurers and asset managers.

Biotechnology underperformed once again in the health care sector (-0.6%), evidenced by the 2.5% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 270.13, -6.87), which closed below its 200-day moving average -- a move that will be regarded as a negative technical development. Mylan (MYL 37.07, -1.24) fell 3.2% as it pulled back from an 8.2% gain on Monday.

Health care providers also weighed as Humana (HUM 168.44, -9.09) tumbled 5.5%. The stock fell after the managed care provider announced that the number of 4-star plan members declined to 1.17 million from 2.15 million in the prior year. The company also raised its full-year earnings guidance.

The energy sector (-0.4%) underperformed amid a 1.1% decline in crude oil futures ($50.15/bbl, -$0.56). As a reminder, the American Petroleum Institute will release its weekly inventory report after today's close. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy will release its more influential inventory report tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. ET.

Today's trading volume fell came in below the recent averages of 926 million as 655 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor. Today's low volume was partly attributed to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, which began at sunset on Tuesday and will continue until nightfall today.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for August:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications fell 6.0% in the week ending October 8. This followed a 2.9% increase in the prior week.
The August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings came in at 5.443 million from a revised 5.831 million (from 5.871 million) in July.

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims report (Briefing.com consensus 255k) and the Import/Export Price report for September, both of which will cross the wires at 8:30 a.m. ET. Separately, the Treasury Budget for September will be released at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Russell 2000: +12.4% YTD
S&P 500: +4.7% YTD
Nasdaq: +4.6% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.1% YTD

DJ30 +15.54 NASDAQ -7.77 SP500 +2.44 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1372/1.442 bln/1513 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1528/672.6 mln/1390

3:30 pm :

The dollar index extended yesterday's surge to a 7-month high
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.6% around the 85.65 level
Crude oil extended yesterday's post-IEA slide after OPEC released their monthly oil market report, raised FY17 non-OPEC global supply growth estimate
November crude oil futures fell $0.56 (-1.1%) to $50.15/barrel
Weekly EIA inventory data will be released tomorrow 30 min after natural gas EIA data due to Monday's holiday
Rig count data will be released this Friday at 1 pm ET
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil include:
The informal meeting in Istanbul with energy ministers from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Venezuela, and Russia is taking place today, details of the recently announced OPEC production cut are expected to be discussed on the sidelines of the World Energy Congress; no decision is expected at this meeting
Comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin today referencing a production freeze as opposed to a production cut he mentioned on Monday, following comments from Igor Sechin, head of state-controlled Rosneft (OJSCY, 0%), responsible for 40% of Russia's oil production. Sechin stated Rosneft would not be part of any production cut. Rosneft plans to increase its production above the 4.1 mln barrels/day it produced in 2015
Strength in the dollar index puts pressure on the price of oil, the dollar index extended yesterday's gains and was at 7-month highs
Reminder: Iran, Nigeria, & Libya are all exempt from the recently announced OPEC production cut
The next official OPEC meeting will be held in Vienna, Austria on November 30
OPEC data highlights:
OPEC raised its FY17 non-OPEC oil supply growth estimates to +240k barrels/day, a 40k barrel/day increase from last month's estimate
OPEC pumped 33.4 mln barrels/day in Sept, up about 220k barrels/day compared to the prior month, an 8-year high
Natural gas extended yesterday's decline ahead of tomorrow's regularly scheduled inventory data
November natural gas closed $0.03 lower (-0.9%) at $3.21/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas storage data will be released at its normal time tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver closed nearly unchanged for the day
December gold ended today's session down $2.30 (-0.2%) to $1253.50/oz
December silver futures closed flat

Today's action closed a split, albeit mostly modest, affair. Stocks hovered near flat lines for most of the day, as the S&P 500 led all others higher today by 2.45 points (+0.11%) to 2139.18. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was also higher, finishing the session up 15.54 points (+0.09%) to 18144.20, and the Nasdaq Composite was the lone under-performer, shedding 7.77 points (-0.15%) to 5239.02. Heavily weighted Nasdaq 100 components BMRN -4.1%, REGN -3.3%, MYL -3.2%, ALXN -2.5% and BIIB -2.2% aided both the Nasdaq's decline and the losses in the broader Healthcare sector.

Rising bond yields and a strengthening dollar remained focal points in today's action as investors looked to substantiate their rate hike outlook with the minutes from the FOMC's September 20-21 meeting.

Bond yields and the greenback rose through the first half of trade as a solidifying rate hike outlook provided support. Market participants continued to discount the possibility of a November rate hike while betting on a policy shift at the December meeting. According to the CME's Fed Watch Tool, the probability of a rate hike at the November meeting is just 9.3% while the probability of a hike at the December meeting sits at 69.9%.

The minutes from the FOMC's September policy meeting indicated that there were a number of arguments for raising rates in September, but that the committee opted to wait for further data. All in all, there wasn't really any "new" news in the minutes, which essentially reinforced preconceived policy notions held by the market ahead of their release.

Those notions revolved around a belief that the next hike in the target range for the fed funds rate will most likely occur at the December 13-14 FOMC meeting, barring any big economic potholes hit along the way.

The U.S. Dollar Index (97.92, +0.23, +0.24%) tested, but failed to clear the psychological 98.00 price level while the yield on the 10-yr note finished higher by one basis point at 1.77%.

Again finishing the session toward the middle of the pack, Technology (XLK 47.49, +0.08 +0.17%) turned early weakness around and ended slightly above flat lines. Component Apple (AAPL 117.34, +1.04 +0.89%) was one of the better performers in the space today following a premarket upgraded to Positive from Negative at OTR Global. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Wednesday XLRE +1.42%, XLU +0.98%, XLP +0.56%, XLY +0.47%, XLI +0.19%, IYZ +0.09%, XLFS +0.07%, XLF -0.10%, XLB -0.19%, XLE -0.42%, XLV -0.47%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (797.31, +0.48 +0.06%) sector, trading returned to positive territory in the waning moments of the session. Component Xilinx (XLNX 50.08, -0.91 -1.78%) did not follow the broader sector higher today as the company announced a production milestone for its 16nm UltraScale portfolio ahead of schedule, but was downgraded in the premarket session to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird. Other names in the space which moderately outperformed included TSS +1.64%, VRSN +1.03%, ATVI +1.00%, FISV +0.97%, FIS +0.92%, ADP +0.91%, PYPL +0.87%, TDC +0.70%, WU +0.70%, ADBE +0.63%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Accenture (ACN 117.62, +0.65 +0.56%) was approved to provide human capital strategy, training and development, and performance-improvement services to U.S. federal agencies under an $11.5 billion Human Capital and Training Solutions Contracts award vehicle.

Microsoft (MSFT 57.11, -0.08 -0.14%) announced that Microsoft HoloLens is now available for preorder in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, with devices starting to ship in late November.

Xilinx (XLNX) reached a production milestone for its 16nm UltraScale portfolio ahead of schedule. Less than a year after first ship of all devices, open order entry for production devices is available this quarter.

Alphabet (GOOG 786.14, +3.07 +0.39%) acquired technology platform company FameBit.

Symantec (SYMC 24.94, -0.12 -0.48%) filed for an offering of common stock on behalf of selling shareholders, the size of which was not disclosed.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

IEC Electronics (IEC 4.15, -0.95 -18.63%) confirmed a workforce reduction at its Newark, NY facility of about 73 full-time employees.

Fortinet (FTNT 30.66, -3.43 -10.06%) lowered its Q3 revenue outlook to $311-316 million from $319-324 million, and lowered its EPS expectations to $0.15-0.16 from $0.17-0.18. FTNT also authorized a $100 million increase to its existing share repurchase program.

Ericsson (ERIC 5.55, -1.46 -20.83%) issued downside Q3 guidance of revenues of SEK 51.1 billion. Additionally, the company announced sales declined by 14% compared to a year ago. Gross margins were down 28% following lower volumes in Segment Networks, lower mobile broadband capacity sales, and higher share of services sales.

Tesla Motors (TSLA 201.51, +1.41 +0.70%) issued an update on the pending combination with SolarCity (SCTY 19.99, +0.61 +3.15%). The companies expect to unveil a solar roof product on October 28. TSLA also established November 17 as the date for its special meeting of stockholders to vote on the proposed SCTY merger.

NCR Corp (NCR 30.88, -0.02 -0.06%) authorized and approved an amendment and restatement of its bylaws to implement proxy access effective immediately.

Amazon (AMZN 834.09, +3.09 +0.37%) introduced Amazon Music Unlimited, its $9.99 per month ($7.99 per month for Prime users) on-demand music service. Additionally, according to Handelsblatt, AMZN is considering the creation of physical store locations in Germany.

Sprint (S 6.78, flat) announced three special purpose subsidiaries have commenced an offer of up to $3.5 billion of wireless spectrum-backed notes in 3 series with varying maturities in a private transaction.

Connection (CNXN 26.49, +0.59 +2.28%) acquired privately held GlobalServe. Financial details were not disclosed.

Resonant (RESN 5.06, -0.01 -0.20%) appointed Jeff Killian as new CFO effective October 24 succeeding interim CFO Ross Goolsby.
According to Reuters, Vivendi (VIVHY 20.08, flat) said it is not planning a hostile bid for Ubisoft (UBSFY 7.06, -0.37 -4.98%).

In reaction to quarterly results:

Barracuda Networks (CUDA 25.47, +2.14 +9.17%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.21 on revenues which rose 12.1% compared to last year and beat market expectations at $87.9 million. The company also guided Q3 slightly ahead of market expectations at non-GAAP EPS of $0.14-0.15 on $85-87 million in revenues. For FY17, CUDA raised EPS and revenues guidance to $0.66-0.69 (from $0.54-0.59) and $345-349 million (from $340-345 million), respectively.

Analyst actions:

MRVL was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
AMD was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse,
BRKS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
CUDA was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray,
MSI was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital,
NMBL was upgraded to Outperform at Wells Fargo,
AAPL was upgraded to Positive from Negative at OTR Global;
LRCX and NANO were downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
XLNX was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
FTNT was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Stephens,
NOW was downgraded to Mixed from Positive at OTR Global;
MU was initiated with a Buy at Cowen,
EEFT was initiated with a Buy at SunTrust,
AEIS was initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup,
MKSI was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup,
CDK was initiated with a Market Perform at William Blair,
GRUB was initiated with a Buy at Argus

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended a roller-coaster Thursday on a modestly lower note as the major averages battled back from steep opening losses. The S&P 500 finished lower by 0.3% after stumbling 1.1% at the start of the session. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) finished the day slightly behind both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%). Global markets tilted to the downside overnight as a weaker-than-expected Trade Balance Report for September out of China startled investors. The report featured a 10.0% year-over-year decline in exports (expected: -3.3%) and a 1.9% year-over-year decline in imports (expected: +0.7%). The negative economic data resuscitated concerns regarding the health of the global economy.

It also led to speculation that China may tacitly embrace a competitive devaluation of the yuan to bolster beleaguered export demand.

Equity indices moved due south through the opening half hour as the heavily-weighted financials (-1.1%), technology (-0.6%), and consumer discretionary (-0.3%) sectors pressured the benchmark index. The S&P 500 briefly violated technical support levels at 2128/2130, 2127, and 2120/2119 before bottoming just below 2115.

The broader market staged a reversal shortly thereafter as just about every area bounced back from initial selling efforts. The higher-yielding sectors -- utilities (+1.3%), real estate (+0.5%), telecom services (UNCH), and consumer staples (UNCH)-- led the rebound effort, enjoying a break from rising bond yields.

Bond prices increased today (and yields went down) after reports indicated that the ECB may discuss modifications to its asset purchase program at next week's meeting with an aim to find a way to keep purchasing EUR 80 billion per month of bonds should the ECB elect to extend its asset purchase program beyond March 2017. Rates have been on the rise recently on concerns about central banks reaching policy limits with their asset purchase plans.

Treasuries finished higher across the board with yields pulling back throughout the complex. The yield on the 10-yr note slipped three basis points to 1.74%.

Equities finished off their best level of the day as the S&P 500 ran into resistance near its 100-day simple moving average (2140.29) in the final hour.

The financial sector ended off its low, but still finished at the bottom of the sector leaderboard. The economically-sensitive sector underperformed as headwinds from China's negative trade data and a flattening yield curve weighed.

Banking names displayed relative weakness as the S&P Bank ETF (KBE 33.22, -0.75) fell 2.2%. The industry group was under pressure ahead of tomorrow's quarterly reports from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.74, -0.39), Citigroup (C 48.47, -0.23), PNC (PNC 87.94, -1.89), and Wells Fargo (WFC 44.75, -0.57).

Wells Fargo was also a story stock today after the company confirmed that Chairman and CEO John Stumpf will retire from the Company and the Board of Directors, effective immediately. That decision follows on the heels of a ruinous scandal for the bank that included the fraudulent opening of two million bank and credit card accounts to meet aggressive sales goals.

The high-beta chipmakers underperformed in the technology space, evidenced by the 1.2% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. The group continues to see selling interest after Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) opted to permanently suspended the production and sale of its Galaxy Note 7 device. Samsung supplier Integrated Device (IDTI 19.73, -0.50) has plunged 13.3% this week.

The energy sector (-0.7%) finished off its low amid an uptick in crude oil. WTI crude settled higher by 0.5% ($50.40/bbl; +$0.25) despite some mixed inventory data. The Department of Energy reported that crude oil inventories rose by 4.9 million barrels (consensus: +0.65 million) while gasoline stockpiles declined by 1.90 million barrels (consensus: -1.49 million).

Biotechnology outperformed the broader health care sector (+0.1%), as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 271.11, +0.98) rose 0.4%. The ETF narrowed its weekly loss to 4.6%. In the ETF, Mylan (MYL 37.88, +0.81) displayed relative strength, rising 2.2%.

Today's trading volume fell came in below the recent average of 930 million as 879 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims and the Import/Export Price report for September:

Initial claims for the week ending October 8 were unchanged at 246,000 (Briefing.com consensus 255,000) from last week's downardly revised reading.
Continuing claims for the week ending October 1 declined to 2.046 million from 2.062 million.
Aided by a 1.1% increase in import fuel prices, U.S. import prices rose 0.1% in September following a 0.2% decline in August.
Export prices, meanwhile, increased 0.3% after a 0.6% decline in August, helped by a 0.4% rise in nonagricultural prices.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 8:30 a.m. ET release of the PPI Report for September (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) and the Retail Sales Report for September (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%). Separately, Business Inventories for August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) and the initial reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October (Briefing.com consensus 92.4) will both cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +7.2% YTD
S&P 500: +4.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +4.1% YTD
Dow Jones: +3.9% YTD

DJ30 -45.26 NASDAQ -25.69 SP500 -6.63 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 811/1.586 bln/2160 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 985/854.1 mln/1996 3:30 pm :

The dollar index was -0.4% around the 97.55 level after hitting 7-month highs for the second day in a row earlier
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.7% around the 86.28 level
Crude oil recovered initial morning losses to close near its highest level since mid-June following EIA data, which showed larger-than-expected draws in both gasoline & distillates
November crude oil futures rose $0.25 (+0.5%) to $50.40/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET
The next official OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of + 4.9 mln (consensus called for a build of about +0.65 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -1.9 mln (consensus called for a draw of about -1.49 barrels)
Distillate inventories had a draw of -3.7 mln
Natural gas erased the previous 2 sessions of losses following EIA data which showed a smaller-than-expected build compared to Consensus
November natural gas closed $0.13 higher (+4.1%) at $3.34/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +79 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +87 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 3,759 Bcf as of Friday, Oct 7, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 56 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 192 Bcf above the five-year avg of 3,567 Bcf.
At 3,759 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold extended yesterday's gains as the dollar index took a tumble after briefly hitting 7-month highs this morning
December gold ended today's session up $3.80 (+0.3%) to $1257.30/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.05 lower (-0.3%) at $17.45/oz
Base metal copper saw a notable decline after weak Chinese trade data, ended near session lows
December copper closed $0.06 lower (-2.8%) at $2.12/lb

Trading ended Thursday with losses, albeit well off lows of the session. The Nasdaq Composite ended lower by 25.69 points (-0.49%) to 5213.33. The S&P 500 shed 6.63 points (-0.31%) to 2132.55, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost only 45.26 points (-0.25%) to 18098.94 after being down at one point today by more than 184 points.

Global markets tilted to the downside overnight as a weaker-than-expected Trade Balance Report for September out of China startled investors. The report featured a 10.0% year-over-year decline in exports and a 1.9% year-over-year decline in imports. The negative economic data resuscitated concerns regarding the health of the global economy.

It also led to speculation that China may tacitly embrace a competitive devaluation of the yuan to bolster beleaguered export demand.

Equity indices moved due south through the opening half hour as the heavily-weighted financials, technology, and consumer discretionary sectors pressured the benchmark index. The S&P 500 briefly violated technical support levels at 2128/2130, 2127, and 2120/2119 before bottoming just below 2115.

Today in market data, the initial claims reading for the week ending October 8 was unchanged at 246,000 from last week's downwardly revised reading. Also, aided by a 1.1% increase in import fuel prices, U.S. import prices rose 0.1% in September following a 0.2% decline in August. Lastly, export prices increased 0.3% after a 0.6% decline in August, helped by a 0.4% rise in non-agricultural prices.

Technology (XLK 47.19, -0.30 -0.63%) ended the session closer to the bottom of the list as far as sector performance goes. Component Xerox (XRX 9.55 -0.25 -2.55%) closed with some decent losses following a Wall Street Journal report that a shareholder sued the company in an attempt to block the pending split of the company. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLU +1.24%, XLRE +0.48%, XLV +0.04%, XLP +0.02%, XLI -0.04%, XLY -0.37%, IYZ -0.41%, XLB -0.52%, XLE -0.55%, XLF -0.97%, XLFS -1.14% with Utilities posting the best performance and Financials lagging.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (792.39, -4.92 -0.62%) sector, trading ended well off daily lows but still firmly in the red. Component Western Digital (WDC 55.28, -1.15 -2.04%) reported more than 10 million helium-filled hard disk drives have been shipped since the inception of the product, but shares succumbed to the selling pressure today. Other names in the space which were weaker today included QRVO -4.17%, AMAT -2.72%, SYMC -2.65%, TDC -2.30%, CRM -2.22%, SWKS -1.79%, TSS -1.78%, YHOO -1.75%, NVDA -1.63%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

CSRA (CSRA 25.93, -0.01 -0.04%) was awarded a $116 million task order to streamline, maintain and upgrade the IT systems of seven offices and bureaus operating under the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP). The task order was administered through the NIH NITAAC CIO-SP3 indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract vehicle. The period of performance for the task order is five years.

Alliance Data (ADS 206.84, -1.43 -0.69%) announced its Columbus, Ohio-based card services business has signed a long-term renewal agreement to provide private label credit card services for RH, Restoration

Hardware (RH 31.15, -0.57 -1.80%).
According to the Wall Street Journal, Xerox (XRX) shareholder Darwin Deason has sued the company in an attempt to block the pending split of the business.

Western Digital (WDC) has shipped more than 10 million helium-filled hard disk drives (HDDs) since the company first introduced the HelioSeal platform four years ago.

Shareholder Rimini Street issued statement on Oracle (ORCL 38.03, -0.02 -0.05%) v. Rimini Street. The firm plans to pursue an appeal of aspects of the judgment.

MercadoLibre (MELI 168.46, -14.75 -8.05%) commenced a 5.5 million share follow-on underwritten public offering of common stock by selling stockholders eBay (EBAY 31.51, +0.01 +0.03%) and subsidiary eBay International Treasury Center.

Intuit (INTU 106.80, -0.73 -0.68%) and American Express (AXP 60.41, -0.28 -0.46%) announced a partnership that will give qualified QuickBooks Online small business customers who are also American Express OPEN Business Card Members access to short-term, low-cost financing from American Express.

Pure Storage (PSTG 13.17, -0.45 -3.30%) expanding its FlashStack Converged Infrastructure Solution with Cisco (CSCO 30.17, -0.17 -0.56%).

Elsewhere in the tech space:

GoPro (GPRO 13.84, -0.46 -3.22%) responded to Piper Jaffray's commentary from this morning, stating it expects Hero 5 to be sold on Amazon (AMZN 829.28, -4.81 -0.58%) 'soon.'

Samsung (SSNLF 1425.00, +75.00 +5.56%) expanded its recall of its Galaxy Note7 device to include original and replacement devices. The company offered a refund and exchange program.

SunEdison (SUNEQ 0.07, -0.00 -9.62%) received a notice that the SEC is conducting a non-public, fact-finding investigation.

NXP Semi (NXPI 101.84, -0.90 -0.88%) announced that the EC has approved the company's Standard Products divestiture. NXPI continues to expect to close the transaction in 1Q17.

Descartes (DSGX 20.81, +0.42 +2.06%) acquired US-based provider of cloud-based B2B supply chain integration solutions, Appterra, for up-front consideration of $5.8 million plus potential performance-based consideration.

Perficient (PRFT 18.96, -0.22 -1.15%) acquired Bluetube for an undisclosed amount. PRFT expects the deal to be accretive to adjusted EPS immediately.

Amazon (AMZN) will create more than 120,000 seasonal positions across its U.S. network for the holiday season.

Analyst actions:

SYNA was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho,
TLND was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
GRUB, AMTD and GIMO were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
CSC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
MTSC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sidoti;
HDP was downgraded to Sell from Buy at Goldman,
ETFC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
ERIC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Natixis Bleichroeder,
NTDOY was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie,
TSM was downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC;
ACN was initiated with a Buy at Berenberg,
WIN was initiated with a Market Perform at Cowen,
BLKB was initiated with a Market Outperform at JMP Securities,
VEEV was initiated with a Market Perform at JMP Securities,
SYMC was initiated with an Outperform at FBN Securities,
MARK was initiated with a Buy at Roth Capital

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 14-Oct-16The month of October has gotten off to a rough start for the stock market. This week produced another losing week for the major indices. The Russell 2000 fared the worst with a 2.0% decline while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fared the best, relatively speaking, with a 0.6% decline. The S&P 500 was down 1.0%.

There was a familiar undercurrent driving things, too, as the losses flowed in the face of a strengthening dollar and rising long-term rates.

The US Dollar Index increased 1.5% this week to 98.09, benefiting mostly at the expense of a weaker euro, a weaker yen, and a weaker British pound. The greenback's strength was partly a function of safe-haven flows and partly a function of interest-rate differentials.

The latter stemmed from ongoing musings from Federal Reserve officials that a rate hike is likely to happen sooner rather than later (i.e. before the end of the year) and a trade balance report out of China that included a 10% year-over-year decline in exports in September.

The release of the minutes from the September 20-21 FOMC did nothing to dispel the rate-hike notion and neither did a batch of economic data out of the U.S. this week that featured the lowest four-week moving average for initial claims since November 3, 1973, reassuring retail sales activity for September, and an improving trend in producer price inflation.

Strikingly, the yield on the 10-yr note climbed six basis points this week to 1.80% and has now risen 20 basis points since the end of September.

The strength in the dollar and the increase in long-term rates had the combined effect of raising earnings concerns for U.S. multinational companies and triggering general valuation concerns for a market trading already with a stretched valuation.

At the same time, it has been regarded as problematic for emerging market economies as a stronger dollar makes it more challenging to repay dollar-denominated debt and higher rates in the U.S. encourage capital flight. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM 36.86) fell 2.2% this week.

Other areas that one might have thought would have fallen with the jump in rates did not. Specifically, this week's best-performing sectors were the utilities (+1.3%), real estate (+1.2%), telecom services (+0.7%), and consumer staples (+0.04%) sectors -- all of which have benefited in the past as long-term rates have come down on the basis that they offer more attractive dividend yields.

This week, however, it appeared that the so-called "yield play" took a backseat to some traditional defensive positioning in the stock market as most of these areas tend to exhibit relative strength in trying times due to their earnings dependability and relatively low volatility.

It would be remiss not to add that, even with this week's gains, all four sectors are among the market's worst performers this month, sporting losses that range from 1.7% to 4.1% versus a 1.6% decline for the S&P 500.

The health care sector, also known as a defensive outlet, didn't enjoy any such accolades this week. In fact, it was the worst-performing sector for the week with a loss of 3.3%, which left it down 3.5% in October.

Its underperformance was driven by a weak biotechnology group, which was sent reeling by a disconcerting revenue warning for the third and fourth quarters from Illumina (ILMN 138.00), a company that provides sequencing and array-based solutions for genetic analysis.

Shares of Illumina plunged 25% this week and acted as a major drag on the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 266.08), which declined 6.3%.

There was some chatter during the week that the health care sector's difficulties were also a byproduct of political concerns. Those concerns emanated from polls showing Hillary Clinton as the presidential frontrunner following last weekend's debate and GOP infighting that fostered a belief Democrats could have a shot at winning a majority in both Houses of Congress.

Mrs. Clinton has been very vocal about reining in unjustified drug price increases, and presumably she would have a better chance of doing so with Democrats controlling a majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

There will be another presidential debate this coming Wednesday.

Something that won't be coming next Wednesday -- or any day now -- is Samsung's Galaxy Note 7. The South Korean company announced this week that it is permanently discontinuing production and sales of the smartphone due to safety issues surrounding overheating and battery fires.

That news undercut a number of suppliers, which showed up in part in the 3.3% decline in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Samsung's pain, though, was quite clearly seen as Apple's (AAPL 117.63) likely market share gain. In a down week for the market, Apple's stock rose 3.1%, meaning things could have been worse for the broader market had its most heavily-weighted stock not outperformed in the manner that it did.

The week that just concluded also marked the official start to the third quarter earnings reporting period. Reports from Alcoa (AA 26.44), JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.52), Citigroup (C 48.61), and Wells Fargo (WFC 44.71) were the featured reports of the week.

None of those companies missed consensus earnings estimates; in fact, the banks all beat expectations while Alcoa was in-line. Nonetheless, they failed to produce a bullish response.

The main issue with Alcoa is that it provided disappointing revenue guidance for each of its Arconic segments. The aforementioned banks, meanwhile, saw enthusiasm for their reasonably good quarterly results tempered by the understanding that each reported a year-over-year decline in net income and concerns about a potential slowdown in commercial lending activity.

Bank of America (BAC ) will get the reporting activity started next week, which will also featured results from Dow components IBM (IBM 154.45), Goldman Sachs (GS 170.52), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 117.56), UnitedHealth (UNH 133.92), Intel (INTC 37.45), American Express (AXP 60.15), Travelers (TRV 115.08), Verizon (VZ 50.28), Microsoft (MSFT 57.42), General Electric (GE 28.89), and McDonald's (MCD 114.09).

It's going to be a busy week indeed. The earnings news, and particularly the guidance, will be watched closely along with the trading mannerisms of the U.S. dollar and long-term rates, which led to a somewhat ill-mannered stock market this week.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18240.49 18138.38 -102.11 -0.6 4.1
Nasdaq 5292.40 5214.16 -78.24 -1.5 4.1
S&P 500 2153.74 2132.98 -20.76 -1.0 4.4
Russell 2000 1236.56 1212.41 -24.15 -2.0 6.7

5:01 pm Qualcomm files actions against Meizu in the United States, Germany and France (QCOM) : These actions include filing a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC), filing a patent infringement action in Germany with the Mannheim Regional Court, and initiating an infringement-seizure action in France to obtain evidence for a possible future infringement action there. Previously, in June 2016, Qualcomm filed multiple actions against Meizu in China related to licensing terms and patent infringement.

4:17 pm Closing Market Summary: Indices Walk Back Gains Despite Upbeat Bank Earnings (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended a downbeat week on a tepid note as an opening rally on Friday ultimately fizzled out. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) finished ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.02) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.02). The three indices finished the week lower between 0.6% and 1.5%.

Equity indices rallied at the start of the session as positive inflation data out of China, a string of better-than-expected expected quarterly reports, and upbeat domestic data boosted investor sentiment.

The three catalysts also helped solidify the rate hike picture as above-consensus inflation data stood in contrast to persistently low inflation readings. The Producer Price Index (:PPI) came in slightly ahead of estimates as PPI rose 0.3% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Meanwhile, core PPI ticked higher by 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). The two readings are up a respective 0.7% and 1.2% on a year-over-year basis.

According to the CME's Fed Watch Tool, the probability of a rate hike at the December meeting has increased to 69.2% from 61.7% at the end of September. The firming rate hike picture also helped move the dollar and long-term rates higher.

The U.S. Dollar Index (98.11, +0.59, +0.60%) strengthened throughout today's session, which in turn weighed on dollar-denominated oil prices ($50.32/bbl, -$0.08, -0.2%).

The early rally reversed stating around 10:20 a.m. ET and coincided with some strengthening in the dollar, a reversal in oil, and fading gains in the financial sector (+0.5%), which had been up as much as 1.5% following some better than expected earnings results from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.52, -0.22), Citigroup (C 48.61, +0.14), and Wells Fargo (WFC 44.71, -0.04).

Rising treasury yields also worked to thwart the early rally. Higher-yielding sectors -- utilities (-0.6%), real estate (-0.3%), and telecom services (-0.2%) -- found it difficult to make any headway and general valuation concerns percolated with the jump in rates.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose six basis points to 1.80% as the boost in producer price inflation, the stronger than expected inflation report out of China, and waning price momentum unsettled investors.

The S&P 500 (+0.02%) finished basically flat, surrendering just about all of an initial 0.8% gain.

Five sectors finished in the green with financials (+0.5%), technology (+0.5%), and materials (+0.4%) staging the largest moves on a percentage basis.

The financial sector (+0.5%) outperformed in the wake of positive economic data, a steepening in the yield curve, and a string of above consensus quarterly reports.

Citigroup (C 48.61, +0.14, +0.3%), Well Fargo (WFC 44.71, -0.04), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.52, -0.22, -0.3%) each beat analysts' estimates for the quarter. The three were up between 1.7% and 3.1% at the onset, but were unable to hold onto the bulk of those early gains as concerns about a potential slowdown in commercial lending reportedly tempered investors' enthusiasm.

In the technology sector (+0.5%), Salesforce.com (CRM 74.27, +3.64) finished higher by 5.2% after the Financial Times reported that the company is no longer interested in acquiring Twitter (TWTR 16.88, -0.91). Chipmakers also outperformed in the group as the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.8%) narrowed its weekly loss to 3.3%.

Department store names underperformed in the discretionary sector (UNCHF) after JPMorgan cut quarterly estimates for Macy's (M 35.57, -1.27, 3.3%) and Kohl's (KSS 43.64, -1.44, -3.2%). The broader SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 43.12, -0.09) also finished on a negative note.

Today's trading volume fell came in below the recent average of 862 million as 785 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the PPI Report for September, the Retail Sales Report for September, Business Inventories for August, and the initial reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October:

The Producer Price Index (:PPI) for September showed a 0.3% increase in final demand prices (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), led by a 0.7% jump in the index for final demand goods.

Excluding food and energy, the index for final demand was up 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%).

Total retail sales increased 0.6% in September while sales, excluding autos, rose 0.5%. Both results were in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimates.
Total business inventories increased 0.2% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) after being unchanged in July.

Sales were also up 0.2% after declining a downwardly revised 0.3% (from -0.2%) in July.

The University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment dropped to 87.9 in the preliminary reading for October (Briefing.com consensus 92.4) from the final reading of 91.2 for September. The October reading is the second lowest level in the past two years.For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Monday's economic data will include the 8:30 a.m. ET release of October Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 2.0). The Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.6%) report for September will be released at 9:15 a.m. ET.


Stocks closed out the week with modest gains, as all three major US indices pared opening advances to ultimately end modestly above flat lines. Leading the advance, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 39.44 points (+0.22%) to 18138.38. The S&P 500 was up less than a point (+0.02%) to 2132.98, and the Nasdaq Composite also gained less than a point (+0.02%) to 5214.16. This week's moves take the three indices +4.1%, +4.4% and +4.2% YTD, respectively.







Equity indices rallied at the start of the session as positive inflation data out of China, a string of better-than-expected expected quarterly reports, and upbeat domestic data boosted investor sentiment.

The three catalysts also helped solidify the rate hike picture as above-consensus inflation data stood in contrast to persistently low inflation readings. The Producer Price Index (PPI) came in slightly ahead of estimates as PPI rose 0.3% in September. Meanwhile, core PPI ticked higher by 0.2%. The two readings are up a respective 0.7% and 1.2% on a year-over-year basis.

According to the CME's Fed Watch Tool, the probability of a rate hike at the December meeting has increased to 69.2% from 61.7% at the end of September. The firming rate hike picture also helped move the dollar and long-term rates higher.

The U.S. Dollar Index (98.11, +0.59, +0.60%) strengthened throughout today's session, which in turn weighed on dollar-denominated oil prices ($50.32/bbl, -$0.08, -0.2%).

The early rally reversed stating around 10:20 a.m. ET and coincided with some strengthening in the dollar, a reversal in oil, and fading gains in the financial sector (+0.5%), which had been up as much as 1.5% following some better than expected earnings results from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 67.52, -0.22 -0.32%), Citigroup (C 48.61, +0.14 +0.29%), and Wells Fargo (WFC 44.71, -0.04 -0.09%).

As it were, the Technology (XLK 47.37, +0.18 +0.38%) sector was one of the better performers today, edged out only by Financials. Component HP (HPQ 14.48, -0.67 -4.42%) was the weakest name today following the announcement of FY17 guidance and a restructuring plan in addition to certain shareholder return programs. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Friday XLFS +0.82%, XLF +0.52%, XLB +0.32%, XLI +0.21%, IYZ +0.03%, XLP +0.02%, XLRE -0.06%, XLY -0.11%, XLE -0.43%, XLU -0.65%, XLV -0.67% with Healthcare posting the worst losses and Financials edging out Tech for the top spot.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (796.07, +3.68 +0.46%) sector, trading was in positive territory, yet failed to clear the $800-level. Component Salesforce.com (CRM 74.27, +3.64 +5.15%) was the best performer today as the stock was the subject of a Financial Times report which suggested the company has ruled out making a bid for Twitter (TWTR 16.88, -0.91 -5.12%). Other names in the space which edged higher today included xxx.

Other notable news items among sector components:

HP (HPQ) announced a restructuring plan and FY17 guidance. The company sees FY17 adjusted EPS of $1.55-1.65 with cash flow from operations of about $2.8 to $3.1 billion in fiscal 2017. Also, with about $0.5 billion in net capital expenditures, HPQ sees free cash flow in the range of $2.3 to $2.6 billion for fiscal 2017. The company also raised the quarterly dividend to $0.1327 from $0.124 per share, and increased the share repurchase program by $3 billion. HPQ further announced the exit of about 3,000-4,000 employees between fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2019. The restructuring plan is expected to generate gross annual run rate savings of about $200-300 million beginning in fiscal 2020. In connection with said plan, HPQ anticipates incurring about $350-500 million in restructuring and other charges related to labor and non-labor actions.

Twitter (TWTR) shares fell today as the Financial Times reported that possible suitor Salesforce.com (CRM) had ruled out making a bid for the company.

Arbor Networks Inc., the security division of NETSCOUT (NTCT 28.55, +0.36 +1.28%), in conjunction with Jigsaw, an incubator within Alphabet (GOOG 778.53, +0.34 +0.04%), Google's parent company, announced an enhanced version of the Digital Attack Map.

According to Reuters, Microsoft (MSFT 57.42, +0.50 +0.88%) has filed for EU approval of its pending merger with LinkedIn (LNKD 190.74, +0.18 +0.09%).

First Solar (FSLR 39.47, +0.79 +2.04%) named Alexander Bradley as full-time CFO effective October 24.

MercadoLibre (MELI 167.04, -1.42 -0.84%) priced its upsized offering of 7.1 million shares of its common stock offered by existing stockholder eBay (EBAY 31.89, +0.38 +1.21%) at $168 per share.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Aerohive Networks (HIVE 5.54, -0.09 -1.60%) guided Q3 revenue of $40 million, below stated guidance of $46-50 million. Expects net loss per share of $0.07-0.06 compared to previous guidance of a loss between $0.07-0.01.

Advanced Micro (AMD 6.75, +0.26 +4.01%) announced a collaboration with Alibaba Group (BABA 101.85, -0.30 -0.29%).

TerraForm Global (GLBL 3.75, +0.08 +2.18%) elected two independent directors, Mark Lerdal and Fred Boyle, to the Board of Directors effective immediately.

Digital Ally (DGLY 5.67, +0.26 +4.81%) announces 'favorable' ruling in lawsuit against Taser (TASR 22.77, +0.68 +3.08%) who has filed a motion to dismiss the antitrust claims in the lawsuit that is still pending.

Samsung (SSNLF 1425.00, flat) updated guidance due to Galaxy Note7 discontinuation: estimates mid-3 trillion won negative impact for Q4 2016 and Q1 2017 related to discontinuation.

VMware (VMW 72.98, -0.05 -0.07%) and Amazon.com's (AMZN 823.06, -6.22 -0.75%) cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, confirmed a strategic alliance.

MGT Capital Investments (MGT 2.40, +0.29 +14.01%) announced the commercial release of its first network security product, Sentinel.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Infosys (INFY 15.66, -0.99 -5.95%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of INR15.77 per share. Revenues were up 10.7% compared to a year ago to INR173.1 billion. INFY lowered FY17 revenue guidance to +8-9% in USD terms, prior guidance translated to +10.0-11.5% growth.

Analyst actions:

LVLT was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
NTDOY was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Nomura,
TSM was upgraded to Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
PHI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at HSBC;
HIVE was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Buckingham Research and to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich; ATVI and TTWO were initiated with Outperform ratings at Oppenheimer,
IPHI was initiated with a Market Perform at Cowen,
HPE was initiated with an Underperform at CLSA,
TASR was initiated with an Outperform at Imperial Capital,
RPD was initiated with an Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
MIME was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
JD was initiated with a Buy at Stifel,
SEDG was initiated with a Sell at Axiom Capital,
NTNX was initiated with a Sell at Summit Redstone

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages began the week on a modestly lower note as participants preferred a risk-off approach ahead of key economic data and a barrage of corporate earnings reports. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) settled in-line with the S&P 500 (-0.3%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%). Equity indices and U.S. Treasury yields ticked lower at the beginning of the week as below-consensus economic data and a mixed set of corporate earnings came into focus. Treasuries were in demand following worse than expected readings of the Empire Manufacturing Survey for October and the Industrial Production/Capacity Utilization Report for September.

Treasuries continued inching higher throughout the session, leading to a flattening in the yield curve. The yield on the 2-yr note settled lower by two basis points (0.82%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finished lower by four basis points (1.77%). The yield spread between the 2-yr and 10-yr narrowed to 95 basis points after finishing last week at 97 basis points.

The downturn in yields offered support to beleaguered "yield play" sectors -- utilities (+0.6%), telecom services (+0.2%), and real estate (+0.1%) -- but also weighed on the heavily-weighted financial group (-0.4%).

Headwinds from a flattening yield curve and weaker-than-expected economic data masked above-consensus results from Charles Schwab (SCHW 31.69, -0.28) and Bank of America (BAC 16.05, +0.05). Meanwhile, Dow component Goldman Sachs (GS 169.00, -1.52) finished behind the price-weighted average ahead of tomorrow morning's quarterly report.

Seven sectors ended in the red with consumer discretionary (-0.8%), energy (-0.4%), consumer staples (-0.4%), and financials (-0.4%) acting as the largest laggards.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.8%), restaurant names underperformed as Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 394.35, -9.79) declined by 2.4%. The stock was under pressure after having its price target lowered to $372 from $405 at Nomura. Meanwhile, Netflix (NFLX 99.80, -1.67) fell 1.7% ahead of this evening's quarterly report. Fellow F.A.N.G. member Amazon (AMZN 812.97, -9.99) also weighed despite receiving a price target increase at Credit Suisse.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.4%) finished behind the broader market as J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT 78.45, -1.57) displayed relative weakness. The stock fell 2.0% after missing bottom-line estimates for the quarter. Meanwhile, United Continental (UAL 53.03, -0.17) ended lower by 0.3% ahead of this evening's quarterly report.

Health care plan providers underperformed in the health care space (-0.2%) as Anthem (ANTM 118.28, -2.81) fell 2.3%. The stock was downgraded to "Neutral" from "Overweight" at JP Morgan. Biotechnology finished ahead of the broader market, but the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 265.72, -0.36) extended its monthly loss to 8.1%

Today's trading volume fell below the recent average of 859 million as 693 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included October Empire Manufacturing and the Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization Report for September:

Industrial production increased just 0.1% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after declining a downwardly revised 0.5% (from -0.4%) in August.
The capacity utilization rate increased to 75.4% (Briefing.com consensus 75.6%) from a downwardly revised 75.3% (from 75.5%).
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey fell to -6.8 in October (Briefing.com consensus +2.0) from -2.0 in September.

Tomorrow's economic data will include CPI for September (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and the NAHB Housing Market Index for October (Briefing.com consensus 59.0), which will cross the wires at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively. The day's data will be capped off with the 16:00 ET release of Net Long-Term TIC Flows for August.

Russell 2000: +6.6% YTS
S&P 500: +4.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite : +3.8% YTD
Dow Jones: +3.8% YTD

DJ30 -51.98 NASDAQ -14.34 SP500 -6.48 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1136/1.297 bln/1688 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1188/688.9 mln/1772 3:30 pm :

The dollar index turned negative after a brief re-test of Friday's 7-month high, was -0.2% around the 97.87 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were nearly flat, around the 86.39 level
Crude oil extended Friday's post-rig count slide, ended just shy of $50.00/barrel support ahead of tomorrow's API data
November crude oil futures fell $0.35 (-0.7%) to $49.97/barrel
Reminder: Friday's Baker Hughes rig count data showed that the US oil rig count increased by 4 to 432 rigs, marking the 16th consecutive week the oil rig count has increased.
Data reminders:
Baker Hughes will report weekly rig count data this Friday at 1 pm ET.
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
Chinese customs is expected to report oil imports & exports from China for September this Friday.
Weekly EIA petroleum data will be released Wed at 10:30 am ET.
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell.
Natural gas doubled Friday's losses, ended near session highs after staging a modest mid-afternoon rally off the $3.21/MMBtu level
November natural gas closed $0.05 lower (-1.5%) at $3.24/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver ended nearly flat for the second consecutive session, as the dollar index reversed initial morning gains
December gold ended today's session up $0.80 (+0.1%) to $1256.50/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.01 higher (+0.1%) at $17.47/oz

On very light volume, the broader market turned lower after Friday's modestly higher affair. Leading the way to the downside today, the S&P 500 shed 6.48 points (-0.30%) to 2126.50. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 51.98 points (-0.29%) to 18086.40, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 14.34 points (-0.27%) to 5199.82. Heavily weighted S&P components AMZN -1.22%, HD -1.01%, MRK -1.00%, PG -0.68%, JPM -0.52%, PFE -0.49%, WFC -0.47%, V -0.36%, MSFT -0.35% held the index lower today. Today on the NYSE floor, abut 688.9 million shares were exchanged versus an average near 839.8 million. On the NASDAQ floor, about 1,297.4 million shares traded hands compared to an average near 1,589.9 million.

Equity indices and U.S. Treasury yields ticked lower at the beginning of the week as below-consensus economic data and a mixed set of corporate earnings came into focus. Treasuries were in demand following worse than expected readings of the Empire Manufacturing Survey for October and the Industrial Production/Capacity Utilization Report for September.

Treasuries continued inching higher throughout the session, leading to a flattening in the yield curve. The yield on the 2-yr note settled lower by two basis points (0.82%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finished lower by four basis points (1.77%). The yield spread between the 2-yr and 10-yr narrowed to 95 basis points after finishing last week at 97 basis points.

In terms of economic data announced today, industrial production was up only 0.1% in September after declining a downwardly revised 0.5% (from -0.4%) in August. Also, the capacity utilization rate was up to 75.4% from a downwardly revised 75.3% (from 75.5%). Lastly, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey fell to -6.8 in October from -2.0 in September.

Ending the session near lows, the Technology (XLK 47.27, -0.10 -0.21%) sector was only positive for a brief moment in morning action and tailed off as the session progressed. Component Broadcom (AVGO 168.88, -1.21 -0.71%) was lower today following news out this morning that CFO Anthony Maslowski's employment with AVGO was terminated on October 14; succeeding Maslowski, Thomas Krause became CFO effective October 17. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Monday XLY -0.82%, XLFS -0.72%, XLE -0.49%, XLP -0.48%, XLF -0.41%, XLV -0.30%, IYZ -0.25%, XLI -0.24%,XLB +0.09%, XLRE +0.10%, XLU +0.54%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (793.90, -2.17 -0.27%) sector, trading finished just off lows. Component IBM (IBM 154.77, +0.32 +0.21%) traded higher into its quarterly print. Other names in the space which ended lower with the sector included HPQ -3.11%, WDC -3.03%, CRM -1.94%, ADS -1.58%, JNPR -1.41%, WU -1.39%, RHT -1.31%, HPE -1.21%, SWKS -1.20%, ACN -1.18%, CSRA -1.15%, FLIR -1.02%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

According to Apple Insider, Apple (AAPL) plans to move $9 billion of iTunes intellectual property to Ireland.
Qualcomm (QCOM) filed actions against Meizu in the United States, Germany and France.

Xilinx (XLNX) announced that Baidu (BIDU) is utilizing Xilinx FPGAs to accelerate machine learning applications in their data centers in China. The two companies are collaborating to further expand volume deployment of FPGA-based accelerated platforms.

Accenture (ACN) has been chosen by Hess (HES) to help realize its As-a-Service vision that is part of the Hess IT transformation strategy.

Following a report from Fortune, shares of Netflix (NFLX) were weak as it was rumored that French lawmakers may support a tax on streaming videos.

Qualcomm's (QCOM) Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., successfully made the world's first over-the-air connection via MulteFire using listen-before-talk (LBT). As part of the test, QCOM demonstrated that
MulteFire can provide LTE-like performance while fairly co-existing with Wi-Fi on the same 5 GHz channel in unlicensed spectrum.

Broadcom's (AVGO) CFO and SVP, Anthony Maslowski's, employment with AVGO was terminated effective October 14, 2016. To that end, the company has appointed Thomas Krause as CFO and VP effective October 17, 2016.

Broadcom (AVGO) introduced the industry's first commercially-available PON OLT devices with support for the recently ratified ITU G.9807.1 XGS-PON and G.989 NGPON-2 protocols.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) introduced the HPE Adaptive Backup and Recovery Suite, an integrated suite that uses operational and file analytics to automate and streamline data protection.

Cisco Systems (CSCO) announced the acquisition of Worklife. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

eBay (EBAY) launched eBay Collective, an elevated shopping experience to provide interior designers and consumers with curated inventory of furniture, antiques, contemporary design and fine art.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Rogers Comms (RCI) announced the departure of CEO Guy Laurence. Laurence will eventually be replaced by Joseph Natale, but RCI plans to have current Chairman of the Board, Alan Horn, serve in an interim capacity as President and CEO until Natale is able to join RCI.
According to Reuters, Mentor Graphics (MENT) hired an advisor to explore strategic alternatives.

Tesla Motors (TSLA) and Panasonic (PCRFY) to collaborate on photovoltaic cell and module production in Buffalo, New York. Also, TSLA's Elon Musk postponed a Tesla announcement to Wednesday from today, commented it needs a few more days of refinement.

According to reports out during the weekend, Take-Two's (TTWO) Rockstar Games arm teased a possible Red Dead Redemption sequel.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Rogers Comms (RCI) reported worse than expected adjusted EPS of CAD$0.83 on revenues which were ahead of expectations and grew 3.2% compared to last year to CAD$3.49 billion.

Analyst actions:

AMD was upgraded to Perform from Underperform at Oppenheimer,
GRPN was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush,
QLYS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson;
LLTC was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer,
P was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
DHX was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Avondale;
TTD was initiated at RBC Capital Mkts, Citigroup, Jefferies, Needham, and Raymond James,
TNAV was initiated with an Outperform at FBR & Co.,
ELNK was initiated with an Outperform at Cowen,
CNSL was initiated with a Market Perform at Cowen,
PAY was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum,
SHOP was initiated with a Neutral at Dundee,
HCKT was initiated with an Outperform at Barrington Research,
ASUR was initiated with a Buy at Lake Steet

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:47 pm Linear Tech misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line (LLTC) : Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.53 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 9.4% year/year to $373.9 mln vs the $377.22 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Outlook:
"Looking forward, the December quarter is typically a seasonally weaker quarter due to a slower European market and in particular a weaker Industrial market that historically often results in a sequential quarterly revenue decline. Given a slightly positive first quarter book-to-bill ratio and based upon our current bookings rate, we are anticipating relatively flat sequential revenue in our fiscal second quarter representing growth in the 7% to 8.5% range on a year-over-year basis."

Current estimates call for Q2 revs of $365.64 mln, -3.1% Q/Q

As a result of the pending transaction with Analog Devices (ADI), the Company will not hold a quarterly earnings conference call.

4:21 pm Yahoo! beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs below consensus (YHOO) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.14; revenues fell 14.6% year/year to $857 mln vs the $860.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Q3 Maven (Mobile, Video, Native and Social)
Revenue +24% y/y; Q2 +26% y/y
Q3 Mobile revenue represented 32% y/y of traffic-driven revenue; Q2 +46% y/y
Q1 Search Revenue:
Gross search revenue -14% y/y; Q2 -13% y/y
Number of Paid Clicks -22% y/y; Q2 -22% y/y
Price-per-Click +9% y/y; Q1 +8% y/y Q1
Display Revenue:
GAAP display revenue -7% y/y; Q2 -7% y/y
Number of Ads Sold -5% y/y; Q2 +9% y/y
Price-per-Ad +1% y/y; Q2 -15% y/yCo issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $880-920 vs. $939.30 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; ; Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $260-300 mln.Tightens FY16 revenue guidance to $3.440-3.480 bln ex tac (Prior$3.4-3.6 bln); Raises adjusted EBITDA to $810-850 mln (Prior adj. EBITDA $700-800 mln).

4:12 pm Intel beats Q3 estimates after raising revenue, gross margin guidance on Sept 16; guides Q4 revs in-line, gross margin lower Q/Q at midpoint (INTC) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.80 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.72; revenues rose 9.1% year/year to $15.78 bln vs the $15.61 bln Capital IQ Consensus; adj. gross margin 64.8%. GAAP EPS $0.69 vs. $0.67 consensus.

On September 16, co raised Q3 rev guidance to $15.3-15.9 bln from $14.4-15.4 bln; raised non-GAAP gross margin to 63% from 62%.

Q3 results by segment:
Client Computing Group revenue of $8.9 bln, up 21 percent sequentially and up 5 percent yearover-year
Data Center Group revenue of $4.5 bln, up 13 percent sequentially and up 10 percent yearover-year
Internet of Things Group revenue of $689 mln, up 20 percent sequentially and up 19% Y/Y
Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group revenue of $649 mln, up 17 percent sequentially and down 1% Y/Y
Intel Security Group revenue of $537 mln, flat sequentially and up 6% Y/Y
Programmable Solutions Group revenue of $425 mln, down 9 percent sequentially

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $15.2-16.2 bln vs. $15.88 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin 63% +/- a couple percent. This revenue forecast is lower than the average seasonal increase for the fourth quarter.

4:09 pm Cree misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (numbers excluding sale of WolfSpeed) (CREE) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.10; revenues fell 15.8% year/year to $321.3 mln vs the $322.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.04-0.10 vs. $0.13 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $310-330 mln vs. $336.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margin from continuing operations increased from 26.4% in Q4 of fiscal 2016 to 26.9% on a GAAP basis and decreased from 28.2% to 27.7% on a non-GAAP basis.Wolfspeed Sale Update: As previously announced, Cree reached an agreement to sell the Wolfspeed business to Infineon Technologies (IFNNY). The parties are continuing to work together to obtain the customarily required regulatory approvals in various jurisdictions, including foreign and domestic antitrust approvals, as well as CFIUS approval. The parties received a second request for additional information from the United States Federal Trade Commission in late September. Cree and Infineon continue to target closing the transaction around the end of calendar 2016.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a higher note as positive quarterly results from Netflix (NFLX 118.79, +18.99) and a few other bellwethers stoked risk appetite in the broader market. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.9%) finished ahead of both the S&P 500 (+0.6%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%).

The third-quarter earnings reporting season picked up in earnest this morning as participants pored over reports from the likes of Netflix (NFLX 118.79, +18.99), UnitedHealth (UNH 143.39, +9.26), Goldman Sachs (GS 172.63, +3.63), IBM (IBM 150.72, -4.05) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 115.41, -3.08). All five names topped bottom-line estimates for the quarter, but the results were met with mixed reactions.

A positive bias in global markets and some mixed inflation data also contributed to today's upbeat demeanor.

European markets outperformed on the heels of an above-consensus inflation reading out of the UK. The UK's September Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased to a two-year high of 1.0% year-over-year (expected: +0.9%). However, CPI data from the US came in slightly mixed relative to consensus estimates. Total CPI rose 0.3% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose by 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).

The latest domestic inflation data led to some minute adjustments to U.S. rate hike expectations, but they were largely walked back by the end of the day. The response was fairly muted as participants assessed progress towards the Fed's long-run inflation target of 2.0%. Total CPI and core CPI are up a respective 1.5% and 2.2% year-over-year.

The Tuesday advance lost some steam in the final hour as the S&P 500 (+0.6%) narrowed its gain into the close.

All eleven S&P 500 sectors finished in the green with health care (+1.1%), materials (+0.9%), utilities (+0.8%), financials (+0.8%), and technology (+0.7%) leading the pack.

The health care space (+1.1%) paced the advance as managed health names drafted higher alongside Dow component UnitedHealth (UNH 143.39, +9.26). The stock finished atop the price-weighted average after beating analysts' estimates for the quarter and issuing above consensus full-year guidance. Conversely, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 115.41, -3.08) declined by 2.6% despite beating bottom-line estimates for the quarter.

Biotechnology names finished slightly ahead of the broader health care sector as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 269.43, +3.71) gained 1.4%, The ETF narrowed its October loss to 6.9%.

In the consumer discretionary space (+0.6%), Netflix (NFLX 118.79, +18.99) spiked 19.0% after handily beating earnings and net subscriber growth estimates.

Fellow F.A.N.G. members gained following the upbeat report as Facebook (FB 128.57, +1.03), Amazon (AMZN 817.65, +4.70), and Alphabet (GOOG 795.26, +15.30) advanced between 0.6% and 2.0%.

The influential technology sector (+0.7%) finished slightly ahead of the broader market as chipmakers outperformed. Intel (INTC 37.75, +0.46) gained 1.2% ahead of this evening's quarterly earnings report. On the flipside, IBM (IBM 150.72, -4.05) lost 2.6% despite beating estimates.

Treasuries finished on a higher note as yields pulled back across the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note declined one basis point to 0.81% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note settled lower by two basis points (1.74%).

Today's trading volume fell below the average of 858 million as 742 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the CPI Report for September and the NAHB Housing Market Index for October:

The all items index was up 0.3% in September, which was in-line with expectations, while the all items index, excluding food and energy, was up 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).
The NAHB Housing Market Index for October came in at 63 (Briefing.com consensus 59.0) from an unrevised 65 in September.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 7:00 ET release of the the weekly MBA Mortgage Index. Separably, Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1168k) and Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1164k) for September will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be capped off with the release of the Fed's Beige Book for October at 14:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +7.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +4.7% YTD
S&P 500: +4.7% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.2% YTD

DJ30 +75.54 NASDAQ +44.01 SP500 +13.10 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1812/1.331 bln/1000 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2284/722.9 mln/707 3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.2% around the 86.55 level
Crude oil reclaimed the $50.00/barrel level, closed near multi-month highs, snapped its 2-session loss streak ahead of tonight's API data
November crude oil futures rose $0.32 (+0.6%) to $50.29/barrel
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released this Friday at 1 pm ET.
Weekly EIA petroleum inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Chinese import/export data will be released this Friday.
Natural gas snapped its 2-session loss streak, closed near session highs ahead of Thursday's inventory number
November natural gas closed $0.02 higher (+0.6%) at $3.26/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver ended modestly higher after 2 previous sessions of nearly directionless trading
December gold ended today's session up $0.80 (+0.1%) to $1256.50/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.01 higher (+0.1%) at $17.47/oz

The broader market closed Tuesday higher, yet lost steam into the bell. Trading in the Nasdaq Composite led the three major US indices with gains of 44.01 points (+0.85%) to 5243.84. The S&P 500 was next, higher by 13.10 points (+0.62%) to 2139.60, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shaved about 64 points off the highs of the day when the session ended, albeit still closing out the day higher by 75.54 points (+0.42%) to 18161.94.

The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a higher note as positive quarterly results from Netflix (NFLX 118.79, +18.99 +19.03%) and a few other bellwethers stoked risk appetite in the broader market.

A positive bias in global markets and some mixed inflation data also contributed to today's upbeat demeanor.

European markets outperformed on the heels of an above-consensus inflation reading out of the UK. The UK's September Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased to a two-year high of 1.0% year-over-year. However, CPI data from the US came in slightly mixed relative to consensus estimates. Total CPI rose 0.3% in September while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose by 0.1%.

The latest domestic inflation data led to some minute adjustments to U.S. rate hike expectations, but they were largely walked back by the end of the day. The response was fairly muted as participants assessed progress towards the Fed's long-run inflation target of 2.0%. Total CPI and core CPI are up a respective 1.5% and 2.2% year-over-year.

Market data today included the all items index which was up 0.3% in September, while the all items index, excluding food and energy was up 0.1%. Also, the NAHB Housing Market Index for October came in at 63 from an unrevised 65 in September.

All 12 S&P sectors were in the green today with Technology (XLK 47.53, +0.26 +0.55%) about middle of the pack as the index ultimately finished higher but limped into the close on modest volume. Component IBM (IBM 150.72, -4.05 -2.62%) was the worst performer today following last night's quarterly results. Other S&P sectors finished Tuesday XLV +1.20% XLB +0.91% XLU +0.85% XLF +0.83% XLFS +0.82% IYZ +0.73% XLY +0.64% XLRE +0.51% XLE +0.40% XLP +0.31% XLI +0.21% with Healthcare and Materials leading the positive bias.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (799.08, +5.18 +0.65%) sector, trading finished firmly in the green yet lost steam into the bell. Component Intel (INTC 37.75, +0.46 +1.23%) was modestly higher today ahead of earnings as the shares were upgraded in the pre-market session to an Overweight rating from an Equal Weight at Barclays. Also worth noting today, shares of GOOG (801.61) and GOOGL (828.81) both made fresh all-time highs, but ended modestly down off those highs though as the broader sector tailed off into the bell. Other names in the space which out-performed today included TSS +2.77%, CTXS +2.59%, MU +2.47%, ADS +2.24%, EA +2.05%, GOOG +1.96%, AVGO +1.95%, JNPR +1.87%, ADSK +1.86%, GOOGL +1.82%, QRVO +1.79%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Visa (V 81.58, -0.57 -0.69%) announced that Charlie Scharf is resigning as CEO effective December 1, 2016, and the board of directors has unanimously voted to appoint Alfred Kelly, Jr. as his successor. Mr. Kelly, a current Visa board member, is the president and CEO of Intersection Co. and the former president of American Express (AXP 60.08, +0.18 +0.30%).

Qualcomm (QCOM 66.10, +0.91 +1.40%) announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., has worked closely with Telstra (TLSYY 19.30, +0.12 +0.63%), Ericsson (ERIC 5.47, +0.04 +0.74%) and

NETGEAR (NTGR 52.70, +0.35 +0.67%) on the world's first Gigabit Class LTE mobile device, and the first Gigabit Class LTE commercially ready network.

Qualcomm (QCOM) announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., introduced three new Qualcomm Snapdragon processors.

QuickBooks Online will be one of the first small business platforms enabling merchants to get paid quickly and easily on outstanding invoices via newly launched Apple (AAPL 117.47, -0.08 -0.07%) Pay on the web, Intuit (INTU 107.15, +0.27 +0.25%) announced.

CBS (CBS 55.10, -0.29 -0.52%) has ordered CANDY CRUSH, a new one-hour, live action game show series based on the globally renowned mobile game franchise. CBS, Lionsgate (LGF 18.72, +0.14 +0.75%) and Activision Blizzard's (ATVI 44.17, +0.64 +1.47%) King will join together on the new format created and executive produced by Matt Kunitz that will be distributed domestically by CBS Television Distribution and internationally by LGF.

Broadcom (AVGO 172.17, +3.29 +1.95%) announced a new 4x4 802.11ac Wave2 solution which enables significantly better range performance in addition to video over Wi-Fi acceleration capability.

Texas Instruments (TXN 69.25, +0.83 +1.21%) introduced the dual-port quad deserializer hub that is compliant with the MIPI Camera Serial Interface 2 (CSI-2) specification.

Microsoft (MSFT 57.66, +0.44 +0.77%) announced an expanded partnership with SAP (SAP 87.66, +1.31 +1.52%) to provide public cloud services for the SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite. SAP will make its cloud-based human capital management solutions available on Microsoft Azure over the next five years.

IBM Watson Health (IBM 150.72, -4.05 -2.62%) and Quest Diagnostics (DGX 83.70, +0.66 +0.79%) announced the launch of IBM Watson Genomics from Quest Diagnostics, a service that helps advance precision medicine by combining cognitive computing with genomic tumor sequencing.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

According to Bloomberg, Verizon (VZ 50.27, -0.16 -0.32%) is getting anxious about Yahoo! (YHOO 41.68, -0.11 -0.26%) data breach as it relates to the acquisition.

Sprint (S 6.86, -0.06 -0.87%) sees Q2 operating revenues of $8.25 billion, worse than market expectations. Sees a net loss of $142 million in the quarter compared to a net loss of $585 million a year ago. Sees adjusted EBITDA of $2.35 billion compared to $2.01 billion last year. Expects total platform net additions of 740,000 on postpaid net adds of 344,000 and prepaid net losses of 427,000 with wholesale and affiliate net adds of 823,000. Lastly, S sees platform postpaid churn of 1.52%, up two basis points versus last year on postpaid phone churn of 1.37%.

Vivint Solar (VSLR 3.15, flat) named Chance Allred as chief sales officer, Paul Dickson as chief revenue officer and Bryan Christiansen as chief operations officer.

MakeMyTrip (MMYT 29.45, +9.05 +44.36%) and Naspers' (NPSNY 16.38, +0.26 +1.62%) ibibo Group agreed to combine their Indian travel businesses. Upon closing of the transaction, MMYT will own 100% of ibibo Group. Naspers and Tencent (TCEHY 27.32, +0.36 +1.34%) will become the single largest shareholder in MMYT, owning a 40% stake, and will contribute proportionate working capital upon closing.

Shenandoah Telecom (SHEN 26.55, +0.95 +3.71%) increased its annual dividend to $0.25 per share from $0.24 per share.

In reaction to quarterly results:

IBM (IBM) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $3.29 on better than expected revenues of $19.23 billion. Further, management reaffirmed their outlook for FY16 EPS of 'at least $13.50.'

Netflix (NFLX) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.12 on revenues which rose 31.7% compared to last year to $2.29 billion. Also in Q3, NFLX reported better than expected domestic net adds of 0.370 million and international net adds of 3.20 million. For Q4, NFLX sees domestic net adds of 1.45 million on international net adds of 3.75 million. Lastly, for Q4, NFLX sees better than expected EPS of $0.13.

Companies scheduled to report tonight/tomorrow morning: ADNT, CREE, INTC, LLTC, MANH, YHOO/APH, ASML, STX

Analyst actions:

INTC was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays;
YHOO was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
CY was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays;
CRTO was initiated with a Buy at Berenberg,
APTI was initiated at Goldman, Jefferies, Barclays, RBC Capital Mkts, JP Morgan, BofA/Merrill, and Pacific Crest,
GSUM was initiated at Goldman and Stifel,
LVLT was initiated with an Overweight at Barclays,
PSTG was initiated with a Neutral at JP Morgan,
NTNX was initiated with a Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities,
SYNC was initiated with a Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann,
CRM was initiated with a Buy at Rosenblatt

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From Briefing.com: 4:36 pm Xilinx beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs flat sequnetially (XLNX) : Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.61 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 9.7% year/year to $579 mln vs the $574.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs flat sequentially (~$579 mln) vs. $584.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Gross margin is expected to be approximately 69%.

Operating expenses are expected to be approximately $245 million including $1 million of amortization of acquisition-related intangibles.

4:13 pm Lam Research beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 above consensus (LRCX) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $1.81 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.78; revenues rose 2.0% year/year to $1.63 bln vs the $1.63 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin of 45.2%, non-GAAP operating margin of 22.4%, and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $1.81.

Deferred revenue at the end of the September 2016 quarter increased to $704 million as compared to $566 million at the end of the June 2016 quarter. Deferred profit at the end of the September 2016 quarter increased to $418 million as compared to $349 million at the end of the June 2016 quarter.

Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $2.08-2.28, may not be comparable to $1.80 Capital IQ

Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.765-1.915 bln vs. $1.65 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees shipments of $1.85 bln +/- $75 mln

4:11 pm Lam Research reschedules investor meeting to Friday, November 18 from November 16 (meeting will serve as a general update for investors and analysts on Lam's strategy and operations) (LRCX) :

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the midweek affair on a flat note as investors responded to a fresh batch of quarterly earnings reports and a rally in crude oil futures. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) settled in-line with the S&P 500 (+0.2%) and slightly ahead of the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%).

The broader market inched higher at the start of the session as better-than-expected quarterly results from members of the energy (+1.4%) and financial (+0.8%) sectors helped boost risk appetite in the broader market.

Commercial banking name U.S. Bancorp (USB 43.58, +0.57) helped rally the industry group after reporting a bottom-line beat and estimating that net interest income will increase next quarter. Morgan Stanley (MS 32.93, +0.61) finished higher by 1.9% after beating top- and bottom-line estimates for the quarter. Meanwhile, oilfield service name Halliburton (HAL 49.07, +2.00) rallied 4.3% after topping earnings estimates and noting that rig count activity has been picking up.

Equity indices extended their gains after the opening hour as investors assessed the latest inventory data from the Department of Energy. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles declined by 5.24 million barrels (consensus: +2.70 million) while gasoline stockpiles rose by 2.46 million barrels (consensus: -1.31 million). The energy component jumped on the news, settling higher by 2.6% ($51.59/bbl; +$1.30).

The benchmark index gained lockstep with crude oil, briefly clearing technical resistance near the 2144 price level. However, the S&P 500 moved lower in the final hour as participants eyed potentially market-moving events out of the US and Europe. On that note, the European Central Bank will hold its October policy meeting tomorrow morning.

Eight sectors ended in positive territory with energy (+1.4%), financials (+0.8%), materials (+0.7%), and consumer discretionary (+0.5%) leading the pack.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+0.8%) outperformed as participants eyed above-consensus quarterly results and largely positive economic data. Dow component American Express (AXP 61.25, +1.17) finished at the top of the price-weighted average ahead of this evening's quarterly report. The broader financial sector extended its October gain to 1.7%, leading the remaining sectors over that period.

In the consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%), Netflix (NFLX 121.87, +3.08) extended its post-earnings winning streak, spiking 22.1% since reporting upbeat quarterly results on Monday evening. Tesla Motors (TSLA 203.56, +4.46) was also making waves after CEO Elon Musk confirmed that a product announcement will take place at 20:00 ET.

Chipmakers finished behind the broader technology sector (UNCH) as the PHLX Semiconductor Index slipped 0.5%. Intel (INTC 35.51, -2.24) weighed on the group after issuing disappointing fourth-quarter revenue and gross margin guidance. However, the company did beat top- and bottom-line estimates for the quarter. Shares of Intel finished lower by 5.9%.

Health care equipment names lagged in the health care space (-0.3%) with Intuitive Surgical (ISRG 681.58, -40.15) declining 5.6%. The downturn came despite the company reporting better-than-expected quarterly results. Separately, Abbott Labs (ABT 40.01, -1.16) declined 2.8% as some weakness in its nutrition sales masked largely in-line quarterly results.

Treasuries finished on a flat note as yields finished little changed across the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note settled at 0.80% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finished at 1.74%.

Today's trading volume fell below the average of 853 million as 798 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and Housing Starts/Building Permits for September:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications rose 0.6% in the week ending October 15. This followed a 6.0% decrease in the prior week.
Housing starts declined 9.0% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.047 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.168 million) while permits -- a leading indicator -- increased 6.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.225 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.164 million).

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Thursday's economic data will include the 8:30 ET release of weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 249k) and the Philadelphia Fed Survey for October (Briefing.com consensus 5.5). Separately, the September Existing Home Sales Report (Briefing.com consensus 5.30 million) and September Leading Indicators (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +7.7% YTD
S&P 500: +4.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +4.8% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.5% YTD

DJ30 +40.68 NASDAQ +2.58 SP500 +4.69 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1667/1.411 bln/1095 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2092/778.2 mln/867

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.4% around the 86.89
Crude oil broke out to fresh 52-week highs after EIA data showed an unexpected draw compared to Consensus
November crude oil futures rose $1.30 (+2.6%) to $51.59/barrel
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -5.247 mln (consensus called for a build of about +2.71 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +2.469 mln (consensus called for a draw of about -1.32 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a draw of -1.240 mln
Natural gas erased all of yesterday's gains ahead of tomorrow's inventory data
November natural gas closed $0.09 lower (-2.8%) at $3.17/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas inventory data will be released at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold extended yesterday's gains, silver ended nearly flat as the dollar index remained directionless
December gold ended today's session up $7.10 (+0.6%) to $1270.10/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.02 higher (+0.1%) at $17.66/oz
Base metal copper inched lower after 2 consecutive days of closing flat
December copper closed $0.01 lower (-0.5%) at $2.10/lb

The broader market added modest gains on Wednesday, with the best index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 40.68 points (+0.22%) to 18202.62. The S&P 500 was up 4.69 points (+0.22%) to 2144.29, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 2.58 points (+0.05%) to 5246.41.

Commercial banking name U.S. Bancorp (USB 43.58, +0.57 +1.33%) helped rally the industry group after reporting a bottom-line beat and estimating that net interest income will increase next quarter. Morgan Stanley (MS 32.93, +0.61) finished higher by 1.9% after beating top- and bottom-line estimates for the quarter. Meanwhile, oilfield service name Halliburton (HAL 49.07, +2.00) rallied 4.3% after topping earnings estimates and noting that rig count activity has been picking up.

Equity indices extended their gains after the opening hour as investors assessed the latest inventory data from the Department of Energy. The EIA reported that crude oil stockpiles declined by 5.24 million barrels while gasoline stockpiles rose by 2.46 million barrels. The energy component jumped on the news, settling higher by 2.6% ($51.59/bbl; +$1.30).

Today's market data included the MBA Mortgage Index reading which indicated that mortgage applications rose 0.6% in the week ending October 15. This followed a 6.0% decrease in the prior week. Also, housing starts were down 9.0% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.047 million units while permits -- a leading indicator -- increased 6.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.225 million. Additionally, the Fed's Beige Book was released at 2:00 p.m. ET and noted most districts saw modest to moderate growth with expectations for the pace of growth to continue at slight to moderate pace.

The Technology (XLK 47.62, +0.09 +0.19%) was up only modestly today but finished near highs of the session. Component Intel (INTC 35.51, -2.24 -5.93%) was the worst performer in the sector today following results which topped Q3 expectations but fell short of investors' hopes for Q4 guidance. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Wednesday XLE +1.38%, XLF +0.87%, XLFS +0.81%, XLB +0.73%, IYZ +0.54%, XLY +0.44%, XLRE +0.38%, XLI +0.31%, XLU -0.23% XLV -0.37% XLP -0.57% with Energy and Financials leading the positive bias.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (799.21, +0.13 +0.02%) sector, trading ended barely above flat lines as sellers attempted to drive the space back into the red. Component Seagate Tech (STX 34.32, -1.02 -2.89%) was weak today despite reporting results which beat market expectations. Other names in the space which could not manage to climb out of negative territory included STX -2.89%, EA -1.49%, MU -1.12%, XLNX -1.04%, ATVI -0.88%, WDC -0.72%, HPQ -0.63%, QCOM -0.47%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 21.73, +0.26 +1.21%) reaffirmed its FY16 guidance and issued three views of FY17 financial outlook. HPE reaffirmed guidance for FY16 (Oct) EPS of $1.90-1.95 on revenue growth of +1-2% y/y when adjusted for recent divestitures and currency. As communicated on HPE's Q3 call, HPE expects to deliver free cash flow of $1.7 -1.9 billion in FY16, and to return over $3 billion of cash to shareholders this year, in the form of share repurchases and dividends. Also, given two pending transactions -- the spin-merge of Enterprise Services with CSC in early April and the spin-merge of Software with Micro Focus in 2H FY17 - HPE provided three different views of its FY17 financial outlook. As a combined company, HPE expects revenue to be flat to down 1% when adjusted for divestitures and currency. HPE expects non-GAAP EPS to be $2.00 to $2.10. As reported, HPE sees non-GAAP EPS to be ~$1.45 to $1.55. The future HPE expects to see modest revenue growth in FY17 with non-GAAP EPS of ~$1.25 -1.35 in FY17.

According to reports, Alphabet (GOOG 801.56, +6.30 +0.79%) is in talks with Disney (DIS 91.93, +0.76 +0.83%) and Fox (FOXA 25.12, +0.16 +0.64%) regarding a potential internet TV service. Reportedly has reached a similar agreement with CBS (CBS 55.53, +0.43 +0.78%).

Red Hat (RHT 78.27, +0.77 +0.99%) and Ericsson (ERIC 5.40, -0.07 -1.28%) announced a broad alliance to deliver fully open source and production-ready cloud infrastructure, spanning OpenStack, software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined infrastructure (SDI).

Linear Tech (LLTC 59.31, +0.37 +0.63%) announced that, based on a preliminary vote tally from LLTC's Annual Meeting of Stockholders, stockholders approved the merger agreement under which Analog Devices (ADI 61.91, -0.23 -0.37%) will acquire LLTC.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 22.95, +0.10 +0.44%) announced that the United Arab Emirates' (U.A.E.) Advanced Military Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Center (AMMROC) has built a mission-critical network infrastructure based on JNPR's switching, security and network management technology.

DarkMatter, an international cyber security firm headquartered in the UAE, and NetApp (NTAP 33.68, +0.03 +0.09%) announced a partnership to jointly develop and deliver secure data storage and big data analytics solutions.
NTAP also announced the appointment of Bill Miller as chief information officer (CIO).

Visa (V 82.81, +1.23 +1.51%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.165 per share from $0.14 per share.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Synopsys (SNPS 59.76, +0.14 +0.23%) confirmed a federal appellate court has ruled in favor of Mentor Graphics (MENT 28.69, -0.12 -0.42%). SNPS said the ruling will have no impact on ZeBu sales or support.

Vectrus (VEC 16.52, +0.38 +2.35%) to eliminate an additional 64 positions at its Colorado Springs headquarters; will result in an about $2 million severance expense in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Science Applications (SAIC 67.48, -0.12 -0.18%) received SSC pacific contract to support cyberspace operations systems; potential value of more than $142 million.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Intel (INTC) reported Q3 results which beat raised guidance. Q3 EPS was $0.80 on revenues which rose 9.1% compared to last year to $15.78 billion. Guided Q4 revenues in the range of $15.2-16.2 billion on gross margins of 63%, plus or minus a couple percent.

Yahoo! (YHOO 42.73, +1.05 +2.52%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.20 on revenues which fell 14.6% compared to a year ago to $857 million. YHOO also issued downside guidance for Q4 revenues of $880-920 million. YHOO also updated their FY16 revenue guidance to $3.440-3.480 billion, ex tac, from $3.4-3.6 billion.

Seagate Tech (STX) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.99 on revenues which fell 4.4% versus last year to $2.80 billion.

Cree (CREE 22.41, -2.79 -11.07%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of $0.09 on revenues which fell 15.8% compared to last year to $321.3 million. The company also issued downside guidance for Q2 EPS in the range of $0.04-0.10 on revenues of $310-330 million.

Linear Tech (LLTC) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of $0.53 on revenues which rose 9.4% compared to a year ago to $373.9 million.

Amphenol (APH 64.71, +1.50 +2.37%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.73 and $1.64 billion, respectively. For Q4, APH sees in-line EPS and revenues of $0.71-0.73 and $1.59-1.63 billion, respectively.

ASML (ASML 104.07, +1.74 +1.70%) reported worse than expected EPS of EUR0.03 on better than expected revenues of EUR1.82 billion. For Q4, ASML sees revenues of EUR1.7-1.8 billion.

Companies scheduled to report tonight/tomorrow morning: CTXS, EBAY, LRCX, XLNX/CTXS, EBAY, LRCX

Analyst actions:

TWTR was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Loop Capital,
INTC was upgraded to Buy from Mkt Perform at Charter Equity,
DSGX was upgraded to Sector Outperform from Sector Perform at CIBC,
MOMO was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
VDSI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Dougherty,
CREE was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Stephens;
SQ and CDNS were initiated with Neutral ratings at Credit Suisse,
MENT and SNPS were initiated with Outperform ratings at Credit Suisse,
WEB and EIGI were initiated with Hold ratings at Cantor Fitzgerald,
GDDY and WIX were initiated with Buy ratings at Cantor Fitzgerald,
IPAS was initiated with a Buy at Maxim Group,
SHOP was initiated with a Buy at Rosenblatt,
RP was initiated with an Overweight at Stephens

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From Briefing.com: 4:14 pm Rambus beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (RMBS) : Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.16 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.13; revenues rose 21.8% year/year to $89.9 mln vs the $86.6 mln Capital

IQ Consensus.As compared to the third quarter of 2015, revenue was up 22% primarily due to higher revenue from sales of memory products and security technology development projects, including revenue from the various acquisitions during the year.Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.14-0.18, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $94-98 mln vs. $94.44 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:11 pm Intersil beats by $0.03, beats on revs; not providing guidance due to previously announced acquisition by Renesas (RNECF) (ISIL) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.22 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.19; revenues rose 8.3% year/year to $139.05 mln vs the $137.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus.Given the pending acquisition by Renesas, Intersil will not be providing guidance for the fourth quarter and will not be holding a third quarter results conference call.

4:08 pm Cadence Design beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (CDNS) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.30 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues rose 2.9% year/year to $446.2 mln vs the $446.47 mln Capital IQ

Consensus. Co issues downside EPS guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.32-0.34, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.35 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $463-473 mln vs. $471.91 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm : The major averages began the week on an upbeat note as an upswing in M&A activity and sector leadership from the top-weighted technology (+1.1%) space bolstered the broader market. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%) finished ahead of both the S&P 500 (+0.5%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%).

A recent wave of M&A chatter materialized this weekend when several high-profile deals were announced after Friday's close. AT&T (T 36.86, -0.63, -1.7%) and Time Warner (TWX 86.78, -2.70, -3.0%) made headlines on Saturday after the telecom giant agreed to pay $107.50 per share for Time Warner. The deal is valued at $85.4 billion and marks a premium of 20.1% over Friday's closing price. Meanwhile, Rockwell Collins (COL 79.21, -5.25, -6.2%) agreed to acquire BE Aerospace (BEAV 58.89, +8.28, +16.4%) for $62.00 per share, which will amount to $8.3 billion in total consideration. The size and scope of the deals stoked risk appetite as investors looked for further consolidation.

The benchmark index notched a high at the start of the session and inched off that level throughout the morning.

A downturn in crude oil futures contributed to the mid-morning pullback as investors assessed the state of OPEC's proposed supply freeze agreement. Iraq made headlines this morning after indicating that it will seek an exemption from the previously discussed agreement. However, selling remained in check after Iran stated that it would encourage other members to join the output freeze. Crude oil briefly broke below $50.00/bbl before settling at $50.52/bbl (-0.7%; -$0.33).

The Treasury complex pulled back today as an upswing in equities and above-consensus economic data weighed on the group. Bond prices extended their decline after U.S. Manufacturing PMI for October came in ahead of estimates. The yield on the 2-yr note finished higher by two basis point (0.84%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose three basis points to 1.76%. The spread between the 2-yr and 10-yr yields expanded to 92 basis points from September's 83 basis point differential.

The benchmark index finished in the upper end of today's trading range, locking in the bulk of today's gain.

Eight sectors ended in the green with technology (+1.2%), consumer staples (+0.7%), and consumer discretionary (+0.7%) outperforming. On the other hand, telecom services (-0.8%) and energy (-0.2%) finished at the bottom of the board.

The heavyweight technology space (+1.2%) outperformed as participants continued to assess influential quarterly reports from the sector and looked ahead to a busy week on the earnings calendar. Dow component Microsoft (MSFT 61.00, +1.34) jumped 2.3%, extending its post-earnings gain to 6.6%. The name beat analysts' estimates last Thursday. Meanwhile, Alphabet (GOOG 813.11, +13.74) gained 1.7% ahead of releasing its quarterly results Thursday evening.

In the consumer discretionary sector (+0.7%) Amazon (AMZN 837.71, +18.72) gained 2.3% after Goldman Sachs raised its price target on the stock to $1050 from $920. The name is also scheduled to release its quarterly report this Thursday. Conversely, media company underperformed as investors looked ahead to potential regulatory hurdles that AT&T and Time Warner will face in their merger attempt.

Aerospace and defense names outperformed in the industrial sector (+0.3%) as the sub-group drafted higher alongside BE Aerospace (BEAV 58.89, +8.28). Dow component Boeing (BA 137.45, +1.82) finished ahead of the price-weighted average. Conversely, rail names underperformed as Union Pacific (UNP 89.88, -0.49) fell 0.5%.

Today's trading volume was below the average of 853 million as 779 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 9:00 ET release of the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for August (Briefing.com consensus 5.1%) and the FHFA Housing Price Index for August. Separately, Consumer Confidence for October (Briefing.com consensus 100.8) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +8.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +6.0% YTD
S&P 500: +5.3% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.6% YTD

DJ30 +77.32 NASDAQ +52.42 SP500 +10.17 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1711/1.396 bln/1122 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1777/779.5 mln/1158

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.1% around the 86.15 level
Crude oil gave up all of Friday's gains after comments surfaced from Iraq's oil minister regarding choosing not to participate in the recently announced OPEC production cut
December crude oil futures fell $0.33 (-0.7%) to $50.52/barrel.
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell.
Weekly EIA petroleum storage data will be released this Wednesday at 10:30 am ET.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Today's weakness in oil is being attributed to reports that Iraq's oil minister stating that Iraq will not be part of the previously announced OPEC production cut, discussing that its market share would be much higher if not for the wars it has been fighting since the 1980's. Iraq also added they could raise output slightly this month from Sept levels around 4.774 mln barrels/day.
Other factors to consider on oil:
After a Gulf Ministerial meeting in Riyadh on Sunday, the Saudi Oil minister held a joint press conference with Russia's oil minister & stated that the current down cycle in oil prices is nearing an end, noting that market fundamentals have begun to improve.
Qatar's energy minister also expressed that the difficult phase of the down cycle is now over.
As announced after the informal meeting in Istanbul, OPEC producers & Russia are expected to meet to discuss details on cooperating to stabilize oil prices.
OPEC & Russia will meet ahead of the OPEC technical meeting in Vienna on Oct 28-29 for further ongoing discussions.
Venezuelan president Maduro has recently been attempting to solicit the help of Iran, calling for increased cooperation on the proposed production cut. It is worth noting that Maduro has been visiting OPEC countries over the past few weeks & has been actively soliciting support for a collective OPEC production cut.
Reminder: Iran, Libya, & Nigeria are all exempt from the OPEC production cut.
The next official OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on Nov 30, where details of the Sept 28 OPEC production cut are expected to be announced.
Natural gas traded lower for the fourth consecutive session, ended at session lows & solidified the breach of the $3.00/MMBtu support level
November natural gas closed $0.15 lower (-5.0%) at $2.84/MMBtu.
Weekly EIA natural gas storage data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold ended near session lows as silver saw a modest rally while the dollar index remained nearly flat; the gold:silver ratio dropped
December gold ended today's session down $4.20 (-0.3%) to $1263.50/oz.
December silver closed today's session $0.10 higher (+0.6%) at $17.60/oz.
The gold:silver ratio was ~71.8, compared to Friday's pit trading closing ratio of ~72.4.

The broader market closed out the Monday session at highs with the Nasdaq Composite up a clean +1.00%, up 52.43 points, to 5309.83. The S&P 500 added 10.17 points (+0.47%) to 2151.33, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by 77.32 points (+0.43%) to 18223.03. Aiding the Nasdaq advance, key Nasdaq 100 components AMZN +2.3%, COST +2.1%, MNST +1.9%, WBA +1.9% and CERN +1.5% provided a lift.

A downturn in crude oil futures contributed to the mid-morning pullback as investors assessed the state of OPEC's proposed supply freeze agreement. Iraq made headlines this morning after indicating that it will seek an exemption from the previously discussed agreement. However, selling remained in check after Iran stated that it would encourage other members to join the output freeze. Crude oil briefly broke below $50.00/bbl before settling at $50.52/bbl (-0.7%; -$0.33).

The Treasury complex pulled back today as an upswing in equities and above-consensus economic data weighed on the group. Bond prices extended their decline after U.S. Manufacturing PMI for October came in ahead of estimates. The yield on the 2-yr note finished higher by two basis point (0.84%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose three basis points to 1.76%. The spread between the 2-yr and 10-yr yields expanded to 92 basis points from September's 83 basis point differential.

As the week began, trading in the Technology (XLK 47.99, +0.46 +0.97%) topped all other S&P sectors with gains closing out the day near highs. Component Qorvo (QRVO 57.29, +2.59 +4.73%) posted the best gains in the space today on the heels of a pre-market initiation at JP Morgan. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Monday XLY +0.72%, XLP +0.65%, XLFS +0.39%, XLU +0.37%, XLF +0.31%, XLB +0.23%, XLI +0.19%, XLRE +0.13%, XLV -0.19%, XLE -0.30% with only Energy and Healthcare resisting the positive broader market bias.

As a sub-sector, Telecoms (IYZ 31.74, +0.42 +1.34%) were especially strong today on the back of some M&A news and a few earnings reports. On the M&A front, shares of AT&T (T 36.86, -0.63 -1.68%) were modestly lower as the company announced a deal to acquire Time Warner (TWX 86.74, -2.74 -3.06%) for $107.50 per share during the weekend. As for earnings, T-Mobile US (TMUS 51.19, +4.44 +9.50%) and Sprint (S 6.92, +0.37 +5.65%) were higher today as the former reported a mixed Q3, beating market expectations on the bottom line, with strong total net adds; AT&T also reported earnings today. The latter reports earnings tonight after the market closes, and as a result, strength in the space among top names like VG +3.21%, SPOK +3.00%, USM +2.60%, CBB +1.77%, NIHD +1.69%, GNCMA +1.66%, SBAC +1.49%, TDS +1.17%, SHEN +1.15%, ATNI +0.82%, FTR +0.74% led to a higher close.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (811.68, +9.75 +1.22%) sector, trading ventured further north of the $800-level today following a strong broader market session. Shares of both Alphabet (GOOG 813.11, +13.74 +1.72%) and Alphabet A (GOOGL 835.74, +11.68 +1.42%) made fresh all-time highs today less than a week after breaking into new all-time high territory as shares had been weighed down for most of the summer. Other names in the space which outperformed today included NVDA +4.69%, SYMC +3.41%, ADS +3.27%, AMAT +2.53%, TXN +2.44%, JNPR +2.29%, MSFT +2.25%, AVGO +2.10%, ATVI +2.09%, AKAM +2.03%, MCHP +1.92%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

On Friday, reports were out suggesting Time Warner (TWX) and AT&T (T) were near a deal for T to acquire TWX for $110 per share. Out over the weekend, T confirmed the deal to buy TWX in a stock-and-cash transaction valued at $107.50 per share. TWX shareholders will receive $107.50 per share under the terms of the merger, comprised of $53.75 per share in cash and $53.75 per share in AT&T stock. The stock portion will be subject to a collar such that TWX shareholders will receive 1.437 AT&T shares if AT&T's average stock price is below $37.411 at closing and 1.3 AT&T shares if AT&T's average stock price is above $41.349 at closing. This purchase price implies a total equity value of $85.4 billion and a total transaction value of $108.7 billion, including TWX's net debt. Post-transaction, TWX shareholders will own between 14.4% and 15.7% of AT&T shares on a fully-diluted basis based on the number of AT&T shares outstanding. AT&T expects the deal to be accretive in the first year after close on both an adjusted EPS and free cash flow per share basis. AT&T expects $1 billion in annual run rate cost synergies within 3 years of the deal closing. The expected cost synergies are primarily driven by corporate and procurement expenditures. In addition, over time, AT&T expects to achieve incremental revenue opportunities that neither company could obtain on a standalone basis. By the end of the first year after close, AT&T expects net debt to adjusted EBITDA to be in the 2.5x range.

Microsoft (MSFT 61.00, +1.34 +2.25%) confirmed it will be increasing British pound pricing for enterprise software and cloud services within the EU/EFTA region effective Jan 1 2017.

Rambus (RMBS 11.99, +0.37 +3.18%) licensed to NVIDIA (NVDA 70.71, +3.17 +4.69%) its Differential Power Analysis countermeasures to protect its visual computing products against side-channel attacks.

Visa (V 83.17, +0.82 +1.00%) and Intel (INTC 35.26, +0.11 +0.31%) announced a collaboration agreement to help bring world-class payment and data security technologies to the growing world of connected devices-from personal computers and mobile devices, to intelligent appliances and wearable technologies.

PTC (PTC 46.12, -0.27 -0.58%) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 21.68, +0.05 +0.23%) announced a planned collaboration to facilitate the availability of the Converged IoT Solutions, based on PTC ThingWorx software and HPE Edgeline Systems.

Intuit (INTU 109.62, +1.17 +1.08%) and PayPal (PYPL 43.88, -0.27 -0.61%) announced the expansion of their partnership, helping small businesses and the self-employed get paid faster. The partnership will provide QuickBooks Online customers with a new way of accepting payments via PayPal, and automate the work traditionally associated with managing the books.

Alliance Data (ADS 206.49, +6.54 +3.27%) proposed to offer $400.0 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2021.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

TD Ameritrade (AMTD 35.46, -1.62 -4.37%) confirmed a deal to acquire Scottrade in a cash and stock transaction valued at $4 billion. AMTD expects to realize about $450 million in combined annual expense synergies, and more than $300 million in additional longer-term opportunities. The first 25% of the expense synergies are expected to be realized in Year 1 post-close and the remainder realized in Year 2. Furthermore, the transaction is expected to generate double-digit EPS accretion post-conversion. Additionally, Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD 44.94, -0.09 -0.20%) confirmed it will acquire Scottrade Bank.

Netflix (NFLX 127.33, -0.17 -0.13%) intends to offer $800 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes through an offering.

Digital Ally (DGLY 6.40, +0.70 +12.28%) announced the receipt of notable orders from the Santa Fe, New Mexico Police Department for its FirstVu HD body-worn camera, DVM-800 in-car digital audio/video system, DVM-440 Motorcycle system and patented VuLink automatic activation system. Managment also stated, "The automatic activation technology included in our patented VuLink has quickly become a standard requirement in many requests for proposals and has drawn attention from our competitors, who have attempted to introduce their own automatic activation technology that we believe infringes on our patent. In that regard, the Company has initiated patent infringement lawsuits against two competitors: Taser International, Inc. (TASR 23.54, +0.34 +1.47%) and Enforcement Video, LLC d/b/a WatchGuard Video."

SS&C Tech (SSNC 32.66, +0.48 +1.49%) to acquire Salentica. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Rackspace's (RAX 31.92, +0.06 +0.19%) acquisition by Apollo Global (APO 17.90, +0.15 +0.85%) was cleared by the European Union.

ITUS (ITUS 5.35, -0.35 -6.14%) named Mike Catelani as CFO effective November 1.

CACI Intl (CACI 101.25, +1.10 +1.10%) received a $93 million prime contract to provide tactical communications engineering and maintenance support services to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In reaction to quarterly results:

After the TWX deal was announced AT&T (T) reported in-line EPS and revenues for Q3 at $0.74 and $40.89 billion, respectively. Further, the company commented that it remains on track to achieve or exceed its full-year guidance.

Siliconware Precision (SPIL 7.40, +0.06 +0.82%) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of NT$0.64 and NT$21.96 billion, respectively.

T-Mobile US (TMUS) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.27 on worse than expected revenues which rose 17.8% compared to a year ago to $9.25 billion. TMUS also reported 2.0 million total net adds on 851,000 branded postpaid phone net adds. The company also raised FY16 EBITDA guidance to $10.2-10.4 billion from $9.8-10.1 billion. Further, branded postpaid net customer additions for FY16 are now expected to be between 3.7-3.9 million, an increase from the previous guidance range of 3.4 to 3.8 million.

TD Ameritrade (AMTD) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.35 on n-line revenues of $829 million. The company also guided FY17 EPS of $1.50-1.80.

Companies scheduled to report tonight/tomorrow morning: CDNS, CMP, CLGX, EFII, ISIL, KN, RMBS, V/AXE, CVLT, GLW, CTG, S

Analyst actions:

VZ was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Drexel Hamilton,
BIDU was upgraded to Mixed from Negative at OTR Global,
VMW was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at William Blair,
TRUE was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley & Co.;
TWX was downgraded at RBC Capital Markets, Credit Suisse, Pivotal Research Group, Goldman, MoffettNathanson, Macquarie, Atlantic Equities, Evercore ISI and MKM Partners,
T was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen and to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton, FEYE was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at First Analysis Sec,
SYNT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at SunTrust,
EA was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
WIT was downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Nomura;
CYBR was initiated with an Overweight,
FTNT and SCXW were initiated with Equal Weight ratings at First Analysis Sec,
QRVO was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
SWKS was initiated with a Neutral at JP Morgan

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:35 pm Apple beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs above consensus, gross margin below (AAPL) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.67 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.66; revenues fell 9.0% year/year to $46.85 bln vs the $46.98 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Apple reports Q4 gross margins 38.0% vs 38% ests vs 39.9% last year.

iPhone shipments 45.5 mln vs 45.2 million ests and 48.05 million last year.
iPads 9.3 mln vs 9.3 million ests versus 9.9 million in Q4 of last year.
Macs 4.9 mln vs 5.2 million ests versus 5.7 million in Q4 of last year.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $76-78 bln vs. $75.33 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margins of 38.0-38.5% vs 39% ests vs 40.1% last year; op-ex $6.9-7.0 bln;

"We are pleased to have generated $16.1 billion in operating cash flow, a new record for the September quarter."

Rev by geography: Americas -7%; Europe +3%, Greater China -30%; Japan +10%, Asia Pac. -1%.

4:24 pm Juniper Networks beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (JNPR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.58 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.52; revenues rose 2.9% year/year to $1.29 bln vs the $1.25 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Q3 Non-GAAP operating margin for the third quarter of 2016 was 24.4%, a decrease from 25.5% in the third quarter of
2015, and an increase from 22.5% in the second quarter of 2016.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.59-0.65 vs. $0.60 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $1.32-1.38 bln vs. $1.32 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Non-GAAP operating margin will be ~25% at the midpoint of revenue guidance.

While the Company continues to see pricing pressure and product mix fluctuations, it remains focused on cost improvements.

4:04 pm iRobot beats by $0.27, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (IRBT) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) GAAP earnings of $0.70 per share, $0.27 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.43; revenues rose 17.4% year/year to $168.61 mln vs the $157.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"As we have said previously, the revenue split between Q3 and Q4 is always difficult to predict due to the timing and shipment of consumer products for the holiday season. This year, our new partner in China requested Q3 delivery of some Braava jet and Roomba orders that we were expecting to ship in Q4. This resulted in higher than anticipated consumer revenue and profitability in Q3."

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.36-0.44 vs. $0.60 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $202-207 mln vs. $204.72 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a modestly lower note as investors evaluated the latest batch of quarterly reports. Today's trade also featured a pullback in crude oil and increased volatility in the foreign exchange market. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) settled behind the S&P 500 (-0.4%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%).

The major averages inched lower at the start of the session, responding to mixed quarterly results from some market bellwethers. Dow components Procter & Gamble (PG 87.97, +2.87, +3.4%) and Merck (MRK 61.95, +1.20, +2.0%) finished at the top of the price-weighted average after reporting upbeat quarterly results. On the flipside, Dow members 3M (MMM 166.23, -5.04, -2.9%) and Caterpillar (CAT 84.48, -1.51, -1.8%) finished behind the index after cautious guidance stymied buying interest.

Equities extended their losses after the opening hour as some strengthening in the U.S. Dollar Index (98.73, -0.02, -0.02%) flashed warning signs to the broader market. The move higher came on the heels of some fleeting depreciation in the British pound. Sterling plunged 1.3% against the dollar (1.2083) ahead of commentary from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. However, remarks from Governor Carney proved to be rather innocuous and the currency pair narrowed its loss throughout the remainder of the session. The pound lost 0.5% against the dollar (1.2183).

Crude oil was also unable to find its bearings today as the energy component extended its losing streak. Participants remained unsettled after Iraq indicated in the prior session that it may seek an exemption from the previously discussed OPEC supply freeze agreement. WTI crude ended its session lower by 1.3% ($49.87/bbl; -$0.65), extending its weekly loss to 1.9%. The American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to release its weekly inventory report after today's close while the Department of Energy will report its more influential inventory data tomorrow at 10:30 ET.

The broader market finished in the bottom of today's trading range as nine S&P 500 sectors ended in negative territory. Consumer discretionary (-1.2%), materials (-1.0%), telecom services (-0.6%), and technology (-0.4%) rounded out the leaderboard.

The consumer discretionary sector (-1.2%) bore the brunt of today's selling interest as the home retailer, apparel, and automobile sub-groups each moved lower following disappointing earnings and/or guidance. Lowe's (LOW 68.47, -2.51, -3.5%) and Home Depot (HD 123.34, -4.44, -3.5%) were under pressure after Sherwin-Williams (SHW 247.61, -30.27, -10.9%) missed quarterly earnings estimates and lowered its earnings outlook for the remainder of the year. Shares of Under Armour (UA 32.89, -5.01) tumbled 13.2% as below-consensus revenue guidance for the fourth quarter masked a bottom-line beat. Separately, General Motors (GM 31.60, -1.38) finished down 4.2% despite reporting a better-than-expected quarter.

In the technology sector (-0.5%), top-weighted Apple (AAPL 118.25, +0.60) finished higher by 0.5% ahead of its quarterly report. Meanwhile, Corning (GLW 22.97, -0.92) fell 3.9% despite reporting above-consensus quarterly results. The high-beta chipmakers finished slightly ahead of the broader sector as the PHLX Semiconductor Index slipped 0.2%.

The industrial group (-0.4%) settled in-line with the broader market as aerospace and defense names led. Lockheed Martin (LMT 249.26, +17.10, +7.4%) beat earnings estimates for the quarter and raised its full-year outlook. Separately, large caps Caterpillar (CAT 84.48, -1.51, -1.8%) and 3M (MMM 166.23, -5.04, -2.9%) each finished lower.

Treasuries finished on a mixed note with the short end of the curve underperforming. The yield on the 2-yr note rose two basis points to 0.86% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note ended down one basis point at 1.76%.

Today's trading volume was below the average of 853 million as 819 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for August, the FHFA Housing Price Index for August, and Consumer Confidence for October:

The FHFA Housing Price Index for August rose 0.7%, which followed an increase of 0.5% in July.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for August rose 5.1%, which fell in-line with the Briefing.com consensus. This followed the previous month's unrevised reading of 5.0%.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 98.6 in October from a downwardly revised 103.5 (from 104.1) in September. The downturn in October followed back-to-back monthly gains in the Index.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and International Trade in Goods for September, which will be released at 7:00 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively. The day's data will be capped off with the 10:00 ET release of New Home Sales for September (Briefing.com consensus 610k).

Russell 2000: +7.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +5.5% YTD
S&P 500: +4.9% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.3% YTD

DJ30 -53.76 NASDAQ -26.43 SP500 -8.17 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 888/1.428 bln/1917 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1162/818.4 mln/1774 3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.2% around the 86.01 level
Crude oil broke & ended below the $50.00/barrel support level ahead of today's API data
December crude oil futures fell $0.65 (-1.3%) to $49.87/barrel
API data will be released today after the bell.
Weekly EIA petroleum storage data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
The next official OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
Monthly IEA oil data will be released November 10.
Reminder: Yesterday, it was reported that Iraq's oil minister stated Iraq will not be part of the previously announced OPEC production cut, discussing that its market share would be much higher if not for the wars it has been fighting since the 1980's. Iraq also added they could raise output slightly this month from Sept levels around 4.774 mln barrels/day.
Natural gas ended lower for the fifth consecutive session, ahead of Thursday's inventory data
November natural gas closed $0.06 lower (-2.1%) at $2.78/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold's rally was outpaced by the gains in silver as the dollar index traded nearly flat; the gold:silver ratio extended yesterday's decline
December gold ended today's session up $10.10 (+0.8%) to $1273.60/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.18 higher (+1.0%) at $17.78/oz
The gold:silver ratio was ~71.6, compared to yesterday's pit trading close ratio of ~71.8
Base metal copper extended this morning's rally after 4 previous sessions of nearly directionless trading
December copper closed $0.05 higher (+2.4%) at $2.14/lb

The broader market gave back Monday's gains on Tuesday, with all three major US indices ending lower amid mixed earnings results. Leading the negative bias, the Nasdaq Composite shed 26.43 points (-0.50%) to 5283.40. The S&P 500 was down 8.17 points (-0.38%) to 2143.16, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended lower by 53.76 points (-0.30%) to 18169.27.

As it were, the major averages began lower at the start of the session, responding to mixed quarterly results from some market bellwethers. Dow components Procter & Gamble (PG 87.97, +2.87, +3.4%) and Merck (MRK 61.95, +1.20, +2.0%) finished at the top of the price-weighted average after reporting upbeat quarterly results. On the flipside, Dow members 3M (MMM 166.23, -5.04, -2.9%) and Caterpillar (CAT 84.48, -1.51, -1.8%) finished behind the index after cautious guidance stymied buying interest.

Equities extended their losses after the opening hour as some strengthening in the U.S. Dollar Index (98.73, -0.02, -0.02%) flashed warning signs to the broader market. The move higher came on the heels of some fleeting depreciation in the British pound. Sterling plunged 1.3% against the dollar (1.2083) ahead of commentary from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. However, remarks from Governor Carney proved to be rather innocuous and the currency pair narrowed its loss throughout the remainder of the session. The pound lost 0.5% against the dollar (1.2183).

Crude oil was also unable to find its bearings today as the energy component extended its losing streak. Participants remained unsettled after Iraq indicated in the prior session that it may seek an exemption from the previously discussed OPEC supply freeze agreement. WTI crude ended its session lower by 1.3% ($49.87/bbl; -$0.65), extending its weekly loss to 1.9%. The American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to release its weekly inventory report after today's close while the Department of Energy will report its more influential inventory data tomorrow at 10:30 ET.

The Technology (XLK 47.82, -0.17 -0.35%) sector ended the session in the red, but skewed toward the middle of the ladder as far as S&P sectors go. Component Corning (GLW22.97, -0.92 -3.85%) was the worst performer despite reporting better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues this morning. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Tuesday trading XLU +0.62%, XLP +0.31%, XLF -0.10%, XLRE -0.13%, XLI -0.26%, XLV -0.29%, XLFS -0.32%, XLE -0.53%, IYZ -0.76%, XLB -0.91%, XLY -1.17%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (808.82, -2.86 -0.35%) sector, action ended lower but slightly off lows of the session. Component Apple (AAPL 118.25, +0.60 +0.51%) finished modestly higher today ahead of earnings which are scheduled to be released tonight after the close. Other name in the space which underperformed today included CSRA -2.14%, VRSN -2.13%, QRVO -1.68%, AVGO -1.64%, ADBE -1.61%, TEL -1.48%, CTXS -1.47%, EA -1.45%, V -1.37%, FFIV -1.30%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Alphabet (GOOG 807.67, -5.44 -0.67%) purchased eye-tracking technology company Eyefluence.

IBM's (IBM 150.88, +0.31 +0.21%) board authorized $3 billion in additional funds for use in IBM's stock repurchase program. This amount is in addition to about $3 billion remaining at the end of September 2016 from a prior authorization. With this new authorization, IBM will have about $6 billion for its stock repurchase program.

Alliance Data (ADS 203.90, -2.59 -1.25%) priced an upsized offering of $500 million (from $400 million) aggregate principal amount of 5.875% Senior Notes due 2021.

Red Hat (RHT 77.35, -0.86 -1.10%) announced that Produban, the IT services arm of the Spanish banking leader Grupo Santander, has picked RHT as its technology partner to create a modern cloud infrastructure with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform on Red Hat OpenStack Platform.

First Data (FDC 13.87, -0.33 -2.32%) to bring the Alipay mobile payment solution to United States merchants beginning in November. Verifone (PAY 15.79, +0.16 +1.02%) also expanded its Alipay acceptance to retailers in North America and Europe.

Mastercard (MA 102.88, -0.31 -0.30%) announced a partnership with Fit Pay, Inc. to bring Mastercard contactless payments to consumer wearables and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Fiserv (FISV 99.72, -0.79 -0.79%) announced that Farm Credit Services of America, based in Omaha, Nebraska, has selected the DNA account processing platform from Fiserv to support its agricultural lending operations.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Netflix (NFLX 126.51, -0.82 -0.64%) priced an upsized offering of $1 billion (from $800 million) 4.375% senior notes due 2026.

Towerstream (TWER 1.40, +0.22 +18.64%) expects to add 100 new buildings to its On-Net footprint in Q4 to 437 total buildings. This is more than double the 265 that were in the On-Net footprint at the end of H1. In addition to this expansion, management is considering select M&A transactions that would complement its organic growth. The company seeks fixed wireless companies that are similar to it and would be accretive.

According to Bloomberg, Twitter (TWTR 17.26, -0.77 -4.27%) may be planning an 8% workforce reduction.

Intelsat (I 2.80, +0.03 +1.08%) announced a contract with Nine Network Australia to distribute programming to its six domestic television stations.

Blackbaud (BLKB 65.06, +0.06 +0.09%) reaffirmed FY16 EPS of $1.90-1.98, sales of $725-740 million. Also raised OCF guidance to $147.0-157.0 million from $135.0-145.0 million. The company also adopted stock compensation accounting standard early.

Fitch placed AT&T's (T 36.70, -0.16 -0.43%) 'A-' IDR on Negative Watch on proposed Time Warner (TWX 87.16, +0.42 +0.48%) acquisition.

AVX Corp (AVX 13.79, -0.16 -1.15%) entered into a technology disclosure agreement with its majority stockholder, Kyocera Corporation (KYO 49.47, +0.29 +0.59%).

In reaction to quarterly results:

Visa (V 82.03, -1.14 -1.37%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.78 on revenues which rose 19.3% compared to last year to $4.26 billion. Also, management guided FY17 on a GAAP basis with annual net revenue growth in a 16% to 18% range on a nominal dollar basis, including 1.0 to 1.5 ppts of negative foreign currency impact. Sees client incentives as a percent of gross revenues in 20.5% to 21.5% range. Sees annual operating margin in the mid 60s on an effective tax rate in the low 30s. Also sees annual diluted class A common stock earnings per share growth of low 30s on a GAAP nominal dollar basis and mid-teens on an adjusted, non-GAAP nominal dollar basis, both including 1.5 to 2.0 ppts of negative foreign currency impact.

Sprint (S 6.50, -0.42 -6.07%) reported a better than expected Q2 loss per share of $0.04 on better than expected revenues which rose 3.4% compared to last year to $8.25 billion. S also reaffirmed FY16 EBITDA guidance of $9.5-10.0 billion and adjusted free cash flow of around breakeven. Also raised operating income guidance from $1.0-1.5 billion to $1.2-1.7 billion.

Corning (GLW) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.42 and $2.55 billion, respectively.

Cadence Design (CDNS 25.51, -0.23 -0.89%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.30 on in-line revenues of $446.2 million. CDNS also sees worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.32-0.34 on revenues of $463-473 million.

Intersil (ISIL 22.10, +0.02 +0.09%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.22 and $139.05 million, respectively.

Electronics For Imaging (EFII 43.03, -0.57 -1.31%) reported in-line Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.58 and $245.6 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report tonight/tomorrow morning: AKAM, AAPL, JNPR, LOGI, MRCY, NCR, P, RSYS, RNG, FUEL, TSS, UIS, ZIXI/AVX, ENTG, FLIR, GRUB, MMYT, SLAB, SONS, VNTV, VG

Analyst actions:

TWX was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush,
T was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Independent Research;
V was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Guggenheim,
ERIC was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan;
INOV was initiated with an Equal Weight at First Analysis Sec,
NTNX was initiated at RBC Capital Mkts, Raymond James, Goldman, Stifel, JP Morgan, Piper Jaffray, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Robert W. Baird, Oppenheimer, William Blair, Pacific Crest and Needham, LOGI was initiated with a Buy at Brean Capital,
ANET was initiated with a Buy at Argus,
COHR was initiated with a Buy at Northcoast

6:59 am II-VI beats by $0.12, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS above two analyst estimate, revs mid-point above consensus (IIVI) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) adj earnings of $0.35 per share, $0.12 better than the two analyst estimate of $0.23; revenues rose 17.1% year/year to $221.5 mln vs the $220.04 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.24-0.29 vs. $0.23 two analyst estimate; sees Q2 revs of $220-230 mln vs. $220.90 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.Co reported Q1 bookings of $244.3 mln, up 31% YoY. "We started our new fiscal year with a very good first quarter, reporting results at the high end of our guidance. Component sales into the optical communications market led the growth in margins, and our industrial laser business remained steady. Our new acquisitions met our expectations, and we have made good progress in our investment programs to scale our technology platforms to address fast-growing, emerging markets such as 3D sensing."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:39 pm Texas Instruments beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TXN) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) GAAP earnings of $0.94 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.86; revenues rose 7.2% year/year to $3.67 bln vs the $3.48 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Revenue and earnings per share for the quarter were slightly above our expected range. Compared with a year ago, demand for our products continued to be strong in the automotive market and improved in the industrial market. Demand in the personal electronics market was about even with a year ago. "In our core businesses, Embedded Processing revenue grew 10 percent and Analog revenue grew 6 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Operating margin increased in both businesses. "Gross margin of 62.0 percent reflected the quality of our product portfolio, as well as the efficiency of our manufacturing strategy, including the benefit of 300-millimeter Analog production.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees GAAP EPS of $0.76-0.86 vs. $0.79 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $3.17-3.43 bln vs. $3.3 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

TI also increased its quarterly dividend by 32 percent to 50 cents per share, or $2.00 annualized. The increase reflects TI's continued strength in free cash flow generation and its commitment to return excess cash to shareholders. The quarterly dividend was declared and will be payable November 21, 2016, to shareholders of record on November 7, 2016.

4:37 pm MKS Instruments beats by $0.11, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (MKSI) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.88 per share, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.77; revenues rose 81.8% year/year to $380.66 mln vs the $370.13 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.87-1.10 vs. $0.85 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $370-410 mln vs. $378.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We had a very strong third quarter driven by continued growth in our semiconductor business, which rose 15% sequentially on a pro-forma basis," said Gerald Colella, Chief Executive Officer and President.

4:25 pm Western Digital beats by $0.13, beats on revs (WDC) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $1.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.05 and above prior guidance of $1.00-1.05; revenues rose 40.3% year/year to $4.71 bln vs the $4.52 bln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $4.45-4.55 bln.

"We are pleased with our performance in [SepQ], the first full quarter as an integrated company following the SanDisk acquisition in May."

"Demand for both hard drive and flash-based products was strong across all customer categories, driven by cloud and mobile applications, as well as better-than-expected PC market trends. We are encouraged by the uniformly positive response to the new Western Digital platform from our broadened customer base."

"We are on track to achieve our synergy goals associated with these integrations and our transition to 3D NAND continues to progress as planned."

Note: WDC typically guides on the call, it starts at the top of the hour.

4:21 pm AXT beats by $0.04, beats on revs (AXTI) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.07 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.03; revenues rose 19.2% year/year to $21.9 mln vs the $21.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Gross margin was 34.6 percent of revenue for the third quarter of 2016, compared with 29.4 percent of revenue in the second quarter of 2016 and 25.0% in the third quarter of 2015.

Operating profit for the third quarter of 2016 was $2.7 million compared with operating profit of $0.9 million in the second quarter of 2016.

4:19 pm Ultra Clean Holdings beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (UCTT) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.17 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.12 and above prior guidance of $0.11-0.14; revenues rose 19.0% year/year to $146.15 mln vs the $134.89 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $133-138 mln.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.17-0.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $146-151 mln vs. $130.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Strong momentum led to record revenues and significant improvement on the bottom line this quarter...As a result of our strategic focus on the semiconductor capital equipment market, we are expanding our capabilities to cost-effectively meet customers' dynamic needs. As the market continues its upward trajectory, our solid customer relationships and growing market position are enabling us to outpace the broader industry."

4:16 pm Plexus beats by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (PLXS) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.82 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.80; revenues fell 2.3% year/year to $653.06 mln vs the $670.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Won 37 programs during the quarter representing approximately $200 million in annualized revenue when fully ramped into production

Trailing four quarter wins total approximately $747 million in annualized revenue

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.74-0.82 vs. $0.77 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $620-650 vs. $673.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:15 pm TTM Tech beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (TTMI) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.39 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.32 and above prior guidance of $0.29-0.35; revenues fell 1.6% year/year to $641.72 mln vs the $641.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $620-660 mln.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.42-0.48, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $650-690 mln vs. $664.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:11 pm F5 Networks beats by $0.17, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (FFIV) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $2.11 per share, $0.17 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.94; revenues rose 4.8% year/year to $525.3 mln vs the $520.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.92-1.95 vs. $1.86 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $510-520 mln vs. $515.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:03 pm NETGEAR beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs in-line (NTGR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.76 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.71; revenues fell 1.0% year/year to $338.5 mln vs the $323.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $340-355 mln vs. $349.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees non-GAAP operating margin in the range of 10.5% to 11.5%. Additionally, the Company expects the GAAP tax rate to be approximately 37% and non-GAAP tax rate to be approximately 34%."We were pleased with our financial results for the third quarter of 2016, which came in higher than we had expected in revenue and at the high end of our guidance range for non-GAAP operating margin. The outperformance during the quarter was led by our Nighthawk routers, cable gateways, Arlo cameras and 10 Gig switches. Overall, our financial results reinforce that the Company remains on a strong trajectory."

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the midweek affair on a mixed note as investors mulled over underwhelming quarterly results and guidance from top-weighted Apple (AAPL 115.59, -2.66, -2.3%). Other factors impacting today's action included a fleeting rally in crude oil, rising long-term bond yields, and weakness in the heavyweight technology (-0.5%) and health care (-0.7%) sectors. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) settled behind the S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%).

Influential Apple dragged on the broader market as participants weighed a bottom-line beat against some less than impressive guidance and declining year-over-year revenue. The Dow component fell 4.2% in the opening hour, but narrowed that loss to 2.3% by the end of the session. Apple finished at the bottom of the price-weighted average, but continues to sport an October gain of 2.3%.

The heavyweight dampened risk appetite across the broader market, but particularly weighed on fellow technology (-0.5%) bellwethers.

The benchmark index briefly erased its loss near mid-morning as upbeat weekly inventory data from the Department of Energy lifted crude oil futures off their low ($48.88/bbl). The EIA reported that crude oil inventories declined by 0.55 million barrels (consensus: +1.69 million) while gasoline stockpiles fell by 1.95 million barrels (consensus: -0.96 million). However, the energy component was unable to maintain its footing above the $50.00/bbl and soon retraced nearly the entire move. Participants continued to express some misgivings after Iraq indicated earlier in the week that it may seek an exemption from the previously discussed OPEC supply freeze agreement. WTI crude ended lower by 1.4% ($49.17, -$0.70).

Rising long-term bond yields also kept the broader market in check as bond prices fell throughout the complex. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note settled higher by three basis points at 1.79%. The move corresponded with similar action in the sovereign bond market, but lacked a definitive catalyst. However, it is worth noting that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble opined that monetary policy may have reached its limits.

The S&P 500 finished off its worst level of the day as seven sectors ended in the red. Real estate (-1.3%), health care (-0.7%), and technology (-0.5%) finished at the bottom of the leaderboard while financials (+0.6%), industrials (+0.4%), and energy (+0.3%) led the pack.

In the health care space (-0.7%), providers of health equipment and supplies lagged as they moved lower in sympathy with Edwards Lifesciences (EW 94.25, -19.43). The name tumbled 17.1% after missing revenue estimates for the quarter and offering cautious revenue guidance. Dow component Merck (MRK 60.87, -1.08, -1.7%) also weighed, giving back the bulk of yesterday's 2.2% post-earnings gain.

The influential technology sector (-0.5%) displayed relative weakness as quarterly results and guidance from Apple called into question the group's earnings prospects. Alphabet (GOOG 799.07, -8.60) and Facebook (FB 131.04, -1.25) finished lower by 1.0% apiece. On a side note, Alphabet is scheduled to release its quarterly earnings report tomorrow evening.

Some steepening in the yield curve gave a boost to the economically-sensitive financial space (+0.5%). The broader sector's earnings prospects improve with a steeper yield curve since banks borrow in the short-term market and issue longer-term loans. The differential between the 2-yr and 10-yr notes expanded to 92 basis points. In earnings news, Ameriprise Financial (AMP 90.13, -7.70) plunged 7.3% after reporting a mixed quarter.

In the industrial sector (+0.4%), aerospace and defense contractors led as Dow component Boeing (BA 145.54, +6.52) finished at the top of the price-weighted average. The company beat analysts' estimates for the quarter. Conversely, Southwest Airlines (LUV 38.40, -3.55, -8.5%) weighed after issuing cautious passenger revenue guidance.

Today's trading volume was above the average of 853 million as 863 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, September International Trade in Goods, and New Home Sales for September:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications declined 4.1% in the week ending October 22. This followed a 0.6% decrease in the prior week.
The advance report on international trade in goods showed a narrowing in the goods deficit to $56.1 billion in September from a downwardly revised $59.1 billion (from -$58.4) in August.
Sales of new single-family houses jumped 3.1% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 593,000 (Briefing.com consensus 610k) from a revised August rate of 575,000 (prior 609,000).

Tomorrow's economic data will include weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 259k) and Durable Orders for September (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%), which will both cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, Pending Home Sales for September (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +6.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +4.9% YTD
S&P 500: +4.7% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.4% YTD

DJ30 +30.06 NASDAQ -33.13 SP500 -3.73 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 928/1.566 bln/2063 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1040/863.4 mln/1900

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.6% around the 85.54 level
Crude oil ended near 3-week lows despite EIA data showing notable draws on all fronts
December crude oil futures fell $0.70 (-1.4%) to $49.17/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
The next official OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -0.553 mln (consensus called for a build of about +1.699 mln barrels).
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -1.956 mln (consensus called for a draw of about -0.963 mln barrels).
Distillate inventories had a draw of -3.354 mln.
Natural gas traded lower for the sixth consecutive session ahead of tomorrow's inventory number
December natural gas closed $0.11 lower (-3.5%) at $3.04/MMBtu
Weekly EIA inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Natural gas futures have switched their front month from November to December, as indicated by the active amount of volume in the contracts.
In precious metals, gold's losses are outpaced by the decline in silver despite the dollar trading modestly lower
December gold ended today's session down $6.80 (-0.5%) to $1266.80/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.15 lower (-0.8%) at $17.63/oz

Stocks closed out the middle of the week split as components like BA +4.7%, NKE +1.8%, GS +0.9%, DIS +0.8% and GE +0.8% managed to keep the Dow Jones Industrial Average out of negative territory today as the index gained 30.06 points (+0.17%) to 18199.33. By contrast, shares of CMCSA -3.0%, CTRP -2.7%, MNST -2.5%, PYPL -2.3% and ISRG -2.0% kept the Nasdaq 100 lower, and by extension, the Nasdaq Composite lost 33.13 points (-0.63%) today to end 5250.27. The S&P 500 rounded out the trio lower by 3.73 points (-0.17%) to 2139.43.

The benchmark index briefly erased its loss near mid-morning as upbeat weekly inventory data from the Department of Energy lifted crude oil futures off their low ($48.88/bbl). The EIA reported that crude oil inventories declined by 0.55 million barrels (consensus: +1.69 million) while gasoline stockpiles fell by 1.95 million barrels (consensus: -0.96 million). However, the energy component was unable to maintain its footing above the $50.00/bbl and soon retraced nearly the entire move. Participants continued to express some misgivings after Iraq indicated earlier in the week that it may seek an exemption from the previously discussed OPEC supply freeze agreement. WTI crude ended lower by 1.4% ($49.17, -$0.70).

Rising long-term bond yields also kept the broader market in check as bond prices fell throughout the complex. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note settled higher by three basis points at 1.79%. The move corresponded with similar action in the sovereign bond market, but lacked a definitive catalyst. However, it is worth noting that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble opined that monetary policy may have reached its limits.

Today, market data included the MBA Mortgage Index which indicated that mortgage applications declined 4.1% in the week ending October 22. This followed a 0.6% decrease in the prior week. Also, the advance report on international trade in goods showed a narrowing in the goods deficit to $56.1 billion in September from a downwardly revised $59.1 billion (from -$58.4) in August. Lastly, sales of new single-family houses jumped 3.1% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 593,000 from a revised August rate of 575,000 (prior 609,000).

On Wednesday, Technology (XLK 47.55, -0.27 -0.56%) finished near the bottom of the list of S&P sectors as heavily weighted component Apple (AAPL 115.59, -2.66 -2.25%) weighed following its latest quarterly report. Component Akamai Tech (AKAM 67.70, +8.63 +14.61%) outperformed all other names in the space today following a better than expected Q3 report. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLFS +0.64%, XLF +0.61%, XLI +0.35%, XLU +0.25%, XLE +0.11%, XLP -0.13%, XLB -0.15%, XLY -0.43%, XLV -0.61%, IYZ -0.67%, XLRE -1.30% as Financials led.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (804.52, -4.30 -0.53%) sector, trading ended off lows but well in the red. Heavily weighted component Juniper Networks (JNPR 26.15, +2.43 +10.24%) bucked the trend and was second best today, only to AKAM, following the company's better than expected Q3 earnings report and guidance. Names in the space which underperformed today included WU -2.80%, PYPL -2.26%, ATVI -1.38%, CTXS -1.18%, YHOO -1.10%, GOOG -1.06%, CSRA -1.02%, ADSK -0.98%, ADBE -0.97%, ADI -0.97%, FB -0.94%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Microsoft (MSFT 60.63, -0.36 -0.59%) introduced the 28 inch Surface Studio to compete with Apple (AAPL) iMac. Surface Studio will start at $2,999.

In a blog post, Alphabet's (GOOG 799.07, -8.60 -1.06%) Google Fiber confirmed plans to 'pause' operations and 'refine' approaches.

Apigee (APIC 17.37, -0.02 -0.12%) announced that regulatory clearance of the proposed acquisition of Apigee by Alphabet's (GOOG) Google Inc. was obtained from antitrust authorities in Germany on October 20, 2016. It also announced that the regulatory waiting period in Austria of the proposed acquisition of APIC by Google expired on October 22, 2016. As previously announced, the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended for the proposed acquisition was terminated early by the United States Federal Trade Commission on October 12, 2016.

IBM (IBM 151.81, +0.93 +0.62%) and Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA 43.36, -0.49 -1.12%) announced a significant expansion of their existing global e-Health alliance with a focus on two key healthcare challenges: the discovery of new treatment options and improving chronic disease management. Both projects will run on the IBM Watson Health Cloud.
Also, IBM and Slack announced a partnership to bring Watson to Slack's global community of developers and enterprise users.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Total System (TSS 50.96, +2.73 +5.66%) signed a payments agreement with Optal Financial Limited, one of Europe's leading virtual card issuers. Under the agreement, TSYS will process authorizations for Optal's significant virtual payments card business.

CSRA Inc. (CSRA 25.30, -0.26 -1.02%) received the Enterprise Service Operations Center (ESOC) task order award from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under the Enhanced Solutions for the Information Technology Enterprise contract. The award is valued at $166.9 million and has a one-year base period and four and a half option years.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Science Applications (SAIC 69.46, +0.28 +0.40%) received a $700 million fixed-price, single award IDIQ for chemicals, packaged petroleum, oils, and lubricants from the Defense Logistics Agency.

Monster Worldwide's (MWW 3.37, -0.04 -1.17%) Board rejected the 'highly-conditional, partial' tender offer made by an affiliate of MediaNews Group on October 25.

Ericsson (ERIC 5.04, +0.02 +0.40%) appointed Borje Ekholm as President and CEO effective January 16.

Vodafone PLC (VOD 27.96, +0.05 +0.18%) was fined GBP 4.6 million by the UK's Ofcom for 'failing customers.'

Gilat Satellite (GILT 4.50, +0.07 +1.58%) announced that Sprint (S 6.36, -0.14 -2.15%) selected its satellite-based cellular backhaul solution to extend LTE services to metro edge and rural areas in the US.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Apple (AAPL) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $1.67 on revenues which were in-line and fell 9.0% compared to last year to $46.85 billion. Management guided Q1 revenues better than expected at $76-78 billion on gross margins of 38.0-38.5% versus 40.1% last year.

Akamai Tech (AKAM) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.68 and $584.1 million, respectively.

Juniper Networks (JNPR) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.58 and $1.29 billion, respectively. For Q4, the company sees EPS and revenues in-line at $0.59-0.65 and $1.32-1.38 billion, respectively.

Total System (TSS) reported in-line Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.71 and $1.15 billion, respectively. For FY16, TSS also sees EPS and revenues in-line at $2.78-2.85 and $4.15-4.17 billion, respectively.

Vantiv (VNTV 59.59, +2.01 +3.49%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.71 and $491 million, respectively. For Q4, VNTV sees EPS and revenues in-line at $0.70-0.72 and $488-498 million, respectively.

FLIR Systems (FLIR 32.33, +2.96 +10.08%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.44 on in-line revenues which rose 6.1% compared to last year to $405.2 million. FLIR also reaffirmed FY16 EPS and revenue guidance of $1.60-1.65 and $1.6-1.65 billion, respectively.

NCR Corp (NCR 34.64, +4.39 +14.51%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.87 and $1.68 billion, respectively. For Q4, NCR sees in-line EPS of $1.01-1.06 and revenues ahead of market expectations at $1.729-1.759 billion.

Logitech Intl SA (LOGI 25.22, +3.72 +17.30%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.35 and $564 million, respectively. Gave FY17 guidance of revenue growth of 8-10% year-over-year in constant currency to $2.18-2.22 billion.

GrubHub (GRUB 37.88, -5.51 -12.70%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.23 and $123.5 million, respectively. For Q4, GRUB sees revenues in-line at $136-138 million.

Pandora Media (P 11.77, -0.41 -3.37%) reported in-line Q3 EPS of a loss per share of $0.07 on worse than expected revenues of $351.9 million. P also sees worse than expected Q4 revenues of $362-374 million, and lowered FY16 revenue guidance to $1.354-1.366 billion from $1.385-1.405 billion.

Companies scheduled to report earnings tonight/tomorrow morning: EGHT ARRS AXTI CACI CMPR DLB ECHO FFIV FISV FORR GRPN INFN LLNW MB MKSI NCIT NTGR NTRI NXPI PLXS PTC QTM NOW SPRT TER TXN TTMI TYL UCTT VMW WDC/EGHT ARRS AXTI CACI CMPR DLB ECHO FFIV FISV FORR GRPN INFN LLNW MB MKSI NCIT NTGR NTRI NXPI PLXS PTC QTM NOW SPRT TER TXN TTMI TYL UCTT VMW WDC

Analyst actions:

AKAM was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at FBR & Co.,
QCOM was upgraded to Positive from Neutral at Arete Capital;
AAPL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
P was downgraded to Underweight at Albert Fried and to Mkt Perform from Outperform at FBR & Co.,
T was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays,
CAJ was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan

7:11 am Silicon Labs beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (SLAB) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.77 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.64; revenues rose 14.0% year/year to $178.1 mln vs the $173.69 mln Capital IQ ConsensusIoT revenue established a new record, increasing to $81.5 million, or 6.2% sequentiallyInfrastructure revenue established a new record, increasing to $38.3 million, or 7.5% sequentially, exclusive of $5 million of patent sale revenue in the second quarterCo issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.62-0.68, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.64 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $176-181 mln vs. $175.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

7:04 am Entegris reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (ENTG) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.24; revenues rose 9.8% year/year to $296.7 mln vs the $292.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.19-0.23, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $275-290 mln vs. $279.90 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."We are on track to achieve our multiyear objective to outpace our markets and to deliver both record sales and profits in 2016. Our strong quarter reflected record sales of liquid filtration products and solid performance across most of our businesses, as well as the favorable impact of the stronger yen."

ASML Holding NV (ASML) announced that it has obtained all necessary regulatory approvals to complete the acquisition of Hermes Microvision, as announced on 16 June 2016.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:47 pm Applied Micro beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line (AMCC) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.02 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.01); revenues rose 5.3% year/year to $41.8 mln vs the $41.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co states: "In 2Q17 we achieved our seventh consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Our Connectivity business once again drove the improvement in top line results, and higher gross margins combined with greater operating efficiencies led to a return to profitability on a non-GAAP basis. We continue to lead the optical market with our PAM4 single lambda 100/400G FinFET technology, which is now slated to become the industry standard for data center and enterprise connectivity."

4:44 pm Ingram Micro beats by $0.08, misses on revs (IM) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.71 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.63; revenues fell 2.7% year/year to $10.23 bln vs the $10.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We see further stabilization in market demand across most of the globe and our teams continue to leverage our investments in productivity and services to deliver improved bottom line results and growth in a number of areas as we benefit from the broadest solutions portfolio and widest geographic reach in the industry.""We continue to make progress on our transaction to join the HNA Group and remain on track to close this year."

4:36 pm Nanometrics beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (NANO) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.33 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues rose 28.5% year/year to $58.71 mln vs the $57.53 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of 0.22-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $54-59 mln vs. $58.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We expect that continued investments in 3D-NAND, DRAM and Foundry by our key customers in Q4 will result in second-half revenues that are meaningfully stronger than the first half, and round out the remainder of 2016 to comprise another sequential year in which our revenue growth significantly outperforms overall spending on wafer fab equipment."

4:36 pm Cirrus Logic beats by $0.30, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (CRUS) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $1.35 per share, $0.30 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.05; revenues rose 39.7% year/year to $428.62 mln vs the $396.9 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin of 49.4 percent

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $475-515 mln vs. $440.80 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 47 percent and 49 percent

4:33 pm Cypress Semi beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs midpoint above consensus (CY) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.14; non-GAAP rev +16% Q/Q to $530 mln vs. $525.7 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.12-0.16, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.13 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $510-540 mln vs. $516.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Our gross margin improvement plan remains on track as we continue to focus on efficiency and execution. "We are moving quickly to streamline the Company to sharpen our focus on high-growth segments in the automotive, industrial and IoT markets," El-Khoury said. "As we projected last quarter, more than half of our Q3 revenue came from markets growing faster than the overall semiconductor industry. Automotive revenue accounted for 32% of our overall revenue in the quarter and increased 25% year-on-year. We have also integrated the wireless IoT business acquired from Broadcom and are seeing strong customer demand for our solutions in that space."

4:20 pm Mellanox Tech beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs below consensus (MLNX) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.93 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.92; revenues rose 30.8% year/year to $224.2 mln vs the $224.11 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margins of 71.8%, compared to 71.4% in 2Q16.
$48.7 mln in cash was provided by operating activities, compared to $44.8 mln in 2Q16.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $222-$228 mln vs. $233.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees Non-GAAP gross maring of 71-72%. Non-GAAP diluted share count of 49.8-50.3 mln shares.

4:18 pm Pixelworks beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs in-line (PXLW) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.02 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.04); revenues fell 17.5% year/year to $13.7 mln vs the $13.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $15-16 mln vs. $14.31 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Sees gross profit margin of approximately 50% to 52% on both a GAAP basis and non-GAAP basis; and operating expenses of $8 million to $9 million on a GAAP basis and $7 million to $8 million on a non-GAAP basis."Third quarter revenue and earnings per share were both at the high-end of our guidance, reflecting continued sequential improvement across our business. Our projector business benefited from increased traction throughout the quarter as order patterns from OEMs and distributors began to normalize following the channel disruptions experienced earlier this year. In our mobile business, we are now sampling our 3rd generation IRIS processor at key smartphone and tablet customers, which in addition to having a smaller footprint and improved power consumption also enables OEMs to differentiate their devices with a superior mobile viewing experience. I'm also pleased to announce the appointment of Ting Xiong as Pixelworks' senior VP of worldwide sales, who will be based in China and most recently headed the APAC sales organization at Qorvo's IDP group. Ting fills-out our sales footprint and combined with other additions to the team earlier in the year gives us broad sales coverage across all of the key mobile markets in Asia."

4:16 pm FormFactor beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS, revs in-line (FORM) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.22 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.21; revenues rose 87.2% year/year to $123.3 mln vs the $122.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.15-0.21 vs. $0.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $116-124 mln vs. $122.19 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Within the business segments,
Probe Card revenues are forecasted to decline slightly as demand from FormFactor's significant microprocessor customer normalizes to double the 2015 level, and Systems segment demand is expected to remain steady and benefit from the recent strong order flow

4:09 pm Flex reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides DecQ EPS in-line, revs in-line (FLEX) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28 and vs prior guidance of $0.26-0.30; revenues fell 4.9% year/year to $6.01 bln vs the $6.00 bln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $5.80-6.20 mln.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3 (Dec), sees EPS of $0.31-0.35, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $6.00-6.40 bln vs. $6.28 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Our Sketch-to-Scale strategy remains firmly on track as reflected in our [SepQ] performance which is inline with guidance...We remain focused on value creating activities such as a structural mix shift to a higher margin business, generating sustainable free cash flow and consistently returning value to our shareholders."

4:04 pm Cohu beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs in-line (COHU) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.12; revenues rose 2.7% year/year to $69.3 mln vs the $67.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Third quarter results were better than anticipated," said President and Chief Executive Officer Luis Mller. "Demand for turret handlers was strong for testing high performance mixed signal and RF devices, and automotive orders continued to expand following market share gains earlier this year. We had a design-win at a Korean test subcontractor and repeat orders from a recently won Japanese turret customer and another for in-process strip testing of advanced memory."

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of approx. $65.0 mln vs. $65.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Cohu's Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share payable on January 2, 2017 to shareholders of record on November 18, 2016. Cohu has paid consecutive quarterly cash dividends since 1977.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a lower note as rising long-term interest rates kept risk appetite in check ahead of quarterly reports from Alphabet (GOOG 795.35, -3.72, -0.5%) and Amazon (AMZN 818.36, -4.23 -0.5%). The Russell 2000 fell 1.3% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.7%) and the S&P 500 (-0.3%) finished with narrower losses.

The major averages gapped higher at the start of the session as some news on the M&A front and better-than-expected corporate earnings stoked buying interest. Qualcomm (QCOM 70.09, +1.89, +2.8%) announced this morning that it finalized an agreement to acquire NXP Semiconductors (NXPI 99.08, +0.42, +0.4%) for $110 per share, or a total enterprise value of approximately $47 billion.

The upbeat start proved to be short-lived, however, as a downturn in bond prices had investors on their heels. The S&P 500 erased its initial 0.4% gain within the opening hour as long-term yields continued to rise. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note notched a five-month high at 1.87% before eventually settling at 1.84% (+5 bps).

Interest rates were on the move after commentary from Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda and upbeat economic data called into question the future path of global monetary policy. The first post-Brexit vote advance GDP reading out of the UK came in better than expected (+0.5% quarter-over-quarter; expected 0.3%), diminishing hopes for further policy stimulus from the Bank of England. Meanwhile, BoJ Governor Kuroda said that the yield curve is moving in line with the central bank's expectations and that large-scale asset purchases may not be needed in the future.

In-line economic data out of the U.S. also contributed to selling pressure in the bond market. Weekly initial claims, September Durable Orders, and September New Home Sales did little to rattle the positive trend of recent economic data ahead of next week's FOMC policy meeting. The CME's FedWatch Tool implies only a slim 9.3% chance of a rate hike in November, but the likelihood of a rate hike at the December meeting has increased to 78.5%.

The U.S. Dollar Index (98.88, +0.25, +0.26%) also continued to flash some strength, gaining against the euro, pound, and yen. The index has gained 3.7% so far in October amid a solidifying rate hike outlook. Dollar-denominated commodities were able to shrug off the strength, however, as crude oil finished higher by 1.1% ($49.72/bbl; +$0.55).

The broader market carved out a session low in the final hour of trade as heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (-0.9%), industrials (-0.7%), and technology (-0.4%) extended their losses.

The S&P 500 settled near its worst level of the day with eight sectors ending beneath their flat lines.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.9%), auto part retailers underperformed as they moved lower in sympathy with O'Reilly Automotive (ORLY 253.00, -24.16). The name plunged 8.7% after reporting a bottom-line miss and issuing cautious guidance for the remainder of the year. Meanwhile, media name Comcast (CMCSA 61.48, -1.08) fell 1.7% after the FCC imposed stricter privacy rules that will impact the broadband provider.

Aerospace and defense names displayed relative weakness in the industrial sector (-0.7%) as Raytheon (RTN 136.28, -5.00) declined 3.5%. Raytheon was unable to advance despite topping bottom-line estimates for the quarter and raising its full-year earnings guidance. UPS (UPS 108.08, -0.53) also fell 0.5% as an in-line quarter failed to garner buying interest.

The influential technology sector (-0.4%) moved lower as large cap names paced the retreat. Apple (AAPL 114.51, -1.08, -0.9%) extended its post-earnings loss to 3.2%. Shares of Facebook (FB 129.69, -1.35) finished lower by 1.0% as participants looked ahead to earnings results from other F.A.N.G. names. Separately, the PHLX Semiconductor Index erased an initial 1.3% gain, settling lower by 0.4%.

In the health care group (+0.9%), Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN 131.37, +9.78, +8.0%), Bristol-Myers (BMY 51.96, +2.67, +5.4%), and Celgene (CELG 104.75, +6.34, +6.4%) rallied after beating quarterly estimates.

Today's trading volume was above the average of 853 million as 960 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims, Durable Goods Orders for September, and Pending Home Sales for September:

Initial claims for the week ending October 22 were 258,000 (Briefing.com consensus 259,000), down 3,000 from the prior week's revised level of 261,000.
Continuing claims for the week ending October 15 decreased by 15,000 to 2.039 million.
Durable orders for September were down 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%), pulled lower by a 0.8% decline in transportation equipment orders.
However, new orders in August were revised up to 0.3% from 0.0%.
Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.2% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) on top of an upwardly revised 0.1% increase (from -0.4%) in August.
Sales of new single-family houses jumped 3.1% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 593,000 from a revised August rate of 575,000 (prior 609,000).
The September reading was lower than the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 610,000. Absent the August revision, there would have not been any growth on a month-over-month basis.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the advance estimate of Q3 GDP (Briefing.com consensus +2.5%) and Q3 Employment Cost Index (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%), which will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for October (Briefing.com consensus 88.2) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +4.7% YTD
S&P 500: +4.4% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +4.2% YTD

DJ30 -29.65 NASDAQ -34.29 SP500 -6.40 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 979/1.756 bln/2028 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 821/960.5 mln/2135 3:30 pm :

The dollar index was +0.3% around the 98.88 level, not appearing to weigh on precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, +0.8% around the 86.22 level
Crude oil futures rallied off of yesterday's 3-week lows following comments from Saudi Arabia's oil minister
December crude oil futures rose $0.55 (+1.1%) to $49.72/barrel.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
The next OPEC meeting will be held in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
Natural gas snapped its 6-session streak of losses after EIA data reported an inventory build that was in-line with expectations.
December natural gas closed $0.03 higher (+1.0%) at $3.07/MMBtu
Color on recent price action in crude oil:
Crude oil futures rallied off of yesterday's 3-week after Energy ministers from Saudi Arabia and Gulf allies told Russian oil ministers this week they are willing to reduce peak oil output by up to 4%. It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia is the largest OPEC producer.
Non-OPEC producer Russia stated earlier that they would not cut output, but are considering a potential production freeze.
Reminder: Earlier this week crude oil took a hit when OPEC's second largest producer Iraq stated they would not participate in the proposed OPEC production cut along with Nigeria, Iran, & Libya, discussing that its market share would be much higher if not for the wars it has been fighting since the 1980's, including its ongoing conflict with ISIS. Iraq also added they could raise output slightly this month from Sept levels around 4.774 mln barrels/day.
OPEC members are scheduled to have a technical meeting on Friday & another meeting with officials from non-OPEC countries on Saturday.
The next official OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30, where details of the Sept 28 OPEC production cut are expected to be announced.
Another contributing factor aiding oil's gains is yesterday's EIA petroleum data, which showed notable inventory draws on all fronts.
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +73 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +73 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 3,909 Bcf as of Friday, October 21, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 52 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 182 Bcf above the five-year average of 3,727 Bcf.
At 3,909 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold's gains outpaced the rally in silver despite notable gains in the dollar index earlier in the session.
December gold ended today's session up $2.60 (+0.2%) to $1269.40/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.02 higher (+0.1%) at $17.65/oz
Base metal copper extended this morning's rally to close near its high of the session, added on to Tuesday's notable +2.4% surge (closed flat yesterday).
December copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.9%) at $2.16/lb

Falling steadily off a strong start, the three major US indices all closed lower ahead of earnings reports from Alphabet (GOOG 795.35, -3.72 -0.47%) and Amazon (AMZN 818.36, -4.23 -0.51%). Action was led to the downside by the Nasdaq Composite which lost 34.29 points (-0.65%) today to end 5215.97. The S&P 500 was down 6.39 points (-0.30%) to 2133.04, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 29.65 points (-0.16%) to 18169.68.

The upbeat start proved to be short-lived, however, as a downturn in bond prices had investors on their heels. The S&P 500 erased its initial 0.4% gain within the opening hour as long-term yields continued to rise. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note notched a five-month high at 1.87% before eventually settling at 1.84% (+5 bps).

Interest rates were on the move after commentary from Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda and upbeat economic data called into question the future path of global monetary policy. The first post-Brexit vote advance GDP reading out of the UK came in better than expected (+0.5% quarter-over-quarter; expected 0.3%), diminishing hopes for further policy stimulus from the Bank of England. Meanwhile, BoJ Governor Kuroda said that the yield curve is moving in line with the central bank's expectations and that large-scale asset purchases may not be needed in the future.

The U.S. Dollar Index (98.88, +0.25, +0.26%) also continued to flash some strength, gaining against the euro, pound, and yen. The index has gained 3.7% so far in October amid a solidifying rate hike outlook. Dollar-denominated commodities were able to shrug off the strength, however, as crude oil finished higher by 1.1% ($49.72/bbl; +$0.55).

Market data today included the initial claims reading for the week ending October 22 which was 258,000, down 3,000 from the prior week's revised level of 261,000. Also, durable orders for September were down 0.1%, pulled lower by a 0.8% decline in transportation equipment orders. Lastly, sales of new single-family houses jumped 3.1% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 593,000 from a revised August rate of 575,000 (prior 609,000).

When Thursday came to a close, Technology (XLK 47.49, -0.06 -0.13%) was fell below flat lines despite positive action for most of the day. Component Fiserv (FISV 96.75, -3.24 -3.24%) was weak following a mixed Q3 report. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended the day IYZ +1.66%, XLV +0.48%, XLFS +0.26%, XLF +0.25%, XLB -0.13%, XLE -0.37%, XLP -0.47%, XLU -0.60%, XLI -0.68%, XLY -0.84%, XLRE -2.37% as Telecoms and Healthcare led the positive bias.

As a subsector, iShares Semis (SOXX 111.43, -0.52 -0.46%) were split today following bellwether Qualcomm's (QCOM 70.09, +1.89 +2.77%) deal to acquire NXP Semi (NXPI 99.08, +0.42 +0.43%) for $110 per share in cash. The two were among the better performers in the space today, with others contributing to the positive action including TER +3.63%, MKSI +2.15%, MSCC +0.33%, ASML +0.19%, XLNX +0.06%, AMAT +0.03%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (800.95, -3.57 -0.44%) sector, trading managed to hold the $800-level despite strong selling action into the close. Component F5 Networks (FFIV 130.99, +11.45 +9.58%) was the best performer today in the sector following better than expected Q4 earnings and Q1 guidance. Other names in the space which closed lower with the sector today included TDC -8.08%, CSRA -2.73%, HRS -2.63%, NVDA -2.05%, QRVO -1.87%, STX -1.72%, TSS -1.71%, ATVI -1.62%, GPN -1.62%, PYPL -1.51%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Qualcomm (QCOM) and NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI) announced a definitive agreement, unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, under which QCOM will acquire NXPI. Pursuant to the agreement, a subsidiary of QCOM will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of NXP for $110.00 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of about $47 billion. The transaction is expected to close by the end of calendar 2017.

Accenture (ACN 115.46, +0.01 +0.01%) announced an expanded five-year agreement to provide

Schlumberger (SLB 79.60, -0.42 -0.52%) with transformational finance and accounting (F&A) business process outsourcing (BPO) services through 2021.
In an article last night after the close, according to Bloomberg, Apple (AAPL 114.51, -1.08 -0.93%) has delayed the shipment of AirPod wireless headphones. Also today, AAPL held its MacBook event and announced the latest iteration of its MacBook Pro.

Analog Devices (ADI 63.27, -0.17 -0.27%) announced the acquisition of Innovasic Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CSRA (CSRA 24.61, -0.69 -2.73%) was named one of several awardees on the Human Capital and Training Solutions (HCaTS) program which will enable various government agencies to access industry-leading solutions in customized training and development, human capital strategy services, and customized organizational performance improvement services. The contract ceiling for all awardees is valued at up to $5.7 billion over a 10 year period.

IBM (IBM 153.35, +1.54 +1.01%) signed a definitive agreement to acquire Sanovi Technologies, a privately held company that provides hybrid cloud recovery, cloud migration and business continuity software for enterprise data centers and cloud infrastructure.
IBM also announced new behavioral biometric analysis capabilities in its digital banking fraud prevention technology, IBM Security Trusteer Pinpoint Detect, using patented analytics and machine learning for real-time cognitive fraud detection.

TSYS (TSS 50.09, -0.587 -1.71%) announced that Rabobank has renewed its payments agreement with TSYS to continue processing the bank's consumer card portfolio. TSYS will also provide additional services such as fraud and risk management, as well as customer service through TSYS Managed Services EMEA.

Global Payments (GPN 72.47, -1.19 -1.62%) announced it signed referral agreements with Better Business Bureaus serving Mainland British Columbia, Southern Alberta and East Kootenay, Central and Northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northwest Ontario, Western Ontario, Eastern and Northern Ontario and the Outaouais and the Atlantic Provinces.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Intelsat (I 2.73, -0.01 -0.36%) and Global Eagle Entertainment (ENT 7.85, -0.14 -1.75%) entered into a new and expanded contract to deliver broadband connectivity across five continents and multiple vertical markets.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Twitter (TWTR 17.40, +0.11 +0.64%) announced the reduction of 9% of its global workforce.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, ServiceNow (NOW 84.96, +6.06 +7.68%) announced Chairman Paul Barber has resigned. The company chose CEO Frank Slootman as his replacement.

Verizon (VZ 48.54, +0.91 +1.91%) signed an agreement to acquire the technology and software that underlies Vessel's online video subscription service, which provides early access to videos from online video stars, and to hire most of Vessel's employees.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Nokia (NOK 4.73, -0.43 -8.33%) announced that CFO Timo Ihamuotila resigned from the company to join ABB (ABB 20.53, -1.55 -7.02%) in Switzerland as CFO. Ihamuotila will continue in his current role as Nokia CFO and as a member of the company's Group

Leadership Team until December 31, 2016, and will remain as an advisor to the company until February 28, 2017. Kristian Pullola, who currently is NOK's SVP, Corporate Controller, is appointed as CFO and member of the Group Leadership Team as of January 1, 2017.

ExlService (ELXS 44.72, -2.09 -4.46%) acquired Datasource Consulting. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

WEX (WEX 112.79, +6.90 +6.52%) announced a ten-year extension of its North American fleet card contract with Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM 86.92, -0.17 -0.20%) and Imperial Oil (IMO 33.50, +0.87 +2.67%). Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Iridium Comms (IRDM 8.00, flat) announced an agreement with Komatsu Ltd. of Japan (KMTUY 22.04, -0.06 -0.27%) to provide global asset tracking and monitoring for its KOMTRAX system, a system with over 400,000 KOMTRAX-equipped vehicles in the field today.

According to the Wall Street Journal, CenturyLink (CTL 29.73, +1.48 +5.24%) is in merger talks with Level 3 (LVLT 51.87, +4.95 +10.55%).

In reaction to quarterly results:

Texas Instruments (TXN 70.73, -0.98 1.37%) reported better than expected Q3 GAAP EPS of $0.94 on revenues which also came in ahead of market expectations at $3.67 billion. The company also guided Q4 EPS and revenues in-line at GAAP EPS of $0.76-0.86 on revenues of $3.17-3.43 billion.

NXP Semi (NXPI) reported Q3 EPS of $0.26 on revenues of $2.47 billion. NXPI also guided Q4 revenues in-line at $2.39-2.49 billion.

VMware (VMW 75.77, +2.46 +3.36%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.14 on in-line revenues of $1.78 billion. On the conference call, management raised 2016 guidance due to better Q3 results and increased outlook for Q4. Sees Q4 EPS of $1.37-1.41 on Q4 revenues of $1.965-2.015 billion. For FY16, sees EPS of $4.34-4.38 on revenues of $7.025-7.075 billion.

Fiserv (FISV) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.14 on revenues which came in worse than market expectations at $1.38 billion. For FY16, FISV sees EPS in-line at $4.43-4.46.

Western Digital (WDC 59.58, +3.06 +5.41%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $1.18 on better than expected Q1 revenues of $4.71 billion. On the conference call, guided revenues for December Quarter of flat vs September Quarter. Also, expects Q2 non-GAAP EPS of $1.85-1.95, above market expectations.

ServiceNow (NOW) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.23 and $357.7 million, respectively. Also guided Q4 revenues in-line at $376-381 million.

F5 Networks (FFIV) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $2.11 on in-line revenues of $525.3 million. The company also guided Q1 EPS ahead of expectations at $1.92-1.95 on in-line revenues of $510-520 million.

Tyler Tech (TYL 161.05, -5.18 -3.12%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.94 on revenues which rose 31.2% compared to last year to $197.8 million. For FY16, the company sees in-line EPS of $3.46-3.52 on better than expected revenues of $770-777 million.

Groupon (GRPN 4.10, -1.16 -22.05%) reported a better than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.01 on better than expected revenues of $720.5 million. GRPN also raised FY16 revenue guidance to $3.075-3.15 billion from $3.0-3.1 billion.

Infinera (INFN 7.93, -1.29 -14.03%) reported better than expected Q3 non-GAAP EPS of $0.05 on revenues of $185.45 million. For Q4, INFN sees EPS of ($0.14) 'plus or minus a couple of pennies.' And revenues for Q4 are expected in the range of $165-185 million.

Nokia (NOK) reported in-line Q3 EPS of EUR0.04 on revenues of EUR6 billion.

Twitter (TWTR) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.13 and $616 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report tonight/tomorrow morning: ATEN IOTS GOOG AMZN AMCC AZPN TEAM BIDU CA CRUS COHU CY DGII ELLI EXPE FLEX FORM FTNT FTV GIMO GSIT IM NSIT LNKD LOGM MLNX MSTR MOBL NANO NATI NSR OSIS CNXN PCTI PDFS PXLW POWI SHOR SIMO SPSC SSNC SMCI SYNA VDSI VRSN/CTS MA MGI TYPE XRX

Analyst actions:

VMW was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
WDC was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at BofA/Merrill,
SFLY was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Axiom Capital,
GRUB was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Roth Capital,
LOGI was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan,
NOW was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital,
DLB was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Barrington Research,
NTGR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Rosenblatt,
SLAB was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at MKM Partners,
AXE was upgraded to Outperform from In-Line at Imperial Capital,
ENTG was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Dougherty,
FFIV was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray;
AAPL was downgraded to Long-Term Buy from Buy at Hilliard Lyons,
FISV was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair,
TUBE was downgrade to Market Perform from Overweight at Albert Fried,
NXPI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies and to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton,
CHL was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Bernstein

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 28-Oct-16The past week was packed with earnings releases and the economic calendar also featured a few noteworthy reports, but all things considered, the S&P 500 respected a fairly narrow range. The index surrendered 0.7% for the week while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed, falling 1.3%.

The underperformance in the Nasdaq was mostly due to relative weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) lost 2.7% for the week with Amgen (AMGN) falling 9.6% on Friday despite beating quarterly expectations. The Friday weakness in biotechnology was exacerbated by a poor quarterly showing from drug distributor McKesson (MCK -22.4%). The company's report and guidance reminded that the pharmaceutical industry continues wrestling with pricing concerns that may become a regulatory issue once again, especially if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency.

However, Mrs. Clinton's chances were called into question on Friday afternoon after Congressman Jason Chaffetz tweeted that the FBI is once again looking at the presidential candidate after new pertinent information came to the forefront. The news introduced uncertainty ahead of the upcoming election, knocking the stock market from its high. Interestingly, biotech names climbed off their lows after the news began making the rounds.

Biotechnology's woes were in focus as the week drew to its close, but a couple other heavily-weighted Nasdaq components also contributed to the relative weakness in the composite. Specifically, Apple (AAPL) ended the week lower by 2.5% after releasing an underwhelming quarterly report. Similarly, Amazon (AMZN) surrendered 5.3% for the week after missing expectations.

Rate hike expectations for December firmed up after New Home Sales (593K; Briefing.com consensus 610K) and Pending Home Sales (+1.5%; Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) for September beat expectations. Third-quarter advance GDP also surprised to the upside (2.9%; Briefing.com consensus 2.5%) while September Durable Orders (-0.1%; Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) and October Consumer Confidence (98.6; Briefing.com consensus 100.8) fell short of estimates. The implied probability of a December hike increased to 74.2% from last Friday's 69.9%, as indicated by the fed funds futures market.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18145.71 18161.19 15.48 0.1 4.2
Nasdaq 5257.40 5190.10 -67.30 -1.3 3.6
S&P 500 2141.16 2126.41 -14.75 -0.7 4.0
Russell 2000 1218.11 1187.61 -30.50 -2.5 4.6

4:24 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks End Lower as Political Uncertainty Rises (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended the Friday affair on a mixed note as political uncertainty ambushed participants at the end of another earnings-packed week. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) extended its weekly loss to 1.3% while the S&P 500 (-0.3%; week-to-date: -0.7%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%; week-to-date: +0.1%) finished closer to their flat lines.

Equity indices saw some slight selling in the opening minutes of the session, but climbed shortly thereafter as investors assessed some upbeat economic data and the latest raft of quarterly earnings reports.

The third quarter advance reading of U.S. GDP registered at 2.9%, exceeding the Briefing.com consensus of 2.5%. The data showed that real GDP accelerated in the third quarter, surpassing the 1.4% increase in the second quarter and the 0.8% increase in the first quarter. The average growth rate for the first three quarters of 2016 remains anemic, checking in at 1.7%.

On the earnings front, bellwether reports from Amazon (AMZN 776.32, -42.04, -5.1%) and Alphabet (GOOG 795.37, +0.02, 0.0%) came in on a mixed note. However, it was cautious commentary and disappointing results from the health care sector (-2.2%) that stole the show. McKesson (MCK 124.11, -36.39) plunged 22.7% after warning that price trends from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have resulted in lower profit contributions. The remarks took hold as investors continue to ruminate over the impact of this election cycle on the pharmaceutical industry's pricing practices.

The major averages tumbled to session lows in the afternoon, responding to reports that FBI director James Comey may re-open a probe into Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's emails. The reports were sparked by a tweet from Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz, indicating that the FBI has "learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent" to the previously completed investigation. Reports later indicated that the newly discovered e-mails were found on a new device and were not withheld from the previous investigation.

The benchmark index ebbed towards its low in the final hour as five sectors ended in the red. Health care (-2.2%), energy (-0.5%), and financials (-0.4%) rounded out the leaderboard while industrials (+0.6%), consumer staples (+0.5%), and real estate (+0.3%) outperformed.

The health care sector (-2.2%) led the retreat as results and guidance from McKesson (MCK 124.11, -36.39, -22.7%) and Amgen (AMGN 145.18, -15.39, -9.6%) pressured the group. Dow component Merck (MRK 58.84, -2.45) finished at the bottom the price-weighted average, falling 4.0%. Meanwhile, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 260.49, -4.98) declined 1.9%, extending its October loss to 10.0%.

In the industrial space (+0.7%), Dow component General Electric (GE 29.22, +0.59, +2.1%) outperformed after announcing that it is exploring partnership opportunities with Baker Hughes (BHI 59.12, +4.57, +8.4%). The defense and aerospace sub-group was also able to extend its winning streak as United Technologies (UTX 101.84, +1.77, +1.8%) gained 3.2% this week. The broader sector moved higher by 0.2% over that period.

The influential technology group (UNCHF) finished flat as top- and bottom-line beats from Alphabet (GOOG 795.37, +0.02, 0.0%) failed to rally the group. Facebook (FB 131.29, +1.60) managed a 1.2% gain ahead of next Wednesday's earnings report. Separately, the PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 0.6%, narrowing its weekly gain to 0.5%.

The Treasury complex settled on a mixed note with the short end of the curve outperforming. The yield on the 2-yr note slipped three basis points to 0.86% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note ended down one basis point (1.85%). The 30-yr bond ended little changed with its yield at 2.62%.

Today's trading volume was above the average of 850 million as 941 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the advance estimate of Q3 GDP, the Q3 Employment Cost Index, and Michigan Sentiment:

Real GDP increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.9% in the third quarter (Briefing.com consensus +2.5%), up from 1.4% in the second quarter and the highest rate since the third quarter of 2014.

The GDP Deflator rose 1.5% (Briefing.com consensus +1.4%) after a 2.3% increase in the second quarter.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, compensation costs for civilian workers increased 0.6% in the third quarter.

That was in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate and the third straight quarter the employment cost index has increased 0.6%.

The final reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October dipped to 87.2 in October from the preliminary reading of 87.9.

The final October reading also marked a downturn from the final reading of 91.2 for September and was the lowest reading since October 2014.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Monday's economic data will include the 8:30 ET release of Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), and Core PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) for September. The day's data will be capped off with the release of Chicago PMI for October (Briefing.com consensus 54.0), which will be released at 9:45 ET.

Russell 2000: +4.5% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.2% YTD
S&P 500: +4.0% YTD
Nasdaq: +3.7% YTD

Week in Review: Market Maintains Narrow Range Despite Earnings Barrage

The past week was packed with earnings releases and the economic calendar also featured a few noteworthy reports, but all thingsconsidered, the S&P 500 respected a fairly narrow range. The index surrendered 0.7%for the week while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1% and the tech-heavyNasdaq underperformed, falling 1.3%.

The underperformance in the Nasdaq was mostly due to relativeweakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF lost 2.7% for the week with Amgen falling 9.6% on Friday despite beating quarterly expectations. TheFriday weakness in biotechnology was exacerbated by a poor quarterlyshowing from drug distributor McKesson (-22.4%). The company's report and guidance reminded that the pharmaceutical industry continues wrestling with pricing concerns that may become a regulatory issue once again, especially if Hillary Clinton wins thepresidency.

However, Mrs. Clinton's chances were called into question onFriday afternoon after Congressman Jason Chaffetz tweeted that the FBI is onceagain looking at the presidential candidate after new pertinent informationcame to the forefront. The news introduced uncertainty ahead of the upcomingelection, knocking the stock market from its high. Interestingly, biotech namesclimbed off their lows after the news began making the rounds.

Biotechnology's woes were in focus as the week drew to itsclose, but a couple other heavily-weighted Nasdaq components also contributedto the relative weakness in the composite. Specifically, Apple (AAPL) ended the week lower by 2.5% after releasing anunderwhelming quarterly report. Similarly, Amazon (AMZN) surrendered 5.3% for the week after missing expectations.

Rate hike expectations for December firmed upafter New Home Sales (593K; Briefing.com consensus 610K) and Pending Home Sales(+1.5%; Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) for September beat expectations.Third-quarter advance GDP also surprised to the upside (2.9%; Briefing.comconsensus 2.5%) while September Durable Orders (-0.1%; Briefing.com consensus0.0%) and October Consumer Confidence (98.6; Briefing.com consensus 100.8) fellshort of estimates. The implied probability of a December hike increased to 74.2%from last Friday's 69.9%, as indicated by the fed funds futures market.

3:15 pm Treasury Market Summary (BONDX) :

Yield Curve Steepens as Dollar Declines

The U.S. Treasury yield curve steepened today and yields edged lower as a slightly positive surprise from the first estimate of Q3 U.S. GDP growth was overshadowed by a report that the FBI will reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mails. The 2-year/10-year yield spread is back to 100 basis points for the first time in months. While stocks have recovered from their session lows (S&P 500: -0.19% to 2,128.9), they remain close to key support levels and the technical situation is precarious. High yield debt also performed poorly today with JNK ETF falling 0.33% to 36.41 as credit spreads widened. Part of the driver there was a sharp drop in oil prices after Iraq and Iran were rumored to say that they will not participate in output reductions. The FOMC will release its rate decision next Wednesday and is widely expected to keep monetary policy on hold. The U.S. Dollar Index now trades down 0.53% to 98.37
Yield Check:
2-yr: -4 bps to 0.85%
5-yr: -2 bps to 1.33%
10-yr: -1 bp to 1.85%
30-yr:unch at 2.62%News:
The first official estimate of Q3 U.S. GDP growth came out at a 2.9% SAAR. The Briefing.com consensus was 2.5% and Q2's rate was a disappointing 1.4%. This was the first positive surprise for the first official estimate of GDP in two years
The chain deflator was 1.5% for Q3 versus the Briefing.com consensus of 1.4% and the Q2 reading of 2.3%
The Employment Cost Index grew by 0.6%, in line with the Briefing.com consensus and Q2's readingMichigan Sentiment for October was revised down to 87.2 in the final reading from the second estimate of 87.9. The Briefing.com consensus was 88.2Commodities:
WTI crude: -2.09% to $48.68/bbl.
Gold: +0.76% to $1,279.2/troy oz.
Copper: +1.53% to $2.1965/lb.Currencies:
EUR/USD: +0.78% to 1.0981
USD/JPY: -0.50% to 104.75Week Ahead:
Monday: September Personal Income, Spending, and Core PCE Prices (08:30 ET); October Chicago PMI (09:45 ET)
Tuesday: October ISM Index (10:00 ET); September Construction Spending (10:00 ET); October Auto and Truck Sales (14:00 ET)
Wednesday: MBA Mortgage Index for the week ending 10/29 (07:00 ET); October ADP Employment Change (08:15 ET); Crude Inventories for the week ending 10/29 (10:30 ET); November FOMC Rate Decision (14:00 ET)
Thursday: October Challenger Job Cuts (07:30 ET); Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending 10/29 and Continuing Jobless Claims for the week ending 10/22 (08:30 ET); Q3 Productivity -- Preliminary (08:30 ET); September Factory Orders (10:00 ET); October ISM Services (10:00 ET); Natural Gas Inventories for the week ending 10/29 (10:30 ET)
Friday: October Employment Situation Report (08:30 ET); September Trade Balance (08:30 ET); Fed Governor Brainard (FOMC voter) (09:00 ET); Atlanta Fed President Lockhart (will retire in early-2017) (09:40 ET); (Dallas Fed President Kaplan (will vote in 2017) (12:00 ET)Stocks closed out the Friday affair lower as afternoon gains quickly turned lower following headlines that the FBI would re-open its previously closed investigation related to Hillary Clinton's email scandal. Reportedly, 11 days ahead of the election the FBI has re-opened the Clinton email probe after new emails have surfaced and FBI Director James Comey issued a letter to Congress suggesting the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps to review the material. Limited information was out ahead of the close, yet markets reacted negatively to the news.

To that end, the broader market edged lower today, led to the downside by the Nasdaq Composite which shed 25.87 points (-0.50%) to 5190.10. The S&P 500 lost 6.63 points (-0.31%) to 2126.41, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower by 8.49 points (-0.05%) to 18161.19. Nasdaq 100 components AMGN -9.6%, ESRX -6.0%, REGN -2.6%, GILD -2.6% and BIIB -2.5% all pressured the Healthcare sector following the Clinton news.

Market data today included the Real GDP reading which showed an increase at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.9% in the third quarter, up from 1.4% in the second quarter and the highest rate since the third quarter of 2014. Also, on a seasonally adjusted basis, compensation costs for civilian workers increased 0.6% in the third quarter. Lastly, the final reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October dipped to 87.2 in October from the preliminary reading of 87.9.

At the end of the session, the Technology (XLK 47.44, -0.05 -0.11%) sector was lower today despite spending the majority of the session in positive territory. Components CA Tech (CA 30.74, -1.33 -4.15%) was the worst performer today on the back of its latest quarterly results. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed out the day XLI +0.60%, XLP +0.57%, XLRE +0.36%, XLU +0.31%, XLB +0.26%, XLY -0.23%, XLE -0.27%, XLF -0.40%, XLFS -0.41%, XLV -2.17%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (800.66, -0.29 -0.04%) sector, trading ended lower again yet still managed to hold the $800-level. Component Electronic Arts (EA 79.45, -3.27 -3.95%) saw some negative trading action following a premarket downgrade at Cowen; the firm cut their sales expectations for EA's latest game, Titanfall 2. The firm further pointed the launch timing (shortly after Activision's (ATVI 43.32, -0.40 -0.91%) Call of Duty release and ahead of the upcoming Battlefield 1 release). Other components in the space which underperformed today included TDC -2.57%, QRVO -2.54%, SWKS -1.99%, MU -1.88%, AVGO -1.68%, GLW -1.05%, FSLR -1.00%, MSI -0.88%, EBAY -0.73%, AMAT -0.69%, AAPL -0.66%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Alphabet's (GOOG) Board authorized the company to repurchase up to $7,019,340,976.83 of its Class C capital stock.

G-Technology, a Western Digital (WDC 59.21, -0.37 -0.62%) brand, announced the expansion of its G-DRIVE portfolio, with its first solid state portable drive, the G-DRIVE slim SSD USB-C.

Qualcomm (QCOM 68.40, -1.69 -2.41%) and Lumen Australia announced they have entered into a Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging (WEVC) license agreement. Lumen will include Qualcomm Halo WEVC technology in its product portfolio and will commercialize WEVC systems for Plug in Hybrid (PHEV) and Electric Vehicles (EV) manufacturers, as well as wireless charging infrastructure companies.

NetSuite (N 95.02, +0.65 +0.69%) disclosed in regulatory filing that T Rowe Price had indicated it was willing to support a transaction in which Oracle (ORCL 38.17, -0.05 -0.13%) offers $133 per share. ORCL affirmed $109 is best and final offer.

Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts (EA) announced that Titanfall 2 is now available in stores worldwide on Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, Origin for PC, and for the first time in the franchise, the PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Aspen Tech (AZPN 49.25, +2.46 +5.26%) acquired Mtelligence Corporation for $37 million.

Last night, Violin Memory (VMEM 0.25, -0.12 -32.43%) announced the common stock will be delisted by the NYSE.

PFSWeb (PFSW 7.22, -0.26 -3.48%) lowered its Q3 total revenue guidance to a range of $222-228 million from $220-230 million. Expects Q3 EPS between ($-0.05)-($0.07).

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Gigamon (GIMO 55.01, +7.63 +16.10%) announced that Rex Jackson is joining the company as CFO effective today.

Infoblox (BLOX 26.45, +0.05 +0.19%) and Vista Equity Partners announced that Vista's affiliates, Delta Holdco, LLC and India Merger Sub, Inc., have waived the "Financing Proceeds Condition" and the condition to the Offer relating to the marketing period for the Debt Financing, as described in the Offer to Purchase in connection with Vista's previously-announced tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock of Infoblox at a price of $26.50 per share in cash.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Elli Mae (ELLI 107.15, +9.56 +9.80%) announced a CFO succession plan by which Ed Luce has announced his intention to retire. As such, current SVP of Finance, Matt LaVay, will become CFO effective April 1, 2017.

Following his arrest, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 30.50, +0.07 +0.23%) has decided to conduct an external review related to Harold Martin's dealings at the company.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, LogMeIn (LOGM 94.59, +7.41 +8.50%) has announced a special cash dividend in the amount of $0.50 per share which will be paid on November 22, 2016 to shareholders of record on November 7, 2016.

According to a statement from Tachyon, Samsung (SSNLF 1250.00, flat) has acquired the company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Amazon (AMZN) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS of $0.52 on revenues which rose 29.0% compared to last year to $32.71 billion. Also, management guided Q4 revenues in-line at $42.0-45.5 billion.

Alphabet (GOOG) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $9.06 and $22.45 billion, respectively.

MasterCard (MA 106.90, +3.30 +3.19%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.08 and $2.9 billion, respectively.

Baidu.com (BIDU 179.59, +4.49 +2.56%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.49 on in-line revenues of $2.74 billion. BIDU also guided Q4 revenues worse than expectations at $2.675-2.756 billion.

LinkedIn (LNKD 189.50, +0.87 +0.46%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.18 on in-line revenues of $960 million.

CA Tech (CA) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.67 and $1.02 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company reaffirmed EPS and revenue guidance of $2.49-2.54 and $4.03-4.07 billion.

Xerox (XRX 9.84, +0.27 +2.82%) reported in-line Q3 EPS on worse than expected revenues of $4.21 billion. For Q4, the company sees in-line EPS of $0.32-0.35.

Synaptics (SYNA 52.57, -15.13 -22.35%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $1.03 and $386.2 million. For Q2, the company sees revenues ahead of expectations at $430-470 million.

Elli Mae (ELLI) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.72 and $100.38 million, respectively. For Q4, EPS and revenues are expected to come in ahead of expectations at $0.48-0.49 and $87-89 million. For FY16, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of expectations at $2.17-2.18, from $2.00-2.06 and $351-353 million, from $338-341 million, respectively.

LogMeIn (LOGM) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.56 on revenues which rose 22.3% compared to a year ago to $85.1 million. For Q4, LOGM sees better than expected EPS of $0.58-0.59 on in-line revenues of $87.0-87.5 million.

Gigamon (GIMO) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.36 and $83.5 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report Monday morning: BSFT, CHKP, DSPG

Analyst actions:

TWTR was upgraded to Perform from Underperform at Oppenheimer,
QCOM was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at BMO Capital,
FISV was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
LVLT was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
AMX was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup;
NXPI was downgraded at Robert W. Baird, Morgan Stanley, SunTrust, CLSA and Oppenheimer,
QSII was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
ATEN was downgrade to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer,
BIDU was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
SYNA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum and to Hold from Buy at Needham,
EA was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen,
CTL was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
NOK was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Exane BNP Paribas,
AUO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura,
FLEX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
N was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at DA Davidson;
ASUR was initiated with a Buy at Wunderlich,
TWLO was initiated with a Neutral at Mitsubishi UFJ

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:07 pm Advanced Energy beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (AEIS) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.77 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.75; revenues rose 6.6% year/year to $126.55 mln vs the $118.92 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.75-0.85, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.71 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $124-134 mln vs. $118.51 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Amkor beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (AMKR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.25 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.21; revenues rose 48.0% year/year to $1.09 bln vs the $1.06 bln two analyst estimate.

Gross margins were 19.7% vs. 17.2% a year ago

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.19-0.34 vs. $0.25 two analyst estimate; sees Q4 revs of $900 mln-$1.07 bln vs. $1.02 bln two analyst estimate; sees gross margins of 19% to 23%

4:05 pm Monolithic Power beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs in-line (MPWR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.66 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.65; revenues rose 16.7% year/year to $106.46 mln vs the $105.98 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin was 55.3% vs 55.1% in the prior year period.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $101-105 mln vs. $101.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees Q4 non-GAAP gross margin between 54.8% and 55.8%.

4:04 pm Integrated Device beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (IDTI) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.33; revenues rose 8.6% year/year to $184.05 mln vs the $184.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co will guide in its conference call scheduled for 4:30pm ET


4:15 pm : The major averages finished the month on a flat note, settling with monthly losses across the board. Participants preferred a cautious approach at the beginning of the week as a glut of earnings reports and economic data remained in sight. The Nasdaq Composite was little changed, ending October down 2.3%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 also settled flat, finishing the month lower by 1.9%.

Equity indices briefly rose at the start of the session as a recent wave of M&A chatter culminated in some weekend deals. CenturyLink (CTL 26.58, -3.81, -12.5%) agreed to acquire Level 3 (LVLT 56.15, +2.10, +3.9%), offering $66.50 per share, or approximately $25 billion. Meanwhile, General Electric (GE 29.10, -0.12, -0.4%) reached a deal to combine its oil and gas business with Baker Hughes (BHI 55.40, -3.72, -6.3%).

The upbeat start proved to be short-lived, however, as an extended downturn in crude oil futures drove the broader market back to its flat line. The energy component was under pressure after members of OPEC failed to solidify a proposed supply freeze agreement. The oil collective held a technical meeting over the weekend, but could not cement individual production cut allocations. WTI crude settled lower by 3.9% ($46.84/bbl; -$1.88), finishing October down 2.6%.

The broader market attempted to shrug off the move in crude oil as a pullback in bond yields and largely in-line economic data offered support.

The latest inflation reading fell largely in-line with expectations as personal income rose 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) in September while personal spending increased 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). The Core PCE Price Index ticked higher by 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), pushing year-over-year growth to 1.7%. This is the last inflation reading ahead of the Fed's November policy meeting this Wednesday.

Fed funds futures were little changed by the data with the December meeting still commanding an outsized number of rate hike bets. According to the CME's FedWatch Tool, the implied probability of a December hike is 77.8%.

Nine sectors ended in positive territory with utilities (+2.0%), real estate (+1.4%), and industrials (+0.2%) outperforming. Conversely, energy (-1.2%) and health care (-0.6%) finished in the red.

In the energy sector (-1.2%), Dow component Exxon Mobil (XOM 83.32, -1.46) ended lower by 1.7% after being removed from the "Conviction Buy List" at Goldman. However, fellow Dow component Chevron (CVX 104.75, +0.93) gained 0.9% after Goldman upgraded it to "Buy" from "Neutral" and added it to its "Conviction Buy List." The broader sector finished the month down 3.0%, ending behind the benchmark index.

Biotechnology extended its recent loss as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 256.68, -3.81, -1.5%) ended the month lower by 11.3%. This compares to a decline of 6.6% in the broader health care sector (-0.6%). The sub-industry was under pressure as participants weighed the regulatory implications of this election cycle. On that note, McKesson (MCK 127.17, +3.06) rebounded 2.5% after falling 22.7% in the prior session.

In the industrial sector (+0.2%), Roper (ROP 173.31, +5.40) outperformed after beating bottom-line estimates for the quarter. The stock rallied 3.2% as a bottom-line beat overshadowed some cautious guidance. Dow component General Electric (GE 29.10, -0.12) ended lower by 0.4% after gaining 0.5% at the start of the session.

The Treasury complex settled on a higher note with yields pulling back across the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note slipped one basis point to 0.85% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note ended down two basis points (1.83%). The yield on the 10-yr note increased 23 basis points in October.

Today's trading volume was above the average of 850 million as more than one billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Personal Income, Personal Spending, Core PCE Prices, and Chicago PMI for October:

Personal income increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), personal spending increased 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), and the core PCE Price Index was up 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%).
The Personal Income and Spending report for September was mostly in-line with expectations.
The MNI Chicago Business Barometer checked in at 50.6 for October (Briefing.com consensus 54.0), down from 54.2 in September and the lowest reading since May.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 10:00 ET release of the ISM Index for October (Briefing.com consensus 51.9) and Construction Spending for September (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%). Separately, Auto and Truck Sales for October will be released throughout the day.

Russell 2000: +4.9% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.1% YTD
S&P 500: +4.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +3.6% YTD

DJ30 -18.49 NASDAQ -0.97 SP500 -0.22 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1482/1.521 bln/1479 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1514/1.029 bln/1447

3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -1.2% around the 84.90 level
Crude oil plummets to a 1-month low following the conclusion of the weekend's 2-day informal technical OPEC meeting
December crude oil futures fell $1.88 (-3.9%) to $46.84/barrel
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil include:
On Friday, a meeting with OPEC representatives & a second meeting the following morning with non-OPEC oil producers including Russia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Oman, Azerbaijan, Brazil, & Bolivia essentially yielded no concrete results. Non-producers expressed potential interest in cooperating on a coordinated production cut, but would not give specific numbers until OPEC came out with its own individual production cut allocations for its members.
In addition, Iraq has held firm on its previously announced stance to be exempt from the OPEC production cut, expressing they need the excess revenue to fund the fight against ISIS. It is worth noting that Iran, Nigeria, & Lybia are already exempt from the Algiers Accord.
Russia also reiterated its position that it will not cut production & has the capacity to increase production if demand permits. However, Russia also stated they would be part of a potential production freeze if OPEC can successfully assign specific numbers to the proposed production cut for each member.
Progress was made on a standardized methodology to evaluate and track OPEC production, but no actual concrete numbers were specified at either of the two meetings held this weekend.
Another informal meeting is scheduled to be held sometime in November ahead of the official OPEC meeting on Nov 30 to further hammer out the details. Details of the Algiers Accord are expected to be announced at the next official OPEC meeting.
Natural gas erased all of Friday's gains, closed at fresh session lows around the $3.00/MMBtu support zone
December natural gas closed $0.09 lower (-2.9%) at $3.02/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold ended lower while silver traded nearly flat as the dollar index gave up its initial morning gains
December gold ended today's session down $3.70 (-0.3%) to $1273.30/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.01 higher (+0.1%) at $17.81/oz
Base metal copper nearly doubled Friday's gains
December copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.9%) at $2.21/lb

Stocks closed out October with losses as a last minute sell-off took all three into the red. Leading the decline, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 18.77 points (-0.10%) to 18142.42. The Nasdaq Composite was lower by less than a point (-0.02%) to 5189.13, and the S&P 500 also lost less than a point (-0.01%) to 2126.15.

Economic data today included the personal income reading which increased 0.3%, personal spending increased 0.5%, and the core PCE Price Index was up 0.1%. Also, the MNI Chicago Business Barometer checked in at 50.6 for October, down from 54.2 in September and the lowest reading since May.

Ending on the positive side of flat lines, the Technology (XLK 47.42, -0.02 -0.04%) sector closed out October modestly below flat lines as the session came to a close. Component Level 3 (LVLT 56.15, +2.11 +3.90%) ended the day higher following a deal that was announced this morning by which CenturyLink (CTL 26.58, -3.81 -12.54%) would acquire LVLT for $66.50 per share in cash and stock. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the month XLU +2.00%, XLRE +1.38%, XLP +0.25%, XLI +0.12%, XLY +0.08%, XLB +0.02%, XLFS -0.13%, XLF -0.15%, IYZ -0.51%, XLV -0.62%, XLE -1.17% as Utilities edged out all others to gain the most.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (800.64, -0.02 -0.00%) sector, trading lost less the a point as a sell-off into the close took the sector below flat lines. Component HP (HPQ 14.49, +0.40 +2.84%) was the best performer in the space today with no notable news on the wires backing the move. Other names in the space which closed higher today included QRVO +2.71%, FFIV +2.61%, SWKS +1.61%, AMAT +1.47%, HPE +1.35%, XLNX +1.21%, ADI +0.90%, NVDA +0.85%, TEL +0.82%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

According to the NY Post, Goldman Sachs (GS 178.24, +1.10 +0.62%) may be pushing Apple (AAPL 113.54, -0.18 -0.16%) to make a bid for Time Warner (TWX 88.99, +1.52 +1.74%).

Cognizant (CTSH 51.35, -0.22 -0.43%) was selected by Centrica (CPYYY 10.48, +0.12 +1.16%) as a strategic partner to deliver end-to-end digital assurance as-a-service across Centrica's technology landscape and enhance the efficiency, reliability and user experience of Centrica's web and digital applications and smart devices.

Harris (HRS 89.21, -0.18 -0.20%) entered into a $700 million contract with the State of Florida to provide a state-wide communications network that will connect public safety, law enforcement, public schools and other state and local government agencies. The contract has a seven-year base and seven one-year options.

According to the Nikkei Asian Review, Foxconn (FXCNY 6.97, flat) may be testing wireless charging capabilities for the next iteration of the iPhone (AAPL).

According to Bloomberg, Brocade (BRCD 10.60, +1.91 +21.98%) is in talks with possible suitors, including Broadcom (AVGO 170.28, +0.93 +0.55%).

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Broadsoft (BSFT 41.55, -2.70 -6.10%) acquired VoIP Logic. The company expects the deal to be $0.01 dilutive to its non-GAAP earnings.

Level 3 (LVLT) to be acquired by CenturyLink (CTL) for $66.50 per share in cash and stock. Under the terms of the agreement, LVLT shareholders will receive $26.50 per share in cash and a fixed exchange ratio of 1.4286 shares of CTL stock for each LVLT share they own, which implies a purchase price of $66.50 per Level 3 share (based on a CenturyLink $28.00 per share reference price) and a premium of about 42% based on LVLT's unaffected closing share price of $46.92 on October 26, 2016, the last trading day prior to market speculation about a potential transaction.

21Vianet (VNET 7.31, flat) signed a strategic investment agreement with private equity firm Warburg Pincus to form a joint venture and establish a digital real estate platform in China.

MKS Instruments (MKSI 50.45, +0.80 +1.61%) announced the promotion of Dr. John Lee to the position of SVP and COO effective November 1, 2016.

Violin Memory (VMEM 0.18, -0.07 -28.00%) confirmed its common stock began trading on the OTCQX market on October 28, 2016 under 'VMEM' following NYSE delisting. The company also stated it will consider options, including its option to pursue a review, in responding to the NYSE notification.

Momo's (MOMO 24.08, -1.46 -5.72%) Chief Technology Officer Zhiwei Li announced his resignation, for personal reasons, effective November 1.

Demand Media (DMD 5.80, +0.10 +1.75%) received board approval to change its name to Leaf Group Ltd. The company will officially change its name at the start of business on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, and its common stock will begin trading that day on the New York Stock Exchange under LFGR.

NCI (NCIT 11.75, -0.20 -1.67%) appointed Paul Dillahay as president and CEO, effective immediately. Mr. Dillahay replaces Brian Clark, who resigned as president and CEO and a director of NCI, to pursue other opportunities.

TiVo (TIVO 19.85, -0.35 -1.73%) that Rovi Corporation, a TiVo Company, renewed its product and intellectual property (IP) licenses with Panasonic (PCRFY 10.03, -0.25 -2.43%). Panasonic signed a multi-year extension of the company's products for the Japan market, including G-Guide, G-Guide HTML and G-Guide xD, enabling Panasonic to continue providing advanced entertainment discovery experiences across its TV, DVR and set-top box products. Additionally, Panasonic signed a multi-year worldwide license renewal to the entertainment discovery patent portfolio of Rovi.

In reaction to quarterly results:

CenturyLink (CTL) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.56 on revenues of $4.38 billion. The company also sees Q4 EPS of $0.53-0.59 on revenues of $4.28-4.34 billion.

Level 3 (LVLT) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.40 and $2.03 billion, respectively. For FY16, the company sees EBITDA and free cash flow of 10-12% and $1.0-1.1 billion, respectively.

Check Point Software (CHKP 84.56, +3.58 +4.42%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.13 and $427.6 million, respectively.

Broadsoft (BSFT) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.52 and $84.1 million, respectively. For Q4, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $0.65-0.83 and revenues of $94-102 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AEIS, AMKR, CGNX, INST, IDTI, ININ, MPWR/ALLT, ANGI, AUDC, CRCM, DHX, EIGI, FIS, HRS, KEM, RDWR

Analyst actions:

VMW was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
ULTI was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush,
TWX was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at FBR & Co.,
QCOM was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Nomura,
HUBS was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
AIRG was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Wunderlich,
ATEN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson,
CMPR was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Axiom Capital,
ADTN was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Northland Capital;
CSCO was downgraded to Mixed from Positive at OTR Global,
WEX was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
PERI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at The Benchmark Company,
SANM was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Cross Research;
COUP was initiated at Barclays, RBC Capital Mkts, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and JMP Securities,
YY and MOMO were initiated with Buy ratings at HSBC,
ACIA was initiated with an Outperform at William Blair,
ZG was initiated with a Buy at BofA/Merrill,
ORBC was initiated with an Outperform at Macquarie,
CAMP was initiated with a Neutral at Macquarie,

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:39 pm Extreme Networks beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (EXTR) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.07 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues fell 1.6% year/year to $122.6 mln vs the $125.38 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.05-0.09 vs. $0.08 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $148.0-158.0 vs. $148.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:23 pm Sanmina beats by $0.06, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SANM) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.72 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.66; revenues rose 1.8% year/year to $1.67 bln vs the $1.71 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.65-0.70 vs. $0.67 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.675-1.725 bln vs. $1.67 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20 pm Veeco Instruments beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (VECO) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.15); revenues fell 39.2% year/year to $85.5 mln vs the $84.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Company said on Oct. 3 that it expected Q3 revenue at high end of prior range of $70-85 mln

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of ($0.07)-0.07 vs. ($0.02) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $85-110 mln vs. $92.35 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Veeco executed well in the third quarter, delivering revenue above the top end of our guidance range and generating positive adjusted EBITDA and cash flows from operations," commented John R. Peeler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "We are seeing a clear improvement in LED industry conditions and solid demand for our MOCVD products."We remain focused on improving the Company's through-cycle profitability. We are executing against our cost reduction initiatives, including our recently announced plans to significantly reduce investments in Atomic Layer Deposition ("ALD") technology development. These actions are expected to lower our quarterly adjusted EBITDA breakeven level to approximately $75 million in revenue, starting in the first quarter of 2017. Overall, I'm pleased with our ongoing execution and the positive momentum of our business looking ahead," Mr. Peeler concluded.

4:13 pm Ixia beats by $0.07, beats on revs (XXIA) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.11; revenues fell 1.6% year/year to $123.9 mln vs the $118.59 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a lower note as equities endured a broad-based selloff. The downturn was stoked by rising political uncertainty, further losses in crude oil, volatility in the Treasury market, and weakness in the heavily-weighted technology (-0.8%) and consumer discretionary (-0.8%) sectors. The Russell 2000 ended down 1.0% while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.7%) and the S&P 500 (-0.7%) each finished with narrower losses. Equity indices stumbled in the first hour of trade as a move higher in bond yields and shifting U.S. polling data derailed an initial move higher. Mixed U.S. economic data halted a retreat in the Treasury complex this morning. The October ISM Index registered at 51.9 (Briefing.com consensus 51.7), signaling continued expansion. Meanwhile, September Construction Spending fell 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) after declining 0.5% in the prior month.

The Treasury complex carved out a session low in the opening hour of trade, pressuring defensively-oriented real estate (-2.0%), utilities (-1.8%), and telecom services (-1.0%). The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose to 1.88% in the opening hour before backpedaling from that level.

The U.S. presidential race was also in focus today after a new joint poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post showed that Republican nominee Donald Trump is leading Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The reversal of fortune comes on the heels of last Friday's announcement that the FBI is investigating Mrs. Clinton regarding recently-discovered emails.

The poll unnerved participants who had previously priced in a Clinton presidency. Accordingly, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 18.58, +1.52) rose more than one point.

The broader market narrowed its loss in the final hour, but ten sectors finished in negative territory. The heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (-0.8%) and the technology (-0.8%) sectors finished behind the broader market.

Retail names underperformed in the consumer discretionary space (-0.8%) as L Brands (LB 66.50, -5.69) plunged 7.9%. The company issued an earnings warning, stating that it sees third-quarter earnings in the lower end of previously issued guidance. The company also estimated that October same-store sales would be short of consensus estimates, rising just 1.0%. The broader SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.53, -0.70) fell 1.7%.

The technology sector (-0.9%) displayed relative weakness as top-weighted Apple (AAPL 111.47, -2.07) fell by 1.8%. The name was under pressure after a UBS Survey indicated that demand in China remains weak. The stock has declined 5.7% since the company reported underwhelming quarterly results and guidance last Tuesday. Elsewhere, the PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 0.9%.

In the health care sector (-0.5%), Dow component Pfizer (PFE 31.07, -0.64, -2.0%) finished at the bottom of the price-weighted average. The pharmaceutical name reported weaker-than-expect bottom line results and narrowed its full-year guidance. Separately, the biotechnology sub-group outperformed as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 259.09, +2.41) gained 0.9%.

The commodity-sensitive energy space (+0.1%) eked out a slim gain as crude erased the bulk of an intraday loss, shedding 0.3% to $46.68/bbl. Investors will receive the latest inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute this evening while the Department of Energy will release its more influential inventory data tomorrow morning at 10:30 ET.

Bond prices jumped in the late afternoon as extended losses in equities and some short covering pushed yields lower. The yield on the 10-yr note finished the day up one basis point (1.84%).

Today's trading volume was above the average of 850 million as more than one billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to September Construction Spending and the October ISM Index:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for October checked in at 51.9 (Briefing.com consensus 51.7), up from 51.5 in September.
Construction spending declined 0.4% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) on the heels of an upwardly revised 0.5% decline (from -0.7%) for August.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the 8:15 ET release of the ADP Employment Change Report for October (Briefing.com consensus 165k). Separately, the Fed will issue its November Policy Statement at 14:00 ET. DJ30 -105.32 NASDAQ -35.56 SP500 -14.43 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 879/1.718 bln/2288 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 708/1.0534 bln/2249

3:30 pm :

The dollar index fell -0.7% around the 97.78 level, boosting precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.5% around the 84.51 level
Crude oil ended at a 1-month low for the second session in a row ahead of today's API data
December crude oil futures fell $0.16 (-0.3%) to $46.68/barrel
Data reminders:
Weekly EIA petroleum data will be released at 10:30 am ET on Wednesday
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released this Friday at 1 pm ET.
Monthly IEA data will be released on November 10.
API data will be released today after the bell.
Natural gas closed at its lowest level of the session ahead of Thursday's inventory number
December natural gas closed $0.12 lower (-4.0%) at $2.90/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas inventory data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold & silver traded sharply higher on a weakened dollar
December gold ended today's session up $14.10 (+1.1%) to $1287.40/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.60 higher (+3.4%) at $18.41/oz
Base metal copper doubled yesterday's gains & closed higher for the 4th consecutive session
December copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.9%) at $2.23/lb

The first session of November came to a close with modest weakness, albeit well off opening levels. The Nasdaq Composite was the worst performer, shedding 35.56 points (-0.69%) today to end 5153.58. The S&P 500 was close behind, down 14.43 points (-0.68%) to 2111.72, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 105.32 points (-0.58%) to 18037.10

Equity indices briefly rose at the start of the session as upbeat manufacturing activity data out of China and largely in-line policy decisions from the Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of Australia bolstered sentiment. However, the uptick proved to be short-lived as rising bond yields pressured high-yielding sectors and the broader market. Furthermore, a new joint poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post has Mr. Trump leading Mrs. Clinton following last Friday's revelations about a new FBI investigation into Mrs. Clinton's emails. The market had prepared for a Clinton presidency, so the shift in polls is leading to re-positioning.

The poll unnerved participants who had previously priced in a Clinton presidency. Accordingly, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 18.58, +1.52) rose more than one point.

The Treasury complex trades on a lower note at midday following mixed data. The ISM Manufacturing Index for October registered at 51.9, denoting a continued expansion. Meanwhile, Construction Spending fell 0.4% in September. The data is some of the last the market will receive ahead of tomorrow's policy decision from the Fed. The central bank is not expected to raise rates at tomorrow's meeting, but is expected to prepare the market for a hike before the end of the year. Per the CME's FedWatch Tool, the implied probability of an interest rate hike at tomorrow's meeting is a paltry 7.2% while the probability of a December hike registers at 78.0%.

10 of the 11 S&P sectors closed the session in the red with Technology (XLK 47.01, -0.41 -0.86%) further down the list in terms of losses as yet closed higher off daily lows. Component Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS 76.85, +2.93 +3.96%) outperformed following the company's mixed Q3. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed out the day IYZ -2.20%, XLRE -1.97%, XLU -1.82%, XLI -0.86%, XLY -0.70%, XLB -0.58%, XLP -0.44%, XLV -0.43%, XLF -0.41%, XLFS -0.26%, XLE +0.09% as Energy was the lone outperformer.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (794.08, -6.56 -0.82%) sector, trading finally returned to sub-$800, yet ended the day off lows. Component Harris (HRS 92.73, +3.52 +3.95%) performed well today on the back of a better than expected Q1 and the announcement of the divestiture of the company's CapRock Communications business to SpeedCast International for $425 million. Other names in the space which closed lower included ADSK -3.02%, NVDA -2.94%, XRX -2.76%, NTAP -2.50%, WDC -2.05%, TXN -1.99%, AKAM -1.97%, MA -1.92%, JNPR -1.86%, AAPL -1.82%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Harris (HRS) announced it will divest its CapRock Communications business to SpeedCast International for $425 million.

Accenture (ACN 116.14, -0.10 -0.09%) acquired 2nd Road. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Accenture (ACN) acquired Realworld OO Systems B.V., a Netherlands-based division of Realworld Holding B.V. that specializes in geographic information system (GIS) solutions.

Accenture (ACN) also announced that BP (BP) has extended an agreement by two years for Accenture to serve as its global provider of finance and accounting (F&A) business process services through 2021.

IBM (IBM 152.79, -0.90 -0.59%) announced it acquired the Expert Personal Shopper (XPS) division of Fluid.

Symantec (SYMC 25.21, +0.18 +0.74%) announced Symantec Endpoint Protection 14, the next evolution in endpoint innovation from the leader in endpoint security.

Microchip (MCHP 60.18, -0.37 -0.61%) announced the signing of an agreement to sell certain Mobile Touch business assets to Solomon Systech Limited, a Hong Kong based semiconductor company. The transaction included the sale of certain semiconductor products, equipment and patents; and a license to certain other intellectual property and patents related to Microchip's Mobile Touch product line. Microchip Technology also agreed to provide certain transition services to Solomon Systech. This transaction is expected to close within approximately two weeks upon the satisfaction of certain customary closing conditions.

Global Payments (GPN 71.75, -0.77 -1.06%) successfully closed an amendment to its credit facility agreement on October 31, 2016. Under the terms of the amendment, the company increased its aggregate term loan A facilities by $750 million with the proceeds being used to reduce a portion of the term loan B facility and outstanding revolving credit facility borrowings.

First Solar (FSLR 41.04, +0.55 +1.36%) and MCE announced that MCE has entered into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for electricity generated from 40MWAC of First Solar's Little Bear Solar Project in Fresno County, CA. The project, designed to be built out eventually to 160MWAC, is anticipated to begin construction in 2019, with commissioning expected in 2020.

Avnet (AVT 41.68, -0.27 -0.64%) will now offer HGST-branded products and solutions in China.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

BlackBerry (BBRY 7.07, +0.02 +0.28%) signed an agreement with Ford (F 11.61, -0.13 -1.11%) for expanded use of QNX and security software. Financial details were not disclosed.

Net Element (NETE 1.10, -0.04 -3.51%) disclosed that it, Paystar, and Nexcharge have terminated the binding letter of intent dated July 21, 2016.

CACI Intl (CACI 99.45, +1.60 +1.64%) was awarded $1.77 billion Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization ceiling cost-plus-award-fee task order.

Ciber (CBR 0.89, -0.12 -12.25%) disclosed that its Board has engaged a strategic adviser to assist in exploring strategic alternatives.

EXFO (EXFO 4.30, -0.10 -2.27%) acquired Optical RF test technology from Absolute Analysis for about $8.25 million, including $5 million in cash and the remaining amount in EXFO shares.
The Communications Workers of America has notified AT&T (T 36.56, -0.23 -0.63%) that former DIRECTV field services employees have voted to ratify two agreements between the CWA and the company.

Ingram Micro (IM 38.21, +1.01 +2.72%) announced in connection with its pending acquisition by Tianjin Tianhai Investment Company, Ltd., that the parties have received clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to proceed with the transaction.

China Unicom (CHU 11.62, -0.10 -0.85%) announced that due to change of job arrangement, Zhang Junan and Xiong Yu will no longer assume the positions of senior vice presidents of the company.

Photronics (PLAB 9.85, +0.15 +1.55%) has acquired manufacturing assets and certain intellectual property of Infinite Graphics Incorporated (IGI). Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.00 and worse than expected revenues of $2.31 billion. The company also guided FY16 EPS in-line at $3.80-3.85.

Harris (HRS) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $1.39 and $1.75 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company sees EPS of $5.70-5.90.

Cognex (CGNX 51.57, -0.03 +0.06%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.61 and $147.95 million, respectively. For Q4, the company sees revenues ahead of expectations at $115-118 million.

Integrated Device (IDTI 22.87, +2.16 +10.43%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.34 on in-line revenues of $184.05 million. Guided Q3 EPS of $0.34 on revenues of $171-181 million.

Monolithic Power (MPWR 76.49, -2.32 -2.94%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.66 on revenues which rose 16.7% compared to last year to $106.46 million. For Q4, MPWR sees revenues of $101-105 million.

Instructure (INST 20.30, -5.15 -20.24%) reported a better than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.34 on revenues of $30.15 million. The company also guided Q4 mixed with EPS ahead of expectations at a loss of $0.44-0.42 on revenues worse than expected revenues of $30.4-31.0 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: BBOX BLKB CALX CALD CAVM ESIO EA ENPH EXTR FARO FIVN FTR IPHI IVAC XXIA JCOM JIVE MTCH MXWL OCLR PAYC PLT PRO QUMU SANM SBAC SQ DATA TNAV TSRA TRMB TNET ULTI VECO VIAV WBMD WSTC WU ZEN ZG/ADP BAH CDK CEVA CBB CRTO INXN KVHI NVMI OIIM ORBC ORBK SHOP TEL YELP

Analyst actions:

BRCD was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts,
VMW was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Summit Redstone;
JNPR was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
MA was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Guggenheim,
GDDY was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
LVLT was downgraded at RBC Capital Mkts, Jefferies, Goldman,
INST was downgraded to Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James,
NXPI was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
SPCB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Feltl & Co.;
TWLO was initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:51 pm Coherent beats by $0.13, beats on revs (COHR) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.65 per share, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.52; revenues rose 18.5% year/year to $248.46 mln vs the $240.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Ending backlog expected to ship in the next 12 months was $605.3 million at October 1, 2016, compared to a backlog of $564.5 million at July 2, 2016 and a backlog of $309.5 million at October 3, 2015.

4:36 pm Marvell announces restructuring actions, including the elimination of approx. 900 positions, that it expects will lower annual operating expenses from a current annualized run rate of $1.08 billion to the $820-840 million range (MRVL) :

Matt Murphy, Marvell's President and Chief Executive Officer, explained, "The single biggest factor limiting the potential of the Cloud and utilization of billions of connected devices is the bandwidth of today's technology. By focusing on our strengths in storing, moving, and accessing data at high speeds, Marvell is well-positioned to enable the technology of tomorrow."

Marvell is pursuing two initiatives to achieve this focus:
Discontinuing specific R&D programs, streamlining engineering processes, and consolidating R&D sites for greater efficiency, which will eliminate approximately 900 positions worldwide. The Company also expects a significant reduction in legal and accounting costs. Altogether, these changes are expected to lower annual operating expenses by $180-200 million.

In addition, the Company plans to divest non-strategic businesses with approximately $60 million in operating expenses and $100 million in revenue, based on a first half of fiscal 2017 annualized run rate.

As a result of these actions, the Company expects to incur charges of $90-110 million over the next four quarters, including cash charges of $35-50 million. Restructuring and restructuring-related charges include an estimate of severance, asset impairment, lease termination fees, and other costs.

4:18 pm First Solar beats by $0.56, misses on revs; guides FY16 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (FSLR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $1.22 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.56 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.66; revenues fell 45.9% year/year to $688 mln vs the $985.39 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $4.30-4.50. vs. $4.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $2.8-2.9 bln (Prior $3.8-4.0 bln), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $3.86 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Revenue guidance lowered for revised project sale timing.

FY16 Guidance
Gross Margin 25.5-25.6% (Prior 18.5-19.0%)
Operating Expense $375-385 mln (Prior $380-400 mln)
Operating Income $340-370 mln (Prior $310-370 mln)
Net Cash Balance $12.4-1.5 bln (Prior $1.9-2.2 bln)
Operating Cash Flow- ($100 mln)-$0 mln (Prior $500-600 mln)
CapEx- $225-275 mln (Prior $275-325 mln)
Shipments 2.8-2.9 GW (Prior 2.9-3.0 GW)

4:17 pm Axcelis Tech beats by $0.02, misses on revs; guides Q4 below consensus (ACLS) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.07 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.05; revenues fell 17.2% year/year to $65.65 mln vs the $67.75 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.04-0.08 vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $65-70 million vs. $75.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Also, gross margin in the fourth quarter is expected to be in the 36-38% range.

4:10 pm Qualcomm beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides Q1 (QCOM) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $1.28 per share, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.13; revenues rose 68.2% year/year to $9.17 bln vs the $5.86 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.12-1.22 vs. $1.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $5.7-6.5 bln vs. $6.14 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Sees Q1 MSM chip shipments 205M - 225M, Total reported device sales approx. $58.0B - $66.0

"We are forecasting continued growth of global 3G/4G device shipments in calendar year 2017, led by growing demand in emerging regions. We are well positioned to extend our mobile technology leadership and footprint into attractive growth opportunities, accelerated by our recently announced agreement to acquire NXP."

4:10 pm Facebook beats by $0.12, beats on revs (FB) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $1.09 per share, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.97; revenues rose 55.8% year/year to $7.01 bln vs the $6.92 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Daily active users (DAUs)- 1.18 bln, up 17% y/y; Expectations approx 1.16 bln which would represent approx 15% growth. Q2 DAUs were 1.13 billion on average for June 2016, an increase of 17% y/y; Q1 +16%, Q4 +17%; Mobile DAUs- 1.09 bln, +22% y/y; Q2 was 22% y/y; Q1 was +24%, Q4 was +25%; Monthly active users (MAUs)- 1.79 bln, +16% y/y; , expectations are for this to be approx 1.76 bln which would represent growth of approx 13%; Mobile MAUs were 1.66 bln; Q2 was 1.57 bln +20% y/y; Q1 and Q4 was 21% Mobile advertising revenue- 84% of revenue; Q3 is expected to come in at 85%. Q2 Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 84%.
Capital expenditures -- Capital expenditures for the third quarter of 2016 were $1.10 billion.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the midweek affair on a lower note as US election jitters overshadowed a largely in-line policy directive from the Federal Reserve. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) finished behind the S&P 500 (-0.7%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%).

The broader market began the day on a lower note as a downturn in crude oil and a negative bias in global bourses kept risk appetite in check. Participants also opted to move to the sidelines as the US presidential race tightened, according to recent polls.

A joint poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post had investors on the defensive yesterday as Republican nominee Donald Trump took a slight edge over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The poll unnerved the broader market as participants had all but priced in a Clinton presidency. Today's read offered little solace as ABC News and the Washington Post indicated that the two candidates were neck-and-neck heading into the final week. Furthermore, an L.A. Times poll added to uncertainty, giving an edge to Mr. Trump. The CBOE Volatility Index (19.10, +0.54, +3.0%) is up roughly three points from last Friday's settlement, showing that volatility expectations are on the rise.

Safe haven bonds, gold, and currencies gained on the developments as participants attempted to mitigate the impact of any surprise results from next Tuesday's election. The Treasury complex gained across the curve, exerting continued pressure on yields from multi-month highs. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note declined three basis points to 1.80% while the yield on the 2-yr note slipped two basis points (0.82%).

The pullback in yields failed to offer a reprieve for high-yielding sectors as real estate (-1.5%), utilities (-1.3%), and telecom services (-1.2%) continued their recent losing streaks.

Crude oil also extended early losses after the EIA confirmed a larger-than-expected build in crude oil inventories. The Department of Energy reported that crude oil inventories rose by 14.42 million barrels (consensus: +1.01 million) while gasoline stockpiles fell by 2.20 million barrels (consensus: -1.89 million). The energy component settled lower by 2.9% ($45.31/bbl; -$1.37).

The major averages saw some movement after the latest policy statement from the FOMC, but the S&P 500 ended near levels seen right before the release of the statement. The FOMC opted to leave the target range for the fed funds rate unchanged at 0.25% to 0.50% while stating that the case for moving rates higher had strengthened. Interestingly enough, only two FOMC members dissented at this meeting as Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren rejoined the majority.

The benchmark index finished near its worst level of the day, slipping below the psychological 2100 price level. All eleven sectors finished in the red with energy (-1.0%) and financials (-0.8%) representing notable laggards.

The commodity-sensitive energy space (-1.0%) weighed as refining names underperformed Marathon Petroleum (MPC 41.00, -1.34) finished lower by 3.2%. On the other hand, Anadarko Petroleum (APC 60.14, +0.19) outperformed after being upgraded to "Outperform" from "Neutral" at Credit Suisse.

In the financial sector (-0.8%), banking names underperformed as falling interest rates and declining oil prices weighed. Wells Fargo (WFC 45.24,- 0.36) finished lower by 0.9%. The in-line policy statement from the Fed failed to upset the rate hike picture for the remainder of the year. Per the CME's FedWatch Tool, the implied probability of an interest rate hike at the December meeting rose to 71.5% from 68.4% in the prior session.

The heavily-weighted technology sector (-0.7%) paced the retreat in the broader market as Facebook (FB 127.17, -2.33) and Alphabet (GOOG 768.70, -14.91) fell 1.8% and 1.9%, respectively. Facebook is scheduled to report its quarterly results this evening.

Biotechnology names weighed on the health care space (-0.5%) as Allergan (AGN 197.89, -10.76) and Gilead Sciences (GILD 72.51, -1.56) fell a respective 5.2% and 2.1%. Both names missed bottom-line estimates for the quarter. Conversely, Anthem (ANTM 122.99, +5.57) gained 4.7% as reaffirmed full-year guidance overshadowed below-consensus earnings.

Today's trading volume was above the average of 865 million as more than 970 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the ADP Employment Report for October:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications fell 1.2% in the week ending October 29. This followed a 4.1% decline in the prior week.
The ADP Employment Change report for October showed an estimated 147,000 positions were added to private sector payrolls in October versus the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 165,000.
The mitigating factor with the headline disappointment for October was the upward revision for September to 202,000 from an originally reported 154,000 increase.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 7:30 ET release of October Challenger Job Cuts. Meanwhile, weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 256k) and the preliminary estimate of third quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus 1.8%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%) will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. The day's data will be capped off with Factory Orders for September (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) and ISM Services for October (Briefing.com consensus 55.8), which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Dow Jones: +3.1% YTD
S&P 500: +2.6% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.5% YTD
Nasdaq: +2.0% YTD

DJ30 -77.46 NASDAQ -48.01 SP500 -13.78 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 796/1.925 bln/2340 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 702/970.1 mln/2253

3:30 pm :

The dollar index extended yesterday's losses, boosting precious metals, was -0.3% around the 97.44 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.7% around the 83.89 level
Crude oil ended at 1-month lows for the fourth consecutive session after EIA reported the largest crude inventory build in 30 years
December crude oil futures fell $1.37 (-2.9%) to $45.31/barrel
Rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Monthly IEA data will be released on November 10
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +14.42 mln (consensus called for a build of about +1.013 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -2.207 mln (consensus called for a draw of about -1.124 mln barrels).
Distillate inventories had a draw of -1.828 mln.
Natural gas extended yesterday's losses to close near session lows ahead of tomorrow's inventory number
December natural gas closed $0.11 lower (-3.8%) at $2.79/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold & silver traded in tandem, finishing near session highs on continued dollar weakness ahead of the Nov 8 election
December gold ended today's session up $20.60 (+1.6%) to $1308.00/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.28 higher (+1.5%) at $18.69/oz

Broader market action ended Wednesday all lower, as the Nasdaq Composite shed 48.01 points (-0.93%) to 5105.57. The S&P 500 was also weaker, losing 13.78 points today (-0.65%) to 2097.94, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower by 77.46 points (-0.43%) to 17959.64.

The broader market began the day on a lower note as a downturn in crude oil and a negative bias in global bourses kept risk appetite in check. Participants also opted to move to the sidelines as the US presidential race tightened, according to recent polls.

A joint poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post had investors on the defensive yesterday as Republican nominee Donald Trump took a slight edge over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The poll unnerved the broader market as participants had all but priced in a Clinton presidency. Today's read offered little solace as ABC News and the Washington Post indicated that the two candidates were neck-and-neck heading into the final week. Furthermore, an L.A. Times poll added to uncertainty, giving an edge to Mr. Trump. The CBOE Volatility Index (19.10, +0.54, +3.0%) is up roughly three points from last Friday's settlement, showing that volatility expectations are on the rise.

Safe haven bonds, gold, and currencies gained on the developments as participants attempted to mitigate the impact of any surprise results from next Tuesday's election. The Treasury complex gained across the curve, exerting continued pressure on yields from multi-month highs. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note declined three basis points to 1.80% while the yield on the 2-yr note slipped two basis points (0.82%).

Crude oil also extended early losses after the EIA confirmed a larger-than-expected build in crude oil inventories. The Department of Energy reported that crude oil inventories rose by 14.42 million barrels while gasoline stockpiles fell by 2.20 million barrels. The energy component settled lower by 2.9% ($45.31/bbl; -$1.37).

The major averages saw some movement after the latest policy statement from the FOMC, but the S&P 500 ended near levels seen right before the release of the statement. The FOMC opted to leave the target range for the fed funds rate unchanged at 0.25% to 0.50% while stating that the case for moving rates higher had strengthened. Interestingly enough, only two FOMC members dissented at this meeting as Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren rejoined the majority.

The econ data from today included the MBA Mortgage Index which showed that mortgage applications fell 1.2% in the week ending October 29. This followed a 4.1% decline in the prior week. Also, the ADP Employment Change report for October showed an estimated 147,000 positions were added to private sector payrolls in October.

Today, the Technology (XLK 46.71, -0.30 -0.64%) sector ended just off lows of the day. Component Automatic Data (ADP 89.98, +3.06 +3.52%) was able to resist the negative action today following the company's better than expected Q1 report and the sale of a business unit. All 11 S&P sectors ended in the red today, with the IYZ -3.52%, XLRE -1.55%, XLU -1.26%, XLE -1.21%, XLFS -0.68%, XLF -0.66%, XLY -0.61%, XLB -0.54%, XLV -0.46%, XLI -0.37%, XLP -0.25% US Telecoms nealry doubling up the next worst losses.

To that end, the Telecom space was pressured lower by Frontier Communications (FTR 3.39, -0.54 -13.74%), which posted worse than expected Q3 results. Other components of the IYZ ended WIN -8.18%, NIHD -7.84%, CBB -6.74%, SHEN -5.12%, CNSL -4.17%, VG -4.13%, IRDM -3.73%, S -3.57%, CTL -3.16%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (788.71, -5.37 -0.68%) sector, trading distanced itself from the $800-level even more today. Component Broadcom (AVGO 172.56, +3.76 +2.23%) ended modestly higher today on the back of a confirmed deal with Brocade (BRCD 12.32, +1.08 +9.61%) to buy the company for $12.75 per share in cash. Other names in the space which ended lower with the sector included WDC -3.56%, STX -3.14%, VRSN -2.72%, JNPR -2.71%, RHT -2.47%, FIS -2.34%, GOOGL -2.12%, ADSK -2.03%, NTAP -2.02%, GOOG -1.87%, QCOM -1.83%, FB -1.80%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Brocade (BRCD) confirmed it will be acquired by Broadcom (AVGO) for $12.75 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at about $5.5 billion.

WageWorks (WAGE 62.80, +5.30 +9.22%) to acquire Automatic Data Processing's (ADP) Consumer Health Spending Account and Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act businesses. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Accenture (ACN 118.61, +2.47 +2.13%) has completed the acquisition of Kurt Salmon, a leading global strategy consulting firm focused on the retail industry and a subsidiary of Management Consulting Group. The acquisition was first announced on September 22, 2016.

eBay (EBAY 28.26, -0.12 -0.42%) and Terapeak, Inc. have renewed their data partnership, which dates back to 2004. The new agreement enables Terapeak to continue to partner with eBay to provide a powerful research tool for analyzing e-commerce activity, enabling online sellers to understand product supply and demand within the eBay marketplace. The Terapeak research product is used by thousands of sellers to find product trends, make sourcing decisions, and to price effectively to maximize conversions and profits.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Alaska Comms (ALSK 1.63, +0.13 +8.67%) announced that the FCC will provide about $19.7 million per year for 10 years to assist the company with the deployment of broadband in Alaska.

Fleetmatics (FLTX 59.90, -0.05 -0.08%) announced the acquisition of TrackEasy Oy. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Digi Intl (DGII 9.20, -0.55 -5.64%) acquired IoT cold chain provider FreshTemp. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Tessera Tech (TSRA 37.60, +1.00 +2.73%) acquired the technology assets and substantial patent portfolio of Pelican Imaging Corporation. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Inphi (IPHI 40.89, +3.04 +8.03%) to acquire ClariPhy Communications for $275 million in cash as well as the assumption of certain liabilities at the close. The deal is expected to close in December of 2016.

Rogers Comms (RCI 39.66, -0.50 -1.25%) priced $500 million underwritten public offering of 2.90% senior notes due 2026 with net proceeds of $487 million.
In addition to reporting quarterly results, West Corp (WSTC 21.56, +1.55 +7.75%) announced the entry into a process to explore financial and strategic alternatives.

Science Applications (SAIC 67.85, -0.57 -0.83%) received a contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command; total contract value will be more than $383 mln if all options exercised.

iPass (IPAS 1.78, -0.01 -0.56%) extended its partnership with Gogo (GOGO 9.67, -0.14 -1.43%). The partnership enabled IPAD to offer Gogo inflight connectivity to its users. The company also announced a partnership with Voyaxes to bring global Wi-Fi to Voyager WiFi customers.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Automatic Data (ADP) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.86 on in-line revenues which rose 7.5% compared to last year to $2.92 billion. For FY17, the company reaffirmed revenues guidance for growth of about 4-5% year-over-year to $12.52-12.75 billion.

Electronic Arts (EA 79.12, +1.28 +1.64%) reported an in-line GAAP loss of $0.13 per share on revenues which rose 10.2% compared to a year ago to $898 million. For FY17, EA raised EPS and revenues guidance to $2.69 from $2.56 and to $4.775 billion from $4.75 billion, respectively.

TE Connectivity (TEL 62.92, -0.37 -0.58%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $1.22 on in-line revenues of $3.33 billion. For Q1, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $0.98-1.02 and $2.95-3.05 billion, respectively. For FY16, the company guided EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $4.19-4.49 and $12.3-12.9 billion, respectively.

SBA Comm (SBAC 107.51, -3.37 -3.04%) reported better than expected Q3 funds from operations of $1.53 on revenues which were mostly flat at $411.32 million. For Q4, SBAC sees revenues in-line at $412-422 million.

Trimble (TRMB 25.68, -1.30 -4.82%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.33 on worse than expected revenues of $584.1 million. For Q4, the company sees EPS in-line at $0.27-0.32 on worse than expected revenues of $562-592 million.

Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 31.19, +1.15 +3.83%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.46 on in-line revenues of $1.39 billion. For FY17, the company sees in-line EPS of $1.68-1.75.

Frontier Communications (FTR) reported a Q3 loss of $0.04 per share on worse than expected revenues of $2.52 billion. For 2016, FTR sees adj FCF of $920-950 million on CapEx of between $1.25-1.275 billion with cash tax refunds of $100-110 million.

Paycom Software (PAYC 43.70, -8.30 -15.96%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.15 on in-line revenues of $77.3 million. For FY16, PAYC sees revenues ahead of market expectations at $326.5-328.5 million, up from $325-327 million.

Tableau Software (DATA 43.51 -6.00 -12.12%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.16 on revenues which missed expectations at $206.1 million. For Q4 and FY16, DATA guided EPS and revenues worse than expected at $225-235 million and $0.09-0.16, and $801-811 million and $0.23-0.30, respectively.

Yelp (YELP 35.71, +3.23 +9.94%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.22 and $186.2 million, respectively. For Q4, YELP sees in-line revenues of $191-195 million, and for FY16, the company sees better than expected revenues of $709-713 million.

West Corp (WSTC) reported in-line Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.76 and $571.4 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: HIVE ALSK ACLS BKFS EPAY BCOV CSLT COHR CSGS DMRC EQIX EXAR FB FSLR FIT G GDDY HUBS INOV IL ITRI IXYS KTOS MANT MCHX NOVT NTNX PEGA QTWO QCOM QUIK ROG RUBI TTWO WSTL XOXO ZNGA/ACIW ACTA ANSS ARW BCE CCOI COMM CNSL CYBR IT GOGO IQNT LDOS LFUS MITK MITL PRFT TVPT WILN

Analyst actions:

SQ was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
ENPH was upgraded to Outperform at Oppenheimer and to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at Avondale, BRCD was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Robert W. Baird,
TWX was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Pivotal Research,
CALX was upgraded to Buy at Craig Hallum,
TLND was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays;
DATA was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair and to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton,
CSOD and PAYC were downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
PLT was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
FTR was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo and to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank,
WBMD was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho,
RDWR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson,
BRCD was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus,
ATTU was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum;
NVDA was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup,
MRAM was initiated at Needham, Craig Hallum, Canaccord Genuity, and Stifel

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 04-Nov-16

The stock market registered its second consecutive weekly decline as the looming election contributed to increased caution among participants. The S&P 500 lost 1.9% for the week while the Nasdaq Composite (-2.8%) underperformed.

With the presidential election coming up on Tuesday, participants saw no reason to rush into stocks, especially when confronted with last Friday's news that the FBI is once again investigating Hillary Clinton after a new batch of emails was uncovered. The news led to a tightening in polls while market participants who had priced in an easy Clinton victory were forced to adjust their positions.

The down week appeared to be on track for a higher close on Friday, after the S&P 500 resisted a move below its 200-day moving average (2083). However, the index slid from its high in afternoon action, but avoided a close beneath the 200-day average. The Friday volatility took place after the release of the Employment Situation report for October, which was mixed relative to expectations. Nonfarm Payrolls increased by a below-consensus 161,000 (Briefing.com consensus 175,000), but average hourly earnings increased at a faster-than-expected 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%).

Although the upcoming election received a lot of attention, market participants also had to deal with the last heavy batch of third-quarter earnings. Facebook (FB) was one of the most notable companies to report, but its shares retreated as cautious guidance overshadowed better than expected results.

The busy week also featured the latest policy decision from the Federal Reserve, but to no one's surprise, the central bank held pat, showing little willingness to rock the policy boat ahead of the election. The policy statement did say that the case for a rate hike has strengthened, but the probability of a December rate raise declined, as indicated by the fed funds futures market. The implied likelihood of a December hike ended the week at 66.8%, down from last week's 74.2%.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18161.19 17888.28 -272.91 -1.5 2.7
Nasdaq 5190.10 5046.37 -143.73 -2.8 0.8
S&P 500 2126.41 2085.18 -41.23 -1.9 2.0
Russell 2000 1187.61 1163.81 -23.80 -2.0 2.5

When the week came to a close, the broader market faded afternoon gains into the weekend. Opening modestly below flat lines, the broader market would peak just after midday with all three US indices firmly in the green. Stocks quickly turned lower, though, and ultimately ended at lows. Leading the decline, the Dow Jones Industrial Average swung 103 points from high to low today, ending Friday down 42.39 points (-0.24%) to 17888.28. The Nasdaq Composite also lost (-0.24%), declining 12.04 points to 5046.37. The S&P 500 closed lower by 3.48 points (-0.17%) to 2085.18. The week's moves take the three major US indices +2.7%, +0.8% and +2.0% YTD, respectively.

As is were, the Technology (XLK 46.18, -0.08 -0.17%) sector ended below flat lines, pressured in the end by the broader market sell-off. Components Qorvo (QRVO 51.08, -5.66 -9.98%) and Symantec (SYMC 23.49, -1.96 -7.70%) were pressured today on the back of their latest quarterly earnigs reports. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Friday IYZ +1.06%, XLRE +0.84%, XLV +0.71%, XLB +0.35%, XLI +0.09%, XLY -0.20%, XLF -0.31%, XLU -0.31%, XLFS -0.39%, XLE -0.57%, XLP -0.90% ended split with Telecoms outperforming and Energy lagging.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (777.71, -3.13 -0.40%) sector, trading also collapsed into the close as afternoon gains did not hold. Component Motorola Solutions (MSI 75.90, +4.61 +6.47%) was the best performer in the sector today after the company reported better than expected Q3 earnings. Other names in the space which closed modestly lower included XRX -1.93%, FFIV -1.51%, AKAM -1.07%, XLNX -1.05%, INTC -0.94%, ADBE -0.91%, AAPL -0.90%, MSFT -0.83%, VRSN -0.77%, WU -0.76%, FLIR -0.75%, MA -0.72%, PYPL -0.70%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
In addition to reporting quarterly results, Qorvo (QRVO) announced a $500 million share repurchase program.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Symantec (SYMC) announced that Thomas Seifert, Executive Vice President and CFO plans to step down as CFO at the end of the month. The company appointed Nick Noviello, formerly CFO of Blue Coat, as Executive Vice President and CFO effective December 1, 2016.

CACI Intl (CACI 102.70, +1.65 +1.63%), Harris (HRS 94.25, +1.45 +1.56%), and L-3 (LLL 134.59, +0.54 +0.40%) were named as part of $200 million US Air Force contract.

NetApp (NTAP 30.45, -2.00 -6.16%) committed to a restructuring and reduction in workforce as a part of its planned transformation efforts to streamline its core business and reduce operating expenses. The company stated it will reduce its headcount by 6%.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Activision (ATVI 41.70, -1.67 -3.85%) announced the availability of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare both digitally and at global retailers worldwide

Elsewhere in the tech space:

TiVo (TIVO 21.00, +1.90 +9.95%) and Samsung (SSNLF 1250.00, flat) agreed to terms regarding a broad intellectual property license that will provide certain rights under TiVo's patent portfolios for Samsung's mobile, consumer electronic and set-top box businesses.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Web.com (WEB 13.45, -2.10 -13.50%) announced that its Board increased its stock repurchase plan by $100 million and extended the expiration date to December 31, 2018.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Imperva (IMPV 35.55, +0.45 +1.28%) detailed expected charges from restructuring initiative. IMPV expects these efforts will result in an estimated annual savings of $15 million and anticipates they will be completed by the end of the quarter.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Glu Mobile (GLUU 1.83, -0.11 -5.67%) announced that Niccolo de Masi will transition from his roles as Chairman and CEO to become the company's Executive Chairman; also, Nick Earl, President of Global Studios, has been named CEO. GLUU also acquired a controlling interest in Crowdstar for $45.5 million in cash.

CenturyLink (CTL 23.05, +0.05 +0.22%) entered into a definitive agreement to sell its data centers and colocation business for $2.1 billion; anticipated to close in Q1 of FY17.

SolarCity (SCTY 20.18, +1.63 +8.79%) was strong today on the heels of a premarket report that proxy firm ISS has backed the pending merger with Tesla (TSLA 190.56, +3.14 +1.68%).

CGI Group (GIB 47.12, -0.23 -0.49%) acquired Collaborative Consulting. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

CNBC reported that Twitter's (TWTR 12.18, +0.19 +1.58%) Board was not actively pushing for CEO Jack Dorsey to choose between his role there, and as CEO of Square (SQ).

In reaction to quarterly results:

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.49 on in-line revenues which rose 58.4% compared to last year to $1.57 billion. The company also sees Q4 EPS of $0.40 on revenues of $1.856 billion with FY16 EPS of $1.92 on revenues of $6.450 billion.

Glu Mobile (GLUU) reported a worse than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.33 on in-line revenues of $51.4 million.

Imperva (IMPV) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.08 and $68.4 million, respectively. For Q4, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $0.01-0.04 and $69-71 million, respectively.

Web.com (WEB) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.76 on revenues which rose 37.3% compared to last year to $192.79 million.

Qorvo (QRVO) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS of $1.29 and better than expected revenues of $864.7 million. For Q3, the company sees in-line EPS of $1.15-1.35.

Symantec (SYMC) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.30 on revenues which rose 8.1% compared to a year ago to $979 million. For Q3, the company guided EPS worse than expected at ($0.02)-($0.00). For FY17, the company sees EPS of $1.12-1.18, up from $1.08-1.174 and revenues of $3.925-4.005 billion.

Motorola Solutions (MSI) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.37 and $1.53 billion, respectively. The company also guided Q4 EPS of $1.82-1.87 on worse than expected revenue growth of +9-10% to about $1.83-1.85 billion.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results Monday morning: CTSH ELNK EPAM FDC MEET ON SPNS VSH WIN

Analyst actions:

IMPV was upgraded at Macquarie, DA Davidson and Evercore ISI,
TRUE was upgraded at Loop Capital and Craig Hallum,
MCHP was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman,
QLYS was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan,
GPN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
OLED was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Gabelli & Co.,
PCTY was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at First Analysis Sec;
FIT was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays,
BNFT was downgraded to Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James,
QRVO was downgraded to Underperform from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
NTAP was downgraded to Negative from Mixed at OTR Global,
CSOD was downgraded at Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, UBS and Needham,
WEB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at SunTrust,
PRFT was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at Avondale,
PCTY was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum;
ADS was initiated with a Sell at Compass Point,
PTC was initiated with a Buy at Goldman,
MOMO was initiated with a Buy at T.H. Capital

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:21 pm Microchip beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (MCHP) :

Reports Q2 (Sep) earnings of $0.94 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.87; revenues rose 56.2% year/year to $873.8 mln vs the $861.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Microchip announced that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend on its common stock of 36.05 cents per share (Prior 36.00 cents per share)

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.85-0.95 vs. $0.84 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $821.4-873.8 mln vs. $844.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:14 pm Cray misses by $0.15, misses on revs; lowers FY16 revs mid point below consensus (CRAY) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.49 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.15 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.34); revenues fell 59.5% year/year to $77.5 mln vs the $79.53 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues lowered guidance for FY16, sees FY16 revs of $620-650 mln from $650 mln prior guidance vs. $649.36 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Outlook Details: For 2016, a wide range of results remains possible. Assuming the Company is able to successfully complete the acceptances of five large systems associated with two new processors that total roughly $185 million, the Company expects revenue to be in the range of $620 million to $650 million.

The Company is still working through technical issues with these systems and the delays in third-party components outlined previously have compressed the timelines available to work through these issues. Significant risks remain to achieve these acceptances before year-end. To the extent that one or more of these system acceptances is not completed by the end of the year, the Company expects that those acceptances would be completed in early 2017. GAAP and Non-GAAP gross margin for the year is expected to be in the range of 34%.

4:11 pm Rudolph Tech reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (RTEC) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.29; revenues rose 5.1% year/year to $61.6 mln vs the $61.38 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.18-0.22, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.25 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $52-56 mln vs. $58.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"In addition, we added a new customer from the top five RF filter manufacturers this third quarter with an inspection tool for advanced BAW filter research and development. We continue to expand our applications in the RF market where our suite of technologies combines to provide customers a comprehensive solution for identifying and isolating faults to improve yield."

4:15 pm : The stock market began the week on a broadly higher note as diminished political uncertainty boosted risk appetite ahead of tomorrow's US presidential race. The Nasdaq Composite (+2.4%) finished slightly ahead of both the S&P 500 (+2.2%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.1%).

The benchmark index avoided a tenth consecutive decline after FBI Director James Comey confirmed that he will not recommend that criminal charges be brought against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Recall that Mr. Comey made waves on October 28 by re-opening the probe into Mrs. Clinton's emails. The move followed the discovery of new emails from the former Secretary of State in an unrelated investigation.

The "October Surprise" fueled a flight from risk assets, feeding into a nine-session losing streak for the S&P 500. This also corresponded with a six-point move in the CBOE Volatility Index (18.73, -3.78, -16.9%) by last Friday's settlement. However, the decline in the broader market remained rather orderly, amounting to only a 1.9% loss over the entire nine session stretch.

Today's buying interest also appeared somewhat methodical as heavily-weighted financials (+2.6%), industrials (+2.5%), health care (+2.4%), and technology (+2.3%) paced the advance. The controlled action likely came with the understanding that the presidential race remains fairly tight. A number of presidential polls indicate that neither candidate holds a meaningful lead beyond the margin of error. Furthermore, congressional contests also bear their own risk for headline volatility as the market appears to favor a divided government outcome.

The S&P 500 (+2.2%) retraced all of its loss going back to October 28. All 11 sectors settled in the green with financials (+2.6%) and industrials (+2.5%) ahead of the pack.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+2.6%) outperformed amid steepening in the yield curve, a rebound in crude oil futures, and positive quarterly results from European banking names. HSBC (HSBC 38.49, +1.46, +3.9%) issued some upbeat quarterly results ahead of today's session. Meanwhile, Dow component Goldman Sachs (GS 181.48, +5.56, +3.2%) finished ahead of the price-weighted average.

In the industrial sector (+2.5%), Rockwell Automation (ROK 124.24, +6.68) gained 5.7% after beating consensus estimates for the quarter and guiding full-year revenue estimates above consensus. Trucking names also led as Cummins (CMI 130.34, +6.03) rose 4.9% after being upgraded to "Buy" from "Hold" at Evercore ISI.

Biotechnology outperformed in the health care sector (+2.4%), evidenced by the 3.8% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 261.17, +9.47). The ETF jumped as it recovered from last week's 3.4% decline. In the group, Biogen (BIIB 295.62, +18.62) spiked 6.7% after being upgraded to "Overweight" from "Neutral" at Piper Jaffray. Meanwhile, Humana (HUM 174.97, +7.49, +4.5%) led managed care names after last week's earning beat.

In the technology sector (+2.3%), Dow components Intel (INTC 34.68, +1.07) and Microsoft (MSFT 60.44, +1.73) gained 3.2% and 3.0%, respectively. Intel finished at the top of the price-weighted average.

Treasuries finished on a lower note as the long end of the curve underperformed. The yield on the 2-yr note finished higher by three basis points (0.82%) while the yield on the 10-yr note ended up five basis points (1.83%).

Today's trading volume was above the average of 861 million as more than 889 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the Consumer Credit report for September:

Total outstanding consumer credit increased by $19.3 billion in September (Briefing.com consensus $17.5 billion) after increasing an upwardly revised $26.8 billion (from $25.9 billion) in August.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for September, which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +5.0% YTD
Dow Jones: +4.8% YTD
S&P 500: +4.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +3.2% YTD

DJ30 +371.32 NASDAQ +119.80 SP500 +46.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2557/1.746 bln/568 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2454/889.7 mln/521

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was +0.7% around the 97.72 level, weighing on precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.6% around the 83.82 level
Crude oil rallied off of 6-week lows hit on Friday, snapped its 6-session loss streak, saw a boost ahead of tomorrow's Presidential election
December crude oil futures rose $0.74 (+1.7%) to $44.82/barrel
The next official OPEC meeting will take place on November 30.
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell.
Weekly EIA storage data will be released Wed at 10:30 am ET.
Monthly IEA data will be released on November 10.
Color on price action in oil:
Oil is seeing a notable boost after clocking in its biggest weekly decline (-10%) since January 2016 last week. Over the weekend, OPEC secretary general Barkindo stated that OPEC is collectively committed to the Algiers Accord.
Another contributing factor boosting oil is tomorrow's presidential election, as polls are forecasting a win for Hilary Clinton. Hilary Clinton is a proponent of clean energy, and a presidential victory for her likely means blns in oil subsidies will be lost, making it less profitable for oil & gas companies to keep pumping (a possible source of relief for the already-oversupplied oil market).
Another factor possibly providing support for oil prices was last night's 5.0 earthquake in Cushing, Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Corp Commission was assessing the pipeline network around the storage complex, reporting no damage for now.
Natural gas ended at session highs ahead of Thursday's scheduled natural gas data
December natural gas closed $0.05 higher (+1.8%) at $2.82/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold & silver ended at session lows on renewed strength in the dollar index
December gold ended today's session down $24.60 (-1.9%) to $1279.90/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.21 lower (-1.1%) at $18.16/oz
Base metal copper inched notably higher, extended Friday's rally, marked the 7th consecutive session of gains (excluding last Tuesday)
December copper closed $0.04 higher (+1.8%) at $2.31/lb

On the eve of the Presidential Election, the markets ended with the three major US indices all near highs, each gaining better than 2%, led by the Nasdaq Composite which gained 119.80 points (+2.37%) to 5166.17. The S&P 500 added 46.34 points (+2.22%) to 2131.52, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 371.32 points (+2.08%) to 18259.60.

Index futures rallied overnight, lifted by news that FBI Director James Comey did not recommend criminal charges against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the recently re-opened email probe. Recall that Mr. Comey caught participants offside on October 28 when he announced that new e-mails from the former Secretary of State surfaced in an unrelated investigation.

Global markets also received a boost overnight from the subsiding angst. However, it is worth noting that US polls continue to forecast a fairly tight presidential race with headline volatility remaining possible. Congressional contests will also be in focus as down ballot results begin to pour in tomorrow evening.

The lone tidbit of economic data out today was the total outstanding consumer credit reading, which increased by $19.3 billion in September after increasing an upwardly revised $26.8 billion (from $25.9 billion) in August.

All 11 S&P sectors were higher today, with the Technology (XLK 47.18, +1.00 +2.17%) sector ending at highs of the day. Component Cognizant Tech (CTSH 54.75, +2.67 +5.13%) was the best performing name today following a strong Q3 result. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLV +2.56%, XLF +2.51%, XLI +2.46%, XLFS +2.34%, XLY +2.31%, XLE +2.21%, XLRE +1.84%, XLU +1.75%, XLP +1.69%, XLB +1.53%, IYZ +0.88% led by the Healthcare and Financial sectors.

Monday ended with the S&P 500 Information Technology (795.85, +18.14 +2.33%) sector posted a strong Monday, but didn't recoup the $800-level after last week's sell-off. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 71.26, +3.69 +5.46%) was the best performer today following some bullish analyst commentary, putting a stop to four straight sessions of losses. Other names in the space which ended higher included STX +5.00%, HPE +4.85%, WDC +4.82%, MU +4.17%, FSLR +3.94%, AMAT +3.93%, SYMC +3.87%, WU +3.72%, ADSK +3.70%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

FLIR Systems (FLIR 32.19, +0.26 +0.81%) completed the acquisition of Point Grey Research. The company anticipates the business and related transaction costs will be about $0.01 dilutive to 2016 EPS and accretive for 2017.

Total System (TSS 49.38, +0.40 +0.82%) disclosed FTC discussions update in 10-Q.

Oracle (ORCL 39.09, +0.81 +2.12%) announced that a majority of the unaffiliated shares of NetSuite (N) were validly tendered and the other conditions to the tender offer have been satisfied. The acquisition of NetSuite will be consummated by Oracle on Monday, November 7, 2016.

CSRA (CSRA 26.34, +0.57 +2.21%) will advise U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) about effective equipment options and efficient deployment methods needed to detect and prevent unlawful travel and trade through a new, single-award contract valued at $45 million over a three-year period.

CA Tech (CA 31.52, +0.84 +2.75%) appointed Kieran McGrath as CFO effective immediately.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

EarthLink (ELNK 5.60, -0.62 -9.97%) and Windstream (WIN 7.23, -0.01 -0.14%) to merge in an all-stock transaction valued at about $1.1 billion.

Live Ventures (LIVN 44.44, -0.35 -0.78%) acquired Vintage Stock in a cash and debt transaction valued at approximately $60 million. The company expects 'significant' accretion from the deal.

Wesco Aircraft (WAIR 13.05, +0.40 +3.16%) announced a multi-year agreement to provide chemical management services with Science Applications (SAIC 70.66, +2.08 +3.03%).

Dialog Semi (DLGNF 38.75, flat) agreed to make a $10 million investment in Energous (WATT 14.65, +1.67 +12.87%) and will become the exclusive component supplier of the WattUp technology.

Cooper (COO 180.22, +4.40 +2.50%) acquired IVF segment of Smiths Medical for $168 million. The company expects the deal to be $0.10 accretive to FY17 earnings.

Datalink (DTLK 11.14, +1.71 +18.13%) to be acquired by Insight Enterprises (NSIT 28.68, +0.52 +1.85%) for $11.25 per share.

Wi-LAN (WILN 1.41, +0.06 +4.44%) acquired portfolio of patents from Panasonic Corporation (PCRFY 9.56, +0.12 +1.27%). Financial details were not disclosed.

China Digital TV (STV 1.17, +0.01 +0.86%) to sell all of its equity interest in Super TV to ChangxingBao LiRuiXin Technology for consideration of RMB 610 million in cash.

Trimble (TRMB 26.79, +0.92 +3.56%) acquired privately-held Building Data based in Rocklin CA. Financial details were not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Cognizant Tech (CTSH) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.86 on in-line revenues which rose 8.4% compared to last year to $3.45 billion. For Q4, the company sees in-line EPS of $0.85-0.86 on worse than expected revenues of $3.45-3.51 billion.

First Data (FDC 14.46, 1.23 +9.30%) reported in-line Q3 EPS of $0.34 on worse than expected revenues of $2.94 billion.

Windstream (WIN 7.23, -0.01 -0.14%) reported a worse than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.72 on in-line revenues which fell 10.2% compared to a year ago to $1.35 billion. The company also reaffirmed their expectations for 2016 of total service revenue of $5.275-5.425 billion and adjusted OIBDAR of $1.90-1.95 billion. Adjusted capital expenditures are expected to be between $800-850 million.

ON Semiconductor (ON 11.46, -0.11 -0.95%) reported in-line Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.24 and $950.9 million, respectively. For Q4, the company sees in-line revenues of $1.19-1.24 billion.

Vishay (VSH 14.00, +0.15 +1.08%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.25 on in-line revenues of $592 million. For Q4, the company sees in-line Q4 revenues of $560-600 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ACXM CNXR CRAY DTLK DMD DTSI FN FICO HCKT SAAS JKHY LSCC MXL MCHP MODN NEWR PCLN RNET RST RTEC SCSC SNCR TCX/SATS IMN LIOX PERI VPG

Analyst actions:

CYBR was upgraded to Outperform from In-Line at Imperial Capital,
HRS was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen,
LITE was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
CGNX was upgraded to Outperform at CLSA;
GPRO was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
XRX was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
HRS was initiated with a Buy at Seaport Global Securities,
VIP was initiated with an Outperform at Credit Suisse

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:03 pm Vivint Solar beats by $0.10, misses on revs (VSLR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.36 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ

Consensus of ($0.46); revenues rose 83.6% year/year to $41.3 mln vs the $43.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

MW Booked of approximately 59 megawatts for the quarter. MW. Installed of approximately 59 MWs.

Total cumulative MWs installed were approximately 634 MWs. Installations were 8,266 for the quarter.
Cumulative installations were 93,138.

4:15 pm : The major averages ended the Tuesday affair on a modestly higher note as participants awaited tonight's conclusion of a contentious US election cycle. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) finished ahead of both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and the S&P 500 (+0.4%).

Equity indices spun their wheels at the start of the session as rising bond prices and a modest loss in the U.S. Dollar Index (97.95, +0.17, +0.17%) signaled caution ahead of this evening's election results. The pause proved to be short-lived, however, as yesterday's risk rally resumed after the opening hour. Growth-sensitive groups and crude oil led the advance during this time, benefiting from some pre-election positioning.

The broader market maintained the positive tone into the afternoon amid speculation that Hillary Clinton would come away victorious despite the recent FBI scare. Recall that yesterday the S&P 500 snapped a nine-session losing streak after FBI Director James Comey confirmed that he will not recommend pursuing criminal charges against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for mishandling of classified information and the use of a private email server. At the same time, market and political pundits suggested that the market also gained on the assumption that the GOP could manage to retain control of one, if not both houses, of Congress. The resulting gridlock would be welcomed by the market while a clean sweep by either party would lead to more uncertainty.

The broader market wavered in the last two hours of action, but the S&P 500 still settled in the top half of today's range. Ten of eleven sectors finished with gains, paced by defensively-oriented utilities (+0.7%) and telecom services (+0.6%). Heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (+0.6%) and industrials (+0.5%) followed.

Travel and leisure names outperformed in the consumer discretionary space (+0.6%) as Priceline Group (PCLN 1578.13, +97.80) rallied 6.6%. The company beat top- and bottom-line estimates for the quarter. Shares of Marriott (MAR 73.02, +1.92, +2.7%) also outperformed after the hotel operator beat consensus estimates for their quarter. However, it is worth noting that the company also issued cautious fourth-quarter earnings guidance.

In the industrial sector (+0.5%), machinery names outperformed with Dow components Caterpillar (CAT 84.68, +0.93) and 3M (MMM 171.03,+ 1.29) gaining 1.7% and 0.8%, respectively. Separately, the Dow Jones Transportation Average (UNCH) finished flat even though UPS (UPS 112.03, +2.23) climbed 2.0%.

Biotechnology finished in-line with the health care sector (+0.2%), evidenced by the 0.2% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 261.62, +0.45). Mylan (MYL 37.11, +0.52) gained 1.4%, shrugging off reports that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to bring antitrust charges against the company.

The commodity-sensitive energy sector (UNCH) inched lower despite rising crude oil futures. WTI crude ended up 0.3% ($44.95/bbl; +$0.13) ahead of this evening's inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute. The Department of Energy will release its more influential inventory data tomorrow morning at 10:30 ET.

Treasuries finished on a lower note as the short end of the curve underperformed. The yield on the 2-yr note finished higher by three basis points (0.85%) while the yield on the 10-yr note also ended up three basis points (1.86%).

Today's trading volume was above the average of 861 million as more than 869 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for September:

The September Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings came in at 5.486 million from a revised 5.453 million (from 5.443 million) in August.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the 10:00 ET release of Wholesale Inventories for September (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).

Russell 2000: +5.5% YTD
Dow Jones: +5.2% YTD
S&P 500: +4.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +3.7% YTD

DJ30 +72.83 NASDAQ +27.32 SP500 +8.01 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1554/1.589 bln/1267 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1665/869.4 mln/1253 3:30 pm :

Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.1% around the 83.78 level
Crude oil closed modestly higher after OPEC raised its global oil demand forecast for next year in this morning's Annual OPEC Oil Market Outlook report
December crude oil futures rose $0.13 (+0.3%) to $44.95/barrel
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
Weekly EIA storage data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
API data will be released today after the bell
Natural gas plummeted, ending at its lowest levels of the session on warmer weather forecasts
December natural gas closed $0.19 lower (-6.7%) at $2.63/MMBtu
Updated weather forecast models showed that high pressure weather systems will dominate over the central & southern U.S. this week, resulting in much warmer than normal conditions, negatively impacting demand for natural gas.
Weekly EIA natural gas data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold reversed its initial morning rally as silver held onto its gains while the dollar index struggled to find direction
December gold ended today's session down $5.30 (-0.4%) to $1274.60/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.19 higher (+1.1%) at $18.35/oz
The gold:silver ratio was at ~69.5, compared to last week's closing ratio of ~69.9
Base metal copper ended pit trading at a fresh 52-week high
December copper closed $0.07 higher (+3.0%) at $2.38/lb


Ahead of tonight's election outcome, the broader market closed higher despite opening weakness. The Nasdaq Composite ended up 27.32 points (+0.53%) to 5193.49. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 72.83 points (+0.40%) to 18332.43, and the S&P 500 gained 8.01 points (+0.38%) to 2139.53.

Equity indices spun their wheels at the start of the session as rising bond prices and a modest loss in the U.S. Dollar Index (97.95, +0.17, +0.17%) signaled caution ahead of this evening's election results. The pause proved to be short-lived, however, as yesterday's risk rally resumed after the opening hour. Growth-sensitive groups and crude oil led the advance during this time, benefiting from some pre-election positioning.

The broader market maintained the positive tone into the afternoon amid speculation that Hillary Clinton would come away victorious despite the recent FBI scare. Recall that yesterday the S&P 500 snapped a nine-session losing streak after FBI Director James Comey confirmed that he will not recommend pursuing criminal charges against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for mishandling of classified information and the use of a private email server. At the same time, market and political pundits suggested that the market also gained on the assumption that the GOP could manage to retain control of one, if not both houses, of Congress. The resulting gridlock would be welcomed by the market while a clean sweep by either party would lead to more uncertainty.

The lone piece of economic data today was the September Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey which showed that job openings increased to 5.486 million from a revised 5.453 million (from 5.443 million) in August.

In the Technology (XLK 47.41, +0.23 +0.49%) space, trading capped off Tuesday with modest gains, slightly below highs of the day. Component CenturyLink (CTL 24.16, +0.83 +3.56%) was the best performer following a premarket upgrade to an Outperform rating at Oppenheimer. All 11 S&P sectors were in the green today, led by the IYZ +1.60%, XLU +0.78%, XLRE +0.62%, XLI +0.60%, XLP +0.44%, XLY +0.41%, XLB +0.32%, XLV +0.28%, XLFS +0.25%, XLE +0.13%, XLF +0.05%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (799.59, +3.74 +0.47%) sector, trading inched closer to the $800-level but closed just shy as action cleared intraday, but edged modestly lower at the close. Components MCHP +2.78%, FB +1.69%, HPQ +1.53%, TDC +1.44%, SYMC +1.27%, GOOGL +1.24%, TXN +1.19%, and NTAP +1.18% all displayed relative strength today on the back of an upbeat broader market.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Texas Instruments (TXN 69.83, +0.82 +1.19%) introduced a new current-sense amplifier for in-line motor phase current measurement that improves overall motor efficiency, compared to existing current-sense amplifiers.

Qualcomm (QCOM 68.27, -0.19 -0.28%) and Preh, GmbH, part of the Joyson Electronics Group announce that they have entered into a Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging license agreement. Preh will include Qualcomm Halo WEVC technology in its product portfolio and will focus on commercializing WEVC systems for Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV) and Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturers. Based on the agreement, Preh intends to develop, make and supply WEVC systems based on Qualcomm Halo technology.

Xerox's (XRX 9.28, -0.03 -0.32%) Board approved its proposed separation into two companies.

Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 77.33, +0.09 +0.12%) launched a suite of new high performance, fully integrated front-end modules targeting the rapidly expanding Internet of Things market including the connected home, industrial automation and energy management, among others.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Microchip Technology (MCHP 63.96, +1.73 +2.78%) released a new generation of 8-bit tinyAVR MCUs. The four new devices range from 14 to 24 pins and 4 KB to 8 KB of Flash and are the first tinyAVR microcontrollers to feature Core Independent Peripherals.

Accenture (ACN 119.81, -0.16 -0.13%) has opened the doors of a new Accenture Delivery Center for Technology in Budapest, Hungary, to deliver technology services to clients powered by the local pool of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) talent. Budapest is the seventh delivery center location for Accenture in Central and Eastern Europe.

Tessera Tech (TSRA 38.25, +0.15 +0.39%) filed a civil action against Broadcom (AVGO 176.98, +0.02 +0.01%).

Broadcom (AVGO) announced a new family of 5A and 3A gate drive optocoupler devices, the Avago ACNU-3430 and ACNU-3410, respectively.

Ingram Micro (IM 38.47, +0.05 +0.13%) announced Microsoft (MSFT 60.46, +0.04 +0.07%) Azure was added in New Zealand to the Ingram Micro Cloud Market.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Synopsys (SNPS 59.22, +0.19 +0.32%) acquired privately held Cigital. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, and it is expected to close December 2016.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, ScanSource's (SCSC 30.00, -4.80 -13.79%) CFO, Charles Mathis, will resign effective November 11, 2016.

Callidus Software (CALD 15.70, +0.25 +1.62%) acquired Datahug Limited for $13 million.

Vivint Solar (VSLR 3.20, +0.30 +10.34%) secured tax equity commitments from three investors, totaling $200 million.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Priceline (PCLN 1578.13, +97.80 +6.61%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $31.18 on revenues which rose 18.9% compared to last year and also beat market expectations to $3.69 billion. For Q4, PCLN sees EPS below market expectations at $12.20-12.80.

Microchip (MCHP) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.94 and $873.8 million, respectively. For Q3, the company sees better than expected EPS of $0.85-0.95 and in-line revenues of $821.4-873.8 million.

Jack Henry (JKHY 83.87, +2.12 +2.59%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.79 and $345 million, respectively.

FICO (FICO 114.82, -2.71 -2.31%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.28 and $235.8 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees EPS of about $4.92 and revenues of $about $925 million.

ScanSource (SCSC) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.51 and in-line revenues which rose 3.6% compared to last year to $887.5 million. For Q1, the company sees EPS and revenues below market expectations at $0.60-0.68 and $875-925 million, respectively.

Model N (MODN 7.70, -2.40 -23.76%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss of $0.11 per share and revenues of $28.5 million. For Q1, the company sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of ($0.18)-($0.16) and $27.2-27.7 million, respectively. For FY17, the company also sees EPS and revenues worse than expected at ($0.73)-($0.70) and $105-107 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report tonight/tomorrow morning: DOX CVG LPSN FENG TRIP VEC VSAT VSLR ZAYO/BITA BR GIB EBIX LMOS MTLS

Analyst actions:

MCHP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
SHEN was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at FBR & Co.,
CTL was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
WIN was upgraded to Outperform at Cowen,
SRT was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Lake Street,
CRAY was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham;
IQNT was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
T was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer,
ELNK was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton,

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:31 pm SolarCity beats by $0.21, beats on revs; sees FY16 installations at low end of range -- vote on acquisition by Tesla is Nov. 17 (SCTY) : Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $2.27 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.21 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($2.48); revenues rose 76.1% year/year to $200.6 mln vs the $164.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We installed 187 MW in the third quarter of 2016, significantly exceeding our guidance of 170 MW. Residential installations were 147 MW, and commercial and industrial ("C&I") installations were 40 MW... With the shareholder votes on Tesla's (TSLA) proposed acquisition of SolarCity scheduled for November 17, we are very excited about the prospects and implications of becoming a part of Tesla. We are heading into the potential combination with a strengthening cash balance, year-to-date revenue up 79% and gross profit up 91% vs. last year, and a growing solar loan/system sale mix improving our GAAP profitability. Building on this momentum and buoyed by our new Solar Loan-and Solar Roof-products, we expect continued improvement in our installation run rates, Cost per Watt, and most importantly our cash generation in the fourth quarter of 2016 and 2017. Based on our fourth quarter run rate, we expect to install ~900 MW for the full year 2016." Down from 900-1000MW.

4:26 pm SunPower beats by $0.24, misses on revs; guides Q4 revs below consensus; sees a significant near term market dislocation; prior 2017 guidance no longer current (SPWR) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) non-GAAP earnings of $0.68 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.24 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.44; GAAP revenue rose 91.8% year/year to $729.35 mln vs the $782.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 GAAP revs of $900 mln to $1.10 bln vs. $1.37 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

During the quarter, the co continued to see strong demand for its SunPower Equinox residential complete solution while further building out its Helix solution footprint in the commercial space. The co also executed on its construction commitments in its power plant segment, including the sale of its 49% ownership stake in its 102-megawatt (:MW) Henrietta project to 8point3 Energy Partners, and launched its third-generation Oasis power plant complete solution.

"While prospects for long term solar industry growth remain strong, we are seeing a significant near term market dislocation in the solar market that we expect will impact our financial performance through 2017....given the current market environment, we have made the decision to implement a companywide cost reduction program, along with other proactive strategic initiatives, to focus on improving cash flow through the current market dislocation while positioning the company to succeed in the next phase of industry growth. We intend to conclude our cost reduction analysis in the near future and will formally announce our restructuring program on December 7, 2016."SPWR will implement the following initiatives:

1) Reduce capacity to lower inventory, improve cash flow and match to profitable demand; 2) Cost reduction programs that are expected to improve margins and reduce 2017 annual operating expenses to approximately $350 mln; 3) Target 2017 capital expenditures of approximately $100 million, a reduction of more than 50%; and 4) Initiatives to improve liquidity with the goal of generating positive cash flow from operations through the end of 2017 and exiting the year with approximately $300 mln in cash.

In light of the circumstances noted above, the company's previously issued 2017 guidance should no longer be considered current. The company expects to issue revised 2017 guidance once its restructuring proposal is finalized and announced in December.

4:16 pm Diodes beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs below consensus (DIOD) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.30 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues rose 20.0% year/year to $250.7 mln vs the $250.54 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $232-248 mln vs. $248.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Expects gross margin to be 32.2 percent, plus or minus 1 percent.

Non-GAAP operating expenses, which are GAAP operating expenses adjusted for retention costs and amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, are expected to be approximately 23.5 percent of revenue, plus or minus 1 percent.

Expects other expense to be approximately $3.9 million, and our income tax rate to be 29 percent, plus or minus 3 percent.

4:12 pm SolarEdge Technologies beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus (SEDG) :

Reports Q1 (Sep) earnings of $0.46 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.45; revenues rose 11.7% year/year to $128.5 mln vs the $132.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

466 Megawatts (AC) of inverters shipped for the quarter

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $110-120 mln vs. $137.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Gross margins to be within the range of 30% to 32%.

4:06 pm Harmonic misses by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (HLIT) :

Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.03; revenues rose 22.1% year/year to $101.7 mln vs the $107.24 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Near record backlog and deferred revenue of $181.1 million.

Bookings for the third quarter of 2016 were $97.3 million, compared with $117.3 million for the second quarter of 2016 and $74.6 million for the third quarter of 2015.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.05-0.07, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.13 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $106-110 mln vs. $116.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Gross margin to be 53.0% to 54.0%.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Wednesday affair on a broadly higher note as participants re-positioned to account for a Donald Trump presidency. Mr. Trump recorded an upset victory against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last evening. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.4%) finished ahead of both the S&P 500 (+1.1%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%).

Global markets endured a volatile overnight session as unexpected results in the US presidential race caught investors offside. Political pundits and recent polling data were proved wrong as Mr. Trump clinched the 270 electoral votes necessary to become the 45th President of the United States. The Republican nominee also helped ensure that the GOP maintained control of both houses of Congress.

The upset victory was largely unexpected, throwing a proverbial wrench in the market's expectations for the election. Index futures initially plunged on the news as rising uncertainty fueled a risk off posture. Futures on the benchmark index initially fell 5.0%, triggering a trading halt.

The broader market was able to stabilize in the early morning as President-elect Trump helped calm investors. Mr. Trump indicated in his acceptance speech that the country must come together after a fractious election and relationships must be forged overseas. The President-elect also underscored that infrastructure spending will play a large role in his administration.

Equity indices showed marked resilience as the group erased marginal losses by mid-morning. Resilience in the broader market continued to stoke risk appetite as investors worked to price-in expectations of aggressive infrastructure spending and responded to a lower likelihood for price controls in the health care space.

The benchmark index ended near its best level of the day as seven sectors finished in positive territory. The heavyweight financial (+4.1%) and health care (+3.4%) sectors led the pack while industrials (+2.4%) and materials (+2.1%) also outperformed. On the other hand, rate-sensitive utilities (-3.7%) and real estate (-2.3%) finished with the largest losses.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+4.1%) outperformed as rapid steepening in the yield curve bolstered the earnings prospects for banking names. The sub-group was also on the rise amid hopes for reduced regulations under a Trump administration. Dow components Goldman Sachs (GS 192.63, +10.71) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 73.25, +3.22) finished higher by 5.9% and 4.6%, respectively.

Biotechnology and pharmaceutical names led in the health care sector (+3.4%) as the groups shrugged off recent concerns regarding potential drug pricing measures. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 284.99, +23.27) ended higher by 8.9% while Dow component Pfizer (PFE 32.12, +2.12, +7.1%) finished at the top of the price-weighted average. On the flipside, managed health care names were under pressure as participants speculated about a potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act by the next administration. Dow component UnitedHealth (UNH 141.90, -1.00) fell 0.7%, rounding out the index.

In the industrial sector (+2.4%), defense and machinery names displayed relative strength as investors expressed some optimism for potential infrastructure projects and defense spending. Lockheed Martin (LMT 253.46, +14.27) and Caterpillar (CAT 91.20, +6.52) rose 6.0% and 7.7%, respectively.

The energy sector gained 1.5% as crude oil snapped a recent losing streak. The energy component rose following a mixed inventory report from the Department of Energy. The EIA reported that crude oil inventories increased by 2.43 million barrels (consensus: +1.33 million) while gasoline stockpiles fell by 2.84 million barrels (consensus: -1.03 million). WTI crude finished higher by 0.6% ($45.20/bbl; +$0.25).

Treasuries finished on a lower note as the long end of the curve underperformed. The yield on the 2-yr note finished higher by three basis points (0.90%) while the yield on the 10-yr note surged 22 basis points (2.08%).

Today's trading volume was above the average of 877 million as more than 1.39 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the Wholesale Inventory Report for September:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications fell 1.2% in the week ending November 5. This followed a 1.2% decline in the prior week.
Wholesale inventories increased 0.1% month-over-month in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) following an upwardly revised 0.1% decline (from -0.2%) in August.
Wholesale sales were up 0.2% on the heels of an unrevised 0.7% increase in August.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the 8:30 ET release of weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 262k) and the 14:00 ET release of the October Treasury Budget.

Russell 2000: +8.2% YTD
Dow Jones: +6.7% YTD
S&P 500: +5.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +4.9% YTD

DJ30 +256.84 NASDAQ +57.58 SP500 +23.67 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2125/2.147 bln/832 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1673/1.390 bln/1339

3:50 pm :

Commodities closed marginally higher despite a strong dollar in reaction to Donald Trump taking the White House while the Republicans maintained control of Congress.
Crude oil closed modestly higher +$0.25 (0.6%) to $45.2/barrel after inventories increased 2.4 million barrels versus last week, slightly more than expected.
Natural gas finished +$0.06 (2.3%)
December natural gas futures
Gold initially surged when Trump took the lead last but December gold futures ended today's session down $1.10 (0.1%) to $1273.5/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.04 higher (+0.2%) at $18.39/oz
December silver futures
Base metals were strong in as Donald Trump is expected to push infrastructure spending: Copper futures rose 3.4% to a new 52 week high while iron ore futures rose almost 6%.


The day after, the broader market closed modestly off highs, albeit with gains of more than +1% aross the board. Leading the post-election charge, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 256.95 points (+1.40%) to 18589.69. The S&P 500 was up by 23.70 points (+1.11%) to 2163.26, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 57.58 points (+1.11%) to 5251.07.

Global markets endured a volatile overnight session as unexpected results in the US presidential race caught investors offside. Political pundits and recent polling data were proved wrong as Mr. Trump clinched the 270 electoral votes necessary to become the 45th President of the United States. The Republican nominee also helped ensure that the GOP maintained control of both houses of Congress.

The upset victory was largely unexpected, throwing a proverbial wrench in the market's expectations for the election. Index futures initially plunged on the news as rising uncertainty fueled a risk off posture. Futures on the benchmark index initially fell 5.0%, triggering a trading halt.

The broader market was able to stabilize in the early morning as President-elect Trump helped calm investors. Mr. Trump indicated in his acceptance speech that the country must come together after a fractious election and relationships must be forged overseas. The President-elect also underscored that infrastructure spending will play a large role in his administration.

Equity indices showed marked resilience as the group erased marginal losses by mid-morning. Resilience in the broader market continued to stoke risk appetite as investors worked to price-in expectations of aggressive infrastructure spending and responded to a lower likelihood for price controls in the health care space.

Market data today included the MBA Mortgage Index which indicated that mortgage applications fell 1.2% in the week ending November 5. This followed a 1.2% decline in the prior week. Also, wholesale inventories increased 0.1% month-over-month in September following an upwardly revised 0.1% decline (from -0.2%) in August.

There was a defined split in S&P sectors, with the Technology (XLK 47.35, -0.06 -0.13%) space ending in the red, but just barely. Component Harris (HRS 101.20, +3.74 +3.84%) was the best performer, while First Solar (FSLR 32.10, -1.39 -4.15%) had the worst session, both on no apparent catalyst. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed out Wednesday XLF +4.25%, XLFS +4.12%, XLV +3.52%, XLI +2.51%, XLB +2.12%, XLE +1.63%, XLY +0.20%, XLP -1.37%, XLRE -2.25%, XLU -3.68%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (797.66, -1.93 -0.24%) sector, trading took a step, albeit a modest step, back away from the $800-level after a strong session yesterday. Component HP (HPQ 15.57, +0.29 +1.90%) was one of the better performing names in the space today after the company announced it would increase its next dividend payout to a rate of $0.1327 per share. Other names in the space which underperformed today included CTSH -3.43%, WU -2.69%, EA -2.52%, ACN -2.17%, ATVI -2.10%, AVGO -2.02%, NVDA -1.69%, AMAT -1.29%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Motorola Solutions (MSI 78.96, +0.40 +0.51%) disclosed the acquisition of Gridstone. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

HP (HPQ) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.1327 per share from $0.124 per share.

Micron (MU 17.20, -0.21 -1.21%) provided written notice to Nanya Technology of its election to issue to it 57,780,138 shares of Micron's common stock for an aggregate purchase price of about $1 billion.

Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 77.66, +0.33 +0.43%) launched its portfolio of cable TV infrastructure solutions targeting DOCSIS 3.1 and EuroDOCSIS 3.1 cable applications.

Texas Instruments (TXN 69.79, -0.04 -0.06%) introduced the industry's first precision nanopower operational amplifiers. The LPV811 and LPV812 consume quiescent current as low as 320 nA and are part of a family of four new ultra-low-power op amps.

LatAm Autos announced LatAm Autos has executed a co-marketing agreement with eBay (EBAY 28.29, +0.26 +0.93%) Mexico to release a new digital auto-classifieds product in Mexico.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

GoPro (GPRO 10.41, -0.45 -4.14%) announced the recall of 2,500 Karma units.

Lumos Networks (LMOS 14.66, +0.51 +3.60%) signed a purchase agreement to acquire Clarity Communications Group expected to close in Q1 of 2017. The agreement is expected to be accretive on an adj. EBITDA basis, but other financial details were not disclosed. LMOS also said to be working with bankers to explore strategic alternatives for its regulated Local Exchange Carrier assets.

GTT Communications (GTT 23.50, +2.30 +10.85%) acquired Hibernia Networks for $590 million which consists of $515 million in cash and about 3.3 million shares of GTT common stock; expected to close in Q1 2017.

Pandora Media (P 10.43, -0.08 -0.76%) said it has initiated a search for a full-time CFO.

Kopin (KOPN 2.02, flat) delayed filing its form 10-Q for period ended Sept 2016 while investigating potential embezzlement.

In reaction to quarterly results:

CGI Group (GIB 50.14, +2.19 +4.57%) reported Q3 EPS of C$0.89 on revenues of C$2.58 billion.

Amdocs (DOX 56.73, -1.62 -2.78%) reported in-line Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.89 and $940.65 million. For Q1, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $0.87-0.93 and $935-975 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees in-line EPS growth of +4.5-8.5% to about $3.73-3.87 and revenue growth of +2-6% to about $3.792-3.941 billion.

TripAdvisor (TRIP 52.63, -10.47 -16.59%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.53 on worse than expected revenues of $421 million. For 2017, the company sees adjusted EBITDA margins lower than the result achieved in 2016.

ViaSat (VSAT 78.45, +7.96 +11.29%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.40 and $399.2 million, respectively.

Convergys (CVG 25.98, -2.40 -8.46%) reported in-line EPS of $0.46 on worse than expected revenues of $741 million.

Vectrus (VEC 20.55, +3.70 +21.96%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.60 on worse than expected revenues of $283.8 million. For FY16, the company sees EPS of $2.12-2.28, from prior $2.07-2.32 on revenues of $1.19-1.20 billion, from $1.18-1.20 billion.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ATTO PMTS CSRA APPS DIOD EGAN EVRI HLIT CALL MRIN MIME NTES PFSW QNST RPD RBCN SREV SCTY SEDG SPWR TTGT TTEC TUBE VRTU WK YUME/BRKS CLFD HIMX MGIC MMS NICE WIX ZBRA

Analyst actions:

FFIV was upgraded to Neutral from Reduce at Nomura,
CHA was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Bernstein;
GPRO was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush, to Sell from Neutral at Dougherty & Company, and to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
VSH was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
SPWR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
MMS was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:28 pm NVIDIA beats by $0.26, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs well above consensus; adds $2 bln to buyback and raises dividend 22% to $0.14/share (NVDA) :

Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.94 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.26 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.68; revenues rose 53.6% year/year to $2 bln vs the $1.69 bln Capital IQ Consensus; non-GAAP gross margin 59.2% vs. 57.5-58.5% guidance

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $2.1 bln vs. $1.69 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; non-GAAP gross margin 58.5-59.5%.

For fiscal 2018, NVIDIA intends to return $1.25 billion to shareholders through ongoing quarterly cash dividends and share repurchases.

The company's board of directors has authorized an additional $2.00 billion under the company's stock repurchase program for a total of $2.96 billion available through the end of December 2020.

The company announced a 22 percent increase in its quarterly cash dividend to $0.14 per share from $0.115 per share, to be paid with its next quarterly cash dividend on December 19, 2016, to all shareholders of record on November 28, 2016.

"We had a breakout quarter - record revenue, record margins and record earnings were driven by strength across all product lines," said Jen-Hsun Huang, founder and chief executive officer, NVIDIA. "Our new Pascal GPUs are fully ramped and enjoying great success in gaming, VR, self-driving cars and datacenter AI computing. "We have invested years of work and billions of dollars to advance deep learning.

Our GPU deep learning platform runs every AI framework, and is available in cloud services from Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Alibaba, and in servers from every OEM. GPU deep learning has sparked a wave of innovations that will usher in the next era of computing."

Announced that its NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 platform will power a new AutoPilot system in all of Tesla Motors' factory produced vehicles - the Model S, Model X and upcoming Model 3.

4:16 pm Ingram Micro announces that the End Date by which its proposed acquisition by Tianjin Tianhai has been extended to December 15; continues to expects closing to occur in 2016 (IM) :

4:14 pm Photronics lowers Q4 EPS and revenue guidance (PLAB) :

Co issues lowered guidance for Q4 (Oct), sees EPS of $0.02-0.03 from $0.09-0.17 vs. $0.13 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; lowers Q4 (Oct) revs to $107 mln from $118-128 mln vs. $123.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We had anticipated weak demand trends for both high end memory and high end FPD, with improvement in high end logic. However, the markets we projected to decline experienced more weakness than we anticipated, and the markets we expected to improve did not do so. With lower sales, earnings fell due to the high amount of operating leverage in our model, particularly for our high end operations. Despite the lower profit levels, we did build our cash position, with net cash reaching over $245 million."

4:05 pm Microsemi beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (MSCC) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.91 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.90; revenues rose 36.9% year/year to $450.1 mln vs the $448.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin for the fourth quarter of 2016 was a record 62.6 percent, up 610 basis points from the 56.5 percent in the fourth quarter of2015 and up 70 basis points from the 61.9 percent reported in the third quarter of 2016.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.82-0.90, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.82 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $428-442 mln vs. $433.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a mixed note as investors continued adjusting their positions in preparation for a Donald Trump presidency. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.2%) notched a new all-time high while the S&P 500 (+0.2%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.8%) finished behind the price-weighted average.

Equity indices jumped out of the gate, looking to build on yesterday's strong performances. The major averages staged an impressive reversal on Wednesday, shrugging off unexpected results from the 2016 election cycle while assessing what a Trump administration may mean for capital markets. The benchmark index notched a high in the opening hour of today's session while the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new all-time high in early afternoon action.

The major indices saw some intraday divergence as investors responded to expectations for reduced regulations, lower personal and corporate taxes, and fiscal stimulus through large infrastructure projects. The combination had heavily-weighted financials (+3.7%), industrials (+2.1%), and health care (+1.2%) at the top of the leaderboard.

The three sectors gained at the expense of the technology space (-1.6%). On that note, Alphabet (GOOG 762.56, -22.75) and Apple (AAPL 107.76, -3.12) fell roughly 2.9% apiece. The tech space underperformed as some participants shifted their exposure to areas that are expected to benefit from large public works projects.

The benchmark index finished the day modestly higher as six sectors logged gains. On the flipside, defensively-oriented consumer staples (-2.8%), utilities (-2.5%), and telecom services (-2.3%) rounded out the board.

The financial sector (+3.7%) displayed relative strength as banking names paced the advance amid growing hopes for reduced regulations. Another day of steepening in the yield curve also contributed to the sector's strength. The Wall Street Journal reported this afternoon that the Trump administration may consider scrapping portions of the Dodd-Frank Act. Dow components JPMorgan Chase (JPM 76.65, +3.40, +4.6%) and Goldman Sachs (GS 200.87, +8.24, +4.3%) finished at the top of the price-weighted average.

In the industrial sector (+2.1%), aerospace and defense names outperformed as United Technologies (UTX 108.41, +3.60) gained 3.4%. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Transportation Average finished higher by 1.9% amid strength in rail names. Union Pacific (UNP 97.49, +3.54) rallied 3.8% amid rising commodity prices and expectations for large-scale infrastructure projects.

Biotechnology names outperformed in the health care space (+1.2%), evidenced by the 1.7% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 289.78, +4.79). The group saw continued buying interest, shrugging off recent concerns regarding potential drug pricing measures. On a related note, Dow component Pfizer (PFE 33.49, +1.37) gained 4.3%.

The Treasury complex finished on a mostly lower note with the long-end of the curve underperforming. The yield on the 2-yr note finished higher by one basis point (0.91%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose eight basis points to 2.14%.

Today's trading volume was above the average of 914 million as more than 1.4 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included weekly initial claims and the Treasury Budget for October:

Initial jobless claims produced a positive surprise as they decreased by 11,000 for the week ending November 5 to 254,000 (Briefing.com consensus 262,000).
Continuing claims for the week ending October 29 increased by 18,000 to 2.041 million.
The Treasury Budget statement for October showed a deficit of $44.2 billion.
The Treasury data is not seasonally adjusted so the October deficit cannot be compared to the $136.6 billion deficit in September.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the initial reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for November (Briefing.com consensus 87.9), which will be released at 10:00 ET. DJ30 +218.19 NASDAQ -42.28 SP500 +4.22 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1786/2.147 bln/1141 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1427/1.403 bln/1628

3:30 pm :

The dollar index tested October 25th highs earlier in the session, was +0.3% around the 98.81 level, weighed on gold futures
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.1% around the 83.84
Crude oil gave up all of yesterday's post-election gains ahead of tomorrow's rig count data
December crude oil futures fell $0.57 (-1.3%) to $44.63/barrel
The next official OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET.
Natural gas added onto its initial morning losses after EIA reported a larger-than-expected build compared to Consensus
December natural gas closed $0.06 lower (-2.2%) at $2.63/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a build of +54 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a build of approximately +53 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 4,017 Bcf as of Friday, November 4, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 47 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 189 Bcf above the five-year average of 3,828 Bcf.
At 4,017 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold extended yesterday's post-election losses on continued strength in the dollar index
December gold ended today's session down $6.90 (-0.5%) to $1266.60/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.35 higher (+1.9%) at $18.74/oz
Base metal copper closed near a 52-week high for the third session in a row
December copper closed $0.09 higher (+3.7%) at $2.55/lb

The markets came to a split close on Thursday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average eclipsed the other two major indices, adding 218.19 points (+1.17%) to 18807.88. The S&P 500 managed slight gains, higher by 4.22 points (+0.20%) to 2167.48, and the Nasdaq Composite shed 42.28 points (-0.81%) to 5208.80. Top Nasdaq 100 components NFLX -5.5%, MDLZ -4.8%, MNST -4.2%, KHC -4.1% and AMZN -3.8% held the index at bay as gains were had in other areas.

Equity indices jumped out of the gate, looking to build on yesterday's strong performances. The major averages staged an impressive reversal on Wednesday, shrugging off unexpected results from the 2016 election cycle while assessing what a Trump administration may mean for capital markets. The benchmark index notched a high in the opening hour of today's session while the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new all-time high in early afternoon action.

Economic data today included the initial jobless claims reading, which produced a positive surprise as they decreased by 11,000 for the week ending November 5 to 254,000. Also, the Treasury Budget statement for October showed a deficit of $44.2 billion.

Among S&P sectors today, the Financials sector (XLF 21.61, +0.77 +3.69%) outperformed and the Technology (XLK 46.59, -0.76 -1.61%) space showed weakness weakness as investors took money out of the tech space, opting instead to invest in more "Trump" favorable areas like defense. Component CSRA (CSRA 29.96, +2.57 +9.38%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues, sending the stock higher. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLF +3.74%, XLFS +3.65%, XLI +2.13%, XLV +1.23%, XLB +1.16%, XLE +0.43%, XLY +0.37%, XLRE -1.50%, IYZ -2.25%, XLU -2.41%, XLP -2.67%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (784.97, -12.70 -1.59%) sector, trading finished off lows,, but firmly below flat lines. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 67.77, -2.19 -3.13%) was weaker ahead of its quarterly print, and component Microsoft (MSFT 58.70, -1.47 -2.44%) saw an equally tepid session after the company's LinkedIn (LNKD 191.00, -0.01 -0.01%) deal was cleared by the South Africa commission, and the stock was upgraded premarket at Atlantic Equities to a Neutral rating. Other names in the space which closed lower today included ATVI -3.61%, ADBE -3.50%, EA -3.34%, AMAT -3.26%, AVGO -3.16%, GOOGL -3.14%, CRM -2.99%, MCHP -2.91%, GOOG -2.90%, AAPL -2.81%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, TubeMogul (TUBE 13.94, +6.27 +81.75%) agreed to be acquired by Adobe (ADBE 104.08, -3.78 -3.50%) for $14 per share in cash, or about $540 million.

Yahoo! (YHOO 40.16, -1.05 -2.55%) provided an update in 10-Q regarding the security incident disclosed in Sep; has incurred expenses related to the Security Incident in Q4.

Xerox (XRX 9.58, +0.07 +0.74%) announced the effectiveness of Conduent Form 10 registration statement; Separation on track to complete on December 31, 2016.

LinkedIn (LNKD) and Microsoft's (MSFT) M&A deal was approved by South Africa commission.

Orange`s (ORAN 14.84, -0.44 -2.88%) mobile wallet app Orange Cash, supported by the German mobile payment expert Wirecard (WRCDF 45.48, -2.16 -4.55%), now supports Apple (AAPL 107.76, -3.12 -2.81%) Pay in France.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 23.07, -0.16 -0.69%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.065 per share from $0.055 per share.

IBM Watson Health (IBM 160.22, +5.41 +3.49%) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard today announced a research initiative aimed at discovering the basis of cancer drug resistance. The five year, $50 million project will study thousands of drug resistant tumors and draw on Watson's computational and machine learning methods to help researchers understand how cancers become resistant to therapies.

GlobalSCAPE (GSB 3.68, +0.04 +1.10%) joined the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Partner Ready for OEM program. The agreement will allow the two companies to work together to provide solutions and resources to address organizations' struggle to manage and secure data at rest or in motion. This includes adding Globalscape's flagship managed file transfer platform Enhanced File TransferTM (EFTTM) to HPE servers, which will be bundled up and sold as a solution.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Twitter (TWTR 18.37, -0.76 -3.97%) announced that Adam Bain will step down as COO and explore opportunities outside the company. Anthony Noto who has served as the Company's Chief Financial Officer since July, 2014, has been named COO. As COO he will continue to manage the live content business, and assume responsibility for Twitter's revenue generating organizations including global advertising sales, data, revenue product, and MoPub, as well as global partnerships and business development, effective immediately. Bain will assist with the transition of the COO role over the coming weeks.

Speculation in midday trade that FitBit (FIT 8.86, +0.31 +3.63%) received an offer from private equity firm ABM Capital took shares higher, but action calmed down in the afternoon after the company released a statement refuting such a proposal.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, QuinStreet (QNST 2.78, -0.59 -17.51%) announced a stock buyback program and corporate resutucturing. As such, the company expects the restructuring will reduce fixed costs by about $17 million annually, including a reduction in personnel costs of about 25%. Also, QNST expects to incur a one-time restructuring charge in the range of $2.5 million to $3.5 million in the December quarter related to the restructuring.

Digital Ally (DGLY 5.15, +0.25 +5.10%) received a contract to provide up to 1,025 FirstVU HD body cameras and related cloud storage services to a non-law enforcement customer.

Remark Media (MARK 4.25, +0.21 +5.33%) entered into a $20 million common stock purchase agreement with Aspire Capital Fund.

TriNet Group (TNET 21.37, +0.64 +3.09%) announced a $50 million incremental increase to its ongoing stock repurchase program.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Netease.com (NTES 228.62, -23.24 -9.23%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $3.42 per ADS on worse than expected revenues which still rose 31.6% to $1.38 billion.

CSRA (CSRA) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.56 and $1.26 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company reaffirmed its EPS and revenue guidance of $1.91-2.04 and $5.00-5.20 billion, respectively.

MAXIMUS (MMS 49.12, +3.91 +8.66%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.77 and $623.09 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees EPS in-line at $2.90-3.10 on worse than expected revenues of $2.475-2.55 billion.

Wix.com (WIX 47.85, +5.25 +12.32%) reported a better than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.04 on better than expected revenues of $75.4 million. For Q4, the company sees better than expected revenues of $81-82 million.

TubeMogul (TUBE) reported a worse than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.34 on better than expected revenues which rose 20.7% compared to last year to $56.08 million. For Q4, the company sees revenues of $66-68 million and for FY16, the company sees revenues of $220-222 million.

Rapid7 (RPD 11.70, -2.53 -17.78%) reported a better than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.13 on better than expected revenues of $40.3 million. For Q4, the company sees EPS of ($0.26)-($0.28) on revenues of $42.2-43.6 million.

CPI Card Group (PMTS 3.70, -1.35 -26.73%) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.11 and $81.2 million, respectively. For FY16, the company now sees EPS of $0.24-0.26 from $0.50-0.53, and revenues of $300-305 million, from $335-345 million.

QuinStreet (QNST) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.01 and %73.43 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees revenue growth of flat to up low single digits.

Companies scheduled to report tonight: ACIA AIRG DTRM LXFT MXPT MSCC NVDA TLND TTD UNXL UPLD

Analyst actions:

PCLN and EXPE were upgraded at Stifel,
IBM was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
MSFT was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at Atlantic Equities;
QCOM was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
VSLR and SEDG were downgraded to Mkt Perform at JMP Securities,
SEDG was downgraded to Mkt Perform at FBR & Co. and to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital,
GIB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Societe Generale,
WK was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
PMTS was downgraded to Sector Underperform from Sector Perform at CIBC,
EGAN was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann,
YUME was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Boenning & Scattergood,
AVID was downgraded to Hold at BWS Financial,
TUBE was downgraded to Neutral at Piper Jaffray;
CTS was initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a higher note as investors continued to adjust their post-election positioning. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%) finished well ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.8%) while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) lagged, but still notched its seventh consecutive gain. The three indices have rallied between 1.7% and 4.3% so far in November.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) began the day under pressure as some mild profit taking developed. Large cap names that make up the price-weighted average have seen a stream of inflows in recent days as speculation mounts regarding increased US fiscal spending. This, in turn, has driven up inflation expectations.

The reflationary trade has boosted sectors more directly linked to the potential implementation of large-scale public works projects -- financials (+0.1%; month-to-date: +12.2%), industrials (+0.3%; month-to-date: +7.3%), and materials (+0.4%; month-to-date: +3.5%) -- while pressuring rate-sensitive groups -- telecom services (+2.1%; month-to-date: -1.2%) and utilities (+1.7%; month-to-date: -5.6%). Today's action, however, saw a bounce for sectors that were oversold on a short term basis.

The bond market also enjoyed a reprieve from short-term oversold conditions. The yield on the 2-yr note finished flat at 1.00% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note declined three basis points to 2.23%. The yield on the 2-yr note is up 15 basis points from October's settlement while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note has gained 40 basis points so far in November. The Treasury complex shrugged off largely upbeat economic data and somewhat hawkish jawboning from Federal Reserve officials.

The energy sector (+2.7%) finished in the lead as crude oil futures rebounded. WTI crude finished the day higher by 5.9% ($45.87/bbl; +$2.57) ahead of this evening's inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute. The Department of Energy will also release weekly stockpile data tomorrow at 10:30 ET.

In the technology sector (+1.3%), large cap tech names rebounded from recent selling interest. Alphabet (GOOG 758.49, +22.41) and Facebook (FB 117.20, +2.12) gained a respective 3.0% and 1.8%. The two have been under pressure in recent days as market leadership shifted away from F.A.N.G. names. Top-weighted Apple (AAPL 107.11, +1.40) added 1.3%, narrowing its post-election loss to 3.6%. Separately, the PHLX Semiconductor Index settled higher by 1.9%.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+0.1%) finished at the bottom of the leaderboard, but still extended its November gain to 12.2%. The sector has been bolstered by the reflationary trade in recent sessions as sharp steepening in the yield curve boosted the group's earnings prospects. Furthermore, speculation has arisen that the sector may face less regulation under President-elect Trump's administration. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 40.20, +0.20) finished higher by 0.5% after beginning the day with a 2.4% loss. The broader sector is up 2.3% so far this week.

Biotechnology pulled back from its recent gain as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 290.91, -2.18) slipped 0.7%. The sub-industry has gained in recent days as investors dial back expectations for drug pricing regulations under a GOP-led Congress and Trump White House. The broader health care sector has gained 4.5% this month, but remains down 2.4% so far in 2016.

Today's trading volume was above the average of 986 million as more than 1.1 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included Retail Sales for October, Import/Export Prices for October, Empire Manufacturing for November, and Business Inventories for September:

Retail sales increased 0.8% in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) on top of an upwardly revised 1.0% increase (from +0.6%) for September.
Excluding autos, retail sales also jumped 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) on top of an upwardly revised 0.7% increase (from +0.5%) for September.
Import prices increased 0.5% in October, but were down 0.1% excluding fuel. Export prices increased 0.2% in October and they were also up 0.2%, excluding agriculture.
October marked the seventh time in the last eight months that import prices have risen. Export price have risen in six of the past seven months.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for November checked in at 1.5 (Briefing.com consensus -0.5) versus -6.8 in October.
Total business inventories increased 0.1% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after increasing 0.2% in August.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the 8:30 ET release of October PPI (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). Meanwhile, October Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.5%) will cross the wires at 9:15 ET. The day's data will be capped off with the November NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 64) and September Net Long-Term TIC Flows, which will be released at 10:00 ET and 16:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000: +14.8% YTD
Dow Jones: +8.6% YTD
S&P 500: +6.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +5.4% YTD

DJ30 +54.37 NASDAQ +57.23 SP500 +16.19 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1738/1.967 bln/1172 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2194/1.061 bln/831

3:30 pm :

The dollar index rallied back near its 11-month highs in the afternoon, not appearing to weigh on precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +1.1% around the 83.28 level
Crude oil surged off of yesterday's 3-week low to close at its highest level of the session ahead of tonight's API, on the heels of OPEC comments
December crude oil futures rose $2.57 (+5.9%) to $45.87/barrel
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil include:
Yesterday afternoon, headlines crossed regarding OPEC comments about looking to close the gap on the divide between Iraq & Iran, although OPEC is still divided over the details of how to implement output cuts, despite a weekend of meetings.
The Saudi Arabian oil Minister Khalid al-Falih also reiterated that it was essential for OPEC to reach a consensus on activating the deal agreed to in September.
News of an attack on an oil pipeline at the Nembe Creek Trunk Line in the Niger Delta provided another source of support for oil prices.
The next official OPEC meeting will be held in Vienna, Austria on November 30, where details of the previously announced Algiers Accord are expected to be ratified
It is worth noting despite the rally, that Libyan oil production has recently doubled to around 600k barrels/day.
Weekly EIA petroleum data will be released Wed at 10:30 am ET.
Natural gas retreated from this morning's fresh 1-week high to end at session lows following yesterday's notable +4.6% rally
December natural gas closed $0.04 lower (-1.5%) at $2.71/MMBtu
The weekly EIA natural gas data will be released at 10:30 am ET on Thursday
In precious metals, gold bounced off of this morning's 6-month low to close near session highs despite continued strength in the dollar index
December gold ended today's session up $2.80 (+0.2%) to $1224.50/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.14 higher (+0.8%) at $17.02/oz
Base metal copper retreated from yesterday's 17-month high, closed lower for the second consecutive session
December copper closed $0.01 lower (-0.4%) at $2.51/lb

4:11 pm Agilent beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q1 below consensus; guides FY17 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (A) :
Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.59 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.52; revenues rose 7.3% year/year to $1.11 bln vs the $1.07 bln Capital IQ Consensus; core revenue growth of 6.3% vs. midpoint guidance of 1.2%.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.48-0.50, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.53 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.04-1.06 bln vs. $1.08 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $2.10-2.16, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $4.35-4.37 bln vs. $4.36 bln Capital IQ Consensus -- based on October 31 exchange rates.

"Key drivers for our better-than-expected quarter were stronger-than-expected growth in pharma and Europe, along with continued strength in China. Looking ahead, we are well positioned to capture market growth with our strong lineup of new offerings recently introduced and in the pipeline for 2017."

On Tuesday, the broader market again looked like it was going to close mixed. In the final hour of trading, however, the Dow Jones Industrial Average popped out of negative territory to end up 54.37 points (+0.29%) to 18923.06. The S&P 500 added 16.19 points (+0.75%) to 2180.39, and the Nasdaq Composite was higher by 57.23 points (+1.10%) to 5275.62. At least part of the strength can be attributed to today's retail sales reading, as Nasdaq 100 names JD +11.4%, EXPE +3.9%, CTRP +3.5%, AMZN +3.4% and AAL +3.1% all outperformed.

Among economica data points today, the retail sales reading increased 0.8% in October on top of an upwardly revised 1.0% increase (from +0.6%) for September. Excluding autos, retail sales also jumped 0.8% on top of an upwardly revised 0.7% increase (from +0.5%) for September. Also, import prices increased 0.5% in October, but were down 0.1% excluding fuel. Export prices increased 0.2% in October and they were also up 0.2%, excluding agriculture. Additionally, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for November checked in at 1.5 versus -6.8 in October. Lastly, total business inventories increased 0.1% in September after increasing 0.2% in August.

The Technology (XLK 46.67, +0.65 +1.41%) sector recouped some of the weakness from the past few sessions as the segment closed near highs. Component Alphabet (GOOG 758.49, +22.41 +3.04%) was one of the better perfomers today as the company was the subject of a BBC article suggesting it could hire nearly 3,000 employees to service the new London headquarters. Other sectors as measured by the S&P finished Tuesday XLE +2.88%, XLFS +2.19%, XLU +1.61%, XLP +0.65%, IYZ +0.52%, XLB +0.41%, XLI +0.38%, XLY +0.35%, XLV +0.28%, XLF -0.09%, XLRE -0.66% as Energy and Utilities bucked higher and Financials cooled off the recent advance.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (785.35, +10.16 +1.31%) sector, trading cooled off a bit toward the middle of the session but ended on a higher note. Component Intel (INTC 34.91, +0.43 +1.25%) also turned in a strong Tuesday showing following the company's announcement of a $250 million investment into autonomous driving. Other names in the space which closed higher today included KLAC +3.01%, CTXS +3.00%, QRVO +2.96%, SWKS +2.94%, GOOGL +2.91%, LRCX +2.65%, ADI +2.63%, MCHP +2.61%, YHOO +2.32%, GPN +2.22%, MU +2.20%, ADSK +2.18%, EBAY +2.15%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
According to a BBC article, Alphabet (GOOG) could hire up to 3,000 new employees for Google's new London headquarters.

Intel (INTC) announced a $250 million investment for autonomous driving.
According to Bloomberg, Symantec (SYMC 24.22, -0.41 -1.66%) said to be considering a potential acquisition of LifeLock (LOCK 20.51, +0.1 +4.11%).

Fidelity Nat'l Info's (FIS 74.74, -0.45 -0.60%) Chief Accounting Officer, Michael Nussbaum, resigned to pursue other opportunities.

HP Inc. (HPQ 15.87, -0.23 -1.43%) unveiled the world's first mini workstation designed for users in CAD and other compute-intensive industries.

NVIDIA (NVDA 86.19, +2.55 +3.05%) announced a collaboration with Microsoft (MSFT 58.87, +1.14 +1.97%) to accelerate AI in the enterprise. Using the first purpose-built enterprise AI framework optimized to run on NVIDIA Tesla GPUs in Microsoft Azure or on-premises, enterprises now have an AI platform that spans from their data center to Microsoft's cloud.

Accenture (ACN 115.99, -1.26 -1.07%) expanded its strategic alliance with RichRelevance to strengthen the capabilities of Accenture Interactive and boost the personalization services it delivers to global clients. As part of the expanded relationship, Accenture Ventures has made a minority investment in RichRelevance.

Supermicro (SMCI 25.70, flat) and IBM (IBM 158.67, +0.46 +0.29%) have extended their multi-faceted long-term technology relationship. Supermicro has joined the OpenPOWER Foundation, an open development community that leverages the IBM POWER architecture.

Qualcomm (QCOM 66.77, +0.84 +1.27%) through its subsidiary, Qualcomm Wireless Communication Technologies (China) Limited, announced a strategic relationship with the Interactive Entertainment Group

(IEG) of Tencent (TCEHY 25.25, +0.67 +2.73%), to identify and create leading immersive mobile user experiences in gaming and entertainment. The collaboration includes a joint innovation center designed to explore new user gaming and application experience in the future by utilizing the strengths of both parties.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Viacom (VIAB 38.61, -0.25 -0.64%) to acquire Televisin Federal S.A. from Telefnica S.A. (TEF 8.67, +0.11 +1.37%) for $345 million.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Alarm.com (ALRM 27.90, -4.47 -13.81%) named Steve Valenzuela as new CFO effective November 15.

8point3 Energy Partners (CAFD 13.09, flat) to acquire 34% stake in 300-mw stateline solar project for $329.5 million.

Expedia's (EXPE 123.54, +4.64 +3.90%) Trivago filed a registration statement relating to a proposed initial public offering of American depositary shares representing Class A shares of its affiliate, travel B.V.

Nintendo (NTDOY 28.78, +0.36 +1.27%) said its Super Mario Run iOS game will go on sale for iPhone and iPad on December 15 for $9.99.

Telephone & Data (TDS 25.56, -0.01 -0.04%) subsidiary acquired InterLinx Communications. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Mobileye N.V. (MBLY 39.65, -0.12 -0.30%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.19 on revenues which also came in ahead of expectations at $94.9 million. For FY16, the company sees EPS of $0.71 on revenues near the high end of $344-350 million.

Zebra Tech (ZBRA 75.46, +8.65 +12.95%) reported better than expected Q3 adjusted EPS of $1.43 on revenues which fell 1.3% compared to last year to $904 million. For Q4, the company sees EPS in-line at $1.65-1.85 on worse than expected revenues of about $915-944.5 million.

Diebold (DBD 23.05, -1.75 -7.06%) reported in-line EPS of $0.34 on worse than expected revenues of $983.3 million. For Q4, the company sees worse than expected EPS of $0.27-0.34 on worse than expected revenues of about $1.3 billion.

Alarm.com (ALRM) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.19 and $67.8 million, respectively. For FY16, the company sees EPS of $0.58-0.59 and revenues of $254-256.3 million.

Stratasys (SSYS 17.95, -2.55 -12.44%) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS of net breakeven and worse than expected revenues of $157.18 million. For FY16, the company lowered EPS and revenue guidance to $0.13-0.21 from $0.17-0.43 and $66-673 million from $700-730 million, respectively.

Sphere 3D (ANY 0.59, -0.08 -12.10%) reported a better than expected Q3 EPS loss of $0.08 on worse than expected revenues of $18.5 million.

Companies scheduled to report tonight/tomorrow morning: A, YRD/JKS

Analyst actions:

FTNT was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
GPN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Compass Point,
CRM was upgraded to Positive from Mixed at OTR Global;
NOK was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
CACI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Noble Financial,
UCTT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research,
MMS was downgraded to Neutral at Sidoti,
SSYS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
HAR was downgraded to Neutral Weight from Overweight at Barclays,
PLUS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti;
CUDA and PFPT were initiated with an Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
SEDG was initiated with a Sell at Craig Hallum,
TEAM was initiated with a Sector Weight at Pacific Crest

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From Briefing.com: 5:13 pm TerraForm Power (TERP) and TerraForm Global (GLBL) announce extensions until March 2017 to regain Nasdaq compliance (TERP) :

TERP: Based on discussions with the Panel's staff, the extension granted by the Panel also covers the non-compliance by the Company with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5250(c)(1) caused by the failure of the Company to timely file its Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2016, of which the Company was formally notified by a letter from a Senior Director of Nasdaq Listing Qualifications on November 15, 2016.

GLBL: Based on discussions with the Panel's staff, the extension granted by the Panel also covers the non-compliance by the Company with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5250(c)(1) caused by the failure of the Company to timely file its Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2016, of which the Company was formally notified by a letter from a Senior Director of Nasdaq Listing Qualifications on November 15, 2016.

4:36 pm Semtech amends and restates existing $400 mln credit facility (SMTC) : Co has executed a new credit agreement consisting of a senior secured Term A loan facility in the principal amount of $150 million and a senior secured revolving credit facility in the principal amount of $250 million. Fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017 GAAP net income is expected to be impacted by approximately $0.7 million in non-cash costs associated with the amendment of the existing credit agreement.

4:32 pm Vishay Intertechnology COO Dieter Wunderlich to retire effective December 31, 2016; co will not replace the COO role (VSH) :

4:13 pm First Solar: Shares Halted; Raises 2016 EPS guidance; Initiates 2017 EPS, Revenue, and Shipment Guidance below expectations; Shares resume trading at 4:35pm (FSLR) :

2016

Net Sales unchanged at $2.8-2.9 blnGross Margin unchanged at 25.5-26.0%Operating Expenses unchangedOperating Income unchangedEPS raises to $4.60-4.80 (From $4.30-4.50)Net Cash balance unchanged
Operating Cash Flow unchanged
CapEx unchangedShipments unchanged

2017

Net Sales in the range of $2.5-2.6 bln , Capital IQ consensus $2.966 blnGross Margins between 12.4-14.5%Operating Expense Non-GAAP $280-300 mlnOperating Income Non-GAAP $40-80 mlnNon-GAAP EPS $0.00-0.50, Capital IQ consensus $1.91Net Cash Balance $1.4-1.6 blnOperating Cash Flow $550-650 mlnCapEx $525-625 mlnShipments 2.4-2.6 GW (Street Expectations were for approx 3.0 GW)

Co announced an acceleration of Series 6 production into 2018, with approximately 3 Gigawatts of production expected in 2019. Over the course of 2017 and 2018 the Company's existing production facilities will be converted to Series 6 production and the current Series 4 product will be phased out. As a result of the change in roadmap the Company will cancel its Series 5 product.

The Company will reduce its workforce at its manufacturing facilities both domestically and internationally as a result of the transition from Series 4 to Series 6 production. Additional reductions in administrative and other staff are also planned. Resulting from the transition to Series 6 from Series 4 and other competitive factors, the Company expects to incur restructuring and asset impairment charges of $500 to $700 million, which includes a cash impact of $70 to $100 million.

These actions, combined with additional reductions in administrative and other staff, are expected to reduce First Solar's workforce by approximately 1,600 associates, or 27% of its approximately 6,000 global total.4:11 pm Cisco Systems beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS and revenue below consensus (CSCO) :

Reports Q1 (Oct) adj. earnings of $0.61 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.59; revenues fell 2.6% year/year to $12.35 bln vs the $12.33 bln Capital IQ Consensus, up 1% normalized to exclude the SO Video SPE business, with product revenue down 1% and service revenue up 7%.

Revenue by geographic segment was: Americas down 1%, EMEA flat, and APJC up 6%.
Product revenue performance was led by Security and NGN Routing which increased 11% and 6%, respectively. Switching decreased 7%, Collaboration and Data Center each decreased 3%, and Wireless and Service Provider Video each decreased 2%.

Deferred Revenue -- was $17.0 billion, up 12% in total, with deferred product revenue up 19%, driven largely by subscription-based and software offerings. Deferred service revenue was up 8%. The portion of product deferred revenue related to recurring and subscription businesses grew 48%.

Non-GAAP total gross margin and product gross margin were 65.2% and 64.8%, respectively. The increase in non-GAAP product gross margin compared with 64.5% in the first quarter of fiscal 2016 was primarily due to continued productivity improvements, partially offset by pricing and to a lesser extent product mix.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of ~$0.55-0.57, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.59

Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs down 2-4% to ~$11.27-11.51 bln vs. $12.15 bln Capital IQ Consensus; adj. gross margin 63-64%.

"We had a good quarter despite a challenging global business environment and we performed well in our priority areas... We executed well in Q1 delivering profitable growth, and saw strong adoption of our subscription-based and software offerings as we transition our business to a more recurring revenue model."

4:09 pm Applied Materials thin-film deposition equipment has been selected by Chinese semiconductor display product manufacturer BOE Technology for use in the Gen 10.5 TFT-LCD production line to accelerate production of large LCD TVs (AMAT) :

4:04 pm NetApp beats by $0.06, misses slightly on revs; guides Q3 (Jan) EPS in-line, revs in-line (NTAP) :

Reports Q2 (Oct) adj earnings of $0.60 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revs -7% YoY to $1.34 bln vs $1.35 bln Capital IQ consensus

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3 (Jan), sees EPS of 0.72-0.77 vs. $0.65 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 (Jan) revs of 1.325-1.475 bln vs. $1.36 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Our second quarter results are evidence of our ability to maintain a high level of execution while streamlining the business and pivoting to the growth areas of the market."

4:10 pm : The major averages ended the midweek affair on a mixed note as investors continued to fine-tune their post-election positioning. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) finished ahead of the S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%). The three indices are now up between 2.0% and 4.0% in November.

Equity indices diverged at the start of the session as profit-taking activity weighed on the post-election landscape. Investors continued to book profits on their reflationary trades, leading to pull backs in financials (-1.4%; month-to-date: +10.7%), industrials (-0.7%; month-to-date: +6.6%), and materials (-0.1%; month-to-date: +3.4%).

In addition, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.9%; month-to-date: -1.0%) rebounded after last week's underperformance, which occurred as investors left sector mainstays in favor of stocks better positioned for large-scale public works projects.

The S&P 500 (-0.2%) finished modestly lower with eight groups losing ground. The financial (-1.4%) sector rounded out the board while telecom services (+1.0%), technology (+0.9%), and consumer discretionary (+0.5%) outperformed.

Banking names continued to underperform in the financial sector (-1.4%) as Dow component JPMorgan Chase (JPM 77.40, -1.96) fell 2.5%. Banks rallied in the immediate aftermath of the election as a steepening yield curve boosted earnings prospects for the group. There has also been a fair amount of speculation regarding the Trump Administration reducing regulations for the industry. JPMorgan Chase remains up 11.8% so far this month.

The energy space (-0.9%) slid amid a downtick in crude oil futures. WTI crude fell 0.7% ($45.56/bbl; -$0.31) after the Department of Energy released a bearish inventory report. The EIA reported that crude oil inventories increased by 5.27 million barrels (consensus: +1.48 million) while gasoline stockpiles rose by 0.74 million barrels (consensus: -0.41 million). However, losses were held in check by some positive jawboning from Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.7%) also saw some profit taking as rail names narrowed their recent gains. Union Pacific (UNP 98.01, -1.10) finished lower by 1.1%, narrowing its month-to-date gain to 11.2%. In the broader industrial sector (-0.7%), Lockheed Martin (LMT 263.35, -2.58, -1.0%) trimmed its November gain to 6.8%.

In the consumer discretionary space (+0.5%), shares of discount retailer Target (TGT 76.03, +4.59) rallied 6.4% after the company reported a bottom-line quarterly beat and issued better-than-expected comparable sales guidance for the fourth quarter. Separately, Dow component Disney (DIS 99.12, +1.41) rose 1.4% after being upgraded to "Buy" from "Hold" at Deutsche Bank.

The Treasury complex finished on a modestly higher note while the 30-yr bond outperformed, recovering early losses after a lukewarm inflation reading. The October Producer Price Index (PPI) came in flat while the index for final demand, less food and energy, fell 0.2%. The headline index is up 0.8% year-over-year while the core reading checks in at 1.2% year-over-year. Despite today's four-basis point decline, the 30-yr yield (2.92%) is up 34 basis points so far in November. For its part, the 10-yr yield ended unchanged at 2.22%.

Today's trading volume was below the average of 924 million as fewer than 869 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, October PPI, October Industrial Production/Capacity Utilization, and the November NAHB Housing Market Index:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications fell 9.2% in the week ending November 12. This followed a 1.2% decline in the prior week.
The Producer Price Index for October was unchanged (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) while the index for final demand, less food and energy, was down 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).
Industrial production was unchanged in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after declining a downwardly revised 0.2% (from +0.1%) in September.
The capacity utilization rate slipped to 75.3% (Briefing.com consensus 75.5%) from an unrevised 75.4% in September.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for November came in at 63 from an unrevised 63 in October. The Briefing.com consensus expected the reading to come in at 64.0.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the 8:30 ET release of CPI for October (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), October Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1178k) and Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1200k), weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 257k), and the Philadelphia Fed Survey for November (Briefing.com consensus 7.0). On a separate note, Fed Chair Janet Yellen is scheduled to testify before the Joint Economic Committee tomorrow at 10:00 ET. This will be Chair Yellen's first opportunity to address monetary policy since the election.

Russell 2000: +14.6% YTD
Dow Jones: +8.3% YTD
S&P 500: +6.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +5.7% YTD

DJ30 -54.92 NASDAQ +18.96 SP500 -3.45 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1515/1.855 bln/1355 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1575/868.5 mln/1414

3:30 pm :

The dollar index was +0.2% around the 100.38 level, near a 14-year high, weighed on precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index,
Crude oil futures gave back post-EIA gains to end at initial morning lows as the Nov 30 OPEC meeting approaches
December crude oil futures fell $0.31 (-0.7%) to $45.56/barrel
The next OPEC meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +5.274 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of +1.48 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +0.746 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -0.42 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a build of +0.310 mln barrels
Natural gas erased Friday's losses to close near its highest levels of the session ahead of tomorrow's inventory data
December natural gas closed $0.06 higher (+2.2%) at $2.77/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas storage data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Factors affecting the price of natural gas include:
Updated forecasts showed cold weather pushing into the western U.S. later this weekend, expected to track toward the eastern U.S. next weekend, bringing rain, snow, and cooler than normal temps. This colder weather is expected to result in increased demand for natural gas.
This compares to last week's weather forecast models which showed that high pressure weather systems will dominate over the central & southern U.S, resulting in much warmer than normal conditions & negatively impacting demand for natural gas.
In precious metals, silver closed at its lowest level since June on continued dollar index strength as the dollar index sat near a 14-year high
December gold ended today's session down $0.90 (-0.1%) to $1223.60/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.10 lower (-0.6%) at $16.92/oz
Base metal copper extended yesterday's losses after showing gains for 15 out of the last 16 trading days
December copper closed $0.04 lower (-1.6%) at $2.47/lb

The broader market closed split on Wednesday, leaving only the Nasdaq Composite in the green when the bell rang -- up 18.96 points (+0.36%) to 5294.58. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the worst performer, down 54.92 points (-0.29%) to 18868.14, and the S&P 500 fell in the middle of the two, lower by 3.45 points (-0.16%) to 2176.94. Top Nasdaq 100 components SBAC +2.3%, ALXN +1.8%, DLTR +1.7%, SBUX +1.6% and KHC +1.6% aided in the broader index's advance.

Equity indices diverged at the start of the session as profit-taking activity weighed on the post-election landscape. Investors continued to book profits on their reflationary trades, leading to pull backs in financials (-1.4%; month-to-date: +10.7%), industrials (-0.7%; month-to-date: +6.6%), and materials (-0.1%; month-to-date: +3.4%).

Banking names continued to underperform in the financial sector (-1.4%) as Dow component JPMorgan Chase (JPM 77.40, -1.96) fell 2.5%. Banks rallied in the immediate aftermath of the election as a steepening yield curve boosted earnings prospects for the group. There has also been a fair amount of speculation regarding the Trump Administration reducing regulations for the industry. JPMorgan Chase remains up 11.8% so far this month.

The energy space (-0.9%) slid amid a downtick in crude oil futures. WTI crude fell 0.7% ($45.56/bbl; -$0.31) after the Department of Energy released a bearish inventory report. The EIA reported that crude oil inventories increased by 5.27 million barrels while gasoline stockpiles rose by 0.74 million barrels. However, losses were held in check by some positive jawboning from Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak.

The Treasury complex finished on a modestly higher note while the 30-yr bond outperformed, recovering early losses after a lukewarm inflation reading. The October Producer Price Index (PPI) came in flat while the index for final demand, less food and energy, fell 0.2%. The headline index is up 0.8% year-over-year while the core reading checks in at 1.2% year-over-year. Despite today's four-basis point decline, the 30-yr yield (2.92%) is up 34 basis points so far in November. For its part, the 10-yr yield ended unchanged at 2.22%.

Among the few sectors which turned in positive sessions today, the Technology (XLK 47.10, +0.43 +0.92%) sector ended near highs. Component Visa (V 80.08, +1.67 +2.14%) was a strong gainer today as the company disclosed that the FTC is conducting an investigation into the company's EMV chips. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Wednesday XLFS +2.19%, XLY +0.55%, IYZ +0.29%, XLP +0.02%, XLRE -0.07%, XLB -0.19%, XLV -0.54%, XLI -0.57%, XLU -0.68%, XLE -0.70%, XLF -1.44%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (792.60, +7.25 +0.92%) sector, trading also closed near highs, pulled into the green by components like NVDA +6.31%, ADSK +3.22%, GPN +2.78%, AAPL +2.74%, RHT +2.38%, CTSH +2.16%, YHOO +1.91%, FISV +1.64%, EA +1.56%, MA +1.48%, TSS +1.44%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Visa (V) disclosed in 10-K that the FTC is conducting an investigation into whether Visa's requirements for EMV chip inhibit merchant routing choice for debit card transactions.

Accenture (ACN 117.32, +1.33 +1.15%) announced plans with SAP SE (SAP) to accelerate the development of solutions, based on a digital customer engagement platform, for utility companies to engage with customers through virtually any channel, improving customer operations efficiency.
ACN also entered into a strategic relationship with Partech Ventures, a leading venture capitalist firm headquartered in Paris, France, with offices in Berlin, Germany and San Francisco, California. Under the agreement, Accenture will invest in two Partech funds and join its Advisory Committee, gaining early access to relevant startups and the opportunity to co-invest in early-stage companies. Financial details were not disclosed.

Also, Iren Mercato, the Italian energy utility, has collaborated with ACN to launch one of the first connected home services for customers in Italy.

Facebook (FB 116.34, -0.86 -0.73%) issued updates on metrics and reporting after discovering some miscalculated metrics.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Square (SQ 12.04, +0.01 +0.08%) confirmed CEO Jack Dorsey entered into stock trading plan to sell shares of Square over course of the next twelve months.

Verint Systems (VRNT 37.40, +0.10 +0.27%) acquired OpinionLab. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ViaSat (VSAT 73.55, -7.24 -8.96%) commenced an underwritten public offering of 6,500,000 shares of its common stock.

Digital Ally (DGLY 5.10, -0.40 -7.27%) reduced exercise prices of 2015 Warrants to $5.00 per share during the period from November 16-November 30.

Littelfuse (LFUS 150.83, -1.82 -1.19%) announced that Chairman and CEO Gordon Hunter will transition to the role of Executive Chairman, effective Jan 1, 2017. LFUS COO Dave Heinzmann was therefore promoted to CEO.

Netsol's (NTWK 5.60, +0.35 +6.67%) Board approved a stock repurchase program that authorizes repurchases of up to 500k shares of common stock over the next six months.

Cohu (COHU 11.82, -0.16 -1.34%) acquired Kita Manufacturing for $15 million.

Model N (MODN 8.70, flat) announced that Founder and Executive Chairman Zack Rinat will reassume the role of CEO on an interim basis, effective immediately.

CDK Global (CDK 57.32, +1.29 +2.30%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.14 per share from $0.135 per share.

Callidus Software's (CALD 16.47, -0.32 -1.93%) CFO Bob Corey to retire.

In reaction to quarterly results:

JinkoSolar Holding (JKS 14.63, +0.88 +6.40%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.40 and $855.3 million, respectively.

Agilent (A 46.18, +0.78 +1.72%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.59 and $1.11 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of $0.48-0.50 and $1.04-1.06 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company guided EPS below market expectations at $2.10-2.16 and in-line revenues of $4.35-4.37 billion.

Yirendai (YRD 29.00, -1.30 -4.29%) reported Q3 EPS of $0.85 on revenues of $131.5 million. The company also raised its FY16 outlook for revenues to $462-468 million from $451-466 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: CSCO, NTAP/JASO, LQDT

Analyst actions:

FIT was upgraded to Sector Weight from Underweight at Pacific Crest;
LVLT was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays,
SCTY, JASO, YGE, TSL were downgraded to Sell at Axiom,
NOK was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital,
ROG was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti,
VSAT was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie;
CACI and OSIS were initiated with Buy ratings at Drexel Hamilton,
MANT was initiated with a Hold at Drexel Hamilton,
GUID was initiated with a Buy at Roth Capital

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From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm ON Semiconductor to redeem all remaining outstanding 2.625% Convertible Senior Subordinated Notes due 2026, Series B amounting to $356.93 mln (ON) : ON Semiconductor expects to fund the payment of this redemption using available liquidity.

4:21 pm Nuance Communications beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q1 below consensus; guides FY17 EPS just below consensus, revs in-line; CEO Paul Ricci will retire after FY1H18 (NUAN) :

Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.41 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.39; revenues fell 0.2% year/year to $512.4 mln vs the $505.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We delivered record net new bookings in Q4 16 of $516.9 million, resulting in 42% sequential and 45% year over year growth, exceeding our expectations for the quarter. This growth was broadbased across our businesses, especially in Healthcare and Mobile. In particular, we saw a significant increase in multi-year Dragon Medical cloud bookings."

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.32-0.35, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.40 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $483-497 mln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $505.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $1.53-1.63, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.64 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $2.02-2.07 bln vs. $2.04 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co expect organic revenue growth in FY17 of ~1%, representing a 300 basis point improvement over FY16's organic growth rate. This is consistent with guidance communicated previously of a 100 to 200 basis point improvement in organic growth rate in FY17 and an incremental 100 basis points of organic revenue growth from TouchCommerce. Net new bookings +2-6%.

Board of Directors has extended Nuance Chairman and CEO Paul Ricci's employment agreement through the first half of fiscal 2018. Mr. Ricci has advised the Board that he intends to retire at the end of this term. The Board of Directors will undertake a search process to choose Mr. Ricci's successor during the term.
Nuance also announced that Bill Robbins, executive vice president, Worldwide Sales, will be leaving the company for another role and as part of a planned transition of sales responsibilities into Nuance's four business divisions.

4:14 pm Marvell beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q4 ex-discontinued operations; announces $1 bln buyback (MRVL) :

Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.12; revenues -3% year/year to $654 mln vs the $615.76 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4 ex-the estimated results of certain non-strategic businesses that have a first half of fiscal 2017 annualized run rate of ~$100 million in revenue and $60 million in operating expenses (discontinued operations following Nov 2 restructuring announcement -- sees adj. EPS of $0.17-0.21, may not be comparable to $0.13 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q4 revs of $553.7-576.3 mln, may not be comparable to $594.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Marvell's fourth quarter of fiscal 2017 financial outlook also excludes These businesses will be classified as discontinued operations beginning in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017.
"Our core businesses performed very well, with data storage and network infrastructure growing double digits year-over-year."

The Board of Directors has authorized a $1 billion share buyback program. This newly authorized stock repurchase program replaces in its entirety the prior $3.25 billion stock repurchase program, which had ~$115 million of repurchase authority remaining. The Company currently intends to repurchase approximately $500 million worth of shares over the next 12 months.

4:06 pm Applied Materials beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; backlog -7% from prior quarter, guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (AMAT) :

Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.66 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.65; revenues rose 39.2% year/year to $3.3 bln vs the $3.31 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Applied's backlog decreased 7% from the prior quarter to $4.58 billion and included negative adjustments of $106 mln, primarily due to changes in expected timing of shipments and other adjustments, partially offset by favorable foreign currency impacts.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.62-0.70 vs. $0.58 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $3.20-3.34 bln vs. $3.12 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"As we look to 2017 and beyond, we see sustainable growth as new demand drivers layer on top of our traditional end markets in computing, mobility and consumer electronics," said Bob Halliday, Senior Vice President and CFO. "The industries we serve are bigger and more attractive, our opportunity set is larger, our customer relationships are stronger, and we're excited about our new product pipeline."

4:00 pm Intel confirms cloud alliance with Alphabet's (GOOG) Google (INTC) : The collaboration includes technology integrations focused on Kubernetes (containers), machine learning, security and IoT.

4:10 pm : The stock market ended the Thursday affair on a modestly higher note as investors assessed the latest battery of economic data. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) finished ahead of both the S&P 500 (+0.5%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%).

Participants expanded their bets on an improving economy as increased inflation concerns had investors rotating out of the bond market in favor of more growth-oriented positions.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) in October while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, ticked up by 0.1% (Briefing. com consensus +0.2%). The data showed a firming inflation trend with the headline index rising to 1.6% year-over-year. Meanwhile, the core reading is up 2.1% year-over-year.

The latest housing data also helped pro-growth positioning as housing starts rose to an annualized rate of 1.323 million (Briefing.com consensus 1178k) in October. This will figure positively into fourth quarter GDP estimates and also marks the strongest reading since 2007. Building permits increased 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.229 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.200 million).

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen highlighted recent economic growth when she stated that economic data since the November Fed meeting has been consistent with expectations. Chair Yellen also indicated that a policy rate increase may be appropriate relatively soon. According to the CME's FedWatch Tool, the implied probability of a December interest rate hike registers at 90.6%, unchanged from yesterday.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.7%; month-to-date: +2.8%) outperformed, narrowing this month's performance gap. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%; month-to-date: +4.2%) and S&P 500 (+0.5%; month-to-date: +2.9%) ended closer to their flat lines. The modest advance in the benchmark index was underpinned by gains in six sectors.

The heavily-weighted financial (+1.3%), consumer discretionary (+1.2%), and technology (+0.7%) sectors led while real estate (-0.9%) and energy (-0.7%) underperformed.

The economically-sensitive financial sector (+1.3%) outperformed amid rising market rates and positive economic data. Banking names led the advance as steepening in the yield curve improved the industry's earnings potential. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 40.17, +0.53) finished higher by 1.3%. Separately, Dow component JPMorgan Chase (JPM 78.02, +0.62, +0.8%) ended behind its peers after settling a hiring probe for approximately $265 million.

In the consumer discretionary space (+1.2%), homebuilders outperformed on the heels of the better-than-expected housing data. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.34, +0.57) rallied 2.1%. Meanwhile, electronics retailer Best Buy (BBY 45.99, +5.54) spiked 13.7% after topping consensus estimates for the quarter and issuing upbeat guidance for the fourth quarter.

The technology sector (+0.7%) continued playing catch up with the broader market. Dow component Microsoft (MSFT 60.64, +0.99) outperformed after an upgrade to "Buy" from "Neutral" at Goldman. Conversely, shares of Cisco Systems (CSCO 30.05, -1.52) fell 4.8% after the company issued some cautious guidance. The tech giant did, however, beat bottom-line estimates for the quarter.

The energy sector (-0.7%) ended on a lower note as crude oil surrendered an intraday gain, sliding into negative territory. WTI crude settled down 1.1% ($45.38/bbl; -$0.19).

The Treasury complex finished on a lower note with the long-end of the curve underperforming. The yield on the 2-yr note finished higher by two basis points (1.03%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note rose six basis points to 2.29%.

Today's trading volume was below the average of 895 million as fewer than 831 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included CPI for October, October Housing Starts and Building Permits, weekly initial claims, and the Philadelphia Fed Survey for November:

CPI increased 0.4%, as expected, in October while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).
On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 1.6% -- its largest 12-month increase since October 2014 -- and core CPI is up 2.1%
October housing starts surged 25.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.323 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.178 million).
Building permits rose 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.229 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.200 million)
Initial claims for the week ending November 12 dropped by 19,000 to 235,000 (Briefing.com consensus 258,000).
Continuing claims decreased by 66,000 to 1.977 million, which is the lowest level since April 15, 2000.
The Philadelphia Fed Index dipped to 7.6 in November (Briefing.com consensus 8.5) from 9.7 in October, although the new orders index ticked up to 18.6 from 16.3.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

There is no economic data of note scheduled to be released tomorrow. DJ30 +35.68 NASDAQ +39.39 SP500 +10.18 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1788/1.916 bln/1107 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1565/830.6 mln/1409

3:40 pm :

Strength in the dollar index continued to weigh on commodities today, helping many close in the red
Dec WTI crude oil finished today's session -1.1% at $45.38/barrel
In other energy, Dec nat gas recovered some, ending 0.1% lower at $2.70/MMBtu
Looking over at metals...
Dec gold slipped 0.5% today to close at $1217.10/oz, while Dec silver lost 1% to close at $16.76/oz
In base metals, Dec copper rose 1% to $2.49/lb

When the bell rang on Thursday, the broader market was at highs. Leading the pack, the Nasdaq Composite added 39.39 points (+0.74%) to 5333.97. The S&P 500 was up 10.18 points (+0.47%) to 2187.12, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rounded out the trio higher by 35.68 points (+0.19%) to 18903.82. Aiding today's advance, top Nasdaq 100 components INCY +4.8%, AAL +3.1%, ROST +2.6%, TSLA +2.6%, LRCX +2.5% and CELG +2.0% all finished firmly in the green.

Participants expanded their bets on an improving economy as increased inflation concerns had investors rotating out of the bond market in favor of more growth-oriented positions.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.4% in October while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, ticked up by 0.1%. The data showed a firming inflation trend with the headline index rising to 1.6% year-over-year. Meanwhile, the core reading is up 2.1% year-over-year.

The latest housing data also helped pro-growth positioning as housing starts rose to an annualized rate of 1.323 million in October. This will figure positively into fourth quarter GDP estimates and also marks the strongest reading since 2007. Building permits increased 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.229 million.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen highlighted recent economic growth when she stated that economic data since the November Fed meeting has been consistent with expectations. Chair Yellen also indicated that a policy rate increase may be appropriate relatively soon. According to the CME's FedWatch Tool, the implied probability of a December interest rate hike registers at 90.6%, unchanged from yesterday.

Among the winning sectors in the S&P today, the Technology (XLK 47.40, +0.30 +0.64%) space finished near highs again. Component NetApp (NTAP 36.90, +2.17 +6.25%) was the best performer in the space today following the company's reported better than expected Q2 earnings last night. Also in the news, Cisco Systems (CSCO 30.05, -1.52 -4.81%) reported better than expected earnings last night, but gave some tepid guidance. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLFS +2.19%, XLF +1.37%, XLY +1.18%, XLV +0.40%, XLI +0.21%, IYZ +0.19%, XLB +0.04%, XLU +0.02%, XLP -0.18%, XLE -0.67%, XLRE -0.94% with Financials again leading the charge.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (798.10, +5.50 +0.69%) sector, trading finished at highs as broader market strength carried through. Component First Solar (FSLR) was the worst performing name in the space today on the back of last night's guidance. Other names in the space which outperformed today included MU +5.15%, ADS +3.25%, INTU +2.65%, CRM +2.56%, LRCX +2.55%, STX +2.54%, ATVI +2.49%, SWKS +2.40%, AMAT +2.37%, QRVO +2.11%, PYPL +2.07%, CSRA +2.04%, EBAY +1.91%, CTSH +1.90%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Vuzix (VUZI 6.75, -1.45 -17.68%) received a letter from Intel (INTC 35.02, +0.18 +0.52%) stating that INTC no longer desired to pursue a strategic relationship with VUZI. The company commented that during the last two years, the relationship with INTC has not generated material revenue.

Analog Devices (ADI 68.21, +0.33 +0.49%) acquired a solid-state laser beam steering technology from Vescent Photonics. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Fiserv (FISV 105.06, +1.85 +1.79%) added 15 million shares to its repurchase authorization.

Applied Materials (AMAT 30.73, +0.71 +2.37%) thin-film deposition equipment was selected by Chinese semiconductor display product manufacturer BOE Technology for use in the Gen 10.5 TFT-LCD production line to accelerate production of large LCD TVs.

First Solar (FSLR) raised 2016 EPS guidance; also gave initial 2017 EPS, revenue and shipment guidance worse than market expectations.

Qualcomm's (QCOM 66.67, +0.37 +0.56%) Qualcomm Technologies, and Samsung Electronics (SSNLF 1250.00, flat) extended their decade-long strategic foundry collaboration to manufacture Qualcomm Technologies' latest Snapdragon premium processor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, with Samsung's 10-nanometer FinFET process technology.

Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) announced a collaboration with Microsoft (MSFT 60.64, +0.99 +1.66%) on open source projects, such as .NET Core and Xamarin.Forms, to enable .NET support for Tizen. Tizen is an open source operating system based on Linux, hosted by the Linux Foundation, and open to all developers. The operating system powers 50 million Samsung devices.

Facebook (FB 117.79, +6.75 +0.88%) acquired CrowdTangle, the porfolio company of Tsai Ventures. Financial terms off the deal were not disclosed.
FB also acquired FacioMetrics. Financial details of that deal were also not disclosed.

Alphabet (GOOG 771.23, +6.75 +0.88%) and Intel (INTC 35.02, +0.18 +0.52%) expanded their cloud alliance.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Gogo (GOGO 8.97, -0.07 -0.77%) signed an agreement for services on the Intelsat (I) 29e satellite.

CGI Group (GIB 47.39, +0.06 +0.13%) announced a new 10-year IT outsourcing agreement valued at $160 million.

Kratos Defense and Security (KTOS 6.85, -0.09 -1.30%) received a $17.75 million contract award from a new International customer to provide full operational capability for the BQM-167i high performance unmanned aerial target drone system.

Vishay Intertechnology's (VSH 15.25, +0.05 +0.33%) COO Dieter Wunderlich to retire effective December 31, 2016. VSH will not replace the COO role.

Semtech (SMTC 26.90, -0.35 -1.28%) amended and restated its existing $400 million credit facility.

TerraForm Power (TERP 13.01, +0.02 +0.15%) and TerraForm Global (GLBL 3.75, -0.05 -1.32%) announced extensions until March 2017 to regain Nasdaq compliance.
According to the NYPost, Vista Equity Partners has gained clearance for its pending Cvent (CVT 35.72, +5.09 +16.62%) acquisition.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.61 on in-line revenues which fell 2.6% compared to last year to $12.35 billion. For Q2, the company guided EPS and revenues below market expectations at about $0.55-0.57 and revenues growth down 2-4% to about $11.27-11.51 billion, respectively.

NetApp (NTAP 36.90, +2.17 +6.25%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.60 on slightly worse than expected revenues of $1.34 billion. For Q3, the company sees EPS ahead of market expectations at $0.72-0.77 on in-line revenues of $1.325-1.475 billion.

JA Solar (JASO 5.60, +0.02 +0.36%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.13 and $624.3 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report tonight: ASYS, AMAT, INTU, MRVL, NUAN, CRM
Analyst actions:

MSFT was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
FSLR was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Underperform at JMP Securities;
ELLI was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
SPWR was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
FSLR was downgraded to Mkt Underperform from Mkt Perform at Avondale,
NTAP was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Maxim Group;
IRBT was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty,
ADS was initiated with a Buy at Guggenheim,
SHOP and BV were initiated with a Buy ratings at BTIG Research,
ADBE and ECOM were initiated with a Neutral ratings at BTIG Research

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 18-Nov-16

The stock market enjoyed its second consecutive week of gains that lifted the S&P 500 into the neighborhood of its record high. The benchmark index gained 0.8% for the week while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%) outperformed after lagging one week ago. Conversely, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) underperformed after showing relative strength during the election week.

The overall post-election narrative did not change much during the past week. Expectations for inflationary fiscal policy kept the bond market under pressure, driving the benchmark 10-yr yield up to a one-year high of 2.34% from last Friday's 2.14%. Continued steepening in the yield curve helped the financial sector extend its November gain to 12.3% while the U.S. Dollar Index (101.34) climbed to its best level since early 2003.

Market participants received a batch of quarterly earnings from the retail sector during the past week. Apparel retailers had a mixed showing while electronics retailer Best Buy (BBY) surpassed estimates and issued upbeat guidance for the holiday quarter. Home Depot (HD) also released upbeat earnings and guidance while Wal-Mart (WMT) struggled after its earnings beat was overshadowed by declining profitability. More than 95.0% of S&P 500 components have now reported their third-quarter results, showing an earnings growth rate of 3.0%.

Last week featured Janet Yellen's testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, but the appearance was free of any big surprises. Chair Yellen acknowledged that recent economic data has lived up to the Federal Reserve's expectations, and noted that a rate hike will be appropriate "relatively soon." Ms. Yellen's appearance had little impact on the fed funds futures market, which continues pointing to a near certainty of a rate hike in December. The implied probability of a December hike rose to 95.4% from last Friday's 81.1%.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 18847.66 18868.00 20.34 0.1 8.3
Nasdaq 5237.11 5321.51 84.40 1.6 6.3
S&P 500 2164.45 2181.91 17.46 0.8 6.8
Russell 2000 1281.53 1317.14 35.61 2.8 16.0

4:11 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Inch Lower at the End of an Upbeat Week (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended an upbeat week on a modestly lower note as the major averages consolidated after an impressive post-election run. The S&P 500 lost 0.2%, narrowing its weekly gain to 0.8%. Separately, the Russell 2000 (+0.5%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) outperformed, rising a respective 2.6% and 1.6% this week.

The major averages jumped out of the gate as the S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) each zeroed in on their respective all-time highs. The tech-heavy index notched a new all-time intraday high (5346.80), but was unable to establish a new closing high. The benchmark index, however, reversed just below the 2190 price level.

Equities were unable to regain their footing as investors assessed whether the broader market has risen too far, too fast. An appreciating US Dollar Index (101.28, +0.39, +0.39%), rising market rates, and volatility from the oil pit also worked to keep the broader market in check.

The long-end of the yield curve has been on the rise in recent days as investors mull rising inflation concerns and improving economic data. The combination has prompted an exodus from longer-dated issues. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note increased four basis points to 2.34%, leaving the yield up 51 basis points since the end of October. An improving rate hike outlook has also dampened buying interest in the bond market.

Per the CME's FedWatch Tool, the implied probability of an interest rate hike at the December FOMC meeting has increased to 95.4% from yesterday's 90.6%. A number of Federal Reserve speakers contributed to the uptick, indicating that the FOMC will likely go ahead with its next rate hike in December.

The benchmark index finished just below its flat line with seven sectors ending in negative territory. The health care (-1.1%) space outpaced today's losses in the broader market while energy (+0.5%), telecom services (+0.5%), and financials (+0.1%) finished at the top of the sector leaderboard.

Biotechnology demonstrated relative weakness in the health care space (-1.1%), evidenced by the 1.3% loss in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 284.72, -3.80). The industry group has narrowed its gain in recent days as investors walk back their post-election reaction. Mylan (MYL 36.47, -1.09) ended lower by 2.9% after Mizuho trimmed its price target from $49 to $47. The broader sector lost 1.2% this week, but remains up 3.2% in November.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.3%), Gap (GPS 25.61, -5.10, -16.6%) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 14.60, -2.33, -13.8%) weighed on the broader retail sub-group. The two demonstrated relative weakness after disappointing participants with their quarterly results and guidance. Conversely, casual restaurant names outperformed after Yum! Brands (YUM 62.36, +1.60, +2.6%) added $2 billion to its share repurchase program.

The financial (+0.1%) group extended its recent winning streak as banking names continued to outperform. The industry group has surged in the aftermath of the election as steepening in the yield curve boosted the earnings prospects for the group. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 40.41, +0.24) gained 0.6%, extending its November gain to 16.6%. This compares to a gain of 12.1% in the broader sector.

The commodity-sensitive energy sector (+0.5%) led the pack as investors reevaluated the likelihood of an OPEC supply cap agreement. WTI crude finished the day higher by 1.0% ($46.38/bbl; +$0.45).

Today's trading volume was below the recent average of one billion as fewer than 926 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to Leading Indicators for October:

The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.1% in October after increasing 0.2% in September.
It was noted by the Conference Board that the six-month growth rate has moderated, but that the index still points to the economy continuing to expand into early 2017.

Investors will not receive any noteworthy data on Monday.

Russell 2000: +15.9% YTD
Dow Jones: +8.3% YTDS&P 500: +6.8% YTDNasdaq Composite: +6.3% YTD

Week in Review: S&P 500 Back Near Record Levels

The stock market enjoyed its second consecutive week ofgains that lifted the S&P 500 into the neighborhood of its record high. Thebenchmark index gained 0.8% for the week while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%)outperformed after lagging one week ago. Conversely, the Dow Jones IndustrialAverage (+0.1%) underperformed after showing relative strength during theelection week.

The overall post-election narrative did not change muchduring the past week. Expectations for inflationary fiscal policy kept the bondmarket under pressure, driving the benchmark 10-yr yield up to a one-year highof 2.34% from last Friday's 2.14%. Continued steepening in the yield curve helpedthe financial sector extend its November gain to 12.3% while the U.S. Dollar Index(101.34) climbed to its best level since early 2003.

Market participants received a batch of quarterly earningsfrom the retail sector during the past week. Apparel retailers had a mixed showingwhile electronics retailer Best Buy (BBY) surpassed estimates andissued upbeat guidance for the holiday quarter. Home Depot (HD) also releasedupbeat earnings and guidance while Wal-Mart (WMT) struggled after its earnings beat was overshadowed by declining profitability.More than 95.0% of S&P 500 components have now reported their third-quarterresults, showing an earnings growth rate of 3.0%.

Last week featured Janet Yellen's testimony before the JointEconomic Committee of Congress, but the appearance was free of any bigsurprises. Chair Yellen acknowledged that recent economic data has lived up to theFederal Reserve's expectations, and noted that a rate hike will be appropriate "relativelysoon." Ms. Yellen's appearance had little impact on the fed funds futuresmarket, which continues pointing to a near certainty of a rate hike inDecember. The implied probability of a December hike rose to 95.4% from lastFriday's 81.1%.

Stocks closed the last full week of November lower. Leading the negative action, the S&P 500 shed 5.22 points (-0.24%) to 2181.90. The Nasdaq Composite lost 12.46 points (-0.23%) to 5321.51, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 35.89 points (-0.19%) lower to 18867.93. This week's moves take the three major US indices +6.8%, +6.3% and +8.3% YTD, respectively.

Equities were unable to regain their footing as investors assessed whether the broader market has risen too far, too fast. An appreciating US Dollar Index (101.28, +0.39, +0.39%), rising market rates, and volatility from the oil pit also worked to keep the broader market in check.

The long-end of the yield curve has been on the rise in recent days as investors mull rising inflation concerns and improving economic data. The combination has prompted an exodus from longer-dated issues. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note increased four basis points to 2.34%, leaving the yield up 51 basis points since the end of October. An improving rate hike outlook has also dampened buying interest in the bond market.

Per the CME's FedWatch Tool, the implied probability of an interest rate hike at the December FOMC meeting has increased to 95.4% from yesterday's 90.6%. A number of Federal Reserve speakers contributed to the uptick, indicating that the FOMC will likely go ahead with its next rate hike in December.

The Technology (XLK 47.36, -0.04 -0.08%) sector ended the week modestly lower. Component Salesforce.com (CRM 77.77, +2.58 +3.43%) was among the best performing names today after the company reported a better than expected Q3. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended Friday XLFS +2.19%, IYZ +0.77%, XLE +0.42%, XLRE +0.20%, XLF +0.00%, XLI -0.03%, XLB -0.04%, XLU -0.30%, XLP -0.36%, XLY -0.36%, XLV -1.06%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (796.32, -1.78 -0.22%) sector, trading ended below flat lines. Component First Solar (FSLR 29.21, -1.95 -6.26%) was the worst performing name today as the stock was downgraded to a Sell rating at UBS; among the better performing names, Intuit (INTU 115.98, +2.18 +1.92%) and Applied Materials (AMAT 30.74, +0.01 +0.03%) were the beneficiaries of their latest quarterly reports. Other names in the space which were modestly weak today included ATVI -3.91%, TDC -3.39%, ADSK -1.99%, CA -1.49%, XRX -1.46%, CTSH -1.44%, GOOG -1.39%, GOOGL -1.35%, MCHP -1.34%, FFIV -1.32%, CTXS -1.32%, CSRA -1.28%, HPE -1.23%.

Other notable news items among components:

Lam Research (LRCX104.71, +0.91 +0.88%) approved a $1 billion share repurchase authorization, with execution planned over the next 12 to 18 months; and a 50% increase of the company's quarterly dividend. The company also gave 2017-2018 targets for revenues of $7.25-8 billion and a 2019 target of $8-8.75 billion in revenues and $8.5-9.25 billion in revenues for 2020.

Sigfox announced it is closing its Series E funding round of 150 million to accelerate the expansion of its global network and soon reach worldwide coverage. Salesforce (CRM), Total (TOT 45.81, -0.30 -0.65%), Henri Seydoux, Alto Invest, Swen CP and Tamer Group will join Sigfox as new investors. Existing shareholders including Bpifrance, Elliott, Intel Capital (INTC 34.95, -0.07 -0.20%), Air Liquide (AIQUY 19.76, -0.43 -2.13%), Idinvest Partners and IXO, will also re-invest in the company. Additional new investors are also expected to join this financing round shortly to reach the 150 million level.

Verizon (VZ 48.07, +0.23 +0.48%) filed for EU approval of its pending deal to acquire Yahoo's (YHOO 41.19, -0.26 -0.63%) operating business.

Intel (INTC) planned to use chips acquired through deal with Nervana Systems to compete with Nvidia (NVDA 93.36, +0.97 +1.05%), according to WSJ.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Nuance Communications (NUAN16.91, +1.36 +8.75%) extended Chairman and CEO Paul Ricci's employment agreement through the first half of fiscal 2018. Mr. Ricci has advised the Board that he intends to retire at the end of this term. The Board of Directors will undertake a search process to choose Mr. Ricci's successor during the term. Nuance also announced that Bill Robbins, executive vice president, Worldwide Sales, will be leaving the company for another role and as part of a planned transition of sales responsibilities into Nuance's four business divisions.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Marvell (MRVL 14.80, +1.44 +10.78%) announced that the Board of Directors has authorized a $1 billion share buyback program. This newly authorized stock repurchase program replaces in its entirety the prior $3.25 billion stock repurchase program, which had about $115 million of repurchase authority remaining. The Company currently intends to repurchase about $500 million worth of shares over the next 12 months.

Acxiom (ACXM 26.87, -0.24 -0.89%) entered into definitive purchase agreements to acquire Arbor and Circulate for $140 million in cash.

FireEye (FEYE 13.63, -0.15 -1.09%) named former Symantec (SYMC 23.75, -0.08 -0.34%) and Nuance (NUAN) executive Bill Robbins Head of Worldwide Sales.

Tesla Motors (TSLA 185.02, -3.64 -1.93%) shareholders approved the proposed merger with SolarCity (SCTY 20.34, -0.06 -0.29%).

Black Box (BBOX 15.00, +0.15 +1.01%) named Anthony Massetti as CFO.

Perceptron (PRCP 6.19, +0.18 +3.00%) appointed CFO David Watza as new CEO effective immediately.

Kratos Defense and Security (KTOS 6.26, -0.59 -8.61%) priced a public offering of 11.67 million shares of its common stock at $6.00 per share.

Allscripts Healthcare (MDRX 10.85, -0.04 -0.37%) announced a new stock repurchase program under which Allscripts may purchase up to $200 million of its common stock through December 31, 2019.

Impinj (PI 29.82, -3.01 -9.17%) filed for $75 million common stock offering.

MGT Capital Investments (MGTI 1.33, +0.17 +14.66%) officially appointed John Mcafee as CEO effective immediately.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Salesforce.com (CRM) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.24 and $2.14 billion, respectively. For Q4, the company sees in-line EPS of $0.24-0.25 and better than expected revenues of $2.267-2.277 billion. For FY18, the company sees revenues ahead of market expectations at $10.10-10.15 billion.

Intuit (INTU) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.06 and $778 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $0.33-0.36 and $1.045-1.065 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $4.30-4.40 and $5.0-5.1 billion, respectively.

Nuance Communications (NUAN) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.41 and $512.4 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of $0.32-0.35 and $483-497 million, respectively. For FY17, NUAN sees EPS modestly worse than expected at $1.53-1.63 and revenues in-line at $2.02-2.07 billion.

Applied Materials (AMAT) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.66 on revenues which rose 39.2% compared to last year to $3.3 billion. For Q1, the company sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $0.62-0.70 and $3.20-3.34 billion, respectively.

Marvell (MRVL) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.20 and $654 million, respectively. For Q4, the company sees adj. EPS of $0.17-0.21 on revenues of $553.7-576.3 million.

Amtech Systems (ASYS 5.06, -0.29 -5.42%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.02 and revenues which beat expectations at $42.41 million. For Q1, the company sees revenues of $25-27 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results Monday morning: CSIQ, CMCM

Analyst actions:

NUAN was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
HPE was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
MRVL was upgraded to Positive from Neutral at Susquehanna,
BAH was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill;
FSLR was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS,
IEC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
ACXM was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at First Analysis Sec,
ASYS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at The Benchmark Company,
KLIC and CLS were downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research;
MTCH was initiated with a Buy at Aegis Capital,
FIS was initiated with an Overweight at Pacific Crest,
FISV and QTWO were initiated with a Sector Weight at Pacific Crest

4:18 pm Kopin receives notice from NASDAQ due to delay in filing of form 10-Q (as expected) (KOPN) : The notice also indicated that Kopin's common stock is subject to delisting from The NASDAQ Global Market unless Kopin provides a plan within 60 calendar days to NASDAQ Qualifications Panel to regain compliance. If Kopin is unable to complete its investigation and file its Form 10-Q within 60 days it will file a plan on how it expects to regain compliance.

12:58 pm Earnings Calendar for the week of November 21 (:SUMRX) :

Monday (November 21)
Pre-Market: TSN, IGT, CMCM, CSIQ, CUB
After-Hours: VIPS, BECN, DY, BRCD, PANW, JACK, CPRT, SINA, WB, PNNT, ENTA

Tuesday (November 22)
Pre-Market: MDT, TECD, DLTR, JEC, QIWI, HRL, CPB, PDCO, BURL, SIG, ADI, BKS, SDRL, CBRL, DSW, HQCL, EV, AMWD, MOV, CTRN, EVLV, DAKT, KIRK, NM

After-Hours: HPE, HPQ, GME, URBN, CAL, MENT, VEEV, NMBL, QADA

Wednesday (November 23)
Pre-Market: DE, ICL, TSL
After-Hours: None confirmed

Thursday (November 24)
Market closed in obeservance of Thanksgiving

Friday (November 25)
Pre-Market: None confirmed

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Leavitt Brothers Weekly Update:

http://leavittbrothers.com/pdfs/LB%20weekly%2020161120.pdf

The Bottom Line The market followed up a great week with a good one. Most of the indexes are at or very near all-time highs.

Most of the indicators support the price action. The bulls will want to see improvement from the AD line.
Earnings season is winding down, and the feel-good time of year is upon us. Heck, this is the beginning of the "best 6 months of the year" (NovemberApril).

A rate hike is being priced in.

Odds favor a continuation to higher prices. There's no reason to fight it. Maybe we get a pause and then a continuation up. Maybe prices just continue to grind higher. In either case I'm confident higher prices are coming, so the long side is the only side I'm interested in.

Don't fight what's happening. And don't let a political opinion stop you from making money.

Have a great week.
Jason Leavitt [e-mail]

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From Briefing.com: 4:56 pm Brocade beats by $0.11, beats on revs; will not provide fiscal Q1 2017 guidance due to pending acquisition by Broadcom (AVGO) (BRCD) :

Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.33 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.22; revenues rose 11.6% year/year to $657.3 mln vs the $639.74 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

On November 2, 2016, Brocade announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement under which Brocade would be acquired by Broadcom (AVGO). In light of the pending acquisition, Brocade will not provide fiscal Q1 2017 guidance and will not hold a conference call to discuss these financial results.

4:00 pm ON Semiconductor Chairman J. Daniel McCranie to retire from the Board in 2017 (ON) :

4:15 pm : The stock market began an abbreviated week on a higher note as the three major averages notched new all-time closing highs. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) finished ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.8%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%). The Russell 2000 (+0.4%) also carved out a new all-time high, extending its November gain to 10.8%.

The major averages jumped at the start of the session as crude oil extended its recent winning streak. The energy component rallied 4.1% ($48.27/bbl; +$1.89) after several oil producers made upbeat comments regarding the elusive OPEC supply cap agreement. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh stated that the oil cartel will likely reach a consensus regarding cuts at its official meeting on November 30. Separately, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi indicated that three new proposals will be brought to the group during technical meetings taking place today and tomorrow.

Softening in the US Dollar Index (100.85, -0.36, -0.36%) boosted dollar-denominated commodities. The currency index moved off a fresh 14-year high overnight as the euro and the pound gained ground against the greenback. The single currency ticked up 0.2% (1.0629) against the buck while the pound/dollar pair finished higher by 1.2% (1.2494). The euro remains down 3.2% against the dollar in November.

A pullback in market rates helped keep a lid on recent rate angst while a positive bias in global markets also underpinned today's advance.

The major averages carved out all-time highs in the final hour of action with ten sectors finishing with gains. The energy (+2.2%), utilities (+1.1%), and technology (+1.1%) sectors ended in the lead while real estate (-0.2%), financials (+0.3%) and health care (+0.3%) rounded out the board.

The influential technology sector (+1.1%) paced today's advance as large cap names continued their recent rebound. Facebook (FB 121.77, +4.75) finished higher by 4.1% after the company reported a $6.0 billion share buyback. Top-weighted Apple (AAPL 111.75, +1.69) ended higher by 1.5%. The broader sector has gained 0.5% so far in November, which compares to an advance of 3.4% in the benchmark index.

In the consumer staples space (+0.7%), Tyson Foods (TSN 57.60, -9.76) tumbled 14.5% in reaction to weaker-than-expected quarterly results and disappointing full-year 2017 earnings guidance. However, the company did increase its quarterly dividend to $0.225 per share from $0.15 per share. Peer Hormel Foods (HRL 34.94, -0.64, -1.8%) moved lower in sympathy with the name. Hormel will release its quarterly results tomorrow morning.

Retailers continued to have a mixed showing as Gap (GPS 24.99, -0.62, -2.4%) extended its post-earnings losing streak. Meanwhile, Best Buy (BBY 45.65, +0.86, +1.9%) continued to outperform after reporting upbeat results and guidance last Friday. Separately, influential Amazon (AMZN 780.00, +19.84) and Netflix (NFLX 117.96, +2.75) finished higher by 2.5% apiece.

The financial sector (+0.3%) finished on a flat note as flattening in the yield curve weighed on banking names. The yield on the 2-yr note finished down one basis point to 1.06% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note slipped five basis points to 2.30%. The yield spread between the 2-yr and 10-yr note narrowed to 124 basis points from 128 basis points last Friday.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average of one billion as fewer than 842 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the Existing Home Sales Report for October (Briefing.com consensus 5.40 million), which will be released at 10:00 ET. DJ30 +88.76 NASDAQ +47.35 SP500 +16.28 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1711/1.597 bln/1153 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2223/841.7 mln/745

3:30 pm :

Crude oil closed at a 1-month high following comments from OPEC ahead of the official Nov 30 meeting to discuss
Jan 2017 crude oil futures rose $1.89 (+4.1%) to $48.27/barrel
OPEC updates:
Oil saw a notable rally to close pit trading at a fresh 1-month high, attributable to comments from OPEC ahead of next week's official meeting in Vienna, Austria on November 30.
Late yesterday, Iraq's oil minister stated that they plan to present 3 new proposals at 2 technical meetings taking place today and tomorrow designed at facilitating cooperation with other OPEC members.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that he sees no problem with Russia freezing its output at current levels as part of a coordinated effort with OPEC producers.
Over the weekend, Iran's oil minister stated that an OPEC agreement is highly likely & expressed confidence in a deal to limit oil production at the upcoming official meeting.
Reminder: In Algiers, Algeria on Sept 28, OPEC announced plans to cut production to between 32.5-33 mln barrels/day, compared to all-time high production levels in October of 33.83 mln barrels/day & stated details of how to implement this cut will be announced at the next upcoming official OPEC meeting.
In addition, its worth noting that the dollar index has retreated from last week's 14-year high & was down as much as 0.3% earlier this morning, another contributing factor offering support to oil prices.
Upcoming data reminders:
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell.
Weekly EIA data will be released Wed at 10:30 am ET.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released on Friday at 1 pm ET.
The dollar index snapped its 10-day streak, retreated from last week's 14-year high, -0.1% around the 101.11 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodities index, were +2.2% around the 84.88 level
Natural gas extended Friday's gains, ended pit trading at its highest level in 3 weeks
December natural gas closed $0.11 higher (+3.9%) at $2.95/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas data will be released at Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold managed to break out of its 4-session downtrend, rebounded from last week's 9-month low as the dollar index week
December gold ended today's session up $0.80 (+0.1%) to $1209.60/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.10 lower (-0.6%) at $16.51/oz
Base metal copper reclaimed all of Friday's losses, closed at session highs
December copper closed $0.05 higher (+2.0%) at $2.52/lb

In a remarkable day of positive action, all three US indices cracked into new all-time high territory at one point on the day. The shortened holiday week began with the Nasdaq Composite coming out on top, higher by 47.35 points (+0.89%) to 5368.86. The S&P 500 ended up 16.28 points (+0.75%) to 2198.18, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 88.76 points (+0.47%) today to close 18956.69.

The abbreviated holiday week began with 10 S&P sectors in the green -- Real Estate (XLRE 29.63, -0.08 -0.27%) closed modestly lower -- as the Technology (XLK 47.84, +0.48 +1.01%) sector followed the broader market to highs at the close. Component Facebook (FB 121.77, +4.75 +4.06%) was strong today after the late Friday announcement of a $6.0 billion buyback and the resignation of Chief Accounting Officer Jas Athwal. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Monday XLE +2.38%, XLFS +2.19%, IYZ +1.50%, XLB +1.18%, XLU +1.06%, XLP +0.67%, XLY +0.60%, XLI +0.54%, XLF +0.41%, XLV +0.36%, XLRE -0.24% as the Energy complex led the positive action.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (804.81, +8.49 +1.07%) sector, trading returned to the $800-level with a strong session. Component Symantec (SYMC 24.52, +0.77 +3.24%) was among today's best performers after it was announced the company would acquire LifeLock (LOCK 23.81, +3.06 +14.75%) for $24 per share in a deal which is to be accretive to FY19 non-GAAP EPS. Other names in the space which closed higher today included WU +2.78%, AVGO +2.63%, PAYX +2.16%, AMAT +1.98%, ADI +1.97%, GPN +1.81%, AAPL +1.54%, TXN +1.49%, IBM +1.48%, LRCX +1.46%, MU +1.46%, TDC +1.40%, PYPL +1.37%, TSS +1.37%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

LifeLock (LOCK) to be acquired for $24 per share by Symantec (SYMC). The deal is expected to be accretive to FY2019 non-GAAP EPS. SYMC also reaffirmed its FY17 and FY18 non-GAAP EPS guidance.

Facebook (FB) disclosed a $6.0 billion stock buyback, going into effect in the first quarter of 2017. The company also announced its Chief Accounting Officer, Jas Athwal, will resign effective February 17, 2017

Oracle (ORCL 39.89, +0.03 +0.08%) to acquire cloud-based Internet Performance and DNS provider Dyn. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CSRA (CSRA 31.31, -0.36 -1.14%) announced a re-competed contract with the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Cybersecurity and Communications (CS&C) to provide a broad range of technical services and expertise. The single-award contract is valued at more than $52 million over a four year period.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

Applied Micro (AMCC 8.10, +0.85 +11.72%) to be acquired by MACOM Technology Solutions (MTSI 45.01, -1.94 -4.13%) for approx. $8.36 per share consisting of cash and stock for total transaction value of approx. $770 mln.

Arista Networks (ANET 94.48, +6.50 +7.39%) received a letter from the United States Customs and Border Protection ruling that the company's current products which contain its redesigned Extensible Operating System are not within the scope of the limited exclusion order issued by the ITC and therefore may be imported into the US.

Eros International (EROS 15.70, -0.25 -1.57%) announced a distribution partnership with Vodafone India (VOD 25.51, -0.18 -0.70%). Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

According to the WSJ, Amazon (AMZN 780.00, +19.84 +2.61%) may be considering a premium sports package for Prime members.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Cheetah Mobile (CMCM 11.20, +0.60 +5.66%) reported non-GAAP EPS of RMB0.51 on revenues which missed expectations yet rose 9.7% compared to last year to RMB1.13 billion. For Q4, the company sees revenues of RMB1,200-1,240 million.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 10.68, -1.02 -8.72%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.27 on revenues which missed expectations and fell 22.7% compared to last year to $657.3 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: BRCD, PANW, SINA, WB/ADI, DAKT, HQCL, TECD

Analyst actions:

MPWR was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
LDOS was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
MBT was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
LOCK was downgraded at Needham and Dougherty,
KS was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
MLNX was downgraded to Underperform from Hold at Jefferies,
MGI was downgraded to Buy from Strong Buy at Feltl,
LFUS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti,
VOD was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Exane BNP Paribas,
AMCC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital;
CRUS was initiated with a Hold at Craig Hallum,
SITO was initiated with an Outperform at Cowen,
NFLX was initiated with a Buy at Brean Capital,
ENTG was initiated with a Hold at Needham,
LPL was initiated with a Sell at Goldman

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From Briefing.com: 4:11 pm Hewlett Packard Enterprise beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS mostly below consensus; reaffirms FY17 EPS (HPE) :

Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.61 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.60; revenues fell 7.2% year/year to $12.48 bln vs the $12.83 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Enterprise Group revenue was $6.7 billion, down 9% Y/Y, down 3% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 13.2% operating margin. Servers revenue was down 7%, down 6% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Storage revenue was down 5%, down 3% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Networking revenue was down 34%, flat when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and Technology Services revenue was down 4%, up 2% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Enterprise Services revenue was $4.7 billion, down 6% Y/Y, down 2% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 10.7% operating margin. Infrastructure Technology Outsourcing revenue was down 7%, down 5% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and Application and Business Services revenue was down 3%, up 4% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Software revenue was $903 million, down 6% Y/Y, flat when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 32.1% operating margin. License revenue was down 5%, down 1% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, support revenue was down 7%, up 1% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, professional services revenue was down 7%, down 4% adjusted for divestitures and currency, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue was down 1%, up 11% adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Financial Services revenue was $814 million, up 2% Y/Y, net portfolio assets were up 4%, and financing volume was down 4%. The business delivered an operating margin of 10.2%.

Cash flow from operations +44% to $2.2 bln.
Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.42-0.46, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.46 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co reaffirms guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $2.00-2.10, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.02 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm HP reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus; reaffirms FY17 EPS, in-line (HPQ) :

Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.36 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.36; revenues rose 5.2% year/year to $12.51 bln vs the $11.88 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Personal Systems net revenue was up 4% year over year (up 5% in constant currency) with a 4.3% operating margin.

Commercial net revenue increased 3% and Consumer net revenue increased 7%.
Total units were up 5% with Notebooks units up 9% and Desktops units up 1%.
Printing net revenue was down 8% year over year (down 6% in constant currency) with a 14.0% operating margin.
Total hardware units were up 1% from the prior-year period, with Commercial hardware units up 10% and Consumer hardware units down 3%.
Supplies net revenue was down 12% (down 10% in constant currency).

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.35-0.38 vs. $0.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co reaffirms guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $1.55-1.65 vs. $1.60 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended the Tuesday affair on a modestly higher note with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%), and S&P 500 (+0.2%) carving out fresh record highs. The domestically-oriented Russell 2000 (+0.9%) also notched a new all-time high, extending its November gain to 12.0%.

Equity indices jumped out of the gate as a positive tilt in global markets helped Wall Street build on yesterday's gain. However, the broader market pulled back after the opening hour, as crude oil extended its loss. The energy component was under pressure as participants continued assessing the likelihood of an OPEC supply cap agreement. Reports circulated this afternoon that Iran, Iraq, and Indonesia have expressed some misgivings about their participation in a proposed deal. The oil collective is scheduled to meet on November 30 to vote on potential supply control measures. WTI crude finished down 0.4% ($48.07/bbl; -$0.20).

The major averages were able to inch higher in the afternoon as the heavily-weighted consumer discretionary sector (+1.2%) and industrials (+0.5%) outperformed. Meanwhile, the economically-sensitive financial group (+0.1%) erased a slim loss despite modest flattening in the yield curve.

The S&P 500 (+0.2%) settled near its best level of the day, staying above the 2200 price level, which was revisited a few times during the session. Nine sectors ended in the green with telecom services (+2.1%), real estate (+1.7%), and consumer discretionary (+1.2%) outperforming. Conversely, health care (-1.4%) and energy (UNCH) ended with the only losses.

In the health care space (-1.4%), Medtronic (MDT 73.60, -6.98) tumbled 8.7% after the company reported some mixed quarterly results and provided below-consensus earnings guidance for fiscal year 2017. Meanwhile, biotechnology continued to give back some of its post-election gain as the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 281.36, -5.35) fell 1.9%. The ETF rallied in the wake of the election as participants dialed back concerns about a possible introduction of price controls.

Retail names displayed relative strength in the consumer discretionary space (+1.2%) as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 46.60, +1.06) gained 2.3%. Home improvement retailers outperformed on the heels of some better-than-expected housing data. Separately, discount retailer Dollar Tree (DLTR 88.68, +6.69) surged 8.2% after reporting mixed quarterly results and guiding fourth-quarter revenue near the high end of consensus estimates.

The high-beta chipmakers outperformed in the technology sector (+0.1%), evidenced by the 1.1% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Analog Devices (ADI 72.89, +3.07, +4.4%) led the index after the company beat analysts' estimates for the fourth quarter and issued upbeat revenue guidance for the first quarter.

In the financial sector (+0.1%), banking names led as the SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 40.73, +0.23) finished higher by 0.6%. Separately, credit service names finished on a lower note with Visa (V 79.93, -1.76) falling 2.2%. The stock was under pressure after the company agreed to remedial actions related to the EMV transition in the United States.

Treasuries were little changed with the yield on the 2-yr note finishing flat at 1.08% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note slipped one basis point to 2.31%.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average of one billion as fewer than 893 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to the Existing Home Sales Report for October:

Existing home sales increased 2.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.60 million in October from an upwardly revised 5.49 million (from 5.47 million) in September.
The October uptick represented the second consecutive monthly increase, following declines in July and August.

Tomorrow's data will include the 7:00 ET release of the weekly MBA Mortgage Index while weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 243k) and Durable Orders for October (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%) will each be released at 8:30 ET. The FHFA Housing Price Index for September will cross the wires at 9:00 ET. Separately, the New Home Sales Report for October (Briefing.com consensus 587k) and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for November (Briefing.com consensus 91.6) are each slated to be released at 10:00 ET. The day's data will be capped off with the FOMC Minutes from the November 2 meeting, which will cross the wires at 14:00 ET.

Russell 2000: +17.3% YTD
Dow Jones: +9.2% YTD
S&P 500: +7.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +7.6% YTD

DJ30 +67.18 NASDAQ +17.49 SP500 +4.76 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1802/1.708 bln/1095 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2097/892.5 mln/880

3:30 pm :

Crude oil retreated from this morning's initial 1-month high (for the second session in a row) following OPEC comments ahead of the Nov 30 meeting
January 2017 crude oil futures fell $0.20 (-0.4%) to $48.07/barrel
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil/OPEC commentary:
Crude oil futures for Jan 2017 delivery retreated from an initial 1-month high hit earlier in the session to levels as low as -2% following comments from today's technical OPEC meeting.
The 2-day technical OPEC meeting in Vienna ahead of the official Nov 30 meeting concluded today with little changed in the way of a concrete & specific production freeze agreement.
Experts in attendance recommended a 4-4.5% output reduction per each OPEC member participating in the cut, excluding Libya & Nigeria.
Iran, Iraq, and Indonesia then proceeded to express reservations about their level of participation in the proposed deal.
After these allocations were discussed, OPEC then stated they will differ the issue of Iran & Iraq supply cuts until the upcoming official meeting after both countries expressed reluctance to agree to the 4-4.5% proposal.
A representative from Nigeria in attendance at today's technical meeting discussed that disagreements remain between OPEC members regarding how to monitor independent data on production, individual member output disclosure, & Iran's previous plans to continue raising production.
Today's recent crude oil slide comes ahead of tonight's API & tomorrow's EIA inventory data release.
The dollar index was trading nearly flat, -0.04% around the 101.01 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.3% around the 85.14 level
Natural gas ended higher for the third consecutive session, closed at a fresh 3-week high ahead of Thursday's inventory number
December natural gas closed $0.03 higher (+1.0%) at $2.98/MMBtu
The weekly EIA natural gas data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold extended yesterday's gains while the dollar index traded nearly flat
December gold ended today's session up $1.80 (+0.2%) to $1211.40/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.12 higher (+0.7%) at $16.63/oz
Base metal copper inched higher to close at its highest level of the session for the second day in a row
December copper closed $0.02 higher (+0.8%) at $2.54/lb

The broader market turned in another day of all-time highs, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average both eclipsing and closing above the 19,000 level for the first time in history. It led all others higher today, up 67.18 points (+0.35%) to 19023.87. The Nasdaq Composite added 17.49 points (+0.33%) to 5386.35, and the S&P 500 was higher by 4.76 points (+0.22%) to 2202.94.

Equity indices jumped out of the gate as a positive tilt in global markets helped Wall Street build on yesterday's gain. However, the broader market pulled back after the opening hour, as crude oil extended its loss. The energy component was under pressure as participants continued assessing the likelihood of an OPEC supply cap agreement. Reports circulated this afternoon that Iran, Iraq, and Indonesia have expressed some misgivings about their participation in a proposed deal. The oil collective is scheduled to meet on November 30 to vote on potential supply control measures. WTI crude finished down 0.4% ($48.07/bbl; -$0.20).

The lone piece of economic data today included the existing home sales reading which was up 2.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.60 million in October from an upwardly revised 5.49 million (from 5.47 million) in September.

Finishing the session just above flat lines, the Technology (XLK 47.99, +0.15 +0.31%) space closed out Tuesday on mostly average volume. Component Analog Devices (ADI 72.89, +3.07 +4.40%) was the best performer today after the company's better than expected Q4 print from this morning. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLFS +2.19%, XLRE +1.72%, IYZ +1.32%, XLY +1.19%, XLB +0.61%, XLP +0.51%, XLI +0.45%, XLU +0.38%, XLF +0.04%, XLE -0.05%, XLV -1.46% with Energy and Healthcare modestly lower.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (805.78, +0.97 +0.12%) sector, trading compounded yesterday's strong session with further gains. Component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 22.87, -0.25 -1.08%) by contrast had a mild day ahead of its Q4 earnings tonight. Other names in the space which closed modestly higher today included AVGO +2.57%, KLAC +2.57%, SYMC +2.41%, ADS +1.95%, QCOM +1.80%, INTC +1.43%, CSRA +1.41%, LLTC +1.32%, AMAT +1.31%, MU +1.28%, WU +1.05%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Salesforce.com (CRM 75.57, -0.58 -0.76%) filed for an offering of 4,708,785 shares on behalf of selling stockholders.

Alphabet's (GOOG 768.27, -0.93 -0.12%) Google acquired Qwiklabs. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

IBM (IBM 162.67, -0.10 -0.06%) announced that it is adding four new cloud data centers infused with cognitive intelligence in the UK, to keep pace with growing client demand. The investment in the new facilities underscores IBM's long-standing commitment to providing innovative solutions to the UK market and triples its cloud center capacity in the UK.

According to the WSJ, Microsoft (MSFT 61.12, +0.26 +0.43%) has offered the EU concessions regarding Outlook to secure approval for its LinkedIn (LNKD 193.72, +0.18 +0.09%) deal.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

ON Semiconductor (ON 11.88, +0.41 +3.57$) Chairman J. Daniel McCranie to retire from the Board in 2017.

AT&T (T 38.55, +0.81 +2.15%), DISH Network L.L.C., a wholly-owned subsidiary of DISH Network Corporation, and WPP (WPPGY 106.08, +0.11 +0.10%) announced plans to acquire INVIDI Technologies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Luxoft Holding (LXFT 55.45, +1.00 +1.84%) signed a three-year agreement with UBS (UBS 15.78, +0.03 +0.19%).

Engility (EGL 36.42, +1.42 +4.06%) and Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 36.51, +0.91 +2.56%) were named to a $240 million Washington Headquarters Services contract.

LivePerson (LPSN 8.50, flat) extended its share repurchase program through the addition of $10 million to the existing $64 million authorization .

According to Bloomberg, AT&T's (T) online streaming service will start without CBS (CBS 60.93, +0.64 +1.06%) programming.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Analog Devices (ADI) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.05 and $1 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company sees EPS of $0.68-0.78 on revenues of $840-900 million.

Palo Alto Networks (PANW 139.73, -21.33 -13.24%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.55 on revenues which rose 34.0% compared to last year to $398.1 million. For Q2, the company sees EPS of $0.61-0.63 on revenues of $426-432 million.

SINA (SINA 74.05, +6.76 +10.05%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.56 on better than expected revenues which rose 21.5% compared to last year to $274.9 million.

Brocade (BRCD 12.40, +0.03 +0.24%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.33 and $657.3 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report tonight/tomorrow morning: HPE, HPQ, MENT, NMBL, QADA, VEEV/TSL

Analyst actions:

JBL was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research,
ANET was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at BofA/Merrill,
GDDY was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley & Co.,
AMX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
RUN was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays;
CSIQ was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at FBR & Co. and to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital,
FEYE was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
CTSH was downgraded to Underperform at BofA/Merrill,
AMCC was downgraded to Mkt Perform at Raymond James and to Hold at Canaccord Genuity,
LVLT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at MoffettNathanson;
BL was initiated at Robert W. Baird, JP Morgan, Goldman, Pacific Crest, William Blair and Raymond
James,
QTNA was initiated at Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Needham, William Blair, Roth Capital and Morgan Stanley, ANSS was initiated with a Hold at Needham,
CSRA was initiated with a Buy at Drexel Hamilton

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the pre-holiday affair on a flat note despite a deluge of economic data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) finished ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.1%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%). It is also worth noting that the domestically-oriented Russell 2000 (+0.5%) extended its winning streak to a 14th consecutive session.

The major averages diverged at the start of the session as the heavily-weighted technology (-0.5%) and health care (+0.4%) spaces slipped down the sector leaderboard. Meanwhile, another rapid increase in market rates kept "yield play" groups --utilities (-0.9%), real estate (-0.7%), and consumer staples (-0.6%)-- under pressure.

Market rates were on the rise after the latest raft of economic data came in largely above consensus. The Durable Orders report signaled that headline orders jumped 4.8% (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%) while orders excluding transportation increased 1.0% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%). The data marked the fourth consecutive month of growth, adding support to the rate hike argument.

The minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's November meeting were also supportive of a rate hike in December. The minutes indicated that most committee members felt that it may soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the fed funds rate. Some FOMC members also argued that rates should be hiked at the December meeting to preserve the central bank's credibility. Per the CME's FedWatch Tool, the implied probability of an interest rate hike at the December meeting is unchanged at 93.5%.

The benchmark index settled just north of its flat line, marking another incremental record high. Seven sectors settled in positive territory with industrials (+0.8%), telecom services (+0.8%), and financials (+0.6%) leading the pack.

Heavy machinery names outperformed in the industrial sector (+0.8%). The group led after Deere (DE 102.17, +10.16, +11.0%) topped consensus estimates for the fourth quarter and issued upbeat sales guidance for the first quarter and full-year 2017. Peer and Dow component Caterpillar (CAT 96.18, +2.56m +2.7%) finished at the top of the price-weighted average. The broader sector has gained 8.7% so far this month.

The financial sector (+0.6%) continued its recent winning streak as banking names outperformed once again. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 40.95, +0.22, +0.5%) has surged 18.1% in November on the back of steepening in the yield curve, which improves the earnings prospects for banks. The broader sector has gained 13.2% in November, leaving the group up 15.3% for 2016.

In the technology space (-0.5%), large cap tech names underperformed. Microsoft (MSFT 60.40, -0.72) and Alphabet (GOOG 760.99, -7.28) finished lower by 1.0% apiece. Meanwhile, HP (HPQ 14.87, -1.08) tumbled 6.8% after issuing cautious first-quarter guidance. However, the company did report in-line results for the fourth quarter.

The health care sector (+0.4%) finished in positive territory after biotechnology rebounded from steep opening losses. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 283.84, +2.48, +0.9%) sank 2.5% after Eli Lilly (LLY 68.00, -7.99, 10.5%) announced that its Alzheimer's drug, solanezumab, failed to reach the primary endpoints in its clinical trial.

Treasuries ended on a broadly lower note as yields jumped across the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note finished up four basis points at 1.13% while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note also rose four basis points to 2.36%.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average of one billion as fewer than 808 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data included the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, weekly initial claims, Durable Orders for October, the FHFA Housing Price Index for September, New Home Sales for October, and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for November:

The MBA Mortgage Index indicated that mortgage applications rose by 5.5% in the week ending November 19. This followed a 9.2% decline in the prior week.
Initial jobless claims increased by 18,000 for the week ending November 19 to 251,000 (Briefing.com consensus 243,000).
Continuing claims for the week ending November 12 increased by 66,000 to 2.043 million.
Durable orders for October surged past estimates, jumping 4.8% (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%), thanks to a 12.0% spike in transportation orders.
Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 1.0% in October (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) on top of an unrevised 0.2% increase in September.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for September rose 0.6%, which followed an increase of 0.7% in August.
Sales of new single-family home sales declined 1.9% in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 563,000 from a revised September rate of 574,000 (from 593,000).
The October reading was lower than the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 587,000.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for November increased to 93.8 (Briefing.com consensus 91.6) from the preliminary reading of 91.6.
The sentiment index jumped 8.2 points after the election, leaving the index 6.6 points above its level from October.

For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar page.

Tomorrow, bond and equity markets will be closed for Thanksgiving while Friday's session will end at 13:00 ET. Two pieces of economic data will be released Friday with October International Trade in Goods and October Advance Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) each crossing the wires at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000: +18.1% YTD
Dow Jones: +9.5% YTD
S&P 500: +7.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite: +7.5% YTD

DJ30 +59.31 NASDAQ -5.67 SP500 +1.78 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1655/1.473 bln/1176 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1481/807.2 mln/1448

3:40 pm :

Strength in the dollar index helped weigh on the precious metals space
Dec gold ended today's session -1.8% at $1189.10/oz, while Dec silver ended -1.4% at $16.39/oz
Dec copper rallied 3% to $2.61/lb
However, in the energy space, oil and nat gas fared a bit better
WTI oil ended the day near the unchanged line, while nat gas rose higher
Dec crude oil closed -0.2% at $47.99/barrel
Dec nat gas finished +1.7% at $3.03/MMBtu

As the markets came to a hushed halt on the eve of Thanksgiving, both the S&P 500 and the Dow again made all-time highs. The positive action was led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which added 59.31 points (+0.31%) to 19083.18. The S&P 500 gained a little more than a point (+0.08%) to 2204.72, and the Nasdaq Composite rounded out the trio lower by 5.67 points (-0.11%) to 5380.68. Into the holiday, this week's moves thus far leave the three major averages +9.5%, +7.8% and +7.4% YTD, respectively.

The minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's November meeting seemed supportive of a rate hike in December. The minutes indicated that most committee members felt that it may soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the fed funds rate. Some FOMC members also argued that rates should be hiked at the December meeting to preserve the central bank's credibility. Per the CME's FedWatch Tool, the implied probability of an interest rate hike at the December meeting is unchanged at 93.5%.

As market data went today, readings included the MBA Mortgage Index which indicated that mortgage applications rose by 5.5% in the week ending November 19. This followed a 9.2% decline in the prior week. Also, initial jobless claims increased by 18,000 for the week ending November 19 to 251,000. Additionally, durable orders for October surged past estimates, jumping 4.8%, thanks to a 12.0% spike in transportation orders. The FHFA Housing Price Index for September rose 0.6%, which followed an increase of 0.7% in August. Sales of new single-family homes declined 1.9% in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 563,000 from a revised September rate of 574,000 (from 593,000). Lastly, the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for November increased to 93.8 from the preliminary reading of 91.6.

Ending in modest negative territory, the Technology (XLK 47.80, -0.19 -0.40%) sector took some of the daily losses back in the final moments of action, but ultimately ended below flat lines. Component HP (HPQ 14.87, -1.08 -6.77%) was the worst performer today after last night's mixed Q4 and worse than expected Q1 guidance. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended Wednesday XLFS +2.19%, XLI +0.78%, XLF +0.58%, XLE +0.47%, XLB +0.45%, XLV +0.39%, IYZ +0.34%, XLY +0.10%, XLP -0.55%, XLRE -0.70%, XLU -1.00% as Financial Services led all others and Utilities lagged.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (801.57, -4.21 -0.52%) sector, trading was pressured by the broader sector but ultimately held onto the $800-level. Component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 23.55, +0.68 +2.97%), in contrast to its recently separated counterpart, was the best performing name in the space today after its Q4 report. Other names in the sector which underperformed today with the broader sector included CTSH -2.48%, CRM -2.14%, KLAC -1.40%, SWKS -1.32%, MA -1.29%, QRVO -1.25%, MSFT -1.18%, SYMC -1.04%, NTAP -1.01%, ADBE -0.95%, GOOG -0.95%, CTXS -0.84%, INTC -0.82%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Electronic Arts's (EA 79.35, +1.60 +2.06%) CFO Blake Jorgensen established a pre-arranged stock trading plan as part of managing his EA equity holdings.
According to the New York Times, Facebook (FB 120.86, -0.61 -0.50%) may have created a censorship tool to perhaps entice the Chinese government to let the social media site into the country.

According to CTFN, the EU may approve Microsoft's (MSFT 60.40, -0.72 -1.18%) pending approval of LinkedIn (LNKD 194.92, +1.20 +0.62%), with conditions.

Elsewhere in the tech space:
Mimecast (MIME 21.53, -0.78 -3.50%) acquired substantially all of the assets of iSheriff. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Infosys (INFY 14.13, +0.07 +0.50%) invested in Stellaris Venture Partners.
According to TechCrunch, Amazon (AMZN 780.12, -5.21 -0.66%) may be considering a new chat video platform following the acquisition of Biba.

Rogers Corp (ROG 73.20, +0.67 +0.92%) acquired DeWAL Industries. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but 2017 EPS accretion is expected.
In reaction to quarterly results:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.61 on worse than expected revenues of $12.48 billion. The company also guided Q1 EPS mostly below expectations at $0.42-0.46. HPE also reaffirmed FY17 EPS guidance of $2.00-2.10.

HP (HPQ) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $0.36 on better than expected revenues of $12.51 billion. For Q1, the company sees EPS below market expectations at $0.35-0.38. HPQ also reaffirmed FY17 EPS guidance of $1.55-1.65.

Veeva Systems (VEEV 46.29, +4.73 +11.38%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.22 and $142.8 million, respectively. For Q4, the company sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $0.17 and $145-146 million, respectively.

Mentor Graphics (MENT 36.56, +0.03 +0.08%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.50 and $322.5 million, respectively.

Nimble Storage (NMBL 7.77, -1.47 -15.91%) reported in-line Q3 EPS at a loss of $0.18 per share on in-line revenues of $102 million. For Q4, the company sees EPS of ($0.13)-($0.15) on revenues of $112-115 million.

Analyst actions:
ADI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill;
HPQ was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies,
TWTR was downgraded to Negative from Mixed at OTR Global,
FSLR was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie,
CTSH was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair,
BLKB was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
NANO and RTEC were downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
LN was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS;
CBB was initiated with a Buy at Drexel Hamilton

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From Briefing.com: 4:31 pm Interdigital Comm sees Q4 (Dec) revs of $95-99 mln vs. $99.86 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate (IDCC) : This revenue guidance is based primarily on royalty reports received to date, and does not include the potential impact of any new patent license, technology solutions or patent sale agreements that may be signed, or any arbitration or dispute resolutions that may occur, during the balance of fourth quarter 2016.

4:10 pm : The stock market began the week on a lower note as the major averages consolidated after their post-election run. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) settled slightly behind the S&P 500 (-0.5%). The domestically-oriented Russell 2000 (-1.3%), however, snapped a 15 session win streak.

Participants favored a cautious approach at the start of the week as volatility from the oil pit and concerns out of Europe kept risk appetite in check. This also encouraged some profit-taking activity as investors assessed whether the broader market has risen too far, too fast. The benchmark index has gained 3.6% so far this month while the Russell 2000 has surged 11.6% over that time.

Crude oil began the day on a modestly lower note as investors reassessed the likelihood of an OPEC supply cap agreement. Saudi Arabia made headlines last week by opting out of a meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC members. The move cast doubts on the country's willingness to agree to joint supply measures. However, carryover selling interest faded when Iraq indicated that it was willing to cooperate with its fellow producers. WTI crude ended the day higher by 2.5% ($47.11/bbl; +$1.15) after sinking 3.2% in the prior session. The oil collective is scheduled to meet in an official capacity on Wednesday.

Developments in Italy were also in focus as investors eyed a downturn in the country's banking names. Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena tumbled 13.8% after the bank initiated a debt-for-equity swap and stated that it could face up to EUR8 billion in fines. The name also saw pressure ahead of the country's constitutional referendum. Italian citizens will vote on December 4 on whether the powers of the Senate should be reduced. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi stated that if the referendum should fail, he will resign.

The benchmark index finished near its session low with seven sectors ending in negative territory. The financial (-1.4%), energy (-1.3%), and health care (-0.9%) spaces outpaced today's losses in the broader market while rate-sensitive utilities (+2.0%), telecom services (+0.8%), and real estate (+0.2%) gained amid declining market rates.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (-1.4%) moved lower in sympathy with European banking names. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 40.28, -0.73, -1.8%) narrowed its monthly gain to 16.2%. This compares to an advance of 11.9% in the broader sector. Heavily-weighted Wells Fargo (WFC 51.58,- 1.04) finished lower by 2.0% after being downgraded to "Hold" from "Buy" at Jefferies.

Biotechnology demonstrated relative weakness in the health care sector (-0.9%), evidenced by the 1.6% loss in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 279.99, -4.47). The ETF narrowed its November gain to 9.1% as investors continued to walk back their initial post-election assessment. Eli Lilly (LLY 67.20, -1.92) ended down 2.8% after being removed from the "US 1 List" at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

In the consumer discretionary space (-0.8%), retail names underperformed as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 46.07, -0.57) declined by 1.2%. The ETF was under pressure as investors examined data from Black Friday and speculated on results from Cyber Monday. Kohl's (KSS 54.05, -0.76), Macy's (M 43.13, -1.01), and Nordstrom (JWN 56.06, -1.79) declined between 1.4% and 3.1%.

Treasuries ended on a higher note as longer-dated issues outperformed. The yield on the 2-yr note finished down two basis points (1.10%) while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note fell five basis points to 2.31%.

Today's trading volume was below the recent average of 1.0 billion as fewer than 847 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

There was no economic data of note released today.

Tuesday's economic data will include the second estimate of Q3 GDP (Briefing.com consensus 3.0%) and the Q3 GDP Deflator (Briefing.com consensus 1.5%), which will each cross the wires at 8:30 ET. Separately, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for September (Briefing.com consensus 5.2%) and November Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 100.0) will be released at 9:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Russell 2000: +17.0% YTD
Dow Jones: +9.6% YTD
S&P 500: +7.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite : +7.2% YTD

DJ30 -54.24 NASDAQ -30.11 SP500 -11.63 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 858/1.451 bln/2024 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 997/846.1 mln/1972

3:30 pm :

Crude oil reversed initial morning losses to end near its highest level of the session following comments from Iraq ahead of the Nov 30 OPEC meeting
Jan 2017 crude oil futures rose $1.15 (+2.5%) to $47.11/barrel
Color on recent price action in oil/OPEC update:
Crude oil futures for Jan 2017 delivery initially fell 0.5% in morning pit trading & were down as much as 2%, extending Friday's 4% drop after Saudi Arabia, the largest OPEC producer, decided not to attend today's scheduled meeting with non-OPEC producers. This comes ahead of Wednesday's (11/30) highly anticipated official OPEC meeting in Vienna, Austria.
The Saudis said that meeting with Russia and other non-OPEC producers before OPEC ministers have a clear decision within OPEC is pointless.
The Algerian oil minister traveled to Tehran on Sunday to present Iran with a fresh proposal consisting of a 1.1 mln barrel/day OPEC cut combined with a 600k barrel/day non-OPEC cut. The Iranian oil minister stated he will formally respond to the new proposition at the official OPEC meeting this coming Wed in Vienna, Austria.
Crude oil futures have since reversed direction and closed near session highs following headlines indicating that Iraq, OPEC's second largest producer, will cooperate with OPEC members to find an acceptable agreement.
Natural gas futures traded higher for the fifth consecutive session on updated colder weather forecasts ahead of Thursday's inventory number
Jan 2017 natural gas closed $0.12 higher (+3.8%) at $3.31/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold bounced off of Friday's 9-month low & closed near session highs as the dollar index gave up some ground
December gold ended today's session up $7.90 (+0.7) to $1190.60/oz
December silver closed today's session $0.09 higher (+0.6%) at $16.59/oz
The dollar index was -0.2% around the 101.35 level, helped to support precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +1.2% around the 86.07 level
Base metal copper gave up this morning's initial gain & snapped its recent 4-session streak
December copper closed $0.01 lower (-0.4%) at $2.66/lb

The final week of November began with modest losses. Leading the negative bias today, the Nasdaq Composite fell about 30.11 points (-0.56%) today to 5368.81. The S&P 500 lost about 11.63 points (-0.53%) to 2201.72, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 54.24 points lower (-0.28%) to 19097.90.

Equity indices slipped at the start of the session as volatility from the oil patch and some profit-taking activity had investors on their heels. Saudi Arabia made headlines late last week when the oil producer announced that it would not attend a meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC producers. The commentary dampened expectations for a supply cap deal and led to some carryover selling into today's session. However, the energy component erased an early loss after Iraq indicated that it will cooperate with its fellow producers as it looks to reach an acceptable agreement. Crude oil will likely see increased headline volatility as we head into Wednesday's OPEC meeting. Today, WTI crude ended higher by 2.5% ($47.11/bbl; +$1.15) after sinking 3.2% in the prior session.

A downturn in the economically-sensitive financial sector (-0.9%) has also helped keep a lid on things in the first half. The group is moving lower in sympathy with European banking names. Shares of Italian banks are under pressure amid rising uncertainty ahead of the country's constitutional referendum. Shares of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena fell 13.8% after the bank initiated a debt-for-equity swap. The name was also under pressure after stating that it would face up to EUR8 billion in fines. Italian citizens will vote on December 4 on whether the powers of the Senate should be reduced. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi stated that he will resign should the referendum fail.

As the session came to a closed, the Technology (XLK 48.04, +0.04 +0.08%) sector ended about middle of the ladder today as far as S&P sectors go. Component Cognizant Tech (CTSH 56.95, +3.70 +6.95%) was the best performer on the back of a letter from shareholder Elliott Management highlighting the plan for the company to achieve a value of $80-90+ per share by the end of 2017. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLFS +2.19%, XLU +1.93%, XLRE +0.37%, IYZ +0.18%, XLP +0.18%, XLB -0.40%, XLI -0.69%, XLV -0.76%, XLY -0.80%, XLF -1.25%, XLE -1.43%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (803.83, -0.75 -0.09%) sector, trading ended just below flat lines as modest gains would not hold fading action in the space. Component MasterCard (MA 103.36, -2.37 -2.24%) was the worst performer today on no particular catalyst. Other names in the space which underperformed today included SYMC -1.66%, VRSN -1.34%, EBAY -1.31%, V -1.31%, WU -1.30%, AVGO -1.19%, AKAM -1.17%, ADS -1.13%, CRM -1.09%, FFIV -1.05%, FLIR -1.04%.

Notable news items among sector components:

Shareholder Elliott Management sent a letter to Cognizant's (CTSH) Board outlining a three-part Value-Enhancement Plan. The firm believes the plan can help the company achieve a value of $80-$90+ per share by the end of 2017.

Cogent Communications (CCOI 38.85, -0.25 -0.64%) commenced a tack-on offering of an additional $125 million of its 5.375% Senior Secured Notes due 2022.
According to Reuters, BlackBerry (BBRY 7.46, -0.03 -0.40%) is testing self-driving car technology in Canada.

Yingli Green Energy (YGE 3.21, -0.20 -5.87%) narrowed Q3 PV module shipments guidance in the range of 360MW to 370MW from of 300-400MW. The company also lowered gross margin guidance to 5-6% from 12.5-14%.

According to Reuters, Lattice Semi's (LSCC 7.09, -0.16 -2.21%) pending acquisition by Canyon Bridge Capital may in part be funded by the Chinese government, leading some to speculate the deal could face a harsher regulatory review.

According to CRN, Microsoft (MSFT 60.61, +0.08 +0.13%) could ultimately move to acquire Box (BOX 15.49, +0.15 +0.98%).

Analyst actions:

FNSR was upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Needham;
MENT was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse;
RHT was initiated with a Buy at Rosenblatt,
SSNI was initiated with a Buy at Williams Capital,
YY was initiated with a Buy at BofA/Merrill

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From Briefing.com: 4:39 pm Microchip follw up: Narrows/raises Q3 guidance (MCHP) : Narrows non-GAAP EPS to $0.87-0.94 from $0.85-0.95 vs. the $0.90 consensus; raises rev to down 1-4% (from flat to down 6%) to ~$839-865 mln vs. $848 mln consensus.

"Our business through the first eight weeks of the December 2016 quarter is tracking modestly above our November 7, 2016 guidance," said Steve Sanghi, Microchip's CEO. "Furthermore, the integration activities associated with our acquisitions of Atmel and Micrel continue to make significant progress. Micrel's 6-inch fab in San Jose is now closed which we expect to drive significant gross margin benefits after the higher cost inventory from that factory is sold through and our lower costs from our higher volume factories are realized.

The integration of Atmel continues to progress as we approach a major milestone of integrating business systems on January 1, 2017."

"With the continued execution of our integration activities and operational improvements for our business we are on track to realize our long term business model of 33% non-GAAP operating income by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018."

4:07 pm Amazon announces its best-ever holiday shopping weekend for devices (AMZN) : Amazon today announced its best-ever holiday shopping weekend for devices-including a record-breaking Cyber Monday with Amazon device sales up more than 2x over last year and millions of devices sold. Echo Dot, Amazon Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, Fire tablet, and Amazon Echo were not only the best-selling Amazon devices, but they were the best-selling products from any manufacturer in any category across all of Amazon.

4:06 pm Autodesk beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q4 below consensus (ADSK) :

Reports Q3 (Oct) loss of $0.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.24); revenues fell 18.4% year/year to $489.6 mln vs the $476.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus; 16 percent on a constant currency basis. During Autodesk's business model transition, revenue is negatively impacted as more revenue is recognized ratably rather than up front and as new offerings generally have a lower initial purchase price.New model subscriptions increased 168,000 from the second quarter of fiscal 2017 to 861,000. Total subscriptions increased 134,000 from the second quarter of fiscal 2017 to 2.95 million at the end of the third quarter and include ~13,000 maintenance subscriptions related to the recent acquisition of Solid Angle. New model annualized recurring revenue (ARR) was $414 million and increased 88 percent compared to the third quarter last year as reported, and 91 percent on a constant currency basis.
"Record new model subscription additions and continued cost control contributed to our better than expected third quarter results and demonstrates solid progress on the business model transition."
Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of ($0.39)-(0.32), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.31) Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q4 revs of $460-480 mln vs. $488.50 mln Capital IQ Consensus.


4:02 pm Superconductor Tec awarded $4.5 mln DOE contract to improve HTS Wire for Next Generation Electric Machines program (SCON) : "In addition, the significant wire improvement goals for this program will address our customers' desire for increased infield magnetic performance and high performance/low cost wire for many applications, such as motors, generators, magnets, power cables and MRI machines. STI expects to transition from R&D to full scale production of motor- and generator-optimized wire during the three-year project plan, which will enable our superconducting technology to be introduced into Next Generation Electrical Machines utilizing high performance/low cost HTS wire."

4:10 pm : The stock market appeared to be on track for a swift recovery from a Monday dip, but a pullback during the final hour made the rebound appear not nearly as swift. The Nasdaq Composite displayed relative strength, adding 0.2% after an intraday probe of its record high from Friday. The S&P 500 underperformed, ticking up 0.1%.

Equity indices started the day on a flat note, but heavily-weighted sectors like health care (+0.7%), financials (+0.2%), and technology (+0.2%) saw buying interest from the start, which was enough to improve sentiment around other sectors. The energy space (-1.2%) was the only laggard of note, responding to headlines that cast doubt on the likelihood of an OPEC supply cut agreement.

Better than expected economic data was peppered into the pre-market mix that was pretty bland otherwise. Third-quarter GDP was revised up to 3.2% from 2.9% (Briefing.com consensus 3.0%), driven by an upward revision to personal expenditures growth. Separately, the November Consumer Confidence report (107.1; Briefing.com consensus 100.0) soared past estimates, even though the bulk of the survey was conducted amid pre-election uncertainty.

With no red flags on the economic front, stocks climbed in methodical fashion, overcoming weakness in the energy sector (-1.2%). The growth-sensitive group was down more than 2.0% at the start, briefly testing its 50-day moving average, as crude oil stumbled ahead of tomorrow's OPEC meeting in Vienna.

WTI crude settled lower by 3.9% at $45.27/bbl, retreating amid headlines with bearish implications. Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said that his country will not take part in any production cuts. Given similar reluctance among other oil producers, the market is adjusting to reduced hopes for a supply cut being announced after tomorrow's meeting.

On the upside, the health care sector (+0.7%) maintained its early strength, bolstered by biotech names and Dow component UnitedHealth (UNH 157.59, +5.48). The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 280.40, +0.41) slipped into the close, adding just 0.2%, while UnitedHealth jumped 3.6% after guiding earnings and revenue for fiscal year 2017 ahead of market expectations.

Health care was edged out slightly by another countercyclical group-real estate (+0.7%)-which displayed strength even as Treasuries retreated during morning action. Moving down the leaderboard, utilities (+0.3%) held a modest gain throughout the day while financials (+0.2%) and technology (+0.2%) trimmed their gains during the final hour of action, causing a pullback in the broader market.

Elsewhere, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.2%) settled in line with the benchmark index, which masked a 3.2% spike in the shares of Tiffany (TIF 80.60, +2.46), brought on by better than expected results and reaffirmed guidance.

Treasuries dipped in morning action, but climbed throughout the session to end with gains. The benchmark 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.30% while the 30-yr yield slid three basis points to 2.95%.

Intraday trading volume was below average, but final-hour selling brought the NYSE floor total up to 901 million.

Economic data included Q3 GDP, Case-Shiller 20-city Index, and Consumer Confidence:

The second estimate for third quarter GDP showed growth was revised up to an annual rate of 3.2% (Briefing.com consensus 3.0%) from 2.9% in the advance estimate while the GDP Deflator was revised down to 1.4% (Briefing.com consensus 1.5%) from 1.5%
The Case-Shiller 20-city Index for September showed an increase of 5.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 5.2%
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index surged to 107.1 in November (Briefing.com consensus 100.0) from an upwardly revised 100.8 (from 98.6) in October

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while November ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 160K) will be reported at 8:15 ET. October Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%), and Core PCE Price Index (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) will be released at 8:30 ET while Chicago PMI for November (Briefing.com consensus 52.0) will cross the wires at 9:45 ET. October Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%) are expected at 10:00 ET, and the day's data will be topped off with the 14:00 ET release of the Federal Reserve's Beige Book for November.

Russell 2000 +16.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.7% YTD
S&P 500 +7.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.4% YTD

After a less than stellar morning session, broader market action turned higher into the afternoon. Gains would not hold, though, and stocks faded into the closing bell. Leading the session in positive territory despite the afternoon weakness was the Nasdaq Composite which added 11.11 points (+0.21%) today to close 5379.92. The S&P 500 edged out the Dow, higher by 2.94 points (+0.13%) to 2204.66, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 23.70 points (+0.12%) today, ending Tuesday at 19121.60.

Market data today included the second estimate for third quarter GDP showed growth was revised up to an annual rate of 3.2% from 2.9% in the advance estimate while the GDP Deflator was revised down to 1.4% from 1.5%. Additionally, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for September showed an increase of 5.1%, and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index surged to 107.1 in November from an upwardly revised 100.8 (from 98.6) in October.

The better than expected economic data was peppered into the pre-market mix that was pretty bland otherwise. With no red flags on the economic front, stocks climbed in methodical fashion, overcoming weakness in the energy sector (-1.2%). The growth-sensitive group was down more than 2.0% at the start, briefly testing its 50-day moving average, as crude oil stumbled ahead of tomorrow's OPEC meeting in Vienna.

WTI crude settled lower by 3.9% at $45.27/bbl, retreating amid headlines with bearish implications. Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said that his country will not take part in any production cuts. Given similar reluctance among other oil producers, the market is adjusting to reduced hopes for a supply cut being announced after tomorrow's meeting.

Markets faded into the close, and the Technology (XLK 48.07, +0.03 +0.06%) sector was no stranger to that action, ending the session barely on this side of flat lines. Component Micron (MU 19.42, -0.57 -2.85%) succumbed to broader market pressure into the close, in addition to weakness from the company's guidance update today at the Credit Suisse Tech Conference. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLFS +2.19%, XLRE +0.70%, XLV +0.65%, XLU +0.42%, XLY +0.26%, XLP +0.14%, XLF +0.14%, XLB +0.10%, XLI +0.10%, IYZ -0.15%, XLE -1.23%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (805.24, +1.41 +0.18%) sector, trading again managed to stay above the $800-level despite the weakness into the bell. Component Electronic Arts (EA 81.37, +2.64 +3.35%) was the best performing name today following comments at the aforementioned Credit Suisse Conference. Other names in the space which closed higher today included PAYX +2.53%, RHT +2.07%, CSRA +1.95%, HPE +1.71%, AKAM +1.68%, CA +1.63%, ATVI +1.55%, JNPR +1.52%, XLNX +1.35%, AMAT +1.01%, MSFT +0.79%, LRCX +0.75%, HRS +0.64%, WDC +0.64%.

Elsewhere in the tech space:

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission proposed to deny authorisation for banks to collectively bargain with and boycott Apple (AAPL 111.44, -0.12 -0.11%) on Apple Pay.

Microsoft (MSFT 61.09, +0.48 +0.79%) announced that Microsoft HoloLens will be available for preorder in Japan starting Dec. 2. Devices will begin to ship in early 2017.

Twitter (TWTR 18.19, -0.11 -0.60%) announced it is collaborating with Disney (DIS 99.67, +0.70 +0.71%) and People (TIME 16.30, +0.30 +1.88%) to live stream exclusively a special Rogue One: A Star Wars Story event.

Cognizant Tech (CTSH 55.62, -1.33 -2.34%) to acquire privately-held Mirabeau BV. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

America Movil SA (AMX 11.93, +0.15 +1.27%) announced the acquisition of spectrum in Mexico -- its subsidiary Radiomvil Dipsa has entered into an agreement with Grupo MVS to indirectly acquire about 60 MHz of spectrum of which Grupo MVS owns in the 2.5 GHz band, in different regions of the country.

Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 38.20, +1.00 +2.69%) to acquire eGov Holdings dba Aquilent for $250 million. The deal is expected to add about $30-35 million of revenues for the remainder of the BAH's FY17.

IBM (IBM 163.53, -0.99 -0.60%) announced a strategic partnership with American Airlines (AAL 46.89, +0.39 +0.84%), naming IBM as its cloud provider for greater enterprise flexibility, scalability and reliability.

Avast Software is working with Accenture (ACN 120.94, +0.18 +0.15%) to improve its HR document generation capabilities. Avast Software will be using the Accenture Document Composer software on SAP HANA Cloud Platform to extend the capabilities of document generation, updates and management across the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solution.

Also, ACN acquired Karmarama. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Allot Comms's (ALLT 4.71, -0.13 -2.69%) CFO Shmuel Arvatz announced his departure. The company appointed Alberto Sessa as new CFO.

TiVo (TIVO 20.80, +0.05 +0.24%) and Netflix (NFLX 117.51, +0.58 +0.50%) entered into product and intellectual property agreements.

Rapid7 (RPD 11.76, -0.22 -1.84%) appointed Jeff Kalowski as CFO effective January 9, 2017.

Cellcom Israel (CEL 8.00, +0.07 +0.88%) to file liquidation request against Golan.

FireEye (FEYE 12.82, -0.10 -0.77%) introduced FireEye Helix, an intelligence-led platform that unifies network, endpoint and third-party product visibility with industry leading FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence and Mandiant expertise.

According to BNN, Amazon (AMZN 761.55, -5.22 -0.68%) Prime Canada might be introduced this week.

At the Credit Suisse Tech Conference, Micron (MU) increased its Q1 guidance: revenue expected to be in the range of $3.925-4.025 billion (prior guidance $3.55-3.85 billion); gross margin 25-26% (prior guidance 23.0-25.5%); EPS is expected to be about $0.28 (prior guidance $0.13-0.21).

In reaction to quarterly results:

ReneSola (SOL 0.73, -0.02 -2.40%) reported a worse than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.20 on worse than expected revenues which fell 49.2% compared to last year to $187 million. For Q4, the company sees revenues of $220-240 million.

21Vianet (VNET 7.82, +0.20 +2.62%) reported a better than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.02 on better than expected revenues of $145.2 million. For Q4, the company sees revenues of RMB 900-940 million.

Companies scheduled to report earnings tonight: ADSK, GWRE, NTNX, SPLK

Analyst actions:
SAIC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
QSII was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James;
SHOP was initiated with a Buy at Mackie Research

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From Briefing.com: 4:36 pm Texas Instruments: Rafael Lizardi named next CFO; Current CFO, Kevin March, to retire in October 2017 (TXN) : Co names Rafael Lizardi as its next CFO, effective February 1, 2017. Lizardi follows current CFO Kevin March, who plans to retire in October 2017. Lizardi, 44, joined TXN in 2001 and was named vice president in 2010 followed by corporate controller in 2012.

4:15 pm Juniper Networks to acquire AppFormix; terms not disclosed (JNPR) :

AppFormix's platform for cloud operations is built on big-data analytics and machine learning.

The acquisition is expected to close in 4Q16, subject to customary closing conditions.

4:15 pm : The stock market ended Thursday on a mixed note ahead of Friday's Employment Situation report for November (Briefing.com consensus 180,000). The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) continued its recent outperformance while the S&P 500 (-0.4%) and Nasdaq (-1.4%) ended in negative territory for the second consecutive day. The Nasdaq extended its weekly decline to 2.7%, settling just below its 50-day moving average (5264) for the first time since November 14.

Equity indices started above their flat lines, but countercyclical sectors and the top-weighted technology group displayed relative weakness from the start. The underperformance in the tech sector took a toll on the Nasdaq Composite while the broader S&P 500 benefited from solid gains in three cyclical groups.

The technology sector (-2.3%), which accounts for nearly 21.0% of the S&P 500, was pressured by daylong selling among high-beta chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 4.9% with Apple (AAPL 109.47, -1.05) suppliers leading the decline after reports that the tech giant was reducing orders for the iPhone 7 due to weak demand. Apple fell 1.0% while Broadcom (AVGO 162.79, -7.70), Cirrus Logic (CRUS 49.32, -5.68), Qualcomm (QCOM 64.16, -3.97), and Skyworks (SWKS 71.78, -5.07) lost between 4.5% and 10.3%. Following today's profit taking, the PHLX Semiconductor Index remains up 26.1% for the year.

The Nasdaq also had to contend with daylong weakness in biotechnology, which sent the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 269.49, -4.58) lower by 1.7%. However, the broader health care sector (-0.8%) settled a bit closer to its flat line.

Similar to health care, three of the remaining four countercyclical groups spent the day in negative territory. The real estate sector (-1.6%) extended its fourth-quarter loss to 10.2% while utilities (-0.9%) and consumer staples (-0.7%) struggled as yields remained on the rise. The benchmark 10-yr yield rose six basis points to 2.44% while the 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.14%.

Besides pressuring defensively-oriented groups, the increase in yields was a supportive factor for the financial sector (+1.7%), which is now up 18.1% in the fourth quarter due to sharp steepening in the yield curve. Sector heavyweights Bank of America (BAC 21.50, +0.38) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 81.79, +1.62) gained 1.8% and 2.0%, respectively.

Elsewhere on the cyclical side, energy (+0.3%) and industrials (+0.8%) continued their recent outperformance, but the energy sector slid from its high into the close. Crude oil also backed away from its best level of the day, but still settled higher by 3.3% at $51.06/bbl. The energy component is now within striking distance of its 2016 high ($51.93/bbl).

For the second day in a row, the industrial sector (+0.8%) received support from transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average climbed 0.6% with CSX (CSX 36.62, +0.81) ending among the leaders. Recall that the rail carrier raised its fourth-quarter guidance yesterday.

Today's NYSE floor volume was above the 200-day average of 926 million, as 1.1 billion shares changed hands.

Economic data included Initial Claims, Construction Spending, and ISM:

Initial claims for the week ending November 26 increased 17,000 to 268,000 (Briefing.com consensus 253,000), marking the 91st straight week they have been below 300,000
Continuing claims for the week ending November 19 jumped by 38,000 to 2.081 million
Construction spending increased 0.5% in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) following an upwardly revised unchanged reading (from -0.4%) for September. This will be a positive input when computing Q4 GDP
The ISM Manufacturing Index rose to 53.2 in November (Briefing.com consensus 52.1) from 51.9 in October
This was the third straight month that manufacturing activity has expanded and it is the highest reading since June 2016

Tomorrow, the Employment Situation report for November (Briefing.com consensus 180,000) will be released at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +16.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.1% YTD
S&P 500 +7.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.9% YTD

DJ30 +68.35 NASDAQ -72.57 SP500 -7.73 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1092/2.03 bln/1845 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1116/1.13 bln/1863

3:45 pm :

WTI oil futures extended yesterday's OPEC-fueled gains, rising another $1.62/barrel today to close at $51.02/barrel
In other energy, Jan natural gas futures rallied nicely as well today, climbing 5% to end the session at $3.51/MMBtu
Metals, on the other hand, were more mixed
Feb gold slipped -0.4% today to $1169.40/oz, while Mar silver gained 0.2% to $16.52/oz
Mar copper popped once cent to finish at $2.64/lb

On the first trading day of December, trading ended split with the Dow leading the charge higher ahead of Friday's Employment Situation report for November. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 68.35 points (+0.36%) today to 19191.93 on a session when its peers were firmly in the red. The Nasdaq Composite was the worst performer today, shedding 72.57 points (-1.36%) to 5251.11, and the S&P 500 lost 7.73 points (-0.35%) to 2191.08.

Equity indices started above their flat lines, but countercyclical sectors and the top-weighted technology group displayed relative weakness from the start. The underperformance in the tech sector took a toll on the Nasdaq Composite while the broader S&P 500 benefited from solid gains in three cyclical groups.

Market data today included the initial claims reading for the week ending November 26 increased 17,000 to 268,000, marking the 91st straight week they have been below 300,000. Also, construction spending increased 0.5% in October following an upwardly revised unchanged reading (from -0.4%) for September. This will be a positive input when computing Q4 GDP. The ISM Manufacturing Index rose to 53.2 in November from 51.9 in October.

Following a weak session yesterday, the Technology (XLK 46.52, -0.98 -2.06%) space again turned in some steep losses. Components across the board were lower, but MCHP -7.48%, ADI -7.04%, LRCX -6.96% were by far the worst performers as semiconductors (SOX 836.80, -42.67 -4.85%) as a whole were weak. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the day XLFS +2.19%, XLF +1.69%, XLI +0.66%, XLE +0.26%, XLY +0.05%, XLB +0.02%, IYZ -0.25%, XLP -0.65%, XLV -0.73%, XLU -0.81%, XLRE -1.53% as Financials were again among the best performers and Utilities lagged.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (777.69, -18.20 -2.29%) sector, trading finished just barely off lows in an overall weaker session. Component CA Tech (CA 30.41, -1.55 -4.85%) was weak today despite the announcement of the acquisition of Automic Holding GmbH for about EUR 600 million. Other names in the space which underperformed today included SWKS -6.60%, AMAT -6.54%, QRVO -6.33%, QCOM -5.83%, MU -5.35%, STX -4.96%, RHT -4.96%, NVDA -4.95%, CRM -4.92%, KLAC -4.90%, AKAM -4.78%, TXN -4.76%, ADSK -4.64%, EA -4.62%.

Other news items in the tech space:

IBM (IBM 159.82, -2.40 -1.48%) Watson Health and Pfizer (PFE 31.46, -0.68 -2.12%) announced a collaboration that will utilize IBM Watson for Drug Discovery to help accelerate Pfizer's research in immuno-oncology, an approach to cancer treatment that uses the body's immune system to help fight cancer.

Visa (V 75.43, -1.89 -2.44%) to acquire CardinalCommerce. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cognizant (CTSH 54.08, -1.00 -1.82%) was selected by German-based Klckner & Co as a strategic partner for IT services to support Klckner & Co's IT strategy and digitization of operations across Europe.

Avnet (AVT 45.69, -0.20 -0.44%) priced an offering of $300 million of 3.750% Notes due 2021.

CA Tech (CA) to acquire Automic Holding GmbH for approximately EUR 600 million.
The European Commission and DIGITALEUROPE launched the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition, a multi-stakeholder partnership to bolster computer science (CS) and coding proficiency at all levels within Europe's workforce pipeline. In conjunction, Oracle (ORCL 38.70, -1.49 -3.71%) announced a three-year investment totaling $1.4 billion in direct and in-kind support of CS education throughout the European Union (EU) member states.

Alliance Data (ADS 228.18, -0.60 -0.26%) announced its Columbus, Ohio-based card services business signed a long-term agreement to continue providing private label credit card services for J.Jill (www.jjill.com).

Analog Devices (ADI 69.01, -5.23 -7.04%) announced an offering and pricing of certain senior notes.

China Unicom (CHU 12.57, +0.54 +4.49%) issued statement noting that there has been media coverage stating that the Reform Implementation Plan has been confirmed. The Company would like to clarify that, as at the date of this announcement, neither the Reform Implementation Plan nor the selection of Unicom Group for the first batch of pilot-run on mixed-ownership reform has obtained final approval, which is uncertain while the concrete Reform Implementation Plan is still under discussion.

Nokia (NOK 4.25, -0.085 -1.16%) confirmed that the strategic agreement covering branding rights and intellectual property licensing with HMD Global Oy (HMD), originally announced on May 18, 2016 has come into force. HMD has today announced the completion of transactions between HMD, FIH Mobile Limited (a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industries trading as Foxconn Technology Group) and Microsoft (MSFT 59.19, -1.07 -1.77%), which means that HMD can begin operations as the new home of Nokia phones, under an exclusive global brand license for the next ten years. Under the agreement, Nokia will receive royalty payments from HMD for sales of every Nokia branded mobile phone and tablet, covering both brand and intellectual property rights. Nokia is not an investor or shareholder in HMD.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Synopsys (SNPS 56.84, -3.64 -6.02%) reported in-line Q4 EPS and revenues on $0.77 and $633.7 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of expectations at $0.77-0.80 and $630-645 million, respectively.

Pure Storage (PSTG 12.60, -1.35 -9.68%) reported a better than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.10 on better than expected revenues which rose 49.9% compared to last year to $197 million. For Q4, the company sees in-line revenues of $219-227 million.

Semtech (SMTC 29.10, +1.00 +3.56%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.37 and $140.9 million, respectively. For Q4, the company sees better than expected EPS of $0.33-0.37 on in-line revenues of $134-142 million.

Box (BOX 15.06, -0.16 -1.05%) reported a better than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.14 on revenues which also came in ahead of market expectations at $102.8 million. The company also guided Q4 EPS ahead of expectations at ($0.14)-($0.13) on revenues of $108-109 million.

Companies scheduled to report tonight: AMBA, WDAY

Analyst actions:

SMTC was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
INST was upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Needham;
LFUS was initiated with a Buy at CL King,
MBLY was initiated with a Buy at Needham,
XTLY was initiated with an Overweight at First Analysis Sec

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 02-Dec-16The stock market took a breather after three weeks of solid gains. The S&P 500 surrendered 1.0% for the week while the Nasdaq Composite continued its recent underperformance, falling 2.7%. It is worth noting that the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) eked out a slim gain, logging its fourth consecutive weekly advance.

The outperformance of the Dow has been a common theme since the election as market participants piled into stocks of companies that are expected to benefit from increased infrastructure spending. A portion of the gains in growth-sensitive areas has come at the expense of technology stocks, leading to relative weakness in the Nasdaq. In addition, there has been some speculation that the immigration policy of the next administration could make things a bit more difficult for tech employees to obtain work visas in the US.

The trading week was highlighted by OPEC securing an official agreement to lower production to 32.5 million barrels per day after months of speculation about the likelihood of an agreement being struck. Crude oil responded by rallying into the area of its 2016 high (51.93).

With oil returning to its best level of the year, the energy component is now in position to contribute to an uptick in inflation expectations. Those expectations have already seen a notable uptick since the election as participants piled into stocks that should benefit from infrastructure spending. The 10-yr note registered its fourth consecutive weekly loss, driving its yield up to 2.39% after marking a 17-month high at 2.49%.

On Friday, investors received the November Employment Situation report (178,000; Briefing.com consensus 180,000), but the release did little to change rate hike expectations even though average hourly earnings declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). The fed funds futures market remains all but convinced (94.9%) that a rate hike will be announced on December 14.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 19152.14 19170.42 18.28 0.1 10.0
Nasdaq 5398.92 5255.65 -143.27 -2.7 5.0
S&P 500 2213.35 2191.95 -21.40 -1.0 7.2
Russell 2000 1347.20 1314.25 -32.95 -2.4 15.7

4:21 pm Closing Market Summary: Narrow Range Maintained Ahead of Italian Referendum (:WRAPX) :

The stock market ended a down week on a flat note. The S&P 500 surrendered a seven-point gain to end just above its flat line. For the week, the S&P 500 lost 1.0%, the Nasdaq fell 2.7%, and the Dow ticked up 0.1%.

Prior to the open, investors received the November Employment Situation report (178,000; Briefing.com consensus 180,000), which essentially matched estimates. It was a bit surprising to see a 0.1% decline in average hourly earnings (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), but with the year-over-year rate hovering at 2.5%, the market does not expect this report to alter the rate hike picture. In fact, the implied probability of a rate hike, as indicated by the fed funds futures market, increased to 97.2% from yesterday's 92.7%.

Equity indices climbed through the first two hours of action, but relative strength among four of five countercyclical sectors was not enough to offset losses in heavily-weighted groups like consumer discretionary (-0.6%), financials (-0.9%), and industrials (-0.1%).

The financial sector narrowed its weekly gain to 0.9%, responding to some flattening in the yield curve as the 10-yr yield slipped six basis points to 2.39%. Treasuries climbed alongside other sovereign debt, as participants employed caution ahead of a weekend constitutional reform referendum in Italy. Polls conducted before the blackout period pointed to a likely victory for the 'no' camp, which is expected to be met with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's resignation. It was reported throughout the week that the European Central Bank is ready to step up its purchases of Italian bonds if there is an increase in volatility. This understanding was likely the driving force behind today's strength in Italian debt that sent the country's 10-yr yield lower by 13 basis points to 1.91%.

The consumer discretionary space spent the day in a slow retreat with Starbucks (SBUX 57.21, -1.30) acting as an overhang. The stock settled lower by 2.2% after the company announced that Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz will be appointed Executive Chairman and a new CEO will be named. Elsewhere in the sector, other quick-service restaurant names and apparel names also struggled while homebuilders outperformed. Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 400.03, -2.35), Yum! Brands (YUM 62.42, -0.27) both lost near 0.5% while Gap (GPS 24.30, -0.75) surrendered 3.0% after a disappointing same-store sales report. Homebuilders bucked the trend within the sector with the Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.04, +0.03) adding 0.1%.

On the upside, rate-sensitive real estate (+1.2%) and utilities (+0.9%) were bolstered by the decline in Treasury yields, while the technology sector (+0.4%) rebounded from yesterday's weakness, but still lost 2.9% for the week. Chipmakers contributed to today's strength in the top-weighted group, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.3%. The high-beta index narrowed this week's loss to 4.9%. The energy sector (+0.1%) also settled among the outperformers, benefitting from continued strength in crude oil. WTI crude climbed 1.2% to $51.68/bbl, settling just below its 2016 high ($51.93) that was notched in late October.

The energy sector gained 2.6% for the week, ending well ahead of the remaining sectors.

Today's participation was shy of the 200-day average of 926 million as 882 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Taking another look at the November Employment Situation Report:

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 178,000 (Briefing.com consensus 180,000). Job gains have averaged 180,000 per month so far this year versus an average monthly increase of 229,000 in 2015. October nonfarm payrolls revised to 142,000 from 161,000
Private sector payrolls increased by 156,000 (Briefing.com consensus 170,000)

October private sector payrolls revised to 135,000 from 142,000

Unemployment rate was 4.6% (Briefing.com consensus 4.9%) versus 4.9% in October November average hourly earnings were down 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after being up 0.4% in October Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 2.5% versus 2.8% for the 12-month period ending in October The average workweek was unchanged at 34.4 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.4) The labor force participation rate was 62.7% versus 62.8% in October Monday's economic data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of November ISM Services (Briefing.com consensus 55.6).

Russell 2000 +15.7% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.0% YTD
S&P 500 +7.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.0% YTD
Week in Review: Win Streak Snapped

The stock market took a breather after three weeks of solid gains. The S&P 500 surrendered 1.0% for the week while the Nasdaq Composite continued its recent underperformance, falling 2.7%. It is worth noting that the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) eked out a slim gain, logging its fourth consecutive weekly advance.

The outperformance of the Dow has been a common theme since the election as market participants piled into stocks of companies that are expected to benefit from increased infrastructure spending. A portion of the gains in growth-sensitive areas has come at the expense of technology stocks, leading to relative weakness in the Nasdaq. In addition, there has been some speculation that the immigration policy of the next administration could make things a bit more difficult for tech employees to obtain work visas in the US.

The trading week was highlighted by OPEC securing an official agreement to lower production to 32.5 million barrels per day after months of speculation about the likelihood of an agreement being struck. Crude oil responded by rallying into the area of its 2016 high (51.93).

With oil returning to its best level of the year, the energy component is now in position to contribute to an uptick in inflation expectations. Those expectations have already seen a notable uptick since the election as participants piled into stocks that should benefit from infrastructure spending. The 10-yr note registered its fourth consecutive weekly loss, driving its yield up to 2.39% after marking a 17-month high at 2.49%.

On Friday, investors received the November Employment Situation report (178,000; Briefing.com consensus 180,000), but the release did little to change rate hike expectations even though average hourly earnings declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). The fed funds futures market remains all but convinced (94.9%) that a rate hike will be announced on December 14.


Closing out the first week of December, the broader market closed split. The Nasdaq Composite was the best performer, albeit only adding +0.09% on the day, up 4.54 points to 5255.65. The S&P 500 was also above flat lines when the bell rang, higher by less than a point though (+0.04%) to 2191.95. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the lone underperformer, shedding 21.51 points (-0.11%) to 19170.42. Given this week's moves, the markets land +5.0%, +7.3% and +10.0% YTD, respectively.

The Technology (XLK 46.69, +0.17 +0.37%) sector rebounded modestly from a weak two-session run to closed out the first week of December slightly above flat lines. Heavyweight XLK components AAPL +0.34%, MSFT +0.08%, FB +0.26%, GOOG +0.34% were all higher today.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (781.08, +3.39 +0.44%) sector, trading was higher for most of the session. Components AMAT +4.45%, EBAY +3.76%, WDC +2.82%, QCOM +2.62%, GPN +2.57%, SWKS +2.17%, CA +2.10%, HPE +2.05%, STX +1.99%, ADSK +1.95% were all strong today.

Other notable news items among tech names:

Per a CNBC report, Pandora (P 13.33, +1.85 +16.11%) is apparently open to a potential sale to Sirius XM Radio (SIRI 4.30, -0.25 -5.60%).

Wipro (WIT 9.33, -0.14 -1.48%) won an infrastructure deal from Australian oil and gas company Woodside (WOPEY 23.16, -0.21 -0.90%).

Accenture (ACN 117.29, -0.37 -0.31%) opened a flagship location for Accenture Interactive in Hong Kong, a more than 40,000-square-foot studio space that will serve as a go-to destination for the company's clients to co-create, innovate and apply the latest digital technologies and experiences to shape the way we live and work.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 26.83, -0.15 -0.56%) to acquire AppFormix. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Alliance Data (ADS 218.71, -9.47 -4.15%) issued a statement regarding Canada's Protecting Rewards Points Act. Per this act, ADS's LoyaltyOne expects that, following passage of the Act in Ontario, similar legislation may be enacted in some or all other Canadian provinces. As a result of the pending and anticipated changes in applicable law, LoyaltyOne is today announcing the cancellation of its five-year expiry policy. Based on the available information, it is expected that LoyaltyOne will incur a one-time charge as a result of the cancellation of the expiry policy, which will likely be recorded as a reduction of revenue in 2016. At this time LoyaltyOne anticipates the amount of the expected charge to be between USD $180 million and $250 million.

Texas Instruments (TXN 70.72, +0.31 +0.44%) named Rafael Lizardi as next CFO. Current CFO, Kevin March, to retire in October 2017.

Twitter (TWTR 17.93, -0.10 -0.55%) acquired app startup called Yes Inc.

Information Services Group (III 3.80, -0.38 -11.11%) acquired Alsbridge. The deal is expected to be accretive to 2017 EPS and to have material impact on 2017 financials.

Digital Ally (DGLY 4.80, -0.20 -4.00%) announced a 'notable' sale of DVM-250 event recorder video systems along with FleetVu cloud services to a customer with a 'large' non-emergency medical transportation vehicle fleet.

Digital Ally (DGLY) also commented on yesterday's TASER (TASR 27.92, +0.20 +0.72%) allegations which asserted the invalidity of '292 patent. The company stated that it welcomes the opportunity to 'beat' TASR again in a patent case.

Xerox (XRX 9.50, +0.05 +0.53%) announced William Osbourn, Jr. will serve as CFO following the completion of the company's planned separation into two publicly-traded companies at year end.

Ingram Micro (IM 38.88, +1.31 +3.49%) confirmed that approval from China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange has been obtained with regard to the equity portion of the aggregate merger consideration to be funded by Tianjin Tianhai.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Workday (WDAY 71.40, -10.20 -12.50%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.03 and $409.6 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees revenues ahead of market expectations at $1.560-1.563 billion, up from $1.548-1.558 billion.

Ambarella (AMBA 54.47, -6.92 -11.27%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.11 and $100.5 million, respectively. For Q4, the company sees revenues of $84-87 million, worse than expected.

Analyst actions:

SQ was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank,
TEAM was upgraded to Outperform at Robert W. Baird;
PAY was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
AXE was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow,
NOW and GWRE were downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray,
ZAYO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at MoffettNathanson,
WDAY was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Societe Generale,
CGNX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Northcoast;
PCTY and SHOP were initiated with Perform ratings at Oppenheimer,
PAYC and HUBS were initiated with Outperform ratings at Oppenheimer,
QSII was initiated with a Neutral at Dougherty,
PANW was initiated with a Hold at Summit Redstone,
EQIX was initiated with a Buy at Guggenheim

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From Briefing.com: 4:12 pm Closing Market Summary: Cyclical Sectors Lead Stocks Higher (:WRAPX) : The stock market began the week on a higher note with the Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%) showing relative strength on Monday. The tech-heavy index settled ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.6%), but both marked their highs during the initial hour, spending the afternoon inside narrow ranges.

Equity indices enjoyed an upbeat start, rising alongside European stocks, even though the results of the constitutional reform referendum in Italy will invite political uncertainty going forward. On Sunday, Italian citizens voted 59-41 to reject a proposal that would have reformed the country's Senate. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi offered his resignation, but Italian President Sergio Mattarella reportedly asked Mr. Renzi to delay his departure until after the approval of a budget for 2017. It is currently unclear what impact the results of the referendum will have on rescue plans for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

Italian stocks erased the bulk of their losses by the close while European sovereign debt retreated with Italy's 10-yr yield spiking nine basis points to 2.00%.

U.S. Treasuries also faced selling during the European session, but trends reversed shortly after focus shifted to the North American session. Treasuries spent the day in a slow climb off their lows with the 10-yr note ending flat. The benchmark yield settled at 2.39% while selling in the 2-yr note pushed up its yield two basis points to 1.12%.

Five of six cyclical sectors displayed relative strength from the start, which kept the benchmark index well above its flat line throughout the day. Sectors like financials (+1.2%) and consumer discretionary (+1.0%) rebounded from Friday's underperformance while energy (+0.7%) posted a solid gain even though crude oil reversed into the close. The energy component surrendered a 1.0% gain to settle higher by 0.2% at $51.79/bbl. Oil continued sliding in electronic trade and showed a 1.1% decline ($51.10/bbl) as the stock market closed for the day. The late afternoon decline unfolded even though the U.S. Dollar Index (100.13, -0.64) fell 0.6%.

The top-weighted technology sector (+1.0%) also had a strong showing with chipmakers displaying broad strength that sent the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.2%. This contributed to the relative strength in the Nasdaq Composite while biotechnology provided another measure of support, but the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 271.93, +1.47) narrowed its gain to 0.5% by the close. Biotech names fared better than the health care sector, which shed 0.2%.

Like health care, the industrial space (-0.1%) lagged throughout the day, keeping the S&P 500 below its opening high. Dow components Caterpillar (CAT 94.45, -0.69) and General Electric (GE 31.11, -0.23) weighed, falling near 0.7% apiece. Airlines also pressured the sector with Alaska Air (ALK 83.12, -1.71) and Southwest Airlines (LUV 47.07, -0.84) ending with respective losses of 2.0% and 1.8%. Other transport stocks held up better, sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 0.4%.

Today's participation was just below average as 915 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to ISM Services:

The ISM Services Index rose to 57.2 in November from 54.8 in October while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase to 55.6

This report marked a 12-month high for the series, reaching levels from October 2015

Tomorrow, Q3 Productivity (Briefing.com consensus 3.3%), Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), and October Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$41.80 billion) will be released at 8:30 ET while October Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus 2.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +17.7% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.3% YTD S&P 500 +7.9% YTDNasdaq Composite +6.0% YTDOpening the week, the broader market managed to hold onto some strong gains. Leading the action higher today, the Nasdaq Composite added 53.24 points (+1.01%) to 5308.89. The S&P 500 was up 12.76 points (+0.58%) when the bell rang to 2204.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rounded out the bunch up 45.82 points (+0.24%) to 19216.24. Strong Nasdaq 100 components PCAR +3.7%, TSLA +2.9%, INCY +2.7%, AMZN +2.6% and MAR +2.3% all aided the broader market advance.

Equity indices enjoyed an upbeat start, rising alongside European stocks, even though the results of the constitutional reform referendum in Italy will invite political uncertainty going forward. On Sunday, Italian citizens voted 59-41 to reject a proposal that would have reformed the country's Senate. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi offered his resignation, but Italian President Sergio Mattarella reportedly asked Mr. Renzi to delay his departure until after the approval of a budget for 2017. It is currently unclear what impact the results of the referendum will have on rescue plans for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

Italian stocks erased the bulk of their losses by the close while European sovereign debt retreated with Italy's 10-yr yield spiking nine basis points to 2.00%.

U.S. Treasuries also faced selling during the European session, but trends reversed shortly after focus shifted to the North American session. Treasuries spent the day in a slow climb off their lows with the 10-yr note ending flat. The benchmark yield settled at 2.39% while selling in the 2-yr note pushed up its yield two basis points to 1.12%.

For its part, crude oil reversed morning gains. The energy component surrendered a 1.0% gain to settle higher by 0.2% at $51.79/bbl. Oil continued sliding in electronic trade and showed a 1.1% decline ($51.10/bbl) as the stock market closed for the day. The late afternoon decline unfolded even though the U.S. Dollar Index (100.13, -0.64) fell 0.6%.

Lastly, market data today was limited to the ISM Services Index rose to 57.2 in November from 54.8 in October.

The Technology (XLK 47.14, +0.45 +0.96%) space finished on the right side of flat lines today after losing about -1.4% last week. Component First Solar (FSLR 32.35, +2.20 +7.30%) was higher today as a BBC article highlighted an upcoming meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and Al Gore to discuss climate change. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed out Monday XLFS +2.19%, IYZ +1.22%, XLF +1.19%, XLY +1.01%, XLE +0.88%, XLRE +0.80%, XLB +0.78%, XLU +0.13%, XLP +0.12%, XLI -0.08%, XLV -0.18%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (789.15, +8.08 +1.03%) space, trading ended just off highs, up more than +1%. Component Citrix Systems (CTXS 88.99, +3.37 +3.94%) was among the better performers today as the stock was upgraded to a Buy rating at Mizuho ahead of the open. Other names in the space which showed relative strength included NVDA +3.88%, QRVO +3.84%, SYMC +3.57%, CRM +3.49%, TDC +2.95%, HPQ +2.84%, TEL +2.68%, MA +2.42%, GPN +2.35%, ADBE +2.23%, ATVI +2.16%, RHT +2.16%, ADS +2.14%.

Other notable news items in the space:

Aixtron (AIXG 4.12, +0.15 +3.78%) and Grand Chip Investment confirmed US Presidential order prohibiting acquisition of the U.S. business.

CACI Intl (CACI 131.85, +1.95 +1.50%) was awarded a $1.77 billion task order to support Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization.

Fairpoint Comms (FRP 18.85, +1.85 +10.88%) to be acquired by Consolidated Communications (CNSL 27.21, -1.17 -4.12%) in an all-stock merger transaction valued at about $1.5 billion.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 11.79, +0.72 +6.50%) announced that it has closed JPY14.9 billion (US$141.5 million) senior and subordinate non-recourse term loan facilities to finance the construction and operation of a 55 MWp solar power plant in the Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan.

AT&T (T 38.63, +0.02 +0.05%) was informed that it is a bidder within the "competitive range" by the First Responder Network. Based on Rivada's court filing and pdvWireless' (PDVW 23.25, +0.15 +0.65%) public statements, AT&T is not aware of any other bidders who remain within the "competitive range" of the First Responder Network procurement. Should AT&T's bid be accepted, we look forward to serving the public safety community through this contract and making a significant investment in the infrastructure of our country. The actual reach of the network and necessary investment will be determined by the election to participate by the individual States.

Also, according to AT&T (T), the company in a partnership with Intel (INTC 34.39, +0.23 +0.67%) and Ericssson (ERIC 5.29, +0.13 +2.62%) began 5G business customer trials.

Shopify (SHOP 40.57, +1.52 +3.89%) acquired digital product studio Tiny Hearts. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CGI Group (GIB 46.97, -0.14 -0.30%) announced it intends to purchase for cancellation Class A subordinate voting shares under a specific share repurchase program.

Analyst actions:

CTXS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho,
TRIP was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Stifel,
V was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Guggenheim,
QTNA was upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Needham;
MRVL was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
ANET was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
MELI was downgraded to Neutral from Positive at Susquehanna,
CNSL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton;
HPE was initiated with a Buy at Gabelli & Co.

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From Briefing.com: 4:57 pm Diodes announces production delay at Lee's Summit Wafer Fab; sees Q4 sales of $222 -238 mln including $10 mln impact (prior $232-248 mln) vs $240 mln consensus (DIOD)

Co announced that on Friday, November 18, 2016, Diodes' wafer fab in Lee's Summit, MO experienced a fire in its wet etch wafer fabrication area. Due to the fire, all production in KFAB has been temporarily suspended.

At this time, the Company is unable to predict when approval might be given or when repairs will be completed and subsequently approved by city inspectors.

As a result of the delayed production at KFAB, the co is revising its financial guidance for the fourth quarter of 2016. Assuming the repairs cannot be completed or approval to resume production is not received from the city in time to impact fourth quarter, the Company expects revenue to be impacted by as much as $10 million, with a revised revenue range of $222 million and $238 million (vs $240 mln consensus). Gross margin is also expected to be reduced by ~3% to 29.2 percent of revenue, plus or minus 1% (prior guidance 32.2 percent, plus or minus 1 percent).

4:44 pm Western Digital raises Q2 outlook (WDC) :

Enabled by continued strong acceptance from customers and favorable mix of its broad product portfolio, solid execution in a favorable market environment, and including the contribution of incremental intellectual property revenue from the new cross license agreement with Samsung Ltd. that was separately announced today, the company expects its second quarter revenue to be approximately $4.75 billion compared to its earlier forecast of approximately flat with first quarter revenue of $4.7 billion (Capital IQ consensus $4.72 bln).

Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 36%, versus the earlier forecast of approximately 35%.

Non-GAAP operating expenses and net interest expense are expected to be approximately $805 million and $205 million respectively, unchanged from the original forecasts.

Non-GAAP tax rate is estimated to be approximately 13%, versus the 14% to 16% range forecasted previously.

Co has increased its forecasted second quarter non-GAAP EPS range to $2.10 to $2.15 from its earlier forecast range of $1.85 to $1.95 (Capital IQ consensus $1.90).

4:36 pm Western Digital renews patent cross-license agreement with Samsung (SSNLF); Financial terms of the renewed agreement were not disclosed (WDC) : The terms of the renewed agreement are retroactive to the end date of the prior agreement, which expired on August 14, 2016. The renewed agreement will run through December 31, 2024. The agreement includes rights to each party's patents broadly covering multi-level cell flash memory and flash storage systems. The original agreement, which dates back to 1997 and had been renewed twice before, had permitted Samsung to use patented flash memory technologies invented by SanDisk, which Western Digital acquired in May 2016.

4:18 pm Linear Tech: Analog Devices (ADI) completes long-term debt financing arrangements for proposed acquisition of Linear tech; transaction expected to close by the end of 2Q17 (LLTC) :

4:08 pm Sigma Designs beats by $0.02, misses on revs (SIGM) :

Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.07; revenues rose 1.8% year/year to $62.7 mln vs the $63.38 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co said, "Our profitable third quarter was led by a healthy rebound in our Internet-of-Things revenue on top of our seasonally strong Smart TV business, strong gross margin performance, and lower operating expenses. We remain encouraged by our outlook for the Internet-of-Things business, which should continue to grow as consumer adoption of Z-Wave enabled products improves. For the long-term, we expect to capitalize on the multitude of new opportunities across our business to drive revenue, and combine this execution with cost reductions, in order to deliver stronger earnings."

4:10 pm : The stock market registered its third consecutive advance on Tuesday with the S&P 500 rising 0.3% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) outperformed slightly.

Once again, the trading day was very quiet, but once again, that did not stop the market from inching higher. Investor sentiment remained upbeat despite the weekend failure of a constitutional reform referendum in Italy. The country's MIB index surged 4.2% while demand for Italian debt sent Italy's 10-yr yield lower by four basis points to 1.95%.

Equities spent the first two hours of action near their flat lines, but climbed into the afternoon amid gains in most sectors. A few cyclical sectors opened in the red, but only energy (-0.1%) remained in negative territory when the closing bell rang. To be fair, most other growth-sensitive groups settled near the broader market while financials (+1.0%) continued their recent outperformance. The financial sector extended its December gain to 2.8%.

Only one other sector-telecom services (+1.5%)-ended the day ahead of the broader market, underscoring today's range-bound action. However, small cap stocks saw more movement with the Russell 2000 rising 1.1% as participants showed increased demand for domestically-oriented names.

Market participants received a flurry of earnings, but the consumer discretionary sector (+0.3%) settled near the S&P 500 even though Autozone (AZO 779.81, +3.39) and Toll Brothers (TOL 31.94, +1.47) climbed after releasing above-consensus results. The two posted respective gains of 0.4% and 4.8% while the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.86, +0.46) climbed 1.7%.

The modest uptick in the discretionary space masked a 7.6% dive in the shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 366.37, -29.90). The stock extended its 2016 decline to 23.7% after management made cautious comments about guidance for fiscal year 2017.

Elsewhere, Dow component Boeing (BA 152.24, +0.08) made its way into the morning newsflow after President-Elect Donald Trump complained about the high cost of the Air Force One program. Shares of Boeing were down about 0.5% in early action, but the stock erased its loss by the close, likely due to the understanding that Boeing's business would see little to no impact even if the U.S. government cancelled its order for a new aircraft.

It is worth noting that the energy sector (-0.1%) displayed resilience. The sector erased a 1.0% loss even though crude oil slumped, ending the day lower by 1.5% at $50.95/bbl.

Treasuries spent the day inside narrow ranges with modest demand for the 10-yr note sending its yield lower by a basis point to 2.39%.

Today's participation was a bit light as fewer than 860 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Productivity, Unit Labor Costs, Trade Balance, and Factory Orders:

Third-quarter productivity was left unrevised at 3.1% (Briefing.com consensus 3.3%) while Unit Labor Costs were revised up to 0.7% from 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%)
Higher unit labor costs may not be the best thing for corporate profit margins, yet there is an encouraging element for consumer spending growth since the revision for unit labor costs was driven solely by an increase in hourly compensation growth
The trade deficit widened to $42.6 billion in October (Briefing.com consensus -$41.8 bln) from an upwardly revised $36.2 billion deficit (from -$36.4 bln) in September
Net exports will be a drag on fourth-quarter real GDP, considering October real trade deficit of $60.30 billion was above the third-quarter average of $56.60 billion
New orders for manufactured goods increased 2.7% in October (Briefing.com consensus +2.5%) on top of an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.3%) in September
Overall demand remains sluggish, considering orders are still down 2.0% year-over-year

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while October JOLTS will be announced at 10:00 ET. October Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $18.70 billion) will be reported at 15:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +19.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.5% YTD
S&P 500 +8.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.5% YTD

DJ30 +35.54 NASDAQ +24.11 SP500 +7.52 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1901/1.79 bln/972 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2098/859.5 mln/851 3:30 pm :

Crude oil snapped its 4-session streak after OPEC reported another all-time high in oil production, despite last Wednesday's agreement to cut OPEC output by 1.2 mln barrels/day
Jan 2017 crude oil futures fell $0.78 (-1.5%) to $50.95/barrel
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil:
The latest OPEC data comes ahead of the Dec 10 meeting with OPEC & non-OPEC producers in Vienna to discuss the details of the 600k barrel/day non-OPEC production cut.
OPEC's oil output set another record high in Nov, rising to 34.2 mln barrels/day from 33.8 mln barrels/day in Oct.
Reminder: Over the weekend, Russia, the largest non-OPEC oil producer, reported Nov avg daily oil output at 11.2 mln barrels/day. That was its highest output level in ~30 years. Russia is expected to make up half of the non-OPEC portion of the production cut, or 300k barrels/day.
EIA data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
API data is expected to be released today after the bell.
Natural gas reversed their initial morning gains and closed modestly lower ahead of Thursday's EIA
Jan 2017 natural gas closed $0.02 lower (-0.6%) at $3.63/MMBtu
Weekly EIA data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold & silver traded lower on continued strength in the dollar index
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session down $6.60 (-0.6%) to $1170.00/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.12 lower (-0.7%) at $16.80/oz
The dollar index reversed initial morning losses and traded to a session high, +0.4% around the 100.49 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.4% around the 88.03 level
Base metal copper closed just shy of yesterday's 17-month high
Mar 2017 copper closed $0.02 lower (-0.7%) at $2.68/lb

When Tuesday came to a close, the S&P 500 had carved out its third straight session of gains. Leading the broader market higher today, though, was the Nasdaq Composite which added 24.11 points (+0.45%) to 5333.00. The S&P 500 was up 7.52 points (+0.34%) to 2212.23, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 35.54 points (+0.18%) to 19251.78. Helping the Nasdaq out-perform today, top Nasdaq 100 names NFLX +4.5%, VRTX +3.4%, INCY +2.3%, SIRI +1.9% and TMUS +1.8% all finished strong.

Once again, the trading day was very quiet, but once again, that did not stop the market from inching higher. Investor sentiment remained upbeat despite the weekend failure of a constitutional reform referendum in Italy. The country's MIB index surged 4.2% while demand for Italian debt sent Italy's 10-yr yield lower by four basis points to 1.95%.

Market data today included third-quarter productivity which was left unrevised at 3.1% while Unit Labor Costs were revised up to 0.7% from 0.3%. Also, the trade deficit widened to $42.6 billion in October from an upwardly revised $36.2 billion deficit (from -$36.4 billion) in September. Lastly, new orders for manufactured goods increased 2.7% in October on top of an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.3%) in September.

The Technology (XLK 47.28, +0.14 +0.30%) space ended around middle of the pack today as only Energy and Utilities under-performed. Component Autodesk (ADSK 76.32, +5.14 +7.22%) out-performed on no specific catalyst. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLFS +2.19%, XLF +0.87%, IYZ +0.74%, XLRE +0.43%, XLP +0.30%, XLV +0.28%, XLY +0.23%, XLI +0.19%, XLB +0.12%, XLE -0.19%, XLU -0.19%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (790.66, +1.51 +0.19%) sector, trading cleared flat lines higher in the final moments of action aided by a push higher in the broader market. Component Western Union (WU 21.63, +0.74 +3.54%) was higher today after announcing a strategic investment in Walletron. Other names in the space which finished higher today included QRVO +3.01%, WDC +2.83%, MU +2.42%, SWKS +1.80%, ADS +1.69%, NVDA +1.64%, QCOM +1.64%, MSI +1.61%, GLW +1.52%, NTAP +1.44%, KLAC +1.42%, ORCL +1.28%, TXN +1.22%, CTSH +0.99%.

Other news items among components:

Microsoft's (MSFT 59.95, -0.27 -0.45%) deal to acquire LinkedIn (LNKD 195.94, +0.69 +0.35%) was cleared by the European Union, subject to conditions.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Softbank's (SFTBY 30.99, +0.90 +2.99%) Masayoshi Son met with President elect Donald Trump to discuss a $50 billion investment in the US to create jobs.

Equinix (EQIX 329.49, -2.59 -0.78%) to acquire a portfolio of 24 data center sites and their operations from Verizon (VZ 50.36, +0.61 +1.23%) for $3.6 billion. The company expects the portfolio to be accretive to adjusted funds from operations per share upon closing.

Western Union (WU) made a strategic investment in Walletron.

GoDaddy (GDDY 36.37, +1.63 +4.69%) acquired Host Europe Group for $1.79 billion. The company intends to explore strategic alternatives for the PlusServer business.

IntraLinks Holdings (IL 13.12, +1.85 +16.42%) to be acquired by Synchronoss Technologies (SNCR 42.59, -6.41 -13.08%) for $13.00 per share in cash, or about $821 million.

Digital Ally (DGLY 5.00, -0.10 -1.96%) announced plans to enter the non-lethal weapon market.

Wi-LAN (WILN 1.41, flat) acquired a portfolio of patents from Eastman Kodak (KODK 15.85, +0.35 +2.26%). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Synopsys (SNPS 58.00, +0.58 +1.01%) initiated a $100 million accelerated share repurchase agreement.

ComScore (SCOR 30.07, +0.91 +3.12%) co-founder Dr. Magid Abraham resigned from the Board.

ePlus (PLUS 113.55, +0.35 +0.31%) acquired the IT Services equipment and integration business of
Consolidated Communications (CNSL 27.21, flat).

Advanced Micro (AMD 9.45, +0.77 +8.87%) shares were strong today following a Tweaktown article that the company's Radeon GPU might power Intel's (INTC 34.72, +0.33 +0.96%) GPUs.

Asure Software (ASUR 8.01, -0.61 -7.08%) priced an underwritten public offering of 1,695,000 newly issued shares of common stock at $8.00 per share.

TSYS (TSS 48.23, -0.49 -1.01%) renewed its payments agreement with Advanzia Bank S.A., the largest issuer of credit cards in Luxembourg, to continue processing the bank's consumer credit card portfolio.

PAR Technology (PAR 5.29, +0.01 +0.19%) appointed Bryan Menar as its new CFO effective January 3

Teradyne (TER 24.97, +0.70 +2.88%) announced a private offering of $400 million of senior convertible notes.

Micron Technology (MU 19.06, +0.45 +2.42%) has completed the acquisition of Inotera Memories; Micron acquired all of Inotera's outstanding shares for consideration worth 30 New Taiwan Dollars per share or about $0.94 per share.

Cognizant (CTSH 55.30, +0.54 +0.99%) announced the expansion of its operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the opening of a new office in Riyadh

In reaction to quarterly results:

Photronics (PLAB 10.25, +0.45 +4.59%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.05 on in-line revenues of $107.37 million. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revenues in-line at $0.01-0.06 an $104-112 million, respectively.

Coupa Software (COUP 27.74, +1.72 +6.61%) reported a better than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.22 on better than expected revenues of $35.44 million. For Q4, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at ($0.19)-($0.16) and $35.5-36 million, respectively.
Stocks set to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: APDN, HQY, SEAC, SIGM/SCWX

Analyst actions:

NFLX was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Evercore ISI,
CNSL was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Raymond James,
P was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer;
CBB was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
SPWR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Guggenheim,
IL was downgraded to Mkt Perfrom from Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities;
LDOS was initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer,
AVGO, INVN, CAVM, MRVL, SIMO, CY, IDTI, RMBS, MXIM, AMD were initiated with Buy ratings at Loop Capital,
HLIT was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty,
GDS was initiated with an Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
P, XOXO and ETN were initiated with Buy ratings at Aegis Capital,
SBAC was initiated with a Neutral at Macquarie,
ENPH was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum,
SPSC was initiated with a Buy at The Benchmark Company,
TEF was initiated with a Hold at Societe Generale

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market enjoyed its fourth consecutive day of gains with the S&P 500 rising 1.3% to a fresh record high. The benchmark index settled ahead of the Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%), which lagged since the start. Equity indices started the day near their flat lines, which masked gains in just about every sector. In turn, those early gains were masked by the underperfomance of the health care space (-0.8%), which was down more than 2.0% at the start.

The initial weakness in health care developed after President-elect Donald Trump told TIME Magazine that he wants to lower drug prices. This sent the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 266.28, -8.06) lower by 2.9%. Recall that the Clinton campaign took aim at high drug prices, which contributed to an 11.3% October dive in the biotech ETF. With today's retreat, the ETF is back near the middle of its range from October.

The opening slide in biotechnology placed the Nasdaq below its flat line, but the index recovered as biotechnology climbed off its low and the top-weighted technology sector (+1.9%) surged into third place on the sector leaderboard. High-beta chipmakers had an even better showing than the sector as the PHLX Semiconductor Index jumped 2.2%. Micron (MU 20.45, +1.39) was a standout, soaring 7.3%, after Western Digital (WDC 69.15, +5.30), who acquired Micron's competitor SanDisk, raised its guidance, citing a favorable market environment. Seagate (STX 40.27, +1.12) climbed 2.9% following Western Digital's guidance, but it is worth noting that Western Digital sells consumer solid-state drives after the acquisition of SanDisk while Seagate remains focused on the mechanical hard drive market.

Similar to technology, four of the remaining five cyclical sectors posted gains while energy (+0.7%) lagged, but still ended in the green even though crude oil fell 2.3% to $49.77/bbl. The energy component slumped into the close after the government's inventory report confirmed last night's bearish reading from the American Petroleum Institute. In addition to showing an inventory build, today's EIA report revealed large increases in gasoline and distillate inventories.

Two countercyclical sectors-telecom services (+2.4%) and real estate (+2.2%)-settled atop the leaderboard thanks to daylong demand for Treasuries, which resulted in a five-basis point downtick in the 10-yr yield (2.34%).

The U.S. Dollar Index (100.18, -0.31) shed 0.3%, returning to its Monday low. The euro gained 0.4%, climbing to 1.0764 against the greenback ahead of tomorrow's policy announcement from the European Central Bank. Judging by the action in European and U.S. equities leading up to the meeting, participants are not worried about ECB President Mario Draghi hinting at reducing asset purchases. Instead, the market is positioned for the central bank to extend or maintain its current purchase program, which is set to end early next year.

Today's participation was above average as more than a billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included JOLTS, Consumer Credit, and MBA Mortgage Index:

The October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.534 million from a revised 5.631 million (from 5.486 million) in September
The Consumer Credit report for October showed an increase of $16.0 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected growth of $18.7 billion
September credit growth was revised up to $21.8 billion from $19.3 billion
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index declined 0.7% after falling 9.4% one week ago

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 255K), which will be released at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +20.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.2% YTD
S&P 500 +9.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.7% YTD

DJ30 +297.84 NASDAQ +60.76 SP500 +29.12 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1875/1.93 bln/1033 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2293/1.02 bln/683 3:30 pm :

Crude oil ended near its lowest level of the session, extended yesterday's losses after EIA reported notable builds in gasoline & distillate inventories
Jan 2017 crude oil futures fell $1.11 (-2.2%) to $49.84/barrel
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -2.389 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -1.032 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +3.425 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of +1.948 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a build of +2.501 mln barrels
Natural gas futures erased yesterday's losses and closed near a 2-year high ahead of tomorrow's inventory number
Jan 2017 natural gas closed $0.02 lower (-0.6%) at $3.61/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold snapped its 2-session loss streak & silver closed near a session high on notable dollar weakness
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $7.60 (+0.7%) to $1177.60/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.48 higher (+2.9%) at $17.28/oz
The dollar index was -0.3% around the 100.18 level, provided support to precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.6% around the 87.47 level
Base metal copper retreated from Monday's 17-month high, extended yesterday's losses
Mar 2017 copper closed $0.04 lower (-1.5%) at $2.64/lb

The broader market ended Wednesday at or near highs. Action was led higher in all three indices for back-to-back session by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which gained 297.84 points (+1.55%) when all was said and done to end 19549.62. The S&P 500 was up 29.12 points (+1.32%) to 2241.35, and the Nasdaq Composite added 60.76 points (+1.14%) to 5393.76.

The initial weakness in health care developed after President-elect Donald Trump told TIME Magazine that he wants to lower drug prices. This sent the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 266.28, -8.06) lower by 2.9%. Recall that the Clinton campaign took aim at high drug prices, which contributed to an 11.3% October dive in the biotech ETF. With today's retreat, the ETF is back near the middle of its range from October.

Similar to technology, four of the remaining five cyclical sectors posted gains while energy (+0.7%) lagged, but still ended in the green even though crude oil fell 2.3% to $49.77/bbl. The energy component slumped into the close after the government's inventory report confirmed last night's bearish reading from the American Petroleum Institute. In addition to showing an inventory build, today's EIA report revealed large increases in gasoline and distillate inventories.

The U.S. Dollar Index (100.18, -0.31) shed 0.3%, returning to its Monday low. The euro gained 0.4%, climbing to 1.0764 against the greenback ahead of tomorrow's policy announcement from the European Central Bank. Judging by the action in European and U.S. equities leading up to the meeting, participants are not worried about ECB President Mario Draghi hinting at reducing asset purchases. Instead, the market is positioned for the central bank to extend or maintain its current purchase program, which is set to end early next year.

Also, market data today included the October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey reading which showed that job openings decreased to 5.534 million from a revised 5.631 million (from 5.486 million) in September. Further, the Consumer Credit report for October showed an increase of $16.0 billion, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Index declined 0.7% after falling 9.4% one week ago.

For its part, the Technology (XLK 48.18, +0.90 +1.90%) sector jogged higher with the broader market. Component Western Digital (WDC 69.15, +5.30 +8.30%) put in a strong day after updating its guidance for Q2 following a deal with Samsung (SSNLF 1250.00, flat). Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session IYZ +2.84%, XLFS +2.19%, XLRE +2.09%, XLI +1.84%, XLY +1.84%, XLF +1.58%, XLB +1.43%, XLP +1.36%, XLU +1.30%, XLE +0.81%, XLV -0.86% with only Healthcare lagging below flat lines.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (805.65, +14.99 +1.90%) sector, trading returned to above the $800-level following a strong day in the tech sector and the broader market. Component Micron (MU 20.44, +1.38 +7.27%) was higher today, possibly lifted by association with the WDC news, and after getting a premarket 'Buy' initiation at Citigroup with an intraday upgrade to 'Buy' coming out of Standpoint Research. Other names in the space which were stronger today included ADSK +5.27%, FSLR +4.80%, HPQ +3.53%, LRCX +3.40%, CTSH +3.25%, MA +3.19%, JNPR +3.04%, HPE +3.01%, STX +2.86%, V +2.85%, AMAT +2.85%.

Other notable news items among tech stocks:

MasterCard (MA 105.25, +3.25 +3.19%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.22 per share from $0.19 and approved a $4 billion share repurchase program.

Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS 75.62, +0.11 +0.15%) to sell its SunGard Public Sector and Education businesses to Vista Equity Partners for $850 million.

Western Digital (WDC) renewed its patent cross-license agreement with Samsung (SSNLF). Financial terms of the renewed agreement were not disclosed. The company also updated its Q2 outlook -- Enabled by continued strong acceptance from customers and favorable mix of its broad product portfolio, solid execution in a favorable market environment, and including the contribution of incremental intellectual property revenue from the new cross license agreement with SSNLF that was separately announced today, the company expects its Q2 revenue to be about $4.75 billion compared to its earlier forecast of approximately flat with first quarter revenue of $4.7 billion. WDC increased its forecasted Q2 non-GAAP EPS range to $2.10 to $2.15 from its earlier forecast range of $1.85 to $1.95. Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be about 36%, versus the earlier forecast of about 35%.

According to a Bloomberg article, Apple (AAPL 111.03, +1.08 +0.98%) is in talks with certain movie studios to potentially offer early-access to new film releases.

SunPower (SPWR 7.95, +0.99 +14.22%) announced a restructuring program. The company guided 2017 in line with expectations on a non-GAAP basis.

Diodes (DIOD 24.63, +0.29 +1.19%) announced a production delay, and sees Q4 sales of $222 -238 million including about $10 million related to the impact (prior $232-248 million).

Fitbit (FIT 7.97, -0.01 -0.13%) acquired assets from Pebble. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Fitbit (FIT) and Medtronic (MDT 72.22, +0.11 +0.15%) partnered to integrate health and activity data into new CGM 'solution' for type 2 diabetes management. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Immersion (IMMR 10.75, +0.12 +1.13%) renewed its license agreement with LG Electronics (LGEAF). The three-year extension provides a worldwide license for LG to use its TouchSense technology and Basic Haptics patents in its smartphones, tablets and fitness bands.

IntraLinks Holdings (IL 13.18, +0.06 +0.46%) shareholder, Vitalogy Capital Partners, opposes the proposed sale to Synchronoss Tech (SNCR 41.27, -1.32 -3.10%) for $13 per share.

The Western Union Company (WU 22.13, +0.50 +2.31%) announced it is enhancing its existing relationship with Viber, a mobile messaging app.

Vivendi (VIVHY 19.28, +0.14 +0.73%) announced they have exceeded a 25% stake in Ubisoft (UBSFY 6.70, +0.13 +2.13%).

Tesla Motors (TSLA 193.15, +7.30 +3.93%) confirmed NEMA 14-30, 10-30, 6-50 adapter recalls. The company stated the adapter is used by relatively few customers.

Intel (INTC 35.50, +0.78 +2.25%) Security announced the new integration of the True Key extension with Windows Hello to deliver a seamless multi-factor sign in experience on Microsoft Edge.

Teradyne (TER 25.52, +0.55 +2.20%) priced a private offering of $400 million of 1.25% senior convertible notes due 2023.

T-Mobile US (TMUS 58.39, +2.40 +4.29%) announced the customer beta version of DIGITS, a new connected phone offering that will allow users to integrate multiple T-Mobile numbers into a single device. Users can combine home, work and personal data all onto a single device.

In reaction to quarterly results:

HealthEquity (HQY 41.49, +0.69 +1.69%) reported Q3 GAAP EPS of $0.10 on revenues which grew 42% compared to last year to $43.4 million. For FY16, the company sees EPS of $0.38-0.42 and revenues of $174-178 million, unchanged from prior levels.

Emcore (EMKR 8.45, +2.00 +31.01%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.10 and $25.6 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees revenues ahead of market expectations at $28-30 million.

Sigma Designs (SIGM 5.60, -2.15 -27.74%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.09 and worse than expected revenues of $62.7 million.

SeaChange (SEAC 2.63, -0.17 -6.07%) reported a better than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.13 on worse than expected revenues of $20 million. For Q4, the company guided EPS and revenues below market views at ($0.10)-($0.05) and $22-24 million, respectively.

Stocks scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: CMTL, VRNT/CIEN, MEI, SAIC, YGE

Analyst actions:

MU was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research,
JNPR was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse;
AAPL was downgraded to Mixed from Positive at OTR Global,
WDAY was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital,
SIGM was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham and to Hold from Buy at Lake Street,
IDCC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti,
IL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel and to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
JBL was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
NTAP was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse;
MU was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup,
CLGX was initiated with a Sell at Deutsche Bank,
TST was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:48 pm Rambus renewed its DPA countermeasures license agreement with Thales e-Security; Specific terms of the agreement are confidential (RMBS) : Under this new five-year agreement, the Thales line of hardware security modules (HSMs) will be protected against side-channel attacks in a variety of systems, including high-performance data center appliances.

4:05 pm : The stock market followed its Monday downtick with a Tuesday surge that lifted the key indices to new record highs. The S&P 500 gained 0.7% while the Nasdaq (+1.0%) outperformed ahead of tomorrow's FOMC policy statement, which will be released at 14:00 ET and is expected to call for a 25-basis point rate hike.

With the market believing that a rate hike will be announced tomorrow for all the right economic reasons, equity indices were free to continue their climb to stratospheric heights. However, the Russell 2000 (UNCH) spent the day near its flat line, suggesting the small cap rally may be running out of steam. The Russell 2000 narrowed its post-election gain to 14.9% versus a 6.2% gain in the S&P 500.

All eleven sectors began the trading day in the green with most maintaining that posture into the close while materials (-0.2%) and industrials (-0.1%) recorded slim losses.

The energy sector (+1.3%) ended in the lead while crude oil added 0.4% to settle at $52.98/bbl. The energy component received another measure of support on top of the weekend non-OPEC production cut agreement, as the International Energy Agency raised its oil demand forecast for 2017.

Energy spent the day jockeying for position with the technology sector (+1.2%). The top-weighted tech space spiked at the start thanks to gains among some of its largest components like Apple (AAPL 115.19, +1.89), Microsoft (MSFT 62.98, +0.81), and Facebook (FB 120.31, +2.54). Chipmakers also took part in the rally, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.1%.

The market saw some afternoon backtracking, but daylong strength in other influential sectors like health care (+0.7%) and consumer discretionary (+0.8%) kept the S&P 500 in the top half of today's trading range. The health care sector received some support from biotech names, evidenced by a 0.6% gain in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 269.05, +1.52). Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN 110.01, -5.07), however, fell 4.4% on top of yesterday's 12.9% dive.

Elsewhere, the industrial sector (-0.1%) underperformed throughout the day while the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.3%) was limited to a slight uptick, which masked a 4.2% jump in the shares of JetBlue Airways (JBLU 22.53, +0.91) after the carrier issued upbeat guidance.

Treasuries saw gains in overnight action, but the 10-yr note returned to its flat line by the close. The benchmark yield settled at 2.47% while the 2-yr yield rose two basis points to 1.17%. The long bond ended higher, pressuring its yield two basis points to 3.14%.

Today's participation was above average as more than one billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors received just one economic report today. Import prices excluding oil decreased 0.1% in November after declining 0.1% last month while export prices excluding agriculture also declined 0.1% after increasing 0.2% in October.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while November Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and November PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) will cross the wires at 8:30 ET. November Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.1%) will be reported at 9:15 ET while October Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +20.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.3% YTD
S&P 500 +11.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.1% YTD

DJ30 +114.78 NASDAQ +51.29 SP500 +14.76 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1922/1.90 bln/1297 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1761/1.07 bln/1220

3:30 pm :

Crude oil futures closed pit trading higher for the fourth consecutive session following the release of the IEA's monthly oil market report; API on tap
Jan 2017 crude oil futures rose $0.23 (+0.4%) to $52.98/barrel
API data will be released today after the bell.
Weekly EIA petroleum data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Weekly Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
IEA oil report highlights:
Global oil demand growth of 1.4 mb/d is foreseen for 2016, 120 kb/d above IEA's previous forecast. Robust 3Q16 US demand numbers & methodological changes for China were the main factors. Growth in 2017 is now seen at 1.3 mb/d.
Global oil supplies in Nov edged up to a record high 98.2 mb/d, as a drop in non-OPEC output was offset by higher OPEC production.
OECD commercial inventories fell in Oct for the third month in a row.
Refinery crude intake in 1Q17 is forecast to grow by only a modest 310 kb/d y/y.
Natural gas extended yesterday's notable 6% drop ahead of Thursday's inventory data
Jan 2017 natural gas closed $0.04 lower (-1.1%) at $3.47/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold & silver gave back nearly all of yesterday's gains, gold ended near Monday's 10-month low
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session down $6.60 (-0.6%) to $1159.20/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.21 lower (-1.2%) at $16.98/oz
The dollar index traded nearly flat, around the 101.08 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.3% around the 87.92 level
Base metal copper extended yesterday's decline
Mar 2017 copper closed $0.02 lower (-0.8%) at $2.60/lb

After a split affair yesterday, the broader market finished higher across the board ahead of tomorrow's FOMC policy statement, which will be released at 14:00 ET and is expected to call for a 25-basis point rate hike. Leading the charge, the Nasdaq Composite surged 51.29 points (+0.95%) to 5463.83. The S&P 500 was up 14.76 points (+0.65%) to 2271.72 when the bell rang, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added an impressive 114.78 points (+0.58%) to 19911.21.

With the market believing that a rate hike will be announced tomorrow for all the right economic reasons, equity indices were free to continue their climb to stratospheric heights. However, the Russell 2000 (UNCH) spent the day near its flat line, suggesting the small cap rally may be running out of steam. The Russell 2000 narrowed its post-election gain to 14.9% versus a 6.2% gain in the S&P 500.

Investors received just one economic report today. Import prices excluding oil decreased 0.1% in November after declining 0.1% last month while export prices excluding agriculture also declined 0.1% after increasing 0.2% in October.

After a lackluster affair yesterday, the Technology (XLK 49.11, +0.61 +1.26%) sector ended as the best performing SPDR. Component Seagate Tech (STX 40.84, +1.67 +4.26%) was the best performing name after the company was the subject of a DigiTimes article which suggested the company and SK Hynix may form a joint venture to develop SSDs. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Tuesday XLE +1.13%, XLU +1.03%, IYZ +0.99%, XLY +0.90%, XLV +0.81%, XLP +0.46%, XLRE +0.26%, XLF +0.26%, XLI -0.14%, XLB -0.16%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (820.98, +9.98 +1.23%) space, trading was strong and only at the end of the session took a few ticks lower. Component Intel (INTC ) was particularly strong after a premarket initiation by Loop Capital with a Buy recommendation. Other names in the space which fared particularly well today included CA +2.86%, RHT +2.73%, WDC +2.43%, MCHP +2.34%, INTC +2.31%, FB +2.16%, JNPR +2.14%, TXN +2.05%, CTXS +1.78%, NVDA +1.76%, CRM +1.75%, IBM +1.69%, AAPL +1.67%.

Other news items among tech components:
Alphabet (GOOG 796.10, +6.83 +0.87%) acquired Cronologics. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to The Verge, Alphabet's (GOOG) Google will spin off its self-driving car project into a separate business named Waymo.

According to Digitimes, Seagate Tech (STX) and SK Hynix plan SSD joint venture.

Model N (MODN 8.40, -0.75 -8.20%) to acquire provider of life sciences revenue management software Revitas. The deal is expected to close in January 2017.

Web.com (WEB 18.20, +1.00 +5.81%) to acquire Argentina-based Donweb.com; terms not disclosed-expected to close by the end of Q1.

Monolithic Power (MPWR 83.04, +2.96 +3.70%) filed a lawsuit with the US District Court asserting that
Intersil (ISIL 22.28, +0.02 +0.09%) 'has unlawfully misappropriated MPS's confidential information and then used that information to fabricate a web of falsehoods.'

Symantec (SYMC 24.91, +0.21 +0.85%) filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Zscaler in the U.S. Federal District Court.

Texas Instruments (TXN 73.20, +1.47 +2.05%) approved amendments to the By-Laws of the Registrant primarily to implement proxy access.

Imation (IMN 0.96, -0.05 -4.73%) amended its Stock Purchase Agreement to remove stockholder approval conditions.

Synaptics (SYNA 57.29, +1.86 +3.36%) announced a partnership with OXi Technology.

Wi-LAN (WILN 1.57, +0.05 +3.46%) acquired a portfolio of patents from GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Financial terms of the agreement are confidential.

In reaction to quarterly results:

VeriFone (PAY 17.85, +1.41 +8.58%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.30 and $468 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of $0.20 and about $450 million, respectively. For FY17, PAY guided EPS worse than expected at $1.35-1.39 and revenues in-line at $1.90-1.92 billion.

Analyst actions:

MDRX was downgraded to Underweight at Morgan Stanley,
LIOX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
LFUS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow,
INOV was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
MODN was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
HIMX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho;
INTC, ON and NVDA were initiated with a Buy at Loop Capital,
TXN and MU were initiated with a Hold at Loop Capital,
YELP was initiated with a Buy at Aegis Capital,
LVLT and CTL were initiated with a Hold at SunTrust,
ZAYO, GTT and CCOI were initiated with a Buy at SunTrust

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended the midweek session on a lower note, extending its retreat after the Federal Open Market Committee announced a 25-basis point rate hike. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.8% while the Russell 2000 (-1.2%) underperformed. Going into today's session, market participants were all but sure that the Fed would raise rates for the first time since last December. The central bank lived up to that expectation, but the accompanying "dot plot" indicated that policymakers expect to raise rates three times in 2017. This is at odds with the fed funds futures market, which expects just two hikes in 2017.

During her press conference, Fed Chair Janet Yellen was asked if fiscal policies that fail to boost productivity could prompt the Fed to be more aggressive when it comes to hiking rates, but Ms. Yellen's response only acknowledged the presence of considerable uncertainty on the fiscal front.

Treasuries retreated in reaction to the rate increase while the U.S. Dollar Index (102.10, +1.04) jumped 1.0% to mark a fresh high for the year. As for Treasuries, short-dated issues bore the brunt of today's selling while the long end remained anchored. The 2-yr yield jumped eight basis points to 1.25% while the 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 2.52%. The long bond ended slightly lower with its yield increasing one basis point to 3.14%.

All eleven sectors ended the day in negative territory with rate-sensitive groups leading the retreat. Real estate (-1.9%) and utilities (-2.0%) settled near the bottom of the leaderboard while consumer staples (-1.0%) and telecom services (-1.0%) posted slimmer losses. The health care sector (-0.4%) ended a bit ahead of the market thanks to the outperformance among biotech names. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 269.42, +0.37) added 0.1%.

Most cyclical sectors struggled at the start while technology (-0.3%) and financials (-0.6%) displayed early strength. The financial sector surged in immediate reaction to the rate hike, but reversed just below its high from December 8. The economically-sensitive sector remains higher by 4.2% for the month, trading only behind telecom services (month-to-date +4.8%).

The energy sector (-2.1%) settled at the bottom of the leaderboard, pressured by daylong weakness in crude oil. The energy component sank 3.7% to $51.03/bbl, beginning its retreat after yesterday's bearish API inventory report. Crude saw no respite from a bullish inventory report that was released by the Energy Information Administration this morning.

With all eyes on the Fed, stock-specific news was relegated to the backburner, masking press reports from China that suggested an unnamed U.S. automaker will be fined for monopolistic behavior. General Motors (GM 35.95, -1.41) lost 3.8% while Ford (F 12.53, -0.24) surrendered 1.9%.

Investor participation was ahead of average with more than 1.2 billion shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Retail Sales, PPI, Industrial Production, and Business Inventories:

Retail sales increased just 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) after a downwardly revised 0.6% increase (from +0.8%) for October. A 0.5% decline in auto sales was the main drag on total retail sales
Excluding autos, retail sales were up 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), aided by modest sales increases in most retail categories
Both the final demand indexes for PPI and core-PPI, which excludes food and energy, were up 0.4% in November against the Briefing.com consensus estimates of +0.1% and +0.2%, respectively
With prices rising at the producer level, some angst may arise about higher consumer inflation going forward
Industrial production declined 0.4% in November following an upwardly revised 0.1% increase (from 0.0%) in October. Taking the revision into account, the decline in November was largely in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate that called for a 0.3% decline
Business inventories declined 0.2% in October (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) versus a downwardly revised unchanged reading (from +0.1%) for September
Sales increased 0.8% on top of an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from +0.7%) for September
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 4.0% to follow last week's 0.7% decline

Tomorrow will also be pretty busy on the economic front with weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 256K), November CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), December Philadelphia Fed (Briefing.com consensus 9.0), December Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 3.0), and Q3 Current Account Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$111.60 billion) all set to be released at 8:30 ET. The December NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 63) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +19.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.6% YTD
S&P 500 +10.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.6% YTD

DJ30 -118.68 NASDAQ -27.16 SP500 -18.44 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 900/1.79 bln/2320 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 582/1.25 bln/2401 3:35 pm :

Crude oil ended pit trading at its lowest level of the session on the heels of API, EIA, & monthly OPEC data - see 13:48 comment for more color
Jan 2017 crude oil futures fell $1.95 (-3.7%) to $51.03/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released at 1 pm ET on Friday
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -2.6 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -1.58 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +0.5 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of +2.54 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a draw of -0.8 mln barrels
Natural gas ended pit trading at its highest level of the session ahead of tomorrow's inventory data release
Jan 2017 natural gas closed $0.07 higher (+2.0%) at $3.54/MMBtu
Weekly EIA data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold & silver ended pit trading at session highs ahead of the Fed's decision (gold & silver have since gone negative)
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $4.50 (+0.4%) to $1163.70/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.24 higher (+1.4%) at $17.22/oz
The dollar index rallied +0.6% around the 101.69 level following the Fed's decision to increase the Fed Funds rate by 25 basis points
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.3% around the 87.63 level

There were essentially two sessions today: before the Fed, and after the Fed. Before the Fed, the broader market hovered near flat lines. After the Fed, all three major US indices were markedly on a negative bias. Prompting the move was the decision by the Federal Open Market Committee to raise interest rates by a 25-basis points. Ultimately, stocks ended lower as the S&P 500 lost the most, shedding 18.44 points (-0.81%) to 2253.28. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 118.68 (-0.60%) to 19792.53, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 27.16 points (-0.50%) to 5436.67 when the bell rang.

Going into today's session, market participants were all but sure that the Fed would raise rates for the first time since last December. The central bank lived up to that expectation, but the accompanying "dot plot" indicated that policymakers expect to raise rates three times in 2017. This is at odds with the fed funds futures market, which expects just two hikes in 2017.

During her press conference, Fed Chair Janet Yellen was asked if fiscal policies that fail to boost productivity could prompt the Fed to be more aggressive when it comes to hiking rates, but Ms. Yellen's response only acknowledged the presence of considerable uncertainty on the fiscal front.

Treasuries retreated in reaction to the rate increase while the U.S. Dollar Index (102.10, +1.04) jumped 1.0% to mark a fresh high for the year. As for Treasuries, short-dated issues bore the brunt of today's selling while the long end remained anchored. The 2-yr yield jumped eight basis points to 1.25% while the 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 2.52%. The long bond ended slightly lower with its yield increasing one basis point to 3.14%.

The Technology (XLK 48.94, -0.17 -0.35%) space was strong for most of the session, but fell along with the majority of stocks following the Fed. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 96.45, +5.28 +5.79%) was the best performer today after being upgraded premarket to a Buy rating from a Hold at Evercore ISI. All other sectors measured by the S&P closed in the red today -- XLU -2.06%, XLE -2.00%, XLRE -1.75%, XLB -1.19%, XLP -1.09%, XLI -1.01%, XLY -0.68%, XLV -0.52%, XLF -0.47%, IYZ -0.42%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (818.93, -2.05 -0.25%) space, trading jostled for position in the final moments of action today but ultimately fell under the spell of the Fed. Component Akamai Tech (AKAM 66.99, +1.85 +2.84%) was strong following a premarket upgrade to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer, while Qualcomm (QCOM 67.56, -1.78 -2.57%) was the polar opposite, shedding more than 2% after being downgraded to Neutral at JP Morgan. Other names in the space which underperformed today included ADSK -3.56%, XRX -3.23%, FSLR -3.21%, SWKS -2.26%, QRVO -2.17%, RHT -1.82%, STX -1.57%, ATVI -1.55%, ACN -1.40%, TEL -1.37%, YHOO -1.35%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Arista Networks (ANET 97.88, +2.85 +3.00%) reportedly won a lawsuit related to networking switches against Cisco (CSCO 30.46, -0.13 -0.42%).

Harmonic's (HLIT 4.85, -0.35 -6.73%) CFO Harold Covert intends to resign in the coming months in order to spend more time with his family on the East Coast. The company has begun a search for a new CFO.

IBM's (IBM 168.51, +0.22 +0.13%) Vice President and Controller resigned. Reports out also indicated the company is planning to hire 25,000 people in the US (meeting with Trump later this week).

Advanced Micro (AMD 10.55, +0.01 +0.09%) unveiled upcoming high-performance processors based on 'Zen' core architecture with Ryzen processors in advance of the official launch in Q1 2017.

Neustar (NSR 33.45, +5.80 +20.98%) to be acquired for $33.50 per share in cash by group led by Golden Gate Capital.

E*TRADE (ETFC 34.92, flat) reported November DARTs up 24% month-over-month and up 40% year-over-year. Net brokerage accounts were up 0.5% month-over-month.

Violin Memory (VMEM 0.04, -0.12 -73.11%) filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and is seeking to hold an auction in early January for the business.

Twitter (TWTR 18.93, -0.44 -2.27%) announced that now anyone can broadcast live video directly from its apps. Powered by Periscope, live video on Twitter allows people to share and experience everything from significant moments to daily life together with an audience.

Harman (HAR 109.89, -0.11 -0.10%) shareholder might vote against Samsung (SSNLF 1250.00, flat) M&A deal, according to WSJ.

Facebook (FB 120.21, -0.10 -0.08%) is speaking with TV studios about licensing content, according to Re/Code.

Analyst actions:

NVDA was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Evercore ISI,
FFIV was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
AKAM was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
USM was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley,
KLAC was upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Needham;
QCOM was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
ZAYO was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley;
XLNX was initiated with a Buy at Evercore ISI,
MOMO was initiated with a Hold at Deutsche Bank,
AIRG was initiated with a Hold at Wunderlich,
LDOS was initiated with a Neutral at Goldman

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 16-Dec-16

The past trading week featured sideways action in the major averages as the S&P 500 shed 0.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) outperformed. Small caps saw relative weakness with the Russell 2000 falling 1.7% after being at the forefront of the post-election rally.

The first session of the trading week was headlined by news from Vienna, where non-OPEC producers agreed to reduce their output by 558,000 barrels per day. In addition, a Saudi official indicated that his country may implement a larger cut than what was agreed to on November 30. Crude oil surged to a fresh 2016 high on the news, but pulled back as the week wore on to end the week with a modest gain.

Equity indices surged on Tuesday as the Fed began its two-day meeting, which concluded with a Wednesday rate hike. However, in addition to increasing the fed funds target range by 25 basis points, the FOMC signaled the intention to raise rates three times in 2017, which was up from market expectations for two rate hikes.

The FOMC decision and guidance weighed on Treasuries and boosted the dollar. Selling in the 10-yr note pushed up its yield to 2.60% from last Friday's 2.47% while the U.S. Dollar Index jumped 1.3% to its best level since early 2003.

The past week saw increased trading volume due to Wednesday's FOMC decision, but participation is expected to be on the decline going into the last two weeks of the year.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 19756.85 19843.41 86.56 0.4 13.9
Nasdaq 5444.50 5437.16 -7.34 -0.1 8.6
S&P 500 2259.53 2258.07 -1.46 -0.1 10.5
Russell 2000 1388.08 1363.46 -24.62 -1.8 20.0

4:09 pm Closing Market Summary: Friday Slip Leads to Weekly Decline (:WRAPX) :

The stock market registered a modest decline on Friday to end the week on a slightly lower note. The S&P 500 shed 0.2%, ending the week lower by 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.04%) also posted a Friday loss, but gained 0.4% for the week.

Equities spent the Friday affair inside narrow ranges amid a mixed showing from individual sectors. Most countercyclical groups displayed strength from the start, but their gains were not sufficient to offset losses among cyclical sectors. In addition, a late morning report indicated that the Chinese Navy seized an unmanned U.S. Navy submarine that was conducting operations in the South China Sea. The incident took place yesterday and the U.S. government demanded the return of the Navy drone.

The news weighed on sentiment, keeping the market near its low into the afternoon. Treasuries climbed off their lows in reaction to the news, but afternoon backtracking left the 10-yr note in the middle of its range. The benchmark yield slipped one basis point to 2.59%.

Heavily-weighted technology (-0.8%) and financials (-0.9%) lagged from the start, which prevented the market from staging a meaningful rebound. The financial sector narrowed its December gain to 4.3% while technology trimmed this month's advance to 2.5%. Oracle (ORCL 39.13, -1.73) and Adobe Systems (ADBE 103.52, -1.58) were among the notable laggards after both reported earnings. However, their bottom-line beats were overshadowed by weak guidance. Oracle lost 4.2% while Adobe fell 1.5%. High-beta chipmakers also lagged, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 1.0%.

Staying on the cyclical side, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.5%) also contributed to the weakness in the market as retail stocks recorded broad-based losses in the wake of yesterday's report from the NPD, which showed a 3.0% year-over-year decline in cumulative dollar sales in the first five weeks of the holiday shopping season. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.91, -0.64) surrendered 1.4%.

The energy sector (+0.6%) was the only cyclical group that spent the day above its flat line, thanks to a 2.0% spike in crude oil, which settled at $51.90/bbl. The energy component gained 0.8% for the week after marking a new 2016 high on Monday ($54.51/bbl).

Similar to energy, countercyclical sectors recorded gains. Real estate (+1.2%) and utilities (+1.2%) held the lead throughout the day while consumer staples (+0.5%), telecom services (+0.6%), and health care (+0.1%) posted modest gains.

Investor participation was well above average due to quadruple witching. More than two billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Housing Starts and Building Permits:

November housing starts declined 18.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.090 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.225 mln).
Building permits declined 4.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.201 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.236 million), although permits for single-family homes increased 0.5% to 778,000
The November report followed a big beat in October, thus market reaction was limited

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Russell 2000 +20.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.9% YTD
S&P 500 +10.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.6% YTD

Week in Review: Stocks Hold Ground as Fed Hikes

The past trading week featured sideways action in the major averages as the S&P 500 shed 0.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) outperformed. Small caps saw relative weakness with the Russell 2000 falling 1.7% after being at the forefront of the post-election rally.

The first session of the trading week was headlined by news from Vienna, where non-OPEC producers agreed to reduce their output by 558,000 barrels per day. In addition, a Saudi official indicated that his country may implement a larger cut than what was agreed to on November 30. Crude oil surged to a fresh 2016 high on the news, but pulled back as the week wore on to end the week with a modest gain.

Equity indices surged on Tuesday as the Fed began its two-day meeting, which concluded with a Wednesday rate hike. However, in addition to increasing the fed funds target range by 25 basis points, the FOMC signaled the intention to raise rates three times in 2017, which was up from market expectations for two rate hikes.

The FOMC decision and guidance weighed on Treasuries and boosted the dollar. Selling in the 10-yr note pushed up its yield to 2.60% from last Friday's 2.47% while the U.S. Dollar Index jumped 1.3% to its best level since early 2003.

The past week saw increased trading volume due to Wednesday's FOMC decision, but participation is expected to be on the decline going into the last two weeks of the year.

After an impressive Thursday session, stocks broke down on Friday as the Nasdaq Composite turned in the worst percentage losses. The index shed about 19.69 points (-0.36%) to 5437.16. The S&P 500 was down 3.96 points (-0.18%) today to 2258.07, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 8.83 points (-0.04%) to 19843.41. This week's moves take the three major US indices +8.6%, +10.5% and +13.9% YTD, respectively.

Equities spent the Friday affair inside narrow ranges amid a mixed showing from individual sectors. Most countercyclical groups displayed strength from the start, but their gains were not sufficient to offset losses among cyclical sectors. In addition, a late morning report indicated that the Chinese Navy seized an unmanned U.S. Navy submarine that was conducting operations in the South China Sea. The incident took place yesterday and the U.S. government demanded the return of the Navy drone.

Among market data metrics today, November housing starts declined 18.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.090 million units. Building permits declined 4.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.201 million, although permits for single-family homes increased 0.5% to 778,000.

Investor participation was well above average due to quadruple witching. More than two billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

The Technology (XLK 48.59, -0.35 -0.72%) space was the one of the hardest hit in the S&P today as trading was pressured nearly the entire day. Component Adobe Systems (ADBE 103.52, -1.58 -1.50%) was weak today following last night's Q4 beat. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLRE +1.40%, XLU +1.22%, IYZ +0.62%, XLE +0.62%, XLP +0.57%, XLV +0.08%, XLI -0.22%, XLB -0.35%, XLY -0.49%, XLF -0.86%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (815.63, -6.18 -0.75%) space, trading saw modest losses on the back of yesterday's equally modest positive session. Component Oracle (ORCL 39.13, -1.73 -4.23%) was lower today after last night's Q2 report. Other names in the space which felt the broader market pressure included STX -3.69%, ADSK -3.09%, HPQ -2.97%, SYMC -2.90%, XLNX -2.86%, EA -2.45%, QCOM -2.31%, CA -2.23%, ADI -2.06%, MCHP -1.97%, QRVO -1.80%, AMAT -1.66%, LRCX -1.57%.

Other notable news items in the tech space:
Viacom's (VIAB 35.22, +0.31 +0.89%) Sumner Redstone to step down from Board, according to CNBC.

Priceline (PCLN 1484.28, -16.92 -1.13%) named Head of Strategy and EVP of Corporate Development, Glenn Fogel, as CEO effective January 1.

trivago (TRVG 11.85, +0.85 +7.73%) opened for trading at $11.20 after pricing IPO at $11.

Wi-LAN's (WILN 1.48, -0.02 -1.33%) Smart Wearable Technologies entered into patent license agreement with TCL Communication (TCCLF 0.99, flat).

Rogers Comms (RCI 38.15, -0.37 -0.96%) announced a partnership with Comcast (CMCSA 69.87, -0.01 -0.01%) to bring its customers Comcast's X1 IP-based video platform. As a result, RCI will discontinue any further investment in the IPTV product.

FireEye (FEYE 13.21, +0.03 +0.23%) and the NATO Communications and Information Agency announced Industry Partnership Agreement for cyber security information sharing.

FARO Techs (FARO 37.90, -0.60 -1.56%) promoted Robert Seidel to CFO.

SS&C Techs (SSNC 29.44, +0.55 +1.90%) acquired Conifer Financial Services for $88.5 million.

Cognizant Tech (CTSH 56.26, -0.54 -0.95%) to acquire Adaptra. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

M/A-COM Tech (MTSI 48.86, -0.78 -1.57%) announced final order of preliminary injunction against Infineon (IFNNY 16.98, -0.05 -0.29%).

xG Technology (XGTI 2.30, -0.90 -28.15%) announced a 1:10 reverse split.

Finisar (FNSR 31.17, -1.55 -4.74%) announced a private placement of $450 million of convertible senior notes due 2036.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Adobe Systems (ADBE) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.90 and $1.61 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company sees better than expected EPS of $0.87. For FY17, ADBE sees EPS of $3.75 and revenues of $6.95 billion.

Oracle (ORCL) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.61 on revenues of $9.04 billion. For Q3, ORCL sees revenue growth of 3-5% on EPS of between $0.61-0.64 in constant currency.

Jabil Circuit (JBL 24.15, +2.58 +11.96%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.69 and $5.1 billion, respectively. For Q2, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $0.35-0.57 and $4.2-4.5 billion, respectively.

Analyst actions:

ADP was upgraded to Conviction Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
ERIC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
PAYX was upgraded to Buy at Goldman,
VEEV was upgraded to Market Outperform from Market Perform at JMP Securities;
IPAS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Chardan Capital Mkts,
GIB was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
FDC was downgrade to Neutral from Buy at Goldman;
SBAC, CCI, AMT were initiated with Neutral ratings at Guggenheim,
SQ was initiated with a Buy at Needham,
HIVE was initiated with a Buy at DA Davidson,
FDC and TSS were initiated with Overweight ratings at Pacific Crest,
CY was initiated with a Buy at Loop Capital,
GOOG was initiated with a Neutral at Cleveland Research

[ReturntoSender]

Lots of Reasons for the Market to Sell (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- With a lot to ponder, the stock indices spend last week moving laterally,
assessing where they are.
- Inflows are running, mostly to ETF's, of course after a big market surge.
- Yellen, Republicans appear to want to stand in the way of Trump fiscal
policies.
- Lots of reasons for market to sell, including lots of bulls. Also, there
are a lot of leaders.

The stock market spent the week assessing its situation. Sitting on top of
1.5 month moves that had RUTX, DJ30 and SP400 at their peaks rather extended
in terms of their 200 day SMA. The election result generated a lot of
excitement for economic expansion and 'reflation' trades soared first,
taking other areas with them later. Some struggled thanks to TT's (Trump
Tweets), e.g. defense and drugs, but even those are not down for the count.

SP500 -3.96, -0.18%
NASDAQ -19.69, -0.36%
DJ30 -8.83, -0.04%
SP400 -0.18%
RUTX -0.16%
SOX -1.00%

VOLUME: NYSE +120%, NASDAQ +30%. Quite the quadruple witching session.

A/D: NYSE 1.3:1, NASDAQ -1.2:1

The economic excitement and market moves snowballed into more enthusiasm.
Last week saw $21B inflows into stock funds, mostly ETF's as $31B moved into
ETF's overall. Investors like to play the index game though those can be
the least performing of the funds -- outside perhaps Gartman's . . . ?
Okay, cheap shot.

Inflows are surging as stocks are sitting on top of a 6 week run, a move
without a lot of rest. Moreover, bullish investment advisors moved to
59.6%, now fully in the range of readings that have, over as many years as
you want to count, resulted in market corrections. Okay, a few pullbacks
versus corrections, but typically a correction of some sort results from
readings of this sort at some point hence.

On top of the market centric stories, the political aspects came home to
roost so to speak. The FOMC made the bold move of hiking the Fed Funds rate
25BP for the second time in 13 months and promised an additional 3 hikes in
2017, really clamping down on runaway economic mediocrity in America. This
rapid fire rate hiking (when the 10 year is at 2.59%) surely puts the market
at risk, right?

It wasn't just the Fed threat of an ever so slight slowing of the stimulus
IV drip, but the politicians (those outside the Fed, that is) that had to
get their face time in front of the cameras to justify to us why they
deserve better healthcare than the piece of junk system we are forced to buy
into (no, I am not bitter), not to mention free haircuts, workout
facilities, insider trading privileges (to offset the cost of selling out to
special interests), and the license to lie with impunity.

Paul 'Cybil' Ryan met with Trump a few weeks back and his grass roots
conservative Tea Party personality appeared and gushed pro Trump. When he
slinked back to DC, the 'we cannot ever win an election without agreeing to
unlimited immigration and pandering to every special interest group'
personality appeared as he slow-danced cheek to cheek with Senate curmudgeon
Mitch McConnell as they complained about the deficit.


The congressional bookend twins.

Ah, once again when it suits them they talk of harmful deficits. Where were
these rapscallions when they could have stopped the Obama budget last year?
They were practicing the renowned French tactic of turning and running,
ironically reversed in the movie 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' when
Arthur and his knights fled the French taunting with the battle cry, 'Run
away!



In any event, despite the Trump transition promises and the stock market
surging in anticipation of infrastructure spending, fiscal stimulus, and
regulatory rollbacks, the politicians are loathe to relinquish their power
and thus, when they get back in the pack they take on their old
characteristics of defending the group against any chance they lose their
power.

Okay, what does that long description of the market climate mean? The rally
is facing its first real test. Hope for expansion, real economic expansion
thanks to growth policies and a rollback of economic strangling policies,
versus the establishment resisting change AND market physics. The market is
assessing the threats, thus working laterally on the week.

I would say that the unholy wedding of Ryan and McConnell holds little
threat. If they see populist support for Trump policies the 'shucks, we were
just kidding' explanations will immediately issue just as they did during
Reagan's tenure. The Fed? Yes, it can be a real problem but the lucky
thing for Trump is the Fed is so far behind the curve it will have to really
work at killing off any real economic success.

That leaves the market's success in rallying as its own worst enemy.
Bullishness at levels that have set off past corrections and sharp advances
that surpass the safe margins above the 200 day SMA that force gravity to
take effect combine to suggest the market will need some kind of test,
typically more than it has shown of late with the weeklong lateral moves.

That said, the market put in another lateral move as it assesses the lay of
the land. Thus, there is already some ongoing consolidation. Per the
bullishness, however, that is likely not enough of a give back, and you
would anticipate a deeper bit to the selling. That is one reason we took
quite a bit of gain 2 weeks back all of that week, i.e. in anticipation of
this week's reassessment lateral slide.

The question is timing. Sentiment indicators tend to front run the market
action, and it can be a week, a few weeks, a couple of months before the
gravity turns them back over. That is one reason we didn't just wholesale
dump everything. There can still be a test/rest as seen last week and a new
break higher before any more serious selling starts. Thus we let good
patterns that remained good continue to work.

There are MANY very good patterns out there in current leading sectors and
in areas that are looking to become or are becoming leadership groups. When
it is all boiled down, it is leadership and its ability to continue setting
up, rallying, consolidating, then rallying some more that keeps a move
alive. Sentiment can get to extremes and stay at extremes for quite some
time before a market finally decides to give in.

Thus, we have some new solid upside plays on the report for this week.
Nothing yet suggests a big rollover in technical terms other than the
percentages above the 200 day SMA. Even so, some indices still have plenty
of upside to work with before they reach extreme levels (e.g. NASDAQ,
SP500). After this week of sideways movement many of the early market
leaders are in position to resume their runs and there are new contenders
coming to the fore to possibly take their shot at moving higher. If they
show the moves, all of our speculation about market tops, extended indices,
political headwinds is just that, speculation.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SP500, DJ30, and NASDAQ spent last week mostly working laterally, at least
they did after the Tuesday upside surge to higher highs. Not much change
for SP500 and DJ30 as they hold near new highs, working laterally, very
similar to prior lateral consolidations in the current move higher.

NASDAQ is less extended than the other two large cap indices and its move
last week is very similar, i.e. a lateral move, holding the Tuesday move to
a new high, waiting for the 10 day EMA to catch up. That is typically
bullish action, i.e. holding a gain, consolidating above near support.

RUTX and SP400 spent the week forming a 10 day EMA test similar to the late
November test that led to the most recent leg higher. Wednesday the selling
looked too sharp, but Thursday and Friday they slowed the selling and held
the 10 day EMA. Still a bullish trend, it is just their moves put them well
above the 200 day SMA. If all want to rally, however, these two are in good
position.

SOX: Broke to a higher post-2000 high Thursday, continued upside Friday,
but then flipped rather sharply negative. Still holding the trend, but a
second Friday where SOX started higher only to give it up.


LEADERSHIP

Some of the first leaders in the rally are pressured, e.g. metals, retailers
(though the latter are more late comers), industrial equipment, suggesting
that some are buying into the notion the infrastructure and stimulus may not
be a sure thing.

Metals: It is said economic gains have a copper roof. FCX did not break
higher from its pennant, instead breaking down last week. Steel is hanging
in, e.g. AKS, STLD, but there are stocks in the group struggling, e.g. SID,
SCHN.

Industrial Equipment: CMI, CAT sold on the week but UTX, MMM, TEX are
holding in.

Retail: Box stores clobbered, e.g. JWN, DDS, M, KSS. Specialty not as bad,
e.g. KIRK. Some apparel makers are struggling, e.g. DECK, LB.

Chips: A good week but not a great Friday. XLNX surged only to give a
chunk back. AMAT did the same. SLAB is testing the 20 day EMA after
pushing to a higher rally high. AMD also posted a nice week, surged Friday,
then gave up that move and a bit more. Overall still solid.

Oil: Definitely some issues on the week. APC tested back to the 10 day EMA
and looks solid. HAL is in a 2.5 week lateral move after hitting a higher
rally high. CWEI jumped midweek off the 50 day EMA after a tough 4 weeks.
LGCY still looks good to move higher. Service companies struggled but is
setting up, e.g. PKD, PDS, ESV. Others are setting up, lots of them.

Financial: UP and down the past week as they try to consolidate prior moves
and set up the next. BAC, C, JPM, GS.

Telecom: Some interesting patterns setting up, e.g. SWIR, VIP, MBT, CIEN.

Internet: Trying to make some moves, e.g. LIVE, LLNW. YNDX in a good
setup.


MARKET STATS

NASDAQ
Stats: -19.69 points (-0.36%) to close at 5437.16
Volume: 2.708B (+29.95%)

Up Volume: 1.37B (+100M)
Down Volume: 1.84B (+1.027B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.17 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.5 to 1

New Highs: 179 (+4)
New Lows: 42 (-31)

S&P
Stats: -3.96 points (-0.18%) to close at 2258.07
NYSE Volume: 2.2B (+120%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.3 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.28 to 1

New Highs: 121 (+17)
New Lows: 68 (-57)

DJ30
Stats: -8.83 points (-0.04%) to close at 19843.41


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 12.2; -0.59
VXN: 13.23; -0.98
VXO: 11.58; -0.47

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.91; +0.06

12 of 35 sessions over 1.0 on the close. Saw a modest rise in put option
action on the week.


Bulls and Bears: Bulls continued marching to 60, now just 0.4 away. 60 to
65 have signed off on many a market correction since 1998. Bulls are
effectively there, suggesting that the 'tired' indices look that way for a
reason.

Bulls: 59.6 versus 58.8

Bears: 19.2 versus 19.6

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 59.6 versus 58.8
58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6 versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1
versus 42.9 versus 46.1 versus 46.7 versus 45.2 versus 44.6 versus 49.0
versus 52.5 versus 55.9 versus 56.7 versus 56.2 versus 54.3 versus 52.9%
versus 53.9% versus 54.4% versus 52.5% versus 47.1% versus 41.6% versus
47.5% versus 45.9% versus 47.3% versus 45.4% versus 35.4% versus 40.2 versus
39.2

Bears: 19.2 versus 19.6
19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7 versus 24.3 versus 23.1
versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1 versus 24.3 versus 22.6
versus 22.8 versus 20.6 Versus 20.2 versus 20.0 versus 20.9% versus 21.2%
versus 21.6% versus 23.3% versus 24.7% versus 24.5% versus 23.8% versus
23.2% versus 23.5% versus 23.8% versus 23.7% versus 24.0% versus 21.7%
versus 21.6% versus 21.7 versus 20.6% versus 21.7% versus 27.8% versus 27.8%
versus 28.9% versus 27.8% versus 30.3% versus 35.4%


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.59% versus 2.59%. Bonds around the world are still
struggling.

Historical: 2.59% versus 2.52% versus 2.473% versus 2.475% versus 2.471%
versus 2.40% versus 2.349% versus 2.39% versus 2.396% versus 2.394% versus
2.454% versus 2.388% versus 2.30% versus 2.31%. versus 2.36% versus 2.355%
versus 2.317% versus 2.30% versus 2.34% versus 2.297% versus 2.219% versus
2.22% versus 2.23% versus 2.14% versus 2.077% versus 1.867% versus 1.83%
versus 1.778% versus 1.81% versus 1.797% versus 1.827% versus 1.83% versus
1.85% versus 1.84% versus 1.791% versus 1.76% versus 1.76% versus 1.73%
versus 1.75% versus 1.74% versus 1.74% versus 1.766% versus 1.80% versus
1.746% versus 1.78% versus 1.723% versus 1.72% versus 1.74% versus 1.72%
versus 1.69% versus 1.622% versus 1.60% versus 1.56% versus 1.569% versus
1.56% versus 1.584% versus 1.62%


EUR/USD: 1.0459 versus 1.0415. Tough back end of the week for the euro.

Historical: 1.0415 versus 1.05094 versus 1.0636 versus 1.06326 versus
1.05586 versus 1.06140 versus 1.07745 versus 1.07194 versus 1.07614 versus
1.06638 versus 1.06631 versus 1.0601 versus 1.0649 versus 1.05699 versus
1.066 versus 1.05910 versus 1.05519 versus 1.0672 versus 1.06265 versus
1.0587 versus 1.0650 versus 1.07026 versus 1.0725 versus 1.07492 versus
1.0858 versus 1.08898 versus 1.09398 versus 1.10186 versus 1.10327 versus
1.11406 versus 1.11059 versus 1.11020 versus 1.10560 versus 1.09646 versus
1.09860 versus 1.08963 versus 1.0895 versus 1.08793 versus 1.08793 versus
1.08851 versus 1.0928 versus 1.0971 versus 1.0977 versus 1.10217


USD/JPY: 117.941 versus 118.257. Big surge post-FOMC for the dollar,
continuing the move upside.

Historical: 118.257 versus 117.397 versus 115.038 versus 115.058 versus
115.20 versus 114.23 versus 113.325 versus 113.993 versus 113.601 versus
113.52 versus 113.945 versus 114.19 versus 112.685 versus 112.44 versus
111.835 versus 113.14 versus 112.445 versus 111.129 versus 110.809 versus
110.905 versus 110.240 versus 109.07 versus 108.164 versus 107.455 versus
106.621 versus 106.814 versus 105.192 versus 101.286 versus 104.386 versus
103.112 versus 102.96 versus 103.350 versus 104.042 versus 104.798 versus
104.710 versus 105.305 versus 104.412 versus 104.2110 versus 104.331 versus
103.83 versus 103.99 versus 103.99 versus 103.602 versus 103.892 versus
103.815 versus 104.201 versus 103.634 versus 103.690 versus 103.698 versus
103.95 versus 103.159 versus 103.984 versus 103.381 versus 102.807 versus
102.035 versus 101.326 versus 101.143 versus 101.322 versus 100.55


Oil: 52.95, +2.05. After giving up the breakout, oil held the 20 day EMA
Thursday then gapped and rallied back to the week's closing high Friday.
Impressive as oil did try the bounce upside we opined about on Thursday.


Gold: 1137.40, +7.60. Ugly gap lower Thursday post-FOMC, modest Friday
recovery, but gold has been . . . hammered.



SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 5437.16

Resistance:

Support:
The November all-time high at 5404
The 2016 trendline at 5385
5340 is the September and October 2016 twin peaks
The 50 day EMA at 5310
5287.61 is the September 2016 high
The 50 day SMA at 5285
5271.36 is the August 2016 intraday prior all-time high
5231.94 is the 2015 all-time high
5170 is the October intraday low.
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
The 200 day SMA at 5061
5042 is the March 2015 high
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower
4999 is the October upper gap point
4980 is the June 2016 peak
4969 is the April 2016 recovery high
4960 is the September 2015 intraday high, an important reversal point for
NASDAQ.
4920 is the lower gap point from mid-October 2015, the January 2016 lower
gap point
4916 is the mid-November 2015 low
4899 - 4902 from the September 2015 peak, July 2015 low
4894 is the September 2015 closing high


S&P 500: Closed at 2258.07

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 2246
The 2016 trendline at 2225
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 2192
2175 is the June 2016 high
The 50 day SMA at 2174
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2126 was the April 2015 prior all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 2125
2120 is the June 2016 peak
2119 is the September 2016 low; February 2015 intraday high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2111 is the April 2016 recovery high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2094 is the December 2014 high
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2046 is the July 2015 closing low
2040 is the March 2015 closing low
2026 is the May 2016 low
2023 is the November 2015 low
2020 is the September 2015 intraday high
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1995 is the September 2015 recovery peak
1991 is the July 2014 high


Dow: Closed at 19,843.41

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 19,664
The 20 day EMA 19,407
The 50 day EMA at 18,952
The 50 day SMA at 18,730
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015
18,288 from March 2015
18,262 is the upper gap point from the Monday gap lower.
18,247 is the August 2016 low
The 200 day SMA at 18,172
18,168 is the April 2016 recovery high
18,100 to 18,181: interim peaks in the December 2014 to July 2015 range
18,016 is the June 2016 peak
17,992 is the early September low
17,978 is the November 2015 peak
17,960 is the October intraday low
17,600 is the rough bottom of the April to June range.
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

December 21 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Index, 12/17 (7:00): -4.0% prior
Existing Home Sales, November (10:00): 5.50M expected, 5.60M prior
Crude Inventories, 12/17 (10:30): -2.600M prior

December 22 - Thursday
GDP - Third Estimate, Q3 (8:30): 3.3% expected, 3.2% prior
GDP Deflator - Third, Q3 (8:30): 1.4% expected, 1.4% prior
Initial Claims, 12/17 (8:30): 256K expected, 254K prior
Continuing Claims, 12/10 (8:30): 2018K prior
Durable Orders, November (8:30): -4.5% expected, 4.8% prior
Durable Orders, Ex- , November (8:30): 0.2% expected, 1.0% prior
FHFA Housing Price I, October (9:00): 0.6% prior
Leading Indicators, November (10:00): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
Personal Income, November (10:00): 0.3% expected, 0.6% prior
Personal Spending, November (10:00): 0.4% expected, 0.3% prior
Core PCE Price Index, November (10:00): 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 12/17 (10:30): -147 bcf prior

December 23 - Friday
Michigan Sentiment -, December (10:00): 98.2 expected, 98.0 prior
New Home Sales, November (10:00): 573K expected, 563K prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market avoided its second consecutive decline thanks to a Monday session that was underscored by daylong strength in the top-weighted technology sector (+0.6%). The S&P 500 added 0.2% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) outperformed throughout the day.

Investor sentiment soured during late afternoon action after it was reported that nine people were killed and at least 50 were injured after an assailant drove a truck into a crowd at the Christmas market in Berlin. This followed a morning report from Ankara, where the Russian Ambassador to Turkey was assassinated by an off-duty Turkish policeman. The two developments likely contributed to afternoon profit taking.

Equity indices began the day near their flat lines, but the largest sector by weight-technology (+0.6%)-climbed shortly after the opening bell, leading the overall market higher. The advance received assistance from other groups like industrials (+0.6%), telecom services (+1.1%), and real estate (+1.0%), but technology stood out, keeping the Nasdaq in the lead. High-beta chipmakers contributed to the strength with the PHLX Semiconductor Index climbing 1.0%. ASML (ASML 110.22, +3.98) and Lam Research (LRCX 106.99, +2.54) climbed 3.8% and 2.4%, respectively, after receiving upgrades.

Other cyclical sectors were mixed relative to the broader market as industrials (+0.6%) settled higher while energy (-0.5%) and financials (+0.1%) lagged.

The industrial sector received support from transport stocks as the Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 0.7% with all but two components ending in the green. Meanwhile, energy (-0.5%) struggled amid a volatile day in crude oil. WTI crude alternated between gains and losses before ending higher by 0.3% at $52.12/bbl.

For its part, the financial sector (+0.1%) held a modest loss into the afternoon, but spiked off its low after Fed Chair Janet Yellen made upbeat comments about the U.S. labor market. The comments were made during the commencement ceremony at the University of Baltimore, and they were met with an uptick in the dollar and a brief slip in Treasuries.

The U.S. Dollar Index (103.11, +0.16) climbed 0.2% as greenback strength against the euro (1.0400) and the pound (1.2400) overshadowed a decline against the yen (117.11).

Treasuries entered the day with gains and continued their advance into the afternoon. A temporary downtick took place in reaction to Ms. Yellen's comments, but the complex returned to highs by the close with the 10-yr yield sliding six basis points to 2.53%.

Investor participation was in-line with average as more than 900 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's session was free of economic data and investors will not receive any economic data tomorrow.

Russell 2000 +20.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.1% YTD
S&P 500 +10.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.0% YTD

DJ30 +39.65 NASDAQ +20.28 SP500 +4.46 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1796/1.52 bln/1243 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1875/947.8 mln/1117

3:30 pm :

Base metals lost some steam today with zinc, lead, nickel and copper futures falling notably
Mar copper on the CME fell 2.3% today to close at $2.50/lb
Moving over to energy, Jan WTI crude oil futures gained 0.3%, while Jan nat gas slipped 0.6% to end at $3.39/MMBtu
In the precious metals area, Feb gold rose a modest 0.4% to $1142.60/oz, while Mar silver fell 0.8% to $16.09/oz

Beginning the holiday week, the three major US indices held onto gains despite fading into the close. The Nasdaq Composite led all others higher today, adding 20.28 points (+0.37%) to 5457.44. The S&P 500 was up 4.46 points (+0.20%) to 2262.53, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 39.65 points (+0.20%) today to close 19883.06.

Investor sentiment soured during late afternoon action after it was reported that nine people were killed and at least 50 were injured after an assailant drove a truck into a crowd at the Christmas market in Berlin. This followed a morning report from Ankara, where the Russian Ambassador to Turkey was assassinated by an off-duty Turkish policeman. The two developments likely contributed to afternoon profit taking.

Among the better performing sectors today, the Technology (XLK 48.92, +0.33 +0.68%) space was higher for the entirety of the session. Component Lam Research (LRCX 106.99, +2.54 +2.43%) was the best performer today after being upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman and added to the Conviction Buy List. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Monday IYZ +2.01%, XLRE +0.89%, XLI +0.53%, XLU +0.37%, XLY +0.27%, XLP +0.19%, XLF +0.04%, XLB -0.14%, XLV -0.39%, XLE -0.46%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (820.64, +5.01 +0.61%) sector, trading came off highs slightly but still ended in the green. Component Akamai Tech (AKAM 67.76, +0.57 +0.85%) was modestly higher today after acquiring Cyberfend in an all-cash transaction. Other names in the space which performed better today included CA +2.19%, MSFT +2.12%, CSRA +2.05%, WDC +1.76%, WU +1.74%, ADBE +1.68%, INTC +1.60%, QRVO +1.39%, NVDA +1.22%, AVGO +1.14%, HPE +1.02%, TEL +1.00%, ADI +1.00%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Akamai Tech (AKAM 67.76, +0.57 +0.85%) acquired Cyberfend in an all-cash transaction. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Accenture (ACN 123.65, +0.65 +0.53%) to acquire Arismore. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

GlobalStar (GSAT 1.35, +0.30 +28.57%) shares were strong today after reports circulated that the FCC has put the company's revised proposal on circulation.

Gogo's (GOGO 9.99, +0.29 +2.99%) CFO Norman Smagley to retire effective December 31, 2017.

Vivint Solar (VSLR 3.00, +0.10 +3.45%) appointed David Bywater as CEO effective immediately.

WEX (WEX 114.05, +4.00 3.63%) signed a long term agreement with Chevron (CVX 117.64, -0.44 -0.37%) subsidiary Chevron Products Company to issue and operate Chevron and Texaco-branded commercial fleet cards commencing Jan 2018. Financial terms were not disclosed.

xG Technology (XGTI 3.62, +1.32 +57.39%) signed a final definitive business purchase agreement to acquire Vislink Communication Systems.

Qualcomm's (QCOM 67.02, +0.56 +0.84%) Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., has worked with Lionsgate (LGF 26.09, +1.10 +4.40%) to power the Power Rangers Virtual Reality (VR) experience at the 2017 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Vivendi (VIVHY 18.95, +0.01 +0.05%) decided to increase its investment in Mediaset (MDIUY 11.54, +0.34 +3.04%) within the limits of 30% of the share capital and voting rights.

Helios & Matheson's (HMNY 4.49, +0.33 +7.93%) Red Zone Map introduced on Alphabet's (GOOG 794.20, +3.40 +0.43%) Google Play.

Eltek (ELTK 0.82, -0.05 -5.76%) to sell its Kubatronik-Leiterplatten shares to Alois Kubat.

ManTech (MANT 42.65, +0.51 +1.21%) acquired Edaptive Systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Mitel Networks (MITL 7.02, -0.39 -5.26%) to divest its mobile division to the parent company of Xura (MESG) for $350 million in cash, a $35 million non-interest bearing promissory note, and an equity interest in Sierra Private Investments.

ComScore (SCOR 34.00, +1.14 +3.47%) Serge Matta, a Class III member of the Board and former Executive Vice Chairman, President and CEO, delivered resignation to the Board effective immediately.

CGI Group (GIB 47.62, +0.42 +0.89%) intends to purchase for cancellation up to 1.5 million Class A subordinate voting shares under additional specific share repurchase program.

Analyst actions:

ETFC was upgraded to Buy from Hold at SunTrust,
LXFT was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen,
HUBS was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
ASML was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
FNSR was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Northland,
LRCX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman and added to Conviction Buy List;
AMAT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman;
KLAC was initiated with a Buy at Goldman,
CY was initiated with a Buy at BofA/Merrill,
BIDU was initiated with an Underweight at Cantor Fitzgerald

4:08 pm NeoPhotonics announces deal to sell its low speed transceiver business to APAT Optoelectronics, lowers Q4 outlook (NPTN) :

Co lowers Q4 EPS guidance to $0.03-0.11 vs. $0.17 Capital IQ Consensus Est, down from $0.13-0.21, lowers revenue guidance to $105-109 mln vs. $112.6 mln consensus, down from $109-115 mln prior guidanc
Demand in the fourth quarter continues to exceed the Company's capacity to supply High Speed products while production capacities continue to increase
As new capacity has been brought on line, production yields at one of its fab facilities have been lower than anticipated, resulting in delayed shipments and higher manufacturing costs during the quarter versus previous projections
Co also announced that it executed a definitive agreement, to sell its Access and Low Speed transceiver product lines to APAT Optoelectronics Components Co., Ltd. of Shenzhen, China, a designer and manufacturer of optical sub-assemblies for telecom and datacom markets
The transaction is valued at approximately $26.4 million, inclusive of post-closing payments under a Transition Services Agreement
The transaction value consists of an equivalent of $25.0 million purchase price plus an additional equivalent of $1.4 million to be paid as certain transition services are delivered

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm FedEx misses by $0.11, reports revs in-line; reaffirms FY17 EPS guidance (FDX) :

Reports Q2 (Nov) earnings of $2.80 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.11 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.91; revenues rose 19.2% year/year to $14.9 bln vs the $14.91 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

FedEx Express- Revenue increased 2% due to increased base rates and higher package volume. U.S. domestic revenue per package increased 3% and U.S. freight revenue per pound increased 6%, both due to higher base rates. International export revenue per package increased 1% as higher base rates were partially offset by unfavorable currency exchange rates and lower fuel surcharges.

FedEx Ground- Revenue increased due to higher volume and yields. FedEx Ground average daily volume grew 5% in the second quarter, driven by e--commerce and commercial package growth. FedEx Ground yield increased 4% due to higher base rates.

FedEx Freight- Revenue increased 3% due to growth in less-than-truckload average daily shipments, partially offset by lower weight per shipment. Operating results decreased due to the impact from lower average weight per shipment and higher information technology expenses.

Co reaffirms guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $11.85-12.35, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $12.06 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Capital spending forecast for the fiscal year, which includes TNT Express, remains $5.6 billion

4:05 pm Agilent will acquire Multiplicom for approx. EUR 68 mln in cash (A) :

Multiplicom develops, manufactures and commercializes molecular-diagnostic solutions, provided as kits, which enable personalized medicine.

Co is acquiring Multiplicom for ~ EUR 68 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to be completed by mid-January, subject to local laws and regulations and customary closing conditions. Multiplicom employs about 90 people, all of whom will be offered employment opportunities with Agilent.

4:10 pm : The stock market registered its second consecutive advance, but intraday price action followed yesterday's pattern, suggesting the post-election rally may be running out of steam. The S&P 500 hit a session high shortly after the open, but narrowed its gain to 0.4% by the close.

The key indices raced out of the gate with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) setting its sights on the 20,000 mark. The price-weighted index hit a session high roughly 15 points below that level during the opening hour, slowly backing off into the afternoon.

Most cyclical sectors displayed strength from the start with three exhibiting relative strength into the close, which kept the market in the green despite the afternoon dip from highs. The financial sector (+1.1%) spent the day in the lead after underperforming yesterday. Meanwhile, the largest sector by weight-technology (+0.3%)-kept pace with the S&P 500.

However, the underperformance in technology was offset by solid gains in consumer discretionary (+0.8%) and industrials (+0.6%). The discretionary sector received broad support from retail stocks with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 46.79, +0.67) climbing 1.5%. In earnings news, CarMax (KMX 66.16, +3.80) and Carnival (CCL 52.49, +1.17) advanced 6.1% and 2.3%, respectively, after beating earnings estimates.

As for industrials, the sector was underpinned by transport stocks, evidenced by the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.8%). Dow component Caterpillar (CAT 94.32, +1.61) also stood out, climbing 1.8%, after the company released its November sales figures, which showed a 17.0% year-over-year decline in total machine orders. Total energy & transportation orders declined 25.0% year-over-year, representing a slight slowdown from a 28.0% decline in October.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.2%) spent the day in negative territory even though crude oil rose 0.3% to $53.24/bbl. Elsewhere, the consumer staples sector (-0.3%) remained at the bottom of the leaderboard throughout the day, weighed down by General Mills (GIS 61.45, -1.61). The sector heavyweight lost 2.6% after missing earnings/revenue estimates and lowering its organic sales guidance. Another countercyclical sector-health care (-0.1%)-surrendered an opening gain to end with a modest loss even though biotechnology outperformed into the close. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 270.76, +1.97) added 0.7%.

On the M&A front, Fred's (FRED 20.19, +9.04) agreed to acquire 865 Rite Aid (RAD 8.61, +0.44) stores for $950 million in cash. The transaction more than doubled Fred's store footprint, sending its shares higher by 81.1%.

The Treasury market ended on a mostly lower note with the 10-yr yield rising two basis points to 2.56% while the 2-yr yield held unchanged at 1.22%.

Investor participation was above average with nearly 970 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while November Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.50M) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +21.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.6% YTD
S&P 500 +11.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.5% YTD

DJ30 +91.56 NASDAQ +26.50 SP500 +8.23 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1965/1.53 bln/1006 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1923/968.8 mln/1034 3:30 pm :

In precious metals, silver bounced off this morning's 8-month low & closed at its highest level of the session as the dollar index retreated from a 14-year high
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session down $9.20 (-0.8%) to $1133.40/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.02 higher (+0.1%) at $16.11/oz
The dollar index was +0.2% around the 103.30 level, just below this morning's 14-year high
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.5% around the 86.16 level
Crude oil futures closed near a 17-month high ahead of tomorrow's EIA petroleum storage data
Jan 2017 crude oil futures rose $0.17 (+0.3%) to $53.24/barrel
Weekly EIA petroleum data will be released at 10:30 am ET.
API data will be released today after the bell.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released on Friday at 1 pm ET.
Natural gas ended at its lowest level in 2 weeks on updated near-term warmer weather forecasts
Jan 2017 natural gas closed $0.13 lower (-3.8%) at $3.26/MMBtu
The weekly EIA natural gas data will be released on Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
Weekend forecasts extended the warm streak expected at the end of the month, with above-normal temp expected across much of the country within the next 2 weeks.
When the bell rang on Tuesday, the markets registered another session of gains. Leading the positive bias, the Nasdaq Composite added 26.50 points (+0.49%) to 5483.94. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 91.56 points (+0.46%) to 19974.62, and the S&P 500 gained 8.23 points (+0.36%) to 2270.76.

Investor participation was above average with nearly 970 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

The key indices raced out of the gate with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) setting its sights on the 20,000 mark. The price-weighted index hit a session high roughly 15 points below that level during the opening hour, slowly backing off into the afternoon.

Most cyclical sectors displayed strength from the start with three exhibiting relative strength into the close, which kept the market in the green despite the afternoon dip from highs.

Technology (XLK 49.12, +0.18 +0.37%) finished Tuesday relatively quietly but with a positive bias for a second session in a row. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 105.17, +3.54 +3.48%) was the best performer today after being added to the Conviction Buy List at Goldman premarket. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLF +1.24%, XLY +0.77%, IYZ +0.71%, XLI +0.57%, XLU +0.16%, XLB +0.08%, XLRE +0.07%, XLV -0.12%, XLP -0.19%, XLE -0.22%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (823.25, +2.61 +0.32%) sector, trading stepped higher again today as action held above flat lines for the entirety of the day. Component Automatic Data (ADP 102.33, +1.24 +1.23%) was strong today after a premarket initiation at Barclays. Other names in the space which XLNX +2.32%, YHOO +1.91%, VRSN +1.63%, FISV +1.60%, MU +1.47%, AKAM +1.39%, XRX +1.10%, FFIV +0.97%, MA +0.97%, GLW +0.94%, GPN +0.90%, AVGO +0.88%, TSS +0.88%.

Other notable news items among tech stocks:

Cree (CREE 27.58, +0.11 +0.40%) reached settlement in its patent infringement and false advertising lawsuit with Feit Electric Company. As a result CREE expects to exceed previously announced revenue, net income, and EPS targets for Q2 of FY17.

According to TechCrunch, Nintendo's (NTDOY 26.41, +0.37 +1.42%) Super Mario Run had 37 million downloads in its first three days.

Interdigital Comm (IDCC 92.15, +0.85 +0.93%) acquired Hillcrest Labs. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Qualcomm's (QCOM 66.91, -0.11 -0.16%) Qualcomm Technologies, Ericsson (ERIC 5.81, -0.14 -2.35%), and SK Telecom (SKM 21.89, +0.22 +1.02%) announce plans to conduct interoperability testing and over-the-air field trials based on 5G New Radio (NR) standards being developed based on specifications in 3GPP. The trials intend to drive the mobile ecosystem toward rapid validation and commercialization of 5G NR technologies at scale, enabling timely commercial network launches based on 3GPP Rel-15 standard compliant 5G NR infrastructure and devices.

TripAdvisor (TRIP 48.79, +2.34 +5.05%) to begin adding hotel inventory from select Expedia (EXPE 117.09, +0.87 +0.75%) brands to the TripAdvisor instant booking platform.

Harman's (HAR 111.00, +0.34 +0.31%) pending acquisition by Samsung (SSNLF 1250.00, flat) was cleared by the FTC.

AT&T (T 42.47, +0.35 +0.83%) reached three tentative agreements with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in negotiations covering CWA-represented former DIRECTV employees in five call centers.
Autobytel (ABTL 14.00, -0.03 -0.21%) to sell its specialty finance leads product to Internet Brands for $3.2 million in cash and $1.6 million in transition licensing income. The company expects specialty finance leads revenues of $6.4 million in FY16.

Gogo (GOGO 10.22, +0.23, +2.30%) commenced $50 million private offering of additional 12.50% senior secured notes due 2022.

CVD Equipment (CVV 8.23, +0.13 +1.60%) acquired certain assets formerly owned by Tantaline A/S. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

NeoPhotonics (NPTN 10.79, -1.70 -13.61%) announced a deal to sell its low speed transceiver business to APAT Optoelectronics. In light of the sale, NPTN lowered its Q4 outlook - now sees Q4 EPS of $0.03-0.11, down from $0.13-0.21; also lowered revenue guidance to $105-109 million from $109-115 million.

Guidewire Software (GWRE 51.33, -1.03 -1.97%) to acquire ISCS. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cognizant (CTSH 56.42, -0.27 -0.48%) announced that it has become the exclusive digital systems, technology and operations services partner for multiple portfolio companies of Norwegian industrial investment company, Aker (AKAAF 36.25, flat).

Aixtron (AIXG 3.21, -0.28 -8.02%) to voluntarily delist its American Depositary Shares from The NASDAQ Global Select Market and deregister and terminate its reporting obligations.

Following quarterly results:

BlackBerry (BBRY) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.02 on worse than expected revenues of $301 million. BBRY also guided FY17 EPS ahead of market expectations; not expects to be profitable from the prior range of breakeven to a loss of ($0.05).

FactSet (FDS) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $1.75 on revenues of $288.1 million. For Q2, the company sees EPS ahead of market expectations at $1.78-1.80 and revenues of $293-298 million.

Analyst actions:

AMD was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho,
WDC was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman;
INOV was downgraded to Sector Weight form Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts,
MITL was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts;
TWLO and CRM were initiated with Buy ratings at Drexel Hamilton,
SQ, FDC and GPN were initiated with Buy ratings at Guggenheim,
VNTV was initiated with a Neutral at Guggenheim,
CAFD was initiated with an Outperform at FBR & Co.,
TRVG and ECHO were initiated with Neutral ratings at Susquehanna,
ADP was initiated with an Overweight at Barclays,
PAYX was initiated with an Equal Weight at Barclays,
TCEHY was initiated with a Buy at Evercore ISI,
BIDU was initiated with a Hold at Evercore ISI,
CIEN was initiated with an Overweight at Piper Jaffray,
SQ was initiated with a Buy at Instinet,
COMM was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com:

4:22 pm Micron: Industry Breakdown from Presentation (MU) :

DRAM Guidance
Expect 2017 supply bit growth in the 15%-20% range.
Assumes suppliers won't add significant wafer capacity.
Longer-term, expect bit demand growth of approximately 20%-25%.
NAND Guidance
Expect 2017 supply bit growth in the high 30% to low 40% range.
Assumes impact of 3D NAND conversions.
Longer-term, expect bit demand growth of approximately 40%-45%.
Expect to ship 3D XPointTM technology for revenue in 2017.
DRAM (61% of Q1 revenue)
Mobile represented approximately 30%.
PC segment was in the mid-20s % range.
Server business was in the high-teens % range.
Specialty DRAM, which includes networking, graphics, automotive and other embedded technologies, was in the mid-20s % range.
NAND (32% of Q1 revs)
Consumer, which includes memory cards, USB and components, represented 40%.
Mobile was in the low-20s %.
SSDs were in the mid-teens %.
Automotive and Industrial Multi-Market Segment and other embedded applications were in the 20% range.
Storage Business Unit
Revenue up 13% Q/Q.
Continued to strengthen NAND and SSD product portfolios.
Now in fully-ramped production and customer qualification for 3D NAND TLC client and cloud drives.
Embedded Business Unit
Revenue up 13% Q/Q driven by seasonal strength
Consumer revenue driven by home automation and camera
Saw continued strength and increasing demand in Automotive
Mobile Business Unit
Revenue up 54% Q/Q driven by customer qualifications.
Saw strong sales of LPDRAM and Mobile NAND products.
Improved profitability from continued 20nm ramp and reduced higher-cost early production inventory.
Computer and Networking Business Unit
Revenue up 18% Q/Q due to strong demand and 20nm shipments.
Saw additional Cloud growth and qualifications for top customers.
Graphics demand fueled by GPU launches and strong console sales.

4:10 pm Micron sees Q2 revenues in the ragne of $4.35-4.70 bln, Capital IQ consensus $4.026 bln; Sees EPS in the range of $0.58-0.68, Capital IQ consensus $0.43 (MU) :

Gross Margin in the range of 31-34%.
Operating Expense $590-640 mln.
Operating Income $800-900 mln.

4:04 pm Micron beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line (MU) :
Reports Q1 (Nov) earnings of $0.32 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.29; revenues rose 18.5% year/year to $3.97 bln vs the $3.94 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

The increase in the company's revenues of 23 percent for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 was due primarily to 18 percent and 26 percent increases in DRAM and trade NAND sales volumes, respectively, and a 5 percent increase in DRAM average selling prices.
The company's overall consolidated GAAP gross margin of 25 percent for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 was 7 percentage points higher compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 primarily due to manufacturing cost reductions and increases in DRAM average selling prices.

4:10 pm CalAmp misses by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 in-line; CFO retires (CAMP) :

Reports Q3 (Nov) earnings of $0.21 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.26; revenues rose 11.6% year/year to $83.4 mln vs the $83.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus. The latest quarter included revenue of $29.9 million from LoJack products and services that was slightly lower than expected, as anticipated orders from two large international licensees were received late in the quarter and could not be fulfilled until early in Q4... Q3 earnings were impacted by higher legal expense of approximately $1.6 million over the comparable period last year and foreign currency exchange rate losses of $0.6 million.
Revenue from international customers reached a record of 28.5% of consolidated quarterly revenues.
MRM telematics product sales reached the highest level of the past four quarters with fleet and connected car device revenue at record levels. SaaS revenue grew 6% sequentially, driven by solid fleet subscriber growth and outstanding performance from LoJack Italy.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.25-0.31, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q4 revs of $84-89 mln vs. $85.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
The co announced that its Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary, Rick Vitelle, plans to retire from the company after sixteen years of service. Mr. Vitelle will remain with the company until his successor is recruited and fully on-boarded, to ensure an orderly and seamless transition.

4:10 pm : The stock market endured a quiet pre-holiday session that was confined to negative territory. The S&P 500 shed 0.3% while small caps underperformed, leading to a 0.7% retreat in the Russell 2000.

All in all, the Wednesday affair had all the hallmarks of pre-holiday trade as the S&P 500 spent the day in a six-point range. which widened into the close. Intraday NYSE floor volume was below average, but a spike in activity during the final minutes brought the total up to 850 million shares, shy of the 200-day average (933 million). A handful of heavily-weighted sectors spent the day in negative territory, which offset gains in smaller groups and prevented the market from turning positive.

Cyclical sectors like technology (-0.2%), financials (-0.2%), and industrials (-0.4%) spent the day in negative territory while the health care sector (-0.6%) retreated into the afternoon. Biotechnology contributed to the weakness in the health care sector, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 267.85, -3.07) lower by 1.1%.

The top-weighted technology sector was restrained by a mixed showing from large cap names. Accenture (ACN 117.90, -6.20) lost 5.0% after missing estimates and lowering its full-year guidance. Chipmakers had a better showing than the broader sector, as the PHLX Semiconductor Index settled just above its flat line.

For its part, the industrial sector (-0.4%) struggled throughout the day after FedEx (FDX 192.12, -6.62) reported disappointing results. The stock lost 3.3% while the broader Dow Jones Transportation Average surrendered 0.9%.

Staying on the earnings front, Nike (NKE 52.30, +0.51) added 1.0% after reporting above-consensus results. Other apparel names did not follow Nike higher, likely due to some caution related to weak results and guidance from Finish Line (FINL 21.00, -2.01), which surrendered 8.7%. Homebuilders outperformed, helping the consumer discretionary sector (-0.1%) stay near its flat line. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 28.28, +0.18) gained 0.7%.

Two other cyclical groups-energy (+0.2%) and materials (+0.1%)-spent the day atop the leaderboard, with energy advancing despite a 1.3% slide in crude oil to $52.55/bbl. The energy component retreated after the release of bearish inventory data from the Department of Energy.

Treasuries spent the day inside narrow ranges, climbing into the afternoon. The 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.54%.

Also of note, the U.S. Dollar Index (103.00, -0.26) pulled back from a fresh 13-year high, giving up ground to the euro (1.0426) and the yen (117.50). The euro backed off its intraday high of 1.4050 after the Financial Times reported that Italy's Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena is expected to be nationalized as part of a newly-approved EUR20 billion bank rescue fund after failing to attract private investors.

Today's economic data was limited to November Existing Home Sales, which increased 0.7% from October to an annualized rate of 5.61 million units while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 5.50 million.

Tomorrow will be busy on the data front with weekly initial claims (Briefing.com consensus 256,000), the third estimate of Q3 GDP (Briefing.com consensus 3.3%), and November Durable Orders (Briefing.com consensus -4.5%) set to be released at 8:30 ET. The October FHFA Housing Price Index will be released at 9:00 ET while November Leading Indicators (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), November Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), and core PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +21.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.4% YTD
S&P 500 +10.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.3% YTD

DJ30 -32.66 NASDAQ -12.51 SP500 -5.58 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1110/1.36 bln/1830 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1390/849.9 mln/1564

3:30 pm :

Crude oil reversed initial post-API morning gains after EIA reported a surprise build vs. expectations for a draw, ended at its lowest level of the session
Feb 2017 crude oil futures fell $0.69 (-1.3%) to $52.55/barrel
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +2.3 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -2.52 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -1.3 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of +1.42 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a draw of -2.4 mln barrels
Natural gas rallied off of its 2-week low as preliminary expectations call for a notable draw in tomorrow's EIA inventory data
Jan 2017 natural gas closed $0.28 higher (+8.6%) at $3.54/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Consensus calls for a draw of about 204 bln cubic ft, vs last week's draw of 147 bln cubic ft. If realized, this would be the largest single draw for natural gas inventory in nearly 7 years.
In precious metals, silver closed near yesterday morning's 8-month low, gold ended nearly flat despite a decline in the dollar index
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session down $0.10 (-0.1%) to $1133.30/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.13 lower (-0.8%) at $15.98/oz
The dollar index was -0.3% around the 103.00 level, just below a recent 14-year high, decline did not appear to support precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.3% around the 86.40 level

After starting the week with back to back winning sessions, the broader market turned decidedly negative. Flirting with flat lines for the middle part of the session, the S&P 500 ultimately ended down 5.58 points (-0.25%) to 2265.18. The Nasdaq Composite shed 12.51 points (-0.23%) to 5471.43, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 32.66 points (-0.16%) to 19941.96.

All in all, the Wednesday affair had all the hallmarks of pre-holiday trade as the S&P 500 spent the day in a six-point range which widened into the close. Intraday NYSE floor volume was below average, but a spike in activity during the final minutes brought the total up to 850 million shares, shy of the 200-day average (933 million). A handful of heavily-weighted sectors spent the day in negative territory, which offset gains in smaller groups and prevented the market from turning positive.

Also of note, the U.S. Dollar Index (103.00, -0.26) pulled back from a fresh 13-year high, giving up ground to the euro (1.0426) and the yen (117.50). The euro backed off its intraday high of 1.4050 after the Financial Times reported that Italy's Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena is expected to be nationalized as part of a newly-approved EUR20 billion bank rescue fund after failing to attract private investors.

Today's economic data was limited to November Existing Home Sales, which increased 0.7% from October to an annualized rate of 5.61 million units.

The Technology (XLK 49.02, -0.10 -0.20%) space also came off Monday and Tuesday strength as action turned lower initially and never came back. Component Accenture (ACN 117.90, -6.20 -5.00%) was weaker today after a worse than expected Q1 earnings report from this morning. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Wednesday XLE +0.16%, XLB +0.04%, XLP -0.02%, XLY -0.05%, XLF -0.21%, XLI -0.38%, XLU -0.41%, XLV -0.56%, IYZ -0.74%, XLRE -1.27%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (821.78, -1.47 -0.18%) space, trading held above the $800 level despite a soft session out of the broader market. Component Apple (AAPL 117.06, +0.11 +0.09%) finished higher despite news out intraday of a lawsuit by Nokia (NOK 4.76, -0.14 -2.86%) in Europe and the United States alleging infringement of NOK patents. Other names in the space which closed lower today included FSLR -3.68%, VRSN -1.84%, XRX -1.52%, CA -1.37%, AKAM -1.21%, NTAP -1.17%, TDC -0.91%, PAYX -0.87%, CSRA -0.84%, GPN -0.77%, INTC -0.62%, TSS -0.59%.

Other notable news items in the tech space:

Nokia (NOK) sued Apple (AAPL) in Europe and the US for infringement of Nokia patents.
Motorola Solutions (MSI 83.99, +0.23 +0.27%) shares were active after company was granted patent for 'method, device, and system for operating a multi-function voice-collaboration device to manage battery life.'
Microsoft (MSFT 63.54, flat) was awarded a $927 million Defense Information Systems Agency contract.
GoPro's (GPRO 8.90, flat) Board approved an increase of about $7 million to its estimated total aggregate restructuring charges.
EU Commission cleared acquisition of Yahoo! (YHOO 39.15, -0.01 -0.03%) by Verizon (VZ 52.98, -0.14 -0.26%).
Twitter's (TWTR 17.08, -0.84 -4.69%) CTO Adam Messinger to leave the company.
TDK Corporation (TTDKY 70.07, -1.52 -2.12%) to acquire InvenSense (INVN 12.75, +1.91 +17.62%) for $13.00 per share in cash.
xG Technology (XGTI 1.60, -2.02 -55.80%) priced about $10 million offering of Class A and Class B units.
Corning (GLW 24.83, +0.24 +0.98%) acquired STRAN Technologies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Agilent (A 46.04, -0.17 -0.37%) will acquire Multiplicom for about EUR68 million in cash.
InterNAP (INAP 1.62, +0.49 +43.36%) reaffirmed 2016 revenues guidance at $297-300 million and sees 2017 revenue of $275-285 million.
CSRA (CSRA 32.00, -0.27 -0.84%) received a $744 million task order to deliver mission-essential logistics for the U.S. Army.
Spok (SPOK 21.25, flat) announced a special cash dividend of $0.25 per share.
Gogo (GOGO 9.92, -0.30 -2.94%) priced $65 million private offering of additional 12.500% senior secured notes due 2022.
Pandora Media's (P 13.28, -0.13 -0.97%) Chief Operating Officer Sara Clemens resigned.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Accenture (ACN) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS of $1.40 on revenues which rose 6.3% compared to last year to $8.52 billion. For Q2, the company sees revenues below market expectations at $8.15-8.40 billion. For FY17, ACN lowered EPS guidance to $5.64-5.87 from $5.75-5.98, and sees revenues of +3-6% to about $33.87-34.86 billion.
Paychex (PAYX 61.39, -0.54 -0.87%) reported in-line Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.56 and $771 million, respectively.

Analyst actions:

MU was upgraded to Buy from Sell at Summit Redstone; INVN was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital; GOOG was initiated with a Buy at Aegis Capital, NXPI and QCOM were initiated with Neutral ratings at Citigroup, TXN, QCOM, MCHP, MXL, CRUS and IDTI were initiated with Positive ratings at Susquehanna, XLNX and MBLY were initiated with Neutral ratings at Susquehanna, GLW was initiated with a Market Perform at Wells Fargo, KEYW was initiated with a Neutral at Seaport Global Securities, GIMO was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:05 pm : The stock market recorded its second consecutive loss on Thursday, but once again, investor participation was on the light side as some participants decided to sit out the pre-holiday session. The S&P 500 shed 0.2% while the Nasdaq (-0.4%) underperformed. Small caps faced a bit more selling, sending the Russell 2000 lower by 0.9%.

Equity indices were confined to negative territory for the duration of the session with influential sectors responsible for the weakness. The consumer discretionary space (-1.0%) spent the day at the bottom of the leaderboard with Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY 41.38, -4.18) falling 9.2% after weak results and guidance. Retailers in general had a rough day, sending the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.74, -1.62) lower by 3.5%.

Three other large sectors like financials (-0.3%), technology (-0.3%), and industrials (-0.2%) also spent the day in negative territory. The top-weighted technology space narrowed its weekly gain to 0.5% as losses in large cap components offset gains in chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 0.5% with Micron (MU 23.19, +2.61) surging 12.7% after beating bottom-line estimates. Staying on the earnings front, software company Red Hat (RHT 68.71, -11.08) reported disappointing billings and revenue, which outweighed above-consensus earnings, sparking a 13.9% dive in the stock.

Only one cyclical sector-energy (+0.5%)-ended in the green, taking a lead from crude oil, which climbed 0.8% to $52.97/bbl. The commodity-sensitive sector will enter Friday with a 0.1% decline for the week.

The countercyclical side had a better showing as telecom services (+1.0%), utilities (+0.3%), and health care (+0.1%) registered gains while consumer staples (-0.1%) and real estate (-0.1%) recorded slim losses.

Treasuries ended the day on a mostly lower note with the 10-yr yield rising one basis point to 2.55%.

Intraday investor participation was below average, but a volume surge into the close lifted the NYSE floor total above yesterday's level of 850 million to more than 875 million.

Economic data included initial claims, the third estimate of Q3 GDP, Durable Orders, FHFA Housing Price Index, Leading Indicators, Personal Income, Personal Spending, and core PCE Prices:

Initial claims for the week ending December 17 increased 21,000 to 275,000 (Briefing.com consensus 256,000)
Continuing claims for the week ending December 10 rose 15,000 to 2.036 million
Q3 GDP was revised up to 3.5% (Briefing.com consensus 3.3%) from 3.2%. The GDP Deflator was left unchanged at 1.4%
Real final sales, which exclude the change in inventories, increased 3.0% versus 2.7% in the second estimate
Durable orders declined 4.6% (Briefing.com consensus -4.5%), with a 73.5% decline in orders for nondefense aircraft and parts acting as the major drag
Excluding transportation, durable orders were up 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%)
The FHFA Housing Price Index for October rose 0.4% to follow a 0.6% increase in September
Personal income was little changed in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) after increasing a downwardly revised 0.5% (from 0.6%) in October
Personal spending increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) following an upwardly revised 0.4% increase (from 0.3%) in October
The PCE Price Index and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, were both unchanged
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index was unchanged in November (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) following an unrevised 0.1% increase for October.

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of November New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 573,000) and the final reading of the Michigan Sentiment Index for December (Briefing.com consensus 98.2).

Russell 2000 +20.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.3% YTD
S&P 500 +10.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.8% YTD

DJ30 -23.08 NASDAQ -24.01 SP500 -4.22 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1020/1.44 bln/1978 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1242/882.6 mln/1692

3:30 pm :

Crude oil ended pit trading near a 17-month high hit earlier in the week on lighter than avg volume ahead of tomorrow's rig count data
Feb 2017 crude oil futures rose $0.42 (+0.8%) to $52.97/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released at 1 pm ET tomorrow
Natural gas ended pit trading nearly unchanged after EIA reported a larger-than-expected draw, compared to Consensus
Jan 2017 natural gas closed flat at $3.54/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a draw of -209 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a draw of approximately -201 bcf
Working gas in storage was 3,597 Bcf as of Friday, December 16, 2016, according to EIA estimates
Stocks were 226 Bcf less than last year at this time and 78 Bcf above the five-year avg of 3,519 Bcf
At 3,597 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range
In precious metals, gold ended nearly flat, silver ended near its lows of the day; the dollar index remained directionless
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session down $2.60 (-0.2%) to $1130.70/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.10 lower (-0.6%) at $15.88/oz
The dollar index was stalling just below its recent 14-year high, nearly flat around the 103.09 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.1% around the 86.33 level

When Thursday's bell rang, the markets were down again. Declining for a second session in a row, the Nasdaq Composite shed 24.01 points (-0.44%) to 5447.42. The S&P 500 was down 4.22 points (-0.19%) to 2260.96, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 23.08 points (-0.12%) to 19918.88.

There were quite a few pieces of economic data today, including the Q3 GDP revision which moved up to 3.5% from 3.2%. The GDP Deflator was left unchanged at 1.4%. Initial claims for the week ending December 17 increased 21,000 to 275,000. Durable orders declined 4.6%, with a 73.5% decline in orders for nondefense aircraft and parts acting as the major drag. Also, the FHFA Housing Price Index for October rose 0.4% to follow a 0.6% increase in September. Personal income was little changed in November after increasing a downwardly revised 0.5% (from 0.6%) in October. And lastly, the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index was unchanged in November following an unrevised 0.1% increase for October.

Technology (XLK 48.92, -0.10 -0.20%) was lower again today. Component Micron (MU 23.19, +2.61 +12.68%) bucked the trend, however, as its Q1 earnings report from last night drove the stock higher today. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session IYZ +1.28%, XLE +0.41%, XLU +0.35%, XLV +0.13%, XLRE -0.13%, XLP -0.15%, XLI -0.19%, XLF -0.25%, XLB -0.42%, XLY -1.08%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (819.26, -2.52 -0.31%) sector, trading was soft again today as investors amped up selling in tech names ahead of the holiday. Component Red Hat (RHT 68.71, -11.08 -13.89%) was the worst performer today as its Q3 revenue and billings numbers came in below market expectations last night. Other names in the space which felt the broader market pressure today included TDC -2.27%, CTXS -1.75%, VRSN -1.72%, YHOO -1.66%, FSLR -1.57%, ADSK -1.39%, FB -1.38%, FFIV -1.28%, ATVI -1.25%, GPN -1.19%, FIS -1.16%, PYPL -1.02%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Nokia (NOK 4.72, -0.04 -0.84%) expanded its patent litigation against Apple (AAPL 116.22, -0.84 -0.72%) in Asia, Europe and the US.
Cleveland Clinic and IBM (IBM 167.06, -0.27 -0.16%) announced a 5-year agreement to expand the Clinic's health information technology capabilities. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Synopsys (SNPS 59.41, -0.69 -1.15%) said a California Federal District Court has issued a permanent injunction against ATopTech and in favor of Synopsys.

Open Text (OTEX 61.35, -0.68 -1.10%) announced a 2:1 share split; to begin trading ex-split on Jan. 25, 2017.

Glu Mobile (GLUU 2.10, -0.04 -1.87%) acquired substantially all of the intangible assets and certain other assets of Plain Vanilla Corp [QuizUp].

TriNet Group (TNET 26.32, +0.87 +3.42%) announced that Atairos will acquire a $440 million ownership stake in TriNet through the purchase of 17.7 million shares at $25.00 per share from funds affiliated with General Atlantic.

Accenture Federal Services (CAN 117.79, -0.11 -0.09%) was selected to support the Transportation Security Administration's Office of Human Capital in the hiring and recruiting of 8,000 to 10,000 employees a year. The five-year contract, worth up to $290 million.

Renren (RENN 1.71, +0.06 +3.64%) announced the formation of a special committee and receipt of preliminary non-binding spin-off proposal valuing the SpinCo at $500 million net of debt.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Red Hat (RHT) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.61 on worse than expected revenues of $615.3 million and worse than expected billings of $679 million. RHT also gave guidance for Q4 EPS of about $0.61 on worse than expected revenues of $614-622 million.

Micron (MU) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.32 on revenues which came in in-line at $3.97 billion. For Q2, the company sees EPS and revenues better than expected at $0.58-0.68 and $4.35-4.70 billion, respectively.

CalAmp (CAMP 14.31, -1.42 -9.03%) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS of $0.21 on revenues which came in in-line at $83.4 million. For Q4, CAMP sees EPS of $0.25-0.31 on revenues of $84-89 million.

Analyst actions:

MU was upgraded to Buy from Underperform at Needham and to Buy from Hold at Cross Research,
NATI was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird;
RHT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel and to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital, INVN was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Loop Capital and to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest;
MSFT was initiated with an Overweight at Piper Jaffray,
ORCL and PEGA were initiated with Overweight ratings at Mitsubishi UFJ,
RDWR was initiated with a Buy at Jefferies,
AKAM was initiated with a Buy at Guggenheim,
POWI was initiated with a Buy at Drexel Hamilton,
Z was initiated with a Hold at Stifel,
LPTH was initiated with a Buy at Roth Capital

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 23-Dec-16

The stock market endured its second consecutive range-bound week, which ended with a small uptick ahead of the holiday weekend. The S&P 500 added 0.3% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) outperformed.

The quiet trading week was underscored by a modest batch of earnings reports and news that the Italian government will nationalize Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena as part of a EUR20 billion bank rescue plan that was approved at the end of the week. The euro spent the week in a narrow range, ending at 1.0450 against the dollar.

In earnings news, FedEx (FDX), General Mills (GIS), Finish Line (FINL), and Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) disappointed with their results and/or guidance while CarMax (KMX), Carnival (CCL), Nike (NKE), and Micron (MU) beat expectations.

Similar to stocks, Treasuries spent the week inside narrow ranges. The 10-yr note recorded a modest uptick after six consecutive weeks of losses, pressuring its yield to 2.54% from last week's 2.60%.

Thin trading conditions are likely to persist for at least one more week, considering markets will be closed on Monday, making for a short week ahead of the New Year.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 19843.41 19933.81 90.40 0.5 14.4
Nasdaq 5437.16 5462.69 25.53 0.5 9.1
S&P 500 2258.07 2263.79 5.72 0.3 10.8
Russell 2000 1363.46 1369.81 6.35 0.5 20.6

4:05 pm Closing Market Summary: A Holiday Visit From Mr. Market (:WRAPX) :

'Twas two nights before Christmas, when all through the trading house,
Not a sentient creature was stirring about, no one clicking their mouse;

A few algorithms ran up and down,
But the day's action was decidedly rangebound;

Biotechnology lifted the health care sector (+0.8%) and energy (-0.2%) retreated despite an uptick in crude (+0.2%; $53.03/bbl),
But the S&P 500 (+0.1%) settled just above its flat line, because to do otherwise on this day would just be rude;

The daytraders were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Dow 20,000 danced in their heads;

The industrial sector (+0.1%) eked out a slim gain,
Even though the President-elect took to Twitter again;

He took aim at the high cost of the F-35 fighter jet,
And his comments made some Lockheed Martin (LMT 249.54, -3.26) shareholders sweat;

Shares of LMT surrendered just over a percent, But that did not stop the industrial sector from registering a weekly ascent (+0.6%);

Credit Suisse (CS 14.85, -0.08) and Deutsche Bank (DB 18.63, +0.09) agreed to settle with a U.S. regulator,
But the financial sector (+0.1%) spent the entire day near its equator;

Just like stocks, the Treasury market was also range-bound,
Though the 10-yr note did pick up some ground (-1 bp to 2.54%);

A couple of datapoints crossed the wires today,
But neither New Home Sales (592,000; Briefing.com consensus 573,000) nor Michigan Sentiment (98.2; Briefing.com consensus 98.2) received much play;

Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday,
Which should allow everyone to really enjoy the Christmas Sunday.

Of course other holidays will begin this weekend in parallel,
And with that in mind, the staff at Briefing.com would like to wish you all well.

Russell 2000 +20.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.4% YTD
S&P 500 +10.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.1% YTD

It was a quietsession for the equity markets ahead of the Christmas holiday and the samecould be said about technology stocks.

Stocks traded ina narrow range before breaking out late in the session.

The S&P 500 closed0.1% higher while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.28%. Semiconductorstocks (SMH) outperformed, closing 0.45% higher.

Synaptics (SYNA)fell 1.6% after OTR Global was cautious on the stock regarding whether it wouldbe in the next Samsung Galaxy Phone.

NVIDIA (NVDA+2.5%) hit a new all-time again today. Goldman added to the stock that is up ~-230%YTD to its Conviction Buy List earlier in the week. The leader in visual computing posted record sales (+54% to $2.0 billion), margins (non-GAAP grossmargin +110 basis points to 89.2%) and operating income (+130% to $708 mln)last month.

NVDA's GPUs are leading chips that enable machine learning --- a themethat will become increasingly important over time. The stock trades at 38x FY16EPS and 8.7x sales. NVDA is the best performing technology stock in the S&P500 YTD, followed by Applied Materials (AMAT +75%) and Micron (MU +65%).

Red Hat (RHT +3.3%)reclaimed the 70 level today after falling 14% yesterday following a disappointingearnings report. The company missed billings estimates due to some large dealsgetting pushed out. The stock trades at ~5x sales.
Electronicsretailer Best Buy (BBY) has plummeted that last three sessions as concerns havegrown about declining traffic across the retails sector.

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From Briefing.com: 4:05 pm : The stock market enjoyed a modest post-holiday advance, which was paced by the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%). The tech-heavy index settled ahead of the S&P 500 (+0.2%) while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) ended just above its flat line.

The bulk of today's action took place during the opening minutes as the key indices charged to session highs. The opening rally was followed by a slow intraday drip from those highs. The Dow surrendered the bulk of its early gain while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq spent the afternoon near the middle of their respective ranges. Unsurprisingly, participation was very limited with fewer than 600 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Nine of eleven sectors finished the day in positive territory with technology (+0.5%) underpinning things from the start. The top-weighted group rallied behind Apple (AAPL 117.25, +0.73) and high-beta chipmakers. NVIDIA (NVDA 117.32, +7.54) soared 6.9%, extending its 2016 gain to 256.0%. The broader PHLX Semiconductor Index climbed 1.2%.

The technology sector lost the top spot to materials (+0.5%) during the final minutes while the consumer discretionary sector (+0.4%) also provided support. The influential discretionary sector was boosted by Amazon (AMZN 771.40, +10.81) after the online retail giant made upbeat comments about holiday sales of its devices. Apparel retailers were mixed while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.91, +0.43) gained 1.0%.

Other cyclical sectors recorded slimmer gains with energy (+0.2%) failing to keep pace with crude oil, which jumped 1.7% to $53.89/bbl. Elsewhere, the financial sector (+0.1%) spent the entire session behind the broader market. Deutsche Bank (DB 18.37, -0.26) was notified by the European Central Bank that it will have to maintain a phase-in Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of at least 9.51% starting in January. This will be down from this year's requirement of 10.76%.

Biotechnology displayed broad strength at the start, but the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 271.26, -1.06) ended lower by 0.4%. Biogen (BIIB 290.97, +3.44) fueled the opening strength, advancing 1.2%, after the company's spinal muscular atrophy treatment was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Treasuries slipped in morning action and spent the afternoon near their lows. The 10-yr yield rose two basis points to 2.56%.

Economic data was limited to Consumer Confidence and Case-Shiller 20-city Index:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index surged to 113.7 in December (Briefing.com consensus 109.8) from an upwardly revised 109.4 (from 107.1) in November
December marked the highest reading for the index since August 2001
The uptick was driven entirely by the Expectations Index, which increased from 94.4 to 105.5
The Present Situation Index decreased from 132.0 to 126.1
The Case-Shiller 20-city Index for October increased 5.1% to follow last month's revised increase of 5.0% (from 5.1%)

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while November Pending Home Sales will be reported at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +21.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.5% YTD
S&P 500 +11.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.6% YTD

DJ30 +11.23 NASDAQ +24.75 SP500 +5.09 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1827/1.12 bln/1133 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1819/589.9 mln/1137

3:30 pm :

Crude oil extended Friday's modest gains on a lighter than avg volume day ahead of tomorrow's API
Feb 2017 crude oil futures rose $0.91 (+1.7%) to $53.89/barrel
The OPEC/non-OPEC monitoring committee will meet on Jan 13 in Abu Dhabi.
API data will be released tomorrow after the bell due to Monday's holiday.
EIA petroleum data will be released on Thursday at 11:00 am ET due to Monday's holiday.
Natural gas rallied for the 4th session in a row, extended Friday's gain after closing +8% last week
Feb 2017 natural gas closed $0.09 higher (+2.5%) at $3.76/MMBtu
Natural gas futures have switched their front month to Feb from Jan, as indicated by the active amount of volume in the contracts
In precious metals, gold saw a modest rally after closing lower on Friday for the seventh consecutive week
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $5.00 (+0.4%) to $1138.90/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.12 higher (+0.8%) at $16.00/oz
The dollar index was nearly flat around the 103.04 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +1.5% around the 87.60 level

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From Briefing.com: 4:05 pm : The stock market spent the entire midweek session in a daylong retreat, which sent the S&P 500 lower by 0.8%. The benchmark index settled behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) and the Russell 2000 (-1.1%). Once again, today's trading volume was below average with just 735 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Stocks slipped out of the gate and continued showing modest losses throughout the morning. With little upward pressure on the market, the losses were extended in afternoon action as just about every sector slid to fresh session lows. Growth-sensitive energy (-1.0%), materials (-1.0%), and financials (-1.0%) settled at the bottom of the leaderboard with energy slumping despite an intraday gain in crude oil. The energy component settled higher by 0.2% at $54.01/bbl after being up 0.9% in early afternoon action.

Most of the remaining cyclical sectors finished with comparable losses. The technology sector (-0.9%) ended just behind the broader market while chipmakers lagged. The PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 1.9% with NVIDIA (NVDA 109.25, -8.07) diving 6.9% to erase yesterday's surge. The stock faced selling pressure throughout the day after an analyst note cautioned that the stock may have a tough time following this year's performance. Shares of NVIDIA have nearly tripled since the end of last year.

Company-specific news was scarce today, but the Wall StreetJournal reported that Kate Spade (KATE 17.86, +3.35) is exploring a sale. Shares of KATE spiked 23.1% into the neighborhood of highs from November. The news had a limited impact on retailers as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.37, -0.54) lost 1.2%.

Treasuries ended at their best levels of the day after climbing into the afternoon. The 10-yr yield fell five basis points to 2.51%.

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 263K) and November International Trade in Goods will be reported at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +19.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.8% YTD
S&P 500 +10.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.6% YTD

DJ30 -111.36 NASDAQ -48.89 SP500 -18.96 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 764/1.21 bln/2245 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 791/734.9 mln/2166 3:45 pm :

The dollar index pulled back from today's late-morning high, which helped provide some support to commodities today
The index, however, remains modestly higher in current trade
Energy futures posted some gains today, led by natural gas
Feb WTI crude oil finished up today's session 0.2% higher at $54.01/barrel, while Feb nat gas closed 3.7% higher at $3.90/MMBtu
Precious metals showed some modest gains, while copper declined
Feb gold finished the day +0.2% at $1140.90/oz, while Mar silver ended +0.2% at $16.03/oz


Stocks fell across the board and closed near sessionlows on light volume today. The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.8% after closing at a new all-timehigh yesterday. The S&P 500 fell 0.8% to a three-week low while the Dow faredslightly better, closing 0.6% lower, now 166 points from the 20,000 milestone. Semiconductors fell 1.6%, weighed down by NVDA and QCOM.

We wrote about NVIDIA (NVDA) 'defying gravity' inthis morning's Story Stock and sure enough, gravity took hold soon after thestock gapped up to another all-time high. Citron put a $90 target on the stockafter the huge run it has seen this year --- it was trading at $90 just twoweeks ago. Citron has a good reputation. The stock fell 7%.
Korea Fair Trade Commission found certain of its business practices violate Korean competition law and intends to issue a corrective order relating to the specific practices at issue and impose an administrative fine of ~$865 mln

Amazon (AMZN) will have a 'Digital Day' on December 30 -- get up to50% off over a thousand TV shows, movies, music, apps, mobile games, eBooks andmore. Best Buy (BBY) fell on the news.

Facebook's (FB) Oculus bought eye-tracking starup The Eye Tribe

Apple (AAPL) CEO Time Cook briefly appeared onCNBC. He was visiting the NYSE on vacation and said Apple was having a greatholiday and the new air pods (wireless ear buds) were a saves.

Broker calls:
Evercore recommended AMZN, BABA, FB, GOOGL, JD, PCLN, TCEHY for next year
A boutique firm raised its Square (SQ) tgt to anew Street high $19

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market ended Thursday on a slightly lower note after spending the day inside a narrow range. The S&P 500 ended just below its flat line while the Nasdaq (-0.1%) underperformed throughout the session.

Equity indices displayed some strength at the start, but the opening rally fizzled out shortly after taking shape. The S&P 500 returned to its flat line just 30 minutes after the open and remained near that mark into the afternoon.

Five cyclical sectors ended in negative territory, which overshadowed solid gains among lightly-weighted countercyclical groups like utilities (+1.3%), real estate (+0.9%), and telecom services (+0.4%). To be fair, the influential health care sector (+0.1%) also registered a modest gain, but biotechnology could not keep up.

The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 267.11, -0.97) lost 0.4%, contributing to the relative weakness in the Nasdaq. The top-weighted technology sector (-0.04%) also lagged throughout the day amid weakness in chipmakers. However, the PHLX Semiconductor Index and the tech sector returned to unchanged by the close.

Elsewhere among cyclical sectors, energy (-0.2%) retreated amid a 0.6% decline in crude oil, which slid to $53.74/bbl after yesterday's bearish reading of the API inventory report was confirmed by today's data from the EIA.

The financial sector (-0.7%) also underperformed into the afternoon with the likes of Bank of America (BAC 22.00, -0.33), Citigroup (C 59.38, -0.66), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 85.89, -0.61) surrendering between 0.7% and 1.4%.

Treasuries registered their second consecutive day of gains, sending the 10-yr yield lower by three basis points to 2.48%. The U.S. Dollar Index (102.70, -0.60) responded to the downtick in the benchmark yield, falling 0.6%.

Both the dollar and Treasuries spent the afternoon inside narrow ranges, seeing little reaction to an executive order from President Obama, calling for 35 Russian diplomats to be expelled from the US. The executive order also sanctioned five entities and six individuals for alleged interference in the 2016 election.

Investor participation remained light with fewer than 700 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included initial claims and international trade in goods:

The initial claims report for the week ending December 24 showed claims decreasing 10,000 to 265,000 (Briefing.com consensus 263,000)
There were no special factors driving that reading, which remained below 300,000 for the 95th consecutive week and kept the four-week moving average of 263,000 near a 43-year low
Continuing claims for the week ending December 17 increased 62,000 to 2.102 million. The four-week moving average for this series was 2.042 million, up slightly from the prior week.
November International Trade in Goods showed a deficit of $65.30 billion to follow last month's deficit of $61.90 billion (from $62.00 billion)

Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the 9:45 ET release of Chicago PMI for December (Briefing.com consensus 55.2).

Russell 2000 +19.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.7% YTD
S&P 500 +10.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.5% YTD

DJ30 -13.90 NASDAQ -6.47 SP500 -0.66 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1444/1.17 bln/1491 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1722/699.9 mln/1219

3:30 pm :

Crude oil futures snapped their 3-day streak after EIA reported an unexpected build in crude oil inventory compared to Consensus
Feb 2017 crude oil futures fell $0.23 (-0.4%) to $53.78/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET.
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +0.6 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -2.06 mln barrels).
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -1.6 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of +1.32 mln barrels).
Distillate inventories had a draw of -1.9 mln barrels.
Natural gas dropped to a session low despite EIA data showing a larger-than-anticipated draw in natural gas inventory
Feb 2017 natural gas closed $0.11 lower (-2.8%) at $3.79/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a draw of -237 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a draw of approximately -222 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 3,360 Bcf as of Friday, December 23, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 413 Bcf less than last year at this time and 79 Bcf below the five-year avg of 3,439 Bcf.
At 3,360 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold closed higher for the 4th session in a row & at a fresh 2-week high for the 2nd consecutive session on continued dollar index weakness
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $17.00 (+1.5%) to $1157.90/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.19 higher (+1.2%) at $16.22/oz
The dollar index was -0.6% around the 102.71, provided support to precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.1% around the 87.67 level

Wall Streetclosed lower Thursday, as more investors stepped away from the trading desk inanticipation of the New Year's holiday. The Nasdaq Composite underperformed, shedding 6.47 pts (0.12%), while the S&P 500 closed lower by 0.66pts (0.03%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 13.90 pts (0.07%).

Looking at theS&P sectors, Tech saw a slight decline (-0.04%), while Financials (-0.73%) saw the biggest decline. Conversely, Utilities experienced a notably outperformance, gaining1.28%.

Today's economicdata consisted of Initial Claims for 12/24 (265k vs. the Briefing.com consensusof 263K), Continuing Claims for 12/17 (2102K), International Trade in Goods(-$65.3B), Nat Gas Inventories for 12/23 (-237 bcf vs. consensus of roughly -222bcf), & Crude Inventories for 12/23 (+0.6 mln barrels vs. consensus ofroughly -2.06 mln barrels).

As 2016 winds down,and ahead of markets being closed this coming Monday in observance of New Year's,volume and news flow remains significantly depressed. The tech sector saw no notable earning reports, news, or analyst notes today.

Turning tomarket action, NVIDIA (NVDA 111.43, +2.18) saw it shares rally 2% after dropping6.9% yesterday amid a cautious report from Citron Research. Citron's AndrewLeft released his report early yesterday morning and then appeared on CNBC'sFast Money program last night to further tout his negative stance on shares. Recoveringa portion of yesterday's decline, NVIDIA shares are up 238% this yearamid strong financial results that consistently exceeded analyst expectations.

NVIDIA led theS&P Information Technology sector, followed by PayPal (PYPL 39.96, +0.39)& F5 Networks (FFIV 144.92, +0.86). On the other hand, Micron (MU 22.27,-0.51), Qorvo (QRVO 53.61, -1.09), & Seagate Technology (STX 38.02, -0.77) underperformed.

Looking ahead totomorrow, market activity is expected to continue to be light with no notableearnings expected and only one economic data piece scheduled for release [ChicagoPMI (9:45 AM ET; Briefing.com consensus 55.2)].

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 30-Dec-16

Week in Review: Quiet Pre-Holiday Week Followed by Quieter Post-Holiday Week

The post-holiday week saw a wider trading range than the pre-holiday stretch, but fewer investors took part in last week's action, making it easier to push the market around. The S&P 500 lost 1.1% after spending the week in a 40-point range (vs 17 points in the prior week) while average daily NYSE floor volume was just 758 million shares vs 853 million two weeks ago. The benchmark index finished ahead of the Nasdaq Composite (-1.5%), but behind the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.9%) and the Russell 2000 (-1.0%).

The abbreviated week started on an unassuming note with the S&P 500 rising 0.3% while the Nasdaq (+0.5%) outperformed. The Tuesday session saw the lowest volume of the week and almost everyone's attention was on the technology sector (+0.6%) where NVIDIA (NVDA) surged 6.9%. The move was not owed to any particular news item, but it called attention to the stock's meteoric rise in 2016. Tuesday's surge extended NVIDIA's 2016 gain to 256.0%.

With a dearth of overnight news, NVIDIA was back in focus on Wednesday. This time around the stock plummeted 6.9% after Citron Research pointed out that the company may find increased competition from AMD (AMD) and Intel (INTC) in 2017. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (-1.9%) gave up its entire gain from Tuesday, leading the technology sector (-0.9%) lower. Wednesday's weakness in the technology sector caused the Nasdaq to settle behind the S&P 500, which is how the tech-heavy index continued into the weekend.

Thursday ended on a flat note while Friday's session was highlighted by a decline in Apple (AAPL) after Nikkei Asian Review reported that supplier data suggests the company will be reducing iPhone production by 10.0% during the first quarter of 2017. Apple wasn't the only weak spot as most heavily-weighted components registered comparable losses while chipmakers also struggled.


2016 Year in Review: A Year of Extremes

2016 has come to an end, and depending on one's decidedly unique experiences, that consideration is either good, bad, or indifferent. The stock market for its part pretty much covered all of that ground in 2016. It was good at times, bad at times, and seemingly indifferent at times.

In the end, though, 2016 will go down as a good year for the stock market -- better than it had a fundamental right to be -- largely because of a year-end rally that hardly anybody saw coming.

It was a remarkable end really to a remarkable year, which started with a whimper and most definitely ended with a bang. Frankly, it was a year of extremes.

A Reversal and Then a Reversal

Things couldn't have gotten off to a worse start in 2016 than they did. The S&P 500 declined 5.1% in January; meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 5.5%, marking the worst start to a year for the Dow -- ever!

To be sure, things fell apart quickly to begin the year.

China's stock market dropped 7.0% alone on its first day of trading in 2016. That set the tone for a month that was besieged with concerns about a depreciating yuan, falling oil prices, widening credit spreads, declining earnings estimates, disappointing economic data, the Bank of Japan stunning global markets with the introduction of negative interest rates, and escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Deflation and recession were some of the early economic buzzwords making waves at the start of 2016, which is all the more remarkable considering inflation and escape velocity were the economic buzzwords flying around the market as 2016 came to an end.

The meltdown didn't end when January came to an end either. The first half of February brought additional selling pressure that left the S&P 500 down 11.4% for the year at its close on February 11 -- and then the selling ended.

That would be the low for the year and an inflection point that was driven home by the disclosure that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon had purchased 500,000 shares of JPM stock, spending $26.6 million in the process to do so.



Soon thereafter, many things fell into place and an extreme in bearish sentiment, which was accented by a fear of being in the market, was replaced by some newfound optimism and a fear of being out of the market.

Oil prices started to rise, economic data improved, the People's Bank of China cut its required reserve ratio, and central banks, led by the Federal Reserve, effectively pledged their undying monetary policy support to keep things propped up in a bid to fend off the worst-case scenario of a global recession. At one point this year, there was roughly $13 trillion of global debt with negative rates.

While the S&P 500 declined 0.4% for the month of February overall, it surged 5.6% from its close on February 11 to the end of the month.

It was a relief rally if there ever was one. It restored investors' faith in the Fed put and left them practically agnostic to the fact that the S&P 500 wasn't reporting any earnings growth for the fourth quarter in a row.

Votes of Anti-Establishment Note

The rally didn't end when February did. March was a huge month, producing a 6.6% gain for the S&P 500, which was followed up by a 2.7% gain in April, and a 1.5% increase in May.

From the low in February to the high in May, the S&P 500 tacked on 274 points, or 15%, proving yet again the futility of trying to short a market that has the full faith and disputable credit of the Federal Reserve backing it.

June was a month of trading indifference. The S&P 500 pretty much went sideways, taking some needed time to consolidate its Dimon-plated rally effort and to deliberate in front of the June 23 Brexit vote.

That vote proved to be a stunner as the majority of UK voters voted in favor of the UK leaving the European Union. That decision flew in the face of conventional polling wisdom and it triggered a knee-jerk sell-off that knocked the S&P 500 down 113 points, or 5.3%, in the two sessions following the result -- and then the selling ended.

Those losses were recouped and then some two weeks later. The stock market's resilience was a surprise to many, which helped put another squeeze on short sellers and sidelined participants, all of whom soon recognized that the uncertainty propagated by the Brexit vote was going to forestall a Fed tightening yet again.

There was some even deeper meaning in the Brexit vote, though, and it was the understanding that it signaled a strong wave of discontent with establishment politics. It was a populist vote centered on nationalism and the right for the UK to set its own course without judicial intervention, bureaucratic roadblocks, and immigrant mandates from the European Union.

It would result in a huge weakening in the British pound and a major flight to safety in the 10-yr Treasury note, which saw its yield fall to 1.36%. In hindsight, the Brexit result was also a huge preview of what was to come in the U.S. election in November and Italy's constitutional reform referendum in December.

The defining characteristic of those votes is that they signaled an extreme shift from establishment politics to anti-establishment politics and created a nervous political tone going into 2017 when elections in France and Germany will be held, the UK is expected to trigger Article 50 to begin its divorce from the EU, and the Trump Administration will take over in Washington.

Market Plays Its Trump Card

Briefly, the stock market meandered its way through the months of August, September, and October with a somewhat negative orientation that was rooted in falling oil prices, a weak health care sector, and rising bond rates.

The biotech stocks in particular were hit hard as talk on the campaign trail of drug price controls clipped their wings.

The S&P 500 registered fractional losses in a tightly-wound market those months before dropping 1.9% in October -- and then the selling pretty much stopped.

Granted there was a little leakage at the start of November, but then Election Day came on November 8 -- and from that point pretty much all of the selling in the stock market stopped while a good bit of selling in the Treasury market was just getting started.

The Cliffs Note version of events is that Donald Trump stunned conventional polling wisdom and won the electoral vote. In turn, the GOP won enough seats to have majority control in both the House and Senate.

There were huge declines in the futures market on Election Night when results pointed to a Trump victory, yet there was even a bigger reversal in the cash market when trading began the next day.

That key reversal was predicated on stock market participants latching onto the idea that a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Congress presented a real possibility to implement what have been deemed to be pro-growth policies that include tax cuts for businesses and consumers, deregulation, infrastructure spending, and the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act.

At the close of business on November 8, the S&P 500 was up 3.7% for the year before dividends. It closed 2016 with a 9.5% gain.

The post-election rally was powered by the financial sector, which took off on a pro-growth trade that featured a steepening yield curve, and cyclical sectors that would be in a prime position to benefit from faster growth and rising inflation.

Every major index rallied to new all-time highs as money managers chased performance and aimed to compensate for having underweight positions in the stock market.

The Russell 2000, which has a predominately domestic orientation, had more momentum than them all, gaining as much as 16.5% in the month following the election. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, gained as much as 9.0% and flirted with eclipsing the 20,000 level.



The U.S. Dollar soared, bolstered by economic optimism surrounding the U.S. and interest rate differential trades, and the CBOE Volatility Index collapsed.

The Treasury market for its part got hit hard, pressured by inflation concerns flowing out of fiscal stimulus plans from the new administration and a rotation out of bonds and into stocks.

In effect, the "Fed put" ceded its overwhelming influence to the "Trump put," which is to say visions of stronger economic growth driven by pro-growth policies overshadowed any negative news items and unleashed some animal spirits in the stock market that haven't been seen for some time.

Making matters even better was a surprising agreement from OPEC to cut its production and many non-OPEC producers, including Russia, jumping on board with a production cut agreement of their own. That helped drive up oil prices, which in turn lifted the energy sector.

Consistent with the year of extremes, oil prices, which cratered to $26.21 per barrel on February 11, settled the year at $53.75 per barrel.

More to the Rally Story

The end-of-year rally wasn't all about the Trump trade, however. It is important to note that economic growth was picking up even before the election result, evidenced by rising levels of consumer spending that flowed from a strengthening labor market.

The U-3 unemployment rate, which started the year at 5.0%, hit 4.6% in November. The U-6 unemployment rate, which accounts for both unemployed and underemployed workers, dropped to 9.3% from 9.9%.

That understanding spurred the Fed to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 0.50% to 0.75% in December, marking the only rate hike from the Fed in 2016. The stock market handled the rate hike reasonably well based on the belief that rates were going up for the right economic reasons and not just to get some insurance in the event the fed funds rate needs to be lowered in the future to deal with a negative shock.

Another important aspect of the year-end rally was the understanding that the S&P 500 earnings recession had come to an end in the third quarter, breaking a string of five straight quarterly declines on a year-over-year basis.

It was a welcome sight, but even with the earnings growth in the third quarter and the projected growth for the fourth quarter, calendar year 2016 earnings are still only expected to increase 0.1%, according to FactSet.

Double-digit price gains on the back of basically no earnings growth is why we asserted earlier that 2016 was better than it had a fundamental right to be for the stock market.

Alas, what the stock market lacked in earnings growth in 2016 was more than made up for by its old faith in the Fed put and its newfound faith in the economic and earnings outlook for 2017. That faith is reflected in many respects in the performance data below.

We can't know for certain what 2017 will bring, but we look forward to covering it all. We can say with certainty today, however, that we are grateful for your readership throughout 2016 and wish you all the best for a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Market

S&P Small Cap 600 (+24.7%)
Russell 2000 (+19.5%)
S&P Mid Cap 400 (+18.7%)
Dow Jones Industrial Average (+13.4%)
Wilshire 5000 (+10.7%)
S&P 500 (+9.5%)
Nasdaq Composite (+7.5%)
Nasdaq 100 (+5.9%)

S&P 500 Sectors

Energy (+23.7%)
Financials (+20.1%)
Telecom Services (+17.8%)
Industrials (+16.1%)
Materials (+14.1%)
Utilities (+12.2%)
Information Technology (+12.0%)
Consumer Discretionary (+4.3%)
Consumer Staples (+2.6%)
Real Estate (0.0%)
Health Care (-4.4%)

Source: FactSet
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 19933.81 19762.60 -171.21 -0.9 13.4
Nasdaq 5462.69 5383.12 -79.57 -1.5 7.5
S&P 500 2263.79 2238.83 -24.96 -1.1 9.5
Russell 2000 1371.51 1357.13 -14.38 -1.0 19.5

The broader market finished Friday lower as investorsprepare for the New Years holiday. Action in the Technology (XLK -0.9%) sector was mostly negative, as the sector closed -0.4 pts up/down. The Nasdaqclosed the session down 48.9 pts ( -0.9%), while the S&P closed lower 10 pts (-0.5%) and the DowJones Industrial Average dropped 53 pts ( -0.3%).

With the trading year now officially over, here is a shortlist of the biggest technology (XLK) advancers and decliners of 2016.

Largest Advancers YTD:
Nvidia (NVDA +238%)
Applied Materials (AMAT +75%)
Micron (MU +57%)

Largest Decliners YTD:

First Solar (FSLR -51%)
Frontier Communication (FTR -28%)
Alliance Data Systems (ADS -17%)

Notable news items from IT companies:
Qualcomm (QCOM -1.3%) and Meizu Technology announced that, based on equal and fair negotiation, they have reached a patent license agreement whereby Qualcomm grants Meizu a worldwide royalty-bearing patent license to develop, manufacture and sell CDMA2000, WCDMA and 4G LTE complete devices

Lucid Motors, a luxury mobility company, and Mobileye N.V. (MBLY -0.8%) announced a collaboration to enable autonomous driving capability on Lucid vehicles. Lucid will launch its first car, the Lucid Air, with a complete sensor set for autonomous driving from day one, including camera, radar and lidar sensors. Mobileye was chosen to provide the primary compute platform, full 8-camera surround view processing, sensor fusion software, Road Experience Management crowd-based localization capability, and reinforcement learning algorithms for Driving Policy.

Analyst actions:
Yandex N.V. (YNDX -1.1%) was initiated with a Outperform and $26 price target at Credit Suisse.

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From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : The stock market began the new year on a higher note, but the bulk of today's advance took place during the initial minutes of the session. The S&P 500 added 0.9% after being up 1.1% during the opening hour.

The long weekend was fairly quiet from the news standpoint, but investors did receive upbeat economic data from China (Caixin Manufacturing PMI 51.9; previous 50.9) and the eurozone (December Manufacturing PMI 54.9; previous 54.9). The data was used to justify the sunny disposition in the pre-market, but roughly half of the early gains faded shortly after the open. The morning pullback coincided with a spike in the yen after the dollar/yen pair failed to climb above its December high (118.67). The yen picked up about 100 pips against the dollar in just over an hour, and the risk-off move in the currency market helped cool the buying jets in the stock market. However, the last 30 minutes of the session saw the market rally back towards its early high.

Ten out of eleven sectors ended the day in positive territory with health care (+1.4%) and telecom services (+1.9%) climbing into the lead as the broader market retreated during the late morning. Telecom services rallied behind Verizon (VZ 54.58, +1.20) after the stock was upgraded to 'Buy' from 'Neutral' at Citigroup while the health care sector received support from biotech names. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 270.24, +4.86) spiked 1.8%. Although biotechnology lifted the health care sector, it could not keep the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) ahead of the broader market due to relative weakness in chipmaker names. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.1%) spent the bulk of the day in negative territory, but late afternoon buying prevented a lower finish while the broader technology sector (+0.9%) settled just ahead of the broader market.

Like technology, financials (+1.0%) settled in the neighborhood of the S&P 500, but the sector flirted with a 2.0% gain at the start. Similarly, energy (+1.2%) backed off its opening high, but still ended comfortably in the green even though crude oil surrendered a big gain to end lower by 2.6% at $52.33/bbl after climbing above $55.00/bbl in overnight action.

Automakers were in the news today, starting with General Motors (GM 35.15, +0.31). Shares of GM ended higher by 0.9% after being down 1.0% in pre-market after President-elect Donald Trump said, in a tweet, that GM should pay a "big border tax" on Chevrolet Cruze vehicles produced in Mexico. General Motors responded by saying that most Cruze vehicles for U.S. distribution are produced in Ohio. Separately, Ford (F 12.59, +0.46) climbed 3.8% after announcing it will expand its plant in Michigan instead of developing a new location in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

On the downside, the utilities sector (-0.3%) was the lone decliner, spending the day in negative territory even as intraday demand for Treasuries pressured yields off their overnight highs. The 10-yr note ended flat with its yield at 2.45%.

Today's participation was above average as more than one billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Construction Spending and ISM Index:

Total construction spending increased 0.9% in November (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) on top of an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from +0.5%) in October. On a year-over-year basis, total construction spending increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that construction spending is increasing and will serve as a positive input for Q4 GDP forecasts.
The ISM Manufacturing Index closed 2016 on an upbeat note, hitting 54.7 (Briefing.com consensus 53.6), which was up from 53.2 in November and the highest reading all year. December marked the fourth straight month that the index was above 50.0, which is the dividing line between expansion and contraction.
The key takeaway from the report is that it helps validate the market's budding growth assumptions for 2017 considering the strength in December was forged on the back of a big uptick in the component indexes for new orders and prices.
For further detail on today's economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the Federal Reserve will release the December FOMC Minutes at 14:00 ET.

S&P 500 +0.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +0.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.5% YTD

When the bell rang on the first trading day of 2017, stocks were all higher. Leading the opening charge, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite both advanced +0.85%. The S&P added 19.00 points to 2257.83, and the Nasdaq gained 45.97 points to 5429.08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the "laggard" today, albeit posting gains of 119.16 points (+0.60%) to 19881.76.

The long weekend was fairly quiet from the news standpoint, but investors did receive upbeat economic data from China (Caixin Manufacturing PMI 51.9; previous 50.9) and the eurozone (December Manufacturing PMI 54.9; previous 54.9). The data was used to justify the sunny disposition in the pre-market, but roughly half of the early gains faded shortly after the open. The morning pullback coincided with a spike in the yen after the dollar/yen pair failed to climb above its December high (118.67). The yen picked up about 100 pips against the dollar in just over an hour, and the risk-off move in the currency market helped cool the buying jets in the stock market. However, the last 30 minutes of the session saw the market rally back toward its early high.

Today's econ data included total construction spending which increased 0.9% in November on top of an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from +0.5%) in October. On a year-over-year basis, total construction spending increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.1%. Also, the ISM Manufacturing Index closed 2016 on an upbeat note, hitting 54.7, which was up from 53.2 in November and the highest reading all year. December marked the fourth straight month that the index was above 50.0, which is the dividing line between expansion and contraction.

The Technology (XLK 48.79, +0.43 +0.89%) sector ended the session about middle of the daily trading range, yet ultimately higher on a premarket gap up. Component Xerox (XRX 6.89, +1.14 +19.83%) was the best performer today after the completion of the spin-off of its Conduent (CNDT 13.72, -1.18 -7.92%) business. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Tuesday IYZ +4.43%, XLV +1.31%, XLE +1.13%, XLF +1.12%, XLI +0.59%, XLY +0.59%, XLB +0.58%, XLP +0.37%, XLRE +0.33%, XLU -0.25%.The lone laggard, the XLU was pressured today by components like PEG -1.1%, PNW -0.9%, EXC -0.9% and ETR -0.7%.

On the flip side, US Telecoms - IYZ - were particularly strong today on the back of strong sessions out of heavily weighted components like Verizon (VZ 54.58, +1.20 +2.25%) - which saw a strong reaction to a premarket upgrade of the stock to a Buy rating at Citigroup, GlobalStar (GSAT 1.77, +0.19 +12.03%) and CenturyLink (CTL 25.35, +1.57 +6.60%).

In the S&P 500 Information Technology ( 815.12, +7.17 +0.89%) sector, trading closed with a strong positive bias as action surged out of the gate and held onto decent morning gains. Component Total System (TSS 51.44, +2.41 +4.92%) turned in a strong Tuesday after a bullish analyst note, and chip name Intel (INTC 36.60, +0.33 +0.91%) was equally as strong following an investment announcement in HERE. Other names in the space which gained today included FSLR +4.52%, STX +3.80%, CRM +3.04%, ADSK +2.93%, MU +2.87%, WDC +2.18%, MA +2.07%, PYPL +1.98%, ADS +1.97%, GOOGL +1.96%.

Other notable news items among tech names:
Conduent (CNDT) completed its separation from Xerox (XRX) and is now an independent public company trading on the NYSE. Conduent debuts as the world's largest pure-play business process services leader with about $6.7 billion in annual revenue, a portfolio of differentiated offerings and a vision focused on technology and innovation to advance the client and constituent experience.

Intel (INTC) confirmed it is acquiring a 15% ownership stake in HERE. The 15% ownership stake in HERE, a global provider of digital maps and location-based services, was bought from HERE's current indirect shareholders: AUDI AG (AUDVF 645.00, flat), BMW AG (BMWYY 31.56, +0.55 +1.77%) and Daimler AG (DDAIF 75.16, +1.01 +1.36%). In conjunction with INTC's acquisition of a stake in HERE, the two companies also signed an agreement to collaborate on the research and development of a highly scalable proof-of-concept architecture that supports real-time updates of high definition maps for highly and fully automated driving. Additionally, the two companies plan to jointly explore strategic opportunities that result from enriching edge-computing devices with location data.

MINDBODY (MB 21.65, +0.35 +1.64%) partnered with Alphabet's (GOOGL 807.57, +15.12, +1.91%) Google to pilot new fitness booking integration.

Tesla Motors' (TSLA 216.99, +3.30 +1.54%) Elon Musk confirmed autopilot uploads were underway over the weekend.

Liberty Global (LBTYA 30.65, +0.06 +0.20%) and Vodafone (VOD 24.96, +0.53 +2.17%) completed a Dutch joint venture, creating a fully-converged national communications operator.

Energous (WATT 17.59, +0.74 +4.39%) announced JT Group is making a $5 million investment. JT Group will be the preferred backhaul and cloud connectivity partner for IoT customers that use its WattUp technology.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 12.67, +0.49 +4.02%) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, CSI New Energy Holding Co. has completed the sale of 2 solar power plants in Jiangsu Province, China to Shenzhen Energy Nanjing Holding Co., a subsidiary of Shenzhen Energy Group Co., for about RMB223.48 million (US$32.2 million). The transaction was closed on December 30, 2016 and the Company expects to recognize the difference between the sales proceeds and the book value of the projects under 'Other income (expenses)' in the income statement for the fourth quarter of 2016.

Payment Data Systems (PYDS 1.84, -0.01 -0.54%) announced the purchase of shares from several executives at $1.75 per share. The company intended to cover tax liabilities incurred due to the vesting of previously disclosed stock grants.

magicJack VocalTec (CALL 7.50, +0.65 +9.49%) filed a preliminary proxy statement for the February 28 Annual Meeting, announced a CEO transition plan and updated Kanen Wealth Management talks.

Finjan (FNJN 1.21, +0.07 +6.82%) closed on a patent license agreement with F5 Networks (FFIV 144.80, +0.08 +0.06%).

Analyst actions:

XRX was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
VZ was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
CUDA was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Underperform at JMP Securities,
CTL was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
PYPL was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
GRPN was upgraded to Sector Perform from Underperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
FDC and TSS were upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight ratings at a boutique firm;
TWX was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Telsey Advisory Group,
P and TSQ were downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform ratings at Barrington Research,
XLNX was downgraded to Reduce from Neutral at Instinet,
ARW was downgraded to Hold from Buy at SunTrust,
NOK and DATA were downgraded to Perform ratings from Outperform at Oppenheimer,
EIGI was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
GRUB was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt;
SSYS was initiated with a Buy at Standpoint Research,
VOD was initiated with an Accumulate at Standpoint Research,
ICHR was initiated with a Buy at Stifel,
MBLY was initiated with a Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
TWTR was initiated with a Sell at Aegis Capital,
EBAY and FB were initiated with Buy ratings at Aegis Capital,
EGOV was initiated with a Mkt Perform at Barrington Research

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The stock market ended Wednesday on a higher note, ending just below its session high. The S&P 500 finished higher by 0.6%, while the Nasdaq (+0.9%) outperformed the benchmark index. The Dow (+0.3%) will begin Thursday's session within striking distance of the 20k mark.

Nine out of eleven sectors finished the day in positive territory, with materials (+1.4%) claiming the top spot on the leaderboard. Consumer discretionary (+1.3%) held the lead for most of the day after automakers reported better-than-expected sales for the month of December. On a year-over-year basis, General Motors (GM 37.09, +1.94)reported a 10.0% increase (consensus +0.7%), while Ford Motor (F 13.17, +0.58)saw a 0.3% gain (consensus -1.6%). The two names finished up by 5.5% and 4.6%, respectively.

Real estate (+1.2%), financials (+0.9%), and health care (+0.7%) also performed better than the broader market. The health care sector received a big bump from biotechnology, evidenced by the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF's (IBB 277.53, +7.24) 2.7% gain. Information technology (+0.4%) also finished in the green, despite losses from top components like Apple (AAPL 116.02, -0.13), Microsoft (MSFT 62.30, -0.28), and Alphabet (GOOGL 807.77, -0.24).

After finishing at the top of the leaderboard on Tuesday, telecom services (-0.3%) finished at the bottom on Wednesday. Energy (-0.3%) performed only modestly better as the sector failed to capitalize on crude oil's positive performance. The commodity ended its trading day up 1.8% at $52.28/bbl amid a weaker U.S. dollar. The U.S. Dollar Index (102.58, -0.66) finished lower by 0.6%.

On the data front, the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its December meeting, showing a discussion about the recent surge in the dollar that lifted the U.S. Dollar Index (102.72, -0.49) to a fresh 14-year high. Members of the committee discussed the potential headwinds stemming from dollar strength, but hedged that discussion by noting that continued dollar strength might keep down inflation. The minutes showed uncertainty over possible changes in fiscal policies, but members agreed that near-term risks to the economic outlook appear roughly balanced.

Treasuries climbed to new highs immediately after the release, but finished the day near their flat lines. The 10-yr yield ended Wednesday unchanged at 2.45%.

Thursday's economic data will include December Challenger Job Cuts at 7:30 ET, December ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 170,000) at 8:15 ET, Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 265,000) at 8:30 ET, and the December ISM Services Index (Briefing.com consensus 56.6) at 10:00 ET.

On the earning front, several companies are scheduled to report before Thursday's opening bell with Monsanto (MON 105.05, +0.28) and Walgreens Boot Alliance (WBA 82.98, +0.02) being the most notable.

Russell 2000 +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.9% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.7% YTD

DJ30 +60.40 NASDAQ +47.92 SP500 +12.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2501/1.72 bln/674 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2590/1.19 bln/445

3:30 pm :

In precious metals, gold broke out to its highest level in 3 weeks on notable dollar index weakness
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $3.20 (+0.3%) to $1165.20/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.11 higher (+0.7%) at $16.53/oz
The dollar index was -0.6% around the 102.66 level after hitting 14-year highs yesterday, supported precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +1.3% around the 87.17 level
Natural gas extended yesterday's losses ahead of tomorrow's EIA
Feb Natural Gas closed $0.07 lower (-2.1%) at $3.25/MMBtu
EIA natural gas data will be released at 10:30 am ET on Thursday.
Crude oil ended a volatile day at session highs ahead of tonight's API & tomorrow's official petroleum inventory data
Feb crude oil futures rose $0.92 (+1.8%) to $53.28/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Due to Monday's holiday, EIA petroleum data will be released on Thursday at 11:00 am ET.
API will be released today after the bell.
Base metal copper erased all of yesterday's losses & closed at a session high
Mar 2017 copper closed $0.07 higher (+2.8%) at $2.56/lb

After a strong start to 2017 yesterday, the broader market backed it up with an equally solid Wednesday. Pushing higher today, the Nasdaq Composite gained 47.92 points (+0.88%) to 5477.00. The S&P 500 was up 12.92 points (+0.57%) to 2270.75, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 60.40 (+0.30%) to 19942.16.

As far as action in the Technology (XLK 48.96, +0.17 +0.35%) space, trading mirrored broader market strength, ending near highs. Component Red Hat (RHT 73.10, +2.98 +4.25%) was the best performer following some positive analyst commentary. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Wednesday XLB +1.46%, IYZ +1.42%, XLY +1.33%, XLRE +1.26%, XLF +0.81%, XLV +0.79%, XLI +0.59%, XLU +0.37%, XLP +0.00%, XLE -0.21%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (818.01, +2.89 +0.35%) space, trading advanced further into the +800 level. Component Seagate Tech (STX 39.12, -0.50 -1.26%) bucked the broader sector trend higher following a premarket initiation at Guggenheim with a Neutral rating. Other names in the space which performed well today included TDC +3.84%, XRX +3.77%, GPN +3.73%, CRM +3.20%, QRVO +3.04%, YHOO +2.98%, NVDA +2.33%, VRSN +2.13%, ADS +2.05%, WU +2.00%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

According to the WSJ, Apple (AAPL 116.02, -0.13 -0.11%) confirmed a $1 billion investment in Softbank's (SFTBY 34.18, +0.96 +2.89%) Vision Fund. The Financial Times also detailed a planned investment by
Oracle (ORCL 38.74, +0.19 +0.49%) in the same fund.

Panasonic (PCRFY 10.49, +0.20 +1.94%) announced a strategic alliance with Walt Disney World Resort (DIS 107.44, +1.36 +1.28%), working with Qualcomm (QCOM 65.47, +0.07 +0.11%) on android-based in-vehicle infotainment system, and partnered with IBM (IBM 169.26, +2.07 +1.24%) to develop cognitive vehicle infotainment system. Financial terms of these deals were not disclosed.

Alliance Data Systems's (ADS 237.78, +4.77 +2.05%) board of directors approved a new stock repurchase program to acquire up to $500 million of ADS's common stock during 2017. The new repurchase program replaces the existing program, which expired at the end of 2016.

Mobileye N.V. (MBLY 41.98, +0.83 +2.02%), BMW (BMWYY 31.44, -0.12 -0.38%), and Intel (INTC 36.41, -0.19 -0.52%) announced that a fleet of about 40 autonomous BMW vehicles will be on the roads by the second half of 2017.

Monotype Imaging (TYPE 20.55, +0.25 +1.23%) appointed Anthony Callini as CFO.

Ebix (EBIX 59.30, +1.55 +2.68%) appointed Sean Donaghy as CFO effective January 3, 2017.

Amazon (AMZN 757.18, +3.51 +0.47%) announced plans to open a second fulfillment center in Jacksonville, Florida. The facility will add more than 1,000 full-time jobs with benefits starting on day one. Also, according to Re/Code, AMZN is planning to sell its own branded workout clothing.

NXP Semi (NXPI 98.30, +0.64 +0.66%) released new test bed for enabling a broad range of secure services on wearables and other connected devices. NXPI announced the SAF4000 -- the world's first fully integrated software defined radio solution capable of covering all global broadcast audio standards, including AM/FM, DAB+, DRM(+) and HD.

IDT Corp's (IDT 19.62, +0.33 +1.71%) net2phone acquired LiveNinja, provider of an innovative customer-facing messaging and live chat management service. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

TiVo (TIVO 21.15, +0.60 +2.92%) signed a long-term intellectual property license with HBO (TWX 96.71, -0.05 -0.05%). Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Analyst actions:

A was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
ON was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
NTES was upgraded to Buy from Outperform at CLSA;
ZBRA was downgraded to In-Line from Outperform at Imperial Capital,
TEL was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
MSCC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
STM was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
A was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen;
AAPL, GLW, NTGR, TSLA, WDC were initiated with Buy ratings at Guggenheim,
IBM, STX, HPE and HPQ were initiated with Neutral ratings at Guggenheim,
PCLN and EXPE were initiated with Buy ratings at Needham,
FSNN was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum

3:37 pm ZF and NVIDIA at CES announce artificial intelligence system for autonomous cars, trucks and industrial applications (NVDA) :

ZF, one of the world's largest automotive suppliers and a global leader in active and passive safety technology, announced it is working with NVIDIA to develop artificial intelligence (AI) systems for the transportation industry, including automated and autonomous driving systems for passenger cars, commercial trucks, and industrial applications.

Note Tesla (TSLA) already uses NVDA's DRI

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm : The stock market finished Thursday just below its flat line as the S&P 500 shed 0.1%. The Nasdaq outperformed, adding a modest 0.2%.

Stocks were able to overlook the red flags in other markets during the opening hour, but selling interest picked up soon thereafter. The S&P 500 saw a ten-point dip in the late morning amid defensive action in other asset classes. However, the slip, which came ahead of tomorrow's release of the Employment Situation Report for December (Briefing.com consensus 175K), was largely erased by the close.

Cyclical sectors performed slightly worse than their defensive counterparts, as five of the six finished in negative territory. Leading the retreat was the financial sector (-1.0%), which broke its three-session winning streak. Industrials (-0.4%), materials (-0.3%), and energy (-0.3%) also trailed the broader market.

Energy had a poor showing despite crude oil ending the day up 0.9% at $53.87/bbl. The advance occurred as the U.S. dollar retreated for the second consecutive day. The U.S. Dollar Index (101.52, -0.97) finished lower by 1.0%, thanks to strength in the euro (1.0593) and the Japanese yen (115.61). The two currencies increased 1.0% and 1.4% against the dollar, respectively.

The consumer discretionary space (-0.1%) settled in line with the broader market, bouncing back from heavy selling pressure in the morning. The sector started Thursday on the wrong foot after Macy's (M 30.86, -4.98) and Kohl's (KSS 42.01, -9.87) issued disappointing guidance due to weak holiday sales, pushing the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 44.02, -1.15) lower by 2.6%. However, the sector's top-weighted stock, Amazon (AMZN 780.45, +23.27) had a solid showing, ending the day higher by 3.1%.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.2%) was the only cyclical group to finish the day in positive territory. However, the win didn't come easy as weakness in chipmakers sent the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 0.9%. That soft spot was offset by gains in top components like Apple (AAPL 116.61, +0.59) and Facebook (FB 120.67, +1.98).

On the countercyclical side, health care (+0.5%) finished the day at the top of the leaderboard by capitalizing on biotechnology's positive performance; the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 278.10, +0.87) added 0.3%. Real estate (+0.5%), consumer staples (+0.3%), and utilities (+0.1%) also finished in the green, drawing strength from a decline in yields.

U.S. Treasuries climbed into the late morning and returned to their highs just ahead of the close. The benchmark 10-yr yield fell seven basis points to 2.37%.

Economic data included ADP Employment Change, Initial Claims, and ISM Services:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 235,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 265,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 263,000 (from 265,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 2.112 million from the revised count of 2.096 million (from 2.102 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it points to tight labor market conditions as employers overall appear to be reluctant to cut staff.
The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 153,000 in December (Briefing.com consensus 170,000) while the November reading was revised lower to 215,000 from 216,000. The ADP reading precedes Friday's more influential Employment Situation Report for December, which the Briefing.com consensus expects will show the addition of 175,000 nonfarm payrolls. The Employment Situation Report for November indicated that nonfarm payrolls increased by 178,000.
The ISM Services Index for December held at 57.2 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick to 56.6.
The key takeaway from the report is that respondents' comments were mostly positive about business conditions and the overall economy, reinforcing the market's belief that the U.S. economy, which is driven predominately by the non-manufacturing sector, was exhibiting some encouraging growth characteristics as 2016 came to an end.
For further detail on today's economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's Economic Calendar

Tomorrow, the Employment Situation report for December (Briefing.com consensus 175K) and November Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$42.20 billion) will be reported at 8:30 ET while November Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus -2.1%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +2.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.7% YTD

DJ30 -42.87 NASDAQ +10.93 SP500 -1.75 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1289/1.62 bln/1779 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1292/1.14 bln/1638

3:30 pm :

Crude oil ended a volatile pit trading session near its highs of the day despite EIA reporting notable builds in both gasoline & distillates; rig count on tap
Feb crude oil futures rose $0.50 (+0.9%) to $53.78/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET.
Crude caught a bid close to the end of pit trading as headlines crossed indicating that Saudi Arabia plans to cooperate fully with the OPEC/non-OPEC production cut
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a draw of -7.1 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -2.15 mln barrels).
Gasoline inventories had a build of +8.3 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of +1.79 mln barrels).
Distillate inventories had a build of +10.1 mln barrels.
Natural gas ended a volatile session higher after EIA reported a smaller-than-expected draw in natural gas inventory vs. Consensus
Feb natural gas closed $0.03 higher (+0.9%) at $3.28/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a draw of -49 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a draw of approximately -82 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 3,311 Bcf as of Friday, Dec 30, 2016, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 364 Bcf less than last year at this time & 21 Bcf below the 5-year avg of 3,332 Bcf.
At 3,311 Bcf, total working gas is within the 5-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold ended pit trading at a 1-month high on continued dollar index weakness
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $18.40 (+1.6%) to $1183.60/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.11 higher (+0.7%) at $16.64/oz
The dollar index extended yesterday's losses, was -1.1% around the 101.56 level after Tuesday's 14-year high
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.4% around the 87.53 level

After two sessions in the green to begin 2017, the market finished split though the session took a decided hit when the market reacted negatively to some market data around 11 a.m. ET. In the end, however, the Nasdaq Composite was the only index which escaped Thursday with gains, adding 10.93 points (+0.20%) to 5487.94. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, by contrast, shed about 42.87 points (-0.21%) to 19899.29, and the S&P 500 lost about 1.75 points (-0.08%) to 2269.00.

In the Technology (XLK 49.04, +0.08 +0.16%) space, trading was back and forth about flat lines, but ultimately ended modestly in the green. Component Yahoo! (YHOO 41.34, +1.28 +3.20%) was the best performer today on the back of some commentary from Verizon (VZ 54.64, +0.12 +0.22%) EVP Marni Walden about the YHOO deal. Other sectors as measured by the S&P ended the day split -- XLRE +0.51%, XLV +0.44%, XLP +0.26%, XLU +0.10%, XLY -0.07%, XLE -0.21%, XLB -0.24%, XLI -0.30%, IYZ -1.01%, XLF -1.01%.

Action in the S&P 500 Information Technology (819.77, +1.76 +0.22%) space was mostly higher today except for a few moments in the early-afternoon under breakeven. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 101.74, -2.65 -2.54%) was the worst performer today after some announcements at the annual Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES). Other names in the space which finished higher with the broader sector included AKAM +1.79%, SYMC +1.75%, ADBE +1.70%, FB +1.67%, ATVI +1.55%, V +1.17%, VRSN +1.06%, GOOG +0.90%, EBAY +0.84%, CA +0.82%.

Other notable news items among tech names:

T-Mobile US (TMUS 57.61, -1.21 -2.06%) announced in Q4, the company added 2.1 million net customers and 4.1 million branded postpaid net customers, exceeding the guidance for additions of 3.7-3.9 million. Further, branded prepaid churn was 3.94% in the fourth quarter of 2016, down 26 basis points year-over-year and up 12 basis points sequentially. Also, branded postpaid phone churn was 1.28%, down 18 basis points year-over-year .

NVIDIA (NVDA) announced Android-powered NVIDIA SHIELD TV. NVDA and Audi shifted their decade-long partnership into high gear, announcing that they are collaborating to put advanced AI cars on the road starting in 2020.

Twitter (TWTR 17.09, +0.23 +1.36%) will be the exclusive global platform to distribute, on a free basis, more than 70 hours of live competition coverage across 31 PGA tournaments through the remainder of the 2016-17 season.

Shares of Time Warner (TWX 95.09, -1.62 -1.68%) were weaker today following report that President Elect Trump is still against the AT&T (T 42.65, -0.12 -0.28%) / TWX M&A deal.

Alphabet (GOOG 794.02, +7.12 +0.90%) acquired Limes Audio. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Acacia Research (ACTG 7.10, +0.15 +2.16%) signed a patent license agreement with Ericsson (ERIC 5.87, -0.02 -0.34%) and Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson. The company also signed a patent license agreement with Alcatel-Lucent (NOK unit 4.90, +0.06 +1.24%) resolving litigation that was pending in the US District Court.

Ericsson (ERIC) and Cisco (CSCO 30.17, +0.07 +0.23%) are extending their strategic partnership to include a new Wi-Fi solution offering, named Evolved Wi-Fi Networks. EWN combines Ericsson's 3GPP access, core networks and applications with Cisco's Wi- Fi portfolio, to provide reliable Wi-Fi with the highest performance to Ericsson's mobile, cable and other industries customers.

Accenture (CAN 114.99, -1.75 -1.50%) and Blue Prism are working together to provide RPA solutions to help organizations across industries automate a wide range of business processes for reduced costs, improved compliance and increased productivity.

Novanta (NOVT 21.40, -0.35 -1.61%) to acquire the assets of ThingMagic, a division of Trimble (TRMB 30.49, -0.48 -1.55%), for $20 million in cash.

magicJack VocalTec (CALL 8.10, +0.80 +10.96%) shareholder Caregie Technologies and Founder Paul Posner nominate five candidates for election to CALL's Board. Caregie intends to submit a proposal to purchase CALL for $8.50 per share.

Corp. Exec. Board (CEB 74.85, +12.95 +20.92%) agreed to be acquired by Gartner (IT 90.56, -11.23 -11.03%) for $2.6 billion in cash and stock. CEB shareholders will receive $54.00 in cash and 0.2284 shares of Gartner common stock for each share of CEB common stock they own. The deal is expected to be immediately accretive.

Castlight Health (CSLT 4.35, -0.65 -13.00%) announced a strategic acquisition of privately held Jiff. John Doyle to become CEO and Derek Newell to become president of combined company.

GSE Systems, Inc. (GVP 3.30, +0.15 +4.76%) entered into new $5 million revolving line of credit, which replaces the previous credit facility that was scheduled to mature in March 2017.

GoPro (GPRO 9.35, +0.33 +3.66%) confirmed drone Karma set to re-launch in 2017.

Analyst actions:

MA was upgraded to Top Pick from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
WDC and PSTG were upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital,
AMTD was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Nomura,
AEIS was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
TWLO was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
TU was upgraded to Buy at Canaccord Genuity;
DATA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich,
CSLT was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James;
ADBE was initiated with an Outperform at BMO Capital,
PANW, CHKP, FTNT, FEYE and TEAM were initiated with Market Perform ratings at BMO Capital,
PYPL and GDOT were initiated with Buy ratings at Guggenheim,
WU was initiated with a Neutral at Guggenheim

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:22 pm Closing Market Summary: Stock Market Ends Week at Record High (:WRAPX) :

The stock market closed the week on a higher note, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq finishing Friday's session higher by 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively. The Dow (+0.3%) finished the day 34 points shy of the elusive 20k mark after coming within one point of the milestone early Friday afternoon.

Equity indices started the day flat after the December Employment Situation report was met with a muted reaction from investors. The stock market picked up the pace about an hour into the session, trending upwards to a record intraday high where it remained until the closing bell.

Friday's release of the December Employment Situation report alluded to the fact that the labor market is approaching full employment; job growth is slowing, while wages are ticking up. Time will tell if the Fed sticks to their proposed rate-hike schedule, which calls for three rate hikes in 2017, but the Employment Situation report certainly didn't reveal anything that would suggest a change of plans.

Today's rally was led by the technology sector (+1.0%), which was aided by chipmakers and large cap components. For instance, Apple (AAPL 117.91, +1.30), Microsoft (MSFT 62.84, +0.54), Facebook (FB 123.41, +2.74), Alphabet (GOOGL 825.21, +12.19), and Visa (V 82.21, +1.12) all added between 0.9% and 2.3%, while the PHLX Semiconductor Index finished higher by 0.8%.

Cyclical sectors did slightly better than their defensive counterparts, with three of the six growth-sensitive sectors beating the benchmark index. Utilities (+0.3%) and health care (+0.3%) were the only non-cyclical sectors to perform in line with the broader market. Health care capitalized on the biotech industry's solid showing, evidenced by the 0.9% increase in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 280.65, +2.54). Telecom services (-2.7%) and real estate (unch) were the only sectors to finish in the red.

Standings for the week look much the same as ten out of eleven sectors finished the week higher, with telecom services (-1.2%) bucking the trend. The week's top performer was health care (+2.9%), followed closely by real estate (+2.2%), technology (+2.4%), and consumer discretionary (+2.3%). The consumer discretionary sector's gain was particularly impressive as the sector had to overcome a poor week from retailers. The SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 43.76, -0.26) finished the first week of 2017 lower by 0.7% after some of its components reported disappointing holiday sales.

Conversely, small caps ended the week on a down note as the Russell 2000 fell 0.4% in Friday's session. On the week, the small-cap index added 0.7%, but underperformed relative to the S&P 500's and the Nasdaq's respective, 1.7% and 2.6% week-to-date gains. Given that the domestically-focused Russell 2000 set the pace for the post-election rally, investors may be concerned about the index's recent struggle.

The Treasury market saw stepped-up selling pressure after the 8:30 ET release of the Employment Situation report for December, but cooled off afterwards. The 10-yr yield closed the day seven basis points higher at 2.42%.

Reviewing today's economic data:

Employment Situation Report
December nonfarm payrolls came in at 156,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 175,000. The prior month's reading was revised to 204,000 from 178,000. Nonfarm private payrolls added 144,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 170,000. The unemployment rate held at 4.7% (Briefing.com consensus 4.7%).
Average hourly earnings increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). The average workweek was reported at 34.3 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 34.4.
The key takeaway from the December employment report is that job growth is slowing while wages are rising, which are offshoots of a labor market running near full employment.
November trade balance showed a deficit of $45.2 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $42.2 billion. The previous month's deficit was revised to $42.4 billion from $42.6 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that the widening deficit will be a drag on fourth quarter GDP, as the fourth quarter average of $61.9 billion for the real trade deficit is 9.4% higher than the third quarter average.
The Factory Orders Report for November showed a decrease of 2.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decrease of 2.1%. The October reading was revised up to 2.8% from 2.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the drop in manufacturing orders was owed predominately to a large retreat in orders for the volatile nondefense aircraft and parts component. Excluding transportation, orders were up 0.1%.

Monday's economic data will be limited to the November Consumer Credit report, which will be released at 3:00 pm ET.

Nasdaq Composite +2.6% YTD
S&P 500 +1.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.6% YTD

Weekly Recap - Week ending 06-Jan-17

The stock market enjoyed an upbeat start to 2017, as the S&P 500 gained 1.7% during the abbreviated first week of the year. The Nasdaq Composite (+2.6%) outperformed while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.0%) lagged.

The first two sessions of the week featured a steady advance, which placed the S&P 500 just below its record high from December. The two days of gains were followed by an intraday pullback on Thursday, but the brief slip became a distant memory by day's end. However, it is worth noting that the weak spell was brought on by cautious guidance from Kohl's (KSS) and Macy's (M). The two names registered respective losses of 19.0% and 13.9%, while most other apparel names also struggled. Conversely, a daylong rally in Amazon (AMZN) returned the discretionary sector to little changed by Thursday's close.

On Friday, investors received the December Employment Situation Report. The report fit pretty well into the market's view of things, as the headline disappointment (156,000; Briefing.com consensus 175,000) was offset by a sizable revision to the November reading (to 204,000 from 178,000). Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) after declining 0.1% in November. November average workweek was revised down to 34.3 from 34.4 and the December reading remained at 34.3 (Briefing.com consensus 34.4).

Equity indices advanced to new record highs after the December jobs report while Treasuries retreated, erasing a large portion of their gains from earlier in the week. Despite the pullback, the benchmark 10-yr note eked out its third consecutive weekly gain, pressuring its yield to 2.42% from last week's 2.45%.

The December jobs report gave a boost to the greenback, but the U.S. Dollar Index could not avoid a lower close for the week, shedding 0.1%, despite setting a fresh 14-year high on Tuesday.

There was no significant shift in rate hike expectations during the past week. The fed funds futures market ended the week showing a 69.0% implied likelihood of a rate hike in June.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 19762.60 19963.80 201.20 1.0 1.0
Nasdaq 5383.12 5521.06 137.94 2.6 2.6
S&P 500 2238.83 2276.98 38.15 1.7 1.7
Russell 2000 1357.13 1367.15 10.02 0.7 0.7

The first week of 2017 came to a close modestly off highs. Despite the modest sell-off into the close, the three major US indices all notched fresh all-time highs intraday. Most notably, the Dow peaked just shy of the 20,000 mark (at 19,999.63), the S&P cracked 2,280 (2282.10 at highs) and the Nasdaq Composite broke pas the previous high of 5512.37 (topping Friday at 5536.52). In all, the trio ended with solid gains, led by the Nasdaq Composite which closed up 33.12 points (+0.60%) to 5521.06. The S&P 500 was up 7.98 points (+0.35%) when the bell rang to 2276.98, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average came to a close up 64.51 points (+0.32%) to 19963.80.

Technology (XLK 49.40, +0.36 +0.73%) led all other S&P sectors to the upside today, posting a solid close to the first week of the year. Component eBay (EBAY 31.05, +1.04 +3.47%) was the best performer today on no specific catalyst. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLI +0.57% XLY +0.47% XLF +0.34% XLU +0.31% XLV +0.28% XLB +0.10% XLE +0.09% XLP +0.08% XLRE +0.00% IYZ -1.27%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (827.60, +7.83 +0.96%) sector, trading to a new all-time high during the session, closing ultimately near highs. Component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 23.10, -0.46 -1.95%) saw some strong selling today, in spite of the strong broader market, breaking a three session winning streak. Other names in the space which held pace with the broader market today included ADSK +3.08%, FB +2.27%, ADBE +2.26%, XLNX +1.93%, MCHP +1.74%, TXN +1.69%, GOOG +1.53%, GOOGL +1.50%, SYMC +1.46%, TDC +1.45%, GPN +1.40%, CRM +1.39%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
AT&T (T 41.32, -0.84 -1.99%) disclosed an update to merger proxy materials - special meeting of stockholders of Time Warner (TWX 94.76, -0.33 -0.35%) shareholders is February 15 (record date was January 3).

Rogers Corp (ROG 77.62, +0.02 +0.03%) acquired Diversified Silicone Products for an undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to be accretive to 2017 EPS.

NXP Semi (NXPI 98.21, -0.19 -0.19%) announced a long term strategic partnership with Geely Automobile Group.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 12.70, -0.02 -0.16%) announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Canadian Solar Solutions completed the sale of its 10 MW AC BeamLight and its 10 MW AC Alfred solar power plants to 9285806 Canada Inc. and Concord BeamLight GP2, affiliates of Concord Green Energy for over CAD152.5 million ($115 million).

In a regulatory filing the co-chairman of Adobe Systems (ADBE 108.30, +2.39 +2.26%) Charles Geschke disclosed the purchase of 48,100 shares of common stock at $104.0291 per share.

TerraForm Power's (TERP 13.26, +0.19 +1.45%) TerraForm Power Operating announced sale of 24 operating solar projects in the UK representing 365 MW to Vortex; expects to receive about $208 million in proceeds from the sale.

Analyst actions:

IT was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts and to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital,
LXFT, VRTU and CTSH were upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush,
NUAN was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
EXPE was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
WIT was upgraded to Buy at CLSA;
GPRO was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Longbow,
IT was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie,
ANSS was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
INFY was downgraded to Underperform from Outperform at CLSA;
GPN , FIS, PYPL and TSS were initiated with Outperform at BMO Capital,
FDC, FISV, VNTV and PAY were initiated with Market Perform at BMO Capital,
VNTV and CRCM were initiated with Buy at Craig Hallum

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekly Update - And Still No Dow 20K:

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- SP500, NASDAQ move to new highs, but low trade and very narrow leadership.
- DJ30 fails at 20K again, no cigar, but a lot of volume, suggesting churn.
- Jobs Report heralded just as it is every month, but the facts show a
different story than the headlines.
- Great patterns are still abundant.
- With bullishness over 60% the rally now has a governor on it, but there
are many great setups that can provide another playable upside move before
that takes hold.

And still no Dow 20K. 0.37 points separated D30 from that 'magical' level.
Traders and bigwigs were on the NYSE floor, Dow 20,000 hats in hand, but . .
. no cigar.

After a week that small and midcaps put in great moves Wednesday, assuming
the lead in what looked to be a January Effect move, they faded to end the
week, failing to put in a new high. DJ30 put in a new high, it just could
not hold it. SOX is still down at the 20 day EMA as it puts in an important
test of prior gains.

While the small and midcaps slipped modestly from the prior highs to end the
week, NASDAQ and SP500, led by the FAANG stocks, moved to new all-time
highs. So, you have some large cap indices moving to new highs but on very
narrow breadth, unlike Wednesday that saw advance/decline readings of better
than 5:1. Thus, you had some new highs, but that was somewhat of a hollow
victory for the week.

SP500 7.98, 0.35%
NASDAQ 33.12, 0.60%
DJ30 64.51, 0.32%
SP400 -0.08%
RUTX -0.34%
SOX 0.77%

VOLUME: NYSE -15%, NASDAQ -1%. After average-ish volume on the first week
of the new year, trade fell below average. Definitely not a surge in buying
to start the new year, and SP500 and NASDAQ hit new highs on really light
volume. Unlike the Russian Hacking Intelligence Report, that does not give
the move 'high confidence.'

A/D: NYSE -1.1:1, NASDAQ -1.2:1. Negative breadth on the session shows the
thinness of the NASDAQ and SP500 gains.

Thus ended the first week of 2017. Many view this as a positive omen for
the market, but frankly I put little stock in the January indicator. Last
year January was a bloodbath but the market ended higher. Okay, a lot of
that was due to the post-election rally, because without it, the horrific
start to the year would have left the indices flat despite rallying from
February to October.

In any event, the past week showed the minimal in terms of new money
entering the market. There are plenty of great stocks in great patterns in
energy, financial, transports, telecom, metals. There are others trying to
turn back up such as some biotechs, drugs. The question the market has to
answer is whether new money is going to enter to drive these good patterns
to breakouts or otherwise solid upside moves.

As such we have some nice new plays in sectors that would be considered
candidates for new money in a new year, as well as plays on stocks that have
made some good moves but have consolidated and set up the foundation for a
new good move.

At the same time we let our current positions work as long as they do, but
we are also closing positions that show questionable action, preferring to
hold onto some gain versus risking bigger drops in a market that is less
than sure about its next moves.


NEWS/ECONOMY

The Final Obama Jobs Report

In 8 years $10T has been added to the debt to increase the number of people
out of the workforce by 18% to 95.1M and produce the worst recovery in
history.



Not one year of 3% growth, part of the only streak of 10 years of no 3%
annual GDP growth since the Great Depression. An average of 2.1% yearly
growth for 8 years, an all-time low.

The Administration touts the creation of millions of jobs, but as we have
chronicled for the duration, those jobs are by far and away low pay, hourly
jobs. Indeed, thanks to regulations such as the ACA, the Administration has
encouraged the creation of part-time, temporary, and contract jobs and that
is exactly what has happened. I penned the query many times: are millions
of part-time and low-pay jobs that require a person to work 2 or 3 jobs an
equitable trade for what used to be full-time breadwinner jobs where one job
could support and provide a future for a family? Of course not, and you
have to wonder if November was in large part about that result.

With the December report (156K jobs) the final tally for 2016 is 180K jobs
per month. Hardly banner and indeed the lowest since and well off the pace
from 2011, and that was not a barnburner.

The December details:

Unemployment rate: 4.7% vs 4.7% expected versus 4.6% November

Participation: 62.7% versus 62.8%

Number out of workforce: +18K to 95.1M (+841K in Q4), an all-time high.
For Obama's term that number has risen 18%. A great jobs recovery we are
told in what are, to borrow the parlance of the day, 'fake news' stories.

Average Hourly Earnings: +0.39% to 2.9% year/year, a 7 year high.

Average Workweek: 34.3 versus 34.4 expected versus 34.3 prior (revised from
34.4)

The earnings are heralded, but as with each monthly jobs report the past 8
years, the headlines deceive you.

First, how do you get declining average workweeks, chronically weak the
entire recovery, and rising wages? Typically employers work employees to
the max, increasing the average workweek more and more until employees are
ready to quit, then the wages rise as the employers have to give wages or
lose workers to other employers. That is not the case right now.

Second, look at the causes of a wage rise. The workweek is not rising, but
in several states and localities, employers are forced to raise wages due to
higher minimum wage requirements, thus required to pay more than the
skillsets of the workers would draw in a free market. Rising wages by
government fiat. As Amazon is already showing, the shift to robotics can be
quick if the economics favor it.

Third, just where are the higher wages going? Production workers and
non-supervisory workers, 82.3% of the workforce have seen gains of 2.5%
annually, basically unchanged since 2014. This after annual gains of 4%
leading into the recession starting in 2007. Thus, for the vast majority of
workers, wages are growing just barely ahead of even the government reported
inflation that we know is not the real world inflation rate because they
take out some of the major components that the average citizen CANNOT
ex-out.

What about the other 17.7% of the workforce? Those are the supervisors and
management. They have enjoyed 4.7% gains in December ALONE!

Thus, even the wage gains are overstated, because just as everything else in
this economy where we were told that the policies were designed to help the
middle class, it has actually CRUSHED the middle class while the very high
end were greatly rewarded. Indeed, as I have often wrote, in the past few
years the middle class, for the first time since it became the majority
decades and decades ago, is no longer the majority of US citizens.

You can read all the headlines you want and fool yourself how great this
past 10 years has been for the economy, but if you look at the facts they
are lousy. You can compare to all of the prior recessions and recoveries
and they are the worst. Even without that comparison, however, when you
have the middle class fall from majority to minority that speaks for itself.
When a worker is forced to work 2 or 3 jobs and not even make the same
income has he or she did with 1 job before losing that job, that speaks for
itself. When you have an 8 year run to new highs in the stock market and
the middle class collapses you know the policies did not benefit them.
Great economy? Great recovery? Hogwash.


THE MARKET

New highs on NASDAQ and SP500, but no volume. DJ30 on the other hand showed
big volume but could not punch higher. Neither of these are good
indications.

CHARTS

NASDAQ: After a questionable end to 2016 that saw NASDAQ break the 2016 up
trendline, NASDAQ posted an upside week that took it to a new all-time high
Friday. Volume jumped above average on Tuesday after the slow holiday
period, but after that session volume fell off and the Friday new high was
on the lowest trade of the week. Not a powerful move and indeed a very
narrow move as NASDAQ was driven by a very few large cap stocks.

SP500: A new all-time high here as well after a 4 week lateral move after a
new high in early December. Volume moved higher on the week but was never
back above average. Friday trade was the lowest of the week on the high --
not a good combination, not one that instills a lot of confidence the move
will hold. Very narrow move here as well.

DJ30: Hit a new all-time high intraday but did not hold it. Also missed
the 20K level again. Still in the four week lateral move. Unlike the other
indices, strong, above average volume each session. What does that mean?
Bumping up against 20K but every time it approached that level sell programs
kicked it, preventing the break. Going nowhere in the macro picture, the
high volume indicates churn, high volume selling that undermines attempts to
move higher after a rally. Thus time to be very observant as how the DJ30
leaders act.

SOX: Second week testing the new high hit late December. Holding the 20
day EMA for four sessions. A good test thus far but SOX has rallied well
and MACD did not breakout on the last high. As with the other indices,
showing a bit of lethargy after a good rally. Can still make the move,
however.

SP400: Big move Wednesday to test the early December high, but could not
push through as money shifted to the large caps to end the week. Closed at
the 10 day EMA with a doji on Friday, leaving it in very good position
still.

RUTX: Also a big Wednesday move that came just shy of a new high, followed
by a fall Thursday and Friday. Holding the range. Money was moving into
the small caps, as it should this time of year, but then stalled. It will
have to show more money coming its way this week.


LEADERSHIP:

Semiconductors: In the pullback phase. NVDA, XLNX holding near support,
trying to hold and set up a new move. INTC is still in a great pattern and
indeed many chips remain in good position to rally. After a lot of good and
long moves, they have to show they can hold and make the move.

Financial: GS looked good Friday, starting to break higher. The other big
names, e.g. C, BAC, JPM struggled in their continuing lateral 3 to 4 week
moves.

FAANG: Solid week. NFLX led the move, never really selling hard. Then FB,
AMZN, GOOG moved as well. GOOG had a pretty good setup. Some other big
NASDAQ stocks moved as well, e.g. MSFT, but not nearly showing the strength
of the FAANG stocks.

Oil: Still solid as oil struggled some but finished the week stronger. APC
is holding its range. PKD, PDS had very respectable weeks, moving back up
off tests. HAL hit a higher high. NE surged on the week. GST, BTE, SDLP,
DNR remain in very good setups.

Transports: Rails are starting to bounce with CSX in the lead. Truckers
are still solid though not moving higher yet, e.g. JBHT, SAIA, ODFL.
Airlines are in a similar way, e.g. DAL, AAL.

Metals: Not a bad week. FCX broke nicely higher. AKS holding its lateral
move. RS testing the 50 day EMA.

Biotech/Drugs: AMGN gapped higher Friday. BIIB is in a decent pattern.
KERX looks solid. IMGN, IMMU, SRPT, CORT -- many look solid.


MARKET STATS

NASDAQ
Stats: +33.12 points (+0.6%) to close at 5521.06
Volume: 1.889B (-0.68%)

Up Volume: 995.63M (+125.16M)
Down Volume: 677.69M (-192.1M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.2 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.44 to 1

New Highs: 102 (-20)
New Lows: 21 (+3)

S&P
Stats: +7.98 points (+0.35%) to close at 2276.98
NYSE Volume: 769.4M (-14.51%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.11 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.24 to 1

New Highs: 108 (-91)
New Lows: 20 (+6)

DJ30
Stats: +64.51 points (+0.32%) to close at 19963.8


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 11.32; -0.35
VXN: 13.85; -0.78
VXO: 11.05; +0.05

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.97; -0.19

Slipped from 1.0+, but still holding at a higher level, still showing funds
are buying protection.


Bulls and Bears: After holding at 59.8, bulls jumped over 60 the past week,
moving over that level considered indicative of coming peaks in rallies.
Bears declined as they should have.

Bulls: 60.2 versus 59.8

Bears: 18.4 versus 19.6

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 60.2 versus 59.8
59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6 versus 51.0
versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9 versus 46.1 versus 46.7
versus 45.2 versus 44.6 versus 49.0 versus 52.5 versus 55.9 versus 56.7
versus 56.2 versus 54.3 versus 52.9% versus 53.9% versus 54.4% versus 52.5%
versus 47.1% versus 41.6% versus 47.5% versus 45.9% versus 47.3% versus
45.4% versus 35.4% versus 40.2 versus 39.2

Bears: 19.4 versus 19.6
19.6 versus 19.6 versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5
versus 25.7 versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8
versus 23.1 versus 24.3 versus 22.6 versus 22.8 versus 20.6 Versus 20.2
versus 20.0 versus 20.9% versus 21.2% versus 21.6% versus 23.3% versus 24.7%
versus 24.5% versus 23.8% versus 23.2% versus 23.5% versus 23.8% versus
23.7% versus 24.0% versus 21.7% versus 21.6% versus 21.7 versus 20.6% versus
21.7% versus 27.8% versus 27.8% versus 28.9% versus 27.8% versus 30.3%
versus 35.4%


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.42% versus 2.357%. After surging to the 50 day MA's, TLT
faded to test and we will see if it can make the break higher after testing
the initial move.

Historical: 2.357% versus 2.45% versus 2.448% versus 2.42% versus 2.48%
versus 2.51% versus 2.56% versus 2.54% versus 2.55% versus 2.54% versus
2.564% versus 2.544% versus 2.59% versus 2.59% versus 2.52% versus 2.473%
versus 2.475% versus 2.471% versus 2.40% versus 2.349% versus 2.39% versus
2.396% versus 2.394% versus 2.454% versus 2.388% versus 2.30% versus 2.31%.
versus 2.36% versus 2.355% versus 2.317% versus 2.30% versus 2.34% versus
2.297% versus 2.219% versus 2.22% versus 2.23% versus 2.14% versus 2.077%
versus 1.867% versus 1.83% versus 1.778% versus 1.81% versus 1.797% versus
1.827% versus 1.83% versus 1.85% versus 1.84% versus 1.791%


EUR/USD: 1.05346 versus 1.05837. After surging to the 50 day EMA Thursday,
the euro backed off Friday. This is where it failed in early December.

Historical: 105837 versus 1.0525 versus 1.03914 versus 1.05289 versus
1.05155 versus 1.04357 versus 1.04636 versus 1.0451 versus 1.04368 versus
1.04412 versus 1.0392 versus 1.0407 versus 1.0459 versus 1.0415 versus
1.05094 versus 1.0636 versus 1.06326 versus 1.05586 versus 1.06140 versus
1.07745 versus 1.07194 versus 1.07614 versus 1.06638 versus 1.06631 versus
1.0601 versus 1.0649 versus 1.05699 versus 1.066 versus 1.05910 versus
1.05519 versus 1.0672 versus 1.06265 versus 1.0587 versus 1.0650 versus
1.07026 versus 1.0725 versus 1.07492 versus 1.0858 versus 1.08898 versus
1.09398 versus 1.10186 versus 1.10327 versus 1.11406 versus 1.11059 versus
1.11020 versus 1.10560 versus 1.09646 versus 1.09860 versus 1.08963 versus
1.0895 versus 1.08793


USD/JPY: 116.923 versus 115.93. Faded on the week but rebounded Friday to
the 10 day EMA.

Historical: 115.93 versus 116.46 versus 117.983 versus 116.739 versus
116.456 versus 116.793 versus 117.41 versus 117.413 versus 117.32 versus
117.537 versus 117.544 versus 117.835 versus 117.453 versus 117.941 versus
118.257 versus 117.397 versus 115.038 versus 115.058 versus 115.20 versus
114.23 versus 113.325 versus 113.993 versus 113.601 versus 113.52 versus
113.945 versus 114.19 versus 112.685 versus 112.44 versus 111.835 versus
113.14 versus 112.445 versus 111.129 versus 110.809 versus 110.905 versus
110.240 versus 109.07 versus 108.164 versus 107.455 versus 106.621 versus
106.814 versus 105.192 versus 101.286 versus 104.386 versus 103.112 versus
102.96 versus 103.350 versus 104.042 versus 104.798 versus 104.710 versus
105.305 versus 104.412 versus 104.2110 versus 104.331 versus 103.83 versus
103.99 versus 103.99


Oil: 53.99, +0.23. Back up to the recent closing highs post-breakout.
Struggling to get through 54.50.


Gold: 1173.40, -7.90. Rallied up near the 50 day MA's Thursday, took a day
off Friday.


MONDAY

Second week of 2017. The first week saw some good moves in small and
midcaps give way to a narrow break higher by some select large caps Friday.
You would expect the smaller caps to fare better as big funds buy them in a
January Effect move, so this week and how they perform will be instructive
as to the market's continued efforts to rally.

Other items to watch as noted earlier. NASDAQ and SP500 put in new highs on
low volume and failing MACD. DJ30 failed to break 20K, but more importantly
it moved laterally just below that level on very high volume, suggesting
that sellers were very active, selling each time DJ30 tried to take out 20K.
That churn is an indication of money moving out of the market and can spell
the end of a rally. Overlay bullish advisor sentiment over 60 and you have
to be careful and watch how the leaders hold up.

There are still many good setups in the market in many sectors. We have
some very good plays that are in great position to move, including some
China stocks that are now moving well.

With the sentiment over 60, you have to proceed under the assumption that
the rally is now in its end game before a deeper correction. It can still
put in a further rally and it has the setups to do so. We will play good
moves as long as they show up and good runs continue. When breaks higher
quickly roll and fail, and when good rallies break trend, then you know the
move is out of gas.

Moving forward we will have to see if the money comes in on the buy side and
can rally the indices to higher highs on strong volume versus the anemic
trade shown last week. Good setups need to yield good upside moves and
produce broad index moves. Oh, not that difficult, right?

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 5521.06

Resistance:

Support:
The 2016 trendline at 5440
The November prior all-time high at 5404
The 50 day EMA at 5371
5340 is the September and October 2016 twin peaks
The 50 day SMA at 5338
5287.61 is the September 2016 high
5271.36 is the August 2016 intraday prior all-time high
5231.94 is the 2015 all-time high
5170 is the October intraday low.
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak
The 200 day SMA at 5107
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5042 is the March 2015 high
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower
4999 is the October upper gap point
4980 is the June 2016 peak
4969 is the April 2016 recovery high
4960 is the September 2015 intraday high, an important reversal point for
NASDAQ.
4920 is the lower gap point from mid-October 2015, the January 2016 lower
gap point
4916 is the mid-November 2015 low
4899 - 4902 from the September 2015 peak, July 2015 low
4894 is the September 2015 closing high


S&P 500: Closed at 2276.98

Resistance:
2277.53 is the December 2016 high

Support:
The 2016 trendline at 2247
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
The 50 day EMA at 2220
The 50 day SMA at 2205
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high
The 200 day SMA at 2141
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2126 was the April 2015 prior all-time high
2120 is the June 2016 peak
2119 is the September 2016 low; February 2015 intraday high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2111 is the April 2016 recovery high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2094 is the December 2014 high
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2046 is the July 2015 closing low
2040 is the March 2015 closing low
2026 is the May 2016 low
2023 is the November 2015 low
2020 is the September 2015 intraday high
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1995 is the September 2015 recovery peak
1991 is the July 2014 high


Dow: Closed at 19,963.80

Resistance:
10,987.53 is the December 2016 high

Support:
The 20 day EMA 19,764
The 50 day EMA at 19,336
The 50 day SMA at 19,179
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015
The 200 day SMA at 18,345
18,288 from March 2015
18,262 is the upper gap point from the Monday gap lower.
18,247 is the August 2016 low
18,168 is the April 2016 recovery high
18,100 to 18,181: interim peaks in the December 2014 to July 2015 range
18,016 is the June 2016 peak
17,992 is the early September low
17,978 is the November 2015 peak
17,960 is the October intraday low
17,600 is the rough bottom of the April to June range.
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

January 6 - Friday
Nonfarm Payrolls, December (8:30): 156K actual versus 175K expected, 204K
prior (revised from 178K)
Nonfarm Private Payr, December (8:30): 144K actual versus 170K expected,
198K prior (revised from 156K)
Unemployment Rate, December (8:30): 4.7% actual versus 4.7% expected, 4.6%
prior (no revisions)
Hourly Earnings, December (8:30): 0.4% actual versus 0.3% expected, -0.1%
prior (no revisions)
Average Workweek, December (8:30): 34.3 actual versus 34.4 expected, 34.3
prior (revised from 34.4)
Trade Balance, November (8:30): -$45.2B actual versus -$42.2B
expected, -$42.4B prior (revised from -$42.6B)
Factory Orders, November (10:00): -2.4% actual versus -2.1% expected, 2.8%
prior (revised from 2.7%)

January 9 - Monday
Consumer Credit, November (15:00): $18.0B expected, $16.0B prior

January 10 - Tuesday
JOLTS - Job Openings, November (10:00): 5.534M prior
Wholesale Inventorie, November (10:00): 0.9% expected, -0.4% prior

January 11 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Applica, 01/06 (7:00): 0.1% prior
Crude Inventories, 01/06 (10:30): -7.100M prior

January 12 - Thursday
Export Prices ex-ag., December (8:30): 0.2% prior
Import Prices ex-oil, December (8:30): -0.1% prior
Initial Claims, 01/07 (8:30): 255K expected, 235K prior
Continuing Claims, 12/31 (8:30): 2112K prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 01/07 (10:30): -49 bcf prior
Treasury Budget, December (14:00): -$14.4B prior

January 13 - Friday
PPI, December (8:30): 0.3% expected, 0.4% prior
Core PPI, December (8:30): 0.1% expected, 0.4% prior
Retail Sales, December (8:30): 0.7% expected, 0.1% prior
Retail Sales ex-auto, December (8:30): 0.6% expected, 0.2% prior
Business Inventories, November (10:00): 0.6% expected, -0.2% prior
Mich Sentiment, January (10:00): 98.5 expected, 98.2 prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com:

6:20 pm Adobe Systems updates guidance to reflect the inclusion TubeMogul (ADBE) :

Q1 Guidance:

Co sees Q1 EPS of ~$0.87 vs. $0.87 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 (Feb) revs of ~$1.644 bln vs. $1.63 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Expect to achieve approximately $225 million of net new Digital Media ARR, Digital Media segment year-over-year revenue growth of approximately 19%, Adobe Marketing Cloud year-over-year revenue growth of approximately 24%

FY17 Guidance:

FY17 (Nov) EPS of ~$3.75 vs. $3.83 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 (Nov) revs of ~$7.09 bln vs. $6.99 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Expect to add approximately $225 million of net new Digital Media ARR in Q1, followed by sequential growth of net new ARR in Q2; anticipate seasonally-driven sequential decline in Q3, followed by strong seasonal growth in Q4 to achieve approximately $1 billion of net new Digital Media ARR during the year. Expect revenue and earnings per share to grow sequentially each quarter, with the largest sequential increase in Q4.

Transcript.

4:25 pm : Equity indices closed Monday's session mixed. The Nasdaq (+0.2%) posted a modest gain, while the S&P 500 finished lower by 0.4%.

With news and economic data limited, the benchmark index remained within reach of its flat line throughout the session, only to dip a bit further in the final stretch.

There was a batch of earnings reports this morning, with Acuity Brands (AYI 202.51, -34.85), Commercial Metals (CMC 20.81, -1.79), and Global Payments (GPN 79.79, +5.34) all reporting before the opening bell. Acuity Brands and Commercial Metals lost 14.7% and 7.9%, respectively, after missing top and bottom line estimates while Global Payments added 7.2% after beating expectations and issuing positive guidance. The fourth-quarter earnings season will heat up this week with several banks set to report their results on Friday.

Eight out of eleven sectors finished the trading day in negative territory, with the energy sector (-1.5%) closing at the bottom of the leaderboard. The sector faced an uphill climb from the start as crude oil opened the day deep in negative territory amid growing concerns that the OPEC, non-OPEC supply cap has been implemented at slower-than-expected pace. In addition, reports indicated that the recent growth in U.S. production was also ruffling some investors' feathers. The commodity closed its trading day 3.8% lower at $51.94/bbl. Financials (-0.8%), industrials (-0.7%), and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) rounded out the cyclical underachievers.

On the countercyclical side, four out of five spaces finished in the red. Utilities (-1.3%) retreated the furthest, as telecom services (-1.1%), consumer staples (-0.7%), and real estate (-0.6%) performed slightly better. Heath care (+0.4%) was the lone non-cyclical representative in green territory, bucking the trend on the back of a solid showing from the biotechnology industry. The iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB 284.07, +3.72) increased 1.4% on big gains from names like Amgen (AMGN 158.84, +2.06), Biogen (BIIB 299.02, +4.02), and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 82.86, +3.47). The three names posted gains between 1.3% and 4.3%.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%) also finished in positive territory after a solid showing from the sector's heaviest component, Apple (AAPL 118.99, +1.08), which closed higher by 0.9%. Chipmakers also aided the tech sector, evidenced by the 1.1% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. The materials (unch) and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) sectors rounded out the day's outperformers.

U.S. Treasuries ended the day near their session high that was achieved early in the morning. The 10-yr yield closed five basis points lower at 2.37%. Also of note, the U.S. Dollar Index (101.95, -0.22) fell 0.2% while gold increased by 0.8%. The precious metal finished at $1,183.00/ozt.

Reviewing today's economic data:

Consumer Credit report for November
Showed an increase of $24.5 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected growth of $18.0 billion.
The prior month's credit growth was revised to $16.2 billion from $16.0 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer credit -- both revolving and nonrevolving -- continues to expand, providing fuel for a potential increase in economic activity.

Tomorrow's economic data will include November Job Openings (JOLTS) and November Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.9%). Both reports will be released at 10:00 am E.T.

Russell 2000 UNCH YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.6% YTD
S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +2.8% YTD

DJ30 -76.42 NASDAQ +10.76 SP500 -8.08 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1269/1.72 bln/1700 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1070/1.03 bln/1891

3:35 pm :

The dollar index slid lower in morning trade and remained in the red for the afternoon session, which helped give somewhat of a boost to some metals
However, this did nothing for the energy space
Oil and natural sold off notably today and closed near today's lows
Feb WTI crude oil finished the day -3.8% at $51.94/barrel, while, in other energy, Feb natural gas tanked -5.8% to end at $3.10/MMBtu
Precious metals held some gains
Feb gold rose 1% today to finish the session at $1184.80/oz, while Mar silver gained 1% to $16.68/oz
Meanwhile, in base metals, Mar copper lost 0.4% to end the day at $2.54/lb

Beginning the first full week of the year, the stock market was mixed yet all three major US indices fell significantly as the bell approached. Ultimately, only the Nasdaq Composite escaped with gains, adding only 10.76 points (+0.19%) to 5531.82. On the flip side of the coin, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the worst performing index today, shedding 76.42 points (-0.38%) to 19887.38, while the S&P 500 closed about 8.08 points (-0.35%) lower to 2268.90.

In the Technology (XLK 49.39, -0.01 -0.02%) sector, sellers took hold in the final moments as the space dove into the red to close the session. Component Global Payments (GPN 79.79, +5.34 +7.17%) was the best performing name today after the company reported solid Q2 sales growth and beat earnings expectations. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Monday XLE -1.48%, XLU -1.31%, IYZ -1.04%, XLP -0.81%, XLI -0.78%, XLF -0.68%, XLRE -0.64%, XLY -0.10%, XLB -0.02%, XLV +0.42% with all but the Healthcare space ending in the red.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (829.21, +1.61 +0.19%) space, trading was positive for the entirety of the session as a strong performance out of key names like AMAT +2.31%, WDC +2.10%, ORCL +1.51%, MU +1.36%, FB +1.21%, VRSN +1.20%, LRCX +1.17%, MCHP +1.16%, QRVO +0.95%, SWKS +0.92%, AAPL +0.91% pushing the action higher. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 107.28, +4.18 +4.05%) outperformed today on the back of some bullish analyst commentary which helped push the name higher, bucking the recent down/flat trend.

Other notable news items among sector components:
CenturyLink (CTL 25.23, -0.15 -0.59%) acquired SEAL Consulting. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Genpact (G 24.66, +0.01 +0.04%) unveiled the Global Center of Excellence in Jaipur as part of Cisco's (CSCO 30.18, -0.05 -0.17%) Lighthouse City project, a global initiative designed to deploy next-generation technologies to impact citizens and society.

Amazon (AMZN 796.86, +0.87 +0.11%) has acquired cyber security firm harvest.ai, according to TechCrunch.

Atlassian (TEAM 25.03, +0.31 +1.25%) to acquire Trello for about $425 million, which is comprised of about $360 million in cash and the remainder in its restricted shares, restricted share units and options to acquire its shares.

Accenture (ACN 115.00, -1.30 -1.12%) acquired Altitude. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Citrix Systems (CTXS 90.79, -0.22 -0.24%) detailed the anticipated completion of spin-off and subsequent merger of its GoTo family of service offerings; expected to be completed January 31.

CTXS also announced the acquisition of Unidesk. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

LogMeIn (LOGM 100.20, +1.85 +1.88%) also announced new Board of Directors for combined company following CTXS's GoTo Business merger; vote will be Jan 25.

Arista Networks' (ANET 99.52, -1.76 -1.74%) Senior VP Worldwide Sales Operations Mark Smith will voluntarily resign his position effective on February 6, 2017.

Harris (HRS 102.14, -2.41 -2.31%) was awarded an approximate $403 million IDIQ contract.

Iridium Communications (IRDM 10.75, +0.05 +0.47%) confirmed the first launch of IridiumNEXT (via SpaceX) will be delayed until Jan 14 due to weather.

Following quarterly results:

Global Payments (GPN) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.89 and $941.8 million, respectively. For FY17, the company raised its earnings and revenue outlook to $3.70-3.90 from $3.45-3.55 and to $3.35-3.45 billion from $3.2-3.3 billion.

Analyst actions:

NTES was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research,
BABA was upgraded to Accumulate from Hold at Standpoint Research,
TXN was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
BRKS was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse,
BIDU was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan,
TRUE was upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities,
CEB was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Barclays,
NMBL was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest;
RCI and BCE were downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
VMW was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS,
JNPR was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Bernstein,
RTEC was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
NTCT was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
HIMX was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital,
MANH was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James;
ACN was initiated with an Outperform at William Blair

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:52 pm Veeco Instruments reports prelim Q4 results with upside adj EPS guidance and in-line revs; announces public offering of $200 mln of convertible senior notes due 2023 (VECO) :

Co sees Q4 (Dec) EPS of $0.04-0.10, prior guidance ($0.07) -0.07 vs $0.01 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; revs of $91-95 mln, prior $85-100 mln vs. $93.42 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

In addition to the preliminary financial information set forth below, Veeco currently expects to record bookings of ~$125 million for the fourth quarter. A preliminary estimate for cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments is ~$344 million as of December 31, 2016 as compared to $337 million at the end of the third quarter of 2016.

4:17 pm MagnaChip Semi reports prelim Q4 sales at high end of guidance / above consensus; announces proposed $65 mln private offering of exchangeable senior notes and stock repurchase (MX) :

Co issues upside guidance for Q4 (Dec), sees Q4 (Dec) revs of ~$180 mln (guided for $174-180 mln) vs. $177.00 mln two analyst estimate. Adjusted EBITDA now is estimated to be higher in the fourth quarter of 2016 as compared to the prior third quarter, based on preliminary financial results for the fourth quarter of 2016.

The preliminary results benefited primarily from a richer-than-expected product mix and a larger-than-expected increase in foundry revenue. Gross profit margin in both the Foundry Services Group and the Standard Products Group improved sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2016, and gross profit margin for the AMOLED product line continued to exceed the corporate average in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Co also announced the proposed offering by MagnaChip Semiconductor S.A. of $65 mln aggregate principal amount of Exchangeable Senior Notes due 2021. MagnaChip plans to use the net proceeds from the offering of the Notes (i) for its anticipated cost reduction program to be implemented during the first half of 2017 (~$30-40 mln), (ii) for capital expenditures (~$15-20 mln), (iii) to repurchase common stock as part of its stock repurchase program (up to $10 mln) and (iv) for general corporate purposes.

The Board of Directors of the Company also authorized a stock repurchase program.

4:25 pm : The major averages ended Tuesday's session on a mixed note. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) finished out front, followed by the S&P 500 (unch) and the Dow (-0.2%).

Today's session got off to a flat start after some retailers and restaurants issued disappointing guidance. The cautions comments were shrugged off swiftly, as buyers pushed Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 414.48, +19.42), Papa Murphy's (FRSH 4.54, +0.29), and Express (EXPR 10.78, +0.47) higher despite their negative guidance. The three names added between 4.6% and 6.8%, while the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 44.33, +0.51) added 1.2%. Consumer discretionary (+0.4%) finished in line with financials (+0.4%) and just ahead of health care (+0.3%) atop the leaderboard. However, strength in those sectors could not prevent the S&P 500 from reversing off its high in the afternoon. The index returned to its flat line after a brief appearance above Friday's record close.

Health care marked its session high alongside the broader market around noon, but maintained that level while the rest of the market faced an afternoon retreat. The health care sector had some help from biotechnology, evidenced by the 0.8% increase in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 286.48, +2.18).

Industrials (+0.3%) also outperformed, aided by an uptick in in airlines after Alaska Air (ALK 92.00, +4.53) reported better-than-expected December traffic data. The sector also received a boost from automakers, with General Motors (GM 37.35, +1.34) adding 3.7% in reaction to upside guidance for 2017.

Materials (+0.1%), telecom services (+0.1%), and the top-weighted technology (-0.1%) sector finished the trading day flat. The tech space ended with a slight loss even though strength in chipmakers sent the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 0.5%. The sector couldn't overcome lackluster performances from top components like IBM (IBM 165.52, -2.13) and Oracle (ORCL 38.66, -0.37). The two names finished lower by 1.3% and 1.0%, respectively.

Energy (-1.0%) was the only other cyclical sector to finish in negative territory. The space couldn't overcome crude oil's 2.2% retreat as the commodity finished its trading day at $50.82/bbl. Real estate was the only sector to finish below the energy sector, with a loss of 1.2%. Consumer staples (-0.6%) finished slightly better, while the utilities sector (-0.3%) ended closer to its flat line.

The Treasury market remained relatively flat throughout today's session. The 2-yr yield closed unchanged at 1.19%, while the 10-yr yield finished up one basis point at 2.38%.

Today's trading volume finished above the 50-day moving average as 1.17 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Reviewing today's economic data:

November Wholesale Inventories increased 1.0%, which was above the Briefing.com consensus of 0.9%. The prior month's reading was revised to -0.1% from -0.4%.
November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.198 million from a revised 5.451 million (from 5.534 million) in October. For more on these economic releases, be sure to visit Briefing.com's economic calendar

Tomorrow's lone economic report is the MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which will be released at 7:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.5% YTD
S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.1% YTD

DJ30 -31.85 NASDAQ +20.00 SP500 0.00 NASDAQ Vol 1.63 bln NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1867/1.17 bln/1057 3:30 pm :

Crude oil extended yesterday's notable decline as Friday's data showed the US oil rig count increased for the 10th consecutive week, & following the release of EIA's monthly oil market report
Feb 2017 crude oil futures fell $1.12 (-2.2%) to $50.82/barrel
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil include:
In today's EIA short term oil market report, Brent crude oil prices were forecast to average $53/b in 2017 and $56/b in 2018. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices are forecast to average $1/b less than Brent in both 2017 and 2018.
EIA also stated that U.S. crude oil production averaged an estimated 8.9 mln barrels/day in 2016 and is forecast to avg 9.0 mln barrels/day in 2017 and 9.3 mln barrels/day in 2018.
Last Friday, U.S. energy companies increased oil rigs for a 10th week in a row to 529 rigs, extending a recovery in activity into an 8th month.
Yesterday, Russian energy minister stated that output had fallen by 100k barrels/day in the first week of the month.
In Iraq (OPEC's second-biggest producer) oil exports from the southern Basra ports reached a record high of 3.51 mln barrels/day in Dec.
Saudi Arabia said last week that it is lowering its production in Jan by 486k barrels/day. This takes output down to 10.058 mln barrels/day.
Kuwait's OPEC delegate said that Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman were also complying with the cuts. Kuwait's Nawal Al-Fezaia said that those countries already told customers that cuts were imminent. Kuwait plans to lower output from 2.89 mb/d in Dec to 2.7 mb/d by the end of Jan.
Natural gas erased all of yesterday's losses ahead of Thursday's EIA data
Feb 2017 natural gas closed $0.19 higher (+6.1%) at $3.29/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas inventory data will be released at 10:30 am ET on Thursday
In precious metals, gold ended near a 6-week high hit earlier in the session
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $1.60 (+0.1%) to $1186.40/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.16 higher (+1.0%) at $16.84/oz
The dollar index was up about 0.08% around the 102.01 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.6% around the 86.85 level
Base metal copper closed at session highs in afternoon pit trading
Mar 2017 copper closed $0.07 higher (+2.8%) at $2.61/lb

After a soft close to Tuesday's action, the stock market began today's affair in the red. Opening losses would not hold, however, as the market gradually drifted higher into the afternoon. Back and forth action ultimately ended with the markets split at the bell as a sell-off after midday trimmed leads. The leader today was the Nasdaq Composite which added 20 points (+0.36%) to 5551.82. The S&P 500 was mostly flat at the close to 2268.90, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 31.85 points (-0.16%) to 19855.53. By comparison FANG stocks FB -0.44%, AMZN -0.13%, NFLX -0.81%, GOOG -0.23% ended lower as Tech big pressured with the broader market.

Today's economic data included the November Wholesale Inventories reading which was up 1.0%. The prior month's reading was revised to -0.1% from -0.4%. Also, the November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.198 million from a revised 5.451 million (from 5.534 million) in October.

Action in the Technology (XLK49.40, +0.01 +0.02%) space mirrored that of the broader market today as action hovered around flat lines. Component Yahoo! (YHOO 42.30, +0.96 +2.32%) was one of the better performing names today after announcing a reduction in Board members following the sale to Verizon (VZ 52.76, +0.08 +0.15%). Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Wednesday IYZ +0.76%, XLI +0.42%, XLY +0.36%, XLV +0.35%, XLF +0.26%, XLB +0.06%, XLU -0.31%, XLP -0.50%, XLE -0.95%, XLRE -1.25%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (828.59, -0.62 -0.07%) space, trading was back and forth today, ultimately ending in the red. Component Xerox (XRX 7.03, +0.06 +0.86%) was among the names in the red today after being upgraded premarket to Buy at Goldman. Other names in the space which closed QRVO +3.73%, SWKS +2.19%, AVGO +2.03%, ATVI +1.80%, HPE +1.73%, AMAT +1.07%, MCHP +0.67%, CSCO +0.66%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Yahoo! (YHOO) will reduce number of Board members following the sale to Verizon (VZ) - five directors including Marissa Mayer intend to resign. The company name will change to Altaba.

WNS (WNS 27.29, +0.38 +1.41%) to acquire Denali Sourcing Services for $40 million in cash. The company expects the deal to be accretive to fiscal 2017 earnings.

Cognex (CGNX 65.71, +1.74 +2.72%) announced they acquired Chiaro Technologies & Webscan. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rocket Fuel (FUEL 2.02, flat) is further organizing its operations to accelerate its ongoing transformation. The company will eliminate 11% of the employee base.

Axcelis Tech (ACLS 14.90, +0.20 +1.36%) announced shipments in 4Q16 of the Purion XE high energy implanter to multiple customers in the Asia Pacific Region. The company guided Q4 revenues on the high end of its guidance, and EPS above guidance.

Coupa Software (COUP 24.80, +0.89 +3.72%) acquired Spend360 International. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Analyst actions:

XRX, ETFC, VOD were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
BIDU was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
TWLO was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity,
CUDA was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at DA Davidson,
NTDOY was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie;
FDS was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
TMUS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at MoffettNathanson,
YNDX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at VTB Capital,
HIMX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum;
TRVG was initiated at Deutsche Bank, Goldman, Cowen, BofA/Merrill, Citigroup and others,
LPTH was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty,
EXPE was initiated with a Sell at Citigroup,
PCLN was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup,
TRIP was initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup,
PYPL was initiated with a Buy at Berenberg,
QTWO, WNS, ICFI, GDOT, SYNT were initiated with Buy ratings at Loop Capital,
PYPL, UIS, CACI, CTSH were initiated with Hold ratings at Loop Capital

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : The major averages closed Wednesday's session in the green with the S&P 500 adding 0.3%. The Dow outperformed the benchmark index with a 0.5% gain.

The stock market held a modest gain going into President-elect Trump's first news conference since winning the presidential election. However, the market gave back all of its gains and more after Mr. Trump expressed a desire to bring back pharmaceutical operations to the United States and voiced support for competitive drug price bidding. The biotechnology industry plunged immediately, with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 278.04, -8.31) closing lower by 3.0%. Most sectors returned to or above their pre-conference levels in the afternoon, but health care (-1.0%) could not overcome biotechnology's sizable blow. Investors hoping to hear about President-elect's infrastructure spending plans came away empty handed.

Telecom services (-0.5%) and real estate (-0.5%) also finished in negative territory, while the remaining eight spaces closed in the green. Energy (+1.2%) topped the day's leaderboard, piggybacking on crude oil's climb. The commodity finished higher by 2.7% at 52.20/bbl amid reports that Saudi Arabia, the world's top exporter, plans to cut supply to Asia. Crude extended its gain despite a big inventory build that was revealed by the latest stockpile data.

The top-weighted technology space (+0.7%) also finished near the top of the standings after an afternoon push from some of its top components. For instance, Apple (AAPL 119.75, +0.64), Facebook (FB 126.09, +1.74), and IBM (IBM 167.75, +2.23) advanced between 0.6% and 2.2%. Chipmakers also provided a boost as the PHLX semiconductor Index closed up 0.4%.

Financials (+0.5%) erased their week-to-date loss that was carried into Wednesday's session. The sector rallied to a session high during late afternoon action.

Cyclical sectors have a commanding lead for the week, as five of the six are in positive territory. Materials and technology set the pace with week-to-date gains of 0.9% and 0.7%, respectively. Conversely, all five defensive sectors are posting week-to-date losses with real estate (-2.4%) leading the retreat.

U.S. Treasuries finished the trading day modestly higher after the Treasury's $20 billion 10-year reopening auction drew a high yield of 2.342% on a bid-to-cover of 2.58x. The 10-yr yield closed one basis point lower at 2.37%.

Wednesday's lone economic report was the MBA Mortgage Index, which increased 5.8%.

Tomorrow's economic data will include December Import/Export Prices and Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 235k) at 8:30 am ET, followed by the Treasury Budget at 2:00 pm ET.

Russell 2000 +1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.4% YTD

DJ30 +98.75 NASDAQ +11.83 SP500 +6.42 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1679/1.77 bln/1377 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2029/1.06 bln/919

3:30 pm :

Crude oil ended a volatile session higher despite EIA data showing builds above Consensus for both gasoline and crude oil stocks; rig count data on tap for Friday
Feb 2017 crude oil futures rose $1.38 (+2.7%) to $52.20/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Contributing factors affecting the price of oil:
Saudi Arabia has told its Asian customers that it will reduce their crude supplies slightly in Feb.
Iraq plans to raise crude exports from its southern port of Basra to an all-time high of 3.641 mln bpd in February.
European and Chinese traders are shipping a record 22 mln barrels of crude from the North Sea & Azerbaijan to Asia this month.
Today's EIA inventory data showed crude production rose notably. Overall production was 8.95 mln bpd last week, the most since April of last year.
U.S. crude production was projected to rise by 110k barrels/day in 2017 to 9 mln bpd, according to EIA data released yesterday.
Natural gas traded lower ahead of tomorrow's EIA, after yesterday's notable +6% rally
Feb 2017 natural gas closed $0.07 lower (-2.1%) at $3.22/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold ended at a 7-week high on continued dollar index weakness
Feb gold ended today's session up $10.50 (+0.9%) to $1,196.90/oz
Mar silver closed today's session $0.01 lower (-0.1%) at $16.83/oz
The dollar index was -0.2% around the 101.82 level, provided support to precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.4% around the 87.21 level

After a soft close to Tuesday's action, the stock market began today's affair in the red. Opening losses would not hold, however, as the market gradually drifted higher into the afternoon. Back and forth action ultimately ended with the markets split at the bell as a sell-off after midday trimmed leads. The leader today was the Nasdaq Composite which added 20 points (+0.36%) to 5551.82. The S&P 500 was mostly flat at the close to 2268.90, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 31.85 points (-0.16%) to 19855.53. By comparison FANG stocks FB -0.44%, AMZN -0.13%, NFLX -0.81%, GOOG -0.23% ended lower as Tech big pressured with the broader market.

Today's economic data included the November Wholesale Inventories reading which was up 1.0%. The prior month's reading was revised to -0.1% from -0.4%. Also, the November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.198 million from a revised 5.451 million (from 5.534 million) in October.

Action in the Technology (XLK49.40, +0.01 +0.02%) space mirrored that of the broader market today as action hovered around flat lines. Component Yahoo! (YHOO 42.30, +0.96 +2.32%) was one of the better performing names today after announcing a reduction in Board members following the sale to Verizon (VZ 52.76, +0.08 +0.15%). Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Wednesday IYZ +0.76%, XLI +0.42%, XLY +0.36%, XLV +0.35%, XLF +0.26%, XLB +0.06%, XLU -0.31%, XLP -0.50%, XLE -0.95%, XLRE -1.25%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (828.59, -0.62 -0.07%) space, trading was back and forth today, ultimately ending in the red. Component Xerox (XRX 7.03, +0.06 +0.86%) was among the names in the red today after being upgraded premarket to Buy at Goldman. Other names in the space which closed QRVO +3.73%, SWKS +2.19%, AVGO +2.03%, ATVI +1.80%, HPE +1.73%, AMAT +1.07%, MCHP +0.67%, CSCO +0.66%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Yahoo! (YHOO) will reduce number of Board members following the sale to Verizon (VZ) - five directors including Marissa Mayer intend to resign. The company name will change to Altaba.

WNS (WNS 27.29, +0.38 +1.41%) to acquire Denali Sourcing Services for $40 million in cash. The company expects the deal to be accretive to fiscal 2017 earnings.

Cognex (CGNX 65.71, +1.74 +2.72%) announced they acquired Chiaro Technologies & Webscan. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rocket Fuel (FUEL 2.02, flat) is further organizing its operations to accelerate its ongoing transformation. The company will eliminate 11% of the employee base.

Axcelis Tech (ACLS 14.90, +0.20 +1.36%) announced shipments in 4Q16 of the Purion XE high energy implanter to multiple customers in the Asia Pacific Region. The company guided Q4 revenues on the high end of its guidance, and EPS above guidance.

Coupa Software (COUP 24.80, +0.89 +3.72%) acquired Spend360 International. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Analyst actions:

XRX, ETFC, VOD were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
BIDU was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
TWLO was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity,
CUDA was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at DA Davidson,
NTDOY was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie;
FDS was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
TMUS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at MoffettNathanson,
YNDX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at VTB Capital,
HIMX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum;
TRVG was initiated at Deutsche Bank, Goldman, Cowen, BofA/Merrill, Citigroup and others,
LPTH was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty,
EXPE was initiated with a Sell at Citigroup,
PCLN was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup,
TRIP was initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup,
PYPL was initiated with a Buy at Berenberg,
QTWO, WNS, ICFI, GDOT, SYNT were initiated with Buy ratings at Loop Capital,
PYPL, UIS, CACI, CTSH were initiated with Hold ratings at Loop Capital

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 13-Jan-17The S&P 500 took a breather during the past week, logging a modest downtick of 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 1.0% thanks to relative strength in the technology sector.

The benchmark index spent the week inside a 25-point range as participants awaited the start of the fourth-quarter earnings season. On Friday, Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Wells Fargo (WFC) got things going with a set of mixed results. Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase topped bottom-line expectations while Wells Fargo reported below-consensus results. The three names surged at the start of Friday's session, but saw intraday profit taking. It is worth remembering that the financial sector enjoyed a huge post-election run, soaring more than 15.0% in just one month. During the past week, the sector shed 0.1%.

Meanwhile, the top-weighted technology sector advanced 0.8% with chipmakers leading the way. The PHLX Semiconductor Index climbed 1.8% ahead of next week's release of quarterly results from index components like ASML (ASML), Linear Technology (LLTC), and Skyworks (SWKS).

Investors received a small batch of economic reports last week with the most noteworthy pair crossing the wires on Friday. December PPI (+0.3%; Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and core PPI (+0.2%; Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) were close to expectations while December Retail Sales (+0.6%; Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) and Retail Sales ex-auto (+0.2%; Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) disappointed. Recall that two weeks ago, several apparel retailers made cautious comments about their expectations for fourth-quarter earnings. The consumer discretionary sector added 0.8% for the week, extending its January gain to 3.2%.

Rate hike expectations barely budged during the past week. The implied probability of a hike in June ticked up to 69.7% from last Friday's 69.0%, according to the fed funds futures market.

Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 19963.80 19885.73 -78.07 -0.4 0.6
Nasdaq 5521.06 5574.12 53.06 1.0 3.5
S&P 500 2276.98 2274.64 -2.34 -0.1 1.6
Russell 2000 1367.15 1372.04 4.89 0.4 1.1

4:26 pm Closing Market Summary: Stock Market Closes Friday Modestly Higher (:WRAPX) : The major averages finished Friday's session mixed. The S&P 500 (+0.2%) and the Nasdaq (+0.5%) closed in the green, while the Dow (unch) finished in the red.

Investors had high hopes for today's earnings reports, looking for banks to validate the financial sector's 20.5% Q4 advance. What they received wasn't great, yet it wasn't all that bad either as Bank of America (BAC 23.01, +0.09), JPMorgan Chase (JPM 86.70, +0.46), and Wells Fargo (WFC 55.31, +0.81) came up short on revenue. Wells Fargo also missed bottom-line expectations while Bank of America and JPMorgan beat their respective earnings estimates.

Investors chose to run with the good news, pushing the financial sector, and the market, upward out of the gate. However, profit taking in the financial sector pressured the influential group off its high, leading to a sideways drift in the broader market as the session wore on. Bank of America (+0.4%), JPMorgan Chase (+0.5%), and Wells Fargo (+1.5%) finished off their session highs, but still outpaced the broader market. Similarly, the financial sector (+0.6%) ended atop the leaderboard, but only kept a portion of its opening gain.

Most cyclical sectors outperformed with consumer discretionary (+0.3%), industrials (+0.3%), and technology (+0.3%) closing in positive territory. The top-weighted technology sector had a mixed showing from its top components as Apple (AAPL 119.04, -0.21) lost 0.2% while Facebook (FB 128.34, +1.72) climbed 1.4%. On the other hand, chipmakers finished overwhelmingly in the green, with Qualcomm (QCOM 66.88, +0.76) pacing the advance. The PHLX Semiconductor Index closed higher by 0.7%.

On the countercyclical side, health care (+0.1%) outpaced its defensive peers. The space leaned on biotechnology to counter losses from large cap components like UnitedHealth (UNH 161.80, -0.56) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY 56.22, -0.33) which lost 0.3% and 0.6%, respectively. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 280.01, +1.08) countered with a 0.4% gain. The remaining four countercyclical sectors finished just below their flat lines in negative territory.

For the week, the cyclical, non-cyclical trend continued as four of the six growth-sensitive sectors posted week-to-date gains. Comparatively, all five countercyclical sectors finished the week lower. The ends of the leaderboard were represented by consumer discretionary (+0.8%) at the top, riding a 0.7% week-to-date gain in the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 44.01, +0.04), and real estate (-2.3%) at the bottom.

U.S. Treasuries were under moderate selling pressure early, sustaining losses immediately following the opening bell. The Treasury market recouped some of the loss, but still closed in negative territory with the 10-yr yield higher by two basis points at 2.39%.

Today's economic data included PPI, Retail Sales, Business Inventories, and the Michigan Sentiment Index:

December producer prices increased 0.3%, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. Core producer prices increased 0.2% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.1%.

The key takeaway from the report is that higher energy prices are driving up producer prices and continue to support the notion that inflation rates are apt to pick up in 2017.

December retail sales increased 0.6%, which compares to the Briefing.com consensus of 0.7%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.2% from 0.1%. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.2% while the consensus expected an uptick of 0.6%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.3% from 0.2%.

The key takeaway from the report is that consumers were somewhat guarded with their discretionary spending on goods in December despite some decent wage growth and reports of increased confidence.

Business Inventories rose 0.7% in November while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 0.6%. The prior month's reading was revised to -0.1% from -0.2%. The key takeaway from the report is that business inventories continue to remain at an elevated level relative to sales, which will continue to weigh on pricing power. The preliminary reading of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for January declined to 98.1 (Briefing.com consensus 98.5) from 98.2 in December. The key takeaway from the report is that there is a real divide between positive and negative concerns among consumers pertaining to the Trump Administration. However, when the outlook from consumers who didn't share any views on government is considered, the Expectations Index was a strong 90.9. The latter, according to the report, supports a real consumption growth rate of 2.7% in 2017. The stock market will be closed on Monday, January 16 in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The next economic report will be January Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 8.3), which will be released on Tuesday morning at 8:30 am ET.

Russell 2000 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.6% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.6% YTD

Week in Review: Nasdaq Climbs While S&P 500 Holds Ground

The S&P 500 took a breather during the past week,logging a modest downtick of 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 1.0% thanksto relative strength in the technology sector.

The benchmark index spent the week inside a 25-point rangeas participants awaited the start of the fourth-quarter earnings season. OnFriday, Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Wells Fargo (WFC) got things going with a set of mixed results. Bank ofAmerica and JPMorgan Chase topped bottom-line expectations while Wells Fargoreported below-consensus results. The three names surged at the start of Friday'ssession, but saw intraday profit taking. It is worth remembering that the financialsector enjoyed a huge post-election run, soaring more than 15.0% in just onemonth. During the past week, the sector shed 0.1%.

Meanwhile, the top-weighted technology sector advanced 0.8%with chipmakers leading the way. The PHLX Semiconductor Index climbed 1.8%ahead of next week's release of quarterly results from index components like ASML (ASML), Linear Technology (LLTC), and Skyworks (SWKS).

Investors received a small batch of economic reports lastweek with the most noteworthy pair crossing the wires on Friday. December PPI(+0.3%; Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and core PPI (+0.2%; Briefing.comconsensus +0.1%) were close to expectations while December Retail Sales (+0.6%;Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) and Retail Sales ex-auto (+0.2%; Briefing.comconsensus +0.6%) disappointed. Recall that two weeks ago, several apparelretailers made cautious comments about their expectations for fourth-quarterearnings. The consumer discretionary sector added 0.8% for the week, extendingits January gain to 3.2%.

Rate hike expectations barely budged during the past week.The implied probability of a hike in June ticked up to 69.7% from last Friday's69.0%, according to the fed funds futures market.

Exactly a week from the United States ushering in a new presidential administration, the broader market ended split. Action in the Dow Jones Industrial Average barely dipped into the red at the close, losing about 5.27 points (-0.03%) to 19885.73. The Nasdaq Composite was the best performer today, adding 26.63 points (+0.48%) when the bell rang to 5574.12, and the S&P 500 gained 4.20 points (+0.18%) to 2274.64. This week's moves take the broader market to +0.6%, +3.5% and +1.6% YTD, respectively.

Market data today included the December producer prices reading which increased 0.3% and core producer prices increased 0.2%. Also, December retail sales increased 0.6% and the prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.2% from 0.1%. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.2% while the consensus expected an uptick of 0.6%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.3% from 0.2%. Further, business inventories rose 0.7% in November and the prior month's reading was revised to -0.1% from -0.2%. Lastly, the preliminary reading of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for January declined to 98.1 from 98.2 in December.

In the Technology (XLK 49.66, +0.15 +0.30%) space, trading capped off the week in the green, heading higher at the open and holding those gains. Component Facebook (FB 128.34, +1.72 +1.36%) was higher today after an upgrade of the stock premarket at Raymond James to a 'Strong Buy' rating. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed IYZ +0.88%, XLF +0.56%, XLI +0.38%, XLY +0.37%, XLV +0.10%, XLP +0.06%, XLU -0.14%, XLB -0.16%, XLRE -0.23%, XLE -0.29%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (834.02, +2.27 +0.27%) sector, action held onto morning gains, ending slightly off highs. Components QRVO +3.04%, FSLR +2.52%, LRCX +2.19%, SWKS +2.06%, SYMC +1.71%, KLAC +1.67%, XRX +1.59%, AMAT +1.44%, TSS +1.39%, GLW +1.26%, QCOM +1.15% helped the sector maintain a strong close to the week.

Other notable news items among sector components:

GameStop (GME 22.74, -1.98 -8.01%) reaffirmed its Q4 EPS guidance citing lower tax rate. The company also lowered Q4 comp guidance after holiday comps fell 18.7%. Total global sales for the holiday period were $2.50 billion, a 16.4% decline compared to the 2015 holiday sales period. Total comparable store sales decreased 18.7%. GME reiterated its previously announced Q4 and full-year 2016 EPS guidance of $2.23 to $2.38 and $3.65 to $3.80, respectively, excluding any year-end impairments and store closing charges, based on a favorable fourth quarter tax rate of between 32.5% and 34.5% compared to the initially forecasted rate of 36.0%.

Pandora Media (P 12.75, +0.75 +6.29%) gave expectations to exceed Q4 guidance, citing subscription momentum and RPM growth. The company will also undertake operational efficiency measures. Specifically, P expects to exceed previously announced Q4 revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance given strong advertising performance and has surpassed 4.3 million in paid subscription customers. The prior guidance called for revenue of $362-374 million on an adjusted EBITDA loss of $51-39 million. P also plans to reduce its U.S. employee base (excluding Ticketfly) by about 7% by the end of Q1 2017.

GameStop (GME) is now taking pre-orders on Nintendo (NTDOY 25.85, -1.75 -6.34%) Switch, Nintendo's new gaming system launching March 3.

Immersion (IMMR 10.70, +0.46 +4.49%) signed a multi-year agreement with Nintendo (NTDOY) to allow Immersion to adapt its TouchSense technology to the new Nintendo Switch system.

MAXIMUS (MMS 58.51, +0.89 +1.54%) received a spot in Wales on the Umbrella Agreement for the provision of Employment and Health Related Services.

Rubicon Project (RUBI 8.55, +0.91 +11.98%) may consider a sale, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft (MSFT 62.70, +0.09 +0.14%) acquired deep-learning startup Maluuba. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Hortonworks (HDP 9.31, +0.11 +1.20%) appointed Raj Verma as President and Chief Operating Officer.

CenturyLink (CTL 25.26, +0.08 +0.32%) refiled pre-merger notification under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 in connection with its previously-announced acquisition of Level 3 (LVLT 58.40, +0.18 +0.31%).

Zillow's (ZG 38.00, +0.71 +1.90%) StreetEasy acquired Hamptons Real Estate Online. No financial terms were disclosed.

Analyst actions:

FB was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
NFLX was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Deutsche Bank,
CMCSA was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank,
GRUB was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
FTV was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
MX was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham;
NOK was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
NICE was downgraded to In-Line from Outperform at Imperial Capital,
Z was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
ACLS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel;
FEYE was initiated with a Buy at Standpoint Research,
FEYE was initiated with an Outperform at Northland,
CIEN was initiated with a Buy at UBS, CCOI and
ZAYO were initiated with Buy ratings at Stifel,
MBLY was initiated with a Buy at Jefferies,
SSNI was initiated with a Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities,
TRMB was initiated with a Neutral at Rosenblatt

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InvestmentHouse - Market Waiting on the Inauguration? (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Despite a flurry of financial earnings, status quo remains as NASDAQ leads
the market.
- Status quo perhaps, but signs the buyers are still there even after the
lateral tedium.
- December Retail sales rally 0.6% headline, but without autos and the
gasoline that goes in them, sales were flat.
- Fake news weary: so many headlines, so many conflicting stories, a sort of
'had enough' numbing in the markets. That may not be such a bad thing.
- Retail sales disappoint huge.
- Many early rally leaders are holding up but not yet moving while
Semiconductors show some renewal and more stocks from many areas improve
their patterns. Hope for a continued rally after all.
- Market waiting on the inauguration?

Friday the status quo continued: NASDAQ moved to a new high, DJ30 missed
out, while SP500, SP400, RUTX, and SOX traded in their ranges just below
their highs.

SP500 4.2, 0.18%
NASDAQ 26.63, 0.48%
DJ30 -5.27, -0.03%
SP400 0.54%
RUTX 0.81%
SOX 0.71%

VOLUME: NYSE -6%, NASDAQ -11%. Volume was 3-day holiday light as the
indices mostly posted gains. Not much of an indication other than the
continued bullish bias in the absence of any other catalyst.

A/D: NYSE +1.7:1; NASDAQ 2.3:1.

It is getting tedious, the lateral range bound move just below the prior
highs. Outside, of course, NASDAQ. We are playing some of those FAANG and
other NASDAQ stocks higher, but for most of the market the pullback remains.

Friday showed some signs of life, and Thursday as well. First, you had a
selloff on Thursday that took the small and midcaps lower, SP500 as well.
The small and midcaps tapped the bottom of their 5-6 week ranges. Then the
bids returned and bounced stocks right back up to the upper part of the
range. After 5+ weeks of plodding laterally in lethargy, buyers still
showed up to buy when the market sold to the bottom of the range. That
shows the buyers are still ahead at this time, even after the sleepwalk.

Second, there were some interesting moves from leaders and wannabes.
Transports started to rise off their tests. Some semiconductor leaders
started to struggle on the week, but late week several improved their
outlook. Other areas, several areas, not necessarily in the leadership that
led the post-election move, have put together some pretty interesting
patterns. China stocks started to move nicely along with some biotech.
Gold stocks and other downtrodden and forgotten stocks are trying to turn
the corner. Money many be slowly accumulating during the 5 week range given
the look of some of these patterns. That is good given other areas such as
oil had looked so good but started to have issues the back half of the week.

Thus I am looking at the new week with just a bit of optimism for the
upside. It is still a Missouri 'show me' market, meaning the stocks have to
show the breakouts and make them stick. The plays for the weekend are a
rather eclectic mix, leaning toward the semiconductors but also representing
telecom, China, metals, software. If they make the breaks, that shows the
market rally has some broader support versus the very narrow move of NASDAQ
the past two weeks while everything else was stymied in a lateral range.

Friday we picked up some CAVM in chips and some more NFLX as it broke
higher. Closed PDS as it broke lower. The oil-related stocks are on the
bubble in several cases as we enter the new week. If other areas we noted
perform, it will be instructive if oil and other early move leaders hold
their gains or are sold. Rotation is good for a rally, but the better type
of rotation is that where sectors pause while others move higher, then
return to rallying when the money rotates again. Many sectors have held
their ground the past 5 weeks, so that is encouraging. Now we see if they
rally with the new promising areas -- IF the rally does indeed resume.


MARKET

The range to nowhere continues but some of the indices show signs of buying
still, and good individual stock setups supports the idea buyers still want
to push higher. At the same time, DJ30 is still churning on high volume.
NASDAQ's move is almost frighteningly narrow though it got a bit broader
Friday. Getting to the point where you would expect to see the range make a
move, but look back at September to early November: range-bound for 8 weeks
and that was after 7 weeks just ahead of it. The only thing to do in this
situation is keep alert, keep positions neat and trim, keep a watch on
leaders and potentially up and coming sectors, and be ready to act of they
break higher out of a range as in early November.

CHARTS

NASDAQ: Another all-time high as NASDAQ is the most recent darling as the
FAANG and a few other big name tech stocks rally. FB, AMZN, NFLX rallied
while AAPL, GOOG took a personal day. That was enough to post half percent
gains for the tech index.

RUTX: Biggest gainer on the Friday session but that leaves RUTX still
solidly entrenched in its 5 week lateral range along the 20 day EMA. Sold
to the bottom of the range on the week, tested deep Thursday and undercut
it, but recovered. It is holding and started to rebound. Now will it
continue and then make a break?

SP400: Very similar to RUTX and SP500, the midcaps are in a sixth week of
consolidation in a 40 point range from 1660 to 1700, bumping at a new high.
Currently in the upper half of the range. MACD is lower. What does it
mean? For now the upside momentum has waned but there are no real sellers.
Indeed as with RUTX, it was sold Thursday and fell to the bottom of the
range just to be bought. That shows you there are still buyers ready to move
in even after 6 weeks of lethargy.

SP500: Tested lower Thursday, rebounded back to the top half of the 5 week
range. Friday a modest bounce tapped the top of the range, faded slightly.
So, the large caps are at the top of the range on lower MACD. Yes, momentum
has slowed but the buyers are still ready, at this point, to pick up stocks
on a dip. The next logical question are they gaining strength such that
they can push a breakout?

DJ30: Very similar action, now 5 weeks into a rather tight lateral range
with a bottom at 19,750 and a top at . . . just below 20K. MACD still
dropping suggesting waning momentum -- but that can be deceiving in these
lateral moves. If there is a second high that is on lower MACD, that is a
more negative indication. If it elongates like we are seeing, not so much.
There is that high volume taking it to nowhere, and that is churn, an
indication of unloading stocks. That makes this a bit inconsistent with the
other indices as it is more an indication the move is running out of gas,
being undermined as sellers sell as fast as buyers are buying, unloading a
lot of stock.

SOX: Bounced off the 20 day EMA last week, but failed to really make a
serious move. SOX posted a higher high three weeks back but MACD did not;
that is a more accurate sign of waning momentum than as on DJ30 as noted
above. It looked as if chips were in trouble, but many key names held on
just find, others recovered, and still others made upside moves. SOX is an
important indicator, and if that downside move was just a head fakes -- as
many of the moves suggest -- that is a positive for the overall market.


LEADERSHIP

Semiconductors: Some good moves on the week, some good recoveries. QRVO
came out of the bottom of its range to surge, MXL came to life, and LRCX
broke to a higher high Friday. AMAT continues as a leader. MU is hanging
in, SMTC, SLAB look quite solid. Not all is candy and nuts; AMD is still
fading, XLNX is challenged to hang on.

FAANG: FB again rallied and NFLX made a new break higher. AMZN put in a
Friday gain on top of a strong week. GOOG, AAPL rested.

Big tech: Holding on in most cases, e.g. MSFT in its narrow range, while
others such as JNPR struggled.

China: Still looks solid. YNDX in a nice 10 day EMA test of its prior
move. NTES in a great little pullback. BABA is very similar as is BIDU.

Transports: Could be starting the rebound. CSX continues as it has already
made its move, but others could be starting. Trucking is moving, e.g. SAIA,
ODFL breaking higher Friday. Airlines, not so much yet.

Financial: Lots of earnings hit and at least they avoided selling off. Sure
the bald headed guy on CNBC was touting the results, but BAC, BLK, WFC
missed on their metrics. Again, however, they did not fall so we will see if
they can resume the higher out of their flat lateral ranges.


MARKET STATS

NASDAQ
Stats: +26.63 points (+0.48%) to close at 5574.12
Volume: 1.805B (-11.42%)

Up Volume: 999.11M (+324.45M)
Down Volume: 588.04M (-481.96M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.34 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.93 to 1

New Highs: 153 (+65)
New Lows: 19 (-6)

S&P
Stats: +4.2 points (+0.18%) to close at 2274.64
NYSE Volume: 754.3M (-5.56%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.67 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.5 to 1

New Highs: 128 (+44)
New Lows: 10 (-7)

DJ30
Stats: -5.27 points (-0.03%) to close at 19885.73


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 11.23; -0.31
VXN: 13.34; -0.52
VXO: 10.62; -0.42

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.92; -0.15

After a day back over 1.0 on the Thursday intraday selling the ratio fell,
but still is high overall, indicating still plenty of put protection buying
as the market moves laterally. At this juncture, that is starting to look
as a positive as the funds are still worried about selling enough to
continue buying protection.


Bulls and Bears: Well, back down and quite a drop in bulls, moving below 60
and below the prior week's 59.8 reading. Typically, however, the damage has
been done once 60 is broached.

Bulls: 58.6 versus 60.2 versus 59.8

Bears: 18.4 versus 18.4 versus 19.6

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 58.6 versus 60.2
60.2 versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6
versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9 versus 46.1
versus 46.7 versus 45.2 versus 44.6 versus 49.0 versus 52.5 versus 55.9
versus 56.7 versus 56.2 versus 54.3 versus 52.9% versus 53.9% versus 54.4%
versus 52.5% versus 47.1% versus 41.6% versus 47.5% versus 45.9% versus
47.3% versus 45.4% versus 35.4% versus 40.2 versus 39.2

Bears: 18.3 versus 18.4
18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6 versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6
versus 23.5 versus 25.7 versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1
versus 22.8 versus 23.1 versus 24.3 versus 22.6 versus 22.8 versus 20.6
Versus 20.2 versus 20.0 versus 20.9% versus 21.2% versus 21.6% versus 23.3%
versus 24.7% versus 24.5% versus 23.8% versus 23.2% versus 23.5% versus
23.8% versus 23.7% versus 24.0% versus 21.7% versus 21.6% versus 21.7 versus
20.6% versus 21.7% versus 27.8% versus 27.8% versus 28.9% versus 27.8%
versus 30.3% versus 35.4%


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.393% versus 2.358%

Historical: 2.358% versus 2.365% versus 2.38% versus 2.962% versus 2.42%
versus 2.357% versus 2.45% versus 2.448% versus 2.42% versus 2.48% versus
2.51% versus 2.56% versus 2.54% versus 2.55% versus 2.54% versus 2.564%
versus 2.544% versus 2.59% versus 2.59% versus 2.52% versus 2.473% versus
2.475% versus 2.471% versus 2.40% versus 2.349% versus 2.39% versus 2.396%
versus 2.394% versus 2.454% versus 2.388% versus 2.30% versus 2.31%. versus
2.36% versus 2.355% versus 2.317% versus 2.30% versus 2.34% versus 2.297%
versus 2.219% versus 2.22% versus 2.23% versus 2.14% versus 2.077% versus
1.867% versus 1.83% versus 1.778%


Dollar: Landed on the 50 day MA's last week as other countries intervened
to support their currencies. They cannot keep that up forever, the US looks
stronger and with the Trump growth policies planned it will likely be
stronger. Thus the dollar is well-positioned to bounce.

EUR/USD: 1.06450 versus 1.0624

Historical: 1.0624 versus 1.05982 versus 1.0555 versus 1.0585 versus 1.05346
versus 105837 versus 1.0525 versus 1.03914 versus 1.05289 versus 1.05155
versus 1.04357 versus 1.04636 versus 1.0451 versus 1.04368 versus 1.04412
versus 1.0392 versus 1.0407 versus 1.0459 versus 1.0415 versus 1.05094
versus 1.0636 versus 1.06326 versus 1.05586 versus 1.06140 versus 1.07745
versus 1.07194 versus 1.07614 versus 1.06638 versus 1.06631 versus 1.0601
versus 1.0649 versus 1.05699 versus 1.066 versus 1.05910


USD/JPY: 114.473 versus 114.57

Historical: 114.57 versus 114.70 versus 115.811 versus 116.023 versus
116.923 versus 115.93 versus 116.46 versus 117.983 versus 116.739 versus
116.456 versus 116.793 versus 117.41 versus 117.413 versus 117.32 versus
117.537 versus 117.544 versus 117.835 versus 117.453 versus 117.941 versus
118.257 versus 117.397 versus 115.038 versus 115.058 versus 115.20 versus
114.23 versus 113.325 versus 113.993 versus 113.601 versus 113.52 versus
113.945 versus 114.19 versus 112.685 versus 112.44 versus 111.835 versus
113.14 versus 112.445 versus 111.129 versus 110.809


Oil: 52.37, -0.64. Oil dropped like a rock Monday and Tuesday, held the 50
day EMA and rebounded. Friday was a bit weak but oil held just over the
breakout point that is, after so many back and forth moves, somewhat porous.

Gold: 1196.20, -3.60. Showed a Friday doji after clearing the 50 day MA's
midweek. Not bad action but gold has not proved it can sustain the 3 week
rally and hold a break over the 50 day MA's. Those stopped it in September
and again in early November when it tried to recover.


TUESDAY

NASDAQ leads but the move is extremely narrow, the other indices locked in
5+ week ranges, unable to push higher. The tedium is here for certain as
the market watches the upcoming inauguration as well as all of the issues
swirling that have little to do with what is actually going to happen once
the new administration begins.

We hear China blustering about the US had better prepare for military action
if the US won't adhere to the 'one China' fiction. The factually bereft
rumor mill about the Russian connection, trade protectionism, and on and on.

All speculation and it is as if the market has said 'enough, I am going to
wait until the inauguration.' Often it is not the results of the event but
the start that is enough for the market. Ahead of the Iraq war the market
was at a standstill, but when the 'shock and awe' bombs started to fly, so
did the market. Sometimes it is not upside, but the point is if the market
idles during a swirl of stories and confusion, it will likely make its move
when the event finally begins. Oh yes, and don't forget earnings just
getting started.

As for the China comments, you can tell China has done its homework on The
Donald, throwing out its extreme negotiating point in the first salvo just
as outlined in Trump's 'The Art of the Deal.' Anyone who thinks China is
serious or is hand-wringing over what Trump says, you should go read that
book as well. You don't have to buy it if you don't want Trump to get any
royalties; just borrow it. Indeed, I think the country would have been much
more at ease in the election process if everyone actually knew something
about the candidates other than what the news reports. Most everyone in the
primaries and certainly the final two candidates have books out and you can
tell a lot about a person by not only what they write in a book but what
they include and don't include. But alas, the majority of the citizenry
gets its 'information' from headline snippets and 30 second stories that
barely get the headline out before they get the cue to move onto the next
non-story. But, I digress.

So, it makes sense with all of the speculation and supposition versus facts
in the news that the market is idling laterally. We have tightened up our
positions in anticipation of the triggering moment, at the same time still
picking up positions that look good, and having a lot of good looking plays
from many sectors at the ready for when the move occurs.

Now we see which way the market will break. Earnings might provide a
catalyst, but Friday they certainly were not for the financials. Beat or
miss they were status quo. While earnings will no doubt move individual
stocks, it may indeed be the inauguration that moves stocks as a whole,
getting the certainty of at least getting to the point some of the plans can
actually be executed.

What about the current economic data? Well, as usual, the feds love to
paint the data with glowing commentary, but also as usual, the facts don't
support it. Friday the December retail sales were issues, and the headline
at 0.6% looked good enough compared to the 0.2% in November.

Of course the details were bedeviling. If you take out autos and gasoline
sales as is always done by most serious economists, you get a 0.0% gain when
a 0.4% gain was expected! Outside of auto sales that were at a record pace
and now are expected to drop off, and gasoline prices that made up the bulk
of the December increase, you had NO increase in spending in December.
Recall there was supposed to be a late surge of buying after a weak
November. Did not happen. Much room for the new Administration to improve
despite the feverish legacy building ongoing right now.

So, with the sellers rarely showing any strength and the buyers returning on
each test of the range lows, we are still looking upside in terms of new
plays, but it is also still a 'show me' move upside as discussed before.
With the inauguration on Friday, it could still be another week of range
trading, but we are already seeing some stocks get out in front of a move.
As on Friday, we will get out there with them if they can hold the gains.

Have a great weekend and Martin Luther King Day!



SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 5574.12

Resistance:

Support:
The 2016 trendline at 5458
The November prior all-time high at 5404
The 50 day EMA at 5404
The 50 day SMA at 5373
5340 is the September and October 2016 twin peaks
5287.61 is the September 2016 high
5271.36 is the August 2016 intraday prior all-time high
5231.94 is the 2015 all-time high
5170 is the October intraday low.
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak
The 200 day SMA at 5126
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5042 is the March 2015 high
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower
4999 is the October upper gap point
4980 is the June 2016 peak
4969 is the April 2016 recovery high
4960 is the September 2015 intraday high, an important reversal point for
NASDAQ.
4920 is the lower gap point from mid-October 2015, the January 2016 lower
gap point
4916 is the mid-November 2015 low
4899 - 4902 from the September 2015 peak, July 2015 low
4894 is the September 2015 closing high


S&P 500: Closed at 2274.64

Resistance:
2277.53 is the December 2016 high

Support:
The 2016 trendline at 2255
The 50 day EMA at 2230
The 50 day SMA at 2219
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high
The 200 day SMA at 2146
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2126 was the April 2015 prior all-time high
2120 is the June 2016 peak
2119 is the September 2016 low; February 2015 intraday high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2111 is the April 2016 recovery high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2094 is the December 2014 high
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2046 is the July 2015 closing low
2040 is the March 2015 closing low
2026 is the May 2016 low
2023 is the November 2015 low
2020 is the September 2015 intraday high
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1995 is the September 2015 recovery peak
1991 is the July 2014 high


Dow: Closed at 19,885.73

Resistance:
19,987.53 is the December 2016 high

Support:
The 20 day EMA 19,816
19750 is the lows of the December/January range
The 50 day EMA at 19,437
The 50 day SMA at 19,355
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
The 200 day SMA at 18,402
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015
18,288 from March 2015
18,262 is the upper gap point from the Monday gap lower.
18,247 is the August 2016 low
18,168 is the April 2016 recovery high
18,100 to 18,181: interim peaks in the December 2014 to July 2015 range
18,016 is the June 2016 peak
17,992 is the early September low
17,978 is the November 2015 peak
17,960 is the October intraday low
17,600 is the rough bottom of the April to June range.
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

January 13 - Friday
PPI, December (8:30): 0.3% actual versus 0.3% expected, 0.4% prior (no
revisions)
Core PPI, December (8:30): 0.2% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.4% prior (no
revisions)
Retail Sales, December (8:30): 0.6% actual versus 0.7% expected, 0.2% prior
(revised from 0.1%)
Retail Sales ex-auto, December (8:30): 0.2% actual versus 0.6% expected,
0.3% prior (revised from 0.2%)
Business Inventories, November (10:00): 0.7% actual versus 0.6%
expected, -0.1% prior (revised from -0.2%)
Michigan Sentiment - Pre, January (10:00): 98.1 actual versus 98.5 expected,
98.2 prior (no revisions)

January 17 - Tuesday
Empire Manufacturing, January (8:30): 8.3 expected, 9.0 prior

January 18 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Applications, 01/14 (7:00)
MBA Mortgage Index, 01/14 (7:00): 5.8% prior
CPI, December (8:30): 0.3% expected, 0.2% prior
Core CPI, December (8:30): 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
Industrial Production, December (9:15): 0.6% expected, -0.4% prior
Capacity Utilization, December (9:15): 75.4% expected, 75.0% prior
NAHB Housing Market , January (10:00): 70 prior
Net Long-Term TIC Flows, January (16:00): $9.4B prior

January 19 - Thursday
Initial Claims, 01/14 (8:30): 252K expected, 247K prior
Continuing Claims, 01/07 (8:30): 2087K prior
Housing Starts, December (8:30): 1193K expected, 1090K prior
Building Permits, December (8:30): 1217K expected, 1201K prior
Philadelphia Fed, January (8:30): 15.3 expected, 21.5 prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 01/14 (10:30): -151 bcf prior
Crude Inventories, 01/13 (11:00): +4.100M prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:06 pm Adobe Systems authorizes new $2.5 bln stock repurchase program through the end of fiscal year 2019 (ADBE) : The new stock repurchase program, approved by Adobe's Board of Directors, is substantially similar to the company's previous program authorizing the repurchase of up to $2.0 billion in common stock through fiscal year 2017, which authority will soon be exhausted.

4:25 pm : The major averages opened the shortened week on a losing note, succumbing to profit-taking activity in the face of some political angst. The S&P 500 finished Tuesday's session 0.3% lower, while the Nasdaq (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-1.4%) underperformed, weighed down principally by losses in the financial, semiconductor, transportation, and biotech groups.

Over the weekend, President-elect Trump may have instilled a sense of doubt about his administration's ability to smoothly implement the pro-growth policies that the stock market has rallied around. Mr. Trump's comments raised some concerns that he and the GOP could be on different pages regarding tax policy and the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.

The President-elect also restated his claim that drug companies will have to negotiate with the government on prices for drugs in Medicare and Medicaid. That view prompted a pullback in drug stocks, like Merck (MRK 61.48, -0.86, -1.4%) and Pfizer (PFE 32.06, -0.46, -1.4%), as well as many biotech issues, which could be seen in the underperformance of the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 274.52, -5.49). The S&P 500 health care sector closed the day 0.5% lower.

On the other hand, the retail space received a nice bump after Mr. Trump voiced his thoughts on a potential border tax, stating that the current GOP plan is too complicated. Retailers, many of which source their goods overseas, pushed the SPDR 500 Retail ETF (XRT 44.36, +0.35) 0.8% higher on the hope that a punitive border tax on imported goods won't come to fruition as feared. Naturally, the consumer discretionary sector also benefited, posting a 0.2% gain for the day.

Energy was the only other cyclical sector to finish Tuesday's session in the green, adding 0.6% on the back of an uptick in crude oil. The commodity ended its trading day far below its session high at $52.46/bbl, an increase of 0.2%. The gain came amid a weakening U.S. dollar, which fell 1.2%.

In addition to strength in the eruo and the Japanese yen, the British Pound had a hand in pushing the greenback lower, rallying 3.0% after a Brexit speech from UK Prime Minister Theresa May and a Consumer Price Index report showing the highest year-over-year pace for inflation (+1.6%) for the UK since July 2014. Ms. May confirmed that Britain will leave the single market, but that it is aiming for a flexible and phased Brexit transition, which will be put to a parliamentary vote. For good measure, President-elect Trump also expressed his belief that the dollar is "too strong."

On the earnings front, Morgan Stanley (MS 42.15, -1.66) reported better-than-expected top and bottom line results today, but traded down with the entire financial sector (-2.3%) as the stock saw some profit-taking activity. The negative response to Morgan Stanley's otherwise good news triggered some broader profit-taking efforts in the space. That selling picked up in the afternoon trade and drove the indices to new session lows before some late buying interest helped pare today's losses.

Financials will also headline tomorrow's earnings reports. Both Goldman Sachs (GS 235.74, -8.56) and Citigroup (C 58.38, -1.25) are scheduled to report before the opening bell. Investors will be looking for numbers that validate the sector's huge post-election run, but certainly after today's action, they will be watching more intently to see if Goldman Sachs and Citigroup report better-than-expected results and still trade lower.

In addition to energy and consumer discretionary, only four other sectors finished in positive territory -- utilities (+1.1%), real estate (+0.8%), telecom services (+0.4%), and consumer staples (+1.4%). Those four sectors combined have a roughly 18% weight in the S&P 500, so their gains were not enough to offset selling elsewhere.

The outperformance of the consumer staples sector was forged on the back of British American Tobacco's (BTI 113.10, -2.11) $49 billion offer to acquire the remaining 57.8% of Reynolds American (RAI 57.68, +1.71) that it does not already own, as well as a solid gain in sector heavyweights Walmart (WMT 68.42, +1.29, +1.9%), Procter & Gamble (PG 85.21, +1.20, +1.4%), and CVS Health (CVS 83.92, +1.94, +2.4%).

Reviewing today's lone economic report, the Empire Manufacturing Survey:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for January fell to 6.5 from the prior month's reading of 9.0. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 8.3.

Tomorrow will see a batch of economic data with the most notable reports being December CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and December Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%). The two reports will cross the wires at 8:30 am ET and 9:15 am ET, respectively.

Wednesday's remaining economic reports will include the MBA Mortgage Index at 7:00 am ET, the NAHB Housing Market Index at 10:00 am ET, the Fed's Beige Book at 2:00 pm ET, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows at 4:00 pm ET.

Russell 2000 -0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +2.9% YTD

DJ30 -58.96 NASDAQ -35.39 SP500 -6.75 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 865/1.59 bln/2138 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1343/1.11 bln/1631

3:30 pm :

After seeing a morning rally, Feb crude oil prices pulled back, erasing the majority of its gains and finishing the day +0.2% at $52.46/barrel
In other energy, Feb natural gas recovered most of today's losses to end floor trading just 0.3% lower at $3.41/MMBtu.
The dollar index slid lower today and held its losses
Although this didn't do that much for oil futures, precious metals benefitted from the weakness in the dollar
Feb gold ended today's floor session 1.4% higher at $1212.80/oz, while Mar silver rallied 2.3% at $17.15/oz
In base metals, Mar copper slipped 2.6% to close at $2.62/lb

To begin inauguration week, the broader market fell across the board. Action was weakest in the Nasdaq Composite as the index fell 35.39 points (-0.63%) when all was said and done to 5538.73. The S&P 500 was lower by 6.75 points (-0.30%) to 2267.89, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 58.96 points (-0.30%) to 19826.77.

The sole piece of economic data that came out on Tuesday was the Empire Manufacturing Survey for January which fell to 6.5 from the prior month's reading of 9.0.

The Technology (XLK 49.47, -0.19 -0.38%) space was held down today by the broader market action. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 64.19, -2.69 -4.02%) was the hardest hit today in light of afternoon news from the Federal Trade Commission by which the FTC charged QCOM with, 'using anticompetitive tactics to maintain its monopoly in the supply of a key semiconductor device used in cell phones and other consumer products.' Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Tuesday XLP +1.42%, XLU +1.11%, XLRE +0.81%, XLE +0.58%, XLY +0.17%, IYZ -0.06%, XLB -0.45%, XLV -0.48%, XLI -0.78%, XLF -2.25%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (831.04, -2.98 -0.36%) space, trading commenced with a seller's bias as the sector never saw positive action. Component Alliance Data (ADS 230.00, -7.55 -3.18%) was weaker today in light of the company's December 2016 card services data which showed net charge-offs were up 5.3% compared to last year and average receivables were up 22% versus a year ago; additionally, ADS maintained its FY16 guidance of $16.90 in core EPS on $7.2 billion in revenues. Other names which displayed weakness today included GLW -2.62%, NVDA -2.24%, QRVO -2.20%, MCHP -2.11%, MU -1.94%, MSI -1.87%, SWKS -1.84%, KLAC -1.77%, XRX -1.70%, JNPR -1.65%, FSLR -1.62%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
The FTC confirmed charges against Qualcomm (QCOM) for 'using anticompetitive tactics to maintain its monopoly in the supply of a key semiconductor device used in cell phones and other consumer products.'

Alliance Data (ADS) reported December 2016 card services data which showed net charge-offs were up 5.3% compared to last year and average receivables were up 22% versus a year ago; additionally, ADS maintained its FY16 guidance of $16.90 in core EPS on $7.2 billion in revenues.

Toshiba (TOSBF 2.60, +0.09 +3.7%) might spin-off its flash memory unit, according to Kyodo.

Honeywell (HON 117.23, -0.84 -0.71%) will collaborate with Intel (INTC 36.81, +0.02 +0.05%) to develop new Internet of Things solutions for the retail industry to enhance logistics, improve inventory visibility and drive supply chain efficiencies.

Microsoft (MSFT 62.53, -0.17 -0.27%) acquired automatic 3D data-optimization solutions developer Simplygon. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Digital Ally (DGLY 4.25, +0.15 +3.66%) announced a legal victory as that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a Judgment invalidating nearly all the claims asserted in U.S. Patent No. 6,831,556 ('556 Patent) of which Utility Associates is the owner.

Digital Ally (DGLY) states it's 'disappointed' that the U.S. District Court of Kansas dismissed its allegations that TASER International (TASR 24.82, -0.41 -1.63%) improperly secured contracts with police precincts nationwide in violation of antitrust and unfair competition statutes.

Professional Diversity Network (IPDN 9.64, +0.26 +2.77%) to sell 312,500 shares of its common stock to Cosmic Forward at $9.60 per share

Pointer Telocation (PNTR 7.30, +0.02 +0.34%) won a 5 year driver behavior project with an applicant of the American Transit Insurance Company (ATIC). The system integrates technology from Mobileye (MBLY 42.03, -0.15 -0.36%) with Pointer's Cellocater hardware and software technologies, which will add intelligent fleet management abilities and driver behavior analysis.

Baidu.com (BIDU 176.95, +0.47 +0.27%) appointed Dr. Qi Lu as Group President and COO.

Ericsson (ERIC 6.01, +0.09 +1.52%) announced that in connection with Brje Ekholm assuming the position as President and CEO of Ericsson, Jan Frykhammar, who has temporarily held the position as President and CEO, remains a member of the Executive Leadership Team and is appointed Executive Vice President and Advisor to the CEO. Jan Frykhammar will support Brje Ekholm during a transition period and will focus on corporate governance and efficiency.

LifeLock (LOCK 23.92, -0.03 -0.13%) amended its merger agreement with Symantec (SYMC 26.20, +0.06 +0.23%), extending the closing date.

Support.com (SPRT 0.78, -0.01 -2.26%) announced a 1:3 stock split. Shares will begin trading ex-split on January 20.

GameStop (GME 23.34, +0.61 +2.68%) has reserved all of its first allotment of Nintendo (NTDOY 26.12, +0.27 +1.04%) Switch systems. On Friday, the retailer began taking reservations for the Nintendo Switch online and in its more than 3,900 stores nationwide.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Progress Software (PRGS) reported better than expected Q4 earnings of $0.62 on revenues which rose 2.3% compared to last year yet were worse than expected at $118 million. For Q1, the company sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of $0.25-0.27 and $86-89 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees EPS of $1.64-1.69 and $388-396 million, respectively.

GigPeak (GIG) reported in-line Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.05 and $16.2 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ADTN, LLTC/ASML, AMTD

Analyst actions:

NFLX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho,
FN was upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Needham,
VNET was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley;
TWTR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS,
COMM was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
BIDU was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
CRNT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
MMS was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at Avondale,
HOLI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank;
KTOS was initiated with a Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
MIME was initiated with an Outperform at Northland Capital

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From Briefing.com: 4:19 pm Skyworks beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; initiates new $500 mln stock buyback plan (SWKS) :

Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $1.61 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.58; revenues fell 1.3% year/year to $914.3 mln vs the $902.66 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.40, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.39 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $840 mln vs. $816.85 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Given our expanding product pipeline and accelerating design win momentum, we expect to outperform industry seasonality in the March quarter," said Kris Sennesael, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Skyworks. "Specifically, for the second fiscal quarter of 2017, we anticipate revenue of $840 million, up 8 percent year-over-year, with non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $1.40. Further, given the confidence in our business model and plans to enhance cash returns to our shareholders, today we are separately announcing that our Board of Directors has authorized a new $500 million stock repurchase program."SWKS is an Apple (AAPL) supplier.RFMD peers: AVGO, QRVO; SMH.

4:11 pm IBM beats by $0.13, reports revs in-line; guides FY17 EPS just above consensus (IBM) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $5.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $4.88; revenues fell 1.3% year/year to $21.77 bln vs the $21.63 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Cognitive Solutions (includes solutions software and transaction processing software) -- revenues of $5.3 bln, up 1.4% (up 2.2% adjusting for currency) were driven by growth in cloud, analytics and security.
Global Business Services (includes consulting, global process services and application management) -- revenues of $4.1 bln, down 4.1% (down 3.6% adjusting for currency).

Technology Services & Cloud Platforms (includes infrastructure services, technical support services and integration software) -- revenues of $9.3 bln, up 1.7% (up 2.4% adjusting for currency). Growth was driven by strong hybrid cloud services, analytics and security performance.

Systems (includes systems hardware and operating systems software) -- revenues of $2.5 bln, down 12.5% (down 12.1% adjusting for currency). Gross profit margins improved driven by z Systems performance.

Fourth-quarter cloud revenues increased 33%. The annual exit run rate for cloud as-a-service revenue increased to $8.6 bln from $5.3 bln at year-end 2015. Revenues from analytics increased 9%. Revenues from mobile increased 16% (up 17% adjusting for currency) and revenues from security increased 7% (up 8% adjusting for currency).

Co issues upside guidance for FY17, sees EPS of at least $13.80, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $13.74 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"In 2016, our strategic imperatives grew to represent more than 40 percent of our total revenue and we have established ourselves as the industry's leading cognitive solutions and cloud platform company," said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. "IBM Watson is the world's leading AI platform for business, and emerging solutions such as IBM Blockchain are enabling new levels of trust in transactions of every kind."

4:20 pm : A wait-and-see attitude lingered throughout today's trading session, but the rubber will finally meet the road tomorrow when Donald Trump becomes the 45th President of the United States and gets a chance to deliver on promises that drove the stock market to a fresh record high. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed lower by 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.

The stock market enjoyed a huge post-election advance, rallying on the vision that Donald Trump promised his electorate; deregulation of the financial industry and increased infrastructure spending. But with over two months to price-in those hopes, investors haven't had much to do as of late but sit back and wait.

This notion has been most apparent in the financial sector (-0.6%), which has been weak despite a growing batch of better-than-expected earnings reports. But in the same breath, after the sector's huge 20.5% Q4 advance, earnings reports are more likely to invoke a "sell-the-news" response.

However, that's not to say the stock market hasn't had its opportunities to move, as the news flow has been steady. For instance, the European Central Bank announced its latest policy decision this morning. The market response was muted, however, as the ECB left rates and the stimulus program unchanged and ECB President Mario Draghi struck a dovish tone in his post-decision press conference. The euro slid in reaction to Mr. Draghi's remarks, but retraced that decline to end higher by 0.3% against the dollar at 1.0660.

Economic data also had its chance to move the market, but a better than expected Housing Starts report (1226K; Briefing.com consensus 1193K) could not prevent homebuilders from retreating. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.63, -0.32) lost 1.1%. Separately, initial claims and the Philadelphia Fed survey were met with a muted reaction.

Conversely, corporate news did have some market-moving impact, pushing the industrial sector (+0.6%) atop of the day's leaderboard. Railroads traded up after Union Pacific (UNP 106.24, +2.47) reported above-consensus earnings and Canadian Pacific (CP 150.31, +5.09) CEO Hunter Harrison left the company to pursue changes at CSX (CSX 45.51, +8.63). Shares of CSX spiked 23.4% after The Wall Street Journal reported Mr. Harrison will partner up with activist investor Paul Hilal.

At the opposite end of today's leaderboard were utilities (-0.9%) and real estate (-1.0%), suffering from an uptick in Treasury yields. Treasuries were in negative territory for the entire session, but the benchmark 10-yr yield retreated from its high by the close, ending higher by four basis points at 2.47%.

Energy (-0.7%) finished only slightly better, ignoring crude oil's modest gain. The commodity finished up 0.5% at $51.27/bbl despite the Energy Information Administration reporting that crude oil inventories had a build of 2.3 million barrels while the consensus called for a draw of 0.342 million barrels.

The top-weighted technology sector (-0.3%) also finished in the red, but ahead of the broader market. Consumer discretionary finished in a similar spot (-0.3%) despite an uptick from its largest component, Amazon (AMZN 809.04, +1.56). The sector was pulled down by retailers who sent the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 43.52, -0.80) lower by 1.8% on continued weakness following disappointing holiday sales.

Today's economic data included Initial Claims, Housing Starts, and Philadelphia Fed Survey:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 234,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 252,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 249,000 (from 247,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.046 million from the revised count of 2.093 million (from 2.087 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it will drive heightened expectations for nonfarm payroll growth in January as this claims report covers the period in which the household and establishment survey for the Employment Situation report are conducted.
Housing starts increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.226 million units in December, up from a revised 1.102 million units in November (from 1.09 million). The Briefing.com consensus expected starts to increase to 1.193 million units. Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.210 million in December from an upwardly revised 1.212 million (from 1.201 million) for November. The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.217 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that residential construction will be computed as a positive input in Q4 GDP forecasts as the fourth quarter average for privately-owned housing units under construction was 1.8% above the third quarter average.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for January rose to 23.6 from a revised 19.7 (from 21.5) while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 15.3.
The key takeaway from the report is that it's a first quarter number and it suggests manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia Fed region expanded at an encouraging pace to begin the year.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Friday, allowing them to focus their attention on President-elect Trump's Inauguration at 12:00 ET.

Russell 2000 -0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.2% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.0% YTD

DJ30 -72.32 NASDAQ -15.57 SP500 -8.20 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 848/1.66 bln/2215 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 739/890.8 mln/2203 3:30 pm :

Crude oil futures ended in the green following the monthly IEA data, despite EIA data showing builds above Consensus for both crude & gasoline inventories
Feb crude oil futures rose $0.26 (+0.5%) to $51.37/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released at 1 pm ET tomorrow.
Reminder: Oil likely found support near its session low following the EIA release due to monthly IEA report released earlier in the day, which showed OPEC production declines in Dec & a raised global oil demand forecast - see 7:21 am ET comment for highlights
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +2.3 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -0.342 mln barrels).
Gasoline inventories had a build of +6.0 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of +2.023 mln barrels).
Distillate inventories had a draw of -1.0 mln barrels.
Natural gas ended pit trading near session highs & snapped its 2-session streak of losses on bullish EIA which showed a draw above Consensus
Feb natural gas closed $0.08 higher (+2.4%) at $3.37/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a draw of -243 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a draw of approximately -231 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 2,917 Bcf as of Friday, January 13, 2017, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 431 Bcf less than last year at this time and 77 Bcf below the five-year average of 2,994 Bcf.
At 2,917 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold retreated from a 2-month high hit intra-day yesterday & extended yesterday's modest loss on continued dollar index strength ahead of the Trump Inauguration
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session down $10.90 (-0.9%) to $1201.20/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.36 lower (-2.1%) at $16.92/oz
The dollar index was +0.2% around the 101.17 level, weighed on precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.7% around the 88.14 level

After a split, but mostly positive Wednesday, stocks were lower on Thursday. Beginning the session in the green, action quickly turned lower following economic data, ultimately ending with the Dow Jones Industrial Average lower by 72.32 points (-0.37%) to 19732.40. The S&P 500 was down 8.20 points (-0.36%) when the bell rang to 2263.69, and the Nasdaq Composite shed 15.57 points (-0.28%) to 5540.08. Action in the heavily weighted Nasdaq 100 was soft too, but losses could have been worse were it not for components like Netflix (NFLX 138.41, +5.15 +3.86%) which reported earnings and revenues for Q4 last night, topping market expectations.

Economic data today included the latest weekly initial jobless claims count which totaled 234,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 249,000 (from 247,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.046 million from the revised count of 2.093 million (from 2.087 million). Housing starts increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.226 million units in December, up from a revised 1.102 million units in November (from 1.09 million). Building permits declined to a seasonally adjusted 1.210 million in December from an upwardly revised 1.212 million (from 1.201 million) for November. Lastly, the Philadelphia Fed Survey for January rose to 23.6 from a revised 19.7 (from 21.5).

Jostling between gains and losses today, the Technology (XLK 49.53, -0.07 -0.14%) space ultimately ended modestly in the red as the latter half of the session held a downward bias. Component Western Union (WU 21.13, -0.72 -3.30%) was the worst performing name today after the company confirmed a settlement with the FTC and Justice Department to forfeit $586 million in relation to anti-money laundering violations and consumer fraud charges. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLRE -0.97%, XLU -0.88%, XLB -0.63%, XLV -0.62%, XLE -0.55%, XLF -0.43%, XLP -0.36%, XLY -0.30%, IYZ -0.14%, XLI +0.73% with all but Industrials in the red.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (831.66, -2.10 -0.25%) space, trading spent equal time above and below flat lines today, but as the bell rang, action skewed to the downside. Component HP Inc (HPQ 14.86, +0.28 +1.92%) was one of the better performing names today after being upgraded to a 'Buy' rating in the premarket at UBS. Other names in the space which closed lower today with the broader sector included MU -2.73%, STX -2.42%, WDC -2.14%, QRVO -1.45%, CTSH -1.24%, MCHP -1.22%, XRX -1.14%, CSRA -1.10%, QCOM -1.06%, TDC -1.04%, SWKS -1.02%, FLIR -1.02%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Western Union (WU) confirmed anti-money laundering violations and settles consumer fraud charges, forfeits $586 million in settlement with FTC and Justice Department.
The FBI has awarded Accenture Federal Services (ACN 115.50, -0.45 -0.39%) a seven-year blanket purchase agreement with a $100 million ceiling for the provision of application services and the continued introduction of digital solutions to further enhance the bureau's human resources systems capabilities.
ACN also acquired the corporate advisory and aviation consulting businesses of Seabury Group. Financial details were not disclosed.

Oracle (ORCL 39.21, +0.02 +0.05%) to acquire Apiary. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Wi-LAN (WILN 1.65, +0.03 +1.85%) confirmed the Court of Appeals granted positive rulings in case against

Ericsson (ERIC 5.82, -0.09 -1.52%).

Sphere 3D (ANY 0.36, +0.06 +21.67%) to acquire HVE and Unified ConneXions. The transaction is expected to be accretive to ANY in Q1.

Coupa Software (COUP 25.33, +0.17 +0.68%) announced a 'significant' manufacturing customer in Germany.

Leidos (LDOS 49.69, -0.13 -0.26%) received a prime contract by the U.S. Army Program Executive Office - Simulation, Training and Instrumentation value at about $22 million.

Everbridge (EVBG 18.72, -0.01 -0.05%) acquired Svensk Krisledning and its mobile collaboration and crisis management product Crisis Commander. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SBA Comm (SBAC 105.76, -1.30 -1.21%) amended/restated bylaws became effective upon closing of merger on January 13 - included changes to proxy access provisions.

Toshiba (TOSBF 2.18, -0.29 -11.74%) shares were lower after report that company might have a JPY 700 billion/$6 billion write-down on nuclear unit.

Following quarterly results:

Check Point Software (CHKP 96.34, +6.73 +7.51%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.46 and $486.7 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $1.15-1.20 and $420-440 million, respectively.

Netflix (NFLX) reported better than expected Q4 earnings of $0.15 and revenues of $2.48 billion. For Q1, the company sees EPS ahead of market views at $0.37. Additionally, NFLX's Q4 sub number was huge, coming in at 7.05 million net adds vs guidance of 5.20 million. Both the domestic and international net add results came in ahead of guidance, in fact, as NFLX also reported average selling price (ASP) growth of 15%.

Plexus (PLXS 53.31, -0.10 -0.19%) reported better than expected Q1 earnings of $0.82 on revenues of $635 million. For Q2, the company sees revenues below market expectations at $620-650 million. Also, GAAP EPS is expected at $0.71-0.79.

PTC (PTC 50.21, +2.83 +5.97%) reported in-line Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.26 and $286 million, respectively. For Q2, PTC guided EPS in-line but revenues below market expectations at $0.26-0.31 and $280-285 million, respectively. For FY17, PTC lowered revenue guidance and narrowed its EPS guidance range. The resulting guidance for FY17 is EPS of $1.20-1.30 from prior $1.20-1.35 and revenues of $1.17-1.18 billion from prior $1.19-1.21 billion.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: TEAM, IBM, SWKS

Analyst actions:

HPQ was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS,
NFLX was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Macquarie,
MBLY was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
DBD was upgraded to Outperform from In-Line at Imperial Capital;
AAPL was downgraded to Negative from Mixed at OTR Global,
NTCT was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
ASML was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
ERIC was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
CEL was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays;
MRCY was initiated with a Buy at SunTrust,
FLIR was initiated with a Hold at SunTrust,
VZ was initiated with a Buy at HSBC,
INFN was initiated with a Neutral at Piper Jaffray,
BELFB was initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co.

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 20-Jan-17

The stock market endured another range-bound week, which ended with the market remaining just below its record high from January 6. The S&P 500 shed 0.2% for the week while small caps underperformed, sending the Russell 2000 lower by 1.4%.

Bond and equity markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr Day while the remainder of the week featured a sideways drift ahead of Friday's inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. The stock market enjoyed a big post-election rally on hopes that deregulation and policies introduced by the new administration would boost economic growth. However, with the S&P 500 soaring nearly 7.0% in the month that followed Election Day, the past five weeks featured range-bound trade.

Only three sectors ended the week in negative territory with two registering weekly losses larger than 1.0%. The financial sector lost 1.6% for the week, but the decline took place after the sector soared nearly 20.0% in the five weeks after the election. The health care sector also underperformed, but the countercyclical group remained in the green for the month (+1.3%) despite surrendering 1.5% last week.

On the upside, consumer staples (+1.9%) and telecom services (+0.8%) recorded solid weekly gains. In the staples sector, Procter & Gamble (PG) jumped 3.3% on Friday after beating earnings expectations and raising its organic sales growth guidance.

Rate hike expectations solidified a bit with the fed funds futures market projecting a 70.3% implied likelihood of a rate hike in June, up from 69.0% at the end of last week.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 19885.73 19827.25 -58.48 -0.3 0.3
Nasdaq 5574.12 5555.33 -18.79 -0.3 3.2
S&P 500 2274.64 2271.31 -3.33 -0.1 1.5
Russell 2000 1372.04 1352.58 -19.46 -1.4 -0.3

On Inauguration Day, the 45th President of the Unites States of America, Donald Trump, was sworn in at noon, eastern time. Subsequently, the markets fell to lows and spent a brief period consolidating near those levels before jogging higher into the close. Action ultimately ended with the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 94.85 points (+0.48%) today to 19827.25. The S&P 500 was up 7.62 points (+0.34%) when the bell rang to 2271.31, and the Nasdaq Composite rounded out the trio higher by 15.25 points (+0.28%) to 5555.33. In all, this week's action takes the three major averages +0.3%, +1.4% and +3.2% YTD, respectively.

Much like the rest of the week, today's session was underpinned by a wait-and-see mentality as investors appeared to have already priced in Mr. Trump's pro-growth promises. The equity market opened the day immediately higher, but cut its gain in half during President Trump's inaugural address.

During the address, Mr. Trump struck a populist tone, reiterating his protectionist trade policy and promising to put American workers at the heart of every decision he makes. There wasn't really any new information in the President's address, just a fresh reminder of Mr. Trump's commitment to bring jobs back to America--a commitment that could hit manufacturers' bottom lines. The major averages responded by sliding from their highs, eventually ticking up in the final stretch of action.

Action in the Technology (XLK 49.80, +0.27 +0.55%) returned to its winning ways on Friday, ending just shy of highs. Component Skyworks (SWKS 88.67, +10.21 +13.01%) was far and away the best performing name today on the heels of last night's quarterly print; SWKS reported both better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session ended mostly higher XLB +0.89%, XLP +0.65%, XLRE +0.62%, XLF +0.48%, XLE +0.38%, XLY +0.29%, XLU +0.19%, IYZ +0.09%, XLI +0.02%, XLV -0.26% as only the healthcare space posted losses.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (835.97, +4.31 +0.52%) space, trading made further distance from the 800 level, ending just shy of highs . Component Qualcomm (QCOM 62.88, -1.56 -2.42%) was the worst performer today after a late-breaking piece out of the Wall Street Journal suggested Apple (AAPL 120.00, +0.22 +0.18%) may sue QCOM in dispute of patent royalties. Other names in the space which finished up with the sector included QRVO +4.65%, AVGO +2.97%, IBM +2.24%, ADSK +2.11%, MCHP +1.89%, ORCL +1.68%, GLW +1.52%, NTAP +1.51%, LRCX +1.36%, WDC +1.34%, MA +1.32%, TXN +1.18%, MU +1.15%, PYPL +1.02%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Qualcomm (QCOM) was lower today in response to a WSJ piece which suggested Apple (AAPL) may sue QCOM in dispute of patent royalties.

Wix.com (WIX 53.45, -0.60 -1.11%) acquired flok. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

AT&T (T 41.45, +0.45 +1.10%) expects to record a non-cash, pre-tax loss of about $1 billion in Q4 related to the annual re-measurement of pension and postemployment benefit plans; discloses prelim subscriber net adds. For Q4, sees more than 900,000 branded net adds of domestic wireless subscribers (about 500,000 postpaid and 400,000 prepaid), with branded phone net adds of more than 330,000. Noted Q4 results include about 700,000 of 2G deactivations, about 50,000 of which were postpaid.

Rightside Group (NAME 9.21, +1.07 +13.14%) to sell its domain name registrar eNom to Tucows (TCX 43.15, +6.80 +18.71%) for $83.5 million. TCX expects earnings accretion from the deal.

In reaction to quarterly results:

IBM (IBM 170.55, +3.74 +2.24%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $5.01 on revenues which fell about 1.3% compared to last year to $21.77 billion. For FY17, the company now sees EPS of at least $13.80 on revenues of

Atlassian (TEAM 28.03, +0.61 +2.22%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.09 and $148.9 million, respectively. For Q3 and FY17, the company gave mixed guidance to the tune of: for Q3 - EPS of $0.06 on revenues of $155-157 million; for FY17 - EPS of $0.32-0.33 and revenues of $611-615 million.

Skyworks (SWKS) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $1.61 and $914.3 million. For Q2, the company sees EPS of $1.40 on revenues of $840 million.

Analyst actions:

CHKP was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at First Analysis Sec,
MA and V were upgraded to Outperform from Neutral ratings at Wedbush,
SMCI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Roth Capital;
WU was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Compass Point,
MTCH was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Guggenheim,
SIMO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Nomura,
PLXS was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Cross Research,
TNAV was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti;
AMZN was initiated with a Buy at Aegis Capital,
EXPE and PCLN were initiated with Buy ratings at MKM Partners

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Update:

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Inauguration in the books, Trump presidency starts, market still waiting
to see what happens.
- Earnings beats, earnings misses fairly evenly split in what is thus far a
let down season.
- PBOC lowers reserve requirements, an odd move given how it is supposedly
improving economically.
- Plenty of good stocks in good positions ready to go if they get a reason
to do so.

Inauguration day. Some thought it the greatest event ever, some thought it
was the worst event ever. The stock market gave it a lukewarm reception.
Not a thumbs down, just holding their position until investors and traders
hear more about the policies Trump puts out and with how much howling the
democrats AND republicans respond. It will also be a matter of timing, i.e.
how fast they come out. There is a lot of anticipation that the new
administration was ready to go with a plan in hand. There were some orders
regarding the ACA and word from Priebus of a government-wide freeze on
regulations. A start, but of course the market wants more and wants them
now.

SP500 7.62, 0.34%
NASDAQ 15.25, 0.28%
DJ30 94.85, 0.48%
SP400 0.49%
RUTX 0.45%
SOX 1.30%

VOLUME: NYSE +32%, NASDAQ -6%. NYSE trade jumped above average as a lot of
trades were made but on both sides of the ledger as the NYSE gains were
limited. NASDAQ volume faded from just below average as it held steady at
the 10 day EMA. Lots of undecideds on the session.

A/D: NYSE 1.8:1, NASDAQ 1.6:1.

Lost in the pageantry of the inauguration and the vandalization and criminal
mischief of the 'protests' a few blocks over, was other news. Some seemed
rather important but again, it was lost in the inaugural festivities that
some covered with delight, others covered with sneers and 'we are doomed'
tweets and comments.

China: The PBOC announced it lowered its reserve requirements for banks.
It also injected massive amounts of yuan overnight yet again. All is not
well, not well at all, in China. It is going to find out that its desperate
attempt to continue injecting money into the economy and piling stimulus
program after stimulus program in order to outrun economic rollover has not
worked. It knows the plan is not working and thus is trying other things in
order to keep the masses placated, e.g. aggressive and indeed provocative
actions in the South China Sea, talking tough against the US regarding trade
and Taiwan. Keep the people looking outside the country to assign blame as
to why things at home are not going that well. It works inside a country as
well: the republicans and democrats blame each other all the time for the
inability to accomplish anything, then go back to their constituents and say
there was nothing they could do, the other side blocked them, was being
mean, etc. Sadly, we all know THAT story. I wonder if the Chinese people
get as mad about it as we do? Hmmm.

Australia: Nothing economic, just tragic. A car plowed into a crowd,
killing four, injuring 20. Reportedly the perpetrator had ISIS-related
intentions.


Earnings: NFLX reported strong earnings Wednesday night and gapped higher,
but thus far has not made the kind of gap and surge as it did in October.
Other results are a mixed bag:

Beats: SWKS; NFLX; PG; IBM (but revenue fell for the nineteenth quarter);
GS; CAL; JPM

Misses: GE (top line); AXP (bottom line); C (TL); BAC (TL); BLK (TL); WFC
(BL, TL); CSX

Hardly the kind of reports that herald the end of the earnings recession.
Oh sure you had the bald-headed guy on CNBC, as usual, shorting and blowing
about how good the financial earnings are, etc., but they certainly are not
driving stocks higher, not even the beats. At least for now.


THE MARKET

No change outside of SOX and its 1.3% move as SWKS' earnings surged chips.
Perhaps SOX will be enough to gin up the rest of the market from its lateral
doldrums, but it could not do it with any authority Friday.

As noted Thursday, the buyers and sellers are evenly balanced as the indices
work laterally in a 6 week range. The risk outweighs the reward given the
move higher, the inability to make a new break upside, and the bullish
sentiment putting in a second week over 60% out of the past three weeks.
The 60% level has accurately capped market upside moves for the past twenty
years.

Even a breakout from the range upside is suspect. With the 60% readings the
market should have a built in governor on any further moves. Of course, if
the Trump administration strikes the right chords with its deregulation and
executive orders it could perhaps reset the lifespan of the rally and break
stocks back upside in a new run that could perhaps rival the post-election
run.

That is speculation. There are patterns good enough to do it; makes sense
given the 6 week lateral move.

Even in the event of a new breakout that occurs on news of Trump actions, I
believe the rally has to be viewed as suspect thanks to the sentiment
levels. Doesn't mean you don't participate, just that you have to
acknowledge the bullishness level as an additional risk to a new break
higher.


CHARTS

Not a lot of change, not a lot new to discuss in the 6 week lateral moves.

SOX: Gapped upside on the SWKS earnings results and guidance hike. Even
with the gap this was not a really strong move as SOX faded off the session
high, still well below the December peak. Trending higher of course, but
even with some really good earnings from a big AAPL supplier, the move was
not blowout.

DJ30: recovered from its Thursday break to a lower low in the 6 week double
toppish pattern. Strong volume on the session, but it was expiration so
volume is not that big a deal. It is holding and for now that buys it time.

NASDAQ: Tight doji Friday at the 10 day EMA as NASDAQ continued trending
upside though slowing a bit on the week as the big name NASDAQ stocks took a
breather after a good move. Mostly holding the gains, still in very good
shape to continue the trend higher.

SP500: And still in the tight lateral range for three weeks, part of the
six week lateral move. Holding the 2016 trendline though weaker MACD at the
highs. Waiting, waiting, waiting for a sign so it can move.

SP400: Very similar to the other NYSE indices, holding at the 20 day EMA in
the six week range, lighter MACD.

RUTX: Sold back to the bottom of the range on the week, holding the
November high on the Thursday lower close. Very important support level for
RUTX.


LEADERSHIP

There is software, materials, chips, some drugs, metals, chemicals,
industrials, Chinese stocks and more in some good patterns. Indeed some
materials stocks are already breaking higher. There are definitely a number
of stocks that can move if the market resumes the rally.

Financial: GS is showing a doji just over the 50 day MA's. Perhaps it is
ready to make its move. STT is at the 50 day MA's as well. C, however, has
cracked and is selling below the 50 day MA. BAC is working laterally,
holding the 20 day EMA.

China: Still solid. NTES bounced off the 10 day EMA Thursday and was up
again Friday. BIDU testing the 200 day SMA but still looks good to move.
ATHM still looks solid in its move. SOHU, SINA are starting to set up.

Semis: Some great moves we wish we had grabbed, e.g. AVGO and QRVO. But,
XLNX looks good to go. MU is setting up again, ENPH is very interesting in
the 'unknown' category. RTEC looks nice.

Metals: Still like RS. CENX is one we missed as it rips higher. AKS is at
the 50 day, SID is not bad. FCX looks solid as it comes off the 10 day EMA
tset.

Materials: Stronger. CX surging. EXP could be moving soon (earnings
1/24). USG looks very interesting.

FAANG: FB is testing that big move and could be set up for an entry this
week. AMZN is working laterally over the 10 day EMA as it tests its move.
It too could be set up for a new entry this week but those earnings are
there. AAPL trending up the 10 day EMA. NFLX held up on the earnings gap
higher but needs to show more upside authority. GOOG in its two week tight
lateral range over the 10 day EMA.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +94.85 points (+0.48%) to close at 19827.25

Nasdaq
Stats: +15.25 points (+0.28%) to close at 5555.33
Volume: 1.975B (-5.89%)

Up Volume: 963.26M (+343.38M)
Down Volume: 684.46M (-485.54M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.58 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 2.52 to 1

New Highs: 104 (+12)
New Lows: 39 (-1)

S&P
Stats: +7.62 points (+0.34%) to close at 2271.31
NYSE Volume: 1B (+32.42%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.77 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 2.89 to 1

New Highs: 95 (+11)
New Lows: 19 (-1)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 11.54; -1.24
VXN: 13.04; -1.02
VXO: 10.5; -1.11

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1; +0.06. Back to 1 after never backing much out
of the 0.90's. Still a rather high level of apprehension/protection buying.


Bulls and Bears: Bulls popped right back up from the one-week dip, posting
the second 60+ close in 3 weeks. Bears, fell back below 17. Showing some
stickiness at the 60+ level

Bulls: 60.60 versus 58.6

Bears: 17.3 versus 18.4

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 60.6 versus 58.6
58.6 versus 60.2 versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3
versus 55.6 versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9
versus 46.1 versus 46.7 versus 45.2 versus 44.6 versus 49.0 versus 52.5
versus 55.9 versus 56.7 versus 56.2 versus 54.3 versus 52.9% versus 53.9%
versus 54.4% versus 52.5% versus 47.1% versus 41.6% versus 47.5% versus
45.9% versus 47.3% versus 45.4% versus 35.4% versus 40.2 versus 39.2

Bears: 17.3 versus 18.3
18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6 versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3
versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7 versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8
versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1 versus 24.3 versus 22.6 versus 22.8
versus 20.6 Versus 20.2 versus 20.0 versus 20.9% versus 21.2% versus 21.6%
versus 23.3% versus 24.7% versus 24.5% versus 23.8% versus 23.2% versus
23.5% versus 23.8% versus 23.7% versus 24.0% versus 21.7% versus 21.6%
versus 21.7 versus 20.6% versus 21.7% versus 27.8% versus 27.8% versus 28.9%
versus 27.8% versus 30.3% versus 35.4%


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.47% versus 2.468%. TLT rallied to the 50 day MA's and
has backed down from there, falling back below them.

Historical: 2.468% versus 2.422% versus 2.372% versus 2.393% versus 2.358%
versus 2.365% versus 2.38% versus 2.962% versus 2.42% versus 2.357% versus
2.45% versus 2.448% versus 2.42% versus 2.48% versus 2.51% versus 2.56%
versus 2.54% versus 2.55% versus 2.54% versus 2.564% versus 2.544% versus
2.59% versus 2.59% versus 2.52% versus 2.473% versus 2.475% versus 2.471%
versus 2.40% versus 2.349% versus 2.39% versus 2.396% versus 2.394% versus
2.454% versus 2.388% versus 2.30% versus 2.31%. versus 2.36% versus 2.355%
versus 2.317% versus 2.30% versus 2.34% versus 2.297% versus 2.219% versus
2.22% versus 2.23% versus 2.14% versus 2.077% versus 1.867% versus 1.83%
versus 1.778%


EUR/USD: 1.07027 versus 1.06394

Historical: 1.06394 versus 1.06381 versus 1.07114 versus 1.06450 versus
1.0624 versus 1.05982 versus 1.0555 versus 1.0585 versus 1.05346 versus
105837 versus 1.0525 versus 1.03914 versus 1.05289 versus 1.05155 versus
1.04357 versus 1.04636 versus 1.0451 versus 1.04368 versus 1.04412 versus
1.0392 versus 1.0407 versus 1.0459 versus 1.0415 versus 1.05094 versus
1.0636 versus 1.06326 versus 1.05586 versus 1.06140 versus 1.07745 versus
1.07194 versus 1.07614 versus 1.06638 versus 1.06631 versus 1.0601 versus
1.0649 versus 1.05699 versus 1.066 versus 1.05910


USD/JPY: 114.390 versus 114.686. Hugging the 50 day EMA.

Historical: 114.686 versus 114.538 versus 112.774 versus 114.473 versus
114.57 versus 114.70 versus 115.811 versus 116.023 versus 116.923 versus
115.93 versus 116.46 versus 117.983 versus 116.739 versus 116.456 versus
116.793 versus 117.41 versus 117.413 versus 117.32 versus 117.537 versus
117.544 versus 117.835 versus 117.453 versus 117.941 versus 118.257 versus
117.397 versus 115.038 versus 115.058 versus 115.20 versus 114.23 versus
113.325 versus 113.993 versus 113.601 versus 113.52 versus 113.945 versus
114.19 versus 112.685 versus 112.44 versus 111.835 versus 113.14 versus
112.445 versus 111.129 versus 110.809


Oil: 53.22, +1.10. Oil has found some footing at the 52 level, managing to
hold but thus far unable to extend the move. Kind of waiting and watching as
are the other markets.


Gold: 1204.90, +3.40. Gold broke through the 50 day MA's Tuesday then
stumbled, giving the move back but managing to close over the 50 day EMA
Friday. Some impressive stamina.


MONDAY

The market indices are in position (perhaps not DJ30, RUTX), many stocks are
in position, but thus far the market cannot find the bids to send stocks
higher again. Trump is in, some executive orders are signed about the ACA,
the National Parks Service lost its Twitter privileges after many of its
'public servants' sent critical tweets about the inauguration. Many will
likely lose their jobs. There is some 'settling out' to take place for
sure.

Looking to 2017 and beyond I feel there could be a significant
reorganization of alliances in the world. Could it be that Russia and the
US have better relations than the US and those countries remaining in the
EU? To that point, many of the smaller economies are asking the question
'why are we in this union?' How about Israel and Iran? Israel is making
overtures to Iran. If Russia's Putin and Trump forge a relationship, where
does that leave China? It could be very interesting, this time perhaps for
China (that old Chinese curse).

Okay, that is all conjecture about the future. What about those executive
orders? Conway says Trump may stop enforcing the ACA's individual mandate.
Speculation as to the first executive orders is not that drastic, not that
cutting. Thus . . . what will propel markets waiting on some real policies
to give the new buy signal?

But that works. You want to see these good setups break higher and not
massively gap upside. As noted many times, there are very good stocks in
very good position to move higher, they just need something to spring them.
Anything can happen in this environment that is scanning headlines to decide
when to move and where to go.

Earnings are flying in now, but thus far they are impacting individual
stocks, not the market overall. After a couple of weeks of results,
however, the direction tends to readjust. With the indices working
laterally it could be that the results finally give a reason to buy. If
they make the moves then we will be buying some, at the same time fully
aware of the 2 out of 3 weeks of sentiment readings over 60% and how that is
ultimately a governor on the rally.


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 5555.33

Resistance:

Support:
The 2016 trendline at 5480
The 50 day EMA at 5425
The 50 day SMA at 5410
The November prior all-time high at 5404
5340 is the September and October 2016 twin peaks
5287.61 is the September 2016 high
5271.36 is the August 2016 intraday prior all-time high
5231.94 is the 2015 all-time high
5170 is the October intraday low.
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak
The 200 day SMA at 5139
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5042 is the March 2015 high
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower
4999 is the October upper gap point
4980 is the June 2016 peak
4969 is the April 2016 recovery high
4960 is the September 2015 intraday high, an important reversal point for
NASDAQ.
4920 is the lower gap point from mid-October 2015, the January 2016 lower
gap point
4916 is the mid-November 2015 low
4899 - 4902 from the September 2015 peak, July 2015 low
4894 is the September 2015 closing high


S&P 500: Closed at 2271.31

Resistance:
2277.53 is the December 2016 high

Support:
The 2016 trendline at 2262
The 50 day EMA at 2236
The 50 day SMA at 2233
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high
The 200 day SMA at 2150
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2126 was the April 2015 prior all-time high
2120 is the June 2016 peak
2119 is the September 2016 low; February 2015 intraday high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2111 is the April 2016 recovery high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2094 is the December 2014 high
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014
2062 is the January 2015 lower high
2046 is the July 2015 closing low
2040 is the March 2015 closing low
2026 is the May 2016 low
2023 is the November 2015 low
2020 is the September 2015 intraday high
2011 is the September prior all-time high
1995 is the September 2015 recovery peak
1991 is the July 2014 high


Dow: Closed at 19,827.25

Resistance:
19,987.53 is the December 2016 high

Support:
19750 is the lows of the December/January range
The 50 day SMA at 19,497
The 50 day EMA at 19,491
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
The 200 day SMA at 18,443
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015
18,288 from March 2015
18,262 is the upper gap point from the Monday gap lower.
18,247 is the August 2016 low
18,168 is the April 2016 recovery high
18,100 to 18,181: interim peaks in the December 2014 to July 2015 range
18,016 is the June 2016 peak
17,992 is the early September low
17,978 is the November 2015 peak
17,960 is the October intraday low
17,600 is the rough bottom of the April to June range.
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.


ECONOMIC CALENDAR

January 24 - Tuesday
Existing Home Sales, December (10:00): 5.55M expected, 5.61M prior

January 25 - Wednesday
MBA Mortgage Applica, 01/21 (7:00): 0.8% prior
FHFA Housing Price I, November (9:00): 0.4% prior
Crude Inventories, 01/21 (10:30): +2.300M prior

January 26 - Thursday
Adv. International T, December (8:30): -$65.0M expected, -$65.3B prior
Initial Claims, 01/21 (8:30): 246K expected, 234K prior
Continuing Claims, 01/21 (8:30): 2046K prior
Leading Indicators, December (10:00): 0.5% expected, 0.0% prior
New Home Sales, December (10:00): 589K expected, 592K prior
Natural Gas Inventor, 01/21 (10:30): -243 bcf prior

January 27 - Friday
GDP Deflator, Q4 (8:30): 2.1% expected, 1.4% prior
GDP-Adv., Q4 (8:30): 2.2% expected, 3.5% prior
Durable Orders, December (8:30): 3.0% expected, -4.6% prior
Durable Goods -ex tr, December (8:30): 0.5% expected, 0.5% prior
Michigan Sentiment -, January (10:00): 98.0 expected, 98.1 prior

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Equity indices opened the week on a down note, unable to overcome the uncertainty surrounding the transfer of political power in Washington D.C. An afternoon rebound helped the market erase a portion of its loss, but the S&P 500 still finished lower by 0.3% while the Nasdaq (unch) finished just below its flat line.

The trading session was defined by risk-off action, leading to a downtick in the U.S. dollar and an uptick in the Treasury market. The 10-yr yield finished seven basis points lower at 2.40%, while the U.S. Dollar Index (100.14, -0.63) closed down 0.6%, a level not seen since early December.

However, the dollar's relative weakness was not enough to offset concerns about a bump in U.S. crude oil production, which pushed WTI crude down 0.9% to $52.75/bbl. Naturally, the energy sector followed, closing lower by 1.1% to finish at the bottom of today's leaderboard.

Crude oil doesn't deserve all of the blame, as Halliburton (HAL 54.80, -1.65) also contributed to the energy sector's decline, losing 2.9% after missing revenue estimates. McDonald's (MCD 121.38, -0.88) also reported quarterly results this morning. The company beat estimates, but shares declined 0.9% amid concerns about the strength of first-quarter results.

Yet, despite McDonald's downbeat report, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.1%) outperformed the broader market, finishing just above its flat line. Homebuilders had a hand in the sector's resistance to selling pressure, evidenced by the 0.4% jump in the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 27.91, +0.12). Also of note, the sector's top component, Amazon (AMZN 817.88, +9.55) finished higher by 1.2% after the New York Post reported that the company will be entering the auto parts retail space.

The technology sector was also able to resist the market's bearish trend, finishing with a modest 0.1% gain. Top components like Facebook (FB 128.93, +1.89), Alphabet (GOOGL 844.43, +16.26), Cisco Systems (CSCO 30.27, +0.17), and Visa (V 82.15, +0.31) were able to outpace losses from the semiconductor industry. The PHLX Semiconductor Index finished the day lower by 0.7%.

On the non-cyclical side, real estate (+0.6%) finished at the top of the leaderboard, while telecom services (+0.5%) and consumer staples (-0.1%) also outperformed. Conversely, utilities (-0.5%) and health care (-0.5%) had a rough showing. In top news from the health care space, a federal court ruling blocked Humana's (HUM 205.02, +4.49) pending merger with Aetna (AET 119.20, -3.33). Humana jumped 2.2% on the ruling, while Aetna lost 2.7%.

Looking ahead, the earnings season kicks into gear this week with around 20.0% of the S&P 500 set to report quarterly results. Yahoo! (YHOO 42.40, +0.35) is scheduled to report after today's close, while Dow components 3M (MMM 178.51, +0.02), DuPont (DD 72.78, -0.25), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 113.94, -0.21) will report on Tuesday morning.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday, with the first report of the week, December Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.55 million), scheduled for tomorrow morning at 10:00 am ET.

Russell 2000 -0.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.2% YTD
S&P 500 +1.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.2% YTD

DJ30 -27.40 NASDAQ -2.39 SP500 -6.11 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1209/1.51 bln/1748 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1593/904.6 mln/1333

3:30 pm :

Crude oil closed pit trading -0.9% as rising US output outweighed the first evidence of OPEC/non-OPEC compliance with the production cut accord
Mar crude oil futures fell $0.49 (-0.9%) to $52.75/barrel
Reminder: Friday's rig count data showed the biggest single weekly oil rig count increase in 4 years. The U.S. oil rig count increased by 29 to 551 rigs last week.
Highlights of Sunday's OPEC/non-OPEC cut compliance committee meeting:
Data from the meeting confirmed that 1.5 mln barrels of oil/day out of the planned 1.8 mln barrels/day have already been cut, & the participating countries remain on track to achieve 1.7 mln barrels/day in total output reductions by the end of this month.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak expressed that all countries are sticking to the deal and that results are above expectations.
OPEC and other oil producers agreed on a specific method to monitor ongoing production cut compliance at the meeting going forward.
Upcoming data reminders:
Weekly API data will be released tomorrow after the bell.
Weekly EIA data will be released this Wed at 10:30 am ET.
Weekly Baker Hughes rig count data will be released this Friday at 1 pm ET.
Natural gas ended pit trading notably higher after Friday's drop ahead of this coming Thursday's EIA data release at 10:30 am ET.
Feb natural gas closed $0.04 higher (+1.3%) at $3.25/MMBtu
In precious metals, gold closed pit trading at a 2-month high; silver & gold moved in tandem to close up nearly +1% together on continued dollar index weakness following the weekend's comments from President Trump regarding the strength of the dollar
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $10.80 (+0.9%) to $1215.50/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.16 higher (+0.9%) at $17.18/oz
The dollar index was -0.6% around the 100.16 level, provided support to precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.3% around the 88.60 level


To start out the week, the broader market ended the session with modest losses. The morning sprint lower was outdone by a slow, methodical tick higher in the afternoon session. Ultimately, the S&P 500 was the worst performer, shedding about 6.11 points (-0.27%) today to end 2265.20. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 27.40 points (-0.14%) to 19799.85, and the Nasdaq Composite was the best performing index today, albeit in a losing effort, down 2.39 points (-0.04%) to 5552.94.

After a relatively up week last week, the Technology (XLK 49.89, +0.08 +0.18%) space seemed to be resigned to fleeting losses; however, on the back of some strong buying in the second half of the session, the space saw a positive bias into the close, ending near highs. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 54.88, -8.00 -12.72%) suffered even worse than on Friday, as the fallout of multiple lawsuits begins to take its toll on the stock. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed out the session XLRE +0.61%, IYZ +0.37%, XLB +0.20%, XLY +0.07%, XLP -0.06%, XLV -0.42%, XLU -0.51%, XLI -0.55%, XLF -0.65%, XLE -1.06%.

As it were, the Social Media (SOCL 23.59, +0.44 +1.90%) space was the best performing sub-sector of Technology today, as component Yahoo! (YHOO 42.40, +0.35 +0.83%) posted a strong session ahead of tonight's quarterly print. Other name in the SOCL sector which displayed relative strength today included NTES +2.58%, P +1.66%, CYOU +1.56%, WB +1.32%, LN +1.19%, YELP +1.14%, SINA +1.05%, YNDX +1.01%, MTCH +0.89%.

The worst performing Technology sector today was Semiconductors (SMH 73.12, -0.65 -0.88%). The space was hit hard by QCOM's weak session despite research firm Gartner's report which suggested worldwide semiconductor revenue is slated to grow about 7.2% in 2017. In spite of the positive industry report, shares of CREE -1.98%, NXPI -1.84%, MSCC -1.41%, MRVL -1.13%, TER -1.03%, IDTI -0.48%, INTC -0.46%, MU -0.32% all posted losses today on the broad sector weakness.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (836.50, +0.53 +0.06%) space, trading also ended near highs, but making a fresh all-time high intraday. Components Alphabet (GOOG 819.31, +14.29 +1.78%) and Facebook (FB 128.93, +1.89 +1.49%) made a strong showing today on no apparent catalyst. Other names in the space which finished higher today included SWKS +1.69%, QRVO +1.36%, TXN +1.31%, NVDA +1.04%, TEL +0.86%, KLAC +0.66%, CSCO +0.56%, HRS +0.52%, SYMC +0.41%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
IBM (IBM 171.03, +0.48 +0.28%) announced plans to acquire Agile 3 Solutions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Western Digital (WDC 72.65, +0.02 +0.03%) named Martin Fink as chief technology officer (CTO). Fink succeeds CTO Steven Campbell who will depart the company to pursue other opportunities.

Sprint (S 9.18, +0.25 +2.80%) acquired 33% of Tidal. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

NCI (NCIT 12.65, -1.30 -9.32%) discovered that its controller, acting alone, embezzled money from the company.

MeetMe (MEET 4.96, +0.01 +0.20%) was informed that CEO Geoffrey Cook sold 250,000 shares pursuant to pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Perion Network (PERI 1.61, +0.04 +2.55%) named Doron Gerstel as CEO.

Mimecast (MIME 20.93, -0.49 -2.29%) filed for $50 million mixed securities shelf offering and 20,539,000 ordinary shares by selling shareholders.

Analyst actions:

MSI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
MSFT was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Tigress Financial,
TSU was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
QCOM was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Instinet and to Underperform from Buy at CLSA,
VZ was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
WK and TVPT were downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley;
GRUB was initiated with a Hold at Craig Hallum,
ORAN was initiated with a Hold at Berenberg

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From Briefing.com: 4:23 pm Xilinx beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs in-line (XLNX) :

Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.52 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49; revenues rose 3.5% year/year to $586 mln vs the $579.63 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $590-620 mln vs. $607.75 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co said, "Sales from our 16nm Ultrascale+, 20nm Ultrascale, and 28nm Zynq products contributed to significant market expansion. The growth from these products was driven by a broad base of markets such as data center, automotive, test & measurement, wired and wireless communications and space."

4:12 pm Western Digital beats by $0.18, beats on revs -- co will guide on cc at 17:00 ET (WDC) :
Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $2.30 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.18 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.12; revenues rose 47.4% year/year to $4.89 bln vs the $4.76 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

The company generated $1.1 billion in cash from operations during the second fiscal quarter of 2017, ending with approximately $5.2 billion of total cash and cash equivalents, and available-for-sale securities.

4:11 pm Qualcomm beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (QCOM) :
Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $1.19 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.18; revenues rose 3.9% year/year to $6 bln vs the $6.12 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.15-1.25 vs. $1.19 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $5.5-6.3 bln vs. $5.93 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Sees 165M - 185M MSM Chip shipments (decrease 2% - 13%); Total reported device sales of approx. $74.0B - $82.0B (increase 6%-17%)

"The recent legal and governmental actions against Qualcomm are at their core driven by commercial disputes. As we have done in the past, we will vigorously defend our business model and the value of a portfolio of technologies that has been so instrumental to the success of the mobile communications industry."

4:10 pm Lam Research beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (LRCX) :
Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $2.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.19; revenues rose 32.0% year/year to $1.88 bln vs the $1.84 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Shipments of $1.92 billion

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $2.45-2.65, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $2.075-2.2 billion vs. $1.97 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

For the December 2016 quarter, non-GAAP gross margin was $874 million or 46.4% of revenue, non-GAAP operating expenses were $384 million, non-GAAP operating margin was 26.0% of revenue, and non-GAAP net income was $405 million, or $2.24 per diluted share.

4:08 pm F5 Networks beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FFIV) :
Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $1.98 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.94; revenues rose 5.4% year/year to $516 mln vs the $516.99 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.95-1.98, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.97 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $518-528 mln vs. $523.97 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"In addition to strong initial demand for the iSeries, software sales, including software modules that run on our purpose-built hardware and Virtual Editions designed to run on any standard hypervisor, continued to grow as a percentage of product revenue. We expect this trend to continue in the current quarter, driven by the release of our 40-Gigabit VEs, with throughput four times faster than previous versions, and by increasing uptake of iSeries appliances, designed to support more modules than their predecessors."

4:20 pm : Investors methodically pushed the major averages to record highs on Wednesday, with the Dow climbing past the 20k milestone along the way. All indices finished the day solidly higher, collectively signaling that the post-election rally isn't dead just yet. The S&P 500 closed up 0.8%.

The benchmark index jumped out of the gate this morning, as a handful of blue-chip companies reported positive earnings results between yesterday's close and today's open. Seagate Technology (STX 42.67, +5.23) spiked 14.0% after topping earnings and revenue estimates in addition to issuing upbeat guidance. Norfolk Southern (NSC 120.53, +3.91) also finished higher, increasing 3.4% to an all-time high after beating earnings per share estimates.

As far as Dow components, Boeing (BA 167.36, +6.81) also had an upbeat showing while United Technologies (UTX 110.96, -0.65) finished lower as the company's in-line earnings report was met with a sell-the-news response following a large fourth quarter gain.

However, the stock market didn't stop there, moving slowly but deliberately into the afternoon amid positive signals from the political front. President Trump signed two executive orders on Wednesday, one to build a physical barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border and another to strip federal grant money from states and cities that shelter illegal immigrants. And while these reports weren't unexpected, as border control was a staple of Mr. Trump's presidential campaign, they do serve as a reminder of said campaign and the pro-growth hopes attached to it.

Strong sector leadership was also an important factor in today's session as the financials (+1.7%) moved into the top spot on today's leaderboard early, building on a positive showing on Tuesday. With two solid wins under its belt, the financial sector is back near its high from early December, overcoming the sell-the-news response that was invited by earnings from the sector's top components.

The financial sector was followed by industrials (+1.0%) and technology (+1.1%) with the latter benefiting from a 1.5% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Chipmakers received a nice bump from Texas Instruments (TXN 78.58, +1.50) as the stock jumped 2.0% in reaction to above-consensus earnings.

Energy (+0.6%) underperformed its cyclical peers, as crude oil finished 0.7% lower at $52.76/bbl. The energy component had a somewhat volatile session, reacting to a downtick in the U.S. Dollar Index (99.94, -0.34) and an Energy Information Administration report that showed a build of 2.8 million barrels of crude and a big build in gasoline inventories.

On the countercyclical side, real estate (-0.6%), telecom services (-0.2%), and utilities (unch) all finished in the red, while health care (+0.9%) bucked the trend. The health care space remains slightly lower for the week after today's gain, showing a week-to-date loss of 0.2%.

U.S. Treasuries return to negative territory for the week after Wednesday's risk-on attitude resulted in selling pressure. The 10-yr yield finished five basis points higher at 2.52%.

Today's economic data included FHFA Housing Price Index and MBA Mortgage Index:

The FHFA Housing Price Index for November rose 0.5%, which followed a revised increase of 0.3% in October (from 0.4%).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index rose 4.0% to follow last week's 0.8% increase

Tomorrow's economic data will include Advance International Trade in Goods (Briefing.com consensus -$65.0 million) and Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 246,000) at 8:30 am ET, while Leading Indicators (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) and New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 589,000) will cross the wires at 10:00 am ET.

Russell 2000 +1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD
S&P 500 +2.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.1% YTD

DJ30 +155.80 NASDAQ +55.38 SP500 +18.30 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2185/1.76 bln/839 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1908/1.02 bln/1044

3:30 pm :

Crude oil ended a volatile pit trading session near its initial post-EIA low, erased all of yesterday's gain
Mar 2017 crude oil futures fell $0.39 (-0.7%) to $52.76/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Natural gas rallied for the 3rd consecutive session on updated colder weather forecasts ahead of tomorrow's EIA data release
Mar 2017 natural gas closed $0.05 higher (+1.5%) at $3.35/MMBtu
Natural gas futures have switched their front months to Mar from Feb, as indicated by the active amount of volume in the contracts
Weekly EIA natural gas inventory data is due tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Color on the 3-day rally in natural gas:
U.S. natural gas futures have been trading higher the past 3 sessions on forecasts for colder-than-normal weather and higher heating demand expected to last into the second week of Feb.
This increase came despite a warmer-than-normal outlook through Jan 27 and for much of the rest of Feb and Mar.
In precious metals, gold extended yesterday's losses despite continued weakness in the dollar index as stocks saw a notable rally
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session down $12.80 (-1.1%) to $1,198.00/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.20 lower (-1.2%) at $16.98/oz
The dollar index was -0.4% around the 99.97 level, did not appear to support precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.4% around the 88.37 level

Well, the wait is over. The wait for the Dow Jones to crack 20K, that is. The index cracked that level moments after the open as futures drifted higher overnight. Ultimately, the Nasdaq Composite was the best performer today, adding about 55.38 points (+0.99%) to 5656.34. The S&P 500 was up 18.30 (+0.80%) when the bell rang to 2298.37. The aforementioned move in the Dow Jones Industrial Average left the index up 155.80 points (+0.78%) to 20068.51 at the end of the day. In the end, today's moves took all three major indices to all-time highs.

Market data today included the FHFA Housing Price Index for November which rose 0.5% following a revised increase of 0.3% in October (from 0.4%). Also, investors received the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which rose 4.0% to follow last week's 0.8% increase.

Equally as strong, the Technology (XLK 50.68, +0.48 +0.96%) sector ended at a near 17-year high dating back to the fall of 2000. Component Seagate Tech (STX 42.67, +5.23 +13.97%) was the name that aided the advance today, after reporting a solid Q2 print last night after the close. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLF +1.67%, XLI +1.05%, XLV +0.94%, XLB +0.67%, XLY +0.60%, XLE +0.52%, IYZ +0.17%, XLU +0.00%, XLP -0.02%, XLRE -0.61%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (854.17, +9.06 +1.07%) space, trading took off at the open and never looked back. Component TE Connectivity (TEL 75.17, +3.49 +4.87%) was one of the better performing names today after the company reported better than expected Q1 earnings and revenues this morning. Other names in the space which followed the broader action higher today included QCOM +3.45%, MU +3.11%, QRVO +2.46%, AVGO +2.39%, YHOO +2.37%, KLAC +2.26%, LRCX +1.99%, TXN +1.95%, GLW +1.91%, TDC +1.82%, CRM +1.76%, CTSH +1.66%, FB +1.63%, AAPL +1.57%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Upcoming IPO AppDynamics (APPD) to be acquired by Cisco (CSCO 30.70, +0.10 +0.33%) for about $3.7 billion in cash and assumed equity awards.

Qualcomm (QCOM 56.90, +1.90 +3.45%) commented on Apple's (AAPL 121.85, +1.88 +1.57%) lawsuits in China; 'these filings by Apple's Chinese subsidiary are just part of Apple's efforts to find ways to pay less for Qualcomm's technology.'

Micron (MU 23.56, +0.71 +3.11%) said to be among parties interested in a stake in Toshiba's (TOSBF 2.28, -0.01 -0.78%) memory chip unit, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.

Accenture (CAN 117.59, +1.11 +0.95%) has acquired privately held German consulting and systems integration firm, solid servision.

Workday (WDAY 84.73, +2.10 +2.54%) announced that Royal Vopak, an independent tank storage company, has selected Workday Human Capital Management (HCM).

Activision Blizzard's (ATVI 39.56, +0.46 +1.18%) King to acquire Omniata, according to VentureBeat.

Oracle (ORCL 40.15, +0.05 +0.12%) announced the expansion of its Startup Cloud Accelerator program. The initiative will continue to fuel cloud-enabled innovation around the globe by opening new centers in Bristol, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Paris, So Paulo, Singapore and Tel Aviv.

Sprint (S 9.19, flat) named Nstor Cano as COO.

Amazon (AMZN 836.52, +14.08 +1.71%) plans expansion into ocean freight services, according to WSJ.
According to a Reuters report, Ixia (XXIA 17.75, +1.20 +7.25%) is in discussions to be acquired by

Keysight Technologies (KEYS 37.71, +0.76 +2.06%).

Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 35.83, +0.04 +0.11%) closed its acquisition of Aquilent. The company now expects to add about $20 million of revenue through remainder of fiscal year 2017 (previously expected to add about $30-35 million).

magicJack VocalTec (CALL 7.40, flat) provided an update on its SMB business unit and its plans to leverage the product development investments made in 2016 by focusing on lowered pricing, streamlining its go-to-market strategy, driving sales primarily through digital media and retail, and product innovation. In addition to lower pricing, magicJack's SMB business will be introducing a new SMB ATA device during Q2 2017.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Texas Instruments (TXN 78.58, +1.50 +1.95%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.91 and $3.41 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company sees EPS of $0.78-0.88 on revenues of $3.17-3.43 billion.

TE Connectivity (TEL) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $1.15 and $3.06 billion, respectively. For Q2, the company sees EPS and revenues in-line at $1.05-1.09 and $3.025-3.125 billion, respectively. For FY17, TEL expects EPS of $4.30-4.50 on revenues of about $12.2-12.6 billion.

Wipro (WIT 9.62, -0.15 -1.54%) reported better than expected Q3 earnings of INR8.70 on revenues of INR136.88 billion. For Q4, the company sees revenues from the IT Services business to be in the range of $ 1,922 million to $ 1,941 million.

Amphenol (APH 67.03, -1.73 -2.52%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.75 on revenues of $1.62 billion. For Q1, the company sees EPS of $0.65-0.67 with revenue guidance of $1.50-1.54 billion. For FY17, APH sees EPS of $2.84-2.92 on revenues of $6.34-6.50 billion.

CA Tech (CA 31.31, -1.64 -4.98%) reported better than expected Q3 earnings of $0.63 on revenues of $1.01 billion. For FY18, CA sees EPS and revenues worse than market expectations at $2.42-2.47 and $4.01-4.03 billion, respectively.

Seagate Tech (STX) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.38 and $2.89 billion, respectively. On the call, guided Q1 revenues of about $2.7 billion on margins of approximately 30%.

Cree (CREE 28.83, +1.42 +5.18%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.20 and $347 million, respectively. For Q3, the company sees EPS of $0.01-0.09 and revenues of about $285-315 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: T CMPR CTXS DLB EBAY EFII FFIV LRCX QCOM QSII QTM NOW TER WDC XLNX/ADS AVT CCMP CLFD DST ERIC RCI STM

Analyst actions:

STX was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at FBN Securities, I was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
CTL was upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies,
BT was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Macquarie;
VZ was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at FBR & Co., to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James, and to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
IMASY was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mtks,
SBAC and JCOM were downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
NOK was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Danske Bank,
VOD was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill;
ANET was initiated with a Buy at DA Davidson,
VSAT was initiated with an Underperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
GOGO was initiated with a Buy at Guggenheim,
MIME was initiated with a Buy at Brean Capital

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From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 27-Jan-17

The stock market enjoyed a solid week, which saw the three major averages climb to fresh record highs. The S&P 500 gained 1.0% for the week while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.3%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.9%) outperformed. The Dow received added attention in the media during the second half of the week after making its first appearance above the 20000 level on Wednesday.

The past week was highlighted by a healthy dose of quarterly reports from influential market components like Alphabet (GOOGL), Boeing (BA), Microsoft (MSFT), McDonald's (MCD), Intel (INTC), Texas Instruments (TXN), and Qualcomm (QCOM) among others. In general, results from the tech sector were strong while earnings from other areas of the market were more mixed.

At the end of the week, roughly 34% of S&P 500 components had reported their results, showing a blended earnings growth rate of 4.0% versus market expectations for growth of 5.2%, according to FactSet.

The economic calendar also featured a fair share of reports, but the market did not appear particularly concerned with disappointing December Existing Home Sales (5.49 million; Briefing.com consensus 5.55 million), December New Home Sales (536,000; Briefing.com consensus 589,000), advance fourth quarter GDP (+1.9%; Briefing.com consensus 2.2%), nor December Durable Orders (-0.4%; Briefing.com consensus 3.0%).

Rate hike expectations held firm with the fed funds futures market pointing to a 71.9% implied likelihood of a rate hike in June.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 19827.25 20093.78 266.53 1.3 1.7
Nasdaq 5555.33 5660.78 105.45 1.9 5.2
S&P 500 2271.31 2294.69 23.38 1.0 2.5
Russell 2000 1352.58 1370.15 17.57 1.3 1.0

Technology stocks finished a strong week with the Nasdaq 100(QQQ) closing up 0.2% at a new all-time high for the fourth day in a row.

Semiconductors (SMH +1.3%) were strong today, helped by abeat and raise report from Intel (INTC +1.1%). The stock hit a 16 year high andclosed at resistance near the $38 level. It trades at just under 14x 2017 earningsestimates.

Elsewhere in the space, Maxim (MXIM) rose 6% after beatingQ2 estimates while Synaptics (SNYA) fell 6.5% after beating Q2 estimates. Chip equipment company KLA-Tencor (KLAC) rose 3.5%to a seventeen year high following earnings.

Microsoft (MSFT +2.4%) closed at a new all-time high afterthe company beat Q2 estimates. CEO Satya Nadella has done a great job over thelast two years. The company has positioned itself as the clear #2 in the cloudbehind Amazon's AWS. Revenue from Azure,Microsoft's cloud platform launched almost seven years ago, surged 93.0% andusage more than doubled year-over-year. The tech behemoth has a $500 blnmarket cap and trades at ~22x earnings.

Google (GOOG, GOOGL) openedat an all-time but closed down 1.1% after missing earnings estimates. Theinternet search giant has a ~$580 billion market cap and trades at just over 20xearnings.

Cybersecurity stockProofpoint (PFPT) fell 6% despite a beating Q4 estimates and raising guidance.

Technology investorshave reason to be optimistic after Cisco (CSCO) acquired what was supposed tobe the first big tech IPO of the year AppDynamics at a lofty ~9x sales multiple this week.

Meanwhile,Snapchat is expected to IPO sometime in the first half of the year at avaluation near $20 billion despite having less than $1 billion in revenue lastyear. Applewill report Q1 results on Tuesday afternoon.

4:25 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Finish Friday Relatively Unchanged (:WRAPX) :

It appears that investors ran out of ink after rewriting the record book during Wednesday's session as the major averages closed the week relatively unchanged from those record levels. The S&P 500 (-0.1%) finished Friday's session just below its flat line, while the Nasdaq (+0.1%) performed just slightly better.

To illustrate the minimal change numerically, the five heaviest weighted sectors--technology, financials, health care, consumer discretionary, and industrials-- changed only marginally since Wednesday's close, seeing gains/losses of no more than 0.1%. Sectors like consumer staples and energy saw more substantial movement due to a number of factors, but generally, the stock market appears to be in wait-and-see mode, eyeing President Trump and his ability to implement the pro-growth agenda he ran his presidential campaign on.

However, despite minimal movement in the key indices, earnings season remained alive and well on Friday with technology names headlining the action. The results were mixed with Alphabet (GOOGL 845.03, -11.95) ticking down 1.4% in reaction to below-consensus earnings, while Intel (INTC 37.98, +0.42) and Microsoft (MSFT 65.78, +1.51) climbed 1.1% and 2.4%, respectively, after beating top and bottom line estimates.

The positives outweighed the negatives in the technology sector (+0.3%), which left the sector as one of the few spaces to close the day higher. Health care and telecom services were fortunate enough to do the same, adding 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively.

On the flip side, real estate (-0.9%) and energy (-0.9%) finished at the bottom of the day's leaderboard, with the latter fighting a battle on multiple fronts. The first attack against the energy space's came from Chevron (CVX 113.79, -2.76) after the company disappointed investors with its quarterly earnings report. Crude oil also weighed, slipping 1.1% to $53.18/bbl, as increased U.S. production overshadowed supply cut efforts by OPEC and non-OPEC members.

Consumer staples (-0.6%) also finished near the bottom of the leaderboard following a negative reaction to Colgate-Palmolive's (CL 64.68, -3.56) quarterly report. The company slipped 5.2% after missing revenue estimates and forecasting a low-single digit net sales increase for 2017.

For the week, cyclical sectors had the upper hand as materials (+3.4%) led five of the six spaces higher. Conversely, each countercyclical sector closed the week lower, with telecom services (-1.7%) falling the farthest.

U.S. Treasuries also closed Friday's session with a week-to-date loss. However, the Treasury market did end the week on an upbeat note, closing in positive territory around its highest levels of the day. The 10-yr yield settled two basis points lower at 2.48%.

Friday's economic data included advance fourth quarter GDP, December Durable Orders, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Sentiment Index for January:

Advance fourth quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 1.9%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.2%. The fourth quarter GDP Deflator came in at 2.1%, which is what the Briefing.com consensus expected.
The key takeaway from this report is that fourth quarter activity revealed the strong third quarter growth was as an aberration, yet that point aside, the salient takeaway for many is that this is a backward-looking report and the markets have their sights set on a brighter economic outlook for 2017, which is expected to feature deregulation, tax reform, and infrastructure spending among other items.
December durable goods orders declined 0.4%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a 3.0% increase. The prior month's reading was revised to -4.8% (from -4.6%). Excluding transportation, durable orders rose 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) to follow the prior month's revised gain of 1.0% (from 0.5%).
The key takeaway from this report is that business investment remained on a positive trajectory.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for January rose to 98.5 (Briefing.com consensus 98.0) from 98.1 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer confidence is rising on the back of an improved outlook for economic growth, job growth, and personal finances in the year ahead

Monday's economic data will include December Personal Income at 8:30 am ET and December Pending Home Sales at 10:00 am ET.

Nasdaq Composite 5.2% YTD
S&P 500 2.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD

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From Briefing.com: 4:09 pm Rambus reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q1 in-line (RMBS) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.16 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.16; revenues rose 27.1% year/year to $97.6 mln vs the $96 mln Capital IQ Consensus, primarily due to higher revenue from the security technology business, higher product revenue primarily from the memory and interfaces business, and higher royalty revenue. Rev rose 9% on a sequential basis primarily due to higher product revenue from the memory and interfaces business and higher royalty revenue.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.13-0.17, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $93-98 mln vs. $95.73 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Our activity throughout 2016 has prepared us well for profitable growth moving into 2017. Our memory and interfaces business continues to perform well with the ability to accelerate our customer engagements for the data center. We also have several avenues of exciting opportunities to extend beyond our historic business, particularly as we move closer to the consumer with offerings serving the mobile edge."

4:08 pm F5 Networks names Franois Locoh-Donou as President and CEO effective April 3 (FFIV) : Locoh-Donou succeeds current President and CEO, John McAdam, who will remain a Director on F5's Board upon his retirement on April 3, 2017. Locoh-Donou currently serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Ciena (CIEN).

4:07 pm Advanced Energy beats by $0.25, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (AEIS) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.06 per share, $0.25 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.81; revenues rose 55.7% year/year to $135.3 mln vs the $131.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

The company generated $44.4 million of operating cash from continuing operations.
Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.90-$1.00 vs. $0.80 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $141-$151 mln vs. $129.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co states: "Our Semiconductor and Service revenues reached new highs, more than offsetting the fourth quarter decline in Industrial applications. We continue to expand our presence as a critical enabler by capitalizing on the build-out and expansion of important semiconductor technologies. We enter 2017 with a healthy outlook, a strong balance sheet and a variety of opportunities that we believe will take AE to the next level and move us closer to our new aspirational goals."

4:05 pm Integrated Device beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; co guides on the earnings call (IDTI) :

Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.35 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.34; revenues fell 0.7% year/year to $176.4 mln vs the $176.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We have increasing momentum in multiple new growth areas, particularly automotive, industrial, and sensors, that will drive future growth. Additionally, we remain disciplined in managing our operating model, delivering best-in-class profitability and earnings leverage."

The co will provide guidance on its earnings call.4:05 pm Sanmina beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SANM) :

Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.75 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.67; revenues rose 12.1% year/year to $1.72 bln vs the $1.69 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.67-0.72, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.65 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.68-1.73 bln vs. $1.65 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. 4:25 pm : Investors decided to err on the side of caution to open a week full of earnings reports and influential economic data. The S&P 500 finished the day lower by 0.6%, while the Nasdaq (-0.8%) closed just a tick below the benchmark index.

Equity indices faced broad-based selling pressure from the start of Monday's session, with many fingers pointing to President Trump's executive order, which suspended the U.S. refugee program and temporarily restricted nationals of seven countries--Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen--from entering the United States, as the driver of the bearish tone.

It is a defensible position, as that order has engendered some concerns about protectionism taking root and has detracted from the market's preferred policy focus of corporate tax reform, but the market will face a full event calendar this week, so some caution is warranted.

The Federal Reserve will release its latest policy statement on Wednesday, which, combined with Friday's release of the January Employment Situation report (Briefing.com consensus 170K), could build a case for a rate hike at the subsequent FOMC meeting. In addition, a full slate of quarterly reports awaits with Apple (AAPL 121.63, -0.32) scheduled to release its results after Tuesday's closing bell.

Today's risk-off tone was most apparent in the stock market while Treasuries finished the day little changed with the benchmark 10-yr yield remaining at 2.48%. The U.S. Dollar Index finished just below its flat line with a loss of 0.1%, masking the dollar's 1.2% decline against the Japanese yen (113.73). It is worth noting the Bank of Japan will release its latest policy statement overnight.

Nine of eleven spaces finished the day in negative territory. Countercyclical sectors populated the upper half of Monday's leaderboard, with consumer staples (+0.1%) eking out a slim gain. The consumer discretionary sector (-0.1%) was the best performer on the cyclical side, finishing just a tick from its flat line. Walt Disney (DIS 110.94, +1.64) underpinned the sector's performance, adding 1.5%, after the company's stock was upgraded to 'Overweight' from 'Equal-Weight' at Morgan Stanley.

The energy sector occupied the bottom spot on the leaderboard, finishing 1.8% lower after pressure on multiple fronts. On the earnings side, Enterprise Products' (EPD 28.45, -0.64) mixed earnings report was met with a downbeat response, pushing the company's stock lower by 2.2%. Crude oil also hurt the energy space, closing its trading day 1.1% lower at $52.62/bbl.

The top-weighted technology sector (-0.8%) finished a tick lower than the benchmark index with top components like Alphabet (GOOGL 823.83, -21.20), Microsoft (MSFT 65.13, -0.65), and Facebook (FB 130.98, -1.20) falling between 0.9% and 2.5%.

Today's economic data included December Personal Income/Spending and December Pending Home Sales:

December personal income rose 0.3% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.4%. Meanwhile, December personal spending increased 0.5% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 0.4%. The November Personal Spending reading was left unrevised at 0.2% while November Personal Income was revised to 0.1% from 0.0%. Core PCE prices for December rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), while the November reading was left unrevised at 0.0%.
With spending rising faster than income, the drop in the personal savings rate suggests consumers were spending out of savings -- something that wouldn't typically be done unless it was out of necessity or consumers were feeling better about their income prospects.
Pending Home Sales for December rose 1.6% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.3%. Today's reading follows a 2.5% downtick in November.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the fourth quarter Employment Cost Index (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) at 8:30 am ET, the November S&P Case Schiller Home Price Index (Briefing.com consensus 5.0%) at 9:00 am ET, January Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 55.0) at 9:45 am ET, and January Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 112.5) at 10:00 am ET.

Russell 2000 -0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.1% YTD
S&P 500 1.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite 4.3% YTD

DJ30 -122.65 NASDAQ -47.07 SP500 -13.79 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 682/1.61 bln/2275 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 890/1.03 bln/2082 3:30 pm :

Crude oil doubled Friday's post-rig count data losses ahead of tomorrow's API release
Mar crude oil futures fell $0.56 (-1.1%) to $52.62/barrel
Upcoming data reminders:
Weekly API data will be released tomorrow at 4:30 pm ET.
Weekly EIA petroleum data will released this Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
Weekly Baker Hughes rig count data will be released this Friday at 1 pm ET.
Recap of Friday's rig data:
On Friday, Baker Hughes reported the total US rig count increased by 18 to 712 rigs, following last week's increase of 35 rigs
The number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil rose by 15 to 566 rigs this week
Last week, the U.S. oil rig count increased by 29 to 551 rigs.
In the week prior to Friday, the rig count declined, but that followed 10 consecutive weekly prior increases
The oil rig count is at its highest level in ~14 months
It is worth noting that this pick-up in US activity could potentially cap oil price gains in the future
Natural gas extended Friday's losses on updated warmer weather forecasts across the US ahead of Thursday's EIA data
Mar natural gas closed $0.12 lower (-3.6%) at $3.23/MMBtu
Weekly EIA natural gas data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold snapped its 4-session losing streak after data showed PCE rose the most in ~2 years, ahead of the 2-day Fed meeting
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $5.00 (+0.4%) to $1193.20/oz
The PCE Price Index was up 1.6% year-over-year versus a 1.4% increase seen in Nov. That is tracking toward the Fed's longer-run target of 2.0%, which is what Fed officials will want to see to justify further rate hikes. The core PCE Price Index, which increased 0.1% in Dec (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), was up 1.7% year-over-year, unchanged from Nov.
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.02 higher (+0.1%) at $17.15/oz
The dollar index was -0.1% around the 100.41 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -1.1% around the 87.03 level

After a week which saw the broader market notch new highs on multiple sessions, this week in the markets began distinctly lower. Coming off last week's highs, the Nasdaq Composite shed 47.07 points (-0.83%) to 5613.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 122.65 points (-0.61%) to 19971.13, and the S&P 500 was down 13.79 points (-0.60%) to 2280.90 at the close.

Market data today included the December personal income reading, which rose 0.3%; meanwhile, December personal spending increased 0.5%. The November Personal Spending reading was left unrevised at 0.2% while November Personal Income was revised to 0.1% from 0.0%. Core PCE prices for December rose 0.1%, while the November reading was left unrevised at 0.0%. Pending Home Sales for December rose 1.6%. Today's reading follows a 2.5% downtick in November.

The Technology (XLK 50.33, 0.41 -0.81%) space suffered a minor set-back today as weakness permeated from top to bottom. Names like CTSH -4.42%, GOOG -2.55%, GOOGL -2.51%, AMAT -2.00%, LRCX -1.89%, CSRA -1.86%, HPE -1.77% held the sector lower. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Monday XLE -1.86%, XLB -1.02%, IYZ -0.87%, XLI -0.85%, XLF -0.80%, XLRE -0.56%, XLV -0.49%, XLY -0.11%, XLP -0.08%, XLU +0.08% as only Utilities were able to escape Monday with gains.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (848.20, -7.01 -0.82%) space, trading was decidedly negative. Bellwethers in the space didn't help the sector's cause, finishing all lower -- AAPL -0.26%, MSFT -0.99%, FB -0.91%, V -0.08%, INTC -1.47%, IBM -0.85%, CSCO -0.48%, MA -0.49%, AVGO -1.22%, QCOM -1.16%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Fitbit (FIT 6.05, -1.15 -16.0%) lowered its Q4 guidance to a loss per share of ($0.51-0.56) from $0.14-0.18. Additionally, revenue guidance was lowered to $572-580 million from $725-750 million. FIT also announced the reorganization of its business, including a reduction in force, that will impact about 110 employees, constituting about 6% of the company's global workforce, creating a more focused and efficient operating model. The cost of these reorganization efforts is expected to be about $4 million to be recorded in the first quarter of 2017. The company is targeting a reduction in the 2016 exit operating expense run rate of about $200 million, to about $850 million for 2017, which includes realigning sales and marketing spend and improved optimization of research and development investments.

The EU cleared the acquisition of Intel (INTC 37.42, -0.56 -1.47%) Security by TPG Capital.

Digital Ally (DGLY 5.75, +1.05 +22.34%) announced its largest commercial order ever received for the sale and installation of DVM-250 event recorder video systems to American Medical Response ("AMR") and ongoing FleetVu Manager cloud storage services. AMR's initial order for deployment during 2017 includes about 1,550 three-camera DVM-250 systems, installation and cloud storage services, representing 2017 revenues about $2 million. Shipments will begin immediately.

Ixia (XXIA 19.45, +1.25 +6.87%) confirmed it will be acquired by Keysight Technologies (KEYS 36.97, -0.04 -0.11%) for $19.65 per share in cash, or approximately $1.6 billion.

Vodafone (VOD 24.90, +0.32 +1.30%) confirmed it is in discussions with the Aditya Birla Group about an all share merger of Vodafone India.

Nokia (NOK 4.53, -0.10 -2.16%) and the Orange Group (ORAN 15.38, -0.09 -0.58%) are to collaborate on the development of services that will allow industries and consumers to take advantage of the unprecedented efficiencies and business models made possible by 5G.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Silicom Limited (SILC 37.31, -1.74 -4.46%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.66 and $28.33 million, respectively.

Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 33.91, -2.35 -6.48%) reported worse than expected Q3 earnings of $0.38 on revenues which beat market expectations at about $1.4 billion. The company also guided FY17 EPS and revenues in-line at $1.70-1.74 from $1.68-1.75 and up 4-6% to about $5.62-5.73 billion, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AEIS, IDTI, ISIL, RMBS, SANM/AXE, AUDC, MMYT, MA, NTCT, S, XRX

Analyst actions:

NTAP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
WBMD was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
HDP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho,
MELI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill;
HIMX was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
PAYC was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
TRMB was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Dougherty,
MGI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Feltl,
XXIA was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson;
CSLT was initiated with a Market Perform at Cowen,
NPTN was initiated with an Outperform at Cowen

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From Briefing.com: 4:35 pm Apple beats by $0.14, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus (AAPL) :

Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $3.36 per share, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $3.22; revenues rose 3.3% year/year to $78.35 bln vs the $77.26 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Gross margin 38.5%, in-line with estimates vs. 40.5% last year.

iPhones 78.3 mln vs 77.3 mln ests and 74.8 mln last year.
iPads 13.1 mln vs 14.7 mln ests and 16.1 mln last year Macs 5.4 mln vs 5.2 mln ests versus 5.3 mln last year.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $51.5-53.5 bln vs. $54.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margin between 38-39% vs 38.7% ests and 39.4% last year.; operating expenses between $6.5 billion and $6.6 billion; other income/(expense) of $400 million; tax rate of 26 percent

4:34 pm Apple shares +3% to $125 area on better-than-expected Q1 EPS and revenue, and upside iPhone units; however, Q2 rev guidance was below analyst estimates (AAPL) :

4:26 pm Seagate Tech prices $750 mln of senior notes due 2022 at 99.770% and $500 mln of senior notes due 2024 at 99.328% (STX) :

4:23 pm Advanced Micro beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs in-line (AMD) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) non-GAAP loss of $0.01 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.02); revenues rose 15.4% year/year but fell 15.4 % sequentially to $1.11 bln vs the $1.07 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revenue down 8-14% sequentially which we compute as $951-1,018 mln vs. $964.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Non-GAAP gross margin was 32%, up 2 percentage points YoY and up 1 percentage point sequentially primarily due to higher Computing and Graphics segment revenue.

Computing and Graphics segment revenue was $600 million, up 28% YoY and 27% sequentially. The YoY increase was primarily driven by higher GPU sales. The sequential increase was primarily due to higher GPU and client processor sales. Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment revenue was $506 mln, up 4% YoY primarily driven by higher embedded and semi-custom SoC revenue.

4:25 pm : Investors continued hedging their investment risk on Tuesday, choosing to play it safe in the wake of last week's record high levels and amid a week full of influential reports on both the earnings and economic fronts. However, an afternoon rally helped the major averages finish at their highest levels of the day. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% after being down more than 0.5% in the early going.

The health care sector assumed a leadership position in today's market, underpinned by the outperformance of the drug and biotech stocks. Those issues rallied on the other side of a meeting President Trump had with industry executives. While the president pressed his case for lowering drug prices, market participants were heartened by his added belief that regulations should be reduced and that the drug approval process should be sped up. Those declarations lent some relief to investors, who appeared heartened by the notion that the meeting with the president was better than feared.

A host of health care names kicked off today's trading session by reporting quarterly results before the opening bell including Pfizer (PFE 31.73, +0.42), Eli Lilly (LLY 77.03, +2.33), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO 152.39, +9.10), and Aetna (AET 118.61, +1.90). The results were mixed, but the four names added between 1.3% and 6.4% after President Trump met with CEOs from top U.S. drugmakers on Tuesday morning. Biotechnology stood out with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 278.07, +7.68) spiking 2.8%.

On the cyclical side, Exxon Mobil (XOM 83.89, -0.97) also reported earnings this morning. The reaction to the report was negative, pushing the company and the energy space lower by 1.1% and 0.1%, respectively. However, the energy sector's loss was capped by crude oil, which finished its trading day 0.3% higher at $52.81/bbl. The energy component's gain came amid a downtick in the U.S. Dollar Index (99.60, -0.82), which finished Tuesday 0.8% lower.

The remaining cyclical sectors fell as cautious sentiment lingered throughout the day. Industrials (-0.9%) closed at the bottom of the leaderboard following United Parcel Service's (UPS 109.13, -7.90) disappointing fourth quarter earnings report and relative weakness in airline names. The top-weighted technology sector also underperformed the benchmark index, thanks in part to a poor showing from chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index finished Tuesday lower by 1.3%. In the broader tech sector, Apple (AAPL 121.29, -0.34) shed 0.3% ahead of its earnings report.

Conversely, countercyclical spaces and Treasuries thrived on wary investors' actions; all five defensive spaces finished higher while the benchmark 10-yr yield closed five basis points lower at 2.44%. The utilities sector (+1.6%) was the day's top performer, while telecom services (+0.1%) eked out a small gain.

Today's economic data included fourth quarter Employment Cost Index, November Case-Shiller Home Price Index, January Chicago PMI, and January Consumer Confidence:

The fourth quarter Employment Cost Index rose 0.5%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that compensation costs did move higher in 2016, which creates some profit margin constraints while at the same time lending employees some increased spending potential.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for November rose 5.3%, which was above the Briefing.com consensus of 5.0%. This followed the previous month's unrevised reading of 5.1%.
Chicago PMI for January decreased to 50.3 from 54.6 in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 55.0.
The key takeaway from this report is that it's a first quarter report, and with the pullback to a level that is just above a contraction reading, it will serve perhaps to temper some of the market's heightened optimism surrounding economic growth prospects.
The consumer confidence reading for January declined to 111.8 from the prior month's revised reading of 113.3 (from 113.7). The Briefing.com consensus expected the survey to hit 112.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer confidence is still at relatively high levels, although consumers' outlook was reined in a bit following the post-election surge.

Tomorrow will see a full slate of economic reports including MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 am ET, January ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 165k) at 8:15 am ET, January ISM Index (Briefing.com consensus 55.0) at 10:00 am ET, December Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), February FOMC Rate Decision (Briefing.com consensus 0.625%) at 2:00 pm ET, and January Auto & Truck Sales at 2:00 pm ET.

Russell 2000 +0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.5% YTD
S&P 500 1.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite 4.3% YTD

DJ30 -107.04 NASDAQ +1.07 SP500 -2.03 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1776/1.85 bln/1125 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1858/1.48 bln/1058 3:30 pm :

Crude oil broke out of its 3-session downtrend ahead of tonight's API on headlines that OPEC has surpassed 1 mln barrels/day in output reductions
Mar crude oil futures rose $0.14 (+0.3%) to $52.76/barrel
Color on price action in oil:
Mar 2017 crude oil futures snapped out of a 3-session downtrend. Crude sharply reversed off of session lows after dropping as much as -0.7% initially, following headlines that OPEC has cut more than 1 mln barrels/day of the promised 1.2 mln barrels/day in planned oil production cuts (the OPEC portion).
Crude oil supply from the 11 OPEC members with targeted production reductions avged 30.01 mln barrels/day in Jan, compared to 31.17 mln in Dec.
Other factors to consider:
U.S. oil production has risen by ~6.3% since July last year to almost 9 mln bpd, according to EIA data.
Concerns these increases in US production will offset the coordinated OPEC/non-OPEC output reductions initially put pressure on crude futures in morning pit trading.
Also initially adding pressure on oil prices was this morning's statements from Goldman regarding an estimation that y/y U.S. oil production will rise by 290k barrels/day in 2017, if a backlog on rigs that are still to become operational is accounted for.
Note: The spread between Brent and WTI crude has been increasing, as market participants appear willing to pay a premium for Brent, as oil supply in the Middle East shrinks due to OPEC reductions, while US WTI crude oil is becoming increasingly plentiful.
Data reminders:
API data will be released today at 4:30 pm ET.
EIA data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Natural gas closed pit trading lower for the third day in a row ahead of Thursday's inventory data on updated warmer weather forecasts across much of the US
Mar natural gas closed $0.11 lower (-3.4%) at $3.12/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold extended yesterday's gain, silver rallied on continued weakness in the dollar index
April gold ended today's session up $15.40 (+1.3%) to $1,211.40/oz
Gold futures have switched their front month to April from Feb, as indicated by the active amount of volume in the contracts
Mar silver closed today's session $0.39 higher (+2.3%) at $17.54/oz
The dollar index was -0.8% around the 99.62 level, boosted precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.7% around the 87.59 level

After opening the week with losses on Monday, the broader market managed a split session on Tuesday. Action was only higher in the Nasdaq Composite, and in that case only just, as the index added 1.07 points (+0.02%) today to close 5614.79. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, on the other hand, closed 107.04 points (-0.54%) lower to 19864.09, and the S&P 500 lost 2.03 points (-0.09%) to 2278.87.

Market data today included the fourth quarter Employment Cost Index which rose 0.5%; also, Chicago PMI for January declined to 50.3 from 54.6 in December. The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for November rose 5.3%. This followed the previous month's unrevised reading of 5.1%. Lastly, the consumer confidence reading for January declined to 111.8 from the prior month's revised reading of 113.3 (from 113.7).

Also posting another down day, the Technology (XLK 50.08, -0.25 -0.50%) sector regained a portion of afternoon losses but still ended firmly in the red. Component MasterCard (MA 106.33, -2.97 -2.72%) was one of the weakest names today after the company reported mixed Q4 results this morning. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLV +1.57%, XLU +1.55%, XLRE +0.82%, XLP +0.48%, IYZ +0.17%, XLE +0.00%, XLY -0.15%, XLB -0.59%, XLF -0.64%, XLI -0.88% as Healthcare led the charge.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (843.03, -5.17 -0.61%) space, trading lower but well off daily lows. Component Apple (AAPL 121.29, -0.34 -0.28%) traded modestly lower ahead of earnings, while Xerox (XRX 6.93, -0.02 -0.29%) traded modestly lower following earnings. Other names in the space which underperformed included TXN -3.03%, MCHP -2.48%, CTSH -2.05%, AVGO -1.83%, ADI -1.76%, INTC -1.60%, XLNX -1.52%, KLAC -1.32%, MSI -1.21%, V -1.18%, TSS -1.15%, EBAY -1.06%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Seagate Tech (STX 45.15, +0.25 +0.56%) to offer senior notes in a private placement. Terms of the placement were not disclosed.

F5 Networks (FFIV 134.03, -0.66 -0.49%) named Franois Locoh-Donou as President and CEO effective April 3.

GoPro (GPRO 10.72, -0.08 -0.74%) named Charles Prober as Chief Operating Officer.

Microsoft (MSFT 64.65, -0.48 -0.74%) priced $17 billion of debt offerings in 7 tranches.

Vonage (VG 7.08, +0.00 +0.07%) named Kenneth Wyatt Chief Revenue Officer.

Accenture (CAN 113.87, -0.76 -0.66%) to acquire InvestTech Systems Consulting. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Radware (RDWR 14.69, +0.22 +1.52%) acquired Seculert for undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to be immaterial to its 2017 revenues, but slightly dilutive to its fully diluted 2017 non-GAAP EPS.

Everbridge (EVBG 18.47, -0.30 -1.60%) acquired IDV Solutions for about $18.7 million in cash.

Broadcom (AVGO 199.50, -3.72 -1.83%) filed a prospectus supplement relating to the possible issuance of up to 22,804,591 ordinary shares in the capital of the company to the holders of exchangeable limited partnership units of Broadcom Cayman L.P.

In reaction to quarterly results:

MasterCard (MA) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.86 on revenues which missed market expectations despite growing 9.5% compared to a year ago to $2.76 billion.

Sprint (S 9.23, +0.12 +1.32%) reported a worse than expected Q3 loss per share of $0.12 on revenues which beat market expectations at $8.55 billion.

Xerox (XRX) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $0.25 on revenues which came in below market expectations at $2.73 billion. For FY17, the company guided EPS in-line at $0.80-0.88.

Integrated Device (IDTI 25.19, -1.15 -4.38%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.35 on revenues which came in at $176.4 million. For Q4, the company sees EPS of $0.32-0.36 on revenues of $170-180 million, both in-line with market expectations.

Intersil (ISIL 22.43, +0.05 +0.22%) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $0.19 on revenues which beat market expectations at $139.81 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ACXM AMD AAPL BBOX EA FICO MANH MTCH MSTR OCLR PLT TNAV VIAV/ADP CEVA GIB LFUS SLAB VNTV

Analyst actions:

VSAT was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
XGTI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Roth Capital;
FIT was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup,
CTSH was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
IDTI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Summit Redstone,
XXIA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Gabelli & Co.,
NTCT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
YNDX was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Alfa Bank;
T, S, VZ were initiated with Hold ratings at Evercore ISI,
TMUS was initiated with a Buy at Evercore ISI,

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From Briefing.com: 4:17 pm Cirrus Logic beats by $0.25, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs in-line (CRUS) :
Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $1.87 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.25 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.62; revenues rose 50.3% year/year to $523 mln vs the $495.24 mln Capital IQ Consensus; adj. gross margin 48.8%.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $300-340 mln vs. $333.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus; GAAP GM 48-50%.

"Cirrus Logic delivered outstanding revenue, operating profit and earnings per share growth in the December quarter as demand for certain portable audio products accelerated," said Jason Rhode, president and chief executive officer. "The company is delighted to be on track to deliver our third consecutive year of more than 25 percent annual revenue growth. With a comprehensive portfolio of products and extensive roadmap we are well positioned for success in the coming years as demand for innovative audio and voice technology continues to increase."

4:15 pm Extreme Networks beats by $0.05, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (EXTR) :

Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.07; revenues rose 6.3% year/year to $148.1 mln vs the $152.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP Gross Margin 50.9%.

Non-GAAP gross margin is targeted between 55.5% and 56.5%.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.06-0.10, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.06 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $151-161 mln vs. $155.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.4:14 pm Cadence Design beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; guides FY17 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CDNS) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.34 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.33; revenues rose 6.3% year/year to $469 mln vs the $468.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.30-$0.32 vs. $0.31 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $470-$480 mln vs. $464.40 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $1.32-$1.42 vs. $1.35 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $1.9-$1.95 bln vs. $1.92 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co states: "...In the fourth quarter we completed our $1.2 billion stock repurchase program, cumulatively repurchasing 52 million shares representing approximately 18 percent of shares outstanding as of July 4, 2015. This week, we replaced our December 2012 senior credit facility, increasing our borrowing capacity and extending the term; and we maintain an investment grade rating for our outstanding public debt."

4:13 pm Mellanox Tech misses by $0.04, misses on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus (MLNX) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.82 per share, $0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.86; revenues rose 25.3% year/year to $221.7 mln vs the $225.04 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $200-210 mln vs. $226.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Sees Non-GAAP gross margins of 71 percent to 72 percent

Sees an increase in non-GAAP operating expenses of 3 percent to 5 percent
Share-based compensation expense of $15.8 million to $16.3 million

4:13 pm Exar reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (EXAR):

Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.07 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.07; revenues rose 7.5% year/year to $27.22 mln vs the $27.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin of 53.4% increased from 51.9% reported in the previous quarter and the 46.1% reported in the third quarter last year.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.07-0.09, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.08 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $27.2-28.2 mln vs. $28.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Axcelis Tech beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS above consensus (ACLS) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.10; revenues fell 1.6% year/year to $69.4 mln vs the $69.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus (Preannouced EPS above $0.04-0.08 guidance and rev at high end of $65-70 mln guidance on Jan 10)

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.20-0.24 vs. $0.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We expect 2017 to be the start of a solid up cycle for the industry, with robust implant CAPEX spending, providing Axcelis with substantial opportunities for continued growth..I am pleased with our financial performance in 2016. We increased gross margins to 37.3%, up from 33.7% in 2015..."We expect to realize further improvements in gross margin in 2017 with continued focus on supply chain optimization, value engineering and lean programs."

4:10 pm Power Integrations beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs in-line (POWI) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.67 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.62; revenues rose 15.8% year/year to $101.1 mln vs the $101.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Cash flow from operations for the quarter was $27.7 mln.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs to be flat, plus or minus 3%, compared to recast Q4 revenue of $102.4 mln. That equates to revs of $99.3-$105.5 mln vs. $99.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 47.9-48.4%; non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 49-49.5%.

4:09 pm Intevac beats by $0.06, misses on revs (IVAC) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.07; revenues rose 76.8% year/year to $29 mln vs the $29.76 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Order backlog totaled $68.5 million on December 31, 2016, compared to $72.9 million on October 1, 2016 and $51.2 million on January 2, 2016. Backlog at December 31, 2016 included four 200 Lean HDD systems, four INTEVAC VERTEX display cover panel coating systems, one INTEVAC MATRIX solar system, and two ENERGi solar ion implant systems. Backlog at October 1, 2016 included four 200 Lean

HDD systems, three INTEVAC VERTEX display cover panel coating systems, two INTEVAC MATRIX solar systems, and two ENERGi solar ion implant systems. Backlog at January 2, 2016 included three solar systems and one PVD display cover panel coating system.

The Company ended the year with $49.8 million of total cash, restricted cash and investments and $71.0 million in tangible book value.

4:07 pm Cavium Networks beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides on the call (CAVM) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.56 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 124.2% year/year to $226.2 mln vs the $224.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Non-GAAP gross margin was 65.0% and Non-GAAP operating margin (non-GAAP income from operations as a percentage of revenue) was 21.6%.
Guides on call

4:06 pm Adobe Systems' Board elects President and CEO Shantanu Narayen as Chairman of the Board (ADBE) : Narayen will continue in his role as President and CEO of Adobe and succeeds Co-Chairs and Co-Founders of the company, John Warnock and Chuck Geschke, who will remain on the Board.

4:06 pm Facebook beats by $0.10, beats on revs (FB) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.41 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.31; revenues rose 53.1% year/year to $8.809 bln vs the $8.49 bln Capital IQ Consensus.Daily active users: DAUs were 1.23 billion on average for December 2016, an increase of 18% y/y; Expected to come in at approx 1.20 bln; Q3 was 1.18 bln, up 17% y/y(Expectations approx 1.16 bln); Q3 increased 17%, Q1 16%, Q4 17%. Mobile DAUs- Mobile DAUs were 1.15 billion on average for December 2016, an increase of 23% year-over-year. Monthly active users: MAUs were 1.86 billion as of December 31, 2016, an increase of 17% y/y; Expected to come in at approx 1.84 bln; Q3 was 1.79 bln, +16% y/y(Expectations approx 1.76 bln); Q2 increased 20%; Q1 21%. Mobile MAUs -- Mobile MAUs were 1.74 billion as of December 31, 2016, an increase of 21% year-over-year.Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 84% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2016, up from approximately 80% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2015. Capital expenditures for the full year 2016 were $4.49 billion (Gudiance was $4.5 bln).

4:05 pm Qorvo beats by $0.10, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS below consensus (QRVO) :

Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $1.35 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.25; GAAP revenues rose 33.1% year/year to $826.3 mln vs the $821.42 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.70-0.90, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.04 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 non-GAAP revs of $610-650 mln, not comparable to $718.67 mln GAAP Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"In the March quarter, we're forecasting a greater than historical sequential decline as two of our leading customers in China and a tier-one customer in Korea delay flagship smartphone launches. In fiscal year 2018, we expect double-digit revenue growth, driven by continued broad-based growth in IDP and increasing demand for our mobile products, including multiplexers, diversity receive modules, WiFi, RF Fusion, and RF Flex. We are also forecasting year-over-year content gains in marquee smartphones, driven by low-band PADs, envelope trackers and tuners."

4:03 pm Brooks Automation beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS, revs above consensus (BRKS) :

Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.20; revenues rose 33.3% year/year to $159.96 mln vs the $160.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Bookings for BSSG in the first quarter totaled $122.8 million, compared to $140.1 million in the fourth quarter. BLSS booked a total of $64.2 million of new contract value, compared to $32.0 million in the fourth quarter.

Non-GAAP gross margin, which excludes amortization expense, impact of purchase
price accounting adjustments and special charges described above, was 36.3% in
the first quarter, down 0.4 points from the prior quarter.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.24-0.27, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $165-170 mln vs. $158.89 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:25 pm : Pockets of strength kept the S&P 500 near its flat line on Wednesday despite investors' lack of buying conviction. The S&P 500 finished flat while the Nasdaq (+0.5%) and Dow Jones industrial Average (+0.1%) ended modestly higher thanks to a huge move in shares of Apple (AAPL 129.92, +8.57, +7.1%) following its fiscal first quarter earnings report, which was replete with record revenues, earnings, and iPhone sales.

Wednesday's session opened with a lot of optimism as market participants reacted favorably to Apple's earnings results; however, investors soon lost conviction and the major indices soon relinquished most, if not all, of their opening gains.

The inability to maintain a bullish bias in the wake of Apple's report was regarded as a disappointing development that weighed on investor sentiment. At the same time, market participants were grappling with some inflation concerns and some rate-hike edginess in front of the FOMC policy decision at 2:00 p.m. ET after the ADP Employment Change and Manufacturing ISM Index reports for January checked in stronger than expected.

The aforementioned reports supported the notion that economic growth looks poised to accelerate in 2017 -- a view that in turn fueled a belief that higher inflation will accompany that growth. That outlook manifested itself in a weak Treasury market and a strengthening dollar, yet those respective moves were tempered following the release of the FOMC's policy directive.

The FOMC voted unanimously to maintain the current fed funds target range at 0.50%-0.75%, as expected. By and large, there was little change in the wording of the directive from the December meeting. There was some concern ahead of its release that it might have a hawkish-sounding angle to it, but the fact that it was little changed took a little of the rate-hike edge off the market.

That edge was rooted in the thinking that the directive's language might contain some signaling that the FOMC is leaning to a rate hike in March, which the fed funds futures market currently does not expect.

In any event, buying efforts in the dollar subsided and selling efforts in the Treasury market tapered off after the release of the directive. The 2-yr note yield, which is sensitive to changes in the fed funds rate, dropped from 1.25% to 1.21% after the FOMC decision. The benchmark 10-yr yield for its part closed relatively flat, up one basis point at 2.48%.

For sector standings, technology finished near the top of the day's leaderboard amid the spike in Apple's stock and a positive showing from chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index finished 1.7% higher following Advanced Micro Devices's (AMD 12.06, +1.69) upbeat earning report. The company closed Wednesday's session 16.3% higher.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (unch) also closed the day higher, along with materials (+0.6%), and health care (+0.7%). The health care space rallied on Anthem's (ANTM 160.79, +6.65) better than expected quarterly earnings report and an uptick from the biotechnology industry. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 280.42, +2.35) finished higher for the second day in a row, adding 0.9%.

At the bottom of the leaderboard was utilities (-1.7%), which suffered from the uptick in interest rates and the negative response to the earnings report from Dominion Resources (D 71.85, -4.43, -5.8%). The lightly-weighted telecom services (-0.7%) and real estate (-1.1%) sectors also finished lower, extending their losses for the week to 1.1% and 0.9%, respectively.

Today's economic data included the FOMC Rate Decision, January ISM Index, January ADP Employment Change, December Construction Spending, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Index:

The FOMC voted unanimously to maintain the fed funds target range at 0.50%-0.75%.
The ISM Index for January rose to 56.0 from a revised reading of 54.5 in December (from 54.7) while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick to 55.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that helps validates the market's upbeat assumptions about economic growth accelerating in 2017.
The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 246,000 in January (Briefing.com consensus 165,000) while the December reading was revised lower to 151,000 from 153,000.
The Construction Spending report for December showed a 0.2% decrease while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that private construction spending was up for the third straight month. The value of this report for the market, though, is negligible since it is a dated report, the output of which was already imputed in the fourth quarter GDP report last week.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index declined 3.2% to follow last week's 4.0% increase.

Tomorrow's economic data will include January Challenger Job Cuts at 7:30 am ET, Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 250k) at 8:30 am ET, and fourth quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) also at 8:30 am.

Russell 2000 +0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.7% YTD
S&P 500 1.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite 4.8% YTD

3:30 pm :

Crude oil shrugged off a slurry of bearish inventory data, closed at its highest level of the session, extended yesterday's gain; rig count data expected Friday
Mar 2017 crude oil futures rose $1.12 (+2.1%) to $53.88/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Color on price action in crude:
Crude oil futures for Mar 2017 delivery are on track to extend yesterday's gains despite EIA reporting builds on all fronts above expectations. Crude futures also shrugged off last night's bearish API reading (a 5.83 mln barrel build of oil vs. last week's build of 2.93 mln barrels, Gasoline showed a build of 2.86 mln barrels, and distillates showed a build of 2.27 mln barrels) earlier after Russia reported they have reduced output by 100k barrels/day out of the total expected 300k barrels/day cut agreed to late last year.
This latest data out of Russia comes after yesterday's news that OPEC has reduced collective output by over 1 mln barrels/day out of their expected portion of the collective output cut of 1.2 mln barrels/day.
Reminder: The total collective production cut agreed to late last year between OPEC/non-OPEC members is expected to be 1.6 mln barrels/day.
Lastly, its worth noting that crude caught a bid towards the end of the pit trading session following comments out of the White House from the National Security Adviser stating Iran's missile is in defiance of the UN & Iran is officially on notice.
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +6.5 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of about +3.289 mln barrels).
Gasoline inventories had a build of +3.9 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of +0.982 mln barrels).
Distillate inventories had a build of +1.6 mln barrels.
Natural gas broke out of its 4-session downtrend ahead of tomorrow's EIA data release
Mar 2017 natural gas closed $0.05 higher (+1.6%) at $3.17/MMBtu
EIA natural gas data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold snapped its 2-session streak on renewed dollar index strength
April 2017 gold ended today's session down $3.00 (-0.3%) to $1208.40/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session $0.08 lower (-0.5%) at $17.46/oz
The dollar index was +0.2% around the 99.69 level, pressured precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +1.1% around the 88.54 level

Beginning the week with two sessions of losses, the broader market posted a modestly higher Wednesday close. The Nasdaq Composite won the day, adding 27.86 points (+0.50%) to 5642.65. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 26.85 points (+0.14%) to 19890.94, and the S&P 500 was up less than a point (+0.03%) when the bell rang to 2279.55.

Market data today included the ISM Index for January which rose to 56.0 from a revised reading of 54.5 in December (from 54.7). Also, the ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 246,000 in January while the December reading was revised lower to 151,000 from 153,000. Additionally, the Construction Spending report for December showed a 0.2% decrease. Lastly, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index was down 3.2% to follow last week's 4.0% increase.

Also on the Street today, the first Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of 2017 came to pass and the word to the market is that there was no change in the FOMC's policy. The target range for the federal funds rate was maintained at 0.50% to 0.75%, as expected, and that target range was agreed to by all voting members, four of whom -- Chicago Fed President Evans, Philadelphia Fed President Harker, Dallas Fed President Kaplan, and Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari -- were new voting members.

After back-to-back sessions of losses to open the week, the Technology (XLK 50.46, +0.38 +0.76%) space recouped a portion of that weakness. Component Apple (AAPL 128.79, +7.44 +6.13%) was the best performing name today following its quarterly report from last night. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLV +0.75%, XLB +0.50%, XLF +0.13%, XLI -0.16%, XLY -0.19%, XLP -0.72%, XLE -0.74%, XLRE -1.11%, XLU -1.69%, IYZ -2.85% as gains in Tech were only outdone by Healthcare.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (849.35, +6.32 +0.75%) space, trading ended Wednesday near highs. Component Automatic Data (ADP 95.25, -5.74 -5.68%) was the worst performer today following this morning's mixed Q2 print and FY17 outlook. Other names in the space which outperformed with the sector included NVDA +4.37%, MU +2.65%, LRCX +2.51%, AMAT +2.28%, FB +2.23%, AVGO +2.10%, XRX +2.02%, FSLR +1.92%, CSRA +1.71%, ADI +1.64%, MCHP +1.57%, EBAY +1.10%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
GoPro (GPRO 10.57, -0.18 -1.67%) confirmed its drone, Karma, is now on sale at GoPro.com and select U.S. retailers.

Seagate Tech (STX 44.78, -0.37 -0.82%) priced $750 million of senior notes due 2022 at 99.770% and $500 million of senior notes due 2024 at 99.328%.

Corning (GLW 26.20, -0.29 -1.09%) raised its quarterly dividend to $0.155 per share from $0.135 per share.

Take-Two (TTWO 54.36, +0.71 +1.32%) acquired Social Point S.L. for $250 million in cash and stock, plus earn-out potential.

Luxoft Holding (LXFT 58.75, -0.10 -0.17%) acquired IntroPro. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Amazon (AMZN 832.19, +8.71 +1.06%) confirmed air cargo hub details in Kentucky - will create 2,000 jobs.

Carbonite (CARB 19.15, +1.90 +11.01%) acquired Double-Take Software for $65.25 million and reported prelim Q4 results; EPS of $0.07-0.11, revenues of $47.1-52.1 million. The company issued FY17 guidance with Double-Take Software impact - EPS of $0.72-0.80 on revenues of $232.5-252.5 million.

DISH Network (DISH 61.14, +1.97 +3.33%) will transfer certain EchoStar (SATS 55.06, +4.13 +8.11%) assets and operations, including its EchoStar Technologies hardware and software development group to DISH in exchange for DISH's 80% interest in Hughes Retail Group.

Medidata Solutions (MDSO 49.44, -0.10 -0.20%) to acquire CHITA to create industry's first integrated, end-to-end system for all R&D content and document management needs. MDSO also announced a strategic partnership agreement with Box (BOX 17.21, +0.14 +0.82%).

Ericsson (ERIC 5.86, -0.03 -0.51%) and the Finnish telecommunications group DNA Plc have introduced the new 700 MHz spectrum for mobile broadband as of February 1, 2017, following the conditions of the radio license granted by the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority. The spectrum previously used for digital television enables build-up of 4G capacity, particularly in sparsely populated areas.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Apple (AAPL) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $3.36 and $78.35 billion, respectively. For Q2, the company sees revs of $51.5-53.5 billion on gross margins between 38-39%.

Automatic Data (ADP) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.87 on revenues which came in-line with expectations at $2.99 billion. ADP now expects full year revenue growth of about 6% compared to prior forecast of 7% to 8% growth. This equates to roughly $12.37 billion. Also, ADP continues to expect full year diluted EPS from continuing operations to grow 15% to 17%, and adjusted diluted EPS growth of 11% to 13%, or roughly $3.62-3.68.

Electronic Arts (EA 83.00, -0.43 -0.52%) reported better than expected Q3 GAAP EPS of net breakeven. GAAP revenues for Q3 were up 7.4% year-over-year to $1.15 billion. For FY17, the company sees EPS of $2.91 from prior expectations of $2.69. FY17 revenues are now expected to be about $4.80 billion from prior $1.775 billion.

CGI Group (GIB 48.93, +0.84 +1.75%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of C$0.90 on revenues of C$2.68 billion.

Advanced Micro (AMD 12.06, +1.69 +16.30%) reported a better than expected Q4 non-GAAP loss per share of $0.01 on revenues which rose 15.4% compared to a year ago to $1.11 billion. AMD gave in-line Q1 revenues guidance of down 8-14% sequentially to about $951-1,018 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: DOX ACLS BKFS EPAY BRKS CACI CDNS CAVM CRUS CSGS ESIO EXAR EXTR FB IVAC MLNX EGOV NXPI CNXN POWI QRVO SYMC WSTC/BCE CDK DSPG ENTG IT HRS KEM KLIC MITK MKSI NOK

Analyst actions:

MRVL was upgraded to Buy from Sell at UBS,
TWLO was upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities;
GLW was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Bernstein,
MBLY was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
AUDC was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital

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From Briefing.com: 7:11 am Entegris beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (ENTG) :
Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.21; revenues rose 15.6% year/year to $308.5 mln vs the $282.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co generated cash from operations less capital expenditures, or free cash flow, of $37.1 mln.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.23-0.27, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $295-310 mln vs. $282.78 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

7:06 am DSP Group beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; co expects a slowdown in Q1 revenue (DSPG) :
Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.09; revenues rose 4.4% year/year to $35.3 mln vs the $35 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co said, "In the first quarter of 2017, we expect a slowdown in revenues due to a seasonal decrease in demand for our cordless telephony products and a drop in demand for our HDClear products. Looking ahead, we remain very well positioned for long-term growth and profitability due to the strength of our new products strategy."

6:59 am Kulicke & Soffa beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus (KLIC) :
Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.22 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.12; revenues rose 37.9% year/year to $149.6 mln vs the $140.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Ball bonder equipment net revenue increased by 5.1% over the September quarter.
Wedge bonder equipment net revenue increased by 35.7% over the September quarter.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $185-195 mln vs. $156.53 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Looking forward, CEO Dr. Fusen Chen commented, "After several lower semiconductor unit growth years, our near term outlook coupled with healthy ball bonding utilization rates provides further support to our business outlook. In addition to advanced packaging, we continue to be well positioned to benefit from many near-term opportunities throughout our core ball and wedge bonding solutions supporting automotive, memory and industrial applications."

2:26 am NXP Semi beats by $0.30, reports revs in-line (NXPI) :
Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.95 per share, $0.30 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.65; revenues rose 54.7% year/year to $2.44 bln vs the $2.44 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

NXP combined wafer-fab utilization averaged 92%, as compared to 93% in the prior quarter.
Working capital metrics inclusive of assets and liabilities held for sale on the balance sheet were:
Days of inventory was 101 days, flat sequentially versus the third quarter
Days payable was 83 days, an increase from 74 days in the third quarter
Days sales was 39 days, a decline from 43 days in the third quarter

The cash conversion cycle was 57 days, a decline from the 70 days in the third quarter
Channel inventory held by NXP's distribution partners was 2.4 months as compared to 2.5 months in the third quarter.

As previously announced NXP will not hold an earnings call nor provide forward guidance for the first quarter of 2017 due to the pending acquisition of NXP by Qualcomm (QCOM)

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From Briefing.com: 4:35 pm Ixys reports DecQ results, revenue increases 5.8% YoY (IXYS) : Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $0.16 per share; revenues rose 5.8% year/year to $79.48 mln. There are no analyst estimates.

Co guides to Q3 (Mar) revenue being up 3% sequentially which we compute as $81.9 mln. There are no analyst estimates.

"Political uncertainty materially held back growth in 2016 as customers were reticent to make forecasts, preferring to purchase as needed on short lead times. IXYS was able to adapt to these conditions, securing new customers and stabilizing revenue trends. With various governmental elections decided by the end of 2016, focus has returned to economic development worldwide. Bookings are up and our backlog remains strong...Therefore, we are cautiously optimistic about our prospects and expect revenues in [MarQ] to increase 3% from [DecQ]."

4:13 pm Motorola Solutions beats by $0.17, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (MSI) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $2.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.17 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.86; revenues rose 12.0% year/year to $1.88 bln vs the $1.84 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.52-0.57, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.67 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs growth of 3-5% year/year, which calculates to ~$1.23-1.25 bln vs. $1.28 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Cypress Semi beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (CY) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.15 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.14; revenues were unchanged from the year-ago period at $530.17 mln.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.09-0.13 vs. $0.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $495-525 mln vs. $495.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Pixelworks beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus -- co preannounced Q4 revs on 1/10 (PXLW) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.04 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.01; revenues rose 17.1% year/year to $15.99 mln vs the $15.49 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

On a non-GAAP basis, fourth quarter 2016 gross profit margin was 53.6%, compared to 48.6% in the third quarter of 2016 and 50.9% in the fourth quarter of 2015. Fourth quarter 2016 gross profit margin increased compared to the prior periods due to a more favorable sales mix and lower direct material cost, primarily for products sold into the digital projector market.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $22-23 mln vs. $18.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"These results demonstrate the considerable progress we've made over the last few quarters to transform our operating model and strengthen the Company's fundamentals. Looking forward, we expect to achieve year-over-year revenue growth, excluding the anticipated EOL contribution, while also maintaining a goal of delivering profitability in 2017."

4:09 pm Rudolph Tech beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (RTEC) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.21 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.20; revenues rose 5.9% year/year to $54.1 mln vs the $54.17 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Gross margins remained strong at 52 percent for the quarter.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.22-0.25, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $57-60 mln vs. $58.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Amazon beats by $0.12, misses on revs; guides Q1 below consensus (AMZN) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.54 per share, $0.12 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.42; revenues rose 22.4% year/year to $43.74 bln vs the $44.69 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
NA sales +22% to $26.24 bln; operating income +28% to $816 mln
AWS slaes +47% to $3.53 bln; operating income +60% to $926 mln.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1:
Sees Q1 revs of $33.25-35.75 bln vs. $36 bln Capital IQ Consensus, or to grow between 14% and 23% compared with first quarter 2016. This guidance anticipates an unfavorable impact of ~$730 million or 250 basis points from foreign exchange rates.

Operating income is expected to be between $250 million and $900 mln vs. ests near $, compared with $1.1 billion in first quarter 2016.

"Prime members can now choose from over 50 million items with free two-day shipping - up 73% since 2015. Prime Video is now available in more than 200 countries and territories. Prime Now added 18 new cities, which means millions more members now get one and two hour delivery. New benefits were also added to the list, like Prime Reading, Audible Channels for Prime, Twitch Prime and more. And customers noticed - tens of millions of new paid members joined the program in just this past year."4:10 pm : Investors held their ground again on Thursday, as the major averages failed to deviate from their flat lines in range-bound action. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) finished just above its flat line, while the Nasdaq (-0.1%) closed just a tick lower. The sideways action took place ahead of tomorrow's release of the Employment Situation report for January (Briefing.com consensus 170k).

On the political front, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced on Thursday that tax reform and infrastructure bills, two key policies that fueled the post-election rally, will have to wait until the spring due to budgetary restrictions. For now, the new administration's focus will be health care reform.

The news did not invite an immediate response from the market, but it could lead to some anxiety as it appears that traders will have to wait a little while longer for validation of the post-election rally.

Facebook (FB 130.84, -1.41) was the focal point of today's earnings news after the company reported above-consensus earnings and revenue after yesterday's close. However, the stock finished Thursday lower by 1.8% on possible concerns surrounding the company's lackluster year-over-year revenue growth, which slowed down for the third consecutive quarter. Additionally, the stock entered today's session with a 16.0% year-to-date gain, so a muted response to the report wasn't necessarily unexpected.

Apple (AAPL 128.52, -0.23) and Microsoft (MSFT 63.17, -0.41) also had a rough day, losing 0.2% and 0.6%, respectively. Unsurprisingly, the tech sector (+0.1%) never got going on Thursday, but still finished in line with the S&P 500. Elsewhere among influential groups, the financial struggled amid relative weakness in large cap names. The space closed the day 0.4% lower.

Merck (MRK 64.18, +2.08) was the only Dow component to report earnings results on Thursday. The company missed revenue estimates and issued below-consensus guidance before the opening bell. However Merck shares jumped 3.4% as investors appeared more focused on the upcoming milestones for KEYTRUDA, the company's experimental lung cancer treatment. In addition, President Trump's expressed desire to cut industry regulation and speed up the drug approval process has been viewed as a positive for the industry. Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier was among the executives who attended Tuesday's meeting with President Trump at the White House.

On the upside, consumer staples (+0.8%) finished near the top of the leaderboard. The sector profited from positive reactions to quarterly reports from Estee Lauder (EL 82.00, +2.08) and Philip Morris (PM 98.84, +2.89) in addition to a 21.4% spike in the shares of Mead Johnson Nutrition (MJN 84.38, +14.88). The company's huge day came after confirming discussions with Reckitt Benckiser (RBGLY 18.16, +0.64) with respect to its proposal to acquire MJN for $90 per share in cash.

The lightly-weighted utilities (+1.0%) and real estate (+1.3%) sectors neighbored consumer staples at the top of the day's standings. However, the two spaces will enter Friday as the only countercyclical sectors holding week-to-date losses.

U.S. Treasuries held solid gains on Thursday morning, only to squandered them all by the day's close. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished its trading session unchanged at 2.47%.

Today's economic data included Initial Claims and fourth quarter Productivity & Unit Labor:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 246,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 250,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 260,000 (from 259,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.064 million from the revised count of 2.103 million (from 2.100 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that initial claims continue to run at low levels, as employers appear reluctant to cut their payrolls.
Unit labor costs increased 1.7% during the fourth quarter, which was lower than the 1.9% increase that had been anticipated by the Briefing.com consensus. The preliminary productivity reading showed an increase of 1.3%. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that productivity is low, with the average annual rate of productivity growth from 2007 to 2016 being 1.1% versus the long-term rate of 2.1% from 1947 to 2016. For all of 2016, nonfarm business sector productivity increased 0.2%. Low productivity gets in the way of a rising standard of living.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the Employment Situation report for January (Briefing.com consensus 170k) at 8:30 am ET, while December Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus 1.4%) and ISM Services (Briefing.com consensus 57.0) will cross the wires at 10:00 am ET.

Nasdaq Composite 4.7% YTD
S&P 500 1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 UNCH YTD

DJ30 -6.03 NASDAQ -6.45 SP500 +1.30 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1346/1.87 bln/1477 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1593/1.04 bln/1287

3:30 pm :

Natural gas closed pit trading higher for the 3rd session in a row following EIA data that was in-line with expectations
Mar natural gas closed $0.01 higher (+0.3%) at $3.18/MMBtu.
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a draw of -87 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a draw of approximately -88 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 2,711 Bcf as of Friday, Jan 27, 2017, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 266 Bcf less than last year at this time and 59 Bcf above the five-year average of 2,652 Bcf.
At 2,711 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range.
Crude oil reversed its initial morning gains, snapped a 2-session streak, & closed lower ahead of tomorrow's rig count data
Mar crude oil futures fell $0.34 (-0.6%) to $53.54/barrel.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released at 1 pm ET tomorrow
Reminder:
Last week, data showed that the number of active oil rigs increased for the second consecutive week, resuming a multi-month climb to highs not seen since Nov 2015.
15 oil rigs were added last week, bringing the total to 566 US oil rigs.
The number of gas rigs increased by 3 to 145 rigs. This brings the total number of active oil and gas rigs to 712, an increase of 18.
The total count is now higher by 93 rigs, compared to the same period last year.
In precious metals, gold closed pit trading near a 2-month high
April gold ended today's session up $11.20 (+0.9%) to $1219.60/oz.
Although this morning's dollar move wasn't commensurate to the rally in gold this morning, central bank comments on inflation and recent inflation readings lean positive for gold.
March silver closed today's session $0.04 lower (-0.2%) at $17.42/oz.
The dollar index was +0.2% around the 99.83 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, -0.2% around the 88.40 level

Following yesterday's moderate reprieve from the broader losing streak, the broader market closed Thursday split. Action was led by the S&P 500 which added 1.30 points (+0.06%) to 2280.85. The Nasdaq Composite was the worst performer today, shedding 6.45 points (-0.11%) to 5636.20, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 6.03 points (-0.03%) to 19884.91. Perhaps aiding the decline in the Nasdaq, top Nasdaq 100 component Facebook (FB 130.84, -2.39 -1.79%) turned in a weak affair today after its quarterly earnings came in ahead of expectations.

Economic data today included the latest weekly initial jobless claims count which totaled 246,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 260,000 (from 259,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.064 million from the revised count of 2.103 million (from 2.100 million). Additionally, unit labor costs were up 1.7% during the fourth quarter, and the preliminary productivity reading showed an increase of 1.3%.

The Technology (XLK 50.36, -0.10 -0.20%) sector ended the session in the red following up and down action all day. Component Citrix Systems (CTXS 74.95, +3.71 +5.21%) was higher today, recouping yesterday's weakness related to the realization of the spin-off of GetGo. Also, component Symantec (SYMC 27.76, +0.51 +1.87%) was modestly higher today after its Q3 report and guidance. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLRE +1.19%, XLU +1.06%, XLP +0.92%, XLE +0.57%, XLV -0.04%, XLY -0.09%, XLI -0.19%, XLF -0.39%, XLB -0.44%, IYZ -0.70%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (849.56, +0.21 +0.02%) space, trading edged modestly higher into the close after a back-and-forth session. Component Cisco Systems (CSCO 31.18, +0.68 +2.25%) was one of the better performing names in reaction to a morning upgrade of the stock to a 'Positive' rating at OTR Global. Other names in the space which out-performed today included HRS +3.09%, RHT +2.16%, CRM +1.97%, VRSN +1.83%, ADSK +1.82%, JNPR +1.60%, FFIV +1.59%, CA +1.55%, KLAC +1.53%, HPQ +1.47%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 22.68, +0.09 +0.40%) acquired Niara. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Micron's (MU 24.79, +0.04 +0.16%) CEO Mark Durcan announced retirement. The Board has formed a special committee to oversee the succession process and has initiated a search.

Ultratech (UTEK 28.20, +2.26 +8.71%) to be acquired by Veeco Instruments (VECO 24.85, -0.90 -3.50%) in a transaction valued at roughly $28.64 per share in cash & stock, or about $815 million.

Adobe Systems' (ADBE 113.16, -0.20 -0.18%) Board elected President and CEO Shantanu Narayen as Chairman of the Board.

Symantec (SYMC) announced its intention to offer $1.0 billion aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured notes due 2025.

Electronics For Imaging (EFII 44.96, -0.01 -0.02%) entered into transaction to acquire Xerox's (XRX 7.17, +0.10 +1.41%) FreeFlow Print Server Digital Front Ends business.

Amkor (AMKR 9.92, +0.29 +3.01%) to acquire NANIUM. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Spotify may push back its anticipated IPO until 2018, according to TechCrunch.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Facebook (FB) reported better than expected Q4 earnings of $1.41 per share on revenues which came in ahead of expectations at $8.809 billion.

BCE Inc (BCE 44.15, -0.59 -1.32%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of CAD$0.76 and revenues which were in-line at CAD$5.7 billion. For FY17, the company sees EPS and revenues below market expectations at CAD$3.42-3.52 and CAD$21.94-22.15 billion.

NXP Semi (NXPI 99.01, +1.26 +1.29%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $1.95 on revenues which grew 54.7% compared to a year ago to $2.44 billion.

Nokia (NOK 4.82, +0.25 +5.47%) reported better than expected Q4 earnings of EUR0.12 per share and revenues which fell 13.0% compared to last year to EUR6.71 billion.

Symantec (SYMC) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.32 on revenues which were also ahead of expectations at $1.09 billion. For Q4, the company sees EPS of $0.27-0.29 on revenues which are expected to come in below market views at $1.07-1.09 billion.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: AMZN CSC CY FEYE FTNT GIMO GPRO INVN IXYS MTD MSI OTEX PCTY PXLW RTEC DATA V

Analyst actions:

CSCO was upgraded to Positive from Mixed at OTR Global,
ACIA was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
APTI was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts,
IVAC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley & Co.,
TSS was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
SLAB was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
AAPL was upgraded to Hold from Sell at BGC,
ATTU was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum;
FB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Pivotal Research,
EGOV was downgraded to Mkt Underperform from Mkt Perform at Avondale,
QRVO was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital,

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 03-Feb-17

After enjoying a solid 1.0% gain two weeks ago, the stock market returned to its range-bound ways. The S&P 500 spent the week inside a 31-point range, ending the week higher by 0.1%.

The past week was rife with earnings, economic data, and commentary from two major central banks, but the market shrugged off the busy event calendar, remaining near record levels.

Most notably, the Federal Open Market Committee concluded its latest two-day meeting on Wednesday. The central bank maintained its policy stance and gave little indication that a rate hike could be announced at the next policy meeting in May.

Wednesday's FOMC announcement followed the release of a stronger than expected ADP Employment Report for January (246,000; Briefing.com consensus 165,000). Friday's release of the Employment Situation report also showed above-consensus headline growth (227,000; Briefing.com consensus 170,000), but average hourly earnings increased just 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and last month's growth was revised down to 0.2% from 0.4%. As a result, the year-over-year average hourly earnings growth rate slowed to 2.5% from 2.8% in December.

The combination of solid job growth and lackluster wage growth was welcomed by the stock market, considering it did not foreshadow an inflationary spike that would prompt a hawkish response from the Fed.

Rate hike expectations saw a moderate downtick. On Friday afternoon, the fed funds futures market pointed to a 63.5% implied likelihood of a June hike, down from last week's 69.2%.

On the earnings front, investors received a set of results from heavyweights like Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB), Visa (V), UPS (UPS), and others. Amazon and UPS missed estimates while Apple, Facebook, and Visa surpassed expectations. However, it is worth noting that while Apple reported above-consensus results, the company faced reduced competition during the quarter after the recall of Samsung's Note 7 in early October.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 20093.78 20071.46 -22.32 -0.1 1.6
Nasdaq 5660.78 5666.77 5.99 0.1 5.3
S&P 500 2294.69 2297.42 2.73 0.1 2.6
Russell 2000 1370.15 1377.83 7.68 0.6 1.5

4:28 pm Closing Market Summary: Stock Market Finishes the Week Strong (:WRAPX) :

Friday's economic data gave investors the confidence to finally break the week's sideways trend and push the stock market higher. The major averages hit their session highs within an hour of the opening bell and maintained said levels into the close. The S&P 500 finished with a gain of 0.7%, while the Dow (+0.9%) did modestly better and the Nasdaq (+0.5%) did slightly worse.

The Employment Situation Report for January came in just right; strong enough to keep participants thinking good things about the economy, but not strong enough to convince the market that the Fed is now going to be in a hurry to raise the fed funds rate. The above-consensus 227,000 nonfarm payroll additions (Briefing.com consensus 170,000) and the lower than expected 0.1% increase in average hourly earnings (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) were the two main metrics driving the optimistic sentiment.

U.S. Treasuries ticked up following the report's release, but squandered all of those gains in the afternoon following comments from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams. Mr. Williams reiterated the Fed's expectation of three rate hikes in 2017, but more notably, he expressed his belief that a rate hike in March is on the table. His comments were consistent with remarks made by Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, who said he would be comfortable with three hikes in 2017. Mr. Evans is a voting FOMC member this year while Mr. Williams is an alternate FOMC member.

Treasuries fell back to their flat lines in the wake of the comments from the two policymakers. The 2-yr yield, which is most susceptible to FOMC rate decisions, closed the day one basis point lower at 1.20% after posting a session low at 1.17%. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended flat at 2.48%.

Financials (+2.0%) provided strong sector leadership, leading Friday's session from the open to the close. The sector's tenacity took root before the market even opened after The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump would reduce regulatory burdens on the financial sector through an executive order aimed at scaling back the Dodd-Frank Act and reversing the Fiduciary Rule. Mr. Trump did just that following a White House meeting with business executives led by Blackstone's (BX 30.74, -0.05) Steve Schwarzman.

At the opposite end of the day's leaderboard, consumer discretionary (-0.1%) was the only sector to finish the day lower. The space took several shots from the likes of Chipotle (CMG 404.08, -19.22), Hanesbrands (HBI 18.98, -3.73), and AutoNation (AN 49.77, -2.00) after investors reacted negatively to the latest earnings reports from the three companies.

The discretionary sector could not climb out of the red as top component Amazon (AMZN 810.20, -29.75) weighed. The internet retail giant retreated 3.5% after reporting worse than expected revenues, coupled with disappointing guidance on Thursday evening.

Technology (+0.7%) finished the day in line with the benchmark index. Visa (V 86.08, +3.78) was the sector's top performer thanks to better than expected earnings and revenue. However, lackluster performances from large-cap components like Apple (AAPL 129.08, +0.55), Facebook (FB 130.98, +0.14), and Alphabet (GOOGL 820.13, +1.87) held the sector's gains in check.

On the countercyclical side, the health care, consumer staples, telecom services, and real estate sectors gained between 0.4% and 0.6%, while utilities (+0.1%) closed just a step behind.

Defensive spaces dominated the week with four of the five logging weekly gains. Comparatively, the financial (+0.2%) and technology (unch) sectors were the only cyclical groups to close the week higher.

Today's economic data included January Employment Situation Report, January ISM Services, and December Factory Orders:

January Employment Situation Report
January nonfarm payrolls came in at 227,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 170,000. The prior month's reading was revised to 157,000 from 156,000. Nonfarm private payrolls added 237,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 175,000. The unemployment rate increased to 4.8% (Briefing.com consensus 4.7%).
Average hourly earnings increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the previous month's reading was revised to 0.2% (from 0.4%). The average workweek was reported at 34.4 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 34.3. The previous month's reading was revised to 34.4 (from 34.3).
The key takeaway is that this is one of those so-called "Goldilocks" reports since it is strong enough to keep participants thinking good things about the economy, but not strong enough to convince the market to think it means the Fed is now going to be in a hurry to raise the fed funds rate. The tempered growth in average hourly earnings, which dialed back year-over-year growth to 2.5% from 2.8% in December, is the focal point as it relates to the market's perspective on the Fed.
The ISM Services Index for January decreased to 56.5 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick to 57.0. The prior month's reading was revised down to 56.6 from 57.2.
The key takeaway from the report is that growth in the services sector, which accounts for a much bigger slice of economic activity than the manufacturing sector does, persisted for the 85th straight month.
The Factory Orders Report for December showed an increase of 1.3% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a increase of 1.4%. The November reading was revised up to -2.3% from -2.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the December increase was led entirely by orders for nondurable goods (+3.1%). Paced by a 2.5% decline in transportation equipment orders, durable goods orders fell 0.5% in December.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +5.3% YTD
S&P 500 +2.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.5% YTD


Week in Review: Holding Steady

After enjoying a solid 1.0% gain two weeks ago, the stockmarket returned to its range-bound ways. The S&P 500 spent the week insidea 31-point range, ending the week higher by 0.1%.

The past week was rife with earnings, economic data, andcommentary from two major central banks, but the market shrugged off the busyevent calendar, remaining near record levels.

Most notably, the Federal Open Market Committee concludedits latest two-day meeting on Wednesday. The central bank maintained its policystance and gave little indication that a rate hike could be announced at the nextpolicy meeting in May.

Wednesday's FOMC announcement followed the release of astronger than expected ADP Employment Report for January (246,000; Briefing.comconsensus 165,000). Friday's release of the Employment Situation report alsoshowed above-consensus headline growth (227,000; Briefing.com consensus170,000), but average hourly earnings increased just 0.1% (Briefing.comconsensus 0.3%) and last month's growth was revised down to 0.2% from 0.4%. Asa result, the year-over-year average hourly earnings growth rate slowed to 2.5%from 2.8% in December.

The combination of solid job growth and lackluster wagegrowth was welcomed by the stock market, considering it did not foreshadow aninflationary spike that would prompt a hawkish response from the Fed.

Rate hike expectations saw a moderate downtick. On Friday afternoon, thefed funds futures market pointed to a 63.5% implied likelihood of a June hike,down from last week's 69.2%.

On the earnings front, investors received a set of resultsfrom heavyweights like Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB), Visa (V),UPS (UPS), and others. Amazon and UPS missed estimates while Apple, Facebook,and Visa surpassed expectations. However, it is worth noting that while Applereported above-consensus results, the company faced reduced competition duringthe quarter after the recall of Samsung's Note 7 in early October.

Ending the week on a higher note, the broader market finished barely off highs. Action in the Dow Jones Industrial Average led all, up 186.55 points (+0.94%) to 20071.46. The S&P 500 added 16.57 points (+0.73%) to 2297.42, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 30.57 points (+0.54%) to 5666.77. This week's moves take the three major US indices +1.5%, +2.6% and +5.3% YTD, respectively.

Today's data included the January Employment Situation Report: January nonfarm payrolls came in at 227,000 compared to the prior month's reading which was revised to 157,000 from 156,000. Nonfarm private payrolls added 237,000 and the unemployment rate increased to 4.8%. Also, average hourly earnings increased 0.1%, while the previous month's reading was revised to 0.2% (from 0.4%). The average workweek was reported at 34.4 compared to the previous month's reading was revised to 34.4 (from 34.3). Further, the ISM Services Index for January decreased to 56.5 and the prior month's reading was revised down to 56.6 from 57.2. Lastly, the Factory Orders Report for December showed an increase of 1.3% and the November reading was revised up to -2.3% from -2.4%.

Also ending higher today, the Technology (XLK 50.69, +0.33 +0.66%) space closed near highs. Component Visa (V 86.08, +3.78 +4.59%) was the best performing name today after a better than expected Q1 report. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLF +2.02%, IYZ +0.91%, XLE +0.88%, XLI +0.74%, XLRE +0.65%, XLP +0.59%, XLV +0.46%, XLB +0.15%, XLU +0.12%, XLY -0.13% as only Consumer Discretionary finished in the red.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (855.35, +5.79 +0.68%) space, trading sped higher at the open and never looked back. Component Motorola Solutions (MSI 81.58, +0.58 +0.72%) was another stock which outperformed after its quarterly report. Other names in the space which ended Friday higher included TSS +3.67%, HPE +3.57%, GPN +2.45%, SYMC +2.34%, CTXS +2.33%, STX +2.25%, ADSK +1.99%, ADBE +1.78%, FSLR +1.77%, CSRA +1.73%, FLIR +1.62%, CTSH +1.59%, TDC +1.44%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Snap Inc., owner of the Snapchat messaging service, filed its Form S-1 prospectus to trade on the NYSE under the symbol 'SNAP.'

Imation's (IMN 0.81, +0.00 +0.01%) interim CEO Robert Fernander resigned.

Support.com's (SPRT 2.28, -0.04 -1.72%) CFO Roop Lakkaraju announced his resignation from the company to pursue another opportunity.

Wells Fargo (WFC 57.26, +1.51 +2.71%) has entered into an agreement with Intuit (INTU 118.37, +0.54 +0.46%), which allows Wells Fargo customers who use financial management tools such as QuickBooks Online, Mint, and TurboTax Online to use an innovative application-programming interface when importing their bank account information.

Qualcomm (QCOM 52.98, +0.32 +0.61%) and TDK Corporation (TTDKF) announced the completion of the previously announced joint venture under the name RF360 Holdings Singapore PTE. Ltd.

magicJack VocalTec (CALL 7.65, +0.35 +4.79%) reached an agreement with David Kanen and Kanen Wealth Management LLC in connection with the company's 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Pursuant to the agreement, Kanen has withdrawn its proposed slate of director nominees for election.

Viavi (VIAV 9.23, -0.05 -0.54%) was awarded about $26.4 million Defense Logistics Agency contracts.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Amazon (AMZN 810.20, -29.75 -3.54%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and worse than expected revenues of $1.54 and $43.74 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company sees worse than expected revenues of $33.25-35.75 billion.

Visa (V) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.86 and $4.46 billion, respectively.

Motorola Solutions (MSI) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $2.03 and $1.88 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company sees EPS and revenues below market expectations at $0.52-0.57 and growth of 3-5% year-over-year to about $1.23-1.25 billion, respectively.

Mettler-Toledo (MTD 462.67, +29.03 +6.69%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $5.28 on in-line revenues of $709.7 million. For Q1, the company sees better than expected EPS of $3.05-3.10. For FY17, MTD also sees better than expected EPS of $16.55-16.75.

Computer Sciences (CSC 69.95, +7.00 +11.12%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.81 and $1.92 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company reaffirmed its prior outlook for EPS from continuing operations of $2.75-3.00 billion.

FireEye (FEYE 10.93, -2.04 -15.73%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.03 on revenues which came in below market expectations at $184.7 million. FEYE also guided Q1 EPS and revenues below market expectations at ($0.28)-($-0.26) and $160-166 million, respectively.

GoPro (GPRO 9.58, -1.39 -12.67%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.29 on revenues which missed expectations at $540.62 million. Also, GPRO guided Q1 revenues below expectations at $190-210 million.

Analyst actions:

FEYE was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at First Analysis Sec,
AMTD was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
CDK was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley,
FTNT was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray,
PCTY was upgraded to Buy from Underperform at BofA/Merrill,
VECO was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
PXLW was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Lake Street;
GPRO was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird and to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
FEYE was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray,
TERP was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie,
UTEK was downgraded to Hold from Buy at The Benchmark Company,
BCE was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity;
NVDA was initiated with an Underperform at CLSA

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:10 pm : Monday's session ended roughly where it began as investors opted to play it safe, leaving the major averages just below their all-time highs. The Dow (-0.1%) and the Nasdaq (-0.1%) closed just ahead of the S&P 500 (-0.2%), while the small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.8%) underperformed.

An uptick in the Treasury market pointed to a risk-off sentiment among investors. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed five basis points lower at 2.41% as the Trump administration's timing of corporate tax reform and increased infrastructure spending, two factors that fueled the post-election rally, remains unclear.

On the earnings front, Tyson Foods (TSN 63.13, -2.26), Sysco (SYY 51.20, -1.34), Newell Brands (NWL 44.23, -2.66), and Hasbro (HAS 94.31, +11.68) all reported quarterly results before Monday's opening bell. Hasbro spiked 14.1%, while Tyson Foods, Sysco, and Newell Brands lost between 2.6% and 5.7%. However, the results had a limited impact on the broader market as the consumer discretionary (-0.3%) and consumer staples (-0.4%) sectors finished in line with the benchmark index.

The top-weighted information technology sector (+0.1%) closed ahead of its peers, underpinned by the strength of its largest component, Apple (AAPL 130.34, +1.26). Chipmakers also had a hand in limiting the bearish influence, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 0.4%. The industrial space (+0.1%) was the only other sector to finish in the green.

At the opposite end of the leaderboard was the energy space (-0.9%) amid a poor performance from crude oil. The energy component finished 1.5% lower at $53.01/bbl following Friday's Baker Hughes data, which showed U.S. oil rig additions in 13 of the past 14 weeks. Intraday dollar strength may have acted as an additional headwind for the commodity.

The U.S. Dollar Index (99.81, +0.12) finished Monday with a modest 0.1% gain after being up as much as 0.5%. Most of the greenback's gains came against the euro (1.0755) after far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen vowed to take her country out of the eurozone.

The remaining sectors--financials, materials, health care, utilities, telecom services, and real estate--finished the day with losses between 0.1% and 0.8%.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday.

Tomorrow's economic data will include December Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$45.0 billion) at 8:30 am ET, December Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey at 10:00 am ET, and Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $19.4 billion) at 3:00 pm ET.

Nasdaq Composite +5.2% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD

DJ30 -19.04 NASDAQ -3.21 SP500 -4.86 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1049/1.57 bln/1813 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1116/935.5 mln/1810

3:30 pm :

In precious metals, gold ended pit trading at a fresh 3-month high as the dollar index gave up initial morning gains
April gold ended today's session up $11.70 (+1.0%) to $1232.30/oz
March silver closed today's session $0.21 higher (+1.2%) at $17.70/oz
Natural gas broke out of a 3-session uptrend, hovered just above the $3.00/MMBtu support zone; EIA on tap Thursday
Mar natural gas closed $0.01 lower (-0.3%) at $3.05/MMBtu
EIA natural gas data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET
Crude oil ended pit trading at its lowest level of the session on the heels of Friday's Baker Hughes data which showed US oil rigs were added for 13 out of the past 14 weeks
Mar crude oil futures fell $0.80 (-1.5%) to $53.01/barrel
Data reminders:
API petroleum data will be released tomorrow at 4:30 pm ET
EIA petroleum data will be released Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
The dollar index was nearly flat around the 99.88 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.1% around the 87.83 level


The broader market began the week on a modestly lower trajectory. That's not to say there weren't some positive ticks in today's affair, a the Dow Jones spent a portion of the mid-morning above flat lines. The Nasdaq Composite also enjoyed a few brief moments above Friday's close, but ultimately all three major US indices closed in the red. The S&P 500 was the worst performer today, shedding 4.86 points (-0.21%) to 2292.56. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 19.04 points (-0.09%) to 20052.42, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 3.21 points (-0.06%) when the bell rang to 5663.55.

Displaying modest strength, the Technology (XLK 50.72, +0.03 +0.06%) space finished just ahead of flat lines despite carrying losses into the final moments of the close. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 117.31, +2.93 +2.56%) was higher after announcing its latest lineup of GPUs. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed the session XLI +0.13%, XLV +0.11%, XLU -0.20%, XLB -0.27%, XLY -0.30%, XLF -0.46%, XLP -0.53%, XLRE -0.61%, XLE -0.84%, IYZ -1.74%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (856.55, +1.20 +0.14%) sector, trading also managed modest gains into the close. Bellwethers like YHOO +1.6%, AAPL +0.9%, FB +0.8%, GOOGL +0.2% all aided the advance.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Alphabet (GOOG 801.34, -0.15 -0.02%) to sell Terra Bella to Planet Labs. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Qualcomm's (QCOM 52.88, -0.10 -0.19%) Qualcomm River Holdings B.V. has extended the offering period of its previously announced cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding common shares of NXP

Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI 100.05, +0.59 +0.59%). The tender offer is now scheduled to expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on March 7, 2017, unless extended or earlier terminated, in either case pursuant to the terms of the Purchase Agreement.

Disguise, Inc., the Halloween costume division of leading toy manufacturer, JAKKS Pacific, Inc. (JAKK 5.25, +0.15 +2.94%), has secured a worldwide licensing agreement with Mojang and Microsoft (MSFT 63.64, -0.04 -0.06%) to create children's Halloween costumes, Halloween accessories and everyday dress up based on Minecraft.

AudioCodes (AUDC +6.71, +0.35 +5.50%) signed an outbound license and distribution agreement with

Microsoft (MSFT) for Microsoft Cloud Connector Edition.

NVIDIA (NVDA) introduced some new Quadro products, all based on its Pascal architecture, that transform desktop workstations into supercomputers with breakthrough capabilities for professional workflows across many industries. The new GPUs include Quadro Pascal-based GPU models GP100, P4000, P2000, P1000, P600 and P400.

JetPay (JTPY 2.55, +0.05 +2.00%) entered into an agreement with the Office of the Illinois State Treasurer to become the payment processor for the State's E-Pay program. The agreement, which was awarded to the Company through its participation in a Request for Proposal process, is for an initial term of six years with four one-year renewal options. Revenues under the agreement are expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Aerohive Networks (HIVE 5.12, -0.12 -2.29%) CFO John Ritchie assumed additional responsibilities as COO effective February 1.

Harris (HRS 105.13, +0.83 +0.80%) entered into a fixed dollar accelerated share repurchase transaction agreement with Morgan Stanley to repurchase shares of the Company's common stock for an initial payment of $350 million, as part of the common stock repurchase program.

Genpact (G 25.05, +0.03 +0.12%) acquired assets of Fiserv's (FISV 106.85, +0.13 +0.12%) Australia-based Item Processing Business. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SeaChange (SEAC 2.47, +0.03 +1.23%) to implement cost-savings actions. Also, the company has appointed Jonathan Rider as COO effective January 31, 2017.

SunPower (SPWR 6.99, -0.01 -0.14%) was awarded a $96,252,862 Defense Logistics Agency contract.

Ebix (EBIX 56.95, +0.25 +0.44%) announced a new $150 million share repurchase plan.

Analyst actions:

MSI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Gabelli & Co.,
CHU and CHA were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS,
GLUU was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Roth Capital,
TRUE was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts;
NVDA was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital,
HIVE was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities,
LPL was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
HIMX was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
AUO was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at KGI Securities;
CUDA was initiated with a Buy at Needham,
QUIK was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:24 pm Microchip beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (MCHP) :

Reports Q3 (Dec) earnings of $1.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.90; revenues rose 59.6% year/year to $881.2 mln vs the $849.11 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.01-1.11 vs. $0.93 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $872-908 mln vs. $863.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:17 pm Nanometrics beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (NANO) :
Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.33 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.27; revenues rose 38.6% year/year to $59.2 mln vs the $57.18 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.19-0.26, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.27 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $56-61 mln vs. $58.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:13 pm Emcore beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus (EMKR) :
Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.12; revenues rose 34.2% year/year to $30.2 mln vs the $29.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co said, "With our improvement in Non-GAAP operating margin to 11.5%, we're rapidly closing in on our target of 12.5% by the end of FY17."

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $29-31 mln vs. $26.20 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:11 pm Nuance Communications beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS & FY17 in-line (NUAN) :
Reports Q1 (Dec) earnings of $0.35 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.34; revenues rose 0.2% year/year to $496 mln vs the $490.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.36-0.40 vs. $0.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $493-507 mln vs. $500.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $1.53-1.63 vs. $1.59 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $2.02-2.07 bln vs. $2.04 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:05 pm Coherent (halted) beats by $0.76, beats on revs (COHR) :
Reports Q1 (Dec) adj. earnings of $2.57 per share, $0.76 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.81; revenues rose 81.9% year/year to $346.1 mln vs the $316.98 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Ending backlog expected to ship in the next 12 months was $823.5 million at December 31, 2016, compared to a backlog of $605.3 million at October 1, 2016 and a backlog of $370.0 million at January 2, 2016.

"Coherent delivered record-setting performance and continues to enjoy a very strong demand environment across its end markets. The FPD business remains robust with an increasing number of opportunities in device packaging that complement our leadership position in ELA. Materials processing also performed well for components, lasers and tools including record orders in medical device manufacturing workstations. All other end markets met or exceeded our expectations and customer engagement is at record levels," said John Ambroseo, Coherent's President and Chief Executive Officer. "The integration of Coherent and Rofin is well underway and there have been few surprises. The project teams are making steady progress and we are on track to meet our synergy targets."

4:15 pm : Minimal movement on Monday set the tone for Tuesday's flat finish as the major averages closed the day relatively unchanged in what was a range-bound trading session. The Nasdaq (+0.2%) and the Dow (+0.2%) eked out small gains while the S&P 500 finished right at its flat line.

Countercyclical sectors had a slight advantage during Tuesday's session with four of the five posting gains. Consumer staples (+0.8%) finished atop the day's leaderboard with Church & Dwight (CHD 47.27, +1.82) adding 4.0% after reporting better than expected earnings and raising its dividend.

On the cyclical side, technology (+0.4%) outpaced the benchmark index on the back of another solid showing from Apple (AAPL 131.53, +1.24). Industrials (+0.2%) were the only other cyclical sector to finish the day higher, rallying around the 4.5% jump in shares of Emerson Electric (EMR 62.54, +2.68). The company beat top and bottom line estimates and issued upbeat guidance for 2017.

General Motors (GM 35.10, -1.73) also reported positive quarterly results before Tuesday's opening bell, beating earnings and revenue estimates. However, the earnings beat may have taken a back seat to the company's 3.8% year-over-year decline in January sales considering shares of GM finished the day lower by 4.7%. Fellow automaker Ford Motor (F 12.34, -0.18) also experienced some pressure, closing 1.4% lower.

The consumer discretionary sector (-0.1%) couldn't escape the automakers' selling pressure. Financials (-0.2%) and materials (-0.8%) also finished in the red, but none fell farther than energy (-1.4%). The energy space moved lower in tandem with crude oil, which was weighed down by myriad concerns. An uptick in U.S. production, signs of slowing demand growth, and a 0.5% climb in the U.S. Dollar Index (100.30, +0.46) left the energy component 1.6% lower at $52.18/bbl.

The U.S. dollar's movement was rooted in comments from Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker. On Monday evening, Mr. Harker, who is an FOMC voting member, stated that he would be open to a March rate hike. The news pushed the U.S. Dollar Index (100.25, +0.41) to its highest level of the month (100.66), but a dovish statement during Tuesday's session from Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who is also an FOMC voting member, facilitated a pullback in the Dollar Index.

However, regardless of the headlines, the market remains confident that there will be no rate hike in March; the fed funds futures market shows an 8.9% implied probability of a March rate hike, which is unchanged from Monday's reading.

Economic data reported on Tuesday included December Trade Balance, December Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, and December Consumer Credit:

The December trade balance showed a deficit of $44.3 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $45.0 billion. The previous month's deficit was revised to $45.7 billion from $45.2 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that it could stir the political trade pot since there were trade deficits recorded with China, the European Union, Japan, Germany, and Mexico. That isn't new, yet there's a new administration that isn't too fond of that dynamic.
The December Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.501 million from a revised 5.505 million (from 5.522 million) in November.
The Consumer Credit report for December showed an increase of $14.2 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected growth of $19.4 billion. The prior month's credit growth was revised to $25.2 billion from $24.5 billion.

Wednesday's lone economic report will be the 7:00 am ET release of the MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

Nasdaq Composite +5.4% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.3% YTD

DJ30 +37.87 NASDAQ +10.67 SP500 +0.52 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1186/1.74 bln/1651 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1331/977.5 mln/1595

3:30 pm :

In precious metals, gold closed at a 3-month high for the second consecutive session despite dollar index strength
April gold ended today's session up $3.70 (+0.3%) to $1236.00/oz March silver closed today's session $0.05 higher (+0.3%) at $17.75/oz
Crude oil extended yesterday's losses ahead of today's API data release- see yesterday's energy sector summary comment for color on oil
Mar crude oil futures fell $0.83 (-1.6%) to $52.18/barrel
Upcoming data reminders:
API petroleum data will be released tomorrow at 4:30 pm ET
EIA petroleum data will be released Wednesday at 10:30 am ET
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
Natural gas extended a prior 3-day rally, closed pit trading near session highs after taking a slight breather & closing modestly lower yesterday
Mar natural gas closed $0.08 higher (+2.6%) at $3.13/MMBtu
The dollar index was +0.4% around 100.30 level, did not appear to pressure precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.04% around the 87.86 level

The broader market ended higher today despite limping into the close with flat action. As it were, both the Nasdaq and the Dow made fresh all-time highs intraday, ending as the best two performing indices at the close. The Nasdaq Composite led slightly, up 10.67 (+0.19%) at the close to 5674.22. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 37.87 points (+0.19%) to 20090.29, and the S&P 500 was higher by less than a points (+0.02%) to 2293.08 when the bell rang.

Economic data on Tuesday included the December trade balance which showed a deficit of $44.3 billion compared to the previous month's deficit which was revised to $45.7 billion from $45.2 billion. Also, the December Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.501 million from a revised 5.505 million (from 5.522 million) in November. Lastly, the Consumer Credit report for December showed an increase of $14.2 billion compared to the prior month's credit growth which was revised to $25.2 billion from $24.5 billion.

Action in the Technology (XLK 50.92, +0.20 +0.39$) space was positive out of the gate, and never looked back. Component Autodesk (ADSK 84.50, +1.68 +2.03%) was one of the better performing names in the space today following news the CEO Carl Bass would step down from his role on February 8; the company also reaffirmed certain guidance. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed split -- XLP +0.82% XLU +0.25% XLI +0.17% XLV +0.10% XLY -0.09% XLRE -0.20% XLF -0.25% IYZ -0.74% XLB -0.79% XLE -1.42% with Consumer Staples performing the best and Energy falling behind.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (860.08, +3.53 +0.41%) space, trading made new all-time highs today, ending just shy of the top of the range. Component Motorola Solutions (MSI 77.34, -4.39 -5.37%) was the worst performing name today following a cautious report on the stock by Citron Research. Other names in the space which closed higher with the sector included AKAM +2.02%, CTSH +1.95%, CTXS +1.77%, NVDA +1.55%, ACN +1.52%, IBM +1.48%, STX +1.45%, FFIV +1.38%, EBAY +1.25%, NTAP +1.23%, TSS +1.17%, HPQ +1.11%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
CSRA Inc. (CSRA 32.55, +0.25 +0.77%) signed a three-year Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft (MSFT 63.43, -0.21 -0.33%) to enable CSRA to utilize Microsoft's products, such as Microsoft Office365, for the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

Workday (WDAY 86.05, +0.68 +0.80%) announced that Amazon (AMZN 812.50, +4.86 +0.60%) has selected and is beginning to deploy Workday Human Capital Management (HCM), including Workday Payroll. The contract was signed in October 2016.

Autodesk (ADSK) announced that Carl Bass has decided to step down as CEO effective February 8. The company's board has instituted a CEO search to consider candidates inside and outside Autodesk and has formed an Interim Office of the Chief Executive to oversee the company's day-to-day operations. Bass will remain on staff as a special advisor to the company in support of the transition to a new CEO. He will continue to sit on the Autodesk board of directors and will be nominated for reelection at the 2017 annual meeting of shareholders. Crawford Beveridge will remain non-executive chairman of the board. Additionally, Autodesk reiterated its non-GAAP business outlook for Q$ and FY17 and expects revenue, earnings per share, and subscription additions to be at the high end of guidance disclosed on November 29, 2016.

IBM (IBM 178.46, +2.60 +1.48%) announced a blockchain initiative with Dubai Customs, Dubai Trade, advancing Dubai's government blockchain strategy. As part of the initiative, IBM is also working with leading businesses including Emirates NBD, du, Aramex, and Banco Santander.

eBay (EBAY 32.43, +0.40 +1.25%) filed a mixed securities shelf offering. The company also disclosed material weakness in its internal control regarding financial reporting.

FXCM (FXCM 3.45, -3.40 -49.64%) announced simultaneous regulatory settlements with the National Futures Association and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission against its U.S. subsidiary, Forex Capital Markets LLC, FXCM Holdings, LLC and certain of its principals. The named FXCM entities and principals neither admit nor deny the allegations associated with the settlements. The NFA settlement has no monetary fine, and the CFTC settlement includes a $7 million fine. Pursuant to the settlement agreements, the Company will be withdrawing from business in the United States.

GAIN Capital (GCAP 8.06, +0.41 +5.36%) signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire the client base of

FXCM's (FXCM) U.S. operations.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 27.20, -0.08 -0.29%) and Pradeep Sindhu, current Chief Technology Officer and EVP, have agreed to redefine his duties and responsibilities so that he can reduce the time he spends at the company and devote a majority of his time to Fungible, Inc., a startup company that Dr. Sindhu co-founded in 2015. Dr. Sindhu will remain employed with JNPR as EVP and Chief Scientist, and will continue to serve as Chief Technology Officer in order to assist with the transition to his successor. The Company has commenced a search to identify a successor.

comScore (SCOR 22.86, -0.36 -1.55%) announced, as expected, it received notice from the Nasdaq Hearings Panel that the Panel had determined to delist the shares of SCOR common stock from the Nasdaq Global Select Market and suspend trading in SCOR shares effective at the open of business on February 8, 2017.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS 77.30, -2.05 -2.58%) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $1.14 on revenues which missed market expectations at $2.44 billion. The company also issued downside guidance for FY17 EPS and revenues in the range of $4.15-4.30 and $9.333-9.426 billion, respectively.

Arrow Elec (ARW 70.52, -4.06 -5.44%) reported in-line Q4 earnings of $2.00 per share on revenues which missed expectations at $6.44 billion. For Q1, the company sees EPS of $1.37-1.49 on revenues of $5.38-5.78 billion.

Vishay (VSH 15.80, -0.75 -4.53%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.18 and $570.8 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees revenues ahead of expectations at $575-615 million.

Knowles (KN 18.75, +0.77 +4.28%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.35 and $240.6 million, respectively. For Q1, KN sees EPS and revenues worse than expected at $0.08-0.14 and $180-200 million, respectively.

Fabrinet (FN 43.04, +0.94 +2.23%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.91 and $351.2 million, respectively. For Q3, FN sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $0.87-0.89 and $360-364 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AKAM CALD COHR CSRA EMKR EEFT FTV IPHI JKHY JIVE LITE MCHP MOBL NANO NTGR NEWR NUAN PDVW PRO SCSC SPSC TTWO TCX TWLO ULTI ZG/BR CTSH GRUB ORBK RDWR

Analyst actions:

CHKP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BTIG Research,
VMW was upgraded to Outperform at Daiwa,
VSAT was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
NOK was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
TU was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at National Bank

7:33 am Vishay misses by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus (VSH) :
Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.21; revenues rose 2.7% year/year to $570.8 mln vs the $581.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We are pleased to have delivered solid 11% growth in book value per share in 2016. Investment results reflect the benefits of our short-duration fixed-maturity portfolio in a rising interest rate environment and a decent lift from our allocation to risk assets. Underwriting results reflect the strong performance of our portfolio of specialty businesses. Going into 2017, we are positioned to continue delivering good underwriting results across our diverse portfolio of businesses."

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $575-615 mln vs. $585.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co sees adj gross margins between 24-26% at constant exchange rates.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:11 pm FormFactor beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; guides FY17 revs in-line (FORM) : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.20 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.19; revenues rose 72.6% year/year to $123.9 mln vs the $120.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.17-0.23 vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $120-128 mln vs. $112.11 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY17, sees FY17 revs of $480-500 mln vs. $482.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"FormFactor delivered solid growth fueled by our transformative acquisition of Cascade Microtech, which provided significant product and market diversification, as well as growth in our core probe card business as we doubled capacity for our largest foundry and logic customer."

4:07 pm TTM Tech beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (TTMI) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.58 per share, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.45; revenues rose 5.6% year/year to $706.5 mln vs the $671.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.25-0.31 vs. $0.24 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $595-635 mln vs. $607.05 mln two analyst estimate.

4:03 pm Microchip announces its intention to offer, subject to market conditions and other factors, $1.5 billion aggregate principal amount of convertible senior subordinated notes due 2027 and $500 million aggregate principal amount of convertible junior subordinated notes due 2037 in a private placement (MCHP) : Microchip intends to use approximately $1.5 billion of the net proceeds from this offering to reduce borrowings under its amended credit facility. Microchip additionally plans to use a portion of the proceeds to enter into agreements with holders of up to $450 million of its 2.125% junior subordinated convertible debentures due 2037 to exchange such existing debentures for cash up to the principal amount of the debentures and shares of Microchip common stock in respect of the conversion value in excess of the principal amount, plus a cash premium to induce holders to exchange.

4:25 pm : The major averages finished Wednesday's session flat, but mixed as the S&P 500 (+0.1%) and the Nasdaq (+0.2%) closed with modest gains while the Dow (-0.2%) underperformed.

In a day short on economic data, earnings reports made the biggest splash with a slew of companies reporting their quarterly results between yesterday's close and today's open. Some of the biggest post-report movers came from the tech sector (+0.2%) with Cognizant Technology (CTSH 56.45, +2.66) and Microchip Technology (MCHP 73.80, +4.18) adding 5.0% and 6.0%, respectively. CTSH reported better than expected earnings and issued positive first quarter guidance, while MCHP beat on both top and bottom lines in addition to issuing upbeat guidance.

The consumer discretionary sector (+0.6%) was also well represented on the earnings front. Walt Disney (DIS 109.01, +0.01) finished flat after better than expected earnings were balanced with a miss on revenues. Meanwhile, mid-cap Panera Bread (PNRA 232.90, +18.63) spiked 8.7%, fueled by better than expected earnings as well as a 3.0% increase in fourth quarter comparable net bakery-cafe sales.

The energy space (-0.1%) finished just shy of its flat line as an uptick in crude oil pushed the sector up from a larger loss. The commodity finished 0.3% higher at $52.36/bbl after holding solid losses during the overnight session and into the morning. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed a huge 13.8 million barrel build in oil inventories, which confirmed yesterday's bearish reading from the API. Crude oil climbed despite the inventory readings, likely due to some short positions being squeezed out.

On the countercyclical side, a 8.6% decline in Gilead Sciences (GILD 66.83, -6.30) held the health care space (-0.1%) below its flat line. Gilead reported better than expected results, but negative guidance for 2017 overshadowed the company's earnings. A positive earnings report and above-consensus guidance from Allergan (AGN 241.17, +8.56) helped alleviate some of health care's loss, but wasn't enough to prevent the space from being the only defensive sector to close in the red.

Lightly-weighted real estate (+0.9%) and utilities (+0.9%) closed at the top of the day's leaderboard, while financials (-0.8%) finished at the bottom. The financial space experienced broad pressure from its components as investors engaged in some profit taking in light of the space's huge fourth quarter advance and the stock market's recent stall.

The financial space also faced some headwinds in the Treasury market as the yield curve ended the day slightly flatter. U.S. Treasuries had a fairly volatile session, jumping to session highs amid a modest decrease in rate hike expectations. The fed funds futures market is still pointing to June as the most likely window for the next rate hike, but the implied likelihood of a June hike declined to 58.4% from 64.7%.

Treasuries squandered half of their gains following a poorly received $23 billion 10-yr auction. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed four basis points lower at 2.35% while the 2-yr yield finished down two basis points at 1.15%.

Today's lone economic report, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, increased 2.3% to follow last week's 3.2% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 250,000) at 8:30 am ET and December Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) at 10:00 am ET.

Nasdaq Composite +5.6% YTD
S&P 500 +2.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.1% YTD

DJ30 -35.95 NASDAQ +8.24 SP500 +1.59 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1288/1.77 bln/1561 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1657/1.01 bln/1282

3:30 pm :

Crude futures reversed initial post-API losses in afternoon pit trading to close in the green despite a decidedly bearish EIA report
Mar crude oil futures rose $0.18 (+0.3%) to $52.36/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +13.8 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of about +2.529 mln barrels).
Gasoline inventories had a draw of -0.9 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of +1.071 mln barrels).
Distillate inventories were unchanged.
Natural gas futures closed pit trading nearly flat ahead of tomorrow's inventory report
Mar natural gas closed $0.01 lower (-0.3%) at $3.12/MMBtu
EIA natural gas inventory data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, gold ended at a 3-month high for the 3rd consecutive session
April gold ended today's session up $3.50 (+0.3%) to $1239.50/oz
March silver closed today's session $0.04 lower (-0.2%) at $17.71/oz
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.6% around the 88.42


Despite the split close, the broader market was anything but flat today. Action began with decent losses as increased political uncertainty both domestically and abroad puts seeds of doubt into investors' minds. That being said, we did close split today as only the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which shed 35.95 points (-0.18%) to 20054.34 was unable to ramp higher into the close. In contrast, the Nasdaq Composite was the best performing index, adding 8.24 points (+0.15%) to 5682.45, and the S&P 500 also closed above flat lines, higher by 1.59 points (+0.07%) to 2294.67.

Action in the Technology (XLK 51.01, +0.09 +0.18%) took another leg higher today, spending only a few moments early in the session in the red. Component Microchip (MCHP 73.80, +4.18 +6.00%) was the best performer today after the company impressed investors with its latest quarterly report. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Wednesday XLU +0.98%, XLRE +0.85%, XLY +0.62%, XLP +0.41%, IYZ +0.24%, XLE +0.24%, XLB +0.23%, XLI -0.14%, XLV -0.15%, XLF -0.68% as Financials were the worst performing sector.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (861.51, +1.43 +0.17%) space, trading closed another day in the green. Component Cognizant Tech (CTSH 56.45, +2.66 +4.95%) was one of the better performing names today after its better than expected Q4 earnings. Other names in the space which closed higher today included XRX +4.10%, FIS +3.29%, EBAY +2.53%, QRVO +2.24%, PYPL +2.15%, FB +1.79%, YHOO +1.58%, ADI +1.53%, FISV +1.28%, MSI +1.18%, APH +1.08%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Trimble (TRMB 30.24, +0.19 +0.63%) acquired privately-held Beena Vision Systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Corning (GLW 26.48, -0.11 -0.41%) has collaborated with Micromax for its Vdeo smartphones, designed for the "value-segment" consumer. The recently launched devices are among the first across India's mobile phone entry segment to incorporate Corning Gorilla Glass to help protect against damage.

Intel (INTC 36.38, +0.03 +0.08%) confirmed a $7 billion investment in Arizona to complete Fab 42. Fab 42 will target 7 nm technology and create more than 10,000 jobs in AZ.

Accenture (ACN 115.43, -0.49 -0.42%) entered into an agreement to acquire the U.S. federal government services business of Endgame Inc., a privately held endpoint detection and response (EDR) cybersecurity software company based in Arlington, VA.

Priceline (PCLN 1601.19, +2.49 +0.16%) to acquire the Momondo Group for $550 million.

Symantec (SYMC 28.61, +0.17 +0.60%) announced the pricing of its senior unsecured notes in an aggregate principal amount of $1.1 billion, which reflects an increase of $0.1 billion from the aggregate principal amount previously announced. SYMC intends to use the net proceeds of this offering, after deducting underwriting discounts and offering expenses, together with cash on hand, to finance the about $2.3 billion aggregate purchase price of its proposed acquisition of LifeLock (LOCK).

Cognizant Tech (CTSH) entered into a cooperation agreement with Elliott Management.

Intuit (INTU 116.55, -0.93 -0.79%) announced that revenue and operating income, and diluted earnings per share from its second fiscal quarter were lower than expected due to the tax season forming more slowly than usual. The company expects consumer tax revenue to shift to the third fiscal quarter and therefore reiterated full fiscal-year guidance. For the second quarter, the company expects to report: Revenue of $1,010 million to $1,015 million; GAAP operating income of $15 million to $20 million; Non-GAAP operating income of $100 million to $105 million; GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.04 to $0.05; Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.24 to $0.25.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Cognizant Tech (CTSH) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.87 on revenues which were in-line at $3.46 billion. For Q1, the company sees EPS below market expectations at $0.83 on revenues which are slated to come in above market expectations at $3.51-3.55 billion. For FY17, CTSH sees EPS below market expectations at $3.63 on in-line revenues between $14.56-14.84 billion.

Fortive (FTV 56.18, +0.54 +0.97%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.68 on in-line revenues of $1.63 billion. For Q1, the company sees EPS of $0.54-0.58 with FY17 EPS expected in the range of $2.60-2.70.

Microchip (MCHP) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.05 and $881.2 million, respectively. For Q4, MCHP sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $1.01-1.11 and $872-908 million, respectively.

Akamai Tech (AKAM 63.55, -7.57 -10.64%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.72 and $616 million, respectively. For Q1, AKAM sees non-GAAP EPS between $0.66-0.69 and revenues in the range of $596-610 million.

CSRA (CSRA 30.30, -2.25 -6.91%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.48 on in-line revenues of $1.22 billion. For FY17, CSRA sees EPS and revenues below market expectations at $1.98-2.02 and $4.96-5.01 billion, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AOSL BLKB CTL CMP CRAY ECHO FISV FORM FORR GLUU IMPV NSIT KS LLNW LPSN MXL MB PAYC QLYS QNST SNCR TRMB TTMI TYL VRNS WSTL ZEN/APPS LQDT MMS TU TDC TZOO TRMR TWTR VRTU WILN

Analyst actions:

FIS was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
MCHP was upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at Needham,
IPHI was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen,
TWTR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BTIG Research;
Memory Chip sector downgraded to Neutral at UBS,
SPSC was downgraded at William Blair, Pacific Crest and Canaccord Genuity,
NTGR was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
YNDX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Raiffeisen,
MBT was downgraded to Reduce from Hold at Raiffeisen;
RATE was initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer,
MOMO was initiated with a Buy at Jefferies,

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:24 pm NVIDIA beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus (NVDA) :

Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $1.13 per share, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.98; revenues rose 54.9% year/year to $2.17 bln vs the $2.1 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $1.90 +/-2% (Approx $1.86-1.93 bln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.87 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

For fiscal 2018, NVIDIA intends to return $1.25 billion to shareholders through ongoing quarterly cash dividends and share repurchases (Prior guidance was $1.2 bln)

4:50 pm Sierra Wireless also announced that Volkswagen (VLKAY) selected Sierra Wireless AirPrime AR Series modules and the Legato platform for its next generation of connected cars (SWIR) : Sierra Wireless' integrated 4G technology will reach the market beginning in 2018 in several Volkswagen models worldwide.

4:43 pm Sierra Wireless beats by $0.11, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (SWIR) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) adj. earnings of $0.27 per share, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.16; revenues rose 12.8% year/year to $163 mln vs the $161.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Revenue from OEM Solutions was $135.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, up 11.2% compared to $121.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. Revenue from Enterprise Solutions was $21.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, up 27.1% compared to $16.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. Revenue from Cloud and Connectivity Services was $6.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, comparable to the fourth quarter of 2015.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.13-0.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $152-161 mln vs. $155.51 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:19 pm Amtech Systems reports Q1 (Dec) results, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs below two analyst estimate (ASYS) :

Reports Q1 (Dec) GAAP net of breakeven, may not be comparable to the single analyst GAAP estimate of ($0.25); revenues rose 32.0% year/year to $29.14 mln vs the $26.01 mln two analyst estimate.
Customer orders in the first quarter of fiscal 2017 were $34.7 million ($15.9 million solar), compared to $27.7 million ($11.8 million solar) in the preceding quarter and $35.6 million ($23.0 million solar) in the first quarter of fiscal 2016. These orders do not include the large order announced in January 2017 for a turnkey project in China for a solar cell manufacturing line for n-type bi-facial cells, or the other January orders in that order announcement.

At December 31, 2016, the Company's total order backlog was $51.5 million ($35.8 solar) compared to total backlog of $48.6 million (solar $34.0 million) at September 30, 2016 and $42.9 million (solar $31.3 million) at December 31, 2015. Backlog includes deferred revenue and customer orders that are expected to ship within the next 12 months.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $27-30 mln vs. $30.16 mln two analyst estimate. Gross margin for the quarter ending March 31, 2017, is expected to be in the mid 20s percent range, with operating margin negative. Due to the recent increase in orders, including the large turnkey order received in January 2017, revenue is expected to increase significantly in the second half of fiscal 2017 and is expected to lead to an improvement in the results of operations for the second half as compared to the first half of the fiscal year.

4:19 pm Infinera beats by $0.01, beats on revs (INFN) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.13) and at the high end of prior guidance of $(0.16)-(0.12); revenues fell 30.4% year/year to $181.04 mln vs the $175.37 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $165-185 mln.

"We executed well in the fourth quarter and delivered results at the high-end of our guidance," said Tom Fallon, Infinera's Chief Executive Officer. "As network infrastructures rapidly evolve, our objective remains to help our customers win by delivering the highest performing solutions at the Transport Layer. Though our product transition is currently holding back revenue growth and profitability, by introducing next generation ICE4 products, my belief is that we are well positioned to begin improving our business results over the course of 2017 and for significant opportunities in the future."

4:18 pm MagnaChip Semi misses by $0.07, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs below two analyst estimate (MX) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.05 per share, $0.07 worse than the single analyst estimate of $0.12; revenues rose 18.4% year/year to $180.5 mln vs the $180 mln two analyst estimate.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $157-163 mln vs. $166.05 mln two analyst estimate.

4:04 pm Monolithic Power beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 revs in-line (MPWR) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.65 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.63; revenues rose 19.2% year/year to $103.62 mln vs the $103.09 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $98-102 mln vs. $99.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20 pm : Stagnant no more, the major averages finished Thursday's session at fresh record highs. The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and the Dow closed with gains of 0.6%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 (+1.4%) outperformed.

Visions of tax reform drove today's advance after President Trump promised to make a "phenomenal" tax-related announcement in the coming weeks. There are no details as of yet regarding what the plan will look like, so it is impossible to say for certain which stocks/industry groups will be winners and losers. The positive response today was grounded more in psychology than economics because, again, there were no details given.

Equity indices remained near their highs, shrugging off comments from Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, who reiterated that three rate hikes in 2017 may be reasonable. Mr. Evans is a voting member on this year's FOMC.

Treasuries didn't have a strong reaction to Mr. Evan's speech. However, the risk-on sentiment did help steepen the yield curve as long-term Treasuries fell under heavy selling pressure relative to shorter-dated issues. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished seven basis points higher at 2.40% while the 2-yr yield closed three basis points higher at 1.18%.

Capitalizing on the steeper yield curve, financials (+1.4%) provided strong sector leadership throughout Thursday's session. Financial components showed broad strength with JPMorgan Chase (JPM 87.20, +1.24), Goldman Sachs (GS 241.55, +3.82), MetLife (MET 52.58, +1.19), and Prudential (PRU 108.39, +3.17) gaining between 1.4% and 3.0%. Prudential's uptick took place in reaction to better than expected earnings.

The consumer staples space (+0.4%) was also represented on the earnings front with Coca-Cola (KO 41.25, -0.77), CVS Health (CVS 77.31, +0.28), and Kellogg (K 76.44, +2.95) reporting results before this morning's open. The results were mixed as KO finished 1.8% lower after below-consensus guidance overshadowed better than expected revenues. Separately, CVS and K posted respective gains of 0.3% and 4.0% after beating earnings estimates.

Energy (+0.9%) also outpaced the benchmark index thanks in part to an uptick in crude oil. The energy component closed 1.2% higher at $52.98/bbl following yesterday's surprising gains in the face of Energy Information Administration (EIA) data which showed a 13.8 million barrel build in oil inventories. Short positions being squeezed out most likely contributed to the counter-intuitive advance.

Utilities (-0.8%) and materials (unch) were the only two spaces to finish Thursday lower. Higher market rates weighed on the rate-sensitive utilities sector while Sealed Air (SEE 47.14, -3.08) had its hand in pushing the materials space lower. The company plunged 6.1% in reaction to the disappointing guidance and lower than expected revenues.

Nine of eleven spaces are higher for the week going into Friday's session with materials and energy showing week-to-date losses of 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively.

Today's economic data included Initial Claims and December Wholesale Inventories:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 234,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 250,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 246,000. As for continuing claims, they rose to 2.078 million from the revised count of 2.063 million (from 2.064 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that employers appear reluctant to trim their payrolls, which is a reflection of the tightness in the labor market and the difficulty in finding new employees with the right skill set.
December Wholesale Inventories increased 1.0%, which was in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at 1.0%.
December marked the second straight month that wholesale inventories increased 1.0%, helping to explain the positive contribution the change in inventories made to Q4 GDP growth.

Friday's economic data will include January Export/Import Prices at 8:30 am ET, February Michigan Sentiment Index (Briefing.com consensus 97.9), and January Treasury Budget at 2:00 pm ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.2% YTD
S&P 500 +3.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.6% YTD

NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2113/1.75 bln/803 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1918/994.9 mln/997

3:30 pm :

Natural gas ended pit trading modestly higher for a 3rd consecutive session after EIA reported a draw in-line with Consensus
Mar natural gas closed $0.02 higher (+0.6%) at $3.14/MMBtu
EIA highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a draw of -152 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a draw of approx. -153 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 2,559 Bcf as of Friday, Feb 3, 2017, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 325 Bcf less than last year at this time and 45 Bcf above the five-year avg of 2,514 Bcf.
At 2,559 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range.
Crude oil extended yesterday's surprise post-EIA gains ahead of tomorrow's rig count
Mar crude oil futures rose $0.62 (+1.2%) to $52.98/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET.
In precious metals, gold retreated from yesterday's 3-month high on renewed dollar index strength
April gold ended today's session down $2.70 (-0.2%) to $1236.80/oz
March silver closed today's session $0.03 higher (+0.2%) at $17.74/oz
The dollar index was +0.4% around the 100.65 level, weighed on gold futures
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.1% around the 88.53 level

The broader market finished Thursday at record highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 118.06 points (+0.59%) to 20172.40. The S&P 500 was up 13.20 points (+0.58%) to 2307.87, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 32.73 points (+0.58%) to 5715.18.

Today's economic data included the latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 234,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 246,000. As for continuing claims, they rose to 2.078 million from the revised count of 2.063 million (from 2.064 million). Also, December Wholesale Inventories increased 1.0%, which was in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at 1.0%.

For its part, the Technology (XLK 51.17, +0.16 +0.31%) space also traded to some pretty impressive highs today, touching levels not seen since September of 2000. Component Teradata (TDC 32.74, +2.57 +8.52%) performed well today after reporting Q4 results and giving mixed Q1 guidance. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Thursday XLF +1.37%, XLE +1.13%, XLI +0.77%, IYZ +0.65%, XLY +0.63%, XLRE +0.42%, XLP +0.41%, XLV +0.36%, XLB -0.04%, XLU -0.85%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (863.97, +2.46 +0.29%) space, trading ended slightly off highs. Component Intel (INTC 35.46, -0.92 -2.53%) ended as one of the worst performers today after the company's Investor Day. Other names in the space which closed higher with the sector today included CTSH +2.75%, WU +2.36%, EA +2.18%, FSLR +2.16%, HPE +1.90%, FISV +1.57%, PAYX +1.46%, ATVI +1.38%, ACN +1.34%, SYMC +1.33%, ADS +1.28%.

Other notable news items among sector components:


Accenture (ACN 116.98, +1.55 +1.34%) to acquire the iDefense Security Intelligence Services business from VeriSign (VRSN 82.52, -0.05 -0.06%). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Take-Two (TTWO 56.02, +2.31 +4.30%) announced plans to launch an NBA 2K eLeague. Will debut in 2018.

First Solar (FSLR 32.23, +0.68 +2.16%) was awarded a module supply contract for the 140 megawatt DC Sun Metals Solar Farm in North Queensland (Australia's largest solar project).

Nokia (NOK 4.89, +0.01 +0.20%) to acquire Comptel for EUR 347 million.
Nokia (NOK) has signed a distributor agreement with Energia Communications to sell its G.fast fixed ultra-broadband access technology in Japan.

PayPal (PYPL 40.83, -0.05 -0.12%) in 10-K disclosed it received subpoenas from the DOJ seeking the production of certain information related to the company's historical anti-money laundering program.

Imperva (IMPV 46.75, +3.85 +8.97%) agreed to sell its Skyfence technology and service to Forcepoint. Also acquired the assets of Camouflage Software.

Paycom Software (PAYC 51.32, +6.06 +13.39%) announced an additional $50 million is available for repurchases through Jan 2019.

Microchip (MCHP 70.93, -2.87 -3.89%) to offer $1.5 billion of convertible senior subordinated notes due 2027 and $500 million of convertible junior subordinated notes due 2037 in private placement.

Genpact (G 25.20, +0.39 +1.57%) signed a four-year extension to Master Services Agreement to provide professional services across all GE businesses.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Fiserv (FISV 109.47, +1.69 +1.57%) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $1.16 on revenues which were below market expectations at $1.43 billion. For FY17, the company guided EPS above market expectations at $5.03-5.07.

Telus (TU 32.80, -0.70 -2.09%) reported worse than expected Q4 earnings of CAD$0.53 on in-line revenues of CAD$3.31 billion. For FY17, the company sees EPS below market expectations of CAD$2.49-2.64 on revenues of CAD$13.12-13.25 billion.

CenturyLink (CTL 24.42, -0.01 -0.04%) reported worse than expected Q4 earnings of $0.54 per share on revenues which fell 4.2% compared to a year ago to $4.29 billion. For Q1, the company sees EPS and revenues below market expectations at $0.51-0.57 and $4.23-4.29 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $2.10-2.30 and $17.05-17.30 billion.

Twitter (TWTR 16.41, -2.31 -12.34%) reported better than expected Q4 earnings of $0.16 per share on worse than expected revenues of $717 million. Guided Q1 adjusted EBITDA to be between $75 million and $95 million, well below expectations; Adjusted EBITDA margin to be between 17% and 17.5%, and SBC to be between $125 and $135 million.

Trimble (TRMB 31.70, +1.46 +4.83%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.31 and $585.6 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $0.27-0.32 and $585-615 million, respectively.

Tyler Tech (TYL 160.66, +14.67 +10.05%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.90 on revenues which were worse than expected at $193.28 million. For FY17, the company sees EPS in the range of $3.83-3.91 on revenues between $845-855 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ATEN ATVI ASYS APDN APTI CARB ECOM CPSI CYBR DTRM EGAN ELLI EXPE HDP INFN JCOM MX MIME MPWR NCR UEPS NVDA P RSYS RPD SWIR TLND UBNT VRSN VSAT WEB WU YELP ZAYO ZIXI ZNGA/G

Analyst actions:

MU was upgraded to Buy from Underperform at BofA/Merrill,
RMBS was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan;
TWTR was downgraded to Underperform at Cowen and to Underperform at Raymond James,
CREE was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities,
GRUB was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho,
VNTV was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies,
SNCR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank,
QLYS was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at First Analysis Sec;
GTT was initiated with a Buy at BTIG Research,
CAFD was initiated with a Hold at Williams Capital Group,
VSM was initiated with a Hold at Argus

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: The stock market secured its third consecutive weekly advance with the S&P 500 rising 0.8%. The benchmark index posted gains in four of the first six weeks of 2016 while the two down weeks in the middle of January shaved a whopping 0.25% off the index.

The first half of the week featured sideways action just below record highs from late January, but the market snapped out of that range on Thursday after comments from President Donald Trump reminded investors that tax reform remains a priority. Mr. Trump announced that something "phenomenal" on the tax front would be announced in the next two or three weeks. The comments, which did not include specific details, were enough to encourage investors, who were starting to worry that a major campaign promise may go unaddressed.

Market participants received another heavy dose of quarterly reports, but the earnings had more influence on individual stocks than the broader market. At the end of the week, more than 71.0% of S&P 500 components had reported their results, generating blended earnings growth of 4.9%, according to FactSet. This represented a modest shortfall relative to the estimate from the end of September, which called for growth of 5.2%.

The past week was quiet on the economic front, leaving investors with just a few second-tier reports to digest. The preliminary reading of the Michigan Sentiment index for February declined to 95.7 from 98.5, almost entirely due to a pullback in the Expectations Index. That index fell to 85.7 from 90.3 while the Current Economic Conditions Index ticked down to 111.2 from 111.3.

Rate hike expectations barely budged on a week-over-week basis. The fed funds futures market ended the week showing a 67.3% implied probability of a rate hike in June, up from last week's 63.5%, but down slightly from 69.2% two weeks ago.
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD %
DJIA 20071.46 20269.37 197.91 1.0 2.6
Nasdaq 5666.77 5734.13 67.36 1.2 6.5
S&P 500 2297.42 2316.10 18.68 0.8 3.5
Russell 2000 1377.83 1388.44 10.61 0.8 2.3

4:22 pm Closing Market Summary: Another Record Close for Equities (:WRAPX) :

Equity indices closed the week on an upbeat note, climbing to fresh record highs for the second consecutive day. The Dow (+0.5%) led the advance while the Nasdaq (+0.3%) finished just behind the S&P 500 (+0.4%).

The optimism surrounding today's session had its roots in President Trump's upcoming tax-related announcement. On Thursday, the president promised the unveiling of a "phenomenal" tax plan in the coming weeks, but didn't provide any specific details on what the plan will include. Still, it was enough to push the stock market to record highs on Thursday and then again on Friday.

It is worth noting that Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo announced on Friday that he will be resigning from his position, effective April 5. As a result, President Trump will have the opportunity to fill three of the seven seats on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

On the earnings front, NVIDIA's (NVDA 113.62, -2.76) earnings report lived up to lofty expectations that accompanied the company's massive 55.8% gain in the fourth quarter. However, the stock fell 2.4% on Friday as better than expected top and bottom lines and above-consensus first quarter guidance was met with a sell-the-news response from investors. In addition to Apple's (AAPL 132.12, -0.30) lackluster performance, the response to NVIDIA's earnings report put a lid on the top-weighted technology sector's (+0.2%) gain.

Elsewhere on the earnings front, Skechers (SKX 27.78, +4.50) and Columbia Sportswear (COLM 59.83, +6.54) spiked 19.3% and 12.3%, respectively, following the release of their quarterly reports. SKX's jump can be attributed to its above-consensus revenues and upbeat Q1 revenue guidance, whereas COLM's surge was fueled by better than expected earnings.

However, Yelp (YELP 35.83, -5.66) didn't share the good fortune of its consumer discretionary peers. The company plunged 13.6% following worse than expected first quarter revenue guidance. The consumer discretionary space took in the positive and brushed off the negative to close 0.5% higher.

Energy (+0.8%) also finished Friday's session solidly higher thanks to the uptick in crude oil; the commodity finished its trading day up 0.9% at $53.85/bbl. WTI crude's third consecutive advance followed a bullish International Energy Agency report, which showed 90.0% OPEC compliance with agreed-upon production cuts and an increased oil demand growth forecast for 2017.

On the countercyclical side, consumer staples (-0.1%) finished at the bottom of the day's leaderboard, while the influential health care space (+0.1%) finished just a step ahead. Health care overcame weakness in biotech names with a 1.0% jump in the sector's largest component by market cap, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 115.24, +1.16).

JNJ's uptick was the result of a positive development involving the European Medicines Agency. As a reminder, Johnson & Johnson agreed to acquire Actelion in late January for roughly $30 billion. The EMA stated that Actelion's Uptravi may continue to be used, after the agency reviewed the safety of the drug following the deaths of five patients in France who were taking it.

In the Treasury market, government-issued debt extended Thursday's downtick with minor losses on Friday. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed two basis points higher at 2.41%.

Today's economic data included January Export/Import Prices, the preliminary Michigan Sentiment Index for February, and the January Treasury Budget:

Import prices excluding oil declined 0.2% in January after ticking down 0.1% in December (revised from -0.2%). Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.1% in January after rising 0.4% in December.
The key takeaway from the report is that nonfuel import prices remain in check, but nonetheless, inflation concerns could get dialed up just a bit on the notion of a potential pass-through effect should higher fuel prices persist.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February declined to 95.7 (Briefing.com consensus 97.9) from 98.5 in the prior month.
While consumer sentiment faded, the key takeaway is that it is still high, as there have only been five higher readings in the past decade.
The Treasury Budget for January showed a deficit of $51.3 billion versus a deficit of $55.2 billion for January 2016. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the January deficit cannot be compared to the $27.5 billion deficit registered in December.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.5% YTD
S&P 500 +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.3% YTD


Week in Review: Evergreen Trade Remains Alive

The stock market secured its third consecutive weeklyadvance with the S&P 500 rising 0.8%. The benchmark index postedgains in four of the first six weeks of 2016 while the two down weeks in themiddle of January shaved a whopping 0.25% off the index.

The first half of the week featured sideways action justbelow record highs from late January, but the market snapped out of that rangeon Thursday after comments from President Donald Trump reminded investors thattax reform remains a priority. Mr. Trump announced that something "phenomenal"on the tax front would be announced in the next two or three weeks. Thecomments, which did not include specific details, were enough to encourageinvestors, who were starting to worry that a major campaign promise may gounaddressed.

Market participants received another heavy dose of quarterlyreports, but the earnings had more influence on individual stocks than thebroader market. At the end of the week, more than 71.0% of S&P 500components had reported their results, generating blended earnings growth of4.9%, according to FactSet. This represented a modest shortfall relative to theestimate from the end of September, which called for growth of 5.2%.

The past week was quiet on the economic front, leavinginvestors with just a few second-tier reports to digest. The preliminaryreading of the Michigan Sentiment index for February declined to 95.7 from98.5, almost entirely due to a pullback in the Expectations Index. That indexfell to 85.7 from 90.3 while the Current Economic Conditions Index ticked downto 111.2 from 111.3.

Rate hike expectations barely budged on a week-over-weekbasis. The fed funds futures market ended the week showing a 67.3% impliedprobability of a rate hike in June, up from last week's 63.5%, but down slightlyfrom 69.2% two weeks ago.

Averages made all-time highs again today as the broader market showed no signs of slowing down from the Trump bump. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 96.97 points (+0.48%) to 20269.37. The S&P 500 gained 8.23 points (+0.36%) today to end 2316.10, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 18.95 points (+0.33%) to 5743.13 when the bell rang. This week's moves take the three major US indices to +2.6%, +3.5% and +6.5% YTD, respectively.

Today's economic data included import prices excluding oil which declined 0.2% in January after ticking down 0.1% in December (revised from -0.2%). Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.1% in January after rising 0.4% in December. Also, the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February declined to 95.7 from 98.5 in the prior month.

The Technology (XLK 51.32, +0.15 +0.29%) sector closed out the week with modest gains, propelling higher off mid-morning lows. Gaming name Activision Blizzard (ATVI 47.23, +7.50 +18.88%) was the best performer today after reporting Q4 results last night. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Friday XLB +0.91%, XLI +0.81%, IYZ +0.79%, XLE +0.77%, XLRE +0.68%, XLU +0.63%, XLY +0.61%, XLF +0.30%, XLV +0.20%, XLP +0.06%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (865.88, +1.91 +0.22%) space, trading mounted a strong advance following mid-morning weakness, following the broader market to all-time highs. Component Western Union (WU 19.75, -0.63 -3.09%) was among some of the worst performers today after last night's Q4 print. Other names in the space which closed higher with the sector included EA +3.50%, QCOM +2.12%, FSLR +1.92%, EBAY +1.54%, CSRA +1.51%, ORCL +1.39%, INTU +1.24%, HRS +1.20%, JNPR +0.88%, IBM +0.83%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
SunPower (SPWR 7.16, +0.19 +2.73%) Chief Operating Officer Marty Neese notified the company of his intent to leave to accept a position with another company.

NXP Semi (NXPI 101.99, +0.39 +0.38%) announced its gross debt will be reduced to $6.5 billion from the $9.2 billion reported at the end of 4Q16.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, A10 Networks' (ATEN 9.51, +0.91 +10.58%) announced CFO Greg Straughn has stepped down.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, VeriSign's (VRSN 83.14, +0.62 +0.75%) Board of Directors announced the approval of an additional share repurchase authorization of about $641 million.

Volkswagen (VLKAY 31.15, +0.48 +1.59%) selected Sierra Wireless (SWIR 24.45, +5.80 +31.10%) AirPrime AR Series modules and the Legato platform for its next generation of connected cars.

ChannelAdvisor's (ECOM 10.85, -3.40 -23.86%) Chief Technology Officer, Aris Buinevicius, resigned effective March 17.

In reaction to quarterly results:

NVIDIA (NVDA 113.62, -2.76 -2.37%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.13 and $2.17 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company sees revenues ahead of expectations at $1.90 billion, plus or minus 2%.

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) reported Q4 earnings of $0.65 per share on revenues which beat market expectations at $2.45 billion. For Q1, the company sees EPS of $0.51 on revenues of $1.55 billion. For FY17, ATVI expects EPS of $1.70 and revenues of $6 billion.

Expedia (EXPE 122.65, -0.60 -0.49%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $1.17 on better than expected revenues of $2.09 billion.

Western Union (WU) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.47 on in-line revenues of $1.37 billion. For FY17, WU sees EPS and revenues in-line at $1.63-1.75 and revenue growth of flat to low single digits.

VeriSign (VRSN) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.92 and $286.27 million, respectively.

A10 Networks (ATEN) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.03 and $64.0 million.


Pandora Media (P 12.85, +0.23 +1.82%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.13 on revenues which also beat expectations at $392.6 million. For Q1, the company sees revenues below market expectations at $310-320 million. For FY17, the company sees in-line revenues of $1.55-1.70 billion.

Yelp (YELP 35.83, -5.66 -13.64%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.27 on in-line revenues of $194.8 million. The company also guided Q1 revenues worse than expected at $195-199 million, and guided FY17 revenues in-line at $880-900 million.

Infinera (INFN 11.96, +2.56 +27.23%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.12 on revenues which also beat expectations at $181.04 million. For Q1, the company guided a non-GAAP EPS loss of ($0.18)-($0.14) with revenues in the range of $167-177 million.

Sierra Wireless (SWIR) reported better than expected Q4 adjusted earnings of $0.27 on revenues which also beat expectations at $163 million. For Q1, the company sees EPS above market expectations at $0.13-0.20 on in-line revenues of $152-161 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results Monday morning: FDC LIOX TSEM VSM WEX

Analyst actions:

INFN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Instinet,
SWIR was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at First Analysis Sec,
VECO was upgraded to Buy at BofA/Merrill;
TWTR was downgraded at UBS, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Atlantic Equities and Loop Capital,
INTC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
UBNT was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
MTSC was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
ZAYO was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at FBR & Co.,
BLKB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich;
SYMC was initiated with an Equal weight at Barclays,
ENTG and VRNT were initiated with a Buy at Goldman,
NICE and VSM were initiated with Neutral ratings at Goldman

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From Briefing.com: 4:13 pm SolarEdge Technologies beats by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (SEDG) :

Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $0.32 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.29; revenues fell 10.7% year/year to $111.5 mln vs the $114.91 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
GAAP gross margin reached 35.0% (Guidance 30-32%)

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $110-120 mln vs. $109.31 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Sees Gross Margin in the range of 31-33%.

4:10 pm Agilent beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides AprQ EPS in-line, revs in-line; reaffirms FY17 EPS guidance, guides FY17 revs in-line (A) :
Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49 and above prior guidance of $0.48-0.50; revenues rose 3.8% year/year to $1.07 bln vs the $1.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $1.04-1.06 bln.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2 (Apr), sees EPS of $0.47-0.49, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.04-1.06 bln vs. $1.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues guidance for FY17, reaffirms EPS of $2.10-2.16, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.14 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $4.33-4.35 bln vs. $4.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Our strong revenue results were driven by a return to growth in our Chemical & Energy business and higher-than-expected China growth. Overall, we are confident in the company's prospects, and we are raising our full-year core revenue growth expectations."

4:15 pm : Afternoon optimism outweighed morning caution on Tuesday as investors pushed the major averages to fresh record highs. The Dow (+0.5%) led the advance while the S&P 500 (+0.4%) and the the Nasdaq (+0.3%) closed just a tick behind.

Markets were in wait-and-see mode leading up to Fed Chair Yellen's semiannual monetary policy report. Ms. Yellen did not raise any eyebrows in her prepared statement, but she did provide some interesting insight during the Q&A session that followed.

Specifically, Senator Toomey asked Chair Yellen why the Fed didn't really bump up its growth projections at all at the December meeting when many other bodies, like the IMF, have bumped up their 2017 growth prospects based on a belief that the implementation of fiscal stimulus in the U.S. will have a positive effect on growth. Ms. Yellen responded by saying that most of her colleagues refrained from doing so because they wanted greater clarity on the timing, scope, and composition of any fiscal changes before making assumptions about the growth outlook.

That's an important revelation because the Fed, without the benefit of knowing what fiscal changes will look like, still projected three rate hikes in 2017 at the December meeting. That forecast, then, is based on its view of how the economy will evolve without -- at the Fed Chair's admission -- the benefit of any fiscal stimulus.

The fed funds future market still projects the next FOMC rate hike to occur in June with an implied probability of 70.7% (from 65.4% yesterday). The implied probability of a March rate hike has also ticked up following today's monetary policy report, but it remains relatively low at 17.7% (from 13.3% yesterday).

Treasuries retreated following the Fed Chair's testimony, while the stock market waited until after the Q&A session to make its expedition into the green. Financials (+1.2%) led the equity market's advance, profiting from the uptick in interest rates. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished its trading session four basis points higher at 2.47%.

The health care space (+0.7%) also finished Tuesday solidly higher following a couple of broken large-cap mergers. Aetna (AET 125.81, +3.76) and Humana (HUM 205.97, -0.73) announced a mutual agreement to terminate their proposed merger this morning. Then, in the afternoon session, Cigna (CI 146.68, +0.83) confirmed the termination of its agreement and plan of merger with Anthem (ANTM 163.32, -0.20). Additionally, CI announced that it has filed a lawsuit against ANTM.

Consumer discretionary (+0.6%) also outpaced the benchmark index, while technology (+0.3%) underperformed the broader market. The consumer discretionary sector received a nice bump from General Motors (GM 37.24, +1.72) after French automaker Peugeot confirmed that it is currently in talks with GM regarding a potential acquisition of GM's Opel brand. Shares of General Motors jumped 4.8% in the wake of the news.

Lightly-weighted sectors populated the bottom of today's leaderboard with utilities (-0.7%), real estate (-0.5%), and telecom services (-0.1%) all closing Tuesday lower. Rate-sensitive utilities' last place finish was secured by the uptick in interest rates following Fed Chair Yellen's testimony.

Today's economic data was limited to January PPI:

January producer prices increased 0.6%, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of 0.3%. The prior month's reading was revised to 0.2% (from 0.3%).
Core producer prices increased 0.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%. The prior month's reading was revised to 0.1% (from 0.2%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the headline shock for January has been overshadowed by the more restrained year-over-year readings. On a year-over-year basis, the index for final demand is up 1.6%, unchanged from December. The index for final demand, excluding food and energy prices, is up 1.2% year-over-year versus 1.6% for the 12-months ending in December.

Wednesday will see a slew of economic reports including MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, January CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), January Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), and February Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 7.0) at 8:30 ET, January Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 75.5%) at 9:15 ET, December Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and February NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 68) at 10:00 ET, and December Net Long-Term TIC Flows at 16:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.4% YTD
S&P 500 +4.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.9% YTD

NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1597/1.74 bln/1221 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1529/948.1 mln/1392

3:30 pm :

Crude oil closed pit trading near the midpoint of today's session high ahead of this afternoon's API release
Mar crude oil futures rose $0.26 (+0.5%) to $53.21/barrel
Upcoming data reminders:
API data will be released today at 4:30 pm ET.
EIA petroleum data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET.
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET.
Natural gas futures extended yesterday's move below the $3.00/MMBtu support zone
Mar natural gas closed $0.05 lower (-1.7%) at $2.90/MMBtu
EIA natural gas storage data will be released Thursday at 10:30 am ET.
In precious metals, silver futures ended pit trading just shy of a 3-month high despite notable strength in the dollar index
April gold ended today's session down $0.50 (-0.1%) to $1225.30/oz
Mar silver closed today's session $0.08 higher (+0.5%) at $17.90/oz
The dollar index was +0.3% around the 101.24 level
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.01% around the 88.63 level

Another record close was precluded by a soft start in the broader market today. Action began lower this morning, but turned higher after testimony Fed Chair Janet Yellen gave to the Senate Banking Committee. For the most part, Chair Yellen's testimony did not raise any eyebrows, but Ms. Yellen did provide some interesting insight into the Fed's growth forecast for the U.S.

All three major US indices ended at record highs, led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which added 92.25 points (+0.45%) to 20504.41. The S&P 500 gained 9.33 points (+0.40%) today to 2337.58, and the Nasdaq Composite rounded out the trio up 18.62 points (+0.32%) to 5782.57.

Economic data today included January producer prices which increased 0.6% compared to the prior month's reading which was revised to 0.2% (from 0.3%). Additionally, investors learned that core producer prices increased 0.4% compared to last month's reading which was revised to 0.1% (from 0.2%).

Also opening the session in the red, the Technology (XLK 51.72, +0.17 +0.33%) sector reversed into positive territory lockstep with the broader market. Component FLIR Systems (FLIR 34.15, -2.25 -6.18%) was the worst performing name today after the company reported mixed Q4 results and guided FY17 revenues ahead of market expectations on top of dividend, share repurchase and CEO news. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLF +1.16%, XLV +0.79%, XLY +0.57%, XLE +0.35%, IYZ +0.12%, XLI +0.05%, XLP +0.02%, XLB -0.02%, XLRE -0.51%, XLU -0.73%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (873.98, +2.48 +0.28%) sector, trading eked out another session of all-time highs. Components XRX +3.03%, GLW +1.91%, FSLR +1.77%, AAPL +1.29%, GPN +1.27%, ACN +1.19%, PYPL +1.09% and CSCO +1.03% helped push the sector into positive territory.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Amazon Web Services, an Amazon.com company (AMZN 836.39, -0.14 -0.02%), announced Amazon Chime.

Toshiba (TOSBF 2.05, -0.01 -0.49%) postponed its earnings release due to write-down in Nuclear unit. TOSBF also notified investors that the company's CEO will step down.

GigPeak (GIG 3.05, +0.34 +12.55%) to be acquired by Integrated Device Technology (IDTI 24.88, +0.15 +0.61%) for $3.08 per share, or about $250 million.

Windstream (WIN 7.13, -0.07 -0.97%) received all state and federal regulatory approvals required for its merger with EarthLink Holdings (ELNK 5.72, -0.07 -1.21%). The parties now expect the transaction to close in 1Q17.

Oracle's (ORCL 41.10, +0.01 +0.02) HCM Cloud Suite was selected by Ford (F 12.65, +0.09 +0.72%) to streamline digital view of HR product and services.

Oracle (ORCL) is expanding its Internet of Things portfolio with four new cloud solutions to help businesses fully utilize the benefits of digital supply chains.

FLIR Systems' (FLIR) CEO Andrew Teich to retire. The Board will conduct a search for a new CEO with the help of an executive search firm. The company also approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.15 per share on FLIR common stock, an increase of 25% over the previous quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share. Further, management also announced that a new share repurchase program that authorizes the repurchase of up to 15 million shares over the next two years.

IBM (IBM 180.13, +0.77 +0.43%) and ServiceNow (NOW 92.89, +1.15 +1.25%) announced a collaboration. The parties agreed to a multi-year, strategic partnership to offer NOW's cloud-based service automation platform and IBM products and services.

In reaction to quarterly results:

T-Mobile US (TMUS 61.60, +0.70 +1.15%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.45 and $10.18 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company expects to add between 2.4 and 3.4 million branded postpaid net additions. While Net income is not available on a forward looking basis, the Company is targeting between $10.4 and $10.8 billion in Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes spectrum gains and includes leasing revenues of $0.8 to $0.9 billion (the impact from Data Stash is expected to be immaterial). Cash capital expenditures guidance is $4.8 to $5.1 billion, excluding capitalized interest. Net cash provided by operating activities three-year CAGR is expected to be between 15% and 18%. Free Cash Flow three-year CAGR is expected to be between 45% and 48%.

IPG Photonics (IPGP 117.02, +0.94 +0.81%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.39 and $280.1 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees in-line EPS of $1.10-1.25 on better than expected revenues of $245-260 million.

FLIR Systems (FLIR) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.48 on better than expected revenues of $474.74 million. FLIR also guided FY17 EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $1.81-1.91 and $1.78-1.83 billion, respectively.

AU Optronics (AUO 3.65, -0.10 -2.67%) reported better than expected Q4 earnings of NT$0.93 per share on revenues which also beat market expectations at NT$91.85 billion.

Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD 41.61, +1.59 +3.97%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of net of breakeven and in-line revenues of $109 million. The company also guided Q1 and FY17 revenues slightly below market expectations of $109-111 million and $475-485 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: IOTS HIVE A CALX DIOD HOLI HUBS LXFT SEDG TTGT VDSI/ADI ANGI CRNT CBB GRPN PLAB SHOP SONS WIX

Analyst actions:

NTAP was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray,
Z was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
TERP was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at UBS;
FLIR and GIG were downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
SCG was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho;
CYBR was initiated with a Buy at Stifel,
SYNC was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street

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From Briefing.com: 4:13 pm Cisco Systems beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line; raises dividend 12% (CSCO) :

Reports Q2 (Jan) earnings of $0.57 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.56; revenues fell 2.9% year/year to $11.58 bln vs the $11.56 bln Capital IQ Consensus, with product revenue down 4% and service revenue up 5%.

Revenue by geographic segment was: Americas down 3%, EMEA flat, and APJC down 3%.
Product revenue performance was led by Security which increased 14%. Collaboration and Wireless product revenue increased by 4% and 3%, respectively. NGN Routing, Switching and Data Center product revenue decreased by 10%, 5% and 4%, respectively. Service Provider Video product revenue decreased by 41%.

Non-GAAP total gross margin and product gross margin were 64.1% (vs. 63-64% guidance) and 62.4%, respectively. The decrease in non-GAAP product gross margin compared with 63.3% in the second quarter of fiscal 2016 was primarily due to pricing and to a lesser extent product mix, partially offset by continued productivity improvements.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.57-0.59, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.58 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs down 0-2% to ~$11.76-12.0 bln vs. $11.87 bln Capital IQ Consensus; adj. gross margin 63-64%.

Increases quarterly cash dividend 12% to $0.29

4:09 pm SunPower misses by $0.18, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus; reaffirms FY17 revs guidance (SPWR) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.64 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.18 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.46); revenues fell 19.5% year/year to $1.1 bln vs the $1.06 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $370-420 mln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $459.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Gross margin of 0 percent to 2 percent;
Adjusted EBITDA of ($45) million to ($20) million;
Megawatts deployed in the range of 150 MW to 180 MW.

Co reaffirms guidance for FY17, sees FY17 revs of $2.1-2.6 bln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.35 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Reaffirms the following:Non-GAAP operational expenses of less than $350 million;Capital expenditures of approximately $120 million;Gigawatts (:GW) deployed in the range of 1.3 GW to 1.6 GW. Expects to record GAAP restructuring charges totaling $50 million to $100 million in fiscal year 2017.Expects to generate positive operating cash flow through the end of fiscal year 2017 and exit the year with approximately $300 million in cash. Despite current industry conditions the company is forecasting positive Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2017, weighted toward the second half of the year. The company believes that cash flow and liquidity are the key evaluation metrics for investors in the near term. 4:07 pm NetApp beats by $0.08, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (NTAP) :

Reports Q3 (Jan) earnings of $0.82 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.74; revenues rose 1.3% year/year to $1.4 bln vs the $1.39 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

All-flash array annualized net revenue run rate almost $1.40 billion, up 160% year-over-year.
Nearly 300 petabytes of flash shipped.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.79-0.84 vs. $0.77 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $1.365-1.515 bln vs. $1.4 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Q3 marked another quarter of strong execution by NetApp," said George Kurian, chief executive officer. "The transformation of NetApp is yielding solid results and has changed the trajectory of our business. With our industry-leading portfolio of solutions and Data Fabric strategy, NetApp is well positioned to lead in the next era of IT."

4:05 pm Lattice Semi beats by $0.04, misses on revs (LSCC) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.10 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues rose 16.7% year/year to $118.11 mln vs the $126.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Gross margin of 53.7% on a GAAP basis and 53.9% on a non-GAAP basis.

On November 3, 2016, the Company announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, Inc. The transaction with Canyon Bridge will allow Lattice to grow its operations in the U.S. and globally and better reach its target markets. The process of obtaining approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (:CFIUS) is well underway, and the Company looks forward to continuing to have constructive discussions with the Committee in order to conclude the deal as soon as possible.

As a result of the acquisition announcement with Canyon Bridge, the Company will not hold a quarterly conference call and webcast, and will not provide an outlook for its future financial results. 4:04 pm Applied Materials beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (AMAT) :

Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.67 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.66; revenues rose 45.2% year/year to $3.28 bln vs the $3.27 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.72-0.80, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.62 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $3450-3600 vs. $3.21 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20 pm : Equity indices marched through a stockpile of economic data to new record highs on Wednesday as the S&P 500 (+0.5%) posted its seventh consecutive advance. The Dow (+0.5%) finished in line with the benchmark index while the Nasdaq (+0.6%) closed a step ahead.

The day's record close appeared somewhat doubtful following this morning's release of January CPI. The report came in hotter than expected with total CPI increasing 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rising 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). While the Fed's preferred inflation gauge is the PCE Price Index, Wednesday's CPI reading confirms that consumer inflation pressures are rising, which in turn should increase the potential for a rate hike at the March meeting.

Sure enough, the fed funds futures market showed an increase in the implied probability of a March rate hike (to 31.0% today from 17.7% yesterday). Additionally, the fed funds futures market now points to the next FOMC rate hike taking place in May with the corresponding probability rising to 53.1% from yesterday's 40.6%.

U.S. Treasuries slipped immediately following the January CPI release and held the bulk of those losses into the close, finishing lower for the fifth consecutive session. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished three basis points higher at 2.50%.

After the morning's wave of economic data, which included much more than just CPI (see data review below), the stock market found its footing and began a slow but steady climb into the green. Financials (+0.7%) led the advance throughout the morning, but health care (+1.2%) took the reigns in the afternoon.

While the health care space showed broad strength, biotechnology and pharmaceutical names demonstrated notable vigor as a handful components were recently disclosed in new, increased, and/or maintained portfolio positions. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 294.95, +5.15) advanced 1.8% while pharmaceutical heavyweights like Pfizer (PFE 33.51, +0.76), AbbVie (ABBV 61.65, +0.83), and Eli Lilly (LLY 80.25, +1.44) finished higher between 1.4% and 2.3%.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.4%) finished a step behind the broader market as Apple (AAPL 135.51, +0.49) resisted the sector's bullish disposition. However, chipmakers somewhat balanced the tech giant's underperformance, evidenced by the 0.8% uptick in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Analog Devices (ADI 81.60, +3.76) led the chipmaker advance after beating top and bottom line estimates and increasing its quarterly dividend.

Consumer staples (+0.8%) finished just behind the health care space despite the negative response to PepsiCo's (PEP 106.73, -0.19) latest earnings report. The company slipped 0.2% after below-consensus guidance outweighed above-consensus earnings. Also of note, PEP decided to raise its dividend.

Utilities (-0.4%) finished the day at the bottom of the leaderboard, while energy (-0.4%) did only slightly better as crude oil closed 0.2% lower at $53.08/bbl. The energy component counter-intuitively ticked up into positive territory following the latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) inventory report, which dwarfed consensus estimates (+3.5 million) by showing a build of 9.5 million barrels. However, the uptick was short-lived as crude oil soon returned to negative territory.

Wednesday saw a slew of economic reports including January CPI, January Retail Sales, January Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, February Empire Manufacturing, December Business Inventories, February NAHB Housing Market Index, and the MBA Mortgage Index:

Total CPI rose 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) in January while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.5% and core CPI has increased 2.3%.
While the Fed's preferred inflation gauge is the PCE Price Index, the key takeaway from the report is that consumer inflation pressures are rising, which in turn should increase the potential for a rate hike at the March meeting.
January retail sales increased 0.4%, which compares to the Briefing.com consensus of 0.1%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 1.0% from 0.6%. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.8% while the consensus expected an uptick of 0.4%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.4% from 0.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that discretionary spending on goods picked up in January, which will compute into a positive input for first quarter GDP forecasts.
January Industrial Production decreased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) while Capacity Utilization declined to 75.3% (Briefing.com consensus 75.5%) from a revised reading of 75.6% (from 75.5%) in December.
The key takeaway from the report is that the decline in industrial production stemmed entirely from a drop in utilities output, which is to say the headline number is not as bad as it appears.
Business Inventories rose 0.4% in December which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to 0.8% from 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the inventory-to-sales ratio is at its lowest point since December 2014. That's elevated from pre-financial crisis levels, when it was below 1.30, yet a further downtrend could restore some much needed pricing power.
Empire Manufacturing Survey for February rose to 18.7 from the prior month's reading of 6.5. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 7.0.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for February fell to 65 (Briefing.com consensus 68) from an unrevised 67 in January.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index decreased 3.7% to follow last week's 2.3% uptick.

Thursday will also see a batch of economic data with January Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.22 million), Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 245K), and the Philadelphia Fed Index for February (Briefing.com consensus 17.5) all crossing the wires at 8:30 am ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.1% YTD
S&P 500 +4.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.4% YTD

NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1822/1.91 bln/1019 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1739/974.6 mln/1206

3:30 pm :

Crude oil ended a volatile pit trading session modestly lower after EIA reported notable builds above Consensus for both crude & gasoline stocks
Mar crude oil futures fell $0.13 (-0.2%) to $53.08/barrel
Rig count data will be released Friday at 1 pm ET
EIA highlights:
Crude oil inventories had a build of +9.5 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of about +3.513 mln barrels)
Gasoline inventories had a build of +2.8 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -0.752 mln barrels)
Distillate inventories had a draw of -0.7 mln barrels
Natural gas rallied off of this morning's 3-month low on headlines of a Texas pipeline explosion ahead of tomorrow's EIA data release
Mar natural gas closed $0.02 higher (+0.7%) at $2.92/MMBtu
EIA natural gas data will be released tomorrow at 10:30 am ET
In precious metals, gold rebounded from a 4-session decline on dollar index weakness
April gold ended today's session up $7.70 (+0.6%) to $1233.00/oz
March silver closed today's session $0.07 higher (+0.4%) at $17.97/oz
The dollar index turned negative and is now -0.2% around the 101.07 level, boosting precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were +0.4% around the 89.01 level
On the fifth day of cracking into new all-time high territory, the broader market closed with gains of better than half a percent across the board. Leading the advance, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 36.87 points today (+0.64%) to 5819.44. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 107.45 points (+0.52%) to 20611.86, and the S&P 500 was up 11.67 points (+0.50%) when the bell rang to 2349.25.

Wednesday was filled with economic data, including the Total CPI reading which rose 0.6% in January while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.3%. On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.5% and core CPI has increased 2.3%. January retail sales increased 0.4%, compared to the prior month's reading was revised higher to 1.0% from 0.6%. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.8% while the consensus expected an uptick of 0.4%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.4% from 0.2%. Also, January Industrial Production decreased 0.3% while Capacity Utilization declined to 75.3% from a revised reading of 75.6% (from 75.5%) in December. Further, Business Inventories rose 0.4% in December while the prior month's reading was revised to 0.8% from 0.7%. The Empire Manufacturing Survey for February rose to 18.7 from the prior month's reading of 6.5, the NAHB Housing Market Index for February fell to 65 from an unrevised 67 in January, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Index decreased 3.7% to follow last week's 2.3% uptick.

The Technology (XLK 51.89, +0.17 +0.33%) space reached levels today it has not seen since the fall of 2000. Component FLIR Systems (FLIR 36.93, +2.78 +8.14%) moved higher today, rebounding off post-earnings weakness. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLV +1.08%, XLP +0.91%, XLF +0.78%, XLI +0.54%, XLY +0.52%, XLB -0.13%, XLU -0.24%, XLRE -0.29%, XLE -0.39%, IYZ -0.70% with Healthcare leading all others.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (877.44, +3.46 +0.40%) space, trading again made a new high, moving the sector to +8.6% YTD. Component Analog Devices (ADI 81.60, +3.76 +4.83%) was one of the better performing names today after the company reported a better than expected January quarter. Other names in the space which out-performed today included FSLR +2.39%, EA +2.20%, QCOM +1.82%, MCHP +1.58%, CSCO +1.58%, CTXS +1.56%, FFIV +1.44%, YHOO +1.40%, CTSH +1.34%, LLTC +1.25%, CSRA +1.20%, RHT +1.20%, FIS +1.13%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

PayPal (PYPL 41.87, +0.25 +0.60%) to acquire TIO Networks for $233 million, and affirmed outlook.
Per Bloomberg, Yahoo! (YHOO 45.65, +0.63 +1.40%) and Verizon (VZ 48.08, -0.19 -0.39%) may be attempting to reach a revised agreement.

SoftBank (SFTBY 37.90, +0.16 +0.44%) confirmed plans to acquire Fortress Investment Group (FIG 7.99, +1.78 +28.66%) for $3.3 billion.

Analog Devices (ADI), in addition to reporting quarterly results, increased its quarterly dividend to $0.45 per share from $0.42.

KPMG International and Microsoft (MSFT 64.53, -0.04 -0.06%) launched joint Blockchain Nodes, which are designed to create and demonstrate use cases that apply blockchain technology to business propositions and processes.

Manpower (MPWR 86.02, +0.89 +1.05%) signed a purchase agreement with Ciber (CBR 0.38, +0.01 +3.54%) to acquire its biz in Spain. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Intelsat (I 4.09, +0.07 +1.74%) announced the successful launch of the Intelsat 32e satellite aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle from French Guiana.

Luxoft Holding (LXFT 57.55, -2.90 -4.80%) CFO Roman Yakushkin to resign effective March 31.
The Communications Workers of America notified AT&T (T 41.12, +0.37 +0.91%) that former DIRECTV tech support employees in seven states voted to ratify an agreement.

SCANA Corp (SCG 67.47, +0.61 +0.91%) received reaffirmation from Westinghouse regarding completion of the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station project.

Twitter (TWTR 16.74, +0.22 +1.33%) CEO Jack Dorsey disclosed purchase of nearly 426K shares worth $7 million (transaction dates 2/13-2/14).

Sapiens Int'l (SPNS 14.68, +0.80 +5.76%) acquired privately held StoneRiver for about $102 million in cash. The company expects the transaction to be accretive to EPS starting in 3Q17.

Vectrus (VEC 23.67, +0.10 +0.42%) receives a $14 million firm-fixed-price installation services task order in support of the U.S. Air Force at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan.

Synchronoss Tech (SNCR 34.00, +0.24 +0.71%) disclosed that CFO Karen Rosenberger will resign effective April 1 in order to pursue other opportunities.

Oracle (ORCL 41.41, +0.31 +0.75%) announced Oracle Tax Reporting Cloud Service.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Analog Devices (ADI) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.94 and $984 million, respectively. For Q2, the company guided EPS in the range of $0.74-0.86 and revenues of $870-950 million.

Agilent (A 51.62, +1.23, +2.44%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.53 and $1.07 billion, respectively. For Q2, ADI sees EPS and revenues in-line of $0.47-0.49 and $1.04-1.06 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company sees EPS of $2.10-2.16 and revenues of $4.33-4.35 billion.

Shopify (SHOP 60.61, +4.56 +8.14%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of net of breakeven and revenues which rose 85.8% compared to last year to $130.4 million. For Q1, the company sees revenues of $120-122 million. For FY17, the company sees revenues of $580-600 million.

Groupon (GRPN 4.64, +0.86 +22.75%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.07 and $934.9 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees gross profit in the range of $1.30 billion and $1.35 billion, an increase of $40 to $90 million compared to full year 2016 results for the 15 countries in the company's go-forward footprint on an FX-neutral basis. GRPN also expects adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $200 million and $240 million, an increase of $16 to $56 million compared to full year 2016 results for the 15 countries in the company's go-forward footprint on an FX-neutral basis.

Wix.com (WIX 61.50, +8.55 +16.15%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.06 and $84.2 million, respectively. For Q1, WIX sees revenues ahead of market expectations at $89-90 million. For FY!7, WIX sees revenues ahead of market expectations at $409-411 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AMAT, CSLT, CSCO, ELNK, EQIX, GDDY, NTAP, NTES, QTWO, QUIK, SSNC, SPWR, SNPS, TIVO, TRIP/BCOR, EIGI, EPAM, HIMX, NICE, SYNT, YNDX

Analyst actions:

HPE was upgraded to Positive from Mixed at OTR Global,
HOLI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank,
IPGP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Dougherty,
INXN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Guggenheim;
HOLI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
CVG was downgraded to Hold from Buy at SunTrust,
CALX was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital;
KEYW was initiated with an Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
OLED was initiated with a Positive at Susquehanna,
COHR was initiated with a Neutral at Susquehanna,
V, MA and CSRA were initiated with a Buy ratings at Loop Capital,
COUP and EGOV were initiated with Hold ratings at Loop Capital

8:03 am Analog Devices beats by $0.20, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; Increases dividend 7% (ADI) :

Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.94 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.20 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.74; revenues rose 27.9% year/year to $984 mln vs the $871.79 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Non-GAAP operating margin of 35% of revenue
Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.74-0.86, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.76 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $870-950 mln vs. $875.65 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Non-GAAP gross margin expected to increase to between approximately 66.5% and approximately 67%
Non-GAAP operating expenses expected to be down approximately 3% to up approximately 1% sequentially
Non-GAAP interest and other expense expected to be approximately $30 million
Non-GAAP tax rate expected to be approximately 8%
ADI also announced that its Board of Directors has approved a 7% increase in its quarterly cash dividend to $0.45 from $0.42 per outstanding share of common stock, representing an annual dividend per share of $1.80.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:31 pm Cree will terminate the definitive agreement to sell its Wolfspeed Power and RF division to Infineon Technologies AG (IFNNY) (CREE) :

"We are disappointed that the Wolfspeed sale to Infineon could not be completed," stated Chuck Swoboda, Cree chairman and CEO. "In light of this development, we are going to shift our focus back to growing the Wolfspeed business. The Wolfspeed business has performed well this year as our customers have further realized the value of our unique technology and is on a great path as a part of Cree. The strength of our balance sheet and improving operating cash flow gives us the ability to invest in Wolfspeed, while continuing to pursue our LED and Lighting growth plans. We believe investing to grow all three businesses will create the most value for our shareholders."

The termination of this transaction with Infineon will trigger a termination fee of $12.5 million being paid to Cree. As a result of the transaction termination and Cree's decision to focus on running the Wolfspeed business, Wolfspeed will now be reported as a separate segment of Cree's continuing operations.

The Company will provide a complete review of its fiscal 2017 third quarter results and fourth quarter outlook on its regularly scheduled financial results call on April 25th at 5:00pm ET.

4:10 pm Veeco Instruments beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (VECO) :
Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.09 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.07; revenues fell 12.1% year/year to $93.6 mln vs the $93.41 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.00-0.16, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $85-100 mln vs. $96.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Entering 2017, we are seeing healthy LED industry dynamics and positive business momentum. We closed an exclusive, multi-year agreement with OSRAM Opto Semiconductors GmbH to supply Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition and Precision Surface Processing) systems for their new high volume LED production facility in Kulim. We made significant progress in growing our Advanced Packaging business, increasing sales into the Advanced Packaging, MEMS & RF markets by ~10% year over year. In addition, our recently announced agreement to acquire Ultratech [UTEK] will establish Veeco as a leading equipment supplier to the Advanced Packaging industry. We are excited by this proposed combination, which is expected to increase our scale, diversify our revenue and provide a stable platform to drive long-term shareholder value. The transaction is subject to regulatory clearance and approval by Ultratech's stockholders and is expected to close in the second quarter."

4:10 pm Univ Elec reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (UEIC) :
Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.70 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.70; revenues fell 1.2% year/year to $160.1 mln vs the $164.65 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.57-0.67 vs. $0.59 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $155-163 mln vs. $156.65 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. GAAP gross margins were 25.7%, compared to 28.5%. Adjusted Non-GAAP gross margins were 26.9%, compared to 28.8%.

4:06 pm Tessera Tech signs a technology transfer and license agreement for Direct Bond Interconnect technology (TSRA) : This agreement enables Teledyne (TDY) DALSA to leverage Invensas' revolutionary semiconductor wafer bonding and 3D interconnect technologies to deliver next-generation MEMS and image sensor solutions to customers in the automotive, IoT and consumer electronics markets.

4:03 pm Cohu beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs above consensus, co guides on the earnings call (COHU) :
Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.09; revenues rose 11.3% year/year to $70.7 mln vs the $65.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of ~$78 mln vs. $69.00 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Cohu's Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share payable on April 14, 2017 to shareholders of record on February 28, 2017.
Co guides on the earnings call.

4:20 pm : Investors took a breather on Thursday, pulling the S&P 500 and Nasdaq away from their freshly-minted record highs after seven consecutive advances. The pullback was modest in scope, leaving the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq lower by 0.2% while the Dow (unch) resisted, eking out a slight gain.

The Treasury market, which had posted six consecutive losses coming into Thursday, also reversed its recent ways. Treasuries finished higher across the board with shorter-dated issues showing relative strength in a yield-curve steepening trade. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed five basis points lower at 2.45% while the 2-yr yield finished lower by seven basis points at 1.20%.

The recent losing streak aside, the Treasuries' uptick was somewhat surprising given today's strong economic data; Housing Starts (1246K; Briefing.com consensus 1220K), Initial Claims (239K; Briefing.com consensus 245K), and the Philadelphia Fed Index (43.3; Briefing.com consensus 17.5) all surpassed estimates.

However, the hotter than expected readings turned out to be a non-event, at least for now, considering the market's updated rate hike expectations. The fed funds futures market is once again pointing to June as the most likely time for the next hike to be announced. The implied probability of a June hike sits at 73.9%, down from yesterday's 76.2% while the implied likelihood of a hike in May is down to 47.1%.

Earnings news was relatively quiet today as nearly 80.0% of S&P 500 components have already reported their results. However, Cisco Systems (CSCO 33.60, +0.78) did make a splash with its latest report. CSCO shares jumped 2.4% after the company raised its dividend and reported better than expected earnings.

Cisco's upbeat performance supported a modest gain in the technology sector (+0.2%), which finished with industrials (unch) as the only cyclical spaces to close in the green.

Utilities (+1.0%) closed at the top of the leaderboard, thanks to the downtick in Treasury yields and a positive reaction to Duke Energy's (DUK 78.90, +2.12) latest earnings report. Shares of DUK climbed 2.8% despite the company's earnings per share miss.

Real estate (+0.4%), telecom services (+0.5%), and consumer staples (+0.1%) also finished higher, while health care (-0.1%) could not keep up with its countercyclical peers.

The remaining sectors-financials, consumer discretionary, materials, and energy-finished with losses between 0.1% (materials) and 1.4% (energy).

The energy space's slip came despite crude oil's 0.6% advance. The commodity closed at $53.41/bbl after news that OPEC is mulling a production cut extension & could potentially cut more than previously expected.

Today's economic data included January Housing Starts, Initial Claims, and the Philadelphia Fed Index for February:

Housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.246 million units in January, down from a revised 1.279 million units in December (from 1.226 million). The Briefing.com consensus expected starts to decrease to 1.220 million units. Building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted 1.285 million in January from a revised 1.228 million (from 1.210 million) for December. The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.230 million.
The key takeaway is that, absent the December revision, starts would have increased month-over-month, which is to say the headline decline isn't as disappointing as it might sound at first blush.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 239,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 245,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 234,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.076 million from the revised count of 2.079 million (from 2.078 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that initial claims continue to be stuck at low levels historically, which is a good portent for nonfarm payroll growth.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for February rose to 43.3 from an unrevised 23.6 in January while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 17.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing activity is proceeding at a healthy pace in the Philadelphia Fed region.

Friday's lone economic report, January Leading Indicators (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%), will be released at 10:00 am ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.0% YTD
S&P 500 +4.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.1% YTD

NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1239/1.79 bln/1593 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1255/997.4/1670

3:30 pm :

Natural gas closed pit trading at a fresh 3-month low on a smaller-than-expected EIA inventory draw
Mar natural gas closed $0.07 lower (-2.4%) at $2.85/MMBtu
EIA natural gas highlights:
Natural gas inventory showed a draw of -114 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a draw of approx. -124 bcf.
Working gas in storage was 2,445 Bcf as of Friday, Feb 10, 2017, according to EIA estimates.
Stocks were 303 Bcf less than last year at this time and 87 Bcf above the five-year average of 2,358 Bcf.
At 2,445 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range.
In precious metals, gold extended yesterday's gain & ended pit trading at a 1-week high on continued dollar index weakness
April gold ended today's session up $8.50 (+0.7%) to $1241.50/oz
Mar silver closed today's session $0.11 higher (+0.6%) at $18.08/oz
Crude oil closed a volatile pit trading session higher on headlines OPEC is mulling a production cut extension & could potentially cut more than previously expected
Mar crude oil futures rose $0.33 (+0.6%) to $53.41/barrel
Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET.
Last week, the total active U.S. rig count, which includes oil and natural gas rigs, rose by 12 to 741 rigs, following the prior week's increase of 17 rigs.
Of that total, the U.S. rigs drilling for oil rose by 8 to 591 rigs last week.
This marked the 4th consecutive weekly increase in the weekly oil rig count.
US drillers have added oil rigs for 14 out of the past 15 weeks.
The dollar index was -0.7% around the 100.45 level, provided support to precious metals
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.6% around the 88.48 level

After a five-day winning streak, the broader market finally got a look at the other side of flat lines. That being said, the Dow Jones did manage to eke out modest gains on the session, despite pressure out of the gate. To that end, the Dow added 7.91 points (+0.04%) today to 20619.77. The S&P 500 shed 2.03 (-0.09%) to 2347.22, and the Nasdaq Composite lost about 4.54 points (-0.08%) to 5814.90.

Economic data today included the housing starts reading, which decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.246 million units in January, down from a revised 1.279 million units in December (from 1.226 million). Also, building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted 1.285 million in January from a revised 1.228 million (from 1.210 million) for December. The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 239,000, above the unrevised prior week count of 234,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.076 million from the revised count of 2.079 million (from 2.078 million). Lastly, the Philadelphia Fed Survey for February rose to 43.3 from an unrevised 23.6 in January.

Despite the broader market pressure, the Technology (XLK 52.01, +0.12 +0.23%) sector traded modestly higher today. Component NetApp (NTAP 40.56, +1.63 +4.19%) was the best performer today following better than expected Q3 earnings. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLU +1.00%, XLRE +0.42%, XLP +0.13%, XLI +0.03%, IYZ +0.00%, XLB +0.00%, XLV -0.14%, XLF -0.24%, XLY -0.51%, XLE -1.36% with Utilities out-performing.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (879.29, +1.85 +0.21%) space, trading barely edged higher as a late sell-off took shares below flat lines. Component Cisco Systems (CSCO 33.60, +0.78 +2.38%) was a strong performer today after its Q2 report. Other names in the space which closed modestly higher included GLW +1.28%, HRS +1.24%, XLNX +1.17%, AVGO +1.06%, INTC +1.00%, KLAC +0.97%, ADSK +0.92%, TXN +0.77%, QCOM +0.69%, PYPL +0.67%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Qualcomm's (QCOM 56.88, +0.39 +0.69%) Chief Accounting Officer John Murphy to resign effective March 17 to pursue other opportunities. Simultaneously, Adobe Systems (ADBE 118.93, +0.20 +0.17%) issued a press release stating John Murphy would begin his duties as CAO at the company on March 20.

Time Warner (TWX 96.35, +0.04 +0.04%) shareholders approved the proposed merger with AT&T Inc. (T 41.25, +0.13 +0.32%). The parties continue to expect the transaction to close before year-end 2017.

Tata Motors (TTM 33.04, +0.65 +2.01%) and Microsoft (MSFT 64.52, -0.01 -0.02%) India confirmed that the companies will collaborate on connected cars.

Microsoft (MSFT) and MGM Resorts (MGM 26.86, -2.74 -9.26%) came to a multi-year agreement

Equinix (EQIX 373.18, -7.58 -1.99%) increased its quarterly dividend to $2.00 per share from $1.75 per share.

CoreLogic (CLGX 39.20, +0.68 +1.78%) Board granted President and CEO Anand Nallathambi a temporary medical leave of absence.

Verizon (VZ 48.47, +0.39 +0.81%) acquired drone operations management firm Skyward. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Diebold Nixdorf (DBD 30.00, +0.05 +0.17%) appointed Juergen Wunram as COO. Additionally, President Eckard Heidloff resigned effective March 31.

Netease.com (NTES 298.73, +36.88 +14.08%) increased its dividend to $1.01 per ADS from $0.78 per ADS.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.57 on revenues which fell about 2.9% versus last year to $11.58 billion. For Q3, the company sees EPS in the range of $0.57-0.59 on revenue growth of flat to up 2% to about $11.76-12.0 billion.

Netease.com (NTES) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $4.30 per ADS and $1.74 billion, respectively.

Applied Materials (AMAT 35.18, -0.31 -0.87%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.67 on in-line revenues of $3.28 billion. For Q2, AMAT sees better than expected revenues and EPS of $3.450-3.600 billion and $0.72-0.80, respectively.

Equinix (EQIX) reported better than expected adjusted funds from operations of $4.08 on revenues which rose about 29.0% compared to last year to about $942.6 million. For Q1, EQIX sees revenues in the range of $940-946 million. For FY17, the company expects revenues of greater than $3.933 billion.

NetApp (NTAP) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.82 on revenues which rose about 1.3% compared to last year to $1.4 billion. For Q4, NTAP sees EPS of $0.79-0.84 on revenues between $1.365-1.515 billion.

SS&C Techs (SSNC 35.35, +2.54 +7.74%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.46 and $400.92 million, respectively. For Q1, SSNC sees revenues of $402.5-408.5 million. For FY17, SSNC sees revenues in the range of $1.655-1.685 billion.

TripAdvisor (TRIP 46.92, -5.78 -10.97%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.16 and $316 million, respectively.

GoDaddy (GDDY 35.88, -1.58 -4.22%) reported Q$ EPS of $0.02 on revenues which rose 14.2% compared to a year ago to $485.9 million. For Q1, GDDY sees worse than expected revenues in the range of $485-490 million. For FY17, GDDY sees better than expected revenues between $2.18-2.22 billion.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AIRG MDRX AMBR ANET BCOV CGNX COHU FIVN GLOB PI MCHX TTD TRUE VECO WBMD YUME/TYPE

Analyst actions:

NTAP was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at William Blair and to Buy from Hold at Lake Street,
CAVM was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
SPWR was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
SSNC was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie;
GDDY was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Summit Redstone,
ADI was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
GRPN was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush,
SONS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson,
ANGI was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Roth Capital,
IDTI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
XXIA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel;
CRM was initiated with a Hold at Needham,
SAIC and CACI were initiated with Buy ratings at Seaport Global Securities,
OTEX was initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup

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From Briefing.com: 4:28 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Close Friday at Record Highs (:WRAPX) :

Buyers showed up late to the party on Friday but were still able to recoup modest morning losses and push the major averages to fresh record highs. The uptick during the final hour prevented a mixed finish with the Nasdaq (+0.3%) and the S&P 500 adding 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively, while the Dow (unch) settled just above its flat line.

Today's pause wasn't a surprise given the equity market's recent seven session winning streak. However, below the surface, some uneasiness may be developing among investors as news out of Washington wraps tax reform in a blanket of uncertainty.

The final tax reform plan hangs in the balance as the GOP negotiates the Trump administration's proposed border tax, which has created a rift within the party. This is unfortunate news for investors who await the fulfillment of a tax reform promise that catalyzed the stock market's huge post-election run.

On the other hand, retailers have profited from the stalled implementation of the border tax, evidenced by the 0.9% uptick in the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 43.82, +0.39). The news underpinned the consumer discretionary (+0.3%) and consumer staples (+0.7%) sectors, which largely depend on the free flow of goods and services to keep prices competitive.

Consumer staples also received a jolt from M&A news after Kraft Heinz (KHC 96.65, +9.37) revealed that it has proposed a merger with U.K. consumer products giant Unilever (UL 48.53, +5.96). Unilever rejected the initial bid, stating that the offer was fundamentally undervalued, but Kraft aims to keep pursuing the transaction.

In other M&A news, Softbank announced that it is once again entertaining the idea of a T- Mobile (TMUS 63.92, +3.31) and Sprint (S 9.30, +0.30) merger after the first attempt in 2014 was struck down by regulators. The announcement adds fire to a growing competitive battle within the telecom services space (+0.8%) and follows news from earlier in the week from Verizon (VZ 49.19, +0.73) and AT&T (T 41.48, +0.23). The two companies now offer unlimited data plans, a move that was seen as a response to growing competition in the wireless space as the smaller T-Mobile and Sprint have gained ground on the two wireless giants.

The telecom services sector jumped from the lower portion of today's standings to the top of the leaderboard following the news. Utilities (+0.1%), real estate (+0.3%), technology (+0.3%), health care (+0.1%), and industrials (+0.2%) also finished in the green, while the remaining sectors-financials (unch), materials (-0.3%), and energy (-0.5%)-closed with losses.

U.S. Treasuries added to Thursday's gains, closing solidly higher across the board. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished three basis points lower at 2.42%.

Intraday trading volume was below average, suggesting some participants took off early for the extended weekend; however, options expiration masked the reduced participation. By day's end, more than a billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Today's economic data was limited to January Leading Indicators:

The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for January ticked up 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) after a 0.5% increase in December.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strengths among the leading indicators have become more widespread.

The stock market will be closed on Monday in observance of Presidents' Day.

Nasdaq Composite +8.5% YTD
S&P 500 +5.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.2% YTD


Week in Review: Four in a Row

Another week, another round of gains for the major averages.The S&P 500 climbed 1.5% to record its fourth consecutive weekly advance. Thebenchmark index has now posted gains in five of the first seven weeks of 2017,rising 5.0%.

The past week was highlighted by Fed Chair Janet Yellen'ssemiannual testimony to Congress, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday.The market handled the testimony well even though Chair Yellen's commentsshowed the Fed may need to adjust its rate hike outlook as the year goes on.Specifically, Senator Pat Toomey asked Ms. Yellen why the Fed didn't reallybump up its growth projections at all at the December meeting when many otherbodies, like the IMF, have bumped up their 2017 growth prospects based on abelief that the implementation of fiscal stimulus in the U.S. will have apositive effect on growth.

Ms. Yellen said most of her colleagues refrained from doingso because they wanted greater clarity on the time, scope, and composition ofany fiscal changes before making assumptions on the growth outlook. In sum, thecomments showed that the Fed will be required to raise rates faster than itcurrently expects if fiscal measures end up boosting economic growth-a notionthat has been bought fully by the stock market.

The market also saw continued support stemming from President Donald Trump's announcement that a "phenomenal" tax reform package was going to be announced in the next couple weeks.

The visions of tax reform and nothing but good things on thefiscal front kept a bid under the stock market, even though the latest round ofinflation data showed hotter than expected PPI (+0.6%; Briefing.com consensus0.3%) and CPI (+0.6%; Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) in January.

Last week's steady rise in the stock market took place eventhough rate hike expectations were pulled forward, briefly showing a 50.0%+likelihood of a rate hike in May. By the end of the week, the impliedlikelihood of a May hike was down to 44.1% while the probability of a June hikeended the week at 69.9%, up slightly from last Friday's 68.3%.

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From Briefing.com: 5:52 pm Cypress Semi founder/former CEO and largest individual stockholder nominates two candidates (J. Daniel McCranie and Camillo Martino) for Board of Directors (CY) :

T.J. Rodgers says "Cypress Semiconductor faces serious conflicts of interest and ethical deficiencies. Rather than address these, the Cypress Board has chosen to announce what they purport to be changes to strengthen corporate governance but which are in fact simply an attempt to prevent even extraordinarily qualified new directors from joining the Board. I deliberately chose to nominate for the Board two highly qualified industry veterans, because this isn't about T.J. Rodgers but about focusing the attention of all Cypress stockholders on these serious issues. The nominees I've proposed, Dan McCranie and Camillo Martino, both of whom are semiconductor experts, will better serve the Board than conflicted Executive Chairman Ray Bingham and Lead Director Eric Benhamou, who I believe has repeatedly failed to acknowledge or correct the conflicts of interest situation."

In light of his concerns about the conflicts and role of the Executive Chairman, Rodgers delivered a demand pursuant to Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law for copies of Cypress's books and records relating to transactions that appear, on their face, to be breaches of the Board's fiduciary duties. In response to Cypress's refusal to supply the books and records, Rodgers has filed a lawsuit to compel production of these materials.

4:13 pm First Solar beats by $0.26, beats on revs; guides FY17 EPS in-line, revs in-line (FSLR) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.24 per share, $0.26 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.98; revenues fell 49.0% year/year to $480.43 mln vs the $394.65 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Co issues in-line guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $0.00-0.50 (Unchanged) vs. $0.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $2.8-2.9 bln vs. $2.53 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Net Sales in the range of $2.8-2.9 bln (Prior $2.5-2.6 bln), Capital IQ consensus $2.53 bln;
Gross Margins between 11-13% (Prior 12.4-14.5%);
Operating Expense Non-GAAP $280-300 mln (Unchanged);
Operating Income Non-GAAP $40-80 mln (Unchanged);
Net Cash Balance $1.4-1.6 bln (Unchanged)
Operating Cash Flow $250-350 mln (Prior $550-650 mln);
CapEx $525-625 mln (Unchanged)
Shipments 2.4-2.6 GW (Unchanged)

4:07 pm first solar secures syndicated financing arranged by Mizuho Bank for utility-scale solar project in Ishikawa, Japan (FSLR) :

Co announced that it has obtained non-recourse project debt financing of approximately 27 billion yen (US$240 million) in a syndicated loan arranged by Mizuho Bank Ltd. for a utility-scale solar project in Ishikawa prefecture, Japan. The Ishikawa Sogo Solar Power Plant, with a generation capacity of 59.5 megawatt (:MW)AC, will be one of the largest mega solar projects in the Hokuriku region. The Ishikawa Sogo Solar Power Plant is scheduled to commence operation in late 2018.


4:06 pm Tessera Tech provides OmniVision with a license under its subsidiary Ziptronix's patents; dismisses outstanding litigation among the cos (TSRA) : In addition, the outstanding litigation among Ziptronix, OmniVision, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) and TSMC North America Corporation has been dismissed.

4:06 pm Luminex initiates quarterly dividend of $0.06/share (LMNX) :

4:05 pm Flex enters into a definitive agreement to acquire AGM Automotive; financial details not disclosed (FLEX) :

AGM is a leading global supplier of automotive interior components and systems, including overhead console systems, interior lighting, electronic components and textile flooring solutions. Providing high quality and innovative automotive interior solutions, AGM is a trusted design partner of major Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) around the globe. AGM is headquartered in Troy, Michigan, with additional facilities in the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, Austria and China. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of calendar year 2017.

4:16 pm Closing Market Summary: Another Record Close on Tuesday (:WRAPX) :

Last week's bullish sentiment carried over into the first session of the new week as investors decidedly pushed the stock market to new record highs on Tuesday. The S&P 500 (+0.6%) and the Dow (+0.6%) led the advance with the Nasdaq (+0.5%) closing just a step behind.

Equity indices came out of the gate strong this morning, rallying on an uptick in crude oil and the highest eurozone composite PMI reading in nearly six years. But the stock market hit a speed bump in front of the 12:00 pm ET speech from Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker who is a voter on this year's FOMC. The speech turned out to be a non-event as Mr. Harker didn't provide any new information, reiterating his belief that three rate hikes are appropriate for 2017.

After trending sideways in the wake of Mr. Harker's comments, the major averages regained their momentum late in the afternoon session to hit fresh session highs going into the close.

The lightly-weighted real estate sector (+1.3%) led the afternoon advance, stealing the top spot on the day's leaderboard from the energy space (+0.7%). The energy group's performance depended upon crude oil, which stunted the sector's advance after slipping from its session high. The energy component still closed with a solid gain, up 1.1% at $54.37/bbl, as strong OPEC supply cut compliance overshadowed record high U.S. inventories.

Consumer staples (+1.0%) finished just behind the real estate sector following Wal-Mart's (WMT 71.45, +2.08) upbeat earnings report. WMT shares jumped 3.0% after the company reported better than expected earnings per share and raised its dividend.

On the consumer discretionary (+0.6%) side, Home Depot (HD 145.02, +2.02) also had a solid showing after beating top and bottom line estimates. In addition, HD increased its quarterly dividend and authorized a $15.0 billion share repurchase program.

The remaining sectors finished in the green, posting gains between 0.4% (materials) and 1.1% (utilities). Health care's (+0.5%) advance was particularly notable given the underperformance in biotech names that sent the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 293.04, -1.27) lower by 0.4%.

The Treasury market began Tuesday with a sizable loss, but dovish comments from Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari (FOMC voter) brought Treasuries back to their flat lines. In the morning session, Mr. Kashkari stated that the U.S. labor market has "more room to run," suggesting that he believes there is no hurry for the Fed to raise rates.

The benchmark 10-yr yield finished the day one basis point higher at 2.43% after showing a four basis point gain earlier in the session.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Tuesday.

Wednesday will see several economic reports, including the MBA Mortgage Application Index at 7:00 am ET, January Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.57 million) at 10:00 am ET, and FOMC Minutes at 2:00 pm ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.0% YTDS&P 500 +5.7% YTDDow Jones Industrial Average +5.0% YTD Russell 2000 +3.9% YTD Cree (CREE) announced that McLaren Health Care has selected Cree LED Lighting and Cree SmartCast Technology to modernize exterior and interior lighting across 11 hospitals. Cree's advanced LED solutions go beyond light with intelligence that automatically adapts to the environment to deliver greater energy savings and personalized environments that promote comfort, safety and security for McLaren patients, visitors and staff. 25,000 Cree outdoor and indoor LED fixtures, including over 12,000 Cree SmartCast intelligent lighting fixtures are installed throughout the facilities, enabling McLaren to reduce their energy costs by 66 percent and realize an estimated savings of over $1.6M annually in energy and operating expenses.

7:33 am Aehr Test Systems receives an order in excess of $4 mln from a subcontractor to its lead customer for the FOX-XP Test and Burn-in System (AEHR) :

This is the initial full production FOX-XP test cell order from this customer, which is configured with Aehr's new highly parallel singulated die/module test interface technology.

The order is an add-on to Aehr's recently announced order for FOX-XP products from this customer that fills out the customer's first full test cell. This new order includes a FOX-XP Test and Burn-in System, proprietary DiePak carriers, and a DiePak Autoloader and is expected to ship during the next calendar quarter.

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From Briefing.com: 4:23 pm Closing Market Summary: Dow Posts 10th Consecutive Record Close (:WRAPX) :

Investors hurdled news headline after news headline on Thursday, but still drove the Dow (+0.2%) to its tenth consecutive record close, a feat that has not been achieved since 1987, when the price-weighted average recorded 12 consecutive record closes. The benchmark S&P 500 (unch) finished flat while the Nasdaq (-0.4%) and the small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.6%) couldn't keep pace.

Early on Thursday morning, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he anticipates the new administration's tax reform plan to to pass through congress before the August recess.

Mr. Mnuchin's timeline may have cooled the recent bullish sentiment surrounding President Trump's upcoming "phenomenal" tax-related announcement, a promise which sent the stock market on its most recent rally. However, the financial sector (+0.1%), which has led the post-election rally on promises of deregulation and tax reform, finished Thursday with a small gain.

On the earnings front, Tesla (TSLA 255.99, -17.52) disappointed investors with a wider than expected loss per share, but the automaker did announce that the mass-market electric Model 3 sedan is on track for initial production in July.

Similarly, L Brands (LB 48.94, -9.19) finished Thursday lower, plummeting 15.8%, after the company's below-consensus guidance overshadowed better than expected earnings. LB's slide weighed on the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 43.10, -1.03), which ended lower by 2.3%, while the consumer discretionary sector (-0.7%) also underperformed.

Technology (-0.1%) was plagued by a poor showing from chipmakers, evidenced by the 1.6% decrease in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. The semiconductor industry was led lower by NVIDIA (NVDA 100.49, -10.27). The company plunged 9.3% after analysts from both BMO Capital and Instinet downgraded NVDA shares on Thursday morning. To be fair, NVDA shares skyrocketed 223.9% in 2016, so a pullback of this magnitude isn't really all that surprising.

However, a 8.6% jump in shares of HP (HPQ 17.60, +1.40) put a lid on the tech sector's loss. The company's spike followed its most recent earnings report, which showed better than expected top and bottom lines.

Industrials (-0.8%) finished Thursday at the bottom of the leaderboard amid growing speculation of a potential delay in the implementation of the Trump administration's infrastructure plan. Likewise, the materials sector closed lower by 0.6%.

On a positive note, the energy sector finished 0.5% higher thanks to crude oil's solid performance. The energy component finished up 1.6% at $54.47/bbl following Thursday's EIA crude inventory report, which showed a build of 0.6 million barrels while the consensus called for a build of about 3.475 million barrels. Today's EIA report confirmed yesterday's bullish API reading.

On the countercyclical side, health care (+0.7%) also closed in the green. Outside of the biotechnology industry, health care components showed broad strength. It is also worth pointing out that Former House Speaker John Boehner said a full repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act is "not going to happen." Considering that Mr. Boehner led Republican opposition to the Affordable Care Act for years, his comments are particularly notable.

The remaining sectors--consumer staples, utilities, telecom services, and real estate--all closed with gains between 0.3% and 1.1%.

U.S. Treasuries finished Thursday modestly higher. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed three basis points lower at 2.38%.

Today's economic data included Initial Claims and December FHFA Housing Price Index:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 244,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 242,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 238,000 (from 239,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.060 million from the revised count of 2.077 million (from 2.076 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that it covers the period in which the survey for the February Employment Situation report was conducted, and given the low level of claims, it will likely feed a belief that nonfarm payrolls are apt to increase by 200,000+ again.
The key takeaway from this report is that it covers the period in which the survey for the February Employment Situation report was conducted, and given the low level of claims, it will likely feed a belief that nonfarm payrolls are apt to increase by 200,000+ again.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for December rose 0.4%, which followed a revised increase of 0.7% in November (from 0.5%). The reading was in line with Briefing.com consensus (+0.4%).

On Friday, Investors will receive January New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 566,000) and the final reading of the University of Michigan Sentiment Index for February (Briefing.com consensus 95.8). Both reports will be releases at 10:00 am ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.4% YTD
S&P 500 +5.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.8% YTD

4:11 pm Hewlett Packard Enterprise beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus; lowers FY17 EPS, in-line (HPE) :
Reports Q1 (Jan) earnings of $0.45 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.44; revenues fell 10.4% year/year to $11.41 bln vs the $12.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Enterprise Group revenue was $6.3 billion, down 12% year over year, down 6% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 12.7% operating margin. Servers revenue was down 12%, down 11% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Storage revenue was down 13%, down 12% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Networking revenue was down 33%, up 6% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and Technology Services revenue was down 2%, up 4% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Enterprise Services revenue was $4.0 billion, down 11% year over year, down 6% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 7.0% operating margin. Infrastructure Technology Outsourcing revenue was down 8%, down 7% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and Application and Business

Services revenue was down 17%, down 3% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Software revenue was $721 million, down 8% year over year, down 1% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 21.4% operating margin. License revenue was down 9%, down 2% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Support revenue was down 9%, down 2% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Professional Services revenue was down 7%, down 5% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and Software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue was up 4%, up 6% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Financial Services revenue was $823 million, up 6% year over year, net portfolio assets were up 2%, and financing volume was down 10%. The business delivered an operating margin of 9.5%.

Enterprise Group revenue was $6.3 billion, down 12% year over year, down 6% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 12.7% operating margin. Servers revenue was down 12%, down 11% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Storage revenue was down 13%, down 12% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Networking revenue was down 33%, up 6% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and Technology Services revenue was down 2%, up 4% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Enterprise Services revenue was $4.0 billion, down 11% year over year, down 6% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 7.0% operating margin. Infrastructure Technology Outsourcing revenue was down 8%, down 7% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and Application and Business

Services revenue was down 17%, down 3% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Software revenue was $721 million, down 8% year over year, down 1% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, with a 21.4% operating margin. License revenue was down 9%, down 2% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Support revenue was down 9%, down 2% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, Professional Services revenue was down 7%, down 5% when adjusted for divestitures and currency, and Software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue was up 4%, up 6% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.

Financial Services revenue was $823 million, up 6% year over year, net portfolio assets were up 2%, and financing volume was down 10%. The business delivered an operating margin of 9.5%.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.41-0.45, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.45 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY17, lowers EPS to $1.88-1.98 from $2.00-2.10, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.93 Capital IQ Consensus. Three significant headwinds have developed since Hewlett Packard Enterprise provided its original fiscal 2017 outlook at its Securities Analyst Meeting in October 2016: increased pressure from foreign exchange movements, higher commodities pricing, and some near-term execution issues. Given these challenges, the company is reducing its FY17 outlook by $0.12 in order to continue making the appropriate investments to secure the long-term success of the business.

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From Briefing.com: Despite spending the entirety of the session in the red, the broader market sprung to life in the final moments on Friday to end higher across the board. The leader, as it were, was the Nasdaq Composite which added 9.80 points (+0.17%) to 5845.31. The S&P 500 was up 3.53 points (+0.15%) to 2367.34, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average put up gains of 11.44 points (+0.05%) to 20821.76. These moves took the three major US indices to gains of +8.6%, +5.7% and +5.3% YTD, respectively.

Today's economic data included the New Home Sales report, which for January hit an annualized rate of 555,000, which was above the revised December rate of 535,000 (from 536,000). Additionally, the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February rose to 96.3 from 95.7 in the preliminary reading.

Despite spending the majority of the session below flat lines, the Technology (XLK 52.63, +0.12 +0.23%) sector, along with a handful of other S&P sectors, jolted higher in the final few moments of trading. Component Intuit (INTU 128.01, +7.31 +6.06%) was the best performer after reporting strong Q2 earnings and guiding Q3 better than expected despite what the company stated was a 'slow' start to the tax season. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed XLU +1.52%, XLRE +0.50%, XLV +0.50%, XLY +0.46%, XLI +0.43%, XLP +0.34%, XLB +0.21%, XLF -0.77%, XLE -0.98%, IYZ -1.31%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (888.27, +1.75 +0.20%) space, trading turned higher following a session of mostly underperforming action. By contrast, component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 22.96, -1.70 -6.89%) was pressured all day following its mixed Q1 report and worse than expected Q2 earnings guidance. Other names in the space which closed higher with the sector today included PAYX +2.32%, FSLR +1.91%, EBAY +1.37%, ADP +1.34%, PYPL +1.27%, WU +1.26%, FISV +1.22%, GLW +1.19%, CA +1.18%, HRS +1.15%, MSI +1.15%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Alphabet's (GOOG 828.64, -2.69 -0.32%) Waymo confirmed a lawsuit against Otto and Uber (pending: UBER).

In addition to reporting earnings, Universal Display (OLED 81.00, +13.55 +20.09%) initiated a dividend program with a $0.03 per share quarterly dividend.

Toshiba (TOSBF 1.98, +0.03 +1.96%) reported notice on conclusion of absorption-type company split agreement in respect of the memory business.

Vuzix (VUZI 6.30, +0.85 +15.60%) signed an agreement to build a customized pair of smart glasses for Toshiba (TOSBF).

Telephone & Data (TDS 29.87, -2.85 -8.74%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.155from $0.148 per share.

MagnaChip Semiconductor's (MX 7.60, +0.35 +4.83%) Board of Directors approved a headcount reduction plan. The Plan is expected to result in estimated annual cost savings of $20 million to $27 million, depending upon the final size of the workforce reduction.

SoftBank (SFTBY 37.95, -0.27 -0.71%), Sprint (S 8.94, -0.02 -0.22%) and TBCASoft, Inc. agreed to aim for a technology partnership jointly developing blockchain technology for telecommunication carriers.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Baidu.com (BIDU 175.17, -9.47 -5.13%) reported Q4 EPS of $0.93 on worse than expected revenues of $2.62 billion. For Q1, the company guided revenues in the range of $2.374-2.453 billion.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.45 on worse than expected revenues of $11.41 billion. The company also guided Q2 EPS worse than expected at $0.41-0.45, and lowered FY17 EPS guidance to $1.88-1.98 from $2.00-2.10.

Intuit (INTU) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.26 on revenues which rose about 10.1% compared to last year to $1.02 billion. For Q3, INTU sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $3.85-3.90 and $2.50-2.55 billion, respectively. For FY17, INTU reaffirmed guidance of EPS between $4.30-4.40 and revenues in the range of $5.00-5.10 billion.

Splunk (SPLK 62.80, -2.10 -3.24%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.25 and $306.5 million, respectively. For Q1, SPLK sees revenues between $231-233 million.

Universal Display (OLED) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.55 and $74.6 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees in-line revenues between $230-250 million.

Telephone & Data (TDS) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.05 on worse than expected revenues of $1.28 billion. The company also guided FY17 revenues worse than expected between $5.015-5.265 billion.

GlobalStar (GSAT 1.39, +0.03 +2.57%) reported a worse than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.11 on better than expected revenues of $24.4 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results Monday morning: GOGO, JKS

Analyst actions:

INTU was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
GSAT was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Chardan Capital Markets,
WDAY was upgraded to Positive from Mixed at OTR Global,
CYOU was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley,
CLGX was upgraded to Buy from Hold at SunTrust;
HPE was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital and to Hold from Buy at Needham,
YY was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
TDS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton;
SQ was initiated with a Positive at Susquehanna,
MYAN was initiated with a Buy at Maxim GRoup

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From Briefing.com: 4:24 pm Closing Market Summary: Dow Posts 12th Straight Record Close on Monday (:WRAPX) :

Investors cautiously nudged the major averages higher on Monday in another afternoon rally that has become almost expected as of late. The Dow (+0.1%) closed at a fresh record high for the 12th consecutive time, while the S&P 500 (+0.1%) posted a fresh record high of its own. The Nasdaq finished with a gain of 0.3%.

Equity indices opened the morning session mildly lower following a relatively disappointing durable goods, excluding transportation, reading. However, President Trump got things rolling with some comments shortly after the opening bell.

Bulls turned their attention to aerospace & defense names like Boeing (BA 179.43, +1.99) and Lockheed Martin (LMT 269.36, +5.18) after Mr. Trump proposed a $54 billion boost to defense spending, making good on his promise from last Friday to implement one of the "greatest military buildups in American history." Additionally, the president's comments helped send shares of Caterpillar (CAT 97.44, +1.96) higher after the promise to touch on his infrastructure plan during his first address to Congress, which will take place tomorrow evening.

The industrial space (+0.3%) led the stock market back to its flat line, where it hovered until its afternoon advance.

Energy (+0.9%) finished Monday at the top of the leaderboard. The space did receive some help from crude oil, although not as much as early indications may have predicted. WTI crude finished just above its flat line, higher by 0.1% at $54.04/bbl, despite trading as high as $54.60/bbl in the overnight session.

Financials (+0.5%), health care (+0.4%), and real estate (+0.5%) also outperformed with health care receiving a boost from the biotechnology industry. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 298.27, +8.37) jumped 2.9% higher, closing near its five-month high.

On the flip side, telecom services finished Monday at the bottom of the leaderboard after AT&T (T 41.82, -0.54) announced that it will be lowering the price of its unlimited data plan, pointing to increased competition within the wireless space.

Consumer staples (-0.6%) fared only slightly better, suffering in light of the dissolved Kraft-Heinz (KHC 90.51, -2.54)-Unilever (UL 47.69, +0.58) merger after Warren Buffett said that KHC is not planning a hostile takeover of UL and that there is no backup deal in the works. Given that Mr. Buffett is the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.b 170.63, +0.41), which invested in the Kraft-Heinz merger back in 2015, his comments on the situation hold some weight.

Mr. Buffett also revealed that he more than doubled his holdings in Apple (AAPL 136.93, +0.27) between January 1 and the company's earnings report on January 31. AAPL added 0.2% on the news, but it wasn't enough to keep technology (-0.1%) out of the red.

U.S. Treasuries finished the day with large losses as investors revised up their probabilities for a rate hike at the March 14-15 FOMC meeting; the fed funds futures market now shows an implied probability of 35.4% from 26.6% on Friday. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed Monday five basis points higher at 2.37%. In addition, bond traders have started looking at the possibility of another debt ceiling showdown and a possible government shutdown if there is no agreement on how to deal with the debt limit by March 15.

Today's economic data included January Durable Orders and January Pending Home Sales:

January durable goods orders rose 1.8%, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to -0.8% (from -0.4%). Excluding transportation, durable orders declined 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) to follow the prior month's revised gain of 0.9% (from 0.5%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the "hard" data indicates business spending declined at the start of the year, which is contradictory of the spending optimism reported in the "soft" survey data.
Pending Home Sales for January declined 2.8% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.9%. Today's reading follows a revised 0.8% uptick in December (from 1.6%).

Tuesday's economic data will include the second estimate of fourth quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus 2.1%) and January International Trade in Goods at 8:30 ET, February Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 53.0%) at 9:45 ET, and February Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 111.5) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.9% YTD
S&P 500 +5.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.7% YTD

The major averages ended positive today, despite morning weakness ahead of President Trump's first address to Congress, which will take place on Tuesday evening. Ultimately, the Nasdaq Composite edged out the others, adding 16.59 points (+0.28%) to 5861.90. The S&P 500 was up 2.39 points (+0.10%) to 2369.73, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 15.68 points (+0.08%) to 20837.44 as the bell rang.

Equity indices came out of the gate with modest losses, but Mr. Trump increased investors' optimism with some comments earlier this morning. The president touched on a wide-array of subjects, but the market moving material came from a preview of his first proposed budget. Most notably, President Trump proposed a $54 billion boost to defense spending.

Today's market data included the January durable goods orders reading, which rose 1.8%, and the prior month's reading was revised to -0.8% (from -0.4%). Excluding transportation, durable orders declined 0.2% to follow the prior month's revised gain of 0.9% (from 0.5%). Furthermore, Pending Home Sales for January declined 2.8%, following a revised 0.8% uptick in December (from 1.6%).

Technology (XLK 52.60, -0.03 -0.06%) was pressured for the entirety of the day, ending the session near highs, though. Component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 22.31, -0.65 -2.83%) was the worst performer today despite announcing a deal with AT&T (T 41.82, -0.54 -1.27%) to provide cloud -based data management. Additionally, shares of bellwether Apple (AAPL 136.93, +0.27 +0.20%) were strong today following Warren Buffet's morning appearance on CNBC, on which Mr. Buffet discussed the addition to his stake in the tech giant, more than doubling his position to about 115 million shares. Energy XLE +0.86% was the best performing S&P sector today, followed by -- IYZ +0.59%, XLF +0.53%, XLRE +0.50%, XLV +0.48%, XLI +0.36%, XLY +0.12%, XLB -0.25%, XLP -0.47%, XLU -0.56%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (887.66, -0.61 -0.07%) action was decidedly negative, but only just, as the space lost less than a point. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 104.41, +2.95 +2.91%) was strong today, after a defense at Goldman, which suggested investors buy the weakness. Other names in the space which closed lower with the sector today included INTU -1.69%, FIS -1.44%, XRX -1.33%, RHT -1.27%, MSI -1.23%, ORCL -1.09%, IBM -1.08%, APH -1.01%, PYPL -1.00%, VRSN -0.92%, FISV -0.62%, MSFT -0.60%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
On CNBC before the open, Warren Buffet discussed that he bought more Apple (AAPL) shares since his the December 31 13-F filing cut-off, and before the January 31 quarterly report. Clarified that he more than doubled his position to about 115 million shares.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced it was selected by AT&T (T) to provide cloud-based subscriber data management solutions.

Comcast (CMCSA 37.53, -0.36 -0.95%) and Alphabet's (GOOG 829.28, +0.64 +0.08%) Google announced a deal that will launch the YouTube app on Xfinity X1 across the country later this year.

Square (SQ 17.93, +0.50 +2.87%) entered into a Warrant Cancellation and Payment Agreement relating to that certain warrant to purchase up to 9,456,955 shares of the Company's Class A common stock issued to Starbucks (SBUX 56.78, +0.70 +1.22%).

ServiceNow (NOW 87.75, -4.07 -4.43%) appointed former CEO of eBay (EBAY 34.28, +0.22 +0.65%) John Donahoe as President and CEO.

Samsung (SSNLF 1500.00, flat) announced it expanded its strategic partnership with Microsoft (MSFT 64.23, -0.39 -0.60%).

Santander (SAN 5.36, +0.05 +0.94%) and IBM (IBM 179.40, -1.95 -1.08%) announced a collaboration to design and develop a suite of IBM MobileFirst for iOS apps to support the banking group's digital transformation and give employees the tools to create deeper engagements with their customers.

Mastercard (MA 110.57, -0.43 -0.39%) announced a global partnership with Oracle (ORCL 42.70, -0.47 -1.09%) to streamline digital payment solutions in the retail and hospitality industries.

Ericsson (ERIC 6.44, -0.01 -0.16%) and Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm (QCOM 56.73, +0.04 +0.07%), are working with Vodafone (VOD 25.41, -0.32 -1.24%) to test 5G interoperability and conduct an over-the-air field trial based on 5G New Radio (NR) specifications being developed in 3GPP.

Qualcomm (QCOM) through its Qualcomm Technologies subsidiary announced it is working with TomTom (TMOAY 4.15, flat) for the use of the Qualcomm Drive Data Platform for high-definition (HD) map crowdsourcing.

Ericsson (ERIC) and Batelco have partnered in a major network deal to transform the Bahrain mobile network.

Cisco (CSCO 34.26, -0.06 -0.17%) and Altice Group (ALLVF 20.85, flat) continue to strengthen their alliance to transform Altice's business operations with new network architectures to help grow revenue, lower costs and improve customer retention.

Cisco (CSCO) and Verizon (VZ 49.94, -0.66 -1.30%) collaborate on 5G network solutions.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Gogo (GOGO 10.49, +1.37 +15.02%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.34 on better than expected revenues of $160 million. For FY17, the company sees revenues ahead of expectations at $670-695 million.

JinkoSolar Holding (JKS 17.95, +0.80 +4.66%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.04 and $737.65 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: FTR KTOS NTRI PCLN RP SBAC WDAY/EXLS I ORBC PRFT SPNS

Analyst actions:

NVMI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
USM and TDS were downgraded to Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
LITE was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at MKM Partners;
ESIO was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street

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From Briefing.com: 4:19 pm Microchip narrows guidance ranges for Q4 EPS and net sales while maintaining the midpoints (MCHP) :

Microchip previously provided guidance on February 7, 2017 for consolidated net sales to be down 1% to up 3% with a mid-point of up 1%.
Microchip now expects consolidated net sales to be down 0.5% to up 2.5% with a mid-point unchanged at 1% and non-GAAP earnings per share to be between $1.02 and $1.10 per share.

The original guidance for non-GAAP earning per share was between $1.01 and $1.11 per share.

Due to Microchip's recent convertible debt offering and the related accounting treatment, Microchip is not able to provide GAAP earnings per share guidance at this time.

4:01 pm Advanced Micro and Bethesda Softworks announce partnership (AMD) : Announced on stage at the AMD "Capsaicin" webcast and press event during the 2017 Game Developers Conference, the multi-title agreement will see the two companies collaborate to develop and accelerate the implementation of new technologies, including the full potential of low-level APIs, such as Vulkan, and the computing and graphics power of AMD Ryzen CPUs, Radeon GPUs, and AMD server solutions across existing Bethesda franchises.

4:22 pm Closing Market Summary: Stock Market Closes Lower Ahead of Trump Address (:WRAPX) :

Investors took some money off the table after a strong month and ahead of President Trump's first prime-time address to Congress, which is scheduled for tonight at 9:00 pm ET. The S&P 500 (-0.3%) and the Dow (-0.1%) held slim losses throughout the day's session, while the Nasdaq's (-0.6%) slip was a bit more substantial. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 finished with a sizable loss of 1.4%. For the month, the Dow gained 4.8% while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 added 3.8% and 3.7%, respectively.

President Trump is expected to touch on variety of topics in his speech, including tax reform, infrastructure spending, health care, military spending, and border security, but it is unclear if Mr. Trump will share any specific details on anything other than his defense budget.

Nonetheless, investors will be watching carefully, looking for any clues as to the timing and the final form of the President's pro-growth promises that have sent the benchmark index nearly 10.5% higher since the November 8 election.

Despite minimal movement on the macro level, micro motion was alive and well, especially on the earnings front. Target (TGT 58.77, -8.14) plunged 12.2% after the company missed earnings estimates and issued weak guidance.

Retailers responded to Target's misstep with a tumble of their own, pushing the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 42.99, -1.04) lower by 2.4% and leaving the consumer discretionary sector with a loss of 0.7%.

Surprisingly, consumer staples (+0.2%) left Tuesday relatively unscathed, countering losses from retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT 70.93, -0.81) and Costco (COST 177.18, -0.44) with a bounceback performance from multinational food giants like Mondelez International (MDLZ 43.92, +0.15), Kraft-Heinz (KHC 91.50, +0.89), and General Mills (GIS 60.37, +0.43) following their sell-off on Monday.

The financial sector (-0.2%) outpaced the benchmark index on Tuesday despite a slide in discount brokers, who fell in reaction to the decreased earnings prospects linked to Fidelity's decision to reduce the price of its online trading commission. The move was seen as shot fired in the price war that is developing within the industry.

Energy (-0.2%) closed Tuesday's session slightly lower, ticking up in the final minutes following an afternoon spike in crude oil. The energy component finished just below its flat line, down 0.1% at $54.01/bbl, after recouping almost all of its large early-morning loss. An afternoon rally ensued in the wake of a Reuters report that OPEC members have achieved 94.0% compliance with supply cuts that were agreed to in February.

The top-weighted technology sector (-0.4%) also finished the day lower, burdened by a poor showing from chipmakers; the PHLX Semiconductor Index finished Tuesday with a loss of 1.3%.

The U.S. Treasury yield curve flattened today as selling pressure in shorter-dated issues left the 2yr-yield three basis points higher at 1.23%. Meanwhile, the benchmark 10-yr yield finished its trading day unchanged at 2.36%.

Today's economic data included the second estimate of fourth quarter GDP, February Chicago PMI, February Consumer Confidence, January International Trade in Goods, and January Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index:

The second reading of fourth quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 1.9%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.1%. The second estimate of fourth quarter GDP Deflator came in at 2.0%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that soft business spending continues to act as a drag on GDP growth.
Chicago PMI for February increased to 57.4 from 50.3 in January while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 53.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that the prices paid component hits its highest level (68.6) in about two and a half years, which speaks to building inflationary pressures for manufacturers in the Chicago Fed region.
The consumer confidence reading for February rose to 114.8 from the prior month's revised reading of 111.6 (from 111.8). The Briefing.com consensus expected the survey to hit 111.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers are feeling better about current business and labor market conditions than they did in January; accordingly, they expect the economy to continue to expand in the months ahead.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for January showed a deficit of $69.2 billion, up from a revised deficit of $64.4 billion for December (from $65.0 billion). The Advance report for January Wholesale Inventories decreased 0.1%. The prior month's reading was revised to 0.9% from 1.0%.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for January rose 5.6%. This followed the previous month's unrevised reading of 5.6%.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, January Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) at 8:30 ET, January Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) and February ISM Index (Briefing.com consensus 56.1%) at 10:00 ET, and the Fed's Beige Book for March at 14:00 ET.

Also of note, February Auto and Truck sales will be released throughout the day on Wednesday.
Nasdaq Composite +8.2% YTD
S&P 500 +5.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.2% YTD

Investors took some money off the table after a strong month and ahead of President Trump's first prime-time address to Congress, which is scheduled for tonight at 9:00 pm ET. President Trump is expected to touch on variety of topics in his speech, including tax reform, infrastructure spending, health care, military spending, and border security, but it is unclear if Mr. Trump will share any specific details on anything other than his defense budget. The end of the session spelled losses across the board, led by the Nasdaq Composite which lost 36.46 points (-0.62%) to 5825.44. The S&P 500 was down 6.11 points (-0.26%) to 2363.64, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 25.20 points (-0.12%) to 20812.24.

Additionally, market data today included the second reading of fourth quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 1.9%, and the second estimate of fourth quarter GDP Deflator came in at 2.0%. Also, the Chicago PMI for February increased to 57.4 from 50.3 in January. Further, the consumer confidence reading for February rose to 114.8 from the prior month's revised reading of 111.6 (from 111.8). The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for January showed a deficit of $69.2 billion, up from a revised deficit of $64.4 billion for December (from $65.0 billion). The Advance report for January Wholesale Inventories decreased 0.1%. The prior month's reading was revised to 0.9% from 1.0%. And lastly, the Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index for January rose 5.6%. This followed the previous month's unrevised reading of 5.6%.

For its part, Technology (XLK 52.35, -0.25 -0.48%) was lower from the get-go and never looked back. Component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 22.82, +0.51 +2.29%) was the best performer today despite a premarket downgrade to Hold at Argus. The Utilities sector XLU +0.92% led all other S&P spaces today, followed by the XLP +0.13%, XLF -0.04%, XLB -0.10%, XLV -0.20%, XLE -0.31%, XLRE -0.31%, XLI -0.41%, XLY -0.75%, IYZ -2.32%.

The S&P 500 Information Technology (884.05, -3.61 -0.41) space didn't fare any better, as it too headed lower at the start and never gave way. Component First Solar (FSLR 36.19, -1.64 -4.34%) was the worst performer today after a premarket initiation with a 'Sell' rating at Axiom Capital. Other names in the sector which under-performed today included NVDA -2.81%, CSRA -2.61%, WU -2.43%, QRVO -2.25%, ADSK -1.64%, HPQ -1.59%, ADS -1.54%, CTXS -1.51%, PYPL -1.50%, MU -1.35%, HRS -1.32%, ATVI -1.23%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Intelsat (I 4.98, -0.89 -15.16%) confirmed it will merge with OneWeb in a share-for-share transaction. The company also confirmed a definitive share purchase agreement pursuant to which SoftBank (SFTBY 37.36, -0.12 -0.32%) will invest $1.7 billion in newly issued common and preferred shares of the combined I/OneWeb company.

Microsoft (MSFT 63.98, -0.25 -0.39%) introduced Xbox Game Pass, a gaming subscription service for $9.99 a month which will give customers unlimited access to over 100 Xbox One and backward compatible Xbox 360 games.

Ubisoft (UBSFY 7.31, -0.05 -0.68%) acquired Growtopia in a deal which is expected to be instantly accretive. However, financial details werenot disclosed.

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Priceline's (PCLN 1724.13, +92.12 +5.64%) Board of Directors authorized program in Q1 to repurchase up to $2.0 billion of common stock in addition to amounts previously authorized.

AT&T (T 41.79, -0.03 -0.07%), Orange (ORAN 15.05, -0.06 -0.40%), and Colt Technology Services are working with MEF and TM Forum to release the first set of standard application programming interfaces (APIs) for orchestrated Carrier Ethernet services later this year.

AT&T (T) expects its 2017 capital expenditure to be in the $22 billion range, which will bring its 2-year total to more than $40 billion.
Consumers in Germany can now access a vast selection of channels and video-on-demand (VoD) offers via GigaTV, a next-generation cloud video service from Vodafone (VOD 25.41, flat) Germany, developed by

Cisco (CSCO 34.18, -0.08 -0.23%). The service is accessible through a TV set-top box or smartphone and tablet applications.

Juniper Networks (JNPR 28.00, -0.33 -1.16%) announced that Juniper was selected as a Vodafone (VOD) Global Approved Vendor for its Contrail Networking software-defined networking (SDN) solution.
Saudi Telecom Company and Cisco (CSCO) signed a three-year managed services agreement to transform STC's core network and operations.

Qorvo (QRVO 66.10, -1.52 -2.25%) introduced new multiplexers that support challenging carrier aggregation (CA) requirements in 4G LTE smartphones. Based on Qorvo's BAW 5 filter technology, the new multiplexers deliver superior performance for Band 1/3 and Band 25/66 CA deployments.

ZTE Corp (ZTCOF 1.54, flat) and Intel (INTC 36.20, -0.31 -0.85%) signed a strategic cooperation agreement at an IoT forum in Barcelona, Spain.

RealPage (RP 33.75, +0.25 +0.75%) to acquire Lease Rent Options and related assets from The Rainmaker Group for $300 million in cash.

Pandora Media (P 12.38, -0.79 -6.00%) appointed Naveen Chopra as CFO.

Square (SQ 17.32, -0.61 -3.40%) commenced a $350 million offering of convertible senior notes due in 2022.

Silicon Labs (SLAB 67.50, -4.90 -6.77%) plans to offer $350 million principal amount of its Convertible Senior Notes due 2022 through a private offering.

IBM (IBM 179.82, +0.42 +0.23%) introduced IBM Watson Imaging Clinical Review - a cognitive imaging offering from Watson Health -- and announced the expansion of the Watson Health medical imaging collaborative to 24 organizations worldwide.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Priceline (PCLN) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $14.21 and $2.35 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company guided EPS below market expectations at $8.25-8.65.

SBA Comm (SBAC 115.77, +2.98 +2.64%) reported better than expected Q4 funds from operations of $1.63 on revenues of $416.5 million. For FY17, the company guided FFO ahead of market expectations at $6.61-6.95.

Workday (WDAY 82.93, -7.26 -8.05%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.07 and $436.7 million. For FY18, the company sees revenues ahead of expectations at $2.005-2.025 billion.

Frontier Communications (FTR 2.93, -0.36 -10.94%) reported a worse than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.12 and revenues which also came in below expectations at $2.41 billion.

RealPage (RP) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.22 on revenues of $148.9 million. The company also sees in-line Q1 EPS of $0.21-0.22 on worse than expected revenues of $151.3-153.3 million. For FY17, RP sees in-line EPS of $0.89-0.94 and revenues ahead of market expectations at $666.3-676.3 million.

Intelsat (I) reported Q4 GAAP EPS of $5.56 on better than expected revenues of $550.7 million. For FY17, the company sees in-line revenues of $2.18-2.23 billion.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AMBA BV ENPH HLIT ITRI LOGM MRIN MXWL PANW QUMU CRM TNET VEEV XOXO/BITA INXN WIN

Analyst actions:

WDAY was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup and to Hold from Buy at Evercore ISI,
HPE was downgrade to Hold from Buy at Argus,
TRIP was downgraded to Underperform from Hold at Needham,
FTR was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
JBL was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Strong Buy at Raymond James;
FSLR was initiated with a Sell at Axiom Capital,
CTL was initiated with a Neutral at MoffettNathanson

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From Briefing.com: 5:04 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Eke Out Gains on Friday (:WRAPX) : The major averages finished Friday's session near their unchanged marks as investors digested the latest remarks from Fed Chair Janet Yellen. The Nasdaq (+0.2%) outperformed while the S&P 500 (+0.1%) finished with a slim gain. The Dow closed the day unchanged.

According to the Fed funds futures market, it appears that a March rate hike is on after Fed Chair Yellen said nothing to upset that notion on Friday afternoon. Ms. Yellen expressed her belief that a March rate hike is indeed appropriate as long as the economy evolves as expected. The CME Fed Watch Tool now assigns an implied probability of 79.7% to a March rate hike, up slightly from yesterday's 77.5%.

The U.S. dollar retreated in the wake of Ms. Yellen's comments, nearly doubling its earlier loss. The U.S. Dollar Index (101.35, -0.81) finished Friday lower by 0.8%.

Conversely, Treasuries climbed back towards their flat lines after holding losses going into Ms. Yellen's speech. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished one basis point higher at 2.48% while the 2-yr yield closed two basis points lower at 1.29%.

The financial sector (+0.4%) profited from the steepening of the Treasury yield curve, closing the day with the health care sector (+0.4%) at the top of the leaderboard. The biotechnology industry had a hand in the health care group's positive performance, evidenced by the 0.9% increase in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 302.49, +2.70).

Conversely, consumer staples closed Friday near the bottom of the leaderboard following Costco's (COST 170.26, -7.72) most recent earnings report. The wholesale retailer tumbled 4.3% after reporting worse than expected earnings per share results after Thursday's close.

Costco's performance also negatively influenced retailers, evidenced by the 1.4% decline in the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 42.72, -0.62). The consumer discretionary sector, which comprises many retailers, also underperformed, closing lower by 0.2%.

Crude oil finished the day 1.4% higher at $53.33/bbl, but the energy group (-0.4%) still had trouble keeping pace with the broader market.

Also of note, Snap (SNAP 27.09, +2.61) followed up Thursday's IPO with a 10.7% spike in Friday's session. The social media company had an IPO price of $17.00 per share, but opened for trading late on Thursday morning at $24.00 per share.

Today's lone economic report was February ISM Services:

The ISM Services Index for February increased to 57.6 while the Briefing.com consensus expected reading of 56.5. The prior month's reading was left unchanged at 56.5.

Monday's lone economic report, January Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%), will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.1% YTD
S&P 500 +6.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.7% YTD

Week In Review: Dow 21,000 and Beyond

The stockmarket continued its relentless push higher, which resulted in the sixthconsecutive weekly advance for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones IndustrialAverage cruising past 21,000. The benchmark index gained 0.7% for the week, extending its first quarter advance to 6.4%. TheNasdaq underperformed during the week (+0.4%),but remains ahead so far in 2017 (+9.1%).

The first twodays of the week were highlighted by sideways action as most participants saton their hands ahead of President Donald Trump's first address to Congress,which took place on Tuesday evening. There was some profit taking ahead of theevening address on Tuesday, but not only was the selling limited, it took placeafter a strong run in February that ended with the S&P 500 gaining 3.7% forthe month.

Tuesday'smodest downtick was wiped out in short order as equity indices charged out ofthe gate on Wednesday, jumping to new record highs. The upbeat disposition wasattributed to President Donald Trump's address, which was free of surprises anddeemed 'presidential' by pundits. President Trump reiterated his commitment toa $1 trillion infrastructure plan and made another mention of a big tax reformplan on the horizon. Details, however, remain to be seen.

However, itwasn't all President Trump as investors received some positive news from theglobal economic front on Thursday. China's Manufacturing PMI for February(51.6; expected 51.1) beat expectations while eurozone Manufacturing PMI (55.4;expected 55.5) ticked down slightly, but remained in expansion.

On the domesticdata front, fourth quarter GDP was left unrevised at 1.9% in the secondestimate, while more recent data like February Chicago PMI (57.4; Briefing.comconsensus 53.0), February Consumer Confidence (114.8; Briefing.com consensus 111.5),and February ISM Index (57.7%; Briefing.com consensus 56.1%) beat expectations.That combination, and some hawkish comments from Fed officials, contributed toa notable shift in rate hike expectations.

The fed funds futures market ended the week showing a 79.9% implied probability of a rate hike inMarch, indicating a prevailing belief that the Federal Reserve is likely toraise the target range for the fed funds rate at its March 14-15 FOMCmeeting. Fed Chair Yellen herself contributed to those increasedexpectations with a speech on Friday in which she indicated a furtheradjustment in the fed funds rate would likely be appropriate at the Marchmeeting if the FOMC's evaluation of matters concludes that employment andinflation are continuing to evolve in line with its expectations.

This week also featured the widely-hyped, andclosely-followed, IPO of social media company Snap (SNAP) on Thursday. The IPO priced at $17, yet the stock snapped higher when it first openedfor trading, hitting the $24.00 mark before closing the session at $24.48 andfinishing the week at $27.08.

The featured item in the coming week will be the FebruaryEmployment Situation Report. The latter will be released on Friday. The nonfarm payrolls number and unemployment rate will capture most of thegeneral media's attention, yet market participants will be focusing moreintently on the average hourly earnings figure and the implications it couldhold for future inflation, consumer spending, and monetary policy decisions.

Friday's action ended modestly higher, though initially pressured this morning. Action was led today by the Nasdaq Composite which added 9.53 points (+0.16%) to 5870.75. The S&P 500 followed, higher by 1.20 points (+0.05%) to 2383.12, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted gains of 2.74 points (+0.01%) to 21005.71. All told, this week's moves took the three major averages to +9.0%, +6.4% and +6.3% YTD, respectively.

Today's lone piece of economic data was the ISM Services Index for February which increased to 57.6 and the prior month's reading was left unchanged at 56.5.

After a modestly lower morning session, the Technology (XLK 52.86, +0.12 +0.23%) space turned it around in the latter half of Friday. Components MU +3.52%, GPN +2.99%, FTR +2.14%, WDC +1.65%, NTAP +1.28%, TDC +1.19%, INTU +1.02%, AMAT +1.01%, XRX +0.96% helped solidify the advance. Financials edged out Healthcare for the top spot among S&P sectors on Friday XLF +0.48%, XLV +0.40%, XLI +0.11%, XLB -0.08%, XLY -0.15%, XLE -0.19%, XLU -0.31%, XLRE -0.31%, IYZ -0.33%, XLP -0.38%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (892.74, +1.68 +0.19%) space, trading also turned higher in the latter half of Friday. Components FIS +0.83%, ATVI +0.79%, CTXS +0.78%, FISV +0.74%, MSI +0.66%, PYPL +0.61%, AAPL +0.57% all posted modest gains on Friday.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 23.04, +0.09 +0.41%) disclosed the board set a record date of Mar 20, 2017 for the previously announced spin-off of its enterprise services business.

Verizon's (VZ 50.08, +0.10 +0.20%) Board authorized the corporation to repurchase up to 100 million shares of its common stock.

GrubHub (GRUB 34.28, -0.59 -1.69%) disclosed that on Mar 1, 2017 the Board appointed Stanley Chia to the position of COO.

Lumentum (LITE 46.70, +0.95 +2.08%) upsized and priced a $400 million offering of convertible notes due 2024.

Alliance Data (ADS 244.48, +0.54 +0.22%) proposed to offer EUR 300 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2022.

Cincinnati Bell (CBB 19.05, +0.05 +0.26%) appointed COO Leigh Fox as President and CEO effective May 31, succeeding Ted Torbeck.

Endurance International (EIGI 8.00, -0.40 -4.76%) disclosed that COO Ronald LaSalvia resigned effective immediately.

Commscope (COMM 39.30, +0.39 +1.00%) priced its offering of $750 million in aggregate principal amount of 5.000% senior unsecured notes due 2027.

TerraForm Power (TERP 11.67, +0.23 +2.01%) secured an additional $86 million expansion of project financing for power plants in Canada.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Autodesk (ADSK 85.32, -2.00 -2.29%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.28 on in-line revenues which fell 26.1% compared to a year ago to $478.8 million. The company also guided Q1 EPS and revenues below market expectations at ($0.27)-($0.21) and $460-480 million, respectively. For FY18, the company sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of ($0.73)-($0.56) and $2.0-2.05 billion, respectively.

Marvell (MRVL 16.09, +0.24 +1.51%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.22 on in-line revenues of $571.4 million. For Q1, the company sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $0.19-0.23 and $570 million, plus or minus 2% (which equates to about $558-581 million).

Nutanix (NTNX 23.00, -8.12 -26.09%) reported a better than expected Q2 loss per share of $0.28 on better than expected revenues of $182.2 million. The company guided Q3 EPS below market expectations at ($0.45)-($0.48) on in-line revenues of $180-190 million.

Immersion (IMMR 8.58, -2.11 -19.74%) reported a worse than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.27 and worse than expected revenues of $9.3 million. The company also guided FY17 EPS and revenues worse than expected at ($0.76)-($1.05) and $38-42 million.

Analyst actions:

EXPE was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup,
SEDG was upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities;
PANW was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus,
CIEN was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
NTNX was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
IMMR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
LPL was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein,
ACIW was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Avondale,
AUO was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein,
BCOR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research;
SNAP was initiated with an Underweight at Atlantic Equities and with a Neutral at Susquehanna,
GPRO was initiated with a Sell at Citigroup,
ULTI and PCTY were initiated with Neutral ratings at Mizuho,
PAYC was initiated with a Buy at Mizuho,
INFY was initiated with a Sell at Goldman,
CSC was initiated with a Sector Weight at Pacific Crest

Large Cap Gainers

MU (25.47 +3.12%): Shares continue to rise after the co presented yesterday at Morgan Stanley's Technology Conference and says Q2 Non-GAAP results expected to be at or above the high end of guidance.

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From Briefing.com: 4:27 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Start the Week with Modest Losses (:WRAPX) :

A morning sell-off was met with a slight uptick in buying interest on Monday afternoon, leaving the major averages with modest losses to start the new week on lower-than-average trading volume. The Dow finished lower by 0.2% while the S&P 500 (-0.3%) and Nasdaq (-0.4%) performed slightly worse. Small-caps were hit the heaviest with the Russell 2000 closing lower by 0.7%.

Given the pace and scope of gains this year, and really since President Trump's election on November 8 -- a period in which the S&P 500 has gained over 11.0% -- it should come as little surprise to see the stock market succumb to some profit-taking interest.

There were some news headlines over the weekend that may have contributed to the profit taking from what many pundits are describing as a market that is overextended on a short-term basis.

The most notable of these headlines was North Korea's most recent act of defiance in which Pyongyang launched four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, marking the third time since August that North Korean missiles have fallen in Japan's exclusive economic zone.

Other notable news included allegations from President Trump that former President Obama ordered a wiretap of his Trump Tower offices prior to the presidential election and an announcement from Deutsche Bank (DB) that the company will raise $8.5 billion of capital through the issuance of stock.

These headlines, though, appeared to serve more as convenient excuses to do some selling than anything else considering the stock market did make a rebound effort intraday and the CBOE Volatility Index increased less than 1.0%, hinting at some limited hedging activity among today's participants.

Ten of eleven sectors finished Monday's session in the red. The energy sector (+0.3%) was the lone winner. The top spot on the leaderboard has been an elusive one for the energy sector, which remains in last place in the 2017 sector standings with a year-to-date loss of 5.2%.

Crude oil didn't aid the energy sector's uptick, finishing Monday's session with a loss of 0.2% at $53.22/bbl. The commodity was pressured somewhat by a strengthening U.S. dollar, which was reflected in the 0.3% uptick for the U.S. Dollar Index (101.69, +0.34).

The top-weighted technology sector (-0.2%) saw some slight outperformance versus the broader market, but still ended the day lower. The semiconductor stocks helped keep the sector's losses in check, as they rebounded from early losses to help the PHLX Semiconductor Index eke out a small gain for the session.

The financial sector (-0.6%) led the stock market's retreat in the morning session, but received a jumpstart in the afternoon to climb past the materials sector (-0.7%) at the bottom of the leaderboard.

News on the corporate front was limited, but it is worth noting that airlines suffered after Delta Air Lines (DAL 48.85, -1.28) cut its first quarter guidance in light of more moderate than expected unit revenues in February. Despite the airlines' losses, the industrial sector (-0.3%) finished in line with the benchmark index.

Losses in the remaining sectors -- consumer discretionary, health care, consumer staples, utilities, telecom services, and real estate-- were modest, between 0.2% and 0.4%.

U.S. Treasuries finished slightly lower as fixed-income markets were still digesting last week's aggressive campaign by Fed officials to prepare markets for the possibility of a March 15 rate hike. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed Monday one basis point higher at 2.49%.

Monday's lone economic report was January Factory Orders:

The Factory Orders Report for January showed an increase of 1.2% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a increase of 1.0%. The December reading was left unrevised at 1.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it should contribute to some slight upward revisions to economists' first quarter GDP estimates since shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft were not down as much as the advanced report for durable goods indicated.
The key takeaway from the report is that it should contribute to some slight upward revisions to economists' first quarter GDP estimates since shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft were not down as much as the advanced report for durable goods indicated.

Tomorrow's data will include January Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$48.5 billion) at 8:30 ET and January Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $17.0 billion) at 15:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +8.7% YTD
S&P 500 +6.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.0% YTD

After starting the session on a gap lower, the broader market cooled off as the session progressed, paring losses into the close. Ultimately, the Nasdaq Composite lost about 21.58 points (-0.37%) to 5849.17. The S&P 500 was down 7.81 points (-0.33%) to 2375.31, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 51.37 (-0.24%) to 20954.34.

The lone piece of economic data today was the Factory Orders Report for January which showed an increase of 1.2% while the December reading was left unrevised at 1.3%.

Mirroring a tough day in the broader market, the Technology (XLK 52.78, -0.08 -0.15%) space was also lower today. Component CSRA (CSRA 28.66, -1.28 -4.28%) was the worst performer following a premarket downgrade at Cowen. The lone S&P sector which managed to escape Monday with gains was Energy XLE +0.24%, followed by XLU -0.19%, XLI -0.24%, XLY -0.32%, XLV -0.38%, XLRE -0.41%, XLP -0.44%, XLB -0.65%, XLF -0.76%, IYZ -1.15%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (891.28, -1.46 -0.16%) space, trading squeaked back into the red at the close despite a few positive ticks in the final moments of action. Component HP (HPQ 17.30, +0.08 +0.48%) managed modest gains today after Wells Fargo upgraded the stock to Outperform this morning. Other names in the space which closed lower with the sector though included FSLR -3.70%, ADSK -2.79%, TEL -1.80%, CTSH -1.75%, TSS -1.60%, FFIV -1.07%, WDC -0.95%, INTC -0.92%, STX -0.92%, NVDA -0.77%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Accenture (ACN 123.25, -0.39 -0.32%) signed a global original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with SAP SE (SAP 94.09, -0.55 -0.58%) to offer its human capital management (HCM) applications on SAP Cloud Platform.

Analog Devices (ADI 83.85, +0.67 +0.81%) received regulatory approval from the Ministry of Commerce of China to complete its acquisition of Linear Technology (LLTC 65.45, +0.59 +0.91%). The company also now sees Q2 revenue and EPS between the mid-point and high end of guidance.

Advanced Micro (AMD 13.04, +0.01 +0.08%): Mubadala Development Company PJSC proposes the sale of 45 million shares under form 144.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 13.74, -0.76 -5.24%) raised $20 million in funding from the CPD Fund.

Cisco (CSCO 34.19, -0.10 -0.29%) and IBM (IBM 180.47, +0.42 +0.23%) announced new solutions for VersaStack.

ON Semiconductor (ON 15.26, +0.05 +0.33%) will acquire and license mmWave technology for automotive radar applications developed by IBM's (IBM) Haifa research team. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Analyst actions:

NFLX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS,
HPQ was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
EXPE was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie,
TWLO was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Northland Capital,
CAJ was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan;
GPRO was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
CSRA was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen,
TWX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS;
SNAP was initiated with an Underperform at Needham

4:32 pm Rambus signs a broad patent license agreement with Western Digital Corporation (WDC); financial details not disclosed (RMBS) : The agreement covers the use of Rambus patented memory technologies, including high-speed interfaces, memory architectures, resistive memory and security technologies, in Western Digital products through 2021. The agreement also includes an additional 5-year extension option. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

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From Briefing.com: 4:16 pm Closing Market Summary: Stock Market Finishes Tuesday Modestly Lower (:WRAPX) :

Tuesday's session was largely uneventful as market-moving catalysts were in short supply. The major averages trended just below their flat lines for the majority of the session, but a late afternoon sell-off left them near their worst levels of the day. The Nasdaq (-0.3%) finished in line with the S&P 500 (-0.3%) while the Dow (-0.1%) closed with a slight advantage.

Despite the equity market's minimal movement, House Republicans mixed things up beneath the surface after unveiling their first attempt at replacing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, on Monday evening. The proposed legislation was a hit with President Trump, but other members within the GOP have demonstrated resistance to the bill, indicating that its implementation may be somewhat challenging. Investors are keeping an anxious eye on Washington, knowing that any delay in health care reform also postpones the impending tax reform, which has been a key catalyst to the stock market's huge post-election rally.

The health care sector (-0.7%) finished the day behind the broader market as investors digested the latest news from the nation's capital. The biotechnology industry showed relative weakness within the group, evidenced by the 1.7% drop in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 294.75, -5.08).

At the bottom of Tuesday's leaderboard, energy (-0.9%) and telecom services (-0.7%) struggled throughout the day. The energy space didn't find much support from crude oil, which finished 0.2% lower at $53.13/bbl, as futures traders displayed caution ahead of the American Petroleum Institute (:API) data release on Tuesday evening.

Conversely, utilities (unch) and technology (+0.2%) finished at the top of the day's sector standings with the technology group profiting on gains from large-cap components like Apple (AAPL 139.52, +0.18) and Alphabet (GOOGL 851.15, +3.88). Chipmakers also 'chipped' in to help the tech sector's outperformance, evidenced by the 0.3% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

The remaining sectors--financials, consumer discretionary, industrials, materials, consumer staples, and real estate--finished with losses between 0.1% and 0.6%.

U.S. Treasuries had a rather range-bound session, failing to deviate much from their flat lines throughout the day's action. The 10-yr Treasury note finished modestly lower with its yield closing one basis point higher at 2.51%.

Tuesday's economic data included January Trade Balance and January Consumer Credit:

The January trade balance showed a deficit of $48.5 billion, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The previous month's deficit was left unrevised at $44.3 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is twofold: (1) it will feed the White House's concerns about unfair trade dynamics and (2) it presents a negative input for first quarter GDP forecasts as the real goods deficit of $65.3 billion widened from the fourth quarter average of $62.2 billion.
The Consumer Credit report for January showed an increase of $8.8 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected growth of $17.0 billion. The prior month's credit growth was revised to $14.8 billion from $14.2 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer credit decelerated in January, which is apt to contribute to subdued expectations for the pace of consumer spending and GDP growth in the first quarter.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Index at 7:00 ET, February ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 180,000) at 8:15 ET, fourth quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus 1.5%) & Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus 1.6%) at 8:30 ET, and January Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +8.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.9% YTD
S&P 500 +5.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.3% YTD

After a brief period of positive action in the morning session, the major averages cooled down and eventually settled into a modestly lower channel, ultimately ending near lows on Tuesday. At the bell, the S&P 500 was the worst performer, shedding 6.92 points (-0.29%) to 2368.39. The Nasdaq Composite lost about 15.25 points (-0.26%) today, ending 5833.93, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 29.58 points (-0.14%) to 20924.76.

Today's economic data included the January trade balance which showed a deficit of $48.5 billion, as the previous month's deficit was left unrevised at $44.3 billion. Also, the total outstanding consumer credit increased by $8.8 billion in January after increasing an upwardly revised $14.8 billion (from $14.2 billion) in December.

Despite ending flat, the Technology's (XLK 52.78, flat) sector was the best performing space in the S&P; action was back and forth in the early going, eventually carving out decent gains in the early afternoon only to give up those gains and trade places between gains and losses in the final moments of action.

Component Frontier Communications (FTR 2.62, -0.14 -5.07%) was the worst performer today after BofA/Merrill downgraded the stock premarket. After the Technology space, all other S&P sectors ended in the red, with the US Telecom space IYZ -1.32% performing the worst on Tuesday, followed by XLE -0.89%, XLV -0.70%, XLB -0.55%, XLRE -0.35%, XLY -0.32%, XLI -0.29%, XLF -0.28%, XLP -0.16%, XLU -0.06%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (892.58, +1.30 +0.15%) space, trading ended higher today despite carrying modest losses into the bell. Component CA Tech (CA 31.97, -0.85 -2.59%) was the worst performing name in the space today after the company acquired Veracode for $614 million in cash. Other names in the space which closed higher today included FFIV +1.60%, EA +1.33%, NVDA +1.10%, TXN +1.03%, GPN +0.85%, ACN +0.73%, QRVO +0.71%, INTC +0.65%, AVGO +0.60%, SYMC +0.58%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Nimble Storage (NMBL 12.58, +3.98 +46.28%) to be acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 22.82, -0.25 -1.08%) for $12.50 per share in cash, or $1.0 billion. HPE expects earnings accretion.

IBM (IBM 180.38, -0.09 -0.05%) and Salesforce (CRM 82.97, +0.47 +0.57%) announced a global strategic partnership to deliver joint solutions designed to leverage artificial intelligence.

TerraForm Global (GLBL 4.92, +0.67 +15.88%) to be acquired by Brookfield Asset Management (BAM 36.12, +0.22 +0.61%) for $787 million in cash, including $455 million of net debt. The company also entered into a settlement agreement with SunEdison (SUNEQ 0.09, +0.02 +26.63%). Also, Brookfield Renewable

Partners (BEP 28.67, -0.11 -0.38%) will acquire a 51% interest in TerraForm Power (TERP 12.01, +0.42 +3.62%). The company's commitment expected to be in the range of $500 million.

Qualcomm (QCOM 56.73, +0.28 +0.50%) has extended the offering period of its previously announced cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding common shares of NXP Semi (NXPI 103.77, -0.12 -0.12%).

The Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine (CCPM) is using Tableau Software (DATA 50.16, -0.86 -1.69%) and Google Cloud Platform (GOOG 831.91, +4.13 +0.50%) to analyze patient data to predict disease risk and develop targeted treatments based on an individual's health history in support of breakthrough research projects.

CA Tech (CA) to acquire Veracode for $614 million in cash. CA expects earnings accretion in 2020.
In addition to reporting quarterly results, MeetMe (MEET 5.89, +0.82 +16.17%) executed a definitive agreement to acquire If(we), Inc., a social and mobile technology company, for $60.0 million in cash.

Rambus (RMBS 13.10, +0.30 +2.34%) signed a broad patent license agreement with Western Digital (WDC 76.80, flat). The agreement covers the use of RMBS patented memory technologies, including high-speed interfaces, memory architectures, resistive memory and security technologies, in WDC products through 2021. The agreement also includes an additional 5-year extension option. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Western Digital (WDC) announced that the HGST Active Archive System is enabling the cole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) to archive more than 17,000 hours' worth of live music, video, and data from the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Fitbit (FIT 5.89, -0.11 -1.83%) announced changes to its senior leadership team and provided updates on its previously announced efforts to reorganize its business to reignite growth and return to profitability. The company has promoted Vice President of Engineering, Samir Kapoor, to Senior Vice President of Device Engineering, reporting to co-founder and CTO, Eric Friedman. The company also announced the departure of two executives by the end of the month: Woody Scal, Chief Business Officer, and Tim Roberts, Executive Vice President, Interactive.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Momo (MOMO 30.00, +3.39 +12.74%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.44 and $246.1 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees revenues better than expectations at $238.0-243.0 million.

Nimble Storage (NMBL) reported a better than expected loss of $0.12 per share on better than expected revenues of $117.03 million.

MeetMe (MEET) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.19 on in-line revenues of $29.2 million.
Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: WIFI/CIEN, PCTI, TECD

Analyst actions:

SIMO was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research,
TERP was upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at Avondale,
PEGA was upgraded to Buy from Hold at The Benchmark Company;
FTR and CSOD were downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
DBD was downgraded to In-Line from Outperform at Imperial Capital,
NMBL was downgraded to Market Perform at BMO Capital and to Hold at Jefferies

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From Briefing.com: 4:32 pm Semtech beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SMTC) :
Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $0.37 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.35; revenues rose 18.0% year/year to $140 mln vs the $138.34 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.39-0.43, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.36 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $142-150 mln vs. $141.33 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Vishay Precision: Activist Ancora Advisors sends a letter to the Board of Directors of Vishay Precision Group actively urging the co's shareholders to support Ancora's 14a-8 proposal to eliminate the company's dual class structure (VPG) : The letter also urges the company to immediately do either of the following: (1) re-engage the strategic alternatives process in order to find a buyer for the company; or (2) replace current CEO Ziv Shoshani with an external highly-qualified and independent chief executive officer.

4:18 pm Closing Market Summary: Crude Oil's Plunge Leads Stock Market Lower On Wednesday (:WRAPX) :

Crude oil ($50.40/bbl) stole the spotlight on Wednesday, plunging 5.3%, after the latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) inventory report showed a much higher build than the consensus estimate (8.2 million vs 2.0 million est.). The major averages held their ground for some time amid the energy component's plummet, but succumbed to selling pressure in the final stretch. The Nasdaq (+0.1%) finished with a slim gain while the S&P 500 and the Dow closed with losses of 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively.

Unsurprisingly, the energy sector closed the day at the bottom of the leaderboard with a loss of 2.5%. The rate-sensitive utilities (-1.5%) and real estate (-1.5%) groups also finished solidly lower amid an increase in interest rates following a better than expected ADP National Employment Report, which clobbered the consensus estimate; the reading showed that a whopping 298,000 private-sector jobs were added in February (Briefing.com consensus 180,000).

In light of the ADP release, economists will be adjusting their estimates for nonfarm payroll gains (Briefing.com consensus 188,000) in Friday's Employment Situation Report for February, which is regarded as the last potential barrier for a rate hike in March. Following today's economic data, the CME Fed Watch Tool now assigns an implied probability of 90.8% to a March rate hike, up from 81.9% on Tuesday. Furthermore, the market expects to see another rate hike by the September meeting. The U.S. Dollar Index (102.04, +0.23) ticked up in tandem with rate hike expectations, adding 0.2%.

In the same breath, U.S. Treasuries finished the day in negative territory with the benchmark 10-yr yield closing four basis points higher at 2.55%.

At the top of the day's sector standings were the health care (+0.3%) and consumer discretionary (+0.3%) sectors with the latter space receiving a boost from retailers. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 42.37, +0.43) added 1.0% after the latest batch of earnings reports, which included a stellar performance from The Children's Place (PLCE 118.15, +18.25). PLCE shares spiked 18.3% after the company reported better than expected earnings and issued upbeat guidance. In addition, The Children's Place also announced a new stock buyback and a dividend increase.

For the health care group, today's positive showing was more of a bounce-back performance following Tuesday's tumble, a day in which the sector saw selling pressure in response to the House Republicans' proposed Obamacare replacement.

The technology (+0.1%), financials (unch), and materials (+0.1%) sectors finished near their flat lines while the telecom services (-0.4%), consumer staples (-0.3%), and industrials (-0.4%) groups finished with modest losses.

Today's economic data included February ADP Employment Change, fourth quarter Productivity & Unit Labor Costs, January Wholesale Inventories, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Index:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 298,000 in February (Briefing.com consensus 180,000) while the January reading was revised to 261,000 from 246,000.
The ADP reading precedes Friday's more influential Employment Situation Report for February, which is widely considered the last potential barrier to a rate hike in March.
The unit labor costs were left unrevised during the fourth quarter, showing an increased 1.7%, which was higher than the 1.6% increase that had been anticipated by the Briefing.com consensus. The productivity reading was also left unrevised, showing an increase of 1.3%. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.5%.
The key takeaway from the report is that productivity is low, with the average annual rate of productivity growth from 2011 to 2016 being 0.6% versus the long-term rate of 2.1% from 1947 to 2016. Low productivity gets in the way of a rising standard of living.
January Wholesale Inventories decreased 0.2%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick of 0.1%. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at +1.0%.
The market doesn't typically pay much attention to this release since the full business inventories report is usually released a few days later.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 3.3% to follow last week's 5.8% uptick.

On Thursday, investors will receive February Challenger Job Cuts at 7:30 ET, with February Export/Import Prices and Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 240,000) following at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +8.4% YTD
S&P 500 +5.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD

As Wednesday came to a close, the broader market seemed to lose its luster (of whatever luster it had today) as all three major averages fell to session lows at the bell tolled. Despite ending at lows, the Nasdaq Composite still managed gains, up 3.62 points (+0.06%) to 5837.55. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the worst performer, shedding 69.03 points (-0.33%) today to end 20855.73, while the S&P 500 lost 5.41 points (-0.23%) to 2362.98.

Today's economic data included the ADP National Employment Report which showed an increase of 298,000 in February while the January reading was revised to 261,000 from 246,000. Also today, unit labor costs were left unrevised during the fourth quarter, showing an increased 1.7%. The productivity reading was also left unrevised, showing an increase of 1.3%. Additionally, January Wholesale Inventories decreased 0.2%, and the prior month's reading was left unrevised at +1.0%. Lastly, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 3.3% to follow last week's 5.8% uptick.

Despite a late-session decline, the Technology (XLK 52.84, +0.06 +0.11%) space managed to stay above water. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 57.77, +1.04 +1.83%) was the best performer in the sector today despite an unfavorable ruling that came down today in a PTAB case against Parkervision (PRKR 2.81, +0.22 +8.49%). The Consumer Discretionary space XLY +0.42% performed the best out of all S&P sectors today, followed by XLV +0.40%, XLF +0.04%, XLB +0.00%, XLP -0.22%, XLI -0.35%, IYZ -0.56%, XLU -1.44%, XLRE -1.49%, XLE -2.56%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (893.48, +0.90 +0.10%) space, trading barely ended above flat lines despite spending the entirety of the session in the green. Component Skyworks (SWKS 96.69, +1.64 +1.73%) was among the better performing names today following a premarket upgrade to a Buy rating on the stock at Mizuho. Other names in the space which outperformed today included ADSK +1.69%, VRSN +1.47%, SYMC +1.16%, XRX +1.09%, ATVI +1.08%, MSFT +0.92%, EA +0.79%, MSI +0.68%, AMAT +0.62%, CRM +0.61%, KLAC +0.56%, YHOO +0.55%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Parkervision (PRKR) confirmed a favorable PTAB ruling vs. Qualcomm (QCOM).

Amazon's (AMZN 850.50, +4.48 +0.53%) AWS has acquired meeting productivity startup Do.com, according to TechCrunch.

Alphabet (GOOG 835.37, +3.46 +0.42%) said to be acquiring data science community Kaggle, according to TechCrunch.

Munich Leukemia Laboratory (MLL) has teamed up with IBM (IBM 179.45, -0.93 -0.52%) and Illumina (ILMN 164.40, -1.18 -0.71%) to help build a new cognitive technology prototype that aims to help researchers improve leukemia treatment.

GlobalStar (GSAT 1.41, flat) and Inmarsat (IMASY 9.38, +0.66 +7.57%) announced a new partnership to cross-sell their respective products and services.

Microsoft (MSFT 64.99, +0.59 +0.92%) to shutter its So.cl social network project effective March 15.

AMD (AMD 13.22, +0.17 +1.30%) announced their collaboration with Microsoft (MSFT) to incorporate the cloud delivery features of AMD's next-generation "Naples" processor with Microsoft's Project Olympus.

NVIDIA (NVDA 98.56, -0.18 -0.18%) unveiled the NVIDIA Jetson TX2, a credit card-sized platform that delivers AI computing.

Accenture (ACN 124.46, +0.32 +0.26%) has opened a Liquid Studio in Riga to help clients speed up innovation and software development cycles.

Extreme Networks (EXTR 6.77, +0.67 +10.98%) to acquire Avaya's networking business for about $100 million.

Time Warner's (TWX 98.51, +0.27 +0.27%) Turner and Warner Bros. have partnered with standalone domestic premium video subscription service Boomerang. The parties plan a subscription video service will launch in the spring.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Tech Data (TECD 89.87, -3.93 -4.19%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $2.45 on in-line revenues of $7.43 billion.

Ciena (CIEN 23.97, -2.20 -8.41%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.26 and $621.5 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees revenues in-line at $680-710 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: VNET RATE CMTL KEYW NCIT SMTC TTEC XTLY/ACTA CRCM INAP SSYS TSL

Analyst actions:

SWKS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho,
MANT was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Maxim Group,
ORBK was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research,
BT was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Macquarie;
NMBL was downgraded at Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Susquehanna and Pacific Crest,
BT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
VOD was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie;
SWKS was initiated with an Outperform at Wells Fargo,
QRVO was initiated with a Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
SPLK was initiated with a Buy at Rosenblatt,
AUXO was initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co.

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From Briefing.com: 4:05 pm Finisar misses by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (FNSR) : Reports Q3 (Jan) earnings of $0.59 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.62; revenues rose 23.1% year/year to $380.6 mln vs the $389.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.50-0.56 vs. $0.58 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $360-380 mln vs. $393.09 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate

Finisar has not provided a reconciliation of its fourth quarter outlook for non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating margin and non-GAAP earnings per fully diluted share because estimates of all of the reconciling items cannot be provided without unreasonable efforts. It is difficult to reasonably provide a forward-looking estimate of certain reconciling items between such non-GAAP forward-looking measures and the comparable forward-looking GAAP measures.

Certain factors that are materially significant to Finisar's ability to estimate these items are out of its control and/or cannot be reasonably predicted, including with respect to restructuring charges, litigation settlements and resolutions and related costs, and the timing of tax related adjustments. Accordingly, a reconciliation of such non-GAAP forward-looking measures to the comparable forward-looking GAAP measures are not available within a reasonable range of predictability.

4:24 pm Closing Market Summary: Energy Shakes Off Crude Oil's Decline to Lead Stocks Higher on Thursday (:WRAPX) :

The bulls and the bears slugged it out on Thursday until the energy sector (+0.6%) gave the bulls a slight edge in the final stretch. The S&P 500 finished with a slim 0.1% gain while the Nasdaq and the Dow closed flat. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 underperformed, posting a loss of 0.4%.

Crude oil followed up its 5.3% Wednesday plunge with another disappointing performance on Thursday as investors continued to digest yesterday's bearish EIA reading. The energy component closed its trading day 2.1% lower at $49.24/bbl, but regained a good portion of that loss in electronic trade. The energy sector appreciated the belated effort, leading the late afternoon rally and finishing near the top of the day's leaderboard after holding the bottom spot for much of Thursday's action.

One of the reasons energy stocks rebounded so sharply in the afternoon session is that few people expected it given the continued drop in oil prices. The weakness in crude oil likely spurred some participants to short the energy stocks, so when they started to exhibit relative strength, weak-handed short sellers likely got nervous, covered their positions, and effectively aided in the sector's recovery effort.

Outside of the energy world, the European Central Bank (:ECB) captured investors' attention for a while this morning with its latest policy decision to leave rates unchanged. More notably, the ECB raised its 2017 GDP forecast to 1.8% from 1.7%, but did not suggest an impending reduction to stimulus. This gave a boost to the euro, helping the currency climb 0.4% against the dollar to 1.0587.

Back in the U.S., the health care sector (+0.6%) finished with the energy group at the top of the day's leaderboard. Similarly, the financial (+0.3%), consumer staples (+0.2%), and telecom services (+0.4%) sectors also outperformed the broader market.

The financial sector held the top spot on the day's leaderboard going into afternoon action, but comments from White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer were met with some backtracking in bank stocks. During today's press briefing, Mr. Spicer said that President Donald Trump remains committed to restoring the Glass-Steagall Act.

On the flip side, the lightly-weighted real estate group (-1.3%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings while the industrials (-0.5%) and materials (-0.4%) groups also finished solidly lower.

The consumer discretionary space (unch) closed just below the broader market as retailers pushed the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.83, -0.54) lower by 1.3%. Despite its small market cap, Tailored Brands (TLRD 15.84, -7.53), the parent company of Men's Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank, contributed to the bearish sentiment among retailers after the company missed top and bottom line estimates and issued downbeat guidance. TLRD shares sank 32.2%.

In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt finished Thursday's session lower as investors eyed tomorrow's Employment Situation Report, which is regarded as the last potential barrier to a March rate hike. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished four basis points higher at 2.60%.

Today's economic data included February Export/Import Prices and Initial Claims:

Import prices excluding oil rose 0.3% in February after ticking down 0.1% in January (revised from -0.2%). Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.3% in February after rising 0.2% in January (revised from +0.1%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it won't alter the market's newfound belief that the Fed is likely to raise the target range for the fed funds rate at its March meeting since there are evident signs of increasing inflation in the year-over-year readings for both import and export prices.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 243,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 223,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.058 million from the revised count of 2.064 million (from 2.066 million).
Despite the jump in initial claims, which was not influenced by any special factors, the key takeaway from the report is that there was no discernible change in the long-term trend in initial claims, which held below 300,000 for the 105th straight week.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the Employment Situation Report for February (Briefing.com consensus 188,000), which will be released tomorrow at 8:30 ET while the February Treasury Budget will follow at 14:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +8.5% YTD
S&P 500 +5.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.2% YTD

After a modestly higher start on Thursday, the broader market gradually fell off, tapping lows just after midday and ultimately finishing just above flat lines in a surge into the close. The eventual gains were led by the Nasdaq Composite which added a clean 10 points (+0.17%) to 5847.55. The S&P 500 was up 1.89 points (+0.08%) to 2364.87 at the close, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.46 points (+0.01%) to 20858.19.

Today's economic data included import prices, which excluding oil rose 0.3% in February after ticking down 0.1% in January (revised from -0.2%). Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.3% in February after rising 0.2% in January (revised from +0.1%). The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 243,000, above the unrevised prior week count of 223,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.058 million from the revised count of 2.064 million (from 2.066 million).

Hovering around flat lines for the majority of Thursday, the Technology (XLK 52.83, -0.01 -0.02%) space eventually ended modestly lower. Among the worst performers today were STX -2.97%, WDC -2.86%, IBM -1.26%, CTXS -1.11%, ACN -1.03%, MU -0.91%, WU -0.81%, XRX -0.81%, CSRA -0.77%. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed Thursday XLE +0.66%, XLV +0.54%, IYZ +0.44%, XLF +0.36%, XLP +0.16%, XLY -0.09%, XLU -0.22%, XLB -0.31%, XLI -0.46%, XLRE -1.28%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (892.96, -0.52 -0.06%) space, trading also closed slightly lower. Components GPN -0.75%, INTU -0.67%, HPE -0.66%, RHT -0.60%, FSLR -0.55%, EBAY -0.42%, NTAP -0.40%, MSFT -0.40% were among the worst performers.

Other notable news items among sector components:
KEYW Holding (KEYW 8.97, -0.16 -1.75%) acquired Sotera Defense Solutions in an all-cash transaction valued at about $235 million inclusive of an expected $46 million net present value of acquired tax benefits. The deal is also expected to be immediately accretive to 2017 adj. EPS, and significantly accretive to 2018 GAAP EPS.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise's (HPE 22.48, -0.14 -0.62%) pending sale of its software business to Micro Focus was cleared by the EU.

Nokia (NOK 5.27, +0.09 +1.83%) renewed its managed services agreement with Chorus, New Zealand's largest telecommunications infrastructure company, for a further three years.

Commvault (CVLT 48.50, -1.05 -2.12%) announced the integration of its Commvault Data Platform and IntelliSnap technology for FlashStack, a flexible, converged infrastructure solution offered jointly by Cisco (CSCO 34.07, +0.05 +0.15%) and Pure Storage (PSTG 10.10, -0.18 -1.75%), combining the latest in compute, network, and storage hardware into a single, integrated architecture.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Semtech (SMTC 34.05, -0.25 -0.73%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.37 and $140 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of expectations at $0.39-0.43 and $142-150 million, respectively.

TeleTech (TTEC 29.45, -1.25 -4.07%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.42 on better than expected revenues of $344.9 million.

KEYW Holding (KEYW) reported worse than expected GAAP EPS of $0.08 on worse than expected revenues of $68.9 million. For FY17, the company sees revenues in-line at $300-320 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: ABTL, FNSR, MGI, QADA, PAY

Analyst actions:

TECD was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
ERIC was upgraded to Buy from Sell at Goldman,
HIMX was upgraded to Buy at Mizuho,
TEF was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank;
VRTU was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Maxim Group,
TVPT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS;
SNAP was initiated with a Sector Perform at FBN Securities,
MRCY was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
ITRI was initiated with a Mkt Outperform at JMP Securities

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From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm Closing Market Summary: Minimal Movement on Monday (:WRAPX) :

A belated winter storm stirred up an extreme case of the Mondays as investors left the major averages largely unchanged to start the week. The S&P 500 finished the session relatively flat while the Nasdaq (+0.2%) and the Dow (-0.1%) closed on opposite sides of the benchmark index.

Monday's session was range-bound throughout as sectors failed to deviate from their respective flat lines; all eleven closed the day within 0.3% of their unchanged marks.

The energy sector (unch) closed just above its flat line following crude oil's fifth consecutive retreat. However, today's loss for the energy component was relatively small (0.2%), especially in light of the commodity's 8.8% plunge in the latter half of last week, which was in response to a bearish EIA inventory report. WTI crude finished Monday trading at $48.40/bbl.

Chipmakers started the week on a positive note, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 0.8%, following Intel's (INTC 35.16, -0.75) acquisition of Mobileye (MBLY 60.62, +13.35), an Israeli autonomous driving software company. INTC agreed to pay $15.3 billion, or $63.54 per share, in cash for Mobileye, which represents a 34.0% premium over MBLY's closing price on Friday.

The technology sector (+0.1%) profited from the chipmakers' solid performance, finishing the day with the financials (+0.1%), consumer discretionary (+0.2%), materials (+0.3%), utilities (+0.2%), telecom services (+0.2%), and real estate (unch) groups in the green. The remaining sectors--industrials (-0.1%), health care (-0.2%), and consumer staples (-0.1%)--closed with modest losses.

Tomorrow will mark the start of the two-day Federal Open Market Committee (:FOMC) meeting. It's pretty much a given that the Fed will announce a rate hike in its official decision, but the timing of the announcement may be up in the air considering the impending winter storm that is projected to dump eight to twelve inches of snow on Washington D.C. and a foot, or more, on New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia.

The rate hike decision is currently scheduled for 2:00 pm ET on Wednesday, and with no communication from the Fed to indicate otherwise, that is the time investors are still anticipating.

However, regardless of timing, the real focus will be on the Fed's updated rate projections for 2017 and beyond. In its latest set of projections, the Fed forecast three rate hikes in 2017.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. On Tuesday, February PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) will cross the wires at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +9.2% YTD
S&P 500 +6.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD

After a slow start, the major averages ended Monday split. The Nasdaq Composite was the best performer, up 14.06 points (+0.24%) to 5875.78. The S&P 500 was also on the favorable side of flat lines, albeit up less than a point (+0.04%) to 2373.47, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the lone laggard, shedding 21.50 points (-0.10%) to 20881.48.

Modestly higher today, the Technology (XLK 53.16, +0.05 +0.09%) space finished slightly off highs. Component Intel (INTC 35.16, -0.75 -2.09%) underperformed today following an announcement that the company would purchase Mobileye N.V. (MBLY 60.62, +13.35 +28.24%) for $63.54 per share in cash. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed xxx.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (898.61, +1.04 +0.12%) space, trading closed above flat lines as back and forth action all session eventually ended on a positive note. Component Citrix Systems (CTXS 84.93, +5.40 +6.79%) got some higher ticks going into the close on vague, unsubstantiated M&A chatter. Other names in the space which closed higher today included NVDA +2.75%, SYMC +2.40%, MU +2.05%, LRCX +1.49%, CSRA +1.37%, FSLR +1.34%, YHOO +1.28%, APH +1.19%, EA +1.02%, VRSN +1.01%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Mobileye N.V. (MBLY) confirmed it has agreed to be acquired by Intel (INTC) for $63.54 per share in cash, or about $15.3 billion.

Snap (SNAP 21.09, -0.98 -4.44%) shares were active today following a Re/Code report which detailed the hiring of a former Apple (AAPL 139.20, +0.06 +0.04%) employee who worked on Apple's News app, to improve the Discover section of Snapchat's mobile app.

According to MacRumors, Apple (AAPL) is expected to unveil select new products next week, including iPads.

Symantec (SYMC 30.75, +0.72 +2.40%) entered into accelerated stock repurchase agreements with financial institutions to repurchase an aggregate of $500 million of common stock.

Pandora Media (P 12.38, +0.25 +2.06%) to launch on-demand streaming tier Pandora Premium this week.

Sphere 3D (ANY 0.28, +0.01 +1.79%) guided Q4 revenues worse than market expectations; sees Q4 revenues of $18.7 million. The company is assessing strategic alternatives.

Parkervision (PRKR 2.22, -0.42 -15.91%) announced the filing of a motion to terminate the ITC investigation following ruling to disallow key evidence.

NCR Corp (NCR 43.29, -5.18 -10.69%) entered into an agreement with Blackstone (BX 30.35, +1.41 +4.87%), under which Blackstone is granted an early release from its lockup to sell a portion of its holdings to allow it to recoup its investment. The company also increased its FY17 adj. EPS guidance, reaffirmed its Q1 adj. EPS guidance and increased the 2017 share repurchase plan to about $350 million from the previous $300 million.

Analyst actions:

IT was upgraded to Top Pick from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
FNSR was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
EQIX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
MRVL and ENTG were upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham;
MBLY was downgraded to Sell at Dougherty and to Market Perform at William Blair,
INTC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies,
SSNI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Williams Capital Group;
ETFC was initiated with a Buy at UBS

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From Briefing.com: 4:17 pm Closing Market Summary: Oil Influences Stocks Lower on Tuesday (:WRAPX) :

Crude oil was a persuasive force in the stock market on Tuesday, leading the major averages into negative territory after OPEC's latest Monthly Oil Market Report (:MOMR) showed some concerning production figures out of Saudi Arabia. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq lost 0.3% apiece while the Dow (-0.2%) held up modestly better.

The energy sector (-1.1%) closed at the bottom of the day's leaderboard as WTI crude suffered from a wave of selling pressure in response to an increase in production out of Saudi Arabia in the month of February. However, Saudi officials did make follow-up comments to the report, saying that the uptick in production went into domestic storage, not international markets. The claim helped the energy component regain some of its early loss in the afternoon session, but WTI crude still closed the day lower by 1.5% at $47.69/bbl.

Finishing near the energy sector, the industrials (-0.9%) and materials (-0.8%) groups struggled to keep pace with the broader market as political uncertainty regarding President Trump's proposed budget, which is expected to include $1 trillion for infrastructure spending, looms in Washington.

Elsewhere in the nation's capitol, House Republicans' proposed replacement of the Affordable Care Act was being met with increased resistance after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its research report on Monday evening. Details of the report aside, it is clear that passing the bill may prove to be challenging for GOP leaders, which could delay the tax reform that investors have been counting on. Despite all the noise, the health care sector (-0.3%) finished in line with the broader market.

At the top of the day's leaderboard was the consumer discretionary space (unch) with retailers representing a pocket of strength; the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.91, +0.03) finished the day higher by 0.1%. The rate-sensitive utilities (-0.1%) and real estate (-0.2%) groups also outperformed as increased buying interest in the Treasury market left interest rates lower. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed three basis points lower at 2.59%.

The start of the week has been slow but investors will need to have their heads on a swivel tomorrow as they will be hit with a slew of economic reports, the latest EIA crude oil inventory report, and, most notably, the FOMC's official rate decision.

Today's lone economic report, February PPI, came in hotter than expected:

February producer prices increased 0.3%, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of 0.1%. Core producer prices increased 0.3% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that inflation at the producer level is picking up and is feeding concerns about a potential pass-through effect to consumers.
The key takeaway from the report is that inflation at the producer level is picking up and is feeding concerns about a potential pass-through effect to consumers.

Tomorrow's economic data will include the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, February CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), February Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), and March Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 14.5) at 8:30 ET, January Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and March NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 65) at 10:00 ET, and the FOMC Rate Decision at 14:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +8.8% YTD
S&P 500 +5.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.4% YTD

4:14 pm Rubicon Project beats by $0.22, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (RUBI) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.37 per share, $0.22 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.15; revenues fell 20.1% year/year to $66.9 mln vs the $63.6 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Adjusted EBITDA was $21.7 million, compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $36.0 million for 4Q15.
Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ($0.26)-($0.22) vs. $0.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $41-$44 mln vs. $57.30 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm NeoPhotonics beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q1 below consensus (NPTN) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.08; revenues rose 23.2% year/year to $109.84 mln vs the $106.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Non-GAAP Gross margin was 29.9%, down from 32.4% in the fourth quarter of 2015, and up from 27.6% in the prior quarter
Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ($0.30-0.20), may not be comparable to $0.05 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $67-73 mln vs. $98.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Semi Manufacturing executes a technology transfer and license agreement for Invensas' (XPER) Direct Bond Interconnect technology (SMI) : Through this agreement, SMIC will be able to offer this bonding technology for use by image sensor manufacturing customers. Invensas is a wholly owned subsidiary of Xperi Corporation (XPER)

Out of the gate, the major averages were soft on Tuesday. Ending with the worst losses, the S&P 500 shed about 8.02 points (-0.34%) today to close 2365.45. The Nasdaq Composite wasn't far behind, losing about 18.97 points (-0.32%) to 5856.82, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed about 44.11 points (-0.21%) lower to 20837.37.

In the nation's capital, today marked the start of the two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting. As long as Winter Storm Stella cooperates, the Fed will make its rate hike decision on Wednesday afternoon. However, considering it's pretty much a given the U.S. central bank will vote to tighten monetary policy, investors will be more interested in the Fed's updated rate projections for 2017 and beyond.

Spending the entirety of Tuesday below flat lines, the Technology (XLK 53.04, -0.12 -0.23%) space ended modestly off lows. Components WU +3.52%, MSI +2.07%, ADI +1.11%, JNPR +0.61%, ORCL +0.49% bucked today's overall trend, ending in the green. The worst performing S&P sector today was Energy XLE -1.14%, followed by IYZ -0.92%, XLI -0.90%, XLB -0.86%, XLV -0.37%, XLF -0.28%, XLP -0.27%, XLRE -0.13%, XLU -0.10%, XLY -0.02%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (896.32, -2.29 -0.25%) space, trading ended off lows after being pressured all day. Component Citrix Systems (CTXS 82.02, -2.91 -3.43%) was the worst performer today, following a spike yesterday, on a report that the company may explore a possible sale. Other names in the space which closed lower today included GLW -3.10% FSLR -2.33% STX -1.83% AKAM -1.49% PYPL -1.15% TSS -1.13% MA -0.93% AVGO -0.93% ADS -0.92% ADSK -0.90%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Euronet (EEFT 83.22, +0.26 +0.31%) made a proposal to acquire all shares outstanding of MoneyGram (MGI 15.77, +3.11 +24.57%) for $15.20 in cash for each share of MGI Common Stock and MGI Preferred Stock on an as-converted basis, valuing the company at more than $1 billion, in addition to the assumption of about $940 million of MGI's debt outstanding.

Cognizant (CTSH 59.16, -0.09 -0.15%) entered into accelerated share repurchase agreements with Barclays Bank PLC, Citibank N.A., and UBS AG, London Branch to repurchase an aggregate of $1.5 billion of Cognizant's Class A common stock.

Citrix Systems (CTXS) shares were weak today following a Bloomberg article which highlighted the company may be considering a possible sale.

ON Semiconductor (ON 15.35, +0.04 +0.26%) to offer $500 million convertible senior notes due 2023 in a private offering.

DragonWave (DRWI 1.90, +0.75 +65.22%) signed a new Master Sales and Services Agreement with Ingram Micro Australia.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Coupa Software (COUP 23.89, -3.17 -11.71%) reported a better than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.05 on better than expected revenues which grew about 44.2% to $38.02 million. Further, the company guided Q1 EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at ($0.17)-($0.12) and $38.0-38.5 million, respectively. For FY18, the company also guided ahead of market expectations with EPS in the range of ($0.58)-($0.53) and revenues between $167-170 million.

Phoenix New Media Limited (FENG 3.66, -0.02 -0.54%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.08 on revenues of $59.32 million. For Q1, the company expects its total revenues to be between RMB285 million and RMB300 million. Net advertising revenues are expected to be between RMB239 million and RMB249 million, and paid service revenues are expected to be between RMB46 million and RMB51 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: CNXR, EVRI, NPTN, RST, RUBI

Analyst actions:

ARRS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman;
MBLY was downgraded at Jefferies, Wells Fargo, RBC Capital Mkts, Raymond James, SunTrust and Needham,
GLW was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
HLIT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton;
ELLI was initiated with a Neutral at Wedbush,
BKFS was initiated with an Outperform at Wedbush,
HQY was initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer,
IMPV was initiated with a Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
CHKP was initiated with a Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt

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From Briefing.com: 4:05 pm Oracle beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line; raises dividend 27% (ORCL) :Reports Q3 (Feb) earnings of $0.69 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.62; revenues rose 2.9% year/year to $9.27 bln vs the $9.25 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Cloud software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) revenues were $1.0 billion, up 73% in U.S. dollars and up 74% in constant currency.

Non-GAAP SaaS and PaaS revenues were $1.1 billion, up 85% in U.S. dollars and up 86% in constant currency. Total Cloud Revenues, including infrastructure as a service (IaaS), were $1.2 billion, up 62% in U.S. dollars and up 63% in constant currency. Total Cloud and On-Premise Software Revenues were $7.4 billion, up 4% in U.S. dollars and up 5% in constant currency.

"Our new, large, fast growing, high-margin cloud businesses are driving Oracle's total revenue and earnings up and improving nearly every important non-GAAP business metric you care to inspect; total revenue is up, margins are up, operating income is up, net income is up, EPS is up. Take a look. Q3 was a very strong quarter."

"Over the last year, we sold more new SaaS and PaaS than Salesforce.com [CRM], and we're growing more than 3 times faster," said Oracle CEO, Mark Hurd. "If these trends continue, where we are selling more SaaS and PaaS in absolute dollars AND growing dramatically faster, it's just a matter of when we catch and pass Salesforce.com in total cloud revenue."

"Both our SaaS and PaaS businesses are doing great, but I'm even more excited about our second generation IaaS business," said Oracle Chairman and CTO, Larry Ellison. "Our new Gen2 IaaS is both faster and lower cost than Amazon Web Services. And now our biggest customers can run their largest and most demanding Oracle database workloads in the Oracle Cloud -- something that is absolutely impossible to do in the Amazon Cloud."

Oracle announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.19 per share of outstanding common stock, reflecting a 27% increase over the current quarterly dividend of $0.15.

4:04 pm Jabil Circuit beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 (May) EPS in-line, revs in-line (JBL) :

Reports Q2 (Feb) earnings of $0.48 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.46.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3 (May), sees EPS of 0.16-0.39 vs. $0.28 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 (May) revs of 4.25-4.55 vs. $4.38 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Jabil's focus remains on our commitment to return capital to shareholders, our multi-year financial objectives and the goal of becoming the world's most advanced manufacturing solutions company,"

4:17 pm Closing Market Summary: Fed Hikes Rates, Stocks Move Higher (:WRAPX) :

As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to raise the fed funds target range by 25 basis points to 0.75%-1.00% on Wednesday. More notably, the Fed still believes that three rate hikes are appropriate for 2017, relieving investors' fears that the central bank could begin setting the groundwork for a fourth hike. The major averages started the day in the green thanks to a bullish sentiment in the crude oil market and climbed to new session highs in the afternoon following the FOMC decision. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq finished higher by 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively, while the Dow (+0.5%) struggled to keep pace with its peers. Also of note, small-caps surged on Wednesday with the Russell 2000 jumping 1.6%.

U.S. Treasuries spiked across the board in the wake of the FOMC's decision to tighten monetary policy. The benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, finished ten basis points lower at 2.51%. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield, which is more vulnerable to short-term interest rate hikes, lost seven basis points to finish at 1.31%.

In the same breath, the U.S. Dollar Index (100.69, -0.93) plunged 0.9% lower, ultimately aiding crude oil in its already solid performance.

Crude oil set today's bullish tone in pre-market action after the API reported encouraging inventory data on Tuesday evening. The EIA validated those positive numbers this morning, showing a draw of 200,000 barrels (+3.7 million barrels consensus). The reading prompted WTI crude to finish the day 2.1% higher at $48.71/bbl.

As one might expect, the energy sector (+2.1%) rode the commodity's performance to the top spot on today's leaderboard. The rate-sensitive utilities (+1.6%) and real estate (+1.9%) spaces closed in the same neighborhood as the energy sector, profiting from the slip in interest rates within the Treasury market, while the financial group (-0.1%) reacted in opposite fashion as the decline in yields weighed.

Meanwhile, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.6%) underperformed as semiconductor giant Intel (INTC 35.10, -0.08) continued to see weakness in the wake of its acquisition of Mobileye (MBLY 60.77, -0.19), which was announced on Monday. The two names lost 0.2% and 0.3% on the day, respectively.

Like technology, the consumer discretionary group (+0.5%) also struggled as large-cap names like Amazon (AMZN 852.97, +0.44), Walt Disney (DIS 111.87, -0.44), McDonald's (MCD 127.88, +0.08), and Target (TGT 54.57, -0.18) underperformed, among others.

Wednesday saw a slew of economic data, including February CPI, February Retail Sales, March Empire Manufacturing, March NAHB Housing Market Index, January Business Inventories, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, but it was largely overshadowed by the Fed's rate decision:

Total CPI rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) in February while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.7% and core CPI has increased 2.2%.

The key takeaway from the report is that consumer inflation is certainly firming and offering a data-based rationale for the Fed to move on rates.

The key takeaway from the report is that consumer inflation is certainly firming and offering a data-based rationale for the Fed to move on rates.February retail sales increased 0.1%, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.6% from 0.4%. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.2% while the consensus expected an uptick of 0.1%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 1.2% from 0.8%.

The key takeaway from the February report is that retail sales activity didn't necessarily corroborate the high readings seen for consumer confidence, exposing some of the disconnect between "soft" survey data and the "hard" data.

The key takeaway from the February report is that retail sales activity didn't necessarily corroborate the high readings seen for consumer confidence, exposing some of the disconnect between "soft" survey data and the "hard" data.The Empire Manufacturing Survey for March rose to 16.4 from the prior month's reading of 18.7. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 14.5.The NAHB Housing Market Index for March rose to 71 (Briefing.com consensus 65) from an unrevised reading of 65 in February.Business Inventories rose 0.3% in January, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at 0.4%.

The key takeaway from the report is that the inventory-to-sales ratio is at its lowest point since December 2014. That's elevated from pre-financial crisis levels, when it was below 1.30, yet a further downtrend could restore some much needed pricing power.

The key takeaway from the report is that the inventory-to-sales ratio is at its lowest point since December 2014. That's elevated from pre-financial crisis levels, when it was below 1.30, yet a further downtrend could restore some much needed pricing power.The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 3.1% to follow last week's 3.3% uptick.Tomorrow's economic data will include February Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.260 million), Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 242,000), and March Philadelphia Fed (Briefing.com consensus 25.0) at 8:30 ET, while January JOLTS will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.6% YTD
S&P 500 +6.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.0% YTD

Finishing with some impressive gains, the S&P 500 led the three major averages higher today after the FOMC decided to raise rates 25 basis points at its March meeting, as was widely expected. To that end, the S&P closed up 19.81 points (+0.84%) to 2385.26. The Nasdaq Composite added 43.23 points (+0.74%) to 5900.05, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 112.73 points (+0.54%) to 20950.10.

Further, economic data came today in the form of the Total CPI reading, which showed a rise of 0.1% in February while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2%. On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.7% and core CPI has increased 2.2%. Also, February retail sales were up 0.1%, while the prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.6% from 0.4%. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.2% while the consensus expected an uptick of 0.1%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 1.2% from 0.8%. The Empire Manufacturing Survey for March rose to 16.4 from the prior month's reading of 18.7. Additionally, the NAHB Housing Market Index for March rose to 71 from an unrevised reading of 65 in February. Business Inventories rose 0.3% in January, and the prior month's reading was left unrevised at 0.4%. Lastly, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 3.1% to follow last week's 3.3% uptick.

Action in the Technology (XLK 53.40, +0.36 +0.68%) was influenced by the Fed's rate decision, taking to highs after the announcement. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 102.55, +0.77 +0.76%) was modestly higher after announcing a deal with Bosch to develop self-driving systems. The Energy space XLE +2.21% again outperformed all other S&P sectors, followed by XLRE +1.92%, XLU +1.61%, XLB +1.60%, IYZ +1.45%, XLV +1.22%, XLI +1.14%, XLP +0.75%, XLY +0.53%, XLF -0.16%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (901.71, +5.39 +0.60%) space, trading closed just under highs of the day, but eclipsed the 900-level for the first time ever. Components MSI +2.26%, MU +2.11%, HPE +2.07%, AMAT +1.70%, QRVO +1.62%, LRCX +1.49%, GLW +1.42%, MA +1.38%, WDC +1.35%, APH +1.28%, AKAM +1.19% performed the best today.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Bosch announced it is working with NVIDIA (NVDA) to develop artificial intelligence self-driving systems for mass market cars.

Verizon (VZ 50.14, +0.78 +1.58%) and CBS Corporation (CBS 68.18, +0.17 +0.25%) have announced a new multiyear content carriage agreement that includes continued retransmission consent of CBS-owned television stations, including CBS-owned The CW affiliates, in multiple markets across the country.

Twitter (TWTR 15.03, -0.29 -1.89%): Early investor and long-time advocate Chris Sacca in series of tweets said no longer a shareholder, 'love the service, hate the stock'.
In addition to reporting quarterly results, Rubicon Project (RUBI 6.06, -2.33 -27.77%) appointed Michael Barrett as CEO.

Alliance Data (ADS 245.55, +0.02 +0.01%) provided an update on its Card Services segment for February. The company also reaffirmed the net loss rate is consistent with maintaining the company's full year guidance of $7.7 billion in total revenue, $18.50 in core EPS, and a net loss rate in a mid-5% range.
The European Commission approved AT&T's (T 42.59, +0.50 +1.19%) pending acquisition of Time Warner (TWX 98.74, +0.38 +0.39%); companies expect to close the transaction by the end of 2017.

Accenture (ACN 124.80, +0.89 +0.72%) announced an expansion of its capabilities in Oregon, including a new office that is now home to 100 Accenture employees who work with clients in Washington County.

Cognizant (CTSH 59.26, +0.10 +0.17%) announced that the United Kingdom's Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has selected Cognizant as its technology partner to help FSCS enhance customer experience using digital technologies.

In reaction to quarterly results:

NeoPhotonics (NPTN 9.55, +1.47 +18.19%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.13 and $109.84 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees EPS and revenues worse than expectations at ($0.30)-($0.20) and $67-73 million, respectively.

Rubicon Project (RUBI) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.37 and $66.9 million, respectively. However, Q1 EPS and revenue guidance was below market expectations at ($0.26)-($0.22) and $41-44 million, respectively.

Everi (EVRI 3.84, +0.60 +18.52%) reported a Q4 GAAP loss of $3.29 per share on revenues of $217.5 million. For FY17, the company expects to report revenue and adj EBITDA growth with adj EBITDA currently expected to be between $204 million and $209 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ALRM, GSUM, JBL, CALL, ORCL, YRD/JASO

Analyst actions:

NFLX was upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies,
FNSR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies,
EVRI was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Telsey Advisory Group and to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum,
A was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
QRVO was upgraded to Buy from Mkt Perform at Charter Equity;
INTC was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
WBMD was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen,
CGNX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
MBLY was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman and to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays, RUBI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co. and to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
CTXS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill;
SNAP was initiated with an Underweight at Cantor Fitzgerald,
CLRO was initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co.

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From Briefing.com: 4:18 pm Adobe Systems beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (ADBE) :

Reports Q1 (Feb) earnings of $0.94 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.87; revenues rose 21.6% year/year to $1.68 bln vs the $1.65 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Digital Media segment revenue was $1.14 billion, with record Creative revenue growing to $942 million. Strong Creative Cloud and Document Cloud adoption and retention drove Digital Media Annualized Recurring Revenue ("ARR") to $4.25 billion exiting the quarter, a quarter-over-quarter increase of $265 million. Adobe Marketing Cloud achieved record revenue of $477 million.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.94, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.91 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $1.73 bln vs. $1.72 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. "We expect to achieve ~$290 million of net new Digital Media ARR in Q2 -- which represents both sequential and year-over-year growth in net new ARR achievement. We expect Digital Media Q2 segment year-over-year revenue growth of ~24%, and Adobe Marketing Cloud year-overyear revenue growth of ~26%.

4:07 pm Rubicon Tech appoints director Timothy E. Brog as CEO to replace Bill Weissman, who has resigned as CEO and President effective March 17, 2017 (RBCN) :

4:04 pm Vivint Solar beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q1, FY17 installation and costs (VSLR) :

Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $0.41 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.43); revenues rose 161.2% year/year to $41.8 mln vs the $41.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus. MW Booked of ~57 MWs for the quarter. MW Installed of ~47 MWs. Total cumulative MWs installed were ~681 MWs. Installations were 6,460 for the quarter. Cumulative installations were 99,598.

Cost per Watt was $3.08, an increase from the third quarter of 2016 and down from $3.12 in the fourth quarter of 2015.

For the first quarter of 2017, expect: MW Installed: 43 to 46 MWs; Cost per Watt: $ 2.95 - $ 3.05.
For the full year 2017, expect: MW Installed: 210 - 230 MWs; Cost per Watt: $ 2.82 - $ 2.94

4:27 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Stall on Thursday (:WRAPX) :

Wednesday's bullish momentum lingered at the opening bell on Thursday, but the energy faded fast as investors came up short on reasons to extend the stock market's record high level. The S&P 500 and the Dow closed with losses of 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively, while the Nasdaq finished flat.

News from Washington did little to encourage the notion that tax reform will be a quick and easy process; President Trump's proposed budget was met with resistance and three House Republicans voted against the GOP health care bill in a committee vote, casting doubt on the legislation's chances on the floor of the House.

Crude oil also played into the cautious tone as the energy component failed to sustain yesterday's positive momentum, squandering a solid pre-market gain. WTI crude finished the day just above its flat line at $48.75/bbl while the energy sector (-0.6%) closed solidly lower.

Biotechnology names weighed on the health care space (-0.9%) after Biogen (BIIB 278.96, -13.68) shares were downgraded at both Morgan Stanley and Leerink Partners on Thursday morning. The company lost 4.7% while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 298.61, -3.78) tumbled 1.2%.

The rate-sensitive utilities sector (1.1%) fell all the way to the bottom of the day's leaderboard as selling pressure in the Treasury market left yields modestly higher; the benchmark 10-yr yield increased by four basis points to 2.54%.

Most of the remaining sectors finished lower, including industrials (-0.4%), materials (-0.6%), telecom services (-0.3%), and real estate (-0.3%). However, the financials and technology sectors, which together comprise around 35.0% of the broader market, offset most of the negative influence with gains of 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively.

The technology sector centered its advance around Oracle's (ORCL 45.73, +2.68) latest earnings report in which the company reported better than expected earnings, issued upbeat guidance, and increased its dividend. On the other hand, the financial sector's uptick was likely a belated response to yesterday's rate hike. Since the FOMC announcement, investors heard from the Bank of Japan, Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of England. All three held pat, underscoring the Fed's hawkish tilt when compared to other central banks.

The consumer discretionary (+0.1%) and consumer staples (+0.1%) sectors also performed relatively well, finishing just above their flat lines as retailers showed strength; the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 42.43, +0.13) closed higher by 0.3%. Homebuilders also helped the consumer discretionary sector, evidenced by the 1.9% increase in the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 32.52, +0.59). The strength followed the release of the February Housing Starts report, which came in roughly as expected.

In addition to Housing Starts, Thursday also saw Initial Claims, March Philadelphia Fed, and January JOLTS:

Housing starts increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.288 million units in February, up from a revised 1.251 million units in January (from 1.246 million). The Briefing.com consensus expected starts to increase to 1.260 million units. Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.213 million in February from a revised 1.293 million (from 1.285 million) for January. The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.251 million.

The key takeaway from the report is that there was strength in the single-family sector for both starts and permits. Single-family starts increased 6.5% to 872,000 while single-family permits increased 3.1% to 832,000.

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 241,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 242,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 243,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.030 million from the revised count of 2.060 million (from 2.058 million). The key takeaway from this report is that initial claims continue to run at low levels that point to the likelihood of healthy nonfarm payroll gains in the Employment Situation Report for March. The Philadelphia Fed Survey for March declined to 32.8 from an unrevised 43.3 in February while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 25.0. The key takeaway from the report is that the index has increased for eight consecutive months and remains comfortably above the 0.0 dividing line between expansion and contraction.
The January Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.626 million from a revised 5.539 million (from 5.501 million) in December.
On Friday, investors will receive February Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) at 9:15 ET, while February Leading Indicators (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) and the University of Michigan Sentiment Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 96.8) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.6% YTD
S&P 500 +6.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.1% YTD

Despite getting out of the gate modestly higher, the broader market turned lower about an hour into the session and never came back. The S&P 500 was the worst performer today, shedding 3.88 points (-0.16%) to 2381.38. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 15.55 points (-0.07%) to 20934.55, while the Nasdaq Composite managed to post slight gains (+0.01%) to 5900.76.

Economic data today included housing starts which increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.288 million units in February, up from a revised 1.251 million units in January (from 1.246 million). Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.213 million in February from a revised 1.293 million (from 1.285 million) for January. The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 241,000, below the unrevised prior week count of 243,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.030 million from the revised count of 2.060 million (from 2.058 million). The Philadelphia Fed Survey for March declined to 32.8 from an unrevised 43.3 in February. The January Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.626 million from a revised 5.539 million (from 5.501 million) in December.

Ending Thursday just barely on this side of flat lines, the Technology (XLK 53.43, +0.03 +0.06) space closed with modest gains. Component Oracle (ORCL 45.73, +2.68 +6.23%) finished the session as the best performer in the space following better than expected Q3 earnings. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed IYZ +0.55%, XLF +0.28%, XLP +0.14%, XLY +0.00%, XLRE -0.22%, XLI -0.42%, XLB -0.68%, XLE -0.71%, XLV -0.94%, XLU -1.10%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (903.80, +2.09 +0.23%) space, trading held morning gains through the session. Component Lam Research (LRCX 125.97, +1.80 1.45%) put in a strong session following a premarket upgrade of the stock at Pacific Crest. Other names in the space which closed higher today included XRX +1.65%, GPN +1.23%, NVDA +1.23%, RHT +1.00%, FFIV +0.91%, IBM +0.81%, JNPR +0.78%, YHOO +0.69%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

GoPro, Inc. (GPRO 8.51, +1.16 +15.78%) affirmed Q1 revenue to be in the upper end of its previously announced $190-210 million range and repeated its target of full-year non-GAAP profitability. The company also announced a restructuring that reduces full-year GAAP operating expenses to below $585 million and non-GAAP operating expenses to below $495 million without impacting the Company's roadmap for new hardware and software products. The reduction in operating expenses will be achieved with a combination of cuts to program costs, headcount and open positions, totaling the elimination of about 270 positions. GPRO therefore estimates that it will incur total aggregate charges of up to $10 million for the restructuring, which are primarily cash expenditures related to severance costs. The company expects to recognize the restructuring charges in Q1.

NVIDIA (NVDA103.81, +1.26 +1.23%) and PACCAR (PCAR 68.89, +0.02 +0.03%) announced a partnership to develop autonomous vehicle solutions.
On top of quarterly results, Oracle (ORCL) increased its quarterly dividend rate to $0.19 from $0.15 per share.

Agilent (A 53.05, -1.05 -1.94%) appointed Koh Boon Hwee as Chairman effective today.

First Data (FDC 16.15, +0.24 +1.54%) to acquire Acculynk, a technology company that delivers eCommerce solutions for debit card acceptance. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Diebold Nixdorf (DBD 29.15, +0.40 +1.39%) announced that the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published its official findings in connection with the business combination of Diebold, Incorporated and Wincor Nixdorf AG in the U.K. The CMA has concluded that a structural remedy is required. DBD is now actively pursuing a divestiture of its legacy Diebold business in the U.K. with a potential purchaser. The company believes it can satisfy the CMA's requirements and conclude this transaction as soon as practicable.
In reaction to quarterly results:

Oracle (ORCL) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.69 on in-line revenues which rose about 2.9% compared to last year to $9.27 billion. The company also guided Q4 EPS ahead of market expectations at $0.78-0.82 on in-line revenues of -1% to +2%, which equates to about $10.48-10.82 billion.

Jabil Circuit (JBL 28.26, +1.28 +4.74%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.48 and $4.45 billion, respectively. For Q3, the company sees EPS and revenues in-line at $0.16-0.39 and $4.25-4.55 billion, respectively.

Yirendai (YRD 25.65, -3.64 -12.43%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.91 and $154.27 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees revenues between $130-134 million. For FY17, YRD expects revenues in the range of $634-663 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: ADBE, EXA, VSLR

Analyst actions:

GPRO was upgraded to Neutral from sell at Citigroup,
ORCL was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Underperform at JMP Securities and to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
JBL was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
LRCX was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
NCR was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
LITE was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman,
INFN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
INST was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James,
SYNA was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Northland Capital;
RUBI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies,
CIEN was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman;
SNAP was initiated with a Sell at MoffettNathanson,
CARB was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum,
GIMO was initiated with an Outperform at FBN Securities

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From Briefing.com: 4:24 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Close a 'Wee Bit' Lower on St. Patrick's Day (:WRAPX) :

Defying the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, the major averages failed to turn shamrock green, closing just a 'wee bit' below their flat lines. The Nasdaq finished flat while the S&P 500 and the Dow closed with losses of 0.1% apiece.

The bulls swiped up the majority of sectors on Friday, but the ones they left behind--financials (-1.1%), health care (-0.5%), energy (-0.1%), and consumer staples (-0.2%)--proved to be influential. The financial sector saw some belated selling pressure in the wake of this week's FOMC meeting as investors tried to sort out how the Fed's future outlook for interest rates will bake into the industry's bottom line.

On the other hand, the health care group got tripped up this morning on news that biotech giant Amgen's (AMGN 168.41, -11.70) new cholesterol drug Repatha didn't live up to expectations in a clinical trail. AMGN shares lost 6.5% of their value, which influenced the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 295.28, -3.31) lower by 1.1%.

The lightly-weighted utilities (+0.6%), telecom services (+0.6%), and materials (+0.5%) sectors made a valiant effort to counter the heavy blow from the bears, but received little help from their peers; the technology (+0.1%) and consumer discretionary (+0.1%) sectors just couldn't piece together a truly solid performance as their top components deferred a leadership role in the cause.

News flow was relatively light on Friday, but it's worth pointing out that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said all options are on the table, including military action, in countering North Korea's threat to the United States and its allies. Mr. Tillerson emphasized that the U.S. aims to avoid a military conflict, but made it clear that the "policy of strategic patience has ended."

Aerospace & defense names like Boeing (BA 180.10, +1.91), Lockheed Martin (LMT 271.98, +4.04), and Raytheon (RTN 156.97, +3.31) did their part to push the industrial sector (+0.4%) higher, but the sector's advance ultimately proved to be modest.

In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt extended its week-to-date gain on Friday, leaving the benchmark 10-yr yield four basis points lower at 2.50%. For the week, the 10-yr yield lost eight basis points as investors relished in the Fed's more dovish than expected rate projections.

Friday saw a handful of economic reports, including February Industrial Production, February Leading Indicators, and the University of Michigan Sentiment Index for March, but their influence was minimal:

Industrial Production held steady in February (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) while Capacity Utilization declined to 75.4% (Briefing.com consensus 75.4%) from a revised reading of 75.5% (from 75.3%) in January.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is not as disappointing as the headline suggests. Nevertheless, total industrial production is still weak, up just 0.3% year-over-year. The overall capacity utilization rate of 75.4% is 4.5 percentage points below its long-run average, which suggests there is ample overhead space still until production bottlenecks occur.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is not as disappointing as the headline suggests. Nevertheless, total industrial production is still weak, up just 0.3% year-over-year. The overall capacity utilization rate of 75.4% is 4.5 percentage points below its long-run average, which suggests there is ample overhead space still until production bottlenecks occur.
The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for February ticked up 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) after a 0.6% increase in January.
The key takeaway from the report is that the index is at its highest level in over a decade after six consecutive monthly gains, fueling the underlying belief that economic growth in 2017 should be improving.
The key takeaway from the report is that the index is at its highest level in over a decade after six consecutive monthly gains, fueling the underlying belief that economic growth in 2017 should be improving.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March rose to 97.6 (Briefing.com consensus 96.8) from 96.3 in the prior month's reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers are feeling better about their current personal finances; however, there appears to be a sharp divide about the outlook that cuts sharply across political partisan lines.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers are feeling better about their current personal finances; however, there appears to be a sharp divide about the outlook that cuts sharply across political partisan lines.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +9.6% YTD
S&P 500 +6.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.5% YTD

Week in Review: Back in the Green

After snapping a streak of six consecutive weekly gains, the stock market returned to its winning ways. The S&P 500 added 0.2% for the week, but did not overtake its record high from the start of March, which may count as a loss for investors starved for more. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.7%) outperformed, climbing near its early-March high to flirt with another record close. The index is now up 9.6% for the year while the S&P 500 has climbed 6.2%.

The first two days of the trading week were highlighted by reduced trading volume as the East Coast braced for a winter storm. In addition, the looming FOMC rate decision contributed to reduced activity. Although overall trading volume on Monday and Tuesday was down about 15% from average, activity on the M&A front was alive and well, as Intel (INTC) agreed to acquire Mobileye (MBLY) for $15.30 billion in cash, paying a 34.0% premium to Mobileye's share price from the previous session.

On Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee raised the federal funds target range by 25 basis points to 0.75%-1.00%. This move was widely-expected going into the day of the announcement, but investors were somewhat surprised to see the Fed maintain its measured outlook. The central bank nudged up its median target rate for the end of 2019 to 3.0% from 2.9%, but left its long-run target unchanged at 3.0%.

It is worth noting that the Fed tightened policy at a time when growth forecasts have shifted lower. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta now expects that first quarter GDP will be up only 0.9% after calling for growth of more than 3.0% at the start of February. To be fair, first quarter GDP readings have a known tendency to underperform the remaining three quarters. For her part, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said, "GDP is a pretty noisy indicator", adding that the central bank expects growth to average 2.0% over the course of 2017.

With the March hike in the books, the market's expectations are now in line with FOMC projections for two more hikes before the end of the year. The fed funds futures market sees almost no chance of a hike in May (6.4%), but is starting to price in a rate raise for June (58.3%). Looking at the remainder of the year, the fed funds futures market sees a pause into the second half, currently expected to conclude in December when the range should be boosted to 1.25%-1.50%.

12:55 pm Earnings Calendar for the week of March 20 (:SUMRX) :
Monday (March 20)

Pre-Market: MOV, DXLG, JMBA
After-Hours: None confirmed

Tuesday (March 21)
Pre-Market: GIS, CCE, LEN, CMCM, CSIQ, LE, FRAN, NEOG
After-Hours: FDX, NKE, SCS, ATTO, AIR, SLW, DLTH, HQY

Wednesday (March 22)
Pre-Market: QIWI, AYA, WGO, GOLF, ATU, PERY, EVLV
After-Hours: PVH, MLHR, FIVE, FNV

Thursday (March 23)
Pre-Market: ACN, CAG, CMC, HQCL, SCHL, CGIX
After-Hours: GME, JAG, KBH, MU, OXM, SCVL, SPWH, UPLD

Friday (March 24)
Pre-Market: FINL
After-hours: None confirmed

o close out St. Patrick's Day, the markets had a volatile final few minutes. Namely, the Nasdaq Composite spiked from losses to gains, and the Dow and S&P softened losses only to return to near lows at the close. Ultimately, the Nasdaq escaped with gains less than a point (+0.00%) to 5901. The S&P 500 was lower by about 3.13 points (-0.13%) to 2378.25, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 19.93 points (-0.10%) to 20914.62. In all, this week's moves take the three major averages to +9.6%, +6.2% and +5.8% YTD, respectively.

Friday's session posted a handful of economic reports, including the Industrial Production reading which held steady in February while Capacity Utilization declined to 75.4% from a revised reading of 75.5% (from 75.3%) in January. The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for February ticked up 0.6% after a 0.6% increase in January and preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March rose to 97.6 from 96.3 in the prior month's reading.

After spending the morning session in the red, the Technology (XLK 53.34, +0.12 +0.22%) space climbed to highs by about 2 p.m., only to return to losses and finish modestly above opening levels. Component Adobe Systems (ADBE 127.01, +4.66 +3.81%) was the best performing name today after its quarterly results were given after last night's close. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed IYZ +0.70%, XLB +0.11%, XLI +0.09%, XLU -0.16%, XLY -0.17%, XLRE -0.45%, XLE -0.60%, XLP -0.76%, XLV -0.91%, XLF -1.29%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (904.38, +0.58 +0.06%) space, trading managed to stave off a late session decline. Names like NVDA +2.18%, EBAY +1.81%, PYPL +1.60%, WU +0.94%, HPE +0.93%, ACN +0.90%, ADP +0.85%, FFIV +0.66%, ADI +0.65%, TXN +0.60% helped the sector hold onto gains today.

Other notable news items among sector components:
According to the Wall Street Journal, Nintendo (NTDOY 29.05, +1.31 +4.72%) will increase production of the latest console, Switch, in light of strong demand.

Synopsys (SNPS 71.14, +0.38 +0.54%) announced that a federal appellate court has affirmed an Oregon jury's finding that certain features of Synopsys' ZeBu software product infringed a Mentor Graphics patent, and affirmed the jury's damages award of $36 million.

Level 3 (LVLT 57.48, +0.45 +0.79%) and CenturyLink (CTL 23.65, +0.28 +1.20%) announced that both company's shareholders have approved all proposals related to their merger. The parties continue to expect merger to close by Sept. 30, 2017.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Adobe Systems (ADBE) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.94 and $1.68 billion, respectively. For Q2, the company sees better than expected EPS of $0.94 on revenues of about $1.73 billion.

Exa (EXA 13.80, -1.89 -12.05%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.05 on worse than expected revenues of $19.53 million. The company also guided Q1 and FY18 revenues below market expectations at $16-17 million and $75-80 million, respectively.

Analyst actions:

ADBE was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Wunderlich,
ALRM was upgraded to Outperform from In-Line at Imperial Capital,
HIMX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Roth Capital,
GIMO was upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities,
FIVN was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
NMRX was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at First Analysis Sec,
CCMP was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Aegis Capital;
AXTI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
EXA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity;
NFLX was initiated with an Outperform at Bernstein,
SNAP was initiated with a Neutral at Mizuho,
ENTG was initiated with a Buy at Aegis Capital,
VSM was initiated with a Hold at Aegis Capital,
KTOS was initiated with a Buy at Seaport Global Securities

5:02 pm TerraForm Global receives notification letter from a Director of Nasdaq Listing Qualifications relating to the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 (GLBL) : The Notification Letter noted that on February 21, 2017, the Company filed its Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2016, and as a result regained compliance with Listing Rule 5250(c)(1). The Notification Letter also noted that, per listing Rule 5815(c)(1)(F), the Nasdaq Hearings Panel may grant the Company an exception period not to exceed 360 days from the due date of the 2016 10-K, or March 12, 2018. The Notification Letter has no immediate effect on the listing of the Company's common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Open the Week Lower (:WRAPX) :

The stock market couldn't find any room to run on Monday as the bears wrapped it up behind the line of scrimmage for a modest loss. The S&P 500 finished 0.2% lower while the Dow (unch) and the Nasdaq (unch) ended just a step ahead. Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed with a loss of 0.5%.

Monday's sideways trend fits nicely with the range-bound action that has ensued over the last couple of weeks in the stock market. As leaders in Washington continue to debate the details of health care reform, investors keep their fingers crossed for a quick resolution, knowing that the longer the bill takes to pass through Congress, the longer they will have to wait for tax reform.

News flow was generally light on Monday with statements from three FOMC voters acting as the top headline. In summary, Chicago Fed President Evans could not rule out four rate hikes in 2017, Philadelphia Fed President Harker believes that the Fed will mildly overshoot the 2.0% inflation target, and Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari stated that he would like to shift the focus to reducing the Fed's balance sheet. Treasuries ticked up in the wake of the statements to finish Monday with modest gains. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed three basis points lower at 2.47%.

In corporate news, Caterpillar (CAT 95.40, +2.49) jumped 2.7% after the company reported strong machine retail sales for the month of February. However, CAT's performance wasn't enough to keep the industrial sector (-0.2%) out of the red.

Fellow Dow component Apple (AAPL 141.43, +1.44) also had a solid showing, climbing 1.0% to a fresh record-high. In a combined effort with chipmakers, which added 0.8% to the PHLX Semiconductor Index, AAPL's outperformance left the technology sector (+0.1%) ahead of the broader market. In addition to technology, the materials (+0.4%), consumer staples (+0.1%), and real estate groups (+0.1%) finished in the green.

On the downside, the utilities (-0.7%) and financials (-0.9%) sectors finished at the bottom of the day's leaderboard. The energy space (-0.1%) performed in line with the two sectors for much of the session, but eventually rode an afternoon rally back to its unchanged mark.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Tuesday's lone economic report, fourth quarter Current Account Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$128.2 billion), will cross the wires at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +9.6% YTD
S&P 500 +6.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.0% YTD

Flat action today culminated in a mixed finish as only the Nasdaq Composite, which gained less than a point, was able to hover above flat lines when Monday came to a close. On the first day of spring, the markets demanded little as the aforementioned Nasdaq added +0.53 (+0.01%) to 5901.53. The S&P 500 turned in the worst Monday of the three major averages, losing 4.78 points (-0.20%) to 2373.47, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed only 8.76 points (-0.04%) to 20905.86.

Monday's sideways trend fits nicely with the range-bound action that has ensued over the last couple of weeks in the stock market. As leaders in Washington continue to debate the details of health care reform, investors keep their fingers crossed for a quick resolution, knowing that the longer the bill takes to pass through Congress, the longer they will have to wait for tax reform.

News flow was generally light on Monday with statements from three FOMC voters acting as the top headline. In summary, Chicago Fed President Evans could not rule out four rate hikes in 2017, Philadelphia Fed President Harker believes that the Fed will mildly overshoot the 2.0% inflation target, and Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari stated that he would like to shift the focus to reducing the Fed's balance sheet. Treasuries ticked up in the wake of the statements to finish Monday with modest gains. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed three basis points lower at 2.47%.

For its part in Monday's tepid affair, the Technology (XLK 53.39, +0.05 +0.09%) managed to equal the Nasdaq's meagre gains as a bump in the final moments of action made it that way. Bellwether names like AAPL +1.0%, INTC +0.5%, CSCO +0.2% and MSFT +0.1% helped the sector today. As far as the rest of the S&P goes, the Materials XLB +0.55% space managed the best gains on Monday, followed by the XLP +0.20%, IYZ +0.12%, XLRE +0.10%, XLE -0.14%, XLV -0.15%, XLI -0.18%, XLY -0.24%, XLU -0.66%, with the Financial sector bringing up the rear XLF -0.82%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (905.31, +0.93 +0.10%) space, trading topped new all-time highs today, eclipsing 907.65 at highs. Component Alphabet (GOOGL 867.91, -4.46 -0.51%) was not so lucky, however, as the stock was downgraded to a Hold rating at Pivotal Research ahead of this morning's bell. Other names in the space which posted gains today included NVDA +3.19%, MU +1.59%, RHT +1.03%, XRX +0.95%, AMAT +0.74%, CTSH +0.72%, TDC +0.59%, KLAC +0.45%, QCOM +0.45%, HPE +0.44%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
IBM (IBM 175.70, +0.05 +0.03%) unveiled new additions to the IBM Cloud Object Storage family. The company is offering clients new choices for archival data and a new pricing model to more easily apply intelligence to unpredictable data patterns using analytics and cognitive tools. IBM also announced an expanded partnership with NetApp (NTAP 41.95, -0.11 -0.26%) that provides NetApp customers with more ways to take advantage of IBM Cloud.

Moneygram (MGI 16.43, +0.14 +0.86%) announced that its board of directors has determined that the unsolicited proposal received on March 14 from Euronet Worldwide (EEFT 83.45, -0.04 -0.05%) to acquire all of the outstanding shares of MGI Common Stock and Preferred Stock for $15.20 per share in cash on an as-converted basis could reasonably be expected to result in a "company superior proposal".

Qualcomm's (QCOM 57.81, +0.26 +0.45%) Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. introduced the Qualcomm 205 Mobile Platform, designed to bring 4G LTE connectivity and 4G services to entry-level feature phones.

Vodafone's (VOD 26.48, -0.07 -0.26%) India subsidiary, Vodafone India, announced a merger with Mumbai-based Idea Cellular to form the largest telecom firm in India.

FactSet (FDS 180.71, +0.77 +0.43%) acquired BISAM Technologies from Aquiline Capital Partners & company insiders for $205.2 million.

Analyst actions:

FEYE was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill;
GOOGL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Pivotal Research Group,
NMBL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
MBLY was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray;
SNAP was initiated with a Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
MEET was initiated with a Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
WDAY was initiated with a Buy at BofA/Merrill

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From Briefing.com: 4:12 pm Closing Market Summary: Investors Wrangled Financials to Push Stocks Higher on Wednesday (:WRAPX) : Wednesday's session was full of ambiguity as investors digested the stock market's Tuesday defeat, which was the steepest decline since October. Stocks ultimately put together a decent performance, but the win didn't feel secure until the closing bell as the financial sector (-0.2%) acted in a seesaw fashion that weighed on the sentiment of the broader market. The S&P 500 (+0.2%) and the Nasdaq (+0.5%) settled with modest gains while the Dow finished flat. Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.1%) underperformed.

As they have throughout the post-election rally, most sectors looked to the financial sector for leadership on Wednesday. This resulted in the market moving in tandem with the financial group, but unlike yesterday, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.8%) watered down financials' impact. The tech group propped up the broader market at times with gains from top components like Apple (AAPL 141.42, +1.58), Microsoft (MSFT 65.03, +0.82), and Facebook (FB 139.59, +1.08). Chipmakers also contributed to the cause, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index 1.1% higher along the way.

The technology group's bullish sentiment was persistent; at times, the sector was one of few to trade in the green. However, the persistence paid off in the final stretch as all but the financials (-0.2%), telecom services (-1.0%), consumer staples (-0.1%), and energy (-0.1%) sectors joined the technology group in positive territory.

The energy sector very narrowly missed positive territory despite spending much of the trading day with a solid loss. Crude oil influenced the sector's struggle, slipping in response to a bearish EIA inventory report. However, the commodity was able to largely shake off the bigger than expected build (+5.0 million vs +2.8 million consensus) to close 0.5% lower at $48.05/bbl.

In corporate news, Nike (NKE 53.92, -4.09) reported upbeat earnings per share, but investors were disappointed in the company's lackluster worldwide futures orders. Conversely, future guidance is what saved FedEx (FDX 195.92, +4.08) from suffering the consequences of its earnings miss. The companies' respective sectors--consumer discretionary and industrials-- finished with modest gains of 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively.

In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt capitalized on investors' cautious attitude to post its fourth consecutive advance. The benchmark 10-yr yield settled two basis points lower at 2.40%.

On the data front, investors received a handful of economic reports, including February Existing Home Sales, January FHFA Housing Price Index, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Existing home sales for February decreased 3.7% from January to an annualized rate of 5.48 million units while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 5.54 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that limited supply and weakening affordability conditions are preventing more robust selling activity in the market for existing homes.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for January was unchanged, which followed an unrevised increase of 0.4% in December.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.7% to follow last week's 3.1% uptick.

On Thursday, investors will receive Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 239,000) at 8:30 ET and February Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 560,000) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.2% YTD
S&P 500 +4.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.9% YTD

Following a tough Tuesday, the broader market took small steps toward reclaiming yesterday's losses. In the end, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was still lower despite ticking off daily lows; the index lost 6.71 points today (-0.03%) to 20661.30. The Nasdaq Composite, by contrast, was the best performer adding 27.82 points (+0.48%) to 5821.64, while the S&P 500 finished somewhere in the middle of those two up 4.43 points (+0.19%) to 2348.45.

Among market data today, the existing home sales reading for February was down 3.7% from January to an annualized rate of 5.48 million units. Also, the FHFA Housing Price Index for January was unchanged, which followed an unrevised increase of 0.4% in December and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.7% to follow last week's 3.1% uptick.

The Technology (XLK 52.94, +0.33 +0.63%) space began to climb out of yesterday's losses as action today took the space to just shy of the 53 level. Component Frontier Communications (FTR 2.11, -0.25 -10.59%) got crushed today after a premarket downgrade of the stock to a 'Sell' rating at Goldman. The best performing S&P sector today was the Tech space, followed by XLU +0.48%, XLI +0.36%, XLB +0.29%, XLRE +0.23%, XLY +0.12%, XLV +0.03%, XLE -0.14%, XLP -0.20%, XLF -0.21%, IYZ -1.91%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (899.07, +7.10 +0.80%) space, trading closed out Wednesday just under highs of the session as a rebound from yesterday's weakness led to modest gains today. Component Corning (GLW 27.35, +0.48 +1.79%) was a strong name in the space today after showcasing its single-mode fiber interface connector suitable for co-packaging with a 12.8 Tb/s switch chip in collaboration with Kaiam Corp. Other names in the space which finished higher today included WDC +2.34%, SYMC +2.20%, MU +2.12%, NVDA +2.04%, MCHP +1.60%, CTSH +1.59%, QRVO +1.53%, RHT +1.53%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Orange (ORAN 15.96, +0.12 +0.76%) to become exclusive broadcaster of Time Warner's (TWX 96.85, -0.62 -0.64%) HBO programs in France.

Microsemi (MSCC 51.28, +0.42 +0.83%) to close its manufacturing facility in China; no material impact on earnings expected.

Kaiam Corp. and Corning (GLW) are showcasing an optical engine and single-mode fiber interface connector suitable for co-packaging with a 12.8 Tb/s switch chip at the 2017 Optical Fiber Communications Conference & Exhibition in the Los Angeles Convention Center this week.

According to Reuters, Facebook's (FB 139.59, +1.08 +0.78%) Instagram has reached more than 1 million monthly active advertisers.

GoDaddy (GDDY 36.68, +0.15 +0.41%) acquired Sucuri. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

HealthEquity (HQY 43.83, +0.20 +0.46%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.07 and $46.83 million, respectively. HQY also guided FY18 EPS below market expectations at $0.50-0.55 on in-line revenue expectations of $220-225 million.

Atento (ATTO 8.40, +0.35 +4.35%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.19 and $442 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees in-line revenue growth of 1-5%, which equates to about $1.78-1.85 billion.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tomorrow morning: ACN, HQCL

Analyst actions:

FTR was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
CAMP was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sidoti;
SNAP was initiated with a Buy at Drexel Hamilton,
APH and TEL were initiated with Outperform ratings at Cowen

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From Briefing.com: 4:07 pm Micron beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS and rev above consensus (MU) : Reports Q2 (Feb) earnings of $0.90 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.86; revenues rose 58.4% year/year to $4.65 bln vs the $4.65 bln Capital IQ Consensus. The increase in the company's revenues of 17 percent for the second quarter of fiscal 2017 compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2017 was due primarily to a 21 percent increase in DRAM average selling prices and an 18 percent increase in trade NAND sales volumes. The company's overall consolidated GAAP gross margin of 36.7 percent for the second quarter of fiscal 2017 was 11.2 percentage points higher compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2017 primarily due to increases in DRAM average selling prices and manufacturing cost reductions for both NAND and DRAM.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $1.43-1.57, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.93 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $5.2-5.6 bln vs. $4.52 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:38 pm Cypress Semi stockholders approve consent solicitation to eliminate cumulative voting ahead of June 8 Annual Meeting; expects to file prelim proxy materials shortly (CY) : Cypress' previously announced bylaw amendments to adopt proxy access, as well as a majority vote standard for the election of directors in uncontested elections and a plurality vote standard for the election of directors in contested elections, are now in effect and will govern the Company's upcoming 2017 Annual Meeting of Stockholders which the Company will hold on June 8, 2017.

4:21 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Settle Lower Following Health Care Vote Delay (:WRAPX):

The stock market had a decent rebound try going for much of Thursday's session, but it fell to the wayside in the afternoon after reports that the House vote on the American Health Care Act, which was scheduled for tonight, will be delayed. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq settled lower by 0.1% while the Dow closed flat.

The financial sector (+0.2%) led the stock market to modest gains when it appeared that GOP leadership and the House Freedom Caucus might reach a deal to push the AHCA through the House. However, the major averages retreated back to their flat lines after the House Freedom Caucus failed to reach an agreement on the proposed legislation. Equities then pushed into negative territory on news that the vote would be delayed.

The pick up in selling interest was due in large part to the angst the delayed vote created about the fate of tax reform. Administration officials and Congressional leaders have said health care reform needs to get tackled first before moving on to tax reform.

With investors in wait-and-see mode, almost all sectors settled within 0.4% of their respective flat lines. The lightly-weighted real estate sector (+0.7%) finished at the top of the leaderboard while several sectors--energy (-0.4%), technology (-0.3%), and health care (-0.4%)--contended for the bottom spot.

The technology sector struggled throughout the session with Alphabet (GOOGL 839.65, -10.15) suffering as brands continued to freeze their marketing campaigns with the company after The Times reported that ads were appearing next to extremist videos on YouTube.

On the earnings front, retailers cheered PVH's (PVH 98.55, +7.70) latest earnings report. The company, which owns brands like Van Heusen, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein, jumped 8.5% after reporting better than expected earnings and issuing upbeat guidance. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.21, +0.31) also settled higher, climbing 0.8%.

In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt finished flat with the benchmark 10-yr yield closing unchanged at 2.41%.

On the data front, investors received February New Home Sales and the weekly Initial Claims report:

New Home Sales in February hit an annualized rate of 592,000, which was above the revised January rate of 558,000 (from 555,000), and more than the 560,000 that was expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales activity was robust, driven by increased demand for lower-priced homes as high prices and rising mortgage rates have created affordability constraints at higher price points for prospective homebuyers. The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 258,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 239,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 243,000 (from 241,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.000 million from the revised count of 2.039 million (from 2.030 million). The key takeaway from the report is that it could soften March nonfarm payroll growth expectations a bit since it covered the week in which the survey for the Employment Situation Report was conducted. Friday's lone economic report, February Durable Orders (Briefing.com consensus +1.3%), will cross the wires at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.1% YTD
S&P 500 +4.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.3% YTD

On Thursday, the broader market closed lower but only just so as afternoon gains could not hold behind reports of a delay for the vote of the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Ultimately, the S&P 500 was the worst performer, shedding 2.49 points (-0.11%) to 2345.96. The Nasdaq Composite lost 3.95 points (-0.07%) to 5817.69, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 4.72 points (-0.02%) to 20656.58.

As mentioned, up until midday, the stock market had a decent rebound try going, yet it has fallen by the wayside in the afternoon session, largely because the vote on the House GOP's health care reform plan, which was scheduled for tonight, sounds as if it is falling by the wayside, too.

Press reports have indicated that Speaker Ryan has postponed his press conference on the AHCA until further notice and separate reports are suggesting a vote may not happen until Monday now.

The implication for the market is that the House GOP doesn't have the votes right now that it needs to get the AHCA passed. The notion that it could still take place, though, whether it is Monday, or before then, has tempered a little of the market's disappointment, yet it certainly hasn't squelched it altogether.

Selling interest has picked up due in large part to the angst the delayed vote has created about the fate of tax reform. Administration officials and Congressional leaders have said health care reform needs to get tackled first before moving on to tax reform.

Market data today included the February New Home Sales reading which hit an annualized rate of 592,000, which was above the revised January rate of 558,000 (from 555,000). Additionally, the latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 258,000, above the revised prior week count of 243,000 (from 241,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.000 million from the revised count of 2.039 million (from 2.030 million).

Moderately amplifying the selling action in the broader market today, the Technology (XLK 52.80, -0.14 -0.26%) space had moments of positive trading today but ultimately could not sustain gains. Component Accenture (ACN 120.76, -5.72 -4.52%) was one of the worst performing names in the space today after reporting Q2 results and giving select Q3 and FY17 guidance. Displaying relative strength today, cyber-security name FireEye (FEYE 12.19, +0.70 +6.09%) was higher today in reaction to a premarket upgrade of the stock to a "Buy" rating from a "Sell" at Goldman. Real Estate XLRE +0.74% led all other S&P sectors today, followed by XLB +0.42%, XLY +0.23%, XLF +0.21%, IYZ -0.06%, XLI -0.14%, XLP -0.22%, XLU -0.31%, XLV -0.31%, XLE -0.41%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (896.17, -2.90 -0.32%) space, trading also grabbed a lower close today as broader selling took hold. Component Alphabet (GOOG 817.58, -12.01 -1.45%) was pressured today as global brands continue to pull advertising following YouTube extremist video controversies. Other names in the space which closed lower today included CTSH -1.18%, MCHP -1.02%, FSLR -1.00%, INTU -0.93%, NVDA -0.91%, PAYX -0.77%, ADI -0.71%, JNPR -0.61%, CRM -0.44%, CSCO -0.41%, QCOM -0.40%, XLNX -0.39%, KLAC -0.36%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Alphabet (GOOG) shares were pressured today as brands continue to pull advertising following YouTube extremist videos controversy.

Arris (ARRS 26.67, +1.00 +3.90%) announced a new $300 million share repurchase program at its Investor Day today. The company also guided 2017 adjusted EPS of $2.40-2.60 and adjusted revenues of $6.615-6.83 billion.

Accenture (ACN) to acquire First Annapolis Consulting, Inc., a privately held payments consulting and advisory firm. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Intel (INTC 35.27, -0.10 -0.28%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.2725 from $0.26 per share.

Microsoft (MSFT 64.87, -0.16 -0.25%) announced a new patent licensing agreement with Toyota (TM 110.51, -0.32 -0.29%) that includes broad coverage for connected car technologies.

DragonWave (DRWI 1.45, +0.10 +7.41%) announced the selection of the Harmony Enhanced MC backhaul solution by Corridor Communication Inc. (CCI Wireless), a service provider in the province of Alberta, Canada, delivering broadband services to rural customers.

Apple (AAPL 140.92, -0.50 -0.35%) has acquired utility app maker Workflow, according to TechCrunch.

Western Digital (WDC 76.19, +1.26 +1.68%) repriced 881 million of new Euro-denominated term B-2 loans at an interest rate of Euribor + 2.00%, which priced 125 basis points lower than its previous Euro-denominated term B-1 loans issued in September 2016.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Accenture (ACN) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $1.33 on in-line revenues of $8.32 billion. The company also guided Q3 revenues in-line at $8.65-8.90 billion and raised the low end of FY17 EPS and revenues guidance to in-line with market expectations at $5.70-5.87 and growth of 4-6% to about $34.20-34.86 billion, respectively.

Hanwha Q CELLS (HQCL 6.70, -0.50 -6.94%) reported a worse than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.31 on worse than expected revenues of $565.9 million. The company also guided Q1 revenues below market expectations at $410-430 million.

Analyst actions:

FEYE was upgraded to Buy from Sell at Goldman,
VRNS was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
MANT was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at Wells Fargo;
PFPT was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
NMBL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Maxim Group;
SNAP was initiated with a Neutral at Piper Jaffray,
SNAP was initiated with a Positive at OTR Global,
FTV was initiated with a Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts

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From Briefing.com: 4:17 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Finish Flat After AHCA Vote Pulled (:WRAPX) :

The major averages opened Friday with modest gains as investors were cautiously optimistic that the American Health Care Act would pass in the House. However, that positive sentiment faded as the day wore on and reports from Washington indicated that the GOP still hadn't acquired the necessary votes. In the end, the health care bill was pulled from consideration and the major averages finished mixed. The S&P 500 (-0.1%) settled just below its unchanged mark while the Dow (-0.3%) and the Nasdaq (+0.2%) closed on opposite sides of the benchmark index.

Today's relatively modest reaction to disappointing news likely had its roots in President Trump's ultimatum for House Republicans. The president made it clear that, if the American Health Care Act didn't make it out of the House on Friday, his administration would be moving on to tax reform. That notion is somewhat comforting to investors, but since health care reform went nowhere, the reliability of such a promise will certainly be put into question.

The House vote that was anticipated throughout the day tied investors' hands, leaving most sectors within 0.3% of their respective flat lines. The utilities (+0.4%), materials (-0.9%), and energy (-0.5%) spaces were an exception. The energy group's slip occurred despite crude oil's positive performance; the energy component settled 0.7% higher at $48.01/bbl.

In corporate news, Micron Technology (MU 28.43, +1.96) spiked 7.4% after reporting better than expected earnings and upbeat guidance. The positive sentiment caught on within the semiconductor industry, evidenced by the 0.8% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index, and provided some support for the top-weighted technology sector (+0.1%).

In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt moved modestly higher, leaving the benchmark 10-yr yield lower by two basis points at 2.40%.

Economic data was limited to Durable Orders:

February durable goods orders rose 1.7%, which is above the 1.3% uptick expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to 2.3% (from 1.8%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%) to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.2% (from -0.2%).
There were two key takeaways from the report: (1) business spending was relatively weak and (2) the upside surprise for February combined with the upward revisions for January should lead to some upward revisions to Q1 GDP forecasts

Investors will not receive any data on Monday.
Nasdaq Composite +8.3% YTD
S&P 500 +4.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.2% YTD


Week in Review: What's That Color?

Investors who have gotten accustomed to a steady string of gains in the stock market were taken aback by this week's action, which sent the S&P 500 lower by 1.4%. This marked the fourth weekly decline of 2017 and was the largest weekly drop since early November.

The week got off to an unassuming start as Monday's action was confined to a narrow range. There was no noteworthy earnings or economic news to digest, and the impending House vote on the plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act led to caution among participants.

That caution turned into outright selling on Tuesday, sending the S&P 500 lower by 1.2%. A number of factors were cited for the decline, but the day's selling was most aggressive in the financial sector as the SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE) fell 4.8%. The industry group stumbled as the yield curve continued flattening in a manner that contradicts the pro-growth narrative that accompanied the stock market on its charge to a fresh record.

Furthermore, the prospect of health care reform making its way through the legislative process dimmed as the week went on. The House of Representatives was scheduled to take part in a Thursday vote, but that vote got put on hold and cancelled on Friday afternoon due to a lack of support. Investors are acutely aware that a delay in passing health care reform means that tax reform will also need to wait.

Although the week was quiet on the economic front, it is worth noting that February Existing Home Sales (5.48 million; Briefing.com consensus 5.54 million) missed estimates while February New Home Sales (592K; Briefing.com consensus 560K) and February Durable Orders (+1.7%; Briefing.com consensus 1.3%) were better than expected. The Durable Orders report caused the Atlanta Fed to nudge its GDPNowcast for the first quarter up to 1.0% from 0.9%. To be fair, excluding transportation, Durable Orders (+0.4%; Briefing.com consensus 0.7%) came up shy of estimates, indicating relatively weak business spending.

Taking a look at rate hike expectations, the fed funds futures market spent the week pointing to a 50.0%+ likelihood of a June hike, but that implied probability dropped to 49.6% on Friday afternoon after the news of the health care vote being pulled made the rounds. One week ago, the fed funds futures market showed a 58.3% implied probability of a hike in June.
Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Stocks pared gains late in the day but then sharply rebounded after House Republicans threw in the towel on the American Health Care Act, which lacked the votes needed to pass.
Technology stocks have outperformed the broader market during this week's consolidation/pullback as the reflation trade started to unwind.

Micron (MU 28.43, +1.96) surged to a two year high after reporting upside second quarter EPS and issuing third quarter guidance way above analyst expectations. Demand for DRAM and NAND is strong, sending prices for the company's memory offerings higher in robust cycle.

Semiconductor stocks closed up 1% as a result. Storage companies Western Digital (WDC 78.18, +1.99) and Seagate (STX 45.24, +0.11) also benefited.

The Verge reported that Twitter (TWTR 15.14, +0.21) is considering offering a paid subscription service through TweetDeck. The service would include a number of enchanted features and no advertisements. Twitter is in dire need of new ways to monetize its stagnant user base. The mobile advertising business is very competitive and Twitter is a clear laggard versus Google, Facebook and even Snap.

Alteryx's (AYX 15.50, +1.50) 9.0 million share IPO priced at $14, which is at the high end of the $12-$14 projected range, raising total gross proceeds of $126.0 million. Alteryx is a developer of self-service data analytics software that enables organizations to improve the productivity of their analysts. More specifically, its subscription-based platform allows its customers to easily prepare, blend, and analyze data from a variety of sources, enabling quicker data-driven decisions. The stock opened at $17.25 and immediately hit its high for the day, closing up 11% on the session.

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From Briefing.com: 4:22 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Open the Week Unscathed (:WRAPX) :

Last week's health care hiccup fostered some bearish undertones on Monday morning, but investors were largely able to shake off the concerns to start the week unscathed. The Nasdaq settled 0.2% higher while the S&P 500 and the Dow finished with losses of 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively.

With health care reform in the rear-view mirror, lawmakers will now turn their attention to a major catalyst in the stock market's post-election rally--tax reform. However, tax reform may prove to be challenging for the GOP as House Republicans appear to be divided on the key issue of a border adjustment tax. For instance, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows is opposed to the idea of a penalty at the border while House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady believes it to be "a given" with any tax reform legislation.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a tax reform package is expected in August.

At the top of the day's sector standings was the health care space (+0.4%) as the demise of the American Health Care Act puts President Trump's pledge to lower drug prices into question. Biotech names saw relative strength on Monday, evidenced by the 1.1% increase in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 293.14, +3.08).

The technology (+0.1%), materials (+0.3%), and consumer discretionary (unch) groups also settled in positive territory. Large-cap tech names like Apple (AAPL 140.88, +0.24), Microsoft (MSFT 65.10, +0.12), Alphabet (GOOGL 838.51, +3.37), and Intel (INTC 35.39, +0.23) underpinned the top-weighted tech group's outperformance.

It's worth noting that today's uptick extends Apple's year-to-date gain to 21.6%. The tech giant has seemingly acted as a safe haven for investors looking for a place to park their money amid the stock market's recent sideways trend.

On the flip side, the lightly-weighted real estate (-0.6%) and telecom services (-0.7%) sectors settled at the bottom of the day's leaderboard while the remaining groups--financials, industrials, energy, consumer staples, and utilities--finished with losses between 0.1% and 0.5%.

In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt settled in positive territory in a curve-flattening trade. The 10-yr yield (2.37%) finished four basis points lower while the 2-yr yield (1.25%) closed only one basis point below its unchanged mark.

Meanwhile, in the currency market, the U.S. Dollar Index (99.03, -0.56) finished lower by 0.6%.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. A handful of reports will be released on Tuesday, including February Advanced International Trade in Goods (Briefing.com consensus -$66.1 billion) and Advanced Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) at 8:30 ET, January S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index (Briefing.com consensus 5.6%) at 9:00 ET, and March Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 113.3) at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +8.5% YTD
S&P 500 +4.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.0% YTD
Russell 2000 UNCH YTD

Despite opening the session with some hefty losses, the broader market pared its declines to end mixed but mostly flat on Monday. The lone outperformer, the Nasdaq Composite, added 11.64 points (+0.20%) today to 5840.37. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the worst performer, shedding 45.74 (-0.22%) to 20550.98, while the S&P 500 lost 2.39 points (-0.10%) to 2341.59.

For all the up and down during Monday's session, it all appeared to be for naught in the end as the Technology (XLK 52.84, flat) space closed flat despite opening with losses. Component Micron (MU 28.76, +0.33 +1.16%) was the strongest performer today, behind a tender offer for certain of the company's Senior Notes. As finished the broader market, so finished the 11 S&P sectors with Healthcare leading the positive action XLV +0.27% followed by XLB +0.21%, XLY -0.03%, XLP -0.09%, XLI -0.36%, XLF -0.38%, XLU -0.39%, XLE -0.47%, XLRE -0.80%, IYZ -1.12%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (897.53, +0.92 +0.10%) space, trading barely escaped Monday's action with gains given early pressure did not hold. Components QRVO +1.08%, NVDA +0.73%, INTC +0.65%, GOOG +0.62%, CTXS +0.52% WDC +0.50%, ADBE +0.43%, ORCL +0.43%, GOOGL +0.40%, MSI +0.39% were among those that aided the modest advance.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Moneygram (MGI 16.75, +0.09 +0.54%) entered into a confidentiality agreement with Euronet Worldwide (EEFT 83.81, +0.27 +0.32%) to further consider Euronet's unsolicited proposal for $15.20 per share.
The US Supreme Court will not hear $7.25 billion antitrust settlement case against Visa (V 88.92, -0.27 -0.30%) and Mastercard (MA 111.94, -0.04 -0.04%) concerning fees, according to reports.

Micron (MU) commenced tender offers to purchase certain senior notes for cash in the maximum aggregate principal amount that will not result in an Aggregate Purchase Price that exceeds $1,000,000,000.

DST Systems (DST 117.90, +3.74 +3.28%) to acquire State Street's (STT 78.13, +0.92 +1.19%) ownership interest in the Boston Financial Data Services JV and International Financial Data Services JV.

ComScore (SCOR 21.75, +0.39 +1.83%) filed to delay its 10-K.

Analyst actions:

ADBE was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BTIG Research,
ANET was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman,
MDRX was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
HIMX was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
SWIR was downgraded to Mkt Perform at Raymond James;
SNAP was initiated at Jefferies, Citigroup, RBC Capital Mkts, Stifel, Credit Suisse, JMP Securities, Summit Redstone, Oppenheimer, UBS, JP Morgan, BofA/Merrill, Morgan Stanley, Goldman, William Blair, Cowen and Deutsche Bank,
PAY was initiated with a Buy at Tigress Financial,
SYNC was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum,
GRPN and WIX were initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup

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From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm Closing Market Summary: Bulls Dominate on Tuesday (:WRAPX) :

Last Tuesday, the S&P 500 posted its worst day of 2017 in a performance that some believed to be the end of the stock market's post-election party. However, the cash market held its ground in the days that followed and the S&P 500 resisted yesterday's intraday dip below its 50-day moving average (2333), giving investors renewed confidence that there still may be some room to run. That hypothesis was validated today as the S&P 500 advanced 0.7%, benefiting from a steady rally throughout the day. The Dow and the Nasdaq also settled with solid gains, adding 0.7% and 0.6%, respectively.

The financial sector (+1.4%) took the reigns in today's session, recouping a sizable portion of last Tuesday's plunge. The group has come to symbolize the post-election rally after leading the charge with a 26.0% gain from November 8 to January 3. Financials' cyclical peers followed suit with the industrials (+1.1%) materials (+1.1%), and energy (+1.3%) sectors outpacing the broader market.

To be fair, the energy sector's performance was more of a response to crude oil's advance rather than the financial sector's leadership. The energy component settled 1.4% higher at $48.37/bbl after an armed group of individuals shut down pipelines in Libya due to a wage dispute.

On the countercyclical side, the health care sector (+0.1%) struggled after House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy expressed the belief that it's still not too late to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer followed up those comments by saying that discussions on health care reform are taking place, but there is no active planning at the present time.

Within the health care space, biotech stocks were hit the hardest as President Trump's promise to reduce drug prices resurfaced alongside health care reform. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 292.01, -1.13) settled lower by 0.4%.

The remaining defensive sectors also underperformed, with the rate-sensitive utilities group (+0.1%) showing relative weakness after selling pressure in the Treasury market left yields modestly higher; the benchmark 10-yr yield finished four basis points higher at 2.42%.

In addition to Treasury yields, the U.S. Dollar Index (99.53, +0.50) also closed in the green, rising 0.5%, after Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer stated that he believes a forecast of two more rate hikes in 2017 is appropriate.

Investors received several economic reports on Tuesday, including March Consumer Confidence, February Advance International Trade in Goods, and January S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index:

The consumer confidence reading for March rose to 125.6 from the prior month's revised reading of 116.1 (from 114.8). The Briefing.com consensus expected the survey to hit 113.3.
The key takeaway from this report is that consumers were emboldened by a positive view of current business and labor market conditions. There was an improvement in the short-term outlook for business, jobs, and personal income prospects, and more upside is expected on these fronts. Keep in mind that this survey was taken before the failure of health care reform.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for February showed a deficit of $64.8 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$66.1 billion), up from a revised deficit of $68.8 billion for January (from $69.2 billion). The Advance report for February Wholesale Inventories increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). The prior month's reading was revised to -0.2% from -0.1%.
The January Case-Shiller 20-city Index hit 5.7% to follow last month's revised 5.5% increase (from 5.6%). The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 5.6%.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET and February Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 2.4%) at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +9.1% YTD
S&P 500 +5.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD

A week ago today, the broader market was in some dire straits as losses of better than -1.0% across the board gave the three major US averages their worst session in months. Fast forward to a week later, and today the broader market seems to be none the wiser as gains of better than +0.5% across the board have cut a significant chunk of last week's losses. To that end, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the best performer today, adding 150.52 points (+0.73%) to 20701.50. The S&P 500 also fared well, gaining 16.98 points on Tuesday (+0.73%) to 2358.57, while the Nasdaq Composite rounded out the trio up 34.77 points (+0.60%) to 5875.14 for impressive gains in its own right.

Today's economic date included the consumer confidence reading for March which rose to 125.6 from the prior month's revised reading of 116.1 (from 114.8). Additionally, the Advance report for International Trade in Goods for February showed a deficit of $64.8 billion, up from a revised deficit of $68.8 billion for January (from $69.2 billion). The Advance report for February Wholesale Inventories increased 0.4% while the prior month's reading was revised to -0.2% from -0.1%. Lastly, the January Case-Shiller 20-city Index hit 5.7% to follow last month's revised 5.5% increase (from 5.6%).

After yesterday's flat session, the Technology (XLK 53.22, +0.38 +0.72%) space once again sprang into positive territory. Component Red Hat (RHT 86.48, +4.28 +5.21%) was the best performer today behind the company's Q4 report and guidance. Today's action in the 11 S&P sectors was decidedly positive led by the Energy space XLE +1.42%, XLF +1.36%, XLB +1.16%, XLI +1.06%, XLY +0.76%, XLRE +0.58%, XLP +0.18%, XLV +0.07%, IYZ -0.06%, XLU -0.08%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (903.95, +6.42 +0.72%) space, trading finished just under highs. Components XRX +2.80%, WDC +2.53%, AAPL +2.07%, TSS +1.76%, ACN +1.64%, ATVI +1.55%, CSRA +1.51%, FLIR +1.31%, TDC +1.28%, HPE +1.28% were among the best performers in the space today.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Ericsson (ERIC 6.45, -0.24 -3.59%) presented a new business strategy to improve profitability. The company sees a Q1 write down of assets with an estimated impact on operating income of SEK3-4 billion.

Accenture (ACN 121.35, +1.96 +1.64%) received a five-year $232 million contract to help the U.S. Marshals Service implement its Mission Modernization Program.

According to The Register, Oracle (ORCL 44.69, -0.15 -0.33%) has hired specialists to explore a potential acquisition of Accenture (ACN).

According to The Information, Cisco (CSCO 34.02, +0.03 +0.09%) might split its networking software and hardware units.

Facebook (FB 141.76, +1.44 +1.03%) launched new features in competition to Snap's (SNAP 22.21, -1.62 -6.80%) Snapchat - camera effects and stories.

In reaction to quarterly results:

FactSet (FDS 164.57, -9.98 -5.72%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $1.81 on revenues which rose 4.5% compared to last year to $294.4 million. The company also guided Q3 EPS in-line at $1.80-1.86 and revenues above market expectations at $301-307 million.

Red Hat (RHT) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $0.61 on better than expected revenues of $628.8 million. The company also guided Q1 EPS below market expectations at $0.52-0.53 on better than expected revenues of $643-650 million. For FY18, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $2.60-2.64 and $2.72-2.76 billion, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: VRNT/PAYX, SCWX

Analyst actions:

PCTY and IMASY were upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform ratings at RBC Capital Mkts;
FIS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
KVHI was downgraded to Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James;
SNAP was initiated with a Hold at Loop Capital,
ZBRA was initiated with a Buy at Needham,
DXC was initiated with a Buy at Goldman,
FIS was initiated with an Outperform at William Blair

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:13 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Eke Out a Win on Wednesday (:WRAPX) :

Tuesday's positive sentiment lingered throughout Wednesday's session as the benchmark S&P 500 (+0.1%) chalked up its second win of the week. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) also settled higher while the Dow (-0.2%) finished a tad lower.

While the macro movement was rather subdued on Wednesday, a variety of catalysts mixed things up on the micro level. Maybe the most notable of which was the latest crude oil inventory report from the EIA, which showed a smaller than expected build of 0.9 million barrels (consensus +1.4 million). The reading awoke the bulls in the crude oil futures market and prompted WTI crude to settle 2.2% higher at $49.47/bbl. The energy sector (1.2%) capitalized on the commodity's positive performance to settle at the top of the day's leaderboard.

Amazon (AMZN 874.32, +18.32) also influenced today's price action, jumping 2.1% to push the consumer discretionary sector (+0.6%) to the second spot in the day's standings. Today's gain leaves the internet retail giant 3.3% higher since Monday when it bounced off its 50-day moving average. The positive performance was also reflected in the 2.0% increase in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 42.54, +0.82).

Elsewhere on the corporate front, Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 108.01, +18.34) propped up the biotech industry after reporting that an experimental cystic fibrosis drug improved lung function. VRTX shares spiked 20.5% and led the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 294.42, +2.41) higher by 0.8%, but it still wasn't enough to give the health care sector (unch) an edge on its peers.

The heavily-weighted financial group (-0.5%) kept the market's gain in check, but nearly all of the remaining sectors--industrials, materials, technology, consumer staples, telecom services, and real estate--failed to distinguish themselves from the broader market, settling within 0.3% of their respective flat lines. Meanwhile, the utilities space (-0.5%) finished with the financial group at the bottom of the day's leaderboard, but its impact was minimal due to its low market capitalization.

In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt settled with a modest gain for the second time this week. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed four basis points lower at 2.38%.

On the data front, today's economic releases were limited to February Pending Home Sales and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Pending Home Sales for February rose 5.5% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 2.4%. Today's reading follows an unrevised 2.8% drop in January.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.8% to follow last week's 2.7% decline.

Tomorrow, investors will receive the third estimate of fourth quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus 2.0%) and Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 245,000) at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +9.6% YTD
S&P 500 +5.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD

4:13 pm Broadcom enters agreement to sell its data center center switching, routing, and analytics business to Extreme Networks (EXTR) for $55 mln in cash; transaction contingent on Broadcom closing its proposed acquisition of Brocade (BRCD) (AVGO) :

Brocade's data center networking business will be sold to Extreme for $55 million in cash, consisting of $35 million at closing and $20 million in deferred payments, as well as additional potential performance based payments to Broadcom, to be paid over a five-year term.

Extreme (EXTR) expects the acquisition to be accretive to cash flow and earnings for its fiscal year 2018 and expects to generate over $230 million in annualized revenue from the acquired assets.

The acquisition is expected to close within 60 days following the closing of Broadcom's acquisition of Brocade.

Co expects to close the Brocade acquisition in its third fiscal quarter ending July 30, 2017.

Extreme Networks will host a conference call at 4:30 p.m. ET today to discuss this announcement.

Following up a strong Tuesday, the broader market began lower but quickly ran to highs by midday. Action chugged higher into the close, but ultimately ended split. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the best performer today, adding 22.41 points (+0.38%) to 5897.55. The S&P 500 also finished above flat lines, gaining 2.56 points today (+0.11%) to 2361.13, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average began the session in the red and could not escape, losing 42.18 points (-0.20%) to 20659.32.

Economic data today was limited to the Pending Home Sales reading for February which rose 5.5% following an unrevised 2.8% drop in January. Additionally, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.8% to follow last week's 2.7% decline.

Finishing Wednesday near highs, the Technology (XLK 53.31, +0.09 +0.17%) space made it two sessions in a row of gains. Component F5 Networks (FFIV 142.10, -5.03 -3.42%) was the worst performer today after the stock was downgraded premarket to a Sell rating at Deutsche Bank. Today's trade in the S&P was led by the Energy space XLE +1.37% followed by IYZ +0.91%, XLY +0.60%, XLRE +0.35%, XLP +0.18%, XLB +0.08%, XLV +0.03%, XLI -0.02%, XLU -0.27%, XLF -0.63%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (905.81, +1.86 +0.21%) space, trading capped off an up and down Wednesday affair with decent gains. Component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 23.67, +0.66 +2.87%) was the best performer today on continued strength. Other names which fared well in the middle of the week included WDC +1.66%, SYMC +1.55%, GOOG +1.28%, GOOGL +1.10%, ADSK +1.09%, NTAP +1.07%, STX +0.86%, ATVI +0.76%, TDC +0.71%, ADBE +0.69%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
MasterCard (MA 112.06, -0.41 -0.36%) acquired NuData Security. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Toshiba (TOSBF 1.92, -0.03 1.54%) announced Westinghouse Electric Co and its Group entities resolved to file for Chapter 11.

According to the WSJ, Snap (SNAP 22.55, +0.34 +1.53%) to partner with Comcast's (CMCSA 37.22, +0.13 +0.35%) NBCUniversal for the 2018 Winter Olympics with ad commitments to reach $75 million.

Exar (EXAR 12.99, +2.37 +22.32%) to be acquired by MaxLinear (MXL 27.95, +1.44 +5.43%) for $13.00 per share in cash.

DragonWave's (DRWI 1.40, +0.05 +3.70%) Harmony Enhanced MC backhaul solution was selected by Knoxville Utilities Board.

Applied Materials (AMAT 38.87, +0.05 +0.13%) priced $1.2 billion of 3.300% senior unsecured notes due 2027 and $1.0 billion of 4.350% senior unsecured notes due 2047.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Paychex (PAYX 59.06, -1.52 -2.51%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.55 on revenues which were in-line with market expectations at $795.8 million. The company also reaffirmed FY17 guidance.

Verint Systems (VRNT 43.50, +3.95 +9.99%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.90 on in-line revenues of $295.9 million. The company also guided FY18 EPS and revenues in line at about $2.70 and $1.12-1.16 billion, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: PRGS, SIGM/SAIC

Analyst actions:

FTV was upgraded to Buy from Hold at SunTrust,
ERIC was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein,
SOL was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse,
CYBR was upgraded to Outperform from In Line at Evercore ISI,
FTNT was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird;
FFIV was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank,
CRTO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman;
AMZN, FB, BABA, GOOGL, MELI, EBAY, WB, GDDY, WIX were all initiated with Overweight ratings at Barclays,
BIDU, SNAP, SHOP, WEB were all initiated with Equal Weight ratings at Barclays,
TWTR and GRPN were initiated with Underweight ratings at Barclays,
CYBR was initiated with a Buy at Needham,
CY was initiated with an Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts,
CTSH was initiated with a Hold at Berenberg

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:14 pm Closing Market Summary: Financials Influence Averages Modestly Higher on Thursday (:WRAPX) :

The financial sector (+1.2%) nudged the broader market into positive territory on Thursday as the bulls couldn't resist bank stocks in light of last week's dip. The three major U.S. averages settled with gains of 0.3% apiece while the small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.8%) outperformed.

In a day short on headlines, investors kept an eye on crude oil as the energy component moved back above the psychologically important $50.00 mark. WTI crude finished 1.7% higher at $50.30/bbl after Kuwait voiced support to extend OPEC/non-OPEC production cuts beyond June. In addition, Kuwaiti oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said that several other nations are in favor of the extension. However, despite crude oil's positive performance, the energy sector (+0.5%) struggled to stay ahead of the broader market.

In addition to the financials and energy sectors, the industrial group (+0.5%) also outperformed the broader market as its components settled higher across the board. Most of the remaining cyclical sectors closed the day with modest gains while the countercyclical groups finished mixed.

The rate-sensitive utilities sector (-0.7%) settled at the bottom of the leaderboard as selling pressure within the Treasury market left yields in positive territory. However, the pressure wasn't applied equally across the yield curve with the front end holding up a bit better than the back end; the 10-yr yield (2.41%) finished four basis points higher while the 2-yr yield (1.28%) added only one basis point.

Elsewhere on the defensive side of the market, the consumer staples (-0.2%) and health care (unch) groups finished with the utilities sector in the red while the telecom services space (+0.4%) closed in the green. Biotechnology names weighed on the health care sector, evidenced by the 0.4% downtick in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 293.39, -1.03).

On the corporate front, lululemon athletica (LULU 50.76, -15.54) plunged 23.4% after reporting worse than expected earnings and issuing disappointing guidance. The negative influence seeped into the broader athletic apparel market, leaving Nike (NKE 56.04, -0.64) and Under Armour (UAA 20.09, -0.53) with respective losses of 1.1% and 2.6%.

On the data front, investors received the third estimate of fourth quarter GDP and Initial Claims:

The third reading of fourth quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 2.1%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.0%. The third estimate of fourth quarter GDP Deflator came in at 2.0%, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus.
The key takeaway from the report is that despite the upward revision, growth trends remains subdued amid soft business spending.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 258,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 245,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 261,000. As for continuing claims, they rose to 2.052 million from the revised count of 1.987 million (from 2.000 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that while claims have increased notably from this year's low of 223,000, they are still at encouraging levels, having held below 300,000 for 108 weeks in a row.

Tomorrow, investors will receive a slew of economic reports, including February Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), and PCE Price Index (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) at 8:30 ET, March Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 55.8) at 9:45 ET, and the final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment reading (Briefing.com consensus 97.6) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.9% YTD
S&P 500 +5.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.9% YTD

All finishing higher on Thursday, the broader market closed just under all-time highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the best performer, adding 69.17 points (+0.33%) today to 20728.49. The S&P 500 was up 6.93 points (+0.29%) when the bell rang to 2368.06, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 16.80 points (+0.28%) to 5914.34.

Market data today included the third reading of fourth quarter GDP which pointed to an expansion of 2.1%, while the third estimate of fourth quarter GDP Deflator came in at 2.0%. Additionally, the latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 258,000, below the unrevised prior week count of 261,000. As for continuing claims, they rose to 2.052 million from the revised count of 1.987 million (from 2.000 million).

The Technology (XLK 53.41, +0.10 +0.19) space ended higher today, holding onto afternoon strength. Component Akamai Tech (AKAM 60.53, -2.91 -4.59%) was the worst performer today, pressured after the company's Investor Summit which occurred during the session; the company also last night disclosed the acquisition of SOASTA in an all cash deal for an undisclosed sum. The rest of the S&P sectors finished led by the Financial space XLF +1.31%, follower by IYZ +1.09%, XLI +0.55%, XLY +0.26%, XLRE +0.22%, XLB +0.02%, XLV +0.01%, XLE -0.03%, XLP -0.20%, XLU -0.76%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (907.12, +1.31 +0.14%) space, trading finished just under highs after making a new all-time high during the session. Component Global Payments (GPN 80.70, +1.87 +2.37%) performed well today after being upgraded to an Overweight rating at Barclays. Other names in the space which outperformed today included STX +3.17%, WDC +2.90%, HPQ +2.26%, NVDA +1.92%, QRVO +1.81%, MU +1.65%, XRX +1.51%, ADS +1.45%, WU +1.19%, FLIR +1.16%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Broadcom (AVGO 220.04, -1.27 -0.57%) entered into an agreement to sell its data center switching, routing, and analytics business to Extreme Networks (EXTR 7.38, +0.92 +14.24%) for $55 million in cash. The deal is contingent on AVGO closing its proposed acquisition of Brocade (BRCD 12.44, +0.01 +0.08%).

Analog Devices (ADI 82.20, +0.29 +0.35%) acquired OneTree Microdevices. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Akamai Tech (AKAM) to acquire SOASTA in an all-cash transaction for an undisclosed sum; co expects the SOASTA acquisition to be slightly dilutive to its adj FY 17 EPS in the range of $0.06-0.07 and to become accretive in 2018.

VMware (VMW 91.42, -0.42 -0.46%) enters into a Stock Purchase Agreement with Dell Technologies (DVMT 63.99, +0.09 +0.14%), under which VMware agreed to buy back $300 million of its common stock currently held by a Dell subsidiary.

Fujitsu (FJTSY 31.35, +0.28 +0.90%) and VMware (VMW) announced an expanded strategic collaboration to bring innovative IoT solutions to customers in the automobile industry.

Progress Software (PRGS 29.35, +0.68 +2.37%) acquired DataRPM for $30 million, with $28.3 million paid in cash, and $1.7 million payable to DataRPM's founders in the form of restricted Progress stock. Also appointed Paul Jalbert, chief accounting officer, as CFO replacing Kurt Abkemeier, who will leave the company effective immediately.

Take-Two (TTWO 58.90, +0.11 +0.19%) and Sony (SNE 33.48, +0.33 +1.00%) entered into a PlayStation Global Developer and Publisher Agreement.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Science Applications (SAIC 74.97, -11.28 -13.08%) reported in-line Q4 EPS of $0.79 on worse than expected revenues of $1.03 billion.

Progress Software (PRGS) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.34 and $91.2 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees in-line EPS of $0.35-0.37 and worse than expected revenues of $89-92 million. The company also reaffirmed FY17 EPS and revenue guidance $1.64-1.69 and $388-396 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: UNXL/BBRY

Analyst actions:

CYBR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
APPS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Roth Capital,
GPN was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
SIGM was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Lake Street,
NTNX was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at FBN Securities;
SCWX was downgraded at BofA/Merrill, Goldman and Barclays,
EXAR was downgraded to Stifel and B. Riley & Co.,
CY was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley;
QLYS was initiated with an Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
CYBR was initiated with an Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
AAOI was initiated with a Sell at Vertical Research

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:26 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Post Best Q1 Since 2013 (:WRAPX) :

The stock market secured its best first quarter performance in four years on Friday, but it did so in a rather spiritless manner as the major averages held close to their unchanged marks from start to finish. The S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Dow (-0.3%) settled with modest losses while the Nasdaq finished flat. For the quarter, the S&P 500 increased 5.5%.

Seven sectors settled within 0.3% of their respective flat lines. The remaining groups--financials (-0.7%), energy (-0.4%), telecom services (-0.5%), and real estate (+0.5%)--didn't do much to distinguish themselves from the pack, but in a day light on activity they're worth noting.

The rate-sensitive utilities (+0.3%) and real estate (+0.5%) spaces settled atop the day's leaderboard as comments from several Fed presidents increased buying interest in the Treasury market, which left yields modestly lower. New York Fed President William Dudley (FOMC voter), Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari (FOMC voter), and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard (non-FOMC voter) laid the groundwork for the Federal Reserve to shift its focus from rate hikes to reducing its balance sheet. Specifically, Mr. Dudley said that the Fed could pause rate hikes while running off its balance sheet.

Shorter-dated issues saw the biggest increase in demand with the 2-yr yield (1.25%) closing four basis points lower while the benchmark 10-yr yield (2.40%) lost only two basis points. The buying steepened the yield curve, but that did little to help the financial sector (-0.7%) as the group closed with the telecom services space (-0.5%) at the back of the pack.

Crude oil achieved its fourth consecutive advance, rising 0.5% to $50.56/bbl. However, the energy sector (-0.4%) failed to capitalize on the positive performance, extending its first quarter loss to 7.3%.

On the corporate front, Amazon (AMZN 886.54, +10.20) put together another solid performance, climbing 1.2% to another fresh record high and extending its weekly gain to 4.8%. However, its peers failed to respond, evidenced by the 0.8% decrease in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 42.24, -0.35).

On the data front, investors received a slew of economic reports, including February Personal Income, February Personal Spending, February Core PCE Prices, March Chicago PMI, and the final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment reading for March:

February personal income rose 0.4%, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus of 0.4%. Meanwhile, February personal spending increased 0.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 0.2%. January Personal Income was revised to 0.5% (from 0.4%) while January Personal Spending was left unrevised at 0.2%. Separately, Core PCE prices for February rose 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). The January reading was left unrevised at 0.3%.
While the report showed income growth, the uptick in the personal savings rate suggests that consumers have a somewhat cautious outlook. Furthermore, the decline in real PCE underscores the fact that overall economic growth remains subdued.
Chicago PMI for March increased to 57.7 from 57.4 in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 55.8.
The key takeaway from the report is that four of five components showed improvement while Employment receded.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March declined to 96.9 (Briefing.com consensus 97.6) from 97.6 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from this report is that a sharp partisan divide that was visible in the preliminary reading, remains in place. Respondents who identified as Democrat expect an imminent recession, higher unemployment, lower income gains, and faster inflation. Conversely, Republicans expect strong growth in incomes and job prospects, coupled with lower inflation.

On Monday, investors will receive March ISM Index (Briefing.com consensus 57.0) and February Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) at 10:00 ET. Also of note, March auto & truck sales will be released throughout the day.
Nasdaq Composite +9.8% YTD
S&P 500 +5.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.1% YTD

Week in Review: Green Once Again

After falling 1.4% last week, the S&P 500 rebounded, rising 0.8% for the week. The benchmark index wrapped up a solid first quarter (+5.5%), which was overshadowed by an even better performance from the Nasdaq, which gained 1.4% for the week, extending its first quarter gain to 9.8%.

There's no question that the GOP's failure to compromise on health care reform last Friday left an impression on this week's activities, maybe most notably on Monday. Investors kicked off the week cautiously as it remains largely unclear how the failure to bring the American Health Care Act to a vote will impact the widely-anticipated tax reform legislation.

In addition, investors are also starting to question the new administration's ability to find middle ground with some of the more conservative Republicans in Congress. This issue will certainly manifest itself in the debate on tax reform as the party remains divided on the need to include a border adjustment tax in the overall fiscal overhaul.

Despite the looming uncertainty, the S&P 500 bounced off its 50-day moving average on Tuesday to post its best performance of the week. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy stoked the fire by leaving the door open to revisiting health care reform. This was contrary to earlier remarks from President Donald Trump, who vowed to move to tax reform without looking back. For investors, if the GOP can cut health care costs, the savings could support a larger tax break.

Crude oil took center stage in the middle of the week following a bullish inventory report from the EIA and rumors that the OPEC/non-OPEC production cut may be extended beyond June. The energy component went on a three-day rally while the energy sector helped the stock market finish slightly higher on Wednesday and Thursday.

Equities closed out the week, and the quarter, with a flat showing on Friday that kept the S&P 500 inside an eight-point range.

A week of mostly hawkish talk from Federal Reserve officials brought rate hike expectations back to levels from two weeks ago. The implied probability of a rate hike in June climbed to 62.5% from last week's 49.6%, according to the fed funds futures market.

On a relatively light session as far as news goes, the broader market as anything but quiet. Opening the session with modest losses, the major averages slowly ticked higher into midday, only to fall to session lows into the final few hours of action. Ultimately, the three major averages closed near lows led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which lost 65.06 points (-0.31%) to 20663.43. The S&P 500 shed about 5.35 points (-0.23%) to 2362.71, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 2.61 points (-0.04%) to 5911.74.

At the bell, the Technology (XLK 53.31, -0.10 -0.19%) space sank to lows. Components Corning (GLW 27.00, -0.56 -2.03%) was one of the worst performers today following a premarket downgrade to a Neutral rating at Citigroup. The 11 S&P sectors reflected the underlying broader market pressure today, led lower by the Financial space XLF -0.84% followed by XLI -0.40%, XLE -0.34%, XLP -0.29%, XLV -0.28%, IYZ -0.03%, XLB -0.02%, XLY +0.01%, XLU +0.39%, XLRE +0.45%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (906.21, -0.91 -0.10%) space, trading was lower today but held onto the 900-level. Component Intel (INTC 36.07, +0.32 +0.90%) bucked the broader trend to end Friday higher after a bullish analyst call in the premarket. Other large cap names in the space finished AAPL -0.15%, MSFT +0.23%, FB -0.25%, GOOG -0.23%, GOOGL -0.20%, V -0.16%, ORCL -0.16%, CSCO +0.18%, IBM +0.16%, MA -0.18%, AVGO -0.49%, QCOM +0.24%.

In reaction to quarterly results:
BlackBerry (BBRY 7.75, +0.80 +11.51%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.04 and $297 million, respectively. Also gave guidance that the company expects to be profitable on a non-GAAP basis for FY18.

Uni-Pixel (UNXL 0.85, -0.05 -5.56%) reported a worse than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.16 on in-line revenues of $1.4 million.

Analyst actions:

HUBS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BTIG Research;
GLW was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
VRNT was downgraded to In Line from Outperform at Imperial Capital;
AMZN initiated with a Buy,
GOOG initiated with a Hold at Loop Capital,
INTC, MU, MXIM, AVGO, SWKS, CAVM initiated with Outperform ratings at Macquarie,
QCOM, TXN, NVDA, XLNX, AMD, QRVO, MRVL initiated with Neutral ratings at Macquarie,
SNAP initiated with a Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
FIS and TSS initiated with Buy ratings at Guggenheim,
FISV initiated with a Neutral at Guggenheim,
HQY and HIIQ initiated with Overweigh ratings at Cantor Fitzgerald,
AUXO initiated with a Buy at The Benchmark Company

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:16 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Eke Out Slim Gain On Tuesday (:WRAPX) : Uncertainty put a force field around the stock market on Tuesday, deterring the bulls and the bears from exerting much influence on the major averages. The Dow (+0.2%) and the Nasdaq (+0.2%) settled roughly in line with the S&P 500 (+0.1%), which held to a ten-point range throughout the day's "action".

Tuesday's uneasiness was based in a number of factors, including the upcoming meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Fed officials shifting the focus from rate hikes to the central bank's balance sheet, the resurgence of health care reform (and what it will mean for tax reform), discrepancy between 'hard' and 'soft' economic data, the French presidential election, and heightened tensions with North Korea, among others.

With those unanswered questions looming in the background, sector movement was subdued; nine of eleven settled within 0.3% of their respective flat lines.

The energy sector (+0.7%) ventured a little ways from its unchanged mark, lured into green territory by crude oil's positive performance. The energy component increased 1.5% to finish pit trade at $50.99/bbl, which marks the commodity's highest level in nearly a month.

Like energy, the industrials (+0.2%), consumer staples (+0.3%), and technology (+0.2%) sectors finished ahead of the broader market. Caterpillar (CAT 94.13, +1.86) was the industrial group's top performer, climbing 2.0%, after the company's stock was added to the 'Conviction Buy List' at Goldman. As for technology, Apple (AAPL 144.77, +1.07) and Microsoft (MSFT 65.73, +0.18) propped up largest sector by weight with respective gains of 0.7% and 0.3%.

On the downside, the financials (-0.2%) and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) spaces settled below their flat lines with the latter suffering amid weakness in retailers after it was reported that the White House is considering a value-added tax. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.22, -0.38) closed lower by 0.9%.

In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt finished Tuesday with a modest loss. The benchmark 10-yr yield closed three basis points higher at 2.35%.

On the data front, investors received February Trade Balance and February Factory Orders:

The February trade balance showed a deficit of $43.6 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $44.7 billion. The previous month's deficit was revised to $48.2 billion from $48.5 billion. The narrowing deficit should help some with first quarter GDP forecasts, yet the key takeaway from this report is that imports were down as much as they were in February, which speaks to some softening demand from U.S. consumers. The Factory Orders Report for February showed an increase of 1.0% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.9%. The January reading was revised to 1.5% (from 1.2%). The key takeaway from the report is that overall business spending was soft in February, evidenced by the 0.1% decline in nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft (the proxy for business spending).Tomorrow, investors will see a slew of economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Index at 7:00 ET, March ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 175,000) at 8:15 ET, March ISM Services (Briefing.com consensus 57.0) at 10:00 ET, and the FOMC Minutes from the March 14-15 meeting at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.6% YTD
S&P 500 +5.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD

5:01 pm ON Semiconductor to change existing accounting estimates related to distributor revenue and allowances; revenue recognition will occur at the time the company ships products to distributors (ON) :

Effective January 1, 2017, the Company will recognize revenue at the time the Company ships products to distributors with appropriate provisions for future price adjustments and returns.

For the first quarter of 2017, the Company will provide the quantitative impact to its financial results associated with the transition to the "sell-in" method. As a result of the transition to the "sell-in" method, the
Company expects to recognize significant one-time adjustments to various line items in its consolidated statement of operations for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, including the reported amounts of revenue, gross margin, operating margin, income before income taxes, net income and net income per share. Except for these one-time adjustments, the Company does not expect the transition to the "sell-in" method to have any material impact to the Company's results for the quarter ended March 31, 2017.

Beginning Tuesday in the red, the broader market slowly ticked higher as the session progressed, ultimately ending above breakeven. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the best performer, adding 39.03 points (+0.19%) to 20689.24. The Nasdaq Composite gained 3.93 points (+0.07%) to 5898.61, while the S&P 500 was up 1.32 points today (+0.06%) to 2360.16.

On the data front, the February trade balance showed a deficit of $43.6 billion while the previous month's deficit was revised to $48.2 billion from $48.5 billion. Additionally, the Factory Orders Report for February showed an increase of 1.0% while the January reading was revised to 1.5% (from 1.2%).

Trading closed with the Technology (XLK 53.30, +0.04 +0.08%) space just peaking its head above flat lines. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 100.78, -7.60 -7.01%) was hit hard on a premarket downgrade to an Underweight rating at Pacific Crest. Performing the best out of the 11 S&P sectors, the US Telecom IYZ +2.92% space more than doubled up the gains of the next best sector -- XLE +0.73%, XLB +0.36%, XLU +0.31%, XLP +0.29%, XLI +0.26%, XLV -0.05%, XLF -0.13%, XLY -0.16%, XLRE -0.28%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (904.82, -0.07 -0.01%) space, trading barely tucked under last night's close despite a modestly higher broader market. Components GPN -1.24% FFIV -1.13% NTAP -1.10% RHT -1.01% ATVI -0.99% CSRA -0.85% PAYX -0.65% held the sector at bay.

Other notable news items among sector components:

General Comm (GNCMA 33.39, +12.83 +62.40%) to be acquired by Liberty Interactive (QVCA, QVCB, LVNTA, LCNTB) for about $32.50 per share in stock

Mercury (MRCY 37.79, +0.78 +2.11%) acquired Delta Microwave for $40.5 million in cash.

Blackbaud (BLKB 76.83, +0.91 +1.20%) acquired AcademicWorks. Financial terms were not disclosed.

DXC Technology (DXC 69.54, +1.59 +2.34%) announced a dividend policy, and a $2 billion repurchase authorization.

VMware (VMW 92.23, +0.56 +0.61%) announced that OVH intends to acquire the VMware's vCloud Air business. Financial details were not disclosed, and the transaction is expected to close in Q2. VMW also reaffirmed Q1 and FY18 guidance.

Yelp (YELP 32.85, +0.22 +0.67%) acquired Turnstyle Analytics for about $20 million.

Analyst actions:

SWKS and CRUS were upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
TTMI was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
PSTG was upgraded to Positive from Neutral at Susquehanna,
TLND was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
GOOGL was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital,
NVDA was downgraded to Underweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest;
PSDO was initiated at Goldman, Barclays, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Credit Suisse, and RBC Capital Mkts,
SNAP was initiated with a Neutral at BTIG Research,
MTCH was initiated with an Overweight at Piper Jaffray,
DXC was initiated with an Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
VSAT and PLXS were initiated with a Neutral at JP Morgan,
JNPR and CTXS were initiated with a Buy at Berenberg,
CSCO, HPE and VMW were initiated with a Hold at Berenberg,
IBM was initiated with a Sell at Berenberg,
QTNA was initiated with a Buy at The Benchmark Company,
NFLX was initiated with a Neutral at Rosenblatt

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From Briefing.com: 4:27 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Squander Early Gains After Hawkish FOMC Minutes (:WRAPX) :

Stocks started strong out of the gate following an upbeat ADP Employment Change Report on Wednesday morning, but the hawkish tone of the FOMC Minutes prompted an afternoon retreat. The S&P 500 settled lower by 0.3% while the Dow (-0.2%) performed slightly better and the Nasdaq (-0.6%) finished slightly worse.

The ADP National Employment Report, which showed an increase of 263,000 in March (Briefing.com consensus 175,000), provided an encouraging signal for the domestic labor market and future economic growth. However, the domestically-oriented Russell 2000 (-1.0%), which is closely tied to the performance of the U.S. economy, struggled to keep pace with the broader market. The lack of buying conviction among small caps pointed to the fact that not all market participants bought into the positive narrative attached to the better than expected ADP reading.

That narrative was tested during the afternoon session with the release of the FOMC Minutes from the March meeting. In the report, the committee revealed that it would like to start reducing the Fed's balance sheet later in the year. In addition, the Minutes showed that some Fed officials are worried about high equity valuations. Stocks held steady immediately following the report, but the hawkish tone eventually seeped in, sending the cash market into the red.

It's also important to note that investors have been on edge all week amid a cloud of uncertainty; it's unclear what will come from President Trump's upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, what the resurgence of health care reform will mean for tax reform, and how the U.S. will deal with the ongoing tensions in Syria and North Korea, among a host of other concerns. With all of these narratives playing in the background, it would be unfair to attribute today's slip to any one factor.

On that note, House Speaker Paul Ryan added to the market's anxiety on Wednesday afternoon, acknowledging that tax reform will take longer than repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Ryan said that the House currently has a tax reform plan, but the Senate is still working on its version.

Most sectors finished today's session in negative territory with only a couple countercyclical groups--utilities (+0.5%) and real estate (+0.2%)--escaping with wins. The financial sector (-0.7%) settled at the bottom of the day's leaderboard with the remaining sectors closing modest lower with losses no greater than 0.4%.

It's worth pointing out that crude oil settled 0.3% higher at $51.14/bbl despite a bearish inventory report from the Energy Information Administration. The EIA reading showed a build of 1.6 million barrels while the consensus called for a modest draw. Nonetheless, the energy sector (-0.3%) performed in line with its cyclical peers throughout the majority of today's action.

In the Treasury market, Treasuries experienced increased demand in the wake of the FOMC Minutes. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished four basis points lower at 2.33%.

On the data front, investors received March ADP Employment Change, March ISM Services, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 263,000 in March (Briefing.com consensus 175,000) while the February reading was revised lower to 245,000 from 298,000.
The ADP reading precedes Friday's more influential Employment Situation Report for March, which the Briefing.com consensus expects will show the addition of 180,000 nonfarm payrolls. The Employment Situation Report for February indicated that nonfarm payrolls increased by 235,000.
The ISM Services Index for March declined to 55.2 from an unrevised reading of 57.6 in February while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick to 57.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that growth in the services sector, which accounts for a much bigger slice of economic activity than the manufacturing sector does, persisted for the 87th straight month.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.6% to follow last week's 0.8% decline.

Tomorrow, March Challenger Job Cuts will be released at 7:30 ET while Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 245,000) will cross the wires at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +8.9% YTD
S&P 500 +5.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD

4:16 pm Kopin announces two agreements w/ 'two leading global OLED companies' as part of its manufacturing strategy for its OLED displays introduced at CES in January 2017 (KOPN) :
Co signed an agreement with Yunnan OLiGHTEK Opto-electronics Technology Co. Ltd.
The parties will jointly purchase an advanced production OLED deposition line to be installed within OLiGHTEK's facility in order to augment OLiGHTEK's existing capabilities.

This OLED deposition line is expected to be ready for volume production by the end of 2017.
Under the terms of the agreement, Kopin will be entitled to 50% of the new line output.

Co has also entered into a separate agreement with BOE Technology Group Co. and OLiGHTEK.
The agreement will establish a high-volume, state of the art facility to manufacture OLED micro-displays to support the growing AR and VR markets.

The new facility will be managed by BOE and is expected to be built in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.
Neither of these new agreements involves licensing of any Kopin technologies.

4:15 pm 8point3 Energy Partners LP reports Q1 results; See 16:05 news as FSLR reviewing alternatives for its interest; Reaffirms 2017 guidance (CAFD) :

For the first quarter of fiscal 2017, 8point3 Energy Partners reported revenue of $9.9 million, net loss of $5.3 million, adjusted EBITDA of $13.1 million and cash available for distribution (CAFD) of $22.1 million.
"As of the end of February, our portfolio consisted of interests in 945-megawatts (:MW) of U.S. solar generating assets including the recent acquisition of First Solar's 34 percent minority interest in its 300-MW Stateline project.
"With the completion of our Stateline interest acquisition and the predictable cash flows from our other projects, we believe we will be able to reduce leverage and achieve our distribution growth rate target of 12 percent this year."
Also, First Solar, one of the Partnership's sponsors, has publicly announced and notified the general partner's Board of Directors of its intention to explore alternatives related to its interests in the Partnership. Given First Solar's intention, SunPower, the Partnership's other sponsor, has likewise publicly announced and notified the general partner's Board of Directors that it is exploring alternatives related to its interests in the Partnership, including but not limited to, seeking a potential new joint venture partner in the Partnership.
Despite the sponsors' review of alternatives with respect to their interests in the Partnership, I want to assure our investors that we do not expect this process to have an impact on our financial results for the year. Given our cash flow profile, we are well positioned to achieve our guidance for the year as well as reach our 12 percent distribution growth rate for 2017,"
The Board of Directors of the Partnership's general partner also declared a cash distribution for its Class A shares of $0.2565 per share for the first quarter.
The Partnership's second quarter 2017 guidance is as follows:
Revenue of $14.0 million to $16.0 million,
Net income of $3.0 million to $5.0 million,
Adjusted EBITDA of $24.0 million to $26.5 million,
CAFD of $15.0 million to $17.5 million and a
Distribution of $0.2642 per share, a forecasted increase of 3.0 percent compared to the Q1 2017 distribution.
The Partnership's fiscal year 2017 guidance remains unchanged:
Revenue of $63.3 million to $66.7 million;
Net income of $27.0 million to $32.6 million;
Adjusted EBITDA of $106.5 million to $113.1 million;
CAFD of $91.5 million to $101.0 million;
The Partnership also expects a distribution growth rate of 12 percent for fiscal year 2017


4:05 pm 8point3 Energy Partners LP: First Solar (FSLR) says reviewing alternatives for the sale of its interests in 8point3 Energy Partners (CAFD) :
First Solar (FSLR) announced that it, working together with its financial and legal advisors, is reviewing alternatives for the sale of its interests in 8point3 Energy Partners. First Solar will coordinate this review with its partner SunPower (SPWR).

In recent months, First Solar has taken actions to strategically align the company's resources and capital in support of its transition to its new Series 6 product offering. As a continuation of these efforts, First Solar is exploring options for the sale of its interests in 8point3 in order to refocus resources on Series 6 objectives and allow for faster

As a continuation of these efforts, First Solar is exploring options for the sale of its interests in 8point3 in order to refocus resources on Series 6 objectives and allow for faster recycling of systems business capital. This capital would support the planned transition to Series 6 production and provide additional funding for the expected deployment of multiple gigawatts of Series 6 capacity over the next several years. First Solar intends to accelerate the return of capital from its systems business by selling projects earlier in the construction phase. This includes the California Flats and Cuyama projects, which have been formally offered to 8point3. If 8point3 is unable to acquire these projects, First Solar expects to sell these projects to third parties.

The moment of truth came today moments after the Fed Minutes were released. Commentary from the latest FOMC minutes took stocks on a ride down the roller coaster after spending the entirety of the morning session well in the green. In all, the Nasdaq Composite led the major averages lower today shedding 34.13 points (-0.58%) to 5864.48. The S&P 500 followed, down about 7.21 points (-0.31%) to 2352.95, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 41.09 points (-0.20%) to 20648.15.

Today's economic data included the ADP National Employment Report which showed an increase of 263,000 in March while the February reading was revised lower to 245,000 from 298,000. Also, the ISM Services Index for March declined to 55.2 from an unrevised reading of 57.6 in February. Lastly, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.6% to follow last week's 0.8% decline.

Pressured late by the sell-off in the broader market, the Technology (XLK 53.08, -0.22 -0.41%) plunged into the red in the final moments of action. Despite the broader sector weakness, component Salesforce.com (CRM 85.34, +2.37 +2.86%) was the best performer as the sell side weighed in on the company's Impact Level 4 authorization, which occurred yesterday. The Utilities and Real Estate spaces were the lone standouts today in the S&P XLU +0.56%, XLRE +0.16%, XLB -0.08%, XLP -0.18%, XLY -0.24%, IYZ -0.30%, XLV -0.31%, XLE -0.31%, XLI -0.32%, XLF -0.76%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (901.95, -2.87 -0.32%) space, trading also fell off into the close after positive action all session. Components ADSK -1.66%, AMAT -1.59%, ADI -1.48%, FLIR -1.26%, CSCO -1.23%, MU -1.15%, RHT -1.09%, TDC -0.99%, EA -0.99%, EBAY -0.97%, HRS -0.96% were among those stock which displayed pressure today.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Rumors circulated this morning surrounding a DigiTimes article that Apple (AAPL 144.02, -0.75 -0.52%) may delay its new iPhone until October or November rather than the typical September release.

TASER (TASR 21.90, -0.10 -0.45%) began a program to provide every police officer in America with a body camera. Also announced the company will formally change its name to Axon and ticker to AAXN effective tomorrow.

HP's (HPQ 17.68, -0.04 -0.23%) acquisition of Samsung Electronics' (SSNLF 1500.00, flat) printing business was cleared by the EU.

Zayo Group Holdings (ZAYO 32.54, +0.04 +0.12%) announced Andrew Crouch as new COO. Additionally, ZAYO intends to offer $500 million of its 5.750% Senior Notes due 2027 through an add-on to its existing issue.

New Relic (NEWR 38.98, +1.92 +5.18%) raised Q4 guidance. The company sees Q1 revenues above market expectations and FY18 revenues up at least 30%, targeting break even non-GAAP results exiting FY18. Additionally, the company announced President Hilarie Koplow-McAdams' retirement.

PayPal (PYPL 42.89, +0.17 +0.40%) and Visa (V 89.04, +0.26 +0.29%) extended their partnership to accelerate adoption of digital and mobile payments across Asia Pacific.

Analyst actions:

TU was upgraded to Sector Outperform from Sector Perform at CIBC;
RCI was downgraded to Sector Perform from Sector Outperform at CIBC;
GUID was initiated with an Overweight at Piper Jaffray,
ACIA was initiated with a Neutral at B. Riley & Co.,
BAH was initiated with an In Line at Evercore ISI,
CSRA was initiated with an Outperform at Evercore ISI

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From Briefing.com: 4:21 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Survive Afternoon Retreat to Close Thursday Higher (:WRAPX) :

The major averages registered modest gains on Thursday, keeping the S&P 500 (+0.2%) several points above its 50-day moving average (2346). The benchmark index settled near the middle of the day's range while the Nasdaq and Dow added 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively. Also of note, the domestically-oriented Russell 2000 bounced back from its disappointing performance yesterday to settled higher by 0.9%.

Stocks pushed into positive territory early in the morning session, where they comfortably remained until the afternoon. Then, without warning, equities gave back nearly all of their modest gains in an early-afternoon move towards their flat lines. There was no clear catalyst behind the sudden move, but it is clear that comments from President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson didn't do anything to alleviate the bearish sentiment.

Mr. Trump said the United States is prepared to act alone on North Korea if China is not willing to assist. In addition, the president and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled that something needs to be done about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Recalling that investors were already a little antsy ahead of President Trump's two-day meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the comments added to the underlying anxiety.

The leaders of the world's two largest economies will have the opportunity to clear the air over the next couple of days, kicking off their two-day talks with dinner this evening in Palm Beach, FL. Investors will be keeping a close eye on reports from the discussions, hoping for a positive signal to keep the bears at bay.

In terms of sector standings, cyclical groups had the upper hand on their countercyclical peers throughout the day's action. The energy group (+0.8%) acted as a pillar of strength in the cash market with crude oil underpinning the positive performance. The commodity closed the day 1.1% higher at $51.71/bbl, marking its seventh advance in eight sessions.

Retailers provided the consumer discretionary sector (+0.4%) with some strength, evidenced by the 2.0% increase in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.65, +0.83). The positive sentiment was attributed to several companies reporting better than expected same-store sales for the month of March.

Conversely, the technology sector (-0.1%) was the only cyclical group to settle in the red after a lackluster performance from some of its top components like Apple (AAPL 143.66, -0.36), Alphabet (GOOGL 845.10, -3.82), and Facebook (FB 141.17, -0.68). Similarly, most countercyclical sectors finished in negative territory with the telecom services group (-1.6%) closing at the bottom of the day's leaderboard.

In the Treasury market, Treasuries settled just below their unchanged marks with the benchmark 10-yr yield closing one basis point higher at 2.34%. Today's downtick follows yesterday's counter-intuitive move which left U.S. sovereign debt higher despite the FOMC Minutes showing that the Fed plans to start unwinding its balance sheet later in the year.

On the data front, investors only received one notable economic report--Initial Claims--in today's session:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 234,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 245,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 259,000 (from 258,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.028 million from the unrevised count of 2.052 million.
This data won't affect the outlook for the March Employment Situation Report, yet it continues to be reflective of an improving labor market.

Tomorrow, investors will receive the March Employment Situation Report (Briefing.com consensus 180,000) at 8:30 ET, February Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) at 10:00 ET, and February Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $14.0 billion) at 15:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +9.2% YTD
S&P 500 +5.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.5% YTD

4:45 pm VOXX Intl to acquire all inventory and intellectual property, including patents and trademarks of Rosen Electronics products (VOXX) : During the next two weeks, VOXX will be moving all operations from AAMP's Ontario, CA warehouse to VOXX's facilities in Nevada, Virginia and Orlando. Integrating the Rosen products into these three touch points will provide the Rosen customers with a high level of confidence in expedited deliveries to all reaches of the country.

4:41 pm NeoPhotonics CFO Ray Wallin will resign effective May 15 and remain as a consultant for a three-month transition period; Company has retained an executive search firm to identify a successor CFO (NPTN) :

Thursday's session mostly carried a positive bias, as the markets returned to their winning ways after yesterday's losses. In all, the Nasdaq Composite was the best performer adding 14.47 points (+0.25%) to 5878.95. The S&P 500 ended up 4.54 points (+0.19%) to 2357.49, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 14.80 points (+0.07%) to 20662.95.

Today's lone piece of economic data was the latest weekly initial jobless claims count which totaled 234,000, below the revised prior week count of 259,000 (from 258,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 2.028 million from the unrevised count of 2.052 million.

A soft session in the Technology (XLK 53.09, +0.01 +0.02%) space saw the sector end Thursday scarcely above yesterday's close. On a day when some big Telecom (IYZ 33.11, +0.12 +0.36%) names were pressured, component AT&T (T 40.60, -0.42 -1.02%) saw the worst losses with other notables including FTR -0.94%, TDS -0.68%, TMUS -0.41%, CBB -0.29%, S -0.24%. Ten out of the 11 S&P sectors ended Thursday either flat or in the green, led by the Energy space XLE +0.83%, followed by XLF +0.64%, XLRE +0.57%, XLB +0.53%, IYZ +0.36%, XLY +0.32%, XLI +0.28%, XLV +0.18%, XLP +0.00%, XLU -0.19%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (901.54, -0.41 -0.05%) space, trading could not make it back into positive territory as the session came to an end. Component Western Digital (WDC 84.09, +1.39 +1.68%) was the best performer after announcing the portable My Passport SSD. Other names in the space which outperformed today included INTU +1.38%, MU +1.27%, ADS +1.24%, EBAY +1.04%, FLIR +1.02%, QRVO +1.01%, SYMC +0.92%, LRCX +0.85%, NVDA +0.71%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Synacor (SYNC 3.50, -0.65 -15.66%) priced an underwritten public offering of 5,715,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $3.50 per share.

Western Digital (WDC) introduced its fastest WD brand portable drive yet, the My Passport SSD.

GoPro (GPRO 8.51, +0.08 +0.95%) to offer $150 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2022 in a private placement.

Twitter (TWTR 14.39, -0.14 -0.96%) shares were slightly pressured today following media coverage of co-founder Evan Williams' sale of TWTR stock. Last night after the close, Williams filed a Form 4 with the SEC detailing the sale of just over 273,000 shares - the sale of said shares were 'effected pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted by the Reporting Person.'

First Solar (FSLR 26.61, +0.03 +0.13%) said it is reviewing alternatives for the sale of its interests in 8point3 Energy Partners (CAFD 12.16, -1.05 -7.95%). CAFD also reported Q1 results, and the company reaffirmed its 2017 guidance.

Mobileye N.V. (MBLY 61.74, +0.44 +0.72%) modestly higher today in reaction to Intel's (INTC 36.03, -0.19 -0.52%) announcement that it commenced its previously announced cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of MBLY at a price of $63.54 per share.

Zhaopin (ZPIN 17.74, +0.55 +3.20%) entered a definitive merger agreement for $18.20 per share.

Analyst actions:

BCE was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
NTAP was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Underperform at JMP Securities,
AMTD was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Buckingham, DXC was upgraded to Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
SCON was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Rodman & Renshaw;
TMUS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank;
AMD was initiated with a Sell at Goldman,
SSNC was initiated with a Buy at UBS,
NTNX was initiated with a Buy at BofA/Merrill,
PANW was initiated with a Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
MIME was initiated with a Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt

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From Briefing.com:4:14 pm Closing Market Summary: Equities Eke Out Win To Kick Off the Week (:WRAPX) :

The stock market opened the week with a win, but concerns over heightened geopolitical tensions held gains in check throughout the session. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq settled with slim gains of 0.1% apiece, while the Dow finished flat.

Investors started the day with optimism, moving the major averages modestly higher, but there was no doubt that last week's missile strike in Syria weighed on the positive sentiment. In addition, the U.S. Navy ordered the Carl Vinson Strike group to begin moving towards the Korean peninsula over the weekend. With those concerns playing in the background, the stock market dipped into negative territory around midday on rumors that China deployed about 150,000 troops in two groups to its border with North Korea. Equities recovered shortly thereafter, but never quite made it back to their best levels of the day.

This rumor of Chinese troop movement has been gaining traction with Asian media in recent days, and it has been noticed by U.S. investors during an abbreviated week, which is likely to see reduced participation. That was the case on Monday with only 794.0 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor (200-day average: 970.8 million).

For sector standings, the energy group (+0.8%) finished atop the day's leaderboard thanks to a solid performance from crude oil. The commodity finished 1.6% higher at $53.06/bbl following further production complications in Libya. The country's largest oilfield was shut down on Sunday after a group blocked a pipeline linking it to an oil terminal.

The consumer discretionary (+0.4%), industrials (+0.2%), consumer staples (+0.3%), real estate (+0.7%), and utilities (+0.2%) sectors also outperformed the broader market. Retailers helped the consumer discretionary sector in its advance, evidenced by the 1.5% increase in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 42.11, +0.60). One of the XRT's top-performers was Amazon (AMZN 907.04, +12.16), which added 1.4% in another solid performance.

On the flip side, the financials (-0.3%) and telecom services (-0.3%) groups settled at the bottom of the day's leaderboard while the health care (-0.2%) and technology (-0.2%) groups performed only modestly better. The top-weighted technology sector suffered from a lackluster performance from its top component by market cap, Apple (AAPL 143.14, -0.20), and selling pressure within the semiconductor industry; the PHLX Semiconductor Index closed lower by 0.8%.

In the Treasury market, the main event, Fed Chair Janet Yellen's speech at the University of Michigan, has yet to occur. Ms. Yellen will participate in a question-and-answer session with the public shortly at 16:10 ET. The benchmark 10-yr yield settled two basis points lower at 2.36%.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. The first report of the week--February JOLTS--will cross the wires tomorrow at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +9.3% YTD
S&P 500 +5.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD

The broader market escaped Monday with gains, if you can call it that. The S&P 500 led all others up 1.62 points (+0.07%) to 2357.16. The Nasdaq Composite added 3.11 points (+0.05%) to 5880.93, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.2 points (+0.01%) to 20658.02.

The Technology (XLK 52.96, -0.10 -0.19%) sector ended modestly lower on a seesaw session which saw slight morning gains disappear by the afternoon. Component First Solar (FSLR 27.97, +1.16 +4.33%) posted the best session today as the stock piggy-backed off Friday's strength. In broker news, Needham upgraded shares of e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN 907.04, +12.16 +1.36%) in the premarket session, aiding the shares' nearly 12 point advance.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (899.57, -1.36 -0.15%) space, trading mirrored that of the Tech space, where morning gains disappeared by the afternoon. Component Yahoo! (YHOO 47.21, +0.77 +1.66%) was one of the better performing names in the space today after Starboard's Jeffrey Smith indicated that he intends to resign from YHOO's Board effective upon the closing of YHOO's deal with Verizon (VZ 48.54, -0.12 -0.25%). Other names in the space which xxx.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Advanced Micro (AMD 13.10, -0.42 -3.11%) acquires intellectual property and engineering talent from Nitero; terms not disclosed.

Starboard's Jeffrey Smith indicated that he intends to resign from Yahoo!'s (YHOO) Board effective upon the closing of the company's transaction with Verizon (VZ).

Twitter (TWTR 14.36, +0.07 +0.49%) filed a definitive proxy statement for its 2016 annual meeting of stockholders.

Xcerra (XCRA 9.63, +0.63 +7.00%) agreed to be acquired by Unic Capital Management for $10.25 per share in cash. The deal includes a go-shop period.

Straight Path Comms (STRP 91.64, +55.16 +151.21%) to be acquired by AT&T (T 40.38, -0.22 -0.54%) for $95.63/share in an all-stock merger intended to qualify as a tax-free reorganization.

Microsoft (MSFT 65.53, -0.15 -0.23%) acquired Deis to help companies innovate with containers in the cloud.

Analyst actions:

AMZN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham,
AMX upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
CY was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at SunTrust;
XCRA was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson,
CBR was downgraded to Sell at Maxim;
GUID was initiated with an Outperform at Northland Capital

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From Briefing.com: 4:28 pm Closing Market Summary: Equities End Tuesday Little Changed (:WRAPX) : Geopolitical tensions spooked investors on Tuesday, but the S&P 500's 50-day moving average provided support to keep losses in check. The Dow (unch) and the Nasdaq (-0.2%) settled on opposite sides of the benchmark index (-0.1%) while the small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.7%) outperformed.

Stocks retreated out of the gate, hitting their lowest levels of the day about an hour after the opening bell. By noon, equities had reclaimed about half of their earlier losses, but they still had difficulty shaking the risk-off sentiment until the final minutes of action. Even still, the late rally left the cash market short of its flat line.

Sector standings echoed the day's risk-off sentiment as countercyclical groups held the upper hand over their more-risky, cyclical peers. The real estate (+0.4%), consumer staples (+0.1%), and telecom services (+0.1%) spaces closed in the green while the utilities sector (unch) finished flat.

On the cyclical side, the heavily-weighted financials (-0.3%) and technology (-0.4%) sectors were hit the hardest. The financial group suffered from a flattening of the yield curve as increased buying interest within the Treasury market was unequally distributed; the 10-yr yield (2.30%) lost six basis points while the 2-yr yield (1.24%) gave up only four basis points.

For technology, the sector's top component by market cap, Apple (AAPL 141.63, -1.54), gave back some of its huge first quarter gain (+24.0%), falling 1.1%. Meanwhile, chipmakers showed relative weakness, evidenced by the 0.8% decrease in the PHLX Semiconductor Index, after Qualcomm (QCOM 55.35, -1.17) filed its Answer and Counterclaims to the January lawsuit brought by Apple against the company.

The energy sector (-0.1%) performed roughly in line with the broader market despite an uptick in crude oil. The energy component climbed out of negative territory following reports that Saudi Arabia favors extending the OPEC/non-OPEC production cut agreement beyond June. WTI crude settled 0.6% higher at $53.38/bbl, marking the commodity's sixth consecutive win.

Although the S&P 500 managed to close above its 50-day moving average (2349), the sharp rise in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.26, +1.21) provides evidence that investors are putting the pro-growth trade into question. The VIX Index now sits at its highest level since the presidential election.

Investor participation was a bit below average again today in light of the abbreviated week; 933.3 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

On the data front, investors received only one economic report--February JOLTS--on Tuesday:

The February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.743 million from a revised 5.625 million (from 5.626 million) in January.

Tomorrow, investors will receive a batch of economic data, including the MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, March Export/Import Prices at 8:30 ET, and the March Treasury Budget at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.0% YTD
S&P 500 +5.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.5% YTD

4:31 pm CalAmp confirms last week's court ruling in Omega patent infringement case; intends to challenge the judgment through all appropriate motions (CAMP) :
On April 5, 2017, the trial court judge awarded Omega trebled damages in the aggregate amount of $8.9 mln plus attorneys' fees in an amount to be determined, but denied Omega's request for an injunction. CalAmp recorded a reserve of $2.9 mln in February 2016 at the time of the jury verdict, and recorded an additional reserve of $6.0 mln in its financial statements for the year ended February 28, 2017 as a result of the judge's award of trebled damages. The $6.0 mln charge will impact fiscal 2017 GAAP-basis results of operations by $0.11 per diluted share but will not impact fiscal 2017 non-GAAP earnings per share or Adjusted EBITDA.

CalAmp's position has always been, and remains, that it does not infringe Omega's patents and that Omega's patents are invalid. CalAmp intends to challenge the judgment through all appropriate motions with the trial court, an appeal at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit if necessary, and the ongoing ex parte reexaminations of Omega's patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The broader market opened Tuesday with some modest losses, steepening the decline as the first two hours of the session progressed. Then, a modest recovery into the afternoon still saw the major averages in negative territory yet well off intraday lows. Ultimately, Tuesday ended with the Nasdaq Composite the worst performer, shedding about 14.15 points (-0.24%) to 5866.77. The S&P 500 lost 3.38 points (-0.14%) to 2353.78, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined just 6.72 points (-0.03%) to 20651.30.

The lone piece of economic data today was the February JOLTS number -- the February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.743 million from a revised 5.625 million (from 5.626 million) in January.

The worst performing sector in the S&P today, the Technology (XLK 52.76,-0.20 -0.38%) sector closed off lows but still underperforming the broader market. Component Alliance Data (ADS 238.34, -9.32 -3.76%) was the worst performer today after the stock received an Underperform rating from analysts at Oppenheimer in an initiation report. The rest of the remaining 10 S&P sectors finished with US Telecoms at the top IYZ +0.51% followed by XLRE +0.47%, XLI +0.14%, XLE +0.04%, XLP +0.04%, XLU -0.04%, XLY -0.08%, XLV -0.13%, XLF -0.26%, XLB -0.27%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (895.64, -3.93 -0.44%) space, trading furthered the gap from the 900 level. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 55.35, -1.17 -2.07%) was a big reason the sector was so pressured; the stock was weaker today in reaction to an Answer and Counterclaims suit to Apple (AAPL 141.63, -1.54 -1.08%). Some of the bigger names in the space finished in the red today including AAPL -1.08%, FB -0.79%, IBM -0.36%, CSCO -0.27%, GOOGL -0.22%, MA -0.19%, INTC -0.17%, GOOG -0.17%, MSFT -0.08%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Qualcomm (QCOM) filed an Answer and Counterclaims to Apple (AAPL) lawsuit. The suit highlights breached agreements negotiations with QCOM.

Maxwell Tech (MXWL 5.97, +0.52 +9.54%) and 6.9% shareholder Viex Capital entered a cooperation agreement whereby John Mutch was appointed as an independent director. MXWL also signed a stock purchase agreement with SDIC Fund; purchase price is $6.32/share and is anticipated to represent about 19.9% of MXWL's common stock.

GoPro (GPRO 8.95, +0.26 +2.99%) launched a camera Trade-Up Program. For a limited time starting April 11, existing GoPro owners can receive $100 off a new HERO5 Black, or $50 off a HERO5 Session when they trade-in any previous-generation GoPro HERO camera.

Coupa Software (COUP 25.47, +0.97 +3.96%) announced the launch of a proposed follow-on public offering of 3,700,000 shares of its common stock; offering includes 91,535 shares to be offered by Coupa and 3,608,465 shares to be offered by certain selling stockholders.

Micron (MU 27.18, -0.46 -1.66%) executive Scott DeBoer entered into a prearranged trading plan providing for the sale of up to 120,144 shares of stock beginning in May. The company also confirmed that prosecutors in Taiwan have been conducting ongoing investigations.

In reaction to quarterly results:

MTS Systems (MTSC 46.70, -7.10 -13.20%) reported Q4 EPS of $0.55 on worse than expected revenues of $199.28 million. MTSC's EPS figure excludes acquisition integration, acquisition inventory step-up, China investigation and restructuring expenses. Additionally, MTSC issued in-line guidance for FY17 revenues in the range of $760-790 million.

Analyst actions:

WDC was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
STX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Longbow,
YELP was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
SBAC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Guggenheim,
RNG was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
ROG was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sidoti;
ON was downgraded to Underperform at Credit Suisse,
WIX was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Cantor Fitzgerald,
XCRA was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co. and to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum;
MULE was initiated at JP Morgan, Jefferies, Goldman, Barclays, Piper Jaffray, BofA/Merrill, William Blair and Canaccord Genuity,
BSFT was initiated with a Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
ADS was initiated with an Underperform at Oppenheimer,
FIVN and EGHT were initiated with Equal Weight ratings at Morgan Stanley,
AXTI was initiated with a Buy at BWS Financial

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Finish Lower on Wednesday (:WRAPX) :

The bears edged the bulls from the jump on Wednesday with geopolitics fueling the cautious sentiment. The S&P 500 (-0.4%) finished below its 50-day moving average (2351), which has been a mainstay of support since the election. The Dow (-0.3%) and the Nasdaq (-0.5%) settled on opposite sides of the benchmark index while the Russell 2000 (-1.3%) underperformed.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to Moscow frequented the day's headlines. Mr. Tillerson did end up meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin despite earlier reports that the Mr. Putin would not meet with the U.S. diplomat. However, the conversations were rough with Mr. Tillerson saying that U.S.-Russia relations are "at a low point."

Back in the U.S., President Trump made headlines on a couple of occasions. First, Mr. Trump made it clear that health care reform will once again take priority over tax reform. Second, the president reiterated his belief that the U.S. dollar is too strong, and, in the same breath, said that he was undecided on re-nominating Fed Chair Janet Yellen. Based on his comments, it appears that Mr. Trump is seeking Fed officials that will keep the U.S. dollar, and interest rates, as low as possible.

The U.S. Dollar Index (100.12, -0.50) tumbled from its flat line in the wake of President Trump's comments, finishing the day with a loss of 0.5%. Conversely, U.S. Treasuries moved higher in electronic trade with the benchmark 10-yr yield (2.26%) losing four basis points to drop below the key technical support level of 2.30%.

However, despite the notable headlines, equities watched the news pass by, sticking to their modest losses. Sector standings reflected a cautious sentiment with countercyclical groups outperforming their cyclical peers, but the broader market's loss remained modest throughout the session.

The industrials (-1.3%), financials (-0.9%), and materials (-1.2%) sectors finished at the bottom of the day's leaderboard, while the consumer staples (+0.5%), utilities (+0.7%), and telecom services (+0.6%) groups settled at the top.

Following today's loss, the financial sector now trades in negative territory for the year (-0.3%). The space will be looking to get its 2017 campaign back on track with earnings reports from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 85.40, -0.33), Citigroup (C 58.51, -0.52), and Wells Fargo (WFC 53.12, -1.04) tomorrow morning.

Through it all, the best summary of today's action may be the increase in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.96, +0.89). The VIX Index sits at its highest level since the presidential election, indicating that investors need results rather than words to keep moving stocks forward.

On the data front, investors received a batch of economic reports on Tuesday, including March Import/Export Prices, March Treasury Budget, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Import prices excluding oil rose 0.2% in March after adding 0.4% in February (revised from 0.3%). Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.2% in March after rising 0.3% in February.
The monthly readings for March might have been mixed, yet the key takeaway from the report is that the year-over-year readings speak to a trend of rising inflation for core import and export prices.
The Treasury Budget for March showed a deficit of $176.2 billion versus a deficit of $108.0 billion for March 2016. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the March deficit cannot be compared to the $192.0 billion deficit registered in February.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which was released earlier this morning, increased 1.5% to follow last week's 1.6% decline. In addition, investors will receive the March Treasury Budget this afternoon at 14:00 ET.

Tomorrow, investors will see a slew of economic data, including March PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) and Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 251,000) at 8:30 ET and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey (Briefing.com consensus 96.3) at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +8.4% YTD
S&P 500 +4.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.2% YTD

4:52 pm Ixia shareholders approved acquisition of Ixia by Keysight Technologies (KEYS) for $19.65 per share in cash; closing of the merger is expected to occur as early as the second half of April 2017 (XXIA) :

4:32 pm Xilinx announces multi-year CEO succession plan; Victor Peng will become Chief Operating Officer effective immediately (XLNX) :

announced a multi-year CEO succession plan, including two senior level promotions.

Victor Peng will become Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Xilinx, effective immediately.
In addition, Krishna Rangasayee has been promoted to Executive Vice President of Sales, reporting to Mr. Peng.
As part of the succession plan, Xilinx has signed a multi-year employment agreement with Mr. Gavrielov to continue as President and CEO, which includes an additional year of transition and consulting services following his tenure as CEO.

4:05 pm Applied Optoelectronics sees Q1 results above guidance (shares halted) (AAOI) :

Co sees Q1 EPS of $1.00-1.02 (Prior guidance was for $0.80-0.88) vs $0.83 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, sees revs of ~$96.2 mln (Prior guidance was for $87-91 mln) vs $89.77 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate
"We delivered another strong quarter with our top and bottom-line results expected to exceed our guidance," said Dr. Thompson Lin, Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. founder, president and CEO. "Our results were driven by continued robust demand for our market-leading datacenter products and solid execution. We are pleased with our momentum and look forward to sharing the additional details of our first quarter performance on our conference call in May."

4:04 pm SemiLEDs reports Q2 EPS of ($0.30), ex items vs ($0.17) prior qtr; revs -33.3% q/q to $1.8 mln; sees Q3 revs approx $2.0 million +/- 10% (LEDS) : Q2 op margin was -62% vs -41% in the first quarter of fiscal 2017. The cash and cash equivalents was $4.1 million at February 28, 2017, compared to $4.8 million at the end prior qtr.

Today's action began in the red and never looked back. Opening losses grew as the session progressed, eventually ending Wednesday just above lows. The worst performer today was the Nasdaq Composite which lost 30.61 points (-0.52%) to 5836.16. The S&P 500 was down 8.85 points (-0.38%) to 2344.93, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 59.44 points (-0.29%) to 20591.86.

Finishing about middle of the pack as far as S&P sectors go, the Technology (XLK 52.58, -0.18 -0.34%) space was morning losses expand as the session progressed, ultimately finishing slightly off lows. Despite this negative bias, component HP (HPQ 18.02, +0.48 +2.74%) managed a strong Wednesday after the stock was upgraded to a 'Buy' rating at Citigroup ahead of the open. The rest of the S&P was led by the Utilities sector XLU +0.74% followed by IYZ +0.39%, XLP +0.38%, XLV +0.00%, XLRE -0.16%, XLY -0.40%, XLE -0.42%, XLF -0.81%, XLB -1.24%, XLI -1.38%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (892.07, -3.57 -0.40%) space, trading ended near lows in light of broader market pressure. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 53.39, -1.96 -3.54%) was one of the worst performing names in the space today following an arbitration ruling against QCOM in favor or BlackBerry (BBRY 8.93, +1.23 +16.04%) in the amount of about $815 million. Other names in the space which underperformed today included SWKS -2.55%, NTAP -2.20%, WDC -2.14%, QRVO -2.05%, MU -1.80%, ADI -1.55%, XLNX -1.54%, STX -1.53%, GLW -1.38%, FFIV -1.32%, APH -1.29%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
The IDC reported Q1 worldwide shipments of traditional PCs (desktop, notebook, workstation) +0.6% y/y to 60.3 million units (previous forecast had expected shipments to decline 1.8% in the quarter).

Gartner reported Q1 worldwide PC Shipments declined 2.4% and for the first time since 2007, quarterly PC shipments were below 63 million units.

BlackBerry (BBRY) announced a binding interim arbitration decision that awards it $814,868,350 in royalty overpayments made to Qualcomm (QCOM).

Qualcomm (QCOM) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.57 from $0.53 per share.

TiVo (TIVO 18.50, -0.70 -3.65%) signed a multi-year Intellectual Property License deal with Roku.

VMware (VMW 91.22, -1.21 -1.31%) to acquire Wavefront; terms not disclosed.

Workday (WDAY 83.45, +2.14 +2.63%) announced that Target (TGT 53.40, -0.31 -0.58%) has chosen Workday Human Capital Management, including Workday Learning, Workday Payroll, and Workday Recruiting.

Accenture (ACN 115.58, -0.50 -0.43%) acquired Beespath's ClosingBridge platform; financial details not disclosed.

According to CNBC, Facebook's (FB 139.58, -0.34 -0.24%) Messenger app now has 1.2 billion users, up from 1 billion about six months ago.

Analyst actions:

HPQ was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
GRUB was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
ERIC was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse,
BBRY was upgraded to Sector Perform from Sector Underperform at CIBC,
SNX was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
VRSN was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup;
ADBE was initiated with a Buy at Stifel,
NOW was initiated with a Hold at Stifel,
FDC and TSS were initiated with Neutral ratings at Atlantic Equities,
GPN and VNTV were initiated with Overweight rating at Atlantic Equities,
OSIS was initiated with a Buy at Jefferies,
ABY was initiated with a Hold at Jefferies,
TLND was initiated with an Overweight at Pacific Crest,
JIVE was initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
PCTY was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street,
CALD was initiated with an Outperform at William Blair

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From Briefing.com: 4:12 pm IBM beats by $0.03, misses on revs; reaffirms FY17 EPS guidance (IBM) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $2.38 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.35; revenues fell 2.8% year/year to $18.16 bln vs the $18.37 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

First-quarter cloud revenues increased 33% (up 35% adjusting for currency) to $3.5 bln. Cloud revenue over the last 12 months was $14.6 bln. The annual exit run rate for cloud as-a-service revenue increased to $8.6 bln from $5.4 bln in the first quarter of 2016. Revenues from analytics increased 6% (up 7% adjusting for currency). Revenues from mobile increased 20% (up 22% adjusting for currency) and revenues from security increased 9% (up 10% adjusting for currency).

Cognitive Solutions (includes Solutions Software and Transaction Processing Software) -- revenues of $4.1 bln, up 2.1% (up 2.8% adjusting for currency) were driven by growth in analytics and security, which include
Watson-related offerings.

Global Business Services (includes Consulting, Global Process Services and Application Management) -- revenues of $4.0 bln, down 3.0% (down 1.9% adjusting for currency). Strategic imperatives grew double digits led by the cloud and mobile practices.

Technology Services & Cloud Platforms (includes Infrastructure Services, Technical Support Services and Integration Software) -- revenues of $8.2 bln, down 2.5% (down 2.0% adjusting for currency) with strong growth in strategic imperatives driven by hybrid cloud services.

Systems (includes Systems Hardware and Operating Systems Software) -- revenues of $1.4 bln, down 16.8% (down 16.1% adjusting for currency).

Global Financing (includes financing and used equipment sales) -- revenues of $405 mln, down 1.2% (down 2.1% adjusting for currency).

Co reaffirms guidance for FY17, sees EPS of at least $13.80, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $13.78 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:09 pm Lam Research beats by $0.25, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS, revs above consensus (LRCX) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $2.80 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.25 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.55; revenues rose 63.9% year/year to $2.15 bln vs the $2.13 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Shipments were $2.41 billion (+25% Q/Q)
Non-GAAP gross margin of 46.1%, non-GAAP operating margin of 26.9%, and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $2.80.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $2.88-3.12, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.65 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $2.2-2.4 bln vs. $2.19 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees shipments of $2.5 bln +/- $100 mln

4:08 pm CalAmp beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CAMP) :

Reports Q4 (Feb) earnings of $0.28 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.27; revenues rose 21.6% year/year to $86.1 mln vs the $86.01 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Q4 gross margin was 41.6%, up from 38.9% in the prior year

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.24-0.32, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.28 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $84-90 mln vs. $88.15 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Cypress Semi resolves lawsuit brought by departed CEO T.J. Rodgers; co issues statement (CY) :


Statement:

"In a second attempt to settle this matter, Cypress had already offered to provide all Board minutes and presentations that Mr. Rodgers had requested in his demand, subject to agreeing to maintain the confidentiality of such information. We are pleased that the Delaware court ruled only that, in large part, Mr. Rodgers could have access to what we had already said Cypress was willing to provide and subject to the confidentiality restrictions we had sought. While we disagree with the court's determination, and many of the court's extraneous comments, we are pleased that it has recognized the overly broad nature of Mr. Rodgers' demands and has appropriately limited the information to be made available to him and its use.

We do not believe it is in the best interests of Cypress or our stockholders to appeal the court's decision, and will promptly comply with it by providing the requested documents to Mr. Rodgers. We continue to view his litigation as nothing more than a blatant attempt by Mr. Rodgers, who was forced by the Board of Cypress to resign, to further a proxy campaign motivated by a personal vendetta.

Cypress remains fully focused on executing our Cypress 3.0 strategy to drive long-term stockholder value, and we look forward to discussing with stockholders the merits of how the Board and management team are driving the Company forward."

4:19 pm Closing Market Summary: Bears Take Game Two (:WRAPX) :

The bears took game two in this week's series after the latest batch of earnings reports failed to generate much conviction among the bulls. The Dow got hit the hardest, losing 0.6%, while the S&P 500 (-0.3%) and the Nasdaq (-0.1%) experienced more modest declines.

Equities opened Tuesday in negative territory with the health care sector (-1.0%) leading the retreat. UnitedHealth (UNH 168.59, +1.41) beat top and bottom line estimates, but it wasn't enough to overcome Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ 121.82, -3.90) miss on revenues. JNJ, the health care sector's largest component by market cap, ended the day lower by 3.1%.

However, the real bearish signal came from the financial sector (-0.8%), which failed, yet again, to capitalize on some positive earnings news. Bank of America (BAC 22.71, -0.10) reported upbeat earnings and revenues in its latest earnings report, but the positive momentum was hijacked by Goldman Sachs (GS 215.59, -10.67), which failed to meet top and bottom line expectations.

The results were eerily similar to last Thursday's activity in which the financial sector stumbled after Wells Fargo (WFC 52.45, -0.27) missed revenue expectations, but JPMorgan Chase (JPM 85.16, -0.70) and Citigroup (C 58.42, -0.57) beat on the top and bottom lines. The flops have been felt throughout the market as the financial sector, which, in many ways, has come to symbolize the stock market's post-election rally, struggles to find more room to run.

Activity in the Treasury market certainly didn't help the financial sector find its footing as unequally distributed buying interest flattened the yield curve. The 10-yr yield (2.17%) closed eight basis points lower while the 2-yr yield (1.15%) lost only five basis points. Nonetheless, it's important to note the risk-off tone that fueled the move higher for U.S. sovereign debt. That risk-off tone contributed to resilience in gold, which rose 0.2% to $1293.90/ozt after being down roughly 1.0% in the morning.

As one might expect, countercyclical groups generally outperformed their cyclical peers with the consumer staples (+0.5%), utilities (+0.2%), and telecom services (+0.2%) spaces profiting from investors' defensive mindset. Conversely, the energy sector (-0.9%) was the worst-performing cyclical group with crude oil closing 0.3% lower at $52.47/bbl.

Investor participation was a bit below average as 890 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

On the data front, investors received the March Housing Starts and March Industrial Production reports:

Housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.215 million units in March, down from a revised 1.303 million units in February (from 1.288 million). The Briefing.com consensus expected starts to decrease to 1.256 million units. Building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted 1.260 million in March from a revised 1.216 million for February (from 1.213 million). The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.240 million.The key takeaway from the report is that single-family permits fell 1.1% to 823,000, which is a discouraging indicator for a housing market very much in need of new supply at lower price points. Industrial Production increased 0.5% in March (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) while Capacity Utilization rose to 76.1% (Briefing.com consensus 76.2%) from a revised reading of 75.7% in February (from 75.9%). The Industrial Production reading for February was revised to 0.1% from 0.0%.The key takeaway from the report -- and the main source of disappointment -- is that manufacturing output declined 0.4% in March, paced by a big step-down in the production of motor vehicles and parts, but even if that factor is excluded, manufacturing output still declined 0.2%. Furthermore, revisions left the manufacturing output gains for January and February smaller than previously stated.Tomorrow, investors will receive the MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET and the Fed's Beige Book for April at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.7% YTD
S&P 500 +4.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.4% YTD

Today's action ended with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting the worst losses of the three major indices, shedding 113.64 points (-0.55%) to 20523.28. The S&P 500 lost 6.82 points (-0.29%) to 2342.19, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 7.32 points (-0.12%) to 5849.47. All eyes were on Netflix (NFLX 143.36, -3.89 -2.64%) today, after the company reported earnings last night. Shares quickly retreated lower at the open, and did not get back to positive territory.

Today's economic data included housing starts which decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.215 million units in March, down from a revised 1.303 million units in February (from 1.288 million). Building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted 1.260 million in March from a revised 1.216 million for February (from 1.213 million). Industrial Production increased 0.5% in March while Capacity Utilization rose to 76.1% from a revised reading of 75.7% in February (from 75.9%). The Industrial Production reading for February was revised to 0.1% from 0.0%.

The 11 S&P sectors ended split today, and Technology (XLK 52.84, -0.01 -0.02%) for its part finished just this side of flat lines. Component First Solar (FSLR 26.89, -0.45 -1.65%) was weaker today on no particular news. The Consumer Staples space led the remaining S&P sectors XLP +0.49% followed by XLRE +0.25%, XLU +0.21%, IYZ +0.21%, XLY +0.01%, XLB -0.12%, XLI -0.32%, XLE -0.94%, XLF -0.94%, XLV -1.09%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (896.64, -0.69 -0.08%) space, trading fell under flat lines as the bell rang. Component Corning (GLW 26.89, +0.35 +1.32%) was one of the better performing names today after the company and Verizon (VZ 49.22, +0.41 +0.84%) confirmed a $1.05 billion three-year minimum purchase agreement for optical solutions. Other names in the space which underperformed today included WDC -1.53%, CTSH -1.41%, EBAY -1.22%, KLAC -0.94%, IBM -0.61%, HRS -0.59%, CRM -0.58%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Verizon (VZ) confirmed a $1.05 billion three-year minimum purchase agreement with Corning (GLW) for next-generation optical solutions.

Disney (DIS 114.19, +0.41 +0.36%) shares were strong into the close following headlines that Verizon (VZ) CEO suggested the company is open to deals with DIS, Comcast (CMCSA 37.59, +0.39 +1.05%) and CBS (CBS 68.39, +1.21 +1.80%).

Motorola Solutions (MSI 82.64, -0.44 -0.53%) filed patent infringement complaints with the Regional Court of Dsseldorf in Germany, asserting that Hytera's two-way wireless communication devices that utilize 'pseudo-trunking' functionality are infringing its patent.

Wi-LAN (WILN 1.86, -0.14 -7.00%) disclosed a plan to transform its business into a growth-oriented diversified holding company, will acquire International Road Dynamics for $47.4 million.

Microsoft (MSFT 65.39, -0.09 -0.14%) to acquire Intentional Software. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Rambus (RMBS 12.67, +0.13 +1.04%) to expand collaboration with Microsoft (MSFT) researchers to develop prototype systems that optimize memory performance in cryogenic temperatures.

58.com (WUBA 35.53, -0.69 -1.91%) raised $200 million from investment by Tencent (TCEHY 29.37, -0.39 -1.33%) for the development of used goods trading platform Zhuan Zhuan.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Barracuda Networks (CUDA 19.71, -3.70 -15.81%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.19 on revenues which were modestly ahead of market expectations at $89.26 million. For Q1, the company sees in-line revenues and EPS of $90-92 million and $0.17-0.19, respectively. For FY18, CUDA sees revenues of $370-380 million on EPS of $0.73-0.78.

Netflix (NFLX) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.40 on in-line revenues of $2.64 billion. For Q2, NFLX sees EPS below market expectations at $0.15. Net subscriber additions (streaming) in Q1 came in at +4.95 million (+1.42 in US and +3.53 international), which was below prior guidance of +5.2 million and below its prior year performance of +6.74 million.

Analyst actions:

CUDA was upgraded to In-Line from Underperform at Imperial Capital,
SSYS was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray,
CHKP was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley;
BABA, JD, NTES, BIDU, CTRP, EDU, MOMO, VIPS, WB, SINA, TAL, TCEHY, HTHT, YY were all initiated with Buy ratings at The Benchmark Company,
WUBA, ATHM, SOHU, SFUN and CYOU were all initiated with Hold ratings at The Benchmark Company, DATA, SPLK, and TLND were all initiated with Buy ratings at BTIG Research,
TDC and VMW were initiated with Neutral ratings at BTIG Research,
MTCH was initiated with a Buy at Jefferies,
AYX was initiated with a Buy at Goldman, an Outperform at William Blair, Raymond James, JMP Securities and Cowen, an Overweight at Pacific Crest, and a Neutral at JP Morgan,
SYNC was initiated with a Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
ELVT was initiated with a Neutral at Compass Point,
DBD was initiated with a Buy at Feltl

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From Briefing.com: 4:23 pm Benchmark Electronics beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (BHE) :Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.26; revenues rose 3.1% year/year to $566.5 mln vs the $540.5 mln two analyst estimate.

The Company projects that new program bookings for the first quarter will result in annualized revenue of $118 to $149 million when fully launched in the next 12-18 months. The new program bookings align with Benchmark's strategic focus on higher-value markets.

Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.31-0.35, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.37 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $565-585 mln vs. $574.20 mln two analyst estimate.

4:23 pm Qualcomm beats by $0.14, beats on revs; guides Q3 in-line (QCOM) :
Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $1.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.14 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.20; non-GAAP revenues rose 8.1% year/year to $5.99 bln vs the $5.86 bln Capital IQ Consensus; 3/4G device shipments 398-402 mln (+19%).

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.90-1.15, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $5.3-6.1 bln vs. $5.92 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; MSM chip shipments 180-200 mln.
"We delivered strong results this quarter, with healthy year-over-year growth across our QTL licensing and

QCT semiconductor businesses, especially in the important automotive, networking and IoT growth areas." During the second quarter of fiscal 2017, we returned $1.1 billion to stockholders, including $782 million, or $0.53 per share, of cash dividends paid and $283 million through repurchases of 4.8 million shares of common stock.

Expects NXP (NXPI) deal to close by end of 2017.

4:16 pm Closing Market Summary: Bears Steal One from the Bulls on Wednesday (:WRAPX) :

Investors opened Wednesday's session with a modicum of optimism, but the positive sentiment seeped through the cracks, leaving the S&P 500 (-0.2%) lower for the second consecutive session. The Dow also settled in negative territory, losing 0.6%, while the Nasdaq (+0.2%) outperformed.

There were several factors that weighed on the equity market on Wednesday, not the least of which was another disappointing performance from the financial sector (-0.3%). The sector failed to capitalize, yet again, on a positive earnings report from one of its top components. Morgan Stanley (MS 42.04, +0.83) jumped 2.0% after beating top and bottom line estimates, but, in similar fashion to last week's reports from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 84.46, -0.70) and Citigroup (C 57.73, -0.69), the company's upbeat figures did little to rally the troops.

Crude oil also weighed on investor sentiment, plunging 3.6%, after the Energy Information Administration reported a smaller than expected draw (1.0 million bbl actual vs 1.4 million bbl consensus) in U.S. crude stocks for the week ending April 14. Unsurprisingly, the energy sector (-1.4%) settled at the bottom of the day's leaderboard by a relatively wide margin; the utilities group finished one spot higher in the standings with a loss of 0.7%. WTI crude ended its trading day at $50.96/bbl.

Other concerning factors that lingered in the market on Wednesday included:

Stretched valuations as earnings season heats up
IBM (IBM 161.69, -8.36) reporting a year-over-year decline in revenue for the 20th consecutive quarter
Heightened geopolitical uncertainty, especially in regards to the upcoming French presidential election
Growing angst about the state of tax reform

However, despite numerous unanswered questions, the day's risk-off tone was largely contained in the equity market as Treasuries and gold ended the session in negative territory. The benchmark 10-yr yield added four basis points, settling at 2.21%, while the yellow metal ended 0.8% lower at $1,283.40/ozt. Also of note, the domestically-oriented Russell 2000 outperformed, adding 0.4%.

The bulls didn't win Wednesday's session, but they did do enough to keep the bears in check, something not to be overlooked as the S&P 500 continues to drift below its 50-day moving average (2355).

On the earnings front, investors received the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.8% to follow last week's 1.5% increase.

Tomorrow, investors will receive Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 242,000) and the Philadelphia Fed Survey for April (Briefing.com consensus 23.7) at 8:30 ET and March Leading Indicators (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +8.9% YTD
S&P 500 +4.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD

4:16 pm Analog Devices enters into commercial licensing agreement with Sonavation (ADI) : Under the agreement, Sonavation licensed its high performance ultrasonic biometric sensor technology to ADI. Sonavation's pioneering research in ultrasound, combined with ADI's industry leading semiconductor technology and manufacturing expertise, will enable the development and delivery of complete biometric system solutions for markets where secure authentication is essential.

4:12 pm Plexus beats by $0.08, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (PLXS) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.84 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.76 and vs company guidance of $0.71-$0.79; revenues fell 2.3% year/year to $604.3 mln vs the $633.72 mln Capital IQ Consensus and company guidance of $620-$650 mln.
Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.68-$0.76 vs. $0.84 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $595-$625 mln vs. $687.53 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"Looking ahead to the fiscal third quarter, we currently expect that continued end-market weakness within our Communications market sector and a forecast adjustment with a large Industrial/Commercial customer will offset meaningful growth within the remainder of our business."

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From Briefing.com: 4:09 pm Maxim Integrated beats by $0.04, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (MXIM) :
Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.56 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.52; revenues rose 4.6% year/year to $581 mln vs the $575.83 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Cash flow from operations was $221 million.

Co repurchased $57 mln in stock during the quarter.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.59-$0.65 vs. $0.58 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $590-$630 mln vs. $597.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees gross margin of 65-67%, excluding special items.

4:30 pm Rambus is partnering with Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) for its recently launched 56G SerDes PHY to be developed on Samsung's 10nm LPP (Low-Power Plus) process technology (RMBS) :

4:26 pm Closing Market Summary: S&P 500 Registers Second Win of the Week (:WRAPX) :

Investors turned things around on Thursday to break the stock market out of its two-day slump. The Nasdaq and the Dow settled in line with one another, adding 0.9% apiece. The S&P 500 (+0.8%) also finished solidly higher, but a small slip in the final minutes of action left the benchmark index below its 50-day moving average (2357), yet again.

Thursday's bullish mentality was helped by the latest reports from Washington, which suggested that the Freedom Caucus, the group credited with blocking the GOP's first attempt at health care reform, is now on the same page with Republican leadership in repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. This is positive news for investors as progress on health care reform equates to progress on tax reform with President Trump making it clear that the two pieces of legislation will be done in that order. In addition, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the White House will release a major tax reform plan "very soon."

The health care sector (+0.6%) finished behind the broader market, however, it performed significantly better than its countercyclical peers. The consumer staples (-0.3%), utilities (-0.4%), and telecom services (-0.3%) groups all finished in negative territory.

The outflows from defensively-oriented groups found their way into cyclical sectors, which generally do well when the market feels good about the economic outlook. The financial sector (+1.6%) was pivotal on Thursday, finally registering a solid gain. Recently, the financial group has shrugged off upbeat earnings reports from a handful of its most influential components, posing a dichotomy for investors, and the broader market, who hopped on the back of the sector during the stock market's post-election run.

American Express (AXP 80.02, +4.47) helped fuel the positive sentiment in the financial sector, jumping 5.9%, after reporting better than expected earnings and revenues. However, its wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for the group, evidenced by Travelers' (TRV 118.88, -1.52) 1.3% decline, which was a response to the company's miss on the top and bottom lines.

The consumer discretionary (+1.0%), industrials (+1.1%), materials (+1.1%), and technology (+1.0%) sectors all finished above the benchmark index, however, the bearish sentiment surrounding crude oil's 0.4% decline, eventually seeped into the energy sector (+0.4%). The energy space is the worst-performing group of the week, down 1.7%, going into Friday's session.

On the countercyclical side, the telecom services group settled with the utilities space at the bottom of the day's leaderboard as Verizon (VZ 48.41, -0.53) weighed. The wireless giant dropped 1.1% after missing earnings and revenue estimates.

In the bond market, Treasuries backed up the risk-on narrative, finishing Thursday's session lower across the board. The benchmark 10-yr yield (2.24%) and the 2-yr yield (1.20%) settled higher by two basis points each. Also of note, the CBOE Volatility Index (14.01, -0.92, -6.2%) ticked down from its recent five-month high.

Currently the week is split--two wins for the bulls, two wins for the bears. However, the bulls have been more dominating in their victories, leaving the S&P 500 with a week-to-date gain of 1.2% going into Friday's session.

On the data front, investors received several economic reports today, including Initial Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Survey for April, and March Leading Indicators:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 244,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 242,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 234,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.979 million from the unrevised count of 2.028 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will drive expectations for a solid increase in nonfarm payrolls for April.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for April declined to 22.0 from an unrevised 32.8 in March while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 23.7.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing activity slowed in April, but even so, it remains at a relatively high level.
The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for March increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) after moving higher by a revised 0.5% in February (from 0.6%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the strength among the leading indicators has become very widespread.

On Friday, investors will receive March Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.58 million) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +9.9% YTD
S&P 500 +5.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.0% YTD

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From Briefing.com: 4:19 pm Closing Market Summary: French Vote Pushes Equities Higher on Monday (:WRAPX) :

Bulls achieved global dominance on Monday as investors cheered yesterday's first round of the French presidential election. The major U.S. averages opened the week solidly higher with the benchmark S&P 500 adding 1.1% while the Nasdaq and the Dow settled with respective gains of 1.2% and 1.1%.

The French people narrowed their presidential race to two candidates yesterday--Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen--with the run-off scheduled for May 7. Mr. Macron is described as a centrist while Ms. Le Pen's policies are seen as more radical, often deviating to the far-right of the political spectrum. For investors, the main difference between the two candidates is their stance on France's membership in the European Union; Mr. Macron defends the single market while Ms. Le Pen would like to conduct a referendum on eurozone membership. Current polls give Emmanuel Macron a 20 point lead over Ms. Le Pen, leading investors to believe that the EU has dodged a populist bullet.

Equities finished higher around the globe following the French vote with France's CAC (+4.1%) leading the charge, settling at its highest mark in nearly a decade. Likewise, U.S. equities jolted higher at the start of Monday's session, however, they had a difficult time adding much to the early gain. Several factors can be attributed to capping the bullish sentiment, but the leading culprit was the possibility of a U.S. government shutdown.

Congress will return from its spring recess tomorrow, giving legislators just four days to pass a new spending bill and keep the government afloat. The deadline was expected to be a non-event as it's in no party's interest to force a closure, however, reports indicate that President Trump may attempt to leverage the situation to fund his promised barrier along the U.S./Mexico border. The aggressive tactic could definitely complicate matters.

Furthermore, a failure to pass a fairly routine spending bill will likely send a jolt of fear throughout the market as faith in the new administration's ability to push through more difficult promises, like tax reform, is already dwindling. It is worth noting that President Trump is aiming to lower the corporate tax rate to 15.0%, according to today's report from The Wall Street Journal.

This cautious sentiment was most obviously exhibited in the bond market. Treasuries finished lower across the board, as would be expected amid today's risk-on sentiment. However, they reclaimed much of their early losses to finish at the upper end of the day's trading range. Most notably, benchmark 10-yr yield (2.27%) dipped below the technically important 2.30% mark after hovering above it for the first time in nearly two weeks.

For sector standings, the financial group (2.2%) went unchallenged from start to finish at the top of the day's leaderboard. As one would expect, cyclical sectors generally outperformed their countercyclical peers with the technology (+1.3%), industrials (+1.3%), and materials (1.2%) groups showing relative strength. The technology sector received some help from chipmakers, evidenced by the 1.5% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

On the flip side, the lightly-weighted real estate (-0.9%) and telecom services (unch) groups where the only sectors to finish in negative territory. The energy sector also underperformed amid crude oil's poor performance. The energy component settled 0.8% lower at $49.23/bbl.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. However, on Tuesday, participants will receive several economic reports, including the February Case-Shiller Home Price Index (Briefing.com consensus 5.8%) at 9:00 ET, February FHFA Housing Price Index at 9:00 ET, March New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 590,000) at 10:00 ET, and April Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 122.3) at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +11.2% YTD
S&P 500 +6.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.0% YTD

4:11 pm Sanmina beats by $0.06, misses on revs; guides JunQ EPS above consensus, revs in-line (SANM) :
Reports Q2 (Mar) non-GAAP earnings of $0.76 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.70 and above prior guidance of $0.67-0.72; revenues rose 4.4% year/year to $1.68 bln vs the $1.70 bln two analyst estimate and vs prior guidance of $1.675-1.725 bln.

Co issues guidance for Q3 (Jun), sees non-GAAP EPS of $0.72-0.77, vs. $0.72 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.70-1.80 bln vs. $1.72 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co expects second half of the fiscal year to be stronger than the first half.

4:07 pm Cadence Design reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus; guides FY17 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CDNS) :
Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.32 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.32; revenues rose 6.5% year/year to $477 mln vs the $474.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.31-0.33, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.34 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $470-480 mln vs. $480.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $1.32-1.42, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $1.90-1.95 bln vs. $1.93 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Rambus beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (RMBS) :
Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.15; revenues rose 34.0% year/year to $97.4 mln vs the $95.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We continue to see strong support for our technologies and innovations beyond the traditional DRAM market with the signing of the license agreement with Western Digital for our Flash-based memory designs," said Dr. Ron Black, chief executive officer of Rambus. "In addition, we introduced our Unified
Payment Platform that enhances security, reduces costs for retailers, and delivers a seamless shopping experience for the consumer. Our execution in Q1 sets the foundation for growth for the remainder of 2017."

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.10-0.16 vs. $0.15 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $90-96 mln vs. $93.98 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Revenue is not without risk and achieving revenue in this range will require that the Company sign customer agreements for patent licensing, various product sales, mobile payments software and solutions licensing among other matters.

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From Briefing.com: 5:05 pm Teradyne beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS and rev above consensus (TER) : Reports Q1 (Mar) adj. earnings of $0.44 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.38; revenues rose 6.0% year/year to $457 mln vs the $440.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Orders in the first quarter of 2017 were $595 million of which $476 million were in Semiconductor Test, $46 million in System Test, $45 million in Industrial Automation, and $27 million in Wireless Test.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees adj. EPS of $0.81-0.90 vs. $0.60 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $660-700 mln vs. $555.19 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Semiconductor Test year over year quarterly orders were up 56% on broad strength in mobile, automotive, industrial analog, and Flash memory end market demand. Universal Robots' (:UR) year over year quarterly sales were up 117% powered by an expanding range of customers embracing the power of UR's collaborative robots to reduce production costs and improve product quality. "With our large backlog and strong first quarter orders, our Q2 revenue is expected to increase 28% year on year at the mid-point of our Q2 guidance. While we expect the familiar seasonality in the second half, we're on track for another year of revenue and operating profit growth."

4:38 pm F5 Networks missed by $0.02, reported revs in-line; guided Q3 EPS and revenue below consensus (FFIV) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $1.95 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.97; revenues rose 7.1% year/year to $518.2 mln vs the $523.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus, driven by solid execution in the Americas and strong sales of security solutions. Partially offsetting these positive trends was continued soft demand in Europe.

Several new products scheduled to begin shipping in the current quarter are designed to help enable customers to deploy their applications across a variety of cloud environments. These solutions include Application Connector 1.0 for connecting public and private cloud application infrastructures, support for BIG-IP in the Google Public Cloud, and Container Connector and Application Services Proxy for microservices environments.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $2.01-2.04, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.09 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $520-530 mln vs. $537.84 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Stock down 7% after hours.

4:33 pm MKS Instruments beats by $0.19, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (MKSI) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.27 per share, $0.19 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.08; revenues rose 138.0% year/year to $437.2 mln vs the $413.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin of 47.0% compared to 45.3% in year ago period.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $1.236-$1.50 vs. $1.10 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $440-$480 mln vs. $415.06 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Commentary: "Our strategic objective to drive sustainable and profitable growth has allowed MKS to not only leverage technology inflection points within the semiconductor market, but also to further drive growth in a number of adjacent markets. In the first quarter, semiconductor revenue and sales to other advanced markets, on a pro-forma basis, increased 54% and 10% respectively from a year ago."

4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Finish Wednesday Flat (:WRAPX) :

Investors played a wait-and-see strategy ahead of the 'unveiling' of President Trump's tax reform plan on Tuesday afternoon, but then engaged in a little profit taking after the announcement provided little new information. The major averages settled just a tick below their unchanged marks with the S&P 500 (-0.1%) closing between the Dow (-0.1%) and the Nasdaq (unch). Meanwhile, the domestically-oriented Russell 2000 (+0.6%) outperformed.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and NEC Director Gary Cohn presented the core principles of President Trump's tax plan on Tuesday afternoon. The general framework, which revolves around making business rates more competitive, bringing back overseas profits to create jobs, simplifying the tax system, and lowering tax rates, is certainly encouraging for the stock market.

However, the plan still lacks many details, most notable of which is how it gets paid for. Mr. Mnuchin believes the tax cuts will pay for themselves with increased economic growth, the reduction in allowable tax deductions, and the closing of tax loopholes. Still, assuming that logic checks out, the tax cuts would increase the deficit, which will be a tough pill for some conservative lawmakers to swallow.

Retailers received a nice bump today, evidenced by the 1.0% increase in the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 43.53, +0.42), after Mr. Trump's tax plan made no mention of a border-adjustment tax. The retailers' outperformance helped the consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%) close ahead of the broader market.

The health care sector (+0.5%) also put together a positive performance. Reports that the House Freedom Caucus supports the GOP's new health care bill didn't really phase the sector with investors choosing to focus their attention on the earnings front. Thermo Fisher (TMO 168.01, +9.20) helped fuel the health care space's solid performance, adding 5.8% on better than expected earnings/revenues and upbeat guidance.

Elsewhere on the earnings front, three Dow components--Procter & Gamble (PG 87.74, -2.26), United Technologies (UTX 118.20, +1.33), and Boeing (BA 181.71, -1.80)--reported their quarterly results on Tuesday morning. United Technologies finished higher by 1.1% after beating top and bottom line estimates. However, Boeing and Procter & Gamble slipped 1.0% and 2.5%, respectively, after coming up short on revenues; BA missed top-line estimates while PG issued slightly disappointing revenue guidance. PG's negative performance doomed the consumer staples sector (-0.8%) to the bottom of the day's leaderboard with only the real estate group (-0.9%) posting a larger loss.

In the end, only four sectors--consumer discretionary (+0.5%), health care (+0.5%), telecom services (+1.2%), and financials (unch)--finished in positive territory. However, outside of the real estate and consumer discretionary groups, the laggards finished with losses of no more than 0.4%.

U.S. Treasuries settled slightly higher across the board, leaving the benchmark 10-yr yield two basis points lower at 2.31%.

Wednesday's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 2.7% to follow last week's 1.8% decrease.Tomorrow, investors will receive a slew of economic reports, including March Durable Orders (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%), Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 242,000), and Advance International Trade in Goods (Briefing.com consensus -$65.0 billion) at 8:30 ET and March Pending Home Sales at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +11.9% YTD
S&P 500 +6.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.6% YTD

4:26 pm Xilinx beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q1in-line; raises dividend 6% to $0.35/share (XLNX) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.57 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 6.7% year/year to $609.5 mln vs the $605.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.53-0.66 vs. $0.59 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $600-630 mln vs. $613.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Xilinx recently increased its quarterly dividend by $0.02 per share to $0.35 per share, effective in the June quarter of fiscal 2018, marking its 12th consecutive year of dividend increases.

4:20 pm AXT beats by $0.01, beats on revs (AXTI) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.02 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.01; revenues rose 10.2% year/year to $20.6 mln vs the $18.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Q1 was a busy and productive quarter," said Morris Young, chief executive officer. "We are seeing encouraging progress in the adoption of several emerging technologies and are continuing to invest in our product development, production capacity, and customer engagement and support capabilities in order to position ourselves for coming business opportunities."

4:19 pm Ultra Clean Holdings beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (UCTT) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.47 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.42; revenues rose 82.4% year/year to $204.6 mln vs the $192.61 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.49-0.55, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.34 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $210-220 mln vs. $186.85 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"During this period of extraordinary semiconductor equipment demand, we have consistently responded and quickly ramped our operations, allowing us to meet our customers' needs and be a vital contributor to their success. We continue to increase UCT's presence on our customers' product platforms and are expanding our opportunities for future growth."

4:18 pm American Superconductor reports prelim 4Q16 results; expects revs of $15-16 mln vs $24.6 mln consensus and guides for 1Q17 revs of $8-9 mln vs $21.5 mln consensus --shares halted-- (AMSC) :

For 4Q16, AMSC expects its revenues will be in the range of $15-16 million, compared to its previous Q4 revenue guidance of $22-26 million.

The lower than expected revenue in the fourth quarter was driven primarily by fewer than anticipated electrical control system ("ECS") shipments to Inox Wind Ltd. ("Inox"), due to what is believed by Inox to be a temporary demand dislocation caused by the reaction in certain states in India to a recent national wind energy auction that resulted in a record-low power purchase tariff.

As a result of the revenue shortfall, AMSC's net loss and non-GAAP net loss for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 are both expected to be higher than its previous guidance.

For the first quarter ending June 30, 2017, AMSC currently expects that its revenues will be in the range of $8 million to $9 million, taking into account anticipated seasonally lower ECS shipments to Inox as well as the temporary demand dislocation previously discussed.

4:14 pm Mellanox Tech misses by $0.20, misses on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus (MLNX) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.29 per share, $0.20 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49; revenues fell 4.1% year/year to $188.65 mln vs the $204.7 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"Our first quarter InfiniBand revenues were down year-over-year, impacted by delays in the general availability of next generation x86 CPUs, seasonal trends in high-performance computing, and technology transitions occurring across several end users and OEM customers. We believe InfiniBand has maintained share in HPC, and expect revenues will see sequential growth in the coming quarters driven by current backlog and additional pipeline opportunities," said Eyal Waldman, president and CEO of Mellanox Technologies. "Our first quarter Ethernet revenues grew across all product families sequentially, driven by the adoption of our 25/50/100 gigabit solutions. We expect 2017 to be a growth year for Mellanox."

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $205-215 mln vs. $222.38 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12 pm Cavium Networks beats by $0.02, beats on revs (CAVM) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.58 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.56; revenues rose 125.3% year/year to $229.58 mln vs the $227.22 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP operating margin came in at 22.0% vs 21.6% in Q4 (Dec).

Note: Co usually guides on the call, it's at 5pm ET today.For Q2, co also sees non-GAAP gross margins of 70.5 percent to 71.5 percentAt the moment, MLNX is indicated about -14.7% in after hours action on light volume

4:05 pm NETGEAR beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line; authorizes 3 mln share repurchase program (NTGR) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.64 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.61; revenues rose 4.3% year/year to $323.7 mln vs the $309.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Share Repurchase Program: The Company also announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a program to repurchase up to 3,000,000 shares of the Company's common stock, or approximately 9.1% of the outstanding shares.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $315-330 mln vs. $320.97 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Looking forward to the second quarter of 2017, we expect net revenue to be in the range of $315 million to $330 million. GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of 5.3% to 6.3% and non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of 8.0% to 9.0%. Our GAAP tax rate is expected to be approximately 37.0% and our non-GAAP tax rate is expected to be 34.5% for the second quarter of 2017."

4:04 pm Monolithic Power beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs above consensus (MPWR) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.58 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.57; revenues rose 18.8% year/year to $100.4 mln vs the $100.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $109-113 mln vs. $109.01 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Sees non-GAAP gross margin between 55.0% and 56.0%, which excludes an estimated impact of stock-based compensation expenses of 0.4% and amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets of 0.5%.

Investors played a wait-and-see strategy ahead of the 'unveiling' of President Trump's tax reform plan on Tuesday afternoon, but then engaged in a little profit taking after the announcement provided little new information. When the dust settled, the major averages were lower with the Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding 21.03 points (-0.10%) to 20975.09. The S&P 500 lost 1.16 points (-0.05%) to 2387.45, while the Nasdaq Composite ended down less than a point (-0.00%) to 6025.23.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and NEC Director Gary Cohn presented the core principles of President Trump's tax plan on Tuesday afternoon. The general framework, which revolves around making business rates more competitive, bringing back overseas profits to create jobs, simplifying the tax system, and lowering tax rates, is certainly encouraging for the stock market.

However, the plan still lacks many details, most notable of which is how the GOP plans to pay for it. Mr. Mnuchin believes the tax cuts will pay for themselves with increased economic growth, the reduction in allowable tax deductions, and the closing of tax loopholes. Still, assuming that logic checks out, the tax cuts would definitely balloon the national debt in the short term, which will be a tough pill for some conservative lawmakers to swallow.

For its part, the Technology (XLK 54.02, -0.06 -0.11%) space finished lower with the broader market. Component Seagate Tech (STX 42.01, -8.50 -16.83%) was the worst performer today behind its mixed Q3 report. The remaining S&P sectors closed with the Real Estate space XLRE -0.84% performing the worst, followed by XLP -0.81%, XLE -0.33%, XLU -0.31%, XLF -0.08%, XLB -0.02%, XLI +0.02%, XLY +0.47%, IYZ +0.52%, XLV +0.55%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (919.71, -2.40 -0.26%) space, trading ended lower but flat enough to not cause any serious damage. Component Texas Instruments (TXN 81.11, -1.25 -1.52%) was another name that was weaker today despite the company's better than anticipated Q1 report as the Q2 guidance came in a little light. Other names in the space which closed lower included INTU -2.75%, WDC -2.61%, FLIR -2.03%, ADI -1.73%, XLNX -1.15%, SWKS -0.99%, KLAC -0.89%, NTAP -0.85%, MCHP -0.76%, MU -0.74%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

ManTech (MANT 35.88, +0.35 +0.99%) received a $229 million EAGLE II Task Order to provide business intelligence support to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, Office of Information and Technology.

Cree (CREE 22.07, -2.75 -11.08%) formed a joint venture with San'an Optoelectronics to produce and deliver to market high-performing, mid-power lighting class LED packaged products in an exclusive arrangement to serve the expanding markets of North and South America, Europe and Japan, and serve China.

Vantiv (VNTV 63.63, -2.11 -3.21%) agreed to acquire Paymetric, a portfolio company of Francisco Partners; financial details not disclosed.

Amtech Systems (ASYS 6.11, +0.61 +11.09%) received a follow-on order for the second phase of a multi-phase 1GW project, in addition to the order for the first phase announced in January 2017.

Rosetta Stone (RST 11.39, +0.26 +2.34%) agreed to sell Japanese subsidiary.

In reaction to quarterly results:

AT&T (T 40.44, +0.50 +1.25%) reported in-line Q1 EPS of $0.74 on worse than expected revenues of $39.4 billion. The company also reaffirmed FY17 adjusted EPS guidance of mid-single digits.

Texas Instruments (TXN) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.89 and $3.4 billion, respectively. For Q2, the company guided EPS of $0.89-1.01 including a $0.03 tax benefit, on revenues of $3.4-3.7 billion.

BCE Inc (BCE 45.95, +0.49 +1.08%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of CAD0.87 on in-line revenues of CAD5.38 billion. For FY17, the company sees EPS below market expectations at CAD3.30-3.40 on revenue growth of 4-6% compared to prior expectations of growth of 1-2%.

TE Connectivity (TEL 76.64, +1.04 +1.38%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.19 and $3.23 billion, respectively. For Q3, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $1.14-1.18 and $3.2-3.3 billion, respectively. For FY17, TEL sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $4.58-4.66 and $12.6-12.8 billion, respectively.

Seagate Tech (STX) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.10 on worse than expected revenues of $2.67 billion.
T
witter (TWTR 15.82, +1.16 +7.91%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.11 and $548 million, respectively. Average monthly active users were 328 million in Q1, an increase of 6% year-over-year and compared to 319 million in the previous quarter.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AXTI, CSLT, CAVM, CMPR, CTXS, DMRC, DLB, ECHO, EQIX, FFIV, FISV, FORR, KS, KN, MLNX, MKSI, MPWR, NTGR, NTRI, OSIS, PYPL, ROG, NOW, SHOR, TER, TYL, UCTT, XLNX/AUO, AVT, CCMP, CHKP, CLFD, CTS, DSPG, DST, ENTG, GRUB, I, IDCC, IRDM, NOK, SFE, SILC, STM, TDC, TZOO, WEX, WNS, YNDX

Analyst actions:

ASYS was upgraded to Buy from Hold at The Benchmark Company,
RDWR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Dougherty,
APTI was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan;
SAP was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Stifel,
SHOP was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts,
CREE was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
LN was downgraded to Sell from Underperform at CLSA;
SNAP was initiated with a Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
RNG was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty,
FSNN was initiated with a Buy at B. Riley & Co.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:47 pm Texas Instruments prices $300 million of 2.750% senior unsecured notes due March 12, 2021 and $300 million of 2.625% senior unsecured notes due May 15, 2024 (TXN)

4:31 pm KLA-Tencor beats by $0.07, beats on revs (KLAC) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $1.62 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.55; revenues rose 28.4% year/year to $914 mln vs the $895.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

4:25 pm Brooks Automation beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (BRKS) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.25; revenues rose 25.1% year/year to $169.3 mln vs the $167.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Revenue grew 25% year over year, 6% sequentially, driven by continued strength in both segments. Life Sciences revenue grew 31% year over year and is more than 20% of total revenue despite strong
Semiconductor growth, up 24% over the 2016 second quarter.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.29-0.33 vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $175-180 mln vs. $167.23 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:22 pm Flex reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (FLEX) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.29 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.29; revenues rose 1.6% year/year to $5.86 bln vs the $5.68 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.24-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.30 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $5.7-6.1 bln vs. $5.79 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:22 pm Closing Market Summary: Major Averages Eke Out Win on Thursday (:WRAPX) :

Up to their eyeballs in earnings reports, investors decided to play it safe on Thursday, not wanting to get ahead of themselves before the next heavy batch arrived. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) outperformed while the S&P 500 (+0.1%) and the Dow (unch) ended little changed.

Nearly 300 companies released their quarterly results between Wednesday's close and Thursday's open. The reports had a minor impact at the macro level, but they did have some sway in the sector standings. For instance, the consumer discretionary space (+0.6%) finished near the top of the day's leaderboard, thanks in part to Comcast's (CMCSA 39.59, +0.80) advance. CMCSA jumped 2.1% after beating top and bottom line estimates. Under Armour (UAA 21.67, +1.96) also contributed to the cause, spiking 9.9%, on better than expected earnings.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.6%) also outperformed the broader market after PayPal (PYPL 47.15, +2.74) climbed 6.2% in reaction to above-consensus earnings/revenues and upbeat guidance. Chipmakers also had a good showing, evidenced by the 1.4% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Meanwhile, in the health care sector (+0.3%), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY 55.67, +1.90) added 3.5% on better than expected earnings/revenues and positive guidance. The lightly-weighted utilities (+0.3%) and real estate (+0.1%) sectors also finished in the green.

Outside of earnings, crude oil made for another focal point on Thursday. The commodity settled with a loss of 1.2% following Wednesday's inventory report from the Energy Information Administration, which showed an increase in gasoline inventories for the week ending April 21. In addition, crude oil battled technical forces on Thursday, moving below its 200-day simple moving average ($49.00/bbl). As a result, the energy sector (1.1%) settled near the bottom of the sector standings.

The telecom services (-1.3%) and financials (-0.5%) spaces also showed relative weakness. However, the financial sector's underperformance wasn't all that surprising in light of the sector's big week-to-date gain entering Thursday's session (+3.1%). The remaining groups--industrials (unch), materials (-0.2%), and consumer staples (-0.2%)--also finished in the red, but their losses were modest.

In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt settled slightly higher with the benchmark 10-yr yield (2.30%) losing one basis point. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar added 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively, against the euro (1.0874) and Japanese yen (111.22) after both the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank decided to leave their monetary policies unchanged.

In addition to earnings reports, investors received a number of economic reports on Thursday, including March Durable Orders, Initial Claims, Advance International Trade in Goods, and March Pending Home Sales:

March durable goods orders rose 0.7%, which is below the 1.2% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to 2.3% (from 1.7%). Excluding transportation, durable orders decreased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.7% (from 0.4%).The key takeaway from the report is that business spending is still relatively soft, up 2.1% year-over-year.The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 257,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 242,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 243,000 (from 244,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.988 million from the revised count of 1.978 million (from 1.979 million).The key takeaway from the report is that initial claims continue to run at very low levels consistent with a tight labor market.The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for March showed a deficit of $64.8 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$65.0 billion), up from a revised deficit of $63.9 billion for February (from -$64.8 billion).Pending Home Sales for March declined 0.8%. Today's reading follows a revised 5.6% increase in February (from 5.5%).On Friday, investors will receive another sizable batch of economic reports, including the advance estimate of first quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%) at 8:30 ET, April Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 56.9) at 9:45 ET, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April (Briefing.com consensus 98.0) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +12.4% YTD
S&P 500 +6.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.4% YTD

4:21 pm Amkor misses by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (AMKR) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.04 per share, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.02); revenues rose 5.2% year/year to $914 mln vs the $902.06 mln two analyst estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.03-0.19 vs. $0.07 two analyst estimate; sees Q2 revs of $955-1,035 mln vs. $978.79 mln two analyst estimate.

4:21 pm Super Micro Computer reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SMCI) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.38 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.38; revenues rose 18.5% year/year to $631.12 mln vs the $599.02 mln Capital IQ Consensus.No customer accounted for more than 10% of net sales during the quarter ended March 31, 2017. Gross margin for the third quarter was 14.0% compared to 14.9% in the same period a year ago.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.40 - $0.50 vs. $0.44 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $655 mln - $715 mln vs. $637.25 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:20 pm Skyworks beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides JunQ EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (SWKS) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $1.45 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.40 and above prior guidance of approx $1.40; revenues rose 9.9% year/year to $851.7 mln vs the $840.4 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of approx $840 mln.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3 (Jun), sees EPS of approx $1.52, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.49 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of approx $890 mln vs. $869.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Skyworks exceeded financial expectations in [MarQ] driven by insatiable demand for high-speed, reliable, always-on connectivity spanning Mobile and Internet of Things ecosystems...We are capitalizing on these powerful macrotrends, pushing the technology envelope and extending our product reach to enable the world's most exciting communications platforms."

4:17 pm Pixelworks reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q2 revs above consensus (PXLW) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.12 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.12; revenues rose 102.7% year/year to $22.7 mln vs the $22.49 mln Capital IQ Consensus. On a non-GAAP basis, first quarter 2017 gross profit margin was 54.8%, compared to 53.6% in the fourth quarter of 2016 and 48.0% in the first quarter of 2016.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $20-21 mln vs. $19.43 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Co sees Q2 Gross profit margin of approximately 53% to 55% on both a GAAP basis and non-GAAP basis

4:15 pm Microsoft beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line (MSFT) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.73 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.70; revenues rose 6.3% year/year to $23.56 bln vs the $23.62 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Commercial cloud annual run rate is above $15.2 bln.

Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $8.0 billion and increased 22% (up 23% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:
Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 7% (up 8% in constant currency) driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 45% (up 45% in constant currency)
Office consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 15% (up 14% in constant currency) and Office 365 consumer subscribers increased to 26.2 million
Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 10% (up 11% in constant currency) driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 81% (up 82% in constant currency)
LinkedIn contributed revenue of $975 million

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $6.8 billion and increased 11% (up 12% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:
Server products and cloud services revenue increased 15% (up 16% in constant currency) driven by Azure revenue growth of 93% (up 94% in constant currency)
Enterprise Services revenue decreased 1% (unchanged in constant currency) with declines in custom support agreements offset by growth in Premier Support Services and consulting

Revenue in More Personal Computing was $8.8 billion and decreased 7% (down 7% in constant currency) driven primarily by lower phone revenue, with the following business highlights:
Windows OEM revenue increased 5% (up 5% in constant currency)
Windows commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 6% (up 6% in constant currency)
Surface revenue decreased 26% (down 25% in constant currency)
Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 8% (up 9% in constant currency)
Gaming revenue increased 4% (up 6% in constant currency)
Will guide on the call

4:15 pm Western Digital beats by $0.25, beats on revs (WDC) :

Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $2.39 per share, $0.25 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.14; revenues rose 64.7% year/year to $4.65 bln vs the $4.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

"We reported strong financial performance in the March quarter, enabled by excellent operational execution by our team in a healthy market environment with good demand for all NAND based products, as well as for capacity enterprise and client hard drives," said Steve Milligan, chief executive officer. "We also achieved targeted cost and efficiency improvements and improved our liquidity position with strong cash flow generation.

"With three consecutive quarters of strong financial results since completing the SanDisk acquisition, we are seeing continued validation of our growth strategy and our ongoing transformation into a comprehensive provider of diversified storage products and technologies. We have constructed a powerful platform with the broadest set of products, enabling us to be a leader in the storage industry. Our transformation provides us with the opportunity to not only compete in today's marketplace but also to be positioned to grow and thrive into the future."

4:12 pm Cypress Semi beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs above consensus (CY) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) adj. earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.11; rev +1% Q/Q to $532 mln vs. $511 mln consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.14-0.18, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.16 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $530-560 mln vs. $533.87 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:10 pm Intel beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line; raises FY17 guidance (INTC) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.66 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.65; revenues rose 8.0% year/year to $14.8 bln vs the $14.8 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.63-0.73 vs. $0.64 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $13.9-14.9 bln vs. $14.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees gross margin of 63% +/- a couple pct. pts.

Co raises guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $2.71-2.99 vs. $2.80 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of approx $60 bln vs. $59.93 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees grs margin of 63% +/- a couple pct. pts. Full-year outlook for revenue was raised $500 million and EPS was raised by 5 cents to $2.85

"The ASP strength we saw across nearly every segment of the business demonstrates continued demand for high-performance computing, which will only increase with the explosion of data."

4:06 pm Power Integrations beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (POWI) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.63 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.61; revenues rose 18.9% year/year to $104.7 mln vs the $102.21 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $107 mln plus or minus 3 mln vs. $105.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 48.8 percent and 49.3 percent; non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 50 percent and 50.5 percent. (The difference between the expected GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins is composed of approximately 0.9 percentage points from amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets and 0.3 percentage points from stock-based compensation.)

GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $39 million; non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $33.5 million. (Non-GAAP expenses are expected to exclude approximately $5 million of stock-based compensation expenses and $0.5 million of amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets.)

Commented Balu Balakrishnan, president and CEO of Power Integrations: "We are off to a strong start in 2017 with 19 percent revenue growth in the first quarter. Our growth is being fueled by innovative products such as our InnoSwitch ICs, and by multi-year secular trends such as energy-efficiency, faster charging for mobile devices, smarter homes and appliances, LED lighting, renewable energy, and the growing use of battery power in transportation, power tools and other applications. We also have a robust pipeline of new products coming to market over the next several quarters, which we believe will further enhance our competitive positioning and expand our addressable market."

4:04 pm Microsemi reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (MSCC) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.91 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.91; revenues fell 0.3% year/year to $442.9 mln vs the $439.79 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.94-1.04, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.97 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $448-468 mln vs. $455.27 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Non-GAAP gross margin for the second quarter of 2017 was a record 64.1 percent, up 310 basis points from the 61.0 percent in the second quarter of 2016 and up 60 basis points from the 63.5 percent reported in the first quarter of 2017.

4:01 pm Cohu reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (COHU) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.24 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.24; revenues rose 23.3% year/year to $81.1 mln vs the $78.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of approx $86 mln vs. $89.20 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Today's action was higher in the broader markets as the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 23.71 points (+0.39%) to 6048.94. The S&P 500 was up 1.32 points (+0.06%) to 2388.77 at the close, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 6.24 points (+0.03%) to 20981.33.

Economic data today included March durable goods orders which rose 0.7%. The prior month's reading was revised to 2.3% (from 1.7%). Excluding transportation, durable orders decreased 0.2% to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.7% (from 0.4%). The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 257,000, above the revised prior week count of 243,000 (from 244,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.988 million from the revised count of 1.978 million (from 1.979 million). Also, the Advance report for International Trade in Goods for March showed a deficit of $64.8 billion, up from a revised deficit of $63.9 billion for February (from -$64.8 billion). Lastly, Pending Home Sales for March declined 0.8%. Today's reading follows a revised 5.6% increase in February (from 5.5%).

The Technology (XLK 54.24, +0.22 +0.41%) space ended near highs of the day. Component Intuit (INTU 125.61, +9.80 +8.46%) was the best performer after reiterating certain guidance for Q3, FY17. The remaining ten S&P sectors were led by the Consumer Discretionary space XLY +0.53% followed by XLU +0.35%, XLV +0.21%, XLRE +0.06%, XLI -0.03%, XLP -0.13%, XLB -0.22%, IYZ -0.40%, XLF -0.46%, XLE -1.09%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (925.25, +5.54 +0.60%) space, trading was strong on the back of select earnings in the space. Namely, component PayPal (PYPL 47.15, +2.74 +6.17%) performed well today after the company's strong Q1 report. Other names in the space which outperformed today included MU +3.14%, KLAC +2.77%, GLW +2.22%, HRS +1.94%, JNPR +1.80%, NVDA +1.56%, FSLR +1.55%, AMAT +1.52%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Synchronoss Tech's (SNCR 13.29, -11.33 -46.02%) CEO and CFO step down. The company now expects Q1 revenue to be $13-14 million less than prior guidance.
In addition to reporting quarterly results, PayPal (PYPL) announced $5 bln share buyback.

Micron (MU 27.63, +0.84 +3.14%) appointed Sanjay Mehrotra as president and CEO and a member of the board of directors, effective May 8, 2017; Mehrotra succeeds Mark Durcan.

Sapiens Int'l (SPNS 11.67, -1.68 -12.58%) announced the receipt of letter from customer alleging material breach of agreement, leading to the co not expecting to generate any further revs from the customer in 2017. As a result, the company revised 2017 revenue guidance to $265-275 million.

Intuit (INTU) released its second and final update for its fiscal year 2017 consumer tax offerings; reiterated Q3 and full-year company revenue, operating income and EPS guidance.

In reaction to quarterly results:

PayPal (PYPL) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.44 and $2.98 billion, respectively. For Q2, the company guided EPS and revenues in-line at $0.41-0.43 and $3.05-3.10 billion, respectively. For FY17, PYPL sees EPS above expectations and revenues in-line at $1.74-1.79 and $12.52-12.72 billion, respectively.

Nokia (NOK 5.72, +0.35 +6.52%) reported in-line Q1 EPS of EUR0.03 on better than expected revenues of EUR5.39 billion.

Equinix (EQIX 410.94, +3.61 +0.89%) reported Q1 adjusted funds from operations of $4.14 on in-line revenues of $949.53 million. For Q2, revenues are expected in the range of $976-982 million. For FY17, revenues are expected to be greater than 3.977 billion.

Citrix Systems (CTXS 81.44, -2.68 -3.19%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.97 on in-line revenues of $662.7 million. For Q2, the company sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of $0.97-1.00 and $685-695 million, respectively. The company also reaffirmed FY17 EPS and revenues of $4.60-4.65 and $2.81-2.84 billion, respectively.

F5 Networks (FFIV 126.99, -10.31 -7.51%) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS of $1.95 and in-line revenues of $518.2 million. For Q3, the company sees EPS and revenues below market expectations at $2.01-2.04 and $520-530 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ATEN, GOOG, AMZN, AMKR, TEAM, BIDU, BNFT, EPAY, BRKS, COHU, CY, ELLI, EXPE, FICO, FLEX, FTNT, FTV, GIMO, GPRO, INTC, KLAC, MSCC, MSFT, MSTR, MITK, MOBL, NATI, NSR, PDFS, PXLW, POWI, SIMO, SWKS, SPSC, SSNC, SMCI, SYNA, TRMB, VDSI, VRSN, WDC/AVX, MGI, TYPE

Analyst actions:

CSCO was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Credit Suisse,
PYPL was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at Piper Jaffray,
CTXS was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
FSLR was upgraded to Mkt Perform from Mkt Underperform at JMP Securities;
MLNX was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray, to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital and to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
ANET was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
NTRI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich,
AKAM was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
SNCR was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo and to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
SHOP was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BTIG Research,
WIX was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Stephens

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:29 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Tick Down On Friday (:WRAPX) :

Investors took some money off the table on Friday, cashing in on the stock market's best week in over two months. However, a handful of upbeat earnings reports from heavy hitters like Alphabet (GOOGL 924.52, +33.08) and Amazon (AMZN 924.99, +6.61) kept losses in check. The S&P 500 and the Dow both settled lower by 0.2% while the Nasdaq finished flat. For the week, the S&P 500 finished with a gain of 1.5%.

Only three of eleven sectors finished in positive territory on Friday, but, luckily, one of those three was the top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%). The sector combated the eight laggards by leaning heavily on Alphabet, which added 3.7% on better than expected earnings and revenues. Microsoft (MSFT 68.46, +0.19) eventually came around, but the company spent the majority of Friday's session in the red despite beating earnings estimates. Like Microsoft, Intel (INTC 36.15, -1.28) beat bottom-line estimates. However, unlike Microsoft, INTC never reversed early selling pressure, settling lower by 3.4%. The company's negative performance rippled throughout the semiconductor industry, evidenced by the 1.7% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

The influential health care (+0.2%) and energy (+0.1%) sectors also finished in the green. Exxon Mobil (XOM 81.65, +0.39) and Chevron (CVX 106.70, +1.23) helped the energy sector in its outperformance, adding 0.5% and 1.2%, respectively, following their latest earnings reports. XOM beat earnings estimates while CVX reported below-consensus revenue on earnings of $1.41 per share, which may not be comparable to consensus estimates.

On the flip side, the heavily-weighted financial sector weighed on the broader market, losing 0.9%. A flattening of the yield curve certainly didn't help matters, but the loss was more a result of profit taking efforts in light of the 2.6% week-to-date gain that the financial group carried into Friday's session. Selling pressure at the short end of the yield curve paired with some buying at the long end left the 2-yr yield (1.27%) one basis point higher and the 10-yr yield (2.28%) one basis point lower.

While the action in the Treasury market failed to clearly assign a risk-on or risk-off tone to today's session, the domestically-oriented Russell 2000 (-1.2%) and the CBOE Volatility Index (10.78, +0.42, +4.1%) pointed to slight softening in investor sentiment.

Lightly-weighted sectors like telecom services (-1.1%), real estate (-0.6%), and materials (-0.7%) populated the bottom half of the leaderboard while the remaining groups finished with losses of no more than 0.4%.

Investors received several economic reports on Friday, including the advance estimate of first quarter GDP, the first quarter Employment Cost Index, April Chicago PMI, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April:

The first reading of first quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 0.7%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.1%. The first estimate of first quarter GDP Deflator came in at 2.2%, which above the Briefing.com consensus of 2.1%.
The key takeaway from the report, however, was that the growth in personal consumption expenditures (:PCE) was decidedly weak, increasing just 0.3%, which was the weakest growth in more than seven years.
The first quarter Employment Cost Index rose 0.8%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that compensation costs are moving higher, which will create some profit margin constraints while at the same time lending employees some increased spending potential.
Chicago PMI for April increased to 58.3 from 57.7 in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 56.9.
The key takeaway from the report is that the New Orders Index moved to an almost three-year high in April, offering an encouraging signal about the economic outlook for the Chicago Fed region.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April declined to 97.0 (Briefing.com consensus 98.0) from 98.0 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer sentiment remains high notwithstanding partisan political views among consumers about the economic outlook.

On Monday, investors will receive March Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) at 8:30 ET while March Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and the April ISM Index (Briefing.com consensus 56.5) will cross the wires a little later at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +12.3% YTD
S&P 500 +6.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.2% YTD

Week In Review: France-Related Jitters Recede

The French people narrowed their presidential race to two candidates last Sunday--Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen--with the results fueling a buying frenzy around the world on Monday. According to the most recent polls, Mr. Macron, who is a proponent of tighter EU integration, has a comfortable advantage over Ms. Le Pen, who would like to conduct a French referendum on eurozone membership, leading investors to believe the EU has dodged the latest populist bullet. The run-off will be conducted on Sunday, May 7.

Buyers took center stage again on Tuesday in an encore performance that left the S&P 500 higher by 1.7% after the first two sessions of the week. The positive sentiment surrounding the French vote lingered, but earnings were the focal point with Dow components Caterpillar (CAT), McDonald's (MCD), and DuPont (DD) feeding the bulls with better than expected top and bottom lines.

However, the stock market hit a speed bump on Wednesday amid the unveiling of President Trump's tax outline. The general framework of the plan was encouraging to investors, but specific details, like how it will be paid for, were in short supply. Without any offsetting sources of revenue, the tax cuts will add to the budget deficit, which will be a difficult pill for some conservative lawmakers to swallow.

Range-bound action continued throughout the remainder of the week as investors responded to upbeat earnings reports with caution, hesitant to extend the stock market's already solid 2017 gain amid disappointing first quarter GDP growth (+0.7%; Briefing.com consensus 1.1%). In addition, continued geopolitical tension related to North Korea weighed on investor sentiment.

In the end, the stock market's early-week rally more than made up for the second-half slump, leaving the S&P 500 with a weekly gain of 1.5%. The upbeat sentiment also led to an increase in rate-hike expectations. The fed funds futures market points to the June FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 66.6%, up from last week's 48.5%.

Despite beginning Friday with modest gains, the three major averages ended the session with modest losses as a gradual decline through the first hour held pace into the close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the worst performer today, shedding 40.82 points (-0.19%) to 20940.51. The S&P 500 declined about 4.57 points (-0.19%) to 2384.20, while the Nasdaq Composite was lower by 1.33 points (-0.02%) when the bell rang to 6047.61. The moves on Friday took the three major indices to +5.9%, +6.5% and +12.3% YTD, respectively.

Among the few gaining sectors in the S&P today, the Technology (XLK 54.38, +0.14 +0.26%) space was modestly higher. Component Western Digital (WDC 89.07, +3.36 +3.92%) was the best performer in the space today on the back of a strong Q3 report and Q4 guidance. The Healthcare space led the 11 S&P sectors today XLV +0.27% followed by the XLE +0.07%, XLP -0.04%, XLY -0.40%, XLI -0.47%, XLU -0.48%, XLRE -0.57%, XLB -0.84%, XLF -0.97%, IYZ -1.22%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (928.33, +3.08 +0.33%) space, trading finished near highs after morning volatility. Component Alphabet (GOOG 905.96, +31.71 +3.63%) was one of the better performing names today following its Q1 earnings beat last night. Other names in the space which outperformed today included AKAM +1.99%, FB +1.73%, FFIV +1.71%, PYPL +1.21%, EBAY +1.03%, QCOM +1.00%, XRX +0.98%, CSCO +0.92%, CTSH +0.89%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
In addition to reporting quarterly results, Gigamon (GIMO 31.70, -4.30 -11.94%) also announced that Kim DeCarlis has joined Gigamon as chief marketing officer.

trivago (TRVG 17.12, +1.90 +12.48%) increased its full-year guidance after Expedia (EXPE 133.72, -2.48 -1.82%) released first quarter results. The company now expects annual revenue growth to be around 50% in 2017, with its adjusted EBITDA margin likely to be up slightly from 2016.

Intel (INTC 36.13, -1.30 -3.47%), in addition to earnings, BoDs approved a $10 billion increase to the share buyback program; amount currently available for future buybacks now about $15 billion.

Qualcomm (QCOM 53.74, +0.53 +1.00%): Apple (AAPL 143.65, -0.14 -0.10%) will be withholding payments to its contract manufacturers for the royalties those contract manufacturers owe under their licenses with Qualcomm until dispute is resolved. QCOM also lowered 3Q17 guidance; revenue guidance to $4.8-5.6 billion from $5.3-6.1 billion; also, lowered adjusted EPS guidance to $0.75-0.85 from prior guidance of $0.90-1.15.

RealNetworks (RNWK 4.57, +0.01 +0.22%) announced the appointment of Cary Baker CFO and Treasurer effective May 5, 2017.

Texas Instruments (TXN 79.19, -1.61 -1.99%) priced $300 million of 2.750% senior unsecured notes due March 12, 2021 and $300 million of 2.625% senior unsecured notes due May 15, 2024.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Microsoft (MSFT 68.46, +0.19 +0.28%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.73 on revenues which grew 6.3% compared to last year to $23.56 billion. On the conference call, management guided for Productivity and business processes revenues between $8.2-8.4 billion, Intelligent Cloud revenues between $7.2-7.4 billion and Personal Computing revenues between $8.4-8.7 billion.

Amazon (AMZN 924.99, +6.61 +0.72%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $1.48 and $35.71 billion, respectively. For Q2, the company guided revenues in-line at $35.25-37.75 billion.

Alphabet (GOOG) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $7.73 and $24.75 billion, respectively.

Intel (INTC) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.66 on revenues which rose 8.0% compared to a year ago to $14.8 billion. For Q2, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $0.63-0.73 and $13.9-14.9 billion, respectively. For FY17, INTC raised guidance to EPS of $2.71-2.99 and revenues of about $60 billion.

Western Digital (WDC) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $2.39 and $4.65 billion. On the conference call, management guided Q4 EPS of $2.55-2.65 on revenues of about $4.8 billion.

KLA-Tencor (KLAC 98.22, -5.37 -5.18%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.62 and $914 million, respectively.

GoPro (GPRO 8.25, -0.69 -7.72%) reported a better than expected Q1 loss per share of $0.44 on better than expected revenues of $218.61 million. The company also guided Q2 revenues ahead of market expectations at $260-280 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results Monday morning: BSFT, PLT

Analyst actions:

WDC was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley and to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
CHKP was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Barclays;
AMZN was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
GIMO was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse, to Neutral from Buy at Dougherty and to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair,
EXPE was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
WDC was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
AVT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at SunTrust and to Neutral from Buy at Longbow,
ENTG was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
PDFS was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital;
SNAP was initiated with a Hold at Canaccord Genuity

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - New Month New Money (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Weaker US GDP, hotter EU inflation, healthcare reform vote scrubbed again.
Yet market goes about its own business. Upside business.
- A set up to the upside produced a mostly unexpected move. After a late
week test, will the move continue?
- Signs of some bubbling: 1948 square foot LA home sells for $440K/square
foot
- New month, new money, a new break higher in progress.

Friday was the third day of flat to lower trade after the Monday and Tuesday
breaks higher off of support, moves that caused some surprise.

SP500 -4.57, -0.19%
NASDAQ -1.33, -0.02%
DJ30 -40.82, -0.19%
SP400 -0.95%
RUTX -1.18%
SOX -1.74%

VOLUME: NYSE flat; NASDAQ +9%. Volume solid all week and increasing into
the end of the month. NASDAQ trade jumped to the highest of the week on a
week of stronger, above average volume as NASDAQ moved higher. Always good
for the upside to see expanding volume on moves higher.

There were many stories Friday from the EU showing hotter CPI inflation
(1.9% year/year and the highest core rate in 4 years), to an alarmingly weak
US Q1 GDP 0.7% vs 1.1% expected vs 2.1% Q4), to more earnings, to yet
another delayed vote on any US healthcare reform. All important, but all
really background noise for the market.

Why? Because the stock indices made a serious break higher early week,
moving off of patterns at support that we saw but, as is often the case when
fighting your emotions versus facts, had little faith in. After that
initial break the move stalled through Friday, but that was exactly the
action we felt it should show: a solid upside break off of support, moving
back up to an important level, then pausing in a 1-2-3 test to make a new
upside move this week.

In other words, this was a technical move that set up over the past 2
months. There was some anticipation ahead of a Trump tax plan that in our
view turned out much better than hoped that may have aided the break higher.
Perhaps, but the move was already set up and then there was the break
higher. After all, sadly, the howls of anger about Trump's tax proposal are
everywhere. Why? Because it is for the people and not the special
interests that typically get the goodies from tax 'reform.' This plan would
empower the individual to actually take risks, start new businesses, create
new jobs, create wealth. Well no WONDER there are howls of anger: this is
the US; we cannot have a lot of people becoming independent and creating
their own wealth. How will big government control them? You know the
story, but sadly the media will play into the hands of the big government as
your parent emotions and many will be convinced that taking charge of your
life is not in your best interest. Shocking that could work, but it does.

In any event, the move was set up, it triggered, and then it rested to end
the week. Now the next step: can it show the next break higher after the
initial move followed by a 1-2-3 test, at least as measured by SP500 and
DJ30? We will know more about that this week, but the action is quite
normal at this juncture.

This may appear to be a superficial or simplistic look at the market and the
events from last week. Maybe, but the market and market action in this
information age is massively overanalyzed. All day long Bloomberg,
FoxBusiness, CNBC and others run a dj-constant flow of 'experts' on the air,
each one giving us the explanation for why the market is doing what it is
doing. All of them are different of course, leaving you to wonder how they
can be so different.

Does the cause really matter? Only from a historical standpoint. The key
to any move is the move and recognizing the probabilities that are setting
up. Thus, even though we were somewhat sour on the market's upside
prospects after the run into March, we nonetheless recognized SP500 and DJ30
setting up into bullish patterns at important support levels. We saw RUTX
and SP500 trying to set up more bullish patterns. Sure those two failed the
first attempt, but the overall basing process did not break down and they
continued working on new patterns only to break higher after being the worst
performers through March and early April.

We also saw some continued good patterns in some of the same leadership
groups (e.g. chips, biotech/drugs, retail, internet) and when they flashed
upside entry signals we played the patterns, not our gut feelings.

When the market moved higher last week with that upside break we were able
to bank some gain on those positions. Some really big gain, some more
modest gain, but many opportunities to cash in on positions that set up
despite all the gloom and then made good moves higher.

If you look at it that way, all of the constant flow of expert opinion
doesn't, as the old lady in charge of the general store in 'The Outlaw Josey
Wales' said, amount to doodly. Do your best to recognize what the market is
setting up to do, try not to take preconceived notions into your analysis,
and look for vehicles to take advantage of that move if that is the move the
market decides to pursue. We did, even when the market was still testing
back, and those plays still moved higher and then really moved when the
overall market broke upside. Now we are watching, as noted, to see if the
market can make the next break higher off of this initial test.

Sure North Korea can launch missiles at us or vice versa, and then all bets
are off. Such 'black swan' events can always happen. You can either sit
out of the action and wait for those to come to pass or play what the market
is setting up to deliver.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SP500: After double gaps higher Monday and Tuesday, SP500 moved into the
weekend with a lateral move, holding the gains. SP500 has advanced to the
early March 2017 highs with a nice breakout from its 8 week pennant. It is
resting with a lateral 1-2-3 move, and if the bullish sentiment remains, it
should make a new break higher to a new high.

DJ30: Very similar action to SP500, double gapping off the 78% Fibonacci
retracement of the February move then testing into Friday with a 1-2-3
lateral move. Excellent action setting DJ30 for a new break higher and a
new high as well.

NASDAQ: Not really a test here. NASDAQ gapped out of its 9 week lateral
range on Monday and continued upside into Thursday. Friday NASDAQ gapped
higher again, but faded to a modest loss. New highs, good volume on the
move.

SOX: Gapped higher to start the week as well, rallied to a higher post-2000
high Tuesday and again Thursday. Friday a fade back to the 10 day EMA and
back below the March prior highs. INTC, SWKS did not help things much. SOX
starts the week in position where it can move back up to those higher highs.

SP400: Gapped higher as well, made it near the March high, held into
Thursday, looked good. Then Friday a flop to the 10 day EMA. Okay, a very
important growth group here and the bulls want to see SP400 hold and then
break higher once more.

RUTX: From way down in the range to a new high breakout Wednesday. Flat
Thursday then down Friday but holding over the 10 day EMA. A test to
measure is fine, then want to see RUTX bounce back up off a 10 day EMA test.


LEADERSHIP

FAANG: Some good moves, some just hanging on. FB gapped to a new high.
AAPL continued a lateral test on the 10 day EMA. AMZN gapped higher on its
earning then gave up a large portion of that move. NFLX tested a bit after
a breakout Tuesday. Over the weekend a ransom hacker released the next
season of a popular NFLX show. GOOG posted a big gap higher on its earnings
report, holding most of it.

Machinery: After some excellent gaps higher early week, the machinery
stocks tested late week but still look good: CAT, TEX, DE, HON. UTX
continues higher.

Semiconductors: Mixed yet again. SWKS, after breaking to a higher high,
sold off Friday. INTC gapped sharply lower Friday after earnings. SLAB
flopped. MLNX gapped lower Thursday. AMKR dove lower but rebounded. Lots
of sharp selling in a leadership group.

Internet: Overall a solid week. LLNW surged. EXPE rallied to earnings,
sold modestly after results. MEET faded some Friday but enjoyed a good week
nonetheless.

Tech: WDC surged to a new high. MSFT likewise. CSCO continued its two
week rally.

Financial: Trying to set up a point to reverse. JPM, C, BAC sport a nifty
pullback/handle, setting up an opportunity upside.

China: Some solid moves. QIWI is surging for us. CTRP broke to a slightly
higher high. JD hit a new high. EDU is in a 1-2-3 test of a break to a new
high.

Retail: Continues to improve. COST is testing a gap to the prior high.
WSM is setting up a good handle to the March surge. Restaurants continue
looking good. WEN is testing the breakout from a 5 month range.

Drugs/Biotech: Some great moves, some not so great, and as usual, the moves
were large. CNAT enjoyed a great week. ZIOP took off upside but Friday
flopped to the 20 day EMA. IMGN still pushing higher. IMMU still in a bear
flag below the 50 day MA. KITE still set up well. JAZZ hit a new high on
the week. UNH broke higher again then finished the week with a lateral move,
holding the gain.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -40.82 points (-0.19%) to close at 20940.51

Nasdaq
Stats: -1.33 points (-0.02%) to close at 6047.61
Volume: 2.01B (+8.65%)

Up Volume: 753.29M (-336.71M)
Down Volume: 1.22B (+456.09M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.76 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.15 to 1

New Highs: 148 (-93)
New Lows: 47 (+3)

S&P
Stats: -4.57 points (-0.19%) to close at 2384.2
NYSE Volume: 1B (0%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.59 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1 to 1

New Highs: 163 (-101)
New Lows: 29 (+4)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 10.82; +0.46
VXN: 11.53; +0.42
VXO: 9.25; -0.68

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.96; +0.04


Bulls and Bears: With a bit of market success, bulls start back up, bears
fade some. The market was selling, threatened the prior lows, but then
rebounded.

Bulls: 54.7 versus 51.9

Bears: 17.9 versus 18.3

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.





Bulls: 54.7 versus 51.9
51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5 versus 56.7 versus 53.4 versus 57.7
versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8 versus 62.7 versus 61.8 versus 58.2
versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2 versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6
versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6 versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7
versus 47.1 versus 42.9 versus 46.1 versus 46.7 versus 45.2 versus 44.6
versus 49.0 versus 52.5 versus 55.9 versus 56.7 versus 56.2 versus 54.3
versus 52.9% versus 53.9% versus 54.4% versus 52.5% versus 47.1% versus
41.6%

Bears: 17.9 versus 18.3
18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus 13.75 versus
17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus 17.6 versus 17.5
versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6 versus 19.2
versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7 versus 24.3
versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1 versus 24.3
versus 22.6 versus 22.8 versus 20.6 Versus 20.2 versus 20.0 versus 20.9%
versus 21.2% versus 21.6% versus 23.3% versus 24.7% versus 24.5% versus
23.8% versus 23.2% versus 23.5% versus 23.8% versus 23.7% versus 24.0%
versus 21.7% versus 21.6% versus 21.7 versus 20.6% versus 21.7% versus 27.8%
versus 27.8% versus 28.9% versus 27.8% versus 30.3% versus 35.4%


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.28% versus 2.30%. Bounced some Friday after selling off
to the 50 day EMA Tuesday.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.30%
versus 2.31% versus 2.33% versus 2.275% versus 2.236% versus 2.234% versus
2.21% versus 2.15% versus 2.248% versus 2.232% versus 2.264% versus 2.30%
versus 2.36% versus 2.37% versus 2.34% versus 2.33% versus 2.34% versus
2.33% versus 2.35% versus 2.40% versus 2.41% versus 2.382% versus 2.418%
versus 2.376% versus 2.40% versus 2.41% versus 2.40% versus 2.43% versus
2.463% versus 2.50% versus 2.529% versus 2.502% versus 2.602


EUR/USD: 1.08987 versus 1.08691. Big euro break higher, then a lateral
test into Friday. Euro still looks strong, particularly with the 1.9%
year/year EU CPI.

Historical: 1.08691 versus 1.09093 versus 1.09358 versus 1.08449 versus
1.07255 versus 1.07255 versus 1.07188 versus 1.0717 versus 1.07304 versus
1.06431 versus 1.06138 versus 1.0671 versus 1.06068 versus 1.05984 versus
1.05906 versus 1.0645 versus 1.06760 versus 1.06804 versus 1.06702 versus
1.06584 versus 1.06855 versus 1.07546 versus 1.0815 versus 1.08640 versus
1.07894 versus 1.07670 versus 1.07920 versus 1.08117 versus 1.0748 versus
1.07395 versus 1.07710 versus 1.0732 versus 1.06070 versus 1.0636 versus
1.06746 versus 1.06746 versus 1.05384 versus 1.0566 versus 1.05764 versus
1.06266 versus 1.05214


USD/JPY: 111.524 versus 111.197. Working laterally after a strong Tuesday
break higher through the 200 day SMA. Dollar looks as if it wants to
continue its recovery upside.

Historical: 111.197 versus 111. 177 versus 111.234 versus 109.704 versus
110.022 versus 109.00 versus 109.357 versus 108.974 versus 108.525 versus
109.150 versus 109.170 versus 108.926 versus 109.691 versus 110.704 versus
111.096 versus 110.85 versus 110.794 versus 110.705 versus 111.386 versus
111.255 versus 111.114 versus 110.581 versus 111.335 versus 111.242 versus
111.295 versus 111.502 versus 112.289 versus 112.707 versus 113.349 versus
113.447 versus 114.726 versus 114.833 versus 114.807 versus 115.259 versus
114.563 versus 113.498 versus 113.966 versus 114.042 versus 114.169 versus
113.951 versus 112.966 versus 223.982 versus 112.169 versus 112.745 versus
113.324 versus 113.399 versus 112.906 versus 113.356 versus 113.880 versus
114.306 versus 113.65 versus 113.856 versus 113.265 versus 113.401 versus
112.207 versus 112.332 versus 111.815


Oil: 49.35, +0.38. After dropping to the 200 day SMA the prior week, oil
worked laterally along the 200 day all week, trying to set up a higher low
to at least put in a relief bounce to the 2 weeks of selling.


Gold: 1268.30, +2.40. Faded to test the 200 day SMA after the breakout two
weeks back.


MONDAY

A renewed upside last week followed by a test has the stock indices in
position to rally to higher highs with the start of a new month. New months
often bring some new money to the market, and with the new break higher and
test, there may be some that are eager to put that money to work.

Thus far this weekend no new wars have started. North Korea launched
another missile that again blew up before leaving its airspace, kind of the
status quo of late. China's economic data was less than exciting, however,
as manufacturing and services new orders hit six month lows. But all is
well here: a 2-bedroom, 1.5 bathroom, 1948 square foot house in Los Angeles
sold for 40% over the asking price: $980,888 after listing at $699K. A
'sustainable' $500/square foot. Or as I like to view it, $654K per
bathroom. With a market like that, no wonder those two on 'Flip or Flop'
always seem to land on the positive 'flip' side. It is like having a
Bernanke put under the housing market. It is great -- until it is not
there.

Earnings season marches on. Some big names are already out and numbers are
not that bad on the marquis companies; a few are making all the money. AAPL
and FB are still to come (5/2 and 5/3, respectively) along with a lot of
others in May; earnings is now a 2-month event, seemingly unending, much
like the baseball and basketball seasons.

There is still a lot of news flow, economic, political, and geopolitical,
but the market has weathered it all, made a good upside move, is testing it,
and is in position to move higher. We will see if the new money helps push
it to those higher highs.

Last week we banked gain ahead of some earnings but also left money on the
table to work for the after earnings action. The reason is the market
setup: the rebound that was set up but no one believed would happen, the
test to end the week that really didn't give much back, the reception of
earnings, the continued numbers of good patterns in the market. Now we will
see if that pays off and look at picking up more positions on a renewed
breakout effort by the indices.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6047.61

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 5975
5937 is the all-time high from April, hit intraday
The 50 day SMA at 5879
The 50 day EMA at 5855
The 2016 trendline at 5789
5800 from the February consolidation lows
5661 is the late January upper gap point
5601 is the January lower gap point
The 200 day SMA at 5469
The November prior all-time high at 5404
5340 is the September and October 2016 twin peaks
5287.61 is the September 2016 high
5271.36 is the August 2016 intraday prior all-time high
5231.94 is the 2015 all-time high
5170 is the October intraday low.
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5042 is the March 2015 high
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower


S&P 500: Closed at 2384.20

Resistance:
The 2016 trendline at 2398
2390 is the March secondary peak
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high

Support:
The 50 day SMA at 2363
The 50 day EMA at 2350
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
2319 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The 200 day SMA at 2241
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2126 was the April 2015 prior all-time high
2120 is the June 2016 peak
2119 is the September 2016 low; February 2015 intraday high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2111 is the April 2016 recovery high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2094 is the December 2014 high
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014


Dow: Closed at 20,940.51

Resistance:
21,000 is the March secondary high
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high

Support:
The 50 day SMA at 20,760
The 50 day EMA at 20,613
20,412 is the March 2017 low
20,126 is the January 2017 intraday high
20,101 is the late January closing high.
19,994 - 19,999 (early January high, upper gap point from late January
19750 is the lows of the December/January range
The 200 day SMA at 19,389
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015
18,288 from March 2015
18,262 is the upper gap point from the Monday gap lower.
18,247 is the August 2016 low
18,168 is the April 2016 recovery high
18,100 to 18,181: interim peaks in the December 2014 to July 2015 range
18,016 is the June 2016 peak
17,992 is the early September low
17,978 is the November 2015 peak
17,960 is the October intraday low
17,600 is the rough bottom of the April to June range.
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time high.

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:35 pm Apple beats by $0.08, reports revs in-line, misses on iPhones; guides Q3 revs just below consensus; increases buyback and dividend 10.5% to $0.63/share (AAPL) :Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $2.10 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.02; revenues rose 4.6% year/year to $52.9 bln vs the $53.08 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Q2 iPhones 50.8 mln vs 52.5 mln ests 51.2 mln last year.... iPads 8.9 mln vs 9.6 mln ests vs 10.2 mln last year (first time in 6 years below 10 mln) Q2 Macs 4.2 mln vs 4.2 mln ests vs 4.0 mln last year.
Gross margin of 38.9% vs Street Expectations of ~38.8% vs 39.4% last year (guidance 38-39%)

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $43.5-45.5 bln vs. $45.65 bln Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q3 gross margins of 37.5-38.5% vs Street expectations of 38.2%.

As part of the latest update to the program, the Board has increased its share repurchase authorization to $210 billion from the $175 billion level announced a year ago. The Company also expects to continue to net-share-settle vesting restricted stock units.

The Board has approved a 10.5% increase to the Company's quarterly dividend, and has declared a dividend of $0.63 per share of the Company's common stock, payable on May 18, 2017 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 15, 2017. From the inception of its capital return program in August 2012 through March 2017, Apple has returned over $211 billion to shareholders, including $151 billion in share repurchases. The Company plans to continue to access the domestic and international debt markets to assist in funding the program.

4:25 pm Nanometrics misses by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line but mostly below consensus, revs in-line with midpoint above consensus (NANO) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.24; revenues rose 24.8% year/year to $59.3 mln vs the $59.6 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.28-$0.34 vs. $0.34 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $64.0-$68.0 mln vs. $65.38 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Gross margin is expected to be in the range of 51.5% to 53% on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis.
"Year-to-date in 2017, we are seeing continued strengthening in the semiconductor capital spending environment, particularly for 3D-NAND devices," commented Dr. Timothy J. Stultz, president and chief executive officer of Nanometrics. "Whereas we previously forecast a relatively balanced year for revenues, the outlook for the second half of 2017 has strengthened significantly, due to continued spending in

Foundry and increased 3D-NAND investments. While first-half 2017 sales are consistent with our prior outlook, we now expect second half revenues will be at least 10% stronger than the first half of 2017.

4:22 pm Closing Market Summary: Equities Eke Out Second Win of the Week (:WRAPX) :

Investors chose to play it safe on Tuesday with Apple's (AAPL 147.51, +0.93) quarterly report on tap. As a result, the major averages never really deviated from their unchanged marks with the S&P 500 (+0.1%) trading within a seven-point range. The Nasdaq (+0.1%) settled in line with the benchmark index while the Dow (+0.2%) finished just a tad bit higher.

Apple, which is the largest company by market cap, has played a huge role in the stock market's 2017 campaign, evidenced by the company's 27.4% year-to-date gain. Consequently, investors lacked conviction in moving the market one way or the other with such an influential piece of information--AAPL's latest earnings report--looming.

Sector standings reflected the wait-and-see strategy with eight of eleven settling within 0.3% of their flat lines. The top-weighted technology space (+0.3%) showed relative strength despite the underperformance of chipmakers, which pushed the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 1.1%. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 10.30, -3.32) led the semiconductor retreat, plunging 24.4%, despite reporting in-line earnings and revenues. However, it's important to keep in mind that AMD surged 295.1% in 2016.

Like technology, the health care sector (+0.3%) exhibited relative strength. Within the sector, Merck (MRK 62.70, +0.32) and Pfizer (PFE 33.61, -0.17) beat earnings estimates, but their top-line results differed; MRK reported better than expected revenues while PFE missed its mark.

Airlines helped the industrial sector (+0.5%) finish atop the day's leaderboard, rallying around Delta Air Lines' (DAL 47.83, +2.43) 1.0% year-over-year increase in passenger revenue (:PRASM) for the month of April. Cummins (CMI 160.56, +9.23) also contributed to the cause, adding 6.1%, after reporting better than expected earnings/revenues and providing upbeat guidance. The consumer discretionary (+0.2%), materials (+0.2%), utilities (+0.3%), and real estate (+0.1%) spaces also closed in positive territory.

On the flip side, the energy sector (-0.5%) was influenced negatively by crude oil's 2.5% decline. The energy component was weak throughout Tuesday's session, but widened its loss considerably in the afternoon ahead of the weekly crude inventory report from the American Petroleum Institute, which will be released today at 16:30 ET.

The consumer staples group also exhibited relative weakness, losing 0.6%. CVS Health (CVS 79.00, -2.96) weighed on the sector, dropping 3.6%, despite beating bottom-line estimates. The remaining sectors--financials (unch) and telecom services (-0.1%)--finished just a tick below their unchanged marks.

In the bond market, unequally distributed buying flattened the yield curve. The 10-yr yield finished three basis points lower at 2.28% while the 2-yr yield (1.27%) lost only one. Meanwhile, gold settled slightly higher, up 0.1% at $1,256.80/ozt, while the U.S. Dollar Index (98.84, -0.14) finished with a loss of 0.1%.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday, but auto and truck sales for the month of April were released throughout the day. The results were largely disappointing with American automakers General Motors (GM 33.20, -1.00) and Ford (F 10.92, -0.50) reporting declines of 6.0% and 7.2%, respectively.

Tomorrow, investors will receive several economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, April ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 170,000) at 8:15 ET, April ISM Services (Briefing.com consensus 55.8) at 10:00 ET, and the FOMC rate decision at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +13.2% YTD
S&P 500 +6.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.1% YTD

4:20 pm Cray misses by $0.18, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus; guides FY17 revs below consensus (CRAY) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.71 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.18 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.53); revenues fell 44.1% year/year to $59 mln vs the $55.28 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $60 mln vs. $79.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues downside guidance for FY17, sees FY17 revs of $400-450 mln vs. $584.89 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."As expected, we got off to a slower start to the year...While activity at the high-end of the supercomputing market continues to be relatively slow and our visibility remains limited, our competitive position remains strong. We were recently awarded several significant new contracts in the worldwide weather and climate segment - a market where our leadership position continues to expand. We also released our 2017 revenue outlook today which, driven by the ongoing market conditions, is significantly lower than where we finished 2016. Despite this, we continue to be confident in our ability to drive long-term growth over time."

4:11 pm First Solar beats by $0.40, beats on revs; guides FY17 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (FSLR) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.40 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.15); revenues rose 5.2% year/year to $892 mln vs the $669.71 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $0.25-0.75 (Prior $0.00-0.50), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $2.85-2.95 bln (Prior $2.80-2.90 bln) vs. $2.79 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Gross Margin 12.5-14.5% (Prior 11-13%)
Operating Expenses $360-405 mln (Prior $335-380 mln)
Operating Income ($25 mln)-$40 mln (Prior ($40 mln)-$35 mln)
Net Cash Balance $1.5-1.7 bln (Prior $1.4-1.6 bln)
Operating Cash Flow $350-450 mln (Prior $250-350 mln)
Cap Ex $525-625 mln (Unchanged)
2.4-2.6 GW *Unchanged)

At the close on Tuesday, the broader market was higher as the final half hour of action saw all three major US indices take a notable move up. After the final moment shakeups, the Dow Jones Industrial Average led the other two averages, up 36.43 points (+0.17%) to 20949.89. The S&P 500 gained about 2.84 points (+0.12%) to 2391.17, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced about 3.77 points (+0.06%) to 6095.37 ahead of bellwether Apple's (AAPL 147.51, +0.93 +0.63%) earnings tonight.

As it were, the Technology (XLK 54.91, +0.12 +0.22%) space finished higher as well today. Component Frontier Communications (FTR 1.93, +0.08 +4.32%) was the best performer in the space after reporting a mixed Q1. Other sectors as measured by the S&P closed IYZ +0.50%, XLI +0.48%, XLV +0.28%, XLB +0.17%, XLU +0.12%, XLY +0.11%, XLRE +0.03%, XLF -0.13%, XLE -0.50%, XLP -0.67%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (939.04, +2.85 +0.30%) space, trading also moved higher in the final moments, extending gains. Component First Solar (FSLR 30.32, +0.77 +2.61%) was strong after a premarket upgrade to a Neutral rating at UBS. Other names in the space which performed well today included AVGO +1.87%, INTC +1.82%, AKAM +1.66%, ADSK +1.60%, MA +1.50%, V +1.40%, VRSN +1.23%, YHOO +0.99%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Twitter (TWTR 18.25, +0.71 +4.05%) detailed twelve new premium content deals. Deals include WNBA, PGA Tour, Bloomberg Media, Cheddar, Live Nation, The Verge, BuzzFeed News, and IMG Fashion.

Angie's List (ANGI 9.51, +3.62 +61.46%) and IAC (IAC 96.24, +12.05 +14.31%) confirmed HomeAdvisor to combine with Angie's List. Angie's List stockholders will have the right to elect to receive one share of Class A common stock of ANGI Homeservices or $8.50 per share in cash.

First Data (FDC 15.84, +0.02 +0.13%) and Flywire announced a strategic agreement aimed at streamlining cross-border transactions for their respective client bases.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 34.23, +0.26 +0.77%) announced intent to acquire Viptela for $610 million.

Rambus (RMBS 12.65, +0.10 +0.80%) initiated an accelerated share repurchase program with Barclays Bank to repurchase about $50 million of common stock with initial delivery of 3,187,251 shares.

Qualcomm (QCOM 53.29, -0.31 -0.58%) extended its offering period for its proposed acquisition of NXP

Semiconductors (NXPI 105.76, -0.20 -0.19%). The company announced that required merger control filings relating to the transaction were filed or accepted for filing in China, Russia and the EU.

T-Mobile US (TMUS 66.94, -1.37 -2.01%) announced plans for a nationwide 5G wireless network.

In reaction to quarterly results:

MasterCard (MA 118.12, +1.75 +1.50%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $1.00 and $2.73 billion, respectively.

Fidelity Nat'l Info (FIS 83.26, -1.16 -1.37%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.86 on in-line revenues of $2.25 billion. The company also reaffirmed FY17 EPS guidance of $4.15-4.30 and GAAP revenue growth guidance of 1-2%.

SBA Comm (SBAC 128.98, +1.73 +1.36%) reported better than expected Q1 FFO of $1.69 and revenues of $423.4 million. The company also guided FY17 FFO ahead of market expectations at $6.65-6.99 and revenues in-line at $1.685-1.725 billion.

Advanced Micro (AMD 10.30, -3.32 -24.38%) reported an in-line Q1 loss per share of $0.04 on in-line revenues of $984 million. The company also guided Q2 revenues modestly ahead of market expectations at growth of 14-20% quarter-over-quarter, which equates to about $1.12-1.18 billion.

CDK Global (CDK 62.96, -1.93 -2.97%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.65 on in-line revenues of $556.3 million. The company also raised FY17 EPS guidance to $2.40-2.44 from $2.33-2.38 and reaffirmed revenue guidance for FY17 of growth of about 4.5% to about $2.210 billion.

Shopify (SHOP 82.98, +5.72 +7.40%) reported a better than expected Q1 loss per share of $0.04 on better than expected revenues of $127.4 million. Further, SHOP sees Q2 revenues ahead of market expectations at $142-144 million. For FY17, the company raised revenue guidance to $615-630 million from $580-600 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AKAM, AAPL, AZPN, CSOD, CRAY, FEYE, FSLR, FTR, GDDY, GUID, HUBS, IPHI, JKHY, MTCH, NANO, OCLR, PAYC, PRO, QLYS, QUMU, RSYS, TNAV, TNET, TWLO, VIAV, WBMD, WU/ANGI, ADP, CRCM, GIB, CVLT, CRTO, DHX, GRPN, HRS, INXN, KLIC, LFUS, ORBK, PSDO, S, VSH

Analyst actions:

FSLR was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at UBS;
AMD was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie,
CCOI was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen,
JIVE was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
FTV was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
RTEC was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse;
OKTA was initiated at Goldman, Pacific Crest, JP Morgan JMP Securities and Canaccord Genuity,
ADBE was initiated with an Overweight at Barclays,
ELVT was initiated at Jefferies and Credit Suisse,
VRNS was initiated with a Buy at Needham

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From Briefing.com: 4:41 pm MagnaChip Semi beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above two analyst estimate (MX) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.01 per share, $0.10 better than the two analyst estimate of ($0.09); revenues rose 9.2% year/year to $161.7 mln vs the $160 mln two analyst estimate.

Foundry gross profit margin was 28.5% in the first quarter as compared with 23.8% in 1Q16 and 30.3% in 4Q16. Standard Products Group gross profit margin was 23.1% in the first quarter as compared with 23.6% in 1Q16 and 21.8% in 4Q16.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $162-$168 mln vs. $162.35 mln two analyst estimate. Sees gross margin in range of 25-27% as compared to 22% in 2Q16.

4:18 pm Closing Market Summary: S&P 500 Posts First Loss of the Week (:WRAPX) :

The major averages held modest losses throughout Wednesday's session, but a late-afternoon uptick left the S&P 500 (-0.1%) just short of its unchanged mark. The Dow (unch) eked out a small win while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.4%) and the domestically-oriented Russell 2000 (-0.6%) underperformed.

While there were some flaws in Apple's (AAPL 147.06, -0.45) latest earnings report--the number of iPhone units sold was below expectations, iPad unit sales fell below 10 million for the first time in six years, and sales in China were down 14.0% year-over-year--the tech giant largely overcame those concerns to end just a step below the broader market. The company's above-consensus earnings and upcoming iPhone 8 release helped keep losses in check.

With Apple not performing at the top of its game, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.1%) turned to Alphabet (GOOGL 948.45, +11.36) and chipmakers for support. GOOGL finished higher by 1.2% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.3% on First Solar's (FSLR 33.91, +3.59) better than expected earnings/revenues and upbeat guidance. FSLR shares spiked 11.8%.

Lightly-weighted sectors like real estate (-1.3%), telecom services (-0.6%), and materials (-1.0%) populated the bottom of the day's leaderboard with the weakness in the materials group owed to the commodity market's poor performance; gold (-0.8%), silver (-1.4%), and copper (-4.2%) all settled with solid losses. However, crude oil was able to eke out a win despite the EIA reporting a smaller than expected draw for the week ended April 28 (0.9 million actual vs 2.0 million consensus). The energy sector made the most of the relatively upbeat performance, adding 0.3%.

Media names weighed on the consumer discretionary sector (-0.6%) in today's session after Hulu announced a new live TV service for $40/month. Twenty-First Century Fox (FOX 28.35, -1.50) showed the widest decline, losing 5.0%, while Dow component Walt Disney (DIS 111.62, -2.75) tumbled 2.4%. The remaining laggards--health care and utilities--closed with losses of 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively.

On the flip side, the consumer staples (+0.1%) and financials (+0.6%) spaces outperformed. The consumer staples group received some help from Mondelez International (MDLZ 45.03, +1.29) and Estee Lauder (EL 91.30, +3.82), both of which beat earnings estimates. Meanwhile, the financial sector benefited from Allstate's (ALL 84.93, +3.10) better than expected earnings and revenues. The industrial sector (+0.1%) was the last sector to finish in positive territory.

The FOMC voted unanimously to leave the fed funds target range unchanged at 0.75%-1.00%, as expected, with the accompanying policy statement providing little new information. The market still expects the Fed to raise rates at its June meeting with the CME FedWatch Tool assigning an implied probability of 70.7% to said event. Treasuries settled generally lower with the 2-yr yield (1.29%) and the 10-yr yield (2.31%) adding three basis points apiece.

Market participants received a number of economic reports on Wednesday, including April ADP Employment Change, the April ISM Services Index, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 177,000 in April (Briefing.com consensus 170,000) while the March reading was revised lower to 255,000 from 263,000.

The ADP reading precedes Friday's more influential Employment Situation Report for April, which the Briefing.com consensus expects will show the addition of 180,000 nonfarm payrolls. The Employment Situation Report for March indicated that nonfarm payrolls increased by 98,000.

The ISM Services Index for April rose to 57.5 from an unrevised reading of 55.2 in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick to 55.8.

The key takeaway from the report is that the non-manufacturing side of the economy, which accounts for a much larger slice of GDP than the manufacturing sector does, continues to hum along in an expansion mode, with new order activity driving the acceleration in April.

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.1% to follow last week's 2.7% increase.Tomorrow, investors will receive a slew of economic data, including March Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$44.4 billion), Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 246,000), and the preliminary reading of first quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus 2.6%) at 8:30 ET and March Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), which will cross the wires a little later at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +12.8% YTD
S&P 500 +6.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.5% YTD

4:09 pm FormFactor beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (FORM) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.24 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.20; revenues rose 140.3% year/year to $128.8 mln vs the $124.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Free cash flow for 1Q17 was $15.5 million.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.24-$0.30 vs. $0.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $130-$138 mln vs. $125.47 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees Non-GAAP gross margin of 42-45%.

Commentary: "We continue to see strong momentum across all our product lines, as our large customers continue their technology node transitions and new design introductions. We are in a stronger position than we were one year ago, and are benefitting from significant scale, diversified market drivers, and a broad portfolio of leading test and measurement products. Our focus remains on execution to drive continued revenue growth and EPS expansion."

4:07 pm TTM Tech beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (TTMI) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.37 per share, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.28; revenues rose 7.2% year/year to $625.2 mln vs the $615 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

"TTM delivered strong organic year on year growth in the first quarter of 7 percent, near the high end of our guidance, and profitability which exceeded our forecast," said Tom Edman, CEO of TTM. "On a year over year basis, most end markets grew, with the fastest growth coming from the cellular, computing and aerospace and defense end markets. This growth, along with strong operational execution, resulted in non-GAAP EPS above the high end of our guidance. These results represent the highest revenue and EBITDA for a first quarter in the history of the company."

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.31-$0.37 vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $605-$645 mln vs. $624.08 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:07 pm Cirrus Logic beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides JunQ revs in-line (CRUS) :

Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $0.85 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.70; revenues rose 41.3% year/year to $327.9 mln vs the $320.9 mln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $300-340 mln.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q1 (Jun), sees Q1 revs of $300-340 mln vs. $320.2 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate."We are extremely pleased with Cirrus Logic's FY17 financial performance as we delivered outstanding revenue, operating profit and earnings per share growth"The major average posted their first losses of the week, led lower by the Nasdaq Composite which lost about 22.82 points (-0.37%) to 6072.55. The S&P 500 shed 3.18 points (-0.13%) to 2387.99, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined about 12.37 points (-0.06%) to 20937.52. The brunt of the losses were a result of some worse than expected results out of some market bellwethers. Namely Apple (AAPL 147.06, -0.45 -0.31%).

That being said, while there were some flaws in Apple's (AAPL) latest earnings report--the number of iPhone units sold was below expectations, iPad unit sales fell below 10 million for the first time in six years, and sales in China were down 14.0% year-over-year--the tech giant largely overcame those concerns to end just a step below the broader market. The company's above-consensus earnings and upcoming iPhone 8 release helped keep losses in check.

Econ data today was headed by the FOMC vote; the financial body voted unanimously to leave the fed funds target range unchanged at 0.75%-1.00%, as expected, with the accompanying policy statement providing little new information. The market still expects the Fed to raise rates at its June meeting with the CME FedWatch Tool assigning an implied probability of 70.7% to said event. Additionally, the ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 177,000 in April while the March reading was revised lower to 255,000 from 263,000. The ISM Services Index for April rose to 57.5 from an unrevised reading of 55.2 in March, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.1% to follow last week's 2.7% increase.

The Technology (XLK 54.81, -0.10 -0.18%) space also felt the modest hurt on Wednesday as the sector spent the entirety of the session in the red. Despite this action, component First Solar (FSLR 33.91, +3.59 +11.84%) managed to stay afloat given its better than expected Q1 report and strong guidance. Financials led the remaining 10 S&P sectors higher XLF +0.80% followed by XLE +0.28%, XLP +0.09%, XLI +0.08%, XLU -0.35%, XLV -0.49%, XLY -0.59%, XLB -0.98%, XLRE -1.22%, IYZ -3.47%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (937.79, -1.25 -0.13%) space, trading also held below flat lines today, but ended modestly off session lows. Component Akamai Tech (AKAM 52.80, -9.70 -15.52%) was the worst performer today following its mixed Q1 report and worse than expected Q2 guidance. Other names in the space which underperformed included ADP -6.25%, WU -4.32%, PAYX -2.28%, JNPR -1.91%, XRX -1.14%, YHOO -1.12%, RHT -1.08%, GLW -0.90%, CSRA -0.89%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting quarterly results, Apple's (AAPL) Board approved a 10.5% increase to the company's quarterly dividend and increased its share repurchase authorization to $210 billion from the $175 billion level announced a year ago.

MakeMyTrip (MMYT 37.00, -3.20 -7.96%) disclosed a $330 million equity financing at $36 per ordinary share.

Elevate Credit (ELVT 7.65, +0.01 +0.13%) increased its debt facility with Victory Park Capital from $150 million to $250 million.

Straight Path Comms (STRP 155.20, +29.38 +23.35%) determined that a revised offer from a multi-national telecommunications company for $135.96 per share constitutes a 'superior proposal'.

DHI Group (DHX 3.50, +0.05 +1.45%) disclosed plans to divest a number of its online professional communities.

NetScout Systems (NTCT 36.85, -0.45 -1.21%) announced a multi-year agreement with Vodafone Group (VOD 26.54, +0.04 +0.15%) to serve as Vodafone's passive probing provider in Europe.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Apple (AAPL) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $2.10 on in-line revenues of $52.9 billion. For Q3, the company sees revenues slightly below market expectations at $43.5-45.5 billion.

Automatic Data (ADP 97.51, -6.50 -6.25%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.31 on in-line revenues of 43.41 billion.

Sprint (S 7.77, -1.30 -14.33%) reported a worse than expected Q4 loss per share of $0.07 on better than expected revenues of $8.54 billion.

Harris (HRS 109.25, -0.29 -0.26%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.38 and $1.49 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company raised EPS guidance to $5.50-5.55 from $5.40-5.60.

Akamai Tech (AKAM) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.69 on in-line revenues of $609 million. The company also guided Q2 EPS and revenues below market expectations at $0.59-0.61 and $597-609 million, respectively.

First Solar (FSLR) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.25 and $892 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $0.25-0.75 (from $0.00-0.50) and $2.85-2.95 billion (from $2.80-2.90 billion), respectively.

FireEye (FEYE 13.78, +1.57 +12.86%) reported a better than expected Q1 loss per share of $0.09 on better than expected revenues of $173.7 million for the period. For Q2, FEYE sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at ($0.14)-($0.10) and $173-179 million, respectively. For FY17, FEYE sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at ($0.36)-($0.26) and $724-736 million, respectively.

Twilio (TWLO 25.01, -8.93 -26.31%) reported a better than expected Q1 loss per share of $0.04 on better than expected revenues of $87.4 million. For Q2, the company sees EPS and revenues below market expectations at ($0.11)-($0.10) and $85.5-87.5 million, respectively. For FY17, the company lowered their EPS and revenue guidance to ($0.30)-($0.27) from ($0.19)-($0.15) and $356-362 million from $364-372 million, respectively.

Groupon (GRPN 3.47, -0.53 -13.25%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.01 on worse than expected revenues of $673.63 million.

Frontier Communications (FTR 1.61, -0.32 -16.58%) reported a worse than expected Q1 loss per share of $0.11 on in-line revenues which rose 73.9% compared to last year to $2.36 billion.

Inphi (IPHI 36.16, -4.38 -10.80%) reported in-line Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.44 and $93.58 million, respectively. For Q2, IPHI sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of $0.27-0.39 and $80.0-88.0 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: HIVE, AIRG, AOSL, ANSS, ARRS, BKFS, CACI, CTL, CRUS, CMP, PMTS, CSGS, EXTR, FB, FIT, FIVN, FORM, GLUU, INOV, NSIT, ITRI, KEYW, MX, MANT, MULE, NXPI, QTWO, QRVO, RUBI, SQ, DATA, TIVO, TTMI, XPER/ACIW, ACTA, ALSK, ARW, BCOR, CEVA, CCOI, COMM, CNSL, DBD, EMKR, EPAM, IT, GPN, GSAT, GOGO, GTT, KVHI, LDOS, LQDT, MMS, MITL, MBLY, NTCT, NICE, ORBC, PRFT, PERI, RDCM, WILN, WIN

Analyst actions:

FEYE was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at William Blair,
FSLR was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Axiom Capital,
FTR was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup;
AKAM was downgraded at Wells Fargo, SunTrust and DA Davidson,
TWLO was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
BLKB was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
FTR was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Cowen and to Neutral from Buy at UBS,
FIS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Compass Point,
SHOP was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at First Analysis Sec

7:32 am Vishay beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs in-line (VSH) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.28 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.23; revenues rose 6.2% year/year to $606 mln vs the $598.72 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $610-650 mln vs. $616.33 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"In the first quarter Vishay again was able to offset the negative impact of general inflation and price decline on its contributive margin by cost reduction and innovation...For the second quarter, we guide for revenues of $610 to $650 million and gross margins of 26% to 28% at constant exchange rates."

6:56 am Kulicke & Soffa beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (KLIC) :

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $0.40 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.34; revenues rose 27.6% year/year to $199.6 mln vs the $190.89 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Ball bonder equipment net revenue increased by 46.1% over the December quarter. Wedge bonder equipment net revenue increased by 5.5% over the December quarter.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $235-245 mln vs. $211.92 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - Still Waiting on the French (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Modest breaks higher Friday look positive for a new breakout, but still
waiting on the French.
- Jobs Report looks better, but without any real economic changes, the same
issues remain.
- SP500 posts a new high, NASDAQ bounces after two day's rest. Trying to
lead higher.
- The stage is set for the next move higher, now we see if the world
cooperates.

There were indeed signs of life Friday in the NYSE indices that had appeared
to be terminally bored to death. SP500, SP400, RUTX put for the respectable
moves off the lows in their pullbacks. Even DJ30 did pretty well
considering IBM was another massive drag upon that index with a 2.5% loss
after Buffett revealed he had sold a third of his position (and since then I
would bet he has sold more of his position but that won't be revealed until
he absolutely has to).

They were not huge breaks higher, but they were showing the right moves as
SP500 cleared the highs in its 2 week lateral consolidation. Volume was
lousy, but we will give it a pass on that for the session.

SP500 9.77, 0.41%
NASDAQ 25.42, 0.42%
DJ30 55.47, 0.42%
SP400 0.83%
RUTX 0.59%
SOX 0.42%

VOLUME: NYSE -17%, NASDAQ -8%. Trade fell to just below average on NYSE,
held just above average on NASDAQ.

A/D: NYSE 2.6:1, NASDAQ 1.4:1. Nothing spectacular, but we also expect
NASDAQ to be a bit weaker than the NYSE because NASDAQ rallied nicely and is
testing while the NYSE indices are attempting a break higher.

Perhaps the jobs report at 211K versus the 180K expected and the paltry 79K
from March was actually a catalyst. I don't think it hurt, but if it was a
catalyst, it didn't have investors jumping for joy. Maybe in combination
with the House passing a healthcare reform bill Thursday and oil not diving
lower for a session it was able to help cobble together a move perhaps help
some new breaks higher in the NYSE indices.

Interesting that the market did hold onto gains ahead of the French election
Sunday. The belief is very US 2016-like in that everyone believes Marcon is
a sure bet, primarily because the polls appeared to be an accurate gauge in
the initial election. Could be, but I am reading a lot of on the ground
reporting about how many groups from the LGBT to the small businesses prefer
Le Pen over the perceived establishment banker candidate. We will see. If
Le Pen does win, then the markets may have a Frexit fit.

As of the Friday close, however, the US markets appeared comfortable with
the lay of the land. The Fed saw the recent economic data slowdowns as
transitory and thus stuck to its rate hike guns. Oil reached way down to
the November, September, and May lows, really the support in its trading
range, and rebounded to positive. Oil could very well be at the bottom of
its range and prepping for a bounce. Despite comments that healthcare was
DOA in the Senate, the House did pass a bill and the Senate will work on its
own bill. The process is in the process of working. Good thing it is.
Maryland's insurer just filed seeking at 50% premium increase in 2018.


Jobs Report

211K versus 180K expected versus 79K March (from 98K)

Unemployment: 4.4% versus 4.6% versus 4.5% prior

Average earnings: 0.3% versus 0.3% expected versus 0.1% March (from 0.2%)
Year/year: 2.5% versus 2.7% March.

Workweek: 34.4 versus 34.3 March. Positive, positive.

Participation: 62.9% versus 63.0% March
94.375M working aged people not in the workforce. Highest level in 2017.

Where the jobs are:
Leisure and hospitality: 55K
Healthcare: 37K
Professional and Business Services: 39K
Food Services: 26K
Mining: 9K
Retail: +6.3K (from -27K March, -29K February)
Manufacturing: 6K (from 13K March)
Manufacturing, Construction, Wholesale Trade, Longshore/Dock: All basically
unchanged.

Okay, okay. The $10B question. How with a 4.4% unemployment rate, called
'full employment by many, are wages unable to rise?

Answer: It is the kind of jobs created. Retail returned to positive growth,
but that is a low-wage category. Leisure and hospitality, Food services
combined for 81K. Business services saw 9.9K of those jobs (25%) go to
'services to buildings and dwellings.' As one commentator put it, more
doormen were hired.

These jobs still dominate, and indeed in April they became a larger
percentage of all jobs as they have been for years. March, despite its
lower overall jobs numbers, was qualitatively better as the jobs created
were a much higher percentage of better paying jobs. What does that mean?
The better paying jobs are still not very plentiful, and the swing jobs are
the lower paying jobs in retail and similar sectors.

Thus, even with lower unemployment you get lower wages because those taking
the jobs are taking lower paying jobs, dragging down the hourly average.

Again that begs the question: are more jobs necessarily better, do they show
true economic recovery? If you compare to the jobs lost in the 2007-2009
recession, no. Replacing quality, well-paying jobs with low quality,
low-pay jobs is NOT an equitable trade. Thus all of the gloating about the
jobs created the past 10 years is bunk. We need to create standard of
living improving jobs, and that is where tax, healthcare, and regulatory
play a huge role. Time to get them done and time to start growing real
jobs.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SP500: A new all-time closing high Friday as SP500 cleared the April/May
flat range/handle. Nice price move but volume lagged, falling back below
average. Okay, not a clear launch higher and Monday is more of a litmus
test after the French election, but it certainly made the right move and
rather timely given the 10 day EMA had just caught up with SP500 Wednesday
and Thursday.

DJ30: Broke higher but could not clear the range as IBM weighed on the Dow
once again. Moved higher up off the 10 day EMA, a good hold of support it
found Wednesday, but there was no volume power here either. Still looks
solid, just needs to expand the move this week.

SP400: Nice doji with tail at the 50 day MA's, Thursday followed by a gap
higher and a close at the session high Friday. Much lower in the handle
formation than SP500 or DJ30, so a 0.83% move did not bring it anywhere near
the prior highs. It did bounce where it technically should have, however.

RUTX: After the Thursday doji that tapped the 50 day MA's on the low and
rebounded, Friday saw some upside as RUTX moved over the interim highs in
the base as well as the tops of the December/February trading range. Held
at an important support level, decent bounce. Now it has to really deliver
upside this week.

NASDAQ: Gapped lower Wednesday but easily held over the 10 day EMA. Friday
NASDAQ gapped back upside edged to a new closing high. Not much of a
rest/test, but NASDAQ did pause. It may want to lead higher from here if
all things remain equal, e.g. the French election.

SOX: Did not really participate in Friday's modest bounce. Upside yes, but
more working laterally over the 20 day EMA than breaking higher, at least
not yet.


LEADERSHIP

Oil stocks: Some may be working on setting a relief move, e.g. BHI, APA,
BTE. We are watching them.

Semiconductors: Still very mixed but some good moves. XLNX, PXLW, SIMO,
BRKS all worked decently to very well on the week. PLAB remains set to move
higher again. AVGO broke higher.

Internet: Continues its strength. BCOR put on a strong showing for us.
LLNW is bouncing off a nice 1-2-3 test. EXPE enjoyed a strong week as did
GOOG.

Biotechs/Drugs: Struggling as many of the prior leaders are trying to hold
onto bids, e.g. CNAT. AUPH still holds a good pattern.

Retail: Still moving higher including the department stores (e.g. DDS,
JWN). DLTR, DG pausing after a move though WMT continues higher. EBAY is
hanging on while AMZN puts in a good 10 day EMA test to set up the new leg
higher. RH gaped higher Friday.

Financial: Promising, but still not making the moves, e.g. JPM. C, BAC did
break higher midweek but stalled out some to end the week. Others in asset
management look good, e.g. KKR.

FAANG: FB testing the 10 day EMA in a rather normal move. AAPL announced
earnings, tested the 10 day EMA, then Friday was at a new all-time high.
AMZN putting in a nice flag test. NFLX rallied nicely on the week though
off some Friday. GOOG rested Friday but enjoyed a very strong week as it
extended its earnings run.

Machinery: Tested a bit deeper but the bases are still good, e.g. CMI, CAT.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +55.47 points (+0.26%) to close at 21006.94

Nasdaq
Stats: +25.42 points (+0.42%) to close at 6100.76
Volume: 1.9B (-7.77%)

Up Volume: 1.29B (+391.16M)
Down Volume: 582.97M (-547.03M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.39 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.17 to 1

New Highs: 183 (+46)
New Lows: 75 (-7)

S&P
Stats: +9.77 points (+0.41%) to close at 2399.29
NYSE Volume: 826.7M (-17.33%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.62 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.76 to 1

New Highs: 183 (+40)
New Lows: 28 (-67)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 10.57; +0.11
VXN: 12.31; +0.13
VXO: 9.93; -0.63

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1; +0.09. 2 of the last 3 days were 1.0 or better.
A little market lateral movement and the put buyers rush in.


Bulls and Bears: Somewhat disconcerting to see the bulls charging back near
60 so quickly. That string of 60+ closes is still hanging over this rally,
and a return to 60+ would have us looking at a possible end to the upside
after SP500, DJ30 break higher from their current pullbacks. Of course,
with the rallying bulls it could be that they don't breakout.

Bulls: 58.5 versus 54.7

Bears: 17.9 versus 17.9

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.





Bulls: 58.5 versus 54.7
54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5 versus 56.7 versus 53.4
versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8 versus 62.7 versus 61.8
versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2 versus 59.8 versus 59.8
versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6 versus 51.0 versus 42.9
versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9 versus 46.1 versus 46.7 versus 45.2

Bears: 17.9 versus 17.9
17.9 versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus
13.75 versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus
17.6 versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6
versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7
versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1
versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds (10 year): 2.354% versus 2.322%. Holding at the 50 day SMA with a
doji. The FOMC indicated all is 'go' for a June rate hike. Bonds
predictably sold but then held the 50 day, looking as if they want to try a
bounce. For some reason, perhaps economic data, bonds are not breaking down.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.322%
versus 2.289% versus 2.322% versus 2.30% versus 2.31% versus 2.33% versus
2.275% versus 2.236% versus 2.234% versus 2.21% versus 2.15% versus 2.248%
versus 2.232% versus 2.264% versus 2.30% versus 2.36% versus 2.37% versus
2.34% versus 2.33% versus 2.34% versus 2.33% versus 2.35% versus 2.40%
versus 2.41% versus 2.382% versus 2.418% versus 2.376% versus 2.40% versus
2.41% versus 2.40% versus 2.43% versus 2.463% versus 2.50% versus 2.529%
versus 2.502% versus 2.602


EUR/USD: 1.09994 versus 1.09086. Euro continues the breakout versus the
dollar. Now would it not be rather hilarious of Le Pen won the French
election. The euro would reverse violently.

Historical: 1.09086 versus 1.08923 versus 1.09284 versus 1.090984 versus
1.08987 versus 1.08691 versus 1.09093 versus 1.09358 versus 1.08449 versus
1.07255 versus 1.07255 versus 1.07188 versus 1.0717 versus 1.07304 versus
1.06431 versus 1.06138 versus 1.0671 versus 1.06068 versus 1.05984 versus
1.05906 versus 1.0645 versus 1.06760 versus 1.06804 versus 1.06702 versus
1.06584 versus 1.06855 versus 1.07546 versus 1.0815 versus 1.08640 versus
1.07894 versus 1.07670 versus 1.07920 versus 1.08117 versus 1.0748 versus
1.07395 versus 1.07710 versus 1.0732 versus 1.06070 versus 1.0636 versus
1.06746 versus 1.06746 versus 1.05384 versus 1.0566 versus 1.05764 versus
1.06266 versus 1.05214


USD/JPY: 112.683 versus 112.495

Historical: 112.495 versus 112.782 versus 112.779 versus 111.793 versus
111.524 versus 111.197 versus 111. 177 versus 111.234 versus 109.704 versus
110.022 versus 109.00 versus 109.357 versus 108.974 versus 108.525 versus
109.150 versus 109.170 versus 108.926 versus 109.691 versus 110.704 versus
111.096 versus 110.85 versus 110.794 versus 110.705 versus 111.386 versus
111.255 versus 111.114 versus 110.581 versus 111.335 versus 111.242 versus
111.295 versus 111.502 versus 112.289 versus 112.707 versus 113.349 versus
113.447 versus 114.726 versus 114.833 versus 114.807 versus 115.259 versus
114.563 versus 113.498 versus 113.966 versus 114.042 versus 114.169 versus
113.951 versus 112.966 versus 223.982 versus 112.169 versus 112.745 versus
113.324 versus 113.399 versus 112.906 versus 113.356 versus 113.880 versus
114.306 versus 113.65 versus 113.856 versus 113.265 versus 113.401 versus
112.207 versus 112.332 versus 111.815


Oil: 46.22, +0.70. Oil reached way down to 43.80 then reversed to a gain.
It tested the lows in the range from November 2016 and reversed. An upside
roll in the range looks very possible.


Gold: 1226.90, -1.70. Gapped lower and sold Thursday, unable to hold a
bounce Friday. Gold has gapped sharply lower through support and does not
look well.


MONDAY

Friday gave the appearance the NYSE indices were ready to make the next
break higher. SP500 led the move with a solid advance through the highs of
the recent range. That was about all there was. That is not bad, but a
Friday move on lighter volume is not necessarily a harbinger of a continued
and stronger move the following week.

That is true, but then again, the market is not giving up the moves.
Indeed, it has consolidated in a tight range and is starting to break
higher. NASDAQ even bounced upside after a very brief respite. The right
kind of moves off this setup. Now will they still be there Monday post
French election and continue higher?

We have some great upside plays we are looking at to start the week. It
even looks as if some oil stocks will be ready to move as the week
progresses, predicated in large part on oil's selloff to the bottom of its
range. There are indeed several possible sectors to help push the market
higher if the status quo, and that includes the French election, continue
falling in place.

Have a great weekend!



SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6100.76

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 6046
5937 is the all-time high from April, hit intraday
The 50 day SMA at 5904
The 50 day EMA at 5897
The 2016 trendline at 5801
5800 from the February consolidation lows
5661 is the late January upper gap point
5601 is the January lower gap point
The 200 day SMA at 5495
The November prior all-time high at 5404
5340 is the September and October 2016 twin peaks
5287.61 is the September 2016 high
5271.36 is the August 2016 intraday prior all-time high
5231.94 is the 2015 all-time high
5170 is the October intraday low.
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5042 is the March 2015 high
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower


S&P 500: Closed at 2399.29

Resistance:
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
The 2016 trendline at 2409

Support:
The 50 day SMA at 2366
The 50 day EMA at 2357
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
2319 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The 200 day SMA at 2246
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high
2135 is the May 2015 all-time high
2130 is the June 2015 peak
2126 was the April 2015 prior all-time high
2120 is the June 2016 peak
2119 is the September 2016 low; February 2015 intraday high
2116 is the November 2015 high
2111 is the April 2016 recovery high
2104 is the December 2015 high
2094 is the December 2014 high
2079 is the intraday all-time high from November 2014


Dow: Closed at 21,006.94

Resistance:
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high

Support:
The 50 day SMA at 20,784
The 50 day EMA at 20,675
20,412 is the March 2017 low
20,126 is the January 2017 intraday high
20,101 is the late January closing high.
19,994 - 19,999 (early January high, upper gap point from late January
19750 is the lows of the December/January range
The 200 day SMA at 19,449
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015
18,288 from March 2015
18,262 is the upper gap point from the Monday gap lower.
18,247 is the August 2016 low
18,168 is the April 2016 recovery high
18,100 to 18,181: interim peaks in the December 2014 to July 2015 range
18,016 is the June 2016 peak
17,992 is the early September low
17,978 is the November 2015 peak
17,960 is the October intraday low
17,600 is the rough bottom of the April to June range.
17,351 is the September 2014 all-time highs

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From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm Closing Market Summary: Equities Open the Week Flat (:WRAPX) :

After settling at fresh record highs on Friday, the S&P 500 (unch) and the Nasdaq (unch) each eked out another record close on Monday. The Dow (unch) also finished just above its unchanged mark while the Russell 2000 (-0.4%) lagged.

The final round of the French presidential election went as expected on Sunday with Emmanuel Macron easily defeating Marine Le Pen. Mr. Macron's victory has been seen as a positive for the European Union, and global equity markets, as it lays to rest Ms. Le Pen's call for a French referendum on EU membership. France's CAC settled lower by 0.9% after hitting its best level in a decade ahead of the vote. Meanwhile, the euro (1.0932) lost 0.6% against the U.S. dollar.

Back in the U.S., seven of eleven sectors opened the week in negative territory. The materials (-0.9%), real estate (-0.5%), and health care (-0.6%) spaces finished solidly lower, but the remaining laggards finished with losses of no more than 0.3%. The health care group, which comprises around 14.0% of the broader market alone, suffered the most notable loss of the day at the hand of the biotechnology industry; the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 289.45, -6.42) declined 2.2%.

At the opposite end of the leaderboard, the energy sector (+0.7%) rallied after morning headlines that the OPEC/non-OPEC production cut agreement, which is currently scheduled to end in June, may be extended for nine months or longer. Saudi Arabia's oil minister went as far as saying that oil producers would do "whatever it takes" to end the global glut. WTI crude ended pit trade 0.4% higher at $46.63/bbl.

Like energy, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.4%) finished ahead of the broader market. Apple (AAPL 153.01, +4.05) climbed to another fresh record high, extending its already impressive 2017 advance by 2.7%. The tech giant currently holds a year-to-date gain of 32.1%. Elsewhere in the tech group, chipmakers underperformed, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 0.4%.

The consumer discretionary (+0.3%) and telecom services (+0.2%) sectors also closed in positive territory. Coach (COH 44.71, +2.05) contributed to the consumer discretionary sector's positive performance, jumping 4.8%, after acquiring Kate Spade (KATE 18.38, +1.41) for $18.50/share, in cash. The purchase price represents a 27.5% premium to KATE's stock price seen in late December when takeover speculation surfaced in the media.

Outside of the stock market, U.S. Treasuries settled lower across the board, signaling a possible uptick in investor sentiment; the benchmark 10-yr yield (2.38%) added three basis points. Even more notably, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 9.72, -0.85, -8.0%) settled at one of its lowest levels on record, pointing to increased complacency.

Investors didn't receive any economic data on Monday. Tomorrow, market participants will receive March JOLTS and March Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%). The two reports will both cross the wires at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +13.4% YTD
S&P 500 +7.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.5% YTD

Action today wound down with a wild final half hour. After making higher lows at quarter to the bell, action suddenly turned upward, allowing all three major US indices to close out the day in the green. The Dow Jones Industrial Average led all three, up 5.34 points (+0.03%) at the close to 21012.28. The Nasdaq Composite was higher by 1.90 points (+0.03%) to 6102.66, while the S&P 500 gained less than a point (+0.00%) to 2399.38.

Across the pond, the final round of the French presidential election went as expected on Sunday with Emmanuel Macron easily defeating Marine Le Pen. Mr. Macron's victory has been seen as a positive for the European Union, and global equity markets, as it lays to rest Ms. Le Pen's call for a French referendum on EU membership. France's CAC settled lower by 0.9% after hitting its best level in a decade ahead of the vote. Meanwhile, the euro (1.0932) lost 0.6% against the U.S. dollar.

Among the winners in the S&P today, the Technology (XLK 55.21, +0.24 +0.44%) space closed above flat lines, near highs. Component CenturyLink (CTL 24.80, +1.20 +5.08%) was one of the better performing names today after a positive mention at today's Sohn Conference. The US Telecoms space IYZ +0.95% led all other S&P sectors today, followed by the XLE +0.71%, XLY +0.19%, XLP -0.04%, XLU -0.04%, XLF -0.08%, XLI -0.27%, XLRE -0.54%, XLV -0.62%, XLB -0.80%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (944.92, +3.94 +0.42%) space, trading ended just off highs as morning weakness turned around. Component Apple (AAPL 153.01, +4.05 +2.72%) was the strongest name today, hitting all-time highs just after noon on its way to surpassing $800 billion in market capitalization. Other names in the space which were strong today included HPQ +2.12%, XLNX +1.86%, FSLR +1.77%, CTSH +1.68%, TSS +1.46%, FFIV +0.93%, GOOGL +0.89%, WU +0.88%, ADI +0.78%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
IBM's (IBM 153.03, -0.52 -0.34%) Credit rating was cut from AA- to A+, outlook changed from negative to stable at S&P.

TiVo (TIVO 18.10, -0.20 -1.09%) announced that Frontier (FTR 1.53, +0.07 +4.79%) signed a multi-year product license agreement and renewal of its entertainment discovery intellectual property license agreement.

Belden (BDC 74.15, -0.65 -0.87%) rescinded its proposal to acquire 100% of Digi Intl (DGII 9.95, -0.75 -7.01%) in light of the Q2 results and FY27 outlook reported by DGII on May 4.

TripAdvisor (TRIP 47.03, +0.86 +1.86%) announced agreement to integrate Grubhub's (GRUB 45.30, -0.42 -0.92%) restaurant network into the TripAdvisor desktop website, mobile web and mobile app; terms and length of the agreement will not be disclosed.

Straight Path Comms' (STRP 214.74, +53.25 +32.975) Board determined that a revised offer from a 'Multi-National Telecommunications Company' for $184/share constitutes a 'superior proposal'.

Itron (ITRI 65.55, +0.85 +1.31%) to acquire Comverge in a cash transaction valued at about $100 million. The company anticipates the acquisition will be neutral to non-GAAP earnings per share in 2017 and accretive beginning in 2018.

In reaction to quarterly results:

First Data (FDC 16.61, +0.61 +3.81%) reported Q1 EPS of $0.28 on in-line revenues which rose less than a percent to $2.8 billion compared to a year ago.

Tower Semi (TSEM 24.00, +2.65 +12.41%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.48 on revenues which rose 18.7% compared to a year ago to $330.1 million. The company also reaffirmed Q2 revenue guidance in the range of $331.2-358.8 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AMBR, CNXR, CVG, EVBG, FN, JCOM, MODN, OTEX, P, QTNA, RNET, SREV, MEET/ALLT, CBB, INAP, KVHI, MTLS, NVMI, RST, SNCR, TVPT, TRMR, VPG, VG, ZBRA

Analyst actions:

TSS was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
CALD was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Dougherty,
POWI was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sidoti;
MU was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman,
NXPI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Instinet;
YEXT was initiated at RBC Capital Mkts, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Pacific Crest and Piper Jaffray, ASUR was initiated with a Buy at Canaccord Genuity

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From Briefing.com: 4:24 pm Closing Market Summary: Major Indices Finish Flat on Tuesday (:WRAPX) :

The Nasdaq (+0.3%) opened Tuesday's session in positive territory and never looked back, settling at a new record high. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Dow (-0.2%) finished a step below their flat lines as the energy (-0.9%) and financials (-0.5%) sectors weighed.

After closing Monday at its lowest level since December 1993, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 10.00, +0.23, +2.4%) finished right at the 10.00 mark on Tuesday. The historically-low level points to a feeling of complacency among investors, which may be a cause for concern in a market where valuations are stretched.

Following a small relief rally yesterday, crude oil returned to its bearish ways, dropping 1.2% to $45.88/bbl. The slip left the energy sector (-0.9%) with the utilities space (-0.9%) at the bottom of the leaderboard. The utilities group underperformed despite Duke Energy's (DUK 82.11, -0.81) upbeat earnings and in-line revenues. The lightly-weighted telecom services (-0.6%), real estate (-0.4%), and materials (-0.7%) groups also underperformed.

However, the day's most notable laggard may have been the financials sector (-0.5%), which clung to its flat line for the majority of Tuesday's session but was hit by a wave of selling pressure in the last hour of action. Influential bank names like Wells Fargo (WFC 54.68, -0.36) and Goldman Sachs (GS 223.76, -1.27) led the retreat.

Financials' late-afternoon tumble coincided with the broader market slipping to a fresh low in response to a Sky News interview with North Korea's ambassador to the UK Choe Il. The North Korean ambassador said his country will proceed with its 6th nuclear test when it is deemed appropriate by Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un.

The influential technology (+0.2%) and health care (+0.1%) sectors managed to keep their heads above water. The technology space was helped by chipmakers, evidenced by the 1.0% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index, but it didn't receive much help from the rest of its components. Similarly, the biotechnology industry provided the health care group with a pocked of strength; the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 292.95, +3.50) climbed 1.2%.

Earnings news was relatively light. However, Marriott's (MAR 102.50, +6.13) better than expected earnings/revenues and upbeat guidance helped the consumer discretionary (+0.5%) sector outpace its peers. The industrial space (+0.2%) also managed to secure a modest gain.

In the bond market, Treasuries settled slightly lower across the board with the benchmark 10-yr yield (2.41%) adding two basis points. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index (99.47, +0.44) advanced 0.4%.

On the data front, investors received March JOLTS and March Wholesale Inventories:

The March Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.743 million from a revised 5.682 million (from 5.743 million) in February.
March Wholesale Inventories increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%). The prior month's reading was revised to 0.3% from 0.4%.
The market doesn't typically pay much attention to this release since the full business inventories report is usually released a short time later.

Tomorrow, investors will receive a batch of economic reports, including the MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, April Import/Export Prices at 8:30 ET, and the April Treasury Budget at 14:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +13.7% YTD
S&P 500 +7.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.6% YTD

4:24 pm NVIDIA beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus; Reiterates 2018 capital return plans (NVDA) :
Reports Q1 (Apr) earnings of $0.85 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.81; revenues rose 48.7% year/year to $1.94 bln vs the $1.91 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $1.95 bln +/-2% (~$1.911-1.989 bln) vs. $1.9 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

For fiscal 2018, NVIDIA intends to return $1.25 billion to shareholders through ongoing quarterly cash dividends and share repurchases. During the first quarter of fiscal 2018, NVIDIA paid $82 million in cash dividends

GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins are expected to be 58.4 percent and 58.6 percent, respectively, plus or minus 50 basis points.
Capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $55 million to $65 million.

4:22 pm SolarEdge Technologies beats by $0.06, reports revs in-line; guides Q4 revs in-line (SEDG) :
Reports Q3 (Mar) earnings of $0.36 per share, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.30; revenues fell 8.1% year/year to $115.1 mln vs the $114.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $120-130 mln vs. $120.31 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margins to be within the range of 32% to 34%.

"In a quarter where the PV market is exhibiting decline in the United States, we have increased our revenues, profitability and cash flow generation quarter over quarter. Much of this is attributed to increased sales in Europe and our growing worldwide geographic spread," said Guy Sella, Founder, Chairman and CEO of SolarEdge. "We are confident that with our financial strength, cash balance and substantial R&D capabilities, we are well positioned to continue to increase revenues in existing markets and new markets as we see fit."

4:20 pm Microchip beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; co announces record net sales for Q4 and FY17 (MCHP) :
Reports Q4 (Mar) earnings of $1.16 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.06; revenues rose 61.9% year/year to $902.7 mln vs the $891.14 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.17-1.27, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.11 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $920.7-965.9 mln vs. $913.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co said, "Non-GAAP earnings per share was an all-time record and was 10 cents per share better than the mid-point of our February 28, 2017 guidance, and up 64.7% from the March quarter of a year ago due to improving sales, gross margin percentage, operating expense leverage and the successful execution of our core business as well as accretion from our acquisitions. GAAP earnings per share for the March quarter was heavily impacted by acquisition-related expenses and hence, not meaningfully comparable to the March quarter a year ago."

4:18 pm Diodes beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus (DIOD) :
Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.14 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.06; revenues rose 6.1% year/year to $236.3 mln vs the $231.03 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $250-270 mln vs. $250.27 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Expects non-GAAP gross margin to be approximately 33 percent.

4:14 pm SunPower beats by $0.13, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs below consensus; reaffirms FY17 revs guidance (SPWR) :
Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.36 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.49); revenues fell 0.9% year/year to $429.5 mln vs the $388.07 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
SPWR announced that it has reached an agreement with Total whereby Total will guarantee up to $100 million of the company's $300 million credit revolver facility for a period through August of 2019.

Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $275-325 mln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $514.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
On a non-GAAP basis, the company expects gross margin of 2 percent to 4 percent, Adjusted EBITDA of negative $25 million to breakeven and megawatts deployed in the range of 330 MW to 360 MW. The company's second quarter non-GAAP guidance excludes approximately $13 million in above market polysilicon costs.

Co reaffirms guidance for FY17, sees FY17 revs of $2.1-2.6 bln, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.29 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
The company is reiterating the following key financial metrics for 2017: non-GAAP operational expenses of less than $350 million, capital expenditures of approximately $120 million, and gigawatts (:GW) deployed in the range of 1.3 GW to 1.6 GW.
Also, the company expects to record GAAP restructuring charges totaling $50 million to $100 million in fiscal year 2017.
The company expects to generate positive operating cash flow through the end of fiscal year 2017 and exit the year with approximately $300 million in cash.
The company is also forecasting positive Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2017, weighted toward the second half of the year.
Additionally, the company's 2017 non-GAAP guidance excludes approximately $100 million in above market polysilicon costs.

4:10 pm Vivint Solar misses by $0.02, beats on revs (VSLR) :

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.50 per share, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.48); revenues rose 208.2% year/year to $53.11 mln vs the $47.09 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Co expects Q2 MW Installed of 44-48 MWs and cost per watt between $2.95 and $3.05

The broader market ended Tuesday split with the Nasdaq Composite adding 17.93 points (+0.29%) to 6120.59. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 36.50 points (-0.17%) to 20975.78, while the S&P 500 lost about 2.46 points (-0.10%) to 2396.92.

The Technology (XLK 55.28, +0.07 +0.13%) space ended higher albeit despite the best efforts of sellers as see-saw action into the close almost left the space with losses. Component Analog Devices (ADI 78.50, +2.12 +2.78%) posted strong gains on no specific news. As far as the remaining ten S&P sectors, the Consumer Discretionary space XLY +0.58% was the best performer, followed by XLI +0.13%, XLV +0.12%, XLP -0.36%, XLF -0.38%, XLRE -0.38%, XLU -0.73%, XLB -0.75%, IYZ -0.76%, XLE -0.83%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (946.36, +1.44 +0.15%) space, trading was higher almost the entirety of the session. Component Cisco Systems (CSCO 33.90, -0.39 -1.14%) had a tough day after being downgraded this morning to a Market Perform rating at BMO Capital. Unlike CSCO, names like MU +2.67%, FSLR +1.79%, AVGO +1.50%, ADSK +1.45%, EBAY +1.44%, MSI +1.41%, MCHP +1.31%, YHOO +1.31%, AMAT +1.20%, ATVI +1.17% were a credit to the space in trading today.

Other notable news items among sector components:
KKR (KKR 18.97, +0.23 +1.23%) announced $150 million in investment in Pandora Media (P 9.94, -0.46 -4.42%).

DST Systems (DST 124.44, +1.52 +1.24%) announced a $300 million share repurchase program. The company also announced a 2:1 stock split and expects the shares to begin trading ex-split on June 9, 2017. And lastly, DST declared a $0.36 pre-split dividend, an increase from the prior $0.35 per share dividend.

Black Knight Financial (BKFS 38.75, -1.85 -4.56%) priced a secondary offering by selling shareholders of $5 million shares of common stock; final terms not disclosed.

Electronics For Imaging (EFII 45.96, -0.19 -0.41%) acquired CRC Information Systems; terms not disclosed.

FactSet (FDS 162.64, +1.41 +0.87%) increased its quarterly common stock dividend to $0.56 per share from $0.50.

j2 Global (JCOM 89.00, -1.27 -1.41%) approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.3750 per common share.

Model N (MODN 12.45, +0.70 +5.96%) named David Barter as CFO.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Open Text (OTEX 32.86, -1.97 -5.66%) reported worse than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.45 and $593.13 million, respectively.

Zebra Tech (ZBRA 98.45, +1.76 +1.82%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $1.37 and $865 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees in-line EPS of $1.35-1.55 and revenues in the range of $864.4-890.8 million. Further, the company now sees mid-single digit organic net sales growth for FY17 compared to the prior outlook for low single digit growth.

j2 Global (JCOM) reported in-line Q1 EPS of $1.19 on worse than expected revenues of $254.7 million. The company also sees FY17 EPS and revenues of $5.60-6.00 and $1.13-1.17 billion, respectively.

Pandora Media (P) reported a better than expected Q1loss of $0.20 per share on in-line revenues of $316 million. For Q2, the company sees revenues worse than expected in the range of $360-375 million. For FY17, the company sees revenues worse than expected at $1.50-1.65 billion.

Vonage (VG 7.02, +0.01 +0.14%) reported better than expected Q1 adjusted EPS of $0.07 on revenues which rose 7.3% compared to last year to $243.3 million. For FY17, VG sees revenues of $966-981 million (ex-$4 million in revenues from the divested business).

Model N (MODN) reported a better than expected Q2 loss per share of $0.25 on revenues which rose 27.6% to about $33.3 million. The company also sees Q3 EPS in-line at ($0.19)-($0.17) on worse than expected revenues between $33.5-33.8 million. For FY17, MODN sees better than expected EPS of ($0.68)-($0.66) on worse than expected revenues in the range of $129.4-130.0 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ACIA, ALRM, DOX, ATTO, BBOX, CALX, COHR, DIOD, ESIO, EA, ENPH, EVRI, EXAR, FARO, HCKT, MRIN, MXL, MXWL, MCHP, MIME, NEWR, NUAN, NVDA, PCTI, PCLN, QNST, RPD, FUEL, SCSC, SSNI, SEDG, SPWR, TTEC, TRIP, TRUE, TCX, VEC, VSLR, WSTC, XOXO, YELP, YUME, ZAYO/AVID, BR, SATS, KEM, NIHD, OIIM, WIX

Analyst actions:

ADSK was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush,
MODN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum;
CSCO was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital,
GIMO was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson,
ECOM was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at First Analysis Sec;
TKC was initiated with a Hold at Berenberg,
CY was initiated with an Overweight at Stephens

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From Briefing.com: 4:23 pm Closing Market Summary: Another Day, Another Flat Finish (:WRAPX) :

The S&P 500 (+0.1%) finished at a new record close (just barely), but the headline is much more exciting than the reality. Wednesday's session was rather quiet at the macro level with the benchmark index hovering within a seven-point range. The Nasdaq (+0.1%) also eked out another record close, its third of the week, while the Dow (-0.2%) settled a step below its unchanged mark. The Russell 2000 outperformed the major U.S. indices, adding 0.6%.

Investors shrugged off President Trump's unexpected firing of FBI director James Comey, even though some mainstream media outlets suggested that the event may forestall tax reform efforts. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 9.99, +0.03, +0.3%) remained at a historically low level at Wall Street's closing bell.

Crude oil's 3.1% advance secured the energy sector's (+1.1%) spot atop the day's leaderboard. The commodity rallied following the Energy Information Administration's weekly inventory report, which showed a larger than expected draw in U.S. crude stocks for the week ended March 5 (5.3 million barrels actual vs 2.0 million barrels consensus). WTI crude settled at $47.28/bbl.

Out of the ten remaining sectors, seven--financials (+0.3%), materials (+0.4%), technology (+0.4%), consumer staples (+0.1%), utilities (+0.2%), telecom services (+0.3%), and real estate (+0.6%)--finished in the green. The top-weighted technology sector's positive performance was underpinned by chipmakers, which rallied around NVIDIA's (NVDA 121.29, +18.35) upbeat earnings report. The company spiked 17.8% after reporting better than expected earnings/revenues and issuing positive guidance. The PHLX Semiconductor Index added 2.1%.

Conversely, the three laggards--consumer discretionary (-0.3%), industrials (-0.4%), and health care (-0.3%)--received no help on the earnings front. Walt Disney (DIS 109.66, -2.41) and Priceline (PCLN 1824.77, -86.36) weighed on the consumer discretionary sector, losing 2.2% and 4.5%, respectively. Both companies reported better than expected earnings, but PCLN missed top-line estimates and issued disappointing guidance.

Allergan (AGN 229.72, -8.79) was the worst-performing component in the health care sector, tumbling 3.7%, despite reporting upbeat earnings/revenues and providing positive guidance. Analysts at Goldman did downgrade AGN shares to 'Neutral' from 'Buy' on Wednesday morning, which contributed to the company's poor performance. Biotech names also weighed on the sector, evidenced by the 0.4% decrease in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 291.89, -1.06).

In the industrial sector, Boeing (BA 183.18, -2.31) took center stage following reports that the company halted 737 MAX flights for engine inspections. BA shares finished lower by 1.3%.

U.S. Treasuries hovered just above their flat lines for the majority of Wednesday's session, however, a late-afternoon downtick took them into the red. The benchmark 10-yr yield settled one basis point higher at 2.41%.

On the data front, investors received April Import/Export Prices, the April Treasury Budget, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Import prices excluding oil rose 0.3% in April after adding 0.2% in March. Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.1% in April after rising 0.1% in March (revised from 0.2%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it won't alter the market's current assumptions about the likely path of the Fed's monetary policy.
The Treasury Budget for April showed a surplus of $182.4 billion versus a surplus of $106.5 billion for April 2016.
The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the April surplus cannot be compared to the $176.2 billion deficit registered in March.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 2.4% to follow last week's 0.1% downtick.

Tomorrow, market participants will receive April PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 242,000). Both reports will cross the wires at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +13.9% YTD
S&P 500 +7.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.1% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

At the close, the market was split in that the Nasdaq and S&P closed higher while the Dow was below flat lines. Specifically, the Nasdaq Composite added 8.56 points (+0.14%) to 6129.14. The S&P 500 was up 2.71 points (+0.11%) to 2399.63, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 32.67 points (-0.16%) to 20943.11.

Economic data today included import prices, which excluding oil rose 0.3% in April after adding 0.2% in March. Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.1% in April after rising 0.1% in March (revised from 0.2%). The Treasury Budget for April showed a surplus of $182.4 billion versus a surplus of $106.5 billion for April 2016. Lastly, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 2.4% to follow last week's 0.1% downtick.

The Technology (XLK 55.49, +0.21 +0.38%) space ended just off highs. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 121.29, +18.35 +17.83%) was the strongest name in the space today after reporting better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues. The Energy space XLE +1.32% led the remaining ten S&P sectors, followed by XLRE +0.54%, XLF +0.34%, XLB +0.32%, XLU +0.16%, XLP +0.07%, XLI -0.21%, XLV -0.29%, IYZ -0.34%, XLY -0.34%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (949.98, +3.62 +0.38%) space, trading was also higher as the tech space in general enjoyed some strong gains. Component Electronic Arts (EA 108.16, +12.15 +12.65%) was among the better performing names today after a stellar Q4 report. Other names in the space which outperformed today included ATVI +2.51%, SYMC +2.38%, FSLR +2.21%, AMAT +1.97%, MU +1.77%, VRSN +1.74%, TXN +1.31%, AVGO +1.26%, ADSK +1.19%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
TrueCar (TRUE 17.80, +0.49 +2.83%) announced a new partnership with eBay Motors (EBAY 33.88, +0.16 +0.47%) 'to provide a leading edge new car buying service for eBay's shoppers.'

Hackett Group (HCKT 15.65, -4.59 -22.68%) acquired European consultancy firm Aecus and Oracle cloud applications implementer Jibe Consulting; financial terms not disclosed.

West Corp (WSTC 23.11, -1.00 -4.15%) to be acquired by funds affiliated with Apollo Global (APO 27.02, -0.15 -0.55%) for $23.50 per share in cash.

Oracle (ORCL 45.53, +0.05 +0.11%) announced that the Oracle Cloud Platform has been validated to develop applications using India Stack services. Key to the country's "Digital India" vision, India Stack is a set of APIs that allows developers working with government, businesses, and startups to utilize a unique digital Infrastructure to deliver secure presence-less, paperless, and cashless service delivery.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Priceline (PCLN 1824.41, -86.72 -4.54%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $9.88 on worse than expected revenues of $2.42 billion. The company also guided Q2 EPS of $13.30-14.00, worse than expected.

NVIDIA (NVDA) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.85 and $1.94 billion, respectively. For Q2, the company sees revenues of $1.95 billion, plus or minus 2% (about $1.911-1.989 billion).

Electronic Arts (EA) reported Q4 earnings of $1.81 on better than expected revenues of $1.53 billion.

Microchip (MCHP 78.51, +2.06 +2.69%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $1.16 and $902.7 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $1.17-1.27 and $920.7-965.9 million, respectively.

Zayo Group Holdings (ZAYO 32.71, -2.31 -6.60%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.11 on revenues of $550.2 million.

Yelp (YELP 28.33, -6.37 -18.36%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.19 on revenues of $197.32 million. For Q2, the company sees revenues between $202-206 million. For FY17, YELP lowered its revenue guidance to $850-865 million from $880-900 million.

TrueCar (TRUE) reported a better than expected Q1 loss of $0.01 on better than expected revenues of $75.8 million. For Q2, TRUE expects revenues ahead of market expectations at $79-81 million. For FY17, the company sees revenues in-line at $322-327 million.

Silver Spring Networks (SSNI 9.91, -1.75 -15.01%) reported a worse than expected Q1 loss of $0.44 per share on worse than expected revenues of $50.3 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: IOTS, ASYS, EGAN, LPSN, CALL, NTES, PEGA, QTM, QUIK, SNAP, SYMC, TTGT/BITA, CRNT, HIMX, TU

Analyst actions:

YELP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman and to Market Perform from Underperform at Wells Fargo,
NVMI was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
NTNX was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley,
VEC was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Drexel Hamilton;
YELP was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts and to Neutral from Buy at MKM Partners,
PANW was downgraded to Mixed from Positive at OTR Global,
ZAYO was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan and to Mkt Perform from Strong Buy at Raymond James,
ZBRA was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo,
FUEL was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
SSNI was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
PCTI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Wunderlich,
WSTC was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird, to Market Perform at Wells Fargo, to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair and to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank,
HCKT was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital and to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum;
FDS was initiated with a Hold at Deutsche Bank,
SMTC was initiated with an Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
MX was initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup,
CSLT was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty

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From Briefing.com: 4:26 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Trim Early Losses to End Little Changed (:WRAPX) :

The market appeared in position to break this week's sideways trend to the downside, but an afternoon recovery helped the major averages trim their losses. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq shed 0.2% apiece while the Dow (-0.1%) settled just a tick higher. The small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed, losing 0.7%.

Earnings were problematic on Thursday with retailers receiving the biggest blow. Macy's (M 24.35, -4.99) plunged 17.0% after the company reported worse than expected earnings/revenues and a 5.2% decline in comparable store sales. Similarly, Kohl's (KSS 37.16, -3.16) dropped 7.8% in reaction to disappointing top-line results. In the end, the retail industry's poor performance can be summed up with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 42.91, -1.19), which declined 2.7%. Unsurprisingly, the retail-heavy consumer discretionary sector (-0.6%) finished near the bottom of the day's leaderboard.

Snap (SNAP 18.05, -4.93) was also hit by a wave of selling pressure after its first earnings report as a public company fell short of expectations. The company missed both top and bottom line estimates in addition to undershooting the target for daily active user growth. SNAP shares settled with a big loss of 21.5%. However, the company's tumble didn't have much sway over the technology sector (-0.2%), which closed in line with the broader market, thanks in part to a solid showing from chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.3%.

Crude oil underpinned the energy sector (-0.2%) for a while again on Thursday, climbing 1.1% to $47.80/bbl, as investors continued to cheer yesterday's bullish EIA inventory report. However, the energy space slipped in the late afternoon to finish in line with the benchmark index.

Conversely, the consumer staples sector (+0.1%) held its slight edge to the end, helped by Whole Food Market's (WFM 37.03, +0.78) latest earnings report. The company jumped 2.2% after reporting better than expected revenues, increasing its dividend, announcing a share repurchase program, and appointing five new independent directors and a new CFO. A handful of other sectors also showed relative strength, including health care (+0.1%), industrials (unch), and utilities (unch).

For the remaining groups, financials (-0.5%), real estate (-0.5%), and telecom services (-0.5%) underperformed while the materials space (-0.3%) settled roughly in line with the broader market.

U.S. Treasuries settled slightly higher with the benchmark 10-yr yield (2.40%) dropping two basis points. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 10.53, 0.32, +3.1%) also signaled increased caution, closing above the 10.00 mark for the first time this week.

It is worth adding that Moody's downgraded six major Canadian banks by one notch apiece, citing a more challenging operating environment for banks in Canada due to a sharp increase in household debt and housing prices. The Canadian dollar (1.3695) shed 0.3% against the U.S. dollar today, but is down nearly 3.0% over the past month despite the U.S. Dollar Index declining 1.1% in that timeframe.

On the data front, investors received April PPI and Initial Claims:

April producer prices increased 0.5%, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of 0.2%. Core producer prices rose 0.4% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%.
The key takeaway from this report is that inflation pressures picked up for producers in April and that is going to create some concerns about a pass-through effect to consumers, particularly since there were price pressures noted across all four stages of intermediate demand.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 236,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 242,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 238,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.918 million from the revised count of 1.979 million (from 1.964 million).
The jobless claims data certainly fits well with the tight labor market narrative even if the subdued average hourly earnings growth seen in the April employment report does not.

Tomorrow, market participants will receive April CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and April Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) at 8:30 ET and then March Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for May (Briefing.com consensus 96.5) at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +13.6% YTD
S&P 500 +7.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.4% YTD

Today's action ended with losses across the board as the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite both lost 0.22%. To that end, the S&P 500 shed about 5.19 points today to end 2394.44, while the Nasdaq Composite lost about 13.18 points, ending Thursday at 6115.96. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined a more modest -0.11%, or 23.69 points, to 20919.42. It's worth mentioning that Snap (SNAP 18.05, -4.93 -21.45%) fell to below IPO levels today after its worse than expected Q1 report and underperforming user numbers.

Among the economic data today, the April producer prices reading increased 0.5%, while Core producer prices rose 0.4%. The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 236,000, below the unrevised prior week count of 238,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.918 million from the revised count of 1.979 million (from 1.964 million).

Finishing modestly lower today, the Technology (XLK 55.42, -0.07 -0.13%) space climbed into the close, having slumped to as low as 55.11. Component Frontier Communications (FTR 1.20, -0.12 -9.09%) was the worst performer today, piggy backing off losses from Verizon (VZ 46.02, -0.36 -0.78%) which today disclosed it bought Straight Path Comms (STRP 178.11, -45.68 -20.41%) for $184 per share. Fitting then that the worst performing S&P sector was the US Telecoms space IYZ -2.18% followed by the XLF -0.63%, XLY -0.60%, XLRE -0.47%, XLE -0.21%, XLB -0.15%, XLI -0.03%, XLV +0.05%, XLU +0.14%, XLP +0.15%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (948.56, -1.42 -0.15%) space, trading ended just shy of highs of the day as the breadth of the morning losses did not hold. Component Symantec (SYMC 31.46, -1.68 -5.07%) was the worst performer in the space today after the in-line Q4 report and worse than expected guidance. Other names in the space which underperformed today included ADS -2.69%, TDC -1.48%, STX -1.46%, FFIV -1.26%, VRSN -1.25%, MSFT -1.23%, QCOM -1.17%, GLW -1.06%, MU -0.99%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Straight Path Comms (STRP) confirmed an agreement to be acquired by Verizon (VZ) for $184.00 per share in stock.

Interdigital Comm (IDCC 86.10, -0.30 -0.35%) entered into a settlement agreement and release of claims with Microsoft (MSFT 68.46, -0.85 -1.23%).

KEYW Holding (KEYW 8.44, +0.11 +1.325) COO Mark Willard will step down. The company appointed John Sutton as COO effective May 15, 2017.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 13.27, -0.42 -3.07%) acquired a 10% equity interest in eNow, a U.S. company specializing in solar-based energy management system for the commercial transportation industry; terms not disclosed.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 33.63, -0.11 -0.33%) announced its intent to acquire MindMeld for $125 million.

Alphabet (GOOG 930.60, +1.82 +0.20%) acquired VR games studio Owlchemy Labs.
The National Football League and Twitter (TWTR 18.39, -0.15 -0.81%) announced a new multiyear deal to deliver official NFL video and other types of content to fans.

Dataram (DRAM 4.99, -0.16 -3.11%) filed for $20 million mixed securities shelf offering.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Netease.com (NTES 276.76, -2.29 -0.82%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $4.75 and $1.98 billion, respectively.

Telus (TU 33.42, -0.04 -0.12%) reported better than expected Q1 earnings of CAD0.74 on revenues of CAD 3.2 billion. For FY17, the company sees EPS of CAD2.49-2.66 (from CAD2.49-2.64) on revenues between CAD13.18-13.31 billion (from CAD13.12-13.25 billion).

Symantec (SYMC) reported in-line Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.28 and $1.18 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company sees worse than expected EPS and revenues of $0.28-0.32 and $1.185-1.215 billion, respectively. For FY18, SYMC sees EPS of $1.75-1.85 from $1.70-1.80 and revenues of $5.1-5.2 billion.

Snap (SNAP) reported a worse than expected Q1 GAAP loss of $2.31 on worse than expected revenues of $149.6 million. Further, SNAP averaged 166 million daily active users in the quarter.

Himax Tech (HIMX 7.25, +.0.40 +5.84%) reported worse than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.01 and $155.2 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees EPS and revenues worse than expected of ($0.01)-($0.00) and 'down 5% to flat quarter-over-quarter' which equates to about $147-155 million.

Companies scheduled to report earnings tonight: APDN, CA, CYBR, HOLI, PSDO, TLND, TTD, UNXL, UPLD

Analyst actions:

YELP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
SNAP was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at Cantor Fitzgerald and to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
SYMC was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at First Analysis Sec,
EA was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Ascendiant Capital Markets,
LPSN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum;
ORCL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Societe Generale,
NTES was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Instinet,
YY was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
ACIA was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
QUIK was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital;
CTRL was initiated with a Hold at Maxim Group,
PTC was initiated with an Outperform at Robert W. Baird

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From Briefing.com: 4:26 pm Closing Market Summary: Major Averages Close the Week Mixed (:WRAPX) :

The Nasdaq (+0.1%) escaped Friday's session with a win as Apple (AAPL 156.10, +2.15) and Amazon.com (AMZN 961.35, +13.73) climbed to fresh record highs. Meanwhile, the Dow (-0.1%) and the S&P 500 (-0.2%) settled with modest losses. For the week, the S&P 500 declined 0.4%.

U.S. Treasuries finished solidly higher across the board on Friday following the release of the Retail Sales and CPI reports for April, which tempered concerns about the Fed potentially needing to walk an aggressive rate-hike path.

Dovish comments from Chicago Fed President Charles Evans (FOMC voter) also helped Treasuries. Mr. Evans said two more rate hikes this year may not be necessary if there is rising uncertainty about the inflation outlook. However, it's worth noting that Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker (FOMC voter) expressed his view that two additional rate hikes this year are appropriate.

The CPI report came in roughly as expected with total CPI rising 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increasing 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). Meanwhile, April retail sales missed expectations (0.4% actual vs. 0.6% Briefing.com consensus), yet that miss was mitigated somewhat by an upward revision for March (to 0.1% from -0.3%).

The 2yr-10yr spread narrowed as the back end of the curve received more buying interest than the front end. The 10-yr yield (2.33%) settled six basis points lower while the 2-yr yield (1.29%) declined by four basis points. This didn't help the financial sector (-0.5%), which settled with the industrial sector (-0.7%) at the bottom of the sector standings. General Electric (GE 28.27, -0.60) weighed on the industrial sector throughout Friday's session, losing 2.1%, after the company's shares were downgraded to 'Sell' from 'Hold' at Deutsche Bank. The loss left GE at a fresh 15-month low.

Conversely, Apple jumped 1.4% after analysts at Goldman Sachs and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch raised their target prices for the stock on Friday morning. The company's positive performance underpinned the top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%), which was one of only two sectors to close the day in positive territory. The lightly-weighted utilities group (+0.5%) was the other winner. For the week, the technology sector added 1.1%, extending its year-to-date gain to 17.8%.

The energy sector (-0.3%) was the only other group to end the week higher (+0.4%). However, the sector struggled on Friday as crude oil spent most of the day under water following a rally over the prior two sessions that was good for a 4.3% gain. WTI crude bounced back a bit in the afternoon session, settling 0.1% higher at $47.84/bbl.

After taking it to the chin on Thursday, retailers got hit again on Friday following the latest batch of earnings reports.

Nordstrom (JWN 41.20, -5.01) lost 10.8% after a 0.8% decline in same-store sales overshadowed better than expected earnings. Meanwhile, J.C. Penney (JCP 4.55, -0.74) tumbled 14.0% after missing top-line estimates and reporting a 3.5% decline in same-store sales. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 42.13, -0.78) settled lower by 1.8%. However, Amazon's strength provided some offsetting support for the consumer discretionary sector (-0.2%), which traded in-line with the broader market.

On the data front, investors received March Business Inventories and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for May in addition to the April CPI and Retail Sales reports:

Total CPI rose 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) in April while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.2% and core CPI has increased 1.9%.
The key takeaway from the CPI report is that consumer inflation pressures moderated a bit in April. That won't change the thinking that the Fed will raise rates at its June meeting, yet it will temper concerns about the Fed possibly needing to be more aggressive with its rate hikes.
April retail sales increased 0.4%, which is below the Briefing.com consensus of 0.6%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.1% from -0.3%. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.3% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.3% from 0.2%.
The key takeaway from this report is that it puts consumer spending on a path toward being a much better contributor to second quarter real GDP growth than it was in the first quarter.
Business Inventories rose 0.2% in March while the Briefing.com consensus expected an uptick of 0.1%. The prior month's reading was revised to 0.2% from 0.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that business inventories remain elevated relative to sales, which is standing in the way of restoring pricing power.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May rose to 97.7 (Briefing.com consensus 96.5) from 97.0 in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers had some of the most favorable real income expectations in a dozen years, yet their buying plans were reportedly mixed. That disconnect seems to fit with the divide that has been seen between "soft" data, like this survey, and "hard" data like the personal spending report.

On Monday, investors will receive two economic reports--May Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 7.5) and May Net Long-Term TIC Flows. The reports will be released at 8:30 ET and 16:00 ET, respectively.
Nasdaq Composite +13.7% YTD
S&P 500 +6.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.9% YTD

Week In Review: Risk On, Risk Off

After posting gains for four weeks in a row, the S&P 500 suffered a slight setback this week, ticking lower by 0.4%. However, the Nasdaq enjoyed a small victory, adding 0.3%, as it continued to ride the relative strength of Apple (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN), and a gaggle of semiconductor issues led by NVIDIA (NVDA).

The S&P 500 was flat through the first three sessions of the week with a slim loss on Tuesday wiping out small victories on Monday and Wednesday. The range-bound performances followed Sunday's French presidential election in which centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron handily defeated far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, as expected. Mr. Macron's victory was seen as a positive for global equity markets as it takes the possibility of France leaving the European Union off the table for the foreseeable future.

With a key risk event averted, the CBOE Volatility Index (:VIX) retreated to a historically-low level. The VIX, also known as the "investor fear gauge", settled Monday at its lowest mark since December 1993 and finished Tuesday and Wednesday below 10.00. Prior to this week, the VIX had only settled below the 10.00 mark nine times.

Crude oil became a focal point on Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported the largest weekly decline in U.S. crude stocks so far this year. The bullish reading prompted a two-day rally for the commodity, and the energy sector, which ultimately left WTI crude with a weekly gain of 3.5%.

Also of note, President Trump unexpectedly fired FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday. That move triggered a tidal wave of political opinions and raised some concerns about the path of progress for the Trump Administration's pro-growth plans that stymied the stock market. Overall, though, it did not cause any major selling in the stock market.

Retailers captured investors' attention on Thursday when Macy's (M) plunged 17.0% in reaction to its disappointing earnings report. Kohl's (KSS), Nordstrom (JWN), and J.C. Penney (JCP) also slipped after delivering their quarterly results, leaving the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) lower by 2.9% for the week. Disappointing Retail Sales for April (+0.4% actual vs +0.6% Briefing.com consensus) didn't help matters, but some of the sting of that headline was taken out by an upward revision for March to 0.1% from -0.3%.

April CPI came in roughly as expected on Friday with total CPI rising 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, adding 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.2% and core CPI has increased 1.9%. Following the data, Chicago Fed President Evans said that he expects one or two additional rate hikes this year with the actual number depending on the level of inflation.

The fed funds futures market still points to the June FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 78.5%, down from last week's 83.1%. In the Treasury market, increased buying interest in the second half of the of week left the benchmark 10-yr yield at 2.33%, which is two basis points below last Friday's closing level.

The S&P 500 posted modest losses on Thursday and Friday, which is what ultimately tipped the week in the bears' favor.

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

This week's action wound to a close on a split affair on Friday. By all accounts, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the best performer today, adding 5.27 points (+0.09%) at the close to 6121.23. The S&P 500, by contrast, was the worst performing major index, declining about 3.54 points (-0.15%) to 2390.90, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 22.81 points (-0.11%) to 20896.61. In all, this week's moves take the three major US indices to +13.7%, +6.8% and +5.7% YTD, respectively.

Among economic data today, the total CPI reading rose 0.2% in April while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1%. On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.2% and core CPI has increased 1.9%. April retail sales increased 0.4%, while the prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.1% from -0.3%. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.3%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.3% from 0.2%. Business Inventories rose 0.2% in March while the prior month's reading was revised to 0.2% from 0.3%. Lastly, the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May rose to 97.7 from 97.0 in April.

The Technology (XLK 55.56, +0.14 +0.25%) space was among the select few S&P sectors which managed to escape Friday with gains. Component Broadcom (AVGO 235.90, +4.81 +2.08%) was the best performer in the space today after an announcement that Brocade's (BRCD 12.66, +0.03 +0.24%) acquisition by AVGO was cleared by the EU, subject to conditions. Then, rebounding off yesterday's weak session, the US Telecom space led all other S&P sectors higher today IYZ +1.63% followed by XLU +0.49%, XLY -0.14%, XLV -0.17%, XLB -0.25%, XLP -0.29%, XLE -0.34%, XLRE -0.38%, XLF -0.42%, XLI -0.55%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (951.57, +3.01 +0.32%) space, trading ended the week on a high note. Component Apple (AAPL 156.10, +2.15 +1.40%) again closed at all-time highs, edging above the $155 level for the first time ever. Other names in the space which outperformed today included CRM +1.52%, STX +1.32%, QCOM +1.17%, QRVO +1.16%, NVDA +1.10%, TDC +1.05%, GLW +0.90%, ADP +0.74%, V +0.68%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Mitel Networks (MITL 6.53, +0.16 +2.51%) signed a memorandum of understanding to transfer certain assets and support obligations, including existing inventory, from Toshiba (TOSBF 2.21, -0.02 -0.90%) to Mitel. The deal is expected to be immediately accretive.

Expedia (EXPE 139.81, -0.05 -0.04%) will acquire a majority stake in rail technology company SilverRail.
In addition to reporting quarterly results, CyberArk (CYBR 48.29, -6.86 -12.44%) acquired privately-held Conjur, Inc., a Newton, Mass.-based provider of DevOps security software for $42 million in cash.

Apple (AAPL 156.10, +2.15 +1.40%) announced Corning (GLW 29.06, +0.26 +0.90%) will receive $200 million from Apple's new Advanced Manufacturing Fund.

Gannett (GCI 7.79, -0.23 -2.87%) announced a partnership with Snapchat (SNAP 19.14, +1.09 +6.04%).

Netflix (NFLX 160.81, +2.27 +1.43%) announced 400 new jobs in Europe and two new European original series.

Universal Display's (OLED 114.20, +0.60 +0.53%) Adesis Inc., purchased its New Castle, Delaware building.

Frontier Communications (FTR 1.21, +0.01 +0.83%) announced that Chris Levendos, former head of the Network Deployment and Operations organization at Google (GOOGL 955.14, -0.75 -0.08%) Fiber, will join the company as Executive Vice President, Field Operations. FTR also announced a 1:15 reverse split; shares to begin trading ex-split on July 10, 2017.

According to Bloomberg, GlobalStar (GSAT 2.29, +0.38 +19.90%) may be exploring a sale.

Brocade (BRCD 12.66, +0.03 +0.24%) acquisition by Broadcom (AVGO 235.90, +4.81 +2.08%) was cleared by the EU, subject to conditions.

Spotify is planning a direct listing on the NYSE for either late 2017 or early 2018, according to CNBC.

In reaction to quarterly results:

CA Tech (CA 31.60, -0.43 -1.36%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.54 and $1.01 billion, respectively. For FY18, the company sees EPS between $2.35-2.40 and revenues in the range of $4.12-4.17 billion, both below market expectations.

CyberArk (CYBR) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.28 and $59.04 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees EPS and revenues below market expectations at $0.23-0.25 and $61-62 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees EPS of $1.18-1.22 and revenues between $268.5-271.5 million.

The Trade Desk (TTD 51.90, +12.01 +30.11%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.18 and $53.4 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees revenues ahead of market expectations at $67 million. Additionally, for FY17, TTD raised revenue guidance to at least $291 million from $270 million.

Upland Software (UPLD 21.26, +0.02 +0.09%) reported Q1 adjusted earnings of $0.16 and revenues of $20.75 million.

Uni-Pixel (UNXL 0.44, -0.09 -17.74%) reported a worse than expected Q1 loss of $0.15 per share on worse than expected revenues of $1.3 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results Monday morning: DGLY, FENG, SPNS, TRVG

Analyst actions:

TTD was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Cantor Fitzgerald,
FLEX was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Craig Hallum,
TRIP was upgraded to Long-term Buy from Neutral at Hilliard Lyons;
CYBR was downgraded to Underperform from Buy at BofA/Merrill, to In-Line from Outperform at Imperial Capital and to Hold from Buy at Summit Redstone,
CSLT was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
EA was downgraded to Neutral from Long-term Buy at Hilliard Lyons,
CHT was downgraded to Sell from Buy at UBS,
HIMX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Lake Street,
INPX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
TEF was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
UNXL was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital;
PAYC and ULTI were initiated with Outperform ratings at Wells Fargo,
CSOD and PCTY were initiated with Market Perform ratings at Wells Fargo

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From Briefing.com: 4:25 pm Closing Market Summary: Equities Move Higher on Monday (:WRAPX) :

The major U.S. indices ended Monday in positive territory with the S&P 500 (+0.5%) and the Nasdaq (+0.5%) eking out record closes. The Dow (+0.4%) finished at tick behind its peers while the Russell 2000 (+0.8%) ended in the lead.

Investors shook off concerns surrounding this weekend's cyber security attack from the jump, pushing the stock market higher at the opening bell. From there, the energy sector carried the S&P 500 to its best mark of the day as crude oil rallied on news that Saudi Arabia and Russia are in favor of extending the original OPEC/non-OPEC supply cut agreement, which was scheduled to end in June, by another nine months. The benchmark index hovered near its session high for a while, but crude oil, and the energy sector, started to fade in the late afternoon, leading to some backtracking in the stock market.

WTI crude finished its day 2.1% higher at $48.86/bbl while the energy group (+0.6%) settled with the materials (+0.8%) and financials (+0.8%) sectors atop the day's leaderboard. Financials' solid performance was a positive signal for the broader market in light of the sector's recent struggles; over the last two months the sector has declined around 5.0%. Other influential sectors like health care (+0.6%) and technology (+0.6%) finished a tick above the broader market.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 126.99, +3.35) underpinned the health care group, jumping 2.7%, after the company's stock was upgraded to 'Overweight' from 'Neutral' at JP Morgan. In the tech group, chipmakers helped keep the sector ahead of the benchmark index, evidenced by the 1.5% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index. NVIDIA (NVDA 134.31, +6.42) led the semiconductor advance with a gain of 5.0%, extending its post-earnings rally to 30.5%.

The industrials (+0.5%), consumer staples (+0.4%), utilities (+0.4%), and real estate (+0.3%) sectors finished roughly in line with the broader market while the telecom services (-0.2%) and consumer discretionary (unch) groups lagged. Verizon (VZ 45.38, -0.46) weighed on the telecom services sector, losing 1.0%, amid reports that the company's network suffered outages in major U.S. metro areas on Monday. For its part, the consumer discretionary sector underperformed due to broad weakness within the sector.

Retailers deserve a mention given today's swing in the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 42.07, -0.06). The XRT started the day solidly higher, adding as much as 1.0%, but sold off in the afternoon ahead of tomorrow morning's earnings reports from Home Depot (HD 157.33, +0.41) and TJX (TJX 76.90, -0.41). The XRT ended Monday with a slim loss of 0.1%

In the bond market, Treasuries ended slightly lower with the 10-yr yield climbing one basis point to 2.34%. Gold ($1,230.10/ozt) added 0.2% while the U.S. Dollar Index (98.81, -0.24) lost 0.2%.

On the data front, investors received May Empire Manufacturing and May Net Long-Term TIC Flows:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for May declined to -1.0 from the prior month's reading of 5.2. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 7.5.
The key takeaway from this report is that manufacturing activity in the New York Fed region slowed in May, which will create a dent in some of the lofty second quarter growth expectations.
Net Long-Term TIC Flows for May were $59.8 billion versus a revised $53.1 billion (from $53.4 billion) for April.

Tomorrow, investors will receive April Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.255 million) and April Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%). The two reports will cross the wires at 8:30 ET and 9:15 ET, respectively.
Nasdaq Composite +14.2% YTD
S&P 500 +7.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.7% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Following the rise in crude oil, a major cyber-attack and the May Empire Manufacturing Survey, the broader market advanced at a healthy clip, ending Monday just off highs. The best performer today, the S&P 500, added 11.42 points (+0.48%) to 2402.32. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite came in second, up 28.44 points (+0.46%) at the close to 6149.67, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 85.33 points (+0.41%) to 20981.94.

As mentioned, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for May declined to -1.0 from the prior month's reading of 5.2.

The Technology (XLK 55.87, +0.31 +0.56%) space finished at highs as all 11 S&P sectors were in the green. Component Cisco Systems (CSCO 34.23, +0.78 +2.33%) was strong today behind an analyst upgrade of the stock to an Overweight rating at Morgan Stanley. The remaining S&P sectors were led by the Materials space XLB +0.87%, followed by XLE +0.78%, XLF +0.76%, XLV +0.65%, XLI +0.47%, XLRE +0.45%, XLU +0.43%, XLP +0.33%, IYZ +0.34%, XLY +0.02%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (956.88, +5.31 +0.56%) space, trading closed at an all-time high today. By contrast, component Western Digital (WDC 89.02, -0.63 -0.70%) finished lower as several of its SanDisk subsidiaries have filed arbitration with Toshiba (TOSBF 2.28, +0.07 +3.44%) related to three NAND flash-memory Joint Ventures. The remainder of trading in the space was skewed positive today, including QRVO +5.52%, NVDA +5.02%, NTAP +4.43%, SYMC +3.19%, FSLR +2.28%, ADI +2.01%, AMAT +2.00%, FFIV +1.98%, GPN +1.94%, EA +1.66%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Pandora Media (P 9.72, -0.10 -1.02%) said to be mulling a possible sale of its Ticketfly unit amid its ongoing search for a buyer, according to Bloomberg.

Xerox (XRX 7.15, +0.10 +1.42%) acquired MT Business Technologies, a multi-brand dealer that provides office equipment, productivity solutions and managed print services to organizations throughout Ohio and South Eastern Michigan; terms not disclosed.

CDK Global (CDK 62.56, +0.58 +0.94%) entered an accelerated share repurchase to purchase $350 million of its common stock.

Accenture (ACN 122.25, +1.29 +1.07%) acquired Media Hive, an e-commerce solutions provider with expertise in cross-channel commerce strategy, custom application development, and the creation of innovative retail experiences for any device.

Upland Software (UPLD 22.25, +0.99 +4.66%) filed for $75 million mixed securities shelf offering.

Vodafone (VOD 27.58, flat) transferred stake of SAFARICOM to Vodacom in exchange for new shares.

Western Digital (WDC) announced several of its SanDisk subsidiaries have filed arbitration with Toshiba (TOSBF) related to three NAND flash-memory JVs.

Allscripts Healthcare (MDRX 12.04, -0.28 -2.27%) named Dennis Olis as Interim CFO.

Priceline (PCLN 1813.81, -4.37 -0.24%) confirmed CFO Daniel Finnegan to retire pending the hiring of his successor.

I.D. Systems (IDSY 6.00, flat) filed for $60 million mixed securities shelf offering.

Vonage (VG 6.74, +0.08 +1.20%) received seven new patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

MuleSoft (MULE 24.09, +2.09 +9.50%) appointed Shay Mowlem as chief marketing officer.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Trivago (TRVG 19.96, +2.13 +11.95%) reported in-line Q1 EPS of EUR0.02 on better than expected revenues of EUR267.6 million.

Digital Ally (DGLY 3.95, -0.20 -4.82%) reported a better than expected Q1 loss of $0.22 per share on revenues which also came in ahead of expectations at $5.23 million.

Sapiens Int'l (SPNS 13.36, +0.75 +5.95%) reported worse than expected Q1 earnings of $0.02 per share on in-line revenues of $56.5 million. The company also reaffirmed FY18 revenue guidance of $265-275 million.

Companies scheduled to report earnings tomorrow morning: CYRN, MGIC, SINA, SSYS, VRTU, WB

Analyst actions:

CSCO was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
NTAP was upgraded to Positive from Mixed at OTR Global,
AMTD was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
GWRE was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at BofA/Merrill;
SSYS was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at William Blair,
LVLT and CTL was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
XCRA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel;
ELLI was initiated with a Buy at BofA/Merrill,
MRDX was initiated with a Neutral at BofA/Merrill

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From Briefing.com: 4:28 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Settle Tuesday Mixed (:WRAPX) :

Top-tech names like Microsoft (MSFT 69.41, +1.37), Amazon (AMZN 966.07, +8.10), and NVIDIA (NVDA 136.81, +2.50) boosted the Nasdaq (+0.3%) to another record high on Tuesday while the Dow (unch) and the S&P 500 (-0.1%) settled just a tick below their unchanged marks. Trading activity was pretty flat throughout the session, as the S&P 500 drifted within a ten-point range.

Only the top-weighted technology (+0.5%) and financials (+0.2%) sectors ended the day in positive territory. As mentioned above, large-cap tech names underpinned the tech group. In addition, chipmakers showed broad strength, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.5%. With today's advance, the SOX index is up 7.1% so far in May. Meanwhile, Citigroup (C 62.49, +1.07) carried the financial sector, adding 1.7%.

On the flip side, the health care sector (-0.4%) struggled from the opening bell as some of its most influential components weighed; Pfizer (PFE 32.60, -0.52), UnitedHealth (UNH 168.12, -3.41), and Bristol-Myers (BMY 54.39, -0.71) ended with losses between 1.3% and 2.0%. PFE shares were downgraded to 'Sell' from 'Neutral' at Citigroup on Tuesday morning. However, strength within the biotech industry helped cap the sector's loss. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 295.30, +1.18) added 0.4%.

The energy sector (-0.4%) also underperformed as crude oil dropped 0.5% to $48.64/bbl following yesterday's 2.1% rally, and ahead of this afternoon's API inventory report, which will be released at 16:30 ET. Meanwhile, retailers weighed on the consumer discretionary space (-0.3%) following the latest batch of earnings reports.

TJX (TJX 73.76, -3.14) and Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS 41.04, -6.53) lost 4.1% and 13.7%, respectively, in reaction to their quarterly results. TJX missed top-line estimates and issued disappointing earnings guidance for the second quarter while DKS reported weak comparable store sales. However, the results weren't all bad with Home Depot (HD 158.26, +0.93) adding 0.6% on better than expected earnings and a 5.5% increase in comparable store sales. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.74, -0.33) ended lower for the fourth consecutive time, losing 0.8%.

The XRT has dropped 5.4% since last Thursday when Macy's (M 22.82, -0.39) kicked off what has largely been a poor earnings season for retailers thus far. However, there are still a couple of opportunities for redemption for the retail industry with Target (TGT 54.53, -0.82) stepping up to the plate tomorrow morning and Wal-Mart (WMT 75.11, -1.18) delivering its quarterly results on Thursday.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries settled with modest gains across the board, leaving the benchmark 10-yr yield two basis points lower at 2.32%. Conversely, the U.S. Dollar Index (98.04, -0.77) slipped to its lowest level since the U.S. presidential election on November 8. The greenback lost 1.0% against the euro (1.1088) after eurozone GDP increased an in-line 0.5% quarter-over-quarter.

On the data front, investors received April Housing Starts and April Industrial Production on Tuesday:

Housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.172 million units in April, down from a revised 1.203 million units in March (from 1.215 million). The Briefing.com consensus expected starts to increase to 1.255 million units. Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.229 million in April from an unrevised 1.260 million for March. The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.270 million.
The key takeaway from the report stems from the drop in single-family permits, which suggests there will be continued supply shortages and affordability constraints in the new home market.
Industrial Production increased 1.0% in April (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) while Capacity Utilization rose to 76.7% (Briefing.com consensus 76.2%) from an unrevised reading of 76.1% in March. The Industrial Production reading for March was revised to 0.4% from 0.5%.
The key takeaway from the report is that total industrial production saw its largest gain since February 2014, bolstered by a healthy 1.0% increase in manufacturing output, which was also the largest gain since February 2014.

Tomorrow, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +14.6% YTD
S&P 500 +7.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.8% YTD

At the end of the session on Tuesday, only the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite managed gains, up 20.20 points (+0.33%) to 6169.87 - an all-time high. The S&P 500 lost 1.65 points (-0.07%) to 2400.67, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 2.19 points (-0.01%) to 20979.75. Top Nasdaq 100 components MSFT +2.0%, AMZN +0.9%, GOOG +0.6% and INTC +0.5% were names that helped the index finish in the green today.

As far as data goes, today's included the housing starts reading decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.172 million units in April, down from a revised 1.203 million units in March (from 1.215 million). Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.229 million in April from an unrevised 1.260 million for March. Industrial Production increased 1.0% in April while Capacity Utilization rose to 76.7% from an unrevised reading of 76.1% in March. The Industrial Production reading for March was revised to 0.4% from 0.5%.

The Technology (XLK 56.13, +0.26 +0.47%) space was the best performer among its S&P counterparts. Component Yahoo! (YHOO 50.96, +1.10 +2.21%) had a decent session behind news of a self-tender offer to purchase for cash up to $3 billion of shares of its common stock. The company commented that in no event will the purchase price be less than $37.00 per share. After the tech space, the remaining 10 S&P sectors settled as follows -- XLF +0.29%, IYZ +0.22%, XLB +0.02%, XLP -0.09%, XLI -0.11%, XLY -0.34%, XLV -0.38%, XLE -0.50%, XLRE -0.51%, XLU -0.73%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (961.62, +4.74 +0.50%) space, trading also finished at an all-time high as the broader sector pulled the IT space out of modest morning losses. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 136.81, +2.50 +1.86%) registered another session of impressive gains behind what was ultimately relative inactivity on the news wires; the stock now sits about 32% higher compared to a week ago. Other names in the space which outperformed today included MCHP +1.87%, EBAY +1.84%, AMAT +1.69%, SWKS +1.68%, CSRA +1.54%, ADSK +1.45%, IBM +1.43%, STX +1.20%, PYPL +1.15%, CTSH +1.09%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Facebook's (FB 149.78, -0.41 -0.27%) Instagram introduced face filters to its camera. Potential competition for Snap (SNAP 20.78, +0.04 +0.19%).

Advanced Micro (AMD 12.75, +1.33 +11.65%) traded higher today following circulation of a report which was dated yesterday suggesting that Intel (INTC 35.82, +0.19 +0.53%) plans to license AMD graphics chip.

Yahoo! (YHOO) commenced a self-tender offer to purchase for cash up to $3 billion of shares of its common stock. The company commented that in no event will the purchase price be less than $37.00 per share.

Moneygram (MGI 17.13, -0.17 -0.98%) stockholders approved the $18 per share cash merger with

Alibaba (BABA 124.02, +2.62 +2.16%) affiliate Ant Financial; transaction remains on track to close in the second half of 2017.

YY (YY 54.00, -1.38 -2.49%) announced that Zhou Chen has tendered his resignation as CEO for health reasons, effective immediately.

According to a Medium blog, Twitter (TWTR 19.49, +0.26 +1.35%) founder Biz Stone will return to the company.

According to the Boy Genius Report, Apple (AAPL 155.47, -0.23 -0.15%) may discontinue its iPad Mini product.

Alliance Data's (ADS 245.06, +0.21 +0.09%) Epsilon announced the signing of a relationship expansion agreement with AT&T (T 38.19, -0.40 -1.04%) Business Solutions, which markets telecom services to millions of AT&T business customers and prospects.

CTS Corp (CTS 21.60, +0.20 +0.93%) acquired Noliac A/S; terms not disclosed.

Wins Finance's (WINS 33.52, -0.58 -1.70%) President Jianming Hao resigned.

CA Tech (CA 31.71, +0.02 +0.06%) filed for mixed securities shelf offering; size not disclosed.

VMware (VMW 94.64, -0.01 -0.01%) acquired Apteligent.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Weibo (WB 78.60, +15.70 +24.96%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.26 and $199.2 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees revenues ahead of market expectations at $240-250 million.

SINA (SINA 99.04, +15.00 +17.85%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.50 and $278.1 million, respectively.

Stratasys (SSYS 30.66, +0.73 +2.44%) reported in-line Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.05 and $163.2 million, respectively. For FY17, the company sees EPS in the range of $0.19-0.37 and revenues between $645-680 million.

Virtusa (VRTU 27.37, -5.03 -15.52%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.43 on in-line revenues of $226 million. For Q1, the company sees EPS below expectations at $0.24-0.30 on in-line revenues of $222.5-227.5 million. For FY18, VRTU sees EPS below market expectations at $1.42-1.66 on in-line revenues of $930-950 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: ACXM/PLAB

Analyst actions:

MELI was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan;
NATI was initiated with a Hold at Deutsche Bank

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From Briefing.com: 4:24 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Register Bounce-Back Performance (:WRAPX) :

Investors 'bought the dip' on Thursday as the major averages enjoyed a bounce-back performance following the stock market's worst one-day decline in eight months just 24 hours earlier. The S&P 500 (+0.4%) settled below its 50-day moving average (2,369) after some selling in the final minutes left the index in the middle of the day's trading range. The Nasdaq (+0.7%) and the Dow (+0.3%) closed on opposite sides of the benchmark index.

The equity market opened Thursday's session slightly lower but quickly recovered, climbing into positive territory on the back of a solid performance from the semiconductor and biotechnology industries. These two industries were watched closely throughout the day as a gauge of investor sentiment since they often exhibit leadership in up markets given their growth characteristics. Both the PHLX Semiconductor Index and the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 292.27, +3.68) kept their bullish tones until the closing bell, adding 1.9% and 1.3%, respectively.

The opening move higher was followed by sideways action into the afternoon, followed by a second push led by the financial sector (+0.3%). There was no clear catalyst for the move, but it took place shortly after the U.S. Dollar Index (97.71, +0.37) spiked to a fresh session high at the expense of the pound (1.2944). Speculation that Brazil's President Michel Temer would resign following charges of corruption were also circulating at this time, however, Mr. Temer later said that he will not be stepping down. The iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (EWZ 32.75, -6.39) plunged 16.3% while the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM 40.29, -0.68) lost 1.7%.

However, the endless squabble in Washington kept a lid on the day's bullish sentiment. Yesterday's New York Times article, which highlighted a potential obstruction of justice move by President Trump, was followed by another concerning report that Trump campaign officials might have had at least 18 undisclosed contacts with Russian officials leading up to, and after, the U.S. presidential election. To be clear, the real concern for investors isn't so much the headlines themselves, rather, it's the notion that President Trump's pro-growth agenda items (i.e. tax reform, deregulation, and infrastructure spending) might not come to fruition as quickly as envisioned (i.e. before the end of the year) or perhaps at all.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also made his way into today's news flow, stating that the Trump administration did not support the break up of big banks. In the past, President Trump has floated the idea of reinstating a '21st century' version of the Glass-Steagall Act, which was originally aimed at separating commercial and investment banking. However, the president has not taken a clear stance on the issue. The financial sector slipped to the bottom of the sector standings on the heels of Mr. Mnuchin's comments, but it regained its legs to lead the afternoon rally.

In U.S. corporate news, Wal-Mart (WMT 77.54, +2.42) jumped 3.2% after beating bottom line estimates. Conversely, Cisco Systems (CSCO 31.38, -2.44) tumbled 7.2% after disappointing revenue guidance overshadowed better than expected earnings. The results had a muted impact on the broader sectors. Consumer staples (+0.1%) finished behind the broader market despite WMT's solid performance while technology (+0.6%) outperformed in the face of CSCO's plunge.

In the end, nine of eleven sectors finished in positive territory with nearly all groups posting gains between 0.1% and 0.6%. The energy sector (-0.1%) settled at the bottom of the leaderboard, despite crude oil climbing 0.7% to $49.26/bbl, while the lightly-weighted telecom services group (+1.2%) finished at the top.

U.S. Treasuries ended Thursday relatively flat with the benchmark 10-yr yield (2.23%) adding one basis point. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 14.63, -0.96, -6.2%) reflected the improvement in risk tolerance, dropping one point.

On the data front, investors received several economic reports on Thursday, including Initial Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Index for May, and April Leading Indicators:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 232,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 236,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.898 million from the revised count of 1.920 million (from 1.918 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that it covered the period in which the employment survey was conducted for the May employment report, so it will foster an expectation for another month of strong nonfarm payrolls growth.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for May rose to 38.8 from an unrevised 22.0 in April while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 18.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that firms continue to expect growth, yet the optimism surrounding that growth outlook has faded, evidenced by the drop in the diffusion index for future general activity from 45.4 to 38.4, which was the second consecutive decline.
The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for April increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) after moving higher by a revised 0.3% in March (from 0.4%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the strengths among the leading indicators have remained widespread.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Friday.
Nasdaq Composite +12.5% YTD
S&P 500 +5.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.3% YTD

After yesterday's abysmal session, the markets recouped slightly. Leading the action higher, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 43.89 points (+0.73%) to 6055.13. The S&P 500 was up 8.71 points (+0.37%) to 2365.74, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 54.85 points (+0.27%) to 20661.78.

Market data today included the latest weekly initial jobless claims count which totaled 232,000, below the unrevised prior week count of 236,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.898 million from the revised count of 1.920 million (from 1.918 million). Also, the Philadelphia Fed Survey for May rose to 38.8 from an unrevised 22.0 in April. The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for April increased 0.3% after moving higher by a revised 0.3% in March (from 0.4%).

The Technology (XLK 54.92, +0.32 +0.59%) space was tied with Consumer Discretionary as the best performing S&P space. Component Applied Materials (AMAT 43.91, +1.15 +2.69%) performed well today ahead of quarterly earnings scheduled to be released after the close. As mentioned, the Consumer Discretionary space held pace with the tech sector XLY +0.59% followed by IYZ +0.53%, XLV +0.44%, XLF +0.39%, XLU +0.35%, XLRE +0.19%, XLI +0.14%, XLP +0.07%, XLB +0.06%, XLE -0.03%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (940.20, +5.46 +0.58%) space, trading recovered a portion of yesterday's losses. Component Facebook (FB 147.66, +2.81 +1.94%) performed well despite being handed an EUR110 million fine from the European Commission in relation to misleading information about its WhatsApp deal from a few years ago. Names like NVDA +4.19%, QRVO +4.15%, AVGO +2.78%, SWKS +2.64%, ADI +2.63%, ADSK +1.98%, MU +1.78%, LRCX +1.72%, ATVI +1.70%, helped the space climb out of yesterday's rut.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Facebook (FB) received a EUR110 million fine from European Commission for misleading information about WhatsApp takeover.

Autodesk (ADSK 95.83, +1.86 +1.98%) filed for offering of senior debt securities; size not disclosed.
According to CNBC, Pandora Media (P 9.41, +0.48 +5.38%) and Sirius (SIRI 4.86, +0.13 +2.75%) remain in talks but have yet to agree on valuation; June 8 is a deadline due to KKR (KKR 18.16, +0.23 +1.28%) investment.

In addition to reporting earnings, Cisco Systems (CSCO 31.38, -2.44 -7.21%) also disclosed additional restructuring, including 1,100 more layoffs.

Shopify (SHOP 92.05, +2.21 +2.47%) filed for $2.5 billion mixed securities shelf offering. The company also filed a preliminary prospectus supplement, 5.5 million Class A subordinate voting shares will be offered.

Orange (ORAN 16.87, +0.05 +0.30%) said it is in exclusive negotiations to acquire Business & Decision.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $0.60 on revenues of $11.94 billion. For Q4, the company sees in-line EPS of $0.60-0.62 on revenues between $11.88-12.13 billion.

Synopsys (SNPS 70.93, -2.46 -3.36%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of 40.88 and $680.07 million, respectively. For Q3, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $0.91-0.94 and $685-700 million, respectively. For FY17, SNPS sees EPS and revenues above market expectations at $3.24-3.29 and $2.65-2.67 billion, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: AMAT, ADSK, GLOB, CRM/MMYT, QSII

Analyst actions:

TEF was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman;
EXPE was downgraded to Mkt Perform from Outperform at Raymond James,
SYMC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS,
FSLR was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird, S
SYS was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies,
PSTG was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley;
PTC was initiated with a Buy at The Benchmark Company

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From Briefing.com: 4:28 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Register Third Consecutive Win (:WRAPX) :On Monday, investors continued chipping away at last Wednesday's big loss, pushing the stock market to its third consecutive win. The S&P 500 and the Dow added 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively, while the Nasdaq (+0.8%) settled a step ahead of its peers.

The benchmark index dropped 44 points, or 1.8%, last Wednesday in response to a New York Times article that accused President Trump of asking former FBI Director James Comey to shut down the Bureau's investigation of former National Security adviser Michael Flynn. However, since the tumble, the S&P 500 has reclaimed all but seven points of the loss, as the buy-the-dip trade has prevailed once again.

Ten of eleven sectors settled in positive territory on Monday with the technology (+1.0%) and utilities (+0.9%) spaces leading the charge. The technology group was underpinned by large-cap names like Microsoft (MSFT 68.45, +0.76), Alphabet (GOOGL 964.07, +9.42), and Qualcomm (QCOM 59.28, +1.61) with QCOM showing relative strength (+2.8%) after the company's stock was upgraded to 'Overweight' from 'Neutral' at JP Morgan. QCOM's positive performance rubbed off on its semiconductor peers, evidenced by the 1.1% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

The industrial sector also finished ahead of the broader market, thanks in part to defense names like Boeing (BA 183.67, +2.91) and Lockheed Martin (LMT 277.03, +4.24). The two names added 1.6% apiece following a weekend meeting between President Trump and King Salman of Saudi Arabia, which included the signing of a $110 billion arms deal. The consumer staples (+0.6%) and consumer discretionary (+0.6%) sectors also outperformed.

Most of the remaining sectors finished with modest gains between 0.1% and 0.3%. However, the energy sector (-0.2%) settled in negative territory despite crude oil's positive performance. The energy component jumped 0.9% to $51.14/bbl as investors displayed confidence that top oil producers will extend the original OPEC/non-OPEC production cut agreement by six to nine months when they meet in Vienna on Thursday. In addition to pushing back the end date, reports indicate that producers may increase the magnitude of the supply cuts.

In U.S. corporate news, Ford Motor (F 11.10, +0.23) officially announced that Jim Hackett will replace Mark Fields as the company's Chief Executive Officer on Monday morning. According to a Wall Street Journal report that was released earlier this month, Ford's Board of Directors has been looking to refine the company's strategy in response to a declining market share and a disappointing stock performance. Ford shares lost around 36.0% of their value during Mr. Fields' time as CEO.

U.S. Treasuries settled slightly lower across the board with the benchmark 10-yr yield climbing two basis points to 2.25%. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar lost 0.3% against the euro (1.1240) after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the single currency is too weak.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday, but, on Tuesday, market participants will receive April New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 605,000) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +13.9% YTD
S&P 500 +6.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.7% YTD
Russell 2000 1.5% YTD

4:10 pm Agilent beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; co raises FY17 EPS and revs guidance (A) :

Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.58 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.48; revenues rose 8.1% year/year to $1.1 bln vs the $1.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.49-0.51, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.53 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.06-1.08 bln vs. $1.08 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co raises guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $2.15-2.21, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.16 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, from $2.10-2.16; sees FY17 revs of $4.36-4.38 nlm vs. $4.35 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, from $4.33-4.35 bln

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

The markets began the week in the green, attempting to break out of last week's losses. When the bell rang, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the best performer, adding 49.92 points (+0.82%) to 6133.62. The S&P 500 was up 12.29 points (+0.52%) to 2394.02, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 89.99 points (+0.43%) to 20894.83.

Second only to the Utilities space today, the Technology (XLK 55.68, +0.44 +0.80%) sector climbed on pace with the broader market. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 59.28, +1.61 +2.79%) helped the space outperform today as the stock was upgraded premarket to an Overweight rating at JP Morgan; the company also announced the pricing of a public offering of senior unsecured notes. As mentioned, the Utilities space XLU +0.86% performed well, followed by XLI +0.77%, IYZ +0.65%, XLP +0.56%, XLY +0.50%, XLV +0.27%, XLF +0.26%, XLRE +0.25%, XLB +0.11%, XLE -0.22%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (953.85, +8.99 +0.95%) space, trading also held pace with the broader market advance today. Component Motorola Solutions (MSI 82.93, +2.10 +2.60%) put in some strong ticks minute by minute, ultimately ending Monday near highs following a premarket upgrade of the stock at Raymond James. Other names in the space which outperformed today included QRVO +3.39%, ADSK +3.14%, ATVI +2.22%, NVDA +2.13%, CA +2.02%, RHT +2.00%, SYMC +1.93%, GPN +1.88%, AVGO +1.83%, ADBE +1.78%, CRM +1.76%, TSS +1.59%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Qualcomm (QCOM) priced public offering of senior unsecured notes in a combined aggregate principal amount of $11.0 billion; intends to use the proceeds to fund a portion of NXP Semiconductors (NXPI 108.17, +0.42 +0.39%) acquisition.

Castlight Health's (CSLT 3.70, +0.10 +2.78%) Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer Priya Jain will resign to pursue another professional opportunity.

TSR, Inc. (TSRI 6.25, +0.25 +4.17%) received an offer from 7.2% holder Zeff Capital L.P. to acquire outstanding shares of TSR Common Stock for $6.15 per share in cash.

The Trade Desk (TTD 52.51, +2.44 +4.87%) filed for $200 million Class A Common Stock shelf offering by holders.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 38.50, +2.55 +7.09%) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.45 and $1.58 billion, respectively. For FY18, the company sees in-line EPS of $1.79-1.89 on better than expected revenues of +4-7% to about $6.03-6.20 billion.

Cheetah Mobile (CMCM 11.34, +0.79 +7.49%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of RMB0.81 and revenues of RMB1.19 billion. For Q2, the company sees in-line revenues of RMB1.19-1.24 billion.

Yirendai (YRD 23.63, -0.38 -1.58%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of CNY5.81 and CNY1.02 billion, respectively. For Q2 and FY17, the company sees revenues below market expectations at CNY1.070-1.090 billion, and CNY4.400-4.600 billion, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: A, LXFT, SNCR/MOMO, TTWO

Analyst actions:

QCOM was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
MSI was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
CREE was upgraded to Mkt Outperform from Mkt Perform at JMP Securities,
CIEN was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
NTNX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman;
ANET was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson,
SNCR was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
ORBK was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research,
NTES was downgraded to Outperform from Buy at CLSA;
AAOI was initiated with a Strong Buy at Needham,
PFPT was initiated with an Outperform at FBN Securities

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From Briefing.com: 4:38 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Settle Flat Ahead of Memorial Day Weekend (:WRAPX) :Friday's session was range-bound throughout with the major U.S. indices trending sideways at their unchanged marks from start to finish. The S&P 500 (unch) and the Nasdaq (+0.1%) eked out their seventh-consecutive wins while the Dow (unch) finished three points below its flat line. For the week, the S&P 500 added 1.4%.

Sector movement was modest with ten of the eleven groups settling within 0.3% of their unchanged marks. The consumer staples sector (+0.3%) finished ahead of the broader market, thanks in part to Costco's (COST 177.86, +3.13) positive performance; the company added 1.8% after reporting better than expected earnings and revenues. The consumer discretionary (+0.3%) and materials (+0.3%) spaces also outperformed.

The energy sector (+0.1%) finished slightly higher with crude oil climbing 1.8% to $49.78/bbl, which was an encouraging sign in light of yesterday's tumble. On Thursday, WTI crude dropped 4.8% after OPEC and non-OPEC nations agreed to maintain their current production levels for nine months, but stopped short of cutting production once again. For the week, WTI crude lost 1.1%.

Similarly, the top-weighted technology space (unch) registered a slim gain. Chipmakers underpinned the sector, evidenced by the 0.4% increase the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Marvell (MRVL 17.67, +0.73) led the semiconductor advance, jumping 4.3%, after reporting better than expected earnings/revenues and issuing upbeat guidance.

On the flip side, the real estate group posted a notable loss, slipping 0.7%, but the other laggards finished just a step below their flat lines. The health care space (-0.2%) showed relative weakness as biotech names weighed; the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 288.22, -2.30) lost 0.8%. Incyte (INCY 134.38, -4.03) was the weakest biotech name, dropping 2.9%.

Today's participation was a bit light ahead of the extended holiday weekend; 682.8 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor (50-day simple moving average: 1.1 billion).

Outside of the equity market, the U.S. dollar added 1.0% against the British pound (1.2813) following a UK pre-election poll, which suggested that the Labour party has gained some ground on the Conservative party ahead of the country's snap election on June 8. U.S. Treasuries ended Friday's session slightly higher with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.25%.

On the data front, investors received several economic reports on Friday, including April Durable Orders, the second estimate of first quarter GDP, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for May:

April durable goods orders declined 0.7%, which is above the 1.8% decrease expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to 2.3% (from 0.7%). Excluding transportation, durable orders decreased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.8% (from -0.2%).

The key takeaway from the report is that nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business spending -- were flat for the second straight month. Shipments of those goods, which factor into GDP forecasts, declined 0.1% in April.

The second reading of first quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 1.2%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 0.8%. The second estimate of first quarter GDP Deflator came in at 2.2%, which below the Briefing.com consensus of 2.3%.

The key takeaway from the report is that the revision moved in the right direction, which will aid in tempering concerns about the slowdown when pitted against some otherwise rosy forecasts for the second quarter (Atlanta Fed GDPNow model at 4.1%) that should produce a more encouraging average for the first half of 2017.

The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May declined to 97.1 (Briefing.com consensus 97.5) from 97.7 in the preliminary reading.

The key takeaway from the report is that consumer sentiment levels continue to hover at post-election highs despite a politically partisan divide on the economic outlook.

The stock market will be closed on Monday in observance of Memorial Day. On Tuesday, investors will receive April Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) at 8:30 ET and May Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 119.5) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +15.4% YTD
S&P 500 +7.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.9% YTD

Week In Review: Five for Five

The stock market registered five wins this week, three of which resulted in a new record high for the S&P 500. A continuation of last week's 'buy-the-dip' trade fueled the bulls at the beginning of the week, but the FOMC minutes from the May 2-3 meeting became the catalyst for the midweek move to new record highs. For the week, the S&P 500 added 1.4%.

Before moving into record-high territory, investors had to repair the damage done by last week's 800-pound gorilla; namely, a New York Times article that highlighted a potential obstruction of justice move by President Trump. The allegation prompted the stock market's worst one-day decline since September on May 17, therefore, investors' first priority was reclaiming what was lost.

Two modest wins on Monday (+0.5%) and Tuesday (+0.2%) put the S&P 500 right at the 2,400 mark, which is the level it hit right before the swoon on May 17. Led by the financial sector, the benchmark index challenged said level a few times on Tuesday, but it just needed a little something extra to get over the hump. The FOMC minutes from the May 2-3 meeting answered the call on Wednesday.

In the minutes, the Fed revealed a possible approach to unwind its massive balance sheet; the central bank would like to introduce a gradual increase of caps to limit the reinvestment of maturing securities. In addition, the Fed's willingness to discuss the issue showed that the central bank has pretty good confidence in the economic outlook, having attributed first quarter weakness to transitory factors.

Following the report, the S&P 500 advanced to new record highs on Wednesday and Thursday. However, investors in the crude oil futures market weren't so bullish. The energy component tumbled nearly 5.0% on Thursday after OPEC and non-OPEC nations agreed to extend their current production adjustment by nine months, but stopped short of increasing the magnitude of the supply cut.

Equities finished the week with a sleepy, range-bound performance on Friday as investors got a jump start on the extended holiday weekend. For the week, the top-weighted technology sector outperformed yet again, adding 2.3%, with Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Facebook (FB) increasing their aggregate market value to an astounding $2.93 trillion.

The fed funds futures market still points to the June FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 83.1%, up from last week's 78.5%.

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

When the bell rang on Friday, the broader market posted a split finish. Leading action 'higher' (if you could call it that) was the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite - adding 4.94 points (+0.08%), the index finished at 6210.19, an all-time closing high. The S&P 500 added less than a point (+0.03%) to 2415.82, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was kept under wraps, shedding about 2.67 (-0.01%) to 21080.28. These moves take the three major US indices +15.4%, +7.9% and +6.7% YTD, respectively.

Market data today included the April durable goods orders reading which declined 0.7%, while the prior month's reading was revised to 2.3% (from 0.7%). Excluding transportation, durable orders decreased 0.4% to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.8% (from -0.2%). The second reading of first quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 1.2%, while the second estimate of first quarter GDP Deflator came in at 2.2%. The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May declined to 97.1 from 97.7 in the preliminary reading.

The Technology (XLK 56.38, -0.03 -0.05%) space ended modestly lower today. Component Synopsys (SNPS 74.37, +0.84 +1.14%) was one of the better performing names today as the company announced an accelerated share repurchase agreement to repurchase an aggregate of $100 million of stock. The Consumer Staples XLP +0.37% space was the best performing S&P sector today, followed by XLY +0.30%, XLB +0.21%, XLE +0.14%, XLI +0.12%, XLU +0.00%, XLF -0.08%, XLV -0.18%, IYZ -0.28%, XLRE -0.62%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (966.77, +0.10 +0.01%) space, trading managed to escape Friday with a ten cent gain. Component HP (HPQ 18.47, +0.10 +0.54%) was one of the names in the green today after the company announced a partnership with Easy Print, a printing products platform. Other names in the space which outperformed included NVDA +2.59%, MU +1.12%, AMAT +1.07%, WDC +0.83%, LRCX +0.79%, XLNX +0.64%, ADI +0.57%, PYPL +0.51%, MSFT +0.50%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

BlackBerry (BBRY 11.11, -0.11 -0.98%) reached an agreement with Qualcomm (QCOM 57.52, -0.36 -0.62%). An arbitration panel has issued a final award providing for the payment by Qualcomm to BlackBerry of a total amount of $940 million for calendar 2016 and 1Q17.

Synopsys (SNPS) accelerated its share repurchase agreement to repurchase an aggregate of $100 million of stock.

HP (HPQ) announced a strategic partnership with Easy Print, a printing and customized products enterprise-level procurement platform.

CDK Global (CDK 60.48, -0.71 -1.16%) announced that CFO Al Nietzel, is leaving the Company to pursue other interests effective May 31, 2017.

Atlassian (TEAM 35.58, -0.37 -1.03%) co-CEOs adopted new 10b5-1 trading plans.

Web.com (WEB 23.10, +1.90 +8.96%) shares were higher today in reaction to reports of takeover interest.

Asure Software (ASUR 14.40, -0.23 -1.57%) acquired iSystems and Compass HRM and updated FY17 guidance.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Marvell (MRVL 17.67, +0.73 +4.31%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.24 and $579.18 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees EPS ahead of market expectations at $0.26-0.30 and in-line revenues of $585-615 million.

Splunk (SPLK 62.41, -4.68 -6.98%) reported a better than expected loss per share of $0.01 for Q1 and better than expected revenues of $242.4 million. For Q2, the company sees revenues of $267-269 million. For FY18, SPLK sees revenues of about $1.195 billion (prior of about $1.185 billion).

Veeva Systems (VEEV 66.82, +5.08 +8.23%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.24 and $157.9 million, respectively. For Q2, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $0.20 and $163-164 million, respectively. For FY18, VEEV sees EPS of $0.82-0.84 (from $0.78-0.80) on revenues between $665-669 million (from $655-660 million).

Brocade (BRCD 12.63, -0.02 -0.16%) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.10 and $552.8 million, respectively.

21Vianet (VNET 5.33, -0.27 -4.82%) reported a Q1 loss of RMB0.17 per share on better than expected revenues of RMB862.2 million.

Analyst actions:

NTAP was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at UBS,
MRVL was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer,
VEEV was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
INFN was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
PHI was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie;
TRIP was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie,
JKS was downgraded to Underweight at Morgan Stanley and to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Financials Tumble On Wednesday (:WRAPX) :The S&P 500 (-0.1%) registered its second-consecutive decline on Wednesday as the financial sector (-0.8%) weighed on the broader market. However, a late-afternoon rally left the major averages at the upper end of the day's trading range. The Nasdaq (-0.1%) and the Dow (-0.1%) finished in line with the benchmark index.

Financials were under pressure from the jump after several industry leaders offered cautious commentary on market trends and conditions at the Deutsche Bank Financial Services Conference. Some of the most notable concerns surrounding the industry include slowing loan growth, rising delinquencies for sub-prime auto loans, and a flattening of the yield curve. However, the financial sector doesn't deserve all of the blame for today's downtick as the top-weighted technology sector (-0.3%) played an important supporting role.

The tech group suffered as mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL 152.76, -0.91) Microsoft (MSFT 69.84, -0.57), Facebook (FB 151.46, -0.92), and Alphabet (GOOGL 987.09, -9.08) settled with losses between 0.6% and 0.9%. Chipmakers outperformed the broader market after Analog Devices (ADI 85.76, +0.96) reported better than expected earnings and upbeat guidance. However, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (unch) still failed to reach its flat line.

While the energy sector (-0.4%) doesn't have as much influence as the aforementioned groups, it did contribute to today's slip as crude oil weighed on investor sentiment. The commodity dropped 2.9% to $48.23/bbl amid concerns over heightened production in Libya. Reports indicate that Libya's oil production has risen to 827,000 barrels per day (bpd), which is significantly more than country's 2017 and 2016 averages of 500,000 bpd and 300,000 bpd, respectively. The lightly-weighted real estate group (-0.1%) also finished in negative territory.

The seven remaining sectors settled in the green with gains between 0.2% and 0.5%. Countercyclical spaces like utilities (+0.5%), telecom services (+0.4%), and health care (+0.4%) led the charge. Large-cap names like Pfizer (PFE 32.65, +0.52) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 128.25, +1.14) underpinned the health care sector, adding 1.6% and 0.9%, respectively. Biotech names also contributed to the sector's positive performance, evidenced by the 0.5% increase in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 285.75, +1.45).

In earnings news, retailers produced a mixed batch of earnings reports. Michael Kors (KORS 33.18, -3.09) tumbled 8.5% to a fresh, five-year low after disappointing guidance overshadowed better than expected earnings and revenues. Conversely, Vera Bradley (VRA 9.41, +0.91) spiked 10.7% after better than expected earnings outweighed disappointing earnings guidance. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 40.74, -0.01) finished flat.

On the data front, investors received several economic reports on Wednesday, including May Chicago PMI, April Pending Home Sales, the Fed's Beige Book for May, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Chicago PMI for May increased to 59.4 from 58.3 in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 57.3. Pending Home Sales for April declined 1.3%. Today's reading follows a revised 0.9% decrease in March (from -0.8%).The Fed's Beige Book indicated modest to moderate economic growth from early April through late May for most of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts.The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.4% to follow last week's 4.4% increase.Tomorrow, investors will receive a slew of economic reports, including ADP Employment Change for May (Briefing.com consensus 180,000) at 8:15 ET, Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 239,000) at 8:30 ET, first quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%) at 8:30 ET, April Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%), and the May ISM Index (Briefing.com consensus 54.7) at 10:00 ET.

May auto and truck sales will also be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite +15.2% YTD
S&P 500 +7.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD

4:46 pm Semtech --CORRECTION-- Co beat on top line revenue expectations as Non-GAAP was $149.1 mln; We had used a GAAP number which was $143 mln; We have corrected the original 16:32 comment (SMTC) :

4:32 pm Semtech beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (SMTC) :

Reports Q1 (Apr) earnings of $0.44 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.41; revenues rose 9.7% year/year to $149.1 mln vs the $145.6 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.43-0.49, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.44 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $150-160 mln vs. $152.26 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:09 pm Hewlett Packard Enterprise reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS below consensus; reaffirms FY17 EPS guidance (HPE) :

Reports Q2 (Apr) earnings of $0.35 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.35; revenues fell 22.1% year/year to $9.9 bln vs the $9.75 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.24-0.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.31 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co reaffirms guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $1.46-1.56, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.47 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Fiscal 2017 non-GAAP diluted net EPS estimates exclude after-tax costs of approximately $1.49 per diluted share, related primarily to valuation allowances and divestiture taxes, separation costs, restructuring charges, amortization of intangible assets, tax indemnification adjustments, defined benefit plan settlement charges and remeasurement benefit, and an adjustment to earnings from equity interests.

"While we faced margin pressure in Q2, we expect improvement through the remainder of the year as we mitigate commodities cost pressure and eliminate costs associated with spin-mergers and acquisitions...The completion of the spin-merger of our Enterprise Services business gives us the opportunity to further optimize the cost structure of the future HPE. We are now focused on driving an incremental $200-300 million in cost savings in just the second half of this year. We maintain our FY17 EPS outlook."

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

The final trading day of May ended modestly lower among broader US stocks. Despite the flat finish, the major averages ended well off session lows as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, losing 20.82 points (-0.10%), was the worst offender, ending Wednesday at 21008.65. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed 4.67 points lower (-0.08%) to 6198.52, while the S&P 500 dipped 1.11 (-0.05%) today to 2411.80.

Today's market data included the Chicago PMI for May increased to 59.4 from 58.3 in April. Pending Home Sales for April declined 1.3%. Today's reading follows a revised 0.9% decrease in March (from -0.8%). The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.4% to follow last week's 4.4% increase. Additionally, the Fed's Beige Book was released and showed modest to moderate growth in most regions as well as tight labor markets. It also showed that consumer spending growth softened, with many districts seeing little to no change in retail sales ex-autos while most districts saw labor shortages across a broadening range of jobs but wage growth remained modest to moderate.

Among the sectors which underperformed today, the Technology (XLK 56.53, -0.09 -0.16%) space finished just below flat lines. Component Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 18.81, -0.04 -0.21%) was pressured today ahead of its Q2 report after the bell. The majority of the remaining S&P sectors were in the green today, led higher for the second day in a row by the Utility space XLU +0.50% and followed by XLV +0.40%, XLB +0.30%, XLY +0.28%, XLP +0.27%, XLI +0.19%, IYZ +0.15%, XLRE -0.16%, XLE -0.43%, XLF -0.85%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (966.84, -2.93 -0.30%) space, trading began the day in the green but quickly turned south. Component Analog Devices (ADI 85.76, +0.96 +1.13%), one of the remaining quarterly reports, saw relative outperformance today behind the company's Q2 earnings. Other select names which slumped lower with the broader sector included TDC -3.16%, FSLR -2.51%, WDC -1.35%, CRM -1.34%, ADSK -1.23%, GOOG -1.13%, LRCX -1.08%, HPQ -0.95%, EBAY -0.92%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Twitter (TWTR 18.32, -0.11 -0.60%) partnered with Riot Games Oceania to live stream the inaugural League of Legends: League of Origin tournament globally on Twitter and connected devices; financial details not disclosed.

ChannelAdvisor (ECOM 11.40, -0.05 -0.44%) acquired HubLogix Commerce Corp; terms not disclosed.

eBay (EBAY 34.30, -0.32 -0.92%) priced $2.5 billion underwritten public offering of senior unsecured notes.

Qualcomm (QCOM 57.27, -0.07 -0.12%) extended its cash tender offer for NXP Semi (NXPI 109.90, +1.76 +1.63%) through June 28.

Take-Two (TTWO 76.74, +0.67 +0.88%) acquired Kerbal Space Program, a physics-based space simulation game.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Analog Devices (ADI) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $1.03 on revenues which were in-line with market expectations at $1.1 billion. The company also guided Q3 EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $1.07-1.21 and $1.37-1.45 billion, respectively.

Daktronics (DAKT 9.93, +0.65 +7.00%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.02 and revenues which were better than expected at $143.7 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: BOX, HPE, PANW, SMTC/CIEN, MBLY, SOL, TECD

Analyst actions:

VMW was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird,
LN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Nomura;
ZBRA was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
XTLY was downgraded at Lake Street, Needham, Deutsche Bank, First Analysis Sec and Dougherty; GOGO was initiated with an Outperform at Raymond James

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From Briefing.com: 4:27 pm Closing Market Summary: Equity Indices Tick Down on Monday (:WRAPX) :Investors played it safe on Monday following back-to-back record closes for the stock market at the end of last week. Action was range-bound from start to finish with the S&P 500 (-0.1%) staying true to a five-point range. The Nasdaq (-0.2%) and the Dow (-0.1%) settled roughly in line with the benchmark index.

The financial sector (+0.1%) held the top spot in the sector standings for most of Monday's session, which was an encouraging sign for investors in light of the sector's recent struggles. As a reminder, the financial group paced the stock market's post-election rally on promises of tax reform and deregulation, but the sector has lagged in recent months as the implementation of those pro-growth promises has come into question. However, some selling in late-afternoon action left the sector a ways below its session high (+0.7%).

In a similar fashion, the technology group (+0.1%) used its influence to keep a lid on the broader market's loss. The tech sector, which is the only group larger than the financial sector by market cap, benefited from broad strength. However, the technology sector's heaviest component by market cap, Apple (AAPL 153.93, -1.52), struggled despite the buzz surrounding its closely-followed Developers Conference. AAPL shares lost 1.0% after being downgraded to 'Sector Weight' from 'Overweight' at Pacific Crest on Monday morning.

The energy sector (+0.2%) claimed the top spot on the day's leaderboard following an afternoon rally in the crude oil futures market. However, WTI crude still settled in negative territory, slipping 0.5% to $47.40/bbl, following news that several Arab nations have cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing the country of supporting terrorism. Some market participants believe that the development could hamper the global production cut agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC nations.

Like the aforementioned groups, the consumer staples sector (+0.1%) also settled in positive territory with Wal-Mart (WMT 80.26, +0.64) showing relative strength (+0.8%), but the seven remaining spaces finished with losses between 0.1% and 0.5%. The lightly-weighted materials (-0.5%) and utilities (-0.5%) groups ended the day at the bottom of the sector standings while the health care group (-0.3%) also showed relative weakness as biotech names weighed; the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 294.15, -1.64) dropped 0.6%.

It's also worth noting that the Russell 2000 (-0.6%) and the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.3%), both leading indicators that do well (or poorly) when it's thought that economic activity is picking up (or slowing down), finished below the broader market. However, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 9.77, +0.02, +0.2%) remained below the historically-low 10.00 mark, indicating a complacency within the market regarding near-term risks.

U.S. Treasuries settled modestly lower across the board with the benchmark 10-yr yield climbing two basis points to 2.18%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index (96.77, +0.16) added 0.2% with the greenback adding 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively, against the euro (1.1256) and the Japanese yen (110.50).

Reviewing today's economic data, which included the May ISM Services Index, April Factory Orders, and the revised readings of first quarter productivity and unit labor costs:

The ISM Services Index for May declined to 56.9 from an unrevised reading of 57.5 in April. The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 57.0.

The key takeaway from the report is that prices paid by non-manufacturing organizations for materials and services decreased for the first time in 13 months, underscoring how inflation pressures remain in check despite the tight labor market.

The Factory Orders Report for April showed a decrease of 0.2%, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The March reading was revised to 1.0% (from 0.2%).

The key takeaway from the report is that order and shipments activity for manufactured goods in April were subdued and will limit the expected contribution to Q2 GDP growth forecasts.

The first quarter unit labor costs were revised to +2.2% (Briefing.com consensus +2.4%) from +3.0% in the preliminary reading. Meanwhile, the first quarter productivity reading was revised to 0.0% (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%) from -0.6% in the preliminary reading.

The key takeaway from the report is that productivity is still weak despite the upward revision. From the first quarter of 2016 to the first quarter of 2017, productivity increased 1.2%.

Tomorrow, investors will receive just one economic report--April JOLTS--which will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +17.0% YTD
S&P 500 +8.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.9% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Today's action ended with the broader market retreating into the bell. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the worst performer, shedding about 10.11 points (-0.16%) to 6295.68. The S&P 500 declined about 2.97 points (-0.12%) to 2436.10, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 22.25 points (-0.10%) to 21184.04.

The Technology (XLK 57.24, +0.05 +0.09%) space ended modestly higher on Monday. Components AMD +3.12%, NVDA +3.04%, CSRA +1.68%, LRCX +1.26%, GOOG +0.83%, MSI +0.80%, AKAM +0.78%, GOOGL +0.78%, MSFT +0.72%, ACN +0.67% were strong today. The remaining S&P sectors ended XLE +0.18%, XLF +0.17%, XLP +0.10%, IYZ -0.18%, XLRE -0.25%, XLY -0.27%, XLV -0.28%, XLU -0.31%, XLB -0.32%, XLI -0.35%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (980.40, +0.71 +0.07%) space, trading ended modestly off highs yet still in the green. Component Apple (AAPL 153.93, -1.52 -0.98%) was lower following WWDC.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Seagate Tech (STX 42.08, -1.14 -2.64%) President Cloud Systems and Silicon Group Philip Brace will leave the company.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 17.16, -0.24 -1.38%) EVP and GM of the Enterprise Group Antonio Neri seen as 'most likely successor' to CEO Meg Whitman, according to The Information.
According to Reuters, Gigamon (GIMO 42.85, +3.55 +9.03%) is planning to engage in talks with potential acquirers.

Verizon (VZ 46.37, -0.07 -0.15%) might consider Pandora (P 9.48, +0.18 +1.94T) investment if deal with

Sirus XM (SIRI 5.38, -0.10 -1.91%) falls through, according to NY Post.

SITO Mobile (SITO 3.56, -0.40 -10.10%) disclosed Board and management changes, Thomas Pallack named Interim CEO, Mark Del Priore named Interim CFO.

magicJack VocalTec (CALL 7.65, +1.05 +15.91%) shares were active on Axios report of $9.50 per share acquisition proposal from YipTV.

Analyst actions:

EBAY was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse,
YELP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
WEX was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank,
CYOU was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup;
AAPL was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
VEEV was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley;
JNPR was initiated with a Sector Weight at Pacific Crest

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Slip a Tad on Tuesday (:WRAPX) :

The stock market looked like it might reclaim yesterday's downtick late on Tuesday afternoon, but a sell-off in the final minutes pulled the major U.S. indices off their best marks of the day, leaving the S&P 500 with a loss of 0.3%. The Nasdaq (-0.3%) and the Dow (-0.2%) settled roughly in line with the benchmark index.

A risk-off tone was present even before Tuesday's opening bell as investors eyed several upcoming macro events, including the UK general election, the European Central Bank meeting, and former FBI director James Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. All three events will take place on Thursday.

With these concerns lingering in the background, equities opened the session modestly lower while 'safe-haven' assets like the Japanese yen (109.50, +0.9%), gold ($1,297.30/ozt, +1.1%), and U.S. Treasuries showed strength. The benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, slipped four basis points to 2.14%.

However, despite investors' caution, the equity market kept its loss to a minimum throughout most of Tuesday's session. The technology sector (-0.2%) played a huge role in keeping the broader market afloat for most of the day, thanks in large part to influential names like Apple (AAPL 154.45, +0.52), Microsoft (MSFT 72.52, +0.24), Alphabet (GOOGL 996.68, -7.20), and Facebook (FB 152.81, -0.82). Unfortunately, however, the aforementioned companies faded into the closing bell.

Without the tech sector propping up the broader market, the bears took control in the final stretch, dragging the major averages from their flat lines to fresh session lows. The consumer discretionary sector (-0.8%) led the retreat amid broad weakness. Like the previously mentioned tech companies, the consumer discretionary group's most influential component, Amazon (AMZN 1003.00, -8.34), rolled over on its early gain, settling with a loss of 0.8%.

Retailers also made things difficult for the consumer discretionary space, evidenced by the 2.2% decline in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 40.39, -0.90). Another largely disappointing batch of earnings reports weighed on the retail industry from the jump, and things only got worse after Macy's (M 21.90, -1.96) warned that its gross margins for the fiscal year could be below its prior forecast.

Like consumer discretionary, the industrial sector (-0.6%) also underperformed amid broad weakness. The financial sector (-0.4%) was on track for a notable loss in early action, but eventually pulled itself together to finish just a step below the broader market. Most of the remaining laggards, including health care (-0.3%), consumer staples (-0.3%), utilities (-0.2%) and real estate (-0.4%), also finished roughly in line with the broader market.

On a positive note, the energy sector (+1.2%) registered a solid gain amid a positive performance from crude oil. The commodity held a modest loss throughout much of the morning session as concerns surrounding tensions in the Middle East continued to weigh. However, those concerns waned later in the day as investors turned their attention to tonight's inventory report from the American Petroleum Institute (:API), which will be released at 16:30 ET. WTI crude finished higher by 1.5% at $48.13/bbl.

Investors received only one economic report--April JOLTS--on Tuesday:

The April Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 6.044 million from a revised 5.785 million (from 5.743 million) in March.

Tomorrow, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and April Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $15.0 billion). The two reports will cross the wires at 7:00 ET and 15:00 ET, respectively.
Nasdaq Composite +16.6% YTD
S&P 500 +8.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.8% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Risk tolerance was cautious even before Tuesday's opening bell as investors prepared for several upcoming macro events, including the UK general election, the European Central Bank meeting, and former FBI director James Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. All three events will take place on Thursday.

In light of today's cautious tone, the broader market sold off as the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 20.63 points (-0.33%) on its way to 6275.06. The S&P 500 was down 6.77 points (-0.28%) to 2329.33, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 47.81 points (-0.23%) to 21136.23.

The Technology (XLK 57.13, -0.11 -0.19%) space ended modestly lower today in a 'best of the worst' scenario in the S&P. Component Advanced Micro (AMD 12.02, +0.78 +6.94%) seemingly advanced out of nowhere as rumors floated around the street that investors were touting the name as a play on the recent Bitcoin surge. The Energy space XLE +1.18% led all other sectors today, followed by IYZ +0.33%, XLB +0.06%, XLU -0.22%, XLP -0.24%, XLV -0.25%, XLF -0.43%, XLRE -0.47%, XLI -0.65%, XLY -0.87%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (978.62, -1.78 -0.18%) space, trading took a dive in the final moments of action, mirroring the broader market move. Components HPQ -2.87%, HRS -1.64%, FLIR -1.63%, QCOM -1.12%, AKAM -0.94%, WU -0.93%, PAYX -0.91%, EA -0.87%, FISV -0.82%, V -0.79%, HPE -0.76%, PYPL -0.74%, GOOG -0.72% aided the losses.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Paylocity (PCTY 48.51, -0.65 -1.32%) disclosed that, on June 6, Peter McGrail ceased to serve as Chief Financial Officer.

Autodesk (ADSK 111.45, +0.57 +0.51%) priced $500 million of 3.500% notes due 2027.

Science Applications (SAIC 76.34, -1.36 -1.75%) received a $620 million single-award IDIQ contract from NASA to provide multidiscipline engineering support services to the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Synnex (SNX 114.58, +3.56 +3.21%) to acquire Westcon-Comstor North America and Latin America Businesses. The company now expects Q2 revenue and Non-GAAP EPS to be above prior guidance.

Covisint (COVS 2.45, +0.25 +11.36%) to be acquired by OpenText (OTEX 32.70, -0.09 -0.27%) for $2.45 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $103 million.

Keysight (KEYS 40.25, +0.33 +0.83%) was selected by Qualcomm (QCOM 58.20, -0.66 -1.12%) to collaborate on 5G technologies; KEYS will provide design and test solutions for protocol and RF validation.
According to Bloomberg, Sprint (S 8.78, -0.18 -2.01%) and T-Mobile US (TMUS 66.11, -1.29 -1.91%) may be in all stock merger talks.

Snap (SNAP 20.36, +0.15 +0.74%) acquired location analytics company Placed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Coupa Software (COUP 33.28, -3.10 -8.52%) reported a better than expected loss of $0.09 for Q1 on revenues of $41.1 million. The company also guided Q2 EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at ($0.20)-($0.18) and $41.3-41.8 million, respectively. For FY18, COUP sees EPS of ($0.53)-($0.49) on revenues of $172-178 million.

SecureWorks (SCWX 10.29, -1.18 -10.29%) reported a worse than expected Q1 loss of $0.08 per share on better than expected revenues of $113.7 million. For Q2, the company sees EPS below market expectations at ($0.09-($0.08) on revenues of $113-114 million. For FY18, SCWX sees EPS of ($0.33)-($0.30) from ($0.22)-($0.18).

Canadian Solar (CSIQ 12.59, -0.10 -0.79%) reported a better than expected Q1 loss of $0.10 per share on better than expected revenues of $677 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: AMBA, BV, HQY, PDVW, SEAC, SIGM

Analyst actions:

IPGP was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Longbow;
SIMO was downgraded to Reduce from Buy at Standpoint Research;
VERI was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum and Wunderlich,
CARS was initiated with an Outperform at Barrington Research

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From Briefing.com: 4:37 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Register First Win of the Week (:WRAPX) :

The stock market posted its first win of the week on Wednesday, however, several upcoming macro events held the major averages in check. The S&P 500 and the Dow added 0.2% apiece while the Nasdaq (+0.4%) finished a step above its peers.

Equities have been relatively flat all week ahead of tomorrow's full plate of events, which includes the UK general election, the latest policy decision from the European Central Bank, and the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey. Keeping in line with the week's sideways trend, equities opened Wednesday's session slightly higher, but were hovering at their flat lines by midday.

However, in the afternoon session, equities reclaimed their earlier gains after the prepared remarks that Mr. Comey will deliver before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday were released.

The initial response was positive as market participants were seemingly heartened by the understanding that there wasn't any overt obstruction of justice claim in Mr. Comey's prepared statement. Nevertheless, the response overall was a measured one as participants were cognizant that more information will be forthcoming at the hearing itself.

Back on Wall Street, the energy sector (-1.5%) suffered at the hand of a bearish inventory report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which showed that both crude and gasoline inventories increased by 3.3 million barrels for the week ended June 2. Crude oil immediately plunged deep into negative territory following the EIA reading, finishing its day 4.9% lower at $45.49/bbl.

However, the heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.8%) helped to mitigate the energy group's bearish influence by providing solid sector leadership from start to finish. The top-weighted technology (+0.3%) sector also helped keep the bears at bay, thanks in large part to the outperformance of Apple (AAPL 155.37, +0.92) and chipmakers. AAPL added 0.6% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index increased by 0.7%.

The influential health care sector also outperformed, adding 0.3%, while the remaining advancers finished with gains between 0.1% (materials) and 0.5% (real estate). In addition to the energy group, the industrials (-0.1%) and consumer staples (-0.1%) sectors finished in negative territory.

Outside of the equity market, safe-haven assets like the Japanese yen (109.84, -0.4%), gold ($1,289.57/ozt, -0.6%), and U.S. Treasuries gave back some of Tuesday's gains on Wednesday. The benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, finished three basis points higher at 2.18%.

Regarding tomorrow's events in Europe, the latest polling data indicates that Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party has a strong lead against the Labour Party. Meanwhile, the ECB is expected to leave rates unchanged, however, reports suggest that the central bank will lower its inflation outlook due to weaker energy prices.

On the data front, investors received two economic reports--April Consumer Credit and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index--on Wednesday:

The Consumer Credit report for April showed an increase of $8.1 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected growth of $15.0 billion. The prior month's credit growth was revised to $19.6 billion from $16.4 billion.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 7.1% to follow last week's 3.4% decrease.

Tomorrow, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 240,000) at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +17.0% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.9% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

The broader market flushed out some bears today on a modest rebound off yesterday's weak session. Ending with the best finish on Wednesday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 22.32 points (+0.36%) to 6297.38. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 37.46 (+0.18%) to 21173.69, while the S&P 500 advanced 3.81 points (+0.16%) to 2433.14.

The Technology (XLK 57.31, +0.18 +0.32%) space ended in the green today, recouping a portion of yesterday's losses. Component IBM (IBM 150.98, -1.39 -0.91%) was modestly lower today following comments made at its BofA/Merrill Tech Conference appearance. The Financial space XLF +0.77% led the remaining S&P sectors higher today, followed by XLRE +0.53%, XLU +0.33%, XLV +0.26%, XLY +0.18%, XLB +0.13%, XLP -0.03%, XLI -0.14%, IYZ -0.65%, XLE -1.43%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (981.24, +2.62 +0.27%) space, trading approached all-time highs but didn't get above the $983.28 level. Components MU +2.95%, SWKS +1.50%, ADI +1.49%, AMAT +1.48%, EA +1.48%, NTAP +1.47%, MCHP +1.29%, NVDA +1.21%, ATVI +1.17%, EBAY +0.85%, PYPL +0.84%, TXN +0.81% helped maintain the strong rebound session.

Other notable news items among sector components:
In addition to reporting earnings, Ambarella (AMBA 53.60, -6.12 -10.25%) also authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $50 million of its ordinary shares over a twelve-month period commencing July 1, 2017.

Accenture (ACN 126.55, +0.22 +0.17%) to acquire Phase One Consulting, Phase One delivers Salesforce solutions related to modernization and digital transformation for the federal market.

Upland Software (UPLD 21.61, -0.44 -2.00%) priced a public offering of about 1.9 million shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $21.50 per share.

DragonWave (DRWI 1.13, +0.48 +75.00%) was awarded contract from SmartSky Networks, a North American 4G LTE inflight service provider.

In reaction to quarterly results:

SeaChange (SEAC 2.46, +0.04 +1.65%) reported an in-line Q1 loss of $0.15 per share on worse than expected revenues of $16.67 million. The company also guided Q2 EPS and revenues in-line at ($0.09)-($0.03) and $17-20 million, respectively. SEAC also guided FY18 EPS of ($0.10) to +0.02 on revenues in-line at $80-90 million.

HealthEquity (HQY 52.68, +4.19 +8.64%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.23 and $55.4 million, respectively. For FY18, the company sees revenues of $222-227 million (from prior $220-225 million) on net income between $33.0-37.0 million, Adjusted EBITDA between $78.0-83.0 million and non-GAAP net income to be in a range between $38.0 million and $42.0 million.

Ambarella (AMBA) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.39 on in-line revenues of $64.1 million. The company also guided Q2 revenues below market expectations at $69-72 million.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow: CMTL, OKTA, VRNT/SOL

Analyst actions:

CNSL was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup;
WIT was downgraded to Underperform from Hold at Jefferies,
NTES was downgraded to Reduce from Buy at Standpoint Research;
SYMC, PANW, SPLK, FEYE, FTNT, QLYS, RPD were initiated with Neutral ratings at Susquehanna, CHKP, PFPT and IMPV were initiated with Positive ratings at Susquehanna,
NICE was initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup

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From Briefing.com: 4:28 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Escape Thursday Unscathed (:WRAPX) :

Investors had a slew of headlines to digest on Thursday as former FBI Director James Comey testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the European Central Bank announced its latest policy decision, and the Brits headed to the ballot box. However, in the end, the major averages were able to escape unscathed with the S&P 500 (unch) and the Dow (unch) finishing just a tick above their flat lines. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) outperformed its peers while the Russell 2000 did even better, adding 1.4%.

One of the big potential stumbling blocks for the stock market going into Mr. Comey's testimony was the February 14 meeting between Mr. Comey and President Trump. In this meeting, Mr. Trump allegedly told Mr. Comey that he hoped the FBI could let go of the investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. When asked if he thought President Trump was trying to obstruct justice with said remark, Mr. Comey answered that it wasn't for him to say and that he would let others make that determination.

The rest of Mr. Comey's testimony didn't necessarily paint the president in a flattering light, but it didn't do anything to build a case for criminal charges against Mr. Trump either. The stock market advanced to a fresh session high near the end of the hearing with the heavily-weighted financial sector (+1.1%) leading the charge.

Financials underpinned the broader market from start to finish, further cementing its spot at the top of the weekly leaderboard. The sector's strength was broad-based with banks, insurers, asset managers, and consumer finance companies settling higher across the board.

A steepening of the yield curve helped the financial group in its positive performance, as did a pending House vote to repeal Dodd-Frank regulations. Longer-dated Treasuries slipped a bit, leaving the 10-yr yield two basis points higher at 2.19%, while shorter-dated issues settled flat with the 2-yr yield unchanged at 1.31%.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.4%) also helped keep the broader market afloat thanks in large part to chipmakers, which pushed the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.8%. NVIDIA (NVDA 159.94, +10.82) led the semiconductor advance, jumping 7.3%, after its target price was raised to $180 from $145 at Citigroup.

Two other sectors--industrials (+0.3%) and materials (+0.3%)--also finished in positive territory, but the remaining groups settled with losses between 0.2% and 0.9%. The influential health care group finished lower by 0.2% despite a solid performance from the biotechnology industry; the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 294.75, +1.77) added 0.6%.

In Europe, the ECB decided to leave interest rates unchanged, as expected, however, the central bank did drop language from its policy statement that suggested rates could be cut further. In addition, ECB President Mario Draghi acknowledged that risks to the outlook are now broadly balanced, but noted that inflation remains low and has yet to show a convincing pickup. The euro (1.1216) ticked down a bit following the news, but quickly recovered thereafter, settling 0.4% lower against the U.S. dollar.

Meanwhile, the pound (1.2945) shed 0.1% against the greenback ahead of the UK election results. The Conservatives are expected to come away victorious, but polls conducted in recent weeks suggested a narrower margin of victory than previously expected.

On the data front, investors received only one economic report--Initial Claims--on Thursday:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 245,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 255,000 (from 248,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.917 million from the revised count of 1.919 million (from 1.915 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the level of initial claims remains consistent with a tight labor market.

Economic data will be light once again tomorrow with April Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) being the only item on the docket. The report will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +17.4% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.3% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Both the Dow and the Nasdaq notched new all-time highs today following testimony from former FBI Director James Comey in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. That being said, the Nasdaq Composite performed the best today by adding 24.38 points (+0.39%) on its way to 6321.76. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 8.84 points (+0.04%) to 21182.53, while the S&P 500 was up less than a point (+0.03%) when the bell rang to end 2433.79.

The Technology (XLK 57.44, +0.13 +0.23%) space finished higher, albeit in a 'worst-of-the-best' scenario among other S&P sectors. Component Yahoo! (YHOO 55.71, +5.16 +10.21%) jumped out of the gate and never looked back; shares were stronger today in sympathy to Alibaba's (BABA 142.34, +16.70 +13.29%) guidance from its investor day. Financials XLF +1.15% were the best performing sector today in the S&P, followed by XLB +0.33%, XLI +0.33%, IYZ +0.30%, XLV -0.27%, XLE -0.29%, XLRE -0.47%, XLY -0.65%, XLP -0.75%, XLU -0.83%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (984.72, +3.48 +0.35%) space, trading finished near highs. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 159.95, +10.83 +7.26%) was higher today on general strength in semiconductors in addition to a target raise of the stock at Citigroup. Other names in the space which outperformed today included FSLR +2.33%, FFIV +2.23%, ADI +2.07%, STX +1.98%, NTAP +1.88%, TXN +1.75%, LRCX +1.65%, ADS +1.58%, SWKS +1.40%, WDC +1.21%, CSRA +1.06%, FB +1.04%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Pandora Media (P 8.42, -0.06 -0.71%) and KKR (KKR 18.64, +0.10 +0.54%) agreed to a brief extension of the pre-closing period and Pandora's termination right; will allow Pandora to explore interest expressed by a strategic investor in making a substantial minority investment.

GrubHub (GRUB 43.81, -0.07 -0.16%) to acquire Foodler; terms not disclosed.

Microsoft (MSFT 71.94, -0.44 -0.61%) acquired Hexadite for a reported $100 million.

DragonWave (DRWI 1.17, +0.06 +5.41%) confirmed was notified that the Nasdaq Hearings Panel granted the Company's request for continued listing on Nasdaq.

Intel (INTC 36.48, +0.22 +0.61%) CFO, Robert Swan, disclosed purchase of 13,888 shares worth more than $500K pursuant to Rule 10b5-1.

Alibaba (BABA) gave FY18 revenue growth guidance of 45-49% at its Investor Day.

Sprint (S 8.60, -0.04 -0.46%) and TIDAL announced a partnership where Sprint customers receive an all-access pass to TIDAL; Beginning June 9, new and existing customers can get six months of TIDAL HiFi for no charge.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Comtech Telecom (CMTL 17.79, +2.79 +18.60%) reported Q3 EPS of $0.13 on worse than expected revenues of $127.8 million. The company also guided FY17 EPS of $0.33 on revenues of $550.0-555.0 million from $570-580 million.

Okta (OKTA 27.15, +1.46 +5.68%) reported a better than expected Q1 loss of $0.50 per share on better than expected revenues of $53 million. The company also guided Q2 EPS of ($0.26)-($0.25) and revenues of $55-56 million. For FY18, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at ($1.15)-($1.11) and $233-236 million, respectively.

Verint Systems (VRNT 43.45, +1.35 +3.21%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.49 and $265.7 million, respectively. For FY18, VRNT sees EPS and revenues in-line at $2.70 and $1.14 billion, plus or minus 2%.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight: DTRM, PAY, XTLY

Analyst actions:

ORCL was upgraded to Positive from Mixed at OTR Global;
CTSH was downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC;
ERIC was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup,
NOK was initiated with a Neutral at Citigroup,
MULE was initiated with a Perform at Oppenheimer,
TMUS was initiated with a Buy at Drexel Hamilton,
KN was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Rotation Trade Leaves Averages Mixed (:WRAPX) :The major U.S. indices closed the week on a mixed note as a sector rotation trade pitted the top-weighted technology sector (-2.7%) against the financials (+1.9%) and energy (+2.5%) groups. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (-1.8%) finished solidly lower while the S&P 500 (-0.1%) settled just a tick below its unchanged mark. Meanwhile, the Dow and the Russell 2000 outperformed, adding 0.4% apiece. For the week, the S&P 500 declined 0.3%.

Some of 2017's top-performers thus far, including Apple (AAPL 148.98, -6.01), Microsoft (MSFT 70.32, -1.63), Amazon (AMZN 978.31, -31.96), Alphabet (GOOGL 970.12, -34.16), and Facebook (FB 149.63, -5.08), fell to heavy selling pressure on Friday, posting losses between 2.3% and 3.9%. Chipmakers made matters even worse, evidenced by the 4.3% decline in the PHLX Semiconductor Index, with NVIDIA (NVDA 149.60, -10.34) showing relative weakness (-6.5%). Needless to say, the top-weighted technology group (-2.7%), which houses five of the six aforementioned companies, also settled solidly lower.

Typically, the stock market wouldn't have had a chance to overcome a 2.7% decline in the technology sector. However, the financials and energy groups, which have lagged thus far in 2017, kept losses in check with big gains of 1.9% and 2.5%, respectively. Their outperformance, when pitted against the stark underperformance of the information technology sector, makes it pretty evident that a sector rotation trade was in play.

The health care sector also put together a solid showing, adding 0.6%, with pharmaceutical names like Pfizer (PFE 32.77, +1.02) and Merck (MRK 64.39, +1.19) leading the advance; the two companies added 3.2% and 1.9%, respectively. Likewise, the lightly-weighted materials (+1.3%) and telecom services (+0.9%) groups outperformed while the remaining advancers--industrials and real estate--finished with gains of 0.4% apiece.

On the flip side, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.4%) underperformed as Amazon's tumble easily outweighed a positive performance from retailers. Like the energy and financial sectors, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.04, +0.58) moved higher today, adding 1.4%, despite having struggling throughout the year. The consumer staples (-0.1%) and utilities (unch) spaces also finished in the red, but settled roughly in line with the broader market.

In Europe, UK Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party unexpectedly lost its parliamentary majority in yesterday's snap election, reducing its seats to 318 from 331. The British pound (1.2735) dropped noticeably following the results, retreating 1.7% against the U.S. dollar, but European indices took the news in stride; the UK's FTSE jumped 1.0% while Germany's DAX and France's CAC added 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively.

Despite today's slip on Wall Street, safe-have assets experienced modest selling pressure. Gold dropped 0.6% to $1,272.50/ozt and U.S. Treasuries finished lower across the yield curve with the benchmark 10-yr yield climbing two basis points to 2.21%.

On the data front, investors received only one economic report--April Wholesale Inventories--on Friday:

April Wholesale Inventories decreased 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%). The prior month's reading was revised to 0.1% from 0.2%.

The market doesn't typically pay much attention to this release since the full business inventories report is usually released a short time later.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +15.3% YTD
S&P 500 +8.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.8% YTD Week In Review: Hurdling Headlines

The stock market successfully hurdled several key macro events, including the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey, the latest policy decision from the European Central Bank, and the UK general election, only to get tripped up by tech stocks on Friday. The major averages settled the week mixed with the Dow adding 0.3% while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq lost 0.3% and 1.6%, respectively.

Following back-to-back losses for the S&P 500 on Monday (-0.1%) and Tuesday (-0.3%), financials led the benchmark index to its first win of the week in the midweek session (+0.2%), even in the face of a bearish inventory report from the Energy Information Administration. Crude oil plunged nearly 5.0% after the EIA showed a build in both crude and gasoline inventories for the week ended June 2.

However, prepared remarks from Mr. James Comey, which were released to the public ahead of Thursday's testimony, were the focal point of Wednesday's session. The initial response to the statement was positive as market participants were seemingly heartened by the understanding that there wasn't any overt obstruction of justice claim against President Trump.

On Thursday, the Senate Intelligence Committee directly asked Mr. Comey if he thought Mr. Trump was trying to obstruct justice during their meeting on February 14 when he told Mr. Comey that he hoped the FBI could let go of the investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Mr. Comey responded that it wasn't for him to say and he would let others make that determination.

Investors breathed a sigh of relief, not only in reaction to Mr. Comey's testimony, but also in reaction to the ECB's decision to leave interest rates unchanged, as expected. With two of the week's three major events in the rearview mirror, the financial sector led the S&P 500 to its second victory of the week. However, gains were held in check as investors awaited the results of the UK general election.

Sure enough, the Brits threw the world for a loop, yet again, as Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party lost its parliamentary majority. The pound dropped noticeably following the results while European markets took the news in stride. Meanwhile, U.S. indices ended the week lower as high-flying, mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Facebook (FB), and semiconductor stocks, like NVIDIA (NVDA), came under some notable profit-taking pressure.

The top-weighted technology sector, which houses five of the six aforementioned companies, plunged 2.7% on Friday. However, the financials and energy sectors, which have been underperforming all year, helped keep the tech group's bearish influence in check, adding big gains of 1.9% and 2.5%, respectively, in what had the appearance of a sector rotation trade.

The fed funds futures market still points to the June FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 95.8%, unchanged from last week. The U.S. central bank will kick off its two-day meeting on Tuesday with the rate-hike decision crossing the wires on Wednesday afternoon at 14:00 ET.

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

It wasn't enough that all three major US indices notched fresh all-time highs today, as the bears came out around noon and took both the S&P and the Nasdaq into the red. To that end, the Nasdaq Composite erased the entirety of its weekly gains in today's session, ending 113.85 points lower (-1.80%) to 6207.92. The S&P 500 lost 2.02 points (-0.08%) to 2431.77, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to hold onto a modest advance, adding 89.44 points (+0.42%) to 21271.97. With this week's moves, the three major US indices are +15.3%, +8.6% and +7.6% YTD, respectively.

The Technology (XLK 56.02, -1.42 -2.47%) space got taken to the woodshed today, leading some on the street opining that the rally may be over. Some of the worst offenders today included the beloved bellwether FANG stocks -- FB -3.28%, AAPL -3.88%, AMZN -3.16%, GOOG -3.41%, MSFT -2.27%. On the flip side of tech, the Energy space XLE +2.41% killed it today, ending as the leader among the 11 S&P sectors, followed by XLF +1.89%, XLB +1.30%, XLV +0.68%, XLRE +0.47%, XLI +0.38%, XLU -0.09%, XLP -0.12%, XLY -0.44%, IYZ -0.51%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (957.79, -26.93 -2.73%) space, trading took its licks today. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 149.60, -10.34 -6.46%) was the worst performer today after a cautious research report out of Citron Research, erasing opening gains related to price target moves on the stock. Other names in the space which underperformed today included KLAC -6.38%, CTXS -5.88%, MU -5.70%, AMAT -5.67%, WDC -5.50%, ADI -4.66%, ADSK -4.65%, AVGO -4.55%, CRM -4.36%, LRCX -4.36%, ATVI -4.16%, TXN -4.08%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

SiriusXM (SIRI 5.20, -0.20 -3.70%) to make a $480 million strategic cash investment in Pandora (P 8.52, +0.10 +1.19%).

Pandora (P) later confirmed an agreement with SiriusXM (SIRI) to sell Ticketfly to Eventbrite for $200 million, in addition to affirming guidance.

Citron Research was out cautious on shares of NVIDIA (NVDA).

Maxim Integrated (MXIM 47.08, -2.33 -4.72%) announced the offering and pricing of $500.0 million of its 3.450% Senior Notes due 2027.

Papa Murphy's (FRSH 4.40, -0.11 -2.44%) announced Grubhub (GRUB 43.35, -0.46 -1.05%) as national delivery partner.

Amazon (AMZN 978.31, -31.96 -3.16%) announced plans for a new 855,000-square-foot fulfillment center in North Haven, Conn. The new site will create more than 1,500 new, full-time jobs with opportunities for employees to engage with advanced robotics. The company currently has facilities in Wallingford and Windsor.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Determine (DTRM 3.55, -0.02 -0.56%) reported a better than expected loss of $0.04 per share on better than expected revenues of $7.5 million.

VeriFone (PAY 17.68, -0.64 -3.49%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.30 on in-line revenues of $474 million. Sees Q3 EPS of $0.35-0.36 on revenues of $463-465 million. PAY also guided for FY17 EPS in the range of $1.32-1.34 on revenues between $1.861-1.866 billion.

Analyst actions:

ZNGA was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
CNSL was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James;
SNAP was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup;
CAVM and IDTI were initiated with Buy ratings at Longbow,
MB was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
ALRM was initiated with an Outperform at Northland Capital

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Tech Stocks Weigh Again on Monday (:WRAPX) :The stock market opened the week with its second-consecutive decline as the top-weighted technology sector (-0.8%) weighed on the broader market. However, as a consolation prize, both the tech sector and the S&P 500 (-0.1%) finished near their best marks of the day. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.5%) underperformed while the Dow (-0.2%) settled just a step behind the benchmark index.

At the beginning of Monday's session, it appeared that Wall Street may duplicate Friday's sector rotation trade; tech stocks opened sharply lower while financials and energy stocks opened distinctly higher. However, the three sectors quickly retraced a portion of their early moves with the financial sector actually entering negative territory within two hours of the opening bell. The financial space (+0.2%) came back a bit in the afternoon, but never returned to its early-morning high.

The technology sector (-0.8%) held a solid loss throughout the session as mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL 145.42, -3.56), Microsoft (MSFT 69.78, -0.54), Alphabet (GOOGL 961.81, -8.31), and Facebook (FB 148.44, -1.16) refused to let up. Apple showed relative weakness, dropping 2.4%, after the company was downgraded to 'Neutral' from 'Buy' at Mizuho early on Monday morning. Chipmakers also weighed on the tech sector, evidenced by the 0.5% decrease in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Like financials, the energy sector (+0.7%) never returned to its early-morning high, but, unlike financials, the energy group was able to stay above water throughout the session. Crude oil helped the sector's bullish disposition, climbing 0.5% to $46.06/bbl, but the commodity's performance was somewhat disappointing considering it closed near its session low.

The telecom services (+0.9%) and real estate (+0.6%) sectors were also strong throughout Monday's session, but their positive performances had a pretty modest impact due to their relatively small market caps; the two sectors comprise around 5.0% of the broader market combined.

General Electric (GE 28.94, +1.00) had a notable impact in the industrial sector (+0.5%), jumping 3.6%, after the company announced that Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt will be retiring from the company. John Flannery, who is the current president and CEO of GE Healthcare, will be replacing Mr. Immelt.

In addition to GE's advance, the industrial space profited from the outperformance of transports, evidenced by the 0.7% increase in the Dow Jones Transportation Average. Logistics heavyweights like UPS (UPS 108.94, +1.91) and FedEx (FDX 209.12, +2.72) showed notable strength, adding 1.8% and 1.3%, respectively.

However, on the flip side, five sectors--consumer discretionary (-0.1%), materials (-0.5%), health care (-0.1%), consumer staples (-0.1%), and utilities (-0.2%)--paired with the technology sector to overpower the five advancers. Amazon (AMZN 964.91, -13.40) weighed heavily on the consumer discretionary group, overriding an otherwise positive performance from most of the group's components.

Still, despite the slip on Wall Street, safe-haven assets like U.S. Treasuries and gold ticked down; gold dropped 0.2% to $1,269.00/ozt while the benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, climbed one basis point to 2.21%.

However, it is worth pointing out that the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 11.39, +0.69, +6.5%), sometimes called the 'investor fear gauge', did advance to a fresh three-week high.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Tomorrow's economic calendar will also be light with just one report--May PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%)--on the docket. The report will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +14.7% YTD
S&P 500 +8.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.6% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

It wasn't enough that all three major US indices notched fresh all-time highs today, as the bears came out around noon and took both the S&P and the Nasdaq into the red. To that end, the Nasdaq Composite erased the entirety of its weekly gains in today's session, ending 113.85 points lower (-1.80%) to 6207.92. The S&P 500 lost 2.02 points (-0.08%) to 2431.77, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to hold onto a modest advance, adding 89.44 points (+0.42%) to 21271.97. With this week's moves, the three major US indices are +15.3%, +8.6% and +7.6% YTD, respectively.

The Technology (XLK 56.02, -1.42 -2.47%) space got taken to the woodshed today, leading some on the street opining that the rally may be over. Some of the worst offenders today included the beloved bellwether FANG stocks -- FB -3.28%, AAPL -3.88%, AMZN -3.16%, GOOG -3.41%, MSFT -2.27%. On the flip side of tech, the Energy space XLE +2.41% killed it today, ending as the leader among the 11 S&P sectors, followed by XLF +1.89%, XLB +1.30%, XLV +0.68%, XLRE +0.47%, XLI +0.38%, XLU -0.09%, XLP -0.12%, XLY -0.44%, IYZ -0.51%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (957.79, -26.93 -2.73%) space, trading took its licks today. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 149.60, -10.34 -6.46%) was the worst performer today after a cautious research report out of Citron Research, erasing opening gains related to price target moves on the stock. Other names in the space which underperformed today included KLAC -6.38%, CTXS -5.88%, MU -5.70%, AMAT -5.67%, WDC -5.50%, ADI -4.66%, ADSK -4.65%, AVGO -4.55%, CRM -4.36%, LRCX -4.36%, ATVI -4.16%, TXN -4.08%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

SiriusXM (SIRI 5.20, -0.20 -3.70%) to make a $480 million strategic cash investment in Pandora (P 8.52, +0.10 +1.19%).

Pandora (P) later confirmed an agreement with SiriusXM (SIRI) to sell Ticketfly to Eventbrite for $200 million, in addition to affirming guidance.
Citron Research was out cautious on shares of NVIDIA (NVDA).

Maxim Integrated (MXIM 47.08, -2.33 -4.72%) announced the offering and pricing of $500.0 million of its 3.450% Senior Notes due 2027.

Papa Murphy's (FRSH 4.40, -0.11 -2.44%) announced Grubhub (GRUB 43.35, -0.46 -1.05%) as national delivery partner.

Amazon (AMZN 978.31, -31.96 -3.16%) announced plans for a new 855,000-square-foot fulfillment center in North Haven, Conn. The new site will create more than 1,500 new, full-time jobs with opportunities for employees to engage with advanced robotics. The company currently has facilities in Wallingford and Windsor.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Determine (DTRM 3.55, -0.02 -0.56%) reported a better than expected loss of $0.04 per share on better than expected revenues of $7.5 million.

VeriFone (PAY 17.68, -0.64 -3.49%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.30 on in-line revenues of $474 million. Sees Q3 EPS of $0.35-0.36 on revenues of $463-465 million. PAY also guided for FY17 EPS in the range of $1.32-1.34 on revenues between $1.861-1.866 billion.

Analyst actions:

ZNGA was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
CNSL was upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James;
SNAP was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup;
CAVM and IDTI were initiated with Buy ratings at Longbow,
MB was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
ALRM was initiated with an Outperform at Northland Capital

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From Briefing.com: 4:34 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Settle Mixed Following Rate Hike (:WRAPX) :Equity indices finished Wednesday's session mixed after the FOMC voted to raise interest rates for the second time this year, as expected. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq settled lower by 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively, while the Dow closed higher by 0.2%.

The Fed's decision to raise the fed funds target range by 25 basis points to 1.00%-1.25% was nearly unanimous with Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari being the lone dissenter. The rate hike was attributed to realized and expected labor market conditions. In other words, it sounds as if the Fed is still expecting tight labor market conditions to produce stronger wage inflation that will presumably drive broader price inflation.

According to the Fed's dot plot, the median FOMC member expects one additional rate hike in 2017. However, the market doubts that a third rate hike will happen before the year's end with the CME FedWatch Tool assigning an implied probability of 47.0% to said event. In addition, the U.S. central bank plans to begin implementing a balance sheet normalization program sometime this year.

Going into the Fed's decision, equities were fairly flat as big losses from the financials, energy, and materials sectors were mitigated by modest gains from the remaining eight groups. The materials (-1.1%) and energy (-1.8%) groups never recovered, eventually settling the session at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Crude oil weighed on the energy group, dropping 3.5% to $44.79/bbl, after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a smaller than expected draw of 1.7 million barrels (consensus -2.5 million barrels) in crude stocks and a build of 2.1 million barrels in gasoline inventories for the week ended May 9. The energy component settled at its lowest mark since mid-November.

Conversely, the heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.2%) retraced its earlier loss of 1.3% following the FOMC decision, settling higher for the sixth-consecutive session. However, a flattening of the yield curve, which is seen as a negative for the financial industry's bottom line, didn't make things easy on the sector.

Treasuries moved solidly higher following a weak batch of economic data, which included May CPI and May Retail Sales. Total CPI declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) in May while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 1.9% and core CPI has increased 1.7%.

Separately, May retail sales decreased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) while the prior month's reading was left unrevised at 0.4%. Excluding autos, retail sales decreased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) while the prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.4% from 0.3%.

The 10-yr and 2-yr yields traded at 2.11% and 1.29%, respectively, ahead of the Fed's policy statement, but ticked up from that level in the aftermath. The 2yr-10yr spread declined by four basis points with the 10-yr yield settling six basis points lower at 2.15% and the 2-yr yield dropping two basis points to 1.35%.

Back on Wall Street, the equity market was a little jumpy in the afternoon session, but eventually settled at the level it took into the FOMC rate decision. As noted above, the heavily-weighted financial sector flipped from negative to positive in the afternoon, however, the top-weighted technology sector did the opposite, exchanging a modest gain for a notable loss.

In conclusion, regardless of how Wednesday's session began, it ended with a risk-off tone as countercyclical sectors generally outperformed their cyclical peers, especially following the Fed's policy statement; the health care, consumer staples, utilities, telecom services, and real estate groups finished with gains between 0.3% and 0.6%.

Reviewing today's economic data, which included May CPI, May Retail Sales, April Business Inventories, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Total CPI declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) in May while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 1.9% and core CPI has increased 1.7%.

The key takeaway from this report is that it shows a softening trend in consumer inflation, which should presumably be some cause for concern among Fed members.

May retail sales decreased 0.3%, which is below the Briefing.com consensus of +0.1%. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at 0.4%. Excluding autos, retail sales decreased 0.3% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%. The prior month's reading was revised higher to 0.4% from 0.3%.

The key takeaway from this report is that consumers clearly remain guarded with their discretionary spending activity, which is likely the result of seeing little, if any, wage growth.

Business Inventories declined 0.2% in April while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick of 0.1%. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at 0.2%.

The key takeaway from the report is that business inventories remain elevated relative to sales, which is standing in the way of restoring pricing power.

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 2.8% to follow last week's 7.1% increase.Tomorrow, investors will receive a slew of economic reports, including Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 240,000) at 8:30 ET, June Philadelphia Fed (Briefing.com consensus 26.0) at 8:30 ET, June Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 6.0) at 8:30 ET, May Import/Export Prices at 8:30 ET, May Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 76.7%) at 9:15 ET, and June NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 70) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +15.1% YTD
S&P 500 +8.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.5% YTD

4:11 pm Jabil beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides AugQ EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY18 EPS above consensus (JBL) :

Reports Q3 (May) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.29 and vs prior guidance of $0.19-0.39; revenues rose 4.1% year/year to $4.49 bln vs the $4.40 bln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $4.25-4.55 bln.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4 (Aug), sees EPS of $0.50-0.74, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.61

Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $4.70-5.10 bln vs. $4.79 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues upside guidance for FY18, sees EPS of approx $2.60, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.42 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co is pleased with MayQ results as both business segments performed quite well.

"In Diversified Manufacturing Services, the team delivered exceptional execution and cost controls against product road maps exhibiting massive scale and complexity, while we continued to see strong double-digit growth in healthcare and packaging. At the same time, our Electronics Manufacturing Services team continues to do an excellent job building broad revenue diversification, while developing end-market domain expertise, resulting in solid margin expansion."

In the near-term, co expects to deliver the best Q4 (Aug) in the company's history in terms of core operating income. Beyond that, its forecast suggests the growth in both DMS and EMS in FY18 will result in core EPS in the neighborhood of $2.60. Co remains committed to complete its two-year capital return framework plan, achieve $3.00 per share in core EPS in FY19.

4:07 pm Universal Display announces it extended Evaluation Agreement with Japan Display; financial terms not disclosed (OLED) : Co announced that the Co and Japan Display have entered into an extended and updated evaluation agreement. Under the agreement, Universal Display will supply its proprietary UniversalPHOLED phosphorescent OLED materials and technology to Japan Display Inc for use in the company's OLED displays.

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Following the announcement by the Fed to raise rates 25 bps to 1.00-1.25%, as expected, the broader market recovered from opening losses. In the end though, only the Dow Jones Industrial Average which gained 46.09 points (+0.22%) to 21374.56 was able to climb out of the red. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost about 25.48 points (-0.41%) to 6194.89, while the S&P 500 ended 2.43 points lower (-0.10%) to 2437.92.

The Technology (XLK 55.82, -0.27 -0.48%) space again took a sizable hit as the broader sell-off isn't showing signs of letting up. A wide array of names in the space were down today, led by QRVO -3.38%, KLAC -2.83%, WDC -2.50%, SWKS -2.27%, NTAP -2.18%, AMAT -1.94%, HPQ -1.92%, STX -1.78%, JNPR -1.68%, AMD -1.67%, LRCX -1.53%, MU -1.52%. The Consumer Staples XLP +0.63% sector was the best performer in the S&P today, followed by XLU +0.54%, XLV +0.48%, XLRE +0.31%, XLF +0.16%, XLY -0.06%, XLI -0.10%, IYZ -0.24%, XLB -1.05%, XLE -1.81%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (953.01, -5.07 -0.53%) space, trading ended off lows but firmly in the red. Component Activision Blizzard (ATVI 58.45, +0.55 +0.95%) turned in a strong session in contrast as the gaming conference E3 continues in Los Angeles. Other names in the space which underperformed today included MCHP -1.47%, CA -1.37%, MSI -1.36%, ADSK -1.26%, ADS -1.21%, XRX -1.14%, TXN -1.02%, AVGO -0.99%, AAPL -0.98%, INTC -0.98%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Rightside (NAME 10.75, +1.00 +10.26%) and Donuts Inc. have entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger, pursuant to which Donuts will acquire Rightside for $10.60 per share in an all-cash tender offer, for an aggregate purchase price of about $213 million.

Sequans Communications (SQNS 4.10, +0.05 +1.23%) priced an underwritten public offering of American Depositary Shares, representing 3,750,000 ordinary shares, at a price of $3.80 per ADSs.

Norsat (NSAT 11.30, -0.15 -1.31%) determined that Privet's proposal to acquire NSAT for $11.50 per share constitutes a 'Superior Proposal' to Hytera's.

TiVo (TIVO 19.15, +0.35 +1.86%) received recommendation of the Administrative Law Judge of the International Trade Commission.

Mobileye N.V. (MBLY 62.67, -0.15 -0.24%) shareholders approved all resolutions at the annual general meeting including all items relating to the previously disclosed all cash tender offer by Intel's (INTC 35.53, -0.35 -0.98%) Cyclops Holdings.

Analyst actions:

NTDOY was upgraded to Underperform from Sell at CLSA,
WNS was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform a Cowen,
INFN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at MKM Partners;
MSCC was downgraded to Outperform from Top Pick at RBC Capital Mkts,
SNCR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Drexel Hamilton;
FTNT was initiated with a Buy at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
NOK was initiated with a Buy at Societe Generale

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:28 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Settle Lower on Thursday (:WRAPX) :

Investors played it safe on Thursday as they continued to digest Wednesday's rate-hike announcement and some potentially concerning reports from Washington. The S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Dow (-0.1%) settled a step below their unchanged marks while the Nasdaq (-0.5%) underperformed, extending its week-to-date loss to 0.7%. For comparison, the benchmark index is flat for the week.

Equity indices opened Thursday's session solidly lower as investors continued to chew on Wednesday's policy announcement from the Federal Open Market Committee (:FOMC), which was replete with a rate hike of 25 basis points, projections for an additional rate hike this year, and a specific plan for how the Fed will start to normalize its balance sheet.

The policy prescription left some market participants skeptical as it comes in the face of inflation readings that still remain below the Fed's longer-run target of 2.0%. Specifically, the fear is that the economic recovery effort could come to a halt if the U.S. central bank tightens policy too much and/or too soon.

In addition, investor sentiment was dampened by a Washington Post report that claimed Special Counsel Mueller's investigation of Russia's interference in the U.S. election is broadening in scope to examine whether President Trump tried to obstruct justice. It's worth clarifying that Mr. Trump hasn't been charged with obstruction of justice, rather, Mr. Mueller is examining the issue.

However, despite the lingering uncertainty, the major averages began retracing their opening losses in mid-morning action. The upward trend continued into the afternoon session, leaving the major averages near the top of the day's trading range. The tech-heavy Nasdaq showed relative weakness throughout the session as technology and biotechnology stocks underperformed.

The top-weighed technology sector (-0.5%) hovered with the consumer discretionary sector (-0.5%) at the bottom of the leaderboard for much of the day, but the two groups were able to reclaim a good portion of their early losses in the final stretch, eventually finishing just a step below the broader market.

Meanwhile, in the health care sector (-0.1%), biotechnology names underperformed, dragging the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 293.80, -2.29) lower by 0.8%. The IBB dipped to a fresh session low around midday on reports that the White House is preparing an executive order aimed at lowering drug prices. However, the IBB retraced that dip by the day's close.

The energy sector (-0.7%) slipped to a new session low in the afternoon, eventually settling with the lightly-weighted materials group (-0.9%) at the bottom of the sector standings. Crude oil weighed on the energy group, dropping 0.8% to $44.45/bbl, as the commodity continued to face selling pressure following yesterday's bearish EIA inventory report. A strengthening dollar also worked against the energy component.

The U.S. Dollar Index (97.48, +0.57) rose 0.6% with the greenback adding 0.7% and 1.2%, respectively, on the euro (1.1145) and the yen (110.86). However, the British pound (1.2757) showed relative strength, adding 0.1% against the U.S. dollar, after the Bank of England decided to maintain its key rate and purchasing program in a split, 5-3 vote.

Back on Wall Street, four of the eleven sectors--industrials (+0.6%), utilities (+0.6%), real estate (+0.5%), and telecom services (unch)--settled in positive territory. The industrial sector benefited from broad strength with Dow components Caterpillar (CAT 106.40, +1.69), General Electric (GE 28.94, +0.49), and Boeing (BA 195.45, +3.07) leading the charge. The three added around 1.6% apiece.

Of the remaining sectors, the heavily-weighted financial group (-0.4%) settled a tick below the benchmark index while the consumer staples space (-0.2%) closed in line with the broader market.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries spent the day unwinding some of Wednesday's gains. The 10-yr yield climbed three basis points to 2.16% while the 2-yr yield (1.35%) moved higher by two basis points.

Reviewing Thursday's heavy dose of economic data, which included Initial Claims, June Philadelphia Fed, May Import/Export Prices, June Empire Manufacturing, May Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization, and June NAHB Housing Market Index:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 237,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 245,000. As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.935 million from the revised count of 1.929 million (from 1.917 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that initial claims continue to hold steady at low levels that support the tight labor market claims advanced by the Federal Reserve.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for June declined to 27.6 from an unrevised 38.8 in May while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 26.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that it suggests continued growth for the region's manufacturing sector.
Import prices excluding oil were unchanged (0.0%) in May after adding 0.3% in April. Export prices excluding agriculture decreased 0.6% in May after rising 0.3% in April (revised from 0.1%).
The key takeaway from the report is that import and export prices are up year-over-year, yet inflation pressures overall remain modest for both import and export prices.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for June rose to 19.8 from the prior month's reading of -1.0. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 6.0.
Industrial Production was unchanged (0.0%) in May (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) while Capacity Utilization ticked down to 76.6% (Briefing.com consensus 76.7%) from an unrevised reading of 76.7% in April. The Industrial Production reading for April was revised to 1.1% from 1.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it didn't include a contribution from manufacturing output, which declined 0.4%.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for June declined to 67 (Briefing.com consensus 70) from a revised reading of 69 in May (from 70).

On Friday, investors will receive May Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.227 million) and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June (Briefing.com consensus 97.0). The two reports will cross the wires at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.
Nasdaq Composite +14.5% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.9% YTD

4:15 pm Advanced Micro selected by the Department of Energy's Exascale Computing Project to accelerate critical computing technology research for the development of the nation's first exascale supercomputers (AMD) : The new three-year PathForward program provides funding for research and development to drive critical advances of next-generation supercomputing hardware technologies.

4:05 pm Finisar reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs below consensus (FNSR) :
Reports Q4 (Apr) earnings of $0.50 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.50; revenues rose 12.1% year/year to $357.5 mln vs the $359.65 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Sales of datacom products decreased by $2.8 million, or (1.1)%, compared to the third quarter. Sales of 100G QSFP28 transceivers for datacom applications increased over 30% compared to the prior quarter; however, this increase was more than offset by lower demand for other datacom products, primarily our 10G and below shortwave transceivers.

The Q/Q decline in revenue was primarily the result of a decline in telecom revenues due to lower revenues from Chinese OEM customers and the impact of the full three months of the annual telecom price erosion.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.37-0.43 vs. $0.51 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $330-350 vs. $366.16 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Sees non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 14%.

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

The major averages finished Thursday much like they did on Wednesday, well off lows and climbing into the bell. When it all was said and done, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the worst performer, shedding 29.39 points today (-0.47%) to 6165.50. The S&P 500 finished down 5.46 points (-0.22%) to 2432.46, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 14.66 points lower (-0.07%) to 21359.90.

Economic data today included the latest weekly initial jobless claims count which totaled 237,000, below the unrevised prior week count of 245,000. As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.935 million from the revised count of 1.929 million (from 1.917 million). The Philadelphia Fed Survey for June declined to 27.6 from an unrevised 38.8 in May. Import prices excluding oil were unchanged (0.0%) in May after adding 0.3% in April. Export prices excluding agriculture decreased 0.6% in May after rising 0.3% in April (revised from 0.1%). The Empire Manufacturing Survey for June rose to 19.8 from the prior month's reading of -1.0. Industrial Production was unchanged (0.0%) in May while Capacity Utilization ticked down to 76.6% from an unrevised reading of 76.7% in April. The Industrial Production reading for April was revised to 1.1% from 1.0%. Lastly, the NAHB Housing Market Index for June declined to 67 from a revised reading of 69 in May (from 70).

The Technology (XLK 55.57, +0.25 +0.45%) space closed in the red again as the sell-off isn't showing signs of letting up. Component Alliance Data (ADS 250.04, +6.73 +2.77%) was one of the better performing names today after announcing strong average receivable growth for May. The Industrials XLI +0.60% space led all other S&P sectors today, followed by XLU +0.57%, XLRE +0.49%, XLV -0.10%, XLP -0.23%, XLF -0.41%, XLY -0.42%, IYZ -0.62%, XLE -0.76%, XLB -0.88%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (948.43, -4.58 -0.48%) space, trading finished off lows yet firmly in the red. Bellwether Alphabet (GOOGL 960.18 -7.75 -0.80%) turned in a modestly lower session as the stock was downgraded before the open at Canaccord Genuity to a Hold rating. Components LRCX -2.80%, SYMC -2.34%, AMAT -1.86%, MU -1.61%, KLAC -1.50%, ADI -1.47%, HPE -1.31%, FSLR -1.27%, WU -1.25%, V -1.21%, EBAY -1.19% were among the weaker performers today.

Other notable news items among sector components:
The NXP Semi (NXPI 109.00, -0.27 -0.25%)/Qualcomm (QCOM 56.93, -0.08 -0.14%) merger was given regulatory clearance by the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission.

Verizon (VZ 46.64, -0.05 -0.11%) announced it expects to record Q2 severance, acquisition and integration related expenses of about $500 million related to Yahoo! (YHOO 52.58, -0.05 -0.10%).

Alliance Data (ADS) reported average receivables at end of May 31 of $15.74 billion, +17% Y/Y; maintains its FY guidance of $7.7 billion in total revs, $18.5 in core EPS.

Adesto Technologies (IOTS 4.05, -0.75 -15.62%) priced a public offering of 4.375 million shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $4.00 per share.

Universal Display (OLED 115.45, -2.85 -2.41%) announced it extended Evaluation Agreement with Japan Display; financial terms not disclosed.

First Data (FDC 18.37, +0.26 +1.44%) refinanced $3.8 billion of term loans due March 2021 and July 2022, at an interest rate of LIBOR plus 225 basis points.
Shares of Pandora (P 7.30, -0.28 -3.69%) were notably weaker today after peer Spotify tweeted it now has 140 million users.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Digital Turbine (APPS 1.03, +0.04 +5.07%) reported a worse than expected loss of $0.10 per share on revenues which came in ahead of market expectations at $22.4 million.

Jabil (JBL 29.44, -1.19 -3.89%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.31 and $4.49 billion, respectively. For Q4, the company sees EPS and revenues in-line at $0.50-0.74 and $4.70-5.10 billion, respectively. For FY18, JBL sees EPS ahead of market expectations at about $2.60.

Analyst actions:

YNDX was upgraded to Buy from Hold at VTB Capital;
GOOGL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
SPLK was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush,
NAME was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.;
ARRS was initiated with a Buy at BTIG Research,
GRUB was initiated with a Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
UCTT was initiated with a Market Perform at Cowen

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:32 pm Closing Market Summary: S&P 500 Ekes Out Win on Friday (:WRAPX) :

Investors continued to play it safe on Friday, as they have done throughout the week, leaving the major averages little changed. The Dow (+0.1%) and the Nasdaq (-0.2%) settled on opposite sides of the S&P 500 (unch), which finished just a tick above its unchanged mark. For the week, the S&P 500 added 0.1%.

Six of the eleven sectors settled Friday's session in negative territory with the consumer staples sector (-1.0%) leading the retreat following news that Amazon (AMZN 987.71, +23.54) plans to acquire Whole Foods Market (WFM 42.68, +9.62) for $42 per share (27.0% premium) in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $13.7 billion.

Big-box and grocery retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT 75.24, -3.67), Costco (COST 167.11, -12.95), and Kroger (KR 22.29, -2.27) were among the consumer staples sector's weakest components as AMZN's move will likely increase competition within the space. KR got hit the hardest, plunging 9.2%, while WMT and COST settled with losses of 4.7% and 7.2%, respectively.

Retailers within the consumer discretionary sector (unch), like Target (TGT 52.61, -2.85), also faced heavy selling pressure, pushing the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 39.97, -0.49) lower by 1.2%. However, the consumer discretionary group settled roughly in line with the broader market thanks, in large part, to Amazon's advance of 2.4%.

The top-weighted technology group (-0.2%) also finished in the red as Apple (AAPL 142.27, -2.02) weighed, extending its loss for the week to 4.5%. The remaining laggards--financials (-0.1%), telecom services (-0.1%), and real estate (-0.1%)--closed just a step below the benchmark index.

On the flip side, the energy sector (+1.7%) settled at the top of the day's leaderboard, by a wide margin, as crude oil bounced back from its two-day decline. The energy component climbed 0.6% to $44.74/bbl, but the advance only put a dent in the commodity's loss for the week. WTI crude finished the week lower by 2.4%.

The industrials (+0.4%), materials (+0.4%), and utilities (+0.5%) sectors registered modest gains while the influential health care group (+0.1%) finished just a tick above its unchanged mark.

In the bond market, Treasuries rallied in a curve-steepening move on Friday following a weaker than expected batch of economic data and public remarks from both Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan (FOMC voter) and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari (FOMC voter). The 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.15% while the 2-yr yield dropped three basis points to 1.33%.

Mr. Kashkari explained his second dissenting vote of this year in a blog post, writing that the Fed should wait for the current lull in inflation's upward path to end before hiking rates again and that there are others on the Committee who are sympathetic to his reasoning. Similarly, Mr. Kaplan expressed his belief that the Fed must be very cautious in raising rates further.

The U.S. Dollar Index (97.12, -0.38) finished lower by 0.4% with the greenback losing 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively, against the euro (1.1197) and the pound (1.2790). Also of note, the Eurogroup reached an agreement with Greece that will allow the disbursement of EUR8.50 billion in rescue funds to the crisis-ridden country.

Reviewing today's economic data, which included May Housing Starts and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June:

Housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.092 million units in May (Briefing.com consensus 1.227 million units), down from a revised 1.156 million units in April (from 1.172 million). Meanwhile, Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.168 million in May (Briefing.com consensus 1.250 million) from a revised 1.228 million in April (from 1.229 million).
The key takeaway from the report relates to the continued decline in single-family permits, which means supply shortages and affordability constraints are likely to persist in the new home market.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June declined to 94.5 (Briefing.com consensus 97.0) from 97.1 in May.
Only a handful of respondents identified the James Comey congressional testimony as a factor in their outlook, meaning specific political concerns did not play a significant role in the modest dimming of the outlook.
However, there is growing evidence that continued political bickering has taken a toll on sentiment across the political spectrum. Declines were observed across all political parties with self-identified independents reporting an 11.5-point decline in sentiment while Republicans (-9.2) and Democrats (-6.8) reported smaller declines.

On Monday, investors will receive the Current Account Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$123.4 billion) for the first quarter at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +14.3% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.6% YTD

Week In Review: Headlines Galore, Equities Bore

The stock market was fairly flat this week, especially in the second half, as investors chewed on a host of headlines, most notably of which was the FOMC's latest rate-hike decision. The S&P 500 registered three losses and a new record high this week, eventually settling with a slim gain of 0.1%. The Dow (+0.5%) and the Nasdaq (-0.9%) settled on opposite sides of the S&P 500.

After plunging nearly 3.0% last Friday, the top-weighted technology sector registered another notable decline in the first session of the week, losing 0.8%, as mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Facebook (FB) weighed. Amazon (AMZN) also underperformed, but the consumer discretionary sector, like the S&P 500, was able to escape with just a slim loss.

The tide turned in the bulls' favor on Tuesday as the aforementioned companies bounced back from their two-day declines. The technology and consumer discretionary sectors led the advance, pushing both the benchmark index and the Dow to new record highs. However, the S&P 500's gain was capped at 0.5% as investors approached Wednesday's FOMC rate decision with caution.

As expected, the FOMC voted to raise the fed funds target range by 25 basis points to 1.00%-1.25% in the midweek session. The vote was nearly unanimous with Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari being the lone dissenter. In addition, the Fed laid out a specific plan for how it will start to normalize its balance sheet and revealed that the median FOMC member expects one additional rate hike in 2017.

The Treasury market held a big gain going into the decision, underpinned by weak CPI and retail sales readings for May, but gave back a portion of that advance in the aftermath. However, in the equity market, the S&P 500 hardly deviated from its unchanged mark as investors continued to digest the Fed's policy prescription into the closing bell and beyond.

Equity indices opened solidly lower on Thursday as the market continued to debate whether the Fed might be tightening policy too much and/or too fast. In addition, sentiment was dampened by a Washington Post report that claimed Special Counsel Mueller's investigation of Russia's interference in the U.S. election is broadening in scope to examine whether President Trump tried to obstruct justice.

The technology and consumer discretionary sectors showed relative weakness, yet again, on Thursday morning. However, the two groups were able to reclaim a good portion of their losses as the day went on. A positive performance from the industrial sector, which was led by names like Caterpillar (CAT), General Electric (GE), and Boeing (BA), helped keep the S&P 500's loss (-0.2%) in check.

On Friday, Amazon (AMZN) dominated the headlines after announcing that it plans to acquire Whole Foods Market (WFM) for $42 per share in cash. Big-box retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT), Costco (COST), and Target (TGT) plunged on the news, sending the consumer staples sector to the bottom of the day's leaderboard. However, the S&P 500 still managed to eke out a slim victory.

It's also worth pointing out that WTI crude settled the week with a loss of 2.4% following a bearish EIA inventory report on Wednesday, which showed a smaller than expected draw of 1.7 million barrels (consensus -2.5 million barrels) in crude stocks and a build of 2.1 million barrels in gasoline inventories for the week ended May 9. The tumble left the commodity at its worst level since early November.

Despite the Fed's call for a third rate hike in 2017, the fed funds futures market points to the March 2018 FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 50.8%, down from last week's 60.7%. The implied probability of a December rate hike sits at 43.4%, down from last week's 51.7%.
Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Friday ended with a modest advance into the bell in both the Dow and S&P. Both indices ended the day in the green, led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average which added 24.38 points (+0.11%) to 21384.28. The S&P 500 was up less than a point at the bell (+0.03%) to 2433.15, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 13.74 points (-0.22%) to 6151.76. In all, this weeks moves took the three major averages to +8.2%, +8.7% and +14.3% YTD, respectively.

Economic data today include housing starts which decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.092 million units in May, down from a revised 1.156 million units in April (from 1.172 million). Meanwhile, Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.168 million in May from a revised 1.228 million in April (from 1.229 million). The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June declined to 94.5 from 97.1 in May.

The Technology (XLK 55.24, -0.11 -0.18%) space again ended in the red as weekly losses were modestly worse than that. Component CenturyLink (CTL 25.72, -1.23 -4.56%) finished lower after reports about fraudulent billings circulated. Of the remaining 10 S&P sectors, five ended higher and five ended lower: XLE +1.67%, XLU +0.50%, XLB +0.39%, XLI +0.33%, XLV +0.16%, XLY -0.03%, XLRE -0.06%, XLF -0.11%, IYZ -0.21%, XLP -1.05%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (946.68, -1.75 -0.18%) space, trading ended the week in the red. Component Seagate Tech (STX 42.03, +0.51 +1.23%) traded well today behind a premarket initiation at Evercore ISI. Other names in the space which underperformed included MU -2.29%, AAPL -1.40%, FIS -0.98%, GPN -0.87%, PYPL -0.86%, AVGO -0.73%, TSS -0.72%, FLIR -0.70%, ADSK -0.66%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Although not a deal in tech per se, Whole Foods (WFM 42.68, +9.62 +29.10%) agreed to be acquired by Amazon (AMZN 987.71, +23.54 +2.44%) for $42 per share in cash, or approximately $13.7 billion.
Trading higher in sympathy were select retail and grocer peers, however, shares of Impinj (PI 55.71, +8.94 +19.11%) and Digimarc (DMRC 36.95, +3.75 +11.30%) were also higher today on speculation that AMZN's deal would have a positive read-through for tracking/barcode names.

Synopsys (SNPS 73.78, -0.24 -0.32%) replenished its existing stock repurchase authorization back to $500 million.

Advanced Micro (AMD 11.44, -0.06 -0.52%) was selected by the Department of Energy's Exascale Computing Project to accelerate critical computing technology research for the development of the nation's first exascale supercomputers.

Shares of Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 31.87, -7.45 -18.95%) were under pressure today following a disclosure that the company is under investigation by the Department of Justice.

Norsat (NSAT 11.35, +0.05 +0.44%) received an amended offer from Hytera Communications for $11.50 per share.

CenturyLink (CTL) was the subject of a report which suggested a former employee raised concerns about alleged fraudulent billings.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Finisar (FNSR 27.78, +2.14 +8.35%) reported in-line Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.50 and $357.5 million, respectively. For Q1, the company sees EPS and revenues below market expectations at $0.37-0.43 and $330-350 million, respectively.

Analyst actions:

NANO and RTEC were upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel;
SQ was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse,
BAH was downgraded to Mkt Perform at Raymond James, to Hold at Vertical and to Hold at Drexel Hamilton;
AAOI was initiated with a Sell at BWS Financial,
HCKT was initiated with a Buy at SunTrust,
MCHP was initiated with an Outperform at Raymond James,
WDC was initiated with an Outperform at Evercore ISI,
STX was initiated with an In-Line at Evercore ISI

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:35 pm Closing Market Summary: Equity Market Advances to New Record High (:WRAPX) :

Wall Street kicked off the week on a positive note as the S&P 500 (+0.8%) bucked its recent sideways trend and advanced to a new record close. The Dow (+0.7%) also settled at a fresh all-time high while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+1.4%) exhibited relative strength as technology and biotechnology stocks outperformed. The three major averages finished Monday's session at their best marks of the day.

The top-weighted technology sector (+1.7%) rebounded from back-to-back weekly declines on Monday, underpinning the broader market from start to finish. The sector's top component by market cap--Apple (AAPL 146.34, +4.07)--was one of the group's best-performing components, jumping 2.9%, after the company's target price was raised to $180 from $171 at Maxim Group. Chipmakers also put together a noteworthy performance, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.9%.

Likewise, the health care sector (+1.1%) finished comfortably ahead of the benchmark index amid broad strength. Biotech names were among the sector's strongest components on Monday, advancing the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 299.79, +7.06) higher by 2.4%, with Biogen (BIIB 260.54, +8.80) leading the charge. BIIB jumped 3.5% after the company was upgraded to 'Neutral' from 'Sell' at UBS.

Out of the remaining advancers--financials (+1.0%), consumer discretionary (+0.8%), industrials (+0.6%), materials (+0.8%), consumer staples (+0.5%), and real estate (+0.1%)--the financial group's positive performance is the most noteworthy given the sector's important role in driving economic activity. The sector picked up its bullish two-week run right where it left off, extending its month-to-date advance to 5.8%.

It's worth pointing out that Monday's top-performing sectors--technology, financials, and health care--are also the largest sectors by weight, comprising nearly half of the broader market combined. When combined with the five remaining advancers, sectors accounting for around 85.0% of the broader market closed Monday in positive territory.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.7%) settled solidly lower as crude oil tumbled another 1.1%, extending its four-session slide to 4.3%. The commodity settled at a price of $44.46/bbl, which marks its worst level since mid-November. The lightly-weighted utilities (-0.4%) and telecom services (-0.2%) groups also closed Monday in the red.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries settled lower across the curve with the benchmark 10-yr yield climbing four basis points to 2.19%. Treasury yields moved higher in early-morning action following some hawkish remarks from New York Fed President William Dudley (FOMC voter).

The thrust of Mr. Dudley's remarks was that inflation will soon resume its upward path towards the Fed's 2.0% target. He also said that the flattening U.S. yield curve has to do with global forces, which is in contradiction with some observers who say that it reflects pessimism about the U.S. economy in an environment of higher policy rates.

Higher Treasury yields drew capital to the United States and buoyed the greenback on Monday, leaving the U.S. Dollar Index (97.24, +0.37) higher by 0.4%.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. The first report of the week--first quarter Current Account Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$123.4 billion)--will cross the wires on Tuesday at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +15.9% YTD
S&P 500 +9.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.5% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Wall Street started off the week on a high note with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.68%) and S&P 500 (+0.83%) closing at fresh all-time highs. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.42%) outperformed as technology rallied, but the index still remains roughly 100 points away from its all-time high set earlier this month.

The S&P Technology Sector (+1.66%) was the best performing industry, followed by Health Care (+1.08%) and Financials (+0.98%). Conversely, Energy (-0.69%) was the biggest laggard as crude oil futures continued their downward spiral, slipping to new seven-month lows.

Looking inside the Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK 56.07, +0.82), Micron (MU 31.20, +1.34), Advanced Micro (AMD 11.93, +0.49), & NVIDIA (NVDA 157.32, +5.70) led the space higher as semi's outperformed in today's session. Additionally, Apple (AAPL 146.34, +4.07) jumped nearly 3% after Maxim Group increased their price target on shares from $171 to $180. On the other hand, CenturyLink (CTL 25.36, -0.36) was the ETF's biggest decliner as investors continued to digest Friday's whistleblower claims.

Top Sector Developments
Notable News

IPG Photonics (IPGP 144.38, +4.11) announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire

Innovative Laser Technologies, for $40 million in cash. ILT is a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based designer and manufacturer of laser-based systems used to produce high-value, critical components primarily for the medical device industry. The acquisition is expected to be neutral to IPG's earnings per diluted share for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017.

RealPage (RP 37.10, +1.80) announced that it had acquired substantially all of the assets of American Utility Management, a provider of utility and energy management solutions for the multifamily housing industry. The purchase price was approximately $70 million and RealPage expects the acquisition to contribute approximately $15 million in revenue and an Adjusted EBITDA range of $2 - $3 million during 2017.

Notable Analyst Actions

Apple (AAPL 146.34, +4.07) target raised to $180 at Maxim Group

Impinj (PI 55.85, +0.14) downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley

MercadoLibre (MELI 274.32, +10.87) upgraded to Buy at Citigroup

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From Briefing.com: 4:31 pm Closing Market Summary: Easy Come, Easy Go (:WRAPX) :In a nutshell, 'easy come, easy go' sums up Tuesday's session as the stock market gave back nearly all of Monday's climb to new record highs. The Nasdaq (-0.8%) and the Dow (-0.3%) settled on opposite sides of the benchmark S&P 500 (-0.7%) while the small-cap Russell 2000 (-1.1%) underperformed.

The major averages opened Tuesday's session modestly lower with the energy sector (-1.3%) showing relative weakness. Crude oil futures plagued the energy group, dropping as low as $42.95 per barrel, as concerns about excess supply, and a deteriorating technical picture, continued to weigh on the commodity. The energy sector retraced some of its early loss, as did crude oil, but the sector still finished at the bottom of the day's leaderboard. WTI crude closed 2.1% lower at a price of $43.53 per barrel.

In general, cyclical sectors struggled amid the day's risk-off tone. Like energy, the consumer discretionary (-1.3%) and industrials (-1.2%) groups finished comfortably behind the benchmark index amid broad weakness. However, homebuilders were a pocked of strength within the consumer discretionary space, pushing the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 34.00, +0.12) higher by 0.4%, after Lennar (LEN 53.87, +1.13) reported better than expected earnings and revenues. In the industrial sector, transports underperformed, evidenced by the 1.8% decrease in the Dow Jones Transportation Average.

The top-weighted technology (-0.8%) and financials (-0.8%) sectors finished just a tick behind the broader market with just a handful of components managing to settle in the green. In the financial space, American Express (AXP 82.51, +0.63) was the top-performer, adding 0.8%. Meanwhile, tech heavyweights Oracle (ORCL 45.84, +0.11) and Adobe Systems (ADBE 140.91, +0.56) outperformed, adding around 0.3% apiece, ahead of their latest earnings reports.

On the countercyclical side, the heavily-weighted health care sector (+0.3%) settled at the top of the day's leaderboard, thanks in large part to the outperformance of the biotechnology industry. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 303.59, +3.80) increased by 1.3% with names like Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN 495.33, +23.66), Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN 119.05, +2.89), and Biogen (BIIB 266.00, +5.46) leading the charge.

The lightly-weighted utilities group (+0.1%) also managed to settle in the green, but the remaining defensive-oriented sectors--consumer staples (-0.4%) and telecom services (-1.0%)--finished in the red.

U.S. Treasuries moved higher in a curve-flattening trade on Tuesday with the 2-yr (1.35%) and 10-yr (2.16%) yields slipping one basis point and three basis points, respectively. Meanwhile, in the currency market, the U.S. Dollar Index (97.43, +0.20) registered its second-consecutive win, climbing 0.2%.

The greenback showed notable strength against the British pound (1.2630), adding 0.9%, following dovish remarks from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who said that the BoE should not rush to hike interest rates.

It's also worth noting that Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer (FOMC voter) and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren (non-FOMC voter) both commented on the potential downside of keeping interest rates too low for too long. Mr. Fischer focused on the risks to the housing market while Mr. Rosengren discussed the effects on the overall financial system.

Tuesday's lone economic report--first quarter Current Account Balance--came in better than expected, showing a deficit of $116.8 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$123.4 billion). The fourth quarter deficit was revised to $114.0 billion from $112.4 billion.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and May Existing Homes Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.52 million). The two reports will be released at 7:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +15.0% YTD
S&P 500 +8.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.4% YTD

4:22 pm FedEx beats by $0.37, reports revs in-line; guides FY18 EPS in-line (FDX) :
Reports Q4 (May) earnings of $4.25 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.37 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $3.88; revenues rose 21.0% year/year to $15.7 bln vs the $15.56 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

FedEx Express Segment
Revenue $7.18 billion, +6.8% y/y
Operating margin 12.7%
Revenue increased 7% primarily due to increased package volume, driven by international export growth of 5%, and higher base rates. Operating results increased primarily due to higher base rates, increased package volume, a positive net benefit from fuel and the continued benefit of cost management initiatives.

TNT Express Segment
Revenue $1.91 billion
Operating margin 4.4%

FedEx Ground Segment
Revenue $4.68 billion, +9% y/y
Operating margin 15.0%
Revenue increased due primarily to higher base rates and average daily package volume growth of 3%. Operating income increased due to higher yields and volume, partially offset by network expansion and staffing costs as well as increased self-insurance reserves.

FedEx Freight Segment
Revenue $1.70 billion, +6% y/y
Operating margin 7.8%
Revenue increased due to higher base rates and fuel surcharges. Average daily shipments were flat as the company focuses on improving revenue quality. Operating results decreased slightly as higher salaries and wages and increased information technology expenses offset the benefit from higher base rates.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY18, sees EPS of $13.20-14.00, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $13.58 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
CapEx expected to be $5.9 bln in 2018, in line with expectations.

4:12 pm Adobe Systems beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (ADBE) :
Reports Q2 (May) earnings of $1.02 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.95; revenues rose 26.7% year/year to $1.77 bln vs the $1.73 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of ~$1.00, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.97 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of ~$1.815 bln vs. $1.8 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co expects to achieve approximately $300 million of net new Digital Media ARR

Earnings Call Script

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

The broader market gave back the majority of yesterday's advance, as all three major indices finished lower. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the worst performer, shedding 50.98 points (-0.82%) to 6188.03. The S&P 500 lost 16.43 points (-0.67%) to 2437.03, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 61.85 points (-0.29%) to 21467.14.

The Technology (XLK 55.62, -0.45 -0.80%) space again turned in a tough session, finishing near lows. Component Advanced Micro (AMD 12.64, +0.71 +5.95%) was one of the names bucking the overall down trend today, finishing with impressive gains. The US Telecom IYZ -1.80% space was the worst performer today, followed by XLE -1.28%, XLY -1.25%, XLI -1.07%, XLF -0.86%, XLB -0.55%, XLP -0.39%, XLRE -0.18%, XLU +0.06%, XLV +0.33%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (954.87, -7.50 -0.78%) space, trading fell to lows in the final moments. Component Microchip (MCHP 80.35, -2.26 -2.74%) was one of the worse performing Semi (SOX 1074.89, -13.03 -1.20%) names today. Other names in the space which were hard hit included FSLR -2.48%, TXN -2.27%, QRVO -2.21%, SWKS -2.16%, AMAT -2.10%, STX -1.89%, PAYX -1.83%, INTC -1.83%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Glu Mobile (GLUU 2.60, +0.07 +2.77%) entered into multi-year agreement with WWE (WWE 20.15, -0.55 -2.66%) to develop a mobile game featuring WWE Superstars, logos and marks.

Norsat (NSAT 11.37, +0.05 +0.44%) agreed to be acquired by Hytera Communications for $11.50 per share in cash.

Agilysys (AGYS 9.95, +0.12 +1.22%) appointed Tony Pritchett CFO; Mr. Pritchett has been serving as Agilysys's Interim CFO since November 2016.

Autodesk (ADSK 104.93, -1.23 -1.16%) appointed interim co-CEO and chief marketing officer Andrew Anagnost as the company's new president and CEO, effective immediately.

Intelsat (I 3.11, flat) priced a private offering of $1.5 billion Senior Notes due 2025; will bear interest at a rate of 9.750% per annum.

Orange (ORAN 16.06, -0.16 -0.99%) completed the sale of BT (BT 18.27, -0.40 -2.14%) shares; secured financing at a negative interest rate.

Analyst actions:

VSLR was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman,
MRVL was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at Pacific Crest,
NVDA was upgraded to Sector Weight from Underweight at Pacific Crest,
ENPH was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Deutsche Bank;
CSOD was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
ON was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
ADP was downgraded to Neutral at Goldman,
PAYX was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman;
ITRI and SSNI were both initiated with Buy ratings at Guggenheim

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Slip Into the Close, End Little Changed (:WRAPX) :The stock market held a modest gain throughout the majority of Thursday's session, but increased selling pressure in the final hour of action dragged the major averages from their best marks of the day. The S&P 500 traded as high as +0.3%, but finished with a loss of 0.1%. The Dow (-0.1%) also finished with slim loss while the Nasdaq (unch) settled just a tick above its unchanged mark.

Equities opened Thursday's session slightly lower, but ticked up into positive territory after the Senate released its version of the healthcare reform bill. The Senate's version would roll back the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion more gradually than the version that the House passed last month, but the cuts to Medicaid would be larger in total under the Senate's bill. However, in general, the two versions of the bill are very similar.

Lawmakers were hoping to vote on the bill before the July 4th recess, but Senate Republicans currently do not have enough votes to pass the piece of legislation. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) confirmed that they oppose the bill as it does not fully repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The health care sector (+1.1%) was strong from start to finish on Thursday, settling at the top of the day's leaderboard by a comfortable margin. Nearly all of the sector's components finished in positive territory, but the biotechnology industry exhibited particular strength, advancing the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 320.11, +4.01) higher by 1.3%. Today's win marks the fourth in a row for the IBB, which now trades higher by 9.4% for the week.

As for the remaining advancers, gains were relatively modest with no group adding more than 0.2%. The top-weighted technology sector (+0.1%) managed to settled a step ahead of the broader market, but its components were pretty evenly mixed between green and red. Oracle (ORCL 50.30, +3.97) was the sector's top-performer, jumping 8.6%, after the company beat top and bottom line estimates and issued upbeat guidance.

Crude oil managed to break its three-day losing streak with WTI crude finishing higher by 0.5% at $42.74/bbl. However, the commodity drifted from its session high in the afternoon, eventually settling in the middle of the day's trading range. The energy sector (-0.1%) also slipped in the afternoon, retracing all of the modest gain it held throughout the morning.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.6%) was weak throughout Thursday's session and eventually finished in negative territory for the third day in a row. The consumer staples (-0.7%) and utilities (-0.4%) groups also closed notably lower while the remaining laggards--consumer discretionary, industrials, and telecom services--finished with losses of no more than 0.2%.

U.S. Treasuries settled modestly higher across the curve with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index (97.25, +0.03) ended the day little changed.

Investor participation was below average as fewer than 900 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor (50-day simple moving average: 1.0 billion).

Reviewing today's economic data, which included Initial Claims, May Leading Indicators, and the April FHFA Housing Price Index:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 241,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 238,000 (from 237,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.944 million from the revised count of 1.936 million (from 1.935 million).

The key takeaway from this report is that it will feed expectations for another decent-sized gain in nonfarm payrolls since it encompassed the week in which the survey for the June employment report was conducted.

The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for May increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) after moving higher by a revised 0.2% in April (from 0.3%).

The key takeaway from the report is that strengths among the leading indicators have remained more widespread than weaknesses.

The FHFA Housing Price Index for April increased 0.7%, which followed a revised uptick of 0.7% (from 0.6%) in March.Friday's lone economic report--May New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 599,000)--will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +15.9% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.5% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

The broader market finished on a low note today despite mostly favorable trading action during the majority of the session. The lone gainer today was the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite; the index added 2.73 points (+0.04%) to 6236.69. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 12.74 points (-0.06%) to 21397.29, and the S&P 500 declined 1.11 (-0.05%) to 2434.50.

The Technology (XLK 55.95, +0.02 +0.04%) space sold off modestly into the close but held the flat line to end slightly higher. Component Oracle (ORCL 50.30, +3.97 +8.57%) was the best performer in the space today following better than expected earnings and guidance. The Healthcare XLV +1.04% space finished with the best gains today following the release of the Senate Healthcare Bill; other sectors finished as follows: IYZ +0.12%, XLB +0.11%, XLRE +0.06%, XLE -0.06%, XLI -0.21%, XLY -0.23%, XLU -0.47%, XLF -0.62%, XLP -0.66%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (961.75, +0.45 +0.05%) space, trading began the session with modest pressure, but climbed out of the red and held small gains into the bell. Component Accenture (ACN 122.08, -5.03 -3.96%) was the worst performer in the space today after its in-line earnings and guidance. Other names in the space which finished higher today included FSLR +3.20%, ADI +1.68%, AKAM +1.50%, MSI +1.30%, NTAP +1.30%, CRM +1.04%, ADSK +1.03%, GPN +0.97%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Snap (SNAP 17.61, +0.34 +1.97%) said to have paid $250-350 million to acquire Zenly ahead of launching Snap Map, according to Tech Crunch.

China Unicom (CHU 14.89, +0.23 +1.57%) looking to raise roughly $10 billion with help from Alibaba (BABA 142.28, -1.01 -0.70%) & Tencent (TCEHY 36.33, +0.38 +1.06%), according to Reuters.

YuMe (YUME 4.93, +0.26 +5.57%) declared special dividend of $1.00 per share and quarterly dividend of $0.03 per share; Reaffirmed previous EBITDA guidance.

Wipro (WIT 5.06, +0.07 +1.50%) announced collaboration with Red Hat (RHT 98.89, +0.31 +0.31%) 'to offer developers and IT teams a repeatable and rapid methodology for application modernization across public, private, and hybrid clouds'.

Weibo (WB 72.25, -4.71 -6.12%) confirmed public notice issued by The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People's Republic of China.

CACI Intl (CACI 125.90, +5.05 +4.18%) reaffirmed FY17 guidance and issued FY18 guidance with in-line sales.

Mitek Systems (MITK 8.75, flat) named Jeff Davison as Chief Financial Officer effective June 21.

STMicroelectronics (STM 14.99, -0.36 -2.35%) announced a $1.5 billion dual-tranche offering of New Convertible Bonds, the early redemption of its 2019 Convertible Bonds, the launch of a share buy-back program.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Oracle (ORCL) reported better than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.89 and $10.94 billion, respectively. For Q1, the company sees EPS in constant currency of $0.59-0.61 on total revenue growth of 4-6%. For FY18, the company sees EPS growth of double digits.

Accenture (ACN) reported in-line Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.52 and $8.87 billion. For Q4, the company sees in-line revenues of $8.85-9.10 billion.

Methode Electronics (MEI 40.10, +1.45 +3.75%) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.62 on better than expected revenues of $219.7 million. For FY18, the company sees EPS below market expectations at $2.43-2.63 on in-line revenues of $807-827 million.

Analyst actions:

ORCL was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush,
INFN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley & Co.,
SPLK was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Guggenheim,
VNTV was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Keefe Bruyette;
EFII was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Longbow,
CLS was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie,
TSM and TEO were downgraded to Hold from Buy at HSBC;
MSFT was initiated with a Buy at Cleveland Research,
IBM was initiated with a Neutral at Cleveland Research

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From Briefing.com: 4:40 pm Closing Market Summary: Bulls Outlast Bears on Friday (:WRAPX) :Wall Street ended the week on a positive note as the S&P 500 (+0.2%) cruised to a modest victory on the backs of the technology (+0.7%) and energy (+0.8%) sectors. The Nasdaq (+0.5%) and the Russell 2000 (+0.7%) outperformed while the Dow (unch) settled just a tick below its unchanged mark.

Equity indices opened Friday's session with slim losses, but quickly moved into positive territory. From there, the stock market stalled and began trending sideways with a modest gain as the bulls and the bears went toe to toe. Buyers rallied around the technology, energy, and industrials groups while sellers took control of the financials, consumer discretionary, and health care spaces.

The energy group (+0.8%) was the strongest sector out of the gate, despite early weakness in the crude oil futures market. However, WTI crude quickly regained its footing and cruised to its second win of the week, ending Friday's session higher by 0.6% at a price of $43.01/bbl. However, for the week, WTI crude settled lower by 4.0%.

Despite a slow start, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.7%) eventually climbed to the top of the day's leaderboard. The tech space benefited from broad strength with mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL 146.35, +0.72), Facebook (FB 155.07, +1.67), Alphabet (GOOGL 986.09, +9.47), and Microsoft (MSFT 71.21, +0.95) adding between 0.5% and 1.4%.

The industrial space (+0.4%) also contributed to the bulls' cause with transports showing relative strength. The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.7%) easily outpaced the broader market with names like FedEx (FDX 215.35, +3.72) and Norfolk Southern (NSC 119.29, +1.89) leading the charge. The lightly-weighted materials (+0.4%) and real estate (+0.4%) sectors also outperformed.

However, on the flip side, the influential financials (-0.5%), consumer discretionary (-0.1%), and health care (-0.1%) sectors weighed on the broader market. The financial sector suffered from broad weakness and continued to move deeper into negative territory as the day wore on. Conversely, the health care and consumer discretionary spaces rallied a bit in the final stretch to end little changed.

Biotech stocks weighed on the health care group for much of the day as investors engaged in some profit taking following the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF's (IBB 320.74, +0.63) four-day rally. However, the IBB eventually shook off the bearish sentiment, settling higher by 0.2%.

In the consumer discretionary sector, home improvement retailers weighed with Home Depot (HD 151.31, -4.17) and Lowe's (LOW 76.07, -2.27) losing 2.7% and 2.9%, respectively. The sector's worst-performing component, however, was Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY 29.65, -4.09), which plunged 12.1% after the company missed top and bottom line estimates.

The bears made a last-ditch effort in the final stretch, but the bulls were able to hold on for the S&P 500's second win of the week. Today's uptick left the benchmark index higher by 0.2% for the week.

Outside of the stock market, U.S. Treasuries settled modestly higher across the curve on Friday with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.14%. Meanwhile, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 10.02, -0.45, -4.1%) closed at the historically-low 10.00 mark.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to New Home Sales for May:

New Home Sales in May hit an annualized rate of 610,000, which was above the revised April rate of 593,000 (from 569,000), and more than the 599,000 that was expected by the Briefing.com consensus.

The key takeaway from the report is that affordability constraints driven by rising median prices are going to continue to serve as a headwind for first-time buyers who are facing added supply constraints in the existing home market.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +16.4% YTDS&P 500 +8.9% YTDDow Jones Industrial Average +8.3% YTDRussell 2000 +4.3% YTD Week In Review: Biotech Rumbles, Crude Oil Tumbles

After some teeter tottering at the start of the week, the S&P 500 settled into a sideways trend, drifting alongside its unchanged mark, as investors lacked conviction to decisively move the market one way or the other. In the end, the benchmark index sealed its second-consecutive weekly win with a slim gain of 0.2%.

Wall Street kicked off the week on a positive note with both the S&P 500 and the Dow advancing to new all-time highs. The Nasdaq exhibited relative strength as technology and biotechnology stocks outperformed, bucking their recent bearish trends, with names like Apple (AAPL) and Biogen (BIIB) leading the charge. Financials also posted a solid performance, continuing their bullish two-week run.

The tide turned on Tuesday as the benchmark index coughed up nearly all of Monday's advance. The energy sector finished at the bottom of the leaderboard, for the second day in a row, as crude oil continued to tumble amid excess supply concerns. However, despite the bearish tone, biotechnology stocks kept chugging along, pushing the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) higher by 1.3%.

Range-bound action set in on Wednesday as the heavily-weighted health care and technology sectors upheld the S&P 500 amid weakness in the broader market. Staying true to the week's trend, biotech companies were bullish, advancing the IBB higher by 4.1%, while crude oil was bearish, dropping another 2.3%, despite a relatively upbeat inventory report from the Department of Energy.

Investors shifted their attention to Washington on Thursday as the Senate rolled out its version of the healthcare reform bill. Compared to the version that the House passed last month, the Senate's version would roll back the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion more gradually, but the cuts to Medicaid would be larger in total. However, in general, the two versions of the bill are very similar.

The health care sector took the news in stride, moving higher by 1.1%, but the S&P 500 settled slightly lower as the financials, consumer staples, and utilities sectors weighed. Crude oil did manage to secure its first win of the week, but the advance was modest in comparison to the commodity's recent swoon. Moving into Friday's session, the energy component held a week-to-date loss of 4.5%.

Equities ended the week on a positive note as the technology and energy sectors fended off the negatively-charged financials, consumer discretionary, and health care groups. Biotech stocks fell to some profit-taking efforts early, but the IBB still managed to pull out a win, ending the week higher by 9.6%. Crude oil registered another modest win on Friday, but ended the week lower by 4.0%.

Market participants altered their rate-hike expectations a bit this week following comments from several FOMC voters, including Fed Vice Chair Fischer, Fed Governor Powell, New York Fed President Dudley, Chicago Fed President Evans, and Dallas Fed President Kaplan.

The fed funds futures market now points to the December FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 51.3%, up from last week's 43.4%.

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Today's action closed with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite the best performer, adding 28.56 points (+0.46%) to 6265.25. The S&P 500 gained 3.80 (+0.16%) to 2438.30, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.53 points (-0.01%) to 21394.76. This week's moves take the three major US indices to +16.4%, +8.9% and +8.3% YTD, respectively.

The Technology (XLK 56.30, +0.35 +0.63%) space, action ended higher today. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 154.11, -4.26 -2.69%) was pressured today following some insider selling. Also lower, BlackBerry (BBRY 9.71, -1.35 -12.21%) got smacked following the mixed Q1 print. The US Telecom IYZ +0.71% space was the best performing S&P sector today, followed by XLE +0.67%, XLRE +0.43%, XLB +0.39%, XLI +0.37%, XLP +0.04%, XLY -0.12%, XLV -0.15%, XLU -0.34%, XLF -0.38%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (968.18, +6.43 +0.67%) space, trading ended the week higher. Component Western Digital (WDC 93.34, +3.09 +3.42%) was particularly strong today; the stock goes ex-dividend next Wednesday. Other names in the space which outperformed today included FSLR +3.36%, AKAM +2.56%, WU +2.08%, NTAP +1.94%, TDC +1.92%, MCHP +1.89%, V +1.73%, AMAT +1.73%, XRX +1.68%, STX +1.57%, MSI +1.47%, XLNX +1.43%, MSFT +1.35%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Toshiba (TOSBF 2.66, -0.22 -7.64%) lowered its FY16 earnings outlook.

Synchronoss Tech (SNCR 16.24, +4.06 +33.33%) shareholder Siris Capital Group affirmed its 12.93% active stake and delivered a letter indicating that they believe they could be able to acquire the company in an all-cash acquisition at $18.00 per share. Management later confirmed the receipt of the takeover interest, and will review its options.

Parkervision (PRKR 2.09, -0.34 -13.98%) announced that the Regional Court of Munich is holding its decision in the ParkerVision v. Apple (AAPL 146.35, +0.72 +0.49%) case until after the German Federal Patent Court rules on the related pending nullity (validity) action.
In addition to reporting earnings, BlackBerry (BBRY) announced a 31 million common share purchase program.

Perficient (PRFT 18.47, +0.92 +5.24%) acquired Clarity Consulting; terms not disclosed.

In reaction to quarterly results:

BlackBerry (BBRY) reported better than expected Q1 EPS of $0.02 on worse than expected revenues of $244 million ($235 million on GAAP basis). For FY18, the company sticks with their prior expectations.

SMART Global (SGH 17.14, +0.94 +5.80%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.62 and $206.97 million, respectively. For Q4, the company sees EPS ahead of market expectations at $-0.62-0.66 and revenues in the range of $205-215 million.

Analyst actions:

ORCL was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Argus;
LEJU was downgraded to Underweight at JP Morgan,
MELI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup;
OCLR, ACIA and LITE were initiated with Buy ratings at DA Davidson,
RHT was initiated with a Neutral at Piper Jaffray,
SHOP was initiated with an Equal Weight at Stephens,
NOW was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
WIX was initiated with an Outperform at Wedbush

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From Briefing.com: 4:34 pm Closing Market Summary: Averages Open the Week Mixed (:WRAPX) :

The major averages opened the week on a mixed note as the influential technology (-0.6%) and health care (-0.2%) sectors mitigated gains from seven of the S&P 500's eleven sectors. The benchmark index (unch) eked out a slim victory, as did the Dow (+0.1%), while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.3%) settled with a modest loss.

Led by the top-weighted technology and financials sectors, the S&P 500 quickly advanced to a gain of 0.5% at the start of Monday's session. However, the upbeat sentiment soon began to fade and a wave of selling pressure pulled the benchmark index back to its flat line. The technology group paced the retreat, dropping from +0.5% to -0.6% about an hour or so after the opening bell. The sector challenged its flat line at midday, but couldn't cross the threshold, eventually settling with a loss of 0.6%.

The financial sector also sold off in the mid-morning, but found support at its flat line and eventually worked its way back up to settle near the top of the day's sector standings with a gain of 0.5%. Last week's Dodd-Frank stress test, which went well for all 34 companies that are required to take it, helped underpin the financial group as it is assumed that most, if not all, of those 34 companies will see their capital return plans, which feature share buybacks and dividend increases, approved by the Federal Reserve.

In the end, seven of the eleven sectors finished in positive territory. The lightly-weighted utilities (+0.8%) and telecom services (+0.6%) groups finished at the very top of the day's leaderboard. Meanwhile, the consumer discretionary (+0.3%) and consumer staples (+0.4%) groups also outperformed. The consumer discretionary space used broad strength to overcome Amazon's (AMZN 993.98, -9.76) loss of 1.0% with retailers showing particular resolve, evidenced by the 1.8% increase in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 40.25, +0.72).

Within the consumer staples space, drug retailers advanced on news that Walgreens Boot Alliance's (WBA 77.53, +1.19) pending merger with Rite Aid (RAD 4.05, +0.94) may soon be approved by the Federal Trade Commission. The two companies jumped 1.6% and 30.2%, respectively. Costco (COST 160.20, +3.07) also finished solidly higher, adding 2.0%, after the company's stock was upgraded to 'Outperform' from 'Market Perform' at Raymond James.

On the downside, the health care sector (-0.2%) struggled throughout the session as investors engaged in some profit taking following last week's health care rally. Biotechnology stocks contributed to the underperformance, leaving the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 319.72, -1.02) lower for the first time since June 16. The IBB finished with a loss of 0.3%.

The energy sector (-0.2%) also put together a disappointing performance even though crude oil ended higher for the third session in a row. The commodity advanced 0.8% to $43.37/bbl, settling just a step below its best mark of the day.

U.S. Treasuries moved slightly higher across the curve on Monday, leaving the benchmark 10-yr yield one basis point lower at 2.14%. Meanwhile, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 9.74, -0.28, -2.8%) slipped to a fresh three-week low, signaling increased complacency within the market regarding near-term risks.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to May Durable Orders:

May durable goods orders declined 1.1%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a decrease of 0.6%. The prior month's reading was revised to -0.9% (from -0.7%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) to follow the prior month's revised downtick of 0.5% (from -0.4%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it provides "hard" data that suggests economic activity in the U.S. is not as robust as many would like it to be (or would like to think it is).

On Tuesday, investors will receive the April S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index (Briefing.com consensus 5.9%) at 9:00 ET and the June Consumer Confidence Index (Briefing.com consensus 116.7) at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +16.1% YTD
S&P 500 +8.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.4% YTD
Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

The broader market lost a little bit of its pep as the bell tolled on Monday, ending flat albeit mixed. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the lone underperformer, shedding 18.10 points (-0.29%) on its way to 6247.15. The Dow Jones Industrial Average by contrast was the best performer, adding 14.79 points (+0.07%) to 21409.55, while the S&P 500 ended in the middle by gaining less than a point (+0.03%) to 2439.07.

The Technology (XLK 56.00, -0.30 -0.53%) space was the worst performing S&P sector today, ending near lows despite posting modest gains in the morning. Component Qorvo (QRVO 66.41, -3.53 -5.05%) was the worst performer. Utilities XLU +0.68% led the remaining S&P sectors today, followed by XLRE +0.46%, XLF +0.42%, XLP +0.40%, XLY +0.36%, XLB +0.30%, IYZ +0.15%, XLI +0.03%, XLV -0.11%, XLE -0.22%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (962.45, -5.73 -0.59%) space, trading fell to lows in the morning session after opening with some gains. Component Alphabet (GOOG 952.27, -13.32 -1.38%) was modestly lower today after announcing an agreement with Avis Budget (CAR 27.67, +3.43 +14.15%) for GOOG's Waymo to offer fleet support and maintenance services for Waymo's self-driving car program at Avis Car Rental and Budget Car Rental locations.. Other names in the space which underperformed included SWKS -2.91%, KLAC -1.97%, AMAT -1.91%, LRCX -1.84%, TXN -1.60%, MCHP -1.58%, ADSK -1.51%, INTU -1.42%, EBAY -1.35%, RHT -1.24%, ADI -1.20%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Pandora Media (P 8.46, +0.18 +2.17%) CEO Tim Westergren plans to leave the company, according to ReCode.

Avis Budget (CAR) confirmed an agreement with Alphabet's (GOOG) Waymo to offer fleet support and maintenance services for Waymo's self-driving car program at Avis Car Rental and Budget Car Rental locations.

CDK Global (CDK 62.86, +0.21 +0.34%) appointed Joe Tautges as CFO effective August 9.

GTT Communications (GTT 33.90, +1.35 +4.15%) to acquire Global Capacity for $100 million in cash and 1.85 million shares of GTT common stock.

Cisco Systems' (CSCO 32.24, +0.15 +0.47%) CEO adopted pre-arranged stock trading plan to sell up to 339,725 shares of Cisco stock acquired upon vesting of restricted stock units; plan is scheduled to terminate in December 2017.

Telecom Italia (TI 9.09, -0.06 -0.66%) entered a sports programming partnership with Eurosport and

Discovery Communications (DISCA 26.20, +0.41 +1.59%).

VOXX Intl (VOXX 8.75, +0.90 +11.46%) to sell Hirschmann Car Communication GmbH and its worldwide subsidiaries to a subsidiary of TE Connectivity (TEL 78.65, -0.12 -0.15%) for about $166.0 million.

Netease.com (NTES 320.64, -12.92 -3.87%) named Zhaoxuan Yang as Chief Financial Officer effective June 30.

Sky plc (SKYAY 49.20, +0.20 +0.41%) and Vodafone (VOD 28.79, -0.06 -0.21%) terminated sale and purchase agreement.

Analyst actions:

P was upgraded to Sector Weight from Underweight at Pacific Crest;
SSYS was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman,
GRUB was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
INTU was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup,
SPTN was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Pivotal Research Group;
BL was initiated with a Mkt Perform at JMP Securities,
CARB was initiated with an Equal Weight at Barclays,
EEFT was initiated with a Buy at Lake Street,
VDSI was initiated with an Outperform at Imperial Capital

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From Briefing.com: 4:27 pm Closing Market Summary: Bears Dominate on Tuesday (:WRAPX) :

Wall Street took it to the chin on Tuesday as equities sold off into the closing bell, leaving the major averages at their worst marks of the day. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (-1.6%) was hit the hardest as technology and biotechnology stocks weighed. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and the Dow settled with losses of 0.8% and 0.5%, respectively.

There was a notable jump in long-term rates on Tuesday as sovereign bond markets came under selling pressure in the wake of a morning remark from ECB President Mario Draghi that the threat of deflation is gone. The yield on the 10-yr Treasury note jumped six basis points to 2.20%, which contributed partly to the selling activity in richly-valued technology stocks and the underperformance of rate-sensitive areas like the S&P 500 utilities sector (-1.3%).

However, the heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.5%) benefited from the activity in the Treasury market as it resulted in a steepening of the yield curve, which is a positive for the financial industry's bottom line. The win marks the second in a row for the financial group and comes ahead of tomorrow's capital return plans, which will be released after the close.

Like financials, the energy sector (-0.2%) finished ahead of the broader market as crude oil cruised to its fourth-consecutive advance. Underpinned by a weaker dollar, the energy component jumped 2.0% to $44.25/bbl. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index (96.07, -1.04) tumbled 1.1% to a fresh nine-month low in reaction to the aforementioned remark from Mr. Draghi.

However, in the end, the bulls were just no match for the bears on Tuesday as ten of the eleven sectors finished in the red. The top-weighted technology group (-1.7%) finished at the very bottom of the leaderboard amid broad weakness. Alphabet (GOOGL 948.09, -24.00) was one of the sector's weakest components, dropping 2.5%, after European antitrust regulators hit the company with a $2.7 billion fine for skewing search results in favor of its own shopping site. Chipmakers also displayed notable weakness, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 2.7%.

The lightly-weighted telecom services space (-1.4%) finished just a tick ahead of the technology group following news that Sprint (S 8.18, +0.17) has entered into exclusive talks with Charter Communications (CHTR 329.87, -2.78) and Comcast (CMCSA 39.25, -0.34) regarding a wireless deal. Wireless heavyweights Verizon (VZ 44.84, -0.91) and AT&T (T 37.70, -0.45) declined 2.0% and 1.2%, respectively, following the news.

Biotechnology stocks also exhibited notable weakness, leaving the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 310.89, -8.65) lower by 2.7%, as investors took some money off the table following last week's biotech rally. However, the health care sector (-0.9%) held up relatively well, settling just a tick below the benchmark index.

Outside of real estate (-0.4%), the remaining laggards--consumer discretionary (-0.7%), industrials (-0.8%), materials (-0.7%), and consumer staples (-0.9%)--finished roughly in line with the broader market.

Also of note, the Senate decided to push back a vote on the Republican healthcare bill until after Congress returns from the July Fourth recess, as most expected.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the June Consumer Confidence Index and the April Case-Shiller 20-city Index:

The consumer confidence reading for June rose to 118.9 from the prior month's revised reading of 117.6 (from 117.9). The Briefing.com consensus expected the survey to hit 116.7.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer expectations for the short-term have been reined in some, but are still upbeat overall.
The April Case-Shiller 20-city Index hit 5.7% (Briefing.com consensus 5.9%) to follow last month's unrevised 5.9% increase.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and May Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%). The two reports will be released at 7:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.
Nasdaq Composite +14.2% YTD
S&P 500 +8.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.4% YTD

4:07 pm CalAmp beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS midpoint below consensus; guides Q2 revs in line (CAMP) :
Reports Q1 (May) earnings of $0.29 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.27; revenues fell 3.3% year/year to $88.1 mln vs the $86.85 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of fiscal 2018 was $13.2 million and Adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.0%, compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $13.7 million and Adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.1% in the first quarter of fiscal 2017.

Gross margin was 42.5% in the first quarter of fiscal 2018, up from 38.2% in the first quarter of fiscal 2017.
Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.23-0.29 vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $86-91 mln vs. $89.49 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; Co sees Q2 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $10.5 to $13.5 million.
Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Overall, the broader market began flat and fell off as the session progressed. Action ultimately wound down on Tuesday with all three major US indices near lows. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite doubled the percentage losses of the S&P today, slipping 100.53 points (-1.61%) to 6146.62. The S&P 500, for its part, shed 19.69 points (-0.81%) to 2419.38, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average could call itself the winner of the day, losing only 98.89 points (-0.46%) to 21310.66.

Market data today included the consumer confidence reading for June which rose to 118.9 from the prior months revised reading of 117.6 (from 117.9). Also, the April Case-Shiller 20-city Index hit 5.7% to follow last month's unrevised 5.9% increase.

The Technology (XLK 55.08, -0.92 -1.64%) space was the worst performing S&P sector today. Component Seagate Tech (STX 39.51, -2.88 -6.79%) was pressured by peer Western Digital's (WDC 91.85, -0.81 -0.87%) updated guidance. After tech, the Utilities XLU -1.18% space was the worst performer, followed by XLV -0.91%, XLP -0.88%, XLY -0.79%, XLI -0.75%, IYZ -0.63%, XLB -0.61%, XLRE -0.40%, XLE -0.17%, XLF +0.50%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (946.39, -16.06 -1.67%) space, trading ended at lows. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 146.58, -5.57 -3.66%) was lower despite announcing an autonomous driving partnership with Volkswagen (VLKAY 31.14, +0.54 +1.76%). Other names in the space which xxx.

Other notable news items among sector components:
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sprint (S 8.18, +0.17 +2.12%) is in discussions with Charter (CHTR 329.87, -2.78 -0.84%) and Comcast (CMCSA 39.25, -0.34 -0.86%) regarding wireless deal. CNBC's David Faber later commented on S/CHTR/CMCSA wireless talks; said it was unlikely Charter or Comcast will buy a stake in Sprint.

Pandora Media (P 8.47, +0.01 +0.12%) confirmed media reports that Tim Westergren has decided to step down from his position as CEO.
EU commission fined Alphabet (GOOG 927.33, -24.94 -2.62%) EUR 2.42 billion for 'abusing dominance as search engine by giving illegal advantage to own comparison shopping service'. In response, GOOG said it may consider an appeal.

Western Digital (WDC) raised Q4 earnings guidance to $2.85 from $2.55-2.65 and raised gross margin guidance to 41% from 40%, but kept revenue guidance unchanged at $4.8 billion.

PC-TEL (PCTI 6.93, -0.02 -0.29%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.055 per share from $0.05 per share.

NAVER to acquire Xerox (XRX 29.01, -0.18 -0.62%) Research Centre Europe; expected to close in Q3.

CB&I (CBI 20.02, +5.62 +39.03%) shares were strong in reaction to a Court ruling in the Toshiba (TOSBF 2.60, -0.09 -3.35%) Westinghouse Electric case.

Micron (MU 31.66, -0.84 -2.58%) said it is discontinuing its Lexar removable storage retail business.

America Movil SA (AMX 15.97, -0.19 -1.18%) formed a JV with JCDecaux by merging their OOH businesses in Mexico.

Apple (AAPL 143.74, -2.08 -1.43%) rumored to have acquired German computer vision company SensoMotoric Instruments, according to MacRumors.

In reaction to quarterly results:

FactSet (FDS 165.65, -0.44 -0.26%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS of $1.85 on in-line revenues of $312.12 million. For Q4, the company sees EPS and revenues in-line at $1.86-1.92 and $321-328 million, respectively.

Companies scheduled to report quarterly results tonight/tomorrow: CAMP/PAYX

Analyst actions:

BBOX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sidoti,
STM was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
CCMP was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham;
PI was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at Pacific Crest,
CAMT was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham;
WK, ULTI, QTWO, INST, HUBS, EVBG, CRM, BL, UPLD, RNG all initiated with Buy ratings at SunTrust, SHOP, MANH, PCTY were initiated with Hold ratings at SunTrust

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From Briefing.com: 4:26 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Bounce Back from Tuesday's Tumble (:WRAPX) :Wall Street registered a solid win on Wednesday as the top-weighted financials (+1.6%) and technology (+1.3%) sectors carried the S&P 500 (+0.9%) back to its flat line for the week. The Nasdaq (+1.4%) outperformed the benchmark index while the Dow (+0.7%) lagged, but all three major averages settled near the top of the day's trading range. The small-cap Russell 2000 added 1.6%.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (+1.6%) led Wednesday's session from start to finish, extending its week-to-date gain to 2.7%, which was undoubtedly a positive for investor sentiment considering the group's important role in driving economic activity. However, the bounce-back performance of the top-weighted information technology sector (+1.3%), which suffered back-to-back losses on Monday and Tuesday, was just as important in fueling the stock market's advance.

Tech stocks were lagging in pre-market action, but then showed signs of life after the European Central Bank said that the market misjudged yesterday's remarks from ECB President Mario Draghi, which were originally deemed as hawkish. The tech-heavy Nasdaq tested its 50-day simple moving average (6,234) in the opening minutes and then quickly moved higher, most likely on the back of some short-covering activity, after the key technical level held.

Most other cyclical groups also finished solidly higher, including consumer discretionary (+1.0%), industrials (+0.9%), energy (+0.6%), and materials (+0.8%). The consumer discretionary space benefited from broad strength, but homebuilders showed particular resolve after KB Home (KBH 24.06, +1.24) beat both top and bottom line estimates and issued upbeat guidance. The iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 34.05, +0.56) added 1.7%.

Transports helped underpin the industrial sector, sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 1.4%. Industrial heavyweight Caterpillar (CAT 106.45, +2.52) also pitched in, adding 2.4%.

For the energy sector, the bullish bias stemmed from the crude oil futures market, which advanced for the fifth session in a row after the Department of Energy reported that U.S. crude inventories increased by 0.1 million barrels (consensus -2.6 million barrels) and gasoline stockpiles decreased by 0.9 million barrels for the week ended June 23. WTI crude recovered the last leg of last week's swoon, climbing 1.1% to $44.73/bbl.

Meanwhile, on the countercyclical side, the influential health care sector (+0.5%) struggled to keep pace with the broader market as some of its top components by market cap, including Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 133.82, -1.19) and Pfizer (PFE 33.75, -0.02), weighed. However, most components finished in the green. Biotech stocks bounced back from their two-day swoon, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 316.88, +5.99) higher by 1.9%.

Like health care, the consumer staples (+0.4%) and telecom services (+0.4%) groups underperformed, but still finished in the green. Meanwhile, the real estate group finished just a tick below its unchanged mark while the utilities space settled lower by 1.0%.

Outside of the equity market, the U.S. Dollar Index (95.72, -0.46) slipped for the second day in a row, losing 0.5%, as the euro (1.1383) added 0.4% on the greenback. The British pound (1.2929) did even better, adding 0.9% against the U.S. dollar, after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney noted that the time for removing some stimulus may be close at hand.

U.S. Treasuries settled mixed in a curve-steepening trade, which helped underpin the financial sector. The 10-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.22% while the 2-yr yield slipped two basis points to 1.36%. For the week, the 2yr-10yr spread has increased by five basis points to 86 basis points.

Reviewing today's economic data, which included May Pending Home Sales, the Advance Report for International Trade in Goods for May, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Pending Home Sales for May declined 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). Today's reading follows a revised 1.7% decrease in April (from -1.3%).The Advance Report for International Trade in Goods for May showed a deficit of $65.9 billion, down from a revised deficit of $67.1 billion for April (from -$67.6 billion).The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index declined 6.2% to follow last week's 0.6% increase.On Thursday, investors will receive Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 241,000) and the third estimate of first quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%). Both reports will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +15.8% YTD
S&P 500 +9.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.0% YTD

4:04 pm Kulicke & Soffa guides Q3 revs at the high end of prior range; sees FY17 revs above consensus; strength driven by semiconductor unit growth (KLIC) :

Co issues upside guidance for Q3 (Jun), sees Q3 (Jun) revs at the high end of $235-245 mln vs. $239.89 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

The Company expects one-time, non-recurring charges and credits in the third fiscal quarter, consisting of a favorable foreign tax credit, goodwill impairment and restructuring charges collectively resulting in a non-cash expense of $35.2 mln and a cash gain of $18.9 mln

As part of its annual strategic planning process, the Company proceeded with tactical and strategic initiatives to better execute on its collective long-term core, advanced packaging and electronics assembly related opportunities. Largely triggered by this annual process, the Company anticipates several unique charges and credits during the June quarter relating to a favorable foreign tax credit, non-cash goodwill impairment expenses and restructuring related charges. These collective items are anticipated to result in a non-cash expense of $35.2 mln and a cash gain of $18.9 mln.

Co issues upside guidance for FY17 (Sep), sees FY17 (Sep) revs of $765-815 mln vs. $752.29 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The Company's ongoing strength continues to be driven by higher levels of semiconductor unit growth, dominant share positions and a diversified exposure to end applications.

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

In all, Wednesday was a strong session as the broader market notched some decent gains, for the most part erasing yesterday's rough affair from memory. The Nasdaq Composite almost doubled up the percentage gains of the S&P 500 today as the index added 87.79 points (+1.43%) to 6234.41. The S&P 500, for its part, gained 21.31 points (+0.88%) to 2440.69, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average put up a solid 143.95 (+0.68%) to 21454.61.

Economic data today included Pending Home Sales for May which declined 0.8%. Today's reading follows a revised 1.7% decrease in April (from -1.3%). Also, the Advance Report for International Trade in Goods for May showed a deficit of $65.9 billion, down from a revised deficit of $67.1 billion for April (from -$67.6 billion). Lastly, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index declined 6.2% to follow last week's 0.6% increase.

The Technology (XLK 55.77, +0.69 +1.25%) space modestly snapped the recent losing streak, partly enabled by the stronger broader market. Component Paychex (PAYX 57.65, -0.97 -1.65%) was the worst performer in the space today following its Q4 results and FY18 guidance. Financials XLF +1.57% ended higher today, followed by IYZ +1.40%, XLY +1.01%, XLI +0.90%, XLB +0.89%, XLE +0.55%, XLV +0.53%, XLP +0.40%, XLRE +0.12%, XLU -0.96%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (958.90, +12.51 +1.32%) space, trading ended near highs after opening flat. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 151.75, +5.17 +3.53%) was the best performing name in the space today following favorable sell-side commentary. Other names in the space which outperformed today included PYPL +3.15%, SYMC +2.77%, WDC +2.54%, AVGO +2.43%, HPE +2.42%, QRVO +2.26%, GPN +2.25%, LRCX +2.22%, KLAC +1.99%, NTAP +1.97%, XRX +1.95%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Toshiba (TOSBF 2.57, -0.03 -1.15%) filed a lawsuit against Western Digital (WDC 93.67, +2.32 +2.54%) for JPY120 billion in damages.

Qualcomm (QCOM 56.16, +0.73 +1.32%) further extended offering period of its previously announced cash tender offer for NXP Semi (NXPI 109.90, +0.38 +0.35%); now scheduled to expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on July 27.

The Meet Group (MEET 4.92, +0.07 +1.44%) reached an agreement with 6.3% holder Harvest Capital; the company agreed to appoint two new independent directors to its Board.

Accenture (ACN 123.74, +1.55 +1.27%) acquired Boston-based mobile design and development firm Intrepid; terms not disclosed.

Samsung (SSNLF 2000, flat) to expand U.S. operations, open $380 million home appliance manufacturing plant in South Carolina.

Match Group (MTCH 17.56, +0.06 +0.37%): Tinder introduces Tinder Gold, a premium subscription service.

In reaction to quarterly results:

CalAmp (CAMP 20.44, +1.19 +6.18%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.29 and $88.1 million, respectively. The company also guided Q2 EPS midpoint below market expectations at $0.23-0.29 and revenues in-line at $86-91 million.

Paychex (PAYX) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $0.54 on in-line revenues of $799 million. The company also guided FY18 EPS and revenues below market expectations at about $2.35-2.38 and $3.309 billion, respectively.

Analyst actions:

CY was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
EXPE was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup,
UMC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS;
QCOM was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital,
FDC was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley;
AABA was initiated with an Overweight at JP Morgan,
V, GPN, WEX, SEIC, HAWK were all initiated with Buy ratings at Mizuho,
MA, PYPL, TSS, VNTV were all initiated with Neutral ratings at Mizuho,
WU was initiated with an Underperform at Mizuho,
FARO was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum,
EGOV was initiated with a Neutral at DA Davidson,
GECC was initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer

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From Briefing.com: 4:31 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Settle Solidly Lower on Thursday (:WRAPX) :

Thursday's session looked eerily similar to Tuesday's session as the top-weighted technology sector (-1.8%) led the S&P 500 (-0.9%) solidly lower, the financials (+0.7%) and energy (+0.1%) sectors outperformed, and Treasuries tumbled across the curve. The Dow (-0.8%) settled roughly in line with the benchmark index while the Nasdaq (-1.4%) underperformed. All three major averages closed in the middle of the day's trading range.

The S&P 500 opened Thursday's session with a slim gain, but immediately started trending downward as the bearish sentiment within the technology sector caught fire in the broader market. Only two sectors--financials and energy--were able to dodge the wave of selling pressure and finish the day in positive territory. As for the laggards, the technology space led the retreat with a big decline of 1.8% while the others settled with losses between 0.8% (industrials) and 1.2% (consumer staples).

There wasn't a specific reason for today's slide, but another quick jump in long-term rates certainly didn't help. Treasuries moved lower in a curve-steepening trade after inflation data from Germany came in stronger than expected; the 10-yr yield climbed four basis points to 2.27% and the 2-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 1.37%. The U.S. Dollar Index (95.34, -0.44) also finished solidly lower, dropping 0.5% to a nine-month low.

Technology components were hit hard virtually across the board with mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL 143.68, -2.15), Microsoft (MSFT 68.49, -1.31), Facebook (FB 151.04, -2.20), and Alphabet (GOOGL 937.82, -23.19) finishing with losses between 1.4% and 2.4%. Chipmakers were among the weakest performers, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 2.5%. For the week, the tech group trades at the bottom of the sector standings with a loss of 2.8%.

Meanwhile, in the financial sector, banks moved solidly higher after the Federal Reserve approved the capital plans of all 34 firms required to partake in its annual stress test. In many instances, those plans included larger than expected dividend increases and/or share buyback programs. Influential names like Wells Fargo (WFC 55.78, +1.45), Citigroup (C 66.98, +1.80), Bank of America (BAC 24.32, +0.44), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 91.15, +1.33) finished with gains between 1.5% and 2.8%.

Crude oil eked out a slim victory, its sixth in a row, which helped the energy sector fend off the bears throughout Thursday's session. WTI crude advanced 0.1% to a price of $44.76/bbl. However, the commodity's performance was somewhat disappointing considering it held a much more substantial gain of 1.5% early on Thursday morning.

In U.S. corporate news, Rite Aid (RAD 2.89, -1.04) and Walgreens Boot Alliance (WBA 78.37, +1.28) terminated their merger agreement and signed a new deal whereby Walgreens will acquire 2,186 RAD stores, related distribution assets, and inventory from Rite Aid for an all-cash purchase price of $5.175 billion. The divestiture agreement with Fred's (FRED 9.51, -2.81) was also terminated. FRED shares plunged 22.8% following the termination of the WBA/RAD deal, while RAD shares tumbled 26.5% and WBA shares added 1.7%.

It's also worth pointing out that the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 11.56, +1.53, +15.3%), which is often referred to as the "investor fear gauge", spiked to its highest level in over five weeks.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included Initial Claims and the third estimate of first quarter GDP:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 244,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 241,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 242,000 (from 241,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.948 million from the revised count of 1.942 million (from 1.944 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it continues to support the notion that the labor market is tight, as employers appear reluctant to let employees go.
The third reading of first quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 1.4%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.2%. The third estimate of first quarter GDP Deflator came in at 1.9%, which is below the Briefing.com consensus of 2.2%.
The key takeaway is that first quarter GDP growth was better than expected, but as the report from the BEA itself says, "...the general picture of economic growth remains the same," which is to say it remains below potential.

On Friday, investors will receive several economic reports, including May Personal Income and Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%; 0.1%) at 8:30 ET, June Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 57.8) at 9:45 ET, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June (Briefing.com consensus 94.7) at 10:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +14.1% YTD
S&P 500 +8.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.4% YTD

4:08 pm Micron beats by $0.11, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (MU) :
Reports Q3 (May) earnings of $1.62 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.51; revenues rose 92.2% year/year to $5.57 bln vs the $5.41 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

The fiscal third quarter revenue increase of 20 percent compared to the previous quarter was due primarily to a 14 percent increase in DRAM average selling prices and a 17 percent increase in trade NAND sales volumes.

On a GAAP basis, gross margin was 46.9 percent compared to gross margin of 36.7 percent for the second quarter of fiscal 2017 and gross margin of 17.2 percent , for the third quarter of fiscal 2016. Guidance was 44-48%

Operating Cash Flow $2.41 bln

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.73-1.87, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.60 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $5.7-6.1 bln vs. $5.63 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Ramping 64-layer 3D NAND and 1x DRAM; expect to achieve meaningful output by end of 2017; Initial revenue has been recognized.

DRAM Industry bit supply growth 15-20% in 2017
NAND industry bit supply growth of high 30s to low 40s% in 2017

Expect healthy industry demand to persist into 2018
Q3 Gross Margin 47-51%
Q3 Operating Income $2.2-2.4 bln

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

A pretty poor session out of almost the entire market ended with the Nasdaq Composite again almost doubling up the percentage losses of the next worst index. The Nasdaq Composite finished 90.06 points lower (-1.44%) to 6144.35. The S&P 500 declined 20.99 points (-0.86%) to 2419.70, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 167.58 (-0.78%) to 21287.03.

Economic data today included the latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 244,000 compared to the revised prior week count of 242,000 (from 241,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.948 million from the revised count of 1.942 million (from 1.944 million). Also, the third reading of first quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 1.4%, while the third estimate of first quarter GDP Deflator came in at 1.9%.

The Technology (XLK 54.77, -1.00 -1.79%) space returned to its bearish ways today, ending a clean point down compared to yesterday's close. Component Advanced Micro (AMD 12.60, -0.63 -4.76%) was the worst performer today, succumbing to the broader pressure despite announced another tier of CPU in its Ryzen PRO desktop processor portfolio. The Materials XLB -1.16% sector followed tech for the worst performing S&P sector today, followed by IYZ -1.16%, XLP -1.10%, XLRE -1.01%, XLY -0.97%, XLV -0.95%, XLI -0.82%, XLU -0.80%, XLE +0.20%, XLF +0.69%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (941.33, -17.57 -1.83%) space turned in, by all accounts, an abysmal Thursday finish after rocking lows near the $933 level slightly after noon. By our coverage, not a single S&P 500 IT name finished in the green today, with notable names in the red including LRCX -3.71%, KLAC -3.37%, NVDA -3.34%, STX -3.16%, MCHP -3.07%, AMAT -2.93%, AVGO -2.91%, SYMC -2.87%, XLNX -2.77%, ADSK -2.77%, MA -2.64%, HPQ -2.55%, QRVO -2.52%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Baidu.com (BIDU 179.63, +1.63 +0.92%) priced an offering of US$1.5 billion aggregate principal amount of its notes.

ScanSource (SCSC 39.80, -0.25 -0.62%) acquired POS Portal for an upfront payment of about $145 million.

Microsoft (MSFT 68.49, -1.31 -1.88%) acquired Cloudyn; terms not disclosed.

Dialog Semiconductor (DLGNF 43.13, -0.07 -0.16%) invested an additional $15 million in Energous (WATT 16.45, +1.06 +6.89%).

Gilat Satellite (GILT 4.95, +0.18 +3.77%) and Intelsat (I 3.03, -0.13 -4.11%) announced a joint managed services solution to provide 3G infrastructure.

Alibaba (BABA 140.81, -3.14 -2.18%) may be planning an Echo-like Chinese voice-controlled speaker, according to The Information.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Progress Software (PRGS 30.64, -0.18 -0.58%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.42 and $93.2 million, respectively. For Q3, the company sees in-line EPS of $0.41-0.43 on worse than expected revenues of $93-96 million. For FY17, PRGS sees EPS ahead of market expectations at $1.73-1.78 and revenues in-line at $391-396 million.

Analyst actions:

GRPN was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley & Co.,
SYMC was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Standpoint Research;
EMKR was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at B. Riley & Co.,
UMC was downgraded to Underperform at Macquarie;
PANW and FTNT were initiated with Outperform ratings at Northland Capital,
AZPN was initiated with a Neutral at Wedbush,
MODN was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: S&P 500 Registers Modest Win on Wednesday (:WRAPX) :The benchmark S&P 500 (+0.2%) registered its second win of the week on Wednesday, settling near the top of its trading range, but activity was subdued with only 886.2 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor following the July Fourth holiday. The Nasdaq (+0.7%) outperformed while the Dow (unch) lagged, finishing just a tick below its unchanged mark. Also of note, the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed, settling lower by 0.5%.

Investors got their hands on the minutes from the June 13-14 FOMC meeting on Wednesday afternoon, but the initial reaction was muted as the minutes did little to change the market's rate-hike expectations; the fed funds futures market still points to the December FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 64.8%, which is slightly higher than Monday's reading of 62.2%.

In the minutes, Fed members seemed generally upbeat about economic activity and attributed the recent softness in inflation to idiosyncratic factors. In addition, Fed officials were divided on when to start unwinding the central bank's balance sheet; several preferred to start the process within a couple of months while others wanted to defer the decision until later in the year.

Looking ahead, inflation data, like the CPI Report and the average hourly earnings growth seen in the monthly employment reports, will take on an increasingly important role in guiding the market's thinking about when the Fed will next raise the target range for the fed funds rate and start reducing reinvestment of the Fed's securities holdings.

The Employment Situation Report for June (Briefing.com consensus 173,000), which includes average hourly earnings (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), will be released on Friday morning at 8:30 ET.

In the equity market, the top-weighted technology sector (+1.0%) was able to reclaim all of Monday's slide on Wednesday, providing solid sector leadership from start to finish amid broad strength. Chipmakers showed notable strength, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 2.1%, as did mega-cap names like Microsoft (MSFT 69.08, +0.91), Facebook (FB 150.34, +1.91), and Alphabet (GOOGL 932.26, +12.80).

Biotech names also had a solid showing, evidenced by the 1.4% increase in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 315.29, +4.34), helping to keep the influential health care sector (+0.5%) near the top of the day's leaderboard. The financials (+0.2%) and industrials (+0.3%) spaces also finished in positive territory.

The seven laggards--consumer discretionary (-0.2%), energy (-1.3%), materials (-0.4%), consumer staples (-0.1%), utilities (-0.4%), telecom services (-0.4%), and real estate (-1.2%)--put up a good fight, but were ultimately no match for the technology, health care, financials, and industrials sectors, which represent around 60.0% of the broader market combined.

Crude oil weighed heavily on the energy sector, dropping 4.2% to $45.10/bbl, following reports that Russia will oppose any proposals to deepen the existing production-cut agreement. In addition, news that OPEC exports increased by 450,000 barrels per day month-over-month in June also acted as a bearish catalyst. The loss ended the commodity's longest bull-run in more than five years.

In the bond market, the 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.33% while the 2-yr yield settled unchanged at 1.41%. Treasuries gave back their modest gains immediately following the release of the FOMC minutes, but eventually closed in the green near their best marks of the day.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to the Factory Orders Report for May:

The Factory Orders Report for May showed a decrease of 0.8%, which is below the Briefing.com consensus of -0.5%. The April reading was revised to -0.3% (from -0.2%).

The key takeaway from the report is that order and shipments activity for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft were higher than first reported and will improve the expected contribution to Q2 GDP growth forecasts.

On Thursday, investors will receive a slew of economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, June Challenger Job Cuts at 7:30 ET, June ADP Employment Change (Briefing.com consensus 185,000) at 8:15 ET, the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 244,000) at 8:30 ET, May Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$46.1 billion) at 8:30 ET, and June ISM Services (Briefing.com consensus 56.6) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +14.3% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.6% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Following the abbreviated Monday session and the off day on Tuesday, the markets opened surprisingly strong as volume eventually evened out on both the NYSE floor (886 mln vs average near 1,000 mln) and the NASDAQ floor (1,857 mln vs average near 1,999 mln). When all was said and done, the Nasdaq Composite was the best performer on Wednesday, adding 40.80 points (+0.67%) to 6150.86. The S&P 500 managed gains of 3.53 points (+0.15%) to 2432.54, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 1.10 points (-0.01%) to 21478.17.

The Technology (XLK 54.88, +0.54 +0.99%) space rebounded modestly today and was the best performing S&P sector. Component Advanced Micro (AMD 13.19, +1.04 +8.56%) was strong today on the back of an increased stake from Mubadala Investment Company. The Energy XLE -2.03% space got shredded today, followed by XLRE -1.20%, IYZ -0.86%, XLU -0.48%, XLB -0.33%, XLY -0.25%, XLP -0.11%, XLF +0.08%, XLI +0.29%, XLV +0.57%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (941.97, +9.68 +1.04%) space, trading finished just off highs but firmly in the green. Component Oracle (ORCL 49.46, +0.10 +0.20%) was modestly higher following a premarket upgrade of the stock to an Overweight rating at KeyBanc Capital Mkts. Other names in the space which outperformed today included MU +4.70%, PYPL +3.29%, ADSK +3.26%, QRVO +3.21%, MCHP +2.81%, AMAT +2.71%, NVDA +2.67%, INTC +2.63%, LRCX +2.33%, SWKS +2.30%, XLNX +2.29%, ADI +2.14%, ADBE +2.02%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Diebold Nixdorf (DBD 21.60, -6.40 -22.86%) cut its FY17 guidance citing elongated conversion cycles for large orders in banking and the delay in systems rollouts in the service business. Sees non-GAAP EPS of $0.95-1.15 (down from $1.40-1.70) on revenues of $4.7-4.8 billion (down from $5.0 billion).

Ericsson's (ERIC 7.23, +0.10 +1.40%) Chairman to not make himself available for re-election in 2018; Nomination committee has initiated the search for a replacement.

Mercury (MRCY 43.26, +1.25 +2.98%) acquired Richland Technologies; terms not disclosed.

Xperi's (XPER 33.70, +1.20 +3.69%) Tessera Technologies confirmed more details today on its win against

Broadcom (AVGO 231.61, +1.85 +0.81%) and certain of its customers in the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Vantiv (VNTV 61.06, -1.45 -2.32%) and Worldpay Group plc (WDDYF 4.88, +0.83 +20.49%) agreed to key terms of possible offer.

Baidu.com (BIDU 183.83, +3.86 +2.14%) and NVIDIA (NVDA 143.05, +3.72 +2.67%) announced a broad partnership to bring the world's leading artificial intelligence technology to cloud computing, self-driving vehicles and AI home assistants.

Advanced Energy (AEIS 65.80, +1.27 +1.97%) acquired Excelsys Holdings for EUR 15.5 million.

DXC Technology (DXC 76.23, +0.28 +0.37%) acquired Tribridge; terms not disclosed.

Analyst actions:

ORCL was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts,
TER was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
FTNT was upgraded to Positive from Mixed at OTR Global;
MRVC was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital,
RATE downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham,
CHU and CHL were both downgraded to Underweight ratings from Overweight at Morgan Stanley

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From Briefing.com: 4:29 pm Closing Market Summary: S&P 500 Slips Below 50-Day Simple Moving Average (:WRAPX) :

Stocks moved into negative territory for the week on Thursday as the S&P 500 (-0.9%) tumbled below its 50-day simple moving average (2,414) for the first time in seven weeks. The Nasdaq (-1.0%) and the Dow (-0.7%) also registered sizable declines, but none as great as the small-cap Russell 2000, which settled lower by 1.4%.

The major averages were bearish from the jump on Thursday, quickly turning their opening losses into sizable declines within the first few minutes of action. The S&P 500 found some support at its 50-day simple moving average (2,414) in the morning, bouncing off the key technical level to climb back to its opening mark. However, the bears reclaimed control in the afternoon, sending the benchmark index, and its peers, to a fresh session low.

There wasn't a specific catalyst to credit for the equity market's poor performance, but the market did express concerns about less accommodative central bankers, evidenced by rising interest rates around the globe. U.S. Treasuries moved lower in a curve-steepening trade that left the 10-yr yield five basis points higher at 2.37% and the 2-yr yield unchanged at 1.40%.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.7%) benefited from the steepening of the yield curve and exhibited relative strength throughout the session. However, late-afternoon selling did trim the financial sector's advantage over the broader market a bit, leaving the group at its worst mark of the day. The consumer staples (-0.5%), materials (-0.4%), and utilities (-0.1%) sectors also outperformed.

Out of the remaining seven sectors, the lightly-weighted telecom services (-2.3%), real estate (-1.9%), and energy (-1.8%) groups finished with the widest declines. The energy sector struggled for the majority of the session despite an upbeat EIA crude inventory report, which showed that oil inventories declined by 6.3 million barrels last week (consensus -2.0 million).

Crude oil immediately shot to a new session high following the EIA release, trading as high as +3.0%, but eventually retraced a good portion of that gain to settle at a price of $45.52/bbl (+0.9%).

The influential technology (-0.9%) and health care (-1.3%) sectors struggled early on, but the tech group was able to move back in line with the broader market, thanks in large part to the positive performance of chipmakers; the PHLX Semiconductor Index settled with a modest loss of 0.5%.

Meanwhile, the health care group was never able to recover. All health care components finished in the red, but biotechnology companies showed particular weakness, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 310.45, -4.84) lower by 1.5%.

It's also worth pointing out that retailers struggled today, dragging the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 39.46, -0.87) lower by 2.2%. L Brands (LB 46.49, -7.62) led the retreat, plunging 14.1%, after reporting a 9.0% decline in June comparable sales vs +6.0% a year ago and -7.0% last month.

Reviewing today's large batch of economic data, which included June ADP Employment Change, the weekly Initial Claims Report, June ISM Services, May Trade Balance, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, and June Challenger Job Cuts:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 158,000 in June (Briefing.com consensus 185,000) while the May reading was revised lower to 230,000 from 253,000.
The ADP reading precedes Friday's more influential Employment Situation Report for June, which the Briefing.com consensus expects will show the addition of 173,000 nonfarm payrolls.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 248,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 244,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 244,000. As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.956 million from the revised count of 1.945 million (from 1.948 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that jobless claims continue to remain at low levels that are consistent with a tight labor market.
The ISM Services Index for June rose to 57.4 from an unrevised reading of 56.9 in May. The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 56.6.
The key takeaway from the report is that the services side of the economy continues to perform well, evidenced by every index component registering a reading above 50.0 in June.
The May trade balance showed a deficit of $46.5 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $46.1 billion. The previous month's deficit was left unrevised at $47.6 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that the average real trade balance for the second quarter is higher than the average for the first quarter, which implies net exports will have a negative contribution on Q2 GDP growth.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 1.4% to follow last week's 6.2% decrease.
June Challenger Job Cuts showed a year-over-year decrease of 19.3% to follow last month's year-over-year increase of 9.7%.

On Friday, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for June, which the Briefing.com consensus expects will show the addition of 173,000 nonfarm payrolls. The report will be released at 8:30 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +13.1% YTD
S&P 500 +7.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.2% YTD
Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

TThe broader market turned in a tough Thursday as the Nasdaq Composite fell a clean 1% (6089.46, -61.39). The S&P 500 was barely better, losing 22.79 points (-0.94%) to 2409.75. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 158.13 points (-0.74%) to 21320.04.

Thursday housed a plethora or market data points, including the ADP National Employment Report which showed an increase of 158,000 in June while the May reading was revised lower to 230,000 from 253,000. The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 248,000 while last week's reading was unrevised at 244,000. As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.956 million from the revised count of 1.945 million (from 1.948 million). The ISM Services Index for June rose to 57.4 from an unrevised reading of 56.9 in May. The May trade balance showed a deficit of $46.5 billion compared to the previous month's deficit which was left unrevised at $47.6 billion. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 1.4% to follow last week's 6.2% decrease. Lastly, June Challenger Job Cuts showed a year-over-year decrease of 19.3% to follow last month's year-over-year increase of 9.7%.

The Technology (XLK 54.38, -0.50 -0.91%) space wasn't the worst performing S&P sector today but it certainly wasn't the best. Component Amphenol (APH 72.48, -1.29 -1.75%) was weak today following a premarket downgrade of the stock to a Neutral rating at Goldman. All 11 S&P sectors finished in the red; aside from tech, the remaining sectors finished Thursday XLRE -1.81%, IYZ -1.43%, XLV -1.26%, XLE -1.13%, XLY -1.01%, XLI -0.82%, XLF -0.76%, XLP -0.57%, XLB -0.43%, XLU -0.06%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (933.87, -8.10 -0.86%) space, trading fell at the open and never looked back, ultimately finishing just above lows. Bellwethers like AAPL -0.94%, MSFT -0.74%, FB -1.01%, GOOG -0.55%, GOOGL -0.49%, V -0.81%, ORCL -1.23%, INTC -2.07%, CSCO -1.24% all finished lower today.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Symantec (SYMC 27.72, -0.07 -0.25%) to acquire Israel-based Fireglass; terms not disclosed.

Kulicke & Soffa (KLIC 19.06, -0.14 -0.73%) acquired Liteq BV; terms not disclosed.

First Data (FDC 17.93, -0.47 -2.55%) completed its acquisition of CardConnect (CCN 15.05).
CNBC's David Faber said, citing sources, that Time Warner's (TWX 101.53, +0.36 +0.36%) deal with

AT&T (T 37.18, -0.45 -1.20%) is likely to close as soon as within the next 60 days despite ongoing speculation the deal could be delayed.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 30.72, -0.39 -1.24%) responded to latest development in ITC case vs. Arista Networks (ANET 145.43, -3.19 -2.15%).

Brooks Automation (BRKS 22.35, -0.02 -0.09%) acquired Pacific Bio-Material Management for $33 million in cash.

Cypress Semi (CY 13.37, -0.22 -1.62%) reached cooperation and settlement agreement with former CEO (largest individual stockholder) T.J. Rodgers.

Tesla's Model (TSLA 308.89, -18.20 -5.56%) S was among select vehicles that did not receive any safety awards from Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Analyst actions:

MSCC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman;
APH was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman;
AABA was initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer,
SWKS was initiated with a Buy at Argus,
LOGI was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup,
MKSI was initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank,
ENTG was initiated with a Hold at Deutsche Bank,
ELVT was initiated with a Buy at BTIG Research

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Investors Rally Around June Jobs Report (:WRAPX) :Investors rallied around the Employment Situation Report for June on Friday to finish the abbreviated week on a positive note. The Nasdaq led the advance, moving higher by 1.0%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow settled with gains of 0.6% and 0.4%, respectively. All three major averages finished the week modestly higher with the S&P 500 advancing by 0.1%.

The Employment Situation Report for June was well received by the market as it emphasized the economy's modest growth rate with a solid nonfarm payrolls reading (222,000 actual vs 173,000 Briefing.com consensus) while at the same time tempering inflation concerns with a lower than expected average hourly earnings reading (+0.2% actual vs +0.3% Briefing.com consensus). In other words, it was another 'Goldilocks' report that should give the Fed some cause for pause when considering the timing of the next rate hike.

Following the jobs report, the CME FedWatch Tool is still pointing to the December FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 59.1%, down ever so slightly from yesterday's 60.0%.

The S&P 500 opened Friday's session with a modest gain and continued climbing throughout the morning, eventually settling near its session high. Eight of eleven sectors settled in the green, but none with a greater gain than the top-weighted technology sector (+1.3%), which outperformed from start to finish. The influential financial sector (+0.6%) got off to a slow start, but eventually moved in line with the broader market.

Transports underpinned the industrial sector (+0.8%), sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.2%) to a new all-time high. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.8%) also outperformed, benefiting from broad strength. The remaining advancers finished with gains ranging from 0.1% (utilities) to 0.7% (real estate).

On the downside, three groups--telecom services (-0.4%), energy (-0.1%), and consumer staples (-0.1%)--finished in the red. Crude oil weighed on the energy sector, dropping 2.9% to $44.25/bbl, following Thursday's EIA inventory report, which showed a rise in U.S. production alongside a surprisingly large drop in crude and gasoline stockpiles.

U.S. Treasuries moved lower in a curve-steepening trade on Friday, increasing the 2yr-10yr spread by one basis point. The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.39%, extending its weekly advance to nine basis points.

It's also worth pointing out that U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached an agreement on a ceasefire in western Syria in their first face-to-face meeting since Mr. Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election.

Taking another look at Friday's economic data, which was limited to the Employment Situation Report for June:

May nonfarm payrolls hit 222,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 173,000. The prior month's reading was revised to 152,000 from 138,000. Nonfarm private payrolls added 187,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 175,000. The previous month's reading was revised to 159,000 from 147,000. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% (Briefing.com consensus 4.3%). Average hourly earnings increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the previous month's reading was revised to +0.1% (from +0.2%). The average workweek was reported at 34.5, which is slightly higher than the Briefing.com consensus of 34.4. The previous month's reading was left unrevised at 34.4.The labor force participation rate increased to 62.8% in June from 62.7% in May.

The key takeaway from the report is that the weak year-over-year growth in average hourly earnings (2.5%) is apt to give the Fed some cause for pause when considering the timing of its next rate hike.

On Monday, investors will receive May Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $12.7 billion) at 15:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +14.3% YTDS&P 500 +8.3% YTDDow Jones Industrial Average +8.4% YTDRussell 2000 +4.3% YTD Week In Review: Equities Eke Out Slim Gains in an Abbreviated Week

Equity indices kicked off the third quarter on a positive note, finishing the first week of July with modest gains. Trading volume was light as many investors took some extra time off to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday. The S&P 500 added 0.1% while the Nasdaq and the Dow finished with gains of 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively.

The major averages settled mixed in an abbreviated session on Monday. The financials and energy sectors were bullish, finishing at the top of the day's leaderboard, and helped the S&P 500 overcome the top-weighted technology sector's third-consecutive loss. The tech-heavy Nasdaq wasn't so lucky, dropping 0.5%, while the Dow outperformed, hitting a new intraday record high.

U.S. markets were closed on Tuesday in observance of the Fourth of July holiday, but the benchmark index picked up where it left off in the midweek session, registering another modest win with the technology group leading the charge. The minutes from the June 13-14 FOMC meeting were released on Wednesday, but did little to change the market's rate-hike expectations.

In the minutes, Fed members seemed generally upbeat about economic activity and gave the impression that they believe the recent softness in inflation is transitory. In addition, Fed officials were divided on when to start unwinding the Fed's balance sheet; some wanted to start in a couple of months while others preferred to hold off until the end of the year.

Investors pulled back on Thursday, dragging all three major averages into negative territory for the week and leaving the S&P 500 below its 50-day simple moving average for the first time in nearly two months. The market expressed concerns about less accommodative central bankers, evidenced by rising interest rates around the globe. U.S. Treasuries moved in a curve-steepening trade, helping to keep the influential financial sector ahead of the broader market.

The Employment Situation Report for the month of June, which showed the addition of 222,000 nonfarm payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 173,000) and stable hourly earnings (+0.2% vs Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), was the focus of Friday's session. The report was largely seen as another 'Goldilocks' report, pointing to an economy that is growing at a modest rate without the worry of inflation.

Eight of the S&P 500's eleven sectors ended Friday in the green, which was just enough to bring the benchmark index back into positive territory for the week. The technology group was the top-performing sector, benefiting from broad strength. However, the energy group underperformed as crude oil weighed.

WTI crude futures struggled this week, dropping 4.1%, following news that OPEC exports increased in the month of June and headlines that Russia is not in favor of deepening the current OPEC-led production cut agreement. In addition, the weekly inventory report from the Department of Energy, which showed a rise in U.S. production alongside a larger than expected drop in crude and gasoline stockpiles, also prompted selling pressure.

The fed funds futures market still points to the December FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 59.1%, up from last week's 54.4%.

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Friday ended with gains across the board. The Nasdaq Composite added 63.61 points (+1.04%) to 6153.08. The S&P 500 was up 15.43 points (+0.64%) to 2425.18, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 94.30 points (+0.44%) to 21414.34. This week's moves take the three major US indices to +14.3%, +8.3% and +8.3% YTD, respectively.

Today's economic data included May nonfarm payrolls which hit 222,000 while the prior month's reading was revised to 152,000 from 138,000. Nonfarm private payrolls added 187,000 while the previous month's reading was revised to 159,000 from 147,000. Additionally, the unemployment rate rose to 4.4% while average hourly earnings increased 0.2%; the previous month's reading was revised to +0.1% (from +0.2%). The average workweek was reported at 34.5, while the previous month's reading was left unrevised at 34.4.

The Technology (XLK 55.01, +0.63 +1.16%) space was the best performer in the S&P today, finishing the week on a high note. Component Qualcomm (QCOM 55.35, +0.56 +1.02%) posted nice gains today after disclosing it filed a complaint with the US ITC against Apple (AAPL 144.15, +1.42 +0.99%). The Consumer Discretionary XLY +0.87% space was the next best after tech, followed by XLI +0.78%, XLF +0.72%, XLRE +0.57%, XLV +0.56%, XLB +0.52%, XLU +0.08%, IYZ -0.03%, XLP -0.06%, XLE -0.16%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (945.57, +11.70, +1.25) space, trading ended the week with some nice gains, just off intraday highs. Components AMAT +3.40%, LRCX +2.95%, QRVO +2.89%, ATVI +2.60%, SYMC +2.49%, STX +2.44%, JNPR +2.37%, HRS +2.29%, NVDA +2.29%, KLAC +2.29%, TXN +2.11%, CSRA +1.98%, SWKS +1.95%, AVGO +1.95% aided the advance.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Qualcomm (QCOM) filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging that Apple (AAPL) has engaged in the unlawful importation and sale of iPhones that infringe one or more claims of six Qualcomm patents.

Agilent (A 59.64, +0.42 +0.71%) acquired Cobalt Light Systems for EUR 40 million in cash.

Digital Ally (DGLY 4.20, +0.95 +29.31%) announced the USPTO 'rejected every single ground of invalidity that Axon (AAXN 25.09, +0.04 +0.16%) put forward challenging claims 7-10 and 20'.

RadiSys (RSYS 2.99, -0.61 -16.94%) guided Q2 revenue below prior guidance; cited delayed buying decisions at two of its largest customers.

GlobalStar (GSAT 2.02, -0.06 -2.88%) disclosed entry into common stock purchase agreement with Thermo Funding.

Frontier Communications (FTR 1.06, -0.04 -3.64%) announced a 1:15 reverse split; to begin trading ex-split on Monday, July 10.

MTS Systems (MTSC 51.40, +0.35 +0.69%) completed repricing of existing $457 million senior secured Term Loan B facility; no material change to outstanding debt, maturities or covenants as a result of this repricing.

Synchronoss Tech (SNCR 16.50, +0.64 +4.04%) initiated a process to evaluate strategic alternatives that may include a sale or other transaction.

Analyst actions:

PANW was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
DMRC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
RATE was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Stephens,
GLOB was downgraded to Sector Weight from Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts;
BSFT was initiated with an Equal Weight at Barclays,
PTNR was initiated with a Buy at Roth Capital

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From Briefing.com: Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

News flow was comparatively light while today's action ended split as a modest sell-off into the close took the Dow into the red. By contrast, the Nasdaq Composite finished up 23.31 points (+0.38%) to 6176.39. The S&P 500 added 2.25 points (+0.09%) to 2427.43, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 5.82 points (-0.03%) to 21408.52. Volume was slightly less than average as about 799.0 mln shares traded hands on the NYSE floor (vs average near 1,000.7 mln) with the NASDAQ floor moving about 1,662.8 mln shares being traded (vs average near about 1,995.6 mln).

The Technology (XLK 55.41, +0.40 +0.73%) space was the best performing S&P ETF today. Component NVIDIA (NVDA 153.70, +6.94 +4.73%) was the best performer on Monday as bullish analyst commentary drove the stock higher. Following tech, the Materials XLB +0.64% sector outperformed, followed by XLI +0.29%, XLE +0.28%, XLY +0.19%, XLU -0.08%, XLF -0.12%, XLV -0.19%, IYZ -0.22%, XLP -0.66%, XLRE -0.79%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (953.28, +7.71 +0.82%) space, trading finished off highs as some sellers emerged into the close. Component HP (HPQ 17.87, +0.52 +3.00%) was among the better performers today after the stock was upgraded to a Buy rating at Mizuho ahead of the open. Other names in the space which outperformed included FLIR +3.00%, XLNX +2.80%, WDC +2.68%, JNPR +2.64%, EBAY +2.37%, SYMC +2.08%, PYPL +1.83%, LRCX +1.83%, AMAT +1.54%, FB +1.36%, V +1.25%, KLAC +1.12%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Alibaba (BABA 143.81, +1.38 +0.97%) and Tencent (TCEHY 35.05, +0.39 +1.13%) partner with on-line payment firm Stripe.

Cincinnati Bell (CBB 18.00, -1.35 -6.98%) to combine with Hawaiian Telcom (HCOM 29.03, +4.59 +18.78%) and privately-held OnX Enterprise Solutions.

Best Buy (BBY 54.23, -3.64 -6.29%) shares were weaker today after a Recode report which suggested

Amazon (AMZN 996.47, +17.71 +1.81%) is working to establish a Geek Squad-like service of its own.

Nxt-ID (NXTD 1.60, -0.12 -6.98%) entered into a definitive agreement with existing institutional investors to purchase an aggregate of about $3,432,000 of shares of common stock in a registered direct offering and common stock purchase warrants in a concurrent private placement.

Westell Tech (WSTL 3.05, flat) appointed Matthew Brady as its new President and CEO, effective July 17, 2017.

Analyst actions:

HPQ was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho,
PYPL was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein,
CDK was upgraded to Outperform from In-Line at Evercore ISI,
JNPR was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital,
XLNX and CAVM were upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies,
FLIR was upgraded to Strong Buy from Mkt Perform at Raymond James;
INTC was downgraded to Underperform from Hold at Jefferies,
PAYC was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho;
QLYS was initiated with a Neutral at Monness Crespi & Hardt,
SSTI was initiated with a Buy at Roth Capital,
VSM was initiated with a Buy at Needham

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From Briefing.com: 4:29 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Move Modestly Higher; Dow Notches Another Record Close (:WRAPX) :

The stock market moved higher in a range-bound trade on Thursday with the S&P 500's most influential sectors--technology (+0.3%) and financials (+0.6%)--leading the charge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) notched another record close (21,553) while the Nasdaq (+0.2%) finished in line with the benchmark index (+0.2%).

Fed Chair Janet Yellen wrapped up her semiannual testimony on monetary policy today with an appearance before the Senate Banking Committee. The highlights of Ms. Yellen's testimony--namely, her acknowledgement that the federal funds rate would not have to rise all that much further to get to a neutral policy stance--were largely found in the prepared remarks she released on Wednesday morning.

However, it's worth pointing out that Ms. Yellen stated today that it's premature to conclude that the underlying inflation trend is falling well short of the Fed's 2.0% target. In addition, the Fed chair noted that the Fed will consider the yield curve when setting rates, which created a sense that the central bank would like to see a steepening of the curve predicated on rising inflation expectations.

As it so happens, the yield curve did steepen a bit on Thursday as the Treasury market gave back a good portion of Wednesday's advance. The 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 1.36% while the 10-yr yield jumped three basis points to 2.35%.

The steepening of the yield curve benefited the heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.6%), which typically responds well to widening spreads due to the favorable impact on net interest margins for lenders. The financial group outperformed for the vast majority of Thursday's session, but picked up even more steam in the final stretch to finish at the top of the sector standings by a comfortable margin.

Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL 147.77, +2.03) shrugged off yesterday's underperformance to advance 1.4% and help the top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%) cruise to its fifth-consecutive victory. Apple's mega-cap peer Microsoft (MSFT 71.77, +0.62) also outperformed, settling higher by 0.9%.

The health care sector (+0.1%)--which comes just after the technology and financial groups in terms of weight--was a late bloomer on Thursday, spending the majority of the session in the red, but eventually rode an afternoon biotech rally into positive territory. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 316.24, +2.23) settled with a gain of 0.7% following headlines that the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which was created by the Affordable Care Act to reign in Medicare costs, will not be activated.

On a related note, Senate Republican leaders released their updated version of a health care reform bill on Thursday that is aimed at bridging the gap that currently exists between centrist-leaning and more-conservative members of the GOP. However, reports indicate that, despite the revisions, the GOP still doesn't have enough votes to pass the measure.

As for the remaining sectors, the consumer discretionary (+0.1%), energy (+0.4%), real estate (+0.2%), and consumer staples (unch) groups settled in the green while the industrials (-0.1%), materials (-0.1%), utilities (-0.4%), and telecom services (-0.6%) spaces finished in the red.

In corporate news, Target (TGT 53.31, +2.44) jumped 4.8% after raising its second-quarter forecast for earnings per share and comparable sales. The positive sentiment caught on within the broader retail industry, sending the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 39.93, +0.90) higher by 2.3%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included June PPI, the weekly Initial Claims Report, and the June Treasury Budget:

June producer prices came in at +0.1%, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of -0.1%. Core producer prices rose 0.1% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that producer price trends are also seeing some disinflation, which will likely keep the Fed in observation mode, as opposed to action mode, when it comes to the policy rate.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 247,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 245,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 250,000 (from 248,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.945 million from the revised count of 1.965 million (from 1.956 million).
The key takeaway is that a low level of initial jobless claims reflects a tight labor market.
The Treasury Budget for June showed a deficit of $90.2 billion versus a surplus of $6.3 billion for June 2016. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the June deficit cannot be compared to the $88.0 billion deficit registered in May.

On Friday, investors will receive a slew of economic reports, including June CPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) at 8:30 ET, June Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) at 8:30 ET, June Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 76.8%) at 9:15 ET, May Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) at 10:00 ET, and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July (Briefing.com consensus 95.1) at 10:00 ET.

Also of note, JPMorgan Chase (JPM 93.10, +0.59), Wells Fargo (WFC 55.60, +0.43), and Citigroup (C 67.02, +0.10) will release their latest earnings reports on Friday morning before the opening bell.

Nasdaq Composite +16.6% YTD
S&P 500 +9.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.1% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

The broader market followed up yesterday's strength with an equally impressive session on Thursday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite once again edged out others, adding 13.27 points (+0.21%) to 6274.44. The S&P 500 once again finished second, up 4.58 points (+0.19%) to 2447.83, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average brought up the rear yet again, gaining 20.95 points (+0.10%) to 21553.09.

Market data today included June producer prices which came in at +0.1%, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of -0.1%; Core producer prices rose 0.1%. The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 247,000 compared to the revised prior week count of 250,000 (from 248,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.945 million from the revised count of 1.965 million (from 1.956 million).

The Technology (XLK 56.38, +0.13 +0.23%) space as a whole fared fairly well on Thursday, edged out only by the Energy and Financial space. Component PayPal (PYPL 57.90, +1.35 +2.39%) was strong today, piggy-backing off an equally strong session yesterday as sell side commentary held its bullish view. Top dog Financials XLF +0.60% were the best performing S&P sector today, followed by XLE +0.45%, XLRE +0.19%, XLV +0.13%, XLP +0.07%, XLY +0.01%, XLB -0.07%, XLI -0.09%, XLU -0.35%, IYZ -0.39%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (972.39, +3.20 +0.33%) space, trading strong off the open and never looking back. Component Alliance Data (ADS 264.57, +4.30 +1.65%) was especially strong today after Argus initiated coverage on the name with a Buy rating in the premarket. Other names in the space which outperformed today included NTAP +3.01%, HPE +1.79%, SYMC +1.47%, AAPL +1.39%, EBAY +1.30%, TDC +1.28%, FLIR +1.26%, SWKS +1.01%, MSFT +0.87%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Shopify (SHOP 93.01, -1.67 -1.76%) and eBay (EBAY 36.50, +0.47 +1.30%) announced that Shopify merchants will soon be able to list and sell their products on eBay directly from their Shopify account.

Yandex N.V. (YNDX 31.70, +4.37 +15.99%) and Uber to combine their ridesharing businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus and Georgia into a new company valued at $3.725 billion.

Cisco Systems (CSCO 31.27, +0.11 +0.35%) announced its intent to acquire Observable Networks; terms not disclosed.

Teradata (TDC 29.27, +0.37 +1.30%) acquired StackIQ; financial details not disclosed.

Upland Software (UPLD 23.97, +0.77 +3.32%) acquired Waterfall International for $24.4 million in cash at closing, also raised 2017 guidance.

Snap (SNAP 15.69, +0.45 +2.95%) and Formula 1 (FWONA 32.62, -0.36 -1.09%) unveiled a new global partnership.

Box (BOX 18.81, +0.14 +0.75%) President and COO Dan Levin will step down; Stephanie Carullo will succeed Levin as COO.

CenturyLink (CTL 22.78, +0.28 +1.24%) was weaker following reports that the company was named by the Minnesota Attorney General related to a lawsuit regarding billing concerns.

Paychex (PAYX 57.20, -0.04 -0.07%) increased its quarterly dividend to $0.50 from $0.46 per share.

Analyst actions:

SNAP upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel,
TWTR was upgraded to Mixed from Negative at OTR Global,
A and MTD were upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo,
VNTV was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts;
TWTR was downgraded to Hold from Reduce at Standpoint Research,
T was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill,
STX was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays;
HPQ and SSYS were initiated with Neutral ratings at Susquehanna,
ADS was initiated with a Buy at Argus,
ETFC and AMTD were initiated with Buy ratings at Rosenblatt,
BKYI was initiated with a Buy at Maxim Group

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From Briefing.com: 4:29 pm Closing Market Summary: Equities Finish Flat on Monday (:WRAPX) :

The equity market opened the week with a sleepy, range-bound performance that left the major averages little changed from where they closed on Friday. The S&P 500 and the Dow finished just a tick below their flat lines while the Nasdaq eked out a narrow victory.

Sector movement was very modest as market-moving headlines were few and far between. Seven groups advanced--technology (unch), consumer discretionary (+0.3%), utilities (+0.4%), consumer staples (+0.1%), real estate (+0.2%), telecom services (+0.2%), and materials (+0.2%)--and four groups declined--financials (-0.1%), health care (-0.3%), industrials (-0.1%), and energy (-0.2%).

The influential health care sector struggled following weekend reports that the Senate will delay a vote on health care reform, which was originally scheduled for this week, and ahead of tomorrow morning's earnings reports Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 132.15, -0.45) and UnitedHealth (UNH 186.35, -0.55).

Meanwhile, the consumer discretionary group outperformed, thanks in large part to retailers, which pushed the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 40.22, +0.36) higher by 0.9%. Amazon (AMZN 1010.04, +8.23) also exhibited relative strength, adding 0.8%, after the company's target price was raised to $1,200 at UBS.

Outside of the equity market, select safe-haven assets, including gold and U.S. Treasuries, ticked up on Monday; gold advanced 0.5% to $1,234.00/ozt while the benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, slipped three basis points to 2.31%.

In addition, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 9.87, +0.36), which is used to gauge investors' anticipation of short-term volatility, jumped 3.7%. However, it's important to note that, despite today's advance, the VIX remains at a historically-low level.

Reviewing today's economic data, which was limited to the Empire Manufacturing Survey for July:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for July fell to 9.8 from the prior month's reading of 19.8. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 13.0.

On Tuesday, investors will receive several economic reports, including June Export/Import Prices at 8:30 ET, the July NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 67) at 10:00 ET, and July Net Long-Term TIC Flows at 16:00 ET.
Nasdaq Composite +17.3% YTD
S&P 500 +9.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.4% YTD
Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Lower than average participation on Monday took morning gains off the table as the broader market gradually stepped lower into the close. A mixed finish saw the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite as the only major index ending higher, up 1.97 points (+0.03%) to 6314.43. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 8.02 points (-0.04%) today to 21629.72, while the S&P 500 finished less than a point lower (-0.01%) to 2459.14.

The Technology (XLK 56.87, +0.01 +0.02%) space ended just on this side of flat lines today. Component Akamai Tech (AKAM 51.77, +1.15 +2.27%) was strong today after CEO T. Leighton disclosed the purchase of about 19K shares under his 10b5-1 trading plan. The US Telecom IYZ +0.48% space was the best performer today, followed by XLU +0.46%, XLY +0.24%, XLRE +0.22%, XLB +0.20%, XLP +0.11%, XLI -0.06%, XLE -0.12%, XLF -0.32%, XLV -0.36%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (981.52, +0.44 +0.04%) space, trading escaped Monday with minimal gains. Component Fiserv (FISV 125.25, +1.64 +1.33%) performed well today after a premarket upgrade of the stock to a Buy rating at Guggenheim. Other names in the space which outperformed today included FFIV +2.21%, SYMC +1.46%, VRSN +1.11%, FLIR +1.03%, GLW +0.80%, MSFT +0.78%, PYPL +0.73%, CTXS +0.54%, JNPR +0.41%.

Other notable news items among sector components:
Western Digital's (WDC 94.57, +0.13 +0.14%) SanDisk obtained a court protection against Toshiba (TOSBF 2.10, +0.01 +0.48%) in preliminary injunction hearing.

Asure Software's (ASUR 13.76, -1.20 -8.02%) CFO Brad Wolfe resigned.

PayPal (PYPL 57.58, +0.42 +0.73%) expanded its partnership with Samsung (SSNLF 2080, flat) to enable PayPal as a payment method in Samsung Pay.

VirnetX Holding (VHC 4.05, -0.55 -11.96%) was informed by investor the previously disclosed share purchase will not occur on July 17 because the investor's financing sources have not yet completed their diligence.

Rubicon Project (RUBI 5.03, -0.04 -0.79%) acquired nToggle, a technology company that makes it easier and more cost effective for programmatic buyers to find the inventory they're looking for among the bid requests they receive each day; Rubicon paid $38.5 million in cash.

Alliance Data (ADS 262.07, -2.07 -0.78%) reported average receivables of $15,933,375 +16% Y/Y and Net charge-offs of 63,916; sees net loss rates consistent with its FY guidance.

Analyst actions:

FISV and VNTV were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Guggenheim,
EPAY was upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Raymond James,
DLB was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley & Co.,
EGOV was upgraded to Outperform from In-Line at Imperial Capital;
SAIC and BAH were downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies;
HDP was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum,
ANSS and PTC were initiated with Neutral ratings at Goldman

Expect quarterly results after the close/before the open tomorrow from: NFLX/ERIC, AMTD

4:19 pm Netflix misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (NFLX) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.15 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.16; revenues rose 32.3% year/year to $2.79 bln vs the $2.76 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
See Full List of Key Metrics in 16:14 comment
Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.32, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.22 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $2969 vs. $2.88 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Key excerpts from Shareholders Letter
In Q2, we underestimated the popularity of our strong slate of content which led to higher-than-expected acquisition across all major territories. As a result, global net adds totaled a Q2-record 5.2 million (vs. forecast of 3.2m) and increased 5% sequentially, bucking historical seasonal patterns. For the first six months of 2017, net adds are up 21% year-on-year to 10.2m.
International contribution profit of -$13 million vs. -$69 million was better than our -$28 million forecast due primarily to higher-than-forecasted paid members.
We are making good progress with our international expansion as improving profitability in our earlier international markets helps fund significant investment in our newer territories. As a result, we expect positive international contribution profit for the full year 2017, at current F/X exchange rates. This would mark the first ever annual contribution profit from our international segment.
Through the first half of 2017, our operating margin was 7.1%, putting us on track for our full year target of 7%, which we plan on growing in 2018 and beyond.
On competition: It seems our growth just expands the market. The largely exclusive nature of each service's content means that we are not direct substitutes for each other, but rather complements.
We anticipate free cash flow of -$2.0 to -$2.5 billion for the full year 2017. With our content strategy paying off in strong member, revenue and profit growth, we think it's wise to continue to invest.
Briefing.com Note: Prior guidance was for $2 bln.

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From Briefing.com: 4:31 pm Closing Market Summary: Nasdaq Advances to New All-Time High (:WRAPX) :For the first time since June 8, the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.5%) advanced to a new record high on Tuesday as tech stocks continued their bullish run. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) also finished at a new record high while the Dow and the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed, dropping 0.3% apiece. The three major averages settled the session at their best marks of the day.

Only five of the S&P 500's eleven sectors settled in positive territory, but, luckily for the broader market, one of those groups was the top-weighted technology space (+0.5%). Mega-cap names like Facebook (FB 162.86, +3.13) and Alphabet (GOOGL 986.95, +10.99) paced the sector's advance, adding 2.0% and 1.1%, respectively, with FB notching a new all-time high.

Today's win marks the eighth in a row for the technology sector, which has fully recovered from last month's swoon. For the year, the tech space trades comfortably ahead of its peers with a year-to-date gain of 22.1%. For comparison, the S&P 500 holds a year-to-date gain of 9.9% and the health care sector, which hovers in second place on the 2017 leaderboard, is up 15.9% on the year.

Meanwhile, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.4%) also put together a relatively solid performance, leaning on Amazon (AMZN 1024.38, +14.34) to overcome losses from most components. AMZN shares advanced 1.4% to a new all-time high. Netflix (NFLX 183.60, +21.90) was a top performer, surging 13.5%, after reporting a much larger than expected increase in subscribers and providing upbeat guidance. The lightly-weighted utilities group (+0.3%) was the only other sector to settle ahead of the broader market.

The influential health care group (+0.1%) eked out a narrow victory, thanks in part to the solid performances of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 134.46, +2.31) and UnitedHealth (UNH 186.85, +0.50). The two companies advanced 1.8% and 0.3%, respectively, after reporting better than expected earnings and issuing upbeat guidance.

On a related note, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided to pave a new direction for the upper chamber on Monday evening, trimming aspirations to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in favor of a straight repeal with no immediate replacement. However, three centrist-Republican Senators publicly opposed the idea on Tuesday, sending Republican leaders back to the drawing board.

Back on Wall Street, earnings played a role in the heavily-weighted financial sector's underperformance as Goldman Sachs (GS 223.31, -5.95) and Bank of America (BAC 23.90, -0.12) beat earnings and revenue estimates, but failed to live up to the bullish five-week run that financials enjoyed ahead of earnings season. The financial sector ended the day lower by 0.3%.

Like financials, the energy sector (-0.5%) also had a rough showing, despite a positive performance from crude oil, which climbed 0.8% to $46.40/bbl. The commodity benefited from reports that Saudi Arabia is considering a reduction in its crude exports, in addition to a weakening U.S. Dollar; the U.S. Dollar Index (94.42, -0.50) dropped 0.5% to settle at an 11-month low.

As for the remaining laggards, the telecom services group (-1.0%) was the weakest performer while the industrials (-0.3%), materials (-0.4%), and real estate (-0.1%) spaces settled with more moderate losses.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included June Export/Import Prices and the July NAHB Housing Market Index:

Import prices excluding oil rose 0.1% in June after finishing flat in May. Export prices excluding agriculture were unchanged in June (0.0%) after declining 0.4% in May (from -0.6%).

The key takeaway from the report is that it doesn't change the market's understanding -- or the Fed's -- that inflation readings remain low.

The NAHB Housing Market Index for July declined to 64 (Briefing.com consensus 67) from a revised reading of 66 in June (from 67).On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and June Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1160K) at 7:00 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +17.9% YTDS&P 500 +9.9% YTDDow Jones Industrial Average +9.2% YTDRussell 2000 +5.2% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

After a slow start on Tuesday which saw all three major US indices being choked lower, action eventually picked up and buyers stepped in across the board. The benchmark S&P 500 ended just above flat lines when all settled, up 1.47 points (+0.06%) to 2460.61. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended higher, perhaps aided by Netflix's (NFLX 183.60, +21.90 +13.54%) strong results from last night, up 29.87 points (+0.47%) to 6344.31. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was dragged lower by commodities, which finished modestly higher ahead of tomorrow's inventory data yet still saw the overall index shed 54.99 points (-0.25%) to 21574.73.

The Technology (XLK 57.13, +0.26 +0.46%) space was the best performer in the S&P today. Component PayPal (PYPL 58.96, +1.38 +2.40%) was one of the better performing names in the space today after come favorable sell side commentary and the confirmation of a partnership extension with Visa (V 97.58, +0.75 +0.77%). Following tech's strong Tuesday, the Consumer Discretionary XLY +0.45% space edged out others, followed by XLU +0.29%, XLV +0.18%, XLP +0.02%, XLRE -0.12%, XLF -0.16%, XLI -0.23%, XLB -0.42%, XLE -0.47%, IYZ -0.98%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (986.79, +5.27 +0.54%) space, trading climbed higher as the session progressed. Component Activision Blizzard (ATVI 61.33, +0.83 +1.37%) performed swimmingly today after a premarket initiation of the stock at a Buy at Needham. Other names in the space which outperformed today included FSLR +3.04%, FB +1.96%, TSS +1.70%, LRCX +1.51%, GOOG +1.26%, GOOGL +1.13%, NVDA +1.04%, AMAT +1.02%, ADBE +1.02%, V +0.77%, EA +0.77%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

GoDaddy (GDDY 43.70, +0.89 +2.08%) to sell PlusServer business to funds advised by BC Partners, for an enterprise value of 397 million.

Rocket Fuel (FUEL 2.70, +0.01 +0.37%) to be acquired by Sizmek for $2.60 per share in cash; pre-announced Q2 earnings.

Microsoft (MSFT 73.30, -0.05 -0.07%) and Baidu (BIDU 189.51, +1.28 +0.68%) announced plans to partner in order to take the technical development and adoption of autonomous driving worldwide; financial details not disclosed.

Digital Ally (DGLY 3.60, flat) was awarded a 'significant' new patent by the USPTO.

FireEye's (FEYE 15.62, +0.12 +0.77%) FireEye Government Email Threat Prevention Service, which was granted an Authorization to Operate (ATO) from the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), has received a Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program Authorization.

CalAmp (CAMP 19.04, -0.26 -1.35%) named Kurtis Binder as CFO effective today.

Benefitfocus (BNFT 35.30, flat) appointed Jonathon Dussault as CFO.

Toshiba (TOSBF 2.42, +0.32 +15.24%) provided an update on Western Digital (WDC 94.27, -0.30 -0.32%) preliminary injunctive relief.

PayPal (PYPL) and Visa (V) confirmed the extension of their strategic partnership to Europe, enables PayPal in Europe to issue Visa accounts.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Netflix (NFLX) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS of $0.15 on in-line revenues of $2.79 billion. The company also reported net adds for the quarter of 5.20 million vs guidance of 3.20 million. NFLX also gave some strong Q3 guidance, forecasting EPS of $0.32 on revenues of $2.969 billion, both ahead of market expectations.

Ericsson (ERIC 6.06, -1.21 -16.69%) reported worse than expected Q2 earnings of SEK0.17 on worse than expected revenues of SEK49.9 billion.

Analyst actions:

NFLX was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Rosenblatt,
XLNX was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Barclays,
SEDG was upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer;
CRUS and AMD were downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays,
ADP was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays,
IPGP was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity,
EXLS was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup;
ATVI and EA were initiated with Buy ratings at Needham,
ZG was initiated with a Sector Weight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts,
TWOU was initiated with a Buy at Citigroup,
INFN was initiated with a Buy at Craig Hallum,
BCE was initiated with a Hold at Argus,
ITI was initiated with a Buy at Dougherty,
NCR was initiated with a Buy at Compass Point

Expect quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning from: ADTN, IBM/ASML, DBD


4:10 pm IBM beats by $0.23, reports revs in-line; reaffirms FY17 EPS guidance (IBM) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $2.97 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.23 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.74; revenues fell 4.7% year/year to $19.29 bln vs the $19.45 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Segment Results for Second Quarter
Cognitive Solutions (includes solutions software and transaction processing software)- revenues of $4.6 billion, down 2.5 percent (down 1.4 percent adjusting for currency).
Global Business Services (includes consulting, global process services and application management)- revenues of $4.1 billion, down 3.7 percent (down 1.7 percent adjusting for currency). Strategic imperatives grew 8 percent led by the cloud and mobile practices.
Technology Services & Cloud Platforms (includes infrastructure services, technical support services and integration software)- revenues of $8.4 billion, down 5.1 percent (down 3.6 percent adjusting for currency). Strategic imperatives, driven by hybrid cloud services, grew 20 percent.
Systems (includes systems hardware and operating systems software)- revenues of $1.7 billion, down 10.4 percent (down 9.6 percent adjusting for currency).
Global Financing (includes financing and used equipment sales)- revenues of $415 million, down 2.2 percent (down 1.7 percent adjusting for currency).

Co reaffirms guidance for FY17, sees EPS of 'at least' $13.80, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $13.68 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.


4:10 pm Exponent beats by $0.10, beats on revs (EXPO) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.51 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.41; revenues rose 14.7% year/year to $84.1 mln vs the $79.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus

Co raises its 2017 expectations to reflect Exponent's strong performance in the first half of the year and its expectations for near-term market trends

Co expects 2017 revenues before reimbursements to grow in the mid- to high-single digits, up from the low to mid-single digits

Expects EBITDA margin to grow between 40 and 80 basis points vs. prior guidance, which called for EBITDA margins to decline 25 to 75 basis points

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:28 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Cruise to Record Highs Again on Wednesday (:WRAPX) :

The Nasdaq (+0.6%) kept on rolling in the midweek session, cruising to its ninth-consecutive victory--which marks its longest winning streak in two years--and a new all-time high. The S&P 500 (+0.5%), the Dow (+0.3%), and the Russell 2000 (+1.0%) also notched new record closes, finishing at their best marks of the day.

Today's win was a team effort with all 11 of the S&P 500's sectors finishing in positive territory. The industrial sector (+0.2%) was the weakest performer while the energy group (+1.4%) was the strongest.

The energy space was underpinned by a positive performance from crude oil, which climbed 1.5% to $47.31/bbl on the heels of a better than expected EIA inventory report. According to the Department of Energy, U.S. crude stockpiles declined by 4.7 million barrels last week while the consensus expected a draw of just 3.5 million barrels.

Elsewhere, the influential health care sector (+0.8%) exhibited strength throughout the session with Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 159.69, +27.53) leading the charge. VRTX shares spiked 20.8% to a fresh all-time high after the biotech company announced positive clinical trial results for three of its newest Cystic-Fibrosis drugs. Unsurprisingly, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 319.63, +4.49) finished comfortably ahead of the broader market, climbing 1.4%.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.6%) advanced for the ninth session in a row, but struggled to keep ahead of the broader market. IBM (IBM 147.53, -6.47) weighed on the group, dropping 4.2%, after reporting a decline in revenue for the 21st quarter in a row. Meanwhile, chipmakers finished modestly ahead of the benchmark index, evidenced by the 0.9% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

As for the laggards, financials struggled to stay afloat despite relatively upbeat earnings reports from Morgan Stanley (MS 46.62, +1.48) and US Bancorp (USB 52.08, +0.45). MS shares jumped 3.3% after the company reported better than expected earnings and revenues while USB shares added 0.9% after the company beat bottom-line estimates. Still, no matter how small the margin of victory, the financial group (+0.2%) managed to put an end to its three-session losing streak.

Like financials, the industrial group finished at the back of the pack. Transports weighed, sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average lower by 0.6%, with CSX (CSX 51.87, -2.77) and United Continental (UAL 74.24, -4.66) pacing the retreat. Both companies beat earnings per share estimates, with CSX also reporting better than expected revenues, but slipped on relatively unimpressive third-quarter guidance. CSX shares dropped 5.1% while UAL shares slipped a bit further, losing 5.9%.

In the bond market, U.S. sovereign debt finished relatively flat as participants hesitated to alter their positioning ahead of policy statements from two major central banks--the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank. The BoJ will release its policy decision overnight while the ECB will release its decision tomorrow morning. The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.27%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to June Housing Starts and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Housing starts increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.215 million units in June (Briefing.com consensus 1.160 million), up from a revised 1.122 million units in May (from 1.092 million). Building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted 1.254 million in June (Briefing.com consensus 1.196 million), up from an unrevised 1.168 million in May.

The key takeaway from the report is that there was solid growth in both single-family starts (+6.3%) and permits for single-family homes (+4.1%), both of which are important given the supply constraints in the housing market that have crimped affordability for many prospective home buyers.

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 6.3% to follow last week's 7.4% decrease.On Thursday, investors will receive several economic reports, including the July Philadelphia Fed Index (Briefing.com consensus 22.0) at 8:30 ET, the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 245K) also at 8:30 ET, and the June Leading Indicators Index (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +18.6% YTD
S&P 500 +10.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.2% YTD

4:09 pm Qualcomm beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS below consensus, revs mostly above consensus (QCOM) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.83 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.81; revenues fell 11.1% year/year to $5.37 bln vs the $5.25 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues mixed guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.75-0.85, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.91 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $5.4-6.2 bln vs. $5.48 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We delivered better than expected results in our semiconductor business this quarter, which drove EPS above the midpoint of our expectations versus our April updated guidance," said Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated. "Our products and technologies continue to enable the global smartphone industry, and we are expanding into many exciting new product categories, including automotive, mobile computing, networking and IoT. We believe that we hold the high ground with regard to the dispute with Apple [AAPL], and we have initiated new actions to protect the well-established value of our technologies."

As a result of the recent actions taken by Apple's contract manufacturers and the other licensee in dispute, we currently do not believe total reported device sales and related estimated ranges of device shipment and average selling price are meaningful in measuring our QTL business, and therefore, we are not providing such metrics for the fiscal third quarter.

During Q3, co returned $1.1 billion to stockholders, including $844 million, or $0.57 per share, of cash dividends paid and $300 million through repurchases of 5.2 million shares of common stock

Expects NXPI deal to clsoe by year end.

4:07 pm Plexus beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line (PLXS) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.74 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.71; revenues fell 7.3% year/year to $618.8 mln vs the $608.95 mln Capital IQ Consensus and at the high end of $595 mln to $625 mln guidance range.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.77 to $0.87 vs. $0.84 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $660 mln to $700 mln vs. $672.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We expect fiscal fourth quarter revenue to increase significantly as a result of ramping previously reported program wins. Consequently, we are guiding fiscal fourth quarter revenue in the range of $660 to $700 million. At this revenue level, in conjunction with continued strong operating performance, we anticipate GAAP EPS in the range of $0.77 to $0.87. Our wins momentum and qualified funnel of opportunities remain robust, giving us confidence that we can achieve meaningful growth in fiscal 2018."

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Both the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 notched new all-time highs today as stocks surged with earnings season fully underway. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite won the day, though, adding 40.74 points (+0.64%) to 6385.04. Heavily weighted Nasdaq 100 names VRTX +20.9%, ISRG +2.1%, REGN +1.8%, DLTR +1.5% and GILD +1.4% all aided the strength. The S&P 500 was a close second, gaining 13.22 points (+0.54%) today to 2473.83, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced about 66.02 points (+0.31%) to 21640.75.

The Technology (XLK 57.42, +0.29 +0.51%) space fell just shy of making all-time highs today as the broader market surge percolated down to the sector. Component Autodesk (ADSK 110.25, +2.55 +2.37%) was among the better performing names today as the stock was initiated ahead of the bell with a Buy rating at Deutsche Bank. As it were, all 11 S&P sectors finished in the green today, led by the Energy XLE +1.46% space, followed by XLB +0.96%, IYZ +0.90%, XLV +0.81%, XLRE +0.74%, XLY +0.47%, XLU +0.42%, XLP +0.37%, XLF +0.12%, XLI +0.09%.

In tech, Semis (SMH 87.77, +0.86 +0.99%) were among the best performing names today. Component ASML (ASML 150.63, +7.38 +5.15%) led the pack after reporting better than expected Q2 results. Peers IDCC +5.11%, CRUS +3.16%, CAVM +2.63%, ON +2.02%, MPWR +1.95%, MRVL +1.67%, TSM +1.51%, AVGO +1.40%, MKSI +1.39%, MSCC +1.37% all put up strong Wednesday sessions.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (992.29, +5.50 +0.56%) space, trading made new all-time highs today; the IT space has not posted a down session in nine trading days. Component First Solar (FSLR 45.67, +1.65 +3.75%) was strong after receiving a premarket upgrade to a Buy rating from Axiom Capital's Gordon Johnson; shares were later downgraded to Hold at Standpoint Research citing valuation. Other names in the space which outperformed today included LRCX +3.06%, HPE +3.03%, CTXS +1.93%, JNPR +1.77%, HPQ +1.69%, TEL +1.60%, KLAC +1.56%, CA +1.56%, SWKS +1.52%, MSI +1.50%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Hortonworks' (HDP 13.18, -1.10 -7.70%) Rajnish Verma, COO, has stepped down. Current CFO, Scott Davidson, will assume the additional responsibility of COO. The company also updated guidance for Q2 total GAAP revenue of $58-59 million.

Cray (CRAY 19.45, +0.55 +2.91%) implemented a restructuring plan, expects to reduce its workforce by approximately 190 employees.

Rapid7 (RPD 17.30, +0.26 +1.53%) acquired Komand; financial terms were not disclosed.

Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 33.48, +0.48 +1.45%) was awarded a $140 million Air Force contract and $49.9 million Army contract.

xG Technology (XGTI 2.20, +0.12 +5.77%) received an order valued at about $1.5 million for microwave communications equipment from a 'leading' medical device manufacturer.

Science Applications (SAIC 71.04, +1.51 +2.17%) has been awarded a task order for $621 million from the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Systems Integration and Management Center.

Toshiba (TOSBF 2.36, -0.05 -2.40%) won a court ruling to resume efforts to protect its intellectual property and deny Western Digital (WDC 94.48, +0.21 +0.22%) workers access to certain data and facilities effective immediately.

In reaction to quarterly results:

ADTRAN (ADTN 22.00, +1.50 +7.32%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.30 on revenues which rose about 13.5% compared to last year to $184.7 million. Also guided Q3 revs flat q/q compared to $184.7 million.

ASML (ASML) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of EUR1.08 and EUR2.1 billion, respectively. For Q3, the company sees revenues ahead of market expectations at about EUR2.2 billion.

IBM (IBM 147.53, -6.47 -4.20) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $2.97 on in-line revenues of $19.29 billion. The company also reaffirmed FY17 EPS guidance of at least $13.80.

Analyst actions:

FSLR was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Axiom Capital,
JASO was upgraded to Hold at Axiom Capital,
TRIP was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at Cowen,
CSOD was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse;
PYPL was downgraded to Hold from Buy at SunTrust,
FSLR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Standpoint Research;

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:29 pm Closing Market Summary: Nasdaq Ekes Out Another Record Close (:WRAPX) :The Nasdaq (+0.1%) eked out another record close on Thursday, its third in a row, while the S&P 500 (unch) and the Dow (-0.1%) settled just short of their unchanged marks. Action was fairly range-bound with the benchmark index staying true to a ten-point range from start to finish.

There were few surprises in the latest policy decisions from the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, with both central banks deciding to leave interest rates unchanged. ECB President Mario Draghi said in his post-decision press conference that the economy has continued to expand, but a substantial degree of accommodation is still necessary as underlying inflation remains subdued.

However, Mr. Draghi didn't dispel the notion that the ECB might soon announce a tapering of the bank's asset purchase program, saying simply the ECB is not setting a date for a change to quantitative easing. The euro climbed 1.0% to 1.1627 against the greenback, sending the U.S. Dollar Index (94.09, -0.55) to an 11-month low.

Meanwhile, the BoJ pushed back the expected time frame for hitting its inflation target of 2.0% to "around FY19" from "around FY18", leaving the impression that it won't be changing its ultra-accommodative monetary policy anytime soon. The yen slipped 0.1% to 112.00 against the U.S. dollar.

In the states, Treasuries rallied across the curve following the aforementioned policy decisions. The benchmark 10-yr yield traded as low as 2.24%, but came up a bit in the late afternoon to finish just one basis point below its flat line at 2.26%.

Earnings season was once again the focal point in the stock market on Thursday. Dow components American Express (AXP 85.35, -0.58) and Travelers (TRV 124.57, -1.89) sold off after delivering their quarterly reports, losing 0.7% and 1.5%, respectively. AXP beat top and bottom line estimates, but reported a 33.0% decline in profit for the second quarter. Meanwhile, TRV missed bottom-line estimates.

However, despite the negative performances from AXP and TRV, the influential financial sector (-0.1%) managed to stay in line with the broader market. Similarly, the top-weighted technology space (unch) was able to keep pace despite challenges on the earnings front. Namely, Qualcomm (QCOM 53.97, -2.81) dropped 5.0% after providing disappointing earnings guidance.

The lightly-weighted telecom services group (+1.4%) settled at the top of the leaderboard after T-Mobile US (TMUS 61.12, -0.85) beat top and bottom line estimates in addition to raising its full-year guidance. However, ironically, TMUS was one of the only telecom components to not finish in positive territory, ending the day lower by 1.4%.

Like telecom services, the health care (+0.6%) and utilities (+0.7%) sectors outperformed, but, on the downside, a total of seven spaces finished in the red. The industrial space was one of the weakest performers, dropping 0.6%, as transports weighed, evidenced by the 1.0% decrease in the Dow Jones Transportation Average.

C.H. Robinson (CHRW 65.01, -3.68) paced the DJTA's retreat, dropping 5.4%, after missing bottom-line estimates. Union Pacific (UNP 106.14, -1.70) also underperformed, losing 1.6%, after its better than expected earnings and revenues were overshadowed by projections for flat volume growth in the third quarter.

It's also worth pointing out that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will be considering President Trump's business dealings in his investigation on Russia's involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The stock market slipped on the initial headline, but reclaimed the slide within 30 minutes.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the July Philadelphia Fed Index, the weekly Initial Claims Report, and the June Leading Indicators Index:

The Philadelphia Fed Survey for July declined to 19.5 from an unrevised 27.6 in June while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 22.0.

The key takeaway from the report is that the downturn was led by a sharp drop in new orders, which isn't the best preliminary signal for third quarter economic growth prospects.

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 233,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 245,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 248,000 (from 247,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.977 million from the revised count of 1.949 million (from 1.945 million).

The report covered the period in which the survey for the July employment report was conducted; accordingly, the key takeaway is that it should feed expectations for another month of strong nonfarm payroll gains.

The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for June increased 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) after moving higher by an unrevised 0.3% in May.Investors will not receive any economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +18.7% YTD
S&P 500 +10.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.3% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Action was mostly flat today, yet the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite found a way to stay above water when others could not. The index added 4.96 points (+0.08%) to 6390.00. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, by contrast, lost 28.97 points (-0.13%) today to close at 21611.78, and the S&P 500 shed less than a point (-0.02%) to 2473.45.

The Technology (XLK 57.55, +0.13 +0.23%) space posted another strong session on Thursday, taking month-to-date gains to 4.7%. Component CenturyLink (CTL 23.22, +0.54 +2.38%) performed the best today after announcing its Managed Security Services 2.0 suite is now available in Asia Pacific. The remaining S&P sectors were led by the US Telecom space IYZ +0.92% and followed by XLU +0.72%, XLV +0.66%, XLP +0.02%, XLF -0.04%, XLY -0.21%, XLRE -0.28%, XLE -0.30%, XLI -0.56%, XLB -0.74%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (992.71, +0.42 +0.04%) space made it an ever 10 sessions of gains today. Despite this, there were weak points as component Alliance Data (ADS 238.62, -24.91 -9.45%) showed particular weakness following Q2 results and lowered FY17 guidance; similarly, component Qualcomm (QCOM 53.97, -2.81 -4.95%) was hit hard today after giving some unimpressive Q4 guidance in concurrently with earnings. In spite of these select weak points, other names which followed the broader trend higher today included SWKS +2.12%, QRVO +1.60%, NVDA +1.45%, CSRA +1.33%, FSLR +1.31%, HPE +1.30%, HPQ +1.28%, PYPL +1.27%, CRM +1.09%, NTAP +1.00%, MCHP +0.89%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Corning (GLW 31.71, -0.02 -0.06%) acquired SpiderCloud Wireless a provider of in-building wireless solutions; terms not disclosed.

SAP AG (SAP 105.82, +0.28 +0.27%) in addition to reporting earnings announced an EUR500 million share buyback.

DXC Technology's (DXC 78.63, -0.08 -0.10%) Enterprise Services entered into Master Accounts Receivable Purchase Agreement.

Camtek (CAMT 5.41, -0.20 -3.57%) to sell its PCB business for $35 million to Principle Capital, a private-equity fund; co will sell it for $35 million, of which $32 million will be paid in cash upon closing and an additional amount of up to $3 million conditioned upon the PCB business' financial performance in 2018.

USA Tech (USAT 5.25, +0.45 +9.38%) priced a 8,333,333 common stock offering at $4.50 per share.

Pareteum (TEUM 1.15, +0.19 +19.79%) received two new cloud services contracts from UK-based Communications Service Providers; the new three-year contracts represent an additional $1 million to the company's current revenue backlog.

DragonWave (DRWI 0.89, flat) announced receipt of a repayment notice from Comerica Bank for the repayment in the amount of $17,243,336.

In reaction to quarterly results:

SAP AG (SAP) reported in-line Q2 EPS of EUR0.94 on better than expected revenues of EUR5.78 billion. The company also guided FY17 revenues in-line at EUR23.3-23.7 billion.

Qualcomm (QCOM 53.97, -2.81 -4.95%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $0.83 and $5.37 billion, respectively. For Q4, the company sees EPS below market expectations at $0.75-0.85 on revenue guidance mostly above market views at $5.4-6.2 billion.

T-Mobile US (TMUS 61.12, -0.85 -1.37%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.67 and $10.21 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company sees adjusted EBITDA of $10.5-10.9 billion, up from $10.4-10.8 billion.

Rogers Comms (RCI 51.58, +0.77 +1.52%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of CAD1.00 on in-line revenues of CAD3.59 billion.

Check Point Software (CHKP 107.41, -8.31 -7.18%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $1.26 on in-line revenues of $458.6 million. The company also guided Q3 EPS of $1.18-1.28 on revenues between $440-465 million. CHKP also reaffirmed FY17 EPS of $5.05-5.25 and revenues of $1.85-1.90 billion.

Analyst actions:

HPQ was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts;
NEWR and RNG were downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley,
NVEC was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
DIOD was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Cleveland Research;
COUP was initiated with an Overweight at Cantor Fitzgerald

Expect quarterly results tonight from the following companies: ETFC, EBAY, MANH, MXIM, MSFT, NCR, SWKS, V

4:35 pm Super Micro Computer raises Q4 revenue guidance on strong Asia and storage demand, lowers EPS guidance due to three factors (SMCI) :

Raises Q4 rev to $712-717 mln from $655-715 mln vs $681.96 mln Capital IQ Consensus. Revenue exceeded expectations primarily due to stronger sales in Asia and at storage customers with strong shipments that accelerated late in the quarter.

Lowers Q4 EPS to $0.35-0.37 from $0.40-0.50 vs $0.45 Capital IQ Consensus. This includes an estimated negative impact of $0.09 related to three major items: expiring customer agreements with unfavorable DRAM and SSD pricing; urgent new projects with unanticipated R & D expense from major partners with NRE to be recovered in later quarters; and tax impact due to our global corporate tax structure.

Co will report on Aug 3.

4:20 pm Skyworks beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; increases quarterly dividend 14% QoQ to $0.32/share (SWKS) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $1.57 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.52; revenues rose 19.8% year/year to $900.8 mln vs the $890.58 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.75, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.73 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $980 mln vs. $973.09 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Skyworks' Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.32 per share of the Company's common stock, representing a 14 percent increase from the prior quarterly dividend of $0.28 per share. The dividend is payable on August 29, 2017, to stockholders of record at the close of business on August 8, 2017.

"Given our design win momentum and new product pipeline, we intend to sustainably outpace growth in our addressable markets."SWKS is an Apple (AAPL) supplier -- AAPL reports earnings August 1 after the close

4:14 pm Microsoft beats by $0.04, beats on revs (MSFT) :

Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.75 per share, excluding a $0.23/share ($1.8 bln) tax benefit, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.71; revenues rose 9.1% year/year to $24.7 bln vs the $24.29 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $8.4 billion and increased 21% (up 23% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:

Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 5% (up 6% in constant currency) driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 43% (up 44% in constant currency)
Office consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 13% (up 13% in constant currency) and Office 365 consumer subscribers increased to 27.0 million
Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 7% (up 9% in constant currency) driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 74% (up 75% in constant currency)
LinkedIn contributed revenue of $1.1 billion during the quarter

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $7.4 billion and increased 11% (up 12% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:

Server products and cloud services revenue increased 15% (up 16% in constant currency) driven by Azure revenue growth of 97% (up 98% in constant currency)
Enterprise Services revenue decreased 3% (down 1% in constant currency) with declines in custom support agreements offset by growth in Premier Support Services

Revenue in More Personal Computing was $8.8 billion and decreased 2% (down 1% in constant currency) driven primarily by lower phone revenue, with the following business highlights:

Windows OEM revenue increased 1% (up 1% in constant currency), slightly ahead of the overall PC market
Windows commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 8% (up 8% in constant currency) driven by annuity revenue growth
Surface revenue decreased 2% (down 1% in constant currency) mainly due to product lifecycle transitions
Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 10% (up 11% in constant currency) driven by higher revenue per search and search volume
Gaming revenue increased 3% (up 4% in constant currency) as strength in Xbox software and services offset lower hardware revenue.

"We delivered a strong finish to the year with 30% growth in commercial bookings this quarter."
Microsoft will provide forward-looking guidance in connection with this quarterly earnings announcement on its earnings conference call and webcast.

4:08 pm Maxim Integrated beats by $0.01, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs in-line; co raises quarterly dividend 9% to $0.36/share; co announces new share repurchase authorization $1 bln (MXIM) :

Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $0.63 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.62; revenues rose 6.3% year/year to $602 mln vs the $609.52 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co downside EPS guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.48-0.54, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.58 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $555-595 mln vs. $592.35 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Investors Take Earnings in Stride (:WRAPX) :The stock market cruised to a victory on Tuesday with the S&P 500 (+0.3%), the Nasdaq (unch), and the small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.9%) all settling at fresh record highs. The Dow (+0.5%) outperformed the benchmark index, but finished just 30 points shy of its record mark. The Nasdaq lagged as a handful of influential tech stocks underperformed.

Investors were drowning in earnings reports on Tuesday, but took the news in stride as the results largely came in better than expected. For instance, out of the five Dow components that reported their quarterly results on Tuesday morning, four of them--Caterpillar (CAT 114.54, +6.36, +5.9%), McDonald's (MCD 159.07, +7.22, +4.8%), DuPont (DD 85.49, +1.14, +1.4%), and United Technologies (UTX 120.42, -2.71, -2.2%)--beat earnings per share estimates. 3M (MMM 199.39, -10.61, -5.1%) was the only Dow component to miss bottom-line estimates.

However, stock movement didn't necessarily reflect earnings performance, at least on the surface, with Alphabet (GOOGL 969.03, -29.28) serving as a prime example. The tech giant reported better than expected earnings and revenues, but slipped 2.9% nonetheless. There were some concerns surrounding a 28.0% year-over-year increase in the company's traffic acquisition costs (TAC), but the sell off was more likely a signal that the good earnings news was priced in during a three-week rally leading up to the report; GOOGL shares jumped 8.6% from July 3 to July 24.

Alphabet weighed on the top-weighted technology sector, which finished with a loss of 0.2%. The industrial (-0.1%) sector also settled with a modest decline while the health care and utilities spaces suffered more substantial losses, losing 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively. Biotechnology names struggled, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 323.81, -3.53) lower by 1.1%. However, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly (LLY 82.19, -2.55) did even worse, dropping 3.0%, despite beating top and bottom line estimates.

On a related note, the Senate voted to move forward with a debate on health-care reform on Tuesday afternoon with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a 50-50 tie.

Seven of eleven sectors advanced on Tuesday with the financials (+1.3%), energy (+1.3%), and materials (+1.2%) groups leading the charge. The financial space benefited from Citigroup's (C 68.03, +1.93) upbeat long-term profitability projections, which were provided at its first investor day since the Great Recession. In addition, a curve-steepening trade in the Treasury market also underpinned financials' positive performance.

Treasuries settled lower across the curve with the heaviest selling taking place at the back end; the 10-yr yield climbed eight basis points to 2.33% while the 2-yr yield climbed three basis points to 1.39%.

Meanwhile, the energy space benefited from a rally in the crude oil market. The commodity advanced for the second day in a row, underpinned by yesterday's news that Saudi Arabia will curb its exports next month. Technical trading also played a factor as WTI crude managed to break above its 50-day simple moving average ($46.52/bbl), which acted as a level of resistance on Monday. WTI crude settled higher by 3.3% at a price of $47.89/bbl.

As for the materials sector, Freeport-McMoRan (FCX 14.87, +1.91) was the top performer, surging 14.7%, after saying on its post-earnings conference call that copper demand from China has been better than expected. FCX beat revenue estimates, but came up a little short on earnings. Meanwhile, copper jumped 3.9% to $2.84/lb.

Out of the remaining advancers--consumer discretionary (+0.7%), consumer staples (+0.7%), telecom services (+0.3%), and real estate (+0.1%)--the consumer discretionary and consumer staples groups were the top performers as retailers outperformed. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 40.81, +1.05) climbed 2.6% amid broad strength.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for July, the May FHFA Housing Price Index, and the May S&P 500 Case-Shiller Home Price Index:

The consumer confidence reading for July rose to 121.1 from the prior month's revised reading of 117.3 (from 118.9). The Briefing.com consensus expected the survey to hit 116.8.

The key takeaway from the report is that the uptick in July was forged by a pickup in sentiment for current conditions as well as the short-term outlook.

The FHFA Housing Price Index for May rose 0.4%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.7%. The prior month's reading was revised to 0.6% (from 0.7%). The May Case-Shiller 20-city Index hit 5.7%, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at 5.7%.On Wednesday, investors will receive just two pieces of economic data--the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the June New Home Sales Report (Briefing.com consensus 610K). The two reports will cross the wires at 7:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Also of note, the Fed's latest policy directive will be released on Wednesday afternoon at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +19.1% YTD
S&P 500 +10.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.9% YTD

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

After a split start, the broader market finished higher as the Dow Jones Industrial Average peeled ahead. The Dow gained 100.26 points (+0.47%) today to end 21613.43. The S&P 500 was up 7.17 points (+0.29%) to 2477.08, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.37 points (+0.02%) to 6412.17.

Market data today included the consumer confidence reading for July which rose to 121.1 from the prior month's revised reading of 117.3 (from 118.9). Also, the FHFA Housing Price Index for May rose 0.4%, while the prior month's reading was revised to 0.6% (from 0.7%). Lastly, the May Case-Shiller 20-city Index hit 5.7%, while the prior month's reading was left unrevised at 5.7%.

The Technology (XLK 57.50 -0.11 -0.19%) space retreated modestly off yesterday's gains. Component Seagate Tech (STX 33.20, -6.56 -16.50%) was the worst performer today after missing Q4 earnings and revenue expectations and announcing job cuts. When Tuesday came to a close, the Energy XLE +1.26% space led the pack, followed by XLF +1.24%, IYZ +1.08%, XLB +1.07%, XLY +0.70%, XLP +0.69%, XLRE +0.00%, XLI -0.13%, XLU -0.57%, XLV -0.72%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (992.74, -1.74 -0.17%) space, trading ended off lows and modestly in the red. Component Alphabet (GOOG 950.70, -29.64 -3.02%) was another underperformer today as the company reported an earnings beat yet ended lower. Some remaining names which underperformed today included MU -5.59%, KLAC -1.09%, WDC -0.92%, ADBE -0.88%, AMAT -0.81%, ATVI -0.80%, PYPL -0.55%, NVDA -0.48%, FIS -0.47%, FB -0.43%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

In addition to reporting earnings, Seagate Tech (STX) committed to additional restructuring plan to reduce cost structure, intends to reduce global headcount by about 600 employees.

HubSpot (HUBS 74.80, -0.65 -0.86%) acquired Kemvi; terms not disclosed.

Agilent (A 60.54, -0.96 -1.56%) acquired molecular and sample barcoding patent portfolios of Population Genetics Technologies; terms not disclosed.

IBM (IBM 146.19, +0.20 +0.14%) was granted patent on approach for utilizing the inherent structure of a printed circuit board to protect cryptographic keys and codes in a manner that is designed to be highly tamper-resistant.

LG Display (LPL 14.49, -0.59 -3.91%) reported Q2 results; will invest in a new 8.5th generation large-size organic light emitting diodes production line in Guangzhou, China.

Nuance Communications (NUAN 17.39, -0.06 -0.34%) and Seiko Epson (SEKEY 11.76, +0.01 +0.13%) form worldwide strategic partnership.

Telefonica S.A. (TEF 10.88, flat) named Angel Vil Boix as Chief Operating Officer.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Alphabet (GOOG) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $5.01 and $26.01 billion, respectively. Google Properties revenue $18.42 billion, +19.6% y/y; Paid Click on Google Properties +61%; Paid Clicks on Google Network Member +9%

Cadence Design (CDNS 36.64, +1.57 +4.48%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.34 on revenues which were in-line at $479 million. For Q3, the company sees EPS and revenues in-line at $0.33-0.35 and $475-485 million, respectively. For FY17 the company sees EPS of $1.36-1.42 (from $1.32-1.42) on revenues of $1.91-1.95 billion (from $1.90-1.95 billion).

Seagate Tech (STX) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS and revenues of $0.65 and $2.41 billion, respectively.

Logitech Intl SA (LOGI 36.55, -4.20 -10.31%) reported better than expected Q1 EPS and revenues of $0.24 and $530 million, respectively. For FY18, the company sees revenue growth of 10-12% y/y to $2.43-2.47 billion.

Siliconware Precision (SPIL 8.15, -0.01 -0.18%) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of NT$0.69 and NT$20.42 billion, respectively.

Analyst actions:

TEAM was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley,
TKC was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup;
SNAP was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Cleveland Research,
POWI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank,
WBMD was downgraded at SunTrust and Raymond James;
TNTR was initiated at Piper Jaffray, KeyBanc Capital Mkts, BofA/Merrill and Morgan Stanley among others,
AAPL, LOGI, STX, XRX, EFII and WDC were all initiated with Buy ratings at Loop Capital,
SSYS was initiated with a Hold at Loop Capital,
HDP and MIME were initiated with Buy ratings at Needham

Expect quarterly earnings tonight/tomorrow from the following companies: AMD, AKAM, AABA, T, CLS, CLGX, DLB, EEFT, JNPR, MKSI, TXN, TSS/APH, ANGI, AUO, AUDC, AVX, GLW, FLIR, LN, SLAB, STM, TEL, UMC

4:33 pm Qualcomm and Nichicon enter into a Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging license agreement (QCOM) : By this agreement Qualcomm has granted Nichicon a royalty bearing license to develop, make and supply WEVC systems based on Qualcomm Halo technology. Qualcomm will also provide a comprehensive technology transfer package to help Nichicon to develop commercially and technically viable WEVC systems and support the future design of improved WEVC systems.

4:23 pm Advanced Micro beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus; raises FY17 sales growth (AMD) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.02 per share, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.00); revenues rose 19.0% year/year to $1.22 bln vs the $1.16 bln Capital IQ Consensus, driven by higher revenue in the Computing and Graphics segment. Revenue was up 24 percent sequentially, driven by increased sales in both business segments. Gross margin was 33 %, up 2 percentage points year-over-year due to a richer product mix and a higher percentage of revenue from the Computing and Graphics segment, driven by the first full quarter of Ryzen processor sales.

Computing and Graphics segment revenue was $659 million, up 51 percent year-over-year, driven by demand for graphics and Ryzen desktop processors. Operating income was $7 million, compared to an operating loss of $81 million in Q2 2016. The year-over-year improvement was driven primarily by higher revenue and improved product mix. Client average selling price (:ASP) increased significantly year-over-year, as desktop processor ASP increased due to the first full quarter of Ryzen processor shipments. GPU ASP increased year-over-year. Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment revenue was $563 million, down 5 percent year-over-year primarily due to lower semi-custom SoC sales. In the quarter, AMD reached an important milestone by recognizing initial revenue from EPYC datacenter processor shipments.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of +20-26% Q/Q to ~$1.47-1.54 bln vs. $1.39 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; adj. gross margin ~34%.
Raises FY17 rev growth to mid to high teens % from low double digits; semi-custom revenue to be down year-over-year based on the maturity of the current game console cycle, non-GAAP gross margin to be ~34%, achieve non-GAAP net income.

4:22 pm Juniper Networks beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (JNPR) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.57 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54 and at the high end of prior guidance of $0.51-0.57; revenues rose 7.2% year/year to $1.31 bln vs the $1.29 bln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of $1.25-1.31 bln.

Non-GAAP operating margin in Q2 was 24.2%, an increase from 22.5% in 2Q16 and an increase from 20.8% in 1Q17.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.55-0.61, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.58 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.29-1.35 bln vs. $1.33 bln Capital IQ Consensus

Estimate. Co guides to Q3 non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 24.1% at the midpoint of revenue guidance.

"We had good revenue growth and earnings expansion in [Q2]...We are executing on our strategy to lead the transformation to the cloud...We believe our innovative product portfolio has us well positioned to expand our business opportunities as customers look for high-performance network solutions that deliver scale, performance and automation."

4:17 pm Celestica reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs in-line (CLS) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.32 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.32; revenues rose 4.9% year/year to $1.56 bln vs the $1.55 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.28-0.34, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.33 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.5-1.6 bln vs. $1.59 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Revenue dollars from our Communications end market increased 14% compared to the second quarter of 2016, and represented 44% of total revenue, compared to 41% of total revenue for the second quarter of 2016

4:05 pm Texas Instruments beats by $0.07, beats on revs; guides Q3 in-line (TXN) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.03 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.96; revenues rose 12.8% year/year to $3.69 bln vs the $3.57 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $1.04-1.18 vs. $1.05 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $3.74-4.06 bln vs. $3.8 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Revenue increased 13 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Demand for our products continued to be strong in the automotive market and continued to strengthen in the industrial market. "In our core businesses, Analog revenue grew 18 percent and Embedded Processing revenue grew 15 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Operating margin increased in both businesses. "Gross margin of 64.3 percent reflected the quality of our product portfolio, as well as the efficiency of our manufacturing strategy, including the benefit of 300-millimeter Analog production.

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From Briefing.com: Tech Stocks from Briefing.com
When the dust settled on Wednesday, the trifecta was complete as the broader market made new all-time highs across the board; the Dow Jones Industrial Average led out of the gate and never looked back, advancing 97.58 points (+0.45%) to 21711.01. The Nasdaq Composite came in second, adding 10.57 points (+0.16%) to 6422.75, while the S&P 500 gained less than a point (+0.03%) to 2477.83. To that end, all three major US averages made all-time highs today.

As expected, the FOMC unanimously voted to keep the fed funds target range at 1.00%-1.25%. Regarding the central bank's $4.5 trillion balance sheet, the Fed indicated that it expects to begin the paring process "relatively soon", which has been largely interpreted as September.

Market data today included the New Home Sales reading for June which hit an annualized rate of 610,000, which was above the revised May rate of 605,000 (from 610,000). Also, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 0.4% to follow last week's 6.3% increase.

The Technology (XLK 57.72, +0.22 +0.38%) space cracked into all-time high territory today. Component AT&T (T 38.03, +1.81 +5.00%) was the best performing name today after reporting better than expected Q2 earnings and best-ever postpaid phone churn of 0.79%. As it were, the Utility XLU +0.95% space was the best performing S&P sector today, followed by XLRE +0.83%, IYZ +0.47%, XLI +0.13%, XLE +0.11%, XLP -0.02%, XLY -0.04%, XLV -0.34%, XLB -0.61%, XLF -0.67%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (994.72, +1.98 +0.20%) space, trading managed to climb out of the red as afternoon losses did not hold. Component Electronic Arts (EA 118.00, +4.34 +3.82%) had a hot session after a premarket upgrade of the stock to a Buy rating at BofA/Merrill. On the flip side, component Corning (GLW 30.42, -1.71 -5.32%) was pressured today despite an earnings and revenue beat. Other names which got hot today included ATVI +2.77%, ADP +2.71%, LRCX +2.36%, AMAT +2.26%, MCHP +2.16%, EBAY +1.98%, TSS +1.78%, KLAC +1.76%, ADSK +1.62%, ADI +1.51%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Qualcomm (QCOM 53.14, -0.13 -0.24%) and Japanese-based Nichicon enter into a Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging license agreement.

Guidance Software (GUID 7.11, +0.21 +3.04%) to be acquired by OpenText (OTEX 34.42, +1.08 +3.24%) for $7.10 per share in cash; transaction valued at about $240 million.

ViaSat (VSAT 67.68, +0.25 +0.37%) was selected by Northrop Grumman (NOC 263.86, -0.19 -0.07%) in the delivery of a next-generation satellite communications network to the Australian Defence Force.

LINE Corp (LN 34.20, -0.72 -2.06%) to establish a new subsidiary, LINE Friends Japan Corporation, by a simplified incorporation-type company split to succeed its LINE Friends Store business.

SITO Mobile (SITO 5.12, -0.61 -10.65%) responded to the 13D/A filing by the Singer Group 'that included material erroneous misstatements'.

In reaction to quarterly results:

AT&T (T) reported better than expected Q2 EPS of $0.79 on in-line revenues of $39.84 billion. Reported 2.8 million wireless net adds; 2.3 million in U.S., driven by connected devices, prepaid and postpaid 476,000 Mexico net adds. Also reported best-ever postpaid phone churn of 0.79% with total postpaid churn, including tablets, of 1.01%.

Texas Instruments (TXN 82.55, +1.16 +1.43%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.03 and $3.69 billion, respectively. For Q3, the company sees in-line EPS and revenues of $1.04-1.18 and $3.74-4.06 billion, respectively.

TE Connectivity (TEL 80.65, -2.57 -3.09%) reported better than expected Q3 EPS and revenues of $1.24 and $3.37 billion. Also guided Q4 EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $1.14-1.16 and $3.2-3.3 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company sees EPS ahead of market expectations at $4.72-4.74 on in-line revenues of $12.85-12.95 billion.

Corning (GLW) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.42 and $2.59 billion, respectively.

Advanced Micro (AMD 14.76, +0.65 +4.61%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.02 and $1.22 billion, respectively. For Q3, the company sees revenue growth of 20-26% quarter-over-quarter to about $1.47-1.54 billion.

Analyst actions:

EA was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill,
MBT was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan,
VEON was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan;
STX was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
AMD was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital,
ITRI was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
CEL was downgraded to Sell at Citigroup,
GUID was downgraded to Neutral at Piper Jaffray,
UMC was downgraded at Daiwa and Citigroup;
AMD was initiated with an Outperform at Robert W. Baird,
CALD was initiated with a Buy at Jefferies

Expect quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning from the following companies: AXTI BCOV CMPR DMRC FFIV FB FORR FTNT KS KN LRCX LLNW LPSN MLNX MB MPWR NTGR NTRI PYPL NOW TER TYL XLNX/ACIW ADP BCOR CCMP CLFD CTS DHX DSPG DST ENTG EXLS I IDCC IRDM MA MITL NTCT NOK SFE TDC TZOO TWTR VZ WEX

4:31 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Settle Slightly Higher (:WRAPX) :

The Fed's latest policy directive did little to upset equity investors on Wednesday as all three major averages notched new record highs. The S&P 500 (unch) and the Nasdaq (+0.2%) fought hard for their slim gains while the Dow (+0.5%) settled with a more comfortable margin of victory thanks to Boeing's (BA 233.45, +20.99) upbeat earnings report. Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed, dropping 0.6%.

As expected, the FOMC unanimously voted to keep the fed funds target range at 1.00%-1.25%. Regarding the central bank's $4.5 trillion balance sheet, the Fed indicated that it expects to begin the paring process "relatively soon", which has been largely interpreted as September.

Treasuries rallied to fresh session highs following the release of the Fed's policy statement while the U.S. Dollar Index (93.35, -0.56, -0.6%) slid into negative territory from its flat line. The 2-yr yield was hovering three basis points below its flat line in front of the release and eventually settled six basis points lower at 1.34%. Similarly, the benchmark 10-yr yield also dropped six basis points to 2.28%.

The somewhat counter-intuitive reactions in the bond and currency markets have been attributed to the notion that it seems unlikely that the Fed would announce a rate hike at the September meeting if it plans to start paring its balance sheet at that time. The CME FedWatch Tool now points to the March FOMC meeting (from December) as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 55.1%.

Outside of monetary policy, earnings season was the focal point on Wall Street as another batch of quarterly reports came in largely better than expected. Boeing was maybe the most notable post-earnings advancer, surging 9.9%, after reporting better than expected earnings and raising its earnings guidance for the fiscal year.

AT&T (T 38.03, +1.81) also had a solid performance, pinning the telecom services sector (+3.0%) to the top of the leaderboard. T shares jumped 5.0% after AT&T beat bottom-line estimates.

As for the remaining ten sectors, six finished in positive territory with gains ranging between 0.1% and 0.9%. The rate-sensitive utilities (+0.9%) and real estate (+0.8%) groups exhibited relative strength, benefiting from the slide in interest rates.

Meanwhile, the energy sector (+0.1%) eked out a slim victory despite a strong performance from crude oil, which climbed 1.8% to $48.73/bbl. The commodity rallied around the EIA's latest crude inventory report, which showed a much larger than expected draw in U.S. stockpiles for the week ended July 21 (-7.2 million barrels actual vs -3.0 million consensus).

Like energy, the consumer staples space (+0.1%) also eked out a slim victory with soft-drink giant Coca-Cola (KO 45.74, +0.50) advancing 1.1% on better than expected earnings.

On the flip side, the heavily-weighted financial sector weighed on the broader market, dropping 0.6%. The bulk of the sector's loss came in the afternoon session amid the bond market's post-FOMC decision rally. The lightly-weighted materials sector (-0.6%) also registered a notable decline.

Similarly, the influential health care sector (-0.3%) struggled amid broad weakness. Amgen (AMGN 175.89, -5.00) was one of the sector's weakest components despite reporting better than expected earnings/revenues and issuing upbeat revenue guidance. AMGN shares settled with a loss of 2.8%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to June New Home Sales and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

New Home Sales in June hit an annualized rate of 610,000, which was above the revised May rate of 605,000 (from 610,000), and in line with the Briefing.com consensus.

The key takeaway from the report is that sales activity was subdued month-over-month despite a 3.4% drop in the median sales price of $310,800. The average sales price, however, was up 4.2% to $379,500, which points to the affordability factor acting as a sales constraint.

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 0.4% to follow last week's 6.3% increase.On Thursday, investors will receive three pieces of economic data--June Durable Orders (Briefing.com consensus 2.9%), the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 240K), and June International Trade in Goods (Briefing.com consensus -$64.9 billion). All three reports will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +19.3% YTD
S&P 500 +10.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.3% YTD

4:28 pm Monolithic Power beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs above consensus (MPWR) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.68 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.67; revenues rose 19.3% year/year to $112.2 mln vs the $110.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin was 55.6%, excluding the impact of $0.5 million for stock-based compensation expense and $0.5 million for the amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, compared with 55.1% for the quarter ended June 30, 2016, excluding the impact of $0.4 million for stock-based compensation expense and $0.5 million for the amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $124-128 mln vs. $123.49 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Non-GAAP gross margin between 55.2% and 56.2%,

4:25 pm Xilinx beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 EPS in-line, revs in-line (XLNX) :

Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.63 per share, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.60; revenues rose 7.0% year/year to $615.4 mln vs the $615.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees EPS of ~$0.55-0.69 (assuming 265 mln shares), excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.61 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $605-635 mln vs. $617.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; GM 69-71%.

"Our focused investment in software, integration and technology leadership has driven a fundamental transformation, allowing Xilinx to expand from a supplier of FPGAs to an innovator of All Programmable devices and programming models," said Moshe Gavrielov, Xilinx President and Chief Executive Officer. "We continue to consistently execute across the board-in engineering, operations and sales while maintaining robust profitability and cash generation. Growth from Advanced Products continues to be solid, increasing 33% from the same quarter a year ago. Sales from the 28nm, 20nm and 16nm technology nodes increased during the quarter driven by multi-market strength."

4:16 pm AXT reports EPS in-line, beats on revs (AXTI) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.05 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.05; revenues rose 14.9% year/year to $23.56 mln vs the $22.55 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Gross margin was 30.8 percent of revenue for the second quarter of 2017, compared with 30.5 percent of revenue in the first quarter of 2017. Second quarter substrate gross margin was higher than the total company gross margin and was offset by lower gross margin on raw materials.

"Across our portfolio, we are seeing emerging technologies and strengthening demand from established applications that are driving growth in each of our substrate product categories. As a result, we achieved record revenue in indium phosphide substrates in Q2, and posted solid improvement in semi-insulating gallium arsenide, semi-conducting gallium arsenide, and germanium substrates. Our customer and revenue base continues to diversify, giving us a broad-based opportunity for continued business expansion."

4:14 pm Lam Research beats by $0.10, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (LRCX) :

Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $3.11 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $3.01; revenues rose 51.6% year/year to $2.34 bln vs the $2.31 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Shipments were $2.542 bln.

Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $3.13-3.37, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.76 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $2.35-2.55 bln vs. $2.17 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Sees Q1 shipments in the range of $2.25-2.45 bln.

4:13 pm Mellanox Tech reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs below consensus (MLNX) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.44 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.44; revenues fell 1.3% year/year to $212 mln vs the $209.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $222-232 mln vs. $233.60 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:08 pm Facebook beats by $0.20, beats on revs (FB) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.32 per share, $0.20 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.12; revenues rose 44.8% year/year to $9.32 bln vs the $9.19 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Daily active users (DAUs)- DAUs were 1.32 billion on average for June 2017, an increase of 17% year-over-year.
Monthly active users (MAUs)- MAUs were 2.01 billion as of June 30, 2017, an increase of 17% year-over-year.
Mobile advertising revenue- Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 87% of advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2017, up from approximately 84% of advertising revenue in the second quarter of 2016.

Capital expenditures for the second quarter of 2017 were $1.44 billion.
Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $35.45 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2017.
Headcount was 20,658 as of June 30, 2017, an increase of 43% year-over-year.
Operating Margin 47% compared to 42% in prior year and Q1.
Effective Tax Rate 13%, expectations were for mid teens.

4:07 pm NETGEAR beats by $0.06, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line (NTGR) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.60 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.54; revenues rose 6.1% year/year to $330.72 mln vs the $324.64 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Operating margin, computed in accordance with GAAP, for the second quarter of 2017 was 5.8%, as compared to 8.2% in the year ago comparable quarter, and 7.0% in the first quarter of 2017. Non-GAAP operating margin was 8.5% in the second quarter of 2017, as compared to 11.6% in the second quarter of 2016 and 10.0% in the first quarter of 2017.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $340-355 mln vs. $348.69 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of 6.5% to 7.5% and non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of 9.0% to 10.0%.

4:07 pm F5 Networks reports EPS in-line, misses on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs below consensus (FFIV) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $2.03 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.03; revenues rose 4.3% year/year to $517.8 mln vs the $525.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Growth compared with the third quarter of fiscal 2016 was driven by iSeries appliance and security solutions adoption and Services revenue. Results were impacted by slower activity in EMEA and Japan.

Co issues guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $2.20-2.23, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.23 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $530-540 mln vs. $551.46 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
"While we delivered year-over-year revenue growth and strong profitability in the third quarter, our product revenue performance fell short of our expectations, in particular in Europe and Japan," said Franois Locoh-Donou, F5 President and Chief Executive Officer. "As we look at the broader environment, we continue to see some pause in activity as customers evaluate how a long-term cloud strategy could impact their application deployment architectures. Where customers have made these decisions around the cloud, the evidence shows we are their critical partner in providing consistent application services and security across environments.

"The reacceleration of product revenue growth is our top priority and we believe we are well positioned to deliver on this over the coming periods. The entire F5 team is focused on ensuring our solutions fit our customers' evolving application deployment needs and we continue to grow our relevance in providing secure application services."

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Finish Mixed on Thursday (:WRAPX) :Equities got off to a good start on Thursday, but most gains were unwound during an afternoon sell off in which technology stocks suffered the heaviest losses. The Nasdaq (-0.6%) and the Russell 2000 (-0.6%) finished behind the benchmark S&P 500 (-0.1%). Meanwhile, the Dow (+0.4%) advanced to a new record high, largely thanks to the outperformance of four companies--Verizon (VZ 47.81, 3.41), Boeing (BA 241.00, +7.55), Merck (MRK 63.69, +1.89), and Walt Disney (DIS 110.00, +3.06). A late-afternoon uptick left the indices in the middle of their trading ranges.

The top-weighted technology sector (-0.8%) exhibited relative strength in the morning session as Facebook (FB 170.44, +4.83) surged to a new record high in reaction to its better than expected earnings and revenues. However, tech stocks began to sell off sharply in the early afternoon, sending the technology group, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq, deep into negative territory.

Facebook managed to settle with a solid gain of 2.9%, but fellow mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL 150.56, -2.90), Microsoft (MSFT 73.16, -0.89), and Alphabet (GOOGL 952.51, -12.80) were hit hard, dropping between 1.2% and 1.9%. Chipmakers also faced heavy selling pressure, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 1.6%.

Amazon (AMZN 1046.00, -6.80) held a big gain of around 2.9% before the afternoon sell off, but slipped into the red alongside the broader market as investors divested some of their shares ahead of the company's earnings report, which crossed the wires following Thursday's closing bell. AMZN settled Thursday's session with a loss of 0.7%.

In total, six of the eleven sectors settled in the red with losses ranging from 0.1% to 0.8%. Outside of technology, health care was the worst-performing sector, dropping 0.7% amid broad weakness. The heavily-weighted financial space (-0.5%) also underperformed, as did the industrial group (-0.5%), which was led lower by transport names.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average plunged 3.1% on Thursday as just about every one of its 20 components settled with notable losses. Southwest Airlines (LUV 56.57, -2.95) and UPS (UPS 107.79, -4.50) were among the weakest components, dropping 5.0% and 4.0%, respectively, despite both companies reporting better than expected earnings.

However, on the upside, the lightly-weighted telecom services group rallied for the second day in a row, adding 5.2% to increase its two-day advance to 8.3%. Verizon (VZ 47.81, +3.41) led the charge, surging 7.7%, after reporting better than expected revenues. The wireless giant added 614,000 monthly subscribers in Q2--soundly beating consensus estimates that called for around 70,000 additions--thanks in part to the company's new unlimited data plan, which it launched back in February.

Elsewhere on the earnings front, Procter & Gamble (PG 90.68, +1.38) jumped 1.6% after reporting better than expected earnings and issuing upbeat guidance. The company's solid performance helped the consumer staples space (+0.9%) finish solidly ahead of the broader market, alongside the consumer discretionary (+0.7%) and energy (+1.0%) groups. The utilities space (+0.2%) also settled in the green.

In Washington, the GOP announced that its long-awaited tax reform plan will not include a border-adjustment tax. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.37, +0.56) moved sharply higher following the announcement, ending the day with a gain of 1.4%, as retailers depend heavily on the free flow of goods from overseas, where much of their products are manufactured.

U.S. Treasuries moved lower in a curve-steepening trade following a stronger than expected reading for June Durable Orders (6.5% actual vs 2.9% consensus). The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.31%.

Also of note, crude oil rose 0.4% to $48.96/bbl, the U.S. Dollar Index (93.76, +0.47) added 0.5%, gold rallied 0.8% to $1,259.90/ozt, and the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 10.24, +0.64) climbed 6.7%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included June Durable Orders, the weekly Initial Claims Report, and June International Trade in Goods:

June durable goods orders rose 6.5%, which is above the 2.9% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to -0.1% (from -1.1%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.6% (from 0.1%).

The key takeaway from the report is that orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business investment -- were down 0.1%. Shipments of those same goods, though, were up 0.2% on the heels of a 0.4% increase in May, which will be a positive input for Q2 GDP forecasts.

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 244,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 234,000 (from 233,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.964 million from the unrevised count of 1.977 million.

The key takeaway from the report is that it's more of the same on the initial claims front, which portends good news most likely for nonfarm payroll increases.

The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for June showed a deficit of $63.9 billion, down from a revised deficit of $66.3 billion for May (from -$65.9 billion).On Friday, investors will receive the advance estimate for second-quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus 2.8%) and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July (Briefing.com consensus 93.1). The two reports will cross the wires at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +18.6% YTD
S&P 500 +10.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.6% YTD

4:31 pm Ultra Clean Holdings beats by $0.11, beats on revs; guides Q3 above consensus (UCTT) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.62 per share, $0.11 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.51; revenues rose 75.8% year/year to $228.26 mln vs the $213.92 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.62-0.68 vs. $0.39 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $235.0-245.0 mln vs. $193.84 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"With elevated WFE spending challenging the supply chain, UCT once again delivered another exceptional quarter, exceeding both our top and bottom line expectations," said Jim Scholhamer, President and CEO. "Our focus on successfully fulfilling our customers' increasing demand resulted in opportunities to meet their increased manufacturing capacity needs. The flexibility of our operations and our ability to deliver in the current environment is providing high value to our customers worldwide and demonstrating the leverage of our operating model."

4:29 pm Cypress Semi beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (CY) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.21 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.16; revenues rose 11.6% year/year to $593.8 mln vs the $546.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.21-0.25 vs. $0.21 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $585-615 mln vs. $576.12 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"We remain laser-focused on driving revenue and earnings growth by investing in high-growth end-markets, expanding gross margins and broadening our customer base."

4:29 pm KLA-Tencor beats by $0.05, beats on revs (KLAC) :

Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $1.64 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.59; revenues rose 2.1% year/year to $938.6 mln vs the $923.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus. New orders exceeded the $1 billion mark and shipments were a record $971 million.

4:28 pm Cohu beats by $0.09, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line (COHU) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.48 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.39; revenues rose 22.9% year/year to $93.9 mln vs the $92.91 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Luis Mller, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cohu stated, "We reported strong results, achieving the highest quarterly sales since 2014, driven by continued momentum in the automotive, mobility and IoT markets. Additionally, orders increased for industrial and solid state lighting test applications. Our contactor business increased to over 10% of quarterly sales as a result of strong customer demand for our new RF solution and digital contactors coupled with Kita spring probes, and is a growing opportunity for Cohu."

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $88.0-$95.0 mln vs. $90.94 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Cohu's Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share payable on October 20, 2017 to shareholders of record on August 25, 2017. Cohu has paid consecutive quarterly cash dividends since 1977.

4:28 pm Western Digital beats by $0.07, reports revs in-line (WDC) :

Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $2.93 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.86 and above its June 26 guidance of approx $2.85; revenues rose 38.5% year/year to $4.84 bln vs the $4.82 bln Capital IQ Consensus and vs prior guidance of approx $4.80 bln.

4:20 pm Cray beats by $0.34, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line; guides FY17 revs in-line (CRAY) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.20 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.34 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.54); revenues fell 13.1% year/year to $87.1 mln vs the $60.18 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of Approx $60 mln vs. $78.05 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues in-line guidance for FY17, sees FY17 revs of Approx $400 mln vs. $427.42 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins for the year are expected to be in the low- to mid-30% range.
Non-GAAP operating expenses for 2017, including an estimate for what the impact of the Seagate transaction would be, are expected to be in the range of $190 million.
For 2017, GAAP operating expenses are anticipated to be about $24 million higher than non-GAAP operating expenses, driven by stock-based compensation, restructuring, and costs related to the Seagate transaction.

4:15 pm Intel beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS and revenue above consensus; raises FY17 EPS and rev above consensus (INTC) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.72 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.68; revenues rose 9.1% year/year to $14.76 bln vs the $14.39 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Client Computing +12% to $8.2 bln
Data Center +9% to $4.4 bln
IoT +26% to $720 mln
Non-Vol Memory +58% to $874 mln
Programmable -5% to $440 mln

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.75-0.85, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.74 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $15.2-16.2 bln vs. $15.33 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Co issues upside guidance for FY17 based on strong first-half results and higher expectations for the PC business, raises EPS $0.15 to $2.85-3.15, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $2.86 Capital IQ Consensus; raises FY17 revs $1.3 bln to $60.8-61.8 bln vs. $60.22 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

"Q2 was an outstanding quarter with revenue and profits growing double digits over last year," said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO. "We also launched new Intel Core, Xeon and memory products that reset the bar for performance leadership, and we're gaining customer momentum in areas like AI and autonomous driving. With industry-leading products and strong first-half results, we're on a clear path to another record year."

4:12 pm Flex misses by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q2 EPS below consensus, revs in-line (FLEX) :

Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.24 per share, at low end of guidance, $0.02 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.26; revenues rose 2.2% year/year to $6.01 bln vs the $5.91 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.24 to $0.28 vs. $0.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q2 revs of $5.90 bln to $6.30 bln vs. $6.15 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:12 pm Microsemi reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line and announces stock repurchase program (MSCC) :

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.99 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.99; revenues rose 6.2% year/year to $458.1 mln vs the $457.87 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Non-GAAP gross margin for the third quarter of 2017 was 63.9 percent, up 200 basis points from the 61.9 percent in the third quarter of 2016.

Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $1.02-1.14 vs. $1.06 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q4 revs of $463-487 mln vs. $472.48 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:11 pm Power Integrations beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs in-line; expands repurchase authorization (POWI) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.69 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.67; revenues rose 10.2% year/year to $107.56 mln vs the $107.85 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Power Integrations' board of directors has expanded the company's share-repurchase authorization by $30 million; the company now has $53.6 million available for the repurchase of its common stock.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $108-114 mln vs. $113.00 mln Capital IQ Consensus

Estimate; GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 49.3 percent; non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 50.5 percent.See 16:05 comment for more details about stock repurchase program


4:09 pm First Solar beats by $0.60, beats on revs; guides FY17 EPS above consensus, revs in-line (FSLR) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.64 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.60 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.04; revenues fell 38.7% year/year to $623 mln vs the $591.55 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $2.00-2.50, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.59 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY17 revs of $3.0-3.1 bln (Prior $2.85-2.95 bln) vs. $2.9 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

Raises Gross Margin guidance to 17-18% from 12.5-14.5%
Raises Operating expenses to $330-340 mln from $320-330 mln
Raises operating Cash Flow to $850-950 mln from $350-450 mln
Lowers CapEx to $400-500 mln from $525-625 mln.



Tech Stocks from Briefing.com
After enjoying some all-time highs early in the session, the broader market collapsed near midday as big name tech sector components sold off. When the bell rang, however, the Dow Jones Industrial Average peeked its head above water and posted gains of 85.54 points (+0.39%) to 21796.55 - an all-time high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, by contrast, fell about 40.56 points (-0.63%) to 6382.19, while the S&P 500 declined about 2.41 points (-0.10%) to 2475.42.

In market data, June durable goods orders rose 6.5%, while the prior month's reading was revised to -0.1% (from -1.1%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.2% to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.6% (from 0.1%). The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 244,000, above the revised prior week count of 234,000 (from 233,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.964 million from the unrevised count of 1.977 million. The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for June showed a deficit of $63.9 billion, down from a revised deficit of $66.3 billion for May (from -$65.9 billion).

The Technology (XLK 57.50, -0.22 -0.38%) space took a hit when the broader market fell near midday. Component Automatic Data (ADP 115.63, +9.65 +9.11%) got some love today, despite the weaker sector, as the company's results and guidance were outshined by reports of a possible stake by Pershing Square's Bill Ackman. The US Telecom IYZ +1.25% space performed admirably in the face of a weaker broader market today, followed by XLE +1.02%, XLP +0.98%, XLY +0.73%, XLU +0.25%, XLRE -0.09%, XLB -0.36%, XLF -0.56%, XLI -0.57%, XLV -0.69%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (986.55, -8.17 -0.82%) space, trading also fell when the broader market peeled back. Component Facebook (FB 170.44, +4.83 +2.92%) was another name that bucked the broader trend lower today as shares reacted positively to the company's latest quarterly report. Other names in the space which underperformed with the broader sector today included CA -10.25%, FFIV -7.16%, NVDA -3.30%, GLW -3.06%, AMAT -2.97%, FLIR -2.95%, ADBE -2.39%, AVGO -2.36%, EBAY -2.35%, ATVI -2.35%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

HP (HPQ 19.20, -0.06 -0.31%) Chairman Meg Whitman steps down from board. The Board has appointed Lead Independent Director Chip Bergh as Independent Board Chairman, effective immediately.

Alliance Data (ADS 240.57, +1.81 +0.76%) has approved a $500 million increase in the company's previously announced stock repurchase program for 2017, resulting in an aggregate authorization of up to $1 billion.

According to Bloomberg, Bill Ackman might be building a stake in Automatic Data (ADP).

Brightcove (BCOV 6.40, -0.60 -8.57%) appointed Andrew Feinberg, currently President and COO, as acting CEO, effective immediately.

ShoreTel (SHOR 7.50, +1.65 +28.21%) to be acquired by Mitel Networks (MITL 7.94, +0.44 +5.87%) in an all-cash transaction, at a price of $7.50 per share.

Synaptics (SYNA 56.31, +2.38 +4.41%) Board increased stock repurchase program by $150 million.

Zebra Tech (ZBRA 102.77, +2.71 +2.71%) announced comprehensive actions to restructure its debt; repriced and reduces balance on $1.4 billion Term Loan B.

Cray (CRAY 19.00, +0.40 +2.15%) signed definitive agreement with Seagate (STX 32.56, +0.22 +0.68%) to complete a strategic transaction and enter partnership to collaborate on future ClusterStor products.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Facebook (FB) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.32 and $9.32 billion, respectively. Daily active users were 1.32 billion, a 17% increase compared to last year. Monthly active users were 2.01 billion, a 17% increase over last year and mobile advertising revenues were about 87% of total ad revenues, up from about 84% of ad revenues a year ago.

Verizon (VZ 47.83, +3.43 +7.74%) reported in-line Q2 EPS of $0.96 and revenues which beat market expectations at $30.55 billion. Total retail churn was 0.94% in Q2 with retail postpaid phone churn was 0.70%. Net phone additions were 358,000.

PayPal (PYPL 60.15, +1.36 +2.31%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.46 and $3.14 billion, respectively. For Q3, the company sees in-line EPS of $0.42-0.44 and better than expected revenues of $3.14-3.19 billion. For FY17, the company sees better than expected EPS and revenues of $1.80-1.84 and $12.775-12.875 billion, respectively.

Automatic Data (ADP) reported worse than expected Q4 EPS of $0.66 and in-line revenues of $3.06 billion. For FY18, the company sees EPS growth of 2-4% to $3.77-3.85 on revenues of $13.02-13.14 billion.

Twitter (TWTR 16.84, -2.77 -14.13%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.08 and $574 million, respectively. Average monthly active users were 328 million, up 5% y/y. For Q3, the company sees adjusted EBITDA between $130-150 million and adjusted EBITDA margins between 25-26%.

Analyst actions:

FFIV was downgraded at Oppenheimer and Wells Fargo,
GLOB was downgraded to Hold from Buy at SunTrust,
GUID was downgraded at B. Riley & Co, Gabelli & Co and The Benchmark Company,
UMC was downgraded to Underperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein and to Underperform at Credit Suisse,
AUO was downgraded to Underperform at BofA/Merrill

Companies scheduled to release quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning: EGHT ATEN AMZN TEAM BIDU COHU CRAY CY DGII ECHO EA ELLI EXPE FSLR FLEX FTV GIMO GSIT IMPV INTC KLAC KTOS LOGM MTD MSCC MSTR MITK MOBL MULE NATI CNXN PDFS PLT POWI PFPT SPSC SSNC UCTT VDSI VRSN WDC WIX XPER/MGI TYPE YNDX

[ReturntoSender]

From Briefing.com: 4:37 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Settle Mixed Following Amazon Earnings (:WRAPX) :Equity indices finished Friday's session mixed; the Dow (+0.2%) advanced to a new record high for the third day in a row while the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Nasdaq (-0.1%) settled a tick below their unchanged marks. All three major averages finished near their best marks of the day. For the week, the S&P 500 finished flat.

The Nasdaq opened Friday's session with a sizable loss of 0.7% after one of its most influential components--Amazon (AMZN 1020.04, -25.96)--missed earnings expectations. The online retailer was down as much as 4.3% in early action, but, like the Nasdaq, the company was able to trim its loss a bit, eventually settling lower by 2.5%.

Amazon's negative performance took a toll on the consumer discretionary sector (-0.7%), which finished near the bottom of the day's leaderboard. In addition, coffee giant Starbucks (SBUX 54.00, -5.50) weighed on the consumer discretionary space--plunging 9.2% to its lowest level in six months--after the company missed top-line estimates and issued disappointing guidance.

The consumer staples sector (-0.9%) finished at the very bottom of the sector standings with tobacco giant Altria (MO 66.94, -7.02) leading the retreat. MO shares sold off sharply after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a plan to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes. Altria reclaimed a chunk of its initial decline, but still ended the day with a solid loss of 9.5%.

Meanwhile, the energy sector (-0.2%) settled roughly in line with the broader market despite a solid performance from crude oil, which climbed 1.4% to $49.74/bbl. For the week, WTI crude advanced 8.7%, which marks its biggest one-week rally of the year.

Within the energy sector, Dow components Exxon Mobil (XOM 79.60, -1.23) and Chevron (CVX 108.12, +2.01) saw a mixed response to their latest earnings reports; CVX jumped 1.9% after reporting better than expected revenues while XOM dropped 1.5% after missing earnings expectations.

The top-weighted technology sector (-0.1%) also finished roughly in line with the broader market. Intel (INTC 35.31, +0.34) advanced 1.0% after beating both top and bottom line estimates and issuing upbeat guidance. However, the PHLX Semiconductor Index dropped 0.4% despite Intel's positive performance.

In total, eight of the eleven sectors finished in the red with losses ranging from 0.1% to 0.9%. The health care (+0.5%), financials (unch), and industrials (+0.2%) spaces were the three advancers.

Merck (MRK 64.11, +0.42) helped the health care sector finish at the top of the leaderboard after the company reported better than expected earnings and revenues; MRK shares settled higher by 0.7%. It's also worth noting that the Senate failed to pass a 'skinny' repeal of the Affordable Care Act in a tight 49-51 vote.

As for industrials, transports bounced back on Friday after sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average on a 3.1% plunge in the prior session. The DJTA finished Friday higher by 0.4%.

It's also worth noting that North Korea launched another intercontinental ballistic missile (:ICBM) on Friday, marking Pyongyang's 11th ballistic missile test this year. Stocks did not react to the news.

Outside of the stock market, Treasuries rallied in a curve-flattening trade, leaving the 2-yr yield (1.36%) and the 10-yr yield (2.29%) lower by one basis point and three basis points, respectively. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index (93.15, -0.62) dropped 0.7% to a fresh 15-month low.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the advance estimate for second quarter GDP, the second quarter Employment Cost Index, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July:

Advance second quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 2.6%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.8%. The second quarter GDP Deflator came in at 1.0%, which is below the Briefing.com consensus of 1.3%.

The key takeaway from the Q2 GDP report, then, is that the average for the first half of 2017 was subpar at 1.9%, which should continue to keep any concerns about the prospect of a near-term rate hike from the Fed under wraps.

The second quarter Employment Cost Index rose 0.5%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%.

The key takeaway from the report is that there was a moderation in year-over-year growth rates for wages and salaries, reflecting the lack of wage-based inflation pressure that has helped keep consumer spending activity modest and overall inflation low.

The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July rose to 93.4 (Briefing.com consensus 93.1) from 93.1 in the preliminary reading.

Despite the small decline, the key takeaway from the report is the indication that the Sentiment Index is still higher in the first seven months of 2017 than in any other year since 2004.

On Monday, investors will receive just two pieces of economic data--July Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 60) and June Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%). The two reports will be released at 9:45 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +18.4% YTDS&P 500 +10.4% YTDDow Jones Industrial Average +10.5% YTDRussell 2000 +5.3% YTD Week In Review: Up to the Ears in Earnings

Investors had a massive pile of earnings reports to work through this week. The results were generally positive, but equities still sold off in some instances as many companies rallied for several weeks in front of their reports, pricing in much of the good news beforehand. The S&P 500 finished the week just a tick below its flat line, the Nasdaq dropped 0.2%, and the Dow outperformed, climbing 1.2%.

The stock market began the week with a rather range-bound performance on Monday as small victories from the top-weighted technology and financials sectors roughly canceled out losses from the nine remaining groups. Alphabet (GOOGL) helped carry the tech space, muscling one more win ahead of its earnings report, which crossed the wires on Monday evening.

Alphabet reported better than expected earnings and revenues, but slid 2.9% on Tuesday nonetheless. In general, earnings continued to eclipse expectations on Tuesday with Caterpillar (CAT), McDonald's (MCD), DuPont (DD), and United Technologies (UTX) all beating earnings per share estimates. The positive results helped push the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to modest victories and new record highs.

The Dow joined the record-high club in the midweek session, outpacing its peers on the back of Boeing (BA). The airplane maker surged 9.9% after reporting better than expected earnings and raising its earnings guidance for the fiscal year. Wireless giant AT&T (T) also moved solidly higher, adding 5.0%, following its latest quarterly report, which showed above-consensus earnings.

Investors took a break, albeit a short one, from earnings season on Wednesday afternoon when the Fed released its latest policy directive. However, the release largely turned out to be a nonevent. The FOMC decided to keep the fed funds target range at 1.00%-1.25%, as expected, and noted that it expects to begin paring its balance sheet "relatively soon", which was interpreted by many to mean September.

Earnings came back into focus on Thursday with Facebook (FB) headlining the lineup. The social media giant jumped to a new record high after reporting better than expected earnings and revenues, however, the company gave back a good portion of said advance as tech stocks began to sell off in the afternoon, pushing the technology sector to the bottom of the leaderboard.

Transports struggled mightily on Thursday, sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average lower by 3.1%. The DJTA's weakness was broad, but UPS (UPS) and Southwest Airlines (LUV) exhibited particular weakness despite beating earnings estimates. However, on a positive note, Verizon (VZ) surged 7.7% on better than expected revenues. Equity indices settled mixed with the S&P 500 losing 0.1%.

Moving into Friday's session, investor sentiment was down mildly after Amazon (AMZN) reported worse than expected earnings on Thursday evening. The e-commerce giant dropped 2.5%, but the broader market held up relatively well with the Dow settling at another record high, its third in a row. Also of note, the advance estimate of Q2 GDP came in slightly below expectations (2.6% actual vs 2.8% Briefing.com consensus).

Following this week's policy directive, the fed funds futures market now points to the January FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 50.8%. At this time last week, investors were anticipating the next rate hike to occur in December.

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

The broader market slumped into the weekend, yet the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed modest gains of 33.76 points (+0.15%) to 21830.31. The S&P 500 declined about 3.32 points (-0.13%) to 2472.10, and the Nasdaq Composite shed about 7.51 points (-0.12%) to 6374.68. All told, this week's moves take the three major US indices to +10.5%, +10.4% and +18.4% YTD, respectively.

Market data today included the advance second quarter GDP reading which pointed to an expansion of 2.6%, while the second quarter GDP Deflator came in at 1.0%. The second quarter Employment Cost Index rose 0.5%, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July rose to 93.4 from 93.1 in the preliminary reading.

The Technology (XLK 57.44, -0.06 -0.10%) space tripped into the weekend, ending just under flat lines. Component Western Digital (WDC 84.97, -6.93 -7.54%) was the worst performing name in the ETF today despite announcing better than expected earnings. At US Telecoms IYZ -1.30% space was the worst performing sector on Friday, followed by XLP -0.84%, XLY -0.76%, XLB -0.36%, XLU -0.15%, XLE -0.08%, XLRE -0.06%, XLF +0.00%, XLI +0.23%, XLV +0.50%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (985.67, -0.88 -0.09%) space, trading was mostly flat today, albeit with minimal losses. Component Intel (INTC 35.31, +0.34 +0.97%) posted modest gains following its latest quarterly report. Other names in the space which trickled lower with the sector today included KLAC -5.53%, MU -3.17%, PAYX -3.15%, FLIR -1.99%, LRCX -1.92%, AMAT -1.72%, PYPL -1.58%, MSI -1.30%, TDC -1.19%, NTAP -1.18%, SWKS -1.16%, INTU -0.90%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Expedia (EXPE 159.50, +5.25 +3.40%) and Traveloka Holding a leading Southeast Asian online travel company, announced today that Expedia made a $350 million primary minority investment in Traveloka. The company also declared quarterly cash dividend of $0.30/share, prior $0.28/share

Microsemi (MSCC 52.59, -1.06 -1.98%) announced a $250 million stock repurchase program.

Ultra Clean Holdings' (UCTT 24.36, -0.18 -0.73%) President and CEO Jim Scholhamer to take leave of absence starting July 31 for approximately 2 months to address a treatable medical condition.

SCANA Corp's (SCG 61.31, -4.33 -6.60%) South Carolina Electric & Gas and Santee Cooper entered definitive agreement for Toshiba (TOSBF 2.17, -0.23 -9.66%) to pay $2.168 billion for obligations of Westinghouse Electric Company.

Motorola Solutions (MSI 91.01, -1.20 -1.30%) will acquire Plant Holdings, Inc., which holds the Airbus DS Communications business; terms not disclosed and expected to be completed by end of 2017.

Verizon (VZ 47.93, +0.12 +0.25%) said to be in talks to acquire WideOpenWest's (WOW) Chicago fiber network, according to Reuters.

Sprint (S 8.22, +0.02 +0.24%) in talks with Comcast (CMCSA 39.52, +0.09 +0.23%) / Charter (CHTR 370.26, +3.36 +0.92%) for partnership / investment, according to Bloomberg.

In reaction to quarterly results:

Amazon (AMZN 1020.04, -25.96 -2.48%) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS of $0.40 on better than expected revenues of $37.95 billion. For Q3, the company sees in-line revenues of $39.25-41.75 billion on operating income of ($400)-300 million.

Intel (INTC) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $0.72 and $14.76 billion, respectively. For Q3, the company sees EPS and revenues ahead of market expectations at $0.75-0.85 and $15.2-16.2 billion, respectively. For FY17, the company raised EPS and revenue guidance to $2.85-3.15 and $60.8-61.8 billion.

Baidu.com (BIDU 220.00, +19.00 +9.45%) reported better than expected Q2 EPS and revenues of $1.67 and $3.08 billion, respectively. For Q3, the company sees revenues ahead of market expectations at $3.412-3.503 billion.

Electronic Arts (EA 118.25, +0.65 +0.55%) reported Q1 EPS of $2.06 on better than expected revenues of $775 million. For Q2, the company sees a loss of $0.18 on revenues of $1.160 billion. The company also reaffirmed FY18 EPS guidance of $3.57 on revenues of $5.1 billion.

Western Digital (WDC) reported better than expected Q4 EPS of $2.93 on in-line revenues of $4.84 billion.

Expedia (EXPE) reported worse than expected Q2 EPS of $0.89 and better than expected revenues of $2.59 billion.

Analyst actions:

LOGM was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts,
BIDU was upgraded to Overweight at Cantor Fitzgerald;
ELLI was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth Capital,
ECHO was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS,
TTMI was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel,
PLT was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan,
EGHT and PDFS were downgraded to Hold from Buy at Craig Hallum,
SHOR was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Northland Capital,
MSTR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank;
SSTI was initiated with an Outperform at Imperial Capital,
APTI was initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer

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InvestmentHouse - Dow Continues Higher Unfazed (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Stocks calm down after the Thursday action but still sluggish, hanging
onto support.
- Dow continues higher unfazed while the other indices decently save
themselves.
- Healthcare goes down in defeat. Now time to get serious and cut the
insurance company payoffs.
- Bulls top 60, indicating an overexcited market, but the rollover goalie is
still there to save the day.
- A bit more volatile, but the patterns remain solid for many leading
groups.
- Rotation returned on the week, and thus far more of the zero sum type.

The summer games continue with national USATF and AAU this weekend and into
next week. We are still on the go as my son jumps in nationals. As a result
the reports will be pared down some, i.e. no video. I appreciate your
understanding during this crunch time when all the training comes to bear.
Thank you!

Thursday the stock indices turned choppy with SP400 and NASDAQ still trying
to spit the bit on new highs. With this market's track record for giving up
new highs as fast as they are hit, that was worth some worry. Some, but
perhaps not a lot: even when they reversed sharply from new highs, the
selling was not long-lived as the powers that be do not want and indeed
cannot afford a prolonged market selloff.

Friday things calmed down a bit, but just a bit. All but the Dow lost
ground, but a half percent on SP400 was the largest decline. Not bad
considering AMZN missed on its earnings, though there were not many viewing
the miss as anything deeply nefarious about AMZN's prospects. The market
overall was down, but certainly not in a full dive after AMZN's results.

SP500 -3.32, -0.13%
NASDAQ -7.51, -0.12%
DJ30 33.76, +0.15%
SP400 -0.49%
RUTX -0.30%
SOX -0.39%

The indices all gapped lower, but DJ30 turned positive. The others opened,
sold farther, then managed varying degrees of recovery.

SP400 showed the most wear and tear, and not surprisingly it is one of the
indices that appears to have a real aversion to new highs over the past many
months. It does not completely roll over after a new high -- the PPT and
Fed help avoid that -- but it does tend to hit the highs only to
significantly jolt downside. After rallying off the low Thursday SP400
could not capitalize on the bounce, instead gapping lower again Friday. It
managed a small recovery, but still closed below the 20 day EMA as well as
the June prior recovery high. Last selling the 50 day MA held as support
and that level may come into play again.

RUTX has sold 3 sessions the same as SP400, but RUTX is very contained,
showing a doji with tail over the 20 day EMA. It is also holding over its
June prior high. This looks more like a rally to a new high being tested.
Likely if RUTX manages a good bounce off this test, SP400 can do likewise.

NASDAQ: Thursday NASDAQ gapped to a new high an then unceremoniously
reversed. A bounce off the 20 day EMA closed it over the 10 day and out of
harm's way, but Friday NASDAQ gapped lower again. Managed to recover to
basically flat, even with the AMZN earnings issues. That leaves NASDAQ
sitting on the June high as well. Got a bit squirrely around the new high,
but that is also somewhat par for the course in these rallies.

SOX: Reversed Thursday at the recent lower highs. Managed to hold the 20
day EMA and showed a doji Friday right on the 20 day. Not leading the way
for certain, but it is holding its own and trying to perhaps build an
inverted head and shoulders.

SP500 also bucked some at a new high, but it is far from reversing,
recovering nicely Thursday off the intraday weakness to hold the 10 day EMA
and holding that level again Friday on light trade. Nothing really out of
the norm here.

DJ30 is the index that shows the most comfort with success, hitting
successive higher highs Wednesday through Friday. Decent volume as well.
Not great, but it was very solid Thursday.


LEADERSHIP

Financial: Post-Yellen the banks suffered but the pullbacks have been
contained, at least for the banks. Now they are showing some good setups,
e.g. C, BAC.

China stocks: A bit volatile Thursday, but hung on and bounced, e.g. NTES,
BABA, SOHU, SINA.

Chips: Struggling some, but after their runs, this is more like a normal
pullback: LRCX, SWKS, AMAT, AMD.

Metals, materials: After very good strength they had issues. CX fell to the
50 day EMA but held. LPX looks good at the 20 day EMA, showing a doji. AKS
is bombing lower. STLD tanked. CENX is struggling in aluminum.

Drugs/biotechs: Some big names felt the pressure last week though did not
break down. CELG, AMGN. IMGN is surging in a good move. AGEN came under
fire itself. Very mixed, but some good looking setups.

FAANG: FB looks very good to continue its breakout over the channel line.
AAPL sold into Friday but is holding the 50 day SMA. AMZN gapped lower on
earnings but was contained over the 50 day SMA. NFLX held the 10 day EMA
test. GOOG gapped below the 50 day EMA but managed to hold it on the close.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +33.76 points (+0.15%) to close at 21830.31

Nasdaq
Stats: -7.51 points (-0.12%) to close at 6374.68
Volume: 1.87B (-24.9%)

Up Volume: 784.07M (-166.88M)
Down Volume: 1.04B (-480M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.18 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 2.04 to 1

New Highs: 65 (-127)
New Lows: 55 (+9)

S&P
Stats: -3.32 points (-0.13%) to close at 2472.1
NYSE Volume: 772M (-14.22%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.18 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.22 to 1

New Highs: 87 (-76)
New Lows: 26 (+1)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS


VIX: 10.29; +0.18
VXN: 15.91; +0.02
VXO: 8.26; -0.13

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.83; -0.11


Bulls and Bears: Bully. After a surge of 8 points the prior week, bulls
continued the charge, moving back over 60 for the first time since early
2017. This is again putting out a caution flag for the upside, so much so
that Investor's Intelligence issued an alert on this showing in its survey.
The market tried to roll over several times since that bout of 60+ readings
in early 2017, but the selling was blunted by the PPT, then the buyers could
come back in and rescue the market. They did. Now with this reading, you
have to start watching for rollover attempts. Late last week could be one,
but it was not much, at least not yet.

Bulls: 60.2 versus 57.8

Bears: 16.5 versus 16.7

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.





Bulls: 60.2 versus 57.8
57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5 versus 50.00 versus
55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7 versus 58.5 versus
54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5 versus 56.7 versus 53.4
versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8 versus 62.7 versus 61.8
versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2 versus 59.8 versus 59.8
versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6 versus 51.0 versus 42.9
versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9 versus 46.1 versus 46.7 versus 45.2

Bears: 16.5 versus 16.7
16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 19.2 versus 18.3
versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9 versus 17.9 versus 18.3 versus 17.5
versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus 13.75 versus 17.3 versus 16.5
versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus 17.6 versus 17.5 versus 17.3
versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6 versus 19.2 versus 19.6
versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7 versus 24.3 versus 23.1
versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1 versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.291% versus 2.303%. Bonds still attempting to bounce off the 200
day SMA test.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.303%
versus 2.287% versus 2.330% versus 2.255% versus 2.241% versus 2.270% versus
2.261% versus 2.318% versus 2.331% versus 2.346% versus 2.316% versus 2.361%
versus 2.375% versus 2.375% versus 2.368% versus 2.34% versus 2.304% versus
2.268% versus 2.20% versus 2.140% versus 2.140% versus 2.148% versus 2.165%
versus 2.156% versus 2.191% versus 2.155% versus 2.162% versus 2.209% versus
2.21% versus 2.21% versus 2.19% versus 2.176% versus 2.14% versus 2.183%
versus 2.154% versus 2.21% versus 2.20%


EUR/USD: 1.17497 versus 1.1683. That one-day dollar bounce sure didn't
last.

Historical: 1.1683 versus 1.17419 versus 1.1646 versus 1.1637 versus 1.16640
versus 1.16271 versus 1.15280 versus 1.15549 versus 1.14735 versus 1.14672
versus 1.13986 versus 1.14335 versus 1.14682 versus 1.13964 versus 1.14010
versus 1.14220 versus 1.13508 versus 1.13710 versus 1.13510 versus 1.14208
versus 1.14432 versus 1.13786 versus 1.13409 versus 1.11834 versus 1.11928
versus 1.11484 versus 1.11670 versus 1.11346 versus 1.11419 versus 1.11968
versus 1.11466 versus 1.12213 versus 1.12086 versus 1.11930 versus 1.11965


USD/JPY: 110.704 versus 111.07

Historical: 111.07 versus 111.166 versus 111.897 versus 111.176 versus
111.128 versus 111.863 versus 111.89 versus 112.096 versus 112.582 versus
112.536 versus 113.314 versus 113.152 versus 113.929 versus 114.063 versus
113.913 versus 113.126 versus 113.253 versus 113.270 versus 112.413 versus
111.993 versus 112.340 versus 112.24 versus 111.943 versus 111.299 versus
111.357 versus 111.278 versus 111.470 versus 111.729 versus 110.873 versus
110.854 versus 109.560 versus 110.060 versus 109.97 versus 110.334 versus
110.299 versus 109.355


Oil: 49.71, +0.67. Oil continues upside, now at the 200 day SMA and the
upper channel line in the down channel. That said, 52-53 is the top of the
range. Getting close, another important test ahead.


Gold: 1268.40, +0.67%


MONDAY

Healthcare 'reform' was shot down by one vote from McCain as he is into
legacy building, wanting to be the man who 'stood' for working with the
other side to craft legislation. Of course that was not the case when he
wanted war and the democrats did not. Priorities, right? Now, perhaps,
Trump will do the right thing, finally, and stop subsidizing the insurance
companies to write bad insurance in the ACA 'markets.' That will bring
about the end to the majority of those plans in a hurry, requiring the need
to take action.

Then the BIG question faces America: do we go full socialism (a government
payor) or do we get back to what has made us great (still, not again) and
free up markets to be the efficient mechanisms they are AND provide for
those instances where cancer or other multi-year/lifetime ailments strike.
Those people cannot be abandoned just because of the hand they were dealt.
There ARE ways to do this and I have discussed some before. The question is
whether those in power want to relinquish their power over this aspect of
our lives and thus relinquish power back to The People.

Weighty stuff, but the market is not that concerned. Earnings are getting
longer in the tooth and now AAPL comes next week to try and get the animal
spirits back on track. The indices got a bit squirrely last week, reversed
off of some new highs, but they did not roll over.

Moreover, there are still good patterns to move on if they show good breaks.
The financials, drugs/biotechs/healthcare, materials in nice pullbacks, some
retailers making moves.

The point: still good patterns to drive the market higher -- as long as
money gets pushed there way.

The rub: this past week there was the more vicious type of rotation, i.e.
one area rises, one falls as money is yanked. That makes the market more of
a zero sum game as the algos move money around. Fortunately many stocks
continue to hold their patterns regardless, and we will try to focus on
those.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6374.68

Resistance:

Support:
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
The 20 day EMA at 6320
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6205 is the late May all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 6230
The 2016 trendline at 6110
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows
The 200 day SMA at 5783
5661 is the late January upper gap point
5601 is the January lower gap point
The November prior all-time high at 5404
5340 is the September and October 2016 twin peaks
5287.61 is the September 2016 high
5271.36 is the August 2016 intraday prior all-time high
5231.94 is the 2015 all-time high
5170 is the October intraday low.
5162 is the early November peak, 5176 is the December intraday peak
5100 from the April peak and early May peak
5042 is the March 2015 high
5008.57 is the early March 2015 post-bear market high
5007 is the 12/31 upper gap point from that big gap lower


S&P 500: Closed at 2472.10

Resistance:

Support:
The 20 day EMA at 2458
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2439 is the early June all-time closing high
The 50 day EMA at 2435
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the recent May 2017 low
2348 is the April 2017 lower gap point
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
The 200 day SMA at 2322
2319 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high


Dow: Closed at 21,830.31

Resistance:

Support:
21,535 is the all-time high
The 20 day EMA at 21,575
The 50 day EMA at 21,367
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high
20,553 is the lows of the week of May 15
20,547 is the lower gap point from late April 2017
20,412 is the March 2017 low
20,400 is the mid-April 2017 low.
The 200 day SMA at 20,292
20,126 is the January 2017 intraday high
20,101 is the late January closing high.
19,994 - 19,999 (early January high, upper gap point from late January
19750 is the lows of the December/January range
19,732 is the January 2017 low
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015

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From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm Closing Market Summary: Stocks Settle Monday Mixed (:WRAPX) :The stock market ended July's last trading session on a mixed note; the Dow climbed 0.3%, to another record high, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq settled lower by 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively. The major averages drifted within a fairly narrow range from start to finish. For the month, the S&P 500 added 1.9%.

Monday's action resembled a sector rotation trade as the four advancing sectors--financials (+0.6%), energy (+0.2%), utilities (+0.4%), and telecom services (+0.4%)--have struggled to keep pace with the broader market throughout the year. On the flip side, the strongest sector in 2017--information technology (-0.5%)--settled near the bottom of the leaderboard.

The heavily-weighted financial sector benefited from broad strength with just about all of its components finishing in positive territory. Meanwhile, the energy group leaned on Dow components Exxon Mobil (XOM 80.04, +0.44) and Chevron (CVX 109.19, +1.07), which advanced 0.6% and 1.0%, respectively.

On a related note, crude oil settled in positive territory for the sixth session in a row thanks to a sharp afternoon rally. The commodity went from a loss of 0.8% to a gain of 1.0% in about an hour, eventually settling higher by 0.9% at a price of $50.20/bbl. Today's advance left crude oil higher by 9.0% for the month of July, its best month since April 2016.

The technology and materials spaces were the weakest sectors on Tuesday, dropping 0.5% and 0.8%, respectively. Mega-cap tech names like Facebook (FB 169.25, -3.20) and Alphabet (GOOGL 945.50, -12.83) weighed on the technology group, losing 1.9% and 1.3%, respectively. Chipmakers also underperformed, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 0.7%.

Today's tech retreat precedes tomorrow's main event--the release of Apple's (AAPL 148.73, -0.77) latest earnings report. Apple, which is the largest S&P 500 component by market cap, will deliver its quarterly results following Tuesday's closing bell. Entering Tuesday's session, AAPL shares hold a huge year-to-date gain of 28.4%.

As for the remaining sectors--consumer discretionary (-0.1%), industrials (-0.1%), health care (-0.1%), consumer staples (-0.1%), and real estate (-0.1%)--losses were very modest.

In M&A news, Discovery Communications (DISCA 24.60, -2.20) plunged 8.2% after agreeing to acquire Scripps Networks (SNI 87.41, +0.50) for $14.6 billion, or $90 per share, in cash and stock.

On a separate note, reports indicate that SoftBank (SFTBY 40.15, -1.37)--the parent company of Sprint (S 7.98, -0.24)--is still interested in acquiring Charter Communications (CHTR 391.91, +21.65) despite Charter saying that it is not interested in acquiring Sprint.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries settled Monday's session relatively flat with the benchmark 10-yr yield finishing unchanged at 2.29%. The 2-yr yield climbed one basis point to 1.36%.

On the political front, the White House announced that Anthony Scaramucci will be leaving his role as White House Communications Director, giving newly appointed Chief of Staff John Kelly the ability to build his own team. The equity market had a muted reaction to the news.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to July Chicago PMI and June Pending Home Sales:

Chicago PMI for July decreased to 58.9 from 65.7 in June while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 60.0.

The key takeaway from the report is that the headline dip reflects some normal slowing after a remarkably strong month in June. All five barometer components declined in July, with new orders and production setting the pace.

Pending Home Sales for June rose 1.5% (Briefing.com consensus +1.1%). Today's reading follows a revised 0.7% decrease in May (from -0.8%).On Tuesday, investors will receive several economic reports, including June Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) at 8:30 ET, June Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) at 10:00 ET, and the July ISM Index (Briefing.com consensus 56.2) also at 10:00 ET.

In addition, July auto and truck sales will be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite +17.9% YTD
S&P 500 +10.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.0% YTD

6:08 pm Silicon Motion misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line with guidance and consensus; issues downside Q3 /FY17 guidance; announces new $200 mln share repurchase program and management to purchase shares (SIMO) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.71 per ADS, excluding items, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.72; revenues fell 5.7% year/year to $132.7 mln vs the $132.92 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
Business Outlook: "We are now seeing material amounts of new 64L 3D NAND flash coming to market, with most still being directed towards the enterprise SSD market, which we believe will benefit our SSD solutions business," said Wallace Kou, President and CEO of Silicon Motion. "Since NAND availability remains very tight, NAND pricing continues to be high, which will temporarily affect our SSD solutions and overall gross margins. Separately, based on what we are seeing from our customers' rolling forecasts, we anticipate that our client SSD controller sales will rebound meaningfully in the fourth quarter. We believe our business will improve as NAND supply improvements accelerate over the next few quarters."

Co sees Q3 revs of $122-129 mln vs. $145.62 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, non GAAP op margin 19-21% and gross margin 45-47%
Co lowers FY17 revs to $512-528 mln vs. $558.87 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, non GAAP op margin 22-24%, gross margin 47.5-49%

Board of Directors has authorized a new program for the Company to repurchase up to $200 million of its ADS over a 12 month period. Separately, Silicon Motion executive officers have notified the Company that they intend to purchase $2.5 million of its ADSs. The Company's CEO, CFO and several other executive officers have notified us of their intention to acquire within the next 6 months a total of up to $2.5 million of the Company's ADSs, subject to compliance with relevant securities laws and regulations and company policies.

4:11 pm Amkor beats by $0.02, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 EPS below consensus, revs below two analyst estimate (AMKR) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.14 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.12; revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $989 mln vs the $996.1 mln two analyst estimate.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.10-0.27 vs. $0.32 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $1.04-1.12 bln vs. $1.16 bln two analyst estimate, driven by the launch of flagship mobile devices. Sees Q3 gross margin of 17% to 20%.

4:08 pm Integrated Device beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line (IDTI) :

Reports Q1 (Jun) earnings of $0.33 per share, $0.01 better than the two analyst estimate of $0.32; revenues rose 2.4% year/year to $196.71 mln vs the $195.1 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Gross profit for the fiscal first quarter of 2018 was $120.7 million, or 61.4 percent, compared with gross profit of $106.1 million, or 60.4 percent last quarter, and $117.9 million, or 61.3 percent, reported in the same period one year ago.
R&D expense for the fiscal first quarter of 2018 was $40.3 million, compared with R&D expense of $31.0 million last quarter, and $37.7 million in the same period one year ago.


4:07 pm Intevac beats by $0.05, beats on revs (IVAC) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.05 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.00); revenues rose 108.1% year/year to $31 mln vs the $28.76 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Order backlog totaled $68.9 million on July 1, 2017, compared to $73.0 million on April 1, 2017 and $75.3 million on July 2, 2016. Backlog at July 1, 2017 included five 200 Lean HDD systems and twelve ENERGi solar ion implant systems. Backlog at April 1, 2017 included three 200 Lean HDD systems, one pilot INTEVAC MATRIX solar system and fourteen ENERGi solar ion implant systems. Backlog at July 2, 2016 included four 200 Lean HDD systems, three INTEVAC VERTEX systems for display cover panels, two INTEVAC MATRIX solar systems, and three ENERGi solar ion implant systems.

4:07 pm Advanced Energy beats by $0.15, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (AEIS) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.22 per share, $0.15 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.07; revenues rose 39.7% year/year to $165.95 mln vs the $155.72 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $1.10-1.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.99 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $160-170 mln vs. $151.82 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.

4:06 pm Harmonic reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS and revs below consensus, guides FY17 EPS & revs below consensus (HLIT) :

Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.20 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.20); revenues fell 24.9% year/year to $82.3 mln vs the $80.88 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Bookings for 2Q17 were $91.1 million, compared with $82.1 million for 1Q17 and $117.3 million for 2Q16.

Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees revenue of $80-$90 million vs. $92.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus, gross margin of 48-49%, and loss per share of ($0.11)-($0.03) vs. $0.02 consensus.

Co issues downside guidance for FY17, sees revs of $336-$356 mln vs. $379.9 mln Capital IQ Consensus, gross margin of 51-51.5%, and loss per share of ($0.50)-($0.33) vs. ($0.04) Capital IQ Consensus.

Co states, "During 2Q17, with respect to our OTT SaaS business, TCV grew 90% sequentially to 8% of total bookings, reducing near-term revenue and profitability but establishing a trajectory for stronger financial performance mid- to long-term. Additionally, recent material CableOS bookings and field deployment success bolster our confidence in the growth outlook for our Cable Edge segment."

Tech Stocks from Briefing.com

Bucking the broader push lower today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average seemingly defied gravity as the index flew to all-time highs on the wings of a blue-chip bellwether which in-turn made all-time highs today. Dow component Boeing (BA 242.46, +0.93 +0.39%) has been on quite the run lately, skying to all-time highs in each of its last five trading sessions, and the final trading day of July was no different.

To that end, the Dow was up nicely today, adding 60.81 points (+0.28%) to 21891.12. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led the three major averages lower again today as big name tech continues its bearish decline; the index fell 26.55 points (-0.42%) to 6348.12. The S&P 500 finished 1.80 points lower (-0.07%) to 2470.30.

The Technology (XLK 57.16, -0.28 -0.49%) space was dragged lower as large cap Nasdaq 100 names TSLA -3.5%, REGN -3.4%, AMZN -3.2% and AMAT -2.1% held the space lower. Component Micron (MU 28.10, -1.18 -4.03%) turned lower today on broader semi (SMH 86.84, -0.51 -0.59%) weakness. In what turned out to be a session of lower lows, the Materials XLB -0.76% space led the decline among S&P sectors, followed by IYZ -0.22%, XLRE -0.15%, XLI -0.13%, XLP -0.07%, XLV -0.06%, XLY -0.03%, XLE +0.23%, XLU +0.34%, XLF +0.64%.

In the S&P 500 Information Technology (980.40, -5.27 -0.53%) space, trading fell into the close ultimately finishing near lows. Component Facebook (FB 169.25, -3.20 -1.86%) was pressured today as the stock was downgraded to a Sell rating at Pivotal Research. Other names in the space which outperformed today included AMAT -2.08%, KLAC -1.88%, TEL -1.83%, AVGO -1.48%, GOOGL -1.34%, LRCX -1.32%, VRSN -1.30%, EA -1.28%, GOOG -1.17%, NVDA -1.14%.

Other notable news items among sector components:

Snap (SNAP 13.67, -0.13 -0.98%) shares were weaker today as the company's first post-IPO lock-up period expired.

AT&T (T 39.00, flat) made executive appointments to prepare for Time Warner (TWX 102.47, -0.26 -0.25%) merger close.

Sprint (S 7.97, -0.25 -3.04%) and Charter (CHTR 391.91, +21.65 +5.85%) might be in merger talks, according to WSJ.

Later, a Charter (CHTR) spokesperson said the company is not interested in Sprint (S), but Softbank (SFTBY 40.15, -1.37 -3.30%) might still be interested in CHTR acquisition, according to Reuters.
United States Defense Information Systems Agency extended its contract with ViaSat (VSAT 66.09, -0.50 -0.75%) to continue to provide senior leaders and their support staff with in-flight broadband and connectivity services on senior leader aircraft.

Altaba's (AABA 58.40, -0.80 -1.35%) Board authorized the repurchase of up to $5 billion of its common stock.

Analyst actions:

BIDU was upgraded at Macquarie and Nomura,
ADP was upgraded to In-Line from Underperform at Evercore ISI,
GIMO was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Dougherty,
GPRO was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley;
FB was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Pivotal Research,
SNAP was downgraded to Mixed from Positive at OTR Global,
SHOR was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Lake Street,
ECHO was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse;
CRTO was initiated with an Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Mkts,
CCOI was initiated with a Sell at Off Wall Street

Expect quarterly results tonight/tomorrow morning from the following companies: AEIS, AABA, AMKR, BLKB, CGNX, ELVT, FICO, HLIT, INST, IDTI, IVAC, P, ROG, SBAC, SIMO, TNET/ALLT, CDK, EIGI, HRS, IPGP, QSII, SQNS, SHOP, S, VSM, XRX, YRD

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Heightened North Korea Tensions Weigh
08-Aug-17 16:30 ET
Dow -33.08 at 22085.34, Nasdaq -13.31 at 6370.44, S&P -5.99 at 2474.88

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/8/8/heightened-north-korea-tensions-weigh.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street went on a bit of a roller coaster ride on Tuesday as equities climbed to new record highs in the morning only to drop into the red in the late afternoon. The Dow broke its streak of nine consecutive record-high closes, ending the session lower by 0.2%. The S&P 500 (-0.2%) and the Nasdaq (-0.2%) finished in line with the industrial average.

The major averages opened Tuesday's session with modest losses, but quickly entered into a slow and steady climb that carried into the afternoon. At its peak, the S&P 500 held a gain of 0.4%. However, shortly after hitting said peak, the benchmark index started moving back towards its flat line as the heavily-weighted financial sector, which led the morning rally, hit a wave of selling pressure.

Selling began shortly after the Washington Post reported that North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles. However, the aforementioned move lower was more likely technical in nature considering it was led by the financial sector, which sharply reversed its slow and steady upward trend right at the 424.00 mark. At its best mark of the day (423.99), the financial space held a gain of 0.9%, but, in the end, the sector settled lower by 0.2%.

After retreating to their flat lines, the major averages then hit another wave of selling pressure, this one dragging them into negative territory, in the late afternoon after President Trump warned that North Korea will be "met with fire and fury like the world has never seen" if it continues to threaten nuclear action against the United States.

Investors have had a muted response to each of Pyongyang's 11 ballistic missile tests this year, but today's strong statement from Mr. Trump clearly upped the ante a bit. Still, today's move was very minor in the grand scheme of things and comes at a time when many investors are looking for an excuse to sell as equities hover at all-time highs.

The lightly-weighted utilities sector (+0.3%) was the only space to finish today's session in positive territory. The ten remaining groups settled with losses ranging from less than 0.1% to 0.9%.

Apple (AAPL 160.08, +1.27)--the largest component in the S&P 500 by market cap--put together a solid performance, helping the top-weighted technology sector (-0.1%) settle ahead of the broader market. The tech group held the top spot on today's leaderboard for much of the session, but slipped with the broader market in its late-afternoon slide. AAPL shares added 0.8% and closed at an all-time high.

On the earnings front, Michael Kors (KORS 42.25, +8.02) and Ralph Lauren (RL 88.53, +10.38) surged 21.5% and 13.3%, respectively, after both companies reported better than expected earnings. In addition, Michael Kors beat top-line estimates and issued above-consensus guidance. However, the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 41.11, -0.22) still finished lower by 0.5%.

Treasuries moved lower in a curve-steepening trade, leaving the 2-yr yield (1.36%) and the 10-yr yield (2.28%) higher by one basis point and three basis points, respectively. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index (93.52, +0.22) climbed 0.2% and crude oil dropped 0.6% to $49.09/bbl.

Reviewing today's economic data, which was limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for June:

The June Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 6.163 million from a revised 5.702 million (from 5.666 million) in May.

On Wednesday, investors will receive several economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, second quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus +1.5%) at 8:30 ET, and June Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +18.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.8% YTD
S&P 500 +10.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.9% YTD

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Nvidia shares fall despite earnings beat

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/f4a27744-be5f-369a-98a3-8711160f6054/ss_nvidia-shares-fall-despite.html

Graphics chipmaker Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) saw its stock fall more than 7 percent on Thursday after it reported stronger-than-expected earnings for the second quarter of its 2018 fiscal year, which ended on July 31. The company will discuss the earnings report with financial analysts on a conference call at 5 p.m. Eastern time.

EPS: Excluding certain items, $1.01 in earnings per share vs. $0.70 in earnings per share as expected by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters.
Revenue: $2.23 billion vs. $1.96 billion as expected by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters.

In terms of guidance, the company said it expects to generate $2.35 billion in revenue, plus or minus 2 percent, in the third quarter of its 2018 fiscal year. Analysts were expecting guidance of $2.13 billion for the upcoming quarter, according to Thomson Reuters.

Strong reactions to earnings results are not unusual for Nvidia. In May Nvidia stock rose more than 13 percent after the company released its earnings results for the previous quarter, beating estimates on both EPS and revenue. Ahead of earnings on Thursday Nvidia stock fell more than 4 percent.

Revenue was up 56 percent year over year, with the company's Datacenter revenue -- including sales of graphics processing units, or GPUs, to cloud providers like Amazon Web Services -- leading the way at 175 percent revenue growth.

Sentiment around Nvidia has continued to be generally positive since then. Last month Canaccord Genuity raised its estimates for Nvidia "yet again" as it sees continuing strength in the gaming and automotive markets.

The opportunity around cryptocurrency has caused some analysts to become more optimistic about Nvidia. Two months after Pacific Crest downgraded Nvidia stock, the company made a U-turn and raised the stock's rating .

Nvidia's next quarter could see gains as the company releases its Volta Tesla V100 GPU -- listed under the company's Datacenter business -- to public cloud vendors. That GPU could be used for artificial intelligence workloads, not unlike Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOGL) second-generation tensor processing unit (TPU), which will become available for anyone to use exclusively on Google's public cloud. Meanwhile Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has been cooking up chips that are more geared toward AI , and Microsoft said it's working on an AI coprocessor for its HoloLens mixed reality headset.

In May Softbank disclosed that it had taken a stake in Nvidia through its Vision Fund, sending Nvidia stock up 1.8 percent .

Nvidia stock -- the best performing stock of the year , as CNBC's Tae Kim noted on Wednesday -- is up 55 percent since the beginning of the year, according to FactSet.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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Wall Street Opens Week on Positive Note, Reclaims Chunk of Last Week's Decline
14-Aug-17 16:30 ET
Dow +135.39 at 21993.71, Nasdaq +83.68 at 6340.21, S&P +24.52 at 2465.80

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/8/14/wall-street-opens-week-on-positive-note-reclaims-chunk-of-last-weeks-decline.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The weekend came and went without any major developments on the North Korean front, allowing investors to breath a sigh of relief and launch another 'buy-the-dip' campaign on Monday. The major averages finished solidly higher across the board with the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+1.3%) leading the charge. The S&P 500 and the Dow settled with gains of 1.0% and 0.6%, respectively.

Following a mixed performance from Asian equity markets and amid an upbeat performance from the major European bourses, Wall Street opened Monday's session comfortably higher and extended its gain throughout the first hour and a half of trading. From there, the major averages trended sideways, slipped a bit moving into the final stretch, and then rallied back near their session highs before the day's end.

For perspective, at last Thursday's closing bell, the benchmark S&P 500 sat about 43 points, or 1.7%, below the record-high close (2,480.9) it posted on Monday, August 7. Today's advance brings the benchmark index within 15 points, or 0.6%, of its record mark. For the month, the S&P 500 currently shows a loss of 0.2%.

The lightly-weighted real estate sector (+1.7%) finished at the top of Monday's leaderboard, but it was the top-weighted technology (+1.6%) and financials (+1.4%) sectors that drove the upbeat performance. The two groups, which represent around 35.0% of the broader market combined, benefited from broad strength with just about all of their components finishing in positive territory.

In total, ten of the eleven sectors--financials (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+0.7%), industrials (+1.0%), materials (+0.9%), technology (+1.6%), health care (+0.7%), consumer staples (+0.5%), utilities (+0.6%), telecom services (+1.2%), and real estate (+1.7%)--finished in the green. The energy sector (-0.3%) was the lone laggard.

Crude oil weighed on the energy group, dropping 2.5% to $47.59/bbl, which marks a three-week low for the commodity. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said that it expects oil production to increase by 117,000 barrels a day--to a total of 6.149 million barrels a day--in September. The EIA report has shown an increase in shale-oil production every month this year.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries began the week on a lower note, giving back a portion of their gains from the end of last week. The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed three basis points to 2.22%.

It's also worth pointing out that the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 12.37, -3.14), which surged to a four-month high last Thursday, dropped 20.1% on Monday.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. However, on Tuesday, investors will receive a number of economic reports, including July Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), July Import/Export Prices, and August Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 13) at 8:30 ET, and both June Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and the August NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 65) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +17.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.3% YTD
S&P 500 +10.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.7% YTD

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Range-Bound Tuesday Session Leaves Equities Little Changed
15-Aug-17 16:30 ET
Dow +5.28 at 21998.99, Nasdaq -7.22 at 6332.99, S&P -1.23 at 2464.57

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/8/15/rangebound-tuesday-session-leaves-equities-little-changed.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street followed up Monday's rally with a rather dull, range-bound session on Tuesday that left the major averages little changed. The Dow (unch) eked out a narrow victory while the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Nasdaq (-0.1%) each settled just a tick below their unchanged marks. Small caps underperformed, sending the Russell 2000 lower by 0.8%.

Investors rolled into pre-market action on Tuesday with a boost of confidence following news that North Korea's Supreme leader Kim Jong-un has decided against launching missiles towards the U.S. territory of Guam, which he threatened to do last week. However, he did warn that he could change his mind "if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions."

A hotter than expected July Retail Sales Report (+0.6% actual vs +0.3% Briefing.com consensus) tempered the upbeat sentiment, though, forcing investors to rethink their rate-hike expectations. At the closing bell, the fed funds futures market assigned an implied probability of 55.2% to a December rate hike, up from 37.4% on Monday.

U.S. Treasuries slid to new lows following the retail sales release, pushing the benchmark 10-yr yield as high as 2.28%. In the end, the 10-yr yield finished five basis points higher at 2.27% and the 2-yr yield finished four basis points higher at 1.35%. Underpinned by the increase in interest rates, the U.S. Dollar Index (93.72, +0.38) advanced 0.4%.

The most influential sectors--technology (+0.2%) and financials (+0.2%)--exhibited relative strength throughout the session, helping to keep losses in check. The financial space opened with a gain of around 1.0%, but began fading almost immediately. The technology group was underpinned by yet another positive performance from Apple (AAPL 161.60, +1.75), which climbed 1.1% to a new all-time high.

In addition to technology and financials, the utilities (+0.5%), consumer staples (+0.5%), and materials (unch) sectors finished in positive territory. On the flip side, the consumer discretionary (-0.9%), industrials (-0.2%), energy (-0.4%), health care (unch), telecom services (-1.0%), and real estate (-0.3%) groups closed in the red.

Retailers headlined the earnings front after names like Home Depot (HD 150.17, -4.09), TJX (TJX 70.16, +0.54), Coach (COH 40.64, -7.28), Advance Auto (AAP 87.08, -22.24), and Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS 26.87, -8.04) delivered their quarterly results. The reactions were largely negative as four of the five aforementioned companies finished in negative territory.

Dick's Sporting Goods, Advanced Auto, and Coach plunged 23.0%, 20.3%, and 15.2%, respectively, after all three companies lowered their outlooks for the fiscal year. AAP and DKS also missed earnings estimates while COH came up short on revenue expectations. Meanwhile, Home Depot dropped 2.7% despite beating bottom-line estimates and raising its guidance.

TJX was the lone advancer, climbing 0.8%, in reaction to better than expected earnings. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 38.59, -1.07) dropped 2.7% to close at its worst level since February 2016.

Reviewing Tuesday's big batch of economic data, which included July Retail Sales, July Import/Export Prices, June Business Inventories, August Empire Manufacturing, and the August NAHB Housing Market Index:

July retail sales increased 0.6%, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of +0.3%. The prior month's reading was revised to +0.3% from -0.2%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.5% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%. The prior month's reading was revised to +0.1% from -0.2%. Core retail sales, which exclude auto, gasoline station, building materials, and food services & drinking places sales, increased 0.5% and the June decline of 0.1% was revised to an uptick of 0.1%.
Core retail sales is the component that factors into the PCE goods component of the GDP report, so the key takeaway from the retail sales data is that it points to a rebound in spending on consumer goods in July after a weak finish to the second quarter. This should be a positive input for Q2 GDP models.
Import prices excluding oil declined 0.1% in July after rising 0.1% in June. Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.3% in July after finishing flat in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that inflation readings remain low, but there are some hints of a possible turn in the near future.
Business Inventories rose 0.5% in June, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of 0.4%. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at +0.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that while sales have increased, the pace of growth was below that of inventories. This means there are still some hurdles in the way of restoration of pricing power.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for August rose to 25.2 from the prior month's reading of 9.8. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 13.0.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for August rose to 68 (Briefing.com consensus 65) from an unrevised reading of 64 in July.

On Wednesday, investors will receive just two pieces of economic data--the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and July Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1.217 million). The two reports will be released at 7:00 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively.

Also of note, the minutes from the July 25-26 FOMC meeting will be released at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +17.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.3% YTD
S&P 500 +10.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.9% YTD

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Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets close mostly up. Hong Kong, South Korea, India, New Zealand, Austria, Indonesia and the Philippines did the best; Singapore was weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are mostly up. Poland, France, Germany, Greece, South Africa, Finland, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Austria are leading; Turkey is down. Futures in the States point to positive open for the cash market.
—————
eBook: High Probability Setups for Stocks and Options
—————
The dollar is up. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Target (TGT -2.58%) rallied over 4% in pre-market trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.23, higher than consensus of $1.19, and then raised guidance on full-year adjusted EPS to $4.34-$4.54, the midpoint stronger than consenus of $4.41.
Urban Outfitters (URBN -5.13%) jumped 18% in pre-market trading after it reported Q2 EPS of 44 cents, higher than consensus of 36 cents.
Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS -23.03%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Buckingham Research Group.
Biogen (BIIB +0.65%) was added to the ‘Conviction Buy List’ at Goldman Sachs.
Facebook (FB +0.15%) may move higher today after it was initiated a new ‘Buy’ at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey with an 18-month target price of $210.
Snap (SNAP +1.11%) may move lower today after it was initiated a new ‘Sell’ at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey with an 18-month target price of $10.
Expedia (EXPE -0.35%) may move higher today after it was initiated a new ‘Buy’ at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey with an 18-month target price of $190.
Agilent Technologies (A -0.40%) rose 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 net revenue of $1.11 billion, higher than consensus of $1.09 billion, and then said it sees full-year revenue of $4.44 billion-$446 billion, above consensus of $4.41 billion.
Nexstar Media Group (NXST -0.40%) lost 1% in after-hours trading after a block of 1.1 million shares of Nexstar shares were offered via Morgan Stanley for an unknown seller.
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY +0.43%) fell 3% in after-hours trading after a kidney cancer study of its combination of its Opdivo and Yervoy did not meet its primary endpoint of statistical significance in a Phase 3 study.
Viavi Solutions (VIAV -1.12%) lost almost 4% in after-hours trading after it said it sees Q1 adjusted EPS of 6 cents-9 cents, below consensus of 10 cents.
Intec Pharma Ltd (NTEC -4.90%) slid 3% in after-hours trading after it announced the launch of an underwritten public offering of up to $50 million in ordinary shares.
Tuesday’s Key Earnings
Home Depot (NYSE:HD) -2.7% with fears about online retail.
TJX Companies (NYSE:TJX) +0.8% lifting its profit guidance.
Today’s Economic Calendar
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:30 Housing Starts
10:00 Atlanta Fed’s Business Inflation Expectations
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
2:00 PM FOMC minutes
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY

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Wall Street Holds On, Averages End Slightly Higher
16-Aug-17 16:30 ET
Dow +25.88 at 22024.87, Nasdaq +12.10 at 6345.09, S&P +3.50 at 2468.07

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/8/16/wall-street-holds-on-averages-end-slightly-higher.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages registered modest victories on Wednesday, but their performances felt somewhat disappointing as an optimistic steady climb in the morning turned into a fight to hold on in the afternoon. The Nasdaq (+0.2%) finished slightly above the S&P 500 (+0.1%) and the Dow (+0.1%) while the small-cap Russell 2000 (unch) lagged.

Equity indices opened Wednesday's session with modest gains and continued ticking up into the early afternoon. However, news that President Trump will end the Manufacturing Council and Strategy & Policy Forum after several CEOs announced their departures from the two groups prompted a modest sell off that left the major averages just north of their flat lines going into the FOMC minutes release.

The minutes from the July FOMC meeting showed increasing concern among several policymakers about softer than expected inflation readings. Despite the concern about slowing inflation, most Fed officials remain in favor of announcing a balance sheet move at the upcoming policy meeting. The FOMC will kick off its next two-day meeting on September 19.

U.S. Treasuries finished higher across the yield curve on Thursday. The bulk of the gains came in response to the disbandment of President Trump's business councils, but the minutes also played a supporting role. The 10-yr yield slipped four basis points to 2.23% while the 2-yr yield dropped three basis points to 1.33%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index (93.42, -0.33) finished lower by 0.4%.

Stocks seesawed a bit following the minutes release, but ultimately ended near their pre-release levels. Nine of the S&P 500's eleven sectors finished in the green with the lightly-weighted materials sector (+0.9%) leading the charge. Copper-mining giant Freeport-MCMoRan (FCX 14.77, +0.80) was the sector's top performer, climbing 5.7%, amid a rally in the copper futures market ($2.95/lb, +2.4%).

The consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%) also showed relative strength as investors cheered the latest earnings reports from Target (TGT 56.31, +1.96) and Urban Outfitters (URBN 19.76, +2.94). TGT added 3.6% after reporting better than expected earnings and an increase of 1.3% in comparable same-store sales while URBN surged 17.5% after beating top and bottom line estimates.

On the flip side, the energy and financials sectors were the only two spaces to finish in negative territory, losing 1.1% and 0.2%, respectively. While the financial sector's loss was modest, its status as the second-heaviest sector by weight--first being technology (+0.3%)--and its important role in driving economic activity didn't bode well for the broader market.

Meanwhile, crude oil weighed on the energy sector, dropping 1.6% to $46.78/bbl, following a mixed EIA inventory report. The Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. crude stockpiles decreased by 8.9 million barrels (consensus -3.0 million barrels) for the week ended August 11 while gasoline inventories increased by 22,000 barrels (consensus -1.1 million barrels).

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to Housing Starts for July and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.155 million units in July, down from a revised 1.213 million units in June (from 1.215 million). The Briefing.com consensus expected starts to increase to 1.217 million units. Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.223 million in July from a revised 1.275 million in June (from 1.245 million). The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 1.247 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that a pullback in starts occurred after a strong June, returning the series to the middle of a range that has been in effect over the past two years. Single-family starts declined 0.5% from June, which won't do much to alleviate supply constraints.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index ticked up 0.1% to follow last week's 3.0% increase.

On Thursday, investors will receive a slew of economic reports, including the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 240K) at 8:30 ET, the August Philadelphia Fed Index (Briefing.com consensus 17) also at 8:30 ET, the July Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 76.7%) Report at 9:15 ET, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for July (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +17.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.5% YTD
S&P 500 +10.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.0% YTD

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Wall Street Takes a Beating on Thursday
17-Aug-17 16:30 ET
Dow -274.14 at 21750.73, Nasdaq -123.19 at 6221.90, S&P -38.10 at 2429.97
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/8/17/wall-street-takes-a-beating-on-thursday.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities fell to heavy selling pressure on Thursday, dragging the major U.S. indices into negative territory for the week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was hit the hardest, dropping 1.9%, as technology stocks underperformed. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and the Dow settled with losses of 1.5% and 1.2%, respectively. For the week, the S&P 500 holds a loss of 0.5%.

The major indices opened Thursday's session with modest losses, but moved deeper into negative territory following a rumor that President Trump's chief economic advisor Gary Cohn plans to resign from his position as the Director of the National Economic Council. The White House later declared that the rumor was "100% false", but it did little to reverse the market's downward trend.

Reports indicate that Mr. Comey--who is seen as a key driver of Mr. Trump's economic agenda--is frustrated about comments from President Trump regarding last weekend's events in Charlottesville, VA. True or not, Thursday's rumor underlined the notion that President Trump's pro-growth agenda could be dead on arrival in Congress if lawmakers find it to be a political liability to work with the president.

However, it's also important to remember that many investors are looking for excuses to pull out of a market that just registered yet another record high a little more than a week ago on August 7. Following Thursday's slide, the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq hover 1.7%, 2.1%, and 3.1%, respectively, below their record-high closing levels.

It's also worth pointing out that a van plowed into a crowd of people in Barcelona on Thursday, killing 13 and injuring more than 50. Local police deemed the incident a terrorist attack. While events similar to this one haven't prompted selling in the equity market so far this year, today's attack certainly didn't help the already bearish sentiment on Wall Street.

All 11 sectors finished Thursday's session in negative territory with the top-weighed technology sector (-2.0%) leading the retreat. Cisco Systems (CSCO 31.04, -1.30) was one of the tech sector's weakest components, dropping 4.0%, despite hitting both top and bottom line estimates. Chipmakers also showed notable weakness, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 2.6%.

The industrial sector also finished behind the broader market, losing 1.7%, as transports weighed, evidenced by the 2.4% decrease in the Dow Jones Transportation Average. Airlines led the transport retreat, pushing the US Global Jets ETF (JETS 29.02, -1.00) lower by 3.3%.

On the flip side, four sectors--health care (-1.3%), consumer staples (-0.9%), utilities (-0.8%), and real estate (-0.7%)--finished ahead of the broader market. Within the consumer staples group, Wal-Mart (WMT 79.70, -1.28) showed relative weakness, dropping 1.6%, despite reporting better than expected earnings.

In the bond market, Treasuries held losses in early-morning action, but began climbing as the equity market weakened. The benchmark 10-yr yield traded as high as 2.25%, but ended the day three basis points below its flat line at 2.20%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial Claims Report, the August Philadelphia Fed Index, the July Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization Report, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for July:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 232,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 244,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.953 million from the revised count of 1.956 million (from 1.951 million).
There are no new takeaways from those data series, which continue reflecting a tight labor market.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for August declined to 18.9 from an unrevised 19.5 in July while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 17.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed a rebound in new orders after July figures hinted at a weak start to the third quarter.
Industrial Production increased 0.2% in July (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) while Capacity Utilization was unchanged at 76.7% (Briefing.com consensus 76.7%) from a revised reading of 76.7% in June (from 76.6%).
The key takeaway from the report is that factory output in July remained at levels seen in February. The lack of significant change in capacity utilization suggests that the resource slack will persist, tempering inflation expectations.
The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for July increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) after moving higher by an unrevised 0.6% in June.

On Friday, investors will receive just one economic report--the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for August (Briefing.com consensus 94.0). The report will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +15.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.1% YTD
S&P 500 +8.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.1% YTD

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Thursday and Friday a Repeat of the Prior Week (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- A Thursday and Friday repeat of the prior week.
- A double drop starts changing the market's MO
- NASDAQ, SOX still working on good patterns. DJ30 in a nice ABCD
consolidation.
- Some say Friday was a key, but for this market, Monday and Tuesday and
whether a rebound emerges is very important.

A repeat of the prior week, just a bit lower. Two weeks back the market
dropped Tuesday to Thursday with Thursday a big drop, then a modest Friday
recovery. That was followed by a bounce.

This past week, after a solid Monday, the stock indices struggled, then
dropped hard Thursday. A modest session Friday, indeed a doji on SP500 just
as on the prior Friday.

SP500 -4.45, -0.18%
NASDAQ -5.38, -0.09%
DJ30 -76.22, -0.35%
SP400 -0.23%
RUTX -0.08%
SOX 0.20%

VOLUME: NYSE +18%; NASDAQ -3%. Expiration saw NYSE volume finally break
average. With SP500 showing a doji after a dump, perhaps this volume
forecasts a rebound. Again. NASDAQ volume held solid at average as the
index shows a doji at the prior week's low. Not bad at all.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE 1.2:1; NASDAQ 1.1:1.

Now, do they bounce this coming week, repeating the process?

It is true that this is a double drop, not just one sharp drop that then
leads to a new high as seen again and again in this rally, but a sharp drop,
a bounce, then another sharp drop. That is a change in the MO of these
moves in the uptrend and is ugly enough to break the pattern of dip buying.
It was enough of a change for Mr. Gartman to predict Friday could be the
most important day for the markets in the bull run. Why? A market closing
a week at multiweek lows is often a failing market.

A decent argument based in technical analysis, but I would suggest that
Monday and/or Tuesday are more important. Reason: Indeed this pattern has
shown itself many times in this rally, and after the initial selloff then
pause to end a week, the rallies renewed early the next week. Thus, how the
market fares Monday and Tuesday likely tells much more than Friday.

All speculation about the most important day aside, NASDAQ and SOX remain in
quite decent patterns in terms of holding their trends and forming some good
bases. After two hard days of selling, to still be in the pattern is a
positive, using the selling to wring out the weak hands that ultimately sets
up the demand outstripping supply and a new break higher. That is the
theory, and if SP500 along with SP400 and RUTX were not struggling, you
would anticipate they would keep on working through the pattern and make a
new upside break. As it is, you have once again a bifurcated market, and we
saw how they started coming together last time: the large caps tried to
catch down to the small and midcaps. They never got together that time, not
really close. But, they tried to rally, stalled, sold hard Thursday. Do
they come together this time?

There are still good stocks as well. AMAT is setting up a nice pattern and
LRCX' pattern is similar. China stocks turned a bit squirrely on the week
but finished quite well. AAPL and FB in FAANG remain decent. Software
remains strong, e.g. DATA, GLUU, TTWO, VMW. On the flip, some leaders and
those setting up broke, e.g. machinery, financial, and some strong stocks
such as HON are starting to crack. Then you have consumer stocks such as
PG, CLX looking better along with utilities. Oh, that is great -- stocks
that launched many a dull market.

Will the algorithms buy those stocks, just rotate from other groups as in
the past? Doubt it. At least not only those stocks. NASDAQ and SOX are
still in good patterns while RUTX, SP400 are anchor chains. Again, that
puts NASDAQ and SOX in focus and, surprise, puts market performance
paramount on Monday and Tuesday.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SOX: SOX continues working on its 3 month triangle pattern, closing the
week just below the 50 day MA. That leaves SOX working in the pattern and
still, despite the selling, leaving it in position to finish the job and
breakout.

NASDAQ: Showing a doji over the 2016 trendline, holding at the prior week's
low and the 61% Fibonacci retracement. That has NASDAQ showing a double
bottom at that retracement, and that pattern at that level is a good rally
point. Compare to the action May to early July: Rally, double bottom at the
61%/78% Fibonacci retracement, then a rally to a new high.

DJ30: Yes DJ30 sold off Thursday with the market, Friday as well. This all
inside the July to August run to a new high. DJ30 has stair-stepped back to
the 50 day MA's and the 78% Fibonacci retracement. That, despite the
selling, puts DJ30 in great position to rebound again.

SP500: Broke the 2016 trendline Thursday, sold farther Friday, showing a
doji -- just as the prior Friday. Of all the large cap indices, SP500 shows
the most Gartman-like concern: new low to end the week after a new low the
prior week. We went ahead and picked up a partial downside position on
SP500 to end the week.

SP400: After bouncing off the 200 day SMA the prior Friday and Monday,
SP400 rolled over and suffered another Thursday thumping. That selling took
SP500 through the 200 day SMA. Friday a gap lower, but showing a doji.
Similar to SP500, SP400 fits the lower weekly close in a series of lower
weekly closes.

RUTX: Same action as SP400, just sharper. Held the 200 day the prior week,
bounced, rolled back over and crashed the 200 day Thursday. A big selloff
Friday with a gap lower, but recovering off the low to a doji with tail. On
the Friday low it tested the May and some of the April lows. RUTX is in a
range where it can find support to bounce. It likely attempts a recovery
early week, stalls at the 200 day, then heads down to test the January,
March, April lows.


LEADERSHIP

Some areas losing bids, others holding up well enough.

Semiconductors: AMAT and LRCX somewhat reflect the SOX and its triangle
pattern. AMAT posted earnings Friday and they were good enough to keep it
working on the pattern. MCHP lost some luster but still holding the 50 day
in a decent pattern. SLAB is setting up decently as is ON, BRKS. AVGO is
testing and holding the 50 day MA in a 3 month consolidation. QRVO
struggled some to end the week but is holding the 50 day. Many are at best
'mushy': AMD, XLNX, MU.

China stocks: Turned choppy the past two weeks but held on and some good
moves to end the week. BABA gapped on earnings, added more Friday. BIDU
tested, but is setting up well at the 20 day EMA. HTHT, BZUN enjoyed strong
weeks again. SOHU is set up very well to break higher. SINA looks solid
still. YY recovering from a gap lower on earnings. BITA looks good to go.
Not all is great. JD broke lower, NTES continues to struggle.

Software: Excellent for the most part. VMW holding its earnings gap,
seeing up well for a new move GLUU broke sharply higher Friday. DATA is
setting up well as is TTWO.

FAANG: AAPL down to end the week, but holding the 20 day EMA and May/June
high. FB holding near the 20 day EMA in a 4 week lateral move after gapping
higher. NFLX holding the 50 day SMA and the June prior high. AMZN sold back
for the 50 day MA but held at the prior week's low. GOOG showed the same
move. If the bids return, all are in decent position to move.

Financial: C is the best of the group, holding the 50 day MA's with a doji.
BAC broke the 50 day MA. GS sold off. JPM trying to hold the 50 day MA's.

Machinery: Outside of CAT, a lot of carnage, e.g. CMI, DE, TEX. HON is
struggling, falling through the 50 day MA on another strong volume session.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -76.22 points (-0.35%) to close at 21674.51

Nasdaq
Stats: -5.39 points (-0.09%) to close at 6216.53
Volume: 1.98B (-2.94%)

Up Volume: 838.77M (+336.63M)
Down Volume: 1.11B (-410M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.04 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 3.89 to 1

New Highs: 29 (-6)
New Lows: 124 (+5)

S&P
Stats: -4.46 points (-0.18%) to close at 2425.55
NYSE Volume: 900M (+17.48%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.15 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 4.4 to 1

New Highs: 38 (-15)
New Lows: 164 (+19)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 14.26; -1.29
VXN: 17.85; -0.75
VXO: 12.91; +0.09

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.11; +0.04. Second session over 1.0 after several
weeks below. Enough of these and the market can rebound, but typically this
is after some serious selling, not what we have seen the past few weeks.


Bulls and Bears: Significant drop in bulls, falling 10 points in two weeks.
It hit 60+ for twi straight weeks, enough to set up a drop due to
overexuberance. Bears back up to 18.1, last hit 5 weeks earlier.

Bulls: 50.5 versus 57.5

Bears: 18.1 versus 17.0

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 50.5 versus 57.5
57.5 versus 60.0 versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9
versus 51.5 versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1
versus 58.7 versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8
versus 49.5 versus 56.7 versus 53.4 versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2
versus 61.8 versus 62.7 versus 61.8 versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6
versus 60.2 versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3
versus 55.6 versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9
versus 46.1 versus 46.7 versus 45.2

Bears: 18.1 versus 17.0
17.0 versus 16.2 versus 16.5 versus 16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6
versus 18.3 versus 19.2 versus 18.3 versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9
versus 17.9 versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3
versus 13.75 versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7
versus 17.6 versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6
versus 19.6 versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5
versus 25.7 versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8
versus 23.1 versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.197% versus 2.185%. Up week for bonds, bouncing off the 50 day EMA
to a higher recovery high. Friday up but then faded to flat. Still heading
higher despite a supposedly more hawkish Fed and better economy. White House
turmoil? Geopolitical tensions? Sure, but the latter are not all the
issues.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.185%
versus 2.225% versus 2.264% versus 2.24% versus 2.191% versus 2.201 versus
2.246% versus 2.262% versus 2.257% versus 2.264% versus 2.221% versus 2.266%
versus 2.253% versus 2.296% versus 2.291% versus 2.303% versus 2.287% versus
2.330% versus 2.255% versus 2.241% versus 2.270% versus 2.261% versus 2.318%
versus 2.331% versus 2.346% versus 2.316% versus 2.361% versus 2.375% versus
2.375% versus 2.368% versus 2.34% versus 2.304% versus 2.268% versus 2.20%
versus 2.140% versus 2.140% versus 2.148%


EUR/USD: 1.17595 versus 1.17107. Still in the 2.5 week test of the high
logged in early August.

Historical: 1.17107 versus 1.17812 versus 1.17445 versus 1.17751 versus
1.18216 versus 1.17652 versus 1.17596 versus 1.17619 versus 1.17975 versus
1.1774 versus 1.18718 versus 1.18457 versus 1.18072 versus 1.18281 versus
1.18293 versus 1.1683 versus 1.17419 versus 1.1646 versus 1.1637 versus
1.16640 versus 1.16271 versus 1.15280 versus 1.15549 versus 1.14735 versus
1.14672 versus 1.13986 versus 1.14335 versus 1.14682 versus 1.13964 versus
1.14010 versus 1.14220 versus 1.13508 versus 1.13710 versus 1.13510 versus
1.14208 versus 1.14432 versus 1.13786 versus 1.13409 versus 1.11834 versus
1.11928 versus 1.11484 versus 1.11670 versus 1.11346 versus 1.11419 versus
1.11968 versus 1.11466 versus 1.12213 versus 1.12086 versus 1.11930 versus
1.11965


USD/JPY: 109.205 versus 109.333. Rallied through Tuesday, sold back to the
June and August lows as of Friday. Showed a big doji with tail Friday so
may be ready to try the upside again. Definitely bouncing up and down in
its range.

Historical: 109.333 versus 109.842 versus 110.6621 versus 109.927 versus
109.183 versus 109.177 versus 110.03 versus 109.09 versus 110.09 versus
110.757 versus 110.689 versus 109.963 versus 110.717 versus 110.368 versus
110.28 versus 110.704 versus 111.07 versus 111.166 versus 111.897 versus
111.176 versus 111.128 versus 111.863 versus 111.89 versus 112.096 versus
112.582 versus 112.536 versus 113.314 versus 113.152 versus 113.929 versus
114.063 versus 113.913 versus 113.126 versus 113.253 versus 113.270 versus
112.413 versus 111.993 versus 112.340 versus 112.24 versus 111.943 versus
111.299 versus 111.357 versus 111.278 versus 111.470 versus 111.729 versus
110.873 versus 110.854 versus 109.560 versus 110.060 versus 109.97


Oil: 48.73, +1.64. Nice break higher after a week and more fading back to
the 50 day SMA. Strong upside move as rig count falls to a multiweek low.


Gold: 1290.30, -2.10. After bumping back up to the April and June highs
last week, gold sold to the 20 day then rebounded into Thursday. Again
having issues at the April and June highs. Definitely in the range for now.


MONDAY

There is a lot more of the same in terms of news and economics. The
political discourse descended to new lows the past week and the market sold
with it, but that could easily have been worse. Perhaps the market starts
factoring in the Trump administration is going to get little accomplished
with the Goldman people in control. They will push the same old policies
that benefit the big businesses and not much else, and in this climate no
democrat, and likely many republicans, will vote for something that would
benefit big corporations. My plan from last week would appeal to those
wanting to help small businesses, but then again, the Goldman people are in
charge of the White House now and that kind of initiative has a snowball's
chance in hell of getting even mentioned.

That is all the backdrop anyway. The market factors this in and it shows up
in the patterns. We will play the patterns that take control as the indices
trade Monday and Tuesday.

Ironically, if the indices bounce early week, the question then shifts to
whether they hold the move and continue or roll over again. If they sell,
no question. If they bounce, I would hazard that the indices will hold the
move this time off the double bottom test of NASDAQ, the ABCD from DJ30, the
SOX triangle.

We are looking at plays in line with the positive patterns on NASDAQ and
SOX, but of course cannot ignore the downside in the event this time the
algorithms do not buy the dip, this time a double dip.

Have a great weekend!




SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6256.56

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 6263
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6461 is the June 2017 prior all-time high

Support:
6205 is the late May all-time high
The 2016 trendline at 6141
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
The 200 day SMA at 5838
5800 from the February consolidation lows
5661 is the late January upper gap point
5601 is the January lower gap point


S&P 500: Closed at 2441.32

Resistance:
The 50 day EMA at 2446
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2487 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel

Support:
2439 is the early June all-time closing high
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the recent May 2017 low
2348 is the April 2017 lower gap point
The 200 day SMA at 2339
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high


Dow: Closed at 21,858.32

Resistance:
21,681is the July prior all-time high
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high

Support:
The 20 day EMA at 21,836
The 50 day EMA at 21,574
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high
20,553 is the lows of the week of May 15
20,547 is the lower gap point from late April 2017
The 200 day SMA at 20,484
20,412 is the March 2017 low
20,400 is the mid-April 2017 low.
20,126 is the January 2017 intraday high
20,101 is the late January closing high.
19,994 - 19,999 (early January high, upper gap point from late January
19750 is the lows of the December/January range
19,732 is the January 2017 low
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015

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Politics Persuade Equities Modestly Lower
23-Aug-17 16:25 ET
Dow -87.80 at 21812.09, Nasdaq -19.07 at 6278.39, S&P -8.47 at 2444.00

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/8/23/politics-persuade-equities-modestly-lower.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The equity market moved modestly lower on Wednesday amid concerns of a potential government shutdown and following a New York Times article that highlighted a rift between President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Nasdaq (-0.3%) and the Dow (-0.4%) settled roughly in line with the S&P 500, which dropped 0.4%. The major averages closed the session near the bottom of their relatively narrow trading ranges.

Soon after Wall Street cheered Tuesday reports suggesting that White House aids and Congressional leaders have worked together to make significant strides in framing a tax-reform proposal, the New York Times published an article that painted the relationship between Congress and the White House in a different light. Specifically, the NY Times reported that President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell haven't spoken to one another in weeks.

Mr. McConnell said in an interview on Wednesday afternoon that he and President Trump are "committed to advancing [their] shared agenda together and anyone who suggests otherwise is clearly not part of the conversation." The equity market did not react to the senator's remarks.

It's also worth mentioning that, on Tuesday night, President Trump put the possibility of a government shutdown on the table if he is unable to secure funding for his promised barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border and expressed his belief that the U.S. will likely pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Both actions would likely ruffle some feathers within the GOP.

The aforementioned headlines don't bode well for the belief that Mr. Trump will be able to work with Congress in passing the pro-growth promises of his presidential campaign. However, it's also important to not lose sight of the fact that Wednesday's slide was modest in scope and retraced only a small portion of Tuesday's rally. The S&P 500 still trades solidly higher for the week, up 0.8%.

Eight of the eleven sectors finished Wednesday's session in negative territory with the consumer discretionary (-0.8%), industrials (-0.9%), and health care (-0.7%) sectors leading the retreat. One of the consumer discretionary space's weakest components was Lowe's (LOW 73.01, -2.81), which dropped 3.7% in reaction to worse than expected earnings and disappointing earnings guidance.

Within the industrial space, transports showed notable weakness, sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average lower by 1.3%. However, on a positive note, Dow component United Technologies (UTX 117.03, +1.34) jumped 1.2% after the New York Post reported that an unidentified hedge fund has been accumulating a stake in the company and is pressuring the aerospace giant to spin off its non-core businesses.

On the flip side, the real estate (+1.0%), utilities (+0.3), and energy (+0.4%) spaces finished in the green. The energy sector benefited from a rise in the price of crude oil, which climbed 1.2% to $48.41/bbl. The commodity was trading modestly lower in the morning session, but moved sharply higher after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that U.S. crude stockpiles declined by 3.3 million barrels for the week ended August 18.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries rallied in a curve-flattening trade on Wednesday with the 10-yr yield dropping four basis points to 2.17% and the 2-yr yield ticking one basis point lower to 1.31%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included July New Home Sales and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

New Home Sales in July hit an annualized rate of 571,000, which is below the revised June rate of 630,000 (from 610,000), and lower than the Briefing.com consensus of 615,000.
The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales growth is continuing at a frustratingly slow pace despite the tailwinds of low mortgage rates and low unemployment.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index ticked down 0.5% to follow last week's 0.1% increase.

On Thursday, investors will receive two pieces of economic data--the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 237K) and July Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.56 million). The two reports will be released at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +16.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.4% YTD
S&P 500 +9.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.9% YTD

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Stocks Finish Week on a Positive Note
25-Aug-17 16:30 ET
Dow +31.57 at 21814.97, Nasdaq -5.68 at 6265.63, S&P +4.22 at 2444.50
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/8/25/stocks-finish-week-on-a-positive-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Investors pushed the stock market modestly higher on Friday to end a largely positive week on a positive note. The S&P 500 and the Dow added 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed, shedding 0.1%. For the week, the S&P 500 added 0.7%.

Arguably the most-anticipated events of the week--Friday speeches from Fed Chair Janet Yellen and ECB President Mario Draghi--turned out to be nonevents as the two central bankers provided the market with little to no new information.

Ms. Yellen praised the Fed's regulatory efforts while Mr. Draghi spoke in favor of open trade and argued for raising potential output growth, which was received as dovish. The two central bankers delivered their speeches at the annual Jackson Hole Symposium, which will wrap up on Saturday.

The U.S. Dollar Index (92.49, -0.74, -0.8%) moved sharply lower following the speeches, ending the day at its lowest level since January 2015. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasuries finished mostly higher; the 10-yr yield dropped three basis points to 2.17% while the 2-yr yield settled flat at 1.33%.

In the equity market, nine of the eleven sectors finished Friday in positive territory, but gains were modest for the most part. The telecom services group (+0.8%) showed relative strength while the remaining advancers settled with gains of 0.5% or less. Technology (-0.1%) and health care (-0.1%) were the two laggards.

Within the tech sector, chipmakers showed relative weakness, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 0.5%. Broadcom (AVGO 245.59, -9.46) led the semiconductor retreat, dropping 3.7%, despite beating bottom-line estimates.

Meanwhile, within the health care group, biotech names underperformed, evidenced by the 0.6% decrease in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 311.05, -1.82).

On a positive note, the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which is seen as a leading indicator, registered its third win of the week, climbing higher by 1.3%.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to July Durable Orders:

July durable goods orders declined 6.8%, which is more than the 6.0% decrease expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to +6.4% (from +6.5%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.1% (from 0.2%).
The upshot of the report was in the shipments and new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft. Shipments for that component, which factors into GDP computations, increased 1.0% while orders, which are considered a proxy for business spending, increased 0.4%. The key takeaway from the report, then, is that it connotes good growth news for the manufacturing sector early in the third quarter.

On Monday, investors will receive two pieces of economic data--July International Trade in Goods and Advance Wholesale Inventories. Both reports will cross the wires at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +16.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.4% YTD
S&P 500 +9.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.6% YTD

Week In Review: No News is Good News

No news proved to be good news for the bulls this week, giving them an opportunity to reclaim control of the U.S. equity market, which rode a two-week slide into Monday's session. The S&P 500 and the Dow finished with gains of 0.7% apiece while the Nasdaq (+0.8%) finished a tick above its peers.

Ten sectors settled the week in the green--real estate (+2.3%), telecom services (+2.0%), materials (+1.3%), health care (+1.1%), technology (+1.0%), utilities (+1.0%), energy (+1.0%), financials (+0.8%), consumer discretionary (+0.4%), and industrials (+0.4%)--while one group finished in the red--consumer staples (-1.0%).

The week's most notable headlines in chronological order:

Monday--S&P 500 +0.1%, Nasdaq -0.1%, Dow +0.1%
U.S. and South Korea forces begin their annual military exercise; North Korea says the exercise will only add fuel to the fire
Tuesday--S&P 500 +1.0%, Nasdaq +1.4%, Dow +0.9%
Politico reports that White House and Congressional leaders have worked together to make significant strides in framing a tax-reform proposal
Wednesday--S&P 500 -0.4%, Nasdaq -0.3%, Dow -0.4%
President Trump threatens a government shutdown if his promised barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border doesn't secure funding
This event happened on Tuesday night, but the market reacted on Wednesday
Thursday--S&P 500 -0.2%, Nasdaq -0.1%, Dow -0.1%
Grocers take a beating following news that Amazon's (AMZN) acquisition of Whole Foods Market (WFM) will close on August 28
Friday--S&P 500 +0.2%, Nasdaq -0.1%, Dow +0.2%
Fed Chair Janet Yellen says any changes to financial regulations should be modest and she is open to reviewing the Volcker Rule.
ECB President Mario Draghi speaks in favor of open trade and argues for raising potential output growth

One of the most talked about news items this week was the possibility of a government shutdown. Without going into the political details, the gist for the market is simple; the probability of a government shutdown appears to be higher now than it was a week ago.

A shutdown may stifle economic growth a bit, but the market has traditionally held up pretty well during halts in government spending. To avoid a shutdown, Congress will need to pass a new spending bill, and President Trump will have to sign it, by the end of September.

Following this week's events, the fed funds futures market now points to the June 2018 FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 58.0%. Last week, the market expected the next rate hike to occur in March 2018 with an implied probability of 51.5%.

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S&P 500 Registers Fourth-Consecutive Victory
30-Aug-17 16:25 ET
Dow +27.06 at 21893.73, Nasdaq +66.42 at 6368.29, S&P +11.29 at 2459.04
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/8/30/s-and-p-500-registers-fourthconsecutive-victory.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The equity market rallied on Wednesday as investors continued to buy the dip that pulled the major U.S. indices from their all-time highs earlier this month. The S&P 500 (+0.5%) registered its fourth-consecutive victory, marking its longest winning streak in three months, and settled above its 50-day simple moving average (2,451.08). The Nasdaq (+1.1%) outperformed while the Dow (+0.1%) lagged.

Wednesday's session began in the wake of a strong batch of economic data, which included both a better than expected ADP National Employment Report (237,000 actual vs 180,000 Briefing.com consensus) and an above-consensus second estimate of second quarter GDP (3.0% actual vs 2.7% Briefing.com consensus).

Stocks opened the session relatively flat as investors took a moment to digest the hotter than expected reports--weighing the thought of economic growth against the thought that said growth might help justify a further tightening of monetary policy. The bulls eventually won out and then led a slow and steady climb into the afternoon.

Biotechnology stocks showed notable strength throughout the session, evidenced by the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 324.32, +6.50), which settled higher by 2.1%. Incyte (INCY 138.27, +13.30) led the biotech rally, jumping 10.6%, following news that the company, and partner Eli Lilly (LLY 80.49, +1.94), will resubmit a new drug application for baricitinib by the end of January 2018.

The influential health care sector (+0.6%), which houses biotech names, finished a step ahead of the broader market, near the top of the leaderboard. The top-weighted technology sector (+0.8%) also outperformed, as did the consumer discretionary (+0.7%) and materials (+0.7%) groups.

Within the tech space, chipmakers exhibited notable strength, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.7%. Analog Devices (ADI 83.72, +4.17) led the semiconductor rally after beating both top and bottom line estimates and issuing above-consensus guidance. ADI shares climbed 5.2% to a fresh three-month high.

On the flip side, select countercyclical sectors underperformed, including consumer staples (unch), utilities (-0.4%), and telecom services (-0.6%). The energy sector (unch), which is considered to be a cyclical group, also struggled as the price of crude oil dropped for the fourth session in a row.

The commodity held a modest gain in the early afternoon, but moved sharply lower following an EPA announcement approving emergency fuel waivers for Gulf and East Coast states in response to Tropical Storm Harvey. WTI crude futures finished lower by 0.6% at a price of $45.96/bbl.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries finished the midweek session on a flattish note with the benchmark 10-yr yield settling unchanged at 2.14%. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield climbed one basis point to 1.33% after trading as high as 1.35% in the morning session.

Also of note, the U.S. Dollar Index (92.86, +0.59) climbed 0.6% after touching a multi-year low on Tuesday and the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 11.20, -0.50) dropped 4.3%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the ADP Employment Change Report for August, the second estimate of second quarter GDP, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 237,000 in August (Briefing.com consensus 180,000) while the July reading was revised higher to 201,000 from 178,000.
The second estimate of second quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 3.0%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.7%. The first estimate came in at 2.6% last month.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was driven by a pickup in both consumer and business spending, which is typically a good mix for accelerating economic growth.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index dropped 2.3% to follow last week's 0.5% decrease.

On Thursday, investors will receive a slew of economic reports, including July Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), and core PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) at 8:30 ET, Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 236K) also at 8:30 ET, August Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 58.9) at 9:45 ET, and July Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +18.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.8% YTD
S&P 500 +9.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.5% YTD

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Bulls Rack Up Another Win Ahead of Friday's Jobs Report
31-Aug-17 16:25 ET
Dow +55.67 at 21949.40, Nasdaq +60.35 at 6428.64, S&P +14.06 at 2473.10

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities moved higher once again on Thursday, extending the S&P 500's winning streak to five sessions in a row. The Russell 2000 (+1.0%) and the Nasdaq (+1.0%) finished comfortably ahead of the benchmark S&P 500 (+0.6%) while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) underperformed. For the month, the benchmark index ticked up 0.1%.

Investors were happy to dial back their rate-hike expectations on Thursday following yet another tepid inflationary report. The latest reading of the core PCE Price Index showed that consumer prices decelerated on a year-over-year basis in July--dropping to +1.4% from +1.5% in June--and remain well below the Fed's longer run target of 2.0%.

Treasury yields ended the day lower across the curve following Thursday's economic data with the benchmark 10-yr yield dropping two basis points to 2.12%. Likewise, the U.S. Dollar Index (92.61, -0.23) slipped, losing 0.3%. As for the fed funds futures market, the implied probability of a December rate hike now sits at 36.4%, slightly lower than where it stood at this time last week (38.7%).

In the equity market, nine of the eleven sectors settled the day in positive territory with the influential health care group (+1.7%) leading the charge after closing above its 50-day simple moving average (919.36) for the first time in three weeks on Wednesday. Biotech names showed particular strength, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 333.35, +9.03) higher by 2.8%.

Like the health care space, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.7%) also finished ahead of the broader market on Thursday as Apple (AAPL 164.00, +0.65) added another 0.4% to settle August with a monthly gain of 10.3%. The tech sector was the top-performer in the month of August, climbing 3.2% to extend its year-to-date advance to 25.3%.

The lightly-weighted materials space (+0.7%) also outperformed on Thursday, but the remaining advancers finished with gains of no more than 0.5%. On the flip side, the heavily-weighted financial space (unch) settled with the telecom services sector (-0.5%) at the bottom of the sector standings, extending its monthly loss to 1.9%.

Elsewhere, crude oil climbed 2.6% to $47.14/bbl, breaking its four-session losing streak. Tropical Storm Harvey remains a key factor in the crude and gasoline futures market as it has forced the closure of many refineries along the Texas coast. Thursday reports indicate that Motiva Enterprises' Port Arthur refinery, the biggest in Texas, may be shut down for up to two weeks.

Political news was fairly light on Thursday, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did say the White House has a "very detailed" tax plan ready that will be released to the public by the end of September.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included July Personal Income, Personal Spending, core PCE Prices, Initial Claims, August Chicago PMI, and July Pending Home Sales:

Personal income ticked up 0.4% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) after an unrevised reading of 0.0% for June. Personal spending rose 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the prior month's reading was revised to 0.2% from 0.1%. The core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%).
The key takeaway from the report was that inflation pressures remained subdued, which suggests to market participants that expectations for another rate hike this year can also remain subdued.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 236,000, as expected. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 235,000 (from 234,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.942 million from an unrevised count of 1.954 million.
This report marks the 130th straight week that initial claims have been below 300,000, which is reflective of an environment in which employers are reluctant to let go of their workers.
Chicago PMI for August hit 58.9, unchanged from July and in line with the Briefing.com consensus.
All of the barometer components, with the exception of employment, were above their year-ago levels.
Pending Home Sales for July declined 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). Today's reading follows a revised 1.3% increase in June (from +1.5%).

On Friday, the Employment Situation Report for August will be released at 8:30 ET and has the power to jolt, or further dampen, the chances of a December rate hike. The Briefing.com consensus expects that the report will show the addition of 183,000 nonfarm payrolls, an increase of 0.2% in average hourly earnings, and an unemployment rate of 4.3%.

In addition, investors will receive several other pieces of economic data on Friday, including the August ISM Manufacturing Index (Briefing.com consensus 56.8), July Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%), and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for the month of August (Briefing.com consensus 97.1)--all of which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Also of note, August auto and truck sales will be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite +19.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.1% YTD
S&P 500 +10.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.6% YTD

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Market Flails as North Korea and Hurricane Wail
05-Sep-17 16:20 ET
Dow -234.25 at 21754.61, Nasdaq -59.76 at 6375.55, S&P -18.70 at 2459.30
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/5/market-flails-as-north-korea-and-hurricane-wail.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices closed off their lows of the session, yet it is fair to say they struggled all day to overcome a panoply of issues that kept buyers mostly sidelined. The losses were broad based as the major indices closed the day down between 0.8% and 1.1%.

The ostensible trigger for Tuesday's bearish bias was North Korea's nuclear test over the weekend, yet it quickly morphed into more than that as the media intensified its coverage of Hurricane Irma, which was upgraded to a category 5 storm that is tracking toward the Caribbean and could very well hit the continental U.S., namely Florida, by the weekend or early next week.

The governors of Florida and Puerto Rico have already declared a state of emergency and the Florida Keys have a mandatory evacuation order.

Fittingly, investors were evacuating themselves from the insurance, reinsurance, and cruise line stocks on Tuesday as their businesses are expected to be adversely impacted in the near term by the hurricane. Conversely, home improvement retailers Home Depot (HD 152.93, +2.20, +1.5%) and Lowe's (LOW 75.68, +1.07, +1.4%), as well as companies like Generac Holdings (GNRC 42.05, +1.39, +3.4%), a manufacturer of power generators, outperformed as potential beneficiaries of the looming natural disaster.

Still, there was a political cloud hanging over the market all day, too, that rained down on investor sentiment.

North Korea's provocative act got things rolling, yet there was also a domestically-rooted concern that a budget resolution and debt limit increase won't be achieved as readily, or as agreeably, as last week's market participants thought they would in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

Those concerns festered on the back of reports that the Republican Freedom Caucus is opposed to attaching a funding request for Hurricane Harvey aid to a debt limit increase and on the news that President Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The confluence of concerns related to North Korea, Hurricane Irma, and domestic politics came together in a Treasury market rally that saw the 10-yr note jump nearly a point and its yield drop nine basis points to 2.07%. That move was billed as a safe-haven bid, which was also evident in rising gold prices ($1347.10, +16.70, +1.3%) and a huge move in the CBOE Volatility Index (12.52, +2.39, +23.6%). Separately, the U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.4% to 92.24.

Today's corporate news mostly took a backseat to the macro concerns, yet it wasn't overshadowed altogether as a driver of things.

United Technologies (UTX 111.19, -6.73, -5.7%) paced the Dow's decline after announcing a deal to acquire Rockwell Collins (COL 130.87, +0.26, +0.2%) for $30 billion, or $140.00 per share, in cash and stock. Rumors had been circulating for several weeks that such a deal could come to fruition, helping to drive up shares of COL, so their was little movement today in the acquisition target following the actual news.

Travelers (TRV 115.47, -4.43, -3.7%) was the next weakest component in the Dow, as it tracked lower with other insurers. That group weighed heavily on the financial sector (-2.2%), which was the worst-performing sector on Tuesday. Notable weakness in the bank stocks, which got clipped on concerns about net interest margin pressures related to the flattening yield curve, also factored significantly into the sector's weakness.

Another weak spot of note was the airlines, as they got grounded following third quarter passenger unit revenue warnings from Delta Air Lines (DAL 45.84, -1.67, -3.5%) and Spirit Airlines (SAVE 32.51, -1.52, -4.5%)

Those sectors that bucked the broader trend included the defensive-oriented utilities (+0.3%) and consumer staples (+0.2%) sectors, as well as the energy sector (+0.6%), which followed crude prices ($48.64, +1.34, +2.8%) higher. The latter move was based on an outlook of improved demand for oil as refineries in Texas come back online.

The lone economic release today was the Factory Orders report for July. It showed orders fell 3.3% in July (Briefing.com consensus -3.2%) on the back of weakness in transportation equipment orders. The report was quickly glossed over by traders, though, since it was largely in-line with expectations.

Wednesday's economic calendar features the MBA Mortgage Applications Index for the week of September 2, the Trade Balance report for July (Briefing.com consensus -$44.6 bln), the ISM Services report for August (Briefing.com consensus 55.2), and the Fed's Beige Book report.

Nasdaq Composite +18.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.2%
S&P 500 +9.7% YTD
S&P Midcap 400 Index +3.5%
Russell 2000 +3.3%

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Wall Street Trims Yesterday's Decline
06-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow +54.33 at 21808.94, Nasdaq +17.74 at 6393.29, S&P +7.69 at 2466.99

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/6/wall-street-trims-yesterdays-decline.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities reclaimed a chunk of Tuesday's swoon on Wednesday as each of the three major indices--the S&P 500, the Dow, and the Nasdaq--settled with modest gains of 0.3% apiece. Small caps finished roughly in line with the broader market, evidenced by the Russell 2000, which climbed 0.2%. For the week, the S&P 500 is now lower by 0.4%.

In Washington, President Trump and Democratic leaders agreed to a package deal that includes $7.85 billion for Hurricane Harvey relief efforts and a three-month extension of both the debt ceiling and government funding. It's unclear if the proposal will have the support to make it through Congress however; House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that the aforementioned deal was "unworkable" while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that he is willing to add the three-month extension to the $7.85 billion flood relief bill--which the House passed as a stand-alone bill on Wednesday.

It's worth noting that, if passed, the proposal would put an end-of-the-year showdown on the table, something that may negatively impact Republicans' goal of getting tax reform done by the year's end. Nonetheless, the stock market took the news in stride today, strengthening into the afternoon, and the Treasury market weakened, sending the benchmark 10-yr yield four basis points higher to 2.11%.

The energy sector (+1.6%) finished comfortably ahead of its peers as crude oil moved higher, climbing 1.0% to a price of $49.14/bbl. The commodity has rallied both days this week as oil refineries along the Texas coast have started coming back online following Hurricane Harvey. On a related note, Hurricane Irma hit the Caribbean on Wednesday morning, moving towards Puerto Rico.

In total, nine of the eleven sectors finished in the green with the consumer discretionary space (+0.6%) settling behind the energy group at the top of the leaderboard. As for the laggards, the lightly-weighted utilities and telecom services groups finished with losses of 0.5% and 1.2%, respectively.

On the corporate front, toy makers like Mattel (MAT 15.69, -0.52) and Hasbro (HAS 93.66, -1.86) dropped 3.2% and 2.0%, respectively, following news that Toys "R" Us is considering a possible bankruptcy filing. Dave & Buster's (PLAY 51.41, -6.73) also finished solidly lower, dropping 11.6%, after lowering its comparable same-store sales guidance for fiscal year 2018.

Also of note, Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer offered President Trump his resignation on Wednesday morning, citing personal reasons. Mr. Fischer plans to step down in mid-October.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the August ISM Services Index, the July Trade Balance, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ISM Services Index for August rose to 55.3 from an unrevised reading of 53.9 in July. The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 55.2.
The key takeaway from the report -- other than the important services sector remains in an expansion mode -- is that the uptick in July was paced by an increase in new orders and employment.
The July trade balance showed a deficit of $43.7 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected the deficit to hit $44.6 billion. The previous month's deficit was revised to $43.5 billion from $43.6 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that it should compute favorably for Q3 GDP forecasts considering the real trade deficit for July ($61.6 billion) was 1.3% below the second quarter average.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 3.3% to follow last week's 2.3% decrease.

In addition, the Fed's Beige Book for September showed that economic activity expanded at a modest to moderate pace across all 12 Federal Reserve Districts in July and August. A special note was added for Hurricane Harvey, saying the storm created broad disruptions to economic activity in the Dallas and Atlanta districts, but it's still too soon to gauge the full extent of the impact.

On Thursday, investors will receive the revised readings for second quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) at 8:30 ET, the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 239K) also at 8:30 ET, and July Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $15.0 billion) at 15:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +18.8% YTD
S&P 500 +10.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.3% YTD

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Traders Hold Their Ground Despite Risk-Off Tone
07-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow -22.86 at 21786.08, Nasdaq +4.55 at 6397.84, S&P -0.44 at 2466.55
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/7/traders-hold-their-ground-despite-riskoff-tone.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major U.S. indices had a mixed outing on Thursday, settling near their unchanged marks despite another disappointing performance from the heavily-weighted financial sector (-1.7%) and risk-off signals from other financial markets. The Nasdaq (+0.1%) eked out a narrow victory while the Dow (-0.1%) and the S&P 500 (unch) each finished a tick below their flat lines.

Prior to Thursday's opening bell, the European Central Bank announced its decision to leave interest rates unchanged. ECB President Mario Draghi added that the central bank will make a decision on its quantitative easing program later this year and risks to the outlook remain balanced. He also noted that the ECB is not targeting an exchange rate, but the level will factor into policy decisions.

The euro climbed 0.9% against the U.S. dollar to 1.2025 following Mr. Draghi's remarks, helping to send the U.S. Dollar Index (91.48, -0.73, -0.8%) to its lowest level since January 2015. The Japanese yen also weighed on the greenback, climbing 0.7% to 108.45. The yen is considered a safe-haven asset and typically does well when investors are feeling risk averse.

Other safe-haven assets, like U.S. Treasuries and gold, also did well on Thursday. Gold climbed 0.9% to $1,350.40/ozt, settling at a new high for the year, while the Treasury market rallied in a curve-flattening trade that sent the 2-yr yield (1.27%) and the 10-yr yield (2.06%) lower by two basis points and five basis points, respectively.

The flattening of the yield curve fueled concerns about net interest margins for lenders and contributed to another poor performance for the heavily-weighted financial sector, which dropped 1.7% to finish below its 200 day simple moving average (397.68). Property and casualty insurers also weighed on the financial group as Hurricane Irma creeped closer to the populous state of Florida.

Like financials, the consumer discretionary and telecom services spaces finished solidly lower, dropping 0.9% and 2.1%, respectively, but the eight remaining sectors finished in positive territory with gains ranging from 0.1% to 1.1%. The influential health care and information technology sectors finished comfortably ahead of the broader market, adding 1.1% and 0.5%, respectively.

On the corporate front, Walt Disney (DIS 97.06, -4.44) dropped 4.4% after CEO Bob Iger announced that the company's earnings per share for fiscal year 2017 will be roughly in line with the 2016 figure. In addition, the company said that its Marvel and Star Wars titles will go exclusively to its planned streaming service, which is set to launch in late 2019.

General Electric (GE 24.02, -0.90) also finished solidly lower, losing 3.6%, after JP Morgan reaffirmed its underweight rating on GE shares. However, on a positive note, Restoration Hardware (RH 71.54, +22.12) surged 44.8% after beating both top and bottom line estimates and issuing upbeat guidance.

In Washington, the Senate easily passed President Trump's Wednesday agreement with Democratic lawmakers, which packages Hurricane Harvey relief funding with a three-month extension of both government funding and the debt ceiling. The measure will now be taken up in the House, where it is also expected to pass.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial Claims Report and revised readings for second quarter Productivity and Unit Labor Costs:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 298,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 239,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 236,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.940 million from the revised count of 1.945 million (from 1.942 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the spike in initial claims was impacted by Hurricane Harvey, which is to say it is an aberrant reading in relation to an otherwise encouraging trend for initial claims.
Second quarter unit labor costs were revised downward to +0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) from +0.6% in the preliminary reading. Meanwhile, second quarter productivity was revised upward to +1.5% (Briefing.com consensus +1.2%) from +0.9% in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that the subdued growth in unit labor costs will contribute to the market's thinking that the Fed has scope to hold off on another rate hike this year.

On Friday, investors will receive just two pieces of economic data--July Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and July Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $15.0 billion). The two reports will be released at 10:00 ET and 15:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +18.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.2% YTD
S&P 500 +10.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.0% YTD

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Another Mixed Finish Ahead of Hurricane Irma's Arrival
08-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow +13.01 at 21799.09, Nasdaq -37.68 at 6360.16, S&P -3.67 at 2462.88
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/8/another-mixed-finish-ahead-of-hurricane-irmas-arrival.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major U.S. indices closed out the abbreviated week on a mixed note as investors looked ahead to the weekend, which could see Hurricane Irma's arrival in Florida and another North Korean missile test in celebration of the country's 69th anniversary. The Dow ticked up 0.1% while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq settled with losses of 0.2% and 0.6%, respectively. For the week, the S&P 500 lost 0.6%.

Property and casualty insurers bounced back on Friday after spending recent weeks on the decline in response to hurricane-related concerns. Travelers (TRV 119.76, +4.58) was the strongest component within the Dow and among the strongest names within the heavily-weighted financial sector, which settled at the top of the sector standings. TRV shares climbed 4.0%.

In total, four sectors finished Friday's session in the green--financials (+0.8%), industrials (+0.3%), health care (+0.4%), and utilities (+0.4%)--while seven groups ended the day in the red--consumer discretionary (-0.4%), energy (-1.1%), materials (unch), technology (-0.9%), consumer staples (-0.7%), telecom services (-0.1%), and real estate (unch).

Chipmakers weighed heavily on the technology sector, evidenced by the PHLX Semiconductor Index, which dropped 1.3%. Qualcomm (QCOM 49.64, -0.74) lost 1.5% after a federal judged denied the company's bid to dismiss a patent-royalty lawsuit, allowing Apple (AAPL 158.63, -2.63) manufacturers to continue withholding royalty payments as the case continues.

Elsewhere, retailers struggled after Target (TGT 57.27, -1.15) announced that it is cutting prices on thousands of items and Kroger (KR 21.06, -1.71) said that it will stop providing long-term earnings guidance due to the "dynamic operating environment." The companies' shares moved lower by 2.0% and 7.5%, respectively.

Equifax (EFX 123.23, -19.49) plunged 13.7% after announcing that around 143 million of its U.S. customers had their personal information stolen in a data hack. Reports indicate that the company first discovered the compromise in late July and three senior executives sold about $1.7 million in stock soon thereafter.

In Washington, the House passed President Trump's Wednesday agreement with Democratic lawmakers, which packages Hurricane Harvey relief funding with a three-month extension of both government funding and the debt ceiling. The bill, which passed the Senate on Thursday, now just needs President Trump's signature.

U.S. Treasuries settled Friday mostly flat with the benchmark 10-yr yield closing at its unchanged mark (2.06%). Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield moved two basis points lower, finishing at 1.25%.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included July Wholesale Inventories and July Consumer Credit:

July Wholesale Inventories increased 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%). The prior month's reading was revised to +0.6% from +0.7%.
The Consumer Credit report for July showed an increase of $18.5 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected growth of $15.0 billion. The prior month's credit growth was revised to $11.9 billion from $12.4 billion.
Provided consumers weren't making greater use of revolving credit lines to cover basic needs due to a shortfall in income, this report can ostensibly be looked upon as a good sign for the economy since the expansion of credit is an integral contributor to economic growth. It is hard to say, though, because there isn't enough detail in the report and it is often subject to large revisions, which is why the market rarely shows much reaction to it.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +18.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.3% YTD
S&P 500 +9.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.1% YTD

Week In Review: Still Within Striking Distance

The major U.S. indices all moved lower this week as geopolitical tensions with North Korea, declining confidence in the feasibility of tax reform, and Hurricane Irma--which is expected to hit Florida this weekend--weighed on investor sentiment. The Nasdaq led the retreat, dropping 1.2%, while the Dow and the S&P 500 finished with respective losses of 0.9% and 0.6%.

Even though the equity market settled lower for the week, it remains within striking distance of its all-time high; the S&P 500 finished Friday's session just 0.8% below its record-high close of 2,480.91. Treasuries rallied this week, sending yields to new lows for the year. The benchmark 10-yr yield dropped 11 basis points to 2.06%, hitting its lowest level since early November.

Similarly, other safe-haven assets--like gold and the Japanese yen--moved higher, jumping 1.6% and 2.3%, respectively. The yellow metal settled at a 13-month high ($1,351.10/ozt) while the dollar/yen pair finished at a ten-month low (107.78). In addition, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) spiked 20.2% to 12.18. The financial sector (-2.8%) was pressured by the decline in Treasury yields, but most of the remaining groups finished with losses of no more than 1.1%.

Relative strength in heavyweight names like Home Depot (HD), Exxon Mobil (XOM), and Pfizer (PFE) prevented the stock market from a significant decline, but there were some soft spots in small-cap and high-beta pockets of the market. The small-cap Russell 2000--which is seen as a leading indicator given that small-cap companies largely rely on domestic consumers--underperformed, dropping 1.0%. After pacing the stock market's post-election rally, the small-cap index now holds a year-to-date gain of just 3.1%, far below the S&P 500's year-to-date advance of 9.9%.

High-beta chipmakers also struggled, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 2.3%. Large-cap names like Qualcomm (QCOM) and NVIDIA (NVDA) showed particular weakness, settling with losses of 4.6% and 4.0%, respectively. Still, for the year, the PHLX Semiconductor Index is higher by 20.6%.

Following this week's events, the fed funds futures market places the chances of a December rate hike at 31.9%, down from last week's 43.7%.

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Notching New Record Highs
12-Sep-17 16:20 ET
Dow +61.49 at 22120.16, Nasdaq +22.02 at 6454.25, S&P +8.37 at 2497.93

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/12/notching-new-record-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks moved higher for the second day in a row on Tuesday, but conviction was much more subdued than it was on Monday when the major averages rose over 1.0% apiece. The S&P 500 climbed 0.3% to notch its second record-high close of the week, while the Nasdaq (+0.3%) and the Dow (+0.3%) each managed to notch their first. Small caps outperformed, sending the Russell 2000 higher by 0.6%.

The biggest event of the day was Apple's (AAPL 160.82, -0.68) annual product unveiling, in which the tech giant showed off three new iPhones, including the iPhone 8, the iPhone 8 Plus, and the high-end iPhone X--which CEO Tim Cook called "the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone." Apple also introduced a new 4K Apple TV and its Apple Watch Series 3, which is the first series to include LTE-capability, allowing users to make phone calls and stream music without hauling a phone.

On the whole, the product event provided little new information as many of the details had been leaked to the public beforehand. Nonetheless, Apple shares were volatile following the event's afternoon kick off, first surging from their flat line to a new session high ($163.96/share, +1.5%) and then dropping sharply to a new session low ($158.77/share, -1.7%). In the end, AAPL shares finished lower by 0.4%.

Unsurprisingly, the top-weighted technology sector--and the broader market to some degree--mimicked Apple's volatility as the company is the largest component by market cap within the sector (and the S&P 500 in general). The tech group ended Tuesday's session a tick above its flat line (+0.1%), but held a gain of 0.4% at its best mark of the day and a loss of 0.4% at its worst.

Conversely, the influential financial space (+1.2%) proved to be pillar of strength on Tuesday, settling comfortably above the broader market for the second time this week. The sector benefited from a curve-steepening trade within the Treasury market, which sold off once again as investors dialed up their appetite for more risky assets--like equities. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed five basis points to 2.17%, hitting its best level in over a week, while the 2-yr yield ticked up just two basis points to 1.33%.

Like financials, the lightly-weighted telecom services space (+1.4%) comfortably outperformed the broader market, but the remaining advancers finished with more modest gains, raging from 0.1% to 0.8%. The consumer discretionary sector settled in the middle of said range (+0.4%), overcoming a disappointing performance from McDonald's (MCD 156.33, -5.20), which tumbled 3.2% on the heels of some cautious commentary from market research firm M Science.

At the opposite end of the sector standings, the rate-sensitive utilities and real estate sectors struggled amid the increase in interest rates. The two groups were the only sectors to finish Tuesday in the red, registering sizable losses of 1.8% and 1.2%, respectively.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for July:

The July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 6.170 million from a revised 6.116 million (from 6.163 million) in June.

On Wednesday, investors will receive several economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, the August Producer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) at 8:30 ET, and the August Treasury Budget at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +19.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.9% YTD
S&P 500 +11.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.9% YTD

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Bulls Peter Out, But Still Get the Win
13-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow +39.32 at 22159.48, Nasdaq +5.91 at 6460.16, S&P +1.89 at 2499.82
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/13/bulls-peter-out-but-still-get-the-win.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The week's bullish momentum petered out on Wednesday, but, thanks to a late-afternoon rally, the S&P 500 (+0.1%), the Nasdaq (+0.1%), and the Dow (+0.2%) still managed to register new record-high closes. The major averages hovered near their flat lines throughout Wednesday's session as investors lacked conviction amid a shortage of market-moving catalysts.

Traders kept an eye on Apple (AAPL 159.65, -1.21) throughout the midweek session, looking to see how the tech giant would respond to yesterday's product event--in which the company unveiled a trio of iPhones, including the much-anticipated iPhone X. AAPL shares were weak throughout the session and eventually ended the day with a sizable loss of 0.8%.

The company's Wednesday decline, which was preceded by a 0.4% drop on Tuesday, was attributed by some to the iPhone X's later-than-expected release date (November 3), but profit taking on the heels of a major event was also a likely contributing factor considering Apple has made a massive run this year (+37.8% YTD).

Nonetheless, the broader market held up relatively well as investors rotated into some of the sectors that have struggled so far this year--including the energy sector, which settled at the top of the day's leaderboard (+1.2%). The energy space benefited from a rally within the crude oil futures market that sent the price of WTI crude to $49.30/bbl, a one-day increase of 2.2%.

The commodity was underpinned by the International Energy Agency's prediction that global oil demand is set to accelerate at its fastest pace in two years and the weekly EIA inventory report, which showed a much greater-than-expected decline in gasoline inventories (8.4 million actual vs 2.1 million consensus)--a positive sign for future crude demand.

However, it's important to note that hurricane-related factors were at play in this week's EIA inventory report, which also showed a larger-than-expected build of crude stockpiles (5.9 million barrels actual vs 3.2 million consensus).

Like energy, the telecom services sector bucked its bearish year-to-date trend, climbing higher by 0.8%, to finish roughly in line with the consumer discretionary space (+0.7%) near the top of the leaderboard. Retailers helped underpin the consumer discretionary group's positive performance, evidenced by the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 41.38, +0.43), which advanced 1.1%.

Within the retail space, Nordstrom (JWN 47.74, +2.69) showed notable strength, jumping 6.0%, following reports that the company is nearing a deal with private equity firm Leonard Green that would help the high-end retailer go private. Target (TGT 59.51, +1.62) also outperformed, adding 2.8%, after announcing plans to hire around 100,000 employees for the upcoming holiday season.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.2%) also finished in the green, marking its third-straight victory, as did the consumer staples group (+0.1%). On the flip side, six groups finished in the red--industrials (-0.1%), materials (unch), technology (-0.2%), health care (-0.4%), utilities (-0.5%), and real estate (-0.4%)--but losses were modest for the most part.

In the bond market, Treasuries slipped once again, sending yields higher for the third session in a row. The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed three basis points to 2.20%, which marks its best level of the month. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index (92.42, +0.53) jumped 0.6% to register its third-consecutive advance.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to the Producer Price Index for August, the Treasury Budget for August, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Producer prices rose 0.2% in August, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%. Meanwhile, core producer prices rose 0.1%, which is below the 0.2% increase that the Briefing.com consensus expected. Year-over-year, core producer prices are up 2.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that producer prices picked up in August without any full-scale impact from Hurricane Harvey, which will presumably help drive up producer prices in September along with Hurricane Irma. The question, though, is what kind of pass-through effect might there be on consumer prices?
The Treasury Budget for August showed a deficit of $107.7 billion versus a deficit of $107.1 billion for August 2016.
The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the August deficit cannot be compared to the $42.9 billion deficit registered in July.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 9.9% to follow last week's 3.3% rise.

On Thursday, investors will receive two pieces of economic data--the Consumer Price Index for August (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and the Weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 310K). Both reports will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +20.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.1% YTD
S&P 500 +11.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.1% YTD

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InvestmentHouse - Rally Continues Despite North Korean Missile Launch (WeekendNewsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Upside rally continues through Friday with another low to high move
despite a best yet NKorean missile launch.
- SOX surges to a new post-2008 closing high, playing catchup to the other
indices.
- New highs logged by most of the indices, and the move post-highs is quite
similar to the prior rallies.
- Economic data remains weak as retail sales miss, revised lower, in need of
tax and healthcare reform.
- SOX move to leadership is important for the post-new highs rally health.

The market move according to its pattern or MO if you prefer is right on
target with its prior rallies in this upside trend. In this pattern, often
after the new high is made the indices continue upside with incremental, not
necessarily strong gains. That is very much what the indices showed to end
the week after a sudden start upside Monday and Tuesday: the rest of the
week was rather slow go upside, particularly for SP500 and NASDAQ. Yes SOX
was strong, but it is playing catchup to the other indices. Doing a good
job of it.

The Friday session was a third straight with a lower open followed by a
recovery to flat or better. Obviously the bids are returning at this level
versus converting to sell orders. That keeps the rally going, and with SOX
stepping up its game, perhaps the post-new high rally can improve on past
performance.

SP500 4.61, 0.18%
NASDAQ 19.39, 0.30%
DJ30 64.86, 0.29%
SP400 0.41%
RUTX 0.47%
SOX 1.71%

VOLUME: NYSE +157%; NASDAQ +54%. Expiration, so cannot write too much into
this showing.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE 1.7:1, NASDAQ 1.5:1. Outside of SOX and a few
others, not a lot of movement.

DJ30 has taken the lead in the new high department, hitting a high Wednesday
and extending to a new all-time high Thursday and Friday. SP500 was the
first to garner a new high on this last leg this week, clearing to a new
closing high Monday and adding to it through Friday, scoring its own
all-time high as well. NASDAQ put in some new all-time closing highs though
it gave up the early week highs Friday. Even SOX came to life and with two
solid back to back moves to end the week it put in a new post-2008 closing
high. SOX is very important for this market, and if SOX continues to show
such strength, the rally may have more to it than just one of the more
'typical' post-new high moves.

SP400 and RUTX look solid to continue their moves, but SP400 is at important
resistance and both are still quite a way from a new high. Working on it.

Given the timing of the moves, the large cap indices are at new highs and
indeed have traded at them for at least a few days now. In the prior new
high move in July to August and even before that, the indices put in
anywhere from 5 to 10 to 12 sessions after the new high before they started
topping out and set up for the next move lower.

Thus, if you look at the past action as a guide to the market's, and more
specifically the algorithm's, pattern they are working on the last stages of
this particular leg with anywhere from 2 to 10 days left.

Now, of course, this is all rather loose in terms of days. The important
point is the indices are putting in new highs, and if the algorithms hold
their trading patterns then the top will be put in sooner than later. We
have taken gain along the way, and will take more as the move progresses.

At the same time it is possible the market just continues to run higher. It
is showing good action in several groups and the semiconductors came to life
to end the week, though not all -- NVDA made a huge move and it is a
heavyweight in the group. Nonetheless, it is an important group and its
reassertion as a leadership group could lead to a more sustained run this
particular leg. Thus, we did pick up some good stocks and positions as the
market rally continued, and quite frankly there are STILL some good-looking
buys heading into next week; if they continue higher these leaders we are
looking at will help lead the current rally higher. We plan to take gain as
noted, but we also plan to keep participating if great stocks show great
entry points.


NEWS/ECONOMY

The economic data? At best uninspired. Retail sales Friday disappointed
big time as did Industrial Production. At least New York PMI beat
expectations. The week before, jobs were terrible overall though showed
some positives in the jobs mix. All in all, however, the results are, as
noted, uninspiring.

Retail Sales, August: -0.2% versus 0.1% expected versus 0.3% July (from
0.6%)

Ex-autos: 0.2% versus 0.5% expected versus 0.4% prior (from 0.5%)

Control Group: -0.2% versus +0.2% expected

Building materials: -0.5% but that will change after the storms.

Food: 0.3%

Gas stations: 2.5%

Apparel: -1.0%

**Online sales -1.1%, the worst showing since 4/2014.

What does it mean? Just another in a string of continued mediocre economic
data that the US has suffered through for years. It underscores the need
for meaningful tax reform that includes healthcare reform. I can tell you
firsthand stories of the crisis the ACA is bringing to workers wanting
healthcare. The will is there for business to make new investments and move
the economy forward. The problem is the structure that blocks growth by
bleeding off funds for inflated insurance costs.

Just a quick example: we used to be able to purchase for employees a family
healthcare plan for $321/month with 100% coverage after a $5,000 deductible.
They combined that with an HSA account where they contributed tax free
dollars to build up the account to pay for day to day medical expenses plus
the deductible. We matched contributions up to $150/month to help new
employees build up their accounts although they could contribute more. It
worked beautifully.

Today a similar, though not as good coverage plan, costs $1440/month with a
$12,000 deductible. You can contribute to an HSA, but under the ACA the
Health Savings Accounts were gutted and vastly limited as cannot be used for
nonprescription items. The result? People have doctors write prescriptions
for over the counter items, thus jacking up the costs all around.
Incredibly stupid, but not really because the goal was to make a 'fix' that
was unworkable as a stepping stone to total government healthcare.

That is why I am so encouraged by the Graham/Santorum/and others healthcare
bill being introduced in Congress, the one I wrote about before. It puts
the decision-making as to what kind of program the state wants to offer with
the state itself. If they want the ACA, they can have it. If not, they can
try their own ideas.

There is also hope in tax reform with democrats such as Munchin a democrat
from West Virginia saying the negotiations are "very promising." One can
only hope.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SOX: With NVDA waking up out of a 9-week lateral range Friday and blasting
to a 6+% gain, SOX was finally able to play some much-needed catchup. Not a
new post-2008 high, but at least a post-2008 closing high as SOX moves
through the June peak. INTC threw in with NVDA along with SWKS and even
AVGO showed some life Friday. With the big names and smaller names moving,
SOX gets the first billing this week. Very important group that bodes well
for perhaps this market move extending beyond what has been the 'typical'
moves post new highs in this market.

DJ30: Gapped to yet another new all-time high, making it 2 straight as well
as 3 straight new closing highs. Very much what prior new high moves have
shown, i.e. a break higher and then a more or less steady, albeit
unspectacular, move higher.

SP500: Creeping along to higher highs Tuesday to Friday, putting in a new
one Friday, closing just over the 2500 level. Still has not taken it out
with any authority. This is also quite typical of the post-new high moves
in this market rally: new high, then less than spectacular moves. Higher
yes, but less than spectacular.

NASDAQ: New closing highs on the week but after that move a fade to test
the 10 day EMA. Friday a test and rebound upside. No new high Friday, but
a solid test of the move, holding at near support. Now we see if NASDAQ can
resume the leadership role after a quick test of the new high. It has shown
better post-new high moves, e.g. in July, so it is capable of using this
good setup for a new break higher.

SP400: Not a bad week at all. SP400 lagged the move higher, but it started
making up ground with a pair of gap and runs Monday and Tuesday. A move
over the 50 day SMA, then a test through Thursday. Friday a break higher
with a new rally high. SP400 looks quite good to continue the move higher
as it is handline 1750 well with the next resistance at 17170ish.

RUTX: Small caps posted a solid week, up 4 of 5 sessions and moving through
resistance from March, April, and indeed past the June high as well.
Obviously a bit more than just a relief bounce off the July to August
selling, doing its best to break up any notion of a head and shoulders top
formation over the past 5 months.


LEADERSHIP

Semiconductors: Chips got the first billing Thursday with their work, and
Friday they were at it again. NVDA blasted higher and had the bald-headed
guy on CNBC was all lathered up; surely if flies to the moon -- taking our
existing position nicely deep into the money. AVGO didn't break out but it
did finally contribute upside, helping SOX. INTC cleared the August high.
XLNX, SLAB, SWKS, AMAT and others enjoyed great weeks. The others? BRKS,
ON. Very important group for the market and performing well as more and
more of these stocks start breaking higher.

China stocks: A good week for many though the end of the week was
anti-climactic. SINA a great week. BITA as well. WUBA walking up the 10
day EMA to a new high. BABA surged midweek then tested the rest of the
week. JD looks ready to make a break higher. HTHT in a 20 day EMA test.
Others are setting up for a move, e.g. YNDX, YY,

Financial: A good recovery week. C touched the top of its range, backed
off some, good position. JPM bounced off the 200 day SMA but still very
much range bound. BAC solid upside but still in the range. Lots of moves up
but not saying this is a group I want to get into right now.

Machinery: TEX broke out on the week and shot straight up. CAT continues
working higher up the 10 day EMA. HOLI a bit wild Friday, but holding a
nice trend higher.

Retail: AMZN broke higher Wednesday but could not keep that move going.
Nice test, however. KSS still running higher on its breakout. COST broke
higher, testing its move late week. Same action with ROST, GPS: Good
breaks higher, testing to end the week.

Drugs/biotechs: PFE put in a nice breakout move on the week. Big biotechs
testing the move, e.g. BIIB, CELG. AMGN still moved well. SRPT had a good
week. BLUE broke higher Thursday but could not hold the move. Smaller
stocks are not bad. IDRA starting to move back up. Setting up well, ARRY,
IMGN, IMMU.

Software: VMW put in another good week and we took some big gain on part of
the position. TTWO tested laterally, still solid. MSFT moving decently
enough. CRM testing the 20 day EMA, not a bad test at all, setting up a new
entry.

FAANG: AAPL just over the 50 day MA with a 2 week pullback to the prior
high from May and June. AMZN broke higher Wednesday, tested to the weekend,
still solid; has some possible tax fraud issues. FB holding the 20 day EMA
on a test. NFLX surged through Tuesday, tested into Friday, setting up
another potential entry. GOOG tried to hold the handle and set up the move
but it could not do it, breaking lower Thursday and Friday.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +64.86 points (+0.29%) to close at 22268.34

Nasdaq
Stats: +19.39 points (+0.3%) to close at 6448.47
Volume: 2.744B (+53.53%)

Up Volume: 1.834B (+1.113B)
Down Volume: 861.049M (-97.13M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.47 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.21 to 1

New Highs: 148 (+23)
New Lows: 34 (+13)

S&P
Stats: +4.61 points (+0.18%) to close at 2500.32
NYSE Volume: 2.2B (+157.73%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.74 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.11 to 1

New Highs: 114 (+15)
New Lows: 8 (-1)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 10.17; -0.27
VXN: 12.51; -0.89
VXO: 7.8; -0.49

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.08; +0.29


Bulls and Bears: Of course, sentiment drops just before the market breaks
higher.

Bulls: 47.1 versus 49.5

Bears: 20.2 versus 19.1

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 47.1 versus 49.5
49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0 versus 60.2
versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5 versus 50.00
versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7 versus 58.5
versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5 versus 56.7
versus 53.4 versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8 versus 62.7
versus 61.8 versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2 versus 59.8
versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6 versus 51.0
versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9 versus 46.1 versus 46.7
versus 45.2

Bears: 20.2 versus 19.1
19.1 versus 19.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.0 versus 16.2 versus 16.5
versus 16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 19.2
versus 18.3 versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9 versus 17.9 versus 18.3
versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus 13.75 versus 17.3
versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus 17.6 versus 17.5
versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6 versus 19.2
versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7 versus 24.3
versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1 versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.201% versus 2.186%. Bonds started the week gapping lower and sold
back hard to the 50 day EMA. Tried a modest bounce Friday.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.186%
versus 2.19% versus 2.167% versus 2.134% versus 2.042% versus 2.105% versus
2.072% versus 2.166% versus 2.210% versus 2.136% versus 2.129% versus 2.175%
versus 2.169% versus 2.189% versus 2.217% versus 2.183% versus 2.197% versus
2.185% versus 2.225% versus 2.264% versus 2.24% versus 2.191% versus 2.201
versus 2.246% versus 2.262% versus 2.257% versus 2.264% versus 2.221% versus
2.266% versus 2.253% versus 2.296% versus 2.291% versus 2.303% versus 2.287%
versus 2.330% versus 2.255% versus 2.241% versus 2.270% versus 2.261% versus
2.318% versus 2.331%


EUR/USD: 1.19436 versus 1.1918. Tested back to the 50 day MA, started to
bounce off that level Thursday and Friday, but not that strong a move.

Historical: 1.1918 versus 1.1874 versus 1.19706 versus 1.19551 versus
1.20379 versus 1.2025 versus 1.19258 versus 1.19143 versus 1.18621 versus
1.19131 versus 1.18938 versus 1.19731 versus 1.19678 versus 1.19212 versus
1.18 versus 1.17516 versus 1.1813 versus 1.17595 versus 1.17107 versus
1.17812 versus 1.17445 versus 1.17751 versus 1.18216 versus 1.17652 versus
1.17596 versus 1.17619 versus 1.17975 versus 1.1774 versus 1.18718 versus
1.18457 versus 1.18072 versus 1.18281 versus 1.18293 versus 1.1683 versus
1.17419 versus 1.1646 versus 1.1637 versus 1.16640 versus 1.16271 versus
1.15280 versus 1.15549 versus 1.14735 versus 1.14672 versus 1.13986 versus
1.14335 versus 1.14682 versus 1.13964


USD/JPY: 110.846 versus 110.01. Dollar continued its bounced off the lows
that started the prior Friday. Closed in on the 200 day SMA on the Friday
high, backed off to close. Good bounce, 200 day is logical resistance, but
the top of the range is near 114.50.

Historical: 110.01 versus 110.62 versus 110.216 versus 109.434 versus
107.847 versus 108.444 versus 109.132 versus 108.747 versus 110.254 versus
110.049 versus 110.289 versus 109.652 versus 108.04 versus 109.160 versus
109.573 versus 109.195 versus 109.648 versus 109.173 versus 109.205 versus
109.333 versus 109.842 versus 110.6621 versus 109.927 versus 109.183 versus
109.177 versus 110.03 versus 109.09 versus 110.09 versus 110.757 versus
110.689 versus 109.963 versus 110.717 versus 110.368 versus 110.28 versus
110.704 versus 111.07 versus 111.166 versus 111.897 versus 111.176


Oil: 49.89, 0.00. Broke through the 200 day SMA Thursday, held flat
Friday. Failed here in early August, so obviously an important test for
this rebound in oil.


Gold: 1325.20, -4.10. Spent the week testing back to the 20 day EMA.
Strong rally, new high, and a normal test to near support.


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6448.47

Resistance:
6450 is the early September high
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high

Support:
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6300 is the mid-June interim high
The 50 day EMA at 6326
The 2016 trendline at 6267
6205 is the late May all-time high
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
The 200 day SMA at 5969
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows
5661 is the late January upper gap point
5601 is the January lower gap point


S&P 500: Closed at 2500.23

Resistance:
2504 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel

Support:
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
The 50 day EMA at 2458
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 2375
2352 is the recent May 2017 low
2348 is the April 2017 lower gap point
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high


Dow: Closed at 22,268.34

Resistance:

Support:
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
The 10 day EMA at 22,053
The 50 day EMA at 21,798
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 20,882
20,547 is the lower gap point from late April 2017
20,412 is the March 2017 low
20,400 is the mid-April 2017 low.
20,126 is the January 2017 intraday high
20,101 is the late January closing high.
19,994 - 19,999 (early January high, upper gap point from late January
19750 is the lows of the December/January range
19,732 is the January 2017 low
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015

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Wall Street Ticks Up Ahead of FOMC Policy Statement
19-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow +39.45 at 22370.80, Nasdaq +6.68 at 6461.32, S&P +2.78 at 2506.65

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/19/wall-street-ticks-up-ahead-of-fomc-policy-statement.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities moved higher once again on Tuesday, but conviction was weak ahead of the latest FOMC policy statement, which will be released on Wednesday afternoon. The S&P 500 (+0.1%), the Nasdaq (+0.1%), and the Dow (+0.2%) closed at new record highs, but the small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.1%) lagged a bit, settling just below its unchanged mark.

Wireless names were in focus on Tuesday following reports of renewed merger talks between Sprint (S 8.20, +0.52) and T-Mobile US (TMUS 65.42, +3.62). The two companies spiked 6.8% and 5.9%, respectively, and helped the S&P 500's telecom services sector (+2.3%) finish at the top of the day's sector standings--by a comfortable margin.

Financials also outperformed, sending the influential financial sector (+0.8%) to its seventh win in eight sessions, thanks in part to a slight steepening of the yield curve--which bodes well for lenders. The yield on the 2-yr Treasury note finished flat at 1.39% while the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.24%.

Conversely, health care stocks sold off on Tuesday with providers like UnitedHealth (UNH 194.65, -3.54) and Aetna (AET 156.04, -4.96) getting hit the hardest; the two companies dropped 1.8% and 3.1%, respectively. The health care sector (-0.8%) finished near the bottom of the sector standings, surpassed only by the real estate group (-1.0%).

On the earnings front, AutoZone (AZO 535.19, -28.21) plunged 5.0% after its better-than-expected bottom-line results failed to justify its recent four-week rally; AZO shares advanced over 10.0% from August 18 to yesterday's close. The S&P 500's consumer discretionary sector (-0.1%), which houses automotive retailers, finished lower for the fourth session in a row.

Also of note, firearm stocks spiked in late-afternoon action following a Daily Mail report that President Trump is looking to ease industry export restrictions. Names like Sturm Ruger (RGR 54.35, +6.55), American Outdoor Brands (AOBC 15.70, +1.44), and Vista Outdoor (VSTO 23.00, +0.70) settled higher by 13.7%, 10.1%, and 3.1%, respectively.

In politics, President Trump made his U.N. debut on Tuesday, taking a hard stance against North Korea and the Iran nuclear deal. Also, reports indicate that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is seriously considering a Senate vote on a new health-care reform bill.

Reviewing Tuesday's batch of economic data, which included August Housing Starts, August Import/Export Prices, and the Current Account Balance for the second quarter:

Housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.180 million units in August (Briefing.com consensus 1.170 million), down from a revised 1.190 million units in July (from 1.155 million). Building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted 1.300 million in August (Briefing.com consensus 1.212 million) from a revised 1.230 million in July (from 1.223 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the pace of single-family starts isn't quick enough to alleviate the supply pressures in the housing market that are crimping affordability for prospective homeowners. That isn't expected to improve next month either when the force of the impact from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma weighs on housing starts activity.
Import prices excluding oil rose 0.3% in August after declining 0.1% in July. Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.7% in August after rising 0.3% in July.
The key takeaway from the Import-Export Price Index report for August is that it will keep the possibility of a December rate hike on the table.
The current account deficit for the second quarter totaled $123.1 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$115.1 billion). The first quarter deficit was revised to $113.5 billion from $116.6 billion.

On Wednesday, investors will receive just two economic reports--the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the August Existing Home Sales Report (Briefing.com consensus 5.42 million)--at 7:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively. In addition, the FOMC will release its latest policy directive at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +20.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.2% YTD
S&P 500 +12.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.1% YTD

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Wall Street Takes FOMC Announcement in Stride
20-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow +41.79 at 22412.59, Nasdaq -5.28 at 6456.04, S&P +1.59 at 2508.24

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/20/wall-street-takes-fomc-announcement-in-stride.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market settled at a new record high once again on Wednesday, but the victory was far from convincing and looked improbable after the latest FOMC policy directive prompted a mild sell off. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 finished at new all-time highs, adding 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively. However, the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 0.1% as technology stocks struggled.

As expected, the FOMC unanimously voted to keep the fed funds target range at 1.00%-1.25% and announced that it will begin unwinding its balance sheet in October. Meanwhile, the Fed's so-called "dot plot" was unchanged from the one released in June, showing that the median FOMC member anticipates an additional rate hike in 2017 and three rate hikes in 2018.

The feds funds futures market now places the chances of a December rate hike at 67.8%, up from 57.7% on Tuesday and from 48.7% last week.

U.S. Treasuries were trading flat ahead of the FOMC announcement, but then moved lower in a curve-flattening trade. The 2-yr yield, which is more sensitive to changes in monetary policy, jumped five basis points to 1.44%, finishing at a nine-year high. Meanwhile, the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed four basis points to 2.28%.

The U.S. Dollar Index (92.25, +0.63) settled with a gain of 0.7% after holding a loss of 0.2% prior to the FOMC release.

In the equity market, the two heaviest sectors--technology (-0.5%) and financials (+0.6%)--finished at opposite ends of the leaderboard. Apple (AAPL 156.07, -2.66) weighed on the tech space, dropping 1.7%, following rumors of softer-than-expected demand for the new iPhone 8, which was unveiled last week.

Elsewhere within the tech space, chipmakers underperformed, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-1.4%) lower for the first time in eight sessions. Adobe Systems (ADBE 149.96, -6.64) also exhibited notable weakness (-4.2%), despite reporting above-consensus earnings and revenues.

As for financials, the space got off to a mild start, but moved sharply higher following the FOMC policy announcement. Financials' win--which marks the eighth in the last nine sessions--was a team effort as nearly all of the sector's components finished in positive territory.

The energy sector (+0.7%) also outperformed, thanks in part to an increase in the price of crude oil; WTI crude jumped 1.5% to $50.70/bbl. The EIA's weekly crude inventory report was disappointing, showing a bigger-than-expected build of 4.6 million barrels (+3.5 million consensus).

However, the Iraqi oil minister said OPEC and non-OPEC producers are considering extending, or even deepening, last year's supply-cut agreement, which is currently set to expire in March 2018. That news helped the commodity overcome the EIA inventory report and climb to its highest level in four months.

It's also worth noting that transports outperformed on Wednesday, pushing the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 1.6%. FedEx (FDX 220.50, +4.50) was one of the DJTA's strongest components (+2.1%), despite issuing below-consensus guidance on Tuesday evening.

In politics, reports indicate that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) intends to put a new health care bill on the floor next week. In order to avoid an overlap with the vote, reports indicate that Congress may delay releasing a tax reform outline until the first week of October.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included August Existing Home Sales and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Existing home sales for August decreased 1.7% from July to an annualized rate of 5.35 million units while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 5.42 million. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at 5.44 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that notable supply constraints remain, which will continue to act as a drag on overall sales due to the limited inventory and the high prices on available inventory that is crimping affordability.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 9.7% to follow last week's 9.9% rise.

On Thursday, investors will receive several economic reports, including the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 310K) at 8:30 ET, the September Philadelphia Fed Index (Briefing.com consensus 17.1) also at 8:30 ET, and the July FHFA Housing Price Index at 9:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +19.9% YTD
S&P 500 +12.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.5% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Dow Breaks Streak of Record-High Closes
21-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow -53.36 at 22359.23, Nasdaq -33.35 at 6422.69, S&P -7.64 at 2500.60
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/21/dow-breaks-streak-of-recordhigh-closes.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Thursday was a quiet day on Wall Street as investors engaged in some end-of-quarter profit taking. The Dow slipped 0.2%, failing to close at a new record high for the first time in seven sessions, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq dropped 0.3% and 0.5%, respectively. Investor participation was below average due to the start of the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Nine of the eleven sectors settled Thursday's session in negative territory, but losses were modest for the most part. The consumer staples sector was the weakest group (-1.0%), extending its week-to-date loss to 2.1%. The telecom services sector also finished with a sizable decline (-0.8%), but the remaining laggards lost no more than 0.6%.

The top-weighted technology space held a loss of 1.0% shortly after the opening bell, but strengthened a bit as the day wore on; the tech group eventually settled lower by 0.6%. Apple (AAPL 153.39, -2.68) was among the weakest components within the sector (-1.7%), extending its week-to-date loss to 4.1%.

NVIDIA (NVDA 180.76, -5.08) also struggled, dropping 2.7%, following a CNBC report that Tesla (TSLA 366.48, -7.43), which uses NVIDIA hardware for its auto-pilot functionality, is working with AMD (AMD 13.41, -0.33) to develop a self-driving chip. AMD later denied the report.

On the flip side, the financials (+0.2%) and industrials (+0.3%) groups managed to escape Thursday's session with modest victories. General Electric (GE 24.75, +0.43) played a big part in the industrial sector's positive performance, climbing 1.8%. GE shares have added 4.3% since September 11, but still remain lower by 21.7% for the year.

As for the heavily-weighted financial space, today's win marked its ninth in the last ten sessions--a run that's boosted the sector 6.9% since September 7.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries moved higher at the start of Thursday's session, but gave back most of their gains by the close. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished unchanged at 2.28%, while the 2-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.28%.

Meanwhile, gold tumbled 1.2% to $1,294.70/ozt, the U.S. Dollar Index slipped 0.2% to 92.03, and WTI crude dropped 0.3% to $50.55/bbl.

On the political front, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at targeting individuals and companies involved in business with North Korea and said that China has ordered its banks to stop working with Pyongyang.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial Claims Report, the September Philadelphia Fed Index, and the July FHFA Housing Price Index:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 259,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 310,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 282,000 (from 284,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.980 million from the revised count of 1.936 million (from 1.944 million).
The key takeaway, then, is that employers appear to be reluctant to cut their payrolls in a tight labor market.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for September rose to 23.8 from an unrevised 18.9 in August while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 17.1.
The key takeaway from the report is that most firms expect increased production for the rest of the year.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for July rose 0.2%. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at +0.1%.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +19.3% YTD
S&P 500 +11.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.4% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Slim Gains on Friday
22-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow -9.64 at 22349.59, Nasdaq +4.23 at 6426.92, S&P +1.62 at 2502.22

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/22/slim-gains-on-friday.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Friday was another quiet day on Wall Street as the major U.S. indices hovered near their flat lines from start to finish. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) finished just a tick above its unchanged mark, as did the Nasdaq (+0.1%), thanks to a late-afternoon rally that left the benchmark index at its best level of the day. Meanwhile, the Dow (unch) settled with a slim loss and the Russell 2000 (+0.5%) outperformed, settling at a new all-time high.

The telecom services sector (+1.4%) rallied on Friday following a Reuters report that Sprint (S 8.52, +0.49) and T-Mobile US (TMUS 64.06, +0.67) are nearing a merger deal following months of on-again, off-again talks. The two wireless names jumped 6.1% and 1.1%, respectively, in reaction to the report.

Apple (AAPL 151.89, -1.50) tumbled for the third day in a row, losing 1.0%, amid reports of shorter-than-expected lines for Friday's iPhone 8 launch. However, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.1%) held up relatively well, thanks in part to chipmakers, which pushed the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 0.5%.

On the earnings front, Finish Line (FINL 9.73, +0.51) jumped 5.5% after its better-than-expected earnings overshadowed its worse-than-expected revenues. Similarly, CarMax (KMX 74.19, +5.35) climbed 7.8%, hitting its best mark since April 2015, after beating both top and bottom line estimates.

The health care sector (+0.1%) traded behind the broader market for the majority of Friday's session, but moved sharply higher after Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said he cannot support the Graham-Cassidy bill, which is the GOP's latest attempt at replacing the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. McCain's decision puts the bill on the ropes as Republicans can only afford to lose two votes in the Senate and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has already voiced his opposition. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said she is leaning towards voting against the bill as well.

Elsewhere on the political front, North Korea threatened to test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean and released a statement from its Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, in which he criticizes President Trump's Tuesday speech at the United Nations.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries settled Friday's session mixed; the 2-yr yield climbed one basis point to 1.44% while the 10-yr yield dropped two basis points to 2.26%.

Also of note, major oil producers wrapped up a Friday meeting in Vienna without reaching an agreement on whether they should extend, and/or deepen, the current production-cut deal between OPEC and non-OPEC nations. Crude oil held steady following the meeting's conclusion, settling higher by 0.2% at $50.66/bbl.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Friday, nor will they receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +19.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.1% YTD
S&P 500 +11.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.9% YTD

Week In Review: Holding Steady

Equities held steady this week as investors digested the latest FOMC policy directive, which was released on Wednesday afternoon. The major indices ticked up to new record highs in the first half of the week, but faltered a bit on the back nine. The S&P 500 ticked up 0.1% while the Dow (+0.4%) did a little better and the Nasdaq (-0.3%) did a little worse.

The Fed's latest policy directive came in pretty much as expected. The FOMC unanimously voted to leave the fed funds target range at 1.00%-1.25% and announced that it will start its balance sheet normalization process in October. Meanwhile, the Fed's so-called "dot plot" was unchanged from the one released in June, showing that the median FOMC member still anticipates an additional rate hike in 2017 and three rate hikes in 2018.

Accordingly, investors upwardly adjusted their rate-hike expectations, evidenced by the fed funds futures market, which now places the chances of a December rate hike at 72.8%--up from 57.8% last week and 31.9% the week before that. Bonds sold off for the second week in a row following the FOMC announcement, sending yields higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield climbed six basis points to 1.44%, hitting its highest level in nearly nine years, while the benchmark 10-yr yield also jumped six basis points to 2.26%.

Within the equity market, the heavily-weighted financial sector (+2.7%) finished near the top of the sector standings, benefiting from the prospect of heightened interest rates and some sector rotation. The financial group has trailed the broader market for much of the year, but has been making a come back over the last two weeks; the sector has added 6.9% since September 7.

The telecom services group (+3.8%) also put together a solid performance this week, trimming its year-to-date loss to 8.5%, amid reports that Sprint (S) and T-Mobile US (TMUS) are nearing a merger deal after more than four months of on-and-off talks. The two companies settled the week with gains of 10.8% and 4.7%, respectively.

On the flip side, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.7%) underperformed, thanks in large part to Apple (AAPL), which dropped 5.0%. There were rumors of softer-than-expected demand for the new iPhone 8, which hit stores on Friday, but this week's slide was also likely due to some end-of-quarter profit taking following yet another solid three-month stretch for the company. AAPL shares will enter Monday's session with a quarter-to-date gain of 5.5% and a year-to-date gain of 31.1%.

Countercyclical groups like health care (-1.2%), consumer staples (-2.3%), and utilities (2.8%) also struggled this week while cyclical groups like materials (+1.0%), industrials (+2.0%), and energy (+2.0%) finished with sizable gains. Meanwhile, the growth-sensitive consumer discretionary and real estate groups lost 0.1% and 2.8%, respectively.

In politics, President Trump made his United Nations debut on Tuesday, taking a hard stance against North Korea. The hermit nation later criticized the president for his comments and threatened to test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean.

Meanwhile, a new health-care bill written by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) gained support within the GOP this week, but its passage looks unlikely after Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and John McCain (R-AZ) voiced their opposition and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said she is leaning towards voting 'no.' The GOP can only afford to lose two votes in the Senate, assuming Vice President Mike Pence votes in favor of the bill in the event of a tie.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - A Bit Too Much Geopolitical Intrigue for the Market (WeekendNewsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Overall flattish session into the weekend but RUTX joins the large caps
with its own new closing high.
- A bit too much geopolitical intrigue and still digesting the Fed's moves
for the market to rally into the weekend.
- SOX is certainly set up to move higher but the other indices appear
extended on this move.
- Why is the yield curve now so flat and suggesting economic trouble ahead?
- Rally is longer in the tooth in terms of the rally cycles, but SOX looks
ready to break higher, SP400 has more room, and DJ30 is testing nicely. If
they show great upside moves then we play the move, but still cautiously.

Stocks were mushy all Friday perhaps outside of the semiconductors. Once
again there is just a bit too much happening in the geopolitical sense to
initiate any major buys ahead of the weekend. Trump, the alleged dotard,
references the serious issues the Rocket Man will face if he continues his
ways. Mr. Pajamas 2 responds that he might just carry out an above ground
H-bomb test in the Pacific. There is also the Germany election Sunday with
Mother Migration Merkel expected to win but not to get the kind of coalition
she has abused, I mean enjoyed, in the past.

At the same time, though stocks may be a bit mushy, they still hold solid
gains as well as their trends, certainly not selling off because of any
weekend worries. And why should they? After all Jeremy Seigel predicts the
market has another 10% gain to year end. Why sell when you have that going
for you?

Well, perhaps, just perhaps, there will be a selloff to end September and
carry into October before that 10% rally kicks in. Would not be surprised
to see that happen as that is the historic market pattern for this time of
year AND there is that algorithm market pattern as well that kicks in after
the indices hit new highs and rally a bit more. Then, after selling back,
the cycle starts over to the upside. Those two patterns dovetail right now,
an appropriate metaphor given it is dove season in many places right now.

Thus, the indices finished the session decently and finished the week quite
decently, showing few signs of melting down or otherwise selling off. Some
stocks struggled into the weekend and we closed those positions that
reflected some of those struggles. We also, however, let the strong
continue to work and will see if next week brings the algorithm down cycle
or a renewed upside move if this rather mild test runs its course.

SP500 1.62, 0.06%
NASDAQ 4.23, 0.07%
DJ30 -9.64, -0.04%
SP400 0.33%
RUTX 0.46%
SOX 0.50%

VOLUME: NYSE flat; NASDAQ -7%. Very noncommittal ahead of the weekend
with trade again just below average on NYSE, below average on NASDAQ.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE 1.8:1; NASDAQ 1.9:1. Not bad given the modest
action. Obviously related to the better showings in the small and midcaps.

The index action is somewhat split, but none of the indices are in any kind
of trouble at all. More precisely, they are at different stages of their
rallies, some on the upswing still, playing catchup to the large cap indices
at new highs. Those that hit the highs are on the test.

The nagging question is whether the algorithms kick in again given all
indices but SP400 have hit new highs on this move. That, however, is almost
fearing things that may or may not be in the shadows. If you go for a walk
in the woods in the north you may run into a bear. Does that mean you don't
walk in the woods? No, you just take the proper precautions and know what
to do if you see that bear -- or more importantly, if he sees you.

Still, the bear has struck relatively regularly after new highs are hit.
Nothing suggests a change in that pattern, so for now we take advantage of
great patterns if they present themselves for solid moves, don't let any
positions get too errant on us, and try to let the solid trends keep working
through any chop. If stocks such as NFLX, bucking the trend against all the
FAANG, HON, BABA, LRCX start breaking support with sharp, high volume moves
lower, then it is time to clear out. Not there yet.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SOX: Breakout to a new all-time high Monday, then tested the move into
Friday. Held the 10 day EMA and the prior high from June and managed a
Friday close over that June peak. Not a bad quick test of the breakout,
leaving SOX in good position to continue the breakout. Some good looking
semiconductors are set up well.

RUTX: New all-time closing high, closing just below the July highs..
Impressive second leg of the run from the July/August selloff, recovering
the entire loss. Made the move without another rest. 55 points off the
early September test lows, almost the exact number of points off the August
selloff low. With that kind of move and sitting at the prior high, it makes
sense the small caps test here.

NASDAQ: Hit a new high on the week, then faded into Friday to the 20 day
EMA. Held that level then rebounded modestly to end the week. Bumped
resistance, could not make any real inroads, but if NASDAQ holds the 20 day
EMA and bounces, it has put in a great higher low and is well-positioned to
break higher and move to a real new high. Nothing nefarious, but thus far
unable to put in a solid new high as in prior rallies. Perhaps that is
still in front of it, but at this point we have some good positions, some
good gain built in, and we can afford to let NASDAQ show if it can make that
next break higher.

DJ30: Broke to a new high through Wednesday, faded Thursday and Friday to
test just over the 10 day EMA. Impressive, same move it made in late
July/early August, normal test. That was the case in the last move, then
suddenly the 10 day EMA didn't hold. Thus far, very good looking test.

SP500: Spent the week slow dancing with the upper channel trendline from
way back in 2009, yes the trendline established after the Fed went full
frontal QE. Bumped the TL Monday through Thursday, backing off Thursday and
Friday. Backed off but held the 10 day EMA; not much backing down.
Financial stocks really helped SP500 on the week, but now we have to see how
they perform now they are at the top of their range.

SP400: The midcaps may have put in a good part of their test already.
Working laterally after Monday, waiting on the 10 day EMA to catch up to the
move. Surpassed the 1750 level, now at the next high, the June high at
1771, and trying to consolidate at that level. Another 20 points to the
prior all-time high, trying to consolidate the last move to make that run.

LEADERSHIP

Still plenty of quality stocks leading the way, and indeed, breaking higher
after tests. That shows continuing bids, not indicating a turn back down is
imminent. Still, some that were performing are struggling. Perhaps just
rotation.

Manufacturing: HON the outstanding stock in the group, breaking sharply
higher Thursday and Friday to a higher high. CAT, TEX still strong. ITW
testing a strong 2 week run higher. Strong.

Semiconductors: Volatile week but closed well. LRCX tested its breakout,
held over the 20 day, surged Friday. AMAT tested, managed to hold support.
SLAB looks good. XLNX has made a nice short test. MRVL ditto. They don't
look bad at all. AVGO, QRVO need some work. NVDA gapped lower on the
AMD/TSLA AI chip news but is holding support.

Retail: Tested good moves on the week, some look ready to move higher:
KORS, GPS, HD. DLTR broke higher again.

China stocks: This group rotates amongst itself. YNDX, YY started upside
Friday. BABA, BIDU remain solid. BITA testing its strong break higher.
SINA making a good test.

Financial: BAC, JPM, GS all moved higher on the week with some nice moves
but ended the week bumping the top of the range.

Drugs/biotechs: AMGN, BIIB remain in good 2-week tests of near support.
Smaller issues are struggling just a bit though hanging in at support: BLRX,
IMGN, IMMU holding well. PFE continues to move higher.

Software: Not bad tests setting up the next legs from the look of it: CRM;
VMW. TTWO continues up the 10 day EMA. GLUU sold to the 20 day EMA but
bounced Friday on more good volume.

Oil: APC added some more after that big buyback announcement. DVN still
moving upside. SAM and others are setting up patterns.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -9.64 points (-0.04%) to close at 22349.59

Nasdaq
Stats: +4.23 points (+0.07%) to close at 6426.92
Volume: 1.64B (-6.82%)

Up Volume: 881.72M (+303.89M)
Down Volume: 717.87M (-412.13M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.91 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.25 to 1

New Highs: 124 (+5)
New Lows: 24 (-5)

S&P
Stats: +1.62 points (+0.06%) to close at 2502.22
NYSE Volume: 722M (-0.21%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.77 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.32 to 1

New Highs: 149 (+16)
New Lows: 18 (+6)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 9.59; -0.08
VXN: 13.81; +0.10
VXO: 7.89; -0.02

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.98; +0.14


Bulls and Bears: Bulls make their Pavlovian response. They dropped just as
the rally started, now are jumping up just as the rally may be hitting its
peak.

Bulls: 50.5 versus 47.1

Bears: 19.0 versus 20.2

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 50.5 versus 47.1
47.1 versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0
versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5
versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7
versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5
versus 56.7 versus 53.4 versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8
versus 62.7 versus 61.8 versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2
versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6
versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9 versus 46.1
versus 46.7 versus 45.2

Bears: 19.0 versus 20.2
20.2 versus 19.1 versus 19.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.0 versus 16.2
versus 16.5 versus 16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.3
versus 19.2 versus 18.3 versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9 versus 17.9
versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus 13.75
versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus 17.6
versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6
versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7
versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1
versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.253% versus 2.276%. 10 year yields fell as the yield curve
flattened again. The curve post-FOMC fell hard towards flat. Oh no, a
Greenspan conundrum is developing. Or is it here? Yellen this week said
she did not understand inflation. Oh THAT is great.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.276%
versus 2.273% versus 2.246% versus 2.234% versus 2.201% versus 2.186% versus
2.19% versus 2.167% versus 2.134% versus 2.042% versus 2.105% versus 2.072%
versus 2.166% versus 2.210% versus 2.136% versus 2.129% versus 2.175% versus
2.169% versus 2.189% versus 2.217% versus 2.183% versus 2.197% versus 2.185%
versus 2.225% versus 2.264% versus 2.24% versus 2.191% versus 2.201 versus
2.246% versus 2.262% versus 2.257% versus 2.264% versus 2.221% versus 2.266%
versus 2.253% versus 2.296% versus 2.291% versus 2.303% versus 2.287% versus
2.330% versus 2.255% versus 2.241% versus 2.270% versus 2.261% versus 2.318%
versus 2.331%


EUR/USD: 1.19476 versus 1.19420. Tested the 50 day MA midweek, held.
Continued the 2.5 week lateral consolidation.

Historical: 1.19420 versus 1.19420 versus 1.19954 versus 1.19436 versus
1.1918 versus 1.1874 versus 1.19706 versus 1.19551 versus 1.20379 versus
1.2025 versus 1.19258 versus 1.19143 versus 1.18621 versus 1.19131 versus
1.18938 versus 1.19731 versus 1.19678 versus 1.19212 versus 1.18 versus
1.17516 versus 1.1813 versus 1.17595 versus 1.17107 versus 1.17812 versus
1.17445 versus 1.17751 versus 1.18216 versus 1.17652 versus 1.17596 versus
1.17619 versus 1.17975 versus 1.1774 versus 1.18718 versus 1.18457 versus
1.18072 versus 1.18281 versus 1.18293 versus 1.1683 versus 1.17419 versus
1.1646 versus 1.1637 versus 1.16640 versus 1.16271 versus 1.15280 versus
1.15549 versus 1.14735 versus 1.14672 versus 1.13986 versus 1.14335 versus
1.14682 versus 1.13964


USD/JPY: 111.995 versus 111.804. Broke through the 200 day MA Wednesday,
tested to end the week.

Historical: 112.454 versus 111.559 versus 111.435 versus 110.846 versus
110.01 versus 110.62 versus 110.216 versus 109.434 versus 107.847 versus
108.444 versus 109.132 versus 108.747 versus 110.254 versus 110.049 versus
110.289 versus 109.652 versus 108.04 versus 109.160 versus 109.573 versus
109.195 versus 109.648 versus 109.173 versus 109.205 versus 109.333 versus
109.842 versus 110.6621 versus 109.927 versus 109.183 versus 109.177 versus
110.03 versus 109.09 versus 110.09 versus 110.757 versus 110.689 versus
109.963 versus 110.717 versus 110.368 versus 110.28 versus 110.704 versus
111.07 versus 111.166 versus 111.897 versus 111.176


Oil: 50.66, +0.11. Held a test of the 200 day SMA early week, edged up the
rest of the week but not a big new surge.


Gold: 1297.50, +2.70. Nasty drop Thursday post-FOMC and not much of a
bounce at all Friday on the worries about the weekend and North Korean
H-bombs. Held the 50 day MA to end the week in the current 2 week pullback.


MONDAY

We will see what the weekend brings and whether that impacts the Monday
trade. Two weeks back it was the lack of any follow through of tensions
between the US and North Korea that sprung a renewed move upside after a
test of the initial move off the August low.

Many are talking about the rally continuing on. It may do so, and if it
does we let our remaining positions run and pick up some new quality
patterns that break higher.

As noted before, however, nothing indicates the market's pattern has
changed, i.e. that after new highs are hit and some more rallying on top of
the new high, the selling kicks in. Indeed, that more fits the season of
the year: September selling leads to an October bottom and a rally to year
end.

That is the move we are anticipating as the most probable but of course the
market will do what it does. We will simply be ready for the route the
market takes. There are still plenty of good entries right now if they make
the moves. Again, be ready for the route the market takes. We believe this
current rally can continue another week or so, but then hits the downside of
the cycle. That will set up the next leg higher, and combined with the
seasonal driver, it could be a good move to the close of the year.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6426.92

Resistance:
6450 is the early September high
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high
64.77 is the September intraday high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 6347
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6300 is the mid-June interim high
The 2016 trendline at 6288
6205 is the late May all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 5998
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows
5661 is the late January upper gap point
5601 is the January lower gap point


S&P 500: Closed at 2502.22

Resistance:
2508 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel

Support:
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
The 50 day EMA at 2467
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 2382
2352 is the recent May 2017 low
2348 is the April 2017 lower gap point
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high


Dow: Closed at 22,349.59

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 22,251
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
The 50 day EMA at 21,901
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 20,962
20,547 is the lower gap point from late April 2017
20,412 is the March 2017 low
20,400 is the mid-April 2017 low.
20,126 is the January 2017 intraday high
20,101 is the late January closing high.
19,994 - 19,999 (early January high, upper gap point from late January
19750 is the lows of the December/January range
19,732 is the January 2017 low
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015

[ReturntoSender]

Technology Tumbles
25-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow -53.50 at 22296.09, Nasdaq -56.33 at 6370.59, S&P -5.56 at 2496.66
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/25/technology-tumbles.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The U.S. equity market slipped on Monday as investors dialed back their technology holdings with just a few days left in the third quarter. Naturally, the tech-heavy Nasdaq (-0.9%) was the weakest major average, but found support at its 50-day simple moving average (6,362). Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and the Dow lost 0.2% apiece.

Wall Street rotated out of the S&P 500's technology sector, which has led the stock market's 2017 campaign, in favor of some groups that have struggled so far this year, such as energy (+1.5%), consumer staples (+0.7%), telecom services (+0.9%), and real estate (+0.3%).

In addition to a sector rotation, there was a market-cap rotation on Monday, evidenced by the S&P MidCap 400 (+0.2%) and the small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.1%), both of which finished ahead of the broader market. The Russell 2000 also settled at a new all-time high.

Facebook (FB 162.87, -7.67) was one of the weakest technology components, dropping 4.5% to settle below its 50-day simple moving average (169.11) for the first time since July 6. Fellow mega-cap tech names like Apple (AAPL 150.55, -1.34), Microsoft (MSFT 73.26, -1.15), and Alphabet (GOOGL 934.28, -8.98) also struggled, losing between 0.9% and 1.6%.

Chipmakers also tumbled on Monday, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 2.0%. NVIDIA (NVDA 171.00, -8.00) and Micron Technology (MU 34.87, -1.20) exhibited particular weakness, losing 4.5% and 3.3%, respectively. Micron will release its latest earnings report on Tuesday afternoon.

Tech stocks were weak from the jump, but the sell off intensified after North Korea's foreign minister said that U.S. President Donald Trump has effectively declared war on his country and, therefore, Pyongyang has the right to take countermeasures against the U.S., including shooting down U.S. strategic bombers even if they're not in North Korean airspace.

The White House responded by saying the allegation is "absurd."

U.S. Treasuries held gains in the early morning and then advanced to new session highs following the North Korea comments. The benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, slipped four basis points to 2.22%, settling near its session low. The 2-yr yield held up a bit better, finishing just one basis point below its flat line at 1.42%.

In Europe, Angela Merkel won a fourth term as Germany's chancellor on Sunday, but the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party did better than expected, effectively weakening Ms. Merkel's CDU/CSU alliance. The euro dropped 0.9% to 1.1849 against the U.S. dollar on Monday while the German bund yield tumbled five basis points to 0.40%.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday.

However, on Tuesday, market participants will receive several economic reports, including the Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index for July (Briefing.com consensus +5.8%) at 9:00 ET, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for September (Briefing.com consensus 119.4) at 10:00 ET, and August New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 577K) also at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +18.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.8% YTD
S&P 500 +11.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.0% YTD

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Technology Bounces Back Modestly; Broader Market Settles Flat
26-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow -11.77 at 22284.32, Nasdaq +9.57 at 6380.16, S&P +0.18 at 2496.84
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/26/technology-bounces-back-modestly-broader-market-settles-flat.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities finished mixed on Tuesday as the broader market largely ignored a modest bounce-back performance from the technology sector (+0.4%)--which moved sharply lower on Monday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 0.2%, the S&P 500 finished just a tick above its flat line, and the Dow slipped 0.1%.The Russell 2000 (+0.3%) settled at a fresh record high for the third session in a row.

The technology sector never touched negative territory on Tuesday, but the magnitude of its gain did fluctuate a bit, hovering between 0.01% and 0.84%. However, the sector's top component by market cap--Apple (AAPL 153.14, +2.59)--remained strong throughout the session, determined to end its four-session losing streak. AAPL shares settled higher by 1.7%.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA (NVDA 171.96, +0.96) was strong early following news that it will provide GPU hardware to several Chinese tech giants, but weakened throughout the day. The chipmaker hit a new session low in the late afternoon following a report that Tesla (TSLA 345.25, +0.26) will use Intel (INTC 37.47, +0.31) technology for infotainment instead of NVIDIA.

Still, NVIDIA managed to contribute to the technology rally, settling higher by 0.6%. Red Hat (RHT 110.07, +4.31) also contributed (+4.1%), jumping to its best level in nearly two decades, after beating both top and bottom line estimates and issuing upbeat guidance.

Outside of the tech sector, Darden Restaurants (DRI 77.71, -5.43), the owner of brands like Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, dropped 6.5% despite reporting in-line earnings and revenues. Conversely, Carnival (CCL 65.32, +1.82) climbed 2.9% after reporting better-than-expected top and bottom lines.

The S&P 500's consumer discretionary sector, which houses both Darden Restaurants and Carnival, finished slightly behind the broader market, ticking down 0.1%. In general, sector movement was pretty modest as eight of the eleven groups settled within 0.2% of their unchanged marks.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen spoke at a NABE meeting in Cleveland on Tuesday, defending a gradual path of rate hikes despite continued uncertainty in the area of inflation. Her comments did not move either the stock market or the Treasury market, which declined modestly, sending yields slightly higher.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed one basis point to 2.23% while the 2-yr yield jumped two basis points to 1.44%.

In Washington, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) confirmed that the Senate will not vote on the Cassidy-Graham health care bill as the piece of legislation failed to gain enough support within the GOP. Lawmakers will table the health care reform effort for now and return their attention to tax reform.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included August New Home Sales, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for September, and the Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index for July:

New Home Sales in August hit an annualized rate of 560,000, which is below the revised July rate of 580,000 (from 571,000), and lower than the Briefing.com consensus of 577,000.
The key takeaway from the report isn't that sales declined 4.7% in the South, which was partly impacted by Hurricane Harvey, but that sales declined 2.7% in the West, which wasn't impacted by Hurricane Harvey, after declining 15.3% in July. The weakness in the West could be a function of constraints related to high prices, yet it will need to be watched closely as a potential harbinger of a broader slowdown in the housing market related to affordability constraints.
The consumer confidence reading for September declined to 119.8 from the prior month's revised reading of 120.4 (from 122.9). The Briefing.com consensus expected the survey to hit 119.4.
The key takeaway from the report is that the downturn was driven mostly by changing attitudes among consumers in the hurricane-ravaged states of Texas and Florida, which manifested themselves in the Present Situation Index. Overall, consumers remained relatively upbeat about the short-term outlook.
The July Case-Shiller 20-city Index hit 5.8%, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to 5.6% from 5.7%.

On Wednesday, investors will receive several economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, August Durable Goods Orders (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) at 8:30 ET, and August Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +18.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.8% YTD
S&P 500 +11.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.4% YTD

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S&P 500 Ticks Up, Settles at New All-Time High
28-Sep-17 16:25 ET
Dow +40.49 at 22381.20, Nasdaq +0.19 at 6453.45, S&P +3.02 at 2510.06
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/28/s-and-p-500-ticks-up-settles-at-new-alltime-high.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks were restricted to a pretty narrow range on Thursday as investors continued to chew on the GOP's tax reform outline--which was released in the prior session. The Dow (+0.2%), the Nasdaq (unch), and the S&P 500 (+0.1%) all settled with slim gains, but only the S&P 500 managed close at a new all-time high (2,510.06).

The benchmark index was not alone in finishing at a new record high, however, as the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.5%), the Russell 2000 (+0.3%), and the S&P MidCap 400 (+0.2%) also rewrote their respective record-high closing marks.

Conviction was weak at the macro level on Thursday, but there were several individual movers of note. For instance, Dow component McDonald's (MCD 157.49, +3.44) climbed 2.2% after Longbow Research upgraded the company's shares to 'Buy' from 'Neutral' on Thursday morning.

Health care giants AbbVie (ABBV 88.96, +4.21) and Abbott Labs (ABT 53.64, +1.49) touched new record highs, ending the day with gains of 5.0% and 2.9%, respectively. AbbVie rallied after reaching a settlement with Amgen (AMGN 185.46, +0.58) regarding the intellectual property rights of AbbVie's blockbuster drug Humira.

Meanwhile, ABT shares climbed after the FDA approved a new Abbott device that is able to monitor blood sugar levels without drawing blood.

On the flip side, Gilead Sciences (GILD 80.91, -2.95) dropped 3.5% after COO Kevin Young announced his plan to retire on Wednesday evening and RBC said that the consensus HCV estimate likely needs to come down. Mr. Young will remain with the company through the first quarter of 2018 and in an advisory capacity thereafter.

Roku (ROKU 23.50, +9.50) had a solid first day trading on the Nasdaq exchange, settling 67.9% above its IPO price of $14.00 per share. The company makes devices that allow its customers to stream media from the internet to their TVs--similar to Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, and Google Chromecast.

On the earnings front, BlackBerry (BBRY 10.47, +1.24) surged 13.4% after beating both top and bottom line estimates and issuing above-consensus guidance for fiscal year 2018. Conversely, Rite Aid (RAD 2.03, -0.25) plunged 11.0%, hitting its lowest level in more than four years, after missing revenue estimates.

Out of the S&P 500's 11 sectors, only two finished in negative territory--consumer discretionary (unch) and industrials (-0.1%). As for the rest, seven finished with gains of no more than 0.3% while the lightly-weighted materials (+0.7%) and real estate (+0.6%) groups exhibited relative strength.

In the bond market, shorter-dated issues finished Thursday in the green, overcoming early weakness; the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note slipped two basis points to 1.45%, but traded around 1.48% in the early morning. Meanwhile, the benchmark 10-yr yield settled flat at 2.31% after hovering around 2.33% at the opening bell.

Reviewing Thursday's batch of economic data, which included the third estimate of second quarter GDP, weekly Initial Claims, and Advance International Trade in Goods for August:

The third estimate of second quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 3.1%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 3.0%. The second estimate came in at 3.0% last month.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was driven by a pickup in both consumer and business spending, which is typically a good mix for accelerating economic growth.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 272,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 275,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 260,000 (from 259,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.934 million from the revised count of 1.979 million (from 1.980 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that initial claims held below 300,000 despite the impact of the hurricanes. This points to continued tightness in the labor market and should ultimately translate into lower readings in the coming weeks as the hurricane impact diminishes.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for August showed a deficit of $62.9 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$65.1 billion), down from a revised deficit of $63.9 billion for July (from -$65.1 billion).

On Friday, investors will receive several pieces of economic data, including August Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus +0.2), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), and core PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) at 8:30 ET, September Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 58.0) at 9:45 ET, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for September (Briefing.com consensus 95.4) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +19.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.3% YTD
S&P 500 +12.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.7% YTD

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Wall Street Ends Q3 at Record Highs
29-Sep-17 16:30 ET
Dow +23.89 at 22405.09, Nasdaq +42.51 at 6495.96, S&P +9.30 at 2519.36
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/9/29/wall-street-ends-q3-at-record-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities ended the week, and the quarter, on a positive note, sending the S&P 500 (+0.4%) higher for the fourth session in a row. The benchmark index finished at a new record high, as did the Nasdaq (+0.7%) and the Russell 2000 (+0.1%), while the Dow (+0.1%) settled about eight points short of its record mark. For the week, the S&P 500 added 0.7%.

Technology stocks were in demand on Friday, with chipmakers showing particular strength; the PHLX Semiconductor Index climbed 0.9%. Semiconductor giant NVIDIA (NVDA 178.77, +3.09) advanced 1.8% after Citigroup raised its target price to $210 from $185 while Micron Technology (MU 39.33, +1.37) did even better (+3.6%), extending its three-day post earnings gain to 15.1%.

Mega-cap tech names like Facebook (FB 170.81, +2.08) and Alphabet (GOOGL 973.72, +8.91) also outperformed, settling with respective gains of 1.2% and 0.9%.

The S&P 500's technology sector (+0.8%), which is the largest sector by weight, finished at the top of Friday's sector standings, followed closely by the also influential health care space (+0.6%). On the flip side, the energy sector (unch) showed relative weakness, but it did manage to settle at the top of the week's leaderboard with a weekly gain of 1.9%.

In corporate news, KB Home (KBH 24.12, +1.90) jumped 8.6% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for its fiscal third quarter. Similarly, Tyson Foods (TSN 70.45, +5.00) climbed 7.6% to an 11-month high after raising its guidance for the fiscal year, citing better-than-expected earnings in the beef segment of its business.

The core PCE Price Index--which is the Fed's preferred gauge of inflation--came in below expectations, showing a month-over-month increase of 0.1% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, the index is up 1.3%, down from 1.4% in the prior reading, and still a ways below the Fed's target of 2.0%.

Despite the cooler-than-expected PCE reading, investors did not adjust their rate-hike expectations; the fed funds futures market still points to the December FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 77.9%, up slightly from Thursday's 77.5%.

U.S. Treasuries sold off on Friday, securing their third-consecutive weekly decline. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed two basis points to 2.33%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index settled a tick below its flat line at 92.89 to finish the week with a gain of 1.0%.

In Washington, President Trump said he plans to make a decision on who will become the next Fed Chair sometime in the next 2-3 weeks. Reports indicate that current Fed Chair Janet Yellen and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh are the front runners for the appointment.

Also of note, the Catalan independence referendum remains scheduled for Sunday despite stern opposition from the Spanish central government.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included August Personal Income, Personal Spending, and core PCE Prices, September Chicago PMI, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for September:

Personal income ticked up 0.2% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after a revised reading of 0.3% for July (from 0.4%). Personal spending rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), while the prior month's reading was left unrevised at 0.3%. The core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 1.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was more of the same: weak income growth, disappointing spending growth, and continued "lowflation."
Chicago PMI for September hit 65.2 (Briefing.com consensus 58.0), up from 58.9 in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that the Order Backlogs Index hit a 29-year high, suggesting production levels should remain robust barring a marked increase in order cancellation rates.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for September remained at 95.1 (Briefing.com consensus 95.4), unchanged from the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer sentiment held up despite rising (geo)political uncertainty and the impact of the hurricanes that hit Texas and Florida.

On Monday, investors will receive two pieces of economic data--the September ISM Index (Briefing.com consensus 57.8) and August Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). Both reports will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +20.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.4% YTD
S&P 500 +12.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.9% YTD

Week In Review: Reflation Trade Returns

Enticed by the idea of a tax overhaul, investors pushed equities higher once again this week, sending the S&P 500 (+0.7%), the Nasdaq (+1.1%), and the small-cap Russell 2000 (+2.8%) to new record highs. The Dow lagged this week, but still managed to eke out a modest gain (+0.3%). The S&P 500 finished the third quarter with a gain of 4.0%.

Technology stocks weighed on the broader market on Monday as investors engaged in a sector rotation trade that left the S&P 500's technology sector lower by 1.4%. Technology names were weak from the jump, but selling accelerated following comments from North Korea's foreign minister, who said that President Trump effectively declared war against North Korea in his U.N. speech last week and, therefore, Pyongyang has the right to take countermeasures against the U.S.--including shooting down U.S. strategic bombers, even if they're not in North Korean airspace.

Investors turned their attention to Fed Chair Janet Yellen on Tuesday as she gave a speech entitled "Inflation, Uncertainty, and Monetary Policy" at the NABE's annual meeting. Ms. Yellen defended a gradual path of rate hikes despite continued uncertainty in the area of inflation, but her comments didn't move the financial markets; equities finished the session flat.

Things turned around for the equity market on Wednesday as investors cheered the GOP's tax reform outline, sending equities into positive territory for the week. Some of the most notable highlights of the plan include cutting the corporate tax rate to 20% from 35%, doubling the standard deduction, and reducing the number of tax brackets to three from seven. The plan calls for trimming the highest tax rate to 35.0% from 39.6%, but Congress will have the option to add a fourth bracket for the very top earners.

Details on how the government will make up for the immediate loss in tax revenue were limited. This topic will likely be an area of contention for the GOP going forward as many conservatives are opposed to the idea of driving up the federal deficit, which would probably be necessary to fund the tax overhaul--at least in the short term.

Market-moving headlines were scarce on Thursday, but that didn't prevent the S&P 500 from ticking up and registering a new record close. Roku (ROKU) opened for trading on the Nasdaq exchange on Thursday and had a solid first day, settling 67.9% above its IPO price of $14.00 per share.

Investors pushed stocks higher once again on Friday after the core PCE Price Index--the Fed's preferred gauge for inflation--for August came in below expectations, showing a month-over-month increase of 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, the core PCE Price Index is up 1.3%, down from 1.4% in the prior reading, and still a ways below the Fed's target of 2.0%.

Still, the fed funds futures market projects that the next rate hike will occur at the December FOMC meeting with an implied probability of 77.9%, up from 72.8% last week.

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Wall Street Climbs to New Record Highs Despite Las Vegas Attack
02-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +152.51 at 22557.60, Nasdaq +20.76 at 6516.72, S&P +9.76 at 2529.12

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/2/wall-street-climbs-to-new-record-highs-despite-las-vegas-attack.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market kicked off the week with yet another solid performance that left the Dow (+0.7%), the S&P 500 (+0.4%), the Nasdaq (+0.3%), and the small-cap Russell 2000 (+1.3%) at new record highs. Monday's advance marked the third-consecutive record high close for the S&P 500 and the seventh in a row for the Russell 2000.

Although the market largely shook off Sunday night's massive shooting in Las Vegas, it was the main topic of conversation in the financial media on Monday. From the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort, a lone gunman took aim--firing across the Las Vegas Strip--at a country music concert, killing at least 58 people and injuring over 500 others.

Market participants took the devastating attack, which is the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, as an isolated incident given that authorities do not believe the gunman was connected to any militant groups. MGM Resorts (MGM 30.77, -1.82), which owns and operates Mandalay Bay, did sell off sharply, however, settling with a loss of 5.6%.

On Wall Street, financial and health care stocks were in demand on Monday, helping to alleviate relative weakness from mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL 153.81, -0.31), Alphabet (GOOGL 967.47, -6.25), and Amazon (AMZN 959.19, -2.16)--all three of which have paced the stock market's 2017 campaign thus far.

The heavily-weighted financial (+0.9%) and health care (+1.0%) sectors finished just a tick behind the lightly-weighted materials sector (+1.1%) at the top of the day's leaderboard. The financial sector's positive performance was particularly notable as it extended the group's September rally; financials have climbed 9.4% since September 7.

At the opposite end of the leaderboard, the real estate (-0.4%), consumer staples (-0.2%), and telecom services (-0.1%) groups finished with modest losses. The energy space (unch) also settled in the red as the price of crude oil dropped 2.1% to $50.58/bbl following reports of decreased OPEC production-cut compliance.

A strengthening U.S. dollar also worked against the commodity; the U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.6% to 93.47. The greenback was particularly strong against the euro, jumping 0.7% to 1.1735, following Sunday's contentious independence referendum in Spain.

The people of Catalonia overwhelmingly voted to split from Spain on Sunday, but Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy refused to acknowledge the vote, which was outlawed by the central government in Madrid. Reports indicate that nearly 900 voters were injured by police, who attempted to shut down polling stations in the region.

In the U.S. bond market, Treasuries finished Monday modestly lower, sending yields into the green. The 10-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.34%.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included the September ISM Index and August Construction Spending:

The ISM Index for September rose to 60.8 from an unrevised reading of 58.8 in August while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick to 57.8.
The key takeaway from the report, which stands at its highest level since May 2004, is that it was accompanied by the highest reading for the Prices Index (71.5) since May 2011. That understanding will feed a belief that the Federal Reserve is apt to raise the fed funds rate again at its December FOMC meeting.
The Construction Spending report for August rose 0.5% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%. The prior month's reading was revised to -1.2% from -0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that overall construction spending remains modest and an inhibitor of stronger real GDP growth.

On Tuesday, the economic calendar will be limited to auto and truck sales for the month of September, which will be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite +21.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.1% YTD
S&P 500 +13.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.2% YTD

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Wall Street Settles in Record Territory Once Again
03-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +84.07 at 22641.67, Nasdaq +15.00 at 6531.72, S&P +5.46 at 2534.58
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/3/wall-street-settles-in-record-territory-once-again.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks moved higher for the sixth session in a row on Tuesday, but trading was rather dull as the major indices largely trended sideways from start to finish. The Dow (+0.4), the S&P 500 (+0.2%), the Nasdaq (+0.2%), and the Russell 2000 (+0.2%) all finished at fresh record highs.

Automakers released their U.S. sales for the month of September on Tuesday. The numbers mostly showed solid year-over-year gains, thanks in part to hurricane-related vehicle replacement:

General Motors (GM 43.45, +1.30) sold 279,397 units (+12.0% YoY)
Ford Motor (F 12.34, +0.25) sold 222,248 units (+8.7% YoY)
Fiat Chrysler (FCAU 17.96, +0.01) sold 174,266 units (-10.0% YoY)
Toyota Motor (TM 120.34, +1.03) sold 226,632 units (+14.9% YoY)
Honda Motor (HMC 30.20, +0.42) sold 142,772 units (+6.8% YoY)

Outside of September, auto sales have been disappointing this year as demand cools following a seven-year run of increasing sales, which culminated in a record 17.6 million units sold in 2016.

On a related note, electric automaker Tesla (TSLA 348.14, +6.61) reported third quarter figures, showing a year-over-year increase of 4.5% in the number of delivered vehicles (26,150). However, production of the company's new, lower-priced Model 3 sedan was just a fraction of what CEO Elon Musk projected.

TSLA shares initially sold off following the news--holding a loss of 3.0% at their worst mark of the day--but eventually settled with a gain of 1.9%.

Airlines rallied on Tuesday, sending the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 30.94, +1.22) higher by 4.1%, after Delta Air Lines (DAL 51.25, +3.18) reaffirmed its third quarter unit revenue and margin guidance, excluding the costs associated with Hurricane Irma, which struck its Atlanta Hub last month. DAL shares added 6.6%.

In Washington, Wells Fargo (WFC 55.58, +0.11) CEO Timothy Sloan and former Equifax (EFX 110.45, +2.64) CEO Richard Smith testified before Congress on Tuesday in regards to their respective controversies; Mr. Smith answered questions regarding Equifax's recent data breach while Mr. Sloan was grilled on Wells Fargo's fake-account scandal.

Chipmakers as a whole performed roughly in line with the broader market, evidenced by the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.3%), but Advanced Micro (AMD 13.42, +0.71) surged 5.6% following vague M&A speculation. Dow component Intel (INTC 39.38, +0.34) also outperformed, notching its fourth consecutive victory with a gain of 0.9%.

On the earnings front, homebuilder Lennar (LEN 55.35, +2.53) jumped 4.8% after beating bottom-line estimates.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries moved modestly higher on Tuesday, leaving yields in the red; the benchmark 10-yr yield dropped one basis point to 2.33%. Meanwhile, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 9.57, +0.12) climbed 1.3%, but still managed to settle below the historically-low 10.00 mark.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, market participants will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, the September ADP Employment Change Report (Briefing.com consensus 160K) at 8:15 ET, and the September ISM Services Index (Briefing.com consensus 55.3) at 10:00 ET.

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Another Quiet Day Ends In Another Record Close
04-Oct-17 16:25 ET
Dow +19.97 at 22661.64, Nasdaq +2.91 at 6534.63, S&P +3.16 at 2537.74
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/4/another-quiet-day-ends-in-another-record-close.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] It was a quiet day on Wall Street, but that didn't stop the stock market from eking out yet another record close. The S&P 500 (+0.1%), the Dow (+0.1%), and the Nasdaq (unch) finished where they resided throughout the majority of the session--just a tick above their flat lines. However, the Russell 2000 slipped 0.3%, breaking its streak of eight consecutive record closes.

Drugmaker Mylan (MYL 37.80, +5.27) surged 16.2% on Wednesday after the FDA approved its generic version of Teva Pharma's (TEVA 16.08, -2.74) multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone. Mylan's positive performance helped the S&P 500's influential health care sector (+0.5%) finish ahead of the broader market.

Like health care, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%) also outperformed on Wednesday with its top component by market cap--Amazon (AMZN 965.45, +8.35)--bouncing back from two days of losses. Netflix (NFLX 184.45, +5.26) also had a solid showing after UBS raised its target price to $225 from $190. AMZN and NFLX shares added 0.9% and 2.9%, respectively.

The majority of the S&P 500's 11 sectors finished in the green, however, the two most influential groups--technology and financials--did not.

Mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL 153.48, -1.00, -0.7%), Facebook (FB 168.42, -1.54, -0.9%), and Alphabet (GOOGL 966.78, -5.30, -0.6%) weighed on the tech space, overpowering gains from smaller components. Chipmakers managed to settle slightly ahead of the broader market though, evidenced by the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.2%).

As for financials, banks like JPMorgan Chase (JPM 96.36, -0.99) and Wells Fargo (WFC 54.96, -0.62) led the retreat, dropping around 1.0% apiece.

The energy sector (-0.1%) finished lower as well, weighed down by the price of crude oil--which dipped below $50.00/bbl despite an upbeat EIA inventory report; the Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. crude inventories declined by 6.0 million barrels (consensus -0.5 million barrels) for the week ended September 29.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries finished roughly flat with shorter-dated issues showing relative strength; the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note slipped one basis point to 1.47%. Meanwhile, the benchmark 10-yr yield settled unchanged at 2.33%.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen did speak on Wednesday, but made no mention of monetary policy.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the September ADP Employment Change Report, the September ISM Services Index, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 135,000 in September (Briefing.com consensus 160,000) while the August reading was revised lower to 228,000 from 237,000.
The ISM Services Index for September rose to 59.8 from an unrevised reading of 55.3 in August. The Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 55.3.
The key takeaway from the report is that it gives the Federal Reserve some data-based ammunition to raise the fed funds rate in December since the Prices Index increased substantially and hit its highest level since February 2012, mirroring a big jump as well in the Prices Index for the ISM Manufacturing report.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.4% to follow last week's 0.5% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 265K) at 8:30 ET, the August Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$42.6 billion) also at 8:30 ET, and August Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus +1.0%) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +21.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.7% YTD
S&P 500 +13.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.1% YTD

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Positive Week Ends on a Down Note
06-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow -1.72 at 22773.67, Nasdaq +4.82 at 6590.18, S&P -2.74 at 2549.33

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/6/positive-week-ends-on-a-down-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks ended the week on a down note, giving back a small portion of their weekly gains. Losses were modest, however, with the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and the Dow (unch) settling just a tick below their unchanged marks. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.1%) eked out a small victory, settling at yet another record high. For the week, the S&P 500 added 1.2%.

The market took the September jobs report with a grain of salt due to the effects of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. The report showed that employment in food services and drinking places declined by 105,000--taking a toll on the nonfarm payrolls figure, which decreased by 33,000 (Briefing.com consensus +75K).

Average hourly earnings, which have been slow to pick up despite a tightening of the labor market, soundly beat expectations though, showing an increase of 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). This figure was also likely affected by the hurricanes, but that didn't stop the market from adjusting its rate-hike expectations.

The CME FedWatch Tool currently places the chances of a December rate hike at 93.1%, up from 77.5% on Thursday.

U.S. Treasuries ended the session in negative territory, with shorter-dated issues showing relative weakness; the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note jumped four basis points to 1.53% while the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.37%. The U.S. Dollar Index slipped 0.1% to 93.64.

Most of the S&P 500's eleven sectors finished in the red, but some of the heaviest spaces by weight--including technology (+0.3%), financials (unch), and consumer discretionary (+0.2%)--put together relatively solid performances, helping keep the broader market's loss in check.

The tech group climbed 0.3%, thanks in large part to mega-cap names like Facebook (FB 172.23, +0.99) and Alphabet (GOOGL 993.64, +8.45), which added 0.6% and 0.9%, respectively. Chipmakers were also strong on Friday, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 0.5%.

Meanwhile, influential names like Amazon (AMZN 989.58, +8.73), Netflix (NFLX 198.02, +3.63), and McDonald's (MCD 159.60, +0.80) helped carry the consumer discretionary space (+0.2%) to victory, settling with gains between 0.5% and 1.9%. NFLX shares had a solid week, adding 9.2%.

On the flip side, the consumer staples space (-1.0%) underperformed with retail heavyweight Costco (COST 157.09, -9.98) dropping 6.0%, despite beating both top and bottom line estimates. Retail pharmacy names also tumbled after Morgan Stanley downgraded Walgreens Boot Alliance (WBA 73.20, -3.75) to 'Equal-Weight' from 'Overweight'; WBA shares lost 4.9%.

The energy sector (-0.8%) also struggled as the price of WTI crude dropped 2.9% to $49.33/bbl amid concerns of Tropical Storm Nate's potential impact on refineries around the Gulf of Mexico. Tropical Storm Nate is projected to hit the Gulf Coast this weekend as a hurricane.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the September Employment Situation Report, the August Wholesale Inventories Report, and the August Consumer Credit Report:

September Employment Situation
September nonfarm payrolls decreased by 33,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 75,000. The prior month's increase was revised to 169,000 from 156,000.
Nonfarm private payrolls declined by 40,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 98,000. The previous month's increase was revised to 164,000 from 165,000.
Average hourly earnings increased 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), while the previous month's reading was revised to +0.2% (from +0.1%).
The average workweek was reported at 34.4 (Briefing.com consensus 34.3). The previous month's reading was left unrevised at 34.4.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.2% (Briefing.com consensus 4.4%) from 4.4% in the previous month.
The hurricane-related noise of the September employment resonated in the headline payroll numbers, yet the most important takeaway from the report is that wage growth picked up nicely in September and should solidify the case for another rate hike in December.
August Wholesale Inventories
August Wholesale Inventories increased 0.9% (Briefing.com consensus +1.0%). The prior month's reading was left unrevised at +0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the inventory build will be a positive component for Q3 GDP growth forecasts.
August Consumer Credit
The Consumer Credit report for August showed an increase of $13.1 billion while the Briefing.com consensus expected growth of $16.0 billion. The prior month's credit growth was revised to $17.7 billion from $18.5 billion.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +22.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.2% YTD
S&P 500 +13.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.3% YTD

Week In Review: Autumn's Still Looking Pretty Green

Stocks started October on the front foot, climbing to new record highs once again, despite the devastating shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday evening, which claimed the lives of more than 50 people and injured over 500 others. The major indices all settled the week in the green with the Dow, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 adding 1.7%, 1.5%, and 1.2%, respectively.

This week's bullish bias had its roots in last week's run to record highs, which was sparked by the release of the GOP's latest tax reform outline. The House kept the ball rolling this week by passing a budget that slashes government spending in anticipation of decreased tax revenue. The GOP still has a long way to go, but the market liked the progress.

Excited by the idea of a tax overhaul, the S&P 500's financial sector climbed 1.9% this week to finish comfortably ahead of the broader market. The financial sector has added 10.6% since closing at a three month low on September 7 and now trades just a tick behind the benchmark index for the year.

Automakers were strong this week after reporting largely solid U.S. sales figures for the month of September, which were helped by the replacement of vehicles lost to Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. General Motors (GM) showed particular strength, climbing 11.3%, after reporting a year-over-year increase of 12.0%.

Netflix (NFLX) also had a good showing, hitting a fresh all-time high, after UBS raised its target price to $225 from $190 and following news that the company will raise the price of its standard and premium video-streaming services. NFLX shares settled with a gain of 9.2%.

Equities did end the week on a down note, however, following a noisy Employment Situation Report for September. The market took the report with a grain of salt since it was tainted by the impacts of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, but it didn't do much to alleviate rate-hike concerns nonetheless, showing an increase of 0.5% in average hourly earnings.

As a reminder, average hourly earnings growth, which is positively correlated with inflation, has been tepid in recent months, putting the Fed's rate-hike forecast into question. However, following Friday's jobs report, the market now strongly believes the U.S. central bank will hike rates one more time this year, thereby achieving its goal of three rate hikes in 2017.

The fed funds futures market places the chances of a December rate hike at 93.1%, up from last week's 77.9%.

It's also worth pointing out that the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) settled at an all-time low (9.19) on Thursday, signaling the market's belief that volatility will remain subdued in the short term. The previous record low (9.31) was recorded nearly 24 years ago in December 1993.

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Wall Street Starts the Week on the Back Foot
09-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow -12.60 at 22761.07, Nasdaq -10.45 at 6579.73, S&P -4.60 at 2544.73
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/9/wall-street-starts-the-week-on-the-back-foot.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities opened the week on the back foot, ticking slightly below the record highs they posted at the tail end of last week. The Nasdaq (-0.2%) and the Dow (-0.1%) finished roughly in line with the S&P 500 (-0.2%) while small caps underperformed, sending the Russell 2000 lower by 0.4%.

The S&P 500's technology sector (+0.2%) got off to a relatively solid start on Monday, but unraveled a bit in the afternoon amid a modest sell off in the broader market. Still, the group managed to eke out a slim victory, something that only four other sectors--energy (+0.3%), utilities (+0.1%), real estate (+0.1%), and materials (unch)--were able to do.

On the flip side, the health care sector (-0.7%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings as just about all of its components finished in the red. Medtronic (MDT 76.93, -2.88) showed particular weakness, dropping 3.6%, after the company said on Friday evening that Hurricane Maria could negatively impact its fiscal second quarter results by $250 million.

The financial group (-0.4%) also tumbled on Monday ahead of the start of earnings season, which will unofficially kick off later this week when several financial heavyweights, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM 96.41, -0.51), Citigroup (C 75.39, -0.25), Bank of America (BAC 25.85, -0.36), and Wells Fargo (WFC 55.14, -0.44), release their quarterly results.

According to FactSet, S&P 500 earnings are expected to increase just 2.8%, down from an estimated growth rate of 7.5% on June 30. Insurance claims associated with hurricane-related damages have been the biggest driver of the downward revision. As a result, the financial sector--which houses insurers--is projected to report the widest year-over-year decline in earnings.

Meanwhile, the energy group is projected to deliver year-over-year growth in excess of 100%, which is by far the largest anticipated gain among the 11 sectors.

Within the Dow, General Electric (GE 23.43, -0.96) plunged 3.9% on Monday after announcing over the weekend that several top executives will be leaving the company, including longtime CFO Jeff Bornstein. The changes are a part of new CEO John Flannery's attempt to reboot the company's business. GE shares have dropped 25.9% this year.

On a positive note, Wal-Mart (WMT 80.53, +1.53) was the Dow's top performer, climbing 1.9%, following a positive mention in this weekend's Barron's magazine and news that the company is launching a new return service that will allow customers to return items in about 30 seconds.

The bond market was closed in observance of Columbus Day, leading to lighter-than-usual volume on the New York Stock Exchange. Only 620 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor, a ways below the 50-day simple moving average of 805 million.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday.

Tuesday's lone economic release--the September NFIB Small Business Optimism Index--will cross the wires at 7:00 ET.

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Bounce Back
10-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +69.61 at 22830.68, Nasdaq +7.52 at 6587.25, S&P +5.91 at 2550.64

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/10/bounce-back-.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities bounced back from back-to-back losses on Tuesday, but the performance was somewhat disappointing considering the major U.S. indices hit their session highs in the opening minutes and petered out shortly thereafter. All three major averages touched new all-time highs, but the Dow (+0.3%) was the only one to finish at a new record mark. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq added 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively.

The S&P 500's consumer staples sector moved higher by 1.0% on Tuesday, with the world's largest retailer leading the advance. Wal-Mart (WMT 84.13, +3.60) surged 4.5%, settling at its highest level in more than two years, after reaffirming its guidance for fiscal year 2018, announcing a $20 billion share repurchase program, and projecting a 40.0% increase in next year's online sales.

Amazon (AMZN 987.20, -3.79) slipped 0.4% following Wal-Mart's ambitious ecommerce forecast, breaking a four session winning streak.

Meanwhile, multinational giant Procter & Gamble (PG 91.62, -0.50) was one of just a few components within the consumer staples space to finish Tuesday in negative territory. P&G shares lost 0.5% after shareholders narrowly voted against giving activist investor Nelson Peltz a seat on the company's board. Mr. Peltz plans to challenge the vote.

Airlines outperformed on Tuesday, sending the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 31.34, +0.56) higher by 1.8%, after American Airlines (AAL 53.05, +2.43) and United Continental (UAL 67.72, +3.02) raised their third quarter guidance. The two names settled with gains of 4.8% and 4.7%, respectively, helping the Dow Jones Transportation Average climb 0.6%.

The lightly-weighted utilities space (+1.0%) finished in line with the consumer staples group at the top of the sector standings. Seven other sectors also advanced, but they finished with more modest gains, adding no more than 0.4%. The consumer discretionary sector (-0.1%) was the lone decliner while the lightly-weighted materials space finished flat.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries moved higher on Tuesday, leaving yields below their unchanged marks. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield slipped two basis points apiece, settling at 1.51% and 2.35%, respectively. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar dropped 0.5% against the euro to 1.1804 despite the ongoing situation in Spain.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont was expected to declare independence from Spain on Tuesday, but gave Madrid a chance to accept mediation instead. As a reminder, Catalonia voted to split from Spain on October 1, but the Spanish central government has refused to recognize the results.

Also of note, WTI crude futures rallied on Tuesday, jumping 2.6% to $50.86/bbl. The bullish sentiment was attributed to several factors, including Saudi Arabia's announcement that it will cut its monthly exports in November. However, the energy sector only advanced 0.1%.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, market participants will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, the Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for August at 10:00 ET, and the minutes from the September 19-20 FOMC meeting at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +22.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.5% YTD
S&P 500 +13.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.1% YTD

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Stocks Hit Record Highs Ahead of Earnings Season
11-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +42.21 at 22872.89, Nasdaq +16.30 at 6603.55, S&P +4.60 at 2555.24

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/11/stocks-hit-record-highs-ahead-of-earnings-season.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks posted a modest victory on Wednesday ahead of the third quarter earnings season, which will commence on Thursday morning. The three major indices--the S&P 500 (+0.2%), the Nasdaq (+0.3%), and the Dow (+0.2%)--settled the midweek session at fresh record highs, but the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed, slipping 0.1%.

Investors received the minutes from the September FOMC meeting on Wednesday afternoon, but they contained little to no new information. In short, the minutes showed that the Fed favors staying on a path of gradual rate hikes, although there was growing concern that the factors keeping a lid on inflation may not be transitory after all.

Following the minutes, the CME FedWatch Tool places the chances of a December rate hike at 88.0%--virtually unchanged from the day prior.

The S&P 500's top-weighted technology sector (+0.5%) finished ahead of the broader market on Wednesday, thanks in large part to mega-cap names like Alphabet (GOOGL 1005.65, +17.85), Facebook (FB 172.74, +1.15), and Apple (AAPL 156.55, +0.65), which added 1.8%, 0.7%, and 0.4%, respectively.

Chipmakers outperformed as well, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.7%) higher for the 11th session in a row.

The influential health care sector (+0.2%) also moved higher on Wednesday, with Dow component Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 136.65, +2.75) leading the charge. The multinational conglomerate jumped 2.1% after submitting a new application to the FDA for its prostate cancer drug apalutamide.

On the down side, industrial giant General Electric (GE 23.07, -0.29) dropped for the third session in a row, losing 1.2%, after JPMorgan lowered its target price to $20 from $22. The industrial sector (unch), which houses GE, finished in negative territory.

The financial space (-0.1%) also underperformed as investors engaged in a little profit taking ahead of some important financial earnings. Heavyweights JPMorgan Chase (JPM 96.84, -0.29) and Citigroup (C 74.94, -0.24) will report their quarterly results on Thursday morning, marking the start of the third quarter earnings season.

In the bond market, the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished flat, leaving its yield unchanged at 2.35%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the August Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 6.08 million from a revised 6.14 million (from 6.17 million) in July.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.1% to follow last week's 0.4% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for September (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) at 8:30 ET, the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 255K) also at 8:30 ET, and the Treasury Budget for September at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +22.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.7% YTD
S&P 500 +14.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.0% YTD

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Stocks Slip at the Start of Earnings Season
12-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow -31.88 at 22841.01, Nasdaq -12.04 at 6591.51, S&P -4.31 at 2550.93
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/12/stocks-slip-at-the-start-of-earnings-season.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks slipped from record highs on Thursday amid a heap of corporate news and the start of the third quarter earnings season. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq lost 0.2% apiece while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) held up slightly better. Equities spent some time in positive territory, but eventually settled near their session lows.

Financial heavyweights JPMorgan Chase (JPM 95.99, -0.85) and Citigroup (C 72.37, -2.57) kicked off the third quarter earnings season on Thursday morning. Both lenders reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues, but moved lower nonetheless, tumbling 0.9% and 3.4%, respectfully. Other financials followed suit, sending the S&P 500's financial sector lower by 0.7%.

The financial group will be in focus once again on Friday morning, as that's when Bank of America (BAC 25.45, -0.38) and Wells Fargo (WFC 55.21, -0.45) are scheduled to report their quarterly results.

Like financials, consumer discretionary stocks within the S&P 500 struggled on Thursday, losing 0.7%. Cosmetic retailer Ulta Beauty (ULTA 190.16, -17.73) showed particular weakness, settling the day lower by 8.5%, after Cleveland Research downgraded ULTA shares to 'Neutral' from 'Buy' in pre-market action.

Women's apparel retailer J.Jill (JILL 4.86, -5.07) was hit even harder, plunging 51.1%, after lowering its forecast for third quarter same-store sales.

Unsurprisingly, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 39.88, -0.53) tumbled 1.3%, finishing below its 50-day simple moving average (40.13) for the first time in over a month. Retailers will be in the spotlight once again on Friday morning, which is when investors will get their hands on the Retail Sales Report for September (Briefing.com consensus +1.5%).

AT&T (T 35.86,-2.33) led the lightly-weighted telecom services group (-3.5%) to the bottom of the sector standings on Thursday, dropping 6.1% in reaction to an announcement that its video subscribers declined for the third quarter in a row. Fellow wireless giant Verizon (VZ 48.35, -0.51) also dropped, losing 1.0%.

On a positive note, transports had a good showing, sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 0.6%. Railroad names like CSX (CSX 53.58, +0.50) showed particular strength after JPMorgan raised the company's target price to $62 from $58. CSX shares finished higher by 0.9%.

The top-weighted technology sector (unch) spent much of the day in positive territory, but slipped in the final stretch as mega-caps like Alphabet (GOOG 987.83, -1.42), Facebook (FB 172.55, -0.19), and Apple (AAPL 156.00, -0.55) retraced their earlier gains. Microsoft (MSFT 77.12, +0.70) held strong though, adding 0.9%.

In Washington, President Trump signed an executive order related to health care on Thursday that's aimed at providing more options for consumers and stepping up competition within the space. The health care sector (-0.2%) finished roughly in line with the broader market.

WTI crude futures declined 1.3% to $50.61 per barrel, despite the EIA reporting a larger-than-expected draw in U.S. crude stockpiles for the week ended October 6 (2.8 million barrels actual vs 2.4 million barrels consensus). The energy sector, which typically moves in tandem with oil prices, lost 0.4%.

In IPO news, CarGurus (CARG 27.58, +11.58)--which hosts an online marketplace for new and used vehicles--opened for trading today at a price of $29 per share after pricing its IPO at $16 per share. The company eventually settled at $27.58 per share, which is more than 70.0% above its IPO price.

U.S. Treasuries moved higher in a curve-flattening trade, sending yields into the red. The benchmark 10-yr yield dropped three basis points to 2.32%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the Producer Price Index for September and the weekly Initial Claims Report:

Producer prices rose 0.4% in September, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. Meanwhile, core producer prices rose 0.4%, which is above the 0.2% increase that the Briefing.com consensus expected. Year-over-year, core producer prices are up 2.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will feed the view that the Federal Reserve is on course to raise the fed funds rate again in December. The latter view stems from the understanding that the final demand index increased 2.6% for the 12 months ended in September, marking the largest rise since a 2.8% advance for the 12 months ended February 2012. Meanwhile, the final demand index less foods and energy increased 2.2% for the 12 months ended in September versus 2.0% for the 12 months ended in August.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 243,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 255,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 258,000 (from 260,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.889 million from the revised count of 1.921 million (from 1.938 million).
The key takeaway from the claims data is that it is consistent with a tight labor market, which some members of the Federal Reserve think poses an upside inflation risk.

On Friday, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for September (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) at 8:30 ET, Retail Sales for September (Briefing.com consensus +1.5%) also at 8:30 ET, the preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October (Briefing.com consensus 95.6) at 10:00 ET, and Business Inventories for August (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) also at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +22.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.6% YTD
S&P 500 +13.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.9% YTD

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Ending on a Positive Note
13-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +30.71 at 22871.72, Nasdaq +14.29 at 6605.80, S&P +2.24 at 2553.17

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/13/ending-on-a-positive-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks finished near the bottom of their narrow trading ranges on Friday, but still managed to eke out a narrow victory. The Nasdaq (+0.2%) finished at a new record high while S&P 500 (+0.1%) and the Dow (+0.1%) settled just a tick below their record marks. Small caps underperformed, sending the Russell 2000 lower by 0.2%. For the week, the S&P 500 added 0.2%.

Financials dominated the earnings front again on Friday after kicking off the third quarter earnings season in the prior session. Bank of America (BAC 25.83, +0.38) surpassed earnings expectations, but Wells Fargo (WFC 53.69, -1.52) disappointed, missing both top and bottom line estimates. As a result, BAC shares climbed 1.5% while WFC shares dropped 2.8%.

The S&P 500's financial sector opened the session with a sizable loss of around 0.9%, but quickly bounced back. In the end, the sector finished little changed.

Investors received several pieces of influential economic data on Friday, including the core Consumer Price Index, which increased less-than-expected in September (+0.1% actual vs +0.2% Briefing.com consensus). The core CPI differs from the total CPI in that it excludes the volatile categories of food and energy.

The cooler-than-expected reading sent Treasury yields into the red; the benchmark 10-yr yield dropped four basis points to 2.28%. However, it didn't have much effect on the market's rate-hike expectations. At the closing bell, the CME FedWatch Tool placed the chances of a December rate hike at 82.9%, virtually unchanged from 82.7% on Thursday.

In total, five of the S&P 500's eleven sectors finished Friday with gains. The technology group (+0.5%) was among the top performers, benefiting from broad strength. HP (HPQ 21.71, +1.31) showed particular resolve, jumping 6.4% to its best mark in over seven years, after raising its guidance for fiscal year 2018 on Thursday evening.

The materials sector (+0.5%) also outperformed, thanks in part to steel and iron ore companies, which rallied after China's monthly imports of iron ore hit an all-time high in September. Reports that President Trump may be fighting for rules in NAFTA that would require automakers to use North American steel also helped fuel buying interest.

On the flip side, industrial stocks slipped, especially transportation names, which sent the Dow Jones Transportation Average lower by 1.0%. JB Hunt Transport (JBHT 104.01, -4.34) was the DJTA's weakest performer, dropping 4.0%, after reporting worse-than-expected earnings.

The health care sector (-0.3%) also lagged, with health insurers like Anthem (ANTM 183.83, -5.91) and Humana (HUM 237.73, -3.71) showing particular weakness following the White House's decision to end the Affordable Care Act's cost-sharing reduction payments. The two companies finished with losses of 3.1% and 1.5%, respectively.

President Trump announced that he will not be certifying the Iran nuclear deal, essentially kicking the deal to Congress, which will have 60 days to decide whether to impose sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the agreement. If Congress does nothing, Mr. Trump vowed to end the accord.

Reviewing Friday's big batch of economic data, which included the Consumer Price Index for September, Retail Sales for September, the preliminary October reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, and Business Inventories for August:

Total CPI increased 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) in September while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%).
The headline numbers were a little softer than expected, which will create some chatter that they could sway the Fed into thinking that it would be prudent to hold off on a rate hike at its December meeting. The key takeaway from our vantage point, though, is that the September CPI report hasn't run afoul of the Fed's price stability mandate. To that end, total CPI is up 2.2% year-over-year, versus 1.9% in August, and core CPI is up 1.7% for the fifth month in a row.
September retail sales increased 1.6% (Briefing.com consensus +1.5%). The prior month's reading was revised to -0.1% from -0.2%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 1.0% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.8%. The prior month's reading was revised to +0.5% from +0.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that core retail sales, which exclude auto, gas, building material, and food services and drinking place sales, and which factor into GDP computations, increased a solid 0.6%.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October rose to 101.1 (Briefing.com consensus 95.6) from 95.1 in September.
The key takeaway from the report is that the positive sentiment occurred among all age and income groups and across all partisan viewpoints. That should presumably bode well for consumer spending, which is the most important driver of GDP growth.
Business Inventories rose 0.7% in August, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. The July reading was revised to 0.3% from 0.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the inventory build will be a positive component for Q3 GDP forecasts.

On Monday, investors will receive just one piece of economic data--the October Empire State Manufacturing Survey (Briefing.com consensus 21). The report will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +22.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.7% YTD
S&P 500 +14.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.7% YTD

Week In Review: Stocks Tick Up As Earnings Season Gets Under Way

The stock market moved modestly higher this week, touching new record highs yet again. The Dow led the advance, adding 0.4%, while the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 each settled with gains of 0.2% apiece. The small-cap Russell 2000 struggled, however, ending the week with a loss of 0.5%.

Financials kicked off the third quarter earnings season on a mostly higher note; JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C), and Bank of America (BAC) all reported better-than-expected earnings. However, Wells Fargo (WFC) missed both top and bottom line estimates. Despite the largely positive showing, the S&P 500's financial sector moved lower, dropping 0.9%.

The retreat wasn't all that surprising as the financial sector did ride a four-week rally into earnings season--climbing 10.6% from September 7 to October 6--and, therefore, was likely overdue for a pull back. A decline in Treasury yields also worked against the sector, which typically benefits from an increase in interest rates. The benchmark 10-yr yield dropped eight basis points to 2.28%.

Softer-than-expected consumer prices had a hand in pushing Treasury yields lower, but did little to dial back the market's rate-hike expectations. The Consumer Price Index increased less than expected in September (0.5% actual vs 0.6% Briefing.com consensus), as did the core Consumer Price Index, which excludes food and energy (0.1% actual vs 0.2% Briefing.com consensus).

The minutes from the September FOMC meeting were also released this week, but contained little to no new information. In short, the minutes showed that the Fed favors staying on a path of gradual rate hikes, although there was growing concern that the factors keeping a lid on inflation may not be transitory after all.

Following this week's events, the CME FedWatch Tool places the chances of a December rate hike at 82.9%, down modestly from 93.1% last week.

Industrial heavyweight General Electric (GE) had a rough showing this week, dropping 5.8%, after announcing that several of its top executives will be leaving the company. JPMorgan lowered its target price for the company to $20 from $22, which weighed on GE shares as well.

AT&T (T) was another notable laggard this week after announcing that its video subscribers declined for the third quarter in a row; the wireless giant finished with a loss of 7.5%.

On a positive note, the world's largest retailer--Wal-Mart (WMT)--jumped 9.7% this week after announcing a new return service that will allow its customers to return items they purchased online or in the store in under 30 seconds. Wal-Mart's brick-and-mortar locations potentially give the company an advantage over internet-based names like Amazon (AMZN) in the area of returns.

Wal-Mart's positive performance helped the S&P 500's consumer staples sector (+1.5%) settle alongside the technology (+1.3%), utilities (+1.3%), and real estate (+1.8%) groups at the top of the sector standings. On the flip side, the telecom services sector was by far the weakest performer--thanks mostly to AT&T--finishing with a loss of 4.6%.

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InvestmentHouse - Earnings Season Just Getting Started (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- SOX posts a solid week while the large caps trend slightly higher, small
and midcaps finish up their tests.
- Bank earnings disappoint for the most part, but don't take the financials
out of the upside picture.
- Fed inflation 'mystery' even as inflation is all around it. The solution:
tax reform, healthcare reform to get true growth and stop distorting our
labor and investment markets, not to mention killing the middle class.
- Leaders still look very good and there are plenty of stocks set up to move
higher.
- Earnings season just getting started, still looks to be time to continue
higher.

The week was one that saw SOX post some nice gains but for the rest of the
market it was mostly a series of modest gains and even more modest losses
that kept the trends higher. Some days started softer, some started upside,
but none could really yield strong gains. In the end, the trends held but
the momentum in the large cap indices definitely slowed.

SP500 2.24, 0.09%
NASDAQ 14.29, 0.22%
DJ30 30.71, 0.13%
SP400 -0.05%
RUTX -0.17%
SOX -0.67%


Many leaders, however, continued showing excellent strength as smaller
biotechs and drugs were still great, software was strong again, some retail
posted great gains, chemicals started to rally. Banks started reporting
earnings, and while the stock action was not necessarily great, they left
themselves in position to return to the upside.

Thus, while the overall momentum of the move is slowing, there is still
plenty of leadership that is moving and that continues to set up to continue
moving. Last week we discussed how stocks rallying into earnings often
continue the move during the initial phase if the results are good. The
results were not all that great from the banks, but the stock indices still
held the trends with modest net gains.

Perhaps some good earnings this week can result in some renewed upside from
the rest of the market. Even then, you still have to view this as a market
that has rallied nicely and has lost some momentum -- at least for the large
cap indices. RUTX has put in a nice 2 week test of the 10 day EMA while
SP400 midcaps moved laterally in a tight range. They are set to continue
the move from the look of their consolidation, and that makes sense: they
led the last leg higher, started to test, and the large cap indices started
upside.

Now they are rested after the large caps made their move. Perhaps time for
some rotation back to the smaller caps while the large caps take a breather.
They certainly have some very nice play setups to aide in an upside move.


NEWS/ECONOMY

The news on the week saw mostly mixed data. Actual data was not so great
while sentiment data was again strong.

It also saw the Fed confused by the 'mystery' of low inflation. Well, here
is even more of a mystery: inflation is NOT low. As discussed earlier in
the week, inflation is showing up everywhere except in price increases.
There is 'hidden' inflation everywhere, most predominant in the portions,
amounts, reduced materials, etc. We have known for years that producers and
sellers felt they could not raise prices for fear of losing market share.
So, they kept prices more or less in line while 'raising' them by the other
means cited.

It seems incomprehensible that the Federal Reserve, stacked with ivory tower
economists, would not know this. But of COURSE they do. It is a fiction.
They know they have to get rates higher, and even if 'prices' remain low via
what is charged, they are going to hike.

I really don't have a problem with that; there is inflation in other areas
as discussed. The problem is, there needs to be tax reform to get the
economy really producing and moving versus the subterfuge of pricing. The
ACA needs to be removed to eliminate the strangulation of small businesses,
the distortion of our labor market into millions more sub-29 hour per week
hourly jobs, and to actually get healthcare back to where you can get a good
policy at a decent price.

I cannot understand the fight to preserve a system that has quadrupled and
more premium prices and done the same with deductibles. The statistic of
'coverage' is a red herring: you can be covered because you are forced to
buy a policy, but then have no money left over to go to the doctor and pay
your deductible. Yes there are subsidies for the poorest, but none of the
middle class, or more rightly put, the former middle class, can qualify for
subsidies.

So, you have coverage on paper but in reality these people are basically
uninsured. It reminds me of an old joke: a boy asks his father for help on
his homework. "what is the difference between in theory and in reality?"
the son asks. The father says, "go ask your mother if she would sleep with
a man for a million dollars" and come back and tell me what she said. The
son does, and his mother says "well, it would be wrong, but we could pay off
the house, pay for you kids' college, and have a retirement. If there were
no strings attached, yes I would." The son reports her answer and the
father says "now go ask your sister the same question." The sister responds
"yes I would" without hesitation or any of the other conditions the mother
placed on the deal. The son reports her answer to the father. The father
says "So, here is the difference: in theory we have $2 million; in reality
we live with two concubines."


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SOX: Market leader last week, breaking to a series of new post-2000 highs,
indeed 10 of the last 11 sessions. Solid gains Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Friday. Okay, good moves and now up three weeks straight in a 45 degree
rise above the 10 day EMA. Perhaps a bit overbought near term as in this
series of rallies SOX typically rallies approximately 3 weeks before needing
a test.

RUTX: Excellent 2 week test back near the 10 day EMA after that mid-August
to early October surge. Amazing move, excellent test. Small caps could be
ready to move back upside next as the large cap indices take a breather.

SP400: The midcaps don't have the textbook test of the 10 day EMA a la
RUTX, but they also have rested, refusing to give up any ground in its 6
session tight lateral test. The 10 day EMA is now just below the
consolidation, and that often continues the move higher.

DJ30: Nice steady trend higher on the week with upside days and minor
downside. Climbing the 10 day EMA with good volume. Now up 5 weeks on this
move and that is extended for the Dow in these rallies. It is getting help
from the DJ20 transports as they broke to a new high Thursday. Gave it up
Friday, but right there.

SP500: Slight trend higher on the week as well, the 10 day EMA catching up
with the move. SP500 broke higher to start September, moving off the 50 day
MA, then tested in a lateral move through late September. Then a new break
higher and rally that took it through the 2007 upper trendline. Nice move,
now testing again. Not necessarily that overextended.

NASDAQ: Similar to SP500, NASDAQ came off the 50 day MA in late September
versus early that month, and it rallied into the prior Friday. Last week it
continued trending higher just over the 10 day EMA though at a much slower
pace. Trying to consolidate while holding the gains. Not sure it can, but
not as extended as DJ30.


Leadership

Software: Not as great a day Friday, but Thursday saw some good moves
upside from GLUU, CRM, VMW, MSFT and others. Looking at COUP as a new play
this week.

Biotechs/Drugs: Some great moves from INFI, IDRA, CNIT, BIIB. Decent
action from others, e.g. ARRY. Not all were great, e.g. BLRX, CNAT, but
there are some great setups we are looking at this weekend.

Semiconductors: A decent to very good week. AMD, AMAT, LRCX, ON, BRKS
showing very solid action. SMTC, SIMO, ADI, SLAB -- all solid. Lots of
strength.

China stocks: Mixed but started upside late week. They run hot and cold --
guess you call that volatile. SOHU exploded higher Friday and we banked
some strong gain. YY trended higher then broke higher Friday. BZUN finally
started upside again Friday. BIDU solid. CTRP looking decent but needs
more volume. BABA is testing the 20 day EMA on stronger volume. WUBA is
interesting.

Retail: Some great moves, e.g. TGT working well for us, WMT the cream of
the class. KORS trying to break out from a consolidation. HD in a nice 10
day EMA test. Not all are great: COST languishing after gapping lower.
JWN, M, DDS down. WSM gapped lower on results but is posting a nice
rebound.

FAANG: Decent just not inspired -- in most cases. FB up to the early
September top of its 3 month lateral range. AMZN breaking higher late week;
we will see if we can get in early week on a test. AAPL still below the 50
day MA. NFLX tested the 10 day EMA, trying to break higher again ahead of
earnings. GOOG posted a great week for us, rallying up the 10 day EMA.


Miscellaneous: Chemicals were great, e.g. CF, AGU. SQ continues a strong
move. NAK surged off the 200 day SMA.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +30.71 points (+0.13%) to close at 22871.72

Nasdaq
Stats: +14.29 points (+0.22%) to close at 6605.80
Volume: 1.76B (-12.44%)

Up Volume: 888.95M (-32.3M)
Down Volume: 831M (-219M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.08 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.38 to 1

New Highs: 237 (+14)
New Lows: 47 (+6)

S&P
Stats: +2.24 points (+0.09%) to close at 2553.17
NYSE Volume: 768M (-2.51%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.46 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.11 to 1

New Highs: 264 (+42)
New Lows: 30 (-2)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 9.61; -0.30
VXN: 13.97; -0.36
VXO: 7.57; -0.48

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.85; -0.20


Bulls and Bears: Whoa, a big spike in bulls continues, moving over the 60
level with bears dropping like a rock. Getting very bullish, indeed too
bullish.

Bulls: 60.4 versus 57.5

Bears: 15.1 versus 17.0

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.


Bulls: 60.4 versus 57.5
57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1 versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1
versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0 versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0
versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5 versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00
versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7 versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9
versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5 versus 56.7 versus 53.4 versus 57.7
versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8 versus 62.7 versus 61.8 versus 58.2
versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2 versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6
versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6 versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7
versus 47.1 versus 42.9 versus 46.1 versus 46.7 versus 45.2

Bears: 15.1 versus 17.0
17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2 versus 19.1 versus 19.1 versus 18.3
versus 18.1 versus 17.0 versus 16.2 versus 16.5 versus 16.7 versus 18.6
versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 19.2 versus 18.3 versus 17.1
versus 17.3 versus 17.9 versus 17.9 versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3
versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus 13.75 versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5
versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus 17.6 versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3
versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6 versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3
versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7 versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8
versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1 versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.275% versus 2.321%. Bonds rallied all week on the economic data
and the belief the Fed may not be able to hike as it wants. TLT tested the
200 day SMA the prior week and rallied right back up to the 50 day MA as of
Friday.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.321%
versus 2.345% versus 2.345% versus 2.361% versus 2.348% versus 2.327% versus
2.326% versus 2.341% versus 2.339% versus 2.312% versus 2.307% versus 2.236%
versus 2.222% versus 2.253% versus 2.276% versus 2.273% versus 2.246% versus
2.234% versus 2.201% versus 2.186% versus 2.19% versus 2.167% versus 2.134%
versus 2.042% versus 2.105% versus 2.072% versus 2.166% versus 2.210% versus
2.136% versus 2.129% versus 2.175% versus 2.169% versus 2.189% versus 2.217%
versus 2.183% versus 2.197% versus 2.185%


EUR/USD: 1.1823 versus 1.1834. Euro recovered back to test the 50 day MA
after breaching it the last week of September.

Historical: 1.1834 versus 1.18662 versus 1.1813 versus 1.17460 versus
1.17352 versus 1.17100 versus 1.1754 versus 1.17676 versus 1.17315 versus
1.1812 versus 1.17817 versus 1.1746 versus 1.17852 versus 1.18540 versus
1.19476 versus 1.19420 versus 1.19420 versus 1.19954 versus 1.19436 versus
1.1918 versus 1.1874 versus 1.19706 versus 1.19551 versus 1.20379 versus
1.2025 versus 1.19258 versus 1.19143 versus 1.18621 versus 1.19131 versus
1.18938 versus 1.19731 versus 1.19678 versus 1.19212 versus 1.18 versus
1.17516 versus 1.1813 versus 1.17595 versus 1.17107 versus 1.17812 versus
1.17445 versus 1.17751 versus 1.18216 versus 1.17652 versus 1.17596 versus
1.17619 versus 1.17975 versus 1.1774 versus 1.18718 versus 1.18457 versus
1.18072 versus 1.18281 versus 1.18293 versus 1.1683 versus 1.17419 versus
1.1646 versus 1.1637 versus 1.16640 versus 1.16271 versus 1.15280 versus
1.15549 versus 1.14735


USD/JPY: 111.852 versus 112.25. Dollar faded toward the 200 day SMA all
week as the data suggests the Fed might not be so tough as it says it will
be.

Historical: 112.25 versus 112.413 versus 112.41 versus 112.700 versus
112.653 versus 112.818 versus 112.79 versus 112.667 versus 112.716 versus
112.442 versus 112.86 versus 112.289 versus 111.649 versus 1.12125 versus
111.995 versus 112.454 versus 111.559 versus 111.435 versus 110.846 versus
110.01 versus 110.62 versus 110.216 versus 109.434 versus 107.847 versus
108.444 versus 109.132 versus 108.747 versus 110.254 versus 110.049 versus
110.289 versus 109.652 versus 108.04 versus 109.160 versus 109.573 versus
109.195 versus 109.648 versus 109.173 versus 109.205 versus 109.333 versus
109.842 versus 110.6621 versus 109.927 versus 109.183 versus 109.177 versus
110.03 versus 109.09 versus 110.09 versus 110.757 versus 110.689 versus
109.963 versus 110.717 versus 110.368 versus 110.28 versus 110.704 versus
111.07 versus 111.166 versus 111.897 versus 111.176


Oil: 51.45, +0.85. Oil held the 200 day SMA test and rebounded Tuesday and
again Friday. Still looks as if this higher low could break it out of its
range.


Gold: 1304.60, +8.10. Gold rallied on the week and then broke back up
through the 50 day MA on Friday. It too doubts the Fed.


MONDAY

Earnings are taking over the headlines as the banks started the show and now
the floodgates open. The initial response was not great as the banks
faded -- for the most part. The question is whether the market has room for
more upside on some good earnings after the gains in DJ30, SOX and to a
lesser extent, NASDAQ and SP500.

As noted before the real question is whether RUTX and SP400, after their
tests, are ready to take up leadership again and move back upside, getting
money pushed their way, as the large cap indices take a break after their
move up that started as RUTX and SP400 started to take a breather.

We think that could be the case. There are plenty of setups in the group,
and they could provide another good leg higher over the next couple of weeks
even if the market decides to cap out the move at that point. That is what
I discussed last week: the continued rally at the first weeks of earnings
that then stalls. With the patterns we see there are still very good setups
to play that move and still make money before a stall.

Thus, we still believe the move could top out once the earnings saturation
comes, typically 2 or so weeks in once the big names start announcing, but
there are also great setups to play during that time as well as letting
positions work and banking gain as it comes. We did a lot of that last
week, particularly with the October expiration coming up this week.

Therefore, we intend to play good moves upside because there are so many
good stocks making good moves and in prime position to continue or start a
move. Yes, as noted last week some can get left at the altar when the move
runs out of steam, but the scenario we are playing allows for some more
upside before that occurs.

Have a great weekend!



SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6605.80

Resistance:
More new highs

Support:
6477 is the September intraday high
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high
6450 is the early September high
The 50 day EMA at 6433
The 2016 trendline at 6366
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6205 is the late May all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 6079
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows
5661 is the late January upper gap point
5601 is the January lower gap point


S&P 500: Closed at 2553.17

Resistance:
New highs again

Support:
2519 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel
The 50 day EMA at 2498
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
The 200 day SMA at 2403
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the recent May 2017 low
2348 is the April 2017 lower gap point
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high


Dow: Closed at 22,871.72

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 22,740
22,420 is the September high
The 50 day EMA at 22,241
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high
The 200 day SMA at 21,170
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high
20,547 is the lower gap point from late April 2017
20,412 is the March 2017 low
20,400 is the mid-April 2017 low.
20,126 is the January 2017 intraday high
20,101 is the late January closing high.
19,994 - 19,999 (early January high, upper gap point from late January
19750 is the lows of the December/January range
19,732 is the January 2017 low
18,669 is the August 2016 all-time high
18,595 is the July 2016 peak
18,351 is the prior all-time high from May 2015

[ReturntoSender]

Kicking Off the Week on a Positive Note
16-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +85.24 at 22956.96, Nasdaq +18.20 at 6624.00, S&P +4.47 at 2557.64
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/16/kicking-off-the-week-on-a-positive-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The U.S. equity market started the week on a positive note as all three major indices--the S&P 500 (+0.2%), the Nasdaq (+0.3%), and the Dow (+0.4%)--finished Monday's session at new record highs. Half way through the month of October, the S&P 500 holds a month-to-date gain of 1.5%.

Financial stocks within the S&P 500 climbed 0.6% on Monday, bouncing back from last Thursday's modest post-earnings decline. JPMorgan Chase (JPM 97.84, +1.98) and Bank of America (BAC 26.24, +0.41) were among the strongest financial components, climbing 2.1% and 1.6%, respectively, followed closely by Goldman Sachs (GS 242.41, +3.88), which will report earnings on Tuesday morning.

Telecoms also retraced a portion of last week's losses in the first session of the week--albeit a relatively small portion. The S&P 500's lightest sector by weight added 0.8% on Monday, but that advance barely dented the group's October loss, which currently sits at 5.0%. AT&T (T 36.17, +0.47) had a good session, climbing 1.3%.

On the flip side, the influential health care sector started the week on the back foot, dropping 0.4%. The group opened in positive territory, but eventually slid into the red after President Trump reiterated his belief that drug prices are "out of control." Allergan (AGN 198.41, -7.11) showed particular weakness, losing 3.5%, after a U.S. judge invalidated patents on the company's dry-eye medication Restasis.

Like health care, transportation stocks also tumbled, sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average lower by 0.8%. Railroad giant CSX (CSX 52.84, +0.01) finished flat, however, ahead of its Tuesday morning earnings release. The S&P 500's industrial sector, which houses transports, added 0.2%.

Retailers underperformed on Monday, evidenced by the 0.7% decline in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 39.73, -0.27). High-end department store retailer Nordstrom (JWN 40.40, -2.25) was hit particularly hard after the Nordstrom family announced that it is suspending efforts to take the company private until after the holiday season. JWN shares lost 5.3%.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 0.8% to $51.86 per barrel amid a conflict between Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Afternoon reports indicated that the Iraqi army has taken full control of the city. The energy sector, which typically moves in tandem with the price of crude oil, finished higher by 0.2%.

U.S. Treasuries were weak from the start of the session and extended their losses in the afternoon after Bloomberg reported President Trump was impressed with John Taylor's interview for the potential Fed Chair vacancy. Mr. Taylor is an economist at Stanford University and is thought to be more hawkish than some of the other candidates in the running.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed three basis points to 2.31% while the 2-year yield jumped four basis points to 1.54%.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the October Empire State Manufacturing Survey:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for October rose to 30.2 from the prior month's reading of 24.4. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 21.0.

On Tuesday, investors will receive several economic reports, including September Import/Export Prices at 8:30 ET, September Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 76.1%) at 9:15 ET, and the October NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 64) at 10:00 ET.

Also, a host of notable companies in addition to Goldman Sachs and CSX will report their quarterly results on Tuesday morning, including UnitedHealth (UNH 192.20, +0.68), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 136.12, -0.31), and Morgan Stanley (MS 48.94, +0.64), among several others.

Nasdaq Composite +23.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.2% YTD
S&P 500 +14.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.7% YTD

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Health Care Rally Fuels Another Slim Victory
17-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +40.48 at 22997.44, Nasdaq -0.35 at 6623.65, S&P +1.72 at 2559.36
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/17/health-care-rally-fuels-another-slim-victory-.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks ticked higher for the third session in a row on Tuesday as investors digested another round of earnings. The Dow (+0.2%) traded above the 23,000 mark for the first time in history and eventually settled at a new all-time high. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) also eked out a new record close, while the Nasdaq (unch) came up just short, finishing a tick beneath its unchanged mark.

Health care stocks rallied on Tuesday, led by Dow component UnitedHealth (UNH 203.89, +10.69), which surged 5.5% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and raising its earnings guidance slightly. The advance marked the company's largest one-day price gain since it went public 33 years ago and left UNH shares at a new all-time high.

UnitedHealth is one of the priciest--and therefore one of the most influential--components within the price-weighted Dow and had much to do with the industrial average's relatively positive Tuesday performance. Fellow health care heavyweight and Dow component Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 140.79, +4.67) also underpinned the blue-chip average, adding 3.4% on above-consensus earnings and revenues.

Naturally, the S&P 500's health care sector (+1.3%) finished at the top of the day's sector standings, followed from a distance by the utilities (+0.6%), telecom services (+0.2%), and energy (+0.1%) groups. Most of the seven remaining sectors finished in negative territory, but losses were pretty modest. For instance, the financial sector was the weakest group with a loss of 0.6%.

Financial heavyweights Goldman Sachs (GS 236.09, -6.32) and Morgan Stanley (MS 49.12, +0.18) delivered impressive earnings reports on Tuesday, with both companies surpassing top and bottom line estimates, but Goldman dropped 2.6% nonetheless. Morgan Stanley added more than 2.0% in the opening minutes, but eventually trimmed that gain to 0.4% by the closing bell.

Meanwhile, Netflix (NFLX 199.48, -3.20) retreated from record highs after reporting below-consensus earnings on Monday evening. However, the on-demand entertainment provider did add nearly a million more subscribers than expected in the third quarter. NFLX shares ended Tuesday lower by 1.6%.

U.S. Treasuries settled mostly higher on Tuesday, with longer-dated issues exhibiting relative strength. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped one basis point to 2.30% while the 2-yr yield finished unchanged at 1.54%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.4% to 93.37--closing at a one-week high.

Reviewing Tuesday's batch of economic data, which included September Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, September Import/Export Prices, and the October NAHB Housing Market Index:

Industrial Production increased 0.3% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), while the August reading was revised to -0.7% (from -0.9%). Capacity Utilization rose to 76.0% (Briefing.com consensus 76.1%) from a revised reading of 75.8% in August (from 76.1%).
The key takeaway from the report is that total production in September was held down by the continued effects of Hurricane Harvey and, to a lesser extent, the effects of Hurricane Irma, which combined lowered industrial production growth by 1/4 percentage point.
Import prices excluding oil rose 0.3% in September after increasing 0.3% in August. Export prices excluding agriculture increased 1.0% in September after rising a revised 0.8% in August (from 0.7%).
The key takeaway is that these price trends will validate the prevailing belief that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise the fed funds rate at its December meeting.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for October rose to 68 (Briefing.com consensus 64) from an unrevised reading of 64 in September.

On Wednesday, investors will receive just two pieces of economic data--the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and September Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1160K). The two reports will cross the wires at 7:00 ET and 8:30 ET, respectively.

As for earnings, Abbott Labs (ABT 55.06, +0.43) and U.S. Bancorp (USB 53.88, -0.38) are the most notable names on Wednesday morning's docket.

Nasdaq Composite +23.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.4% YTD
S&P 500 +14.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.3% YTD

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Financial and Technology Stocks Power Another Record Finish
18-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +160.16 at 23157.60, Nasdaq +0.56 at 6624.21, S&P +1.90 at 2561.26
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/18/financial-and-technology-stocks-power-another-record-finish.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market notched another record high on Wednesday, with financial and technology stocks pacing the advance. The Dow added 0.7% and finished comfortably ahead of both the S&P 500 (+0.1%) and the Nasdaq (unch), thanks in large part to IBM (IBM 159.53, +12.99), which climbed 8.9% in reaction to its better-than-expected earnings report. The small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.5%) showed relative strength, but, unlike the other indices, it did not finish at a new record high.

Trading ranges were narrow on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 sporting a gain between 0.01% and 0.19% from start to finish.

Goldman Sachs (GS 242.03, +5.94) retraced just about all of its Tuesday decline in the midweek session, surging higher by 2.5% and helping the S&P 500's financial sector (+0.6%) finish at the top of the sector standings. As a reminder, Goldman reported above-consensus earnings and revenues on Tuesday morning, but plunged to a fresh October low nonetheless. Morgan Stanley (MS 50.15, +1.03) also had a belated earnings rally, jumping 2.1%.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%) started Wednesday's session little changed, but strengthened over the course of the day, eventually settling near the top of the leaderboard. Within the group, IBM was by far the top performer after exceeding profit and sales expectations. However, the sector's top component by market cap--Apple (AAPL 159.76, -0.71)--held gains in check, losing 0.4%.

Only two other sectors finished in positive territory--health care (+0.2%) and industrials (+0.1%). Transports helped the industrial space, evidenced by the 0.8% increase in the Dow Jones Transportation Average, while health care leaned on names like AbbVie (ABBV 96.04, +3.87) and Anthem (ANTM 191.79, +4.53), which added 4.2% and 2.4%, respectively. Anthem announced that it plans to partner with CVS Health (CVS 74.10, +1.47) to launch its own pharmacy benefit manager after its current contract with Express Scripts (ESRX 57.77, +0.56) ends in 2020.

On the flip side, the telecom services (-0.6%) and energy (-0.7%) sectors fell amid broad weakness, finishing at the very bottom of the sector standings. Within the energy group, Chevron (CVX 118.15, -2.07) exhibited particular weakness after both Societe Generale and BMO Capital Markets downgraded the Dow component on Wednesday morning. CVX shares lost 1.7%.

WTI crude futures climbed 0.3% to $52.04 per barrel after the Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. crude stockpiles declined by 5.7 million barrels last week; the consensus estimate called for a draw of 3.3 million barrels. However, gasoline inventories increased by 0.9 million barrels, possibly signaling a downtick in demand.

U.S. Treasuries ended the midweek session on a lower note with longer-dated issues pacing the decline. The benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, climbed four basis points to 2.34%. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield jumped two basis points to 1.56%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included September Housing Starts, the Fed's Beige Book for October, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.127 million units in September (Briefing.com consensus 1.160 million), down from a revised 1.183 million units in August (from 1.180 million). Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.215 million in September (Briefing.com consensus 1.225 million) from a revised 1.272 million in August (from 1.300 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the weakness in starts and permits was concentrated in the South region, which suffered the biggest hit from the hurricanes, so one could reasonably assume that the October report will show better results.
The Fed's Beige Book for October showed that economic activity increased at a modest to moderate pace in all 12 of the Federal Reserve Districts in September through early October. The Richmond, Atlanta, and Dallas Districts reported major disruptions related to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Many Districts noted that employers were having difficulty finding qualified workers, but the shortage in labor had little effect on wages.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 3.6% to follow last week's 2.1% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive both the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 236K) and the Philadelphia Fed Index for October (Briefing.com consensus 20) at 8:30 ET. The third and last economic report--the Conference Board Leading Economic Index for September (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%)--will be released at 10:00 ET.

As for earnings, Verizon (VZ 48.65, +0.25), Philip Morris (PM 112.51, -0.14), and Travelers (TRV 130.02, +1.37) are scheduled to report on Thursday morning.

Nasdaq Composite +23.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.2% YTD
S&P 500 +14.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.9% YTD

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Winning Streak Comes to an End
23-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow -54.67 at 23273.96, Nasdaq -42.23 at 6586.82, S&P -10.23 at 2564.98
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/23/winning-streak-comes-to-an-end.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks moved lower on Monday, ending a week-long stretch of record finishes. The major indices kept near their flat lines throughout the morning, but tumbled to new lows in the afternoon. The S&P 500 lost 0.4%, while the Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 underperformed, losing 0.6% and 0.8%, respectively. The Dow finished ahead of its peers, but still lost 0.2%.

Earnings season took somewhat of a breather on Monday, but will pick back up Tuesday morning with releases from McDonald's (MCD 163.34, -2.96), 3M (MMM 221.55, +0.23), Caterpillar (CAT 131.68, +0.32), and United Technologies (UTX 120.89, -0.04)--in addition to many other heavyweights.

Still, there were several notable post-earnings movers on Monday, including V.F. Corp (VFC 69.95, +3.57), Seagate Tech (STX 39.35, +4.41), and Hasbro (HAS 89.75, -8.44).

V.F. Corp--which owns apparel brands like Wrangler and The North Face--and disk-drive maker Seagate Tech soared 5.4% and 12.6%, respectively, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues. Conversely, toymaker Hasbro plunged 8.6% after issuing disappointing sales guidance for the holiday season, which overshadowed the company's above-consensus earnings.

Outside of earnings, industrial giant General Electric (GE 22.32, -1.51) dropped 6.3% after both Morgan Stanley and UBS downgraded GE shares on the heels of Friday's underwhelming earnings report. The S&P 500's industrial sector declined by 0.8%, settling alongside the consumer discretionary (-0.7%) and telecom services (-1.0%) groups at the bottom of the sector standings.

Within the consumer discretionary space, Under Armour (UAA 16.85, -0.63) exhibited particular weakness, losing 3.6%, after the Wall Street Journal reported that co-founder Kip Fulks is taking a sabbatical and that the sportswear manufacturer is considering exiting small sports categories such as tennis and fishing.

On a positive note, the heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.1%) held up relatively well, finishing near the top of the day's leaderboard. The countercyclical consumer staples (-0.1%) and utilities (+0.1%) sectors also put together a relatively positive showing. Following Monday's slim victory, the utilities space leads all other groups for the month of October with a month-to-date gain of 3.5%.

Elsewhere, European equities ticked higher on Monday, evidenced by the Euro Stoxx 50 index, which added 0.1%. However, Spain's IBEX (-0.8%) underperformed after Prime Minster Mariano Rajoy invoked Article 155 of Spain's constitution, which allows the central government to take control of the Catalonia region following its vote in favor of independence.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei rose 1.1% on Monday, marking its 15th consecutive advance--and longest-ever winning streak--after the LDP/Komeito coalition kept its super majority following a national election over the weekend. As a result, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will likely serve another three-year term.

There wasn't much movement in the U.S. Treasury market on Monday, with the benchmark 10-yr yield finishing unchanged at 2.38%. Shorter-dated issues showed relative weakness, sending the 2-yr yield one basis point higher to 1.58%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index jumped 0.2% to 93.75.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday, and Tuesday's economic calendar is also blank.

Nasdaq Composite +22.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.8% YTD
S&P 500 +14.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.3% YTD

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Caterpillar, 3M Earnings Boost Dow to Record High
24-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +167.80 at 23441.76, Nasdaq +11.60 at 6598.42, S&P +4.15 at 2569.13

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/24/caterpillar-3m-earnings-boost-dow-to-record-high.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market crept higher on Tuesday, notching its first win of the week, following a largely solid batch of third quarter earnings. Caterpillar (CAT 138.24, +6.56) and 3M (MMM 234.65, +13.10) pushed the Dow (+0.7%) to a new record high after reporting particularly strong Q3 results, while the S&P 500 (+0.2%) and the Nasdaq (+0.2%) finished with more modest gains.

Caterpillar and 3M both reported stronger-than-expected earnings and revenues on Tuesday morning and raised their guidance for fiscal year 2017. The two industrial giants climbed 5.0% and 5.9%, respectively, helping the S&P 500's industrial sector (+0.5%) settle near the top of the sector standings.

However, fellow industrial giant--and Dow component--United Technologies (UTX 119.74, -1.15) tumbled 1.0%, despite beating third quarter profit estimates.

The lightly-weighted materials sector (+0.6%) finished roughly in line with the industrial space, but the heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.7%) did even better, making the most of a curve-steepening trade in the bond market. Treasuries finished mixed, with the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbing three basis points to 2.41%, while the 2-yr yield slipped one basis point to 1.57%.

McDonald's (MCD 163.88, +0.54) advanced 0.3% on Tuesday, even though its third quarter earnings fell short of expectations. The opposite was true for health care giants Eli Lilly (LLY 85.17, -2.01) and Biogen (BIIB 315.73, -12.82), which tumbled 2.3% and 3.9%, respectively, despite reporting stronger-than-expected earnings and revenues.

The health care sector (-0.7%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings, alongside other countercyclical groups like consumer staples (-0.3%) and telecom services (-0.6%). In general, cyclical sectors outperformed their countercyclical peers on Tuesday, signaling an increased appetite for risk among investors.

In Washington, Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) announced that he will not run for re-election in 2018. Mr. Flake has been a critic of President Trump and will be a Senator to watch as he now seemingly has fewer political consequences if he decides to vote against Republican legislation. The GOP holds just a two-seat majority in the Senate.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Tuesday.

However, on Wednesday, market participants will receive several economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, September Durable Orders (Briefing.com consensus 1.3%) at 8:30 ET, the August FHFA Housing Price Index (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) at 9:00 ET, and September New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 555K) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +22.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.6% YTD
S&P 500 +14.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.6% YTD

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Wall Street Registers Second Loss of the Week
25-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow -112.30 at 23329.46, Nasdaq -34.54 at 6563.88, S&P -11.98 at 2557.15

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/25/wall-street-registers-second-loss-of-the-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks declined for the second time in three sessions on Wednesday, but an afternoon rally left the major indices a ways above their session lows. The Dow (-0.5%) and the Nasdaq (-0.5%) finished roughly in line with the S&P 500, which lost 0.5%. The benchmark index traded within a wide range, holding a loss between 0.1% and 1.0% throughout the session.

The S&P 500's telecom services sector led the retreat, finishing with a loss of 2.3%, after AT&T (T 33.49, -1.37) reported worse-than-expected earnings and revenues for the third quarter; AT&T shares lost 3.9%. Industrials also showed relative weakness, losing 1.0%. Within the group, Boeing (BA 258.42, -7.58) was among the weakest performers, shedding 2.9%, despite beating profit estimates.

As for the other sectors, most finished roughly in line with the broader market. The top-weighted technology space (-0.3%) outperformed slightly, thanks in part to Visa (V 109.49, +1.08), which added 1.0% on better-than-expected earnings and revenues. Alphabet (GOOGL 991.46, +2.97) also showed relative strength ahead of Thursday evening's earnings release.

However, the tech sector's semiconductor components struggled after Advanced Micro (AMD 12.33, -1.92) forecasted a decline in revenue for the fourth quarter. The PHLX Semiconductor Index dropped 1.3%, while AMD shares plunged 13.5%.

Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 277.01, -47.29) also dropped significantly on Wednesday, losing 14.6%, after posting a big miss on earnings and lowering its comparable sales guidance. However, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.4%) still beat the broader market, thanks in large part to Nike (NKE 54.94, +1.52), which jumped 2.9% after providing a solid five-year outlook at its investor day.

Dow component Coca-Cola (KO 46.05, -0.13) also reported earnings on Wednesday, beating both top and bottom line estimates, but slipped 0.3% nonetheless.

U.S. Treasuries ended on a lower note, sending yields higher across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed four basis points to 2.44%. Speculation that Stanford University economist John Taylor, who is considered relatively hawkish, is likely to become the next Fed Chair helped fuel the sell off.

Reviewing Wednesday's batch of economic data, which included September New Home Sales, September Durable Orders, the August FHFA Housing Price Index, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

New Home Sales in September hit an annualized rate of 667,000, which is above the revised August rate of 561,000 (from 560,000), and higher than the Briefing.com consensus of 555,000.
The key takeaway from the report is that the sales increases were broad-based, underscoring the point that the rebound in new home sales, which are counted when a contract is signed, was not just a function of a rebound from the depressed activity in the South due to the hurricanes.
September durable goods orders rose 2.2%, which is more than the 1.3% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to +2.0% (from +1.7%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.7% (from +0.2%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it is hard data that corroborates the upbeat readings in the soft manufacturing surveys; moreover, it is going to lead to stronger Q3 GDP forecasts given the 0.7% increase in shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, which followed an upwardly revised 1.2% increase (from +0.7%) for August.
The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.7% in August (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), while the July reading was revised to 0.4% from 0.2%.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 4.6% to follow last week's 3.6% increase.

On Thursday, investors will receive just two economic reports--weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 235K) and September Pending Home Sales. The two pieces of data will cross the wires at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +21.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.1% YTD
S&P 500 +14.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.1% YTD

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Trimming Losses
26-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +71.40 at 23400.86, Nasdaq -7.12 at 6556.76, S&P +3.25 at 2560.40
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/26/trimming-losses.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The U.S. equity market claimed a modest victory on Thursday, trimming its loss for the week. Stocks trended sideways for much of the session, but slipped in the final stretch to leave the major indices near the bottom of their narrow trading ranges. The Dow and the S&P 500 added 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 0.1%. The S&P 500 will enter Friday's session with a week-to-date loss of 0.6%.

Investors received another largely positive batch of earnings overnight, with most companies topping expectations. Twitter (TWTR 20.31, +3.17) was one of the most notable post-earnings advancers, rallying 18.5%, after beating earnings estimates and announcing that it could post its first profit ever in the fourth quarter. Similarly, Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD 120.95, +19.80) soared 19.6% after blowing past profit estimates and raising its earnings guidance for the fiscal year.

Materials showed particular strength on Thursday, sending the S&P 500's materials sector (+1.4%) to the top of the sector standings. Within the group, DowDuPont (DWDP 73.05, +1.96) was among the strongest components, adding 2.8%, after providing upbeat preliminary earnings figures ahead of next week's earnings release.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.6%) also outperformed, helped by the House's vote to pass a budget for fiscal year 2018--the same budget that the Senate passed last week. The budget approval was seen as an important step in the GOP's tax overhaul effort as it allows Republicans to pass a tax reform bill under the reconciliation process, which requires only a simple majority in the Senate vs the typical 60-vote threshold.

While the broader market moved higher on Thursday, the S&P 500's health care sector (-1.0%) struggled from start to finish, keeping the benchmark index's gain in check. Within the group, Celgene (CELG 99.99, -19.57) plunged 16.4% after missing revenue estimates for the third quarter and lowering its 2020 long-term financial targets. The larger biotech industry moved in tandem with Celgene, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 313.98, -7.47) lower by 2.3%.

On a related note, pharmacy names like Walgreens Boot Alliance (WBA 67.11, -2.25) and CVS Health (CVS 73.31, -2.22) dropped 3.2% and 2.9%, respectively, after President Trump declared the nation's opioid crisis a national public health emergency. Reports that Amazon (AMZN 972.43, -0.48) has obtained pharmacy licenses across several states also weighed on retail pharmacy shares.

Also, manged health care giant Aetna (AET 178.60, +18.48) spiked 11.5% in the final minutes of Thursday's session following reports that CVS might be interested in the company.

Elsewhere, the European Central Bank decided to leave interest rates unchanged and announced that it expects to lower its monthly asset purchases to EUR 30 billion from EUR 60 billion in January, as expected. That pace of purchases is expected to continue until at least the end of September 2018.

The euro tumbled 1.4% against the U.S. Dollar to 1.1650 following the ECB's announcement, hitting its lowest level since late July.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended Thursday on a lower note, with shorter-dated issues showing relative weakness. The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.45%, while the 2-yr yield jumped three basis points to 1.63%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included weekly Initial Claims, September Pending Home Sales, the Advance report for International Trade in Goods for September, and the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for September:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 233,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 235,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 223,000 (from 222,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.893 million from the revised count of 1.896 million (from 1.888 million).
Claims taking procedures continued to be disrupted in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, yet the underlying message in the initial claims data is that it is consistent with a tight labor market.
Pending Home Sales were unchanged in September (0.0%). Today's reading follows an revised 2.8% decrease in August (from -2.6%).
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for September showed a deficit of $64.1 billion, up from a deficit of $63.3 billion in August.
The Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for September showed an increase of 0.3%. The prior month's reading was revised to +0.8% from +0.9%.

On Friday, investors will receive the advance third quarter GDP report (Briefing.com consensus 2.4%) and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October (Briefing.com consensus 101.0). The two reports will cross the wires at 8:30 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +21.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.4% YTD
S&P 500 +14.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.3% YTD

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Tech Rally Leaves Stocks With Yet Another Weekly Gain
27-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +33.33 at 23434.19, Nasdaq +144.49 at 6701.25, S&P +20.67 at 2581.07

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/27/tech-rally-leaves-stocks-with-yet-another-weekly-gain.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Facing its first weekly loss since the week ended September 8, the stock market rallied on Friday, underpinned by the latest batch of earnings, which featured impressive results from mega-cap names like Amazon (AMZN 1100.95, +128.52), Microsoft (MSFT 83.81, +5.05), and Alphabet (GOOG 1019.27, +46.71). The three companies finished at new record highs, as did the S&P 500 (+0.8%) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+2.2%). The Dow (+0.1%) also moved higher, but finished a ways behind its peers due to select underperformers.

Friday's advance carried the major indices into positive territory for the week. The Nasdaq was the top performer this week, adding 1.1%, while the Dow and the S&P 500 finished with weekly gains of 0.5% and 0.2%, respectively.

The S&P 500's technology sector easily finished Friday at the top of the sector standings, climbing 2.9%. Microsoft and Alphabet deserved much of the credit for the sector's advance, as they jumped 6.4% and 4.8%, respectively, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues. However, Intel (INTC 44.40, +3.05) also contributed--climbing 7.4%--after beating both top and bottom line estimates and raising its guidance for the fiscal year, as did fellow mega caps Apple (AAPL 163.05, +5.64) and Facebook (FB 177.88, +7.25), which added 3.6% and 4.3%, respectively.

Apple was helped not only by the positive sentiment surrounding Microsoft's and Alphabet's earnings, but also by the company's announcement that its new iPhone X sold out in a matter of minutes amid "off the charts" demand. Both Apple and Facebook will report earnings in the middle of next week.

As for Amazon, the internet retail giant surged 13.2% on better-than-expected earnings and revenues, pinning the consumer discretionary sector (+1.6%) right behind technology at the top of the leaderboard. Outside of the technology and consumer discretionary spaces, which were obviously juiced by the aforementioned companies, no group finished with a gain of more than 0.6%.

The energy sector (+0.2%) benefited from an increase in the price of crude oil, which climbed 2.4% to $53.91/bbl, but was weighed down by Chevron (CVX 113.54, -4.90), which dropped 4.1% despite reporting above-consensus earnings and revenues. On a related note, Exxon Mobil (XOM 83.71, +0.24) ticked up 0.3% after beating bottom-line estimates.

Similar to Chevron, pharmaceutical giant Merck (MRK 58.24, -3.75) dropped 6.1%, hitting a fresh 2017 low, despite beating earnings estimates and raising its guidance for the fiscal year. However, the company did come up short on revenues. The health care sector (unch) finished comfortably behind the broader market.

The consumer staples sector (-0.9%) was the weakest group on Friday, with CVS Health (CVS 68.99, -4.32) leading the retreat. The pharmacy retailer declined 5.9% following unconfirmed Thursday reports that it has made an offer to acquire managed health care company Aetna (AET 173.12, -5.48) for more than $200 per share.

Outside of the equity market, U.S. Treasuries ended the week on a higher note, trimming some of their losses from earlier in the week. The Treasury market began the day in the red, but a Bloomberg report that President Trump is leaning towards appointing Fed Governor Jerome Powell as the next Fed Chair helped turn the tide. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped three basis points to 2.42%.

Elsewhere, Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy invoked emergency powers on Friday in an attempt to restore order after Catalonia's parliament declared independence from the Spanish central government. The Catalonia people voted for independence earlier this month.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the advance third quarter GDP report and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October:

Advance third quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 3.0%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.4%.
The headline surprise was driven by the change in private inventories, which contributed 0.7 percentage points. Real final sales, which exclude the change in private inventories, decelerated to 2.3% from 2.9% in the second quarter on some soft consumer spending activity.
Granted the hurricanes created some temporary growth headwinds, but when the layers are peeled back, the key takeaway is that U.S. economic activity is proceeding largely at the same ho-hum pace, evidenced by the prior 12-quarter average of 2.4% for real final sales.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October declined to 100.7 (Briefing.com consensus 101.0) from 101.1 in the preliminary reading.
Despite the dip, the index remains at its highest monthly level since the start of 2004 and it stands above 100.0 for only the second time since the end of the record 1990's expansion.

On Monday, investors will receive September Personal Income, Personal Spending, and core PCE Prices--all of which will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +24.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.6% YTD
S&P 500 +15.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.1% YTD

Week In Review: Tech Earnings Provide Late Boost

Stocks began the week on a lower note as investors cashed in on last week's record highs, but reclaimed their losses on Friday, thanks to an impressive batch of technology earnings. The major indices finished the week in positive territory, with the Nasdaq, the Dow, and the S&P 500 adding 1.1%, 0.5%, and 0.2%, respectively. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq settled Friday at new all-time highs.

The S&P 500's technology sector (+2.9%) kept the broader market afloat with little help from its peers, easily settling at the top of the sector standings. The group was underpinned by Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG), and Intel (INTC), which added between 4.8% and 7.4% on Friday after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the third quarter.

Amazon (AMZN) also surged on Friday, jumping 13.2%, after beating both top and bottom line estimates. The company's positive performance boosted the consumer discretionary sector, which finished the week with a gain of 1.1%.

On the downside, the health care sector (-2.1%) struggled this week, with biotechnology names leading the retreat. Celgene (CELG) showed particular weakness, ending the week lower by 19.1%, after missing revenue estimates for the third quarter and lowering its 2020 long-term financial targets on Thursday.

The consumer staples sector also lagged, moving lower by 1.5%. Within the group, CVS Health (CVS) plunged 9.8% following unconfirmed reports that the pharmacy retailer has made an offer to acquire managed health care company Aetna (AET) for more than $200 per share. Aetna shares ended the week higher by 7.6%.

On the data front, the advance GDP report showed that the U.S. economy increased at annual rate of 3.0% in the third quarter (Briefing.com consensus 2.4%), marking the second straight quarter the annualized rate has been 3.0% or higher. However, the headline number was inflated by a change in inventories, while real final sales decelerated to 2.3% from 2.9% in Q2.

In other words, the U.S. economy is proceeding largely at the same ho-hum pace.

Elsewhere, speculation as to who will become the next Fed Chair continued this week, and it appears increasingly likely that current Fed Chair Janet Yellen will be replaced by either Fed Governor Jerome Powell or Stanford University economist John Taylor. Bloomberg reported on Friday that President Trump is leaning toward Mr. Powell.

Following this week's events, the CME FedWatch Tool places the chances of a December rate hike at 99.9%, up from 93.1% last week.

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Slipping From Record Highs
30-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow -85.45 at 23348.74, Nasdaq -2.30 at 6698.95, S&P -8.24 at 2572.83
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/30/slipping-from-record-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The U.S. equity market retreated from record highs on Monday as investors engaged in a little profit taking ahead of another busy week. The Nasdaq touched a new record high early in the session, but eventually settled just a tick below its flat line. The S&P 500 and the Dow finished with respective losses of 0.3% and 0.4%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed, dropping 1.2%.

After opening modestly lower, the stock market looked as if it might take a stab at another record high, but a Bloomberg report that the House is considering a gradual phase-in approach for reducing the corporate tax rate prompted a sharp, but modest, sell off. The White House later said that President Trump does not support a phase-in approach, but equities continued trending sideways at session lows.

Telecoms paced Monday's retreat after the Nikkei Asian Review reported that Sprint's (S 6.34, -0.65) parent company, SoftBank, plans to end merger talks between Sprint and T-Mobile US (TMUS 59.58, -3.37). The two wireless names moved sharply lower following the report, but pared some of their losses after CNBC's David Faber said parts of the report were untrue.

Still, the two companies finished solidly lower, dropping 9.3% and 5.4%, respectively, and the S&P 500's telecom services sector lost 1.4%.

The health care sector (-1.1%) also struggled on Monday, with Dow component Merck (MRK 54.71, -3.53) showing particular weakness. The pharmaceutical giant tumbled 6.1% after announcing on Friday that it withdrew its European application for its cancer drug Keytruda. Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and SunTrust each downgraded the company following the announcement.

On a positive note, Apple (AAPL 166.72, +3.67) climbed 2.3% to settle at a fresh record high. The tech giant has added 5.9% over the last two sessions after the company announced that demand for its new iPhone X has been "off the charts" and following upbeat earnings from fellow mega caps Amazon (AMZN 1110.85, +9.90), Microsoft (MSFT 83.89, +0.08), and Alphabet (GOOG 1017.11, -2.16).

Apple, which is the largest company in the S&P 500 by market cap, will report earnings on Thursday evening.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended Monday with solid gains, erasing their losses from last week; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped five basis points to 2.37%. News of a potential phase-in approach for reducing the corporate tax rate (as mentioned above) and another lukewarm reading for the PCE Price Index helped fuel the rally.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included September Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices:

Personal income ticked up 0.4% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following an unrevised increase of 0.2% in August. Personal spending rose 1.0% (Briefing.com consensus +0.8%), while the prior month's uptick was left unrevised at 0.1%. The PCE Price Index jumped 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the core PCE Price Index--which excludes food and energy--increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). The PCE Price Index is the Fed's preferred inflation gauge.
With the September increases, the PCE Price Index is up 1.6% year-over-year, versus up 1.4% for August, while the core PCE Price Index is up 1.3%, unchanged from August. The key takeaway is that the PCE price data won't trigger any major inflation alarm, yet it also won't be seen as persuading the Fed from raising the fed funds rate at its December meeting.

On Tuesday, investors will receive several pieces of data, including the third quarter Employment Cost Index (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) at 8:30 ET, the August S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index (Briefing.com consensus 5.9%) at 9:00 ET, the October Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 61.0) at 9:45 ET, and October Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 121.5) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +24.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.2% YTD
S&P 500 +14.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.9% YTD

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Slim Victory Leaves Nasdaq at Record High
31-Oct-17 16:30 ET
Dow +28.50 at 23377.24, Nasdaq +28.71 at 6727.66, S&P +2.43 at 2575.26

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/10/31/slim-victory-leaves-nasdaq-at-record-high.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities ticked higher on Tuesday, ending the session near their opening marks. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) outperformed both the S&P 500 (+0.1%) and the Dow (+0.1%), finishing at a new record high. Meanwhile, small caps did even better, sending the Russell 2000 higher by 0.8%.

The S&P 500's consumer staples sector (+0.8%) paced Tuesday's advance, thanks in large part to Mondelez International (MDLZ 41.43, +2.13)--the owner of brands like Oreo, Trident, and Chips Ahoy!--and Kellogg (K 62.53, +3.66)--which houses brands like Froot Loops and Pringles. The two companies jumped 5.4% and 6.2%, respectively, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues.

Within the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Intel (INTC 45.49, +1.12) was the strongest component, adding 2.5%, following a Wall Street Journal report that Apple (AAPL 169.04, +2.32) could use the chipmaker's hardware, instead of Qualcomm's (QCOM 51.01, -3.65), in future iPhones and iPads. QCOM shares moved in the opposite direction, losing 6.7%.

As a reminder, Apple and Qualcomm are currently in a legal battle, with Apple alleging that Qualcomm has unfairly used its monopoly position as a manufacturer of baseband processors.

The price of crude oil climbed on Tuesday, helping the S&P 500's energy sector (+0.4%) finish near the top of the sector standings. WTI crude futures finished the session higher by 0.4%, at a price of $54.35/bbl--which marks the commodity's best close since late February. Over the last three weeks, WTI crude has climbed more than 10.0%.

Conversely, health care stocks struggled, with Mylan (MYL 35.71, -2.53) leading the retreat. The pharmaceutical company plunged 6.6% after Bloomberg reported that executive Rajiv Malik is the target of a multi-state investigation into generic drug price collusion. Pfizer (PFE 35.06, -0.09) also underperformed, slipping 0.3%, despite reporting above-consensus third quarter earnings.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.3%) also moved lower, as did the industrials (-0.4%) and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) groups. Within the consumer discretionary space, Under Armour (UAA 12.52, -3.89) was by far the weakest performer, plunging 23.7%, after cutting its outlook for the full year and reporting its first quarterly fall in revenue since going public back in 2005.

Outside the equity market, U.S. Treasuries finished modestly lower, with shorter-dated issues showing particular weakness; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed one basis point to 2.38%, while the 2-yr yield jumped three basis points to 1.59%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.1% to 94.44.

The Federal Open Market Committee began a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, but its latest policy directive--which will be released on Wednesday afternoon--is not expected to do much more than set the stage for a December rate hike. The CME FedWatch Tool currently places the chances of a December rate hike at 99.5%.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the third quarter Employment Cost Index, the October Chicago PMI, October Consumer Confidence, and the August S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index:

The third quarter Employment Cost Index rose 0.7%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%.
The key takeaway is that there was a slight pickup in compensation costs in the third quarter, but not enough to trigger any undue inflation alarm.
Chicago PMI for October hit 66.2 (Briefing.com consensus 61.0), up from 65.2 in September.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing conditions are strong in the Chicago Fed region, underscored by the New Orders Index hitting its highest level (69.9) since June and the second highest since May 2014.
The consumer confidence reading for October increased to 125.9 from the prior month's revised reading of 120.6 (from 119.8). The Briefing.com consensus expected the survey to hit 121.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that upbeat attitudes about the current job market factored prominently in the elevated reading, which is a hopeful indication for stronger consumer spending activity.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Index increased 5.9% in August.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, the October ADP Employment Change Report (Briefing.com consensus 215K) at 8:15 ET, the October ISM Index (Briefing.com consensus 59.0) at 10:00 ET, September Construction Spending (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%) also at 10:00 ET, and the latest FOMC policy decision at 14:00 ET.

In addition, auto and truck sales for the month of October will be released throughout the day, and the House is scheduled to release its tax reform bill.

Nasdaq Composite +25.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.3% YTD
S&P 500 +15.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.7% YTD

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InvestmentHouse - Manufacturing Jobs Continue to Impress (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- NASDAQ, SOX find large cap strength and lead higher.
- Big NASDAQ names, FAANG breakout of consolidations, attempting to assume
leadership once again.
- Tax plan leaves small and midcaps mostly out in the cold.
- Jobs report is not good in most respects but the manufacturing jobs
continue to impress and belie the prior administration's claims those jobs
were gone for good.
- Now we see if FAANG and company actually will lead.

The past week solidified more of a turn from the small and midcaps to the
large cap NASDAQ stocks. Not that the small and midcaps rolled over; no,
they are still testing good moves. What we saw, however, was a return to
some of the big names in FAANG and other large cap NASDAQ stocks that led
the market higher into mid-summer, then spent 3 to 4 to 5 months
consolidating in trading ranges. This earnings season broke them out of
their consolidations and they are testing the move (FB, MSFT) and in some
cases already starting back upside after the test (AVGO, AMZN, GOOG, TXN).

That helped push the indices higher with emphasis on SOX and NASDAQ while
SP500, DJ30 put in steady advances up the 10 day EMA. SP400 and RUTX did
not do much; SP400 continued a choppy move up the 10 day EMA while RUTX
continued a very volatile pullback around the 20 day EMA.

SP500 7.99, 0.31%
NASDAQ 49.50, 0.74%
DJ30 22.93, 0.10%
SP400 0.25%
RUTX -0.11%
SOX 1.77%

VOLUME: NYSE -10%, NASDAQ -3%. Above average volume on NASDAQ as it surged
to a new high. Volume faded to just above average on NYSE as it posted a
new high.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE -1.1:1; NASDAQ -1.02:1. It was all the large caps on
Friday. All large caps.

The tax proposal may still help small business and thus move RUTX and SP400
up out of their tests, but in reviewing the proposed tax plan the small
business pass-through tax treatment is rather complex (so much for the
postcard tax form Ryan touted) and is not as generous as that paid out to
the big C corporations. So, I guess you form a C corp to try and get the
20% rate (and have to worry about double taxation) or just take a modest tax
cut on the uppermost income the business makes and try to cram it into what
they consider 'capital income' and the 25% rate versus 'wage income' at the
39.6% rate. As the movie starring Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep was titled,
"It's Complicated." Oh that is rich: more complex and not that much, if any
benefit.

But, I digress. The key for the market was the big name FAANG and other
NASDAQ stocks broke out from their consolidations/trading ranges. They look
as if they are ready to take back some leadership.

The key to any rally is a continued stream of leadership. These big names
led into the summer, small caps and midcaps took over along with industrial
names of all market caps, chips were in their own world as they rotated
among themselves higher and higher, and now the big names are back in the
leadership mix. Along the way China stocks led, biotechs made good
leadership moves, but then faded back in many cases. All of that is
rotation as some fall while others pick up the slack. That is healthy for
the market.

Throw into this that there are some potential new areas working upside, e.g.
new entries shaping up in retail, some telecom showing life, oil making some
moves -- and you have even more potential leaders or at least supporting
roles setting up to try and add to the upside.

Thus, though the stock market's rally seems rather implausible in that it is
still going after avoiding the traditional September and October weakness,
with the reemergence of the big names it appears the stock indices could
rally into yearend even without that traditional early fall selloff. A
tightening but gradual Fed, lower regulation making a difference (as seen in
the productivity numbers), still tax reform hope are all still driving
upside momentum.


NEWS/ECONOMY

Yes there was a jobs report Friday but it was an afterthought, something
that did not inhibit the action and would not unless it was too extreme one
way or the other. As it was the report was not that great. That was okay
for the market; I guess it assumed the Fed would be held to its prior
schedule.

October Jobs Report

Non-farm Jobs: 261K vs 300K vs 18K (from -33K); Aug revised up 39K, so 99K
jobs added back the 2 prior months.

Unemployment: 4.1 vs 4.2 vs 4.2. But, it was an exodus from the workforce
that caused the drop. Very similar to the Obama years; want to lower
unemployment, lower the number of workers. Magic.

Wages: 0.0 vs 0.1 vs 0.5 prior. Terrible wage performance in terms of the
drop off. Just no consistency.

Participation: 62.7%. Labor force -765K; total out of work force -968K.
'Yewge' drop out from the workforce with now a new record 95.385M people are
out of the work force.

Food and Drink: +89K

Biz Professional +50K

Manufacturing +24K. This is still pretty amazing as the percentage of
manufacturing jobs and not just the total number is WAY above the Obama
years when we were told thee jobs were gone for good. Hmm.

Retail -8400. Wow this happened relatively fast did it not? From being one
of the leading hiring groups to bleeding jobs the past six months.

Mining -2000. Back to negative after some gains.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SOX: The past two Fridays saw chips scream upside. The prior week it was
earnings from INTC, TXN. This past Friday it was QCOM and AVGO as they
screamed higher on word AVGO may acquire QCOM. So AVGO came back to the US
with a lot of fanfare in order to buy QCOM? Hmm.

NASDAQ: Also a big mover over the Fridays with a general trend higher in
between. Rising above the 10 day EMA as NASDAQ looks impressive, not
surprising given the breakouts in the large caps on their earnings.

SP500: New closing high as it continues rising up the 10 day EMA. Not a
huge move but is working through its volatility, keeping the move higher
going.

DJ30: A slower week after leading the move two weeks back, still trending
up the 10 day EMA but letting others take the lead.

RUTX: Holding near the 20 day EMA in now the fifth week of pullback, and
struggling with a lot of volatility. The sellers and buyers are still
evenly matched as RUTX trades in big intraday ranges but holds its near
support.

SP400: Volatile as well, but working up the 10 day EMA nonetheless. Not as
volatile as RUTX and it is also maintaining its uptrend while it bounces
around intraday.


LEADERSHIP

FAANG: AMZN started back up after the test of its earnings report breakout.
FB showing a nice doji test of its break higher. AAPL gapped upside on its
earnings. GOOG continued higher on still not much volume. NFLX just
sliding modestly higher along the 10 day EMA.

Semiconductors: The potential AVGO/QCOM deal had the group very excited as
those stocks surged. AVGO was already better on the AAPL earnings as was
SWKS. ON, BRKS still moving higher as did TXN. MU remains solid. Some
wild moves, e.g. COHU sold off hard then reversed to hold its trend. QRVO
is interesting and some of the solar stocks such as JASO, FSLR look good.

Software: Tested more on the week e.g. VMW, but CRM moved higher on the
week. FFIV still looks as if it could move upside and CALD did blast
higher. DATA was a big disappointment on its earnings.

Oil: Some good setups again, but will they move? DO testing its earnings
move, SN looks really good to move higher. ESV, DVN and others look good.

Financial: Overall testing the moves, holding at the 10 day EMA, e.g. JPM,
BAC, though they are getting ready to move.

Retail: WMT continues higher. AMZN started to bounce from its test. CONN
looks ready to bounce. TLRD still in a nice test. Some very solid, some
not, some trying to hang on, e.g. HD.

Machinery/Manufacturing: Started cracking as EMR, TEX, CMI really struggled
on the week. CAT, HOLI still nice.

Telecom: setting up in some key names. CAMP looks very good. GLW in a cup
with handle after a surge two weeks back.



MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +22.93 points (+0.10%) to close at 23539.19

Nasdaq
Stats: +49.49 points (+0.74%) to close at 6764.44
Volume: 2.2B (-3.08%)

Up Volume: 1.34B (+250M)
Down Volume: 812.21M (-337.79M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.02 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.3 to 1

New Highs: 156 (+28)
New Lows: 83 (+7)

S&P
Stats: +7.99 points (+0.31%) to close at 2587.84
NYSE Volume: 810.6M (-9.93%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.08 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.02 to 1

New Highs: 138 (-17)
New Lows: 80 (-12)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 9.14; -0.79
VXN: 13.90; -0.80
VXO: 8.09; -0.69

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.94; +0.07


Bulls and Bears: Bulls continue rising for the fourth week over 60.0 and
bears fall to lows not seen since 2014 and 2015. 60+ has been a governor on
market rises, but it is not an immediate cause and effect. In other words,
you hit the levels, but the market can continue to rally.

Bulls: 63.5 versus 62.3

Bears: 14.4 versus 15.1

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 63.5 versus 62.3
62.3 versus 60.6 versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1
versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0
versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5
versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7
versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5
versus 56.7 versus 53.4 versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8
versus 62.7 versus 61.8 versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2
versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6
versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9

Bears: 14.4 versus 15.1
15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2
versus 19.1 versus 19.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.0 versus 16.2
versus 16.5 versus 16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.3
versus 19.2 versus 18.3 versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9 versus 17.9
versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus 13.75
versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus 17.6
versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6
versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7
versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1
versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.332% versus 2.349%. Bonds rallied for another week, making it to
the 50 day SMA and the mid-October high. Okay, serious resistance here.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.349%
versus 2.358% versus 2.378% versus 2.37% versus 2.419% versus 2.456% versus
2.435% versus 2.421% versus 2.366% versus 2.383% versus 2.318% versus 2.341%
versus 2.30% versus 2.302% versus 2.275% versus 2.321% versus 2.345% versus
2.345% versus 2.361% versus 2.348% versus 2.327% versus 2.326% versus 2.341%
versus 2.339% versus 2.312% versus 2.307% versus 2.236% versus 2.222% versus
2.253% versus 2.276% versus 2.273% versus 2.246% versus 2.234% versus 2.201%
versus 2.186% versus 2.19% versus 2.167% versus 2.134% versus 2.042%


EUR/USD: 1.16092 versus 1.16575. After moving up to the 10 day EMA in a
recovery move, Friday the euro started lower again. The rounded top looks to
be in against the dollar and the euro is heading lower.

Historical: 1.16575 versus 1.15480 versus 1.1644 versus 1.16091 versus
1.16330 versus 1.18163 versus 1.17570 versus 1.1759 versus 1.17798 versus
1.18476 versus 1.17995 versus 1.1771 versus 1.17932 versus 1.1823 versus
1.1834 versus 1.18662 versus 1.1813 versus 1.17460 versus 1.17352 versus
1.17100 versus 1.1754 versus 1.17676 versus 1.17315 versus 1.1812 versus
1.17817 versus 1.1746 versus 1.17852 versus 1.18540 versus 1.19476 versus
1.19420 versus 1.19420 versus 1.19954 versus 1.19436 versus 1.1918 versus
1.1874 versus 1.19706 versus 1.19551 versus 1.20379 versus 1.2025 versus
1.19258 versus 1.19143 versus 1.18621 versus 1.19131 versus 1.18938 versus
1.19731 versus 1.19678 versus 1.19212 versus 1.18 versus 1.17516 versus
1.1813 versus 1.17595 versus 1.17107 versus 1.17812 versus 1.17445 versus
1.17751 versus 1.18216 versus 1.17652 versus 1.17596 versus 1.17619 versus
1.17975 versus 1.1774 versus 1.18718 versus 1.18457 versus 1.18072 versus
1.18281 versus 1.18293 versus 1.1683 versus 1.17419 versus 1.1646 versus
1.1637 versus 1.16640 versus 1.16271 versus 1.15280 versus 1.15549 versus
1.14735


USD/JPY: 114.064 versus 114.010. Rallied back to the prior week's high and
the July high. First real test of the new move upside.

Historical: 114.010 versus 114.010 versus 113.845 versus 113.640 versus
113.175 versus 113.675 versus 114.071 versus 113.607 versus 113.913 versus
113.31 versus 113.530 versus 112.561 versus 113.031 versus 112.21 versus
112.20 versus 111.852 versus 112.25 versus 112.413 versus 112.41 versus
112.700 versus 112.653 versus 112.818 versus 112.79 versus 112.667 versus
112.716 versus 112.442 versus 112.86 versus 112.289 versus 111.649 versus
1.12125 versus 111.995 versus 112.454 versus 111.559 versus 111.435 versus
110.846 versus 110.01 versus 110.62 versus 110.216 versus 109.434 versus
107.847 versus 108.444 versus 109.132 versus 108.747 versus 110.254 versus
110.049 versus 110.289 versus 109.652 versus 108.04 versus 109.160 versus
109.573 versus 109.195 versus 109.648 versus 109.173 versus 109.205 versus
109.333 versus 109.842 versus 110.6621 versus 109.927


Oil: 55.64, +1.10. Breaking through the top of the range. Okay, oil is
now trying the breakout.


Gold: 1269.20, -8.90. Still trying to get off the second bottom at the 200
day SMA.


MONDAY

A huge week of data and decisions and earnings, and now another week of
earnings as the season, similar to professional basketball, seems
interminable.

As noted in the opening, despite all the data and the Fed intrigue and
earnings, it is the action in the NASDAQ large caps that held the week's
key. Earnings certainly aided: these stocks were set to move and the
earnings helped them make the breaks. Good tests have them set to move
higher. We picked up some FB Friday, looking at AMZN this week, and still
looking at GOOG as well.

Other big names in chips, software, even drugs worked and we let positions
run, picked up new ones, and plan on picking up more.

Yes that sounds bullish, and with sentiment over 60.0 for a month, that is a
bit worrisome. The market, however, keeps rotating and finding new
leadership or should I say recycled leadership in the case of the NASDAQ
large caps and FAANG? It appears that way.

That keeps us looking for upside plays -- with a smattering of downside here
and there in those sectors that were leading but are in the process of
testing.

There is news this weekend as Saudi Arabia, under its new prince, cleans
house in what is described as fighting corruption. That has Prince CNBC
(Alwaleed Bin Talal) arrested on corruption charges. Saudi also said it
intercepted a missile from Yemen aimed at one of Saudi's airfields near its
capitol. Maybe that means something, but it won't to this market.

Plenty of bullishness for certain, but as I noted last week again after
discussing it over a month ago, all of those billionaire money managers that
so loudly proclaimed they were out of the market because it was surely ready
to crash those that followed their advice are being forced back into the
market. That provides the fuel to continue the move because their billions
are now what helps drive the market higher.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6754.44

Resistance:
More new highs

Support:
6641 is the October high
The 20 day EMA at 6637
The 50 day EMA at 6534
6477 is the September intraday high
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high
6450 is the early September high
The 2016 trendline at 6446
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6205 is the late May all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 6164
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows


S&P 500: Closed at 2587.84

Resistance:
New highs again

Support:
The 20 day EMA at 2563
2531 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel
The 50 day EMA at 2530
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
The 200 day SMA at 2426
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the recent May 2017 low
2348 is the April 2017 lower gap point
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high


Dow: Closed at 23,539.19

Resistance:

Support:
The 10 day EMA at 23,384
The 50 day EMA at 22,736
22,420 is the September high
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high
The 200 day SMA at 21,338
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - More Calls the Top is Here (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- More calls that the top is here as the market tests rather normally.
- Small caps continue their struggle as GOP tax ineptitude dims hopes or any
substantive relief, especially for small caps.
- Leadership still looks fully capable of pushing more upside as retail
improves, oil improves, software rallies, and chips and FAANG test recent
moves.

The stock indices started the week higher but then could not find any
further upside impetus, trailing off into the weekend. That left the
indices down for the week but at near support at the 10 or 20 day EMA. RUTX
was the lone index out, dropping to the 50 day MA midweek but holding it
through Friday.

SP500 -2.23, -0.09%
NASDAQ +0.89, 0.01%
DJ30 -39.73, -0.17%
SP400 -0.02%
RUTX +0.02%
SOX +0.65%

VOLUME: NYSE -2%; NASDAQ -12%. Volume remained above average but faded to
near average on both exchanges. Strong all week, not so bad on the early
week upside, more of some churn as the indices struggled.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE -1.3:1, NASDAQ +1.1:1. Still chronically weak
breadth.


Hardly the end of the world as many made it out to be. Indeed. This was
called a 'dress rehearsal' for the 'big one' yet to come or an outright
start of a large selloff. Anyone can be right on any market call at a given
time, but looking across the market it is hard to see where the breakdowns
are occurring that would label this the start of a major selloff.

VIX is oft discussed, but VIX did not rise as the stock market rose, the
classic major top signal VIX can flash. Yes when VIX is low it CAN suggest
a selloff, but VIX can be low for a long time before stocks sell; that makes
this a very hit or miss indicator. The worrisome one is that VIX uptrend as
stocks uptrend; major tops -- the kind being discussed by many as what is
coming -- typically have VIX rise with stocks as part of the blow off phase.

Further, leadership is holding up. More than that, over the past couple of
weeks some old leaders were recycled to new leaders as FAANG stocks broke
out from trading ranges. At the same time most of the recent leaders
continued looking solid enough and they are even picking up some help from
oil stocks. Leadership appears more than solid enough to keep the market
working.

The market IS showing some issues in at least two respects: 1) small caps
struggling most likely over the pathetic GOP handling of the tax reform
effort, and 2) a chronic lack of breadth. Both of those conditions are of
course somewhat tied together.

Small caps led the move higher on the tax reform pass-through proposal. The
subsequent handling has been utterly feckless and there are also those in
the GOP who will, as explained last week, never support anything that would
give President Trump a major win. The small caps tested normally at first,
but as the missteps mounted, the test became more volatile and this past
week RUTX flopped to the 50 day MA, still well above the 38% Fibonacci
retracement of the August to October move.

Some say the market cannot rally without the small caps. Nonsense. The
market has rallied many times without the small caps. It can and has
rallied on just the FAANG and a few other mega caps. Sure it would be great
to have all stocks working higher, but it is not a prerequisite.

As for the breadth, it stinks. That is the result of the small caps fading
even as the mega caps work reasonably well though they were off a bit last
week. Ultimately if the majority of the market does not follow that
eventually leads to failure. With the big names just posting breakouts from
consolidations, however, they look fully capable of leading to the upside at
least through yearend.



THE MARKET

CHARTS

NASDAQ: Moved higher through Wednesday as the mega caps continued their
moves, then faded through Friday, testing the 20 day EMA intraday Thursday
and recovering, and holding the 10 day EMA in a narrow range Friday. Still
a very solid uptrend, making a test of the 20 day EMA as it did in late
October. This makes the second test of the 20 day after rising off a 50 day
MA test in September. MACD broke out to a higher high with price, upside
volume on the break higher from late October is great, big names are leading
upside. This does not look to be an index that is in the throes of a
rollover.

SOX: Similar to NASDAQ, SOX gapped higher Monday and rallied to a higher
post-2000 high Wednesday. Thursday was rougher, gapping lower, selling
through the 10 day EMA, but recovering to hold that near support Friday. A
bit more extended than NASDAQ as SOX has not tasted the 50 day MA since late
August, trending up the 10 day EMA in a steady rise.

RUTX: Much is being made about the small caps, and that is understandable
after its scintillating move from mid-August to October on the pass-through
rates -- rates that now are showing ZERO change in the Senate plan. The
easy test turned volatile and that continued last week as a move higher
through Monday collapsed Tuesday and RUTX fell to the 50 day MA to end the
week. Still 24 points above the 38% Fibonacci retracement and the July high.

SP400: The midcaps shook off the tax issues. Lower on the week, but a very
modest test to the 20 day EMA, holding that level Thursday and Friday with
doji. Not powerful, but holding its move higher at near support.

SP500: SP500 and SP500 are very similar right now. SP500 put in a new high
Wednesday then tested it Thursday and Friday, closing just below the 10 day
EMA for the week. Still a very nice trend upside.

DJ30: Finally tested after the 9 week move. Thursday DJ30 tapped the 20
day EMA on the low, the first touch of this level since early September when
DJ30 rose off the 50 day EMA. Pretty normal test.


LEADERSHIP

FAANG: Solid early week, tested late week. AAPL rallied through Wednesday
to new highs, modest test to Friday well over the 10 day EMA. AMZN rallied
through Wednesday, modest test into Friday, well over the 10 day EMA. FB
bounced Monday and Tuesday, faded into Friday, still a nice consolidation of
the break higher. GOOG up through Wednesday, faded to the 10 day EMA to
test on Friday. NFLX fell to the 50 day MA with a doji Friday and we will
see if it can reset and start a new move higher; did this the last two times
it tested the 50 day.

Oil: Some really decent moves and some good setups. DVN working well after
breaking through the 200 day SMA. DO solidly moving. CRR, MRO, NOG, TELL
and many others look solid.

Semiconductors: A week were many of the leaders tested, e.g. INTC, TXN,
AVGO, SWKS, XLNX, SLAB -- lots of tests of near support making this coming
week an important one for these stocks to show they can move back up and
continue leadership.

Software: VMW started back upside. RHT breaking higher from a nice
consolidation. CRM rallying to a higher high once more. TTWO broke out
with a gap and is testing. CALD testing a breakout.

Financial: Tested back on the week as interest rates fell. JPM is on the
50 day MA. BAC and C testing the 50 day as well.

Retail: Some solid moves from PII, SKX Friday. KSS was under a lot of
pressure after earnings but surged back quite nicely. WMT still strong. HD
holding the weeklong 50 day EMA test.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -39.73 points (-0.17%) to close at 23422.21

Nasdaq
Stats: +0.89 points (+0.01%) to close at 6750.94
Volume: 1.98B (-11.61%)

Up Volume: 1.1B (+270.73M)
Down Volume: 830.17M (-539.83M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.08 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.62 to 1

New Highs: 76 (+7)
New Lows: 66 (-26)

S&P
Stats: -2.32 points (-0.09%) to close at 2582.30
NYSE Volume: 848.7M (-1.96%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.32 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.64 to 1

New Highs: 77 (+4)
New Lows: 61 (-9)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 11.29; +0.79
VXN: 15.03; -0.01
VXO: 9.80; +0.54

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.18; +0.08


Bulls and Bears: Bulls put in the fifth consecutive week above 60.0, rising
to a cycle high at 64.4. Definitely enough bullishness to work against a
continued upside move.

Bulls: 64.4 versus 63.5

Bears: 14.4 versus 14.4

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 64.4 versus 63.5
63.5 versus 62.3 versus 60.6 versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5
versus 47.1 versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5
versus 60.0 versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9
versus 51.5 versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1
versus 58.7 versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8
versus 49.5 versus 56.7 versus 53.4 versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2
versus 61.8 versus 62.7 versus 61.8 versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6
versus 60.2 versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3
versus 55.6 versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9

Bears: 14.4 versus 14.4
14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0
versus 20.2 versus 19.1 versus 19.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.0
versus 16.2 versus 16.5 versus 16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6
versus 18.3 versus 19.2 versus 18.3 versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9
versus 17.9 versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3
versus 13.75 versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7
versus 17.6 versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6
versus 19.6 versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5
versus 25.7 versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8
versus 23.1 versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.402% versus 2.34%. Wow, from a rally over the 50 day SMA that
looked solid, followed by a short test, bonds plunged Friday, gapping lower
and dropping back to the 200 day SMA.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.34%
versus 2.326% versus 2.316% versus 2.32% versus 2.332% versus 2.349% versus
2.358% versus 2.378% versus 2.37% versus 2.419% versus 2.456% versus 2.435%
versus 2.421% versus 2.366% versus 2.383% versus 2.318% versus 2.341% versus
2.30% versus 2.302% versus 2.275% versus 2.321% versus 2.345% versus 2.345%
versus 2.361% versus 2.348% versus 2.327% versus 2.326% versus 2.341% versus
2.339% versus 2.312% versus 2.307% versus 2.236% versus 2.222% versus 2.253%
versus 2.276% versus 2.273% versus 2.246% versus 2.234% versus 2.201% versus
2.186% versus 2.19% versus 2.167% versus 2.134% versus 2.042%


EUR/USD: 1.16646 versus 1.16439. Euro rebounded late week though still
well off the September high.

Historical: 1.16439 versus 1.15871 versus 1.15954 versus 1.1609 versus
1.16092 versus 1.16575 versus 1.15480 versus 1.1644 versus 1.16091 versus
1.16330 versus 1.18163 versus 1.17570 versus 1.1759 versus 1.17798 versus
1.18476 versus 1.17995 versus 1.1771 versus 1.17932 versus 1.1823 versus
1.1834 versus 1.18662 versus 1.1813 versus 1.17460 versus 1.17352 versus
1.17100 versus 1.1754 versus 1.17676 versus 1.17315 versus 1.1812 versus
1.17817 versus 1.1746 versus 1.17852 versus 1.18540 versus 1.19476 versus
1.19420 versus 1.19420 versus 1.19954 versus 1.19436 versus 1.1918 versus
1.1874 versus 1.19706 versus 1.19551 versus 1.20379 versus 1.2025 versus
1.19258 versus 1.19143 versus 1.18621 versus 1.19131 versus 1.18938 versus
1.19731 versus 1.19678 versus 1.19212 versus 1.18 versus 1.17516 versus
1.1813 versus 1.17595 versus 1.17107 versus 1.17812 versus 1.17445 versus
1.17751 versus 1.18216 versus 1.17652


USD/JPY: 113.526 versus 113.379. Dollar faded on the week, holding at the
20 day EMA to close the festivities.

Historical: 113.379 versus 113.99 versus 113.723 versus 113.758 versus
114.064 versus 114.010 versus 114.010 versus 113.845 versus 113.640 versus
113.175 versus 113.675 versus 114.071 versus 113.607 versus 113.913 versus
113.31 versus 113.530 versus 112.561 versus 113.031 versus 112.21 versus
112.20 versus 111.852 versus 112.25 versus 112.413 versus 112.41 versus
112.700 versus 112.653 versus 112.818 versus 112.79 versus 112.667 versus
112.716 versus 112.442 versus 112.86 versus 112.289 versus 111.649 versus
1.12125 versus 111.995 versus 112.454 versus 111.559 versus 111.435 versus
110.846 versus 110.01 versus 110.62 versus 110.216 versus 109.434 versus
107.847 versus 108.444


Oil: 56.74, -0.43. Oil Surged into Monday with a new breakout rally high,
then tested laterally the rest of the week, waiting for the 10 day EMA to
catch up to the move.


Gold: 1274.20, -13.30. Gold edged higher off the 200 day SMA into
Thursday, hit the 50 day EMA, then flopped Friday.


MONDAY

Tons of data on the week. PPI, CPI, New York and Philly PMI, Retail sales
for October, Inventories, Capacity and Utilization. Lots of data for the
market to chew on in addition to what is becoming the tail end of earnings
season.

Last week saw the small caps really struggle with the GOP tax reform
ineptitude and impotence. The big names that just broke out of bases tested
their moves but are holding up very well. Chips tested as well, coming back
to near support. Software is still solid, oil is making some good moves and
more are set up to make good moves.

There is plenty of potential for the upside to resume. As noted earlier,
there are calls that the selling has just started or is about to start. It
may, but from the action last week and the leaders that are still out in the
market, I am not seeing imminent failure. There can ALWAYS be events that
appear to upset even the best setups. Plenty of geopolitics, growing
threats in the Middle East, continuing threats from Korea. The continued
playing politics in our cesspool of a federal government, playing with our
lives and our finances as they play power politics.

The market, however, has shown strength through it all. For now, at least,
there is still the notion that the upside potential outweighs the downside
given the status of the Fed and the chairman transition, the regulation
rollback, a more business friendly climate (for all but certain groups it
would appear), and still the outside hope of a meeting of the minds and
votes on tax reform.

Therefore with the setups we see, we are still looking mostly upside. Oil,
semiconductors, big industrials, retail, FAANG still sport solid setups we
want to ride higher if they show the moves higher.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6750.94

Resistance:
6796 is the November 2017 all-time high

Support:
The 20 day EMA at 6688
6641 is the October high
The 50 day EMA at 6576
6477 is the September intraday high
The 2016 trendline at 6463
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high
6450 is the early September high
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6205 is the late May all-time high
The 200 day SMA at 6193
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows


S&P 500: Closed at 2582.30

Resistance:
2597 is the November 2017 all-time high

Support:
The 20 day EMA at 2573
The 50 day EMA at 2541
2535 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
The 200 day SMA at 2434
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the recent May 2017 low
2348 is the April 2017 lower gap point
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high


Dow: Closed at 23,422.21

Resistance:
23,602 is the November 2017 all-time high

Support:
The 20 day EMA at 23,316
The 50 day EMA at 23,876
22,420 is the September high
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high
The 200 day SMA at 21,517
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high

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Slide Resumes Following Brief Pause
14-Nov-17 16:25 ET
Dow -30.23 at 23409.47, Nasdaq -19.72 at 6737.88, S&P -5.97 at 2578.87
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/14/slide-resumes-following-brief-pause.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks slipped on Tuesday, retracing all of Monday's slim gains, as investors continued to digest the prospect of tax reform--which has been a stumbling block for the market as of late. The major stock indices modestly added to, and trimmed, their opening losses throughout the day, eventually settling near the top of their trading ranges.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.3%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow lost 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively.

Energy shares showed particular weakness as the price of crude oil continued to retreat from the two-year high it touched at the beginning of the prior week. West Texas Intermediate crude futures declined by 1.9%, settling at a price of $55.70 per barrel. The S&P 500's energy sector finished lower by 1.5%.

The materials (-1.1%) and telecom services (-1.4%) groups also finished with sizable losses, but most other sectors closed roughly in line with, or above, the broader market. The health care space (-0.4%) faced slightly heavier selling as biotechnology shares slipped to a three-month low; the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 305.05, -5.03) lost 1.6%.

Meanwhile, industrial giant General Electric (GE 17.90, -1.12) tumbled another 5.9% following Monday's decision to slash its dividend by 50%.

However, there were a handful of groups that managed to move higher on Tuesday, including the utilities space, which added 1.2%. The rate-sensitive group benefited from increased buying in the Treasury market, which sent yields lower across the curve. The benchmark 10-yr yield dropped two basis points to 2.38%.

The consumer staples (+0.3%) and consumer discretionary (+0.1%) spaces also showed relative strength. Within the consumer discretionary group, Home Depot (HD 168.06, +2.71) climbed 1.6% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the third quarter and raising its guidance for 2018.

Advance Auto (AAP 95.72, +13.44) and TJX (TJX 67.94, -2.82) also reported earnings on Tuesday--with mixed results. TJX shares slipped 4.0% after the apparel and home goods retailer missed sales estimates for the third quarter, while Advance Auto shares surged 16.3% after the auto parts retailer beat Q3 profit estimates and reaffirmed its same store sales guidance for fiscal year 2017.

In other corporate news, Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD 145.35, +28.10) jumped 24.0% following reports that private equity firm Roark Capital has made a bid to buy the casual dining and sports bar franchise for more than $150 per share.

From Washington, unconfirmed reports indicate that Senate leaders have decided to add a repeal of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate to the upper chamber's version of a tax reform bill. If true, this development may slow tax reform negotiations. On a related note, the House is expected to vote on its version of the bill this Thursday.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region ended Tuesday on a mostly lower note, with Japan's Nikkei (unch) showing relative strength. The Euro Stoxx 50 (-0.5%) moved lower for the seventh session in a row as the euro climbed 1.1% against the U.S. dollar to 1.1794--its highest level in nearly three weeks.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the October Producer Price Index and the October NFIB Small Business Optimism Index:

Producer prices rose 0.4% in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), while core producer prices also rose 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year over year, producer prices are up 2.8% and core producer prices have risen 2.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will create some angst about possible pass-through effects on consumer prices and will help solidify expectations for a December rate hike from the Federal Reserve.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index increased to 103.8 in October from 103.0 in the September reading.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, the Consumer Price Index for October (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) at 8:30 ET, Retail Sales for October (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) at 8:30 ET, November Empire Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 26.0) at 8:30 ET, and September Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +25.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.5% YTD
S&P 500 +15.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.4% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Weakness Continues
15-Nov-17 16:30 ET
Dow -138.19 at 23271.28, Nasdaq -31.66 at 6706.22, S&P -14.25 at 2564.62

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/15/weakness-continues.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks slid for the fourth time in five sessions on Wednesday as investors continued to weigh the prospect of tax reform.

The Dow and the S&P 500 lost 0.6% apiece, while the Nasdaq finished lower by 0.5%. Losses were more substantial at the opening bell, but a relatively positive performance from the heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.2%) proved useful in defusing the bearish sentiment. A late bout of selling pulled the major averages from their best marks of the day.

Senate Republicans announced on Tuesday evening that they've added a provision to their tax reform bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, which requires all Americans to have health insurance. The individual mandate is a hotly debated topic among lawmakers and an attempt to repeal it may face resistance--potentially delaying the GOP's tax overhaul effort.

Uncertainty surrounding tax reform has been a stumbling block for the market as of late, although it's tough to gauge the true level of concern among investors, who may just see the pause as an opportunity to cash in on recently minted record highs.

Energy shares extended weekly losses on Wednesday as the price of crude oil continued retreating from the two-year high it touched last week; West Texas Intermediate crude futures slid 0.7% to $55.29 per barrel, while the S&P 500's energy sector lost 1.2%. The energy group now trades lower by 3.2% for the week.

On a related note, the Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. crude stockpiles unexpectedly rose by 1.9 million barrels last week.

The top-weighted technology sector (-0.9%) also underperformed on Wednesday, as did the consumer staples (-1.1%), utilities (-1.0%), and real estate (-0.8%) groups. Within the tech space, Apple (AAPL 169.08, -2.26) showed particular weakness, finishing lower by 1.3%. The tech giant has now settled in the red for five sessions in a row.

In earnings news, Target (TGT 54.16, -5.93) tumbled 9.9% after issuing a disappointing earnings forecast for the holiday season.

U.S. Treasuries rallied in a curve-flattening trade, reducing the 2yr-10yr spread to 65 basis points--its lowest level since 2007. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped five basis points to 2.33%, while the 2-yr yield finished flat at 1.68%.

Elsewhere, stock indices in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific region settled the midweek session broadly lower, with Japan's Nikkei (-1.6%) showing notable weakness.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the Consumer Price Index for October, Retail Sales for October, September Business Inventories, November Empire Manufacturing, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Total CPI increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) in October while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI and core CPI are up 2.0% and 1.8%, respectively.
The key takeaway from the report is that inflation pressures are still not acute, yet they are likely not weak enough to persuade the Federal Reserve from raising the fed funds rate again at its December meeting.
October retail sales increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). The prior month's increase was revised to 1.9% from 1.6%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.1% in October while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%. The prior month's increase was revised to 1.2% from 1.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it isn't as soft as it appears at first blush, as there was an unwinding of some of the hurricane-related sales strength that led to the remarkably strong sales activity in September.
Business Inventories were unchanged (0.0%) in September, as expected. The August reading was revised to 0.6% from 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that sales growth is outpacing inventory growth, which is a step toward regaining some pricing power.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for November declined to 19.4 from the prior month's reading of 30.2. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 26.0.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 3.1%.

On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 234K), the November Philadelphia Index (Briefing.com consensus 24.6), and October Import/Export Prices at 8:30 ET, followed by October Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 76.3%) at 10:00 ET.

Also of note, Wal-Mart (WMT 89.83, -1.26) will report earnings on Thursday morning.

Nasdaq Composite +24.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.8% YTD
S&P 500 +14.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.9% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Bulls Retake Control; House Passes Tax Reform
16-Nov-17 16:30 ET
Dow +187.08 at 23458.36, Nasdaq +87.08 at 6793.30, S&P +21.02 at 2585.64
https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/16/bulls-retake-control-house-passes-tax-reform.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks bounced back from recent weakness on Thursday, sending the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+1.3%) to a new all-time high.

Upbeat earnings reports from Dow components Wal-Mart (WMT 99.62, +9.79) and Cisco Systems (CSCO 35.88, +1.77) helped fuel the upbeat sentiment even before the opening bell, as did strength in overseas markets; Japan's Nikkei (+1.5%) led the charge in Asia, while France's CAC (+0.7%) and Germany's DAX (+0.6%) set the pace in Europe.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of a tax reform bill in a party-line vote, as expected, which allowed the equity market to keep its bullish disposition into the closing bell. The focus will now shift to the Senate, which continues to debate its version of a tax overhaul.

As for the other major stock indices, the S&P 500 and the Dow added 0.8% apiece, while the small-cap Russell 2000 rallied 1.6%.

The technology (+1.3%) and consumer staples (+1.6%) sectors were among the strongest groups on Thursday, underpinned by Cisco and Wal-Mart, respectively. Wal-Mart shares jumped 10.9% to a new record high after the world's largest retailer reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the third quarter and issued upbeat profit guidance for fiscal year 2018.

Meanwhile, shares of Cisco Systems jumped 5.2%, hitting their best level in over 16 years, after the tech giant reported above-consensus earnings and issued upbeat guidance for the upcoming quarter.

The lightly-weighted telecom services (+1.8%) and materials (+1.3%) groups also had solid showings, trimming their monthly losses. However, the heavily-weighted financial group (+0.1%) struggled to keep pace with the broader market, with insurers like Travelers (TRV 130.81, -2.90) showing particular weakness; TRV shares lost 2.2%.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures slipped 0.4% to $55.11/bbl, which weighed on the energy group (-0.6%). For the week, energy shares within the S&P 500 have lost 3.8%, while WTI crude futures have dropped 2.9%. Investors remain optimistic that major oil producers will extend their supply-cut deal later this month.

Treasury yields rose as investors sold U.S. sovereign debt, sending the 2yr-10yr spread higher by one basis point to 66 basis points. The benchmark 10-yr yield jumped three basis points to 2.36%, while the 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 1.70%. The U.S. Dollar Index ticked up 0.1% to 93.83.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included October Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, the weekly Initial Claims Report, the November Philadelphia Index, and October Import/Export Prices:

Industrial Production increased 0.9% in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), while the September reading was revised to +0.4% (from +0.3%). Capacity Utilization rose to 77.0% (Briefing.com consensus 76.3%) from a revised reading of 76.4% in September (from 76.0%).
The key takeaway from the report is that industrial production is back on a growth track following the hurricanes. According to the Federal Reserve, industrial production increased 0.3% in October excluding the effects of the hurricanes.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 249,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 234,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 239,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.860 million from a revised count of 1.904 million (from 1.901 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that there is nothing out of the ordinary with the initial claims jump, which reflects normal volatility and marks the 141st straight week initial claims have been below 300,000.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for November declined to 22.7 from an unrevised 27.9 in October while economists polled by Briefing.com had expected a reading of 24.6.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing firms in the region expect growth to continue, evidenced by the diffusion index for future general activity rising from 46.4 in October to 50.1 in November.
Import prices excluding oil rose 0.2% in October after increasing 0.3% in September. Export prices excluding agriculture decreased 0.3% in October after rising a revised 0.9% in September (from 1.0%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the 1.4% year-over-year increase in nonfuel import prices is the largest year-over-year increase since the year ended March 2012. Nonagricultural export prices are up 2.5% year-over-year, down from the 3.0% increase for the 12 months ending September.

On Friday, investors will receive just one economic report--October Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1198K)--which will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +26.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.7% YTD
S&P 500 +15.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.6% YTD

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Slim Losses Ahead of Thanksgiving Week
17-Nov-17 16:30 ET
Dow -100.12 at 23358.24, Nasdaq -10.50 at 6782.80, S&P -6.79 at 2578.85

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/17/slim-losses-ahead-of-thanksgiving-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks ended a rather uneventful Friday session modestly lower as investors turned their attention to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday week.

The Dow lost 0.4%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq dropped 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively. Small caps outperformed, sending the Russell 2000 higher by 0.4%.

Most of the S&P 500's 11 sectors finished Friday in negative territory, but losses were pretty modest overall. The top-weighted technology sector (-0.7%) showed relative weakness, as did the utilities (-0.7%) and real estate (-0.6%) groups, while the other laggards finished with losses of no more than 0.5%.

On the flip side, the energy sector advanced 0.4% to register its only win of the week. Energy shares climbed in tandem with the price of crude oil, which managed to retrace just about all of its weekly decline; West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 2.5% to $56.71 per barrel, ending the week with a slim loss of 0.1%.

Retail shares also advanced on Friday, thanks to an overwhelmingly positive batch of quarterly earnings.

Foot Locker (FL 40.82, +8.97), Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 15.55, +3.00), and Shoe Carnival (SCVL 26.75, +6.12) were the top performers, adding between 23.9% and 29.7%, after all three companies reported better-than-expected profits for the third quarter. Abercrombie & Fitch and Shoe Carnival also provided upbeat sales guidance.

Similarly, Ross Stores (ROST 72.25, +6.56) and Gap (GPS 29.40, +1.92) added 10.0% and 7.0%, respectively, following upbeat results.

In other corporate news, 21st Century Fox (FOXA 31.15, +1.83) climbed 6.2% following reports that Comcast (CMCSA 36.16, -0.91) is interested in acquiring a substantial piece of the company and Tesla (TSLA 315.05, +2.55) added 0.8% after unveiling its new semi truck and next-generation Roadster.

U.S. Treasuries ended on a mixed note, pushing the 2yr-10yr spread lower by three basis points to 63 bps. The yield on the 2-yr Treasury note climbed two basis points to 1.72%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.35%.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Friday mostly higher, with Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng adding 0.2% and 0.6%, respectively. Meanwhile, European bourses were weak on Friday, sending the Euro Stoxx 50 lower by 0.5%.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to October Housing Starts and Building Permits:

Housing starts increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.290 million units in October (Briefing.com consensus 1.198 million), up from a revised 1.135 million units in September (from 1.127 million). Building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted 1.297 million in October (Briefing.com consensus 1.243 million) from a revised 1.225 million in September (from 1.215 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it will be a positive input for fourth quarter GDP forecasts as the number of units under construction --1.096 million -- was slightly ahead of the third quarter average of 1.077 million.

On Monday, investors will receive just one economic report--October Leading Indicators--which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +26.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.2% YTD
S&P 500 +15.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.0% YTD

Week In Review: Lots of Noise, Little Movement

The U.S. equity market ended a busy week little changed, with the benchmark S&P 500 losing just 0.1%. Meanwhile, the Dow dropped 0.3% this week, while the Nasdaq and small-cap Russell 2000 outperformed, finishing with gains of 0.5% and 1.2%, respectively.

Investors continued to keep an eye on Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers are trying to implement the biggest tax overhaul in more than 30 years. The House passed its version of a tax reform bill on Thursday, while the Senate continued to make changes to its version, which now includes a provision to repeal the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate.

Retailers dominated this week's batch of earnings--one of the final batches of the third quarter earnings season.

Shares of Wal-Mart (WMT) jumped 10.9% to a new all-time high on Thursday after the world's largest retailer reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the third quarter and issued upbeat profit guidance for fiscal year 2018. Conversely, shares of Target (TGT) tumbled 9.9% on Wednesday after the company issued a disappointing earnings forecast for the holiday season.

Ross Stores (ROST), Gap (GPS), Advance Auto (AAP), Foot Locker (FL), Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), Buckle (BKE), Shoe Carnival (SCVL), and Hibbett Sports (HIBB) all soared after beating quarterly profit estimates. Most also beat sales estimates, and many provided upbeat guidance.

Unsurprisingly, the S&P 500's consumer discretionary (+1.3%) and consumer staples (+1.0%) sectors, which house retailers, finished near the top of the week's sector standings. The telecom services (+0.8%) group also outperformed, trimming its November loss to 2.1%.

On the flip side, the energy sector (-3.4%) struggled, giving back the prior week's advance and then some. The price of crude oil decreased at the beginning of the week--which didn't bode well for the energy group--but the commodity bounced back on Friday to end the week little changed; West Texas Intermediate crude futures slipped 0.1% to $56.71 per barrel.

Industrial shares also underperformed after General Electric (GE) cut its dividend by half and dialed back its profit forecast for 2018. GE shares ended the week lower by 11.1%, extending their year-to-date decline to 42.4%. The S&P 500's industrial sector lost 1.1% for the week.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries moved in a curve-flattening trade, sending the 2yr-10yr spread to its lowest level since 2007. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped five basis points to 2.35%, while the 2-yr yield climbed six basis points to 1.72%.

Following this week's events, investors still strongly believe that the Fed will raise rates next month, with the CME FedWatch Tool placing the chances of a December rate hike at 100.0%.

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Back to Record Territory
21-Nov-17 16:30 ET
Dow +160.50 at 23590.83, Nasdaq +71.76 at 6862.47, S&P +16.89 at 2599.03

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/21/back-to-record-territory.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities sprung to new record highs on Tuesday, with technology shares leading the charge.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+1.1%) outpaced the S&P 500 (+0.7%) and the Dow (+0.7%), but all three major stock indices finished at fresh record highs. The small-cap Russell 2000 (+1.0%) also posted a new all-time high, marking its first record close since October 5.

Trading volume was light once again on Tuesday and will likely remain that way throughout the abbreviated holiday week, creating the potential for outsized moves in either direction.

While there wasn't a particular catalyst to credit for the unexpected wave of buying, a positive performance from equity markets overseas certainly contributed to Wall Street's bullish bias. Indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Tuesday broadly higher, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+1.9%) pacing the advance.

Stocks were strong in Europe as well, sending the Euro Stoxx 50 higher by 0.5%, despite continued uncertainty stemming from the collapse of coalition talks in Germany. On a related note, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she would prefer new elections rather than trying to form a minority government.

With the positive tone having already been set in both Europe and Asia, U.S. equities followed suit, opening Tuesday's session in the green. The major U.S. averages extended their opening gains for the first hour of trading, but then began a sideways trend that carried them to the closing bell.

The S&P 500's technology sector (+1.2%) was strong from the jump, helped by upbeat performances from mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL 173.14, +3.16), Microsoft (MSFT 83.72, +1.19), Facebook (FB 181.86, +3.12), and Alphabet (GOOG 1034.49, +16.11)--all of which added at least 1.4%.

Following Tuesday's rally, the technology sector has added 38.6% year to date, more than double the S&P 500's advance of 16.1%.

The health care sector (+0.9%) also outperformed on Tuesday, led by medical device company Medtronic (MDT 82.66, +3.76), which jumped 4.8%. MDT shares advanced after the company reported better-than-expected profits for its fiscal second quarter and reaffirmed its guidance for the fiscal year.

On the downside, AT&T (T 34.33, -0.31) struggled, losing 0.9%, after the U.S. Department of Justice announced its decision to file a lawsuit against the company's acquisition of Time Warner (TWX 89.56, +1.85). Conversely, TWX shares added 2.1%. The DOJ's decision was announced on Monday afternoon.

The telecom services group (-0.5%) was the only sector to finish in the red, but the heavily-weighted financial space (+0.3%) underperformed as the yield curve continued to flatten--which doesn't bode well for the earnings prospects of lenders.

U.S. Treasuries ended Tuesday on a mixed note, cutting the 2yr-10-yr spread to 59 basis points. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped one basis point to 2.36%, while the 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 1.77%.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to Existing Home Sales for October:

Existing home sales increased 2.0% in October to an annualized rate of 5.48 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.42 million). The September reading was revised to 5.37 million from 5.39 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that notable supply constraints remain, which will continue to act as a drag on overall sales due to the limited inventory and the high prices on available inventory that is crimping affordability.

On Wednesday, investors will receive a number of economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 239K) at 8:30 ET, October Durable Goods Orders (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) also at 8:30 ET, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for November (Briefing.com consensus 97.9) at 10:00 ET.

Also of note, the minutes from the latest FOMC meeting will be released on Wednesday at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +27.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +19.4% YTD
S&P 500 +16.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.9% YTD

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Market Wrapped Up in Holiday Trade
22-Nov-17 16:15 ET
Dow -64.65 at 23526.18, Nasdaq +4.88 at 6867.35, S&P -1.95 at 2597.08

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/22/market-wrapped-up-in-holiday-trade.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The trading day is done, and for many participants, it was over before it began. The low trading volume said as much, as did the small changes in the major indices which held to tight trading ranges throughout the session.

Price returns ranged from down 0.3% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average to up 0.1% for the Nasdaq Composite, which established another record high.

The lack of concerted movement was not surprising considering the large gains registered on Tuesday left many participants convinced that the turkey-day work was done and that the time had arrived to settle in for the Thanksgiving holiday. Markets will be closed on Thursday and the stock and bond markets will have early closes at 1:00 p.m. ET and 2:00 p.m. ET, respectively, on Friday.

While there wasn't much movement today at the index level, there were some notable moves in individual stocks. Standouts in that regard include the likes of Deere & Co. (DE 145.33, +6.10, +4.4%), Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE 13.10, -1.02, -7.2%), GameStop (GME 17.38, +0.65, +3.9%), and Guess? (GES 15.62, -2.33, -13.0%), all of which reported earnings results after yesterday's close.

Separately, there was notable strength in shares of Apple (AAPL 174.96, +1.82, +1.1%) and Amazon.com (AMZN 1156.16, +16.67, +1.5%), both of which are expected to be big beneficiaries of the holiday selling season, which will ramp up excitedly on Thursday. In the same vein, a number of retail issues exhibited relative strength in front of Black Friday.

From a sector standpoint, the telecommunications sector (+1.7%) had the best showing as industry leaders Verizon (VZ 47.12, +0.94, +2.0%) and AT&T (T 34.86, +0.53, +1.5%) were pushed higher on speculation the FCC may soon roll back net neutrality rules.

The energy sector (+0.4%) was next in line, getting a boost from rising oil prices ($57.98, +$1.15, +2.0%), which benefited from a weaker dollar, reports of a drawdown in oil inventories, and some defensive posturing in front of the holiday that also showed up in the Treasury market. The yield on the 10-yr note slipped four basis points to 2.32%.

All other sector moves were limited to down 0.4% to up 0.1%.

For the most part, the major indices were non-responsive to news today, including the release of the FOMC Minutes for the October 31-November 1 meeting, which contained the admission that "several participants expressed concerns about a potential buildup of financial imbalances" given elevated asset valuations and low financial market volatility.

Some misgivings about the low inflation readings were also expressed in the minutes, but overall, there was no change in the market's perception that the Fed is inclined to raise the target range for the fed funds rate at its December meeting. That consideration was reflected in the fed funds futures market, which was unchanged from Tuesday in showing a 100% probability of a rate hike at the December meeting.

There was a good bit of economic data released today, although none of it stirred any concern -- or conviction -- among today's participants.

The Durable Goods Orders report for October revealed a 1.2% decrease in orders (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) that was led by a 4.3% drop in new orders for transportation equipment. Excluding transportation, orders were up 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) on the heels of an upwardly revised 1.1% increase (from +0.7%) for September.
The key takeaway from the report is that business spending decelerated in October, yet there is little reason at this juncture to think that deceleration is more than some normal slowing following some nice-sized gains in previous months.
Initial claims for the week ending November 18 decreased by 13,000 to 239,000, as expected, leaving claims in the sweet spot they have been for some time. Continuing claims for the week ending November 11 increased by 36,000 to 1.904 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it covers the period in which the household survey for the November employment report was conducted, so it should feed economists' expectations for another solid month of nonfarm payroll gains.
The University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index for November was revised to 98.5 (Briefing.com consensus 97.9) from the preliminary reading of 97.8. The upward revision was a byproduct of an upward adjustment in the reading for the expectations index. The final reading for October was 100.7, which was a decade peak, so consumer sentiment remains at lofty levels.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers are feeling more confident in their expectations for income, employment, and inflation, which could bode well for future spending activity.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nasdaq Composite +27.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +19.1% YTD
S&P 500 +16.0% YTD
S&P Mid Cap 400 +11.9%
Russell 2000 +11.9% YTD

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Unenthusiastic Start Following Thanksgiving Weekend
27-Nov-17 16:20 ET
Dow +22.79 at 23580.78, Nasdaq -10.64 at 6878.51, S&P -1.00 at 2601.42

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/27/unenthusiastic-start-following-thanksgiving-weekend.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities opened the week with a flat, unenthusiastic performance on Monday following the long Thanksgiving weekend.

The S&P 500 Index (unch) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) finished with modest losses, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) eked out a slim victory. All three major stock indices kept within a pretty narrow range throughout the session amid lighter-than-usual trading volume.

More than half of the S&P 500's 11 sectors settled Monday's session in positive territory, but gains were limited. The lightly-weighted telecom services and utilities groups were the top performers, adding 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively, followed by the more influential industrial group, which finished higher by just 0.2%.

Conversely, the energy sector was the weakest group, moving lower by 1.0%, as the price of crude oil retreated from its best level in over two years; West Texas Intermediate crude futures finished the session lower by 1.4% at a price of $58.13 per barrel. Monday's loss extends the energy sector's year-to-date decline to 10.8%.

On a related note, OPEC and non-OPEC nations, including Russia, will meet in Vienna on Thursday to discuss extending their supply cut agreement beyond the current end date of March 2018. Most analysts believe that the oil producers will reach an extension agreement, but the length of said extension remains unclear.

Other notable events on this week's calendar include the Fed Chair confirmation hearing for Jerome Powell (Tuesday), current Fed Chair Janet Yellen's semiannual testimony before the Joint Economic Committee (Wednesday), and a vote on the Senate's tax reform bill (expected Thursday).

Corporate news was pretty light on Monday, but it's worth noting that shares of Time (TIME 18.50, +1.60) jumped 9.5% after the magazine company--which, in addition to Time, owns brands like Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and People--agreed to be acquired by Meredith (MDP 67.55, +6.55) for $18.50 per share.

In addition, retailers advanced on 'Cyber Monday' amid continued signs of an upbeat start to the holiday shopping season. L Brands (LB 50.34, +1.98) showed particular strength, adding 4.1%, as did online giant Amazon (AMZN 1195.83, +9.83), which climbed 0.8%--settling at a new record high.

U.S. Treasuries moved mostly higher in yet another curve-flattening trade that cut the 2yr-10yr spread to 58 basis points from 60 bps on Friday. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped two basis points to 2.32%, while the 2-yr yield finished unchanged at 1.74%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Elsewhere, the Euro Stoxx 50 dropped 0.5% despite news over the weekend that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party has agreed to pursue a grand coalition with the Social Democrats in an attempt to break a political deadlock and avoid new elections.

Stocks in the Asia-Pacific region also finished Monday broadly lower, with China's Shanghai Composite (-0.9%) pacing the retreat.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to October New Home Sales:

New Home Sales hit an annualized rate of 685,000 in October, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 629,000. The September figure was revised to 645,000 from 667,000.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was sales growth in all regions, led by a huge pickup in sales in the Northeast and the Midwest, underscoring the solid demand for new homes.

On Tuesday, investors will receive October Advance International Trade In Goods (Briefing.com consensus -$65.4 billion) at 8:30 ET, October Advance Wholesale Inventories also at 8:30 ET, the September FHFA Housing Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) at 9:00 ET, the September S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +6.0%) also at 9:00 ET, and November Consumer Confidence (Briefing.com consensus 124.0) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +27.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +19.3% YTD
S&P 500 +16.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.5% YTD

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Financials Power Another Rally to Record Highs
28-Nov-17 16:25 ET
Dow +255.93 at 23836.71, Nasdaq +33.84 at 6912.35, S&P +25.62 at 2627.04

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/28/financials-power-another-rally-to-record-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities ran to new record highs on Tuesday, with the S&P 500's financial sector (+2.6%) leading the advance.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index climbed 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced a relatively modest 0.5%. All three major U.S. stock indices closed at new all-time highs, as did the small-cap Russell 2000, which jumped 1.5%.

Tuesday's rally was fueled by developments in Washington, including the Senate Budget Committee's approval of the GOP's tax reform bill--which effectively sends the bill to the full upper chamber for a vote. There were concerns that the bill wouldn't make it to the Senate floor due to Republicans' slim one-vote majority in the Budget Committee.

In addition, Jerome Powell's Fed Chair confirmation hearing provided support to the broader market--and to financials in particular.

Mr. Powell's comments were largely in line with the Fed's current policy rhetoric, although he did sound a little more lax than current Fed Chair Janet Yellen in the area of regulation. Specifically, Mr. Powell said rules implemented since the financial crisis are 'tough enough' and emphasized a desire to reduce regulatory constraints on smaller banks.

Financial heavyweights like JPMorgan Chase (JPM 101.36, +3.43), Bank of America (BAC 27.64, +1.05), Wells Fargo (WFC 55.57, +1.62), and Citigroup (C 73.70, +2.31) finished with gains between 3.0% and 4.0%.

On a related note, the yield curve steepened slightly as U.S. Treasuries sold off, pushing the 2yr-10yr spread to 59 basis points. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed two basis points to 2.34%, while the 2-yr yield jumped one basis point to 1.75%. A steeper yield curve bodes well for lenders' earnings prospects.

The industrial sector also finished ahead of the broader market, adding 1.5%, as did the lightly-weighted telecom services group, which jumped 2.2%.

However, the top-weighted technology sector struggled throughout the session, ending with a gain of just 0.2%. Mega caps like Apple (AAPL 173.07, -1.02), Alphabet (GOOG 1047.41, -6.80), and Facebook (FB 182.42, -0.61) weighed on the group, finishing with losses between 0.3% and 0.7%.

Sill, the tech space is this year's top-performing sector by far, sporting a year-to-date gain of 39.2%. For comparison, the S&P 500 has climbed 17.3% year to date.

It's also worth pointing out that Tuesday's rally was briefly interrupted in the afternoon following reports that North Korea launched a ballistic missile that landed in the Sea of Japan in Japan's exclusive economic zone. President Trump later responded to the launch, saying "it's a situation we will handle."

Elsewhere, equity markets in Europe finished Tuesday broadly higher, with the UK's FTSE (+1.0%) pacing the advance. After European markets were closed, reports surfaced that the EU and UK have reached a deal on the terms of Brexit liabilities. The pound overcame an early loss to add 0.3% on the U.S. dollar (1.1843).

Stock indices in the Asia-Pacific region ended Tuesday mostly flat; China's Shanghai Composite (+0.3%) showed relative strength.

Reviewing Tuesday's heavy dose of economic data, which included November Consumer Confidence, October Advance International Trade In Goods, October Advance Wholesale Inventories, the September FHFA Housing Price Index, and the September S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index:

The consumer confidence reading for November increased to 129.5 (Briefing.com consensus 124.0) from the prior month's revised reading of 126.2 (from 125.9).
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers are optimistic about the labor market, but are surprisingly reserved about their short-term income prospects. That is noteworthy because high levels of consumer confidence help consumer spending activity, yet it is income growth that drives consumer spending activity.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for October showed a deficit of $68.3 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$65.4 billion), up from a deficit of $64.1 billion in September.
The Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for October showed a decrease of 0.4%. The prior month's increase was revised to 0.1% from 0.3%.
The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.3% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%), while the August increase was revised to 0.8% from 0.7%.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Index increased 6.2% in September (Briefing.com consensus +6.0%), while the August increase was revised to 5.8% from 5.9%.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, the second estimate of third quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus +3.2%) at 8:30 ET, October Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) at 10:00 ET, and the Fed's Beige Book for November at 14:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +28.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +20.6% YTD
S&P 500 +17.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.2% YTD

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Financial Rally Helps Mitigate Technology Sell Off
29-Nov-17 16:25 ET
Dow +103.97 at 23940.68, Nasdaq -87.97 at 6824.38, S&P -0.97 at 2626.07

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/29/financial-rally-helps-mitigate-technology-sell-off.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks had a mixed outing on Wednesday as heavy losses in technology shares roughly balanced gains in financials and most other areas.

The S&P 500 (unch) finished a tick below its flat line, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and the Russell 2000 (+0.4%) both advanced to new record highs.

Conversely, the tech-heavy Nasdaq retreated from its record mark, dropping 1.3%, with its five largest components by market cap--Apple (AAPL 169.48, -3.59), Microsoft (MSFT 83.34, -1.54), Amazon (AMZN 1161.27, -32.33), Facebook (FB 175.13, -7.29), and Alphabet (GOOG 1021.66, -25.75)--losing between 1.8% and 4.0%.

Chipmakers also weighed heavily on the Nasdaq, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-4.4%) to a fresh November low.

Wednesday's technology sell off wasn't fueled by a particular catalyst, rather, it was the result of investors dialing back their technology holdings following an impressive year-to-date run. Even with today's decline of 2.6%, the S&P 500's technology sector remains comfortably atop the 2017 sector standings with a year-to-date gain of 35.7%.

For comparison, the S&P 500 has climbed 17.3% year to date and the second-best performing group--health care--is up 20.0%.

Most sectors benefited from increased buying on Wednesday--especially the financials (+1.8%) and telecom services (+2.7%) groups--as investors looked to reallocate their former technology funds. Being second only to technology in terms of weight, the financial sector helped keep the S&P 500's loss in check throughout the session.

Within the financial group, heavyweights like JPMorgan Chase (JPM 103.73, +2.37), Bank of America (BAC 28.28, +0.64), Wells Fargo (WFC 56.68, +1.11), and Citigroup (C 75.04, +1.34) finished with gains between 1.8% and 2.3%.

Meanwhile, industrial shares also outperformed on Wednesday, especially transports--which sent the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+3.3%) to a new all-time high.

In Washington, Fed Chair Janet Yellen gave her semiannual testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, but the event had little to no impact on the equity market. Ms. Yellen released her prepared remarks prior to her appearance, reiterating her view that the lull in inflation is due to transitory factors.

U.S. Treasuries sold off in a curve-steepening trade, widening the 2yr-10yr spread to 62 basis points. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed four basis points to 2.38%, while the 2-yr yield jumped one basis point to 1.76%.

Elsewhere, the major European bourses finished Wednesday's session mixed; Germany's DAX (unch) and France's CAC (+0.1%) closed with slim gains, while the UK's FTSE dropped 0.9%. UK equities tumbled amid an increase in the pound relative to the U.S. dollar (1.3411, +0.0066, +0.5%).

Stock indices in the Asia-Pacific region closed little changed, with Japan's Nikkei (+0.5%) showing relative strength.

Reviewing Wednesday's batch of economic data, which included the second estimate of third quarter GDP, October Pending Home Sales, the Fed's Beige Book for November, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The second estimate of third quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 3.3% (Briefing.com consensus +3.2%), up from 3.0% in the initial reading. Meanwhile, the Q3 GDP Deflator was revised to +2.1% (Briefing.com consensus +2.2%) from +2.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that economic output grew at its strongest pace since the first quarter of 2015, driven by a pickup in both consumer and business spending -- and despite the disruptions created by the hurricanes.
Pending Home Sales for October rose 3.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%). Today's reading follows a revised 0.4% decrease in September (from 0.0%).
The Fed's Beige Book for November showed that economic activity continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace across the 12 Federal Reserve Districts. In addition, most Districts reported a modest to moderate increase in employment, wages, and selling prices. The outlook for holiday sales was reported to be generally optimistic.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.1% to follow last week's 0.1% uptick.

On Thursday, investors will receive October Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), October Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), October PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), and weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 238K) at 8:30 ET, followed by the Chicago PMI for November (Briefing.com consensus 63.0) at 9:45 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +26.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +21.1% YTD
S&P 500 +17.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.6% YTD

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Stocks Hit Record Highs Ahead of Senate Vote
30-Nov-17 16:20 ET
Dow +331.67 at 24272.35, Nasdaq +49.58 at 6873.96, S&P +21.51 at 2647.58

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/11/30/stocks-hit-record-highs-ahead-of-senate-vote.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. stocks jumped to new record highs on Thursday, fueled by increased optimism regarding the feasibility of a tax overhaul.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both finished at all-time highs, adding 1.4% and 0.8%, respectively, but some afternoon selling left the indices a step below their best marks of the day. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 0.7%, reclaiming about half of its Wednesday decline.

Small caps underperformed, but still pushed the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) to a fresh record high.

The Senate will likely vote on its version of a tax reform bill either late Thursday night or early Friday morning. The chances of the bill passing seemingly increased after Senator John McCain (R-AZ) came out in favor of the piece of legislation, however, there are still a handful of GOP Senators sitting on the fence and defects from just three would block the bill's passage.

Financials were bullish following Mr. McCain's announcement, but weakened notably in the afternoon. Nonetheless, the S&P 500's financial sector finished with a solid gain of 0.6%, extending its week-to-date advance to 4.9%. In total, 11 of 11 groups finished Thursday in the green, with gains ranging from 0.1% to 1.6%.

Energy was the top-performing sector, adding 1.6%, after OPEC and non-OPEC nations, including Russia, agreed to extend their production cut agreement by another nine months, as expected. The deal, which will now expire at the end of 2018, seeks to reduce output by 1.8 million barrels per day.

Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures finished flat at $57.31 per barrel, unable to add anything further to their November rally--which was largely fueled by the expectation that the OPEC/non-OPEC production cut agreement would be extended. WTI crude futures finished November with a monthly gain of 5.4%.

The industrial sector also moved solidly higher on Thursday, climbing 1.5%. Transports paced the industrial advance, evidenced by the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which climbed 2.0% to finish at a new all-time high for the second day in a row. The DJTA has added 6.8% so far this week.

On the corporate front, CVS Health (CVS 76.60, +3.20) jumped 4.4% following a Wall Street Journal report that the pharmacy retailer is close to reaching a long rumored deal to acquire Aetna (AET 180.18, +0.61) for a price somewhere between $200 and $205 per share. AET shares advanced 0.3%.

Kroger (KR 25.86, +1.48) finished with a gain of 6.1%--although it held a gain of more than 10.0% at the opening bell--after the supermarket chain reported better-than-expected earnings for the third quarter and reaffirmed its profit guidance for fiscal year 2018.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries moved lower in a curve-steepening trade, pushing the 2yr-10yr spread higher by one basis point. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note jumped four basis points to 2.42%, while the 2-yr yield climbed three basis points to 1.79%.

Elsewhere, European equities held gains through much of Thursday's session, but a late bout of selling left the Euro Stoxx 50 lower by 0.4%. The UK's FTSE showed relative weakness for the second day in a row, finishing with a loss of 0.9%. For the week, the FTSE is down 1.1%.

Stock indices in the Asia-Pacific region settled Thursday mostly lower, but Japan's Nikkei managed to advance 0.6%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included October Personal Income, October Personal Spending, October PCE Prices, weekly Initial Claims, and the Chicago PMI for November:

Personal income climbed 0.4% in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following an unrevised increase of 0.4% in September. Meanwhile, personal spending rose 0.3% in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), down from a revised increase of 0.9% in September (from 1.0%). The PCE Price Index increased 0.1% in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), while the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 1.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it points to the prospect of improved consumer spending and the persistence of low inflation.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 238,000, which is in line with the Briefing.com consensus. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 240,000 (from 239,000). As for continuing claims, they increased to 1.957 million from a revised count of 1.915 million (from 1.904 million).
The key takeaway from the report is the low initial claims reading, which underscores a reluctance on the part of employers to let workers go in a tight labor market.
Chicago PMI for November hit 63.9 (Briefing.com consensus 63.0), down from 66.2 in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that three-in-four firms responding to a special question said another hike in the fed funds rate will have no material impact on their business.

On Friday, investors will receive the ISM Manufacturing Index for November (Briefing.com consensus 58.3) and the Construction Spending Report for October (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%); both reports will be released at 10:00 ET. In addition, November auto and truck sales will be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite +27.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +22.8% YTD
S&P 500 +18.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.8% YTD

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Promising Tax Vote Keeps Losses In Check
01-Dec-17 16:30 ET
Dow -40.76 at 24231.59, Nasdaq -26.39 at 6847.57, S&P -5.36 at 2642.22

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/1/promising-tax-vote-keeps-losses-in-check.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities trimmed weekly gains on Friday, but the prospect of tax reform helped keep losses in check.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 slipped 0.2% apiece, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.4%. For the week, the Dow and the S&P 500 added 2.9% and 1.5%, respectively, while the Nasdaq finished with a weekly loss of 0.6%.

Investors were cautious about the state of tax reform coming into Friday's session after the Senate parliamentarian ruled against a fiscal trigger within the Senate's tax reform bill. The trigger would have increased taxes in the future if economic growth failed to make up for lost tax revenue and was incorporated to appease deficit concerns among several GOP Senators.

The ruling forced the Senate to delay its vote, which was originally expected to occur late Thursday or early Friday, as the GOP scrambled to make changes to the bill. In the meantime, the market became preoccupied with a different headline.

In the late morning, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russian ambassador to the United States and agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team, which is investigating Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.

However, the focus was more on an ABC report, which claimed that Mr. Flynn is willing to testify against President Donald Trump. This headline reignited fears about a potential impeachment and sent the major U.S. indices sharply lower. At its worst mark of the day, the S&P 500 held a loss of 1.6%.

Stocks began retracing losses pretty quickly, however, as the focus returned to the Senate's tax reform bill, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said has enough support to pass. The official vote is expected to occur sometime Friday evening, but the timing remains fluid.

Five of eleven sectors finished Friday in the red, with industrials (-1.2%) and technology (-0.6%) showing particular weakness. On the flip side, the energy sector (+0.8%) was the top performer, underpinned by an increase in the price of crude oil; WTI crude futures climbed 1.7% to $58.36 per barrel.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended the week on a higher note, sending yields lower across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped six basis points to 2.36%, while the 2-yr yield finished lower by two basis points at 1.77%.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Friday mixed, with Japan's Nikkei (+0.4%) showing relative strength, while European stocks settled broadly lower, evidenced by the Euro Stoxx 50, which lost 1.2%.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to the ISM Manufacturing Index for November and the Construction Spending Report for October:

The ISM Index for November declined to 58.2 from an unrevised reading of 58.7 in October, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 58.3.
While growth decelerated from the prior month, the key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing activity is still running at a brisk pace. To that end, the indexes for new orders and production both increased month-over-month and the 58.2 reading for the PMI is above the 12-month average of 57.1.
The Construction Spending report for October rose 1.4%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%. The prior month's increase was left unrevised at 0.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that overall construction spending growth remains modest and an inhibitor of stronger real GDP growth.

On Monday, investors will receive just one economic report--October Factory Orders--which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +27.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +22.6% YTD
S&P 500 +18.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.3% YTD

Week In Review: Bullish Ahead of Senate Tax Vote

U.S. equities advanced this week, fueled by the prospect of a tax overhaul.

The Dow led the charge, moving higher by 2.9%, followed from a distance by the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000, which added 1.5% and 1.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.6% as technology stocks fell to some profit taking following a big year-to-date run.

Investors kept an eye on Washington throughout the week, awaiting the Senate's vote on its version of a tax reform bill. Things appeared to be progressing nicely as the bill made its way through the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) voiced his support for the measure on Thursday.

However, the effort hit a bump in the road on Thursday evening when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that a revenue trigger within the bill--which would have raised taxes in the future if economic growth failed to make up for lost tax revenue--is not allowed under Senate rules.

The trigger was a key provision for several GOP Senators who are concerned about the tax overhaul's potential impact on the national debt.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suggested on Friday afternoon that a compromise to appease the aforementioned debt concerns had been reached, saying that the GOP has enough votes to pass the bill. However, an official vote has yet to take place.

The Senate's promising progress on tax reform largely fueled this week's rally, but equities also received support from Jerome Powell's Fed Chair confirmation hearing, which took place on Tuesday. Mr. Powell's comments were largely in line with the Fed's current policy rhetoric, but he did sound a little more lax in the area of regulation.

There were a few developments that worked against the bulls this week, perhaps the most notable of which was former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team--which is investigating Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russian ambassador to the United States and agreed to cooperate with Mr. Mueller's investigation. An ABC report indicated that Mr. Flynn is willing to answer questions about President Donald Trump, which reignited fears about a potential impeachment.

Also, North Korea launched a ballistic missile on Tuesday that landed in the Sea of Japan--specifically in Japan's exclusive economic zone.

Nine of eleven sectors finished the week in positive territory. The top-performing groups were telecom services (+6.7%), financials (+5.2%), industrials (+2.9%), and energy (+2.7%), while the weakest sectors were information technology (-2.0%) and real estate (-0.5%).

The energy sector rallied after OPEC and non-OPEC nations, including Russia, agreed on Thursday to extend their production cut agreement by another nine months, as expected. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures finished in the red for just the second time in eight weeks, dropping 1.0% to $58.36 per barrel.

Within the industrial sector, transports showed particular strength, pushing the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 5.9%.

Following this week's events, the CME FedWatch Tool still places the chances of a December rate hike at 100.0%.

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Broad Weakness Overpowers Tech Outperformance
05-Dec-17 16:20 ET
Dow -109.41 at 24180.64, Nasdaq -13.15 at 6762.20, S&P -9.87 at 2629.57

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/5/broad-weakness-overpowers-tech-outperformance.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.4%) slipped for the third session in a row on Tuesday, with 10 of its 11 sectors finishing in the red.

For a while, it appeared that a bounce-back performance from the top-weighted technology sector, which dropped 1.9% on Monday, might be enough to overpower losses from most other groups. However, the sector weakened as the day wore on, finishing with a modest gain of just 0.2%.

At their best marks of the day, the tech sector held a gain of 1.4%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite--which ended lower by 0.2%--held a gain of 0.9%.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the small-cap Russell 2000 finished lower by 0.5% and 1.0%, respectively.

As for the other ten sectors, losses ranged from 0.2% to 1.8%. The lightly-weighted telecom services group (-1.8%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings, trimming gains from a largely uninterrupted three-week rally; the group advanced 13.2% from November 14 to December 4.

The utilities sector also showed relative weakness, losing 1.2%, with Edison (EIX 70.00, -10.26) being the group's worst-performing component. The energy provider dropped 12.8% after announcing that more than 260,000 customers in Southern California had lost power due to a fast-moving wildfire in the Ventura County area.

Retailers weighed on the consumer discretionary sector (-0.8%), evidenced by the 1.0% decrease in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.07, -0.45), while transports led the industrial sector lower by 0.9%; the Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 1.4%, reducing its six-session gain to 6.6%.

Also of note, the heavily-weighted financial sector lost 0.6% amid yet another curve-flattening trade in the bond market.

U.S. Treasuries finished Tuesday's session mixed, cutting the 2yr-10yr spread by five basis points. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped three basis points to 2.35%, while the 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 1.83%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Elsewhere, equities slipped in Asia and Europe, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng (-1.0%) and France's CAC (-0.3%) showing relative weakness in their respective regions.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the ISM Services Index for November and the Trade Balance for October:

The ISM Services Index for November declined to 57.4 (Briefing.com consensus 59.3) from an unrevised reading of 60.1 in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that business activity in the non-manufacturing sector is still expanding, but at a somewhat slower rate that is still consistent with 3.0%+ real GDP growth.
The October trade balance showed a deficit of $48.7 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$47.4 billion). The September deficit was revised to $44.9 billion from $43.5 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that trade will be accounted for as a negative input in fourth quarter GDP models considering that the real trade deficit of $65.3 billion is 5.3% higher than the third quarter average real trade deficit of $62.0 billion.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, the ADP Employment Change Report for November (Briefing.com consensus 190K) at 8:15 ET, and the revised readings for third quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus +3.3%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +25.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +22.4% YTD
S&P 500 +17.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.8% YTD

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Flat Finish Despite Tech Bounce Back
06-Dec-17 16:25 ET
Dow -39.73 at 24140.91, Nasdaq +14.16 at 6776.36, S&P -0.30 at 2629.27

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/6/flat-finish-despite-tech-bounce-back.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equity indices finished roughly flat on Wednesday despite strength in technology shares.

The S&P 500 finished a tick below its unchanged mark, extending its losing streak to four sessions in a row. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.2%. Small caps underperformed in the midweek session, pushing the Russell 2000 lower by 0.5%.

The top-weighted technology sector was a focal point on Wednesday as technology shares, which have paced this year's rally, have recently fallen victim to an end-of-the-year sector rotation; the tech space lost 2.6% last Wednesday and another 1.9% on Monday.

In addition, the group disappointed with its performance on Tuesday as it failed to protect a solid opening gain.

Nevertheless, the technology sector did not disappoint on Wednesday. The group opened relatively flat, but strengthened throughout the session to finish with a gain of 0.8%. Heavyweights like Facebook (FB 176.06, +3.23), Alphabet (GOOG 1018.38, +13.23), and Microsoft (MSFT 82.78, +1.19) added between 1.3% and 1.9%.

However, it's worth noting that Apple (AAPL 169.01, -0.63) struggled (-0.4%), finishing lower for the fifth session in a row.

The consumer staples (+0.6%), utilities (+0.4%), real estate (+0.2%), and industrials (+0.1%) groups also finished Wednesday in the green, but losses from the health care (-0.1%), financials (-0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.5%), materials (-0.6%), telecom services (-1.0%), and energy (-1.3%) sectors roughly balanced the gains.

Energy shares showed particular weakness as the price of crude oil fell to its lowest level in more than two weeks; West Texas Intermediate crude futures tumbled 2.9% to $55.95 per barrel. On a related note, the Department of Energy reported that U.S. crude stockpiles decreased by 5.6 million barrels last week, while the consensus estimate expected a draw of 2.5 million barrels.

Corporate news didn't have much impact at the macro level, but it did cause some notable movement in individual stocks.

DaVita (DVA 69.20, +8.27) jumped 13.6% after agreeing to sell its DaVita Medical Group unit to UnitedHealth's (UNH 219.94, -0.15) Optum for approximately $4.9 billion in cash. Vera Bradly (VRA 11.03, +2.39) surged 27.7% after reporting above-consensus earnings and issuing upbeat profit guidance for the holiday season.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries rallied on Wednesday, sending yields lower across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped three basis points to 2.33%, while the 2-yr yield also lost three basis points, settling at 1.80%.

Elsewhere, European equities finished the midweek session mixed, while the major Asian indices moved broadly lower. Japan's Nikkei dropped 2.0%, marking its biggest one-day drop since March, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 2.1%, which is its worst one-day decline in 13 months.

Reviewing Wednesday's batch of economic data, which included the ADP Employment Change Report for November, the revised readings for third quarter Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 190,000 in November (Briefing.com consensus 190,000). The October reading was left unrevised at 235,000.
The ADP reading precedes Friday's more influential Employment Situation Report for November (Briefing.com consensus +190K).
Third quarter unit labor costs were revised downward to -0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) from +0.5% in the preliminary reading. Meanwhile, second quarter productivity was left unrevised at 3.0% (Briefing.com consensus +3.3%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the productivity increase was the largest since the third quarter of 2014, yet labor costs continue to be subdued.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 4.7% to follow last week's 3.1% decrease.

On Thursday, investors will receive November Challenger Job Cuts at 7:00 ET, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 240K) at 8:30 ET, and October Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $17.0 billion) at 15:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +25.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +22.2% YTD
S&P 500 +17.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.2% YTD

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Modest Gains Ahead of Friday's Jobs Report
07-Dec-17 16:25 ET
Dow +70.57 at 24211.48, Nasdaq +36.47 at 6812.83, S&P +7.71 at 2636.98

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/7/modest-gains-ahead-of-fridays-jobs-report.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities recouped some of the losses registered earlier in the week on Thursday, with industrial shares pacing the advance.

The S&P 500 added 0.3%, as did the Dow Jones Industrial Average, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite outperformed, climbing 0.5%. Small caps showed relative strength, pushing the Russell 2000 higher by 0.8%. The S&P 500 will enter Friday's session with a week-to-date loss of 0.2%.

A Friday night deadline to secure government funding kept investors on their toes on Thursday. Lawmakers are expected to agree to a short-term extension that would fund the government for another two weeks, perhaps giving the GOP just enough time to pass its tax reform bill before having to take up the issue again.

President Trump met with congressional leaders on Thursday afternoon to discuss the issue, but no agreement was announced.

Separately, Bloomberg reported that the White House plans to release its long-promised infrastructure plan in early January. The report helped support the S&P 500's industrial sector (+0.9%), which was already strong amid another transport rally; the Dow Jones Transportation Average finished higher by 1.3%.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.7%) also outperformed on Thursday, with Facebook (FB 180.14, +4.08) and Alphabet (GOOG 1030.93, +12.55) jumping 2.3% and 1.2%, respectively. Chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO 263.89, 0.00) started off strong after reporting upbeat quarterly earnings, but finished at its unchanged mark.

In total, nine of eleven sectors settled in the green, with the consumer staples sector (-0.9%) being the only group to finish with a sizable loss. Within the sector, Dow components Procter & Gamble (PG 90.10, -1.15) and Coca-Cola (KO 45.78, -0.67) dropped around 1.3% apiece.

U.S. Treasuries were flat through much of the session but eventually finished below their unchanged marks, with longer-dated issues showing particular weakness. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note jumped five basis points to 2.38%, while the 2-yr yield climbed just one basis point to 1.81%.

Elsewhere, equities indices in the Asia-Pacific region settled Thursday mixed--with Japan's Nikkei (+1.5%) showing relative strength and China's Shanghai Composite (-0.7%) showing relative weakness--while the Euro Stoxx 50 jumped 0.4%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which was limited to weekly Initial Jobless Claims and October Consumer Credit:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 236,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 238,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.908 million from a revised count of 1.960 million (from 1.957 million).
The initial claims report has been glossed over by market participants who have their labor market sights set on the November Employment Situation report, which will be released before the open on Friday.
The October Consumer Credit Report showed an increase of $20.5 billion (Briefing.com consensus +$17.0 billion). The September credit growth was revised to $19.2 billion from $20.8 billion.

The Employment Situation Report for November (Briefing.com consensus +190,000) will be released at 8:30 ET on Friday, followed by the 10:00 ET release of October Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%) and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for December (Briefing.com consensus 98.8).

Nasdaq Composite +26.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +22.5% YTD
S&P 500 +17.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.0% YTD

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Modest Gains Leave Stocks at Record Highs
08-Dec-17 16:30 ET
Dow +117.68 at 24329.16, Nasdaq +27.24 at 6840.08, S&P +14.52 at 2651.50

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. stocks finished the week on a positive note, helped by a favorable Employment Situation Report for November.

Both the S&P 500 and the Dow settled at new all-time highs, adding 0.6% and 0.5%, respectively. The Nasdaq finished slightly behind its peers, adding 0.4%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 showed relative weakness, finishing with a gain of just 0.1%. For the week, the S&P 500 advanced 0.4%.

The Employment Situation Report for November showed strong job growth and subdued wage growth, keeping in line with recent trends. Nonfarm payrolls increased more than expected (228K actual vs 190K Briefing.com consensus), average hourly earnings rose less than expected (+0.2% actual vs +0.3% Briefing.com consensus), and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%.

In short, the report isn't likely to keep the Fed from raising rates at next week's meeting, but it could give the Fed a cause for pause going into 2018.

A positive vibe from overseas equity markets also contributed to the upbeat sentiment on Wall Street. Stocks in the Asia-Pacific region finished Friday broadly higher as investors rallied around China's better-than-expected November trade surplus (+$40.21 billion actual vs +$35.00 billion expected). Japan's Nikkei added 1.4%, finishing flat for the week.

Elsewhere, the Euro Stoxx 50 settled with a gain of 0.6% after the UK and the European Union reached an agreement on Brexit divorce terms. Britain will pay as much as GBP39 billion to complete the separation and there will be no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Talks will now turn to future trade relations.

In addition, Congress' decision to pass a two-week stopgap spending bill, which delayed an impending government shutdown, helped underpin Friday's advance.

The S&P 500's telecom services sector (+1.5%) was the top-performing group, followed from a distance by the heavily-weighted health care space (+1.1%). Within the health care group, biotech names showed particular strength, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 106.07, +2.02) higher by 1.9%.

Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN 114.46, +7.68) paced the biotech rally, jumping 7.2%, after the New York Times reported that activist hedge fund Elliot Management has urged the biotech company to do more to lift its stock price. Celgene (CELG 106.09, +3.36) also outperformed, adding 3.3%, after Atlantic Equities upgraded its shares to 'Overweight.'

In total, ten of eleven sectors finished Friday's session in positive territory, with the lightly-weighted materials space (unch) being the lone laggard.

Outside the equity market, U.S. Treasuries finished mostly flat, with the benchmark 10-yr yield closing unchanged at 2.38%, while the U.S. Dollar Index ticked up 0.1% to 93.88. West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 1.1% to $57.30 per barrel, but still finished the week lower by 1.8%.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the Employment Situation Report for November, the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for December, and October Wholesale Inventories:

Employment Situation Report
November nonfarm payrolls increased by 228,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 190,000. The prior month's increase was revised to 244,000 from 261,000. Nonfarm private payrolls rose by 221,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 170,000. The previous month's increase was revised to 247,000 from 252,000.
The unemployment rate stayed at 4.1% (Briefing.com consensus 4.1%). Average hourly earnings increased by 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the previous month's reading was revised to -0.1% from 0.0%. The average workweek was reported at 34.5 (Briefing.com consensus 34.4). The previous month's reading was left unrevised at 34.4.
The key takeaway from the report is that wage growth remains subdued. That isn't likely to keep the Fed from raising rates at this month's meeting, yet it could give the Fed a data-based reason to move more slowly on the next rate hike in 2018.
University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment:
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for December declined to 96.8 (Briefing.com consensus 98.8) from 98.5 in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers continue to remain upbeat about current economic conditions, with higher income expectations feeding their optimism. As an aside, there was also a jump in consumers' inflation expectations for 2018.
Wholesale Inventories
October Wholesale Inventories decreased 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%). The September reading was revised to +0.1% from +0.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the sales increase outpaced the inventory increase by a sizable margin, which is a step in the right direction for wholesalers trying to regain some pricing power.

On Monday, investors will receive just one economic report--the October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey--which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +27.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +23.1% YTD
S&P 500 +18.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.1% YTD

Week In Review: Waiting on Washington

Equities ticked higher this week as investors geared up for an end-of-year showdown in Washington.

The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both advanced 0.4%, closing Friday's session at fresh record highs, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed, losing 0.1%. Small caps struggled this week, pushing the Russell 2000 lower by 1.0%.

Investor sentiment was upbeat at Monday's opening bell after the U.S. Senate passed its version of a tax reform bill over the weekend, allowing the GOP to enter the final stretch of its quest to rewrite the tax code. House and Senate Republicans are hoping to reach an agreement on a final bill and pass said bill in their respective chambers before December 22.

In addition to the GOP's self-imposed tax reform deadline, December 22 is the new end date for government funding after Congress agreed to a two-week stopgap spending bill on Thursday evening. The risk of a government shutdown was on investors' minds throughout the week, helping to keep the bulls in check.

With the legislative agenda for the rest of the year virtually set, investors appeared to be in wait-and-see mode for much of the week, taking some profits and readjusting their portfolios. However, the Employment Situation Report for November, which was released on Friday, helped equities finish the week on a positive note.

The Employment Situation Report for November showed a larger-than-expected increase in nonfarm payrolls (228K actual vs 190K Briefing.com consensus) and a smaller-than-expected rise in average hourly earnings (+0.2% actual vs +0.3% Briefing.com consensus).

In other words, job growth has remained strong while wages--which are positively correlated with inflation--have remained relatively subdued. This combination has proven to be highly beneficial for the stock market as it points to steady economic growth but leaves out the inflationary concerns that typically accompany said growth.

The S&P 500's eleven sectors finished the week mixed, with seven settling in the green and four closing in the red. The financial sector was the top performer, adding 1.5%, followed closely by the industrial group (+1.4%). Within the industrial space, transports showed particular strength, pushing the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 2.1%.

On the downside, the energy sector lost 0.7% amid a decrease in the price of crude oil; West Texas Intermediate crude futures declined 1.8% to $57.30 per barrel. The utilities space (-1.0%) also struggled as energy providers like Edison (EIX) faced outages due to wild fires in Southern California; EIX shares lost 11.1% for the week.

Corporate news was pretty light this week, but it's worth noting that CVS Health (CVS) acquired health insurer Aetna (AET) for $207 per share in cash and stock. That price represents a premium of about 29% to where Aetna shares were trading before the Wall Street Journal reported that the companies were in talks in October.

Looking ahead, the Fed is widely expected to announce a rate hike of 25 basis points next week, which would bring the fed funds target range to 1.25%-1.50%.

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Quiet Climb to Fresh Record Highs
11-Dec-17 16:20 ET
Dow +56.87 at 24386.03, Nasdaq +35.00 at 6875.08, S&P +8.49 at 2659.99

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/11/quiet-climb-to-fresh-record-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities quietly climbed to new all-time highs on Monday, with technology and energy shares pacing the advance.

The Dow and the S&P 500 added 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively, to finish at new record highs for the second session in a row. The tech-heavy Nasdaq did not rewrite its record mark, but it did outpace its peers with a gain of 0.5%. Conversely, the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed, losing 0.1%.

Headlines were few and far between on Monday following a quiet weekend and ahead of a handful of central bank policy meetings. The Fed is expected to raise the fed funds target range by 25 basis points on Wednesday, while the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, both of which meet on Thursday, are expected to leave their key policy rates unchanged.

Tax reform remained on investors' minds, even though there weren't any new developments of note. Republicans hope to send a finalized bill to the White House before December 22.

The top-weighted technology sector, which comprises nearly a quarter of the broader market, was among the top-performing groups on Monday, settling with a gain of 0.8%. Apple (AAPL 172.67, +3.30) and Microsoft (MSFT 85.23, +1.07) were big contributors, adding 2.0% and 1.3%, respectively.

Energy shares also outperformed, underpinned by an increase in the price of crude oil; West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 1.1% to $57.98 per barrel. The energy sector jumped 0.7%, with Dow components Chevron (CVX 120.42, +0.50) and Exxon Mobil (XOM 83.03, +0.37) adding 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively.

It's also worth pointing out that telecoms rallied on Monday, thanks in large part to CenturyLink (CTL 15.87, +1.20), which jumped 8.2% after numerous insiders, including CEO Glen Post, bought a total of 188,500 shares last week.

On the downside, the financials and industrials sectors finished at the bottom of the sector standings, losing 0.2% apiece. Within the financial group, lenders suffered at the hand of another curve-flattening trade in the U.S. Treasury market, which cut the 2yr-10yr spread by two basis points.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished flat at 2.39%, while the 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 1.82%.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region advanced on Monday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+1.1%) leading the charge, while the major European bourses finished mixed. The UK's FTSE showed relative strength, adding 0.8%, while France's CAC and Germany's DAX lost 0.2% apiece.

Also of note, the CBOE launched bitcoin futures trading on Sunday evening. The one-month futures contract was trading at around $18,600 at the stock market's closing bell.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey:

The October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 6.0 million from a revised 6.18 million (from 6.09 million) in September.

On Tuesday, investors will receive two economic reports--the November Producer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and the November Treasury Budget (Briefing.com consensus -$134.0 billion)--which will be released at 8:30 ET and 14:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +27.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +23.4% YTD
S&P 500 +18.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.0% YTD

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Financials Fuel Another Positive Day on Wall Street
12-Dec-17 16:20 ET
Dow +118.77 at 24504.80, Nasdaq -12.76 at 6862.32, S&P +4.12 at 2664.11

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/12/financials-fuel-another-positive-day-on-wall-street.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The U.S. equity market had another positive showing on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing at fresh record highs for the third session in a row.

Tuesday's session was, like Monday's, relatively quiet as investors continued to await the Fed's latest policy directive, which will cross the wires on Wednesday afternoon. The S&P 500 advanced 0.2% with seven of its eleven sectors finishing in positive territory. The Dow did modestly better, adding 0.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq finished with a loss of 0.2%.

The heavily-weighted financial sector climbed 1.0% on Tuesday, extending its December gain to 2.5%--which is more than four times the S&P 500's month-to-date gain of 0.6%. Within the group, Dow component Goldman Sachs (GS 257.68, +7.55) was among the strongest names (+3.0%), helping the Dow Jones Industrial Average outpace its peers.

Finishing at the very top of the sector standings--just one step above the financial group--was the telecom services sector, which rallied 2.8%. Wireless giants AT&T (T 38.10, +1.20) and Verizon (VZ 53.19, +1.35) finished with respective gains of 3.3% and 2.6%. VZ shares were upgraded to 'Buy' at Nomura before the opening bell.

As for the other advancing sectors, none finished with a gain of more than 0.4%.

On the downside, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.3%) settled in negative territory, breaking a five-session winning streak. Chipmakers were particularly weak, evidenced by the 1.0% decrease in the PHLX Semiconductor Index, as was social media giant Facebook (FB 176.96, -2.08), which dropped 1.2%.

In corporate news, Dow component Boeing (BA 289.94, +6.78) announced a 20% increase in its quarterly dividend and a new $18 billion share repurchase program. The news sent the aerospace giant to a new all-time high (+2.4%) and helped fuel the Dow's relatively strong performance.

U.S. Treasuries ended the day mostly lower, but shorter-dated issues managed to eke out slim gains. The 2-yr yield slipped one basis point to 1.81%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.40%. The three basis point increase in the 2yr-10yr spread helped fuel the financial sector's positive performance.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Tuesday on a lower note, with China's Shanghai Composite (-1.3%) pacing the retreat, while the Euro Stoxx 50 advanced for the third time in four sessions, adding 0.4%.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the November Producer Price Index and the November Treasury Budget:

Producer prices rose 0.4% in November (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while core producer prices increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, producer prices are up 3.1% and core producer prices have risen 2.4%.
The key takeaway from the PPI report is that producer prices are rising and will create some profit margin pressures if the higher prices are not passed through to consumers.
The Treasury Budget for November showed a deficit of $138.5 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$134.0 billion) versus a deficit of $136.7 billion for November 2016.
The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the November deficit cannot be compared to the $63.2 billion deficit registered in October.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET and the November Consumer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) at 8:30 ET. The Fed will release its latest policy directive at 14:00 ET.

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Stocks Slip In Final Minutes, Finish Wednesday Mixed
13-Dec-17 16:30 ET
Dow +80.63 at 24585.43, Nasdaq +13.48 at 6875.80, S&P -1.26 at 2662.85

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/13/stocks-slip-in-final-minutes-finish-wednesday-mixed.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities finished mostly higher on Wednesday, but financial shares struggled following the Fed's latest policy directive.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average settled at a new record high for the fourth session in a row, adding 0.3%. The Nasdaq Composite also finished higher, adding 0.2%, but the S&P 500 settled with a slim loss of 0.1%. The benchmark index held a modest gain for much of the day, but fell sharply in the final minutes of trading.

Small caps showed relative strength, pushing the Russell 2000 higher by 0.6%.

As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee raised the fed funds target range by 25 basis points to 1.25%-1.50% on Wednesday, marking the third rate hike of 2017. Chicago Fed President Evans and Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari--the FOMC's two most dovish members--dissented, saying they preferred to keep the target range unchanged.

The Fed's so-called "dot plot" revealed that the median FOMC member still anticipates three rate hikes in 2018 and two in 2019. Both figures were unchanged from the projections released in September, even though the central bank acknowledged that overall inflation and core inflation have declined this year and are running below 2.0%.

U.S. Treasuries rallied in a curve-flattening trade, underpinned by both the Fed's policy statement and a smaller-than-expected increase in the core Consumer Price Index for November (+0.1% actual vs +0.2% Briefing.com consensus). The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note tumbled five basis points to 2.35%, while the 2-yr yield slipped two basis points to 1.79%.

The flattening of the yield curve weighed heavily on the financial sector, which is second only to technology in terms of weight, representing nearly 15.0% of the broader market. The financial space dropped 1.3%, mitigating gains registered in most other areas.

In total, seven of eleven sectors finished in the green, but gains were limited; no group advanced more than 0.5%.

On the political front, House and Senate Republicans reached an agreement of the final version of a tax reform bill on Wednesday, putting President Trump's first major legislative victory within reach. The full details of the bill will be released later in the week and votes are scheduled to take place in both chambers sometime next week.

Reports indicate that the bill would cut the corporate tax rate to 21%--which is slightly higher than the 20% rate that the GOP was originally shooting for, but still significantly below the current rate of 35%. The new corporate tax rate would take effect in 2018, which is faster than the 2019 start date in the Senate's version of the bill.

It's also worth pointing out that Democrat Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore in a special election for Alabama's open U.S. Senate seat. Mr. Jones' victory will reduce the GOP's majority in the Senate from 52-48 to 51-49, but it is not expected to impact tax reform as Mr. Jones will not take the oath of office for a few weeks.

In corporate news, Caterpillar (CAT 148.57, +5.15) jumped 3.6%, settling at a new record high, after reporting a year-over-year increase of 26% in November machine sales. Target (TGT 62.67, +1.65) also advanced, adding 2.7%, after announcing that it will acquire Shipt, an internet-based grocery delivery service, for $550 million in cash.

Conversely, 21st Century Fox (FOXA 32.75, -1.35) lost 4.0% following reports that a deal with Walt Disney (DIS 107.61, +0.18) could be announced as soon as Thursday. As a reminder, Disney is reported to be interested in acquiring around $60 billion of assets from 21st Century Fox.

Elsewhere, equities had a weak showing in Europe, with the Euro Stoxx 50 moving lower by 0.5%, while the major stock indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Wednesday mixed. Japan's Nikkei lost 0.5%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng and China's Shanghai Composite jumped 1.5% and 0.7%, respectively.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the November Consumer Price Index and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Total CPI increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) in November while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI and core CPI are up 2.2% and 1.7%, respectively.
The key takeaway from the report is that it didn't signal any alarming consumer inflation pressures, which will leave market participants predisposed to think that the Federal Reserve is apt to continue following a gradual tightening path.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.3% to follow last week's 4.7% increase.

On Friday, investors will receive November Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 239K), and November Export/Import Prices at 8:30 ET, followed by October Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +27.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +24.4% YTD
S&P 500 +18.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.3% YTD

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Wall Street Slips as Investors Continue to Chew On Tax Reform
14-Dec-17 16:15 ET
Dow -76.77 at 24508.66, Nasdaq -19.27 at 6856.53, S&P -10.84 at 2652.01

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/14/wall-street-slips-as-investors-continue-to-chew-on-tax-reform.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities slipped on Thursday as investors continued to monitor tax reform developments in Washington.

Losses were modest for the most part, but small caps showed notable weakness, pushing the Russell 2000 lower by 1.2%. The S&P 500 declined by 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.3% apiece. The Dow's loss ended its streak of record closes at four in a row.

Equities began the day slightly higher, but were tripped up by rumors that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is considering resigning following the 2018 mid-term elections. Mr. Ryan later said that he does not plan on retiring anytime soon, but equities failed to bounce back to their earlier levels.

Selling persisted following news that Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) will vote 'No' on tax reform unless the final bill further expands the child tax credit for lower-income households. The GOP can only afford to lose two votes in the Senate, and it's already assumed that Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) will vote against the piece of legislation.

The GOP aims to release the full details of the bill on Friday, and Congress is expected to vote on the measure sometime next week.

Ten of the eleven sectors finished Thursday in the red, with the health care (-1.1%), materials (-1.1%), and telecom services (-0.9%) groups being the weakest performers. Within the health care space, biotech names were especially weak, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 105.17, -1.55) lower by 1.5%.

Meanwhile, steelmaker Nucor (NUE 59.54, -2.31) paced the material sector's retreat, losing 3.7%, after lowering its profit guidance for the fourth quarter.

On the upside, the consumer discretionary sector (+0.3%) advanced on Thursday. 21st Century Fox (FOXA 34.88, +2.13) led the charge, adding 6.5%, after Walt Disney (DIS 110.57, +2.96) agreed to purchase select assets from the company, including its film division and much of its TV operations, for $52.4 billion in stock. DIS shares climbed 2.8%.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries had a mixed outing, despite a stronger-than-expected Retail Sales Report for November (see data section below). The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished flat at 2.35%, while the 2-yr yield climbed one basis point to 1.80%. The 10-yr yield has lost three basis points so far this week.

Elsewhere, European equities finished Thursday broadly lower, with the Euro Stoxx 50 losing 0.5%, while Japan's Nikkei, Hong Kong's Hang Seng, and China's Shanghai Composite shed 0.3% apiece. The U.S. dollar added 0.4% against the euro (1.1785) but lost 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively, against the yen (112.25) and the pound (1.3430).

The European Central Bank decided to leave its key policy rate unchanged, as expected, and reiterated that it will reduce its monthly asset purchases to EUR30 billion (from EUR60 billion) starting in January and continuing through September 2018, or beyond, if necessary.

In addition, the Bank of England voted unanimously to leave its key rate at 0.50% and its asset purchase program at GBP435 billion, as expected.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included November Retail Sales, weekly Initial Claims, November Export/Import Prices, and October Business Inventories:

November retail sales increased 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). The prior month's increase was revised to 0.5% from 0.2%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 1.0% in November while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%. The prior month's increase was revised to 4% from 0.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was healthy spending activity across discretionary categories, which is consistent with a consumer feeling good about their income prospects.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 225,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 239,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 236,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.886 million from the revised count of 1.913 million (from 1.908 million).
The latest week marks the 145th straight week initial claims have been below 300,000.
Import prices excluding oil were flat in November (0.0%) after increasing a revised 0.1% in October (from +0.2%). Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.6% in November after decreasing a revised 0.1% in October (from -0.3%).
The monthly gain left import prices up 3.1% year-over-year, versus up 0.2% for the 12 months ending November 2016, and export prices up 3.1% year-over-year, versus down 0.2% for the 12 months ending November 2016.
Business Inventories decreased 0.1% in October, as expected. The September reading was left unrevised at 0.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that sales growth is outpacing inventory growth, which is a step toward regaining some pricing power.

On Friday, investors will receive the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for December (Briefing.com consensus 18.0) at 8:30 ET and both Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 77.2%) at 9:15 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +27.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +24.0% YTD
S&P 500 +18.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.1% YTD

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Stocks Hit New Records As Tax Reform Looks Likely
15-Dec-17 16:30 ET
Dow +143.08 at 24651.74, Nasdaq +80.06 at 6936.58, S&P +23.80 at 2675.81

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/15/stocks-hit-new-records-as-tax-reform-looks-likely.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities advanced to new record highs on Friday, underpinned by a renewed faith in tax reform.

The Nasdaq (+1.2%), the S&P 500 (+0.9%), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) each finished at a new all-time high, ending the week with gains between 0.9% and 1.4%. The Russell 2000 (+1.6%) outperformed, bouncing back from a disappointing outing on Thursday, but the small-cap index did not close at a record high.

Wall Street was bullish from the jump, but stocks went on to double their opening gains following reports that Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) will vote in favor of the GOP's tax reform bill.

Mr. Rubio's support was in question prior to the reports after he said on Thursday that he would vote against the measure unless the final bill further expands the child tax credit for lower-income households. To ease Mr. Rubio's concerns, the proposed child tax credit was increased to $1,400 from $1,100.

In addition, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) announced that he will also support the tax reform bill. Mr. Corker's support is seen as a sign that the GOP has secured enough votes to pass the measure since Mr. Corker was the only Republican to vote against the Senate's original version of the bill. A final vote is expected to take place early next week.

Friday's rally was broad as 10 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in positive territory. The top-weighted technology (+1.2%), financials (+1.0%), and health care (+1.2%) sectors, which comprise more than half of the broader market combined, were among the top-performing groups. Conversely, the energy sector struggled, closing a tick below its unchanged mark.

In corporate news, Adobe Systems (ADBE 177.49, +2.49) and Costco (COST 192.73, +6.20) jumped 1.4% and 3.3%, respectively, after both companies reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues. Adobe also issued above-consensus profit guidance for its fiscal first quarter.

Conversely, Oracle (ORCL 48.30, -1.89) tumbled 3.8% after issuing a disappointing forecast for growth in its cloud-computing business. Railroad giant CSX (CSX 52.93, -4.38) also finished solidly lower, losing 7.6%, after disclosing that CEO E. Hunter Harrison is on medical leave due to unexpected complications from a recent illness.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended the week on a mixed note; shorter-dated maturities registered modest losses, while the long bond continued its show of relative strength. The 2-yr yield jumped four basis points to 1.84%, the 10-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.36%, and the 30-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.69%.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Friday on a lower note, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng (-1.1%) pacing the retreat, while the Euro Stoxx 50 advanced 0.2%. The UK's FTSE (+0.6%) showed relative strength, helped by weakness in the British pound--which dropped 0.8% against the U.S. dollar to 1.3330.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for November and the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for December:

Industrial Production increased 0.2% in November (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the October increase was revised to 1.2% (from 0.9%). Capacity Utilization ticked up to 77.1% (Briefing.com consensus 77.2%) from an unrevised reading of 77.0% in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that industrial production was flat in November, excluding the post-hurricane rebound in oil and gas extraction.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for December declined to 18.0 (Briefing.com consensus 18.0) from the prior month's reading of 19.4.

On Monday, investors will receive just one economic report--the NAHB Housing Market Index for December--which will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +28.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +24.7% YTD
S&P 500 +19.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.8% YTD

Week In Review: Central Banks Take Center Stage

U.S. stocks climbed to new record highs this week as investors digested policy directives from several of the world's most influential central banks and grew increasingly optimistic about the GOP's chances of passing its promised tax overhaul.

The S&P 500 added 0.9%, the Dow advanced 1.3%, and the Nasdaq jumped 1.4%. All three major indices settled Friday's session at fresh record highs.

The Federal Open Market Committee voted to raise the fed funds target range by 25 basis points to 1.25%-1.50% on Wednesday, as expected. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari--the FOMC's two most dovish members--dissented, saying they preferred to keep the target range unchanged.

In addition, the Fed's so-called "dot plot" revealed that the median FOMC member still anticipates three rate hikes in 2018 and two in 2019. Both figures were unchanged from the projections released in September, even though the central bank acknowledged that overall inflation and core inflation have declined this year and are running below 2.0%.

U.S. Treasuries rallied in a curve-flattening trade on Wednesday following the decision, while the U.S. Dollar Index moved sharply lower. The 2yr-10yr spread ended the week at 52 basis points, which is six basis points below last week's closing level. The U.S. Dollar Index finished the week higher by 0.1% at 93.94.

The flattening of the yield curve weighed on lenders, sending the S&P 500's financial sector lower by 0.1%.

Elsewhere, the European Central Bank decided to leave its key policy rate unchanged, as expected, and reiterated that it will reduce its monthly asset purchases to EUR30 billion (from EUR60 billion) starting in January and continuing through September 2018--or beyond, if necessary.

The Bank of England also met this week, voting to leave its key rate at 0.50% and its asset purchase program at GBP435 billion, as expected.

In Washington, House and Senate Republicans reportedly reached an agreement on a final version of their tax reform bill on Wednesday, but Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) pushed for some last-minute changes, saying on Thursday that he would vote against the measure unless it further expands the child tax credit for lower-income households.

GOP leadership worked to appease Mr. Rubio and earned his support, as well as the support of Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), on Friday. With the two Senators on board, it appears that the Republicans have enough support to pass their tax reform bill, but a final vote won't take place until early next week.

On Wall Street, telecom shares within the S&P 500 jumped 4.0% this week, underpinned by the prospect of tax reform and the Federal Communications Commission's decision to roll back the "net neutrality" rules put in place by the Obama administration back in 2015. The rules required broadband providers to treat all internet traffic equally.

In corporate news, Walt Disney (DIS) agreed to purchase select assets from 21st Century Fox (FOXA), including its film division and much of its TV operations, for $52.4 billion in stock. The two companies added 6.8% and 5.1%, respectively, helping the consumer discretionary sector (+1.1%) finish ahead of the broader market.

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InvestmentHouse - Yearend Rally Just Caught On (Weekend Newsletter)

Read "The Daily" Entire Weekend SummaryRead "The Daily" Entire Weekend Summary

- The tax reform dance: market drops, rallies based upon a few senators.
- Stocks surge back with even NASDAQ punching a new high ticket.
- FAANG trying to rejoin leadership, small caps as well.
- Economic data back and forth but trending higher ahead of a very busy data
week.
- Rally toward yearend may have just caught on for all indices.
-
Just when you thought the tax cut news was all baked into the market you get
a couple of 'no' votes crossing over to 'yes,' even Korker's, and you get a
market recovery, indeed, surge. Thursday RUTX and SP400 sold off on renewed
worries the bill would fail when Marco Rubio and Mike Lee were said to be a
'no' and a 'leaning no.' Rubio got what he wanted and Korker's came out of
nowhere as a yes. Stocks got what they wanted and rallied to new highs on
NASDAQ, NASDAQ 100, SP500, and DJ30.

SP500 23.80, 0.90%
NASDAQ 80.05, 1.17%
DJ30 143.08, 0.58%
SP400 1.05%
RUTX 1.56%
SOX 1.50%
NASDAQ 100 1.20%

VOLUME: NYSE +194%, NASDAQ +77%. Okay, it was quadruple expiration and thus
volume exploded upside.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE 2.2:1, NASDAQ 2.3:1. Very passable numbers. That is
all, just passable. With 1+% moves on the growth indices you would
anticipate 3:1 or so.


NEWS/ECONOMY

On a week of back and forth economic news the market showed a lot of back
and forth itself, but the major indices did not give up their trends.

Retail Sales, November topped expectations at 0.8%, 1.0% if you take out
autos. Clothing, Food and Drink, online sales were all strong.

Core CPI rose 0.1% month/month, sliding to +1.7% year/year versus the 1.8%
prior. Oh no, no inflation. The Phillips Curve readers remain confused.
Oh, there is inflation, it is just the kind that the antiquated way we
measure price increases misses. Producers make smaller sizes but charge the
same price; no inflation as per the government measures, but you pay more
for less. Voila, inflation.

New York Empire PMI at 18.0 fell from 19.4 and was the lowest since July.
At the same time, however, the New York Fed says the economy is growing at
4+% while the Atlanta Fed says 3.3%. Three 3+% GDP quarters in a row? That
is a long time coming.

So, the argument goes, why tax cuts? Because we need tax reform to compete
in the changing world. Lower corporate and small business taxes. Get out
of states forced to subsidize other states' profligate spending by limiting
SALT deductions (and they should be phased out for everyone). After years
of struggling with no investment, businesses and individuals are finally
feeling some optimism and are spending money.

That is all based upon an expectation for change and the repeal of thousands
of regulations from the prior administration. If you remove the restraints
on investment from the increased taxes, from the ACA, and from regulation,
the US could really boom, not just put in the 'usual' 3% growth experienced
these three last quarters. That is what we usually run. In a recovery, an
unfettered economy would really surge in the 4%, 5% or better range.

As you can see, I don't buy into the 'US has run its course' economic
argument. That is the SAME theory and argument heard in the late 1970's. I
recall it clearly: Newsweek, Time and others discussing how the US economic
run was impressive but over. Demographics changed, other countries were
rising, blah, blah, blah. SAME arguments are heard today: changing
demographics, changing world economics. IT DOESN'T MATTER. If we free up
our innovators from regulations and skewed tax codes, our system has always
produced the best and the most. Communism, even the updated version China
practices, cannot do that. Socialism obviously not. It is the system that
produces the outcomes. We need to let it work. Dance with who brought you
as the old Darrell Royal phrase goes.

Thus, if we truly reform the code to let money flow where it is most needed
or where the markets believe it should go, we will come up with the new
innovations that create demand where there was none before. No one needed a
personal computer. Heard that over and over in the 1980's. Apple made one
and what do you know, everyone needed one. People were not out saying 'we
need a personal computer!' People with vision saw the future and made the
goods that would be needed. That is how you make the innovations that drive
the next technology booms and the jobs they create.

That drives economic growth not at just a 3% average, but well above that.
In the 1980's that recovery produced 4%, 5%, 7%, 11% quarterly GDP growth.
If we had not loused up so bad in the 2000's with the recovery we would have
don't it again. Instead we regulated and mandated and taxed the economy to
less than 2% growth in a recovery. As I said then, that was no recovery.
Finally, NOW we are seeing are recovery, and it is based just on
ANTICIPATION of real change.

Now you see why the markets are up on tax reform talk and trade back and
forth based upon how that talk is going. If people would only READ and
attempt to understand what the tax reform bill is going to do for them
versus listening to soundbites from the network and cable news, they would
understand that the changes proposed are truly game changing and will
overall rev up the US economy once again. We then all benefit from the
growth, the new jobs, and yes, the increased tax revenues. We have to put
aside the 'what is in it for me that I directly get?' mindset and see the
big picture just as in the early 1980's.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

NASDAQ: A long time coming (since late November), NASDAQ broke to a new
high. After the rotation from these stocks to start December, they are back
for now after a brush near the 50 day EMA. NASDAQ is on its fourth run
after the third 20 day EMA test since breaking higher off the 50 day in
mid-September. Four to five such bounces are typical off a 50 day MA test.

DJ30: New high as well, the Dow now on its fifth rotation off the short
term moving averages after the last 50 day EMA in early September. DJ30 is
12+% over the 200 day MA, getting stretched on this move. No signs of
slowing thus far.

SP500: Still moving up off the 10 day EMA as SP500 presses its 14 week run
after starting at the 50 day MA in late August. 8% over the 200 day SMA and
still on the run thanks to the financial stocks working better and the big
techs rallying.

RUTX: RUTX was all over the map to end the week. Up Wednesday off support,
broke lower Thursday and fell to the 50 day EMA. Friday back up with a
higher recovery high. Nothing like tax cuts for the small caps.

SP400: Tested again on the week, a second week of consolidation after the
higher high to end November. Looked problematic Thursday as it closed below
the 20 day EMA, but then rebounded nicely to end the week. Nice trend
remains.

SOX: struggled all week below the 50 day EMA but Friday managed a close
above that level. Still below the 50 day SMA but trying to change its
outlook a la some of the NASDAQ big names that crashed their support but
have recovered.


LEADERSHIP

FAANG: A big part of NASDAQ, these stocks improved dicey patterns to good
moves. AAPL remains in a good pattern, and rallied nicely Friday. FB is up
off the 50 day MA test put in after the initial rebound from the early
December selling. AMZN doing the same. GOOG broke to a higher high --
recovery is in. NFLX is trying, but is lagging, back at the 50 day MA
still.

Drugs/Biotechs: Money is moving into the smaller names from what we are
seeing. IMGN is starting upside for us as did ENDP, MRTX. There are many
others we are looking at.

Financial: Tested to end the week, but a good week for GS, MS. Banks are
still solid enough as they put in a modest test, e.g. BAC, JPM. TCBI is
starting to break higher, one we are looking to enter.

Retail: COST gapped on its results. While most pulled back, the patterns
remain solid. TJX, ROST, BBBY, TGT.

Semiconductors: Some good setups and moves starting. INTC jumped, and if
it continues, we move in. CAVM looks very good and MRVL has a good pattern.
LRCX, AMAT recovering but still problematic. Very mixed but improving and
some are running, e.g. CREE.

Machinery/Manufacturing: Struggled to end the week, giving up some gains,
e.g. HON, MMM, TEX.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +143.08 points (+0.58%) to close at 24651.74

Nasdaq
Stats: +80.06 points (+1.17%) to close at 6936.58
Volume: 3.5B (+76.77%)

Up Volume: 2.51B (+1.744B)
Down Volume: 929.88M (-250.12M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.31 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 2.25 to 1

New Highs: 133 (+40)
New Lows: 51 (-19)

S&P
Stats: +23.80 points (+0.90%) to close at 2675.81
NYSE Volume: 2.4B (+194.91%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.22 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.85 to 1

New Highs: 123 (+42)
New Lows: 32 (-17)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 9.42; -1.07
VXN: 11.88; -0.51
VXO: 7.88; -0.81

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.97; +0.17


Bulls and Bears: Pretty large drop though still easily over 60 for the
bulls. That is still in the overly optimistic range and of course the surge
Friday will bring them around again to the upside. This is a warning
indication, but not a great timing device.

Bulls: 61.9 versus 64.2

Bears: 15.2 versus 15.1

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 61.9 versus 64.2
64.2 versus 62.3 versus 61.5 versus 63.5 versus 64.4 versus 63.5 versus 62.3
versus 60.6 versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1
versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0
versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5
versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7
versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5
versus 56.7 versus 53.4 versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8
versus 62.7 versus 61.8 versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2
versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6
versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9

Bears: 15.2 versus 15.1
15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1
versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2
versus 19.1 versus 19.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.0 versus 16.2
versus 16.5 versus 16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.3
versus 19.2 versus 18.3 versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9 versus 17.9
versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus 13.75
versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus 17.6
versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6
versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7
versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1
versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.351% versus 2.351%. Bonds overall rallied Friday even if the 10
year was steady. Curve flattens farther.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.351%
versus 2.36% versus 2.403% versus 2.389% versus 2.378% versus 2.34% versus
2.353% versus 2.381% versus 2.363% versus 2.363 versus 2.412% versus 2.385%
versus 2.326% versus 2.329% versus 2.321% versus 2.34% versus 2.354% versus
2.367% versus 2.345% versus 2.37% versus 2.336% versus 2.375% versus 2.407%
versus 2.402% versus 2.34% versus 2.326% versus 2.316% versus 2.32% versus
2.332% versus 2.349% versus 2.358% versus 2.378% versus 2.37% versus 2.419%
versus 2.456% versus 2.435% versus 2.421% versus 2.366% versus 2.383% versus
2.318% versus 2.341% versus 2.30% versus 2.302% versus 2.275%


EUR/USD: 1.1752 versus 1.17798. Euro tried to bounce Wednesday, fell back
to the 50 day SMA on the Friday close.

Historical: 1.17798 versus 1.18392 versus 1.17430 versus 1.17652 versus
1.1764 versus 1.17754 versus 1.17990 versus 1.18276 versus 1.18727 versus
1.18983 versus 1.18976 versus 1.18529 versus 1.18489 versus 1.1899 versus
1.19329 versus 1.18148 versus 1.17402 versus 1.1791 versus 1.1787 versus
1.1786 versus 1.1799 versus 1.16443 versus 1.16646 versus 1.16439 versus
1.15871 versus 1.15954 versus 1.1609 versus 1.16092 versus 1.16575 versus
1.15480 versus 1.1644 versus 1.16091 versus 1.16330 versus 1.18163 versus
1.17570 versus 1.1759 versus 1.17798 versus 1.18476 versus 1.17995 versus
1.1771 versus


USD/JPY: 112.619 versus 112.298. Dollar fell on the week, tried to buck up
Friday over the 200 day SMA.

Historical: 112.298 versus 112.639 versus 113.555 versus 113.476 versus
113.48 versus 113.473 versus 112.473 versus 112.554 versus 112.442 versus
112.190 versus 112.55 versus 112.102 versus 111.583 versus 111.244 versus
111.523 versus 111.247 versus 112.349 versus 112.615 versus 112.124 versus
112.91 versus 112.879 versus 113.430 versus 113.615 versus 113.526 versus
113.379 versus 113.99 versus 113.723 versus 113.758 versus 114.064 versus
114.010 versus 114.010 versus 113.845 versus 113.640 versus 113.175 versus
113.675 versus 114.071 versus 113.607 versus 113.913 versus 113.31 versus
113.530 versus 112.561 versus 113.031 versus 112.21 versus 112.20 versus
111.852


Oil: 57.33, +0.29. Still working in the lateral 3 week range over the
rising 50 day MA.


Gold: 1257.90, +0.40. Rebounded on the week to test up near the 200 day
SMA Showed a doji, looks as if it will break back downside.


MONDAY

Fed hiked rates as expected, has a gentle upward slope as expected, lots
more data to come in the week ahead: Housing starts, Existing Home Sales,
GDP third, Philly Fed, Leading indicators, Personal income and spending,
Durable Goods Orders, New Homes, Michigan Sentiment. A veritable data dump.
Overall the economic data is up and down but trending up.

The big event of course will be the tax reform vote set for Tuesday as of
this writing. Friday's rally built upon 'no' votes turning 'yes,' including
Corker (Korker's). Collins and Flake are still nut jobs while McCain and
Cochran, both suffering some medical impairment, are expected to be back
next week. Pence is hanging around DC just in case.

With the move Friday and based upon our belief the tax bill passes one way
or another, most new plays are to the upside. Some more drug plays,
software, even a chip or two. The market may be extended or on the last
move higher in these runs, but the plays down below are setting up. In
other words, some areas have not rallied and are setting up good patterns to
turn off the lows; seen that before, many times.

So, let the good positions continue working and watch for the money pushing
new plays such as the small drugs and others back upside.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6936.58

Resistance:

Support:
6914 is the late November all-time high
6796 is the early November 2017
The 50 day EMA at 6737
6641 is the October high
The 2016 trendline at 6589
6477 is the September intraday high
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high
6450 is the early September high
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
The 200 day SMA at 6320
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6205 is the late May all-time high
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows


S&P 500: Closed at 2675.81

Resistance:

Support:
The 20 day EMA at 2634
2597 is the November 2017 all-time high
The 50 day EMA at 2596
2549 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
The 200 day SMA at 2468
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the recent May 2017 low
2348 is the April 2017 lower gap point
2329 is the March and April twin lows
2322 is the March 2017 low
2301 is the late January 2017 high
2298 is the late January 2017 high
2282 - 2280 from January 2017
2277.53 is the December 2016 high
The November 2016 all-time high at 2213.25
2194 is the August 2016 prior all-time high
2175 is the June 2016 high


Dow: Closed at 24,651.74

Resistance:

Support:
24,255-ish
The 20 day EMA at 24,136
23,602 is the early November 2017 high
23,608 is the early November high
The 50 day EMA at 23,608
22,420 is the September high
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
The 200 day SMA at 21,935
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high
21,169 is the March 2017 all-time high

[ReturntoSender]

Tax Reform Provides Yet Another Boost
18-Dec-17 16:30 ET
Dow +140.46 at 24792.20, Nasdaq +58.18 at 6994.76, S&P +14.35 at 2690.16

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/18/tax-reform-provides-yet-another-boost.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Investors pushed U.S. equities to new record highs on Monday, excited by the promising outlook for the GOP's tax reform bill.

The Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%), and the S&P 500 (+0.5%) each settled at new all-time highs. However, modest selling in the afternoon left the indices a step below their best marks of the day. The Russell 2000 (+1.2%) paced Monday's rally and, like its peers, finished at a new record high.

Republicans appear set to pass their tax overhaul bill in the next few days after securing the support of Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bob Corker (R-TN) on Friday. The bill, which calls for reducing the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% in 2018, was unveiled on Friday evening and can undergo no further changes due to procedural rules.

The bill's chances of passage looked even better late Monday afternoon when CNBC reported that Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has decided to vote in favor of the bill. If all goes according to plan, President Trump should secure his first major legislative victory by the end of the week.

Eight of eleven sectors finished Monday in the green, and, in general, cyclical sectors outperformed their countercyclical peers. The lightly-weighted materials space (+1.5%) was the top-performing group, helped by DowDuPont's (DWDP 71.39, +1.39) advance of 2.0%, while no other sector added more than 1.0%.

Within the top-weighted technology space (+0.8%), chipmakers showed relative strength, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 2.2%. Retailers also had a positive showing on Monday, helping to boost the consumer discretionary space (+0.8%); the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.46, +1.18) climbed 2.7%.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average advanced 1.2% to a new all-time high, but the industrial sector (+0.7%) finished just a tick ahead of the broader market.

On the downside, the utilities sector (-1.2%) had a rough outing, extending its month-to-date loss to 3.2%. The group has struggled in recent weeks amid concerns about wildfires in Southern California. The consumer staples space (-0.1%) and the health care group (unch) also finished Monday in the red.

In corporate news, Amplify Snack Brands (BETR 12.01, +5.01), which makes the Skinny Pop brand, surged 71.6% after agreeing to be acquired by Hershey (HSY 114.26, +0.12) for $12.00 per share in cash. HSY shares finished the session with a slim gain of 0.1%.

U.S. Treasuries ended Monday mixed, with shorter-dated issues showing relative strength. The yield on the 2-yr Treasury note slipped one basis point to 1.83%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed three basis points to 2.39%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region ended Monday in positive territory, with Japan's Nikkei (+1.6%) showing particular strength, while the Euro Stoxx 50 jumped 1.4%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 93.24, with the greenback losing 0.3% against the euro (1.1781) and 0.5% against the pound (1.3382).

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for December:

The NAHB Housing Market Index for December rose to 74 (Briefing.com consensus 70) from a revised reading of 69 in November (from 70).

On Tuesday, investors will receive three pieces of data--November Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1259K), November Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1280K), and the Current Account Balance for the third quarter (Briefing.com consensus -$117.4 billion)--all of which will be released at 8:30 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +29.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +25.5% YTD
S&P 500 +20.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.1% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Modest Losses Ahead of Senate Vote
19-Dec-17 16:15 ET
Dow -37.45 at 24754.75, Nasdaq -30.91 at 6963.85, S&P -8.69 at 2681.47

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/19/modest-losses-ahead-of-senate-vote.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities slipped from record highs on Tuesday as investors cautiously awaited the Senate's vote on tax reform.

The major indices held modest losses throughout most of the session, and a late wave of selling left them near their session lows. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2%, the S&P 500 declined by 0.3%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.4%. Small caps underperformed, sending the Russell 2000 lower by 0.8%.

Tuesday's main event was the House's vote on tax reform, which took place at around 2:30 PM ET. The House passed the GOP's bill, as expected, in a party-line vote. The bill will now go to the Senate, where it will have a more narrow path to passage as the GOP has just a two-vote majority in the upper house. Still, the measure is expected to pass.

The Senate began the ten hours of required debate on the bill shortly before the closing bell, putting a final vote on track for early Wednesday morning.

Most sectors finished Tuesday in negative territory, a reverse of Monday's session. The utilities (-1.8%) and real estate (-1.9%) groups paced the retreat, but it was the top-weighted technology space (-0.5%) that had the most bearish impact on the broader market.

Tech shares were broadly weak, but Apple (AAPL 174.54, -1.88) showed particular weakness after Nomura downgraded the tech giant's shares to 'Neutral' from 'Buy' on Tuesday morning; AAPL shares ended the day lower by 1.1%. Chipmakers outperformed their tech peers, but still pulled the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 0.1%.

On the upside, the consumer staples sector (+0.2%) bounced back from a relatively poor outing on Monday. The group's largest component by market cap--Wal-Mart (WMT 98.80, +0.90)--was among the top performers, adding 0.9%, after Citigroup upgraded WMT shares to 'Buy' from 'Neutral.'

Corporate news was pretty light on Tuesday, but it's worth pointing out that Darden Restaurants (DRI 96.69, +6.15)--the owner of chains like Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse--jumped 6.8% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for its fiscal second quarter. The company also raised its guidance for 2018.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries sold off on Tuesday, with longer-dated issues showing relative weakness. The yield on the 2-yr Treasury note climbed three basis points to 1.86%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield jumped seven basis points to 2.46%--its best level in two months. The 2yr-10yr spread hit a fresh December high (60 bps).

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Tuesday mostly higher, while the major European bourses ended on a mostly lower note. Japan's Nikkei (-0.2%) exhibited relative weakness in Asia and the UK's FTSE (+0.1%) outperformed its peers across the pond.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included November Housing Starts, November Building Permits, and the Current Account Balance for the third quarter:

Housing starts increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.297 million units in November (Briefing.com consensus 1.259 million), up from a revised 1.256 million units in October (from 1.290 million). Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.298 million in November (Briefing.com consensus 1.280 million) from a revised 1.316 million in October (from 1.297 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that there was a 1.4% increase in permits for single-family homes and a 5.3% increase in single-family starts, as that is where supply growth is greatly needed to meet home buyer demand.
The current account deficit for the third quarter totaled $100.6 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$117.4 billion). The second quarter deficit was revised to $124.4 billion from $123.1 billion.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and November Existing Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 5.56 million). The two reports will be released at 7:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +29.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +25.3% YTD
S&P 500 +19.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.2% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Tax Reform Bill Heads to the White House
20-Dec-17 16:20 ET
Dow -28.10 at 24726.65, Nasdaq -2.89 at 6960.96, S&P -2.22 at 2679.25

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/20/tax-reform-bill-heads-to-the-white-house.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities ticked lower on Wednesday as investors contemplated their next move following the passage of tax reform.

The S&P 500 (-0.1%), the Nasdaq Composite (unch), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) each finished a tick below their flat lines. Small caps outperformed, evidenced by the Russell 2000, which ended the day higher by 0.2%.

The Senate passed the GOP's tax reform bill shortly after midnight, giving equities a boost at Wednesday's opening bell. However, the early gains didn't last for long as the technology sector (-0.1%) began trending downwards, with Red Hat (RHT 122.00, -6.86) pacing the retreat. RHT finished lower by 5.3% despite reporting above-consensus earnings and revenues.

Technology shares eventually trimmed their losses a bit, thanks in large part to the outperformance of chipmakers, which pushed the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 0.7%. Micron (MU 45.75, +1.77) led the semiconductor rally, adding 4.0%, after beating both profit and sales estimates and issuing upbeat guidance for the current quarter.

Congress came back into focus in the early afternoon as the House of Representatives took up tax reform, once again, as procedural rules in the Senate forced minor changes to the bill, nullifying yesterday's passage in the House. The measure was approved, as expected, sending the bill to the White House for a final endorsement.

President Trump likely won't sign the bill into law before the new year as the White House's review process typically takes about seven business days to complete. Regardless, tax reform, which has been a significant factor in this year's equity rally, is essentially a done deal.

Back on Wall Street, the energy sector (+1.4%) had a positive showing, extending its week-to-date gain to 2.2%. West Texas Intermediate crude futures advanced 0.9% to $58.08 per barrel, helping to fuel the energy rally, after the Energy Information Administration reported a draw of 6.5 million barrels for the week ended December 15.

The energy space's advance more than doubled the gain of the second-best performing group--telecom services (+0.6%). AT&T (T 38.55, +0.50) carried the lightly-weighted telecom group, adding 1.3%, after reaffirming its plans to invest an additional $1 billion in the U.S. next year in light of the new tax code.

The industrial space (+0.3%) also outperformed, underpinned by transports, which rallied around FedEx's (FDX 251.07, +8.53) better-than-expected earnings report and upbeat guidance. FDX shares added 3.5%, settling at a new all-time high, while the Dow Jones Transportation Average advanced 0.9%--also finishing at a new record.

On the flip side, the utilities and real estate sectors were the weakest groups, losing 0.8% and 1.1%, respectively. No other sector lost more than 0.4%.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries finished mostly lower in a curve-steepening trade that pushed the 2yr-10yr spread higher by five basis points. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed four basis points to 2.50%, which marks a nine-month high, while the 2-yr yield slipped one basis point to 1.85%.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Wednesday little changed, while the Euro Stoxx 50 settled with a loss of 0.9%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included November Existing Home Sales and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Existing home sales increased 5.6% in November to an annualized rate of 5.81 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.56 million). The October reading was revised to 5.50 million from 5.48 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that notable supply constraints remain, which will continue to act as a drag on overall sales due to the limited inventory and the high prices on available inventory that is crimping affordability, particularly for first-time buyers.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 4.9% to follow last week's 2.3% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive the third estimate of third quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus +3.3%), the Philadelphia Fed Index for December (Briefing.com consensus 21.0), and weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 236K) at 8:30 ET, followed by the October FHFA Housing Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and the November Leading Economic Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), which will cross the wires at 9:00 ET and 10:00 ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite +29.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +25.1% YTD
S&P 500 +19.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.5% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Bulls Hold the Line
21-Dec-17 16:25 ET
Dow +55.64 at 24782.29, Nasdaq +4.40 at 6965.36, S&P +5.32 at 2684.57

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/21/bulls-hold-the-line.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market on Thursday did what it has done all year and avoided follow-through losses. Some closing selling interest, however, cut into larger gains and spoiled what was shaping up to be a record-high close for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Russell 2000.

Still, the major indices never saw red figures during the trading session and ended the day with gains ranging from 0.1% to 0.5%.

There were pockets of weakness, like the semiconductor industry, which fell prone to profit taking, and the utilities sector (-1.2%), which got rolled back on PG&E's (PCG 44.50, -6.62, -13.0%) announcement that it is suspending its dividend to preserve cash in the event its equipment is found to be a substantial cause of the October 2017 Northern California wildfires.

The losses in the semiconductor space knocked the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index back 1.1% and weighed on the S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.3%), which found itself in a trailing position most of the day.

Otherwise, the broader market showed good resilience to selling efforts, garnering support from the outperformance of the energy (+2.1%), financial (+0.9%), telecom services (+0.7%), and consumer discretionary (+0.6%) sectors, which benefited in part from sector rotation and some company-specific announcements.

AT&T (T 38.88, +0.33, +0.9%), for instance, said it will offer its workers $1,000 bonuses and increase its capital spending budget by $1 billion now that tax reform has been approved. Comcast (CMCSA 40.81, +1.43, +3.6%) also announced a plan to give its employees $1,000 bonuses and to increase its capital spending.

Separately, Wells Fargo (WFC 61.61, +1.47, +2.4%) noted, with the passage of the tax bill, that it will raise its minimum hourly pay rate to $15.00 from $13.50. Fifth Third (FITB 30.93, +0.42, +1.4%) also raised its minimum hourly rate to $15.000 and added that it will give a $1,000 bonus to more than 13,500 employees.

The Russell 2000 (+0.5%) outlegged all the other indices as optimism surrounding the cut in the corporate tax rate kept the small-cap index afloat. Domestically-oriented small-cap companies are seen as receiving a greater benefit from that tax cut since they typically pay a higher effective tax rate.

In other developments, the Bank of Japan voted 8-1 to leave its key policy rate and asset purchase program unchanged. Separately, Dow component Boeing (BA 295.03, -2.87, -1.0%) and Brazilian company Embraer (ERJ 24.42, +4.43, +22.2%) confirmed they are holding discussions about a possible combination.

Congress, meanwhile, continues to work on a continuing resolution to keep the government open. A deal needs to be reached before midnight on Friday.

Press reports suggested the leading resolution will provide government funding through January 19. Assuming it is approved, and it also includes a PAYGO waiver, President Trump could sign the tax bill into law as early as Friday.

The latter would be the most notable news item if it happened on Friday, yet it could be preempted possibly by the news of a government shutdown.

Other key happenings on Friday include the release of a large slate of economic data that includes the Personal Income and Spending report for November, the Durable Orders report for November, New Home Sales for November, the final December reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the third estimate for Q3 GDP, the weekly initial claims, Philadelphia Fed Index, and Leading Economic Index reports:

The third estimate for third quarter GDP carried a slight downward revision to 3.2% (Briefing.com consensus 3.3%) from 3.3%, as more complete source data showed personal consumption expenditures increased less than previously estimated (2.2% vs. 2.3%). The GDP Deflator was left unchanged at 2.1%, as expected.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was little changed, which maintains the impression that U.S. economic output is carrying on at an encouraging 3.0%+ clip.
Initial claims for the week ending December 16 increased by 20,000 to 245,000 (Briefing.com consensus 236,000) while continuing claims for the week ending December 9 increased by 43,000 to 1.932 million.
While the claims headlines were a little worse than expected, the key takeaway is that they did nothing to disrupt the underlying trend of jobless claims running near historically low levels.
The Philadelphia Fed Index increased from 22.7 in November to 26.2 in December (Briefing.com consensus 21.0), led by an eight-point jump in the New Orders Index from 21.4 to 29.8. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 0.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that current indicators suggest solid growth for the manufacturing sector in the Philadelphia Fed region.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.4% in November, as expected, on top of an unrevised 1.2% increase in October. November marked the 15th straight month of gains for the Leading Economic Index.
The key takeaway from the report is that the leading economic index increased at a faster pace (3.0%) for the six-month period ending November 2017 than it did for the previous six months (+2.4%), as strengths among the leading indicators have remained widespread.

[ReturntoSender]

Coasting into Christmas
22-Dec-17 16:25 ET
Dow -28.23 at 24754.06, Nasdaq -5.40 at 6959.96, S&P -1.23 at 2683.34

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/22/coasting-into-christmas.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Friday's trading session for the stock market was a forgettable one and that's exactly how most market participants probably hoped it would be. There were no fireworks ahead of Monday's Christmas holiday, which will leave capital markets closed for a three-day stretch. The major indices dipped at the open and then held in tight trading ranges just shy of their starting levels over the course of the trading day.

The fireworks -- or the bombs really -- were reserved for bitcoin. It slumped below $11,000 today, which in itself doesn't mean much until one understands that was more than 30% below where it traded most of Thursday.

The collapse in bitcoin prices was not driven by any news, yet the collapse itself was the news. Buyers eventually emerged to repair a good portion of the damage, but it wasn't completely fixed. Bitcoin was last trading around $14,000 as of this writing.

The trading volume in the stock market was predictably low as many participants had clearly checked out for the day. NYSE volume totaled just 599 million shares.

Overall, there wasn't much conviction on the part of buyers or sellers. The final standings didn't show a single sector gaining, or losing, more than 1.0%.

The best-performing sector was real estate (+0.7%), which also happened to be one of the worst-performing sectors for the week (-2.3%), suggesting it garnered some bargain-hunting interest. The same can be said for the utilities sector (+0.2%), which dropped 4.7% this week.

Those sectors, though, don't carry the weight to move the broader market, which was held back by losses in the more heavily-weighted financial (-0.2%), health care (-0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.2%), and information technology (-0.1%) sectors.

The energy sector (+0.2%) for its part moved modestly higher, completing what was an excellent week (+4.6%) as it benefited from sector rotation activity.

Dow component Nike (NKE 63.30, -1.47, -2.3%), meanwhile, ended the week on a disappointing note after its fiscal second quarter report and outlook failed to excite investors further following a big run in the stock ahead of the report.

In other developments, Congress approved a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through January 19. President Trump signed that resolution today shortly before he also signed the tax bill into law.

Reviewing this morning's economic data, which included the Personal Income and Spending, Durable Orders, New Home Sales, and University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment reports:

Personal income increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), led by a 0.4% increase in wages and salaries, following an unrevised 0.4% increase in October. Personal spending jumped 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following a downwardly revised 0.2% increase (from 0.3%) in October.
The personal savings rate dropped to 2.9% from 3.2%. That is the lowest personal savings rate since November 2007.
The PCE Price Index was up 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), leaving it up 1.8% year-over-year versus up 1.6% year-over-year in October. The core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) and was up 1.5% year-over-year versus up 1.4% year-over-year in October.
The key takeaway from the report lays in the upward drift of the PCE Price Index. It is moving closer to the Fed's 2.0% longer-run target, which is supportive of the Fed's inclination to pursue an upward drift in the target range for the fed funds rate.
Durable orders increased 1.3% (Briefing.com consensus +2.1%) following an upwardly revised 0.4% decline (from -1.2%) for October. Durable orders excluding transportation declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) after increasing an upwardly revised 1.3% (from +0.4%) for October.
The weaker-than-expected readings for November were offset to a large extent by upward revisions to October, so they weren't necessarily that far out of line with prevailing expectations in front of the November report.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will still compute as a positive input for Q4 GDP forecasts since shipments of nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft increased 0.3% on top of a 1.3% increase in October.
New home sales soared 17.5% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 733,000 (Briefing.com consensus 652,000) from a downwardly revised 624,000 (from 685,000) in October. The November sales pace was the strongest since July 2007.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was sales growth in all regions, led by a huge pickup in sales in the South and the West, underscoring the solid demand for new homes in conjunction with a very tight market for existing homes.
The final reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report showed a dip to 95.9 (Briefing.com consensus 97.3) from the preliminary reading of 96.8.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer sentiment remains at high levels. The final December reading was just below the 2017 average of 96.8, which was the highest average since 2000.

The lone economic release on Tuesday will be the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for October (Briefing.com consensus 6.3%).

Nasdaq Composite: +29.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +25.3% YTD
S&P 500: +19.9% YTD
S&P 400: +14.6% YTD
Russell 2000: +13.7% YTD

Week in Review: A Season of Contentment

Notwithstanding the fact that the S&P 500 was only up 0.3% this week, it was a big week for the equity market and for the GOP.

The two were intertwined with the party-line passing of the tax bill, which marked the biggest overhaul of the tax code since 1986.

The featured item of the tax bill was a cut in the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, effective in 2018, and it is going to be joined with a reduction in individual tax rates as well.

The stock market has been rallying in recent weeks in anticipation of the tax bill's passage, so the subdued market gains in its wake were a testament to the notion that market participants were inclined to buy the rumor of its passage. They didn't necessarily sell the news, however.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite, the S&P 500, the Russell 2000, and the S&P Midcap 400 Index all finished higher for the week, with gains ranging from 0.3% to 0.9%.

Those gains were underpinned by sector rotation, which featured losses for the technology (-0.2%), health care (-1.0%), real estate (-2.3%), utilities (-4.7%), and consumer staples (-0.2%) sectors, and gains for the financial (+0.8%), energy (+4.5%), materials (+2.2%), telecom services (+1.4%), industrials (+1.1%), and consumer discretionary (+1.0%) sectors.

In other words, there was relative strength in many of the cyclical sectors, which are expected to benefit from stronger economic activity. That strength was forged somewhat at the expense of the technology sector, which has been a leading standout all year, inviting concerns that it is overowned and vulnerable to rebalancing efforts as 2017 ends.

Glad tidings pertaining to the expected pickup in economic growth finally availed themselves at the back end of the Treasury yield curve.

The 10-year note yield jumped 14 basis points on the week to 2.49%, which is about even with where it started the year. In turn, the yield on the 2-yr note climbed seven basis points to 1.89%, driving what is referred to as a bear steepening trade in the Treasury market as the change at the back end was greater than the change at the front end.

A steepening yield curve is typically associated with a strengthening economy as stronger growth often invites higher inflation.

The growth outlook was bolstered this week by another batch of generally encouraging data, yet it was fueled by a series of impressive reports out of the housing sector.

The NAHB Homebuilder Index hit its highest level in December since 1999; the pace of existing home sales in November (5.81 million) was the strongest since December 2006; the pace of new home sales in November (733,000) was the strongest since July 2007; and both housing starts and building permits in November were stronger than expected.

Not surprisingly, the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 43.36) outperformed during the week, gaining 1.8%.

On the flip side, the utilities and real estate sectors, which provide nice dividend yields, fared poorly as the jump in long-term rates challenged their appeal for income-oriented investors.

The utilities sector, which is highly regulated, also got pinched by concerns that it won't benefit much from the changes in the tax code.

Fortunately for the broader market, the utilities sector has a very small weighting in the S&P 500, so its large losses were easily offset by the gains in the more heavily-weighted financial and energy sectors.

Generally speaking, then, the stock market is going into the Christmas holiday in good spirits, content to know that a tax cut is coming in 2018 and that Santa is coming on Monday.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - Waiting for Santa to Bring His Rally (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Indices test nicely, waiting for Santa to bring his rally next week.
- SP500, DJ30 are extended, but this action does not indicate near term
topping.
- Still many leaders testing near support and looking good if the bids
return.
- Fund outflows jump post-tax passing and the market weathers it with a
modest test. The question is whether the outflows continue.
- Many plays are ready to move if they get the nod.

The stock market is apparently waiting on Santa to show up and bring a Santa
Clause rally. After gapping nicely upside Monday, the balance of the week
was testing. With outflows post-tax reform vote at $14.5B from equity funds
there is justification to the argument that the action showed 'smart money'
leaving the market. Hey, we took some profits as well based upon a specific
set of plans.

SP500 -1.23, -0.05%
NASDAQ -5.40, -0.08%
DJ30 -28.23, -0.11%
SP400 -0.03%
RUTX -0.27%
SOX -0.05%
NASDAQ 100 -0.12%



That said, the Tuesday to Friday action was not in itself damaging to the
market. Lower volume, quite modest fades by both the indices and leading
stocks. Sure DJ30 and SP500 are quite extended, but the action this week
did not suggest they are rolling over. That may still come as the market
moves past the yearend good tidings, and we are very cognizant of that, but
you can only take the market that presents itself.

Even so, as discussed earlier this week, while large caps may find the need
to fade and consolidate more than these past four sessions, other areas of
the market are still fresh and can easily make new moves. Indeed, even the
FAANG and some other NASDAQ large names can still move: they based all
summer and broke out in late October. We still own some of these (GOOG,
INTC, AMZN) and are looking at new positions on them as the case may be.

Money definitely flowed out as the flow indicators state, but if this is as
bad as it gets, that was nothing. The key is whether the money continues to
leave or if it was just some readjustment. If net outflows continue, stocks
of course will struggle more to find a floor. Again, thus far the outflows
resulted in only modest, low volume tests, indeed very normal tests back to
the 10 day EMA for the indices and for leading stocks.

TUESDAY

We have a lot of great plays on the report, plays that are ready to go if
they get the nod from investors and traders. AAPL, AMZN, BIDU, CAVM, CUTR,
FFIV, GOOG, PTN, PTLA -- lots that look really good, and still more not
mentioned. If they show the moves we want to play the moves. Also, love
the pullback on ROKU and we are putting on a new play on it for next week.


NEWS/ECONOMY

Friday added to the long list of the week's data. Again it was good in some
respects, not so good in others. On a week that saw regional PMI's beat
expectations and housing sales surge, other reports missed, even if
slightly.

Durable Goods, preliminary November: 1.2 vs 2.1% exp vs -0.4 prior
(from -1.2)

Ex-Transports: -0.1 vs +0.4 exp vs 1.3 prior (up from 0.4%)

Business investment: -0.1 vs +0.8 October (from 0.3%). That was the
largest drop since 2016. At least the revision from October helped offset
the miss.


Personal Income, Nov: 0.3 vs 0.4 exp vs 0.4 October

Personal Spending: 0.6 vs 0.4 exp vs 0.2 Oct (from 0.3)


New Home Sales, Nov: +17.5%, the largest in crease in 25 years. Well, I
suppose those people needed some money to finance the purchases so that
explains the outflows from the market? Good gains, lock in some profits to
pay for the new digs.


Tax reform effects: More companies announcing bonuses, etc.

BAC to pay $1K bonuses to 145K employees. BBT increases its minimum pay to
$15/hour.

Expect to see a LOT more of this next week.

Also, AMGN said it will face a 6% tax issue with the new code. Expect to
see these announcements as well.


Bitcoin: Crashed through 14K overnight, then through 13K. It held, however,
at the 38% Fibonacci retracement of the prior move and started to bounce
late in the session. Ah, some trading parameters are holding in its action.
We are watching and looking for opportunities to trade this, and once
comfortable, we will share the trades with you of course.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/sp500.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/NASDAQ.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/DJ30.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/RUTX.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/SP400.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/SOX.jpg

SP500/DJ30: Both are about the same in terms of extension with the Dow a
bit more than SP500. Both gapped higher Monday to new highs, both tested
the gain the rest of the week, showing doij at the 10 day EMA. Modest,
lower volume selling, holding near support. Thus far not flashing any
warning signs based on their trading action. That is different from their
technical position that is, as noted, extended with 4 and 5 runs up the
short term moving averages after the last 50 day EMA test.

NASDAQ/NASDAQ 100: Both are quite similar. They too gapped upside to highs
Monday then faded the move to the 10 day EMA through Friday, showing tight
doji there to close the week. NASDAQ on its fourth run up the 10/20 day
EMA, testing this week after its upside gap. No danger signals based upon
the trading action with the stronger volume rise, lower volume fade.

SP400/RUTX: Both the midcaps and small caps gapped higher Monday to the
prior highs from late November/early December and stopped there. Lateral
slides to Friday, not the fade of the large cap indices. Tax sensitive,
whether they can make good, solid breaks to new highs is important for the
market overall as that would indicate these domestically economic sensitive
stocks are building in more gains in the future.

SOX: You can argue SOX has put in an ABCD downside pattern off the late
November/early December selling. That would suggest a leg lower off this
last move into Wednesday that was tested Thursday and Friday. If you step
back a bit more, you see the big run from September to late November, and
the recent action as working on an ABCD upside pattern. That would suggest
another downside leg to undercut the early December low to around 1180 to
form a D point. That gives you the drop from the shorter downside ABCD, and
it sets up the larger upside ABCD that would indicate a rally back up toward
the prior highs. Either way you slice it, the prognosis would be weakness
off this last move higher. That said, SOX' action in the week was solid for
the upside: gapped through the 50 day MA, rallied some more, tested the 50
day MA with a doji Friday. While the ABCD patterns make sense, you have to
watch whether SOX goes rogue and just rallies back up.


LEADERSHIP

Oil: After a great upside week Friday was a day of rest. For some. CVX,
MRO, CRZO, PTEN, DNR all more or less took a day off. Those are our current
positions, and remember, we are watching HAL for a test of its break through
the 200 day SMA that we can use. APC added another 1.9% Friday.

FAANG: Still some very nice tests ongoing. AAPL is working laterally over
the 10 day EMA. AMZN testing the 20 day EMA. GOOG showing a very nice
pullback near the 10 day EMA that we were wanting to see. FB showing a doji
at the 50 day EMA. NFLX is still a mess technically.

Financial: Friday was somewhat mushy, but on the week these stocks closed
better after some volatility on some such as GS. BAC, JPM were back and
forth as well, but were trending upside all week.

Chips: Still a very mixed group with the struggling side such as LRCX,
AMAT, XLNX. The other side is not bad, just not moving outside of INTC:
CAVM, MRVL, CCMP, SIMO. These are good setups, however, and could surge.

Drugs/Biotechs: Big names struggling, e.g. CELG, BIIB. Smaller groups look
very good. PTLA set up well. ENDP, IMGN still solid. EXEL blasted higher,
never tested; waiting to see if it tests this coming week.

Retail: Same story with good tests, e.g. ULTA, COST, and good moves
continuing, e.g. TLRD, TGT, ROST, AAP.

Machinery/Manufacturing: CAT still on an upside tear. DE as well. Man.
Manufacturing testing a bit, e.g. HON, though EMR just hit a higher high.

Transports: Truckers rebounded right back up to higher highs, e.g. KNX,
WERN, ODFL. Airlines holding their gains on the week though pausing on the
busy travel day.

China: A few still look good. YY climbing up the 10 day EMA though off a
bit Friday. BIDU looks really good -- still -- just looking for the move.
NTES testing its great move on the week.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -28.23 points (-0.11%) to close at 24754.06

Nasdaq
Stats: -5.40 points (-0.08%) to close at 6959.96
Volume: 1.54B (-14.92%)

Up Volume: 680.07M (-369.93M)
Down Volume: 813.91M (+73.84M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.3 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.61 to 1

New Highs: 82 (-23)
New Lows: 36 (-1)

S&P
Stats: -1.23 points (-0.05%) to close at 2683.34
NYSE Volume: 598.6M (-23.24%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.02 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.55 to 1

New Highs: 137 (-55)
New Lows: 26 (-16)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 9.90; +0.28
VXN: 12.54; -0.11
VXO: 8.45; +0.12

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.95; +0.11


Bulls and Bears: Pretty large drop though still easily over 60 for the
bulls. That is still in the overly optimistic range and of course the surge
Friday will bring them around again to the upside. This is a warning
indication, but not a great timing device.

Bulls: 61.9 versus 64.2

Bears: 15.2 versus 15.1

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 61.9 versus 64.2
64.2 versus 62.3 versus 61.5 versus 63.5 versus 64.4 versus 63.5 versus 62.3
versus 60.6 versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1
versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0
versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5
versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7
versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5
versus 56.7 versus 53.4 versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8
versus 62.7 versus 61.8 versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2
versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6
versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9

Bears: 15.2 versus 15.1
15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1
versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2
versus 19.1 versus 19.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.0 versus 16.2
versus 16.5 versus 16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.3
versus 19.2 versus 18.3 versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9 versus 17.9
versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus 13.75
versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus 17.6
versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6
versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7
versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1
versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.485% versus 2.484%. Crashed on the week, holding near the 200 day
SMA just as it did in late October and it managed to recover from there.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.484%
versus 2.501% versus 2.459% versus 2.398% versus 2.351% versus 2.36% versus
2.403% versus 2.389% versus 2.378% versus 2.34% versus 2.353% versus 2.381%
versus 2.363% versus 2.363 versus 2.412% versus 2.385% versus 2.326% versus
2.329% versus 2.321% versus 2.34% versus 2.354% versus 2.367% versus 2.345%
versus 2.37% versus 2.336% versus 2.375% versus 2.407% versus 2.402% versus
2.34% versus 2.326% versus 2.316% versus 2.32% versus 2.332% versus 2.349%
versus 2.358% versus 2.378% versus 2.37% versus 2.419% versus 2.456% versus
2.435% versus 2.421% versus 2.366% versus 2.383% versus 2.318% versus 2.341%
versus 2.30% versus 2.302% versus 2.275%


EUR/USD: 1.18628 versus 1.18658. Setting up for another move higher
against the dollar.

Historical: 1.18658 versus 1.18792 versus 1.18408 versus 1.17703 versus
1.1752 versus 1.17798 versus 1.18392 versus 1.17430 versus 1.17652 versus
1.1764 versus 1.17754 versus 1.17990 versus 1.18276 versus 1.18727 versus
1.18983 versus 1.18976 versus 1.18529 versus 1.18489 versus 1.1899 versus
1.19329 versus 1.18148 versus 1.17402 versus 1.1791 versus 1.1787 versus
1.1786 versus 1.1799 versus 1.16443 versus 1.16646 versus 1.16439 versus
1.15871


USD/JPY: 113.304 versus 113.363. Building for another move up, testing the
early week rally.

Historical: 113.363 versus 113.334 versus 112.870 versus 112.625 versus
112.619 versus 112.298 versus 112.639 versus 113.555 versus 113.476 versus
113.48 versus 113.473 versus 112.473 versus 112.554 versus 112.442 versus
112.190 versus 112.55 versus 112.102 versus 111.583 versus 111.244


Oil: 58.47, +0.11. Approaching the late October recovery high.


Gold: 1278.80, +8.20. Cleared the 200 day SMA and the 50 day MA's on the
way back up from the sharp selloff into the second week of December.

[ReturntoSender]

Lacking Interest
26-Dec-17 16:25 ET
Dow -7.85 at 24746.21, Nasdaq -23.71 at 6936.25, S&P -2.84 at 2680.50

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/26/lacking-interest.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] It was a lackadaisical day of trading on Wall Street as many participants clearly found better things to do the day after Christmas than buy or sell stocks. The trading proof of point was in the volume, which totaled just 528 million shares at the NYSE versus 650 million shares last Tuesday and 723 million shares the Tuesday before that.

The light participation was not a surprise as this is a popular vacation day (and week). Major bourses in Europe were closed for Boxing Day, which contributed to the light volume.

There wasn't much news driving the market narrative, which revolved around the following:

Weakness in Apple (AAPL 170.57, -4.44, -2.5%) and many of its suppliers in the wake of press reports highlighting some analysts' concerns about iPhone X demand possibly being weaker than expected in the fiscal first quarter, which encompasses the holiday selling season
A nice move by many retail stocks after Mastercard Spending Pulse reported retail sales, excluding autos, rose at their strongest pace (+4.9%) since 2011 from November 1 through Christmas Eve. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 46.03, +0.52, +1.1%) reflected the relative strength of the retail stocks while Amazon.com (AMZN 1176.76, +8.40, +0.7%), which said it had its best holiday season ever, reflected the upbeat sales report.
The rise in oil prices ($59.90, +$1.43, +2.5%), which hit their highest level since mid-2015, spurred on by reports of a pipeline explosion in Libya that will curtail about 90,000 barrels per day from the OPEC nation. That move led to some concurrent strength in the energy sector (+0.8%), which was the market's best-performing sector on Tuesday.
The huge reversal in bitcoin, which hit $16,000 after trading below $11,000 last Friday

For the most part, the broader market found itself pinned down by Apple's weakness and the weight of losses in the information technology (-0.7%) and financial (-0.5%) sectors, which are its two most heavily-weighted sectors.

Some curve flattening pressured the financials, yet that was more of an excuse for the weakness on a day when there wasn't a lot of substantive news to account for the price action.

The yield on the 2-yr note bumped up one basis point to 1.90% following a weak $26 billion 2-yr note auction; meanwhile, the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note slipped two basis points to 2.47%.

The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for October was the only economic release of note. It showed home prices in 20 major metropolitan cities increased 6.4% year-over-year (Briefing.com consensus +6.3%).

Wednesday's slate of data will feature the weekly Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 a.m. ET, the Consumer Confidence report for December at 10:00 a.m. ET, and the Pending Home Sales report for November at 10:00 a.m. ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +28.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +25.2% YTD
S&P 500 +19.7% YTD
S&P Midcap 400 Index: +14.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.8% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Still Waiting on Santa
27-Dec-17 16:25 ET
Dow +28.09 at 24774.30, Nasdaq +3.09 at 6939.34, S&P +2.12 at 2682.62

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/27/still-waiting-on-santa.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] There was little change in the stock market on Wednesday, which was basically the case throughout the session. The major indices were confined to tight trading ranges, vacillating within close proximity to Tuesday's closing levels.

The lack of conviction was consistent with Tuesday's trading, which was one of the lightest volume days of the year at the NYSE. Volume was a little heavier today at 548 million shares, yet it was still far below "normal" levels as vacation schedules continued to be fuller than trading desks.

That is nothing unusual this time of year, yet it will be noticed nonetheless by veteran market watchers that the Santa Claus rally period, which includes the last five trading days of the year and the first two trading days of the new year, has been slow to get going.

That period is typically a good period for the stock market. According to the Stock Trader's Almanac, it has produced an average gain of 1.5% for the S&P 500 since 1950. Through the first three days of this year's Santa Claus rally period, the S&P 500 has slipped 0.07%.

There is still time for Santa to show, but it is fair to say that it will be a condensed showing if he does.

Today's sector returns were certainly condensed, as there wasn't a single sector that increased, or decreased, more than 0.4%.

The best-performing sectors were real estate (+0.4%) and utilities (+0.4%), which found some support from a big drop in long-term rates. In fact, the Treasury market is where most of today's trading excitement was found.

The yield on the 10-yr note fell six basis points to 2.41% while the yield on the 30-yr bond dropped six basis points to 2.75%. There were gains, though, across the yield curve, but a curve flattening trade prevailed as the 2-yr note yield slipped only two basis points to 1.88%.

There wasn't a telling news item for the strength in the Treasury market. The Consumer Confidence report for December was a bit weaker than expected, yet that wasn't enough to account for the sizable increase in Treasury prices; moreover, the $34 billion 5-year note auction was weak, which wouldn't be a rally factor.

The suspected tailwind was a drop in European bond yields, a likely trigger for an interest-rate differential trade that has tamped down long-term rates all year despite improving economic activity and three rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

It is possible, too, that safe-haven trading was in play going into year end, which will feature another three-day weekend.

Back to the stock market, the energy sector (-0.3%) was the biggest loser today, falling victim to some profit taking that was facilitated by a 0.6% drop in oil prices ($59.64, -$0.33), which hit their highest level since mid-2015 on Tuesday.

The consumer discretionary sector dipped 0.2%, weighed down by weakness in many of the retail stocks. The latter also fell victim to profit taking after staging a big rally in recent weeks. To wit, Macy's (M 25.64, -1.21) declined 4.5% after gaining as much as 56% from its November 7 low.

Reviewing this morning's economic data, which included the Consumer Confidence report for December and the Pending Home Sales Index for November:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for December dropped to 122.1 (Briefing.com consensus 128.0) from a downwardly revised 128.6 (from 129.5) in November, which marked a 17-year high.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers had a less optimistic outlook for business and job prospects in coming months, which is a bit surprising given the advertised benefits of tax reform. Overall, though, consumer confidence remains strong.
The Pending Home Sales Index increased 0.2% in November (Briefing.com consensus -0.7%) following an unrevised 3.5% increase in October

Wednesday's will include the weekly initial claims report and the advance reports for international trade in goods and wholesale inventories for November.

Nasdaq Composite: +28.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +25.3% YTD
S&P 500: +19.8% YTD
S&P Midcap 400 Index: +14.8% YTD
Russell 2000: +13.8% YTD

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Dow Grinds Its Way to Another Record High
28-Dec-17 16:25 ET
Dow +63.21 at 24837.51, Nasdaq +10.82 at 6950.16, S&P +4.92 at 2687.54

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/28/dow-grinds-its-way-to-another-record-high.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] It was a literal grind for the major indices Thursday, which held to extremely tight trading ranges throughout the day, clinging to modest gains that got extended slightly in the final hour of trading.

When it was all said and done, the major indices closed up between 0.2% and 0.3%.

There wasn't much trading excitement in the stock market because there was a dearth of market-moving news, as well as a dearth of participants. For the third day running, extremely light trading volume reflected the fact that many market participants have checked out until the new year.

Just 527 million shares traded at the NYSE, which was the lowest total this week and the lowest for a late-December session in two years.

Much of today's hoopla revolved around bitcoin, which slumped as much as 11% overnight on the news that South Korea is going to instill new regulations that ban anonymous trading accounts and enable authorities to close exchanges when deemed necessary.

Beyond that, the moves in the stock market were incremental. Ten out of 11 S&P 500 sectors closed the day higher, yet their gains ranged from 0.09% (health care and energy) to 0.52% (telecom services).

The lone loser was the consumer staples sector, which declined 0.19%.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.4%) underperformed after trucking company J. B. Hunt (JBHT 115.24, -0.23, -0.2%) disappointed with some fourth quarter earnings guidance. J.B. Hunt and the transportation average, however, both closed well off their lows of the day thanks to the late burst of buying interest, which led to the 71st record-high close for the Dow Jones Industrial Average this year.

Separately, natural gas futures moved up sharply ($2.91, +$0.18, +6.6%) as temperatures moved down sharply across the Midwest and Northeast, stoking increased heating demand. Natural gas prices were also helped by a report from the government showing a net decrease of 112 billion cubic feet of working gas in storage for the week ending December 22.

Oil prices, which had been lower for most of the day despite a report showing a 4.6 million barrel drawdown in crude oil stockpiles, reversed course late and settled the day 0.4% higher at $59.85 per barrel.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the initial claims, Chicago PMI, and advance reports for international trade in goods and wholesale inventories:

Initial claims for the week ending December 23 were 245,000 (Briefing.com consensus 238,000), unchanged from the prior week, while continuing claims for the week ending December 16 increased by 7,000 to 1.943 million.
Initial claims have held below 300,000 for 147 straight weeks.
The MNI Chicago Business Barometer, otherwise referred to as the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, surged to 67.6 in December (Briefing.com consensus 61.9) from 63.9 in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing conditions in the Chicago Fed region are strong, as the December reading is the highest since March 2011.
The advance report for international trade in goods for November showed a widening in the deficit to $69.7 billion from -$68.1 billion in October
The advance report for wholesale inventories for November showed a 0.7% increase on the heels of a 0.4% decline in October

There is no economic data of note scheduled for release on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite: +29.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +25.6%
S&P 500: +20.0% YTD
S&P Midcap 400 Index: +15.1%
Russell 2000: +14.1%

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Finishing 2017 With a Whimper
29-Dec-17 16:25 ET
Dow -118.29 at 24719.22, Nasdaq -46.77 at 6903.39, S&P -13.93 at 2673.61

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2017/12/29/finishing-2017-with-a-whimper.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The trading day is done and the year is too. The former wasn't too special, but the latter was. The major indices closed today with losses ranging from 0.5% to 0.9%, unable to live up to the bullish bias that prevailed in pre-market trading.

Today's losses, though, won't ruffle too many feathers considering the major indices registered gains this year ranging from 13.1% (Russell 2000) to 28.2% (Nasdaq Composite).

Friday's action was over early for the bulls as opening gains quickly evaporated and the indices settled back into negative territory not too far from where they closed Thursday's session.

Range-bound and featureless action predominated throughout the day as a lack of concerted leadership, a lack of corporate news, and a lack of economic data succeeded in keeping market participants disinterested for most of the session.

There was some excitement in the final hour of trading, though, which has become commonplace for this stock market.

Unlike Thursday, the final hour featured a wave of broad-based selling interest over the last 30 minutes that knocked the indices out of their range-bound stupor and left them at their worst levels of the day when the final bell of 2017 rang.

The losses were led by the health care (-0.7%), financial (-0.7%), consumer discretionary (-0.7%), and information technology (-0.6%) sectors, all of which were among the market's best-performing sectors for 2017.

There wasn't a news catalyst for the selling, which is apt to be construed as a defensive, profit-taking move in front of the three-day weekend. There is apt to be some chatter, too, that it could reflect a little defensive posturing heading into the first week of the new year when it is thought investors might be inclined to secure long-term capital gains after deferring them at the end of 2017 as the tax bill was being worked out.

We'll know soon enough, but a little selling late today won't spoil an excellent year. The S&P 500, which was up 20% for the year around 3:20 p.m. ET today, closed 2017 up 19.4% (before dividends).

Nasdaq Composite: +28.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +25.2% YTD
S&P 500: +19.4% YTD
S&P Midcap 400 Index: +14.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +13.1% YTD

Week in Review: Not Missing Much

After four days and 26 total hours of trading, the S&P 500 settled the holiday-shortened week down 0.4% -- and only because of a sell-off in the last 30 minutes of trading on Friday.

The remarkable thing is that there was a 19-point variance between the high and low for the week, both of which were logged on Friday. In other words, it was an extremely range-bound market that lacked conviction on the part of buyers and sellers -- until the last 30 minutes on Friday.

That lack of conviction was plain to see in the volume totals at the NYSE, which were among the lightest all year.

It was no surprise as this is a popular vacation week, and with the stock market having done so well already in 2017, many participants undoubtedly felt comfortable following pursuits that didn't include buying or selling stocks.

It is fair to say they didn't miss much.

The corporate news was very limited. The headline item for the week in that respect included Apple (AAPL), which declined 3.3% and closed just below its 50-day simple moving average during a week when many other stocks didn't move much.

Apple's difficulties stemmed from press reports on Tuesday which highlighted some analysts' concerns about iPhone X demand possibly being weaker than expected in the company's fiscal first quarter. Separately, Apple had some PR issues to deal with, which subsequently led to an apology from the company pertaining to the battery performance of its older iPhone models.

It would be remiss not to add that AAPL had a great 2017, increasing 46%, so it isn't unreasonable to think it might have been subjected to some profit taking at year end anyway. The aforementioned headlines, though, helped in that regard.

The livelier trading action took place outside the stock market.

Bitcoin was the picture of volatility; the 10-yr Treasury yield came in eight basis points to 2.41%; oil prices increased 3.1% to $60.27 per barrel, marking their highest close since 2015; gold prices jumped 2.4% to $1309.20/troy oz.; and the U.S. Dollar Index slumped 1.1% to 92.30.

Economic data was limited and on the mixed side, yet the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for December created some fanfare on Thursday with its best print (67.6) since March 2011, led by a three-and-a-half year high for the New Orders Index and a 34-year high for the Production Index.

Within the stock market, the lightly-weighted real estate sector topped the list of winners with a 1.3% gain for the week. Price returns for the remaining ten sectors ranged from -1.0% (information technology) to 0.3% (utilities).

As a reminder, the stock and bond markets will be closed on Monday for the New Year's Day holiday and will re-open on Tuesday.

Happy New Year!

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2018 Gets Underway with Another Record Finish
02-Jan-18 16:20 ET
Dow +104.79 at 24824.01, Nasdaq +103.51 at 7006.90, S&P +22.18 at 2695.79

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/2/2018-gets-underway-with-another-record-finish.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities began 2018 on a positive note, jolted by a sense of optimism for the new year.

The major stock indices mostly reclaimed the losses registered ahead of the extended New Year's weekend, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+1.5%) settling above the 7000 mark for the first time ever. The S&P 500 (+0.8%) also finished at a new record high, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) underperformed.

Beneath the eye-catching headlines of new all-time highs, Tuesday's session was rather dull as trading volume remained relatively light following the holidays; just 815 million shares changed hands at the New York Stock Exchange. Equities registered most of their gains at the opening bell and, outside an uptick in the final minutes, trended sideways for the rest of the day.

Advancing stocks outnumbered declining stocks by 1.6 to 1, and, more importantly, the size of the gains easily outweighed the magnitude of the losses. The consumer discretionary, technology, health care, energy, and materials sectors--which comprise around 60% of the broader market combined--climbed more than 1.0% apiece.

Meanwhile, the consumer staples, utilities, and real estate groups--which make up just 14% of the broader market combined--lost between 0.6% and 0.9%. The heavily-weighted financial sector also finished in the red, but its loss was modest at 0.1%.

Chipmakers had a solid day, bouncing back from some profit taking at the end of 2017; the PHLX Semiconductor Index jumped 2.8%. Names like Advanced Micro (AMD 10.98, +0.70) and Micron Technology (MU 43.67, +2.55) were among the top performers, adding 6.8% and 6.2%, respectively.

Retailers also put together a positive performance, evidenced by the 1.8% increase in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 46.01, +0.83). Target (TGT 67.63, +2.38) tacked on 3.7% amid speculation that Amazon (AMZN 1189.01, +19.54) could make a bid for the big-box retailer sometime this year.

Elsewhere, the Euro Stoxx 50 (-0.5%) posted its sixth consecutive loss despite an in-line reading for the December Eurozone Manufacturing PMI (60.6). Conversely, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Tuesday on a mostly higher note, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+2.0%) pacing the advance.

Outside the equity markets, U.S. Treasury yields climbed across the curve, with the benchmark 10-yr yield jumping six basis points to 2.47%, and West Texas Intermediate crude futures held steady at $60.36 per barrel as anti-government protests in Iran continued. The U.S. Dollar Index tumbled 0.5% to 91.55, hitting a three-month low.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Tuesday, but they will receive several economic reports on Wednesday, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET and both the ISM Manufacturing Index for December (Briefing.com consensus 58.0) and Construction Spending for November (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) at 10:00 ET.

In addition, the minutes from the December FOMC meeting will cross the wires at 14:00 ET, and December auto and truck sales will be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite: +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.9% YTD
S&P 500: +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.4% YTD

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Records All Around
03-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +98.67 at 24922.68, Nasdaq +58.63 at 7065.53, S&P +17.25 at 2713.04

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/3/records-all-around.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street advanced to new record highs for the second day in a row on Wednesday, solidifying a solid start to the new year.

The Nasdaq climbed 0.8% to 7065.53, the S&P 500 jumped 0.6% to 2713.06, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.4% to 24922.68, and the Russell 2000 hopped 0.2% to 1552.55. All four indices finished at new all-time highs, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq extending its 2018 gain to 2.4%. The S&P 500 is up 1.5% after the first two sessions of the new year.

Equities opened Wednesday's session just a tick above Tuesday's closing levels, but buyers soon took control, pushing the major stock indices higher through the late morning. The bulls hit pause ahead of the afternoon release of the minutes from the December FOMC meeting, which showed that most members backed a continued path of gradual rate hikes.

Some FOMC members even saw the possibility for more aggressive monetary policy depending on economic growth resulting from the GOP's tax overhaul--which President Trump signed into law two weeks ago. Many Fed officials believe that the tax cuts will boost consumer and capital spending, but there's uncertainty surrounding the magnitude of the growth.

The equity market resumed its upward trend following the minutes, finishing the day at its session high, while the Treasury market gave back some of its opening gains. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished lower by two basis points at 2.45%, while the 2-yr yield climbed one basis point to 1.93%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Energy shares led the rally on Wall Street as West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 2.1% to $61.63 per barrel--which marks their best close since December 2014. Anti-government protests in oil-rich Iran helped fuel the commodity's advance, even though the demonstrations aren't expected to affect production. The S&P 500's energy sector added 1.5%.

The heavily-weighted technology and health care sectors were the next-best performing groups, adding 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively, while the other advancing sectors added between 0.1% and 0.7%. Within the tech space, chipmakers had another solid day overall, extending the PHLX Semiconductor Index's week-to-date gain to 4.5%, but Intel (INTC 45.26, -1.59) did not.

INTC shares lost 3.4% in reaction to reports that a design flaw in Intel's processor chips has forced a significant redesign of kernels for the Windows and Linux operating systems. Intel issued a statement refuting the claims in the late afternoon, which helped INTC shares pare some of their losses before the closing bell.

Only three of eleven sectors finished the midweek session in the red--consumer staples (-0.1%), utilities (-0.8%), and telecom services (-2.2%)--but their impact was modest as they comprise just a little more than 10.0% of the broader market combined.

Elsewhere, the Euro Stoxx 50 (+0.6%) ended a six-session losing streak and the major indices in the Asia-Pacific region also finished in the green. China's Shanghai Composite (+0.6%) paced the advance in Asia while Japan's Nikkei remained closed for a holiday.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the ISM Manufacturing Index for December, Construction Spending for November, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ISM Index for December rose to 59.7 from an unrevised reading of 58.2 in November, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 58.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that growth in December was fueled by increases in eight out of ten index categories with New Order growth (+5.4 to 69.4) leading the way. The December increase leaves the index not far from its 2017 high of 60.8 that was recorded in the September reading.
The Construction Spending report for November increased 0.8%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.7%. The prior month's increase was lowered to 0.9% from 1.4%.
The key takeaway from the report--and the downward revision to the October figure--is that construction spending is not sending signals pointing to notable acceleration in overall GDP growth.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.8% to follow last week's 4.9% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive two economic reports--ADP Employment Change for December (Briefing.com consensus +190K) and weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 239K). The two reports will be released at 8:15 AM ET and 8:30 AM ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.4% YTD
S&P 500: +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.8% YTD

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Financials Pace Third Consecutive Record Finish
04-Jan-18 16:25 ET
Dow +152.45 at 25075.13, Nasdaq +12.38 at 7077.91, S&P +10.93 at 2723.97

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/4/financials-pace-third-consecutive-record-finish.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks advanced to new records for the third session in a row on Thursday, keeping their perfect 2018 record intact.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6% to 25075.13, the S&P 500 jumped 0.4% to 2723.99, and the Nasdaq Composite ticked up 0.2% to 7077.91. All three stock indices finished at new all-time highs with the Dow crossing the 25000 mark for the first time. The Russell 2000 also notched a new record, rising 0.2% to 1555.72.

After opening modestly above Wednesday's closing levels, the equity market kept pretty steady through the closing bell.

Nine of eleven sectors advanced on Thursday with gains ranging between 0.1% and 0.9%. The heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.9%) was the top-performing group after trailing the broader market through the first two sessions of the new year. Lenders like JPMorgan Chase (JPM 109.04, +1.54), Bank of America (BAC 30.19, +0.39), Wells Fargo (WFC 62.33, +0.77), and Citigroup (C 75.51, +0.92) added more than 1.0% apiece.

Meanwhile, the energy sector managed to tack on another 0.6%, bringing its 2018 gain to 4.0%, as crude oil extended its three-week rally. West Texas Intermediate crude futures advanced to a fresh three-year high, jumping 0.6% to $61.97 per barrel. Crude futures benefited from the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report, which showed that U.S. crude stockpiles declined by 7.4 million barrels last week--nearly 3 million barrels more than estimates had predicted.

On the downside, the health care sector underperformed, adding just 0.1%, as biotechnology shares gave back a portion of gains registered earlier in the week; the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 109.97, -0.91) lost 0.8%, trimming its week-to-date gain to 3.0%. The lightly-weighted utilities and real estate sectors also struggled, finishing at the bottom of the sector standings with losses of 0.9% and 1.7%, respectively.

In corporate news, Walgreens Boot Alliance (WBA 71.60, -3.91) dropped 5.2% despite reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for its fiscal first quarter. L Brands (LB 51.00, -7.16) also had a disappointing outing, as did many retailers, after lowering its profit projections for the holiday season. LB shares ended the session lower by 12.3% while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 45.71, -0.27) shed 0.6%.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Thursday on a higher note with Japan's Nikkei (+3.3%) climbing to its best level since 1991. European equities also had a solid day, especially financial names like Deutsche Bank (+2.7%) and Credit Agricole (+4.5%), pushing the Euro Stoxx 50 higher by 1.7%.

Outside the equity markets, U.S. Treasuries sold off modestly, extending losses for the week. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note advanced one basis point to 2.45% while the 2-yr yield settled at 1.95% after closing the prior session at 1.93%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index slipped 0.3% to 91.60, notching its sixth loss in seven sessions. The greenback lost 0.4% against the euro (1.2068) and 0.3% against the British pound (1.3554).

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the ADP National Employment Report for December and the weekly Initial Claims Report:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 250,000 in December (Briefing.com consensus 190,000). The November reading was revised to 185,000 from 190,000.
The ADP reading precedes Friday's more influential Employment Situation Report for December (Briefing.com consensus +188K).
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 250,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 239,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 247,000 (from 245,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.914 million from a revised count of 1.951 million (from 1.943 million).
Initial claims have held below 300,000 for 148 straight weeks

On Friday, the Employment Situation Report for the month of December will be released at 8:30 AM ET. The Briefing.com consensus expects the report will show the addition of 188,000 nonfarm payrolls, a 0.3% increase in average hourly earnings, and an unemployment rate of 4.0%.

In addition, investors will receive the November Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$47.9 billion) at 8:30 AM ET and both November Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus +1.4%) and the ISM Services Index (Briefing.com consensus 57.6) at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.5% YTD
S&P 500: +1.9% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +1.3% YTD

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Tech Shares Pace Fourth Consecutive Advance
05-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +220.74 at 25295.87, Nasdaq +58.64 at 7136.56, S&P +19.16 at 2743.15

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/5/tech-shares-pace-fourth-consecutive-advance.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities notched new records yet again on Friday, advancing for the fourth session in a row.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.9%, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8%, and the S&P 500 jumped 0.7%. All three major U.S. indices finished at new record highs, marking the fourth consecutive record finish for the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 and the third consecutive for the Dow. The Russell 2000 (+0.3%) underperformed but still closed at a new all-time high.

Stocks opened Friday a step above Thursday's closing levels and extended gains in the late afternoon, finishing near their best marks of the day.

The top-weighted technology sector (+1.2%) led Friday's rally, moving into the top spot on the 2018 leaderboard. Within the group, Microsoft (MSFT 88.19, +1.08), Alphabet (GOOGL 1110.29, +14.53), and Facebook (FB 186.85, +2.52) hit new all-time highs, adding between 1.2% and 1.4%. Apple (AAPL 175.00, +1.97) climbed 1.1%.

The health care, consumer discretionary, and materials sectors also had solid showings, adding 0.9% apiece, while the five other advancing sectors ended with gains between 0.1% and 0.7%. The energy sector (unch) was the weakest group as crude oil tumbled from a three-year high. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 0.9% to $61.47 per barrel.

Investors received the Employment Situation Report for December on Friday morning. Job growth was weaker than expected, with nonfarm payrolls increasing by 148,000 (Briefing.com consensus +188,000), while average hourly earnings grew 0.3%--which was in line with the Briefing.com consensus.

Rate-hike expectations remained roughly the same following the release; the CME FedWatch Tool projects that the next rate hike will occur at the March FOMC meeting with an implied probability of 68.1%.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries sold off on Friday, pushing yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note jumped to 2.48% after finishing Thursday at 2.45% while the 2-yr yield jumped one basis point to 1.96%.

Elsewhere, the Euro Stoxx 50 (+1.0%) advanced for the third session in a row following an upbeat batch of economic data, which included the November Eurozone PPI (+0.6% actual vs +0.3% consensus) and Germany's November retail sales (+2.3% actual vs +1.1% consensus).

Stocks in the Asia-Pacific region also had a good day with Japan's Nikkei (+0.9%) settling at a 26-year high for the second consecutive day.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the Employment Situation Report for December, the December ISM Services Index, November Factory Orders, and the November Trade Balance:

Employment Situation Report for December
December nonfarm payrolls increased by 148,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 188,000. The prior month's increase was revised to 252,000 from 228,000. Nonfarm private payrolls rose by 146,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 185,000. The previous month's increase was revised to 239,000 from 221,000.
The unemployment rate stayed at 4.1% (Briefing.com consensus 4.0%). Average hourly earnings increased by 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the previous month's increase was revised to 0.1% from 0.2%. The average workweek was reported at 34.5 (Briefing.com consensus 34.5). The previous month's reading was left unrevised at 34.5.
With the labor market believed to be approaching full employment, disappointing headline readings could become more commonplace. This would be indicative of employers struggling to find workers with the right skillset, which in turn should translate into upward pressure on wages.
The ISM Services Index for December declined to 55.9 (Briefing.com consensus 57.6) from an unrevised reading of 57.4 in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that while business activity in the non-manufacturing sector is still expanding, the recent pullback leaves the series near levels seen during the first half of 2017.
The Factory Orders Report for November showed an increase of 1.3% (Briefing.com consensus 1.4%), while the October reading was revised to +0.4% from -0.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that an uptick in business spending—combined with an upward October revision—should be a supportive factor for GDP growth.
The November trade balance showed a deficit of $50.5 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$47.9 billion). The October deficit was revised to $48.9 billion from $48.7 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that trade will make for a negative input in fourth quarter GDP models since the real deficit widened to $66.70 billion in November from $65.30 billion in October. The average real trade deficit stood at $62.00 billion in the third quarter.

On Monday, investors will receive just one economic report--November Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $18.0 billion)--which will be released at 3:00 PM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.4% YTD
S&P 500: +2.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.3% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.6% YTD

Week In Review: Bang! Off to the Races

The stock market began 2018 with a bang, advancing to new record highs in each of this week's four trading sessions. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 3.4% to 7136.56, the S&P 500 climbed 2.6% to 2743.15, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.3% to 25295.87. Markets were closed on Monday in observance of New Year's Day.

This week's rally followed an impressive 2017 campaign for Wall Street, during which the S&P 500 surged nearly 20%, and defused the belief that the new lower tax rates, which took effect on Monday, would invite some profit taking at the start of the new year.

Cyclical sectors, which typically do well when the outlook for the economy is favorable, set the pace this week with the technology (+4.2%), materials (+4.0%), and energy (+3.9%) groups being the top performers.

Energy shares benefited from an increase in the price of crude oil, which touched a three-year high amid anti-government protests in Iran--although the protests weren't expected to have an impact on the country's oil production. Oil prices were also supported by the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report, which showed that U.S. crude stockpiles declined by 7.4 million barrels last week. West Texas Intermediate crude futures gave back some gains on Friday but still ended with a weekly gain of 1.7% at a price of $61.47 per barrel.

Meanwhile, in the top-weighted technology sector, chipmakers had a solid week, bouncing back from some profit taking at the end of 2017; the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ended the week higher by 5.8%. Intel (INTC) struggled, however, following reports that its chips contain security flaws. INTC shares finished the week lower by 3.1%.

The minutes from the December FOMC meeting were released on Wednesday, showing that most FOMC members backed a continued path of gradual rate hikes. Some members even saw the possibility for more aggressive tightening due to the new tax code, which Fed officials expect will boost consumer and capital spending.

Investors also received the Employment Situation Report for December, which bucked the longstanding trend of above-consensus headline growth and lagging wage growth. Nonfarm payrolls increased less than expected (148,000 actual vs 188,000 Briefing.com consensus), but the November reading was revised to 252,000 from 228,000. Average hourly earnings came in as expected, showing a month-over-month increase of 0.3%.

With the labor market believed to be approaching full employment, disappointing headline readings could become more commonplace. This would be indicative of employers struggling to find workers with the right skillset, which in turn should translate into upward pressure on wages.

The market dialed up its rate-hike expectations following this week's economic data. The CME FedWatch Tool points to the March FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement with an implied probability of 68.1%, up from 51.7% last week.

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Stocks Hit Records for Fifth Consecutive Session
08-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow -12.87 at 25283.00, Nasdaq +20.83 at 7157.39, S&P +4.56 at 2747.71

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/8/stocks-hit-records-for-fifth-consecutive-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities ticked higher on Monday, settling in record territory for the fifth session in a row.

The Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.3% to 7157.39 and the S&P 500 advanced 0.2% to 2747.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average underperformed, finishing lower by 0.1% at 25283.00.

The market struggled for direction following a quiet weekend and ahead of the fourth quarter earnings season, which will kick off on Friday with reports from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 108.50, +0.16) and Wells Fargo (WFC 62.04, -0.71). Stocks opened the session slightly lower and then rose slowly throughout the day.

Nine of eleven sectors finished in positive territory. The lightly-weighted utilities (+0.9%) and real estate (+0.6%) sectors were the top performers, bouncing back from poor showings last week, while the top-weighted technology group (+0.4%) extended its lead for the year; the tech space is up 4.6% year to date.

The energy sector (+0.6%) rallied in the afternoon, helped by an increase in the price of crude oil; West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 0.4% to $61.69 per barrel. The industrial sector (+0.4%) also had a positive showing, thanks in part to transports, which pushed the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.8%) to a new record high.

On the downside, the heavily-weighted health care (-0.4%) and financials (-0.1%) spaces declined. Within the health care group, biotech shares showed particular weakness, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 108.37, -1.46) lower by 1.3%.

In corporate news, GoPro (GPRO 6.56, -0.96) faced heavy selling after slashing its revenue guidance for the holiday season and announcing its exit from the drone business. GPRO shares held losses of around 30% at the opening bell, but ended the session lower by 12.8%.

Kohl's (KSS 56.90, +2.54) jumped 4.7% after reporting a 6.9% year-over-year increase in same-store sales for November and December while Crocs (CROX 13.23, +1.03) climbed 8.4% after raising its revenue guidance for the fourth quarter.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries began the week on a quiet note with the benchmark 10-yr yield closing flat at 2.48%.

Elsewhere, the Euro Stoxx 50 (+0.3%) advanced to a four-month high on Monday, climbing for the fourth session in a row. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU restarted talks with SPD over the weekend in a last-ditch effort to form a coalition government following months of deadlock.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the major stock indices also moved modestly higher, but Japan's Nikkei was closed for Coming of Age Day.

Monday's lone economic report--the Consumer Credit report for November--showed an increase of 27.9 billion (Briefing.com consensus $18.0 billion). October credit growth was revised to $20.6 billion from $20.5 billion.

On Tuesday, investors will receive the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index and the November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey at 6:00 AM ET and 10:00 AM ET, respectively.

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Health Care and Financials Keeping Winning Streak Alive
09-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +102.80 at 25385.80, Nasdaq +6.19 at 7163.58, S&P +3.58 at 2751.29

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/9/health-care-and-financials-keeping-winning-streak-alive.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The new year rally continued on Tuesday as stocks hit new records for the sixth consecutive session.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average set the pace, jumping 0.4% to 25385.80, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite ticked up 0.1% to 2751.29 and 7163.58, respectively. All three major stock indices posted new record closes, but a late wave of selling left them a step below their best marks of the day. The small-cap Russell 2000 lost 0.1%.

Two of the S&P 500's heaviest sectors--health care and financials--led the charge on Tuesday, bouncing back from a disappointing showing on Monday. The health care sector jumped 1.1% amid broad strength with Dow component Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 144.14, +2.25) climbing 1.6% to a new record high and Boston Scientific (BSX 27.96, +2.15) adding 8.3% after raising its sales guidance for the fourth quarter. Biotech shares also outperformed, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 110.41, +2.04) higher by 1.9%.

Meanwhile, the financial sector rallied 0.7% amid a steepening of the yield curve, which translates to an increase in the spread between what lenders charge on loans and what they pay on deposits. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note jumped to 2.55% after settling Monday at 2.48% while the 2-yr yield finished flat at 1.96%.

The rise in longer-dated Treasury yields followed the Bank of Japan's decision to reduce daily purchases of 10-25 year government bonds by 5.0%. Reports that the European Central Bank may terminate its purchase program later this year also helped push yields higher. Asian equities advanced on Tuesday with Japan's Nikkei (+0.6%) closing at a 26-year high while the Euro Stoxx 50 climbed 0.2%, securing its fifth consecutive victory.

Back on Wall Street, the industrial sector finished just a step below health care and financials at the top of the sector standings with a gain of 0.6%. Boeing (BA 318.43, +8.28) jumped 2.7% to a new record high, helping give the Dow an edge over the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq; Boeing is the priciest, and therefore the most influential, component in the price-weighted Dow.

The consumer discretionary sector (+0.1%) also finished in the green, but the seven remaining groups settled in the red. The top-weighted technology space lost 0.3% with semiconductor giant Intel (INTC 43.62, -1.12) losing 2.5%. INTC shares extended early losses after Microsoft (MSFT 88.22, -0.06) said fixes for Intel chip vulnerabilities--which were reported last week--could significantly slow certain servers and personal computers.

Retailers struggled in general, trimming gains from a two-month run, but Target (TGT 69.14, +1.96) had a positive outing after raising its earnings guidance for the fourth quarter. TGT shares added 2.9% while the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 45.81, -0.49) declined 1.1%.

Outside the equity market, West Texas Intermediate crude futures advanced 1.9% to $62.92 per barrel, closing at a three-year high. The advance came in front of tomorrow morning's weekly crude inventory report from the Energy Information Administration, which has shown a draw in U.S. inventories for seven weeks in a row. The energy sector, which typically moves in tandem with energy prices, lost 0.3%, trimming its 2018 gain to 4.2%.

Elsewhere, representatives from North Korea and South Korea met for the first time in over two years. The two sides agreed to hold joint military talks and North Korea will send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, a promising sign for the international community, which has been at odds with North Korea over its nuclear program.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for November and the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for December:

The November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.879 million from a revised 5.925 million (from 5.996 million) in October.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for December slipped to 104.9 from 107.5 in November.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET, Import/Export Prices for December at 8:30 ET, and Wholesale Inventories for November (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.8% YTD
S&P 500: +2.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.7% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.6% YTD

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Perfect No More; Winning Streak Comes To An End
10-Jan-18 16:25 ET
Dow -16.67 at 25369.13, Nasdaq -10.01 at 7153.57, S&P -3.06 at 2748.23

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/10/perfect-no-more-winning-streak-comes-to-an-end.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks slipped from record highs on Wednesday with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq registering their first losses of 2018. All three major U.S. indices--the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average--lost 0.1% while the small-cap Russell 2000 finished flat.

A Bloomberg report that China may trim or halt its purchases of U.S. Treasuries prompted overnight selling in the Treasury market, sending the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note to its highest level since March 2017. The higher yields pushed equity investors to take some profits at the start of Wednesday's session.

The Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq hit their worst marks of the day shortly after the opening bell, holding losses between 0.5% and 0.7%.

However, investors quickly bought the dip thanks in part to a CNBC interview with legendary investor Warren Buffett, who stated that he remains a net buyer of stocks, citing low interest rates and the recently passed tax reform legislation.

Equities eventually reached their flat lines in the afternoon but slid back into the red following a Reuters report that Canada believes that U.S. President Donald Trump will soon pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). General Motors (GM 43.00, -1.05), which was flat ahead of the report, finished lower by 2.4%.

The market made one last run in the final minutes, but ended just short of its unchanged mark. Nine of eleven sectors finished in negative territory with the financials (+0.9%) and industrials (+0.1%) groups being the two advancers.

The financial sector, which is the second heaviest group by weight, advanced at the opening bell due to the increase in Treasury yields and managed to keep the bulk of its gain even though yields returned to their flat lines following a $20 billion 10-yr note reopening that was met with strong demand. The benchmark 10-yr yield settled unchanged at 2.55% after trading as high as 2.59%.

As for the other sectors, losses ranged from less than 0.1% (consumer discretionary) to 1.5% (real estate). The top-weighted technology sector (-0.3%) underperformed with chipmakers showing particular weakness; the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 1.2%.

Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures advanced 0.7% to $63.39 per barrel, a three-year high, after the Department of Energy said U.S. crude inventories declined for the eighth week in a row last week, dropping by 4.9 million barrels. The energy sector, which typically moves in tandem with oil prices, lost 0.1%.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Wednesday on a mixed note with Japan's Nikkei (-0.3%) slipping from a 26-year high. In Europe, the UK's FTSE added 0.2%, but the Euro Stoxx 50 lost 0.4%, breaking its five session winning streak.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included Import/Export Prices for December, Wholesale Inventories for November, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Import prices increased 0.1% in December, but were down 0.1% excluding fuel. Export prices, meanwhile, decreased 0.1% and were flat excluding agriculture.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will continue to foment budding inflation concerns, especially since the dollar is weakening, labor markets are tightening, and global growth is improving.
Wholesale inventories increased 0.8% in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%) following an upwardly revised 0.4% decline (from -0.5%) in October. Wholesale sales jumped 1.5% in November on top of an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from 0.7%) in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that the sales increase outpaced the inventory increase by a sizable margin, which is a step in the right direction for wholesalers trying to regain some pricing power.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 8.3% to follow last week's 2.8% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive both the Producer Price Index for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) and the weekly Initial Claims report (Briefing.com consensus +248K) at 8:30 AM ET. The December Treasury Budget (Briefing.com consensus -$47.5 billion) will be released at 2:00 PM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.6% YTD
S&P 500: +2.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.6% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.6% YTD

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Investors Buy the Dip Ahead of Q4 Earnings
11-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +205.60 at 25574.73, Nasdaq +58.21 at 7211.78, S&P +19.33 at 2767.56

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/11/investors-buy-the-dip-ahead-of-q4-earnings.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied to new records on Thursday as investors geared up for the fourth quarter earnings season, which will begin on Friday.

The small-cap Russell 2000 set the pace, jumping 1.7% to 1586.79. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.8% to 7211.78, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.8% to 25574.73, and the S&P 500 rose 0.7% to 2767.56. All four indices finished at new all-time highs.

'Buy the dip' was the name of the game on Thursday; the major stock indices opened with modest gains after registering slim losses in the prior session. Wednesday's downtick marked the first losses of the year for both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq and just the second for the Dow.

Buying picked up throughout Thursday's session, especially in the final minutes, leaving the major indices at their session highs. Eight of eleven sectors advanced with the energy (+2.0%), consumer discretionary (+1.6%), industrials (+1.3%), and materials (+1.3%) groups being the top performers.

The energy sector was up as much as 2.4% thanks to a crude oil rally, which saw West Texas Intermediate crude futures jump 1.9% to $64.35 per barrel--their best level since December 2014. However, energy shares trimmed gains in the afternoon when WTI crude gave back much of its advance, settling higher by just 0.4% at $63.79 per barrel.

Meanwhile, in the industrial sector, heavyweights like Boeing (BA 328.12, +7.86) and Caterpillar (CAT 169.20, +3.33) climbed to new record highs, adding 2.5% and 2.0%, respectively. Transports also outperformed, pushing the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+2.3%) to a new record.

Within the DJTA, Delta Air Lines (DAL 58.52, +2.66) showed particular strength, adding 4.8%, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter and raising its profit guidance for 2018. DAL shares finished at a new all-time high.

Retailers set the pace in the consumer discretionary sector, sending the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 47.28, +1.14) higher by 2.5%. Retailers picked up steam following news that Wal-Mart (WMT 100.02, +0.35) will be closing a series of Sam's Club stores. Costco (COST 189.38, +3.96), Sam's Club's main rival, added 2.1%.

Wal-Mart also made headlines after announcing that it will raise wages for hourly employees, expand maternity and parental leave benefits, and provide one-time cash bonuses of up to $1,000. The world's largest retailer said the recent tax overhaul fueled its decision.

On the downside, the consumer staples (-0.1%), utilities (-0.4%), and real estate (-0.7%) sectors declined on Thursday, extending their year-to-date losses to 0.4%, 4.0%, and 4.6%, respectively. For comparison, the S&P 500 has added 3.5% year to date.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries rallied in a curve-flattening trade that pushed the benchmark 10-yr yield lower by two basis points to 2.53% and left the 2-yr yield flat at 1.96%. Chinese officials denied the Wednesday report that China may slow or halt its purchases of U.S. Treasuries.

Elsewhere, the major European stock indices finished Thursday mixed after the European Central Bank released the minutes from its last meeting, which noted that the ECB could begin preparing investors for the end of its bond-buying program early this year. The euro jumped following the minutes, climbing 0.7% against the U.S. dollar to 1.2032.

In Asia, equity indices finished mostly higher, but reports that the South Korean government is seeking to ban all cryptocurrency trading weighed on Bitcoin, which tumbled 7.2% to $13,451.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the Producer Price Index for December, the weekly Initial Claims report, and the Treasury Budget for December:

Producer prices declined 0.1% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) and core producer prices also decreased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, producer prices are up 2.6% (down from 3.1% in November) and core producer prices have risen 2.3% (down from 2.4% in November).
The key takeaway from the report is that there was a deceleration in the Producer Price Index, which will temper concerns about potential pass-through effects to the consumer and perhaps quell some of the budding inflation concerns that have contributed to some of the weakness in longer-dated Treasury securities to begin the year.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 261,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 248,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 250,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.867 million from a revised count of 1.902 million (from 1.914 million).
Initial claims have picked up the last few weeks, yet the streak below 300,000 has stretched to 149 straight weeks, serving as a reminder that labor market conditions continue to be favorable.
The Treasury Budget for December showed a deficit of $23.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$47.5 billion) versus a deficit of $27.3 billion for December 2016.
The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the December deficit cannot be compared to the $138.5 billion deficit registered in November.

On Friday, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) at 8:30 AM ET, Retail Sales for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) also at 8:30 AM ET, and Business Inventories for November (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) at 10:00 AM ET.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM 110.84, +0.59) and Wells Fargo (WFC 63.01, -0.11) will report earnings on Friday morning, unofficially marking the start of the Q4 earnings season.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.5% YTD
S&P 500: +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +3.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +3.3% YTD

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Another Day, Another Record
12-Jan-18 16:25 ET
Dow +228.46 at 25803.19, Nasdaq +49.28 at 7261.06, S&P +18.68 at 2786.24

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/12/another-day-another-record.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks ripped to new records for the second day in a row on Friday, extending their fantastic start to 2018.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 0.9% to 25803.19, the S&P 500 jumped 0.7% to 2786.24, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.7% to 7261.06. The small-cap Russell 2000 kept pace for the first half of the session, but trimmed its gain in the afternoon, closing higher by just 0.3%. All four stock indices finished at new record highs.

The equity market was slightly higher at the opening bell and climbed pretty steadily throughout the day, finishing near its session high. The Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq added between 1.6% and 2.0% for the week, increasing their 2018 gains to 4.2%-5.2%.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM 112.67, +1.83), Wells Fargo (WFC 62.55, -0.46), PNC (PNC 151.84, +0.35), and BlackRock (BLK 555.53, +17.61) kicked off the fourth quarter earnings season on a mostly positive note as all four reported better-than-expected earnings. However, their revenue results were mixed; JPMorgan and Wells Fargo missed estimates, while PNC and BlackRock beat expectations. The financial sector stayed in line with the broader market for most of the day and then rallied in the final minutes to settle higher by 0.9%.

The consumer discretionary sector was the top-performing group on Friday with Lowe's (LOW 100.86, +5.12) setting the pace. The home improvement retailer jumped 5.4% following reports that investor D.E. Shaw has build an active stake in the company. Nordstrom (JWN 51.82, +1.73) also outperformed, adding 3.5%, following a CNBC report that the Nordstrom family is considering resuming efforts to take the company private.

Meanwhile, the industrial sector (+0.9%) had another positive outing as Boeing (BA 336.21, +8.09) hit another record high, and the energy sector (+1.0%) rallied amid another positive day in the crude oil market; West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 0.6% to $64.21 per barrel. Boeing shares finished higher by 2.5%.

On the downside, the consumer staples (unch), utilities (-0.6%), and real estate (-0.7%) sectors struggled, extending losses for the year. The top-weighted technology sector (+0.6%) managed to settle roughly in line with the broader market, but social media giant Facebook (FB 179.37, -8.40) tumbled 4.5% amid concerns that changes to its news feed will be less engaging for users, prompting them to spend less time on the site.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries were under pressure, pushing yields higher; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.55% while the 2-yr yield jumped four basis points to 2.00%. The 10-yr yield shot to 2.59% immediately following the release of the core Consumer Price Index for December, which showed a larger-than-expected increase of 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), but began backtracking soon thereafter.

Elsewhere, the Euro Stoxx 50 (+0.4%) broke a two-session losing streak after German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU agreed to a blueprint for a grand coalition with its former coalition partner SPD. To be clear, an agreement has not been finalized, but the situation finally looks promising after months of uncertainty.

The euro climbed to a three-year high against the U.S. dollar following the news, jumping 1.3% to 1.2184.

In Asia, stocks ended Friday mostly higher with Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.9%) and China's Shanghai Composite (+0.1%) extending their winning streaks to 14 and 11 sessions, respectively. Economic data from China showed the largest trade surplus in two years ($54.69 billion actual vs $37.00 billion consensus).

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the Consumer Price Index for December, Retail Sales for December, and Business Inventories for November:

Total CPI increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) in December while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.1% (from 2.2% in November) and core CPI is up 1.8% (from 1.7% in November).
The key takeaway from the report is that it won't change the Fed's prevailing expectation that three rate hikes are in order this year. That could be serving as a disruptive thought for traders who were likely inclined after yesterday's weaker than expected PPI report to think the Fed might think three rate hikes could be too many.
December retail sales increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%). The prior month's increase was revised to 0.9% from 0.8%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.4% in December while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.4%. The prior month's increase was revised to 1.3% from 1.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it should underpin the belief that favorable economic drivers continue to act as an expedient for increased consumer spending activity that will benefit Q4 GDP growth.
Business Inventories increased 0.4% in November (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). The October reading was revised to 0.0% from -0.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that sales growth is outpacing inventory growth, which is a step toward regaining some pricing power.

The stock market will be closed on Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On Tuesday, Citigroup (C 76.84, +1.28) and UnitedHealth (UNH 228.64, +3.25) will report fourth quarter results before the opening bell, and the Empire State Manufacturing Index for January (Briefing.com consensus 19.0) will be released at 8:30 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +5.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +4.4% YTD
S&P 500: +4.2% YTD
Russell 2000: +3.7% YTD

Week In Review: Rally Keeps on Rolling

Equities kept the new year rally rolling this week with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite, and the S&P 500 adding between 1.6% and 2.0%. All three major U.S. indices finished Friday at record highs and now hold year-to-date gains between 4.2% and 5.2%.

The fourth quarter earnings season unofficially began on Friday with reports from financial heavyweights JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC). Both companies beat earnings expectations, but came up short on revenues. PNC (PNC) and BlackRock (BLK) also reported, beating both earnings and revenue estimates.

The financial sector rallied 0.9% on Friday following the earnings releases, settling the week with a gain of 2.9%. A curve-steepening sell off in the Treasury market, which increased the 2yr-10yr spread by three basis points to 55 basis points, was a boon to the financial group.

Treasuries sold off due to several factors, including the Bank of Japan's decision to trim its daily purchases of Japanese government bonds, minutes from the European Central Bank's last policy meeting that revealed the ECB could begin preparing investors for the end of its bond-buying program early this year, and a Bloomberg report that China may slow or halt its purchases of U.S. Treasuries--however, Chinese officials later denied the report.

In addition, the core Consumer Price Index increased more than expected in December (+0.3% actual vs +0.2% Briefing.com consensus), which also contributed to the Treasury sell off.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note settled the week higher by seven basis points at 2.55%, but traded as high as 2.60%--its best level since March 2017. The 2-yr yield, meanwhile, advanced four basis points to 2.00%.

Outside of financials, the consumer discretionary (+3.1%), industrials (+3.2%), and energy (+3.2%) sectors had strong performances this week. Energy benefited from another increase in the price of crude oil, which climbed 4.5% to $64.21 per barrel, touching its highest level since December 2014.

In the industrial sector, transports showed particular strength, pushing the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 4.2%. The DJTA finished Friday at a record high.

On the downside, the lightly-weighted utilities (-2.1%), telecom services (-2.1%), and real estate (-3.5%) sectors struggled, extending their year-to-date losses; the three groups have lost between 3.4% and 5.3% since the start of 2018.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.9%) underperformed with chipmakers showing relative weakness following a solid start to the year; the PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 0.3%. Facebook (FB) tumbled 4.5% on Friday amid concerns that changes to its news feed will cause users to spend less time on the site.

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Stocks Squander Early Gains; Settle in the Red
16-Jan-18 16:25 ET
Dow -10.33 at 25792.86, Nasdaq -37.38 at 7223.68, S&P -9.82 at 2776.42

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/16/stocks-squander-early-gains-settle-in-the-red.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rocketed to new records early on Tuesday, but ran out of gas soon thereafter as the new year rally showed signs of fatigue. The major stock indices finished lower across the board.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively, while the small-cap Russell 2000 tumbled 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average showed relative strength, ending just a tick below its unchanged mark. At their session highs, the major averages held gains between 0.8% and 1.1%.

Eight of eleven sectors finished Tuesday in negative territory with the materials (-1.2%) and energy (-1.2%) groups pacing the retreat. Energy shares sold off amid a decrease in the price of crude oil, which slipped from a three-year high; West Texas Intermediate crude futures declined 0.7% to $63.86 per barrel.

The industrial sector (-0.9%) also showed relative weakness with its second largest component by market cap--General Electric (GE 18.21, -0.55)--losing 2.9%. GE tumbled after announcing that it will take a larger-than-expected charge of $6.2 billion from its legacy reinsurance business. In addition, reports indicate the company is considering a major breakup.

Most other sectors finished with losses between 0.3% and 0.7%, including the heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.3%). However, within the financial space, Citigroup (C 77.11, +0.27) climbed 0.4% after reporting better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter.

On the flip side, the heavily-weighted health care sector (+0.5%) finished in the green, thanks in large part to Merck (MRK 62.07, +3.41), which climbed 5.8% after announcing that its drug Keytruda was successful in combination with two chemotherapy drugs as a first line treatment for lung cancer. UnitedHealth (UNH 232.90, +4.26) also advanced, adding 1.9%, after beating earnings estimates and raising its guidance for 2018 due to the tax overhaul.

The consumer staples sector (+0.4%) also finished in the green, as did the lightly-weighted real estate space (+0.5%).

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries finished mixed in a curve-flattening trade. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped one basis point to 2.54% while the 2-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.01%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Tuesday mostly higher. Japan's Nikkei climbed 1.0%, closing at a fresh 26-year high, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng rallied 1.8%, bouncing back from Monday's decline--which broke a 14-session winning streak.

The major European bourses settled mixed. The UK's FTSE shed 0.2% while France's CAC and Germany's DAX added 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the Empire State Manufacturing Index for January:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for January declined to 17.7 (Briefing.com consensus 19.0) from the prior month's revised reading of 19.6 (from 18.0).

On Wednesday, investors will receive a slew of economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 AM ET, Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 77.3%) for December at 9:15 AM ET, the NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 73) at 10:00 AM ET, the Fed's Beige Book at 2:00 PM ET, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for January at 4:00 PM ET.

In addition, Bank of America (BAC 31.24, +0.05), Goldman Sachs (GS 258.46, +1.43), U.S. Bancorp (USB 57.17, +0.19), and Charles Schwab (SCHW 55.53, +0.14) will report earnings before the opening bell.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +4.3% YTD
S&P 500: +3.9% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.4% YTD

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Tech Shares Pace Rebound Rally to Record Highs
17-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +322.79 at 26115.65, Nasdaq +74.59 at 7298.27, S&P +26.14 at 2802.56

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/17/tech-shares-pace-rebound-rally-to-record-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied to new records on Wednesday with technology shares leading the charge.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.3% to 26115.65, the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.0% to 7298.28, the S&P 500 climbed 0.9% to 2802.56, and the Russell 2000 advanced 0.9% to 1586.66. The Dow, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 finished at new record highs, but the Russell 2000 failed to recoup all of its Tuesday decline.

Wednesday's rally was a powerful statement from the bulls, who appeared to be out of gas on Tuesday following a resilient start to the year. Clearly, that wasn't the case. The S&P 500 has advanced in 9 of 11 sessions in 2018, adding 4.8%. The Nasdaq and the Dow have done even better, climbing 5.7% apiece.

Each of the S&P 500's 11 sectors advanced on Wednesday with gains ranging from 0.3% to 1.6%. The technology sector, which is the heaviest group, was the top performer, finishing with a gain of 1.6%. Within the tech group, IBM (IBM 168.65, +4.80) jumped 2.9% after Barclays upgraded IBM shares to 'Overweight,' and Apple (AAPL 179.10, +2.91) climbed 1.7% after announcing that it will make a one-time tax payment of $38 billion to repatriate cash holdings overseas and will invest over $30 billion in the U.S. over the next five years, creating 20,000 new jobs. Apple said its decision was the result of recent changes to the U.S. tax law.

The tech group was also underpinned by chipmakers, which sent the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 2.9%. Dow component Intel (INTC 44.39, +1.25) climbed 2.9%.

Right behind technology in the sector standings were the consumer staples and health care groups, which advanced 1.2% and 1.0%, respectively. Meanwhile, the telecom services (+0.3%), consumer discretionary (+0.4%), and industrials (+0.5%) sectors finished at the back of the pack. General Electric (GE 17.35, -0.86) weighed heavily on the industrial group, dropping 4.7%, as investors continued selling in reaction to Tuesday's announcement that GE's reinsurance business will incur a larger-than-expected charge of $6.2 billion.

Meanwhile, the financial sector (+0.8%) finished roughly in line with the broader market following fourth quarter earnings from Bank of America (BAC 31.18, -0.06), Goldman Sachs (GS 253.65,, 4.81), U.S. Bancorp (USB 56.34, -0.83), and Charles Schwab (SCHW 56.09, +0.56). All four companies beat earnings estimates, but Charles Schwab was the only one to advance, adding 1.0%. The three other financial heavyweights lost between 0.2% and 1.9%.

In other corporate news, Ford (F 12.18, -0.92) tumbled 7.0% after announcing that it expects lower operating profits in 2018, and Boeing (BA 351.01, +15.85) jumped 4.7% to a new all-time high after announcing a joint venture with Adient (ADNT 77.08, -4.83) to develop, manufacture, and sell a portfolio of seating products to airlines and aircraft leasing companies. Adient shares finished lower by 5.9%.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries sold off in the midweek session, sending yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished at 2.57% after closing Tuesday at 2.54% while the 2-yr yield jumped four basis points to 2.05%.

Elsewhere, the major European bourses finished Wednesday on a lower note, with Germany's DAX (-0.5%) leading the retreat, while equity indices in Asia finished mixed. Japan's Nikkei lost 0.4% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng and China's Shanghai Composite added 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for December, the NAHB Housing Market Index for January, the Fed's Beige Book, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Industrial Production increased 0.9% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the November reading was revised to -0.1% (from +0.2%). Capacity Utilization ticked up to 77.9% (Briefing.com consensus 77.3%) from a revised reading of 77.2% in November (from 77.1%).
The key takeaway from this report is that Industrial Production in 2017 increased at its fastest annual pace since 2010.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for January declined to 72 (Briefing.com consensus 73) from an unrevised reading of 74 in December.
The Fed's Beige Book showed that the economy continued to expand in all 12 Federal Reserve Districts from late November through the end of 2017. Most Districts said that wages increased at a modest pace, and a few Districts observed that firms were raising wages in a broader range of industries and positions since the previous report.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 4.1% to follow last week's 8.3% rise.

On Thursday, investors will receive several economic reports, including Housing Starts for December (Briefing.com consensus 1280K), Building Permits for December (Briefing.com consensus 1290K), weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 251K), and the Philadelphia Fed Index for January (Briefing.com consensus 24.5). All data will be released at 8:30 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +5.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +5.7% YTD
S&P 500: +4.8% YTD
Russell 2000: +3.3% YTD

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Looming Shutdown No Match For New Year Rally
19-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +53.91 at 26071.72, Nasdaq +40.33 at 7336.37, S&P +12.27 at 2810.30

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/19/looming-shutdown-no-match-for-new-year-rally.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks climbed to new records on Friday as a looming government shutdown proved no match for the new year rally.

The Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.6% to 7336.38, the S&P 500 climbed 0.4% to 2810.30, and the small-cap Russell 2000 rocketed 1.3% to 1597.61. All three indices finished at new all-time highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2% to 26071.72, but did not post a new record.

Trading ranges were pretty narrow for most of the day, but a late wave of buying left the major averages at their session highs.

Nonessential government operations will halt if Congress fails to pass a new funding measure before midnight. The House of Representatives passed a bill that would extend funding for another month on Thursday evening, but its passage in the Senate--where Republicans need Democratic help to reach the 60-vote threshold--looks unlikely.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) met with President Trump on Friday afternoon, but said after the meeting that they still have "a good number of disagreements." Nonetheless, Mr. Schumer said discussions will continue.

Back on Wall Street, the political drama did little to dampen the mood, which has been especially bullish since the start of 2018; the major stock indices have added between 5.1% and 6.3% year to date. Nine of eleven sectors advanced on Friday with the consumer staples sector (+1.1%) setting the pace.

Within the consumer staples group, tobacco giant Philip Morris (PM 108.92, +3.85) was the top performer, jumping 3.7%, after Jefferies upgraded PM shares to 'Buy' from 'Hold.'

Meanwhile, in the consumer discretionary sector (+0.9%), Dow component Nike (NKE 67.21, +3.10) climbed 4.8% after Wedbush upgraded NKE shares to 'Outperform' from 'Neutral,' and home improvement retailer Lowe's (LOW 104.95, +3.59) added 3.5% following a Bloomberg report that an activist investor believes the company's stock could triple in value if it makes some changes to better compete with rival Home Depot (HD 201.33, +3.00).

The financial sector (+0.7%) also outperformed despite a poor showing from American Express (AXP 98.03, -1.83), which dropped 1.8% after disappointing guidance for fiscal year 2018 overshadowed better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter.

On the flip side, the energy sector (-0.1%) finished near the bottom of the sector standings, suffering from a decrease in the price of crude oil; West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 0.9% to $63.30 per barrel.

The technology sector (+0.2%) was also relatively week with Dow component IBM (IBM 162.37, -6.75) losing 4.0%. IBM reported year-over-year revenue growth for the first time in 23 quarters, but its service margins and earnings outlook were disappointing.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries sold off on Friday, sending yields higher across the curve. The benchmark 10-yr yield jumped three basis points to 2.64%, hitting its best level since the middle of 2014, while the 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.05%.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished mostly higher, as did the major European bourses. Germany's DAX was the top performer in Europe, advancing 1.2% to a two-month high, while India's Sensex (+0.7%) set the pace in Asia, settling at a new all-time high.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for January:

The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for January declined to 94.4 (Briefing.com consensus 97.0) from 95.9 in December.
The key takeaway from the report is that despite the headline drop, consumers reported persistent strength in personal finances and buying plans.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite: +6.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +5.5% YTD
S&P 500: +5.1% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.0% YTD

Week In Review: Bulls Dominate Another Week

It was another good week on Wall Street; the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.0%, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.0%, and the S&P 500 added 0.9%. However, the bulls looked somewhat fatigued, at least in comparison to the first two weeks of the year; the S&P 500 rose 2.6% in the first week of 2018 and 1.6% in the second. This week, the S&P 500 posted losses in two of four sessions (markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day).

Maybe it's the beginning of the end for the new year rally. Maybe not.

What is certain is that 2018 has been a great year for the stock market thus far. The Dow, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 have advanced between 5.1% and 6.3% year to date and have notched a handful of new records along the way. And that's to say nothing of the stock market's 2017 campaign, during which the major averages climbed between 19.4% and 28.2%.

Financials dominated the earnings front this week with Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), U.S. Bancorp (USB), Charles Schwab (SCHW), Morgan Stanley (MS), and American Express (AXP) reporting their fourth quarter results. All seven companies beat earnings estimates, but revenues came in mixed; Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and American Express reported above-consensus revenues, while Bank of America missed estimates. The S&P 500's financial sector (+1.0%) finished roughly in line with the broader market.

Meanwhile, the health care sector (+1.9%) was among the top-performing groups this week. Within the space, UnitedHealth (UNH) rose 6.4% after reporting better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter, and Merck (MRK) jumped 4.5% after announcing that its drug Keytruda was successful, in combination with two chemotherapy drugs, as a first line treatment for lung cancer.

The consumer staples (+2.4%) and technology (+1.5%) sectors finished alongside health care at the top of the sector standings. The tech group's largest component by market cap--Apple (AAPL)--announced that it will make a one-time tax payment of $38 billion to repatriate cash holdings overseas and will invest over $30 billion in the U.S. over the next five years, creating 20,000 new jobs. Apple said its decision was the result of recent changes to the U.S. tax law.

Meanwhile, IBM (IBM) slipped 0.5% despite reporting year-over-year revenue growth for the first time in 23 quarters.

The industrial sector (-0.9%) slid this week with General Electric (GE) pacing the retreat. GE shares tumbled 13.3%, hitting a six-year low, after the industrial giant said its legacy reinsurance business will take a larger-than-expected charge of $6.2 billion for the fourth quarter. In addition, the company was reported to be considering a major breakup.

The energy sector (-1.3%) also underperformed as crude oil retreated from a three-year high; West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 1.6% to $63.30 per barrel.

In Washington, the House of Representatives passed a one-month spending measure on Thursday evening, but that bill doesn't appear to have enough support to pass in the Senate, where it needs Democratic votes to reach the 60-vote threshold. If an agreement cannot be reached by 12:01 AM ET Saturday morning, the government will start closing nonessential operations.

Investors didn't appear to be shaken though, pushing the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to new records on Friday.

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New Records as Government Shutdown Comes to an End
22-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +142.88 at 26214.60, Nasdaq +71.65 at 7408.02, S&P +22.67 at 2832.97

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/22/new-records-as-government-shutdown-comes-to-an-end.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks shot to new records on Monday, helped by a Senate vote to reopen the government and provide funding through February 8.

The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.0% to 7408.03, the S&P 500 climbed 0.8% to 2832.97, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to 26140.97, and the Russell 2000 advanced 0.5% to 1605.17. All four stock indices closed at fresh records and finished at their best marks of the day.

The federal government closed nonessential operations at midnight on Friday after the Senate failed to reach an agreement on a short-term funding measure, mainly due to differences over immigration. Although Republicans hold a slim majority in the Senate (51 to 49), they needed some Democratic support to reach the required 60-vote threshold.

Republican leadership managed to secure Democratic support on Monday, passing a short-term funding measure 81-18, by promising to consider immigration legislation in early February. More specifically, Democrats are looking for Republicans to address the fate of the so-called "Dreamers"--immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children.

The funding bill is expected to pass in the House of Representatives on Monday evening. President Trump is then expected to sign the bill into law, which would officially bring the shutdown to an end.

On Wall Street, advancing stocks outnumbered declining stocks 1.8 to 1 with nine of eleven sectors finishing in the green. The energy and telecom services sectors were the top performers, adding 2.1% and 2.3%, respectively, while the consumer discretionary (+1.1%) and real estate (+1.0%) groups also had a relatively strong showing.

Within the energy space, Halliburton (HAL 56.40, +3.39) jumped 6.4% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter. News that OPEC and other producers would continue to cooperate on production beyond 2018 helped energy shares, as did updated economic growth projections from the International Monetary Fund; the IMF projects that the U.S. economy will grow 2.7% in 2018 (up from 2.1%) and that the world economy will grow 3.9% (up from 3.7%).

In the consumer discretionary sector, Amazon (AMZN 1327.31, +32.73) climbed 2.5% to a new all-time high while Wynn Resorts (WYNN 195.23, +15.59) spiked 8.7% after reporting better-than-expected revenues for the fourth quarter. WYNN shares finished Monday at their best level in more than three years.

Biotechnology shares also had a positive showing, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 115.52, +3.52) higher by 3.1%, but the broader health care sector (+0.7%) finished roughly in line with the S&P 500. Celgene (CELG 102.91, +0.26) added 0.3% after announcing it plans to acquire Juno Therapeutics (JUNO 86.00, +18.19) for $9 billion, and French drugmaker Sanofi (SNY 43.20, -1.40) lost 3.1% after announcing it plans to acquire Bioverativ (BIVV 103.79, +39.68) for $11.6 billion. Juno Therapeutics and Bioverativ surged 26.8% and 61.9%, respectively.

The materials (-0.2%) and industrials (unch) sectors were the only groups to finish in negative territory. Within the industrial space, General Electric (GE 16.17, -0.09) dropped 0.6%, extending its three-month loss to 32.2%, after Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgraded GE shares to 'Neutral' from 'Buy.'

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries finished Monday mostly flat, with the benchmark 10-yr yield unchanged at 2.66%.

Elsewhere, equities had a good day in Europe, evidenced by the Euro Stoxx 50, which climbed 0.4%. Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) agreed to pursue formal coalition talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, a positive sign for a country that's faced political uncertainty for months.

In Asia, the major stock indices finished modestly higher, with India's Sensex (+0.8%) climbing to a new all-time high.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Tuesday's economic calendar is also blank.

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Gov Reopening, Netflix Fuel Another Record Day
23-Jan-18 16:25 ET
Dow -3.79 at 26210.81, Nasdaq +52.26 at 7460.28, S&P +6.16 at 2839.13

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/23/gov-reopening-netflix-fuel-another-record-day.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks climbed to new records for the third session in a row on Tuesday, as investors took in the latest batch of fourth quarter earnings and celebrated the reopening of the federal government.

The Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.7% to 7460.29 (a new record), helped by Netflix (NFLX 250.29, +22.71), which spiked 10.0% after wowing investors with its subscriber growth and first quarter guidance. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% to 2839.13 (a new record), while the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished a tick below its flat line at 26210.81.

In other earnings news, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 141.83, -6.31) and Procter & Gamble (PG 89.05, -2.84) lost 4.3% and 3.1%, respectively, despite beating earnings estimates and issuing positive guidance, and Verizon (VZ 53.23, -0.23) shed 0.4% after reporting worse-than-expected profits.

Conversely, Travelers (TRV 146.26, +6.91) jumped 5.0% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues.

The federal government reopened its doors following a three-day closure after Congress passed a funding bill on Monday evening. The bill, which President Trump quickly signed into law, will keep the government running through February 8 and was agreed to by Democrats in exchange for Republicans' promise that immigration will be addressed in the near future.

On a separate note, President Trump signed an order to impose tariffs on imported washing machines and solar cells on Tuesday and noted that he is considering additional tariffs on steel and aluminum. The president also said that the sixth round of NAFTA talks, which kicked off on Tuesday, "were going well."

Back on Wall Street, the utilities (+1.0%) and real estate (+1.5%) sectors were the strongest groups on Tuesday, trimming their yearly losses to 4.0% and 2.2%, respectively. The technology (+0.6%) and consumer discretionary (+0.9%) sectors also had strong showings.

Within the consumer discretionary space, Amazon (AMZN 1362.54, +35.23) rallied another 2.7% to finish at a new record for the second day in a row.

On the flip side, the telecom services (-1.2%), health care (-0.5%), and consumer staples (-0.3%) sectors were the weakest performers. Their disappointing showings were fueled by post-earnings losses from Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, and Procter & Gamble (as mentioned above).

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries rallied on Tuesday, sending yields lower across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note tumbled four basis points to 2.62%, while the 2-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.05%.

Elsewhere, the major European bourses settled mixed; Germany's DAX was strong, jumping 0.7% to a new record high, while the UK's FTSE added 0.2% and France's CAC shed 0.1%. All eyes were on Davos, Switzerland, where global leaders kicked off the World Economic Forum. President Trump is expected to speak in Davos on Friday.

In Asia, equity indices posted solid gains on Tuesday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+1.5%) and India's Sensex (+1.0%) touching new records. The Bank of Japan voted 8-1 to leave its policy rate at -0.1% and to continue its yield curve control policy so that long-term rates remain around 0.0%.

As for economic data, investors did not receive any on Tuesday, but they will receive several reports on Wednesday, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 AM ET, the FHFA Housing Price Index for November (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) at 9:00 AM ET, and Existing Home Sales for December (Briefing.com consensus 5.70 million) at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +8.1% YTD
S&P 500: +6.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +6.0% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.9% YTD

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Roller Coaster Ride Ends on a Mixed Note
24-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +41.31 at 26252.12, Nasdaq -45.23 at 7415.05, S&P -1.59 at 2837.54

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/24/roller-coaster-ride-ends-on-a-mixed-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street went on a roller coaster ride on Wednesday as investors tried to extend the new year rally, but struggled to justify further gains.

Stocks got off to a good start with the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq up between 0.4% and 0.7% shortly after the opening bell. However, the bears took control about an hour into the session and pushed the major averages into negative territory; at their worst marks the day, the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq held respective losses of 0.4%, 0.5%, and 1.1%.

In the end, the Dow finished higher by 0.2%, closing at a new all-time high, while the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.1% and 0.6%, respectively. Today's loss breaks a three-session winning streak for the S&P 500, but the index still remains solidly higher for the week (+1.0% WTD) and for the year (+6.1% YTD).

Heavily-weighted sectors like financials (+0.7%), health care (+0.3%), and consumer discretionary (+0.4%) did relatively well on Wednesday, but the underperformance of the top-weighted technology space (-0.9%) kept the S&P 500 in check.

Texas Instruments (TXN 109.70, -10.19) was the weakest tech component in the S&P 500, tumbling 8.5%, after its latest earnings report came in as expected, but didn't impress investors enough to justify the chipmaker's 25.0% gain over the last seven weeks. Apple (AAPL 174.22, -2.82) was also weak, losing 1.6%, after Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi said iPhone sales for the current quarter may be disappointing.

In other corporate news, United Continental (UAL 69.05, -8.92) plunged 11.4% after announcing a plan to boost capacity growth 4-6% in 2018 and likely in 2019 and 2020 as well. The concern is, if demand starts to slow, the airline might have to slash its prices to fill the extra seats, which in turn could fuel a price war within the industry. The U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 33.00, -1.44) moved in tandem with United, losing 4.2%.

General Electric (GE 16.44, -0.45) dropped 2.7% after reporting below-consensus earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter. However, GE did reaffirm its profit guidance for 2018, prompting a sigh of relief from investors, who have suffered major losses as of late; GE shares dropped 13.3% last week and 44.8% over the course of 2017. Meanwhile, fellow industrial giant United Tech (UTX 135.68, -0.35) slipped 0.3% on Wednesday despite beating earnings and revenue estimates for Q4.

In the health care space, Abbott Labs (ABT 61.72, +2.49) had a positive showing, jumping 4.2% to a new all-time high, after reporting above-consensus earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter and issuing positive guidance for Q1.

The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.9% to 89.05, hitting a fresh three-year low, after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he welcomed a weakening of the greenback. However, Mr. Mnuchin later clarified that he wasn't "advocating" for a weaker dollar. The U.S. dollar lost 0.8% against the euro (1.2401), 1.5% against the British pound (1.4210), and 1.1% against the Japanese yen (109.13).

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries fell on Wednesday, pushing yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed three basis points to 2.65%, while the 2-yr yield also tacked on three basis points, closing at 2.08%.

Elsewhere, the major stock indices in Europe ended on a lower note, closing at their worst marks of the day; Germany's DAX and the UK's FTSE dropped 1.1% apiece, while France's CAC declined 0.7%. The European Central Bank will meet on Thursday, but it's expected to leave rates unchanged. Investors will be interested in ECB President Mario Draghi's press conference, however, as he could attempt to talk down the strengthening euro.

In the Asia-Pacific region, equity indices had a mixed outing with Japan's Nikkei (-0.8%) showing relative weakness. China's Shanghai Composite was the top performer, adding 0.4%.

Reviewing Wednesday's batch of economic data, which included Existing Home Sales for December, the FHFA Housing Price Index for November, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Existing home sales decreased 3.6% in December to an annualized rate of 5.57 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.70 million). The November reading was revised to 5.78 million from 5.81 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that notable supply constraints remain, which will continue to act as a drag on overall sales due to the limited inventory and the high prices on available inventory that is crimping affordability, particularly for first-time buyers.
The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.4% in November (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the October increase was revised to 0.6% from 0.5%.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 4.5% to follow last week's 4.1% rise.

On Thursday, investors will receive several pieces of economic data, including weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 240K), New Home Sales for December (Briefing.com consensus 679K), Advance International Trade in Goods for December (Briefing.com consensus -$68.5 billion), Advance Wholesale Inventories for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), and Leading Indicators for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). Leading Indicators will be released at 10:00 AM ET, while the rest will cross the wires at 8:30 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +7.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +6.2% YTD
S&P 500: +6.1% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.2% YTD

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Struggling For Direction
25-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +140.67 at 26392.79, Nasdaq -3.89 at 7411.16, S&P +1.71 at 2839.25

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/25/struggling-for-direction.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks struggled for direction on Thursday as investors cautiously tried to extend the new year rally. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) drifted near their flat lines for much of the session, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) outperformed, closing at a new record high. The S&P 500 also finished at a new record.

The latest batch of fourth quarter earnings featured a couple of Dow components--Caterpillar (CAT 169.37, +1.03) and 3M (MMM 252.36, +4.67)--and a host of airlines--Southwest Air (LUV 60.19, -2.02), American Airlines (AAL 53.05, -1.74), Alaska Air (ALK 62.07, -2.62), and JetBlue Airways (JBLU 20.69, -1.36).

Caterpillar and 3M advanced 0.6% and 1.9%, respectively, after both industrial giants beat earnings and revenue estimates and issued upbeat profit guidance for fiscal year 2018. Meanwhile, the airlines lost between 3.2% and 6.2% after reporting mixed results: American and Alaska beat profit estimates, JetBlue missed, and Southwest's results were in-line.

Ford Motor (F 11.57, -0.48) also reported quarterly results, hitting earnings estimates on better-than-expected revenues, but tumbled 4.0% nonetheless.

In general, countercyclical sectors outperformed the cyclical groups on Thursday, although the cyclical materials space (+0.7%) bucked that trend. The health care (+0.9%), utilities (+1.5%), and telecom services (+0.7%) sectors finished at the top of the sector standings, while the energy (-0.8%) sector was by far the weakest group.

Energy shares declined with the price of crude oil, which tumbled 0.7% to $65.18 per barrel in electronic trading. A sharp upward move in the U.S. dollar hurt crude oil, which is priced in U.S. dollars, as it made the commodity more expensive to holders of foreign currencies.

The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the dollar's value relative to a basket of other currencies, was down as much as 0.8% following the release of the European Central Bank's latest policy directive, which kept rates unchanged and reiterated the desire to leave net asset purchases at the new pace of EUR30 billion per month until the end of September, or beyond, if necessary.

However, the greenback strengthened after CNBC released a clip of an interview with President Trump, during which he said Wednesday's comments from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin--who said he welcomes a weakening of the dollar--were taken out of context. Mr. Trump clarified that his administration ultimately wants to see a stronger dollar.

The U.S. Dollar Index rallied following the release of the video clip, and was up 0.1% at 89.06 at the closing bell.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended Thursday on a mostly higher note. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped three basis points to 2.62%, while the 2-yr yield finished flat at 2.08%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included New Home Sales for December, Leading Indicators for December, and weekly Initial Claims:

New Home Sales in December hit an annualized rate of 625,000, which is below the revised November rate of 689,000 (from 733,000), and lower than the Briefing.com consensus of 679,000.
The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales were still up 14.1% year-over-year in December, underscoring the improved demand; however, with mortgage rates moving up and the mortgage interest deduction cap kicking in for mortgages over $750,000, the monthly decline is apt to trigger some investor concerns about 2018 earnings prospects for homebuilders.
The Conference Board Leading Economic Index increased 0.6% in December, while economists polled by Briefing.com expected an increase of 0.5%. The prior month's reading was revised to +0.5% from +0.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strength among the leading indicators remained very widespread. The index increased 3.1% in the second half of 2017, versus 2.6% for the first half of the year.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 233,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 216,000 (from 220,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.937 million from a revised count of 1.965 million (from 1.952 million).
Weekly initial claims were below 300,000 for the 151st consecutive week

On Friday, investors will receive the advance estimate of fourth quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus +2.9%), Durable Orders for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.9%), Advance International Trade in Goods for December (Briefing.com consensus -$68.5 billion), and Advance Wholesale Inventories for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%).

All four pieces of data will be released at 8:30 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +7.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +6.8% YTD
S&P 500: +6.2% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.3% YTD

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Health Care, Technology Shares Lead Friday Rally
26-Jan-18 16:20 ET
Dow +223.92 at 26616.71, Nasdaq +94.61 at 7505.77, S&P +33.62 at 2872.87

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/26/health-care-technology-shares-lead-friday-rally.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The equity market soared to new records on Friday, locking in its fourth consecutive week of gains.

The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.3% to 7505.77 (a new record), the S&P 500 climbed 1.2% to 2872.87 (a new record), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.9% to 26616.71 (a new record). For the week, the major indices added between 2.1% and 2.3% and now hold year-to-date gains between 7.5% and 8.7%.

Stocks opened Friday modestly higher and steadily extended their gains throughout the session, finishing at their best marks of the day.

11 of 11 sectors advanced on Friday, with the heavily-weighted health care group (+2.2%) setting the pace. Biotech giant AbbVie (ABBV 123.21, +14.91) spiked 13.8% to a new all-time high after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter and issuing upbeat profit guidance for fiscal year 2018.

Meanwhile, the top-weighted technology sector (+1.6%) also had a positive showing, thanks in large part to Dow component Intel (INTC 50.08, +4.78), which jumped 10.6% to its best level in nearly two decades after reporting above-consensus earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter. The chipmaker also noted that it doesn't expect any material impact from the Meltdown and Spectre security concerns that were reported earlier this month.

On the downside, Starbucks (SBUX 57.99, -2.56) and Colgate-Palmolive (CL 73.56, -3.75) tumbled 4.2% and 4.9%, respectively, after missing Q4 sales estimates. The companies' respective sectors--consumer discretionary (+1.0%) and consumer staples (+0.6%)--finished behind the broader market. However, the rate-sensitive utilities sector was the weakest group, adding just 0.1%, as a sell off in the Treasury market pushed yields to multi-year highs.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note jumped four basis points to 2.66%--its best level since mid-2014--while the 2-yr yield also climbed four basis points, settling at 2.12%--its best level since 2008. For the week, the 2yr-10yr spread decreased to 54 basis points from 59 basis points.

In other corporate news, Twitter (TWTR 24.27, +2.11) had a solid showing, adding 9.5%, amid renewed takeover chatter, while Wynn Resorts (WYNN 180.29, -20.31) dropped 10.1% following a Wall Street Journal story filled with sexual misconduct allegations against founder and CEO Steve Wynn.

Elsewhere, President Trump spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Friday morning, pitching the U.S. as a great place for international companies to invest. The president also reiterated that the U.S. supports free trade, but it must be "fair and reciprocal."

On a related note, reports indicate that President Trump is seeking $716 billion for defense spending in 2019, a 13% increase from the 2017 budget of $637 billion.

Reviewing Friday's batch of economic data, which included the advance estimate of fourth quarter GDP, Durable Orders for December, and advance International Trade in Goods and Wholesale Inventories for December:

Advance fourth quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 2.6%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.9%.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer spending, which accounts for roughly 70% of GDP, was alive and well in the fourth quarter, increasing 3.8%--the fastest growth rate since the first quarter of 2015. Moreover, business spending also increased, with spending on equipment increasing 11.4%--the strongest since the third quarter of 2014.
December durable goods orders rose 2.9%, which is more than the 0.9% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to +1.7% (from +1.3%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) to follow the prior month's revised uptick of 0.3% (from -0.1%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the pickup in durable goods orders is a reflection of an improving economy.
The advance report for International Trade in Goods for December showed a deficit of $71.6 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$68.5 billion), up from a revised deficit of $70.0 billion in November (from -$69.7 billion). The advance report for Wholesale Inventories for December showed an increase of 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). The prior month's reading was left unrevised at +0.7%.

On Monday, investors will receive the PCE Price Index for December, the core PCE Price Index for December, Personal Income for December, and Personal Spending for December. All data is set to be released at 8:30 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +7.7% YTD
S&P 500: +7.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.7% YTD

Week In Review: Politics, Earnings, and New Records

Wall Street continued its strong start to 2018, posting gains for the fourth consecutive week. The Nasdaq jumped 2.3% this week, while the S&P 500 climbed 2.2%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 2.1%. The three major indices finished Friday at new all-time highs and now hold year-to-date gains between 7.5% and 8.7%.

The first government shutdown since 2013 lasted just three days, coming to an end on Monday evening when Congress passed a short-term funding bill that will keep the government running until February 8. Republicans, who control the Senate 51 to 49, needed help from Democrats to pass the funding measure, as it requires 60 votes. Democrats resisted at first, forcing the shutdown, but eventually gave in after Republicans promised to soon address the fate of the so-called "Dreamers"--undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.

Meanwhile, President Trump made his way to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, where he pitched to international companies and investors in a speech on Friday, saying "America is open for business." He also did an interview with CNBC in Davos, during which he clarified his administration's stance on the U.S. dollar, saying that he ultimately wants to see a stronger dollar. Earlier in the week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he welcomes a weakening of the dollar as it's "good for trade."

The U.S. Dollar Index made sharp moves in reaction to the aforementioned comments, ultimately ending the week lower by 1.6% at 88.92--its lowest level in three years.

Currency traders also chewed on the latest policy decisions from the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank, which crossed the wires on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. The two central banks voted to leave their policy rates unchanged, as expected, and the ECB reiterated that it intends to leave net asset purchases at the new pace of EUR30 billion per month until the end of September, or beyond, if necessary.

In U.S. corporate news, the fourth quarter earnings season continued this week with around 80 S&P 500 companies delivering their results. Netflix (NFLX) spiked 10.0% on Tuesday after wowing investors with its subscriber growth and first quarter guidance, while Intel (INTC) jumped 10.6% on Friday after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues and saying it believes there will be no material impact from the Meltdown and Spectre security concerns first reported at the beginning of the month.

On the downside, Texas Instruments (TXN) tumbled 8.5% on Wednesday after its latest earnings report came in as expected, but didn't impress investors enough to justify the chipmaker's 25.0% gain over the prior seven weeks. Airlines also struggled--evidenced the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS), which lost 4.7% for the week--following mixed results from Southwest Air (LUV), American Airlines (AAL), United Continental (UAL), Alaska Air (ALK), and JetBlue Airways (JBLU).

The advance estimate of fourth quarter GDP crossed the wires on Friday, showing a lower-than-expected expansion of 2.6% (Briefing.com consensus +2.9%). The key takeaway from the report is that consumer spending, which accounts for roughly 70.0% of GDP, was alive and well in the fourth quarter, increasing 3.8%--the fastest growth rate since the first quarter of 2015. Moreover, business spending also increased, with spending on equipment increasing 11.4%--the strongest since the third quarter of 2014.

The Federal Open Market Committee is set to release its latest policy decision this upcoming Wednesday, but the market doesn't expect the FOMC to make any changes; the CME FedWatch Tool places the chances of a rate hike at 3.6%. The market projects the next hike will occur at the March FOMC meeting with an implied probability of 79.7%.

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Busy Week Starts on a Lower Note
29-Jan-18 16:20 ET
Dow -177.23 at 26439.48, Nasdaq -39.27 at 7466.50, S&P -19.34 at 2853.53

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/29/busy-week-starts-on-a-lower-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks retreated from record highs on Monday as investors took some profits following four weeks of nearly nonstop gains and ahead of a busy week that will feature President Trump's first State of the Union address (Tuesday), the Fed's latest policy directive (Wednesday), the Employment Situation Report for January (Friday), and a host of tech earnings.

The S&P 500 dropped 0.7% to 2853.53, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 0.7% to 26439.48, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.5% to 7466.51. All three major indices opened the session modestly lower and kept within a pretty narrow range for much of the day. However, a wave of selling in the final hour of action pushed the averages to new lows, approximately doubling their earlier losses. All three indices finished near their worst marks of the day.

11 of 11 sectors declined on Monday, with the top-weighted technology group (-0.9%) showing relative weakness. Apple (AAPL 167.96, -3.55) lost 2.1% after the Nikkei Asian Review reported over the weekend that the tech giant plans to slash its iPhone X production for the first quarter by 50% following a disappointing holiday season. Conversely, Twitter (TWTR 25.18, +0.91) jumped 3.8% after Fox Business reporter Charlie Gasparino tweeted that the company is trying to sell itself.

The telecom services space (-1.3%) struggled early following reports that the Trump administration wants a federal takeover of the nation's 5G wireless network, but trimmed losses later in the day after the White House clarified that such a plan is not currently in place. Verizon (VZ 54.13, -0.59) and AT&T (T 37.26, -0.56) lost 1.1% and 1.5%, respectively.

The rate-sensitive utilities (-1.3%) and real estate (-1.2%) sectors finished with telecom services at the bottom of the sector standings as selling in the Treasury market pushed yields to multi-year highs; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed three basis points to 2.70%--its highest level since April 2014.

On a positive note, Amazon (AMZN 1417.68, +15.63) jumped 1.1% to a new all-time high after Citigroup raised its target price of AMZN shares to $1600 from $1400. The consumer discretionary sector, which houses Amazon, was among the top-performing groups, but still lost 0.3%.

In earnings news, Lockheed Martin (LMT 351.42, +6.52) and Seagate Tech (STX 55.11, +0.17) climbed 1.9% and 0.3%, respectively, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues. Lockheed Martin also raised its profit guidance for fiscal year 2018.

On the M&A front, Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS 117.07, +21.42) spiked 22.4% after agreeing to merge with Keurig Green Mountain. Under the agreement, DPS shareholders will receive $103.75 per share in a special cash dividend and will retain 13% of the combined company. Meanwhile, VMware (VMW 125.05, -24.95), which Dell acquired a large stake in through its acquisition of EMC Corp., dropped 16.6% after CNBC reported that VMware could buy Dell in a reverse merger, potentially allowing Dell to be publicly traded without going through a formal listing.

As a reminder, VMW shares rallied 9.0% on Friday following a Wall Street Journal report that Dell was exploring options regarding VMware.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region opened the week on a mostly lower note, with China's Shanghai Composite (-1.0%) leading the retreat, while the Euro Stoxx 50 slipped 0.2%. The U.S. dollar climbed 0.4% against the euro (1.2380), 0.6% against the pound (1.4073), and 0.4% against the yen (108.98).

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included Personal Income, Personal Spending, and the PCE Price Index for December:

Personal income climbed 0.4% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following an unrevised increase of 0.3% in November.
Personal spending rose 0.4% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), down from a revised increase of 0.8% in November (from 0.6%).
The PCE Price Index increased 0.1% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), while the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 1.5%, which is still a ways below the Fed's target of 2.0%.
The inflation data isn't going to alter the market's expectation that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise the fed funds rate again at its March meeting. That's one key takeaway from the report. The other key takeaway is that the personal savings rate dropped from 2.5% to 2.4%, which is its lowest level since 2005, underscoring the notion that consumers might be saving less because they are feeling better about their job/income prospects.

On Tuesday, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index (Briefing.com consensus 6.4%) and the Consumer Confidence Index for January (Briefing.com consensus 124.0) will be released at 9:00 AM ET and 10:00 AM ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite: +8.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +7.0% YTD
S&P 500: +6.7% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.1% YTD

(Editor's note: The summary originally stated that Dell had previously acquired VMWare, but the comment has been corrected to read that Dell acquired a large stake in VMWare through its acquisition of EMC Corp.)

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Wall Street Ends Losing Streak With Slim Gains
31-Jan-18 16:30 ET
Dow +72.50 at 26149.39, Nasdaq +9.00 at 7411.48, S&P +1.38 at 2823.81

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/1/31/wall-street-ends-losing-streak-with-slim-gains.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks broke a two-session losing streak on Wednesday, but just barely, finishing a tick above their unchanged marks.

The S&P 500 opened with a gain of 0.5%, but settled higher by just 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had similar outings; the Nasdaq opened higher by 0.7%, but finished with a gain of just 0.1%, while the Dow retained 0.3% of its opening gain of 0.9%. All three indices spent some time in negative territory, but a late uptick brought them back into the green. Small caps were relatively weak throughout the session, with the Russell 2000 ending lower by 0.5%.

As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted to keep the fed funds target range at 1.25%-1.50%, allowing Fed Chair Janet Yellen to step down in the most hospitable way. Jerome Powell, President Trump's chosen replacement for Ms. Yellen, will officially become the next Fed Chair on February 3.

In the Fed's official statement, policymakers said near-term risks to the economic outlook appear roughly balanced, but added that officials are keeping an eye on inflation, which has been slow to pick up despite a tightening of the labor market. Fed officials expect that, with further gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace and labor market conditions will remain strong.

The market dialed up its expectations for a rate hike in March following the FOMC release, with the CME FedWatch Tool now placing the chances at 83.5%, up from 74.7% on Tuesday. Investors are still calling for a total of three rate hikes in 2018.

Eight of eleven sectors finished Wednesday in the green. The lightly-weighted real estate (+2.1%) and utilities (+1.1%) sectors were the top-performing groups, but the technology (+0.7%) and industrials (+0.4%) sectors also had relatively positive outings. Boeing (BA 354.37, +16.66) set the pace in the industrial space, jumping 4.9% to a new all-time high, after reporting above-consensus earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter and issuing much better-than-expected guidance for fiscal year 2018.

Within the tech space, Advanced Micro (AMD 13.74, +0.87) climbed 6.8% after reporting upbeat earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter and raising its sales guidance for Q1, and Electronic Arts (EA 126.96, +8.26) jumped 7.0% after reporting better-than-expected revenue guidance for the current quarter.

On the downside, the heavily-weighted health care sector (-1.5%) was the weakest group, tumbling for the second day in a row. Investors were still concerned about Tuesday's news that Amazon (AMZN 1450.89, +13.07), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 323375, +375), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 115.67, +0.56) are partnering to form a company to reduce health care cost for their employees, but a renewed promise from President Trump to reduce prescription drug prices also weighed on the sector.

President Trump made that promise during his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. The president stayed on script throughout the speech, calling for a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan and a compromise on immigration that would allow a path to citizenship for "Dreamers" in exchange for his promised barrier along the Mexico border and added border security.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries finished Wednesday mixed; the 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.72%, while the 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.14%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the ADP Employment Change report for January, the Chicago PMI for January, the Employment Cost Index for the fourth quarter, Pending Home Sales for December, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 234,000 in January (Briefing.com consensus 190,000). The December reading was revised to 242,000 from 250,000.
The Chicago PMI for January hit 65.7 (Briefing.com consensus 61.0), down from 67.6 in December.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing activity in the Chicago Fed region is still humming along near multi-year high levels. The January 2018 reading was the best January reading in seven years.
The fourth quarter Employment Cost Index rose 0.6%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%.
The key takeaway is that compensation costs, led by wages and salaries, are rising slowly, but steadily, which will keep market participants focused on the prospect of inflation picking up with wage and salary growth.
Pending Home Sales increased 0.5% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%). Today's reading follows a revised 0.3% increase in November (from 0.2%).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.6% to follow last week's 4.5% rise.

On Thursday, investors will receive a number of economic reports, including weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 238K), the preliminary readings for fourth quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus +1.0%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus +1.0%), the ISM Manufacturing Index for January (Briefing.com consensus 58.5), and Construction Spending for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%).

In addition, auto and truck sales for January will be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite: +7.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +5.8% YTD
S&P 500: +5.6% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.6% YTD

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Wall Street Settles Mixed As Yields Rise
01-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow +37.32 at 26186.71, Nasdaq -25.62 at 7385.86, S&P -1.83 at 2821.98

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/1/wall-street-settles-mixed-as-yields-rise.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities had a mixed outing on Thursday as investors watched yields rise to multi-year highs, digested a tech-heavy batch of fourth quarter earnings, and looked ahead to Friday's release of the Employment Situation report for January. After opening lower, the market struggled for direction, rotating between modest gains and losses.

At its best mark of the day, the S&P 500 was up 0.4% and, at its worst, was down 0.4%. The benchmark index ended just a tick lower, losing 0.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite shed 0.4%. Small caps outperformed, pushing the Russell 2000 higher by 0.3%.

Equities soared through the first four weeks of 2018, hitting record after record, but investors have decided to pull back this week. The major averages hold week-to-date losses between 1.6% and 1.8% going into Friday's session, but still hold year-to-date gains between 5.6% and 7.0%.

The most recent batch of Q4 earnings included technology heavyweights Microsoft (MSFT 94.26, -0.75) and Facebook (FB 193.09, +6.20), less influential tech names like PayPal (PYPL 78.40, -6.92) and eBay (EBAY 46.19, +5.61), wireless giant AT&T (T 39.16, +1.71), chemical mammoth DowDuPont (DWDP 73.50, -2.08), and package deliverer UPS (UPS 119.51, -7.81). Six of the seven companies beat both earnings and revenue estimates (eBay's results were in line with estimates), but only three advanced on Thursday.

Facebook climbed 3.3% to a new all-time high after reassuring investors that its ad business would remain highly profitable despite changes to its news feed, which have prompted users to spend less time on the site--about 50 million hours less per day in aggregate. Meanwhile, eBay spiked 13.8% to a new record after announcing plans to take over crucial payment processing duties from PayPal, which tumbled 8.1% in reaction.

As for the others, AT&T soared 4.6% after raising its profit guidance for fiscal year 2018, while DowDuPont and UPS dropped 2.8% and 6.1%, respectively. UPS fell after announcing plans to upgrade its delivery network, which struggled to fulfill a high volume of orders during the holiday season.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers 1.2 to 1 at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. Energy shares showed relative strength, pushing the S&P 500's energy sector higher by 1.1%, as the price of crude oil climbed for the second day in a row; West Texas Intermediate crude futures advanced 1.6% to $65.76 per barrel. Financial stocks also outperformed, thanks in large part to an increase in Treasury yields, which touched new multi-year highs.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note jumped five basis points to 2.77%, its highest level since April 2014, and the 2-yr yield advanced two basis points to 2.16%, its highest mark in over a decade--dating back to the financial crisis. The recent rise in Treasury yields--the 10-yr yield has climbed 42 basis points in seven weeks--is seen by some as a positive sign for economic growth, but it could also be a headwind for equities, which are trading at high valuations.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Thursday on a mixed note; Japan's Nikkei added 1.6%, breaking a six-session losing streak, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng and China's Shanghai Composite lost 0.8% and 1.0%, respectively.

In Europe, Germany's DAX (-1.4%), the UK's FTSE (-0.6%), and France's CAC (-0.5%) tumbled as the euro climbed 0.8% against the U.S. dollar to 1.2517--a three-year high. The pound also advanced against the greenback, jumping 0.6% to 1.4274, while the Japanese yen finished roughly flat (109.27).

Reviewing Thursday's batch of economic data, which included the ISM Manufacturing Index for January, the preliminary readings for fourth quarter Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, weekly Initial Claims, and Construction Spending for December:

The ISM Index for January declined to 59.1 from a revised reading of 59.3 in December (from 59.7), while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 58.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that the manufacturing sector is still expanding at a solid clip, driven by an ongoing expansion in new order and production activity.
The preliminary unit labor costs rose 2.0% during the fourth quarter, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%. The preliminary productivity reading showed a decrease of 0.1%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.0%.
The key takeaway from this report is that it will feed into the market's burgeoning concerns about rising inflation and it will trigger some added concerns about economic growth not living up to the market's high expectations.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 230,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 238,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 231,000 (from 233,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.953 million from a revised count of 1.940 million (from 1.937 million).
The latest week marked the 152nd week that initial claims have been below 300,000
The Construction Spending report for December increased 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). The prior month's increase was lowered to 0.6% from 0.8%.
The key takeaway from the report is that construction spending growth continues to run at a relatively slow pace.

On Friday, investors will receive the Employment Situation report for January at 8:30 AM ET. The Briefing.com consensus expects the report will show the addition of 180,000 nonfarm payrolls (prior 148,000), a 0.3% increase in average hourly earnings (prior +0.3%), and an unemployment rate of 4.1% (prior 4.1%).

In addition, the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for January (Briefing.com consensus 95.0) and Factory Orders for December (Briefing.com consensus +1.3%) will both cross the wires at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +7.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +5.9% YTD
S&P 500: +5.6% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.9% YTD

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Wall Street Gives Back Good Chunk of Yearly Advance
02-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow -665.75 at 25520.96, Nasdaq -144.92 at 7240.94, S&P -59.85 at 2762.13

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/2/wall-street-gives-back-good-chunk-of-yearly-advance.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The sky fell on Friday. Just kidding. The stock market just had a bad day--which has kind of felt as impossible as the prospect of a falling sky since the start of the year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 2.5%, and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.1% and 2.0%, respectively, but the three major indices still hold year-to-date gains between 3.2% and 4.9%. Equities opened Friday with sizable losses and extended those losses throughout the session, finishing at session lows.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing issues 9 to 1 at the New York Stock Exchange. In terms of S&P 500 sectors, 11 of 11 finished in negative territory, with the energy space (-4.1%) pacing the retreat following fourth quarter earnings from Chevron (CVX 118.58, -6.99) and Exxon Mobil (XOM 84.53, -4.54). Both companies missed revenues estimates; Exxon missed profit estimates as well. In addition, a decline in the price of crude oil also weighed on the sector; West Texas Intermediate crude futures slid 0.8% to $65.30 per barrel.

The top-weighted technology sector (-3.0%) also had a rough outing, with Apple (AAPL 160.37, -7.41), Alphabet (GOOGL 1119.20, -62.39), and Visa (V 120.91, -4.81) losing between 3.8% and 5.3% after releasing their Q4 results. Apple and Visa beat earnings estimates, but Alphabet came up short despite reporting better-than-expected revenues. Apple's iPhone sales were disappointing, and the company lowered its sales forecast for the first quarter.

Dow component Merck (MRK 58.56, -1.30) also reported Q4 results, beating bottom-line estimates, but slid 2.2% nonetheless.

On a positive note, Amazon (AMZN 1429.95, +39.95) jumped 2.9%, touching a new intraday record, after soundly beating earnings estimates for the fourth quarter, thanks in large part to changes in the U.S. tax code. The consumer discretionary sector (-0.9%), which houses Amazon, was among the top-performing groups.

Investors received the Employment Situation report for January on Friday morning. Job growth was solid again with the addition of 220,000 nonfarm payrolls (Briefing.com consensus +180,000), but the focal point was the 0.3% jump in average hourly earnings. That was in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate, but after taking revisions into account, it left average hourly earnings up 2.9% year over year--the highest growth rate since May 2009.

There has been a burgeoning assumption that the strengthening economy and the tight labor market are going to invite higher wages and wage-based inflation pressures that have been dormant for years. The key takeaway, then, is that the January report has given some data-based life to that assumption and has offered a reasonable basis for the Federal Reserve to move ahead with a rate hike at its March meeting.

U.S. Treasuries were weak ahead of the jobs report release, but selling accelerated in the aftermath, pushing yields to multi-year highs; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed another eight basis points--extending its weekly gain to 19 basis points--to finish at 2.85%, which is its highest level since January 2014. Shorter-dated issues showed relative strength, however, with the 2-yr yield slipping two basis points to 2.14%. Yields move inversely to prices.

In Washington, President Trump authorized the release of a House Intelligence Committee memo that alleges there was an anti-Trump bias at both the FBI and the Justice Department in investigative matters pertaining to Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The release received some credit for accelerating Friday's sell off given that it creates some political uncertainty in front of next week's spending deadline; Congress will have to pass a new spending resolution by February 8 to avoid another government shutdown.

It's also worth pointing out that the CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as the "investor fear gauge," spiked about four points, or 29.0%, on Friday to 17.40--its highest level since the U.S. presidential election on November 8, 2016.

Reviewing Friday's batch of economic data, which included the Employment Situation report for January, the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for January, and Factory Orders for December:

Employment Situation
January nonfarm payrolls increased by 200,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 180,000. The prior month's increase was revised to 160,000 from 148,000. Nonfarm private payrolls rose by 196,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 175,000. The previous month's increase was revised to 166,000 from 146,000.
The unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%, as expected.
Average hourly earnings increased by 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the previous month's increase was revised to 0.4% from 0.3%.
The average workweek was reported at 34.3 (Briefing.com consensus 34.5). The previous month's reading was left unrevised at 34.5.
Michigan Consumer Sentiment
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for January rose to 95.7 (Briefing.com consensus 95.0) from 94.4 in the preliminary reading.
Factory Orders
The Factory Orders Report for December showed an increase of 1.7% (Briefing.com consensus 1.3%), while the November reading was revised to +1.7% from +1.3%.

On Monday, investors will receive the ISM Services Index for January at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.9% YTD
S&P 500: +3.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +3.2% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.8% YTD

Week In Review: Pulling Back

Stocks tumbled this week, denting their impressive 2018 gains; the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 4.1%, the S&P 500 slid 3.9%, and the Nasdaq lost 3.5%.

While investors had a lot of news to digest, including President Trump's first State of the Union address, a tech-heavy batch of fourth quarter earnings, and the Employment Situation report for January, the selling was more so a natural response to a market that's moved too far too fast--although, a spike in Treasury yields did help strengthen a case for the bears.

Technology names dominated this week's batch of earnings, with Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Facebook (FB), and Alphabet (GOOGL) reporting their fourth quarter results, which were mostly better-than-expected. However, the companies' shares settled the week mostly lower; MSFT, GOOGL, and AAPL shares lost 2.4%, 5.8%, and 6.4% for the week, respectively, while FB shares advanced 0.2%, touching a new all-time high.

Apple reported above-consensus earnings on in-line revenues, but iPhone sales for the holiday season came in weaker than expected, and the company lowered its sales forecast for the first three months of 2018. Meanwhile, Facebook beat earnings and revenue estimates and reassured investors that its ad business would remain highly profitable despite changes to its news feed, which have prompted users to spend less time on the site--about 50 million hours less per day (in aggregate).

As for the others, Microsoft reported above-consensus earnings and revenues on the back of its rapidly-growing cloud computing business, while Alphabet, the parent company of Google, missed earnings estimates--despite beating revenue forecasts--largely due to rising costs.

Outside the technology space, Amazon (AMZN) and Boeing (BA) also reported their quarterly results this week. Amazon ended with a weekly gain of 2.0% after blowing past earnings estimates--thanks in part to changes in the U.S. tax code--while Boeing jumped 1.7% after also soundly beating earnings estimates, beating revenue estimates, and issuing much better-than-expected guidance for fiscal year 2018.

In other corporate news, the health care sector struggled this week, losing 5.1%, after Amazon (AMZN), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) announced on Tuesday that they will be partnering to form a company focused on reducing health care costs for hundreds of thousands of their U.S. employees.

In Washington, President Trump delivered his first State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. The president stayed on script, calling for a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan and a compromise on immigration that would allow a path to citizenship for "Dreamers" in exchange for his promised barrier along the Mexico border and added border security. Mr. Trump also noted that lowering prescription drug prices is a top priority of his administration and took a firm, but relatively calm, stance against North Korea.

Meanwhile, Fed Chair Janet Yellen wrapped up her time at the Federal Reserve on a rather uneventful note as the Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted on Wednesday to leave the fed funds target range unchanged at 1.25%-1.50%, as expected. In its statement, the central bank said near-term risks to the economic outlook appear roughly balanced, but added that officials are keeping an eye on inflation, which has been slow to pick up despite a tightening of the labor market.

The policy directive did little to change the market's rate-hike expectations; the CME FedWatch Tool still points to the March FOMC meeting as the most likely time for the next rate-hike announcement, with an implied probability of 77.5% (up from 74.7% last week), and calls for an additional two hikes before the end of the year.

On the data front, investors received the Employment Situation report for January on Friday: Nonfarm payrolls came in better-than-expected (+200,000 actual vs +180,000 Briefing.com consensus), average hourly earnings hit estimates (+0.3% MoM), and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1% as expected. U.S. Treasuries were lower for the week ahead of the report's release, but extend their losses in the aftermath, sending yields to multi-year highs.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note spiked 19 basis points to 2.85% this week, its best level since January 2014, while the 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.14%, its best level in nearly a decade--dating back to the financial crisis. The recent rise in Treasury yields--the 10-yr yield has climbed 50 basis points in seven weeks--is seen by some as a positive sign for economic growth, but it could also be a headwind for equities, which are trading at very high valuations.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - A Further Selloff Would be Best (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Dow posts a devilish 666 point drop as sellers hit the market like demons.
- Dow's 600+ loss is only the sixth in history over 600.
- Jobs report takes a back seat to the current market mood.
- Wells Fargo gets an afterhours rebuke and a lid on new assets gratis the
Fed
- Market is dealing with Yellen gone: barely out the door and Kaplin is
talking tough. Market is not used to that.
- A further selloff would be best before a rebound attempt.
- The various scenarios from here.
- Don't get too eager to move back in for more than short term plays. If
they turn into long term plays, that is okay. Unlikely, but okay.

The upside typically comes slow and steady. The downside starts quietly and
can disguise itself as just part of the same trend higher. The trend
remains solid, albeit quite extended. Distribution sessions start popping
up, but the trend holds. Sentiment hits extremes; this time it was record
bullishness and bearishness at 30 year lows. Then stocks start giving up
breakouts. Airlines, big biotechs broke out then reversed hard. AAPL broke
out in mid-January but then fizzled. But the big names still soldiered on.

Indeed, Thursday I noted that NASDAQ and SOX still held very well in good
patterns and if the market wanted again to shake off the issues it could do
so. It didn't.

Stocks started lower as futures gapped downside, dropped at the open, failed
a 45 minute bounce attempt after a half hour of trade. Then it was a steady
downtrend all session, exacerbated by the Fed's Kaplan who devilishly kicked
the market while it was down, saying if the Fed waits for inflation it will
be too late, that the tax cuts could cause an over-leveraged condition, and
that 3 hikes in 2018 was the base case, that there could be more. That set
the market into an afternoon panic that ended with the Dow down 666. Could
get worse on Monday; afterhours as Yellen's last official move, the Fed
placed Wells Fargo on restriction, saying WFC cannot add assets until it
replaces four board members and puts in place the protocols necessary to
preclude further malfeasance. Slap on the wrist, really; some people should
go to jail. Anyway, I am not sure if that will help the market in the
current climate where any reason is a good one to sell.

SP500 -59.85, -2.12%
NASDAQ -144.91, -1.96%
DJ30 -665.75, -2.54%
SP400 -2.02%
RUTX -2.06
SOX -2.74%
NASDAQ 100 -2.05%

VOLUME: Volume bounced on NYSE (12%) to farther above average, but it was
lower than Wednesday trade. NASDAQ volume (+13%) spiked to the highest
since mid-December. Lots of downside volume.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE -8.5:1, NASDAQ -5.2:1. That is extreme breadth. On
the NYSE open it was -10:1. Yes, extreme, and extremes indicate levels that
can cause things to head the other way. It will take more than just this,
however.


Ominous? Closes such as Friday can lead to really hellish Mondays and
Tuesdays. If that is the case, that probably sets a near term relief move,
but likely not the end of the selling. A lot depends upon how much damage
is done to leadership patterns, i.e. if they are in position to recover or
were just broken up. Well, actually, a reflex or relief bounce doesn't
care. It can jump up stocks in patterns as well as stocks that were broken.
It is the sustainability of the relief move that the patterns impact. If
there are no real leadership patterns, the move will fail. You can play a
reflex move of broken patterns upside and make some money, but as soon as it
looks to be stalling it is best to take the profits and see what happens
next. Without good leadership patterns, the relief rally will typically
fail.

In the big picture this is kind of what you had to expect, though the
reality is always rather harsh. This is something like only the sixth time
in history the Dow has dropped more than 600 points on a close. Elite
company. But then again, the move upside was an elite move.

The overall question everyone is asking is when do you buy in. That depends
on when this selling round lets off enough pressure. It also depends upon
what type of buying you want. If you are looking to buy positions with the
intent of holding for steady gains as seen of late, you have to have the
good patterns to lead the market higher again and hold up on the test of the
rebound. If you don't have those patterns, likely you won't be happy unless
you morph your plan of action into playing the surges and selling out when
they start to slow. Indeed, until the market shows it can hold a rebound
after a test and continue higher, it is wise to treat all rallies as simple
relief moves that will surge, rather violently at times. Once the market
has the leadership and holds a test, that is a different story. That is
also potentially a long way off.


So, this weekend you sift through the selloff, find what stocks held the
line and look decent. Then you see if they hold up during further selling
Monday and Tuesday. If there is further selling and they hold up, you have
some great candidates to play upside -- along with the usual favorites that
people pile into when they think the buying light is on when it really is
not.

You then play a bounce, take what you can until the bounce starts to
stumble, then get out. Then you look to play downside with stocks that
rebounded but ran into resistance such as the 50 day MA, prior lows, etc.
Also some of the index plays and ETF's are not bad, e.g. SDS, QID. The next
drop is likely rather violent as well.

After that drop, you see the relief move again and then note where the
rebound stalls. If at the 10 day EMA, that is the making of a strong
downtrend. If that occurs you start shifting your mindset from buying for
long term holds to selling the rallies back up to near resistance, playing
the drops lower as that becomes the trend.

Just look at SDS as an example. It trended lower and lower below the 10 and
20 day EMA. The play would be to sell it (or buy puts against it) each time
it touched the 10/20 day EMA and threw a doji. It is the reverse of playing
a strong trend upside such as the DJ30.

If there is no more selling come Monday, the move is really suspect and
certainly any bounce would be treated as relief. There will be, however,
good patterns because as of Friday, even after the trip-sixes, there are
good normal pullbacks. You always fear the head fake if stocks start higher
versus sell more then reverse. That is a tough place to play for sure. You
can do some sample buys with some quality patterns and stocks, but this is
considered even more of reflex type bounce. May not be, but it is very
difficult to ascertain in its early stages.

Either way, i.e. more early week selling or none, the big test for the
indices comes at the 50 day MA's and certain retracement levels. They will
try to find support there. They can be the bounce points for the relief
moves. HOW the indices and stocks react upside off of these, and then how
that move holds tells a big part of the tale as outlined above.

So for now it is a matter of watching for potential bounce points, watching
stocks and indices as they approach those and see what looks as if it is in
position to make a good bounce. Then play the bounce and see how it plays
out so to speak. Strong volume, good breadth or weaker trade and narrow
breadth? The former is upside positive, the latter more bearish and
suggests the move fails once the pressure is released. Once you gauge the
rebound, then you set up for the next move whether upside or downside. That
is something no one knows for now, though my experience would suggest the
relief bounce off this selling fails and the market goes down more. When
the relief move fails, that is when you start loading up on the downside for
the first time as outlined above.


NEWS/ECONOMY

Most of the news was what you would expect in an improving economy.

Jobs Report, January

Jobs were better than expected at 200K. Wages improved 0.3% month/month and
2.9% year/year. Interestingly, the workweek dropped a lot, down to 34.3
from 34.5. Ah the 'bomb cyclone' or whatever it was in January did serious
damage to the number of hours worked across the entire nation. I can attest
to that; it was hard to get anyone to go anywhere.


Factory Orders, December: 1.7% versus 1.3% expected versus 1.7% prior (from
1.3%)
Good news with final December durable goods orders at 2.8%.

But . . . business investment missed big: -0.6% versus -0.3% in November.
This was the fastest drop since September 2016. Business investment should
start ramping up, and with the promised investment post-tax reform it will.
At some point. At some amount.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

What do you say about these? Breaks of support for certain, and now you
start looking at potential bounce points. It is a game of patience on this
first selloff to see where it bottoms, being ready at each point with plays
to participate in the move.

NASDAQ: Was in a decent test along the 20 day EMA but broke down through
the 20 day on the close. Of course volume ballooned to the highest since
the December expiration. Logical support at 7100 to 7068, then the December
peak at 6995. Bare minimums for the selloff I would think, but for now
those are just levels to watch for a hold and bounce. A rip below the 20
day EMA Friday and want to go ahead and get the trip to the 50 day MA or
December peak out of the way on this move. That will be a good scare-off
selloff.

SOX: Gapped below the 20 day EMA and fell close to the 50 day EMA BY THE
CLOSE. Below the November high, and the first January high. From a pretty
decent consolidation to back to the drawing board to try to set up a new
upside pattern.

DJ30: Definitive break lower, only the sixth ever 600+ point loss on the
Dow. Heading to the 50 day MA (25,000) to the December consolidation at
24,860 as a logical first stopping point.

SP500: Similar to DJ30, SP500 crashed the 20 day EMA in a big way. Higher
volume; oh, sellers were in the majority. Surprise. The 50 day MA looks
logical at 2725 on the high end, 2685 from the December lateral
consolidation.

RUTX: Small caps were down harder than the large cap indices before Friday,
and Friday they were actually better than DJ30, SP500 in terms of percentage
losses. As if that matters; over 2% and that is big regardless. Already
breaking below the 50 day MA's, now right at the late November high and
December consolidation. Below that, 1515. Closed at 1547.

SP400: Cracked below the 50 day MA and closing in on the November high and
December consolidation -- just as the other indices. Those look like
logical support points.


LEADERSHIP

Somewhat of an oxymoron in this market, but there are stocks that are
holding well. The question is if they can continue doing so if there is a
sharp early week plunge.

BA: Of course it is strong, just a modest test to the 10 day EMA.

FAANG: AMZN of course, NFLX holding the 10 day EMA in a nice test. FB also
solid.

Chips: NVDA testing the 20 day EMA on high volume. Nice breakout and
initial rally, good initial test. One to watch for certain. MSCC holding
up well in a test. A lot of other chips are problematic.

Machinery/Manufacturing: CAT testing the 50 day MA. DE looks like it goes
lower but a downside play may be kind of tight. TEX already doing so. UTX
looks ready to roll lower. HON almost at the 50 day MA already after its
breakout and reversal. MMM testing still.

Oil: Some major bombs. CVX, XOM. CRZO to the 200 day SMA. Others not bad,
e.g. APC. MRO testing the 50 day EMA. HAL cracking the 20 day toward the
50 day.

Financial: Tough session with C off 2.75% and heading to the 50 day. BAC
is not bad. GS is selling hard to the 50 day MA.

Biotech/Drugs: BIIB, AMGN, GILD down hard on the week, but they are also
already showing signs they want to possibly hold. This could be a fertile
area this week if the market hits bottom at the targets indicated earlier.

Retail: Starting to break lower in some cases (TLRD; AAP). BBY not in bad
shape. TGT breaking the 20 day EMA, but WMT holding it nicely in its
pullback.

Metals: Sold but some are in good tests. STLD at the 50 day. SCHN at the
50 day MA. FCX dropped to the 50 day EMA in one move.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -665.75 points (-2.54%) to close at 25520.96

Nasdaq
Stats: -144.92 points (-1.96%) to close at 7240.95
Volume: 2.6B (+13.04%)

Up Volume: 550.38M (-459.62M)
Down Volume: 1.99B (+760M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 5.16 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.01 to 1

New Highs: 65 (-24)
New Lows: 161 (+73)

S&P
Stats: -59.85 points (-2.12%) to close at 2762.13
NYSE Volume: 1B (+12.55%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 8.47 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.26 to 1

New Highs: 46 (-42)
New Lows: 338 (+207)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 17.31; +3.84. Exploding higher 28.5%. As it should. It did not
surge during the upside so this is not indicating a major top.
VXN: 20.66; +1.51
VXO: 16.82; +3.38

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.90; -0.01


Bulls and Bears: Bulls bounced right back upside, just below the cycle high
67.0. Bears fell to cycle lows at 12.6, still hanging around 30 year lows.

Bulls: 66.00 versus 64.7

Bears: 12.6 versus 12.8

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 66.00 versus 64.7
64.7 versus 66.7 versus 64.4 versus 61.9 versus 64.1 versus 64.2 versus 62.3
versus 61.5 versus 63.5 versus 64.4 versus 63.5 versus 62.3 versus 60.6
versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1 versus 49.5
versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0 versus 60.2
versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5 versus 50.00
versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7 versus 58.5
versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5 versus 56.7
versus 53.4 versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8 versus 62.7
versus 61.8 versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2 versus 59.8
versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6 versus 51.0
versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9

Bears: 12.6 versus 12.8
12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1
versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1
versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2
versus 19.1 versus 19.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.0 versus 16.2
versus 16.5 versus 16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.3
versus 19.2 versus 18.3 versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9 versus 17.9
versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3 versus 13.75
versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7 versus 17.6
versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6 versus 19.6
versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5 versus 25.7
versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8 versus 23.1
versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.841% versus 2.792%. Impressive dive lower by bonds and spike
higher in yields. Kaplan says 3 rate hikes are the starting point in 2018,
not a max. Higher yields are not a bad thing in a growing economy.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.792%
versus 2.713% versus 2.72% versus 2.72% versus 2.66% versus 2.66% versus
2.639% versus 2.617% versus 2.656% versus 2.661% versus 2.618% versus 2.587%
versus 2.535% versus 2.55% versus 2.559% versus 2.551% versus 2.482% versus
2.456% versus 2.463% versus 2.464% versus 2.405% versus 2.434% versus 2.412%
versus 2.474% versus 2.485% versus 2.484% versus 2.501% versus 2.459% versus
2.398% versus 2.351%


EUR/USD: 1.24573 versus 1.2502. Dollar a bit stronger Friday, but the euro
is still in a trend up the 10 day EMA.

Historical: 1.2502 versus 1.2404 versus 1.2402 versus 1.23832 versus 1.24308
versus 1.24159 versus 1.24340 versus 1.23083 versus 1.22567 versus 1.22169
versus 1.2241 versus 1.2198 versus 1.22698 versus 1.22060 versus 1.20608
versus 1.19507 versus 1.19322 versus 1.19662 versus 1.20313 versus 1.20756
versus 1.20177 versus 1.20573 versus 1.2001 versus 1.1936 versus 1.1936
versus 1.18998 versus 1.18593 versus 1.18628 versus 1.18658 versus 1.18792
versus 1.18408 versus 1.17703 versus 1.1752 versus 1.17798 versus 1.18392
versus 1.17430 versus 1.17652 versus 1.1764 versus 1.17754 versus 1.17990
versus 1.18276 versus 1.18727 versus 1.18983 versus 1.18976 versus 1.18529
versus 1.18489 versus 1.1899 versus 1.19329 versus 1.18148 versus 1.17402
versus 1.1791 versus 1.1787 versus 1.1786 versus 1.1799 versus 1.16443
versus 1.16646 versus 1.16439 versus 1.15871


USD/JPY: 110.174 versus 109.46. Continues the rally this week. Moved the
dollar off the bottom of the 10 month range.

Historical: 109.46 versus 109.50 versus 108.77 versus 108.84 versus 108.601
versus 109.411 versus 109.033 versus 110.159 versus 110.159 versus 110.70
versus 110.834 versus 111.036 versus 111.290 versus 110.357 versus 111.024
versus 111.204 versus 111.534 versus 112.706 versus 113.15 versus 113.58
versus 112.749 versus 112.677 versus 112.27 versus 112.690 versus 112.758
versus 113.216 versus 113.208 versus 113.304 versus 113.363 versus 113.334
versus 112.870 versus 112.625 versus 112.619 versus 112.298 versus 112.639
versus 113.555 versus 113.476 versus 113.48 versus 113.473 versus 112.473
versus 112.554 versus 112.442 versus 112.190 versus 112.55 versus 112.102
versus 111.583 versus 111.244


Oil: 65.45, -0.35. Oil holding the gains but not going anywhere the past
week as the dollar firmed -- just a bit.


Gold: 1337.30, -10.60. Gold dropped to the 20 day EMA after gapping
upside. Still trending higher since December, but found the going tougher
last week.



SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 7420.95

Resistance:
The 10 day EMA in 7363
7506 is the January 2018 all-time high
7300 from a modest mid-January consolidation


Support:
The 20 day EMA at 7301
The 50 day EMA at 7108
7,000 from mid-December
6914 is the late November all-time high
6796 is the early November 2017
The 2016 trendline at 6737
6641 is the October high
The 200 day SMA at 6533
6477 is the September intraday high
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high
6450 is the early September high
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6205 is the late May all-time high
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows


S&P 500: Closed at 2762.13

Resistance:
2808 from the mid-January consolidation. Some support, not that strong.
The 20 day EMA at 2782
2850 from a January 2018 gap point
2873 is the January all-time high

Support:
2751 from early January 2018
The 50 day EMA at 2728
2694 is the mid-December peak
2597 is the November 2017 high
2569 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel
The 200 day SMA at 2532
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the May 2017 low


Dow: Closed at 25,520.96

Resistance:
The 20 day EMA at 25,858
26,439 is a gap point from the January high
January 2018 all-time high 26,617

Support:
26,000 from mid-January consolidation
The 20 day EMA at 25,740
The 50 day EMA at 25,130
24,835 is the mid-December consolidation range
24,312
23,602 is the early November 2017 high
23,608 is the early November high
The 200 day SMA at 22,703
22,420 is the September high
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high

End part 1 of 3

[ReturntoSender]

Stock Market Tanks; S&P 500 Negative for the Year
05-Feb-18 16:25 ET
Dow -1175.21 at 24345.75, Nasdaq -273.42 at 6967.52, S&P -113.19 at 2648.94

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/5/stock-market-tanks-s-and-p-500-negative-for-the-year.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] It was a frenetic day of trading action on Wall Street. At one point, the price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 1,597 points, or 6.3%, which was its largest intraday point loss in history. The selling wasn't as pronounced in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite , but it was significant nonetheless as those two major averages dropped as much as 4.5% and 3.7%, respectively, at their worst levels of the day.

There was a closing rebound try that made things look better on a closing basis, but that's not saying things looked good at the close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 4.6%, while the S&P 500 lost 4.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.8%.

The reasonable question on everyone's mind is: why?

It is a question that won't have a truly satisfying answer, because there wasn't a clear-cut fundamental reason that was responsible for the scope of today's selling interest.

The concern that the stock market is overvalued has some application to Monday's selling effort, yet the thrust of the sell-off was mostly technical, mechanical, and psychological in nature.

The price action got things going.

There were some decent-sized losses at the start of trading on follow-through selling from Friday's broad-based retreat, yet the major indices all snapped back quickly.

The Nasdaq Composite, for instance, rallied 111 points off its opening low. That rebound effort, however, lost steam and when the Nasdaq's opening low was challenged later in the session, and failed to hold, sellers stepped up their activity. The same dynamic played out for the other major indices.

The selling efforts then intensified when the S&P 500 broke through technical support at its 50-day simple moving average (2717). The Dow Jones Industrial violated its 50-day simple moving average as well, which led to additional selling interest that got compounded as stop-loss orders got triggered and investor fear spiked on the rapidity of the selling activity.

The CBOE Volatility Index soared more than 100% today (38.80, +21.64, +126.1%). The spike in the VIX Index, which is euphemistically referred to as the market's fear gauge, reflected a rush to protect portfolios against further losses in the near term.

There was a related flight-to-safety into the Treasury market, which had been little changed for a good part of the day before catching a healthy bid that saw the yield on the 10-year note drop 12 basis points to 2.73%.

The S&P 500, which had been up 7.5% for the year as recently as January 26, has now surrendered the entirety of that gain, losing most of that ground over the last two trading sessions.

Every sector finished deep in red figures. The scope of the losses was reflected in the fact that the utilities sector (-1.7%) was today's relative strength leader.

The financial sector (-5.0%) suffered the largest pullback, feeling the added weight of losses in Wells Fargo (WFC 58.16, -5.91, -9.2%), which received a supervisory order from the Federal Reserve saying the bank cannot grow any larger than its total asset size as of the end of 2017 until the Federal Reserve has concluded Wells Fargo has sufficiently improved its governance and controls.

The range of losses for the remaining sectors was 2.7% to 4.6%.

As one might expect on a day like today, down volume swamped up volume at the NYSE by a roughly 12-to-1 margin. Declining issues, meanwhile, swamped advancing issues by a nearly 9-to-1 margin; and trading volume overall was very heavy with 1.32 billion shares changing hands.

The lone economic release today was the ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI Report for January. It was stronger than expected, checking in at 59.9 (Briefing.com consensus 56.7) versus an upwardly revised reading of 56.0 (from 55.9) for December. The January reading was the highest reading for the index since August 2005.

The Trade Balance Report for December (Briefing.com consensus -$52.3 bln) highlights the economic calendar on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite: +0.9% YTD
S&P 500: -0.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.4% YTD
S&P Midcap 400 Index: -2.7% YTD
Russell 2000: -2.9% YTD

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Another Roller Coaster Ride, But Different Result
06-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow +567.02 at 24912.77, Nasdaq +148.36 at 7115.88, S&P +46.20 at 2695.14

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/6/another-roller-coaster-ride-but-different-result.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks went on another roller coaster ride on Tuesday, but, unlike Monday, this ride left the major indices solidly higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.3%, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.1%, and the S&P 500 advanced 1.7%, ending near the top of their trading ranges, which were quite large; at its worst mark of the day, the S&P 500 was down 2.1% and, at its best, held a gain of 2.0%. The market was very volatile, weathering several sharp reversals.

Tuesday's advance put a sizable dent in Monday's decline, but the major averages are still solidly lower for the week, showing losses between 1.7% and 2.4%.

Nine of eleven sectors finished in positive territory, with cyclical groups setting the pace--a possible sign that investors are shifting their focus back to the fundamentals, including an upbeat economic growth outlook that is expected to translate into impressive earnings growth.

The top-weighted technology space (+2.8%) showed particular strength. Within the group, chipmakers were strong, evidenced by the 3.7% increase in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, after Micron (MU 43.88, +4.48) raised its profit and sales guidance for the current quarter; MU shares jumped 11.4%. Heavyweights like Apple (AAPL 163.03, +6.54), Microsoft (MSFT 91.33, +3.33), Facebook (FB 185.31, +4.05), and Alphabet (GOOGL 1084.43, +22.04) also had solid showings, adding between 2.1% and 4.2%.

General Motors (GM 41.86, +2.32) led the consumer discretionary sector (+2.5%) higher, climbing 5.9%, after reporting better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter and reaffirming its guidance for fiscal year 2018. The group's largest component by market cap--Amazon (AMZN 1442.84, +52.84)--also outperformed, adding 3.8%.

The materials sector (+2.8%) also had a solid day, with DowDuPont (DWDP 71.89, +4.05) rallying 6.0%.

On the downside, the rate-sensitive utilities (-1.5%) and real estate (-0.2%) sectors declined on Tuesday as Treasury yields bounced back from their overnight lows. Yields still settled mostly lower though, with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping two basis points to 2.77%. The 10-yr yield was down as much as 14 basis points overnight.

Meanwhile, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 30.14, -7.18), often referred to as the "investor fear gauge," dropped 19.2% after surging more than 100% on Monday.

Elsewhere, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Tuesday lower, with Japan's Nikkei, Hong Kong's Hang Seng, and China's Shanghai Composite losing between 3.4% and 5.1%, as did the major European bourses; Germany's DAX, the UK's FTSE, and France's CAC lost between 2.2% and 2.8%.

In Washington, Politico reported that the Senate is nearing an agreement on a two-year spending deal that would increase spending levels for both domestic and defense programs. Congressional leaders are expected to stick said budget deal into a funding bill that the House plans to vote on tonight and get lawmakers to pass the combined measure before funding runs out at midnight on Thursday.

It's worth noting that these bills don't address immigration. Lawmakers expect to begin working on immigration after getting past the upcoming spending deadline.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the December Trade Balance and the December Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey:

The December trade balance showed a deficit of $53.1 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$52.3 billion). The November deficit was revised to $50.4 billion from $50.5 billion.
The December trade deficit was the largest since October 2008 and it revealed increased trade deficits with the European Union and China. The key takeaway from the report, then, is that it is apt to feed concerns about protectionist trade policies being adopted in an attempt to narrow those trade deficits.
The December Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 5.811 million from a revised 5.978 million (from 5.879 million) in November.

On Wednesday, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and December Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $20.0 billion) will be released at 7:00 AM ET and 3:00 PM ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.1% YTD
S&P 500: +0.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.8% YTD
Russell 2000: -1.9% YTD

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Wall Street Lower Following Another Choppy Session
07-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow -19.42 at 24893.35, Nasdaq -63.90 at 7051.98, S&P -13.48 at 2681.66

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/7/wall-street-lower-following-another-choppy-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks endured another choppy trading session on Wednesday, settling in negative territory at their worst marks of the day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%, but settled ahead of the other major indices as the price-weighted average's most influential component--Boeing (BA 348.12, +7.21)--jumped 2.1%.

The aerospace giant was helped by news from Washington, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have agreed to a budget deal that would lift spending caps and raise defense and non-defense spending by approximately $160 billion and $130 billion, respectively, over the next two years.

However, it's unclear if the bill has enough support to pass in the House, where the House Freedom Caucus might protest the spending increase, forcing Republicans to lean on Democratic support. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has vowed to oppose a spending deal unless she is guaranteed a vote on immigration.

The S&P 500 lost 0.5% on Wednesday, with just three of its eleven sectors settling in the green--industrials (+0.3%), financials (+0.2%), and telecom services (+0.3%). The consumer discretionary sector (-0.3%) finished in the red, but outpaced the the broader market, with Hasbro (HAS 102.22, +8.29) setting the pace; the toymaker spiked 8.8% to a six-month high after reporting better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter.

In other earnings news, Snap (SNAP 20.75, +6.69) surged 47.6%, hitting an eight-month high, after reporting better-than-expected earnings, revenues, and daily active users (DAUs). Conversely, Walt Disney (DIS 104.76, -1.41) dropped 1.3% despite beating profit estimates, and Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 272.21, -32.12) tumbled 10.6% after its quarterly results showed a decline in customers--likely due to multiple instances of food poisoning over the last couple of years.

In other corporate news, Wynn Resorts (WYNN 177.32, +14.10) rallied 8.6% after Steve Wynn resigned from his position as CEO following reports of sexual misconduct.

At the opposite end of the sector standings, the top-weighted technology sector (-1.4%) struggled on Wednesday, with heavyweights like Apple (AAPL 159.54, -3.49), Microsoft (MSFT 89.61, -1.72), Facebook (FB 180.18, -5.13), and Alphabet (GOOGL 1055.41, -29.02) losing between 1.9% and 2.8%. Chipmakers also weighed on the tech sector, sending the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lower by 2.2%.

Unsurprisingly, the tech-heavy Nasdaq was the weakest of the three major indices, settling with a loss of 0.9%.

The only sector to finish behind technology was the energy group, which lost 1.7% as crude oil tumbled for the fourth session in a row; West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 2.5% to $61.80 per barrel, hitting a one-month low. The commodity suffered amid a strengthening U.S. dollar--the U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.8% to 90.23--and following the government's weekly crude inventory report, which showed that U.S. crude stockpiles increased 1.9 million barrels last week.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries were under heavy pressure, pushing the benchmark 10-yr yield highePublic Replyr by seven basis to 2.84%; the 10-yr yield now trades just one basis point below the three-year high it hit last Friday. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield also climbed on Wednesday, jumping four basis points to 2.13%.

Trading was volatile once again today, with the S&P 500 fluctuating between 2681.66 (-0.5%) and 2727.67 (+1.2%)--a 46-point range.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to December Consumer Credit and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The Consumer Credit report for December showed an increase of $18.4 billion (Briefing.com consensus $20.0 billion). November credit growth was revised to $31.0 billion from $28.0 billion.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 0.7% to follow last week's 2.6% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims report (Briefing.com consensus 234K) at 8:30 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.7% YTD
S&P 500: +0.3% YTD
Russell 2000: -1.8% YTD

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Wall Street Tumbles For Fifth Time In Six Sessions
08-Feb-18 16:35 ET
Dow -1032.89 at 23860.46, Nasdaq -274.82 at 6777.16, S&P -100.66 at 2581.00

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/8/wall-street-tumbles-for-fifth-time-in-six-sessions.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks closed sharply lower on Thursday, losing ground for the fifth time in six sessions. The selling was broad-based and indiscriminate as all 11 S&P 500 sectors finished deep in red figures. The losses for the sectors ranged from 1.2% (utilities) to 4.5% (financials).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 4.2%, the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 3.9%, and the S&P 500 declined 3.8%.

The S&P 500 closed the day below Monday's intraday low, which technicians are apt to view as an adverse development that could invite further selling. All three major indices settled at their session lows following another steep sell off in the final minutes.

Several factors precipitated Thursday's sell-off:

Budding angst surrounding the reported two-year budget agreement in the Senate, which fueled concerns about the level of the budget deficit and national debt. The 10-yr yield hit 2.88% today but settled up just one basis point at 2.85% for the session as the deficit concerns stood in the way of safe-haven flows related to the stock market losses.
The lack of key sector leadership. The financial (-4.5%), information technology (-4.2%), and consumer discretionary (-4.0%) sectors were today's biggest laggards.
Comments from Fed heads, who continue to emphasize a likely path of gradual rate hikes and who have minimized recent market volatility. That understanding provoked concerns about a possible policy mistake by the Fed, which was registered in the underperformance of the cyclical sectors today; and
Following the trend of the tape, which has been biased downward at a time when many participants have been hoping for a rebound. The continued downward bias shook out "weak-handed longs" who have been aiming to profit from a buy-the-dip trade. Their selling presumably exacerbated today's losses.

Trading was volatile, as it has been in each session this week, with the S&P 500 covering 105 points from its high (+0.1%) to its low (-3.8%).

Investors also kept an eye on Washington, where Congressional leaders are trying to pass a budget deal before tonight's spending deadline. The bill up for debate calls for an increase in spending caps and would raise defense and non-defense spending by approximately $160 billion and $130 billion, respectively, over the next two years.

The bill is expected to pass in the Senate as both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have voiced their support for the measure, but it's fate in the House is less certain. Still, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said in a morning interview that he believes the measure will pass.

The latest batch of Q4 earnings didn't have much impact on the broader market on Thursday, but it did prompt some interesting moves in individual stocks.

Most notably, Twitter (TWTR 30.18, +3.27) spiked 12.2% to its best level since mid-2015 after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues and achieving GAAP profitability for the first time ever. Meanwhile, Tesla (TSLA 315.23, -29.77) dropped 8.6% despite reporting above-consensus earnings and saying that it's on track to meet its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 cars per week by the end of June.

Overseas, the major European bourses finished Thursday solidly lower. Germany's DAX dropped 2.6%, while France's CAC and the UK's FTSE lost 2.0% and 1.5%, respectively. The Bank of England unanimously voted to keep its key rate at 0.5% and its asset purchase program at GBP435 billion, as expected, while also laying the groundwork for future rate hikes.

In the Asia-Pacific region, equity indices ended Thursday on a mixed note, with Japan's Nikkei (+1.1%) and Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.4%) advancing while China's Shanghai Composite (-1.4%) declined. China reported a much smaller-than-expected trade surplus due to a spike in imports. However, demand associated with the upcoming Lunar New Year may have distorted the figures.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which was limited to the weekly Initial Claims report:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 221,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 234,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 230,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.923 million from a revised count of 1.956 million (from 1.953 million).
The key takeaway from the initial claims report is that it provides a basis to keep the Treasury market on edge about future rate hikes.

On Friday, investors will receive just one economic report--December Wholesale Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%)--which will be released at 10:00 AM ET.

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Ending On a Positive Note
09-Feb-18 16:35 ET
Dow +330.44 at 24190.90, Nasdaq +97.33 at 6874.49, S&P +38.55 at 2619.55

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/9/ending-on-a-positive-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities reclaimed a nice chunk of their losses for the week on Friday in another volatile trading session. The S&P 500 gained 1.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.4% apiece. The small-cap Russell 2000 also rallied, climbing 1.0%.

The S&P 500 covered a wide range of about 105 points--up 2.2% at its high and down 1.9% at its low.

Stocks opened in positive territory, but began moving lower shortly thereafter. The market hit negative territory in the late morning, but the retreat came to a halt as the S&P 500 approached its 200-day simple moving average (2539), which it had not tested since right before the 2016 presidential election.

The S&P 500 dipped slightly below that key technical level, which served as a springboard for renewed buying efforts which culminated in a late rally that left equities at their session highs.

The defense of the 200-day simple moving average proved to be a silver lining for investors, who endured an otherwise terrible week. The S&P 500, the Dow, and the Nasdaq lost a little more than 5.0% apiece this week and now trade roughly 9% below the record highs they hit on January 26.

10 of 11 sectors finished Friday in the green as advancing issues outnumbered declining issues 1.4 to 1 at the New York Stock Exchange.

The top-weighted technology (+2.5%) and financials (+1.9%) sectors were relatively strong throughout the session, settling near the top of the sector standings.

Within the tech space, NVIDIA (NVDA 232.08, +14.56) jumped 6.7% after blowing past Q4 earnings and revenue estimates and raising its guidance for the first quarter.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.4%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings as the price of crude oil declined for the sixth session in a row. West Texas Intermediate crude futures tumbled 3.1% to $59.23 per barrel--their lowest level since the end of December.

In Washington, Congress passed a budget deal early Friday morning, but not before shutting down the government for a few hours--the previous spending deal ran out at midnight. The deal will increase spending caps and raise defense and non-defense spending by approximately $160 billion and $130 billion, respectively.

The bill will also provide an additional $90 billion for disaster aid and extend the debt ceiling until 2019.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended the week on a higher note, with shorter-dated issues showing relative strength. The yield on the 2-yr Treasury note declined seven basis points to 2.06%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.83%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Friday's economic data was limited to December Wholesale Inventories, which increased 0.4% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). The key takeaway from the report was that the sales increase outpaced the inventory increase by a sizable margin. That is a step in the right direction for wholesalers trying to regain some pricing power.

On Monday, investors will receive just one piece of data--the January Treasury Budget--which will be released at 2:00 PM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: -0.4% YTD
S&P 500: -2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -2.1% YTD
Russell 2000: -3.8% YTD

Week In Review: A Wild Ride

The equity market dropped sharply this week, with the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq Composite losing around 5.0% apiece in volatile trading. Sizable gains on Tuesday and Friday helped keep losses somewhat in check, but they couldn't keep the major indices positive for the year. The three averages are down between 0.4% and 2.1% year to date.

This week's selling was related to fears about rising interest rates, and the realization that stocks have gone too far, too fast, but it was a collective de-risking effort following the implosion of short volatility ETFs that acted as the expedient for broad-based and indiscriminate selling activity. The S&P 500 soared 7.5% in the first four weeks of 2018 on top of last year's 19.4% rally.

Technical, mechanical, and psychological forces all came together to knock back the market in an abrupt fashion.

The S&P 500 breached its 50-day simple moving average for the first time in five months. Weak-handed investors were consistently shaken out of "buy-the-dip" trades this week, sending stocks, and investor sentiment, even lower.

Congress missed a midnight spending deadline on Thursday--forcing a partial government shutdown--but passed a two-year budget deal a few hours later. The bill will boost spending by approximately $300 billion over the next two years, provide an additional $90 billion for disaster aid, and extend the debt ceiling until 2019.

The increase in spending prompted concerns about fiscal discipline, especially considering debt issuance was already expected to rise due to changes to the U.S. tax code. These concerns kept Treasuries in check and yields at multi-year highs.

However, outflows from the stock market ultimately edged out fiscal concerns, leaving Treasuries modestly higher--and thereby Treasury yields modestly lower--for the week. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished one basis point below the four-year high it touched last Friday at 2.83%.

Meanwhile, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), often referred to as the "investor fear gauge," ended the week higher by 66.7% at 28.86.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors finished the week in the red, with losses ranging between 2.8% (utilities) and 8.5% (energy). In general, cyclical sectors--including the heavily-weighted financial sector (-5.8%)--underperformed their countercyclical peers.

The energy sector struggled as West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 9.5% to $59.23 per barrel--their lowest level since the end of December.

Overseas, equity markets in Asia and Europe finished the week solidly lower, following Wall Street's lead. China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng led the retreat in Asia, dropping 9.5% apiece, while Germany's DAX and France's CAC set the pace in Europe with losses of 5.3% apiece.

The market still anticipates that the next rate hike will occur at the March FOMC meeting as Fed officials minimized this week's sell off, continuing to emphasize a path of gradual rate increases. The CME FedWatch Tool places the chances of a March rate hike at 71.9%, virtually unchanged from last week's 76.1%.

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InvestmentHouse - Dive Lower Provides Shakeout to End First Leg (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- A dive lower after a positive open may have provided the shakeout to end
the first leg lower.
- Fed letting the market find some pricing closer to reality?
- Looking to play the relief move with some familiar names and some very
good patterns that held up during all the selling.

Another day, another 1022 point swing on DJ30. 286 on NASDAQ. 106 on
SP500. Huge swings. Thursday it was high to low. Friday it was high to
way low to way high. As the market finished upside, many were saying that
Friday was THE day the market showed a change. Oversold, reached lower then
surged. Big volume on the rebound.

Yeah, sure. Heard that Tuesday and look what happened. But there were
differences Tuesday was not the ideal reversal day: it never had that real
selloff. It was down pre-market but was recovering and did so from the
opening bell. There was not that purge. Friday was better: an upside start
after an ugly selloff gave hope. Then it was dashed when the gains were
replaced by big losses. On top of that, the indices were just lower,
undercutting the prior lows and reversed on massive volume. THE reversal?
Very well could be . . . for this leg of the selloff.

JPM came out with an afternoon note stating the selling was just about done.
That helped act as the trigger and stocks surged into the close. Gains that
were turned to losses turned to gains once more. Maybe the day marked the
end of the volatility, but it was certainly a volatile day. And again, if
it did mark the end, it is the end for THIS leg, likely not the ultimate
bottom in this selling event.

SP500 38.55, 1.49%
NASDAQ 97.33, 1.44%
DJ30 330.44, 1.38%
SP400 1.09%
RUTX 0.96%
SOX 3.05%
NASDAQ 100 1.69%


NEWS/ECONOMY

Not a lot of news. The government shut down at midnight but an early
morning deal opened it right back up. AMZN announced its own shipping
service to take on FDX and UPS.

Earnings continued with mostly beats, but even stocks beating expectations
did not have an easy go of it. It would appear the market volatility has
overtaken every other story other than perhaps the Fed agreeing to lay down
regarding rate hikes. Even that, however, would not be a market positive.


The Fed: Where does it stand?

Since Bernanke and through Yellen, the Federal Reserve has stood behind a
rallying stock market. Every serious dip was met with the Fed backtracking
on vows to remove stimulus or indeed actual new stimulus.

That has changed, at least on the surface. As Yellen walked out the door,
seat still warm, she threw out for discussion that yes, equities and real
estate values were 'high.' A week ago, at the start of the selling, Kaplan
said that 3 rate hikes were the base case and likely more could come if
economics were strong. Kaplan reiterated his position Thursday.

Also Thursday, Mr. Dudley referred to the stock market selloff as 'small
potatoes' and opined the economy would continue to grow above pace. With
that, Dudley believes the Fed "is going to have to continue to remove
monetary policy accommodation."

Thus it appears the Fed is bound to continue hiking rates, and if the
economic data is right, it should. It has been behind the curve as always.
The fear of markets, of course, is the Fed panics, overreacts, and again
affects a market breakdown the presages an economic fall from expansion and
prosperity to more stagnation. Heck, we just got out of 10 years of that.
Don't send us back, please.

Nonetheless, the Fed, for now, is sticking to its path of 3 or more rate
hikes in 2018. It must. Can you imagine if the Fed came out otherwise? At
first the market pops upside but then panic sets in as to why the Fed
panicked.

Given that, the market drop as Yellen walks out and as Powell takes over is
perfect for Powell. If the market continues falling he can cite changed
circumstances. For now he sticks to the plan already in place, and if the
market does bottom as it should, then everyone concludes he is wise and
restrained. Confidence follows, and then good things, good things. Nothing
can go wrong, right?

The point: The market actually has a chance to go to real price discovery
versus Fed put pricing. In other words, there is no guarantee of a Fed step
in. That means looking for typical market moves as outlined the past week
for this correction.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

On the lows some important levels were touched. SP500 sold to tap the 200
day SMA, passing the 78% Fibonacci retracement along the way. Then a sharp
rebound to the 61% retracement. DJ30 did not get that far, undercutting the
61% Fibonacci retracement then rebounding to close much higher. NASDAQ
touched close to its 200 day and it held right at the 78% retracement and
shot back upside. All show doij with long tail, a reversal indication.

RUTX and SP400 undercut their 200 day MA's and then snapped back to show
nice doji with tail over that level on the close. That kept RUTX over the
200 day and the November low. SP400 ditto.

SOX gapped higher sold to undercut the Thursday low, also undercutting the
December low. Then a surge back up to close well above both. Hmm. Looks
as if the neckline to a head and shoulders is set, and now you watch SOX'
rebound to see if it stalls at 1350ish and rolls back over. That, however,
is the move after the next, not the next move that is a rebound back up to
test that 1350 level.

It is a pretty decent bet to surmise the Friday low is the low of the first
leg. It is not a proven fact, but it is a good support level with good
extreme internals that suggest a high probability of a rebound that lasts
more than a day and a half. It is not THE bottom, but one that supports a
relief bounce that sets up THE bottom or at least a try at THE bottom after
the coming relief move stalls and falls to test the Friday low.

That said, we didn't buy the rebound. Really thought about it, but opted to
wait and see if stocks can hold Monday. A soft open met with buying is a
great entry point for the relief rally back up to test somewhere below the
highs from late January. That is the tradable move we are looking at this
weekend with plays. We get in, ride it, take the gains when the move starts
to sputter after a good week or so, then look to play the test downside to
or below the Friday low. Same play book as before, just starting from a
lower level after a deeper test.



LEADERSHIP

One of the only groups that used the selling it its benefit is the
drug/biotech areas, and even in that group the large cap stocks were
murdered while the mid and smaller versions are using the selling to set up
new patterns and entries.

FAANG is not bad either in some instances, plus the fact that people such as
Cramer and others are touting the group to buy on this dip. Whatever, if it
works for us.

Everything else is something of a wildcard. Heavy selling broke many
patterns and frankly if the market is going to bounce then sell off again,
you want to focus on a handful of stocks that can make you money. For us
that means good patterns and decent patterns in stocks people love to buy
when they are sold off.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +330.44 points (+1.38%) to close at 24190.90

Nasdaq
Stats: +97.33 points (+1.44%) to close at 6874.49
Volume: 3.16B (+16.18%)

Up Volume: 2.04B (+1.677B)
Down Volume: 1.09B (-1.25B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.36 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 5.58 to 1

New Highs: 20 (-12)
New Lows: 264 (+114)

S&P
Stats: +38.55 points (+1.49%) to close at 2619.55
NYSE Volume: 1.3B (+8.33%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.45 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 7.84 to 1

New Highs: 9 (-7)
New Lows: 356 (+149)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 33.46; +5.73. Up, but not soaring and did not take out the prior
high from Tuesday, not even close. Indeed, it is lower than Monday.
Something strange there.
VXN: 33.89; +9.16
VXO: 32.36; +11.36

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.14; +0.23. First spike over 1.0 in a long time.
Finally shaking the tree of those upside buyers.


Bulls and Bears: From highs and lows greater than the prior 30+ years,
bulls tumbled over 10 points and bears jumped 3 points -- major moves.
Okay, so the damage has been done.

Bulls: 54.4 versus 66.00

Bears: 15.5 versus 12.6

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 54.4 versus 66.00
66.00 versus 64.7 versus 66.7 versus 64.4 versus 61.9 versus 64.1 versus
64.2 versus 62.3 versus 61.5 versus 63.5 versus 64.4 versus 63.5 versus 62.3
versus 60.6 versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1
versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0
versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5
versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7
versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5
versus 56.7 versus 53.4 versus 57.7 versus 63.1 versus 61.2 versus 61.8
versus 62.7 versus 61.8 versus 58.2 versus 60.6 versus 58.6 versus 60.2
versus 59.8 versus 59.8 versus 59.6 versus 58.8 versus 56.3 versus 55.6
versus 51.0 versus 42.9 versus 41.7 versus 47.1 versus 42.9

Bears: 15.5 versus 12.6
12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2
versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4
versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0
versus 20.2 versus 19.1 versus 19.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.0
versus 16.2 versus 16.5 versus 16.7 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6
versus 18.3 versus 19.2 versus 18.3 versus 17.1 versus 17.3 versus 17.9
versus 17.9 versus 18.3 versus 17.5 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 17.3
versus 13.75 versus 17.3 versus 16.5 versus 17.5 versus 17.6 versus 16.7
versus 17.6 versus 17.5 versus 17.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.4 versus 19.6
versus 19.6 versus 19.2 versus 19.6 versus 22.3 versus 21.6 versus 23.5
versus 25.7 versus 24.3 versus 23.1 versus 23.8 versus 23.1 versus 22.8
versus 23.1 versus 24.3


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.8577% versus 2.844%. Bond selloff below the 10 day EMA continues.
Looks like a downtrend that will test the late 2016, early 2017 double
bottom near 116.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.844%
versus 2.813% versus 2.805% versus 2.707% versus 2.841% versus 2.792% versus
2.713% versus 2.72% versus 2.72% versus 2.66% versus 2.66% versus 2.639%
versus 2.617% versus 2.656% versus 2.661% versus 2.618% versus 2.587% versus
2.535% versus 2.55% versus 2.559% versus 2.551% versus 2.482% versus 2.456%
versus 2.463% versus 2.464% versus 2.405% versus 2.434% versus 2.412% versus
2.474% versus 2.485% versus 2.484% versus 2.501% versus 2.459% versus 2.398%
versus 2.351%


EUR/USD: 1.22524 versus 1.2273. Dollar rallied and pushed EUR to the 50
day MA but showing a pair of doji and ready to rebound against the dollar.

Historical: 1.2273 versus 1.2377 versus 1.24573 versus 1.2502 versus 1.2404
versus 1.2402 versus 1.23832 versus 1.24308 versus 1.24159 versus 1.24340
versus 1.23083 versus 1.22567 versus 1.22169 versus 1.2241 versus 1.2198
versus 1.22698 versus 1.22060 versus 1.20608 versus 1.19507 versus 1.19322
versus 1.19662 versus 1.20313 versus 1.20756 versus 1.20177 versus 1.20573
versus 1.2001 versus 1.1936 versus 1.1936 versus 1.18998 versus 1.18593
versus 1.18628 versus 1.18658 versus 1.18792 versus 1.18408 versus 1.17703
versus 1.1752 versus 1.17798 versus 1.18392 versus 1.17430 versus 1.17652
versus 1.1764 versus 1.17754 versus 1.17990 versus 1.18276 versus 1.18727
versus 1.18983 versus 1.18976 versus 1.18529 versus 1.18489 versus 1.1899
versus 1.19329 versus 1.18148 versus 1.17402 versus 1.1791 versus 1.1787
versus 1.1786 versus 1.1799 versus 1.16443 versus 1.16646 versus 1.16439
versus 1.15871


USD/JPY: 108.797 versus 108.88. Dollar trying to set up a short double
bottom to bounce.

Historical: 108.88 versus 109.33 versus 109.58 versus 108.651 versus
110.001 versus 109.46 versus 109.50 versus 108.77 versus 108.84 versus
108.601 versus 109.411 versus 109.033 versus 110.159 versus 110.159 versus
110.70 versus 110.834 versus 111.036 versus 111.290 versus 110.357 versus
111.024 versus 111.204 versus 111.534 versus 112.706 versus 113.15 versus
113.58 versus 112.749 versus 112.677 versus 112.27 versus 112.690 versus
112.758 versus 113.216 versus 113.208 versus 113.304 versus 113.363 versus
113.334 versus 112.870 versus 112.625 versus 112.619 versus 112.298 versus
112.639 versus 113.555 versus 113.476 versus 113.48 versus 113.473 versus
112.473 versus 112.554 versus 112.442 versus 112.190 versus 112.55 versus
112.102 versus 111.583 versus 111.244


Oil: 59.20, -1.95. Oil gaps below the 50 day MA as the selloff continues
after hitting that recovery high to end January.


Gold: 1315.70, -3.30. Still holding the 50 day EMA after dropping to that
level Wednesday. Important test for this upside move in gold.



SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 6874.49

Resistance:
6914 is the late November all-time high
6918 - 6980 are price points from November/December 2017
The 50 day EMA at 7081
7240, the upper gap point from early February 2018
7506 is the January 2018 all-time high
7300 from a modest mid-January consolidation


Support:
6796 is the early November 2017
6641 is the October high
The 200 day SMA at 6557
6477 is the September intraday high
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high
6450 is the early September high
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6205 is the late May all-time high
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows


S&P 500: Closed at 2619.55

Resistance:
2694 is the mid-December peak
The 50 day EMA at 2713
2751 from early January 2018
2808 from the mid-January consolidation. Some support, not that strong.
2850 from a January 2018 gap point
2873 is the January all-time high

Support:
2597 is the November 2017 high
2569 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel
The 200 day SMA at 2539
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the May 2017 low


Dow: Closed at 24,190.90

Resistance:
24,835 is the mid-December consolidation range
The 50 day EMA at 25,003
26,000 from mid-January consolidation
26,439 is a gap point from the January high
January 2018 all-time high 26,617

Support:
23,602 is the early November 2017 high
23,608 is the early November high
The 200 day SMA at 22,794
22,420 is the September high
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high

End part 1 of 3

[ReturntoSender]

Trimming Last Week's Losses
12-Feb-18 16:20 ET
Dow +410.37 at 24601.27, Nasdaq +107.47 at 6981.96, S&P +36.45 at 2656.00

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/12/trimming-last-weeks-losses.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities quietly reclaimed a nice chunk of last week's losses on Monday, with the Dow climbing 1.7%, the Nasdaq rising 1.6%, and the S&P 500 adding 1.4%.

There was some of last week's volatility at the opening bell, but stocks spent the majority of the day in a steady ascension. A modest sell off in the late afternoon left the major stock indices a step below their session highs. At its best mark of the day, the S&P 500 was up 2.0%.

Each of the S&P 500's 11 sectors advanced on Monday, with 8 adding at least 1.0%.

The materials (+2.1%) and technology (+1.8%) sectors were the strongest groups, while the telecom services (+0.8%), utilities (+0.8%), and real estate (+0.3%) sectors were the weakest.

Within the tech space, Apple (AAPL 162.71, +6.30) showed particular strength, jumping 4.0%, and CSRA (CSRA 40.39, +9.57) spiked 31.1% after agreeing to be acquired by General Dynamics (GD 209.53, -2.57) for approximately $9.6 billion, or $40.75 per share, in cash--which is a 32.2% premium over Friday's closing price.

It's also worth mentioning that Qualcomm (QCOM 65.66, +1.67) and Broadcom (AVGO 244.40, +8.90) are scheduled to meet on Wednesday to discuss a possible merger, which Broadcom says it has committed financing for. The two companies climbed 2.6% and 3.8% on Monday, respectively.

The energy sector (+1.7%) led for much of the day, but weakened in the afternoon as the price of crude oil came down from its session high. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up around 2.5% at their best mark of the day, but finished higher by just 0.2% at $59.30 per barrel. Still, the modest gain broke a six-session losing streak for the commodity.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries were under pressure on Monday, pushing yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed three basis points to 2.86%, closing at a fresh four-year high, while the 2-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.07%.

In Washington, the White House released its infrastructure spending plan and its 2019 budget proposal on Monday morning.

The infrastructure plan calls for $200 billion in federal spending, which will be used as seed money to spur additional spending by state and local governments. The White House projects the plan would generate at least $1.5 trillion in total spending over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, the budget proposal calls for $4.4 trillion of spending, but it's highly unlikely to make it through Congress, which passed a bipartisan deal last week.

Monday's lone economic report--the Treasury Budget for January--showed a surplus of $49.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus $51.0 billion) versus a surplus of $51.3 billion for January 2017. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the January surplus cannot be compared to the $23.2 billion deficit registered in December.

Nasdaq Composite: +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.5% YTD
S&P 500: -0.7% YTD
Russell 2000: -2.9% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Winning Streak Continues Ahead of CPI Release
13-Feb-18 16:10 ET
Dow +39.18 at 24640.45, Nasdaq +31.55 at 7013.51, S&P +6.94 at 2662.94

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/13/winning-streak-continues-ahead-of-cpi-release.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities overcame early weakness on Tuesday to push the major indices higher for the third session in a row.

The Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.5%, the S&P 500 rose 0.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%, settling near their session highs. The three indices held losses of around 0.7% apiece at the opening bell, but slowly began moving back towards their flat lines, hitting positive territory in the early afternoon.

Nine of eleven S&P 500 sectors settled in positive territory, with financials (+0.5%), consumer discretionary (+0.5%), and real estate (+0.6%) being the top performers. Energy (-0.5%) and materials (-0.3%) were the two declining sectors, and health care (+0.1%) also showed relative weakness.

Within the consumer discretionary space, Under Armour (UAA 16.70, +2.47) rallied 17.4%, hitting its best level since late October, after reporting better-than-expected sales for the fourth quarter. Internet retail giant Amazon (AMZN 1414.51, +28.28) also helped the consumer discretionary sector, climbing 2.0%.

Meanwhile, in the health care space, AmerisourceBergen (ABC 97.77, +8.32) spiked 9.3% following a Wall Street Journal report that Walgreens Boot Alliance (WBA 68.29, -0.17) has reached out to the drug distributor about a potential takeover.

In the bond market, Treasuries finished Tuesday mostly higher, although the 2-yr note declined. The benchmark 10-yr yield slipped three basis points to 2.83% after settling Monday at a four-year high, while the 2-yr yield rose two basis points to 2.09%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Elsewhere, West Texas Intermediate crude futures slipped 0.2% to $59.19 per barrel, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) declined around one point, or 2.3%, to 25.02, and the U.S. dollar tumbled 0.5% against the euro (1.2357) and 0.8% against the Japanese yen (107.82).

Tuesday's lone economic report--the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for January--rose to 106.9 from 104.9 in December.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 AM ET, the Consumer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), the core Consumer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) for January at 8:30 AM ET, and Business Inventories for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) at 10:00 AM ET.

Emphasis will be placed on the core Consumer Price Index as a hotter-than-expected reading could prompt inflation/rate hike concerns.

Nasdaq Composite: +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.3% YTD
S&P 500: -0.4% YTD
Russell 2000: -2.7% YTD

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Wall Street Takes Inflation Data In Stride; Advances for Fourth Session in a Row
14-Feb-18 16:25 ET
Dow +253.04 at 24893.49, Nasdaq +130.10 at 7143.61, S&P +35.69 at 2698.63

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/14/wall-street-takes-inflation-data-in-stride-advances-for-fourth-session-in-a-row.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities advanced for a fourth consecutive session on Wednesday, overcoming a hotter-than-expected January CPI reading. The Nasdaq Composite led the rally, adding 1.9%, followed by the S&P 500 (+1.3%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.0%), both of which returned to positive territory for the year. The Russell 2000 added 1.8%.

The S&P 500 futures were up modestly in overnight trading, but dove more than 1.0% below fair value following the release of the Consumer Price Index for January, which prompted fears that inflation is picking up: total CPI increased 0.5% month over month (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).

However, the market bounced back after investors had time to further digest the report, which, on a year-over-year basis, wasn't all that alarming: total CPI and core CPI are up 2.1% and 1.8% year over year, respectively, which is in line with where they've been for months.

The major stock indices opened with losses between 0.2% and 0.6%, but quickly bounced into positive territory. Stocks really started taking off at around noon ET and never looked back, with the Nasdaq, the S&P 500, and the Dow each closing near their best marks of the day.

Cyclical sectors like financials (+2.3%), technology (+2.0%), consumer discretionary (+1.6%), industrials (+1.2%), energy (+1.4%), and materials (+1.3%) led the charge, indicating that investors grew more comfortable with the inflation data, which is ultimately consistent with a growing economy and increased corporate earnings.

The countercyclical health care space (+1.1%) also outperformed, but the consumer staples (-0.1%), utilities (-1.2%), telecom services (-0.7%), and real estate (-0.6%) groups lagged.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries were weak ahead of the release of Wednesday's economic data--which also included a disappointing Retail Sales report for January (-0.3% actual vs +0.2% Briefing.com consensus)--and extended their losses in the aftermath, pushing yields higher across the curve. The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed eight basis points to 2.91%, which marks its highest level in more than four years.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.8% to 88.88 as the greenback gave up ground against the euro (1.2459), the British pound (1.4007), and the Japanese yen (106.97). The dollar/yen pair fell 0.8%, hitting its lowest level since November 2016.

Dollar weakness helped commodities, including crude oil; West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 2.3% to $60.57 per barrel. On a related note, the Department of Energy reported that U.S. crude inventories rose by 1.8 million barrels last week, which was roughly in line with estimates.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a big batch of economic data on Thursday. The Producer Price Index for January (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), Industrial Production for January (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and Capacity Utilization for January (Briefing.com consensus 78.0%) are the most notable reports on the docket, but see Briefing.com's Economic Calendar for a full list.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.5% YTD
S&P 500: +0.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.7% YTD
Russell 2000: -0.9% YTD

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S&P 500 Crosses 50-Day MA as Stocks Climb for Fifth Consecutive Session
15-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow +306.88 at 25200.37, Nasdaq +112.81 at 7256.42, S&P +32.57 at 2731.20

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/15/s-and-p-500-crosses-50day-ma-as-stocks-climb-for-fifth-consecutive-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks cruised to their fifth consecutive victory on Thursday, pushing the S&P 500 above its 50-day simple moving average (2722.93) for the first time since last week's big sell off. The S&P 500 finished with a gain of 1.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.6% and 1.2%, respectively.

After a failed attempt to crack its 50-day simple moving average at the opening bell, the S&P 500 finally managed to break through in the early afternoon and continued climbing from there. The benchmark index approached the key technical level from the other side shortly before the closing bell, but, this time, it proved to be a level of support.

The major averages finished Thursday at their best marks of the day. At their lows, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the Dow were down around 0.3% apiece.

Investors received a large batch of economic data on Thursday, highlighted by the Producer Price Index for January. The PPI reading came in as expected, showing a month-over-month increase of 0.4%, while the core PPI reading, which excludes food and energy, rose more than expected, jumping 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). The key takeaway from the report is that producer prices are rising, which will feed the Treasury market's concerns about a pass through to consumers.

U.S. Treasuries settled Thursday mostly higher, pulling the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note down from a four-year high; the 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.89%. The 10-yr yield traded at around 2.94% in pre-market action, but began losing ground even before the release of the aforementioned economic data. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield finished higher by one basis point at 2.18%, which is its highest level in nearly a decade.

On Wall Street, 10 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in positive territory with technology (+1.9%), industrials (+1.5%), consumer staples (+1.6%), utilities (+2.1%), and telecom services (+1.4%) leading the charge. The energy sector (-0.4%) was the lone laggard, even though WTI crude futures climbed 1.3% to $61.39 per barrel.

Within the tech space, Cisco Systems (CSCO 44.08, +1.99) rallied 4.7% to its best level in nearly 20 years after reporting better-than-expected profits for the previous quarter and raising its earnings and revenue guidance for the current quarter. Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL 172.99, +5.62) climbed 3.4%, crossing its 50-day simple moving average for the first time in three weeks.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the dollar against a basket of other currencies, returned to the three-year low it hit earlier this month, dropping 0.5% to 88.51. The greenback lost 0.4% against the euro (1.2497), 0.7% against the British pound (1.4091), and 0.8% against the Japanese yen (106.16).

Reviewing Thursday's big batch of economic data, which included the Producer Price Index for January, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for January, weekly Initial Claims, the Empire Manufacturing Survey for February, the Philadelphia Fed Survey for February, and the NAHB Housing Market Index for February:

Producer prices rose 0.4% in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and core producer prices increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, producer prices are up 2.7% and core producer prices have risen 2.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that producer prices are rising, which will feed the Treasury market's concerns about a pass through to consumers.
Industrial Production decreased 0.1% in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), while the December reading was revised to +0.4% (from +0.9%). Capacity Utilization ticked down to 77.5% (Briefing.com consensus 78.0%) from a revised reading of 77.7% in December (from 77.9%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the downturn was driven entirely by mining output (-1.0%), although it is notable that manufacturing output was unchanged for the second consecutive month.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 230,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 227,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 223,000 (from 221,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.942 million from a revised count of 1.927 million (from 1.923 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the low level of initial claims is a reflection of a tight labor market and a period of increased demand when employers are reluctant to cut staff.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for February declined to 13.1 (Briefing.com consensus 19.0) from the prior month's unrevised reading of 17.7.
Manufacturing activity in the New York Fed region is still in expansion mode, but the key takeaway is that the prices paid index is at its highest level in nearly six years.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for February increased to 25.8 (Briefing.com consensus 22.0) from an unrevised 22.2 in January.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia Fed region has accelerated, with cost pressures being reported as more widespread.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for February came in at 72 (Briefing.com consensus 73), unchanged from January.

On Friday, investors will receive another big batch of data, including Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1240K) and Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1300K) for January, Import and Export Prices for January, and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February (Briefing.com consensus 95.5). The first four pieces of data will be released at 8:30 AM ET, while the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index will cross the wires at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +5.1% YTD
S&P 500: +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.0% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.1% YTD

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Flat on Friday
16-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow +19.01 at 25219.38, Nasdaq -16.96 at 7239.47, S&P +1.02 at 2732.22

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/16/flat-on-friday.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks kept their weekly gains intact ahead of the extended Presidents' day weekend, finishing Friday's session little changed.

The S&P 500 (unch) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) eked out their sixth consecutive victories, while the Nasdaq Composite underperformed, finishing lower by 0.2%. For the week, the three major stock indices settled with gains between 4.3% and 5.3%.

Equities rose steadily throughout the morning, but reversed course in the early afternoon following news that a federal grand jury has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities on accusations of interference in the 2016 presidential election. Some of those defendants allegedly communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign.

Trading was choppy following the headline, which, more than anything, gave investors a convenient excuse to pull back following five straight days of gains.

Six of eleven S&P 500 sectors finished Friday in the green, with the heavily-weighted health care group (+0.7%) being among the top performers. In general, countercyclical sectors outperformed their cyclical peers on Friday after trailing them throughout the week. The consumer discretionary (-0.4%), energy (-0.3%), and technology (-0.2%) sectors were among the worst-performing groups.

Steel and aluminum names rallied after the U.S. Department of Commerce recommended imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. U.S. Steel (X 44.75, +5.76) and AK Steel (AKS 5.96, +0.72) spiked 14.8% and 13.7%, respectively, while Nucor (NUE 68.54, +2.96) and Steel Dynamics (STLD 49.40, +2.26) added around 4.5% apiece.

In earnings news, Coca-Cola (KO 44.98, +0.20) and Deere (DE 169.44, +2.63) added 0.5% and 1.6%, respectively, after reporting their fourth quarter results. Both companies beat earnings estimates, but revenues were mixed; Coca-Cola reported better-than-expected revenues, while Deere's revenues came in below consensus.

Conversely, Kraft Heinz (KHC 70.80, -1.91) lost 2.6% after missing Q4 profit estimates.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended the week on a flat note. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped one basis point to 2.88%, while the 2-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.19%. For the week, the 10-yr yield added two basis points, and the 2-yr yield jumped 12 basis points.

Reviewing Friday's batch of economic data, which included Housing Starts and Building Permits for January, Import and Export Prices for January, and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February:

Housing starts increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.326 million units in January (Briefing.com consensus 1.240 million), up from a revised 1.209 million units in December (from 1.192 million). Building permits increased to a seasonally adjusted 1.396 million in January (Briefing.com consensus 1.300 million) from a revised 1.300 million in December (from 1.302 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it points to more supply coming to a housing market that is in desperate need of single-family supply. At the same time, this report provides a positive input for Q1 GDP as the number of units under construction in January (1.120 million) was 1.5% above the fourth quarter average.
Import prices excluding oil rose 0.4% in January after decreasing an unrevised 0.1% in December. Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.9% in January after rising a revised 0.1% in December from (0.0%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it will continue to feed into the market's budding inflation expectations.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February rose to 99.9 (Briefing.com consensus 95.5) from 95.7 in January.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer sentiment wasn't dented by the stock market volatility. Rather, the improved sentiment reading was attributed to optimism over government policies, improved financial conditions, and expectations for larger income gains in the year ahead.

Markets will be closed on Monday in observance of Presidents' Day.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.9% YTD
S&P 500: +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.0% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.5% YTD

Week In Review: Bouncing Back

The equity market rallied this week, reclaiming about half of the losses it registered over the previous two weeks. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 5.3% as technology shares outperformed, while the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 4.3% apiece. The S&P 500 and the Dow ended Friday on a six-session winning streak.

This week's gains put the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the Dow back into the green for the year and back above their respective 50-day simple moving averages. They're still a ways below record territory, however, settling Friday about 5.0% beneath the record highs they posted on January 26.

11 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finished the week in positive territory, with gains ranging between 1.8% and 5.8%. The top-weighted technology group (+5.8%) was the strongest sector, while the energy (+1.9%), utilities (+2.9%), telecom services (+2.4%), and real estate (+1.8%) groups were the weakest.

In general, cyclical sectors, which tend to do well when the economic outlook is favorable, outperformed their countercyclical peers.

Within the tech group, Apple (AAPL), surged 10.2% this week, reclaiming most of the 13.5% it lost between January 18 and February 8, and Cisco Systems (CSCO) rallied 4.7% on Thursday--hitting its best level in nearly 20 years--after reporting better-than-expected profits for the quarter ending in January and raising its earnings and revenue guidance.

Investors received a big batch of economic data this week, highlighted by a hotter-than-expected CPI reading: the Consumer Price Index increased 0.5% month over month in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and the core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose by 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). The headline month-over-month figures sparked a knee-jerk reaction from the market, which has been fighting fears of inflation--and, in turn, fears of a more hawkish Fed--in recent weeks.

However, the year-over-year figures helped restore order and keep the week's upward trajectory intact, showing that both the CPI and the core CPI are still within a range they've held to for some time; the total CPI is up 2.1% year over year and has been between 2.0% and 2.2% for five months, while the core CPI is up 1.8% year over year and has been between 1.7% and 1.9% for ten months.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed to a four-year high on Wednesday following the CPI release, closing at 2.91%, but gave up some ground on Thursday and Friday to finish the week little changed at 2.88%. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield climbed 12 basis points this week, closing at 2.19%--its highest level in nearly a decade.

Meanwhile, in the currency market, the U.S. Dollar Index returned to a three-year low on Thursday (88.50), but bounced back a bit on Friday to finish the week with a loss of 1.4%. The greenback showed particular weakness against the Japanese yen, dropping 2.4% to 106.22, which is its lowest level since November 2016.

In Washington, the White House released its infrastructure plan on Monday, which is designed to stimulate $1.5 trillion in spending over a decade.

U.S. markets will be closed on Monday in observance of Presidents' Day.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - Gold is Up on Excess Spending (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Market moves from low to high, but then back to low.
- Indices show tombstone doji at key levels, many leading stocks do the
same.
- Still some leadership groups look very good, but have to be aware of the
levels being tested and the history of these kind of moves.
- Gold is up on excess spending, and the ideas for raising more revenue are
stupid.
- Being ready for all scenarios gives you the confidence to make your plays.

Was it just expiration and the 3-day weekend (Washington's Birthday; I am
old school in the holiday names)? Or was it 6 days straight up off of and
including the prior Friday reversal? How about the indices bumping what we
considered resistance for this relief bounce? All of the above?

Friday produced another back and forth session. Futures were higher with
DJ30 100+ to the upside, but by the open the gains turned to losses. But at
the open, stocks turned and surged right back up into midday, posting really
nice gains: SP500 +23, NASDAQ +46, DJ +232. That was it. The bids ended,
sellers took over and the gains were given back lock, stock, and barrel by
the afternoon session. Stocks spent the balance of the day trading back and
forth, the indices ending mixed, reflecting that lack of drive.

SP500 1.02, 0.04%
NASDAQ -16.96, -0.23%
DJ30 19.01, 0.08%
SP400 0.22%
RUTX 0.41%
SOX -0.35%
NASDAQ 100 -0.36%

VOLUME: NYSE +9%, NASDAQ -4%. Modestly above average volume on NYSE showing
some churn given the doji. NASDAQ average trade shows no kick up in the
selling. If it had surged, then that would have been bad.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE 1.4:1, NASDAQ 1.4:1.

Relatively innocuous closes on the day, but the details are very telling,
suggesting the relief move could have topped out.

CHARTS

All of the indices rallied higher and touched or came very close to the
levels we see as very likely peaks for the relief move that then turns back
to test the recent low. A bit too fast getting there, and they may bump at
these levels a bit more before giving up, but it is what it is. They all
showed tombstone doji on the session, and after a furious reversal the prior
Friday and a 6 session surge, that strongly suggests the relief move is
capping out. At the very minimum is suggests a pause. Given the market
circumstances, I would not assume a pause.

SP500: We pegged 2740 to 2750 (61% Fibonacci retracement at 2743) as
resistance with 7262 (upper gap point from early February) as the outside
high. SP500 moved past the midpoint in that gap zone Friday, also moving
past the 61% retracement (2754.42 intraday high). It then reversed to a
tombstone doji. As noted, after such a surge and in this kind of market
with that huge selloff, this suggests a reflex move is at or near its end.

NASDAQ: The same action, just different levels. NASDAQ filled the second
gap lower from early February (the big gap) and moved to 7303, the point of
a small price consolidation in mid-January. Didn't make 7317 (78% Fibonacci
retracement), but it made a game shot at it. After that rise, however,
NASDAQ tossed it back, closing with a tight tombstone doji. After a furious
670 points in 6 sessions recovering from a huge selloff, NASDAQ retraced 70%
of the move and indicates the relief rally is on the edge of the knife.

DJ30: The Dow rallied up to and through the 61% Fibonacci retracement,
hitting 25,432 at the high. That moved DJ30 into the gap down zone from
early February, but it was unable to make it to the upper gap. BTW, the gap
was filled the day after the gap as DJ30 moved higher to test that selloff
only to roll over and sell massively that session. Thus, the gap is filled
and with DJ30 showing a tombstone along with every other index on Friday, it
looks as if the Dow has hit our targets for the relief move and that move
now risks falling back to test that prior low.

SP400: The midcaps moved up to tap at the 50 day MA and the 61% Fibonacci
retracement, the levels we pegged for it, and backed off half the move. Not
the tight doji of the large cap indices, but the midcaps have followed the
lead of the large caps all the way.

RUTX: Moved through the 50 day MA's the coincident 61% Fibonacci
retracement, and the November peak. It then turned back with the other
indices. As with SP400, not a tight doji, just hitting the resistance we
cited for it and then fading the move to a still solid session gain. Bigger
picture, however, it has rallied off a massive selloff, retracing over 60%
of the move, but running into key resistance with a pattern that suggests a
turn back down.

SOX: SOX continued its relief move, moving through the 61% Fibonacci
retracement with some authority, but before it got to the November peak at
1342, it pulled up short (1334) and reversed to a loss and a tight tombstone
doji. That is close enough to be concerned that the relief move is ending,
especially given the action in the other indices. With the patterns in many
chips, the relief move does appear in jeopardy.


LEADERSHIP

If you look at the big names that led the relief move as well as many of the
stocks that rallied from fractured patterns, you see action very similar to
the indices. Many big names are very close to pre-selloff highs; sure they
can always pause and continue, but you have to look at the probabilities
taking into consideration not only this recovery, but the bigger picture of
how the market moves. That suggests the nice rally is peaking and a test of
the prior lows is coming.

Still, you cannot discount good moves such as WMT and retail in general that
still shows good setups and strength. Or biotech with stocks such as IMGN,
BLUE still surging from good setups with more in the sector in great
position. Industrial metals are strong.

FAANG: FB jumped midweek with a strong move but could not follow through.
AAPL was a tiger upside into Thursday, but hit the prior trading range and
showed a doji. AMZN rallied to just below the prior highs and tossed a
doji. NFLX surged through Thursday, then showed a tight doji Friday just
below the late January peak. GOOG moved through the 50 day MA's, then faded
off the high. Not bad, but GOOG has lagged all of FAANG and look at the
putrid volume on the way up. At least AMZN and NFLX put in some above
average volume on the advance.

Semiconductors: A few well-positioned (ENPH, MU, QRVO), but most bounced
and look to be running out of bounce road. You have those bouncing for
ruptured patterns (LRCX, KLAC) or sporting head and shoulders or other
topping patterns, e.g. LSI, SLAB, MLNX (yes, we did not have the guts to
hold it). Even NDVA could put in a near term top and test back with the
double top it is showing.

Industrial/Machinery: MMM bounced on low volume the past 1.5 weeks. CAT
looked good on its bounce, but Friday it gapped higher and then sold on the
strongest trade in a week. DE still trying to break higher on good
earnings, but it reversed from a new high. If it fails at the January high,
it has a double top and can fall hard as good news did not hold a good
break.

Software: With an exception or two, definitely soft. RHT posted a super
week. BLKB was up. FFIV looks as if it is topping out with a double top.
VMW is struggling below the 50 day. TTWO ditto. Just lost a lot of pop.

China: Since fading 3 weeks back this group has done nothing. Only BZUN and
perhaps HTHT look decent. BABA struggling, BIDU bounced but has to show
more. Ditto SINA. NTES, SOHU in the toilet.

Drugs/Biotech: Still solid. Lots of good patterns. ARRY is great. IMGN
surging. BLUE moving higher. MNKD, IPXL, CERS quite solid.

Metals: Strong. SCHN, STLD, CENX, AKS. SID still looks interesting.

Retail: WMT had a great Friday. Most other retailers took Friday off after
a solid week. TGT, BBY, DDS, TLRD.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +19.01 points (+0.08%) to close at 25219.38

Nasdaq
Stats: -16.96 points (-0.23%) to close at 7239.47
Volume: 2.03B (-4.25%)

Up Volume: 925.39M (-644.61M)
Down Volume: 1.06B (+536.34M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.34 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.25 to 1

New Highs: 86 (+6)
New Lows: 30 (-22)

S&P
Stats: +1.02 points (+0.04%) to close at 2732.22
NYSE Volume: 900M (+9.25%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.43 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.24 to 1

New Highs: 78 (+9)
New Lows: 28 (-20)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 19.46; +0.33
VXN: 20.46; -0.39
VXO: 17.38; +0.12

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.93; +0.01. Elevated all week as the market
rallied. What will be funny is how they all closed downside positions just
as the rebound move peaks.


Bulls and Bears: Not as dramatic a bull drop but significant. 12 points
the prior week, 2.5 the past week. Bears bumped higher off 30 year lows two
weeks back, faded just a bit the week after.

Bulls: 51.9 versus 54.4

Bears: 14.4 versus 15.5

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 51.9 versus 54.4
54.4 versus 66.00 versus 64.7 versus 66.7 versus 64.4 versus 61.9 versus
64.1 versus 64.2 versus 62.3 versus 61.5 versus 63.5 versus 64.4 versus 63.5
versus 62.3 versus 60.6 versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5
versus 47.1 versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5
versus 60.0 versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9
versus 51.5 versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1
versus 58.7 versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8
versus 49.5

Bears: 14.4 versus 15.5
15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1
versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4
versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1
versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.873% versus 2.904%. Bonds bounced modestly Thursday and Friday,
making it back to kiss the 10 day MA. If they fail here, the downtrend that
has set up is showing a lot of strength.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.904%
versus 2.913% versus 2.833% versus 2.857% versus 2.8577% versus 2.844%
versus 2.813% versus 2.805% versus 2.707% versus 2.841% versus 2.792% versus
2.713% versus 2.72% versus 2.72% versus 2.66% versus 2.66% versus 2.639%
versus 2.617% versus 2.656% versus 2.661% versus 2.618% versus 2.587% versus
2.535% versus 2.55% versus 2.559% versus 2.551% versus 2.482% versus 2.456%
versus 2.463% versus 2.464% versus 2.405% versus 2.434% versus 2.412% versus
2.474% versus 2.485% versus 2.484% versus 2.501% versus 2.459% versus 2.398%
versus 2.351%


EUR/USD: 1.2411 versus 1.25083. After breaking to a higher rally high
Thursday, the euro dropped hard to the 10 day EMA Friday. Will have to see
if that lasts as a reversal from the high.

Historical: 1.25083 versus 1.2450 versus 1.23528 versus 1.22887 versus
1.22524 versus 1.2273 versus 1.2377 versus 1.24573 versus 1.2502 versus
1.2404 versus 1.2402 versus 1.23832 versus 1.24308 versus 1.24159 versus
1.24340 versus 1.23083 versus 1.22567 versus 1.22169 versus 1.2241 versus
1.2198 versus 1.22698 versus 1.22060 versus 1.20608 versus 1.19507 versus
1.19322 versus 1.19662 versus 1.20313 versus 1.20756 versus 1.20177 versus
1.20573 versus 1.2001 versus 1.1936 versus 1.1936 versus 1.18998 versus
1.18593 versus 1.18628 versus 1.18658 versus 1.18792 versus 1.18408 versus
1.17703 versus 1.1752 versus 1.17798 versus 1.18392 versus 1.17430


USD/JPY: 106.294 versus 106.153. Rebounded off the rip lower Tuesday to
Thursday. Entering a range of prices from August to October 2016.

Historical: 106.153 versus 106.782 versus 107.77 versus 108.669 versus
108.669 versus 108.797 versus 108.88 versus 109.33 versus 109.58 versus
108.651 versus 110.001 versus 109.46 versus 109.50 versus 108.77 versus
108.84 versus 108.601 versus 109.411 versus 109.033 versus 110.159 versus
110.159 versus 110.70


Oil: 61.55, +0.38. Rebounded Wednesday to Friday, moving just past the 50
day MA's. Rebounded, but it was a sharp break lower. Key is whether it can
hold the move, rest, then continue higher.


Gold: 1356.20, +0.90. Big surge Wednesday, then flat and lateral into the
weekend. Strong break higher as inflation fears are up given the continued
and accelerated profligate US spending, spending they are thinking saddling
on the average US citizen with a $0.25/gallon gasoline tax.

It is telling that supposedly conservative Fox Business commentators are
calling the idea 'intriguing' instead of saying 'hell no!' We have taxes
that are supposed to pay for infrastructure improvement and maintenance.
Why do we then have 'decaying' infrastructure and need to dramatically hike
taxes to pay for what we were supposedly already taxed for?

I don't have a problem with user fees such as on toll roads (and thus avoid
those 'bridges to nowhere' that everyone pays for but hardly anyone uses),
but a gasoline tax, given the reality of our transportation system that is
individual vehicle based, it is a very cruel tax. Several groups have put
the pencil to paper regarding the impact of such a tax, and the average
impact seen would negate 60% of the tax reform cuts for individuals. But
that is okay for the likes of Senator Corker who didn't want to do anything
at all to individual tax rates, happy to see the Obama tax hikes remain a
yoke around the average citizen's necks. He doesn't have to pay the
Obamacare increased costs; he has his Senate care and will have it until he
dies. How can they say they represent us, understand our problems, when
they are above them and don't have to experience them? Colossal asses.

Here is an idea, we just passed a pro-growth tax reform plan that will,
despite what the democrats, economics ignorant republicans, no longer free
press, and other big government backers say, generate more revenue than
expended. Why not let that work?


TUESDAY

Market is closed Monday for Washington's Birthday, and that could be bad for
US investors and traders. The rest of the world will be open, and it could
be that they get the jump on the US in selling and that could have US stocks
opening lower Tuesday. That is speculation, but it is a possibility.

While the relief move, or whatever you want to call it, still remains intact
as of Friday, the indications are and the history suggests it is ending and
a test of the prior low is coming in the near future.

Therefore we took some gain Friday on several positions, let positions still
working well continue, and if the market hesitates Tuesday, we are going to
close the upside outside of those strong areas such as biotech, and have
downside plays ready to go. Indeed, it may be that even the biotechs,
metals, retail have issues if the rally has run its course and starts the
test of the prior low.

As a refresher, historically when a market peaks and then reverses as
violently as stocks did three weeks back, they rebound over the course of a
few weeks, then fall back down to test the prior low. Often that test
undercuts the prior low and really shakes out the weaker hands that got in
late, bought too high, and don't have the stomach for getting burned again
(as is usually the case because they always come in late). Once they are
gone, the people left are the stronger holders and they use the violent
shakeout to start buying. Then a new rally begins.

That seems so pat, so easy, but even so, the fear and greed combination
works time and time again in history. Many people are talking about it now
as well, jumping on the 'test' bandwagon. Of course late last week many
changed to the 'this new rally is here' chant just in time likely for this
leg to end.

That shows why this works: in the heat of the battle most players, even the
veterans, lose sight of the big picture, what they know to be the likely
scenario. When stocks are getting slaughtered in a sea of red, redemption
requests are surging, and margin calls are peppering the accounts, even the
seasoned traders and managers succumb to their emotions. Their algos read
the headlines and sell, then the managers take over after the initial
selling, but then someone panics again and the downside resumes. The run to
the sea is on.

So, as pat and hackneyed as it appears, these patterns play out again and
again, regardless of our great technology and the confidence we are smarter
this time. I know; you have to fight your emotions all the time and hold to
what the facts show. I am always amazed at some of the bipolar blowhards
that show up on the financial stations. You know who they are. On days
when the market is strong, they are gushing that you should buy everything,
talking about their dogs or anything that pops in between the ears, chiding
those who actually have a plan. On down days, and I have seen it the day
after one of those up days and the talk that the sky is the limit, they are
almost morose, saying the market is just fickle right now, that selling will
come so get your buy list ready. But what? Didn't they just say the day
before to buy everything, that you were a fool for not owning them? This is
what you are up against and you have to see through it. Don't ignore it;
use it to illustrate the kind of emotion that plays in the market and makes
people make emotional decisions.

You will still slip up and make a bonk move from time to time (e.g. closing
the MLNX downside), but that is okay. I allow myself one bonk move as
something of a test case on a potential direction change. I don't mean it
to be a bonk move, it just goes that way. A position starts to break the
wrong way, it is not the end of the session but it is showing some
persistence, so I make the move. Then I see if the move holds and how I
will handle the rest of the positions. If it shook me out, I shake it off.
Bonk move. Flush it. You played your plan without emotion and you can't
let that emotion slip back in if the market then shows you acted too soon.
That happens. Remember when I said patience more often than not rewards
you? It helps to remind yourself of that, particularly in this volatile
market, and that gives you control over your emotions as well.

In any event, the setup in the indices and many stocks warrants prepping for
the possibility the relief move is topping out. Part of containing your
emotions is being prepared mentally and have a plan and plays in hand
tailored to the possible scenarios the market throws at you. See it, act,
play the plan. You will have enough work sticking to the plan, and there is
something empowering about a plan that makes you money and does a solid job
avoiding losing money. It reinforces good behavior and it keeps you from
missing out or worrying about missing out as that is a surefire way to make
emotional blunders that kill your returns.

Have a great weekend!


SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 7239.47

Resistance:
7240, the upper gap point from early February 2018
7506 is the January 2018 all-time high
7300 from a modest mid-January consolidation
7317 is the 78% Fibonacci retracement


Support:
The 50 day EMA at 7090
6918 - 6980 are price points from November/December 2017
6914 is the late November all-time high
6796 is the early November 2017
6641 is the October high
6630 is the February 2018 selloff intraday low
The 200 day SMA at 6583
6477 is the September intraday high
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high
6450 is the early September high
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6205 is the late May all-time high
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows


S&P 500: Closed at 2732.22

Resistance:
2744 is the 61% Fibonacci retracement of the selloff
2751 from early January 2018
2762 is the upper gap point from early February
2808 from the mid-January consolidation. Some support, not that strong.
2850 from a January 2018 gap point
2873 is the January all-time high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 2710
2694 is the mid-December peak
2597 is the November 2017 high
2584 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel
The 200 day SMA at 2547
2532 is the February 2018 intraday selloff low
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the May 2017 low


Dow: Closed at 25,219.38

Resistance:
The 61% Fibonacci retracement at 25391
The lower gap point from February at 25,521
26,000 from mid-January consolidation
26,439 is a gap point from the January high
January 2018 all-time high 26,617

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 24,989
24,835 is the mid-December consolidation range
23,608 is the early November high
23,602 is the early November 2017 high
23,360 is the intraday low form the February selloff
The 200 day SMA at 22,893
22,420 is the September high
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high

End part 1 of 3

[ReturntoSender]

Winning Streak Comes To An End
20-Feb-18 16:25 ET
Dow -254.63 at 24964.75, Nasdaq -5.16 at 7234.31, S&P -15.96 at 2716.26

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/20/winning-streak-comes-to-an-end.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities opened the abbreviated week on a lower note, with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average breaking their six-session winning streaks. The two indices lost 0.6% and 1.0%, respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite managed to escape with a relatively modest loss of 0.1%. The Russell 2000 declined 0.9%.

Trading was choppy for much of the day as the S&P 500 wrestled with its 50-day simple moving average (2726.82). The benchmark index opened with a loss of 0.3% before rallying to a gain of 0.2% around midday, but selling in the late afternoon took the index back into the red; at its lowest mark of the day, the S&P 500 was down 0.9%.

Several factors contributed to Tuesday's decline:

A sharp drop in shares of Dow component Wal-Mart (WMT 94.11, -10.67, -10.2%), which disappointed investors with weaker-than-expected fourth quarter results and an FY19 earnings per share outlook that trailed analysts' average expectation
A relatively weak 2-yr note auction, which fostered concerns about increased supply and the specter of rising rates accompanying the added supply
The 2-yr note yield climbed three basis points to 2.22%; the 10-yr note yield ticked up one basis point to 2.89%
A general sense that the stock market was vulnerable to some renewed selling interest after rallying in an unabashed manner last week on the heels of its biggest decline in two years
A breaching of the S&P 500's 50-day simple moving average, which provided the index with support on Thursday and Friday

10 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finished Tuesday in the red, with the consumer staples sector (-2.3%) leading the retreat following Wal-Mart's disappointing earnings. The utilities (-1.3%), telecom services (-1.7%), health care (-1.1%), industrials (-1.0%), and real estate (-1.0%) sectors also finished with losses of at least 1.0%.

On the flip side, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%) was the strongest group, with chipmakers exhibiting particular strength; the PHLX Semiconductor Index advanced 1.8%. Within the tech sector, Qualcomm (QCOM 63.99, -0.86, -1.3%) decided to increase its bid for NXP Semiconductors (NXPI 125.56, +7.06, +6.0%) to $127.50 per share from $110.00 per share in an attempt to fend off a competing offer from rival Broadcom (AVGO 249.62, +0.73, +0.3%).

In other corporate news, Dow component Home Depot (HD 186.71, -0.26, -0.1%) reported better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter, and privately-held Albertsons announced it will be purchasing the remaining portion of Rite Aid (RAD 2.20, +0.07, +3.3%)--the portion that isn't already being acquired by Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 70.91, -0.01, 0.0%)--to form a new publicly traded company.

Elsewhere, Japan's Nikkei (-1.0%) paced a broad retreat in Asia on Tuesday, while Germany's DAX (+0.8%) led most equity markets higher in Europe--although the UK's FTSE (unch) underperformed. Markets in China remained closed for the Lunar New Year.

Investors didn't receive any economic data on Tuesday. However, on Wednesday, they will receive several reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 AM ET, Existing Home Sales for January (Briefing.com consensus 5.62 million) at 10:00 AM ET, and the minutes from the January FOMC meeting at 2:00 PM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.8% YTD
S&P 500: +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +1.0% YTD
Russell 2000: -0.4% YTD

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Late Sell Off Leaves Wall Street Lower for Second Consecutive Day
21-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow -166.97 at 24797.78, Nasdaq -16.08 at 7218.23, S&P -14.93 at 2701.33

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/21/late-sell-off-leaves-wall-street-lower-for-second-consecutive-day.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks got off to a good start on Wednesday, but gave back all of their gains, and then some, following the release of the minutes from the January FOMC meeting. The S&P 500 was up as much as 1.2%, but eventually settled with a loss of 0.6%. Similarly, the Dow and the Nasdaq lost 0.7% and 0.2%, respectively, after being up more than 1.0% apiece.

The value of the aforementioned minutes was diminished by the fact that a lot has happened since the January 30-31 FOMC meeting: the CPI and PPI reports for January were released, Congress passed a two-year budget agreement that will increase spending by approximately $420 billion, the stock market endured a sharp sell off, losing around 8.0% in just a week, and Jerome Powell replaced Janet Yellen as the head of the Federal Reserve. In other words, the minutes are somewhat out of date.

Nonetheless, the minutes weren't without some value; most notably, they revealed that almost all FOMC members expect inflation to increase in 2018 and that a majority of members believe a stronger outlook for economic growth raises the "likelihood that further gradual policy firming would be appropriate."

U.S. Treasuries extended earlier losses following the release of the minutes, pushing yields higher across the curve. The yield on the 10-yr note finished at 2.94%, up from 2.91% ahead of the minutes and up from 2.89% at Tuesday's close. However, the 2-yr yield had a relatively muted reaction to the minutes, finishing four basis points higher at 2.26%.

As for equities, 11 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in negative territory, with the energy (-1.7%), consumer staples (-1.2%), utilities (-1.3%), telecom services (-1.6%), and real estate (-1.8%) sectors leading the retreat. Conversely, the financials (-0.1%), consumer discretionary (-0.1%), and industrials (unch) groups exhibited relative strength.

In corporate news, United Tech (UTX 129.26, +2.80) outperformed on Wednesday, adding 2.2%, after its Pratt & Whitney unit announced that it's solved issues that have caused delays in supplying engines to European planemaker Airbus. Meanwhile, Advance Auto (AAP 114.00, +8.65) spiked 8.2% after beating top and bottom line estimates for the fourth quarter.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to Existing Home Sales for January and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Existing home sales decreased 3.2% in January to an annualized rate of 5.38 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.62 million). The December reading was revised to 5.56 million from 5.57 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that notable supply constraints continue to act as a drag on overall sales. The limited inventory--and the high prices on available inventory--is crimping affordability, particularly for first-time buyers; moreover, all prospective buyers are going to feel added affordability pressures now from rising mortgage rates.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decrease 6.6% to follow last week's 4.1% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims report (Briefing.com consensus 233K) and the Leading Indicators report for January (Briefing.com consensus +0.8%) at 8:30 AM ET and 10:00 AM ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.6% YTD
S&P 500: +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.3% YTD
Russell 2000: -0.2% YTD

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Wall Street Ends Jumpy Day Little Changed
22-Feb-18 16:25 ET
Dow +164.70 at 24962.48, Nasdaq -8.14 at 7210.09, S&P +2.63 at 2703.96

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/22/wall-street-ends-jumpy-day-little-changed.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.1%) and the Nasdaq (-0.1%) ended Thursday's session little changed, keeping their weekly losses intact. The Dow, meanwhile, rallied 0.7% to end a two-session losing streak and trim its weekly decline to 1.0%. The S&P 500 also ended a two-session skid on Thursday, while the Nasdaq extended its losing streak to four sessions.

Stocks opened in positive territory and crept higher through the first two hours of trading. However, sentiment started to shift as the S&P 500 approached its 50-day simple moving average (2729). The key technical level proved to be an area of resistance for the benchmark index, which quickly started retracing its gain after topping out at 2731 (+1.1%).

Trading was choppy from there, but the S&P 500 was able to stabilize a bit after finding support at its Wednesday close (2701).

In the end, nine of eleven S&P 500 sectors finished in positive territory, with gains ranging from 0.1% (technology) to 1.1% (real estate and energy).

The energy sector (+1.1%) was among the top-performing groups, helped by an increase in the price of crude oil. WTI crude futures climbed 1.8% to $62.77 per barrel after the Department of Energy reported a draw of 1.6 million barrels for the week ended February 16. The consensus estimate called for a build of 1.8 million barrels.

Chesapeake Energy (CHK 3.20, +0.57) also helped underpin a positive bias within the energy group, rallying 21.7% on better-than-expected Q4 results.

Conversely, the heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.8%) was the weakest group as Treasury yields slipped from multi-year highs; the 10-yr yield settled at 2.92% after closing Wednesday at 2.94%--its highest level in four years. On a related note, a $29 billion 7-yr Treasury note auction drew a high yield of 2.84% on a bid-to-cover of 2.49.

Overseas, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region finished Thursday mostly lower, although China's Shanghai Composite climbed 2.2% after a week-long closure for the Lunar New Year. Meanwhile, the major European bourses finished roughly flat, with France's CAC (+0.2%) exhibiting relative strength.

In currencies, the U.S. Dollar Index dropped 0.4% to 89.70, marking its first loss in a week. The greenback tumbled 0.4% against the euro (1.2327) and 1.0% against the yen (106.69).

Thursday's batch of economic data was pretty light, with investors receiving just two reports--weekly Initial Claims and Leading Indicators for January:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 222,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 233,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 229,000 (from 230,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.875 million from a revised count of 1.948 million (from 1.942 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that it covers the period in which the survey for the February employment report was completed. The low level of initial claims will most likely drive economists to estimate another decent-sized gain (200K+) for nonfarm payrolls.
The Conference Board Leading Economic Index increased 1.0% in January (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%). The prior month's reading was left unrevised at +0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the uptick was widespread; in fact, there wasn't a negative contribution from any of the ten components.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.4% YTD
S&P 500: +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +1.0% YTD
Russell 2000: -0.4% YTD

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Friday Rally Leaves Stocks Higher for the Week
23-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow +347.51 at 25309.99, Nasdaq +127.30 at 7337.39, S&P +43.34 at 2747.30

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/23/friday-rally-leaves-stocks-higher-for-the-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied on Friday, turning what was a disappointing week into a modest success. The Nasdaq Composite led the charge, adding 1.8%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively. For the week, the three major averages finished with gains between 0.4% and 1.4%.

After trending sideways through the first hour of trading, the major averages began building on their opening gains, which were around 0.5% apiece, and nearly doubled them by midday. The rally then paused for about two hours as the S&P 500 wrestled with its 50-day simple moving average (2731), which proved to be an area of resistance on Thursday. The benchmark index eventually jumped above the key technical level and continued climbing--alongside the Dow and the Nasdaq--until the closing bell.

Friday's rally was broad, with 11 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finishing in positive territory.

The rate-sensitive utilities sector was the top-performing group, adding 2.7%, as Treasury yields slipped across the curve; the yield on the 2-yr note declined two basis points to 2.24%, while the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note tumbled five basis points to 2.87%. The top-weighted technology group (+2.2%) and the energy group (+2.2%) also outperformed on Friday.

Within the tech space, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE 18.14, +1.73) and HP (HPQ 22.13, +0.74) rallied 10.5% and 3.5%, respectively, after the companies beat both earnings and revenue estimates, in addition to issuing upbeat profit guidance. HPE shares finished at a fresh all-time high.

As for energy, its outperformance was helped by an increase in the price of crude oil; WTI crude futures jumped 1.3% to $63.56/bbl, hitting a two-week high.

On the downside, the industrial sector (+0.8%) underperformed as Dow components Boeing (BA 356.66, +0.74), General Electric (GE 14.49, -0.01), and 3M (MMM 237.02, +1.02) finished the session little changed. The lightly-weighted telecom services sector (+0.8%) also struggled to keep pace with the broader market.

In corporate news, Nordstrom (JWN 53.56, +3.29) rallied 6.5% following reports that the Nordstrom family hopes to seal a deal to take the high-end retailer private before next Thursday, when the company is due to report its results for the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, General Mills (GIS 52.98, -1.97) declined 3.6% after agreeing to acquire Blue Buffalo (BUFF 40.00, +5.88) for $40 per share in cash.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Friday, but the Fed did release its Monetary Policy Report, which is expected to be a blueprint for new Fed Chair Jerome Powell's testimony before Congress next week. The Fed stayed on message in the report, calling for a path of gradual rate hikes and noting that it expects inflation to creep closer to the 2.0% year-over-year target as economic activity continues to expand at a moderate pace.

On Monday, investors will receive just one economic report, New Home Sales for January (Briefing.com consensus 645K), which will be released at 8:30 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +6.3% YTD
S&P 500: +2.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.4% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.9% YTD

Week In Review: Eking Out a Last-Minute Win

Equities advanced this week thanks to a last-minute rally on Friday that reclaimed losses registered on Tuesday and Wednesday. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added around 0.5% apiece, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite outperformed, jumping 1.4%. Markets were closed on Monday (February 19) in celebration of Presidents' Day.

The Wednesday release of the minutes from the January FOMC meeting was perhaps the most notable event of an otherwise relatively quiet week. The minutes were somewhat outdated considering the last FOMC meeting took place before a host of events that may have altered the Fed's perspective a bit, including the release of the CPI and PPI reports for January, the passing of a two-year budget deal in Congress that will increase spending by approximately $420 billion, and a sharp sell off on Wall Street.

Nonetheless, the minutes did reveal that almost all FOMC members expect inflation to increase in 2018 and that a majority of members believe a stronger outlook for economic growth raises the "likelihood that further gradual policy firming would be appropriate."

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note ticked up to a four-year high on Wednesday following the minutes, closing at 2.94%, but slipped back to 2.87% by Friday's close--finishing flat for the week. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield jumped to 2.26% following the minutes, its highest level since September 2008, but finished Friday at 2.24%--locking in a weekly gain of five basis points. In addition to the minutes, the 2-yr yield was also bolstered by a relatively weak 2-yr note auction on Tuesday.

In corporate news, shares of Wal-Mart (WMT) tumbled 10.2% on Tuesday after the world's largest retailer reported lower-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter and issued disappointing profit guidance for fiscal year 2019. Conversely, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) rallied 10.5% to a new all-time high on Friday after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues and issuing upbeat profit guidance. HPE also announced a plan to return $7 billion to shareholders via share repurchases and a dividend increase.

As for the sector standings, seven of eleven S&P 500 groups finished the week in positive territory. The technology (+1.9%), materials (+1.3%), and energy (+1.0%) groups finished at the top of the leaderboard, while the consumer staples (-2.3%) and utilities (-2.4%) sectors finished at the bottom.

The S&P 500's 50-day simple moving average (2731) proved to be an area of resistance for the benchmark index on several occasions this week, the most notable of which was on Thursday when the S&P 500 retraced the entirety of a 1.2% intraday gain after hitting the key technical level. However, the S&P 500 finally managed to climb above its 50-day simple moving average on Friday, which helped fuel further buying to bring the index into positive territory for the week.

Following this week's trading, the S&P 500 is down 4.4% from the record high it hit on January 26.

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InvestmentHouse - Money Leaves the Market (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Stock indices resume the upside rally after the pause.
- Solid breadth, pathetic volume as NASDAQ leads higher.
- Fed speakers try to tone down the hawkish rhetoric, but they will have to
acknowledge their Phillips Curve -- or make excuses not to a la Yellen.
- Money leaves the market just as the market consolidates and breaks higher.
- Still some decent patterns in some leaders, others forming up and moving
up.
- Okay, so a further rebound, but still have to watch for it to fade and be
ready either way.

If only it was not Friday. Stock futures were higher, a dip at the open was
bought, and the stock indices rallied the entire session, sprinting upside
in the afternoon. New recovery closing highs for all indices as stocks
broke higher from the four-day lateral consolidation. NASDAQ, NASDAQ 100,
and SOX were the clear leaders based upon their patterns and the move made.
The NYSE indices all put in new rally closing highs as noted, but not as
definitive given they are still inside the price ranges of the past week
given the back and forth intraday volatility.

Nonetheless, for a relief rally, this was a really good new move upside.
Volume was pitiful, but it is a relief rally. Breadth was excellent as
funds bought all segments. It looks as if the indices are going to extend
the relief move higher and try to make it a new uptrend move. That remains
to be seen. We gladly let positions continue higher and bought a couple
more (AMGN, IMMU). It was Friday, however, and Fridays can be quite
deceitful in relief moves. Regardless, the indices posted nice gains and
even if they give back some early week, the move was solid enough, for a
relief rally at least.

SP500 43.34, 1.60%
NASDAQ 127.30, 1.77%
DJ30 347.51, 1.39%
SP400 1.22%
RUTX 1.25%
SOX 2.19%
NASDAQ 100 1.99%

VOLUME: NYSE -13%, NASDAQ -2%. Well below average trade for NASDAQ and much
lower below average for NYSE. The consolidation was low volume, a good
thing, but you would like to see just a bit more volume upside. Oh well;
relief rally. And Friday.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE 4.4:1, NASDAQ 2.8:1. Quite solid breadth, always an
upside positive.


The Fed talks too much, but what is new?

Five Fed members spoke Friday, but their comments did not bother the
markets. On sum they said the economy could be past full employment, but
wage increases were just 'moderate.' Of course the Fed fixates on this
given its Phillips Curve worship, but history shows no correlation between
wages and inflation, something Treasury Secretary Mnuchin had the courage to
say this week. The Fed also sees market prices as high as economic growth
continues to improve. Sounds pretty rosy, even with the Fed's Phillips
Curve fixation.


Once again the market works against the latecomers.

It is important to follow the money, but it is also important to juxtapose
that with sentiment and how the latter works. BAC and Lipper reported stock
fund outflows of $-2.4B and $-4.6B for the week as the late comers pulled
their money from the market. They came in late, got rattled by the
volatility that hit almost immediately, then tucked tail and ran. AS SURE
AS THE SUN RISES, the market used the money withdrawals to consolidate the
rally (we talked about it all week), and once the figures were reported,
once they were gone, the market jumped with all indices logging gains well
over 1%. As the Frenchman in 'The Matrix' trilogy would say, cause and
effect, though he was discussing bodily functions versus money movement in
stock funds.


Relief rally back on, at least through Friday.

Good breaks upside as the relief move resumed after a 4-day pause for most
of the indices. Good consolidation, no breakdowns set the move up. Looking
out over the market, there were not a lot of strong new moves in individual
stocks. FAANG was up with AAPL and FB solid, but the group was not blowout.
Some big name techs really helped NASDAQ, e.g. CSCO, MSFT, INTC. Financials
were up but not crushing it. Drugs/biotech were again solid. Individual
strong moves here and there, but mostly it was a general move higher as the
breadth indicates.

Light volume but good breadth and solid percentage gains after a lateral
consolidation. Certainly good enough for a continued relief move. The move
should hold and continue next week to test higher recovery highs. Then
again, it was Friday and strange moves can occur on Fridays with low volume
in a bounce. Okay, we won't read too much into that and enjoy the ride with
our current positions, the newer ones added, and still look for some more
upside because - - the move may turn into a new upside leg to new highs
(stranger things have happened) or it advances some more and toward the
prior highs before it falters. Of course a continued relief move sucks new
money back into it, and then rolls over making chumps, again, out of all the
people just getting in. That is why you also keep the downside plays
updated and ready to go.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

NASDAQ: After gapping over the 50 day MA's two Thursdays back and a
four-session volatile but lateral consolidation, NASDAQ gapped higher and
rallied to a far and away new rally closing high. Volume was pathetic as it
remained as low as it was in the consolidation, but it is a relief rally, at
least for now, and volume is not that big of a deal. NASDAQ is now 20
points through the 78% Fibonacci retracement and is 10 points from entering
the second gap lower in the selling. Potential resistance there (7347) as
well as the gap fill at 7386.

SOX: Gapped off the 2-day test of the Tuesday strong upside move. New
closing high for the rebound, just edging past the November peak
representing a potential top to a right should in a head and shoulders
pattern. SOX is trying to move on through and break up that possibility.
The 78% Fibonacci retracement is still just overhead (1351.87).

SP500: New closing high for the recovery rally though still below the
Wednesday and prior Friday intraday highs. Pathetic volume. I mean
pathetic. Again, however, a relief move so giddy up, right? Just past the
61% Fibonacci retracement (2743.51) and into the third gap zone from the
selling gaps (the first one on the way back up). Still tons of overhead
supply, but it is moving up in a continuation of the relief bounce so it is
what it is and we take advantage of it.

DJ30: Moved up through the 50 day SMA on the close and put in a new rally
closing high, but just by a token amount. Terrible volume as well, but . .
. DJ30 is still below the 61% Fibonacci retracement touched the prior
Friday, and that means it is still not even in the gap zone (there were only
two for DJ30). Unlike NASDAQ and even SP500, not a great move.

RUTX: RUTX did not clear the intraday highs of the lateral consolidation,
just made it to the 61% Fibonacci retracement of the selling, and did not
take out the December consolidation. That said, Friday was quite a move
upside in itself, and the gains in small caps really fueled that strong NYSE
breadth.

SP400: Similar to DJ30, the midcaps were somewhat underwhelming. Bounced,
put in a very nominal new closing high, did not come near taking out the
intraday highs on the week, barely entered the third gap zone from the
selling, and is at the bottom of the December consolidation. Uninspired?
Perhaps. Just following the other indices? Yes.


LEADERSHIP

FAANG: FB actually showed some strength, moving up through the 50 day MA's.
AAPL was solid as it cleared the 4-day consolidation with a gap on rising
trade; still didn't help the Dow that much. AMZN was up but boring. NFLX
similar, unable to put in a new high over the January high. GOOG was
better, continuing the move up through the 50 day MA's though volume was
quite low.

Metals: Did not participate Friday, but put in an excellent consolidation of
their last moves on the week: STLD, SCHN, RS. SID is so-so; may need to
focus on RS or STLD for a new entry in this area.

Big Techs: Solid moves in not bad patterns, e.g. CSCO, MSFT, INTC, AAPL.

Drugs/Biotech: AMGN posted a nice move off a rebound consolidation. GILD
is still in a nice pattern. Smaller issues not bad, e.g. IMMU, ARRY, VCEL,
IMGN, BLUE.

Financial: GS, MS solid enough but still just so-so patterns. JPM posted a
higher high though on no volume. Best of the group. BAC, C posted very
modest moves.

Chips: Breaking higher in many areas of the group. MU looks good, SWKS not
bad. LRCX is setting up for more upside. QRVO still looks good. INTC
sports a good break higher, and MLNX gapped upside with a breakaway move.
There is leadership potential, but it is not across the board.

Retail: Still showing decent patterns in many instances, e.g. DDS, LOW, TGT.
Some apparel such as LULU looks interesting.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +347.51 points (+1.39%) to close at 25309.99

Nasdaq
Stats: +127.31 points (+1.77%) to close at 7337.39
Volume: 1.88B (-2.08%)

Up Volume: 1.5B (+676.15M)
Down Volume: 351.4M (-718.6M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.83 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.41 to 1

New Highs: 69 (+5)
New Lows: 61 (+7)

S&P
Stats: +43.34 points (+1.60%) to close at 2747.30
NYSE Volume: 724.7M (-12.94%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 4.43 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.1 to 1

New Highs: 45 (+13)
New Lows: 31 (-48)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 16.49; -2.23
VXN: 18.16; -2.75
VXO: 14.92; -2.85

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.01; -0.11. Shorts forced to cover as the market
broke higher again.


Bulls and Bears: A veritable plummet in bulls ongoing, breaking below 50
for the first time since the second half of 2016. Bears remain in
hibernation.

Bulls: 48.5 versus 51.9

Bears: 14.6 versus 14.4

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 48.5 versus 51.9
41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00 versus 64.7 versus 66.7 versus 64.4 versus
61.9 versus 64.1 versus 64.2 versus 62.3 versus 61.5 versus 63.5 versus 64.4
versus 63.5 versus 62.3 versus 60.6 versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3
versus 50.5 versus 47.1 versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5
versus 57.5 versus 60.0 versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5
versus 54.9 versus 51.5 versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9
versus 58.1 versus 58.7 versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3
versus 55.8 versus 49.5

Bears: 14.6 versus 14.4
14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2
versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4
versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0
versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.866% versus 2.934%. Bonds bounced Thursday and Friday from the
Wednesday dive lower post FOMC minutes. The move higher took them back to
the 10 day EMA, however, and that only tests the downtrend and does not
change it.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.934%
versus 2.952% versus 2.893% versus 2.873% versus 2.904% versus 2.913% versus
2.833% versus 2.857% versus 2.8577% versus 2.844% versus 2.813% versus
2.805% versus 2.707% versus 2.841% versus 2.792% versus 2.713% versus 2.72%
versus 2.72% versus 2.66% versus 2.66% versus 2.639% versus 2.617% versus
2.656% versus 2.661% versus 2.618% versus 2.587% versus 2.535% versus 2.55%
versus 2.559% versus 2.551% versus 2.482% versus 2.456% versus 2.463% versus
2.464% versus 2.405% versus 2.434% versus 2.412% versus 2.474% versus 2.485%
versus 2.484% versus 2.501% versus 2.459% versus 2.398% versus 2.351%


EUR/USD: 1.22960 versus 1.2324. Fell to the 50 day EMA midweek and held
there, still in the uptrend and in opposition to bounce back up against the
dollar.

Historical: 1.2324 versus 1.22820 versus 1.23431 versus 1.2411 versus
1.25083 versus 1.2450 versus 1.23528 versus 1.22887 versus 1.22524 versus
1.2273 versus 1.2377 versus 1.24573 versus 1.2502 versus 1.2404 versus
1.2402 versus 1.23832 versus 1.24308 versus 1.24159 versus 1.24340 versus
1.23083 versus 1.22567 versus 1.22169 versus 1.2241 versus 1.2198 versus
1.22698 versus 1.22060 versus 1.20608 versus 1.19507 versus 1.19322 versus
1.19662 versus 1.20313 versus 1.20756 versus 1.20177 versus 1.20573 versus
1.2001 versus 1.1936 versus 1.1936 versus 1.18998 versus 1.18593 versus
1.18628 versus 1.18658 versus 1.18792 versus 1.18408 versus 1.17703 versus
1.1752 versus 1.17798 versus 1.18392 versus 1.17430


USD/JPY: 106.886 versus 106.85. After rallying to the 20 day EMA to
through Tuesday, the dollar faded into Friday. Tested the 20 day EMA on the
bounce, faded, but we will see if the dollar puts in a higher low and tries
to rally and take out the 20 day.

Historical: 106.85 versus 107.581 versus 107.435 versus 106.294 versus
106.153 versus 106.782 versus 107.77 versus 108.669 versus 108.669 versus
108.797 versus 108.88 versus 109.33 versus 109.58 versus 108.651 versus
110.001 versus 109.46 versus 109.50 versus 108.77 versus 108.84 versus
108.601 versus 109.411 versus 109.033 versus 110.159 versus 110.159 versus
110.70


Oil: 63.55, +0.78. Oil moved higher Thursday and Friday after a pause at
the 50 day EMA on its recovery move. Not bad action after testing the
November/December consolidation.


Gold: 1330.30, -2.40. Fell to the 50 day MA on the week, unable to rally
off that level, but overall still in a good upside move. Inflation worries
fell a bit on a perceived more hawkish Fed, but the trend is still higher.


MONDAY

A new break higher, but it was Friday and sometimes a light volume Friday
move is countered or at least tested a bit on Monday. A bit of testing is
not bad. Friday is not our favorite time to buy. The old adage, buy on
Monday, sell on Friday has truth to it. Thus you can see a late week move
tested early week, providing better entry points.

Given Friday was upside by 1.22% and more on the indices, a bit of a dip to
test is welcome in playing the rest of current rally, whether it is just up
to the prior highs or turns into something more. Thus a bit of a pullback
on Monday even into Tuesday is opportunity, as long as the pullback does not
slam back on screaming volume.

Now, while volume has not been a key ingredient on a relief move, if the
move is going to take on 'new bull rally' status it will need to ultimately
show strong volume on breakout moves. For now low volume can be overlooked.
In new high territory it must show real volume. Why? Because this is not
Yellen's Fed anymore and the general idea among smart people is that the Fed
under Powell is not going to be such an easy money, always back the
financial markets kind of Fed.

But, before that point, the market can deliver more upside that we can take
advantage of. A bit of a test early week helps set the table for playing
the move back up when it resumes. If there is no test, well okay then, we
can pick up well-positions stocks, but I personally don't want to chase say
an SP500 gap upside.

Have a great weekend!



SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

NASDAQ: Closed at 7337.39

Resistance:
7400 is some price resistance from both sides of the mid-January all-time
high
7506 is the January 2018 all-time high


Support:
7300 from a modest mid-January consolidation
7240, the upper gap point from early February 2018
The 50 day EMA at 7114
6918 - 6980 are price points from November/December 2017
6914 is the late November all-time high
6796 is the early November 2017
6641 is the October high
6630 is the February 2018 selloff intraday low
The 200 day SMA at 6607
6477 is the September intraday high
6461 is the July 2017 prior all-time high
6450 is the early September high
6341.70 is the all-time high from early June.
6300 is the mid-June interim high
6205 is the late May all-time high
5996 is the recent May 2017 low
5937 is the all-time high from April
5915 is the tops of the March to April 2017 range
5910 is the lower gap point from mid-April
5800 from the February consolidation lows


S&P 500: Closed at 2747.30

Resistance:
2744 is the 61% Fibonacci retracement of the selloff
2751 from early January 2018
2762 is the upper gap point from early February
2808 from the mid-January consolidation. Some support, not that strong.
2850 from a January 2018 gap point
2873 is the January all-time high

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 2711
2694 is the mid-December peak
2597 is the November 2017 high
2584 is the upper channel line from the March 2009 uptrend channel
The 200 day SMA at 2553
2532 is the February 2018 intraday selloff low
2491 is the August all-time high
2480 the late August and early August highs
2453.46 is the June prior all-time closing high
2409 is the July 2017 closing low
2406 is the all-time high from May 2017
2401 is the March 2017 all-time high
2352 is the May 2017 low


Dow: Closed at 25,309.99

Resistance:
The 61% Fibonacci retracement at 25391
The lower gap point from February at 25,521
26,000 from mid-January consolidation
26,439 is a gap point from the January high
January 2018 all-time high 26,617

Support:
The 50 day EMA at 24,993
24,835 is the mid-December consolidation range
23,608 is the early November high
23,602 is the early November 2017 high
23,360 is the intraday low form the February selloff
The 200 day SMA at 22,974
22,420 is the September high
22,179 is the August 2017 all-time high
22,086 is the mid-August lower high
21,681is the July prior all-time high
21,638 is the July 2017 closing high
21,529 is the June 2017 high

[ReturntoSender]

Kicking Off the Week on a Positive Note
26-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow +399.28 at 25709.27, Nasdaq +84.07 at 7421.46, S&P +32.30 at 2779.60

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/26/kicking-off-the-week-on-a-positive-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied for a second consecutive session on Monday, finishing at their best marks of the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.6%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.2% apiece. The Russell 2000 underperformed, but still finished with a gain of 0.7%.

For the month of February, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is now in positive territory (+0.1%), while the S&P 500 and the Dow are down a little more than 1.5% apiece. Still, that's up from losses of around 8.7% at their lowest points on February 8.

Friday's breaching of the S&P 500's 50-day simple moving average and the continued decline of the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.93, -0.56), which has nearly returned to levels seen prior to Wall Street's big sell off at the beginning of February, helped fuel a bullish bias on Monday. In terms of news, Monday's session was fairly uneventful.

10 of 11 S&P 500 sectors settled in positive territory, with the top-weighted technology (+1.6%) and financials (+1.5%) sectors being among the top-performing groups. The industrials sector (+1.4%) and the lightly-weighted telecom services sector (+1.8%) also outperformed.

With the tech space, Qualcomm (QCOM 66.98, +3.66) showed particular strength, jumping 5.8%, after reports that the company is open to being acquired by Broadcom (AVGO 252.95, -0.76) should Broadcom raise its bid to $160 billion, which is more than $90 per share. HP (HPQ 23.46, +1.33) also outperformed, rising 6.0%, after JPMorgan upgraded HPQ shares to 'Overweight' from 'Neutral' following last week's earnings.

On the downside, the rate-sensitive utilities sector finished in negative territory, losing 0.3%, as Treasury yields climbed intraday to finish just slightly below Friday's closing levels. The yield on the 10-yr note finished one basis point lower at 2.86% after trading as low as 2.83% in the early morning. Meanwhile, the yield on the 2-yr note also lost one basis point, dropping to 2.23%.

Like utilities, the real estate (+0.4%) and materials (+0.5%) sectors also underperformed, but still finished in positive territory.

Monday's economic data was limited to the New Home Sales report for January; New Home Sales hit an annualized rate of 593,000 in January, which is below the revised December rate of 643,000 (from 625,000), and lower than the Briefing.com consensus of 645,000. The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales were down 1.0% year-over-year in January, suggesting perhaps that high prices and rising mortgage rates have curtailed new contract signings.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a number of economic reports on Tuesday: Durable Orders for January (Briefing.com consensus -2.0%) and International Trade in Goods for January (Briefing.com consensus -$72.2 billion) will be released at 8:30 AM ET, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for December (Briefing.com consensus +6.4%) and the FHFA Housing Price Index for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) will be released at 9:00 AM ET, and the Consumer Confidence Index for February (Briefing.com consensus 126.5) will be released at 10:00 AM ET.

In addition, Jerome Powell will testify before the House Financial Services Committee at 10:00 AM ET on Tuesday, marking his first appearance as Fed Chairman. Mr. Powell's prepared testimony will cross the wires prior to his appearance (8:30 AM ET).

Nasdaq Composite: +7.5% YTD
S&P 500: +4.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +4.0% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.6% YTD

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Wall Street Gives Back Monday's Gains As Powell Testifies on Capitol Hill
27-Feb-18 16:25 ET
Dow -299.24 at 25410.03, Nasdaq -91.11 at 7330.35, S&P -35.32 at 2744.28

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/27/wall-street-gives-back-mondays-gains-as-powell-testifies-on-capitol-hill.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities dropped on Tuesday, giving back all of their Monday gains, as new Fed Chairman Jerome Powell delivered his first semiannual testimony on Capitol Hill. The S&P 500 tumbled 1.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.2%. The major averages finished at their worst marks of the day following a sharp sell off in the final minutes. Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed with a loss of 1.5%, returning to its flat line for the year.

Fed Chairman Powell's prepared remarks, which were released before the opening bell, didn't contain any surprises. Mr. Powell stayed largely in line with his predecessor Janet Yellen, saying that he expects further gradual rate increases based on the economic outlook and that risks to the economy are roughly balanced.

Wall Street opened little changed following the release of Mr. Powell's prepared statement, then started ticking higher as he began fielding questions from the House Financial Services Committee. However, stocks dove into negative territory after Mr. Powell said his economic projections have increased since the December FOMC meeting, prompting investors to adjust their rate-hike expectations.

According to the CME FedWatch Tool, the market is still projecting three rate hikes for 2018, but the probability of a fourth rate hike increased to 33.1% from 24.4% on Monday. Meanwhile, the probability of a rate hike at the March FOMC meeting increased to 87.4% from 78.9% on Monday.

U.S. Treasuries moved lower in tandem with the equity market following Mr. Powell's aforementioned comment, pushing yields back towards the multi-year highs they hit last week. The 2-yr yield ended three basis points higher at 2.26%, one basis point below last Wednesday's nine-year high, while the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed five basis points to 2.91%, which is four basis points below the four-year high it hit last Wednesday.

The rise in yields helped the S&P 500's financial sector keep ahead of the broader market on Tuesday, but the group still finished with a loss of 0.9%. The top-weighted technology sector also outperformed with a loss of 0.9%, but the nine remaining groups finished with losses between 1.0% and 2.2%.

The consumer discretionary sector (-2.1%) was among the weakest groups, with Comcast (CMCSA 36.66, -2.92) dropping 7.4% to a three-month low after upping a bid from 21st Century Fox (FOXA 37.63, -1.18) to $31 billion for a large stake in British pay-television broadcaster Sky. Fox already owns 39% of Sky, but was looking to acquire the remaining stake. The news also weighed on Dow component Walt Disney (DIS 104.87, -4.94), which agreed to buy a big chunk of assets from Fox, including its stake in Sky. Fox and Disney lost 3.0% and 4.5%, respectively, on Tuesday.

Elsewhere within the consumer discretionary space, Macy's (M 28.40, +3.5) rallied 3.5%, hitting a 10-month high, after beating earnings estimates for the fourth quarter and issuing above-consensus guidance for fiscal year 2019. Conversely, AutoZone (AZO 654.47, -81.43) dropped 11.1% after missing quarterly profit estimates.

Overseas, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region ended Tuesday on a mixed note, with Japan's Nikkei (+1.1%) showing relative strength, while the major European bourses ended a tick lower. The U.S. Dollar Index jumped 0.6% to 90.33, hitting its best level since February 9, with the greenback adding 0.7% against the euro (1.2232) and 0.4% against the Japanese yen (107.37).

Investors received several economic reports on Tuesday, including Durable Orders for January, the Consumer Confidence Index for February, International Trade in Goods for January, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for December, and the FHFA Housing Price Index for December:

January durable goods orders fell 3.7%, which is more than the 2.0% decrease expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to +2.6% (from +2.9%). Excluding transportation, durable orders decreased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) to follow the prior month's revised increase of 0.7% (from +0.6%).
The key takeaway from the report is that there wasn't a lot of carryover order momentum from December, suggesting first quarter activity is proceeding at a slower pace.
The consumer confidence reading for February increased to 130.8 (Briefing.com consensus 126.5) from the prior month's revised reading of 124.3 (from 125.4).
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers are feeling more upbeat about current conditions, led by attitudes pertaining to business and labor market conditions.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for January showed a deficit of $74.4 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$72.2 billion), up from a revised deficit of $72.3 billion in December (from -$71.6 billion).
The Case-Shiller 20-city Index increased 6.3% in December (Briefing.com consensus +6.4%), while the November increase was left unrevised at 6.4%.
The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.3% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the November increase was revised to 0.5% from 0.4%.

On Wednesday, investors will receive another sizable batch of economic data: the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index will be released at 7:00 AM ET, the second estimate of fourth quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus +2.5%) will be released at 8:30 AM ET, the Chicago PMI for February (Briefing.com consensus 64.5) will be released at 9:45 AM ET, and Pending Home Sales for January (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) will be released at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +6.2% YTD
S&P 500: +2.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.8% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.1% YTD

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Wall Street Extends Skid to Three Days
01-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -420.22 at 24608.98, Nasdaq -92.45 at 7180.55, S&P -36.16 at 2677.67

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/1/wall-street-extends-skid-to-three-days.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks tumbled for the third day in a row on Thursday, with the major averages losing between 1.3% and 1.7%.

The market kept close to its flat line for the first half of Thursday's session as investors debated their next move following Wednesday's breaching of the S&P 500's 50-day simple moving average. Stocks started slipping in the early afternoon, but began a decisive retreat not long after President Trump announced new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The tariffs, which are 25% for steel imports and 10% for imported aluminum, prompted concerns about higher prices and a potential retaliation from China and other countries.

Steel names U.S. Steel (X 46.01, +2.50), AK Steel (AKS 5.65, +0.49), Nucor (NUE 67.53, +2.13), and Steel Dynamics (STLD 48.10, +1.85) outperformed following the news, adding between 3.3% and 9.5%, while aluminum producer Century Aluminum (CENX 20.48, +1.43) spiked 7.5%.

However, automakers reacted negatively to the tariffs, which will likely weigh on their profit margins. General Motors (GM 37.79, -1.56), Ford Motor (F 10.29, -0.32), and Fiat Chrysler (FCAU 20.59, -0.60) dropped between 2.8% and 4.0%, while Toyota Motor (TM 130.39, -4.21) and Honda Motor (HMC 35.12, -0.97) lost 3.1% and 2.7%, respectively. Automakers also reported U.S. sales for February on Thursday, which, for the most part, declined year over year.

Looking at the broader market, 11 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finished Thursday in negative territory, with six settling with losses of at least 1.0%. The heavily-weighted financials (-1.9%), industrials (-1.9%), technology (-1.7%), and health care (-1.6%) sectors, which represent around 65.0% of the broader market combined, were the weakest performers. Conversely, the energy (-0.2%), utilities (-0.1%), and telecom services (-0.3%) sectors held up relatively well.

Stocks bounced back a bit in the final hour of trading, leaving the major averages a ways above their worst marks of the day; at their session lows, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the Dow held losses between 2.0% and 2.3%. The small-cap Russell 2000 showed relative strength on Thursday, losing just 0.3%.

In Washington, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell wrapped up his first semiannual monetary policy testimony on Thursday with an appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, but he didn't really provide investors with any new information. The market still projects three rate hikes for 2018, but a fourth hike is certainly on the table; according to the CME FedWatch Tool, the chances of a fourth hike currently sit at 28.1%, down slightly from 31.9% on Wednesday.

The U.S. Treasury market recorded its second consecutive day of gains on Thursday, pushing yields lower across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note dropped seven basis points to 2.80%, which puts it 15 basis points below the four-year high it touched last week. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield dropped six basis points to 2.20%.

In currencies, the U.S. Dollar Index retreated from a six-week high, dropping 0.4% to 90.22.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included Personal Income and Spending for January, the PCE Price Index and the core PCE Price Index for January, weekly Initial Claims, the ISM Index for February, and Construction Spending for January:

Personal income climbed 0.4% in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following an unrevised increase of 0.4% in December. Meanwhile, personal spending rose 0.2% in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) following an unrevised increase of 0.4% in December.
The PCE Price Index increased 0.4% in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 1.5%, unchanged from the last two readings.
The key takeaway from the report is that it won't shift the prevailing perspective that the Fed is expected to raise the fed funds rate at least three times this year.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 210,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 227,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 220,000 (from 222,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.931 million from a revised count of 1.874 million (from 1.875 million).
The trend in initial claims, which held below 300,000 for the 156th straight week, will support the Fed's thinking that tight labor markets should ultimately invite a pickup in wage inflation.
The ISM Index for February climbed to 60.8 from an unrevised reading of 59.1 in January, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 58.4.
The key takeaway is that the Prices Index hit its highest level since May 2011. That will feed into fears about manufacturers passing through higher input costs to their customers, which will buttress inflation expectations.
Construction Spending was flat in January (0.0%), while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.3%. The prior month's increase was raised to 0.8% from 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that construction spending growth continues to run at a relatively slow pace, which is an inhibitor of stronger overall growth.

On Friday, investors will receive the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February (Briefing.com consensus 99.5) at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.0% YTD
S&P 500: +0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.5% YTD
Russell 2000: -1.8% YTD

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Ending the Week on a Positive Note
02-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -70.92 at 24538.06, Nasdaq +77.31 at 7257.86, S&P +13.58 at 2691.25

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/2/ending-the-week-on-a-positive-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street finished a disappointing week with a mostly positive outing on Friday. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq finished with gains of 0.5% and 1.1%, respectively, largely thanks to a late rally that left the two indices at their best marks of the day. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.3%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 jumped 1.7%.

President Trump's decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which was announced on Thursday, prompted threats of retaliation from leaders around the globe and sent stocks lower in Asia and Europe overnight. Wall Street joined the global sell off at the opening bell, with the S&P 500 quickly dropping 1.0%, but the market started to regain its footing about an hour into the session. By midday, the S&P 500 had climbed all the way back to its unchanged mark.

The outperformance of the heavily-weighted health care (+1.0%) and technology (+1.0%) sectors, which represent around 40.0% of the broader market combined, helped lift the benchmark index. Within the health care group, biotechnology shares showed particular strength, evidenced by the 2.4% increase in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 109.65, +2.61). Meanwhile, chipmakers were among the top performers in the tech space, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.8%.

In total, seven of eleven S&P 500 sectors finished in the green. Health care and technology were the best performers, while real estate (-0.4%) was the worst.

The latest batch of fourth quarter earnings included several retail names, including Gap (GPS 34.18, +2.48, +7.8%), Nordstrom (JWN 53.04, +2.93, +5.9%), Foot Locker (FL 40.04, -5.84, -12.7%), and J.C. Penney (JCP 3.71, -0.21, -5.4%). The results were mostly better than expected (GPS, FL, and JCP all beat earnings estimates, while JWN missed).

Meanwhile, Dow component McDonald's (MCD 148.27, -7.43) dropped 4.8%, hitting its lowest level in more than nine months, after RBC Capital Markets trimmed its target price for MCD shares to $170 from $190, citing a disappointing launch for the fast food giant's $1, $2, $3 menu.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries gave back most of their Thursday advance on Friday, pushing yields higher across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield jumped five basis points to 2.86%. The 10-yr yield finished the week lower by one basis point and nine basis points below the four-year high it hit on February 21.

In currencies, the yen advanced 0.5% against the U.S. dollar to 105.72, which is its best level since November 2016, after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the BoJ would consider exiting from its aggressive monetary easing as early as 2019. Meanwhile, the euro jumped 0.5% against the greenback to 1.2329.

Friday's economic data was limited to the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February:

The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February dipped to 99.7 (Briefing.com consensus 99.5) from 99.9 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer sentiment remains near multi-year highs with consumers showing little concern about the prospect of rising interest rates.

On Monday, investors will receive the ISM Services Index for February (Briefing.com consensus 58.8) at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +5.1% YTD
S&P 500: +0.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.7% YTD
Russell 2000: -0.2% YTD

Week In Review: Selling Resumes

Stocks tumbled this week, with the S&P 500 dropping 2.0%. The Nasdaq Composite did a little better, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average did a little worse, losing 1.1% and 3.1%, respectively. The small-cap Russell 2000 showed relative strength, but still finished lower by 1.0%.

The week actually began on a positive note, with the S&P 500 jumping 1.2% on Monday, but took a turn for the worst on Tuesday when new Fed Chairman Jerome Powell testified before the House Financial Services Committee. Mr. Powell's prepared remarks didn't contain any surprises, calling for a continued path of gradual rate hikes. However, in the Q&A session, Mr. Powell noted that his economic projections have increased since the December FOMC meeting, prompting a negative reaction on Wall Street due to concerns that the Fed may hike rates more than expected.

The Fed forecasted three rate hikes for 2018 at its December meeting, but, in light of Mr. Powell's upwardly revised growth projections, investors have increased their expectations for a fourth hike. The CME FedWatch Tool places the chances of a fourth rate hike at 30.7%, up from 24.4% last week. The chances of a March rate hike are at 83.1%.

Fast-forwarding to Thursday, the equity market was dealt another blow, this time from President Trump, who announced that he'll be imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports--25% for steel and 10% for aluminum. Mr. Trump's decision prompted concerns about higher prices and retaliation from China and other trading partners.

However, outside of fundamental factors affecting this week's sell off, it's also important to note that the S&P 500 broke below its 50-day moving average, a key technical level that's provided the market with support since the 2016 presidential election. The benchmark index dropped below its 50-day moving average for the first time in five months during the big sell off at the beginning of February and has ticked back above it a few times since--most notably on Monday, when the S&P 500 hit a three-week high.

The S&P 500 initially found support at its 50-day moving average on Wednesday, but selling accelerated after the index broke through the level on its second attempt. If this week's selling continues, investors will be looking for other potential areas of support, including the S&P 500's February low (2581) and its 200-day moving average (2561).

11 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finished the week in negative territory, with industrials (-3.3%) and materials (-4.0%) being the weakest performers. The technology (-0.8%), consumer staples (-1.3%), and telecom services (-0.7%) groups exhibited relative strength, but the remaining sectors lost between 2.0% and 2.9%.

A slew of retailers reported earnings this week. TJX (TJX) rallied 7.0% on Wednesday after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter and raising its profit guidance. Conversely, Lowe's (LOW) dropped 6.5% in the same session after missing Q4 earnings estimates and lowering its profit guidance for fiscal year 2019. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) finished the week lower, but ahead of the broader market, losing 1.4%.

In other corporate news, Comcast (CMCSA) dropped 7.4% on Tuesday after upping a bid from 21st Century Fox (FOXA) for a large stake in British broadcaster Sky.

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Wall Street Starts the Week on a Positive Note
05-Mar-18 16:20 ET
Dow +336.70 at 24874.76, Nasdaq +72.84 at 7330.70, S&P +29.69 at 2720.94

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/5/wall-street-starts-the-week-on-a-positive-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities opened the week with a comfortable victory on Monday, reclaiming around half of last week's losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average led the rally, jumping 1.4%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively, and the small-cap Russell 2000 added 0.8%.

The threat of a trade war was still on investors' minds on Monday morning, leading to a lower open on Wall Street, but House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) helped ease concerns by publicly opposing the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that President Trump proposed last week. Mr. Trump responded by saying that he was "not backing down" from his plan, but he did leave a door cracked for Canada and Mexico, saying that the two countries may be able to sidestep the tariffs if they agree to a "new and fair" NAFTA deal.

The S&P 500 opened with a loss of around 0.6%, but started climbing about an hour into the session. The benchmark index eventually finished just a tick below session high, with each of its eleven sectors settling in positive territory. The utilities group (+2.0%) led the charge, but the influential financial sector (+1.4%) wasn't far behind. The heavily-weighted health care and technology spaces were the weakest performers, but still finished with gains of 0.9% apiece.

In corporate news, the U.S. government ordered Qualcomm (QCOM 64.01, -0.73) to delay its much-anticipated shareholder meeting, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday, as it reviews Broadcom's (AVGO 246.98, -3.89) hostile bid to takeover the company. The shareholder meeting was expected to feature a vote on whether to replace six of 11 directors with nominees put forth by Broadcom. Bloomberg reported on Monday afternoon that Broadcom was on track to win the six seats.

Overseas, equity indices in Europe finished mostly higher, but Italy's MIB (-0.4%) underperformed after Sunday's national elections failed to produce a clear winner. Meanwhile, in Germany, the CDU and SPD parties agreed on their governing coalition, thereby removing any leadership uncertainty in Europe's largest and most influential economy.

In Asia, stock markets finished on a mixed note, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng (-2.3%) showing relative weakness.

Investors received just one piece of economic data on Monday, the ISM Services Index for February, which came in better than expected (59.5 actual vs 58.8 Briefing.com consensus). The key takeaway from the report is that business activity in the non-manufacturing sector is still running at a healthy level, which is contributing to rising costs.

Outside of equities, U.S. Treasuries finished Monday on a lower note, pushing yields higher across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.88%. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures rallied 2.2% to $62.56 per barrel as energy leaders from around the globe headed to Houston for CERAWeek.

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Stocks Notch Third Straight Win, But Struggle For Direction
06-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow +9.36 at 24884.12, Nasdaq +41.30 at 7372.00, S&P +7.18 at 2728.12

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/6/stocks-notch-third-straight-win-but-struggle-for-direction.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks finished modestly higher on Tuesday, notching their third consecutive victory, following a hard-fought battle between the bulls and the bears. The S&P 500 advanced 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed flat. The small-cap Russell 2000 outperformed, rallying 1.0%.

Investors continued weighing the possibility of a trade war on Tuesday, but pushback from some senior Republicans regarding tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which President Trump pledged to implement last Thursday, helped ease concerns. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) encouraged the White House to narrow the focus of its plan, saying the current proposal--a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tariff on imported aluminum--is too broad and leaves the U.S. open to retaliation.

Meanwhile, on the Korean Peninsula, reports indicated that North Korea and South Korea will hold their first summit in more than a decade in late April. North Korea is also reportedly open to discussing the end of its nuclear weapons program as long as the ruling regime is guaranteed security in return. However, investors remained skeptical as North Korea has a poor track record of keeping its promises.

U.S. equities opened Tuesday's session modestly higher following a positive overnight performance from overseas markets, but struggled to find sturdy ground. The S&P 500 drifted near its unchanged mark throughout the session (2721)--adding no more than 0.4% and limiting its loss to 0.4%--as it eyed its 50-day simple moving average (2738) off in the distance. The benchmark index never actually challenged the key technical level, backing away each time it looked as if it might make a run.

Nine of eleven S&P 500 sectors finished the session in positive territory, with the lightly-weighted materials space (+1.1%) leading the charge. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.7%) also outperformed despite a 4.5% decline in the shares of Target (TGT 71.79, -3.35). The retailer followed up a slightly disappointing fourth quarter earnings report with news that it will raise its minimum wage to $12 an hour (from $11) this spring and hopes to reach $15 an hour by 2020.

On the flip side, the utilities sector (-1.4%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings, giving back about three quarters of its Monday advance. The heavily-weighted health care sector also underperformed, closing with a loss of 0.1%.

Outside of the equity market, U.S. Treasuries finished Tuesday flat, leaving the benchmark 10-yr yield at 2.88%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index closed below 90.00 for the first time in a week, dropping 0.4% to 89.57, and West Texas Intermediate crude futures finished flat at a price of $62.60 per barrel.

Investors received just one economic report on Tuesday, January Factory Orders, which showed a larger-than-expected decline (-1.4% actual vs -1.3% Briefing.com consensus). The key takeaway from the report is that it wasn't so much a reflection of a business downturn as it was a case of some understandable softness on the back of an extended pickup in new order activity.

Nasdaq Composite: +6.8% YTD
S&P 500: +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.7% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.7% YTD

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Afternoon Rally Leaves Stocks Little Changed
07-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -82.76 at 24801.36, Nasdaq +24.64 at 7396.64, S&P -1.32 at 2726.80

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/7/afternoon-rally-leaves-stocks-little-changed.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] An afternoon rally left the U.S. equity market little changed on Wednesday as investors contemplated the resignation of White House Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn. The S&P 500 finished a tick below its flat line (-0.1%), breaking a three-session winning streak, while the Nasdaq did a little better (+0.3%) and the Dow did a little worse (-0.3%).

President Trump's proposed tariffs, which include a 25% duty on steel imports and a 10% duty on imports of aluminum, were reportedly the rift that caused Mr. Cohn's departure, which, in turn, underlined the seriousness of the White House on the matter. Mr. Trump indeed looks poised to push the tariffs forward, despite fears that they could lead to a trade war, with reports indicating that he would like to sign a presidential proclamation as early as Thursday.

It's worth noting, however, that White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said there could be carve outs for NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada. The suggestion that the tariffs may not be applied in a universal fashion helped dial back the bearish sentiment on Wall Street.

The equity market looked as if it might give back all of its weekly gain immediately following news of Mr. Cohn's resignation, with the S&P 500 futures losing as much as 1.7% overnight. However, stocks quickly made a rebound attempt after opening lower. That attempt failed, but a second attempt in the afternoon proved successful, bringing the S&P 500 all the way back from a loss of 1.0%. The benchmark index touched positive territory for the first time with less than 30 minutes left in the session, but ticked back into the red in the final minutes.

Only three of eleven S&P 500 sectors finished in the green, but two of those three--technology (+0.6%) and health care (+0.5%)--are heavily-weighted, comprising around 40% of the broader market combined. Autodesk (ADSK 137.70, +17.83) was the tech sector's top-performing component, rallying 14.9%, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter.

In other earnings news, Dollar Tree (DLTR 89.25, -15.11) and Ross Stores (ROST 75.40, -5.11) dropped sharply after both companies issued disappointing profit guidance; Dollar Tree also missed earnings estimates for the fourth quarter. The two retailers lost 14.5% and 6.4%, respectively.

Small caps outperformed in the midweek session, pushing the Russell 2000 higher by 0.8%, likely due to the fact that a trade war wouldn't have as harsh of an impact on smaller companies, which rely more on domestic consumers. Likewise, the S&P Mid Cap 400 added 0.2%.

Overseas, Asian equities sold off on Wednesday, but European shares advanced, with Germany's DAX (+1.1%) setting the pace. All eyes will be on the ECB's Governing Council meeting on Thursday, especially ECB President Mario Draghi's post-decision press conference. Any sense that the central bank might dial back its ultra-accommodative policy measures could lead to a knee-jerk reaction in the financial markets.

Investors received a big batch of economic data on Wednesday, highlighted by a higher-than-expected trade deficit for January (-$56.6 billion actual vs -$55.0 billion Briefing.com consensus), which marked the biggest deficit since October 2008. The key takeaway from the report is that trade will again be a drag on first quarter GDP growth.

The ADP National Employment Report for February, which is a prelude to Friday's Employment Situation Report, was also released, showing a larger-than-expected increase in nonfarm payrolls (235K actual vs 193K Briefing.com consensus). However, the ADP reading has proven unreliable in predicting the BLS nonfarm payrolls figure.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries alternated between gains and losses on Wednesday, finishing little changed; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.88%. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures dove 2.2% to $61.63 per barrel after the EIA reported U.S. crude inventories increased 2.4 million barrels last week. Estimates called for a build of around 2.7 million barrels.

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Late Rally Following Trump Signature on Tariffs
08-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow +93.85 at 24895.21, Nasdaq +31.30 at 7427.94, S&P +12.17 at 2738.97

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/8/late-rally-following-trump-signature-on-tariffs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities ticked higher on Thursday as investors awaited President Trump's official approval of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which he gave minutes before the closing bell. The S&P 500 finished with a gain of 0.5%, closing at its best mark of the day, while the Dow and the Nasdaq added 0.4% apiece.

The market drifted near its unchanged mark through most of Thursday's session, but volatility started to pick up in the afternoon following an Associated Press report that Canada and Mexico will be exempt indefinitely from the president's proposed tariffs; earlier reports said that the two countries would be exempt initially, but a continuation of that status was based on their willingness to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

From there, equities bounced around during President Trump's press conference, which began just 30 minutes before the closing bell. The president signed two proclamations that implemented the tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, but exempted Mexico and Canada. However, Mr. Trump said he will give other nations the opportunity to justify why they should also not be included, emphasizing that he is seeking "fairness."

10 of 11 S&P sectors finished in positive territory, with countercyclical groups like health care (+0.7%), consumer staples (+0.9%), and utilities (+0.7%) closing at the top of the leaderboard. The energy sector (-0.1%) was the one declining group.

In corporate news, Express Scripts (ESRX 79.72, +6.30) jumped 8.6% after agreeing to be acquired by Cigna (CI 172.00, -22.25) for approximately $67 billion in cash and stock; conversely, Cigna dropped 11.5%. Meanwhile, Kroger (KR 22.98, -3.25) tumbled 12.4% to a three-month low after issuing disappointing profit guidance, and Costco (COST 185.69, -1.67) lost 0.9% after missing earnings estimates for its fiscal second quarter.

Meanwhile, Treasury yields settled Thursday a tick lower, with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.87%.

In Europe, the European Central Bank left its key policy rates unchanged on Thursday, as expected, and removed from its policy statement a promise to increase its bond purchases if needed. The latter move was seen as a small step towards normalization following years of ultra-accommodative policy. In addition, the ECB reaffirmed that its net asset purchases will remain at a monthly pace of EUR30 billion until the end of September 2018, or beyond, if necessary.

The euro dropped 0.9% against the U.S. dollar to 1.2303 following the ECB decision, hitting a one-week low, while European equities rallied to new session highs. France's CAC led the charge, finishing Thursday with a gain of 1.3%, while Germany's DAX and the UK's FTSE added 0.9% and 0.6%, respectively.

In Asia, equity indices also ended Thursday in positive territory, adding between 0.5% and 1.5%.

Investors received just one economic report on Thursday, weekly Initial Claims, which came in higher than expected (231K actual vs 220K Briefing.com consensus). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.870 million from a revised count of 1.934 million (from 1.931 million). The report will likely be glossed over as it doesn't alter the market's perspective on the claims trend, and it comes just one day ahead of the much more influential Employment Situation Report for February.

The Employment Situation Report for February will be released at 8:30 AM ET on Friday, and the Briefing.com consensus expects that it will show the addition of 210,000 nonfarm payrolls, an increase of 0.2% in average hourly earnings, and an unemployment rate of 4.0% (down from 4.1% in January).

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Nasdaq Hits New Record Following February Jobs Report
09-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow +440.53 at 25335.74, Nasdaq +132.86 at 7560.80, S&P +47.60 at 2786.57

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/9/nasdaq-hits-new-record-following-february-jobs-report.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks advanced on Friday, climbing steadily over the course of the session, as investors cheered the Employment Situation Report for February, which showed strong jobs growth while keeping inflation concerns at bay. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.8% to finish at a new record high (7560.81), its first record finish since before a volatile round of selling at the beginning of February. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1.7% and 1.8%, respectively.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 313,000 in February, blowing past the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 210,000, and the January increase was revised upward to 239,000 (from 200,000). Meanwhile, average hourly earnings increased 0.2%, as expected, which brought the year-over-year increase down to 2.6% from 2.8% in January. The unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%, which is slightly higher than the Briefing consensus estimate of 4.0%, but still good enough for a 17-year low, and the average workweek ticked up to 34.5 from a revised 34.4 in January (Briefing.com consensus 34.4).

In short, it was another 'Goldilocks' report, pointing to strong economic growth via the impressive nonfarm payroll additions while at the same time giving the market no reason to believe that the Fed will need to be more aggressive in its path to normalization--evidenced by the deceleration in year-over-year wage growth.

U.S. Treasuries sold off in reaction to the jobs report, pushing yields back towards the multi-year highs they hit a couple of weeks ago; the benchmark 10-yr yield advanced to 2.89% after finishing Thursday at 2.87%. The uptick in yields helped underpin the financial sector (+2.5%), which finished at the top of the sector standings.

Within the financial space, Goldman Sachs (GS 270.77, +4.43) settled behind its peers following reports that its CEO Lloyd Blankfein is preparing to step down after serving at the helm for more than 12 years. Co-presidents Harvey Schwartz and David Solomon are the two front runners to replace Mr. Blankfein.

10 of 11 S&P groups finished Friday in the green, with the lightly-weighted telecom services space (-0.1%) being the lone laggard. In addition to financials, industrials (+2.2%), technology (+2.0%), materials (+1.9%), and energy (+1.9%) outperformed, while the consumer staples (+0.6%), real estate (+0.7%), and utilities (+0.3%) groups were relatively week. The energy space was helped by an increase in the price of crude oil, with West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbing 3.1% to $62.05 per barrel following a two-day skid.

News that President Trump accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un helped underpin Wall Street on Friday. The meeting, which will reportedly take place by the end of May, would mark the first meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a member of the Kim dynasty.

In addition, investors were still chewing on President Trump's tariff announcement on Friday, which went better than many were expecting. The president officially approved tariffs on steel and aluminum imports shortly before Thursday's closing bell, but gave Canada and Mexico an exemption and said that other countries might also receive an exemption depending on their willingness to renegotiate trade deals with the U.S.

Nasdaq Composite: +9.5% YTD
S&P 500: +4.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.0% YTD

Week In Review: Bulls Bounce Back, Nasdaq Navigates to New Records

U.S. equities rallied this week, more than reclaiming last week's losses, as investors navigated their way through a host of happenings, including a battle over tariffs in Washington, the latest European Central Bank policy meeting, and the release of the Employment Situation Report for February. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led the charge with a weekly gain of 4.2%, closing Friday at a new all-time high, while the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 3.5% and 3.3%, respectively.

The tariff saga continued this week as some congressional Republicans and officials within the White House urged President Trump to reconsider the duties on steel and aluminum imports that he proposed last week, fearing that they could cause a trade war. The president refused to back down though, leading to the resignation of his top economic advisor Gary Cohn on Tuesday.

Mr. Trump signed a proclamation to implement the tariffs on Thursday afternoon, but, to the market's delight, exempted Canada and Mexico. The president also left open the possibility of exemptions for other countries depending on their willingness to renegotiate trade deals. The tariffs will take effect on March 23.

Overseas, the European Central Bank left its key policy rates unchanged on Thursday, as expected, and removed from its policy statement a promise to increase its bond purchases if needed. The latter move was seen as a small step towards normalization following years of ultra-accommodative policy. In addition, the ECB reaffirmed that its net asset purchases will remain at a monthly pace of EUR30 billion until the end of September 2018, or beyond, if necessary.

In Asia, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday extended an invitation to meet with President Trump, which Mr. Trump accepted. The summit, which will reportedly take place by the end of May, would mark the first face-to-face meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a sitting North Korean leader.

The Employment Situation Report for February was released on Friday morning, showing robust job growth and a deceleration in the year-over-year change in average hourly earnings. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 313,000 (Briefing.com consensus 210K), while average hourly earnings increased 0.2%, as expected, and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1% (Briefing.com consensus 4.0%). The report helped Wall Street close out the week on a positive note, boosting the major averages more than 1.5% apiece on Friday.

11 of 11 S&P sectors finished with weekly gains. Economically-sensitive groups like financials (+4.4%), technology (+4.3%), industrials (+4.4%), and materials (+4.1%) were the top-performing sectors, while countercyclical spaces like consumer staples (+1.7%), utilities (+0.8%), and telecom services (+1.8%) showed relative weakness.

Following this week's rally, the S&P 500 is about 3.0% below its record high (2873), which is a big improvement from -10.1% at the bottom of the February sell off.

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Mixed Finish to Monday's Session
12-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -157.13 at 25178.61, Nasdaq +27.51 at 7588.31, S&P -3.55 at 2783.02

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/12/mixed-finish-to-mondays-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks kicked off the week with a quiet performance on Monday that left the broad-based S&P 500 a tick below its unchanged mark (-0.1%). The Dow Jones Industrial Average took a more substantial hit (-0.6%), while the Nasdaq Composite outperformed (+0.4%), climbing to a new all-time high for the second consecutive session.

Noteworthy news was in short supply on Monday, leading to lighter-than-usual trading volume. Investors continued to digest the February jobs report, which prompted a big rally on Friday, and started looking ahead to this week's batch of influential economic data--beginning with the Tuesday release of the Consumer Price Index for February (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).

The 11 S&P sectors finished Monday pretty evenly mixed; six declined while five advanced.

Industrials (-1.2%) was the weakest sector by a considerable margin, with more than three quarters of its components finishing in the red. Dow components Boeing (BA 344.19, -10.33), Caterpillar (CAT 154.50, -3.75), and United Tech (UTX 131.50, -2.57) showed particular weakness, losing between 1.9% and 2.9%.

Conversely, technology (+0.3%) was among the top-performing sectors, with chipmakers setting the pace. Broadcom (AVGO 262.84, +9.06) advanced 3.6% following a Wall Street Journal report that Intel (INTC 51.52, -0.67) might look to acquire Broadcom, which is currently in pursuit of an acquisition itself; namely, the company is seeking to acquire Qualcomm (QCOM 62.81, -0.22). A combined Broadcom/Qualcomm would pose a serious competitive threat to Intel, hence Intel's desire to enter the mix.

Meanwhile, fellow chipmaker Micron (MU 59.37, +4.78) spiked 8.8% after its target price was raised to $100 from $55 at Nomura Instinet.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries moved modestly higher on Monday, pushing yields down across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.87%. A $21 billion 10-yr note auction drew a high yield of 2.889% on a bid-to-cover of 2.50--slightly above the average of the prior 12 auctions.

Economic data was limited to the Treasury Budget for February, which showed a deficit of $215.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$216.0 billion) versus a deficit of $192.0 billion for February 2017. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the February deficit cannot be compared to the $49.2 billion surplus registered in January.

In Washington, reports indicated that longtime CNBC personality Larry Kudlow is the front runner to replace Gary Cohn as President Trump's top economic advisor. Mr. Kudlow is a proponent of free trade and served in the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan administration.

Nasdaq Composite: +9.9% YTD
S&P 500: +4.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +1.9% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.3% YTD

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Technology and Financials Lead Tuesday Tumble
13-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -171.58 at 25007.03, Nasdaq -77.31 at 7511.00, S&P -17.71 at 2765.31

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/13/technology-and-financials-lead-tuesday-tumble.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities got off to a good start on Tuesday, but began declining soon thereafter, finishing the session on a broadly lower note. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended with losses of 0.6% and 0.7%, respectively, while the Nasdaq Composite, which hit new all-time highs in the two prior sessions, dropped 1.0%.

The top-weighted technology and financials sectors, which comprise around 40% of the broader market combined, led Tuesday's tumble, dropping 1.2% and 1.1%, respectively. Cyclical sectors underperformed in general, while some countercyclical groups, like health care (+0.2%) and utilities (+0.2%), actually finished in the green.

Qualcomm (QCOM 59.70, -3.11) was the worst-performing component in the S&P 500 with a loss of 5.0%. The semiconductor giant sold off after President Trump blocked Broadcom's (AVGO 261.22, -1.62) takeover effort, citing risks to national security. Dow component General Electric (GE 14.43, -0.67) also had a disappointing performance, dropping 4.4%, after JP Morgan slashed its price target from $14 to $11, which is the lowest price forecast among the 16 research firms that cover GE.

The major averages were either at, or below, their flat lines by midday, but selling accelerated in the afternoon following a Politico headline that the White House could announce "steep" tariffs and investment restrictions on China as soon as next week. The threat of such action against China has been present for some time, so the headline wasn't unexpected per se. However, it did serve as a sobering reminder that the trade war issue is still simmering and could soon hit a boiling point if China decides to retaliate.

Separately, President Trump ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him.

Investors received some key inflation data on Tuesday, the Consumer Price Index for February, and breathed a sigh of relief after it showed that consumer inflation is not accelerating in a worrisome fashion. The CPI increased 0.2% last month, as expected, after rising 0.5% in January. Meanwhile, the core CPI, which is seen as a better long-term gauge of inflation as it excludes the volatile categories of food and energy, also met expectations with a 0.2% month-over-month increase, down from 0.3% in January.

With those monthly changes, total CPI was up 2.2% year over year, which is more than the 2.1% reading registered in January, and core CPI was up 1.8%, unchanged from the 12 months ending January. The Fed aims for a year-over-year increase of 2.0% in core inflation, but prefers to use the PCE Price Index over the CPI.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended Tuesday on a mostly higher note, with longer-dated issues pacing the advance. The benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, slipped two basis points to 2.85%. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield finished flat at 2.26%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a sizable batch of economic data on Wednesday: Retail Sales for February (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and the Producer Price Index for February (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) will both be released at 8:30 AM ET, while the less influential Business Inventories report for January (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) will cross the wires at 10:00 AM ET. Also of note, the Energy Information Administration will release its weekly crude inventory report at 10:30 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +8.8% YTD
S&P 500: +3.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +1.2% YTD
Russell 2000: +3.7% YTD

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Wall Street Extends Weekly Decline
14-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -248.91 at 24758.12, Nasdaq -14.20 at 7496.80, S&P -15.83 at 2749.48

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/14/wall-street-extends-weekly-decline.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 moved lower for the third consecutive session on Wednesday, losing 0.6%, as fears over a potential trade war continued linger. The Dow Jones Industrial Average did even worse, losing 1.0%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite held up relatively well, shedding just 0.2%.

Coming off last week's decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, President Trump is now reportedly seeking to hit China with steep tariffs and investment restrictions that could be applied as early as next week. Those tariffs, which are expected to total as much as $60 billion, would initially be targeted towards information technology, telecoms, and consumer electronics as punishment for alleged intellectual property theft, but could eventually be much broader.

The White House also clarified a tweet that the president released last week, saying that Mr. Trump is looking to reduce China's trade surplus with the U.S. by $100 billion, and announced that longtime CNBC personality Larry Kudlow will replace Gary Cohn as President Trump's top economic advisor, as expected.

Stocks opened Wednesday's session with modest gains despite the continued tariff talk, but started moving lower almost immediately. The S&P 500 tested its 50-day simple moving average several times throughout the session, but buyers never let the index get too far below the key technical level. The benchmark index traded as low as 2744, but finished two points above its 50-day simple moving average at 2749.

Investors had a sizable batch of economic data to digest on Wednesday, including the February readings for the Producer Price Index and Retail Sales. Retail Sales disappointed, declining for a third straight month (-0.1% actual vs +0.3% Briefing.com consensus), but the January decrease was reduced to 0.1% from 0.3%.

The Producer Price Index, meanwhile, rose 0.2% in February, more than the Briefing.com consensus of 0.1%, and the core Producer Price Index also jumped 0.2%, as expected. Those monthly changes leave the PPI up 2.8% year over year (up from 2.7% in January) and the core CPI up 2.5% year over year (up from 2.2% in January).

All in all, Wednesday's data didn't give investors any reason to believe the Fed will hike rates more than three times this year. The year-over-year uptick in producer prices is notable, yet concerns about that trend were tempered somewhat by the realization that Tuesday's release of the Consumer Price Index for February didn't show any worrisome pass through effects to consumers.

Investors also received the Business Inventories report for January, which increased 0.6% as expected, but it didn't have much impact on trading.

U.S. Treasuries recorded their third consecutive advance on Wednesday, settling near session highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, declined four basis points to 2.82%, while the 2-yr yield slipped just one basis point to 2.25%, resulting in a flattening of the yield curve.

That flattening weighed on financials, as lenders rely on the difference between what they spend on deposits and what they charge for loans. The S&P's financial sector lost 1.2%, finishing alongside industrials (-1.1%), materials (-1.3%), and consumer staples (-1.3%) at the bottom of the sector standings.

Two of eleven sectors finished in the green though--the rate-sensitive utilities (+1.0%) and real estate (+0.1%) spaces.

In corporate news, Signet Jewelers (SIG 38.22, -9.69) tumbled 20.2%, hitting its lowest level in more than six years, after the diamond retailer reported a 5.2% decline in same store sales for the fourth quarter and lowered its guidance for fiscal year 2019. Meanwhile, Broadcom (AVGO 260.59, -0.63) lost 0.2% after terminating its offer to acquire Qualcomm (QCOM 60.12, +0.42) following an order from President Trump.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a big batch of economic data on Thursday, including export and import prices for February, the weekly Initial Claims report (Briefing.com consensus 226K), the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for March (Briefing.com consensus 15.0), the Philadelphia Fed Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 23.7), and the NAHB Housing Market Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 72). All but the NAHB Housing Market Index will be released at 8:30 AM ET; the NAHB Index will be released at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +8.6% YTD
S&P 500: +2.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.2% YTD
Russell 2000: +3.2% YTD

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S&P 500 Ends Up & Down Session A Tick Lower
15-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow +115.54 at 24873.66, Nasdaq -15.07 at 7481.73, S&P -2.15 at 2747.33

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/15/s-and-p-500-ends-up--and--down-session-a-tick-lower.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks initially tried to move higher on Thursday, then lower, but the S&P 500 ultimately ended the session little changed, losing 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite and the Russell 2000 also finished lower, losing 0.2% and 0.5%, respectively, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed, advancing 0.5%.

The S&P 500 was slightly higher through the first hour of trading, sitting just above its 50-day simple moving average, but jumped to new highs following a CNBC interview with Peter Navarro, Director of the White House National Trade Council. Mr. Navarro tried to ease fears that the recently imposed tariffs, and future ones, could lead to a trade war, saying that the U.S. can implement them "in a way that is peaceful and will improve and strengthen the trading system." The upbeat sentiment didn't last long though, as the S&P 500 quickly returned to its previous levels.

From there, the equity market trended sideways into the afternoon and then dropped to new lows following the release of a New York Times report that Special Counsel Robert Mueller subpoenaed the Trump Organization for documents, some of which relate to Russia. Buyers didn't let the S&P 500 drop too far below its 50-day simple moving average though, keeping technical damage to a minimum.

The S&P 500 was down 0.3% at its worst mark of the day and was up 0.5% at its best. The 11 S&P sectors finished mostly lower, with three advancing and eight declining. The industrial sector (+0.3%) was the top performer, while materials (-1.3%), consumer staples (-0.6%), and energy (-0.4%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings.

Monsanto (MON 117.20, -5.95) weighed on the materials space, losing 4.8%, after reports that its pending merger with Bayer will face additional hurdles from antitrust officials. Meanwhile, in the consumer staples group, Walmart (WMT 87.51, -0.16) dropped sharply following reports that a former executive filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that it issued misleading e-commerce results, but shares were able to bounce back to finish lower by just 0.2%.

News that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has revised its policies so that master limited partnerships (MLPs) will no longer be able to recover an income tax allowance for the cost of service weighed on the energy space, with Williams Companies (WMB 26.69, -1.45) losing 5.2%.

In earnings news, Dollar General (DG 93.44, +4.24) rallied 4.8% after reporting an increase of 3.3% in same store sales for the fourth quarter and issuing better-than-expected earnings and revenue guidance for fiscal year 2019.

The Treasury market walked a fairly quiet line on Thursday, with the exception of the 2-yr note, which saw sellers making some noise that drove its yield up three basis points to 2.28%. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished unchanged at 2.82%, leaving the 10-2 spread at 54 basis points, which is its lowest level since late January.

Investors received a large batch of economic data on Thursday that included export and import prices for February, the weekly Initial Claims report, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for March, the Philadelphia Fed Index for March, and the NAHB Housing Market Index for March:

Import prices excluding oil rose 0.5% in February after increasing a revised 0.5% in January (from 0.4%). Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.2% in February after rising a revised 0.8% in January (from 0.9%).
The price index for fuel imports was down 0.6% in February, so the key takeaway from the report is that the import price increase was driven by nonfuel prices, which is to be expected somewhat given the weakness in the dollar.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 226,000, as expected. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 230,000 (from 231,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.879 million from a revised count of 1.875 million (from 1.870 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the initial claims level will continue to drive expectations for another solid gain in nonfarm payrolls in March.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for March rose to 22.5 (Briefing.com consensus 15.0) from the prior month's unrevised reading of 13.1.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for March decreased to 22.3 (Briefing.com consensus 23.7) from an unrevised 25.8 in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that 64% of firms reported labor shortages while 70% of firms highlighted skills mismatches between requirements and available labor. These responses could be a potential harbinger of wage inflation.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for March decreased to 70 (Briefing.com consensus 72) from a revised reading of 71 in February (from 72).

On Friday, investors will get another heavy dose of data, including February Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1283K) and Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1330K), February Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 77.7%), the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for January, and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 99.5).

Nasdaq Composite: +8.4% YTD
S&P 500: +2.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.6% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.7% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Upbeat Finish to Disappointing Week
16-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow +72.85 at 24946.51, Nasdaq +0.25 at 7481.98, S&P +4.68 at 2752.01

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/16/upbeat-finish-to-disappointing-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street wrapped up a disappointing week on a positive note on Friday, in what was a quiet and fairly range-bound session. The S&P 500 advanced 0.2%, breaking a four-session losing streak, while the Dow and the small-cap Russell 2000 added 0.3% and 0.6%, respectively. The tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed, closing a tick higher.

Gains were modest, but broad, with nine of eleven S&P sectors closing in the green. The energy group (+1.0%) was the top performer, benefiting from a jump in the price of crude oil; WTI crude futures rallied 2.0% to $62.35 per barrel. Conversely, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.1%) finished at the bottom of the leaderboard.

The technology group struggled for much of the session, keeping the broader market's gain in check, with Broadcom (AVGO 254.87, -12.89) showing particular weakness; the chipmaker dropped 4.8% even though it beat quarterly profit estimates. Tech-giant Alphabet (GOOGL 1134.42, -16.19) also struggled, losing 1.4%, but Adobe Systems (ADBE 225.55, +6.68) bucked the trend, rallying 3.1% after beating both earnings and revenue estimates for its fiscal first quarter.

Overseas, equity indices in the Asia-Pacific region ended Friday broadly lower, with Japan's Nikkei losing 0.6%, while the major bourses in Europe finished with gains of around 0.3% apiece. The U.S. dollar climbed 0.2% against the euro to 1.2287, but dropped 0.2% against the yen to 106.08.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries closed the week on a lower note, sending yields higher across the curve. The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.84%, while the 2-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.29%, which is its highest level since September 2008.

The relative weakness in the 10-yr note steepened the yield curve a bit, pushing the 10-2 spread to 55 basis points. This steepening helped underpin the financial sector (+0.2%) on Friday, but a decline in shares of Wells Fargo (WFC 55.90, -0.93) weighed on the group, leaving it roughly in line with the broader market. WFC shares lost 1.6% following a Wall Street Journal report that a federal investigation into the bank's sales practices now includes its wealth-management unit.

Investors received several pieces of economic data on Friday, including February Housing Starts and Building Permits, February Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March, and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for January:

Housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.236 million units in February (Briefing.com consensus 1.283 million), down from a revised 1.329 million units in January (from 1.326 million). Building permits decreased to a seasonally adjusted 1.298 million in February (Briefing.com consensus 1.330 million) from a revised 1.377 million in January (from 1.396 million).
Starts and permits were weaker than expected, yet the key takeaway is that there was some underlying detail in the report that helped offset the headline misses, namely the increase in single-family starts and the uptick in the number of units under construction.
Industrial Production increased 1.1% in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the January reading was revised to -0.3% (from -0.1%). Meanwhile, Capacity Utilization ticked up to 78.1% (Briefing.com consensus 77.7%) from a revised reading of 77.4% in January (from 77.5%).
The key takeaway from the report is twofold: (1) manufacturing output was a core driver of the increase in industrial production and (2) capacity utilization hit its highest rate since January 2015, which will keep inflation expectations alive in the market narrative.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March rose to 102.0 (Briefing.com consensus 99.5) from 99.7 in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that the gain in the Sentiment Index was driven entirely by households with incomes in the bottom third. Another notable takeaway is that near-term inflation expectations increased to their highest level in several years.
The January Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 6.312 million from a revised 5.667 million (from 5.811 million) in December.

On Monday, investors will not receive any economic data.

Nasdaq Composite: +8.4% YTD
S&P 500: +2.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.9% YTD
Russell 2000: +3.3% YTD

Week In Review: Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

Equities reversed course this week, undoing about a third of last week's rally, as investors continued to search for equilibrium following the abrupt sell off in early February. Since that drop, the S&P 500 has had three up weeks and two down weeks, reclaiming around 60% of its nearly 300-point plunge. The S&P 500 lost 1.2% this week, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.0% and 1.5%, respectively.

Trade war talk continued this week following reports that President Trump is seeking to hit China with steep tariffs and investment restrictions as early as next week. Those tariffs, which are expected to total as much as $60 billion, would initially be targeted towards information technology, telecommunications, and consumer electronic products as punishment for alleged intellectual property theft, but could eventually expand to a broader range of products.

The proposed tariffs were cited as the primary driver of this week's sell off, as many believe they could lead to a tit-for-tat trade war between the world's two largest economies. Peter Navarro, Director of the White House National Trade Council, attempted to ease the tariff-induced fears in a CNBC interview on Thursday, assuring viewers that the U.S. can implement tariffs "in a way that is peaceful and will improve and strengthen the trading system."

In other political developments, the White House made some notable personnel changes this week--CIA Director Mike Pompeo replaced Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, and longtime CNBC personality Larry Kudlow replaced Gary Cohn, who resigned last week, as the president's top economic advisor--and the New York Times reported on Thursday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed the Trump Organization for documents, some of which relate to Russia.

Nine of eleven S&P sectors finished the week in negative territory, with materials (-3.2%) being the weakest performer. Materials giant Monsanto (MON) dropped 4.8% on Thursday following news that its pending merger with Bayer will likely face additional hurdles from antitrust officials.

Meanwhile, the consumer staples (-2.1%), industrials (-2.0%), and financials (-2.4%) sectors also showed particular weakness. Financials suffered amid a flattening of the yield curve, which doesn't bode well for lenders, as they rely on the difference between what they spend on deposits and what they charge for loans. The yield on the 2-yr note climbed three basis points to 2.29%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield dropped six basis points to 2.84%, cutting the 10-2 spread to 55 bps--its lowest level since late January.

On a positive note, the rate-sensitive utilities (+2.6%) and real estate (+1.3%) sectors finished the week in the green.

Investors received several influential economic reports this week, including the February readings for the Consumer Price Index, the Producer Price Index, Retail Sales, Housing Starts, and Building Permits. In short, the data didn't really give investors a reason to adjust their rate-hike expectations; it's all but certain that the Fed will hike rates at its meeting next week, and the Fed funds futures market is still pointing towards a total of three rate hikes this year--although the chances for a fourth hike are sitting at 34.3%.

[ReturntoSender]

InvestmentHouse - Expect a Rate Hike of 25BP (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- Expiration shows a lot of volume but still not a lot of movement.
- RUTX, SP400 show buying interest on expiration, bouncing off their tests.
- SOX, NASDAQ remain in position to try for new highs once more while SP500
and DJ30 remain quite problematic.
- If FAANG, with its current patterns, breaks higher, the entire group
likely goes higher, with chips, big tech, China stocks going as well.
- FOMC is the headline data point for the week, and a hike of 25BP is
expected.
- Lots of upside setups as the indices test the recovery moves. Can they
break higher, and if so, will the sellers re-enter and sell as on Tuesday?

And the market goes . . . nowhere. Still. Stocks tried to continue higher
early week but reversed Tuesday. NASDAQ and SOX gave up new highs. Sellers
came into the market as the leading indices hit fresh highs. Not promising.

The stock indices mostly sold the balance of the week. It was not, however,
a continuation of the Tuesday high volume selloff. Volume dropped, the
selling intensity mitigated. Indeed, after Tuesday it would be a
misrepresentation to say the selling had any intensity at all. The sellers
left, volume dropped, and stocks edged lower and laterally. After a rude
slap Tuesday with NASDAQ and SOX trying to break the top of their channels,
it was a very ordinary pullback. Ordinary and somewhat encouraging.

With SOX and NASDAQ at the top of their channels, however, the market will
have to once again defy the odds and beat the channel resistance. Thus far
they have beat the odds by avoiding a drop back to the February lows. Of
course after Tuesday they looked primed to go find them. Then the selling
intensity stalled. They are not free of that monkey on their back just yet,
but they consolidated instead of selling off, and that let a lot of stocks
form some pretty good pullbacks to support. Not new bases, just testing the
recovery runs higher. Thus, as with SOX and NASDAQ, they are in nice
consolidations, one that can break higher again, but they are also still
sitting on top of nice moves already. This has to be a real bull run to
break them all higher again. They look darn good to do it, but as noted,
they have to continue defying the odds.

Friday the indices were basically flat, except for RUTX and SP400. The
small caps and midcaps jumped nicely off the 10 day EMA and 50 day SMA,
respectively. At expiration big money was moving into domestically
sensitive areas. And it was not selling off the recent leaders either.

SP500 4.68, 0.17%
NASDAQ 0.25, 0.00%
DJ30 72.85, 0.29%
SP400 0.70%
RUTX 0.60%
SOX 0.03%
NASDAQ 100 -0.16%

VOLUME: NYSE +208%, NASDAQ +55%. Expiration, rebalance, tons of trade,
doesn't mean anything.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE +2:1, NASDAQ +1.7:1


The consensus, at least what we are reading and hearing, is that the market
is not supposed to go up anymore. The Fed is engaged in what is being
called 'quantitative tightening' (QT), it is also going to hike rates next
Wednesday and purportedly 2, maybe 3 more times this year, interest rates
are rising. There is likely more, it is just not worth reciting them.

At the same time here in the office we see a lot of patterns that look
really good to move higher. Some have not made big moves, others have put
in solid upside but have great tests in progress. While history indicates a
test of the prior lows is still a possibility, it would be foolish to ignore
good setups. The market makes a habit of not doing what everyone expects of
it. Thus we are watching these stocks and indeed buying some this past week
on the pullback when some good moves were made. We will see if those pan
out and if more join them next week off what looked to be a sharp reversal
that, at least for last week, died on the vine and allowed some really good
pullback setups.

Thursday I said the indices were at a key pullback, a lick log for some.
Still that way after Friday, though RUTX and SP400 bounced off support. We
will see if next week they can continue and other indices move with them.
Then, most importantly, can they hold any new breaks higher without getting
the Tuesday treatment. That will be the key tell for the next attempt to
move higher.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

NASDAQ/SOX: Both of these indices broke to new highs last week. SOX broke
through its upper channel line, NASDAQ likely touched what could be the
upper channel line for a new channel. Both indices faded in a sharp Tuesday
high to low reversal session. The rest of the week they were lower, but the
sellers basically left. After Tuesday there was no heavy selling. None of
the indices could hold an early gain, but there was no high volume dumping
as on Tuesday. That leaves NASDAQ and SOX in tight lateral consolidations
over the 10 day EMA and in position to defy the odds and continue with more
upside. As noted Thursday, an important time for these two indices. And
all the other indices.

RUTX: Three-session test to the 10 day EMA, a bounce Friday. Expiration,
cannot make too much of it, but it is notable that the index approached the
January high, put in a rather normal test of the 10 day, then started to
bounce as it was bought more than other indices. It too is at an important
point, but it too is also showing promise.

SP400: Midcaps showed buying Friday as well, even more so than RUTX.
Cleared the 50 day SMA and the December high the prior Friday, then came
back to test that move and held. Still inside the selloff from January to
February, and that makes all moves inside that level suspect, particularly
one of these with the lack of an upside base or pattern. Still this is
promising and how the midcaps react this week, as with the other indices, is
quite important.

SP500: SP500 definitely looks better than it did early week as it managed
to hold the 50 day SMA with a pair of tight doji Thursday and Friday. It
broke through the 50 day two Fridays back and then this fade. It set itself
up for a possible bounce, but overall the pattern makes me a skeptic. You
can see the outline of an upward pointing wedge from the February selloff to
present, all contained inside that selloff. That is not a bullish pattern.
We will see how SP500 performs this week off the 50 day SMA test.

DJ30: DJ30's pattern is even harder to interpret. The selloff, then a slow
rise in arguably a channel and arguably a triangle. Last week it put in a
lower high and faded to the lower trendline. Still looks weak, but it has
put itself in a position where it could bounce near term.


LEADERSHIP

Chips: And still testing. Some have put themselves in position to move
higher, e.g. ON, SLAB, TXN, MU, XLNX. Others are almost there but appear to
need more work, e.g. LRCX, SWKS. As with SOX, they are getting into
position to bounce, but can they do so at these levels?

FAANG: This group poses the same question as chips, even to a higher
degree: can they move at these levels. If so, then I would say the entire
group is a buy. FB has set up something of a double bottom with handle.
AAPL is in a nice 10 day EMA test after breaking to a new high. AMZN is in
a 1-2-3-4 test of the 10 day EMA after a new high. NFLX is holding the 10
day EMA in a tight range after the breakout was tossed back Monday. GOOG is
very similar to FB with a double bottom with handle. Again, if the market
is going to move up, these patterns are ones that can make that move.

China: NTES broke higher Thursday, held it Friday. BIDU is testing the 10
day, looks good to go. BABA gapped up off the 50 day MA Thursday. YNDX is
in excellent position to break higher. ATHM is in very good position. CTRP
is showing buying and VIPS is in a good consolidation. HTHT gapped lower
Wednesday, not helping us at all, but it did hold the prior low and is
bouncing.

Drugs/Biotechs: Up and down but overall still working well. IMGN with a
new high Friday. VCEL in a great pennant. PTCT moved higher last week.
IMMU, ARRY stumbled and we exited. Big names continue to underperform the
smaller ones, e.g. AMGN, GILD.

Internet: LLNW continues the nice tight lateral move, but it is time to
make the break. AKAM started upside Thursday, waffled Friday, but still
looks as if it will give an entry.

Software: Holding up well enough, not inspiring with new entry points just
yet. VMW has set up the FB/GOOG double bottom -- of sorts -- pattern. FFIV
is still holding the 20 day MA. RHT consolidated laterally on the week as
the 10 day EMA caught up to it. CRM testing the 10 day EMA. MSFT near the
20 day EMA, still trending higher.

Retail: There are some that look as if they can make new breaks higher.
DDS, M, KSS, TJX. WSM did break higher Thursday. TGT is trying to form up
a pattern. WMT sold to the 200 day SMA and Friday bounced; will see if
anything comes of that. There are also some good moves, e.g. PII as it
broke higher Friday. Note the PII pattern: it is very similar to FB, GOOG,
CAT -- will they break higher as well from this pattern?


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +72.85 points (+0.29%) to close at 24946.51

Nasdaq
Stats: +0.25 points (0.00%) to close at 7481.99
Volume: 3.08B (+54.77%)

Up Volume: 1.88B (+1.124B)
Down Volume: 1.15B (-50M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.67 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.31 to 1

New Highs: 109 (+26)
New Lows: 41 (-9)

S&P
Stats: +4.68 points (+0.17%) to close at 2752.01
NYSE Volume: 2.5B (+207.77%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.03 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.71 to 1

New Highs: 40 (+8)
New Lows: 90 (-46)


SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX: 15.80; -0.79
VXN: 17.64; -0.81
VXO: 14.11; -0.62

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.96; +0.07


Bulls and Bears: The rally to new highs on NASDAQ and SOX two weeks back of
course brought the bulls back in with a solid bump of over six points.
Heck, that is a big bump. Bears were not convinced, and they actually rose
0.2 even as the market rallied.

Bulls: 54.9 versus 48.6

Bears: 15.7 versus 15.5

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 54.9 versus 48.6
48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00 versus
64.7 versus 66.7 versus 64.4 versus 61.9 versus 64.1 versus 64.2 versus 62.3
versus 61.5 versus 63.5 versus 64.4 versus 63.5 versus 62.3 versus 60.6
versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1 versus 49.5
versus 49.5 versus 48.1 versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0 versus 60.2
versus 57.8 versus 50.0 versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5 versus 50.00
versus 55.8 versus 50.00 versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7 versus 58.5
versus 54.7 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5

Bears: 15.7 versus 15.5
15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8
versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1
versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1
versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.844 versus 2.826%. Bonds rallied last week, clearing the 20 day
EMA Tuesday. Rallied to the 50 day EMA then lost some ground Friday. The
move leads some to speculate if bonds are about to rally. A break through
the 50 day MA's would be the most important move for that direction.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.826%
versus 2.819% versus 2.844% versus 2.866% versus 2.896% versus 2.872% versus
2.879% versus 2.863% versus 2.879% versus 2.868% versus 2.799% versus 2.875%
versus 2.893% versus 2.864% versus 2.866% versus 2.934% versus 2.952% versus
2.893% versus 2.873% versus 2.904% versus 2.913% versus 2.833% versus 2.857%
versus 2.8577% versus 2.844% versus 2.813% versus 2.805% versus 2.707%
versus 2.841% versus 2.792% versus 2.713% versus 2.72% versus 2.72% versus
2.66% versus 2.66% versus 2.639% versus 2.617% versus 2.656% versus 2.661%
versus 2.618% versus 2.587% versus 2.535% versus 2.55% versus 2.559% versus
2.551% versus 2.482%


EUR/USD: 1.2287 versus 1.2304. Euro fell to the 50 day EMA on the week,
but it continues a 2 month lateral move that is consolidating the prior
rally.

Historical: 1.2304 versus 1.23782 versus 1.2392 versus 1.23412 versus 1.2305
versus 1.2305 versus 1.24017 versus 1.2411 versus 1.2344 versus 1.23187
versus 1.22822 versus 1.21894 versus 1.21893 versus 1.23257 versus 1.2296
versus 1.2324 versus 1.22820 versus 1.23431 versus 1.2411 versus 1.25083
versus 1.2450 versus 1.23528 versus 1.22887 versus 1.22524 versus 1.2273
versus 1.2377 versus 1.24573 versus 1.2502 versus 1.2404 versus 1.2402
versus 1.23832 versus 1.24308 versus 1.24159 versus 1.24340 versus 1.23083
versus 1.22567 versus 1.22169 versus 1.2241 versus 1.2198 versus 1.22698
versus 1.22060 versus 1.20608 versus 1.19507 versus 1.19322 versus 1.19662
versus 1.20313 versus 1.20756 versus 1.20177 versus 1.20573 versus 1.2001
versus 1.1936 versus 1.1936 versus 1.18998


USD/JPY: 106.00 versus 106.344. Dollar is in a 4 week lateral range below
the 10 day EMA, trying to find some support for a break higher through the
20 day EMA that has held it in check since early January.

Historical: 106.344 versus 105.846 versus 106.42 versus 106.335 versus
106.77 versus 106.41 versus 106.105 versus 105.752 versus 106.359 versus
105.734 versus 106.03 versus 106.695 versus 107.381 versus 106.96 versus
106.886 versus 106.85 versus 107.581 versus 107.435 versus 106.294 versus
106.153 versus 106.782 versus 107.77 versus 108.669 versus 108.669 versus
108.797 versus 108.88 versus 109.33 versus 109.58 versus 108.651 versus
110.001 versus 109.46 versus 109.50 versus 108.77 versus 108.84 versus
108.601 versus 109.411 versus 109.033 versus 110.159


Oil: 62.41, +1.22. Still in the lateral move that started with the
February selling.


Gold: 1312.30, -5.5. Unable to hold near the 50 day EMA and breaking lower
again.


MONDAY

It is FOMC week and this time it is expected the Fed will hike rates 25 BP,
one of those 3 hikes for 2018. More important than the hiking is the QT,
the 'quantitative tightening' as the Fed removes the buys of the junk assets
from its balance sheet, the 'give us your poor, your wretched junk assets
yearning for a buyer of last resort' program. As with that immigration
period, there comes a time when you don't need them anymore, and just as
immigration was shut down in the 1930's until the 1960's, the asset buying
program is unneeded.

Okay, so FOMC is the big dog but there is also Existing Home Sales, Leading
Economic Indicators, Durable Goods Orders, and New Home Sales. Enough to
keep things interesting as the Fed digests the stronger than expected
Industrial production for February (1.1% vs 0.3% exp vs -0.3% January) and
Capacity Utilization (78.1% vs 77.7% exp vs 77.4% January). Michigan
sentiment was also up at 102.0 from 99.7 in February. If the FOMC raises as
expected, that should at least not rattle markets.

This is one of those situations where we see a lot of really interesting
upside patterns, but most of which are tests of upside moves. The leading
indices have recovered much or all of the February losses. They rallied to
new highs or close thereto and are now testing those moves.

The big question, the huge question, is whether they can use the
consolidations to break higher yet again, putting in new highs that can
hold. If there is a fail at this point, it is likely an epic one that leads
to a test of the February low. If not, then there will be some good buys
and moves to profit from, even if they are at higher highs and leave you
with that uncomfortable feeling that there is that low still hanging out
there.

Recall in October I wrote that we just had to get used to the idea of buying
the FAANG and letting them work for us even if not much else was working?
That paid off huge for us. This is developing into one of those situations
where we just have to accept it for what it is, and if the moves are made,
buy them. Heck, isn't that what we ALWAYS do? We can contemplate,
postulate, speculate, and other 'ates that we want, but when it comes down
to it, you look at good patterns up or down, and if they make the moves,
then you follow the moves.

Key for this area, given the Tuesday action, is how any new breaks higher,
to new highs particularly, are treated. If they get the same old smack in
the face that Tuesday saw, that shows the sellers are still ready, willing,
and able to sell at this level. Breaks higher that fail shortly thereafter
are of course not good action, and if they start popping up all over the
place, that tells you the sellers are using each move higher to unload
shares and that a downturn is coming.

Thus, Tuesday was a warning, but just a warning because the sellers left and
stocks consolidated nicely. The next breaks higher off these pullbacks,
however, will really be the moves that tell the market's near-term tale.

Have a great weekend!

[ReturntoSender]

Wall Street Trims Monday Losses Ahead of Fed Decision
20-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow +116.36 at 24727.27, Nasdaq +20.06 at 7364.30, S&P +4.02 at 2716.94

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/20/wall-street-trims-monday-losses-ahead-of-fed-decision.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks reclaimed a small portion of Monday's decline in choppy trade on Tuesday as investors began gearing up for the Fed's latest policy directive, which will cross the wires on Wednesday afternoon. The S&P 500 advanced 0.2%, trimming its weekly loss to 1.3%, while the Nasdaq climbed 0.3%, and the Dow jumped 0.5%.

The technology sector remained a focal point on Tuesday after leading Monday's sell off, and, for the most part, sentiment within the sector shifted; around three quarters of S&P 500 tech names finished in the green. However, Facebook (FB 168.15, -4.41) was a notable laggard for the second straight session, losing 2.6%, following reports that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating whether the company violated a 2011 settlement regarding data privacy when research firm Cambridge Analytica obtained the personal data of 50 million users without their consent.

The Cambridge Analytica incident, which was first reported over the weekend, has been met with cries for greater government regulation, and has prompted lawmakers on Capitol Hill to ask for hearings with CEOs from social media companies, including Twitter (TWTR 31.35, -3.63), which dropped 10.4% on Tuesday. Twitter was also dealing with reports that Israel is considering sanctions against the company for allegedly ignoring requests to remove content that supports terrorism.

Oracle (ORCL 47.05, -4.90) also weighed on the tech group, losing 9.4%, after its better-than-expected quarterly earnings were overshadowed by a disappointing pace of growth in its cloud computing business and the realization that a lower tax rate helped drive the positive earnings surprise.

In the end, the technology sector finished Tuesday flat, closing near the middle of the sector standings. In general, cyclical sectors outperformed their countercyclical peers. The top-performing sectors were consumer discretionary (+0.6%) and energy (+0.9%), while consumer staples (-0.3%), utilities (-0.5%), and telecom services (-1.0%) were the worst-performing groups.

The energy sector benefited from an increase in the price of crude oil; West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 2.2% to $63.42 per barrel, hitting a three-week high. Heightened tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran helped underpin the commodity, as did projections for a decline in Venezuela production due to the country's ongoing economic crisis.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries sold off on Tuesday, pushing yields higher across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed four basis points to 2.88%, while the 2-yr yield jumped five basis points to 2.34%, which is its highest level since September 2008.

Investors didn't have any economic data to digest on Tuesday, turning their attention to Wednesday's rate-hike decision instead. The market is all but certain that the Fed will vote to raise the Fed funds target range by 25 basis points on Wednesday, so the Fed's economic and rate-hike projections will be the real main event. The CME FedWatch Tool is currently pointing towards a total of three rate hikes this year--although the chances for a fourth hike are sitting at 39.9%.

Also of note, President Trump is reportedly planning to announce $60 billion worth of annual tariffs on Chinese imports at the end of the week. The tariffs, which were first reported last Wednesday, will target more than 100 products, which the president argues were developed using trade secrets from American companies.

Nasdaq Composite: +6.7% YTD
S&P 500: +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: unch YTD
Russell 2000: +2.3% YTD

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Sharp Swings Following Rate Hike
21-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -44.96 at 24682.31, Nasdaq -19.02 at 7345.28, S&P -5.01 at 2711.93

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/21/sharp-swings-following-rate-hike.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks swung sharply on Wednesday afternoon following the release of the Fed's latest policy directive, which increased the fed funds target range by 25 basis points to 1.50%-1.75%. The S&P 500, the Nasdaq Composite, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average eventually settled with modest losses between 0.2% and 0.3%, but the small-cap Russell 2000 outperformed, finishing with a gain of 0.6%.

The rate hike wasn't a surprise as investors had long expected that the Fed would increase rates at its March meeting. What investors weren't sure of, however, was whether the Fed would stick to its forecast of three rate hikes for 2018, thinking it might bump up that number to four. To the market's relief, the former proved to be true -- the Fed is calling for just two additional rate hikes this year (three in total) -- but officials did raise their rate-hike projections for 2019; they're now calling for three hikes next year, up from two in December.

Equities were volatile following the decision, with the S&P 500 jumping to a new session high (+0.8%) and then to a new session low (-0.3%) within a span of 45 minutes. Similarly, the Treasury market seesawed a bit, eventually finishing the session on a mixed note; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finished three basis points above its Tuesday close at 2.91%, while the Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield dropped three basis points to 2.31%.

Only three of eleven S&P sectors finished Wednesday in positive territory -- industrials (+0.1%), materials (+1.1%), and energy (+2.6%). The energy group was strong throughout the session, benefiting from a rise in the price of crude oil; West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 3.0% to $65.45 per barrel, their best level in nearly seven weeks, after the Department of Energy reported that U.S. crude inventories declined by 2.6 million barrels last week.

On the flip side, the consumer staples sector finished at the bottom of the sector standings with a loss of 1.3%. General Mills (GIS 45.51, -4.42) led the group lower, dropping 8.9%, after lowering its profit guidance for fiscal year 2018. The top-weighted technology sector (-0.6%) also underperformed, but Facebook (FB 169.39, +1.24) managed to advance 0.7% following heavy losses on Monday and Tuesday, which were due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Wednesday's economic data included Existing Home Sales for February, the Current Account Balance for the fourth quarter, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Existing home sales increased 3.0% in February to an annualized rate of 5.54 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.42 million). The January reading was left unrevised at 5.38 million.
The key takeaway from the report remains the same: notable supply constraints continue to act as a drag on overall sales. The limited inventory -- and the high prices on available inventory -- is crimping affordability, particularly for first-time buyers; moreover, all prospective buyers are going to feel added affordability pressures from rising mortgage rates.
The current account deficit for the fourth quarter totaled $128.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$125.0 billion). The third quarter deficit was revised to $101.5 billion from $100.6 billion.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.1% to follow last week's uptick of 0.9%.

On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial Jobless Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 225K) at 8:30 AM ET, the FHFA Housing Price Index for January (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) at 9:00 AM ET, and The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for February (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +6.4% YTD
S&P 500: +1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.2% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.9% YTD

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Wall Street Tumbles Amid Flurry of Headlines
22-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -724.42 at 23957.89, Nasdaq -178.61 at 7166.67, S&P -68.24 at 2643.69

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/22/wall-street-tumbles-amid-flurry-of-headlines.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks tumbled on Thursday as a slew of leery headlines left buyers on the sidelines. The S&P 500 lost 2.5%, dropping into negative territory for the year (-1.1%) and extending its week-to-date decline to 3.9%, while the Nasdaq and the Dow tumbled 2.4% and 2.9%, respectively.

There was little doubt as to where the market was headed at Thursday's opening bell, as equity futures were down big in overnight trading. There wasn't a particular catalyst for the negative disposition, but disappointing PMI readings in the eurozone and Japan, an unsatisfying apology from Facebook's (FB 164.89, -4.50) CEO Mark Zuckerberg regarding the Cambridge Analytica data breach, and Wednesday's rate hike from the Fed didn't exactly bode well for investor sentiment.

The biggest headline catalyst, however, was President Trump's decision to impose tariffs of up to $60 billion on Chinese imports; Mr. Trump officially signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday afternoon. However, the decision wasn't a surprise -- Reuters first reported the president's desire to punish China for intellectual property theft via tariffs last week -- and actually had a silver lining considering the tariffs will only be implemented after a consultation period. Still, the duties do give new energy to the trade war debate.

Selling picked up notably in the final hour of the session, with the S&P 500 nearly doubling its earlier loss. The financial sector led the retreat, dropping 3.7%, as Treasury yields tumbled across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield declined eight basis points to 2.83%, while the 2-yr yield slid three basis points to 2.28%. The industrial sector (-3.3%) also showed notable weakness, while most of the remaining groups finished with losses of more than 2.0%.

The most influential sector, information technology, declined 2.7% -- a discouraging sign for investors who have looked to the sector for leadership; the tech group led last year's rally and is still the top-performing sector of 2018 despite Thursday's slide, up 4.3% year to date. Accenture (ACN 150.23, -11.80) was the tech sector's worst-performing component on Thursday, tumbling 7.3%, despite beating earnings and revenue estimates for its fiscal second quarter and raising its yearly guidance.

In other corporate news, AbbVie (ABBV 98.10, -14.35) shares dropped 12.8% after the drugmaker provided a disappointing update on its experimental cancer drug Rova-T, saying data from a phase two trial was not strong enough to justify seeking accelerated approval. The health care sector lost 2.9%.

On a positive note, the rate-sensitive utilities sector advanced 0.4%, benefiting from the decline in Treasury yields.

Investors received several pieces of economic data on Thursday morning, including the weekly Initial Jobless Claims Report, the FHFA Housing Price Index for January, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for February:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 229,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 225,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 226,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.828 million from a revised count of 1.885 million (from 1.879 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that it covered the period in which the survey for the March employment report was taken, so the low level of initial claims will feed estimates for another strong gain in nonfarm payrolls.
The FHFA Housing Price Index increased 0.8% in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the December reading was revised to +0.4% from +0.3%.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.6% in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). The prior month's reading was revised to +0.8% from +1.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strength among the leading indicators remained widespread, with eight of its ten components making positive contributions.

On Friday, investors will receive just two economic reports -- Durable Goods Orders for February (Briefing.com consensus +1.5%) and New Home Sales for February (Briefing.com consensus 620K) -- which will be released at 8:30 AM ET and 10:00 AM ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.8% YTD
S&P 500: -1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -3.1% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.6% YTD

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Piling on the Losses
23-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -424.69 at 23533.20, Nasdaq -174.01 at 6992.66, S&P -55.43 at 2588.26

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/23/piling-on-the-losses.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks dropped again on Friday, piling on losses for the week; the S&P 500 tumbled 2.1% to 2588.26, the Nasdaq Composite declined 2.4% to 6992.67, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 1.8% to 23533.20 -- its worst close since November 2017. The three major indices finished the week with losses between 5.7% and 6.5%.

Tariff talk carried over into Friday's session after China urged the U.S. to "pull back from the brink" following President Trump's Thursday decision to implement tariffs of up to $60 billion on Chinese imports -- which he says are a response to China's alleged intellectual property theft against U.S. tech companies. Beijing threatened to retaliate with tariffs on 128 U.S. products -- including wine, pork, fresh fruit, ethanol, and steel -- but investors took solace in the fact that those products represent a mere $3 billion of total value -- barely a drop in the bucket.

While fear of a trade war likely played a role in Friday's sell off, several other factors also persuaded buyers to stay on the sidelines, including the understanding that the Fed is operating with a tightening bias, the underperformance of the top-weighted technology and financials sectors, and the continued lack of technical support -- the S&P 500 has been beneath its 50-day simple moving average (2742) since Monday. It's worth noting that the benchmark index finished Friday just a tick above its 200-day simple moving average (2585).

All 11 S&P sectors finished in negative territory, with the financials (-3.0%), technology (-2.7%), and health care (-2.1%) sectors leading the retreat. The energy sector was the top performer, benefiting from a 2.4% increase in WTI crude ($65.87/bbl), but still finished with a loss of 0.6%.

In earnings news, Micron (MU 54.21, -4.71) tumbled 8.0% on Friday despite beating profit estimates for its fiscal second quarter and raising its earnings guidance for Q3, while Dow component Nike (NKE 64.63, +0.21) finished with a gain of 0.3% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for its fiscal third quarter.

Overseas, equity markets in Asia sold off sharply on Friday, with China's Shanghai Composite and Japan's Nikkei losing 3.4% and 4.5%, respectively. Meanwhile, the major bourses in Europe also finished the week on a broadly lower note, losing between 0.4% and 1.8%. The Euro Stoxx 50 (-1.3%) closed at its lowest level in more than a year.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to the February readings for Durable Goods Orders and New Home Sales:

February durable goods orders climbed 3.1%, which is more than the 1.5% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to -3.5% (from -3.7%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 1.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) to follow the prior month's revised decrease of 0.2% (from -0.3%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed a welcome rebound in business spending that has mitigated some of the nervousness about the loss of economic momentum seen in the data of late.
New Home Sales in February hit an annualized rate of 618,000, which is below the Briefing.com consensus of 620,000. The January reading was revised to 622,000 (from 593,000).
The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales declined for the third consecutive month, but are up 0.5% year-over-year.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite: +1.3% YTD
S&P 500: -3.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -4.8% YTD
Russell 2000: -1.7% YTD

Week In Review: Another Negative (and Noisy) Week

Equities dropped sharply this week, giving up ground for the second week in a row, as investors took in the latest policy directive from the Fed, a new round of tariffs from the White House, and cries for greater data regulation following a scandal involving Facebook (FB). The S&P 500, the Nasdaq Composite, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished with losses between 5.7% and 6.5%, which marks their worst week since the big sell off in early February.

Facebook kicked off the week by declining nearly 7.0% on Monday following reports that research firm Cambridge Analytica mined the data of 50 million Facebook users without their consent, and then used that data to deliver targeted pro-Trump ads during the 2016 presidential campaign. The incident has given new life to proponents of data regulation and, in turn, been a headwind for shares of social media companies, which would likely see a decline in profits due to said regulations.

Investors turned their attention to monetary policy on Wednesday when the Federal Reserve increased the fed funds target range by 25 basis points to 1.50%-1.75%, as widely expected, and left its forecast for a total of three rate hikes this year intact. The latter was a relief for investors, who thought that the central bank might raise its 2018 forecast to include a fourth rate increase. However, the Fed does anticipate that it will need to be somewhat more aggressive in tightening policy over the next two years (2019-2020).

Trade war fears came back into the mix on Thursday after President Trump signed a presidential memorandum that allows for tariffs on up to $60 billion worth of Chinese goods. The tariffs, which the president says are punishment for China's alleged intellectual property theft against U.S. tech companies, prompted a retaliation response from China, which said it plans to levy duties of up to $3 billion on U.S. imports -- a drop in the bucket considering the overall value of imported goods to China.

11 of 11 S&P sectors finished the week in negative territory, with the top-weighted technology (-7.9%), financials (-7.2%), and health care (-6.8%) groups leading the retreat. The energy sector (-0.9%) was the top performer, benefiting from an increase in the price of crude oil; West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 5.7% to $65.87 per barrel -- their best level since late January. The crude rally was helped by the EIA's weekly inventory report, which showed that U.S. crude stockpiles declined for the first time in three weeks.

A breakdown of technical support played into this week's selling after the S&P 500 dropped comfortably below its 50-day simple moving average (2743) at Monday's opening bell. The benchmark index finished Friday just a tick above its 200-day simple moving average (2585).

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Technology and Financials Lead Rebound Effort
26-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow +669.40 at 24202.60, Nasdaq +227.88 at 7220.54, S&P +70.29 at 2658.55

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/26/technology-and-financials-lead-rebound-effort.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rebounded on Monday, reclaiming around two fifths of last week's decline, with technology and financial shares leading the charge. The S&P 500 advanced 2.7% to 2658.55, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.8% to 24202.60, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 3.3% to 7220.54, and the Russell 2000 rose 2.2% to 1543.72.

The market opened on a solidly higher note following a Sunday report from the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. and China have started negotiating to improve American access to Chinese markets -- which helped ease fears of a trade war in the shadow of last week's tariff announcement; President Trump announced last Thursday that the U.S. will impose tariffs of up to $60 billion on Chinese imports, an act that was followed by threats of retaliation from Beijing.

However, the positive energy soon faded following the opening bell and was replaced with a feeling of nervousness, as it looked like the market might roll over; within the first two hours of trading, the S&P 500 trimmed its opening gain of 1.8% to just 0.5%. Luckily for the bulls, the benchmark index reversed course around the 2600 mark and kept climbing through the closing bell. The major averages finished the session at their best marks of the day.

Each of the S&P 500's 11 sectors advanced on Monday, with gains ranging between 0.9% and 4.0%. The top-weighted technology (+4.0%) and financials (+3.2%) sectors provided leadership throughout the session, bouncing back from last week's highly disappointing performances. Within the tech space, Microsoft (MSFT 93.78, +6.60) soared 7.6% after Morgan Stanley raised its target price from $110 to $130 -- a new Street high. Chipmakers also outperformed, evidenced by the 4.2% increase in the PHLX Semiconductor Index, and Apple (AAPL 172.77, +7.83) jumped 4.8%.

Conversely, Facebook (FB 160.06, +0.67) held the tech space's gain in check, rising just 0.4%, after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) confirmed that it has opened a non-public investigation into the company's privacy practices following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The social media giant was down as much as 6.5% on Monday, touching a nine-month low, before bouncing back.

In other corporate news, home improvement retailer Lowe's (LOW 89.30, +5.53) rallied 6.6% after announcing that its CEO, Robert Niblock, will retire after 13 years at the helm, and Finish Line (FINL 13.83, +3.28) spiked 31.1% after agreeing to be acquired by UK-based JD Sports Fashion for $13.50 per share in cash; that represents a premium of 28.0% from Friday's closing price. The total value of the deal is worth approximately $558 million.

The lightly-weighted utilities, consumer staples, telecom services, and real estate groups -- most of which are countercyclical -- were the worst-performing sectors on Monday, but still finished with gains between 0.9% and 1.4%. Meanwhile, the consumer discretionary sector (+2.9%) finished behind technology and financials at the top of the sector standings, led by internet retail giant Amazon (AMZN 1555.86, +60.30), which advanced 4.0%.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended Monday on a mostly lower note, pushing yields higher across the curve; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note ticked up one basis point to 2.84%. The 2-yr yield advanced three basis points to 2.29% following a $30 billion 2-yr note auction that drew a high yield of 2.31% on a bid-to-cover of 2.91.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Monday, but will receive two reports -- the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for January (Briefing.com consensus 6.3%) and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 129.5) -- on Tuesday morning.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.6% YTD
S&P 500: -0.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -2.1% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.5% YTD

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Reversing Course
27-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -344.89 at 23857.71, Nasdaq -211.73 at 7008.81, S&P -45.93 at 2612.62

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/27/reversing-course.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities tried to extend Monday's rebound at the start of Tuesday's session, but ended up giving back the bulk of Monday's gains instead. Technology shares led the retreat, pushing the tech-heavy Nasdaq lower by 2.9%. The S&P 500 and the Dow finished with losses of 1.7% and 1.4%, respectively.

FAANG names -- Facebook (FB 152.19, -7.87), Amazon (AMZN 1497.05, -58.81), Apple (AAPL 168.34, -4.43), Netflix (NFLX 300.69, -19.66), and Alphabet (GOOG 1005.10, -48.11) -- dropped between 2.6% and 6.1% on Tuesday, while market darling NVIDIA (NVDA 225.52, -18.96) tumbled 7.8% after announcing that it has temporarily suspended autonomous driving tests in order to learn more about last week's fatal Uber crash. Tesla (TSLA 279.18, -25.00), which is a leader in autonomous driving technology, dropped 8.2%, and Twitter (TWTR 28.07, -3.84) tumbled 12.0% in reaction to some cautious commentary from Citron Research.

Unsurprisingly, the S&P 500’s top-weighted technology sector, which houses most of the aforementioned names, finished at the bottom of Tuesday’s sector standings with a loss of 3.5%. The second-most influential sector, financials, also underperformed, losing 2.0%, and the consumer discretionary sector, which houses Amazon, lost 1.9%.

In total, seven of eleven S&P groups finished Tuesday in negative territory. Less-risky countercyclical sectors like consumer staples (+0.1%), utilities (+1.5%), and telecom services (+0.5%) were the top performers. Real estate (+0.1%) also had a relatively strong session, benefitting from a decline in Treasury yields; investors increased their purchases of U.S. Treasuries amid the equity sell off, pushing the benchmark 10-yr yield six basis points lower to 2.79% -- a seven-week low.

The S&P 500 finished a step above its session low, closing about 25 points above its 200-day simple moving average (2587). The index was up 0.6% at its best mark of the day and down 2.4% at its worst.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for March and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for January:

The consumer confidence reading for March decreased to 127.7 (Briefing.com consensus 129.5) from the prior month's revised reading of 130.0 (from 130.8)
The key takeaway from the report is that, outside of a slight moderation in business expectations, consumers have not reported major changes to their outlook.
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for January increased 6.4%, which is slightly more than the Briefing.com consensus of +6.3%.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 AM ET, both the Advance International Trade in Goods report for February (Briefing.com consensus -$74.2 billion) and the third estimate for fourth quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus 2.6%) at 8:30 AM ET, and Pending Home Sales for February (Briefing.com consensus +2.5%) at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +1.5% YTD
S&P 500: -2.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -3.5% YTD
Russell 2000: -1.4% YTD

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Disappointing Finish to Choppy Session
28-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow -9.29 at 23848.42, Nasdaq -59.58 at 6949.23, S&P -7.62 at 2605.00

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/28/disappointing-finish-to-choppy-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities were up and down on Wednesday, eventually settling below Tuesday's closing levels, as influential FAANG names like Amazon (AMZN 1431.42, -65.63) and Netflix (NFLX 285.77, -14.92) dropped sharply for the second day in a row. The tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.9%, while the S&P 500 shed 0.3%. The Dow finished flat.

The market has struggled to find sturdy ground since a volatile drop in early February. This week's action has fully embodied that struggle; equities shot higher on Monday, pushing the S&P 500 up 2.7%, only to give back the bulk of those gains in a broad sell off on Tuesday. With the S&P 500's 50-day simple moving average (2733) out of reach, investors have been keeping an eye on the index's 200-day simple moving average (2588), which has provided support on a couple of occasions in recent weeks. The S&P 500 finished Wednesday at 2605.

Wednesday's sector standings were pretty evenly divided between advancers and decliners. Defensive groups like health care (+0.5%), consumer staples (+1.4%), and telecom services (+1.6%) were the top performers, while growth-oriented groups like consumer discretionary (-1.2%), energy (-2.0%), materials (-1.3%), and technology (-0.9%) finished at the back of the pack. The financial sector, which is the second-most influential group (behind technology), finished with a gain of 0.2%.

Amazon was a big reason that the consumer discretionary sector underperformed, as AMZN shares dropped 4.4% to a six-week low. The selling followed an Axios report that President Trump would like to change Amazon's tax treatment, alleging that it has gotten a free ride from taxpayers. The White House responded to the report, saying there aren't any policy changes regarding Amazon at the moment, but the administration is always looking at different options.

Meanwhile, energy shares declined in tandem with the price of crude oil after the Department of Energy reported that U.S. crude stockpiles increased by 1.6 million barrels last week. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 0.9% to $64.61 per barrel, further distancing themselves from Friday's eight-week high.

In the technology sector, Apple (AAPL 166.48, -1.86) declined 1.1%, extending its monthly loss to 6.5%, and chipmakers pushed the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 2.1%. Dow component Intel (INTC 49.60, -1.59) was among the weakest semiconductor names, dropping 3.1%, while NVIDIA (NVDA 221.35, -4.17) lost 1.9%. Facebook (FB 153.03, +0.81) outperformed, however, advancing 0.5% after announcing an initiative to "put people more in control of their privacy" -- a direct response to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

Elsewhere, the Treasury market had a mixed outing on Wednesday. The benchmark 10-yr note extended Tuesday's gains at the start of the session, but began ticking lower following a poor $29 billion 7-yr note auction, which drew a high yield of 2.72% on a bid-to-cover of 2.34. The 10-yr note still finished in the green though, with its yield declining one basis point to 2.78%. Meanwhile, the yield on the 2-yr note advanced two basis points to 2.29%, reducing the 2s10s spread to 49 basis points -- its lowest level since 2007.

The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.9% to 89.76, with the greenback adding 0.8% against the euro (1.2308) and 1.5% against the yen (106.88).

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the third estimate for fourth quarter GDP, Pending Home Sales for February, the Advance International Trade in Goods report for February, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The third estimate of fourth quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 2.9%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.6%. The second estimate came in at 2.5%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it does not change the general picture of economic growth at the end of 2017.
Pending Home Sales increased 3.1% in February (Briefing.com consensus +2.5%). Today's reading follows a revised 5.0% decrease in January (from -4.7%).
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for February showed a deficit of $75.4 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$74.2 billion), up from a revised deficit of $75.3 billion in January (from -$74.4 billion).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 4.8% to follow last week's decline of 1.1%.

On Thursday morning, investors will receive February Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and core PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), the weekly Initial Claims report (Briefing.com consensus 230K), the Chicago PMI (Briefing.com consensus 62.0), and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 102.0).

Nasdaq Composite: +0.7% YTD
S&P 500: -2.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -3.5% YTD
Russell 2000: -1.5% YTD

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Wall Street Ends Abbreviated Week on Positive Note
29-Mar-18 16:30 ET
Dow +254.69 at 24103.11, Nasdaq +114.22 at 7063.45, S&P +35.87 at 2640.87

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/3/29/wall-street-ends-abbreviated-week-on-positive-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Technology shares rebounded on Thursday, leading a broad rally on Wall Street, as investors kicked off the extended Easter weekend on a positive note.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.6% to 7063.44, the S&P 500 climbed 1.4% to 2640.87, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1.1% to 24103.11. The three major indices finished Thursday with weekly gains between 1.0% and 2.4%, but finished March with monthly losses between 2.7% and 3.7%.

Technology giants Microsoft (MSFT 91.27, +1.88), Facebook (FB 159.79, +6.76), and Alphabet (GOOG 1031.79, +27.23) added between 2.1% and 4.4% on Thursday, while other notable tech names like Intel (INTC 52.08, +2.48), Netflix (NFLX 295.35, +9.58), and NVIDIA (NVDA 231.59, +10.24) advanced between 3.4% and 5.0%. Apple (AAPL 167.78, +1.30) also finished in the green, adding 0.8%, but a late bout of selling pulled the company, and the broader market, from its session high.

Needless to say, the S&P's most influential sector -- information technology -- finished at the top of the sector standings, adding 2.2%. Thursday's positive performance for the tech sector was preceded by disappointing outings on Tuesday and Wednesday, during which the group declined by a total of 4.3%. The sector had a poor month, losing 4.0%, but still remains at the top of the 2018 sector standings with a year-to-date gain of 3.2%; for comparison, the S&P 500 is down 1.2% for the year.

As for the 10 remaining sectors, nine finished Thursday in positive territory, with energy (+2.2%) and materials (+1.9%) showing particular strength. The telecom services (unch) and real estate (-0.1%) sectors were the worst performers, but they didn't have much of an impact; the two groups represent just 5.0% of the broader market combined. The heavily-weighted financial group finished a step behind the benchmark index, adding 1.3%, as yields declined across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield dropped four basis points to 2.74%.

In the consumer discretionary sector (+1.4%), Amazon (AMZN 1447.34, +15.92) fell as much as 4.6% before rebounding to finish with a gain of 1.1%. The early weakness was attributed to a tweet from President Trump, in which he reiterated his concerns about the company, condemning it for paying "little to no taxes to state and local government" and using the U.S. Postal System as its "delivery boy." The tweet followed a Wednesday report from Axios that said Mr. Trump is looking for ways to regulate the internet giant.

Overseas, the major stock indices in Asia finished Thursday on a higher note, with Japan's Nikkei adding 0.6%, and the major bourses in Europe also advanced, adding between 0.2% and 1.3% apiece. Russia announced that it will expel 60 U.S. diplomats and order the closure of the U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg in retaliation to similar measures taken by the U.S. and other countries following the poising of a former Russian double agent in England.

Markets in the U.S. and Europe will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

Reviewing Thursday's big batch of economic data, which included February Personal Income, Personal Spending, PCE Prices, and core PCE Prices, the weekly Initial Claims report, the Chicago PMI for March, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March:

Personal income climbed 0.4% in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following an unrevised increase of 0.4% in January. Meanwhile, personal spending rose 0.2% in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) following an unrevised increase of 0.2% in January. The PCE Price Index increased 0.2% in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, also increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 1.6% after hovering at +1.5% in the last three readings.
The key takeaway from the report is that it won't influence Fed officials to significantly alter the course of monetary policy.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 215,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 230,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 227,000 (from 229,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.871 million from a revised count of 1.836 million (from 1.828 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that outside of some week-to-week volatility, initial and continuing claims remain at historically-low levels.
The Chicago PMI for March hit 57.4 (Briefing.com consensus 62.0), down from 61.9 in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that it echoed inflationary concerns that were expressed in the February report. Supplier delivery times reportedly increased and are considered to be ‘long' by recent standards.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March dropped to 101.4 (Briefing.com consensus 102.0) from 102.0 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that even after the pullback in the final reading for March, the Sentiment Index remains at its highest level since April 2004.

Investors will receive just two pieces of data on Monday -- the ISM Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 60.0) and the Construction Spending report for February (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). Both reports will be released at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.3% YTD
S&P 500: -1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -2.3% YTD
Russell 2000: -0.4% YTD

Week In Review: Rebound

Equities rebounded this week, ending a two-week skid; the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.0%, the S&P 500 jumped 2.0%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 2.4%. Trading was volatile at times, but smoothed out on Thursday as investors wrapped up the abbreviated week on a positive note. Markets will be closed on March 30 for Good Friday.

Investors kicked off the week with a rally on Monday, pushing the major indices up between 2.7% and 3.3% apiece, following a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. and China have started negotiating to improve American access to Chinese markets. The news helped ease fears of a trade war, which were elevated after the White House announced tariffs on Chinese imports last week -- prompting Beijing to retaliate with tariffs of its own. Microsoft (MSFT) was particularly strong on Monday, spiking around 7.5%, after Morgan Stanley raised its target price from $110 to $130 -- a new Street high.

The market reversed course on Tuesday, however, with FAANG names -- Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX), and Alphabet (GOOGL) -- leading the retreat. Market darling NVIDIA (NVDA) tumbled nearly 8.0% after announcing that it has temporarily suspended autonomous driving tests in order to learn more about last week's fatal collision involving a self-driving Uber car. Tesla (TSLA), which is a leader in autonomous driving technology, also dropped around 8.0%.

Stocks struggled for direction on Wednesday, but then rallied on Thursday ahead of the extended Easter weekend. However, unlike many of its FAANG peers, Amazon (AMZN) continued tumbling after an Axios report on Wednesday that President Trump would like to change Amazon's tax treatment, as he believes the company has gotten a free ride from taxpayers. The White House initially responded by saying there aren't any policy changes regarding Amazon at the moment, but the president reiterated his concerns about the company in a tweet on Thursday. AMZN shares lost 3.2% this week in total.

11 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finished the week with gains. Less-risky countercyclical groups like consumer staples (+3.5%), utilities (+3.0%), and telecom services (+3.1%) were the top performers, while the heavily-weighted financial sector (+2.7%) also showed relative strength. The top-weighted technology space lagged with a gain of 1.7%, while the consumer discretionary sector was among the worst performers, thanks largely to Amazon, adding 1.1%.

Investors received the Personal Income and Spending report for February on Thursday, and, for the second month in a row, it was in line with expectations. The PCE Price Index increased 1.8% year-over-year after being up 1.7% year-over-year in January, while the core PCE Price Index rose 1.6% year-over-year after three consecutive months of 1.5% year-over-year growth. The key takeaway from the report is that it won't influence Fed officials to significantly alter the course of monetary policy.

In the bond market, the yield curve flattened notably this week, with the 2s10s spread dropping seven basis points to 48 bps -- its lowest level since 2007. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note declined seven basis points to 2.74%, while the 2-yr yield held steady at 2.26%. Most of the bond buying took place amid the equity sell off on Tuesday.

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April Starts With A Big Drop
02-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow -458.92 at 23644.19, Nasdaq -193.33 at 6870.12, S&P -58.99 at 2581.88

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/2/april-starts-with-a-big-drop.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities registered big losses on Monday, with declining issues outpacing advancing issues four to one at the New York Stock Exchange.

The S&P 500 dropped 58.99 points, or 2.2%, to 2581.88, falling to its lowest level since mid-November and closing below its 200-day simple moving average (2589.85) for the first time since June 2016. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 458.92 points, or 1.9%, to 23644.19, and the Nasdaq Composite slid 193.76 points, or 2.7%, to 6870.12, rejoining the other two major indices in negative territory for the year. A late rally brought the major averages up from their worst marks of the day -- the S&P 500 was down 3.3% at its session low.

Losses were both broad -- 11 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in the red -- and deep -- 8 of 11 groups lost at least 2.0%.

The consumer discretionary sector (-2.8%) was the weakest group, weighed down by a 5.2% decline in shares of Amazon (AMZN 1371.99, 75.35), which dropped after President Trump promised to intervene in the company's relationship with the U.S. Post Office, which he says is losing "a fortune" by delivering Amazon packages. The president's statement was in line with similar comments that he made last week. Meanwhile, the lightly-weighted utilities group (-0.8%) showed relative strength, closing at the top of the leaderboard.

There were a handful of headline catalysts behind Monday's mauling -- including renewed trade concerns following China's decision to follow through with tariffs on 128 products imported from the U.S. and political angst following President Trump's threat to withdraw from NAFTA if Mexico doesn't do more to secure the border -- but technical and psychological factors were also at play; the S&P 500 wiped out its 200-day simple moving average, which has been a key area of technical support, and the continued underperformance of the influential technology sector weighed on investor sentiment.

The technology space declined 2.5%, with Dow component Intel (INTC 48.92, -3.16) showing particular weakness. Intel shares dropped 6.1% in reaction to reports that Apple (AAPL 166.68, -1.10) is planning to use its own processors, instead of Intel chips, in Mac computers starting as early as 2020. Apple outperformed the broader market, losing 0.7%, while fellow mega caps Facebook (FB 155.39, -4.40), Alphabet (GOOG 1006.47, -25.32), and Microsoft (MSFT 88.52, -2.75) lost between 2.5% and 3.0%.

Despite the broad retreat, there were a few names that moved higher on Monday, including Humana (HUM 280.70, +11.87), which rallied 4.4% after a Wall Street Journal report that Walmart (WMT 85.55, -3.42) is in preliminary talks to acquire the health insurance company. Dow component UnitedHealth (UNH 217.20, +3.20) advanced 1.5% in sympathy, but the health care sector settled just a tick above the broader market, finishing with a loss of 2.1%.

Outside of equities, U.S. Treasuries ticked higher, pushing yields lower across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 2.73% -- its lowest level since early February. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 2.6% to $63.08 per barrel, gold futures advanced 1.6% to $1348.10/oz, and the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) jumped 3.5 points, or 17.1%, to 23.37.

Markets were closed in Europe for Easter Monday, while the major stock indices in Asia opened the week on a modestly lower note.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the ISM Index for March and the Construction Spending report for February:

The ISM Index for March declined to 59.3 from an unrevised reading of 60.8 in February, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 60.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that the Prices Index hit its highest level (78.1) since April 2011, with price increases registered across 17 of 18 industry sectors.
Construction Spending ticked up 0.1% in February, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%. The prior month's reading was left at 0.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that construction spending growth continues to run at a relatively slow pace, which is an inhibitor of stronger overall growth.

On Tuesday, March auto and truck sales will be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite: -0.5% YTD
S&P 500: -3.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -4.4% YTD
Russell 2000: -2.8% YTD

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Wall Street Rebounds On Tuesday
03-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow +389.17 at 24033.36, Nasdaq +71.16 at 6941.28, S&P +32.57 at 2614.45

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/3/wall-street-rebounds-on-tuesday.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities rebounded on Tuesday, reclaiming a little more than half of their Monday losses in a broad-based rally. The S&P 500 advanced 1.3% to 2614.45, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.7% to 24033.36, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.0% to 6941.28.

The major averages bounced around with modest gains for much of the session, but shot to new highs in the late afternoon following a headline that the White House doesn't have any specific plans for action against Amazon (AMZN 1392.05, +20.06). The news wasn't really new -- Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made a similar statement last week -- but, nonetheless, it served to temper fears following critical comments from President Trump, who alleges the company is taking advantage of the U.S. Post Office and gets unfair tax treatment.

Amazon jumped following the headline, and the broader market came along with it -- thanks in part to some short-covering activity. AMZN shares, which were down as much as 1.2% on Tuesday, finished higher by 1.5%, while the S&P 500 finished near its session high and about 25 points above its 200-day simple moving average (2590). The benchmark index settled below the key technical level for the first time since June 2016 on Monday.

All 11 S&P sectors finished Tuesday in positive territory, with energy (+2.1%) being the top performer as WTI crude futures rebounded from a two-week low, climbing 0.7% to $63.45 per barrel. The financials (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+1.2%), industrials (+1.4%), materials (+1.5%), health care (+1.5%), and consumer staples (+1.4%) sectors also finished with solid gains, while the lightly-weighted utilities (+0.4%) and real estate (+0.3%) sectors lagged.

The most influential group -- information technology -- finished higher by 1.0%, but struggled up until the late-afternoon rally, losing as much as 0.7% earlier in the session. The group's turnaround helped boost investor sentiment, which has suffered in recent weeks amid a lack of sector leadership; the technology group has underperformed as of late after pacing last year's rally and a once positive start to 2018. Likewise, the financial sector's upbeat performance was also a notable tailwind for investor sentiment.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Tuesday, but automakers did report sales figures for the month of March. General Motors (GM 36.94, +1.18), Ford Motor (F 11.15, +0.29), and Fiat Chrysler (FCAU 21.79, +1.84) advanced 3.3%, 2.7%, and 9.2%, respectively, after all three reported year-over-year increases in sales; Fiat Chrysler's sales increased 14.0%, while GM's and Ford's sales increased 16.0% and 3.4%, respectively. Electric automaker Tesla (TSLA 267.53, +15.05) also climbed, adding 6.0%, after reporting Model 3 production just below its target and reaffirming its production outlook.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries tumbled on Tuesday, pushing yields higher across the curve; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed five basis points to 2.78%, rebounding from an eight-week low, while the 2-yr yield also advanced five basis points, closing at 2.29%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive several reports on Wednesday, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 AM ET, the ADP Employment Change report for March (Briefing.com consensus 203K) at 8:15 AM ET, and both February Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus +1.8%) and the ISM Services Index for March (Briefing.com consensus 59.0) at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +0.6% YTD
S&P 500: -2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -2.8% YTD
Russell 2000: -1.5% YTD

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Fighting Through Trade War Fears
04-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow +230.94 at 24264.30, Nasdaq +100.83 at 7042.11, S&P +30.24 at 2644.69

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/4/fighting-through-trade-war-fears.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks fought through trade war fears on Wednesday to advance for the second session in a row. The S&P 500, which opened Wednesday with a loss of around 1.5%, finished higher by 1.2% at 2644.69. The Nasdaq and the Dow also opened solidly lower, but ended with gains of 1.5% and 1.0%, respectively, advancing to 7042.11 and 24264.30.

Newly unveiled tariff plans between the world's two largest economies left investors feeling a bit uneasy on Wednesday morning; the Trump administration announced a plan to impose tariffs of 25% on Chinese imports across 1,300 product categories worth $50 billion in total, and China retaliated by announcing a similar plan, calling for duties of 25% on American imports across 106 product categories -- including soybeans, planes, cars, and chemicals -- also worth approximately $50 billion in total. However, the realization that the tariffs have yet to be put in force provided some comfort to investors.

The specific turnaround point for the market came mid-morning when NEC Director Larry Kudlow told reporters that there is a chance that the China tariffs do not go into effect, emphasizing that President Trump wants to solve the China trade issue with the least amount of pain possible. Stocks began trimming losses immediately after the opening bell, eventually triggering some short-covering activity that further accelerated the upward move. The major averages finished near their best marks of the day.

10 of 11 S&P sectors closed Wednesday's session in positive territory, with seven adding more than 1.0%. The consumer discretionary sector (+1.8%) was the best-performing group, with just about all of its components finishing in the green. Amazon (AMZN 1410.57, +18.52) rallied 1.3%, while homebuilders showed particular strength after Lennar (LEN 62.82, +5.73) reported better-than-expected earnings for its fiscal first quarter; LEN shares jumped 10.0%, and the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 40.52, +1.80) added 4.7%.

The top-weighted technology (+1.4%) and financials (+1.1%) sectors performed in-line with, or slightly better than, the broader market, but the industrial space (+0.4%) underperformed, as names with a large exposure to China, including Dow component Boeing (BA 327.44, -3.38), struggled; BA shares lost 1.0%. The utilities space (+0.2%) also lagged, and the energy sector was the only group to finish in negative territory, shedding 0.1%.

U.S. Treasuries finished Wednesday on a mostly lower note, pushing yields a tick higher; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.79%. Elsewhere, West Texas Intermediate crude futures declined 0.2% to $63.37/bbl, gold futures advanced 0.3% to $1340.60/oz, and the U.S. Dollar Index ticked down 0.1% to 89.80.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the ADP Employment Report for March, the ISM Services Index for March, and Factory Orders for February:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 241,000 in March (Briefing.com consensus 203,000). The January reading was revised to 246,000 from 235,000.
This report should solidify expectations for another strong nonfarm payrolls number when the government releases the Employment Situation Report on Friday.
The ISM Services Index for March dipped to 58.8 (Briefing.com consensus 59.0) from an unrevised reading of 59.5 in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that the services sector is still growing nicely, albeit at a slightly slower pace than February.
The Factory Orders report for February showed an increase of 1.2% (Briefing.com consensus +1.8%). The January reading was revised to -1.3% from -1.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it revealed a rebound in business spending, evidenced by the 1.4% increase in orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft.

On Thursday, investors will receive the Trade Balance for February (Briefing.com consensus -$56.7 billion) and weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 255K).

Nasdaq Composite: +2.0% YTD
S&P 500: -1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.8% YTD
Russell 2000: -0.3% YTD

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Rebound Rally Continues
05-Apr-18 16:25 ET
Dow +240.92 at 24505.22, Nasdaq +34.44 at 7076.55, S&P +18.15 at 2662.84

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/5/rebound-rally-continues-.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities advanced for a third consecutive session on Thursday, with energy and materials shares leading a broad-based rally.

The benchmark S&P 500 jumped 0.7% to 2662.84, trimming its yearly loss to 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.5% to 7076.55, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 1.0% to 24505.22. The S&P 500 and the Dow never touched negative territory -- the Nasdaq did briefly -- and all three major averages finished in the upper half of their trading ranges. Action was somewhat volatile -- although not as volatile as other sessions this week -- but the CBOE Volatility Index slipped 1.43 points, or 7.1%, to 18.63 -- a two-week low.

10 of 11 S&P sectors finished in positive territory, with growth-sensitive groups like consumer discretionary (+1.4%), industrials (+1.0%), energy (+1.8%), and materials (+1.9%) leading the charge. The top-weighted technology sector couldn't keep pace, however, which was somewhat discouraging, but the group still finished with a gain of 0.4%.

Within the tech space, Facebook (FB 159.34, +4.24) outperformed, adding 2.7%, after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he doesn't think the #deletefacebook movement has had a material impact. Chipmakers lagged, however, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 1.0%. NVIDIA (NVDA 221.38, -4.86) lost 2.2% following some cautious commentary out of Citron Research, and Micron (MU 49.84, -3.55) tumbled 6.7% after a director disclosed that she sold 25,000 shares on April 2. UBS initiated a 'Sell' rating following the disclosure.

Meanwhile, the heavily-weighted health care sector finished at the bottom of the sector standings, shedding 0.1%, as biotechnology names underperformed -- evidenced by the 1.6% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 104.17, -1.72). Biogen (BIIB 264.98, -7.42) was particularly weak, losing 2.7%, after being downgraded to 'Equal Weight' from 'Overweight' at Barclays.

Despite the pockets of weakness, the broader market was strong through most of Thursday's session. A Bloomberg TV interview with Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic contributed to the positive bias, as Mr. Bostic, who is a voting member on this year's FOMC, said he's comfortable with inflation going above the Fed's 2.0% target -- which suggests that he may favor a less aggressive approach to hiking interest rates. However, with the March Employment Situation Report due Friday, investors fought the urge to tamper with their rate-hike expectations.

U.S. Treasuries largely kept overnight losses intact on Thursday, extending them just slightly during intraday trade. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note advanced four basis points to 2.83%, closing at its highest level in more than a week, while the 2-yr yield ticked up two basis points to 2.30%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which was limited to the Trade Balance for February and weekly Initial Claims:

The February trade balance showed a deficit of $57.6 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$56.7 billion). The January deficit was revised to $56.7 billion from $56.6 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is twofold: (1) it underscores that trade will be a drag on Q1 GDP growth and (2) it will continue to fan the rhetorical flames regrading trade imbalances.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 242,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 225,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 218,000 (from 215,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.808 million from a revised count of 1.872 million (from 1.871 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the headline disappointment will be washed away as some normal volatility in a data series that has been persistently encouraging. To that end, this is the 161st straight week initial claims have held below 300,000.

On Friday, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for March, which the Briefing.com consensus expects will show the addition of 175,000 nonfarm payrolls, an increase of 0.2% in average hourly earnings, and an unemployment rate of 4.0%. The report, which has the potential to move the financial markets, will be released at 8:30 AM ET. The much less influential Consumer Credit Report for February (Briefing.com consensus $15.0 billion) will be released in the afternoon at 3:00 PM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.5% YTD
S&P 500: -0.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.9% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.5% YTD

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Trade Concerns Drive Friday Fallout
06-Apr-18 16:20 ET
Dow -572.46 at 23932.76, Nasdaq -161.44 at 6915.11, S&P -58.37 at 2604.47

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/6/trade-concerns-drive-friday-fallout.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market closed the week on a decidedly lower note, falling victim to fears about potential trade wars, the Federal Reserve's tightening bias, and the specter of earnings growth not living up to this year's high expectations. The Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500, and Russell 2000 declined between 1.9% and 2.3% in Friday's trade.

Things got off to a bad start following the news that President Trump ordered the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to consider whether it would be appropriate to impose an additional $100 billion of tariffs on Chinese imports on top of the proposed $50 billion of tariffs announced on Wednesday.

China quickly responded, saying it would do what is necessary to protect its interests at any cost if the U.S. ultimately pressed ahead with such a tariff plan.

What rattled the stock market, though, was the feistier-sounding nature of administration officials today discussing the new proposal, as well as their seeming lack of concern about the difficulties the stock market has been having on account of the heated trade rhetoric between the U.S. and China.

President Trump noted that the stock market might have to have a little pain as he works to protect the trade interests of the U.S.; meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said in a CNBC interview that he is not focused on short-term market swings and that there is potential of a trade war with China even though that is not the objective.

The major indices rolled over after Mr. Mnuchin's comments and then cascaded even lower after Fed Chair Powell said he thinks inflation will pick up this Spring and that he sees further gradual rate hikes.

In essence, the stock market didn't get the verbal support it has been accustomed to receiving from leading officials in periods of uncertainty. Ironically, that fed a heightened sense of uncertainty about the outlook for the economy and earnings that kept many buyers on the sidelines and Friday's sellers focusing their efforts on the economically-sensitive sectors.

Every sector ended with a loss. The industrials sector (-2.7%) suffered the largest decline, but it had ample company.

The information technology (-2.5%), financial (-2.4%), materials (-2.4%), and health care (-2.4%) sectors all underperformed while losses in the consumer discretionary (-2.1%) and energy (-1.8%) sectors also weighed heavily.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as many as 767 points on Friday before paring its losses in late action. That recovery effort coincided with a bounce in the S&P 500 after it breached its 200-day moving average (2594). Once again, though, the violation of that key technical level brought out the buyers who succeeded in pushing the S&P 500 back above the 200-day moving average by the closing bell.

The trade issues dominated the market narrative on Friday, but there was more to the story. The March employment report provided its own twist for the market.

It showed a surprisingly weak 103,000 gain in nonfarm payrolls and a sturdy 0.3% increase in average hourly earnings. All in all, it was a mixed report, yet it didn't alter the market's thinking about monetary policy other than making it think there was a diminished probability of a fourth rate hike in December.

The CME FedWatch Tool now pegs the probability of a fourth rate hike in December at 24.4% versus 32.7% on Thursday.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to the Employment Situation Report for March and the Consumer Credit Report for February:

March nonfarm payrolls increased by 103,000 (Briefing.com consensus 175,000). March private sector payrolls increased by 102,000 (Briefing.com consensus 180,000). March unemployment rate was 4.1% (Briefing.com consensus 4.0%) versus 4.1% in February. March average hourly earnings were up 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), after increasing 0.1% in February. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 2.7%, versus 2.6% for the 12 months ending in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was neither too hot nor too cold to provide a clear basis for the Federal Reserve to re-think its outlook for monetary policy. At the same time, it will temper the market's concerns about the prospect of a fourth rate hike this year in December.
Total outstanding consumer credit increased by $10.6 billion in February (Briefing.com consensus $15.0 billion) after increasing an upwardly revised $15.6 billion (from $13.9 billion) in January.
The growth in February was driven almost entirely by nonrevolving credit, which was up $10.5 billion from January to $2836.6 billion.

There is no economic data of note on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite: +0.2% YTD
Russell 2000: -1.4% YTD
S&P 500: -2.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -3.2% YTD

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Easy Come, Easy Go
09-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow +46.34 at 23979.10, Nasdaq +35.23 at 6950.34, S&P +8.69 at 2613.16

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/9/easy-come-easy-go.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied through the first half of Monday's session, reclaiming the bulk of Friday's dive, but nearly gave back all of their gains in the afternoon. The S&P 500 finished with a gain of 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.5% and 0.2%, respectively. The small-cap Russell 2000 added 0.1%.

A de-escalation of trade war fears was the widely-cited catalyst behind a strong start to Monday's session after weekend interviews from several Trump administration officials gave investors the impression that the White House might be trying to dial back its fiery rhetoric against China. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, for example, reiterated a comment he made on Friday, saying that the U.S. could enter a trade war with China, but then added that he "[doesn't] expect it at all."

The defense of the S&P 500's 200-day moving average (2594) on Friday also helped fuel a bullish tone at the opening bell. Stocks climbed steadily into the afternoon -- with the S&P 500 adding as much as 1.9% -- but sentiment began to turn in the final two hours as investors looked ahead to comments from China's President Xi Jinping, who will be speaking at the Boao Forum on Tuesday.

The possibility that Mr. Xi could take a forceful stance on trade with the U.S. prompted investors to take some money off the table ahead of the close -- especially considering that the market has been responding to headlines in a knee-jerk fashion as of late. In addition, uncertainty regarding President Trump's response to a chemical weapons attack in Syria that killed dozens of people over the weekend also fueled some late selling, as did a New York Times report that the FBI raided the office of Mr. Trump's longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

In the end, the sector standings were pretty evenly mixed with six groups advancing and five finishing in the red. The health care sector (+0.9%) was the top performer, helped by Dow component Merck (MRK 56.16, +2.80), which rallied 6.2% after announcing that its lung cancer treatment Keytruda helped previously untreated patients live longer in a late-stage trial. The top-weighted technology sector also outperformed (+0.8%), but finished a ways off its session high; the tech space was up 2.9% at its best mark of the day.

On the flip side, the lightly-weighted telecom services sector finished at the bottom of the sector standings with a loss of 1.2%. The consumer discretionary (-0.3%) and industrials (-0.3%) sectors were the second-worst performing groups, while no other space lost more than 0.2%.

Investors didn't receive any economic reports on Monday, but will receive several pieces of data on Tuesday; both the Producer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) and the core Producer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) for March will be released at 8:30 AM ET, followed by the release of Wholesale Inventories for February (Briefing.com consensus +1.1%) at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +0.7% YTD
Russell 2000: -1.4% YTD
S&P 500: -2.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -3.0% YTD

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Xi Trade Comments Fuel Broad Rally
10-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow +428.90 at 24408.00, Nasdaq +143.96 at 7094.30, S&P +43.71 at 2656.87

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/10/xi-trade-comments-fuel-broad-rally.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks were up big from start to finish on Tuesday following conciliatory remarks from Chinese President Xi Jinping, which helped ease fears of a global trade war. The major averages endured some intraday volatility to finish a step below their best marks of the day -- the S&P 500 added 1.7%, the Dow climbed 1.8%, and the Nasdaq advanced 2.1% -- which was an encouraging sign for investors, who were still a little shell shocked following Monday's sharp reversal.

Mr. Xi helped alleviate fears that the U.S. and China are barreling towards a tit-for-tat trade war in an overnight speech at the Boao Forum, saying that he plans to "significantly" cut tariffs on imported automobiles, reduce duties on other imported goods, and improve the intellectual property rights of foreign firms. President Trump, who has promised to hit China with tariffs in an effort to reduce Washington's trade deficit with Beijing, praised Mr. Xi for his comments, saying the two leaders will "make great progress together."

Moving to the Middle East, uncertainty as to how President Trump will respond to a chemical attack in Syria prompted traders to push oil prices higher on Tuesday, which, in turn, fueled a strong outing for energy shares; the S&P 500's energy sector rallied 3.3%, while West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 3.2% to $65.49 per barrel -- their best level in two weeks. President Trump's response to the chemical attack -- which killed more than 40 people on Saturday -- is believed to be imminent.

In Washington, Mark Zuckerberg -- Facebook's (FB 165.04, +7.11) founder, chairman, and CEO -- began a two-day testimony on Capitol Hill with an appearance before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on Tuesday, answering questions regarding the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and Russia's alleged use of Facebook to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The market appeared to like what Mr. Zuckerberg had to say, as Facebook's share price more than double its daily gain after he began speaking; FB shares finished higher by 4.5%.

Nine of eleven S&P 500 sectors finished Tuesday in positive territory, with the lightly-weighted utilities (-0.7%) and real estate (-0.7%) sectors being the lone laggards. The energy group (+3.3%) was the top performer, while the top-weighted technology sector (+2.5%) and the telecom services space (+2.3%) finished in second and third, respectively. Within the telecom space, Sprint (S 6.02, +0.88) and T-Mobile US (TMUS 63.13, +3.39) spiked 17.1% and 5.7%, respectively, following a Wall Street Journal report that the two companies have restarted merger talks.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended Tuesday on a mostly lower note, with the long bond showing relative strength for the second consecutive day. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished one basis point higher at 2.80%, while the yield on the 30-yr bond finished flat at 3.02%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Investors received just two pieces of economic data on Tuesday -- the Producer Price Index for March and Wholesale Inventories for February:

Producer prices rose 0.3% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) and core producer prices increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, producer prices are up 3.0% (vs +2.8% in February) and core producer prices have risen 2.7% (vs +2.5% in February).
The key takeaway from the report is that producer prices are trending higher, which will feed concerns about a pass through to consumers and keep the Federal Reserve wedded to its belief that inflation rates are poised to pick up, leaving it with a tightening bias.
February Wholesale Inventories increased 1.0% (Briefing.com consensus +1.1%). The January reading was revised to +0.9% from +0.8%.
The market doesn't typically pay much attention to this release since the full business inventories report is usually released a short time later.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 AM ET, the Consumer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) for March at 8:30 AM ET, and both the minutes from the March FOMC meeting and the March Treasury Budget at 2:00 PM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.8% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.5% YTD
S&P 500: -0.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.3% YTD

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Middle East Tensions Halt Rebound
11-Apr-18 16:20 ET
Dow -218.55 at 24189.45, Nasdaq -25.27 at 7069.03, S&P -14.68 at 2642.19

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/11/middle-east-tensions-halt-rebound.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] A two-session rebound came to an end on Wednesday, as an imminent U.S. strike on Syria gave equity investors cause for pause.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average led the major averages lower, ending with a loss of 0.9%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite finished lower by 0.6% and 0.4%, respectively. The small-cap Russell 2000 outperformed, however, finishing with a gain of 0.2%.

Investors have been waiting for a response from the U.S. following a suspected chemical attack from the Syrian government on the rebel-held town of Douma that killed at least 40 people over the weekend. However, the situation escalated on Wednesday morning when Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, warned that it would shoot down any missiles fired at Syria -- to which U.S. President Donald Trump replied "get ready Russia, because they will be coming."

Unconfirmed reports that Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile over its capital Riyadh -- presumably launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen who have targeted Saudi territory before -- added to the uncertainty within the region. Oil prices rose once again, hitting a three-year high, in anticipation that increased tensions in the oil-rich Middle East could lead to a slowdown in production; West Texas Intermediate crude futures finished higher by 2.0% at a price of $66.82 per barrel.

The S&P's energy sector rallied amid the increase in crude prices, adding 1.0%, but nearly all other sectors finished in the red. The heavily-weighted financial sector finished near the bottom of the sector standings, losing 1.3%, outdone only by the telecom services group, which lost 1.5%. A curve-flattening trade in the Treasury market weighed on lenders, which depend on the difference between the interest they make on loans and the rate they pay out on deposits; the benchmark 10-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.79%, while the 2-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.32%.

Minutes from the March FOMC meeting were released on Wednesday afternoon, but contained few surprises. The minutes showed that a number of Fed officials anticipate the path of rate increases to be slightly steeper than they previously expected -- which is in line with the so-called "dot plot" released at the end of the March meeting -- and revealed that they had an in-depth discussion around trade tensions, which all members agree present "downside risks" to the economic outlook.

Investors also received some inflation data on Wednesday; namely, the March CPI readings. Total CPI decreased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), while core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, total CPI was up 2.4% in March (vs +2.2% in February) and core CPI was up 2.1% (vs +1.8% in February). In short, the report showed a firming (though not scary) inflation trend that will keep the Federal Reserve wedded to its tightening bias and its belief that at least two more rate hikes are warranted this year.

Separately, the Treasury Budget for March showed a deficit of $208.7 billion versus a deficit of $176.2 billion for the same period a year ago.

News networks were focused on the second, and final, day of Mark Zuckerberg's testimony on Capitol Hill. Mr. Zuckerberg, who is the chief executive at Facebook (FB 166.32, +1.28), appeared before a joint hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committees, answering questions regarding the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and Russia's use of Facebook in attempting to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Facebook shares finished higher by 0.8%, adding to Tuesday's 4.5% rally.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.4% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.7% YTD
S&P 500: -1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -2.1% YTD

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Stocks Trim Weekly Gains on Friday
13-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow -122.91 at 24360.14, Nasdaq -33.60 at 7106.65, S&P -7.69 at 2656.30

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/13/stocks-trim-weekly-gains-on-friday.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks slipped on Friday, ending a positive week on a disappointing note, as some geopolitical angst prompted investors to take some money off the table ahead of the weekend. The S&P 500 declined 0.3%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.5%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.5% -- trimming their gains for the week to 1.8%-2.8%.

The major averages started the session modestly higher following better-than-expected first quarter earnings results from financial giants JPMorgan Chase (JPM 110.30, -3.07, -2.7%), Wells Fargo (WFC 50.89, -1.81, -3.4%), and Citigroup (C 71.01, -1.12, -1.6%). However, after a short stint in the green, the financial sector moved lower, bringing the broader market with it. Volatility picked up in the final stretch, with the major averages dropping to new lows before bouncing back, as investors contemplated the likelihood of a U.S.-led strike on Syria over the weekend.

President Trump has promised that the U.S. will be striking the Syrian government, which is accused of carrying out a chemical attack against the rebel-held town of Douma last Saturday, but the president has intentionally made the timing of the attack unclear. Adding to the uncertainty, an attack would likely put the U.S. at odds with Russia, who supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has vowed to shoot down any missiles fired at Syria.

The energy sector (+1.1%) helped keep losses in check on Friday, extending its weekly gain to 6.0%, as oil prices rallied for the fifth day in a row. West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 0.3% to $67.26 per barrel -- their best level in more than three years -- benefiting, once again, from the uncertainty surrounding the oil-rich Middle East. The utilities (+0.7%), consumer staples (+0.5%), and real estate (+0.5%) sectors also advanced, but the seven remaining groups finished in the red.

Unsurprisingly, the financial sector (-1.6%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings following the negative reaction to the big bank earnings. The consumer discretionary space (-0.6%) also underperformed, but no other group lost more than 0.3%. Within the top-weighted technology space (-0.3%), chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO 246.94, +7.51) outperformed, adding 3.1%, following news that the company's board has authorized the repurchase of up to $12 billion of common stock.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries finished Friday mixed, flattening the 2s10s spread to 45 basis points -- its lowest level since 2007. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped one basis point to 2.82%, while the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note climbed two basis points to 2.37%.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for February:

The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April declined to 97.8 (Briefing.com consensus 100.6) from 101.4 in March.
The key takeaway from the report is that the monthly drop was due to worries about trade policies and expectations for rising interest rates.
The February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 6.052 million from a revised 6.228 million (from 6.312 million) in January.

On Monday, investors will receive Retail Sales for March, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for April, Business Inventories for February, and the NAHB Housing Market Index for April.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.9% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.9% YTD
S&P 500: -0.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.5% YTD

Week In Review: Light Volume Overshadows Gains

Wall Street had a good week in terms of gains, but volume was light, pointing to a lack of conviction among investors -- who spent the week digesting a steady stream of headlines. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led the major indices higher, adding 2.8%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 2.0% and 1.8%, respectively.

The stock market began the week on a positive note following weekend interviews from several White House officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, that helped to alleviate fears that the U.S. is barreling towards a tit-for-tat trade war with China. Chinese President Xi Jinping helped further improve investor sentiment with a speech at the Boao Forum on Tuesday, saying that he plans to "significantly" cut tariffs on imported automobiles, reduce duties on other imported goods, and improve the intellectual property rights of foreign firms.

Moving to the Middle East, geopolitical tensions were heightened following a suspected chemical attack from the Syrian government on the rebel-held town of Douma that killed at least 40 people over the weekend. The situation escalated even further on Wednesday morning when Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, warned that it would shoot down any missiles fired at Syria -- to which U.S. President Donald Trump replied "get ready Russia, because they will be coming."

As of this writing, the U.S. has yet to strike the Syrian government, but it could happen at any moment. The attack was first thought to be imminent, but President Trump muddled that belief on Thursday by tweeting that it could happen "very soon or not so soon at all!"

In addition to the situation in Syria, a missile attack aimed at Saudi Arabia by pro-Iranian rebels in Yemen served to further escalate tensions in the region. Saudi air defense forces intercepted one missile over the capital Riyadh on Wednesday, while two others were intercepted over the southern areas of Jazan and Najran.

With all the concerning headlines out of the oil-rich Middle East, traders pushed oil prices substantially higher this week, betting that the tensions will eventually lead to a slowdown in production. West Texas Intermediate crude futures surged 8.4% to $67.26 per barrel, closing Friday at their highest level in more than three years. The S&P 500's energy sector benefited from the jump in oil prices, finishing at the top of the week's sector standings by a comfortable margin; the group added 6.0%.

In Washington, Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified on Capitol Hill this week, answering questions regarding the company's Cambridge Analytica data scandal and Russia's alleged use of Facebook to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Mr. Zuckerberg was grilled for 10 hours by nearly 100 lawmakers, but the market seemed satisfied with his answers. Facebook shares climbed 5.3% over the two days of testimony, eventually finishing the week with a gain of 4.7%.

On Friday, big banks kicked off the first quarter earnings season, with JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C) all beating profit estimates on in-line revenues. However, shares of the three lenders, and the broader financial sector, sold off in the wake of the reports. The financial sector settled the week with a gain of 1.0%, which placed it in the middle of the sector standings. The lightly-weighted utilities and real estate groups finished at the back of the pack, losing a little more than 1.0% apiece.

Investors received the minutes from the March FOMC meeting this week, but the report contained few surprises. Some key inflationary data was also released this week -- namely the CPI readings for March -- but was met with a largely muted response from the market. In short, the consumer prices report showed a firming (though not scary) inflation trend that will keep the Federal Reserve wedded to its tightening bias and its belief that at least two more rate hikes are warranted this year.

The CME FedWatch Tool still anticipates that the next rate hike will occur at the June FOMC meeting with an implied probability of 95.0% (up from 85.2% last week). The market also still believes there will be a total of three rate hikes in 2018, but the chances for a fourth hike increased to 36.8% (from 26.3% last week).

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Sigh of Relief
16-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow +212.90 at 24573.04, Nasdaq +49.63 at 7156.28, S&P +21.54 at 2677.84

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/16/sigh-of-relief.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Investors breathed a sigh of relief on Monday, pushing stocks solidly higher, after a U.S.-led strike on Syria over the weekend turned out to be less dramatic than many had feared.

The S&P 500 finished higher by 0.8% at 2677.84 after getting rejected at its 50-day moving average (2687). The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite also finished a step below their 50-day moving averages, adding 0.9% and 0.7%, respectively.

U.S., U.K., and French forces carried out a much-anticipated missile attack against the Syrian government late Friday, targeting three sites associated with the production of chemical weapons following a suspected poison gas attack against the rebel-held town of Douma on April 7. Russian President Vladimir Putin -- who supports the Syrian government -- condemned the attack, saying additional strikes could invite chaos in global affairs, but made no mention of a military response to this particular incident -- giving the impression that it's now in the rear-view mirror.

That realization proved to be a positive for the equity market, but didn't bode so well for crude oil, which surged more than 8.0% last week on the bet that heightened tensions in the oil-rich Middle East would lead to a slowdown in production; West Texas Intermediate crude futures slid 1.6% to $66.18 per barrel. However, the energy sector, which typically moves in tandem with the price of crude oil, rallied 1.0%.

All 11 S&P sectors finished Monday in positive territory, with gains ranging from 0.4% to 1.5%. Lightly-weighted groups populated the top and bottom of the sector standings, with telecom services (+1.5%), utilities (+1.4%), and materials (+1.4%) closing at the top, and real estate (+0.4%) closing at the bottom. The heavily-weighted financial space (+0.5%) was the second-worst performer.

In corporate news, drug retailers CVS Health (CVS 66.10, +2.67) and Walgreens Boot Alliance (WBA 66.22, +2.40) rallied 4.2% and 3.8%, respectively, following a CNBC report that internet retail giant Amazon (AMZN 1441.50, +10.71) has shelved plans to sell and distribute pharmaceutical products to hospitals. Separately, Merck (MRK 58.65, +1.48) and Bristol-Myers (BMY 54.08, -4.57) both reported better-than-expected clinical trial results for their respective cancer treatments, but Merck surpassed expectations even more so than Bristol. Merck shares jumped 2.6%, while Bristol shares tumbled 7.8%.

On the earnings front, Bank of America (BAC 29.93, +0.13) struggled early after reporting above-consensus first quarter earnings ahead of Monday's opening bell, but eventually finished up 0.4%. Financial peer Charles Schwab (SCHW 53.08, +2.04) soared 4.0% after also beating bottom-line estimates for Q1. Moving to transports, JB Hunt (JBHT 119.75, +6.98) jumped 6.2% after beating both earnings and revenues estimates for the first quarter, helping to fuel a broad transport rally; the Dow Jones Transportation Average finished Monday higher by 2.3%.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended Monday slightly lower, which was a minor victory in light of the larger losses posted overnight. The 2-yr yield flirted with 2.40% before closing flat at 2.37%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield flirted with 2.87% before closing with a one basis point gain at 2.83%.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included Retail Sales for March, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for April, Business Inventories for February, and the NAHB Housing Market Index for April:

March retail sales increased 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%). The prior month's reading was left unrevised at -0.1%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.2%, as expected. The prior month's increased was left unrevised at 0.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that March stopped a streak of three consecutive monthly declines in retail sales, although it also demonstrates that consumers continue to show some restraint in discretionary spending.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for April declined to 15.8 (Briefing.com consensus 20.0) from the prior month's unrevised reading of 22.5.
Business Inventories increased 0.6% in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%). The January reading was left unrevised at +0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that inventory growth outpaced sales growth, as inventories increased for manufacturers (+0.3%), retailers (+0.4%), and merchant wholesalers (+1.0%).
The NAHB Housing Market Index for April decreased to 69 (Briefing.com consensus 70) from an unrevised reading of 70 in March.

On Tuesday, investors will receive March Housing Starts (Briefing.com consensus 1268K) and Building Permits (Briefing.com consensus 1315K) at 8:30 AM ET and March Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 77.8%) at 9:15 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.7% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.8% YTD
S&P 500: +0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.6% YTD

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Averages Post Solid Gains Despite Lagging Financials
17-Apr-18 16:25 ET
Dow +213.59 at 24786.63, Nasdaq +124.81 at 7281.09, S&P +28.55 at 2706.39

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/17/averages-post-solid-gains-despite-lagging-financials.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks climbed for the second straight session on Tuesday, as investors turned their attention from geopolitical tensions to Q1 corporate earnings -- which have been largely upbeat thus far. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was particularly strong, adding 1.7%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow finished with respective gains of 1.1% and 0.9%.

All three major indices closed above their 50-day moving averages -- which none of them had done since March 21 or earlier.

Big earnings names included Netflix (NFLX 336.06, +28.28), Goldman Sachs (GS 253.63, -4.25), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 130.54, -1.22), and UnitedHealth (UNH 238.55, +8.23), all of which reported better-than-expected first quarter profits. Shares of Netflix soared 9.2% -- hitting a new all-time high -- after the streaming media giant crushed its subscriber growth estimates (+7.4 million actual vs +6.5 million estimates) and raised its guidance for Q2. UnitedHealth shares also advanced, adding 3.6%, while shares of Johnson & Johnson and Goldman Sachs declined 0.9% and 1.7%, respectively.

Goldman Sachs' performance was particular disheartening considering the company soundly beat both profit and revenue estimates for the first quarter. Financial giants JPMorgan Chase (JPM 110.21, 0.00), Wells Fargo (WFC 50.57, -0.23), Citigroup (C 69.74, -0.33), and Bank of America (BAC 30.04, +0.11) performed in a similar manner following their recent earnings beats, leaving some investors scratching their heads and others questioning the conviction behind of this recent equity rebound. The financial sector -- which typically holds a leadership position in broader market moves -- finished Tuesday at the bottom of the sector standings with a loss of 0.1%.

In addition to Goldman, another curve-flattening trade in the U.S. Treasury market weighed on the financial group. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr yield slid two basis points to 2.81%, while the yield on the 2-yr note climbed two basis points to 2.39%, cutting the 2s10s spread to 42 basis points. That's the lowest the 2s10s spread -- which points to the difference between what banks make on loans and what they pay on deposits -- has been since 2007 and represents a loss of 37 basis points since February 9.

However, the financial sector aside, Tuesday was a positive day on Wall Street, with advancing issues outpacing declining issues 2.7 to 1.

Netflix's upbeat earnings report helped push FAANG names higher -- Facebook (FB 168.66, +3.83), Apple (AAPL 178.24, +2.42), Amazon (AMZN 1503.83, +62.33), and Alphabet (GOOG 1074.16, +36.18) added between 1.4% and 4.3% -- which, in turn, helped push the consumer discretionary sector (+1.9%), which houses Amazon, and the technology sector (+2.0%), which houses the others, to the top of the sector standings. Tech giant Microsoft (MSFT 96.07, +1.90) also outperformed, adding 2.0%.

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) -- dubbed Wall Street's "fear gauge" -- dropped 10.0% on Tuesday to 14.89, which is its lowest level since early March. It's also worth noting that volume was relatively light on Tuesday, with just 720 million shares changing hands at the New York Stock Exchange; the 50-day moving average is 936 million.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included March Housing Starts and Building Permits and March Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization:

Housing starts increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.319 million units in March (Briefing.com consensus 1.268 million), up from a revised 1.295 million units in February (from 1.236 million). Building permits rose to a seasonally adjusted 1.354 million in March (Briefing.com consensus 1.315 million) from a revised 1.321 million in February (from 1.298 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the monthly increases were driven entirely by multi-unit dwellings. Single-family starts were down 3.7% while single-family permits fell 5.5%, which is disappointing given the supply shortage of single-family homes.
Industrial Production increased 0.5% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the February reading was revised to +1.0% (from +0.9%). Meanwhile, Capacity Utilization ticked up to 78.0% (Briefing.com consensus 77.8%) from an unrevised reading of 77.7% in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that all three major industry groups played a part in driving the uptick in industrial production in March.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the Fed's Beige Book for March.

Nasdaq Composite: +5.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.9% YTD
S&P 500: +1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.3% YTD

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Wall Street Ends Range-Bound Session On Mixed Note
18-Apr-18 16:20 ET
Dow -38.56 at 24748.07, Nasdaq +14.14 at 7295.23, S&P +2.25 at 2708.64

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/18/wall-street-ends-rangebound-session-on-mixed-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages were range-bound on Wednesday, finishing the session little changed. Investors took in the latest batch of first quarter earnings, which featured reports from IBM (IBM 148.79, -12.12) and Morgan Stanley (MS 53.26, +0.02), and watched crude oil futures return to their highest level in more than three years. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite finished higher by 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively, closing in the green for a third straight session, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged, finishing lower by 0.2%.

IBM shares dropped 7.5% on Wednesday, as investors looked past the tech giant's above-consensus first quarter profits and revenues, instead focusing on its disappointing gross margin rate, the quality of its revenue (more from hardware and less from cloud), and its relatively conservative profit guidance for fiscal year 2018. The broader technology sector finished a tick lower, shedding 0.2%, closing near the middle of the sector standings.

The financial group, meanwhile, declined 0.4%, continuing to struggle despite blow-out Q1 results from Morgan Stanley -- which included better-than-expected earnings and revenues. Shares of the investment bank were up and down on Wednesday before eventually finishing flat. Morgan Stanley joins a list of financial firms that have struggled after reporting upbeat Q1 results -- including JPMorgan Chase (JPM 109.32, -0.89), Wells Fargo (WFC 50.39, -0.18), Citigroup (C 68.98, -0.76), Bank of America (BAC 29.53, -0.51), and Goldman Sachs (GS 254.00, +0.37).

A slight steepening of the yield curve helped underpin financials to some degree however, bringing the 2s10s spread up from the more than 10-year low it touched on Tuesday. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed five basis points to 2.87%, while the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note advanced two basis points to 2.42%.

Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures rallied 2.7% to $68.31 per barrel, rebounding from back-to-back down days. WTI crude futures have surged 10.0% since April 6, initially underpinned by the belief that heightened tensions in the oil-rich Middle East could lead to a slowdown in production. Tensions appear to have been dialed back following a one-off U.S.-led strike on Syria over the weekend, but the commodity continues to challenge its best level since November-December 2014. The Department of Energy's weekly inventory report, which showed that U.S. crude stockpiles declined by 1.1 million barrels last week, helped fuel Wednesday's crude rally.

The energy sector has unsurprisingly benefited from the increase in crude prices, adding another 1.6% on Wednesday to extend its April gain to 9.1%; for comparison, the S&P 500 is up 2.6% month to date. Energy finished at the top of Wednesday's sector standings, with industrials (+1.0%) being the next-best performer. Within the industrial space, transports showed particular strength, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher by 1.7%, after United Continental (UAL 70.58, +3.24, +4.8%) and CSX (CSX 61.01, +4.44, +7.9%) reported above-consensus first quarter results.

On the downside, the consumer staples space was the worst-performing sector, losing 0.9%, with tobacco names leading the retreat after analysts at Goldman downgraded shares of Altria (MO 61.50, -2.48) to 'Neutral' from 'Buy'; Altria shares lost 3.9%. In general, countercyclical sectors underperformed their cyclical peers, but, as mentioned above, the cyclical financials and technology groups -- which are the two most influential sectors -- were notable laggards, keeping the broader market's gain in check.

Trading volume was light once again on Wednesday, with just 770 million shares changing hands at the New York Stock Exchange -- about 17% less than the 50-day moving average.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to the Fed's Beige Book for March and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The Fed's Beige Book showed that economic activity continued to expand at a modest to moderate pace across the 12 Federal Reserve Districts in March and early April. Outlooks remained positive, but contacts in various sectors including manufacturing, agriculture, and transportation expressed concern about the newly imposed and/or proposed tariffs. Upward wage pressures persisted, but generally did not escalate; most Districts reported wage growth as only modest.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 4.9% to follow last week's 1.9% decline.

On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims report (Briefing.com consensus 226K), the Philadelphia Fed Index for April (Briefing.com consensus 21.0), and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for March (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%).

Nasdaq Composite: +5.7% YTD
Russell 2000: +3.1% YTD
S&P 500: +1.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.1% YTD

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Apple Leads Broad Retreat
20-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow -201.95 at 24462.94, Nasdaq -91.93 at 7146.12, S&P -22.99 at 2670.14

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/20/apple-leads-broad-retreat.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks retreated for the second day in a row on Friday, with shares of tech giant Apple (AAPL 165.72, -7.08, -4.1%) falling sharply. The S&P 500 lost 0.9%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.8%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 1.3%, but all three major averages managed to maintain modest gains for the week.

Friday's selling was broad-based, with 10 of 11 S&P 500 sectors finishing in the red. The technology (-1.5%) and consumer staples (-1.7%) groups were the worst-performing sectors, while the financial space (+0.1%) finished at the top of the sector standings with a slim gain. Stocks were modestly lower at the opening bell, but selling accelerated after the S&P 500 breached its 50-day moving average (2687). The major averages finished a step above their session lows thanks to a late rally.

Apple led the tech sector lower on Friday, with its shares dropping 4.1%, following cautious commentary from analysts, who warned that iPhone sales could slow in the coming months. These concerns flowed from the weak guidance that Taiwan Semi (TSM 38.95, -0.58, -1.5%) gave on Thursday, which was attributed, in part, to softer smartphone demand. Apple shares did find some support at their 200-day moving average though, closing right on top of the key technical level.

Meanwhile, in the financial sector, shares of Wells Fargo (WFC 52.56, +1.02) had a positive showing, rallying 2.0%, after the big bank agreed to pay $1 billion to settle loan abuse allegations. Wells Fargo's positive performance helped underpin the financial group, but a steepening of the yield curve was likely the more influential factor; the 2s10s spread ticked up two basis points to 51 basis points -- up from 42 basis points on Tuesday. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended four basis points higher at 2.95% -- its highest level in more than four years.

On the earnings front, shares of General Electric (GE 14.54, +0.55) jumped 3.9% after the Dow component reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the first quarter and reaffirmed its guidance for fiscal year 2018. Shares of fellow industrial giant Honeywell (HON 150.57, +2.44) also climbed following upbeat Q1 results, adding 1.7%.

In politics, the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Russian government, the Trump campaign, and the WikiLeaks organization, alleging that they conspired to tilt the 2016 presidential election in Mr. Donald Trump's favor. The news had a negligible impact on trading.

Investors didn't receive any economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.9% YTD
S&P 500: -0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.0% YTD

Week In Review: Holding On

The U.S. stock market notched its second consecutive weekly advance this week, but big losses on Thursday and Friday left a bad taste in investors' mouths going into the weekend. The S&P 500 added 0.5% this week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively.

Wall Street kicked off the week on a positive note, breathing a sigh of relief after a U.S.-led strike on Syria over the weekend -- which was in response to a suspected chemical attack from the Syrian government on the rebel-held town of Douma -- turned out to be less dramatic than many had feared. Russian President Vladimir Putin -- who supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- condemned the attack, saying additional strikes could invite chaos in global affairs, but made no mention of a military response to this particular incident -- leading investors to believe that the dust has settled for now.

The bullish bias carried over into Tuesday's session, as investors turned their attention to the earnings front. Netflix (NFLX) soared nearly 10% on Tuesday, hitting a new all-time high, after crushing subscriber growth estimates for the first quarter and issuing upbeat guidance for Q2. Goldman Sachs (GS) had a blow-out first quarter, easily beating both earnings and revenue estimates, but its shares struggled to advance on Tuesday, putting the investment bank on a long list of financial names that have failed to rally on upbeat results.

Stocks moved higher once again on Wednesday, but only modestly so, as IBM (IBM) weighed on investor sentiment. Shares of the tech giant tumbled 7.5% in the midweek session after the company's above-consensus first quarter profits and revenues were overshadowed by its disappointing gross margin rate, the quality of its revenue (more from hardware and less from cloud), and its relatively conservative profit guidance for fiscal year 2018. Meanwhile, energy shares outperformed as crude oil futures returned to their highest level in more than three years.

On Thursday, the market registered its first loss of the week, with consumer staples shares pacing the retreat. Shares of tobacco giant Philip Morris (PM) plunged 15.6% after the company reported a decline in cigarette shipment volume for the first quarter and slower-than-expected growth for its IQOS product -- which heats tobacco instead of burning it. Meanwhile, Apple supplier Taiwan Semi (TSM) led a broad tech retreat after its first quarter earnings and revenues came in below estimates; the chipmaker also lowered its guidance for Q2.

Wall Street ended the week with another disappointing performance on Friday. The technology sector showed relative weakness once again, with its top component by market cap -- Apple (AAPL) -- sliding 4.1% after several analysts raised concerns about the prospect of iPhone sales being weaker than expected. Financials provided some relief though. Financial giant Wells Fargo (WFC) was particularly strong, adding 2.0%, after agreeing to pay $1 billion to settle loan abuse allegations.

In the end, seven S&P sectors finished with weekly gains, while four finished with weekly losses. The energy group (+2.6%) was the top-performing group, as WTI crude futures advanced 1.5% over five sessions, closing Friday at $68.38 per barrel. Conversely, the consumer staples sector (-4.4%) was the worst performer by a large margin, extending its 2018 loss to 11.8%; for comparison, the S&P 500 has slipped 0.1% year to date. In general, growth-sensitive sectors outperformed defensive ones, although the top-weighted technology group (-0.2%) bucked this trend.

The yield curve ultimately steepened this week, but not before the 2s10s spread hit a 10-year low. Fed officials generally don't appear to be worried about a still low 2s10s spread -- which closed at 51 basis points on Friday -- leading the market to still believe that there will be at least three rate hikes this year in total.

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Investors Hit Pause As Yields Rise, Ahead of Busy Earnings Week
23-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow -14.25 at 24448.69, Nasdaq -17.52 at 7128.60, S&P +0.15 at 2670.29

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/23/investors-hit-pause-as-yields-rise-ahead-of-busy-earnings-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market wobbled on Monday as investors braced for a busy week of corporate earnings and kept a close eye on Treasury yields, which rose to multi-year highs. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) each finished a step lower, notching their third and fourth straight losses, respectively, while the S&P 500 (unch) eked out a slim win, closing just a tick above its flat line. Volume was light once again on Monday, with just 730 million shares changing hands at the New York Stock Exchange (50-day moving average is 897 million).

Treasury yields were higher from the jump on Monday, with the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note nearly touching the psychologically important 3.0% mark in overnight trade -- getting as close as 2.998%. The 10-yr yield eventually settled two basis points above its Friday close at 2.97% -- which is its highest close in more than four years -- while the yield on the 2-yr note finished three basis points above its Friday close at 2.47% -- which is its highest close in more than seven years.

Stocks held up well considering the increased, "risk-free" return on U.S. Treasuries and considering the rise in the U.S. dollar -- which, by itself, doesn't bode well for foreign demand of U.S. goods. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.7% to 90.68 -- its highest close since mid-January. The greenback added 0.4% against the euro (1.2209) and 1.0% against the yen (108.72).

The S&P 500 sector standings were pretty evenly mixed between green and red, with six groups advancing and five declining. However, outside a 1.1% jump in the lightly-weighted telecom services sector, sector movement was modest, with no group adding/losing more than 0.6%. The energy sector (+0.6%) showed relative strength as WTI crude futures climbed 0.5% to $68.76 per barrel, while the top-weighted technology sector (-0.4%) was the weakest performer as chipmakers weighed; the PHLX Semiconductor Index dropped 1.3%.

In corporate news, Dow components Caterpillar (CAT 153.99, +0.74, +0.5%), Merck (MRK 60.25, +1.42, +2.4%), Exxon Mobil (XOM 79.57, +0.57, +0.7%), and Verizon (VZ 48.66, +0.76, +1.6%) all rose after receiving ratings upgrades, Kimberly-Clark (KMB 98.52, -1.51, -1.5%) slid after revealing that its first quarter margins were significantly impacted by commodity inflation, and Hasbro (HAS 86.12, +3.31, +4.0%) ended higher despite initially dropping as much as 4.6% after reporting worse-than-expected profits and sales for the first quarter.

Monday's economic data was limited to the Existing Home Sales report for March, which came in better-than-expected; existing home sales increased 1.1% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 5.60 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.57 million). The key takeaway from the report remains the same: notable supply constraints continue to act as a drag on overall sales. The limited inventory -- and the high prices on available inventory -- is crimping affordability, particularly for first-time buyers; moreover, all prospective buyers are going to feel added affordability pressures from rising mortgage rates.

Looking ahead to Tuesday's data, investors will receive the FHFA Housing Price Index for February (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for February (Briefing.com consensus +6.4%), New Home Sales for March (Briefing.com consensus 631K), and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for April (Briefing.com consensus 126.1).

Nasdaq Composite: +3.3% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.7% YTD
S&P 500: -0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.1% YTD

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Tuesday Tumble
24-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow -424.56 at 24024.13, Nasdaq -121.25 at 7007.35, S&P -35.73 at 2634.56

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/24/tuesday-tumble.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities tumbled on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average notching its fifth straight loss, as the benchmark 10-yr Treasury yield continued its climb towards 3.0% and as investors digested the latest batch of first quarter earnings. The Dow ended lower by 1.7%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq declined 1.3% and 1.7%, respectively.

The industrials (-2.8%), materials (-2.7%), and technology (-2.0%) sectors led Tuesday's broad-based retreat. Within the industrial space, 3M (MMM 201.13, -14.78), Caterpillar (CAT 144.44, -9.55), and Lockheed Martin (LMT 336.49, -22.11) lost between 6.2% and 6.8% after reporting their first quarter results -- which, headline-wise, came in better than expected. Caterpillar initially shot higher following the release of its report, but reversed after saying in its post-earnings conference call that margins in the first quarter will be the high water mark for the year.

Industrial giant United Technologies (UTX 122.10, -1.36) also moved lower despite an earnings beat, losing 1.1%.

That trend held within the technology sector, where giant Alphabet (GOOG 1019.98, -47.47) dropped 4.5% despite a blowout quarter; the purported bearish catalyst was the company's weaker-than-expected operating margin. Fellow FAANG stocks Facebook (FB 159.69, -6.15) and Netflix (NFLX 307.02, -11.67) also took a hit, losing around 3.7% apiece, and chipmakers struggled, evidenced by the 2.1% decline in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index -- which closed right at its 200-day moving average.

The materials space, meanwhile, was led lower by mining company Freeport-McMoRan (FCX 16.08, -2.73), which dropped 14.5% after missing both earnings and revenue estimates for the first quarter. The other declining sectors finished with losses between 0.6% and 1.6%, and three groups -- utilities (+0.7%), telecom services (+1.2%), and real estate (+0.2%) actually finished in the green.

Other earnings-related movers included Verizon (VZ 49.67, +1.01), Coca-Cola (KO 43.07, -0.91), Eli Lilly (LLY 80.09, -0.11), Biogen (BIIB 262.15, +2.85), Travelers (TRV 132.88, -4.35), and Harley-Davidson (HOG 42.01, +1.00) -- most of which reported better-than-expected results. However, only Verizon, Biogen, and Harley-Davidson moved higher, adding between 1.1% and 2.4%. Eli Lilly slipped 0.1%, while Coca-Cola and Travelers lost 2.1% and 3.2%, respectively.

The major averages actually opened Tuesday's session in positive territory, hovering about 0.3% above their respective flat lines, but just couldn't foster any added buying momentum -- which, in and of itself, proved to be a bearish catalyst. A late rally helped trim losses a bit before the close; at its session low, the S&P 500 was down 2.0%.

In the bond market, the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note continued its climb towards the psychologically important 3.0% mark, actually touching it in intraday trade before finishing at 2.98% -- one basis point higher than Monday's close. The 2-yr yield, meanwhile, took a step back after closing Monday at a seven-year high, slipping one basis point to 2.46%.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included New Home Sales for March, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for April, the FHFA Housing Price Index for February, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for February:

New Home Sales in March hit an annualized rate of 694,000, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of 631,000. The February reading was revised to 667,000 (from 618,000).
The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales activity was the strongest in the South and West regions, which are the nation's biggest markets, suggesting there is good underlying demand.
The consumer confidence reading for April increased to 128.7 (Briefing.com consensus 126.1) from the prior month's revised reading of 127.0 (from 127.7).
The key takeaway from the report is that the percent of consumers expecting their income to decline over the coming months reached its lowest level (6%) since December 2000. That view could be a good portent for a pickup in consumer spending since income expectations are typically driven by feelings of job security.
The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.6% in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), while the January increase was revised to 0.9% from 0.8%.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Index increased 6.8% in February (Briefing.com consensus +6.4%), while the January increase was left unrevised at 6.4%.

Wednesday's data will be limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which will be released at 7:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.2% YTD
S&P 500: -1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -2.8% YTD

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Wall Street Keeps Weekly Losses In Check
25-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow +59.70 at 24083.83, Nasdaq -3.61 at 7003.74, S&P +4.84 at 2639.40

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/25/wall-street-keeps-weekly-losses-in-check.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks battled back following a rough start to Wednesday's session, keeping weekly losses in check. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished higher by 0.3%, ending a five-session skid, and the S&P 500 advanced 0.2%, but the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.1%, extend its losing streak to five sessions.

Initially, it looked as if Wednesday's session might be a continuation of Tuesday's sell off, as stock dropped sharply from their flat lines in the opening minutes. The market quickly found its footing, however, and started trending higher, eventually hitting positive territory in the afternoon. At lowest mark of the day, the S&P 500 was down 0.8% and, at its best, was up 0.4%.

A continued rise in Treasury yields didn't make things easy for the equity market. The benchmark 10-yr yield finally crossed the 3.0% mark after flirting with it over the last few sessions, finishing four basis points above its Tuesday close at 3.02% -- its highest close in more than four years. Meanwhile, the 2-yr yield climbed three basis points to 2.49% -- its highest close in nearly a decade.

Shares of Dow component Boeing (BA 342.86, +13.80) rallied 4.2% on Wednesday after the aerospace giant made a splash on the earnings front, easily beating top and bottom line estimates for the first quarter. Similarly, shares of chipmaker Texas Instruments (TXN 103.00, +4.58), health insurer Anthem (ANTM 238.84, +13.84), and railroad giant Norfolk Southern (NSC 145.96, +10.99) added between 4.7% and 8.1% on better-than-expected Q1 results.

However, on the downside, Twitter (TWTR 29.75, -0.72) shares dropped 2.4% even though the company beat earnings and revenue estimates for the first quarter, and shares of Capitol One (COF 92.76, -4.66) tumbled 4.8% after the company's worse-than-expected Q1 revenues overshadowed its better-than-expected bottom line.

Most of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished Wednesday in positive territory, but gains were pretty limited; the energy and telecom services sectors added 0.8% apiece, but no other group advanced more than 0.5%. Three sectors finished in negative territory, including the top-weighted financials and information technology groups, which lost 0.1% apiece.

Wednesday's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which showed a downtick of 0.2%. Tomorrow investors will receive Durable Goods Orders for March (Briefing.com consensus +1.9%), weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 225K), Advance International Trade in Goods for March, and Advance Wholesale Inventories for March.

Nasdaq Composite: +1.5% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.0% YTD
S&P 500: -1.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -2.6% YTD

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Tech Shares Lead Broad-Based Rebound
26-Apr-18 16:20 ET
Dow +238.51 at 24322.34, Nasdaq +114.94 at 7118.68, S&P +27.54 at 2666.94

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/26/tech-shares-lead-broadbased-rebound.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied on Thursday, recouping just about all of their weekly losses, as investors cheered the latest batch of first quarter earnings. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1.0% apiece, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite did even better, jumping 1.6%, as technology shares set the pace.

The most influential S&P 500 sector -- information technology -- advanced 2.3% on Thursday, finishing atop the day's sector standings by a comfortable margin. Tech giant Facebook (FB 174.16, +14.47) soared 9.1% after reporting a blowout first quarter, easily topping earnings and revenue estimates and also reporting double-digit growth in daily active users (DAUs). Visa (V 127.08, +5.87) and Advanced Micro (AMD 11.04, +1.33) contributed to the tech rally as well, adding 4.8% and 13.7%, respectively, after reporting above-consensus earnings and revenues for the first quarter and issuing upbeat guidance.

Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 422.50, +82.98) was perhaps the most notable post-earnings mover, surging 24.4% to its highest level in nearly a year. The burrito chain reported an impressive first quarter, handily beating earnings estimates on above-consensus growth in same-store sales. The S&P 500 sector that houses Chipotle -- consumer discretionary -- finished in second place in the sector standings with a gain of 1.6%, while most other advancing groups added between 0.6% and 1.5%.

The heavily-weighted financial sector was an exception, finishing just a tick above its flat line. The group underperformed as Treasury yields slipped from multi-year highs; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped below the psychologically important 3.0% mark, ending three basis points below its Wednesday close at 2.99%. The 2-yr yield, meanwhile, finished unchanged at 2.49%.

Telecom services was easily the worst-performing sector, tumbling 3.2%, after AT&T (T 33.10, -2.10) reported lower-than-expected earnings and revenues for the first quarter -- T shares dropped 6.0%. The industrial sector was the only other space to close in the red, losing 0.4% and extending its weekly decline to 3.0%; for comparison, the S&P 500 is down just 0.1% week to date. Within the industrial group, transports showed particular weakness, with American Airlines (AAL 42.37, -2.88) dropping 6.4% after lowering its guidance due to higher fuel prices.

Overseas, the European Central Bank released its latest policy directive on Thursday morning, which -- as expected -- left interest rates unchanged and confirmed that net asset purchases will remain at the current monthly pace of EUR30 billion until the end of September 2018, or beyond, if necessary. The euro declined 0.5% against the U.S. dollar to 1.2105 -- its lowest level since early January -- following the release and a dovish-sounding press conference from ECB President Mario Draghi.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included Durable Goods Orders for March, weekly Initial Claims, Advance International Trade in Goods for March, and Advance Wholesale Inventories for March:

March durable goods orders climbed 2.6%, which is more than the 1.9% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to +3.5% (from +3.1%). Excluding transportation, durable orders were flat (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) to follow the prior month's revised increase of 0.9% (from +1.2%).
The key takeaway from the report was that business spending was soft, evidenced by a 0.1% decline in orders of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft. Shipments of those goods, which factor into GDP forecasts, were down 0.7% after increasing 1.0% in February.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 209,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 225,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 233,000 (from 232,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.837 million from a revised count of 1.866 million (from 1.863 million).
The key takeaway from the initial claims report is that it will feed concerns about a tightening in labor supply and a potential pickup in wage-based inflation pressure as a result of it.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for March showed a deficit of $68.0 billion.
The Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for March showed an increase of 0.5%.

On Friday, investors will receive the advance estimate of first quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus +2.1%) at 8:30 AM ET. The first quarter Employment Cost Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) will also be released at 8:30 AM ET, while the Chicago PMI for April (Briefing.com consensus 56.3) and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April (Briefing.com consensus 98.0) will cross the wires at 9:45 AM ET and 10:00 AM ET, respectively.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.1% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.5% YTD
S&P 500: -0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.6% YTD

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Earnings Fail to Nudge the Market Higher
27-Apr-18 16:30 ET
Dow -11.15 at 24311.19, Nasdaq +1.12 at 7119.80, S&P +2.97 at 2669.91

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/27/earnings-fail-to-nudge-the-market-higher.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages ended Friday little changed despite strong earnings reports from Amazon (AMZN 1572.62, +54.66), Microsoft (MSFT 95.82, +1.56), and Intel (INTC 52.73, -0.32) -- three high-profile names that helped pace last year's rally. The S&P 500 finished a tick higher (+0.1%), the Nasdaq settled flat, and the Dow closed a tick lower (-0.1%).

Amazon shares soared at the opening bell, adding nearly 8.0%, after the internet retail giant reported blowout first quarter results -- easily beating both top and bottom line estimates -- and raised its profit guidance for the second quarter. However, the bullish sentiment soon dampened; AMZN shares quickly slashed their gains in half, eventually closing higher by 3.6%.

Microsoft and Intel shares went through a similar experience after both companies reported better-than-expected quarterly results; Microsoft trimmed its opening gain of 4.0% to 1.7% by the closing bell, while Intel gave back all of its opening gain of 5.0% and then some, finishing lower by 0.6%.

The dialed back buying of these once invincible-looking stocks helped strengthen the narrative that earnings are at, or near, a peak for this growth cycle.

In other earnings news, energy heavyweight Chevron (CVX 126.62, +2.40) beat earnings estimates for the first quarter, but its peer Exxon Mobil (XOM 77.79, -3.07) missed the mark; Chevron shares ended higher by 1.9%, while Exxon shares settled lower by 3.8%. Meanwhile, shares of Starbucks (SBUX 58.36, -1.02) lost 1.7% after the coffee giant's earnings came in as expected.

Seven S&P 500 sectors finished Friday in positive territory, while four groups finished in the red. Energy (-1.2%) was by far the weakest group, suffering from Exxon's disappointing earnings, while telecom services (+1.8%) led to the upside following a Reuters report that a merger deal between Sprint (S 6.50, +0.50) and T-Mobile (TMUS 64.52, +0.42) could be struck in the next three days.

U.S. Treasuries rallied for the second day in a row on Friday, sending the benchmark 10-yr yield three basis points lower to 2.96%.

In geopolitics, the leaders of North and South Korea held historic talks on Friday, agreeing to sign a pact that seeks permanent and solid peace and stating an aim to work towards a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Separately, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss the Iran nuclear deal, trade, and other issues.

The Bank of Japan kept interest rates unchanged, as expected, but removed from its policy statement a reference to reaching its 2.0% inflation target in fiscal year 2019/2020.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which most notably included the preliminary reading of first quarter GDP; investors also received the first quarter Employment Cost Index and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April:

First quarter GDP increased at an annualized rate of 2.3%. That was above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 2.1%, yet it was a deceleration from the fourth quarter growth rate of 2.9%.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer spending was weak in the first quarter, increasing just 1.1% after increasing 4.0% in the fourth quarter. Real final sales, which exclude the change in inventories and are often viewed as the better gauge of growth, were up only 1.9% versus the prior ten quarter average of 2.2%.
The first quarter Employment Cost Index rose 0.8%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that wages and salaries, and benefits, are trending higher. That will support the burgeoning inflation narrative and it will keep the Federal Reserve inclined to stay on its rate-hike path.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April rose to 98.8 (Briefing.com consensus 98.0) from 97.8 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that the monthly drop was due to worries about trade policies and expectations for rising interest rates.

On Monday, investors will receive Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), and PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) for March, the Chicago PMI for April (Briefing.com consensus 58.0), and March Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus +1.5%).

Nasdaq Composite: +3.1% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.4% YTD
S&P 500: -0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.7% YTD

Week In Review: Little Changed Following Busy Week

The S&P 500 was up and down this week, but ended little changed, closing a tick below its flat line. The Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, finished the week with losses of 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively, and the small-cap Russell 2000 lost 0.5%. Earnings were the focal point, but rising Treasury yields, policy decisions from the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, and a historic meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea also received some attention.

This week was the busiest week of the first quarter earnings season, with more than a third of S&P 500 companies reporting their results -- which largely came in better than expected. However, the market's reaction didn't always correlate with the upbeat headlines.

For instance, in the industrial sector, 3M (MMM), Caterpillar (CAT), Lockheed Martin (LMT), and United Tech (UTX) all dropped on Tuesday after reporting their first quarter results, which, headline-wise, came in above-consensus. Caterpillar initially shot higher, but reversed sharply, taking the broader market with it, after saying in its post-earnings conference call that margins in the first quarter will be the "high water mark" for the year. The industrial sector finished the week at the bottom of the sector standings, losing 3.2%.

Conversely, the consumer discretionary sector finished with a solid gain of 1.1%, boosted by a blowout quarter from Amazon (AMZN) -- which easily topped both earnings and revenue estimates for the first quarter. Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) also rallied on its better-than-expected results, surging nearly 25% on Thursday to close at its highest level in nearly a year.

A number of technology heavyweights reported their first quarter earnings this week, including Alphabet (GOOG), Facebook (FB), Microsoft (MSFT), and Intel (INTC). Facebook soared after handily beating consensus estimates, Microsoft climbed after also beating on the top and bottom lines, Intel slid despite an upbeat report, and Alphabet tumbled after its weaker-than-expected operating margins overshadowed its much better-than-expected earnings and revenues. The top-weighted technology sector finished the week lower by 0.6%.

Outside of earnings, investors kept a close eye on Treasury yields, which touched new multi-year highs on Wednesday before slipping in the final two sessions. The benchmark 10-yr yield crossed the psychologically important 3.0% mark for the first time in over four years, going as high as 3.03%, before settling the week at 2.96%.

The preliminary reading of first quarter GDP crossed the wires on Friday, showing an annualized increase of 2.3% -- which was better than the Briefing.com consensus of +2.1%, but a deceleration from the fourth quarter growth rate of 2.9%. The key takeaway from the report is that consumer spending was weak in the first quarter, increasing just 1.1% after increasing 4.0% in the fourth quarter. Real final sales, which exclude the change in inventories and are often viewed as the better gauge of growth, were up only 1.9% versus the prior ten quarter average of 2.2%.

Across the pond, the European Central Bank released its latest policy directive on Thursday morning, which, as expected, left interest rates unchanged and confirmed that net asset purchases will remain at the current monthly pace of EUR30 billion until the end of September 2018, or beyond, if necessary.

In Asia, the Bank of Japan also left interest rates unchanged, as expected, but removed from its policy statement a reference to reaching its 2.0% inflation target in fiscal year 2019/2020. However, the biggest story of the week in Asia came from the Korean Peninsula, where the leaders of North and South Korea came together for a historic summit. The two leaders signed a pact that seeks permanent and solid peace and stated an aim to work towards a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

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Disappointing Start to the Week
30-Apr-18 16:25 ET
Dow -148.04 at 24163.15, Nasdaq -53.53 at 7066.27, S&P -21.86 at 2648.05

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/4/30/disappointing-start-to-the-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks got off to a decent start on Monday, but ended the session on a lower note. The major averages finished at their worst marks of the day due to a sharp bout of selling in the final minutes; the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq settled with losses of 0.8% apiece, while the Dow dropped 0.6%.

Losses were broad-based on Monday, with all 11 S&P sectors finishing in negative territory. Telecom services was the worst-performing group, losing 2.7%, following news that Sprint (S 5.61, -0.89) and T-Mobile US (TMUS 60.51, -4.01) have agreed to an all-stock merger; the deal is aimed at creating a larger carrier to better compete with wireless giants AT&T (T 32.70, -0.34) and Verizon (VZ 49.35, -2.22). Sprint and T-Mobile US shares dropped 13.7% and 6.2%, respectively, while Verizon shares lost 4.3% and shares of AT&T slid 1.0%.

As for the other sectors, losses ranged from less than 0.1% to 1.6%. The industrials (-1.4%), materials (-1.3%), and health care (-1.6%) sectors showed relative weakness, while the consumer discretionary (-0.4%), technology (-0.5%), energy (unch), real estate (-0.4%), and utilities (-0.3%) groups showed relative strength.

Within the consumer discretionary space, shares of McDonald's (MCD 167.44, +9.14) rallied 5.8%, hitting a three-month high, after the fast food giant reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the first quarter. Meanwhile, in the tech sector, Apple (AAPL 165.26, +2.94) shares jumped 1.8%, rebounding from a nearly three-month low.

The energy group finished just a tick beneath its flat line, helped by an increase in the price of crude oil; West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 0.7% to $68.53 per barrel, challenging the more than three-year high they hit last week. Tensions in the oil-rich Middle East heightened on Monday -- helping to underpin the price of crude oil for fear that an actual conflict would slow production -- after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of lying about not having a nuclear weapons development program.

Elsewhere, the consumer staples sector finished slightly ahead of the broader market, losing 0.6%, as shares of its largest component by market cap -- Walmart (WMT 88.46, +1.17) -- rallied 1.3% after the company announced that it will be selling its UK subsidiary Asda Group to Sainsbury's; however, Walmart will retain a 42% stake in the merged business.

U.S. Treasuries moved mostly higher on Monday, flattening the yield curve along the way; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slid two basis points to 2.94%, while the 2-yr yield finished flat at 2.48%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index jumped 0.4% to 91.64, hitting its highest level since early January.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices for March, the Chicago PMI for April, and March Pending Home Sales:

Personal income climbed 0.3% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following a revised increase of 0.3% in February (from 0.4%). Meanwhile, personal spending rose 0.4% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following a revised flat reading in February (from 0.2%). The PCE Price Index was flat in March (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%), and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 1.9%, versus 1.6% in the last reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that it shows consumer inflation in the reaches of the Federal Reserve's inflation target, which will give the Federal Reserve some data-based ammunition to keep raising the fed funds rate (but not at the May FOMC meeting).
Chicago PMI for April hit 57.6 (Briefing.com consensus 58.0), up from 57.4 in March.
Pending Home Sales increased 0.4% in March (Briefing.com consensus +1.5%). Today's reading follows a revised 2.8% increase in February (from +3.1%).

On Tuesday, investors will receive the ISM Index for April (Briefing.com consensus 58.5), Construction Spending for March, and April auto and truck sales.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.4% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.4% YTD
S&P 500: -1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -2.3% YTD

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Tech Sector Carries Market Ahead of Apple Earnings
01-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow -64.10 at 24099.05, Nasdaq +64.44 at 7130.71, S&P +6.75 at 2654.80

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/1/tech-sector-carries-market-ahead-of-apple-earnings.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Strength in technology shares carried the broader market to a modest victory on Tuesday, leaving the major averages at their best marks of the day. The S&P 500 added 0.3%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq rallied 0.9%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 jumped 0.6%. The Dow underperformed, however, losing 0.3%.

The major averages extended opening losses through the first half of Tuesday's session, with the S&P 500 losing as much as 0.9%. However, things turned around in the afternoon as the technology sector (+1.5%) rallied ahead of Apple's (AAPL 169.10, +3.84) latest earnings report -- which was due after the closing bell. Apple shares ended the session higher by 2.3%, and shares of other tech giants like Microsoft (MSFT 95.00, +1.48) and Alphabet (GOOG 1037.31, +19.98) added more than 1.5% apiece. Chipmakers also outperformed, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.7%.

Four other sectors finished Tuesday in positive territory, including financials (+0.1%), consumer discretionary (+0.2%), health care (unch), and real estate (+0.7%). The health care group was able to overcome a negative reaction to earnings reports from Pfizer (PFE 35.40, -1.21) and Merck (MRK 57.98, -0.89); Pfizer shares lost 3.3% after the company reported upbeat earnings on worse-than-expected revenues, and Merck shares declined 1.5% even though the company beat earnings estimates on in-line revenues and raised its guidance for fiscal year 2018.

On the downside, six sectors finished Tuesday in the red, with telecom services (-0.8%), consumer staples (-0.9%), industrials (-0.5%), and energy (-0.6%) leading the retreat. Energy shares struggled as crude oil prices pulled back from their highest levels in more than three years; West Texas Intermediate crude futures declined 1.8% to $67.28 per barrel.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries ended Tuesday on a lower note, pulling back after three days of gains. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished four basis points higher at 2.98%, but saw limited intraday movement -- which makes sense considering the Fed will release its latest policy directive on Wednesday at 2:00 PM ET. Meanwhile, the jump in yields increased dollar demand, evidenced by the U.S. Dollar Index, which climbed 0.7% to 92.30 -- its highest level of the calendar year.

In Washington, President Trump delayed the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union, Canada, and Mexico by 30 days, and reached permanent exemptions for Australia, Brazil, and Argentina -- although the details still need to be worked out.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the ISM Index for April and Construction Spending for March:

The ISM Index for April declined to 57.3 from an unrevised reading of 59.3 in March, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 58.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is an April number, reflecting some growth deceleration for the manufacturing sector at the start of the second quarter which will continue to feed concerns about the message of a flattening yield curve.
Construction Spending dropped 1.7% in March, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%. The prior month's increase was revised to 1.0% from 0.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that construction spending growth continues to run at a relatively slow pace, which is an inhibitor of stronger overall growth.

On Wednesday, the Fed's latest policy directive will cross the wires at 2:00 PM ET. In addition, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 AM ET and the ADP Employment Change report for April (Briefing.com consensus 225K) at 8:15 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +3.3% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.0% YTD
S&P 500: -0.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -2.5% YTD

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Upbeat Apple Earnings Can't Uphold Broader Market
02-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow -174.07 at 23924.98, Nasdaq -29.81 at 7100.90, S&P -19.13 at 2635.67

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/2/upbeat-apple-earnings-cant-uphold-broader-market-.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages finished the midweek session on a lower note despite an upbeat quarterly earnings report from Apple (AAPL 176.57, +7.47) and a status quo directive from the Federal Open Market Committee. The S&P 500 and the Dow lost 0.7% apiece, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.4%. Small caps advanced though, sending the Russell 2000 higher by 0.3%.

As expected, the Fed unanimously decided to leave the federal funds target range unchanged at 1.50% to 1.75% on Wednesday while laying the groundwork for a rate hike at the June meeting -- which would be the second rate increase of 2018. Following the policy directive -- which noted that inflation on a 12-month basis is expected to run "near" the Fed's 2.0% target over the medium term -- the market is still anticipating at least three rate hikes in total this year, with the chances of a fourth hike sitting near 50% (according to the fed funds futures market).

The S&P 500 briefly touched positive territory following the Fed's decision, reclaiming the modest loss it held throughout the morning, but soon moved sharply lower, notching new session lows along the way. The benchmark index never recovered from the late-afternoon drop and eventually finished near its worst mark of the day.

Wednesday's ending, while bitter, wasn't really all that surprising as equity futures struggled to take off overnight despite an upbeat earnings report from Apple -- the S&P 500's largest and most influential component -- which was released on Tuesday evening. Apple beat earnings estimates for its fiscal second quarter, raised its profit guidance for Q3, increased its share repurchase program by $100 billion, and raised its dividend by 16%. The tech giant's shares rallied 4.4% following the report, as one might expect, but the S&P's technology sector finished a tick lower.

Social media giant Facebook (FB 176.07, +2.21) did have a positive session though, adding 1.3%, after its rival Snap (SNAP 11.03, -3.10) missed revenue estimates and reported lower-than-expected daily active users (DAUs) for the first quarter; SNAP shares tumbled 21.9%, hitting a new all-time low.

In total, 10 of the 11 S&P groups finished Wednesday in the red, with financials (-1.2%), health care (-1.4%), consumer staples (-1.9%), and telecom services (-1.8%) leading the retreat. Gilead Sciences (GILD 66.88, -5.68) led the health care sector lower, dropping 7.8%, after reporting worse-than-expected earnings and revenues for Q1. Meanwhile, in the consumer staples group, CVS Health (CVS 65.94, -2.06) declined 3.0% despite beating Q1 earnings estimates and issuing upbeat guidance. Energy (+0.4%) was the only advancing sector.

U.S. Treasuries finished Wednesday on a modestly higher note, with yields slipping across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 2.96%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index jumped 0.4% to 92.59, a fresh 2018 high, and WTI crude futures rallied 0.9% to $67.91 per barrel.

On the data front, the ADP National Employment report for April was released on Wednesday, showing an increase of 204,000 (Briefing.com consensus 225,000); the March reading was revised to 228,000 from 241,000. The ADP reading is seen as a prelude to the BLS's nonfarm payrolls figure (Briefing.com consensus 190,000), which will be released on Friday.

Looking ahead to Thursday, investors will receive a big batch of economic data that includes the preliminary readings for first quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus +0.8%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus +3.0%), the March Trade Balance report (Briefing.com consensus -$49.8 billion), weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 220K), March Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus +1.2%), and the ISM Services Index for April (Briefing.com consensus 58.3).

Nasdaq Composite: +2.9% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.3% YTD
S&P 500: -1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -3.2% YTD

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Flat Finish to Volatile Session Ahead of Jobs Report
03-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow +5.17 at 23930.15, Nasdaq -12.75 at 7088.15, S&P -5.94 at 2629.73

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/3/flat-finish-to-volatile-session-ahead-of-jobs-report.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks got off to a bad start on Thursday, but rebounded sharply in the afternoon to end the session little changed. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite settled a tick lower, losing 0.2% apiece, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished flat, and the Russell 2000 underperformed, losing 0.5%.

It looked like things might get ugly shortly after the opening bell, as the S&P 500 quickly dropped below its 200-day moving average, losing as much as 1.6%. The financial sector led that initial slide, with AIG (AIG 51.94, -2.90) showing particular weakness after missing earnings estimates for the first quarter; AIG shares ended the session lower by 5.3%.

Stocks drifted near their lows of the day for a couple of hours before the technology and materials sectors led a sharp move higher. The tech group was helped by chipmakers, especially NVIDIA (NVDA 232.99, +6.68), which climbed 3.0% after being upgraded to 'Overweight' from 'Equal Weight' at Barclays. Meanwhile, the materials group did relatively well even though its top component by market cap -- DowDuPont (DWDP 63.47, -0.02) -- struggled to advance after releasing its first quarter earnings -- which came in better-than-expected. DWDP shares ended flat.

The S&P 500 did touch positive territory at the top of that intraday rally, but slipped into the close -- possibly due to the uncertainty surrounding Friday's release of the Employment Situation Report for April. The report always has market-moving potential, but it may carry some extra weight this time around considering Treasury yields aren't far off from multi-year highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield, for instance, finished at 2.95% on Thursday -- which is about eight basis points below the more than four-year high it hit last week.

Tesla (TSLA 284.45, -16.70) received a lot of attention in the media on Thursday after its CEO, Elon Musk, unconventionally dismissed analysts' questions in the company's earnings call, calling them "boring"; shares of Tesla ended lower by 5.6%. On the upside, shares of Kellogg (K 58.15, +1.50) and Kraft Heinz (KHC 54.95, +0.75) rallied 2.7% and 1.4%, respectively, after both companies reported better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter.

In the end, three S&P sectors finished Thursday in the green -- industrials (+0.2%), materials (+0.3%), and technology (+0.3%) -- while eight finished in the red. The heavily-weighted financials and health care groups were the weakest performers, losing 0.9% apiece, but no other laggard lost more than 0.4%.

Investors received a big batch of economic data on Thursday that included the preliminary readings for first quarter Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, the March Trade Balance report, weekly Initial Claims, March Factory Orders, and the ISM Services Index for April:

The preliminary unit labor costs rose 2.7% during the first quarter, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 3.0%. The preliminary productivity reading showed an increase of 0.7%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.8%.
The key takeaway from the report is that productivity is improving, yet it is still running at relatively weak levels. On a year-over-year basis, productivity was up 1.3% versus the 0.7% annual average for 2007 to 2017. The long-term average from 1947 to 2017 is 2.1%.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 211,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 220,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 209,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.756 million from a revised count of 1.833 million (from 1.837 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it continues to underscore a condition of tightening supply in the labor market.
The March trade balance showed a deficit of $49.0 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$49.8 billion). The February deficit was revised to $57.7 billion from $57.6 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will continue to feed the Trump Administration's trade fire as goods deficits were recorded with China, the EU, Mexico, Japan, Germany, OPEC, and Canada.
The ISM Services Index for April slipped to 56.8 (Briefing.com consensus 58.3) from an unrevised reading of 58.8. in March.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will feed into the slowdown narrative that has been building with the flattening yield curve, even though there is still broad-based strength in the components that drive the overall index reading. Separately, all 18 non-manufacturing industries reported growth in April.
The Factory Orders report for March showed an increase of 1.6% (Briefing.com consensus +1.2%). The February reading was revised to +1.6% from +1.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed a dip in business spending in March, evidenced by the 0.4% decrease in orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft.

Friday's lone economic report -- the Employment Situation report for April -- will be released at 8:30 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite: +2.7% YTD
Russell 2000: +0.7% YTD
S&P 500: -1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -3.2% YTD

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S&P Nearly Recoups Weekly Decline In Friday Rally
04-May-18 16:25 ET
Dow +332.36 at 24262.51, Nasdaq +121.47 at 7209.62, S&P +33.69 at 2663.42

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/4/s-and-p-nearly-recoups-weekly-decline-in-friday-rally.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities rallied on Friday following the publication of the monthly jobs report, with technology names leading the charge -- including Apple (AAPL 183.83, +6.94), which rallied 3.9% after Warren Buffet revealed his company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 195.64, +4.03), bought an additional 75 million shares of Apple in the first quarter. The Russell 2000 jumped 1.2%, the S&P 500 advanced 1.3%, the Dow climbed 1.4%, and the Nasdaq rose 1.7%.

Equity indices opened the session modestly lower, but things turned around quickly after the S&P 500 found support at its 200-day moving average. Stocks climbed steadily into the late afternoon, finishing near their best marks of the day. Friday's gains brought the S&P 500 and the Dow within 0.2% of their flat lines for the week and left the Nasdaq with a weekly gain of 1.3%.

The Employment Situation report for April was released on Friday morning, but didn't contain many surprises, reinforcing the notion that the Fed is on course for at least two more rate hikes this year. The report showed a lower-than-expected increase in nonfarm payrolls (164K actual vs 190K Briefing.com consensus), an in-line reading for average hourly earnings (+0.2% actual/Briefing.com consensus), and a lower-than-expected unemployment rate (3.9% actual vs 4.0% Briefing.com consensus).

Gains were broad-based on Friday, with all 11 S&P sectors settling in the green. The top-weighted technology sector (+2.0%) closed at the top of the day's leaderboard, but seven groups in total finished with gains of at least 1.0%. The energy and utilities sectors finished at the back of the pack, but still added 0.4%-0.5% apiece.

Several well-known consumer names rallied after reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenues, including Pandora (P 6.89, +1.14), GoPro (GPRO 5.45, +0.49), and Shake Shack (SHAK 55.95, +8.54), which spiked between 9.9% and 19.8%, and CBS (CBS 53.17, +4.43), which climbed 9.1%. However, V.F. Corp (VFC 76.27, -2.19) -- which owns brands like The North Face, Lee, Wrangler, JanSport, and Dickies -- declined 2.8% despite also beating top and bottom line estimates.

U.S. Treasuries saw some intraday movement on Friday, but ended mostly flat, with the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note closing unchanged at 2.94%. Meanwhile, WTI crude futures jumped 1.9% to $69.72/bbl, their highest close since November 2014, and the U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.2% to 92.45 -- a new 2018 high.

In geopolitics, two days of trade negotiations between the U.S. and China ended without a deal, as expected, but the two sides did agree to keep talking.

Nasdaq Composite: +4.4% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.0% YTD
S&P 500: -0.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.9% YTD

Week In Review: Mixed Week Ends On A Positive Note

Equity indices finished the week mixed, with the S&P 500 and the Dow losing 0.2% apiece and the tech-heavy Nasdaq adding 1.3%. Investors digested the latest policy directive from the Fed, the Employment Situation report for April, and another big batch of corporate earnings -- including Apple's (AAPL) quarterly report.

The stock market kicked off the week on a lower note Monday, with telecoms leading the retreat after Sprint (S) and T-Mobile US (TMUS) agreed to an all-stock merger over the weekend. The deal, which capped four years of on-again, off-again talks, is aimed at creating a larger carrier to better compete with wireless giants AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ).

Wall Street bounced back a bit on Tuesday, led by technology shares, which rallied ahead of Apple's quarterly earnings release. Apple's results crossed the wires on Tuesday evening, showing a better-than-expected bottom line. In addition, the tech giant raised its profit guidance for the current quarter, increased its share repurchase program by $100 billion, and raised its dividend by 16%.

Apple shares rallied more than 4.0% on Wednesday in reaction to the upbeat results/guidance, but the broader market struggled -- a somewhat concerning signal considering Apple was among the top performers during last year's rally and considering it's the largest component in the S&P 500 by market cap.

The Fed's latest policy directive was released on Wednesday afternoon, but contained few surprises. Fed officials unanimously decided to leave the federal funds target range unchanged at 1.50% to 1.75%, as expected. In addition, officials laid the groundwork for a rate hike at the June meeting and left the door open for another one to two hikes before the end of the year.

Equity indices shot lower at the start of Thursday's session, with the S&P 500 busting through its 200-day moving average, but eventually rebounded to finish little changed. Tesla (TSLA) received a lot of attention in the media on Thursday after its CEO, Elon Musk, unconventionally dismissed analysts' questions in the company's earnings call, calling them "boring."

The Employment Situation report for April crossed the wires on Friday morning, showing a lower-than-expected increase in nonfarm payrolls (164K actual vs 190K Briefing.com consensus), an in-line reading for average hourly earnings (+0.2% actual/Briefing.com consensus), and a lower-than-expected unemployment rate (3.9% actual vs 4.0% Briefing.com consensus).

The key takeaway from the report is that there weren't a lot of big surprises in it, which effectively means the Fed is apt to stay on course for at least two more rate hikes this year.

Apple reemerged in the headlines on Friday after Warren Buffet revealed his company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), bought an additional 75 million shares of Apple in the first quarter. Apple jumped 3.9% in reaction, leading a broad-based rally that made a significant dent in the S&P 500's weekly decline. The tech group was the top-performing sector on Friday, extending its weekly gain to 3.2%.

The technology sector closed at the top of the sector standings by a decent margin, while health care (-3.0%), telecom services (-4.6%), and consumer staples (-2.0%) finished at the back of the pack. In total, seven S&P 500 sectors settled the week in negative territory, while four groups settled in the green.

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Energy Reversal Nearly Upends Positive Day
07-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow +94.81 at 24357.32, Nasdaq +55.60 at 7265.22, S&P +9.21 at 2672.63

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/7/energy-reversal-nearly-upends-positive-day.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks were range-bound for much of Monday's session, cruising towards what looked like an easy victory, but news that President Trump will announce his decision regarding the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday prompted a wave of selling in the late afternoon. The market bounced back a bit following the initial reaction, but still finished off its highs of the day. The S&P 500 and the Dow settled with gains of 0.4% apiece, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the small-cap Russell 2000 ended with respective gains 0.8% and 0.9%.

The energy sector led the broader market higher out of the gate, moving in tandem with crude oil prices, which hit their highest level in three-and-a-half years; the energy sector was up 2.4% at its highest mark of the day, while WTI crude futures were up 1.6% at $70.81/bbl. However, those gains were completely unraveled after President Trump tweeted that he'll be announcing his decision to either stay or pull out of the Iran nuclear deal at 2:00 PM ET on Tuesday. The president is expected to pull out of the deal -- thereby restoring sanctions on Iran, a top oil exporter -- but that's not for certain.

Energy eventually finished with a gain of 0.2%, closing near the center of the sector standings. The top-weighted technology sector (+0.8%) trailed energy in second place through much of the session and took over the top spot on the leaderboard after energy fell. Within the tech space, Apple (AAPL 185.16, +1.33, +0.7%) climbed for the sixth session in a row, settling at a new all-time high, and NVIDIA (NVDA 248.68, +9.62, +4.0%) soared after Bank of America/Merrill Lynch maintained its 'Buy' rating ahead of Thursday's earnings report.

The financials (+0.7%) and industrials (+0.7%) groups closed right behind technology at the top of the sector standings, while the other advancing sectors finished with gains between less than 0.1% and 0.4%. On the downside, the health care (-0.1%), consumer staples (-0.6%), utilities (-0.5%), and telecom services (-0.6%) sectors -- all of which are countercyclical groups -- settled in negative territory.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries began the week on a modestly lower, but mostly quiet, note amid a lack of notable economic data; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note advanced one basis point to 2.95%.

Monday's lone economic report -- the Consumer Credit report for March -- showed an increase of $11.7 billion (Briefing.com consensus $16.1 billion). The key takeaway from the report is that there was a decline in outstanding revolving credit for the second straight month, which reflects a propensity by consumers to pay down debt in a rising interest rate environment. That inclination helps explain why consumer spending growth was lackluster in the first quarter.

Nasdaq Composite: +5.2% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.8% YTD
S&P 500: UNCH YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.5% YTD

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Flat Finish Following Trump Decision on Iran Nuclear Deal
08-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow +2.89 at 24360.21, Nasdaq +1.69 at 7266.91, S&P -0.71 at 2671.92

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/8/flat-finish-following-trump-decision-on-iran-nuclear-deal.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended Tuesday little changed as investors chewed on President Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear agreement all the way through the closing bell. The Dow and the Nasdaq finished a tick higher, while the S&P 500 finished a tick lower. Small caps rallied though, pushing the Russell 2000 higher by 0.5%.

Stocks held steady ahead of the president's afternoon announcement, as investors weren't entirely sure as to what he would decide to do, but volatility picked up in the aftermath. Mr. Trump has frequently criticized the Iran nuclear deal, which lifted economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for limits on the country's nuclear program, and ultimately decided to reimpose the "highest level of economic sanctions" against Iran, effective immediately, because he felt the country was not honoring the agreement.

European allies -- including France, Germany, and the U.K. -- had encouraged Mr. Trump to stay in the agreement, which they signed alongside the U.S., Russia, and China back in 2015, and expressed regret following the president's decision, adding that they remain committed to the deal.

Crude oil futures and energy names were the focus on Wall Street, as U.S. sanctions on Iran -- which is OPEC's third-largest oil producer -- will undoubtedly reduce supply on the global crude oil market. WTI crude futures had a counter-intuitive reaction -- likely the result of a "buy the rumor, sell the news" trade -- and retreated from a more than three-year high, dropping 2.3% to $69.08 per barrel. The S&P's energy sector, meanwhile, was up and down following the decision, but eventually settled atop of the sector standings with a gain of 0.8%.

The financials and industrials sectors finished right behind energy, adding 0.7%, and information technology was the only other group to settle in the green, ticking up 0.3%. Within the financial space, Citigroup (C 71.00, +2.50) was the top-performer, rallying 3.7%, following news that activist investor ValueAct has built a $1.2 billion stake in the company. A rise in Treasury yields also helped the heavily-weighted financial space; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note rose two basis points to 2.97%.

On the downside, seven groups finished in the red, with utilities (-2.5%) and telecom services (-1.3%) closing at the bottom of the sector standings; however, no other group lost more than 0.8%. The consumer discretionary space declined 0.5%, with Comcast (CMCSA 30.59, -1.80) showing particular weakness, losing 5.6%, following reports that it's planning a cash bid for the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox (FOXA 37.99, -0.05) in an attempt to upend Disney's (DIS 101.79, -0.69) pursuit of those assets.

As for economic data, investors received just one report on Tuesday -- the March Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey -- which showed that job openings increased to 6.550 million from a revised 6.078 million (from 6.052 million) in February. Wednesday's session will feature the release of the Producer Price Index for April (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), Wholesale Inventories for March (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

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Energy Leads Broad-Based Rally
09-May-18 16:25 ET
Dow +182.33 at 24542.54, Nasdaq +73.00 at 7339.91, S&P +25.87 at 2697.79

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/9/energy-leads-broadbased-rally.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities made a strong move higher on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq climbing 1.0% apiece, and the Dow advancing 0.8%.

The day began on a mildly higher note as investors continued to digest President Trump's Tuesday decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal. However, buying picked up notably around midday as the S&P 500 started to pull away from its 50-day moving average -- which, up until that point, had been an area of resistance.

The energy sector led the charge on Wednesday, closing atop the sector standings -- by a wide margin -- with a gain of 2.0%. A rebound in the crude oil futures market, which returned to a three-and-a-half year high after tumbling on Tuesday in a "sell the news" trade, fueled the energy rally; WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.9% at $71.10 per barrel. President Trump's decision to restore the "highest level of economic sanctions" against Iran, OPEC's third-largest oil exporter, will likely decrease crude supply on the global market -- which, in turn, should force prices higher.

In total, nine of eleven S&P sectors closed in the green. In addition to energy, the financials (+1.5%), technology (+1.4%), materials (+1.4%), and industrials (+1.1%) sectors added more than 1.0% apiece. On the downside, the lightly-weighted utilities and telecom services sectors finished at the back of the pack with losses of 0.8% and 1.1%, respectively.

The consumer staples sector closed a tick higher, but a ways behind the broader market. Walmart (WMT 83.06, -2.68) weighed on the group, losing 3.1%, after the company agreed to buy a 77% stake in Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart for $16 billion -- which qualifies as Walmart's largest acquisition deal ever.

On the earnings front, Walt Disney (DIS 99.97, -1.82) beat both earnings and revenue estimates for its fiscal second quarter, but continued concerns about the ESPN business and the fate of the company's deal to acquire the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox (FOXA 37.70, -0.29) overpowered the good earnings news; DIS shares finished lower by 1.8%.

U.S. Treasuries ended Wednesday on a broadly lower note, pushing yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note returned to the psychologically important 3.00% mark, finishing four basis points above its Tuesday close, while the 2-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.53% -- a fresh cycle high.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the April Producer Price Index, March Wholesale Inventories, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), while the final demand index, less food and energy, rose 0.2%, as expected.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was a moderation in the producer price inflation trend in April, yet it wasn't significant enough to alter the Federal Reserve's perspective pertaining to the presumed path for inflation and monetary policy.
Wholesale inventories increased 0.3% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) on top of a downwardly revised 0.9% increase (from +1.0%) in February.
The market is known for showing a limited reaction to the release, since the full business inventories report is released a few days later.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index declined by 0.4%.

On Thursday, investors will receive the April Consumer Price Index (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 220K), and the April Treasury Budget.

Nasdaq Composite: +6.3% YTD
Russell 2000: +3.9% YTD
S&P 500: +0.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.7% YTD

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Wall Street Rallies for Second Consecutive Session
10-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow +196.99 at 24739.53, Nasdaq +65.07 at 7404.98, S&P +25.28 at 2723.07

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/10/wall-street-rallies-for-second-consecutive-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks had another strong outing on Thursday, their second in a row, lifting the S&P 500 to a nearly two-month high. The benchmark index finished the session higher by 0.9% and is now about 45 points above its 50-day moving average. The Dow and the Nasdaq also closed with comfortable gains, adding 0.8% and 0.9%, respectively, while the Russell 2000 advanced 0.5%.

The market was firing on all cylinders, with all 11 S&P sectors finishing in the green. Telecom services (+1.9%), utilities (+1.3%), health care (+1.3%), and information technology (+1.3%) led the charge, while consumer discretionary (+0.4%) lagged a bit as retailers and Amazon (AMZN 1609.08, +1.08) underperformed. The other groups settled with gains between 0.6% and 1.0%.

Within the tech space, Apple (AAPL 190.04, +2.68) -- the S&P 500's largest component by market cap -- jumped 1.4% on Thursday, securing its ninth consecutive advance and a new record high. Other tech giants -- including FAANG stocks Facebook (FB 185.53, +2.87) and Alphabet (GOOG 1097.57, +14.81) -- also showed notable strength, reminiscing last year's tech-charged rally.

Inflation data -- namely, the Consumer Price Index for April -- helped fuel buying on Thursday, coming in slightly below estimates, and thereby tempering concerns that the Fed might have to be more aggressive in its path to normalization. The weekly Initial Claims report added to that upbeat narrative, pointing to a still-humming job market.

Overseas, the Bank of England voted 7-2 in favor of keeping its official bank rate and its asset purchase program unchanged, but BoE Governor Mike Carney added that interest rates will likely go up by the end of the year. In the Middle East, Israel struck nearly all of Iran's military infrastructure in Syria overnight in response to an Iranian missile attack on Israeli-held territory.

Also of note, President Trump said his summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un will be held on June 12 in Singapore.

Treasury yields moved mostly lower on Thursday as bonds advanced for the first time this week. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped below the psychologically important 3.00% mark, losing three points to finish at 2.97%. The 2-yr yield ticked higher though, closing up one basis point at 2.54%.

The S&P 500, the Dow, and the Nasdaq hold week-to-date gains between 2.0% and 2.7% going into Friday's session, on course for their best week since early March.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the April Consumer Price Index, weekly Initial Claims, and the April Treasury Budget:

Total CPI increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) in April, while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.5% (vs +2.4% in March) and core CPI is up 2.1% (vs +2.1% in March).
The key takeaway from the report is that the CPI and core CPI headlines were weaker than expected, which helped temper concerns about the potential for the Fed to be more aggressive than expected.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 211,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 220,000. Today's tally was unchanged from the prior week's unrevised count of 211,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.790 million from a revised count of 1.760 million (from 1.756 million).
Since there was no change in initial claims from the prior week, it's fair to say that there was no change in the key takeaway from the report, which is that the low level of claims continues to underscore a condition of tightening supply in the labor market.
The Treasury Budget for April showed a surplus of $214.3 billion versus a surplus of $182.4 billion for the same period a year ago.
The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the April surplus cannot be compared to the $208.7 billion deficit for March.

On Friday, investors will receive April Import/Export Prices and the preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May (Briefing.com consensus 98.0).

Nasdaq Composite: +7.3% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.4% YTD
S&P 500: +1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.1% YTD

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Wall Street Locks In Big Weekly Gains
11-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow +91.64 at 24831.17, Nasdaq -2.09 at 7402.89, S&P +4.65 at 2727.72

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/11/wall-street-locks-in-big-weekly-gains.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities ticked higher on Friday, locking in big gains for the week, as a positive performance from the health care sector narrowly outweighed a modest pullback from the information technology group. The S&P 500 and the Dow added 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed, closing a tick below its flat line. All three indices finished with weekly gains of more than 2.0%.

The market drifted flat to slightly higher for the bulk of Friday's session, but volatility picked up briefly in the afternoon when President Trump unveiled a blueprint for lowering drug prices. The president plans to increase competition within the drug space and to change rules that have allowed some drugmakers to game the system. The blueprint lacked many details, however, prompting a sigh of relief from investors, who were worried about the possibility of imminent regulation. Health-related names rallied into the close, leaving the S&P 500's health care sector with a gain of 1.5%.

Telecom services was the only group to outperform health care on Friday, largely thanks to Verizon (VZ 48.62, +1.42), which rallied after JPMorgan upgraded shares to 'Overweight' from 'Neutral'; the telecom services group finished with a gain of 2.1%, while Verizon shares ended higher by 3.0%.

The only other sectors to finish in the green were industrials, consumer discretionary, and utilities, but their gains were modest at 0.2% apiece. On the downside, six sectors finished in the red, but no group lost more than 0.5%. The technology group was among the worst performers, closing lower by 0.3%, which posed a problem for the broader market given the group's huge influence; technology is the top-weighted S&P 500 sector, representing around a quarter of the broader market alone.

Shares of chipmaker NVIDIA (NVDA 254.53, -5.60) declined 2.2%, retreating from an all-time high, amid a "sell the news" response to the company's first quarter results, which came in better-than-expected. Separately, Apple (AAPL 188.59, -0.72) shares broke their nine-session winning streak, slipping 0.4%, and shares of Symantec (SYMC 19.52, -9.66) plunged 33.1% after the company announced that it has relayed concerns from an ex-employee to the SEC.

Outside of equities, U.S. Treasuries finished Friday on a flattish note, with the benchmark 10-yr yield holding steady at 2.97%. Meanwhile, WTI crude futures declined 0.9% to $70.70 per barrel, slipping from a three-and-a-half year high, and the U.S. Dollar Index dropped for the third day in a row, slipping 0.2% to 92.41.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to April Import/Export Prices and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May:

Import prices excluding oil rose 0.2% in April after rising a revised 0.1% in March (from +0.2%). Export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.7% after holding flat last month (revised from -0.1%).
The key takeaway from the report is that overall import price pressures moderated on a year-over-year basis while nonfuel import prices remain at palatable levels on a year-over-year basis.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May held steady at 98.8 (Briefing.com consensus 98.0).
The key takeaway from the report is that there was some slippage in income expectations and a small uptick in the one-year inflation expectation to 2.8% from 2.7%.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite: +7.2% YTD
Russell 2000: +4.6% YTD
S&P 500: +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.5% YTD

Week In Review: Buyers Re-emerge Following Q1 Earnings Season

Buyers returned to the market this week following a three-week absence during the thick of the first quarter earnings season. The S&P 500, the Dow, and the Nasdaq finished with sizable weekly gains, adding between 2.3% and 2.7% apiece -- enough to put the S&P 500 and the Dow back into positive territory for the year (+2.0%, +0.5% YTD). The Nasdaq is now up 7.2% year-to-date.

The stock market got off to a slow start this week as investors digested President Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear agreement and restore the "highest level of economic sanctions" against Iran. The president was scolded by European allies, which wanted the U.S. to remain in the agreement, while Iran's response was more violent with lawmakers burning the American flag in parliament.

Tensions in Middle East were further escalated later in the week when Israel struck nearly all of Iran's military infrastructure in Syria in response to an Iranian missile attack on Israeli-held territory.

Outside of a brief pause, stocks had a mostly muted reaction to the headlines, but crude oil futures took off, with WTI crude establishing a new three-and-a-half year high ($71.26/bbl), as the restoration of U.S. sanctions on Iran -- which is OPEC's third-largest oil exporter -- and the looming threat of conflict within the oil-rich region prompted investors to bet on a disruption to crude supply on the global market.

The S&P's energy sector benefited from the rise in oil prices, adding 3.8% this week, but the industrials, technology, and financials sectors finished with similar weekly gains, adding between 3.4% and 3.6%. In total, nine sectors finished the week in the green, while two -- consumer staples (-0.5%) and utilities (-2.3%) -- finished in the red.

Stocks started taking off on Wednesday and carried that momentum into Thursday's session; the S&P 500 added 1.9% in those two days alone, catapulting above its 50-day moving average to a nearly two-month high. Technology shares rallied over that two-day stretch, reminiscing last year's tech-charged surge, with Apple (AAPL) extending its streak of record closes to five in a row on Thursday (the streak was then broken with a small loss on Friday).

Investors received some important inflation data on Thursday -- namely, the Consumer Price Index for April -- which helped further fuel the bullish bias, coming in slightly below estimates (+0.2% actual vs +0.3% Briefing.com consensus), and thereby tempering concerns that the Fed might have to be more aggressive in its path to normalization.

Overseas, the Bank of England voted 7-2 in favor of keeping its official bank rate and its asset purchase program unchanged on Thursday, but BoE Governor Mike Carney added that interest rates will likely go up by the end of the year. Separately, President Trump announced that his summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un will be held on June 12 in Singapore, a positive stride in the quest for global peace.

The stock market ended the week with a flat performance on Friday. Volatility picked up temporarily in the afternoon when President Trump released a blueprint for lowering drug prices, but order was restored after it became clear that the blueprint still lacked many specific details.

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Stocks Surrender Morning Gains, but Avoid Negative Finish
14-May-18 16:20 ET
Dow +68.24 at 24899.41, Nasdaq +8.43 at 7411.32, S&P +2.41 at 2730.13

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/14/stocks-surrender-morning-gains-but-avoid-negative-finish.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market began the week on a slightly higher note, but intraday action saw the major averages back off their opening highs. The S&P 500 added 0.1% after being up 0.5% in the early going. The Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed, rising 0.3%.

Equities got off to an upbeat start thanks to an early rally among chipmakers. Qualcomm (QCOM 56.74, +1.51) was at the forefront of the early strength, responding to reports that Chinese regulators will reevaluate the company's offer to acquire NXP Semiconductors (NXPI 110.74, +11.73). The news came after President Trump voiced his desire to find a way to allow U.S. companies to do business with China's ZTE Corporation once again.

The outperformance in high-beta semiconductor names provided an early boost to the technology sector (unch), but large tech components had a mixed showing in the afternoon, pressuring the sector back to its flat line. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (+1.3%) remained strong until the close with Cavium (CAVM 78.18, +5.21) spiking 7.1% to lead the group higher.

Like technology, energy (+0.7%) and health care (+0.7%) outperformed from the start, but unlike technology, the two sectors remained strong until the close. Biotechnology contributed to the outperformance in health care, sending the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 107.68, +1.10) higher by 1.0%. Meanwhile, the energy sector held the lead throughout the session even though crude oil retreated from its high. The energy component settled higher by 0.4% at $71.01/bbl after approaching the $71.25 area in morning trade.

The market's midday pullback developed as sectors like financials (-0.1%), industrials (-0.2%), and consumer staples (unch) refused to follow in the footsteps of influential groups that outperformed from the start. Industrials were pressured by relative weakness in transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average fell 0.4% after briefly climbing above its closing high from April.

Treasuries recorded losses across the curve with the 10-yr yield rising two basis points to 3.00%.

Market participants did not receive any economic data today, but tomorrow's session will feature several releases. April Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), Retail Sales ex-auto (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%), and the May Empire Manufacturing survey (Briefing.com consensus 15.0) will be released at 8:30 ET while March Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) and May NAHB Housing Market Index (Briefing.com consensus 69) will follow at 10:00 ET. The Net Long-Term TIC Flows report for March will be released at 16:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +7.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.3% YTD
S&P 500 +2.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.7% YTD

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Win Streak Ends As Treasury Yields Spike
15-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow -193.00 at 24706.41, Nasdaq -59.69 at 7351.63, S&P -18.68 at 2711.45

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/15/win-streak-ends-as-treasury-yields-spike.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The Dow's eight-session winning streak came to an abrupt end on Tuesday as Treasury yields spiked, returning to multi-year highs. The Dow and the Nasdaq finished with losses of 0.8% apiece, while the S&P 500 ended lower by 0.7%. The small-cap Russell 2000 held up relatively well though, settling near its unchanged mark.

Treasury yields, which move inversely to Treasury prices, shot higher in pre-market action on Tuesday following the release of the Retail Sales report for April, which came in as expected, showing a month-over-month increase of 0.3%. In addition, the March increase was upwardly revised to 0.8% from 0.6%, and core retail sales -- which exclude auto, gas station, building materials, and food and drinking services sales -- jumped 0.4%.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note blew past the more than four-year high it hit three weeks ago, ending nine basis points above its Monday close at 3.08% -- its highest close since July 2011. Meanwhile, the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note climbed four basis points to 2.58% -- its highest close since July 2008.

Higher "risk free" interest rates enticed investors to dial back their equity holdings, especially within the rate-sensitive real estate space -- which finished at the bottom of the sector standings with a loss of 1.7% -- and within the homebuilding subsector -- evidenced by a 3.8% decline in the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 37.27, -1.47). The financial sector benefited from the rise in rates, settling near the top of sector leaderboard, but still ended with a loss of 0.2%.

Meanwhile, the heavily-weighted health care sector lost 1.3%, led lower by medical device company Agilent (A 62.50, -6.71), which tumbled 9.7% to a nine-month low after slashing its guidance for the July quarter and for the fiscal year. The top-weighted technology sector also underperformed, losing 1.0%, and energy was the only group to close in the green, finishing just a tick higher.

Dow component Home Depot (HD 187.98, -3.10) declined 1.6% after missing same-store sales estimates for the first quarter -- the first time it's missed on that metric in seven quarters. The home improvement retailer did beat earnings estimates though and did reaffirm its guidance for the fiscal year.

The U.S. and China kicked off a second round of trade talks in Washington on Tuesday. Round one, which took place in Beijing earlier this month, failed to move the needle, but there is some optimism about this round after U.S. President Donald Trump said he's working on getting Chinese phone company ZTE, which is suffering from U.S. sanctions, "back into business."

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included Retail Sales for April, the Empire State Manufacturing Index for May, the NAHB Housing Market Index for May, and Business Inventories for March:

April retail sales rose 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the March increase was revised to 0.8% from 0.6%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.3% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), and last month's increase was revised to 0.4% from 0.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer spending on goods was decent in April. Core retail sales, which exclude auto, gas station, building materials, and food and drinking services sales, jumped 0.4%.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for May climbed to 20.1 (Briefing.com consensus 15.0) from the prior month's unrevised reading of 15.8.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for May ticked up to 70 (Briefing.com consensus 69) from a revised reading of 68 in April (from 69).
Business Inventories were flat in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). The February reading was left unrevised at +0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that sales growth outpaced inventories growth, which is what businesses need to see to claim some pricing power.

On Wednesday, investors will receive several economic reports, including Housing Starts and Building Permits for April, Capacity Utilization and Industrial Production for April, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

Nasdaq Composite +6.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.2% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1% YTD

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Small Caps Lead Broad-Based Rebound
16-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow +62.52 at 24768.93, Nasdaq +46.67 at 7398.30, S&P +11.01 at 2722.46

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/16/small-caps-lead-broadbased-rebound.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rebounded on Wednesday, reclaiming about half of their Tuesday losses, with shares of smaller, domestically focused companies showing particular strength. The small-cap Russell 2000 jumped 1.0%, finishing at a new all-time high, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.6% and the S&P 500 and the Dow advanced 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively.

The major averages opened with slim gains and extended them in a sharp move around midday, but slipped a bit in front of the closing bell.

Treasury yields remained at multi-year highs, with the benchmark 10-yr yield ticking up another two basis points to 3.10% -- its highest close since July 2011. However, unlike on Tuesday, the rise in yields didn't have a broadly bearish impact on equities. The rate-sensitive utilities (-0.9%) and real estate (-0.4%) groups finished in the red, but the nine other S&P sectors advanced.

Materials was the top-performing group with a gain of 1.2%, but consumer discretionary and consumer staples also outperformed, adding 0.8% apiece, as retailers rallied around Macy's (M 33.17, +3.24) first quarter results; the department store soared 10.8%, hitting a 15-month high, after beating earnings and revenue estimates and raising its guidance for the fiscal year.

Chipmakers were also strong, with Micron (MU 56.50, +2.49) showing particular strength after being initiated with an 'Outperform' rating at RBC Capital Markets. Micron shares rallied 4.6%, helping to push the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 1.4%. The top-weighted technology sector, which houses chipmakers, advanced 0.4%.

Overseas, Italy's MIB dropped 2.3% on Wednesday following the leaking of a draft proposal from the two anti-establishment parties seeking to form a coalition government. The draft reportedly advocates for procedures that would allow countries to quit the euro and for debt forgiveness from the European Central Bank. Italy's 10-yr yield surged 19 basis points to 2.13%.

The U.S. dollar climbed 0.3% against the euro to 1.1801, helping to push the U.S. Dollar Index (93.30, +0.16) up 0.2% to a five-month high.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included April Housing Starts and Building Permits, April Capacity Utilization and Industrial Production, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.287 million units in April (Briefing.com consensus 1.325 million), down from a revised 1.336 million units in March (from 1.319 million). Building permits slipped to a seasonally adjusted 1.352 million in April (Briefing.com consensus 1.350 million) from a revised 1.377 million in March (from 1.354 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that single-family activity remained fairly muted. Bad weather will get some blame for the torpid activity overall, yet nothing in this report suggests prospective homeowners can expect supply-driven price relief in the near future.
Industrial Production increased 0.7% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%), while the March reading was revised to +0.7% (from +0.5%). Meanwhile, Capacity Utilization ticked up to 78.0% (Briefing.com consensus 78.4%) from a revised reading of 77.6% in March (from 78.0%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the April increase was fueled by increased output across all three major industry groups.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.7% following last week's downtick of 0.4%.

On Thursday, investors will receive several economic reports, including weekly Initial Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Index for May, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for April. In addition, Walmart (WMT 86.13, +1.61) -- the world's largest retailer -- will report earnings ahead of the opening bell.

Nasdaq Composite +7.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.2% YTD

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Quiet Session Ends With Slim Losses
17-May-18 16:20 ET
Dow -54.95 at 24713.98, Nasdaq -15.82 at 7382.48, S&P -2.33 at 2720.13

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/17/quiet-session-ends-with-slim-losses.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks wandered between positive and negative territory on Thursday, eventually settling the session a tick lower. The S&P 500 shed 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2% apiece. Conversely, the small-cap Russell 2000 advanced 0.6%, closing at a new record high for the second day in a row.

Investors kept an eye on the Treasury market, where yields continued to hover at multi-year highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield, for instance, ticked up to 3.11% from 3.10% to finish at its highest level since July 2011. A rise in Treasury yields, which offer a "risk free" return, has lured some buyers away from the equity market this week, putting Wall Street's May rally on hold.

U.S.-China trade relations were also in focus on Thursday after President Trump said he's doubtful that the two nations will reach a trade agreement. The two countries are on the brink of imposing tens of billions of dollars worth of tariffs against one another, but are currently engaged in talks with hopes of avoiding that scenario.

In corporate news, CBS (CBS 51.61, -2.22) shares dropped 4.1% after a judge ruled against the company in its attempt to break free from its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, who is attempting to force a CBS-Viacom (VIAB 28.16, -0.11) merger. The Redstone family controls both CBS and Viacom through its holding company, National Amusements.

Meanwhile, on the earnings front, shares of Walmart (WMT 84.49, -1.64) lost 1.9% after the world's largest retailer reported above-consensus earnings and revenues for the first quarter, but missed estimates for same-store sales. Similarly, shares of Cisco Systems (CSCO 43.46, -1.70) dropped 3.8% despite the company reporting better-than-expected quarterly results.

Energy shares were strong on Thursday, pushing the S&P 500's energy sector higher by 1.3%, even though crude prices spent the bulk of the day giving back an overnight gain of more than 1.0%. West Texas Intermediate crude futures eventually settled higher by 0.1% at $71.48 per barrel. Still, that marks the commodity's best close in three-and-a-half years.

Most of the other S&P groups finished in negative territory, with the rate-sensitive utilities space (-0.9%) closing at the back of the pack. The top-weighted technology sector also lagged, losing 0.5%, due in part to Cisco's sizable slide, but also due to broad weakness. Tech giants like Apple (AAPL 186.99, -1.19) and Microsoft (MSFT 96.18, -0.97) lost 0.6% and 1.0%, respectively.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included weekly Initial Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Index for May, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for April:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 222,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 216,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 211,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.707 million from a revised count of 1.794 million (from 1.790 million).
The key takeaway from the initial claims report is that it covers the period in which the survey for the May employment report was conducted. The continued low level of initial claims, then, should continue to feed expectations for another solid increase in nonfarm payrolls.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for May rose to 34.4 (Briefing.com consensus 20.0) from an unrevised 23.2 in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that the Prices Received Index -- a reflection of manufacturers' own prices -- increased seven points to 36.4, which is the highest reading since February 1989.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.4% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), and the March increase was revised to 0.4% from 0.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strength among the leading indicators remains very widespread.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.8% YTD
S&P 500 +1.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average UNCH YTD

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Wall Street Slips On Friday, Locks In Weekly Losses
18-May-18 16:25 ET
Dow +1.11 at 24715.09, Nasdaq -28.13 at 7354.34, S&P -7.16 at 2712.97

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/18/wall-street-slips-on-friday-locks-in-weekly-losses.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks were range-bound on Friday, drifting near their flat lines from open to close. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq ended with losses of 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively, while the Dow eked out a very slim victory, adding less than 0.1%. Small caps showed relative strength once again, pushing the Russell 2000 up 0.1% and to its third consecutive record close.

Friday's outing left the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the Dow with weekly losses of around 0.5% apiece. The Russell 2000 finished the week up 1.2%.

There were several notable post-earnings movers on Friday, mostly to the downside. Shares of Nordstrom (JWN 45.36, -5.55) slid 10.9% after the high-end retailer missed quarterly estimates for same-store sales, and Applied Materials (AMAT 49.51, -4.45) shares dropped 8.3% after the company, which supplies tools used by chipmakers, cut its revenue guidance. Shares of Campbell Soup (CPB 34.37, -4.85) also took a beating, tumbling 12.4%, after the company slashed its earnings guidance, announced the immediate retirement of its CEO, and said it'll be launching a months-long strategic review.

However, on the upside, Deere (DE 155.25, +8.44) shares rallied 5.8% after the company's upbeat revenue guidance overshadowed an earnings miss. The industrial sector, which houses Deere, finished at the top of Friday's sector standings with a gain of 0.6%. The health care and materials groups also showed relative strength, adding 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively.

Within the health care space, Amgen (AMGN 176.30, +1.65) shares rallied 0.9% after the company won FDA approval for the first drug designed to prevent migraines.

The financials and energy sectors were the worst-performing groups, losing 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively. Financials slid in tandem with Treasury yields, which retreated from multi-year highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield slid four basis points to 3.07%. Similarly, energy struggled as crude futures ticked down from a three-and-a-half year high. WTI crude futures slipped 0.3% to $71.25/bbl.

In U.S.-China trade news, Beijing denied Thursday reports that it has offered to slash its trade surplus with the U.S. by up to $200 billion. On a related note, shares of Dutch semiconductor company NXP (NXPI 111.02, +4.31) jumped 4.0% after a Chinese official said approval of the company's proposed merger with U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM 57.51, +0.56) is looking "more optimistic." The deal has been approved by eight of the nine required global regulators, with Chinese approval still pending.

Across the pond, two anti-establishment parties in Italy, the 5 Star Movement and the League, have agreed on a governing platform and are expected to nominate a prime minister in time for Monday's meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella. Italy's MIB lost 1.5% on Friday while other major European indices finished just a tick lower.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.9% YTD
S&P 500 +1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average UNCH YTD

Week In Review: Stocks Stumble As Yields Rise

The stock market stumbled this week, giving back about a quarter of last week's advance, with the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the Dow losing between 0.5% and 0.7%. However, shares of smaller, domestically-focused companies outperformed, sending the Russell 2000 higher by 1.2%. The Russell 2000 closed at a new record high in each of the last three sessions of the week.

Beijing sent a delegation to Washington this week for a second round of trade talks after the first round failed to move the needle earlier this month. There was some optimism ahead of this week's negotiations after President Trump announced over the weekend that he's working to get Chinese phone company ZTE, which is suffering due to U.S. sanctions, "back into business." However, the optimism faded after the president acknowledged on Thursday that he's doubtful a deal can be reached.

In other international developments, Italy's major stock index tumbled 2.9% this week and its 10-yr yield shot higher by 35 basis points as two anti-establishment parties, the 5 Star Movement and the League, neared forming a governing coalition that will almost certainly clash with the European Union. Separately, U.S. officials said the U.S., Canada, and Mexico are still nowhere near a deal on NAFTA.

On Wall Street, Treasury yields were in focus after they spiked to multi-year highs on Tuesday. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note hit 3.11%, its highest level since July 2011, before slipping to 3.07% on Friday. Still, that represents a gain of 10 basis points for the week. The rise in "risk free" returns lured some buyers away from the equity market, putting Wall Street's May rally on hold.

Tuesday's spike in Treasury yields coincided with the release of the Retail Sales report for April, even though the report came in as expected, showing a month-over-month increase of 0.3%.

On a related note, retailers dominated the earnings front this week, with Walmart (WMT), Home Depot (HD), Macy's (M), Nordstrom (JWN), and J.C. Penney (JCP) reporting their quarterly results. All five companies beat earnings estimates, but Walmart, Home Depot, Nordstrom, and J.C. Penney fell short on same-store sales, sending their shares lower. Shares of Macy's, conversely, soared after the company beat same-store sales estimates and raised its guidance for the fiscal year.

Apart from earnings, shares of CBS (CBS) dropped sharply on Thursday after a judge ruled against the company in its attempt to dilute its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, who is attempting to force a CBS-Viacom (VIAB) merger. The Redstone family controls both CBS and Viacom through its holding company, National Amusements.

As for the sector standings, decliners outnumbered advancers seven to four this week. The rate-sensitive utilities (-3.2%) and real estate (-3.2%) sectors were the worst-performing groups, largely due to the rise in Treasury yields. The heavily-weighted technology (-1.5%) and financials (-1.1%) spaces also struggled. On the upside, the energy (+1.5%) and materials (+1.6%) sectors were the top performers.

Following this week's decline, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are up 1.5% and 6.5% for the year, respectively, and the Dow is now flat.

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Wall Street Rallies After U.S.-China Trade War Put On Hold
21-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow +298.20 at 25013.29, Nasdaq +39.70 at 7394.04, S&P +20.04 at 2733.01

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/21/wall-street-rallies-after-uschina-trade-war-put-on-hold.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Weekend comments from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who said that a trade war between the U.S. and China has been put on hold, helped the U.S. stock market rebound from last week's losses on Monday. The major averages did settle below their session highs -- the Nasdaq (+0.5%) notably so -- but the Dow (+1.2%) and the S&P 500 (+0.7%) still finished with comfortable gains. The small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.7%) advanced to a new record high for the fourth session in a row.

Mr. Mnuchin's announcement followed last week's trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, which reportedly ended with China agreeing to buy more goods from the U.S. to reduce its trade surplus with America. While there wasn't a specific dollar amount attached to the additional Chinese purchases, the shelving of tariff threats between the world's two largest economies alone was enough to encourage buyers to re-enter the mix. Gains were broad-based on Monday, with all 11 S&P sectors closing in the green.

The industrial sector (+1.5%) finished at the top of the sector standings. The group benefited from a 3.6% increase in shares of Boeing (BA 363.92, +12.69), which have served as a proxy for trade concerns. Meanwhile, General Electric (GE 15.26, +0.29) shares also had a positive outing, adding 1.9%, after the 126-year-old giant unveiled an $11.1 billion deal to merge its transportation business with locomotive manufacturer Wabtec (WAB 98.55, +3.36). GE shares did give back some gains though following reports that further dividend cuts (or even dividend elimination) are possible.

Technology (+0.8%) got off to a good start, vying with industrials for first place in the sector standings, but eventually fell back. Shares of several chipmakers, including NVIDIA (NVDA 244.24, -1.70) and Texas Instruments (TXN 110.41, -0.13), weighed on the group, but shares of Micron (MU 55.48, +2.09) rallied 3.9% after the company raised its fiscal Q3 guidance.

Elsewhere, the lightly-weighted telecom services (+1.5%) and real estate (+1.0%) sectors were also notable advancers, trimming their losses for the year, as was the energy group (+1.0%), which took advantage of another rise in the price of crude oil. WTI crude futures advanced 1.4% to $72.26 per barrel, marking their highest close since November 2014.

On the downside, the health care group (+0.1%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings as biotechnology shares weighed, evidenced by a 1.3% decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 106.38, -1.42). Shares of biotech giant Celgene (CELG 74.69, -3.68) were particularly weak, closing lower by 4.7%; that marks an eight-month loss of around 50% for Celgene.

In the bond market, Treasuries ended Monday on a flat to lower note, cutting the 2s10s spread by three basis points. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished unchanged at 3.07%, while the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note advanced three basis points to 2.57%. Yields move inversely to prices. The U.S. Dollar Index, meanwhile, slipped 0.1% to 93.47, retreating from Friday's a five-month high.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +7.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.6% YTD
S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD

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Stocks Rebound Intraday Following FOMC Minutes
23-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow +52.40 at 24886.81, Nasdaq +47.50 at 7425.96, S&P +8.85 at 2733.29

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/23/stocks-rebound-intraday-following-fomc-minutes.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market earned a hard-fought victory on Wednesday, boosted by the afternoon release of the FOMC minutes from the May meeting, which came in more dovish than expected, helping the market overcome a lower start to the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.2%, the S&P 500 advanced 0.3%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.6%. Small caps also ended the day higher, with the Russell 2000 adding 0.2%.

Lingering concerns about U.S.-China trade relations and doubts that the U.S.-North Korea summit will take place as scheduled weighed on the equity market at the start of Wednesday's session. The major stock indices opened with losses of around 0.4% apiece and stayed at, or near, that level all the way into the afternoon.

However, things turned around following the release of the FOMC minutes from the May meeting, which pointed to a rate hike in June, as expected, and suggested that the Fed may not be as aggressive with its rate hikes as many had previously thought. The latter takeaway stems from the acknowledgement in the minutes that officials would be content to let inflation briefly run above their 2.0% target.

Stocks shot higher following the minutes release, while the 'Fed-sensitive' 2-yr Treasury yield dropped sharply. The 2-yr yield was hovering around 2.58% ahead of the minutes, but eventually finished three basis points below its Tuesday close at 2.53%. Meanwhile, the benchmark 10-yr yield lost six basis points on Wednesday, dropping to 3.00%, amid fears of a populist government in Italy, whose agenda will surely drive up budget deficits. The Italian populist fears also weighed on the euro, helping to push the U.S. Dollar Index up 0.4% to 93.88, a fresh five-month high.

Back to yields, the narrowing gap between the 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield weighed on financials, which rely on the difference between what they pay for deposits and what they receive for loans. The financial sector was the worst-performing S&P group on Wednesday, losing 0.6%. Telecom services also struggled, dropping 0.4%, but no other sector lost more than 0.2%, and most finished in the green.

Information technology finished alongside utilities at the top of the sector standings, adding 0.9%, with Netflix (NFLX 344.72, +13.10) leading the charge. Netflix shares rallied 4.0%, closing at a new record high. Meanwhile, tech giants Apple (AAPL 188.36, +1.20), Microsoft (MSFT 98.66, +1.16), Facebook (FB 186.90, +3.10), and Alphabet (GOOG 1079.69, +9.96) added between 0.6% and 1.7%. Chipmakers outperformed slightly, pushing the PHLX Semiconductor Index higher by 0.5%.

The consumer discretionary space was also a notable outperformer, adding 0.8%. Home improvement retailer Lowe's (LOW 94.69, +8.94) led the sector higher after news that Bill Ackman's Pershing Square has taken a $1 billion stake in the company -- which outweighed Lowe's below-consensus first quarter results. Lowe's shares rallied 10.4%, closing at a three-month high.

Meanwhile, shares of Tiffany & Co (TIF 126.05, +23.81) spiked 23.3%, hitting a new all-time high, after the luxury jewelry retailer beat quarterly earnings and revenue estimates, raised its guidance, and authorized a new share repurchase program. Shares of Target (TGT 71.17, -4.30), however, dropped 5.7% after the company missed on the bottom line.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included April New Home Sales and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

New Home Sales in April hit an annualized rate of 662,000, below the Briefing.com consensus of 677,000. The March reading was revised to 672,000 (from 694,000).
The key takeaway from the report is that lower-priced homes ($399,999 or less) accounted for a smaller percentage of new homes sold in April than the prior month, reflecting perhaps the lack of supply at more attractive price points for prospective buyers.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.6% following last week's decline of 2.7%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive weekly Initial Claims, the FHFA Housing Price Index for March, and Existing Home Sales for April on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +7.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.0% YTD
S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.7% YTD

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Stocks Slip After Trump Cancels North Korea Summit
24-May-18 16:25 ET
Dow -75.05 at 24811.76, Nasdaq -1.53 at 7424.43, S&P -5.53 at 2727.76

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market was on track for a sizable loss on Thursday following President Trump's decision to cancel his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but nearly reclaimed all of that loss in an intraday rebound. The S&P 500 was down as much as 1.0% before ending the session lower by 0.2%. Meanwhile, the Dow finished lower by 0.3%, and the Nasdaq closed just a tick beneath its flat line.

In a letter to Mr. Kim, President Trump said he felt it was "inappropriate" to go through with their planned meeting based on the "tremendous anger and open hostility" displayed in a recent statement directed at Vice President Mike Pence. The cancellation is obviously a blow to U.S.-North Korea relations, which appeared to be warming before North Korea started reverting to old habits in recent weeks, but it also might be a blow to U.S.-China relations as Mr. Trump has insinuated that Chinese President Xi might have had something to do with North Korea's change in attitude.

Also out of Washington, President Trump officially signed the Dodd-Frank reform bill on Thursday, which rolled back regulations on small and medium-sized lenders put in place following the 2008 financial crisis. The president also added that the rollback may be extended to larger banks in the future. Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is considering import tariffs on automobiles that could be as high as 25%. American automakers Ford Motor (F 11.62, +0.18) and General Motors (GM 38.39, +0.54) rallied more than 1.0% the news, while foreign automakers slid.

The S&P 500 sectors finished Thursday mostly lower, with seven of eleven closing in the red. The energy sector (-1.7%) was the weakest space, suffering amid another decline in the price of crude oil, which has now dropped for three sessions in a row amid fears that OPEC may boost production due to supply concerns out of Iran and Venezuela. WTI crude futures ended 1.6% lower at $70.71 per barrel. The heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.7%) was also relatively weak as Treasury yields declined for the second day in a row. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended two basis points lower at 2.98%.

On a positive note, the consumer discretionary (+0.2%), industrials (+0.6%), telecom services (+0.6%), and utilities (+0.8%) sectors finished in the green. General Electric (GE 14.60, +0.42) led the industrial sector higher, adding 3.0%, after CNBC's David Faber reported that the company does not plan to cut its dividend (refuting reports from earlier in the week). Meanwhile, in the consumer discretionary space,electronics retailer Best Buy (BBY 70.90, -5.05) slid 6.7% despite reporting above-consensus earnings and revenues for the first quarter.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included weekly Initial Claims, Existing Home Sales for April, and the FHFA Housing Price Index for March:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 234,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 220,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 223,000 (from 222,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.741 million from a revised count of 1.712 million (from 1.707 million).
While initial claims were higher than expected, the key takeaway from the report is that it won't do anything to upset the favorable perspective on the initial claims trend.
Existing home sales decreased 2.5% in April to an annualized rate of 5.46 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.57 million). The March reading was left unrevised at 5.60 million.
The key takeaway from the report remains the same: notable supply constraints continue to act as a drag on overall sales. The limited inventory -- and the high prices on available inventory -- is crimping affordability, particularly for first-time buyers; moreover, all prospective buyers are going to feel added affordability pressures from rising mortgage rates.
The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.1% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%), and the February increase was left unrevised at 0.6%.

Looking ahead to Friday, investors will receive April Durable Orders and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May.

Nasdaq Composite +7.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.0% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.4% YTD

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Stocks Slip Ahead of Memorial Day Weekend
25-May-18 16:30 ET
Dow -58.67 at 24753.09, Nasdaq +9.42 at 7433.85, S&P -6.43 at 2721.33

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/25/stocks-slip-ahead-of-memorial-day-weekend.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended Friday on a mostly lower note, but managed to keep in positive territory for the week. The S&P 500 declined 0.2% on Friday, closing the week higher by 0.3%. The Dow also dropped 0.2% on Friday, trimming its weekly gain to 0.2%, while the Nasdaq ticked up 0.1%, extending its weekly advance to an impressive 1.1%.

North Korea-U.S. relations were in focus once again on Friday after a North Korean official responded with a conciliatory tone to President Trump's Thursday decision to cancel his scheduled summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying that North Korea is still willing to meet with the United States. President Trump later revealed that communication has reopened with North Korea, adding that the summit could still happen -- possibly even on the originally scheduled date of June 12.

Separately, the Trump administration has reportedly reached a deal with Beijing to save struggling Chinese telecom company ZTE that involves ZTE paying a fine, hiring compliance officers, and changing its management. There were also reports that, in connection with the ZTE deal, the U.S. is pushing for approval of the proposed Qualcomm (QCOM 59.96, +0.88)/NXP Semi (NXPI 116.79, +5.28) merger. The merger has been approved by eight of the nine required global regulators, with Chinese approval still pending.

Energy shares dropped sharply on Friday, pushing the S&P 500's energy sector lower by 2.6%. The energy sell off coincided with a tumble in crude oil futures, which further retreated from Monday's three-and-a-half year high following reports that Saudi Arabia and Russia are thinking about reducing supply constraints to make up for any production fallout in Iran and Venezuela. West Texas Intermediate crude futures lost 4.0% on Friday, settling at $67.91 per barrel, marking a fresh three-week low.

Outside of energy, most S&P 500 groups finished within 0.4% of their flat lines. Within the consumer discretionary space (+0.2%), retailers were all over the place following another batch of earnings reports. Ross Stores (ROST 77.34, -5.62) and Gap (GPS 28.15, -4.80) dropped 6.8% and 14.6%, respectively, after missing earnings estimates for the first quarter, while Foot Locker (FL 55.74, +9.35) surged 20.2% after beating both top and bottom line estimates.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries extended their weekly gains, sending yields lower across the curve, thanks to some inflows from European investors, who sought some security from continued political uncertainty within the region following reports that the main opposition party in Spain is seeking to remove Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished Friday five basis points lower at 2.93%, closing the week with a loss of 13 basis points.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.4% on Friday to 94.13, marking its best close since mid-November.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to April Durable Orders and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May:

April durable goods orders fell 1.7%, which is more than the 1.6% decrease expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to +2.7% (from +2.6%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.9% (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) to follow the prior month's revised increase of 0.4% (from 0.0%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it will factor as a positive input for Q2 GDP forecasts since shipments of nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft, rose 0.8%. It also conveyed a modest pickup in business spending, evidenced by the 1.0% increase in new orders for nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May slipped to 98.0 (Briefing.com consensus 98.8) from 98.8 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers expect smaller income gains than they did a month ago, or a year ago, despite thinking the unemployment rate will stabilize at its 18-year low of 3.9%.

U.S. markets will be closed on Monday in observance of Memorial Day.

Nasdaq Composite +7.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.1% YTD

Week In Review: Unfazed

Equities finished the week a tick higher, unfazed by what seemed like a continuous flow of geopolitical headlines. Most of the news centered on U.S.-China trade relations and the U.S.-North Korea summit -- which, as of Thursday, is "officially" canceled, but more on that later. The Dow settled the week up 0.2%, the S&P 500 added 0.3%, and the Nasdaq outperformed, jumping 1.1%.

The week began on a positive note following weekend comments from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who said that a U.S.-China trade war has been put "on hold" while the two nations continue to try and work out their differences, and following news that last week's trade talks ended with China agreeing to buy more goods from the U.S. in an effort to reduce its trade surplus. China followed up that pledge by announcing early on Tuesday that it will be cutting import tariffs on U.S. automobiles (to 15% from 25%) and on some U.S. auto parts (to 6% from 8-25%).

However, the upbeat vibes faded later on Tuesday when President Trump revealed that the White House has yet to reach a deal with Beijing to save struggling Chinese telecom company ZTE. The news didn't sit well with investors, who had been expecting the president to use ZTE, which has been severely hurt by U.S. sanctions, as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with Beijing. Reports on Friday indicated that President Trump and China have finally reached a tentative deal on ZTE, but by then the focus had largely shifted to the ongoing situation in North Korea.

President Trump canceled his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday, stating in an open letter to Mr. Kim that he felt the meeting was "inappropriate" based on the "tremendous anger and open hostility" displayed in a recent statement from a North Korean official directed at Vice President Mike Pence. However, the president has left open the possibility of meeting with Mr. Kim, saying on Friday that dialog with North Korea has reopened and that the summit could still happen.

In other political developments, President Trump officially signed the Dodd-Frank reform bill on Thursday, which rolled back regulations on small and medium-sized lenders put in place following the 2008 financial crisis. The president also added that the rollback may be extended to larger banks in the future. Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is considering import tariffs on automobiles that could be as high as 25%.

Investors received on Wednesday afternoon the FOMC minutes from the May meeting, which came in more dovish than expected, helping to fuel a late-session rally. The minutes pointed to a rate hike at the June meeting, as expected, and suggested that the Fed may not be as aggressive with its rate-hike path as many had previously thought. The latter takeaway stems from the acknowledgement in the minutes that officials would be content to let inflation briefly run above their 2.0% target.

Overseas, the prospect of a populist government coming to power in Italy weighed on Italian debt, pushing the yield on Italy's 10-yr BTP higher by 25 basis points to 2.47%. A flight to safety pushed both German and U.S. debt higher -- thereby reducing bond yields. The 10-yr German bund yield dropped 18 basis points to 0.40 this week, and the 10-yr U.S. Treasury note yield dropped 13 basis points to 2.93%. Investors also expressed concern over the ongoing situation in Spain following Friday reports that the country's opposition party is looking to oust Prime Minister Rajoy.

Meanwhile, reports that Saudi Arabia and Russia will soon relax their crude oil supply constraints to compensate for any production fallout in Venezuela and Iran sent crude prices sharply lower this week. West Texas Intermediate crude futures hit a fresh three-and-a-half year high on Monday, but finished Friday 6.4% below that level at $67.91 per barrel. A rise in the U.S. dollar also didn't help matters, making commodities, which are priced in U.S. dollars, more expensive for holders of foreign currencies. The U.S. Dollar Index jumped 0.6% this week to 94.13, its highest level since mid-November.

Back on Wall Street, retailers dominated the earnings front once again, with Lowe's (LOW), TJX (TJX), Target (TGT), Ross Stores (ROST), Best Buy (BBY), AutoZone (AZO), Tiffany & Co (TIF), Gap (GPS), Kohl's (KSS), Advance Auto (AAP), and Foot Locker (FL) reporting their quarterly results. The results come in mostly better-than-expected, but a few companies missed bottom-line estimates, including Lowe's, Target, and Gap. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) settled the week higher by 0.3%.

The S&P 500 sectors finished the week on a mostly higher note, with seven of the eleven settling in the green. The rate sensitive utilities space (+3.1%) led the charge, underpinned by the decline in Treasury yields, while the energy sector (-4.5%) was by far the weakest group, suffering from the drop in crude prices. The other sectors finished with weekly gains/losses of 2.0% or less.

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Italian Political Strife Prompts Flight to Safety
29-May-18 16:25 ET
Dow -391.64 at 24361.45, Nasdaq -37.26 at 7396.59, S&P -31.47 at 2689.86

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/29/italian-political-strife-prompts-flight-to-safety.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Uncertainty surrounding the future of the Italian government sent equity markets lower around the globe on Tuesday as U.S. investors returned to the trading desk for the first time this week following an extended Memorial Day weekend. The S&P 500 lost 1.2% on Tuesday, settling at a three-week low, while the Dow and the Nasdaq ended lower by 1.6% and 0.5%, respectively. The small-cap Russell 2000 showed relative strength, settling lower by just 0.2%.

On Sunday, Italian President Sergio Mattarella moved to block the formation of a euroskeptic government, vetoing the economic minister nominee of an anti-establishment coalition that's aiming to come to power. The president's veto puts Italy on track for a snap election, which some insiders fear could become a de facto referendum on Italy's membership in the European Union. Italy's major stock index, the MIB, dropped 2.7% on Tuesday, extending its two-week decline to 12.1%. Italian debt also dropped, sending the yield on the Italian 10-yr bond 41 basis points higher to 3.09%, a fresh four-year high. (Editor's note: an earlier version of this comment incorrectly said the Italian 10-yr yield climbed seven basis points)

Separately, Spain's major stock index, the IBEX, tumbled 2.5% on Tuesday after the country's parliament agreed to a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's leadership following a corruption scandal involving 29 individuals with ties to Mr. Rajoy's People's Party. The vote is scheduled for Friday.

In a flight to safety, European investors bid up German bunds, sending the 10-yr bund yield eight basis points lower to 0.25%, which is its lowest level in nearly a year. American debt was also in demand, pushing yields lower across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr U.S. Treasury note, for instance, dropped 16 basis points to 2.77%, which is a fresh seven-week low. The 10-yr yield is now about 35 basis points below the seven-year high it hit less than two weeks ago on May 17.

Financial shares sold off sharply in reaction to the sudden decline in yields. The S&P 500's financial sector ended lower by 3.4%, closing at the bottom of the sector standings by a comfortable margin; the next-worst performing group was materials with a loss of 1.8%. On the flip side, the rate-sensitive utilities (unch) and real estate (+0.3%) sectors were the top performers.

European political worries weighed heavily on the euro, which dropped 0.8% against the U.S. dollar to 1.1539, hitting its lowest level in nearly a year. The dollar's relative strength didn't bode well for most dollar-denominated commodities, including crude oil. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 1.7% on Tuesday to $66.78 per barrel, slipping further from the three-and-a-half year high they hit last week. In addition to a strengthening dollar, concerns that Saudi Arabia and Russia are planning to ramp up production have weighed on crude prices as of late.

Some late buying brought the major U.S. stock indices up from their lowest marks of the day in the final minutes of the session. At its session low, the S&P 500 was down 1.6% at 2677, which is just five points above its 50-day moving average. Meanwhile, the Dow was down as much as 2.0%, and the Nasdaq was down as much as 1.1%.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for May and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for March:

The consumer confidence reading for May increased to 128.0 (Briefing.com consensus 127.5) from the prior month's revised reading of 125.6 (from 128.7).
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers' assessment of current conditions is at a 17-year high, which matches up neatly with the understanding that the unemployment rate is at a 17-year low.
The Case-Shiller 20-city Index increased 6.8% in March (Briefing.com consensus +6.4%), while the February increase was left unrevised at 6.8%.

On Wednesday, investors will receive a number of economic reports, including the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, the ADP Employment Change report for May (Briefing.com consensus 183K), the second estimate of first quarter GDP (Briefing.com consensus 2.3%), both the Advance International Trade in Goods (Briefing.com consensus -$70.7 billion) and Advance Wholesale Inventories reports for April, and the Fed's Beige Book for April.

Nasdaq Composite +7.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.7% YTD
S&P 500 +0.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.5% YTD

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Energy Shares Lead Broad-Based Rebound
30-May-18 16:20 ET
Dow +306.33 at 24667.78, Nasdaq +65.86 at 7462.45, S&P +34.15 at 2724.01

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/30/energy-shares-lead-broadbased-rebound.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street regained Tuesday losses on Wednesday, and a little extra, as investors walked back their bearish reaction to Italy's ongoing political crisis. The S&P 500 and the Dow advanced 1.3% apiece, while the Nasdaq finished with a gain of 0.9%. Smaller companies outperformed, pushing the small-cap Russell 2000 higher by 1.5%.

Wednesday's rebound effort began in Europe, where Italian shares ended a five-session losing streak. Italy's MIB advanced 2.1%, trimming its weekly loss to 2.7%, even though the country's political situation remained much the same with the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement and the right-wing League parties continuing to try to form a governing coalition. Italian debt also rebounded after an auction of 5-yr and 10-yr government bonds was met with strong demand. The yield on the Italian 10-yr bond, which spiked 41 basis points on Tuesday, dropped 20 basis points on Wednesday to 2.90%.

The U.S. bond market, meanwhile, gave back some of the gains registered in Tuesday's flight-to-safety trade, sending yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr U.S. Treasury note finished Wednesday higher by seven basis points at 2.84%, while the yield on the 2-yr U.S. Treasury note climbed 10 basis points to 2.42%. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar dropped 1.0% against the euro to 1.1655 after hitting a nearly 10-month high against the single currency on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, energy shares led a broad-based advance, underpinned by an increase in the price of crude oil. West Texas Intermediate crude futures soared 2.2% to $68.25 per barrel on Wednesday, notching their first daily gain since May 21, following reports that OPEC and Russia will keep production cuts in place until at least the end of the year. The S&P 500's energy sector finished with a solid gain of 3.1%, easily claiming the top spot on Wednesday's leaderboard. The next-best performing group was financials with a gain of 1.9%.

All S&P 500 sectors finished Wednesday in the green, with seven of eleven adding at least 1.0%. The top-weighted technology group lagged though, adding a relatively weak 0.7%, as the market's biggest component by market cap, Apple (AAPL 187.50, -0.40), finished with a loss of 0.2%. Customer-relations software company Salesforce (CRM 129.30, +2.42) rallied though, adding 1.9%, after beating both earnings and revenue estimates for the first quarter. HP (HPQ 22.16, +0.86) also had a good showing, adding 4.0%, after reporting upbeat quarterly revenues.

Elsewhere on the earnings front, retailers were well-represented once again, with Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS 38.35, +7.87), Michael Kors (KORS 60.41, -7.81), and DSW (DSW 24.61, -1.46) reporting their quarterly results. Dick's spiked 25.8%, hitting its best level since July 2017, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues, but Michael Kors and DSW declined 11.5% and 5.6%, respectively, despite also beating on both the top and bottom lines. Retailers did relatively well overall, pushing the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 47.26, +0.63) higher by 1.4%.

Reviewing Wednesday's big batch of economic data, which included the Fed's Beige Book for April, the ADP Employment Change report for May, the second estimate of first quarter GDP, Advance International Trade in Goods for April, Advance Wholesale Inventories for April, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The Federal Reserve released its April Beige Book, which described the economy as expanding moderately. The report acknowledged the presence of higher manufacturing activity, but consumer spending was classified as ‘soft.' The Beige Book also noted the presence of higher costs of basic materials.
The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 178,000 in May (Briefing.com consensus 183,000). The April reading was revised to 163,000 from 204,000.
The ADP reading is seen as a prelude to the BLS's nonfarm payrolls figure (Briefing.com consensus 190,000), which will be released on Friday.
The second estimate of first quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 2.2%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 2.3%. The first estimate came in at 2.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was a rerun of a bad episode of consumer spending in the first quarter. Therefore, it won't have any market impact since the "new" news today on Q1 GDP is old news.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for April showed a deficit of $68.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$70.7 billion), while the March deficit was revised to $68.6 billion (from $68.0 billion).
The Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for April was unchanged (0.0%), while the March reading was revised to +0.2% (from +0.5%).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.9% following last week's decline of 2.6%.

On Thursday, investors will receive Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), and the PCE Price Index for April (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), the weekly Initial Claims report (Briefing.com consensus 227K), the Chicago PMI for May (Briefing.com consensus 57.9), and Pending Home Sales for April (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%).

Nasdaq Composite +8.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.2% YTD

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Stocks Return to Negative Territory for the Week
31-May-18 16:15 ET
Dow -251.94 at 24415.84, Nasdaq -20.34 at 7442.11, S&P -18.74 at 2705.27

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/5/31/stocks-return-to-negative-territory-for-the-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The U.S. equity market returned to negative territory for the week on Thursday, giving back a good chunk of Wednesday's rebound effort, as investors digested the latest tariff-related headlines and looked ahead to Friday's release of the Employment Situation report for May. The major averages finished near the bottom of their daily ranges, with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 0.7% and 1.0%, respectively. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite showed relative strength, shedding just 0.3%, as tech names outperformed.

President Trump's administration announced on Thursday that it will let steel and aluminum tariff exemptions expire for the EU, Canada, and Mexico, effectively slapping a duty of 25% on steel imports and a duty of 10% on imports of aluminum coming from the three U.S. trading partners. The tariffs, which elicited retaliatory threats, will go into effect June 1st.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. and North Korea are making progress towards a June 12 summit, and The New York Times reported that a delegation of North Korean officials will be hand-delivering a letter to President Trump from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In Europe, Italy's Five-Star Movement and League parties have reportedly reached a deal to form a coalition government, and German financial giant Deutsche Bank tumbled to a 16-month low after The Wall Street Journal reported that it's on the Federal Reserve's list of troubled banks.

On Wall Street, nine of eleven S&P 500 sectors settled Thursday in negative territory, with the utilities sector (+0.1%) and the top-weighted technology sector (unch) being the two exceptions. The tech group, which represents around a quarter of the broader market by itself, was helped by positive performances from giants Facebook (FB 191.78, +4.11) and Alphabet (GOOG 1084.99, +17.19), which advanced 2.2% and 1.6%, respectively. Chipmaker Micron (MU 57.59, -4.98) didn't do so hot though, tumbling 8.0%, after being downgraded to 'Equal-Weight' from 'Overweight' at Morgan Stanley.

The industrials, consumer staples, and telecom services sectors finished at the back of the pack with losses between 1.3% and 1.6%, but most groups didn't lose more than 1.0%. The consumer discretionary sector (-0.5%) finished in line with the S&P 500, but there were several big movers within the group. For instance, Dollar Tree (DLTR 82.59, -13.76) and Dollar General (DG 87.48, -9.04) dropped 14.3% and 9.4%, respectively, after missing Q1 earnings estimates, and General Motors (GM 42.70, +4.87) rallied 12.9% after announcing that Softbank will be investing $2.25 billion in GM's self-driving unit.

Outside of the equity market, U.S. Treasuries finished Thursday slightly higher, sending yields lower across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped two basis points to 2.82%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 93.97, and WTI crude futures dropped for the seventh time in eight sessions, tumbling 1.7% to $67.04 per barrel.

Reviewing Thursday's batch of economic data, which included Personal Income, Personal Spending, and the PCE Price Index for April, the weekly Initial Claims report, the Chicago PMI for May, and Pending Home Sales for April:

Personal income climbed 0.3% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following a revised increase of 0.2% in March (from 0.3%). Meanwhile, personal spending rose 0.6% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following a revised increase of 0.5% in March (from 0.4%). The PCE Price Index rose 0.2% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 1.8%, unchanged from the last reading (which was revised down from +1.9%).
The key takeaway from the report is that real PCE was up 0.4%, leaving it well above the first quarter average growth rate of less than 0.1% and solidifying expectations for stronger GDP growth in the second quarter. Separately, the firming trend in the price indexes should contribute to an internal belief at the Federal Reserve that there is scope for three rate hikes in 2018.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 221,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 227,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 234,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.726 million from a revised count of 1.742 million (from 1.741 million).
The latest initial claims report is encouraging, yet it will be glossed over by market participants, who will turn a more attentive eye to Friday's release of the Employment Situation Report for May.
The Chicago PMI for May hit 62.7 (Briefing.com consensus 57.9), up from 57.6 in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that all five barometer components increased in May, reflecting renewed growth momentum in manufacturing activity in the Chicago Fed region.
Pending Home Sales decreased 1.3% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%). Today's reading follows a revised 0.6% increase in March (from +0.4%).

On Friday, investors will receive the Employment Situation report for May at 8:30 AM ET. The Briefing.com consensus expects that the report will show the addition of 190,000 nonfarm payrolls, a 0.3% increase in average hourly earnings, and an unemployment rate of 3.9% (unchanged from April). In addition, the ISM Index for May (Briefing.com consensus 58.0) and the Construction Spending report for April (Briefing.com consensus +1.0%) will cross the wires at 10:00 AM ET, and May auto and truck sales will be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite +7.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.5% YTD
S&P 500 +1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.2% YTD

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Starting June with a Bang
01-Jun-18 16:25 ET
Dow +219.37 at 24635.21, Nasdaq +112.22 at 7554.33, S&P +29.35 at 2734.62

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/1/starting-june-with-a-bang.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The month of May might have ended with a whimper, but the month of June started with a bang. Driven by an easing of the political tension in Europe and another employment report out of the U.S. that produced strong job growth, modest wage growth, and the lowest unemployment rate since April 2000, the major indices put together a winning session that was punctuated by leadership from economically-sensitive sectors.

The gains for the major indices ranged from 0.9% for the Russell 2000 to 1.5% for the Nasdaq Composite. Sellers were an outnumbered bunch on Friday, evidenced by an advance-decline line at the NYSE and Nasdaq that favored advancing issues by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

Leading the advance, which had a risk-on demeanor before the opening bell, was the information technology sector (+1.9%). It kept good company, however.

Following in its footsteps were the materials (+1.5%), industrials (+1.2%), and financial (+1.1%) sectors. The countercyclical health care sector (+1.2%) offered an added measure of support that made it challenging to knock the indices back to any considerable degree during Friday's trading.

The bulk of today's gains were logged within the first hour of trading. They were solidified as the day went on by better than expected construction spending and ISM manufacturing data, as well as the news from the White House that the June 12 summit with North Korea in Singapore is back on in what it is apt to be a multi-step negotiating process for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Interestingly, the protectionist trade concerns that drove the market lower on Thursday were placed on the back burner on Friday.

Traders instead embraced the report out of Europe that Italy's president gave a mandate to the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and right-wing League Party to form a government, thereby avoiding the need for a snap election that some thought could end up being a referendum on Italy's membership in the European Union.

That news triggered a risk-on tone in European markets that carried over to the U.S. The reassuring employment report simply accentuated the positive bias that persisted throughout the trading day.

Reflecting the upbeat tone, 27 out of 30 Dow components registered a gain on Friday while only two of the 11 S&P sectors -- utilities (-1.5%) and consumer staples (-0.03%) -- ended with a loss.

The energy sector (+0.5%) for its part kept its head above water even though oil prices ($65.83, -$1.14, -1.7%) fell sharply in a technically-driven sell-off.

Treasuries were also weak on Friday as some of the safe-haven premium tied to European politics was unwound along with the notion that the Federal Reserve won't raise the fed funds rate at least three times this year. The 2-yr note yield increased seven basis points to 2.48% while the 10-yr note yield jumped eight basis points to 2.90%.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

May nonfarm payrolls increased by 223,000 (Briefing.com consensus 190,000). May private sector payrolls increased by 218,000 (Briefing.com consensus 177,000).
May unemployment rate was 3.8% (Briefing.com consensus 3.9%) versus 3.9% in April
May average hourly earnings were up 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), after increasing 0.1% in April. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 2.7%, versus 2.6% for the 12 months ending in April
The key takeaway from the May employment report is that it still had a Goldilocks hue to it, as it was accented with strong job growth and only moderate wage inflation.
The ISM Manufacturing Index increased to 58.7 (Briefing.com consensus 58.0) from 57.3 in April. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0; May marked the 21st consecutive month the index has been above 50.0.
The key takeaway from the report is the summary that respondents are experiencing price pressures and that those price pressures are causing price-increase discussions as they prepare for the second half of the year.
Total construction spending increased 1.8% in April (Briefing.com consensus +1.0%) following an unrevised 1.7% decline in March.
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed a welcome pickup in construction spending growth, which will be a source of support for Q2 GDP forecasts.

Nasdaq Composite +9.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.4% YTD
S&P 500 +2.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD

Week In Review:

The stock market finished the week on a mostly higher note as investors digested an easing of the political crisis in Italy, fresh tariff-related developments, and the Employment Situation report for May. The S&P 500 (+0.5%), the Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%), and the Russell 2000 (+1.3%) advanced, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%) finished a step lower.

U.S. markets opened the week on Tuesday following a three-day Memorial Day weekend. Sellers dominated that Tuesday session after Italian President Sergio Mattarella blocked the formation of a euro-skeptic government, vetoing the economic minister nominee of an anti-establishment coalition that was aiming to come to power. Italian bond yields surged in reaction as some feared the veto would prompt a snap election that could turn into a de facto referendum on Italy's membership in the European Union. The Italian political crisis calmed down on Thursday evening, when President Mattarella approved the formation of a ruling coalition between Italy's anti-establishment Five Star Movement and right-wing League party, effectively silencing the prospect of a snap election later this year.

Elsewhere in Europe, Spain endured some political drama of its own this week as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was ousted on Friday in a no-confidence vote following a corruption scandal involving 29 individuals with ties to his People's Party. Pedro Sanchez, the leader of the Socialist Party, will succeed Mr. Rajoy as prime minister. Separately, German financial giant Deutsche Bank hit a 16-month low on Thursday after The Wall Street Journal reported that it's on the Federal Reserve's list of troubled banks.

Back in the U.S., the stock market rebounded from its Tuesday slide on Wednesday with energy shares leading the charge following reports that OPEC and Russia will keep production cuts in place until at least the end of the year. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rallied on Wednesday in reaction, but still finished the week lower by 3.0%.

Stocks stumbled for a second time on Thursday when the Trump administration announced that it will let steel and aluminum tariff exemptions expire for the EU, Canada, and Mexico. The White House's decision, which elicited retaliatory responses from the EU, Canada, and Mexico as expected, will result in duties of 25% on steel imports and duties of 10% on imports of aluminum, effective June 1.

Wall Street bounced back on Friday, bolstered by an easing of the political tension in Europe, news that the June 12 summit with North Korea is back on, and the release of the Employment Situation report for May, which featured a better-than-expected increase in nonfarm payrolls (+223K actual vs +190K Briefing.com consensus) and a lower-than-expected unemployment rate (3.8% actual vs 3.9% Briefing.com consensus). The average hourly earnings figure came in as expected, showing a month-over-month increase of 0.3%.

The key takeaway from the employment report is that it still had a Goldilocks hue to it, having been accented with strong job growth and only moderate wage inflation. Furthermore, the strong job growth and low unemployment rate created some good feelings about the potential for a pickup in consumer spending that should aid the second quarter growth outlook.

Six of eleven S&P sectors declined this week, with financials (-1.3%), telecom services (-0.9%), and industrials (-0.7%) being the weakest performers. Conversely, energy (+2.5%), technology (+2.0%), and real estate (+1.7%) were the top-performing groups.

Retailers dominated the earnings front once again, with Costco (COST), Dollar General (DG), Dollar Tree (DLTR), lululemon (LULU), Ulta Beauty (ULTA), Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS), and others reporting their quarterly results, which came in mixed. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) settled roughly flat for the week.

U.S. Treasuries were volatile this week, eventually finishing with modest gains. The benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, finished the week lower by three basis points at 2.90%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index eked out a fractional gain, settling the week at 94.22.

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Positive Start to the Week
04-Jun-18 16:15 ET
Dow +178.48 at 24813.69, Nasdaq +52.13 at 7606.46, S&P +12.25 at 2746.87

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/4/positive-start-to-the-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The equity market kicked off the week with a quiet victory on Monday, adding to last week's advance. The tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 0.7% to 7606.46, closing at a new record high for the first time since March 12. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and the Dow advanced 0.5% and 0.7%, respectively. The Russell 2000 lagged, adding just 0.3%, but still finished at a new all-time high.

Gains were broad-based on Monday, with seven of eleven S&P 500 sectors settling in positive territory. Consumer discretionary (+1.1%) was the top-performing sector, followed closely by information technology (+0.9%), consumer staples (+0.8%), and real estate (+1.0%).

Within the tech space, Apple (AAPL 191.83, +1.59) climbed 0.8%, closing at a new all-time high, as investors focused on the company's WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC), and Microsoft (MSFT 101.67, +0.88) advanced 0.9%, also settling at a new record, after announcing that it will acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock.

Meanwhile, retailers helped underpin the consumer discretionary and consumer staples sectors and pushed the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 47.64, +1.02) up 2.2% to a fresh four-month high. Walmart (WMT 85.42, +2.43), Home Depot (HD 191.36, +4.01), and Target (TGT 76.35, +3.55) were notable outperformers, adding between 2.1% and 4.9%.

On the downside, energy (-0.9%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings as crude prices dropped yet again. WTI crude futures declined by 1.6% to $64.76 per barrel, finishing 10.4% below the three-and-a-half year high they hit on May 21. The utilities (-0.9%), industrials (-0.1%), and telecom (-0.1%) groups also settled in the red.

In the health care space (+0.4%), Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR 52.57, -37.78) plunged 41.8% following disappointing clinical trial results for its drug NKTR-214, which is being used in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb's (BMY 51.45, -1.68) cancer drug Opdivo. Conversely, Dow component Merck (MRK 62.02, +1.46) jumped 2.4% after another round of positive trial results for its star cancer drug Keytruda.

Outside of equities, U.S. Treasuries began the week on a lower note, sending yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note, for instance, climbed four basis points to 2.94%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 94.02, marking its third loss in four sessions.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the Factory Orders report for April:

The Factory Orders report for April showed a decrease of 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%). The March reading was revised to +1.7% from +1.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft were slightly higher than what was seen in the Advance Durable Goods Orders Report for April, so this will provide an added dose of support for Q2 GDP growth forecasts.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Services Index for May and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for April on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +10.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.7% YTD
S&P 500 +2.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.4% YTD

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Stocks Advance for Third Straight Session
05-Jun-18 16:15 ET
Dow -13.71 at 24799.98, Nasdaq +31.40 at 7637.86, S&P +1.93 at 2748.80

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/5/stocks-advance-for-third-straight-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks ended Tuesday on slightly higher note, with the S&P 500 adding 0.1%. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) and the Russell 2000 (+0.7%) outperformed, finishing at new all-time highs for the second day in a row, but the Dow lagged, closing lower by 0.1%. The major averages kept within pretty narrow ranges on Tuesday due to a lack of market-moving news.

The lightly-weighted materials sector (+0.8%) was the top-performing S&P 500 group, followed by consumer discretionary (+0.6%), information technology (+0.4%), and telecom services (+0.5%). On the flip side, financials (-0.4%) finished with energy (-0.3%), consumer staples (-0.5%), utilities (-0.7%), and real estate (-0.5%) at the bottom of the sector standings. Financials declined in tandem with Treasury yields, which finished lower across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped two basis points to 2.92%.

In corporate news, shares of Starbucks (SBUX 55.68, -1.39) dropped 2.4% after Howard Schultz announced on Monday evening that he's stepping down from his role as executive chairman. Twitter (TWTR 39.80, +1.92) shares, meanwhile, spiked 5.1% after news that the company will be added to the S&P 500 on June 7, and shares of Mylan (MYL 39.98, +1.48) jumped 3.8% after the company received FDA approval for a drug similar to Amgen's (AMGN 181.73, -3.71) Neulasta, which is used to decrease the chance of inflection for chemotherapy patients.

Several retailers made outsized moves on Tuesday, sending the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 48.49, +0.85) up 1.8% to its best level since late January. The retail rally was helped by Monday comments from Evercore ISI Research, which suggested that fears about Amazon's (AMZN 1696.35, +31.08) ever-growing footprint are overblown. However, Amazon shares also had a solid performance on Tuesday, climbing 1.9% to finish at a new record high.

Overseas, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte delivered his inaugural address, calling for a universal basic income, a fairer tax system, and the EU to review sanctions against Russia. Italy's major stock index, the MIB, underperformed other European indices, losing 1.2%, and the yield on the Italian 10-yr bond rose 20 basis points to 2.75%.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the ISM Services Index for May and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for April:

The ISM Services Index for May ticked up to 58.6 (Briefing.com consensus 58.0) from an unrevised reading of 56.8 in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that it matched an uptick in the ISM Manufacturing Index for May. The uptick in both will help substantiate the belief that second quarter GDP growth is poised to pick up noticeably from the first quarter.
The April Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 6.698 million from a revised 6.633 million (from 6.550 million) in March.

Looking ahead, investors will receive on Wednesday the April Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$48.8 billion), the revised readings for first quarter Productivity (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) and Unit Labor Costs (Briefing.com consensus 2.8%), and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

Nasdaq Composite +10.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.4% YTD
S&P 500 +2.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.3% YTD

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Financials, Materials Lead Another Positive Outing
06-Jun-18 16:15 ET
Dow +346.41 at 25146.39, Nasdaq +51.38 at 7689.24, S&P +23.55 at 2772.35

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/6/financials-materials-lead-another-positive-outing.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied for a fourth straight session on Wednesday, with financials and materials shares leading the charge. The Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 hit new record highs for the third day in a row, adding 0.7% apiece, and the Dow led the major indices with a solid gain of 1.4%. The benchmark S&P 500 index added 0.9%, closing at its best level in three months.

10 of 11 S&P 500 sectors advanced on Wednesday. The financial space (+1.8%) was strong throughout the session, underpinned by a sharp rise in Treasury yields, which hit their highest levels in nearly two weeks. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed six basis points to 2.98%. The materials (+1.9%), consumer discretionary (+1.0%), health care (+1.2%), and telecom services (+1.5%) sectors were also notably strong.

On the flip side, rising yields weighed on the interest-rate-sensitive utilities sector, which finished at the bottom of the sector standings with a loss of 2.1%. The top-weighted technology group finished in the green with a gain of 0.5%, but had trouble keeping up with the broader market. Within the space, Facebook (FB 191.34, -1.60) was particularly weak, dropping 0.8%, after reports that the company gave data access to at least four Chinese electronics companies, including one flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat.

In other corporate news, Tesla (TSLA 319.50, +28.37) spiked 9.7% after its CEO, Elon Musk, said at the company's annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday evening that it's "quite likely" that Tesla will hit its target for producing 5,000 Model 3 electric vehicles per week by the end of June. Signet Jewelers (SIG 52.27, +8.12) also had a strong outing, soaring 18.4%, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the first quarter and reaffirming its earnings guidance for the fiscal year.

The energy sector (+0.6%) was volatile on Wednesday after the Department of Energy reported an unexpected build in crude oil inventories. The DOE said that U.S. crude stockpiles increased by 2.1 million barrels last week, while estimates had expected a draw of around 3.6 million barrels. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down around 0.2% ahead of the release, but finished the session lower by 1.1% at $64.76 per barrel, which ties a two-month low.

In Europe, ECB officials said that inflation is moving towards the 2.0% target, suggesting that next week's policy meeting could provide investors with some guidance about the wind-down of the central bank's asset purchase program. The euro climbed to a two-week high against the U.S. dollar following the comments, jumping 0.5% to 1.1772.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the April Trade Balance, the revised readings for first quarter Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The April trade balance showed a deficit of $46.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$48.8 billion). The March deficit was revised to $47.2 billion from $49.0 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that the real goods deficit in April was 6.0% less than the first quarter average, which suggests net exports should be factored as a positive input for upbeat Q2 GDP growth forecasts.
First quarter unit labor costs were revised upward to 2.9% (Briefing.com consensus +2.8%) from +2.7% in the preliminary reading, while first quarter productivity was revised to +0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) from +0.7% in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that productivity continues to run at relatively weak levels, which will stand in the way of GDP growth maintaining an accelerated growth rate above 3.0%.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 4.1% to follow last week's decrease of 2.9%.

On Thursday, investors will receive weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 225K) and April Consumer Credit (Briefing.com consensus $13.9 billion).

Nasdaq Composite +11.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.2% YTD
S&P 500 +3.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.7% YTD

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Tech Shares Slide, Bring S&P Win Streak to an End
07-Jun-18 16:20 ET
Dow +95.02 at 25241.41, Nasdaq -54.17 at 7635.07, S&P -1.98 at 2770.37

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/7/tech-shares-slide-bring-s-and-p-win-streak-to-an-end.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages finished Thursday on a mostly lower note, with the S&P 500 shedding 0.1% to end a four-session winning streak. The Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 retreated from all-time highs, finishing lower by 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively, while the Dow outperformed, adding 0.4%.

Most S&P 500 sectors finished the day in positive territory, with energy (+1.6%) and telecom services (+1.2%) leading the charge. Energy stocks rose with the price of crude oil following reports that Venezuela is nearly a month behind in crude deliveries due to its ongoing economic crisis. WTI crude futures advanced 1.9% to $65.95 per barrel after hitting a two-month low on Wednesday. In addition to energy, the consumer staples (+0.6%) and utilities (+0.4%) sectors also outperformed.

However, the information technology sector -- which is the biggest S&P 500 group, representing a quarter of the broader market by itself -- dropped 1.1%, overpowering mostly modest gains from the ten other groups. Within the space, giants like Microsoft (MSFT 100.88, -1.61), Facebook (FB 188.18, -3.16), and Alphabet (GOOG 1123.86, -13.02) lost between 1.2% and 1.7%, and chipmakers pushed the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lower by 1.0%.

In Washington, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the U.S. has struck a deal to end crippling sanctions against Chinese telecom giant ZTE that includes a $1 billion penalty and the implementation of a U.S.-chosen compliance team to monitor the company going forward. ZTE will also be required to change its board of directors and its executive team in the next 30 days. Separately, President Donald Trump and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a joint press conference on Thursday, touching on next week's U.S.-North Korea summit.

On the corporate front, Qualcomm (QCOM 60.64, +0.80) and NXP Semi (NXPI 120.07, +5.55) rallied 1.3% and 4.9%, respectively, following reports that China is ready to approve Qualcomm's proposed acquisition of NXP. Meanwhile, J.M. Smucker (SJM 100.80, -5.72) lost 5.4% and Five Below (FIVE 99.05, +17.77) spiked 21.9% after both companies released their quarterly results, and Allergan (AGN 163.27, +7.89) jumped 5.1% following reports that billionaire investor Carl Icahn has built a small position in the drugmaker.

U.S. Treasuries rallied on Thursday, shooting to new highs in the afternoon when emerging market currencies dropped to new lows against the U.S. dollar. There wasn't a news catalyst to credit for the move, but it's worth noting that Indonesia, Turkey, and India have all raised rates recently in an effort to stem capital flight. The iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (EWZ 31.71, -1.77) got clobbered on Thursday, dropping 5.1%, and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM 46.42, -0.72) lost 1.5%. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr U.S. Treasury note dropped five basis points to 2.93%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which was limited to weekly Initial Claims and the Consumer Credit report for April:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 222,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 225,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 223,000 (from 221,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.741 million from a revised count of 1.720 million (from 1.726 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that the low level of initial claims is consistent with a tight labor market.
The Consumer Credit report for April showed an increase of $9.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus $13.9 billion). March credit growth was revised to $12.3 billion from $11.6 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that the increase in consumer credit was the lowest since September 2017, which suggests rising interest rates may have driven consumers to pay down debt and/or tempered their demand for credit.

On Friday, investors will receive just one economic report, Wholesale Inventories for April (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).

Nasdaq Composite +10.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.6% YTD
S&P 500 +3.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.1% YTD

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Stocks Tick Higher, Extend Weekly Gains
08-Jun-18 16:30 ET
Dow +75.12 at 25316.53, Nasdaq +10.44 at 7645.51, S&P +8.66 at 2779.03

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/8/stocks-tick-higher-extend-weekly-gains.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages ticked up between 0.1% and 0.3% on Friday, extending their weekly gains to 1.2%-2.8%. Stocks opened modestly lower as technology shares weighed, but the consumer staples and health care sectors helped turn things around later in the session. The day was pretty quiet in terms of headlines, although the Group of Seven (G7) did kick of its annual summit in Quebec.

President Trump is expected to be on the outside looking in at this year's G7 summit after his decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports was met with resistance from U.S. allies. The president further stirred the pot on Friday by saying the G7 -- which used to be the G8 before Russia got thrown out in 2014 for its annexation of Crimea -- should let Russia back into the group. Investors weren't spooked by the tension though, nor were they fazed by reports that Chinese government hackers stole massive amounts of highly sensitive data from a U.S. Navy contractor.

Nearly all S&P 500 sectors advanced on Friday, but gains were modest for the most part. The consumer staples sector was an exception though, adding 1.3%. Monster Beverage (MNST 55.48, +2.65) was the top-performing consumer staples component, rallying 5.0%, following its annual shareholder meeting. The health care sector also showed relative strength, climbing 0.7% in a broad-based rally.

The energy (-0.2%) and utilities (unch) sectors were the only groups to finish Friday in the red, but the top-weighted information technology group also lagged, closing just a tick above its unchanged mark. Within the tech space, Apple (AAPL 191.70, -1.76) lost 0.9% following reports that it has asked its supply chain to prepare around 20% fewer components for iPhones debuting in the second half of 2018, and Broadcom (AVGO 257.97, -6.71) dropped 2.5% despite reporting better-than-expected quarterly results on Thursday evening.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries finished Friday on a flattish note, with the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note ticking up one basis point to 2.94%. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures slid 0.3% to $65.76 per barrel, and the U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.1% to 93.56 to end a four-session losing streak.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to Wholesale Inventories for April:

April Wholesale Inventories ticked up 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). The March reading was revised to +0.2% from +0.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that sales growth outpaced inventories growth, which is a positive dynamic that can eventually help wholesalers regain pricing power if it persists.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +10.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.9% YTD
S&P 500 +3.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.4% YTD

Week In Review: Third Straight Weekly Advance

The U.S. equity market advanced for the third week in a row, with the benchmark S&P 500 index adding 1.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was particularly strong, adding 2.8%, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Russell 2000 touched new record highs, finishing the week with respective gains of 1.2% and 1.5%.

There were several notable corporate headlines this week, starting on Monday when the executive chairman and former CEO of Starbucks (SBUX), Howard Schultz, announced that he will be stepping down. In talking about his future plans, Mr. Schultz failed to rule out a run for the White House, prompting speculation that he'll challenge President Trump in 2020.

Elsewhere in the consumer discretionary space, Tesla (TSLA) shares spiked on Wednesday after CEO Elon Musk said it's "quite likely" that Tesla will hit its target for producing 5,000 Model 3 electric vehicles per week by the end of June. Retailers soared this week, sending the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) higher by 6.3%, following comments from Evercore ISI Research, which suggested that fears about Amazon's (AMZN) ever-growing footprint may be overblown. Some short-covering activity also likely helped push retail shares higher.

Meanwhile, in the tech space, Facebook (FB) came under scrutiny once again following news that the social media company has data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including one flagged as a national security threat by American intelligence officials. Separately, Apple (AAPL) shares dropped on Friday following reports that the company has asked its supply chain to prepare around 20% fewer components for iPhones debuting in the second half of 2018.

In Washington, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the U.S. has struck a deal to end crippling sanctions against Chinese telecom giant ZTE that includes a $1 billion penalty and the implementation of a U.S.-chosen compliance team to monitor the company going forward. ZTE will also be required to change its board of directors and its executive team. On a related note, China is reportedly ready to approve Qualcomm's (QCOM) proposed acquisition of NXP Semi (NXPI).

Leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) kicked off their annual summit on Friday in the small Canadian resort town of La Malbaie. This year's meeting is expected to be more contentious than usual due to President Trump's decision to impose tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium. French President Emmanuel Macron has threatened to exclude the U.S. from the annual joint statement, symbolizing the strained relationship between the U.S. and its allies.

In Europe, the ECB's Chief Economist, Peter Praet, said the European Central Bank will discuss how to wind down its asset purchase program at next week's policy meeting after officials agreed that inflation is moving towards the central bank's target of 2.0%. The euro responded by rallying against the U.S. dollar, adding nearly 1.0% for the week.

The Fed will also be meeting next week, and it's all but certain that officials will hike interest rates for the second time this year. The question is whether the updated interest-rate projections, which will be released alongside the rate-hike decision on Wednesday, will call for one or two more hikes this year.

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InvestmentHouse - G-7 Meeting Contentious as Expected (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- G-7 meeting contentious as expected, Canada accused of backstabbing was
unexpected, but Trump lays it on the table for all to see, offering true
free trade between the EU and the US. Bets if ANY nation will agree to
truly free trade?
- New highs on many indices, others close, and those lagging are looking
better.
- Will the market outlook regarding the future remain the same and yield
breaks higher from these good patterns? There is a better chance of that
than countries agreeing to true free trade.

The big story over the weekend was the G-7 (fka G-8, aka G6+1). Not that
there were no agreements and not that Trump and his advisors called Canada's
Trudeau dishonest and a backstabber. Those were indeed humorous moments,
and the latter not expected.

No, the real story was what Trump proposed after Europe complained about the
US' call for tariffs on the EU. After hearing all the euros complain about
the US placing tariffs on EU products because the EU placed tariffs on US
products and misused NAFTA, Trump called their bluff -- Trump offered NO
tariffs at all between the EU and the US. The old saying be careful what
you say you want because you might get it was never more in play. Only
Merkel had the guts to say something, and it was at least not negative: she
would consider that proposal.

Take that Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and all the other fake free trade
stooges. They are whining against Trump's tariff proposals because, they
say, we have to have 'free' trade with our allies. But there IS NO free
trade. The EU imposes all kinds of tariffs on all kinds of US goods. Every
day. Saying the US should not impose tariffs because it would disrupt free
trade is thus on its face absurd. Why were THEY not saying 'yes we want
free trade, so Europe, drop your tariffs on our goods and we won't impose
tariffs on yours. Quid pro quo. A bargained for exchange that helps all
participants.

Now the question is out there: do the euros REALLY want free trade? Do the
congressional republicans really want free trade or are they protecting
their donors? It is out there. We could have free trade. Are there the
guts to really take it?

Classic Trump bargaining. Everyone screams he is a madman. Robert DeNiro
unleashed a tirade this week that was not only obscene but makes you wonder
if senility has fully set in. Trump is actually bargaining, actually
negotiating as he did every day in business. The goal is clear, just as he
said while campaigning: free trade is fair trade, and our trade deals are
neither. He has shown he is the one wanting free trade. He made the
proposal. Again, does anyone have the guts to grab it? Does anyone REALLY
want true free trade?

THE MARKET

SP500 8.66, 0.31%
NASDAQ 10.44, 0.14%
DJ30 75.12, 0.30%
SP400 0.50%
RUTX 0.28%
SOX -0.85%
NASDAQ 100 flat

VOLUME: NYSE -12%, NASDAQ -16%. Friday volume fade on a session that was
both ways. Not bad, no heavy selling, just some low volume movement after
good breaks higher.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE 1.4:1, NASDAQ 1.1:1. Modest as you would expect on a
flattish day.

Friday saw the midcaps lead, clearing to a new all-time high intraday. They
faded a bit, closing with a new all-time closing high. Another index hits
the A-T level, SP400 putting in a nice 6-session run.

SP500 put in a very acceptable week, finally clearing the May peaks. That
is all. It still has a lot of work, but started to do some work. Many
industrial stocks have some very interesting patterns. Ah, the pretty
picture syndrome NASDAQ experienced for a while. Then NASDAQ stocks broke
higher as did chips. All of them, of course, following RUTX and its string
of new highs.

RUTX is indeed impressive, rallying to another new high on Monday, Tuesday,
and Wednesday. Thursday it hit a new all-time high but faded. Friday was a
modest upside session. Still very strong if a bit extended -- again.

NASDAQ rallied to a new high on the week, dropped rather hard Thursday, then
Friday added some back. Solid pattern, waiting for the 10 day EMA to catch
up to it. When it does it is likely to surge again.

SOX rallied up to the March all-time high then faded Thursday and Friday to
the 10 day EMA. The chips came back to life and helped the market rally,
helped those other indices hit the new highs. Now we will see if the chips
can add their own new all-time high.

DJ30 posted a good week, continuing the prior Friday move up off the 50 day
SMA. DJ30 cleared the May highs and is now similarly situated as SP500 with
the March and February highs just overhead, still a long way off from that
January all-time high. Large caps have lagged, but their patterns are good.
As asked before, will the pretty patterns turn into good breakouts upside?


LEADERSHIP

Industrials: Still looking good, still need to show the good patterns can
convert. IP has a very nice look. UTX as well. HON started upside last
week. CAT still solid and DE continues to look ready to make the move.

Metals: This group has some nice patterns as well. SCHN, STLD, X. Perhaps
anticipating things not going so well at G-7. We will see how they react
Monday.

Software: Some struggled to end the week. NOW dumped Thursday, hung in
Friday. DATA also fell to near support. UIS enjoyed a great week. ATVI
remains solid. RHT, TTWO look good to go as well. MSFT testing the 10 day
MA, not bad at all.

Chips: NVDA looks very good with a 4-session test of the 10 day EMA. MXIM
testing the same level as well. TXN as well. NPTN looks quite good. Some
others as well, e.g. AAOI, MU -- these could provide new entries this week.

FAANG: FB in a nice 20 day EMA test on the week, weathering the continued
stream of bad news. GOOG looks ready to break higher again off the 10 day
EMA. AMZN may come back all the way to the 10 day and provide an entry.
NFLX is testing the 10 day as well and could provide something this week.

China: ATHM with a nice doji with tail tapping the 20 day EMA and
rebounding. HTHT tested the 10 day EMA as well, bounced Friday. BABA
tested to the 20 day, bounced Friday. Familiar story: test to near support,
bounce. IQ surged to a new all-time high with a 6+% gain; okay not all
tested the 10 day EMA.

Oil: Some broke higher starting Thursday. CRZO gapped and rallied that
session. COP continued climbing after the drop to the 50 day EMA the prior
week. XOM cracked to a higher recovery high.

Drugs/Biotech: Mixed bag, still many good stocks. ARWR testing the 10 and
20 day EMA on the week after a good rally. IMGN looked very good but then
reversed ugly Thursday and Friday. VVUS surged Friday; dang -- we watched
it, then watched it break higher. BLUE at the 50 day EMA and a 'must hold'
level. Other healthcare is not bad, e.g. EXAS, FATE looking quite good.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +75.12 points (+0.30%) to close at 25316.53

Nasdaq
Stats: +10.44 points (+0.14%) to close at 7645.51
Volume: 1.94B (-16.38%)

Up Volume: 1.16B (+110M)
Down Volume: 722.78M (-517.22M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.1 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.27 to 1

New Highs: 154 (-123)
New Lows: 18 (-14)

S&P
Stats: +8.66 points (+0.31%) to close at 2779.03
NYSE Volume: 774.1M (-12.35%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.43 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.2 to 1

New Highs: 117 (-49)
New Lows: 23 (-34)


SENTIMENT

VIX: 12.18; +0.05
VXN: 16.51; +0.06
VXO: 11.33; -0.40

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.95; +0.03

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls edged higher as part of a 4 week recovery from the plummet from the 65
range. Hardly a new surge. Bears are holding a rebound from the prior five
months, but frankly, it is not that much of a bounce.

Bulls: 50.0 versus 49.1

Bears: 19.2 versus 19.2

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 50.0 versus 49.1
49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6 versus 42.2
versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5
versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00 versus 64.7 versus 66.7 versus 64.4
versus 61.9 versus 64.1 versus 64.2 versus 62.3 versus 61.5 versus 63.5
versus 64.4 versus 63.5 versus 62.3 versus 60.6 versus 60.4 versus 57.5
versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1 versus 49.5 versus 49.5 versus 48.1
versus 50.5 versus 57.5 versus 60.0 versus 60.2 versus 57.8 versus 50.0
versus 52.5 versus 54.9 versus 51.5 versus 50.00 versus 55.8 versus 50.00
versus 51.9 versus 58.1 versus 58.7 versus 58.5 versus 54.7 versus 51.9
versus 56.3 versus 55.8 versus 49.5

Bears: 19.2 versus 19.2
19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8 versus 19.6 versus 19.8 versus 18.6
versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7 versus 15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6
versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5
versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4
versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1
versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.948% versus 2.928%. Bonds continued selling on the week but
Thursday surged back up through the 50 day MA. Held that level with a 50
day MA Friday with a doji. Yields faded some, but the recovery of bonds over
the 50 day MA is an interesting development.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.928%
versus 2.974% versus 2.935% versus 2.944% versus 2.902% versus 2.86% versus
2.857% versus 2.79% versus 2.931% versus 2.992% versus 2.982% versus 3.063%
versus 3.056% versus 3.06% versus 3.123% versus 3.096% versus 3.069% versus
2.997% versus 2.97% versus 2.966% versus 3.006% versus 2.952% versus 2.948%
versus 2.968% versus 2.954% versus 2.959% versus 2.975% versus 3.0245%
versus 3.00% versus 2.962% versus 2.96% versus 2.914% versus 2.867% versus
2.83% versus 2.829 versus 2.825% versus 2.781%


EUR/USD: 1.17737 versus 1.17987. Euro recovered last week, then tested
back to the 20 day MA. Will the G-* conclusion send the euro up again?

Historical: 1.17987 versus 1.1774 versus 1.1762 versus 1.1697 versus 1.166
versus 1.16993 versus 1.16643 versus 1.15446 versus 1.17148 versus 1.17096
versus 1.17022 versus 1.17826 versus 1.1786 versus 1.17714 versus 1.1802
versus 1.1811 versus 1.18272 versus 1.19358 versus 1.19411 versus 1.1913
versus 1.18533 versus 1.18672 versus 1.19150 versus 1.19619 versus 1.1983
versus 1.1978 versus 1.19896 versus 1.20741 versus 1.21291 versus 1.21788
versus 1.2163 versus 1.22232 versus 1.22094 versus 1.22876 versus 1.23464
versus 1.23748 versus 1.23712 versus 1.238532 versus 1.23313 versus 1.23299
versus 1.23720 versus 1.2359 versus 1.2311 versus 1.22812 versus 1.2247
versus 1.2285


USD/JPY: 109.466 versus 109.705. Dollar tested the 50 day MA to end the
week after recovering over that important level 9 sessions prior.

Historical: 109.705 versus 110.164 versus 109.878 versus 109.90 versus
109.53 versus 108.767 versus 108.699 versus 108.699 versus 109.385 versus
109.667 versus 109.502 versus 110.833 versus 110.95 versus 110.76 versus
110.935 versus 110.376 versus 110.246 versus 109.693 versus 109.384 versus
109.40 versus 109.746 versus 109.038 versus 109.022 versus 109.08 versus
109.175 versus 109.628 versus 109.91 versus 109.354 versus 109.051 versus
109.28 versus 109.373 versus 108.894 versus 108.728 versus 107.645 versus
107.404 versus 107.409 versus 107.027 versus 107.010


Oil: 65.74, -0.21. Oil sold off to end May, start June. Thursday a
bounce, Friday flat. Not that strong and this bounce likely hits the 10 day
EMA then rolls back over.


Gold: 1302.70, -0.30.


MONDAY

Thursday was a bit rocky for the growth indices such as NASDAQ and SOX, but
they recovered decently Friday and remain in good patterns. The setups in
the indices are still quite nice though RUTX may need some more time to test
and consolidate before it rallies again.

That leaves the other indices that have lagged as likely candidates to
rally. SP500, SP400 look good. Industrials are showing better patterns
whether machinery or metals. Money looked to be going their way last week,
but not definitive just yet. We are looking at IP, still looking at DE, and
watching to see if CAT and HON can deliver upside.

There are also many other groups looking good, some that have rallied well
and just tested near support. GOOG, NVDA are examples. They too provide
that push to not only NASDAQ but SP500 as well.

In short, there are many good patterns in the market, and that suggests the
indices will continue to climb -- if they can keep the same outlook toward
the futures after G-7 and the US/North Korea meeting on 6/14, we could see a
lot of new breaks higher.

Our plays to start the week are a mix of healthcare, chips, big names,
China, industrial. Will see what groups receive the money.

Have a great weekend!

[ReturntoSender]

Stocks Tick Higher Ahead of Trump-Kim Summit
11-Jun-18 16:30 ET
Dow +5.78 at 25322.31, Nasdaq +14.41 at 7659.93, S&P +2.97 at 2782.00

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/11/stocks-tick-higher-ahead-of-trumpkim-summit.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities eked out a slim victory on Monday as investors shrugged off a contentious Group of Seven meeting and looked ahead to a historic summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The S&P 500 was up 0.3% with just 10 minutes to go, but a late bout of selling left the index with a gain of 0.1%.

Mr. Trump's meeting with Mr. Kim is scheduled to begin in Singapore at around 9:00 PM ET and will mark the first time that a sitting U.S. president has met with a North Korean leader. The two sides will attempt to come to some sort of agreement on denuclearization that'll likely require security assurances from the U.S. However, the chance of success remains unclear as officials engaged in last-minute talks ahead of the meeting are reportedly struggling to bridge the gaps on some of the most basic issues, according to The New York Times.

Separately, the annual Group of Seven summit over the weekend ended on a contentious note after President Trump decided to forego signing a joint statement in response to comments from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who vowed to retaliate against Mr. Trump's recently imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

Most S&P 500 sectors finished Monday with modest gains. However, the telecom services and consumer staples groups outperformed, adding 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively. The health care sector (+0.1%), meanwhile, finished roughly in line with the broader market even though Boston Scientific (BSX 34.32, +2.37) soared 7.4% on news that rival Stryker (SYK 169.78, -9.17) has made a takeover approach.

Retailers had another positive outing, pushing the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 50.07, +0.52) higher by 1.1%. With Monday's advance, the XRT is now up 8.0% for the month of June, nearly triple the S&P 500's month-to-date gain of 2.8%. The consumer discretionary sector, which houses the bulk of retailers, finished with a gain of 0.3%.

On the downside, the utilities and financials spaces were the weakest performers, shedding 0.3% apiece.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries ended Monday on a lower note, pushing yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note advanced two basis points to 2.96%. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 0.5% to $66.11 per barrel, hitting their best level in more than a week.

Investors didn't receive any notable economic data on Monday. However, they will receive several reports on Tuesday, including the Consumer Price Index for May (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), the Treasury Budget for May, and the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for May.

Nasdaq Composite +11.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.1% YTD
S&P 500 +4.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.4% YTD

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Modest Victory for S&P; Nasdaq Hits New Record
14-Jun-18 16:30 ET
Dow -25.89 at 25175.31, Nasdaq +65.34 at 7761.05, S&P +6.86 at 2782.49

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/14/modest-victory-for-s-and-p-nasdaq-hits-new-record.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 drifted within a pretty tight range on Thursday, eventually settling with a modest gain of 0.3%. Investors were still wrestling with the Fed's upped rate-hike forecast and received another central bank policy decision, this time from the ECB. The Dow (-0.1%) struggled to keep pace, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.9%) outperformed, hitting a new all-time high.

As expected, the European Central Bank left its key policy rate unchanged on Thursday morning and announced a plan to end its asset purchase program. The ECB in September will cut its monthly purchases in half, from EUR30 billion to EUR15 billion, and then end purchases altogether three months later -- although it will continue to reinvest the principal from maturing securities. As for interest rates, the ECB said they will remain at their present levels "at least through the summer of 2019."

The euro dove sharply following the ECB's policy release and was down about 1.7% against the U.S. dollar at the closing bell in New York. The yield on Germany's 10-yr bund also slid, going from 0.50% to 0.42%, but U.S. Treasury yields were mostly lower even before the ECB decision. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slid three basis points to 2.95%, but the 2-yr yield bucked the trend, rising two basis points to 2.58%. That left the 2-10 spread at its lowest level in more than a decade.

Lenders, which make money on the difference between what they charge for loans and what they pay on deposits, dropped with the 2-10 spread, sending the S&P 500's financial sector to the bottom of the sector standings. The financial group lost 0.9% and was one of only three groups -- industrials (-0.4%) and energy (-0.2%) being the others -- to close in the red.

On the flip side, eight sectors advanced on Thursday. The lightly-weighted utilities group (+1.2%) was the top performer, continuing to rebound after a poor start to the month, and the consumer discretionary sector (+1.0%) was also a notable outperformer. Within the consumer discretionary space, media names were in focus once again after Comcast (CMCSA 33.82, +1.50, +4.6%) outdid Disney's (DIS 108.75, +2.44, +2.3%) all-stock bid for the bulk of 21st Century Fox's (FOXA 44.58, +0.92, +2.1%) assets, offering $65 billion in cash.

Meanwhile, in the tech sector (+0.6%), Twitter (TWTR 46.76, +2.69) added another 6.1% and is now up 16.6% since being added to the S&P 500 on June 7. Social media peer Facebook (FB 196.81, +4.40) also did well, adding 2.3%, but Oracle (ORCL 45.90, -2.37) struggled, losing 4.9% after being downgraded to 'Neutral' from 'Overweight' at JP Morgan.

In Washington, the White House is reportedly planning to roll out on Friday a shorter list of tariffs on imports from China, according to CNBC. The updated list is expected to include between 800 and 900 products, down from around 1,300 products originally. The market had a muted reaction to the news.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included Retail Sales for May, weekly Initial Claims, Export and Import Prices for May, and April Business Inventories:

May retail sales rose 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the April increase was revised to 0.4% from 0.3%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.9% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), and the April increase was revised to 0.4% from 0.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer spending on goods was strong in May, which will feed expectations for a healthy pickup in second quarter GDP growth.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 218,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 223,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 222,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.697 million from a revised count of 1.746 million (from 1.741 million).
The key takeaway from the report is the same as last week: the low level of initial and continuing jobless claims is consistent with a tight labor market.
Import prices excluding oil rose 0.6% in May after rising a revised 0.6% in April (from +0.2%), and export prices excluding agriculture increased 0.5% after rising an unrevised 0.7% in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that import prices continued an upward trend that began in August 2017 and recorded their largest 12-month advance (+4.3%) since February 2017.
Business Inventories rose 0.3% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). The March reading was revised to -0.1% from 0.0%.
The inventories-to-sales ratio held steady at 1.35 month-over-month and was down from 1.38 in the same period a year ago.

Looking ahead, investors will receive on Friday morning the Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report for May, the Empire Manufacturing report for June, and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June.

Also, the Bank of Japan will release its latest policy directive overnight. No changes are expected.

Nasdaq Composite +12.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.7% YTD
S&P 500 +4.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.9% YTD

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Trade War Fears Re-Enter the Mix
15-Jun-18 16:30 ET
Dow -84.83 at 25090.48, Nasdaq -14.66 at 7746.39, S&P -3.07 at 2779.42

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/15/trade-war-fears-reenter-the-mix.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Trade war fears weighed at the start of Friday's session, but stocks rebounded intraday, leaving the major averages just modestly lower. The S&P 500 was down as much as 0.7%, but ended with a loss of just 0.1%. The Nasdaq slipped 0.2%, retreating from Thursday's record high, while the Dow lost 0.3%.

President Trump confirmed before the open that he's approved a 25% tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods and warned of additional tariffs should China retaliate. Unfazed by the threat, Beijing announced that it will impose a 25% tariff on $34 billion worth of U.S. goods starting on July 6, which is when the U.S. plans to impose its tariffs. Beijing also noted that a tariff on another $16 billion worth of U.S. goods could be imposed at a later date and said any previously negotiated agreements, including China's offer to buy nearly $70 billion of U.S. goods, will be invalid.

The S&P 500 sectors ended Friday pretty evenly split between green and red. Five groups advanced, led by the countercyclical consumer staples (+1.3%), utilities (+0.7%), and telecom services (+1.2%) spaces, while six groups declined. The energy space (-2.1%) finished at the back of the pack by a wide margin as crude prices tumbled.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 2.7% to $65.06 per barrel, their worst close since hitting a two-month low on June 6. Crude traders have their eyes on next week's OPEC/non-OPEC meeting where oil producers are expected to raise their production targets in order to combat falling output from Venezuela and Iran.

In addition to energy, the top-weighted technology sector (-0.5%) also underperformed, with mega caps Apple (AAPL 188.84, -1.96) and Microsoft (MSFT 100.13, -1.29) dropping 1.0% and 1.3%, respectively. Adobe Systems (ADBE 251.82, -6.28) also struggled, losing 2.4%, despite beating quarterly earnings estimates.

Elsewhere, AT&T (T 33.15, +0.63) completed its acquisition of Time Warner after the Department of Justice decided against applying for a delay of Tuesday's ruling, and shares of General Motors (GM 43.91, +0.34) spiked intraday following a Bloomberg report that the company is having early discussions with banks about strategic options for its self-driving car unit Cruise Automation.

U.S. Treasuries were fairly volatile on Friday, with the yield on the 10-yr Treasury note drifting between 2.89% and 2.94%. The benchmark yield eventually settled two basis points below its Thursday close at 2.92%, while the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note lost three basis points, dropping to 2.55%.

Overseas, the Bank of Japan kept its key interest rate unchanged, as expected, but downgraded its view on inflation.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report for May, the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June, and the Empire Manufacturing report for June:

Industrial Production slipped 0.1% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), while the April increase was revised to 0.9% (from +0.7%). Meanwhile, Capacity Utilization ticked down to 77.9% (Briefing.com consensus 78.1%) from a revised reading of 78.1% in April (from 78.0%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the decline in overall production was driven by weakness in manufacturing production.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June rose to 99.3 (Briefing.com consensus 99.0) from 98.0 in May.
The key takeaway from the report is that the Expectations Index declined to its lowest level since the start of the year due to less favorable prospects for the overall economy, which were tied in part to higher inflation expectations.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for June climbed to 25.0 (Briefing.com consensus 20.0) from the prior month's unrevised reading of 20.1.

Looking ahead, investors will receive just one economic report, the NAHB Housing Market Index for June, on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +12.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.7% YTD
S&P 500 +4.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.5% YTD

Week In Review: Little Changed Following Headline-Heavy Week

There was a steady stream of noteworthy news this week, but none of the headlines moved the S&P 500 in a significant way. The benchmark index ended the week almost exactly flat, adding less than one point. The tech-heavy Nasdaq outperformed, adding 1.3%, while the Dow lagged, losing 0.9%.

This week's story really began over the weekend when the annual Group of Seven meeting, which was held in Quebec, ended on an uncharacteristically contentious note. President Trump was prepared to sign the customary joint statement, but changed his mind following what the White House deemed as "inappropriate" comments from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The world then turned its attention to Singapore, where President Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday in a historic summit that marked the first ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader. The meeting ended with a joint statement in which North Korea reaffirmed its commitment to completely denuclearize and the U.S. promised "security guarantees" -- including the suspension of military exercises on the Korean Peninsula. The two nations will engage in follow-up negations to work out the specific details.

Monetary policy took center stage midweek when the U.S. Federal Reserve released its latest policy directive. The Fed decided to raise interest rates for the second time this year, increasing the fed funds target range by a quarter point to 1.75% to 2.00%, and upped its interest-rate forecast to include a total of four rate increases this year -- up from three in March. The market had expected the rate hike, but the updated forecast took some by surprise.

Overseas, the European Central Bank released its latest policy directive on Thursday. As expected, the ECB left its key policy rate unchanged and announced a plan to end its asset purchase program. The ECB in September will cut its monthly purchases in half, from EUR30 billion to EUR15 billion, and then end purchases altogether three months later -- although it will continue to reinvest the principal from maturing securities. As for interest rates, the ECB said they will remain at their present levels "at least through the summer of 2019." That statement was credited with sending the euro down more than 1.0% against the U.S. dollar.

The Bank of Japan also conducted a policy meeting this week, but made no changes to its key interest rate. However, the BoJ did downgrade its view on inflation, further highlighting the difference between the BoJ, which is struggling to end its crisis-era stimulus, and the Fed, which continues to progress on a path to normalization.

Back in the States, media names were in focus after a federal judge on Tuesday ruled in favor of AT&T (T) in its drawn-out legal battle with the Justice Department. The ruling allowed AT&T to move forward with its acquisition of Time Warner (TWX), which it closed on Thursday, and set the stage for more merger activity in the future. Comcast (CMCSA), for instance, outdid Disney's (DIS) all-stock bid for the bulk of 21st Century Fox's (FOXA) assets following the ruling, offering $65 billion in cash.

In politics, trade war fears were reignited on Friday after President Trump confirmed that he's approved a 25% tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods. China responded swiftly, announcing that it'll impose a 25% tariff on $34 billion worth of U.S. goods on July 6, the same day the U.S. tariffs are scheduled to take effect.

[ReturntoSender]

Minor Damage
18-Jun-18 16:20 ET
Dow -103.01 at 24987.47, Nasdaq +0.65 at 7747.04, S&P -5.79 at 2773.63

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/18/minor-damage.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S.-China trade tensions weighed at the start of Monday's session, but sentiment eventually improved, allowing stocks to escape with just minor damage.

The benchmark S&P 500 index finished with a loss of 0.2%, but was down 0.8% at the opening bell. As for the other major averages, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite finished flat, and the small-cap Russell 2000 advanced 0.5%, closing at a new all-time high.

Washington and Beijing remain at odds over trade after President Trump confirmed on Friday that he has approved a 25% tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods -- to which Beijing swiftly responded by vowing to implement equivalent duties on U.S. goods. There weren't any new developments over the weekend.

Most S&P 500 sectors finished Monday in negative territory, with health care (-1.0%), consumer staples (-1.5%), and telecom services (-2.0%) leading the retreat. However, all other declining sectors finished with modest losses of no more than 0.4%.

Within the health care space, Biogen (BIIB 289.12, -15.91) was particularly weak, losing 5.2%, after rival PTC Therapeutics (PTCT 47.88, +10.33) announced positive trial results for its experimental spinal muscular atrophy drug. PTCT shares spiked 27.5%, hitting a fresh three-year high.

The energy sector (+1.1%) was the top-performing group by a wide margin following reports that Friday's OPEC/non-OPEC meeting could end with producers agreeing on a less-than-expected increase in output. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rebounded from a two-month low on Monday, rallying 1.2% to $65.85/bbl.

The top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%) also finished in the green, even though chipmakers underperformed. Semiconductor giant Intel (INTC 53.22, -1.89), for instance, dropped 3.4% after its shares were downgraded to 'Under Perform' from 'Market Perform' at Northland Capital. Tech giants Microsoft (MSFT 100.86, +0.73), Facebook (FB 198.31, +2.46), and Alphabet (GOOG 1173.46, +21.20) rallied, adding between 0.7% and 1.8%.

Elsewhere, media names were in focus once again after CNBC's David Faber reported that Walt Disney (DIS 107.06, -1.79) is planning to add cash to its bid for the bulk of 21st Century Fox's (FOXA 44.56, -0.10) assets. Disney's upped offer is a response to last week's $65 billion all-cash bid from Comcast (CMCSA 32.58, -1.30).

Also of note, GameStop (GME 15.20, +1.24) jumped 8.9% after Reuters reported that the company is holding talks with private equity firms over a potential transaction, and Rent-A-Center (RCII 14.68, +2.65) spiked 22.0% after agreeing to be acquired by Vintage Capital for $15.00 per share in cash.

On the data front, Monday's lone economic report, the NAHB Housing Market Index for June, came in at 68, slightly lower than the Briefing.com consensus of 70.

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Trade Tensions Weigh for Third Straight Session
19-Jun-18 16:25 ET
Dow -287.26 at 24700.21, Nasdaq -21.44 at 7725.60, S&P -11.30 at 2762.33

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/19/trade-tensions-weigh-for-third-straight-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. stocks retreated for a third consecutive session on Tuesday as U.S.-China trade tensions continued to weigh on sentiment. However, also for the third straight session, an intraday rebound made the close look notably better than the open. The S&P 500, for instance, was down 1.1% early on Tuesday, but settled lower by just 0.4%. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq and the Dow ended lower by 0.3% and 1.2%, respectively, while the Russell 2000 outperformed (+0.1%), ticking up to a new all-time high.

President Trump threatened to escalate trade tensions with China even further on Monday evening, asking his administration to identify an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to be penalized with tariffs. The president says this new list of goods will be subject to tariffs of 10% if Beijing follows through on its promise to retaliate against planned U.S. tariffs of 25% on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports. In addition, if Beijing retaliates against the new $200 billion list, Mr. Trump said he will place tariffs on yet another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

The industrial sector, which is viewed as being in the crosshairs of protectionist trade actions, was the worst-performing S&P 500 group on Tuesday with a loss of 2.1%. Meanwhile, chipmakers, which derive a large chunk of their revenue from shipments to China, also underperformed, sending the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lower by 1.2%. The top-weighted technology sector, which houses semiconductor names, settled with a loss of 0.7%, and the materials sector was also a notable laggard, dropping 1.8%.

In general, cyclical sectors underperformed their less-risky, countercyclical peers. For instance, the three aforementioned groups -- industrials, technology, and materials -- are all cyclical spaces, and the health care (+0.2%), consumer staples (+0.5%), utilities (+1.1%), and telecom services (+1.4%) groups, which finished in the green, are all countercyclical.

Within the health care space, Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT 143.93, +38.69) spiked 36.8% after announcing positive trial results for its Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) drug. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 112.04, +1.61) rallied 1.5%, hitting a three-month high.

Elsewhere, Tesla (TSLA 352.55, -18.28) dropped 4.9% after CEO Elon Musk revealed in a company email that a disgruntled employee conducted "extensive and damaging sabotage."

Outside of equities, U.S. Treasuries moved higher in a curve-flattening trade that left the 2-10 spread at its lowest level in more than a decade. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped three basis points to 2.89%, and the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note finished flat at 2.55%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index rallied 0.3% to 94.67, and West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 1.2% to $64.90 per barrel.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to Housing Starts and Building Permits for May:

Housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.350 million units in May (Briefing.com consensus 1.323 million), up from a revised 1.286 million units in April (from 1.287 million).
Building permits declined to a seasonally adjusted 1.301 million in May (Briefing.com consensus 1.343 million) from a revised 1.364 million in April (from 1.352 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that permits -- a leading indicator -- declined for both single-family units (-2.2%) and multi-unit dwellings (-8.8%), suggesting there might not be follow-on strength for badly needed single-family homes in June.

Looking ahead, investors will receive on Wednesday the Existing Home Sales report for May (Briefing.com consensus 5.55 million), the Current Account Balance for the first quarter (Briefing.com consensus -$129.2 billion), and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

Nasdaq Composite +11.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.3% YTD
S&P 500 +3.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1% YTD

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Wall Street Ends Three-Session Skid
20-Jun-18 16:30 ET
Dow -42.41 at 24657.80, Nasdaq +55.93 at 7781.53, S&P +4.73 at 2767.06

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/20/wall-street-ends-threesession-skid.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks ended a three-session skid on Wednesday as a heap of corporate news served to distract investors from escalated U.S.-China trade tensions. The Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 rallied to new record highs, adding around 0.7% apiece, and the S&P 500 ticked up 0.2%. The Dow underperformed though, shedding 0.2%.

Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 68.00, +3.39) will be joining the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 26, taking the spot of General Electric (GE 12.88, -0.07), which was one of the original Dow components and has been a continuous part of the average for more than a century. The decision follows a disastrous 18-month stretch for GE shares, which have dropped around 60% since the end of 2016.

Media names returned to the spotlight on Wednesday after Walt Disney (DIS 107.15, +1.05) increased its offer for 21st Century Fox's (FOXA 48.08, +3.37) entertainment assets. Disney is now offering $35 per share, up from $28 per share and better than last week's offer from Comcast (CMCSA 33.39, +0.58) of $35 per share. Fox shares surged 7.5%.

Elsewhere, Oracle (ORCL 42.82, -3.45) shares dropped 7.5% to a 15-month low after the company's quarterly update provided less insight than usual into its growing cloud business. Meanwhile, shares of Starbucks (SBUX 52.22, -5.21) tumbled 9.1% to a 20-month low after the coffee giant announced it will be scaling back store growth and closing underperforming urban locations.

Most S&P 500 sectors finished in the green, but gains were pretty modest; other than real estate (+1.1%), no group added more than 0.5%. The consumer discretionary (+0.5%) and energy (+0.4%) sectors were the top-performing groups, but the top-weighted technology sector (+0.3%) also had a relatively solid showing. Within the tech space, shares of Facebook (FB 202.00, +4.51) jumped 2.3% to a new all-time high, helped by reports that its photo-sharing subsidiary Instagram has reached 1 billion monthly users.

At the opposite end of the sector standings, the heavily-weighted financial space ended lower by 0.3% even though the 2s-10s spread widened, rebounding from its lowest level in a decade. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note advanced four basis points to 2.93% while the 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.57%. The telecom services sector was the worst-performing group with a loss of 1.0%.

Outside of equities, West Texas Intermediate crude futures rallied on Wednesday, rising 1.3% to $65.71 per barrel, after the Department of Energy reported that U.S. crude stockpiles decreased for the second week in a row, declining by 5.9 million barrels. The U.S. Dollar Index ticked up 0.1% to 94.73.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the Existing Home Sales report for May, the Current Account Balance for the first quarter, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Existing home sales decreased 0.4% in May to an annualized rate of 5.43 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.55 million). The April reading was revised to 5.45 million (from 5.46 million).
The key takeaway from the report remains the same: notable supply constraints continue to act as a drag on overall sales. The limited inventory -- and the high prices on available inventory -- is crimping affordability, particularly for first-time buyers; moreover, all prospective buyers are feeling affordability pressures from rising mortgage rates and home prices rising faster than income.
The current account deficit for the first quarter totaled $124.1 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$129.2 billion). The fourth quarter deficit was revised to $116.1 billion from $128.2 billion.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 5.1% to follow last week's decline of 1.5%.

On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims report (Briefing.com consensus 220K), the Philadelphia Fed Index for June (Briefing.com consensus 27.0), the FHFA Housing Price Index for April, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for May (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%).

Nasdaq Composite +12.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.2% YTD
S&P 500 +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD

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Resuming the Retreat
21-Jun-18 16:20 ET
Dow -196.10 at 24461.70, Nasdaq -68.56 at 7712.97, S&P -17.56 at 2749.50

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/21/resuming-the-retreat.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks dropped for the fourth time in five sessions on Thursday, with energy and industrial shares leading the retreat. The S&P 500 shed 0.6%, extending its weekly loss to 1.1%. The market opened flat, but dropped sharply about 30 minutes into the session. The S&P 500 settled near the bottom of its daily range.

E-commerce names took a hit on Thursday after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can require online retailers to collect sales tax, overturning a 1992 precedent. Shares of eBay (EBAY 38.01, -1.25) and Overstock.com (OSTK 36.15, -2.80) tumbled 3.2% and 7.2%, respectively, while shares of online retail behemoth Amazon (AMZN 1730.22, -19.86) declined 1.1%.

Meanwhile, energy shares in the S&P 500 lost 1.9% as top oil producers kicked off a two-day meeting in Vienna, Austria. The summit is expected to result in an agreement to raise production levels following more than 18 months of a deal designed to reduce output by 1.8 million barrels per day. WTI crude futures were down more than 1.0% in early trading, but ended lower by 0.3% at $65.54/bbl.

In the tech space (-0.8%), chipmakers were in focus following better-than-expected earnings from Micron (MU 59.44, +0.49) and the resignation of Intel's (INTC 52.19, -1.27) chief executive, Brian Krzanich, who is stepping down after violating the company's non-fraternization policy. Micron shares added 0.8%, while Intel shares declined 2.4%.

Elsewhere, shares of Kroger (KR 28.73, +2.55) and Darden Restaurants (DRI 107.06, +13.79) spiked 9.7% and 14.8%, respectively, after the companies beat quarterly earnings estimates. However, shares of German automaker Daimler (DDAIF 67.09, -3.18) lost 4.5% after the company issued a profit warning due to pending Chinese retaliatory tariffs on cars built in the United States.

In the UK, the Bank of England voted in favor of maintaining its key policy rate, but the decision was split with three of the nine policymakers pushing for a rate hike. The degree of disunity surprised some investors and helped increase demand for the pound, which climbed 0.6% against the U.S. dollar to 1.3245.

U.S. Treasuries rallied on Thursday, pushing yields lower across the curve. The benchmark 10-yr yield dropped to 2.90% from 2.93%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial Claims report, the Philadelphia Fed Index for June, the FHFA Housing Price Index for April, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for May:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 218,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 220,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 215,000 (from 218,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.723 million from a revised count of 1.701 million (from 1.697 million).
If one wanted to extrapolate a concern from the initial claims report, it would be the notion that the low level of initial claims will keep the Fed inclined to raise interest rates.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for June declined to 19.9 (Briefing.com consensus 27.0) from an unrevised 34.4 in May.
The key takeaway from the report is that the downturn was led by a sharp pullback in the New Orders Index, which dropped to 17.9 from 40.6, and that the Unfilled Orders Index dropped to -2.7 (first negative reading since January) from 15.3, suggesting firms' backlog diminished.
The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.1% in April, and the March increase was revised to 0.2% from 0.1%.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.2% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), and the April increase was left unrevised at 0.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strength among the leading indicators remains very widespread.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +11.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.0% YTD
S&P 500 +2.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.0% YTD

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Down Week Ends on High Note
22-Jun-18 16:25 ET
Dow +119.19 at 24580.89, Nasdaq -20.13 at 7692.84, S&P +5.12 at 2754.62

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/22/down-week-ends-on-high-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 ended the week on a positive note by advancing 0.2% on Friday. Energy shares led the broad-based rally thanks to a spike in oil prices, which surged to a four-week high as OPEC wrapped up its latest summit in Vienna. However, financials, technology, and consumer discretionary stocks lagged, keeping gains in check. For the week, the S&P 500 lost 0.9%.

Friday's session was range-bound to say the least. The S&P 500 held a gain between 0.2% and 0.5% throughout the entire session, sticking to a 12-point range. Trading volume was extremely high due to the annual re-balancing of the Russell 1000 and Russell 2000 indices. Roughly 2.2 million shares changed hands at the New York Stock Exchange.

The OPEC summit was the biggest event of the day, as it ended on a somewhat unexpected note. Following a contentious two-day meeting, the oil-producing countries agreed to increase total output by roughly 600,000 barrels per day -- far less than the top end of estimates, which were calling for an increase of up to 1.5 million barrels per day.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures rallied 4.5% to $68.59 per barrel in reaction, helping the energy sector (+2.2%) finish unchallenged atop the sector standings; the next best-performing group -- materials -- added 1.4%. In total, eight of the eleven sectors finished in the green, with financials (-0.5%), technology (-0.4%), and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) being the three laggards. Unfortunately for the bulls, those three groups are heavily-weighted, representing around 50% of the broader market combined.

The financials and consumer discretionary sectors were holding up alright until the afternoon when they dropped to fresh session lows, while technology was weak throughout the session. Within the tech space, software company Red Hat (RHT 142.14, -23.59) tumbled 14.2% after disappointing guidance for its fiscal second quarter overshadowed its better-than-expected Q1 results.

In Washington, President Trump announced a new tariff threat via Twitter on Friday, vowing to slap a 20% tariff on automobiles produced in EU countries if the European Union fails to remove duties on imports of U.S. autos. The U.S. stock market dropped to new lows following the tweet, but didn't stay there for long.

U.S. Treasuries finished Friday on a flattish note, although shorter-dated issues showed relative weakness. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished unchanged at 2.90%, while the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note climbed two basis points to 2.55%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.4%, slipping from an 11-month high.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +11.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.8% YTD
S&P 500 +3.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.6% YTD

Week In Review: Trade Tensions Weigh

Stocks fell this week as trade tensions helped to keep buyers at bay. The benchmark S&P 500 index ended the week lower by 0.9%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.7%, but did notch a new all-time high on Wednesday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 2.0%.

At the start of the week, investors were still weighing the prospect of a trade war between the U.S. and China after President Trump confirmed last Friday that he has approved a 25% tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods. Beijing responded swiftly to that news, vowing to implement equivalent duties on U.S. goods.

The story added a new chapter on Monday evening when President Trump asked his administration to identify an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese goods that he says will be hit with a 10% tariff should China follow through on its promise to retaliate. In addition, if China retaliates against the new $200 billion list, Mr. Trump said he will place tariffs on yet another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

The industrial sector, which is viewed as being in the crosshairs of protectionist trade actions, was the worst-performing S&P 500 group this week, losing 3.4%. Similarly, chipmakers, which derive a large chunk of their revenue from shipments to China, were also under pressure, sending the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lower by 3.6%.

President Trump issued another tariff threat on Friday, this time targeting the European Union. The president said the U.S. will be imposing a 20% tariff on all automobiles imported from EU countries if the EU fails to remove duties on imports of U.S. automobiles. On a related note, as of Friday, the European Union has officially implemented tariffs on $3.2 billion worth of U.S. goods in retaliation to U.S. tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum that went into effect earlier this month.

Elsewhere, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) met in Vienna this week to discuss easing production caps that have been in place for more than 18 months. The meeting was reportedly contentious, but the countries eventually agreed to boost oil output by a less-than-expected 600,000 barrels per day. WTI crude futures rallied to a four-week high on Friday following the news, and the energy sector reclaimed losses registered earlier in the week, finishing with a weekly gain of 1.5%.

In U.S. corporate news, Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) will be joining the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 26, taking the spot of General Electric (GE), which was one of the original Dow components and has been a continuous part of the average for more than a century. The decision follows a disastrous 18-month stretch for GE shares, which have dropped around 60% since the end of 2016.

Separately, media names returned to the spotlight on Wednesday when Walt Disney (DIS) increased its offer for 21st Century Fox's (FOXA) entertainment assets. Disney is now offering $38 per share, up from its previous offer of $28 per share and better than last week's offer from Comcast (CMCSA) of $35 per share.

E-commerce companies, including Amazon (AMZN), eBay (EBAY), Wayfair (W), Overstock.com (OSTK), and Etsy (ETSY), sold off on Thursday after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can require online retailers to collect sales tax, overturning a 1992 precedent.

Also of note, Intel's (INTC) chief executive, Brian Krzanich, resigned after breaking the company's non-fraternization policy, Oracle (ORCL) shares dropped to a 15-month low after the company's quarterly update provided less insight than usual into its growing cloud business, and Starbucks (SBUX) shares hit a three-year low after the company announced it will be scaling back store growth.

U.S. Treasuries ended the week on a modestly higher note, pushing the benchmark 10-yr yield lower by two basis points to 2.90%.

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Another Trade-Induced Sell Off
25-Jun-18 16:30 ET
Dow -328.09 at 24252.80, Nasdaq -160.81 at 7532.03, S&P -37.81 at 2716.81

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/25/another-tradeinduced-sell-off.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks got hit pretty hard on Monday amid escalated fears that the U.S. and China are headed towards a full-blown trade war. Losses were broad-based, with declining issues outnumbering advancing issues 3 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange. However, the market did settle notably above session lows thanks to some late comments from the White House.

The S&P 500 lost 1.4%, but did manage to close a tick above its 50-day moving average despite spending most of the session below the key technical level. The Dow, meanwhile, lost 1.3% and suffered some technical damage, closing below its 200-day moving average for the first time in two years. The Nasdaq was particularly weak, losing 2.1%, as tech shares struggled, and the Russell 2000 lost 1.7%.

Trade war fears were escalated after a weekend report from The Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration is looking to bar Chinese companies from investing in U.S. technology firms. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refuted the report in a tweet on Monday morning, saying the administration is targeting all countries attempting to "steal our technology", not just China.

Then things got a little confusing.

Peter Navarro, President Trump's top trade adviser, made a late-day appearance on CNBC, saying the sell off was a "very large overreaction" and insisting that the White House has no plans to impose investment restrictions. Mr. Navarro's comments boosted the market, cutting the S&P 500's loss from 2.0% at its session low to 1.2% at its afternoon high.

Nine of eleven S&P sectors finished Monday in negative territory, with growth-sensitive groups being the weakest performers. The top-weighted technology sector (-2.3%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings. Chipmakers were particularly weak, evidenced by a 3.1% drop in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, and the tech-heavy FAANG names really struggled; Facebook (FB 196.35, -5.39), Apple (AAPL 182.17, -2.75), Amazon (AMZN 1663.15, -52.52), Alphabet (GOOG 1124.81, -30.67), and Netflix (NFLX 384.48, -26.61) lost between 1.5% and 6.5%.

Elsewhere, Harley-Davidson (HOG 41.57, -2.64) tumbled 6.0% after announcing it won't raise prices to cover the cost of the EU's reciprocal tariffs; instead, it'll work to shift production to international facilities. Carnival (CCL 58.54, -4.99) was also a notable laggard, losing 7.9%, after disappointing guidance outweighed upbeat quarterly results.

On a positive note, the countercyclical consumer staples (+0.4%) and utilities (+1.7%) sectors closed Monday in the green. Within the consumer staples space, Campbell Soup (CPB 42.23, +3.63) surged 9.4% and Kraft Heinz (KHC 63.32, +0.11) added 0.2% following a NY Post report that Kraft might be interested in acquiring the soup maker.

U.S. Treasuries rose amid the flight to safety, sending yields lower across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped two basis points to 2.88%. Meanwhile, the CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as the "investor fear gauge", spiked 28.8%, hitting its highest level since late April.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the New Home Sales report for May:

New Home Sales in May hit an annualized rate of 689,000, which is above the Briefing.com consensus of 666,000. The April reading was revised to 646,000 (from 662,000).
The key takeaway from the report is that there wasn't any growth in new home sales outside the South region. That is the largest region for new home sales, though, and where there is a concentration of lower-priced housing markets, which helps explain the year-over-year drop in median and average selling prices.

On Tuesday, investors will receive the Case-Shiller 20-City Index for April and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for June.

Nasdaq Composite +9.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.9% YTD

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Energy Leads Modest Rebound
26-Jun-18 16:30 ET
Dow +30.31 at 24283.11, Nasdaq +29.62 at 7561.65, S&P +5.99 at 2722.80

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/26/energy-leads-modest-rebound.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rebounded modestly on Tuesday -- reclaiming less than a fifth of their Monday losses -- with energy shares leading the way, helped by a spike in oil prices. The S&P 500 ended higher by 0.2% after finding early support at its 50-day moving average. Small caps outperformed, pushing the Russell 2000 up 0.7%.

Late Monday comments from President Trump's top trade adviser Peter Navarro, who said the White House is not planning to restrict foreign investment as part of its trade actions against China or any other country, continued to be analyzed on Tuesday in the absence of any new developments in the ongoing U.S.-China trade feud.

The energy sector finished atop the S&P 500 sector standings with a gain of 1.4%. News that the U.S. State Department will start imposing powerful sanctions on companies that buy Iranian crude oil past the end of October prompted a crude oil rally -- which, in turn, sent energy stocks higher. WTI crude futures advanced 3.5% to $70.45 per barrel, hitting their highest level in five weeks.

Cyclical sectors, including energy (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+0.7%), and information technology (+0.5%), finished mostly in the green, with financials (-0.4%) being an exception. Like financials, the countercyclical health care (-0.3%), telecom services (-0.4%), and consumer staples (-0.5%) spaces posted modest declines.

In corporate news, General Electric (GE 13.74, +0.99) spiked 7.8% after announcing plans to spin off its health care business and plans to sell its 62.5% stake in oil and gas company Baker Hughes (BHGE 33.13, +0.69). Also, GE was officially booted from the Dow on Tuesday, replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 66.57, -0.67).

Separately, homebuilder Lennar (LEN 51.61, +2.39) advanced 4.9% after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results, but Harley-Davidson (HOG 41.32, -0.25) slid 0.6% after a series of tweets from President Trump, who criticized the company's decision to move some of its operations overseas due to retaliatory EU tariffs.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for June and the Case-Shiller 20-City Index for April:

The consumer confidence reading for June decreased to 126.4 (Briefing.com consensus 127.1) from the prior month's revised reading of 128.8 (from 128.0).
The key takeaway from the report is that the downturn was driven by a downshift in the Expectations Index, which suggests, according to the Conference Board, that consumers don't anticipate the economy gaining much momentum in the coming months.
The Case-Shiller 20-City Index increased 6.6% in April (Briefing.com consensus +6.8%), and the March increase was revised to 6.7% from 6.8%.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the Durable Goods Orders report for May, the advance readings for May Wholesale Inventories and International Trade in Goods, the Pending Home Sales report for May, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

Nasdaq Composite +9.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.7% YTD
S&P 500 +1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.8% YTD

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Good Start, Bad Finish
27-Jun-18 16:20 ET
Dow -165.52 at 24117.59, Nasdaq -116.54 at 7445.11, S&P -23.43 at 2699.37

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/27/good-start-bad-finish.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks ended Wednesday's session on a solidly lower note, despite getting off to a good start. The S&P 500 was up as much as 0.9%, but finished lower by 0.9%, closing below its 50-day moving average for the first time in seven weeks. The Dow declined 0.7%, and the Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 lost 1.5%-1.7% apiece.

Investors were in an upbeat mood at the opening bell following news that the White House will defer regulating foreign investment in U.S. technology firms to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). That decision was seen as a less-aggressive alternative to reports earlier this week that the Trump administration would like to directly bar foreign investment in U.S. tech firms.

However, the bullish vibe soon petered out. There wasn't a news catalyst behind the shift in sentiment; rather, underwhelming performances from the information technology and financial sectors helped to turn the tide. The two spaces eventually finished at the bottom of the sector standings, losing 1.3%-1.5% apiece.

That marks the 13th straight loss for the heavily-weighted financial space, which has been suffering amid a flattening of the yield curve. The 2s10s spread declined by another three basis points on Wednesday, dropping to 32 bps -- its lowest level in more than a decade. The benchmark 10-yr yield tumbled five basis points to 2.83%.

As for the top-weighted tech space, its weak performance was likely the result of some end-of-quarter churn as managers look to re-balance their portfolios. Even with Wednesday's drop, the tech space has had an impressive quarter, rallying 5.6% -- much better than the S&P 500's three-month gain of 2.2%.

On the flip side, the energy sector was the top-performing space for the second day in a row, adding 1.3%, thanks to another crude rally. WTI crude futures soared 3.1% to $72.69/bbl, hitting a fresh three-and-a-half year high, after the weekly government inventory data showed a larger-than-expected draw of 9.9 million barrels.

In corporate news, shares of ConAgra Brands (CAG 35.45, -2.78) tumbled 7.3% after the company announced it will be acquiring Pinnacle Foods (PF 64.95, -2.91) for approximately $8 billion in cash and stock. Shares of Pinnacle Foods lost 4.3%.

Meanwhile, shares of 21st Century Fox (FOXA 48.80, +1.12) rallied 2.4% after Walt Disney (DIS 103.96, -0.30) won DOJ approval to buy most of Fox's assets for $71.3 billion. The deal is subject to the condition that Disney sells 22 regional sports networks.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Dollar Index soared 0.7% on Wednesday to 95.02, hitting a fresh 11-month high.

It's also worth noting that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement on Wednesday, effective July 31. Although he identifies as a conservative, Mr. Kennedy is considered a swing vote as he often sides with his liberal colleagues. His retirement gives President Trump the chance to strengthen the court's conservative majority.

Reviewing today's economic data, which included the Durable Goods Orders report for May, the advance readings for May Wholesale Inventories and International Trade in Goods, the Pending Home Sales report for May, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

May durable goods orders fell 0.6%, which is less than the 1.0% decrease expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to -1.0% (from -1.7%). Excluding transportation, durable orders decreased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) to follow the prior month's revised increase of 1.9% (from 0.9%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the downturn in May appeared to be a simple pullback from a robust month of order activity, excluding transportation, in April. To wit, orders for fabricated metal products fell 1.2% after increasing 3.3% in April.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for May showed a deficit of $64.8 billion, and the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for May showed an increase of 0.5%.
Pending Home Sales decreased 0.5% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.8%). The May reading follows an unrevised 1.3% decrease in April.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index declined 4.9% to follow last week's rise of 5.1%.

On Thursday, investors will receive the third estimate for first quarter GDP and the weekly Initial Claims report.

Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.8% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.4% YTD

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Trimming Weekly Losses
28-Jun-18 16:25 ET
Dow +98.46 at 24216.05, Nasdaq +58.60 at 7503.71, S&P +16.68 at 2716.05

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/28/trimming-weekly-losses.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rebounded on Thursday, reclaiming around a third of their weekly losses. The S&P 500 advanced 0.6%, but some late selling left it just a tick below its 50-day moving average. The Nasdaq did a little better, adding 0.8%, while the Dow and the Russell 2000 underperformed, climbing 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively.

There wasn't much going on at the macro level on Thursday, but there were plenty of corporate headlines.

Amazon (AMZN 1701.45, +40.94) received perhaps the most attention after announcing a deal to acquire online pharmacy start-up PillPack. CVS Health (CVS 65.78, -4.27) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 59.70, -6.56) tumbled 6.1% and 9.9%, respectively, in response to the news.

Package delivery giants FedEx (FDX 226.67, -3.08) and UPS (UPS 105.88, -2.50) also fell on Amazon-related news, dropping 1.3% and 2.3%, respectively, after the internet retail giant announced it is inviting entrepreneurs to form small companies to carry packages over the last leg of the delivery journey.

Elsewhere, Chipotle (CMG 428.36, -28.88) tumbled 6.3% after CEO Brian Niccol failed to provide future growth plan details in a conference call to investors, Starbucks (SBUX 48.54, -1.30) declined 2.6% after CFO Scott Maw announced his retirement (effective November 30), and tech consulting firm Accenture (ACN 164.50, +9.16)rallied 5.9% afterreporting above-consensus earnings and revenues for its fiscal third quarter and raising its profit guidance for FY18.

Nine of eleven S&P 500 sectors finished Thursday in positive territory, with energy (-0.1%) and utilities (unch) being the outliers. After leading Wednesday's sell off, the top-weighted technology (+1.1%) and financials (+0.9%) sectors were among the top-performing groups on Thursday, providing an extra boost to sentiment.

Away from equities, WTI crude futures hit $74.00/bbl for the first time since November 2014 before falling back to $73.37/bbl; still, that's a daily gain of 0.9%. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasuries finished modestly lower, leaving yields in the green. The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed to 2.85% from 2.83%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the third estimate of first quarter GDP and the weekly Initial Claims report:

The third estimate of first quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 2.0% (Briefing.com consensus 2.2%). The second estimate came in at 2.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that personal spending was weak in the first quarter, yet the relevant takeaway today is that this is a dated number and a pickup in personal spending is a key reason why many Q2 GDP forecasts have a four-handle on them.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 227,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 220,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 218,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.705 million from a revised count of 1.726 million (from 1.723 million).

Looking ahead to Friday, investors will receive Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices for May at 8:30 AM ET, the Chicago PMI for June at 9:45 AM ET, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.1% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.0% YTD

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Disappointing Finish
29-Jun-18 16:30 ET
Dow +55.36 at 24271.41, Nasdaq +6.62 at 7510.33, S&P +2.06 at 2718.11

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/29/disappointing-finish.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks got off to a good start on Friday, but gave back nearly everything during the final hour of trading. The S&P 500 was up 1.0% at its best mark of the day, but ended with a gain of just 0.1%, closing a tick above its 50-day moving average. The Nasdaq also added 0.1%. The Dow climbed 0.2%.

Financials led the market higher out of the gate after the Fed cleared most big banks to increase their dividends and share buybacks. However, the heavily-weighted sector faded as the day went along, entirely retracing a gain of 1.8%, and ended lower by 0.1%.

Despite the disappointing finish, eight of eleven sectors closed Friday in the green. Energy (+0.7%) was the top-performing space as crude prices climbed for a fourth straight session. WTI crude futures advanced 1.0% to $74.12 per barrel, hitting a new three-and-a-half year high and locking in a weekly gain of 8.1%.

In corporate news, Nike (NKE 79.68, +7.98) spiked 11.1%, hitting a new all-time high, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues and announcing a $15 billion share repurchase program. Conversely, General Motors (GM 39.40, -1.12) struggled, losing 2.8%, after warning President Trump that the proposed tariffs on imported vehicles could lead to "a smaller GM". It's worth noting that selling in the broader market started picking up around the same time that GM made the announcement, although it's unlikely that it was the sole cause as financials led the reversal.

In politics, Fox News correspondent Maria Bartiromo reported that President Trump is working on a phase two of his tax plan and is considering cutting the corporate tax rate to 20% from 21%. Separately, European Union leaders reached a deal on a migration, which has been an especially contentious issue since the Syrian refugee crisis.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices for May, the Chicago PMI for June, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June:

Personal income climbed 0.4% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following a revised increase of 0.2% in April (from 0.3%). Meanwhile, personal spending rose 0.2% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following a revised increase of 0.5% in April (from 0.6%). The PCE Price Index rose 0.2% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 2.0%, up from 1.8% in the last reading.
The key takeaway from the report is twofold: (1) Real PCE was flat, which is likely to prompt some downward revisions to Q2 GDP forecasts and (2) the price indexes are moving in the direction anticipated by the Fed, which means the Fed is also likely to keep moving the fed funds rate higher as anticipated.
The Chicago PMI for June hit 64.1 (Briefing.com consensus 61.0), up from an unrevised 62.7 in May.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturers are experiencing a slowdown in production activity on account of longer supplier lead times that have been impacted by elevated input prices.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June slipped to 98.2 (Briefing.com consensus 99.0) from 99.3 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that the downshift from the preliminary reading was driven primarily by tariff concerns, yet favorable assessments of jobs and incomes were a mitigating influence that left the overall index little changed from the prior month.

Looking ahead to Monday, investors will receive the June ISM Manufacturing Index and the May Construction Spending report.

Nasdaq Composite +8.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.8% YTD

Week In Review: Trade Tensions Strike Again

U.S. equities declined for the second week in a row as investors continued to focus on U.S.-China trade tensions. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.3% apiece, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slid 2.4%. Small caps were hit especially hard, sending the Russell 2000 lower by 2.5%.

Trade war fears weighed at the start of the week due to reports that the White House is looking to bar Chinese companies from investing in U.S. tech firms. The Trump administration first responded to the reports with a mixed message; Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the White House is targeting all countries, not just China, while President Trump's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, said the administration doesn't have any plans to impose investment restrictions, regardless of country.

However, the administration eventually cleared things up, deciding to defer foreign investment regulation to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). That decision was seen as a positive alternative to direct White House intervention and helped the equity market rebound in the second half of the week.

Separately, the U.S. State Department threatened to impose powerful sanctions on countries that don't cut oil imports from Iran to "zero" by November 4. That headline, paired with a larger-than-expected draw in U.S. crude inventories (9.9 million barrels), pushed crude prices back to a three-and-a-half year high. WTI crude futures added 8.1% for the week, closing at $74.12 per barrel.

Also out of Washington, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, effective July 31. Although he identifies as a conservative, Mr. Kennedy has often sided with his liberal colleagues. His retirement gives President Trump the chance to strengthen the court's conservative majority.

In corporate news, Amazon (AMZN) made headlines after announcing a deal to acquire online pharmacy start-up PillPack. That news sent shares of drug distributors like CVS Health (CVS) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) solidly lower. Amazon also announced it is inviting entrepreneurs to form small companies to carry packages over the last leg of the delivery journey.

Elsewhere, General Electric (GE) announced plans to spin off its health care business and to sell its 62.5% stake in oil and gas company Baker Hughes (BHGE); Walt Disney (DIS) won DOJ approval to buy most of Fox's assets for $71.3 billion, subject to the condition that Disney sells 22 regional sports networks; and Nike (NKE) spiked to a new record on Friday after beating both top and bottom line estimates and announcing a new $15 billion share repurchase program.

As for this week's S&P sector standings, utilities (+2.3%), telecom services (+1.2%), real estate (+1.1%), and energy (+1.0%) were the top-performing groups, while the heavily-weighted technology (-2.2%), financials (-1.9%), consumer discretionary (-1.9%), and health care (-1.8%) sectors finished at the back of the pack.

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Late Rally Leaves Stocks in the Green
02-Jul-18 16:30 ET
Dow +35.77 at 24307.18, Nasdaq +57.38 at 7567.71, S&P +8.34 at 2726.45

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/2/late-rally-leaves-stocks-in-the-green.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] A tech-charged afternoon rally saved the U.S. equity market from kicking off the abbreviated Fourth of July week on a lower note. The S&P 500 advanced 0.3%, closing at its best mark of the day and about eight points above its 50-day moving average. The Dow added 0.2%, the Nasdaq jumped 0.8%, and the Russell 2000 climbed 0.7%.

Trade tensions were heightened on Monday morning after President Trump said over the weekend that he will not back down on China tariffs. Separately, the European Union warned that it would impose tariffs on nearly $300 billion worth of American goods if the U.S. follows through with duties on EU automobiles. Mr. Trump said U.S. and EU officials will be meeting fairly soon to try to "work something out."

On Wall Street, the trade war rhetoric led stocks lower at the opening bell; the S&P 500 was down as much as 0.7%. However, the market started retracing some losses soon thereafter, and then the top-weighted technology sector led a full-fledged rebound in the afternoon.

The tech space -- which represents a quarter of the broader market -- finished atop Monday's sector standings with a gain of 1.0%. Tech giants like Apple (AAPL 187.18, +2.07), Microsoft (MSFT 100.01, +1.40), Facebook (FB 197.36, +3.04), and Alphabet (GOOG 1127.46, +11.81) added between 1.1% and 1.6%.

In total, seven of eleven sectors finished in the green. The utilities space (+0.8%) closed right behind technology, and the heavily-weighted financial group (+0.7%) also had a strong outing. On the flip side, the energy sector (-1.6%) finished at the bottom of the leaderboard, with consumer staples (-0.5%) being the next-worst performer.

The energy sector's decline came amid a modest sell off in the crude oil futures market, which was under pressure after President Trump said he's struck a deal with Saudi Arabia to increase output by up to two million barrels per day. WTI crude futures ended lower by 0.3% at $73.94 per barrel.

In corporate news, Tesla (TSLA 355.07, -7.88) got off to a good start, adding as much as 6.4%, after CEO Elon Musk said the electric automaker hit its long-elusive production target of 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week in the last seven days of the second quarter, but shares quickly reversed course, eventually ending lower by 2.3%.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries slipped on Monday, pushing yields higher across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed to 2.87% from 2.85%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index rallied 0.5% to 94.70, and the CBOE Volatility Index was up as much as 23.2%, but finished lower by 2.1% at 15.76.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the ISM Manufacturing Index for June and the Construction Spending report for May:

The ISM Index for June increased to 60.2 from an unrevised reading of 58.7 in May, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 58.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects continued strength in the manufacturing sector with the Prices Index sitting just below its best level in more than seven years.
Construction Spending rose 0.4% in May, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.6%. The April reading was revised to +0.9% from +1.8%.
The key takeaway from the report is that, combined with the downward revision for April, construction spending will make a smaller contribution to Q2 GDP forecasts than what was originally expected.

Looking ahead, Tuesday's trading session will end early (1:00 PM ET), and markets will be closed on Wednesday for the Fourth of July.

Nasdaq Composite +9.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.8% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.7% YTD

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Disappointing Finish
03-Jul-18 13:30 ET
Dow -132.36 at 24174.82, Nasdaq -65.01 at 7502.70, S&P -13.49 at 2712.96

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/3/disappointing-finish.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The market ended an abbreviated Tuesday session on a disappointing note, falling victim to a late tech-led sell off. The S&P 500 ended lower by 0.5%, closing near its worst mark of the day and dropping about six points below its 50-day moving average. The Dow (-0.5%) and the Nasdaq (-0.9%) also slid, but the small-cap Russell 2000 added 0.3%.

Stocks opened Tuesday's session mostly higher, but the underperformance of the top-weighted technology (-1.4%) and financials (-1.1%) sectors -- which represent around 40% of the broader market combined -- kept the major averages in check.

Eventually those two sectors -- in addition to other cyclical groups like consumer discretionary (-0.6%), industrials (-0.4%), and materials (-0.3%) -- broke into a full-fledged retreat, overpowering gains from most countercyclical groups. Telecom services was the top-performing sector with a gain of 1.2%.

A Chinese court ruling that temporarily banned Micron (MU 51.48, -3.00) chip sales helped fuel a final leg of selling late in the session, further stoking fears of a trade war between the world's two largest economies. Micron shares lost 5.5%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index finished lower by 1.8%.

Late losses were also likely fueled by a desire to limit risk exposure ahead of the Fourth of July holiday break; U.S. markets will reopen on Thursday.

In other corporate news, shares of Tesla (TSLA 310.86, -24.21) tumbled 7.2% on Tuesday following a Business Insider report that CEO Elon Musk ordered engineers to stop putting nearly finished Model 3s through a critical "brake and roll" test in an effort to achieve the company's long-elusive production target of 5,000 Model 3s per week. Separately, Facebook (FB 192.79, -4.57) shares lost 2.3% after The Washington Post reported that a federal investigation into the company's data breach with Cambridge Analytica has expanded.

Away from stocks, WTI crude futures had a volatile session, trading between -1.6% and +1.8%, before closing flat at $73.94 per barrel. News of supply disruptions in Libya and Canada helped fuel early gains, which were then rolled back following a subsequent report that Saudi Arabia is ready to use its spare capacity to maintain stability in the oil market.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries rallied on Tuesday, pushing yields lower across the curve; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped to 2.83% from 2.87%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 94.41, and the CBOE Volatility Index jumped 4.9% to 16.37.

Tuesday's economic data was limited to Factory Orders for May:

The Factory Orders report for May showed an increase of 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%). The April reading was revised to -0.4% from -0.8%.
The key takeaway from the report is that shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft were higher than what was seen in the Advance Durable Goods Orders Report for May. That improvement, though, was offset to large extent by a downward revision to April, so it shouldn't move the needle that much in terms of Q2 GDP growth prospects.

U.S. markets will be closed on Wednesday in celebration of the Fourth of July.

Nasdaq Composite +8.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.1% YTD
S&P 500 +1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.2% YTD

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Post-Fourth of July Fireworks for the Bulls
05-Jul-18 16:15 ET
Dow +181.92 at 24356.74, Nasdaq +83.75 at 7586.45, S&P +23.39 at 2736.35

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/5/postfourth-of-july-fireworks-for-the-bulls.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market took back on Thursday what it lost on Tuesday, and then some, in what has become a virtual seesaw of activity surrounding trade headlines -- real, perceived, or otherwise.

Today, the bulls won out, capitalizing on thin trading conditions, robust leadership from the S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.5%), and opportunistic reports that U.S. and EU officials may be deliberating over the possibility of eliminating all tariffs on auto imports to the EU and U.S.

It wasn't just a case of the information technology sector carrying the day, however. The gains were broad based and featured advances by 10 of 11 economic sectors. Solid gains were also registered by the consumer staples (+1.5%), health care (+1.1%), materials (+1.0%), and real estate (+1.4%) sectors.

The lone laggard was the energy sector (-0.2%), which fell in conjunction with oil prices ($73.04, -$1.28, -1.7%) after a bearish weekly inventory report. The energy sector's loss barely registered, however, as sellers lacked conviction overall in the post-Fourth of July trade.

Volume was on the light side, which was to be expected as many market participants remained on vacation -- or at least away from the stock market.

The participants who were involved today showed an affinity for the semiconductor stocks, which rallied around Micron (MU 52.84, +1.36, +2.6%) affirming its fiscal fourth quarter revenue outlook and some bargain-hunting activity following a rough patch for industry components over the last month.

The relative strength of the semiconductor stocks drove the outperformance of the information technology sector along with a cohort of familiar mega-cap names that included Apple (AAPL 185.40, +1.48, +0.8%), Facebook (FB 198.45, +5.72, +3.0%), and Alphabet (GOOG 1124.27, +21.38, +1.9%). The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surged 2.7%.

By and large, the market seemed impervious to the understanding that the U.S. is poised to levy tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods, effective at midnight tonight, and that China is set to retaliate in kind with tariffs on a comparable amount of U.S. goods.

The insouciant trading behavior was viewed as a tacit sign that this tariff action has been priced in already and that the market still expects a full-fledged trade war to be avoided.

That perception could shift on the "next headline," but on Thursday the market traded on positive thoughts and not negative ones.

To that end, the FOMC Minutes for the June meeting were released at 2:00 p.m. ET. There weren't any notable surprises in the text, which is why there wasn't much reaction overall in the market to their release.

One passage that caught some added attention was an acknowledgement that contacts in many districts were concerned about the possible adverse effects of tariffs and other proposed trade restrictions and that contacts in some districts scaled back, or postponed, capital spending plans as a result of the uncertainty over trade policy.

Following a brief hiccup after the release of the Minutes, the major indices would all go on to reach new highs for the session, which were just a smidgen above today's closing prices.

Today's economic calendar featured four releases:

The MBA Mortgage Applications Index for the week ending June 30 (actual -0.5%; Prior -4.9%)
The ADP Employment Change Report for June (Actual 177,000; Briefing.com consensus 180,000; Prior revised to 189,000 from 178,000)
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects difficulty for employers in finding qualified workers
The Initial Claims Report for the week ending June 30 (Actual 231,000; Briefing.com consensus 225,000; Prior revised to 228,000 from 227,000)
The key takeaway from this report is that there are no alarm bells ringing in it. The initial claims and continuing jobless claims levels continue to be low and encouraging, which is why the market keeps hitting the snooze button upon its release.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI for June (Actual 59.1; Briefing.com consensus 58.3; Prior 58.6)
The key takeaway from the report is that it matched an uptick in the ISM Manufacturing Index for June, suggesting there was an acceleration in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing activity. That will help substantiate the belief that second quarter GDP growth is poised to pick up noticeably from the first quarter.

Friday's economic calendar will feature the Employment Situation Report for June and the Trade Balance Report for May.

Nasdaq Composite +9.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.2% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.4% YTD

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Market Trades Trade Concerns for Labor Market Relief
06-Jul-18 16:15 ET
Dow +99.74 at 24456.48, Nasdaq +101.96 at 7688.41, S&P +23.21 at 2759.56

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/6/market-trades-trade-concerns-for-labor-market-relief.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Apparently, a trade war started on Friday -- or so it was said -- yet the stock market acted as if there was a daisy stuck in the barrel of every trade threat. For the second day in a row, the stock market ignored the trade conflict between the U.S. and China (and other countries for that matter) and rallied around a pleasing employment report for June.

It was clear to see in the futures market this morning how the employment report was the inflection point for a shift in trading sentiment. Prior to its release at 8:30 a.m. ET, the S&P futures were down as many as seven points and signalling a modestly lower start for the broader market.

Following the release, they turned positive, and although the open to today's session was a bit tentative, the bulls soon took command of today's tape, ceding some ground only in a profit-taking retreat in the last 30 minutes of trading.

The catalyst for the upside bias was the recognition that the June employment report had a familiar Goldilocks hue to it. Specifically, it featured solid nonfarm payrolls growth (+213,000) and a subdued 2.7% year-over-year gain in average hourly earnings that kept inflation worries, and aggressive rate-hike worries, at bay.

The stock market wasn't the only beneficiary of that fairy-tale theme. The Treasury market also enjoyed the not-too-hot-not-too-cold narrative.

The 2-yr note yield, which is more sensitive to changes in the fed funds rate, fell three basis points to 2.53% while the 10-yr note yield, which is more sensitive to inflation, slipped one basis point to 2.83%.

Within the stock market, every sector was a winner.

Gains ranged from 0.3% (consumer staples) to 1.4% (health care). The latter was helped by a huge gain in Biogen (BIIB 357.48, +58.67, +19.6%), which surged after announcing encouraging, and surprising, Phase II trial results for its Alzheimer's drug.

A 1.2% increase in the information technology sector, which flowed from the outperformance of Apple (AAPL 187.97, +2.57, +1.4%), Facebook (FB 203.23, +4.78, +2.4%), Alphabet (GOOG 1140.17, +15.90, +1.4%), and Microsoft (MSFT 101.16, +1.40, +1.4%), solidified the upside bias and drove the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%).

Trade matters were talked about widely. The U.S. and China both pressed ahead with tariffs on $34 billion worth of imported goods from each country, which was not a surprise, and President Trump suggested it's possible tariffs on more than $500 billion of Chinese goods could be levied over time if necessary.

The latter was a surprise, but judging by the stock market's performance, it was not unnerved by the remark.

Taking a closer look at today's economic data:

June nonfarm payrolls increased by 213,000 (Briefing.com consensus 195,000). Over the past three months, job gains have averaged 211,000 per month.
June private sector payrolls increased by 202,000 (Briefing.com consensus 192,000).
June unemployment rate was 4.0% (Briefing.com consensus 3.8%) versus 3.8% in May
June average hourly earnings were up 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), after increasing 0.3% in May. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 2.7%, versus 2.7% for the 12 months ending in May.
The average workweek in June was 34.5 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.5) versus 34.5 hours in May June manufacturing workweek increased 0.1 hours to 40.9 hours Factory overtime increased 0.1 hours to 3.5 hours
The labor force participation rate was 62.9% in June, versus 62.7% in May
The key takeaway is that the data in aggregate were strong enough to excite the masses about the economic expansion continuing, but not so strong as to ignite any mass hysteria about inflation taking off and the Federal Reserve needing to clamp down fast and hard to contain it.
The trade deficit narrowed to $43.1 billion in May (Briefing.com consensus -$43.6 billion) from $46.1 billion in April, with exports increasing $4.1 billion more than April exports and imports increasing $1.1 billion more than April imports.
The key takeaway from the report is that net exports will be accounted for a positive component in Q2 GDP forecasts, as the second quarter average real trade deficit is 7.4% less than the first quarter average.

Monday's economic calendar will feature the Consumer Credit report (Briefing.com consensus $12.4 billion) for May.

Nasdaq Composite +11.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.3% YTD
S&P 500 +3.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.1% YTD

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Financials Pace Third Straight Advance
09-Jul-18 16:25 ET
Dow +320.11 at 24776.59, Nasdaq +67.81 at 7756.22, S&P +24.35 at 2783.91

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/9/financials-pace-third-straight-advance.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied for a third consecutive session on Monday as investors shelved their trade war fears and set their sights on the Q2 earnings season, which will unofficially kick off on Friday. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq advanced 0.9% apiece, and the Dow added 1.3%, climbing back into positive territory for the year (+0.2% YTD). The market started in the green and climbed steadily throughout the session.

Growth-sensitive sectors were the top-performing groups on Monday, underlining a risk-on attitude from market participants. Financials (+2.3%), industrials (+1.8%), and energy (+1.5%) finished atop the sector standings, while the top-weighted information technology space (+0.8%) struggled to keep pace -- although it did gain some ground in the afternoon.

On the downside, four groups -- mostly countercyclical -- finished in negative territory. The lightly-weighted utilities sector was particularly weak, tumbling 3.1%, following an impressive four-week run; the group surged 10.5% from June 12 to July 6.

In corporate news, Groupon (GRPN 4.83, +0.47) rallied 10.7% after Recode reported that the company is looking for a buyer, but Twitter (TWTR 44.14, -2.51) dropped 5.4% following a Washington Post report that the company has sharply escalated its battle against fake accounts, putting user growth at risk. Also of note, Dow component Pfizer (PFE 37.16, +0.05) finished roughly flat after President Trump singled the company out for high drug prices.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries sold off, pushing yields higher across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed three basis points to 2.86%. WTI crude futures rose 0.3% to $74.04 per barrel -- nearly a new three-and-a-half year high -- and the U.S. Dollar Index ticked up 0.1% to 93.82.

Overseas, the UK's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, Brexit Minister David Davis, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Department of Transportation Chris Green resigned from government due to ideological differences with Prime Minister Theresa May.

Separately, President Trump said China may be "exerting negative pressure" on a deal between the U.S. and North Korea. Over the weekend, North Korean officials accused the U.S. of being "gangster-like" in its demand for denuclearization following two days of talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the Consumer Credit report for May:

The Consumer Credit report for May showed an increase of $24.6 billion (Briefing.com consensus $12.4 billion). April credit growth was revised to $10.3 billion from $9.3 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that the surge in credit expansion will serve as a catalyst for a strong pickup in consumer spending that should manifest itself in a strong Q2 GDP number.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for June and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for June on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +12.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.0% YTD
S&P 500 +4.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.2% YTD

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Wall Street Gets Fourth Straight Win; Financials Lag
10-Jul-18 16:20 ET
Dow +143.07 at 24919.66, Nasdaq +3.00 at 7759.22, S&P +9.67 at 2793.58

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/10/wall-street-gets-fourth-straight-win-financials-lag.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The market climbed for a fourth straight session on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and the Dow adding 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively. The tech-heavy Nasdaq lagged, but still managed to eke out a narrow victory, and the small-cap Russell 2000 ended lower by 0.5% despite hitting a new intraday record in early trading.

10 of 11 sectors finished Tuesday in the green. Defensive groups, including consumer staples (+1.3%), utilities (+1.0%), and telecom services (+1.1%) led the charge after lagging on Monday. The energy (+0.7%) and materials (+0.8%) groups were also strong, but the heavily-weighted financial space (-0.4%) struggled following Monday's rally.

Financials' decline helped to keep the broader market in check, as did a mild performance from the top-weighted tech space (+0.2%) and losses in both transport and biotech stocks; the Dow Jones Transportation Average declined 0.3%, and the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 116.61, -0.20) slipped 0.2%.

Biogen (BIIB 344.82, -9.18) paced the biotech retreat with a loss of 2.6% after Robert W. Baird downgraded the stock, arguing that last week's upbeat reaction to positive Alzheimer's drug data was overblown. Still, the heavily-weighted health care sector finished with a gain of 0.4%.

In earnings news, PepsiCo (PEP 112.89, +5.13) rallied 4.8%, hitting a four-month high, after reporting better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter.

Elsewhere, Treasuries finished flat to slightly lower, pushing yields a tick higher; the benchmark 10-yr yield, for instance, climbed to 2.87% from 2.86%. WTI crude futures were up more than 1.0% in early trading, but finished higher by just 0.3% at $74.12/bbl, and the CBOE Volatility Index declined 1.3% to 12.53, a three-week low.

President Trump left for Brussels on Tuesday morning for a two-day NATO summit, during which he'll likely push allies to ramp up their military spending. Mr. Trump will travel to Britain following the NATO meeting and then to Finland for a highly-anticipated meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for May and the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for June:

The May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 6.638 million from a revised 6.840 million (from 6.698 million) in April.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for June ticked down to 107.2 from 107.8 in the prior reading.

Looking ahead, investors will receive on Wednesday the June Producer Price Index, May Wholesale Inventories, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

Nasdaq Composite +12.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.4% YTD
S&P 500 +4.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.8% YTD

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Tech-Charged Rally Pushes Nasdaq to New Record
12-Jul-18 16:30 ET
Dow +224.44 at 24924.89, Nasdaq +107.30 at 7823.93, S&P +24.27 at 2798.03

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/12/techcharged-rally-pushes-nasdaq-to-new-record.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street rebounded on Thursday, resuming its recent upward trend following a trade-induced sell off in the prior session. Stocks opened in the green and extended their gains throughout the day.

The major averages each achieved a notable milestone: the Nasdaq (+1.4%) finished at a new record, the S&P 500 (+0.9%) hit its best level since the big drop in early February, and the Dow (+0.9%) returned to positive territory for the year. Small caps underperformed, but the Russell 2000 (+0.4%) still managed a modest gain.

The top-weighted technology sector (+1.8%) led Thursday's broad-based advance. Within the space, influential names like Microsoft (MSFT 104.19, +2.21), Alphabet (GOOG 1183.48, +29.58), and Facebook (FB 206.92, +4.38) rallied to new record highs, adding more than 2.0% apiece. Apple (AAPL 191.03, +3.15) also had a good performance, adding 1.7%.

Chipmakers finished higher overall, but Broadcom (AVGO 209.98, -33.46) tumbled 13.7% after agreeing to acquire software company CA Tech (CA 44.15, +6.94) for approximately $18.9 billion in cash.

Industrials (+1.1%) and health care (+1.1%) were the next-best performing groups, with industrials benefiting from an above-consensus earnings report from Delta Air Lines (DAL 50.73, +0.89), which advanced 1.8%. The consumer discretionary space (+0.7%) finished in line with the broader market as Amazon (AMZN 1796.62, +41.62) rallied 2.4% to a new all-time high.

On the downside, the heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.2%) lagged, closing near the bottom of the sector standings amid another curve-flattening trade in the bond market. Treasuries ended modestly lower, pushing the benchmark 10-yr yield up one basis point to 2.85% and the 2-yr yield up two basis points to 2.60%. That left the 2-10 spread at 25 basis points, which is its lowest level since 2007. Meanwhile, the consumer staples group (-0.1%) was the lone decliner.

In central banking, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in an interview with Marketplace.org that the economy is "in a good place," but noted that an escalation in tariffs between the U.S. and its trading partners could have a negative impact. Mr. Powell's comments didn't prompt any notable movement in the markets.

Overseas, President Trump wrapped up a two-day NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday morning, saying NATO withdrawal is now "unnecessary" after member states reaffirmed a commitment to spending 2% of their GDP on defense. The president then jetted to the UK for a meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included June CPI, weekly Initial Claims, and the June Treasury Budget:

Total CPI increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) in June, and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.9% (vs +2.8% in May) and core CPI is up 2.3% (vs +2.2% in May).
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer inflation is picking up and giving the Federal Reserve the data-based cover it is seeking to continue raising the fed funds rate.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 214,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 225,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 232,000 (from 231,000). As for continuing claims, they decreased to 1.739 million from a revised count of 1.742 million (from 1.739 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the low level of initial claims reflects a hesitancy on the part of employers to cut workers in an environment where end demand is solid and where it is becoming increasingly difficult to find qualified workers to fill higher-skilled positions.
The Treasury Budget for June showed a deficit of $74.8 billion versus a deficit of $90.2 billion for June 2017.
The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the June surplus cannot be compared to the $146.8 billion deficit registered in May.

Looking ahead, big banks JPMorgan (JPM), Citigroup (C), and Wells Fargo (WFC) will unofficially kick off the second quarter earnings season on Friday morning, and investors will receive June Import/Export Prices and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July.

Nasdaq Composite +13.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.1% YTD
S&P 500 +4.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.8% YTD

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Stocks Tick Higher Despite Bank Underperformance
13-Jul-18 16:30 ET
Dow +94.52 at 25019.41, Nasdaq +2.06 at 7825.99, S&P +3.02 at 2801.05

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/13/stocks-tick-higher-despite-bank-underperformance.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks eked out a slim victory on Friday following a range-bound day of trading on lighter-than-usual volume. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) hit some technical resistance at the 2800 level, which it hasn't been able to conquer since early February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) did modestly better, and the Nasdaq Composite finished flat.

Big banks, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM 106.36, -0.49), Citigroup (C 67.00, -1.51), and Wells Fargo (WFC 55.36, -0.67), unofficially kicked off the Q2 earnings season Friday morning. The results were mixed; JPMorgan and Citi beat profit estimates, but Well Fargo came up short. The three lenders slid between 0.5% and 2.2% in the aftermath, and the influential financial sector declined 0.5%.

The top-weighted technology space also lagged, finishing a tick below its unchanged mark. Within the space, Dow component Cisco Systems (CSCO 41.78, -1.80) dropped 4.1% following news that Amazon (AMZN 1813.03, +16.41) is mulling entry into the data switches market; AMZN rallied 0.9%, hitting a new record high.

Meanwhile, telecom services (-0.8%) was the worst performer, led lower by AT&T (T 31.67, -0.56), which lost 1.7% following news that the DOJ has appealed the company's acquisition of Time Warner.

On the flip side, industrials (+0.6%), energy (+0.6%), and consumer staples (+0.6%) finished at the top of the sector standings. The energy space was helped by a rebound in the price of crude oil, which plunged 5.0% on Wednesday. WTI crude futures advanced 1.1% on Friday to $71.03 per barrel.

President Trump was in the UK on Friday, fielding questions from reports in a joint press conference with Prime Minister Theresa May and stopping for tea with Queen Elizabeth II. Mr. Trump reaffirmed the United States' "special relationship" with the UK and said the U.S. will pursue a free trade deal with the UK once it leaves the EU.

U.S. Treasuries rallied on Friday, pushing yields lower across the curve; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note slipped two basis points to 2.83%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index finished slightly lower (-0.1%) at 94.47, and the CBOE Volatility Index declined 2.9% to 12.22.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included June Import/Export Prices and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July:

Import prices slid 0.4% in June after rising a revised 0.9% in May (from +0.6%), and import prices excluding oil slid 0.3% in June after rising an unrevised 0.2% in May. Export prices increased 0.3% in June after rising an unrevised 0.6% in May, and export prices excluding agriculture rose 0.4% in June after rising a revised 0.6% in May (from +0.5%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the year-over-year changes show an uptick in inflation trends, just like the PPI and CPI reports for June did.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July slipped to 97.1 (Briefing.com consensus 97.8) from 98.2 in June.
The key takeaways from the report are twofold: (1) it revealed negative concerns about the impact of trade tariffs are rising among the top third of the income distribution, who account for half of consumer spending and (2) consumers under the age of 45 are anticipating the largest income gains since July 2000.

Looking ahead, investors will receive on Monday the Retail Sales report for June, the Empire State Manufacturing Index for July, and the Business Inventories report for May. Bank of America (BAC) and BlackRock (BLK) will report earnings before the open, and Netflix (NFLX) will report after the close.

Nasdaq Composite +13.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.9% YTD
S&P 500 +4.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD

Week In Review: Entering Earnings Season on a Positive Note

Wall Street advanced for the second week in a row, with the Nasdaq (+1.8%) touching a new record and the S&P 500 (+1.5%) hitting its best level since the big drop in early February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.3%) outperformed its peers, returning to positive territory for the year, but the small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.4%) struggled.

Stocks started the week on a positive note, rallying on Monday and Tuesday, but sold off on Wednesday after the White House escalated its ongoing trade dispute with Beijing, publishing a new list of tariffs. This round of duties is the largest yet, calling for a 10% tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, but it won't be official for at least two months. As it did with earlier tariffs, China promised to retaliate.

Meanwhile, NATO leaders held a two-day summit in Brussels this week. President Trump dominated the headlines, criticizing Germany for approving a major gas deal with Russia and taking a hard stance on increased military spending. Member states recommitted to a military spending target of 2% of GDP by 2024, prompting Mr. Trump to verbally confirm his commitment to the alliance.

The U.S. president then jetted to the UK for a meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May. Before the meeting, Mr. Trump suggested that Ms. May's Brexit plan may prevent the U.S. from entering a bilateral trade deal with the UK, but he walked back those comments in a latter press conference, reaffirming the leaders' "special relationship."

Back on the home front, West Texas Intermediate crude futures tumbled from a three-and-a-half year high on Wednesday, plunging 5.0% in their worst daily performance in over a year. Investors shrugged off a bullish inventory report -- which showed a huge drop of 12.6 million barrels for the week ended July 6 -- and instead focused on resurgent Libyan supply and increased June output for Saudi Arabia.

The energy sector, which is sensitive to crude prices, finished behind the broader market, but still added 0.8%. Eight of eleven spaces finished the week in the green, with information technology (+2.3%), consumer discretionary (+2.1%), and industrials (+2.2%) being the top performers. Utilities (-1.2%), telecom services (-1.6%), and real estate (-0.8%) were the three decliners.Previous

In corporate news, big banks JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C), and Wells Fargo (WFC) unofficially kicked off the second quarter earnings season on Friday with mixed results; JPMorgan and Citigroup beat earnings estimates, but Wells Fargo missed. The financial sector lost 0.5% on Friday, but still finished the week with a gain of 1.1%.

Elsewhere, 21st Century Fox (FOXA) lost 4.0% on Wednesday following reports that Comcast (CMCSA) may forego countering Disney's (DIS) offer for Fox's entertainment assets and focus on upping its bid for British media company Sky instead; Broadcom (AVGO) tumbled 13.7% on Thursday after agreeing to acquire software company CA Tech (CA) for approximately $18.9 billion in cash; and AT&T (T) lost 1.7% on Friday after the Department of Justice appealed the company's acquisition of Time Warner.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries moved lower in another curve-flattening trade this week, bringing the 2-10 spread down two basis points to 26 bps -- its lowest level in more than a decade. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note ticked up one basis point to 2.83%, while the yield on the 2-yr note climbed three basis points to 2.57%.

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Financials and Energy Collide; S&P Ends Little Changed
16-Jul-18 16:20 ET
Dow +44.95 at 25064.36, Nasdaq -20.26 at 7805.73, S&P -2.88 at 2798.17

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/16/financials-and-energy-collide-s-and-p-ends-little-changed.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks opened the week with a sleepy performance on Monday that ended with a slim loss of 0.1% for the S&P 500. The Nasdaq Composite also declined, losing 0.3%, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to add 0.2%. The Russell 2000 underperformed, dropping 0.5%.

President Trump capped a week-long trip to Europe by meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. The leaders met for roughly four hours, discussing a wide range of topics, including arms control, the future of Syria, and, of course, Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, which Mr. Putin again denied. The market had a muted reaction to the summit.

Back on the home front, energy (-1.2%) was the worst-performing sector on Monday amid another dive in crude prices. WTI crude futures dropped 3.8% to $68.34/bbl and are now 7.8% below the nearly three-and-a-half year high they touched last week. The widely-cited catalyst was a Friday comment from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who said some countries may receive waivers to continue buying oil from Iran. However, several other factors -- including restored Libyan production -- were also at play.

Conversely, the heavily-weighted financial sector (+1.8%) rallied, easily closing atop of the day's leaderboard. Bank of America (BAC 29.78, +1.23) led the way, rallying 4.3% on better-than-expected Q2 earnings, but BlackRock (BLK 503.96, -3.13) lost 0.6% despite also beating on the bottom line.

The consumer discretionary (+0.2%) and telecom (+0.5%) sectors also advanced, but the eight other groups (including energy) finished in the red.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries declined on Monday, sending yields higher across the curve. Both the 2-yr yield and the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed three basis points, closing at 2.60% and 2.86%, respectively. That leaves the 2-10 spread at 26 basis points, its lowest level in over a decade.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included June Retail Sales, the July Empire Manufacturing Index, and May Business Inventories:

June retail sales rose 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), while the May increase was revised to 1.3% from 0.8%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.4% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), and the May increase was revised to 1.4% from 0.9%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it substantiates the widely-held views that an increase in consumer spending is going to factor prominently in driving a strong acceleration in Q2 GDP growth.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for July declined to 22.6 (Briefing.com consensus 21.0) from the prior month's unrevised reading of 25.0.
Business Inventories rose 0.4% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%). The April reading was left unrevised at +0.3%.
The inventories-to-sales ratio dipped to 1.34 from 1.35 and was down from 1.39 one year ago.

Looking ahead, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for June and the NAHB Housing Market Index for July will be released on Tuesday. As for earnings, Charles Schwab (SCHW), Goldman Sachs (GS), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and UnitedHealth (UNH) will report before the opening bell.

Nasdaq Composite +13.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.3% YTD
S&P 500 +4.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.4% YTD

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Stock Market Shakes Off Netflix Disappointment
17-Jul-18 16:20 ET
Dow +55.53 at 25119.89, Nasdaq +49.40 at 7855.13, S&P +11.12 at 2809.29

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/17/stock-market-shakes-off-netflix-disappointment.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Today started with a whimper, but it eventually unfolded with a bang as the stock market overcame the shock of a reporting disappointment from growth-stock darling Netflix (NFLX 379.48, -21.00, -5.2%). Remarkably, it was Netflix that helped turn the tide of negative sentiment and fostered a broad-based rebound effort that was led by the information technology (+0.8%), consumer staples (+0.8%), and health care (+0.5%) sectors.

Overall gains were modest in scope, yet they were big with respect to engendering some confidence in the notion that the S&P 500 may be poised to take a run at the all-time high it hit in January (2872.87).

The Nasdaq Composite increased 0.6% and closed at a new record high; the Russell 2000 and S&P Midcap 400 Index advanced 0.5%; the S&P 500 jumped 0.4%; and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%.

Netflix was the top story stock of the day. It had been down as much as 14.1% after reporting disappointing subscriber growth for the second quarter and issuing disappointing third quarter guidance. Shares of NFLX, however, started to rebound as quickly as they fell at the opening bell.

That reversal was tied to some supportive remarks from analysts and a prevailing belief that the subscriber growth shortfall is likely to be a one-quarter issue; moreover, it was aided by a desire to own the stock at lower prices by investors who had missed the stock's run this year. Prior to the company's report after Monday's close, shares of NFLX were up 109% in 2018.

The turnaround in the broader market mirrored the intraday turnaround in NFLX, which cut its losses substantially by the closing bell.

The buy-the-dip spirit soon spread to counterparts included in the "FAANG" cohort -- Facebook (FB 209.99, +2.76, +1.3%), Apple (AAPL 191.45, +0.54, +0.3%), Amazon.com (AMZN 1843.93, +21.44, +1.2%), and Alphabet (GOOG 1198.80, +14.94, +1.3%) -- which made a big difference for the tone in the broader market

Amazon.com for its part got an extra turnaround push on reports suggesting the company saw a huge year-over-year jump in Prime Day sales.

The turn in trading sentiment was captured in the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ 180.27, +1.09, +0.6%), which had been down 1.1% and closed with a 0.6% gain.

Beyond Netflix, Dow components Goldman Sachs (GS 231.02, -0.42, -0.2%), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 129.11, +4.42, +3.5%), and UnitedHealth (UNH 250.34, -6.64, -2.6%) also were in the news for delivering earnings results. They all topped consensus earnings estimates, yet the reaction to their reports was mixed.

Elsewhere, Capitol Hill was a focal point today as Fed Chairman Powell appeared before the Senate Banking Committee to deliver his semiannual monetary policy report.

Mr. Powell covered a range of topics in the Q&A portion of the testimony, yet there was nothing that was ultimately surprising in his remarks, which included a contention that there were growing concerns among business contacts about trade issues.

The Fed chair reiterated the view that improving economic conditions should allow for continued gradual rate hikes. On a related note, the yield on the 2-yr note increased one basis point to 2.61% and the U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.5% to 94.97.

Market participants seemed to appreciate Mr. Powell's calm, but confident, delivery, and the recognition that his remarks didn't introduce any volatility into the marketplace.

That connection also went hand-in-hand with the intraday reversal.

The weakest-performing sectors on Tuesday were the real estate (-0.6%), energy (-0.4%), telecom services (-0.4%), and utilities (-0.1%) sectors. The best-performing sector was the materials sector (+1.3%), yet its small weighting in the S&P 500 minimized its influence as a major market driver.

Reviewing today's economic data, which included Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for June and the NAHB Housing Market Index for July:

Industrial Production rose 0.6% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), while the May decrease was revised to 0.5% (from -0.1%). Meanwhile, Capacity Utilization ticked up to 78.0% (Briefing.com consensus 78.3%) from a revised reading of 77.7% in May (from 77.9%).
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing output bounced back sharply, reflecting good underlying demand, after a fire at a truck assemblies parts supplier undercut output levels in May.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for July remained at 68 (Briefing.com consensus 69), unchanged from June.

Wednesday's economic calendar will feature the Housing Starts and Building Permits Report for June. In addition, Fed Chairman Powell will appear before the House Financial Services Committee at 10:00 a.m. ET for the second, and final, day of his semiannual monetary policy report to the Congress.

Nasdaq Composite +13.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.9% YTD
S&P 500 +5.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD

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Financials, Industrials Push Market Slightly Higher
18-Jul-18 16:25 ET
Dow +79.40 at 25199.29, Nasdaq -0.67 at 7854.46, S&P +6.07 at 2815.36

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/18/financials-industrials-push-market-slightly-higher.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The market ticked higher on Wednesday, with financial and industrial shares doing the heavy lifting. The S&P 500 and the Dow advanced 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq lagged, closing just a tick below its unchanged mark and narrowly missing a new record. The small-cap Russell 2000 added 0.3%.

Two sectors stood out on Wednesday -- financials and industrials. They were the only sectors to register a gain or loss of more than 1.0%, closing higher by 1.5% and 1.1%, respectively. Consumer staples was the weakest sector, losing 0.7%, but no other group advanced or declined more than 0.5%.

The financial sector was helped by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 200.44, +10.03), which rallied 5.3% after eliminating a restriction on its ability to buy back its own shares. Morgan Stanley (MS 50.56, +1.38) was also a positive influence, climbing 2.8% on better-than-expected Q2 results. U.S. Bancorp (USB 50.72, -0.58) declined 1.1%, however, despite beating bottom-line estimates.

Meanwhile, in the industrial space, transports were particularly strong following upbeat earnings and guidance from CSX (CSX 69.00, +4.56) and United Continental (UAL 79.00, +6.38); the two companies added 7.1% and 8.8%, respectively. Likewise, industrial supplier Grainger (GWW 338.99, +34.03) spiked 11.2% after also beating earnings estimates and raising its guidance.

In other corporate news, the EU hit Alphabet (GOOG 1195.88, -2.92) with a $5 billion antitrust fine for allegedly using its Android mobile operating system to stifle competition, and Papa John's (PZZA 53.60, +2.06) shares spiked 4.0% on a Wall Street Journal report that its founder and recently ousted chairman held merger talks with Wendy's (WEN 17.77, +0.34).

Fed Chair Jerome Powell wrapped up his semiannual appearance on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, testifying before the House Financial Services Committee. His appearance didn't produce any new insights into monetary policy, but Mr. Powell did express concern about cryptocurrencies, which he believes pose serious risks to investors.

In trade-related news, NEC Director Larry Kudlow said in an interview with CNBC that trade talks with China have stalled, but the administration is making "good progress" in negotiations with Mexico. The market's reaction was largely muted -- somewhat surprising considering the knee-jerk reactions that trade-related headlines have gotten as of late.

WTI crude futures were volatile on Wednesday, reversing a loss of 2.6% to finish higher by 1.6% at $68.70 per barrel. The reversal, which came despite the government's weekly inventory report showing a build of 5.8 million barrels, was helped by reports of an Iranian-backed Houthi movement attack on a Saudi Aramco refinery in Riyadh.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included June Housing Starts and Building Permits, the latest issue of the Fed's Beige Book, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Housing starts declined to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.173 million units in June (Briefing.com consensus 1.318 million), down from a revised 1.337 million units in May (from 1.350 million). Building permits declined to a seasonally adjusted 1.273 million in June (Briefing.com consensus 1.330 million), down from an unrevised 1.301 million in May.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects weakness at a time when there should be strength. The assumption embedded in the weak starts figure is that it likely reflects the difficulty builders are having finding labor, as well as the constraints they are facing with higher land, labor, and material costs.
According to the Fed's Beige Book, economic activity continued to expand across the United States, with 10 of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts reporting moderate or modest growth. The outliers were the Dallas District, which reported strong growth driven in part by the energy sector, and the St. Louis District where growth was described as slight.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.5% after also declining 2.5% last week.

Looking ahead, the weekly Initial Claims report, the Philadelphia Fed Index for July, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for June will be released on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +13.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.2% YTD
S&P 500 +5.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.9% YTD

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Dow Breaks Five-Day Winning Streak
19-Jul-18 16:25 ET
Dow -134.79 at 25064.50, Nasdaq -29.15 at 7825.31, S&P -11.13 at 2804.23

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/19/dow-breaks-fiveday-winning-streak.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. equities stumbled on Thursday, breaking a five-session winning streak for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which finished with a loss of 0.5%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite declined as well, losing 0.4% apiece, but the small-cap Russell 2000 managed to advance, adding 0.6%.

Trading was choppy at times, but much of the day was spent in a sideways trend. The S&P 500 traded between 2812.05 (-0.1%) and 2799.77 (-0.6%).

Investors received a heavy dose of corporate news, most of which was earnings related. IBM (IBM 149.24, +4.72, +3.3%) and Taiwan Semi (TSM 39.81, +1.40, +3.6%) climbed after reporting their quarterly results, but American Express (AXP 100.17, -2.81, -2.7%), eBay (EBAY 34.11, -3.84, -10.1%), Travelers (TRV 125.18, -4.82, -3.7%), BNY Mellon (BK 52.73, -2.91, -5.2%), Philip Morris (PM 80.90, -1.25, -1.5%), and Alcoa (AA 41.56, -6.40, -13.3%) all sold off.

Outside of earnings, Walt Disney (DIS 112.13, +1.44, +1.3%) rallied following news that Comcast (CMSA 34.91, +0.87, +2.6%) will not counter Disney's offer for 21st Century Fox's (FOXA 46.65, -0.03, -0.1%) entertainment assets. Conversely, AbbVie (ABBV 89.95, -4.45, -4.7%) fell after Citron Research called it "the next great drug short."

Nine of eleven sectors finished Thursday in the red, with financials (-1.4%) pacing the retreat, trimming its weekly gain to a still impressive 2.0%. The telecom services space (-1.1%) was the next-worst performer, but no other group lost more than 0.6%. On the flip side, utilities (+0.9%) and real estate (+1.0%) were the two advancers.

U.S. Treasuries rallied on Thursday, pushing yields lower across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield dropped three basis points to 2.85%.

In Washington, President Trump criticized the Fed in a recorded CNBC interview, saying he's "not thrilled" about interest rate hikes. Mr. Trump's comments were seen as controversial as presidents typically refrain from speaking on monetary policy. The White House quickly issued a response to the criticism, saying the president respects the Fed's independence.

During the same interview, Mr. Trump also commented on the strengthening dollar, saying it puts the U.S. at a disadvantage. The U.S. Dollar Index was up 0.4% at a 12-month high before the president's comments, but gave it all back and then some in a knee-jerk response. The Index was back in the green at Wall Street's closing bell, however, up 0.2% at 95.00.

Trade-related matters were also on radar after President Trump threatened "tremendous retribution" against the European Union if his meeting with EU officials next week doesn't produce positive results. Separately, China's foreign ministry responded to Wednesday comments made by NEC Director Larry Kudlow, saying Mr. Kudlow's assertion that Chinese President Xi is refusing to compromise on Beijing's trade policies was "shocking" and "bogus."

With today's losses, the S&P 500 enters Friday's session with a slim weekly gain of 0.1%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included weekly Initial Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Index for July, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for June:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 207,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 220,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 215,000 (from 214,000). As for continuing claims, they increased to 1.751 million from a revised count of 1.743 million (from 1.739 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that it covers the period in which the survey for the employment situation report for July is conducted, so the low level of claims is bound to feed expectations for another month of strong nonfarm payrolls growth.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for July rose to 25.7 (Briefing.com consensus 22.0) from an unrevised 19.9 in June.
The key takeaway from the report, though, may be that the diffusion index for future general activity decreased for the fourth straight month, falling from 34.8 to 29.0.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.5% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), and the May reading was revised to 0.0% from +0.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that strength among the leading indicators remained widespread; however, the 2.5% increase in the index over the first half of 2018 was slower than the 3.2% growth rate seen over the second half of 2017.

Looking ahead, investors will not receive any economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +13.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.8% YTD
S&P 500 +4.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.4% YTD

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Flat Week Ends With Flat Friday Session
20-Jul-18 16:25 ET
Dow -6.38 at 25058.12, Nasdaq -5.10 at 7820.21, S&P -2.66 at 2801.57

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/20/flat-week-ends-with-flat-friday-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks finished a range-bound Friday session little changed, shrugging off potentially rattling comments from President Trump. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite both lost 0.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished unchanged. Friday's stumble left the S&P 500 flat for the week.

In a CNBC interview aired on Friday morning, President Trump said he is ready to put tariffs on $500 billion worth of Chinese goods -- approximately the entire amount of goods shipped to the U.S. from China in 2017. Later, in a tweet, the president doubled down on his criticism of the Fed, saying rate hikes hurt what his administration has accomplished, and reiterated his concern over a strengthening dollar.

The U.S. Dollar Index tumbled 0.8% to 94.20 in response to the president's comments, retreating from a 12-month high.

Microsoft (MSFT 106.27, +1.87) headlined the earnings front, climbing 1.8% on the back of a better-than-expected quarterly report. Its outperformance helped the top-weighted technology sector get off to a good start -- the group was up as much as 0.7% -- but the bullish momentum faded as the day wore on. The tech group finished higher by 0.1%.

Elsewhere on the earnings front, Honeywell (HON 153.13, +5.59) and Capital One (COF 97.23, +1.86) also rallied on better-than-expected results, adding 3.8% and 2.0%, respectively. However, General Electric (GE 13.12, -0.61) declined 4.4% despite beating estimates, and Skechers (SKX 26.27, -6.98) plunged 21.0% after missing estimates and issuing disappointing guidance.

The consumer staples sector (+0.6%) was the top-performing group on Friday, and financials (+0.2%) eked out a slim victory. Meanwhile, eight of the eleven sectors finished in the red, with utilities (-0.8%) and real estate (-0.9%) being the weakest performers. No other space lost more than 0.5%.

In the bond market, Treasuries sold off in a curve-steepening trade, with the 2-yr yield climbing one basis point to 2.60% and the 10-yr yield climbing five basis points to 2.90%. Some analysts saw the increased 2-10 spread as a sign that investors believe President Trump's criticism of the Fed could slow down the pace of rate hikes.

The S&P 500 tested the 2800 level several times on Friday, but it held through each attempt, with the low of the day coming in at 2800.01.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Friday. Looking ahead, Existing Home Sales for June is the lone release on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +13.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.5% YTD
S&P 500 +4.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.4% YTD

Week In Review: Investors Shrug Off Headline-Heavy Week

There were a heap of headlines out of Washington this week, but Wall Street kept its cool, finishing little changed. The S&P 500 finished flat, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished a tick higher (+0.2%), and the Nasdaq Composite finished a tick lower (-0.1%). The small-cap Russell 2000 outperformed, rallying 0.6%.

President Trump capped a week-long trip to Europe on Monday by meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. The leaders met for roughly four hours, discussing a wide range of topics, including arms control, the future of Syria, and, of course, Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, which Mr. Putin again denied.

Mr. Trump faced criticism for appearing to reject his own intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia meddled in the election in favor of Mr. Putin's plea of innocence. President Trump later clarified his remarks, replacing the word would with wouldn't in the following statement referring to Russian interference: "I don't see any reason why it would be [Russia]."

On to U.S.-China trade relations, NEC Director Larry Kudlow said on Wednesday that he believes some lower-ranking Chinese officials would like to reach a trade deal, but Chinese President Xi is refusing to compromise. China's foreign ministry responded to Mr. Kudlow's comment, calling it "shocking" and "bogus."

Back to Mr. Trump, the president did an exclusive interview with CNBC on Thursday in which he criticized the Fed, saying he's "not thrilled" about interest rate hikes, and said he is willing to slap tariffs on $500 billion worth of Chinese goods -- virtually every Chinese product coming into the U.S. -- if necessary. Mr. Trump also commented on the strengthening dollar, saying it puts the U.S. at a disadvantage.

The president followed up that interview with a tweet on Friday, saying "China, the European Union and others have been manipulating their currencies and interest rates lower, while the U.S. is raising rates while the dollars gets stronger and stronger with each passing day - taking away our big competitive edge...Tightening now hurts all that we have done."

Mr. Trump's comments on the Fed were particularly controversial as presidents typically refrain from speaking on monetary policy in an effort to protect the Fed's independence. The White House issued a follow-up statement after the CNBC clip aired on Thursday, clarifying that Mr. Trump respects the Fed's independence.

On a separate -- but related -- note, Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave Congress his semiannual update on the economy and monetary policy, speaking before both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee. Mr. Powell's testimony provided no new information; he simply reinforced the view that improving economic conditions should allow the Fed to continue hiking rates gradually.

Whew. With all of that in mind, let's turn away from Washington and towards this week's trading on Wall Street.

The second quarter earnings season heated up this week with several influential names reporting their latest results. Netflix (NFLX) dropped sharply on Tuesday -- although shares did rebound notably intraday -- after the streaming media company missed subscriber growth estimates. Ahead of earnings, Netflix was up more than 100% on the year.

Fellow tech names Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM), and eBay (EBAY) also reported their quarterly results this week. Microsoft and IBM rallied after beating earnings estimates, but eBay tumbled after reporting below-consensus results. The top-weighted technology sector finished the week with a gain of 0.1%, extending its yearly advance to 15.4%.

Several financial giants also reported earnings this week, including Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Morgan Stanley (MS), all of which topped estimates. The positive results helped the heavily-weighted financial sector climb 2.2% and finish atop the week's sector standings.

In other corporate news, Comcast (CMSA) said it will not counter Disney's (DIS) offer for 21st Century Fox's (FOXA) entertainment assets, and Amazon (AMZN) held its annual Prime Day, saying the 36-hour special was its biggest shopping event ever -- even despite having to deal with some technical glitches.

Energy was the worst-performing sector this week, losing 1.9%, as crude oil extended last week's tumble; WTI crude futures dropped 3.9% to $68.23/bbl and are now 8.0% below the nearly three-and-a-half year high they've touched several times this month. Fears that the U.S. may give some countries waivers to continue buying oil from Iran was one of several factors weighing on the commodity.

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InvestmentHouse - President Sets Off Expiration 'Fireworks' (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php


- Expiration 'fireworks' not about the market, but about the President.
- Market initially overcomes Trump on China trade, Trump on the Fed, but
slides on his lawyer's tape discussing a Playboy model payoff.
- High to low action, but a very quiet expiration.
- Large cap indices set up to move higher and with copious amounts of
earnings results coming, the will have the ammo if they want to move.
- Finding plays not just ahead of earnings is a bit challenging right now,
but some non-tech areas do look promising for the first time in a long time.

Stocks started mixed, but with the uptrend they found bids and rallied
positive, cruising into midmorning.

This despite Trump telling Joe Kernen China was a currency manipulator,
undermining the gains in the US. As a result, Trump stated he was 'ready to
go' on $500B of tariffs that would cover all Chinese goods.

Trump also had a beef with the Fed, stating Powell was a good man, but
raising rates at this juncture when the US was making good progress was only
driving up the dollar and making debt service costlier.

Oh my did the media go berserk. I had to change the channel away from CNBC
even sooner than usual, moving over to a fairly liberal Bloomberg that was,
by comparison, much tamer, much more attached to reality than the CNBC
non-Kernen anchors. The female CNBC 'news anchor' was beside herself
calling the President's positions 'crazy,' also noting that the President
wanted to CONTROL other agencies, giving the attorney general as an example.
Well, of all the nerve, the President wanting to control an agency that is
under the Executive Branch, i.e. an agency CONTROLLED by the President. The
result of our schools forgoing teaching our children what the Constitution
actually says even with respect to the very basic, three-branch governmental
system, is showing. It was so bad that even some of the liberal guests
(e.g. Jared Bernstein, former VP Biden's economic advisor) had to chime in
and say the President's comments were just not that bad.

I know, I know, this sounds like a personal problem, but it is really a
problem for everyone. News reporting that is passing itself off as unbiased
but always taking the same side on every story, pursuing only one line of
questioning. Failure of our education system to instill in our children the
most basic understanding of why we are the country we are and how we formed
and what truths we hold dear. Thus, we end up electing a socialist in New
York who wants the federal government to oust private ownership of companies
in favor of government control. A person who does not understand that the
unemployment rate does not move lower because someone has two jobs instead
of one. We are creating incredibly ignorant young adults, and equally
ignorant young adults are electing them to office. My son fumes when I say
such things, but he is well-versed in US history and economic history and is
in the incredibly small minority of his peers who understand economic cause
and effect.

The point: the market didn't care about Trump's tweets. China is
manipulating its currency lower, despite the condition and its pledge upon
joining the WTO that it would not, and it appears investors are taking this
as a sign China is losing the trade war, a war that really has not yet
started, that Trump has not yet begun to fight.

But, I digress.

Then at midmorning, another story hit. Was it the Fed Chair resigning after
Trump's tweets? No. A conflict erupting in the South China Sea? No. A
political assassination by the Russians and no doubt personally ordered by
Putin? No. Bill Clinton grope and sexually harass another woman? No! The
NYT reported TRUMP, having paid a Playboy model claiming to have had an
affair with Trump, was the one abusing women. Apparently there is a tape
that Trump's lawyer made in a discussion between Cohen and Trump where this
was discussed, a tape that was part of the items picked up in the FBI's raid
of Cohen's office. How this is not attorney-client privilege and EVER got
out from the wholly unbiased, apolitical, justice-seeking, of highest
probity FBI is a complete mystery. As you can see, once again, the laws of
the US are no longer applied equally.

Stocks peaked for the day on this news and started a gradual downtrend into
the Friday close.

SP500 -2.66, -0.09%
NASDAQ -5.10, -0.07%
DJ30 -6.38, -0.03%
SP400 -0.53%
RUTX -0.26%
SOX -0.49%
NASDAQ 100 -0.03%

VOLUME: NYSE +12%, NASDAQ -4%. NYSE trade moved above average, NASDAQ
remained below average and actually fell. Expiration Friday so higher
volume on NYSE was nothing special. Lower volume on NASDAQ was rather
surprising.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE -1.1:1, NASDAQ -1.1:1. Rather boring expiration.

All of the July expiration 'fireworks' had nothing to do with stocks.
Charlie 'the blabbermouth' Gasparino on FoxBusiness, panting and drooling
with excitement, openly mused this was perhaps just a teaser.

Perhaps, but this is nothing new for Trump, is it? Same kind of allegations
(or more) during the campaign. And it mattered . . . not. Everyone knew
Trump was no Boy Scout. Those that voted for him were tired of the same
old, same old, and knew Trump was not a best buddy. I heard one woman say
he was a pig, but she was not voting for pastor but for someone who would
change the business as usual DC crapola. Thus, I would be surprised if this
has ANY impact on Trump over a week from now. His policies are popular with
his voters and with many independents, and they seem to realize the flaws,
the 'pig-like' actions are part of the package. They don't care, they voted
to put a new sheriff into DC town, someone like Wyatt Earp to be hard-nosed
and clean things up.

I don't mean to make this sound like some kind of gushing over Trump. It is
not. I am distilling what I have heard from several republican friends
about their support for Trump even if these kind of things are revealed.
Hey, the democrats still loved Bill Clinton for doing the same or worse, so
I can at least understand the sentiment.

The question for us is whether this means much other than a fade from the
highs on one expiration Friday. Doubt it. If tape after tape after tape
emerges painting Trump as a beast, then yes it has impact. Other than that,
the Friday fade back to flat by the indices is likely about all those Trump
haters will get out of this, at least in terms of the market action.

So, after that somewhat digression I have to say that the market action
Friday, while disappointing, was not a reversal. It was a damn boring
session, but not a reversal. Sometimes boring can be good as when stocks or
indices are working on bases. The quiet lets them go about their business,
and then things get noisy when the post a breakout move.

Of course the action Friday left the indices unchanged. After good moves
Thursday, promising moves toward the prior highs, SP400 and RUTX faded, RUTX
part of the move, SP400 all of its move. Not reversals, but leaving SP400
and RUTX still below the key prior peaks.

NASDAQ, SP500 and DJ30 lost some ground but that is fine. They all rallied
higher the past two weeks or more and needed a break. They are taking that
break with very modest fades. SP500 and DJ30 look exceptionally good on
this test, and given the patterns we anticipate a turn back upside in the
not too distant future.

Earnings season is here with dozens reporting next week. We are still
looking at playing some pre-earnings moves, but the primary interest for new
positions is the counterpunching after the earnings release and the stock
shows its break. These results could help break DJ30 and SP500 back to
their upside moves. BA, UTX are setting up well and announces results, an
important industrial stock. CELG announces and it has also put in a good
pattern as have many large biotechs. AMZN, AMGN, INTC announce Thursday.
Plenty of important earnings are ahead this week, earnings that could power
the large cap indices higher.



THE MARKET


CHARTS

DJ30: The Dow is in a 2-day fade after almost 3 weeks upside that
approached but didn't really threaten the early June peak. The banks and
some industrials perked up the past week, fading back to end the week,
setting up the same as the Dow. DJ30 looks set up very well to continue
higher, and some earnings this week could be the driver.

SP500: SP500 broke through the June and March highs and is now testing as
well, fading Thursday and Friday, waiting for the 10 day EMA to catch up.
Set up well, waiting on earnings.

NASDAQ: Rallied to a new high early week then slid laterally into Friday.
NASDAQ big names continue to push upside. The big change was the demise of
NFLX and its near-term trend. Gapped lower on earnings, recovered off the
lows but then stalled out. Other big names are in modest pullbacks similar
to DJ30 stocks, i.e. fading Thursday and Friday to test near support. MSFT
reported strong results, INTC is set to release results in the coming week.
NASDAQ continues in its uptrend.

SP400: Showed promise Thursday with a break higher to match the early July
peak. Faded Friday. Made a shallow test after the prior July high, is
rebounding as it needed to do, but it has not made the new breakout yet.
Critical for SP400 to make that move.

RUTX: As noted Thursday, RUTX' pattern is not as solid as SP400 with the
twin peaks. It tested the 20 day EMA off that second peak and has rebounded
Tuesday to Thursday, putting in a strong move Thursday. Friday it stalled,
fading just modestly. RUTX may bounce around here for a few sessions, but
it needs to make the breakout.

SOX: Trying to make a move off the 200 day SMA stick, SOX moved higher but
struggled after reaching the 50 day SMA. Looks as if it will put in a
higher low over the 50 day EMA and continue the break higher. INTC's
earnings will have something to do with that.


LEADERSHIP

FAANG: NFLX changed character on the week with its earnings miss. FB
continued its slow climb up the 10 day EMA. It announces results this week.
AMZN rallied to a new high, faded late week but is in very good position as
are many of the big name market leaders. GOOG is the same, surging early in
the week then fading to test the 10 day EMA. Very good positioning. AAPL
remains the forgotten stock of the group, in a 2 week tight lateral range.

Software: Some members of the group struggled, e.g. VMW, FFIV. Others
added to moves though slowed late week: DATA, ADBE; VRSN, TTWO. MSFT
announced solid results, gapped higher, faded much of the move. Good
earnings setting the stage.

Financial: Banks picked it back up Friday after a Thursday loss. JPM, BAC
up on strong volume. C looks good. V and MA put up modest Friday numbers
but look very good with V heading into earnings the coming week.

Industrials: BA tested more, setting up well ahead of earnings. UTX is
putting in an excellent test ahead of its results. HON exploded higher
Friday on huge trade with excellent earnings. TEX in a weeklong test back
to the 200 day SMA.

Energy: Down week for the group with oil falling as well. Many are testing
key support after 1 to 2 weeks of testing. APC ended at the 50 day MA, a
support it has used often. EOG showing a doji over the 50 day MA's, ESV at
that level as well. GPOR testing the 200 day. DO didn't make it; Friday it
broke sharply lower below the 50 day MA.

Drugs/Biotechs: MYGN broke higher again on the week. CELG, AMGN look very
good in pullbacks testing moves, earnings ahead this week. AGN solid in a
200 day SMA test. JNJ gapped upside Tuesday, could not hold and filled the
gap back at the 50 day MA. It could make its move upside as well.

Retail: Good week, sloppy finish Friday. ROST, TJX, FOSL all look good,
struggled Friday. RH, solid looking, needs to bounce. M broke higher
nicely, paused Friday.

Chips: As with many other areas, some very good setups heading into
earnings, e.g. TXN, SLAB. TSM powered higher to the 200 day SMA on its
earnings. Others were hit -- the story of the group, i.e. very bifurcated.
QRVO sold hard, SWKS dumped on its results.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -6.38 points (-0.03%) to close at 25058.12

Nasdaq
Stats: -5.10 points (-0.07%) to close at 7820.20
Volume: 1.78B (-4.3%)

Up Volume: 721.95M (-111.22M)
Down Volume: 1.03B (+30M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.11 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.17 to 1

New Highs: 130 (+12)
New Lows: 39 (-7)

S&P
Stats: -2.66 points (-0.09%) to close at 2801.83
NYSE Volume: 816.81M (+11.48%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.13 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.49 to 1

New Highs: 90 (+9)
New Lows: 32 (-8)


SENTIMENT

VIX: 12.86; -0.01
VXN: 17.11; -0.24
VXO: 11.41; +0.05

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.98; +0.08

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls popped back up like a cork from 47.1 after the rise and drop. Got
overdone to the downside as everyone turned negative just as the market
bounced. Now is it too high? Not really. It was over 60 recently; a bit of
room but not much.

Bulls: 55.3 versus 52.4

Bears: 18.5 versus 18.5

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 55.3 versus 52.4
52.4 versus 47.1 versus 47.6 versus 52.0 versus 55.5 versus 52.9 versus 50.0
versus 49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6
versus 42.2 versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1
versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00 versus 64.7 versus 66.7
versus 64.4 versus 61.9 versus 64.1 versus 64.2 versus 62.3 versus 61.5
versus 63.5 versus 64.4 versus 63.5 versus 62.3 versus 60.6 versus 60.4
versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1

Bears: 18.5 versus 18.5
18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8 versus 17.7 versus 19.2
versus 19.2 versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8 versus 19.6
versus 19.8 versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7 versus 15.5
versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8
versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1
versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1
versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.895% versus 2.838%. Yields surged as bonds crashed. Trump
lamented the Fed's rate hikes and to many that only cemented another hike in
September as the Fed would have to show its 'independence.' Certainly
looked as if the market was heading that way.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 22.838%
versus 2.88% versus 2.86% versus 2.856% versus 2.829% versus 2.849% versus
2.853% versus 2.867% versus 2.867% versus 2.824% versus 2.835% versus 2.833%
versus 2.871% versus 2.86% versus 2.84% versus 2.833% versus 2.877% versus
2.882% versus 2.895% versus 2.899% versus 2.937% versus 2.889% versus 2.915%
versus 2.922% versus 2.933% versus 2.977% versus 2.963% versus 2.952% versus
2.948% versus 2.928% versus 2.974% versus 2.935% versus 2.944% versus 2.902%
versus 2.86% versus 2.857% versus 2.79% versus 2.931% versus 2.992% versus
2.982% versus 3.063% versus 3.056% versus 3.06% versus 3.123% versus 3.096%
versus 3.069%


EUR/USD: 1.17214 versus 1.1651. Euro jumped back up on the Trump comments.

Historical: 1.1651 versus 1.16514 versus 1.16603 versus 1.1709 versus 1.1685
versus 1.16608 versus 1.1672 versus 1.17288 versus 1.17578 versus 1.17439
versus 1.1689 versus 1.1665 versus 1.16388 versus 1.1638 versus 1.15634
versus 1.15602 versus 1.16517 versus 1.17031 versus 1.16572 versus 1.16072
versus 1.15762 versus 1.1586 versus 1.15746 versus 1.2624 versus 1.16245
versus 1.15678 versus 1.17973 versus 1.17454 versus 1.17761 versus 1.17737
versus 1.17987 versus 1.1774 versus 1.1762 versus 1.1697 versus 1.166 versus
1.16993 versus 1.16643 versus 1.15446 versus 1.17148 versus 1.17096 versus
1.17022 versus 1.17826 versus 1.1786 versus 1.17714 versus 1.1802 versus
1.1811 versus 1.18272 versus 1.19358 versus 1.19411 versus 1.1913 versus
1.18533 versus 1.18672 versus 1.19150 versus 1.19619 versus 1.1983 versus
1.1978 versus 1.19896 versus 1.20741 versus 1.21291 versus 1.21788 versus
1.2163 versus 1.22232


USD/JPY: 111.451 versus 112.732. Dollar dropped hard against the yen as
well.

Historical: 112.732 versus 112.783 versus 112.896 versus 112.337 versus
112.631 versus 112.093 versus 110.911 versus 110.973 versus 110.474 versus
110.666 versus 110.40 versus 110.854 versus 110.687 versus 110.523 versus
110.223 versus 110.097 versus 109.678 versus 109.980 versus 109.895 versus
110.376 versus 110.03 versus 109.783 versus 110.668 versus 110.578 versus
110.247 versus 110.381 versus 110.314 versus 109.466 versus 109.705 versus
110.164 versus 109.878 versus 109.90 versus 109.53 versus 108.767


Oil: 68.26, +0.51. A tough prior week, then oil bounced back to the 50 day
MA into Friday. Still not a great pattern.


Gold: 1231.10, +7.10. With all the turmoil, gold shot higher. That still
leaves it in the downtrend, rebounding but just toward the 10 day EMA.


MONDAY

Large cap indices set up well. Small and midcaps near the old highs in a
very important test of those. Earnings are queued up, ready to drive the
action.

Will the earnings provide a catalyst? Most are good with good guidance.
There are some guidance misses and warnings, however, and some analysts are
talking around this being the near term peak in results. No doubt weak
guidance from big names dampens enthusiasm.

As discussed Thursday, this earnings season we are a bit reluctant to ride
too many through earnings or take on new positions with the intention of
holding then through the results. Typically that is not our favorite play
and with some guidance issues it becomes even less so. Picking good entries
after earnings is the preferred method as the skeletons are out of the
closet. Banks are an example. JNJ has filled the earnings gap higher.
Looking for those as vehicles to use when SP500, DJ30 and NASDAQ bounce from
these nice little tests.

Have a great weekend!

[ReturntoSender]

Financials Nudge S&P Higher
23-Jul-18 16:25 ET
Dow -13.83 at 25044.29, Nasdaq +21.67 at 7841.88, S&P +5.15 at 2806.72

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/23/financials-nudge-s-and-p-higher.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Financial shares helped to nudge the market a tick higher on Monday, underpinned by a steepening of the yield curve. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite tacked on 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively, but the Dow underperformed, shedding 0.1%. Action was range-bound, with the S&P 500 keeping between -0.2% and +0.2%.

Most sectors finished Monday in negative territory -- eight of eleven to be exact -- but losses were modest for the most part, and the three top-performing groups -- financials, technology, and health care -- just so happen to be heavily-weighted, comprising over 50% of the broader market combined.

The financial sector easily finished atop the sector standings, rallying 1.3%. Its outperformance came amid a sell off in the U.S. Treasury market that resulted in a five-point jump in the 2-10 spread; the 2-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.62%, and the benchmark 10-yr yield shot up seven basis points to 2.97% -- its highest level in over a month.

Meanwhile, the technology sector finished in second place with a gain of 0.5%, and the health care space added 0.2%. The tech sector got off to a slow start, losing as much as 0.6%, but chipmakers helped lead an intraday rebound. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was down 1.8% at the opening bell, but finished with a gain of 0.2%.

On the downside, industrials (-0.6%) and utilities (-0.6%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings. Within the industrial space, Illinois Tool Works (ITW 136.26, -10.60) tumbled 7.2% after an in-line earnings report was overshadowed by worse-than-expected guidance for the fiscal year.

In other earnings news, oilfield-services company Halliburton (HAL 41.54, -3.66) dropped 8.1% after reporting below-consensus profits, but toymaker Hasbro (HAS 106.04, +12.11) spiked 12.9% after beating both top and bottom line estimates. The two names were the worst-performing and best-performing S&P 500 components, respectively.

It's also worth noting that President Trump responded to a warning from Iranian president Rouhani with a warning of his own, tweeting that Iran will "suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before" if it threatens the U.S. again.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to Existing Home Sales for June:

Existing home sales decreased 0.6% in June to an annualized rate of 5.38 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.45 million). The May reading was revised to 5.41 million (from 5.43 million).
The key takeaway from the report remains the same: notable supply constraints continue to act as a drag on overall sales. The limited inventory -- and the high prices on available inventory -- is crimping affordability, particularly for first-time buyers; moreover, all prospective buyers are feeling affordability pressures from home prices rising faster than income.

On Tuesday, investors will receive the FHFA Housing Price Index for May.

Nasdaq Composite +13.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.6% YTD
S&P 500 +5.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.3% YTD

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S&P Weathers Intraday Reversal
24-Jul-18 16:25 ET
Dow +197.65 at 25241.94, Nasdaq -1.11 at 7840.77, S&P +13.42 at 2820.14

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/24/s-and-p-weathers-intraday-reversal.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] It was an erratic day of trading on Wall Street, with tech shares being the primary source of volatility. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.1% at the start of Tuesday's session, touching a new intraday record, but gave it all back, settling a tick below its flat line. The S&P 500 and the Dow also reversed course intraday, but managed to tack on 0.5% and 0.8%, respectively, nonetheless. Small caps struggled, pushing the Russell 2000 lower by 1.1%.

Investor sentiment was unmistakably bullish at the opening bell after Google's parent company Alphabet (GOOG 1248.08, +42.58) soundly beat profit estimates for the second quarter. Shares of the tech giant quickly shot up 5.0%, helping to send the top-weighted technology sector to the top of the sector standings in the process.

The tech group was up as much as 1.5% on Tuesday, but started to fade as Alphabet came off its highs and as chipmakers tumbled into negative territory. Alphabet still settled with a solid gain of 3.5%, but the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 1.1% after being up as much as 1.2%.

There wasn't a news-driven catalyst behind Tuesday's tech reversal; rather, it was most likely driven by profit-taking activity amid the technology sector's continued outperformance. The tech space is up 16.6% year-to-date, piling that on top of last year's 36.9% surge.

Including technology, nine sectors advanced on Tuesday. The top-performer was the lightly-weighted telecom services space (+1.8%), followed by energy (+1.3%) and materials (+1.3%). Most other groups finished with gains between 0.2% and 0.9%. Consumer discretionary (-0.3%) and real estate (-0.3%) declined.

In addition to Alphabet, a number of companies reported their quarterly results. The reactions were mostly positive: Verizon (VZ 51.51, +0.76, +1.5%), United Tech (UTX 134.24, +4.87, +3.8%), 3M (MMM 200.68, +1.84, +0.9%), Lockheed Martin (LMT 322.57, +4.24, +1.3%), Eli Lilly (LLY 93.35, +4.47, +5.0%), Biogen (BIIB 372.84, +14.71, +4.1%), and Harley-Davidson (HOG 44.63, +3.18, +7.7%) all advanced, while Whirlpool (WHR 128.82, -21.89, -14.5% ) and JetBlue (JBLU 17.79, -2.02, -10.2%) dropped.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries finished Tuesday on a mostly higher note, pushing yields lower; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note slipped two basis points to 2.95%. The 2-yr note was lower for much of the session, but eventually rebounded to keep its yield unchanged at 2.62%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index finished flat at 94.38.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the FHFA Housing Price Index for May:

The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.2% in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), and the April increase was revised to 0.2% from 0.1%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive New Home Sales for June and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +13.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.4% YTD
S&P 500 +5.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.1% YTD

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Stocks Spike In Final Stretch On U.S.-EU Trade Deal
25-Jul-18 16:30 ET
Dow +172.16 at 25414.10, Nasdaq +91.47 at 7932.24, S&P +25.67 at 2845.81

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/25/stocks-spike-in-final-stretch-on-useu-trade-deal.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.9%) advanced for a third straight session on Wednesday, extending its weekly gain to 1.6%. The Dow (+0.7%) and the Nasdaq (+1.2%) also climbed, with the Nasdaq hitting a new record. Stocks held modest gains with 30 minutes left in the session, but spiked to new highs following headlines that President Trump has secured trade concessions from the EU.

President Trump met with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at the White House on Thursday afternoon. As mentioned above, the sides reached a trade deal, but the details were still being worked out at the closing bell. The U.S. and the EU have reportedly agreed to lower industrial tariffs on both sides, and the EU has pledged to import more soybeans and liquefied natural gas and to give U.S. medical devices better market access.

As for auto tariffs, which Mr. Trump had previously threatened to impose on EU vehicles, no new information was available as of 4:00 PM ET. The Wall Street Journal reported that the two sides were still trying to fine tune language in a common statement. Mr. Trump and Mr. Juncker will conclude their meeting with a joint press conference.

The latest batch of Q2 earnings invoked a mixed reaction from investors. Coca-Cola (KO 46.09, +0.83, +1.8%) and UPS (UPS 120.20, +7.76, +6.9%) both rallied after reporting their results, while AT&T (T 30.25, -1.43, -4.5%), Boeing (BA 355.92, -2.35, -0.7%), and Texas Instruments (TXN 113.22, -0.58, -0.5%) sold off.

Automakers General Motors (GM 37.65, -1.83) and Fiat Chrysler (FCAU 17.00, -2.28) also came under pressure, tumbling 4.6% and 11.8%, respectively, after both companies issued disappointing guidance for the fiscal year. GM narrowly beat earnings estimates, while Fiat Chrysler came up short.

As for the sector standings, 10 of 11 groups finished in the green, with the lightly-weighted telecom space (-2.9%) being the lone exception. The top-weighted technology sector (+1.5%) was the best performer, helped by a reversal in chipmakers; the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was down as much as 1.3%, but finished higher by 0.5%. Industrials (+1.3%) and health care (+1.2%) also outperformed, while the rest added between 0.3% and 1.0%.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries finished mostly higher, pushing the benchmark 10-yr yield lower by one basis point to 2.94%. The U.S. Dollar Index dropped 0.4% to 94.00, and WTI crude futures rallied 1.1% to $69.31 per barrel after the EIA reported an unexpected draw of 6.1 million barrels.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to New Home Sales for June and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

New Home Sales in June hit an annualized rate of 631,000, which is below the Briefing.com consensus of 670,000. The May reading was revised to 666,000 (from 689,000).
The key takeaway from the report is that the June decline represented the largest monthly drop since December, and it took place despite a decline in median and average selling prices.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.2% after sliding 2.5% last week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive several economic reports on Thursday, including Durable Goods Orders for June, the advance readings for June Wholesale Inventories and International Trade in Goods, and the weekly Initial Claims report.

Nasdaq Composite +14.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.8% YTD
S&P 500 +6.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.8% YTD

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Facebook Suffers Worst One-Day Drop Ever
26-Jul-18 16:20 ET
Dow +112.97 at 25527.07, Nasdaq -80.05 at 7852.19, S&P -8.63 at 2837.18

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/26/facebook-suffers-worst-oneday-drop-ever.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages had a mixed outing on Thursday, with Facebook (FB 176.26, -41.24, -19.0%) pulling the Nasdaq away from its all-time high. The tech-heavy index loss 1.0%, while the benchmark S&P 500 declined 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed, adding 0.4%, as did the small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.6%).

Facebook plunged 19.0%, marking its worst one-day drop since going public in 2012, after the social media giant's Q2 earnings report showed lower-than-expected revenue, slowing user growth, and weaker-than-expected guidance. Fellow FAANG stock Amazon (AMZN 1808.00, -55.61, -3.0%) also declined in front of its Thursday evening earnings release, but most other FAANGs held up relatively well. The top-weighted technology sector, which houses Facebook, finished way behind the ten other groups, closing lower by 1.6%.

Elsewhere within the tech space, Visa (V 142.50, -0.14, -0.1%) finished roughly flat despite beating earnings and revenue estimates, while chipmakers rallied after Qualcomm (QCOM 63.58, +4.16, +7.0%) reported its quarterly results and announced the end of its attempt to acquire NXP Semi (NXPI 92.81, -5.56, -5.7%) due to complications with Chinese regulators. Advanced Micro (AMD 18.35, +2.30, +14.3%) also rose on better-than-expected earnings.

In addition to technology, the consumer discretionary (-0.5%), health care (-0.2%), and financials (-0.1%) sectors also finished in negative territory. McDonald's (MCD 156.14, -2.75, -1.7%) weighed on the consumer discretionary group despite an upbeat earnings report, and Biogen (BIIB 344.74, -39.09, -10.2%) weighed on the health care space despite positive trial results for an Alzheimer's drug that it's working on with Japanese pharma firm Eisai.

As for the remaining seven sectors, they all finished in the green. The energy (+1.0%), and utilities (+1.1%) groups were the top performers, followed closely by the industrial space (+0.8%). Within the industrial group, airlines rallied following better-than-expected earnings from Southwest Air (LUV 56.70, +4.41, +8.4%) and Alaska Air (ALK 64.76, +5.65, +9.6%). Dow components 3M (MMM 207.96, +3.58, +1.8%), Caterpillar (CAT 142.58, +2.1%), and Boeing (BA 359.32, +3.40, +1.0%) also had strong outings.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries sold off on Thursday, sending yields higher across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield, for instance, climbed four basis points to 2.98%, its highest level in two months. The U.S. Dollar Index jumped 0.6% to 94.56 amid the rise in rates, and WTI crude futures ticked up 0.4% to $69.58 per barrel.

In Europe, the ECB decided to keep its key policy rate unchanged, as expected. The central bank also reiterated that net asset purchases will likely cease at the end of December, with the reinvestment of principal payments continuing for an extended period of time thereafter.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included Durable Goods Orders for June, weekly Initial Claims, and the advance readings for June Wholesale Inventories and International Trade in Goods:

June durable goods orders rose 1.0%, which is less than the 3.2% increase expected by the Briefing.com consensus. The prior month's reading was revised to -0.3% (from -0.6%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) to follow the prior month's revised reading of +0.3% (from -0.3%).
The key takeaway from this report, however, was that orders and shipments for nondefense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft, were up 0.6% and 1.0%, respectively, which is a good indication for business spending and a positive input for Q2 GDP forecasts.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 217,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 215,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 208,000 (from 207,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.745 million from a revised count of 1.753 million (from 1.751 million).
The key takeaway from this report is that initial claims remain low and consistent with a tight labor market.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for June showed a deficit of $68.3 billion, and the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for June was flat at 0.0%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive on Friday the advance reading of Q2 GDP and the final reading for the July University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index.

Nasdaq Composite +13.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.4% YTD
S&P 500 +6.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.3% YTD

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Tech Tumble Trims Weekly Gains
27-Jul-18 16:20 ET
Dow -76.01 at 25451.06, Nasdaq -114.77 at 7737.42, S&P -18.62 at 2818.56

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/27/tech-tumble-trims-weekly-gains.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks started Friday stable, but began tumbling in the afternoon, with tech shares pacing the broad-based retreat.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 1.5%, ending the week lower by 1.1%. The S&P 500 and the Dow also declined, losing 0.7% and 0.3%, respectively, but managed to keep in positive territory for the week (+0.6%; +1.6%). The small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed (-1.9%), extending its weekly loss to 2.0%.

All eyes were on Amazon (AMZN 1817.27, +9.27) coming into Friday's session, with investors hoping that its better-than-expected Q2 earnings report could restore some faith in FAANG names, which lost a lot of momentum on Thursday due to Facebook's (FB 174.89, -1.37) earnings-induced plunge.

Amazon was up around 4.0% in pre-market trading, but weakened substantially intraday, trimming its gain to just 0.5% by the closing bell. The petering out didn't do much good for the bulls, which, just a few days ago, were looking to ride another FAANG-led rally back into record territory.

The top-weighted technology sector finished a ways behind the ten other groups on Friday, losing 2.0%. Intel (INTC 47.68, -4.48, -8.6%) weighed heavily on the group as concerns over its slow roll out of next-generation chips overshadowed its better-than-expected Q2 earnings report. Twitter (TWTR 34.12, -8.82) was also a drag on the tech space, plunging 20.5%, after reporting a decline in monthly active users and disappointing guidance.

No other sector lost more than 0.9%, and three groups -- financials (+0.2%), consumer staples (+0.2%), and telecoms (+1.9%) -- actually finished in the green.

Health care (-0.7%) ended near the bottom of the sector standings, with Merck (MRK 63.49, -0.52, -0.8%) slipping despite upbeat earnings results. Energy (-0.5%) was another decliner following a mixed post-earnings performance from Chevron (CVX 125.97, +2.02, +1.6%) and Exxon Mobil (XOM 81.92, -2.32, -2.8%).

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries finished the week with a modest rally, pushing yields lower across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 2.96%. Meanwhile, WTI crude futures broke a three-day win streak, dropping 1.3% to $68.72/bbl, and the U.S. Dollar Index ticked down 0.1% to 94.45.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the preliminary reading of Q2 GDP and the final reading for the July University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index:

Advance second quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 4.1%, in line with the Briefing.com consensus, and the prior month's reading was revised to 2.2% from 2.0%. The GDP Deflator came in at +3.0%, which is above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 2.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that real GDP growth was the strongest it has been since the third quarter of 2014. The key concern for some, though, is that it may not be sustainable given that export growth was likely juiced by pre-tariff activity.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July ticked up to 97.9 (Briefing.com consensus 97.1) from 97.1 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that confidence remained at high levels due to favorable job and income prospects, offsetting growing concerns it seems about the potential impact of tariffs on the domestic economy.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Pending Home Sales for June on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +12.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.3% YTD
S&P 500 +5.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD

Week In Review: Facebook Flop Steals Trade-Deal Thunder

Stocks moved mostly higher this week, sending the S&P 500 within 1.5% of its January 26 record high, with investors focused on a potential U.S.-EU trade deal and the latest batch of Q2 earnings, which featured results from high-flying FAANG names like Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), and Alphabet (GOOG).

The S&P 500 advanced 0.6%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq struggled, however, losing 1.1%, due in large part to Facebook's 19% plunge on Thursday -- which marked the biggest-ever one-day drop in market value for a U.S.-listed company (-$119.1 billion).

Facebook tumbled in response to its Q2 earnings report, which showed below-consensus revenues and slowing user growth, due in part to the #DeleteFacebook movement following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. In addition, the social media giant also issued below-consensus revenue guidance. However, Google's parent company Alphabet and internet-retail behemoth Amazon helped balance things out with better-than-expected results.

Still, the top-weighted technology sector, which houses most FAANG names, was the worst-performing group this week, diving 1.2%. Conversely, financials was among the top-performing spaces with a gain of 2.0%, benefiting from a rise in interest rates; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed six basis points to 2.96%.

On the data front, the preliminary reading for second quarter GDP showed an annualized increase of 4.1%, in line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate and the best reading since the third quarter of 2014. Consumer spending was the main engine of growth, increasing 4.0% and contributing 2.69 percentage points.

In politics, President Trump met with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at the White House on Wednesday. Stocks spiked that afternoon on headlines that Mr. Trump has secured trade concessions from the EU, including a pledge to import more soybeans and natural gas from the U.S. and to improve market access for U.S. medical devices. The two sides also decided to table auto tariffs while they continue to negotiate.

The European Central Bank decided on Thursday to keep its key policy rate unchanged, as expected, and reiterated that net asset purchases will likely cease at the end of December, with the reinvestment of principal payments continuing for an extended period of time thereafter.

Looking ahead, the Federal Reserve will release its latest policy directive on Wednesday. The market isn't expecting a rate hike, but investors will be interested to see what the central bank has to say about future rate increases this year; currently, the market is anticipating two additional hikes by year's end.

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InvestmentHouse - Volatile Week for Growth (Weekend Newsletter)

http://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- AMZN beats big on EPS, gaps higher with NASDAQ, but flip the gains.
- Not breakdowns, but a volatile week for growth puts those indices at risk.
- SP500, DJ30 pause, still look solid.
- FAANG stocks may have started to saturate their markets.
- GDP solid, but not as solid as expectations. Combined with the action in
growth indices there could be some trouble.
- GDP at 4.1% dragged a whole 1% lower thanks to a surprise drop in
inventories.

I cannot say Friday was a reversal session in terms of the market, certainly
not for SP500 and DJ30, but I can say it was not good action, particularly
for NASDAQ and growth.

Think about it. AMZN exploded EPS expectations and GDP grew at 4.1%. It
would appear the market had what it needed, i.e. arguably the major stock
more than doubling EPS expectations and GDP surging the most since 2014.
Yet, after a higher open, all indices closed lower, with NASDAQ -1.46% as
AMZN gave up 63 points open to close, giving up a breakout to a new high.

Again, it was not a definitive reversal, but a gift to the market was
refused.

SP500 -18.62, -0.66%
NASDAQ -114.77, -1.46%
DJ30 76.01, -0.30%
SP400 -22.22, -1.11%
RUTX -1.89%
SOX -6.18, -0.45%

VOLUME: NYSE -7.4%, NASDAQ -4%. NYSE trade well below average as there was
no selling just a lack of bids. NASDAQ trade was lower but still well above
average as it sold, a sign that NASDAQ stocks are being unloaded.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE -2.1:1, NASDAQ -3.4:1. Definitely escalating negative
breadth on the downside.


Not a definitive reversal, but there are issues. Macro and more micro.

First, the micro (the macro will just be a repeat of this past week's
discussion anyway). AMZN earnings. Yes, EPS was amazing at $5.07 versus
2.50 expected. With 49% of all online sales, AMZN has now clearly become
profitable after all those years of plowing everything back into the
company. Fantastic. Just as revenues slow. Yes, AMZN missed on its top
line ($52.89B vs $53.4B). Sure, it is only a tiny 0.51B less, but then AMZN
had to go and warn that Q3 revenue would be light of expectations.

Time to back up. What is going on there? NFLX top line lower and warned
with subscriber growth lower than expected. FB missed the top line and
guided revenues lower with daily and monthly usage lower. GOOG posted just
a slight top line beat; GOOG was the best of the bunch and at least it was
rewarded. AAPL is still to come, but last quarter AAPL already reported
that iPhone sales were lower than expected. With the issues with China I am
not expecting that to change this past quarter.

AAPL has now become the old MSFT: no new tech of its own, just living off
past glory. Tim Cook has had what seems to be many, many years at the helm
and while AAPL is super profitable, it is living off the prior successes.
No new products since Steve Jobs' death. Just iPhone sales growth until
AAPL's i8 and i10 fiasco and the absurd $1000+ phone. Like the 1990's that
owed their success to the tax cuts and regulation reduction in the 1980's.
Clinton was smart: he didn't get in the way of the expansion -- until the
end. I call it the Pittsburg Steelers syndrome from the 1970's. People
said anyone could have quarterbacked that team and won. Not saying I agree
with the premise, but it illuminates the idea: riding on what other's built.

I touched on this earlier in the week: market penetration by FAANG companies
is reaching plateau level. It happens in all retailers and let's face it,
these companies are retailers. FB sells its data. Three times it denied
its existence, but in the end it turns out it sold data to dozens and dozens
and dozens of companies and countries -- even the Russians heaven forbid.
AAPL sells iPhones. NFLX sells movies and shows. GOOG is the outlier.

What happens with retailers is they are growth stocks as long as they are
entering new markets and opening new stores. Once they move toward market
saturation, growth over and the stock price reflects it. SBUX, CHS, CMG,
ZUMZ -- the list is miles long because it happens to every retailer. Now
FAANG stocks are hitting this wall. AAPL through a lack of creativity, NFLX
and FB through numbers. At 49% you have to wonder just how much more AMZN
can do. That is why it is branching out into other areas a la GOOG.

For the NASDAQ you have to consider that its horsemen are peaking out in
terms of growth. Dell, CSCO, HPQ, INTC -- the hardware makers had their own
similar issues when their markets became saturated. Others over the next
several years will emerge to take their place as new areas of tech appear.
And these stocks won't disappear from the leaderboard for quite some time.
It is never linear at first, but when it starts it is inevitable unless they
reinvent the company. AAPL could actually come out with something useful
other than the next iteration of the iPhone. AMZN moves into new areas such
as space travel.

In any event, near term some of these leaders are no longer the same buy on
the dips that they were. NFLX, AAPL, FB in our book have lost that tag.
While we said get used to buying these in the second half of 2017 due to the
market conditions, now we are going to have to be very selective with these
stocks. That also means NASDAQ will likely struggle as it finds
replacements. Near term it is very likely NASDAQ has peaked for now.

Second is the macro discussed all last week: the market action on NASDAQ and
the small and midcap indices suggests distribution given the volatile day to
day swings at or near new highs. Sellers are at least as aggressive as the
buyers at these levels. Our concern is the growth indices are starting to
undergo distribution (selling out by big money) as an indication the Q2 4.1%
GDP is the high water mark for the near term. That remains to be seen, but
RUTX and SP400 have faltered at the prior highs, and if they sell
aggressively that suggests the domestic economics are deteriorating.

Also in the macro is the Fed, for now still in the background. It is hiking
and its last statement and minutes indicate it plans to keep hiking even if
the yield curve remains flat and threatens inversion. Despite its hiking,
the long end overall remains weak when it should rise. That also suggests
weakening economic activity. If the Fed does what it usually does, i.e.
hike into a slowdown, it is a real threat to tank the nice economic
expansion.

I don't mean to sound like a downer, but just recognizing what the various
markets are showing. The industrial side, the NYSE large caps and the like,
can still get money from a peaking growth side and continue their relatively
new moves off the lows. Again we are looking at plays in those areas this
weekend in addition to a spread of downside plays on areas appearing to be
losing money. It could be we see the more vicious rotation where money is
taken from some sectors and placed in others, causing the drop of the sector
losing the money. That looks to be the situation the past couple of weeks.

NEWS/ECONOMY

GPD, Q2: Not bad, not as good as expected, but the headline understates the
strong activity.

The 4.1% was a miss of the 4.4% expected (and 5+% whisper). That was in
itself a disappointment, but look at why not 5%: inventories showed a
surprise large drop as sales outstripped production. Thus inventories fell,
and a big part of GDP fell. Indeed, the drop in inventories pulled a full
1% off of the overall GDP. Thus, if inventories were as expected, GDP would
boast +5.1%.

As noted, inventories did not drop because manufacturers are sitting on
their hands. Sales ramped up more than expected and pulled inventories
lower. Further, imports rose as they tend to do when the US consumer is in
good spirits and consuming -- Personal Consumption jumped 4.0% versus 0.5%
in Q1. Looking good, Billy Ray. Feeling good Louis. That combined action
pulled a 5+% GDP down to a 'mere' 4.1%.

GDP Q2: 4.1 vs 4.4 exp vs 2.2 Q1 (from 2.0). Nice revision.

Personal Consumption: 4.0% vs 0.5% Q1

Price Index: 3.0 vs 2.2 exp vs 2.0 prior

PCE: 2.0 vs 2.2 vs 2.2 prior

Business Investment: 7.3% vs 11.5% Q1

Government Spending 2.1%.


MARKET

CHARTS

NASDAQ: Back and forth all week over the 10 day EMA as it hit new highs
then immediately sold back. After a doji at the 10 day EMA Thursday, NASDAQ
gapped upside gratis AMZN, but then reversed to take out the 20 day EMA and
touch the bottom of the two week lateral range on the low. Not a breakdown
as noted earlier, but definitely rejected at the new high, not just Friday,
but Tuesday and Thursday as well.

SP400: Not a breakdown either, but definitely sellers in the mix as it sold
hard Tuesday and Friday, both days closing near the 50 day MA. Still near
the all time highs in its three week lateral range, still fending off a
breakdown, but clearly it was sold as it tried for new highs.

RUTX: RUTX tapped the prior highs on the Tuesday intraday high then
reversed. A modest bounce into Thursday was pounded lower Friday, dropping
RUTX all the way back to the 50 day MA. Not a breakdown here either, and
just as with the other indices RUTX could use this test of support to rally
back upside. Did this in early July after the last June beat down. Would
maintain that trend if it did. It never, however, reached a definitive new
high on the move, turning lower instead. That shows a weaker move and RUTX
has to prove it can continue back upside.

SP500: Broke to a higher recovery high Wednesday then faded into Friday and
a test of the 10 day EMA on the close. Down but lower volume and SP500
remains in good position to take on the all-time high from late January.

DJ30: Surpassed the June high on the week, leaving the late February peak
and the January all-time high still out there. That is good; plenty of room
to run with the new money coming DJ30's way. Near term DJ30 is almost at
the upper channel line from the uptrend that started in March. It may want
to test a bit more before resuming the move and that run at those prior
highs. Overall DJ30 continues to look good in its recovery.

SOX: A slow process but SOX continues its attempt to rise off the 5 week
crawl up the 200 day SMA. It is just hanging on, but it is hanging on.


LEADERSHIP

Leaders in FAANG, software struggle as financial, drugs, some industrial
sectors, certain transports, certain large cap food are performing.

FAANG: continue to struggled despite AMZN beating the bottom line and
gapping upside. It gave up most of that gain. GOOG faded to the 10 day
EMA, still solid on its earnings gap. FB not recovering from the Thursday
bomb gap below the 200 day SMA. NFLX still struggling below the 50 day MA.
AAPL touched a higher high Thursday, reversed that day, then flopped to the
20 day EMA Friday. Not a good looking group.

Financial: Good week, still moving higher as of Friday, e.g. JPM, C, BAC,
GS. V announced results, held up reasonably well, then dropped some Friday.
Still very solid overall.

Drugs: Strong week for the old big names, e.g. PFE, LLY. BMY, MRK moved
well early week but then struggled Friday with moves lower. Others that
have moved well, e.g. ARWR sold harder Friday. JNJ jumped nicely into
Friday, testing the 200 day SMA.

Industrials: Great week for some though Friday was lower. UTX surged into
Friday but turned lower on the close. BA was decent off the 50 day MA. HON
surged all week, paused Friday. TEX poses an interesting pattern, and CMI
looks as if it is setting up to move higher through the 50 day MA.

Metals: Very improved. NUE may try the breakout from a big triangle. AKS,
SID working well. STLD looks decent in a test at the 50 day MA. We will
see if this group can lead.

Software: A good group but under fire. ADBE sold hard Friday to the 20 day
EMA. DATA sold to the same level on a volume jump. TTWO gapped lower below
the 20 day MA but held decently. VRSN surged on earnings then gave it all
back, managing to hold the 10 day EMA. ATVI broke down hard last week. NOW
very volatile to end the week.

Energy: As volatile as ever. CVX came off the 200 day SMA and was solid
Friday. Others struggled, e.g. APC, APA, MRO. GPOR broke lower. Still
very mixed.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -76.01 points (-0.30%) to close at 25451.06

Nasdaq
Stats: -114.77 points (-1.46%) to close at 7737.42
Volume: 2.19B (-3.95%)

Up Volume: 652.38M (-467.62M)
Down Volume: 1.52B (+390M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 3.4 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.21 to 1

New Highs: 76 (-46)
New Lows: 106 (+39)

S&P
Stats: -18.62 points (-0.66%) to close at 2818.82
NYSE Volume: 753.915M (-7.36%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 2.1 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.43 to 1

New Highs: 71 (-66)
New Lows: 40 (+9)


SENTIMENT

VIX: 13.03; +0.89
VXN: 18.72; +1.85
VXO: 11.54; +0.31

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.05; +0.31

Bulls and Bears:

Modest moves with bulls holding near 55, bears near 18.6. Not telling a lot
right now, but bigger picture, bulls remain off the highs over 6 hit early
2018.

Bulls: 54.9 versus 55.3

Bears: 18.6 versus 18.5

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 54.9 versus 55.3
55.3 versus 52.4 versus 47.1 versus 47.6 versus 52.0 versus 55.5 versus 52.9
versus 50.0 versus 49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0
versus 43.6 versus 42.2 versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6
versus 48.1 versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00 versus 64.7
versus 66.7 versus 64.4 versus 61.9 versus 64.1 versus 64.2 versus 62.3
versus 61.5 versus 63.5 versus 64.4 versus 63.5 versus 62.3 versus 60.6
versus 60.4 versus 57.5 versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1

Bears: 18.6 versus 18.5
18.5 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8 versus 17.7
versus 19.2 versus 19.2 versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8
versus 19.6 versus 19.8 versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7
versus 15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6
versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2
versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4
versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0
versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.958 versus 2.982%. Bonds rallied despite good economic data.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.982%
versus 2.965% versus 2.952% versus 2.962% versus 2.895% versus 2.838% versus
2.88% versus 2.86% versus 2.856% versus 2.829% versus 2.849% versus 2.853%
versus 2.867% versus 2.867% versus 2.824% versus 2.835% versus 2.833% versus
2.871% versus 2.86% versus 2.84% versus 2.833% versus 2.877% versus 2.882%
versus 2.895% versus 2.899% versus 2.937% versus 2.889% versus 2.915% versus
2.922% versus 2.933% versus 2.977% versus 2.963% versus 2.952% versus 2.948%
versus 2.928% versus 2.974% versus 2.935% versus 2.944% versus 2.902% versus
2.86% versus 2.857% versus 2.79% versus 2.931% versus 2.992% versus 2.982%
versus 3.063% versus 3.056% versus 3.06% versus 3.123% versus 3.096% versus
3.069%


EUR/USD: 1.16558 versus 1.17324

Historical: 1.17324 versus 1.17385 versus 1.16846 versus 1.16989 versus
1.17214 versus 1.1651 versus 1.16514 versus 1.16603 versus 1.1709 versus
1.1685 versus 1.16608 versus 1.1672 versus 1.17288 versus 1.17578 versus
1.17439 versus 1.1689 versus 1.1665 versus 1.16388 versus 1.1638 versus
1.15634 versus 1.15602 versus 1.16517 versus 1.17031 versus 1.16572 versus
1.16072 versus 1.15762 versus 1.1586 versus 1.15746 versus 1.2624 versus
1.16245 versus 1.15678 versus 1.17973 versus 1.17454 versus 1.17761 versus
1.17737 versus 1.17987 versus 1.1774 versus 1.1762 versus 1.1697 versus
1.166 versus 1.16993


USD/JPY: 110.995 versus 110.791.

Historical: 110.791 versus 110.871 versus 111.235 versus 111.084 versus
111.451 versus 112.732 versus 112.783 versus 112.896 versus 112.337 versus
112.631 versus 112.093 versus 110.911 versus 110.973 versus 110.474 versus
110.666 versus 110.40 versus 110.854 versus 110.687 versus 110.523 versus
110.223 versus 110.097 versus 109.678 versus 109.980 versus 109.895 versus
110.376 versus 110.03 versus 109.783 versus 110.668 versus 110.578 versus
110.247 versus 110.381 versus 110.314 versus 109.466 versus 109.705 versus
110.164 versus 109.878 versus 109.90 versus 109.53 versus 108.767


Oil: 68.69, -0.92. Struggling after recovering to the 50 day MA.


Gold: 1223.00, -2.70. Moved up to the 10 day EMA on the week, then
stalled, gapping lower Friday.

[ReturntoSender]

Tech Pulls S&P Lower For Third Straight Session
30-Jul-18 16:20 ET
Dow -144.23 at 25306.83, Nasdaq -107.41 at 7630.01, S&P -16.22 at 2802.34

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/30/tech-pulls-s-and-p-lower-for-third-straight-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks dropped for a third straight session on Monday, with tech shares again pacing the retreat. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.6% apiece, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite tumbled 1.4%. The averages opened flat, but slipped into the afternoon, settling just above session lows.

The technology sector -- which is the heaviest sector by weight, representing a quarter of the broader market -- was undoubtedly the worst-performing group on Monday, losing 1.8%. More than half of its components shed at least 1.0%, with Twitter (TWTR 31.38, -2.74) losing 8.0%, Netflix (NFLX 334.96, -20.25) dropping 5.7%, and Facebook (FB 171.06, -3.83) tumbling 2.2%.

Monday's tech tumble followed similar declines on Thursday and Friday -- which were set in motion by Facebook's 19% plunge last Thursday following disappointing earnings/guidance -- and points to continued profit taking following a strong run ahead of earnings season; the tech sector added 7.9% from July 3 to July 25.

Elsewhere, Amazon (AMZN 1779.22, -38.05, -2.1%) fell with its FAANG peers, helping to secure a loss for the consumer discretionary sector (-0.8%). The industrial sector (-0.9%) also struggled following an intraday reversal from Caterpillar (CAT 139.75, -2.81), which went from +2.8% to -2.0% despite reporting upbeat earnings and guidance.

On a positive note, the energy sector (+0.8%) advanced, helped by a rise in crude prices; WTI crude climbed 2.1% to $70.10/bbl. The lightly-weighted telecom sector (+2.0%) also had a solid performance, helped by AT&T (T 32.00, +0.92), which jumped 3.0% after being upgraded at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Financials (unch) and health care (+0.1%) also outperformed.

Away from equities, U.S. Treasuries finished flat to modestly lower, pushing the back end of the yield curve slightly higher; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed two basis points to 2.98%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index dropped 0.3% to 94.16, and the CBOE Volatility Index spiked 8.8% to 14.19, a three-week high.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to Pending Home Sales for June:

Pending Home Sales increased 0.9% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Today's reading follows an unrevised 0.5% decrease in May.

On Tuesday, investors will receive several economic reports, including the Employment Cost Index for Q2, PCE Prices for June, Personal Income and Personal Spending for June, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for May, the Chicago PMI for July, and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for July.

Nasdaq Composite +10.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.7% YTD
S&P 500 +4.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.4% YTD

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Stocks End Losing Streak Ahead of Apple Earnings, Fed Decision
31-Jul-18 16:20 ET
Dow +108.36 at 25415.19, Nasdaq +41.78 at 7671.79, S&P +13.69 at 2816.03

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/7/31/stocks-end-losing-streak-ahead-of-apple-earnings-fed-decision.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks broke a three-session losing streak on Wednesday, with industrial shares leading the charge. The major averages extended modest opening gains throughout the morning, but slipped a bit in the final stretch, closing a step below their session highs. The S&P 500 added 0.5%; the Dow climbed 0.4%; the Nasdaq rose 0.6%; and the small-cap Russell 2000 jumped 1.1%.

Reports that the U.S. and China are trying to restart trade talks helped underpin the broader market, especially the trade-sensitive industrial sector (+2.1%), which closed atop the sector standings. Investors were also paying close attention to the information technology sector (+0.3%), which was a bit erratic after tumbling for three sessions in a row, trading between -0.4% and +1.0%.

Apple's (AAPL 190.29, +0.38) earnings, which were scheduled to be released after the close, also likely contributed to tech's fickle behavior. Investors were hoping that Apple, which is the largest company in the world by market cap, can get the tech sector back on track following last week's disappointing results and guidance from social media giant Facebook (FB 172.58, +1.52).

In total, eight of eleven sectors finished in the green. The health care group (+1.0%) was a notable outperformer, helped by Pfizer (PFE 39.93, +1.34), which rallied 3.5% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and guidance. Meanwhile, in the consumer staples sector (+0.5%), Procter & Gamble (PG 80.88, +0.68) finished higher by 0.9% after also beating bottom-line estimates.

On the downside, the financial sector (-0.7%) struggled on Tuesday, cutting its July gain to 5.2% -- still much better than the S&P 500 (+3.6%). The energy sector (-0.3%) dropped amid a decline in crude prices -- WTI crude -2.0% to $68.70/bbl -- and the lightly-weighted telecom services group (-0.8%) also lagged.

In other news, Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 433.66, -31.81) dropped 6.8% after reports of another food-borne illness incident in Powell, Ohio; the Bank of Japan decided to leave its ultra-loose monetary policy intact; and the Fed kicked off a two-day policy meeting in Washington.

Reviewing Tuesday's big batch of economic data, which included Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices for June, the Employment Cost Index for Q2, the Chicago PMI for July, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for July, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for May:

Personal income climbed 0.4% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following an unrevised increase of 0.4% in May. Meanwhile, personal spending rose 0.4% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following a revised increase of 0.5% in May (from 0.2%). The PCE Price Index rose 0.1% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 1.9%, unchanged from the last reading.
The key takeaway from the Personal Income and Spending Report for June is that it didn't produce any real surprises. That means it is the type of report that should keep the Federal Reserve inclined to think that it can continue to raise interest rates.
The second quarter Employment Cost Index rose 0.6%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that wages and salaries, and benefit costs, are trending higher. That will support an inflation narrative and the thinking that the Federal Reserve will remain inclined to keep gradually raising interest rates.
The Chicago PMI for July hit 65.5 (Briefing.com consensus 62.0), up from an unrevised 64.1 in June.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that the Prices Paid Indicator hit its highest level (82.1) since September 2008, which is indicative of pipeline inflation.
The consumer confidence reading for July increased to 127.4 (Briefing.com consensus 126.6) from the prior month's revised reading of 127.1 (from 126.4).
The key takeaway from the report is the Conference Board's indication that a back-to-back decline in the Expectations Index suggests consumers do not anticipate growth accelerating.
The Case-Shiller 20-City Index increased 6.5% in May (Briefing.com consensus +6.5%), and the April increase was revised to 6.7% from 6.6%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive on Wednesday the ADP Employment Change report for July, the Construction Spending report for June, the ISM Index for July, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index. In addition, the Fed will release its latest policy directive (2:00 PM ET), and July auto sales will be released throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite +11.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.8% YTD
S&P 500 +5.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.8% YTD

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Apple Soars On Earnings; Fed Leaves Rates Unchanged
01-Aug-18 16:20 ET
Dow -81.37 at 25333.82, Nasdaq +35.50 at 7707.29, S&P -2.93 at 2813.10

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/1/apple-soars-on-earnings-fed-leaves-rates-unchanged.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Equities had a mixed outing on Wednesday as investors took in the latest batch of corporate earnings and digested the Fed's latest policy directive. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished with modest losses, shedding 0.1% and 0.3%, respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.5%.

The Fed left interest rates unchanged as expected, keeping its target range at 1.75% to 2.00%, and characterized the economy as strong, signaling that the central bank is still on track to raise rates two more times this year. The next rate hike will likely come in September, with the CME FedWatch Tool placing the chances at 91.2%.

On the corporate front, Apple (AAPL 201.50, +11.21) gobbled up all the attention after releasing its fiscal Q3 results on Tuesday evening. The world's largest tech company beat earnings and revenue estimates and issued positive guidance for Q4, helping to restore faith in FAANG names after a disappointing report from Facebook (FB 171.65, -0.93) last week.

Apple shares rallied 5.9%, hitting a new record high and pushing the company's market cap to $990 billion -- within striking distance of the unprecedented $1 trillion mark. Underpinned by Apple, the information technology sector finished atop the sector standings, adding 1.0%. Only two other groups -- real estate (+0.7%) and health care (+0.1%) -- finished in the green.

The financial sector (unch) got off to a good start, rising as much as 1.1%, but tumbled back to its flat line following news that Fidelity will be offering new index funds with zero fees, creating concerns over the future profitability of competitors like BlackRock (BLK 479.45, -23.31, -4.6%) and T. Row Price (TROW 117.27, -1.81, -1.5%).

Meanwhile, the trade-sensitive industrial sector (-1.3%) slid following reports that the White House is considering upping planned tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25% from 10%, and the energy sector (-1.3%) tumbled amid a drop in oil prices; WTI crude declined 1.5% to $67.68/bbl, a six-week low, after the weekly EIA inventory report showed an unexpected build of 3.8 million barrels.

In other news, Cigna (CI 182.93, +3.51) climbed 2.0% and Express Scripts (ESRX 74.44, -5.02) lost 6.3% following reports that activist investor Carl Icahn has built a sizable stake in Cigna and plans to vote against its planned purchase of Express Scripts. Also of note, Pandora Media (P 7.73, +0.99) spiked 14.7% on earnings.

Elsewhere, Treasuries sold off on Wednesday, even before the Fed's rate decision, with longer-dated issues showing relative weakness. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed four basis points to 3.00%, and the 2-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.68%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the ADP Employment Change report for July, the Construction Spending report for June, the ISM Index for July, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 219,000 in July (Briefing.com consensus 175,000), and the June reading was revised to 181,000 from 177,000.
The ADP reading is seen as a prelude to the BLS's nonfarm payrolls figure (Briefing.com consensus 190,000), which will be released on Friday.
The ISM Index for July decreased to 58.1 from an unrevised reading of 60.2 in June, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 59.4.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing demand is strong, evidenced by the 15th straight month the New Orders Index has been 60% or higher.
Construction spending declined 1.1% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and the May reading was revised to +1.3% from +0.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the upward revision to spending in May mitigated most of the headline disappointment for June, which implies the June downturn is not as bad as it appears at first blush.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.6% to follows last week's downtick of 0.2%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims report and the Factory Orders report for June on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +11.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.7% YTD
S&P 500 +5.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.5% YTD

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S&P Climbs As Apple Becomes First $1 Trillion Company
02-Aug-18 16:25 ET
Dow -7.66 at 25326.16, Nasdaq +95.40 at 7802.69, S&P +13.86 at 2826.96

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/2/s-and-p-climbs-as-apple-becomes-first-1-trillion-company.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market stumbled out of the gate on Thursday due to concerns over U.S.-China trade relations, but found its footing as Apple (AAPL 207.39, +5.89, +2.9%) extended its post-earnings rally, becoming the first company ever to reach a market cap of $1 trillion. The S&P 500 finished higher by 0.5%, erasing an opening loss of around 0.6%.

Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rallied 1.2%, coming within 1.7% of its July 25 record high; the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished flat, weighed down by materials giant DowDuPont (DWDP 66.44, -1.52, -2.2%), which sold off despite reporting upbeat earnings; and the small-cap Russell 2000 added 0.8%.

In other notable earnings news, electric automaker Tesla (TSLA 349.54, +48.70, +16.2%) soared after above-consensus revenues, reaffirmed guidance, and an apology from CEO Elon Musk for last quarter's abrasive earnings call helped overshadow the company's larger-than-expected earnings per share loss of $3.06.

The U.S. equity market was an outlier on Thursday, outdoing Asian and European markets, which finished solidly lower. The weakness overseas -- and in early trading on Wall Street -- was attributed to the White House's confirmation that it's considering raising proposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25% from 10%.

Separately, in the UK, the Bank of England hiked rates for just the second time in a decade and surprised some by saying it anticipates raising rates further despite the looming uncertainty over Brexit. The British pound dropped 0.8% against the U.S. Dollar following the decision, retesting an 11-month low.

Back on Wall Street, seven of eleven sectors finished in the green, led by information technology (+1.4%) and consumer staples (+1.1%). On the downside, the materials (-0.7%), energy (-0.5%), and real estate (-0.5%) spaces closed at the bottom of the standings, and the heavily-weighted financial space (unch) was another notable laggard.

The S&P 500 once again found technical support at the 2800 level, which provided support on numerous occasions throughout the month of July. The S&P 500 is back in positive territory for the week (+0.3%) going into Friday's session, which will feature the release of the potentially market-moving July jobs report.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which was limited to weekly Initial Claims and June Factory Orders:

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 218,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 220,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 217,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.724 million from a revised count of 1.747 million (from 1.745 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it was little changed, underscoring for market participants that the low level of initial claims activity fits the framework of a tight labor market.
The Factory Orders report for June showed an increase of 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%), and the May reading was left unrevised at +0.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft were weaker than reported in the Advance Durable Goods Orders report. That understanding could lead to a softening in forecasts for the second estimate of Q2 GDP.

On Friday, investors will receive the Employment Situation report for July at 8:30 AM ET, which the Briefing.com consensus expects will show the addition of 190,000 nonfarm payrolls. The June Trade Balance will also be released at 8:30 AM ET, while the ISM Services Index for July will cross the wires at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite +13.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.6% YTD
S&P 500 +5.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.5% YTD

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Stocks Climb on Jobs Report Friday, Extending Weekly Gains
03-Aug-18 16:25 ET
Dow +136.42 at 25462.58, Nasdaq +9.33 at 7812.02, S&P +13.13 at 2840.09

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/3/stocks-climb-on-jobs-report-friday-extending-weekly-gains.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks added to their weekly gains on Friday as investors took the July Employment Situation report in stride, pushing the S&P 500 higher by 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.5% as well, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq ticked up 0.1%. Small caps struggled though, sending the Russell 2000 lower by 0.5%.

The monthly jobs report showed the economy added 157K nonfarm payrolls last month, less than the 190K that the Briefing.com consensus was expecting. However, the June increase was upwardly revised to 248K from 213K, helping to offset the disappointing headline number for July. Meanwhile, average hourly earnings increase 0.3% as expected, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.9%.

In short, the July Employment Situation report was essentially the same 'Goldilocks' report that the market cheered in June when accounting for the revisions and the fact that the year-over-year increase in average hourly earnings held steady at 2.7%. Equity futures slipped following the release, but the reaction was pretty mild overall.

The S&P 500 opened the session a tick higher and trended sideways for much of the morning before climbing to new highs in the afternoon. Countercyclical sectors, which are generally seen as less risky, led the charge, with consumer staples (+1.2%) closing near the top of the sector standings, helped by Kraft Heinz (KHC 64.48, +5.08, +8.6%), which rallied after beating both top and bottom line estimates.

In other earnings news, CBS (CBS 53.16, +0.44, +0.8%), Take-Two (TTWO 123.41, +10.17), DISH Network (DISH 34.20, +4.34, +14.5%), and GoPro (GPRO 7.05, +1.06, +17.7%) rallied after their releases, while Activision Blizzard (ATVI 71.32, -2.74, -3.7%) and Shake Shack (SHAK 56.34, -7.60, -11.9%) sold off.

The top-weighted technology sector held the broader market back in early action but eventually picked up the pace, closing higher by 0.3%. Energy was the only sector to finish Friday in negative territory, losing 0.5% and extending its weekly loss to 1.8% -- the worst among the 11 sectors.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries climbed on Friday, sending yields lower across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield dropped three basis points to 2.95%. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures slid 0.8% to $68.48 per barrel, and the U.S. Dollar Index finished flat at 95.00, just below a 13-month high.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the Employment Situation report for July, the June Trade Balance, and the July ISM Services Index:

July nonfarm payrolls increased by 157,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 190,000. The prior month's increase was revised to 248,000 from 213,000. Nonfarm private payrolls rose by 170,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 187,000. The previous month's increase was revised to 234,000 from 202,000. Average hourly earnings increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the previous month's increase was left unrevised at 0.2%. The average workweek was reported at 34.5 (Briefing.com consensus 34.5), and the unemployment rate slipped to 3.9% from 4.0% (Briefing.com consensus 3.9%).
The key takeaway from the Employment Situation Report for July is that it is essentially the same Goldilocks report the market cheered in June when accounting for the upward revisions to nonfarm payrolls in May and June and the fact that the year-over-year increase in average hourly earnings held steady at 2.7%.
The June trade balance report showed a deficit of $46.3 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$45.6 billion). The May deficit was revised to $43.2 billion from $43.1 billion.
The key takeaway from the report comes in the recognition that the year-to-date goods and services deficit is up $19.6 billion, or 7.2%, from the same period in 2017 when the trigger on tariffs had yet to be pulled.
The ISM Services Index for July ticked down to 55.7 (Briefing.com consensus 58.5) from an unrevised reading of 59.1 in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is a July number, and considering the size of the non-manufacturing sector, a cooling off there could feed expectations for a cooling off in third quarter real GDP growth.

Looking ahead, investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +13.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.0% YTD
S&P 500 +6.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD

Week In Review: Apple Becomes First $1 Trillion Company

Stocks climbed this week as investors digested the Fed's latest policy directive and Apple's (AAPL) quarterly earnings report, which helped boost the company's market cap above the unprecedented $1 trillion mark. The S&P 500 advanced 0.8%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.0%. The Dow lagged though, adding just 0.1%.

The Fed left interest rates unchanged as expected on Wednesday, keeping its target range at 1.75% to 2.00%, and characterized the economy as strong, signaling that the central bank is still on track to raise rates two more times this year. The next rate hike will likely come in September, with the CME FedWatch Tool placing the chances at 93.6%.

Overseas, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England also held policy meetings this week. The BoJ decided to leave its ultra-loose monetary policy intact, but the BoE voted to raise rates for just the second time in a decade and surprised some by saying it anticipates raising rates further despite the looming uncertainty over Brexit.

In Washington, President Trump ordered his top trade representative to consider increasing proposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25% from 10%. Beijing threatened to retaliate with tariffs on about $60 billion worth of American goods. The news didn't have much impact on U.S. markets, but China's Shanghai Composite lost 4.6% for the week, retesting a nearly two-and-a-half year low.

On the earnings front, Apple gobbled up all the attention after releasing its fiscal Q3 results on Tuesday evening. The world's largest tech company beat earnings and revenue estimates and issued positive guidance for Q4, helping to restore faith in FAANG names after a disappointing report from Facebook (FB) last week.

In response, Apple shares rallied 5.9% on Wednesday and then another 2.9% on Thursday, making Apple the first ever company with a market cap of $1 trillion.

Tesla (TSLA) shares also soared, spiking 16.2% on Thursday, after above-consensus revenues, reaffirmed guidance, and an apology from CEO Elon Musk for last quarter's abrasive earnings call helped the electric automaker overcome a larger-than-expected earnings per share loss of $3.06.

As for economic data, the July Employment Situation report was released on Friday, showing a below-consensus increase in nonfarm payrolls (157K actual vs 190K Briefing.com consensus). However, the June increase was upwardly revised to 248K from 213K, helping to offset the disappointing headline figure. Average hourly earnings increased 0.3%, as expected, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.9%.

The key takeaway from the report is, when accounting for the revisions and the fact that the year-over-year increase in average hourly earnings held steady at 2.7%, it's essentially the same 'Goldilocks' report that the market cheered last month.

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Stocks End Quiet Monday Session Modestly Higher
06-Aug-18 16:30 ET
Dow +39.60 at 25502.18, Nasdaq +47.66 at 7859.68, S&P +10.05 at 2850.14

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/6/stocks-end-quiet-monday-session-modestly-higher.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks drifted higher on Monday, underpinned by a halfhearted effort from the bulls, who looked a little tired following last week's advance -- the fifth straight weekly advance for the S&P 500. All three major averages finished in the green, with the S&P 500 adding 0.4%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbing 0.6%, and the Dow ticking up 0.2%.

9 of 11 sectors advanced, with the lightly-weighted real estate (-0.2%) and telecom (-0.1%) spaces being the two laggards, but gains were modest overall. The consumer discretionary (+0.7%) and information technology (+0.6%) groups finished atop the sector standings, but no other space added more than 0.4%.

In individual stocks, T-Mobile US (TMUS 66.30, +4.75) and Sprint (S 6.18, +0.56) spiked 7.7% and 10.0%, respectively, after the NY Post reported that U.S. antitrust officials, who are currently reviewing T-Mobile's plan to buy Sprint for $26 billion, believe that three national 5G wireless providers are needed to ensure robust competition.

Meanwhile, on the earnings front, Tyson Foods (TSN 59.64, +1.89) rallied 3.3% after reporting better-than-expected earnings, but Newell Brands (NWL 22.76, -3.81) -- which owns brands like Rubbermaid, Coleman, and Sharpie -- tumbled 14.3% after reporting a 12.8% year-over-year drop in revenues.

Several FAANG names outperformed on Monday, including Facebook (FB 185.69, +7.91), Amazon (AMZN 1847.75, +24.46), and Netflix (NFLX 350.92, +7.83), which added 1.3%-4.5% apiece. Facebook was particularly strong, but still remains about 14.6% below the record high it hit on July 25 ahead of its disappointing Q2 earnings release.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries moved mostly higher, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note down two basis points to 2.94%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.2% to 95.19, a 13-month high, and West Texas Intermediate crude futures advanced 0.8% to $69.03 per barrel.

On the data front, investors did not receive any reports on Monday. However, looking ahead to Tuesday, the June Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey will be released at 10:00 AM ET, and the June Consumer Credit report will cross the wires at 3:00 PM ET.

Nasdaq Composite +13.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.7% YTD
S&P 500 +6.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.2% YTD

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Record Territory In Sight Following Fourth Straight Victory
07-Aug-18 16:20 ET
Dow +126.73 at 25628.91, Nasdaq +23.99 at 7883.67, S&P +8.05 at 2858.19

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/7/record-territory-in-sight-following-fourth-straight-victory.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks advanced for a fourth straight session on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 climbing 0.3% to 2858. The benchmark index is now within 0.5% of its January 26 record high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.3% as well, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%.

The S&P 500 largely trended sideways from start to finish, keeping between +0.2% and +0.5%. Gains were broad-based, with seven of eleven sectors finishing in the green. Economically-sensitive groups led the way, with energy (+0.7%) and industrials (+0.7%) being the top performers.

The top-weighted information technology sector got off to a good start, but fell back in line with the broader market as Apple (AAPL 207.11, -1.96, -0.9%) dropped for the first time since its July 31 earnings release -- which fueled a wave of buying, helping to push the company's market cap above $1 trillion.

Four sectors finished in negative territory, with consumer staples (-0.6%) being the weakest performer. Dean Foods (DF 8.04, -1.43, -15.1%) weighed on the space after its above-consensus earnings and revenues were overshadowed by disappointing guidance for FY18.

In other earnings news, Marriott (MAR 124.43, -4.85, -3.8%), Weight Watchers (WTW 78.53, -13.68, -14.8%), and Zillow (ZG 49.40, -9.60, -16.3%) all tumbled after reporting their quarterly results, while Emerson (EMR 74.66, +3.04, +4.2%), Etsy (ETSY 43.84, +1.41, +3.3%), and Mosaic (MOS 31.70, +1.60, +5.3%) advanced.

Tesla (TSLA 379.57, +37.58, +11.0%) became the focal point of an otherwise quiet session after Elon Musk tweeted that he's considering taking the company private for $420/share and has already secured funding to do so. Shares were halted after an initial spike, but added to their gains when trading resumed, hitting an 11-month high.

Away from equities, Treasuries tumbled on Tuesday, sending yields higher across the curve, with the benchmark 10-yr yield jumping three basis points to 2.97%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index slipped from a 13-month high, dropping 0.2% to 95.00, and the CBOE Volatility Index slid 3.1% to 10.92 -- its lowest level since January.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the June Consumer Credit report and the June Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey:

The Consumer Credit report for June showed an increase of $10.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus $15.5 billion). May credit growth was revised to $24.3 billion from $24.6 billion.
The June Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 6.662 million from a revised 6.659 million (from 6.638 million) in May.

Looking ahead, Wednesday's lone economic report, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, will cross the wires at 7:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite +14.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.0% YTD
S&P 500 +6.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.7% YTD

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Little Changed Following Quiet Day of Trading
08-Aug-18 16:20 ET
Dow -45.16 at 25583.75, Nasdaq +4.66 at 7888.33, S&P -0.75 at 2857.44

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/8/little-changed-following-quiet-day-of-trading.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 finished Wednesday slightly lower, ending its four-session winning streak with an uneventful, range-bound performance. The benchmark index lost less than 0.1%, remaining within 0.5% of its January 26 record high. The Nasdaq ticked higher, adding 0.1%, while the Dow shed 0.2%.

Sector movement was relatively modest, as no group advanced or declined more than 0.8%. The financials (+0.3%) and technology (+0.3%) spaces were among the top performers, using their influence to balance losses elsewhere. The two groups are heavily-weighted, representing around 40% of the broader market combined.

On the flip side, the energy (-0.8%) and consumer staples (-0.8%) sectors finished at the back of the pack. The energy sector declined with crude prices after the EIA's weekly crude inventory report showed a smaller-than-expected draw of 1.4 million barrels. WTI crude futures dropped 3.2% to $66.94/bbl, a six-week low.

In earnings news, Walt Disney (DIS 113.98, -2.58) lost 2.2% after missing bottom-line estimates; CVS Health (CVS 68.17, +2.72) rallied 4.2% after beating profit estimates and raising the low end of its guidance for FY18; and Snap (SNAP 12.23, -0.89) dropped 6.8% after reporting a decline in daily active users.

Away from equities, U.S. Treasuries ended Wednesday flat, with the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note finishing unchanged at 2.97%. The U.S. Dollar Index ticked down 0.1% to 94.92, and the CBOE Volatility Index slid 1.8% to 10.73, hitting a fresh seven-month low.

On the data front, Wednesday's lone economic report, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, showed a decrease of 3.0%. Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for July, the weekly Initial Claims report, and the Wholesale Inventories report for June on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +14.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.9% YTD
S&P 500 +6.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.5% YTD

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Turkish Lira Rattles Investors Around the Globe
10-Aug-18 16:15 ET
Dow -196.09 at 25313.14, Nasdaq -52.67 at 7839.12, S&P -20.30 at 2833.02

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/10/turkish-lira-rattles-investors-around-the-globe.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] A plunging Turkish lira sent shock waves through global equity markets on Friday, causing concerns over the financial health of lenders with heavy exposure to the economically-struggling country. The S&P 500 lost 0.7%, dropping into the red for the week (-0.3%), and the Nasdaq (-0.7%) and the Dow (-0.8%) suffered similar declines.

The lira was down nearly 16% against the U.S. dollar at Wall Street's closing bell, weighed down by continued tensions between the U.S. and Turkey, which made no progress during talks this week regarding the detainment of American pastor Andrew Brunson, who is accused of supporting a group blamed for an attempted coup in 2016.

Trying to stop the bleeding, Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, encouraged citizens to convert their holdings of gold and foreign currencies into lira on Friday morning. However, President Trump swiftly responded by turning up the pressure, announcing that he's authorized a doubling of tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum.

Stock markets in Europe and Asia ended Friday with sizable losses, although China's tariff-ridden Shanghai Composite finished flat. Investors in the U.S. flocked to the Treasury market, sending yields lower across the curve. The benchmark 10-yr yield, for instance, dropped eight basis points to 2.86%, a fresh three-week low.

The drop in yields -- and, more specifically, the flattening of the yield curve -- weighed on the financial sector (-1.2%), which finished with materials (-1.4%) at the bottom of the sector standings. 10 of 11 sectors finished in the red, with energy (+0.3%) being the lone exception, helped by a 1.3% rise in WTI crude futures ($67.67/bbl).

Within the tech space (-0.8%), chipmakers were particularly weak with Intel (INTC 48.85, -1.29) losing 2.6% after being downgraded to 'Sell' from 'Neutral' at Goldman, and Microchip (MCHP 87.41, -10.67) tumbling 10.9% after issuing disappointing revenue guidance. The PHLX Semiconductor Index declined by 2.5%.

Friday's batch of corporate earnings -- which also included results released Thursday evening -- was the last heavy batch of the Q2 earnings season. In addition to Microchip, Dropbox (DBX 31.05, -3.38) declined after reporting its results, losing 9.8%, but both Planet Fitness (PLNT 51.94, +3.15) and Overstock.com (OSTK 41.65, +3.05) rallied, adding 6.5% and 7.9%, respectively.

Looking ahead, next week's earnings lineup is retail-heavy with Walmart (WMT 90.18, +1.17), Home Depot (HD 196.30, -1.78), Macy's (M 39.97, -0.59), Nordstrom (JWN 52.58, +0.03), J.C. Penney (JCP 2.42, -0.01), Advance Auto (AAP 146.35, -1.44), and Dillard's (DDS 85.83, -2.34) all on the docket.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the Consumer Price Index for July and the July Treasury Budget:

Total CPI increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) in July, and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, also rose 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.9% (vs +2.9% in June) and core CPI is up 2.4% (vs +2.3% in June).
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer inflation trends are running above the Federal Reserve's longer-run inflation target, which will keep the Federal Reserve inclined to raise the target range for the fed funds rate.
The Treasury Budget for July showed a deficit of $76.9 billion versus a deficit of $42.9 billion for July 2017.
The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the July deficit cannot be compared to the $74.9 billion deficit registered in June.

Investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +13.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.9% YTD
S&P 500 +6.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.4% YTD

Week In Review: Rattled by the Lira

The S&P 500 started the week on a positive note, extending last week's winning streak and coming within 0.5% of its January 26 record high. However, the index struggled in the back half of the week, especially on Friday amid a sharp drop in the Turkish lira, eventually settling with a weekly loss of 0.3% -- its first weekly loss since late June.

As for the other major averages, their performances were mixed, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbing 0.4% and the blue-chip Dow dropping 0.6%.

Eight of eleven S&P sectors declined this week, with industrials (-1.0%), materials (-0.9%), consumer staples (-1.9%), and real estate (-1.9%) leading the retreat. On the flip side, consumer discretionary (+0.8%), information technology (+0.3%), and telecom services (+0.7%) were the three advancing groups.

In corporate news, Tesla (TSLA) rallied on Tuesday after CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he's considering taking the company private for $420/share and has already secured funding to do so. However, shares gave back nearly all of those gains following headlines that the SEC is investigating whether Mr. Musk's funding claim is truthful.

Meanwhile, on the earnings front, Dow component Walt Disney (DIS) slid 2.2% on Wednesday after missing quarterly earnings estimates, and Snap (SNAP) tumbled 6.8% during the same session after its better-than-expected results were overshadowed by a decline in daily active users (DAUs). This week's wave of Q2 reports was the last big wave of the Q2 earnings season.

The week was light in terms of economic data, but investors did receive some influential readings on inflation. The July Consumer Price Index and the July core Consumer Price Index, which excludes the volatile categories of food and energy, came in as expected, both showing month-over-month increases of 0.2%. On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.9% and core CPI is up 2.4%.

In short, the report showed that consumer inflation trends are running above the Fed's longer-run target, providing further support for additional rate hikes this year.

The Turkish lira took center stage on Friday, dropping more than 15% against the U.S. dollar. That drop, which comes after the U.S. and Turkey failed to reach an agreement regarding the release of American pastor Andrew Brunson, created concerns over the financial health of banks with heavy exposure to economically-struggling Turkey.

Out of desperation to stabilize the currency, Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, asked citizens to convert their holdings of gold and foreign currencies, especially the U.S. dollar, into lira. U.S. President Donald Trump responded by increasing economic pressure, doubling tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Turkey.

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S&P Registers Fourth Straight Decline
13-Aug-18 16:25 ET
Dow -125.44 at 25187.70, Nasdaq -19.40 at 7819.72, S&P -11.35 at 2821.67

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/13/s-and-p-registers-fourth-straight-decline.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 notched its fourth straight loss on Monday, sliding 0.4%, as the Turkish lira extended Friday's tumble, causing further concerns over the financial health of lenders with heavy exposure to the economically-struggling country. The Nasdaq slipped 0.3%, and the Dow declined 0.5%.

Turkey's central bank tried to shore up the country's financial system, but it did little to stop the lira's free fall. After dropping nearly 16.0% against the dollar on Friday, the lira fell another 8.7% on Monday, hitting a new all-time low and extending its five-month decline to roughly 80%. India's rupee, another emerging market currency, also hit a new all-time low against the dollar, losing 1.3%.

On Wall Street, most S&P sectors finished in negative territory. Financials, energy, and materials were the worst-performing sectors, losing between 1.0% and 1.2% apiece. However, no other group declined more than 0.5%. Health care (unch) and utilities (+0.1%) were the only groups to finish in the green.

The top-weighted technology sector got off to a solid start, adding as much as 0.9%, but weakened as the day wore on, eventually settling lower by 0.2%. Still, the group's relatively upbeat performance helped keep the S&P 500's loss in check. Within the group, tech giant Apple (AAPL 208.87, +1.34) was a top performer, adding 0.7%.

In corporate news, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA 356.41, +0.92, +0.3%), Elon Musk, attempted to clarify last week's tweet about taking Tesla private, saying that his claim that funding has been secured is based on repeated conversations with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Meanwhile, President Trump encouraged boycotting Harley-Davidson (HOG 41.38, -1.87, -4.3%) if it moves its manufacturing overseas.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries sold off, sending the benchmark 10-yr yield two basis points higher to 2.88%; West Texas Intermediate crude futures lost as much as 2.8% in intraday trading before closing lower by 0.5% at $67.28/bbl; and the CBOE Volatility Index spiked 13.4% to 14.92, hitting its highest level in more than five weeks.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +13.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.1% YTD
S&P 500 +5.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.9% YTD

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S&P Ends Losing Streak As Lira Rebounds
14-Aug-18 16:15 ET
Dow +112.22 at 25299.92, Nasdaq +51.19 at 7870.91, S&P +18.03 at 2839.70

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/14/s-and-p-ends-losing-streak-as-lira-rebounds.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rebounded on Tuesday, ending its four-session losing streak with a gain of 0.6%. The Nasdaq and the Dow also advanced, adding 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively. The major averages quickly extended modest opening gains, but then trended sideways for the final five hours of trading, ending near their session highs.

Tuesday's rebound on Wall Street coincided with a rebound in the Turkish lira, which had plunged nearly 25% against the U.S. dollar in the prior two sessions. The lira added about 8% against the greenback on Tuesday, helping to ease concerns over the financial health of lenders with heavy exposure to Turkey.

However, the dollar finished higher overall, evidenced by a 0.4% increase in the U.S. Dollar Index, which finished at a more than one-year high (96.56). That strength weighed on the dollar-denominated WTI crude futures, which were up as much as 1.7%, but finished lower by 0.3% at $67.05/bbl.

All 11 S&P sectors advanced on Tuesday, with financials (+0.9%) and consumer discretionary (+1.0%) leading the charge. The top-weighted information technology sector (+0.6%) got off to a slow start, slipping into negative territory shortly after the opening bell, but eventually strengthened to finish in line with the broader market. Utilities was the worst-performing sector, but still added 0.2%.

Home Depot (HD 193.10, -1.04) and Advance Auto (AAP 156.13, +11.29) kicked off a retail-heavy earnings week by reporting better-than-expected results on Tuesday morning, but the reaction was mixed; Home Depot lost 0.5%, while Advance Auto spiked 7.8%. Retailers finished higher overall though, evidenced by a 2.3% increase in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 51.86, +1.15).

Meanwhile, in the bond market, U.S. Treasuries sold off on Tuesday, pushing yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note advanced two basis points to 2.90%, while the yield on the Fed-sensitive 2-yr Treasury note climbed three basis points to 2.63%.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included July Import/Export Prices and the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for July:

Import prices were flat in July after declining a revised 0.1% in June (from -0.4%). Excluding oil, import prices slid 0.3% in July after slipping an unrevised 0.3% in June. Export prices decreased 0.5% in July after rising a revised 0.2% in June (from +0.3%). Excluding agriculture, export prices were flat in July after rising an unrevised 0.4% in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that it seemingly reflects some of the effects of a stronger dollar as nonfuel import prices declined month-over-month in both June and July.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for July came in at 107.9, which is above the unrevised June reading of 107.2.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a big batch of data on Wednesday that includes the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, July Retail Sales, the preliminary reading for Q2 Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, the Empire Manufacturing Index for August, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for July, Business Inventories for June, and the NAHB Housing Market Index for August.

Nasdaq Composite +14.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.2% YTD
S&P 500 +6.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.4% YTD

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Bears Regain Control Following Tuesday Rebound
15-Aug-18 16:20 ET
Dow -137.51 at 25162.41, Nasdaq -96.78 at 7774.13, S&P -21.59 at 2818.11

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/15/bears-regain-control-following-tuesday-rebound.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks dropped for the fifth time in six sessions on Wednesday as tensions between the U.S. and Turkey tightened and as oil prices tumbled to a two-month low, weighing on energy shares. The S&P 500 finished lower by 0.8% after being down as much as 1.3% intraday. The Dow and the Nasdaq lost 0.5% and 1.2%, respectively.

Turkey was in focus once again after the country doubled tariffs on some U.S. imports -- including cars, alcohol, and tobacco. The U.S. and Turkey are feuding over the detainment of American pastor Andrew Brunson, who is accused of supporting a group blamed for an attempted coup in 2016.

The Turkish lira extended Tuesday's rebound though, adding 6.8% against the U.S. dollar, after plunging around 25% against the greenback on Friday and Monday combined. The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the dollar's strength against a basket of other currencies, finished flat, keeping near a more than one-year high.

Late-afternoon reports that Turkey is now ready to discuss its issues with the United States helped Wall Street pare losses before the closing bell.

Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 3.0% to $65.07/bbl after the Energy Information Administration's weekly inventory report showed an unexpected build of 6.8 million barrels. The drop in oil prices weighed on the energy sector (-3.5%), which finished well behind the 10 other S&P groups.

Cyclical sectors -- including energy -- underperformed in general, with consumer discretionary (-1.2%), materials (-1.6%), and technology (-1.1%) all losing more than the S&P 500. Conversely, the countercyclical consumer staples (+0.4%), utilities (+0.8%), and telecom (+0.7%) sectors finished in the green, and real estate (+0.9%) also outperformed.

In earnings news, Macy's (M 35.15, -6.67) plunged 16.0% after concerns over its overall sales activity outweighed better-than-expected second quarter earnings and above-consensus guidance for the fiscal year. The sell off extended to other retailers, sending the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 50.45, -1.41) lower by 2.7%.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries rallied amid the risk-off sentiment, sending yields lower across the curve. The yield on the 2-yr note slipped two basis points to 2.61%, and the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note gave up five basis points, falling to 2.85%. Meanwhile, the CBOE Volatility Index spiked 11.6% to 14.85, a fresh six-week high.

Reviewing Wednesday's big batch of economic data, which included July Retail Sales, the preliminary reading for Q2 Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, the Empire Manufacturing Index for August, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for July, Business Inventories for June, the NAHB Housing Market Index for August, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

July retail sales rose 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), while the June increase was revised to 0.2% from 0.5%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.6% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), and the June increase was revised to 0.2% from 0.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the downward revisions to June mitigated the July headline surprise. That point notwithstanding, core retail sales, which exclude autos, gasoline station, building materials, and food services sales, were up 0.5%, which is a positive input for Q3 GDP forecasts.
The preliminary unit labor costs declined 0.9% during the second quarter, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%. The preliminary productivity reading showed an increase of 2.9%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 2.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that labor costs look to be in check, which will facilitate a gradual tightening path for the Federal Reserve.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for August rose to 25.6 (Briefing.com consensus 20.0) from the prior month's unrevised reading of 22.6.
Industrial Production rose 0.1% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the June increase was revised to 1.0% (from +0.6%). Meanwhile, Capacity Utilization stayed at 78.1% (Briefing.com consensus 78.3%), unchanged from a revised reading of 78.1% in June (from 78.0%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed continued strength in manufacturing output, which offset declines in mining and utilities production.
Business Inventories rose 0.1% in June (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). The May reading was revised to +0.3% from +0.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that business sales continued to outpace inventory growth, which is a favorable trend that carries the potential to lead to a better pricing environment for businesses.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for August came in at 67 (Briefing.com consensus 67), down from 68 in July.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.0% to follow last week's drop of 3.0%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive July Housing Starts and Building Permits, weekly Initial Claims, and the Philadelphia Fed Index for August on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +12.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.8% YTD
S&P 500 +5.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.8% YTD

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Positive Trade Headlines Fuel Late Uptick
17-Aug-18 16:25 ET
Dow +110.59 at 25669.32, Nasdaq +9.81 at 7816.35, S&P +9.44 at 2849.87

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/17/positive-trade-headlines-fuel-late-uptick.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 0.3% on Friday, securing a weekly gain of 0.6%, helped by a Wall Street Journal report that Chinese and U.S. negotiators are planning talks to try to end their trade disagreement ahead of multilateral meetings between President Trump and President Xi in November. The Dow added 0.4% on Friday, and the Nasdaq ticked up 0.1%.

Friday's gains were broad-based, with all 11 S&P sectors closing in the green. The industrials (+0.6%), materials (+0.7%), consumer staples (+0.7%), and real estate (+1.0%) sectors were the top performers, while consumer discretionary (+0.1%), financials (+0.2%), and technology (+0.2%) finished at the back of the pack.

Stocks opened roughly flat and stayed largely unchanged until the afternoon when the WSJ report crossed the wires, pushing the market to new highs.

In corporate news, Tesla (TSLA 305.50, -29.95) tumbled 8.9% following a New York Times interview with its CEO, Elon Musk, in which he discussed his personal struggles, calling this past year "the most difficult and painful" of his career. The NYT also reported that some of Tesla's board members are concerned over Mr. Musk's use of Ambien and recreational drugs.

On the earnings front, NVIDIA (NVDA 244.82, -12.62) and Applied Materials (AMAT 43.77, -3.66) tumbled 4.9% and 7.7%, respectively, after they reported worse-than-expected guidance, which overshadowed their better-than-expected earnings. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 0.7%.

Conversely, Nordstrom (JWN 59.18, +6.90) spiked 13.2% after reporting above-consensus earnings and guidance for FY19, and Deere (DE 140.59, +3.24) climbed 2.4% despite missing bottom-line estimates and issuing below-consensus guidance for the current quarter.

Away from stocks, the Turkish lira lost 3.6% against the U.S. dollar, ending its three-session rebound, and U.S. Treasuries spent most of the day in the green, but finished the session little changed. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note finished flat at 2.87%.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included July Leading Indicators and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for August:

The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.6% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), and the June reading was left unrevised at +0.5%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it points to a sustained pace of economic expansion for the foreseeable future.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for August slipped to 95.3 (Briefing.com consensus 97.8) from 97.9 in July.
The key takeaway from the report is that the overall decline was driven by concerns about the prices of large household durables.

Looking ahead, investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +13.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.3% YTD
S&P 500 +6.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.8% YTD

Week In Review: Hodgepodge of Headlines Helps Fuel Rebound

The S&P 500 advanced 0.6% this week -- recouping last week's modest decline -- amid a host of retail earnings, more volatility in the Turkish lira, and another (minor) chapter in the U.S.-China trade war saga. The blue-chip Dow outperformed the S&P 500, rallying 1.4%, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq lagged, losing 0.3%.

Retailers stepped up to the earnings plate this week, with Walmart (WMT), Home Depot (HD), Macy's (M), Nordstrom (JWN), Advance Auto (AAP), and J.C. Penney (JCP) all reporting their quarterly results. The market's reaction to the reports was mixed.

In the session immediately following their respective earnings releases, Walmart spiked 9.3%, Home Depot lost 0.5%, Macy's plunged 16.0%, Nordstrom spiked 13.2%, Advance Auto climbed 7.8%, and J.C. Penney plunged 27.0%. On a related note, the July Retail Sales report came in better-than-expected, showing a month-over-month increase of 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%).

Non-retail names reporting earnings this week included Cisco Systems (CSCO), NVIDIA (NVDA), and Deere (DE). Cisco Systems and Deere rallied in the session immediately following their releases, adding 3.0% and 2.4%, respectively, but market-darling NVIDIA tumbled, losing 4.6%, after disappointing guidance overshadowed upbeat results.

In other corporate news, Tesla's (TSLA) chief executive, Elon Musk, attempted to clarify last week's tweet about taking Tesla private, saying that his claim that funding has been secured is based on repeated conversations with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Mr. Musk also did a high-profile interview with The New York Times, in which he discussed his personal struggles, calling this past year "the most difficult and painful" of his career. Tesla shares ended the week lower by 14.1%.

In currencies, the Turkish lira followed up last Friday's 16% plunge with another slide on Monday, touching a new all-time low against the U.S. dollar, but then rebounded for the next three sessions. That streak ended with another tumble on Friday, but the currency still finished with a weekly gain of 6.1%.

On the trade front, reports that the U.S. and China will resume trade talks by the end of the month helped equities rally on Thursday. The talks will mark the first official negotiations since a breakdown two months ago, but it's worth noting that the talks are expected to be between low-level officials. In addition, The Wall Street Journal reported late on Friday that Chinese and U.S. negotiators are planning talks to try to end their trade disagreement ahead of multilateral meetings between President Trump and President Xi in November.

Elsewhere, West Texas Intermediate crude futures tumbled 2.5% to $65.94 per barrel this week, touching a fresh two-month low on Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration's weekly inventory report showed an unexpected build of 6.8 million barrels. The drop in oil prices weighed on the energy group, which finished at the bottom of the sector standings with a loss of 3.6%.

Most S&P 500 sectors finished the week in positive territory, with less-risky, countercyclical groups -- including consumer staples (+3.2%), utilities (+2.5%), and telecom services (+3.7%) -- leading the charge. The top-weighted technology sector underperformed, shedding 0.2%, but remains 2018's top-performing group with a year-to-date gain of 15.6%.

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Wall Street Extends Winning Streak Amid Trade Optimism
20-Aug-18 16:30 ET
Dow +89.37 at 25758.69, Nasdaq +4.68 at 7821.03, S&P +6.92 at 2856.79

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/20/wall-street-extends-winning-streak-amid-trade-optimism.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 0.2% on Monday, closing higher for a third straight session. The benchmark index is now just 0.6% below its January 26 record high. As for the other major averages, the Dow climbed 0.4% on Monday, hitting its best level since early February, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.1%.

Optimism ahead of resumed trade talks between the U.S. and China, which are set to kick off on Wednesday, helped fuel the bullish bias on Wall Street and helped push stocks higher across the globe. China's Shanghai Composite rallied 1.1% on Monday, rebounding from a two-year low, and Germany's export-heavy DAX led the way in Europe with a gain of 1.0%.

Eight of eleven S&P sectors finished Monday in the green, with consumer discretionary (+0.6%), industrials (+0.6%), energy (+0.7%), and materials (+0.7%) being the top performers. However, the top-weighted information technology sector (-0.2%) underperformed, keeping the S&P 500 in check.

Within the tech space, giants like Apple (AAPL 215.46, -2.12), Microsoft (MSFT 106.87, -0.71), and Facebook (FB 172.50, -1.30) lost between 0.7% and 1.0%. Chipmakers also trailed the broader market, with Dow component Intel (INTC 46.50, -0.60) sliding 1.3%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 0.1%.

On the M&A front, SodaStream (SODA 142.11, +12.26) spiked 9.4% after the Israeli company, which is best known for its at-home carbonated drink maker, agreed to be acquired by beverage and snack giant PepsiCo (PEP 114.84, -0.12, -0.1%) for $144 per share, in cash, or roughly $3.2 billion.

Away from equities, U.S. Treasuries rallied on Monday -- somewhat unusual considering the uptick in equities -- pushing yields lower across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield slid five basis points to 2.82%. In currencies, investors kept an eye on the Turkish lira, which lost 1.2% against the U.S. dollar, dropping for a second straight session.

In Washington, President Trump reiterated his displeasure with the Fed, saying he was "not thrilled" with Fed Chair Jerome Powell for raising rates. The president also accused China and the EU of being currency manipulators. Reuters reported the headlines minutes before the close, sending stocks slightly below their session highs.

As for economic data, investors didn't receive any notable reports on Monday, and Tuesday's calendar is also blank.

Nasdaq Composite +13.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.6% YTD
S&P 500 +6.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.2% YTD

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Flirting With Record Territory
21-Aug-18 16:30 ET
Dow +63.60 at 25822.29, Nasdaq +38.17 at 7859.20, S&P +5.91 at 2862.70

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/21/flirting-with-record-territory.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 notched its fourth straight advance on Tuesday, adding 0.2%, and touched a new intraday record (2873.23) before pulling back in the afternoon, eventually settling 0.4% below its January 26 record close (2872.87). The benchmark index kept within a pretty narrow range, hovering between +0.2% and +0.6%.

As for the other major averages, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished with a gain of 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.5%. The small-cap Russell 2000 outperformed, soaring 1.1%, to finish at a new record high (1718.05) for the first time since June 20.

Tuesday's session began on an upbeat note as investors looked ahead to renewed U.S.-China trade talks, which will kick off on Wednesday. President Trump said he doesn't believe the mid-level negotiations will lead to much of anything, but the market has been optimistic nonetheless.

The bullish bias then weakened a bit after the S&P 500 posted a new intraday record around midday. The top-weighted technology sector led the leg lower, trimming its gain notably; the group was up as much as 0.8%, but finished higher by just 0.1%. Tuesday's tech reversal added to a week's worth of struggles; tech has lost 0.7% since last Tuesday, while the S&P 500 has gained 0.8%.

News that President Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, has struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors also weighed in the afternoon. The deal does not currently include cooperation with investigators, according to The New York Times, but might still have implications for the president, who worked closely with Mr. Cohen for more than a decade.

The consumer discretionary (+0.9%) and industrials (+0.8%) sectors were the top-performing groups on Tuesday, with consumer discretionary benefiting from the latest batch of corporate earnings. Retailers TJX (TJX 106.46, +4.81) and Kohl's (KSS 80.20, +1.35) jumped 4.7% and 1.7%, respectively, after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues. Meanwhile, homebuilder Toll Brothers (TOL 39.52, +4.79) spiked 13.8% after also beating on the top and bottom lines.

In total, seven of eleven sectors finished in the green, with most advancers adding between 0.4% and 0.7%.

On the downside, the consumer staples (-0.8%), utilities (-0.7%), and real estate (-0.9%) groups finished at the back of the pack. Within the consumer staples space, J.M. Smucker (SJM 108.20, -7.67) and Coty (COTY 11.52, -0.88) lost 6.6% and 7.1%, respectively, after issuing disappointing guidance.

Away from equities, the U.S. Dollar Index slid for a fifth straight session, dropping 0.6% to 95.16, after President Trump reiterated his displeasure with the Fed in exclusive interview with Reuters released on Monday, saying he was "not thrilled" with Fed Chair Jerome Powell for raising rates. Treasuries also moved lower, pushing the benchmark 10-yr yield two basis points higher to 2.84%.

As for economic data, investors did not receive any notable reports on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +13.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.9% YTD
S&P 500 +7.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.5% YTD

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Holding Steady
22-Aug-18 16:25 ET
Dow -88.69 at 25733.60, Nasdaq +29.92 at 7889.12, S&P -1.14 at 2861.56

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/22/holding-steady.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 held steady on Wednesday, finishing just a tick below its flat line, in what was a range-bound day of trading. Investors had several headlines to work through, including criminal convictions of two former advisers to President Trump and the resumption of trade talks between the U.S. and China.

As for the other major averages, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.3%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.4%, notching its fifth straight advance. Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 ticked up 0.3%, closing at a new record high for the second day in a row.

Futures were lower ahead of Wednesday's open after President Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted of tax and bank fraud on Tuesday evening, and after the president's longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to a range of charges, adding that Mr. Trump directed him to pay two women hush money.

However, the bearish bias soon faded after the opening bell, with energy shares getting a notable boost.

The energy sector was Wednesday's top-performing group with a gain of 1.2%, helped by a sharp rise in crude prices, with WTI crude futures rallying 3.1% to $67.87/bbl. The crude rally was strengthened by the weekly EIA inventory report, which showed that U.S. crude stockpiles declined by 5.8 million barrels last week.

Meanwhile, the top-weighted technology sector (+0.5%) rebounded after lagging for the past week, and the consumer discretionary sector (+0.1%) finished slightly higher, helped by Lowe's (LOW 105.52, +5.78) and Target (TGT 85.94, +2.67), which added 5.8% and 3.2%, respectively, after reporting above-consensus earnings.

On the downside, seven of eleven groups finished in the red, with the lightly-weighted telecom services space (-2.0%) at the back of the pack. The trade-sensitive industrial group (-0.9%) also struggled as the U.S. and China kicked off the latest round of trade talks in Washington.

As of Wednesday's close, there wasn't any new news regarding the discussions, which mark the first negotiations since a breakdown in the process nearly three months ago. The White House doesn't believe much will come out of the negotiations and still expects the next tranche of tariffs to go into effect at midnight.

On the Fed front, the U.S. central bank released the minutes from the July/August FOMC meeting on Wednesday afternoon, revealing little to no new information.

In short, the Fed appears to be on track to hike rates at its September meeting, with many participants saying it would likely "soon" be appropriate to raise rates. Also of note, officials pointed to ongoing global trade tensions as the biggest threat to an otherwise strong U.S. economy.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to July Existing Home Sales and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Existing home sales decreased 0.7% in July to an annualized rate of 5.34 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.40 million). The June reading was left unrevised at 5.38 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that supply constraints continue acting as a drag on overall sales. The lower inventory -- and high prices on available inventory -- is crimping affordability, especially for first-time buyers. All prospective buyers are facing affordability pressures resulting from home prices increasing at a faster pace than income.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 4.2% to follow last week's drop of 2.0%.

On Thursday, investors will receive weekly Initial Claims, the FHFA Housing Price Index for June, and July New Home Sales.

Nasdaq Composite +14.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.2% YTD
S&P 500 +7.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.1% YTD

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Another Dip Ahead of Jackson Hole
23-Aug-18 16:20 ET
Dow -76.62 at 25656.98, Nasdaq -10.64 at 7878.48, S&P -4.84 at 2856.72

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/23/another-dip-ahead-of-jackson-hole.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks dipped for the second day in a row on Thursday in another range-bound day of trading on Wall Street. The benchmark S&P 500 index inched away from its elusive January 26 record close, ending the session lower by 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.1% and 0.3%, respectively.

There's been a cautious tone in the market over the last two trading sessions as investors digest the political implications for President Trump after his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted of tax and bank fraud and after his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to a range of charges, implicating Mr. Trump directly.

Meanwhile, two days worth of U.S.-China trade negations have been happening in the background. The two nations enacted a new round of tariffs on $16 billion worth of each others' goods overnight, giving investors little hope that anything material will result from this round of talks, which are scheduled to wrap up Thursday.

In addition, a Friday speech from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell at the annual Jackson Hole Symposium has given investors yet another reason to pause just a stone's throw from record territory. Mr. Powell, who has maintained a relatively low profile since taking office in early February, will take the podium at 10:00 AM ET.

10 of 11 sectors finished Thursday in negative territory, but, thankfully for the bulls, the top-weighted technology group was the lone exception. The tech space, which represents roughly a quarter of the broader market, advanced 0.2%. Within the group, chipmaker Advanced Micro (AMD 22.29, +1.39) jumped 6.7%, hitting a 12-year high, after Rosenblatt raised its target to $30 from $27.

As for the laggards, losses were pretty modest overall, with most groups shedding less than 0.5%. The financials (-0.5%), energy (-0.5%), and lightly-weighted materials (-0.7%) groups were the worst performers. However, the energy space is still up 1.8% for the week, a rebound it desperately needed after taking a 3.6% hit last week.

In earnings news, L Brands (LB 28.25, -3.64) tumbled 11.4%, hitting a seven-year low, after lower-than-expected guidance overshadowed above-consensus Q2 results. Conversely, Williams-Sonoma (WSM 72.94, +10.33) spiked 16.5% to a nearly three-year high after beating both top and bottom line estimates.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries finished flat, with the benchmark 10-yr yield closing unchanged at 2.82%. WTI crude futures also closed flat, settling at $67.84/bbl, after rallying 3.1% on Wednesday, and the U.S. Dollar Index jumped 0.6% to 95.55, putting a five-session losing streak to rest.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included July New Home Sales, weekly Initial Claims, and the FHFA Housing Price Index for June:

New Home Sales in July hit an annualized rate of 627,000, which is below the Briefing.com consensus of 645,000. The June reading was revised to 638,000 (from 631,000).
The key takeaway from the report is that the average and median selling prices increased despite the slower sales pace observed in July.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 210,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 217,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 212,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.727 million from a revised count of 1.729 million (from 1.721 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that low initial claims activity remains consistent with a tight labor market.
The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.2% in June, and the May increase was left unrevised at 0.2%.

On Friday, investors will receive just one economic report -- July Durable Goods Orders (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%).

Nasdaq Composite +14.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.8% YTD
S&P 500 +6.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.8% YTD

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S&P Notches First Record Close Since January
24-Aug-18 16:30 ET
Dow +133.37 at 25790.35, Nasdaq +67.52 at 7946.00, S&P +17.71 at 2874.43

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/24/s-and-p-notches-first-record-close-since-january.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Friday was a record-setting day for the stock market, with the S&P 500 (+0.6%) notching its first record close (2874.69) since January 26. The Nasdaq (+0.9%) also registered a fresh record finish, as did the small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.5%). The Dow (+0.5%) advanced, but finished about 3.0% below its January record high.

The market extended opening gains after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell didn't say anything upsetting in his speech at the Kansas City Fed's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Mr. Powell reiterated that gradual rate hikes remain appropriate, adding that he doesn't see any signs that inflation is getting out of hand.

On the international front, investors brushed off news that two days of trade talks between the U.S. and China ended on Thursday without any visible sign of progress. That result was expected as President Trump said beforehand that he didn't believe much would come from the negotiations.

Separately, President Trump tweeted on Friday afternoon that he's asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea because there has not been sufficient progress with respect to the decentralization of the Korean Peninsula. The stock market had a muted reaction to the tweet.

Wall Street's gains were broad-based on Friday with 10 of 11 sectors advancing.

The lightly-weighted materials sector (+1.2%) was the top-performing group, followed closely by the top-weighted technology sector (+1.1%). Within the tech space, software company Autodesk (ADSK 157.20, +20.89) spiked 15.3% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues on Thursday evening.

In other earnings news, retailers dominated the headlines once again with Gap (GPS 29.65, -2.79) and Foot Locker (FL 48.32, -4.88) tumbling 8.6% and 9.2%, respectively, and Buckle (BKE 26.55, -1.25) dropping 4.5% in reaction to their quarterly results. Conversely, Ross Stores (ROST 95.09, +0.06) ticked up 0.1%.

The consumer staples sector (-0.2%) was the lone decliner, but financials (+0.3%), industrials (+0.4%), and utilities (+0.4%) also underperformed.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries finished slightly lower, pushing the benchmark 10-yr yield up one basis point to 2.83%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index gave back nearly all of Thursday's rebound, dropping 0.5% to 95.05, and West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 1.2% to $68.66/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which was limited to July Durable Goods Orders:

July durable goods orders declined 1.7% (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%), and the prior month's reading was revised to +0.7% (from +1.0%). Excluding transportation, durable orders increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) to follow the prior month's revised reading of +0.1% (from +0.4%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the headline decrease masked a 1.4% increase in orders for nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft, which is a positive sign about business spending

Looking ahead, investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +15.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.4% YTD
S&P 500 +7.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.3% YTD

Week In Review: Back to Record Territory

The S&P 500 advanced 0.6% this week, closing Friday at a new record high for the first time since January 26. Political uncertainty, trade ambiguity, and strengthened expectations for two more rate hikes this year all failed to dissuade motivated buyers, who pushed stocks higher in three of the week's five sessions.

As for the other major averages, the Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 also notched new records, adding 1.7% and 1.9%, respectively, while the Dow climbed 0.5%.

The week started on a mildly positive note, with stocks ticking higher on Monday and Tuesday, but investors were cautious over the next two sessions, largely due to the legal woes of President Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Mr. Manafort was convicted of tax and bank fraud on Tuesday afternoon, while Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to a range of charges, including tax fraud and excessive campaign contributions, and implicated the president directly by saying that Mr. Trump directed him to pay two women hush money "for the principal purpose of influencing the election."

It's too early to say what these developments will mean for President Trump's political future, but it's worth noting that the president chose to say, in regards to the situation, that the market would crash "if I ever got impeached" and that "I don't know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job."

Moving on to the trade front, two days of trade talks between the U.S. and China wrapped up on Thursday without any visible sign of progress. President Trump said beforehand that he wasn't expecting much to come out of the talks, which marked the first official negotiations since a breakdown nearly three months ago.

In monetary policy, President Trump reiterated his displeasure with the Fed on Monday, saying he was "not thrilled" with Fed Chair Jerome Powell for raising rates.

Two days later, the Fed released the minutes from the July/August FOMC meeting, which only strengthened the expectation that the U.S. central bank will hike rates at its September meeting, with officials saying in the minutes that it would likely "soon" be appropriate to raise rates.

Then, on Friday, Fed Chairman Powell gave a speech at the Kansas City Fed's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, saying that gradual rate hikes remain appropriate. Mr. Powell also expressed confidence in the economy and said he doesn't see any signs of inflation getting out of hand.

Seven of eleven sectors advanced this week, with cyclical groups showing relative strength. The energy sector (+2.6%) was the top performer -- rebounding from last week's 3.6% tumble -- helped by an increase in crude prices; West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 4.2% this week to $68.66 per barrel.

Meanwhile, the consumer discretionary sector (+2.0%) also outperformed amid a steady flow of retail earnings. TJX (TJX) jumped 4.7% on Tuesday after reporting better-than-expected results, while Lowe's (LOW) and Target (TGT) added 5.8% and 3.2%, respectively, on Wednesday after also beating estimates.

On the downside, the four declining sectors were consumer staples (-1.8%), utilities (-1.4%), telecom services (-0.7%), and real estate (-1.1%).

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InvestmentHouse - New Highs on Four Indices (Weekend Newsletter)

https://www.investmenthouse.com/frblog.php

- New High Anxiety takes a back seat Friday.
- NASDAQ gets help from recovering mega caps as it and SP500 move to new
highs, joining SP400, RUTX.
- Software reasserts itself along with a few NASDAQ large caps.
- Industrial-side stocks still in good position, just take a pause on the
week after good moves.
- Economic data continues its recent softening but the majority of the FOMC
is not willing to take notice.

New highs on four indices: SP500, NASDAQ, RUTX, SP400. The midcaps led the
charge to the new highs on the week, hitting it Tuesday followed by RUTX.
SP500, NASDAQ took a bit more time, but got there -- barely. New High
Anxiety stepped aside for the session, but these were not great breaks for
the big cap indices. Perhaps they will follow the RUTX, SP400 lead and put
some mileage on the new highs next week.

DJ30 and SOX were not dogs, they just have farther to go. DJ30 cleared the
late February peak Tuesday, the penultimate high before getting to the
January high, gave it up, but then rebounded Friday. SOX rallied well
Tuesday through Friday, clearing the 50 day MA's with the Friday gap and
rally, holding the gains to the close. As noted, not new highs, but not bad
at all.

Notably, no new high for NASDAQ 100. It is not the big techs, or at least
not a lot of them, moving to highs.

SP500 17.71, 0.62%
NASDAQ 67.52, 0.86%
DJ30 133.37, 0.52%
SP400 0.40%
RUTX 0.50%
SOX 1.46%
NASDAQ 100 0.97%

VOLUME: NYSE -2%, NASDAQ +1%. Volume remained lower on NYSE, below average
all week and very low Wednesday to Friday -- no surge in buying though the
prior week some upside sessions were marked with rising volume. NASDAQ
volume elevated Thursday to just below average after a very low volume prior
5 sessions, and it remained elevated Friday on the breakout move. Better
volume is good, but this was not great volume on a breakout.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE +2.3:1, NASDAQ +1.8:1. No great shakes on NASDAQ
with its breakout; not a lot of stocks moving to new highs. NYSE was not
bad as the larger and smaller cap indices rallied evenly.


Rah, rah for the new highs. Lots of ebullient spirits Friday post-close, a
bit too ebullient for a Friday. New highs do that, even if they are on
light trade. Then again, the market has moved with light trade for about .
. . ever. So it seems.

There are still plenty of stocks in good patterns, many in the formerly
forgotten group that have received rotation money the past 2 months.
Friday, however, some of the prior leaders that broke came back into their
own. Software had improved, and it continued improving Friday as FFIV,
VRSN, ADBE and others rallied. NVDA continued its heady recovery and NFLX
broke through resistance on volume. V came to life. PYPL also. AMZN and
AAPL were up but massive disappointments given some of the other moves in
the market. Others moving well moved well again, e.g. AMD, DOCU, ROKU.
Moving from all sides of the market, though I note the 'old economy' stocks,
while up in many cases, were not surging.

Lots of somewhat euphoria about the new highs but we only bought one
position (TRMB), took some gain on AMD and DOCU. We will see if the new
highs hold next week as the DJ30-like stocks move up off their tests. For
now with the breakouts, the upside is still predominant, and if they hold we
will get plenty of opportunities.


CHARTS

NASDAQ: Just over a week from the 50 day MA test, NASDAQ finally popped a
new high again after that late July high and its half-session half life.
Perhaps this fate will be better. Hey, NASDAQ held the 50 day EMA for the
third time and this time, unlike early August, punched out a new high.

SP500: A new high Tuesday intraday could not hold. A test of the 10 day
EMA into Thursday, then Friday a gap and rally to that high. Bravo.
Volume -- weak. Can malign it all you want, but it is a new high after a
quick intraday 50 day MA test 8 sessions back. Now it shows if it can hold.

SP400: New high Tuesday on a Thursday to Tuesday run. Held the move
Wednesday, Thursday, then was up again Friday to a higher closing high.
Good sharp break, and now a quick test, looking good.

RUTX: Same action as SP400 with a new high Tuesday. Then RUTX did a bit
better, extending the high Wednesday and again Friday. Key group,
economically sensitive, blah, blah, blah -- you know the drill. Good move,
staying power is the key.

DJ30: Higher high on Tuesday, clearing the late February peak, then faded,
testing the 10 day EMA Thursday. Friday a nice break higher though still
below the Tuesday close. Held the break over the prior highs and now it can
work on the January all-time high. Still plenty of room to work to that
point, and that is good as it does not have to make a break through any
other resistance.

SOX: Tossed a pair of doji at the lower trendline of the triangle Friday
and Monday, then a set of solid moves higher. Broke through the 200 day SMA
Tuesday, made it to the 50 day as of Thursday, then a gap through the 50 day
and rally Friday. Now trading inside the gap zone of the early August gap
lower. The upper gap zone is 1389 (closed at 1376ish).


LEADERSHIP

A week where some of the leaders in the prior rally reversed breaks in their
uptrends, some surging to higher highs (e.g. software, NVDA), others
clearing some important near term resistance (e.g. NFLX), and others trying
to become leaders tested though remain set up very well (e.g. PFE, EMR,
JNJ). The market looks to have leadership.

fAang: AMZN, AAPL toyed with new highs but just could not find sustained
bids to close the week. Modest gains, nothing that great. NFLX rallied
through the 50 day EMA. GOOG worked laterally all week, started upside
Friday though volume still low. FB went really nowhere.

Software: Some great new moves from TTWO, FFIV, VRSN. ADBE close to a new
high. VMW gapped lower on earnings, but managed a decent comeback. CRM
broke higher Friday to a nice new high. MSFT is even trying to move up
after a 50 day MA test.

Drugs/Healthcare: Good looks. PFE, MRK, LLY still in good lateral moves
testing the 10 day EMA near support. SRPT is still interesting. JNJ tested
the 10 day EMA after a good move, starting upside. UNH tested and is
bouncing. Not bad.

Industrials: Mixed performances. HON upon the week, faded modestly Friday.
EMR tested the 10 day, started to bounce. CMI gapped lower, reversed to
flat. UTX testing after failing to break to a new high early week.

Chips: NVDA a new high. AMD an 11+ year new high. XLNX fighting back to
the late July high. TXN continues to recover, moving up through the 50 day
MA. INTC trying to bounce off the late July low. Improving but sporadic.

Financial: V broke higher, clearing to a new high. C, JPM, BAC in decent
tests. GS is interesting, setting up a short inverted head and shoulders
over the 50 day MA's.

Retail: Another week showing some big earnings surges (e.g. WSM, TJX, TGT),
earnings selloffs (e.g. GPS). Some gapped lower and recovered, e.g. ROST.
Others just moved higher, e.g. BBY, RH. WMT looks ready to move back
upside.

Transports: CSX still moving higher. Airlines still in good setups, e.g.
AAL, DAL.

Misc: PYPL surged higher after dormancy. SQ continued its weeklong move
higher above the 10 day EMA. GRUB continued its move, breaking to a new
high. DOCU hit a higher high, we took some gain after a solid week. DIS
still testing in a lateral move.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +133.37 points (+0.52%) to close at 25790.35

Nasdaq
Stats: +67.52 points (+0.86%) to close at 7945.98
Volume: 1.89B (+0.53%)

Up Volume: 1.35B (+628.29M)
Down Volume: 512.05M (-627.95M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.76 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.42 to 1

New Highs: 194 (+31)
New Lows: 34 (+5)

S&P
Stats: +17.71 points (+0.62%) to close at 2874.69
NYSE Volume: 609.624M (-1.62%)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.29 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.87 to 1

New Highs: 112 (+19)
New Lows: 38 (-4)


SENTIMENT

VIX: 11.99; -0.42
VXN: 15.16; -0.63
VXO: 10.98; -0.06

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.92; -0.11

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls continue upside toward the 60 level that is associated with pullbacks.
Bears faded modestly but are still holding the 2018 move higher.

Bulls: 57.7 versus 57.3

Bears: 18.3 versus 18.4

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 57.7 versus 57.3
57.3 versus 54.9 versus 54.5 versus 54.9 versus 55.3 versus 52.4 versus 47.1
versus 47.6 versus 52.0 versus 55.5 versus 52.9 versus 50.0 versus 49.1
versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6 versus 42.2
versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5
versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00 versus 64.7 versus 66.7 versus 64.4
versus 61.9 versus 64.1 versus 64.2 versus 62.3 versus 61.5 versus 63.5
versus 64.4 versus 63.5 versus 62.3 versus 60.6 versus 60.4 versus 57.5
versus 54.3 versus 50.5 versus 47.1

Bears: 18.3 versus 18.4
18.4 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.5 versus 18.5 versus 18.6
versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8 versus 17.7 versus 19.2 versus 19.2
versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8 versus 19.6 versus 19.8
versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7 versus 15.5 versus 14.4
versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7
versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1
versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2
versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.813% versus 2.828%. Bonds are rallying, yields are falling even
as the stock market hits new highs. TLT gapped lower, tested the 200 day on
the low, then rallied back up to a recovery high and earning the July peaks.
Bond yields should be rising, not falling, particularly with Powell saying
the Fed should and will keep hiking. Perhaps it is a case of the market
knowing the Fed always overshoots. Perhaps.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.828%
versus 2.821% versus 2.819% versus 2.819% versus 2.864% versus 2.871% versus
2.879% versus 2.882% versus 2.873% versus 2.928% versus 2.963% versus 2.977%
versus 2.977% versus 2.945% versus 2.95% versus 2.986% versus 3.005% versus
2.962% versus 2.975% versus 2.958% versus 2.982% versus 2.965%


EUR/USD: 1.16216 versus 1.15390. Euro up for the second week and Friday
actually cleared the 50 day MA's on the close.

Historical: 1.15390 versus 1.15709 versus 1.158 versus 1.1487 versus 1.1437
versus 1.13765 versus 1.13731 versus 1.13479 versus 1.14052 versus 1.1413
versus 1.1526 versus 1.16186 versus 1.16001 versus 1.15572 versus 1.15683
versus 1.15864 versus 1.1662 versus 1.1689 versus 1.17074 versus 1.16558
versus 1.17324 versus 1.17385 versus 1.16846 versus 1.16989 versus 1.17214
versus 1.1651 versus 1.16514 versus 1.16603 versus 1.1709 versus 1.1685
versus 1.16608 versus 1.1672 versus 1.17288 versus 1.17578 versus 1.17439
versus 1.1689 versus 1.1665 versus 1.16388 versus 1.1638 versus 1.15634
versus 1.15602 versus 1.16517 versus 1.17031 versus 1.16572 versus 1.16072
versus 1.15762 versus 1.1586 versus 1.15746 versus 1.2624 versus 1.16245
versus 1.15678 versus 1.17973 versus 1.17454 versus 1.17761 versus 1.17737
versus 1.17987 versus 1.1774 versus 1.1762 versus 1.1697 versus 1.166 versus
1.16993


USD/JPY: 111.249 versus 111.351. Reversed off a lower August low Monday
then climbed through the 50 day SMA. Friday tested, still holding the 50
day.

Historical: 111.351 versus 110.766 versus 109.92 versus 110.49 versus
110.935 versus 110.818 versus 111.229 versus 110.737 versus 110.840 versus
111.07 versus 111.361 versus 111.344 versus 111.254 versus 111.621 versus
111.628 versus 111.744 versus 110.990 versus 110.995 versus 110.791 versus
110.871 versus 111.235 versus 111.084 versus 111.451 versus 112.732 versus
112.783 versus 112.896 versus 112.337 versus 112.631 versus 112.093 versus
110.911 versus 110.973 versus 110.474 versus 110.666 versus 110.40 versus
110.854 versus 110.687 versus 110.523 versus 110.223 versus 110.097 versus
109.678 versus 109.980 versus 109.895 versus 110.376 versus 110.03 versus
109.783 versus 110.668 versus 110.578 versus 110.247 versus 110.381 versus
110.314 versus 109.466 versus 109.705 versus 110.164 versus 109.878 versus
109.90 versus 109.53 versus 108.767


Oil: 68.72, +0.89. Rallied from the 200 day SMA to the 50 day SMA the past
two weeks. Moved through the 50 day Friday but could not hold all of that
move. Kind of head and shoulder-ish setup from May.


Gold: 1213.30, _19.30. Trying to break its downtrend from the April high.
Moved upside in a normal downtrend bounce through Wednesday, started to roll
over Thursday, then spiked over the 20 day EMA Friday. Trade? No one
believes Powell? Weaker US economic data?


MONDAY

Consumer Confidence, second GDP read, Personal income and spending, Chicago
PMI are up for next week. The Fed is also getting chatty though there is
not much that will change here given Powell's Jackson Hole commentary.
Friday Bullard defied Powell, stating the Fed should 'stand pat' on rake
hikes for the rest of the year. Ms. Mester, however, raised her GDP
expectations and said the gradual hikes were appropriate.

Classic Fed miscalculation. Economic data has softened on the leading edge
the past 3 weeks with regional PMI's missing, housing looking quite weak,
Durables Orders dropping to 11 month lows (though business investment rose a
nice 1.4%) -- perhaps just a soft patch, but the Fed is acting rather
fatalistic in its need to hike rates. It said it would give deference to
the yield curve, but bonds are rallying as the Fed hikes and stock indices
hit record highs. The Fed is making its same old mistakes: it sees an
overall still strong economy, stocks still strong, and it ignores the yield
curve. When it cannot ignore the curve any longer, it starts making up
reasons the yield curve doesn't mean anything this time. When more reasons
bonds are 'wrong' are heard from the Fed, you know the Fed is going to
overshoot. Okay, that is poor wording. We know the Fed ALWAYS overshoots;
it is more a question of the timing.

With the stock indices hitting new highs, worrying about the Fed seems
rather absurd. Near term it is. Nonetheless, you keep an eye on bonds as
stocks rally, and as bonds and stocks rally you watch how the stronger
stocks act. Reversals from highs, breakdowns, etc. are indications. The
market may still be attempting a top, new highs be damned. Don't assume the
new highs are locked in. The action of SP400 and RUTX is encouraging as
they hit highs, tested, and then put in additional gains. NASDAQ is still
problematic, however, and there is no guarantee it holds its new high.

As noted earlier, given the recovery by some big names and the new highs in
SP500 and NASDAQ, the play is still mostly upside. The rotation stocks
rallied, put in modest tests last week, and look ready to move again. If
chips and techs want to play along the market has plenty of ammunition.

We are still looking at more AAPL and a GOOG position and will see what
other NASDAQ and tech stocks want to come along to the upside. Of course
the more industrial plays still have good looks and we will be ready to play
those as they break back upside off their tests.

Have a great weekend!

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More Records Following U.S.-Mexico Trade Deal
27-Aug-18 16:25 ET
Dow +259.29 at 26049.64, Nasdaq +71.92 at 8017.92, S&P +22.05 at 2896.48

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/27/more-records-following-usmexico-trade-deal.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street extended Friday's push into record territory on Monday, with the S&P 500 (+0.8%) registering its second straight record close. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (+0.9%) and the small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.2%) also notched new records, while the blue-chip Dow (+1.0%) finished roughly 2.0% below its January 26 all-time high.

News of a trade deal between the U.S. and Mexico helped underpin Monday's advance, removing some of the trade uncertainty that's plagued the market at times this year. With a U.S.-Mexico deal in place, Canada will now come to the negotiating table as the three nations look to fully replace their three-way NAFTA deal.

Monday's gains were broad-based, with nine of eleven sectors finishing in the green. The top-performing groups were financials (+1.3%), industrials (+1.2%), and materials (+1.5%); the top-weighted technology sector (+1.0%) also outperformed, with Advanced Micro (AMD 25.26, +1.28, +5.3%) extending a 12-yr high.

Conversely, the lightly-weighted utilities (-0.6%) and real estate (-0.1%) sectors finished at the back of the pack.

In corporate news, Tesla (TSLA 319.27, -3.55, -1.1%) slid after its CEO, Elon Musk, announced that he's abandoned plans to take the electric automaker private -- which he controversially floated as a possibility on August 7, saying that he's secured funding for a deal at a price of $420 per share.

Away from equities, U.S. Treasuries fell on Monday, sending yields higher across the curve; the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 2.85%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index slid 0.5% to 94.65, challenging its August low, and WTI crude futures ticked up 0.2% to $68.87/bbl, hitting a three-week high.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday, but will receive several reports on Tuesday, including Advanced International Trade in Goods and Advanced Wholesale Inventories for July, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for June, and the Consumer Confidence Index for August.

Nasdaq Composite +16.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.6% YTD
S&P 500 +8.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.4% YTD

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Little Changed
28-Aug-18 16:25 ET
Dow +14.38 at 26064.02, Nasdaq +12.14 at 8030.06, S&P +0.78 at 2897.26

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/28/little-changed.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (unch) eked out a very narrow victory on Tuesday, closing at a new record high for the third session in a row. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) and the Russell 2000 (unch) also notched new records, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) finished at its best level since early February.

It was a range-bound day of trading, with the S&P 500 keeping between -0.1% and +0.2%. Seven of eleven sectors finished in the red, but losses were pretty modest. The top-weighted technology sector (+0.2%) was an advancer, helping to mitigate losses from energy (-0.5%), materials (-0.4%), and consumer staples (-0.3%).

As for individual stocks, retail earnings were in focus once again. Best Buy (BBY 77.57, -4.09) tumbled 5.0% after downbeat Q3 guidance overshadowed upbeat Q2 results. Meanwhile, DSW (DSW 32.70, +5.50) spiked 20.2% and Tiffany & Co (TIF 131.07, +1.29) added 1.0% after both companies beat top and bottom line estimates.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries moved lower, sending yields higher across the curve, with the benchmark 10-yr yield climbing four basis points to 2.88%. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures slid 0.4% to $68.58/bbl, and the U.S. Dollar Index slipped 0.1% to 94.62, testing its August low.

In Washington, Canada came back to the NAFTA negotiating table on Tuesday after the U.S. and Mexico reached a bilateral trade agreement on Monday. President Trump has warned that he could proceed without Canada, but U.S. officials are optimistic that a deal can be reached by the end of the week.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included Advanced International Trade in Goods and Advanced Wholesale Inventories for July, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for June, and the Consumer Confidence Index for August:

The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for July showed a deficit of $72.2 billion, and the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for July rose 0.7%.
The Case-Shiller 20-City Index increased 6.3% in June (Briefing.com consensus +6.4%), and the May increase was left unrevised at 6.5%.
The consumer confidence reading for August increased to 133.4 (Briefing.com consensus 126.5) from the prior month's revised reading of 127.9 (from 127.4).
The key takeaway from the report is that the high confidence levels should support solid consumer spending in the near term, particularly since consumers have a better outlook for their short-term income prospects.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the second estimate of Q2 GDP, July Pending Home Sales, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +16.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.6% YTD
S&P 500 +8.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.4% YTD

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Another Record-Setting Day
29-Aug-18 16:30 ET
Dow +60.55 at 26124.57, Nasdaq +79.65 at 8109.71, S&P +16.52 at 2913.78

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/29/another-recordsetting-day.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wednesday was another record-setting day on Wall Street with the S&P 500 (+0.6%), the Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%), and the small-cap Russell 2000 (+0.4%) closing at all-time highs for the fourth day in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) finished at a seven-month high, coming within 2.0% of its January 26 record.

Gains were broad-based on Wednesday, with eight of eleven sectors finishing in the green. The consumer discretionary and information technology sectors were the top-performing groups, benefiting from a rise in most FAANG names, including Amazon (AMZN 1998.10, +65.28, +3.4%) and Apple (AAPL 222.98, +3.28, +1.5%), both of which finished at new all-time highs.

Amazon shares nearly broke the $2000 mark after Morgan Stanley raised its target price for the internet retail giant to $2500 -- a new Street high.

Meanwhile, the energy sector (+0.6%) also had a positive session, helped by a rise in crude prices. West Texas Intermediate crude futures finished higher by 1.4% at $69.50/bbl, extending gains after the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report showed that U.S. crude stockpiles decreased by 2.6 million barrels last week.

The trade-sensitive industrial sector (+0.1%) struggled to stay afloat despite both President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressing optimism over U.S.-Canada trade talks, which they are looking to wrap up by Friday. In turn, the heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.02%) underperformed, as did the telecom services (-0.8%) and real estate (-0.1%) sectors.

In earnings news, retailers were in focus once again, with American Eagle (AEO 25.50, -1.78, -6.5%), Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS 35.60, -0.76, -2.0%), and Express (9.93, -0.06, -0.6%) all dropping in reaction to their quarterly results. Conversely, Shoe Carnival (SCVL 41.74, +4.83, +13.1%) spiked after reporting better-than-expected earnings, revenues, and guidance.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries finished Wednesday roughly flat, with the yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note closing unchanged at 2.88%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index slid for a fourth straight session, dropping 0.2% to 94.47, and the CBOE Volatility Index declined 3.2% to 12.10.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the second estimate of Q2 GDP, July Pending Home Sales, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The second estimate of second quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 4.2%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of +4.0%. The first estimate came in at +4.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it included a downward revision to personal spending growth (from 4.0% to 3.8%) that was offset by a higher estimate for nonresidential investment growth, government spending, and a downward revision to imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP.
Pending Home Sales declined 0.7% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). Today's reading follows an unrevised 0.9% increase in June.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.7% to follow last week's increase of 4.2%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims report and July Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +17.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.1% YTD
S&P 500 +9.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.7% YTD

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Retreating From Record Highs
30-Aug-18 16:25 ET
Dow -137.65 at 25986.92, Nasdaq -21.32 at 8088.39, S&P -12.91 at 2900.87

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/30/retreating-from-record-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks pulled back from record highs on Thursday, extending losses in the afternoon on headlines that President Trump wants to impose tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods as soon as next week. The S&P 500 and the Dow fell 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq held up a little better, shedding 0.3%.

To be clear, sources said that President Trump hasn't made his final decision regarding the aforementioned round of tariffs -- which, at $200 billion, would be the largest tranche thus far -- but the possibility was apparently enough to spook the market. On a related note, NAFTA negotiations continued in Washington, with the U.S. and Mexico trying to reach an agreement with Canada by the end of the week.

Losses were broad-based on Thursday, with 10 of 11 sectors settling in the red. The lightly-weighted materials sector (-1.3%) was the worst-performing group, but the financials (-0.8%), industrials (-0.8%), and consumer discretionary (-0.6%) spaces also showed notable weakness. The utilities sector (+0.1%) was the lone advancer.

Despite the broad weakness, most FAANG names showed relative strength. Amazon (AMZN 2002.38, +4.28) crossed the $2000 mark for the first time ever, adding 0.2%, and Facebook (FB 177.64, +1.74), Apple (AAPL 225.03, +2.05), and Netflix (NFLX 370.98, +2.94) advanced between 0.8% and 1.0% apiece.

In earnings news, retailers dominated the lineup once again. Dollar Tree (DLTR 79.78, -14.68), Michaels Stores (MIK 17.01, -2.96), and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 22.55, -4.67) fell between 14.8% and 17.2% in reaction to their quarterly results, while Guess? (GES 24.23, +1.29) and Signet Jewelers (SIG 67.68, +13.03) rallied 5.6% and 23.8%, respectively.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries advanced on Thursday, sending yields lower across the curve, with the benchmark 10-yr yield dropping two basis points to 2.86%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index ticked up 0.2% to 94.62, ending a four-session slide, and West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 1.0% to $70.22/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included July Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices and the weekly Initial Claims report:

Personal income climbed 0.3% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following an unrevised increase of 0.4% in June. Meanwhile, personal spending rose 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following an unrevised increase of 0.4%. The PCE Price Index rose 0.1% in July, and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).
The key takeaway from the report is twofold: (1) the spending increase puts Q3 GDP on a solid growth track and (2) the year-over-year increase in the PCE Price Index (+2.3% vs. +2.2% prior) and the core PCE Price Index (+2.0% vs. +1.9% prior) will keep the Federal Reserve on its tightening track in September.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 213,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 214,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 210,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.708 million from a revised count of 1.728 million (from 1.727 million).
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that the four-week moving average of 212,250 for initial claims is the lowest since December 13, 1969, underscoring the strength in the labor market.

Looking ahead, the Chicago PMI for August and the final reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for August will be released on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +17.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.8% YTD
S&P 500 +8.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.1% YTD

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Stocks Hold Steady Despite No U.S.-Canada Trade Deal
31-Aug-18 16:30 ET
Dow -22.10 at 25964.82, Nasdaq +21.17 at 8109.56, S&P +0.39 at 2901.26

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/8/31/stocks-hold-steady-despite-no-uscanada-trade-deal.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Friday's trading session -- the last session ahead of an extended Labor Day weekend -- was an eventful one in terms of trade-related headlines, but a largely uneventful one for the major averages, which finished roughly flat. The S&P 500 (unch) added less than a point, the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) advanced modestly, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) finished slightly lower.

All eyes were on Washington, where U.S. and Canadian officials were scrambling to get a trade deal done by President Trump's end of Friday deadline. The two sides weren't able to reach an agreement, but the White House then said talks will extend into next week. The extension was unexpected, as President Trump has said he'd be willing to move on without Canada if a deal wasn't in place by Friday.

Nonetheless, the news helped the market recover modest losses from earlier in the day, which were extended after The Toronto Star released "off the record" remarks that President Trump made during a Bloomberg interview on Thursday, including an acknowledgement that he's not making any compromises in the trade talks with Canada.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced late in the afternoon that President Trump has officially notified Congress that he wants to sign a trade agreement with Mexico, which agreed to a bilateral deal with the U.S. on Monday, and potentially Canada, in 90 days. The deals are aimed at replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has been in place since 1994.

As for the 11 S&P 500 sectors, almost all of them finished within 0.5% of their unchanged marks. The energy sector (-0.7%) was the lone exception, falling in tandem with the price of crude oil; WTI crude futures slid 0.5% to $69.84/bbl. Energy finished August at the bottom of the sector standings with a monthly loss of 3.8%; for comparison, the S&P 500 added 3.0%.

In earnings news, lululemon athletica (LULU 154.93, +17.93) and Ulta Beauty (ULTA 260.00, +15.59) advanced 13.1% and 6.4%, respectively, after releasing their quarterly results, but Big Lots (BIG 43.05, -4.81) dropped 10.1% after reporting lower-than-expected profits and guidance for FY19.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries advanced, pushing yields lower across the curve, with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.85%; the U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.4% to 95.05, its best level in a week; and the CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as the "investor fear gauge", slid 3.2% to 13.10.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the Chicago PMI for August and the final reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for August:

The Chicago PMI for August hit 63.6 (Briefing.com consensus 63.0), down from an unrevised 65.5 in July.
Despite the dip, the key takeaway from the August report is that manufacturing activity in the Chicago Fed region remains robust.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for August ticked up to 96.2 (Briefing.com consensus 95.5) from 95.3 in the preliminary reading.

U.S. markets will be closed on Monday in celebration of Labor Day.

Nasdaq Composite +17.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.4% YTD
S&P 500 +8.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.0% YTD

Week In Review: Going Deeper Into Record Territory

After returning to record territory last Friday, the S&P 500 trekked even higher this week, adding 0.9% in total. The tech-heavy Nasdaq outperformed, adding 2.1%, and the Dow also advanced, tacking on 0.7%. Investors dealt with a flurry of trade-related headlines this week, especially in regards to NAFTA negotiations.

The U.S. and Mexico reached a bilateral trade deal on Monday, a headline that sent Wall Street to new all-time highs. Canada then entered the discussions to try to work out a deal with the United States, but the two sides weren't able to reach an agreement by President Trump's Friday deadline. However, the White House said late on Friday that talks will resume next week.

In other trade-related news, Wall Street registered its only loss of the week on Thursday following reports that President Trump wants to move forward with tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods as early as next week. In addition, the president said in a Bloomberg interview that the EU's offer to eliminate auto tariffs does not go far enough and compared the EU's trade policies to those of China.

Meanwhile, on the earnings front, investors once again received quarterly results from a number of retailers this week, including results from well-known companies like Dollar General (DG), Best Buy (BBY), lululemon athletica (LULU), Dollar Tree (DLTR), Ulta Beauty (ULTA), Tiffany & Co (TIF), and Burlington Stores (BURL).

The results came in mostly better-than-expected, but guidance was more mixed, leaving the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) with a modest weekly gain of 0.3%.

Away from earnings, Amazon (AMZN) climbed to new records and crossed the $2000 mark for the first time ever after Morgan Stanley raised its target price for the online retail giant to $2500 -- a new Street high. Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL) also hit new records, helped by investing legend Warren Buffett, who said he's recently bought more shares of the world's largest tech company.

Tesla (TSLA) also made headlines, moving lower after its CEO, Elon Musk, announced that he's abandoned plans to take the electric automaker private.

As for the sector standings, seven groups finished the week in the green and four groups finished in the red. The top-performing sectors were technology (+2.0%), consumer discretionary (+1.8%), and health care (+1.0%). Conversely, telecoms (-1.7%), consumer staples (-0.5%), and utilities (-0.6%) finished at the back of the pack.

Also of note, there were some important pieces of economic data released this week, including the second estimate of Q2 GDP (+4.2% actual vs +4.0% Briefing.com consensus) and the July reading of the core PCE Price Index (+0.2% actual vs +0.2% Briefing.com consensus), which is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation. Neither report elicited much of response from the stock market though.

With August now in the books, it still appears very likely that the Fed will raise rates at its September meeting, with the CME FedWatch Tool placing the chances at 98.4%.

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Modest Losses to Start Holiday-Shortened Week
04-Sep-18 16:30 ET
Dow -12.34 at 25952.48, Nasdaq -18.29 at 8091.27, S&P -4.80 at 2896.46

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/4/modest-losses-to-start-holidayshortened-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks opened the holiday-shortened week on a modestly lower note, pulling back from last week's record highs amid continued uncertainty over U.S.-Canada trade relations. The S&P 500 finished with a loss of 0.2%, but did close in the upper half of its daily range. Meanwhile, the Dow slipped 0.1%, and the Nasdaq lost 0.2%.

Trade talks between the U.S. and Canada are set to resume on Wednesday after the two sides failed to reach an agreement to replace NAFTA on Friday as planned. The negotiations looked promising early last week, but appear to have soured since, with President Trump tweeting over the weekend that there's "no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal."

That tweet helped give the bears an advantage on Tuesday, which ended with eight of eleven sectors closing in negative territory. The lightly-weighted telecom services (-1.1%), real estate (-0.9%), and materials (-0.8%) groups were the worst performers, and the health care space (-0.7%) also showed notable weakness.

The top-weighted technology sector (-0.3%) finished in the red as well, with social media giant Facebook (FB 171.16, -4.57) dropping 2.6% following a downgrade at MoffetNathanson and ahead of Wednesday's appearance on Capitol Hill, during which the company will attempt to answer questions regarding political censorship and Russian propaganda.

Meanwhile, in the consumer discretionary sector, Nike (NKE 79.60, -2.60) fell 3.2% after the athletic shoe and apparel maker unveiled an ad for the 30th anniversary of its "Just Do It" slogan that features Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback credited with starting the controversial national anthem protests.

However, the consumer discretionary's largest component, Amazon (AMZN 2039.51, +26.80), became just the second U.S. company to achieve a market cap of $1 trillion, although AMZN shares did trim their gains after hitting the milestone, going from +1.9% to +1.3% and cutting the company's market cap to $995 billion by the close.

The consumer discretionary sector finished higher by 0.3%, and the financials (+0.5%) and utilities (+0.6%) groups also ended in the green.

Away from equities, crude oil went on a wild ride on Tuesday, going from +2.3% to -1.0% before settling with a loss of 0.3% at a price of $69.82/bbl. The volatility came as investors tried to gauge the impact of Tropical Storm Gordon, which is expected to make landfall on the Gulf Coast tonight, possibly as a hurricane.

Lastly, the U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.3% to 95.35, hitting its highest level in over a week, and U.S. Treasuries sold off, sending yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note jumped five basis points to 2.90%, hitting its highest level in three weeks.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the ISM Index for August and the Construction Spending report for July:

The ISM Index for August increased to 61.3 from an unrevised reading of 58.1 in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 57.6.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing activity is robust and consistent with a strong economy.
Construction Spending increased 0.1% in July, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.5%. The June reading was revised to -0.8% from -1.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that weakness in nonresidential private construction spending was the primary reason for the tepid growth overall.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the July Trade Balance, Auto and Truck Sales for August, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +17.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.9% YTD
S&P 500 +8.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.0% YTD

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Tech Shares Lead S&P Modestly Lower
05-Sep-18 16:25 ET
Dow +22.51 at 25974.99, Nasdaq -96.07 at 7995.20, S&P -8.12 at 2888.34

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/5/tech-shares-lead-s-and-p-modestly-lower.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 dropped for the third time in four sessions on Wednesday, losing 0.3%, as technology and consumer discretionary shares weighed, overpowering gains most elsewhere. The tech-heavy Nasdaq showed relative weakness, tumbling 1.2%, while the blue-chip Dow outperformed, tacking on 0.1%.

Facebook's (FB 167.18, -3.98) COO, Sheryl Sandberg, and Twitter's (TWTR 32.73, -2.11) CEO, Jack Dorsey, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday morning, defending their efforts to prevent election meddling. Mr. Dorsey also appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the afternoon, rebuking allegations that Twitter promotes certain political ideologies.

The hearings didn't produce any new information of note, but that didn't prevent Facebook and Twitter shares from tumbling 2.3% and 6.1%, respectively.

Those losses coincided with a broad tech retreat that forced the top-weighted information technology sector to the bottom of the sector standings. The tech space, which represents a quarter of the broader market alone, lost 1.5%, overshadowing gains from eight of the other ten groups. The consumer discretionary space similarly lost 1.1%, with Amazon (AMZN 1994.82, -44.69) dropping 2.2%.

Given the underperformance of information technology and consumer discretionary, which are by far the best-performing sectors year-to-date, and the relatively flat performance of U.S. Treasuries, with the benchmark 10-yr yield closing unchanged at 2.90%, Wednesday's outing appeared to be nothing more than a natural pullback following Wall Street's latest run to new record highs.

On the upside, countercyclical sectors outperformed, with consumer staples and utilities closing atop the sector standings with respective gains of 1.2% and 1.3%. The lightly-weighted telecom services sector (+0.8%) was the next-best performing group, and the trade-sensitive industrial sector (+0.6%) also showed relative strength.

In Washington, trade talks between the U.S. and Canada quietly resumed on Wednesday, producing no new headlines of note. Meanwhile, investors looked ahead to Thursday when the White House could announce its decision regarding another round of tariffs -- this one targeting $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Elsewhere, West Texas Intermediate crude futures tumbled 1.5% to $68.75/bbl, hitting their lowest level in a week, after a weaker-than-expected Tropical Storm Gordon hit the Gulf Coast overnight, doing less to disrupt crude production than anticipated. The oil-sensitive energy sector finished with a loss of 0.1%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to the July Trade Balance and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The July trade balance report showed a deficit of $50.1 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$50.6 billion). The June deficit was revised to $45.7 billion from $46.3 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is twofold: (1) the widening deficit will create a drag on Q3 GDP growth and (2) the July report is going to fan the Trump Administration's flames about trade matters as it showed an increase in the deficit with both the European Union and China.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index slipped 0.1% to follow last week's decrease of 1.7%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive several pieces of economic data on Thursday, including the August ADP Employment Change report, the revised readings for Q2 Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, the weekly Initial Claims report, July Factory Orders, and the August ISM Services Index.

Nasdaq Composite +15.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.5% YTD
S&P 500 +8.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.1% YTD

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S&P Falls Again As Tech Shares Weigh For Second Day In A Row
06-Sep-18 16:20 ET
Dow +20.88 at 25995.87, Nasdaq -72.45 at 7922.75, S&P -10.55 at 2877.79

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/6/s-and-p-falls-again-as-tech-shares-weigh-for-second-day-in-a-row.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell for the fourth time in five sessions on Thursday, with the typically high-flying technology sector underperforming for the second day in a row. The S&P 500 finished lower by 0.4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled 0.9%. The blue-chip Dow outperformed, however, tacking on 0.1%.

Thursday's session began on a flat note, but technology shares soon began selling off, pulling the S&P 500 into negative territory. At its worst mark of the day, the S&P 500 was down 0.7%. Tech giants like Facebook (FB 162.53, -4.65), Apple (AAPL 223.10, -3.77), and Alphabet (GOOG 1171.44, -15.04) lost between 1.3% and 2.8%, and their FAANG peer Amazon (AMZN 1958.31, -36.51) dropped 1.8%.

Chipmakers were also a drag on the tech space, which finished lower by 0.8%, with Micron (MU 44.65, -4.89) pacing the retreat after announcing that NAND pricing declined in the third quarter, triggering concerns about end demand/excess supply that go hand-in-hand with remarks about pricing declines. MU shares lost 9.9%.

Meanwhile, the energy sector (-1.9%) was the worst-performing group, weighed down by a drop in the price of crude oil. WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.4% at $67.81/bbl, with nearly all of that loss coming after the release of the EIA's weekly inventory report, which showed a 4.3 million barrel drop in crude stockpiles, but a 1.8 million barrel jump in inventories of gasoline.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.6%) also declined, as did the consumer discretionary space (-0.3%), but six of the seven remaining sectors finished in the green. The lightly-weighted telecom services sector (+0.7%) finished atop the day's leaderboard, and the industrial space (+0.3%) was another notable outperformer.

In Washington, U.S. and Canadian officials continued to negotiate on trade, and the world awaited news from the White House, which could impose another round of tariffs on Chinese goods as soon as a public comment period ends at midnight. This round of duties will target $200 billion worth of goods, including furniture, tires, bicycles, and lighting products. Beijing has vowed to retaliate.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries rallied on Thursday, sending the benchmark 10-yr yield two basis points lower to 2.88%; the U.S. Dollar Index slipped 0.1% to 94.98; and the CBOE Volatility Index, which is often referred to as the "investor fear gauge" jumped 4.2% to 14.49, touching its highest level in three weeks.

Reviewing Thursday's big batch of economic data, which included the August ADP Employment Change report, the revised readings for Q2 Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, the weekly Initial Claims report, July Factory Orders, and the August ISM Services Index:

The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 163,000 in August (Briefing.com consensus 186,000), and the July reading was revised to 217,000 (from 219,000).
The ADP reading is seen as a prelude to the BLS's nonfarm payrolls figure (Briefing.com consensus 187,000), which will be released on Friday.
Second quarter unit labor costs were revised to -1.0% (Briefing.com consensus -0.9%) from -0.9% in the preliminary reading, and Q2 productivity was left unrevised at +2.9%, as expected.
The key takeaway from the revised report is the same as the advance estimate: labor costs look to be in check, which will facilitate a gradual tightening path for the Federal Reserve.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 203,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 214,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 213,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.707 million from a revised count of 1.710 million (from 1.708 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it is consistent with a tight labor market, as employers appear reluctant to cut payrolls.
The Factory Orders report for July showed a decrease of 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%), and the June reading was revised to +0.6% from +0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that a decline in shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft will weigh on Q3 GDP estimates, but today's reading was consistent with the Advance Durable Orders report for July, meaning the decline should have been expected.
The ISM Services Index for August ticked up to 58.5 (Briefing.com consensus 56.5) from an unrevised reading of 55.7 in July.
The key takeaway from the report is that a solid rebound from a July pullback indicates continued health in the non-manufacturing sector.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation report for August on Friday, with the Briefing.com consensus expecting an increase of 187,000 in nonfarm payrolls, an increase of 0.2% in average hourly earnings, and an unemployment rate of 3.9%, unchanged from July.

Nasdaq Composite +14.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.7% YTD
S&P 500 +7.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.2% YTD

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Stocks Slip Following Jobs Report, Tariff Talk
07-Sep-18 16:30 ET
Dow -79.33 at 25916.54, Nasdaq -20.18 at 7902.57, S&P -6.37 at 2871.42

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/7/stocks-slip-following-jobs-report-tariff-talk.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks slipped on Friday, giving the bears a clean sweep for the abbreviated week, after the Employment Situation report for August showed a stronger-than-expected increase in average hourly earnings and after President Trump threatened yet another round of tariffs on Chinese goods. The S&P 500 finished lower by 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.3% apiece.

The Employment Situation report for August crossed the wires early Friday morning, showing a 0.4% rise in average hourly earnings (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), which pushes the year-over-year rate to 2.9% -- its highest level since May 2009. That ignited fears that inflation may be picking up more than expected, as that may force the Fed to be more aggressive in raising rates.

Equity futures dipped lower following the release, but the market didn't stay down for long, with the S&P 500 fully reclaiming its opening loss of 0.4% about an hour into the session. However, President Trump sent stocks back to their opening levels around midday after saying that he's got another tranche of tariffs on $267 billion of Chinese goods "ready to go" if China retaliates to a U.S. bid to impose a tariff on an additional $200 billion of Chinese goods (which hasn't happened yet, but is expected by many to come to fruition soon).

In the end, the S&P 500, which traded as high as +0.2% and as low as -0.5%, settled near the middle of its trading range. 10 of 11 S&P sectors finished in negative territory, with health care (+0.2%) being the lone exception. The lightly-weighted utilities (-1.2%) and real estate (-1.2%) spaces were the worst performers, but losses were modest in general, with no other group dropping more than 0.5%.

The top-weighted technology space outperformed for much of the day, but eventually finished in line with the broader market, losing 0.3%. Within the space, Broadcom (AVGO 232.58, +16.61) rallied 7.7% after reporting better-than-expected earnings for its fiscal third quarter. Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL 221.30, -1.80) dropped in the late afternoon, settling lower by 0.8%, following headlines that the Trump administration's proposed tariff list may cover a wide range of the company's products.

In other corporate news, electric automaker Tesla (TSLA 263.24, -17.71) tumbled 6.3%, hitting a five-month low, after its Chief Accounting Officer announced his resignation after just a month with the company and following headlines that its Chief People Officer will not be returning from her leave.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries sold off on Friday after the release of the August jobs report, sending yields higher across the curve. The yield on the Fed-sensitive 2-yr note jumped six basis points to 2.69%, and the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note also rose six basis points, closing at 2.94%. Elsewhere, the U.S. Dollar Index rallied 0.4% to 95.34, and WTI crude futures slipped 0.1% to $67.76/bbl.

Reviewing the Employment Situation report for August, which was Friday's only economic report:

August nonfarm payrolls increased by 201,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 187,000. The prior month's increase was revised to 147,000 from 157,000. Nonfarm private payrolls rose by 204,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 175,000. The previous month's increase was revised to 153,000 from 170,000. Average hourly earnings increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), while the previous month's increase was left unrevised at 0.3%. The average workweek was reported at 34.5 (Briefing.com consensus 34.5). The unemployment rate stayed at 3.9% (Briefing.com consensus 3.9%).
The wage growth should be regarded as good news, yet the key takeaway for the market is that it will keep the Fed in a tightening gear, which most likely includes two more rate hikes before the year is done.

Looking ahead, investors will receive just one economic report, the Consumer Credit report for July, on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +14.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.6% YTD
S&P 500 +7.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.8% YTD

Week In Review: Three-Week Rally Comes to an End as Tech Shares Slide

Investors returned from the extended Labor Day weekend in a selling mood, pulling stocks away from last week's record highs. The S&P 500 ended the week with a loss of 1.0%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average showed relative strength, but still finished lower by 0.2%.

The week kicked off with Amazon (AMZN) becoming the second U.S. company, after Apple (AAPL), to reach a market cap of $1 trillion and with Nike (NKE) unveiling a controversial ad for the 30th anniversary of its "Just Do It" campaign that features Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback credited with starting the national anthem protests. Amazon soon fell back after touching the $1 trillion milestone on Tuesday though, ending the week with a market cap of $952 billion.

On the Gulf Coast, residents braced for Tropical Storm Gordon to make landfall, which it did on Tuesday evening. Oil prices rallied in anticipation of the storm disrupting crude production, but gave back all of those gains after the storm turned out to be less damaging than feared. Oil prices then fell further on Thursday when the EIA's weekly inventory report showed a 4.3 million barrel drop in crude stockpiles, but a 1.8 million barrel jump in inventories of gasoline. In total, WTI crude futures lost 2.9% this week, settling Friday at $67.76/bbl, and the oil-sensitive energy sector lost 2.3%.

The top-weighted information technology sector also underperformed this week, dropping 2.9%. Within the group, social media names were in focus after Facebook's (FB) COO, Sheryl Sandberg, and Twitter's (TWTR) CEO, Jack Dorsey, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday morning, defending their efforts to prevent election meddling. Mr. Dorsey also appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the afternoon, rebuking allegations that Twitter promotes certain political ideologies. The hearings didn't produce any new information of note, but that didn't prevent Facebook and Twitter shares from tumbling 2.3% and 6.1% on Wednesday, respectively.

On the trade front, U.S.-China trade tensions resurfaced at the tail end of the week, as many thought the White House would impose tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods on Thursday at midnight following the end of a public comment period. That didn't happen, but President Trump did raise the stakes on Friday, saying that he's got another tranche of tariffs on $267 billion of Chinese goods "ready to go" if Beijing retaliates to the $200 billion tranche.

On a related note, trade talks between the U.S. and Canada resumed this week after the two sides failed to reach an agreement last Friday, but investors were skeptical that a deal would get done after President Trump tweeted on Saturday that there's "no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal." As of Friday's closing bell, officials still had not reached an agreement.

In economic data, the Employment Situation report for August crossed the wires on Friday morning, causing some knee-jerk selling due to a higher-than-expected increase in average hourly earnings (+0.4% actual vs +0.2% Briefing.com consensus), which ignited some fears that inflation might be picking up. However, the realization that the economy is still strong, evidenced by a larger-than-expected increase in nonfarm payrolls (+201K actual vs +187K Briefing.com consensus) and an unemployment rate of 3.9%, helped keep losses in check.

As for the Fed, Friday's jobs report virtually locked in a September rate hike and increased the chances of a December rate hike to 79.8% from 72.8% on Thursday.

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S&P Breaks Four-Session Losing Streak
10-Sep-18 16:25 ET
Dow -59.47 at 25857.07, Nasdaq +21.62 at 7924.19, S&P +5.45 at 2876.87

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/10/s-and-p-breaks-foursession-losing-streak.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced for the first time this month on Monday, tacking on 0.2%, in what was a range-bound day of trading on Wall Street. Most S&P sectors climbed, but continued concerns over U.S.-China trade relations kept gains in check. The tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 0.3%, but the blue-chip Dow underperformed, losing 0.2%.

President Trump still hasn't enacted a $200 billion tranche of tariffs on Chinese goods, but the lingering possibility has kept investors cautious as of late. On a related note, the president told Apple (AAPL 218.33, -2.97) over the weekend that it should manufacture products in the U.S. if it's worried about the impact of tariffs.

Shares of Apple -- the world's largest tech company -- slid for a fourth straight session on Monday, losing 1.3%, which helped to keep the top-weighted information technology sector in check, especially in the morning. However, the group did eventually finish in line with the broader market, closing with a gain of 0.3%.

Conversely, three of eleven sectors finished in the red, including energy (unch), financials (-0.1%), and health care (-0.3%). Within the health care space, shares of UnitedHealth (UNH 259.73, -8.55) and Anthem (ANTM 262.59, -9.31) lost more than 3.0% after being downgraded to 'Neutral' from 'Buy' at Citigroup.

Hurricane Florence, which is headed towards the Carolina coast, strengthened to a Category 4 storm on Monday and is on track to make landfall on Thursday night.

The rapidly intensifying storm gave home improvement retailers, like Home Depot (HD 210.69, +4.46, +2.2%) and Lowe's (LOW 112.39, +2.80, +2.6%), a boost on Monday, but weighed on insurance names, including Progressive (PGR 67.79, -1.08, -1.6%), Travelers (TRV 127.60, -2.49, -1.9%), and Allstate (ALL 97.85, -2.18, -2.2%).

In corporate news, shares of CBS (CBS 55.20, -0.86) slid 1.5% following the departure of chairman and CEO Les Moonves, who stepped down shortly after additional sexual harassment allegations. Tesla (TSLA 285.50, +22.26) shares rallied though, adding 8.5%, after CEO Elon Musk told employees that the company is "...about to have the most amazing quarter in our history."

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries were flat on Monday, with the benchmark 10-yr yield closing unchanged at 2.94%, and the U.S. Dollar Index slid 0.3% to 95.13. The dollar was particularly weak against the pound (-0.9%) after the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michael Barnier, said a deal is possible by early November.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the Consumer Credit report for July:

The Consumer Credit report for July showed an increase of $16.6 billion (Briefing.com consensus $14.5 billion). June credit growth was revised to $8.5 billion from $10.2 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that the credit expansion in July was driven almost entirely by nonrevolving credit.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the August NFIB Small Business Optimism Index, the July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, and July Wholesale Inventories on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +14.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.9% YTD
S&P 500 +7.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.6% YTD

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S&P Overcomes Slow Start, Extends Monday's Rebound
11-Sep-18 16:25 ET
Dow +113.99 at 25971.06, Nasdaq +48.31 at 7972.50, S&P +10.76 at 2887.63

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/11/s-and-p-overcomes-slow-start-extends-mondays-rebound.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks stumbled out of the gate on Tuesday, but strengthened as the day wore on, ending higher for the second day in a row. The benchmark S&P 500 was down as much as 0.4% early, but finished with a gain of 0.4%, closing a tick below its session high. The Dow also climbed 0.4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.6%.

Tuesday's slow start came after China told the World Trade Organization (WTO) that it wanted to impose sanctions on the U.S., citing Washington's non-compliance with a ruling in a dispute over U.S. dumping duties. That headline weighed on the futures market, but stocks immediately started moving higher after the opening bell.

Energy shares were particularly strong, helped by a rebound in the price of crude oil. WTI crude futures rallied 2.5% to $69.25/bbl, ending a five-session losing streak, as Hurricane Florence continued barreling towards the East Coast, where it may disrupt the Colonial Pipeline that connects Houston to New York. The S&P's energy sector advanced 1.0%.

Meanwhile, FAANG names gave the information technology (+0.8%) and consumer discretionary (+0.8%) sectors a boost, with Facebook (FB 165.94, +1.76), Apple (AAPL 223.85, +5.52), Amazon (AMZN 1987.15, +48.14), Netflix (NFLX 355.93, +7.52), and Alphabet (GOOG 1177.36, +12.72) adding between 1.1% and 2.5%.

The lightly-weighted telecom services sector (+1.1%) was another outperformer, but no other group posted a gain of more than 0.2%. Conversely, five of the eleven sectors finished in negative territory, but losses were modest; consumer staples and utilities were the worst-performing groups with a loss of 0.4% apiece.

U.S. Treasuries moved notably lower on Tuesday, pushing yields higher across the curve. The yield on the Fed-sensitive 2-yr note jumped four basis points to 2.75% -- its highest level in over a decade -- and the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note also advanced four basis points, settling at 2.98% -- its highest level in a month.

In politics, President Trump is reportedly considering a second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ahead of the November midterm elections. The two leaders held a historic summit in June, but relations have cooled since as North Korea drags its feet in its promise to work towards denuclearization.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included July Wholesale Inventories, the July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, and the August NFIB Small Business Optimism Index:

July Wholesale Inventories rose 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%). The June reading was left unrevised at +0.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the pace of sales growth year-over-year continues to exceed the pace of inventories growth, which is a positive dynamic that can eventually help wholesalers regain pricing power if it persists.
The July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 6.939 million from a revised 6.822 million (from 6.662 million) in June.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for August increased to 108.8 from 107.9 in July.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, the August Producer Price Index, and the Fed's Beige Book for August on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +15.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.9% YTD
S&P 500 +8.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.1% YTD

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Apple Unveils New iPhones, But Stocks End Little Changed
12-Sep-18 16:20 ET
Dow +27.86 at 25998.92, Nasdaq -18.24 at 7954.26, S&P +1.03 at 2888.66

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/12/apple-unveils-new-iphones-but-stocks-end-little-changed.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street struggled for direction on Wednesday, initially pulled lower by lagging tech shares only to regain its footing on headlines that the U.S. is proposing a new round of trade talks with China. The S&P 500 finished just slightly higher (+0.04%), and the Dow added 0.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed, shedding 0.2%.

The heavily-weighted information technology (-0.5%) and financials (-0.9%) sectors, which make up roughly 40% of the broader market combined, kept the S&P 500 grounded despite gains from eight of its nine other groups. The consumer staples (+1.3%) and telecom services (+1.4%) sectors were the top performers.

Apple (AAPL 221.07, -2.78) unveiled a trio of new iPhones -- iPhone Xs ($999), iPhone Xs Max ($1099), and iPhone Xr ($749) -- at its annual product event, extending last year's high-end iPhone X line, which was created in celebration of the iPhone's 10th anniversary. The company also announced a new Apple Watch, the Series 4, that has better fitness tracking and new health features.

Shares of Apple were down going into the event and finished Wednesday lower by 1.2%, but remain up 30.6% for the year.

Elsewhere in the tech space, chipmakers sold off, pushing the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lower by 1.2%. Micron (MU 41.74, -1.86) was particularly weak, with shares falling 4.3% after being downgraded to 'Neutral' from 'Buy' at Goldman. Separately, Snap (SNAP 9.20, -0.69) dropped 7.0% to a new all-time low after BTIG lowered its price target to $5 a share.

Looking at other markets, WTI crude futures extended Tuesday's rebound, climbing 1.4% to $70.18/bbl, helped by the weekly EIA inventory report, which showed that U.S. crude stockpiles declined by 5.3 million barrels last week. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasuries ticked higher, pulling the benchmark 10-yr yield, which hit a one-month high on Tuesday, down one basis point to 2.96%.

Also of note, Hurricane Florence continued moving towards the Carolina coast, but was downgraded to a still-powerful Category 3 storm.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the Producer Price Index for August, the Fed's Beige Book, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Producer prices slipped 0.1% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and core producer prices declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, producer prices are up 2.8% (vs +3.3% in July) and core producer prices have risen 2.3% (vs +2.7% in July).
The key takeaway from the report is that it will soothe some burgeoning inflation concerns, as the monthly declines led to a moderation in producer price inflation on a year-over-year basis. The latter point notwithstanding, the market is apt to maintain its view that the Federal Reserve remains on course to raise rates two more times this year.
Reports from the Federal Reserve Districts suggested that the economy expanded at a moderate pace through the end of August. Dallas reported relatively brisk growth, while Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Kansas City indicated somewhat below average growth. Businesses generally remained optimistic about the near-term outlook, though most Districts noted concern and uncertainty about trade tensions, which prompted some businesses to scale back or postpone capital investment.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.8% to follow last week's downtick of 0.1%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the August Consumer Price Index, weekly Initial Claims, and the August Treasury Budget on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +15.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.7% YTD
S&P 500 +8.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.2% YTD

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Trading Up on Trade Headlines
13-Sep-18 16:15 ET
Dow +147.07 at 26145.99, Nasdaq +59.48 at 8013.74, S&P +15.26 at 2903.92

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/13/trading-up-on-trade-headlines.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market traded up on Thursday, helped in part by some pleasing consumer inflation data and headlines that suggested senior officials from the U.S. and China appear headed for new discussions on trade matters. The S&P 500 increased 0.5% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 0.6%. It was the Nasdaq Composite, however, that led things with a 0.8% gain. The Russell 2000 slipped 0.1%.

Those indices sported higher gains shortly after the start of trading, yet they got reined in some after President Trump tweeted the U.S. isn't under pressure to do a deal with China and that it is China who is under pressure to do a deal with the U.S.

That didn't sound like a soft negotiating style, so it caused market participants to consider the prospect that new trade talks might not produce the result everyone is hoping for, which is an agreement that avoids the further implementation of tariffs.

Even so, the stock market held up reasonably well, supported by leadership from the information technology sector (+1.2%), which was driven by a rebound in Apple (AAPL 226.41, +5.34, +2.4%) and the semiconductor stocks, and leadership from the health care sector (+1.1%).

That was a stalwart combination as those happen to be the two most-heavily-weighted sectors in the S&P 500, accounting for nearly 41% of its market value.

Gains there helped offset a relatively weak showing from the financial sector (-0.2%), which continued to get pinched by a flattening yield curve, and a lackluster showing from the consumer staples (-0.4%) and energy (unch) sectors.

Oil prices dropped 2.5% to $68.62 per barrel, pressured by a report from the IEA that global oil supply hit a record 100 million barrels per day in August and the downgrade of Hurricane Florence to a Category 2 storm from a Category 4 storm.

In other developments, both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank held policy meetings that culminated with decisions to leave their key interest rates unchanged, as expected. Turkey's central bank, on the other hand, raised its key lending rate 6.25% to 24.00% in a bid to help support the beleaguered lira.

There wasn't much corporate news of note today, although Kroger (KR 28.58, -3.15, -9.9%) stood out as a story stock. The grocery retailer got hit hard after reporting better than expected second quarter earnings results. The issue for investors reportedly was same-store sales that came up shy of analysts' consensus estimate.

Reviewing today's economic data, which included the August Consumer Price Index, weekly Initial Claims, and the Treasury Budget for August:

Total CPI increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) in August, and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI is up 2.7% (vs +2.9% in July) and core CPI is up 2.2% (vs +2.4% in July).
The key takeaway for the market is that there was a moderation in the year-over-year growth rates for total CPI and core CPI. That won't alter the prevailing view that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise rates two more times this year, yet the moderation is apt to be seen as a data point that could keep the Federal Reserve from tightening rates too rapidly.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 204,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 210,000. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 205,000 (from 203,000). As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.696 million from a revised count of 1.711 million (from 1.707 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that the four-week moving averages for initial claims and continuing claims are at their lowest level since 1969 and 1973, respectively.
The Treasury Budget for August showed a deficit of $214.1 billion versus a deficit of $107.7 billion for the same period a year ago. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the August deficit cannot be compared to the $76.9 billion deficit for July.
The large, year-over-year uptick stemmed mainly from outlays for military active duty and retirement, Veterans' benefits, supplemental Social Security Income, Medicare payments to HMOs, and Social Security benefits that got pushed into August because September 1 was a non-business day and September 3 was a holiday.
The fiscal year-to-date deficit is $898.1 billion versus $673.7 billion at the same point in fiscal 2017.

Friday will be a very busy day of economic reporting. The Retail Sales and Export/Import Price Index reports will be released at 08:30 ET, followed by the Industrial Production report for August at 09:15 ET, and then the Business Inventories report for July and the preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report for September at 10:00 a.m.

Nasdaq Composite: +16.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.6% YTD
S&P 500 +8.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.8%

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Upbeat Week Ends on Flat Note
14-Sep-18 16:15 ET
Dow +8.68 at 26154.67, Nasdaq -3.67 at 8010.04, S&P +0.80 at 2904.98

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/14/upbeat-week-ends-on-flat-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market saw limited movement on Friday, ending a positive week on a flat note. The S&P 500 (unch) settled just above its flat line, locking in a 1.2% gain for the week. The Dow (unch) and Nasdaq (-0.1%) also finished near their flat lines, ending the week with respective gains of 0.9% and 1.4%.

Equities started the day just above yesterday's closing levels, but relative weakness in a handful of rate-sensitive sectors and a mixed showing from other groups kept the market near its unchanged level. The underperformance in groups like utilities (-0.5%), telecom services (-0.4%), and real estate (-0.9%) was owed to overnight and early-morning selling in Treasury futures, which lifted the 10-yr yield to a six-week high just below the 3.000% area.

The broader market treaded water during early trade, thanks to gains in cyclical sectors like financials (+0.7%), industrials (+0.5%), and energy (+0.6%). The S&P 500 was on the verge of climbing to a fresh high around noon, but a Bloomberg report, indicating that President Trump is seeking to impose tariffs on $200 billion worth of imports from China despite the recent efforts to revive trade talks, sent the broader market to a session low.

In addition to pressuring stocks, the news weighed on offshore yuan and helped the U.S. Dollar Index (94.94, +0.42) climb to a fresh high, trimming this week's loss to 0.4%.

Afternoon trade saw a slow climb off session lows, but the S&P 500 was not able to revisit its high, as heavily-weighted groups like consumer discretionary (-0.3%) and health care (-0.3%) struggled. For its part, the top-weighted technology sector spent the session near its flat line, ending little changed.

The market received just two earnings reports between yesterday's closing bell and today's open. Adobe Systems (ADBE 274.69, +6.17) climbed 2.3% to a fresh record after beating earnings and revenue expectations while Dave & Buster's (PLAY 62.05, +4.53) rose 7.9% to a 13-month high after beating quarterly expectations and initiating a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share.

Treasuries ended the day with losses, though intraday action saw the complex climb off mid-morning lows. The 10-yr yield rose three basis points to 2.99% after approaching its August high (3.02%) in early trade.

Investor participation was fairly consistent with the past two sessions as 762 million shares changed hands at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Participants received a sizable batch of economic data today, including August Retail Sales, August Import/Export Prices, August Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, July Business Inventories, and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for September:

August retail sales rose 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the July increase was revised to 0.7% from 0.5%. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.3% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), and the July increase was revised to 0.9% from 0.6%.
The upward revisions to the prior month helped mitigate some of the headline disappointment for August, yet the key takeaway from the report is that consumer spending is up and will continue to support real GDP growth in the third quarter.
Import prices declined 0.6% in August after sliding a revised 0.1% in July (from 0.0%). Excluding oil, import prices slid 0.1% in August after slipping an unrevised 0.3% in July.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that nonfuel import prices have declined for three straight months, underscoring perhaps some of the effects of a stronger dollar. The moderation in nonfuel import prices could help temper budding inflation concerns for the time being.
Industrial Production rose 0.4% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), while the July increase was revised to 0.4% (from 0.1%). Meanwhile, Capacity Utilization came in at 78.1% (Briefing.com consensus 78.3%), up from a revised reading of 77.9% in July (from 78.1%).
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that factory output was unchanged, excluding the gain in motor vehicles and parts.
Business Inventories rose 0.6% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%). The June reading was left unrevised at +0.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that business sales continued to outpace inventory growth year-over-year, which is a favorable trend that carries the potential to lead to a better pricing environment for businesses.
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for September rose to 100.8 (Briefing.com consensus 97.0) from 96.2 in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that the pickup in sentiment was widespread across all major socioeconomic groups, which is a good underpinning for solid consumer spending activity.

Monday's economic data will be limited to the 8:30 ET release of the Empire Manufacturing report for September (Briefing.com consensus 23.0).

Nasdaq Composite +16.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.2% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.8% YTD

Week In Review: Wind in the Sails

Wall Street returned to its winning ways this week, powering through trade-related headlines and Hurricane Florence, one of the strongest storms to hit the Carolinas in decades. The S&P 500 advanced 1.2%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 1.4%, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.9%.

Hurricane Florence was largely the talk of the week, forcing residents near the Carolina coast to either pack their bags or hunker down. The storm weakened to a Category 1 from a Category 4 before it made landfall on Friday though, which helped the market keep a positive bias. WTI crude futures were once up nearly 4.0% on the week, but gave the majority of that back as the storm weakened.

Meanwhile, on the trade front,the White House confirmed reports that it has proposed a new round of trade talks with China -- a proposition that was welcomed by Beijing. However, President Trump muddied the waters a bit with a tweet on Thursday, saying the U.S. isn't under pressure to make a deal with China; rather, China is under pressure to make a deal with the United States.

China's major stock index, the Shanghai Composite, fell 0.8% this week, touching its lowest level since January 2016.

Separately, President Trump is reportedly considering a second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ahead of the November midterm elections. The two leaders held a historic summit in June, but relations have cooled since, due to North Korea's unsatisfactory progress towards denuclearization.

In U.S. corporate news, Apple (AAPL) unveiled a trio of new iPhones -- iPhone Xs ($999), iPhone Xs Max ($1099), and iPhone Xr ($749) -- at its annual product event on Wednesday, extending last year's high-end iPhone X line, which was created in celebration of the iPhone's 10th anniversary. Apple shares added 1.2% on the week.

The top-weighted technology sector was among the top-performing groups this week, rebounding from last week's disappointing performance, with a gain of 1.8%. In total, ten of eleven groups finished in positive territory. Cyclical sectors generally outperformed, although the heavily-weighted financial space did not, finishing lower by 0.4%.

On the data front, investors received some influential inflation data this week, including the core Producer Price Index for August and the core Consumer Price Index for August. The core PPI declined 0.1%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.2%, and the core CPI showed a less-than-expected increase of 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).

Those readings helped to ease fears that the Fed might have to be more aggressive in raising rates in order to keep the economy from overheating.

In monetary policy, a trio of central banks released their latest policy decisions this week, including the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Central Bank of Turkey. Both the ECB and the Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged, as expected, but Turkey's central bank increased its benchmark rate to 24.00% from 17.75%, attempting to stabilize the beleaguered Turkish lira.

The Fed is expected to raise rates by 25 basis points at its September 25-26 policy meeting, with the market placing the chances of a rate hike at 100%.

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Pending Tariff Announcement Pushes Stocks Lower
17-Sep-18 16:20 ET
Dow -92.55 at 26062.12, Nasdaq -114.25 at 7895.79, S&P -16.18 at 2888.80

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/17/pending-tariff-announcement-pushes-stocks-lower.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street fell on Monday, with tech shares leading the retreat, as investors prepared for another tranche of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. The S&P 500 declined 0.6%, breaking a five-session winning streak, and the Dow lost 0.4%. The Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 underperformed, losing 1.4% and 1.1%, respectively.

This latest round of tariffs is expected to slap a duty of around 10% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. Beijing has responded by saying it may decline a U.S. offer to resume trade talks if the duties are implemented, adding it's not going to negotiate with "a gun pointed to its head." That news had equity futures down in pre-market trading.

The S&P 500 and the Dow held modest losses for much of the session, but those losses were extended in the afternoon when President Trump said an announcement on U.S.-China trade will be coming after the closing bell. The tech-heavy Nasdaq also hit news lows on the president's comment, but was notably weak even before as FAANG names lagged -- Amazon (AMZN 1908.03, -62.16) lost 3.2%; Apple (AAPL 217.88, -5.96) lost 2.7%; Netflix (NFLX 350.35, -14.21) declined by 3.9%; and Facebook (FB 160.58, -1.74) and Alphabet (GOOG 1156.05, -16.48) lost 1.1% and 1.4%, respectively.

The consumer discretionary sector, which houses Amazon, and the top-weighted technology sector, which houses the other FAANG names, finished at the bottom of the sector standings, losing roughly 1.3% apiece. Financials (-0.4%) and health care (-0.3%) also finished in the red, but the seven remaining groups finished in the green. Gains were limited though, with no group adding more than 0.5%.

Overseas, stock markets in Asia opened the week on a lower note, weighed down by the threat of new tariffs, with China's Shanghai composite losing 1.1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbling 1.3%. European equity markets also slid, but losses were more modest, with Germany's trade-heavy DAX shedding 0.2%.

U.S. Treasuries were under pressure early, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note as high as 3.02% -- its highest level in four months. However, buyers emerged later in the session, leaving the 10-yr yield highe
Pending Tariff Announcement Pushes Stocks Lower
17-Sep-18 16:20 ET
Dow -92.55 at 26062.12, Nasdaq -114.25 at 7895.79, S&P -16.18 at 2888.80

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street fell on Monday, with tech shares leading the retreat, as investors prepared for another tranche of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. The S&P 500 declined 0.6%, breaking a five-session winning streak, and the Dow lost 0.4%. The Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 underperformed, losing 1.4% and 1.1%, respectively.

This latest round of tariffs is expected to slap a duty of around 10% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. Beijing has responded by saying it may decline a U.S. offer to resume trade talks if the duties are implemented, adding it's not going to negotiate with "a gun pointed to its head." That news had equity futures down in pre-market trading.

The S&P 500 and the Dow held modest losses for much of the session, but those losses were extended in the afternoon when President Trump said an announcement on U.S.-China trade will be coming after the closing bell. The tech-heavy Nasdaq also hit news lows on the president's comment, but was notably weak even before as FAANG names lagged -- Amazon (AMZN 1908.03, -62.16) lost 3.2%; Apple (AAPL 217.88, -5.96) lost 2.7%; Netflix (NFLX 350.35, -14.21) declined by 3.9%; and Facebook (FB 160.58, -1.74) and Alphabet (GOOG 1156.05, -16.48) lost 1.1% and 1.4%, respectively.

The consumer discretionary sector, which houses Amazon, and the top-weighted technology sector, which houses the other FAANG names, finished at the bottom of the sector standings, losing roughly 1.3% apiece. Financials (-0.4%) and health care (-0.3%) also finished in the red, but the seven remaining groups finished in the green. Gains were limited though, with no group adding more than 0.5%.

Overseas, stock markets in Asia opened the week on a lower note, weighed down by the threat of new tariffs, with China's Shanghai composite losing 1.1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbling 1.3%. European equity markets also slid, but losses were more modest, with Germany's trade-heavy DAX shedding 0.2%.

U.S. Treasuries were under pressure early, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note as high as 3.02% -- its highest level in four months. However, buyers emerged later in the session, leaving the 10-yr yield higher by just one basis point at 3.00%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index dropped 0.5% to 94.07.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the September Empire State Manufacturing Index:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for September declined to 19.0 (Briefing.com consensus 23.0) from the prior month's unrevised reading of 25.6.

Looking ahead, the NAHB Housing Market Index for September and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for July will be released on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +14.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.9% YTD
S&P 500 +8.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.4% YTD

r by just one basis point at 3.00%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index dropped 0.5% to 94.07.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which was limited to the September Empire State Manufacturing Index:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for September declined to 19.0 (Briefing.com consensus 23.0) from the prior month's unrevised reading of 25.6.

Looking ahead, the NAHB Housing Market Index for September and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for July will be released on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +14.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.9% YTD
S&P 500 +8.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.4% YTD

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Unlikely Rebound Leaves Stocks Flat for the Week
18-Sep-18 16:25 ET
Dow +184.84 at 26246.96, Nasdaq +60.32 at 7956.11, S&P +15.51 at 2904.31

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/18/unlikely-rebound-leaves-stocks-flat-for-the-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied on Tuesday as investors shrugged off a fresh exchange of tariffs between the world's two largest economies. The S&P 500 climbed 0.5%, reclaiming its Monday decline, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively. The major averages opened higher and climbed into the afternoon, finishing a step below their best marks of the day.

President Trump announced after Monday's close that the U.S. will be slapping tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods starting on September 24. The tariff rate will start at 10%, but will increase to 25% on January 1. Mr. Trump also said he will impose additional tariffs on $267 billion worth of Chinese goods if Beijing retaliates -- which it vowed to do with 5-10% tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods.

Like Wall Street, Asian stocks also managed to rally despite the seemingly negative headlines, with China's Shanghai Composite adding 1.8%.

In an attempt to explain Tuesday's gains, some analysts pointed to the fact that the initial 10% tariff rate by the U.S. was not as harsh as expected -- thereby reflecting a willingness to negotiate -- while others said the rally reflects the market's belief that the U.S.-China trade dispute will eventually die down. Regardless, it's worth noting that short-covering activity was likely a helping hand for the bulls.

The consumer discretionary (+1.3%) and information technology (+0.6%) sectors outperformed on Tuesday after leading Monday's retreat. The trade-sensitive industrial sector (+0.9%) was also strong, as was the energy space (+0.7%), which benefited from a rise in the price of crude oil; WTI crude futures jumped 1.5% to $69.87/bbl.

Oil rallied amid speculation that OPEC won't be raising production in the short term to offset any lost supply from Iran, which will soon be facing U.S. oil sanctions. Also of note, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia is comfortable with Brent above $80 a barrel.

On the corporate front, Oracle (ORCL 49.03, -0.15, -0.3%), FedEx (FDX 241.58, -14.15, -5.5%), General Mills (GIS 44.13, -3.64, -7.6%), and AutoZone (AZO 732.76, -14.76, -2.0%) fell after reporting earnings. Separately, Tesla (TSLA 284.96, -9.88) lost 3.7% on news that it's under investigation by the Justice Department over CEO Elon Musk's August 7 tweet about taking the company private.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries tumbled on Tuesday, sending yields higher across the curve, with the benchmark 10-yr yield jumping five basis points to 3.05% -- which marks its highest level in four months. The Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.79%, hitting its highest level in over a decade.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for September:

The NAHB Housing Market Index for September came in at 67 (Briefing.com consensus 66), unchanged from the August reading.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, August Housing Starts and Building Permits, and the Q2 Current Account Balance.

Nasdaq Composite +15.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.4% YTD
S&P 500 +8.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.2% YTD

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Financials Push S&P 500 Slightly Higher
19-Sep-18 16:30 ET
Dow +158.80 at 26405.76, Nasdaq -6.07 at 7950.04, S&P +3.64 at 2907.95

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/19/financials-push-s-and-p-500-slightly-higher.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 finished Wednesday with a slim gain of 0.1%, buoyed by financial shares, which rallied amid another rise in interest rates. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed, adding 0.6%, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq lagged, closing lower by 0.1%. The small-cap Russell 2000 fell 0.5%.

Wednesday's mixed outing followed an unexpected rebound on Tuesday, which came after the U.S. announced a $200 billion tranche of tariffs on Chinese goods, to which Beijing responded with $60 billion in retaliatory duties. Asian shares rallied for the second day in a row on Wednesday, with China's Shanghai Composite climbing 1.1%.

The rate-sensitive financial sector led the S&P 500 higher with a gain of 1.8% as Treasuries sold off, sending yields higher across the curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note, for instance, climbed three basis points to 3.08%, hitting a fresh a four-month high. For the week, the 10-yr yield is up eight basis points.

The materials sector (+1.1%) also outperformed on Wednesday, but most groups finished in the red, including the top-weighted technology space (-0.1%). The lightly-weighted utilities, telecom services, and real estate sectors were the worst performers, losing between 0.9% and 2.1% apiece.

Cannabis stocks were in focus with Tilray (TLRY 214.06, +59.08) going on a wild ride after its CEO said on Tuesday evening that his business would be a "smart hedge" for major pharmaceutical companies. TLRY shares finished higher by 38.1%, but were halted several times after adding as much as 93.2% and losing as much as 1.3%.

Amazon (AMZN 1926.42, -14.63) also made headlines as it's reportedly planning to construct up to 3,000 cashier-less stores by 2021 and is testing a new shopping site for furniture and women's shoes -- news that weighed on shares of Wayfair (W 139.03, -4.23, -3.0%). Amazon shares finished lower by 0.8%.

In geopolitics, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to further steps towards denuclearization after meeting in Pyongyang with South Korean president Moon Jae-in, and China said it won't devalue the yuan to make its exports more competitive, despite its ongoing trade dispute with the U.S.

Trade talks between the United States and Canada resumed in Washington on Wednesday, but Bloomberg reported that a deal this week is unlikely.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included August Housing Starts and Building Permits, the Q2 Current Account Balance, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.282 million units in August (Briefing.com consensus 1.229 million), up from a revised 1.174 million units in July (from 1.168 million). Building permits declined to a seasonally adjusted 1.229 million in August (Briefing.com consensus 1.310 million) from a revised 1.303 million in July (from 1.311 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that permits (a leading indicator) for single-family homes fell 6.1% month-over-month to 820,000, driven by declines across all four geographic regions.
The current account deficit for the second quarter totaled $101.5 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$103.3 billion). The first quarter deficit was revised to $121.7 billion from $124.1 billion.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 1.6% to follow last week's decrease of 1.8%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive several pieces of economic data on Thursday, including weekly Initial Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Index for September, Existing Home Sales for August, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for August.

Nasdaq Composite +15.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.9% YTD
S&P 500 +8.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.8% YTD

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S&P, Dow Climb to New Records
20-Sep-18 16:25 ET
Dow +251.22 at 26656.98, Nasdaq +78.19 at 8028.23, S&P +22.80 at 2930.75

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/20/s-and-p-dow-climb-to-new-records.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street soared on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 1.0% and finishing at a new all-time high for the first time since January 26. With trade war fears still lingering and no fundamental catalyst to drive the market higher, stocks relied on momentum and the fear of missing out to log Thursday's gains.

As for the other major averages, the S&P 500 also closed at a new record, finishing with a gain of 0.8%; the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.0% to finish about 1.0% off its August 29 record; and the small-cap Russell 2000 climbed 1.0%, coming within 1.2% of its all-time high.

The top-weighted information technology sector rebounded on Thursday after a slow start to the week, finishing atop the sector standings with a gain of 1.2%. However, within the space, software company Red Hat (RHT 133.81, -9.35) tumbled 6.5% after disappointing Q3 guidance overshadowed above-consensus earnings.

In total, 10 of 11 sectors finished in the green. After tech, the materials (+1.1%), consumer staples (+1.2%), and health care (+0.9%) sectors were the next-best performers. The influential financial sector (+0.8%) was also strong, even though yields fell from multi-month highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield, for instance, slipped one basis point to 3.08% after hitting a four-month high on Wednesday.

Conversely, the oil-sensitive energy sector finished with a loss of 0.1%. A decline in the price of crude oil weighed on energy shares after President Trump criticized OPEC on Thursday morning, saying the "OPEC monopoly must get [oil] prices down now!" WTI crude futures lost 0.6%, closing at $70.26/bbl.

In corporate news, Amazon (AMZN 1944.30, +17.88) introduced 15 Alexa-enabled products at an event in Seattle, including a microwave, as the company looks to strengthen its position in the voice assistant space. Shares of Amazon finished the day higher by 0.9%.

On the currency front, the U.S. Dollar Index fell for the fourth day in a row, tumbling 0.7% to 93.46; that marks its lowest level since early June.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included Existing Home Sales for August, the weekly Initial Claims report, the Philadelphia Fed Index for September, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for August:

Existing home sales stayed at an annualized rate of 5.34 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.37 million) in August. The July reading was left unrevised at 5.34 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that inventory is stabilizing, implying that there could be some moderation in the pace of price increases that could help drive increased buying interest (and perhaps added listing interest).
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 201,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 209,000. Today's tally was below the unrevised prior week count of 204,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.645 million from a revised count of 1.700 million (from 1.696 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects a reluctance on the part of employers to reduce staff, which goes hand-in-hand with a strong economy and tight labor market.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for September rose to 22.9 (Briefing.com consensus 15.3) from an unrevised 11.9 in August.
A number above zero is indicative of growth, so the key takeaway from the report is that it reflects the idea that manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia Fed region accelerated in September.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.4% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), and the July reading was revised to +0.7% from +0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that strength among the leading indicators remained widespread, which points to a sustained pace of economic expansion.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +16.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.0% YTD
S&P 500 +9.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.8% YTD

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Mixed Ending to Largely Positive Week
21-Sep-18 16:30 ET
Dow +86.52 at 26743.50, Nasdaq -41.28 at 7986.95, S&P -1.08 at 2929.67

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/21/mixed-ending-to-largely-positive-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street had a mixed outing on Friday, with the underperformance of financial and technology shares balancing gains most elsewhere. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.3%, closing at a new all-time high for the second day in a row. The S&P 500 finished slightly below its flat line, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.5%.

For the week, the S&P 500 and the Dow added 0.9% and 2.3%, respectively, while the Nasdaq lost 0.3%.

The top-weighted information technology sector lost 0.3% on Friday, capping an unimpressive week overall. Within the group, Micron (MU 44.74, -1.32) was among the worst performers, falling 2.9% after its above-consensus earnings report was overshadowed by disappointing guidance for the current quarter -- due in part to tariffs.

Meanwhile, the influential financial sector ended a positive week on a disappointing note. The group lost 0.4% on Friday, trimming its weekly gain to 2.3%, as Treasuries ticked higher, pushing yields slightly lower. The benchmark 10-yr yield, for instance, slipped one basis point to 3.07%, but remained near a four-month high.

On a positive note, the lightly-weighted telecom services group finished atop the sector standings with a gain of 1.0%. Within the group, AT&T (T 33.78, +0.34) advanced 1.0% after being upgraded to 'Buy' from 'Neutral' at UBS. However, shares gave back some gains in the late afternoon following reports that President Trump is pressing the Department of Justice to breakup the wireless giant.

There was some volatility during the final stretch of Friday's session due to a major sector rebalancing, which will result in a new 'Communication Services' sector.

Several widely-held technology, telecom, and media stocks will be reclassified into this group, including Facebook (FB 162.93, -3.09, -1.9%), Alphabet (GOOG 1166.09, -20.78, -1.8%), Verizon (VZ 54.42, +0.47, +0.9%), Netflix (NFLX 361.19, -4.17, -1.1%), and Walt Disney (DIS 110.40, -1.22, -1.1%).

Also adding to the volatility, Friday was a quadruple witching day -- when futures and options on both indices and individual stocks expire.

In the crude oil market, WTI crude futures finished up 0.8% at $70.77/bbl, but were volatile after Reuters reported that OPEC and non-OPEC producers are discussing the possibility of raising output by 500,000 barrels a day to counter falling supply from Iran due to U.S. sanctions. OPEC and non-OPEC nations are scheduled to meet in Algeria on Sunday.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Friday, and Monday's economic calendar is also blank.

Nasdaq Composite +15.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.5% YTD
S&P 500 +9.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.2% YTD

Week In Review: Dow Shrugs Off Tariffs, Returns to Record Territory

Wall Street rallied this week with investors shrugging off another tranche of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. The S&P 500 and the Dow touched new records -- the first time that's happened for the Dow since January 26 -- and finished the week with respective gains of 0.9% and 2.3%. The Nasdaq lagged though, slipping 0.3%.

President Trump announced on Monday evening that the U.S. will be slapping tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods starting on September 24. The tariff rate will start at 10%, but will increase to 25% on January 1. The president also said he will impose additional tariffs on $267 billion worth of Chinese goods if Beijing retaliates -- which it vowed to do with 5-10% tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods.

Stocks unexpectedly took off on Tuesday following the tariff announcement, with some analysts pointing to the fact that the initial 10% tariff rate by the U.S. was not as harsh as expected -- thereby reflecting a willingness to negotiate. Others said the rally reflected the market's belief that the U.S.-China trade dispute will eventually die down. Short-covering activity likely helped as well.

The heavily-weighted financial sector was among the top-performing groups this week with a gain of 2.3%, benefiting from a steepening of the yield curve. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note climbed seven basis points to end Friday at 3.07%, while the Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield jumped two basis points to 2.81%.

Conversely, the top-weighted information technology sector (-0.1%) underperformed this week, getting surpassed by consumer discretionary (+0.4%) for the top spot in the 2018 sector standings. The two groups hold year-to-date gains of 18.5% and 18.7%, respectively. For comparison, the S&P 500 is up 9.6%.

In total, eight of the eleven S&P sectors finished in the green, with cyclical sectors showing relative strength. A new sector, communication services, will be born after Friday's close, and it will involve reclassifying several widely-held technology, telecom, and media stocks into the new sector -- including Facebook (FB), Alphabet (GOOG), Verizon (VZ), Netflix (NFLX), and Walt Disney (DIS).

In individual stocks, cannabis names were in focus this week, with Tilray (TLRY) going on a wild ride after its CEO suggested that his business would be a "smart hedge" for major pharmaceutical companies. TLRY shares traded as high as $299.46/share -- 175% above last Friday's close -- before ending the week at $123.00/share (+13%).

On the oil front, WTI crude climbed 2.6% this week to $70.77/bbl even though President Trump criticized OPEC on Thursday morning, saying the "OPEC monopoly must get [oil] prices down now!" Reuters then reported on Friday that OPEC and non-OPEC countries are discussing the possibility of raising output by 500,000 barrels a day to counter falling supply from Iran due to U.S. sanctions.

Looking ahead, the Federal Reserve will release its latest policy directive on Wednesday. The market is all but certain that the central bank will hike rates -- with the CME FedWatch Tool placing the chances at 100% -- so investors will be more focused on the Fed's rate forecast, especially for 2019.

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Mixed Outing Ahead of Wednesday's Fed Decision
25-Sep-18 16:25 ET
Dow -69.84 at 26492.21, Nasdaq +14.22 at 8007.46, S&P -3.81 at 2915.56

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/25/mixed-outing-ahead-of-wednesdays-fed-decision.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks had a mixed outing on Tuesday, with the major averages settling little changed. The S&P 500 lost 0.1%, the Nasdaq ticked up 0.2%, and the Dow slid 0.3%. The flat performance happened as the Federal Reserve kicked off a two-day policy meeting in D.C., and as President Trump appeared before the UN General Assembly in New York.

The utilities (-1.2%), consumer staples (-0.7%), and materials (-0.5%) sectors led to the downside, while communication services (+0.1%), consumer discretionary (+0.6%), and energy (+0.6%) led to the upside. The energy space is now +2.1% for the week, a performance that's been underpinned by a jump in the price of crude oil -- although crude did pull back amid President Trump's UN speech.

Addressing world leaders, President Trump criticized OPEC on Tuesday, saying the oil cartel is "ripping off the rest of the world" by colluding to limit supply and prop up prices. WTI crude futures were up as much as 0.9%, but fell to their flat line following the president's comment. WTI crude closed +0.2% at $72.28/bbl.

President Trump also criticized Iran, which is currently the target of U.S. economic sanctions, calling its government a "corrupt dictatorship" and saying its leaders "sow chaos, death, and destruction." The president also touched on North Korea, ISIS, and Syria, and reiterated his administration's hard stance on fair trade.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Fed officials began their September meeting, which is all but certain to end on Wednesday afternoon with a rate hike of 25 basis points. The Fed-sensitive yield on the 2-yr Treasury note rose three basis points to 2.83% on Tuesday, while the benchmark 10-yr yield climbed two basis points to 3.10%.

In corporate news, semiconductor giant Intel (INTC 45.91, -1.00) lost 2.1% after being downgraded to 'Underperform' from 'Market Perform' at Raymond James. Chipmakers underperformed as a whole, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropping 1.7%. Separately, Century Link (CTL 21.05, -1.85) lost 8.1% following the resignation of its CFO, Sunit Patel.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the Consumer Confidence Index for September, the FHFA Housing Price Index for July, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for July:

The consumer confidence reading for September increased to 138.4 (Briefing.com consensus 131.0) from the prior month's revised reading of 134.7 (from 133.4).
The key takeaway from the report is that the high level of consumer confidence, which was fueled by an uptick in expectations, creates a good backdrop for healthy consumer spending activity that is the driver of GDP growth.
The FHFA Housing Price Index rose 0.2% in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and the June increase was revised to 0.3% from 0.2%.
The Case-Shiller 20-City Index increased 5.9% in July (Briefing.com consensus +6.2%), and the June increase was revised to 6.4% from 6.3%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and August New Home Sales on Wednesday morning. As mentioned above, the Fed's latest policy directive will be released in the afternoon, with the CME FedWatch Tool placing the chances of a rate hike at 100%.

Nasdaq Composite +16.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.3% YTD
S&P 500 +9.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.2% YTD

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Fed Votes to Raise Rates; Stocks Slide in the Final Minutes
26-Sep-18 16:20 ET
Dow -106.93 at 26385.28, Nasdaq -17.11 at 7990.35, S&P -9.59 at 2905.97

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/26/fed-votes-to-raise-rates-stocks-slide-in-the-final-minutes.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The Federal Reserve increased short-term interest rates on Wednesday, as expected, raising the fed funds target range by 25 basis points to 2.00-2.25%.

Stocks were up modestly ahead of the release of the Fed's decision, which crossed the wires at 2:00 PM ET, and extended gains after the central bank removed the word 'accomodative' from its policy statement. However, that initial move was reversed, and then some, following a post-decision press conference from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, during which he said the language change didn't signal a change in the Fed's path for rate hikes.

The S&P 500 was up as much as 0.5% on Wednesday, but fell sharply in the final minutes of the session to finish with a loss of 0.3%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended lower by 0.2%, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished lower by 0.4%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 lost 1.0%.

As for rate-hike projections, the Fed still appears to be on track to raise rates another 25 basis points in December, with the CME FedWatch Tool putting the chances at 79.2%. Beyond 2018, the Fed's dot plot showed expectations for three rate hikes in 2019 (unchanged from June) and one in 2020 (also unchanged from June).

U.S. Treasury yields fell following the Fed's policy announcement, although the 2-yr yield managed to close unchanged at 2.83%. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note dropped four basis points to 3.06%. In currencies, the U.S. Dollar Index finished +0.2% at 93.90, but was volatile after the release.

The drop in Treasury yields weighed on the rate-sensitive financial sector, which finished at the bottom of the sector standings with a loss of 1.3%. The energy sector (-1.0%) was another notable laggard, dropping in tandem with the price of crude oil; WTI crude futures finished -1.0% at $71.58/bbl.

On the upside, the communication services, consumer discretionary, and health care sectors had relatively strong outings, adding between 0.2% and 0.4%.

On the corporate front, Nike (NKE 83.70, -1.09) lost 1.3% despite reporting above-consensus earnings; IBM (IBM 151.61, +2.70) climbed 1.8% after getting upgraded to 'Buy' from 'Neutral' at UBS; Papa John's (PZZA 50.14, +3.93) spiked 8.5% after reports that its recently ousted founder and CEO is reaching out to private equity firms to buy the company; and SurveyMonkey (SVMK 17.24, +5.24) closed its first day of trading 43.7% above its IPO price of $12.00/share.

In politics, the details of a U.S.-Mexico trade deal will reportedly be released on Friday. That deal is expected to allow Canada to join at a later date.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included August New Home Sales and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

New Home Sales in August hit an annualized rate of 629,000, which is below the Briefing.com consensus of 630,000. The July reading was revised to 608,000 (from 627,000).
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects the affordability constraints that are increasing on the back of high prices and rising mortgage rates. To wit, the median sales price was up 1.9% year-over-year to $320,200 and the supply of new homes for sale stood at a 6.1-months' supply at the August sales pace versus 6.0 months a year ago.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 2.9% to follow last week's increase of 1.6%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a big batch of economic data on Thursday, including the advanced readings for August International Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories, Durable Goods Orders for August, the third estimate for Q2 GDP, weekly Initial Claims, and August Pending Home Sales.

Nasdaq Composite +15.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.2% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.7% YTD

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S&P Closes Friday Flat, Securing 7.2% Gain for Q3
28-Sep-18 16:30 ET
Dow +18.38 at 26458.31, Nasdaq +4.38 at 8046.33, S&P -0.02 at 2913.98

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/9/28/s-and-p-closes-friday-flat-securing-72-gain-for-q3.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street finished Friday little changed, securing big gains for the third quarter. The S&P 500 kept near its flat line throughout the session, closing just a tick below its unchanged mark. The Nasdaq and the Dow added 0.1% apiece. For the quarter, the S&P 500 added 7.2%, the Dow added 9.0%, and the Nasdaq added 7.1%.

Friday began with news from across the pond, where Italy's anti-establishment government widened the country's budget-deficit target for next year to 2.4% of GDP. That could raise problems with the EU, which has pushed Italy to lower its public debt. European stocks fell in reaction, with Italy's MIB (-3.7%) leading the retreat.

The headlines weighed on the U.S. futures market as well, but Wall Street quickly pared losses after the opening bell.

Financial shares fell once again on Friday (-1.1%), extending the heavily-weighted financial sector's weekly loss to 4.1%. On the flip side, the lightly-weighted real estate (+1.3%) and utilities (+1.5%) sectors rallied, closing atop the sector standings. Most other groups finished within 0.4% of their unchanged marks.

Tesla (TSLA 264.77, -42.75) tumbled 13.9% after its CEO, Elon Musk, was sued by the SEC over his tweet about taking the electric automaker private. Mr. Musk and the SEC were reportedly close to reaching a no-guilt settlement that would have barred him from being chairman for two years, but Mr. Musk backed out at the last minute.

In other corporate news, Facebook (FB 164.46, -4.38) dropped 2.6% after announcing that it's discovered a "very serious" security issue that could affect around 50 million accounts; NVIDIA (NVDA 281.02, +13.62) climbed 5.1% after Evercore ISI raised its target price to a new Street high of $400 per share; and Intel (INTC 47.29, +1.41) advanced 3.1% after announcing that it's making progress with 10nm chips, but Intel competitor Advanced Micro (AMD 30.89, -1.70) lost 5.2%.

On Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced President Trump's Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh on Friday, but a final Senate vote will be delayed after Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) unexpectedly called for a one-week FBI investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against the judge.

Reviewing Friday's batch of economic data, which included August Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices, the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for September, and the Chicago PMI Index for September:

Personal income climbed 0.3% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following an unrevised increase of 0.3% in July. Meanwhile, personal spending rose 0.3% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following an unrevised increase of 0.4% in July. The PCE Price Index rose 0.1% in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, was flat (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). Year-over-year, the core PCE Price Index is up 2.0%, unchanged from July.
The key takeaway from the report is that the year-over-year increase in the PCE Price Index (+2.2% vs. +2.3% prior) and the core PCE Price Index (+2.0% vs. +2.0% prior) will keep the Federal Reserve on its tightening path.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for September ticked down to 100.1 (Briefing.com consensus 100.5) from 100.8 in the preliminary reading.
The key takeaway from the report is that even with the pullback, the Sentiment Index remains above 100.0 for the third time since the start of 2004.
The Chicago PMI Index declined to 60.4 in September from 63.6 in August. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that the September dip represents the second consecutive decline, returning the Index into the lower half of the range from the past 12 months.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Manufacturing Index for September and the August Construction Spending report on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +16.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.5% YTD
S&P 500 +9.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.0% YTD

Week In Review: Raising Rates and Playing Politics

The S&P 500 pulled away from record highs this week, losing 0.5% in total, as investors digested a flurry of political headlines and the latest policy statement from the Federal Reserve, which included another rate hike -- the third one this year. The Dow also fell, losing 1.1%, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq outperformed, rallying 0.7%.

The week began with the U.S. implementing tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, which triggered Beijing to impose retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of American products. Chinese officials also canceled mid-level trade talks that had been scheduled for later in the week, dashing hopes for a near-term resolution.

OPEC was also in focus on Monday after it and several non-OPEC nations ended a weekend meeting without an agreement to increase output in order to counter falling supply from Iran due to U.S. sanctions. President Trump criticized OPEC in front of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, saying the oil cartel is "ripping off the rest of the world" by colluding to limit supply and prop up prices.

In the same address, the U.S. president also criticized Iran, which is currently the target of U.S. economic sanctions, calling its government a "corrupt dictatorship" and saying its leaders "sow chaos, death, and destruction." President Trump also spoke regarding North Korea, ISIS, and Syria, and reiterated his administration's hard stance on fair trade.

The Federal Reserve increased short-term interest rates on Wednesday, as expected, raising the fed funds target range by 25 basis points to 2.00-2.25%. In its policy statement, the Fed removed the word 'accommodative', which led some to believe that officials could be moving towards slowing monetary tightening. However, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said during his post-decision press conference that the language change didn't signal a change in the Fed's path for rate hikes.

As for rate-hike projections, the Fed still appears to be on track to raise rates another 25 basis points in December, with the CME FedWatch Tool putting the chances at 75.8%. Beyond 2018, the Fed's dot plot showed expectations for three rate hikes in 2019 (unchanged from June) and one in 2020 (also unchanged from June).

On Capitol Hill, political drama unfolded on Thursday as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Ford, who has accused Mr. Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her back in high school, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Committee advanced Mr. Kavanaugh's nomination on Friday, but a final Senate vote will be delayed for a one-week FBI investigation.

Overseas, two populist parties governing Italy widened the country's budget-deficit target for next year to 2.4% of GDP on Friday, likely putting the country at odds with the European Union. The major European stock indices sold off in reaction to the news, with Italy's MIB leading the retreat.

In U.S. corporate news, Comcast (CMCSA) paid $40 billion to win a bid for European broadcaster Sky, ending a two-year battle with 21st Century Fox (FOXA); Nike (NKE) reported above-consensus earnings for its fiscal first quarter; and Facebook (FB) fell on Friday after disclosing a "security issue" impacting 50 million users.

However, perhaps the week's biggest corporate story revolved around Tesla's (TSLA) CEO, Elon Musk, who was sued by the SEC on Thursday evening over his tweet about taking the electric automaker private. Mr. Musk and the SEC were reportedly close to reaching a no-guilt settlement that would have barred him from being chairman for two years, but Mr. Musk backed out at the last minute.

As for the sector standings, they were pretty mixed between red and green. The heavily-weighted financials sector was the second-worst performer, losing 4.1% in total, with materials (-4.5%) being the only group with a more substantial loss. Conversely, the newly-added communications services sector was the top performer with a weekly gain of 1.1%.

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Revised Trade Deal Boosts Wall Street
01-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow +192.90 at 26651.21, Nasdaq -9.05 at 8037.28, S&P +10.45 at 2924.43

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/1/revised-trade-deal-boosts-wall-street.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. stocks opened the fourth quarter Monday on a higher note, boosted by Canada joining Mexico and the United States in a trade agreement. The S&P 500 closed the session +0.4%, down from its +0.8% intraday high. The Dow finished strong, up 0.7%, but the Nasdaq Composite lost steam as the day wore on, closing 0.1% lower. The small-cap Russell 2000 also closed lower, tumbling 1.4%.

On Sunday night, Canada agreed to allow greater dairy market access to the U.S., while also capping its automobile exports to the States. The deal, also known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) replaces the 24-year-old NAFTA deal between the countries. However, Congress still has to approve the deal, which likely won't be easy, with Washington Post reporter Robert Costa tweeting that "Administration officials anticipate a fierce political battle to win congressional approval."

As for the S&P sector standings, it was energy that enjoyed the highest gains, finishing higher by 1.5%. The oil-sensitive sector climbed to a two-month high, as WTI crude oil (+3.2%) reached $75/bbl for the first time since November 2014 and Brent oil (+2.9%) sported high gains, closing at $85.11/bbl.

Meanwhile, the real estate (-0.9%), utilities (-0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.2%), and communication services (-0.1%) sectors weighed on the broader market. Facebook (FB 162.44, -2.02, -1.2%) weighed down the communications sector, as it continued to stumble after its 2.6% fall Friday when it announced it discovered a "very serious" security breach.

In other corporate news, General Electric (GE 12.09, +0.80) opened 15.1% higher before trimming its gains to 7.1% after the company suddenly announced it was replacing CEO John Flannery with former Danaher CEO Larry Culp. Mr. Flannery held the position for just over a year, in which he was unable to wake the company from its deep slumber and stated expectations to miss 2018 earnings.

Separately, Tesla (TSLA 310.70, +45.93) rebounded 17.4% after CEO Elon Musk agreed to settle charges with the SEC, in which Mr. Musk and Tesla are to pay $20 million each, and Mr. Musk will step down as chairman for three years. This concludes the saga that ensued after Mr. Musk tweeted last month that he had the funds to take the company private.

In politics, Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow stated that a U.S.-China deal was not imminent, as President Trump is not satisfied with the progress of trade talks.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included the ISM Manufacturing Index for September and the Construction Spending report for August:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for September declined to 59.8 (Briefing.com consensus 60.4) from 61.3 in August. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0; and September marked the 24th consecutive month of expansion.
The key takeaway from the report is that even with the September pullback, the Index remains near multi-year highs with continued growth in most sub-indices.
Total construction spending increased 0.1% in August (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) following a downwardly revised 0.2% increase (from 0.1%) in July.
The key takeaway from the report is that public construction spending has continued driving the overall growth rate while private construction spending growth has moderated.

Looking ahead, there will be no economic data on Tuesday, but investors will receive September auto and truck sales throughout the day.

Nasdaq Composite +16.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.0% YTD
S&P 500 +9.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.8% YTD

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Dow Reaches All-Time High, S&P Waffles
02-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow +122.73 at 26773.94, Nasdaq -37.75 at 7999.53, S&P -1.16 at 2923.27

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/2/dow-reaches-alltime-high-s-and-p-waffles.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Investors awoke to continued Italian drama on Tuesday, but were able to shrug it off for the most part, leaving the S&P 500 little changed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed, climbing 0.5% to a new all-time high, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lagged for the second day in a row, shedding 0.5%.

Like the Nasdaq, the Russell 2000 also struggled on Tuesday, losing 1.0% to extend its weekly loss to 2.4%. The small-cap index has been weighed down this week by a last-minute trade deal between the U.S. and Canada, which has brightened the outlook for global trade -- and, in turn, weakened demand for smaller, domestically-focused companies.

Overnight, Italy's anti-establishment government defended its plan to increase the country's budget-deficit target for next year to 2.4% of GDP, causing concern for global investors. In addition, Claudio Borghi, who leads the economic policy of the ruling Lega party, claimed that most of Italy's problems could be solved if the country had its own currency, though, that idea was dismissed by Italy Deputy Prime Minister Di Maio. The yield on Italy's 10-yr bond spiked 18 basis points to 3.48% -- its highest level since February 2014.

Back of the home front, the Dow was boosted by top-weighted Boeing (BA 386.37, +4.08, +1.1%), chipmaker Intel (INTC 48.10, +1.65, +3.6%), and Caterpillar (CAT 154.82, +2.54, +1.7%). Intel propelled the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index as high as +0.7% intraday, but the index eventually lost steam, finishing at its flat line.

FANG stocks underperformed in today's session, with Facebook (FB 159.33, -3.11, -1.9%), Amazon (AMZN 1971.31, -33.05, -1.7%), and Netflix (NFLX 377.14, -4.29, -1.1%) each falling. Facebook continues to disappoint investors, now down 5.6% since Friday, when it disclosed that it discovered a "very serious" security issue that could affect around 50 million accounts.

Also of note, Amazon announced that it will be raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all U.S. employees, effective November 1.

In earnings news, PepsiCo (PEP 108.72, -1.99, -1.8%) and online retailer Stitch Fix (SFIX 28.94, -15.69, -35.2%) fell after reporting their quarterly results. Despite beating earnings-per-share estimates, PepsiCo shares slipped after the company lowered guidance for fiscal year 2018. Stitch Fix plunged after also issuing disappointing guidance, despite upbeat quarterly earnings.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data Tuesday, but did consider auto and truck sales throughout the day. General Motors (GM 33.30, -0.90, -2.6%) and Ford Motor (F 9.20, -0.12, -1.3%) fell, as General Motors reported Q3 sales to be down 11.1% year-over-year to 694,638 vehicles, while Ford reported September U.S. sales to be down 11.2% year-over-year to 197,404 units.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, September's ADP Employment Change, and September's ISM Services report on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +15.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 +9.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average 8.3%+ YTD

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Stocks Trim Early Gains As Yields Surge
03-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow +54.45 at 26828.39, Nasdaq +25.54 at 8025.07, S&P +2.08 at 2925.35

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/3/stocks-trim-early-gains-as-yields-surge.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 flirted with record territory on Wednesday morning, but pulled back in the afternoon as investors expressed concern over a surge in bond yields. The S&P 500 finished the session with a slim gain of 0.1% after trading as high as +0.6% intraday.

As for the other major indices, the Dow managed to keep 0.2% of its 0.7% intraday gain, closing at a new record high for the second day in a row. The tech-heavy Nasdaq finished +0.3%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 finished +0.9%, undoing some of the damage done on Monday and Tuesday.

Investors awoke to encouraging news out Italy, where the new anti-establishment government reportedly decided to cede to some of the EU's budget demands. Italy's budget-deficit target will be reduced from 2.4% of GDP in 2019 to 2.2% in 2020 and then to 2.0% in 2021. That news helped alleviate fears of an EU-Italy showdown and pushed stock futures and Treasury yields higher overnight.

Yields continued to climb after the September ADP Employment Change report, which is a prelude to Friday's nonfarm payrolls reading, showed an estimated 230K positions were added to private sector payrolls -- well above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 184K -- and after the ISM Services Index for September hit a record high of 61.6% (Briefing.com consensus 58.2%), clearly indicating that business activity in the service-providing sector of the economy is strong.

Stocks were able to hold on to opening gains throughout the morning, but started wavering in the afternoon as Treasury yields continued to climb, with the benchmark 10-yr yield crossing a high-water mark dating back to July 2011. The 10-yr yield closed at 3.16% -- a daily gain of ten basis points -- while the more Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield rallied to 2.86% (+6 bps).

Unsurprisingly, the financial sector, which often moves in tandem with Treasury yields, was among the top-performing S&P 500 groups on Wednesday with a gain of 0.8%.

The energy sector advanced 0.8% as well, benefiting from the continued rise in the price of crude oil; WTI crude futures jumped another 1.6% on Wednesday to $76.39/bbl, marking a new four-year high. Wednesday's rise in oil prices came despite the Department of Energy's weekly inventory report showing an unexpected build of 8.0 million barrels -- the largest weekly increase of the year.

On the downside, six of 11 sectors finished in the red, with utilities (-1.2%), real estate (-1.0%), and consumer staples (-1.1%) being the worst performers.

In individual stocks, General Motors (GM 34.00, +0.70) climbed 2.1% after announcing that it will be partnering with Honda Motor (HMC 29.37, -1.09) to build autonomous vehicles. Honda shares fell 3.6%. Separately, struggling retailer J.C. Penney (JCP 1.62, +0.06) jumped 3.9% after appointing a new CEO, Jill Soltau, who is the former President and CEO of Joann Stores, and homebuilder Lennar (LEN 46.24, -0.53) dropped 1.1% after reporting earnings.

Rehashing Wednesday's economic data, which included the ISM Services Index for September, the ADP Employment Change report for September, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index checked in at 61.6% for September (Briefing.com consensus 58.2%), up from 58.5% in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that it clearly indicates business activity is strong for the service-providing sector of the economy, which accounts for a much larger slice of economic activity than the manufacturing sector does.
The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 230,000 in September (Briefing.com consensus 184,000), and the August reading was revised to 168,000 (from 163,000). The ADP reading is seen as a prelude to the BLS's nonfarm payrolls figure (Briefing.com consensus 184,000), which will be released on Friday.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index was flat to follow last week's increase of 2.9%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive weekly Initial Claims and August Factory Orders on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +16.3% YTD
S&P 500 +9.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.5% YTD

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Stocks Fall As Yields Rise; Jobs Report On Tap
04-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow -200.91 at 26627.48, Nasdaq -145.57 at 7879.50, S&P -23.90 at 2901.45

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/4/stocks-fall-as-yields-rise-jobs-report-on-tap.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks tumbled in Thursday's trading session, extending yesterday afternoon's slow and steady retreat, which was triggered by U.S. Treasury yields reaching multi-year highs. The S&P 500 was down as much as 1.4% in intraday trade, but bounced back late to close at -0.8%.

As for the other major averages, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at -0.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite showed relative weakness, ending at -1.8%. The small-cap Russell 2000, which has struggled recently, lost 1.5% on Thursday, extending its weekly loss to 2.9%.

A robust economic outlook, underlined by Wednesday's stronger-than-expected ADP Employment Change report for September -- which is a prelude to Friday's consequential nonfarm payrolls reading -- helped ignite the Treasury sell-off, thereby increasing yields. The yield on the benchmark 10-yr note climbed another four basis points on Thursday to 3.20% and is now up 16 basis points since Tuesday.

Unsurprisingly, the rate-sensitive financials sector was the strongest-performing sector in today's session, adding 0.7%. However, nine of the 11 sectors finished in negative territory.

Tech stocks were hit with news that China infiltrated leading companies', including Apple (AAPL 227.99, -4.08, -1.8%) and Amazon (AMZN 1909.42, -43.34, -2.2%), supply chains by implanting a spy chip in their servers. Both companies, however, denied the claim.

In earnings news, Constellation Brands (STZ 222.10, +11.34) finished 5.4% higher after beating top and bottom line estimates and raising its guidance for the fiscal year.

Also of note, Barnes & Noble (BKS 6.65, +1.19) closed 21.8% higher after the company decided to enter into a formal review process to evaluate strategic alternatives in response to multiple parties expressing interest to acquire the bookseller.

In other markets, WTI crude fell 2.6% to $74.44 a barrel after reaching a four-year high yesterday; Looking ahead, U.S. sanctions on Iran, which holds the fourth largest supply of crude oil reserves, will take effect next month on November 4. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.3% at 95.40, ending a six-day winning streak, despite the jump in yields.

Reflective of today's price movements, CBOE Volatility Index, which is often referred to as the "investor fear gauge," catapulted as high as 32.9% before closing +21.8% at 14.14.

Recapping Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial Claims report and August's Factory Orders report:

Initial claims for the week ending September 29 decreased by 7,000 from the prior week to 207,000 (Briefing.com consensus 210,000), while continuing claims for the week ending September 22 decreased by 13,000 to 1.650 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it shows the labor market remains tight and conducive to an increase in wage growth.
Factory orders increased 2.3% in August (Briefing.com consensus +1.8%) following an upwardly revised 0.5% decline (from -0.8%) in July.
The key takeaway from the report is that there wasn't much strength in factory orders outside transportation equipment; moreover, a downward revision to shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft will detract from Q3 GDP growth estimates.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation report for September at 8:30 AM ET and the Consumer Credit report for August at 15:00 PM ET.

Nasdaq Composite +14.1% YTD
S&P 500 +8.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.3% YTD

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Rising Rates Drive Falling Stock Prices
05-Oct-18 16:35 ET
Dow -180.43 at 26447.05, Nasdaq -91.06 at 7788.44, S&P -16.04 at 2885.41

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/5/rising-rates-drive-falling-stock-prices.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market fell on Friday as bond yields continued to climb following the release of the Employment Situation report for September. The S&P 500 and the Dow lost 0.6% and 0.7%, respectively. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 1.2%.

At its session low, the S&P 500 was down 1.1%, falling below its 50-day moving average for the first time since July. The market eventually gathered its footing though, closing near the middle of the day's trading range.

The Employment Situation report for September was mixed from a headline standpoint, as nonfarm payrolls showed a below-consensus increase of 134,000 (Briefing.com consensus 184K), but the August increase was revised upward to 270,000 (from 201K). Average hourly earnings rose 0.3%, as expected, and the unemployment rate fell to from 3.9% to 3.7%, marking its lowest level since 1969.

U.S. Treasuries extended their weekly losses following the release of the jobs report, pushing yields higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield advanced one basis point to 2.88%, and the benchmark 10-yr yield jumped three basis points to 3.23%, extending its weekly gain to 16 basis points and marking its highest close since 2011.

In corporate news, Costco (COST 218.82, -12.86) lost 5.6% despite reporting above-consensus earnings, and Tesla (TSLA 261.95, -19.88) dropped 7.1% after CEO Elon Musk seemingly mocked the SEC in a late Thursday tweet, just days after agreeing to a settlement with the agency over securities fraud allegations stemming from his failed bid to take the company private.

Reviewing all of Friday's economic data, which, in addition to the September Employment Situation report, included the August Trade Balance and the August Consumer Credit reports:

September nonfarm payrolls increased by 134,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 184,000. The prior month's increase was revised to 270,000 from 201,000. Nonfarm private payrolls rose by 121,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 180,000. The previous month's increase was revised to 254,000 from 204,000. Average hourly earnings increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the previous month's increase was revised to 0.3% from 0.4%. The average workweek was reported at 34.5 (Briefing.com consensus 34.5). The unemployment rate fell to 3.7% from 3.9% in August (Briefing.com consensus 3.8%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the labor market is solid and still simmering with the prospect of pent-up wage pressures being unleashed at any point as employers encounter difficulty in finding qualified workers.
The August trade balance report showed a deficit of $53.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$52.6 billion). The July deficit was revised to $50.0 billion from $50.1 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that it has yet to confirm the tariff actions are succeeding in cutting the trade deficit in a big way; moreover, with the third quarter real average trade deficit 8.9% higher than the second quarter average, trade will be accounted for as a negative input in Q3 GDP forecasts.
The Consumer Credit report for August showed an increase of $20.1 billion, and July credit growth was unrevised at $16.6 billion.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects a pickup in credit demand that should be construed as an offshoot of a strengthening economy led by a solid labor market.

Looking ahead, investors won't receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Week In Review: Stocks Fall As Yields Surge

The S&P 500 fell 1.0% this week, weighed down by a surge in bond yields, which rose to multi-year highs in front of Friday's release of the Employment Situation report for September. The tech-heavy Nasdaq and the small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed, losing 3.2% and 3.7%, respectively, but the blue-chip Dow finished flat.

Stocks began the week on a positive note, boosted by Canada joining Mexico and the United States in a trade agreement. On Sunday night, Canada agreed to allow greater dairy market access to the U.S., while also capping its automobile exports to the States. The deal, also known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) replaces the 24-year-old NAFTA deal between the countries. However, Congress still has to approve the deal, which likely won't be easy.

Investors awoke to continued Italian drama on Tuesday, when Italy's anti-establishment government defended its plan to increase the country's budget-deficit target despite pushback from the EU. In addition, Claudio Borghi, who leads the economic policy of the ruling Lega party, claimed that most of Italy's problems could be solved if the country had its own currency -- although that idea was dismissed by Italy Deputy Prime Minister Di Maio.

However, on Wednesday, Italy's government decided to cede to some of the EU's budget demands. Italy's budget-deficit target will be reduced from 2.4% of GDP in 2019 to 2.2% in 2020 and then to 2.0% in 2021.

That news helped push bond yields higher overnight. Yields then extended those gains significantly after the September ADP Employment Change report -- a prelude to Friday's nonfarm payrolls reading -- showed an estimated 230K positions were added to private sector payrolls -- well above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 184K. The ISM Services Index for September also came in better-than-expected on Wednesday, hitting a record high of 61.6% (Briefing.com consensus 58.2%), clearly indicating that business activity in the service-providing sector of the economy is strong.

Yields continued to advance on Thursday and then again on Friday following the release of the Employment Situation report for September.

The report showed a smaller-than-expected increase in nonfarm payrolls (134K actual vs 184K Briefing.com consensus), but the August increase underwent a notable upward revision (to 270K from 201K). As for the rest of the report, average hourly earnings increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), the average workweek was reported at 34.5 (Briefing.com consensus 34.5), and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.7% from 3.9%.

The key takeaway from the September jobs report is that the labor market is solid and still simmering with the prospect of pent-up wage pressures being unleashed at any point as employers encounter difficulty in finding qualified workers.

Looking at this week's S&P sector standings, most groups finished in negative territory. The consumer discretionary sector led the retreat with a loss of 4.4%, and real estate (-2.7%), information technology (-2.2%) and communication services (-2.2%) also showed relative weakness. On a positive note, the influential financial sector advanced 1.5%, benefiting from rising yields and, more specifically, a steepening of the yield curve. The energy sector added 1.9% as it moved up with oil prices.

The benchmark 10-yr yield jumped 16 basis points in total, closing Friday at 3.23% -- which marks its highest level since 2011 -- while the 2-yr yield jumped five basis points to 2.88%.

In corporate news, General Electric (GE) replaced CEO John Flannery with former Danaher CEO Larry Culp; Tesla's (TSLA) CEO, Elon Musk, agreed to settle charges with the SEC, in which Mr. Musk and Tesla are to pay $20 million each, and Mr. Musk is to step down as chairman for three years; Amazon (AMZN) announced that it will be raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all U.S. employees, pressuring other retailers to do the same; and General Motors (GM) announced that it will be partnering with Honda Motor (HMC) to build autonomous vehicles.

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Afternoon Rebound Leaves S&P 500 Little Changed
08-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow +39.73 at 26486.78, Nasdaq -52.30 at 7736.14, S&P -1.14 at 2884.27

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/8/afternoon-rebound-leaves-s-and-p-500-little-changed.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The U.S. stock market closed a volatile day of trading on a mixed note. The S&P 500 was down as much as 0.8% on Monday, but rebounded in the afternoon to reclaim its 50-day moving average (2878.47), which it had breached shortly after the opening bell. The benchmark index finished just slightly lower, closing at 2884.43.

As for the other major averages, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite underperformed for the third straight day, losing 0.7%; the small-cap Russell 2000 finished the day with a slim loss of 0.2%; and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed, tacking on 0.2%.

Concerning headlines overseas weighed on U.S. markets early. In China, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traded jabs with China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, regarding trade disputes. Mr. Yi accused the United States of meddling with domestic affairs, and Mr. Pompeo retorted that the two simply had a "fundamental disagreement." In Italy, the government continued its feud with the European Union over its budget deficit plan, with Italy's Deputy Minister Matteo Salvini referring to two EU leaders as "enemies of Europe."

The top-weighted information technology sector gave up quite a bit of ground on Monday, closing at the bottom of the S&P 500 sector standings with a loss of 1.2%. The group is now down 3.4% for the month, trimming its 2018 gain to 15.5%. Investors have continued to take profits from the highly-valued growth stocks that have helped propel the group higher this year.

Conversely, the real estate (+1.3%), consumer staples (+1.3%), and utilities (+0.8%) sectors finished atop Monday's leaderboard, and the highly-influential financial sector (+0.6%) also outperformed.

In corporate news, Google's parent company Alphabet (GOOG 1148.97, -8.38) announced that account information of 500,000 of its users was exposed due to a bug, and General Electric (GE 13.61, +0.43) was upgraded to 'Overweight' from 'Equal Weight' at Barclays. Alphabet shares lost 0.7%, while GE shares climbed 3.3%.

Looking head, the third quarter earnings season will unofficially kickoff on Friday with financial giants JPMorgan Chase (JPM 115.32, +0.70, +0.6%), Citigroup (C 72.59, +0.17, +0.2%), and Wells Fargo (WFC 53.67, +0.48, +0.9%) scheduled to report their quarterly results.

Note, the bond market was closed in observance of Columbus Day.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +12.1% YTD
S&P 500 +7.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +6.1% YTD

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An Indecisive Market
09-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow -56.21 at 26430.57, Nasdaq +2.07 at 7738.21, S&P -4.09 at 2880.18

http://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-tradingdiary2.html?mod=topnav_2_3021

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. stocks waffled on Tuesday amid concerns about growth, rising interest rates, and the impending arrival of Hurricane Michael in Florida's panhandle. The broader market seemed reluctant to make a decisive move in any direction, as the S&P 500 index crossed back and forth across the unchanged line numerous times during the trading session.

The S&P 500 finished 0.1% lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite reset to its flat line.

An overnight spike in U.S. Treasury yields spooked investors this morning, as the benchmark 10-yr yield rose as high as 3.26%. However, renewed buying interest drove prices up and yields down, which eased some of the early angst. The 10-yr note yield settled Tuesday's session at 3.21%, down three basis points from Friday.

The latter move aside, the stock market looked to have gotten caught up on economic and earnings growth concerns that were fostered by the the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cutting its 2018 and 2019 global growth outlook to 3.7% from 3.9% and a third quarter earnings warning from specialty chemicals company PPG Industries (PPG 98.56, -11.02, -10.1%), which pinned some disappointing guidance on currency pressures, cost inflation, softer demand in China, and a lower end-user demand in Europe and the U.S.

PPG's warning rattled the materials sector, which plunged 3.4%. Several sector components finished trading at their 52-week lows.

In addition, transportation stocks weighed on the industrials sector (-1.5%), as worries about higher fuel costs and likely transportation disruptions related to Hurricane Michael weighed on investor sentiment. The Dow Jones Transportation Average tumbled 1.9% and is now down 3.4% this month.

American Airlines (AAL 33.55, -2.35, -6.6%) was a notable laggard despite saying it expects its third quarter total revenue per available seat mile to be up approximately 2-3% year-over-year versus its prior guidance of up 1-2%.

Conversely, the heavily-weighted S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.4%) outperformed on Tuesday, rebounding modestly from recent selling that had it down 3.4% for the month entering today's trading, and lent an important measure of support to the S&P 500, which closed right on top its 50-day moving average.

Apple (AAPl 226.87, +3.10, +1.4%) and Microsoft (MSFT 112.33, +1.48, +1.3%) helped carry the load after failing to show gains the previous three sessions.

Separately, WTI crude climbed 0.8% to $74.86/bbl, as some oil production has been shut down in the Gulf of Mexico in anticipation of Hurricane Michael. The oil-sensitive energy sector led the sector standings, closing 1.0% higher.

Investors received the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for September was released earlier today, decreasing to 107.9 from 108.8.

Nasdaq Composite +12.1% YTD
S&P 500 +7.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +5.6% YTD

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Stocks Tumble Following Technical Breach
10-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow -831.83 at 25598.74, Nasdaq -315.97 at 7422.24, S&P -94.66 at 2785.52

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/10/stocks-tumble-following-technical-breach.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks tumbled on Wednesday as bond yields held steady at multi-year highs and amid continued concerns about economic and earnings growth prospects. The S&P 500 lost 3.3%, extending its losing streak to five sessions in a row, which is its longest losing streak since 2016. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite also fell sharply, losing 3.2% and 4.1%, respectively.

At the opening bell, the S&P 500 fell below its 50-day moving average (2879), which has been an area of support for the market this week. Selling continued from there, with the S&P 500 extending its opening loss of 0.5% more than six times over. However, the selling didn't feel fast and panicky; rather, it was somewhat orderly in nature, which underscores the idea that it was largely a risk-reduction effort, whereby market participants are cutting their exposure to stocks, cognizant that earnings growth estimates are at risk with rising interest rates, tariff actions, and higher costs.

Other key technical breaches included the Dow falling below its 50-day moving average, the Nasdaq falling below its 200-day moving average, and the Russell 2000 falling below its 200-day moving average.

High-growth FANG names, which have been key leadership stocks for this bull market, struggled mightily on Wednesday; Netflix (NFLX 325.89, -29.82) lost 8.4%, Amazon (AMZN 1755.25, -115.07) lost 6.2%, Facebook (FB 151.38, -6.52) lost 4.1%, Apple (AAPL 216.36, -10.51) lost 4.6%, and Alphabet (GOOG 1081.22, -57.60) lost 5.1%.

Information technology was the worst-performing S&P sector on Wednesday, tumbling 4.8%, but growth-sensitive, cyclical groups underperformed on the whole, with financials, consumer discretionary, industrials, energy, and communications services all losing between 3.0% and 3.9% apiece. None of the 11 S&P sectors were able to advance on Wednesday, but the defensive-oriented utilities (-0.5%) group did manage to keep its loss in check.

Interestingly, the equity sell off did not lead to higher demand for "risk-free" U.S. Treasuries. In fact, bonds declined with stocks on Wednesday, with investors presumably opting to go to cash instead. The benchmark 10-yr yield, which moves inversely to the price of the 10-yr Treasury note, advanced two basis points to 3.23%, closing near a seven-year high.

Meanwhile, the CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as the "investor fear gauge", spiked 36.2% to 21.73, its highest level since late March.

Away from Wall Street, Hurricane Michael made landfall in the Florida Panhandle as a Category 4 storm. The storm has disrupted crude production in the Gulf of Mexico, but oil prices fell notably on Wednesday nonetheless, retreating from the four-year high hit earlier this month. WTI crude dropped 2.5% to $73.09/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the September Producer Price Index, August Wholesale Inventories, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Producer prices rose 0.2% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and core producer prices increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Year-over-year, producer prices are up 2.6% (vs +2.8% in August) and core producer prices have risen 2.5% (vs +2.3% in August).
The key takeaway from the report is that producer prices climbed in September without a contribution from prices for final demand energy, which fell 0.8%. Furthermore, there is nothing in the report to suggest the Fed is likely to deviate from another rate hike at its December FOMC meeting.
August Wholesale Inventories increased 1.0% (Briefing.com consensus +0.8%). The July reading was left unrevised at +0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the build in wholesale inventories will be accounted for as a positive input for Q3 GDP forecasts.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index showed a decrease of 1.7%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for September, weekly Initial Claims, and the September Treasury Budget on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +7.5% YTD
S&P 500 +4.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.6% YTD

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Wall Street Extends Wednesday's Drop
11-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow -545.91 at 25052.83, Nasdaq -92.99 at 7329.25, S&P -57.31 at 2728.21

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/11/wall-street-extends-wednesdays-drop.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street extended Wednesday's tumble on Thursday in a volatile day of trading. The major averages settled notably lower, with the S&P 500 losing 2.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 2.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite shedding 1.3%. With Thursday marking its sixth straight decline, the S&P 500 is now down 5.5% for the week and is 6.9% below its September 20 record close.

At session lows, the S&P 500 was down 2.7%. Stocks were able to reclaim some losses in the final hour of trading following a Washington Post report that President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have agreed to meet at next month's G-20 summit in Argentina with hopes of resolving their trade conflict. That knee-jerk move higher was largely undone by the closing bell though.

A drop in bond yields did provide some relief for stock traders, who have been cautious since yields shot to multi-year highs last week. Yields on longer-dated issues fell quite a bit more than yields on shorter-dated issues, leading to a flattening of the yield curve; the yield on the 2-yr Treasury note slipped one basis point to 2.85%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield fell nine basis points to 3.13%.

That yield curve flattening weighed on lenders, which depend on the interest-rate differential between what they pay for deposits and what they make on loans. The S&P 500's financial sector lost 2.9%. The oil-sensitive energy sector was another notable underperformer, losing 3.1%, as crude prices fell to a three-week low, further retreating from multi-year highs. WTI crude fell 3.0% to $70.98/bbl.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors declined on Thursday. However, the communication services and information technology sectors, which contain many of the high-growth and widely-held names that have consistently led the market higher for some time, tried to stage a rebound after dropping sharply on Wednesday. The groups were up modestly intraday, but eventually finished lower by 0.8% and 1.3%, respectively; still, that's notably better than the broader market.

President Trump blamed the recent selling on the Federal Reserve, which he says has "gone crazy" with its rate hikes. When asked if he is considering firing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who he appointed, the president said he wouldn't, adding that he's "just disappointed."

From a technical standpoint, the S&P 500 got into trouble once again on Thursday, closing below its 200-day moving average (2766) for the first time since March, after breaching its 50-day moving average the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also fell below its 200-day moving average (25140) and the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 stayed below theirs.

In earnings news, shares of Dow component Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 70.90, -1.41) fell 2.0% after the company reported better-than-expected earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter, but missed on the top line. Meanwhile, shares of Delta Air Lines (DAL 51.48, +1.77) rallied 3.6% after the company reported above-consensus earnings and upbeat revenue guidance.

Financial giants JPMorgan Chase (JPM 108.13, -3.34), Citigroup (C 68.38, -1.57), and Wells Fargo (WFC 51.44, -0.99) will unoffically kick off the third quarter earnings season on Friday morning.

Also of note, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) spiked once again on Thursday, jumping 11.8% to 25.57, marking its highest level since February.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the Consumer Price Index for September and the weekly Initial Claims report:

Total CPI and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1%. Both were expected to increase 0.2%, according to the Briefing.com consensus estimate.
The key takeaway from the report is that it helped temper concerns about rising inflation for the time being, yet with total CPI and core CPI running above the Fed's longer-run inflation target of 2.0%, it still left little reason to think the Fed is going to back away from a rate hike in December.
Initial claims for the week ending October 6 increased by 7,000 to 214,000 (Briefing.com consensus 205,000) while continuing claims for the week ending September 29 increased by 4,000 to 1.66 million.
The key takeaway from that report is that it remains reflective of a tight labor market, which will catch the Fed's eye as a contributing factor for why it can validate the continuation of gradual rate hikes.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Import/Export Prices for September and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.2% YTD
S&P 500 +2.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.6% YTD

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Stocks Rebound, But Still Finish Solidly Lower for the Week
12-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow +287.16 at 25339.99, Nasdaq +167.83 at 7497.08, S&P +38.76 at 2766.97

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/12/stocks-rebound-but-still-finish-solidly-lower-for-the-week.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rebounded on Friday, recouping a good chunk of their weekly losses in a volatile day of trading. The S&P 500 added as much as 1.7% at the start of the session, but nearly wiped it all out intraday before rallying to finish higher by 1.4%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite outperformed, finishing higher by 2.3%. Small caps underperformed, though, leaving the Russell 2000 with a slim gain of 0.1%. For the week, the four indices lost between 3.7% and 5.2%.

This week's sharp sell-off propagated a belief that the major indices had gotten oversold on a short-term basis and were due for a rebound. Friday's upward movement also found some technical support from the S&P 500's 200-day moving average (2766.17), which the index closed just slightly above at 2767.13.

The third quarter earnings season began on a mixed note on Friday morning when big banks JPMorgan Chase (JPM 106.95, -1.18, -1.1%), Citigroup (C 69.84, +1.46, +2.1%), and Wells Fargo (WFC 52.11, +0.67, +1.3%) reported before the opening bell. JPMorgan and Citigroup both beat earnings estimates, but Wells Fargo came up short. In the company's conference call, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon expressed optimism in the global economy, although he did note that trade tensions present some risks going forward.

On a related note, PNC (PNC 124.26, -7.35) tumbled 5.6% despite beating bottom-line estimates.

The financials sector added as much as 1.6% following bank earnings, but eventually rolled over, bringing the broader market with it. The group did rebound in the final stretch though, closing higher by 0.1%. 10 of 11 sectors finished in the green, and information technology was the top performer with a gain of 3.2%.



Within the tech sector, giants Apple (AAPL 222.11, +7.66, +3.6%) and Microsoft (MSFT 109.57, +3.66, +3.5%) outperformed, as did chipmakers, evidenced by a 2.0% jump in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Meanwhile, in the communication services sector (+2.1%), Netflix (NFLX 339.56, +18.46) rallied 5.8% after Citigroup said its recent tumble represents a buying opportunity.

Away from equities, U.S. Treasuries finished roughly flat on Friday, with the benchmark 10-yr yield ticking up one basis point to 2.14%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index rebounded from a more than two-week low, climbing 0.3% to 94.96, and WTI crude climbed 0.6% to $71.41/bbl. Crude finished solidly lower for the week though, dropping 3.9%.

Also of note, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) fell 14.3% on Friday, retreating from its highest level since February.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included September Import/Export Prices and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October:

Export prices were flat in September after declining 0.2% in August and import prices were up 0.5% after being down 0.4% in August. Excluding agricultural exports, export prices increased 0.2% after declining 0.2% in August. Excluding fuel, import prices were unchanged after declining 0.2% in August.
The key takeaway from the report is rooted in the understanding that nonfuel import prices are being held in check, which is helpful in terms of easing some of the market's inflation angst.
The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for October checked in at 99.0 (Briefing.com consensus 100.0) versus the final reading of 100.1 for September.
The key takeaway from the report is that it revealed some budding concerns about inflation crimping real income expectations, which is something to be watched closely considering spending is driven more by income growth than consumer confidence.

Looking ahead, investors will receive September Retail Sales on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +8.6% YTD
S&P 500 +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.7% YTD

Week In Review: An Ugly Week on Wall Street

Stocks sold off sharply this week, sending the S&P 500 lower by 4.1%. Fears over potentially weakening economic and earnings growth helped fuel the selling, which left stocks at three-month lows going into the third quarter earnings season. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 4.2% this week, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 3.7%.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its 2018 and 2019 global growth outlook to 3.7% from 3.9% on Tuesday, citing trade uncertainties that include tariffs between the U.S. and China, a pending Brexit deal, and the new trilateral agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico that's supposed to replace NAFTA.

On a related note, President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have reportedly agreed to meet at next month's G-20 summit with hopes of resolving their trade conflict.

A third quarter earnings warning from specialty chemicals company PPG Industries (PPG) weighed on sentiment this week, dampening hopes of another strong quarter. Financial giants JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C), and Wells Fargo (WFC) kicked off the Q3 earnings season on Friday with mixed results; JPM and C beat bottom-line estimates, but WFC missed. The financial sector initially had a positive reaction to the earnings results on Friday, but later rolled over to close the week with a total loss of 5.6%. A curve-flattening trade in the bond market didn't bode well for lenders, which depend on the interest-rate differential between what they pay for deposits and what they make on loans.

The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note, which spiked to a seven-year high last week, hovered between 3.12% and 3.26% before eventually settling Friday at 3.14% -- nine basis points below last Friday's close. Meanwhile, the yield on the more Fed-sensitive 2-yr Treasury note fell four basis points to 2.84%, leaving the 2-10 spread with a five bps point loss for the week.

President Trump blamed this week's selling on the Federal Reserve, which he says has "gone crazy" with its rate hikes. The Fed has raised rates three times this year with the most recent hike coming in September, and it appears to be on track to raise rates again at its December meeting. The CME FedWatch Tool places the chances of a December rate hike at 79.7%; that's down slightly from 80.0% last Friday.

The S&P 500 got into technical trouble this week, breaching its 50-day moving average on Wednesday and then its 200-day moving average on Thursday. The benchmark index tried to reclaim its 200-day moving average on Friday, but closed right at the key technical mark. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite breached their 200-day moving averages as well; the Dow eventually reclaimed the key technical level, but the Nasdaq did not.

Also of note, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), often referred to as the "investor fear gauge," touched its highest level since late March (28.64) before pulling back a bit on Friday. Still, the VIX finished the week roughly 40% higher.

In other news, Hurricane Michael made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on Thursday as a Category 4 storm. The storm has devastated the region, causing billions of dollars in damages and killing at least 13 people. Many oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico halted operations in anticipation of the storm, but WTI crude fell this week nonetheless, dropping 3.9% to $71.41/bbl, and the S&P 500's energy sector lost 5.4%.

Looking ahead, earnings season will ramp up next week with Bank of America (BAC), Charles Schwab (SCHW), UnitedHealth (UNH), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Morgan Stanley (MS), Goldman Sachs (GS), IBM (IBM), Netflix (NFLX), Travelers (TRV), American Express (AXP), PayPal (PYPL), Procter & Gamble (PG), and a host of others scheduled to report their quarterly results.

In addition, investors will receive September Retail Sales, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, Housing Starts and Building Permits, Existing Home Sales, and the minutes from the September FOMC meeting.

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Stock Market Relents (Again) to Selling Interest
15-Oct-18 16:25 ET
Dow -89.44 at 25250.55, Nasdaq -66.15 at 7430.93, S&P -16.34 at 2750.63

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/15/stock-market-relents-(again)-to-selling-interest.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. stocks oscillated around the S&P 500's flat line on Monday before whipping noticeably lower in the final hour of trading. Renewed weaknesses in the information technology (-1.6%) and financials (0.5%) sectors coupled with ongoing concerns about the global economic growth outlook kept follow-through buying interest from Friday's rally in check.

The S&P 500 lost 0.6% and closed below its 200-day moving average (2766.54), which is considered to be a key technical level. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%. Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 outperformed, climbing 0.6%.

The struggling tech sector, which has been a bull market leader, has been a primary laggard during the market's recent setback. Investors who dumped their riskier tech assets last week have yet to come back with conviction. There were a few attempts in today's session, yet the buying interest waned each time as investors continued to trade out of some of the largest and most widely-held stocks. The heavily-weighted S&P 500 sector is down 7.5% for the month.

Notable information technology components that were down on Monday included Apple (APPL 217.36, -4.75, -2.1%), Microsoft (MFST 107.60, -1.97, -1.8%), Visa (V 137.23, -2.83, -2.0%), and MasterCard (MA 200.32, -3.90, -1.9%).

Additionally, the financials sector was unable to impress investors again after an underwhelming response to Bank of America's (BAC 27.92, -0.54, -1.9%) better-than expected earnings report. Charles Schwab (SCHW 47.64, -1.37, -2.8%) also fell after reporting earnings that were in-line with top and bottom estimates.

Bank of America reportedly fell because of some disappointment over the performance of its investment banking business, yet there were general concerns hanging over the sector that banks might be close to, or at, peak earnings growth. The rate-sensitive sector is now down 4.6% this month and 5.8% this year, despite interest rates nearing multi-year highs.

Treasury yields remained near their starting levels. The 2-yr note yield ticked one basis point higher to 2.85%, and the 10-yr note yield rose two basis points to 3.16%.

Separately, United States-Saudi Arabia tensions brewed over the weekend following the disappearance and alleged murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. In response, President Trump threatened to impose sanctions on the world's largest oil producer if it was found to be guilty; however, President Trump said today that Saudi King Salman strongly denied to him any involvement in Mr. Khashoggi's disappearance.

Despite some underlying angst that the Saudi Arabian situation could boil over and potentially impact oil supplies, WTI crude prices were relatively subdued on Monday, settling 0.6% higher at $71.83/bbl.

In other corporate news, L3 Technologies (LLL 220.91, +25.13) rose 12.8% after announcing an all-stock merger of equals with Harris Corp. (HRS 173.25, +18.38, +11.9%). The combined company, L3 Harris Technologies, will be the 6th largest defense company in the U.S. and a top 10 defense company globally.

That merger news contributed to the relative strength of the industrials sector (+0.2%), which joined with the defensive-oriented consumer staples (+0.6%), real estate (+0.5%), and utilities (+0.4%) sectors to buck Monday's weakness in the broader market.

Separately, retailer Sears Holding (SHLD 0.31, -0.10, -23.8%) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That was not a surprise to the market, as it had been widely speculated, yet the news itself generated a sentimental story line given the retailer's storied operating history.

Reviewing Monday's flurry of economic data, which included Retail Sales for September, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for October, total business inventories for August, and the Treasury Budget for September:

Retail sales were up just 0.1% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) after increasing 0.1% in August. Excluding autos, sales declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%).
The key takeaway from the report is that core retail sales, which factor into GDP growth models, were up a solid 0.5%. Hence, the headline numbers were disappointing, yet this report will still factor favorably for Q3 real GDP growth prospects.
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for October checked in at 21.1 (Briefing.com consensus 18.0), up from 19.0 in September.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strength was led by upticks in the indexes for new orders and shipments, which reflects good demand.
Total business inventories increased 0.5% in August, in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate, after increasing an upwardly revised 0.7% (from 0.6%) in July. Total business sales also increased 0.5% after increasing 0.2% in July.
The key takeaway from the report is that business sales continued to outpace inventory growth year-over-year, which is a favorable trend that carries the potential to lead to a better pricing environment for businesses.
The Treasury Budget for September showed a surplus of $119.1 billion versus a surplus of $7.9 billion for the same period a year ago. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the September surplus cannot be compared to the $214.1 billion deficit for August.
The budget deficit for fiscal 2018 totaled $779.0 billion versus $665.8 billion in fiscal 2017.

On Tuesday, investors will receive the Industrial Production report for September, the JOLTS - Job openings survey for August, the NAHB Housing Market Index for October, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for July.

Nasdaq Composite +7.6% YTD
S&P 500 +2.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.1% YTD

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Stocks Rebound; S&P 500 Recrosses 200-Day MA
16-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow +547.87 at 25798.42, Nasdaq +214.75 at 7645.68, S&P +59.13 at 2809.76

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/16/stocks-rebound-s-and-p-500-recrosses-200day-ma.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks cruised considerably higher on Tuesday, ignited by strong earnings at the open and then fueled by a resurgence in the heavily-weighted information technology sector (3.0%) throughout the day. The S&P 500 rocketed through its 200-day moving average, closing 2.2% higher and reducing its October loss to 3.6%.

As for the other major averages, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.2%, the Nasdaq Composite surged 2.9%, and the Russell 2000 advanced 2.8%. The Dow and the Nasdaq both closed above their 200-day moving averages, but the Russell 2000 did not.

Investor sentiment was buoyed after several financial and health care giants reported upbeat earnings.

Investment banks Goldman Sachs (GS 221.70, +6.48, +3.0%) and Morgan Stanley (MS 45.94, +2.47, +5.7%) helped boost the financial sector (+1.6%) after reporting better-than-expected top and bottom lines. Asset management firm BlackRock (BLK 408.00, -18.94, -4.4%) weighed on the sector, though, after missing revenue expectations. BlackRock's pain worsened when CEO Larry Fink said that the company saw more than $30 billion of institutional non-ETF index equity outflows that were driven by client de-risking. Mr. Fink added that he thinks clients will continue to de-risk.

Health care sector (+2.9%) components Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 136.56, +2.61, +2.0%) and UnitedHealth (UNH 272.57, +12.32, +4.7%) contributed to the group's strong performance after better-than expected results. The health care sector is the second-best performing group this year with a 2018 gain of 12.5%; tech leads with a gain of 13.9%.

The tech sector "returned to form" on Tuesday when investors flocked to the high-growth assets that some considered to be oversold on a short term basis. Adobe Systems (ADBE 260.67, +22.66) had a very strong performance after it reaffirmed fourth quarter guidance and said it expects FY19 revenues to be up 20%. The software company led the S&P 500 with a gain of 9.5%.

Likewise, chip stocks outperformed, as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed 3.3%. Notable gainers included Intel (INTC 45.94, +1.41, +3.2%), Qualcomm (QCOM 66.12, +1.95, +3.0%), and NVIDIA (NVDA 245.83, +10.45, +4.4%). However, today's impressive performance brings the PHLX Index's yearly gain to just 2.4%.

Adding to Tuesday's gains was the communication services (+2.3%) sector, led by FANG members Alphabet (GOOG 1121.28, +29.03, +2.7%), Facebook (FB 158.78, +5.26, +3.4%), and Netflix (NFLX 346.40, +13.27, +4.0%). Conversely, laggards in the all-green sector standings were energy (+0.9%), consumer staples (+1.1), and utilities (+1.2%). The defensive-oriented utilities sector remains the only sector in October with monthly gains (+2.1%).

Separately, other markets remained mostly dormant on Tuesday. Treasuries barely moved, subduing current fears of rising interest rates for now. The Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield added one basis point to 2.86%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 3.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index traded near its flat line (94.77), and WTI crude settled 0.1% higher at $71.91/bbl with investors keeping an eye on U.S.-Saudi-Arabia tensions. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) fell 16.1% to 17.87, retreating from last week's seven-month high.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for September, Jobs Openings for August, and the NAHB Housing Market Index for October:

Industrial Production rose 0.3% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), while the August increase was unrevised at 0.4%. Meanwhile, Capacity Utilization came in at 78.1% (Briefing.com consensus 78.2%), unchanged from unrevised reading of 78.1% in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that it revealed the strongest year-over-year growth rate in industrial production (+5.1%) since December 2010.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for October came in at 68 (Briefing.com consensus 67), up from 67 in September.
The August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 7.136 million from a revised 7.077 million (from 6.939 million) in July.

On Wednesday, investors will receive the weekly Mortgage Applications Index, Housing Starts and Building Permits for September, and the minutes from the September FOMC meeting.

Nasdaq Composite +10.8% YTD
S&P 500 +5.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.0% YTD

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Stocks Close Flat, Near Session Highs
17-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow -91.74 at 25706.68, Nasdaq -2.79 at 7642.89, S&P -0.71 at 2809.05

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/17/stocks-close-flat-near-session-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 finished at its flat line on Wednesday following a volatile day of trading. A late morning surge in the financials sector (+0.9%) lifted the benchmark index from its early depths -- the S&P 500 was down as much as 1.0% -- and the release of the September FOMC minutes prompted another small bout of volatility in the afternoon.

As for the other major averages, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite remained unchanged, and the small-cap Russell 2000 lagged, losing 0.5%.

Stocks opened slightly lower following some disappointing September housing data. Housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.201 million units in September, below the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 1.221 million, and building permits declined to a seasonally adjusted 1.241 million, also below the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 1.273 million.

In addition, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index declined 7.1% week-over-week.

The softer-than-expected data hit the consumer discretionary sector (-0.7%) in particular, with home improvement retailers Home Depot (HD 185.17, -8.41) and Lowe's (LOW 102.44, -3.54) dropping 4.3% and 3.3%, respectively. The two companies were also downgraded to 'Neutral' from 'Outperform' at Credit Suisse.

Nonetheless, the S&P 500 rebounded to its flat line largely due to the financial sector's sudden climb. Investors initially had a muted reaction to U.S. Bancorp's (USB 52.90, +1.93) better-than-expected earnings, but shares eventually started taking off, ending the day with a gain of 3.8%. Goldman Sachs (GS 228.28, +6.58, +3.0%) and Morgan Stanley (MS 47.19 , +1.25, +2.7%) also had strong performances, extending yesterday's post-earnings gains.

The minutes from the September FOMC meeting briefly caused the S&P 500 to stumble in late afternoon trading after showing that a number of participants agreed for the need for more gradual rate hikes, and that a number of participants saw a need to hike above the long-run level. Following the minutes, the probability of a December rate hike ticked up to 83.0% from 79.5% on Tuesday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

Also, Treasury yields ticked slightly higher following the minutes with the Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield and benchmark 10-yr yield each advancing two basis points to 2.88% and 3.18%, respectively. The U.S Dollar Index increased 0.6% to 95.31, touching a one-week high.

Relative weakness in the information technology sector (-0.5%) kept the bulls in check on Wednesday. IBM (IBM 134.05, -11.07) dragged on the sector, losing 7.6%, after missing revenue expectations. The Dow component remained upbeat, though, upholding its guidance and expecting its cloud technology to lift revenue moving forward.

In other earnings news, Netflix (NFLX 364.70, +18.30) climbed 5.3% after reporting higher-than-expected subscriber growth. The company added nearly seven million new subscribers last quarter, with six of the seven million coming from overseas. In addition, Netflix expects to add nine million more in the fourth quarter. The communication services sector, which houses Netflix, advanced 0.5%.

Separately, WTI crude dropped 3.1% to $69.65/bbl, hitting a one-month low, after EIA petroleum data showed a build of 6.5 million barrels in crude oil inventories for the week ended October 12. The oil-sensitive energy sector lost 0.7%, closing near the bottom of the sector standings.

Across the border, Canada became the second country in the world to legalize marijuana on Wednesday, causing a sell-the-news reaction in weed stocks. Widely-followed Tilray (TLRY 148.25, -10.13) lost 6.4%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the Housing Starts and Building Permits for September:

Mortgage applications declined 7.1% week-over-week and housing starts declined 5.3% in September, paced in part by a 0.9% decline in starts for single-family units.
Housing starts declined 5.3% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.201 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1221K), with single-family starts down 0.9% to 871,000. Building permits were down 0.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.241 million (Briefing.com consensus 1273K), although that was owed to a 9.3% decline in permits for buildings with five units or more. Single-family permits were up 2.9% to 851,000, which tied with March for the third-lowest annual rate this year.
The key takeaway from the September Housing Starts and Building Permits report is that the supply of new homes isn't picking up fast enough to meet the demand for new homes at more affordable price points. Accordingly, overall home sales activity will continue to be curtailed by affordability constraints.

On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial Claims report, the October Philadelphia Fed Index, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for September.

Nasdaq Composite +10.7% YTD
S&P 500 +5.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.5% YTD

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Stocks Slide Amid Global Growth Concerns
18-Oct-18 16:25 ET
Dow -327.23 at 25379.45, Nasdaq -157.56 at 7485.33, S&P -40.13 at 2768.92

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/18/stocks-slide-amid-global-growth-concerns-.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell for the ninth time in the last 11 sessions on Thursday, losing 1.4%, as concerning global developments dampened buying interest. The benchmark index opened just modestly lower, but started extending losses soon thereafter. However, the S&P 500 did close a hair above its 200-day moving average (2768.02), a silver lining on a day hard-pressed for good news.

As for the other major averages, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.3%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.1%, and the Russell 2000 lost 1.8%.

The stock market opened slightly lower after disappointing news overseas. China's Shanghai Composite tumbled 2.9%, extending its yearly loss to nearly 25% and touching a four-year low, amid investor concerns over slowing economic growth. In addition, Japan's Nikkei fell 0.8% after the country reported its first year-over-year export decline (-2.1%) since November 2016. Meanwhile, burgeoning angst that the Italian budget situation could get nasty and upset global financial markets sent European indices lower.

Back to the home front, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin added to the uncertainty when he announced that he would be pulling out of next week's Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia. The decision comes as investigators seek answers over the disappearance and alleged murder of dissident Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

In equities, the growth-stocks in the information technology (-2.0%) and consumer discretionary (-2.1%) sectors that have led this mature bull market did not provide any support on Thursday. The information technology sector relinquished its lead as the best-performing S&P 500 group year-to-date to health care, which was down 1.1% on Thursday. For comparison, the tech sector is still up 11.1% on the year, while health care is up 11.8%. The S&P 500 is higher by 3.6%.

Also, the industrials sector (-1.8%) was another notable laggard following some discouraging earnings and guidance. United Rentals (URI, 118.13, -1.30, -1.0%) topped third quarter expectations but lowered its free cash flow guidance. Meanwhile, Snap-On (SNA 151.47, -16.10, -9.6%) came up shy of third quarter revenue estimates, and Textron (TXT 57.49, -7.29, -11.3%) fell well short of third quarter earnings and revenue estimates.

In other corporate news, Dow component Travelers (TRV 125.14, -1.30) fell 1.0% despite reporting better-than-expected profits for the third quarter; Netflix (NFLX 346.71, -17.99) fumbled 4.9% after an NBC News report showed that the WSJ is investigating the company's corporate culture; and Philip Morris International (PM 87.52, +2.96, +3.5%) was one of the best-performing S&P 500 components after reporting upbeat third quarter results and reaffirming its guidance for the fiscal year.

Separately, Treasuries reclaimed their early losses amid Thursday's equity slide with the 2-yr yield and 10-yr yield settling unchanged at 2.88% and 3.18%, respectively. The 2-yr yield had climbed three basis points to 2.91%, briefly touching a 10-yr high in early morning trading. On a related note, the U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.4% to 95.69.

In energy, WTI crude extended Wednesday's slide, settling 1.4% lower at $68.71/bbl, marking a one-month low. The oil-sensitive energy sector closed 0.5% lower.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial Claims report, the Philadelphia Fed Index for October, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for September:

Initial claims for the week ending October 13 dropped by 5,000 to 210,000 (Briefing.com consensus 212,000). Continuing claims for the week ending October 6 decreased by 13,000 to 1.640 million, which is the lowest level since August 4, 1973.
The key takeaway from the report is that it covered the week in which the survey for the October employment report was conducted. Accordingly, with the low level of initial claims, economists will have a basis to forecast another solid increase in nonfarm payrolls.
The Philadelphia Fed Index eased to 22.2 in October (Briefing.com consensus 20.0) from 22.9 in September. The dividing line between expansion and contraction for this regional manufacturing survey is 0.0.
The key takeaway from this report is that manufacturers remain optimistic about the outlook, as 48% of respondents expect business activity to increase over the next six months versus only 14% that expect declines.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.5% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) after increasing an unrevised 0.4% in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was widespread strength in the basket of leading indicators. The strongest contribution came from average consumer expectations for business conditions (+0.14 percentage points), which should be constructive for consumer spending activity.

On Friday, investors will receive the Existing Home Sales report for September.

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S&P 500 Finishes Flat Despite Strong Start
19-Oct-18 16:25 ET
Dow +64.89 at 25444.34, Nasdaq -36.11 at 7449.22, S&P -1.00 at 2767.92

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/19/s-and-p-500-finishes-flat-despite-strong-start.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 closed Friday at its flat line, a fitting end to a flat week; the benchmark index ended just 0.02% above last Friday's close. The session began with a bang, with the S&P 500 adding as much as 1.0%, following a positive overnight performance from Chinese markets and more upbeat earnings. However, sentiment soon shifted, prompting a slow and steady retreat from early highs.

As for the other major averages, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3%, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 0.5%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 fumbled 1.2%.

China's Shanghai Composite rebounded from a four-year low on Friday, adding 2.9%, despite reporting a lower-than-expected GDP reading (+6.5% actual vs +6.6% consensus). Chinese officials made a collaborative effort to ease investor angst about liquidity risk and China's economic fundamentals.

On the earnings front, Procter & Gamble (PG 87.30, +7.06) and PayPal (PYPL 84.78, +7.30) jumped 8.8% and 9.4%, respectively, after beating earnings estimates. Procter & Gamble wowed investors with quarterly organic sales increasing 4% -- its highest increase since Q1 of its fiscal 2014 year. In addition, Dow component American Express (AXP 106.73, +3.89) enjoyed a healthy gain of 3.8% after besting earnings estimates and raising its profit guidance.

Within the S&P 500 sectors, investors played defense again. The consumer staples (+2.3%), utilities (+1.6%), and real estate (+1.0%) sectors finished atop Friday's leaderboard. Conversely, the consumer discretionary (-0.9%) and health care (-1.0%) sectors weighed on the broader market, and energy (-0.8%) and materials (-0.7%) also underperformed.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries ticked lower to conclude the week, pushing yields higher. The 2-yr yield and 10-yr yield each increased two basis points to 2.90% and 3.20%, respectively. For the week, the 2-yr yield added four basis points, and the 10-yr yield added three basis points. In addition, the U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.3% to 95.46.

In energy, WTI crude recouped some of its recent losses on Friday, settling 0.8% higher at $69.26/bbl. Still, the commodity remains near a one-month low.

Reviewing Friday's sole economic report, Existing Home Sales for September:

Existing home sales declined 3.4% month-over-month in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.15 million (Briefing.com consensus 5.30 million), which is the lowest sales level since November 2015. Total sales were 4.1% lower than the same period a year ago.
The key takeaway from the report is that home sales activity was pressured by the limited supply of lower-priced homes and the affordability constraints presented by higher mortgage rates.

Looking ahead, investors will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.4% YTD

Week In Review: Mixed Outing As Earnings Season Ramps Up

Stocks had a mixed outing this week after suffering heavy losses in the week prior. The benchmark S&P 500 finished flat, leaving its October loss at 5.0%, and the blue-chip Dow ticked up 0.4%. Conversely, the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.6%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 lost 0.3%.

The third quarter earnings season ramped up this week after kicking off last Friday. Financial companies Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Bank of America (BAC), U.S. Bancorp (USB), Charles Schwab (SCHW), and BlackRock (BLK) reported mostly better-than-expected profits, helping to boost the S&P financial sector 0.8% higher.

Meanwhile, the health care sector rallied 0.5% after Dow components Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and UnitedHealth (UNH) beat earnings estimates and issued above-consensus guidance.

Software giant Adobe Systems (ADBE) surged nearly 10% on Tuesday after it reaffirmed fourth quarter guidance and said it expects FY19 revenues to be up 20%. The information technology sector trailed the broader market this week overall though, losing 1.2%. Chipmakers were relatively weak, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index falling 2.2%.

Netflix (NFLX) was another notable name on this week's earnings calendar. The streaming media giant beat bottom-line estimates and reported higher-than-expected subscriber growth by adding nearly seven million new subscribers last quarter -- six million coming from overseas. However, shares fell later in the week on news that The Wall Street Journal is investigating the company's corporate culture.

Away from earnings, home-improvement retailers Home Depot (HD) and Lowe's (LOW) sold off on Wednesday following some disappointing housing data. Housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.201 million units in September, below the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 1.221 million, and building permits declined to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.241 million, also below the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 1.273 million.

Also of note, retailer Sears Holdings (SHLD) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. While the news was not a surprise, it did generate a sentimental story line given the retailer's storied operating history.

The minutes from the September FOMC meeting were released on Wednesday, showing that officials generally agreed on the need for more gradual rate hikes. In addition, the minutes revealed that a number of officials saw the need to hike rates above levels expected to prevail over the long run. The probability of a December rate hike remains high, ticking up to 83.7% from 79.8% last week, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

As for the 11 S&P 500 sectors, they finished the week pretty evenly mixed between green and red. Defensive groups like consumer staples (+4.3%), utilities (+3.1%), and real estate (+3.2%) were the top performers, while growth-sensitive groups like consumer discretionary (-2.0%), energy (-1.9%) and materials (-1.4%) finished at the bottom of the sector standings.

In other markets, U.S. Treasuries slipped this week, pushing yields higher; the yield on the benchmark 10-yr note climbed three basis points to 3.20%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.6% to 95.46, but WTI crude fell 2.9% to $69.26/bbl.

The disappearance and alleged murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi pressured U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin into pulling out of next week's Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia. President Trump expressed confidence in intelligence reports that the murder was ordered by high-level Saudi officials, but stopped short of putting the blame on Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Elsewhere overseas, China's Shanghai Composite touched a new four-year low this week due to investor concerns over slowing economic growth. On Friday, China reported 6.5% year-over-year GDP growth, less than the prior quarter's growth of 6.7% and less than the expected growth of 6.6%. Meanwhile, the Euro Stoxx 50 advanced 0.5% this week despite continued angst that the Italian budget situation could get nasty.

Additionally, Canada became the second country in the world to legalize marijuana on Wednesday, causing a sell-the-news reaction in weed stocks.

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S&P 500 Squanders Opening Gains Despite Strength in High-Growth Stocks
22-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow -126.93 at 25317.41, Nasdaq +19.60 at 7468.82, S&P -11.90 at 2756.02

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/22/s-and-p-500-squanders-opening-gains-despite-strength-in-highgrowth-stocks.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 closed Monday 0.4% lower after squandering opening gains and trading mostly in negative territory throughout the day. Another round of disappointing investor response to earnings, possibly rooted in the belief that corporations are at, or near, peak earnings growth, dampened any attempt for a rebound.

As for the other major averages, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5% and the small-cap Russell 2000 lost 0.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 0.3%.

Stocks opened slightly higher on Monday following a positive performance in China, where the Shanghai Composite rallied 4.1%. The jump, which extended Friday's notable gain, came on the back of verbal intervention from Chinese officials aimed at restoring investor confidence. President Xi, for instance, vowed to provide unwavering support for the private sector.

In Europe, Moody's dropped Italy's debt rating to Baa3 from Baa2, yet that is still an investment-grade rating. The fact that Italy's debt was able to avoid a "junk" status helped underpin markets within the region for awhile, but European stocks eventually settled Monday in the red. Italy's MIB lost 0.6%, while the Euro Stoxx 50 dropped 0.7%.

Back on Wall Street, relative strength in high-growth names within the information technology (+0.8%), consumer discretionary (+0.5%), and communication services (unch) sectors kept losses in check on Monday. The FANG bunch had an overall strong showing. Facebook (FB 154.78, +154.78), Apple (AAPL 220.65, +1.34), Amazon (AMZN 1789.30, +25.27), and Alphabet (GOOG 1101.16) all posted gains between 0.4% and 1.4%. Looking ahead, notable companies within these spaces that will report earnings later this week include Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft (MSFT 109.63, +0.97, +0.9%).

Nevertheless, the heavily-weighted financials sector (-2.1%) led the S&P 500 lower. Several small banks mirrored their bigger bank peers by beating earnings estimates on Monday, but the positive results were unable to foster much buying interest for the group, which is now down 5.4% in October. In total, nine of eleven sectors finished Monday in the red.

The energy sector (-1.1%) was another notable laggard, with oilfield services provider Halliburton (HAL 36.40, -1.14) losing 3.0% after the company issued below-consensus guidance, which overshadowed its better-than-expected earnings. In addition, the materials (-0.9%), real estate (-1.4%), health care (-0.8%), and consumer staples (-0.8%) sectors all underperformed.

Also of note, toy-maker Hasbro (HAS 95.01, -3.03) lost 3.1% after it missed top and bottom line estimates, blaming the bankruptcy of Toys "R" Us for its declining revenue.

Looking at other markets, U.S. Treasuries were dormant, as the yields on the 2-yr and 10-yr notes remained unchanged at 2.90% and 3.20%, respectively; the U.S. Dollar Index ended 0.3% higher at 96.00; and West Texas Intermediate crude settled 0.1% higher at $69.42/bbl.

In Washington, President Trump said that his administration is working on a major middle-class tax cut to be introduced at the beginning of November.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday and will not receive any data on Tuesday.

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S&P 500 Mounts Intraday Comeback Amid Disappointing Earnings, Foreign Developments
23-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow -125.98 at 25191.43, Nasdaq -31.09 at 7437.73, S&P -15.19 at 2740.83

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/23/s-and-p-500-mounts-intraday-comeback-amid-disappointing-earnings-foreign-developments.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 closed Tuesday on stronger footing after tumbling as low as 2.2% in early morning trading. Discouraging price action in foreign markets and some disappointing earnings contributed to early negative sentiment, but the benchmark index gradually recouped intraday losses, finishing lower by 0.6%. There was a prevailing sense that the morning's sell-off had left the market in an oversold condition on a short-term basis.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.4%, and the Russell 2000 lost 0.8%.

Overseas, Asian and European indices closed notably lower on Tuesday with several developments causing concern. For instance, Japan's Nikkei lost 2.7%, as Japan's finance minister said he expects a planned sales tax increase next October to cause some disruptions. In Europe, Germany incited inflationary worries after reporting a 3.2% year-over-year increase in its Producer Price Index, and the EU rejected Italy's budget plan to increase its deficit spending to 2.4% of GDP in 2019. The Euro Stoxx 50 fell 1.5%.

Back on the home front, disappointing earnings reports from Dow components 3M (MMM 192.55, -8.81) and Caterpillar (CAT 118.98, -9.73) heightened worries that earnings growth may have peaked and weighed on the industrial sector, which lost 1.6%. 3M reported lower-than-expected top and bottom lines and also lowered its earnings guidance. Meanwhile, Caterpillar drew attention to higher material and freight costs, including tariffs. Shares of 3M lost 4.4%, and Caterpillar shares fell 7.6%.

Nevertheless, the relative strength in the communication services (+0.4%) and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) sectors provided some support, helping to fuel Tuesday's intraday rebound. Dow component McDonald's (MCD 177.15, +10.52, +6.3%) helped lift the consumer discretionary sector after it reported above-consensus top and bottom lines. Meanwhile, Verizon (VZ 57.21, +2.23, +4.1%) led the communication services sector higher after it reported better-than-expected earnings.

Also in earnings, aircraft manufacturing company United Tech (UTX 130.02, +3.62, +2.9%) reported above-consensus profit and revenue. Similarly, home construction company PulteGroup (PHM 22.40, +1.52, +7.3%) lifted housing stocks after it also surpassed top and bottom line expectations.

The oil-sensitive energy group was the worst-performing sector on Tuesday, losing 2.7%, after Saudi Arabia pledged to play a "responsible role" in the energy markets. Likewise, WTI crude responded, settling 4.2% lower at $66.53/bbl -- its lowest price since August.

In other markets, U.S. Treasuries had surged in the early going amid the equity sell-off, but lost some steam as the market rebounded, pushing yields up from intraday lows. The 10-yr yield finished three basis points lower at 3.17%, but was down as much as eight basis points. Meanwhile, gold, another safe-haven asset, climbed 1.0% to $1,236.80/oz, nearing a three-month high.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Tuesday. Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, the FHFA Housing Price Index for August, New Home Sales for September, and the Beige Book for September on Wednesday.

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S&P 500 +2.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.6% YTD

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S&P 500 Wipes Yearly Gains in Ugly Finish
24-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow -608.01 at 24583.42, Nasdaq -329.14 at 7108.59, S&P -84.59 at 2656.24

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/24/s-and-p-500-wipes-yearly-gains-in-ugly-finish.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks took another beating on Wednesday, with losses accelerating into the closing bell. The S&P 500 lost 3.1%, completely wiping out its gains for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also fell into the red for the year, dropping 608 points, or 2.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 4.4%.

There was little room to hide on Wednesday, as the communication services (-4.9%) and information technology (-4.4%) sectors led eight of the 11 S&P groups significantly lower. The only three sectors to advance were the defensive-oriented consumer staples (+0.5%), real estate (+1.1%), and utilities (+2.3%) groups.

Stocks initially opened flat, but soon began ticking lower before doing a nose dive in the late afternoon.

AT&T (T 30.36, -2.66, -8.1%) and Texas Instruments (TXN 92.01, -8.24, -8.2%) weighed on their respective communication services and information technology sectors with disappointing earnings reports on Wednesday. Telecom giant AT&T missed earnings expectations, citing its recent acquisitions and accounting changes. Likewise, chipmaker Texas Instruments reported below-consensus revenue and issued a Q4 earnings warning, acknowledging that demand has slowed for its products across most markets.

Texas Instruments' earnings warning weighed on chipmakers, as investors expressed concerns over a potential economic slowdown that could be prolonged if macro issues, like a trade war with China, worsen. STMicroelectronics (STM 13.69, -2.18) also fell, losing 13.7%, after lowering its guidance, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 6.6% -- now down 16.1% for the month.

However, Dow component Boeing (BA 354.65, +4.60, +1.3%) reported better-than-expected top and bottom lines and raised its earnings guidance, giving futures and the Dow a boost in early action. The defense company's upbeat report, however, was construed as company-specific news, as the Dow and industrials sector (-3.4%) quickly rolled over. Boeing closed a ways off its high (+4.2%).

Disappointing New Home Sales for September (553,000 actual vs 625,000 Briefing.com consensus) helped accelerate losses in the morning, and selling steepened after the Fed indicated in its Fed Beige Book for September that manufacturing prices continued to rise, attributed to tariffs. On a positive note, the Fed reported that economic activity grew at a modest to moderate pace.

Separately, Treasuries ended Wednesday on a higher note again, as the increase in demand for the "risk-free" assets continued to push yields down from recent multi-year highs. The Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield closed two basis points lower at 2.86%, and the benchmark 10-yr yield closed four basis points lower at 3.12%.

In politics, police intercepted bombs mailed to high-profile Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as well as CNN.
Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the weekly Mortgage Applications Index, the FHFA Housing Price Index for August, and New Home Sales for September:

New home sales declined 5.5% month-over-month in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 553,000 (Briefing.com consensus 625,000). That was the weakest pace since December 2016 and it followed on the heels of a sharp downward revision for August to 585,000 (from 629,000).
The key takeaway from the report is that it underscores how demand is being impacted by rising mortgage rates. Median and average home prices were both down year-over-year, yet that didn't seem to provide much of a lift for new home sales.
FHFA Housing Price Index for August increased 0.3%, lower than the revised 0.4% increase in July (from 0.2%).
The weekly Mortgage Applications Index rose 4.9%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive on Thursday the Durable Goods Orders report for September, the weekly Initial Claims report, the advance readings for September International Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories, and September Pending Home Sales.

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S&P 500 -0.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.4% YTD

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Upbeat Earnings Underpin S&P 500 Rebound
25-Oct-18 16:20 ET
Dow +401.13 at 24984.55, Nasdaq +209.93 at 7318.52, S&P +49.47 at 2705.71

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks staged a welcome rebound on Thursday, but not before giving up some gains in the last hour. Reassuring earnings reports from high-profile and widely-held companies, and the underlying sense that market conditions had become oversold, underpinned the rally.

The S&P 500 climbed back into positive territory for the year, closing 1.9% higher on Thursday, as the consumer discretionary (+3.4%), information technology (+3.3%), and communication services (+2.7%) sectors posted strong gains to pace the broad market advance.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.6%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 3.0%, and the Russell 2000 gained 2.2%.

Heavyweight Microsoft (MSFT 108.30, +5.98) powered the recently struggling information technology sector, closing 5.8% higher after reporting above-consensus top and bottom lines. In addition, the Dow component remained upbeat on its fiscal second quarter outlook. For the month, the information technology sector is still down 7.9%.

Tesla (TSLA 314.86, +26.36, +9.1%) and Twitter (TWTR 31.80, +4.26, +15.5%) provided ammunition for momentum stocks after comfortably exceeding earnings expectations. Tesla, in fact, surprised investors by turning a profit last quarter. Likewise, the FANG bunch put on a show, led by Amazon (AMZN 1782.17, +117.97) and Alphabet (GOOG 1095.57, +44.86) sporting gains of 7.1% and 4.3%, respectively, ahead of their earnings reports.

In the same spirit, Ford (F 8.99, +0.81, +9.9%), Visa (V 140.52, +6.26, +4.7%), Comcast (CMCSA 35.84, +1.72, +5.0%), American Airlines (AAL 32.37, +2.03, +6.7%), and Whirlpool (WHR 111.34, +7.07, +6.8%) all finished with healthy gains, capitalizing on better-than-expected earnings results.

Interestingly, the market did not pay any heed to some notable warnings from companies on Thursday like it has in recent sessions.

For instance, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 19.27, -3.52, -15.5%) issued a revenue warning for the fourth quarter, and Southwest Air (LUV 49.91, -4.67, -8.6%) acknowledged that it is facing some higher-than-expected cost pressures. Despite the news, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index and the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which house the respective companies, climbed 2.3% and 1.9% apiece.

U.S. Treasuries remained relatively quiet despite the renewed interest in stocks. The Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield was unchanged at 2.86%, while the benchmark 10-yr yield closed one basis point higher at 3.14%. In addition, the U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the dollar against six major currencies, rose 0.2% to 96.67, re-testing a two-month high. Elsewhere, WTI crude settled 0.9% higher at $67.33/bbl, extending its recent rebound after touching a two-month low.

Overseas, the European Central Bank (ECB) left its key interest rates unchanged, as expected. ECB President Draghi said the central bank will continue to monitor risks to the outlook but that the ECB has not talked about extending its quantitative easing program. European markets traded positively amid the news, as Italian budget angst momentarily faded into the background.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Durable Goods orders for September increased 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus -1.8%) after a revised 4.6% increase (from 4.5%) in August. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) after a revised 0.3% increase (from 0.1%) in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that the headline increase was driven by growth in transportation equipment orders and defense aircraft and parts orders while growth in other areas was more of a mixed bag.
Initial claims for the week ending October 20 increased by 5,000 to 215,000 (Briefing.com consensus 211,000). Continuing claims for the week ending October 13 decreased by 5,000 to 1.636 million, which is the lowest level since August 4, 1973.
The key takeaway from the report is that the trend of steadily decreasing initial and continuing claims has been uninterrupted by today's report.
Pending home sales for September increased 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%)
Adv. International Trade in Goods for September were -$76.0 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$74.4 billion)
Adv. Retail Inventories for September +0.1%
Adv. Wholesale Inventories for September +0.3%

Looking ahead, investors will receive the consequential Advance Q3 GDP Report, which is the broadest measure of U.S. economic activity, with the supplementary Q3 GDP Deflator. Also, the final reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for October will be released.

Nasdaq Composite +6.0% YTD
S&P 500 +1.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.1% YTD
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S&P 500 Tumbles as Amazon, Alphabet Disappoint
26-Oct-18 16:20 ET
Dow -296.24 at 24688.31, Nasdaq -151.12 at 7167.40, S&P -46.88 at 2658.83

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/26/s-and-p-500-tumbles-as-amazon-alphabet-disappoint.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 1.7% in a volatile session on Friday, in which it never touched positive territory. Disappointing earnings reports from Amazon (AMZN 162.81, -139.36, -7.8%) and Alphabet (GOOG 1071.47, -24.10, -2.2%) rattled a fragile market pestered by peak-earnings concerns.

The benchmark index briefly dipped into correction territory, characterized by a 10% pullback from a prior high, before it took a sharp turn upwards in late morning trading. Nevertheless, the comeback proved futile, as stocks eventually rolled over again. The 11 S&P 500 sectors all finished lower.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.1%, and the Russell 2000 lost 1.1%.

A stronger-than-expected advance Q3 GDP reading (+3.5% actual vs +3.3% Briefing.com consensus) took a backseat in Friday's trading action to Amazon lowering its fourth quarter revenue guidance and Alphabet missing third quarter revenue expectations. The encouraging headline GDP figure, though, was tempered by the understanding that real final sales, which exclude the change in private inventories, increased just 1.4%, marking the slowest growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2016.

Amazon and Alphabet weighed heavily on the underperforming consumer discretionary (-3.6%) and communication services (-2.4%) sectors, as their disappointments filtered through to other growth stocks, which have been beaten down sharply this month on valuation concerns.

Facebook (FB 145.37, -5.58, -3.7%), Netflix (NFLX 299.83, -13.04, -4.2%), and Apple (AAPL 216.30, -3.50, -1.6%) also backpedaled from notable gains in the previous session, adding pressure to the communication services and information technology (-1.9%) sectors.

In other earnings news, Mohawk Industries (MHK 115.03, -36.04, -23.9%), Western Digital (WDC 44.19, -9.82, -18.2%), and Colgate-Palmolive (CL 59.58, -4.24, -6.6%) contributed to angst over future earnings growth.

Flooring manufacturing company Mohawk cited weakening demand, inflation, and pricing pressures for its lower outlook; Western Digital said customers are being more conservative, resulting in softening demand; and Colgate-Palmolive encountered profit margin pressures from higher raw material and packaging material costs.

Conversely, Dow component Intel (INTC 45.69, +1.38) easily beat consensus revenue and EPS estimates for the third quarter and issued fourth quarter guidance that exceeded analysts' average estimates. Shares of the chip maker finished 3.1% higher.

U.S. Treasuries prices rose, as the market turmoil drove some safe-haven positioning. The 2-yr yield decreased five basis points to 2.81%, and the 10-yr yield dropped six basis points to 3.08%. The U.S. Dollar Index traded 0.3% lower at 96.37, though not far from its two-month high.

Overseas, markets closed on a downbeat note amid the early negative price action in the U.S. market.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Real GDP increased at an annualized rate of 3.5% (Briefing.com consensus 3.3%) while the price deflator checked in at a lower-than-expected 1.7% (Briefing.com consensus 2.1%). Personal spending (PCE) was robust, up 4.0%, which was the strongest pace of growth since the fourth quarter of 2014. PCE contributed 2.69 percentage points to the change in real GDP.
The key takeaway from the report is that real final sales of domestic product, which subtracts the change in private inventories, were up just 1.4% -- the weakest growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2016.
The final October reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment was 98.6, down slightly from the preliminary reading o 99.0 and the final September reading of 100.1.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer sentiment has not been unduly affected by the stock market sell-off or the jump in interest rates. The outlook for consumers is still rooted in feelings about job security.

Looking ahead, investors will receive PCE Prices, Personal Income, and Personal Spending for September on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +3.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1% YTD
S&P 500 -0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.4% YTD

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Stocks Extend October Losses Despite Strong Start
29-Oct-18 16:30 ET
Dow -245.39 at 24442.92, Nasdaq -116.92 at 7050.48, S&P -17.44 at 2641.39

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/29/stocks-extend-october-losses-despite-strong-start.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.7% in another volatile session on Monday, extending its monthly losses to 9.4%. Continued tech weakness shook investor confidence, and reports of another possible round of Chinese tariffs helped accelerate losses in the afternoon.

Stocks opened strong, with the S&P 500 trading as high as 1.8% early on, before gradually losing steam in the afternoon. Particular weakness in leadership stocks within the information technology (-1.8%), communication services (-1.6%), and consumer discretionary (-1.5%) sectors weighed heavily on the broader market.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.0%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.6%, and the Russell 2000 lost 0.4%.

The major averages were already at session lows, with the S&P 500 hovering near its unchanged mark, before the U.S.-China news broke out. Bloomberg reported that the White House is preparing to announce tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports if talks next month between U.S. president Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping fail to ease the trade war.

Nevertheless, the disappointing price action in technology stocks struck a chord with investors because there was an early assumption that the sector would rebound following IBM's (IBM 119.64, -5.15, -4.1%) acquisition of Red Hat (RHT 169.63, +52.95, +45.4%) for an all-cash offer of $190 per share -- a 63% premium over Red Hat's Friday closing price. The hefty premium had energized the market with speculation about additional merger and acquisition potential (and healthy premiums paid) following the steep markdown in prices.

The tech sector's rollover undermined investor confidence in a potential rebound. Facebook (FB 152.09, -3.28, -2.3%), Alphabet (GOOG 1020.08, -51.39, -4.8%) and Netflix (NFLX 284.97, -14.86, -5.0%) dragged the communication services sector lower, while consumer discretionary component Amazon (AMZN 1538.88, -103.93) extended its post-earnings losses, losing 6.3%. Also, the world's largest tech company, Apple (AAPL 212.24, -4.06), lost 1.9%.

Conversely, the heavily-weighted financials sector pared monthly losses with a relatively strong performance on Monday, adding 0.9%. The group, however, traded as high as 2.6% before trimming gains. The financial rally was helped by a calming of contagion risk concerns (for now) with Standard and Poor's maintaining its BBB investment-grade rating for Italy. Similarly, the defensive-oriented real estate (+1.6%), utilities (+1.4%), and consumer staples (+1.1%) sectors had strong performances on Monday, finishing atop the sector standings.

In other markets, Treasury yields closed slightly higher with the 2-yr yield and 10-yr yield adding one basis point each to 2.82% and 3.09%, respectively. Also, the U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 96.63, and WTI crude fell 1.1% to $66.85/bbl.

Overseas, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Monday that she won't be seeking re-election as head of the CDU. The decision follows disappointing results over the weekend for her party in a regional election. Her plan, however, is to remain Chancellor until 2021, after which time she will not pursue any other political posts.

Meanwhile, in Asia, China is reportedly considering a 50% cut in its tax on car purchases. Shares of Ford Motor (F 9.28, +0.30) and General Motors (GM 33.13, +0.48) benefited from the reports, gaining 3.3% and 1.5%, respectively.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included Personal Spending, Personal Income, and the PCE Price Index for September:

Personal income increased 0.2% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) while personal spending jumped 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%).
The PCE Price Index was up 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) while the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%).
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that PCE price inflation decelerated to 2.0% year-over-year from 2.2% in August. Core PCE price inflation held steady at 2.0%. The inflation readings are on par with the Federal Reserve's longer run target, yet they haven't moved to such a degree that they are going to alter the Federal Reserve's current policy stance, which involves an expectation for further gradual rate hikes.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Case-Shiller 20-City Index for August and the Consumer Confidence Index for October on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +2.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.1% YTD
S&P 500 -1.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.8% YTD

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Stocks Finish Strong in S&P 500 Rally
30-Oct-18 16:25 ET
Dow +431.72 at 24874.64, Nasdaq +111.36 at 7161.84, S&P +41.38 at 2682.77

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/30/stocks-finish-strong-in-s-and-p-500-rally.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 1.6% in Tuesday's session, in which it traded mostly in positive territory with all 11 S&P sectors closing higher. The notable gain reduces the benchmark index's month-to-date loss to 7.9% and puts it back into the green for the year (+0.3%).

Tuesday's price action in the S&P 500 oscillated with the volatility in large-cap technology stocks before finally taking a decisive swing upwards in the last hour of trading. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, which had lost as much as 0.7% intraday, closed at its session high with a 1.6% gain.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.8%, and the Russell 2000 added 2.0%.

The S&P 500's most heavily-weighted and battered information technology sector (+1.2%) kept the rally in check, as it was one of Tuesday's underperforming groups. Nevertheless, chipmakers supported the sector and outperformed the broader market, as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed 4.2%. Notable chipmaker NVDIA (NVDA 203.00, +17.38) jumped 9.4%.

Also providing the broader market some lift were the communication services (+2.5%), materials (+2.3%), energy (+2.3%), industrials (+2.0%), and consumer staples (+2.0%) sectors. Communication sector heavyweights Alphabet (GOOG 1036.21, +16.13, +1.6%) and Facebook (FB 146.22, +4.13, +2.9%) led the group higher, with Facebook rallying ahead of its earnings, which were due out following the closing bell.

Amazon (AMZN 1530.42, -8.46, -0.6%), however, continued to disappoint, as it was the only FANG member to post a loss. Shares of the e-commerce giant are down 25.0% from their September 4 record close.

In earnings, Dow components Pfizer (PFE 42.89, -0.34, -0.8%) and Coca-Cola (KO 47.63, +1.17, +2.5%) both reported better-than-expected profits. Pfizer, however, lowered its revenue guidance, while Coca-Cola reaffirmed its guidance. Additionally, former Dow component General Electric (GE 10.18, -0.98) fell 8.8% to its lowest level in nearly a decade after missing top and bottom line expectations and cutting its quarterly dividend from $0.12 per share to $0.01 per share.

Also, an honorable mention goes to Under Armour (UAA 23.23, +5.04) after it soared 27.7% following a better-than-expected earnings report.

In other markets, the U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.4% to 97.00, touching its highest level since June 2017. Also, the yields on the 2-yr and 10-yr Treasury notes added two basis points each to 2.84% and 3.11%, respectively. Meanwhile, WTI crude decreased 1.2% to $66.24/bbl, hovering near a two-month low.

Overseas, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.9% on Tuesday, hitting a fresh low for the year, while China's Shanghai Composite gained 1.0% as the Chinese yuan reached its lowest level since mid 2008. Meanwhile, the Euro Stoxx 50 decreased 0.3% with Germany's DAX closing 0.4% lower.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the Consumer Confidence Index for October and the Case-Shiller 20-City Index for August:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, which revolves heavily around labor market and business conditions, increased to 137.9 in October (Briefing.com consensus 135.8) from a downwardly revised 135.3 (from 138.4) in September. The October reading is the highest since September 2000.
The key takeaway from the report is that strong employment growth continues to underpin favorable consumer attitudes about present-day conditions and the outlook.
The Case-Shiller 20-City Index for August rose 5.5% (Briefing.com consensus 5.9%), and the July increase was left unrevised at 5.9%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, the ADP Employment Change report for October, and the Q3 Employment Cost Index.

Nasdaq Composite +3.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.6% YTD
S&P 500 +0.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.9% YTD

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S&P 500 Ends Bruising October with Back-to-Back Gains
31-Oct-18 16:25 ET
Dow +241.12 at 25115.76, Nasdaq +144.25 at 7306.09, S&P +29.11 at 2711.88

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/10/31/s-and-p-500-ends-bruising-october-with-backtoback-gains.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 1.1% on Wednesday, securing a second straight day of gains to end a bruising October with a monthly loss of 6.9%. Mega-cap technology stocks were in control from the get-go, following Facebook (FB 151.79, +5.57, +3.8%) releasing its third quarter earnings report the previous evening.

The tech-sensitive Nasdaq Composite surged 2.0%, reducing its monthly loss to 9.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.0% to reduce its monthly loss to 5.1%. Small caps underperformed, with the Russell 2000 adding 0.3% to bring its monthly loss to 10.9%.

Facebook's "good enough" earnings report tempered negativity surrounding the stock, and its positive price action proved infectious for the other FANG stocks. Facebook beat earnings expectations and increased its revenue growth outlook, easing nerves after the social network warned of growth-deceleration last quarter. Of note, Facebook is still down 30.2% from its July 25 record close.

Alphabet (GOOG 1076.77, +40.56, +3.9%) and Netflix (NFLX 301.78, +15.97, +5.6%) joined Facebook with noteworthy gains on Wednesday, underpinning the strength in the communication services sector (+2.1%). Likewise, Apple (AAPL 218.86, +5.56, +2.6%) and Amazon (AMZN 1598.01, +67.59, +4.4%), respectively, provided strong support for the outperforming information technology (+2.4%) and consumer discretionary (+1.6%) sectors.

Also, the rate-sensitive and heavily-weighted financials sector outperformed the broader market with a gain of 1.4%. Top-weighted components JPMorgan Chase (JPM 109.02, +2.29) and Bank of America (BAC 27.50, +0.71) provided strong support with respective gains of 2.2% and 2.7%. Financials benefited from a slight steepening of the yield curve, with the 2-yr yield increasing four basis points to 2.88% and the 10-yr yield rising five basis points to 3.16%.

Conversely, underperforming sectors on Wednesday included the defensive-oriented consumer staples (-0.9%), utilities (-1.2%), and real estate (-1.4%) groups. These spaces were the only S&P sectors to finish in negative territory. The consumer staples and utilities sectors, however, were the only sectors to end October with gains, up 2.1% and 1.9%, respectively.

In other earnings, General Motors (GM 36.59, +3.05, +9.1%), eBay (EBAY 29.03, +1.61, +5.9%), T-Mobile US (TMUS 68.55, +4.63, +7.2%), and Automatic Data (ADP 144.08, +6.82, +5.0%) all sported healthy gains after reporting better-than-expected results. On the other hand, Kellogg (K 65.48, -6.38) lost 8.9% after missing bottom line estimates and lowering its adjusted earnings outlook.

Also contributing to the rally was end-of-the-month activity from fund managers and possibly some short-covering activity. There was an underlying expectation for fund managers to boost their portfolio equity weightings following this month's sell-off. Concurrently, it stands to reason that short sellers were covering their positions, as the market enters what is historically a favorable seasonal period.

Separately, WTI crude extended its recent decline, losing 1.3% to $65.31/bbl, reaching its lowest level since August. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a weekly crude oil inventory build of 3.2 million barrels, marking the sixth straight week inventories have risen.

International equity markets finished Wednesday on a higher note. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei gained 2.1% after the Bank of Japan made no changes to its policy stance, and China's Shanghai Composite added 1.4% to notch its second consecutive gain. Meanwhile, the Euro Stoxx 50 tallied a 1.6% gain with France's CAC (+2.3%) leading the advance.

Reviewing Wednesday's batch of economic data, which included the October ADP Employment Change report, the third quarter Employment Cost Index, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The third quarter employment cost index increased 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus +0.7) versus 0.6% in the second quarter. Wages and salaries, which comprise about 70% of compensation costs, increased 0.9%, while benefit costs jumped 0.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it corroborates a trend of rising compensation costs for civilian workers that have been discussed by employers and which have kept the Federal Reserve on a tightening path.
The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 227,000 in October (Briefing.com consensus 180,000), and the September reading was revised to 218,000 (from 230,000).
The weekly Mortgage Applications Index showed a decrease of 2.5% versus an increase of 4.9% in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a flurry of economic data on Thursday, including the October ISM Manufacturing Index, the preliminary Q3 Nonfarm Productivity and Unit Labor Costs report, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, September Construction Spending, and Auto and Truck Sales for October.

Nasdaq Composite +5.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.6% YTD

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Favorable Trade-Related Tweet Sends Stocks Higher
01-Nov-18 16:30 ET
Dow +264.98 at 25380.74, Nasdaq +128.16 at 7434.25, S&P +28.63 at 2740.51

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/1/favorable-traderelated-tweet-sends-stocks-higher.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 added 1.1% for a third straight day of gains on Thursday, as a favorable trade-related tweet by U.S. President Trump lifted stocks from their early downtrend. The benchmark index briefly turned negative in the early going before comfortably trading in positive territory for most of the session.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.1%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.8%, and the Russell 2000 outperformed with a gain of 2.2%.

U.S. President Trump tweeted that he had a "long and very good conversation" with China's President Xi, adding that discussions have been moving along nicely with meetings being scheduled at the upcoming G-20 summit in Argentina. According to a Reuters report, China President Xi confirmed he spoke with President Trump over the phone, expressing his willingness to meet with Mr. Trump at the G-20 summit, hopeful for a stable relationship with the U.S.

Cyclical sectors took the news in stride, as the materials (+3.0%), consumer discretionary (+2.2%), and industrial (+1.7%) groups finished atop the sector standings. The lightly-weighted materials sector was also largely helped by its top-weighted component, DowDuPont (DWDP 58.27, +4.35, +8.1%), beating earnings estimates.

Similarly, chipmakers had a noteworthy performance with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumping 4.6%. The index was pummeled in last month's sell-off, though it has leaped over 10% since its Monday close. Outperformers within the group were Advanced Micro (AMD 20.22, +2.01, +11.0%), On Semiconductor (ON 18.40, +1.40, +8.2%), and Micron (MU 40.12, +2.40, +6.4%).

On the other hand, the utilities (-0.5%) and communication services (+0.1%) sectors greatly underperformed the broader market. The communication services sector was weighed down by underwhelming performances from Alphabet (GOOG 1070.00, -6.77, -0.6%), AT&T (T 30.49, -0.19, -0.6%), and Verizon (VZ 56.05, -1.04, -1.8%). On a related note, employees at Google staged an office-wide walkout to protest the company's handling of sexual misconduct.

In other earnings, music streaming platform Spotify (SPOT 141.16, -8.53) lost 5.7% after it reported a Q3 operating loss above guidance. The company also slightly lowered its fourth quarter monthly active user (MAU) and premium subscriber guidance, which did not bode well for a stock trading in a very competitive space.

Also, e-commerce home decor store Wayfair (W 96.16, -14.15) disappointed investors with a loss of 12.8% after it reported significantly lower-than-expected revenue. The good news for investors, however, is that demand remained strong, and Wayfair upheld Q4 revenue to be in-line with consensus.

Separately, U.S. Treasuries ticked higher on Thursday, pushing the 2-yr yield down four basis points to 2.84% and the 10-yr yield down two basis points to 3.14%. The slight flattening of the yield curve kept gains in check for the rate-sensitive financials sector (+0.5%), as lenders depend on the difference between what they pay for deposits and what they earn on loans.

Overseas, the Bank of England unanimously voted to leave rates unchanged at 0.75% as expected on Thursday. Additionally, the central bank lowered its growth forecasts for 2018 and 2019 by 0.1% in each year to 1.3% and 1.7%, respectively. In Asia, major indices finished mostly higher, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng outperforming with a gain of 1.8%. China's Shanghai Composite ticked 0.1% higher.

Reviewing Thursday's batch of economic data, which included the October ISM Manufacturing Index, the preliminary Q3 Nonfarm Productivity and Unit Labor Costs report, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and the September Construction Spending report:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for October checked in at 57.7% (Briefing.com consensus 59.0%) versus 59.8% in September. It is important to note that the September reading was close to an 18-year high.
The key takeaway from the report is that the pullback is most likely a natural slowing of activity following what has been an impressive acceleration in manufacturing activity on a national level. That point notwithstanding, the deceleration in what has been one of the hottest sectors will feed into the peak-growth narrative that has been prominent of late.
Third quarter productivity increased 2.2% (Briefing.com consensus 2.1%) on the heels of an upwardly revised 3.0% (from 2.9%) in the second quarter. Unit labor costs rose 1.2% (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%) following a downwardly revised 1.1% decline (from -1.0%) in the second quarter.
The key takeaway from the report is that productivity is picking up. The third quarter increase was double the prior 10-quarter average increase of 1.1%. Faster productivity is a springboard for a better standard of living.
Initial claims for the week ending October 27 decreased by 2,000 to 214,000 (Briefing.com consensus 213,000). Continuing claims for the week ending October 20 decreased by 7,000 to 1.631 million, which is the lowest level since July 28, 1973.
The key takeaway from the report is that the low level of initial and continuing claims remains indicative of a tight labor market.
Total construction spending in September was little changed from August (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) following an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from +0.1%) in August.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that there was no growth in public construction spending in September.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation report for October, the Trade Balance for September, and Factory Orders for September.

Nasdaq Composite +7.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.7% YTD
S&P 500 +2.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.6% YTD

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Apple, Conflicting Trade News Drag Market Lower
02-Nov-18 16:30 ET
Dow -109.91 at 25270.83, Nasdaq -77.06 at 7357.19, S&P -17.31 at 2723.20

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/2/apple-conflicting-trade-news-drag-market-lower.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks fell on Friday following conflicting U.S.-China trade reports and softer-than-expected sales guidance from Apple (AAPL 207.48, -14.74, -6.6%). Futures rallied overnight on a Bloomberg report indicating U.S. President Trump asked his cabinet to draft a trade deal, but stocks eventually fell into negative territory after White House officials denied the report.

The S&P 500 lost 0.6%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.0%. Small caps outperformed, with the Russell 2000 adding 0.2%. All four major indices closed solidly higher for the week, adding between 2.4% and 4.3% apiece.

Director of the United States National Economic Council Larry Kudlow confirmed in a CNBC interview that the cabinet was not asked by President Trump to draw up a trade plan for China. Later, as stocks traded at session lows, President Trump reiterated his belief to reporters that the U.S. will reach a trade deal with China. This led stocks to cut their losses in late afternoon trading.

In earnings, Apple raised some red flags after forecasting weaker-than-expected sales for the holiday quarter and announcing it will no longer provide unit-sales data for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac moving forward. The company did beat both top and bottom line estimates though.

On the other hand, energy Dow components Exxon Mobil (XOM 81.95, +1.28, +1.6%) and Chevron (CVX 114.73, +3.56, +3.2%) rose after both reported above-consensus earnings. The energy sector showed relative strength, but still lost 0.1%. On a related note, WTI crude extended its recent downward trend, losing 0.9% to $63.20/bbl and reaching its lowest level since April.

Highlighting Friday's batch of economic data was the influential Employment Situation report for October, which showed a nonfarm payrolls increase of 250,000, higher than the Briefing.com consensus of 190,000. Also, as expected, average hourly earnings increased 0.2%, and the unemployment rate remained at 3.7%.

In short, the strong jobs report validated labor market trends that will keep the Federal Reserve on a tightening path. The CME FedWatch Tool indicated a 80.7% chance of another Fed rate hike in December, up from a 74.5% chance the previous day. The Fed will meet next week, but no rate hike is expected.

Treasuries sold-off with equities on Friday, pushing yields notably higher across the curve. The Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield and benchmark 10-yr yield spiked seven basis points each to 2.91% and 3.21%, respectively, compared to 2.81% and 3.08% yields last week. Also, the U.S. Dollar Index added 0.2% to 96.48.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the Employment Situation report for October, the Trade Balance report for September, and the Factory Orders report for September:

October nonfarm payrolls increased by 250,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 190,000. The prior month's increase was revised to 118,000 from 134,000. Nonfarm private payrolls rose by 246,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 185,000. The previous month's increase was unrevised at 121,000. Average hourly earnings increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), while the previous month's increase was unrevised at 0.3%. The average workweek was reported at 34.5 (Briefing.com consensus 34.5). The unemployment rate remained at 3.7% in October (Briefing.com consensus 3.7%).
The key takeaway from the October employment report is that it is consistent with labor market trends that will keep the Federal Reserve on a tightening path
The Trade Balance Report for September showed a widening in the trade deficit to $54.0 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$53.4B) from a downwardly revised $53.3 billion (from -$53.2 billion) in August.
The key takeaway from the report is the same as last month in that it has yet to confirm the tariff actions are succeeding in cutting the trade deficit with China specifically and in general.
Factory orders increased 0.7% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following an upwardly revised 2.6% increase (from +2.3%) in August. Excluding transportation, orders were up 0.4% for the second straight month.
The key takeaway from the report was the understanding that shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft -- the component that factors into GDP forecasts -- declined for the second straight month.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for October on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.2% YTD
S&P 500 +1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.8% YTD

Week-In-Review: Stocks Stage Rebound Following October Sell-Off

The S&P 500 staged a rebound effort this week, tallying a 2.4% weekly gain. The continued expectation that the market was due for a bounce-back after last month's sell-off, compounded with mostly upbeat earnings and easing trade tensions underpinned the rally. As for the other major averages, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.4%, the tech-sensitive Nasdaq Composite gained 2.7%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 gained 4.3%.

Cyclical sectors were largely the best-performing groups this week, with the lightly-weighted materials sector (+6.1%) and the heavily-weighted financials (+4.4%) sectors leading the advance. The consumer discretionary sector (+4.0%) also had a notable gain. On the downside, utilities was the only group to settle in the red, losing 0.6%.

U.S.-China trade tensions eased this week, with U.S. President Trump saying that he had a "long and very good conversation" with China's President Xi, adding that the two leaders will be getting together at the upcoming G-20 summit in Argentina. There were some conflicting reports as to whether Mr. Trump has asked his cabinet to begin drafting a trade deal, but the president did say he thinks a deal will eventually be reached.

On the earnings front, Facebook's (FB) third quarter report was "good enough" to temper negativity surrounding the stock, helping to ease growth-related worries. Apple (AAPL), on the other hand, raised some red flags after forecasting softer-than-expected revenue guidance for the holiday quarter and announcing that it will no longer provide unit-sales data for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Other notable companies to report earnings this week included Pfizer (PFE), Coca-Cola (KO), Chevron (CVX), Exxon Mobil (XOM), General Motors (GM), eBay (EBAY), T-Mobile US (TMUS), DowDuPont (DWDP), and Starbucks (SBUX), all of which beat estimates. Conversely, results from General Electric (GE), Kellogg (K), Spotify (SPOT), and Wayfair (W) came in below consensus.

In M&A news, IBM (IBM) acquired Red Hat (RHT) over the weekend for an all-cash offer of $190 per share; that represents a 63% premium over Red Hat's October 26 closing price.

Highlighting this week's batch of economic data was the Employment Situation report for October. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 250,000, higher than the Briefing.com consensus of 190,000, while average hourly earnings increased 0.2% as expected. The unemployment rate remained at a nearly 50-year low of 3.7%. The key takeaway from the report is that it is consistent with labor market trends that will keep the Federal Reserve on a tightening path. The U.S. Federal Reserve will be meeting next week, but no rate hike is expected until December.

Overseas, European and Asian stocks rose with Wall Street this week. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that she won't be seeking re-election as head of the CDU, following disappointing results for her party in a regional election. Her plan, however, is to remain Chancellor until 2021. Meanwhile, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan released their latest policy decisions, keeping interest rates unchanged.

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InvestmentHouse - Jobs Report Shows Best Wage Growth in 10 Years (Weekend Newsletter)

https://news.investmenthouse.com/2018/11/the-daily-part-1-of-3-11-3-18_4.html

MARKET SUMMARY

- Stocks try for four straight, cannot hold the move.
- Jobs report solid, shows best wage growth in 10 years. Finally some
money is made again and the Fed wants to tamp it right back down.
- China trade, Fed blamed. The point: market still struggles on news.
- Four day bounce stalls for now as we wait for the various scenarios
to play out.

Friday looked to be a surefire continuation of the upside move that began
Tuesday, even with AAPL's iPhone unit miss. That would have been a follow
through session as it would have occurred on the fourth session following a
reversal -- if volume and the price gains held. It didn't and thus Friday
was no follow through. It was disappointing in that it gave up a nice gain,
but it was not a failure either. After three days of fairly solid upside
the market could not hold an early move and lost some ground. Not the end
of the line in and of itself. It can pause, even fade a session or two,
refresh itself, and then provide the follow through. Or not. If the bounce
was going to fail, this certainly was a point to do just that as the rebound
thus far matched the first relief bounce that failed.

As for AAPL, of course, there will never be another such miss on units --
no, not because AAPL will never miss, it just won't give sales numbers
anymore. For the past three quarters iPhone sales have varied 1% --
stagnation? -- so AAPL figured why release them any longer. Looking at the
trend, it would appear $1000 AAPL phones have hit the saturation point. It
seems that there is only so much appetite for hugely expensive phones that
break just as easily as $200 phones. All the same, AAPL sold $62.9B of
iPhones, gear, and services in Q3. Those are not garbage numbers.

AAPL was down 6.6%, but stocks overall gapped upside when futures opened.
The jobs report hit and was nicely better than expected. Stocks backed off
from morning highs but held upside into the open. Except for NASDAQ at -34.
Stocks opened higher then tailed off, trending lower below the 15 minute
moving average into early afternoon. Positives turned to negatives. The
old high to low. An afternoon bounce pushed RUTX and SP400 slightly
positive and took the large cap indices off their lows, but it was no great
recovery.

SP500 -17.31, -0.63%
NASDAQ -77.07, -1.04%
DJ30 -109.91, -0.43%
SP400 0.04%
RUTX 0.19%
SOX -1.50%
NASDAQ 100 -1.47%

VOLUME: NYSE -4.5%, NASDAQ +7%. A bit of churn or distribution as NASDAQ
bumped the 20 day EMA and sold back. Strongest volume of the week and it was
on a reversal session. That suggests the sellers still have strength.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE -1.3:1, NASDAQ +1.1:1


NEWS/ECONOMY

Why the high to low? Blame Chinese trade, or lack thereof. Trump tweeted
the other day about his great conversation with Xi, and today reports were
that Trump asked his cabinet to draw up a trade deal with China. Surely
that meant a deal was imminent and it would be great and the world would
live happily ever after. No. Larry Kudlow later stated that there was no
new movement with China; the administration was simply doing what you do --
prepare for what you want to accomplish.

Next was jobs. 250K topped the 190K expected and the 118K August (from
134K).

The numbers were all good.

Wages +0.2%, +3.1% year/year. This is a 10 year high. The jobs mix is very
good versus the prior 8 years and the low pay menial jobs created during
those years. Thus you get better wage growth. Manufacturing jobs that were
gone forever, construction jobs, mining -- these are high wage jobs.

Participation: 62.9% versus 62.7%. More people getting back to work.

Where the jobs are:
Manufacturing 32K, +296K this year, roughly 1,000 jobs per day.
Construction 33K
Professional and business services 35K
Healthcare 36K
Transportation, warehousing 24K
Mining 5K
Retail 2K
Leisure and hospitality: 42K. Even with the hurricane, the rest of the
country picked up the slack and more. When it was expected this category
would decline, it surged. It would appear that people have no qualms
spending their Pelosi labeled 'crumbs' they have received from the tax
reform bill.

This is all good news, and the market saw it as such and thus feared it. It
is also important to remember that jobs are a lagging indicator. It is
similar to crowing about last year's Super Bowl win the following season
when your team is now 4-5.


THE MARKET

What does the data -- and the market's reaction to it -- mean?

This just shows how this market is still led around by the nose based upon
the story du jour. Trade, Fed, earnings or earnings, Fed, trade. The Fed,
however, appears dominant with a subtitle called 'midterm elections' that
need to be resolved.

There can be no better indication the markets are still controlled by the
Fed when good news causes stocks to sell. Futures were up early before the
jobs report. The report itself was nothing huge. It was very solid,
blowing past expectations. Futures faded, however, on the report. NASDAQ
was +2 PJ (pre-jobs), but fell to -34 before the open. Stocks opened higher
then trended lower all session. Good news equals continued Fed intervention
equals no reason to fight a Fed that always gets it wrong.

Wage growth, something sought after and the lack thereof lamented for a
decade, is finally moving higher. What should be fantastic news is feared.
So desired but when we start achieving it so feared because . . . the Fed
will do its best to ruin it. Perhaps that is not its intention -- perhaps
it is -- but the history is painfully clear. From a long line of ivory
tower, Phillips Curve worshipping self-styled intellects, e.g. Mr. Broaddus
in the early 2000's to today's Fed members, when we finally enjoy just a
taste of job and wage growth, they want less. Trust me: after 10 years of
less, less is not more. People finally are starting to feel good so let's
crush down that spirit.

Thus, when participation in the jobs market jumped, wages rose 3.1%
annually, the jobs mix was very good -- high paying jobs versus the minimum
wage pay scale jobs of the prior administration -- stocks fall.

The reason, restated: In America, a supposedly republic democracy based on a
free enterprise system, we have turned control of and therefore the value of
our money and our wealth to a group of unelected people who have no clue
even what the real rate of interest is (as Powell admitted a month ago). Yet
this group is trying to set rates above some unknown real rate. Why go to
all the trouble? Just have some chimps from the zoo toss darts at a board
with numbers on it to set the rate. I doubt there would be much drop in
performance. The Fed has morphed into a micromanager of economics versus a
backstop in times of severe market distress. And thus we are forced to hang
on the statements of each member.

And that brings you back to the market's reaction. It is still uncertain of
the path it should take because it has unknowns in the Fed, but at this
juncture I would say the unknowns are NOT whether the Fed will continue
hiking but whether the Fed will react to the slowing economic data. In
other words, the Fed will keep hiking unless something breaks.

The market appears to be acting accordingly as Friday it was unable to hold
what would have been a fourth consecutive session of gains. DJ30 tapped the
50 day EMA on the high and faded to a loss. SP500 and NASDAQ stopped at the
20 day EMA and faded gains to losses.

The first relief move from the selling lasted four sessions. This move is
stronger in terms of volume and breadth, but on the fourth day it lost
ground.

This is where this move makes its first decision of the four scenarios laid
out Thursday. It can roll over here and put in a third leg of selling,
something the pattern shows as a possibility as well as some big names such
as AMZN and NFLX that have rebounded to resistance after sharp selling.

This could also be just a pause after three good upside sessions, a pause to
refresh and continue higher to the 200 day SMA for SP500 and NASDAQ. SP500
was not too far off that level on the Friday high. That is the second
scenario where it its that level, takes a breather while mostly holding the
move, then delivers a follow through.

Third is it stalls and fades to fill the Wednesday upside gap, scares
everyone it is heading down again, then reverses upside with a strong follow
through session of 2+% on a major index with strong volume.

Or you go for number 4, the flat out rollover after a bit more upside. That
certainly fits Friday: a start higher, a rally farther upside, then a
rollover to give the upside back and turn negative.

CHARTS

That said, DJ30 still looks good with a tap at the 200 day SMA on the low
and a rebound off that. It can still set up an inverted head and shoulders
pattern from this setup. It can also still sell off.

NASDAQ is still below the 200 day SMA and less than inspiring with that
large gap from Wednesday below.

SP500 moved closer to the 200 day SMA and turned. It is more like NASDAQ
than DJ30 and has that large gap sitting out there as well. Lots of
resistance.

SOX is not bad. It can idle for a couple of sessions, form a right shoulder,
then be ready to move farther upside. Likely no breakout, but it is setting
up to move and its stocks rallied well on the week. If they take 2 to 3 days
to test that break higher, they will present good buying opportunities. A
group to watch.

SP400 is showing a doji at the 20 day EMA. For this group they must prove
they can make a break higher. They were positive Friday . . .

RUTX shows the same action as SP400, the old doji at the 20 day EMA.
Massively weak, lots to prove, but it too was positive Friday.

LEADERSHIP

SCAANN: A few good most need work. SQ moved up to the 50 day EMA and the
peak of the first bounce; a pause would help the pattern. CRM faded from
the 20 day EMA; still not a great pattern. AMZN doji at the 200 day SMA.
Still bearish. AAPL gapped below the October range. NFLX touched the 20
day EMA and faded. Similar to AMZN. NVDA a lower volume move to the 20 day
EMA.

Retail: WMT held the 10 day EMA and bounced. ULTA recovered nicely with a
3.3% gain. ROST attempting a bounce off the 10 day EMA test, still solid.
DG was off but trending higher. HD, LOW still in the dumpster. FOSL up
again Friday. Still a better group.

Drugs: The winners are narrowing sharply. JNJ still solid but AMGN tanked
after earnings. MRK in a decent test, PFE trying to hang on at the 50 day
MA. Some smaller issues, however, look better, e.g. IMMU.

Telecom: VZ testing after a good break higher. S gapped upside on the week
but still needs work. QCOM looks very interesting still.

Precious metals: Still showing bids. HMY trying to bounce from the 200 day
but AU, ABX look solid.

Semiconductors: A solid week, and with some testing these could be good
entries. INTC faded Friday but is in very good position. If XLNX test this
move it would be a good play. MLNX has a strong week and needs a test.
BRKS is moving though needs some more development. QRVO soared through the
200 day SMA pre-AAPL but then gave that move up afterward. Will see if it
can hold here and set up another upside attempt.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -109.91 points (-0.43%) to close at 25270.83

Nasdaq
Stats: -77.06 points (-1.04%) to close at 7356.99
Volume: 2.9B (+7.01%)

Up Volume: 1.41B (-850M)
Down Volume: 1.42B (+983.73M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.06 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 3.48 to 1

New Highs: 44 (+5)
New Lows: 77 (-1)

S&P
Stats: -17.31 points (-0.63%) to close at 2723.06 NYSE Volume: 985.98M
(-4.40%)

Up Volume: 422.321M (-314.105M)
Down Volume: 551.655M (+261.667M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.33 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 3.02 to 1

New Highs: 27 (-1)
New Lows: 85 (+11)


SENTIMENT

VIX: 19.51; +0.17
VXN: 26.65; +0.53
VXO: 22.56; +1.31

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.93; +0.08


Bulls and Bears:

This now gets at least interesting. Bulls tumbled 6.2 points, now well below
50. Perhaps that is the dam breaking and negative sentiment will ramp. It
is noteworthy that the market rebounded in the aftermath. Bears mad a
significant move, at least for the bears.

Bulls: 44.3 versus 50.5

Bears: 19.8 versus 19.0

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work,
where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always
new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be
coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 44.3 versus 50.5
50.5 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 61.8 versus 60.6 versus 59.0 versus 57.7
versus 60.1 versus 59.6 versus 57.7 versus 57.3 versus 54.9 versus 54.5
versus 54.9 versus 55.3 versus 52.4 versus 47.1 versus 47.6 versus 52.0
versus 55.5 versus 52.9 versus 50.0 versus 49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1
versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6 versus 42.2 versus 49.5 versus 55.5
versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4
versus 66.00

Bears: 19.8 versus 19.0
19.0 versus 18.3 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3
versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6
versus 18.5 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8
versus 17.7 versus 19.2 versus 19.2 versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6
versus 20.8 versus 19.6 versus 19.8 versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8
versus 15.7 versus 15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5
versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1
versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4
versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1
versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 3.22% versus 3.146%. Bonds tanked Friday below the early October
low on a stronger jobs report. Bonds are acting as if things are normal,
more or less, with rates rising as economic data was strong.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 3.146%
versus 3.149% versus 3.119% versus 3.089% versus 3.079% versus 3.126% versus
3.111% versus 3.1692% versus 3.20% versus 3.196% versus 3.1779% versus
3.209% versus 3.165% versus 3.158% versus 3.167% versus 3.146% versus 3.169
versus 3.206% versus 3.233% versus 3.189% versus 3.183% versus 3.061% versus
3.087% versus 3.061% versus 3.052% versus 3.048% versus 3.048% versus 3.085%
versus 3.066% versus 3.068% versus 3.076% versus 3.057% versus 2.99% versus
3.00% versus 2.972% versus 2.963% versus 2.977% versus 2.937%


EUR/USD: 1.13881 versus 1.14019. Euro continues trend lower against the
dollar.

Historical: 1.14019 versus 1.13394 versus 1.13455 versus 1.13760 versus
1.14042 versus 1.13757 versus 1.3972 versus 1.14682 versus 1.14626 versus
1.1538 versus 1.14556 versus 1.14961 versus 1.1578 versus 1.15906 versus
1.15592 versus 1.15901 versus 1.15324 versus 1.4966 versus 1.4916 versus
1.1598 versus 1.15164 versus 1.14762 versus 1.15517 versus 1.15774 versus
1.16038 versus 1.16357 versus 1.17501 versus 1.17658 versus 1.17476 versus
1.17486 versus 1.17772 vs 1.16833 versus 1.16692 versus 1.16858 versus
1.16226 versus 1.16900 versus 1.15863 versus 1.16016 versus 1.15946 versus
1.15534 versus 1.16243 versus 1.16341 versus 1.15832 versus 1.16029 versus
1.1664 versus 1.17035 versus 1.1691 versus 1.16802 versus 1.16216 versus
1.15390 versus 1.15709 versus 1.158 versus 1.1487


USD/JPY: 113.204 versus 112.81. Breaking higher from a short 6 week double
bottom with handle.

Historical: Last below 109 in June 2018: 112.81 versus 112.877 versus
112.876 versus 112.58 versus 111.89 versus 112.391 versus 112.091 versus
112.427 versus 112.680 versus 112.527 versus 112.385 versus 112.553 versus
112.558 versus 111.848 versus 112.222 versus 112.076 versus 112.158 versus
113.01 versus 113.12 versus 113.706 versus 113.894 versus 114.383 versus
113.642 versus 113.690 versus 112.734 versus 112.981 versus 112.811 versus
112.575 versus 112.448 versus 112.247 versus 112.369 versus 111.849 versus
112.06 versus 111.81 versus 111.491 versus 111.608 versus 111.192 versus
111.064 versus 110.680


Oil: 63.14, -0.55. Undercut the June lows as oil sold steadily all week
after a rebound to test the 200 day SMA failed.


Gold: 1233.30, -5.30. Gold broke higher off the 50 day MA Thursday, faded
modestly Friday. Not bad action, suggesting a rally coming.

[ReturntoSender]

S&P 500 Gains in Subdued Session on Monday
05-Nov-18 16:30 ET
Dow +190.87 at 25461.70, Nasdaq -28.14 at 7329.05, S&P +15.25 at 2738.45

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/5/s-and-p-500-gains-in-subdued-session-on-monday.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.6% on a subdued Monday, as investors remained cautious ahead the U.S. congressional midterms elections on Tuesday. Technology stocks largely underperformed, but a strong showing from financial companies helped offset tech losses.

Meanwhile, the tech-sensitive Nasdaq Composite lost 0.4%, though finished well off its session lows, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.8%, and the Russell 2000 was unchanged.

The S&P 500 opened flat but ticked higher throughout the day, especially in the last couple hours of trading. Nevertheless, weakness from the consumer discretionary (-0.2%), information technology (-0.2%), and communication services (-0.3%) sectors kept gains in check.

Apple (AAPL 201.59, -5.89, -2.8%) resumed its post-earnings Friday decline after a report from Japan's Nikkei Asian Review corroborated fears over the company reaching peak iPhone sales. The newspaper indicated that Apple decided to cancel a production increase in its newest low-end iPhone XR; however, the Nikkei also said that demand for the older generation iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus has been higher than expected.

Also, U.S. President Trump said in an interview with Axios that his administration is looking into antitrust violations by Facebook (FB 148.68, -1.67, -1.1%), Alphabet (GOOG 1040.49, -17.70, -1.7%), and Amazon (AMZN 1627.80, -37.73, -2.3%). Likewise, Facebook and Alphabet weighed on the communication sector, while Amazon dragged on the consumer discretionary sector. Of note, a WSJ report stated that Amazon has decided to split its second headquarters into two locations, as its sources stated the decision was rooted in allowing the company to recruit enough tech talent.

Conversely, leadership from the financials sector (+1.4%) helped underpin Monday's advance. Heavily-weighted Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 216.24, +9.67) climbed 4.7% after the conglomerate holding company nearly doubled its Q3 operating earnings to $6.88 billion from $3.44 billion in the same quarter last year.

Other top-performing sectors on Monday were real estate (+1.7%), energy (+1.6%), utilities (+1.4%), and consumer staples (+1.2%).

Elsewhere, U.S. energy and financial sanctions on Iran were officially reimposed at midnight, though the U.S. issued temporary waivers to eight countries on Monday. The waivers are meant to provide the countries time to seek alternatives to Iranian oil and help prevent oil prices from de-stabilizing. WTI crude fell 1.0% to $63.12/bbl.

In China, President Xi reiterated his plans to continue to open China's markets to the world in a keynote speech at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.

Reviewing Monday's only piece of economic data, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for October:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for October checked in at 60.3% (Briefing.com consensus 58.8%). That was down slightly from 61.6% in September, which was the highest reading for the composite index since its inception in 2008.
The key takeaway from the report is that business activity in the non-manufacturing sector is still strong, as the October deceleration can be interpreted at this juncture as a natural slowing following some solid acceleration since July when the index registered 55.7%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the JOLTS - Job Openings report on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD
S&P 500 +2.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.8% YTD

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Stocks Gain in Broad-Based Advance on Election Day
06-Nov-18 16:25 ET
Dow +173.31 at 25635.01, Nasdaq +47.11 at 7376.16, S&P +17.14 at 2755.59

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/6/stocks-gain-in-broadbased-advance-on-election-day.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 added 0.6% for a second consecutive day on Tuesday, as investors awaited results from the U.S. congressional midterm elections. It was a largely broad-based performance, as all 11 S&P sectors finished in positive territory.

Also, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.6%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.7%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.6%.

The stock market opened flat but perhaps found strength from reports indicating that the market has performed well in midterm election years that resulted in a divided Congress. Though results will not be made clear until the early hours, most polls show the Democrats regaining control of the House, while Republicans are expected to retain majority control of the Senate.

Positive trade chatter from China also contributed to Tuesday's gains, with China's Vice President Wang Qishan reiterating China's readiness to discuss a trade resolution with the United States. Likewise, the trade-sensitive materials (+1.5%) and industrial (+1.1%) sectors led the broader market higher.

In earnings, results were mostly positive with CVS (CVS 77.90, +4.21) climbing 5.7% after it reported above-consensus profits. Eli Lilly (LLY 105.90, -4.24) also beat earnings estimates but lost 3.9%, while Booking Holdings (BKNG 1949.46, +78.34) gained 4.2% despite missing earnings estimates. Booking's results were above its prior guidance, though. Also, an honorable mention goes to health care company Mylan N.V. (MYL 36.43, +5.06) after it surged 16.1% after it reported better-than-expected earnings.

Separately, WTI crude dropped 1.5% to settle at $62.19/bbl after U.S. President Donald Trump granted temporary waivers on Monday to eight countries that import oil from Iran. The decision fueled an already weakening oil market that has seen crude prices decline nearly 20.0% from its recent four-year high in October. Despite the drop in crude, the oil-sensitive energy sector ticked higher by 0.3%, although it was down as much as 0.8% intraday.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasury yields inched higher with the 2-yr yield adding two basis points to 2.92% and the 10-yr yield increasing one basis point to 3.21%. Yields have been gradually reascending to multi-year highs after declining at the end of October. Also, the U.S. Dollar Index remained unchanged at 96.30.

In Europe, the major indices closed on a lower note with the Euro Stoxx 50 losing 0.3%. UK's FTSE led the decline with a loss of 0.9%.

Reviewing Tuesday's sole economic report, the Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for September:

The September Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 7.009 million from a revised 7.293 million (from 7.136 million) in August.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Application Index and the Consumer Credit report for September on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.7% YTD
S&P 500 +3.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.3% YTD

[ReturntoSender]

Stocks Jump with Midterm Elections Producing Split Congress
07-Nov-18 16:25 ET
Dow +545.29 at 26180.30, Nasdaq +194.79 at 7570.95, S&P +58.44 at 2814.03

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/7/stocks-jump-with-midterm-elections-producing-split-congress.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 confidently finished with a gain of 2.1% on Wednesday with the benchmark index now up 6.4% since its close on October 29. Wednesday's advance follows the conclusion of U.S. congressional midterm elections that produced a split Congress.

The prevailing assumption in the market was that a newly divided Congress would preserve market-friendly policies, namely the tax cut and deregulation efforts. U.S. President Donald Trump also mentioned on Wednesday bipartisan efforts to work with the Democrats in the House on infrastructure, trade, and lowering drug costs.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.1%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 2.6%, and the Russell 2000 gained 1.7%.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in positive territory with the consumer discretionary (+3.1%), health care (+2.9%), and information technology (+2.9%) groups leading the sector standings with strong gains. Health care companies rose with the belief that a split Congress would also make it unlikely that it will fully repeal the Affordable Care Act. On a related note, heavily-weighted health care component Humana (HUM 353.98, +22.17) jumped 6.7% after it reported above-consensus earnings and raised its guidance.

Also, the tech sector welcomed a strong showing from its top-weighted components. Apple (AAPL 209.95, +6.18, +3.0%), Microsoft (MSFT 111.96, +4.24, +3.9%), Visa (V 144.78, +3.99, +2.8%), and MasterCard (MA 208.24, +9.09, +4.6%) all provided the sector a much-needed lift. Within the consumer discretionary group, Amazon (AMZN 1755.49, +112.68) carried the sector with an impressive gain of 6.9%.

Conversely, the defensive-oriented real estate (+1.1%), utilities (+1.1%), and consumer staples (+0.6%) sectors underperformed the broader market, though still finished with healthy gains. Heavyweight utilities component Southern (SO 47.01, +1.34) rose 2.9% after it beat earnings expectations.

In other earnings, some smaller, but well-known, companies that had notable post-earnings performances were Etsy (ETSY 50.01, +9.58, +23.7%), Office Depot (ODP 3.41, +0.66, +24.0%), Michael Kors (KORS 49.05, -8.40, -14.6%), and Groupon (GRPN 2.92, -0.35, -10.6%). Etsy and Office Depot both beat earnings and raised their guidance; Michael Kors beat earnings estimates but lowered its fiscal Q3 guidance below consensus, and Groupon missed earnings expectations.

Of note, pot stocks surged after Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned his post effective immediately per President Trump's request. Mr. Sessions was an influential critic of legalizing marijuana and served as roadblock to advance the national conversation. Well-known cannabis companies Tilray (TLRY 139.60, +32.74) and Canopy Growth (CGC 46.07, +3.48) rose 30.6% and 8.2%, respectively.

Cannabis stocks were already on the rise after several more states voted to legalize recreational or medical marijuana. Michigan became the 10th state to legalize its recreational use, and Utah and Missouri passed initiatives to join 31 other states that already legalize its medical use.

In other markets, U.S. Treasuries finished roughly flat with the 10-yr yield unchanged at 3.21%. Also, the U.S. Dollar decreased 0.2% to 96.10. Separately, WTI crude lost 0.9% to settle at $61.65/bbl, extending its recent decline to nearly 20.0% from its four-year high last month. The Energy Information Administration reported a weekly crude inventory build of 5.8 million barrels last week, marking the seventh consecutive week of stockpile builds.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the Consumer Credit report for September:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index showed a decline of 4.0%, a decrease from the prior week's decline of 2.5%.
Total outstanding consumer credit increased by $11.0 billion in September after increasing an upwardly revised $22.8 billion (from $20.1 billion) in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects a deceleration in credit expansion that could contribute to concerns about the U.S. economy hitting/nearing peak growth.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and the FOMC Rate Decision for November on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +9.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.9% YTD
S&P 500 +5.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +3.0% YTD

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Apple, Chip Stocks Lead Market Sell-Off
12-Nov-18 16:25 ET
Dow -602.12 at 25387.18, Nasdaq -206.03 at 7201.07, S&P -54.79 at 2726.36

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/12/apple-chip-stocks-lead-market-selloff.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 2.0% on Monday, as Apple (AAPL 194.17, -10.30, -5.0%) and semiconductor companies dragged on the broader market. The rout in the information technology sector (-3.5%) underpinned the benchmark index's retreat below its 200-day moving average (2762.39) and wiped out monthly gains for the tech-sensitive Nasdaq Composite, which lost 2.8% on Monday.

Also, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.3%, and the Russell 2000 lost 2.0%.

The market decline was triggered by Apple supplier Lumentum (LITE 37.50, -18.45, -33.0%) cutting its guidance due to a large, unnamed customer requesting to reduce shipments of laser diodes for 3D sensing. It is widely assumed that Apple is the customer in question, as it accounted for 30% of LITE's fiscal 2018 net revenue and uses laser diodes for its iPhone Face ID technology. This marks the second Apple supplier in as many weeks to have issued guidance warnings.

Chip stocks, subsequently, posted heavy losses, as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 4.4%. Unsurprisingly, Apple chip suppliers Qorvo (QRVO 63.80, -4.35, -6.4%), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 72.84, -3.82, -5.0%), and Cirrus Logic (CRUS 35.64, -5.74, -13.9%) underperformed. Meanwhile, notable chipmaker NVIDIA (NVDA 189.54, -16.13) erased yearly gains with a loss of 7.8%, and Advanced Micro (AMD 19.03, -2.00) lost 9.5%, though still sports a sizable yearly gain of 85.1%.

The lack of investor confidence in growth stocks also manifested itself in the other FANG names. Facebook (FB 141.55, -3.41, -2.4%), Alphabet (GOOG 1038.63, -27.52, -2.6%), and Netflix (NFLX 294.07, -9.40, -3.1%) weighed on the communication services (-1.5%) sector, and Amazon (AMZN 1636.85, -75.58, -4.1%) led the consumer discretionary sector (-2.3%) lower.

Conversely, real estate (+0.2%) was the only sector to finish with gains on Monday. The utilities (unch) and consumer staples (-0.7%) sectors also showed relative strength.

Of note, former Dow component General Electric's (GE 7.99, -0.59) struggles continued with a loss of 6.9%. CEO Larry Culp said the company's biggest priority is to bring down leverage levels and has plenty of opportunity to do that through asset sales. Also, Dow component Goldman Sachs (GS 206.05, -16.60) fell 7.5%. The investment management company is reportedly being pressed by Malaysia for a full refund of around $600 million over alleged fraudulent activity regarding the 1MDB investment fund Goldman Sachs set up for it.

In energy, Saudi Arabia announced it will reduce its oil exports in December by 500,000 barrels a day due to a seasonal slowdown in demand. The world's largest oil exporter also thinks a 1 million barrel per day cut by oil producers from October production levels might be necessary. United States President Donald Trump, in turn, tweeted his opposition to OPEC's desire to cut oil production, saying that oil prices should be lower based on supply. President Trump's tweet dampened an early WTI crude rebound, which backpedaled 0.5% to settle at $59.84/bbl.

Separately, the bond market was closed on Monday in observance of Veterans Day, and investors did not receive any notable economic data.

Elsewhere, Asian markets added slim gains with China's Shanghai Index showing relative strength (+1.2%). China-based e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA 142.82, -2.03) recorded the biggest online shopping day in history on Sunday after it tallied $30.8 billion in sales. Shares slipped 1.4% on Monday, though. In Europe, the major indices closed on a lower note with Germany's DAX (-1.9%) leading the retreat.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for October and the Treasury Budget for October on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +4.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.7% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.1% YTD

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Energy Stocks Weigh on Broader Market as Crude Drops
13-Nov-18 16:30 ET
Dow -100.69 at 25286.49, Nasdaq +0.01 at 7201.08, S&P -4.04 at 2722.32

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/13/energy-stocks-weigh-on-broader-market-as-crude-drops.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 coughed up a morning rebound effort to close Monday with a loss of 0.2%. The benchmark index had climbed as high as 1.0% amid early U.S.-China trade optimism, but energy stocks eventually led the broader market lower as oil prices tanked.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%, the Nasdaq Composite finished flat, and the Russell 2000 lost 0.3%.

WTI crude fell 7.0% to $55.67/bbl, extending its losing streak to 12 straight sessions and settling at its lowest level since November 2017. Crude extended losses in the wake of OPEC's monthly supply report, in which it cut its 2019 oil demand forecast for the fourth consecutive month. Likewise, the oil-sensitive energy sector dropped 2.4%, and energy component Haliburton (HAL 32.27, -1.89) surrendered 5.5%.

With Tuesday's losses, the S&P 500 energy sector is down 13.9% since the start of October while WTI crude has plummeted 27.6% from its October 3 high. Falling oil prices have been a major factor with the sector's performance, as investors have called earnings prospects into question.

Nevertheless, leading the S&P sector standings on Tuesday were the financials (+0.6%), industrials (+0.5%), and utilities (+0.4%) sectors. The trade-sensitive industrials group had a relatively strong performance after National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow confirmed that the U.S. and China have resumed trade discussions.

The information technology sector added a slim gain of 0.1% but traded as high as 1.8%. Apple (AAPL 192.23, -1.94) lost 1.0% amid another guidance warning from one of its suppliers, Qorvo (QRVO 63.65, -0.15, -0.2%), which cut its guidance due to "recent demand changes for flagship smartphones." The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index added 1.4% to follow the prior session's drop of 4.4%.

Separately, Boeing (BA 349.51, -7.52, -2.1%) was pressured by a Wall Street Journal report, which cited safety experts alleging Boeing withheld information about a new flight-control feature that may have contributed to the Lion Air crash in October.

In earnings, Dow component Home Depot (HD 179.00, -0.43, -0.2%) was unable to provide support to the blue-chip average despite an upbeat report. The home improvement retailer beat profit estimates and raised its earnings guidance for its fiscal year.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries jumped, pushing yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield lost five basis points to 2.88%, and the 10-yr yield lost four basis points to 3.15%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 97.19.

Overseas, global markets edged mostly higher on Tuesday with China's Shanghai Composite (+0.9%) and Germany's DAX (+1.3%) showing relative strength.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for October and the Treasury Budget for October:

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for October (Briefing.com consensus 108.0) decreased to 107.4 from last month's reading of 107.9.
The Treasury Budget for October showed a deficit of $100.5 billion versus a deficit of $63.2 billion for the same period a year ago. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the October deficit cannot be compared to the $119.1 billion surplus for September.
The budget deficit over the last 12 months has totaled $817.3 billion

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for October and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +4.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.4% YTD

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Trade Optimism, Apple Lead Broader Market Higher
15-Nov-18 16:25 ET
Dow +208.77 at 25289.27, Nasdaq +122.64 at 7259.24, S&P +28.62 at 2730.34

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/15/trade-optimism-apple-lead-broader-market-higher.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 1.1% on Thursday to snap a five-session losing streak. U.S.-China trade optimism and strength from tech stocks, particularly Apple (AAPL 191.41, +4.61, +2.5%), contributed to the broader market overcoming its morning struggles.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.8%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.7%, and the Russell 2000 gained 1.4%.

More news surrounding U.S-China trade developments helped fuel an afternoon rally. A Financial Times report suggested China and the U.S. are trying to reach a trade truce ahead of the G-20 meeting at the end of the month. This should not be seen as anything particularly new, though, since similar reports were out earlier in the week.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross chimed in that he believes the G-20 meeting will be a 'big picture' meeting and does not expect a deal by end of the year. Nevertheless, the positive response caught some participants off guard and probably prompted some short-covering action. The trade-sensitive industrials sector finished with gain of 1.3%.

Also, the market already had some some support leading up to the news from the information technology (+2.5%), energy (+1.5%), financials (+1.4%), and materials (+1.4%) sectors.

Apple showed some resiliency after entering the session with a monthly loss of 14.7%. Morgan Stanley defended the stock, saying that it is currently a buying opportunity; the company also sees a price target of $253/share and is 'Overweight' on the stock. Also within the tech space, chipmakers put on a good showing, as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained 3.3%, extending its winning streak to three sessions.

Within the financials group, heavyweights JPMorgan Chase (JPM 110.07, +2.74, +2.6%) and Bank of America (BAC 27.90, +0.69, +2.5%) helped lift the sector. Of note, Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 217.38, +1.35, +0.6%) disclosed it initiated new positions in some financial companies including JPMorgan and also increased its positions in Bank of America and other notable financial companies.

Conversely, the utilities and real estate sectors underperformed with respective losses of 0.8% and 0.9%. Utilities component PG&E (PCG 17.74, -7.85) weighed on the sector after sinking 30.7% to follow yesterday's 21.8% plunge. Of note, natural gas, which utility companies use for generating electric power, pulled back 15.6% to $4.05/MMBtu after yesterday's 17.1% spike.

Homebuilders had a rough day after KB Home (KBH 17.61, -3.19, -15.3%) lowered its fourth quarter guidance and reported quarter-to-date orders to be down 14%. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 30.37, -0.74) lost 2.4%, extending deeper into bear market territory for the year with a 2018 loss of 30.5%. Negative investor sentiment carried over to home improvement retailers Home Depot (HD 177.36, -2.54, -1.4%) and Lowe's (LOW 93.68, -1.23, -1.3%), which helped keep the consumer discretionary sector (unch) in check.

In earnings, Dow components Wal-Mart (WMT 99.54, -1.99, -2.0%) and Cisco Systems (CSCO 46.77, +2.44, +5.5%) reported upbeat reports but finished mixed. Wal-Mart beat earnings estimates and raised its 2019 fiscal year guidance, and Cisco beat top and bottom lines estimates.

In other markets, U.S. Treasuries gave up early gains, returning yields to their unchanged marks. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished flat at 3.12%. WTI crude rose for the second straight session, adding 0.5% to $56.44/bbl, though is still well-off its October 3 high of $76.90/bbl. Also, the EIA's weekly crude oil inventory report showed that U.S. crude stockpiles rose by a higher-than-expected 10.3 million barrels last week -- marking the eighth straight week of crude inventory builds.

Elsewhere, political uncertainty continued to play a factor in European markets. Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, and several other ministers, resigned a day after UK Prime Minister Theresa May received cabinet approval for her draft withdrawal statement. The resignations put pressure on Ms. May's leadership position and the fate of the Brexit plan in the British Parliament. The British pound fell 1.7% to 1.2777.

Also, press reports indicated that Italian League economic adviser Borghi is making waves about Italy possibly leaving the eurozone if the Italian League wins a majority in the next election.

Reviewing Thursday's batch of economic data, which included Retail Sales for October, weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, Empire Manufacturing Survey for November, Import and Export Prices for October, Philadelphia Fed Index for November, and Business Inventories for September:

Total retail sales increased 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following a downwardly revised 0.1% decline (from +0.1%) in September. Excluding autos, retail sales jumped 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following an unrevised 0.1% decline in September.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects healthy consumer spending activity that will provide a positive input for Q4 GDP forecasts. Core retail sales, which exclude auto, gas station, building equipment and materials, and food services sales, jumped 0.3%.
Initial claims for the week ending November 10 increased by 2,000 to 216,000 (Briefing.com consensus 214,000). Continuing claims for the week ending November 3 increased by 46,00 to 1.676 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that the weekly increases did very little to alter trends in the four-week moving average for both series, which remain near historic lows and indicative of a tight labor market.
Import prices increased 0.5% in October. Excluding fuel, they were up 0.2%. Export prices increased 0.4%. Excluding agricultural exports, they were up 0.5%.
The key takeaway from the report is that nonfuel import prices remain tame, up just 0.7% year-over-year, versus 1.4% for the 12-months ending October 2017.
The Empire Manufacturing Survey for November increased to 23.3 (Briefing.com consensus 20.0) from 21.1 in October, bolstered by an increase in the index for shipments, inventories, the number of employees, and prices paid.
The key takeaway from the report, which uses 0.0 as the dividing line between expansion and contraction, is that manufacturing activity in the New York Fed region continues to run at a good pace.
The Philadelphia Fed Index for November fell to 12.9 (Briefing.com consensus 20.5) from 22.2 in October, as most component indexes fell back from stronger levels.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing growth slowed in the Philadelphia Fed region in November, yet it still remains in an expansion mode with a reading above 0.0.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for October and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for August on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +5.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.3% YTD
S&P 500 +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.7% YTD

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Broader Market Gets Lift from More Trade Chatter; Chip Stocks Weigh
16-Nov-18 16:30 ET
Dow +122.95 at 25412.22, Nasdaq -11.16 at 7248.08, S&P +6.07 at 2736.41

briefing.com

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 chipped in a 0.2% gain on Friday after President Donald Trump again signaled China's desire to make a deal on trade. Disappointing guidance from chipmakers, however, kept gains in check. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.2%. For the week, the S&P 500 declined 1.6%.

Speaking from the White House, President Trump reiterated his claim that China wants to make a trade deal. He said that China sent a "large" list of things they're willing to do, but the list is not yet in-line with the President's standards. Nevertheless, the market, desperate for a positive solution on trade, reacted positively to the comments.

Also, a dovish perspective from Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida on Friday helped ease some early angst.

Mr. Clarida thinks the Fed is getting closer to a neutral rate, which is a somewhat contrasting view from Fed Chair Jerome Powell in October who said the Fed is still a "long way from neutral." The Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield subsequently dropped six basis points to 2.80%, and the benchmark 10-yr yield lost four basis points to 3.07%. The U.S. Dollar lost 0.5% to 96.46.

Proving strong support for the broader market were the real estate (+1.4%), utilities (+1.3%), energy (+1.1%), materials (+1.0%), and health care (+1.0%) sectors, which combine for roughly 30% of the S&P 500's market capitalization.

Conversely, the top-weighted information technology sector shed 0.1%, though recouped most of its losses largely due to resiliency from Apple (AAPL 193.53, +2.12, +1.1%). Discouraging guidance from NVIDIA (NVDA 164.43, -37.96, -18.8%) and Applied Materials (AMAT 35.40, +0.38, +1.1%) weighed on the sector early. Weaker-than-expected chip demand, which left NVIDIA with excess inventory, led to fourth quarter revenue and EPS guidance that was well below current consensus estimates. Applied Materials also lowered its top and bottom line guidance below consensus but was able to add some gains. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 1.2%.

Facebook (FB 139.53, -4.32) weighed on the communication services sector (-0.4%) with a loss of 3.0%. On-going negative publicity surrounding the company has helped pull the stock back to its lowest level since April 2017. Also, Amazon (AMZN 159.41, -26.03, 1.6%) and retail companies dragged on the lagging consumer discretionary sector (-0.5%).

Retail companies continued to struggle after Nordstrom (JWN 50.93, -8.06, -13.7%) and Williams-Sonoma (WSM 53.76, -6.80, -11.2%) released mixed earnings reports. Nordstrom reported a significant one-time charge that knocked EPS lower by $0.28, and its revenue and its full-price comparable sales figures were on the softer side. Williams-Sonoma guided its revenue to the low end of Wall Street estimates. Both companies beat earnings expectations, though. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 46.46, -0.65) lost 1.4% today and 4.5% this week.

Separately, WTI crude added 0.1% to $56.52/bbl, extending its rebound effort to its third straight session after snapping a 12-session losing streak.

Overseas, reports from the United Kingdom indicated that the 1922 Committee received 48 letters needed to trigger a vote of no-confidence in Prime Minister Theresa May. UK's FTSE shed 0.4%, and the British pound rose 0.4% to 1.2830 against the dollar, which is far from a frantic move in the market that should be most impacted by Brexit fears.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for October and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for August:

Industrial production increased 0.1% in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following a downwardly revised 0.2% increase (from +0.3%) in September. The capacity utilization rate dipped to 78.4% from an upwardly revised 78.5% (from 78.1%) in September, which was the highest rate since January 2015.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing output increased for the fifth straight month despite a big drop in motor vehicle assemblies, which underscores solid activity otherwise for the manufacturing base.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the NAHB Housing Market Index on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +5.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.8% YTD
S&P 500 +2.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.5% YTD

Week In Review: Stocks Lose Ground Over Continuing Growth Concerns

Wall Street tumbled this week, with consumer discretionary and information technology stocks leading the retreat.

Concerns over peak earnings growth continued to linger, and a further breakdown in oil prices also weighed on investor sentiment. Brexit reentered the mix this week, and, as always, U.S.-China trade headlines were plentiful. The S&P 500 lost 1.6%, the Dow lost 2.2%, the Nasdaq lost 2.2%, and the Russell 200 lost 1.4%.

Within the tech space (-2.5%), Apple (AAPL) got off to a rough start after two more suppliers, Lumentum (LITE) and Qorvo (QRVO), cut their guidance. Disappointing guidance from chipmakers NVIDIA (NVDA) and Applied Materials (AMAT) also weighed on the sector, with NVIDIA plunging nearly 20% on Friday.

Meanwhile, a host of retailers reported earnings this week, including Walmart (WMT), Macy's (M), Home Depot (HD), and Nordstrom (JWN) to name a few. The reports generally showed better-than-expected profits, but shares sold off in response nonetheless. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) lost 4.5%, while the consumer discretionary sector lost 3.8%.

The oil-sensitive energy space (-2.1%) fell in tandem with WTI crude, which dropped 6.1% to $56.52/bbl and extended its losing streak to 12 sessions before bouncing back.

Saudi Arabia announced it would reduce its oil exports in December by 500,000 barrels a day due to a seasonal slowdown in demand, but President Trump rebuked that decision on Twitter. There were also reports that OPEC and non-OPEC allies could be entertaining a plan to cut production by 1.4 million barrels per day in 2019. However, OPEC cut its 2019 oil demand forecast for the fourth consecutive month.

In Washington, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who is set to take over the House Financial Services Committee this January, vowed that the days of weakening bank regulations will be coming to an end. Ms. Waters' comments should not have been seen as a surprise as it was understood this would likely be the case following the midterm election results. However, a knee-jerk sell off in the financial space, which finished the week lower by 1.3%, suggested otherwise.

Conversely, outperforming the broader market were the lightly-weighted real estate (+0.8%), materials (+0.4%), and the heavily-weighted health care (-1.1%) spaces.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries saw heightened demand amid market turbulence and a softer-sounding perspective from Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida. Mr. Clarida conceded on Friday that he thinks the Fed is getting closer to a neutral rate, which is a dovish stance compared to Fed Chair Jerome Powell's "long way from neutral" comments from last month. The 2-yr yield lost 13 basis points to close at 2.80%, and the 10-yr yield lost 12 basis points to close at 3.07%.

This week saw the market bounce on any U.S.-China trade development no matter if the news was new or repetitive.

A Financial Times report suggested China and the U.S. are trying to reach a trade truce ahead of the G-20 meeting at the end of the month, but clarification from the U.S. Trade Representative's office said that the next round of tariffs for China are not on hold. President Donald Trump chimed in that China is open to a trade deal, though a list of concessions reportedly presented from China before did not mention structural reforms that have been demanded by President Donald Trump.

At the very least, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow did confirm that the U.S. and China have resumed trade discussions.

Overseas, UK Prime Minister Theresa May received cabinet approval for her draft withdrawal statement for Brexit. However, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, and several other ministers, resigned after the approval, and reports indicate that the 1922 Committee received 48 letters needed to trigger a vote of no-confidence in Prime Minister Theresa May. The vote could take place next week.

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Tech Rout Leads Broader Market Lower
19-Nov-18 16:25 ET
Dow -395.78 at 25016.44, Nasdaq -219.40 at 7028.68, S&P -45.54 at 2690.87

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/19/tech-rout-leads-broader-market-lower.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 tumbled 1.7% on Monday, as a rout in widely-held tech stocks led the broader market lower. A lack of leadership and the continued inclination to sell into strength have translated into a lack of buying interest.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.6%, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.0%, and the Russell 2000 dropped 2.0%.

The S&P information technology sector (-3.8%) was the main problem on Monday. It has been prone to liquidation efforts that have aimed to reduce exposure to a crowded sector running into concerns about a cyclical slowdown, valuations, and increased regulatory scrutiny. The tech group underperforms the 11 S&P sectors in November with a monthly loss of 5.5%.

Apple (AAPL 185.86, -7.67, -4.0%) shares took a hit after a Wall Street Journal report indicated the company cut its production orders for all three new iPhones it launched in September. Regarding the iPhone XR, Apple reportedly slashed its production plan by up to a third of the approximately 70 million units it had asked some suppliers to produce between September and February. Apple stock has been under pressure since providing a disappointing outlook for the holiday quarter on November 1.

Negative sentiment surrounding Apple trickled down to its suppliers and chip stocks in general. Suppliers Qorvo (QRVO 63.15, -3.17, -4.8%), Lumentum (LITE 39.44, -3.08, -5.0%), and Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 70.76, -2.19, -3.0%), all of which cut their guidance this month over presumed weakened demand for iPhones, greatly underperformed. Similarly, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index posted a loss of 3.9%, in which NVIDIA (NVDA 144.70, -19.73) extended its post-earnings decline with a steep loss of 12.0%.

Facebook (FB 131.55, -7.98, -5.7%), Netflix (NFLX 270.60, -15.61, -5.5%), Alphabet (GOOG 1020.00, -41.49, -3.9%), and Amazon (AMZN 1512.29, -81.12, -5.1%) also suffered notable losses, helping pull the communication services (-2.6%) and consumer discretionary (-2.7%) sectors lower.

Facebook shares continued to struggle amid on-going negative publicity surrounding the social network. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was reportedly not happy with COO Sheryl Sandberg for the reaction to the Cambridge Analytical scandal, according to a WSJ report. Also in the report, Mr. Zuckerberg's newly-adopted, aggressive leadership style has not fared well with key executives, some of whom have resigned.

Conversely, the utilities (+0.5%) and real estate (+0.3%) sectors helped provide some comfort for the broader market, and the heavily-weighted financial space outperformed, settling near its unchanged mark. The oil-sensitive energy group (-0.1%) found some reprieve from WTI crude rising 1.4% to $57.31/bbl, which held onto a rebound effort after what many saw as a short-term oversold condition in crude prices last week.

In other news, CNBC reported that China regulators approved Dow component Walt Disney's (DIS 115.42, -0.77, -0.7%) acquisition of 21st Century Fox (FOXA 48.91, +0.75, +1.6%) on Monday. China's unconditional approval joins conditional agreements already made from the U.S. and EU, though the deal still needs regulatory consent from several more countries.

Separately, Treasuries advanced amid the market sell-off, extending the recent decline in yields. The 2-yr yield lost three basis points to 2.77%, and the 10-yr yield lost two basis points to 3.06% -- 19 basis points lower from its November high. Also, the U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.3% to 96.21.

Overseas, the Asia-Pacific Communications Summit concluded on Sunday without the release of a joint communique due to the ongoing trade disagreement between United States and China. Elsewhere, Chairman of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Carlos Ghosn was arrested in Japan for alleged financial violations.

In Europe, British Prime Minister Theresa May said that removing her from her post would lead to a delay in Brexit, making talks more difficult. Nevertheless, Brexit drama has yet to become a major issue for the U.S. stock market.

Reviewing Monday's sole economic report, the NAHB Housing Market Index for November:

The NAHB Housing Market Index for November came in at 60 (Briefing.com consensus 68), down from 68 in October. That's the lowest reading since August 2016, according to CNBC.
A number above 50 still denotes a positive outlook, yet the sharp drop fed into concerns about rising mortgage rates driving a weakening in housing market activity as they create affordability constraints for prospective home buyers.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for October on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +1.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.2% YTD
S&P 500 +0.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.5% YTD

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Energy Stocks Drag on Broader Market amid Falling Oil Prices
23-Nov-18 13:25 ET
Dow -178.84 at 24284.85, Nasdaq -33.27 at 6939.19, S&P -17.37 at 2632.70

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/11/23/energy-stocks-drag-on-broader-market-amid-falling-oil-prices.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.7% on Friday in what was a shortened, low-volume trading day on Wall Street. Friday's volatile session extended the benchmark index's weekly losses to 3.8%.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.7%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.5%, and the Russell 2000 finished flat on Friday.

The oil-sensitive energy sector greatly underperformed the broader market with a loss of 3.3%, as oil prices continued to fall. WTI crude fell 6.1% to $51.28/bbl, extending its decline to 33.3% from its October 3 high. A Wall Street Journal report indicated that Saudi Arabia and OPEC are considering a disguised production cut to satisfy President Donald Trump. Specifically, the cartel would retain current output targets, first set in 2016, which would imply a production pullback because Saudi Arabia is allegedly overproducing by nearly 1 million barrels a day.

FANG stocks also struggled on Friday with Facebook (FB 131.73, -3.09, -2.3%) and Apple (AAPL 172.29, -4.49, -2.5%) leading the retreat. Apple reportedly resumed production of its 2017 iPhone X amid shrinking demand for its 2018 iPhone X Max model, according to IBN; and has also reportedly lowered the price of its iPhone XR in Japan to increase sales, according to the WSJ. Facebook and Apple shares dropped over 5.0% and 10.0%, respectively, this week.

On the other hand, the consumer staples (+0.3%), health care (+0.1%), and utility (+0.1%) sectors closed on a higher note.

Also, many companies within the consumer discretionary sector (-0.4%) were on display as consumers flocked to retailers for the sales-driven Black Friday shopping event. Though financial media commented on consumer traffic trends, the small sample size should not be used to draw final conclusions about the strength of holiday sales across the country.

In the bond market, the 2-yr yield added one basis point to 2.83%, while the 10-yr yield shed one basis point to 3.05%. The bond market will officially close at 2:00 PM ET. Also, the U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar's performance against six major currencies, rose 0.2% to 96.94.

Overseas, global equities closed Friday on a mixed note. China's Shanghai Composite led Asian markets lower with a loss of 2.5%, while Italy's MIB led the European advance with a gain of 0.6%.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Friday. Looking ahead, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for November, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for September, and the FHFA Housing Price Index for September on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +0.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.8% YTD
S&P 500 -1.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.1% YTD

Week in Review: Energy, Tech Stocks Crushed as S&P 500 Loses Yearly Gains

The S&P 500 fell 3.8% on this holiday-shortened trading week, erasing its gain for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 4.4%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 4.3%, and the Russell 2000 lost 2.6%.

There was palpable sense of real angst about the market's prospects with market commentary beginning to emphasize the growing risk of a bear market. Factors contributing to that outlook have included rising recession risk; widening credit spreads; the message being sent by the sharp losses in cyclical sectors and former leadership stocks/sectors; lack of buy-the-dip success in November, calling into question the prospects of a seasonal rally; and burgeoning calls to bolster defensive positioning in investment portfolios.

Energy and tech stocks took the brunt of the damage with the energy (-5.1%) and information technology (-6.1%) sectors posting heavy losses this week. The consumer discretionary (-4.3%), communication services (-4.0%), materials (-3.5%), and industrial (-3.2%) sectors also had poor performances.

WTI crude, which has been pressured by ongoing supply concerns and decreasing demand, dropped 9.2% to $51.28/bbl this week and extended its decline to 33.3% from last month's four-year high. Oil prices were pressured on Tuesday after some speculation that Saudi Arabia might not force an oil production cut after U.S. President Donald Trump defended the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia in the wake of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. crude stockpiles also rose for the ninth consecutive week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's weekly crude inventory report.

The tech sector, in particular, has been prone to liquidation efforts that have aimed to reduce exposure to a crowded sector running into concerns about a cyclical slowdown, valuations, and increased regulatory scrutiny. In addition, a lack of leadership and the continued inclination to sell into strength have translated into a lack of buying interest.

Apple (AAPL) shares took a hit after a Wall Street Journal report indicated the company cut its production orders for all three new iPhones it launched in September. Regarding the iPhone XR, Apple reportedly slashed its production plan by up to a third of the approximately 70 million units it had asked some suppliers to produce between September and February. Apple has fallen 21.3% since providing a disappointing outlook for the holiday quarter on November 1.

Facebook (FB) shares continued to struggle, losing 5.6% this week, amid ongoing negative publicity surrounding the social network. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was reportedly not happy with COO Sheryl Sandberg over the handling of the Cambridge Analytical scandal, according to a WSJ report. Also in the report, Mr. Zuckerberg's newly-adopted, aggressive leadership style has not fared well with key executives, some of whom have resigned.

Conversely, the real estate (-1.5%) and utility (-1.4%) sectors were the only groups to finish with weekly losses under 2.0%.

This week featured a list of earnings reports from notable retailers. Reports from Lowe's (LOW), Target (TGT), Kohl's (KSS), L Brands (LB), and Ross Stores (ROST) reflected ongoing concerns over gross margin pressures, elevated inventory levels, disappointing same-store sales, and included some cautious guidance. On the other hand, retailers Urban Outfitters (URBN), Best Buy (BBY), Foot Locker (FL), and Gap (GAP) released more positive reports. Separately, Deere (DE) missed top and bottom line estimates.

In other corporate news, a U.S. appeals court refused to stop generic versions of Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ) prostate-cancer drug Zytiga from entering the market, according to Bloomberg. Also, Chinese authorities approved United Tech's (UTX) acquisition of Rockwell Collins (COL) for $140/share in cash and stock.

U.S. Treasuries ended the week on a mixed note. The 2-yr yield added three basis points to 2.83%, and the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 3.05%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.4% to 96.94

Overseas, the Asia-Pacific Communications Summit concluded on Sunday without the release of a joint communique due to the ongoing trade disagreement between United States and China. On a related note, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer released a report on China's intellectual property practices, alleging that China has not altered its "unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices" that led to the imposition of tariffs. China's Shanghai Composite lost 3.7% this week.

Elsewhere, Chairman of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Carlos Ghosn was arrested in Japan for alleged financial violations. Nissan voted to remove Mr. Ghosn from his Chairman post on Thursday.

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Stocks Rise on U.S.-China Trade Hopes, but Close Off Highs
12-Dec-18 16:25 ET
Dow +157.03 at 24527.27, Nasdaq +66.48 at 7098.31, S&P +14.29 at 2651.07

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/12/12/stocks-rise-on-uschina-trade-hopes-but-close-off-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 0.5% on Wednesday, although it gave up a good chunk of its gains in the afternoon after trading as high as 1.9% intraday. Optimism that trade relations between the U.S. and China were progressing fueled the rally effort, but selling would accelerate into the close, leaving the benchmark index at its session low.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%) also experienced some selling to finish near their session lows. The Russell 2000 (+1.1%) led all the indices, but also finished off its highs for the day.

President Trump initiated the optimism when he told Reuters he would get involved in the Department of Justice case against Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou if it would serve national security interests and help advance trade negotiations with China. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross later softened the President's language, though, clarifying he hasn't actually decided if he would intervene.

Also, news that China is reportedly looking to tweak its "Made in China 2025" policy to allow more access and fairer competition for foreign companies helped lift sentiment.

These positive-sounding headlines fueled buying interest on the notion that a trade deal, if struck, would bode well for economic growth prospects. Stocks, however, would retreat from session highs on no specific news catalyst. The fading action was in keeping with a trend of selling into strength and likely reflected some nervousness about holding positions overnight given the headline-induced volatility of late.

The consumer discretionary (+1.1%), materials (+1.0%), health care (+0.9%), communication services (+0.8%), and information technology (+0.8%) sectors led today's gains.

Chip stocks, in particular, put in another strong showing with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rising 1.5%. The group's recent outperformance has helped contribute to the tech sector's leadership position this week (+2.3%).

The defensive-oriented consumer staples (-0.2%), utilities (-0.6%), and real estate (-1.9%) sectors, meanwhile, finished in the red as the market adopted more of a risk-on tone.

Strikingly, the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which is a key driver of economic sentiment, was also unable to find steam. UPS (UPS 101.21, -2.37, -2.3%) and FedEx (FDX 188.27, -1.38, -0.7%) dragged on the average. On a related note, XPO Logistics (XPO 60.27, -6.42, -9.6%) traded sharply lower after providing a disappointing adjusted EBITDA growth forecast for FY19.

Other notable laggards included Dow components Exxon Mobil (XOM 76.02, -0.66, -0.9%) and Verizon (VZ 57.25, -1.60, -2.7%). Exxon fell as oil prices rolled over, and Verizon was downgraded to 'Equal-Weight' from 'Overweight' at Morgan Stanley.

Under Armour (UAA 19.81, -2.31, -10.4%) also stood out as the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 after the company provided a disappointing revenue growth outlook for its core North American market between 2020 and 2022 at its Investor Day.

Overseas, attention turned to the UK, where Prime Minister Theresa May won a "no confidence" vote from her own Conservative Party with respect to her leadership. The vote came amid the heightened uncertainty surrounding the UK's Brexit plan. The British pound rose 1.1% to 1.2617 against the dollar, which also benefited from the U.S. Dollar Index losing 0.3% to 97.08.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the Consumer Price Index for November and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Total CPI was unchanged month-over-month in November, as expected, while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.2%, also as expected. Total CPI was up 2.2% year-over-year, versus 2.5% in October, and core CPI was up 2.2%, versus 2.1% in October.
The key takeaway is that consumer inflation trends are not running away from the Federal Reserve's longer-run target, which should feed into the market's growing belief that the Federal Reserve has some data-based scope to take it easy after a December rate hike.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 1.6% after increasing 2.0% in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Export and Import Prices for November, the Treasury Budget for November, and weekly Initial and Continuing Claims on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +2.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.8% YTD
S&P 500 -0.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.2% YTD

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Stocks Fall on Continued Global Growth Concerns
14-Dec-18 16:20 ET
Dow -496.87 at 24100.51, Nasdaq -159.67 at 6910.66, S&P -50.59 at 2599.95

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/12/14/stocks-fall-on-continued-global-growth-concerns.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.9% on Friday to extend its monthly loss to 5.8%. Friday's sell-off was a function of poor sentiment driven by global growth concerns and a continuation of weak price action.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.0%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.3%, and the Russell 2000 lost 1.5%. For the month, the respective indices are down 5.6%, 5.7%, and 8.0%.

The selling started overseas when China, the second-largest economy in the world, reported some weaker-than-expected industrial production and retail sales data. In addition, some weaker-than-expected preliminary manufacturing PMI readings out of the eurozone helped feed into concerns over economic growth and corporate earnings prospects.

A solid November Retail Sales report out of the U.S. didn't change the selling bias either. Instead, the good news on that front was drowned out by the concern that weakness abroad will eventually lead to a slower pace of growth in the U.S.

Selling picked up after the close of the European markets (11:30 a.m. ET) and would continue in an orderly manner throughout the day, culminating in the S&P 500 closing just below 2600.

Within the S&P 500, the health care (-3.4%), information technology (-2.5%), and energy (-2.4%) sectors led the broad-based retreat.

The negative bias within the health care and tech groups was driven by some corporate news, while energy fell in tandem with oil prices.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 132.80, -14.84) dropped 10.0% after a Reuters report alleged that JNJ "knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its baby Powder." The company's litigation counsel rejected the report as "false and misleading."

Within tech, Apple (AAPL 165.48, -5.47, -3.2%) fell after an influential analyst from TF International Securities cut his first quarter 2019 iPhone shipment estimate by 20%, according to CNBC; Adobe Systems (ADBE 230.00, -18.08, -7.3%) fell after failing to overly impress investors with its fiscal fourth quarter results and outlook; and Cisco (CSCO 45.82, -1.65, -3.5%) fell after being downgraded to 'Neutral' from 'Buy' at Nomura.

In other corporate news, Costco (COST 207.06, -19.45) fell 8.6% after reporting its fiscal Q1 results, which included revenues that were slightly below consensus. Margin weakness, attributed to higher merchandising costs, also weighed on the stock.

There was little room to hide in the stock market, though the defensive-oriented real estate (-0.2%) and utility (-0.3%) sectors suffered only modest losses.

Investors sought safety in U.S. Treasuries, pushing yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield lost three basis points to 2.73%, and the 10-yr yield lost two basis points to 2.89%. Also, the U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.4% to 97.45, nearing a yearly high.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included Retail Sales for November, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for November, and Business Inventories for October:

Total retail sales increased 0.2% in November, as expected, while retail sales, excluding autos, jumped 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%).
The key takeaway from the Retail Sales report is that core retail sales, which exclude auto, gasoline station, building materials, and food services and drinking places sales, increased 0.9%. That's important because core retail sales are used in the computation of the goods component for personal consumption expenditures in the GDP report.
Industrial production increased 0.6% in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) after declining a downwardly revised 0.1% (from +0.2%) in October. The capacity utilization rate was 78.5% (Briefing.com consensus 78.6%) following a downwardly revised 78.1% (from 78.4%) in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing output was flat on the heels of a 0.1% decline in October. That indication runs counter to the solid uptick seen in the November ISM Manufacturing Index.
Total business inventories increased 0.6% in October, in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimate, after increasing an upwardly revised 0.5% (from 0.3%) in September. Total business sales increased 0.3% after increasing a downwardly revised 0.3% (from 0.4%) in September.
The key takeaway from the report is that business sales rose at a slower pace than inventories. That distinction, if it persists, will diminish pricing power.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the NAHB Housing Market Index for December, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for December, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for October on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.5% YTD
S&P 500 -2.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -8.1% YTD

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S&P 500 Ends Flat in Roller Coaster Session
18-Dec-18 16:30 ET
Dow +82.66 at 23675.64, Nasdaq +30.18 at 6783.91, S&P +0.22 at 2546.16

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/12/18/s-and-p-500-ends-flat-in-roller-coaster-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 finished flat on Tuesday in what was another roller-coaster session, driven by shifts in sector leadership, a 7.2% plunge in oil prices to $46.57 per barrel, and lingering uncertainty surrounding trade, monetary policy, the economic growth outlook, and the budget battle in Washington to keep the government open.

The benchmark index was up as much as 1.1% in early action, bolstered by some technical buying after the S&P 500 managed to hold support at its February low (2532.69) on Monday. That rally, however, would not hold up.

Once again, the stock market succumbed to an inclination to sell into strength that saw the S&P 500 set a new low for the year (2528.71) entering the final hour of trading. Like Monday, though, there was some late buying interest on the re-test of the February low, which held once again on a closing basis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) managed to squeeze out some modest gains, yet they also finished well off their best levels of the day. The Russell 2000 shed 0.1%.

The S&P 500 sectors were mixed with consumer discretionary (+1.0%) and real estate (+1.0%) on the winning end, and energy (-2.4%) and consumer staples (-1.2%) on the losing end.

The S&P 500 financial sector (-0.5%) was another notable laggard and it stood out as the poster child for selling into strength. The financial sector was up as much as 1.6% during the rally effort, yet a poor showing by the bank stocks undercut the sector and led to another losing outing for the sector, which is down 11.7% this month alone.

The inability of the financial sector to hold its gains was a disappointment, yet it has been consistent with the sector's disposition all year, and particularly since the start of October.

Also weighing on sentiment was the fact that oil prices continued to get clobbered amid ongoing concerns over excess supply and slowing economic growth. WTI crude dropped 7.2% to $46.57/bbl, closing at its lowest level since September 2017. The oil-sensitive energy sector underperformed with a loss of 2.4%.

The weakness in the financials and oil prices, as well as in copper prices ($2.66, -$0.09, -3.3%), underscored the general growth concerns that have been weighing heavily on investor sentiment.

Those concerns, and concerns about the stock market's fortunes, showed up in the gains registered by the Treasury market and CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 25.58, +1.06, +4.3%) even while stocks were rallying. The Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield lost four basis points to 2.66%, and the benchmark 10-yr yield lost three basis points to 2.82%. The U.S. Dollar Index lost 0.1% to 97.05.

The disparate action came ahead of Wednesday's interest rate announcement from the FOMC and the release of an updated summary of economic projections and dot plot.

Market participants are largely expecting the FOMC to raise the target range by 25 basis points to 2.25% to 2.50%. What remains a pertinent source of uncertainty is what the Federal Reserve will do with its interest rate projections and possibly its balance sheet normalization effort.

The market is pining for a dovish-minded stance from the Federal Reserve when it comes to its interest rate projections for 2019. Everything will come to light at 2:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday and it will certainly be a market-moving event.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included Housing Starts and Building Permits for November:

The Housing Starts and Building Permits Report for November wasn't as strong as the headline figures suggested, as it featured little to no growth in both permits and starts for single-family units.
Total starts increased 3.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.256 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.230 million), yet starts for single-family units declined 4.6% to 824,000, which is the lowest since May 2017.
Total permits increased 5.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.328 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.270 million), yet permits for single-family units were up just 0.1% to 848,000.
The key takeaway from the report is that it substantiates the weakening levels of homebuilder confidence and is a reflection of the impact rising interest rates are having on single-family construction activity.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the FOMC Rate Decision for December, Existing Home Sales for November, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, and the Current Account Balance for Q3 on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite -1.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.2% YTD
S&P 500 -4.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.3% YTD

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Wall Street's Tumble Continues
20-Dec-18 16:20 ET
Dow -464.06 at 22859.60, Nasdaq -108.42 at 6528.41, S&P -39.54 at 2467.42

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/12/20/wall-streets-tumble-continues.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.6% on Thursday, as ongoing concerns over trade, politics, and economic growth added to worries over a Fed policy mistake. For the month, the benchmark index is now down 10.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-2.0%), Nasdaq Composite (-1.6%), and the Russell 2000 (-1.7%) extend monthly losses to 10.5%, 10.9%, and 13.5%, respectively.

The S&P 500 staged a late recovery try to cut its losses from 2.6% to 0.8%, but that recovery effort was once again met with selling resistance that drove the market further into oversold territory.

Some nettlesome elements that weighed on investor sentiment Thursday included (1) the possibility of a partial government shutdown, (2) a reminder that the dispute between the U.S. and China goes much deeper than just tariffs on goods, and (3) the understanding that credit markets appear to be anticipating a growth slowdown due to tighter monetary policy.

Furthermore, weakness in oil ($44.95, -$2.33, -4.8%) and copper ($2.70, -$0.01, -0.4%) prices, and the underperformance by the cyclical sectors, fed into the market's concerns about a slowdown in global economic growth.

Within the S&P 500, 10 of the 11 sectors finished in the red with energy (-2.8%), consumer discretionary (-2.3%), and information technology (-1.9%) leading the retreat. The utilities sector, on the other hand, was able to muster a gain of 0.3%.

In corporate news, Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 69.61, -3.68) topped fiscal first quarter earnings estimates, yet its stock fell 5.0% after the company acknowledged it is facing margin pressures.

U.S. Treasuries closed on a lower note, pushing the 2-yr yield up three basis points to 2.67% and the 10-yr yield up one basis point to 2.79%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.7% to 96.36, while gold futures settled 0.9% higher to $1267.00/oz, reaching its highest level since June.

Of note, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) peaked at February levels (30.25) before pulling back to 28.38.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Index for December, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for November:

Initial claims for the week ending December 15 increased by 8,000 to 214,000 (Briefing.com consensus 221,000). Continuing claims for the week ending December 8 increased by 27,000 to 1.688 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it covers the period in which the survey for the December employment report is conducted. Accordingly, the low level of initial claims should translate into an expectation for solid nonfarm payroll growth in December.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for December declined to 9.4 (Briefing.com consensus 17.5) from an unrevised 12.9 in November.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.2% in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) after decreasing a revised 0.3% (from +0.1%) in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that the Conference Board expects the pace of economic growth to continue moderating in the second half of 2019.

Looking ahead, investors will receive several economic reports on Friday: Personal Income and Spending for November; PCE Prices for November; Durable Orders for November; and GDP - Third Estimate for Q3.

Nasdaq Composite -5.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -7.5% YTD
S&P 500 -7.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -13.5% YTD

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Stocks Tumble in Risk-Reducing Efforts
21-Dec-18 16:20 ET
Dow -414.23 at 22445.37, Nasdaq -195.41 at 6333.00, S&P -50.84 at 2416.58

http://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-tradingdiary2.html?mod=topnav_2_3021

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 2.1% on Friday, as uncertainty surrounding a host of issues, which included politics and trade, continued to provide a justification to reduce risk. Friday's decline pushed the benchmark index to a new yearly low of 2408.12 and a weekly loss of 7.1%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.8%), the Nasdaq Composite (-3.0%), and the Russell 2000 (-2.6%) also posted considerable declines to cap weekly losses at 6.9%, 8.4%, and 8.4%, respectively.

The S&P 500 had climbed to session highs in morning action (+1.5%) amid some market-soothing commentary from New York Fed President John Williams. Specifically, Mr. Williams indicated that the Fed is listening to the market and that the path of balance sheet runoff in 2019 is not "inflexible."

That recovery effort, however, was yet again met with selling resistance that drove the market further into negative territory. Disappointment in the inability to sustain a rebound effort from short-term oversold conditions effectively led to a buyers strike that weighed heavily on the indices.

Some discouraging headlines that compounded risk-reduction efforts included (1) the threat of a partial government shutdown due to disagreement over funding for a border wall, and (2) a late-day report that Director of the White House National Trade Council Peter Navarro told Nikkei that an agreement with China in 90 days will be difficult to attain.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in negative territory with the communication services (-3.1%), information technology (-3.0%), and consumer discretionary (-2.6%) groups leading the retreat.

Dow component Nike (NKE 72.37, +4.84, +7.2%), for its part, was the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 after it released a strong earnings report and issued an encouraging FY19 currency neutral revenue growth outlook.

U.S. Treasuries remained resistant to selling pressure amid the equity sell-off. The 2-yr yield dropped four basis points to 2.63%, and the 10-yr yield was unchanged at 2.79%.

Reviewing Friday's batch of economic data, which included Personal Income and Spending for November; PCE Prices for November; Durable Orders for November; and GDP - Third Estimate for Q3; and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment for December:

Personal income increased 0.2% month-over-month in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%). Personal spending rose 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%). The PCE Price Index increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) while the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, also increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed PCE inflation continues to run below the Federal Reserve's longer-run target of 2.0%, which could raise the market's angst level about the Fed being on course to make a policy mistake with further tightening action.
Durable goods orders increased 0.8% in November (Briefing.com consensus 1.7%) after an upwardly revised 4.3% decline (from -4.4%) in October. Excluding transportation, orders declined 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) after increasing an upwardly revised 0.4% (from 0.1%) in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that business investment was weak, evidenced by the 0.6% decline in nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft. Moreover, a 0.1% decline in shipments of those same goods will be accounted for as a negative input in Q4 GDP forecasts.
The third estimate for Q3 GDP showed a downward revision to 3.4% from 3.5% (Briefing.com consensus 3.5%) and an upward revision to the GDP Price Deflator to 1.8% from 1.7% (Briefing.com consensus 1.7%).
The key takeaway from the report was the same as before, which is that real final sales grew at their slowest rate since the fourth quarter of 2016.
The University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment checked in at 98.3 with the final reading for December (Briefing.com consensus 97.5) versus a preliminary reading of 97.5 and the final reading of 97.5 for November. That left the 2018 average at 98.4, which was the best year since 2000.
The key takeaway from the report is that sentiment wasn't dented with the stock market's losses; however, expectations were tempered a bit amid burgeoning concerns about income and job prospects.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite -8.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -9.2% YTD
S&P 500 -9.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -15.9% YTD

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InvestmentHouse - Embracing the Bear Market (Weekend Newsletter)

https://news.investmenthouse.com/2018/12/the-daily-part-1-of-2-12-22-18.html

- Early bounce is sold as Fed jawboning cannot overcome Navarro's China trade comments.
- Government shutdown adds some downside spice, but not a major market obstacle.
- VIX finally starting to breakout on the selling, the last piece of the oversold puzzle.
- Market could flush out now that VIX is breaking higher, but a holiday week may not provide the needed action.
- Embracing the bear market.

Stocks started higher, DJ30 rallied almost 400 points. The 'Dow-type' stocks were rallying, e.g. PG, AEP, MCD. Kind of back to the stocks that rallied and trended higher as NASDAQ struggled.

New York Fed president Williams appeared on CNBC and stated the Fed was not committed to the rate hikes for 2019, clarifying what Powell muddied up in his post-rate hike press conference. The market liked what he said and jumped, pushing the market higher.

After that interview stocks tested. Then more stories hit regarding a government shutdown today as Trump was not giving on the wall, wanting McConnell to dump the Senate rule requiring a filibuster proof number to even bring a bill to the floor for a vote. So, McConnell started calling senators back in. Collins of Maine complained that this was 'ruining her life.' Then QUIT! That is your job. It can happen. If you don't want to do it, then just resign. I am so tired of our elected officials, there to supposedly serve the electorate, complaining when the job calls. This kind of stuff happens. It is in your job description. You accept having your 'life ruined' by having to spend part of a holiday in DC. You asked for that. The rest of us voted you in to do that. Do not ruin our lives because you cannot sip some eggnog with cousin Eddie while he wears his black dickey under a think cream colored sweater.

Okay, Fed worries were somewhat calmed down but a government shutdown caused some worries. Then the real trouble started. Anew.

Mr. Navarro opined it would be difficult to construct a deal with China in 90 days because China would have to affect a 'full trade overhaul' in where it does not depend on stealing IP from the US, Japan, Europe.

The market tanked then tanked some more. It closed on the lows with DJ30 swinging 808 points high to close. NASDAQ 254 points high to close. Sure it was expiration and volatility runs hand in hand with it, but there was obviously more here, and that triumvirate of economy/Fed, trade, and government shutdown added more weight to the current selloff.

SP500 -50.84, -2.06%
NASDAQ -195.42, -2.99%
DJ30 -414.23, -1.81%
SP400 -2.01%
RUTX -2.56%
SOX -1.47%
NASDAQ 100 -3.15%

VOLUME: NYSE +134%, NASDAQ +39%. Massive surges on the triple witch. The fast moves downside also contribute to huge expiration volume as positions are rolled, shuffled, etc.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE -3.5:1, NASDAQ -3.8:1. Not blowout on the day, but it is the days of very negative breadth that tell the tale of a weak market.

NEW LOWS: Down, but even so, still very impressive. NYSE 1058, NASDAQ 1101. Again, NASDAQ new lows topped NYSE, something that rarely happens. These are screaming oversold.


It was a lot more of the same. Volume surged thanks to expiration. Internals are still extreme. Stocks are another day, another 2+% lower in price. Impressive selling. The economy was turned from a slowdown in an uptrend to a likely recession given the market leading indicator. The Fed is flabbergasted by it; 'but everything is so strong' they say. Yes, it is strong until it is not. If you only look at the economic numbers you are late to the game. There are leading indicators. Those are SCREAMING not that there is trouble ahead (the WERE screaming that), but that we ARE IN trouble. Because the Fed looks at the wrong indicators by virtue of its incorrect economic theories, they missed it. Again. Just as they did before that, and before that, and before that -- do I need to go on? Of course not.

Stocks that jumped early gave the move back. Stocks that have performed poorly were up modestly but then imploded. AMZN blew out the bottom of its range as did GOOG. They are just examples; many tech stocks were torched. Interestingly, the same stronger tech stocks held up decently, e.g. TEAM, AVGO. That is consolation: a couple of strong stocks did not get wasted. Okay, about 50 out of 8,000 held up. High praise indeed.

What are the market people saying? Well, you have heard my side for quite some time, about how we were in a slowdown many, many months back and that the Fed had better tread carefully. Of course it did not. Art Cashin today opined that the Fed won't hike again on this hiking campaign and that in 2019 there is an "outside chance" the Fed actually cuts rates. Not crazy, not stupid, just historically based. The markets are saying the Fed has caused a recession. The 2018 index patterns show that; they did not have to complete the top, but they started building it with the Fed hiking, and when the Fed did what the Fed always does, they completed the topping patterns. The markets are leading indicators of economic activity. The small and midcaps have led the way lower, big time, and they are economic indicators. The Fed has hiked into an inverted yield curve. Historically that all adds up to recession, necessitating the Fed cut rates. Thus, Cashin has a very good basis for his comments.

I said it before and it is clear: the Fed should have been hiking 5 or more years ago. Instead, Bernanke was gutless and Yellen was just dumb -- her questions to Greenspan when he was the Fed chair indicate she is a cookbook, stencil using, paint by numbers economic fraud, also with no guts. Then Powell comes in, a person with some guts, and he does what he felt needed to be done years ago. Problem is, he did it just as all other Fed chairs do: he hiked late in the cycle and right into recession. It is like those movies that try to change the past but no matter what they do, the events lead back to what was supposed to happen. As if the Fed is supposed to cause recessions. If aliens landed and studied US economic history they would conclude the Fed was established IN ORDER TO CAUSE PERIODIC RECESSIONS when the US citizens actually started making progress in creating their own wealth.


THE MARKET

The stock indices continued blowing lower to new selloff lows. All are now below the 2018 lows, giving up all of the gains that were logged through early fall. SP400 and RUTX gave up all of 2017 as well. A massive selloff as the tops consummate and break sharply lower. Bear market is here and the question is when will the periodic bounces set up and deliver those upside rips that set up the next downside slide.

Friday the market started decently with a move to provide one of those rips, but great moves by PEP, PG, AEP, MCD, AVGO were undermined by the negative news. The downside is still too ugly to provide that rip despite some extreme internals.

Sentiment is weak and VIX hit 30.1 on the close, moving past all second half 2018 highs. It is starting to make a break higher. Once the moves get going, they build momentum rapidly and then hit a peak rapidly as in early 2018. Thus, it is a good thing to see VIX break above 30 on the close, but it is not there yet as measured by its history. Just as bears have been EXTREMELY slow in rising, VIX has held itself in check. If both spike, then the market is set to put in those bear market rips.

They are both on the verge of making the moves as noted above. They have not made the moves, however, and this market does not appear to have enough upside impetus without a major clearing of near term sellers. Despite the selling to this point, there are still enough in the market to sell into rallies. Typically when conditions are this oversold a bounce ensues and a more standard procession downside takes place, i.e. selloffs then sharp bounces, followed by another leg lower, etc. Basically the opposite of the uptrend that was in place for so long. At this juncture, however, the market is still on that initial selloff phase from the break lower in the tops and, as noted, not enough have sold out yet to allow a relief move.

CHARTS

There is not much to add to the discussion on them: all are breaking to lower lows for the selloff, the year. Three weeks in a very sharp dive has VIX starting to generate some upside breakout action, something VIX has simply refused to show. As all other sentiment indicators and internals are at extremes, that is likely the last piece to the puzzle of a significant relief bounce to test the breakdown from the yearlong tops. A selloff after Christmas likely is the last part of this particular dive lower that yields to some sort of relief move.

Note NDX (NASDAQ 100). It is at some support form 2017 consolidation highs and lows. It is in a ripe position to rebound.

To view, click on the following links:

http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/sp500.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/NASDAQ.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/DJ30.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/RUTX.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/SP400.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/SOX.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/nasdaq100.jpg
http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/VIX.jpg


LEADERSHIP:

While the internals and sentiment are in line and VIX looks as if it will reach a level to trigger a relief bounce with some additional selling, the critical element of any sustainable rally is missing: leaders.

Friday showed some life in the more defensive areas such as personal products (PG) and utilities (AEP), but early surges in these stocks soured as Navarro's trade comments hit. It appeared the market was setting up its 'Powell-Fed Plan' by going into the defensive sectors, then one of the other shoes bothering the market hit and that scuttled those moves.

Some FAANG looked to be in position to possibly attempt a bounce (AMZN, GOOG, NFLX), but that was blown up Friday as they all knifed lower.

Individual software, tech, and semiconductors are hanging in (e.g. TEAM, AVGO), but they are likely on borrowed time given the market's propensity for tearing down nearly all groups at this juncture.

Precious metals are not bad but they are not just screaming as buys across the board. A couple to consider based upon their patterns are AUY and SA.

That said, we are making money on our downside plays, e.g. CRM, FFIV, NVDA, ULTA, SLAB, Z and we are banking some of that gain -- sharp downside can turn to sharp upside quite rapidly. Once the market bounces in relief, likely this coming week, we will enter more when the bounce hits resistance. The next leg down will likely be ugly yet again, but very nice for the downside plays as seen to end the past week.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -414.23 points (-1.81%) to close at 22445.37

Nasdaq
Stats: -195.41 points (-2.99%) to close at 6332.99
Volume: 4.56B (+39.02%)

Up Volume: 654.61M (+47.42M)
Down Volume: 3.82B (+1.19B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 3.78 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 3.41 to 1

New Highs: 8 (+1)
New Lows: 1101 (-52)

S&P
Stats: -50.80 points (-2.06%) to close at 2416.62
NYSE Volume: 3.244B (+133.53%)

Up Volume: 422.386M (+176.071M)
Down Volume: 2.796B (+1.668B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 3.47 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 4.22 to 1

New Highs: 2 (-2)
New Lows: 1058 (-212)


SENTIMENT

VIX: 30.11; +1.73. As noted, VIX closed at a new closing high since February, and though it is nowhere near as rambunctious as early year, ironically its closing high is not that far off the February high (37.32). Typically, the intraday spikes are the really high readings as they are often immediately followed by some sort of recovery such as an intraday reversal.

CHART: http://investmenthouse1.com/ihmedia/f/charts/VIX.jpg


VXN: 33.87; +2.87
VXO: 32.11; +2.06

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 1.43; -0.39. Logged many consecutive closes above 1.0 and is one of the indicators in position for a market bounce.

Bulls and Bears:

Falling and rebounding to where they were four weeks back. Starting to converge. This coming week's numbers should show a bull dive and bear jump, converging the two to levels not seen since 2016.

Bulls: 39.3 versus 45.5

Bears: 21.4 versus 20.4

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 39.3 versus 45.4
45.4 versus 46.7 versus 38.3 versus 39.6 versus 42.9 versus 42.5 versus 50.5 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 61.8 versus 60.6 versus 59.0 versus 57.7 versus 60.1 versus 59.6 versus 57.7 versus 57.3 versus 54.9 versus 54.5 versus 54.9 versus 55.3 versus 52.4 versus 47.1 versus 47.6 versus 52.0 versus 55.5 versus 52.9 versus 50.0 versus 49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6 versus 42.2 versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00

Bears: 21.4 versus 20.4
20.4 versus 21.50 versus 20.6 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 19.8 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 18.3 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.5 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8 versus 17.7 versus 19.2 versus 19.2 versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8 versus 19.6 versus 19.8 versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7 versus 15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.788% versus 2.803%. Ten year yields fell as bonds were purchased as a bit of a safe haven trade. Bonds have surged off the lower low set in early September, with TLT now just below the July and August highs. This despite the Fed tightening. Clearly the market believes the Fed does not have a handle on the selling.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.803%. versus 2.762% versus 2.821% versus 2.855% versus 2.895% versus 2.913% versus 2.908% versus 2.884% versus 2.863% versus 2.854% versus 2.892% versus 2.915% versus 2.979% versus 2.993% versus 3.032% versus 3.061% versus 3.058% versus 3.059% versus 3.048% versus 3.065% versus 3.074% versus 3.056% versus 3.065% versus 3.116% versus 3.127% versus 3.147% versus 3.186% versus 3.239% versus 3.228% versus 3.222% versus 3.201% versus 3.22% versus 3.146%


EUR/USD: 1.13708 versus 1.1452. After bouncing on the week, Friday the euro flopped back to the 50 day SMA. Broke out over its 2 month lateral range, but that breakout might get reversed.

Historical: 1.13828 versus 1.13755 versus 1.13533 versus 1.13049 versus 1.13604 versus 1.1376 versus 1.13244 versus 1.13657 versus 1.1404 versus 1.1376 versus 1.13970 versus 1.13360 versus 1.13199 versus 1.13934 versus 1.13682 versus 1.12973 versus 1.13325 versus 1.13380 versus 1.13829 versus 1.13818 versus 1.14484 versus 1.14172 versus 1.13308 versus 1.13264 versus 1.13124 versus 1.12348 versus 1.13475 versus 1.1364 versus 1.14329 versus 1.14228 versus 1.14090 versus 1.13881 versus 1.14019 versus 1.13394 versus 1.13455 versus 1.13760 versus 1.14042 versus 1.13757 versus 1.3972 versus 1.14682 versus 1.14626 versus 1.1538


USD/JPY: 111.223 versus 111.21. Checked up the selling Friday by not selling harder. Did not recover the 200 day SMA broken Thursday in that plunge.

Historical: Last below 109 in June 2018: 111.21 versus 112.521 versus 112.477 versus 112.653 versus 113.382 versus 113.634 versus 113.634 versus 113.385 versus 113.022 versus 112.66 versus 112.71 versus 112.813 versus 113.581 versus 113.474 versus 113.402 versus 113.559 versus 113.781 versus 113.510 versus 112.972 versus 113.007 versus 113.077 versus 112.617 versus 112.831 versus 113.585 versus 113.576.


Oil: 45.59, -0.29. A less and less influential OPEC, even OPEC-Plus (with Russia included) cannot withstand world economic slowdown. Oil broke the key $50/bbl level Tuesday.


Gold: 1258.10, -9.80. Down, but holding at the 200 day SMA after that sharp Thursday break above that resistance. Likely just a quick test.


MONDAY AND CHRISTMAS WEEK.

Monday is a half session closing at 1:00ET. Tuesday the market is closed. The rest of the week is usual hours, but after the Friday volume surge on expiration, many will be gone for the week. That doesn't mean anything other than there will be less people around to sell stocks.

Okay, a bit tongue in cheek, but the obvious bias is downside. The thing I don't like is that the lack of people at work on Wall Street could mean the market doesn't show that additional selling that spikes VIX and sets up the relief move. If few are there to sell then buy, will that defer the climactic selling, at least climactic in terms of delivering a bounce? As noted, that is a concern.

Well, we will play it out as if they will be there because these kind of selling events usually follow a script, more or less. More selling early week and we take much of our downside off the table, particularly if it is the kind of selling seen to end the week.

Then we play for a bounce. Likely AEP, PG -- both sporting good patterns even after coming back from big gains early Friday -- are add-to's as they bounce off support. Perhaps some of the gold noted earlier (SA, AUY), but I am not planning on putting much of my money there. I would prefer the other names mentioned, and when they are done with a bounce, then we will see what stocks are set up best for the next leg lower.

That is the bear market mentality. Bear market; you now start thinking in terms of downside as predominant, upside as something to play on really, really good setups and for not very long. As noted, we have several downside plays working well (duh). Have banked some gain on them and will bank more on any significant selling this coming week, anticipating that if the selling gets bad enough it will spike VIX, the last holdout signal, and spark a bear market rebound. Then we play as noted above.

Have a great weekend and Christmas! We will be here, or at least I will, Monday, but the report will simply be market stats, updated play tables, and a note on anything significant occurring -- if anything significant occurs.

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Stocks Surge in Broad-Based Rally
26-Dec-18 16:20 ET
Dow +1086.25 at 22878.45, Nasdaq +361.44 at 6554.36, S&P +116.60 at 2467.66

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/12/26/stocks-surge-in-broadbased-rally.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied 5.0% on Wednesday from what many believed to be extremely oversold conditions on a short-term basis. Rebounding oil prices ($46.13/bbl, +$3.45, +8.1%), strong holiday sales, and some short covering helped drive the S&P 500 to its best one-day gain since March 2009.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 5.0%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 5.8%, and the Russell 2000 gained 5.0%.

The S&P 500 overcame an early dip into negative territory with investors adopting a risk-on sentiment. In addition, rather than selling into the close, the benchmark index departed from the recent trend and accelerated its advance in the last hour of trading.

Risk-on sentiment was on full display with all 11 S&P 500 sectors finishing with gains. The cyclical consumer discretionary (+6.3%), energy (+6.2%), and information technology (+6.1%) groups outperformed the broader market.

Amazon (AMZN 1470.90, +126.94, +9.5%) and retail stocks, in particular, led the consumer discretionary space higher. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 40.65, +2.20) rose 5.7%.

Amazon announced a record-breaking holiday season, and MasterCard's SpendingPulse report noted that holiday sales from November 1 through December 24 showed the strongest year-over-year growth rate since 2011, resulting in a new record for dollars spent.

Demand for U.S. Treasuries faded as investors flocked to riskier assets. Consequently, the 2-yr yield gained three basis points to 2.60%, and the 10-yr yield gained five basis points to 2.80%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 97.07

Wednesday's sharp rally in equities caused the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 30.41, -5.66) to surrender nearly six points. The decline pressured the volatility gauge to its closing level from Friday.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for October:

The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for October (Briefing.com consensus 5.0%) increased 5.0%, down from a revised increase of 5.2% in September (from 5.1%).

Looking ahead, investors will receive several economic reports on Thursday: New Home Sales for November, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims Report, the FHFA Housing Price Index for October, and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for December.

Nasdaq Composite -5.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -7.5% YTD
S&P 500 -7.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -13.4% YTD

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Wall Street Jumps on Strong Jobs Report, Soothing Powell Commentary
04-Jan-19 16:20 ET
Dow +746.94 at 23433.16, Nasdaq +275.35 at 6738.87, S&P +84.05 at 2531.90

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/1/4/wall-street-jumps-on-strong-jobs-report-soothing-powell-commentary.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 3.4% on Friday, as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled patience and flexibility on rates in light of stronger-than-expected jobs data. Friday's gains helped the benchmark index secure a weekly gain of 1.9%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+3.3%), the Nasdaq Composite (+4.3%), and the Russell 2000 (+3.8%) also sported sizable gains to finish the week up 1.6%, 2.3%, and 3.2%, respectively.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed the session in the green, with gains ranging from 1.0% (real estate) to 4.4% (information technology). Apple (AAPL 148.26, +6.07, +4.3%), for its part, recouped nearly half of its losses from Thursday.

The major averages began the day on a higher note, helped by optimism surrounding upcoming trade talks with China next week and a robust Employment Situation Report for December.

Specifically, nonfarm payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 180,000) exceeded expectations with an increase of 312,000, while average hourly earnings (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) increased 0.4%, lifting the year-over-year growth rate to 3.2%.

There were some market concerns about how the Federal Reserve would respond to the strong jobs report. The latest comments from Fed Chair Powell, however, eased those concerns, evident from stocks soaring to session highs -- and maintaining their gains.

Some talking points from the Fed Chair that soothed the market included (1) the Fed will remain patient given the muted reading on inflation, (2) monetary policy will be nimble and shift if necessary, and (3) his softer tone regarding previous comments on the Fed's balance sheet reduction path being on autopilot.

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) fell 4.1 points to 21.38, reaching its lowest level since mid-December.

U.S. Treasuries ended the week sharply lower, surrendering their gains from Thursday. The 2-yr yield dropped 10 basis points to 2.48%, and the 10-yr yield dropped 11 basis points to 2.66%. The U.S. Dollar Index lost 0.1% to 96.17.

Reviewing the Employment Situation Report for December, which was the only economic report on Friday:

December nonfarm payrolls increased by 312,000 (Briefing.com consensus 180,000). Over the past three months, job gains have averaged 254,000 per month. November nonfarm payrolls revised to 176,000 from 155,000. October nonfarm payrolls revised to 274,000 from 237,000.
December private sector payrolls increased by 301,000 (Briefing.com consensus 175,000). November private sector payrolls revised to 173,000 from 161,000. October private sector payrolls revised to 281,000 from 251,000.
December unemployment rate was 3.9% (Briefing.com consensus 3.7%) versus 3.7% in November.
The average workweek in December was 34.5 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.5) versus 34.4 hours in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that employment data are unlikely to deter the Federal Reserve from its tightening path, especially if average hourly earnings growth remains on its current trajectory.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for December on Monday.

Russell 2000 +2.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.6% YTD
S&P 500 +1.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.5% YTD

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Stocks Climb amid Improved Sentiment, Trade Optimism
08-Jan-19 16:20 ET
Dow +256.10 at 23787.45, Nasdaq +73.53 at 6897.01, S&P +24.72 at 2574.37

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/1/8/stocks-climb-amid-improved-sentiment-trade-optimism.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.0% on Tuesday, notching its third straight day of gains and its fifth in the last six sessions. The benchmark index did succumb to some early selling pressure, though, surrendering an early 1.2% gain. However, the wave of improved investor sentiment -- and a buy-the-dip mentality -- that has supported the stock market rally thus far in the new year lifted stocks from early lows.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.1%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.1%, and the Russell 2000 gained 1.5%.

In addition, upbeat reports surrounding U.S.-China trade discussions helped keep the positive sentiment and buying interest intact. A scheduled two-day meeting in Beijing is now slated to extend into a third day of discussions on Wednesday.

Buying interest was largely broad-based with 10 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finishing with gains. The real estate (+1.8%), communication services (+1.6%), industrials (+1.4%), and utilities (+1.3%) groups outperformed the broader market.

Industrial heavyweights Union Pacific (UNP 150.75, +12.10) and Boeing (BA 340.53, +12.42) carried the trade-sensitive group with respective gains of 8.7% and 3.8%.

Union Pacific's outsized gain, however, was driven more by the popular news that the company appointed industry veteran Jim Vena as its COO. Boeing for its part reported an impressive 238 commercial airplanes deliveries last quarter. Boeing's fourth quarter deliveries helped the company set a new yearly record of 806 deliveries in 2018.

The S&P 500 financial sector (unch) and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-0.5%) were two notable underperformers on Tuesday.

A flattening yield curve and a profit warning from Samsung Electronics about memory chip demand acted as headwinds for the respective groups. The financial sector, however, managed to claw its way back to its flat line after being down as much as 1.1% intraday.

The 2-yr Treasury note yield rose seven basis points to 2.59%, and the 10-yr Treasury note yield rose three basis points to 2.72%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased by 0.3% to 95.92.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for December, the JOLTS - Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for November, and Consumer Credit for November:

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for December decreased to 104.4 from the prior reading of 104.8 in November
The November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 6.888 million from a revised 7.131 million (from 7.079 million) in October
Total outstanding consumer credit increased by $22.2 billion in November after increasing a downwardly revised $24.9 billion (from $25.4 billion) in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that the healthy expansion in consumer credit is a good portent for consumer spending activity when matched with good feelings about job security and income growth.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the FOMC Minutes from December and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +5.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.9% YTD
S&P 500 +2.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.0% YTD

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Stocks Gain, but Close Off Best Levels
09-Jan-19 16:25 ET
Dow +91.67 at 23879.12, Nasdaq +60.08 at 6957.09, S&P +10.55 at 2584.92

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/1/9/stocks-gain-but-close-off-best-levels.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.4% on Wednesday, helped by softening trade tensions, easing anxieties over U.S. monetary policy, and rebounding oil prices ($52.20/bbl, +$2.54, +5.1%). The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.4%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.9%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.9%.

During the recent stock market rally, the market has shown a propensity not only to buy beaten-down stocks, but also to buy on intraday dips. Wednesday was no exception.

The S&P 500 briefly fell into negative territory (-0.2%) in the early going, but ultimately rebounded before running into some resistance as it approached the 2600 level shortly after the release of the FOMC minutes from the December policy meeting.

Regarding the minutes, they revealed a view that the path of U.S. monetary policy is "less clear" than before, and a contention that the Fed can "afford to be patient" about future rate hikes.

In light of more recent remarks from other Fed officials discussing a more patient-minded approach, namely Fed Chair Powell, the view communicated in the minutes wasn't altogether surprising. Roughly an hour after their release, the S&P 500 was trading at a level close to where it was trading when the minutes were released at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Stock prices wavered a bit late in the day, however, after some discouraging news out of Capitol Hill. President Trump tweeted his dissatisfaction over a meeting with Congressional Democrats, calling it a "total waste of time." The S&P 500 ended off its best levels of the day, but still managed to end on an uptick in the closing minutes of trading.

Within the S&P 500, the energy (+1.5%) and information technology (+1.2%) sectors led the broader market higher. Conversely, the defensive-oriented consumer staples (-1.0%), utilities (-0.7%), and real estate (-0.4%) sectors underperformed.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+2.5%) was a notable outperformer on Wednesday, despite Apple (AAPL 153.31, +2.56, +1.7%) supplier Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 67.69, +2.50, +3.8%) lowering its fiscal first quarter guidance.

Some catalysts that underpinned the group's performance included (1) the positive price action in Skyworks despite the bad news, which was interpreted as a sign that the bad news was already priced in, (2) Bernstein upgrading Micron (MU 35.44, +1.70, +5.0%) to 'Outperform' from 'Market Perform', and (3) optimism over the trade discussions with China.

The U.S. Treasury yield curve steepened a bit on Thursday, undoing the prior session's flattening. The 2-yr yield decreased four basis points to 2.55%, and the 10-yr yield added one basis point to 2.73%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.8% to 95.13.

Separately, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index spiked 23.5% from the prior 8.5% decrease last week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +6.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.9% YTD
S&P 500 +3.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.4% YTD

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Stocks Brush Past Retail Weakness, Powell Comments
10-Jan-19 16:25 ET
Dow +122.80 at 24001.92, Nasdaq +28.99 at 6986.08, S&P +11.68 at 2596.60

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/1/10/stocks-brush-past-retail-weakness-powell-comments.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.5% on Thursday, extending its winning streak to five straight sessions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.5%.

10 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished higher with real estate (+1.6%), utilities (+1.4%), and industrials (+1.4%) leading the advance. Conversely, the consumer discretionary sector (-0.2%) underperformed.

It wasn't easy, as investors wrestled with some earnings warnings and some comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, but the story of the day once again involved buying the intraday dips and the market remaining resilient to selling efforts.

The S&P 500 lost as much as 0.9% shortly after the start of trading amid a prevailing sense that the broader market may have gotten overbought on a short-term basis. Entering the session, the benchmark index was up 10% from its Christmas eve low.

In addition, earnings warnings from department store Macy's (M 26.11, -5.61, -17.7%) and airline operator American Airlines (AAL 32.04, -1.38, -4.1%) helped catalyze the opening selling activity, as they provided ample excuses to take some money off the table. Macy's also acted as an influential drag on the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 43.60, -0.71, -1.6%).

Despite these warnings, stocks staged a morning rebound effort into positive territory. This resilience to selling efforts presumably drew in sidelined participants fearful about missing out on further gains and pushed out weak-handed short sellers expecting a downturn.

The second dip brought the S&P 500 from a gain of 0.3% to a loss of 0.5% in afternoon trading. The dip occurred during Fed Chair Powell's participation in a Q&A session at the Economic Club of Washington and following a tweet from President Trump to say he is canceling his trip to the Davos World Economic Forum on account of matters related to the partial government shutdown.

Headlines would suggest the dip was attributed to Mr. Powell's observation that the Fed's balance sheet will be substantially smaller than it is now, but larger than before. However, the market managed to regroup, cognizant that Mr. Powell wasn't suggesting anything the market didn't already know.

The balance sheet will eventually be "substantially smaller," because it got bloated on the other side of the 2008 financial crisis. Since the economy and financial system are no longer in the dire straits of that perilous time, it only makes sense that the balance sheet would one day be substantially smaller. Moreover, it was only last week that Mr. Powell conceded that the Fed "wouldn't hesitate to make a change" to its balance sheet normalization plan if it was necessary.

True to recent form, the S&P 500 climbed back into positive territory and closed near its session high, which was just below the 2600 level.

Reviewing the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, which was the only economic data to be released on Thursday:

Initial claims decreased by 17,000 to 216,000 (Briefing.com consensus 225,000) for the week ending January 5. Continuing claims for the week ending December 29 decreased by 28,000 to 1.722 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it fits neatly with the market's latest awareness that the labor market has held up fine despite the burgeoning concerns about the economy slowing.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for December and the Treasury Budget for December on Friday.

Russell 2000 +7.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.3% YTD
S&P 500 +3.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.9% YTD

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Stocks Close Mixed Ahead of Earnings Season
11-Jan-19 16:25 ET
Dow -5.97 at 23995.95, Nasdaq -14.59 at 6971.49, S&P -0.38 at 2596.22

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/1/11/stocks-close-mixed-ahead-of-earnings-season.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.01%) finished just a hair below its flat line on Friday. The benchmark index never traded in positive territory but did close at its session high. It also finished the week with a gain of 2.5%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (unch), the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%), and the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) closed mixed, finishing with weekly gains of 2.4%, 3.5%, and 4.8%, respectively.

The S&P 500 sectors also finished mixed with energy (-0.6%), utilities (-0.4%), and materials (-0.4%) weighing on the broader market. Conversely, the consumer staples (+0.3%) and health care (+0.3%) sectors finished atop the standings.

The benchmark index came into the session up 10.4% from its Christmas Eve low, suggesting to many that the broader market had gotten overbought on a short-term basis and was due for a pullback. The S&P 500 was down 0.7% in the early going with weakness presumably being a function of profit-taking as opposed to any news-driven catalyst.

In addition, given the number of earnings warnings already announced this week, and with earnings season set to kick off next week, some took this as another reason to take some profits. Nevertheless, some buying interest throughout the session slowly recouped the broader market's losses.

General Motors (GM 37.18, +2.45) for its part jumped 7.1% after it increased its adjusted fiscal 2018 and 2019 earnings above consensus. Its strength, however, was not enough to lift the consumer discretionary space (unch).

The lack of a distinctly positive reaction in the market to GM's upbeat earnings news, in light of the market overcoming prior earnings warnings this week, was reflective of a tired market preferring to take a breather.

U.S. Treasuries closed out the week on a higher note, pushing the 2-yr yield down two basis points to 2.55% and the 10-yr yield down three basis points to 2.70% in the wake of a market-friendly consumer inflation report. The U.S. Dollar Index gained 0.1% to 95.67. WTI crude, meanwhile, snapped its nine-day winning streak, losing 1.9% to $51.68/bbl.

Reviewing the Consumer Price Index for December, which was the only economic report released on Friday:

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December was right in-line with the Briefing.com consensus estimates that called for a 0.1% month-over-month decline in total CPI and a 0.2% increase in core CPI, which excludes food and energy.
The key takeaway from the report is that it supports the Fed's born-again belief that it can be patient with its policy approach given that the core inflation trend is stable around the longer-run target at a time when data here and abroad is revealing some softening in economic activity.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Russell 2000 +7.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.1% YTD
S&P 500 +3.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.9% YTD

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Rally Continues on Strong Bank Earnings
16-Jan-19 16:20 ET
Dow +141.57 at 24207.16, Nasdaq +10.86 at 7034.71, S&P +5.80 at 2616.06

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/1/16/rally-continues-on-strong-bank-earnings.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.2% on Wednesday, as strong earnings from Bank of America (BAC 28.45, +1.90, +7.2%) and Goldman Sachs (GS 197.08, +17.17, +9.5%) helped keep the rally going. The benchmark index was up as much as 0.6%, but succumbed to selling pressure into the close.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.6%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.7%.

The S&P 500 financial sector carried the load on Wednesday with a sizable gain of 2.2%. Conversely, the consumer staples (-0.5%) and communication services (-0.4%) sectors underperformed the broader market.

Bank of America and Goldman Sachs climbed 7.2% and 9.5%, respectively, after both exceeded Wall Street's expectations for revenue and earnings in the fourth quarter.

Their outperformance helped underpin the strength in the financial sector, which is now up 6.6% in January. The overwhelmingly positive response to their earnings news was rooted in the idea that the results demonstrated the December negativity surrounding the stocks -- and the sector -- was overdone.

United Continental (UAL 86.36, +5.16, +6.4%) also reported better-than-expected top and bottom lines. Its strong report, and a reassuring outlook, helped lift the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.5%) and airline stocks as a whole.

The market has had its fair share of earnings warnings during this rally and Wednesday was no exception. Still, the stock market seemed unaffected by a fourth quarter earnings warning from Ford Motor (F 8.29, -0.55, -6.2%) and retailer Nordstrom (JWN 45.01, -2.25, -4.8%) saying its full-year earnings are expected to be at the low end of its previous outlook due to weaker-than-expected holiday sales.

The warnings may have tempered some buying interest, but it was the upbeat earnings reports that swayed investors, keeping the broader market afloat all session.

The positive reaction to earnings had the S&P 500 flirting with its 50-day moving average (2628.59) for the first time since early December -- that is, until a Wall Street Journal report indicated that the U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing criminal charges against Huawei for IP theft. The news preceded the late selling action into the close.

Separately, there was some merger news of note on Wednesday. Fiserv (FISV 72.57, -2.47, -3.3%) announced a $22 billion, or $22.74 per share, all-stock offer to acquire First Data (FDC 21.24, +3.70, +21.1%).

U.S. Treasuries ended on Wednesday on a lower note, pushing the 2-yr yield and 10-yr yield up two basis points each to 2.54% and 2.73%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index was flat at 96.08. WTI crude reversed course to finish higher by 0.8% at $52.33/bbl.

Overseas, UK Prime Minister Theresa May survived a no-confidence vote a day after her Brexit plan was soundly defeated. Her ability to survive the no-confidence vote was widely expected and, like Tuesday, the outcome was a non-factor for U.S. markets.

Reviewing this Wednesday's economic data, which included the NAHB Housing Market Index, Import and Export Prices for December, the Fed's Beige Book for January, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The NAHB Housing Market Index for January came in at 58 (Briefing.com consensus 56), up from 56 in December.
Import prices declined 1.0% month-over-month and were down 0.6% year-over-year. Excluding fuel, they were unchanged in December and up just 0.5% year-over-year. Export prices declined 0.6% and were up 1.1% year-over-year. Excluding agricultural products, they were down 1.1% in December and up 1.0% year-over-year.
The key takeaway from the report is that it didn't ring any inflation alarm bells that would compel the Fed to be less patient with its monetary policy approach.
The Federal Reserve's January Beige Book noted that eight out of twelve districts reported modest to moderate growth, but contacts had become less optimistic about their expectations due to increased volatility in financial markets, rising short-term rates, falling energy prices, and trade/political uncertainty.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 13.5% versus last week's increase of 23.5%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and the Philadelphia Fed Index for January on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +7.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.0% YTD
S&P 500 +4.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.8% YTD

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Stocks Climb on Trade Hope, Waning Growth Concerns
18-Jan-19 16:25 ET
Dow +336.25 at 24706.35, Nasdaq +72.26 at 7156.74, S&P +34.75 at 2670.67

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/1/18/stocks-climb-on-trade-hope-waning-growth-concerns.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 1.3% on Friday, boosted by trade talk optimism and waning concerns about the U.S. economic outlook. Friday's gains extended the benchmark index's weekly gain to 2.9%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.4%), the Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%), and the Russell 2000 (+1.0%) also extended their weekly gains to 3.0%, 2.7%, and 2.4%, respectively.

Within the S&P 500, all 11 sectors finished higher with the cyclical energy (+1.9%), industrials (+1.9%), financials (+1.7%), and materials (+1.6%) groups leading the broader market higher.

Friday's presumed catalyst was a Bloomberg News report highlighting China's willingness to eliminate the U.S. trade imbalance.

According to the report, China made an offer during trade negotiations earlier this month to boost the amount of U.S. imports, such that the trade balance with the U.S. would be $0 by 2024. It's not the news itself that sparked an extended rally, but the tenor of recent trade headlines that have fed hope for a meaningful trade deal.

It is evident that the market is beginning to price in the positive effects of a trade deal, which, if struck, should bode well for global growth and corporate earnings prospects.

In addition, strength in manufacturing output, which drove a 0.3% increase in industrial production in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), and the capacity utilization rate rising to 78.7% (Briefing.com consensus 78.5%), helped temper some of the pressing economic growth concerns that were so prominent at the end of 2018.

The easing concerns over economic growth were subsequently made apparent across capital markets.

The S&P 500 cyclical sectors outperformed; U.S. Treasury prices finished lower, driving yields higher; the dollar extended gains; and oil prices ($53.84/bbl, +$1.85, +3.6%) increased, as did copper prices ($2.72/lb, +0.04, +1.5%).

The yield on the 2-yr Treasury note rose five basis points to 2.61%, and the yield on the 10-yr Treasury note rose four basis points to 2.78%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 96.37.

In earnings news, Dow component American Express (AXP 100.48, +0.99, +1.0%) rose after it released a better-than-expected earnings report. Netflix (NFLX 339.10, -14.09, -4.0%) for its part fell after a Q4 revenue miss and guiding Q1 top and bottom lines below consensus.

In other corporate news, Tesla (TSLA 302.26, -45.05) was a story stock after it dropped 13.0% following plans to reduce its full-time staff by approximately 7%. The company hopes that a reduction can help produce its Model 3 at a more affordable price point for the masses.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for December and the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for January:

Industrial production increased 0.3% in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) on top of a downwardly revised 0.4% increase (from 0.6%) in November. The capacity utilization rate rose to 78.7% (Briefing.com consensus 78.5%) from an upwardly revised 78.6% (from 78.5%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the there was notable strength in manufacturing output (hard data), which saw its largest gain since February 2018 and helped allay some of the concerns surrounding the softening ISM Manufacturing Index (and soft survey data) for December.
The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for January slumped to 90.7 (Briefing.com consensus 96.0) from 98.3 in December, marking the lowest level since President Trump was elected.
The key takeaway from the report is that the consumer's attitude about the economic outlook for the year ahead was categorized as the worst since mid-2014, calling into question the consumer's propensity to spend freely on discretionary items.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Existing Home Sales for December on Monday.

Russell 2000 +9.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 +6.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.9% YTD

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Wall Street Mixed in Uneven Session
23-Jan-19 16:25 ET
Dow +171.14 at 24575.62, Nasdaq +5.41 at 7025.28, S&P +5.80 at 2638.66

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/1/23/wall-street-mixed-in-uneven-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.2% on Wednesday in what was an uneven day of trading. The benchmark index was up as much as 0.8% shortly after the start of trading, lost as much as 0.8% by midday, and teetered around its flat line for most of the afternoon.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) also experienced similar price action. The Russell 2000 (-0.2%) did, too, but finished in negative territory.

Most S&P 500 sectors finished higher with consumer staples (+1.2%) and utilities (+1.1%) outperforming. Conversely, the energy (-1.0%) and material (-0.7%) sectors underperformed the broader market and were the lone sectors ending with a loss.

Stocks had rallied at the open on some earnings beats and reassuring guidance from Dow components IBM (IBM 132.89, +10.37, +8.5%), Procter & Gamble (PG 94.84, +4.40, +4.9%), and United Technologies (UTX 117.04, +5.98, +5.4%).

With stocks recouping a good chunk of Tuesday's losses, there was some hope that the prior day's weakness was nothing more than a one-day pullback for an overbought market.

Market participants, however, would sell into strength, which resulted in a steady decline throughout the morning that left the S&P 500 below its 50-day moving average (2619). A dearth of buying interest, though, turned into a wave of buying interest soon after the S&P 500 violated its 50-day moving average.

The 50-day moving average has proven to be an important technical support level the past two sessions, where an inflow of buyers has helped prevent selling efforts from getting too out of hand.

Sure enough, the S&P 500 ascended to its flat line in afternoon action despite the lingering concerns surrounding a U.S-China trade deal, global growth prospects, and a tense government shutdown.

In other corporate news, Comcast (CMCSA 36.89, +1.92) rose 5.5% after it beat beat top and bottom-line estimates and increased its dividend by 10% to $0.84 per share on an annualized basis for 2019.

U.S. Treasuries ended on a lower note, although the bulk of the session saw a steady climb off opening lows. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 2.59%, and the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 2.76%. The U.S. Dollar Index lost 0.2% to 96.12. WTI crude lost 0.8% to $52.63/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the FHFA Housing Price Index for November and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The FHFA Housing Price Index for November increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), unchanged from October's upwardly revised increase (from 0.3%).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.7% from the prior increase of 13.5% last week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for December on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +7.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.4% YTD
S&P 500 +5.3% YTD

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Stocks Rise on Government Shutdown Deal
25-Jan-19 16:30 ET
Dow +183.96 at 24737.20, Nasdaq +91.40 at 7164.37, S&P +22.43 at 2664.72

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/1/25/stocks-rise-on-government-shutdown-deal.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.9% on Friday as positive-sounding headlines, which included the temporary reopening of the government, helped lift investor sentiment. Friday's gains helped pare the benchmark index's weekly losses to 0.2%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%) squeezed out weekly gains of 0.1% apiece, and the Russell 2000 (+1.3%) returned to its unchanged mark.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed the day in positive territory with the cyclical materials (+1.9%), information technology (+1.5%), and industrial (+1.3%) groups setting the pace. Conversely, the utilities (-1.3%) and consumer staples (-0.2%) sectors were the lone groups to finish in the red.

Stocks jumped at the open on initial speculation that a deal to reopen the government was imminent; hope the Federal Reserve may be getting close to the end of its balance sheet normalization effort; and a contention from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin that the U.S. is making progress with China trade talks.

Notably, news hit in the afternoon session that an agreement had been struck to provide funding, minus border security funding, to re-open the government through February 15. Negotiations over border security funding will take place in the interim, and a failure to reach a compromise on that front could result in another shutdown or a declaration of a national emergency in order to secure funding.

The market's response to the news was relatively muted, partially because it had already priced in some type of an agreement, and partially because it realizes it is only a temporary solution.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was a notable area of strength on Friday, rising 2.2% after its best session in nearly 10 years the day before. A disappointing earnings report from Intel (INTC 47.04, -2.72, -5.5%) did not dampen buying interest in the group, but it did hurt the stock.

In other earnings news, Western Digital (WDC 43.16, +3.02) rose 7.5% with an upbeat outlook for the second half of 2019 offsetting weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and guidance. In addition, Starbucks (SBUX 67.09, +2.35, +3.6%) impressed investors with its fiscal first quarter report and full-year outlook.

U.S. Treasuries ended the day on a lower note, pushing the 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield up four basis points each to 2.60% and 2.75%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.9% to 95.75, pulled back by a rebound in the euro. WTI crude rose 0.9% to $53.62/bbl.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Friday and will not receive any economic data on Monday.

Russell 2000 +10.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.0% YTD
S&P 500 +6.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.0% YTD

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InvestmentHouse - Drama, Drama, Drama (Weekend Newsletter)

https://news.investmenthouse.com/2019/01/the-daily-part-1-of-3-1-26-19.html

- Trade on again, shutdown is shutdown, NYSE indices break higher from the test.
- SOX continues higher, taking the lead in the third leg.
- Stocks rise in the face of less than great news, lead by an important, often market-leading group.
- A new bounce for the third leg on Friday, but of course in a recovery there is little margin for error.

Fridays, Walls, balls, shutdowns that really are not, re-openings, and of course, markets.

Drama, drama, drama. Futures were higher Friday as some of the drama remained, some lifted. Trade news was upbeat as the meeting between Chinese and US trade people that never existed but was cancelled Tuesday was said to be back on. A preliminary protocol-type meeting for the end of January meeting -- but are we not at the end of January now? Ah, such is the state of what is considered news today.

The shutdown over the border wall -- among other things -- still continued as of Friday morning. Who would blink first? The reporting of carnage continued, though the metrics show that even with a government shutdown, government spending was down by just 7% per day. Even with the shutdown still ongoing, stocks were ready to try a rally.

Late day, word came that a deal was struck, a 3-week reopening of the government, no money for a border wall. It is hoped the respite will allow the sides to agree. Hmmm. Both sides are entrenched, at least the ones calling the shots. Several GOP senators pleaded to reopen the government -- had to get their spending fixes I suppose -- and that put pressure on the GOP. Many democrats were doing the same. Their voices were loud enough for a truce, but of course both sides have spent the ensuing 24 hours claiming victory. A 3-week window of funding is victory for anyone? Questionable.

GOP pundits claim the President broke a promise. No wall, no b*lls appeared to be the response from the GOP-ish side. Democratic leaders claim the President blinked. The White House shot back, stating if no deal is reached with border funding, then get ready for some kind of executive action on the wall.

Hardly reported early Friday was the White House drafting a 'national emergency proclamation' including $7B for wall construction. It would appear that if there is no deal with wall funding, something reiterated by top democrats this weekend, there will be some form of executive action. Oh THAT will be well-received.

Stocks respond: huh? What?

Stocks did not seem to mind. INTC missed on revenues, WDC missed earnings and revenues, but stocks moved higher nonetheless. Trade was 'back on' and the markets figure the shutdown gets resolved.

For a second Friday the stock indices rallied. While the prior week saw a bold new move into a third upside leg off the December low, the past week started a short week with a relative sharp decline that set the tone of the week. Was the prior Friday break through resistance a one-day shot that would result in a rebound-ending rollover, or was it just a test ahead of more gains on a third upside leg?

After two sessions' test the growth indices tried a move. NASDAQ edged higher but it was SOX that really moved. Riding earnings from XLNX and LRCX, SOX shot higher. The NYSE indices did not. Their action, as noted at the time, however, was constructive.

Friday SOX shot higher again, NASDAQ gapped upside, and this time the NYSE indices followed.

SP500 22.43, 0.85%
NASDAQ 91.40, 1.29%
DJ30 183.96, 0.75%
SP400 1.07%
RUTX 1.26%
SOX 2.17%
NASDAQ 100 1.27%

VOLUME: NYSE +9%, NASDAQ +1%.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE +3.3:1, NASDAQ +2.6:1


THE CHARTS

After 2 to 3 days down following the prior Friday upside gap, downside that did not look very upside positive after Tuesday, stocks resumed the third bounce. There were clearly leaders, e.g. SOX, while others more or less followed along. SOX is on the run upside while the others are up, but of course face more upside resistance challenges as they resume the climb higher. Nonetheless, the indices are doing exactly what they need to do and they have some leadership from semiconductors, financials coming back, and of course, software.

SOX clearly led upside, surging Thursday to a new recovery high and Friday as well.

NASDAQ was pulled along by SOX' performance, moving Friday to a new closing high on the recovery -- by a slim margin.

DJ30 moved to a new recovery high as well, just eclipsing the prior recovery high a week prior. DJ30 did fall well off the Friday intraday day high to close, taking some of the luster off the move to near the 200 day SMA at 25,000, the next resistance point to take on and overcome.

SP500 gapped and rallied off the 3-day test, moving intraday past the prior week's closing and recovery high. SP500 faded to close just below that prior high. Volume was up but still below average. The move was upside positive but not definitive, a good rebound off a test of the attempt at a new leg. Now it just needs banks to continue and lead the way higher.

SP400 gapped and rallied, closing just over the rebound's recovery high hit the prior Friday. A solid upside break off a classic test of a break through resistance.

RUTX also gapped and rallied, closing just over the prior week's high. As with SP400, a very solid, classic test then break higher.


LEADERSHIP

FAANG: After a weak start, FAANG stocks held support and stated higher Thursday, adding gains Friday. FB still looks as if it wants to end its relatively long downtrend. AAPL actually looks quite similar to FB as it comes off lows. AMZN bounced off the 50 day MA and gapped upside Friday with a decent but uninspired move. NFLX moved up through the 200 day SMA. GOOG gapped up off the 50 day EMA similar to AMZN.

Software: Still a solid group. COUP surged to the initial target. SPLK continued to a higher rally high. DATA surged almost 6% Friday. NOW bounced nicely though is not yet a breakout. EA spent the week working laterally. NTNX, ZS look good but have not made the breaks yet.

Financial: After a week of lateral consolidation, Friday the bank stocks rallied again -- C, BAC. JPM, WFC, not so great. GS started upside, but a light move thus far.

Semiconductors: Another strong move despite INTC, TXN and their weak outlooks. XLNX surged again. LRCX to the 200 day SMA. UCTT surged 11% for us. MU +6.5%, RMBS a good move. Some very solid advances still underway.

Pot: CGC gapped out of a lateral consolidation, rallying 9.66% on huge volume. CRON a strong upside week to a new high.

Drugs: Tough week for the large pharma stocks such as PFE, MRK. LLY held the 50 day EMA with a decent test. Biotechs still look decent: ARRY, EXEL, but nothing overly impressive thus far.

Energy: The big service stocks are trying to make the break higher, e.g. HAL, SLB.

Metals: Gold performs decently, e.g. SA, GG. Industrial metals are so-so, e.g. CENX, AKS, RS.

Machinery/Manufacturing: Some definite improvement though hard to call them leaders just yet. CAT is rallying toward the 200 day SMA in a four month base. CMI is bouncing off a 200 day SMA test following earnings that shot it through that level. TEX, MMM, EMR are off the lows but not much more.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +183.96 points (+0.75%) to close at 24737.20

Nasdaq
Stats: +91.40 points (+1.29%) to close at 7164.86
Volume: 2.44B (+0.83%)

Up Volume: 1.91B (+360M)
Down Volume: 521.8M (-329.33M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.57 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.64 to 1

New Highs: 41 (+12)
New Lows: 21 (-11)

S&P
Stats: +22.43 points (+0.85%) to close at 2664.76
NYSE Volume: 860.856M (+9.39%)

Up Volume: 667.665M (+164.109M)
Down Volume: 188.992M (-85.876M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 3.3 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 2.08 to 1

New Highs: 50 (+19)
New Lows: 5 (-17)


SENTIMENT

VIX: 17.42; -1.47
VXN: 21.78; -1.71
VXO: 18.25; -1.13

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.75; -0.23

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls continued a bounce back in the forties with bears dropping back near 20. Then the market sold back this week. Still, the crossover occurred and that is a bullish indication. The market has made a move up, is testing, and then the question is if it can continue from there.

Bulls: 45.4 versus 42.1 versus 34.8

Bears: 21.3 versus 25.2 versus 29.4

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 45.4 versus 42.1
34.8 versus 29.9 versus 39.3 versus 45.4 versus 46.7 versus 38.3 versus 39.6 versus 42.9 versus 42.5 versus 50.5 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 61.8 versus 60.6 versus 59.0 versus 57.7 versus 60.1 versus 59.6 versus 57.7 versus 57.3 versus 54.9 versus 54.5 versus 54.9 versus 55.3 versus 52.4 versus 47.1 versus 47.6 versus 52.0 versus 55.5 versus 52.9 versus 50.0 versus 49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6 versus 42.2 versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00

Bears: 21.3 versus 25.2
29.4 versus 34.6 versus 21.4 versus 20.4 versus 21.50 versus 20.6 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 19.8 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 18.3 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.5 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8 versus 17.7 versus 19.2 versus 19.2 versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8 versus 19.6 versus 19.8 versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7 versus 15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.748% versus 2.734%. Bonds mostly higher on the week though Friday were off. Bouncing off the 2.5 week slide off the early January high.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). 2.734% versus 2.741% versus 2.75% versus 2.788% versus 2.752% versus 2.727% versus 2.718% versus 2.706% versus 2.699% versus 2.733% versus 2.712% versus 2.731% versus 2.694% versus 2.668% versus 2.552% versus 2.643% versus 2.686% versus 2.716% versus 2.774% versus 2.811% versus 2.736% versus 2.788% versus 2.803%. versus 2.762% versus 2.821% versus 2.855% versus 2.895% versus 2.913% versus 2.908% versus 2.884% versus 2.863% versus 2.854% versus 2.892% versus 2.915% versus 2.979% versus 2.993% versus 3.032% versus 3.061% versus 3.058%


EUR/USD: 1.1407 versus 1.13134. After bombing lower Thursday on the ECB white flag, a surge upside Friday to take back the losses.

Historical: 1.13134 versus 1.13830 versus 1.13652 versus 1.13636 versus 1.13919 versus 1.13993 versus 1.14802 versus 1.14734 versus 1.14699 versus 1.15075 versus 1.15532 versus 1.14547 versus 1.14834 versus 1.13980 versus 1.13957 versus 1.13343 versus 1.14450 versus 1.14425 versus 1.1432 versus 1.13588 versus 1.14015 versus 1.13708 versus 1.13828 versus 1.13755 versus 1.13533 versus 1.13049


USD/JPY: 109.545 versus 109.757. A slow, slow creep upside, but nothing more as USD/JPY remains inside the December selloff.

Historical: Last below 109 in June 2018: 109.757 versus 109.58 versus 109.651 versus 109.773 versus 109.133 versus 108.912 versus 108.551 versus 108.340 versus 108.563 versus 108.332 versus 107.959 versus 108.802 versus 108.705 versus 108.517 versus 107.173 versus 107.515 versus 109.687 versus 110.273 versus 110.845 versus 111.190 versus 110.337 versus 111.223 versus 111.21 versus 112.521 versus 112.477 versus 112.653 versus 113.382


Oil: 53.69, +0.56. Hanging on over the 50 day EMA and 52.50 support in a weeklong lateral move. Trying to make a break higher from a 9 week inverted head and shoulders that formed after a 2 month selloff.


Gold: 1298.10, +18.30. After falling to the 20 day EMA early week, XGLD surged Friday to the upper trendline of the large triangle.


MONDAY

The third leg is underway for sure with SOX, indeed NASDAQ. The other indices are moving up off the test with a very important group, semiconductors, taking the clear point. A very important group for the overall market and thus a good upside signal.

NASDAQ is following -- thanks in large part to its semiconductor components -- while FAANG tries to reset and lead again and software continues its overall solid moves.

The real key for this week is whether the NYSE indices follow. SP400 and RUTX, really growth indices with NASDAQ and SOX, made very good moves Friday. SP500 and DJ30 were not bad, but they need more. Always more, more, more, but that is the nature of the fight when coming out of a sharp selloff.

There are still leaders that can push the third leg higher. NVDA is ready to break upside. AAPL could throw in upside. AMZN and GOOG are still in position to really help, but they have to make some serious moves in their four month bases. Software is solid and not all have broken higher yet, e.g. NOW, NTNX; CRM has consolidated and is at a make or break point. Financials are also there, machinery/manufacturing as well.

Good, but have to perform. Thus far the upside continues to win out on the recovery in spite of the trade, shutdown, world economic, and some earnings have been feast or famine. That shows a resilience in the move and we will thus continue to let positions run and pick up new positions as they show themselves.

Have a great weekend!

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Stocks Pull Back amid Growth, Trade Concerns
07-Feb-19 16:25 ET
Dow -220.77 at 25169.53, Nasdaq -86.93 at 7288.36, S&P -25.56 at 2706.01

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/2/7/stocks-pull-back-amid-growth-trade-concerns.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.9% on Thursday, as recurring concerns about a slowdown in global growth and the prospects of a U.S.-China trade deal weighed on investor sentiment. In addition, an underlying sense that the market was due for a pullback also fueled broad-based profit taking.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.9%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.2%, and the Russell 2000 lost 0.8%.

The S&P 500 energy (-2.1%), information technology (-1.4%), and materials (-1.4%) sectors led Thursday's retreat. Conversely, the defensive-oriented, and higher-yielding, utilities (+1.3%) and real estate (+0.8%) sectors were the lone groups to finish with gains.

Growth concerns resurfaced following a batch of disappointing updates from overseas: (1) the Bank of England left its key rate unchanged at 0.75% and lowered its 2019 GDP growth outlook to 1.2% from 1.7%, (2) the EU Commission cut its 2019 euro area GDP growth forecast to 1.3% from 1.9%, (3) Germany reported a 0.4% month-over- month decline in industrial production in December and (4) the Reserve Bank of India surprisingly cut its key lending rate 25 basis points to 6.25%.

These developments contributed to a lower start for the stock market, which extended losses following some negative trade-related headlines.

Specifically, NEC Director Larry Kudlow told Fox Business Thursday morning that there is still "a pretty sizable distance to go in U.S. trade talks." A White House official then told CNBC that a meeting between President Trump and China's President Xi was "highly unlikely" to happen prior to the March 1 trade deadline. President Trump later confirmed that a meeting is not likely before the deadline.

Some buying interest in late afternoon trading, however, helped the S&P 500 close off its session low (-1.6%).

In earnings news, Twitter (TWTR 30.80, -3.36, -9.8%), Fiat Chrysler (FCAU 15.23, -2.12, -12.2%), and Tapestry (TPR 33.48, -5.83, -14.8%) all posted steep losses after the companies disappointed investors with their results. On the other hand, Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 585.78, +59.72) jumped 11.4% after it impressed investors with a strong report and reassuring outlook.

Separately, the S&P 500 financial sector (-0.9%) saw a big M&A deal on Thursday -- the largest since the financial crisis.

BB&T (BBT 50.46, +1.93, +4.0%) and SunTrust Banks (STI 64.72, +5.98, +10.2%) announced an all-stock merger of equals valued at approximately $66 billion, which would make it the sixth largest U.S. retail bank if approved. The agreement, however, was not enough to lift the financial space, which was pressured by a drop in U.S. Treasury yields and weakness in the money-center bank stocks.

U.S. Treasury yields, which move inversely to prices, declined amid the economic growth concerns. The 2-yr yield decreased six basis points to 2.47%, and the 10-yr yield decreased five basis points to 2.65%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 96.54. WTI crude lost 2.4% to $52.70/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and the Consumer Credit report for December:

Initial claims for the week ending February 2 decreased by 19,000 to 234,000 (Briefing.com consensus 220,000). Continuing claims for the week ending January 26 decreased by 42,000 to 1.736 million.
The key takeaway is that the labor market is still looking pretty good, as initial claims remain low, yet outside headlines are stirring concerns that might not remain the prevailing trend.
Total outstanding consumer credit increased by $16.5 billion in December after increasing an upwardly revised $22.4 billion (from $22.1 billion) in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that it shows the extension of consumer credit is rooted in nonrevolving debt (e.g. car loans and student loans) while revolving credit (e.g. credit cards), which can be a support for discretionary spending, is not expanding in a robust manner.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Friday.

Russell 2000 +11.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.8% YTD
S&P 500 +8.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.9% YTD

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S&P 500 Stages Rebound, Ekes out Gains
08-Feb-19 16:25 ET
Dow -63.20 at 25106.33, Nasdaq +9.85 at 7298.21, S&P +1.83 at 2707.84

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/2/8/s-and-p-500-stages-rebound-ekes-out-gains.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined as much as 0.9% on Friday as follow-through selling and an effort to de-risk sent the broader market lower. However, steady buying interest throughout the afternoon, and a last-minute swarm of buyers, lifted the S&P 500 to a gain of 0.1%.

The Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 also gained 0.1% apiece. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, lost 0.3%.

Most sectors were down in the early going amid a continuation from Thursday's narrative, which emphasized concerns about growth, trade matters, and disappointing earnings guidance. There was also a prevailing sense that the market was due for some consolidation, considering the extent of its rally and no news catalyst to support a continued advance.

The S&P 500 utilities sector (+0.5%) was a consistent leader throughout the day. Comeback performances from the consumer staples (+0.5%), information technology (+0.5%), and communication services (+0.4%) sectors helped underpin the rebound effort. Conversely, the cyclical energy (-0.7%), financial (-0.6%), and consumer discretionary (-0.5%) sectors underperformed.

Some buying interest may have been generated by a Reuters report, which quoted San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly as saying the central bank is debating whether quantitative easing should be reserved for emergencies or used more readily.

Amazon (AMZN 1588.22, -26.15) was a bit of a story stock, losing 1.6% amid news that CEO Jeff Bezos accused National Enquirer's publisher of blackmail. Its underperformance was a huge drag on the consumer discretionary space, which featured some notable post-earnings movers.

In earnings news, toy maker Mattel (MAT 15.23, +2.87) surged 23.2% after it beat top and bottom-line estimates and provided a positive financial outlook for 2019. Goodyear Tire (GT 18.69, -1.86), however, fell 9.1%% after the company missed top and bottom-line estimates.

U.S. Treasuries edged higher, pushing yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 2.46%, and the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 2.63%. The U.S. Dollar Index gained 0.1% to 96.63. WTI crude increased 0.1% to $52.76/bbl.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Friday and will not receive any reports on Monday, either.

Russell 2000 +11.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +10.0% YTD
S&P 500 +8.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.6% YTD

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Rally Continues on Trade Optimism, but Finishes Off Highs
13-Feb-19 16:25 ET
Dow +117.51 at 25543.27, Nasdaq +5.76 at 7420.39, S&P +8.30 at 2752.99

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/2/13/rally-continues-on-trade-optimism-but-finishes-off-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased as much as 0.6% on Wednesday, as continued optimism that U.S.-China trade talks were progressing favorably underpinned another broad-based rally. The benchmark index, however, fell off morning highs and spent a good portion of the day trying to get back to its best levels. It nearly did, but a wave of selling activity in the final 30 minutes knocked it back again. The S&P 500 ended the session up 0.3%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%), the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%), and the Russell 2000 (+0.3%) also had similar price action.

Early optimism was buoyed by reports that China President Xi will meet with the U.S. delegation in Beijing to discuss trade issues on Friday. Some of the early buying interest faded, though, after news hit that Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) plans to file a bill that would make expensing permanent and tax corporate buybacks the same way as dividends.

If that bill ultimately came to pass, it could potentially lead to lower share buyback activity that leads to lower EPS growth. It was an implication that served to take a little steam out of the market.

Nevertheless, nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished higher with energy (+1.3%), industrials (+0.6%), and consumer discretionary (+0.6%) leading the advance. Conversely, the utilities (-0.3%) and the communication services (-0.1%) sectors were the lone groups to finish with a loss.

While gains were largely broad-based, the communication services sector was home to some of the biggest movers in the S&P 500 following some earnings reports.

Activision Blizzard (ATVI 44.57, +2.90) rose 7.0%, recouping a good chunk of its losses from last week despite mixed Q4 results and cautious guidance for FY19. On the downside, TripAdvisor (TRIP 56.94, -3.45) and Dish Network (DISH 28.86, -2.40) fell 5.7% and 7.7%, respectively, after the companies missed earnings expectations.

Separately, Dow component Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 134.45, +0.29, +0.2%) announced plans to acquire robotics company Auris Health for approximately $3.4 billion.

U.S. Treasuries finished on a lower note, pushing yields higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 2.53%, and the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 2.71%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 97.17. WTI crude increased 1.3% to $53.80/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the Consumer Price Index for January, the Treasury Budget for December, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Total CPI was unchanged (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.2%, as expected. On a year-over-year basis, total CPI was up 1.6%, which is the smallest increase since June 2017. Core CPI was up 2.2%, which was the same increase as the 12-month periods ending in November and December.
The key takeaway from the report is that core CPI is stable above the Fed's longer-run target. That could give it some leeway to remain patient for the time being, but at the same time, if the stock market keeps rallying and economic data improve, it could be a basis to consider raising rates again.
The Treasury Budget for December showed a deficit of $13.5 billion versus a deficit of $23.2 billion for the same period a year ago. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the December deficit cannot be compared to the $204.9 billion deficit for November.
The fiscal year-to-date deficit is $318.9 billion versus a deficit of $224.9 billion for the same period a year ago. The budget deficit over the last 12 months is $873.0 billion.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.7% following a 2.5% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Retail Sales for December, the Producer Price Index for January, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and Business Inventories for November on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +14.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +11.8% YTD
S&P 500 +9.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.5% YTD

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Wall Street Finishes Mixed amid Weak Retail Sales Data
14-Feb-19 16:25 ET
Dow -103.88 at 25439.39, Nasdaq +6.58 at 7426.97, S&P -7.30 at 2745.69

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/2/14/wall-street-finishes-mixed-amid-weak-retail-sales-data.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined as much as 0.8% on Thursday, as disappointing retail sales data for December played into the market's concerns about a U.S. economic slowdown. The benchmark index, however, staged a late morning rebound back to its flat line, where it wavered for most of the afternoon. It almost finished flat, but a wave of selling activity in the final 20 minutes of trading left the S&P 500 down 0.3% to end the session.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%), the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%), and the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) experienced similar price action.

Aside from the retail sales data, which showed a 1.2% decline in retail sales for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) -- the largest monthly decline since Sept. 2009 -- the market navigated its way through a flurry of news headlines.

President Trump was considering a 60-day extension for the March 1 trade deadline, according to Bloomberg, although follow-up reports indicated that both the U.S. and China remained far apart on structural reform demands. In addition, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said that President Trump is set on signing the spending bill and declaring a national emergency to build a border wall, which caused some minor gyrations in the market.

Some occurrences that helped lift the market from early lows included (1) a belief that the December retail sales numbers were aberrant and will give way to better retail sales data for January, (2) the outperformance of high-growth, mega-cap stocks, (3) Fed Governor Brainard (FOMC voter) saying she thinks the balance sheet normalization effort should come to an end later this year, and (4) the market's resilience to selling efforts squeezing short-sellers and drawing in sidelined participants fearful of missing out on further gains.

The S&P 500 sectors finished the session mixed.

The consumer staples sector (-1.2%) felt the brunt of the negative fallout in Dow component Coca-Cola (KO 45.59, -4.20, -8.4%) after it disappointed with its FY19 earnings guidance. The financial sector (-1.2%) for its part underperformed as a flattening yield curve, and worries about net interest margin compression, weighed on the bank stocks. American Intl. Group (AIG 40.19, -3.99, -9.0%), which fell well short of consensus earnings estimates for the December quarter, was a notable drag on the sector as well.

Conversely, the real estate (+0.5%), health care (+0.2%), communication services (+0.2%), energy (+0.2%), and information technology (+0.1%) sectors finished with gains.

Dow component Cisco Systems (CSCO 48.40, +0.90, +1.9%) provided the information technology sector with added support as it gained ground after beating earnings estimates, guiding Q3 revenue above consensus, raising its quarterly dividend by 6.0%, and approving a $15 billion increase to its stock repurchase program.

U.S. Treasuries saw increased buying interest following the release of the retail sales data, which drove yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield declined three basis points to 2.50%, and the 10-yr yield declined five basis points to 2.66%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 97.05. WTI crude increased 1.2% to $54.47/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included Retail Sales for December, the Producer Price Index for January, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and Business Inventories for November:

Retail sales declined 1.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.1% increase (from +0.2%) in November. That is the largest monthly decline since September 2009. Excluding autos, retail sales fell 1.8% after a downwardly revised unchanged reading (from +0.2%) for November.
The key takeaway from this disappointing report is that the weakness wasn't isolated to gasoline station sales (-5.1%). It was pretty broad-based across discretionary spending categories like furniture and home furnishings (-1.3%), electronics and appliance stores (-0.1%), clothing and accessories (-0.7%), miscellaneous store retailers (-4.1%), nonstore retailers (-3.9%), and restaurants (-0.7%).
The Producer Price Index for final demand declined 0.1% in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), pulled down by a 0.8% decline in the index for final demand goods. Excluding food and energy, the index for final demand increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a year-over basis, the index for final demand was up 2.0%, versus 2.5% in December, while the index for final demand, excluding food and energy, was up 2.6%, versus 2.7% in December.
The key takeaway from the report is that it could portend margin pressures for producers if they don't choose to pass along the higher costs to their customers.
Initial claims for the week ending February 9 increased by 4,000 to 239,000 (Briefing.com consensus 225,000). Continuing claims for the week ending February 2 increased by 37,000 to 1.773 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that the four-week moving average of 231,750 for initial claims is the highest since January 27, 2018.
Total business inventories declined 0.1% in November (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after increasing an unrevised 0.6% in October. Total business sales fell 0.3% after increasing a downwardly revised 0.1% (from 0.3%) in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that business sales rose at a slower pace than inventories. That distinction, if it persists, will diminish pricing power.

Looking ahead, investors will receive several economic reports on Friday: the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for February, Export and Import Prices for January, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for February, and Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for January.

Russell 2000 +14.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +11.9% YTD
S&P 500 +9.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.1% YTD

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InvestmentHouse - Can There BE Any More Upside Catalysts? (Weekend Newsletter)

https://news.investmenthouse.com/2019/02/the-daily-part-1-of-3-2-16-19.html

MARKET SUMMARY

- Can there BE any more upside catalysts?
- Friday DJ30 and the small caps break sharply upside.
- Money flows to new areas, perhaps spawning new leaders.
- Market leaders up to the fourth leg taking a breather, letting others do some work.
- SP400 moves to the top of the Oct/Dec range as other indices continue their climb to the same level.
- Still no signs of sellers, and with new leadership the indices can take on the resistance, perhaps break through.

Expiration Friday, weak-ish economic data, three-day weekend, trade talks to continue in DC next week, ECB talking new QE, the notion the Fed is done hiking rates and reducing the balance sheet. Pretty much market nirvana, particularly for those areas that lagged for fear of trade and a slowing global economy. Heck, even for stocks tied to the domestic economy.

Futures posted a slow steady burn upside all pre-market, and stocks started upside, rallying for the first hour. A 4+ hour lateral stagnation (but no selling) then a sprint to the close the last half hour. That action fueled some strong gains and some not so strong gains. The spotlight focused on industrial stocks, financials, small caps. Even energy is showing signs of stirring. It was not techs or semiconductors, but those were hardly chopped liver.

SP500 29.87, +1.09%
NASDAQ 45.46, 0.61%
DJ30 443.86, 1.74%
SP400 1.18%
RUTX 1.56%
SOX 0.53%
NASDAQ 100 0.47%

VOLUME: NYSE -1%, NASDAQ +7%. Both exchanges posted average trade -- not blowout but solid enough ahead of a 3-day weekend.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE +3.5:1, NASDAQ +2.6:1.

THE MARKET

On expiration it appears there was some reallocation. Not that any sector was annihilated, but the large techs and chips took a back seat and FAANG was mostly lower. The money was pushed to more the 'old economy,' e.g. industrials, machinery, financial, both large caps and smaller caps.

I discuss frequently the need for generating new leadership to keep a rally moving. Chips, software and a few others provided the backbone of the upside in the first three legs higher. This attempt, as the indices clear the 200 day SMA, is showing new groups coming forward. MMM was an early leader in the group, of course BA as well with its takeoff on earnings. Friday others that were attempting moves put in some good work with stocks such as UTX breaking up through the 200 day MA. HON is over and tested. CMI is breaking out.

With these stocks moving higher it appears money is moving their way, trying to turn some of these groups into leaders. More leadership the merrier. These moves hold some promise and we will see how they fare this coming week.

CHARTS

Working higher, but the key is there are not new breakouts. The indices are moving upside in their fourth leg toward the tops of the OCT/DEC range. SP400 is indeed bumping that resistance as of Friday's close. New leadership provides some promise that perhaps the indices can do more than just bump that resistance.

SP400: And the children shall lead. Why not? The midcaps quietly rally, clearing the 200 day SMA on the Friday close (joining DJ30, SOX). They also cleared the early December peak, the lowest high in the range. They closed out the week at the November peak and October recovery peak marking the top of the range. A weeklong move to the top of the range so they may not be in the best position to go ahead and breakout from here, but definitely not rolling over.

RUTX: Small caps posted a strong gain, a market leading gain with DJ30. They have now more than fully retraced the selloff from early December. Still below the 200 day SMA, still below the other two highs in the OCT/DEC range, but as with the other indices, the recovery continues, and indeed for the small caps, increases.

DJ30: The Dow waffled some after clearing the 200 day SMA, spending about a week working laterally. Up early week, then put in a more definitive move Friday. What did Tin Cup say? When a defining moment comes, you define it or it defines you. Whatever the heck that means though I believe Cup used it as an excuse for his many failures. Anyway, the Dow received quite a bit of backing from its component stocks (outside AAPL), particularly industrials, financial.

NASDAQ: NASDAQ gapped higher, just clearing the 200 day SMA, but then fading to close just below. It was not the larger techs' session. They have led and are now, in some cases, taking a breather.

SOX: A solid week, and while SOX was not in the lead Friday it still put in a gap upside for a gain. Higher recovery high on the week, still in the middle of the summertime base range, steadily working higher.


LEADERSHIP

Financials: After so much promise, a good move Friday. Another head fake or something real? BAC broke over the 200 day SMA while JPM and C posted good moves higher out of 5 week lateral moves. V has been slow, but Friday it cleared the February highs. GS showed decent action off the 50 day MA, though it did not convert us. STT looks interesting as a regional bank, but TCBI is still in its 3-week sleepwalk.

Machinery: CMI cleared the early December high. TEX moving up though not as good a pattern; still, not a bad inverted head and shoulders. Ditto CAT -- still below the 200 day SMA. DE complained of the tariffs with its earnings report, but it shows a nice hammer doji just over the 50 day MA.

Manufacturing: MMM started up again after a quick test of its break over the 200 day SMA. UTX cleared the 200 day SMA. BA moving up after a 1.5 week consolidation of its earnings gap and run. Interesting.

Healthcare: ABT clearing a 4+ month base. ISRG gapped higher, clearing key 4-month resistance. MRK broke higher early week, coasted upside to a higher high Friday. LLY breaking just past recent highs.

Semiconductors: Slowed the 3 week move late week, not dropping, just working laterally after a good move, e.g. MLNX, LRCX, RMBS, UCTT. INTC just kept gapping higher on low volume, leading the group. AMD trying to break higher, not really doing it yet. MU posted a decent move last week, hitting our initial target. NVDA gapped up on earnings; we bought in the night before, took a decent 30+% gain on the initial gap higher.

Software: A bit tired overall after some very good moves higher: COUP, TEAM, NOW. VMW just kept moving higher as did SPLK. ADBE is making a nifty little test of a move higher; it could present a good entry finally this week.

POT: CRON tested the 10 day EMA for two weeks, trying to move up. CGC fell below the 20 day EMA early week but edged back up and finished Friday with a solid move.

RETAIL: WMT is clearing some resistance. TJX, ROST show some promise but in a 6 week lateral consolidation and not surging just yet. LULU was strong but disappointed on the Friday close.

FOOD: CMG continues to drift higher after the earnings gap higher. KO reported results that were flat (get it?) and suffered a wicked gap lower and Friday sold more. PEP on the other hand gapped higher out of its 2 week range.

Energy: Showing some signs of life but not wholly convincing. NBL is one that looks very interesting. SLB, HAL continue looking good. CHK, JAG and others show a similar long lateral consolidation.

Homebuilders/Home related: HD breaking higher over the 200 day SMA, LOW already moving well. DHI looks solid still. TOL is trying to set a base to move higher.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +443.86 points (+1.74%) to close at 25883.25

Nasdaq
Stats: +45.46 points (+0.61%) to close at 7472.41
Volume: 2.26B (+7.11%)

Up Volume: 1.52B (+210M)
Down Volume: 728.67M (-18.18M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.58 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.02 to 1

New Highs: 96 (+22)
New Lows: 19 (-9)

S&P
Stats: +29.87 points (+1.09%) to close at 2775.60
NYSE Volume: 944.491M (-0.30%)

Up Volume: 781.164M (+284.248M)
Down Volume: 142.122M (-297.149M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 3.5 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.16 to 1

New Highs: 110 (+39)
New Lows: 2 (-6)


SENTIMENT

VIX: 14.91; -1.31
VXN: 17.70; -1.32
VXO: 15.18; -1.13

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.80; -0.12

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls up again, but bears moved up a bit as some discomfort with the long recovery rally.

Bulls: 49.5 versus 48.6

Bears: 21.5 versus 20.6

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 49.5 versus 48.6
48.6 versus 45.8 versus 45.4 versus 34.8 versus 29.9 versus 39.3 versus 45.4 versus 46.7 versus 38.3 versus 39.6 versus 42.9 versus 42.5 versus 50.5 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 61.8 versus 60.6 versus 59.0 versus 57.7 versus 60.1 versus 59.6 versus 57.7 versus 57.3 versus 54.9 versus 54.5 versus 54.9 versus 55.3 versus 52.4 versus 47.1 versus 47.6 versus 52.0 versus 55.5 versus 52.9 versus 50.0 versus 49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6 versus 42.2 versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00

Bears: 21.5 versus 20.6
20.6 versus 20.6 versus 21.3 versus 29.4 versus 34.6 versus 21.4 versus 20.4 versus 21.50 versus 20.6 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 19.8 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 18.3 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.5 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8 versus 17.7 versus 19.2 versus 19.2 versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8 versus 19.6 versus 19.8 versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7 versus 15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.664% versus 2.654%. A short, 7-week cup with handle has formed, still looking like a bullish setup for bonds to break higher and yields to fall.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). Last trade over 3% was November 2018.

2.654% versus 2.706% versus 2.686% versus 2.672% versus 2.634% versus 2.657% versus 2.695% versus 2.702% versus 2.725% versus 2.684% versus 2.64% versus 2.679% versus 2.710.5 versus


EUR/USD: 1.12922 versus 1.12955. After 3 back to back sharp reversals the euro is really trying to hold 1.125 with a pair of doji.

Historical: 1.12955 versus 1.12616 versus 1.3323 versus 1.12816 versus 1.13218 versus 1.13396 versus 1.13645 versus 1.1396 versus 1.14350 versus 1.14554 versus 1.14478 versus 1.14924 versus 1.14351 versus 1.14285 versus 1.1407 versus 1.13134 versus 1.13830 versus 1.13652 versus 1.13636 versus 1.13919 versus 1.13993 versus 1.14802 versus 1.14734 versus 1.14699 versus 1.15075 versus 1.15532 versus 1.14547 versus 1.14834 versus 1.13980 versus 1.13957 versus 1.13343 versus 1.14450 versus 1.14425 versus 1.1432 versus 1.13588 versus 1.14015 versus 1.13708 versus 1.13828 versus 1.13755 versus 1.13533 versus 1.13049


USD/JPY: 110.469 versus 110.462.

Historical: Last below 109 in June 2018 then tumbled to 107 in early January 2019. 114.51 is the recent high from October 2018.

110.462 versus 110.945 versus 110.523 versus 110.488 versus 109.754 versus 109.793 versus 109.803 versus 109.777 versus 109.987 versus 109.53 versus 108.85 versus 108.96 versus 109.364 versus 109.180 versus 109.545 versus 109.757 versus 109.58 versus 109.651 versus 109.773 versus 109.133 versus 108.912 versus 108.551 versus 108.340 versus 108.563 versus 108.332 versus 107.959


Oil: 55.98, +1.57. Gapped and rallied to the close, just starting to clear the 5.5 week lateral range.


Gold: 1322.10, +8.20. Gapping and rallying off the 2.5 week lateral move over the 20 day EMA. Looks as if gold could be making that new move higher.


TUESDAY

The week ended with expiration Friday and some apparent reallocation of new money to the financial, industrial, home-centric, and perhaps energy stocks. Other areas did not sell off, just continued to rest or took a breather. If new money wants to come into new areas and drive them higher while staying in the others that are resting, that is perfect. That is the virtuous rotation that keeps the last round of leaders holding gains, resting for a new move once the money is deployed to the new areas.

Still, despite the impressive Dow and RUTX gains Friday, remember the resistance that is very near at hand. New leaders can make their own way as they are not overextended. And once they make the initial move you see if money flows into the earlier leaders that took a break while the new group moved up. Back and forth rotation, pushing higher.

If that action continues, even with the approaching resistance, if there is no selling then the indices can continue to move higher, resistance or not. Nothing yet indicates a rollover, just looming resistance presents the possibility.

With that scenario we will still look for the best upside money making potential heading toward that resistance. Remember, all along we said this fourth leg can still make us money, and with the new names breaking higher we still see the potential. As long as the money pushes into those areas we want to make the plays, following the money.

Have a great weekend!

End part 1
__________

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Wall Street Edges Higher Following FOMC Minutes
20-Feb-19 16:25 ET
Dow +63.12 at 25954.44, Nasdaq +2.30 at 7489.09, S&P +4.94 at 2784.66

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/2/20/wall-street-edges-higher-following-fomc-minutes.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.2% on Wednesday, as the minutes from the Federal Reserve's January meeting came in mostly in-line with expectations. Price action, overall, was kept in check with earnings reports driving the notable movers in the stock market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.5%. The Nasdaq Composite, however, finished flat.

The S&P 500 materials (+1.7%), financials (+0.6%), and industrials (+0.5%) sectors outperformed the broader market. Conversely, the real estate (-0.7%), health care (-0.1%), consumer staples (-0.1%), and communication services (-0.1%) sectors finished in the red.

The main takeaway from the FOMC Minutes was that the Fed is going to be patient in raising rates and is likely to stop reducing the assets on its balance sheet later this year. The surprise - or maybe the important revelation - for the market to consider was the implication that the Fed could turn away from a "patient" mindset with raising interest rates if market uncertainty abates.

Separately, there was little news on the current U.S-China trade talks, but investors did get an update on trade negotiations with the EU. President Trump expressed his displeasure with talks, telling reporters that if the U.S. cannot make a deal with EU, the White House will impose auto tariffs.

The minutes, along with the EU trade update, contributed to some volatility that yielded modest losses for the major averages. Investors regrouped, however, lifting the averages back into the green to extend the stock market's lengthy rally.

Semiconductor stocks outperformed, driven in part by an upbeat earnings report from Analog Devices (ADI 106.82, +2.60, +2.5%). Their outperformance helped keep the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+0.9%) rally going and provided some support for the information technology sector (unch).

On the other hand, CVS Health (CVS 64.22, -5.66, -8.1%) and Southwest Airlines (LUV 54.41, -3.26, -5.7%) disappointed investors with some downside guidance. Specifically, CVS guided earnings for Q1 and fiscal 2019 below estimates, and Southwest Airlines cut its first quarter unit revenue guidance to 3-4% growth, year-over-year, from 4-5% growth.

The outsized loss from CVS weighed on the health care sector (-0.1%). Airline stocks also underperformed on concern other carriers could follow suit with unit revenue revisions of their own.

U.S. Treasuries were little changed during Wednesday's session. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield finished flat at 2.50% and 2.65%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index was unchanged at 96.55. WTI crude rose 1.2% to $57.15/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 3.6% following a revised 6.9% decline (from -3.7%) in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive several economic reports on Thursday: Durable Orders for December, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Philadelphia Fed Index for February, Existing Homes Sales for January, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators Index for January.

Russell 2000 +17.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.3% YTD
S&P 500 +11.1% YTD

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InvestmentHouse - Trade Deal 'More Likely Than Not' (Weekend Newsletter)

https://news.investmenthouse.com/2019/02/the-daily-part-1-of-3-2-23-19.html

- Stocks start stronger, fade after no trade deal, recover after President, China say trade deal likely.
- Indices moving up to test the top of the range, SP400 is through the range, others trying to follow.
- Plenty of different groups vying for investment dollars, using some decent patterns as lures.
- Chips start higher again, software setting up again.
- Indices are certainly at resistance, but this far showing no signs of rolling over. As more solid stock patterns appear, they only reinforce an attempt to break through resistance.

No trade deal announced, but the President and top Chinese negotiator in DC concurred there would likely be one. The President stated a deal was 'more likely than not,' while the top Chinese negotiator opined an agreement would occur. Trump further said he and Xi would meet a Mar-A-Lago in March, again stating that only they could hammer out the final details of a deal.

Stock futures were higher and stocks opened higher, rallying into midday. After that, a slump into mid-afternoon took the indices back to the early session lows; still positive but well off the highs.

Then the announcements regarding trade. The word leaked that no deal was firmed up and that helped the selling. The President held a press conference and as the news percolated out, the comments from Trump and the Chinese lead negotiator hit. That news helped turn a midmorning to midafternoon slump into a rally back upside in the last 1.5 hours. The indices closed at or near session highs with the indices putting more moves on the October/December resistance.

SP500 17.79, 0.64%
NASDAQ 67.83, 0.91%
DJ30 191.18, 0.70%
SP400 0.80%
RUTX 0.92%
SOX 1.08%
NASDAQ 100 0.79%

VOLUME: NYSE -7%, NASDAQ +14%. NYSE trade languished below average again while NASDAQ trade moved above average for the first time in three weeks as some key stocks started higher again.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE 2.7:1, NASDAQ 2.5:1. Small and midcaps helping push higher.

SP400 moved on through as the midcaps continue leading. The others are moving up through the that range as well. After slowing the move Tuesday to Thursday, the indices bounced nicely to end the week.

The 'old guard' was moving, i.e. many of the initial leaders in the entire recovery: software, tech, drugs, chips as well. Then there are others stepping up, e.g. some Chinese stocks such as BABA, JD, TME.

Some of the recent movers took a pause as the older leaders bounced -- energy was off on the session and machinery and manufacturing still look good, but still looking for a new solid upside break.

With the resurgence of the initial leaders -- sans FAANG for the most part -- there are plenty of stocks to support a move higher. Friday that is what they were doing. Very pleased to let the move upside continue, let some positions continue working higher, pick up a few more good movers, and bank a bit more gain.

That does not mean we are now convinced the indices will break through the range and move on to new highs. After all, SP500 is still below 2800 and DJ30 is still dancing at 26,000, the first rungs of the October/December range. Some serious resistance from the top of this range, and even then the old highs after that.

The run from the December low is now 9 weeks old and in some cases has topped the December high and even the November high where the selloff started. A long time with no significant test, moving into key resistance. At some point the indices are going to test this move either with an ordinary pullback to test resistance broken, a deeper test to perhaps the trading range lows, and in the extreme, back toward the December low.

Of course that means the upside probabilities are less and less, but the indices and stocks are not showing any signs of running out of steam at this point. Indeed, more stocks are joining in and the initial leaders, after a rest, are coming back around. Sure does not look and act as a rollover.

Thus, looks as if there is more upside for now, and we will continue to play that until breakouts and breaks upside start reversing in numbers.


THE CHARTS

SP400: You have to lead with the SP400 midcaps again as late week they broke higher through the 200 day SMA as well as the top of the October/December range. With that move they are making good on the inverted head and shoulders pattern from early November to early February. Not a massive new move upside, but as has been the case for four weeks now, a solid, steady move. Domestic implications are the economy is not as frail and fraught with potential recession as many fear.

RUTX: Cleared the 200 day SMA Friday as well as the November peak. Now just the October recovery peak remains in its range. RUTX has already recovered 100% of the December and November selloffs but is a long way from the 2018 peak. As with midcaps, the success and relative strength from small caps of late shows confidence in the US economy.

DJ30: Over the 26K level on the week, but hardly impressively so. The Dow rallied well two Fridays back then slid laterally this week just below resistance from the Oct/Dec range. Thus far not trying to break through the top of the range, but if stocks such as CAT, MMM continue higher and AAPL breaks higher once more, the Dow will have some potential to break through. As of yet, a low volume bumping at the top of the range.

SP500: Over the 200 day SMA on the week but still below the peaks of the trading range. 2800 was tested but remained unbroken. As noted last week, everyone and his brother is watching the 2800 - 2830 level as resistance.

NASDAQ: NASDAQ moved through the 200 day SMA as well with a more definitive Friday move, showing a solid price gain and a shot of very solid above average volume. Cleared the December peak on the move but is still below November and October at the top of the range. It is working and some big name techs that are not FAANG are working, e.g. MSFT, INTC, ORCL, CSCO.

SOX: Steady week, continuing to trend higher over the 10 day EMA. Several groups of chips started back upside Friday. Not a bad move at all.

LEADERSHIP

Software: Setting up well as noted previously. TEAM, NOW, NEWR, WDAY are all leaders that tested, held gains, and look strong once more.

FAANG: Still a laggard group. FB, GOOG, AMZN, AAPL all in lateral moves. NFLX is not bad at all.

Energy: Back and forth on the week but finished the week still holding good patterns. DVN, TELL, PTEN, CVX, COP -- many have promising patterns.

Machinery: CAT in a nice test of the move over the 200 day SMA. CMI worked mostly laterally on the week but still trended up the 10 day EMA. DE recovered very well off a 50 day MA drop on earnings.

Manufacturing: MMM, UTX still setting up quite nicely.

Home-related: HD is in a great flat flag test. LOW has enjoyed a super 2 weeks. DHI moved to a higher recovery high Friday. TOL working. TREX faded on the week but still a solid pattern.

Financials: V broke nicely higher Friday. Regional banks decent, e.g. STT, TCBI. C was upgraded but that didn't do anything for it or any of the other bank stocks for that matter.

Chips: Came back to life on the week. RMBS, SIMO, SMTC, INTC. Still like how NVDA is setting up.

Metals: Industrial metals still look decent, e.g. CLF, MUX. Steel making some good moves, e.g. SID.



MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +181.18 points (+0.70%) to close at 26031.81

Nasdaq
Stats: +67.84 points (+0.91%) to close at 7527.54
Volume: 2.42B (+14.15%)

Up Volume: 1.67B (+829.88M)
Down Volume: 718.14M (-531.86M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.45 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.39 to 1

New Highs: 126 (+51)
New Lows: 20 (+3)

S&P
Stats: +17.79 points (+0.64%) to close at 2792.67
NYSE Volume: 796.076M (-6.56%)

Up Volume: 516.496M (+246.563M)
Down Volume: 252.163M (-320.713M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.66 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.57 to 1

New Highs: 162 (+72)
New Lows: 9 (+1)

SENTIMENT

VIX: 13.51; -0.95
VXN: 16.95; -1.24
VXO: 13.87; -0.99

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.79; -0.14

Bulls and Bears:

Getting a bit bullish with a move over 50 while bears dropped right back below 21 after the short break higher. Fear continues to subside.

Bulls up again, but bears moved up a bit as some discomfort with the long recovery rally.

Bulls: 51.9 versus 49.5

Bears: 20.7 versus 21.5

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 51.9 versus 49.5
49.5 versus 48.6 versus 45.8 versus 45.4 versus 34.8 versus 29.9 versus 39.3 versus 45.4 versus 46.7 versus 38.3 versus 39.6 versus 42.9 versus 42.5 versus 50.5 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 61.8 versus 60.6 versus 59.0 versus 57.7 versus 60.1 versus 59.6 versus 57.7 versus 57.3 versus 54.9 versus 54.5 versus 54.9 versus 55.3 versus 52.4 versus 47.1 versus 47.6 versus 52.0 versus 55.5 versus 52.9 versus 50.0 versus 49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6 versus 42.2 versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00

Bears: 20.7 versus 21.5
21.5 versus 20.6 versus 20.6 versus 21.3 versus 29.4 versus 34.6 versus 21.4 versus 20.4 versus 21.50 versus 20.6 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 19.8 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 18.3 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.5 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8 versus 17.7 versus 19.2 versus 19.2 versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8 versus 19.6 versus 19.8 versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7 versus 15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.654% versus 2.695%. TLT is working up and down in a four week range from 120.50 to 122.50.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). Last trade over 3% was November 2018.

2.695% versus 2.641% versus 2.641% versus 2.664% versus 2.654% versus 2.706% versus 2.686% versus 2.672% versus 2.634% versus 2.657% versus 2.695% versus 2.702% versus 2.725% versus 2.684% versus 2.64% versus 2.679% versus 2.710.5 versus


EUR/USD: 1.13332 versus 1.13363. Euro rebounded to the 20 day EMA on the week, stalled there for now.

Historical: 1.13363 versus 1.14490 versus 1.13544 versus 1.12922 versus 1.12955 versus 1.12616 versus 1.3323 versus 1.12816 versus 1.13218 versus 1.13396 versus 1.13645 versus 1.1396 versus 1.14350 versus 1.14554 versus 1.14478 versus 1.14924 versus 1.14351 versus 1.14285 versus 1.1407 versus 1.13134 versus 1.13830 versus 1.13652 versus 1.13636 versus 1.13919 versus 1.13993 versus 1.14802 versus 1.14734 versus 1.14699 versus 1.15075 versus 1.15532 versus 1.14547 versus 1.14834 versus 1.13980 versus 1.13957 versus 1.13343 versus 1.14450 versus 1.14425 versus 1.1432 versus 1.13588 versus 1.14015 versus 1.13708 versus 1.13828 versus 1.13755 versus 1.13533 versus 1.13049


USD/JPY: 110.670 versus 110.664

Historical: Last below 109 in June 2018 then tumbled to 107 in early January 2019. 114.51 is the recent high from October 2018.

110.664 versus 110.786 versus 110.848 versus 110.469 versus 110.462 versus 110.945 versus 110.523 versus 110.488 versus 109.754 versus 109.793 versus 109.803 versus 109.777 versus 109.987 versus 109.53 versus 108.85 versus 108.96 versus 109.364 versus 109.180 versus 109.545 versus 109.757 versus 109.58 versus 109.651 versus 109.773 versus 109.133 versus 108.912 versus 108.551 versus 108.340 versus 108.563 versus 108.332 versus 107.959


Oil: 57.26, +0.30. Oil moved up well the past two weeks from a 50 day SMA test. Moved past the late January recovery high and to the mid-November consolidation price -- where it failed.


Gold: 1332.80, +5.00. Gold broke to a higher high Tuesday then gave it up. Held at the 10 day and rebounded from there. Still looks in position to continue higher.

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S&P 500, Nasdaq Finish with Weekly Gains
01-Mar-19 16:25 ET
Dow +110.32 at 26026.32, Nasdaq +62.82 at 7595.38, S&P +19.20 at 2803.65

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/3/1/s-and-p-500-nasdaq-finish-with-weekly-gains.htm
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.7% on Friday, led by shares of energy and health care companies; meanwhile investors remained optimistic about a U.S.-China trade deal. Friday's gains lifted the benchmark index into positive territory for the week, advancing 0.4%.

The Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) extended its weekly gain to 0.9%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and the Russell 2000 (+0.9%) finished flat for the week.

The S&P 500 energy (+1.8%), health care (+1.4%), and consumer discretionary (+0.9%) sectors outperformed. Conversely, the consumer staples (-0.2%), materials (-0.2%), and real estate (-0.1%) sectors were the lone groups to finish with losses.
Stocks jumped out of the gate, propelled by a Bloomberg report that the U.S. and China are working on a document that lays out the provisions of a trade deal and that such a document could be ready to be signed by Presidents Trump and Xi as early as mid-March. Some new inflows on the first trading day of the month likely also contributed to the positive bias.

The major averages, however, lost steam and fell to session lows following the release of the ISM Manufacturing and Consumer Sentiment reports for February. The reports weren't "bad," but both came in below expectations and provided an excuse to sell an overbought market.

Selling was short-lived, though, as has been the case all year. The S&P 500 sectors staged a steady rebound during the afternoon, allowing the benchmark index to close near session highs and above the 2800 level.

Positive earnings reports from retailers Gap (GPS 29.51, +4.11, +16.2%) and Foot Locker (FL 63.07, +3.55, +6.0%) helped spur gains in the consumer discretionary sector (+0.9%). GAP also announced it will spin off Old Navy as a separate company.

Conversely, Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 66.61, -4.58, -6.4%) underperformed after Robert W. Baird cut its price target to $67 from $70. Baird maintained a 'neutral' rating on the stock.
Tesla (TSLA 294.79, -25.09) was a story stock, losing 7.8%, after CEO Elon Musk conceded that the company will not be profitable during the first quarter. The Tesla team also said it will shift sales worldwide to online only. The transition will reduce costs in order to lower the prices of its vehicles, including the Model 3.
U.S. Treasuries closed out the week on a lower note, sending yields higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield increased five basis points to 2.55%, and the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 2.76%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 96.46. WTI crude lost 2.5% to $55.81/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:
Personal income increased 1.0% in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and declined 0.1% in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). Personal spending declined 0.5% in December (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%). The personal savings rate in December surged to 7.6% from 6.1% in November.

The PCE Price Index for December was up 0.1% while the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). That left the those indexes up 1.7% and 1.9%, respectively, year-over-year and below the Fed's longer-run inflation target.

The key takeaway from the report is that there is a fair amount of signaling noise that will likely prompt the market to dismiss it and encourage the Fed to stick by a wait-and-see mindset, buying more time for the stock market to exist without fear of a Fed rate hike.

The ISM Manufacturing Index weakened to 54.2 in February (Briefing.com consensus 56.0) from 56.6 in January.
The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0, so the key takeaway from the February number is that it should be interpreted as a slowdown, and not a decline, in the pace of manufacturing expansion.

According to the ISM, the relationship between the index and the overall economy indicates the February reading corresponds to a 3.3% increase in real GDP on an annualized basis.
The final reading for the University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment for February was 93.8 (Briefing.com consensus 95.6). That was down from the preliminary reading of 95.5, but up from the final reading of 91.2 for January.

The key takeaway from the report is that it conveyed the finding that no improvement in real income expectations was observed among households in the bottom two-thirds of the income distribution. That perspective, should it persist, or ultimately come to fruition, would be a drag on consumer spending activity.
Looking ahead, investors will receive Construction Spending for December and auto and truck sales on Monday.

Russell 2000 +17.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +14.5% YTD
S&P 500 +11.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.6% YTD

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InvestmentHouse - US Economic Data Remains On and Off (Weekend Newsletter)

https://news.investmenthouse.com/2019/03/the-daily-part-1-of-3-3-2-19.html

- A week that tested resistance, faded, held support, then started back upside.
- Friday new money flowed in for the new month.
- US economic data remains on and off, but still expanding.
- China economics hurt then help stocks while a possible 'remarkable, historic' trade deal is hyped.
- Indices show no sellers and indeed more stocks are setting up very decent upside patterns.
- Indices now set to take on the range tops again.

It would appear that new money did not wait for the new week. March began Friday, and after a high-volume stagnant end to February, March blew in some solid index gains. After some rather tepid US economic data -- yet again -- many see the Fed's easy money policy as appropriate, or that China's on again/off again economic data ('on' Friday with better manufacturing data after Thursday's extraordinarily weak import/export data) trumped the weaker US data. Or perhaps Larry Kudlow's extolling the possibility of a "remarkable, historic" trade deal had something to do with it. Or, it was just time for new money to hit the market on a new month.

Whatever the cause or synergistic melding of events, stocks gapped higher, held the gap -- at least after a morning dive back to near flat -- and closed with some rather decent gains.

SP500 19.20, 0.69%
NASDAQ 62.82, 0.83%
DJ30 110.32, 0.43%
SP400 0.79%
RUTX 0.89%
SOX 0.96%
NASDAQ 100 0.76%

VOLUME: NYSE -25%, NASDAQ -6.5%. Volume faded big time on NYSE after that end of month spike, but trade was still above average. Ditto NASDAQ.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE +1.8:1, NASDAQ +1.9:1. Very so-so breadth versus the move.

As far as the indices, there was not anything really new accomplished Friday. Last week the indices bumped resistance (or in SP400's case, continued the break) then faded modestly. Friday's new money injected new life, but as noted, did not break that resistance. Constructive action all week as the indices and stocks tested back to near support.

No breakouts Friday for the indices perhaps, but they tapped resistance, faded to near support, then got right back at it. Indeed, stocks such as GOOG broke out over some resistance and AMZN actually showed some life on much better volume after four weeks of dormancy. Many other stocks continue to move well or set up as well across many sectors and industries: software, chips, drugs, energy, healthcare -- there is enough support to fuel a continued move and of course the breakout from the October/December range.

Economics/News

The US data was about as on and off as the Chinese data, though the US reports still show an economy that is growing while Chinese data shows an economy that was/is teetering and desperately craving the stimulus the Chinese government started pumping again the past few months.

Thursday GDP was lower than Q3 (no surprise) but was stronger than expected. As I noted in discussing the data, the internals were very positive, e.g. private R&D grew at an all-time record pace. That bodes very well for future activity. Disposable incomes grew. The data perhaps was not as pleasing for the here and now, but it suggests the seeds for continued and sustained expansion are being planted by what the new US socialist/communist party calls the accursed, capitalist, free enterprise private sector.

Friday saw disappointing spending and income data.

December income jumped 1.0%, easily topping expectations at 0.3% and November's 0.3%. January, however, fell -0.1 when +0.3% was expected.

December spending dropped 0.5% from +0.6% in November, the largest decrease in 9 years. That jumped the savings rate to over 7%, and that had most pundits shaking their heads, noting the data must be wrong.

No, it was not a great economic story for the day. Hey, at least bonds are selling and interest rates are rising, taking a lot of the flat out of the yield curve. That suggests the back and forth in the economic data is just a hangover from the Fed's tightening into a slowdown. It suggests that if the Fed doesn't turn back to tightening mode just yet and the government doesn't go as completely nuts as the new communists -- oh I guess they want to be called socialists -- in our government want in terms of taxes, regulation, etc., then the US economy will resume its expansion.

Look at the midcaps and small caps: after lagging the move, they both surpassed their large cap brethren and SP400 already broke over the top of its October/December range. Those indices are domestically tied, harbingers if you will, of the domestic economy. That they rallied to market leadership after languishing in market . . . laggardship (?) . . . also indicates the Fed stopped perhaps just in time to prevent a recession. For now.

Even so, we did not buy a ton Friday. We bought GOOG on its breakout. We took some gain on ZS after banking gain earlier in the week on ULTA, V, MU, CRON -- stocks are still moving. After last week's test and the Friday bounce we will see if the bids continue to push in. After testing resistance, fading modestly and orderly, then starting to rebound off near support, we will see if the real bids come back in and start moving the good patterns up and defy the odds and break the indices upside out of their pre-selloff ranges.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

All but SP400 bumped at or near the top of the range, faded to near support, then posted decent moves Friday. Not breakouts, just coming back up after the initial probe at resistance. Fairly constructive, and now we see if the indices can turn something upside out of the action. The indices look as if they are going to take a shot at the resistance before testing more.

SP400: Extended its break over the top of the OCT/DEC range through Monday then faded to test the range top. Friday a decent bounce but the move was not all that inspiring.

NASDAQ: Bumped the November peak Monday, the mid-high in the range tops, faded to the 200 day SMA, gapped upside Friday. Closed just over the November high, thus putting in a new closing high for the recovery. A little help from GOOG and some other mega-caps helped. Still, it was no major move in itself, though the work on the week was, as noted before, was constructive.

RUTX: Tapped the top of the range Monday, faded to the 10 day EMA, then back up Friday. Very solid test and Friday bounce. Promising.

SP500: Nice tap at the top of the range, fade to the 10 day EMA, and gap upside Friday. Not bad, aided by many drug stocks. If the financials would join then SP500 has a shot at the breakout.

DJ30: Very similar, but a very tight range as well. Holding the 10 day EMA and right at the range tops. No breakout yet, but as noted many times, no sellers running in to sell it or any of the other indices.

SOX: Came within striking distance of the top of the March/September range then faded to test. Orderly, holding near support, gapping upside Friday. Chips started to lead finally and are still in that mode.


LEADERSHIP

Semiconductors: Most tested last week with the rest of the market, leaving pretty good possibilities for the coming week. LRCX still in a nice test. COHR, VSH, AMD, BRKS, TSM -- many nice pullbacks. Even NVDA. XLNX continued upside in its own world.

Software: Most leaders pulled back including software, but to a much lesser degree. Then, as leaders do, they started upside ahead of the rest. TEAM jumped again Thursday and Friday. ZS exploded higher on earnings, though it was dormant until Friday. NOW started upside midweek. NEWR solid. VMW jumped on earnings. PANW testing nicely after earnings gapped it higher.

FAANG: Dormant for a month, there are a few signs of life. GOOG started upside with a breakout. AMZN showed a move up from a month of a flat range. AAPL still in its four week lateral range. NFLX was down on the week, but holding the 20 day EMA. FB spent a third week at the 20 day EMA.

Drugs: Some recovering nicely, others continue working. PFE is starting to show good upside volume in a decent pattern. MRK continued climbing the 10 day as LLY really surged on the week.

Financial: V, MA enjoyed a good week. JPM, C still in 7 week lateral moves, and BAC has also turned laterally.

Energy: Back and forth moves continued. SWN broke higher Friday and is interesting. SPN still in a very nice test, but still not moving up. APA is interesting. XOM is over the 200 day SMA as is CVX, the latter with a strong Friday move.

MISC: CMG looks ready to move again. ROKU posted a great move for us.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +110.32 points (+0.43%) to close at 26026.32

Nasdaq
Stats: +62.82 points (+0.83%) to close at 7595.35
Volume: 2.49B (-6.39%)

Up Volume: 1.61B (+330M)
Down Volume: 857.81M (-482.19M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.86 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.4 to 1

New Highs: 108 (+33)
New Lows: 30 (-5)

S&P
Stats: +19.20 points (+0.69%) to close at 2803.69
NYSE Volume: 948.485M (-24.82%)

Up Volume: 587.177M (-4.389B)
Down Volume: 341.199M (-402.682M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 1.82 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 1.19 to 1

New Highs: 134 (+5)
New Lows: 13 (-2)

SENTIMENT

VIX: 13.57; -1.21
VXN: 16.12; -1.05
VXO: 12.88; -1.63

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.91; -0.05

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls continue their recovery, bears continue their decline after they merged in late 2018.

Bulls: 52.4 versus 51.9

Bears: 20.4 versus 20.7

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 52.4 versus 51.9
51.9 versus 49.5 versus 48.6 versus 45.8 versus 45.4 versus 34.8 versus 29.9 versus 39.3 versus 45.4 versus 46.7 versus 38.3 versus 39.6 versus 42.9 versus 42.5 versus 50.5 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 61.8 versus 60.6 versus 59.0 versus 57.7 versus 60.1 versus 59.6 versus 57.7 versus 57.3 versus 54.9 versus 54.5 versus 54.9 versus 55.3 versus 52.4 versus 47.1 versus 47.6 versus 52.0 versus 55.5 versus 52.9 versus 50.0 versus 49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6 versus 42.2 versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00

Bears: 20.4 versus 20.7
20.7 versus 21.5 versus 20.6 versus 20.6 versus 21.3 versus 29.4 versus 34.6 versus 21.4 versus 20.4 versus 21.50 versus 20.6 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 19.8 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 18.3 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.5 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8 versus 17.7 versus 19.2 versus 19.2 versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8 versus 19.6 versus 19.8 versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7 versus 15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.759% versus 2.717%. Bonds continue to fall with yields continuing to rise, helping steepen the curve.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). Last trade over 3% was November 2018.

2.717% versus 2.673% versus 2.636% versus 2.672% versus 2.654% versus 2.695% versus 2.641% versus 2.641% versus 2.664% versus 2.654% versus 2.706% versus 2.686% versus 2.672% versus 2.634% versus 2.657% versus 2.695% versus 2.702% versus 2.725% versus 2.684% versus 2.64% versus 2.679% versus 2.710.5


EUR/USD: 1.13650 versus 1.13725. Still in the 5 month lateral trading range.

Historical: 1.13725 versus 1.13790 versus 1.1391 versus 1.13598 versus 1.13332 versus 1.13363 versus 1.14490 versus 1.13544 versus 1.12922 versus 1.12955 versus 1.12616 versus 1.3323 versus 1.12816 versus 1.13218 versus 1.13396 versus 1.13645 versus 1.1396 versus 1.14350 versus 1.14554 versus 1.14478 versus 1.14924 versus 1.14351 versus 1.14285 versus 1.1407 versus 1.13134 versus 1.13830 versus 1.13652 versus 1.13636 versus 1.13919


USD/JPY: 111.921 versus 111.433. Dollar breaking higher over the 200 day SMA after a very strong Thursday took it to that level.

Historical: Last below 109 in June 2018 then tumbled to 107 in early January 2019. 114.51 is the recent high from October 2018.

111.433 versus 110.873 versus 110.53 versus 110.979 versus 110.670 versus 110.664 versus 110.786 versus 110.848 versus 110.469 versus 110.462 versus 110.945 versus 110.523 versus 110.488 versus 109.754 versus 109.793 versus 109.803 versus 109.777 versus 109.987 versus 109.53 versus 108.85 versus 108.96 versus 109.364 versus 109.180 versus 109.545 versus 109.757 versus 109.58 versus 109.651 versus 109.773 versus 109.133 versus 108.912 versus 108.551 versus 108.340 versus 108.563 versus 108.332 versus 107.959


Oil: 55.80, -1.42. Oil continues working laterally over 55, but it also continues the slow trend higher off the December low.


Gold: 1299.20, -16.90. Gold plunges to the 50 day MA as this inflation measure falls sharply along with bonds.

MONDAY

The stage is set. The indices tested the top of the range -- on top of a 20%ish rally from the December low -- faded just a few sessions, then started a rebound Friday as new money for a new month flowed in. The market remains at the inflection point and will either breakout or move back down to varying degrees.

For now, no sellers have emerged. Indeed, many sectors are producing some good patterns and some good moves upside. The bias for now with the patterns and the ongoing move is obviously upside. Without sellers it is hard for the market to fall. The buyers can slack off, pull their bids and wait for a better entry, but that is not selling. That is just a pause to set up more upside. Thus far, that is what last week looks like.

With that picture we have several more very solid upside plays at various levels of their moves. All are in position to make us good money. Thus, if the indices can continue the Friday move we will look at more positions and see if they can force an index breakout.

Have a great weekend!

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S&P 500 Retests November High but Pulls Back Below 2800
04-Mar-19 16:25 ET
Dow -206.67 at 25819.65, Nasdaq -17.79 at 7577.59, S&P -10.88 at 2792.77

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/3/4/s-and-p-500-retests-november-high-but-pulls-back-below-2800-.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced as much as 0.5% following a report that the U.S. and China are nearing a trade deal. The benchmark index was then down as much as 1.3% following an inability to sustain a retest of its November high. Renewed buying interest, however, propelled an afternoon rebound effort, leaving the S&P 500 with a loss of 0.4%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.8%), the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%), and the Russell 2000 (-0.9%) also finished off their session lows.

The S&P 500 health care sector (-1.3%) was Monday's outsized laggard, weighed down by broad-based weakness as worries about regulatory efforts to curtail health care costs undercut many stocks. Biotech issues, which have been among the best performers this year, were a notable laggard as well on Monday, falling prone to profit-taking efforts. On a related note, Biogen (BIIB 327.26, -6.84, -2.0%) announced a deal to acquire Nightstar Therapeutics (NITE 25.18, +10.02, +66.1%) for approximately $877 million, or $25.50/share, in cash.

Conversely, the materials (+0.4%), real estate (+0.4%), utilities (+0.2%), and energy (+0.2%) sectors outperformed.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Beijing is offering to lower tariffs on U.S. farm, chemical, and other products in exchange for the U.S. taking off the new tariffs it has imposed on Chinese imports. There was some dismay, however, over a separate report that a trade deal might not contain an effective remedy to resolve structural trade issues.

Nevertheless, the mere prospect of a U.S.-China trade deal lifted the S&P 500 to its November high in the opening minutes of trading. The inability to hold gains or make a further move higher on the news, however, was attributed to the notion that a potential trade deal was largely priced in.

The subsequent pullback included some technical drivers, too. The retest of the November high sparked some reflex selling interest that ultimately sent the S&P 500 below the 2800 level. The quick descent was likely exacerbated by weak-handed holders of long positions (i.e. performance chasers) who felt trapped and anxious about getting involved in the market rally too late.

An afternoon wave of buyers tempered selling from getting too out of hand, though. The S&P 500 sectors pared losses, allowing the benchmark index to close at its afternoon highs but still under the 2800 level.

The Children's Place (PLCE 84.42, -9.78, -10.3%) was a story stock of note after the company disappointed investors with its fourth quarter results and its first quarter/full year guidance. The company partly attributed its outlook to the effects of direct competitor Gymboree being liquidated.

U.S. Treasuries edged higher, pushing yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 2.54%, and the 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 2.72%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 96.61. WTI crude increased 1.3% to $56.53/bbl.

Reviewing Monday's lone economic report:

Total construction spending declined 0.6% in December (Briefing.com consensus -0.3%) after increasing 0.8% in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that residential construction spending was soft in December, although the market effectively knew that already based on the data seen in the Q4 GDP report.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for February, New Home Sales for December, and the Treasury Budget for January on Tuesday.

Russell 2000 +16.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +14.2% YTD
S&P 500 +11.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.7% YTD

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S&P 500 Declines for Third Straight Session
06-Mar-19 16:25 ET
Dow -133.17 at 25673.46, Nasdaq -70.44 at 7505.94, S&P -18.20 at 2771.41

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/3/6/s-and-p-500-declines-for-third-straight-session.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.7% on Wednesday, pulling back for the third straight session after a strong start to the year. With few catalysts to justify further gains, stocks succumbed to some profit taking with shares of energy, health care, and semiconductor companies leading the retreat.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9%. The Russell 2000 underperformed with a steep loss of 2.0%.

The S&P 500 health care (-1.5%) and energy (-1.3%) sectors were Wednesday's laggards, weighed down by some industry-specific overhangs. Conversely, the materials (+0.2%), utilities (unch), and communication services (unch) sectors outperformed.

Congressional wrangling to rein in drug prices, and health care costs in general, continued to dampen buying interest in health care stocks. Separately, a drop in oil prices following some bearish inventory data released on Wednesday, coupled with the cautious commentary on oil prices from Goldman Sachs on Tuesday, and general growth concerns, continued to foster a risk-off sentiment in energy stocks.

On a related note, the OECD cutting its global GDP growth forecast for 2019 to 3.3% from 3.5%, New York Fed President Jon Williams (FOMC voter) suggesting a "new normal" of slow growth on the order of 2% will keep the Fed patient, and the Fed's Beige Book, which reported slight-to-moderate growth for 10 of the 12 Fed districts, contributed to the slowdown narrative that drove some profit taking.

Semiconductor stocks underperformed in today's trade, dragging on the heavily-weighted S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.6%). Micron (MU 37.93, -2.06, -5.2%) was a notable laggard after Cleveland Research lowered its revenue estimates citing increased pricing headwinds, inventory risk and soft demand.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 1.7%, although the group was already up 17.5% this year heading into the session.

General Electric (GE 9.11, -0.78) dropped 7.9%, extending losses from Tuesday that resulted from the company's negative outlook for industrial free cash flow in 2019. A disparaging view on the stock's prospects from highly-respected JPMorgan analyst Stephen Tusa, who said his $6 price target looks generous, weighed heavily.

On the other hand, shares of Dollar Tree (DLTR 100.35, +4.88, +5.1%) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 25.70, +4.35, +20.4%) outperformed after the companies pleased investors with their earnings reports.

U.S. Treasuries saw increased buying interest, sending yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield declined four basis points to 2.51%, and the 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 2.69%. The U.S. Dollar Index finished flat at 96.86. WTI crude lost 0.5% to $56.25/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the Trade Balance Report for December, ADP Employment Change for February, the Fed's Beige Book for March, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

For December, the trade deficit widened to $59.8 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$57.8 billion) from a downwardly revised $50.3 billion (from -$49.3 billion) in November. The December deficit is the widest since October 2008 when the world was in the throes of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will fuel the Trump Administration's fire to correct the trade imbalance with assertive policy actions.
The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 183,000 in February (Briefing.com consensus 175,000), and the January reading was revised to 300,000 (from 213,000).
The Federal Reserve's Beige Book for March noted that ten Fed Districts reported slight-to-moderate growth while Philadelphia and St. Louis reported flat economic conditions. Consumer spending activity was described as mixed. Lower retail and auto sales were attributed to harsh winter weather and a higher cost of credit. Overall manufacturing activity increased while activity in the nonfinancial services sector increased at a modest-to-moderate pace.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.5% following a 5.3% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, revised fourth quarter unit labor costs and nonfarm productivity, and the Consumer Credit report for January on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +14.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +13.1% YTD
S&P 500 +10.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.1% YTD

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InvestmentHouse - Triple Threat Hits Stocks Friday (Weekend Newsletter)

https://news.investmenthouse.com/2019/03/the-daily-part-1-of-3-3-9-19.html

- Triple threat hits stocks Friday.
- Indices sell to the 50 day EMA as expected, show some support there as expected.
- China exports dive 20%, jobs produce just 20K, Xi/Trump trade summit put off by Chinese.
- Everyone focusing on the DJ20 and its decline as a negative, but perhaps DJ20 is just making the test and pattern before the other indices.
- Money leaves equities in 2019 as fast as the start of 2008.
- Despite the issues, the recent leaders still show excellent patterns.

A triumvirate, threesome, trio -- take your pick -- of negatives hit the market Friday. There may be more than my top 3, but my attention span is not what it used to be. Let's face it, there is not a lot of things that are just that trustworthy to really grab your attention. Friday, was a bit different; these items were noteworthy.

The market was already weak and looked primed to test the 50 day EMA. The news gave the indices the push. When the final bell rang Friday, yes the market was down for the fifth straight session, but the indices did a credible job of testing the 50 day EMA and rebounding modestly off that support. That is as expected -- the 50 day EMA was logical first support to test and try to hold. Thus far it is holding, and after 5 downside days stocks likely try to bounce, also as we expected. If they don't, the sellers are starting to really overwhelm the bids.

That will be the story line for the coming week. As outlined last week, we anticipate some support at the 50 day EMA, and that means some type of bounce or lateral move. In reality, I don't expect much more than an attempt at moving higher that ultimately leads to a deeper test to the bottom of the range/50 day SMA (as both are more or less coincident for the indices).

That, of course, leaves the quandary of whether to buy some really good looking names as the bounce up off this thus far 5-session pullback or just use it to let some downside plays set up on a bit of a recovery before they drop lower.

Our plan is to play some of those good-looking patterns such as those outlined in Thursday's report, initially for bounce play with smaller sized positions. In the event the simply continues back upside, okay, we will add positions when the opportunity arises, playing the return to the upside as it expands from there. If the plays put in some good sessions up to the recent highs from late February, early March, but then show some reversal or stalling signs (e.g. gapping above those highs and reversing, runs higher that reverse to tombstone doji), we take the gain. During the bounce we look at stocks and indices that have good potential downside setups forming and thus have some downside plays ready in the event the action stalls out and turns lower once more.

There are some really great upside patterns from recently strong stocks where the short pullback as tested good new breaks higher. Those certainly look promising to lead back upside, but looking at the index patterns, while the pullback to the 50 day EMA is a logical bounce point, it just appears the patterns beg for a bit more of a pullback to the bottom of the October/December range to be really positioned to try a more serious move higher, one that can contend again for new highs.

That scenario, of course, does not involve a test of the December low, something that still could happen as easily as not based upon similar historical market moves. That possibility is still out there of course, but the 50 day EMA test right now is the first part of any scenario, up or down, and we will counterpunch the moves, taking smaller positions and being satisfied with singles and doubles, taking what the market gives, while the market decides what levels it wants to test and use as support.

SP500 -5.86, -0.21%
NASDAQ -13.32, -0.18%
DJ30 -22.99, -0.09%
SP400 -0.28%
RUTX -0.11%
SOX -0.07%
NASDAQ 100 -0.16%

VOLUME: NYSE -11%, NASDAQ -8%. Volume tailed off well below average on NYSE and put in the first below average session on NASDAQ in over a week. On a test of a rather key level and a rebound to cut the losses, that is not necessarily showing the buyers were jumping back in hard.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE -1.2:1, NASDAQ -1.2:1. The down then up session mitigated the downside breadth that has no doubt been stronger with the pullback. Stronger than what it was as the market rebound slowed the prior two weeks, but not overwhelmingly negative.

Back to the threesome.

First, Chinese exports imploded at -20.4% versus -6% expected. On top of that, a brokerage in China downgraded Chinese stocks to 'sell.' Of course, that means the Chinese government and thus the communists want to tamp down the rally.

Second, US jobs showed just +20K in a number obviously buffeted by seasonality and the government shutdown. What a perfect scenario for those starting to worry about the Fed stepping back in anytime soon.

Jobs: 20K vs 173K exp vs 311K Feb (from 304K); Jan: 227K vs 222K

LOTS of noise in this report: weather, government shutdown.

Unemployment: 3.8% vs 3.8% exp vs 4.0%

Wages: +0.4%, +3.4% year/year (highest since 4/2009).

Workweek: 34.4 vs 34.5 exp vs 34.5 prior

Participation: 63.2% vs 63.2% prior

300K less people were unemployed, going back to work after the shutdown.

390K were unemployed due to bad weather, a huge number.

U6: 7.3% VS 8.1% PRIOR

Demographics: 35 to 44 unemployment fell to lowest in 12 years. Meanwhile, for 25-54, that includes millennials, the participation rate remained at the post-recession highs. The millennials are not working. Small businesses all share the same complaint: the millennials have wholly unrealistic expectations and prefer not to work and collect benefits than work and get paid less than the value of their inflated self-worth. Have you seen the survey where 40%ish would not give up their iPhone for the home of their dreams -- they could have any other pone, just not an iPhone.

Construction: -31K

Leisure and Hospitality: 0K

Manufacturing: -4K (prior: 21K from 13K)

Prof/Business: +42K

Healthcare: +21K

Wholesale trade: +11K


Third, the Trump/Xi summit at the end of March was put off by China. Word is China is afraid Trump will scuttle the whole deal as most of the concessions, we are told, are on the US side.

What is the effect? Frankly, companies are leaving China as soon as they find another place to make their goods. The delay simply buys more time for them to move. I personally am tired of buying poor quality goods made in China -- why not by poor quality goods from another country? Ha.


AMZN: Suddenly stopped buying from suppliers for the 'fulfilled by Amazon' products. The Amazon Market business is $250B, twice the size of the Amazon website fulfilled. There is true panic among the suppliers who have mountains of inventory acquired to meet the monthly Amazon purchases. Turning against those who built AMZN into a monopoly of sorts? Fascinating.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

A bit of a twist on the normal review as we look at the transports.

DJ20: A lot of print about the worst days for the transports since 2007 -- or something like that -- but when you look at the pattern you have to ask: are the transports actually leading as they decline? I know, I know -- wow, how provocative, how insightful you are thinking.

But I jest not. Lo, what pattern is forming as DJ20 tests the 50 day SMA (versus the 50 day EMA for the other indices)? DJ20 is not diving lower. It has sold in a steady, orderly fashion the past two weeks, Friday tapping the 50 day SMA on the low and bouncing, closing with a nice doji with tail. It is just over the late October low. Indeed, it is in a very credible spot to form the bottom of the right shoulder to an inverted head and shoulders pattern spanning October to present.

That is EXACTLY the pattern I have discussed the past two weeks that the other stock indices could form with a very ordinary yet scary -- to most at least -- test of the rather insane rise from the December low.

Right now, the other indices are at the 50 day EMA, the first support in the pullback. They are showing relative strength to DJ20, but you could also say they are lagging the DJ20 in that it has already made the run, tapped the top of the Oct/Dec range, and made an orderly drop to support. We will see if they are really just ahead of the game by how they rebound off the 50 day EMA.

Indeed, all the indices look pretty solid at the 50 day EMA, particularly DJ30 as the 50 day EMA has merged with the 200 day SMA; pretty solid support.

Same situation with SOX: the 50 day EMA has risen to the 200 day SMA at 1300 -- a price point of support from October, August, June.

Both of these indices have a lot of support at that level. That suggests they bounce. If they break it, that suggests a drop that is significantly lower.

For now, given a weeklong decline after a week of lateral movement, landing on a key level, the indices can surely bounce for a couple of sessions. They can bounce more than that as well. It all depends upon whether the big buyers see this as the point to buy or they let the indices fall to the bottom of the October/December range or even -- perish the thought -- to the December low.

A drop to the bottom of the Oct/Dec range would be perfect. It would se up a nice right shoulder to an inverted head and shoulders, a pattern that has launched super moves for years during this bull run. That is of course what we prefer. That does not mean the market does so and can resume the upside from here.

Where is the money?

That the market has multiple options from this point is a predicament. Of course, you always have to watch the market and move with it as it shows strong moves.

What is also important is the money flow. Where is the money moving?

Shockingly, 2019 has seen $60B move out of equities. Ten weeks or $6B/week. The only other time this happened was the first 10 weeks of 2008, a banner year for stocks -- to the downside.

You can view money leaving as the crowd exiting just in time to clear the landscape for a rally. But, money has to finish moving out and then it starts to flow back in. That sets the bottom. Money certainly does not appear to be fleeing GOOG, FB, INTC, ISRG, ROKU, BA, CMG, UTX, CMI -- there are many holding up very well, hardly showing any cash outflows.

Money flowing out in such large amounts is without a doubt a caution flag. All the same, the leaders will tell the tale, and how stocks such as those above will indeed tell the tale of the next market move.

Thus, while we remain skeptical of the ability to hold support here and yield a rally that pushes to higher highs, you have to look at the patterns and acknowledge they are downright solid in many cases. Accordingly, we will prepare for a meaningful rebound from those stocks while we also prepare for further downside.

We lightened up on many positions through the past two weeks as patterns struggled, preparing for a test of the 50 day EMA and then a break. We will see if that is upside or downside and react accordingly. Oh, and watch the transports and whether they bounce or turn this test into more selling.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: -22.99 points (-0.09%) to close at 25450.24

Nasdaq
Stats: -13.32 points (-0.18%) to close at 7408.14
Volume: 2.26B (-8.13%)

Up Volume: 1.02B (+230.74M)
Down Volume: 1.2B (-440M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.21 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 2.14 to 1

New Highs: 39 (+6)
New Lows: 57 (-11)

S&P
Stats: -5.86 points (-0.21%) to close at 2743.07
NYSE Volume: 814.395M (-11.30%)

Up Volume: 337.393M (+80.395M)
Down Volume: 461.287M (-186.783M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.22 to 1
Previous Session: Decliners led 2.29 to 1

New Highs: 45 (-26)
New Lows: 51 (-1)

SENTIMENT

VIX: 16.05; -0.54
VXN: 19.12; -0.47
VXO: 16.12; -0.98

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.97; -0.15

Bulls and Bears:

Bulls higher again, moving up into a selloff. Surely they will be lower the following week. The issue, however, is the surge after crossing the bears in late 2018. Confidence is pretty high despite the reported lack of confidence. Advisors remain bullish, talking their book, even as money is pulled from equities.

Bulls: 52.9 versus 52.4

Bears: 20.6 versus 20.4

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 52.9 versus 52.4
52.4 versus 51.9 versus 49.5 versus 48.6 versus 45.8 versus 45.4 versus 34.8 versus 29.9 versus 39.3 versus 45.4 versus 46.7 versus 38.3 versus 39.6 versus 42.9 versus 42.5 versus 50.5 versus 51.9 versus 56.3 versus 61.8 versus 60.6 versus 59.0 versus 57.7 versus 60.1 versus 59.6 versus 57.7 versus 57.3 versus 54.9 versus 54.5 versus 54.9 versus 55.3 versus 52.4 versus 47.1 versus 47.6 versus 52.0 versus 55.5 versus 52.9 versus 50.0 versus 49.1 versus 46.6 versus 43.1 versus 43.6 versus 48.0 versus 43.6 versus 42.2 versus 49.5 versus 55.5 versus 54.9 versus 48.6 versus 48.1 versus 48.5 versus 41.9 versus 54.4 versus 66.00

Bears: 20.6 versus 20.4
20.4 versus 20.7 versus 21.5 versus 20.6 versus 20.6 versus 21.3 versus 29.4 versus 34.6 versus 21.4 versus 20.4 versus 21.50 versus 20.6 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 19.8 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 18.3 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.1 versus 18.3 versus 18.3 versus 18.6 versus 18.8 versus 18.6 versus 18.5 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.4 versus 17.6 versus 17.8 versus 17.7 versus 19.2 versus 19.2 versus 19.4 versus 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.8 versus 19.6 versus 19.8 versus 18.6 versus 17.5 versus 16.8 versus 15.7 versus 15.5 versus 14.4 versus 14.6 versus 14.4 versus 15.5 versus 12.6 versus 12.8 versus 12.7 versus 13.5 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 15.1 versus 15.4 versus 15.4 versus 14.4 versus 14.4 versus 15.1 versus 15.2 versus 15.1 versus 17.0 versus 17.1 versus 19.0 versus 20.2


OTHER MARKETS

Bonds: 2.632% versus 2.641%. Bonds up five straight sessions as stocks sell five straight sessions. Bounced off the dive to the 200 day SMA, now nearing the February highs.

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). Last trade over 3% was November 2018.

2.641% versus 2.693% versus 2.715% versus 2.724% versus 2.759% versus 2.717% versus 2.673% versus 2.636% versus 2.672% versus 2.654% versus 2.695% versus 2.641% versus 2.641% versus 2.664% versus 2.654% versus 2.706% versus 2.686% versus 2.672% versus 2.634% versus 2.657% versus 2.695% versus 2.702% versus 2.725% versus 2.684% versus 2.64% versus 2.679% versus 2.710.5


EUR/USD: 1.12344 versus 1.11910. Euro dropped below the range on the Thursday ECB actions, rebounding modestly Friday.

Historical: 1.1191 versus 1.13123 versus 1.13050 versus 1.13344 versus 1.13650 versus 1.13725 versus 1.13790 versus 1.1391 versus 1.13598 versus 1.13332 versus 1.13363 versus 1.14490 versus 1.13544 versus 1.12922 versus 1.12955 versus 1.12616 versus 1.3323 versus 1.12816 versus 1.13218 versus 1.13396 versus 1.13645 versus 1.1396 versus 1.14350 versus 1.14554 versus 1.14478 versus 1.14924 versus 1.14351 versus 1.14285 versus 1.1407 versus 1.13134 versus 1.13830 versus 1.13652 versus 1.13636 versus 1.13919


USD/JPY: 111.165 versus 111.483. Dollar faded to test the 50 day EMA on the Friday low after a lateral move over the 200 day. Still a rather modest fade.

Historical: Last below 109 in June 2018 then tumbled to 107 in early January 2019. 114.51 is the recent high from October 2018.

111.482 versus 111.624 versus 111.845 versus 111.856 versus 111.921 versus 111.433 versus 110.873 versus 110.53 versus 110.979 versus 110.670 versus 110.664 versus 110.786 versus 110.848 versus 110.469 versus 110.462 versus 110.945 versus 110.523 versus 110.488 versus 109.754 versus 109.793 versus 109.803 versus 109.777 versus 109.987 versus 109.53 versus 108.85 versus 108.96 versus 109.364 versus 109.180 versus 109.545 versus 109.757 versus 109.58 versus 109.651 versus 109.773 versus 109.133 versus 108.912 versus 108.551 versus 108.340 versus 108.563 versus 108.332 versus 107.959


Oil: 56.07, -0.59. Still in a tight lateral move the of the past three weeks.


Gold: 1299.30, +13.20. Bouncing back after the late February flop and lateral move this month. Still below the 50 day MA. Bearish pattern has formed after that higher high mid-February.

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Wall Street Takes a Breather
14-Mar-19 16:25 ET
Dow +7.05 at 25709.94, Nasdaq -12.50 at 7630.90, S&P -2.44 at 2808.48

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/3/14/wall-street-takes-a-breather-.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.1% on Thursday in a tight-ranged trading session. The session featured several economic releases and a good bit of company-specific news, but the market seemed content to take a breather after the strong gains it registered to begin the week.

The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 lost 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished flat.

The S&P 500 materials (-0.8%) and communication services (-0.4%) sectors underperformed the broader market. Conversely, the heavily-weighted financials (+0.4%) and information technology (+0.2%) sectors outperformed.

Investors received some updates that reinforced concerns about a global economic slowdown. U.S. new home sales for January and China's industrial production report both came in softer than expected. In addition, Germany's Ifo Institute lowered its 2019 growth forecast for the German economy to 0.6% from 1.1%.

Adding to the negative macro sentiment was a Bloomberg report stating that a summit between President Trump and President Xi is apt to be pushed back to late April, if it happens at all.

The stock market held its ground, though, teetering between small gains and losses for most of the session. A batch of corporate news seemed to garner more attention.

Widely-held shares of Facebook (FB 170.17, -3.20, -1.9%), Boeing (BA 373.30, -3.84, -1.0%), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 138.02, -1.39, -1.0%) weighed on the broader market following negative press pertaining to familiar issues with the companies.

A New York Times report indicated that Facebook is under criminal investigation for some of its data deals that it arranged with tech companies. In Boeing's case, it continued to be weighed down by concerns surrounding the forced grounding of its 737 MAX 8 and 9 planes. Johnson & Johnson for its part was ordered to pay $29 million to a woman with cancer who used the company's baby powder.

On the other hand, more positive analyst coverage on Apple (AAPL 183.73, +2.02, +1.1%) underpinned the stock's outperformance, which extended its weekly gain to 6.3%. Cowen initiated coverage of Apple with an Outperform rating.

General Electric (GE 10.30, +0.28) jumped 2.8% despite the company issuing a 2019 earnings warning. The stock had been down more than 2.0% prior to the open, but shares rallied after CEO Larry Culp reassured investors with an encouraging 2020 and 2021 outlook.

Separately, the UK Parliament rejected a second Brexit referendum but voted in favor of extending the Brexit deadline until June 30 at the latest. The delay still needs to be approved by all 27 member states of the European Union.

U.S. Treasuries finished on a lower note, pushing yields higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 2.45%, and the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 2.63%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.2% to 96.78. WTI crude rose 0.5% to $58.58/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included New Home Sales for January, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and Import and Export Prices for February:

New home sales decreased 6.9% month-over-month in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 607,000 (Briefing.com consensus 623,000) from an upwardly revised 652,000 (from 621,000) in December. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales were down 4.1%.
The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales activity continues to be soft despite moderating price pressures.
Initial claims for the week ending March 9 increased by 6,000 to 229,000 (Briefing.com consensus 225,000) while continuing claims for the week ending March 2 increased by 18,000 to 1.776 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that there were no wide swings to disrupt the view that employers are generally reluctant to cut staff due to tight labor market conditions.
Import prices and export prices were both up 0.6% month-over-month in February. Excluding fuel, import prices were flat. Excluding agriculture, export prices were up 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the year-over-year readings reveal no inflation pressure. Nonfuel import prices were down 0.6%, versus a 2.0% increase for the 12 months ending February 2018, while non-agricultural export prices were up just 0.3%, versus a 3.4% increase for the 12 months ending February 2018.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the following economic reports on Friday: the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for March, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for February, the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for March, the JOLTS - Job Openings report for January, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for January.

Russell 2000 +14.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +15.0% YTD
S&P 500 +12.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.2% YTD

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Gains in Apple, Micron Lead Wall Street Higher
21-Mar-19 16:20 ET
Dow +216.84 at 25962.51, Nasdaq +109.99 at 7838.95, S&P +30.65 at 2854.88

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/3/21/gains-in-apple-micron-lead-wall-street-higher.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 1.1% on Thursday, bolstered by the notion of a dovish Fed and persistently low U.S. Treasury yields. Leadership from the S&P 500 information technology sector (+2.5%), driven by gains in Apple (AAPL 195.09, +6.93, +3.7%) and Micron (MU 43.99, +3.86, +9.6%), also helped carry buying momentum throughout the day. The S&P 500 closed at its highest level this year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.8%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.4%, and the Russell 2000 gained 1.3%.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished higher, led by information technology (+2.5%), real estate (+1.8%), and consumer discretionary (+1.3%). Conversely, the financial sector lost 0.3%, pressured by concerns that the recent compression in spreads will lead to weak net interest margins for lenders.

Apple reclaimed its title as the world's most valuable company after Needham upgraded the stock to Strong Buy from Buy and raised its price target to $225. Needham's upgrade was the latest from a host of positive analyst coverage this month that has helped lift the stock 12.7% in March, including Thursday's 3.7% gain.

Micron suggested a bottom could be close with an improvement likely coming at the back half of the year. That call helped investors overlook its disappointing fiscal Q3 guidance and helped spur buying interest within the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+3.5%).

In other earnings news, Conagra Brands (CAG 25.82, +2.92, +12.8%) and Darden Restaurants (DRI 116.11, +7.46, +6.9%) were some of the biggest gainers in the S&P 500 following their earnings reports.

Shares of Biogen (BIIB 226.88, -93.71), on the other hand, plunged 29.2% after the company said it will discontinue its Phase 3 trials of aducanumab for Alzheimer's.

Separately, Levi Strauss (LEVI 22.41, +5.41, +31.8%) became the biggest IPO in 2019 Thursday, opening at $22.22 after pricing its IPO at $17.

U.S. Treasuries closed roughly unchanged after declining noticeably following Wednesday's FOMC policy decision. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield remained at 2.40% and 2.54%, respectively, although the 10-yr yield kissed 2.50% at its best level in morning action. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.7% to 96.41, driven by the idea that the U.S. remains the best place to invest. WTI crude lost 0.4% to $59.95/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Philadelphia Fed Index for March, and the the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for February:

Initial claims for the week ending March 16 decreased by 9,000 to 221,000 (Briefing.com consensus 223,000) while continuing claims for the week ending March 9 dropped by 27,000 to 1.750 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it covers the period in which the survey for the March employment situation report was conducted, so with the low level of initial claims, expectations will pick up that March nonfarm payrolls will be up by a solid amount.
The Philadelphia Fed Index jumped to 13.7 in March (Briefing.com consensus 6.0) from -4.1 in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was accented by a pickup in new orders and a moderation in price pressures, which is the type of combination that has convinced the Fed to be patient before making any policy rate changes.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.2% in February, as expected, following an unchanged reading for January. This is the first increase in the index since September 2018, and it was supported by gains in all the financial components and consumer expectations for business conditions.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strengths among the leading indicators have become much less widespread, with only six of the ten components making positive contributions.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Existing Home Sales for February, Wholesale Inventories for January, and the Treasury Budget for February on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +18.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.9% YTD
S&P 500 +13.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.3% YTD

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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary:

https://news.investmenthouse.com/2019/04/the-daily-part-1-of-3-4-6-19.html

- The upside week continues through Friday with the small and midcaps taking the lead.
- Market rotation thus far remains beneficial, though software is at the lick log.
- Jobs recovery from a weak February, but the internal data does not show the same improvement.
- Economic data is not great, not bad, inflation mostly tame, but Fed hikes are still negatively impacting the economy.
- Other areas trying to move up into leadership: materials, energy, manufacturing, machinery, biotechs
- Indices approaching the prior highs, drawn toward resistance.

Jobs were good enough on the headline, and that was good enough for stocks to take already upside futures and run them higher on the session. Never mind the internals of the report were just not as strong as the pre-February (the flop month) numbers. Higher paying jobs were low in number (manufacturing lost 6K), fulltime jobs tanked 190K while part-time jumped +60K, participation dropped 2 BP, earnings growth dropped off sharply (0.1% versus 0.4% February), and the number of working fell 201,000. But the headline number beat (196K versus 175K expected), and that was all that mattered.

Impressive moves to end the week that was a very solid upside week.

SP500 13.35, 0.46%
NASDAQ 46.91, 0.59%
DJ30 40.36, 0.15%
SP400 0.73%
RUTX 0.96%
SOX 0.80%
NASDAQ 100 0.51%

VOLUME: NYSE +8%, NASDAQ +1%. Respectable rise, but both exchanges still below average. The only above average session on the week was Wednesday, and then only on NASDAQ, the session where stocks shot higher then reversed a lot of the gains. Thus, a rise but not backed by a ton of buyers. That is okay in this market, however, because there are no sellers. The real trick is when the indices reach or approach the next resistance levels and the rapidly approaching all-time highs.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE +2.5:1, NASDAQ +2.3:1. Respectable, aided of course by the small cap and midcap leadership.

The action for the week was very interesting. Every index rose, but they traded off day to day as to the strongest. SOX started strong and set the tone. DJ30 strong Monday and then Thursday when SOX took a day off. Friday saw RUTX and SP400 jump back to the front of the pack after lagging rather notably.

Rotation. It doesn't just make your tires last longer, it makes rallies last longer.

All indices logged new recovery highs on the week less RUTX. SOX put in a new all-time high. SP500 is 47 points off. Not bad moves as the indices are taking down resistance levels one at a time. The 2018 topping pattern is still in place, but the indices are working on it piece by piece, resistance level by resistance level.

The upside bias is strong in this one. When there is news that favors it, it rises. When there is no news, it does a decent job of rising. When there is bad news, such as the 3 month/10 year yield inversion, the market sells, holds support, then rebounds.

The inversion was perhaps the biggest, but not the only negative news. BA's issues, TSLA, mediocre to disappointing economic data.

Still, the allure of a trade deal, really being talked up by the administration and indeed this past week the Chinese vice premier, is strong. It was surprising to see the strength of the market Thursday on the positive comments about being 90% complete -- even though the last 10% are the same issues that pretty much started the dispute. The market is in a believe what it wants mode -- as it usually is when it rallies.

In the big picture, the economic data is not great but not bad. It is mediocre enough to keep the Fed at neutral. It is not as strong as the Administration wants, so now it is in a full court press for the Fed to cut rates. Two potential Fed appointees, Moore and Cain, both say a 50BP cut is appropriate. Perhaps it is; as I have stated many times before, the Fed hiked into a slowing economy. Just pausing hikes does not remove the impact -- still to be felt -- of those rate hikes. To get out of the slow patch expeditiously -- if at all -- seemingly necessitates the hikes to be removed. Of course, calling for a 50BP cut and on top of that more QE as the President was apparently doing Friday, is typically not the way to get it as it ties the Fed's hands. Nonetheless, this President has a way of getting things that appear out of reach. This drama will no doubt continue.

This combination of slower data, relatively tame inflation, trade deal possibilities, and talk of more Fed largesse provides the backdrop for a market with a continued upside bias pretty much regardless the story. Sure it can be knocked back some, but when that happens it simply puts in a normal consolidation for a bull market and resumes the move upside. Thus far that is exactly what is happening as the indices are drawn toward the old highs and it appears they want to take them on.


THE MARKET

CHARTS

SOX: New highs for SOX intraday and on Friday, closing. The first to make new highs and thus far showing little blowback from sellers. As discussed many times before, SOX is directionally very important to the overall market: where SOX goes the other indices tend to follow. With SOX at new highs, if it holds onto the gains, the other indices have its tracks to follow.

SP500: 7 days upside in a row, adding to that longest win streak in over a year. Well over 2800 and now it is countdown time for the August 2018 penultimate high (2916.50) and the September/October small twin peaks (2940.91) that set off the October through December selloff. Low volume as it approaches those highs just 24 and 48 points away. That makes it more difficult to break through major resistance, but of course you would expect SP500 to perhaps pause at those levels and test a bit, particularly if it continues directly to them on this already solid price move.

NASDAQ: After a Thursday pause, NASDAQ cracked just above the late July penultimate high (7933) and now is entering the August to early October consolidation and small double top similar to SP500's peak (8133.30; closed at 7938.69). As with SP500, volume is running light on this move whereas on the March run at least trade was bouncing around average. Low volume approaching new highs is problematic, but as with SP500, with a run such as this, a bit of a pullback as NASDAQ hits the later resistance levels is normal.

DJ30: The Dow is through the November peak with a nice Thursday move and a somewhat equivocal doji Friday. It is still below the January 2018 peak (26,616.71) and of course the September interim high and the October all-time high (26,952). Volume is rather pathetic. No, it is pathetic, coming in well below average the past 2 weeks. That said, many Dow stocks are performing quite well in very nice patterns.

SP400: After a steady though uninspired move most of the week, SP400 posted a solid Friday advance, clearing the late February recover high, the high that marked the first index to clear that October/December trading range.

RUTX: A market-leading Friday move as the small caps put bold letters on the end of a somewhat lethargic week. Broke through the 200 day SMA Friday, closing in on the February peaks.


LEADERSHIP

While some leading groups such as software continue to look overextended, machinery, materials, industrial metals are making some upside moves. Transports are not bad. Some 'old school' areas are trying to step up, and that does not look back for the economy.

FAANG: Overall came to life though not explosive. AAPL up on the week, finally moving through and up off the 200 day MA to a new recovery high. No volume. New recovery high for AMZN, also with no volume. FB enjoyed a strong week and a breakout to a new recovery high. NFLX continues its dormancy; up on the week but trailed off to end the week, holding the range. GOOG posted a solid move higher off the trendline, paused Friday.

Software: Struggled on the week with some sharp drops to the 50 day MA. Still quite weak and threatening breaks lower: WDAY, DATA, NOW. MSFT is still a leader, trending up the 10 day EMA, COUP not bad but in a 2 month consolidation still.

Machinery/Manufacturing: CMI off Friday but a solid break higher on the week. CAT still poised to break higher. UTX started higher Friday out of a short consolidation. MMM a week straight up. BA was up for the week but stalled at the 50 day SMA Friday.

Biotech/Drugs: Some very interesting moves shaping up. We bought some ARWR Friday. BLUE may be ready to make one of its torrid runs. ARQL looks good and others looking better.

Semiconductors: Still a major leadership group though not all rising. MCHP continued a strong move to a higher high. Ditto LRCX. Good short term tests from AVGO, RMBS. XLNX still slowly climbing up the 10 day EMA. SWKS trying to break higher though not finding volume.

Food/Restaurants. Still come good setups, e.g. DRI, PEP, CAKE. MDLZ at a high, attempting to consolidate for a new move. CMG is in a similar lateral short consolidation.

Materials: Improving off the lows. LPX broke up through the 200 day SMA. CX moving up through the 50 day MA. USCR moved through the 200 day on the week and is trying to set up for a new move. VMC is making a short test after a breakout.

Metals: Industrial metals are not bad. CLF trying a short double bottom. FCX breaking through the 200 day SMA.

Energy: With oil still moving higher, some oil stocks are finally showing life -- again. This group has given more false moves and head fakes than any other. That said, some very solid moves in good patterns, e.g. APC, CVX, DVN, XOM.


MARKET STATS

DJ30
Stats: +40.36 points (+0.15%) to close at 26424.99

Nasdaq
Stats: +46.91 points (+0.59%) to close at 7938.69
Volume: 2.15B (+0.47%)

Up Volume: 1.54B (+330M)
Down Volume: 591.99M (-327.65M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.29 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.31 to 1

New Highs: 104 (+37)
New Lows: 31 (-5)

S&P
Stats: +13.35 points (+0.46%) to close at 2892.74
NYSE Volume: 769.784M (+8.76%)

Up Volume: 572.725M (+64.373M)
Down Volume: 182.025M (-11.042M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Advancers led 2.54 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.88 to 1

New Highs: 116 (+23)
New Lows: 8 (-2)

SENTIMENT

VIX: 12.82; -0.76
VXN: 16.17; -0.62
VXO: 12.23; -1.25

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.82; +0.01


Bulls and Bears:

After a pause, bulls starting back upside, now near the top of the range for 2019 yet again. Bears falling back again after consolidating for a few months.

Bulls: 53.4 versus 52.0 versus 53.9

Bears: 19.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.6

Theory: When everyone is bullish and has put all their capital to work, where does the ammunition to drive the market come from? There is always new money to start a new year. After that is used will more money be coming? That is the question.




Bulls: 53.4 versus 52.0
52.0 versus 53.9 versus 52.4 versus 52.9 versus 52.4 versus 51.9 versus 49.5 versus 48.6 versus 45.8 versus 45.4 versus 34.8 versus 29.9 versus 39.3 versus 45.4 versus 46.7 versus 38.3 versus 39.6 versus 42.9

Bears: 19.4 versus 20.6
20.6 versus 20.6 versus 21.4 versus 20.6 versus 20.4 versus 20.7 versus 21.5 versus 20.6 versus 20.6 versus 21.3 versus 29.4 versus 34.6 versus 21.4 versus 20.4 versus 21.50 versus 20.6 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 19.8 versus 19.8 versus 19.0 versus 18.3 versus 18.5 versus 18.6 versus 18.3


OTHER MARKETS

INTEREST RATES

The 3 month yield remains below the 10 year: Spread 7BP from to 9.4BP

The 2 year remains below 10 year: Spread back to 17 from 19BP


10 year: 2.508% versus 2.528%

3 month: 2.434% versus 2.434%
2 year: 2.339% versus 2.341%

Historical: the last sub-2% rate was in November 2016 (1.867%). Last trade over 3% was November 2018. 2.6% for quite some time, then yields started higher, first run from November to January, then mid-March.


EUR/USD: 1.12224 versus 1.12444. Gave back some of the Wednesday bounce to the 10 day EMA.

Historical: 1.12 to 1.13 for the past 5 months as the pair trades in a range after the euro sold off from the early 2018 peaks.


USD/JPY: 111.655 versus 111.483. Breaking up through the 200 day SMA, giving it a run again after failing here in the first half of March.

Historical: Last below 109 in June 2018 then tumbled to 107 in early January 2019. 114.51 is the recent high from October 2018.

Plunged lower in December then a recovery to the 200 day SMA in March. Has struggled at that level below the Q4 2018 trading range. 114.60 is the top of the longer term range.


Oil: 53.08, +0.98. Breaking higher Friday from a short consolidation post- breaking over the 200 day MA Tuesday. Oil looks quite strong.


Gold: 1295.60, +1.30. After the peak in mid-February, gold is back to the upper trendline in the big triangle. Bounced once, now fading back to that level again to try for a double bottom.


MONDAY

Not a real slowdown in the economic data on the week. Factory Orders, CPI, FOMC minutes. More than that, earnings season is here. Plenty for the market to mull, but for now the market maintains a steady upside bias. Yes, it is tested by less than savory news such as the yield curve inversion selling just over a week ago, but the bids return. A similar circumstance occurred last earnings season when stocks would fall on results, hold onto support, then recover.

Rotation occurred the past week with late week some more 'old economy' stocks starting to perform or at least show good setups to try to make upside breaks. Energy, materials, machinery, manufacturing, food. This in addition to the semiconductor leadership. Indeed, it would not be surprising to see the software stocks struggle some more as money moves to some of these other areas.

Late week we were buying stocks such as UTX, FDX, CMI as they broke higher. AAPL as well -- some of these older big names in tech are performing. We will continue looking at those and also some energy and more biotechs to catch good moves as they start.

The prior highs are looming as both resistance and as a magnet. We want to play the upside move as long as it lasts and then see how the market reacts to the resistance.

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S&P 500 Snaps Winning Streak in Broad-Based Decline
09-Apr-19 16:25 ET
Dow -190.44 at 26150.58, Nasdaq -44.61 at 7909.27, S&P -17.57 at 2878.20

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/4/9/s-and-p-500-snaps-winning-streak-in-broadbased-decline.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.6% on Tuesday, as negative macroeconomic headlines and a bit of corporate news fostered some broad-based profit taking. Tuesday's decline snapped an eight-session winning streak for the benchmark index.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.7%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 lost 1.2%.

The stock market began the day with some discouraging news pertaining to trade and growth: (1) The White House proposed tariffs on $11 billion of EU products in response to the subsidies the EU provides Airbus and (2) the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its world growth forecast for 2019 to 3.3% from the 3.5% growth it forecast in January.

Although the tariff amount was not substantial and the growth cut was not surprising, they did provide investors with excuses to take some profits. The broader market attempted to rebound, but the comeback effort was derailed after shares of Apple (AAPL 199.50, -0.60, -0.3%) rolled over into negative territory. AAPL had risen for nine consecutive days prior to today's decline.

The S&P 500 industrials (-1.4%) and financial (-0.9%) sectors were added weights for the market following some corporate developments.

Bank stocks were particularly weak after Bank of America (BAC 28.89, -0.28, -1.0%) announced it will increase its minimum wage to $17 per hour on May 1, followed by incremental increases to $20 per hour by 2021. The wage increase raised some concerns about other banks feeling pressured to do the same and its subsequent impact on their profit-margins. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 43.13, -0.75) lost 1.7%.

American Airlines (AAL 33.31, -0.57, -1.7%) and Pentair (PNR 39.13, -6.13, -13.5%), meanwhile, both lowered their first quarter expectations with Pentair also slashing its fiscal 2019 outlook. AAL finished well off its session low (-3.8%), though, as the company only reduced the top end of its unit revenue growth to 1.0% from 2.0%.

U.S. Treasuries saw increased buying interest following the IMF growth cut for 2019. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points each to 2.34% and 2.50%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index finished flat at 97.01. WTI crude lost 0.5% to $64.06/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for March and the JOLTS - Job Openings report for February:

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for March ticked higher to 101.8 from the prior month's reading of 101.7.
The February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings decreased to 7.087 million from a revised 7.625 million (from 7.581 million) in January.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for March, the minutes from the FOMC March meeting, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, and the Treasury Budget for March on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +19.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.7% YTD
S&P 500 +14.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.1% YTD

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Stocks Gain as Inflation Moderates, Central Banks Stay Put
10-Apr-19 16:25 ET
Dow +6.58 at 26157.16, Nasdaq +54.97 at 7964.24, S&P +10.01 at 2888.21

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/4/10/stocks-gain-as-inflation-moderates-central-banks-stay-put.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.4% on Wednesday, as moderating inflation and assurance from central banks to keep rates on hold provided the broader market some support. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) and the Russell 2000 (+1.4%) both outperformed, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (unch) finished little changed.

The European Central Bank's (ECB) rate decision and the minutes for the FOMC March meeting provided no surprises for the market. In short, both acknowledged risks to the economic outlook, the ECB said it will keep interest rates unchanged through at least the end of 2019, and the Fed remains content to operate in a wait-and-see mode.

The Consumer Price Index for March, meanwhile, showed the core rate of inflation moderate on a year-over-year basis to 2.0% from 2.1% in February. This moderation helped strengthen the Fed's stance to keep a patient mindset, which should further increase the appeal for risk assets.

Stocks drifted with modest gains throughout the day as the market digested the news. A turnaround from the S&P 500 financial sector (+0.3%) and an announcement from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that the U.S. and China have agreed to an enforcement mechanism helped solidify the positive bias.

The financial sector was down as much as 0.5% as CEOs from the nation's biggest banks participated in a tense Q&A session with House Financial Services Committee. The event was meant to update the committee on the state of the industry, but nothing new arose for the market as it understood that banks are in a much better capital position than they were ten years ago.

Leadership from heavily-weighted information technology sector (+0.7%) was a major contributor to the day's advance. On a related note, Apple (AAPL 200.62, +1.12, +0.6%) was downgraded to Reduce from Hold at HSBC, but the stock was able to brush off early weakness to finish higher.

In other corporate news, Delta Air Lines (DAL 57.86, +0.91, +1.6%) beat earnings estimates and increased its full-year revenue growth outlook. Shares of Lyft (LYFT 60.12, -7.32) dropped 10.9% amid news that Uber (UBER) is expected to disclose its IPO prospectus (S-1 filing) on Thursday.

U.S. Treasuries finished the day higher, helped by the notion that the Fed will stay put. The 2-yr yield decreased three basis points to 2.31%, and the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 2.48%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 96.93. WTI crude rose 0.8% to $64.56/bbl amid reports that OPEC oil production fell to its lowest level in four years.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the Consumer Price Index for March and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

Total CPI increased 0.4% month-over-month in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), which was driven mostly by a 3.5% increase in the energy index. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was up just 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the core rate of inflation moderated on a year-over-year basis to 2.0% from 2.1% in February, which is a trend that should keep the Federal Reserve comfortable with its position of being on hold.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 5.6% following an 18.6% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for March and the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +20.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +17.3% YTD
S&P 500 +15.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.1% YTD

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JPMorgan Chase, Walt Disney Help S&P 500 Close Above 2900
12-Apr-19 16:20 ET
Dow +269.25 at 26412.30, Nasdaq +36.80 at 7984.16, S&P +19.09 at 2907.41

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/4/12/jpmorgan-chase-walt-disney-help-s-and-p-500-close-above-2900.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.7% on Friday, as a strong earnings report from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 111.21, +4.98, +4.7%) and a buoyant response to Walt Disney's (DIS 130.06, +13.46, +11.5%) upcoming streaming service helped offset losses from the health care stocks. Friday's advance also helped the benchmark index close above the 2900 level for the first time since early October.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.0%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.5%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.4%.

JPMorgan kicked off the first quarter earnings-reporting season with record revenue and net income, fueling broad-based gains in the S&P 500 financial sector (+1.9%). Wells Fargo (WFC 46.49, -1.25, -2.6%) and PNC Financial Services (PNC 132.70, +3.98, +3.1%) also provided better-than-expected results, but Wells Fargo lowering its outlook for FY19 net interest income sent shares lower.

In addition to the positive results, optimism about the economic environment from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and a rebound in Chinese March exports, helped boost investor sentiment.

Shares of Disney surged to an all-time high after the company impressed investors with the details of its Disney+ streaming service Thursday evening. DIS was resumed with an Overweight rating at JP Morgan with a price target of $137. The announcement and the overwhelmingly positive response contributed to a 4.5% decline in Netflix (NFLX 351.14, -16.51).

The S&P 500 energy sector (+0.2%) was another area of interest after Chevron (CVX 119.76, -6.23, -4.9%) announced plans to acquire Anadarko Petroleum (APC 61.78, +14.98, +32.0%) for $65 per share, or $33 billion, in cash and stock. The 39% premium from APC's Thursday closing price fueled gains in smaller energy companies, which helped offset weakness from Chevron.

Health care stocks, meanwhile, continued to fall out of favor. Continued uncertainty about the fate of the Affordable Care Act and increasing threats from lawmakers to curb rising drug costs weighed heavily on the space. The S&P 500 health care sector lost 1.0%.

U.S. Treasuries were under selling pressure, which drove yields noticeably higher. The 2-yr yield increased four basis points to 2.39%, and the 10-yr yield increased six basis points to 2.56%. The U.S. Dollar Index lost 0.2% to 96.96. WTI crude increased 0.4% to $63.91/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included Import and Export Prices for March and the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for April:

Import prices increased 0.6% month-over-month in March after increasing an upwardly revised 1.0% (from 0.6%) in February. Excluding fuel, import prices declined 0.2% in March. Export prices rose 0.7% for the second straight month. Excluding agricultural exports, they were also up 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that nonfuel import prices were down 0.8% for the 12 months ending March while non-agricultural export prices were up just 1.0%. In other words, there was no real inflation pressure from a broader standpoint.
The preliminary April reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment hit 96.9 (Briefing.com consensus 97.6), down from the final reading of 98.4 for March.
The key takeaway from the report is that despite low inflation, consumers have increasingly voiced complaints about rising vehicle and home prices.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for April and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for February on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +20.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +17.5% YTD
S&P 500 +16.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.2% YTD

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Amazon Lifts S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite to New Closing Highs
26-Apr-19 16:20 ET
Dow +81.25 at 26543.33, Nasdaq +27.72 at 8146.39, S&P +13.71 at 2939.88

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/4/26/amazon-lifts-s-and-p-500-and-nasdaq-composite-to-new-closing-highs.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.5%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) set new closing highs on Friday, as shares of Amazon (AMZN 1950.63, +48.38, +2.5%) and strong Q1 GDP data helped the market steer past early weakness. The underperformance in the energy and semiconductor stocks, however, put a lid on further gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.3%, and the Russell 2000 outperformed with a gain of 1.0%.

Amazon easily topped earnings expectations and announced that one-day shipping will be the new standard for Amazon Prime members. The results underpinned the stock's outperformance, while the shipping news undercut shares of Wal-Mart (WMT 101.53, -1.99, -1.9%) and Target (TGT 77.12, -4.62, -5.7%).

The big moves in Amazon and Ford (F 10.41, +1.01, +10.7%), which also provided solid results, boosted the S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector (+0.9%). The health care (+1.0%), financials (+0.9%), and consumer staples (+0.9%) sectors also outperformed.

Signs that the U.S. economy is exhibiting solid growth and muted inflation pressures was another positive consideration for equities and U.S. Treasuries alike. The advance estimate for first quarter GDP increased 3.2% (Briefing.com consensus 1.9%), while the GDP Price Deflator was up just 0.9% (Briefing.com consensus 1.4%) after increasing 1.7% in the fourth quarter.

The 2-yr yield declined four basis points to 2.27%, and the 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 2.51%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 98.04.

Intel (INTC 52.43, -5.18), meanwhile, dropped 9.0% after issuing disappointing guidance. Its lower guidance also contributed to the declines in the S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.4%) and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-0.8%).

The S&P 500 energy sector (-1.2%) underperformed following a decline in oil ($63.23/bbl, -$1.94, -3.0%), which was pressured by President Trump telling OPEC to tame fuel costs. Underwhelming earnings reports from Exxon Mobil (XOM 80.49, -1.73, -2.1%) and Chevron (CVX 117.10, -0.80, -0.7%) also weighed on the space.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which included the advance estimate for first quarter GDP and the final reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for April:

Real GDP increased at an annual rate of 3.2% (Briefing.com consensus 1.9%), according to the advance estimate for first quarter GDP. The GDP Price Deflator was up just 0.9% (Briefing.com consensus 1.4%) after increasing 1.7% in the fourth quarter.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reinforced the market's Goldilocks view of the U.S. economy, which is exhibiting solid growth and muted inflation pressures.
The final reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for April edged up to 97.2 (Briefing.com consensus 96.7) from the preliminary reading of 96.9. That was down from the final reading of 98.4 for March, but right in-line with the average for the past 28 months.
The key takeaway from the report is that 44% of consumers said they were feeling better about their financial prospects for the year ahead. That is the highest level for that reading since 2004 and another indication that should quiet recession talk.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the PCE Price Index for February and March on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +22.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +18.0% YTD
S&P 500 +17.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.8% YTD

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Wall Street Pulls Back after Powell Holds Firm on Policy Stance
01-May-19 16:20 ET
Dow -162.77 at 26430.14, Nasdaq -45.75 at 8049.63, S&P -22.10 at 2923.73

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/5/1/wall-street-pulls-back-after-powell-holds-firm-on-policy-stance.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.8% on Wednesday, pulling back from all-time highs, after Fed Chair Jerome Powell dismissed the idea of a rate-cut to combat low inflation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%), and Russell 2000 (-0.9%) also succumbed to selling interest.

The stock market traded with modest gains leading up to the release of the Fed's policy directive. Apple (AAPL 210.52, +9.85, +4.9%) provided strong support after it beat top and bottom-line estimates and issued upbeat guidance for its fiscal third quarter. The outperformance in Apple also helped push the S&P 500, and information technology sector (-0.3%), to new intraday highs.

The move to record highs prompted some technically-driven selling, but overall the market held steady despite calls that the market had gotten overextended. The release of the Fed's policy decision briefly sent equities and U.S. Treasuries back to session highs in front of Fed Chair Powell's press conference.

The Federal Open Market Committee left the fed funds rate unchanged at 2.25-2.50%, as was expected. The committee also acknowledged that overall inflation and core inflation have declined and remained below its 2 percent target. Some market participants believed the Fed was setting the precedent for a rate cut should inflation continue to remain persistently below the Fed's target.

Fed Chair Powell, however, downplayed the need to address the muted inflation pressure with a change in policy, including a rate cut, since he thinks the recent deceleration in inflation is being caused by transitory factors. The news provided an excuse to sell a market trading near record highs, sending the S&P 500 into negative territory where selling would pick up into the close.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished lower, led by energy (-2.2%), materials (-1.8%), and consumer staples (-1.2%). The weakness in the energy space was also driven by lower oil prices ($63.59/bbl, -$0.21, -0.3%) following bearish inventory data out of the Energy Information Administration.

The Treasury market reacted visibly to Fed Chair Powell's message that a rate cut should not be expected. The 2-yr yield, which fell to 2.22% before the conference, finished higher by three basis points to 2.30%. The 10-yr yield, which fell to 2.46% before the conference, returned to its unchanged mark at 2.51%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the ISM Manufacturing Index for April, the ADP Employment Change report for April, Construction Spending for March, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for April fell to 52.8% (Briefing.com consensus 55.0%) from 55.3% in March. The April reading is the lowest since October 2016. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it shows there was a notable deceleration in manufacturing activity to begin the second quarter, which is a data point that will contribute to the Fed's patient mindset.
The ADP Employment Report showed an increase of 275,000 in April (Briefing.com consensus 170,000), and the March reading was revised to 151,000 (from 129,000).
Total construction spending declined 0.9% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.7% increase (from 1.0%) in February.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that private residential construction spending is weak due to a downturn in new single family construction.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 4.3% following a 7.3% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, preliminary first quarter readings for Nonfarm Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, and Factory Orders for March on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +21.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +16.9% YTD
S&P 500 +16.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.3% YTD

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Wall Street Down for Second Straight Day as Energy Stocks Fall
02-May-19 16:15 ET
Dow -122.35 at 26307.79, Nasdaq -12.87 at 8036.76, S&P -6.21 at 2917.52

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/5/2/wall-street-down-for-second-straight-day-as-energy-stocks-fall.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.2% on Thursday, although it had been down as much as 0.8% in the session. Energy stocks weighed on the broader market for the second straight day, as oil prices ($61.77/bbl, -$1.82, -2.9%) fell to a one-month low.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.2%. The Russell 2000, however, increased 0.4%.

There was a lack of buying conviction following the Fed's decision Wednesday to remain firmly on hold. With few market catalysts to support a move back to all-time highs, investors continued to embrace a profit-taking mindset that sent the S&P 500 back to the 2900 level.

Buying support at this level, coupled with a stabilization in Treasury yields, helped abate selling pressure, though. Still, an awareness that the market was overextended and due for a pullback contributed to tepid buying interest in front of Friday's release of the April employment report.

The S&P 500 energy sector (-1.7%) was the day's worst-performing group amid a drop in the price of oil. Prices were pressured by rising U.S. inventory and by reports that Asian refiners asked Saudi Arabia for additional supply amid global disruptions.

Conversely, the broader market found support from the S&P 500 health care (+0.5%), financials (+0.2%), and real estate (+0.2%) sectors. Many stocks within the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.2%) and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+1.1%) provided additional support.

In corporate news, Dow Inc (DOW 72.50, -3.43, -6.1%), Square (SQ 67.74, -5.88, -8.0%), Kellogg (K 57.38, -2.01, -3.4%), and Cigna (CI 158.22, -3.78, -2.3%) were some of the more notable companies that fell after disappointing investors with their earnings results/guidance. Tesla (TSLA 244.10, +10.09) rose 4.3% after the company announced plans to raise $2.0 billion through new equity and convertible notes.

U.S. Treasuries continued their post-FOMC retreat, sending yields higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield increased four basis points each to 2.34% and 2.55%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 97.83.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, preliminary first quarter readings for Nonfarm Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, and Factory Orders for March:

Initial claims for the week ending April 27 were unchanged from the prior week at 230,000 (Briefing.com consensus 212,000). Continuing claims for the week ending April 20 increased by 17,000 to 1.671 million.
Initial claims might have been higher than expected, yet the key takeaway is that they still remain relatively low, evidenced by a four-week moving average of 212,500 that isn't far off a 50-year low.
Nonfarm business sector productivity increased 3.6% in the first quarter (Briefing.com consensus 2.3%) following a downwardly revised 1.3% increase (from 1.9%) for the fourth quarter. The first quarter increase was the strongest pace since the third quarter of 2014. Unit labor costs decreased 0.9% in the first quarter (Briefing.com consensus +1.6%) following an upwardly revised 2.5% increase (from 2.0%) in the fourth quarter.
The key takeaway from the backward-looking report is that it fit quite well with the understanding that U.S. economic activity is solid while inflation pressures are muted.
Factory orders increased 1.9% in March (Briefing.com consensus +1.6%) on the heels of an upwardly revised 0.3% decline (from -0.5%) in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that business investment picked up in March, evidenced by the 1.4% increase in orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, which are a proxy for business spending.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the following reports on Friday: the Employment Situation Report for April; the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for April; and the Advance figures for International Trade in Goods, Wholesale Inventories, and Retail Inventories for March.

Nasdaq Composite +21.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +17.4% YTD
S&P 500 +16.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.8% YTD

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Wall Street overcomes slow start on more positive trade headlines
15-May-19 16:15 ET
Dow +115.97 at 25648.02, Nasdaq +87.65 at 7822.12, S&P +16.55 at 2850.96

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/5/15/wall-street-overcomes-slow-start-on-more-positive-trade-headlines.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 0.6% on Wednesday, overcoming a lower start that was attributed to concerns about slowing growth. The market, though, has shown a propensity to bounce on any positive-sounding trade headline, and today was no different.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%), like the S&P 500, were each down as much as 0.7% intraday before rallying. The Russell 2000 increased 0.3% after being down as much as 0.9%.

Stocks climbed into positive territory, and extended gains, after reports indicated that President Trump is expected to delay a decision on auto tariffs by up to six months. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said that the U.S. is close to resolving a dispute with Canada and Mexico pertaining to tariffs on aluminum and steel.

These developments helped assuage investors that the U.S. would not be distracted in its trade talks with China by also having to deal with other tariff disputes. The U.S. could return to Beijing as soon as next week to continue talks, but shortly thereafter is more likely, according to sources from The Wall Street Journal.

The S&P 500 communication services (+2.1%), information technology (+1.0%), consumer staples (+0.8%), and consumer discretionary (+0.8%) sectors outperformed the broader market. The financials (-0.5%), materials (-0.2%), and utilities (-0.1%) sectors were the lone groups to finish lower.

Shares of Ford Motor (F 10.36, +0.12, +1.2%) and General Motors (GM 37.37, +0.33, +0.9%) reacted positively to the possible delay in auto tariffs. Semiconductor stocks also outperformed, evident by the 0.8% gain in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, although the group had been up as much as 1.5% intraday.

These results were still a nice turnaround for a market that began the day fretting over slower economic growth. The U.S. and China released weaker-than-expected figures for retail sales and industrial production for April. Specifically, U.S. retail sales declined 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), and industrial production declined 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%).

The data underpinned the buying interest in U.S. Treasuries, which only tapered off slightly during the rally in equities. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield declined four basis points each to 2.16% and 2.38%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 97.58. WTI crude increased 0.4% to $62.06/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic reports:

Total retail sales declined 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after increasing an upwardly revised 1.7% (from 1.6%) in March. Excluding autos, retail sales rose just 0.1% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.6) following an upwardly revised 1.3% increase (from 1.2%) in March.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers curtailed discretionary spending on goods in April in a way that will temper the outlook for Q2 GDP growth.
Industrial production declined 0.5% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) following an upwardly revised 0.2% increase (from -0.1%) in March. Total capacity utilization fell to 77.9% (Briefing.com consensus 78.8%) from a downwardly revised 78.5% (from 78.8%) in March.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that it marked the fourth straight month in which there was no growth in manufacturing output.
Business inventories were unchanged in March, as expected, following an unrevised 0.3% increase in February. Business sales increased 1.6% on the heels of an upwardly revised 0.2% increase (from 0.1%) in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that the inventory growth on a yr/yr basis (+5.0%) continues to outpace sales growth (+3.7%), which should keep price pressures in check.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Application Index declined 0.6% following a 2.7% increase in the prior week.
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for May increased to 17.8 (Briefing.com consensus 7.7) from the prior month's reading of 10.1.
The NAHB Housing Market Index increased to 66 (Briefing.com consensus 64) from 63 in April.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Start and Building Permits for April, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and the Philadelphia Fed Index for May on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +17.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.8% YTD
S&P 500 +13.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.0% YTD

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Big tech leads broader market lower on antitrust concerns
03-Jun-19 16:15 ET
Dow +4.74 at 24819.78, Nasdaq -120.13 at 7332.99, S&P -7.61 at 2744.45

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/6/3/big-tech-leads-broader-market-lower-on-antitrust-concerns.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.3% on Monday, as shares of big tech companies fell on various reports that heightened antitrust concerns. Lingering trade and growth concerns also helped curb risk sentiment and underpin the strength in U.S. Treasuries. A swarm of buyers in the last 30 minutes of action, however, helped the broader market close off its session lows.

The tech-sensitive Nasdaq Composite fell 1.6%. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.02%) finished fractionally higher, and the small-cap Russell 2000 increased 0.3%.

Facebook (FB 164.15, -13.32, -7.5%), Alphabet (GOOG 1036.23, -67.40, -6.1%), Amazon (AMZN 1692.69, -82.38, -4.6%), and Apple (AAPL 173.30, -1.77, -1.0%) were all singled out in various reports indicating that the companies could face antitrust scrutiny by the Department of Justice and/or Federal Trade Commission.

These companies represent some of the most widely-held stocks in the U.S., and their out-sized losses weighed heavily on the Nasdaq and on the S&P 500 communication services (-2.8%), information technology (-1.8%), and consumer discretionary (-1.2%) sectors. The other eight S&P 500 sectors finished higher, led by materials (+3.4%), to provide offsetting support.

Persisting concerns about trade and growth helped restrain buying conviction throughout the day. China blamed the U.S. for the setback in trade talks, which reinforced fears that a protracted trade war will squeeze global growth, and earnings, prospects. Global manufacturing PMI data, including in the U.S., revealed slower or flat growth in May.

On a related note, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard (FOMC Voter) said that slower economic growth could be sharper-than-expected due to the trade uncertainty. Mr. Bullard added that a rate cut may soon be warranted to boost inflation.

Growing expectations for a rate cut, and general growth concerns, helped send the 2-yr yield down 12 basis points to 1.83%. The 10-yr yield declined six basis points to 2.08%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 97.22. WTI crude decreased 0.5% to $53.25/bbl, giving up an intraday rebound effort.

In other corporate news, German company Infineon announced plans to acquire Cypress Semiconductor (CY 22.07, +4.25, +23.9%) for approximately $10 billion, or $23.85 per share, in cash. The offer represents a 33.8% premium to CY's Friday closing price. Humana (HUM 250.32, +5.46, +2.2%) said it will not make a competing bid to acquire Centene (CNC 51.82, -5.93, -10.3%).

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included the ISM Manufacturing Index for May and Construction Spending for April:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for May checked in at 52.1% (Briefing.com consensus 52.6%), down from 52.8% in April. The May reading is the lowest since October 2016. The May reading is the lowest since October 2016.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects a deceleration in national manufacturing activity that will contribute to the burgeoning growth concerns for the U.S. economy. According to the ISM, the past relationship between the PMI and the overall economy indicates the PMI for May corresponds to a 2.7% increase in real GDP on an annualized basis.
Total construction spending was unchanged in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following an upwardly revised 0.1% increase (from -0.9%) in March.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was better than the headline suggests, after accounting for the March revision, yet that still didn't change the fact that total construction spending is soft, evidenced by the 1.2% yr/yr decline that was driven by an 11.2% yr/yr decline in residential spending.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Factory Orders report for April on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +10.5% YTD
S&P 500 +9.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.4% YTD

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Stocks push higher after Fed rate decision
19-Jun-19 16:20 ET
Dow +38.46 at 26504.00, Nasdaq +33.44 at 7987.31, S&P +8.71 at 2926.46

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/6/19/stocks-push-higher-after-fed-rate-decision.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market finished with modest gains on Wednesday after the Fed kept rates unchanged and indicated it was more open to lower rates in upcoming meetings. The 0.3% gain in the S&P 500 left the benchmark index less than 1.0% from its record close.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.2%, the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.4%, and the Russell 2000 increased 0.4%.

The FOMC's policy directive came in largely as expected. The fed funds rate was unchanged, the word "patient" was removed, and the directive noted that the Fed will act as appropriate to sustain the economic expansion amid increased uncertainties to the outlook. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard was the lone dissident among voting members, preferring to lower the fed funds rate by 25 basis points.

The Fed's updated dot plot showed a divided stance in policy for the remainder of the year, but it did show the Fed is leaning toward a rate cut in 2020. Eight voting members indicated they were in favor of a rate cut in 2019, while eight preferred to keep rates unchanged. One member forecast a rate hike. Nevertheless, the fed funds futures market now sees a 100% implied likelihood of a rate cut in July.

The major averages barely budged from their flat lines prior to the rate decision and wavered with modest gains afterwards. Most S&P 500 sectors finished higher, led by the defensive-oriented health care (+1.0%), utilities (+0.8%), and real estate (+0.7%) sectors. The materials (-0.5%), energy (-0.2%), and financials (-0.2%) sectors underperformed.

U.S. Treasury yields fell sharply after the release of the directive and took a leg lower during Fed Chair Powell's follow-up press conference.

The fed funds-sensitive 2-yr yield dropped nine basis points to 1.75% after touching 1.90% at its high. The benchmark 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 2.03% after touching 2.10% at its high. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.4% to 97.25. WTI crude declined 0.3% to $53.99/bbl.

In corporate news, Adobe Systems (ADBE 291.21, +14.43, +5.2%) reported upbeat earnings results, helping investors overlook its downside Q3 guidance. U.S. Steel (X 15.17, +0.59, +4.1%) lowered its Q2 EPS guidance due to softening end market demand, but shares pushed higher as investors presumably viewed the news as already being priced in.

Separately, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications, which was Wednesday's lone economic report, declined 3.4% following a 26.8% surge in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the following reports on Thursday: weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, the Current Account Balance for the first quarter, the Philadelphia Fed Index for June, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for May.

Nasdaq Composite +20.4% YTD
S&P 500 +16.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.6% YTD

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Stock market closes little changed, cyclical stocks gain
26-Jun-19 16:25 ET
Dow -11.40 at 26536.82, Nasdaq +25.25 at 7909.96, S&P -3.60 at 2913.78

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/6/26/stock-market-closes-little-changed-cyclical-stocks-gain.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.1% on Wednesday in a mixed session. Cyclical sectors provided the market some support, but weakness in the defensive-oriented sectors dragged on the broader market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.04%) finished fractionally lower, and the Russell 2000 declined 0.2%. The Nasdaq Composite increased 0.3%

The stock market's best levels of the day came shortly after the opening bell, as many headlines called attention to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's optimistic tone in a morning interview with CNBC. It should be noted, though, that Mr. Mnuchin simply reiterated that the U.S. was 90% close to a deal, which he said in April, and that there remains a path to a deal.

It wasn't too surprising to see the market react positively to old trade news in front of the highly-anticipated G-20 summit this weekend. That summit could bring potential market-moving news but given the uncertainty of the outcome, and the market re-calculating the Fed's rate decision next month, the mood in the market felt less enthusiastic.

The broader market finished little changed, but there were some big moves in the S&P 500 sectors. The defensive-oriented utilities (-2.2%), real estate (-2.0%), consumer staples (-1.4%), and health care (-1.3%) sectors declined noticeably. These sectors, except health care, may have gotten overvalued heading into end-of-the-quarter re-balancing.

The cyclical energy (+1.5%), information technology (+1.1%), consumer discretionary (+0.4%), and industrials (+0.2%) sectors were the lone sectors to finish higher on Wednesday.

Higher oil prices ($59.37/bbl, +$1.53, +2.6%) fueled broad-based buying in the energy space after the EIA released some bullish inventory data. The tech sector derived its strength from shares of Apple (AAPL 199.80, +4.23, +2.2%) and many of the semiconductor stocks, which outperformed after Micron (MU 37.04, +4.36, +13.3%) pleased investors with solid quarterly results and better-than-feared guidance. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index advanced 3.2%.

In other earnings news, investors were able to overlook downside earnings guidance from FedEx (FDX 159.92, +3.94, +2.5%), suggesting that much of the bad news may have already been priced-in to the stock's recent underperformance. FedEx also beat earnings estimates. General Mills (GIS 51.31, -2.39, -4.5%), on the other hand, disappointed investors with a revenue miss.

U.S. Treasuries finished on a lower note, driving yields higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.78%, and the 10-yr yield increased six basis points to 2.05%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 96.22.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included Durable Goods Orders for May, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, and the Advance reports for International Trade in Goods, Wholesale Inventories, and Retail Inventories for May:

Total durable goods orders declined 1.3% in May (Briefing.com consensus -0.3%) after declining 2.8% in April, yet orders, excluding transportation, increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) after dropping 0.1% in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that shipments of nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft -- which factors into GDP forecasts -- increased 0.7% on the heels of a 0.4% increase in April while new orders for nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business spending -- rose 0.4% after declining 1.0% in April.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 1.3% following a 3.4% decline in the prior week.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for May showed a deficit of $74.5 billion following a revised deficit of $70.9 billion (from $72.1 billion). The Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for May increased 0.4%, and the Advance report for Retail Inventories for May increased 0.5%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the third estimate for first quarter GDP, and Pending Home Sales for May on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +19.2% YTD
S&P 500 +16.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.8% YTD

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Major Averages Secure Fresh Records
12-Jul-19 16:15 ET
Dow +243.95 at 27332.03, Nasdaq +48.10 at 8244.14, S&P +13.86 at 3013.77

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/7/12/major-averages-secure-fresh-records.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages ended the week at fresh record highs after a steady daylong push that was paced by the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%) while the Nasdaq (+0.6%) and S&P 500 (+0.5%) recorded slimmer gains. The small cap Russell 2000 (+0.8%) had a better showing than its large cap peers, but the index has another 10.0% to gain before revisiting its record from last year.

Today's advance was supported by continued hope for a rate cut taking place as soon as July 31. Fed Chairman Jay Powell's dovish two-day testimony on monetary policy was followed by an overt call for a lower fed funds rate range. Chicago Fed President, Charles Evans, said today that "a couple rate cuts" are needed in order to boost inflation. Interestingly, this comes just two months after the FOMC voter said that the fed funds rate could remain at its current level until late 2020. Furthermore, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge (core PCE) increased 1.7% yr/yr in Q1, which was a faster rate than what was seen when the central bank began raising rates at the end of 2015 (1.2%).

Eight out of eleven sectors recorded gains on Friday, with cyclical groups faring better than the countercyclical side. Industrials (+1.8%) and consumer discretionary (+1.1%) spent the day atop the leaderboard to end the week with respective gains of 1.2% and 2.1%.

Industrials rallied alongside heavyweight Boeing (BA 365.33, +6.33, +1.8%) while transport stocks outperformed. The Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped 2.4% with trucking names leading the push. JB Hunt (JBHT 92.94, +5.18, +5.9%) and Ryder (R 57.53, +3.14, +5.8%) spiked near 6.0% apiece, even though peer, U.S. Xpress (USX 4.32, -0.53, -10.9%), warned that industry conditions have worsened.

In other high-beta groups, the PHLX Semiconductor Index spiked 1.9% with all but two components finishing higher. The Index extended this week's advance to 2.9% while the broader technology sector rose 0.8%, gaining 1.5% for the week.

Elsewhere, Ford (F 10.49, +0.30, +2.9%) jumped almost 3.0% after Volkswagen confirmed that the two companies will increase their cooperation aimed at developing autonomous vehicle technology.

On the downside, the health care sector (-1.2%) spent the day behind the remaining groups. Drugmakers were pressured after Illumina (ILMN 305.05, -58.61, -16.1%) issued weaker than expected guidance for Q2 and lowered its outlook for the fiscal year. Another sector component, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 134.30, -5.81, -4.2%), slid to a five week low after Bloomberg reported that the company could face a criminal probe into undisclosed health risks associated with JNJ's baby powder.

Treasuries started the day in the red, but a daylong rebound lifted all tenors into the green by the close. The 10-yr yield dipped one basis point to 2.11%. The U.S. Dollar Index returned into the neighborhood of its 200-day moving average (96.77), sliding 0.3% to 96.81.

Today's economic data was limited to June PPI:

The index for final demand increased 0.1% m/m in June (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%), held back by a 3.1% drop in the index for final demand energy, while the index for final demand, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Those readings left the index for final demand up 1.7% yr/yr, versus 1.8% yr/yr in May. That is the lowest 12-month change since January 2017. Core PPI, however, was up 2.3% yr/yr, which was unchanged from May.
The key takeaway from the report is that Producer Price Index for June, like the Consumer Price Index for June, didn't exactly support the case for a 50-basis points cut in July. Some might argue, too, that it didn't event support the case for a 25-basis points cut in July, yet that's almost a moot (and mute) argument given the subtext of Mr. Powell's remarks in his semiannual monetary policy testimony.

Monday's economic data will be limited to the 10:00 ET release of the Empire State Manufacturing Survey (Briefing.com consensus 5.0; prior -8.6).

Nasdaq Composite +24.3% YTD
S&P 500 +20.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +16.4% YTD

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Stock market ekes out gains as earnings season begins
15-Jul-19 16:20 ET
Dow +27.13 at 27359.16, Nasdaq +14.04 at 8258.18, S&P +0.53 at 3014.30

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/7/15/stock-market-ekes-out-gains-as-earnings-season-begins.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market eked out small gains on Monday. The major averages struggled to find direction, but the S&P 500 (+0.02%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%), and Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) did manage to set new record closes. The small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed with a loss of 0.5%.

Citigroup (C 71.73, -0.04, -0.1%) kicked off the second quarter earnings-reporting season with better-than-expected results, but the response was underwhelming as some questioned the quality of its report. On a related note, shares of JPMorgan Chase (JPM 113.90, -1.40, -1.2%), Wells Fargo (WFC 46.70, -0.66, -1.4%), and Goldman Sachs (GS 211.58, -2.36, -1.1%) each lost over 1.0% ahead of the companies' results tomorrow morning.

Their collective weakness weighed on the S&P 500 financials sector (-0.5%), while lower oil prices ($59.51/bbl, -$0.13, -2.9%) put some pressure on the underperforming energy sector (-0.9%). The industrials sector (-0.4%) was the one other group to finish lower amid weakness from its top-weighted components, including Boeing (BA 361.61, -3.72, -1.0%) and General Electric (GE 10.27, -0.10, -1.0%).

Specifically, Boeing's 737 MAX issues continued to weigh on the stock with the planes possibly being grounded into next year, according to The Wall Street Journal. General Electric was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.

It was still a mostly positive day, though, with gains in the other eight S&P 500 sectors providing offsetting support. The utilities (+0.4%), consumer discretionary (+0.3%), and information technology (+0.3%) sectors showed relative strength on Monday. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was a notable standout with a gain of 0.8%.

Semiconductor company Broadcom (AVGO 288.34, +2.95, +1.0%) outperformed on reports that acquisition talks with Symantec (SYMC 22.84, -2.73, -10.7%) broke down. The China-sensitive industry might have also drawn some interest after Beijing reported better-than-expected data for industrial production, fixed asset investment, and retail sales for June.

U.S. Treasuries finished slightly higher in a quiet session. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield declined one basis point each to 1.83% and 2.09%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.1% to 96.95. WTI crude declined 1.2% to $59.51/bbl.

The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for July was Monday's lone economic report:

It checked in at 4.3 versus a June reading of -8.6. That was below the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 5.0, yet above the 0.0 demarcation line between expansion and contraction. Furthermore, there was a bump in the index for future business conditions to 30.8 from 25.7.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the following economic reports on Tuesday: Retail Sales for June, Import and Export Prices for June, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for June, Business Inventories for May, the NAHB Housing market Index for July, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for May.

Nasdaq Composite +24.5% YTD
S&P 500 +20.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.8% YTD

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Wall Street carried higher by tech stocks
22-Jul-19 16:20 ET
Dow +17.70 at 27171.90, Nasdaq +57.65 at 8204.14, S&P +8.42 at 2985.03

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/7/22/wall-street-carried-higher-by-tech-stocks.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.3% on Monday in a tech-driven advance. Noticeable gains in Apple (AAPL 207.22, +4.63, +2.3%), Facebook (FB 202.32, +23.96, +2.0%), Amazon (AMZN 1985.63, +21.11, +1.1%), and Microsoft (MSFT 138.43, +1.81, +1.3%) contributed to the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.1%, while the Russell 2000 declined 0.2%.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.2%) was Monday's outright leader, led by shares of Apple and semiconductor companies. The other ten S&P 500 sectors didn't stray too far from their unchanged marks, although the consumer staples sector (-0.5%) did show relative weakness.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 2.0% following positive commentary out of Goldman Sachs. The firm upgraded Micron (MU 47.19, +1.67, +3.7%), Lam Research (LRCX 207.21, +8.74, +4.4%), and Applied Materials (AMAT 50.73, +2.92, +6.1%) to Buy from Neutral, stemming from a positive view on the memory market. Similarly, Apple outperformed after Morgan Stanley raised its price target to $247 from $231.

Separately, Boston Fed President Rosengren (FOMC voter) advocated against a rate cut at the July 30-31 policy meeting after Friday's close. The market appeared undeterred by the stance on Monday, as it still expected a cut of at least 25 basis points. Still, outside of tech names, there appeared to be some buying reservations in front of key economic data released later this week.

Interestingly, declining issues outpaced advancing issues in both the NYSE and Nasdaq on Monday.

Notable companies that reported earnings on Monday included Halliburton (HAL 23.74, +1.99, +9.2%) and RPM Inc. (RPM 65.09, +2.80, +4.5%), both of which beat profit estimates. Lennox International (LII 264.00, -14.90, -5.3%), however, came up short of expectations and lowered its full-year guidance.

U.S. Treasuries closed slightly higher in a quiet session. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield declined one basis point each to 1.81% and 2.04%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 97.29. WTI crude advanced 1.0% to $56.20/bbl amid lingering concerns that tensions in the Middle East will disrupt supply.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Monday. Looking ahead, the FHFA Housing Price Index for May and Existing Home Sales for June will be released on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +23.6% YTD
S&P 500 +19.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.6% YTD

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Nasdaq and S&P 500 Snap Three-Day Streak
25-Jul-19 16:15 ET
Dow -128.99 at 27140.98, Nasdaq -82.96 at 8238.54, S&P -15.89 at 3003.67

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/7/25/nasdaq-and-s-and-p-500-snap-threeday-streak.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended Thursday near session lows after spending the day in negative territory. The Dow (-0.5%) and S&P 500 (-0.5%) posted comparable losses while the Nasdaq (-1.0%) underperformed throughout the session.

Quarterly earnings were in focus today, and while the market received a fair share of above-consensus results, individual names did not respond nearly as well. For instance, Facebook (FB 200.71, -3.95, -1.9%) beat earnings and revenue expectations, but cautioned that its revenue growth will slow. Similarly, Xilinx (XLNX 127.59, -4.55, -3.4%) beat quarterly estimates, but issued cautious guidance. The stock was among the weakest performers in the PHLX Semiconductor Index (-1.7%), which was also pressured by a defensive outlook offered overnight by South Korean manufacturer of RAM and flash memory SK Hynix. The PHLX Semiconductor Index trimmed this week's gain to 4.6% after setting a fresh record high yesterday.

In other "earnings" of note, Tesla (TSLA 228.82, -36.06, -13.6%) slid toward its July low after reporting a loss that was three times larger than what analysts had expected. The company also announced that CTO JB Straubel is leaving his role but will continue serving in an advisory capacity.

The top-weighted technology sector (-0.8%) was among today's weakest groups while most of the remaining cyclical sectors recorded slimmer losses. The energy sector (-1.2%) was an exception, finishing at the bottom of the leaderboard, even though crude oil ticked up 0.2% to $56.03/bbl.

Elsewhere, industrials (-0.2%) and consumer staples (unch) held slim gains in early trade, but could not stay above their flat lines through the close. Conglomerate 3M (MMM 178.13, -1.29, -0.7%) started with a sharp gain after beating Q2 expectations, but the stock faded from its early high to end near its session low.

On the international front, the European Central Bank released a dovish policy statement, and ECB President Mario Draghi made it clear that the central bank intends to take steps to increase inflation in the eurozone. However, the ECB President did not announce any new measures today.

Treasuries started the day on their highs, but backtracked after the release of a stronger than expected Durable Orders report for June. Today's $32 bln 7-yr Treasury note auction was received with soft demand, representing the third consecutive weak note auction. The 10-yr yield rose two basis points to 2.07%.

Reviewing today's economic data:

New orders for durable goods jumped 2.0% m/m in June (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) following a downwardly revised 2.3% decline (from -1.3%) in May. Excluding transportation, new orders rose a healthy 1.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) following an upwardly revised 0.5% increase (from 0.3%) in May.
The key takeaway from the report is that it revealed a welcome pickup in business spending, which is embedded in the 1.9% increase in nondefense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft. Shipments of those goods were also up 0.6%, which will be a positive input for Q2 GDP forecasts.
Initial claims for the week ending July 20 declined by 10,000 to 206,000 (Briefing.com consensus 215,000) while continuing claims for the week ending July 13 fell by 13,000 to 1.676 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was nothing new to take away from it: initial claims remain near historically low levels in a reflection of a tight labor market.
The advance June goods trade deficit totaled $74.20 bln (prior deficit of $75.00 bln).
Advance Retail Inventories decreased 0.1% in June after increasing 0.3% in May.
Advance Wholesale Inventories increased 0.2% in June after increasing by 0.4% in May.

Tomorrow's data will be limited to the 8:30 ET release of advance Q2 GDP (Briefing.com consensus 1.8%; prior 3.1%) and Q2 GDP Deflator (Briefing.com consensus 1.8%; prior 0.6%).

Nasdaq Composite +24.2% YTD
S&P 500 +19.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.8% YTD

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S&P 500, Nasdaq hit new record closes; Alphabet, GDP data spur gains
26-Jul-19 16:15 ET
Dow +51.47 at 27192.45, Nasdaq +91.67 at 8330.21, S&P +22.19 at 3025.86

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/7/26/s-and-p-500-nasdaq-hit-new-record-closes-alphabet-gdp-data-spur-gains.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market wrapped up the week on a high note, as upbeat results from Alphabet (GOOG 1250.41, +118.29, +10.5%) and encouraging Q2 GDP data helped lift the S&P 500 (+0.7%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%) to record closes. The Russell 2000 rose 1.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased just 0.2%.

Friday's session, much like in the days before, included its fair share of better-than-expected earnings reports. Alphabet gets the lead due to its mega-cap status, but honorable mentions include Starbucks (SBUX 99.11, +8.13, +8.9%) and Twitter (TWTR 41.80, +3.68, +9.7%). Dow components Intel (INTC 51.59, -0.57, -1.1%) and McDonald's (MCD 215.58, +1.14, +0.5%) underperformed despite positive results.

Besides earnings, the fact that the U.S. economy continues to grow at a healthy pace was a positive consideration for investors. The advance estimate for second-quarter GDP increased 2.1% (Briefing.com consensus 1.8%), which did mark a modest slowdown from last quarter but not as much as expected due to strong consumer spending.

The S&P 500 communication services sector (+3.3%), which is home to Alphabet and Twitter, nearly tripled the advance in the runner-up consumer staples sector (+1.2%). Laggards included energy (-0.5%) and industrials (-0.2%), although losses were modest.

Amazon (AMZN 1942.70, -31.22, -1.6%) was also left out of the advance after the company missed profit estimates and guided Q3 operating income below expectations.

In corporate news, Intel confirmed that Apple (AAPL 207.74, +0.72, +0.4%) will acquire most of its smartphone modem chip business for $1 billion. 3M (MMM 173.98, -4.15, -2.3%) disclosed an internal investigation to determine if its expenditures may have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Department of Justice approved the merger between T-Mobile US (TMUS 84.25, +4.34, +5.4%) and Sprint (S 7.99, +0.55, +7.4%).

U.S. Treasuries finished the session with slight losses, pushing yields higher. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.87%, and the 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 2.08%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.2% to 98.01. WTI crude increased 0.3% to $56.19/bbl.

Reviewing the Q2 GDP data, which was Friday's lone economic report:

According to the BEA, the advance estimate showed Q2 real GDP increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.1% (Briefing.com consensus 1.8%) following a 3.1% increase in the first quarter. The GDP Price Deflator was up 2.4% (Briefing.com consensus 1.8%) after increasing 1.1% in the first quarter.
The key takeaway from the report is that it revealed some impressive strength in the U.S. consumer, evidenced by the 4.3% growth in personal consumption expenditures (PCE), which was the second highest over the past 16 quarters. PCE contributed 2.85 percentage points to Q2 GDP growth.

Investors will not receive any economic data of note on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +25.5% YTD
S&P 500 +20.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +17.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.6% YTD

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Stock market posts worst day of 2019 after China weakens yuan
05-Aug-19 16:20 ET
Dow -767.27 at 25717.74, Nasdaq -278.03 at 7726.05, S&P -87.31 at 2844.74

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2019/8/5/stock-market-posts-worst-day-of-2019-after-china-weakens-yuan.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market had its worst day of 2019 with each of the major U.S. indices losing around 3% on Monday. Trade and growth concerns rattled capital markets after China devalued the yuan to its weakest level against the dollar since 2008. Broad-based selling left the S&P 500 down 3.0% for the day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.9%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.5%, and the Russell 2000 fell 3.0%.

Monday's session already began noticeably lower after China allowed the yen to weaken beyond 7 per U.S. dollar in response to President Trump's tariff threat. Global equities declined sharply, and the selling carried over into U.S. equities, which steadily declined throughout the session.

President Trump expressed his discontent on the "currency manipulation," while the People's Bank of China Governor, Yi Gang, said the central bank will not engage in competitive devaluation. China also said its companies agreed to suspend new agricultural purchases from the U.S.

It was clearly risk-off on Wall Street with all 11 S&P 500 sectors finishing with steep losses. Eight sectors finished with losses between 2.3% (health care) and 4.1% (information technology). The tech sector was pressured by shares of Apple (AAPL 193.34, -10.68, -5.2%) and semiconductor companies, many of which derive a large portion of their revenue from China. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 4.4%.

The implied likelihood for a 50-basis points rate cut at the September FOMC meeting climbed to 23.5% versus 1.5% on Friday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. Expectations for the Fed to step up its easing efforts amid increased risks to the economic outlook expounded the flight-to-safety in U.S. Treasuries. On a related note, all of Germany's sovereign debt yielded negative rates for the first time on Monday.

The 2-yr yield dropped 13 basis points to 1.58%, and the 10-yr yield dropped 12 basis points to 1.74%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 97.58. WTI crude lost 2.0% to $54.64/bbl.

Separately, gold futures settled 1.2% higher at $1467.20/oz, further helped by weakness in the dollar and declining U.S. Treasury yields. Shares of Newmont Goldcorp (NEM 37.42, +0.51) advanced 1.4%.

Reviewing Monday's lone economic report, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for July:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index decreased to 53.7% in July (Briefing.com consensus 55.4) from 55.1% in June. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it shows a continuation of a decelerating trend that has been in place since late 2018. The Non-Manufacturing Index is at its lowest level in almost three years.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the JOLTS - Job Openings report for June on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +16.4% YTD
S&P 500 +13.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.3% YTD

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Wall Street climbs amid strength in growth and value stocks
11-Sep-19 16:20 ET
Dow +227.61 at 27137.02, Nasdaq +85.52 at 8169.71, S&P +21.54 at 3000.93

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 0.7% on this 18th anniversary of 9/11, boosted by strength in growth and value stocks alike. Apple (AAPL 223.59, +6.89, +3.2%) carried the benchmark index back to the 3000 level and helped boost the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%) to solid gains.

The small-cap Russell 2000 (+2.1%) outperformed again to extend its weekly advance to 4.7%. The S&P MidCap 400 increased 1.4%.

There were few developments on Wednesday to interrupt the market's placated views on trade and growth. Regarding trade, China released a list of U.S. products it will exempt from a higher tariff rate, although key farm products were not included. Central banks also appear on the market's side, with China reportedly set to start an easing cycle later this month and the ECB expected to cut rates on Thursday.

There were no big winners from a sector standpoint, but today's advance was broad-based, evidenced by the 1.0% gains in the information technology (+1.0%), health care (+1.0%), utilities (+1.0%), industrials (+1.0%), materials (+1.0%), and communication services (+1.0%) sectors. The real estate sector (-0.3%) was the lone holdout on Wednesday.

Apple provided the leadership in the tech sector, and broader market, as investors and (some) analysts remained content with its product event yesterday. Needham raised its AAPL price target to $250 from $225, while Maxim Group lowered its AAPL price target to $204 from $211. Strength in Apple tricked over to the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+1.5%).

The underperformance in the energy sector (unch) was an interesting development. The sector was up as much as 1.2% in the early going, as it continued to benefit from a value-oriented mindset, but it quickly fell from its highs amid a drop in the price of oil ($55.74, -1.63, -2.8%). Oil took a hit on reports that President Trump was in talks to ease sanctions on Iran. OPEC also downgraded its forecasts for oil demand in 2019 and 2020.

The continued rise in Treasury yields reflected some of the improved sentiment on Wall Street, as investors showed less interest for the safe-haven asset. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 1.67%, and the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.73%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.3% to 98.62.

Separately, ZScaler (ZS 49.67, -11.93, -19.4%) was a notable laggard, with shares plunging 19% after the software security company guided earnings below consensus.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which included the Producer Price Index for August, Wholesale Inventories for July, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:

The Producer Price Index for final demand was up 0.1% m/m in August, as expected, but the index for final demand excluding food and energy, was up 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), which was hotter than expected. The month-over-month changes left the index for final demand up 1.8% yr/yr, versus 1.7% in July, and the index for final demand excluding food and energy up 2.3%, versus 2.1% in July.
The key takeaway from the report is that it could stoke concerns about margin pressures for producers that curtail earnings growth and/or bleed through to higher prices for consumers.
Wholesale Inventories increased 0.2% in July (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). The June reading was unrevised at 0.0%.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 2.0% following a 3.1% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for August, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and the Treasury Budget for August on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +23.1% YTD
S&P 500 +19.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +16.8% YTD

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Wall Street closes slightly lower, oil prices surge after attack in Saudi Arabia
16-Sep-19 16:20 ET
Dow -142.70 at 27076.80, Nasdaq -23.17 at 8153.58, S&P -9.43 at 2997.96

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.3% on Monday after an attack on Saudi Arabia's oil refineries sent oil prices up nearly 15% and escalated geopolitical tensions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.3%. The Russell 2000 increased 0.4%, helped by big gains in the oil-sensitive stocks.

The attack knocked about 5.7 million barrels per day out of production, leading to the biggest one-day gain in WTI crude ($62.88/bbl, +$8.00, +14.6%) since 2008. Saudi Arabia expected to restore about a third of lost production on Monday, while normal production might take "weeks not days," according to sources from Reuters.

Some angst revolved around a possible retaliatory attack from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia on Iran. It wasn't confirmed if Iran was the aggressor, but the U.S. was quick to implicate Tehran while a preliminary investigation found the weapons used in the strike originated from Iran, according to al-Riyadh.

Unsurprisingly, today's winning groups included the S&P 500 energy sector (+3.3%) and iShares Dow Jones US Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA 229.87, +2.35, +1.0%). The S&P 500 real estate (+1.0%) and utilities (+0.1%) sectors also finished higher, helping ease the losses from the materials (-1.6%), consumer discretionary (-1.3%), and consumer staples (-1.0%) sectors.

American Airlines (AAL 27.77, -2.18, -7.3%) led the airline stocks lower amid concerns about a rise in fuel costs pressuring margins. Similarly, Amazon (AMZN 1807.84, -31.50, -1.7%) and many stocks within the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 43.07, -0.50, -1.2%) underperformed amid speculation that the higher oil prices would translate into higher gas prices that would hurt discretionary spending.

The attack might have been a good excuse to sell the market, which entered today on a three-week rally. The broader market held up relatively well, though, with advancing issues outpacing declining issues at both the Nasdaq and NYSE. This might have been due to an understanding that (1) the U.S. is less reliant on imported oil than it used to be and (2) the U.S. economy has been resilient in the face of slowing global growth.

Defensive positioning was taken, though, with traditional safe-haven assets like U.S. Treasuries and gold finishing higher. The 2-yr yield declined three basis points to 1.76%, and the 10-yr yield declined six basis points to 1.84%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.4% to 98.61. Gold futures increased 0.8%, or $12.00, to $1511.50/ozt.

Separately, General Motors (GM 37.21, -1.65, -4.3%) was a story stock after close to 50,000 UAW workers at GM went on strike.

Economic data was sparse on Monday. The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for September declined to 2.0 (Briefing.com consensus 5.5) from the prior month's reading of 4.8.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for August, the NAHB Housing Market Index for September, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for July on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +22.9% YTD
S&P 500 +19.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +17.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.1% YTD

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S&P 500 closes higher in front of Fed decision tomorrow
17-Sep-19 16:20 ET
Dow +33.98 at 27110.78, Nasdaq +32.47 at 8186.05, S&P +7.74 at 3005.70

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The large-cap indices closed higher on Tuesday as investors looked ahead to the Fed's policy decision tomorrow. The S&P 500 (+0.3%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%), and Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) posted small gains, while the Russell 2000 (-0.4%) underperformed amid relative weakness in the energy space.

Overall price action was muted for most of the day, but the moves within the market were much more noticeable. For instance, after spiking nearly 15% yesterday, WTI crude ($59.37/bbl, -3.15) pulled back 5.0% after Saudi Arabia said it intends on restoring full oil production by the end of September. In addition, the repo rate spiked as high as 10% today on no specific catalyst.

Regarding the repo rate volatility, DoubleLine Capital founder Jeffrey Gundlach said this makes it more likely the Fed will start with asset purchases again (i.e. "QE Lite") "pretty soon." Presumably, this view, which was reported by Reuters late in the session, contributed to increased buying interest into the close.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished higher, led by the real estate (+1.4%), utilities (+0.9%), and materials (+0.7%) sectors. The energy (-1.5%) and industrials (-0.04%) sectors were the lone sectors to finish in negative territory.

Other laggards included Nordstrom (JWN 32.10, -3.47, -9.8%), Corning (GLW 28.23, -1.82, -6.1%), and Kraft Heinz (KHC 28.36, -1.26, -4.2%).

Nordstrom fell alongside the retail stocks as a part of a broader effort to take monthly profits from the group. Corning cut its third-quarter sales outlook for its Display Technologies and Optical Communications segments. Kraft Heinz underperformed after 3G Capital sold 9.3% of its stake in the company.

Back to the Fed, the market expects the central bank to cut the fed funds rate by 25 basis points, which would strengthen the market's improving outlook on the U.S. economy. On a related note, industrial production rebounded 0.6% m/m in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) after an unexpected decline in July.

Separately, the New York Fed announced a repurchase operation of up to $75 billion worth of assets in order to regain control of its fed funds rate. The midpoint of transactions in the overnight money markets hit the upper limit of the 2.00-2.25% target range.

The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield declined three basis points each to 1.73% and 1.81%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index lost 0.4% to 98.22.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for August and the NAHB Housing Market Index for September.

Industrial production increased 0.6% m/m in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%), which was much stronger than expected and followed an upwardly revised 0.1% decline (from -0.2%) in July. Total capacity utilization ran at 77.9% (Briefing.com consensus 77.5%), up from 77.5% in the prior month.
The key takeaway from the report is that all of the major market groups recorded gains in August, which is a reassuring development in terms of the economic growth outlook.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for September increased to 68 (Briefing.com consensus 66) from 67 in August (revised from 66).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Fed's policy decision, which will include economic and interest rate path projections, Housing Starts and Building Permits for August, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +23.4% YTD
S&P 500 +19.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +17.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.2% YTD

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Sideways Week Ends on Lower Note
20-Sep-19 16:15 ET
Dow -159.72 at 26935.07, Nasdaq -65.20 at 8117.67, S&P -14.68 at 2992.11

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended the week on a lower note after a midday swoon pressured the S&P 500 (-0.5%) into negative territory. The benchmark index lost 0.5% for the week while the Nasdaq (-0.8%) underperformed, surrendering 0.7% since last Friday.

The trading day started with slight gains amid news that the Trump administration will temporarily exempt some Chinese products from tariffs. However, a midday report from Reuters noted that the Chinese trade delegation, which visited Washington for talks, cancelled its plan for a visit to Montana. That report knocked the major averages to session lows, fueling renewed worries about how much progress has really been made in the ongoing negotiations.

The major averages briefly recovered from their lows in the afternoon but returned toward those lows before the close as cyclical sectors struggled. The top-weighted technology sector (-1.1%) was among the worst performers, widening its loss in the afternoon. Chipmakers got off to a weak start and remained under pressure into the close. The PHLX Semiconductor Index lost 1.8%, surrendering 2.7% for the week. Xilinx (XLNX 96.55, -7.07, -6.8%) lagged from the start after the company's CFO resigned. Texas Instruments (TXN 126.67, -2.16, -1.7%) lost nearly 2.0% despite increasing its quarterly dividend.

Elsewhere in technology, Fitbit (FIT 4.10, +0.43, +11.7%) jumped to its July low after Reuters reported that the company may put itself up for sale while Apple (AAPL 217.73, -3.23, -1.5%) surrendered this week's modest gain as the company's refreshed product line hit store shelves.

Like technology, the consumer discretionary sector (-1.2%) fell to lows after the midday report cast doubt on the amount of progress in trade negotiations. General Motors (GM 37.37, -0.41, -1.1%), however, underperformed throughout the day after Dayton Daily News reported that a GM plant in Moraine, Ohio will be idled due to the ongoing UAW strike.

On the upside, countercyclical sectors like health care (+0.6%) and utilities (+0.4%) spent the day in positive territory. The health care sector extended this week's gain to 1.0%, drawing some encouragement from a report that the Senate will not endorse a plan put forth by House Speaker Pelosi to lower drug prices.

Treasuries spent the bulk of the day near their flat lines before rallying to highs in the afternoon. The 10-yr yield slipped two basis points to 1.76%.

Today's trading volume was well above average due to quadruple witching. As a result, more than 2.5 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Participants did not receive any economic data on Friday, and Monday's calendar is also free of notable releases.

Nasdaq +22.3% YTD
S&P 500 +19.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.5% YTD

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Wall Street closes little changed; earnings remained positive, retail sales declined
16-Oct-19 16:15 ET
Dow -22.82 at 27001.98, Nasdaq -24.52 at 8124.19, S&P -5.99 at 2989.69

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] Wall Street finished little changed on Wednesday, as investors weighed negative macro news against another set of mostly positive earnings results. The S&P 500 (-0.2%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) closed slightly lower, while the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) inched higher.

The positive reaction to today's batch of earnings reports was limited to shares of companies that reported, namely Bank of America (BAC 30.18, +0.45, +1.5%), United Airlines (UAL 89.70, +1.82, +2.1%), and J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT 115.65, +4.05, +3.6%), as opposed to Tuesday's earnings-driven rally. Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed near their flat lines.

The energy sector (-1.5%) was today's laggard despite an increase in oil prices ($53.42/bbl, +0.63, +1.2%), followed by the information technology sector (-0.7%) amid weakness in the software stocks. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.4%) outperformed despite an unexpected 0.3% m/m decline in retail sales for September (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%).

The relatively conservative spending did follow an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from +0.4%) in August, which presumably allayed an overreaction among sellers. Still, the headline figure could feed into the slowdown narrative for the U.S. economy, especially when uncertainty remains on the U.S.-China trade front.

On Wednesday, China threatened unspecified countermeasures against the U.S. after the House of Representatives approved legislation to support pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The Senate has yet to vote on the measures, but the situation could complicate the completion of the first phase of a trade deal with the U.S.

In other potential deals, General Motors (GM 36.65, +0.39, +1.1%) and the UAW reached a tentative agreement that could end the monthlong strike at GM. McKesson (MCK 144.84, +6.67, +4.8%), Cardinal Health (CAH 49.07, +1.17, +2.4%) and AmerisourceBergen (ABC 86.05, +2.85, +3.4%) began talks to settle opioid litigation for $18 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. Treasuries finished the session on a higher note, leaving yields slightly lower. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield both declined two basis points each to 1.59% and 1.75%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.3% to 98.02.

Reviewing Wednesday's batch of economic data, which featured Retail Sales for September:

Total retail sales declined 0.3% month-over-month in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from +0.4%) in August. Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after increasing an upwardly revised 0.2% (from 0.0%) in August.
The upward revisions for August cushioned some of the headline blow, yet the key takeaway from the report is that it highlights some relatively conservative consumer spending activity in September that will feed into the slowdown narrative building for the U.S. economy.
Total business inventories were unchanged month-over-month in August (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after a downwardly revised 0.3% increase (from 0.4%) in July. Total business sales were up 0.2% following a downwardly revised 0.2% increase (from 0.3%) in July.
The key takeaway from the report is that the gap between inventory growth on a yr/yr basis (+4.2%) and sales growth (+1.1%) remains, which should help keep prices in check.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for October increased to 71 from 68 in September.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index ticked up 0.5% following a 5.4% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for September, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for September, the Philadelphia Fed Index for October, and the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +22.4% YTD
S&P 500 +19.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.1% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27001.98 -22.82 (-0.08%)
Nasdaq 8124.19 -24.52 (-0.30%)
SP 500 2989.69 -5.99 (-0.20%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.748
NYSE Adv 1496 Dec 1370 Vol 753.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1594 Dec 1467 Vol 1.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Information Technology, Energy

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Dow ekes out record close, Boeing and Walgreens gain
11-Nov-19 16:15 ET
Dow +10.25 at 27691.53, Nasdaq -11.04 at 8464.28, S&P -6.07 at 3087.01

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined just 0.2% on Monday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.04%) eked out a record close amid strength in Boeing (BA 366.96, +15.96, +4.6%) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 62.25, +3.01, +5.1%). The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.1%, and the Russell 2000 lost 0.3%.

Boeing said it expects 737 MAX deliveries to resume in December and commercial service to resume in January. Walgreens received a leveraged buyout offer from KKR & Co. (KKR 29.26, +0.11, +0.4%), according to Bloomberg.

The nice gain in Boeing was an influential driver not only in the Dow but also the S&P 500 industrials sector (+0.1%), which joined the real estate (+0.2%) and information technology (+0.1%) sectors in positive territory. The tech sector overcame a negative start, predominately due to Apple (AAPL 262.20, +2.06, +0.8%) extending its record run on no specific catalyst.

Eight of the other 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in negative territory, with utilities (-0.7%), energy (-0.6%), and health care (-0.4%) underperforming the broader market.

Despite those losses, today proved to be another resilient session considering the S&P 500 declined as much as 0.6% shortly after the open in a profit-taking trade. Some trade uncertainty and another bout of violence in the democratic protests in Hong Kong may have restrained risk sentiment.

Like past sessions, though, there still wasn't a sustained effort to sell a market trading at all-time highs. Instead, investors bought the dip to quickly pare the market's early losses.

Separately, T-Mobile US (TMUS 79.62, -1.32, -1.6%) was a notable laggard after The Wall Street Journal reported that its CEO John Legere is in talks to become the next CEO of WeWork. Qualcomm (QCOM 91.84, -2.19, -2.3%) underperformed after the stock was downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

The U.S. Treasury market was closed for Veterans Day and investors did not receive any economic data. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 98.22. WTI crude declined 0.6% to $56.88/bbl.

On Tuesday, investors will receive the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for October.

Nasdaq Composite +27.6% YTD
S&P 500 +23.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +18.3% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27691.53 +10.25 (0.04%)
Nasdaq 8464.28 -11.04 (-0.13%)
SP 500 3087.01 -6.07 (-0.20%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.942
NYSE Adv 1267 Dec 1578 Vol 760.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1412 Dec 1662 Vol 1.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Industrials, Information Technology
Weak: Energy, Utilities, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 closes slightly lower, while Dow ekes out record close

-- Boeing (BA) expects 737 MAX deliveries to resume in December, commercial service in January

-- Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) reportedly received a leveraged buyout offer

-- Bond market was closed for Veterans Day

WTI crude settles modestly lower
11-Nov-19 15:30 ET
Dow +11.56 at 27692.84, Nasdaq -13.75 at 8461.57, S&P -6.56 at 3086.52

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is on pace to end the day lower as it holds a modest 0.2% loss. At its low, the benchmark index was down 0.6%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows eight trading lower with relative weakness found in the utilities (-0.6%), health care (-0.5%), and energy (-0.5%) sectors. Conversely, the real estate (+0.6%), industrials (+0.1%), and information technology (+0.1%) sectors trade higher.

WTI crude declined $0.33 (-0.6%) to $56.88/bbl.

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Stock market closes little changed, retail space hit
19-Nov-19 16:20 ET
Dow -102.20 at 27933.93, Nasdaq +20.72 at 8570.66, S&P -1.85 at 3120.18

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.1% on Tuesday in a mixed session. The retail industry was under pressure following disappointing quarterly results and guidance from Home Depot (HD 225.86, -12.99, -5.4%) and Kohl's (KSS 47.02, -11.38, -19.5%).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) also finished lower, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) and Russell 2000 (+0.4%) finished higher. The Nasdaq closed at another record high.

The session began with each of the large-cap indices setting intraday highs despite the negative sentiment in the retail space. The early advance quickly faltered but overall losses were modest, and transient, as the S&P 500 only dipped 0.3% below its flat line before buyers quickly stepped in to buy the dip.

The retail space didn't benefit from an opportunistic mindset, though, as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 43.95, -0.87, -1.9%) finished near its lows like the S&P 500 energy (-1.5%) and consumer discretionary (-1.0%) sectors. Home Depot dragged on the consumer discretionary sector while a 3% drop in WTI crude ($55.21, -1.84, -3.2%) weighed on the energy space.

Gains were mainly found in the heavily-weighted S&P 500 health care (+0.7%), information technology (+0.2%), and financials (+0.2%) sectors. The real estate sector (+0.2%) also finished in positive territory.

TJX Companies (TJX 60.64, +1.09, +1.8%) was a bright spot among the retailers after it beat top and bottom-line estimates and raised its full-year guidance. TJX likely tempered some concerns about U.S. consumer spending for the holiday shopping season that may have been engendered by Home Depot and Kohl's.

Separately, shares of AT&T (T 38.00, -1.63, -4.1%) pulled back 4% after the stock was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at MoffettNathanson. Shares of Slack (WORK 21.18, -1.93, -8.4%) sold off on news that Microsoft's (MSFT 150.39, +0.05, unch) competitive product, Teams, increased daily active users by nearly 50% since July.

The U.S. Treasury market was relatively quiet, but demand for longer-dated bonds contributed to some curve-flattening activity. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 1.59%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 1.79%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 97.85.

Tuesday's economic calendar was limited to Housing Starts and Building Permits for October:

Total housing starts increased 3.8% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.314 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.300 million) while total building permits increased 5.0% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.461 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.365 million).
There was a sizable jump in starts (+8.6%) and permits (+8.2%) for multi-unit dwellings, yet the key takeaway from the report is that starts (+2.0%) and permits (+3.2%) increased for single-family units in an inventory-constrained environment for single-family homes.

Looking ahead, the FOMC Minutes from the October 30-31 meeting and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index will be released on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +29.2% YTD
S&P 500 +24.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +19.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +18.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27933.93 -102.20 (-0.36%)
Nasdaq 8570.66 +20.72 (0.24%)
SP 500 3120.18 -1.85 (-0.06%)
10-yr Note +3/32 1.784
NYSE Adv 1351 Dec 1507 Vol 842.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1806 Dec 1278 Vol 2.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Information Technology, Real Estate, Financials
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Energy

Moving the Market

-- Stock market closes mixed; weakness in the retail space

-- Home Depot (HD), Kohl's (KSS) disappoint with quarterly results and guidance

-- Relative strength in the health care sector

-- WTI crude drops 3%, weighs on energy stocks

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Wall Street closes lower on possible delay in trade deal
20-Nov-19 16:20 ET
Dow -112.93 at 27821.00, Nasdaq -43.93 at 8526.73, S&P -11.72 at 3108.46

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined as much as 0.9% on Wednesday after Reuters reported that a Phase One trade deal may not get completed this year. Stocks cut losses throughout the afternoon, leaving the benchmark index down 0.4% for the session -- comparable to the losses in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%), and Russell 2000 (-0.4%).

The negative-sounding headline conflicted with the optimistic tone struck by top White House officials, including Commerce Secretary Ross just last night. Also transpiring last night was the U.S. Senate passing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, much to the contempt of China. Altogether, it seemed like a good time to take profits, especially if the Dec. 15 tariffs still go into effect.

The trade-sensitive areas of the market like the S&P 500 materials (-1.2%), industrials (-0.8%), and information technology (-0.7%) sectors led the decline. The communication services sector (-0.8%), which contains many growth-oriented stocks, also underperformed.

Unsurprisingly, though, selling pressure quickly abated amid an opportunistic mindset among investors eagerly awaiting a dip. In addition, the details of the report were not as foreboding as the headline, and knee-jerk selling, suggested. Tucked in the report was a line indicating that some "China and trade experts" were still optimistic about a deal in the coming weeks.

Leading the afternoon comeback was the energy sector (+1.0%), which found reprieve amid a 3% rebound in oil prices ($56.91, +1.70, +3.1%). The defensive-oriented utilities (+0.6%), consumer staples (+0.2%), and real estate (+0.03%) sectors also finished in positive territory.

Shares of Target (TGT 126.43, +15.58, +14.1%) climbed 14% after the company impressed investors with its stellar results and upbeat guidance. Lowe's (LOW 117.83, +4.43, +3.9%) also beat earnings estimates and raised its FY20 EPS guidance.

U.S. Treasuries continued to benefit from a defensive mindset, which sent yields lower in a curve-flattening trade. The 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 1.57%, and the 10-yr yield declined five basis points to 1.74%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 97.91.

Separately, the release of the FOMC Minutes from the October meeting didn't draw much attention, as it was consistent with the prevailing view about monetary policy since that meeting. Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which declined 2.2% following a 9.6% increase in the prior week.

On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Philadelphia Fed Index for November, Existing Home Sales for October, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for October.

Nasdaq Composite +28.5% YTD
S&P 500 +24.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +19.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +18.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27821.00 -112.93 (-0.40%)
Nasdaq 8526.73 -43.93 (-0.51%)
SP 500 3108.46 -11.72 (-0.38%)
10-yr Note +26/32 1.741
NYSE Adv 1259 Dec 1593 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1202 Dec 1892 Vol 2.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Utilities, Consumer Staples, Real Estate
Weak: Materials, Communication Services, Industrials, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Reuters reported that a Phase One trade deal may not be completed this year; stocks cut losses throughout the afternoon

-- Trade-sensitive stocks underperformed; energy stocks and oil prices rebounded

-- Target (TGT) and Lowe's (LOW) pleased investors with earnings results, guidance

WTI crude rebounds 3%
20-Nov-19 15:25 ET
Dow -137.39 at 27796.54, Nasdaq -53.86 at 8516.80, S&P -14.31 at 3105.87

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is on pace to end the session on a lower note, as it trades down 0.5%. The Russell 2000 is down 0.3%.

One last look inside the S&P 500 shows communication services (-1.1%), materials (-1.1%), and information technology (-0.9%) leading today's decline. The energy sector (+1.3%) remains on top, followed by utilities (+0.6%), consumer staples (+0.2%), and real estate (+0.1%).

WTI crude rebounded $1.70 (+3.1%) to $56.91/bbl following a better-than-feared rise in weekly crude inventories, according to the EIA.

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Stock market extends record run
26-Nov-19 16:20 ET
Dow +55.21 at 28121.59, Nasdaq +15.44 at 8647.92, S&P +6.88 at 3140.52

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market extended its record run on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 (+0.2%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%), and Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) also closing near their session highs. The Russell 2000 increased 0.1% but closed off its highs.

Leading the advance were the S&P 500 real estate (+1.4%), consumer staples (+0.8%), consumer discretionary (+0.8%), and materials (+0.5%) sectors. The energy (-1.0%), financials (-0.1%), and health care (-0.1%) sectors were the lone holdouts.

Evidently, buying conviction was less pronounced than yesterday, but the same factors that have contributed to the market's record run -- trade progress, low rates, low volatility, and supportive monetary policy expectations -- remained intact. As for trade, China's Commerce Ministry said top negotiators held a phone call in which both sides agreed on how to properly resolve outstanding issues for a Phase One deal.

Other outperformers in the stock market included the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.84, +0.27, +0.6%), which benefited from upbeat earnings forecasts, and the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 45.89, +0.61, +1.4%), which benefited from new home sales in October coming in better than expected at 733,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 710,000).

Best Buy (BBY 81.57, +7.32, +9.9%), Burlington Stores (BURL 225.97, +17.71, +8.5%), and Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS 46.77, +7.34, +18.6%) impressed investors with their results and guidance, the latter of which is especially important for the retailers with the holiday-shopping season nearly in full swing. Dollar Tree (DLTR 95.26, -17.13, -15.2%) failed to meet expectations.

Separately, several Dow components set new all-time highs today. Walt Disney (DIS 151.64, +1.95, +1.3%) was one of them after the stock was initiated with an Outperform rating at Consumer Edge Research with a price target of $175.

U.S. Treasuries continued to increase, which sent yields slightly lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield declined three basis point to 1.58%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 1.74%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 98.23. WTI crude increased 0.6%, or $0.32, to $58.30/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's batch of economic data, which featured the New Home Sales report for October:

New home sales in October decreased 0.7% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 733,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 710,000) from an upwardly revised 738,000 (from 701,000) in September. On a yr/yr basis, new home sales were up 31.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the October showing was better than what meets the eye at first blush given the large, upward revision to the prior month's number.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for November eased to 125.5 (Briefing.com consensus 126.9) from 125.9 in October, marking the fourth straight monthly retreat.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers continue to remain relatively upbeat about the short-term outlook based in part on income prospects, which should be a support for holiday spending activity.
The Advance International Trade in Goods report for October showed a narrowing in the deficit to $66.5 billion from $70.5 billion in September. Advance Retail Inventories were up 0.3% on top of a 0.2% increase in September and Advance Wholesale Inventories increased 0.2% after declining 0.7% in September.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for September increased 0.6% following an unrevised 0.2% increase in August.
The S&P Case-Shiller Housing Price Index for September increased 2.1% (Briefing.com consensus 2.6%) following an unrevised 2.0% increase in August.

Looking ahead, investors will be given a cornucopia of reports on Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day: Personal Income and Spending for October, Durable Goods Orders for October, the second estimate for Q3 GDP, Pending Home Sales for October, the weekly reports for MBA Mortgage Applications and jobless claims, and the Fed's Beige Book for December.

Nasdaq Composite +30.3% YTD
S&P 500 +25.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +20.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +20.4% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28121.59 +55.21 (0.20%)
Nasdaq 8647.92 +15.44 (0.18%)
SP 500 3140.52 +6.88 (0.22%)
10-yr Note +24/32 1.737
NYSE Adv 1565 Dec 1302 Vol 1.6 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1522 Dec 1595 Vol 2.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Materials
Weak: Energy, Financials, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Stock markets edges higher into record territory

-- Trade sentiment remained upbeat, low rates and volatility persisted

-- Relative strength in the real estate sector amid the lower Treasury yields

-- Relative strength in retail and homebuilding stocks following earnings reports and housing data, respectively

WTI crude settles higher
26-Nov-19 15:25 ET
Dow +23.79 at 28090.17, Nasdaq +9.29 at 8641.77, S&P +2.41 at 3136.05

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.1%) is vying for another record close, although it has been floundering over the past few hours.

One last look inside the benchmark index shows the real estate (+1.0%), consumer staples (+0.6%), and consumer discretionary (+0.6%) sectors atop the standings, while the energy (-1.1%), health care (-0.3%), and financials (-0.3%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude settled up $0.30 (+0.6%) to $58.30/bbl.

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Wall Street closes little changed in tight-ranged session
18-Dec-19 16:20 ET
Dow -27.88 at 28239.19, Nasdaq +4.38 at 8827.75, S&P -1.38 at 3191.14

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market finished mixed and little changed on Wednesday, although the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) did close at a record high in another tight-ranged session. The Russell 2000 added 0.3%, while the S&P 500 (-0.04%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) both snapped a five-session winning streak.

Buying enthusiasm was understandably absent amid a lack of new catalysts, but there remained little interest to sell a market trading at all-time highs. FedEx (FDX 146.86, -16.37, -10.0%), however, did succumb to heavy selling pressure after it issued disappointing earnings results and guidance.

Weakness in FedEx contributed to the declines in the S&P 500 industrials sector (-0.5%) and Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.9%).

Conversely, the real estate sector (+1.3%) rose more than 1% in an opportunistic trade that pared some of its monthly decline. The utilities (+0.4%), energy (+0.3%), and communication services (+0.3%) sectors followed suit.

In other earnings news, Lennox International (LII 245.37, -13.21, -5.1%) discouraged investors by lowering its FY19 guidance, while Cintas (CTAS 265.88, +5.12, +2.0%) and Steelcase (SCS 22.21, +3.13, +16.4%) pleased investors with results and/or guidance.

Separately, Cigna (CI 198.20, +4.68, +2.4%) agreed to sell its group life and disability insurance business to New York Life for $6.3 billion in cash.

In the U.S. Treasury market, a decline in longer-dated bonds caused some curve-steepening activity. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 1.62%, while the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.92%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 97.39. WTI crude increased 0.1% (+$0.03) to $60.93/bbl.

Economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which declined 5.0% after increasing 3.8% in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the following reports on Thursday: Existing Home Sales for November, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Current Account Balance for the third quarter, the Philadelphia Fed Index for December, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for November.

Nasdaq Composite +33.0% YTD
S&P 500 +27.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +23.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +21.1% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28239.19 -27.88 (-0.10%)
Nasdaq 8827.75 +4.38 (0.05%)
SP 500 3191.14 -1.38 (-0.04%)
10-yr Note -4/32 1.928
NYSE Adv 1792 Dec 1113 Vol 984.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1591 Dec 1552 Vol 2.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Utilities, Energy, Communication Services
Weak: Industrials, Financials, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Stock market closes little changed in another tight-ranged session

-- FedEx (FDX) drops on disappointing earnings results and guidance

-- Relative strength in the real estate sector

WTI crude settles fractionally higher
18-Dec-19 15:25 ET
Dow +16.61 at 28283.68, Nasdaq +20.52 at 8843.89, S&P +3.02 at 3195.54

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is on pace to close at another record high as it trades up by 0.1%.

The real estate sector (+1.6%) has pulled out way ahead of the pack today with a 1.6% gain. Entering today, the group was down 3.2% for the month. Today's laggard remains the industrials sector (-0.4%) amid a 10% earnings-related drop in shares of FedEx (FDX 147.04, -16.19, -9.9%).

WTI crude settled $0.03 higher (+0.1%) to $60.93/bbl. On a related note, weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 1.1 million barrels after increasing by 0.8 million barrels during the previous week.

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Stock market closes little changed after setting record highs
14-Jan-20 16:15 ET
Dow +32.62 at 28939.58, Nasdaq -22.60 at 9251.35, S&P -4.98 at 3283.15

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] Each of the large-cap indices set new intraday highs on Tuesday, but only the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) managed to finish higher. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both declined 0.2%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 rose 0.4%.

The day began with JPMorgan Chase (JPM 138.80, +1.60, +1.2%), Citigroup (C 81.91, +1.26, +1.6%), and Delta Air Lines (DAL 61.45, +1.96, +3.3%) providing investors with better-than-expected earnings results, while Wells Fargo (WFC 49.32, -2.79, -5.4%) missed top and bottom-line estimates due to higher expenses.

The results contributed to noticeable price changes in the stocks, but the price action in the broader market was relatively tight-ranged amid some buyer exhaustion. At its high, the S&P 500 was up just 0.2%, and it was down just 0.3% after Bloomberg reported that existing tariffs on Chinese imports will remain for at least ten months.

From a sector standpoint, the S&P 500 information technology (-0.6%) and real estate (-0.5%) sectors were today's laggards, while the health care (+0.5%) and utilities (+0.3%) sectors finished with modest gains. Apple (AAPL 312.68, -4.28, -1.4%) weighed on the tech sector after shares were downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at Atlantic Equities.

Back to the trade news, selling was modest, as there was never any indication the U.S. would remove tariffs with the signing of a Phase One deal. The report may have been a good excuse to sell a market that is overbought on a short-term basis, but buyers remained a resilient bunch.

In other corporate news, Boston Scientific (BSX 42.66, -2.81, -6.2%) issued downside revenue guidance. A recent study indicated that Walt Disney's (DIS 145.20, +1.32, +0.9%) streaming app may have been downloaded more than 40 million times. Visa (V 196.05, +0.72, +0.4%) agreed to acquire Plaid for $5.3 billion.

U.S. Treasuries finished the quiet session on a mostly higher note. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 1.58%, and the 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 1.82%. The U.S. Dollar Index finished flat at 97.38. WTI crude increased 0.3%, or $0.18, to $58.30/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which included the Consumer Price Index for December and the Small Business Optimism Index for December:

The Consumer Price Index for December brought good news in relative terms, as there weren't any overshoots compared to expectations. Total CPI was up 0.2% m/m, as expected, while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was up a softer-than-expected 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it won't cause any immediate re-think of the Fed's policy position. Core CPI has been up 2.3% yr/yr for three straight months, so the inflation rate isn't running away from the Fed, which seems to have adopted a willingness to let inflation run above its longer-run goal for a bit before moving on rates; moreover, the CPI data takes a backseat to the PCE price data as the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, and the latest report showed core-PCE inflation up just 1.6% yr/yr.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index declined to 102.7 from 104.7.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for December, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for January, the Fed's Beige Book, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +3.1% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.4% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28939.58 +32.62 (0.11%)
Nasdaq 9251.35 -22.60 (-0.24%)
SP 500 3283.15 -4.98 (-0.15%)
10-yr Note +3/32 1.815
NYSE Adv 1655 Dec 1227 Vol 915.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1609 Dec 1578 Vol 2.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Utilities
Weak: Information Technology, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Stock market sets new intraday highs, but gives back gains during the afternoon

-- JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C), and Delta Air Lines (DAL) gain on positive earnings results

-- Wells Fargo (WFC) disappoints

-- The U.S. will reportedly keep existing tariffs on Chinese imports for at least ten months

WTI crude posts modest gain
14-Jan-20 15:25 ET
Dow +14.84 at 28921.80, Nasdaq -21.33 at 9252.62, S&P -6.55 at 3281.58

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.2%, the Nasdaq is down 0.2%, and the Dow is up 0.1%. Any positive finish for the major indices would denote a record close.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows nine groups trading lower, with real estate (-0.8%) leading the decline. The industrials (+0.1%) and health care (+0.2%) sectors hold slim gains.

WTI crude settled up $0.18 (+0.3%) to $58.30/bbl.
FedEx climbs on reports it can resume shipping for Amazon

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Stock market closes lower on virus news, Boeing weakness
21-Jan-20 16:15 ET
Dow -152.06 at 29195.95, Nasdaq -18.14 at 9370.83, S&P -8.83 at 3320.79

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.3% on Tuesday, as headlines about the coronavirus outbreak helped provide a convenient excuse to take some profits, while a delay in Boeing's (BA 313.37, -10.78, -3.3%) 737 MAX timeline to mid-2020 further pressured the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%). The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 lost 0.8%.

Asian equities were hit the hardest on Tuesday, as the outbreak originated in China, while the initial selling in the U.S. stock market was modest. The virus, which can be transmitted between people and has no current vaccine, fostered a narrative that economic activity could be slowed down by people deciding to refrain from public spheres like travel and shopping.

Investors didn't appear too concerned about the outbreak, though, as the S&P 500 erased its losses, and the Nasdaq hit an intraday high, by the afternoon. The market, however, did reverse course on news of the first reported case of the coronavirus in the U.S., presumably feeding into the slower growth narrative that pulled the market from overbought territory.

Cyclical sectors were among today's laggards, particularly the S&P 500 energy (-1.9%), materials (-1.1%), and industrials (-1.1%) sectors. The latter was weighed by the disappointment in top-weighted Boeing. The rate-sensitive real estate (+1.1%) and utilities (+0.8%) sectors outperformed, as demand for Treasuries drove yields lower.

The 2-yr yield fell four basis points to 1.52%, and the 10-yr yield fell seven basis points to 1.77%. The U.S. Dollar Index finished flat at 97.58. WTI crude declined 0.5%, $0.30, to $58.25/bbl.

Other notable areas included the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which fell 1.8% amid weakness in the airline stocks, and the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 47.80, +0.60), which rose 1.3% on the idea that the lower Treasury yields will drive mortgage rates lower.

Separately, Tesla (TSLA 547.20, +36.70, +7.2%), Costco (COST 313.26, +8.58, +2.8%), Visa (V 207.29, +2.59, +1.3%), and Intel (INTC 60.55, +0.95, +1.6%) benefited from positive-minded analyst recommendations. Uber (UBER 37.60, +2.47, +7.0%) hit a five-month high after the company sold its food delivery business in India.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Tuesday. Looking ahead, investors will receive Existing Home Sales for December, the FHFA Housing Price index for January, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +4.4% YTD
S&P 500 +2.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29195.95 -152.06 (-0.52%)
Nasdaq 9370.83 -18.14 (-0.19%)
SP 500 3320.79 -8.83 (-0.27%)
10-yr Note +5/32 1.770
NYSE Adv 1152 Dec 1743 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1235 Dec 1974 Vol 2.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Utilities, Consumer Staples
Weak: Materials, Energy, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Stock market closes lower on coronavirus outbreak headlines, Boeing (BA) weakness

-- Narrative that coronavirus will slow down economic activity; relative weakness in the transportation space

-- Boeing said it isn't expecting to get regulatory approval for 737 MAX until mid-2020

WTI crude posts modest loss
21-Jan-20 15:25 ET
Dow -134.60 at 29213.41, Nasdaq -11.13 at 9377.84, S&P -5.84 at 3323.78

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade slightly lower by 0.2%, while the Russell 2000 underperforms with a 0.6% decline.

One last look inside the sector standings shows the energy (-1.6%), industrials (-1.0%), and materials (-1.0%) sectors down at least 1.0%, while the real estate (+1.0%) and utilities (+0.7%) sectors sport comfortable gains.

WTI crude settled down $0.30 (-0.5%) to $58.25/bbl amid general growth concerns pertaining to the coronavirus outbreak.

[ReturntoSender]

Stock market sets new highs but closes flat
22-Jan-20 16:20 ET
Dow -9.77 at 29186.18, Nasdaq +12.96 at 9383.79, S&P +0.96 at 3321.75

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market hit new highs on Wednesday in an early advance led by IBM (IBM 143.89, +4.72, +3.4%) and the technology sector, but stocks steadily pulled back during the day. The S&P 500 (+0.03%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) eked out slim gains, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.03%) and Russell 2000 (-0.1%) dipped lower.

IBM beat earnings estimates and issued upside FY20 EPS guidance, but the resilience in Apple (AAPL 317.70, +1.13, +0.4%) and the semiconductor space should not be overlooked. Bloomberg reported that Apple will begin producing low-cost iPhones next month and asked Taiwan Semi (TSM 58.35, +0.11, +0.2%) to increase its chip supply to meet strong iPhone demand.

The S&P 500 information technology sector rose as much as 1.1% but ended the session up just 0.4%. This was still good for today's leadership position. The pullback presumably coincided with an underlying view that an overbought market had gotten too ahead of itself.

Losses were made most pronounced in the energy sector (-0.9%), which was hit by a 2.2% decline in WTI crude ($56.68, -1.28), and the industrials sector (-0.6%), which was dragged lower by another decline in Boeing (BA 309.00, -4.27, -1.4%). BA was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Vertical Research.

Sellers were unable to exert that much influence on the broader market, though. Factors that might have explained this included 1) better-than-expected existing home sales for December, 2) an assertion from JPMorgan Chase (JPM 136.68, -0.16, -0.1%) CEO Jamie Dimon that high stock prices are justified by the growing economy, and 3) actions taken by China to control the coronavirus.

Separately, Netflix (NFLX 326.00, -12.11, -3.6%), United Airlines (UAL 83.34, -2.45, -2.9%), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 148.25, -1.02, -0.7%) finished lower, as investors reacted negatively to their earnings reports. Tesla (TSLA 569.56, +22.36, +4.1%) rose as much as 8.6% after Wedbush raised its price target to $550 from $370, but gains were cut in half.

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed in a muted session. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 1.51%, and the 10-yr yield was unchanged at 1.77%. The U.S. Dollar Index finished flat at 97.52.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which shed some light on the housing sector:

Existing home sales increased 3.6% m/m in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.54 million units (Briefing.com consensus 5.42 million) from 5.35 million in November. Total sales were up 10.8% year-over-year.
The key takeaway from the report is that there are serious inventory constraints in the existing home sales market, which is driving up prices and underscoring the importance of mortgage rates staying low.
The FHFA Housing Price Index increased 0.2% in January after increasing 0.2% in December.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications declined 1.2% following a 30.2% surge in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for December on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +4.6% YTD
S&P 500 +2.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29186.18 -9.77 (-0.03%)
Nasdaq 9383.79 +12.96 (0.14%)
SP 500 3321.75 +0.96 (0.03%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.763
NYSE Adv 1424 Dec 1431 Vol 864.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1568 Dec 1595 Vol 2.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Utilities
Weak: Energy, Industrials, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Stock market hit new highs in early action, but stocks lost steam throughout the day

-- Relative strength in the tech sector after IBM (IBM) provided positive earnings, guidance

-- Relative weakness in energy sector amid weaker oil prices

-- Better-than-expected existing homes sales report for December

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Stocks retreat on renewed coronavirus concerns
24-Jan-20 16:10 ET

Dow -170.36 at 28989.64, Nasdaq -87.57 at 9314.93, S&P -30.07 at 3295.47

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.9% on Friday in a steady decline from opening levels, as risk sentiment was dampened by the CDC confirming the second case of coronavirus in the U.S. The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 lost 1.4%.

The day started in positive territory, with the Nasdaq even setting a new intraday high, after Intel (INTC 68.47, +5.15, +8.1%) and American Express (AXP 135.11, +3.74, +2.9%) impressed investors with earnings and guidance. The early lead dissipated amid a view that the coronavirus could impinge discretionary spending and earnings growth.

The orderly retreat throughout the day, however, suggested that the news was a good excuse to withdraw, or take profits, from an overbought market. The S&P 500 health care (-1.7%), financials (-1.4%), and consumer discretionary (-1.3%) sectors led the decline, while the utilities sector (+0.3%) was the lone holdout, as increased demand for Treasuries drove yields lower.

The 2-yr yield declined four basis points to 1.48%, and the 10-yr yield declined six basis points to 1.68%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 97.86. WTI crude dropped 2.5% (-$1.40) to $54.21/bbl, as expectations for oil demand continued to weaken amid the spread of the coronavirus.

Shares of Boeing (BA 323.05, +5.26, +1.7%) were volatile following another series of headlines. Shares initially fell on news it was considering cutting production for its 787 Dreamliner, but then rallied on reports that the FAA is telling airlines it could approve the 737 MAX before mid-2020.

In other corporate news, Broadcom (AVGO 324.00, +4.35, +1.4%) secured two, separate multi-year agreements with Apple (AAPL 318.31, -0.92, -0.3%) to supply high-performance wireless components and modules.

On a related note, investors were dismayed to hear Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 122.31, -5.88, -4.6%) and Qorvo (QRVO 113.39, -5.29, -4.5%) may seek bids to acquire Broadcom's wireless chip unit, which could sell for $10 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Friday. Looking ahead, the New Home Sales report for December will released on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +3.8% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.4% YTD


Market Snapshot
Dow 28989.64 -170.36 (-0.58%)
Nasdaq 9314.93 -87.57 (-0.93%)
SP 500 3295.47 -30.07 (-0.90%)
10-yr Note +4/32 1.687

NYSE Adv 861 Dec 2003 Vol 871.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 827 Dec 2341 Vol 2.5 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities

Weak: Health Care, Financials, Consumer Discretionary


Moving the Market
-- Stock market retreats after second confirmed case of coronavirus in the U.S.

-- Intel (INTC) and American Express (AXP) rise on strong earnings, encouraging guidance

-- Continued weakness in energy stocks and oil prices



WTI crude drops 2.5% amid weaker demand expectations
24-Jan-20 15:25 ET

Dow -130.16 at 29029.84, Nasdaq -73.01 at 9329.49, S&P -27.04 at 3298.50
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is off session lows and now trades lower by 0.8%. The Russell 2000 is down 1.4%.

One last look inside the S&P 500 shows ten sectors trading lower, including health care (-1.6%), financials (-1.4%), energy (-1.2%), and consumer discretionary (-1.2%). The utilities sector (+0.3%) remains the lone holdout amid the decline in yields.

WTI crude settled lower by $1.40 (-2.5%) to $54.21/bbl, as weaker expectations for oil demand due to the coronavirus continued to undercut prices.

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Stock market loses more than 1.5% as coronavirus outbreak worsens
27-Jan-20 16:20 ET
Dow -453.93 at 28535.71, Nasdaq -175.60 at 9139.33, S&P -51.84 at 3243.63

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The large-cap indices retreated more than 1.5% on Monday, as the continued outbreak of the coronavirus triggered more profit taking and some overdue selling. The S&P 500 lost 1.6%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.6%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.9%. The Russell 2000 declined 1.1%.

Most of today's decline transpired at the open after the coronavirus death toll increased to more than 80 in China with five confirmed cases of the virus in the U.S. The CDC said the health risk to the U.S. remains low, but the fact that the outbreak worsened over the weekend fostered a risk-off sentiment throughout the session.

There was no follow-through selling, but all 11 S&P 500 sectors did finish in negative territory. The energy (-2.8%) and information technology (-2.4%) sectors were hit the hardest, while the defensive-oriented consumer staples (-0.3%) and utilities (-0.3%) sectors posted modest losses. Energy stocks were undercut by another 2.2% drop in WTI crude ($53.01/bbl, -1.20).

The underlying view was that earnings growth, particularly for companies with Chinese exposure, may not be as strong as had hoped due to the coronavirus reducing economic activity. In turn, Apple (AAPL 308.95, -9.36, -2.9%), Wynn Resorts (WYNN 123.89, -10.86, -8.1%), and those within the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-3.9%) took huge losses today.

Investors might appreciate the fact that the market's positive trend remained intact, though, as the S&P 500 closed well above its ascending 50-day moving average (3199). D.R. Horton (DHI 59.67, +1.16, +2.0%) shareholders, meanwhile, were pleased to hear that the company beat top and bottom-line estimates and raised its FY20 guidance.

Still, a view that the selling may not be over contributed to a 25.2% spike in the CBOE Volatility Index (18.23, +3.67), as investors scrambled for protection, while others rushed for safety in U.S. Treasuries. The 2-yr yield fell five basis points to 1.43%, and the 10-yr yield fell eight basis points to 1.61%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 97.94.

Monday's lone economic report was the New Home Sales report for December, which failed to stir much enthusiasm in the market:

New home sales decreased 0.4% m/m in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 694,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 725,000) from a downwardly revised 697,000 (from 719,000) in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales were still strong on a year-over-year basis (+23.0%), benefiting from the drop in mortgage rates and the extremely tight supply of existing homes for sale.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for January, the Durable Goods Orders report for December, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for November on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +1.9% YTD
S&P 500 +0.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average unch YTD
Russell 2000 -1.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28535.71 -453.93 (-1.57%)
Nasdaq 9139.33 -175.60 (-1.89%)
SP 500 3243.63 -51.84 (-1.57%)
10-yr Note +30/32 1.602
NYSE Adv 623 Dec 2255 Vol 977.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 757 Dec 2436 Vol 2.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Consumer Staples
Weak: Information Technology, Energy, Materials

Moving the Market

-- Stocks drop in broad-based retreat as coronavirus outbreak worsens

-- Triggers profit taking, overdue selling

-- Yields drop, oil prices drop

WTI crude drops more than 2%
27-Jan-20 15:25 ET
Dow -377.26 at 28612.38, Nasdaq -150.92 at 9164.01, S&P -42.94 at 3252.53

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is currently down 1.3%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (-2.7%) and information technology (-2.1%) down more than 2%, while the defensive-oriented consumer staples (unch) and utilities (unch) sectors are trading at their flat lines.

WTI crude fell $1.20 (-2.2%) to $53.01/bbl, as expectations for oil demand remained weak amid the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

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S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at new highs, virus concerns wane
05-Feb-20 16:15 ET
Dow +483.22 at 29290.76, Nasdaq +40.71 at 9508.70, S&P +37.10 at 3334.69

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.1% on Wednesday to recoup all losses related to the coronavirus and close at a record high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.7%) and Russell 2000 (+1.5%) outperformed the benchmark index. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) underperformed in a rare outing, although it still closed at a new high.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors contributed to the advance, especially the energy sector (+3.8%) after weeks of underperformance and a nice rebound in oil prices ($50.85, +1.24, +2.5%). The real estate sector (-0.1%) was the lone holdout today.

The bullish price action was driven mostly by optimism, particularly tied to the prevailing view that the economy is fine and any negative impact resulting from the coronavirus will be minimal. Aiding this sentiment were reports that progress is being made in developing a vaccine and economic data depicting a healthy labor market and services sector.

Specifically, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for January increased to 55.5% (Briefing.com consensus 55.0%) from 54.9% in December. The ADP Employment Change report showed an estimated 291,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls in January (Briefing.com consensus 160,000).

That's not to say that the coronavirus is behind the market, though. For instance, Walt Disney (DIS 141.37, -3.36, -2.3%), Nike (NKE 100.54, -0.84, -0.8%), and Capri Holdings (CPRI 33.31, +2.55, +8.3%) formally stated that the coronavirus will have a negative impact on financial results. The market is simply viewing the situation through a positive lens.

In earnings news, Merck (MRK 85.83, -2.53, -2.9%) fell despite beating profit estimates. Ford Motor (F 8.31, -0.87, -9.5%) and General Motors (GM 35.03, +0.66, +1.9%) trended in opposite directions following their results

Other story stocks included Tesla (TSLA 734.70, -152.36, -17.2%), which pulled back from its parabolic rise, and Biogen (BIIB 332.87, +49.58, +17.5%), which was awarded a favorable patent decision for a multiple sclerosis drug.

U.S. Treasuries succumbed to selling interest for the second straight session. The 2-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.45%, and the 10-yr yield increased five basis points to 1.65%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 98.28.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for January registered a 55.5% reading (Briefing.com consensus 55.0%) versus a downwardly revised 54.9% (from 55.0%) in December. The January reading eclipsed the December reading as the fastest pace of expansion since August 2019.
The key takeaway from the report is that it marked the second straight month of accelerating activity in the services sector, which is an encouraging sign that the U.S. economic expansion is poised to continue.
The Trade Balance report for December showed a widening in the deficit to $48.9 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$48.2 billion) from a downwardly revised -$43.7 billion (from -$43.1 billion). Exports were $1.6 billion more than November exports while imports were $6.8 billion more than November imports.
The key takeaway from the report is that the goods deficit with China decreased by $73.9 billion in 2019 to $345.6 billion, as tariff measures contributed to a $13.5 billion decrease in exports and an $87.4 billion decrease in imports.
The ADP Employment Change report showed an estimated 291,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls in January (Briefing.com consensus 160,000), with healthy gains across small, midsized, and large employers. In turn, there was a nice pickup in jobs added on the goods-producing side of the economy (+54,000).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 5.0% following a 7.2% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and preliminary Q4 readings for Productivity and Unit Labor Costs on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.0% YTD
S&P 500 +3.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +0.8% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29290.76 +483.22 (1.68%)
Nasdaq 9508.70 +40.71 (0.43%)
SP 500 3334.69 +37.10 (1.13%)
10-yr Note -27/32 1.655
NYSE Adv 2203 Dec 668 Vol 994.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2207 Dec 981 Vol 2.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Health Care, Financials
Weak: Real Estate, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at new highs

-- Renewed strength in the energy sector and oil prices after weeks of underperformance

-- Upbeat economic data for the labor market and services sector

-- Reports that progress is being made for a coronavirus vaccine

WTI crude rebounds 2.5%
05-Feb-20 15:25 ET
Dow +494.31 at 29301.85, Nasdaq +52.94 at 9520.93, S&P +39.11 at 3336.70

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is on pace to close at a record high as it now trades higher by 1.2%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows ten sectors trading higher. Energy (+3.7%) remains in the lead, while the real estate sector (-0.1%) is the lone holdout amid the rise in Treasury yields. The 10-yr yield is up five basis points to 1.65%.

WTI crude settled up $1.24 (+2.5%) to $50.85/bbl in a strong rebound trade.

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S&P 500 closes slightly lower after failed rebound effort
26-Feb-20 16:15 ET
Dow -123.77 at 26957.51, Nasdaq +15.16 at 8980.81, S&P -11.82 at 3116.39

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced as much as 1.7% on Wednesday, as investors tried to buy an oversold market, but pestering worries about the coronavirus left the benchmark index down 0.4% for the session. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) eked out a slim gain, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-1.2%) joined the S&P 500 in negative territory.

Early on, it looked like sellers were taking an off-day after the S&P 500 dropped 7.6% over the prior four sessions, but the market continued to be inundated with negative updates on the coronavirus. For instance, Germany's health minister said Germany is at the beginning of an epidemic, and it was reported that 83 people in New York were being monitored for exposure to the virus.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors had traded in the green, but only the information technology sector (+0.4%) was able to finish in positive territory thanks to strength in Apple (AAPL 292.65, +4.57, +1.6%) and Microsoft (MSFT 170.17, +2.10, +1.3%). The energy sector dropped 3.0% amid continued weakness in oil prices ($48.70, -1.19, -2.4%).

Fortunately, losses didn't accelerate, and the broader market drifted slightly lower throughout the afternoon. A wait-and-see mindset may have taken fold ahead of President Trump's coronavirus news conference at 6:30 p.m. ET.

Walt Disney (DIS 123.40, -4.79, -3.7%), Toll Brothers (TOL 37.82, -6.47, -14.6%), and Lowe's (LOW 113.32, -5.20, -4.4%) were among today's notable laggards. Disney announced Bob Iger stepped down as CEO, Toll Brothers missed earnings expectations, and Lowe's issued downside FY21 guidance.

Although not market-moving, economic data showed new home sales for January climb to their highest level since July 2007. In addition, TJX Companies (TJX 63.99, +4.27, +7.2%) reported solid quarterly results.

U.S. Treasuries were less in focus today, but the continued gains in the bond market weren't conducive for risk sentiment. The 2-yr yield declined five basis points to 1.15%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 1.31%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 99.13.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which featured New Home Sales for January:

New home sales increased 7.9% m/m in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 764,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 720,000) from an upwardly revised 708,000 (from 694,000) in December.
The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales were also strong on a year-over-year basis (+18.6%), benefiting from the drop in mortgage rates and the extremely tight supply of existing homes for sale.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 1.5% following a 6.4% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Durable Goods Orders for January, the second estimate for Q4 GDP, Pending Home Sales for January, and the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +0.1% YTD
S&P 500 -3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.9% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 26957.51 -123.77 (-0.46%)
Nasdaq 8980.81 +15.16 (0.17%)
SP 500 3116.39 -11.82 (-0.38%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.340
NYSE Adv 940 Dec 1861 Vol 1.3 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1174 Dec 2010 Vol 3.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology
Weak: Energy

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 closes lower as rebound effort fails

-- Relative strength in the information technology sector

-- Treasury yields continued to decline

-- New home sales for January rose to highest level since July 2007

WTI crude drops another 2%
26-Feb-20 15:25 ET
Dow -73.08 at 27008.20, Nasdaq +39.04 at 9004.69, S&P -2.42 at 3125.79

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at its flat line. It was up 1.7% at its high and down 0.6% at its low.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+0.7%), communication services (+0.2%), and health care (+0.1%) trading in positive territory, while the energy sector (-2.6%) is the only sector down more than 1%.

WTI crude settled lower by $1.19 (-2.4%) to $48.70/bbl, as expectations for oil demand remained weakened by the coronavirus.

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Stocks rebound amid fiscal and monetary stimulus plans
17-Mar-20 16:25 ET
Dow +1048.86 at 21237.38, Nasdaq +430.19 at 7334.14, S&P +143.06 at 2529.19

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rebounded 6.0% on Tuesday, as investors reacted positively to additional monetary stimulus measures and the possibility of an estimated $1 trillion fiscal stimulus package. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5.2%, the Nasdaq Composite rose 6.2%, and the Russell 2000 rose 6.7%.

The plan from the White House reportedly includes $500-550 billion for direct payments or tax cuts to Americans, $200-300 billion for small business assistance, and $50-100 billion for airline industry relief. The administration is also considering support for homeowners whose income was cut due to the coronavirus, according to Bloomberg.

The Fed, meanwhile, established a temporary commercial paper funding facility to help alleviate strains induced on commercial paper markets. Companies typically acquire short-term financing from this market. The Treasury Secretary approved the decision and will provide the Fed $10 billion in credit protection and the ability to purchase up to $1 trillion in commercial paper if needed.

Elsewhere, efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 continued to be made: NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio said New Yorkers should be prepared for an order to "shelter in place," the EU temporarily closed external borders, and Apple (AAPL 252.63, +10.42, +4.3%) extended store closures outside Greater China until further notice.

Despite the stimulus plans, and preventative measures, it was a defensive-minded rally led by the S&P 500 utilities (+13.1%), consumer staples (+8.4%), and real estate (+6.9%) sectors. The energy sector (+0.7%) underperformed amid continued weakness in the price of oil ($27.02/bbl, -1.83, -6.3%).

This defensiveness might be attributed to an understanding that economic disruptions will continue to lead to a negative, and currently unquantifiable, impact to the economy. This was painfully manifested in Marriott (MAR 75.24, -11.18, -12.9%) starting to furlough workers without pay. On a related note, Facebook (FB 149.42, +3.41, +2.3%) said it would give $1000 to employees.

Separately, the slight underperformance of the Dow was mainly due to the loss in shares of Boeing (BA 124.14, -5.47, -4.2%), which had its S&P credit rating downgraded to BBB due to weaker cash flows. President Trump did say he wants to help the company, though.

U.S. Treasuries sold off in a curve-steepening trade, not because of a better economic view but because of worries that longer-dated bonds will be needed to fund a rising deficit. The 2-yr yield rose eight basis points to 0.45%, and the 10-yr yield rose 27 basis points to 1.00%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 1.7% to 99.81.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was wasn't fully representative of current conditions caused by the coronavirus:

Total retail sales declined 0.5% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) following an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.3%) in January. Excluding autos, retail sales were down 0.4% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) after an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.3%) in January.
The key takeaway from this report is that it reflected soft spending activity before the the coronavirus impact (and reaction) truly hit the U.S. That's not comforting knowing that the retail sales data in March is going to be absolutely awful.
Industrial production increased 0.6% m/m in February, as expected, following a downwardly revised 0.5% decline (from -0.3%) in January. Total capacity utilization was 77.0% (Briefing.com consensus 77.1%) following a downwardly revised 76.6% (from 76.8%) in January.
The key takeaway from the report is that the good feelings about the pickup in output in February will be stunted by the reality that March output is apt to look much worse given the economic shutdown measures employed to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for March declined to 72 (Briefing.com consensus 74) from 74 in February.
The January Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed job openings increase to 6.963 million from a revised 6.552 million in December (from 6.423 million).
Business inventories decreased 0.1% in January, as expected, while the December reading was unrevised at 0.1%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for February and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite: -18.3%
S&P 500: -21.7%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -21.4%
Russell 2000: -33.7%

Market Snapshot
Dow 21237.38 +1048.86 (5.20%)
Nasdaq 7334.14 +430.19 (6.23%)
SP 500 2529.19 +143.06 (6.00%)
10-yr Note -26/32 1.087
NYSE Adv 1695 Dec 1174 Vol 2.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2216 Dec 1101 Vol 4.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Communication Services, Consumer Staples
Weak: Energy

Moving the Market

-- Stocks stage rebound effort following yesterday's massive losses

-- Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says administration wants to give cash to American workers immediately

-- Fed establishes Commercial Paper Funding Facility; will conduct another $500 billion repo operation

-- Relative strength in the defensive-oriented sectors

WTI crude extends decline, closes down 6%
17-Mar-20 15:30 ET
Dow +570.61 at 20759.13, Nasdaq +291.45 at 7195.40, S&P +91.45 at 2477.58

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 currently trades higher by 3.8%.

One last look inside the S&P 500 shows utilities (+10.3%), consumer staples (+6.4%), and real estate (+6.0%) outperforming the broader market, while the energy sector (unch) trades near its flat line.

WTI crude settled the session down $1.83 (-6.3%) to $27.02/bbl.

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Stocks close higher in volatile session, oil prices rebound
19-Mar-20 16:20 ET
Dow +188.27 at 20087.25, Nasdaq +160.73 at 7149.93, S&P +11.29 at 2409.39

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 0.5% on Thursday in a volatile session that saw the benchmark index fall as much as 3.3% in early action and gain as much as 2.9% in the afternoon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.0%, while the Nasdaq Composite (+2.3%) and Russell 2000 (+6.8%) were the big movers today amid strong gains in technology and small-cap stocks.

The news cycle wasn't entirely positive with the number of COVID-19 cases continuing to surge globally, leading more companies to withdraw guidance, suspend dividends, and temporarily lay off workers. The latter started to be quantified in the weekly initial claims, which increased by 70,000 to 281,000 (Briefing.com consensus 220,000) for the week ending March 14.

To mitigate the negative impact of the coronavirus, central banks continued to amplify stimulus efforts, Congress continued to deliberate the proposed $1.3 trillion fiscal stimulus package, and clinical trials for new therapies remained in progress, according to President Trump.

The latest central bank moves included the Fed establishing a Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (MMLF), the ECB and Bank of Japan announcing emergency bond-buying programs, and the Bank of England issuing a surprise rate cut and raising its daily asset purchases. Although not market-moving, there was an appreciation for the urgency to ease the intense strains on financial markets.

Investors also welcomed the respite from the recent days of heavy selling, but the S&P 500 remained down 11.1% for the week and not all sectors participated in today's advance. The S&P 500 consumer discretionary (+3.4%) and energy (+6.8%) sectors presumably outperformed amid tactical trading opportunities and, specifically for the energy space, the 23% spike in WTI crude ($20.42/bbl, +4.71, +23.1%).

Oil prices were aided by comments from President Trump, who said that he will get involved in the price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia at "the appropriate time." An afternoon report from The Wall Street Journal noted that Texas is considering cutting oil production. Today's move in oil follows a 24% price drop yesterday.

Left out of today's advance were the defensive-oriented S&P 500 utilities (-5.5%), consumer staples (-2.9%), health care (-1.9%), and real estate (-1.4%) sectors.

U.S. Treasuries finished sharply higher after two days of aggressive selling, driving yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield declined 14 basis points to 0.38%, and the 10-yr yield declined 15 basis points to 1.12%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 1.5% to 102.67, as demand remained strong for the world's reserve currency.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial claims for the week ending March 14 increased by 70,000 to 281,000 (Briefing.com consensus 220,000), bolstered by the impact of the coronavirus. The unadjusted number of initial claims increased by 50,517 to 250,892. Continuing claims for the week ending March 7 increased by 2,000 to 1.701 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is an early warning sign of much larger claims numbers to come considering the fact that many forced, or voluntary, business closures didn't start to ramp up until the middle of the month with initial expectations that they will be closed at least through the end of March.
The Philadelphia Fed Index for March dropped to -12.7 (Briefing.com consensus 10.0) from the 36.7 reading in February.
The current account deficit for the fourth quarter totaled $109.8 billion. The third quarter deficit was revised to $125.4 billion from $124.1 billion.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Existing Home Sales for February on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite: -20.3%
S&P 500: -25.4%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -29.6%
Russell 2000: -36.6%

Market Snapshot
Dow 20087.25 +188.27 (0.95%)
Nasdaq 7149.93 +160.73 (2.30%)
SP 500 2409.39 +11.29 (0.47%)
10-yr Note +23/32 1.175
NYSE Adv 2251 Dec 681 Vol 1.7 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2522 Dec 794 Vol 4.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Utilities, Consumer Staples, Health Care, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Stocks close higher in volatile session; technology and small-cap stocks outperformed

-- Central banks stepped up stimulus measures to support financial markets, Washington continued to deliberate on stimulus package

-- Oil prices rebound 23% after President Trump says he would get involved in price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia

-- Treasuries advance after two days of selling

WTI crude rebounds 23% following yesterday's drop
19-Mar-20 15:35 ET
Dow +201.66 at 20100.64, Nasdaq +258.26 at 7247.46, S&P +31.45 at 2429.55

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages continue to trade in positive territory with the S&P 500 up 1.8%, Dow up 1.5%, and Nasdaq up 4.2%.

The strength in the mega-cap technology stocks can account for the outperformance of the Nasdaq, while the benchmark index gets an added boost from the gains in the consumer discretionary (+4.6%) and energy (+4.2%) sectors.

WTI settled today's session up 23.1% (+$4.71) to $20.42/bbl after falling more than 24% yesterday. Today's spike came after President Trump said that he will get involved in the price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia at "the appropriate time."

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Stocks Pressured After Another Reminder of Labor Market Disaster
03-Apr-20 16:25 ET
Dow -360.91 at 21052.53, Nasdaq -114.23 at 7373.08, S&P -38.25 at 2488.65

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended a down week on a lower note, though the S&P 500 (-1.5%) was able to remain above its low from Wednesday. The benchmark index surrendered 2.1% for the week. Small caps had a more difficult go, as the Russell 2000 (-3.1%) lost 7.1% for the week, stopping a bit above its March low.

Today's main storyline was the release of the Employment Situation report for March, which was expected to be very weak. The report showed that nonfarm payrolls decreased by 701,000 and that reading is likely to be revised lower next month, since the report was compiled in the first half of March before layoffs accelerated.

Stocks tried to make the best of a bad situation, pushing higher during the first few minutes of action, but selling pressure intensified shortly after the S&P 500 climbed above its high from yesterday. The market remained under pressure into the early afternoon with the S&P 500 settling near yesterday's afternoon low.

Ten out of eleven sectors ended in the red with six sectors logging wider losses than the broader market. Utilities (-3.6%), materials (-2.3%), and financials (-2.2%) were at the forefront of the selling while real estate (-0.8%) and consumer staples (+0.5%) outperformed.

Today's biggest laggard— the utilities sector—surrendered 7.1% for the week, finishing behind the remaining ten sectors.

The consumer discretionary sector (-1.5%) finished in-line with the broader market as gains in battered names like L Brands (LB 11.34, +1.19, +11.7%), Macy's (M 4.81, +0.36, +8.1%), Carnival (CCL 8.49, +0.52, +6.5%), and Under Armour (UAA 8.22, +0.43, +5.5%) masked sharp losses in shares of casino operators like MGM Resorts (MGM 10.58, -0.93, -8.1%) and Wynn Resorts (WYNN 48.50, -4.17, -7.9%).

Crude oil was able to build on yesterday's advance, climbing $3.16, or 12.6%, to $28.34/bbl. The energy component gained $6.69 or 30.9% for the week while the energy sector (-1.3%) climbed 5.4% since last Friday.

Longer-dated Treasuries finished near their best levels of the day, sending the 10-yr yield lower by four basis points to 0.59%.

The U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.4% to 100.61, gaining 2.2% for the week.

Today's economic data included the Employment Situation report and ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for March:

March nonfarm payrolls declined by 701,000 (Briefing.com consensus -150,000) while February nonfarm payrolls were revised to 275,000 from 273,000. March private sector payrolls declined by 713,000 (Briefing.com consensus -250,000) while February private sector payrolls were revised to 242,000 from 228,000.
March unemployment rate was 4.4% (Briefing.com consensus 4.0%), versus 3.5% in February. Persons unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 15.9% of the unemployed versus 19.2% in February. The U6 unemployment rate, which accounts for unemployed and underemployed workers, was 8.7%, versus 7.0% in February.
March average hourly earnings were up 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after increasing 0.3% in February while average workweek decreased to 34.2 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.0) from 34.4 hours in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that it still isn't adequately capturing the full extent of the weakness in the labor market. Things are even worse than the headlines here suggest, as yesterday's initial claims report made abundantly clear. Those filings are not embedded in today's report, which was formulated mostly on the basis of an employment survey conducted the week of March 12. In actuality, the unemployment rate is likely closer to 10.0% at this juncture
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for March checked in at 52.5% (Briefing.com consensus 43.0%) versus 57.3% in February. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it's not as encouraging as it appears to be, having been bolstered by a nice pickup in the Supplier Deliveries Index (to 62.1% from 52.4%), which reflects slower deliveries due to the COVID-19 impact; moreover, it is understood that the services sector has been the hardest hit in the sudden economic stop and that this measure does not adequately capture the real-time change in business conditions.

Market participants will not receive any data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite -17.8% YTD
S&P 500 -23.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -26.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -37.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 21052.53 -360.91 (-1.69%)
Nasdaq 7373.08 -114.23 (-1.53%)
SP 500 2488.65 -38.25 (-1.51%)
10-yr Note +3/32 0.587
NYSE Adv 622 Dec 2289 Vol 1.43 bln
Nasdaq Adv 939 Dec 2306 Vol 3.26 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples, Materials, Health Care
Weak: Financials, Consumer Discretionary, Energy, Utilities, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Stocks under pressure after finding resistance near yesterday's highs

-- U.S. loses 701,000 jobs in March, according to Employment Situation Report

-- Oil prices rise amid production-cut hopes

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Stock Market Update

Stocks gain on reopening efforts, small-caps outperform
27-Apr-20 16:20 ET
Dow +359.51 at 24134.78, Nasdaq +95.64 at 8730.17, S&P +41.74 at 2878.48

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 1.5% on Monday, as investors showed optimism in reopening efforts indicated by more states and countries. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.5%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%) also advanced more than 1.0%, while the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 4.0% gain.

At least nine U.S. states had their economies partially reopened as of Monday, according to The New York Times, while other states like New York, Texas, and Ohio announced plans to gradually reopen in the coming weeks. The prospective increase in economic activity, even without a confirmed COVID-19 treatment, had investors piling into previously-neglected cyclical sectors.

For instance, all 11 S&P 500 sectors ended the day higher, but strength was found in the S&P 500 financials (+3.6%) and materials (+2.6%) sectors, the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+2.8%), and the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 36.36, +1.82, +5.3%).

Even the energy sector (+2.1%) outperformed despite the 24% plunge in oil prices ($12.97, -4.05, -23.8%) and news of Diamond Offshore (DO), a small-cap company, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The bullish price action in the face of bad news suggested for investors that the sector may have already seen its bottom.

Likewise, Caterpillar (CAT 115.20, +1.16, +1.0%) overcame an analyst downgrade at Morgan Stanley, and General Motors (GM 22.45, +0.50, +2.3%) overcame a dividend suspension update.

Perhaps most noteworthy about today's action was that the market's most recognizable, and widely-held, mega-cap technology stocks did not participate in the broader advance. Instead, small-caps, as represented by the Russell 2000, welcomed renewed buying interest.

Overseas, Italy, France, Spain initiated steps to reopen their economies, but some attention should also be given to the Bank of Japan. The central bank lifted the cap on its JGB bond purchases, which some attributed to the initial gains in stocks, and said it will be increasing its purchases of corporate bonds and commercial paper.

U.S. Treasuries finally showed some weakness amid the bullish price action in equities. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.23%, and the 10-yr yield increased six basis points to 0.66%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.3% to 100.07.

Investors did not receive economic data on Monday. Looking ahead to Tuesday, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for April, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for February, and the Advance March reports for International Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories.

Nasdaq Composite -2.7% YTD
S&P 500 -10.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -15.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -23.2% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 24134.78 +359.51 (1.51%)
Nasdaq 8730.17 +95.64 (1.11%)
SP 500 2878.48 +41.74 (1.47%)
10-yr Note -27/32 0.657
NYSE Adv 2303 Dec 634 Vol 969.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2565 Dec 697 Vol 3.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Industrials
Weak: Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Major indices trade higher, extend gains

-- Sharp drop in oil prices (-27%), but energy stocks trade mostly higher

-- State economies start to reopen

WTI crude plummets 24%
27-Apr-20 15:25 ET
Dow +414.40 at 24189.67, Nasdaq +109.76 at 8744.29, S&P +47.83 at 2884.57

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up at session highs with a 1.6% gain.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows all trading higher, led by financials (+3.7%), industrials (+3.0%), and materials (+2.9%). The consumer staples (+0.5%) and communication services (+0.8%) sectors underperform.

WTI crude settled today's session sharply lower by 23.8%, or $4.06, to $12.97/bbl on no new catalyst.

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Stock Market Update

Large-cap indices lose reopening momentum
28-Apr-20 16:20 ET
Dow -32.23 at 24101.55, Nasdaq -122.43 at 8607.74, S&P -15.09 at 2863.39

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.5% on Tuesday in a mixed session. Large-cap technology and health care stocks lagged, while reopening enthusiasm continued to flow into the small-cap Russell 2000 (+1.3%) and S&P MidCap 400 (+1.0%). The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.4%.

The day started with broad gains that lifted the S&P 500 as much as 1.5% shortly after the open, as part of the reopening momentum from Monday. That broad momentum quickly dissipated, presumably due to valuation concerns, but lingered in areas of the market that had underperformed when the shutdown angst was rampant.

Some of those included the small-cap and mid-cap stocks, as previously noted, but also the cyclical S&P 500 energy (+2.2%), materials (+2.0%), industrials (+1.8%), and financials (+0.9%) sectors.

Conversely, the large-cap stocks that were deemed as relatively safe, and thus outperformed over the past few months, lost some of their appeal today and heavily dragged on the broader market. Those were found in the health care (-2.1%), communication services (-1.9%), and information technology (-1.4%) sectors.

The health care space also had some negative catalysts despite the reported progress on the coronavirus front. For instance, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 151.39, -2.90, -1.9%) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS, while Pfizer (PFE 37.91, -0.42, -1.1%) and Merck (MRK 81.18, -2.80, -3.3%) declined after reporting earnings.

In other earnings news, shares of Caterpillar (CAT 115.46, +0.26, +0.2%), 3M (MMM 157.61, +3.96, +2.6%), and PepsiCo (PEP 136.32, +1.4%) finished higher, even after the companies withdrew full-year guidance, while shares of UPS (UPS 96.43, -6.12, -6.0%) faltered after the company missed profit estimates.

U.S. Treasuries reclaimed most of yesterday's losses, driving yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield declined three basis points to 0.20%, and the 10-yr yield declined five basis points to 0.61%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 99.88. WTI crude declined 4.6%, or $0.60, to $12.37/bbl, although it was down as much as 22% at one point during the session.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for April plunged to 86.9 (Briefing.com consensus 86.5) from a downwardly revised 118.8 (from 120.0) for March. The April reading is the lowest since June 2014.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers, while thinking positively about things reopening again, are still less optimistic about their financial prospects, which could be a headwind for spending activity during the recovery phase.
The advance goods trade deficit totaled $64.2 bln in March after a $59.9 bln deficit in February. Advance retail inventories declined 1.3% in March after decreasing 0.3% in February. Advance wholesale inventories decreased 1.0% in March after decreasing 0.7% in February.
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for February increased 3.5% (Briefing.com consensus 3.7%).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the advance estimate for Q1 GDP, Pending Home Sales for March, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite -4.1% YTD
S&P 500 -11.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -15.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -22.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 24101.55 -32.23 (-0.13%)
Nasdaq 8607.74 -122.43 (-1.40%)
SP 500 2863.39 -15.09 (-0.52%)
10-yr Note +27/32 0.616
NYSE Adv 2080 Dec 816 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1878 Dec 1343 Vol 3.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Materials
Weak: Health Care, Information Technology, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Large-cap indices lose reopening momentum

-- Relative weakness in technology and health care companies

-- Small-caps, mid-caps, and most cyclical sectors outperform amid lingering reopening enthusiasm

WTI crude settles down well off session lows
28-Apr-20 15:25 ET
Dow +79.38 at 24213.16, Nasdaq -66.10 at 8664.07, S&P +2.35 at 2880.83

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade flat amid weakness in the mega-cap technology/value stocks.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows eight of the 11 sectors trading in positive territory, including 2%+ gains in energy (+2.3%), industrials (+2.2%), and materials (+2.0%). The health care (-1.6%) and communication services (-1.4%) sectors are down more than 1.0%.

WTI crude settled lower by $0.60 (-4.6%) to $12.37/bbl, which was a relatively good finish considering futures were down more than 20% at one point during the session.

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Stocks close lower, erase weekly gains
01-May-20 16:15 ET
Dow -622.03 at 23723.69, Nasdaq -284.60 at 8604.96, S&P -81.72 at 2830.71

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 2.8% on Friday, as investors increased profit-taking efforts after Amazon (AMZN 2286.04, -187.96, -7.6%) underwhelmed investors with its earnings report and U.S.-China tensions appeared to escalate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.6%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 3.2%, and the Russell 2000 lost 3.8%.

Amazon warned that coronavirus-related expenses would likely wipe out its expected $4 billion operating income in Q2, providing investors a good excuse to take some profits after a 50% rally off its March low. The notion that stocks have come too far, too fast was bluntly put by Tesla (TSLA 701.32, -80.56, -10.3%) CEO Elon Musk tweeting that Tesla's stock price is too high.

As for the broader market, investors had to contend with President Trump threatening new tariffs on China for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, as well as the ISM Manufacturing Index for April declining to its lowest level since 2009 with a 41.5% reading (Briefing.com consensus 39.0%). The latter wasn't too shocking for investors.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors opened and closed in negative territory. The energy (-6.0%) and consumer discretionary (-4.6%) sectors took the biggest hits, while the consumer staples sector (-1.2%) declined the least.

Aside from Amazon, Apple (AAPL 289.07, -4.73, -1.6%), Exxon Mobil (XOM 43.14, -33.33, -7.2%), Chevron (CVX 89.44, -2.56, -2.8%), and Visa (V 175.57, -3.15, -1.8%) also succumbed to losses after reporting earnings. Note, Apple shares still rose 2.1% this week.

Separately, the FDA approved Gilead Sciences' (GILD 79.95, -4.05, -4.8%) remdesivir for emergency use in treating COVID-19. Shares recouped some losses after the news.

U.S. Treasuries saw modest selling pressure despite the weakness in equities. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield increased two basis points each to 0.20% and 0.64%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index finished little changed at 99.03. WTI crude increased 6.4%, or $1.19, to $19.77/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which featured the ISM Manufacturing Index for April:

The ISM Manufacturing index for April registered a 41.5% reading (Briefing.com consensus 39.0%), marking the lowest level since April 2009. The headline number was better than expected, but when you look within the report, it was mostly bad.
The key takeaway from the report is that the better-than-expected reading was a function of a sizable uptick in the index for supplier deliveries (to 76.0% from 65.0%) that is the result of supply chain disruptions and an uptick in the index for inventories (to 49.7% from 46.9%), which is really an indication of weak demand as inventory is sitting around longer because of weak demand.
Total construction spending increased 0.9% m/m in March (Briefing.com consensus -3.5%) on the heels of a downwardly revised 2.5% decline (from -1.3%) in February. Residential spending was up 2.3% m/m while nonresidential spending declined 0.1% m/m.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is dated. It's nice to see that things held up reasonably well in March, but the enthusiasm for the increase in construction spending should be mitigated by the expectation that it is unlikely to be repeated in April.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Factory Orders for March on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite -4.1% YTD
S&P 500 -12.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -16.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -24.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 23723.69 -622.03 (-2.55%)
Nasdaq 8604.96 -284.60 (-3.20%)
SP 500 2830.71 -81.72 (-2.81%)
10-yr Note +1/32 0.630
NYSE Adv 434 Dec 2483 Vol 923.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 563 Dec 2670 Vol 3.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Energy

Moving the Market

-- Stocks close lower in broad-based retreat, erase weekly gains

-- Amazon (AMZN) falls 7.6% after reporting earnings

-- President Trump threatens new tariffs on China for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak

WTI crude gains 6%
01-May-20 15:25 ET
Dow -584.61 at 23761.11, Nasdaq -272.00 at 8617.56, S&P -79.04 at 2833.39

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 2.7% and is on pace to end the weekly marginally lower.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (-5.8^) and consumer discretionary (-4.4%) leading the retreat, while the consumer staples sector (-0.9%) remains the lone sector down less than 1.0%.

WTi crude settled up $1.19 (+6.4%) to $19.77/bbl. For the week, it was up 16.1%.

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Stocks accelerate losses into close
12-May-20 16:20 ET
Dow -457.21 at 23764.78, Nasdaq -189.79 at 9002.57, S&P -60.20 at 2869.99

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 2.1% on Tuesday, with a bulk of losses coming in afternoon trade and into the close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.9%) and Nasdaq Composite (-2.1%) declined comparably to the benchmark index, while the Russell 2000 underperformed with a 3.5% decline.

There wasn't one specific catalyst driving stocks lower, but profit-taking interest might have been fueled by legislation put forth by Senate Republicans to impose sanctions on China and by Los Angeles reportedly planning to extend the county's stay-at-home order for another three months.

News of the Senate proposal did seem to initiate the selling in the market, which had been trading flat beforehand. The LA news also coincided with the late-day selling, as it paid heed to NIAID Director Fauci's Senate testimony in which he cautioned about reopening the economy too soon.

It's unclear if the market was truly perturbed by the news or if it provided a good excuse for some overdue selling. In either case, all 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in negative territory, led lower by the real estate (-4.3%), industrials (-2.8%), and financials (-2.7%) sectors. The consumer staples (-0.9%) and utilities (-0.9%) sectors declined the least.

Bank and airline stocks were among today's the weakest performers, which was made evident in sharp declines in the SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 27.51, -1.45, -5.0%) and the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 12.68, -0.57, -4.3%).

Bank stocks were pressured by a modest decline in Treasury yields and by President Trump rehashing calls for negative interest rates. Airline stocks were pressured by Boeing (BA 125.22, -3.69, -2.9%) CEO Calhoun telling NBC's "Today" show that a major U.S. airline could go bankrupt because of COVID-19 disruptions.

Conversely, shares of Uber (UBER 32.40, +0.76, +2.4%) and GrubHub (GRUB 60.39, +13.60, +29.1%) exhibited strength after it was reported that Uber made a bid to acquire GrubHub.

As previously noted, U.S. Treasury yields declined amid an uptick in demand for the safe-haven asset. The 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.16%, and the 10-yr yield declined five basis points to 0.68%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.3% to 99.97. WTI crude rose 5.3%, or $1.30, to $25.76/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Consumer Price Index declined 0.8% m/m in April, as expected, while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, declined 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%). That was the largest drop in total CPI since December 2008 and the largest drop on record going back to 1957 for core CPI.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is a telltale reminder that the Federal Reserve isn't moving off the zero bound anytime soon.
The Treasury Budget for April showed a deficit of $737.85 billion versus a surplus of $160.3 billion in the same period a year ago.
The key takeaway from the report is that the huge swing in the budget was a function of the tax filing deadline being extended, and government spending surging, due to stimulus measures employed in response to the COVID-19 impact.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for April declined to 90.9 from 96.4 in March.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for April and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +0.3% YTD
S&P 500 -11.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -16.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -23.6% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 23764.78 -457.21 (-1.89%)
Nasdaq 9002.57 -189.79 (-2.06%)
SP 500 2869.99 -60.20 (-2.05%)
10-yr Note +4/32 0.671
NYSE Adv 686 Dec 2172 Vol 939.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 947 Dec 2301 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples, Health Care
Weak: Real Estate, Financials, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Stock market closes lower, losses accelerated into the close

-- Senate Republicans put forth legislation to impose sanctions on China, LA county will reportedly extend stay-at-home order for three months

-- Bank and airline stocks were among laggards

Stocks extend losses, WTI crude gains 5%
12-May-20 15:25 ET
Dow -205.57 at 24016.42, Nasdaq -79.93 at 9112.43, S&P -30.33 at 2899.86

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 has extended losses and is now down 1.1%. All 11 S&P 500 sectors are now trading lower.

Reopening the U.S. economy has proved to be an uneven path despite what the stock market has been telegraphing over the few weeks. Earlier, it was reported that Los Angeles county's stay at home order will be extended for the next three months.

WTI crude settled today's session up $1.30 (+5.3%) to $25.76/bbl.

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Stocks rise to start the week
26-May-20 16:20 ET
Dow +529.95 at 24995.11, S&P +36.32 at 2991.64

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied as much as 2.2% on Tuesday on a familiar reopening trade, but some weakness into the close left the benchmark index up 1.2% for the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.2%), Russell 2000 (+2.8%), and S&P MidCap 400 (+3.4%) outperformed, while the Nasdaq Composite increased just 0.2%.

Some attributed today's late selling to a Bloomberg report that indicated the Trump administration was considering sanctions on Chinese officials, businesses, and financial institutions in response to Beijing's plans to tighten control over Hong Kong. The news wasn't exactly "new," but the negative-sounding headline helped take the S&P 500 below its 200-day moving average (3000) on a closing basis.

Nevertheless, stocks remained supported by a multitude of factors, namely favorable monetary and fiscal policy; reopening efforts; vaccine progress; and a bullish trend that has pulled in reluctant investors fearful of missing out on further gains. Over the extended weekend, many more businesses continued to reopen as the rate of new coronavirus cases and deaths continued to flatten or decline.

The reopening trade was still manifested in the leadership from the financials (+5.0%) and industrials (+4.2%) sectors, and in the higher oil prices ($34.36/bbl, +$1.11, +3.3%). The heavily-weighted information technology (-0.1%) and health care (-0.2%) sectors, however, slipped into negative territory.

Deemed as an early catalyst today, Merck (MRK 77.26, +0.89, +1.2%) and Novavax (NVAX 48.17, +2.06, +4.5%) joined the race for a COVID-19 vaccine. Separately, JPMorgan Chase (JPM 95.82, +6.35, +7.1%) CEO Jamie Dimon expressed confidence in his company as well as hope in an economic recovery.

Elsewhere, airline stocks were among today's biggest gainers, evident by the 11.8% gain in the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 15.31, +1.61, +11.8%).

The U.S. Treasury curve continued to experience curve-steepening activity amid the market's upbeat economic outlook. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.17%, while the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 0.70%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.9% to 98.97.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data, which was mostly better-than expected:

New home sales increased 0.6% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 623,000 (Briefing.com consensus 485,000) from a downwardly revised 619,000 (from 627,000). On a yr/yr basis, new home sales were down 6.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strength in sales was fortified by lower selling prices.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index checked in at 86.6 for May (Briefing.com consensus 88.5) versus a downwardly revised 85.7 (from 86.9) for April.
The key takeaway from the report is that attitudes about the short-term outlook increased some, reflecting some budding optimism about reopening efforts.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for May increased 0.1% following an upwardly revised 0.8% in April (from +0.7%).
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 3.9% yr/yr in March (Briefing.com consensus 3.8%) following a 3.5% increase in February.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Fed's Beige Book and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +4.1% YTD
S&P 500 -7.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -12.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -16.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 24995.11 +529.95 (2.17%)
Nasdaq 9340.21 (%)
SP 500 2991.64 +36.32 (1.23%)
10-yr Note -3/32 0.695
NYSE Adv 2455 Dec 461 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2299 Dec 970 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Industrials, Energy
Weak: Health Care, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Stocks extend bullish trend; S&P 500 trades back above the 3000 level

-- Reopening and vaccine optimism; better-than-expected economic data

-- Broad-based gains

WTI crude futures gain 3%
26-May-20 15:25 ET
Dow +677.17 at 25142.33, Nasdaq +62.40 at 9387.01, S&P +53.86 at 3009.18

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 1.8% in a relatively tight-ranged session.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows financials (+6.1%), industrials (+5.0%), and energy (+3.8%) continuing to lead the rally, while the information technology (+0.4%) and health care (+0.4%) sectors hold onto modest gains.

WTI crude futures settled today's session higher by $1.11 (+3.3%) to $34.36/bbl.

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Value stocks lead market higher
27-May-20 16:25 ET
Dow +553.16 at 25548.27, Nasdaq +72.14 at 9412.38, S&P +44.36 at 3036.00

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 1.5% on Wednesday in a broad-based advance led by many of the value-oriented stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.2%) and Russell 2000 (+3.1%) outperformed the benchmark index, while the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.8%.

From a sector perspective, the S&P 500 financials (+4.3%) and industrials (+3.3%) sectors benefited the most from this value trade, which was based the speculation that these beaten-down cyclical groups will outperform in an economic recovery that is being priced in the stock market. The information technology sector (+0.5%) was today's sector laggard.

Today's price action was notable in the sense that investors continued to buy the intraday dip (S&P 500 was down 0.7% in the morning), which then progressed into a steady advance throughout the day. A strong finish helped the S&P 500 close firmly above its 200 day-moving average (3000) for the first time since March 4.

Signals out of Washington, meanwhile, were mixed. Senate Majority Leader McConnell said Senate discussions for a fifth COVID-19 relief bill will start in June, while Secretary of State Pompeo said he reported to Congress that Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from China.

The possibility for more fiscal stimulus was regarded as positive news, while the threat of increased U.S.-China tensions remained something to consider but nothing to worry about. President Trump, meanwhile, threatened "big action" against Twitter (TWTR 33.07, -0.94, -2.8%) after the company issued fact-checking labels on two of his tweets.

Separately, the Fed's Beige Book noted a sharp decrease in economic activity in all districts based on information collected on or before May 18. This was regarded as "old" news, though, with many businesses continuing to reopen, including a "green shoots" observation from Boeing (BA 149.52, +4.79, +3.3%).

U.S. Treasuries finished mixed and little changed. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.17%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.68%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 99.01. WTI crude declined 1.1% (-$0.38) to $33.98/bbl.

Wednesday's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which increased 2.7% following a 2.6% decline in the prior week. Looking ahead to Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, Durable Goods Orders for April, the second estimate for Q1 GDP, and Pending Home Sales for April.

Nasdaq Composite +4.9% YTD
S&P 500 -6.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -10.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -13.9% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 25548.27 +553.16 (2.21%)
Nasdaq 9412.38 +72.14 (0.77%)
SP 500 3036.00 +44.36 (1.48%)
10-yr Note +1/32 0.688
NYSE Adv 2361 Dec 537 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2196 Dec 1087 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Industrials, Real Estate
Weak: Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Value stocks lead market higher and lift S&P 500 back above its 200-day moving average (3000)

-- Senate will discuss the next COVID-19 relief bill in June, European Commission proposed a EUR750 billion recovery fund

-- Bullish trend prevails on recovery optimism

WTI crude settles modestly lower
27-May-20 15:25 ET
Dow +358.26 at 25353.37, Nasdaq +34.77 at 9375.01, S&P +27.60 at 3019.24

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.9% to extend its weekly gain to 2.2%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows all 11 sectors now trading higher. The financials (+3.6%) and industrials (+2.6%) sectors remain on top, while the information technology (+0.1%) sector clings onto a slim gain.

WTI crude settled today's session down $0.38 (-1.1%) to $33.98/bbl.

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Stock market posts modest gains to start the week
01-Jun-20 16:15 ET
Dow +91.91 at 25475.02, Nasdaq +62.18 at 9552.07, S&P +11.42 at 3055.60

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices posted modest gains on Monday, as the market remained resilient to selling pressure and enthused by reopening prospects. The S&P 500 (+0.4%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) both increased 0.4%, while the Russell 2000 (+0.8%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) pulled ahead.

Early in the day, investors showed little conviction following the nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd and a Bloomberg report that suggested Chinese officials instructed major state-run agricultural companies to pause their purchases of some U.S. agricultural products. Despite the negative backdrop, reopening optimism slowly pushed stocks higher.

Shares of beaten-down small-caps, banks, airlines, cruise lines, and energy companies were among the biggest gainers. At the same time, investors assumed some defensive positioning within the mega-caps and the S&P 500 real estate (+2.1%) and utilities (+1.0%) sectors, which outperformed alongside the financials (+1.2%) and energy (+1.7%) sectors.

Today's sector laggards were the health care (-1.0%) and information technology (unch) sectors. Pfizer (PFE 35.46, -2.73, -7.2%) was a noticeable drag on the health care space after the company provided a disappointing update for its Phase 3 breast cancer trial.

On a related note, Eli Lilly (LLY 152.45, -0.50, -0.3%) initiated the first study of a potential COVID-19 antibody treatment in humans. LLY shares, however, closed lower amid the intraday weakness in the sector.

Separately, reports indicated that OPEC moved up its production meeting to June 4 and that it's close to reaching an agreement with Russia to extend production cuts by another two months. WTI crude futures declined 0.6%, or $0.21, to $35.28/bbl despite the news.

U.S. Treasuries ended the session little changed. The 2-yr yield and the 10-yr yield were flat at 0.15% and 0.65%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index declined another 0.5% to 97.82, as reopening optimism increased demand for foreign currencies.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, which included the ISM Manufacturing Index for May:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for May ticked up to 43.1% (Briefing.com consensus 44.0%) from 41.5% in April. This the third straight reading below 50.0%, which is the dividing line between expansion and contraction.
The key takeaway from the report is that upticks were seen in the key measures of new orders, production, employment, prices, backlog of orders, and new export orders. All were still below 50.0%, yet they corroborate the view that the downturn in manufacturing activity wasn't as bad as the downturn seen in April.
Construction spending declined 2.9% m/m in April (Briefing.com consensus -6.0%) on the heels of a downwardly revised flat reading (from +0.9%) for March. Total residential spending was down 4.5% while total nonresidential spending decreased 1.8%.
The key takeaway from the report is that total construction spending is still up 3.0% yr/yr, underpinned by a 3.8% yr/yr increase in total private construction spending and a 0.8% yr/yr increase in total public construction spending.

Looking ahead, investors will receive auto and truck sales throughout the day on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +6.5% YTD
S&P 500 -5.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -10.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -15.8% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 25475.02 +91.91 (0.36%)
Nasdaq 9552.07 +62.18 (0.66%)
SP 500 3055.60 +11.42 (0.38%)
10-yr Note -1/32 0.666
NYSE Adv 2222 Dec 719 Vol 903.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1944 Dec 1311 Vol 3.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Energy, Real Estate, Utilities
Weak: Health Care, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Reopening enthusiasm carried stock market higher despite weekend protests, simmering U.S.-China tensions

-- Small-caps, financials, airlines, cruise lines, and energy stocks among biggest gainers; mega-caps outperformed, too

-- Relative weakness in the health care space

WTI crude settles slightly lower
01-Jun-20 15:25 ET
Dow +104.81 at 25487.92, Nasdaq +70.00 at 9559.89, S&P +14.36 at 3058.54

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading near session highs with a 0.5% gain.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows real estate (+2.6%), energy (+1.9%), utilities (+1.5%), and financials (+1.3%) sectors leading in gains. The health care sector (-0.9%) struggles in negative territory, while the information technology sector (+0.1%) clings onto a small gain.

WTI crude futures settled down $0.21 (-0.6%) to $35.28/bbl. Related news included OPEC moving its production to June 4, and OPEC and its allies are close to extending oil production cuts by another two months.

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Recovery rally sends S&P 500 back above 3100
03-Jun-20 16:15 ET
Dow +527.24 at 26269.89, Nasdaq +74.54 at 9682.94, S&P +42.05 at 3122.74

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 extended its recovery rally by 1.4% on Wednesday, as the latest data continued to depict signs of a turnaround in the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.1%) and Russell 2000 (+2.4%) rose more than 2.0%, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) struggled to keep pace.

Specifically, the ADP Employment Change Report estimated 2.76 million private-sector jobs were lost in May versus consensus estimates that were closer to 9.0 million. The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index rebounded to 45.4% in May (Briefing.com consensus 44.0%) from 41.8% in April, which indicated a decelerating pace of contraction.

Those weren't good numbers, but they corroborated the market's thinking that things will improve as the economy continues to reopen. This outlook continued to fuel the big rebounds in the beaten-down cyclical sectors, as well as foreign equities, some of which have also been aided by talks of fiscal stimulus.

Within the S&P 500, the industrials (+3.9%), financials (+3.8%), and energy (+3.1%) sectors advanced the most and carried the benchmark index back above the 3100 level. The continued rise in oil prices ($37.56/bbl, +0.46, +1.3%) following an unexpected decline in weekly crude inventories was an added benefit for energy stocks. The health care sector (-0.2%) closed lower.

In corporate news, Lyft (LYFT 34.44, +2.76, +8.7%) said rides were up 20% in May versus April (but down 70% yr/yr), while Zoom Video (ZM 223.87, +15.79, +7.6%) provided impressive quarterly results and guidance.

Safe-haven assets were out of favor amid the bullish bias in stocks. Gold futures declined 1.7% to $1704.90/ozt, the U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.4% to 97.28, and the 10-yr yield rose eight basis points to 0.76%. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.19%.

Separately, an interesting report from The Wall Street Journal indicated that several executives from the poultry industry were indicted on allegations of price fixing. Shares of Tyson Foods (TSN 60.10, -2.40, -3.8%) fell into negative territory following the report.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index rebounded to 45.4% in May (Briefing.com consensus 44.0%) from 41.8% in April. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the pace of contraction in the non-manufacturing sector decelerated in May. Things still aren't good in terms of business activity, but they were evidently considered by respondents to be less bad than what was seen in April.
The ADP Employment Change Report estimated 2.76 million private-sector jobs were lost in May versus consensus estimates that were closer to 9.0 million.
New orders for manufactured goods declined 13.0% m/m in April, as expected, following a downwardly revised 11.0% decline (from -10.3%) in March.
The key takeaway from the report is that the weakness was driven by durable goods orders, which declined 17.7%, hurt by a 48.3% decline in transportation equipment orders.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, revised Q1 figures for Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, and the Trade Balance report for April on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD
S&P 500 -3.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -13.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 26269.89 +527.24 (2.05%)
Nasdaq 9682.94 +74.54 (0.78%)
SP 500 3122.74 +42.05 (1.36%)
10-yr Note -29/32 0.755
NYSE Adv 2342 Dec 556 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2248 Dec 1031 Vol 4.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Energy, Industrials
Weak: Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Recovery rally lifts S&P 500 back above the 3100 level

-- Relative strength in the cyclical sectors

-- Better-than-feared economic data regarding the labor market and services sector

WTI crude gains amid decline in weekly inventories
03-Jun-20 15:25 ET
Dow +525.44 at 26268.09, Nasdaq +82.08 at 9690.48, S&P +43.44 at 3124.13

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade at session highs with a current 1.4% gain. For the week, it is now up 2.6%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows financials (+3.9%), industrials (+3.7%), and energy (+2.9%) continuing to lead in gains, while the health care sector (-0.3%) is the lone holdout.

WTI crude futures rose $0.46 (+1.3%) to $37.26/bbl. On a related note, weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 2.1 mln barrels after increasing by 7.93 mln during the previous week.

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S&P 500 closes lower, while Nasdaq closes at new high
09-Jun-20 16:20 ET
Dow -300.14 at 27272.30, Nasdaq +29.01 at 9953.78, S&P -25.21 at 3207.05

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.8% on Tuesday, but strength in the mega-cap technology stocks limited its decline and drove the Nasdaq Composite up 0.3% to close at a record high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.1%) and Russell 2000 (-1.9%) fell more than 1% after a recent streak of outperformance.

Apple (AAPL 343.99, +10.53, +3.2%), Amazon (AMZN 2600.86, +76.80, +3.0%), Microsoft (MSFT 189.80, +1.44, +0.8%), Alphabet (GOOG 146.16, +9.55, +0.7%), and Facebook (FB 238.67, +7.27, +3.1%) -- which represent approximately 20% of the S&P 500's market weight -- posted solid gains, as money appeared to rotate out of cyclical sectors and back into these tech behemoths.

Those cyclical sectors included the energy (-3.6%), industrials (-2.5%), and financials (-2.1%) sectors, which remain this month's leaders. Conversely, the information technology (+0.5%), communication services (+0.2%), and consumer discretionary (unch) sectors performed relatively well amid gains in the aforementioned stocks.

The rotation was a balancing act between taking profits and parking money in the mega-caps for their perceived safety. There was no strong inclination to sell the broader market, though, especially with the Fed set to announce its latest policy decision on Wednesday.

Within the transportation space, profit-taking interest cooled down the airline stocks. The U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 20.45, -1.27, -6.8%) declined nearly 7% after rallying 45% over the prior six sessions. The Dow Jones Transportation Average fell 2.3%.

U.S. Treasuries ended the session on a higher note, driving yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.20%, and the 10-yr yield declined six basis points to 0.83%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 96.42. WTI crude gained 1.8%, or $0.68, to $38.92/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for May increased to 94.9 from 90.9 in April.
April job openings decreased to 5.046 mln from a revised 6.011 mln in March (from 6.191 mln).
Wholesale inventories increased 0.3% in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following a revised 1.1% decline in March (from -0.8%).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the FOMC Rate Decision, the Consumer Price Index for May, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +10.9% YTD
S&P 500 -0.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -9.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27272.30 -300.14 (-1.09%)
Nasdaq 9953.78 +29.01 (0.29%)
SP 500 3207.05 -25.21 (-0.78%)
10-yr Note +27/32 0.830
NYSE Adv 620 Dec 2282 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1159 Dec 2161 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500, Dow, Russell 2000 eased back from recent gains, while Nasdaq closed at another record high

-- Strength in the mega-cap technology stocks

-- Relative weakness in value and cyclical stocks, which had outperformed this month

WTI crude settles 2% higher
09-Jun-20 15:25 ET
Dow -170.07 at 27402.37, Nasdaq +65.76 at 9990.53, S&P -11.98 at 3220.28

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading near session highs with a 0.4% decline.

One last look inside the benchmark index shows the information technology (+0.8%), communication services (+0.4%), and consumer discretionary (+0.3%) sectors leading the rebound attempt, while the energy (-3.0%), industrials (-2.0%), and utilities (-2.1%) sectors continue to lag.

WTI crude futures settled today's session up $0.68 (+1.8%) to $38.92/bbl.

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declined one basis point to 0.16%, while the 10-yr yield declined ten basis points to 0.65% as investors sought some safety in longer-dated maturities. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.8% to 96.76.

Notably, the CBOE Volatility Index spiked 48.0% to 40.79, which reflected increased hedging interest against further equity weakness. The S&P 500 did end the session below its 200-day moving average (3013), which is a key technical level many traders observe.

In corporate news, Regeneron Pharma (REGN 596.16, -10.43, -1.7%) said it started clinical trials for its COVID-19 antibody treatment. GrubHub (GRUB 61.79, +2.74, +4.6%) agreed to be acquired by Just Eat Takeaway (TKAYY 9.30, -0.70, -7.0%) for $75.15/share in an all-stock deal.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending June 6 decreased by 355,000 to a still-high 1.542 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.525 million) while continuing claims for the week ending May 30 decreased by 339,000 to a still stunningly high 20.929 million.
The key takeaway from this report is that, notwithstanding the hiring activity in May, it shows the labor market remains a long, long way from being back.
The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.4% m/m in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). The index for final demand, excluding food and energy, declined 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%). Those readings left the yr/yr rates at -0.8% and 0.3%, respectively.
The key takeaway from this report is that it shows why the Fed isn't thinking about raising rates anytime soon.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for June and Export and Import Prices for May on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +5.8% YTD
S&P 500 -7.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -12.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -18.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 25128.19 -1861.80 (-6.90%)
Nasdaq 9492.75 -527.62 (-5.27%)
SP 500 3001.97 -188.04 (-5.89%)
10-yr Note +6/32 0.663
NYSE Adv 86 Dec 2859 Vol 1.3 bln
Nasdaq Adv 240 Dec 3130 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: None
Weak: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Materials

Moving the Market

-- Market pulls back about 5%, cooling down from overheated condition

-- Value and cyclical stocks lag, especially those in the energy sector amid a sharp pullback in oil prices

-- Decline is ostensibly based on cautious outlook from Fed and reports of increasing rates of coronavirus cases

WTI crude pulls back 8%
11-Jun-20 15:25 ET
Dow -1806.50 at 25183.49, Nasdaq -491.35 at 9529.02, S&P -179.92 at 3010.09

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 5.7%, and the Russell 2000 is down 6.9%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows big losses across the board. The energy sector is down the most with a 8.9% decline, while the consumer staples sector is down the least with a 3.5% decline.

WTI crude futures dropped 7.9%, or $3.13, to $36.41/bbl as oil prices pulled back alongside stocks.

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Stocks gain on positive jobs data, but close near lows
02-Jul-20 16:20 ET
Dow +92.39 at 25827.38, Nasdaq +53.00 at 10207.63, S&P +14.15 at 3129.88

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.5% on Thursday amid positive labor market data, although it was up as much as 1.6% in early action. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%), and Russell 2000 (+0.3%) also finished near session lows, but the Nasdaq did notch another record close.

With the market closed on Friday in observation of Independence Day, investors received the Employment Situation Report one day early, and it came in better than expected for the second straight month. It also showed that there was still a lot more re-hiring activity needed to get to where things were before the pandemic.

Briefly, June nonfarm payrolls increased by 4.800 million (Briefing.com consensus 3.50 million), and the unemployment rate improved to 11.1% (Briefing.com consensus 12.6%) from 13.3% in May. Initial jobless claims for the week ending June 27 also decreased slightly to 1.427 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.355 million) for its 13th straight decline.

Every sector in the S&P 500 was on pace to close in positive territory following the data, but a late fade in the market took several sectors into the red. The cyclical materials (+1.9%), energy (+1.1%), and industrials (+0.8%) sectors set the performance pace, while the real estate (-0.3%) and communication services (-0.1%) sectors closed lower.

The late-day selling was likely due to some profit-taking activity in front of the holiday weekend. At today's intraday high, the S&P 500 was up 5.2% for the week.

Tesla (TSLA 1208.66, +89.03, +8.0%), however, showed no signs of slowing down after the company pleased investors with its Q2 delivery data. TSLA shares rose 26% this week, including today's 8% gain.

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield was unchanged at 0.68%. The U.S. Dollar Index was also little changed at 97.22. WTI crude rose 1.7%, or $0.66, to $40.42/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which featured the Employment Situation Report for June:

June nonfarm payrolls increased by 4.800 million (Briefing.com consensus 3.50 million). June private sector payrolls increased by 4.767 million (Briefing.com consensus 3.00 million). June unemployment rate was 11.1% (Briefing.com consensus 12.6%), versus 13.3% in May. June average hourly earnings declined 1.2% (Briefing.com consensus -1.0%) versus a 1.0% decline in May.
The key takeaway from the report as far as the market is concerned is that it reflects an economy that is bouncing back from the depths of the COVID-19 shutdown period. There are still far too many people unemployed (17.750 million), yet the June numbers are moving in the right direction.
Initial jobless claims for the week ending June 27 decreased by 55,000 to 1.427 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.355 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that initial claims remain at an alarmingly high level and will continue to be a drag on economic activity.
The Trade Balance report for May showed a widening in the deficit to -$54.6 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$53.0 billion) from a downwardly revised $49.8 billion (from -$49.4 billion).
The key takeaway from the report is that exports (-$6.6 billion) and imports (-$1.8 billion) both declined in May, underscoring the adverse impact of the coronavirus on the global economy.
New orders for manufactured goods increased 8.0% m/m in May (Briefing.com consensus 7.2%) following a downwardly revised 13.5% decline (from -13.0%) in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects a recovery in new order activity following the depths of the COVID-19 shutdown period.

When the market reopens on Monday, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for June.

Nasdaq Composite +13.8% YTD
S&P 500 -3.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -9.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -14.2% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 25827.38 +92.39 (0.36%)
Nasdaq 10207.63 +53.00 (0.52%)
SP 500 3129.88 +14.15 (0.45%)
10-yr Note 0/32 0.673
NYSE Adv 1810 Dec 1099 Vol 897.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1894 Dec 1417 Vol 4.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Industrials
Weak: Real Estate, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Stocks close higher but near session lows in front of the holiday weekend

-- Nonfarm payrolls increased by 4.800 million in June (Briefing.com consensus 3.50 million), unemployment rate improved to 11.1% (Briefing.com consensus 12.6%)

-- Late profit-taking activity

WTI crude closes above $40/bbl
02-Jul-20 15:25 ET
Dow +219.73 at 25954.72, Nasdaq +103.43 at 10258.06, S&P +29.26 at 3144.99

[BRIEFING.COM] The market's best levels were in the opening minutes of action, and it has drifting sideways since pulling back in the morning. Currently, the S&P 500 is up 0.9%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows green across the board. The materials (+1.8%), energy (+1.7%), and industrials (+1.2%) sectors maintain their leadership positions, while the real estate sector (+0.3%) lags with a 0.3% gain.

WTI crude futures settled the session higher by $0.66 (+1.7%) to $40.42/bbl.

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Nasdaq closes at record high in weak session
09-Jul-20 16:15 ET
Dow -361.19 at 25706.09, Nasdaq +55.25 at 10547.75, S&P -17.89 at 3152.05

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.6% on Thursday, but continued strength in the mega-cap technology stocks helped the benchmark index overcome an early 1.7% decline. The Nasdaq Composite, powered by these household names, rose 0.5% to close at a record high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.4%) and Russell 2000 (-2.0%) underperformed.

Despite the gain in the Nasdaq, today was a weak performance by the market. Declining issues outpaced advancing issues by a 3:1 margin at the NYSE and a 2:1 margin at the Nasdaq, and the cyclical S&P 500 energy (-4.9%), financials (-2.2%), and industrials (-2.1%) sectors succumbed to noticeable losses.

Only the consumer discretionary (+0.8%) and information technology (+0.4%) sectors finished higher, and that was predominately due to record closes in Amazon (AMZN 3182.63, +101.52, +3.3%), Microsoft (MSFT 214.32, +1.49, +0.7%), and Apple (AAPL 382.73, +1.36, +0.4%).

The underperformance of the cyclical sectors, and the curve-flattening activity in the Treasury market, suggested that the reopening trade lost some of its luster. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield declined five basis points to 0.61%. The U.S. Dollar Index gained 0.4% to 96.78. WTI crude fell 3.1%, or $1.28, to $39.63/bbl.

While there wasn't a confirmed catalyst for today's decline, there were some key developments. Weekly initial claims decreased by 99,000 to 1.314 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.350 million), which was its 14th straight weekly decline but also a persistently high number of claims, and the Supreme Court ruled that a New York Grand Jury may access President Trump's tax returns.

Note, the market did appear to lose some steam in early action after the Supreme Court ruling, but the judges ruled in separate decision against efforts by Democratic-led House Committees to get access to the president's financial records.

Separately, shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 39.01, -3.28, -7.8%) fell 8% after the company missed earnings estimates and issued downside FY20 EPS guidance.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

initial claims decreased by 99,000 for the week ending July 4 to 1.314 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.350 million). Continuing claims for the week ending June 27 plunged by 698,000 to 18.062 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it suggests things are less bad on the job loss front, but less bad is clearly still a long way from good for both initial claims and continuing claims.
Wholesale inventories decreased 1.2% in May, as expected, following a revised 0.2% increase in April (from +0.3%).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for June on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +17.6% YTD
S&P 500 -2.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -9.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -16.2% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 25706.09 -361.19 (-1.39%)
Nasdaq 10547.75 +55.25 (0.53%)
SP 500 3152.05 -17.89 (-0.56%)
10-yr Note +28/32 0.603
NYSE Adv 771 Dec 2125 Vol 972.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1016 Dec 2141 Vol 4.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology
Weak: Financials, Energy, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Nasdaq closes higher in weak session

-- Mega-cap technology stocks were among the few bright spots

-- Politically-minded headlines

-- Weekly initial jobless claims declined by 99,000 to 1.314 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.350 million)

WTI crude falls back below $40 per barrel
09-Jul-20 15:25 ET
Dow -353.94 at 25713.36, Nasdaq +45.38 at 10537.88, S&P -17.08 at 3152.73

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading lower by 0.4%, while the Russell 2000 trades lower by 1.7%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows the consumer discretionary (+0.8%), information technology (+0.3%), and communication services (+0.03%) sectors trading higher amid strength in their mega-cap components, while the energy (-4.3%), financials (-2.2%), and industrials (-1.8%) sectors are underperforming.

WTI crude futures settled the session lower by $1.28 (-3.1%) to $39.63/bbl.

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Stocks gain to end the week
10-Jul-20 16:20 ET
Dow +369.21 at 26075.30, Nasdaq +69.69 at 10617.44, S&P +32.99 at 3185.04

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 1.1% on Friday, as investors rotated back into growth/value stocks following a positive remdesivir update. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.4%) and Russell 2000 (+1.7%) pulled ahead, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) underperformed but still closed at a record high.

Prior to the open, Gilead Sciences (GILD 76.32, +1.61, +2.2%) said new remdesivir data showed an improvement in clinical recovery for severely-ill COVID-19 patients and a 62% reduction in the risk of mortality compared to the standard of care. The news turned equity index futures positive and caused a rotational trade back into economically-sensitive stocks after the open.

The S&P 500 financials (+3.5%) and energy (+3.3%) sectors rose more than 3.0% amid expectations that these beaten-up sectors would outperform in a recovery. The health care sector (-0.2%) ironically closed lower while the information technology sector (unch) took a breather.

A steady advance gathered momentum late in the day as many of the mega-cap technology stocks turned positive after a sluggish start. The momentum was strong with Tesla (TSLA 1544.65, +150.37, +10.8%), while Netflix (NFLX 548.73, +40.97, +8.1%) and Amazon (AMZN 3200.00, +17.37, +0.6%) benefited from price target increases at brokerage firms.

Carnival (CCL 16.16, +1.58, +10.8%) shares received an additional boost after the company noted an increase in demand for new bookings in 2021, feeding the reopening trade and outweighing its mixed earnings results.

U.S. Treasuries backed off from early morning highs following the remdesivir update, sending yields higher. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.16%, and the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.63% after touching 0.57% in overnight action. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 96.63. WTI crude rose 2.1%, or $0.94, to $40.57/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The Producer Price Index for final demand, led by a 0.3% decline in prices for final demand services, decreased 0.2% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following a 0.4% increase in May. Excluding food and energy, the index for final demand decreased 0.3% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%) after declining 0.1% in May.
The key takeaway from the report is that there are few, if any, inflation pressures at the producer level due to generally weak demand.

Looking ahead, investors will not receive any economic data on Monday, but many health care and financial companies will report earnings next week.

Nasdaq Composite +18.3% YTD
S&P 500 -1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -14.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 26075.30 +369.21 (1.44%)
Nasdaq 10617.44 +69.69 (0.66%)
SP 500 3185.04 +32.99 (1.05%)
10-yr Note -25/32 0.641
NYSE Adv 2237 Dec 703 Vol 875.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1997 Dec 1193 Vol 3.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Energy, Communication Services, Utilities, Consumer Staples
Weak: Information Technology, Health Care, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Cyclical and value stocks lead market higher to end the week

-- Gilead Sciences (GILD) released new data on remdesivir showing an improvement in clinical recovery for patients with COVID-19

-- Relative weakness in the information technology and health care sectors

WTI crude futures gain amid reopening trade
10-Jul-20 15:25 ET
Dow +348.44 at 26054.53, Nasdaq +52.11 at 10599.86, S&P +29.57 at 3181.62

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is now trading higher by 0.9%, as most mega-cap technology stocks turn positive.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows financials (+3.3%) out in the lead with a 3.3% gain, followed by energy (+2.6%) and utilities (+2.1%). The health care (-0.2%) and information technology (-0.2) sectors still trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled the session higher by $0.94 (+2.4%) to $40.57/bbl. For the week, crude futures were up just 0.4%.

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Stocks close at highs in late-session push
22-Jul-20 16:15 ET
Dow +165.44 at 27005.84, Nasdaq +25.76 at 10706.21, S&P +18.72 at 3276.02

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] U.S. stocks closed at session highs on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both gaining 0.6%, followed by modest 0.2% gains in the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000.

For most of the day, the S&P 500 traded slightly above its flat line, until buyers stepped in late in the session on no specific news catalyst. The S&P 500 utilities (+1.5%) and real estate (+1.3%) sectors strengthened their leadership positions, but the energy (-1.3%) and financials (-0.1%) sectors still closed lower.

In addition, Microsoft (MSFT 211.75, +3.00, +1.4%) and Tesla (TSLA 1592.33, +23.97, +1.5%) padded gains in front of their earnings reports after the close.

Other positive factors beside the gains in MSFT and TSLA included Pfizer (PFE 38.56, +1.87, +5.1%) and BioNTech (BNTX 104.17, +12.57, +13.7%) securing a vaccine supply agreement with the U.S. government for $1.95 billion upon FDA approval and Best Buy (BBY 97.36, +7.08, +7.8%) offering encouraging sales commentary.

The market kept its composure despite the U.S. ordering China to close its consulate in Houston by Friday, President Trump saying he thinks the coronavirus situation will "probably get worse before it gets better," and Texas Instruments (TXN 132.53, -2.95, -2.2%) falling 2% despite reporting upbeat earnings results and guidance.

Separately, Wynn Resorts (WYNN 76.10, -3.09, -3.9%) furloughed some Las Vegas workers amid disappointing demand. Spotify (SPOT 289.62, +13.24, +4.8%) confirmed it reached a new multi-year global license agreement with Universal Music Group.

U.S. Treasuries ended the session slightly higher. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.13%, and the 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.60%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 94.95. Gold futures increased 1.1% to $1864.30/ozt. WTI crude futures increased 0.3% to $41.88/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Existing home sales surged 20.7% m/m in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.72 million (Briefing.com consensus 4.70 million). That is the largest monthly increase on record, although the seasonally adjusted annual rate of existing home sales is still 18% lower than where it stood in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that inventory of existing homes continues to be constrained. That is a pressure point that will feed higher prices; but it's also a reality that should bolster the prospects for new home demand.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for July declined 0.3% following a revised 0.1% increase in June (from +0.2%).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 4.1% following a 5.1% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for June on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +19.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27005.84 +165.44 (0.62%)
Nasdaq 10706.21 +25.76 (0.24%)
SP 500 3276.02 +18.72 (0.57%)
10-yr Note +1/32 0.594
NYSE Adv 1737 Dec 1203 Vol 829.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1475 Dec 1784 Vol 4.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Utilities, Materials
Weak: Energy, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Stocks close at highs in late-session push

-- Market withstood lingering U.S.-China tensions, virus concerns

-- Upbeat earnings news

WTI crude futures inch higher
22-Jul-20 15:25 ET
Dow +124.06 at 26964.46, Nasdaq +8.06 at 10688.51, S&P +13.41 at 3270.71

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at session highs with a 0.4% gain. CNBC recently reported that Republican leadership is considering a $400/month in extended unemployment benefits through Dec. 31 in the next stimulus package.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows eight of the 11 groups trading in positive territory. The utilities (+1.7%) and real estate (+1.1%) sectors remain in the lead, while the energy (-1.5%), financials (-0.4%), and communication services (-0.1%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $0.12 (+0.3%) to $41.88/bbl.

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Mega-caps take market lower
23-Jul-20 16:20 ET
Dow -353.51 at 26652.33, Nasdaq -244.71 at 10461.50, S&P -40.36 at 3235.66

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.2% on Thursday, as noticeable selling in the mega-cap stocks during the afternoon took the market lower. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.3%. The Russell 2000, however, was unscathed with a flat reading.

Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, including the information technology (-2.6%), consumer discretionary (-2.0%), and communication services (-2.0%) sectors at the bottom of the standings amid the mega-cap declines, while the consumer staples (+0.2%), financials (+0.2%), and utilities (+0.1%) sectors closed higher.

Microsoft (MSFT 202.54, -9.21, -4.4%) and Tesla (TSLA 1513.07, -79.26, -5.0%) both reported better-than-expected earnings results, but the disappointing price action appeared to cause concern about similar reactions in Apple (AAPL 371.38, -17.71, -4.6%), Amazon (AMZN 2986.55, -113.36, -3.7%), Alphabet (GOOG 1515.68, -52.81, -3.4%), and Facebook (FB 232.60, -7.27, -3.0%) when they report.

On a related note, Goldman Sachs reportedly doubled down on its recommendation to "avoid" Apple due to a view that its recent surge won't be sustainable after earnings. That's a controversial view on Wall Street, but it evoked an understanding that many of these mega-cap stocks have had great runs and could be subject to a pullback.

In other developments, weekly initial jobless claims increased by 109,000 to 1.416 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.285 million), China's Global Times editor tweeted that China will likely announce countermeasures on Friday if they are forced to close the consulate in Houston, and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said the GOP unemployment benefit plan will be based on 70% wage replacement.

Aside from Microsoft and Tesla, the earnings picture was mostly mixed. Dow components Travelers (TRV 118.61, -3.63, -3.0%) and Dow Inc. (DOW 42.82, -1.52, -3.4%) moved lower after earnings, while Twitter (TWTR 38.44, +1.50, +4.1%), Kimberly Clark (KMB 147.33, +3.03, +2.1%), and Cintas (CTAS 303.01, +13.65, +4.7%) moved higher.

U.S. Treasuries finished the session mixed. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.15%, while the 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.59%. The U.S. Dollar Index weakened by another 0.2% to 94.81. WTI crude futures fell 2.0%, or $0.83, to $41.05/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending July 18 increased by 109,000 to 1.416 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.285 million), which is the 18th straight week they have exceeded one million. Continuing claims for the week ending July 11 decreased by 1,107,000 to 16.197 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that the jump in initial claims is an early reflection of the adverse impact of states pausing or rolling back their reopening activity due to the rise in coronavirus cases. In turn, it is a reminder that the momentum of initial reopening efforts will slow the progress made in labor market recovery efforts.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 2.0% m/m in June (Briefing.com consensus 2.1%) following an upwardly revised 3.2% increase (from 2.8%) in May. At 102.0, the index level is 8.8% below the level it hit in February.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that the index decreased 8.4% for the six-month span through June, with only one out of its ten components increasing over that period.

Looking ahead, investors will receive New Home Sales for June on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +16.6% YTD
S&P 500 +0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -6.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 26652.33 -353.51 (-1.31%)
Nasdaq 10461.50 -244.71 (-2.29%)
SP 500 3235.66 -40.36 (-1.23%)
10-yr Note +1/32 0.589
NYSE Adv 1413 Dec 1520 Vol 820.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1242 Dec 1978 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Consumer Staples, Financials
Weak: Communication Services, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Stock market turned lower in afternoon trade amid selling in the mega-caps

-- Disappointing earnings reactions in Microsoft (MSFT) and Tesla (TSLA)

-- Initial jobless claims for the week ending July 18 increased by 109,000 to 1.416 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.285 million)

-- Lingering U.S.-China tensions

WTI crude futures settle lower by 2%
23-Jul-20 15:25 ET
Dow -375.82 at 26630.02, Nasdaq -238.74 at 10467.47, S&P -41.56 at 3234.46

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.2%, and the Russell 2000 is down 0.1%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (-2.6%), communication services (-2.0%), and consumer discretionary (-1.8%) down noticeably, while the financials (+0.04%) and consumer staples (+0.1%) sectors cling onto fractional gains.

WTI crude futures settled lower by $0.83 (-2.0%) to $41.05/bbl.

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Market closes higher as mega-caps lead and dollar weakens
27-Jul-20 16:15 ET

Dow +114.88 at 26584.77, Nasdaq +173.09 at 10536.35, S&P +23.78 at 3239.41

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 0.7% on Monday in a session that included renewed strength in the mega-cap stocks and continued weakness in the U.S. dollar. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.7%) and Russell 2000 (+1.2%) rose more than 1.0%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased just 0.4%.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, including the information technology (+1.6%), materials (+1.4%), and real estate (+1.1%) sectors at the top of the standings. The utilities (-1.3%) and financials (-0.8%) sectors were the lone holdouts.

Material stocks benefited from higher metal prices, including the continued breakout of gold ($1931.70/ozt, $34.20 +1.8%) amid a weakening U.S. Dollar Index (93.71, -0.72, -0.8%). The tech sector was lifted by mega-cap leadership and strong gains in the semiconductor space. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 3.2%.

Amazon (AMZN 3055.21, +46.30, +1.5%), Apple (AAPL 379.24, +8.78, +2.4%), Alphabet (GOOG 1530.20, +18.33, +1.2%), and Facebook (FB 233.50, +2.79, +1.2%) outperformed in front of high-profile events this week. Specifically, the CEOs of these companies will testify before lawmakers on Wednesday regarding regulatory concerns, and the companies will report earnings on Thursday.

Taiwan Semi (TSM 83.25, +9.35, +12.7%) stood out with a 12.7% gain amid speculation that Intel (INTC 49.57, -1.02, -2.0%) might order chips from the company to get around its internal production issues.

In other corporate news, Moderna (MRNA 79.91, +6.70, +9.2%) received an additional $472 million from the government to advance its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 39.94, -0.67, -1.7%) announced its CEO will step down, and Hasbro (HAS 71.84, -5.75, -7.4%) missed top and bottom-line estimates.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries finished little changed while investors continued to await the details of $1 trillion coronavirus relief bill from Republican Senators. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.60%. WTI crude futures increased 0.9%, or $0.38 to $41.68/bbl.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

Total durable goods orders increased 7.3% m/m in June (Briefing.com consensus 6.4%) following a downwardly revised 15.1% increase (from 15.8%) for May. Excluding transportation, orders jumped 3.3%, as expected, after a downwardly revised 3.6% increase (from 4.0%) for May.
The key takeaway from the report is that business spending picked up in June, evidenced by a 3.3% increase in new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft. That came on top of a 1.6% increase in May.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for July and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for May on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +17.4% YTD
S&P 500 +0.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -6.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -11.0% YTD


Market Snapshot
Dow 26584.77 +114.88 (0.43%)
Nasdaq 10536.35 +173.09 (1.67%)
SP 500 3239.41 +23.78 (0.74%)
10-yr Note -1/32 0.606

NYSE Adv 1769 Dec 1196 Vol 790.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1932 Dec 1354 Vol 4.1 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Materials

Weak: Financials, Energy, Utilities


Moving the Market
-- Stock market trades higher in front of busy news week

-- U.S. dollar continues to weaken, gold futures keep rallying

-- Strength in semiconductor space

-- Investors await coronavirus relief bill later today



WTI crude settles higher
27-Jul-20 15:25 ET

Dow +93.49 at 26563.38, Nasdaq +174.34 at 10537.60, S&P +23.33 at 3238.96
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at session highs with a 0.7% gain.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+1.6%), materials (+1.2%), and consumer discretionary (+1.0%) leading the market in gains, while the financials (-1.1%) and utilities (-1.7%) sectors head in the opposite direction.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $0.38 (+0.9%) to $41.68/bbl.

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Apple and Microsoft led growth-oriented advance
03-Aug-20 16:10 ET
Dow +236.08 at 26664.40, Nasdaq +157.52 at 10902.87, S&P +23.49 at 3294.61

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.7%), Nasdaq Composite (+1.5%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%) closed higher on Monday, as Apple (AAPL 435.75, +10.71, +2.5%) and Microsoft (MSFT 216.54, +11.53, +5.6%) plowed ahead with noticeable gains. It was another record close for the Nasdaq, while the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 1.8% gain.

Microsoft rallied on news that it was continuing talks to acquire TikTok while Apple remained hot following its 10.5% earnings-driven gain from Friday. Essentially, today was a growth-oriented trade that also saw the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rise 1.9% and the iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology ETF (IBB 138.57, +4.20) rise 3.1%.

Consequently, the information technology (+2.5%) and health care (+1.1%) sectors finished atop the sector standings, while the defensive-oriented real estate (-1.5%) and utilities (-1.1%) sectors closed lower by more than 1.0%.

Within the health care space, Goldman Sachs upgraded Merck (MRK 82.56, +2.32, +2.9%) to Buy from Neutral, Eli Lilly (LLY 152.84, +2.55, +1.7%) started a Phase 3 trial for the prevention of COVID-19 at long-term care facilities, and Varian Medical (VAR 174.11, +31.39, +22.0%) agreed to be acquired by Siemens Healthineers for $16.4 billion, or $177.50/share, in cash.

In other deal-making news, Marathon Petroleum (MPC 38.57, +0.37, +1.0%) agreed to sell its Speedway business to 7-Eleven for $21 billion in cash. ADT (ADT 13.48, +4.87, +56.6%) partnered with Alphabet's (GOOG 1474.45, -8.51, -0.6%) Google to develop a next generation smart home and security system. Google will take a 6.6% stake in ADT.

Separately, manufacturing conditions continued to improve, as the ISM Manufacturing Index for July increased to 54.2% (Briefing.com consensus 53.4%) from 52.6% in June. In Washington, lawmakers continued to negotiate the next coronavirus relief bill but did not reach an agreement on Monday.

U.S. Treasuries ended the session slightly lower. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.11%, and the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.56%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.3% to 93.60. WTI crude futures rose 1.8%, or $0.72, to $41.02/bbl.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for July increased to 54.2% (Briefing.com consensus 53.4%) from 52.6% in June. This was the second straight month the index has been above 50.0% (the demarcation level between expansion and contraction) after cratering to a low of 41.5% in April (the lowest since April 2009).
The key takeaway from the report rests in the understanding that manufacturing conditions are rebounding from the abyss of three straight monthly contractions (March-May). To be sure, manufacturing conditions were better in July than they were in prior months, but it is still a stretch to say that manufacturing activity is robust since uncertainty about the demand outlook remains high.
Total construction spending declined 0.7% m/m in June (Briefing.com consensus +1.3%) on the heels of an upwardly revised 1.7% decline (from -2.1%) in May. Total private construction spending was down 0.7% and total public construction spending was also down 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that total construction spending was up 0.1% yr/yr despite the adverse effects of the pandemic, bolstered by the strength of nonresidential public construction spending (+5.7% yr/yr).

Looking ahead, investors will receive Factory Orders for June on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +21.5% YTD
S&P 500 +2.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -6.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -9.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 26664.40 +236.08 (0.89%)
Nasdaq 10902.87 +157.52 (1.47%)
SP 500 3294.61 +23.49 (0.72%)
10-yr Note -2/32 0.550
NYSE Adv 1868 Dec 1080 Vol 871.5 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2314 Dec 925 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Health Care, Financials
Weak: Utilities, Real Estate, Consumer Staples, Energy

Moving the Market

-- Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) lead market higher

-- Semiconductor and biotech stocks also outperform in growth-oriented trade

-- ISM Manufacturing Index for July improves to 54.2 (Briefing.com consensus 53.4) from 52.6 in June

WTI crude futures gain nearly 2%
03-Aug-20 15:25 ET
Dow +249.49 at 26677.81, Nasdaq +158.16 at 10903.51, S&P +26.29 at 3297.41

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.8%, while the Russell 2000 continues to outperform with a 1.8% gain. CNBC recently reported that coronavirus relief bill negotiations are done for the day; lawmakers will continue tomorrow.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+2.4%) and health care (+1.1%) still leading in gains, while the real estate (-1.3%) and utilities (-1.1%) sectors remain down more than 1.0%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.8%, or $0.72, to $41.02/bbl.

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Stocks keep rally going, cyclical and value stocks outperformed
05-Aug-20 16:20 ET
Dow +373.05 at 27201.52, Nasdaq +57.23 at 10998.47, S&P +21.26 at 3327.77

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 0.6% on Wednesday, as gains broadened out to many of the cyclical and value-oriented stocks. The Nasdaq Composite increased 0.5% to close at another record high, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.4%) and Russell 2000 (+1.9%) rose more than 1.0%.

Investors welcomed reports that lawmakers made progress toward the next coronavirus relief bill, a promising-sounding vaccine update from Novavax (NVAX 173.49, +16.32, +10.4%) on a Phase 1/2 trial for healthy adults ages 18-59, and the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index increasing to 58.1% in July (Briefing.com consensus 55.2%) from 57.1% in June.

The news fed into the recovery/reopening optimism that lifted the cyclical S&P 500 industrials (+2.0%), materials (+1.5%), and financials (+1.5%) sectors into the top spots today. The big move in Novavax also kept the spirit alive in other momentum trades like in Amazon (AMZN 3205.03, +66.20, +2.1%), which carried the consumer discretionary sector (+1.4%) higher.

Walt Disney (DIS 127.61, +10.32, +8.8%) was the biggest gainer within the Dow, with shares climbing 9% after impressing shareholders with strong subscriber numbers for its streaming platform. The company also reported a surprise quarterly profit.

Laggards were found primarily in the defensive-oriented utilities (-1.3%), real estate (-0.6%), and consumer staples (-0.2%) sectors. Generally, it was also a tough day for growth stocks, except Square (SQ 146.20, +9.37, +6.9%), which rallied to fresh record highs following its earnings report.

Shares of Teladoc (TDOC 202.01, -47.41, -19.0%) and Livongo Health (LVGO 128.06, -16.47, -11.4%) pulled back sharply after the companies agreed to merge in a $18.5 billion cash-and-stock deal.

U.S. Treasuries retraced a bulk of the moves from Tuesday. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.11%, while the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.54%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 92.89. WTI crude futures gained 1.2%, or $0.56, to $42.24/bbl, hitting a five-month high in the process.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index increased to 58.1% in July (Briefing.com consensus 55.2%) from 57.1% in June. This was the third straight monthly improvement and the highest reading for the index since February 2019.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that the Employment Index fell even as business activity improved some, which suggests a reticence on the part of employers to bring on new employees given the heightened state of uncertainty about the demand outlook.
The Trade Balance report for June showed a narrowing of the trade deficit to $50.7 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$49.3 billion) from a downwardly revised $54.8 billion (from -$54.6 billion) in May.
The key takeaway from this more dated report is that export and import activity increased in June as economies were reopening following the suppressed activity from March to May.
The ADP Employment Change report for July estimated 167,000 jobs were added private-sector payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 1.600 million), which was well below expectations.
The June trade balance report showed a deficit of $50.7 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$53.0 billion). The May deficit was revised up to $54.8 billion from $54.6 billion.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +22.6% YTD
S&P 500 +3.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.3% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27201.52 +373.05 (1.39%)
Nasdaq 10998.47 +57.23 (0.52%)
SP 500 3327.77 +21.26 (0.64%)
10-yr Note -26/32 0.552
NYSE Adv 2041 Dec 923 Vol 899.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2201 Dec 1070 Vol 4.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Materials, Industrials, Consumer Discretionary, Energy
Weak: Real Estate, Utilities, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Cyclical and value-oriented stocks outperformed, leading S&P 500 to fourth straight advance

-- Positive developments on stimulus talks, vaccine progress, earnings reports

-- Walt Disney (DIS) climbs 9% after reporting strong subscriber numbers

-- ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for July increased more than expected

WTI crude hits 5-month high
05-Aug-20 15:30 ET
Dow +316.75 at 27145.22, Nasdaq +47.06 at 10988.30, S&P +18.60 at 3325.11

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.6% and is on pace to close higher for the fourth straight session.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows eight trading higher and three trading lower. Materials (+1.8%), industrials (+1.4%), and financials (+1.6%) remain in the lead as part of the cyclical trade today, while the utilities (-1.2%), real estate (-0.7%), and consumer staples (-0.4%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures hit a 5-month high but settled well off session highs with a 1.2% gain (+$0.56) at $42.24/bbl.

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Flat session to end the week
14-Aug-20 16:15 ET
Dow +34.30 at 27931.02, Nasdaq -23.20 at 11019.38, S&P -0.58 at 3372.85

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 finished flat on Friday and traded near its flat line all session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) and Russell 2000 (-0.1%) closed marginally lower.

Within the S&P 500, no sector gained or lost more than 1.0%, but the cyclical groups did see modest gains following a batch of mostly positive economic data. The energy (+0.9%), industrials (+0.4%), financials (+0.3%), and materials (+0.2%) sectors outperformed, while the utilities sector declined 0.9%.

Highlighting key economic reports, retail sales increased 1.2% in July (Briefing.com consensus 1.8%) and nonfarm labor productivity jumped 7.3% (Briefing.com consensus 3.5%) in the second quarter.

In the latest coronavirus relief news, President Trump said he was ready to send $105 billion to states for pandemic resources and "additional money" to states to pay government workers. Note, Democrats are looking for $915 billion in funding for state and local governments.

Separately, Reuters reported that Saturday's trade talks between U.S. and China have been delayed due to a scheduling conflict, but both sides are still expected to recommit to a deal. China reportedly increased purchases of U.S. oil shipments.

On the corporate front, McKesson (MCK 158.67, +6.48, +4.3%) partnered with the U.S. government for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, Applied Materials (AMAT 67.62, +2.55, +3.9%) provided positive quarterly results and upbeat guidance, and Tesla (TSLA 1650.71, +29.71, +1.8%) was upgraded to the equivalent of a Hold rating at BofA Securities and Morgan Stanley.

Most U.S. Treasuries finished slightly higher. The 2-yr yield declined three basis points to 0.13%, and the 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.71%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.3% to 93.10. WTI crude futures declined 0.5%, or $0.21, to $42.05/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's big batch of economic data:

Retail sales increased 1.2% in July (Briefing.com consensus 1.8%) after increasing a revised 8.4% (from 7.3%) in June. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 1.9% (Briefing.com consensus 1.4%) after increasing a revised 8.3% (from 7.3%) in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that while sales were shy of expectations in July, the upward revision to figures from June makes the report less disappointing on the whole.
Nonfarm business sector labor productivity jumped 7.3% in the second quarter (Briefing.com consensus 3.5%) after a revised 0.3% decrease (from -0.9%) in the first quarter. Unit labor costs increased 12.2% in the second quarter (Briefing.com consensus 5.5%) after increasing a revised 9.8% (from 5.1%) in the first quarter.
The key takeaway from the report is that while productivity improved significantly in Q2, the overall level of activity was sharply lower due to coronavirus-related shutdowns and restrictions. If sustained, the jump in labor costs could lead to some cost-push inflation.
Total industrial production increased 3.0% in July (Briefing.com consensus 2.9%) following a revised 5.7% increase (from 5.4%) in June. The capacity utilization rate improved to 70.6% (Briefing.com consensus 70.0%) from a revised rate of 68.5% (from 68.6%) in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that while total industrial production remains well below levels from a year ago, the production of motor vehicles and parts has largely recovered.
The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for August ticked up to 72.8 (Briefing.com consensus 70.5) from the final reading of 72.5 for July.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was little overall change from the preceding period. The University of Michigan provided a table showing consumer expectations by political affiliation, which showed a stark difference in expectations among those who identify as Republican (97.4) and Democrat (45.0). Expectations of respondents identifying as Independent were essentially in the middle (66.7).
Business inventories decreased 1.1% in June (Briefing.com consensus -1.3%) following an unrevised 2.3% decline in May.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for August, the NAHB Housing Market Index for August, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +22.8% YTD
S&P 500 +4.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.4% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27931.02 +34.30 (0.12%)
Nasdaq 11019.38 -23.20 (-0.21%)
SP 500 3372.85 -0.58 (-0.02%)
10-yr Note +1/32 0.712
NYSE Adv 1464 Dec 1446 Vol 715.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1539 Dec 1732 Vol 3.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Industrials, Energy, Financials, Materials
Weak: Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Flat session to end the week

-- Relatively positive economic data, cyclical sectors outperformed

-- Lighter-than-usual trading volume

WTI crude settles lower
14-Aug-20 15:25 ET
Dow -56.99 at 27839.73, Nasdaq -59.07 at 10983.51, S&P -9.53 at 3363.90

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 has slipped to session lows with a 0.3% decline. The Russell 2000 is down 0.2%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows the utilities sector down 1.0%, but interestingly it is the only sector up or down at least 1.0%. Evidently, there is little conviction among buyers or sellers today outside the utilities space.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.5%, or $0.21, to $42.05/bbl.

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S&P 500 Hits Fresh Record
21-Aug-20 16:15 ET
Dow +190.60 at 27930.33, Nasdaq +46.85 at 11311.80, S&P +11.65 at 3397.16

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market enjoyed another banner week, which ended with the S&P 500 (+0.3%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) at fresh record highs. The two indices gained 0.7% and 2.7% for the week, respectively. The Dow (+0.7%) outperformed today, ending the week unchanged.

While the Friday session ended on a firmly higher note, the bulk of the trading day saw the S&P 500 oscillate near its flat line. However, the technology sector (+1.2%) continued showing relative strength thanks to a big gain in Apple (AAPL 497.48, +24.38, +5.2%), which offered daylong support to the entire market.

Most of the remaining ten sectors spent the bulk of the day in negative territory, but the continued outperformance in technology emboldened some late buying elsewhere. As a result, only four sectors ended in the red with losses ranging from 0.3% (financials) to 0.6% (energy) while heavily-weighted groups like industrials (+0.3%) and consumer discretionary (+0.3%) recorded gains.

Industrials received a notable boost from Deere (DE 199.50, +8.40, +4.4%) after the company reported better than expected results for Q3 and issued net income guidance for the fiscal year. Transport stocks had a good showing, but the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.4%) still shed 0.2% for the week.

The consumer discretionary sector received some assistance from homebuilders after today's release of a stronger than expected Existing Home Sales report for July, which followed better than expected Housing Starts and Building Permits on Tuesday. The iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 56.59, +1.20, +2.2%) climbed to a fresh record high.

The energy sector was the day's worst performer, surrendering 6.3% for the week. Crude oil fell $0.31, or 0.7%, to $42.31/bbl, but gained $0.26, or 0.6%, for the week.

Treasuries ended mixed with shorter tenors ending lower while the long bond outperformed. The 10-yr note ended little changed with its yield at 0.64%.

Friday's news flow was limited, as lawmakers in Washington did not get any closer to reaching a fiscal stimulus deal while trade representatives from China and the U.S. will reportedly talk in the near future.

Today's economic data was limited to Existing Home Sales for July, which soared 24.7% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.86 million (Briefing.com consensus 5.39 million). That is the largest monthly increase on record, eclipsing the prior record seen in June. Total sales in July were up 8.7% from a year ago.

The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects robust demand for existing homes. That is constraining supply even further, which will be a pressure point that feeds higher prices and bolsters the prospects for new home sales.

Nasdaq Composite +26.1% YTD
S&P 500 +5.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.9% YTD

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Bulls retain control in another record-setting session
25-Aug-20 16:15 ET
Dow -60.02 at 28248.44, Nasdaq +86.75 at 11466.47, S&P +12.34 at 3443.62

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.4%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) rose to fresh record highs on Tuesday, as the market found continued support in the mega-caps following a disappointing consumer confidence report. The Russell 2000 increased 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.2%.

Six of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, while five closed lower. The communication services (+1.0%), health care (+0.7%), information technology (+0.5%), and consumer discretionary (+0.5%) sectors outperformed the benchmark index, while the energy (-1.4%) and utilities (-0.9%) sectors declined the most.

Value-oriented cyclical stocks briefly outperformed growth stocks in a continuation trade from yesterday, but this trade was quickly reversed after the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 84.8 in August (Briefing.com consensus 93.0) from 91.7 in July for its lowest reading since May 2014.

Presumably, there were some concerns that the decline in consumer confidence would translate to less consumer spending, absent another round of fiscal stimulus. In addition, the report overshadowed new home sales surging 13.9% m/m in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 901,000 (Briefing.com consensus 787,000).

Shares of mega-cap companies like Amazon (AMZN 3346.49, +39.03, +1.2%), Facebook (FB 280.82, +9.43, +3.5%), and Alphabet (GOOG 1608.22, +20.02, +1.3%), which have performed well throughout the pandemic, posted strong gains after a slow start. Apple (AAPL 499.30, -4.13, -0.8%) was a notable exception.

In key stock news, Salesforce (CRM 216.05, +7.59, +3.6%), Amgen (AMGN 248.22, +12.65, +5.4%), and Honeywell (HON 164.53, +5.16, +3.2%) will replace Exxon Mobil (XOM 40.89, -1.33, -3.2%), Pfizer (PFE 38.41, -0.43, -1.1%), and Raytheon Technologies (RTX 60.95, -0.93, -1.5%) in the Dow 30 index prior to the open on Aug. 31.

The new entrants into the Dow saw nice gains, while those leaving declined noticeably. Note, the change was enacted to account for Apple's 4:1 stock split, as its lower price would reduce the price-weighted Dow's exposure to the technology sector.

U.S. Treasuries finished the session mostly lower, with longer-dated maturities seeing a bulk of the losses. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.16%, and the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 0.68%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.3% to 93.01. WTI crude futures rose 1.7%, or $0.72, to $43.33/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index declined to 84.8 in August (Briefing.com consensus 93.0) from a downwardly revised 91.7 (from 92.6) in July. The August reading was the lowest reading for the index since May 2014.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that consumers' assessment of current conditions and the short-term outlook retrenched, reflecting most likely the real economic impact of the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits and difficult labor market conditions that will weigh on discretionary spending activity.
New home sales surged 13.9% m/m in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 901,000 (Briefing.com consensus 787,000). That was the strongest pace of sales since December 2006 and noticeably higher than the pre-pandemic pace of 774,000 seen in January.
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for June increased 3.5% (Briefing.com consensus 3.6%) following a revised 3.6% increase in May (from +3.7%).
The FHFA Housing Price Index for August increased 0.9% following a revised 0.2% decline (from -0.3%).

Looking ahead, investors will receive Durable Goods Orders for July and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +27.8% YTD
S&P 500 +6.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.8% YTD

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Financial stocks carry S&P 500 to new highs
27-Aug-20 16:15 ET
Dow +160.35 at 28492.27, Nasdaq -39.72 at 11625.34, S&P +5.82 at 3484.55

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.2% on Thursday, closing at another record high and touching the 3500 level for the first time in the process. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) and Russell 2000 (+0.3%) performed slightly better, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.3% after setting an all-time high earlier in the session.

Financial stocks were among today's biggest winners, benefiting from some curve-steepening activity after Fed Chair Powell outlined a shift towards an average inflation target. Under the new framework, the Fed would allow PCE inflation to run moderately beyond 2.0% over time to make up for years when it ran below 2.0%.

From a sector perspective, the S&P 500 financials sector finished atop the standings with a 1.7% gain, followed by real estate (+1.4%), health care (+0.8%), and consumer staples (+0.6%). The communication services (-1.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.7%), and materials (-0.2%) sectors were the lone holdouts.

Other positive factors today included reports that Microsoft (MSFT 226.58, +5.43, +2.5%) and Walmart (WMT 136.63, +5.93, +4.5%) are teaming up to possibly acquire TikTok US, and Abbott Labs (ABT 111.29, +8.10, +7.9%) receiving emergency use authorization from the FDA for its $5.00, 15-minute COVID-19 antigen test.

Mega-cap growth stocks had a relatively weak outing today after an incredibly strong performance yesterday. Microsoft was an exception, of course, and so was Tesla (TSLA 2238.75, +85.58, +4.0%).

As an aside, Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) reportedly said stimulus talks remained at a stalemate, which may have been a contributing factor in the market's brief dip into negative territory around 1:00 p.m. ET. The market, however, swiftly rebounded into positive territory.

Recapping the moves in the Treasury market, the 2-yr yield finished flat at 0.16%, while the 10-yr yield increased six basis points to 0.75% as investors sold longer-dated bonds following Fed Chair Powell's speech. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 93.03. WTI crude futures declined 0.8%, or $0.36, to $43.03/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending August 22 were roughly in-line with expectations, decreasing by 98,000 to 1.006 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.000 million). Continuing claims for the week ending August 15 decreased by 223,000 to 14.535 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that the labor market, while recovering, is still fractured in a big way that is not conducive for strong and sustained economic growth.
The second estimate for Q2 GDP showed output decreased at an annualized rate of 31.7% (Briefing.com consensus -32.9%) versus the advance estimate of -32.9%. The GDP price index was down 2.0% (Briefing.com consensus -1.8%) versus the advance estimate of -1.8%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the upward revision doesn't change the fact that the COVID crisis triggered the biggest downturn for the U.S. economy on record.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Personal Income and Spending report for July, the final Univ. of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for August, and Wholesale Inventories for July on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +29.6% YTD
S&P 500 +7.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.2% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28492.27 +160.35 (0.57%)
Nasdaq 11625.34 -39.72 (-0.34%)
SP 500 3484.55 +5.82 (0.17%)
10-yr Note -27/32 0.746
NYSE Adv 1648 Dec 1289 Vol 777.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1578 Dec 1760 Vol 3.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Real Estate, Consumer Staples
Weak: Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Materials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 closes at another record high

-- Fed Chair Powell outlined new policy framework for an average inflation target

-- Treasury curve steepens, financial stocks outperformed

-- Mega-cap growth stocks generally underperformed

WTI crude settles lower
27-Aug-20 15:25 ET
Dow +282.90 at 28614.82, Nasdaq +14.14 at 11679.20, S&P +19.02 at 3497.75

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is back near session highs with a 0.6% gain. The Russell 2000 is up 0.5%.

One last glance at the S&P 500 sectors shows nine trading higher and two trading lower. Financials (+2.1%), real estate (+1.6%), and health care (+1.2%) are the only groups trading above 1.0%, while the communication services (-0.9%) and consumer discretionary (-0.3%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.8%, or $0.36, to $43.03/bbl.

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S&P 500 notches sixth straight record high
28-Aug-20 16:15 ET
Dow +161.60 at 28653.87, Nasdaq +70.30 at 11695.64, S&P +23.46 at 3508.01

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.7% on Friday for its sixth straight record-setting advance. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.6% to close at a record high, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.9%.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in positive territory, with energy (+1.9%) and materials (+1.1%) rising more than 1.0%. The information technology sector (+1.0%) was next in line, but it was perhaps the most influential gainer today given its top-weighted position in the S&P 500. The health care sector (+0.2%) lagged.

In the tech space, Workday (WDAY 243.88, +27.25, +12.6%), HP Inc. (HPQ 19.85, +1.15, +6.2%), Dell (DELL 66.21, +3.78, +6.1%), and VMware (VMW 146.09, +3.19, +2.2%) stood out as earnings winners. Semiconductor stocks also chipped in a solid outing, evident by the 2.0% increase in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

There was no one specific catalyst today, but investors did receive another batch of better-than-expected economic data that helped broaden out the gains.

For July, personal income increased 0.4% m/m (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%) and personal spending rose 1.9% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +1.5%). The final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for August ticked up to 74.1 (Briefing.com consensus 72.8) from the preliminary reading of 72.8.

The data provided some fuel for the reopening stocks like casinos, airlines, cruise lines, and hotels. Shares of MGM Resorts (MGM 23.86, +1.05, +4.6%) rose nearly 5%, even as the company announced plans to lay off 18,000 furloughed employees as a result of the pandemic.

U.S. Treasuries finished mixed. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.73%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.7% to 92.32. WTI crude futures declined 0.1% to $42.97/bbl. The CBOE Volatility Index declined 6.2% to 22.96 after touching 26.30 at its intraday high.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Personal income increased 0.4% m/m in July (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%), which was much better than expected, and personal spending rose 1.9% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +1.5%), which was also much better than expected. The PCE Price Index and core-PCE Price Index both increased 0.3% m/m and were weaker than expected increases of 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively. That left the PCE Price Index up 1.0% yr/yr, versus 0.9% in June, and the core PCE Price Index up 1.3% yr/yr, versus 1.1% in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that the income gain was driven by an increase in compensation (+1.3% m/m), which more than offset a 1.7% m/m decrease in personal current transfer receipts. In other words, the income gain was driven by people returning to work as the economy reopened.
The final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for August ticked up to 74.1 (Briefing.com consensus 72.8) from the preliminary reading of 72.8. The final reading for July was 72.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer sentiment has been slow to rebound and that the incremental improvement seen has been based simply on the view that things couldn't get worse than they were at the depths of the shutdown period.
The Chicago PMI for August decreased to 51.2 from 51.9 in July.
Wholesale inventories decreased 0.1% in July following a revised 1.3% decline in June (from -1.4%).

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +30.4% YTD
S&P 500 +8.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.4% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28653.87 +161.60 (0.57%)
Nasdaq 11695.64 +70.30 (0.60%)
SP 500 3508.01 +23.46 (0.67%)
10-yr Note +2/32 0.737
NYSE Adv 2056 Dec 914 Vol 789.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2176 Dec 1105 Vol 3.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Energy, Materials, Industrials
Weak: Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Another record-setting performance

-- Gains broadened out amid better-than-expected economic data

-- Tech sector remained an influential leader

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Bull market finds broad participation
02-Sep-20 16:20 ET
Dow +454.84 at 29090.50, Nasdaq +116.78 at 12056.45, S&P +54.19 at 3580.84

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.5% on Wednesday for its 22nd record close of the year, as the bull market found strong support from a wide range of equities. The Nasdaq Composite also set new records with a 1.0% gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.6%, and the Russell 2000 rose 0.9%.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in positive territory, with gains ranging from 0.9% (information technology) to 3.1% (utilities). Only the energy sector (-0.4%) closed lower, largely due to the decline in oil prices ($41.54/bbl, -1.22, -2.9%).

Today was an impressive day not just because of the index gains, but because sentiment wasn't deterred by the profit taking in Apple (AAPL 131.40, -2.78, -2.1%), Tesla (TSLA 447.37, -27.68, -5.8%), and Zoom Video (ZM 423.56, -34.13, -7.5%).

There were no new macro catalysts to explain today's record-setting performance, so one could reasonably assume that a fear of missing out, momentum trading, coronavirus optimism, or the Fed might have continued to play key roles. On a related note, the Fed's Beige Book observed an improvement in activity for most Districts into August.

Street-high analyst calls were other positive factors. BoA Securities raised its price target on NVIDIA (NVDA 573.86, +21.02, +3.8%) to $650 from $600, Cowen raised its price target on Costco (COST 358.86, +7.48, +2.1%) to $410 from $370, and JP Morgan raised its price target on Peloton (PTON 91.06, +7.39, +8.8%) to $105 from $58.

Interestingly, optimism in the growth outlook might not have played a role in today's gains. For instance, the U.S. Treasury curve experienced some curve-flattening activity due to an uptick in longer-dated Treasuries. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.13%, while the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.65%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.4% to 92.67.

Some might have blamed the relatively underwhelming ADP Employment Change report, which estimated 428,000 jobs were added private-sector payrolls in August, versus the Briefing.com consensus of 1.210 million.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Factory orders in July increased 6.4% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 5.7%) following an upwardly revised 6.4% increase (from 6.2%) in June. This is the third straight monthly increase in factory orders following a 13.5% decline in April and an 11.0% decline in March.
The key takeaway from the report is the affirmation that business spending picked up in July, evidenced by a 1.9% increase in new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft that was unchanged from the Advance Durable Goods Orders report.
The ADP Employment Change Report for August showed a slowdown from the pace of rehiring activity seen in May and June. To that end, it was estimated that 428,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index declined 2.0% following a 6.5% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for August, the Trade Balance report for July, and the revised Q2 Productivity and Unit Labor Costs on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +34.4% YTD
S&P 500 +10.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.6% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29090.50 +454.84 (1.59%)
Nasdaq 12056.45 +116.78 (0.98%)
SP 500 3580.84 +54.19 (1.54%)
10-yr Note +3/32 0.644
NYSE Adv 1920 Dec 1014 Vol 885.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1957 Dec 1353 Vol 3.9 bln

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Tough day for stocks, mega-caps led retreat
08-Sep-20 16:10 ET
Dow -632.42 at 27490.89, Nasdaq -465.44 at 10847.70, S&P -95.12 at 3331.84

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 2.8% on Tuesday in a broad-based retreat led by the mega-cap stocks. The Nasdaq Composite underperformed with a 4.1% decline, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-2.3%) and Russell 2000 (-2.0%) declined closer to 2.0%.

Today's selling was largely a continuation of last week, but unlike Friday, buyers appeared unwilling to buy the dip. Apple (AAPL 112.82, -8.14, -6.7%) and Tesla (TSLA 330.21, -88.11, -21.1%), which led the market on the way up, led the market lower today, with Tesla shareholders discontent that the S&P 500 Index Committee snubbed the stock from the benchmark index.

Tesla's 21% decline was a drag on the Nasdaq, while Apple's 7% decline pressured the large-cap indices and the S&P 500 information technology sector (-4.6%). The energy (-3.7%) and financials (-2.6%) sectors followed suit amid weaker oil prices ($36.76/bbl, -2.94, -7.4%) and lower Treasury yields, while the utilities sector (-0.6%) declined the least.

Besides concerns that the market's pullback had more room to go, investors had to contend with Democratic leadership rebuffing the Senate's $300 billion coronavirus relief bill, President Trump suggesting disincentives for U.S. companies to outsource jobs to China, and reports that China's largest semiconductor foundry could be added to a trade blacklist.

The prospect of potential retaliation on U.S. semiconductor companies was an additional drag on the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-4.7%). Separately, Boeing (BA 161.08, -9.97, -5.8%) provided a disappointing update, saying 787 Dreamliner production problems have slowed the pace of deliveries.

There were some notable winners, though. Nikola (NKLA 50.05, +14.50, +40.8%) and General Motors (GM 32.38, +2.38, +7.9%) formed a strategic partnership that was well-received by investors. Walt Disney (DIS 134.20, +2.21, +1.7%) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.

U.S. Treasuries saw increased buying interest amid the decline in equities but closed off highs. The 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.14%, and the 10-yr yield declined four basis points to 0.68%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.8% to 93.46. Oil prices were pressured by Saudi Aramco lowering its prices for buyers in Asia and the U.S. due to sluggish demand.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Consumer credit increased by $12.3 billion in July (Briefing.com consensus $12.0 billion) after increasing an upwardly revised $11.4 bln (from $8.95 billion) in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that July marked the fifth straight monthly contraction in revolving credit, which is something that hasn't happened since late 2010 - early 2011, underscoring the more restrictive credit stance adopted by lenders in the wake of the COVID shutdown and spike in unemployment.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for August increased to 100.2 from 98.8 in July.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the JOLTS - Job Openings report for July on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +20.9% YTD
S&P 500 +3.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -9.8% YTD

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Stocks snap losing streak, rebound broadly
09-Sep-20 16:15 ET


Dow +439.58 at 27930.47, Nasdaq +293.87 at 11141.57, S&P +67.12 at 3398.96

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update


[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rebounded 2.0% on Wednesday amid gains across all 11 of its sectors, although the market did lose some steam into the close. The Nasdaq Composite rose 2.7% amid strength in technology stocks, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.6%) and Russell 2000 (+1.5%) underperformed.

Eight sectors advanced more than 1.0%, but the 3.4% gain in the information technology sector was the most influential given its top-weighted position in the S&P 500. Note, it was also the sector that led the market lower yesterday.

The materials (+2.6%) and consumer discretionary (+2.3%) sectors also outpaced the benchmark index, while the energy sector (+0.6%) was today's laggard despite a 3.5% gain in oil prices ($38.05/bbl, +$1.29).

Today's rebound was largely described as a technical bounce following a three-day period in which the S&P 500 fell 7% from its record high and the Nasdaq fell 10% from its record high. There were no fundamental news catalyzing the buying activity, and there were several negative-sounding headlines that the market brushed aside.

To name a few, AstraZeneca (AZN 53.64, -1.07, -2.0%) paused its COVID-19 vaccine trial in the UK due to a serious adverse reaction in a patient, there was some reported pessimism in Washington regarding another coronavirus relief package before the election, and several airlines remained cautious about the travel demand outlook.

Separately, shares of lululemon athletica (LULU 323.93, -25.87, -7.4%) and Slack (WORK 25.24, -4.08, -13.9%) fell 7% and 14%, respectively, despite providing better-than-expected earnings reports.

U.S. Treasuries ended the session mixed. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.13%, while the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.70%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 93.24.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

July job openings increased to 6.618 mln from a revised 6.001 mln in June (from 5.889 mln).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 2.9% following a 2.0% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Producer Price Index for August, and Wholesale Inventories for July on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +24.2% YTD
S&P 500 +5.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -8.5% YTD


Market Snapshot
Dow 27930.47 +439.58 (1.60%)
Nasdaq 11141.57 +293.87 (2.71%)
SP 500 3398.96 +67.12 (2.01%)
10-yr Note -2/32 0.698

NYSE Adv 2188 Dec 768 Vol 867.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2258 Dec 1058 Vol 3.5 bln

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Broad-based gains spurred by M&A activity, vaccine optimism
14-Sep-20 16:15 ET

Dow +327.69 at 27983.33, Nasdaq +203.11 at 11056.66, S&P +42.57 at 3383.54

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.3% on Monday, as a spate of corporate deals and encouraging vaccine news helped the market rebound from back-to-back weekly declines. The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.9%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.2%. The Russell 2000 outperformed with a 2.7% gain.

The gains were broad and steady, with all 11 S&P 500 sectors finishing in positive territory, including seven that rose at least 1.0%. The information technology sector's 2.1% gain was the most influential, but the real estate sector (+2.2%) eked out the top spot. The communication services sector (+0.1%) underperformed.

Starting with the key M&A news, NVIDIA (NVDA 514.89, +28.31, +5.8%) agreed to acquire Arm Holdings from Softbank for $40 bln in cash and stock; Gilead Sciences (GILD 66.34, +1.44, +2.2%) agreed to acquire Immunomedics (IMMU 83.65, +41.40, +98.0%) for about $21 bln, or $88.00 per share, in cash; and Verizon (VZ 60.32, +0.53, +0.9%) agreed to acquire Tracfone for $6.25 bln in cash and stock.

Separately, Oracle (ORCL 59.46, +2.46, +4.3%) reportedly formed a partnership with TikToK U.S. after Microsoft's (MSFT 205.41, +1.38, +0.7%) acquisition bid was rejected. Walt Disney's (DIS 131.20, -0.55, -0.4%) ESPN entered into two separate multi-year agreements with Caesars Entertainment (CZR 55.39, +5.28, +10.5%) and DraftKings (DKNG 48.62, +7.16, +17.3%).

As for today's dose of vaccine news, AstraZeneca (AZN 54.02, +0.29, +0.5%) resumed its COVID-19 vaccine trials in the UK. Pfizer (PFE 37.01, +0.94, +2.6%) for its part reiterated expectations to have conclusive results from its Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial in October while also planning to expand enrollment.

Citigroup (C 48.15, -2.85, -5.6%) was a notable laggard after its CFO issued a revenue warning and The Wall Street Journal reported that the company could get reprimanded for failing to improve its risk-management systems. Shares of Citigroup fell 5.6%, versus a 1.3% gain in the S&P 500 financials sector.

The U.S. Treasury market was rather quiet today despite the bullish action in the stock market. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.14%, and the 10-yr yield was flat at 0.67%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.3% to 93.06. WTI crude futures decreased 0.3%, or $0.12, to $37.22/bbl.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead to Tuesday, investors will receive Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for August, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for September, and Import and Export Prices for August.

Nasdaq Composite +23.2% YTD
S&P 500 +4.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.9% YTD


Market Snapshot
Dow 27983.33 +327.69 (1.18%)
Nasdaq 11056.66 +203.11 (1.87%)
SP 500 3383.54 +42.57 (1.27%)
10-yr Note -1/32 0.679

NYSE Adv 2416 Dec 572 Vol 860.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2599 Dec 731 Vol 3.7 bln

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Stocks suffer steep losses as investors raise cash
23-Sep-20 16:15 ET
Dow -525.05 at 26753.13, Nasdaq -330.65 at 10633.01, S&P -78.65 at 3236.92

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 dropped 2.4% on Wednesday in a broad-based retreat that reflected cash-raising efforts. The Nasdaq Composite fell 3.0%, the Russell 2000 fell 3.0%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.9%.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed sharply lower between 1.1% (health care) and 4.6% (energy), and traditional safe-haven assets did not see the usual appreciation in times of equity weakness. U.S. Treasuries were little changed, gold futures fell 2.0% to $1868.90/ozt, and the Japanese yen fell 0.5% against the dollar (94.35, +0.36, +0.4%).

It didn't start this way. The session had begun on a high note, as the market reacted positively to Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 144.44, +0.23, +0.2%) advancing its COVID-19 vaccine candidate to Phase 3 trials and Nike (NKE 127.11, +10.24, +8.8%) blowing past quarterly results and raising its FY21 revenue guidance.

An initial weakness in the mega-cap stocks, however, gradually spilled over to the broader market, and the negative price action appeared to reinforce the idea that the market's recent pullback may not yet have run its course. The CBOE Volatility Index increased 6.4% to 28.58, which was a relatively modest gain.

Losses steepened in the afternoon without much interest to buy the dip. Shares of Apple (AAPL 107.12, -4.69, -4.2%) fell 4% while Tesla (TSLA 380.36, -43.87, -10.3%) fell 10% post-Battery Day. On a related note, UBS resumed coverage on Apple with a Neutral rating, versus a prior Buy rating.

Separately, the House passed a government funding bill through Dec. 11 that the Senate is expected to pass later this week. Notwithstanding this piece of good news, general uncertainty surrounding the election, the coronavirus, and the economy likely increased the cash appeal.

U.S. Treasuries, as previously mentioned, finished near their flat lines. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.13%, and the 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.68%. WTI crude futures gained 1.0%, or $0.39, to $39.94/bbl but retraced those gains after the settlement time.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The FHFA Housing Price Index for September increased 1.0% following an upwardly revised 1.0% increase in August (from +0.9%).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 6.8% following a 2.5% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and New Home Sales for August on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +18.5% YTD
S&P 500 +0.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -6.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -13.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 26753.13 -525.05 (-1.92%)
Nasdaq 10633.01 -330.65 (-3.02%)
SP 500 3236.92 -78.65 (-2.37%)
10-yr Note 0/32 0.674
NYSE Adv 318 Dec 2648 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 523 Dec 2852 Vol 4.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care
Weak: Information Technology, Energy, Communication Services, Materials

Moving the Market

-- Stocks suffer steep losses amid general uncertainty, cash-raising efforts

-- Broad-based retreat, mega-caps were an influential drag

-- Encouraging vaccine update from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)

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Stocks close lower ahead of presidential debate
29-Sep-20 16:15 ET
Dow -131.40 at 27442.66, Nasdaq -32.28 at 11085.27, S&P -16.13 at 3335.47

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.5% on Tuesday in a relatively lackluster session. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%), and Russell 2000 (-0.4%) didn't stray too far away from the benchmark index.

The session was lackluster in the sense that there appeared to be a tacit agreement among participants to restrain conviction until tonight's presidential debate. Trading volume was lighter than usual. In another sense, today was a consolidation day following a two-day rebound in the market.

Sellers, meanwhile, made their presence known in the S&P 500 energy (-2.7%) and financials (-1.2%) sectors, more so the energy space given its outsized decline amid weaker oil prices ($39.20, -1.34, -3.3%). The communication services sector (+0.3%) was the only sector that closed higher, thanks to a 2% gain in Facebook (FB 261.79, +4.97, +1.9%).

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+0.2%) also eked out a gain. Micron (MU 50.71, +0.99, +2.0%) rose 2% ahead of its earnings report after the close.

In other developments, the S&P 500's 50-day moving average (3355) provided technical resistance for the second straight day, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index jumped to 101.8 in September (Briefing.com consensus 88.5) from an upwardly revised 86.3 (from 84.8) in August, and House Democrats introduced a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill.

While the $2.2 trillion price tag is still considered too high by Republicans, reports indicated that House Speaker Pelosi will continue talks with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin on Wednesday. With that said, the lack of a fiscal relief bill did not suppress consumer confidence this month due to an improving economy and lower coronavirus infection rates.

Elsewhere, defensive positions were taken in U.S. Treasuries, which pushed yields lower, and gold futures ($1903.20, +21.20, +1.1%). The 2-yr yield declined three basis points to 0.11%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.65%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.4% to 93.91.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index jumped to 101.8 in September (Briefing.com consensus 88.5) from an upwardly revised 86.3 (from 84.8) in August. In February 2020, the index stood at 132.6.
The key takeaway from the report is the disclosure that consumers, bolstered by improved business and labor market conditions, expressed greater optimism about their short-term financial prospects, which could be a welcome support factor for consumer spending activity in the fourth quarter.
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 3.9% in July (Briefing.com consensus 3.9%) following a 3.5% increase in June.
The advance international trade in goods deficit totaled $82.9 bln in August following a $80.1 bln deficit in July. Advance wholesale inventories increased 0.5% in August following a 0.1% decline in July. Advance retail inventories increased 0.9% following a revised 1.2% increase in July (from +0.6%).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ADP Employment Change Report for September, the Chicago PMI for September, the third estimate for Q2 GDP, Pending Home Sales for August, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +23.6% YTD
S&P 500 +3.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -9.8% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27442.66 -131.40 (-0.48%)
Nasdaq 11085.27 -32.28 (-0.29%)
SP 500 3335.47 -16.13 (-0.48%)
10-yr Note +2/32 0.645
NYSE Adv 1105 Dec 1876 Vol 701.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1637 Dec 1764 Vol 3.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Communication Services, Utilities
Weak: Energy, Financials, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Stock market trades lower after rising sharply over past two sessions

-- Wait-and-see mindset ahead of tonight's presidential debate

-- Trading volume was lighter than usual

WTI crude falls back below $40/bbl
29-Sep-20 15:30 ET
Dow -69.29 at 27504.77, Nasdaq -22.87 at 11094.68, S&P -9.71 at 3341.89

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade lower by 0.3% and has traded lower for most of the session.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy down 2.5%, easily claiming today's laggard position over the financials sector (-0.8%). The utilities (+0.3%), communication services (+0.2%), and health care (+0.1%) sectors edge higher.

WTI crude futures settled back below $40/bbl, falling 3.3% (-$1.34) to $39.20/bbl.

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Down day for large-caps after President Trump tests positive for coronavirus
02-Oct-20 16:15 ET
Dow -134.09 at 27672.81, Nasdaq -251.59 at 11074.94, S&P -32.38 at 3348.42

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.0% on Friday, but it was down as much as 1.7% after President Trump said he tested positive for COVID-19. Stimulus optimism boosted many value/cyclical stocks, which partially offset weakness in the information technology sector (-2.6%).

The Nasdaq Composite underperformed with a 2.2% decline, clipped by steep losses in mega-caps like Apple (AAPL 113.02, -3.77, -3.2%) and Tesla (TSLA 415.09, -33.07, -7.4%). The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.5%, while the Russell 2000 gained 0.5%.

Generally, the market was caught up in the uncertainty on what President Trump's diagnosis would mean for the economy and other political issues. House Speaker Pelosi said the situation changed the dynamic on fiscal relief, which some investors interpreted a motivating factor to get a deal done, especially after a relatively disappointing September employment report.

Cyclical sectors showed relative outperformance early in the day and later gained steam on hopeful-sounding stimulus commentary that suggested Ms. Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin were making serious progress towards a deal. Talks could continue this weekend with differences still remaining.

The industrials (+1.1%), energy (+1.0%), materials (+0.8%), and financials (+0.7%) sectors represented the cyclical gains. The real estate sector (+1.6%) advanced the most, though. Conversely, the same enthusiasm didn't apply to the mega-caps and other technology stocks, which outperformed the previous day.

Touching on the jobs data, which was understandably drowned out in today's health concerns and stimulus news, the headline nonfarm payrolls figure was 661,000 (Briefing.com consensus 800,000). The unemployment rate declined to 7.9% (Briefing.com consensus 8.2%) from 8.4% in August, but the labor force participation rate fell to 61.4% from 61.7%.

Longer-dated Treasuries moved higher following the report but pulled back into negative territory during the day. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.13%, and the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.70% after touching 0.65% at its low. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 93.84.

In other interesting developments, the S&P 500 closed below its 50-day moving average (3362), and WTI crude futures dropped 4.3%, or $1.66, to $37.05/bbl -- but the weaker prices didn't drag on the energy stocks.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The September employment report was relatively disappointing. Granted the unemployment rate dropped to 7.9% from 8.4%, but the offset to that seemingly good news is that the labor force participation rate fell to 61.4% from 61.7%. September nonfarm payrolls increased by 661,000 (Briefing.com consensus 800,000).
The key takeaway from the report is that it will contribute to concerns that the labor market recovery process is becoming more arduous and that the risk of permanent job losses is increasing with the absence of a stimulus plan and lower aggregate demand at small businesses.
The final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for September ticked up to 80.4 (Briefing.com consensus 79.0) from the preliminary reading of 78.9. The final reading for August was 74.1.
The key takeaway from the report is that the improvement was attributed largely to improved attitudes about the outlook for the economy among upper-income households.
Factory orders in August increased 0.7% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%) following an upwardly revised 6.5% increase (from 6.4%) in July.
The key takeaway from the report is the affirmation that business spending continued to increase in August, evidenced by a 1.9% increase in new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, versus a 2.6% increase in July.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for September on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +23.4% YTD
S&P 500 +3.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27672.81 -134.09 (-0.48%)
Nasdaq 11074.94 -251.59 (-2.22%)
SP 500 3348.42 -32.38 (-0.96%)
10-yr Note -1/32 0.692
NYSE Adv 1866 Dec 1135 Vol 901.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1609 Dec 1675 Vol 3.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Industrials, Financials, Energy, Real Estate, Utilities
Weak: Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Down day for large-caps after President Trump tests positive for COVID-19

-- Hopeful-sounding stimulus commentary boosts value/cyclical stocks

-- Pronounced weakness in the information technology sector

-- September nonfarm payrolls increased by 661,000 (Briefing.com consensus 800,000), unemployment rate was 7.9% (Briefing.com consensus 8.2%)

WTI crude drops 4%, but energy stocks still outperforming
02-Oct-20 15:30 ET
Dow -42.91 at 27763.99, Nasdaq -213.68 at 11112.85, S&P -20.71 at 3360.09

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade lower by 0.6% in a mixed trading session. Advancing issues outpace declining issues at the NYSE but not in the Nasdaq.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows the top-weighted information technology down 2.2%, which is weighing heavily on the performance of the benchmark index. Conversely, the energy (+1.4%), materials (+1.4%), real estate (+1.6%), and utilities (+1.4%) sectors are up the most.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by 4.3%, or $1.66, to $37.05/bbl.

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Stocks rise and Treasuries fall in risk-on day
05-Oct-20 16:15 ET
Dow +465.83 at 28138.64, Nasdaq +257.47 at 11332.41, S&P +60.18 at 3408.60

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.8% on Monday in a risk-on trade, as investors received positive news on President Trump's health, stimulus talks, and economic data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.7%) kept pace with the benchmark index, but the advantage today belonged to the Nasdaq Composite (+2.3%) and Russell 2000 (+2.8%).

Briefly, President Trump said he would leave the hospital tonight after responding well to several coronavirus treatments, including one from Regeneron (REGN 605.08, +40.28, +7.1%); House Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin reportedly made progress on relief talks; and the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for September increased to 57.8% (Briefing.com consensus 55.6%) from 56.9% in August.

The news cycle fueled a growth mindset that lifted all 11 S&P 500 sectors into positive territory, boosted small-cap stocks, buoyed crude prices ($39.29/bbl, +2.24, +6.1%) by 6%, and steepened the U.S. Treasury yield curve amid selling in longer-dated maturities.

The energy (+2.9%), information technology (+2.3%), and health care (+2.1%) sectors claimed today's leadership positions with gains over 2.0%. The real estate sector underperformed with a 0.6% gain, but the rate-sensitive space had traded lower for most of the session amid the higher Treasury yields.

The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.14%, while the 10-yr yield rose six basis points to 0.76% -- its highest closing level since June. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.4% to 93.46.

Another positive factor for trading sentiment was the S&P 500 clearing its 50-day moving average (3365) at the open and never looking back the rest of the session. The benchmark index also topped the 3400 level for the first time since mid-September.

In corporate news, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY 59.20, +0.48, +0.8%) agreed to acquire MyoKardia (MYOK 220.34, +80.74, +57.8%) for approximately $13 billion, or $225.00/share, in cash.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for September increased to 57.8% (Briefing.com consensus 55.6%) from 56.9% in August. Notably, the September index eclipsed the 57.3% reading registered in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that it had all the right undertones to promote recovery views: new orders increased, the backlog of orders decreased, supplier deliveries slowed, prices were up, albeit at a slower pace, and employment levels grew following six months of contraction.
The Markit Services PMI for September increased to 54.6 from 55.0 in August.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Trade Balance report for August and the JOLTS - Job Openings report for August on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +26.3% YTD
S&P 500 +5.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.2% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28138.64 +465.83 (1.68%)
Nasdaq 11332.41 +257.47 (2.32%)
SP 500 3408.60 +60.18 (1.80%)
10-yr Note -29/32 0.771
NYSE Adv 2255 Dec 763 Vol 849.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2584 Dec 889 Vol 3.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Information Technology, Health Care, Materials
Weak: Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Risk-on day following positive news on President Trump's health, stimulus talks, economic data

-- Strength in the energy, technology, and health care sectors

-- WTI crude futures rebound 6%, Treasury curve steepens due to selling on longer-end of curve

WTI crude futures rebound 6%
05-Oct-20 15:25 ET
Dow +450.93 at 28123.74, Nasdaq +240.98 at 11315.92, S&P +57.82 at 3406.24

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at fresh session highs with a 1.7% gain and above the 3400 level.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows all 11 groups trading higher, with real estate (+0.4%) emerging into positive territory this afternoon. The energy (+2.4%), materials (+2.2%), information technology (+2.1%), and health care (+2.1%) sectors are up more than 2.0%.

Energy stocks are drawing additional support from the sharp increase in oil prices. WTI crude futures settled sharply higher by 6.1%, or $2.24, to $39.29/bbl.

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Stocks fall on disappointing stimulus news
06-Oct-20 16:20 ET
Dow -375.88 at 27762.76, Nasdaq -177.88 at 11154.53, S&P -47.66 at 3360.94

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.4% on Tuesday after President Trump said he called off stimulus negotiations until after the election. Prior to the news, the benchmark index was up 0.7% late in the day amid leadership from its cyclical sectors on growing expectations for a fiscal relief bill.

The Nasdaq Composite declined 1.6%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.3%. The Russell 2000 declined just 0.3% after rallying as much as 2.4% intraday.

Specifically, President Trump said the Republican $1.6 trillion bill was "very generous" but was upset that House Speaker Pelosi was not negotiating in "good faith." Whether the president felt emboldened by the rising stock market to flex a negotiating tactic is debatable, but the prospect of waiting even longer for stimulus because of political wrangling was detrimental for sentiment and stock performance.

The energy sector, which was up as much as 2.0% amid higher oil prices ($40.67/bbl, +1.38, +3.5%), relinquished its leadership position and declined 1.5%. The influential losses, however, came from the information technology (-1.6%), consumer discretionary (-2.1%), and communication services (-2.0%) sectors due to the daylong underperformance in their mega-cap components.

Investors returned to the Treasury market where longer-dated yields had been on the rise on stimulus hopes. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.15%, while the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.74% after touching 0.79% at its intraday high. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 93.70.

Fed Chair Powell made it clear today, if not already, of the need for further fiscal relief. There is still hope among some investors that the president will change his tune, and it's worth pointing out the S&P 500 remained positive for the week. The benchmark index, however, did close back below its 50-day moving average (3368).

Separately, Boeing (BA 159.54, -11.66, -6.8%) and General Electric (GE 6.17, -0.24, -3.7%) were pressured by additional headwinds. Boeing cut its demand forecast for commercial airplanes in the next decade by 11%, versus 2019 estimates. GE disclosed the SEC could take action against the company for possible violations of securities laws.

NVIDIA (NVDA 549.46, +3.76, +0.7%) was a notable exception today after its price target was raised to $650 from $565 at BMO Capital Markets.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The trade deficit widened to $67.1 billion in August (Briefing.com consensus -$66.2 billion) from an upwardly revised $63.4 billion (from -$63.6 billion) in July. The widening deficit was a function of imports increasing more than exports.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that it reflects a pickup in trade activity from the pandemic lows, yet it is also a reminder of just how damaging the pandemic has been on trade activity. Year-over-year, average exports decreased $44.8 billion from the three months ending August 2019 while average imports decreased $34.7 billion.
August job openings decreased to 6.493 mln from a revised 6.697 mln in July (from 6.618 mln).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the FOMC Minutes from the Sept. 15-16 meeting, Consumer Credit for August, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +24.3% YTD
S&P 500 +4.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -5.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27762.76 -375.88 (-1.34%)
Nasdaq 11154.53 -177.88 (-1.57%)
SP 500 3360.94 -47.66 (-1.40%)
10-yr Note +4/32 0.747
NYSE Adv 1158 Dec 1818 Vol 992.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1394 Dec 1945 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Information Technology, Energy

Moving the Market

-- Stocks fall after President Trump said he called off stimulus negotiations until after election

-- Mega-caps underperformed all session, well before the disappointing stimulus news

-- Small-caps outperformed on a relative basis

WTI crude future settle above $40 per barrel
06-Oct-20 15:25 ET
Dow -339.94 at 27798.70, Nasdaq -156.47 at 11175.94, S&P -42.75 at 3365.85

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.3% and is trading near session lows. The Russell 2000 is down 0.1% after trading higher by more than 2.0% a short time ago.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows consumer discretionary (-2.0%), energy (-1.5%), and communication services (-1.8%) leading the decline, while the utilities sector (+0.6%) continues to outperform in positive territory. The energy sector was up 2.0% earlier.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 3.5%, or $1.38, to $40.67/bbl. Prices have retraced some gains after the President's stimulus tweet.

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Value stocks led the way on Thursday
08-Oct-20 16:20 ET
Dow +122.05 at 28425.45, Nasdaq +56.38 at 11420.91, S&P +27.38 at 3446.82

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.8% on Thursday in a broad-based advance led by the value stocks. The Russell 2000 (+1.1%) outperformed once again, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) posted more modest gains.

Today felt like one of those lackluster days in a bull market in which nothing spectacular happened, but the net sum of developments helped preserve sentiment and trading momentum. News that House Speaker Pelosi will not support a standalone bill for airlines unless the White House commits to a larger stimulus package had the potential to rattle markets, but it didn't.

Airline stocks did decline from prior highs, but still closed higher like every sector in the S&P 500. Leadership was transferred to the value-oriented energy (+3.8%), utilities (+1.8%), real estate (+1.6%), and financials (+1.4%) sectors. The information technology sector (+0.5%) was an influential laggard.

IBM (IBM 131.49, +7.42, +6.0%) and the semiconductor stocks kept the tech sector afloat. IBM rose 6% after announcing plans to spin off its IT infrastructure unit, so it could focus on its hybrid cloud growth strategy. Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM 87.80, +0.88, +1.0%) sparked buying interest in the chip space after reporting strong revenue growth in September.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 1.2% and got an added boost from On Semiconductor (ON 26.04, +2.69, +11.5%) after Starboard Value added the stock to its portfolio.

In other positive developments, crude prices ($41.18/bbl, +$1.22, +3.1%) rose 3%, Regeneron (REGN 599.88, +8.19, +1.4%) requested emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 antibody therapy, and Boeing (BA 168.00, +3.39, +2.1%) was reported to be in talks with Alaska Airlines (ALK 38.63, +1.61, +4.4%) for a potential 737 Max order.

Separately, Morgan Stanley (MS 49.00, +0.29, +0.6%) said it will acquire Eaton Vance (EV 60.65, +19.71, +48.1%) for approximately $7 billion, or $56.50 per share, in cash and stock.

U.S. Treasuries edged higher in a steady advance despite the gains in equities, which meant yields moved lower. The 2-yr yield decline two basis points to 0.13%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.77%. The U.S. Dollar Index finished little changed at 93.59.

Thursday's economic data featured the weekly initial claims report, which didn't produce any headline surprises:

Initial claims for the week ending October 3 decreased by 9,000 to 840,000 (Briefing.com consensus 830,000) from an upwardly revised 849,000 (from 837,000) in the prior week. Continuing claims for the week ending September 26 decreased by 1.003 million to 10.976 million from an upwardly revised 11.979 million (from 11.767 million) in the prior week.
The key takeaway from the report is that it isn't a complete picture since California is working through backlogged claims, but setting that point aside, the number of initial claims at this juncture is still exceedingly high and indicative of the ongoing demand challenges faced by U.S. businesses.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Wholesale Inventories for August on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +27.3% YTD
S&P 500 +6.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.4% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28425.45 +122.05 (0.43%)
Nasdaq 11420.91 +56.38 (0.50%)
SP 500 3446.82 +27.38 (0.80%)
10-yr Note +3/32 0.766
NYSE Adv 2267 Dec 747 Vol 798.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2273 Dec 1132 Vol 3.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Real Estate, Financials, Utilities
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Value stocks led broad-based advance

-- Encouraging round of corporate news supported recovery/coronavirus treatment optimism

-- Market was not bothered by negative-sounding stimulus news

WTI crude rallied 3%
08-Oct-20 15:25 ET
Dow +94.69 at 28398.09, Nasdaq +46.45 at 11410.98, S&P +24.94 at 3444.38

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.7% and is now up 2.8% this week. The gains remain broad, although there are some tech laggards like Apple (AAPL 114.89, -0.19, -0.2%).

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows four sectors up at least 1.0%, including a 3.6% gain in the energy sector. The information technology sector is a rare underperformer with a 0.3% gain, which has limited today's index gains.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 3.1%, or $1.22, to $41.18/bbl.

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Market snaps winning streak amid sell-the-news events
13-Oct-20 16:15 ET

Dow -157.71 at 28679.75, Nasdaq -12.36 at 11863.83, S&P -22.29 at 3511.93

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices snapped four-session winning streaks on Tuesday, as discouraging health developments and cautious-minded commentary from high-profile banks tempered investor enthusiasm. The S&P 500 (-0.6%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-0.7%) declined around 0.6%, while Nasdaq Composite declined 0.1%.

Weakness was found primarily in value-oriented and cyclical sectors like financials (-1.9%), real estate (-1.7%), energy (-1.6%), and industrials (-1.1%). The communication services (+0.3%) and consumer discretionary (+0.03%) sectors closed slightly higher.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM 100.78, -1.66, -1.6%), Citigroup (C 43.63, -2.25, -4.9%), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 148.36, -3.48, -2.3%) kicked off the Q3 earnings-reporting season with better-than-expected quarterly results, but their reports were a seeming afterthought for the market.

That's because JPMorgan said another fiscal relief package, which has been elusive, would simply improve the odds of better economic outcomes; Citigroup said it expects a somewhat more muted and slower recovery in both unemployment and GDP through 2022; and JNJ paused its COVID-19 vaccine trials due to an unexpected illness in a patient.

The S&P 500 fell to session lows (-0.9%) shortly after it was reported that Eli Lilly (LLY 150.08, -4.41, -2.9%) paused its antibody trial for safety reasons, but the benchmark index found support at the 3500 level.

For some perspective, the set-up wasn't good for the banks or the market. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 32.25, -0.95, -2.9%) was up 17.7% since Sept. 23, versus a 9.2% gain in the S&P 500, suggesting there might have been a sell-the-news mindset. The same could be said of Apple (AAPL 121.10, -3.30), which declined 2.7% after it rose more than 6% yesterday in front of today's iPhone 12 event.

Within the communication services sector, Walt Disney (DIS 128.96, +3.99, +3.2%) announced a strategic reorganization for its media and entertainment businesses while Netflix (NFLX 554.09, +14.28, +2.7%) reportedly removed free trial offerings for U.S. subscribers. Shareholders liked both news.

U.S. Treasuries ended the session with gains that caused some curve-flattening activity. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield declined five basis points to 0.73%. The U.S. Dollar Index gained 0.5% to 93.53. WTI crude futures increased 2.2%, or $0.85, to $40.19/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Total CPI and core CPI, which excludes food energy, were both up 0.2% m/m in September, as expected. That left the yr/yr readings at 1.4% and 1.7%, respectively, which is to say they are hanging on the Fed's average 2.0% inflation target like a wet blanket.
The key takeaway from the report is that there are pockets of inflation excess, but overall, the inflation rate isn't going to be ringing any tightening alarm bells at the Federal Reserve.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index increased 104.0 in September following a 100.2 reading in August.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for September, the Fed Beige Book for September, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +32.2% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.9% YTD

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Stocks stage rebound from early lows
15-Oct-20 16:15 ET
Dow -19.80 at 28494.14, Nasdaq -54.86 at 11713.80, S&P -5.33 at 3483.34

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 battled back from an early 1.4% decline on Thursday to close lower by just 0.2%. Value-oriented stocks led the rebound effort at the expense of their growth-oriented peers, evident by the 1.1% gain in the Russell 2000 and 0.5% decline in the Nasdaq Composite.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.1%, while one of its lowest-priced components in Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 37.64, +1.73, +4.8%) rose 5% following its earnings report.

The early weakness was attributed to ostensible growth concerns caused by renewed lockdowns in Europe amid rising cases of coronavirus and by a 53,000 increase in weekly jobless claims to 898,000 (Briefing.com consensus 830,000). In addition, disappointing revenue guidance from Fastly (FSLY 89.70, -33.48, -27.2%) did take some steam out of many growth-oriented stocks.

Investors, however, steadily bought the dip throughout the day that lifted every sector off its low and notably pushed the S&P 500 energy (+1.2%), financials (+0.8%), real estate (+0.5%), and industrials (+0.4%) sectors into positive territory. Note, these sectors are among five S&P 500 sectors still down for the year.

The information technology (-0.4%), communication services (-0.7%), and health care (-0.7%) sectors were among the day's laggards.

Earnings-driven gains in Morgan Stanley (MS 51.33, +0.68, +1.3%) and Charles Schwab (SCHW 39.03, +1.91, +5.2%) provided the lift for the financials sector, which had struggled this week amid lackluster/disappointing reactions to previous earnings reports. United Airlines (UAL 34.25, -1.36, -3.8%) reported worse-than-expected results, which kept the airline stocks grounded today.

U.S. Treasuries finished near their flat lines after starting the session with modest gains. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.13%, and the 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.73%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.5% to 93.83 amid relative weakness in the British pound. WTI crude futures declined 0.2%, or $0.06, to $40.96/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial claims for the week ending October 10 increased by 53,000 to 898,000 (Briefing.com consensus 830,000). Continuing claims for the week ending October 3 declined by 1.165 million to 10.018 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that the exceedingly high level of initial claims will contribute to the view that the recovery in the labor market is slowing and speaks to the need for more stimulus to keep it from getting worse.
The Philadelphia Fed Index climbed to 32.3 in October (Briefing.com consensus 16.0) from 15.0 in September.
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for October decreased to 10.5 (Briefing.com consensus 14.0) following the prior month's reading of 17.0.
Import prices increased 0.3% in September; and prices excluding oil increased 0.6%. Export prices increased 0.6% in September; and prices excluding agriculture increased 0.3%.

Looking ahead to Friday, investors will receive Retail Sales for September, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for September, the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for October, Business Inventories for August, and Net Long-term TIC Flows for August.

Nasdaq Composite +30.6% YTD
S&P 500 +7.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.8% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28494.14 -19.80 (-0.07%)
Nasdaq 11713.80 -54.86 (-0.47%)
SP 500 3483.34 -5.33 (-0.15%)
10-yr Note 0/32 0.730
NYSE Adv 1698 Dec 1306 Vol 758.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1850 Dec 1532 Vol 3.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Financials, Energy, Industrials
Weak: Information Technology, Communication Services, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Stocks staged rebound off early lows

-- Value stocks outperformed growth stocks

-- Growth concerns were attributed to the early weakness

WTI crude futures settle slightly lower
15-Oct-20 15:30 ET
Dow +4.16 at 28518.10, Nasdaq -36.61 at 11732.05, S&P -2.93 at 3485.74

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is now down just 0.1% after being down as much as 1.4% early in the day. The rebound effort has been steady throughout the day.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+0.6%), financials (+0.7%), and real estate (+0.8%) up the most, followed by modest gains in four other sectors. The health care (-0.7%) and communication services (-0.6%) sectors still underperform but are only down modestly.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.2%, or $0.06, to $40.96/bbl.

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Stocks edged higher ahead of stimulus update
20-Oct-20 16:20 ET
Dow +113.37 at 28308.73, Nasdaq +37.61 at 11516.42, S&P +16.20 at 3443.12

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.5% on Tuesday, although it was up as much as 1.5% ahead of a stimulus meeting between House Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. The Nasdaq Composite increased 0.3%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.4%, and the Russell 2000 increased 0.3%.

Yesterday reports suggested a stimulus deal wasn't looking imminent, but comments from the House Speaker after Monday's close provided the market hope that both sides would get something done soon. Senate Majority Leader McConnell said he would bring a presidentially supported bill to the floor if it passes the House but reportedly wants a deal after the election.

Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Mnuchin were still negotiating at market's close, which may have caused some hedging activity for any disappointment. Nevertheless, ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors still closed higher, led by the energy (+1.2%), financials (+0.8%), and communication services (+0.8%) sectors, while the consumer staples sector (-0.1%) closed lower.

Energy stocks benefited from higher oil prices ($41.51/bbl, +0.67, +1.6%); financial stocks benefited from curve-steepening activity due to selling on the longer-end of the curve; and Alphabet (GOOG 1555.93, +21.32, +1.4%) was a bright spot in the communication services sector despite the Department of Justice filing an antitrust lawsuit against Google.

Other measures of support included commentary that Moderna's (MRNA 71.31, +0.35, +0.5%) COVID-19 vaccine could be available in December, encouraging housing starts and building permits data for September, and better-than-expected earnings reports from Dow components Procter & Gamble (PG 142.48, +0.57, +0.4%) and Travelers (TRV 118.11, +6.27, +5.6%).

Conversely, notable earnings-related laggards included IBM (IBM 117.37, -8.15, -6.5%) and Philip Morris International (PM 73.33, -4.51, -5.8%). Intel (INTC 53.43, -1.15, -2.1%) struggled after confirming it will sell its NAND memory business to SK Hynix for $9 billion.

Recapping the moves in the Treasury market, selling in longer-dated maturities drove yields higher on the prospects that a large stimulus package would spur economic growth/inflation. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.15%, while the 10-yr yield rose four basis points to 0.80%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.4% to 93.08.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Total housing starts increased 1.9% m/m in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.415 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.430 million). Total building permits jumped 5.2% m/m to 1.553 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.510 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that there was robust growth in both single-unit starts (+8.5% m/m) and permits (+7.8% m/m), which reflects underlying strength in the market for single-family homes.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the Fed Beige Book for September on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +28.4% YTD
S&P 500 +6.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28308.73 +113.37 (0.40%)
Nasdaq 11516.42 +37.61 (0.33%)
SP 500 3443.12 +16.20 (0.47%)
10-yr Note -2/32 0.796
NYSE Adv 2002 Dec 953 Vol 755.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1835 Dec 1562 Vol 3.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Energy, Communication Services
Weak: Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Stocks edged higher ahead of stimulus update

-- Earnings reports were mostly better than expected

-- Energy and financial stocks outperformed amid higher oil prices, curve-steepening activity

WTI crude futures settle higher to support energy stocks
20-Oct-20 15:25 ET
Dow +152.09 at 28347.45, Nasdaq +56.13 at 11534.94, S&P +21.92 at 3448.84

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.5% to further decline from prior highs as the stimulus meeting between House Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin gets underway.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+1.1%) claiming today's top spot and is the only sector trading higher by at least 1.0%. The consumer staples sector (-0.1%) trades lower amid a disappointing earnings reaction in Philip Morris International (PM 73.46, -4.35, -5.6%).

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.6%, or $0.67, to $41.51/bbl. The higher oil prices have provided the energy sector a boost.

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Negative day, except for the mega-caps and the Nasdaq
27-Oct-20 16:15 ET
Dow -222.19 at 27463.13, Nasdaq +72.41 at 11431.28, S&P -10.29 at 3390.68

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.3% on Tuesday in a tight-ranged session. The mega-cap stocks had a strong outing that fueled the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%), while many of the value/cyclical stocks dragged on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.8%) and Russell 2000 (-0.9%).

New macro developments were lacking, and earnings reactions were generally disappointing, leaving investors grappling with the same growth/coronavirus concerns that were attributed to yesterday's retreat. The key difference today was that these concerns were manifested in a more constructive way: decent gains in the mega-caps.

Accordingly, the S&P 500 consumer discretionary (+0.6%), communication services (+0.6%), and information technology (+0.5%) sectors finished in positive territory. Microsoft (MSFT 213.25, +3.17, +1.5%) provided support for the tech sector ahead of its earnings report after the close.

No other sector within the benchmark index closed higher, and the cyclical industrials (-2.2%), financials (-1.9%), energy (-1.4%), and materials (-1.0%) sectors declined at least 1.0%.

Caterpillar (CAT 157.91, -5.29, -3.2%) and 3M (MMM 161.04, -5.12, -3.1%) were notable drags on the industrials sector after the companies refrained from providing guidance. Health care companies Pfizer (PFE 37.42, -0.50, -1.3%), Merck (MRK 77.99, -0.85, -1.1%), and Eli Lilly (LLY 131.90, -23.29, -5.6%) issued in-line/upside guidance, but shares still closed lower.

Separately, Xilinx (XLNX 124.35, +9.80, +8.6%) agreed to be acquired by Adv. Micro Devices (AMD 78.88, -3.35, -4.1%) in an all-stock transaction valued at $35 billion. Exact Sciences (EXAS 131.12, +24.22, +23.0%) said it will acquire Thrive for up to $2.15 billion in cash and stock.

U.S. Treasuries padded recent gains, pushing yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.78%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 92.96. WTI crude futures rebounded 2.5%, or $0.97, to $39.55/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Total durable orders increased 1.9% m/m in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) following a downwardly revised 0.4% increase (from 0.5%) in August. Excluding transportation, durable orders rose 0.8% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) on top of an upwardly revised 1.0% increase (from 0.7%) in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that business spending continued to rebound, evidenced by the fifth consecutive increase in nondefense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft, which jumped 1.0% after increasing 2.1% in August.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index slipped to 100.9 in October (Briefing.com consensus 101.9) from a downwardly revised 101.3 (from 101.8) in September.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers are feeling less confident about the short-term outlook, as the rise in coronavirus cases and still-high unemployment levels have contributed to concerns about job prospects.
The FHFA Housing Price Index for October increased 1.5% (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%).
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for August increased 5.2% (Briefing.com consensus 3.8%).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +27.4% YTD
S&P 500 +5.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -4.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27463.13 -222.19 (-0.80%)
Nasdaq 11431.28 +72.41 (0.64%)
SP 500 3390.68 -10.29 (-0.30%)
10-yr Note +3/32 0.777
NYSE Adv 915 Dec 2058 Vol 795.7 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1328 Dec 2099 Vol 3.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Communication Services
Weak: Energy, Industrials, Financials, Materials, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Growth concerns persisted

-- Earnings reactions were generally disappointing

-- Mega-cap stocks outperformed at expense of the cyclical stocks

WTI crude rebounds, but not the energy sector
27-Oct-20 15:25 ET
Dow -159.91 at 27525.41, Nasdaq +67.42 at 11426.29, S&P -5.13 at 3395.84

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading just below its flat line, while the Nasdaq is trading higher by 0.6%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors information technology (+0.6%), consumer discretionary (+0.4%), and communication services (+0.4%) still trading higher and supporting the market; conversely, the industrials (-1.9%), financials (-1.5%), and materials (-0.7%) sectors lag.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.5%, or $0.97, to $39.55/bbl. Today was a solid rebound effort after prices fell more than 3.0% yesterday, but that hasn't translated to a higher energy sector (-0.7%).

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Large-cap growth stocks lift market higher after Election Day
04-Nov-20 16:15 ET
Dow +367.63 at 27847.60, Nasdaq +430.21 at 11590.71, S&P +74.42 at 3443.58

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied 2.2% on Wednesday, as the prospect of a divided Congress appeared to outweigh the fact that there was no presidential winner announced. The Nasdaq Composite rallied 3.9% amid strength in its mega-cap/growth components. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.3% while the Russell 2000 increased just 0.1%.

The votes were still being counted by the market close, but the consensus was that the Democrats would retain majority in the House and the Republicans would retain majority in the Senate. Presumably, there were expectations that a massive stimulus bill, an increase in the capital gains tax rate, or a Medicare for All public option would not pass in Congress.

Furthermore, the presidential outcome uncertainty threatens to delay a potentially smaller-than-hoped stimulus deal, although Senate Majority Leader McConnell said a stimulus package should be passed by the end of the year. A delayed/smaller stimulus deal could mean a slower economic recovery, which would benefit growth stocks over cyclical stocks.

Accordingly, the health care (+4.5%), communication services (+4.3%), information technology (+3.8%), and consumer discretionary (+3.1%) sectors did the heavy lifting, while the materials (-1.7%), utilities (-1.6%), financials (-1.3%), and industrials (-1.0%) sectors closed sharply lower.

Longer-dated Treasuries rallied alongside the growth-oriented stocks amid the recovery concerns and election uncertainty. The resulting curve-flattening activity was a headwind for the banks due to the possibility of reduced net interest income. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 33.08, -1.88, -5.4%) dropped 5.4%.

The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield declined 11 basis points to 0.77%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 93.49. WTI crude futures rose 4.1%, or $1.54, to $39.16/bbl.

Separately, shares of Uber (UBER 40.99, +5.22, +14.6%) and Lyft (LYFT 29.19, +2.96, +11.3%) jumped after California voters passed Proposition 22, allowing app-based drivers to be classified as contractors instead of employees. Biogen (BIIB 355.63, +108.62, +44.0%) surged 44% after the FDA published a positive report on the company's Alzheimer's drug.

Note, former Vice President Joe Biden led President Trump 237-214 in the delegate count as of 4:00 p.m. ET, according to The New York Times. Risk sentiment might have tempered in the afternoon for any surprises tonight or tomorrow.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for October checked in at 56.6% (Briefing.com consensus 57.3%), versus 57.8% in September. October marked the fifth straight reading above 50.0% -- the dividing line between expansion and contraction -- but it was the lowest reading since May.
The key takeaway from the report is that it points to an ongoing expansion in the services sector, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than the prior month.
The trade deficit for September narrowed to $63.9 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$64.4 billion) from $67.0 billion in August, as export growth ($4.4 billion) outpaced import growth ($1.2 billion). The key takeaway from the report is that global trade activity improved, evidenced by the uptick in both exports and imports in September, yet that improvement belies the major hit to global trade activity amid the pandemic, evidenced by the fact that exports decreased 17.4% year-to-date to $329.0 billion while imports decreased 12.4% to $290.4 billion.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.8% following a 1.7% increase in the prior week.
The ADP Employment Change report for October estimated 365,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 600,000). The September reading was revised higher to 753,000 from 749,000.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the FOMC Rate Decision, and preliminary Q3 Productivity and Unit Labor Costs on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +29.2% YTD
S&P 500 +3.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.2% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 27847.60 +367.63 (1.34%)
Nasdaq 11590.71 +430.21 (3.85%)
SP 500 3443.58 +74.42 (2.21%)
10-yr Note +11/32 0.777
NYSE Adv 1651 Dec 1376 Vol 994.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1768 Dec 1551 Vol 3.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Communication Services, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Materials, Financials, Utilities, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Expectations that Congress will remain divided outweighed the fact that there was no presidential winner announced

-- Large-cap growth stocks outperformed at the expense of the cyclical/small-cap stocks

-- Longer-dated Treasuries rallied amid recovery concerns attributed to potentially delayed/smaller stimulus deal

WTI crude futures rise 4%
04-Nov-20 15:25 ET
Dow +457.23 at 27937.20, Nasdaq +423.68 at 11584.18, S&P +81.91 at 3451.07

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 2.4% after trading as high as 3.5% earlier today.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows health care (+4.4%), communication services (+4.1%), information technology (+3.9%), and consumer discretionary (+3.2%) still in the lead. Conversely, the materials (-1.6%), utilities (-1.2%), industrials (-0.6%), and financials (-0.6%) sectors have returned into negative territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 4.1%, or $1.54, to $39.16/bbl.

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Election week remains bullish for stocks
05-Nov-20 16:15 ET
Dow +542.52 at 28390.12, Nasdaq +300.15 at 11890.86, S&P +67.01 at 3510.59

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 2.0% on Thursday in a continuation of the market's rebound rally this election week. The Nasdaq Composite (+2.6%) and Russell 2000 (+2.8%) outpaced the benchmark index by a comfortable margin while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.0%) finished in-line.

The gains were more broad-based this time around, with value stocks rising alongside growth stocks after a strong open. Each of the 11 S&P 500 sectors started in positive territory, but only the energy sector (-0.04%) finished lower.

The information technology sector rose 3.1%, boosted by its semiconductor components following Qualcomm's (QCOM 145.41, +16.44, +12.8%) strong earnings report and upbeat guidance. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed 4.4%. The materials sector (+4.1%) was the best-performing sector, though.

Presumably, the market remained pleased by the prospect of a divided Congress, meaning it would be difficult to pass new legislation like higher taxes. Regarding the presidential election, there was still no projected winner, but former Vice President Biden led President Trump 253-214 in the delegate count, according to The New York Times.

In addition, the bullish price action likely exacerbated a fear of missing out on further gains, particularly among investors who sold the market last week. Today's advance increased the S&P 500's weekly gain to 7.4% after falling 5.6% last week.

Separately, there were no surprises in the FOMC policy statement or Fed Chair Powell's press conference. The fed funds rate was left unchanged as widely expected. Mr. Powell said the current pace of asset purchases remained appropriate for the current situation but added that the voting committee discussed options if more accommodation is needed.

Treasury yields were subdued all session following yesterday's rally in longer-dated tenors, which was another supporting factor for growth stocks. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.78%.

The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.9% to 92.58, which aided gold futures ($1946.90, +51.90, +2.7%) but not crude futures ($38.75, -0.41, -1.1%).

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which featured the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report:

Initial jobless claims decreased by 7,000 for the week ending October 31 to 751,000 (Briefing.com consensus 735,000). Continuing claims for the week ending October 24 decreased by 538,000 to 7.285 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that initial jobless claims continue to run at very high levels that connote ongoing, and difficult, challenges for the labor market's recovery path.
Productivity in the third quarter increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.9% (Briefing.com consensus 4.0%) on top of an upwardly revised 10.6% increase (from 10.1%) in the second quarter. Unit labor costs decreased 8.9% (Briefing.com consensus -9.6%) following a downwardly revised 8.5% increase (from 9.0%) in the second quarter.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects the strong rebound in the third quarter, as the economy rebounded from the depths of the pandemic-related shutdown.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for October, Consumer Credit for September, and Wholesale Inventories for September on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +32.5% YTD
S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -0.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 28390.12 +542.52 (1.95%)
Nasdaq 11890.86 +300.15 (2.59%)
SP 500 3510.59 +67.01 (1.95%)
10-yr Note 0/32 0.774
NYSE Adv 2418 Dec 593 Vol 927.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2618 Dec 795 Vol 3.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Information Technology, Industrials, Financials
Weak: Energy, Real Estate, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Stocks bolstered weekly gains in mostly broad-based advance

-- Lingering optimism about possibility of divided Congress

-- FOMC kept rates unchanged as expected; pace of asset purchases unchanged

-- Fear of missing out on further gains

WTI crude settles lower despite weaker dollar
05-Nov-20 15:30 ET
Dow +564.29 at 28411.89, Nasdaq +310.29 at 11901.00, S&P +74.56 at 3518.14

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 2.2% following Fed Chair Powell's press conference, which did not yield any surprises. Market reaction was muted.

One last sector update shows materials (+4.6%), information technology (+3.1%), and financials (+2.7%) leading with solid gains, while the energy (+0.7%) and real estate (+0.7%) sectors trail with more modest gains.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.1%, or $0.41, to $38.75/bbl. The decline came despite a weaker dollar (92.58, -0.82, -0.9%).

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New records set on Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine news
09-Nov-20 16:20 ET
Dow +834.57 at 29157.91, Nasdaq -181.45 at 11713.71, S&P +41.06 at 3550.64

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced as much as 3.9% on Monday after Pfizer (PFE 39.20, +2.80, +7.7%) and BioNTech (BNTX 104.80, +12.80, +13.9%) announced that their collaborative COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective in patients without evidence of prior infection. Investors took profits, though, leaving the benchmark index up 1.2% for the session.

Investors also rotated out of growth stocks and into value/cyclical/small-cap stocks, which benefited the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+3.0%) and Russell 2000 (+3.7%) at the expense of the Nasdaq Composite (-1.5%). Each index set new intraday highs shortly after the open, but gradually retraced gains throughout the day and into the close.

Pfizer and BioNTech plan to request FDA emergency use authorization for their two-dose vaccine later this month, providing hope that the economy can return to pre-pandemic levels in 2021 and re-instill a sense of normalcy. Distressed cyclical sectors were the biggest beneficiaries of this hopeful thinking.

The energy (+14.2%) and financials (+8.2%) sectors finished comfortably atop the leaderboard, aided by noticeably higher oil prices ($40.31, +3.17, +8.5%) and curve-steepening activity caused by selling in longer-dated Treasuries. The consumer discretionary (-1.6%), information technology (-0.7%), consumer staples (-0.5%), and communication services (-0.3%) sectors closed lower.

The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.18%, while the 10-yr yield increased 11 basis points to 0.96%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.6% to 92.82.

In other important news, Joe Biden was projected the winner of the U.S. presidential election, although President Trump did not concede and said he would file legal challenges. Note, media reports indicated that Mr. Trump would unlikely succeed in overturning the election results.

It's worth mentioning that at one point today, the S&P 500 was up as much as 11.5% in less than six sessions. Presumably, that left it primed for profit taking amid an understanding that the market still has to get through the new wave of coronavirus and uncertainty surrounding another stimulus package.

Separately, McDonald's (MCD 213.22, -3.34, -1.5%) beat EPS estimates and said it will test a plant-based burger in several markets. Biogen (BIIB 236.26, -92.64, -28.2%) shares plunged 28% after the FDA's Advisory Committee rebuked the company's Alzheimer's drug. V.F. Corp (VFC 77.81, +7.80, +11.1%) agreed to acquire Supreme for $2.1 billion.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead, investors will receive the JOLTS - Job Openings report on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +30.6% YTD
S&P 500 +9.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +2.2% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29157.91 +834.57 (2.95%)
Nasdaq 11713.71 -181.45 (-1.53%)
SP 500 3550.64 +41.06 (1.17%)
10-yr Note -11/32 0.929
NYSE Adv 2381 Dec 674 Vol 1.7 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2269 Dec 1142 Vol 5.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Real Estate, Materials
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Consumer Staples, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Record highs after Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BTNX) announced their COVID-19 vaccine candidate is more than 90% effective

-- Profit-taking leaves major indices well off session highs

-- Joe Biden projected the winner of the presidential election

-- Cyclical stocks and oil prices rallied; growth stocks underperformed; Treasury yields rose

WTI crude futures rally 8.5% on growth optimism
09-Nov-20 15:25 ET
Dow +1202.30 at 29525.64, Nasdaq -21.75 at 11873.41, S&P +86.90 at 3596.48

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade near its lower levels of the day with a 2.4% gain. Recall, it was up 3.9% in the opening minutes of trading.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (+15.7%) and financials (+9.5%) still way in the lead, followed by industrials (+4.7%) and real estate (+4.2%). The consumer discretionary sector is down 0.3%.

WTI crude futures settled sharply higher by 8.5%, or $3.17, to $40.31/bbl.

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S&P 500 and Nasdaq find strength outside the cyclicals
11-Nov-20 16:15 ET
Dow -23.29 at 29397.57, Nasdaq +232.57 at 11786.35, S&P +27.13 at 3572.80

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.8% on Wednesday, guided by renewed leadership in the mega-cap/growth stocks at the expense of the cyclical stocks that had outperformed recently. The Nasdaq Composite, powered by its mega-cap components, rose 2.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) and Russell 2000 (-0.01%) closed fractionally lower.

The market's outlook in having improved economic and earnings growth in 2021 remained intact, but the current circumstances appeared to temper enthusiasm amid an absence of positive catalysts. Namely, the record number of daily coronavirus cases/hospitalizations in the U.S. and the sizable monthly gains in the cyclical sectors despite this.

In turn, the materials (-1.4%), industrials (-0.9%), energy (-0.8%), and financials (-0.5%) sectors succumbed to minor profit-taking interest. Fortunately, the market was able to withstand the profit taking in cyclical stocks since cash appeared to flow back into the influential technology stocks and other defensive-oriented sectors.

Specifically, the information technology (+2.4%) and consumer discretionary (+1.5%) sectors meaningfully outperformed the broader market, followed by respectable gains in the consumer staples (+0.9%) and real estate (+0.8%) sectors.

The S&P 500 had a good shot at closing at a new high today, briefly surpassing its Sept. 2 closing high (3580.84), but the inability to stay above the prior closing high was a technical factor that worked against trading sentiment.

Separately, Goldman Sachs remained bullish on equities, forecasting the S&P 500 to hit 4300 by the end of 2021. The call was based on expectations that a COVID-19 vaccine would reopen the economy and a divided government would provide stability and no increase in taxes.

The U.S. Treasury market was closed for Veterans Day, leaving the 10-yr yield at 0.98% following yesterday's settlement price. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 92.99. WTI crude futures increased 0.3%, or $0.12, to $41.49/bbl.

Wednesday's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which decreased 0.5% following a 3.8% increase in the prior week. Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for October, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and the Treasury Budget for October on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +31.4% YTD
S&P 500 +3.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +4.1% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29397.57 -23.29 (-0.08%)
Nasdaq 11786.35 +232.57 (2.01%)
SP 500 3572.80 +27.13 (0.77%)
10-yr Note +2/32 0.979

NYSE Adv 1526 Dec 1474 Vol 925.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1917 Dec 1498 Vol 3.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples

Weak: Energy, Industrials, Financials, Materials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq find strength outside the cyclicals stocks, namely the mega-cap/growth stocks

-- Lingering coronavirus concerns and profit taking in cyclical sectors

-- Goldman Sachs bullish on equities, forecasts 4300 in the S&P 500 by the end of 2021

Resistance at prior closing high
11-Nov-20 15:30 ET
Dow -102.89 at 29317.97, Nasdaq +199.31 at 11753.09, S&P +17.78 at 3563.45

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade modestly higher by 0.4%. Note, the S&P 500 briefly topped its closing record high of 3580.84 earlier today before retracing its advance.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows mixed results. The heavily-weighted information technology (+2.2%) and consumer discretionary (+1.1%) sectors continue to support the benchmark index, but losses in the materials (-1.9%), energy (-1.5%), industrials (-1.2%), and financials (-1.0%) sectors are limiting their impact.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.3%, or $0.12, to $41.49/bbl.

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New closing highs following Moderna vaccine data
16-Nov-20 16:15 ET
Dow +470.63 at 29950.38, Nasdaq +94.84 at 11924.05, S&P +41.76 at 3627.05

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+1.2%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.6%), and Russell 2000 (+2.4%) closed at fresh record highs on Monday after Moderna (MRNA 97.95, +8.56, +9.6%) said its COVID-19 vaccine was 94.5% effective. The Nasdaq Composite was the relative underperformer with a 0.8% gain.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors contributed to the advance, led once again by the cyclical energy (+6.5%), industrials (+2.5%), financials (+2.3%), and materials (+2.0%) sectors. The health care sector (-0.2%) bucked the positive trend amid influential weakness in Pfizer (PFE 37.36, -1.26, -3.3%), which announced comparably effective vaccine data last week.

The prospects of having more than one vaccine in 2021 for mainstream use strengthened the market's view that next year will feature improved economic and earnings growth. That's why the small-caps and economically-sensitive sectors, which had noticeably underperformed prior to November, extended their recent outperformance today.

Many of the growth stocks underperformed but held up relatively well despite the cyclical/value leadership. The semiconductor stocks, for example, drew support from reports that Taiwan Semi (TSM 99.27, +6.05, +6.5%) is expanding production capacity to meet high demand from chip companies. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained 2.5%.

Today also featured some smaller M&A deals that were conducive for risk sentiment. Home Depot (HD 279.57, +2.40, +0.9%) agreed to acquire HD Supply (HDS 55.77, +10.96, +24.5%) for $56.00 per share, or about $8 billion, in cash. PNC (PNC 126.29, +3.51, +2.9%) agreed to acquire BBVA USA Bancshares for $11.6 billion in cash.

U.S. Treasuries had more reserved reactions to the positive vaccine news from Moderna, with yields closing slightly higher. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.18%, and the 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.90%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 92.59. WTI crude futures rose 3.0%, or $1.22, to $41.34/bbl.

Monday's economic data was limited to the Empire State Manufacturing Survey, which decreased to 6.3 in November (Briefing.com consensus 14.0) from 10.5 in October.

Looking ahead to Tuesday, investors will receive Retail Sales for October, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for October, the NAHB Housing Market Index for November, Import and Export Prices for October, Import and Export Prices for October, Business Inventories for September, and Net Long-term TIC Flows for September.

Nasdaq Composite +32.9% YTD
S&P 500 +12.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29950.38 +470.63 (1.60%)
Nasdaq 11924.05 +94.84 (0.80%)
SP 500 3627.05 +41.76 (1.16%)
10-yr Note -1/32 0.907
NYSE Adv 2502 Dec 543 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2462 Dec 1001 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Materials, Industrials
Weak: Health Care, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Moderna (MRNA) said its COVID-19 vaccine is 94.5% effective, according to interim Phase 3 data

-- Cyclical, value, and small-cap stocks outperformed; health care sector bucked the positive trend

-- S&P 500, Dow, and Russell 2000 closed at record highs

WTI crude futures gain 3%
16-Nov-20 15:25 ET
Dow +376.35 at 29856.10, Nasdaq +64.09 at 11893.30, S&P +31.40 at 3616.69

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.9% amid gains across ten of its 11 sectors.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+6.1%), industrials (+2.1%), and financials (+1.7%) still outperforming the broader market, while the health care sector (-0.3%) continues to struggle below its flat line.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 3.0%, or $1.22, to $41.34/bbl.

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Cool-down day
17-Nov-20 16:15 ET
Dow -167.09 at 29783.29, Nasdaq -24.79 at 11899.26, S&P -17.38 at 3609.67

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.5% on Tuesday in a cool-down session following its recent record-setting run. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%) also closed modestly lower, while the Russell 2000 (+0.4%) closed at a fresh record high.

The market struggled out of the gate after October Retail Sales were softer than expected with total retail sales up 0.3% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). A pullback in October discretionary spending may have contributed to the negative reactions to better-than-expected Q3 earnings reports from Walmart (WMT 149.37, -3.07, -2.0%) and Home Depot (HD 272.47, -7.10, -2.5%)

For the most part, losses were kept in check. The S&P 500 utilities sector strayed from the pack with a 2.0% decline, but no other sector fell more than 0.8%. The energy (+0.5%) and real estate (+0.1%) sectors eked out gains.

Coincidentally, today's low in the S&P 500 (-1.1%) came right before the NAHB Housing Market Index for November was released at 10:00 a.m. ET, which showed homebuilding sentiment hit a new all-time high. Similarly, sentiment among fund managers was indicated to be extremely bullish, according to a survey done by Bank of America.

The heightened level of bullishness among fund managers perhaps served as a contrarian signal for investors to remain cautious, especially given the market's recent gains. Prior to today, the S&P 500 was up 10.9% over the last 11 trading sessions.

Separately, shares of Tesla (TSLA 441.61, +33.53, +8.2%) rose 8% on news that it'll join the S&P 500 on Dec. 21. Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 39.86, -4.25, -9.6%) and other drug store stocks sold off following the launch of Amazon's (AMZN 3135.66, +4.60, +0.2%) online pharmacy business.

U.S. Treasuries ended the session with small gains, pushing yields lower. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.16%, and the 10-yr yield decreased three basis points to 0.87%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 92.44. WTI crude futures increased 0.2% to $41.43/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's big batch of data, which featured Retail Sales for October:

October Retail Sales were softer than expected with total retail sales up 0.3% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) and sales, excluding autos, up 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%). September retail sales growth was revised down to 1.6% from 1.9%. Excluding autos, it was revised to 1.2% from 1.5%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed a pullback in spending across several discretionary categories like clothing (-4.2% m/m), general merchandise stores (-1.1%), furniture and home furnishing stores (-0.4% m/m), and food services and drinking places (-0.1% m/m).
Industrial production increased 1.1% m/m in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.9%) on top of an upwardly revised 0.4% decline (from -0.6%) in September. The capacity utilization rate hit 72.8% (Briefing.com consensus 72.3%) following an upwardly revised 72.0% (from 71.5%) in September.
The key takeaway from the report is that industrial production has recovered most of the 16.5% decline seen from February to April, although output is still 5.6% below its pre-pandemic February level.
The NAHB Housing Market Index increased to a new all-time high of 90 in November (Briefing.com consensus 85) following the previous all-time high of 85 in October.
Business inventories increased 0.7% in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following an unrevised 0.3% increase in August.
Import prices decreased 0.1% in October; and prices excluding oil increased 0.1%. Export prices increased 0.2% in October; and prices excluding agriculture were unchanged.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for October and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +32.6% YTD
S&P 500 +11.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.4% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29783.29 -167.09 (-0.56%)
Nasdaq 11899.26 -24.79 (-0.21%)
SP 500 3609.67 -17.38 (-0.48%)
10-yr Note +25/32 0.871
NYSE Adv 1709 Dec 1298 Vol 954.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1790 Dec 1679 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Energy
Weak: Utilities, Health Care, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Cool-down session following recent record run, although the small-cap Russell 2000 closed at a fresh record high

-- Softer than expected retail sales for October, but homebuilding sentiment hit all-time high in November

-- Amazon (AMZN) announced online pharmacy business; Tesla (TSLA) will be added to the S&P 500 on Dec. 21

WTI crude settles slightly higher while stocks edge lower
17-Nov-20 15:25 ET
Dow -205.72 at 29744.66, Nasdaq -33.83 at 11890.22, S&P -20.83 at 3606.22

[BRIEFING.COM] The market's rebound attempt is unraveling with the S&P 500 now trading lower by 0.5% after nearly returning to its flat line earlier. The retracement was not caused by any specific catalyst, suggesting the market remains in a cooling-off period.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows utilities (-1.5%) as the weakest link, followed by health care (-0.9%) and information technology (-0.6%). The real estate sector (+0.2%) remains in positive territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.2%, or $0.09, to $41.43/bbl.
Russell 2000 keeping faith in the domestic economic outlook
17-Nov-20 14:55 ET
Dow -105.43 at 29844.95, Nasdaq +16.04 at 11940.09, S&P -6.04 at 3621.01

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is currently trading lower by 0.2%, but the more interesting development is the resiliency of the Russell 2000, which is up 0.5% and on pace to close at a fresh record high.

The small-cap index is now up 16.6% in November, or in less than 12 trading session, as investors continue to bet that the domestic economy will rebound in 2021 due to a vaccine. This expectation implies that the small-caps, which are generally more U.S.-centric, stand to outperform since they have meaningfully underperformed for a while now.

Looking ahead, Lowe's (LOW 160.51, -1.38, -0.9%), Target (TGT 164.19, -0.33, -0.2%), and TJX (TJX 61.27, +0.19, +0.3%) will report earnings tomorrow morning.

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Dow hits 30k in record-setting session
24-Nov-20 16:15 ET
Dow +454.97 at 30046.18, Nasdaq +156.15 at 12036.70, S&P +57.84 at 3635.43

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices rose more than 1.0% on Tuesday in record-setting advances. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.5%) topped the 30,000 level for the first time ever, the S&P 500 (+1.6%) closed at a record high, the Russell 2000 (+1.9%) set fresh all-time highs, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.3%.

Value, cyclical, and small-cap stocks retained their leadership roles in this part of the bull market, and the bullish bias carried over to most parts of the market. The S&P 500 energy (+5.2%), financials (+3.5%), and materials (+2.5%) sectors outperformed, while the real estate sector (-0.03%) slipped into the red.

Aside from the obvious momentum and fear of missing out, stocks were supported by incrementally good news that fueled risk sentiment and maintained the market's 2021 recovery optimism.

Specifically, the General Services Administration said it will release funds to help the Biden administration transition into office after President Trump condoned the action, Wells Fargo (WFC 28.60, +2.30, +8.8%) was double upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at Raymond James, and numerous retailers reported better-than-expected earnings reports.

Dollar Tree (DLTR 111.35, +33.53, +6.4%) shares rose 6% following its earnings results, but truthfully, most of the earnings reactions weren't that great since the news may have already been priced in. Shares of Best Buy (BBY 113.54, -8.50, -7.0%) fell 7% despite beating top and bottom-line estimates.

There were also semblances of greed in the market. For example, shares of Tesla (TSLA 555.38, +33.53, +6.4%) surged 6% on no specific news to bring the company's market capitalization to over $500 billion. Hedging interest remained relatively suppressed with the CBOE Volatility Index (-1.02, -4.5%) closing at 21.64.

Longer-dated Treasuries faced selling pressure amid the heightened level of bullishness in stocks, sending yields higher in a curve-steepening trade. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.16%, while the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.88%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 92.16. WTI crude rose 4.2% to $44.89/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 96.1 in November (Briefing.com consensus 96.5) from an upwardly revised 101.4 (from 100.9) in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers going into 2021 don't foresee the economy and the labor market gaining strength, as attitudes about business conditions for the next six months have worsened.
The September S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 6.6% (Briefing.com consensus 5.5%) following a revised 5.3% increase in the prior month (from +5.2%).
The September FHFA Housing Price Index increased 1.7% following a 1.5% increase in the prior month.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a massive amount of data on Wednesday, most notably the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, New Home Sales for October, Personal Income and Spending for October, and the FOMC Minutes from the November meeting.

Nasdaq Composite +34.2% YTD
S&P 500 +12.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.3% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30046.18 +454.97 (1.54%)
Nasdaq 12036.70 +156.15 (1.31%)
SP 500 3635.43 +57.84 (1.62%)
10-yr Note -2/32 0.884
NYSE Adv 2341 Dec 738 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2396 Dec 1174 Vol 6.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Materials
Weak: Health Care, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Cyclical sectors continue to set the performance pace

-- Dow hits 30k, Russell 2000 at fresh all-time highs

-- Momentum, fear of missing out, greed, prevailing optimism about 2021

WTI crude futures settle close to $45 per barrel
24-Nov-20 15:30 ET
Dow +449.31 at 30040.52, Nasdaq +154.46 at 12035.01, S&P +57.40 at 3634.99

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.7%, and the Russell 2000 is up 2.0%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+4.9%) still way in the lead with a 5% gain, followed by sizable gains in the financials (+3.3%) and materials (+2.6%) sectors. The health care (+0.4%) and real estate (+0.4%) sectors lag with 0.4% gains.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 4.2%, or $1.80, to $44.89/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

27-Nov-20 13:15 ET
Dow +37.90 at 29910.31, Nasdaq +111.44 at 12205.76, S&P +8.70 at 3638.37

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) closed at fresh record highs on Friday in a shortened trading session. The Russell 2000 increased 0.6%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.1%.

A wide range of growth stocks outperformed, including Tesla (TSLA 585.76, +11.76, +2.1%), Moderna (MRNA 127.03, +17.85, +16.4%), Etsy (ETSY 160.55, +15.46, +10.7%), and many within the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+1.2%). Value and cyclical stocks, meanwhile, continued to take a breather from their incredible monthly performances.

From a sector perspective, the S&P 500 health care (+1.0%), communication services (+0.6%), and information technology (+0.5%) sectors did the heavy lifting, while the energy (-1.3%) and utilities (-1.0%) sectors declined the most with 1% losses.

The price action in the S&P 500 generally lacked conviction given the reduced market participation, although trading volume at the Nasdaq was three times higher today than the same time last year. In addition, the market never got the risk-on signal from the Treasury market, which traded higher throughout the morning.

Ahead of the bond market close at 2:00 p.m. ET, the 2-yr yield was down two basis points to 0.14%, and the 10-yr yield was down three basis points to 0.85%. The U.S. Dollar Index was down 0.2% to 91.82. WTI crude futures were down 0.7% to $45.39/bbl.

Retail stocks also had a decent outing after Adobe Analytics said Thanksgiving Day spending rose nearly 22% yr/yr to a record $5.1 billion. Adobe expects Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales to be great for retailers, too, as more consumers shop online this year. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 61.21, +0.52, +0.9%) increased 1% to extend its weekly gain to 6.3%.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Friday. Looking ahead, investors will receive the Chicago PMI for November and Pending Home Sales for October on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +36.0% YTD
S&P 500 +12.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.8% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29910.31 +37.90 (0.13%)
Nasdaq 12205.76 +111.44 (0.92%)
SP 500 3638.37 +8.70 (0.24%)
10-yr Note +25/32 0.848
NYSE Adv 1718 Dec 1362 Vol 530.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2294 Dec 1265 Vol 3.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Communication Services, Information Technology
Weak: Energy, Utilities, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Growth stocks lift Nasdaq and S&P 500 to record closing highs

-- Shortened trading session

-- Strong Thanksgiving Day sales

[ReturntoSender]

Bulls retain control in another record-setting session
01-Dec-20 16:20 ET
Dow +185.28 at 29823.86, Nasdaq +156.37 at 12355.02, S&P +40.82 at 3662.47

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+1.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%) closed at fresh record highs on Tuesday, as the market continued to feed off the recent bullish momentum and recovery optimism. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) and Russell 2000 (+0.9%) followed behind.

Briefly, the 2021 recovery narrative was supported by renewed stimulus talks, Pfizer (PFE 39.41, +1.10, +2.9%) seeking approval for its COVID-19 vaccine in Europe, UnitedHealth (UNH 341.19, +4.85, +1.4%) and Micron (MU 67.08, +2.99, +4.7%) issuing upside guidance, and by some relatively positive economic data overseas.

The gains were relatively broad with the communication services (+2.0%) and financials (+1.6%) sectors leading the advance. The industrials sector (-0.2%) was the lone holdout amid an observation that November manufacturing activity in the U.S. slowed down slightly more than expected and the corresponding ISM Employment Index (48.4%) slid into contraction territory.

The market ran into a speed bump late in the afternoon on news that Senate Majority Leader McConnell disapproved the $908 billion bipartisan stimulus package proposed by several lawmakers earlier in the day. Mr. McConnell prefers to combine $429 bln in unused Fed funding toward a year-end spending bill, according to CNBC.

The stimulus situation harked on Fed Chair Powell's congressional warning that the outlook remains "extraordinarily uncertain." Nevertheless, it's almost a certainty that more fiscal relief is coming in one form or another. Mr. Powell testified on the CARES Act today along with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin.

Separately, shares of Zoom Video (ZM 406.31, -72.05, -15.1%) succumbed to profit-taking interest following its better-than-expected earnings report and upbeat guidance. Moderna (MRNA 141.01, -11.73, -7.7%) faced similar selling pressure after starting the day with a 16% gain.

In the U.S. Treasury market, the 2s10s yield curve spread widened to a 2020 high of 76 bps. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.17%, while the 10-yr yield rose nine basis points to 0.93%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.8% to 91.16 amid relative strength in the euro, which was indicative of expectations for a European recovery.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The ISM Manufacturing Index slipped to 57.5% in November (Briefing.com consensus 58.0%) from 59.3% in October. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%, so the November reading reflects an acceleration in manufacturing activity, albeit at a slower pace than the prior month.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that the Employment Index fell back into contraction mode, sliding to 48.4% from 53.2%, although the continued strength in new orders and the backlog of orders should mitigate some of the concerns surrounding the employment contraction in November.
Total construction spending increased 1.3% m/m in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) on the heels of a downwardly revised 0.5% decline (from +0.3%) in September. Total private construction spending rose 1.4% m/m and total public construction spending increased 1.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is the ongoing strength in residential construction spending, which is an offshoot of low mortgage rates and the pandemic driving strong demand for new homes in suburban areas.
The Markit Manufacturing PMI for November was revised lower to 56.7% (Briefing.com consensus 58.0%) from 59.3% in the preliminary reading.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ADP Employment Change Report for November and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +37.7% YTD
S&P 500 +13.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +4.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29823.86 +185.28 (0.63%)
Nasdaq 12355.02 +156.37 (1.28%)
SP 500 3662.47 +40.82 (1.13%)
10-yr Note -30/32 0.924
NYSE Adv 2167 Dec 920 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2064 Dec 1516 Vol 6.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Communication Services, Information Technology
Weak: Industrials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at fresh record highs

-- Bullish momentum, recovery optimism

-- 2s-10s yield curve spread widens to 2020 high of 76 basis points

WTI crude futures settle on lower note
01-Dec-20 15:30 ET
Dow +203.34 at 29841.92, Nasdaq +143.46 at 12342.11, S&P +40.80 at 3662.45

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 has hit a speed bump and is currently up 1.1% to trade off prior highs.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows communication services (+1.9%) and financials (+1.7%) still in the lead, while the industrials sector (+0.2%) underperforms with a slim gain. The latter is being pressured by data showing a slight slowdown in the pace of manufacturing activity for November.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.8%, or $0.81, to $44.56/bbl.

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Nasdaq closes at record high in lackluster session
07-Dec-20 16:15 ET
Dow -148.47 at 30069.73, Nasdaq +55.71 at 12519.86, S&P -7.16 at 3691.97

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.2% on Monday to ease back from record territory, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) closed at a fresh record high amid relative strength in growth stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-0.1%) finished in negative territory after setting intraday record highs in the morning.

Generally, the large-cap value/cyclical stocks struggled today after outperforming growth stocks and the S&P 500 since the end of October, as investors paid heed to the recurring headlines of rising coronavirus cases/hospitalizations in the U.S. In addition, stimulus/government funding talks dragged on without a resolution.

The energy sector was hit the hardest with a 2.5% decline, although it remained up 30% this quarter and no other sector declined more than 1.0% today. The information technology sector (+0.3%) provided influential support, while the communication services (+0.6%) and utilities (+0.6%) sectors outperformed.

Not all growth stocks had great performances, but investors appeared to hide out in mega-caps Apple (AAPL 123.75, +1.50, +1.2%), Tesla (TSLA 641.76, +42.72, +7.1%), and Facebook (FB 285.58, +5.88, +2.1%). Apple's gain was partially at the expense of Intel (INTC 50.20, -1.79, -3.4%), which fell 3% after Bloomberg reported on Apple's next-gen Mac chips that could outclass Intel's top-end PC chips.

Palantir Technologies (PLTR 28.94, +5.09, +21.3%), like Tesla, continued to ride a bullish momentum after securing a three-year contract with the FDA. PLTR shares surged 21%.

Separately, Boeing (BA 238.17, +5.46, +2.4%) and Pfizer (PFE 41.25, +0.91, +2.3%) were notable value-oriented stocks that bucked the negative trend in the space. Boeing was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS. Pfizer could have its COVID-19 vaccine approved by the FDA on Thursday.

Longer-dated Treasuries finished on a higher note to bounce back from recent losses and undo some of the recent curve-steepening action. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.14%, and the 10-yr yield decreased four basis points to 0.93%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 90.85. WTI crude futures decreased 1.0%, or $0.48, to $45.77/bbl.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

Consumer credit increased by $7.2 billion in October (Briefing.com consensus $9.0 billion) after contracting by a downwardly revised $15.1 bln (from $16.2 billion) in September.
The key takeaway from the report is that revolving credit decreased for the seventh time over the last eight months dating back to February, which preceded the initial pandemic lockdown period taking hold in the U.S.

Looking ahead, investors will receive revised figures for Q3 Productivity and Unit Labor Costs and the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for November on Tuesday.

Nasdaq Composite +39.5% YTD
S&P 500 +14.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.4% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30069.73 -148.47 (-0.49%)
Nasdaq 12519.86 +55.71 (0.45%)
SP 500 3691.97 -7.16 (-0.19%)
10-yr Note +4/32 0.931
NYSE Adv 1333 Dec 1771 Vol 926.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1720 Dec 1883 Vol 4.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services, Utilities
Weak: Energy, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Nasdaq Composite hits new record high in mixed session

-- Growth stocks and safe-haven assets outperform

-- Selling pressure in energy and financial stocks

Consumer credit increases less than expected in October
07-Dec-20 15:25 ET
Dow -179.32 at 30038.88, Nasdaq +42.79 at 12506.94, S&P -11.58 at 3687.55

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading lower by 0.3%, while the Nasdaq (+0.3%) is on pace to close at a record high.

Released earlier, consumer credit increased by $7.2 billion in October (Briefing.com consensus $9.0 billion) after contracting by a downwardly revised $15.1 bln (from $16.2 billion) in September.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.0%, or $0.48, to $45.77/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

More vaccine news, new record highs
08-Dec-20 16:20 ET
Dow +104.09 at 30173.82, Nasdaq +62.83 at 12582.69, S&P +10.29 at 3702.26

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.3%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%), and Russell 2000 (+1.4%) closed at fresh record highs on Tuesday amid more encouraging vaccine news and a hopeful-sounding stimulus update. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) hit an intraday high, but the outperformance of the Russell 2000 deserves more recognition.

The positive vaccine coverage started with Pfizer (PFE 42.56, +1.31, +3.2%) and BioNTech (BNTX 128.11, +2.41, +1.9%), although the S&P 500 was down 0.4% at its low despite the news. Briefly, the UK began inoculating its citizens with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and the FDA said it saw no safety concerns for that vaccine that would preclude issuance of an emergency use authorization.

Next, peer-reviewed data published in The Lancet Journal indicated that the AstraZeneca (AZN 54.72, +0.46, +0.9%)-Oxford vaccine is safe and effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and that it protects against severe disease and hospitalization. The S&P 500 turned positive shortly after this second headline.

The energy sector reclaimed its recent outperformer status with a 1.6% gain, which was emblematic of a lingering recovery optimism. The influential information technology sector advanced 0.4%, while the real estate sector lagged with a 0.5% decline.

Regarding stimulus, Senate Majority Leader McConnell suggested that the Senate should drop both liability protection and state and local government funding from a stimulus bill since there are so many disagreements on those issues. Mr. McConnell previously advocated for liability protection, but it was uncertain if Democratic leadership would similarly concede on the latter.

Separately, investors were cautioned that Tesla (TSLA 649.88, +8.12, +1.3%) announcing a $5.0 billion common stock "at-the-market" offering program was symptomatic of stretched equity prices, but for a stock blessed by animal spirts, shareholders thought differently. TSLA shares closed higher after being down as much as 3.6% intraday.

Longer-dated Treasuries finished with modest gains despite the vaccine/stimulus developments. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.14%, and the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.91%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 90.96. WTI crude futures declined 0.3%, or $0.13, to $45.64/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Productivity in the third quarter increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.6% (Briefing.com consensus 5.0%) on today's revision versus the preliminary estimate of 4.9%. Unit labor costs decreased at an annual rate of 6.6% (Briefing.com consensus -8.9%) versus the preliminary estimate of -8.9%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects the strong rebound in the third quarter, as the economy rebounded from the depths of the pandemic-related shutdown.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index decreased to 101.4 from 104.0 in October.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, the JOLTS - Job Openings report for October, and Wholesale Inventories for October on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +40.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.9% YTD
S&P 500 +14.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30173.82 +104.09 (0.35%)
Nasdaq 12582.69 +62.83 (0.50%)
SP 500 3702.26 +10.29 (0.28%)
10-yr Note +1/32 0.921
NYSE Adv 1981 Dec 1122 Vol 911.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2323 Dec 1308 Vol 4.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Health Care, Consumer Staples
Weak: Real Estate, Utilities, Financials, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500, Nasdaq, Russell 2000 close at record highs

-- FDA said it saw no safety concerns for the Pfizer (PFE)-BioNTech (BNTX) vaccine that would preclude issuance of an emergency use authorization

-- Peer-reviewed data indicates AstraZeneca (AZN)-Oxford vaccine is safe and effective

-- Hopeful-sounding stimulus concession from Senate Majority Leader McConnell

WTI crude futures settle slightly lower
08-Dec-20 15:25 ET
Dow +103.78 at 30173.51, Nasdaq +56.89 at 12576.75, S&P +9.94 at 3701.91

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.3% and is trading just above the 3700 level. The Russell 2000 outperforms with a 1.1% gain, emblematic of the lingering recovery optimism.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+1.3%), consumer staples (+0.7%), materials (+0.5%), and information technology (+0.5%) leading the market higher, while the real estate sector (-0.5%) lags with a 0.5% decline.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.3%, or $0.13, to $45.64/bbl.

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Airbnb, small-caps, and energy stocks win the day
10-Dec-20 16:20 ET

Dow -69.55 at 29999.20, Nasdaq +66.85 at 12405.72, S&P -4.72 at 3668.11

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.1% on Thursday in a mixed session that saw the bulk of the demand go to small-caps, energy stocks, and Airbnb (ABNB 144.71, +76.71, +112.8%) in its IPO. The Russell 2000 closed at a record high with a 1.1% gain, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.5%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.2%.

Airbnb more than doubled in its public debut, opening at $146 per share after pricing its IPO at $68 per share, representing the pent-up demand for newly-minted public companies. Unlike yesterday when the Nasdaq sold off following the DoorDash (DASH 186.00, -3.51, -1.9%) IPO, the reaction today was more constructive and elicited a buy-the-dip mentality.

The top-weighted S&P 500 information technology sector increased 0.1% after being down 0.9% shortly after the open. The energy sector, though, was the top performer with another 2.9% gain amid higher oil prices ($46.91, +1.42, +3.1%). Eight sectors closed lower with industrials (-0.9%) as the underperformer with a 0.9% decline.

While retail investors didn't benefit from the Airbnb IPO pop, but they did have plenty of opportunities on this stock-picker kind-of-day.

Starbucks (SBUX 105.39, +4.99, +5.0%) shares rose 5% after the company issued a stronger earnings outlook for the next few years. Snap (SNAP 53.19, +4.04, +8.2%) and Twitter (TWTR 51.21, +3.98, +8.4%) announced an integrated partnership, sending both shares sharply higher.

Adobe (ADBE 476.87, -6.87, -1.4%) reported positive earnings results and upbeat guidance, but it wasn't enough to inspire a positive stock reaction.

Separately, weekly initial jobless claims increased by 137,000 to 853,000 (Briefing.com consensus 720,000) to reach its highest level since the week of September 18. The disappointing unemployment data was perhaps an incentivizing factor for stimulus talks, which reportedly progressed today.

U.S. Treasuries finished on a higher note, more so on the longer-end of the curve. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.14%, and the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.91%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.3% to 90.81.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending December 5 increased by 137,000 to 853,000 (Briefing.com consensus 720,000) while continuing claims for the week ending November 28 increased by 230,000 to 5.757 million. This was the highest level of initial jobless claims since the week of September 18.
The latest initial claims data is a headwind on the surface, but may ultimately be construed as a tailwind beneath the surface because it was terrible. The connection for the market is that, because it was terrible, it might compel Congress to stop all the bickering and reach an agreement on stimulus before the December recess.
Total CPI and core CPI both increased 0.2% m/m in November. The former was above the 0.1% Briefing.com consensus while the latter was in line.
The key takeaway from the report is that there aren't any inflation alarm bells (or rate-hike bells) ringing in this report for the Fed seeing that the yr/yr increases for total CPI and core CPI held steady at 1.2% and 1.6%, respectively.
The Treasury Budget showed a $145.3 bln deficit in November, marking the 66th time over the last 67 fiscal years that November -- which has no major tax due dates -- has seen a deficit. The budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the November deficit cannot be compared to the October deficit of $284.1 bln.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that spending was down by a sizable amount yr/yr, which helped offset the budget impact of a small yr/yr decline in receipts.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for November and the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for December on Friday.

Nasdaq Composite +38.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.2% YTD
S&P 500 +13.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.1% YTD


Market Snapshot
Dow 29999.20 -69.55 (-0.23%)
Nasdaq 12405.72 +66.85 (0.54%)
SP 500 3668.11 -4.72 (-0.13%)
10-yr Note +4/32 0.903

NYSE Adv 1646 Dec 1434 Vol 965.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2232 Dec 1389 Vol 4.4 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary

Weak: Utilities, Communication Services, Industrials


Moving the Market
-- Market trades mixed

-- Airbnb (ABNB) more than doubles in IPO

-- Energy stocks outperform



WTI crude futures settle at highest level since early March
10-Dec-20 15:25 ET

Dow -48.78 at 30019.97, Nasdaq +59.91 at 12398.78, S&P -3.82 at 3669.01
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading lower by 0.1% in a lackluster session for the benchmark index.

One last look at the S&P 500 sector shows energy (+2.9%) still setting the leadership pace with a 3% gain. No other sector is up more than 0.2%, while the industrials (-0.9%), communication services (-0.5%), and real estate (-0.4%) sectors lag with modest gains.

WTI crude futures settled sharply higher by 3.1%, or $1.42, to $46.91/bbl -- its highest price since early March. Futures did settle slightly off session highs, though.

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Market does repair work to end the week
11-Dec-20 16:15 ET
Dow +47.11 at 30046.31, Nasdaq -27.94 at 12377.78, S&P -4.64 at 3663.47

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 decreased 0.1% on Friday to overcome a 1.0% decline in midday action. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) and Russell 2000 (-0.6%) also pared intraday losses, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) eked out a positive finish.

The outperformance of the Dow, and accordingly the S&P 500 communication services sector (+1.2%), was predominately because Walt Disney (DIS 175.72, +21.03, +13.6%) provided bullish-sounding updates for its subscription business. Disney shares surged 13.6% to fresh all-time highs.

As for the broader market, there was generally a tired disposition in the first half of the session following a record close in the Russell 2000 yesterday, the slew of hot IPOs this week, and increased interest in the more speculative parts of the market. In addition, there was some disappointment with stimulus talks and New York prohibiting indoor dining to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Appropriately, the cyclical energy (-1.2%) and financials (-1.0%) sectors were today's laggards, but they did close off session lows as investors bought the intraday dip in the second half of the session. News that the Senate passed a continuation resolution to fund the government until Dec. 18 was construed as a positive influence for sentiment.

Separately, the FDA advisory panel recommended in a 17-4 vote that the Covid vaccine from Pfizer (PFE 41.12, -0.61, -1.5%) and BioNTech (BNTX 127.30, -2.24, -1.7%) should be approved for emergency use. The FDA said it will rapidly work toward finalization and issuance of an emergency use authorization.

In earnings news, Oracle (ORCL 60.61, +1.13, +1.9%), Broadcom (AVGO 405.82, -4.22, -1.0%), Costco (COST 375.10, +2.31, +0.6%), and lululemon athletica (LULU 344.32, -24.75, -6.7%) closed mixed following their better-than-expected earnings reports.

U.S. Treasuries finished with modest gains, pushing yields lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield decreased three basis points to 0.11%, and the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.89%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 90.98. WTI crude futures decreased 0.5%, or $0.24, to $46.58/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Total PPI was up 0.1% m/m in November and so was core PPI, which excludes food and energy. That was below the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which called for 0.2% increases for both series.
The key takeaway from the report is that there weren't any inflation alarm bells ringing in the November producer price data. On a yr/yr basis, total PPI was up 0.8% and core PPI was up 1.4%.
The preliminary December University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment rose to 81.4 (Briefing.com consensus 75.0) from 76.9 in November.
The key takeaway from the report is the finding that the uptick in sentiment was driven by a partisan shift in economic prospects, with expectations among Democrats rising by 39.5 points and expectations among Republicans falling by 34.9 points. In other words, the concerns related to Covid were not the swing factor in the preliminary reading, but with job losses increasing, and Congress still bickering over fiscal stimulus, there is latent potential for a downward revision with the final reading.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +38.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.6% YTD
S&P 500 +13.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.3% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30046.31 +47.11 (0.16%)
Nasdaq 12377.78 -27.94 (-0.23%)
SP 500 3663.47 -4.64 (-0.13%)
10-yr Note +2/32 0.888
NYSE Adv 1302 Dec 1811 Vol 909.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1484 Dec 2166 Vol 4.2 bln

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Stocks take a breather to end a record-setting week
18-Dec-20 16:20 ET
Dow -124.32 at 30178.99, Nasdaq -9.11 at 12755.55, S&P -13.07 at 3709.42

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.4% on Friday, as the market took a breather after each of the major indices started the session at fresh record highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) and Russell 2000 (-0.4%) also declined 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.1%,

At its low, the S&P 500 was down 1.0% amid a steady retreat throughout the day, until a wave of buyers before the close helped pare losses. The real estate (-1.8%) and energy (-1.7%) sectors still fell more than 1.5%, while the materials (+0.5%), consumer staples (+0.2%), industrials (+0.03%), and health care (+0.02%) sectors emerged into the green.

Some attributed negative-sounding stimulus headlines that highlighted continued disagreements for the lack of buying conviction. The last-minute bounce, however, came amid news that Senate Majority Leader McConnell was gauging support for a two-day continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown and extend negotiations.

Price action might have also been influenced by market participants anticipating the flurry of activity after the close: quadruple-witching options expiration, quarterly rebalancing of S&P 500, annual reconstitution of the Nasdaq 100, Tesla's (TSLA 695.00, +39.10, +6.0%) inclusion into the S&P 500, and Nike's (NKE 137.28, -3.22, -2.3%) earnings report.

Intel (INTC 47.46, -3.19, -6.3%) shares, meanwhile, accelerated losses into the close on reports that Microsoft (MSFT 218.59, -0.83, -0.4%) will design its own chips for its Surface PC.

Separately, shares of FedEx (FDX 275.57, -16.69, -5.7%) and Moderna (MRNA 140.23, -3.77, -2.6%) struggled with the broad market despite some encouraging news. Specifically, FedEx beat top and bottom-line estimates, while the FDA advisory panel recommended in unanimous vote that Moderna's Covid vaccine should be authorized for emergency use.

U.S. Treasuries finished the session mixed in a quiet session for bonds. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.11%, while the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.95%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 90.01. WTI crude futures rose 1.5%, or $0.71, to $49.04/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.6% m/m in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), marking the seventh straight month of positive readings. The index for October was revised to 0.8% from 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is the ongoing deceleration since May in the pace of growth for the leading indicators, which, according to the Conference Board, suggests a significant moderation in growth as the U.S. economy moves into 2021.
The current account deficit for the third quarter totaled $178.5 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$190.0 billion). The second quarter deficit was revised to $161.4 billion from $170.5 billion.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Nasdaq Composite +42.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +18.1% YTD
S&P 500 +14.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.8% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30178.99 -124.32 (-0.41%)
Nasdaq 12755.55 -9.11 (-0.07%)
SP 500 3709.42 -13.07 (-0.35%)
10-yr Note -1/32 0.950
NYSE Adv 1339 Dec 1745 Vol 3.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1631 Dec 2003 Vol 7.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples, Materials, Industrials, Health Care
Weak: Real Estate, Energy, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Market takes a breather at end of record-setting week

-- Stimulus headline volatility

-- Quarterly rebalancing of S&P 500, annual reconstitution of the Nasdaq 100, Tesla (TSLA) inclusion into S&P 500 after the close, quadruple-witching options expiration

Crude futures settle higher but energy stocks fall
18-Dec-20 15:25 ET
Dow -258.00 at 30045.31, Nasdaq -90.10 at 12674.56, S&P -35.01 at 3687.48

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at fresh session lows with a 0.9% decline in a continuation of the day's downwards trend.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (-2.0%), real estate (-2.0%), and financials (-1.3%) leading the broader decline, while the materials sector (-0.2%) is down the least. The top-weighted information technology sector is down 0.9%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.5%, or $0.71, to $49.04/bbl.

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Financial stocks led recovery effort
21-Dec-20 16:20 ET
Dow +37.40 at 30216.39, Nasdaq -13.12 at 12742.43, S&P -14.49 at 3694.93

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined as much as 2.0% on Monday, as concerns surrounding a new strain of coronavirus primarily in the UK overshadowed a $900 billion stimulus agreement. Investors, however, steadily bought the intraday dip to leave the benchmark index down by 0.4% for the session.

The Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) almost completed the comeback after being down 1.8%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) and Russell 2000 (+0.02%) eked out gains.

The new variant of the coronavirus reportedly spreads 70% faster than other variants and was previously flagged as an issue, but the market was initially unsettled to see the UK impose a new lockdown in London and other countries restrict inbound travel from the UK.

The way the market regathered, though, suggested that this new variant isn't necessarily a U.S. issue yet (Europe Stoxx 600 fell 2.3% while U.S. equities cut losses) and that stocks were simply vulnerable against any negative-sounding development after the major indices hit record highs last week.

The influential information technology (+0.1%) and financials (+1.2%) sectors helped the market recover. The energy (-1.8%), utilities (-1.3%), consumer staples (-1.1%), and health care (-1.0%) sectors finished as laggards, with energy stocks pressured by lower oil prices ($47.79/bbl, -1.25, -2.6%).

The financials sector noticeably outperformed after the Fed said it will permit large banks to repurchase shares in the first quarter, albeit with income limitations. JPMorgan Chase (JPM 123.55, +4.47, +3.8%) authorized a $30 billion share repurchase program, and Goldman Sachs (GS 256.98, +14.85, +6.1%) shares surged 6%.

The market, and Dow, received further support from Apple (AAPL 128.23, +1.58, +1.2%), Microsoft (MSFT 222.59, +4.00, +1.8%), and Nike (NKE 144.02, +6.72, +4.9%). Tesla (TSLA 649.86, 45.14, -6.6%), meanwhile, was a drag on its first day as an S&P 500 component.

Apple is reportedly targeting 2024 to produce passenger vehicles with self-driving capabilities and breakthrough battery technology, according to Reuters. Microsoft was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup. Nike reported positive earnings results and an encouraging revenue outlook.

U.S. Treasuries finished mixed, but notably, the 10-yr Treasury note started to come down from early highs well before equities started to rebound. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.12%, while the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.94% after touching 0.88% at its low. The U.S. Dollar Index gained 0.2% to 90.17.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for December, Existing Home Sales for November, and the third estimate for Q3 GDP.

Nasdaq Composite +42.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +18.1% YTD
S&P 500 +14.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +5.9% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30216.39 +37.40 (0.12%)
Nasdaq 12742.43 -13.12 (-0.10%)
SP 500 3694.93 -14.49 (-0.39%)
10-yr Note +1/32 0.934
NYSE Adv 1180 Dec 1963 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1650 Dec 2052 Vol 5.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Information Technology
Weak: Energy, Health Care, Utilities, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Major indices opened sharply lower amid concerns about a new strain of coronavirus, but Dow and Russell 2000 end day in positive territory

-- Buy-the-dip mindset amid possible overreaction to virus news

-- Financial stocks noticeably outperformed after Fed allows large banks to resume share buybacks in Q1

-- Lawmakers finally reached a $900 billion stimulus deal

WTI crude futures settle below $48 per barrel
21-Dec-20 15:25 ET
Dow +19.14 at 30198.13, Nasdaq -36.85 at 12718.70, S&P -19.17 at 3690.25

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading lower by 0.5% at buyers struggle to propel the benchmark index back to its flat line.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (-1.6%), utilities (-1.7%), health care (-1.2%), and consumer staples (-1.2%) down more than 1.0%, while the financials sector (+1.3%) remains the only sector trading in positive territory.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by 2.6%, or $1.25, to $47.79/bbl.

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Early momentum fades in negative session
29-Dec-20 16:15 ET
Dow -68.30 at 30335.61, Nasdaq -49.20 at 12850.23, S&P -8.32 at 3727.04

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.2%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.4%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) opened Tuesday's session at fresh record highs in a momentum trade, but they ended the session with slight losses amid a general sense of buyer exhaustion. The Russell 2000 (-1.9%) succumbed to increased profit-taking interest with a 2% decline.

Interestingly, declining issues outpaced advancing issues by a 2:1 margin at the NYSE and a 5:2 margin at the Nasdaq, but relative strength in some of the mega-caps like Amazon (AMZN 3322.00, +28.04, +1.2%) limited the large-cap index declines. Sector losses weren't that big, either, with no S&P 500 sector closing lower by more than 0.7%.

The information technology sector (-0.5%) was an influential laggard amid a reversal in shares of Apple (AAPL 134.87, -1.82, -1.3%), which set an all-time high for the first time since Sept. 2 at the open. Intel (INTC 49.39, +2.32, +4.9%) was one of the few gainers in the sector after activist hedge fund Third Point urged the company to explore strategic alternatives.

The health care (+0.4%) and consumer discretionary (+0.2%) sectors finished in the green.

In the latest stimulus news, the House officially passed a bill to increase stimulus checks to $2000, but Senate Majority Leader McConnell said the Senate will begin the process to address the stimulus checks later this week. Mr. McConnell also said the Senate will address section 230 social media liability reform and election fraud.

Separately, Boeing's (BA 216.25, +0.16, +0.1%) 737 MAX was flown commercially for the first time since March 2019 via American Airlines (AAL 15.86, -0.20, -1.3%).

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed in a quiet trading session. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.13%, and the 10-yr yield was flat at 0.93%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.4% to 90.00. WTI crude futures increased 0.7%, or $0.33, to $47.97/bbl.

Tuesday's economic data was limited to the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which increased 7.9% in October (Briefing.com consensus 6.9%) following a 6.6% increase in September.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Chicago PMI for December, Pending Home Sales for November, and the Advance International Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories reports for November on Wednesday.

Nasdaq Composite +43.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +17.4% YTD
S&P 500 +15.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.3% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30335.61 -68.30 (-0.22%)
Nasdaq 12850.23 -49.20 (-0.38%)
SP 500 3727.04 -8.32 (-0.22%)
10-yr Note -1/32 0.934
NYSE Adv 1080 Dec 2029 Vol 724.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1078 Dec 2692 Vol 4.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Information Technology, Energy, Industrials, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Large-cap indices set new highs at open, but buyer exhaustion kicked in

-- Profit-taking interest in recent high-flyers like small-caps and momentum stocks; mega-caps limit index declines

-- Senate Majority Leader McConnell said the Senate will address stimulus checks this week

Crude futures settle in the green
29-Dec-20 15:30 ET
Dow -22.22 at 30381.69, Nasdaq -30.89 at 12868.54, S&P -1.90 at 3733.46

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is now trading back near its flat line with the help from its health care (+0.6%), consumer discretionary (+0.4%), communication services (+0.1%), and utilities (+0.1%) sectors.

The industrials sector is the weakest link with a 0.6% decline, while the top-weighted information technology sector is down 0.3% amid relative weakness in Apple (AAPL 135.38, -1.30, -0.9%). Interestingly, Apple set its first all-time high since Sept. 2 at today's open.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.7%, or $0.33, to $47.97/bbl.

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Dow closes at record high with small gain
30-Dec-20 16:15 ET
Dow +73.89 at 30409.50, Nasdaq +19.78 at 12870.01, S&P +5.00 at 3732.04

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.1% on Wednesday in a relatively tight-ranged session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) also finished with small gains, but it was a record close for the Dow. The Russell 2000 pulled ahead with a 1.1% gain, as investors bought the dip in small-caps.

Corporate news was sparse heading into New Year's Eve, which is a full trading day for Wall Street, but one notable story was the UK approving the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca (AZN 50.18, +0.28, +0.6%) and Oxford for emergency use.

The vaccine approval may have benefited cyclical sectors like energy (+1.6%), materials (+1.3%), and industrials (+0.7%) since it resonated with the narrative that economic activity will pick up next year with several effective vaccines in the market. The communication services (-0.7%), consumer staples (-0.1%), and information technology (-0.02%) sectors closed lower.

Walt Disney (DIS 181.17, +3.87, +2.2%), a stock many consider a reopening stock, was an individual standout, as was Visa (V 218.36, +3.99, +1.9%) on word that the $600 stimulus checks have started to hit people's bank accounts. On a related note, Senate Majority Leader McConnell said that $2000 stimulus checks (an increase from $600) have "no realistic path" to quickly pass in the Senate.

Shares of Tesla (TSLA 694.78, +28.79, +4.3%), meanwhile, rose 4.3% in a momentum trade to fresh all-time highs. Tesla helped mitigate some weakness in Amazon (AMZN 3285.85, -36.15, -1.1%) for the consumer discretionary sector (+0.3%). AMZN underperformed with the other FAANG stocks today.

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.13%, and the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.93%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 89.64. WTI crude futures increased 0.9%, or $0.42, to $48.39/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Pending home sales dropped 2.6% m/m in November (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%) following a revised 0.9% decline in October (-1.1%).
The Chicago PMI for December increased to 59.2 (Briefing.com consensus 56.9) from 58.2 in November.
The Advance International Trade in Goods deficit widened to $84.8 billion in November (prior -$80.3 billion); Advance Retail Inventories increased 0.3% (prior increase revised to 0.9% from 0.8%); and Advance Wholesale Inventories decreased 0.1% (prior increase revised to 1.1% from 0.9%).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

Nasdaq Composite +43.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +18.7% YTD
S&P 500 +15.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.6% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30409.50 +73.89 (0.24%)
Nasdaq 12870.01 +19.78 (0.15%)
SP 500 3732.04 +5.00 (0.13%)
10-yr Note +1/32 0.926
NYSE Adv 2131 Dec 921 Vol 691.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2576 Dec 1135 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Industrials
Weak: Communication Services, Consumer Staples, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Dow closes at record high with small gain in lackluster session

-- AstraZeneca (AZN)/Oxford vaccine approved for emergency use in the UK

-- $600 stimulus checks started going out last night

-- Cyclical sectors outperformed

McConnell says no plans to separate $2000 checks into separate bill
30-Dec-20 15:30 ET
Dow +84.28 at 30419.89, Nasdaq +14.13 at 12864.36, S&P +3.92 at 3730.96

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading near session lows with a 0.1% gain in a lackluster session from a price action perspective.

In recent stimulus news, Senate Majority Leader McConnell said on the Senate floor that he will not split up legislation to provide $2,000 stimulus checks, election security, and section 230 social media reform into separate bills. This is in-line with prior thinking that he would package all items together, supposedly making it unlikely to increase the stimulus checks.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.9%, or $0.42, to $48.39/bbl.

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S&P 500 and Dow set record highs to end the year
31-Dec-20 16:20 ET
Dow +196.92 at 30606.42, Nasdaq +18.28 at 12888.29, S&P +24.03 at 3756.07

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.6%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) set intraday and closing record highs on New Year's Eve, with the benchmark index finishing the year with a 16.3% gain. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) and Russell 2000 (-0.3%) underperformed today, but the Nasdaq managed to eke out a gain.

For most of the day, the S&P 500 traded virtually unchanged amid a lack of conviction from buyers and sellers. Buying interest, however, increased noticeably shortly after the early close of the Treasury market at 2:00 p.m. ET on no specific news catalyst, which was symptomatic of reduced market participation.

The advance was led by the financials (+1.3%), utilities (+1.6%), real estate (+1.3%), and health care (+1.1%) sectors with gains over 1.0%; conversely, the energy (-0.8%) and consumer discretionary (-0.02%) sectors ended the session in the red.

The latest weekly report for initial and continuing claims showed initial claims decrease by 19,000 to 787,000 (Briefing.com consensus 800,000) and continuing claims decline to their lowest level since March at 5.219 million. The market didn't react to the data, nor to much of anything today, really.

On the coronavirus front, daily U.S. coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths hit new highs on Wednesday, the faster-spreading variant of the coronavirus was recorded in California, San Francisco will reportedly extend its stay-at-home and quarantine-after-travel orders indefinitely, and vaccination efforts in the U.S. are running behind schedule.

Recapping the moves in the Treasury market, the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.12% (-145 bps in 2020), and the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.92% (-100 bps in 2020). The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 89.93. WTI crude futures decreased 0.3%, or $0.12, to $48.27/bbl (-21.5% in 2020).

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial claims for the week ending December 26 decreased by 19,000 to 787,000 (Briefing.com consensus 800,000). Continuing claims for the week ending December 19 decreased by 103,000 to 5.219 million.
That's the lowest level of continuing claims since March, yet the key takeaway and harder-hitting reality is that initial claims were just 220,000 in the same period a year ago while continuing claims were just 1.728 million.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Construction Spending for November and the IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for December on Monday when the market reopens for the new year.

Nasdaq Composite +43.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +18.4% YTD
S&P 500 +16.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.3% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30606.42 +196.92 (0.65%)
Nasdaq 12888.29 +18.28 (0.14%)
SP 500 3756.07 +24.03 (0.64%)
10-yr Note +1/32 0.918
NYSE Adv 1843 Dec 1269 Vol 806.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1739 Dec 2010 Vol 4.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Utilities, Real Estate, Health Care
Weak: Energy, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Dow close at record highs

-- Strong finish amid reduced market participation ahead of New Year's Day

-- Relative underperformance in small-caps and technology stocks

WTI crude futures settled slightly lower
31-Dec-20 15:25 ET
Dow +143.62 at 30553.12, Nasdaq -5.87 at 12864.14, S&P +15.37 at 3747.41

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at fresh session highs with a 0.4% gain. The Russell 2000 is trading flat.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows financials (+1.1%), utilities (+1.1%), and health care (+0.9%) outperforming, while the energy (-0.5%) and consumer discretionary (-0.2%) sectors remain in the red. The information technology sector, which is up 41.9% this year, is trading little changed.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.3%, or $0.12, to $48.27/bbl. For the year, crude prices fell 21.5%.

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Record closes for the major indices
07-Jan-21 16:10 ET
Dow +211.73 at 31041.07, Nasdaq +326.69 at 13067.48, S&P +55.65 at 3803.79

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] Each of the major indices closed at record highs on Thursday in a momentum trade led by the technology stocks. The Nasdaq Composite outperformed with an impressive 2.6% gain, followed by solid gains in the Russell 2000 (+1.9%), S&P 500 (+1.5%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%).

Risk sentiment broadened out to nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors. The information technology (+2.7%), consumer discretionary (+1.8%), energy (+1.5%), and financials (+1.5%) sectors were the best-performing sectors; conversely, the utilities (-1.3%) and consumer staples (-0.3%) sectors closed lower.

Investors bought yesterday's dip in the broader technology space and continued to bid up shares of Tesla (TSLA 816.04, +60.06, +7.9%), which was upgraded to Sector Perform from Underperform at RBC Capital Mkts after the firm conceded it was wrong about the stock.

In addition, the oft-repeated recovery narrative was on display after Democrats flipped both Senate seats in Georgia yesterday, giving them slim majority in the Senate, and the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index rose to a better-than-expected 57.2% in December (Briefing.com consensus 54.7%) from 55.9% in November.

The projected Democratic majority in the Senate contributed to the continued selling pressure in longer-dated Treasuries amid the possibility for more fiscal stimulus. These respective yields moved higher.

The 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.07%, while the 2-yr yield was flat at 0.14%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 89.84. WTI crude futures increased 0.5%, or $0.24, to $50.81/bbl.

In other corporate news, shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 45.26, +2.23, +5.2%) rose 5% after beating top and bottom-line estimates, while DXC Technology (DXC 28.91, +2.46, +9.3%) received an acquisition proposal from French IT firm Atos for reportedly more than $10 billion.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index rose to 57.2% in December (Briefing.com consensus 54.7%) from 55.9% in November. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The December reading reflects a faster pace of expansion than the prior month, and it is the seventh consecutive reading above 50.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the Employment Index, which dipped below 50.0%, blemished an otherwise solid snapshot of the services sector in December.
Initial claims for the week ending January 2 decreased by 3,000 to 787,000 (Briefing.com consensus 752,000). Continuing claims for the week ending December 26 decreased by 126,000 to 5.072 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that initial claims are still coming in at a stubbornly high level, which sends a poor signal about the state of the labor market.
The U.S. trade deficit widened to $68.1 billion in November (Briefing.com consensus -$67.1 billion) from an unrevised $63.1 billion in October.
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed another increase in exports and imports, indicating an uptick in global trade.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for December, Consumer Credit for November, and Wholesale Inventories for November on Friday.

Russell 2000 +6.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.4% YTD
S&P 500 +1.3% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31041.07 +211.73 (0.69%)
Nasdaq 13067.48 +326.69 (2.56%)
SP 500 3803.79 +55.65 (1.48%)
10-yr Note -4/32 1.075
NYSE Adv 1908 Dec 1193 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2777 Dec 946 Vol 6.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Financials, Consumer Discretionary, Energy
Weak: Consumer Staples, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Positive momentum carries market to all-time highs

-- Strength in technology and financial stocks; former benefited from buy-the-dip mindset while the latter benefited from curve-steepening activity

-- 10-yr yield continued to rise amid speculation for more fiscal stimulus

Energy stocks benefiting from higher oil prices
07-Jan-21 15:25 ET
Dow +258.14 at 31087.48, Nasdaq +333.69 at 13074.48, S&P +60.16 at 3808.30

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading near session highs with a 1.6% gain, in-line with the Russell 2000 (+1.6%).

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+2.8%), consumer discretionary (+2.1%), energy (+1.8%), and financials (+1.7%) atop the leaderboard. The utilities (-1.1%) and consumer staples (-0.3%) sectors are the lone holdouts right now.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.5%, or $0.24, to $50.81/bbl.

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No quit in the recovery trade, Russell 2000 closes at record high
12-Jan-21 16:15 ET
Dow +60.00 at 31068.63, Nasdaq +36.00 at 13072.44, S&P +1.58 at 3801.19

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 finished little changed on Tuesday, as gains in cyclical stocks helped offset losses in growth stocks and health care names. The Russell 2000 (+1.7%) extended its hot start to the year and closed at a fresh record high, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) posted smaller gains.

Investors remained committed to the so-called recovery trade, which meant that small-caps, cyclical stocks, oil prices ($53.20/bbl, +1.01, +1.9%), and longer-dated Treasury yields were up on expectations for improved economic growth. Hopes that the vaccine rollout in the U.S. could soon speed up was cited as a positive factor.

The energy sector (+3.5%) set the winning pace with a 3.5% gain in a continuation of its recent outperformance. The materials (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+1.3%), financials (+1.1%), and industrials (+1.0%) sectors advanced at least 1.0%. In addition, advancing issues outpaced declining issues by healthy margins at the NYSE and Nasdaq.

The downside was that growth stocks were pressured by the continued rise in long-term interest rates since their high valuations have been largely supported by extremely low rates. The 10-yr yield peaked at 1.18% amid increased selling interest, but it finished one basis point higher at 1.14% after a $38 billion 10-yr note government auction was met with strong demand.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (-0.4%), which is home to many growth stocks, pared losses as Treasury yields started to come off session highs. The communication services (-1.5%) and health care (-1.1%) sectors closed near session lows.

Separately, the financial and energy sectors received additional support from positive-minded analyst recommendations in stocks like Wells Fargo (WFC 33.94, +0.70, +2.1%), Charles Schwab (SCHW 61.20, +0.95, +1.6%), Chevron (CVX 93.34, +1.74, +1.9%), and Occidental Petroleum (OXY 22.62, +2.54, +12.7%).

The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.14%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 90.04 amid relative strength in the euro and British pound.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Job openings decreased slightly to 6.527 million in November from 6.652 million in October.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index decreased to 95.9 in December from 101.4 in November.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for December, the Treasury Budget for December, the Fed's Beige Book for January, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +7.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.4% YTD
S&P 500 +1.2% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31068.63 +60.00 (0.19%)
Nasdaq 13072.44 +36.00 (0.28%)
SP 500 3801.19 +1.58 (0.04%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.141
NYSE Adv 2086 Dec 1051 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2586 Dec 1167 Vol 7.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Financials, Industrials
Weak: Utilities, Health Care, Communication Services, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Russell 2000 outperforms while large-cap indices trade little changed

-- Strength in energy and financial stocks

-- Longer-dated Treasury yields continue to rise

Higher oil prices fuel energy stocks
12-Jan-21 15:25 ET
Dow +67.95 at 31076.58, Nasdaq +31.61 at 13068.05, S&P +1.49 at 3801.10

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading higher by 0.1% at around the 3800 level. It was down as much as 0.6% earlier today.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (+3.3%), consumer discretionary (+1.6%), materials (+1.5%), and financials (+1.0%) in the lead, while the health care (-1.0%) and communication services (-1.0%) sectors are both down 1.0%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.9%, or $1.01, to $53.20/bbl.

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Tech Sector Leads Stocks Higher
13-Jan-21 16:10 ET
Dow -8.22 at 31060.41, Nasdaq +56.52 at 13128.96, S&P +8.65 at 3809.84

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market finished Wednesday on a slightly higher note. The Nasdaq (+0.4%) outperformed throughout the day while the S&P 500 (+0.2%) and Dow (unch) finished closer to their flat lines. The Russell 2000 (-0.8%) underperformed after a strong start to the week.

Equities recorded the bulk of their gains in morning trade while afternoon action saw some backtracking from highs. The modest advance unfolded in quiet fashion as gains among influential sectors like technology (+0.7%), health care (+0.3%), and consumer discretionary (+0.2%) outweighed losses in financials (-0.2%) and industrials (-0.9%).

Smaller sectors ended at the extremes of the performance table as utilities (+1.9%) and real estate (+1.4%) claimed the top two spots while materials (-1.1%) and energy (-0.8%) finished at the bottom.

The technology sector received an early boost from Intel (INTC 56.95, +3.71, +7.0%) after the company announced that its CEO will be replaced by VMWare's (VMW 133.20, -9.71, -6.8%) current CEO in February. Intel's strength did not invite significant buying interest in other chipmakers, as nearly two thirds of the names in the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.1%) finished in the red.

The consumer discretionary sector (+0.2%) also contributed to today's advance, but that was largely thanks to a strong gain in Amazon (AMZN 3165.89, +45.06, +1.4%), which reclaimed its 50-day moving average. Homebuilders received an early boost from a better than expected quarterly report from KB Home (KBH 35.01, +0.86, +2.5%), but the stock surrendered the bulk of its gain as the day went on while the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB 56.50, -0.19, -0.3%) finished with a modest loss after backing down from a two-week high.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.8%) narrowed this week's gain to 4.3% while crude oil slipped $0.28, or 0.5%, to $52.92/bbl after reaching a fresh 11-month high. Exxon Mobil (XOM 48.42, +0.54, +1.1%) outperformed within the energy sector, climbing in response to an upgrade to Overweight from Neutral with a $56 target at JP Morgan.

In Washington, the House of Representatives began voting on the impeachment of President Trump as the Wall Street session drew to its close.

Treasuries rebounded after six days of losses in longer tenors, sending the 10-yr yield down five basis points to 1.09%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.3% to 90.36.

Reviewing today's economic data:

Total CPI increased 0.4% m/m in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) while core CPI increased 0.1% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%). The uptick in total CPI was driven largely by an 8.4% increase in the gasoline index, which accounted for more than 60% of the overall increase.
The key takeaway from the report is that it won't trigger inflation alarm bells in an aggregate sense. Total CPI is up just 1.4% yr/yr, versus 1.2% in November, while core CPI held steady at 1.2% yr/yr for the third straight month. The latter views notwithstanding, inflation worries -- both real and imagined -- promise to be a pressing issue throughout the year.
The December Treasury Budget showed a $143.6 bln deficit, versus a $13.3 bln deficit in the same period a year ago. The budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the December deficit can't be compared to the November deficit of -$145.3 bln.
Total receipts of $346.1 bln were $10.3 bln more than the same period last year. Individual income taxes were the largest source of receipts at $144 bln.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index jumped 16.7% as the Refinance Index spiked 20.1% while the Purchase Index rose 8.0%.

Weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 780,000; prior 787,000), Continuing Claims (prior 5.072 mln), December Import Prices (prior 0.1%), Export Prices (prior 0.6%), Import Prices ex-oil (prior -0.3%), and Export Prices ex-agriculture (prior 0.3%) will be reported tomorrow at 8:30 ET.

Russell 2000 +6.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.5% YTD
S&P 500 +1.4% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31060.41 -8.22 (-0.03%)
Nasdaq 13128.96 +56.52 (0.43%)
SP 500 3809.84 +8.65 (0.23%)
10-yr Note +11/32 1.088
NYSE Adv 1661 Dec 1477 Vol 944.7 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1698 Dec 2036 Vol 6.96 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Utilities, Technology, Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary, Health Care
Weak: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Materials

Moving the Market

Intel (INTC) spikes after CEO announces his departure

House of Representatives expected to vote on impeaching President Trump today

December CPI matches expectations

Crude Oil Dips
13-Jan-21 15:30 ET
Dow +2.72 at 31071.35, Nasdaq +62.18 at 13134.62, S&P +10.28 at 3811.47

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 trades higher by 0.3% with 30 minutes remaining in the trading day.

The benchmark index has backed down from its session high in recent action, but it remains on track to finish with the bulk of today's gain. Given its current level, the index is on course to end 12 points below its record high from Friday.

In commodities, crude oil finished the pit session down $0.28, or 0.5%, at $52.92/bbl after backing down from a fresh 11-month high. The energy sector, meanwhile, is down 0.8%.

Treasuries finished the day just below their highs with the 10-yr yield falling five basis points to 1.09%.

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Upbeat Start Gives Way to Late Slide
14-Jan-21 16:15 ET
Dow -68.95 at 30991.46, Nasdaq -16.31 at 13112.65, S&P -14.30 at 3795.54

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages finished Thursday on a modestly lower note after surrendering their opening gains. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% while the Dow (-0.2%) and Nasdaq (-0.1%) recorded slimmer losses after touching fresh intraday record highs. Small caps continued their hot start to the year as the Russell 2000 jumped 2.1%.

The trading day started with modest gains, aided by reports of $2 trillion in planned spending by the incoming administration. However, the opening push ran out of steam during the first hour of action, leaving the door open for a pullback from highs that accelerated into the close. The overall movement was limited in scope as the action unfolded in a 31-point range in the S&P 500.

Seven out of eleven sectors ended in the red with technology (-1.0%), consumer discretionary (-0.7%), and communication services (-0.8%) leading the market lower after keeping it afloat in early trade.

The underperformance among these sectors was owed to losses in the largest components by weight with names like Microsoft (MSFT 213.02, -3.32, -1.5%), Visa (V 201.86, -7.49, -3.6%), Amazon (AMZN 3127.47, -38.42, -1.2%), and Alphabet (GOOG 1740.18, -14.22, -0.8%) finding resistance near their respective 50-day moving averages.

Technology's underperformance overshadowed another strong showing from chipmakers. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM 126.45, +7.22, +6.1%), which is the world's largest contract chip foundry, reported strong results, issued upbeat guidance, and announced big spending plans, boding well for other names in the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+2.1%).

The afternoon pressure on the market's heavyweights intensified after Fed Chairman Powell reiterated during a speech that a rate hike will not be considered for a long time. However, the selling did not have a meaningful impact on financials (+0.5%), or sectors that would benefit from commodity inflation like energy (+3.0%) and industrials (+0.3%). The energy sector extended this week's gain to 7.5% largely due to continued support from its largest component—Exxon Mobil (XOM 50.31, +1.89, +3.9%)—after the stock was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $56 target at Barclays. Crude oil, meanwhile, rallied $0.67, or 1.3%, to $53.59/bbl.

Bank stocks benefited from more curve steepening, as the 2s30s spread expanded by three basis points to 171 bps while the 2s10s spread expanded by two basis points to 97 bps. Citigroup (C 69.01, +2.15, +3.2%) and Wells Fargo (WFC 34.75, +0.95, +2.8%) hit their best levels in ten months while JPMorgan Chase (JPM 141.17, +0.82, +0.6%) touched a fresh record high ahead of tomorrow's release of their Q4 results.

Treasuries finished on their lows, sending the 10-yr yield higher by four basis points to 1.13%.

Economic data released today was limited to jobless claims and import/export prices:

For the week ending January 9, initial claims spiked by 181,000 to 965,000 (Briefing.com consensus 780,000). That's the highest claims number since August. Continuing claims for the week ending January 2 increased by 199,000 to 5.271 million.
The key takeaway from the report for the market is that it simply paints the need for additional stimulus; hence, this bad news gets interpreted as good news.
Import prices rose 0.9% in December while the November increase was revised up to 0.2% from 0.1%. Excluding oil, import prices rose 0.4% after decreasing a revised 0.2% (from -0.3%) in November. Export prices rose 1.1% in December while the November increase was revised up to 0.7% from 0.6%. Excluding agriculture, export prices rose 1.3% after increasing 0.3% in November.

December PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%; prior 0.1%), Core PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%; prior 0.1%), December Retail Sales (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%; prior -1.1%), Retail Sales ex-auto (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%; prior -0.9%), November Business Inventories (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%; prior 0.7%), and January Empire State Manufacturing (Briefing.com consensus 6.0; prior 4.9) will be reported tomorrow at 8:30 ET, followed by December Industrial Production (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%; prior 0.4%) and Capacity Utilization (Briefing.com consensus 73.5%; prior 73.3%) at 9:15 ET and the preliminary Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey for January (Briefing.com consensus 80.0; prior 80.7) at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +9.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.3% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30991.46 -68.95 (-0.22%)
Nasdaq 13112.65 -16.31 (-0.12%)
SP 500 3795.54 -14.30 (-0.38%)
10-yr Note -7/32 1.129
NYSE Adv 2182 Dec 958 Vol 1.04 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2687 Dec 1073 Vol 6.60 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Industrials, Financials, Real Estate
Weak: Utilities, Consumer Staples, Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services

Moving the Market

Biden administration will reportedly seek $2 trln in fiscal spending

Initial claims reach highest level since late August

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Stocks bounce back to begin the week
19-Jan-21 16:15 ET
Dow +116.26 at 30930.52, Nasdaq +198.68 at 13197.18, S&P +30.66 at 3798.91

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.8% on Tuesday, reclaiming its decline from last Friday, in an advance led by shares of mega-cap, semiconductor, and energy companies. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.5%) and Russell 2000 (+1.3%) outperformed the benchmark index, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) posted a smaller gain.

The market was pleased to hear Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen asserting that it's time to "act big" on fiscal stimulus, which outweighed reports suggesting that President-elect Biden's $1.9 trillion package could run into some objections in Congress. She also said during her confirmation hearing that President-elect Biden will not repeal the 2017 tax law while the economy battles the coronavirus.

The S&P 500 energy sector (+2.1%) and Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+3.4%), which contain economically-sensitive businesses, were among the biggest gainers today. The influential information technology sector advanced 1.3%.

In addition, positive-minded analyst recommendations in stocks like Alphabet (GOOG 1790.86, +54.67, +3.2%), Facebook (FB 261.10, +9.74, +3.9%), and American Express (AXP 126.75, +4.61, +3.8%) supported the cause. The communication services sector, which is home to GOOG and FB, increased 1.9%.

While the AXP boost was nice, the financials sector (+0.4%) was restrained by negative reactions to earnings reports from Bank of America (BAC 32.77, -0.24, -0.7%) and Goldman Sachs (GS 294.20, -6.81, -2.3%). The real estate (-0.5%), consumer staples (-0.4%), and utilities (-0.4%) sectors were the only sectors that closed lower.

U.S. Treasuries recouped overnight losses and finished little changed in front of President-elect Biden's inauguration tomorrow. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.13%, and the 10-yr yield was flat at 1.09%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.3% to 90.50. WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.3%, or $0.66, to $52.96/bbl.

Investors did not receive any economic data during Tuesday's session. Looking ahead, investors will receive the MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the NAHB Housing Market Index for January on Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +8.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +2.4% YTD
S&P 500 +1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.1% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30930.52 +116.26 (0.38%)
Nasdaq 13197.18 +198.68 (1.53%)
SP 500 3798.91 +30.66 (0.81%)
10-yr Note -22/32 1.094
NYSE Adv 1975 Dec 1179 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2547 Dec 1241 Vol 6.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Communication Services, Information Technology
Weak: Consumer Staples, Utilities, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 recoups decline from last Friday in a relatively broad-based advance

-- Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen said it's time to "act big" on fiscal stimulus

-- Mixed reactions to bank earnings

-- Defensive-oriented sectors underperformed

WTI crude futures settle in positive territory
19-Jan-21 15:30 ET
Dow +132.00 at 30946.26, Nasdaq +204.02 at 13202.52, S&P +32.66 at 3800.91

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 0.9% amid gains in eight of its 11 sectors.

Specifically, the energy (+2.4%), communication services (+2.0%), and information technology (+1.3%) sectors are in top spots today, while the real estate (-0.6%), consumer staples (-0.4%), and utilities (-0.2%) sectors are the lone holdouts.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $0.66 (+1.3%) to $52.96 per barrel.

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Mega-caps power market to new records on Inauguration Day
20-Jan-21 16:15 ET
Dow +257.86 at 31188.38, Nasdaq +260.07 at 13457.25, S&P +52.94 at 3851.85

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] Each of the major indices closed at fresh record highs on Wednesday in a session that featured the mega-caps as leaders and Joe Biden inaugurated as the 46th president. The Nasdaq Composite (+2.0%) outperformed with a 2% gain, followed by gains in the S&P 500 (+1.4%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) and Russell 2000 (+0.4%).

Shares of Apple (AAPL 132.03, +4.20, +3.3%), Microsoft (MSFT 224.34, +7.90, +3.7%), Amazon (AMZN 3263.38, +142.62, +4.6%), Alphabet (GOOG 1886.90, +96.04, +5.4%), and Facebook (FB 267.48, +6.38, +2.4%) gained between 2-5%. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 207.13, +5.20, +2.6%) increased 2.6%.

Netflix (NFLX 586.34, +84.57, +16.9%) was credited as a supporting catalyst for the mega-cap rally, as shares surged 17% after the company provided bullish subscriber results, guidance, and commentary. Notably, Netflix said it believes it no longer needs to raise external financing for day-to-day operations.

In turn, the S&P 500 communication services (+3.6%), information technology (+2.0%), and consumer discretionary (+2.3%) sectors claimed today's top spots.

Every other sector, except financials (-0.5%), as well as small-cap and mid-cap stocks contributed to the steady advance, albeit to a lesser extent. The financials sector was undercut by negative reactions to better-than-expected earnings reports from Morgan Stanley (MS 74.84, -0.15, -0.2%), U.S. Bancorp (USB 45.58, -2.49, -5.2%), and BNY Mellon (BK 42.49, -3.33, -7.3%).

Dow components UnitedHealth (UNH 350.84, -1.35, -0.4%) and Procter & Gamble (PG 131.93, -1.67, -1.3%) also closed lower despite beating EPS estimates, which factored into the relative underperformance of the Dow, versus the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed in a tight-ranged session. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.12%, and the 10-yr yield remained unchanged at 1.09%. The U.S. Dollar Index finished little changed at 90.46. WTI crude futures increased 0.6%, or $0.30, to $53.28/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which were non-events:

The NAHB Housing Market Index decreased to 83 in January (Briefing.com consensus 88) from 86 in December.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.9% following a 16.7% spike in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, Housing Starts and Building Permits for December, and the Philadelphia Fed Index for January on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +9.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.4% YTD
S&P 500 +2.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.9% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31188.38 +257.86 (0.83%)
Nasdaq 13457.25 +260.07 (1.97%)
SP 500 3851.85 +52.94 (1.39%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.089
NYSE Adv 1990 Dec 1119 Vol 992.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2102 Dec 1651 Vol 6.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Communication Services, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Financials, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Mega-caps power market to fresh record closes

-- Netflix (NFLX) shares climbed 17% after earnings report

-- Joe Biden inaugurated as the 46th president

Semiconductor stocks taking a breather
20-Jan-21 15:25 ET
Dow +240.03 at 31170.55, Nasdaq +280.27 at 13477.45, S&P +56.03 at 3854.94

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 1.5% amid convincing leadership from most mega-cap stocks. The small-cap Russell 2000 is hanging in there with a 0.4% gain.

Interestingly, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-0.2%) is not participating in today's advance after the semiconductor index rallied more than 3.0% yesterday on no specific news catalysts. Cree (CREE 114.86, -5.23, -4.4%) is the weakest performer in the index.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.6%, or $0.30, to $53.28/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Weak session amid short-squeeze mania
27-Jan-21 16:20 ET
Dow -633.87 at 30303.17, Nasdaq -355.47 at 13270.60, S&P -98.85 at 3750.77

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The large-cap indices fell more than 2.0% on Wednesday, as risk sentiment was undercut by another day of extreme short squeezes and underwhelming earnings reactions. The S&P 500 (-2.6%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-2.1%) gave up their yearly gains in the process. The Nasdaq Composite declined 2.6%, and Russell 2000 declined 1.9%.

GameStop (GME 347.51, +199.53, +135%) remained the prominent example of the short-squeeze mania today, as shares more than doubled (again) in an apparent move fueled by an online community. AMC Entertainment (AMC 19.90, +14.94, +301%), Nokia (NOK 6.55, +1.82, +38.5%), and BlackBerry (BB 25.10, +6.18, +32.7%) were other beneficiaries.

In addition to this frenzied price action, the inability of Microsoft (MSFT 232.90, +0.57, +0.3%) to drive the market higher following its strong earnings report and upbeat guidance was cited as another headwind for sentiment. Put another way, investors took some money off the table ahead of more mega-cap earnings after the close.

Every sector in the S&P 500 closed sharply lower with losses ranging from 1.4% (energy) to 3.8% (communication services). The CBOE Volatility Index surged 61.6% to 37.21 amid increased interest to hedge against further equity weakness.

Starbucks (SBUX 97.87, -6.82, -6.5%), Boeing (BA 194.03, -8.03, -4.0%), Adv. Micro Devices (AMD 88.84, -5.87, -6.5%), and Texas Instruments (TXN 162.93, -8.54, -5.0%) were notable laggards following their earnings reports. On a related note, Starbuck's COO left to become the CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 51.18, +1.99, +4.1%).

In the afternoon, Fed Chair Powell preferred not to comment on the day's market activity, although he said that expectations for fiscal policy and vaccines, instead of monetary policy, have been driving asset prices in recent months. The central bank made no changes to its accommodative policy stance, as widely expected.

U.S. Treasuries finished with modest gains amid the weak performance in the stock market and were less influenced by the Fed today. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.12%, and the 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 1.01%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 90.65. WTI crude futures increased 0.4% to $52.84/bbl amid bullish inventory data.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

New orders for durable goods increased 0.2% m/m in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.9%) following an upwardly revised 1.2% increase (from 0.9%) in November. Excluding transportation, orders rose 0.7% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) following an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from 0.4%) in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing activity for durable goods held up reasonably well in December despite the surge in coronavirus cases and restrictive measures aimed at curbing the spread.
The MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 4.1% following a 1.9% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead to Thursday, investors will receive the advance estimate for Q4 GDP, weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, New Home Sales for December, the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for December, and advance December readings for Intl Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories.

Russell 2000 +6.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.0% YTD
S&P 500 -0.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30303.17 -633.87 (-2.05%)
Nasdaq 13270.60 -355.47 (-2.61%)
SP 500 3750.77 -98.85 (-2.57%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.014
NYSE Adv 541 Dec 2562 Vol 1.7 bln
Nasdaq Adv 615 Dec 3106 Vol 1.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy
Weak: Communication Services, Financials, Health Care, Materials, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Weak session amid continued short-squeeze mania

-- Fed kept rates unchanged as widely expected, committed to accommodative monetary policy

-- Better-than-expected earnings reports unable to drive market higher

Oil prices gain on bullish inventory data
27-Jan-21 15:30 ET
Dow -574.62 at 30362.42, Nasdaq -357.56 at 13268.51, S&P -96.00 at 3753.62

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at new session lows with a 2.6% decline. The Russell 2000 is down 1.6%.

One last look at the S&P sectors shows losses ranging from 1.2% (energy) to 4.0% (communication services). The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is also struggling with a steep 5.2% decline, as investors take profits in the space despite AMD (AMD 88.68, -6.03, -6.4%) and Texas Instruments (TXN 162.60, -8.87, -5.2%) beating earnings estimates.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.4%, or $0.22, to $52.84/bbl amid a bullish EIA inventory report.

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Rebellious spirt undercuts risk sentiment in weak session
29-Jan-21 16:15 ET
Dow -620.74 at 29982.62, Nasdaq -266.46 at 13070.70, S&P -73.14 at 3714.24

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.9% on Friday, as the continuation of the short-squeeze mania wore out investors and fed into concerns about fund managers selling long positions to cover their shorts. The Nasdaq Composite declined 2.0%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 2.0%, and the Russell 2000 declined 1.6%.

Brokerage firms, most notably Robinhood, eased some of the trading restrictions they temporarily placed yesterday on heavily-shorted stocks like GameStop (GME 325.00, +131.40, +67.9%) and AMC Entertainment (AMC 13.26, +4.63, +53.7%). There were still limitations, though, which might have tempered the intraday rebound gains in these stocks.

It was evident that the so-called rebellious spirt among retail traders was still burning strong today. Considering these emotions, the volatility, and recent commentary about the market being vulnerable for a correction, there was an accompanying suspicion if the short-squeeze mania was the catalyst for a potentially extended pullback.

From a technical perspective, the S&P 500 closed marginally below its 50-day moving average (3716), which is a key technical level many traders watch for short-term purposes. All 11 S&P 500 sectors finished lower with losses ranging from 0.5% (utilities) to 3.4% (energy).

Separately, better-than-expected earnings reports and encouraging vaccine news failed to inspire enthusiasm in the broad market.

Dow components Visa (V 193.25, -4.97, -2.5%), Honeywell (HON 195.37, -7.47, -3.7%), Caterpillar (CAT 182.84, -1.50, -0.8%), and Chevron (CVX 85.20, -3.82, -4.3%) closed lower following their earnings reports.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 163.13, -6.03, -3.6%) said its single-dose vaccine candidate was 66% effective in protecting against COVID-19, and Novavax (NVAX 220.94, +86.93, +64.9%) said its vaccine candidate produced an 89.3% efficacy rate in its Phase 3 trial in the UK. NVAX shares rose 65%.

Interestingly, longer-dated Treasuries traded lower despite the weakness in equities, which was symptomatic of cash-raising efforts. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.11%, while the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.09%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 90.55. WTI crude futures decreased 0.2%, or $0.12, to $52.18/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Personal income increased 0.6% m/m in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%) and personal spending declined 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%). The PCE Price Index was up 0.4% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) and the core PCE Price Index was up 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%), leaving the yr/yr rates at 1.3% and 1.5%, respectively.
The key takeaway from the report is that it wasn't as bad as feared, which qualifies as good news for a market that has seen a number of economic reports of late not live up to expectations.
The Q4 Employment Cost Index increased 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%), seasonally adjusted, for the three-month period ending in December 2020 after increasing 0.5% for the three-month period ending September 2020. Wages and salaries, which account for about 70% of compensation costs, rose 0.9%, while benefit costs, which make up the remainder of compensation costs, increased 0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that compensation costs for civilian workers, private industry workers, and state and local government workers all moderated from the same period a year ago.
The final January reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment checked in at 79.0 (Briefing.com consensus 79.2) versus the preliminary reading of 79.2 and the final reading of 80.7 for December.
The key takeaway from the report is that sentiment held relatively steady in January despite rising coronavirus cases/deaths, the insurrection, the impeachment of President Trump, and a deterioration in the labor market.
Pending home sales decreased 0.3% m/m in December (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%) following a revised 2.5% decline in November (from -2.6%).
The Chicago PMI for January increased to 63.8 (Briefing.com consensus 58.0) from a downwardly revised 58.7 in December (from 59.5).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Manufacturing Index for January and Construction Spending for December on Monday.

Russell 2000 +5.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.4% YTD
S&P 500 -1.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 29982.62 -620.74 (-2.03%)
Nasdaq 13070.70 -266.46 (-2.00%)
SP 500 3714.24 -73.14 (-1.93%)
10-yr Note -3/32 1.079
NYSE Adv 865 Dec 2175 Vol 1.6 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1163 Dec 2575 Vol 7.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities
Weak: Energy, Financials, Consumer Discretionary, Industrials, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Weak session to end the week

-- Brokerage firms eased some trading restrictions on heavily-shorted stocks, sending these stocks higher

-- Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Novavax (NVAX) provided encouraging vaccine updates

-- Negative earnings reactions

Crude futures settle lower, equities pare losses
29-Jan-21 15:30 ET
Dow -455.74 at 30147.62, Nasdaq -202.84 at 13134.32, S&P -54.90 at 3732.48

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continue to pare losses and is now down 1.3%. The Russell 2000 is down 1.4%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows every sector still trading lower, but the utilities sector (-0.1%) briefly emerged into positive territory earlier amid strength in Duke Energy (DUK 94.04, +2.26, +2.8%). The energy sector remains the weakest link with a 2.8% decline.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.2%, or $0.12, to $52.18/bbl.

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S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Russell 2000 close at record highs
04-Feb-21 16:15 ET
Dow +332.26 at 31055.86, Nasdaq +167.20 at 13777.75, S&P +41.57 at 3871.74

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.1% on Thursday to extend its win streak to four sessions and close at a record high. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.2%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.1%) kept pace with the benchmark index, while the Russell 2000 (+2.0%) pulled ahead with a 2% gain. The Nasdaq and Russell 2000 also closed at record highs.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in positive territory, including the financials sector (+2.3%) atop the standings in a continuation of its strong performance this week. Bank stocks benefited from another uptick in longer-dated Treasury yields. On a related note, the Bank of England warned UK banks to prepare for the possibility of negative interest rates.

Apple (AAPL 137.39, +3.45, +2.6%) was a key market-mover today amid reports that it's nearing a deal with Hyundai-Kia to manufacture the "Apple Car," an autonomous electric vehicle. With additional support from earnings-driven gains in PayPal (PYPL 270.43, +18.53, +7.4%) and eBay (EBAY 61.12, +3.08, +5.3%), the information technology sector gained 1.6%.

On the downside, the materials sector (-0.5%) was the lone sector holdout amid lower metal prices and weakness in Air Products (APD 256.70, -19.90, -7.2%) despite its positive earnings report.

Other laggards included Qualcomm (QCOM 147.97, -14.33, -8.8%), Merck (MRK 76.03, -1.29, -1.7%), UnitedHealth (UNH 329.32, -8.57, -2.5%), and GameStop (GME 53.50, -38.91, -42.1%). Note, the continued weakness in GameStop was cited as a positive factor for sentiment since it appeared to represent the capitulation of last week's short-squeeze mania.

Qualcomm delivered better-than-expected earnings results but warned that supply constraints are preventing it from fully meeting the robust chip demand. Merck and UnitedHealth said their CEOs will retire later this year; Merck also missed top and bottom-line estimates but issued upbeat FY21 guidance.

Evidently, the negative reactions today didn't necessarily follow bad news, which likely bolstered confidence in the broader rally effort.

In the Treasury market, the benchmark 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 1.14% after touching 1.16% at its high. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.11%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.4% to 91.51. WTI crude futures increased 0.9%, or $0.52, to $55.70/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending January 30 declined by 33,000 from the prior week to 779,000 (Briefing.com consensus 825,000). Continuing claims for the week ending January 23 decreased by 193,000 to 4.592 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that the level of initial claims improved; however, they didn't improve nearly enough to drown out calls highlighting the need for additional stimulus and extended jobless benefits.
Productivity in the fourth quarter decreased from the previous quarter at an annual rate of 4.8% (Briefing.com consensus -2.8%). Third quarter productivity was revised up to a 5.1% increase from 4.6%. Unit labor costs jumped at an annual rate of 6.8% (Briefing.com consensus 3.3%) following a downwardly revised 7.0% decline (from -6.6%) in the third quarter.
The key takeaway from the report is that the drop in productivity was the largest quarterly decline since the second quarter of 1981.
Factory orders for manufactured goods increased 1.1% m/m in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%) after increasing an upwardly revised 1.3% (from 1.0%) in November. This is the eighth consecutive monthly increase in factory orders.
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed another increase in business spending, as nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft increased 0.7% in December after increasing 1.2% in November.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for January, the Trade Balance for December, and Consumer Credit for December on Friday.

Russell 2000 +11.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.9% YTD
S&P 500 +3.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31055.86 +332.26 (1.08%)
Nasdaq 13777.75 +167.20 (1.23%)
SP 500 3871.74 +41.57 (1.09%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.140
NYSE Adv 2319 Dec 854 Vol 939.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2838 Dec 1029 Vol 7.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Information Technology, Industrials, Energy
Weak: Materials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and Russell 2000 close at record highs amid positive momentum

-- Financial stocks outperformed

-- Apple (AAPL) provided key leadership amid EV reports

WTI crude futures extend weekly gains
04-Feb-21 15:25 ET
Dow +248.72 at 30972.32, Nasdaq +126.73 at 13737.28, S&P +30.46 at 3860.63

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to hold onto a 0.8% gain, which puts it in record-close watch.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows financials (+1.8%) and information technology (+1.1%) still leading the advance with gains over 1.0%. Conversely, the materials sector (-0.6%) is the only group trading lower right now amid a 7% post-earnings decline in Air Products (APD 256.02, -20.58, -7.4%).

WTI crude futures settled the session higher by 0.9%, or $0.52, to $55.70/bbl. Crude futures are now up more than 7.5% this week.

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A trio of record closes to end the strong week
05-Feb-21 16:15 ET

Dow +92.38 at 31148.24, Nasdaq +78.55 at 13856.30, S&P +15.09 at 3886.83

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.4%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%), and Russell 2000 (+1.4%) set intraday and closing record highs on Friday to cap off an impressive week for the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) underperformed with a 0.3% gain.

Prior to the open, investors received the January employment report, which was underwhelming but painted the case in Washington for more fiscal stimulus. Briefly, nonfarm payrolls increased by 49,000 (Briefing.com consensus 50,000) following a 227,000 decline in December, and the unemployment rate improved to 6.3% (Briefing.com consensus 6.7%) from 6.7% in December.

Right out of the gate, the cyclical sectors and small-cap stocks assumed the early leadership, partly due to stimulus-induced growth optimism and positive momentum, but the gains were relatively broad-based. The S&P 500 materials (+1.7%), communication services (+1.0%), and energy (+0.9%) sectors finished atop the leaderboard.

The information technology (-0.2%) restrained the broader advance and was the only sector that closed lower today.

Earnings reports for the fourth quarter continued to exceed expectations, with shares of Snap (SNAP 63.64, +5.33, +9.1%), Activision Blizzard (ATVI 101.61, +8.93, +9.6%), and Estee Lauder (EL 272.81, +19.76, +7.8%) reacting positively to the good news. T-Mobile US (TMUS 125.28, -5.32, -4.1%) and Peloton (PTON 148.30, -9.23, -5.9%) closed lower following their reports.

Separately, the House passed a budget resolution that unlocks a budget reconciliation process for the next stimulus package. The stimulus bill would only need a simple majority to pass, and lawmakers will reportedly spend the next few weeks drafting its contents.

The U.S. Treasury yield curve continued to steepen, caused by selling pressure in longer-dated maturities and demand for shorter-dated ones. The 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.17%, while the 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.09%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.6% to 90.99. WTI crude futures increased 1.2%, or $0.69, to $56.89/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

January nonfarm payrolls increased by 49,000 (Briefing.com consensus 50,000). January private sector payrolls increased by 6,000 (Briefing.com consensus 60,000). January unemployment rate was 6.3% (Briefing.com consensus 6.7%), versus 6.7% in December. The average workweek in January was 35.0 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.7), versus 34.7 hours in December.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will paint the case in Washington for more stimulus.
The December Trade Balance Report showed a narrowing in the trade deficit to -$66.6 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$65.7 billion) from a downwardly revised -$69.0 billion (from -$68.1 billion) in November.
The key takeaway from the report is found in the annual summary for 2020, which indicates the goods and services deficit widened to $678.7 billion from $576.9 billion in 2019. Exports of goods decreased by $217.7 billion while imports decreased by $166.2 billion, underscoring the global demand drop-off amid the pandemic.
Consumer credit increased by $9.7 bln in December after increasing a downwardly revised $13.9 bln (from $15.3 bln) in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that revolving credit decreased for the ninth time over the last ten months dating back to February, which preceded the initial pandemic lockdown period taking hold in the U.S.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Russell 2000 +13.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.5% YTD
S&P 500 +3.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.8% YTD


Market Snapshot
Dow 31148.24 +92.38 (0.30%)
Nasdaq 13856.30 +78.55 (0.57%)
SP 500 3886.83 +15.09 (0.39%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.171

NYSE Adv 2126 Dec 1059 Vol 938.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2559 Dec 1321 Vol 6.6 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Communication Services, Communication Services, Consumer Staples

Weak: Information Technology


Moving the Market
-- S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Russell 2000 set intraday and closing record highs

-- Lackluster January employment report fed into the view for more fiscal stimulus

-- Positive momentum



WTI crude futures extend weekly gains
05-Feb-21 15:30 ET

Dow +88.68 at 31144.54, Nasdaq +66.94 at 13844.69, S&P +14.88 at 3886.62
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading higher by 0.4% and is on track to close at a fresh record high.

One last look at the sector performances shows materials (+1.8%) outperforming after it was the only sector that closed lower yesterday. The information technology sector (-0.3%) finds itself as the today's lone sector holdout.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.2%, or $0.69, to $56.89/bbl. Crude futures rose 9.0% this week.

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Four record closes to start the week
08-Feb-21 16:15 ET
Dow +237.52 at 31385.76, Nasdaq +131.35 at 13987.65, S&P +28.76 at 3915.59

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] Each of the major indices set intraday and closing record highs on Monday, with the S&P 500 advancing 0.7% for its sixth straight gain and surpassing the 3900 level for the first time. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) performed slightly better, while the Russell 2000 (+2.5%) pulled ahead with a 2.5% gain.

The positive bias started in the futures market after Treasury Secretary Yellen said on Sunday that the economy can reach full employment in 2022 if a stimulus bill is passed, which is two years sooner than the projection issued from the Congressional Budget Office last week.

This observation fueled the so-called recovery trade in which value, cyclical, and small-cap stocks outperform due to expectations for improved economic, and earnings, growth. The S&P 500 energy sector (+4.2%) rallied another 4%, further aided by higher oil prices ($57.97/bbl, +1.08, +1.9%) and Exxon Mobil (XOM 52.09, +2.14, +4.3%) receiving an upgrade to Neutral from Underperform at Exane BNP Paribas.

The financials (+1.2%), information technology (+1.0%), and industrials (+0.9%) sectors follows suit with gains of about 1%, while the utilities sector (-0.8%) was the only group that closed in negative territory.

Tesla (TSLA 863.42, +11.19, +1.3%) provided key support for the consumer discretionary sector (+0.4%) after disclosing a $1.5 billion investment in bitcoin with plans to accept the cryptocurrency as a payment option, subject to applicable laws.

The price of bitcoin spiked more than 15% to fresh all-time highs following the news, and stocks with bitcoin exposure like NVIDIA (NVDA 577.55, +33.91, +6.2%), PayPal (PYPL 282.17, +12.73, +4.7%), and MicroStrategy (MSTR 1041.00, +235.00, +29.2%) posted noticeable gains. NVIDIA also benefited from an appreciation that the chip industry is overwhelmed with strong demand.

U.S. Treasuries finished mixed after investors bought the early weakness in longer-dated maturities. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.11%, while the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.16% after touching 1.20% at its intraday high. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 90.96.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead, investors will receive the NFIB Small Business Optimism Survey for January and the JOLTS - Job Openings report for December on Tuesday.

Russell 2000 +16.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.5% YTD
S&P 500 +4.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.6% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31385.76 +237.52 (0.76%)
Nasdaq 13987.65 +131.35 (0.95%)
SP 500 3915.59 +28.76 (0.74%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.168
NYSE Adv 2311 Dec 875 Vol 970.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3048 Dec 901 Vol 8.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Information Technology, Industrials
Weak: Utilities, Real Estate, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Record-setting session for all four major indices

-- Growth optimism, positive momentum

-- Treasury Secretary Yellen said economy can reach full employment in 2022 if stimulus bill is passed

Energy stocks rise with oil prices
08-Feb-21 15:30 ET
Dow +164.67 at 31312.91, Nasdaq +84.19 at 13940.49, S&P +17.84 at 3904.67

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading higher by 0.5% and on track to close above the 3900 for the first time ever.

One last look at the S&P sectors shows energy (+4.4%) way out in the lead with a 4% gain as it extends its strong start to the year. The financials sector (+0.9%) is next in line with a 0.9% gain, while the utilities (-0.8%) and health care (-0.1%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled the session higher by 1.9%, or $1.08, to $57.97/bbl.

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New closing highs for Nasdaq and Russell 2000
09-Feb-21 16:15 ET
Dow -9.93 at 31375.83, Nasdaq +20.06 at 14007.71, S&P -4.36 at 3911.23

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] Each of the major indices set intraday record highs on Tuesday, but only the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) and Russell 2000 (+0.4%) closed at record highs. The S&P 500 (-0.1%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.03%) snapped their six-session winning streaks with fractional declines.

Today's price action suggested the market was consolidating its February rally in which the S&P 500 rallied more than 5% in the prior six trading sessions. Most sectors flipped between modest gains and losses today, except for the energy sector (-1.5%), which declined 1.5%.

The materials (-0.7%) and consumer discretionary (-0.6%) sectors also underperformed, while the real estate (+0.5%) and communication services (+0.2%) sectors showed relative strength. Broader selling interest was muted, as investors respected the positive macro factors in the market.

To rehash, these factors included increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates and decreasing infection/hospitalization rates, low interest rates, optimism surrounding another fiscal stimulus bill, and better-than-expected earnings reports.

Take-Two Interactive (TTWO 200.31, -13.03, -6.1%) and DuPont (DD 73.48, -2.28, -3.0%) were among the latest companies to exceed earnings expectations and issue upbeat guidance, but the reactions were disappointing. Nucor (NUE 54.68, +0.98, +1.8%) raised Q1 EPS guidance well above consensus estimates due to positive economic trends and robust demand in the steel industry.

Separately, Electronic Arts (EA 146.11, +3.65, +2.6%), a competitor to TTWO, announced plans to acquire Glu Mobile (GLUU 12.67, +3.28, +34.9%) for $12.50/share in a cash deal worth $2.1 billion in enterprise value. The deal was a 36% premium to GLUU's closing price on Feb. 5.

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed in a tight-ranged session. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.12%, and the 10-yr yield finished flat at 1.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 90.46. WTI crude futures increased 0.7%, or $0.38, to $58.35/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Job openings increased to 6.646 million in December from a revised 6.572 million in November (from 6.527 million).
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index decreased to 95.0 in December from 95.9 in November.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for January, the Treasury Budget for January, Wholesale Inventories for December, and the MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +16.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.7% YTD
S&P 500 +4.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31375.83 -9.93 (-0.03%)
Nasdaq 14007.71 +20.06 (0.14%)
SP 500 3911.23 -4.36 (-0.11%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.154
NYSE Adv 1854 Dec 1342 Vol 892.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2300 Dec 1625 Vol 8.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Communication Services, Industrials
Weak: Energy, Materials, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Major indices set intraday all-time highs, Nasdaq and Russell 2000 close at new highs

-- Consolidation activity

-- Respecting the positive trend

WTI crude futures settle higher, but energy stocks cool down
09-Feb-21 15:25 ET
Dow +12.95 at 31398.71, Nasdaq +29.90 at 14017.55, S&P -0.89 at 3914.70

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading flat, while the Russell 2000 is up 0.5% and well on its way to close at another record high.

One last look at the S&P sectors shows energy down 1.4% and materials down 0.5%. On the positive side, the communication services (+0.5%) and real estate (+0.3%) sectors outperform with modest gains.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.7%, or $0.38, to $58.35/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Nasdaq closes at record high in range-bound session
11-Feb-21 16:20 ET
Dow -7.10 at 31430.70, Nasdaq +53.24 at 14025.79, S&P +6.50 at 3916.38

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices closed mixed and little changed on Thursday in a range-bound session. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) closed at a record high with a 0.4% gain, the S&P 500 (+0.2%) and Russell 2000 (+0.1%) eked out smaller gains, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.02%) closed fractionally lower after setting an all-time high early in the day.

The session started modestly higher, as the market remained influenced by a fear of missing out on further gains, positive momentum, and lingering growth optimism. The market then slipped into negative territory amid some profit-taking pressure, but the large-cap indices never went below yesterday's lows.

Red-hot stocks within the energy, small-cap, and micro-cap sectors were hit the hardest on the way down before investors classically bought the dip. For reference, the iShares Micro-Cap ETF (IWC 150.73, -0.63, -0.4%) declined 0.4% after being down 2.0% intraday, and the S&P 500 energy sector declined 1.5% after being down 3.6% intraday. The S&P 500 was down 0.5% at its low.

The top-weighted S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.1%) was a steady support for the market amid strength in payment companies and semiconductor companies. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index advanced 3.5%.

Tech heavyweight MasterCard (MA 342.87, +8.66, +2.6%) and Bank of New York Mellon (BK 42.13, +0.39, +0.9%) will reportedly incorporate cryptocurrencies into their businesses. Separately, bullish analyst commentary about NAND prices out of Morgan Stanley helped spur the semiconductor gains.

Notably, Tilray (TLRY 32.16, -31.75, -49.7%) and other cannabis stocks did not benefit from a buy-the-dip mindset. The space was hit hard throughout the day in an unwind of the so-called Reddit trade.

In other corporate news, PepsiCo (PEP 134.97, -2.73, -2.0%), Uber (UBER 60.71, -2.47, -3.9%), and Zillow (ZG 200.60, +28.89, +16.8%) traded mixed following their earnings reports. Kraft Heinz (KHC 35.54, +1.65, +4.9%) agreed to sell its nuts business to Hormel Foods (HRL 48.18, -1.65, -3.3%) for $3.35 billion in cash. Bumble (BMBL 70.31, +27.31, +63.5%) had a hot public debut.

U.S. Treasuries finished on a lower note, pushing most yields higher. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.11%, and the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 90.40. WTI crude futures decreased 0.8%, or $0.48, to $58.23/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial claims decreased by 19,000 to 793,000 (Briefing.com consensus 750,000) in the week ending February 6 following an upward revision to 812,000 (from 779,000) for the prior week. Continuing claims for the week ending January 30 decreased by 145,000 to 4.545 million following an upward revision to 4.690 million (from 4.592 million) for the prior week.
The key takeaway from the report is unchanged: the labor market is not in a good place and that will necessitate additional stimulus measures.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for February on Friday.

Russell 2000 +15.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.8% YTD
S&P 500 +4.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.7% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31430.70 -7.10 (-0.02%)
Nasdaq 14025.79 +53.24 (0.38%)
SP 500 3916.38 +6.50 (0.17%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.139
NYSE Adv 1477 Dec 1719 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1768 Dec 2199 Vol 10.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology
Weak: Energy, Utilities, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Major indices trade mixed and little changed

-- Relative strength in technology stocks

-- Energy stocks and small-caps underperform

WTI crude futures settle lower, energy stocks underperform
11-Feb-21 15:25 ET
Dow -38.58 at 31399.22, Nasdaq +31.15 at 14003.70, S&P +1.65 at 3911.53

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is back in the green with a 0.1% gain after being down 0.5% around midday.

One last look at the sector performances shows materials (+0.2%) and health care (+0.1%) joining the information technology sector (+0.9%) in the green. The energy sector remains the weakest link with a 2.0% decline, followed by utilities (-0.7%).

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.8%, or $0.48, to $58.23/bbl.

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Flat finish for the S&P 500 in resilient session
17-Feb-21 16:15 ET

Dow +90.27 at 31613.02, Nasdaq -82.00 at 13965.52, S&P -1.26 at 3931.33

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.03%) finished flat on Wednesday, battling back from an early 0.8% decline after finding support at the 3900 level. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) eked out a closing record high, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-0.7%) closed lower amid profit-taking pressure.

Prior to the open, investors received retail sales and producer inflation data for January that easily topped expectations and supported the economic recovery thesis. Specifically, retail sales surged 5.3% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.8%), and the Producer Price Index jumped 1.3% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) -- the largest increase since the index began in December 2009.

The initial equity reaction was negative, partly because long-term interest rates resumed their quick ascent, which weighed on the valuations of growth stocks, and partly due to a view that the recovery news might have been priced in during the month's rally. The 10-yr yield, which rose ten basis points yesterday, touched 1.33% immediately after the data but finished flat at 1.30%.

The temperance in the Treasury market likely contributed to a buy-the-dip mindset, which carried eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors into positive territory after each started the session in the red. The energy sector (+1.5%) followed oil prices higher ($61.12/bbl, +1.03, +1.7%), and the consumer discretionary (+0.7%) and communication services (+0.5%) sectors follows behind.

Unsurprisingly, the top-weighted information technology sector (-1.0%) held back the S&P 500 amid relative weakness in its growth-stock components, including the semiconductor stocks. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index declined 1.9%, trimming its monthly gain to 10.1%.

Shares of Verizon (VZ 56.99, +2.84, +5.2%) and Chevron (CVX 95.92, +2.79, +3.0%) were boosted by news that Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 245.21, -0.07, unch) disclosed new positions in the stocks last quarter. Shopify (SHOP 1425.00, -49.00, -3.3%) shares pulled back modestly despite reporting better-than-expected earnings results.

Separately, the Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.10%, as the FOMC Minutes from the January meeting corroborated the central bank's dovish monetary policy stance. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.5% to 90.92.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

January retail sales surged 5.3% month-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.8%), aided by the receipt of stimulus checks and pent-up spending activity, and more than neutralized the downward revision for December to -1.0% from -0.7%. Excluding autos, retail sales soared 5.9% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) and more than neutralized any disappointment that might have been attached to the downward revision for December to -1.8% from -1.4%.
The key takeaway from the report is that sales were up solidly across every retail category, offering an early sign of the added spending -- and economic recovery -- potential that is wrapped up in another round of proposed stimulus checks.
The Producer Price Index for final demand jumped 1.3% month-over-month in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) -- the largest increase since the index began in December 2009 -- while the index for final demand, less foods and energy, rose 1.2% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).
The key takeaway from this report is that producers clearly incurred higher prices in January; however, last week's Consumer Price Index showed that there wasn't any meaningful pass through to consumers. Nonetheless, there could be some angst about rising consumer prices in coming months given that the index for processed goods for intermediate demand was up 1.7% in January while the index for unprocessed goods for intermediate demand advanced 3.8%.
Industrial production increased 0.9% m/m in January (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) following a downwardly revised 1.3% increase (from 1.6%) in December. The capacity utilization rate jumped to 75.6% (Briefing.com consensus 74.9%) from an upwardly revised 74.9% (from 74.5%) in December.
The key takeaway from the report is the continued strength in manufacturing output, which occurred despite a decline in the index for motor vehicles and parts attributed to a shortage in semiconductors used in vehicle components.
The NAHB Housing Market Index increased to 84 in February (Briefing.com consensus 86.0) from 83 in January.
Business inventories increased 0.6% in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) following an unrevised 0.5% increase in November.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 5.1% following a 4.1% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for January, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Philadelphia Fed Index for February, and Import and Export Prices for January on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +14.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.4% YTD
S&P 500 +4.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.3% YTD


Market Snapshot
Dow 31613.02 +90.27 (0.29%)
Nasdaq 13965.52 -82.00 (-0.58%)
SP 500 3931.33 -1.26 (-0.03%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.296

NYSE Adv 1390 Dec 1791 Vol 967.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1561 Dec 2390 Vol 7.1 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services

Weak: Information Technology


Moving the Market
-- S&P 500 closes flat in resilient session

-- Relative weakness in growth stocks amid brief spike in longer-dated Treasury yields

-- Retail sales and producer prices for January exceed expectations



WTI crude futures settle above $61 per barrel
17-Feb-21 15:30 ET

Dow +101.75 at 31624.50, Nasdaq -92.17 at 13955.35, S&P -2.82 at 3929.77
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.1% after being down 0.8% early in the day. The Dow (+0.3%) is on pace to close at another record high.

One last look at the S&P sectors shows information technology (-1.1%) still weighing on the market with a 1% decline. The energy (+1.1%), consumer discretionary (+0.7%), and communication services (+0.5%) sectors provide solid support.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.7%, or $1.03, to $61.12/bbl.

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Growth stocks drag market lower amid lingering valuation angst
22-Feb-21 16:15 ET
Dow +27.37 at 31521.69, Nasdaq -341.41 at 13533.08, S&P -30.21 at 3876.50

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.8% on Monday for its fifth straight decline, as weakness in the growth stocks outweighed relative strength in the value/cyclical stocks. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.5%, and the Russell 2000 declined 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%), however, eked out a gain.

Valuation angst lingered after the 10-yr yield touched 1.39% in overnight action on the prevailing view that additional fiscal stimulus and reopening/vaccination efforts will spur growth and inflation. Considering the 10-yr yield started the month at 1.09%, this speedy ascent continued to undercut risk sentiment for growth stocks with elevated valuations.

Those were typically found in the Nasdaq, the S&P 500 information technology (-2.3%) and consumer discretionary (-2.2%) sectors, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-3.8%). Shares of Tesla (TSLA 714.50, -66.80, -8.6%) dropped nearly 9%.

The 10-yr yield finished the session one basis point higher at 1.36%. The 2-yr yield remained flat at 0.11%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.3% to 90.12.

Interestingly, six of the 11 S&P 500 sectors still closed in positive territory, and the iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF (IWD 145.57, +0.57, +0.4%) closed at a record high. Financial stocks have the biggest weighting in this ETF, and they directly benefited from the minor curve-steepening activity.

The S&P 500 financials sector advanced 1.0%, but the energy sector (+3.5%) noticeably outperformed with a 3.5% gain amid sharply higher oil prices ($61.63, +2.63, +4.5%).

Other cyclical stocks were supported by analyst upgrades. For example, the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 25.68, +0.86, +3.5%) rose 3.5% after Deutsche Bank upgraded many of the airline stocks to Buy from Hold, and Dow Inc. (DOW 62.48, +2.09, +3.5%) provided influential leadership in the materials sector (+0.4%) after BofA Securities upgraded it to Neutral from Underperform.

Boeing (BA 212.88, -4.59, -2.1%) was a notable exception to the reopening trade after a Pratt & Whitney engine in one of its 777 planes caught fire over the weekend. Note, Pratt & Whitney is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies (RTX 73.00, -1.26, -1.7%), and no passenger died in the event.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 0.5% m/m in January (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) following an upwardly revised 0.4% increase (from 0.3%) in December. January marked the ninth consecutive monthly increase.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strength in component indicators was widespread, with seven of the 10 indicators making positive contributions.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for February, the FHFA Housing Price Index for February, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for December on Tuesday.

Russell 2000 +14.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.0% YTD
S&P 500 +3.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31521.69 +27.37 (0.09%)
Nasdaq 13533.08 -341.41 (-2.46%)
SP 500 3876.50 -30.21 (-0.77%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.338
NYSE Adv 1510 Dec 1675 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1523 Dec 2413 Vol 6.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Materials, Industrials, Real Estate
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Growth stocks dragged market lower amid lingering valuation angst, but value/cyclical stocks provided offsetting support

-- 10-yr yield touched 1.39% in overnight action

WTI crude futures rally above $61 per barrel
22-Feb-21 15:25 ET
Dow +97.53 at 31591.85, Nasdaq -283.90 at 13590.59, S&P -20.18 at 3886.53

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading lower by 0.5% as the prior rebound effort loses steam. The benchmark index is on pace to close lower for the fifth straight session.

One last look at the S&P sectors shows energy (+4.2%) up the most with a 4% gain, followed by more modest gains in the financials (+0.9%), real estate (+0.7%), and industrials (+0.5%) sectors. The information technology (-1.9%), consumer discretionary (-1.7%), and utilities (-2.3%) sectors lag with sharp declines.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 4.5%, or $2.63, to $61.63/bbl.

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March begins with a strong rebound rally
01-Mar-21 16:15 ET
Dow +603.14 at 31535.51, Nasdaq +396.48 at 13588.85, S&P +90.67 at 3901.82

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied 2.4% on Monday, as investors indiscriminately bought last week's dip amid a host of positive-sounding developments. The Nasdaq Composite (+3.0%) and Russell 2000 (+3.4%) rose at least 3.0%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.0%) followed behind with a 2.0% gain.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors contributed to the steady advance, eight of which advanced more than 2.0%. The information technology (+3.2%) and financials (+3.1%) sectors finished as influential leaders, while the real estate sector (+0.2%) underperformed with a modest gain after a strong start.

From a news perspective, sentiment was boosted after the FDA authorized Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ 159.32, +0.86, +0.5%) COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, the House passed the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill (handing it over to the Senate), manufacturing PMIs for February out of the U.S., Europe, and Japan exceeded expectations, and Warren Buffett reminded investors to "never bet against America" in his annual shareholder letter.

Specifying the U.S. data, the ISM Manufacturing Index for February jumped to 60.8% (Briefing.com consensus 58.8%) from 58.7% in January, matching the August 2018 reading as the highest since May 2004. It's also worth noting that February was the ninth straight month of expansionary activity (above 50.0%).

Other supporting factors included a calmer Treasury market, first-of-the-month inflows, and a fear of missing on further gains. The latter was likely exacerbated by the recognition that the S&P 500 bounced so strongly off its 50-day moving average (3813) after closing just above it last Friday, which ended on a disappointing note.

In corporate news, United Airlines (UAL 53.31, +0.63, +1.2%) reportedly ordered 25 additional 737 MAX planes from Boeing (BA 224.39, +12.38, +5.8%), Exxon Mobil (XOM 56.40, +2.03, +3.7%) named two new board members, and Royal Caribbean (RCL 91.31, -1.96, -2.1%) priced a common stock offering at $91 per share.

The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.12%, and the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.45%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 91.04. WTI crude futures decreased 1.5%, or $0.91, to $60.54/bbl ahead of an OPEC+ meeting later this week.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for February jumped to 60.8% (Briefing.com consensus 58.8%) from 58.7% in January, matching the August 2018 reading as the highest since May 2004. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. February marked the ninth straight month the ISM Manufacturing Index has been above 50.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that all 18 industries reported paying higher prices for raw materials in February. That contributed to the Prices Index hitting its highest level since May 2008 and should continue to fuel concerns about potential pass-through pressures to end users.
Total construction spending increased 1.7% m/m in January (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) after increasing an upwardly revised 1.1% (from 1.0%) in December. Total private construction spending rose 1.7% m/m and total public construction spending increased 1.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the strength was driven by gains in both private and public construction spending.
The February IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI increased to 58.6 from 58.5 in January.

Looking ahead to Tuesday, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for February, the ADP Employment Change report for February, the final IHS Markit Services PMI for February, the Fed's Beige Book for March, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

Russell 2000 +15.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.4% YTD
S&P 500 +3.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31535.51 +603.14 (1.95%)
Nasdaq 13588.85 +396.48 (3.01%)
SP 500 3901.82 +90.67 (2.38%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.433
NYSE Adv 2568 Dec 654 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3187 Dec 784 Vol 5.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Financials, Energy, Industrials
Weak: Real Estate, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- March begins with a broad-based rebound rally

-- Encouraging vaccine, stimulus, economic news

-- Treasury market calmed down

-- Technical and sentiment factors

[ReturntoSender]

Nasdaq and growth stocks take it on the chin
03-Mar-21 16:20 ET
Dow -121.43 at 31270.09, Nasdaq -361.04 at 12997.77, S&P -50.57 at 3819.72

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.3% on Wednesday, as the growth stocks continued to face valuation-oriented and rotational headwinds amid a rise in long-term interest rates. The Nasdaq Composite (-2.7%), which has greater exposure to these names, dropped 2.7%. The Russell 2000 declined 1.1%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.4%.

Long-term interest rates moved higher partly due to lingering growth optimism and pestering inflation concerns. The 10-yr yield rose six basis points to 1.47%, although it settled below its intraday high of 1.50% and well below last week's high of 1.61%. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.14%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 90.96.

Growth optimism was linked to new expectations from the Biden administration to have vaccines available for every adult by the end of May, versus prior guidance of July. Inflation concerns stemmed from the February ISM Non-Manufacturing Index showing the Prices Index rise to 71.8% from 64.2% in January.

As it pertained to stocks, the higher rates worked against the growth stocks within the S&P 500 information technology (-2.5%), consumer discretionary (-2.4%), and communication services (-1.6%) sectors. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 3.1%, the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 199.71, -5.32, -2.6%) fell 2.6%, and the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 125.11, -8.40, -6.3%) fell 6.3%.

On the flip side, the gains in the cyclical energy (+1.5%), financials (+0.8%), and industrials (+0.1%) were symptomatic of a rotational interest as investors sought areas with direct exposure to the economy. Financial stocks additionally benefited from the curve-steepening activity in the Treasury market; energy stocks followed oil prices ($61.31, +1.52, +2.5%) higher.

Lyft (LYFT 61.76, +4.70, +8.2%) contributed to the so-called reopening thesis after raising its Q1 adjusted EBITDA loss expectation to $135 million from $145-150 million and observing that average daily ride-shares were up 4% m/m in February despite severe weather. LYFT shares rose 8%.

A separate note on inflation, the Fed's Beige Book for February economic activity highlighted that "several districts reported anticipating modest price increases over the next several months." Chicago Fed President Evans (FOMC voter) said he doesn't see inflation as a risk at this point. These observations might have tempered any inflation angst.

For what it's worth, the S&P 500 closed just above its 50-day moving average (3818) despite a weak finish.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index fell to 55.3% in February (Briefing.com consensus 58.6%) from 58.7% in January. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The February reading marks the ninth straight month of growth for the services sector, but it is the slowest pace since May 2020.
The key takeaway from the report for a market focusing increased attention on inflation trends, as economic activity picks up, is the upward move in the Prices Index to 71.8% from 64.2% in January. This elevated reading follows on the heels of Monday's ISM Manufacturing Index, which showed the Prices Index at its highest level (86.0%) since May 2008.
The ADP Employment Change report estimated 117,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls in February (Briefing.com consensus +180,000) following an upwardly revised 195,000 increase (from 174,000) in January.
The IHS Markit Services PMI for February was revised higher to 59.8 from 58.3 in the preliminary reading.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 0.5% following a 11.4% drop in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the revised Q4 readings for Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, and Factory Orders for January on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +12.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.2% YTD
S&P 500 +1.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +0.9% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 31270.09 -121.43 (-0.39%)
Nasdaq 12997.77 -361.04 (-2.70%)
SP 500 3819.72 -50.57 (-1.31%)
10-yr Note -29/32 1.477
NYSE Adv 1524 Dec 1683 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1339 Dec 2598 Vol 5.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Industrials
Weak: Information Technology, Health Care, Materials, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Technology sector continues to weigh, while energy and financial sectors rise

-- Treasury yields moving higher amid lingering growth expectations and inflation angst

-- White House speeds up vaccine timeline by two months

WTI crude futures settle sharply higher
03-Mar-21 15:30 ET
Dow +4.92 at 31396.44, Nasdaq -342.10 at 13016.71, S&P -36.53 at 3833.76

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at session lows with a 1.0% decline, while the Russell 2000 clings onto a 0.1% gain.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (-2.4%), consumer discretionary (-2.0%), and communication services (-1.4%) leading the benchmark index lower amid pronounced weakness in their mega-cap/growth stocks. The energy (+2.3%), financials (+2.4%), and industrials (+0.6%) sectors remain in the green.

WTI crude futures rose 2.5%, or $1.52, to $61.31/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Fed Chair Powell plays spoiler, stocks fall
04-Mar-21 16:20 ET
Dow -345.95 at 30924.14, Nasdaq -274.28 at 12723.49, S&P -51.25 at 3768.47

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.3% on Thursday, although it was down as much as 2.5%, as long-term interest rates resumed their recent rise following some comments from Fed Chair Powell. The Nasdaq Composite (-2.1%) and Russell 2000 (-2.8%) dropped more than 2.0%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.1%.

In a conference hosted by The Wall Street Journal, the Fed Chair acknowledged that the recent upward adjustment in real rates caught his attention but affirmed that the current policy stance was appropriate. In other words, the Fed will not use its tools right now to intervene in the Treasury market, which has been pricing in inflation through higher Treasury yields on the back end of the curve.

The 10-yr yield, which was little changed prior to these comments, spiked and settled higher by eight basis points to 1.55%. Mr. Powell added that he would be concerned by a consistent tightening in financials conditions that threatens the achievement of the Fed's employment and inflation goals.

While Fed Chair Powell wasn't yet concerned, today's quick move in rates spoiled an early rebound bid in the broad market, taking nearly every S&P 500 sector into the red, each of the major indices below their 50-day moving averages, and the Nasdaq into correction territory (a decline of 10.0% or greater from a recent high).

The information technology (-2.3%), materials (-2.1%), and consumer discretionary (-2.0%) sectors declined at least 2.0%. The energy sector (+2.5%), however, was on its own path today, closing higher by 2.5%. The final standings improved in the last two hours of trading as yields stabilized.

Energy stocks followed oil prices ($63.83/bbl, +2.52, +4.1%) higher after OPEC+ agreed to maintain current production levels through next month, with the exceptions of Russia and Kazakhstan due to continued seasonal consumption patterns.

The communication services sector (+0.03%) also eked out a positive close amid support from its largest components. Separately, Snowflake (SNOW 249.00, +1.97, +0.8%) and Kroger (KR 34.09, +0.84, +2.5%) finished higher following their earnings reports.

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.14%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.7% to 91.62. The CBOE Volatility Index increased 7.1% to 28.57.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending February 27 were up 9,000 to 745,000 (Briefing.com consensus 725,000). Continuing claims for the week ending February 20 were down 124,000 to 4.295 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is still stunning how high initial jobless claims are. In the same week a year ago, they were 217,000.
Q4 Productivity decreased from the previous quarter at an annual rate of 4.2% (Briefing.com consensus -4.8%) from the preliminary estimate of -4.8%, according to the revised estimate. Unit labor costs jumped at an annual rate of 6.0% (Briefing.com consensus 6.8%) versus the previously published annual rate of 6.8%.
The key takeaway from the report is the indication that nonfarm business sector productivity grew 2.5% in 2020, marking the largest annual increase since 2010, as output declined 4.2% (largest on record going back to 1947) and hours worked fell 6.5% (largest decline since 2009).
Factory orders for manufactured goods increased 2.6% m/m in January (Briefing.com consensus 2.0%) after increasing an upwardly revised 1.6% (from 1.1%) in December. This is the ninth consecutive monthly increase in factory orders.
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed another increase in business spending, as nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft increased 0.4% m/m in January after increasing 1.5% in December. These orders are up 8.3% yr/yr.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for February, the Trade Balance for January, and Consumer Credit for January, on Friday.

Russell 2000 +8.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.0% YTD
S&P 500 +0.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.3% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 30924.14 -345.95 (-1.11%)
Nasdaq 12723.49 -274.28 (-2.11%)
SP 500 3768.47 -51.25 (-1.34%)
10-yr Note -5/32 1.541
NYSE Adv 719 Dec 2421 Vol 1.5 bln
Nasdaq Adv 597 Dec 3222 Vol 7.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Communication Services
Weak: Information Technology, Materials, Consumer Discretionary, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Stocks fall as long-term interest rates resumed rise following Fed Chair Powell's speech

-- Powell said current policy stance was appropriate

-- Energy stocks rallied with oil prices, OPEC+ agreed to not increase production next month

Energy stocks and oil prices rise
04-Mar-21 15:30 ET
Dow -403.14 at 30866.95, Nasdaq -283.33 at 12714.44, S&P -57.45 at 3762.27

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is currently down 1.5%, while the Russell 2000 is down 3.1%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (-2.3%), materials (-2.3%), and consumer discretionary (-2.2%) down more than 2.0%, while the energy (+1.8%) and communication services (+0.2%) sectors trade in positive territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 4.1%, or $2.52, to $63.83/bbl after OPEC+ agreed to leave output levels unchanged in April.

[ReturntoSender]

Record highs for S&P 500, Dow, and Russell 2000
11-Mar-21 16:15 ET
Dow +188.57 at 32485.59, Nasdaq +329.84 at 13398.69, S&P +40.53 at 3939.34

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+1.0%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%), and Russell 2000 (+2.3%) set intraday and closing record highs on Thursday. The Nasdaq Composite (+2.5%) played catch-up with a 2.5% gain, as the mega-cap/growth stocks found renewed buying interest.

The session started on a high note in a momentum trade, with the Dow quickly notching its fourth all-time high in four days and the broader market attracting follow through from buyers amid a fear of missing out on further gains. Today was the first closing record high for the S&P 500 since Feb. 12, thanks to an impressive 5.6% rally off last Friday's session low.

The information technology (+2.1%), communication services (+1.8%), and consumer discretionary (+1.6%) sectors, which contain many of the recently-battered mega-caps and growth stocks, did the heavy lifting. The bullish bias, however, did lose steam in the afternoon, with selling interest leaking into the financials (-0.3%), utilities (-0.3%), and consumer staples (-0.2%) sectors.

Nonetheless, there were some positive-sounding news events that supported risk sentiment.

Briefly, President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill one day earlier than expected, allowing some payments to reach bank accounts as soon as this weekend; weekly initial claims decreased by 42,000 to 712,000 (Briefing.com consensus 725,000); and the ECB said it expects to conduct asset purchases at a significantly higher pace over the next quarter than during the first months of this year.

Longer-dated Treasury yields continued to climb off overnight lows following the ECB statement before leveling off during the trading session, which included a $24 billion 30-yr bond reopening auction that was met with tepid demand. It was good enough for stocks, though, just like the 3-yr note and 10-yr note auctions earlier this week.

The 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 1.53% after touching 1.48% at its low and 1.55% at its high, while the 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.13%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.5% to 91.37. WTI crude futures rose 2.4%, or $1.57, to $66.02/bbl.

Separately, Oracle (ORCL 67.44, -4.68, -6.5%) and General Electric (GE 12.27, -0.98, -7.4%) were eyesores on this record-setting day. Oracle underwhelmed investors with its earnings report and guidance. GE was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending March 6 decreased by 42,000 to 712,000 (Briefing.com consensus 725,000), which is the lowest level of claims since the first week of last November. Continuing claims for the week ending February 27 decreased by 193,000 to 4.144 million.
The key takeaway from the initial jobless claims data is that initial claims are still high, but at least they are moving in a direction that suggests the economy is finding its growth stride again. To wit, in the first week of January, initial jobless claims were 927,000.
Job openings increased to 6.917 million in January from a revised 6.752 million in December (from 6.646 million).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for February and the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for March on Friday.

Russell 2000 +18.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.1% YTD
S&P 500 +4.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.0% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 32485.59 +188.57 (0.58%)
Nasdaq 13398.69 +329.84 (2.52%)
SP 500 3939.34 +40.53 (1.04%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.542
NYSE Adv 2375 Dec 853 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3144 Dec 861 Vol 5.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services
Weak: Financials, Utilities, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500, Dow, and Russell 2000 set intraday and closing record highs

-- Renewed interest in the mega-cap/growth stocks

-- Fear of missing out on further gains

-- President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, ECB provides dovish commentary surrounding asset purchases

WTI crude futures settle above $66 per barrel
11-Mar-21 15:25 ET
Dow +227.20 at 32524.22, Nasdaq +339.96 at 13408.81, S&P +45.97 at 3944.78

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading higher by 1.2% and is on track to close at its first record high since Feb. 12.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows the information technology (+2.3%), communication services (+2.0%), and consumer discretionary (+1.7%) sectors still leading the advance. Conversely, the financials (-0.3%) and consumer staples (-0.1%) sectors are struggling below their flat lines.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.4%, or $1.57, to $66.02/bbl.

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S&P 500 absorbs higher rates, closes at record high
12-Mar-21 16:20 ET
Dow +293.05 at 32778.64, Nasdaq -78.81 at 13319.88, S&P +4.00 at 3943.34

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.1%) eked out a closing record high on Friday, coming back from an early 0.6% decline as it gradually absorbed another sharp rise in long-term interest rates. The 10-yr yield rose 11 basis points to 1.64% to reach its highest level since last February.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%) and Russell 2000 (+0.6%) set intraday and closing record highs, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.6% amid relative weakness in the mega-cap/growth stocks. To the Nasdaq's credit, it was down as much as 1.8% intraday due to the initial shock of higher rates.

The sharp rise in yields was driven by widely-reported expectations for economic growth and inflation. These expectations were supported by President Biden's instruction that all states make all adults eligible to be vaccinated no later than May 1 and by pipeline inflation pressures that were evident in the February Producer Price Index report.

Some circles attributed the rise in yields to a more subtle factor: selling by primary dealers anticipating that the Fed isn't going to extend the supplementary leverage ratio exemption when it expires March 31. This exemption was introduced last April amid the economic meltdown brought on by the pandemic.

Whatever the case, the higher rates worked against the mega-cap stocks within the S&P 500 information technology (-0.7%), communication services (-0.9%), and consumer discretionary (+0.1%) sectors. The latter sneaked into positive territory into the close amid a familiar resiliency in the broad market.

The financials sector (+1.1%) was a direct beneficiary of the curve-steepening activity in Treasuries, although the top spots belonged to the real estate (+1.5%), industrials (+1.3%), and utilities (+1.3%) sectors.

Boeing (BA 269.19, +17.19, +6.8%) was an influential driver within the industrials sector on news that 777 Investment Partners ordered 24 737 MAX planes. BA shares rose 7% to fresh 52-week highs.

The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.14%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 91.63. WTI crude futures rose 0.7%, or $0.43, to $65.59/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.5% m/m in February, as expected, following a 1.3% increase in January. In turn, the Producer Price Index for final demand, less foods and energy, rose 0.2% m/m, as expected, following a 1.2% increase in January. On a year-over-year basis, the Producer Price Index for final demand was up 2.8%, versus 1.7% in January. The Producer Price Index for final demand, less foods and energy, was up 2.5% versus 2.0% in January.
There are a few important takeaways from this report: (1) there were no surprises in the headline numbers, so the stock market could choose to turn a blind eye to it, but (2) there was a sightline to pipeline inflation pressures, as the index for processed goods for intermediate demand rose 2.7% m/m (up 6.6% yr/yr), the largest monthly increase since July 2008, while the index for unprocessed goods for intermediate demand increased 4.3% (up 19.0% yr/yr).
The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for March increased to 83.0 (Briefing.com consensus 80.0) from the final reading of 76.8 for February. The March reading is the highest since August 2020.
The key takeaway from the report is that the improvement was driven by gains across all socioeconomic subgroups and stemmed from optimism about the increasing number of vaccinations and the passage of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for March and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for January on Monday.

Russell 2000 +19.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.1% YTD
S&P 500 +5.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.4% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 32778.64 +293.05 (0.90%)
Nasdaq 13319.88 -78.81 (-0.59%)
SP 500 3943.34 +4.00 (0.10%)
10-yr Note -29/32 1.617
NYSE Adv 1816 Dec 1392 Vol 947.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2172 Dec 1818 Vol 5.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Industrials, Utilities, Real Estate
Weak: Information Technology, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- New highs for S&P 500, Dow, and Russell 2000 as market absorbed another spike in long-term interest rates

-- 10-yr yield rose 11 basis points to 1.64% amid continued expectations for economic growth and inflation

WTI crude futures settle higher
12-Mar-21 15:30 ET
Dow +248.21 at 32733.80, Nasdaq -107.94 at 13290.75, S&P -1.59 at 3937.75

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading fractionally below its flat line, and any positive finish would be good for a record close.

Nine of the S&P 500 sectors are now trading higher, led by the industrials (+1.2%), utilities +(1.3%), and financials (+0.9%) sectors. The information technology (-0.9%) and communication services (-1.0%) sectors remain in negative territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.7%, or $0.43, to $65.59/bbl.

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Risk sentiment curbed with higher rates and growth-stock losses
18-Mar-21 16:20 ET
Dow -153.07 at 32862.30, Nasdaq -409.03 at 13116.19, S&P -58.66 at 3915.46

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.5% on Thursday, as another spike in the 10-yr yield (1.73%) continued to undercut the heavily-weighted growth stocks, whose losses took a toll on risk sentiment. The Nasdaq Composite (-3.0%) and Russell 2000 (-2.9%) dropped around 3.0%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased just 0.5% after setting an all-time high during the day.

Briefly, the 10-yr yield rose past yesterday's pre-FOMC high and flirted with 1.76% today on continued growth/inflation expectations and a report out of the Nikkei that the Bank of Japan is likely to widen its trading band around 0.00% for the 10-yr JGB to 50 basis points from 40 basis points. The 10-yr settled nine basis points above yesterday's settlement at 1.73%.

The mega-cap/growth/technology stocks succumbed to renewed selling interest amid underlying concerns that these widely-owned names might not perform as well as they did in 2020 in a higher interest-rate environment. The lack of a buy-the-dip mentality in these stocks despite long-term rates easing from session highs likely exacerbated selling interest.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in negative territory, with the information technology (-2.9%), consumer discretionary (-2.6%), and communication services (-2.0%) sectors as influential laggards. The energy sector (-4.7%) declined the most, though, as oil prices ($60.00/bbl, -$4.61, -7.1%) pulled back 7% alongside other risk assets.

Note, crude futures slid into the pit close after France's Prime Minister Castex announced a new monthlong lockdown in 16 regions, including Paris, stirring some concerns about the recovery in global oil demand. A stronger U.S. dollar (91.85, +0.40, +0.4%) was another negative factor for oil prices. Prior to today, crude futures were up 34% this year.

Some investors rotated money into the financials sector (+0.6%), especially early in the day, as the 2s10s rate spread continued to widen, but this trade lost steam as the broader market weakened in the afternoon and into the close. The financials sector was up as much as 2.5% intraday. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.16%.

Positive news that were lost in the shuffle of today's weakness included the Philadelphia Fed Index soaring to 51.8 in March (Briefing.com consensus 23.5) from 23.1 in February and the EMA confirming that AstraZeneca's (AZN 49.33, -0.74, -1.5%) COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective. The EMA saw no association with an increase in overall risk of blood clots.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending March 13 increased by 45,000 to 770,000 (Briefing.com consensus 710,000) while continuing claims for the week ending March 6 decreased by 18,000 to 4.124 million.
The key takeaway from the report is the high level (still) of initial jobless claims, yet the perceived takeaway is likely to be that coming weeks should produce more encouraging numbers as reopening activity increases hiring, and reduces layoff, activity.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 0.2% m/m in February (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) following an unrevised 0.5% increase in January. February marked the tenth consecutive monthly increase.
The key takeaway from the report is that it has not yet fully captured the momentum of the vaccination program and the passage of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package, which leads one to think it should show a higher reading next month, especially as business activity rebounds from the transitory impact of severely adverse winter weather seen in the South and Midwest in mid-February.
The Philadelphia Fed Index soared to 51.8 in March (Briefing.com consensus 23.5) from 23.1 in February.

There is no economic data of note scheduled for Friday.

Russell 2000 +14.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.4% YTD
S&P 500 +4.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.8% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 32862.30 -153.07 (-0.46%)
Nasdaq 13116.19 -409.03 (-3.02%)
SP 500 3915.46 -58.66 (-1.48%)
10-yr Note -28/32 1.718
NYSE Adv 697 Dec 2574 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 971 Dec 3011 Vol 5.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Energy

Moving the Market

-- 10-yr yield settles nine basis points higher at 1.73%

-- Weakness in mega-cap/growth stocks; relative strength in bank stocks

-- Energy stocks drop amid 7% pullback in oil prices

WTI crude futures settle lower by 7%
18-Mar-21 15:30 ET
Dow -57.58 at 32957.79, Nasdaq -345.12 at 13180.10, S&P -45.14 at 3928.98

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade near session lows with a 1.1% decline. The Russell 2000 is down 1.8%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (-4.5%), information technology (-2.5%), consumer discretionary (-2.1%), and communication services (-1.6%) leading the retreat, while the financials (+0.7%), industrials (+0.3%), and health care (+0.1%) sectors trade in positive territory.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by 7.1%, or $4.61, to $60.00/bbl. Prior to today, oil prices were up nearly 35% this year.

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Mixed session to close out the week, financials lagged
19-Mar-21 16:20 ET
Dow -234.33 at 32627.97, Nasdaq +99.07 at 13215.26, S&P -2.36 at 3913.10

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 decreased 0.1% on Friday, as the broad market struggled to gain traction after the benchmark index briefly slipped below the 3900 level in early action. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) and Russell 2000 (+0.9%) reclaimed early losses and closed higher after underperforming yesterday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.7%) underperformed in the red.

Like the major indices, sector performances were mixed: six S&P 500 sectors closed lower, while five closed higher. The communication services (+0.8%) and consumer discretionary (+0.8%) sectors finished as leaders amid some mega-cap support; conversely, the financials (-1.2%), real estate (-1.3%), industrials (-0.7%), and materials (-0.5%) sectors lagged.

Note, there was some weakness into the close, which coincided with a surge in trading volume related to quadruple witching-options expiration activity.

The financials sector underperformed after the Fed announced prior to the open that it will let the temporary Supplementary Leverage Ratio ("SLR") exemption expire on March 31. Since May 15, 2020, banks were permitted to exclude Treasuries in the calculation of their SLR.

The thinking was that banks might have to raise more capital if they don't offload more of their Treasury holdings and/or reduce buybacks. The news contributed to a profit-taking mindset, even as Treasury yields moved off lows following the announcement.

The 10-yr yield was trading at 1.68% pre-announcement, then rose to 1.74% before settling unchanged at 1.73%. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 91.96. WTI crude futures ($61.45/bbl, +1.45, +2.4%) rebounded 2%, trimming its weekly decline to 6%.

Facebook (FB 290.11, +11.49, +4.1%) was a key mover today with a 4% gain. The stock might have benefited from optimistic comments from CEO Mark Zuckerberg that Apple's (AAPL 119.99, -0.54, -0.5%) privacy rule changes could help Facebook. Separately, shares of FedEx (FDX 279.58, +16.07, +6.1%) rose 6% following its better-than-expected earnings report.

Visa (V 206.90, -13.76, -6.2%) and Nike (NKE 137.49, -5.68, -4.0%) were individual laggards that weighed on the Dow. Visa fell 6% after The Wall Street Journal reported the company is being investigated by the Department of Justice over its debit-card practices. Nike fell 4% after missing revenue estimates due to shipping disruptions.

Investors did not receive any economic data of note on Friday. Looking ahead, Existing Home Sales for February will be released on Monday.

Russell 2000 +15.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.6% YTD
S&P 500 +4.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +2.5% YTD

Market Snapshot
Dow 32627.97 -234.33 (-0.71%)
Nasdaq 13215.26 +99.07 (0.76%)
SP 500 3913.10 -2.36 (-0.06%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.722
NYSE Adv 1758 Dec 1420 Vol 3.5 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2434 Dec 1481 Vol 7.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Health Care
Weak: Financials, Real Estate, Industrials, Materials

Moving the Market

-- Market struggled to gain traction after lower start, closed mixed

-- Fed announced it will let the Supplementary Leverage Ratio (SLR) exemption expire on March 31

-- Bank stocks underperformed

Crude futures trim weekly decline
19-Mar-21 15:25 ET
Dow -115.20 at 32747.10, Nasdaq +84.83 at 13201.02, S&P +6.86 at 3922.32

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to cling onto a slim 0.2% gain. The Russell 2000 outperforms with a 0.6% gain.

One last look at the S&P sectors shows communication services (+1.0%), energy (+0.8%), and utilities (+0.8%) outperforming in the green, while the financials sector (-1.0%) remains the most influential laggard. No other sector is down more than 0.3%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.4%, or $1.45, to $61.45/bbl to recoup some of yesterday's 7% drop. Crude futures still ended the week with a 6.3% decline.

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Markets gains on cyclical leadership and technical support
25-Mar-21 16:20 ET
Dow +199.42 at 32619.48, Nasdaq +15.79 at 12977.70, S&P +20.38 at 3909.52

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.5% on Thursday amid cyclical leadership and technical support. The benchmark index briefly slipped below its 50-day moving average (3871) with an early 0.9% decline, but investors stepped in faithfully to buy the dip. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) also reclaimed early losses and some.

The Russell 2000 rose 2.3% after finding support at the 2100 level, which represented an 8% decline in just over three sessions. Presumably, this was a short-term oversold condition that was primed for a bounce.

A pro-cyclical trade emerged during the day, as the industrials (+1.6%), financials (+1.6%), and materials (+1.4%) sectors paced the rebound effort on no specific news catalysts. The energy sector (+0.3%) overcame an early 3.3% decline, even as oil prices ($58.52/bbl, -2.61, -4.3%) fell 4% despite reports that the Suez Canal could be blocked for weeks.

The communication services (-0.3%) and information technology (-0.1%) sectors stymied the broader advance with modest declines.

There was a lot of news today, but the developments didn't necessarily explain today's action given the market's fickle performance. End-of-quarter rebalancing machinations could have played an underlying role.

Highlighting a few of the stories, President Biden said he will announce an infrastructure plan next week (reportedly with a price tag of up to $4 trillion), weekly initial claims declined by 97,000 to 684,000 (Briefing.com consensus 710,000) for its lowest level since last March, and a congressional hearing on Section 230 matters was still in session by the close.

Individual movers included Nike (NKE 128.64, -4.52, -3.4%), which fell 3% amid Chinese criticism on social media in response to the company's statement on the Xinjiang region, and Boeing (BA 247.19, +7.95, +3.3%) on news the company may begin delivering 787 Dreamliners this week. GameStop (GME 183.75, +63.41, +52.7%) soared 50% following yesterday's 34% post-earnings drop.

U.S. Treasuries finished mixed and little changed. The 10-yr yield was unchanged at 1.61% after trading slightly lower amid the negative start in equities, while the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.13%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.4% to 92.87.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending March 20 declined by 97,000 to 684,000 (Briefing.com consensus 710,000). Continuing claims for the week ending March 13 decreased by 264,000 to 3.870 million.
The key takeaway from this report is that initial claims are the lowest they have been since March 14, 2020. Granted initial claims are still high, yet the directional movement fits the bill of an improving economy that requires increased hiring activity and reduced layoff activity.
The third estimate for Q4 GDP was revised up to 4.3% (Briefing.com consensus 4.1%) from 4.1% while the GDP Price Deflator was revised down to 2.0% (Briefing.com consensus 2.1%) from 2.1%.
The key takeaway from this report is that it is dated (the first quarter is only days from being over) and shouldn't have any market impact.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Personal Income and Spending for February, PCE Prices for February, the final Univ. of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for March, and the Advance reports for International Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories on Friday.

Russell 2000 +10.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.6% YTD
S&P 500 +4.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +0.7% YTD

WTI crude futures settle lower by 4%
25-Mar-21 15:30 ET
Dow +182.10 at 32602.16, Nasdaq +14.33 at 12976.24, S&P +18.85 at 3907.99

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading near session highs with a 0.4% gain.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows industrials (+1.5%), financials (+1.4%), and materials (+1.4%) leading the advance with gains over 1.0%, while the energy (-0.2%) and communication services (-0.2%) sectors trade slightly lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 4.3%, or $2.61, to $58.52/bbl despite reports that traffic is growing in the Suez Canal due to the ship blockage. Presumably, this would hinder supply, which would be bullish on a short-term basis if demand is unchanged. Note, crude futures rose 6% yesterday.

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Stocks rally into the close
26-Mar-21 16:15 ET
Dow +453.40 at 33072.88, Nasdaq +161.05 at 13138.75, S&P +65.02 at 3974.54

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 1.7% on Friday, thanks to a strong finish in the last hour of action. The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.2% after briefly slipping lower in the afternoon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.4%) and Russell 2000 (+1.8%) also gained more than 1.0%.

The gains were relatively broad, with ten of the 11 S&P sectors closing higher and eight rising more than 1.5%. The energy (+2.6%), information technology (+2.5%), materials (+2.5%), and real estate (+2.5%) sectors gained more than 2.0%, while the communication services sector (-0.3%) was the lone holdout.

Several of the influential mega-caps like Tesla (TSLA 618.71, -21.68, -3.4%) struggled to get going all day, with some blaming a rebound in long-term interest rates for their underperformance. The 10-yr yield increased five basis points to 1.66% amid renewed selling interest. These stocks, however, did pare losses as the market rallied into the close.

Semiconductor stocks were a pocket of absolute strength today, evident by the 5.0% gain in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+5.0%). They helped provide the boost in the technology sector, which started the day unchanged.

In the financials space, the Fed announced that the temporary and additional restrictions on bank dividends and share repurchases will end for most firms after June 30 following the completion of the current round of stress tests. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 52.57, +0.98, +1.9%) increased 2%, further supported by the curve-steepening activity in the Treasury market.

The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.14%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 92.70. WTI crude futures rose 4.2%, or $2.47, to $60.99/bbl.

In corporate news, Nike (NKE 132.99, +4.35, +3.4%) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird, ViacomCBS (VIAC 48.23, -18.12, -27.3%) pulled back another 27% after Wells Fargo downgraded the stock to Underweight from Equal Weight, and WeWork plans to go public via a SPAC merger with BowX Acquisition Corp. (BOWX 11.71, +1.98, +20.3%) at a $9 billion valuation.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Personal income fell 7.1% in February (Briefing.com consensus -7.0%). Personal spending decreased 1.0% (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%). The PCE Price Index increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) while the Core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%).
The key takeaway from the report is that spending decreased more than expected, indicating an inclination among consumers to continue saving. That said, the personal savings rate fell to 13.6% in February from 19.8% in January.
The final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey for March increased to 84.9 (Briefing.com consensus 83.6) from 83.0 in the preliminary reading. The final March reading puts the series at a one-year high.
The key takeaway from the report is that sentiment was boosted by another round of direct payments and a faster than expected vaccination distribution.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for February showed a deficit of $86.7 billion versus $83.7 billion in January. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for February was unchanged, while the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for February increased 0.5%.

There is no economic data of note scheduled for Monday.

Russell 2000 +12.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.1% YTD
S&P 500 +5.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.9% YTD

Crude future settle back above $60 per barrel
26-Mar-21 15:30 ET
Dow +203.88 at 32823.36, Nasdaq +24.69 at 13002.39, S&P +30.75 at 3940.27

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading back near session highs with a 0.8% gain, while the Russell 2000 trades higher by 0.4%.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (+1.8%), materials (+1.8%), real estate (+1.7%), and information technology (+1.5%) leading the advance with solid gains. Conversely, the communication services (-1.2%), utilities (-0.2%), and consumer discretionary (-0.1%) sectors still trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 4.2%, or $2.47, to $60.99/bbl.

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Dow ekes out closing record high
29-Mar-21 16:15 ET
Dow +98.89 at 33171.77, Nasdaq -79.08 at 13059.67, S&P -3.36 at 3971.18

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) closed at fresh record highs on Monday after starting the session modestly lower, while the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) finished with modest declines. The Russell 2000 closed at session lows with a sharp 2.8% decline, as small-caps remained subject to profit-taking interest.

There was a cautious demeanor in the morning as investors digested some liquidation news. Specifically, Credit Suisse (CS 11.39, -1.48, -11.5%) and Nomura (NMR 5.68, -0.93, -14.1%) warned of potential substantial losses after one of their clients, reportedly Archegos Capital Management, defaulted on margin calls and was forced to sell more than $20 billion in stock last week.

The news highlighted the leveraged, speculative trading in the market right now and stirred some concerns about a contagion effect, although many strategists talked down contagion risks. The S&P 500 financials sector (-0.9%) was one of the weakest performers today, with quarter-end rebalancing as another possible influence.

The energy (-1.3%), information technology (-0.5%), and consumer discretionary (-0.4%) sectors also closed lower, as did high-beta stocks within the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 111.17, -2.80, -2.5%) and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-1.7%). They closed off session lows, though.

On the upside, the utilities (+1.1%), communication services (+1.0%), and consumer staples (+1.0%) sectors rose at least 1.0% to provide offsetting support for the benchmark index. Within the industrials sector (unch), Boeing (BA 250.52, +5.65, +2.3%) rose 2% after Southwest Air (LUV 60.96, -0.33, -0.5%) agreed to 100 firm orders of the 737 MAX 7.

The Nasdaq almost turned positive intraday after being down 1.3%, but a turnaround in long-term interest rates may have impeded the rebound bid. The 10-yr yield, which was trading at 1.64% overnight, finished six basis points higher at 1.72%.

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.14%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 92.93. WTI crude futures increased 0.9%, or $0.56, to $61.55/bbl. On a related note, the Ever Given was refloated on the Suez Canal.

Separately, President Biden is expected to announce an infrastructure spending plan on Wednesday. In addition, the White House press secretary said that the administration will seek another stimulus bill after passing the infrastructure plan.

Investors did not receive any notable economic data on Monday. Looking ahead to Tuesday, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for March, the FHA Housing Price Index for January, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for January.

Russell 2000 +9.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.4% YTD
S&P 500 +5.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.3% YTD

WTI crude futures settle higher but oil stocks lag
29-Mar-21 15:25 ET
Dow +153.70 at 33226.58, Nasdaq -65.65 at 13073.10, S&P +3.46 at 3978.00

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading back in the green with a 0.1% gain, while the Russell 2000 remains deep in the red with a 2.3% decline. The small-cap index is getting hit by profit-taking interest and is now up 9.9% this quarter, versus a 5.9% quarterly gain in the S&P 500.

One last look at the S&P sectors shows utilities (+1.2%), communication services (+1.2%), consumer staples (+0.9%), and health care (+0.5%) leading the advance, while the information technology (-0.6%), financials (-0.5%), and energy (-0.6%) sectors are restraining the broader advance.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.9%, or $0.56, to $61.55/bbl.

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S&P 500 and Dow rally to fresh record highs
05-Apr-21 16:15 ET
Dow +373.98 at 33527.19, Nasdaq +225.49 at 13705.62, S&P +58.03 at 4077.90

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+1.4%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.1%) rallied to fresh record highs on Monday, as the market keyed off strong employment and non-manufacturing data for March and positive momentum. The Nasdaq Composite performed slightly better with a 1.7% gain, while the Russell 2000 increased just 0.5%.

Last week when the stock market was closed for Good Friday, the March employment report showcased 916,000 additions to nonfarm payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 627,000) and a 6.0% unemployment rate (Briefing.com consensus 6.0%), versus 6.2% in February. Today, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index increased to a record 63.7% in March (Briefing.com consensus 58.5%) from 55.3% in February.

Both growth and value stocks reacted positively today, but interestingly, it was the growth stocks that set the pace and the mega-caps that provided influential leadership. The S&P 500 information technology (+2.0%), communication services (+2.3%), and consumer discretionary (+2.3%) sectors, which contain the mega-caps, rose about 2%.

The energy sector (-2.4%), on the other hand, was a noticeable pocket of weakness and was the only sector that closed lower. Energy stocks ran into profit-taking interest amid a sharp decline in oil prices ($58.69/bbl, -2.72, -4.4%).

In the mega-cap domain, Tesla (TSLA 691.05, +29.30, +4.4%) reported a record quarter for Q1 deliveries while the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Alphabet (GOOG 2225.55, +87.80, +4.1%) in a copyright dispute with Oracle (ORCL 74.16, +2.35, +3.3%). The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 214.70, +4.53) advanced 2.2%.

Aside from the big economic reports, there were other indicators that suggested the economic reopening is gathering momentum.

For example, the White House COVID-19 Data Director said there was an average of more than 3 million doses per day over the past week, Norwegian (NCLH 29.71, +1.99, +7.2%) outlined plans to resume cruise operations from U.S. ports in July, and Morgan Stanley upgraded MGM Resorts (MGM 41.70, +2.00, +5.0%) to Overweight due to Las Vegas data suggesting the recovery is occurring faster and stronger than expected.

In the Treasury market, activity was more reserved following an abbreviated session on Friday. The 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 1.72% (up four bps from Thursday's settlement), and the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.18% (up three bps from Thursday's settlement). The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.5% to 92.60.

Reviewing Monday's (and Friday's) economic data:

March nonfarm payrolls increased by 916,000 (Briefing.com consensus 627,000). March private sector payrolls increased by 780,000 (Briefing.com consensus 470,000). March unemployment rate was 6.0% (Briefing.com consensus 6.0%), versus 6.2% in February.
The key takeaway from the employment report is that it was indicative of an economy that is gaining momentum from reopening activity.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index increased to 63.7% in March (Briefing.com consensus 58.5%) from 55.3% in February. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The March reading marks the tenth straight month of growth for the services sector, and is the highest reading on record.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects some natural slowing after a long streak of monthly increases for factory orders. In turn, more current economic releases, like the ISM Manufacturing Index for March, will feed a belief that factory orders are destined to rebound in coming months.
Factory orders for manufactured goods decreased 0.8% m/m in February (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%) after increasing an upwardly revised 2.7% (from 2.6%) in January. This is the first time in ten months that factory orders have not increased.
The IHS Markit Services PMI for March was revised higher to 60.4 from 59.8 in the preliminary reading.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Tuesday.

Russell 2000 +14.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.5% YTD
S&P 500 +8.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.3% YTD

Crude futures settle lower by 4%
05-Apr-21 15:30 ET
Dow +547.09 at 33700.30, Nasdaq +210.26 at 13690.39, S&P +52.79 at 4072.66

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.3% and is on pace to close at a fresh record high.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+2.0%), consumer discretionary (+2.5%), and communication services (+2.2%) still leading the advance with gains of at least 2.0% due to the influence of their mega-cap components, while the energy (-2.1%) and real estate (-0.1%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 4.4%, or $2.72, to $58.69/bbl.

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S&P 500 sets new all-time high but closes slightly lower
06-Apr-21 16:20 ET
Dow -96.95 at 33430.24, Nasdaq -7.21 at 13698.41, S&P -3.97 at 4073.94

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 eked out an intraday record high on Tuesday, but it closed lower by 0.1% in a lackluster session. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%), and Russell 2000 (-0.3%) accompanied the benchmark index in negative territory with small declines.

Most sectors in the S&P 500 traded within their flat lines throughout the session amid no new macro catalysts, suggesting a bit of consolidation activity. The utilities (+0.5%), consumer discretionary (+0.3%), and consumer staples (+0.3%) sectors outperformed in positive territory. The information technology (-0.4%) and health care (-0.4%) sectors were influential laggards.

Despite little buying conviction, bullish investors cited the lack of meaningful profit-taking interest as a constructive development. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-1.2%), however, did see late-day weakness following an FY24 guidance view shared by Applied Materials (AMAT 139.54, -3.51, -2.5%) at its Investor Day.

One supportive factor for risk sentiment was the decline in long-term interest rates. Demand for Treasuries might have been partially rooted in a view that economic growth rates could peak in the next few quarters. On a related note, the IMF raised its 2021 global economic growth forecast to 6% from 5.5%.

The 10-yr yield decreased six basis points to 1.66%. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.3% to 92.30. WTI crude futures rebounded 1.1%, or $0.65, to $59.34/bbl after sliding 4% yesterday.

Shares of Illumina (ILMN 414.84, +30.30, +7.9%) rose 8% after the biotechnology company issued upside Q1 and FY21 revenue guidance due to an observation that its core business is exceptionally strong and growing ahead of expectations.

Separately, President Biden reportedly moved up the deadline for all adults to be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine to April 19 from May 1. This was non-market moving news, unlike the first announcement of the May 1 deadline, presumably because most states already have plans in place to make all adults eligible by April 19.

Tuesday's economic data was limited to the JOLTs - Job Openings report, which showed job openings increase to 7.367 million in February from a revised 7.099 million in January (from 6.917 million). On Wednesday, investors will receive the Trade Balance for February, Consumer Credit for February, the FOMC Minutes from the March 16-17 meeting, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

Russell 2000 +14.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.2% YTD
S&P 500 +8.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.3% YTD

Crude futures rebound modestly
06-Apr-21 15:30 ET
Dow -105.54 at 33421.65, Nasdaq +19.87 at 13725.49, S&P -2.17 at 4075.74

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading relatively unchanged, but any positive finish would be good for a record closing high.

One last look at the sector performances shows consumer discretionary (+0.6%) and consumer staples (+0.4%) outperforming in positive territory; conversely, the health care (-0.3%), financials (-0.3%), and industrials (-0.3%) sectors lag with modest declines.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.1%, or $0.65, to $59.34/bbl after declining 4.4% yesterday.

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S&P 500 ekes out another closing record high
07-Apr-21 16:15 ET
Dow +16.02 at 33446.26, Nasdaq -9.54 at 13688.87, S&P +6.02 at 4079.96

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%) eked out a closing record high on Wednesday in another narrow trading session that reflected consolidation activity. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) finished within 0.1% of their flat lines, while the Russell 2000 underperformed with a 1.6% decline.

One of the bigger headlines today came out of JPMorgan Chase (JPM 154.93, +2.39, +1.6%) CEO Jamie Dimon's annual shareholder letter. Mr. Dimon said that an economic boom could easily run into 2023 but also cautioned about the "the not-unreasonable possibility that an increase in inflation will not be just temporary."

Jamie Dimon is one of the more influential voices in the market, but his words didn't appear to strike much trading conviction today. The cyclical materials (-1.8%) and industrials (-0.4%) sectors finished as laggards, and the 10-yr Treasury note yield was unchanged at 1.65%.

Declining issues also outnumbered advancing issues at the NYSE and Nasdaq, but JPM, Amazon (AMZN 3279.39, +55.57, +1.7%), and the mega-caps within the information technology (+0.5%) and communication services (+0.7%) sectors provided influential support.

The market saw a brief uptick after the FOMC Minutes from the March 16-17 meeting highlighted the known view that it would likely take some more time until substantial further progress toward the Fed's maximum-employment and price-stability goals are realized. This view suggested that the current accommodative monetary policy will remain appropriate until the Fed signals otherwise.

Prior to the minutes, Dallas Fed President Kaplan said the Fed can start withdrawing emergency measures once the country has moved on from the pandemic. Note, Mr. Kaplan won't be a voting FOMC participant until 2023.

In other developments, President Biden said he is open to compromising on the $2.3 trillion infrastructure package, consumer credit increased by $27.6 billion in February -- its largest increase since November 2017, and the CDC will reportedly allow U.S. cruises to resume operations by mid-summer with restrictions.

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 92.41. WTI crude futures increased 0.6%, or $0.37, to $59.71/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The February Trade Balance report showed a widening in the deficit to $71.1 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$70.5 billion) from an upwardly revised -$67.8 billion (from -$68.2 billion) in January. The widening was the result of exports being $5.0 billion less than January exports, and imports being $1.7 billion less than January imports.
The key takeaway from the report is that the impact of the semiconductor shortage was apparent in the $3.4 billion decrease in imports of automotive vehicles, parts, and engines.
Consumer credit increased by $27.6 bln in February after increasing by an upwardly revised $0.1 bln (from -$1.3 bln) in January. This was the largest monthly increase in consumer credit since November 2017.
The key takeaway from the report is that revolving credit expanded for only the second time in the last 12 months and was the largest increase in revolving credit since July 2019.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 5.1% following a 2.2% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +12.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.3% YTD
S&P 500 +8.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.2% YTD

WTI crude futures settle in the green
07-Apr-21 15:30 ET
Dow -40.46 at 33389.78, Nasdaq -22.51 at 13675.90, S&P -0.01 at 4073.93

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at its flat line and is a few points short of a record closing high.

One last look at the sector performances shows materials (-1.8%), industrials (-0.6%), and health care (-0.5%) underperforming the benchmark index, while the communication services (+0.6%), information technology (+0.4%), and energy (+0.4%) sectors outperform in positive territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.6%, or $0.37, to $59.71/bbl.

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Mega-caps provide heavy lifting in record session for S&P 500
08-Apr-21 16:15 ET
Dow +57.31 at 33503.57, Nasdaq +140.47 at 13829.34, S&P +17.22 at 4097.17

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.4% on Thursday, setting intraday and closing record highs in the process amid continued appreciation in the mega-caps and growth stocks. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%) and Russell 2000 (+0.9%) outperformed the benchmark index, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) underperformed.

Apple (AAPL 130.36, +2.46, +1.9%) and Microsoft (MSFT 253.25, +3.35, +1.3%) were some of the more influential gainers today on no specific catalysts, with Apple brushing off a report from the Nikkei that it's delaying MacBook and iPad production due to the global semiconductor shortage.

The S&P 500 information technology sector, where AAPL and MSFT reside, easily topped the sector standings with a 1.4% gain. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%) was a distant second, while the lightly-weighted energy (-1.4%) and real estate (-0.6%) sectors underperformed in negative territory.

The lack of market-moving news behind the steady advance in the mega-caps suggested there were several underlying factors: a recognition that long-term interest rates have cooled off this month, money continuing to reshuffle into these Q1 laggards, and investors possibly front running Q1 earnings reports that are expected to be strong.

Elsewhere, Fed Chair Powell spoke about the global economy in an event hosted by the IMF today and rehashed the Fed's dovish policy stance since the economic recovery is still uneven and incomplete. On a related note, weekly initial claims increased by 16,000 to 744,000 (Briefing.com consensus 678,000).

In other corporate news, Visa (V 220.70, +1.43, +0.7%) pared intraday gains after Bloomberg reported that the Department of Justice will investigate the company's incentives that it provides banks as part of its antitrust probe. Constellation Brands (STZ 224.21, -10.73, -4.6%) fell 4.6% after guiding FY22 EPS below consensus.

U.S. Treasuries settled slightly lower in a quiet session. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.14%, and the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 1.63%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 92.08. WTI crude futures decreased 0.2%, or $0.10, to $59.61/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial claims for the week ending April 3 increased 16,000 to 744,000 (Briefing.com consensus 678,000). Continuing claims for the week ending March 27 decreased 16,000 to 3.734 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is disappointing labor market data that will convince the Fed that it needs to be patient before removing policy accommodation.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for March and Wholesale Inventories for February on Friday.

Russell 2000 +13.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.5% YTD
S&P 500 +9.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.3% YTD

WTI crude futures settle slightly lower
08-Apr-21 15:25 ET
Dow +48.62 at 33494.88, Nasdaq +124.51 at 13813.38, S&P +16.62 at 4096.57

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 0.4% and is on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+1.3%) firmly in the lead, followed by consumer discretionary (+0.5%) and materials (+0.3%) with modest gains. The energy sector (-1.4%) underperforms with a 1.4% decline. No other sector is down more than 0.3%.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.2%, or $0.10, to $59.61/bbl.

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Market cools down after Coinbase direct listing
14-Apr-21 16:20 ET
Dow +53.62 at 33730.89, Nasdaq -138.26 at 13857.87, S&P -16.93 at 4124.66

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.4% on Wednesday, as investors appeared to take profits in the heavily-weighted growth stocks amid the highly-anticipated public debut of Coinbase (COIN 328.28, -52.72, -13.8%). The benchmark index, however, started the day slightly higher in record territory following Q1 earnings reports from several of the big banks.

The Nasdaq Composite underperformed with a 1.0% decline. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) and Russell 2000 (+0.8%), which are more exposed to reopening stocks, outperformed in positive territory but closed off session highs. Like the S&P 500, the Dow set an intraday all-time high.

To start, JPMorgan Chase (JPM 151.21, -2.88, -1.9%), Goldman Sachs (GS 335.35, +7.67, +2.3%), and Wells Fargo (WFC 42.03, +2.24, +5.6%) each beat top and bottom-line estimates and provided encouraging commentary about business/economic conditions. GS and WFC rallied on the news, but JPM went the other way, as some questioned the quality of its EPS beat due to its large release for loan loss reserves.

The overall tone of their reports was well-received by other banks and reopening stocks within the S&P 500 financials (+0.7%), energy (+2.9%), materials (+0.7%), and industrials (+0.1%) sectors. Energy stocks got an added boost from a 5% gain in crude prices ($63.18, +3.00, +5.0%) amid bullish inventory data from the EIA.

While the reopening trade was back on to begin the day, the mega-cap/growth/technology stocks never got going. The information technology (-1.2%), consumer discretionary (-1.2%), and communication services (-0.9%) sectors, where the recently-hot mega-caps reside, were the weakest performers.

Buying interest in growth stocks was lacking prior to the Coinbase open, which was preceded by a lot of excitement from analysts and the media; sellers followed through in response to the disappointing intraday price action in COIN. Coinbase opened at $381/share after earning a reference price of $250, but shares ended the session 14% off the opening price.

The Fed's Beige Book for April, which was released at 2:00 p.m. ET or about 35 minutes after the Coinbase open, was another reported catalyst during the afternoon. Many Districts reported moderate price increases, and some said prices rose more robustly, although any inflation concerns weren't manifested in the Treasury market, which strengthened a bit in response.

The 10-yr yield settled the session two basis points higher at 1.64% after trading slightly higher prior to the Beige Book's release. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis to 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 91.64.

Separately, Fed Chair Powell told the Economic Club of Washington that the Fed is likely to first taper asset purchases after substantial progress on its goals has been reached, then hold its balance sheet constant for a while, and then finally start to gradually raise interest rates -- a similar approach as it did coming out of the financial crisis.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Import prices increased 1.2% in March while import prices excluding oil increased 0.8%. Export prices increased 2.1% in March while export prices excluding agriculture increased 2.0%.
The MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.7% following a 5.1% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead to Thursday, investors will receive the Retail Sales report for March, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for March, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Philadelphia Fed Index for April, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for April, the NAHB Housing Market Index for April, Business Inventories for February, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for February.

Russell 2000 +13.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.2% YTD
S&P 500 +9.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.5% YTD

Crude futures rally 5%
14-Apr-21 15:30 ET
Dow +97.74 at 33775.01, Nasdaq -104.37 at 13891.76, S&P -10.87 at 4130.72

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.3%, while the Russell 2000 continues to outperform with a 0.7% gain amid a modest return of the reopening trade.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+2.6%), financials (+0.7%), materials (+0.7%), and industrials (+0.3%) trading higher, with energy way out in the lead due to the increase in oil prices. The information technology (-0.9%), communication services (-0.8%), and consumer discretionary (-0.9%) sectors, however, are largely responsible for the decline in the S&P 500 right now.

WTI crude futures settled higher by a sharp 5.0%, or $3.00, to $63.18/bbl amid bullish inventory data out of the EIA.

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Stock Market Update

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Market Snapshot
Dow 34200.67 +164.68 (0.48%)
Nasdaq 14052.37 +13.58 (0.10%)
SP 500 4185.47 +15.05 (0.36%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.582
NYSE Adv 1824 Dec 1422 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1883 Dec 2220 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Utilities, Health Care
Weak: Information Technology, Energy

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Dow close at record highs in mechanical grind higher to end the week

-- Better-than-expected housing starts and building permits data for March

-- Market respects bullish trend

Market respects the bullish trend
16-Apr-21 16:15 ET
Dow +164.68 at 34200.67, Nasdaq +13.58 at 14052.37, S&P +15.05 at 4185.47

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.4%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) set intraday and closing record highs on Friday in a mechanical grind higher to end the week. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) and Russell 2000 (+0.3%) posted smaller gains.

There's a saying on Wall Street that loosely goes, "the trend is your friend until the end." Well, the trend in the S&P 500 has been extremely bullish over the past three weeks, and despite an absence of strong buying conviction today, the market found a way to respect the trend.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors contributed the advance, including the lightly-weighted materials sector (+1.2%) as the only sector to gain more than 1.0%. Value stocks outpaced growth stocks, evidenced by the 0.6% gain in the iShares S&P 500 Value ETF (IVE 145.60, +0.82), versus the 0.2% gain in the iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF (IVW 69.98, +0.16).

The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB 75.11, +1.59, +2.2%) was a pocket of strength, rising 2% to all-time highs, following the better-than-expected housing starts and building permits report for March, which showcased a 30.8% m/m surge in multi-unit starts.

On the downside, the information technology sector (-0.03%), which is the most heavily-weighed sector in the S&P 500, limited the index performance with a fractional decline amid a rebound in long-term interest rates. The energy sector (-0.9%) was the weakest performer amid lower oil prices ($63.16, -0.28, -0.4%).

The 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.57% after dropping 11 basis points on Thursday. The rebound appeared to be technically-oriented since the Treasury market barely reacted to the encouraging housing data. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 91.54.

This curve-steepening activity provided support for the financials sector (+0.7%), which included disappointing reactions to better-than-expected earnings reports from Morgan Stanley (MS 78.59, -2.23, -2.8%), BNY Mellon (BK 46.07, -1.94, -4.0%), and State Street (STT 80.47, -6.04, -7.0%).

In other corporate news, Cisco (CSCO 52.80, +1.16, +2.3%) was upgraded to Outperform from Peer Perform at Wolfe Research. Boeing (BA 148.18, -2.93, -1.2%) struggled after Reuters reported that aircraft inspectors found wider electrical issues with the 737 MAX than originally suspected.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Housing starts surged 19.4% month-over-month in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.739 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.621 million), bolstered by a 15.3% increase in single-family starts. Building permits increased 2.7% month-over-month to 1.766 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.750 million), helped by a 4.6% increase in single-family permits.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects a quick snapback from the weather-induced downturn in February, which is indicative of otherwise strong industry conditions that are being driven by strong demand for new homes.
The preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April checked in at 86.5 (Briefing.com consensus 88.0), up from the final reading of 84.9 for March. This is the highest reading in a year and was paced by improved attitudes on current conditions that were helped by job gains, rising vaccination rates, low interest rates, and fiscal stimulus.
The key takeaway from the report is the disclosure that year-ahead inflation expectations of 3.7% are the highest they have been in nearly a decade; however, inflation expectations over the next five years were lower at 2.7%.

Looking ahead, there is no economic data of note on the calendar until Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +14.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.7% YTD
S&P 500 +11.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.0% YTD

WTI crude futures settle slightly lower
16-Apr-21 15:30 ET
Dow +172.28 at 34208.27, Nasdaq +11.67 at 14050.46, S&P +15.93 at 4186.35

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.4% and on track to close at another record high. The same goes for the Dow (+0.5%) and Nasdaq 100 (+0.1%).

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows nine sectors trading higher and two trading lower. The materials (+1.3%) and utilities (+1.0%) sectors are up by at least 1.0%, while the information technology (-0.1%) and energy (-0.7%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.4%, or $0.28, to $63.16/bbl.

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Stock Market Update

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Market Snapshot
Dow 34077.63 -123.04 (-0.36%)
Nasdaq 13914.79 -137.58 (-0.98%)
SP 500 4163.26 -22.21 (-0.53%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.608
NYSE Adv 1086 Dec 2145 Vol 856.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1202 Dec 2886 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Stocks take a breather after recent record-setting run

-- Losses were relatively broad-based with growth stocks underperforming

Red day, but it wasn't so bad
19-Apr-21 16:20 ET
Dow -123.04 at 34077.63, Nasdaq -137.58 at 13914.79, S&P -22.21 at 4163.26

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.5% on Monday, putting a pause on the market's record-setting run. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) joined the benchmark index with a modest decline, while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.0%) and Russell 2000 (-1.4%) fell by at least 1.0%.

Losses were spread across ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors, declining issues easily outpaced advancing issues at the NYSE and Nasdaq, and growth stocks underperformed value stocks. The latter was evident in the sharp declines in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-2.5%) and ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 120.44, -3.94, -3.2%).

The consumer discretionary sector (-1.1%) was the only S&P 500 sector that fell more than 1.0%, though. On the upside, Apple (AAPL 134.84, +0.68, +0.5%) provided support ahead of its product event on Tuesday, as did the real estate sector (+0.3%) with a small gain.

There was no specific catalyst for the negative bias, but there was an acknowledgement that the market was overheated and primed for some selling given the S&P 500 was up 7.0% over the prior four weeks. This view, in retrospect, might have been augmented by the weekend slide in bitcoin, which had similarly been on a tear.

Tesla (TSLA 714.63, -25.15, -3.4%) and Peloton (PTON 107.75, -8.46, -7.3%) were a pair of notable laggards following some negative press.

Specifically, a Tesla vehicle crashed, killing its two passengers, after the car was allegedly on auto-pilot mode with no driver. In Peloton's case, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning about the company's Tread+ product due to several incidents involving children, including one death.

In more positive corporate news, Q1 earnings reports continued to beat elevated expectations. Dow component Coca-Cola (KO 54.00, +0.32, +0.6%) warrants a mention, but it was Harley-Davidson (HOG 44.29, +3.91, +9.7%) that really pleased investors based off its 9.7% gain.

Elsewhere, the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.60%, which some blamed for the relative weakness in the Nasdaq and growth stocks. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 91.10. WTI crude futures increased 0.3%, or $0.19, to $63.35/bbl.

Investors did not receive any economic data and will not receive any on Tuesday, either.

Russell 2000 +13.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.3% YTD
S&P 500 +10.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.0% YTD

WTI crude futures settle in the green
19-Apr-21 15:30 ET
Dow -166.86 at 34033.81, Nasdaq -165.65 at 13886.72, S&P -29.37 at 4156.10

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to struggle with a 0.7% decline amid a lack of a buy-the-dip mindset.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (-1.1%) and consumer discretionary (-1.2%) leading the decline with losses over 1.0%, while the real estate sector (+0.03%) is the only sector clinging onto a gain.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.3%, or $0.19, to $63.35/bbl. On a related note, a report from CNBC indicated that Fundstrat's Tom Lee said he thinks the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE 48.17, -0.23, -0.5%) could have another 45% upside if oil hits $80.00 per barrel.

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Stock Market Update

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Market Snapshot
Dow 33821.30 -256.33 (-0.75%)
Nasdaq 13786.29 -128.50 (-0.92%)
SP 500 4134.94 -28.32 (-0.68%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.588
NYSE Adv 863 Dec 2394 Vol 878.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 990 Dec 3044 Vol 4.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Real Estate, Utilities, Consumer Staples
Weak: Financials, Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Market registers back-to-back losses, representing consolidation activity

-- Weakness in cyclical sectors; strength in defensive-oriented sectors

-- Better-than-expected earnings reports

Back-to-back losses
20-Apr-21 16:20 ET
Dow -256.33 at 33821.30, Nasdaq -128.50 at 13786.29, S&P -28.32 at 4134.94

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.7% on Tuesday for its second straight decline, as it continued to consolidate its record-setting run. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.8%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) performed similarly to the benchmark index, while the Russell 2000 struggled with a 2.0% decline.

Like yesterday, there was no specific selling catalyst, but the breadth and scope of the losses were greater today. Declining issues outpaced advancing issues by a 3:1 margin at the NYSE and Nasdaq. The cyclical energy (-2.7%), financials (-1.8%), and consumer discretionary (-1.2%) sectors underperformed with sharp losses.

Analyst commentary rehashed on how overstretched the S&P 500 had gotten, with roughly 95% of its components trading above their 200-day moving average, and how bullish investor sentiment had gotten over the past month. Despite the potential for further weakness, the market closed off session lows amid a late effort to buy the dip.

Throughout the day, some investors preferred to lean more defensively instead of de-risking. The defensive-oriented utilities (+1.3%), real estate (+1.1%), consumer staples (+0.6%), and health care (+0.4%) sectors finished in positive territory.

The consumer staples and health care sectors received earnings-driven support from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 166.48, +3.79, +2.3%), Procter & Gamble (PG 137.75, +1.14, +0.8%), and Philip Morris International (PM 94.00, +2.33, +2.5%). JNJ also said it will resume its vaccine roll-out in Europe after the EMA supported its benefit-risk profile.

IBM (IBM 138.16, +5.04, +3.8%) and Travelers (TRV 155.73, +1.35, +0.9%) were other earnings-related gainers, even though TRV missed EPS estimates. United Airlines (UAL 50.30, -4.69, -8.5%) fell 8.5% after missing top and bottom-line estimates and possibly due to news that the U.S. State Department will increase its "Do Not Travel" advisory to roughly 80% of countries outside the U.S.

In other corporate news, Apple (AAPL 133.11, -1.73, -1.3%) introduced new iMacs, a new podcast subscription service, a Bluetooth tracking product, and a new Apple TV 4K. Microsoft (MSFT 258.26, -0.48, -0.2%) reportedly ended deal talks with Discord. Kansas City Southern (KSU 295.50, +39.10, +15.3%) received an 18% premium counteroffer from Canadian National Railway (CNI 110.15, -7.98, -6.8%).

U.S. Treasuries edged higher amid the negative bias in the broader equity market, pushing yields lower. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.15%. The 10-yr yield decreased four basis points to 1.56%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 91.24. WTI crude futures declined 1.2%, or $0.74, to $62.61/bbl.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Tuesday, and Wednesday's economic data will be limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the weekly EIA crude inventory report.

Russell 2000 +10.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.5% YTD
S&P 500 +10.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.0% YTD

Crude futures settle lower amid equity weakness
20-Apr-21 15:25 ET
Dow -292.36 at 33785.27, Nasdaq -152.11 at 13762.68, S&P -32.54 at 4130.72

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.8% after retesting its session low about 25 minutes ago. The ability to hold the low has been seen as an encouraging short-term sign.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows six of the 11 sectors trading lower by at least 1.0%, including a 2.7% decline in the energy sector. Four sectors trade higher, including the utilities (+1.3%) and real estate (+1.0%) sectors with gains of at least 1.0%.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.2%, or $0.74, to $62.61/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Stock Market Update

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Market Snapshot
Dow 34137.31 +316.01 (0.93%)
Nasdaq 13950.24 +163.95 (1.19%)
SP 500 4173.42 +38.48 (0.93%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.560
NYSE Adv 2569 Dec 717 Vol 826.3 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3246 Dec 927 Vol 3.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Energy, Industrials, Financials, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Communication Services, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Market bounces back as buying interest spreads to most sectors on no specific catalyst

-- Netflix (NFLX) fell 7% after missing subscriber estimates and issuing disappointing Q2 guidance

Market bounces back
21-Apr-21 16:20 ET
Dow +316.01 at 34137.31, Nasdaq +163.95 at 13950.24, S&P +38.48 at 4173.42

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.9% on Wednesday, bouncing back from back-to-back declines amid renewed buying interest. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.2%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%) posted similar gains. The small-cap Russell 2000 outperformed the large-cap indices with a 2.4% gain.

The advance was relatively broad-based with nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closing higher and advancing issues outpacing declining issues by more than a 3:1 margin at the NYSE and Nasdaq. Seven sectors rose more than 1.0%, including materials (+1.9%) and energy (+1.5%) atop the standings.

The communication services (-0.3%) and utilities (-0.9%) sectors were the only sectors that closed lower, largely due to losses in Netflix (NFLX 508.90, -40.67, -7.4%), Verizon (VZ 58.14, -0.24, -0.4%), and NextEra (NEE 77.97, -2.56, -3.2%) following their earnings reports. NFLX fell 7.4% after missing subscriber estimates and issuing disappointing Q2 guidance.

CSX (CSX 102.69, +4.24, +4.3%) was the earnings standout, driving the advance in the Dow Jones Transportation Average (+1.0%).

Earnings news was a big talking point today given the lack of new macro developments, but it'd be self-serving to attribute the generally positive reports to the broader advance. That's based off an observation that the market declined for two straight days this week when most reports exceeded expectations.

Instead, the price action in the market was consistent with consolidation activity: two down days followed by an up day. In other words, no progress. Granted, there was a noticeable uptick in the market within the last hour of the session, possibly due to investors not wanting to get left behind if the consolidation phase is over.

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed in a tight-ranged session that included a decent $24 billion 20-yr bond auction. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.14%, and the 10-yr yield was unchanged at 1.56%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 91.13. WTI crude futures declined 2.0%, or $1.26, to $61.35/bbl.

Wednesday's economic data was sparse. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 8.6% following a 3.7% decline in the prior week. Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, Existing Home Sales for March, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for March on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +13.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.5% YTD
S&P 500 +11.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.2% YTD

Energy stocks among today's leaders despite weaker oil prices
21-Apr-21 15:30 ET
Dow +266.06 at 34087.36, Nasdaq +115.46 at 13901.75, S&P +29.48 at 4164.42

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.7% and is trading at session highs.

One last look at the sector performances shows materials (+1.8%), industrials (+1.3%), financials (+1.2%), energy (+1.3%), and health care (+1.1%) up more than 1.0%. The communication services (-0.7%) and utilities (-0.8%) sectors remain the only sectors in the S&P 500 trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 2.0%, or $1.26, to $61.35/bbl, although this hasn't stopped the energy sector from participating in today's advance.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33815.90 -321.41 (-0.94%)
Nasdaq 13818.43 -131.81 (-0.94%)
SP 500 4134.98 -38.44 (-0.92%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.556
NYSE Adv 1276 Dec 1971 Vol 866.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2010 Dec 2052 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Materials, Energy, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Reports indicated that President Biden will propose increasing the capital gains tax rate to as high as 43.4% on Americans earning more than $1 million

-- Convenient excuse to do some selling

-- Q1 earnings generally exceeded expectations, weekly jobless claims declined to post-pandemic low

Market runs into tax trouble
22-Apr-21 16:20 ET
Dow -321.41 at 33815.90, Nasdaq -131.81 at 13818.43, S&P -38.44 at 4134.98

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.9% on Thursday, ostensibly due to reports that President Biden will propose increasing the capital gains tax rate for wealthy Americans. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.9%) declined in-line with the benchmark index. The Russell 2000 declined just 0.3%.

Specifically, the S&P 500 went from a 0.2% gain to a 1.2% decline in about an hour after Bloomberg reported that the tax plan would boost the capital gains rate to 39.6% from 20.0% for those earning $1 million or more. The rate would be bumped to 43.4% when including the 3.8% tax on investment income that funds the Affordable Care Act. It would be even higher when including state taxes.

It was interesting to see a visceral reaction in the market considering The New York Times published a similar report earlier in the day and that the president campaigned on raising taxes on the wealthy. The one caveat, to be fair, was that the Bloomberg report indicated the ACA-tax would remain in place while the NYT report did not make that clear.

Nevertheless, the tax news was viewed as a convenient excuse to take profits from a market that had been resilient to selling pressure. Every sector in the S&P 500 closed in negative territory, led lower by the materials (-1.8%), energy (-1.4%), information technology (-1.2%), and consumer discretionary (-1.2%) sectors with losses over 1.0%.

Earnings reports continued to come in mostly better than expected, but many stocks had disappointing reactions, including Lam Research (LRCX 614.54, -26.71, -4.2%) and Dow Inc. (DOW 60.93, -3.89, -6.0%). Union Pacific (UNP 217.98, -5.45, -2.4%) had an appropriate reaction after missing top and bottom-line estimates.

AT&T (T 31.36, +1.25, +4.2%) and Equifax (EFX 221.41, +28.78, +14.9%), on the other hand, were some of the more notable earnings winners, with EFX rising 15%.

In other developments, weekly initial claims fell to a new post-pandemic low at 547,000 (Briefing.com consensus 600,000), existing home sales decreased 3.7% m/m in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.01 million (Briefing.com consensus 6.15 million) amid historically low supply, and the ECB kept interest rates/asset purchases unchanged.

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed in a relatively muted session. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.14%, and the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.55%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 91.26. WTI crude futures increased 0.2%, or $0.10, to $61.45/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending April 17 decreased by 39,000 to 547,000 (Briefing.com consensus 600,000). That is the lowest initial claims have been since the week of March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending April 10 decreased by 34,000 to 3.674 million. That is the lowest continuing claims have been since the week of March 21, 2020.
The key takeaway from the report is that the absolute level of claims is still high, yet there are clear signs of relative improvement that continue to support favorable recovery-minded views for the labor market and the economy.
Existing home sales decreased 3.7% m/m in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.01 million (Briefing.com consensus 6.15 million) from an upwardly revised 6.24 million (from 6.22 million) in February. Total sales in March were up 12.3% from a year ago.
The key takeaway from the report is the same as last month: the supply of existing homes for sale remains near all-time low levels. That is driving up the pace of price increases well beyond the pace of income gains, which is going to create affordability pressures for prospective buyers along with rising mortgage rates.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 1.3% m/m in March (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) following a downwardly revised 0.1% decline (from +0.2%) in February. That revision marked the end of a string of nine consecutive months of increases for the LEI.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that all ten components made positive contributions, which is a testament to the recovery/reopening momentum that is being aided by increasing vaccine adoption rates.

Looking ahead, investors will receive New Home Sales for March and the preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing and Services PMIs for April on Friday.

Russell 2000 +13.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.5% YTD
S&P 500 +10.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.2% YTD

Crude futures settle higher despite market weakness
22-Apr-21 15:25 ET
Dow -359.60 at 33777.71, Nasdaq -150.14 at 13800.10, S&P -42.78 at 4130.64

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.0%, while the Russell 2000 trades higher by 0.1%.

One last look at the sector standings shows red across the board. The heavily-weighted information technology (-1.3%) and consumer discretionary (-1.3%) sectors are among the weakest performers with 1.3% declines. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is down 2.4%. The real estate sector is down just 0.3%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.2%, or $0.10, to $61.45/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34043.49 +227.59 (0.67%)
Nasdaq 14016.83 +198.40 (1.44%)
SP 500 4180.17 +45.19 (1.09%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.567
NYSE Adv 2532 Dec 714 Vol 778.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3077 Dec 1079 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Materials, Financials
Weak: Consumer Staples, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Investors play down tax concerns and buy the dip

-- New home sales surge in March

-- Disappointing earnings reactions in Intel (INTC), Honeywell (HON), and American Express (AXP) contributed to relative underperformance of Dow

Investors play down tax concerns and buy the dip
23-Apr-21 16:20 ET
Dow +227.59 at 34043.49, Nasdaq +198.40 at 14016.83, S&P +45.19 at 4180.17

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 1.1% on Friday, recouping all of yesterday's tax-related decline, as investors bought the dip in most sectors of the market. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.4%) and Russell 2000 (+1.8%) outpaced the benchmark index while the Dow Jones Industrial Average trailed with a 0.7% gain.

The session started on a cautious note, as investors continued to contemplate reports that President Biden will propose increasing the capital gains tax rate for the wealthy. Talking points were more optimistic today, comprising of speculation that negotiations could reduce the rate, strategies to work around the taxes, and observations about the market's historical ability to weather tax increases.

The calmer demeanor lent itself to a familiar buy-the-dip mindset, further supported by data showing new home sales surge 20.7% month-over-month in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.021 million (Briefing.com consensus 912,000). This was the highest annual rate of sales since August 2006.

Gains were spread across nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors in a steady advance led by the financials (+1.9%), materials (+1.7%), and information technology (+1.4%) sectors. The resilient nature of the market presumably rekindled a fear of missing out on further gains and possibly short-covering activity.

There was a slight hiccup in the last 25 minutes of action, though, that pushed the consumer staples (-0.2%) and utilities (-0.2%) in the red on a closing basis.

Shares of Intel (INTC 59.24, -3.33, -5.3%), Honeywell (HON 224.51, -4.75, -2.1%), and American Express (AXP 144.30, -2.86, -1.9%) struggled in negative territory following their earnings reports, contributing to the relative underperformance of the Dow. Each of these companies topped EPS estimates, but INTC issued downside Q2 guidance and AXP missed revenue estimates.

U.S. Treasuries traded little changed for the third straight day despite the strong new home sales report. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 1.57%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.6% to 90.82.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.1%, or $0.70, to $62.15/bbl. On a related note, California Governor Newsome announced that the state will stop issuing new fracking permits by 2024.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

New home sales surged 20.7% month-over-month in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.021 million (Briefing.com consensus 912,000) from an upwardly revised 846,000 (from 775,000) in February. March marked the highest annual rate for new home sales since August 2006. On a yr/yr basis, new home sales were up a whopping 66.8%, having lapped a very depressed comparison period due to the pandemic.
The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales, which are counted when contracts are signed, rebounded sharply from the deep freeze experienced in the Midwest and South during February; however, the sizable drop in new home sales month-over-month in the West (-30.0%), and the higher proportion of new homes sold for $399,999 or less, also speaks to the increased affordability pressures being applied by high prices and rising mortgage rates.
The preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for April increased to 60.6 from 59.1 in March. The preliminary IHS Markit Services PMI for April increased to 63.1 from 60.4 in March.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Durable Goods Orders for March on Monday.

Russell 2000 +15.0% YTD
S&P 500 +11.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.8% YTD

WTI crude futures settle higher
23-Apr-21 15:30 ET
Dow +300.92 at 34116.82, Nasdaq +232.99 at 14051.42, S&P +54.62 at 4189.60

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.3% and is now positive for the week, putting it on track for five straight weekly gains.

One last look at the sector standings shows financials (+2.1%) and materials (+1.9%) leading the advance with 2% gains, while the utilities sector (-0.1%) is the only sector trading in negative territory right now.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.1%, or $0.70, to $62.15/bbl. On a related note, California Governor Newsom announced plans to ban fracking by 2024.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33820.38 -164.55 (-0.48%)
Nasdaq 14051.05 -39.19 (-0.28%)
SP 500 4183.18 -3.54 (-0.08%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.613
NYSE Adv 1898 Dec 1317 Vol 820.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2276 Dec 1794 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Communication Services
Weak: Information Technology, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Fed Chair Powell said it's not time to start talking about tapering asset purchases

-- Fed keeps rates and pace of asset purchases unchanged, as expected

-- Dow underperformed amid disappointing earnings reactions in Microsoft (MSFT), Boeing (BA), and Amgen (AMGN)

-- Alphabet (GOOG) crushed EPS estimates

Large-cap indices close slightly lower on Fed day
28-Apr-21 16:20 ET
Dow -164.55 at 33820.38, Nasdaq -39.19 at 14051.05, S&P -3.54 at 4183.18

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 decreased 0.1% on Wednesday in another tight-ranged session, as the broader market showed little reaction to the Fed's policy decision or earnings news. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%) also closed lower, while the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) closed slightly higher.

The FOMC did as everyone expected by keeping rates near zero and leaving the pace of asset purchases unchanged by at least $120 billion per month. In his press conference, Fed Chair Powell said it wasn't time to start talking about tapering asset purchases and reiterated it'll take substantial further progress until the Fed's employment and inflation goals are reached, meaning those discussions will have to wait a while longer.

There was some uncertainty if the Fed was going to hint at these tapering discussions, but Mr. Powell made it clear throughout this Q&A session that the Fed was assured with its current policy stance. Mr. Powell also downplayed inflation risks and acknowledged some things in capital markets are frothy.

The initial reaction to the tapering comment was modest: a 15-point gain in the S&P 500 to the 4200 level (record high), which was consequently met with selling pressure. Overall, the index moves were tame, respecting the recent consolidation trend in the market.

The communication services (+1.2%) and energy (+3.4%) sectors saw notable strength today, keying off their own catalysts in Alphabet's (GOOG 2379.91, +72.79, +3.2%) blowout earnings report and a bullish call on oil ($63.86, +0.91, +1.5%) out of Goldman Sachs. The firm said it expects crude prices to reach $80 per barrel over the next six months due to strong demand.

Conversely, the information technology sector (-1.0%) was the weakest link with a 1% decline, predominately due to a disappointing earnings reaction in Microsoft (MSFT 254.56, -7.41, -2.8%). Semiconductor stocks also lagged, particularly Texas Instruments (TXN 181.82, -8.39, -4.4%) despite reporting positive earnings results.

Amgen (AMGN 236.71, -18.42, -7.2%) and Boeing (BA 235.46, -7.01, -2.9%) joined Microsoft as earnings laggards in the Dow. Visa (V 233.45, +3.54, +1.5%), however, provided offsetting support in the tech sector and Dow following its earnings report.

U.S. Treasury yields declined from session highs, settling little changed, following the release of the FOMC statement and Fed Chair Powell's affirmation of the Fed's view that inflation will be transitory. The 10-yr yield was unchanged at 1.62%, and the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.17%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 90.58.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for March showed a deficit of $90.6 billion versus $86.7 billion in February. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for March decreased 1.4%, while the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for March increased 1.4%.
The MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.5% following an 8.6% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the advance estimate for Q1 GDP, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and Pending Home Sales for March on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +16.7% YTD
S&P 500 +11.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.0% YTD

Resistance at the 4200 level
28-Apr-21 15:25 ET
Dow -114.47 at 33870.46, Nasdaq -9.51 at 14080.73, S&P +3.16 at 4189.88

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.1% after finding resistance at the 4200 level, which it touched for the first time ever. Fed Chair Powell has just concluded his press conference.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+3.4%) and communication services (+1.7%) still firmly in the lead, while the information technology sector (-0.7%) lags with a 0.7% decline.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.5%, or $0.91, to $63.86/bbl. On a related note, Goldman Sachs said it expects crude prices to reach $80 per barrel over the next six months due to strong demand.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34230.34 +97.31 (0.29%)
Nasdaq 13582.46 -51.08 (-0.37%)
SP 500 4167.59 +2.93 (0.07%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.577

NYSE Adv 1726 Dec 1537 Vol 928.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1863 Dec 2278 Vol 4.5 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Financials

Weak: Utilities, Real Estate, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Information Technology


Moving the Market
-- Dow closes at record high in mixed session that favored value and cyclical stocks

-- Technology/growth stocks were unable to sustain early efforts to buy the dip

-- Decent economic data on services sector activity and private-sector hiring activity

-- Treasury Secretary Yellen and other Fed speakers downplayed sustained inflation pressures, with Ms. Yellen walking back on prior interest rate comments





Dow closes at record high in another rotation day
05-May-21 16:20 ET

Dow +97.31 at 34230.34, Nasdaq -51.08 at 13582.46, S&P +2.93 at 4167.59
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.1% on Wednesday in a mixed session that favored the value and cyclical stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) outperformed for the third straight day and set fresh record highs, while the Nasdaq Composite decreased 0.4% after starting with a 0.9% gain. The Russell 2000 lost 0.3%.

The energy (+3.3%), materials (+1.3%), and financials (+0.9%) sectors represented the cyclical leadership, partially due to rotational factors since oil prices ($65.63/bbl, -0.07, -0.1%) and Treasury yields were muted today. Decent economic data on services sector activity and the labor market likely fueled the reopening narrative, though.

Conversely, the information technology (-0.2%), consumer discretionary (-0.4%), and communication services (-0.3%) sectors exerted the influential weakness after a half-hearted rebound bid to start the day. The lightly-weighted utilities (-1.7%) and real estate (-1.5%) sectors were the weakest performers.

Like the Nasdaq, the information technology sector was up as much as 1.0% intraday after falling about 2% yesterday. The inability to sustain a buy-the-dip effort, however, was viewed as an indicator of tiredness and wasn't conducive for risk sentiment.

Despite the disappointing price action in the growth-stock oriented sectors, overall price action remained consistent with consolidation activity. In other words, the index moves were benign with a lot of churn happening at the sector and individual stock levels.

Specifying today's economic data, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index decreased to 62.7% in April (Briefing.com consensus 65.0%) from 63.7% in March. The ADP Employment Change report for April showed 742,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 810,000). While they missed expectations, the reports still depicted healthy activity in the services sector and on the hiring front.

Separately, Treasury Secretary Yellen, Chicago Fed President Evans (FOMC voter), and Fed Vice Chair Clarida (FOMC voter) all downplayed sustained inflation pressures. Ms. Yellen also clarified prior comments on interest rates, saying she wasn't predicting, nor recommending, the Fed to hike rates in response to government stimulus proposals.

In the Treasury market, the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.58%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 91.27.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index decreased to 62.7% in April (Briefing.com consensus 65.0%) from 63.7% in March. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The April reading marks the eleventh straight month of growth for the services sector and follows a record high reading for March.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that services sector activity is still running at a fast pace, as business activity slowed only modestly from the record pace logged in March.
The ADP Employment Change report estimated that 742,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls in April (Briefing.com consensus 810,000) following an upwardly revised 565,000 increase (from 517,000) in March. This was the largest increase since September 2020.
The IHS Markit Services PMI for April was revised higher to 64.7% from 63.7% in the preliminary reading.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.9% following a 2.5% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and preliminary Productivity and Unit Labor Costs for the first quarter on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +13.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.8% YTD
S&P 500 +11.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.4% YTD



Biden administration to support waiver for COVID-19 patent protections
05-May-21 15:30 ET

Dow +95.57 at 34228.60, Nasdaq -65.16 at 13568.38, S&P +1.65 at 4166.31
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up just 0.1%, while the Nasdaq dips lower by 0.4%.

Shares of Moderna (MRNA 162.50, -10.82, -6.4%), Pfizer (PFE 39.60, -0.35, -0.9%), and other COVID-19 vaccine makers are trading lower amid news that the Biden administration will support a waiver of patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines, according to CNBC. It was previously reported that the USTR would have talks with the WTO about this waiver.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.1%, or $0.07, to $65.63/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34548.53 +318.19 (0.93%)
Nasdaq 13632.88 +50.42 (0.37%)
SP 500 4201.62 +34.03 (0.82%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.569
NYSE Adv 1799 Dec 1444 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1687 Dec 2335 Vol 4.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Consumer Staples, Information Technology
Weak: Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Blue-chips set the tone, investors bought the dip in technology

-- German Chancellor Merkel is reportedly against patent waivers for COVID-19 vaccines

-- Weakness in the high-growth story stocks

-- Weekly initial claims fell to new post-pandemic low at 498,000 (Briefing.com consensus 530,000)

Investors lean on the blue-chips and buy the dip in technology
06-May-21 16:25 ET
Dow +318.19 at 34548.53, Nasdaq +50.42 at 13632.88, S&P +34.03 at 4201.62

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 0.8% on Thursday in a comeback session, as investors gravitated toward the blue-chip stocks and bought the dip in technology. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%) set intraday and closing record high, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%) snapped a four-session losing streak with a more modest gain. The Russell 2000 finished flat.

Each of the major indices opened little changed, not reacting to the spate of earnings reports or the fact that weekly initial claims declined to a new post-pandemic low at 498,000 (Briefing.com consensus 530,000). Selling momentum, however, quickly gripped the Nasdaq and many of the high-growth story stocks that peaked in February. The Nasdaq was down 1.1% intraday.

Investors consequently assumed a defensive-oriented mindset that was manifested in the early leadership from the S&P 500 consumer staples sector (+1.3%), the blue-chips within the Dow, and a firmer Treasury market. The 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 1.56%.

Fortunately, the defensive mindset softened up following reports that German Chancellor Merkel was against patent waivers for COVID-19 vaccines, contrary to support from the USTR and interest from the European Commission President.

The information technology sector (+1.0%) benefited from a buy-the-dip mindset after being down 0.8% intraday, and 3.0% for the week, but the gains were relatively broad-based. The financials sector (+1.4%) finished atop the standings, while the health care sector (+0.1%) was interestingly the laggard with a slim gain.

Many of the high-growth story stocks remained in the gutters, though, best exemplified by the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 108.34, -3.21, -2.9%) closing lower by 3% and slipping further below its 200-day moving average.

In addition, Uber (UBER 46.65, -4.53, -8.9%), Twilio (TWLO 301.12, -31.60, -9.4%), Etsy (ETSY 157.68, -26.89, -14.6%), and Fastly (FSLY 42.31, +15.75, -27.1%) fell sharply following their earnings reports. PayPal (PYPL 252.02, +4.62, +1.9%), while not a Dow component, fit the blue-chip narrative with a 2% earnings-driven gain.

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 90.90. WTI crude futures decreased 1.4%, or $0.94, to $64.69/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending May 1 declined by 92,000 to 498,000 (Briefing.com consensus 530,000), which is the lowest level since March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending April 24 increased by 37,000 to 3.690 million.
The key takeaway from the report is the downtrend in initial claims, which is consistent with an economy that is reopening and necessitating more hiring activity.
Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 5.4% annual rate in the first quarter (Briefing.com consensus 5.0%) while unit labor costs decreased at an annual rate of 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus -1.6%).
The key takeaway from the report is the pickup in productivity and the corresponding effect of helping to hold down labor costs, which is something that will continue to feed the Fed's patience for holding its easy policy line despite clear signs of commodity cost inflation.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for April, Consumer Credit for March, and Wholesale Inventories for March on Friday.

Russell 2000 +13.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.9% YTD
S&P 500 +11.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.8% YTD

WTI crude futures settle lower, weigh on energy stocks
06-May-21 15:25 ET
Dow +163.13 at 34393.47, Nasdaq -45.58 at 13536.88, S&P +10.05 at 4177.64

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.3% amid gains in eight of its 11 sectors.

One last look at the sector performances shows consumer staples (+1.0%) and financials (+0.9%) atop the leaderboard, while the health care (-0.5%), consumer discretionary (-0.3%), and energy (-0.1%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.4%, or $0.94, to $64.69/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34742.82 -34.94 (-0.10%)
Nasdaq 13401.89 -350.38 (-2.55%)
SP 500 4188.43 -44.17 (-1.04%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.600
NYSE Adv 1071 Dec 2233 Vol 998.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1004 Dec 2991 Vol 4.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Financials, Industrials, Consumer Staples, Utilities, Real Estate
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Negative momentum builds in the growth-stock space, takes steam off the cyclical trade

-- Dow trades at all-time highs, while Nasdaq retreats amid mega-cap weakness

Growth stocks bleed into the close
10-May-21 16:20 ET
Dow -34.94 at 34742.82, Nasdaq -350.38 at 13401.89, S&P -44.17 at 4188.43

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.0% on Monday, as negative momentum accelerated in the heavily-weighted growth stocks with selling interest leaking into the broader market late in the day. The Nasdaq Composite (-2.6%) and Russell 2000 (-2.6%) both dropped 2.6%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up as much as 0.9% intraday at all-time highs above the 35,000 level, but it retraced from that level and closed lower by 0.1%.

Growth stocks simply looked awful today on no specific macro catalyst, but some investors blamed the horrendous reaction to The Trade Desk's (TTD 489.60, -171.83, -26.0%) earnings report, Citigroup downgrading Alphabet (GOOG 2340.66, -57.03, -2.4%) and Facebook (FB 305.97, -13.11, -4.1%) to Neutral from Buy, and the early preference towards cyclical stocks as potential catalysts.

In addition, indiscernible efforts to buy the dip in growth stocks appeared to stoke concerns about further downside, and an intraday uptick in long-term interest rates added fuel to the fire. The Nasdaq Composite closed below its 50-day moving average (13,534) for the first time since the end of March. The 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.60%.

From a sector perspective, the S&P 500 information technology (-2.5%), communication services (-1.9%), and consumer discretionary (-2.0%) sectors took the brunt of the damage amid weakness in the mega-caps and semiconductor stocks. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 4.7%.

Losses piled on in the afternoon, and the pronounced weakness in growth stocks took some steam out of the cyclical sectors. The materials (-0.4%) and energy (-0.1%) sectors, for example, closed lower after they were the top performers at the open, as copper and energy prices keyed off reopening optimism and the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline over the weekend.

The defensive-oriented utilities (+1.0%), consumer staples (+0.8%), real estate (+0.4%), and health care (+0.1%) sectors finished as leaders in positive territory alongside the industrials sector (+0.1%).

Investors faded the commodity-related theme, as copper prices eventually settled down 0.3% to $4.72/lb after being up as much as 2.8% and RBOB gasoline futures settled fractionally lower (-0.02%) at $2.13/gallon after being up as much as 4.2%. WTI crude futures increased 0.1%, or $0.05, to $64.80/bbl.

The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 90.22%.

Investors did not receive any economic data of note on Monday. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for April and the JOLTS - Job Openings report for March will be released on Tuesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.3% YTD
S&P 500 +11.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.0% YTD

WTI crude futures settle with marginal gain
10-May-21 15:30 ET
Dow +108.50 at 34886.26, Nasdaq -304.30 at 13447.97, S&P -27.94 at 4204.66

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade lower by 0.7%, while the Russell 2000 is down 2.0%.

One last look at the sector performances shows information technology (-2.2%), consumer discretionary (-1.6%), and communication services (-1.8%) continuing to lead the retreat, while the consumer staples (+1.0%) and utilities (+1.4%) sectors are atop the standings in part due to their defensive-oriented characteristics.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.1%, or $0.05, to $64.80/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34269.16 -473.66 (-1.36%)
Nasdaq 13389.46 -12.43 (-0.09%)
SP 500 4152.10 -36.33 (-0.87%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.615

NYSE Adv 875 Dec 2389 Vol 994.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1565 Dec 2405 Vol 4.7 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Materials

Weak: Energy, Financials, Industrials


Moving the Market
-- Cyclical/non-technology stocks succumbed to profit-taking interest

-- Growth stocks pared early losses as investors finally started to buy the dip

-- Pestering inflation expectations manifested in Treasury market and commodities





Non-technology stocks get hit, while growth stocks pare losses
11-May-21 16:20 ET

Dow -473.66 at 34269.16, Nasdaq -12.43 at 13389.46, S&P -36.33 at 4152.10
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.9% on Tuesday in a relatively broad-based decline, although growth stocks benefited from a buy-the-dip mindset following a weak open. The Nasdaq Composite decreased 0.1% after starting with a 2.2% decline, and the Russell 2000 decreased 0.3% after starting with a 2.5% decline.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average underperformed and closed lower by 1.4% following yesterday's record-setting session.

For a change of pace this month, selling interest was concentrated in the cyclical/non-technology stocks, including those within the energy (-2.6%), financials (-1.7%), and industrials (-1.4%) sectors. The materials sector (+0.4%) was an exception and was the only sector in the S&P 500 that closed higher today.

Arguably, cyclical stocks were due for some profit taking after a strong start to the month, even though longer-dated Treasury yields and commodities continued to reflect inflation expectations. Inflation expectations were partially due to China's April PPI (+6.8% yr/yr) hitting its highest level since 2017 ahead of the U.S. April CPI report tomorrow.

The 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.62%, and the 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.16%. WTI crude futures increased 0.7%, or $0.45, to $65.25/bbl. Copper futures rose 1.5%, or $0.07, to $4.79/lb. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 90.18.

Growth stocks, meanwhile, had a pitiful start that was attributed to negative momentum and the uptick in long-term interest rates. Fortunately, the weak open was viewed as an opportunistic entry point considering many of these stocks were down substantially from their record highs.

The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 106.12, +2.14, +2.1%) rose 2% after being down 5% intraday (and 38% off its record high), and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained 0.3% after being down 3.2% intraday. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 214.14, -0.50) declined just 0.2% after being down 1.9% intraday.

Roblox (RBLX 77.33, +13.33, +20.8%), which never traded lower today, rose 21% following its earnings report and the bargain-hunting mindset in growth stocks. Palantir (PLTR 20.21, +1.74, +9.4%) was initially down about 8% following its earnings report but closed higher by 9%.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Job openings increased to 8.123 million in March from a revised 7.526 million in February (from 7.367 million).
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for April increased to 99.8 from 98.2 in March.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for April, the Treasury Budget for April, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.8% YTD
S&P 500 +10.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.9% YTD



Crude futures settle above $65 per barrel
11-May-21 15:30 ET

Dow -411.71 at 34331.11, Nasdaq +15.46 at 13417.35, S&P -29.48 at 4158.95
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.7%, and the Russell 2000 is down 0.4%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (-2.3%), industrials (-1.4%), financials (-1.4%), and utilities (-1.4%) leading the decline, while the materials sector (+0.4%) bucks the negative trend with a 0.4% gain. For a change this month, non-technology stocks are underperforming.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.7%, or $0.45, to $65.25/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33587.66 -681.50 (-1.99%)
Nasdaq 13031.71 -357.75 (-2.67%)
SP 500 4063.04 -89.06 (-2.14%)
10-yr Note -4/32 1.670

NYSE Adv 450 Dec 2814 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 914 Dec 2832 Vol 4.7 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Energy

Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Materials, Industrials


Moving the Market
-- The Consumer Price Index report for April was much hotter than expected

-- The 10-yr yield rose eight basis points to 1.70%

-- Apple (AAPL) fell below its 200-day moving average (122.96)

-- De-risking efforts

Hot CPI report fuels market sell-off
12-May-21 16:15 ET

Dow -681.50 at 33587.66, Nasdaq -357.75 at 13031.71, S&P -89.06 at 4063.04
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 2.1% on Wednesday in an orderly retreat, as inflation concerns were fueled by the noticeably hot Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for April. The Nasdaq Composite (-2.7%) and Russell 2000 (-3.3%) underperformed with steeper losses, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 2.0%.

Specifically, total CPI rose 0.8% m/m in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.9% m/m in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI was up 4.2%, and when looking at the last six months to exclude base effect comparisons for April, it's running at an annualized pace of 5.0%.

The inflation-sensitive 10-yr yield settled higher by eight basis points to 1.70% after trading flat prior to the report. Accordingly, this spike in rates functioned as an additional headwind for the growth stocks, which have struggled mightily this month under negative momentum and rotational factors.

Apple (AAPL 122.77, -3.14, -2.5%) fell below its 200-day moving average (122.96) for the first time since April 2020, further curbing risk sentiment in technology stocks and the broader market. Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, led by the consumer discretionary (-3.3%) and information technology (-2.9%) sectors. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 4.2%.

The energy sector (+0.1%) was up as much as 3.0% today, largely due to the continued rise in oil futures ($65.95/bbl, +0.70, +1.1%) and RBOB futures ($2.16/gal, +0.02, +0.9%), but barely closed higher. Gasoline futures were driven by reports highlighting the long lines at gas stations in some Southeastern states due to the Colonial Pipeline shutdown.

While Fed officials, including Fed Vice Chair Clarida today, have consistently maintained the view that inflation pressures should be transitory, the thought that the central bank might have to act sooner than it would like possibly contributed to the buyers' strike.

Investors sought safety in cash, as equities and longer-dated Treasuries declined together. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.7% to 90.74. The CBOE Volatility Index (27.59, +5.75, +26.3%) spiked 26%, representing a rush for downside protection. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.15%.

As an aside, the S&P 500 extended its three-day decline to 4.0% and closed 13 points above its 50-day moving average (4050).

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which featured the Consumer Price Index for April:

Total CPI increased 0.8% month-over-month in April (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, surged 0.9% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), driven by a 10.0% increase in used car prices. That was the largest monthly increase in core CPI since April 1982. On a year-over-year basis, total CPI was up 4.2% -- the largest 12-month increase since September 2008 -- and core CPI was up 3.0% versus 1.6% for the 12 months ending in March.
The key takeaway from the report isn't so much the year-over-year numbers, which were fueled by base effects, as it is the monthly numbers. They are running hot indeed. Looking at the last six months only, which neutralizes some of the easy base effect comparisons, total CPI is running at an annualized pace of 5.0% while core CPI is running at 3.0%.
The Treasury Budget for April showed a $225.6 bln deficit, versus a $738.0 bln deficit in the same period a year ago.
The budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the April deficit can't be compared to the March deficit of $659.6 bln.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications increased 2.1% following a 0.9% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for April and the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average +9.7% YTD
S&P 500 +8.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.1% YTD



Energy sector turns negative as losses accelerate in broad market
12-May-21 15:30 ET

Dow -653.26 at 33615.90, Nasdaq -248.63 at 13140.83, S&P -87.02 at 4065.08
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at session lows with a 2.1% decline as the buyers' strike continues. The energy sector (-0.1%) has given up its intraday gain and has turned negative.

The consumer discretionary (-3.3%) and information technology (-3.0%) sectors are down at least 3.0% amid pronounced weakness in the mega-cap/growth stocks. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is down 4.4%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.1%, or $0.70, to $65.95/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34021.45 +433.79 (1.29%)
Nasdaq 13125.02 +93.31 (0.72%)
SP 500 4112.50 +49.46 (1.22%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.661
NYSE Adv 2172 Dec 1069 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2043 Dec 2003 Vol 4.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Industrials, Utilities
Weak: Energy

Moving the Market

-- CDC says fully vaccinated people can partake in most activities without masks

-- Treasury yields edge lower despite hotter-than-expected Producer Price Index report for April and weekly initial claims declining to new post-pandemic low

-- Buy-the-dip efforts

-- Apple (AAPL) reclaimed 200-day moving average

Investors cautiously buy the dip
13-May-21 16:20 ET
Dow +433.79 at 34021.45, Nasdaq +93.31 at 13125.02, S&P +49.46 at 4112.50

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 1.2% on Thursday, as investors bought the dip in most areas of the market following a rough three-day stretch. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.3%) and Russell 2000 (+1.7%) outperformed the benchmark index, while the Nasdaq Composite trailed with a 0.7% gain.

Buying efforts were attributed to several factors: 1) a view that conditions were ripe for a bounce after the S&P 500 fell 4.0% over the past three sessions, 2) a retracement in long-term interest rates despite hot inflation data and encouraging weekly claims data, 3) Apple (AAPL 124.97, +2.20, +1.8%) reclaiming its 200-day moving average (123.12), and 4) the CDC saying fully vaccinated people can partake in most activities without masks.

The CDC recommendation provided renewed steam for a rebound rally that was losing its luster. The Nasdaq, for instance, had squandered an early 1.7% gain and dipped into negative territory prior to the news. It never got back to those levels, but the Dow and S&P 500 set session highs later in the day.

Within the S&P 500, the gains were spread to ten of its 11 sectors. The industrials (+1.9%), financials (+1.9%), and utilities (+1.8%) sectors rounded out the top spots. The information technology sector rose 1.4%.

Buying interest, however, evaded the S&P 500 energy sector (-1.4%) and the more speculative growth stocks, particularly those within the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 99.48, -2.68, -2.6%). Energy stocks were clipped by weaker oil prices ($63.82/bbl, -2.13, -3.2%) and weaker RBOB gasoline prices ($2.09/gal, -0.07, -3.3%).

The disappointing performance of the ARK Innovation ETF, which was up as much as 2.5% in early action, highlighted the preference toward the higher quality growth stocks like Apple in this uncertain trading environment.

Separately, the demand for longer-dated Treasuries was somewhat peculiar since the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 0.6% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) and weekly initial claims declined to a new post-pandemic low at 473,000 (Briefing.com consensus 510,000). Core PPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.7% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%).

Yesterday's hot CPI report presumably had the market expecting headline surprises, and Fed Governor Waller (FOMC voter) reiterated the Fed's view that inflation pressures should be transitory. The 10-yr yield decreased three basis points to 1.67% while the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 90.70.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

The PPI for final demand increased 0.6% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) while the index for final demand, less foods and energy ("core PPI"), increased 0.7% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%). That left the year-over-year increases at 6.2% and 4.1%, respectively, with base effects very much in the picture there. Still, the month-over-month increases are not a function of low base effects.
The key takeaway from the report is that there is evident, and more current, price pressures for producers that threaten profit margin expansion if they are not passed along to customers. Over the last six months, when low base effects were not the same convenient excuse, the PPI for final demand has increased at an annualized rate of 7.4%.
For the week ending May 8, initial jobless claims decreased by 34,000 to 473,000 (Briefing.com consensus 510,000), marking their lowest level since March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending May 1 decreased by 45,000 to 3.655 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that jobless claims remain high in absolute terms, yet continue to trend in the right direction that is consistent with recovery-minded views.

Looking ahead, key reports will include Retail Sales for April, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for April, and the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for May on Friday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.9% YTD
S&P 500 +9.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +1.8% YTD

Energy prices settle sharply lower
13-May-21 15:30 ET
Dow +548.37 at 34136.03, Nasdaq +120.16 at 13151.87, S&P +62.18 at 4125.22

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 1.4%, running slightly behind the Dow (+1.6%) and Russell 2000 (+1.6%).

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows financials (+2.1%), industrials (+2.1%), and utilities (+2.2%) setting the leadership pace with gains over 2.0%. The energy sector (-1.3%) remains the lone holdout with a 1.3% decline.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 3.2%, or $2.13, to $63.82/bbl. RBOB Gasoline futures settled lower by 3.3%, or $0.07, to $2.09/gallon.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34060.66 -267.13 (-0.78%)
Nasdaq 13303.67 -75.41 (-0.56%)
SP 500 4127.83 -35.46 (-0.85%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.652
NYSE Adv 1509 Dec 1744 Vol 927.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2062 Dec 1961 Vol 4.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Real Estate
Weak: Energy, Industrials, Materials, Financials, Communication Services, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Value/cyclical stocks led the decline, and technology/growth stocks turned negative late in the day

-- Housing Starts and Building Permits report for April was relatively disappointing, feeding into the peak growth narrative

-- Consolidation activity persisted

Tech stocks juke the market lower
18-May-21 16:20 ET
Dow -267.13 at 34060.66, Nasdaq -75.41 at 13303.67, S&P -35.46 at 4127.83

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 0.9% on Tuesday, as sellers first reined in the value/cyclical stocks then targeted the technology stocks late in the day. The Nasdaq Composite declined 0.6%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.8% and the Russell 2000 declined 0.7%. Both the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 coughed up 0.8% intraday gains.

The "peak growth" narrative was a main talking point in the morning after April housing starts fell 9.5% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.569 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.715 million). In addition, Home Depot (HD 316.75, -3.26, -1.0%) and Macy's (M 19.09, -0.07, -0.4%) were unable to key off their earnings reports, which featured impressive yr/yr revenue growth.

Accordingly, the cyclical energy (-2.6%), industrials (-1.5%), financials (-1.4%), and materials (-1.1%) sectors were among the biggest laggards today. Investors leaned defensively toward the health care (+0.1%) and real estate (+0.2%) sectors, which were the only sectors that closed higher.

The cyclical stocks were arguably vulnerable to profit-taking interest, so that wasn't the most disappointing aspect of the session. Instead, the real disappointment was the information technology sector (-0.8%), which gave up an early leadership position and turned negative late in the day.

Many have been keeping an eye on this recently forlorn technology sector, and other growth stocks, to pick up the slack. Unfortunately, dip-buyers were flaky today, thereby keeping a lid on risk sentiment and keeping the S&P 500 within a consolidation trend. Note, the tech sector is the market's most heavily-weighted sector.

Separately, Walmart (WMT 141.91, +3.02, +2.2%) was an individual standout following its better-than-expected earnings report and upbeat guidance.

U.S. Treasuries settled little changed in a relatively tight-ranged session. The 2-yr yield was flat 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield was flat at 1.64%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 89.78. WTI crude futures decreased 1.1%, or $0.72, to $65.51/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Total housing starts declined 9.5% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.569 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.715 million). Total permits rose just 0.3% month-over-month to 1.760 million, as expected.
The key takeaway from the report is in the breakdown, which showed zero growth in starts and permits for single-family homes across all regions, presumably as expansion plans were undercut by rising costs for land, labor, and materials.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +12.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.3% YTD
S&P 500 +9.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.2% YTD

Energy stocks leading the decline amid lower oil prices
18-May-21 15:30 ET
Dow -90.41 at 34237.38, Nasdaq +11.14 at 13390.22, S&P -12.12 at 4151.17

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is off session lows with a current 0.3% decline. The Russell 2000 is up 0.1%.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (-1.9%), industrials (-1.0%), financials (-0.7%), and materials (-0.6%) still underperforming, while the defensive-oriented health care (+0.5%), real estate (+0.6%), and utilities (+0.1%) sectors outperform.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.1%, or $0.72, to $65.51/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33896.04 -164.62 (-0.48%)
Nasdaq 13299.77 -3.90 (-0.03%)
SP 500 4115.68 -12.15 (-0.29%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.652
NYSE Adv 1125 Dec 2108 Vol 987.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1565 Dec 2464 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services
Weak: Energy, Financials, Materials, Industrials, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Stocks close mostly lower but the market spent a majority of the session on the comeback trail

-- Risk sentiment was improved by a turnaround in the information technology sector and S&P 500 finding technical support at its 50-day moving average (4081)

-- FOMC Minutes showed some participants thought it could be appropriate to discuss tapering if economy continues to make rapid progress towards its goals

Stocks recouped a lot of their early losses
19-May-21 16:20 ET
Dow -164.62 at 33896.04, Nasdaq -3.90 at 13299.77, S&P -12.15 at 4115.68

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.3% on Wednesday, although it was down as much as 1.6% in early action and spent most of the session on the comeback trail. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.03%) closed relatively unchanged after being down 1.7% intraday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-0.8%) underperformed but also closed off intraday lows.

The weak start wasn't catalyzed by any specific news, although some pointed to the huge sell-off in the cryptocurrency market as a reminder that it might be a good idea to take some profits for stocks that are still up big this year. Familiar concerns surrounding inflation, valuations, and peak growth were recounted in the early part of the session as investors de-risked.

Profit-taking efforts were mainly concentrated in the S&P 500 energy (-2.5%), materials (-1.5%), financials (-0.6%), and industrials (-0.6%) sectors. The information technology (+0.3%) and communication services (+0.1%) sectors, however, sneaked their way into positive territory on a closing basis. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 2.0%.

The turnaround in the information technology sector, which was down 1.7% intraday, helped improve risk sentiment, which was further aided by an appreciation that the S&P 500 reclaimed its 50-day moving average (4081) after slipping below it in the morning.

Later in the day, the FOMC Minutes from the April meeting revealed that some participants thought it might be appropriate to start talking about tapering asset purchases in future meetings if the economy continues to make rapid progress towards the Fed's goals on employment and inflation.

The stock market's reaction to this FOMC passage was rather calm, arguably due to a view that it might have been more surprising to see no mention of the need to start talking about tapering asset purchases. Longer-dated Treasury yields moved higher following the Minutes.

The 10-yr yield settled higher by four basis points to 1.68% while the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 90.16. WTI crude futures fell 3.4%, or $2.20, to $63.31/bbl. The CBOE Volatility Index increased just 3.9% to 22.18 after touching 25.96 at its high.

Separately, Target (TGT 219.01, +12.58, +6.1%) rose 6% to all-time highs following its better-than-expected earnings report. Lowe's (LOW 190.72, -2.03, -1.1%) also exceeded expectations, but shares went the other way.

Wednesday's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which increased 1.2% following a 2.1% increase in the prior week. On Thursday, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for April, and the Philadelphia Fed Index for May.

Russell 2000 +11.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.8% YTD
S&P 500 +9.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +3.2% YTD

Crude futures settle sharply lower
19-May-21 15:25 ET
Dow -259.68 at 33800.98, Nasdaq -25.28 at 13278.39, S&P -24.51 at 4103.32

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading near its better levels of the day with a 0.6% decline. The Russell 2000 underperforms with a 1.1% decline.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+0.1%) sneaking into the green after starting with a 1.7% decline. The energy (-2.8%), materials (-1.9%), and consumer discretionary (-1.2%) sectors lag in negative territory.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by 3.4%, or $2.20, to $63.31/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34207.84 +123.69 (0.36%)
Nasdaq 13471.02 -64.75 (-0.48%)
SP 500 4155.86 -3.26 (-0.08%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.618
NYSE Adv 1920 Dec 1328 Vol 965.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2355 Dec 1700 Vol 3.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Industrials, Materials, Energy, Utilities
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Growth stocks faded early gains amid another wave of selling in cryptocurrencies

-- Value/cyclical stocks outperformed in positive territory

-- Consolidation activity persisted

Value outpaces growth in mixed session
21-May-21 16:15 ET
Dow +123.69 at 34207.84, Nasdaq -64.75 at 13471.02, S&P -3.26 at 4155.86

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) closed slightly lower on Friday, fading a positive start as growth stocks succumbed to renewed selling interest. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and Russell 2000 (+0.3%), however, closed in positive territory.

The session started in a broad-based advance led by the value/cyclical stocks, which were supported by preliminary data from the IHS that showed manufacturing and service-sector activity accelerate in May. The cyclical stocks entered the session as weekly laggards.

The growth stocks were up slightly, but they moved steadily lower in a trade that coincided with another wave of selling in cryptocurrencies, which appeared to undercut risk sentiment. Cryptocurrencies were hit by reports that China intends to crack down on bitcoin mining and trading.

From a sector perspective, the financials (+0.9%), industrials (+0.4%), materials (+0.3%), and energy (+0.2%) sectors were among the top performers, although they closed off session highs. The information technology (-0.5%), consumer discretionary (-0.6%), and communication services (-0.3%) sectors -- where the mega-cap growth stocks reside -- underperformed.

Deere (DE 359.75, +4.53, +1.3%) was further aided by a better-than-expected earnings report and upbeat guidance. Applied Materials (AMAT 128.66, -1.65, -1.3%) also exceeded quarterly expectations and issued upside guidance, but AMAT shares closed lower alongside other growth stocks. NVIDIA (NVDA 599.67, +15.07) rose 2.6% after announcing a 4:1 stock split.

Separately, the White House lowered the price tag of its infrastructure bill to $1.7 trillion from $2.2 trillion, but Senate Republicans reportedly did not see the revised bill as a major improvement. The Biden administration was able to lower the price tag by moving some spending to other bills and by reducing spending on broadband.

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed in a quiet trading session. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield was flat at 1.63%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 89.99. WTI crude futures rose 2.7%, or $1.69, to $63.64/bbl.

Total trading volume at the Nasdaq was lighter than usual at approximately 3.7 billion shares exchanged.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Existing home sales decreased 2.7% m/m in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.85 million (Briefing.com consensus 6.09 million) from an unrevised 6.01 million in March. Total sales in April were up 33.9% from a year ago when they were severely depressed in the early stages of the pandemic. In the January-April period, they were up 20.0% year-over-year.
The key takeaway from the report is that the supply of existing homes for sale remains near all-time low levels. That is driving up the pace of price increases well beyond the pace of income gains, which is going to create affordability pressures for prospective buyers, particularly first-time buyers.
The preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing for May increased to 61.5 from 60.5 in April. The preliminary IHS Markit Services PMI for May increased to 70.1 from 64.7 in April.

Looking ahead, investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Russell 2000 +12.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.8% YTD
S&P 500 +10.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +4.5% YTD

Crude futures settle higher, supporting energy stocks
21-May-21 15:30 ET
Dow +206.55 at 34290.70, Nasdaq -21.62 at 13514.15, S&P +8.26 at 4167.38

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.2% and is on pace to end the week with a fractional decline.

One last update on the sectors shows energy (+1.0%), and financials (+1.1%) leading the advance with a 1% gain. while the information technology (-0.2%), consumer discretionary (-0.3%), and communication services (-0.1%) sectors are the only sectors trading lower right now.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.7%, or $1.69, to $63.64/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34393.98 +186.14 (0.54%)
Nasdaq 13661.20 +190.18 (1.41%)
SP 500 4197.05 +41.19 (0.99%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.605
NYSE Adv 2125 Dec 1135 Vol 789.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2066 Dec 2038 Vol 3.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Broad-based advance led by the technology/growth stocks

-- Buy-the-dip mindset in growth stocks

-- Longer-dated Treasury yields dip

Growth stocks lead market higher
24-May-21 16:20 ET
Dow +186.14 at 34393.98, Nasdaq +190.18 at 13661.20, S&P +41.19 at 4197.05

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 1.0% on Monday, thanks in large part to the heavily-weighted growth stocks. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.4%) outperformed with a 1.4% gain while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) and Russell 2000 (+0.6%) underperformed with modest gains.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in positive territory, and none were more influential to today's performance than the information technology (+1.8%), communication services (+1.8%), and consumer discretionary (+1.0%) sectors due to their mega-cap components. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 217.71, +3.41) gained 1.6%.

Other high-growth areas like the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+2.3%) and the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 108.73, +2.89, +2.7%) also outperformed.

Given the lack of market-moving macro news, the positive price action from the start presumably fueled a fear of missing out on further rebound gains, particularly in the growth stocks. To be fair, the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 1.61%, which was viewed as a supportive factor.

Value stocks also had a decent day, but not as great as the growth stocks. For example, the iShares S&P 500 Value ETF (IVE 149.56, +0.76, +0.5%) increased just 0.5%, versus the 1.5% gain in the iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF (IVW 68.77, +0.99, +1.5%).

The utilities sector (-0.2%) -- this year's worst-performing sector in the S&P 500 -- was the only sector that closed lower today. The negative performance coincided with a broader hiccup in the market, which saw the S&P 500 dip below the 4200 level on a closing basis.

In M&A news, Amazon (AMZN 3244.99, +41.91, +1.3%) is nearing a deal to purchase Hollywood studio MGM for $9 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. Cabot Oil & Gas (COG 16.60, -1.21, -6.8%) and Cimarex Energy (XEC 66.14, -5.05, -7.1%) agreed to an all-stock merger of equals that left shareholders underwhelmed.

The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 89.83. WTI crude futures rose 3.7%, or $2.38, to $66.02/bbl. The CBOE Volatility Index (19.01, -1.14, -4.7%) slipped below the 20.00 level, indicating reduced hedging interest.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead, New Home Sales for April, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for May, the FHFA Housing Price Index for March, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for March will be released on Tuesday.

Russell 2000 +12.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.4% YTD
S&P 500 +11.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.0% YTD

WTI crude futures settle above $66 per barrel
24-May-21 15:30 ET
Dow +241.82 at 34449.66, Nasdaq +222.96 at 13693.98, S&P +49.86 at 4205.72

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.2% to trade near session highs. The Russell 2000 has picked up the slack and is now up 1.0%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+2.0%), communication services (+1.9%), and consumer discretionary (+1.4%) still leading the advance with solid gains. The utilities sector (+0.1%) underperforms with a 0.1% gain.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 3.7%, or $2.38, to $66.02/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34529.45 +64.81 (0.19%)
Nasdaq 13748.76 +12.46 (0.09%)
SP 500 4204.11 +3.23 (0.08%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.582
NYSE Adv 1951 Dec 1309 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2234 Dec 1964 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Health Care, Utilities, Real Estate
Weak: Communication Services, Industrials, Materials, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Stock market pares modest gains and closes little changed ahead of Memorial Day weekend

-- Treasury market was not bothered by inflation pressures

-- Speculative trading activity cooled off

Stock market closes flat ahead of Memorial Day weekend
28-May-21 16:20 ET
Dow +64.81 at 34529.45, Nasdaq +12.46 at 13748.76, S&P +3.23 at 4204.11

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 eked out a 0.1% gain on Friday, as equity investors were comforted by the Treasury market's calm demeanor to further evidence of inflationary pressures. The market, however, did close near session lows due to a flush of selling interest without a news catalyst into the close.

The Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%), and Russell 2000 (-0.2%) gave up modest gains and closed little changed like the benchmark index.

On inflation, PCE Price Index -- the Fed's preferred inflation gauge -- rose 0.6% m/m in April and was up 3.6% yr/yr. The expected year-ahead inflation rate was a record 4.6% in the final May reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment. Costco's (COST 378.27, -9.28, -2.4%) CFO said "inflationary factors abound" in the earnings conference call.

Granted, the news didn't come as much surprise since the market had already seen inflation pressures building in previous economic data, business commentary, and higher commodity prices. The takeaway from the 10-yr yield settling lower by three basis points to 1.58% was that the Treasury market still thinks inflation will be transitory.

In turn, the rate-sensitive growth stocks within the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.3%) garnered some buying interest. Salesforce.com (CRM 238.10, +12.27, +5.4%) provided additional support for the tech sector following its earnings report, helping outweigh the decline in Apple (AAPL 124.61, -0.67, -0.5%), which was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at New Street.

The real estate sector (+0.7%) was the top-performing sector in the S&P 500, though, and the last-minute selling took the communication services (-0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.2%), materials (-0.2%), and industrials (-0.1%) sectors into the red on a closing basis.

Speculative trading activity was highlighted by the media in the early part of the day, but interest waned as these stocks quickly turned around. The iShares Micro-Cap ETF (IWC 149.58, -0.91, -0.6%) declined 0.6% after starting with a 1.0% gain on top a 4.6% rally over the prior two sessions.

Separately, the White House confirmed details of a $6 trillion FY22 budget proposal, which includes aspects of an already passed COVID-19 relief bill and yet-to-be-passed American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan.

The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.14%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 90.07. WTI crude futures decreased 0.8%, or $0.54, to $66.32/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Personal income declined 13.1% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus -15.0%), as the total of stimulus payments made was greatly reduced from March. Personal spending (PCE) increased 0.5% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), down from an upwardly revised 4.7% (from 4.2%) in March. That's not bad on the surface, but it was a price-driven increase. Real PCE decreased 0.1% in April. The PCE Price Index jumped 0.6% and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.7%. That left the year-over-year increases for the Fed's preferred inflation gauge at 3.6% (versus 2.4% in March) and 3.1% (versus 1.9% in March), respectively.
The key takeaway from the report should be the high inflation prints, yet the calm manner in which the Treasury market has reacted to the report is apt to make the stock market think the key takeaway is that there is an abiding belief that the high inflation prints will be transient, as the Fed has suggested.
The final May reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment edged up to 82.9 (Briefing.com consensus 82.8) from the preliminary reading of 82.8. The final reading for April was 88.3. The expected year-ahead inflation rate of 4.6% is the highest on record.
The key takeaway from the report is the acknowledgment that "record proportions of consumers reported higher prices across a wide range of discretionary purchases."
The Chicago PMI increased to 75.2 in May (Briefing.com consensus 67.0) from 72.1 in April.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for April showed a deficit of $85.2 billion versus $90.6 billion in March. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for April decreased 1.6%, while the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for April increased 0.8%.

As a reminder, the market will be closed on Monday for Memorial Day. When the market reopens on Tuesday, investors will receive the ISM Manufacturing Index for May, Construction Spending for April, and the final IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for May.

Russell 2000 +14.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.8% YTD
S&P 500 +11.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.7% YTD

WTI crude futures settle in negative territory
28-May-21 15:25 ET
Dow +110.47 at 34575.11, Nasdaq +43.73 at 13780.03, S&P +10.80 at 4211.68

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade slightly higher by 0.3%. It's traded at these levels for most of the day.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+0.6%) and real estate (+0.8%) atop the sector standings with respectable gains, while the communication services (-0.1%), consumer discretionary (unch), and industrials (unch) sectors underperform near their flat lines.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.8%, or $0.54, to $66.32/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34575.31 +45.86 (0.13%)
Nasdaq 13736.50 -12.26 (-0.09%)
SP 500 4202.04 -2.07 (-0.05%)
10-yr Note -3/32 1.614
NYSE Adv 2422 Dec 924 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2767 Dec 1512 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Real Estate, Financials, Industrials, Materials
Weak: Health Care, Information Technology, Utilities, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Large-cap indices fade strong start and close little changed

-- Cyclical stocks outperformed in reopening trade, supported by better-than-expected manufacturing data

-- Oil prices rise and long-term interest rates ticked higher

Large-cap indices fade positive start and close little changed
01-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow +45.86 at 34575.31, Nasdaq -12.26 at 13736.50, S&P -2.07 at 4202.04

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.1% on Tuesday after starting with a 0.7% gain and finding resistance at its all-time highs from last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) also closed little changed and off early highs, while the Russell 2000 rose 1.1%.

The strong start was fueled by first-of-the-month inflows and a news cycle that fed into the reopening optimism: better-than-expected manufacturing PMIs for May out of the U.S. and Europe, the OECD boosting its global growth forecasts for 2021 and 2022, OPEC+ commenting on strong oil demand, and reports highlighting solid activity in airports and movie theaters over the weekend.

The S&P 500 energy sector (+3.9%) stood atop the sector leaderboard with a 4% gain, further supported by higher oil prices ($67.79/bbl, +1.47, +2.2%) and a decision from OPEC+ to gradually ease current supply cuts.

The real estate (+1.7%), materials (+1.4%), financials (+0.7%), and industrials (+0.4%) sectors also closed higher. Boeing (BA 254.73, +7.71, +3.1%) underpinned the move in the industrials sector after the stock was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Cowen.

Conversely, the health care sector (-1.6%) underperformed with a 1.6% decline, yet it was the information technology sector (-0.4%) that exerted the influential weakness. The health care sector was pressured by weakness in Abbott Labs (ABT 105.79, -10.86, -9.3%), which dropped 9% after lowering its FY21 guidance due to a rapid decline in COVID-19 testing demand.

Tech stocks, and growth stocks in general, struggled amid an uptick in long-term interest rates, which corroborated the reopening theme. The 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.62% while the 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 89.89.

In other corporate news, AMC Entertainment (AMC 32.04, +5.92, +22.7%) remained a heavily-traded stock and rose 23% after the company raised $230.5 million in cash by selling shares to Mudrick Capital Management. Cloudera (CLDR 15.93, +3.07, +23.7%) agreed to be acquired by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and KKR for $16.00 per share, or $5.3 billion, in cash.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The ISM Manufacturing Index for May moved up to 61.2% (Briefing.com consensus 61.0%) from 60.7% in April. A number above 50.0% connotes an expansion in manufacturing activity. May marked the twelfth straight month of expansion.
The key takeaway from the report is the finding that companies and suppliers continue to struggle to meet increasing levels of demand. That's a good harbinger for manufacturers, yet it also suggests inflation pressure will persist.
Total construction spending increased 0.2% m/m in April (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) following an upwardly revised 1.0% increase (from 0.2%) in March. Total private construction rose 0.4% m/m while total public construction spending decreased 0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is the ongoing strength in private residential construction spending, which is a byproduct of strong demand driven by a scarce supply of existing homes for sale.
The final IHS Market Manufacturing PMI for April checked in at 62.1%, up from 61.5% in the preliminary reading.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index and the Fed's Beige Book for June on Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +16.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.0% YTD
S&P 500 +11.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +6.6% YTD

Crude futures settle close to $68 per barrel
01-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow +54.15 at 34583.60, Nasdaq +8.16 at 13756.92, S&P +1.25 at 4205.36

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is relatively unchanged and trading a few points above the 4200 level, which has been a level the S&P 500 has flirted with over the past week.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+3.6%), real estate (+1.6%), materials (+1.5%), and financials (+0.7%) in the lead with decent gains, while the health care sector (-1.5%) remains firmly at the bottom of the pack with a 1.5% decline.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.2%, or $1.47, to $67.79/bbl. On a related note, OPEC+ agreed to gradually increase the output of oil in June and July.

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https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34577.04 -23.34 (-0.07%)
Nasdaq 13614.53 -141.82 (-1.03%)
SP 500 4192.85 -15.27 (-0.36%)
10-yr Note -11/32 1.625
NYSE Adv 1403 Dec 1840 Vol 1.04 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1779 Dec 2322 Vol 5.32 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Health Care, Energy
Weak: Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Materials

Moving the Market

Stocks retreat alongside weak showing from European markets

Biden administration negotiating infrastructure proposal with Republicans

Growth Stocks Weigh on Thursday
03-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow -23.34 at 34577.04, Nasdaq -141.82 at 13614.53, S&P -15.27 at 4192.85

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended Thursday on a lower note, though the S&P 500 (-0.4%) was able to reclaim the bulk of its opening loss. The Dow (-0.1%) outperformed throughout the day while the Nasdaq (-1.0%) finished behind the broader market.

Equities started the day in negative territory after a shaky overnight session but the S&P 500 was able to find support near last week's low shortly after the open. The bounce, which took place against the backdrop of upbeat economic data, had the index back near its opening level about an hour after the open, but the market found resistance after approaching yesterday's closing level.

Reports of the Biden administration's changing tone on corporate taxation helped the S&P 500 accelerate its morning bounce. The administration is reportedly open to implementing a minimum rate of 15% instead of raising the top corporate rate to 28% from 21%, but daylong weakness in heavily-weighted sectors like technology (-0.9%), consumer discretionary (-1.2%) and communication services (-0.7%) prevented the benchmark index from turning positive.

The technology sector lagged throughout the day as some of its top components sputtered. Apple (AAPL 123.54, -1.52, -1.2%), Microsoft (MSFT 245.71, -1.59, -0.6%), MasterCard (MA 361.82, -5.03, -1.4%), and PayPal (PYPL 257.79, -4.38, -1.7%) kept the sector under pressure while chipmakers also struggled, sending the PHLX Semiconductor Index lower by 1.8%.

Technology was able to erase a portion of its loss and climb out of the basement of today's leaderboard while the discretionary sector fell to the bottom in the early afternoon. That slide was largely due to a stumble in Tesla (TSLA 572.84, -32.28, -5.3%), which fell to its lowest level in two weeks after The Information reported that the company's May orders in China were down 50% m/m.

On the upside, health care (+0.4%) and financials (+0.2%) outperformed throughout the day, as did lightly-weighted sectors like consumer staples (+0.5%), energy (+0.3%), and utilities (+0.5%). The energy sector padded this week's gain to 6.1% even though crude oil ended the day flat at $68.81/bbl. The flat finish was pretty good for the dollar-denominated commodity since the U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.6% to 90.48, reaching its best level since mid-May.

Continued speculative action in AMC (AMC 51.34, -11.21, -17.9%) had the stock revisiting its opening level from Wednesday during morning trade, followed by a charge into positive territory in the afternoon. The stock finished in the red while Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY 31.90, -12.29, -27.8%) also reversed after yesterday's surge.

In airlines, Delta Air Lines (DAL 46.13, -1.64, -3.4%) raised the lower end of its Q2 revenue guidance, American Airlines (AAL 24.93, -0.89, -3.5%) reaffirmed its capacity and revenue guidance for Q2, while United Airlines (UAL 57.73, -2.56, -4.3%) announced a contract to purchase 15 supersonic jets that are expected to enter service by the end of the decade.

Treasuries ended the day in the red with the 10-yr yield rising three basis points to finish a tenth of a basis point below its 50-day moving average (1.626%).

Reviewing today's data:

Initial claims for the week ending May 29 decreased by 20,000 to 385,000 (Briefing.com consensus 395,000). Continuing claims for the week ending May 22 increased by 169,000 to 3.771 million.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that initial jobless claims fell below 400,000 for the first time since March 2020; however, the elevated level of continuing claims is apt to continue to drive the belief that enhanced unemployment benefits are acting as a disincentive to find new work.
The ADP Employment Change report pointed to the addition of 978,000 private-sector payrolls in May (Briefing.com consensus 675,000) after a downwardly revised increase of 654,000 (from 742,000) in April.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for May increased to 64.0% (Briefing.com consensus 63.0%) from 62.7% in April. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The May reading marks the twelfth straight month of growth for the services sector and is a record high for this series.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that services sector activity is still running at a fast pace -- a record pace -- on recovery activity that has also been accompanied by higher prices.
The Final IHS Markit Services PMI for May increased to 70.4 from 70.1 in the preliminary reading.
Q1 Productivity was unrevised at 5.4% (Briefing.com consensus 5.5%). Q1 unit labor costs, though, were revised to +1.7% (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%) from -0.3% given a 2.1-percentage point upward revision to hourly compensation.
The key takeaway from the report is the upward revision to unit labor costs and the worries it might stir about potential profit margin pressures in coming quarters should wage inflation accelerate further.

May Nonfarm Payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 720,000; prior 266,000), Nonfarm Private Payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 650,000; prior 218,000), Average Hourly Earnings (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%; prior 0.7%), Unemployment Rate (Briefing.com consensus 5.9%; prior 6.1%), and Average Workweek (Briefing.com consensus 34.9; prior 35.0) will be reported tomorrow at 8:30 ET, followed by April Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%; prior 1.1%) at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +15.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.0% YTD
S&P 500 +11.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +5.6% YTD

Crude Oil Ends Flat
03-Jun-21 15:25 ET
Dow -0.66 at 34599.72, Nasdaq -129.39 at 13626.96, S&P -13.24 at 4194.88

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 remains lower by 0.3% with 30 minutes left in today's session.

The market has spent the past hour in a narrow range after backing down from its intraday high, but the last few minutes of action always bring the potential for some closing volatility.

Six sectors continue trading lower while the utilities sector (+0.8%) remains ahead of energy (+0.4%). Crude oil, meanwhile, ended today's pit session essentially unchanged. WTI crude dipped $0.02 to $68.81/bbl after setting a fresh high for the year at $69.40/bbl. The flat finish could be seen as a sign of strength since the U.S. Dollar Index has climbed 0.7% to 90.50, reaching its best level since mid-May.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34756.39 +179.35 (0.52%)
Nasdaq 13814.49 +199.98 (1.47%)
SP 500 4229.89 +37.04 (0.88%)
10-yr Note +20/32 1.560
NYSE Adv 2052 Dec 1185 Vol 801.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2471 Dec 1683 Vol 4.32 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Technology, Health Care, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services
Weak: Financials, Energy, Materials, Real Estate

Moving the Market

Nasdaq outperforms after weak showing on Thursday

May Employment Situation report misses headline expectations while unemployment rate decreases more than expected

Growth Stocks Return to Form
04-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow +179.35 at 34756.39, Nasdaq +199.98 at 13814.49, S&P +37.04 at 4229.89

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market finished the week on a strong note as the Nasdaq (+1.5%) paced a daylong rally while the S&P 500 (+0.9%) and Dow (+0.5%) followed. The Dow and S&P 500 gained a respective 0.7% and 0.6% for the week while the Nasdaq advanced 0.5%.

Equities jumped out of the gate after the May jobs report showed continued growth in employment but at a pace that was not strong enough to prompt calls for an imminent tightening of monetary policy. The market followed its firmly higher start with a slow upward drift that continued into the afternoon.

Sectors that underperformed yesterday were at the forefront of today's rally with technology (+1.9%; +1.2% for the week) and communication services (+1.4%; +0.6% for the week) turning positive for the week while the consumer discretionary sector (+0.8%; -1.0% for the week) ended among today's leaders, but still finished the week behind most of the remaining groups.

The technology sector benefited from renewed strength in top components like Apple (AAPL 125.89, +2.35, +1.9%) and Microsoft (MSFT 250.79, +5.08, +2.1%) while chipmakers also pulled their weight with NVIDIA (NVDA 703.13, +24.34, +3.6%) spiking to a fresh record and the PHLX Semiconductor Index jumping 2.4%. Broadcom (AVGO 475.00, +10.20, +2.2%) revisited this week's high after beating Q2 expectations and issuing above-consensus revenue guidance for Q3.

Mega cap names also contributed to the strength in the communication services sector, showing no concern for indications that the G-7 is close to agreeing to a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15.0%. Alphabet (GOOG 2451.76, +47.15, +2.0%) hit a fresh record before trimming its gain.

The discretionary sector received significant support from Tesla (TSLA 599.05, +26.21, +4.6%) as the stock bounced off a two-week low amid a pushback to yesterday's report about a sharp slowdown in sales in China. Retailers underperformed with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 94.01, -0.20, -0.2%) ticking lower but lululemon (LULU 329.52, +12.16, +3.8%) jumped almost 4.0% after beating Q1 expectations and issuing above-consensus guidance for the fiscal year.

Several sectors started the day in negative territory, but most were pulled higher during the daylong climb. The energy sector (+0.6%) showed some early weakness after gaining 6.0% over the past three days, but eventually turned positive, extending this week's gain to 6.7%. The growth-sensitive group received continued support from the price of oil, which rose $0.80, or 1.2%, to $69.61/bbl.

Treasuries finished the day on their highs with the 10-yr yield falling seven basis points to 1.56%. The benchmark yield slipped two basis points for the week, stopping just above last week's low.

Today's economic data was limited to the Employment Situation report and Factory Orders:

May nonfarm payrolls increased by 559,000 (Briefing.com consensus 720,000). The 3-month average for total nonfarm payrolls increased to 541,000 from 533,000 in April.
April nonfarm payrolls revised to 278,000 from 266,000. March nonfarm payrolls revised to 785,000 from 770,000
May private sector payrolls increased by 492,000 (Briefing.com consensus 650,000). April private sector payrolls revised to 219,000 from 218,000 March private sector payrolls revised to 724,000 from 708,000
May unemployment rate was 5.8% (Briefing.com consensus 5.9%), versus 6.1% in April
Persons unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 40.9% of the unemployed versus 43.0% in April
The U6 unemployment rate, which accounts for unemployed and underemployed workers, was 10.2%, versus 10.4% in April
May average hourly earnings increased 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) versus a 0.7% increase in April. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 2.0%, versus 0.4% for the 12 months ending in April
The average workweek in May was 34.9 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.9), versus a downwardly revised 34.9 hours (from 35.0) in April. The labor force participation rate was 61.6%, versus 61.7% in April
Factory orders for manufactured goods decreased 0.6% m/m in April (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) after increasing an upwardly revised 1.4% (from 1.1%) in March. Shipments of manufactured goods were up 0.4% after increasing 2.1% in March.
The key takeaway from the report is that, while there was a downturn in new orders for manufactured goods, that downturn followed eleven consecutive monthly increases, suggesting there was some normal slowing after a long streak of increases in orders for manufactured goods. Importantly, new orders for nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business spending -- remained strong, rising 2.2%.

Monday's data will be limited to the 15:00 ET release of the Consumer Credit report for April (Briefing.com consensus $22.00 bln).

Russell 2000 +15.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.6% YTD
S&P 500 +12.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.2% YTD

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34630.24 -126.15 (-0.36%)
Nasdaq 13881.72 +67.23 (0.49%)
SP 500 4226.52 -3.37 (-0.08%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.569
NYSE Adv 1830 Dec 1431 Vol 887.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2717 Dec 1471 Vol 4.56 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Health Care, Communication Services, Utilities
Weak: Financials, Industrials, Materials, Energy

Moving the Market

Market off to quiet start after subdued overnight session

China's May trade surplus smaller than expected

Infrastructure spending package still being discussed in Washington

Nasdaq Outperforms in Quiet Monday Trade
07-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow -126.15 at 34630.24, Nasdaq +67.23 at 13881.72, S&P -3.37 at 4226.52

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market began the first full week of June on a quiet note. The S&P 500 (-0.1%) finished the day with a slight loss while the Dow (-0.4%) lagged and the Nasdaq (+0.5%) displayed relative strength.

The mixed finish served as a good representation of intraday action, as the Nasdaq stayed ahead throughout the day. Small caps also had a good showing, sending the Russell 2000 higher by 1.4%.

Equities started the day in flat fashion with the broader market slipping away from its opening level through the first couple hours of action. The S&P 500 reached the bottom of today's eleven-point range around noon, inching off its low into the afternoon.

Seven sectors finished the day in negative territory, but the materials sector (-1.2%) was the only group that lost more than 0.7%. Industrials (-0.7%) and financials (-0.6%) weighed on the broader market throughout the day while technology (unch) climbed off its low in the afternoon. Energy (-0.4%) pulled back after jumping nearly 7.0% last week.

The materials sector finished at the bottom of the leaderboard even though the sector was home to some M&A news. Vulcan Materials (VMC 177.96, -1.64, -0.9%) agreed to acquire US Concrete (USCR 73.87, +16.73, +29.3%) for $1.294 bln in cash, but only three smaller components of the materials sector finished the day in positive territory.

The weekend did not bring any notable developments from infrastructure negotiations in Washington. Lawmakers are expected to continue talking over the coming days while a $547 bln surface transportation bill will face a House committee markup on Wednesday.

Industrials were pressured by influential components like Union-Pacific (UNP 222.95, -3.22, -1.4%), Caterpillar (CAT 239.76, -4.26, -1.8%), and 3M (MMM 203.73, -2.32, -1.1%) while the Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.2%) finished a bit ahead of the sector thanks in part to UPS (UPS 212.92, +2.29, +1.1%).

On the upside, real estate (+0.9%) held the lead throughout the day while communication services (+0.5%) and health care (+0.3%) also spent the day in positive territory.

Communication services received a boost from a push to new record highs in Alphabet (GOOG 2466.09, +14.33, +0.6%) and Facebook (FB 336.58, +6.23, +1.9%) even though the companies will be subjected to the new 15% global minimum tax, which received the green light from G-7 finance ministers over the weekend.

Health care was boosted by biotechnology after Biogen's (BIIB 395.85, +109.71, +38.3%) Alzheimer's treatment received FDA approval. Biogen soared nearly 40.0% while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 158.28, +5.26, +3.4%) jumped to a six-week high.

Treasuries finished with slim losses that lifted the 10-yr yield by a basis point to 1.57%.

Today's economic data was limited to the Consumer Credit report for April, which showed an $18.6 bln increase after increasing a downwardly revised $18.6 bln (from $25.8 bln) in March. The key takeaway from the report is that the expansion in April was driven entirely by nonrevolving credit. Revolving credit decreased, driven in part presumably by consumers' focus on using stimulus money to pay down revolving credit balances.

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for May (prior 99.8) will be released tomorrow at 6:00 ET, followed by the April Trade Balance (Briefing.com consensus -$68.6 bln; prior -$74.4 bln) at 8:30 ET and April job openings (prior 8.123 mln) at 10:00 ET.

Russell 2000 +17.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.2% YTD
S&P 500 +12.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.7% YTD

Crude Oil Ends Lower
07-Jun-21 15:25 ET
Dow -133.91 at 34622.48, Nasdaq +71.02 at 13885.51, S&P -3.55 at 4226.34

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 remains lower by 0.1% with 30 minutes left in today's session.

Barring a final push into positive territory, the market is set to finish today just how it began. Four sectors continue hanging onto gains with only one sector--real estate (+1.1%)--up more than 1.0% while seven groups trade lower with just one group--materials (-1.3%)--down more than 1.0%. The top-weighted technology sector (-0.1%) has been rising steadily off its low to trade just below its flat line going into the home stretch.

Elsewhere, energy is down 0.5%, trimming its June gain to 6.2%. Crude oil also slipped 0.5%, or $0.33, ending today's pit session at $69.28/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34447.14 -152.68 (-0.44%)
Nasdaq 13911.75 -13.16 (-0.09%)
SP 500 4219.55 -7.71 (-0.18%)
10-yr Note +26/32 1.500
NYSE Adv 1538 Dec 1746 Vol 941.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1983 Dec 2239 Vol 5.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Utilities, Real Estate, Information Technology
Weak: Financials, Industrials, Materials, Energy, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 faced strong resistance yet again at all-time levels

-- 10-yr yield settled near the bottom of three-month consolidation range, reflecting peak inflation expectations

-- Cyclical sectors underperformed

Another unsuccessful attempt at record highs
09-Jun-21 16:20 ET
Dow -152.68 at 34447.14, Nasdaq -13.16 at 13911.75, S&P -7.71 at 4219.55

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 decreased 0.2% on Wednesday and was unsuccessful yet again at setting new all-time highs. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) also closed slightly lower while the Russell 2000 (-0.7%) underperformed with a 0.7% decline.

Overall price action was tight ranged for most of the session, fueling suspicions that the market was either teasing investors with record highs or market participants tacitly agreed to wait and see for tomorrow's CPI report for May.

The S&P 500 came within one point of its all-time intraday high (4238.04) in the opening minutes of action and slipped into the close after another rejection at its all-time closing high (4232.60).

Losses were concentrated in the cyclical financials (-1.1%), industrials (-1.0%), materials (-0.8%), and energy (-0.6%) sectors on no specific macro drivers, outweighing the gains in the health care (+1.0%), utilities (+0.9%), real estate (+0.2%), and information technology (+0.1%) sectors.

Notably, the 10-yr yield declined four basis points to 1.49%, settling near the bottom of its three-month consolidation range and signaling peak inflation expectations. The 2-yr yield remained unchanged at 0.14%. This curve-flattening activity acted as a headwind for the financials sector.

UPS (UPS 201.06, -8.70, -4.2%) struggled with a 4% decline, weighing on the industrials sector, after underwhelming shareholders with financial targets for 2023.

In the health care space, Merck (MRK 74.01, +1.64, +2.3%) signed a supply agreement with the U.S. government for a COVID-19 experimental pill. In addition, reports indicated that the government plans to purchase vaccine doses from Pfizer (PFE 39.81, +0.96, +2.5%) and Moderna (MRNA 217.44, +4.44, +2.1%) to donate to the world.

The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 90.16. WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.3% (-$0.18) to $69.90/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Wholesale inventories increased 0.8% m/m in April (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%) following a downwardly revised 1.2% increase (from +1.3%) in March.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.1% following a 4.0% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for May, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and the Treasury Budget for May on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +17.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.6% YTD
S&P 500 +12.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +7.9% YTD

Crude futures settle slightly lower
09-Jun-21 15:25 ET
Dow -84.12 at 34515.70, Nasdaq +17.14 at 13942.05, S&P -0.34 at 4226.92

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade unchanged or about six points below its all-time closing high (4232.60).

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows five sectors trading higher and six trading lower. The health care (+1.0%) and utilities (+0.9%) sectors are up about 1.0% while the financials (-0.9%) and industrials (-0.8%) sectors are down nearly 1.0%.

WTI crude futures retraced below $70.00 per barrel and settled lower by 0.3% (-$0.18) to $69.90/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34466.24 +19.10 (0.06%)
Nasdaq 14020.33 +108.58 (0.78%)
SP 500 4239.18 +19.63 (0.47%)
10-yr Note +4/32 1.449
NYSE Adv 1733 Dec 1525 Vol 887.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2236 Dec 1996 Vol 4.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Consumer Staples, Information Technology, Utilities, Real Estate
Weak: Financials, Materials, Industrials, Energy

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 sets all-time highs while cyclical stocks and small-caps underperformed

-- CPI data for May was hotter than expected; weekly initial claims declined to new post-pandemic low

-- 10-yr yield pops then dips below flat line at 1.46%

S&P 500 gets over the hump and closes at record high
10-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow +19.10 at 34466.24, Nasdaq +108.58 at 14020.33, S&P +19.63 at 4239.18

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.5% on Thursday, setting intraday and closing record highs in the process, as the market reacted positively to a hotter-than-expected Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May and a weekly initial claims trend that continued to improve.

The Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) outperformed and closed near session highs, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased just 0.1% and the Russell 2000 decreased 0.7%. The underperformance of the Dow and Russell 2000, which are more cyclically-oriented, contradicted any growth optimism.

Briefly, total CPI rose 0.6% m/m in May (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.7% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%). The year-over-year increases garnered the headlines, though, with total CPI up 5.0% and core CPI up 3.8%. In addition, weekly initial claims totaled 375,000 (Briefing.com consensus 365,000), which was its lowest level since March 14, 2020.

Despite the economic data feeding into reflationary/reopening themes, the market was guided by counter-cyclical sectors like health care (+1.7%), real estate (+1.0%), and consumer staples (+0.7%). The information technology sector (+0.8%) was another key leader alongside the mega-caps, excluding Apple (AAPL 126.11, -1.02, -0.8%).

Note, it didn't start that way. The financials (-1.1%), materials (-0.6%), industrials (-0.5%), and energy (-0.1%) sectors, which closed lower today, were among the leaders shortly after the open. The Dow was up as much as 0.8% and the small-cap Russell 2000 was up as much as 0.5%.

The inflation-sensitive 10-yr yield reasonably jumped to 1.53% soon after the CPI report, supporting the early move in the financials sector, but quickly turned around and settled at 1.46%. This was three basis points below yesterday's settlement.

Presumably, the Treasury market defaulted to its Fed-influenced view that a lot of inflation pressures will be transitory while potential harboring some peak growth rate concerns. A separate viewpoint suggested cyclical stocks succumbed to a sell-the-news reaction after outperforming so far this year.

The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 90.06. WTI crude futures rose 0.6%, or $0.40, to $70.30/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Total CPI increased 0.6% month-over-month in May (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), with a 7.3% increase in the index for used cars and trucks accounting for about one-third of that increase. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, jumped 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI was up 5.0% (vs. 4.2% in April), which was the largest increase since August 2008. Core CPI was up 3.8% year-over-year (vs. 3.0% in April), which was its largest increase since June 1992!
The key takeaway from the report, aside from it showing broad-based price increases, is that one can see the potential for stickier inflation looking at just the last six months when pandemic base effects weren't fully depressed. To wit, total CPI is running at an annualized rate of 5.8% over the last six months while core CPI is running at an annualized rate of 4.0%.
Initial claims for the week ending June 5 decreased by 9,000 to 375,000 (Briefing.com consensus 365,000), hitting their lowest level since March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending May 29 decreased by 258,000 to 3.499 million, which is the lowest since March 21, 2020.
The key takeaway from this report is that the trends are moving in a manner that reflects an economy that is moving with increased reopening vigor.
The Treasury Budget for May showed a $131.9 bln deficit, versus a $398.7 bln deficit in the same period a year ago. The budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the May deficit can't be compared to the April deficit of $225.6 bln.
The fiscal year-to-date budget deficit is $2.06 trln versus -$1.88 trln for the same period a year ago. The budget deficit over the last 12 months is $3.32 trln versus -$3.58 trln in April.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for June on Friday.

Russell 2000 +17.0% YTD
S&P 500 +12.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.8% YTD

Crude futures settle back above $70 per barrel
10-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow +34.93 at 34482.07, Nasdaq +103.02 at 14014.77, S&P +20.00 at 4239.55

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.4% and is still on track to close at a record high. Anything can happen in this final half-hour of action, though.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows the health care (+1.7%), real estate (+0.9%), and information technology (+0.7%) sectors leading the market in gains, while the financials (-0.9%), materials (-0.4%), and industrials (-0.4%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.6%, or $0.40, to $70.30/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34479.60 +13.36 (0.04%)
Nasdaq 14069.42 +49.09 (0.35%)
SP 500 4247.44 +8.26 (0.19%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.460
NYSE Adv 2147 Dec 1113 Vol 824.7 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2645 Dec 1588 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Financials, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Health Care, Real Estate, Energy

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 closes at another record high in tight-ranged session for the large-caps

-- Riskier, smaller stocks outperformed

-- 10-yr yield touched lowest level since late February and the CBOE Volatility Index closed at lowest level since February 2020

S&P 500 ekes out another closing record high
11-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow +13.36 at 34479.60, Nasdaq +49.09 at 14069.42, S&P +8.26 at 4247.44

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.04%) closed slightly higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 setting another closing record high. The Russell 2000 (+1.1%) and iShares Micro-Cap ETF (IWC 154.77, +1.46, +1.0%) outperformed, as investors broadened out their risk exposure.

Trading conviction at the large-cap level wasn't that strong given the tight-ranged index performances and no sector in the S&P 500 gained or lost more than 1.0%. The information technology (+0.6%) and financials (+0.6%) sectors showed relative strength, while the health care sector (-0.7%) underperformed.

Interestingly, the 10-yr yield fell to a three-month low at 1.43% overnight before settling at 1.46%, or unchanged from yesterday's settlement. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.65, -0.45, -2.8%) closed at its lowest since February 2020, representing a pre-pandemic reset of the hedging premium.

This reduced hedging interest synchronized with the riskier bets made in micro-cap stocks today. Presumably, investors felt comforted in the idea that there's still some time left before the Fed formally communicates a shift in policy. The FOMC meets next week, but economists polled by Reuters expect the Fed to announce a plan to taper asset purchases in August or September.

Separately, consumer sentiment improved modestly following a drop-off in May, according to the preliminary June reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment. The index checked in at 86.4 (Briefing.com consensus 83.5), versus 82.8 in May. Consumers, however, remained concerned about rising prices for houses and vehicles.

In corporate news, NVIDIA (NVDA 713.01, +16.01, +2.3%) set all-time highs after agreeing to acquiring DeepMap, a startup dedicated to building high-definition maps for autonomous vehicles. Vertex Pharma (VRTX 193.02, -23.75, -11.0%) dropped 11% after halting the development of a lung disorder drug.

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 90.51. WTI crude futures rose 1.0%, or $0.70, to $71.00/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The preliminary June reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment increased to 86.4 (Briefing.com consensus 83.5) from the final reading of 82.8 for May.
The key takeaway from the report is that, even though inflation expectations softened some, rising inflation remained a top concern for consumers.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Russell 2000 +18.3% YTD
S&P 500 +13.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.2% YTD

Crude futures continue to rise
11-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow -40.35 at 34425.89, Nasdaq +23.05 at 14043.38, S&P +0.60 at 4239.78

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up fractionally and is on track to close at a record high should it close in positive territory.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+0.4%) and financials (+0.4%) outperforming with modest gains, while the health care (-0.9%) and real estate (-0.8%) sectors are underperforming. No sector is up or down more than 1.0%.

WTI crude futures continued to rise and settled higher by 1.0%, or $0.70, to $71.00/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34393.75 -85.85 (-0.25%)
Nasdaq 14174.14 +104.72 (0.74%)
SP 500 4255.15 +7.71 (0.18%)
10-yr Note -3/32 1.486
NYSE Adv 1505 Dec 1762 Vol 881.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2032 Dec 2248 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services
Weak: Materials, Financials, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Large-cap technology/growth stocks outperformed value/cyclical stocks

-- Cautious-minded rotation ahead of FOMC policy statement on Wednesday

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at record highs

Strong finish lifts S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new heights
14-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow -85.85 at 34393.75, Nasdaq +104.72 at 14174.14, S&P +7.71 at 4255.15

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%) eked out intraday and closing record highs on Monday, helped by an unprovoked wave of buyers in the last 30 minutes of action. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) outperformed and closed at its first record high since April amid increased demand for large-cap technology stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) and Russell 2000 (-0.4%) underperformed in negative territory.

The information technology (+1.0%) and communication services (+0.7%) sectors were steady leaders for most of the day, while the materials (-1.3%), financials (-1.0%), and industrials (-0.5%) struggled throughout the day.

Growth stocks like Apple (AAPL 130.48, +3.13, +2.5%), Facebook (FB 336.77, +5.51, +1.7%), and Tesla (TSLA 617.69, +7.80, +1.3%) easily outpaced value/non-tech stocks like JPMorgan Chase (JPM 157.57, -2.72, -1.7%), Caterpillar (CAT 219.01, -1.69, -0.8%), and Dow Inc. (DOW 66.96, -1.04, -1.5%) on no specific macro developments.

This was interesting because the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.50%, which would normally have favored JPM and undercut growth stocks on any other day. Tesla even received a price-target cut to $812 from $974 at Canaccord Genuity.

Presumably, investors continued to take profits in cyclical stocks, and rotate into growth stocks, as a precaution ahead of the FOMC policy decision on Wednesday. Caterpillar, for instance, extended its monthly decline to over 9.0%.

To be fair, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon did provide lower-than-expected forecasts for trading revenue and net interest income at the Morgan Stanley U.S. Financials Conference. The divergence between growth and value had already taken shape prior to his comments, though.

Separately, Novavax (NVAX 207.71, -1.97, -0.9%) said its COVID-19 vaccine had an overall efficacy rate of 90.4% in a Phase 3 trial. NVAX shares faded an early 9.5% gain in a sell-the-news reaction.

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 90.50. WTI crude futures decreased 0.1%, or $0.09, to $70.91/bbl.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead to Tuesday, key reports will include Retail Sales for May, the Producer Price Index for May, and Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for May.

Russell 2000 +17.8% YTD
S&P 500 +13.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +10.0% YTD

Crude futures settle fractionally lower
14-Jun-21 15:25 ET
Dow -213.96 at 34265.64, Nasdaq +49.96 at 14119.38, S&P -8.56 at 4238.88

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade lower by 0.2%. Any positive finish would be good for a record close, although that's not looking too likely right now since the S&P 500 has shown very little life all day. Can never count out a last-minute wave of buyers, though.

One last look at the sector performances shows financials (-1.4%), materials (-1.4%), and industrials (-0.8%) still struggling at the bottom of the rankings, while the information technology (+0.5%) and communication services (+0.4%) sectors are the only sectors trading higher right now.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.1%, or $0.09, to $70.91/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34299.33 -94.42 (-0.27%)
Nasdaq 14072.85 -101.29 (-0.71%)
SP 500 4246.59 -8.56 (-0.20%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.508
NYSE Adv 1532 Dec 1705 Vol 865.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1615 Dec 2610 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Industrials, Utilities, Financials
Weak: Real Estate, Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Muted reaction to weaker-than-expected retail sales data and hotter-than-expected PPI data for May

-- Wait and see for the Fed decision tomorrow

-- Strength in energy stocks amid continued rise in oil prices

Modest index declines ahead of FOMC tomorrow
15-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow -94.42 at 34299.33, Nasdaq -101.29 at 14072.85, S&P -8.56 at 4246.59

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.2% on Tuesday and traded slightly lower the entire the session, except for the opening tick, which marked an all-time high for the benchmark index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) and Russell 2000 (-0.3%) performed similarly, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.7%) underperformed.

Trading conviction was largely lacking in front of the Fed's policy decision tomorrow, although the S&P 500 energy sector (+2.1%) couldn't be stopped as oil prices ($72.07/bbl, +1.16, +1.6%) continued to rise. The information technology (-0.6%), communication services (-0.5%), and real estate (-1.0%) sectors underperformed.

Today's economic calendar featured a 1.3% m/m decline in retail sales for May (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%), a 0.8% m/m increase in the Producer Price Index (PPI) for May (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%), and 0.8% m/m increase in industrial production for May (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%).

The year-over-year increase in total PPI was 6.6%, yet the Treasury market (or stock market) barely reacted to the hotter-than-expected inflation data. The 10-yr yield settled unchanged at 1.50%, which was below the 1.53% level it reached soon after the hot CPI report last week.

It's fair to say the market was expecting producer inflation to be running a little hot given the inflation pressures highlighted in previous economic data and the incessant inflation commentary in recent weeks. Judgement might have been reserved for what the Fed has to say about inflation expectations and monetary policy tomorrow.

In other developments, the U.S. and EU agreed to suspend their tariff dispute regarding Boeing (BA 246.54, +1.40, +0.6%) and Airbus, and New York lifted its state-mandated COVID restrictions after the state reached its goal of 70% adult vaccinations.

The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.16%. The U.S. Dollar Index was unchanged at 90.52. Copper futures fell 4.2%, or $0.19, to $4.34/bbl amid profit-taking interest, leaving it down 7% this month.

Reviewing Tuesday's large batch of economic data, which featured the Retail Sales report for May and the Producer Price Index for May:

Total retail sales fell 1.3% in May (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%) after an upwardly revised 0.9% increase in April (from 0.0%). Excluding autos, retail sales fell 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) after an upwardly revised flat reading for April (from -0.8%).
The key takeaway from the report is that decreases were recorded in almost all discretionary categories. However, April figures benefited from healthy upward revisions, which raised the bar for the May report. On a year-over-year basis, retail sales were up 28.1%.
The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.8% m/m in May (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) after increasing 0.6% in April. The Producer Price Index for final demand, less food and energy rose 0.7% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) for the second consecutive month. On a year-over-year basis, the Producer Price Index for final demand was up 6.6% in May versus 6.2% in April while the Producer Price Index for final demand, less food and energy was up 5.3% in May versus 4.6% in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed a continuation of broad-based price pressures at the producer level, which will fuel continued concerns about overall inflation.
Total industrial production increased 0.8% in May (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%) after a downwardly revised 0.1% uptick in April (from 0.7%). The capacity utilization rate increased to 75.2% (Briefing.com consensus 75.1%) from a downwardly revised 74.6% in April (from 74.9%).
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed a rebound in motor vehicle assemblies, which is an encouraging sign about a sector that has been significantly impacted by the semiconductor shortage. Total industrial production was up 16.3% yr/yr, but still 1.4% below its pre-pandemic (February 2020) level. The capacity utilization rate of 75.2% is 4.4 percentage points below its long-run average.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for June decreased by two points to 81 (Briefing.com consensus 83.0).
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey decreased to 17.4 in June (Briefing.com consensus 20.0) from 24.3 in May.
Business inventories decreased 0.2% m/m in April (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) following a downwardly revised 0.2% increase (from +0.3%) in March.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the FOMC Rate Decision, Housing Starts and Building Permits for May, Export and Import Prices for May, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +17.5% YTD
S&P 500 +13.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.2% YTD

Crude futures settle above $72 per barrel
15-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow -93.97 at 34299.78, Nasdaq -109.87 at 14064.27, S&P -8.26 at 4246.89

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 is down 0.3%.

One final glance at the sector performances before the close shows energy (+1.9%) up about 2.0% as oil prices continue to rise. Conversely, the information technology (-0.7%), real estate (-0.9%), and consumer discretionary (-0.5%) sectors underperform in negative territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.6%, or $1.16, to $72.07/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34033.67 -265.66 (-0.77%)
Nasdaq 14039.68 -33.17 (-0.24%)
SP 500 4223.70 -22.89 (-0.54%)
10-yr Note -27/32 1.561
NYSE Adv 1227 Dec 1956 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1886 Dec 2209 Vol 4.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Utilities, Consumer Staples, Materials

Moving the Market

-- Fed keeps rates near zero and the pace of asset purchases unchanged, as expected

-- Fed signals rate hike by end of 2023, versus prior expectations of leaving rates unchanged through 2023

-- Fed Chair Powell strikes accommodative tone in press conference

-- Housing starts and building permits data for May miss expectations

Stocks close mostly lower amid hawkish-sounding FOMC statement
16-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow -265.66 at 34033.67, Nasdaq -33.17 at 14039.68, S&P -22.89 at 4223.70

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.5% on Wednesday, as the market weighed a hawkish-sounding FOMC policy announcement against an accommodative tone from Fed Chair Powell. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) and Russell 2000 (-0.2%) both declined just 0.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.8%.

To start, the FOMC did what most market observers were expecting: it kept the target range for the fed funds rate near zero and maintained the pace of asset purchases by at least $120 billion per month. The central bank also remained committed to the view that recent inflation pressures have largely been due to transitory factors.

The hawkish part stemmed from the Fed's interest-rate projections signaling a rate hike by the end of 2023, versus a prior indication of leaving rates unchanged through 2023. What's more, the Fed increased the interest on excess reserves to 0.15% from 0.10%, and the reverse repurchase rate was increased by five basis points to 0.05%.

The S&P 500 was down as much as 1.0% during the start of Fed Chair Powell's follow-up press conference while the fed-funds-sensitive 2-yr yield rose five basis points to 0.21%. The 10-yr yield touched 1.59% before settling at 1.57%, or seven basis points above yesterday's settlement. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.8% to 91.28.

The benchmark index briefly returned to pre-FOMC levels, reportedly after Fed Chair Powell said this was the "talking about talking about [tapering asset purchases]" meeting and that the Fed will provide advanced notice before announcing any decision to make changes to asset purchases. The Fed Chair once again reiterated that interest-rate projections are not a great forecasting tool.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors still closed in negative territory, though, including utilities (-1.5%), consumer staples (-1.2%), and materials (-1.2%) with losses over 1.0%. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.2%) was the only sector that closed higher, largely due to Amazon (AMZN 3415.25, +32.12, +1.0%) and Tesla (TSLA 604.87, +5.51, +0.9%).

In other developments, housing starts and building permits data for May missed consensus expectations, Citigroup (C 71.46, -2.36, -3.2%) warned trading revenue for the second quarter could drop 30% yr/yr, and Oracle (ORCL 77.08, -4.58, -5.6%) issued downside EPS guidance for its fiscal first quarter.

WTI crude futures settled relatively unchanged at $72.06/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Total housing starts increased 3.6% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.572 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.635 million). Total permits decreased 3.0% month-over-month to 1.681 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.730 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that while housing starts showed a larger than expected increase, building permits decreased in most regions, which is not going to help alleviate the ongoing supply shortage.
Import prices increased 1.1% in May, while import prices excluding oil increased 0.9%. Export prices increased 2.2% in May, while export prices excluding agriculture increased 1.7%.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 4.2% following a 3.1% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for May, and the Philadelphia Fed Index for June on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +17.2% YTD
S&P 500 +12.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.9% YTD

Stocks making a comeback
16-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow -152.41 at 34146.92, Nasdaq +6.99 at 14079.84, S&P -8.32 at 4238.27

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down just 0.2% after being down 1.0% not too long ago.

The financials (+0.5%), consumer discretionary (+0.4%), and energy (+0.1%) sectors are leading the comeback effort with modest gains, while the utilities (-1.3%) and consumer staples (-1.0%) sectors are down at least 1.0%.

WTI crude futures settled little changed at $72.06/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33823.45 -210.22 (-0.62%)
Nasdaq 14161.35 +121.67 (0.87%)
SP 500 4221.86 -1.84 (-0.04%)
10-yr Note +6/32 1.515
NYSE Adv 1122 Dec 2079 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1801 Dec 2339 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Health Care
Weak: Financials, Materials, Industrials, Energy

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 closes flat as growth stocks rally and value stocks fall

-- 10-yr yield retraced yesterday's post-FOMC pop, commodities were weak

-- Weekly initial claims unexpectedly increased to 412,000 (Briefing.com consensus 350,000)

S&P 500 closes flat as growth stocks rally and value stocks fall
17-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow -210.22 at 33823.45, Nasdaq +121.67 at 14161.35, S&P -1.84 at 4221.86

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.04%) closed flat on Thursday in a mixed session that included pronounced weakness in value/cyclical stocks and notable strength in growth stocks. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.9%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-1.2%) underperformed in negative territory.

The divergence between growth and value was more plainly manifested in the 1.1% gain in the iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF (IVW 70.77, +0.74, +1.1%) and the 1.3% decline in the iShares S&P 500 Value ETF (IVE 146.34, -1.91, -1.3%). This disparity was exacerbated when the 10-yr yield took a precipitous intraday drop.

The 10-yr yield briefly fell 12 basis points to 1.47% before settling the session at 1.51%, or just above where it was trading prior to the FOMC statement yesterday. This retracement was interpreted as an acceptance of the Fed's view that a lot of inflation pressures have been, and should be, transitory and a complementary view that inflation/growth rates could be peaking.

Likewise, inflation pressures via commodity prices continued to deflate. Futures contracts for copper ($4.18/lb, -0.21, -4.7%), gold (1775.00/ozt, -87.00, -4.7%), and WTI crude ($71.07/bbl, -0.99, -1.4%) fell sharply amid a stronger U.S. dollar (91.94, +0.81, +0.9%).

Cyclical stocks, which really ran with the reflation story prior to June, took it on the chin today as investors continued to take profits given the unfavorable price action in Treasury yields and commodities. The S&P 500 energy (-3.5%), financials (-2.9%), materials (-2.2%), and industrials (-1.6%) sectors posted noticeable declines, while every other sector closed higher.

The mega-caps within the information technology (+1.2%), communication services (+0.6%), and consumer discretionary (+0.6%) sectors provided key support for the market amid the decline in long-term interest rates. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 225.16, +2.80, +1.3%) rose 1.3%.

The health care sector (+0.8%) also outperformed, supported by 1) the Supreme Court upholding the Affordable Care Act, 2) news the U.S. will invest $3.2 billion on pills to treat COVID-19 and other viruses, and 3) Danaher (DHR 257.08, +12.34, +5.0%) agreeing to acquire Aldevron for $9.6 billion in cash.

The Fed-sensitive 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.22%, clinging onto the possibility that the Fed could hike rates sooner than previously indicated. One bit of news that likely didn't cause the Fed to want to rush policy changes, though, was the latest report on weekly initial claims, which unexpectedly increased to 412,000 (Briefing.com consensus 350,000).

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial claims for the week ending June 12 increased by 37,000 to 412,000 (Briefing.com consensus 350,000) from last week's downwardly revised level of 375,000 (from 376,000). Continuing claims for the week ending June 5 increased by 1,000 to 3.518 million from last week's upwardly revised level of 3.517 million (from 3.499 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that it underscores the volatile nature of the current labor market, as claims jumped against expectations for a drop to a new low since the start of the pandemic.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 1.3% in May (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%) after increasing a revised 1.3% (from 1.6%) in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that overall growth remained widespread with only two components of the index making small negative contributions.
The Philadelphia Fed Survey for June fell to 30.7 (Briefing.com consensus 30.0) from 31.5 in May.

There is no economic data of note scheduled for Friday.

Russell 2000 +15.8% YTD
S&P 500 +12.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.9% YTD

Crude futures settle off session lows
17-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow -163.55 at 33870.12, Nasdaq +137.90 at 14177.58, S&P +4.11 at 4227.81

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading higher by 0.1% while the Nasdaq is up 1.0% and on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+0.8%), communication services (+0.9%), and health care (+0.9%) leading the market higher, while the energy (-3.5%), financials (-2.8%), materials (-2.1%), and industrials (-1.4%) sectors continue to struggle with sharp losses.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.4%, or $0.99, to $71.07/bbl, although they were down below $70 per barrel earlier today.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33876.97 +586.89 (1.76%)
Nasdaq 14141.48 +111.10 (0.79%)
SP 500 4224.79 +58.34 (1.40%)
10-yr Note -5/32 1.496
NYSE Adv 2400 Dec 818 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2380 Dec 1787 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Energy, Industrials, Financials
Weak: Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Value/cyclical stocks lead broad-based rally

-- S&P 500 bounces back above its 50-day moving average (4183)

Market kicks off summer with a rebound rally
21-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow +586.89 at 33876.97, Nasdaq +111.10 at 14141.48, S&P +58.34 at 4224.79

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.4% on Monday in a rebound rally led by the value/cyclical stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.8%) and Russell 2000 (+2.2%) outpaced the benchmark index following poor performances last week, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) gained 0.8%.

The market really gained traction early in the session after the S&P 500 reclaimed its 50-day moving average (4184), which has acted as a strong measure of support over the past 14 months. Given this observation, and the lack of market-moving news, the bullish price action likely fed onto itself and stirred a fear of missing out on a technically-driven rally.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors and all 30 Dow components finished in positive territory, with the biggest gains scored in the cyclical sectors that sold off last week -- energy (+4.3%), financials (+2.3%), industrials (+2.2%), and materials (+2.1%). The consumer discretionary sector (+0.5%) increased the least with a modest gain.

Bank stocks showed notable strength, as the Treasury yield curve unwound some of last Friday's flattening activity. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 51.46, +1.77, +3.6%) gained 3.6% after declining 7.6% in the prior two sessions.

The 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.48%, while the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.25%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.4% to 91.86, providing some relief for commodities like WTI crude ($73.64/bbl, +1.97, +2.8%) and copper ($4.184/lb, +0.03, +0.6%).

Apple (AAPL 132.30, +1.84, +1.4%) and Microsoft (MSFT 262.63, +3.20, +1.2%) stealthily advanced more 1.0%, with MSFT setting record highs in the process. Semiconductor companies NVIDIA (NVDA 737.09, -8.46, -1.1%) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 82.59, -2.06, -2.4%) struggled on reports that retail prices have declined sharply in Europe.

Mid-cap companies FIGS (FIGS 42.61, +6.21, +17.1%) and ZipRecruiter (ZIP 23.51, +2.25, +10.6%) rallied on positive-minded analyst recommendations.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead, investors will receive Existing Home Sales for May on Tuesday.

Russell 2000 +15.8% YTD
S&P 500 +12.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.7% YTD

Crude futures settle sharply higher
21-Jun-21 15:20 ET
Dow +578.92 at 33869.00, Nasdaq +97.93 at 14128.31, S&P +55.29 at 4221.74

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 1.3% in a mostly broad-based advance.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+4.4%) way out in the lead with a 4.4% gain, followed by 2% gains in financials (+2.2%), industrials (+2.1%), and materials (+2.0%). The consumer discretionary sector continues to underperform with a 0.5% gain.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.8%, or $1.97, to $73.64/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33945.58 +68.61 (0.20%)
Nasdaq 14253.27 +111.79 (0.79%)
SP 500 4246.44 +21.65 (0.51%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.475
NYSE Adv 1757 Dec 1468 Vol 920.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2225 Dec 2034 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Energy
Weak: Real Estate, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Stock market trades slightly higher in mixed session

-- Growth stocks outpace value stocks

-- Fed Chair Powell testifies before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis

Growth stocks lift Nasdaq to record territory
22-Jun-21 16:20 ET
Dow +68.61 at 33945.58, Nasdaq +111.79 at 14253.27, S&P +21.65 at 4246.44

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.5% on Tuesday in a session that featured leadership from the growth stocks and a congressional testimony from Fed Chair Powell. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) outperformed and set intraday and closing record highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 increased 0.4%.

Before the Fed Chair spoke to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in the afternoon, the S&P 500 was sporting a slightly positive bias and was leaning heavily on the growth stocks. The latter obfuscated the fact that declining issues were outpacing advancing issues at the both the NYSE and Nasdaq.

Fed Chair Powell didn't really provide any new information on monetary policy and instead spoke optimistically about the economic outlook. He said that factors that have weighed on the labor market and that have contributed to increased levels of inflation should both be transitory. In addition, Mr. Powell said he thinks there will be strong jobs creation this fall.

The broader market firmed up a little bit, particularly the small-cap stocks as the Russell 2000 was down 0.9% shortly after the open. The consumer discretionary sector (+1.0%) finished atop the S&P 500 sector standings with a 1% gain, while the utilities (-0.7%) and real estate (-0.4%) sectors were the only sectors that closed lower.

The consumer discretionary sector included a nice gain in Amazon.com (AMZN 3505.44, +51.48, +1.5%), which reportedly had a decent first day of its Prime Day event. All in all, it was still a session heavily influenced by large growth stocks like Amazon.

Apple (AAPL 133.98, +1.68, +1.3%), Microsoft (MSFT 265.51, +2.88, +1.1%), Facebook (FB 339.03, +6.74, +2.0%), and NVIDIA (NVDA 755.47, +18.38, +2.5%) rose more than 1.0%. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 227.92, +2.34, +1.0%) increased 1.0%.

U.S. Treasuries settled slightly higher, pushing yields lower. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.23%, and the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.47%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 91.73. WTI crude futures decreased 0.8%, or $0.56, to $73.08/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Existing home sales decreased 0.9% m/m in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.80 million (Briefing.com consensus 5.71 million) from an unrevised 5.85 million in April. Total sales in May were up 44.6% from a year ago when they were depressed in the early stages of the pandemic.
The key takeaway from the report is that the supply of existing homes for sale remains extremely limited. That is driving up the pace of price increases well beyond the pace of income gains, which is going to create affordability pressures for prospective buyers, particularly first-time buyers.

Looking ahead, investors will receive New Home Sales for May, the Current Account Balance for the first quarter, preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing and Services PMIs for June, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +16.3% YTD
S&P 500 +13.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +10.6% YTD

Energy stocks outperforming despite lower oil prices
22-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow +163.73 at 34040.70, Nasdaq +126.96 at 14268.44, S&P +30.89 at 4255.68

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at session highs with a 0.7% gain.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows consumer discretionary (+1.4%), energy (+0.9%), and information technology (+0.9%) setting the pace, while the utilities (-0.2%) and real estate (-0.1%) sectors still trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.8%, or $0.56, to $73.08/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34196.82 +322.58 (0.95%)
Nasdaq 14369.71 +97.98 (0.69%)
SP 500 4266.49 +24.65 (0.58%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.494
NYSE Adv 2256 Dec 1007 Vol 810.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2960 Dec 1233 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Energy, Communication Services, Industrials
Weak: Utilities, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq set intraday and closing record highs

-- White House unveils a $1.2 trillion "Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework" that includes $579 billion in new spending

-- Optimism surrounding the Fed's stress test results after the close

-- FDA grants Breakthrough Therapy designation for Eli Lilly's (LLY) investigational antibody therapy for Alzheimer's disease

S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at record highs in government-induced rally
24-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow +322.58 at 34196.82, Nasdaq +97.98 at 14369.71, S&P +24.65 at 4266.49

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.6%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) set intraday and closing record highs on Thursday while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.0%) and Russell 2000 (+1.3%) outperformed with gains of at least 1.0%. The bullish price action was driven in part by optimism surrounding government-related news.

Namely, the White House unveiled a $1.2 trillion "Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework" that included $579 billion in new spending, bank stocks rallied ahead of the Fed's stress test results after the close, and the FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for Eli Lilly's (LLY 232.97, +15.87, +7.3%) investigational antibody therapy for Alzheimer's disease.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors contributed to the record-setting performance, paced by financials (+1.2%), energy (+0.9%), communication services (+0.8%), and industrials (+0.8%). The real estate (-0.5%) and utilities (-0.1%) sectors closed lower.

The consumer discretionary sector (+0.1%) featured continued strength in Tesla (TSLA 679.82, +23.25, +3.5%), which extended its weekly gain to 9%, but the sector was held back by Amazon.com (AMZN 3449.08, -54.74, -1.6%).

Some attributed the weakness in Amazon to the House Judiciary Committee advancing several antitrust bills, a report from CNBC highlighting Amazon's publicity surrounding its recent Prime Day event was more muted than previous years, and news that the Teamsters launched an effort to unionize the company's employees.

Separately, weekly initial jobless claims (411,000) stayed above 400,000 for the second straight week but the market overlooked the report in favor of expectations that the labor market will greatly improve in the fall. On a related note, the bipartisan infrastructure framework invests two-thirds of the resources proposed in President Biden's American Jobs Plan, which could ultimately aid in the recovery effort.

Elsewhere, the 10-yr yield settled unchanged at 1.49%, which remained supportive for the stock market. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.27%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 91.78. WTI crude futures increased 0.3%, or $0.22, to $73.31/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending June 19 decreased by 7,000 to 411,000 (Briefing.com consensus 380,000). Continuing claims for the week ending June 12 were 3.390 million, which is the lowest since March 21, 2020.
The key takeaway from the report is that the initial claims level is still quite high, leaving ample room for improvement in a job market that is expected to strengthen in coming months.
Durable goods orders increased 2.3% month-over-month in May (Briefing.com consensus +2.8%) and were up 25.7% year-over-year. Orders, excluding transportation, increased 0.3% month-over-months (Briefing.com consensus +0.7%) and were up 17.7% year-over-year.
The key takeaway from the report was the strength seen in transportation equipment (+7.6%), which was driven by a 2.1% increase in orders for motor vehicles and equipment and a 27.4% increase in orders for nondefense aircraft and parts.
The third estimate for Q1 GDP was unchanged at 6.4%, as expected, while the third estimate for the GDP Price Deflator was also unchanged at 4.3%, as expected.
The key takeaway from the report is that it's another affirmation of the reopening strength seen in the U.S. economy, although its dated nature (we're almost done with Q2) leaves it devoid of market-moving impact.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for May showed a deficit of $88.1 billion, versus a revised $85.7 billion (from $90.6 billion) in April. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for May decreased 0.8%, while the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for May increased 1.1%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Personal Income and Spending for May, PCE Prices for May, and the final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for June on Friday.

Russell 2000 +18.2% YTD
S&P 500 +13.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +11.5% YTD

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34433.84 +237.02 (0.69%)
Nasdaq 14360.39 -9.32 (-0.06%)
SP 500 4280.70 +14.21 (0.33%)
10-yr Note -25/32 1.527
NYSE Adv 1757 Dec 1456 Vol 2.8 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2314 Dec 1827 Vol 7.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Utilities, Consumer Staples
Weak: Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Financial stocks led the S&P 500 to new record highs

-- Long-term interest rates increased following some hot PCE data for May

-- Banks easily passed the Fed's latest stress test

-- Nike (NKE) rose 15% on strong earnings report/upbeat guidance

Financial stocks lead S&P 500 to another record close
25-Jun-21 16:25 ET
Dow +237.02 at 34433.84, Nasdaq -9.32 at 14360.39, S&P +14.21 at 4280.70

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.3%) set new intraday and closing record highs on Friday, largely due to strength in the financial stocks. PCE inflation data for May remained on the hotter side, which contributed to a bump in long-term interest rates.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed with a 0.7% gain, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) closed lower as the higher rates clipped its growth-stock components. The Russell 2000 (+0.03%) erased its intraday gain in the last ten minutes of action, as trading volume surged at the close amid the annual FTSE Russell index rebalance.

Specifying the data, the PCE Price Index for May rose 0.4% m/m and the core-PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.5% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%). On a year-over-year basis, the Fed's preferred measures of inflation were up 3.9% and 3.4%, respectively. The 10-yr yield increased five basis points to 1.54% after an initial muted reaction.

The higher rates naturally worked in the favor of the S&P 500 financials sector (+1.3%), which was further supported by expectations for increases to share buyback programs and/or dividend payments after a positive showing in the Fed's latest stress test. The utilities sector (+1.1%) joined the financials sector with a gain over 1.0%.

The information technology sector (-0.2%) was the only sector that closed lower, which really held back the benchmark index given it's the most heavily-weighted sector in the S&P 500. Money seemed to prefer the value/cyclical stocks, many of which saw renewed strength this week.

Nike (NKE 154.35, +20.75, +15.5%) and CarMax (KMX 127.40, +7.97, +6.7%) stood out with nice earnings-driven gains, especially Nike's 15% move after also issuing upbeat FY22 guidance. FedEx (FDX 291.95, -10.99, -3.6%), on the other hand, underwhelmed shareholders with its small EPS beat.

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.27%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 91.78. WTI crude futures rose 1.0%, or $0.75, to $74.06/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Personal income decreased 2.0% month-over-month in May (Briefing.com consensus -2.5%), driven by an 11.8% decline in government social benefits, while personal spending was unchanged (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following an upwardly revised 0.9% increase (from +0.5%) in April. The PCE Price Index jumped 0.4% month-over-month and was up 3.9% year-over-year (versus 3.6% in April). The core-PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.5% and was up 3.4% year-over-year (versus 3.1% in April).
The key takeaway from the report is the initial reaction to it. The inflation readings are eye-popping, yet the futures for the major indices went up in their wake while long-term bond yields barely moved. The seeming connection in those reactions is that this is at, or close to, peak inflation, meaning market participants are anticipating better inflation news in coming months.
The final June reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment slipped to 85.5 (Briefing.com consensus 86.4) from the preliminary reading of 86.4. The final reading for May was 82.9.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that the uptick in sentiment in June was driven by households with incomes above $100,000 and their view of future economic prospects.

Investors will not receive any notable economic data on Monday.

Russell 2000 +18.2% YTD
S&P 500 +14.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +11.4% YTD

Russell 2000 outperforms ahead of annual index rebalance
25-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow +257.92 at 34454.74, Nasdaq +1.80 at 14371.51, S&P +15.36 at 4281.85

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.4% while the Russell 2000 is up 0.7% in front of the annual FTSE Russell index rebalance at the close. Trading volume is expected to surge amid this rebalancing.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows financials (+1.3%) still leading the advance as the only sector up more than 1.0%. The utilities sector (+0.9%) follows behind, while the information technology sector (-0.1%) bucks the positive trend amid the rise in long-term interest rates.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.0%, or $0.75, to $74.06/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34283.27 -150.57 (-0.44%)
Nasdaq 14500.51 +140.12 (0.98%)
SP 500 4290.61 +9.91 (0.23%)
10-yr Note +27/32 1.473
NYSE Adv 1395 Dec 1934 Vol 920.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2015 Dec 2329 Vol 4.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services, Utilities
Weak: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Materials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq extend reach into record territory

-- Cautious reports highlighting the spread of the Delta coronavirus variant and accompanying restrictions imposed in foreign countries

-- Growth stocks outperformed as 10-yr yield fell seven basis points to 1.47%

-- Cyclical/value stocks struggled in negative territory

Mega-caps push S&P 500 and Nasdaq further into record territory
28-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow -150.57 at 34283.27, Nasdaq +140.12 at 14500.51, S&P +9.91 at 4290.61

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%) both set intraday and closing record highs on Monday, although it was the Nasdaq that leaped ahead by a sizable margin while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) and Russell 2000 (-0.5%) closed lower. The mega-cap stocks drove the outperformance of the Nasdaq.

Today's action was influenced by cautious reports highlighting the spread of the Delta coronavirus variant and the restrictions several countries imposed to curb infections. The macro backdrop fed into concerns about peak growth rates and contributed to defensive positioning in the heavily-weighted growth stocks and Treasuries.

These growth concerns were directly manifested in the underperformance of cyclical energy (-3.3%), financials (-0.8%), and industrials (-0.5%) sectors, a seven-basis-point decline in the 10-yr yield to 1.47%, and lower oil prices ($72.82/bbl, -1.14, -1.5%). Fortunately, the lower rates played a key part in helping drive the rotation into growth stocks.

The S&P 500 information technology sector (+1.1%), the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+2.5%), the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 231.01, +2.19, +1.0%), and the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 130.23, +4.74, +3.8%) -- places where many growth stocks reside -- notably outperformed the S&P 500.

In the mega-cap space, Facebook (FB 355.64, +14.27, +4.2%) rose 4% and hit a $1 trillion market capitalization after a U.S. district court dismissed the FTC's antitrust lawsuit against the company. NVIDIA (NVDA 799.40, +38.16, +5.0%) nearly hit a $500 billion market capitalization after several Arm customers voiced support for NVDA's acquisition of Arm.

The Facebook news gave the communication services sector (+0.8%) a nice intraday boost and helped the S&P 500 and Nasdaq finish on a high note. Separately, Boeing (BA 239.96, -8.42, -3.4%) weighed on the Dow, as reports suggested the company may not get FAA certification for its 777X until mid-2023.

The 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.25%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 91.90.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for June, the FHFA Housing Price Index for April, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for April will be released on Tuesday.

Russell 2000 +17.6% YTD
S&P 500 +14.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.0% YTD

Facebook hits $1 trillion market cap after court dismisses FTC antitrust lawsuit
28-Jun-21 15:25 ET
Dow -184.72 at 34249.12, Nasdaq +126.35 at 14486.74, S&P +6.37 at 4287.07

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading near session highs with a 0.2% gain while the Russell 2000 lags with a 0.7% decline.

Facebook (FB 354.33, +12.94, +3.8%) has recently reached a $1 trillion market capitalization after a U.S. district court dismissed an FTC antitrust lawsuit against the company. The communication services sector (+0.7%), where Facebook resides, is the second-best performing sector today.

WTI crude futures settled lower by $1.14 (-1.5%) to $72.82/barrel.

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Market Snapshot

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Dow 34292.29 +9.02 (0.03%)
Nasdaq 14528.34 +27.83 (0.19%)
SP 500 4291.80 +1.19 (0.03%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.475
NYSE Adv 1474 Dec 1745 Vol 804.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1675 Dec 2603 Vol 4.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Health Care
Weak: Utilities, Communication Services, Energy, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq set intraday and closing record highs

-- Leadership from the information technology sector, while value stocks faded early gains

-- Possible quarter-end efforts to rebalance into growth stocks

-- Interest rates and the hedging premium remained low

S&P 500 hits the 4300 milestone
29-Jun-21 16:15 ET
Dow +9.02 at 34292.29, Nasdaq +27.83 at 14528.34, S&P +1.19 at 4291.80

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.03%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) eked out intraday and closing record highs on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 touching the 4300 level for the first time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.03%) closed fractionally higher like the S&P 500, while the Russell 2000 fell 0.6%.

The session started with a modest rotation into value/cyclical stocks, partly due to a slew of expected dividend increases announced by the banks, a better-than-expected 127.3 reading in the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for June (Briefing.com consensus 120.0), and month-end rebalancing activity.

Value and cyclical stocks stocks faded their early gains throughout the day on no specific catalyst, although some suggested that with the quarter ending tomorrow, there might have been a greater propensity to position into growth stocks amid potentially lower economic growth rates in the second half of the year.

Apple (AAPL 136.33, +1.55, +1.2%) and Microsoft (MSFT 271.40, +2.68, +1.0%), the only two companies with market capitalizations over $2.0 trillion, powered the S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.7%) to the top of the sector leaderboard. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+0.8%) was another pocket of strength.

Interestingly, AAPL and MSFT helped overshadow an advancing/declining line that favored declining issues at both the NYSE and Nasdaq. Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, led by utilities (-1.7%) as the only sector with a decline over 1.0%.

The financials (-0.3%) and energy (-0.5%) sectors were arguably bigger disappointments, though, considering they were up by at least 1.0% in early action. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 51.26, -0.36, -0.7%) extended its two-day decline to 3.1%.

Separately, the market presumably didn't lose sight of the valuation-oriented appeal that a 10-yr yield trading below 1.50% had on growth stocks. The 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 1.48%. Others would add that a CBOE Volatility Index (16.02, +0.26, +1.7%) well under 20.00 was supportive for overall risk sentiment.

The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.26%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 92.05. WTI crude futures increased 0.4%, or $0.26, to $73.08/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index jumped to 127.3 in June (Briefing.com consensus 120.0) from an upwardly revised 120.0 (from 117.2) in May. June marked the highest level for the index since the first pandemic surge in March 2020.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that consumer spending activity is expected to remain robust in the short-term, evidenced by a rise in plans to take a vacation and an increase in the proportion of consumers planning to buy homes, automobiles, and major appliances.
The FHFA Housing Price Index increased 1.8% m/m in April while the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 14.9% yr/yr in April.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ADP Employment Change report for June, the Chicago PMI for June, Pending Home Sales for May, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Russell 2000 +16.9% YTD
S&P 500 +14.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.0% YTD

Semiconductor stocks outperforming the broader market
29-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow +22.10 at 34305.37, Nasdaq +22.89 at 14523.40, S&P +0.60 at 4291.21

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade flat, while the Russell 2000 lags with a 0.5% decline.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+0.7%) is one of today's stronger areas, featuring nice gains in AMD (AMD 89.93, +2.84, +3.3%), Qorvo (QRVO 195.88, +8.55, +4.6%), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS 191.32, +8.52, +4.7%), and Cirrus Logic (CRUS 85.82, +3.67, +4.5%).

Although many are forecasting economic growth rates to moderate, semiconductor companies have stated that chip demand remains strong and that the supply shortage should hopefully bottom later this year.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $0.26 (+0.4%) to $73.08/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34502.51 +210.22 (0.61%)
Nasdaq 14503.96 -24.38 (-0.17%)
SP 500 4297.50 +5.70 (0.13%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.454
NYSE Adv 1895 Dec 1400 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2010 Dec 2260 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Consumer Staples, Financials, Industrials
Weak: Information Technology, Communication Services, Real Estate, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 ends second quarter with fifth-straight record close

-- Value stocks outperformed growth stocks amid rebalancing factors

-- 10-yr yield declined amid reported growth concerns linked to the Delta Covid variant

-- Preference towards U.S. stocks instead of foreign stocks

S&P 500 ends second quarter with fifth-straight record close
30-Jun-21 16:20 ET
Dow +210.22 at 34502.51, Nasdaq -24.38 at 14503.96, S&P +5.70 at 4297.50

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.1% on Wednesday, and closed at a record high, as money flowed into the value stocks on this final day of the second quarter. Relative to the benchmark index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) outperformed, the Russell 2000 (+0.1%) performed in-line, and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) underperformed.

The energy sector (+1.3%) set the winning pace with a gain over 1.0%, followed by industrials (+0.8%), consumer staples (+0.7%), and financials (+0.5%). The information technology sector (-0.1%) limited the broader advance with a slight decline, although the real estate sector (-0.8%) declined the most.

Growth stocks had a terrific month of June at the expense of many value stocks, so it's likely that the balance shifted in favor of value due to rebalancing factors. The rotation was modest, evident by the 0.3% gain in the Russell 1000 Value Index versus the 0.2% decline in the Russell 1000 Growth Index, yet interesting because it happened despite reported growth concerns.

The 10-yr yield, a gauge for how investors are feeling about economic growth prospects, declined three basis points to 1.45%. Investors may have remained cautious given the restrictive measures governments in Asia and Europe have taken to curb the spread of the Delta Covid variant.

Compared to foreign equity markets, U.S. stocks (growth included) held up much better amid the perceived safety of U.S. markets and a belief that a growing vaccinated population will stave off the virus. Both the Vanguard Developed Markets Index Fund ETF (VEA 51.52, -0.35, -0.7%) and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM 55.15, -0.36, -0.7%) declined 0.7%.

The U.S. Dollar Index was another testament to the faith bestowed in U.S. markets, as it increased 0.3% to 92.35. Separately, the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.25%. WTI crude futures increased 0.6%, or $0.44, to $73.53/bbl ahead of an OPEC+ production meeting on Thursday.

In corporate news, Intel (INTC 56.14, -0.61, -1.1%) delayed the production of its Xeon server chip until 2022, Micron (MU 84.98, +2.05, +2.5%) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital Markets ahead of its earnings report after the close, and China's Didi Global (DIDI 14.14, +0.14, +1.0%) had disappointing price action after an opening IPO pop.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ADP Employment Change report estimated the addition of 692,000 private-sector payrolls in June (Briefing.com consensus 400,000) following a downwardly revised 886,000 increase (from 978,000) in May.
Pending home sales rose 8.0% m/m in May following a 4.4% decline in April.
The Chicago PMI decreased to 66.1 in June (Briefing.com consensus 70.0) from 75.2 in May.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 6.9% following a 2.1% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Manufacturing Index for June, weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, the final IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for June, and Construction Spending for May on Thursday.

Russell 2000 +17.0% YTD
S&P 500 +14.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.5% YTD

Crude futures settle higher ahead of OPEC+ meeting
30-Jun-21 15:30 ET
Dow +204.41 at 34496.70, Nasdaq -12.13 at 14516.21, S&P +5.05 at 4296.85

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.1%, and the Russell 2000 is up 0.3%. The benchmark index is on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+1.3%), industrials (+0.8%), and financials (+0.4%) leading the advance, while the real estate (-0.7%), utilities (-0.5%), communication services (-0.2%), and health care (-0.3%) sectors lag in negative territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $0.44 (+0.6%) to $73.53/bbl ahead of an OPEC+ production meeting tomorrow.

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Market Snapshot

briefing.com

Dow 34633.53 +131.02 (0.38%)
Nasdaq 14522.38 +18.42 (0.13%)
SP 500 4319.94 +22.44 (0.52%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.470

NYSE Adv 2071 Dec 1139 Vol 825.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2132 Dec 1843 Vol 4.3 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Utilities, Communication Services, Health Care

Weak: Consumer Staples, Information Technology


Moving the Market
-- S&P 500 sets intraday and closing record highs in relatively broad-based advance

-- Energy stocks jumped ahead as crude prices topped $75/bbl on speculation for smaller-than-expected OPEC+ supply increase

-- Manufacturing activity for June expanded for 13th straight month, weekly initial claims declined to post-pandemic low

-- Value stocks outperformed





S&P 500 kicked off the third quarter on a record-setting note
01-Jul-21 16:15 ET

Dow +131.02 at 34633.53, Nasdaq +18.42 at 14522.38, S&P +22.44 at 4319.94
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 0.5% on Thursday, kicking off the third quarter with another pair of intraday and closing record highs. The Russell 2000 pulled ahead with a 0.8% gain, the Dow Jones Industrial Average kept pace with a 0.4% gain, and the Nasdaq Composite underperformed with a 0.1% gain.

Value/cyclical stocks were at the forefront of a relatively broad-based advance, aided by encouraging manufacturing and initial claims data. Briefly, the June ISM Manufacturing Index checked in at 60.6% (Briefing.com consensus 61.0%) for its 13th straight month above 50.0% (expansionary activity), and weekly initial claims declined to a post-pandemic low of 364,000 (Briefing.com consensus 400,000).

Another tailwind, specifically for the energy stocks, was news that OPEC+ ministers reportedly reached a preliminary agreement to increase production by 400,000 bpd, starting in August and ending in December, which was less than expectations for a 500,000-bpd increase. A final agreement was reportedly delayed until tomorrow, though.

The S&P 500 energy sector climbed 1.7%, as WTI crude futures ($75.23/bbl, +1.73, +2.4%) topped $75 per barrel. The utilities sector (+1.1%) also gained more than 1.0%, while the consumer staples sector (-0.3%) was the only sector that closed lower.

The information technology sector (+0.1%) was held back by weakness in its semiconductor components following a disappointing earnings reaction in Micron (MU 80.11, -4.87, -5.7%). The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 1.5%. NVIDIA (NVDA 808.48, +8.38, +1.1%) was a notable exception after its price target was raised to a Street-high $1000 from $750 at BMO Capital Markets.

Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 48.71, -3.90, -7.4%), meanwhile, suffered the same fate as Micron despite both companies reporting better-than-expected earnings results. WBA was the biggest loser in the consumer staples sector with a 7% decline.

U.S. Treasuries ended the session mostly lower amid the positive bias in stocks and encouraging economic data, but there appeared to be a lack of conviction in front of the June employment report tomorrow. The 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.47% while the 2-yr yield was flat at 0.25%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 92.55.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

The June ISM Manufacturing Index checked in at 60.6% (Briefing.com consensus 61.0%), down from 61.2% in May. A number above 50.0% is indicative of expansion. June marked the 13th straight month of expansion for the manufacturing sector, albeit at a slightly slower pace than what was seen in May.
The key takeaway from the report is that it has validated the continuation of several trends: the manufacturing sector remains strong, inflation pressures are still prominent, and there is still difficulty in finding workers to meet the demand.
For the week ending June 26, initial claims decreased by 51,000 to 364,000 (Briefing.com consensus 400,000), which is the lowest level since March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending June 19 increased by 56,000 to 3.469 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it shouldn't be a surprise to see initial jobless claims falling given the huge number of job openings there are and the increased reopening activity that is demanding new hires.
Total construction spending decreased 0.3% m/m in May (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following a downwardly revised 0.1% increase (from 0.2%) in April.
Total private construction declined 0.3% m/m while total public construction spending fell 0.2%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for June, the Trade Balance for May, and Factory Orders for May on Friday.

Russell 2000 +18.0% YTD
S&P 500 +15.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.7% YTD



OPEC+ meeting reportedly delayed until tomorrow
01-Jul-21 15:30 ET

Dow +114.03 at 34616.54, Nasdaq +11.40 at 14515.36, S&P +21.03 at 4318.53
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade at session highs with a 0.5% gain while the Russell 2000 outperforms with a 0.9% gain.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (+1.7%) and utilities (+1.3%) leading the advance with gains over 1.0%, while the consumer staples (-0.2%) and information technology (-0.03%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.4%, or $1.73, to $75.23/bbl. Reuters reported that sources indicated the OPEC+ ministerial meeting was delayed until Friday in other to further discuss oil output policy.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34786.35 +152.82 (0.44%)
Nasdaq 14639.33 +116.95 (0.81%)
SP 500 4352.34 +32.40 (0.75%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.437
NYSE Adv 1645 Dec 1579 Vol 693.7 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1679 Dec 2567 Vol 3.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services
Weak: Energy, Financials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow close at record highs following June employment report

-- Jobs growth was better than expected but other measures of labor market activity were relatively soft

-- Mega-caps did the heavy lifting

July 4th weekend preceded by a trio of record closes
02-Jul-21 16:20 ET
Dow +152.82 at 34786.35, Nasdaq +116.95 at 14639.33, S&P +32.40 at 4352.34

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.8%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) closed at record highs on Friday, powered by the mega-caps following a June employment report that was deemed okay. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also set all-time intraday highs, while the Russell 2000 fell 1.0% amid weakness in energy and financial stocks.

From a headline perspective, the employment report was great: nonfarm payrolls increased by 850,000 (Briefing.com consensus of 680,000). A closer look, however, indicated softening labor market conditions: the unemployment rate (5.9%) was higher than expected, average hourly earnings (+0.3%) increased less than expected, the average workweek (34.7) unexpectedly decreased, and the labor force participation rate (61.6%) was unchanged.

The market reportedly viewed the report as a reason to believe the Fed will continue to stay extraordinarily accommodative because it wasn't as robust or inclusive as it would have liked. Minority groups continued to experience higher rates of unemployment.

The gains in the S&P 500 were relatively broad-based since nine of its 11 sectors closed higher, but the gains weren't evenly distributed. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 234.77, +2.66, +1.2%) rose 1.2%. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 152.23, +0.45, +0.3%) increased just 0.3%.

The mega-caps lifted the S&P 500 information technology (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+1.1%), and communication services (+0.9%) sectors to the top of the leaderboard. Conversely, the financials (-0.2%) and energy (-0.2%) sectors closed slightly lower.

Growth stocks in general benefited from a decline in long-term interest rates. The 10-yr yield decreased four basis points to 1.43% while the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.24%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.4% to 92.24. WTI crude futures decreased 0.4%, or $0.31, to $74.92/bbl without an OPEC+ supply decision.

Separately, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 168.98, +3.02, +1.8%) said its COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated persistent activity against the Delta variant with long-lasting durability of response. That news benefited JNJ shares, while IBM (IBM 140.02, -6.82, -4.6%), Boeing (BA 236.68, -3.05, -1.3%), and Broadcom (AVGO 468.17, -1.47, -0.3%) were undercut by negative-sounding news.

IBM announced President James Whitehurst is leaving the company. An older Boeing 737 cargo plane experienced engine trouble after take-off, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing in the ocean. The FTC charged Broadcom with illegal monopolization and proposed a consent order to settle the matter.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which featured the June employment report:

The June Employment Situation report produced better than expected growth in nonfarm payrolls, weaker than expected growth in average hourly earnings, a higher than expected unemployment rate, and a weaker than expected length of the average workweek. Notably, it also showed no change in the labor force participation rate. In other words, the employment situation in June was okay, but not great.
The key takeaway for the market is that it is apt to convince the Fed that it needs to take additional time to watch the incoming data before it moves to lessen its dovish-minded accommodation. The tell in that respect is that the June employment situation still fell short of the Fed's stated goal to get employment back to maximum employment in a broad-based and inclusive fashion, as it showed much higher rates of unemployment for minority groups and little movement in participation rates.
June Nonfarm Payrolls (Actual 850K, Briefing.com consensus 680K; Prior revised to 583K from 559K)
June Nonfarm Private Payrolls (Actual 662K, Briefing.com consensus 570K; Prior revised to 516K from 492K)
June Avg. Hourly Earnings (Actual +0.3%; Briefing.com consensus +0.4%; Prior revised to +0.4% from +0.5%)
June Unemployment Rate (Actual 5.9%; Briefing.com consensus 5.7%; Prior 5.8%)
June Average Workweek (Actual 34.7; Briefing.com consensus 35.0; Prior revised to 34.8 from 34.9)
June labor force participation rate unchanged at 61.6%
The Trade Balance report for May showed a widening in the deficit to -$71.2 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$71.4 billion) from a downwardly revised $69.1 billion (from -$68.9 billion) in April. May exports were $1.3 billion more than April exports while May imports were $3.5 billion more than April imports.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that the export of goods increased just $0.4 billion, helped by a $0.8 billion increase in pharmaceutical preparations. In other words, foreign demand for U.S. goods was on the soft side in May, which will play into the peak growth narrative.
Factory orders for manufactured goods increased 1.7% m/m in May (Briefing.com consensus 1.7%) after decreasing an upwardly revised 0.1% (from -0.6%) in April. Shipments of manufactured goods were up 0.7% after increasing 0.2% in April.
The key takeaway from the report is that orders for manufactured goods bounced back quickly following a small decline in April that was the first decline in 12 months, implying that the April dip was a normal slowdown after a hot streak and that manufacturing activity is still running at a good recovery clip.

As a reminder, U.S. markets will be closed on Monday in observance of Independence Day. When the market reopens on Tuesday, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for June.

Russell 2000 +16.8% YTD
S&P 500 +15.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +13.6% YTD

Crude futures settle lower
02-Jul-21 15:30 ET
Dow +160.50 at 34794.03, Nasdaq +109.47 at 14631.85, S&P +30.61 at 4350.55

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.7% and is trading at the 4350 level.

One last look at the sector performances shows information technology (+1.3%), consumer discretionary (+1.0%), and communication services (+0.9%) up by around 1%, while the financials (-0.2%) and utilities (-0.1%) sectors trade slightly lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.4%, or $0.31, to $74.92/bbl. An OPEC+ decision has yet to be announced after a ministerial meeting was delayed yesterday.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34681.79 +104.42 (0.30%)
Nasdaq 14665.07 +1.42 (0.01%)
SP 500 4358.13 +14.59 (0.34%)
10-yr Note +27/32 1.300
NYSE Adv 1542 Dec 1662 Vol 887.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1439 Dec 2726 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples, Industrials, Materials, Information Technology
Weak: Energy, Financials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq set all-time highs with modest gains

-- 10-yr yield trades around 1.30% amid reported growth concerns, peak inflation expectations, and short-covering activity

-- Value/cyclical stocks close performance gap between growth stocks

-- FOMC Minutes from June meeting reveal no major surprises

The big four lift S&P 500 to record highs
07-Jul-21 16:20 ET
Dow +104.42 at 34681.79, Nasdaq +1.42 at 14665.07, S&P +14.59 at 4358.13

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.3% on Wednesday, setting another pair of intraday and closing record highs in a mixed session. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.01%) eked out a record close by the slimmest of margins after opening solidly higher in record territory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.3%, while the Russell 2000 fell 1.0%.

Apple (AAPL 144.57, +2.55, +1.8%), Microsoft (MSFT 279.93, +2.27, +0.8%), Amazon.com (AMZN 3696.58, +20.84, +0.6%), and Alphabet (GOOG 2601.55, +6.13, +0.2%) which represent about 20% of the S&P 500's market capitalization, made a big difference in today's action alongside the S&P 500 industrials (+1.0%) and materials (+1.0%) sectors.

One of the bigger talking points, though, was the 10-yr yield falling below 1.30% intraday before settling the session at 1.32%, or five basis points below yesterday's settlement. The move was attributed to technical factors, short-covering activity, peak growth concerns, and expectations for inflation rates to moderate.

Interestingly, not all growth stocks keyed off the lower rates, e.g., Facebook (FB 350.49, -2.29, -0.7%), Tesla (TSLA 644.65, -14.93, -2.3%), and NVIDIA (NVDA 814.87, -13.07, -1.6%), and cyclical stocks like materials and industrials still rose despite the reported growth concerns.

The energy sector (-1.7%), meanwhile, was a notable weak spot, falling 1.7% amid a turnaround in oil prices ($72.18/bbl, -1.24, -1.7%). The communication services (-0.1%) and consumer discretionary (-0.01%) sectors closed fractionally lower without support from FB and TSLA.

Regarding oil, the EIA said it expects prices to remain close to current levels through the second half of the year and then decline in 2022 as production outpaces demand. The Wall Street Journal suggested the United Arab Emirates wants to produce more oil right now so that it can invest in diversifying its economy before green energy alternatives weigh on demand.

Airline stocks and bank stocks were other pockets of weakness given the curve-flattening activity in the Treasury market (2s-10s spread narrowed by six bps) and concerns about reduced travel overseas because of the Delta variant. The U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 23.67, -0.43) declined 1.8%. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 49.72, -0.22) declined 0.4%.

Separately, the FOMC Minutes from the June meeting didn't reveal any major surprises, leaving the Fed in a wait and see mode with no clear hawkish bias. This was good enough for the market, which didn't overly react to the minutes when they were released in the afternoon. The S&P 500 gained about six points between its release and the close.

The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.22%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 92.71.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Job openings increased to 9.209 million in May from a revised 9.193 million in April (from 9.286 million).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.8% following a 6.9% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and Consumer Credit for May on Thursday.

S&P 500 +16.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +13.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.3% YTD

Crude futures settle in negative territory
07-Jul-21 15:30 ET
Dow +100.04 at 34677.41, Nasdaq +2.53 at 14666.18, S&P +15.31 at 4358.85

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.4% and is on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the sector performances shows materials (+1.0%) and industrials (+1.0%) leading the advance with 1% gains despite reported growth concerns, while the energy (-1.2%) and communication services (-0.1%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.7%, or $1.24, to $72.18/bbl. This was the second straight day that crude futures gave up an intraday gain.

Regarding oil, the EIA said it expects prices to remain close to current levels through the second half of the year and then decline in 2022 as production outpaces demand. The Wall Street Journal suggested the United Arab Emirates wants to produce more oil right now in order to invest in diversifying its economy before the threat of green energy alternatives hinders prices.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33962.04 -725.81 (-2.09%)
Nasdaq 14274.98 -152.25 (-1.06%)
SP 500 4258.49 -68.67 (-1.59%)
10-yr Note +7/32 1.225
NYSE Adv 491 Dec 2805 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1278 Dec 3090 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples
Weak: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Materials

Moving the Market

-- Growth concerns and weak price action fueled de-risking efforts

-- 10-yr yield drops 12 basis points to 1.18% and oil prices fall 7%, while hedging premium spiked as much as 36%

-- S&P 500 manages to close above 50-day moving average (4240)

Stocks, Treasury yields, and oil prices tumble to start the week
19-Jul-21 16:20 ET
Dow -725.81 at 33962.04, Nasdaq -152.25 at 14274.98, S&P -68.67 at 4258.49

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market declined sharply on Monday with index losses ranging between 1.1% (Nasdaq Composite) and 2.1% (Dow Jones Industrial Average), as risk sentiment remained pressured by growth concerns. The Russell 2000 (-1.5%) entered correction territory, which is typically defined as a 10% decline from a recent high.

There was a relatively encouraging finish, though, that helped the S&P 500 (-1.6%) close above its 50-day moving average (4240) after falling below it during the session.

Still, the losses were spread across all 11 S&P 500 sectors and all 30 Dow components. The energy (-3.6%) and financials (-2.8%) sectors took the brunt of the damage and extended recent losses while the consumer staples sector (-0.3%) declined just 0.3%. Declining issues outpaced advancing issues by a 7:1 margin at the NYSE.

Reports continued to discuss the global spread of the Delta variant, which fit nicely with the prevailing narrative that growth prospects will continue to face headwinds as efforts are taken to contain the virus. The Treasury market remained a signpost for growth concerns, as the 10-yr yield dropped 12 basis points to 1.18%.

In addition, WTI crude futures dropped 7.4%, or $5.34, to $66.42/bbl, as investors factored in expectations for weaker demand with a confirmation from OPEC+ that it will increase production, starting next month. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 92.84.

Growth concerns have been around since the start of the second quarter, but the extent of the weakness today appeared to fuel worries about a meaningful pullback in the S&P 500. The CBOE Volatility Index spiked as much as 36.0% as investors rushed for downside protection, but it closed higher by 22.0% to 22.50.

Looking at some individual movers, NVIDIA (NVDA 751.19, +24.74, +3.4%) was a bright spot with a 3% gain, as were several of the stay-at-home stocks like Peloton (PTON 118.43, +7.89, +7.1%), DoorDash (DASH 175.50, +8.14, +4.9%), and DocuSign (DOCU 289.48, +7.43, +2.6%).

Zoom Video (ZM 354.20, -7.77, -2.2%) underperformed after announcing it will acquire Five9 (FIVN 188.12, +10.52, +5.9%) in a deal worth $14.7 billion in stock. Separately, Ingersoll-Rand (IR 46.25, -1.91, -4.0%) said it tried to acquire SPX Flow (FLOW 75.93, +13.84, +22.3%) last month for $85/share, or $3.59 billion, in cash.

Monday's economic data was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index for July, which decreased to 80 (Briefing.com consensus 82) from 81 in June. Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for June on Tuesday.

S&P 500 +13.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +10.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.9% YTD

Crude futures settle lower by 7%
19-Jul-21 15:25 ET
Dow -889.14 at 33798.71, Nasdaq -219.94 at 14207.29, S&P -89.64 at 4237.52

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 2.1%, and the Russell 2000 is down 1.9%.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (-4.3%) and financials (-3.2%) continuing to lead the retreat with 4% and 3% declines, respectively. The consumer staples sector (-1.0%) outperforms on a relative basis.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by 7.4%, or $5.34, to $66.42/bbl. Oil prices were hit by demand concerns as a byproduct of reduced travel due to the spread of the Delta variant. OPEC+ also confirmed it will increase production, starting next month.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34798.00 +286.01 (0.83%)
Nasdaq 14631.95 +133.08 (0.92%)
SP 500 4358.69 +35.63 (0.82%)
10-yr Note -5/32 1.276
NYSE Adv 2395 Dec 841 Vol 856.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3242 Dec 1077 Vol 4.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Materials
Weak: Health Care, Utilities, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Cyclical stocks lead advance, 10-yr yield trades sharply higher, and crude futures on the rise

-- Encouraging earnings commentary regarding the Delta variant

-- Several companies issue upbeat EPS guidance, but Netflix (NFLX) provides underwhelming subscriber guidance

Major indices extend rebound to a second straight day
21-Jul-21 16:20 ET
Dow +286.01 at 34798.00, Nasdaq +133.08 at 14631.95, S&P +35.63 at 4358.69

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market extended its rebound bias to a second day on Wednesday, as economic concerns surrounding the Delta Covid variant continued to subside. The S&P 500 (+0.8%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) rose between 0.8-0.9% while the Russell 2000 rose 1.9%.

These easing concerns were supported by earnings commentary from the CEOs of Coca-Cola (KO 56.55, +0.72, +1.3%), Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 1755.91, +181.56, +11.5%), and United Airlines (UAL 48.10, +1.78, +3.8%), who said their businesses haven't been impacted by the spread of the Delta variant.

For good measure, they were among a host of companies, which included Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 169.49, +1.04, +0.6%) and Verizon (VZ 55.95, +0.37, +0.7%), that beat EPS estimates. The Dow components -- KO, JNJ, and VZ -- also provided upbeat FY21 EPS guidance.

Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors contributed to the steady advance, which was appropriately paced by the cyclical energy (+3.5%), financials (+1.7%), materials (+1.1%), and industrials (+1.0%) sectors. The defensive-oriented utilities (-1.1%), real estate (-0.4%) and consumer staples (-0.1%) sectors closed lower.

Financial and energy stocks drew additional support from some curve-steepening activity and higher oil prices ($70.28, +2.96, +4.4%), both of which corroborated the belief that the Delta variant may not have a material impact on the economy as some previously feared. WTI crude futures closed back above $70 per barrel.

The 10-yr yield increased seven basis points to 1.28% while the 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 92.76. On a related note, the $24 billion 20-yr bond auction received soft demand, but that didn't invite additional selling interest in the Treasury market.

Netflix (NFLX 513.63, -17.42, -3.3%) was a notable laggard today, losing 3% after missing EPS estimates and providing underwhelming subscriber guidance for the third quarter.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 4.0% following a 16.0% spike in the prior week.
Weekly crude oil inventories increased by 2.11 mln barrels, which was the first inventory build reported out of the EIA in nine weeks.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, Existing Home Sales for June, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for June on Thursday.

S&P 500 +16.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +13.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.1% YTD

Crude futures settle back above $70 per barrel
21-Jul-21 15:30 ET
Dow +262.99 at 34774.98, Nasdaq +104.23 at 14603.10, S&P +30.54 at 4353.60

[BRIEFING.COM] The large-cap indices are each trading higher by about 0.7% while the Russell 2000 outperforms with a 1.8% gain.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (+3.7%) and financials (+1.9%) getting it done with strong gains, while the utilities (-0.9%), health care (-0.04%), and consumer staples (-0.04%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled sharply higher by 4.4%, or $2.96, to $70.28/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35061.55 +238.20 (0.68%)
Nasdaq 14836.98 +152.39 (1.04%)
SP 500 4411.79 +44.31 (1.01%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.280
NYSE Adv 2013 Dec 1192 Vol 813.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2136 Dec 2192 Vol 3.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Communication Services, Health Care, Consumer Staples, Utilities
Weak: Energy

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow set intraday and closing record highs

-- Mega-caps provided key leadership amid expectations for strong earnings results next week

-- Snap (SNAP) and Twitter (TWTR) exceed earnings expectations and issued upbeat revenue guidance

-- Value/cyclical stocks underperformed

Mega-caps lead market to new heights
23-Jul-21 16:20 ET
Dow +238.20 at 35061.55, Nasdaq +152.39 at 14836.98, S&P +44.31 at 4411.79

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+1.0%), Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) set intraday and closing record highs on Friday, largely due to leadership from the mega-caps amid high expectations for their earnings reports next week. The Russell 2000 increased 0.5%.

Alphabet (GOOG 2756.32, +89.75, +3.4%) and Facebook (FB 369.79, +18.60, +5.3%) scored the biggest gains in the mega-cap space after Snap (SNAP 78.02, +15.05, +23.9%) and Twitter (TWTR 71.66, +2.09, +3.0%) provided better-than-expected earnings results and upbeat revenue guidance for the third quarter.

The 24% earnings-pop in SNAP likely added to the bullish bias, as did Credit Suisse raising its price target on FB to a Street-high $480 from $400. Apple (AAPL 148.56, +1.76, +1.2%), Microsoft (MSFT 289.67, +3.53, +1.2%), and Amazon.com (AMZN 3656.64, +18.61, +0.5%) tallied decent gains.

The S&P 500 communication service sector (+2.7%), which is home to GOOG, FB, and TWTR, easily finished atop the sector leaderboard with a 2.7% gain. The health care (+1.2%), consumer staples (+1.2%), and utilities (+1.3%) sectors followed behind, giving off some defensive vibes.

The energy sector (-0.4%) was the only sector that closed lower while the financials (+0.1%) and industrials (+0.4%) sectors underperformed with small gains.

Energy and financial stocks struggled to attract buying interest despite an uptick oil prices ($72.09/bbl, +0.17, +0.2%), some curve-steepening activity in the Treasury market, and better-than-expected earnings reports from American Express (AXP 173.18, +2.28, +1.3%) and Schlumberger (SLB 28.41, +0.43, +1.5%).

This performance gap between defensive-oriented and cyclical sectors might have been due to lingering peak growth concerns after the preliminary IHS Markit Services PMI decreased to 59.8 in July from 64.6 in June. The corresponding PMI for manufacturing activity, however, reached a record-high of 63.1.

For what it's worth, the Dow closed above the 35,000 level while the S&P 500 closed above the 4,400 level -- both for the first time ever. Intel (INTC 53.00, -2.96, -5.3%) and Honeywell (HON 229.32, -3.42, -1.5%) were some laggards within the Dow despite both companies exceeding earnings expectations.

The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.19%, while the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.29%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 92.90.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Preliminary July IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI increased to 63.1 from 62.1 in the final reading from June. The preliminary July IHS Markit Services PMI decreased to 59.8 from 64.6 in the final reading from June.

Looking ahead, investors will receive New Home Sales for June on Monday.

S&P 500 +17.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +15.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.9% YTD

Crude futures settle higher but energy stocks trade lower
23-Jul-21 15:30 ET
Dow +188.75 at 35012.10, Nasdaq +138.16 at 14822.75, S&P +39.75 at 4407.23

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.9% and continues to trade above the 4400 level.

One last look at the sector performances shows communication services (+2.7%) firmly in the lead with a 2.7% gain, followed by the consumer staples (+1.3%), utilities (+1.1%), and health care (+1.1%) sectors. The energy (-0.3%) and financials (-0.1%) sectors trade slightly lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.2%, or $0.17, to $72.09/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35116.40 +278.24 (0.80%)
Nasdaq 14761.28 +80.23 (0.55%)
SP 500 4423.15 +35.99 (0.82%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.180
NYSE Adv 1961 Dec 1276 Vol 818.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2059 Dec 2183 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Health Care, Industrials
Weak: Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Stocks trading at session highs in a relatively broad-based advance at the large-cap level

-- Relative weakness in communication services sector

-- Treasury market holding steady

S&P 500 closes at a record high
03-Aug-21 16:20 ET
Dow +278.24 at 35116.40, Nasdaq +80.23 at 14761.28, S&P +35.99 at 4423.15

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 0.8% on Tuesday and closed at a record high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average kept pace with its own 0.8% gain, followed by more modest gains in the Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) and Russell 2000 (+0.4%).

The market faded a positive start like yesterday, but today buyers appeared to step in after the 10-yr yield was able to hold above yesterday's intraday low (1.14%). It touched 1.15% before settling the session unchanged at 1.18%.

The equity gains were relatively broad-based at the large-cap level, as ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher and the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 153.73, +1.28, +0.8%) gained 0.8%. Still, Apple (AAPL 147.36, +1.84, +1.3%), Microsoft (MSFT 287.12, +2.30, +0.8%), and Amazon.com (AMZN 3366.24, +34.76, +1.0%) pulled their weight and some.

The energy (+1.8%), industrials (+1.4%), health care (+1.4%), and financials (+1.1%) sectors stood atop the leaderboard with gains over 1.0%. Eli Lilly (LLY 255.99, +9.39, +3.8%) supported the health care sector following its mixed earnings report.

The communication services sector (-0.2%) was the lone holdout, pressured by weakness in Take-Two Interactive (TTWO 159.86, -13.35, -7.7%) after the company issued disappointing full-year guidance. On a related note, Chinese gaming stocks were hit by regulatory concerns.

Robinhood Markets (HOOD 46.80, +9.12, +24.2%) was another story stock, surging 24% on no specific news. HOOD shares closed the session up 41% from its low on IPO day last Thursday.

Overall, it was a resilient day given that declining issues slightly outnumbered advancing issues at the Nasdaq and given the uncertainty surrounding the Delta variant, infrastructure, and the Treasury market. The CBOE Volatility Index (18.04, -1.42, -7.3%) declined to the 18 level.

The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.17%. The U.S. Dollar Index was unchanged at 92.07. WTI crude futures decreased 1.0%, or $0.74, to $70.57/bbl.

Tuesday's economic data was limited to Factory Orders for June, which increased 1.5% (Briefing.com consensus +1.0%) following a revised 2.3% increase in May (from +1.7%).

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for July, the ADP Employment Change report for July, the final IHS Markit Services for July, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +17.8% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +14.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.6% YTD

Energy stocks rallying even with lower oil prices
03-Aug-21 15:30 ET
Dow +267.02 at 35105.18, Nasdaq +69.33 at 14750.38, S&P +34.20 at 4421.36

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at session highs with a 0.8% gain and is trading a couple points below its all-time closing record high.

One last look at the sectors shows energy (+1.7%), industrials (+1.4%), health care (+1.3%), and financials (+1.2%) leading the advance with gains over 1.0%. The communication services sector (-0.2%) is the only sector trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.0%, or $0.74, to $70.57/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34792.67 -323.73 (-0.92%)
Nasdaq 14780.52 +19.24 (0.13%)
SP 500 4402.66 -20.49 (-0.46%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.174
NYSE Adv 1073 Dec 2157 Vol 886.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1551 Dec 2726 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services
Weak: Energy, Industrials, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Consolidation activity and signs of fatigue, although there were pockets of excess speculation

-- 10-yr yield rebounds after July ISM Non-Manufacturing Index hit record high

-- ADP Employment Change report for July missed expectations by a wide margin

Nasdaq escapes with a gain in tired session
04-Aug-21 16:15 ET
Dow -323.73 at 34792.67, Nasdaq +19.24 at 14780.52, S&P -20.49 at 4402.66

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 decreased 0.5% on Wednesday in a tired session. The more interesting action happened in the Treasury market, shares of Robinhood Markets (HOOD 70.39, +23.59, +50.4%), and a handful of other technology-related stocks in the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%).

The Nasdaq ended the session in positive territory, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.9%) and Russell 2000 (-1.2%) underperformed the S&P 500.

Starting with the Treasury market since it's more tied to economic matters, the 10-yr yield traded as low as 1.13% after the July ADP Employment Change report missed expectations by a wide margin, stirring concerns about the Employment Situation report on Friday. The ADP estimated that private-sector payrolls increased by 330,000 in July (Briefing.com consensus 650,000).

The 10-yr yield then jumped to 1.21% after the release of the July ISM Non-Manufacturing Index at 10:00 a.m. ET, which increased to a record high of 64.1% (Briefing.com consensus 60.5%). The 10-yr yield settled the session at 1.18%, or one basis point above yesterday's settlement.

The price action in the S&P 500 was more subdued amid continued consolidation activity (even though it eked out a record close yesterday). Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, including energy (-2.9%), industrials (-1.4%), and consumer staples (-1.3%) with losses over 1.0%.

Energy stocks followed oil prices ($68.16, -2.41, -3.4%) lower, while the communication services (+0.2%) and information technology (+0.2%) sectors were the only sectors that closed higher.

Robinhood, meanwhile, garnered a lot of media attention with its 50% gain that wasn't driven by any fundamental news. Interestingly, some of that frenzied activity carried over to Moderna (MRNA 419.05, +32.54, +8.4%), AMD (AMD 118.77, +6.21, +5.5%), and Zoom Video (ZM 400.58, +25.70, +6.9%), all of which climbed on heavy volume.

Facebook (FB 358.92, +7.68, +2.2%) was another standout, rising 2% on below-average volume. CVS Health (CVS 81.55, -2.45, -2.9%), General Motors (GM 52.72, -5.16, -8.9%), and Lyft (LYFT 49.53, -5.85, -10.6%), on the other hand, declined noticeably following their earnings reports.

Separately, Fed Vice Chair Clarida said he believes the necessary conditions for raising the target range for the fed funds rate will have been met by year-end 2022. The Fed-funds-sensitive 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.17%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 92.27.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for July increased to 64.1% (Briefing.com consensus 60.5%) from 60.1% in June. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The July reading is a record high, eclipsing the former high of 64.0% seen in May, and marks the fourteenth straight month of growth for the services sector.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that services sector activity is running at a record pace while prices aren't far behind. The report is a testament to the unleashing of pent-up demand, which is running headlong into supply challenges on the labor and product fronts.
The ADP Employment Change report estimated 330,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls in July, which was well below the Briefing.com consensus of 650,000. The June increase was downwardly revised to 680,000 from 692,000.
The final reading for the July IHS Markit Services PMI checked in at 59.9, which was slightly higher from the preliminary reading of 59.8.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.7% following a 5.7% gain in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and the Trade Balance for June on Thursday.

S&P 500 +17.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +14.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.2% YTD

Crude futures settle below $69 per barrel
04-Aug-21 15:30 ET
Dow -271.81 at 34844.59, Nasdaq +21.51 at 14782.79, S&P -14.55 at 4408.60

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.3% while the Russell 2000 lags with a 1.2% decline.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (-2.9%), consumer staples (-1.1%), and industrials (-1.1%) down more than 1.0%, with energy down 3% amid weaker oil prices. The information technology (+0.3%) and communication services (+0.3%) sectors trade higher.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by 3.4%, or $2.41, to $68.16/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35264.67 +162.82 (0.46%)
Nasdaq 14788.07 -72.09 (-0.49%)
SP 500 4436.75 +4.40 (0.10%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.344
NYSE Adv 1760 Dec 1506 Vol 792.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2036 Dec 2260 Vol 3.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Financials, Industrials
Weak: Information Technology, Health Care, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Dow set intraday and closing record highs

-- Senate passes $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and votes to begin debate on the $3.5 trillion budget resolution plan

-- Value stocks outperformed at expense of the growth stocks

-- Treasury yields and oil prices increased

S&P 500 and Dow eke out record highs while Nasdaq slips
10-Aug-21 16:20 ET
Dow +162.82 at 35264.67, Nasdaq -72.09 at 14788.07, S&P +4.40 at 4436.75

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.1%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%) set intraday and closing record highs on Tuesday, as value/cyclical stocks outperformed at the expense of the growth stocks. The Russell 2000 increased 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) was dragged lower by its technology components.

The major development today was the Senate passing the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, as widely expected, and voting to begin debate on the $3.5 trillion budget resolution plan. As a reminder, House Speaker Pelosi said she won't bring the infrastructure bill to a vote unless the $3.5 trillion package is passed.

Prior to the decision late morning, there was already a pro-growth sentiment in the market: cyclical stocks were in the leadership positions, Treasury yields across the curve were trading modestly higher, and oil prices ($68.33/bbl, +1.78, +2.7%) were rebounding 3%.

There was little progress in the market for the rest of the session, as the growth stocks struggled amid the higher interest rates and rotational pressure.

The S&P 500 energy (+1.7%), materials (+1.5%), industrials (+1.0%), and financials (+1.0%) sectors finished with gains of at least 1.0%. Conversely, the information technology sector (-0.7%) -- the market's most heavily-weighted sector -- declined 0.7% and was joined by the real estate (-1.1%) and health care (-0.2%) sectors in the red.

Semiconductor stocks saw increased selling interest amid an industry report that indicated expectations for PC DRAM prices to decline by up to 5% qtr/qtr in the fourth quarter. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 1.2%.

Kansas City Southern (KSU 289.75, +20.15, +7.5%), meanwhile, was one of today's story stocks after Canadian Pacific (CP 72.21, -0.50, -0.7%) increased its bid to acquire KSU for $300 per share in cash and stock. KSU shares rose 7.5%.

Specifying the moves in the Treasury market, the 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.23%, and the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.34%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 93.07 and closed at its highest level since March.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Productivity was up a weaker than expected 2.3% in the second quarter (Briefing.com consensus 3.4%) and unit labor costs increased a lower than expected 1.0% (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%). That followed a downward revision to Q1 productivity to 4.3% (from 5.4%) and unit labor costs to -2.8% (from 1.7%).
The key takeaway from the report is the tame unit labor cost data. This is a number that Fed Chair Powell watches closely to help determine if rising wages are feeding into broader price inflation.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for July decreased to 99.7 from 102.5 in June.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for July, the Treasury Budget for July, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +18.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +14.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.4% YTD

Crude futures rebound 3%
10-Aug-21 15:30 ET
Dow +160.25 at 35262.10, Nasdaq -66.22 at 14793.94, S&P +4.84 at 4437.19

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.1% and is trying to close at a record high.

One last look at the sector standings shows energy (+1.7%), materials (+1.6%), industrials (+1.0%), and financials (+1.0%) leading the market in gains. Conversely, the information technology (-0.7%), real estate (-0.9%), and health care (-0.2%) sectors underperform in the red.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.7%, or $1.78, to $68.33/bbl after entering the session with a 10% monthly decline.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35484.44 +219.77 (0.62%)
Nasdaq 14765.12 -22.95 (-0.16%)
SP 500 4447.74 +10.99 (0.25%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.360
NYSE Adv 2175 Dec 1059 Vol 750.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2345 Dec 1977 Vol 3.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Financials, Industrials, Utilities, Energy
Weak: Health Care

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Dow close at record highs in cyclically-driven session

-- July CPI report was better than feared

-- Very strong 10-yr note auction

-- Value outperformed growth stocks

S&P 500 and Dow close at record highs as CPI data calms inflation fears
11-Aug-21 16:15 ET
Dow +219.77 at 35484.44, Nasdaq -22.95 at 14765.12, S&P +10.99 at 4447.74

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.3%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) set intraday and closing record highs on Wednesday, as value/cyclical stocks continued to sport a bullish bias following a better-than-feared Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for July.

The Russell 2000 increased 0.5% after being down as much as 0.8% intraday. The Nasdaq Composite, however, declined 0.2% along with the Russell 1000 Growth Index (-0.2%).

Specifying the data, total CPI increased 0.5% m/m in July, as expected, while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.3% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI was unchanged at 5.4% and core CPI moderated to 4.3% from 4.5%.

The data supported the narrative that inflation rates are peaking, yet the inflation-sensitive 10-yr yield was trading higher for the sixth straight session after the report. It took a very strong 10-yr note auction to bring it back down to its unchanged mark of 1.34% after it traded at 1.37% intraday.

Some rate discomfort might have contributed to the underperformance of the growth stocks, but a willingness to stay invested helped money flow into the value/cyclical stocks. The S&P 500 materials (+1.4%), industrials (+1.3%), and financials (+1.2%) sectors increased by at least 1.0% on Wednesday.

Interestingly, the health care sector (-1.0%) was the only sector in the S&P 500 that closed lower, largely due to weakness in Pfizer (PFE 46.31, -1.88, -3.9%) and Moderna (MRNA 385.33, -71.43, -15.6%). MRNA pulled back 15.6% after doubling between July 9 and August 9. PFE gained about 20% over the past month.

Southwest Air (LUV 51.84, +0.73, +1.4%) issued downside Q3 revenue guidance as the Delta variant caused a deceleration in close-in bookings and an increase in close-in trip cancellations this month. LUV and other airline stocks still posted decent gains, as the news may have been expected since airline share prices had struggled since June.

Separately, Kansas City Fed President George (2022 voter) and Dallas Fed President Kaplan (2023 voter) suggested the Fed should consider tapering asset purchases sooner rather than later, echoing comments from Atlanta Fed President Bostic (2021 voter) and Boston Fed President Rosengren (2022 voter) earlier this week.

The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 92.90. WTI crude futures rose 1.4%, or $0.94, to $69.27/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Total CPI, driven by increases in the indexes for shelter, food, energy, and new vehicles, increased 0.5% month-over-month in July, as expected, while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%). On a year-over-year basis, total CPI was unchanged at 5.4% and core CPI moderated to 4.3% from 4.5%.
The key takeaway for the market is the moderation in the year-over-year readings, which feeds into the "peak inflation" narrative. That is, the stock market is taking some comfort in the notion that inflation pressures might not be as pronounced in coming months.
The Treasury Budget for July showed a $302.1 bln deficit, versus a $63.0 bln deficit in the same period a year ago. The budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the July deficit can't be compared to the June deficit of $174.2 bln.
July marked the 22nd consecutive month that the Treasury has seen a budget deficit.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 2.8% following a 1.7% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for July and the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

S&P 500 +18.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +14.6% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.0% YTD

Crude futures settle higher
11-Aug-21 15:25 ET
Dow +232.44 at 35497.11, Nasdaq -29.40 at 14758.67, S&P +10.70 at 4447.45

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading higher by 0.2% amid gains in ten of its 11 sectors.

One last look at the sector standings shows materials (+1.3%), industrials (+1.1%), and financials (+1.0%) leading the advance with gains of at least 1.0% while the health care sector trades lower by 0.9%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.4%, or $0.94, to $69.27/bbl. On a related note, weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 447,000 barrels after increasing by 3.63 mln barrels during the previous week.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35625.40 +110.02 (0.31%)
Nasdaq 14793.75 -29.14 (-0.20%)
SP 500 4479.71 +11.71 (0.26%)
10-yr Note +25/32 1.250
NYSE Adv 1149 Dec 2106 Vol 751.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1392 Dec 2974 Vol 3.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Consumer Staples, Health Care, Information Technology
Weak: Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Financials, Materials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Dow recover early losses and close at record highs for the fifth straight session

-- Relatively disappointing economic data, geopolitical uncertainty, talk of taper plan

-- Relative strength in the defensive-oriented sectors and the top-weighted information technology sector

S&P 500 and Dow recover losses and close at record highs
16-Aug-21 16:15 ET
Dow +110.02 at 35625.40, Nasdaq -29.14 at 14793.75, S&P +11.71 at 4479.71

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.3%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) eked out intraday and closing record highs on Monday after being down as much as 0.7-0.8% in the morning. This was the fifth straight session they set record highs. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) closed slightly lower while the Russell 2000 fell 0.9%.

Over the weekend and prior to the open, China reported softer-than-expected retail sales, fixed asset investment, and industrial production data for July; the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for August came in weaker than expected; the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan; and CNBC reported the Fed could start tapering as soon as October, depending on the next employment report.

Interestingly, the futures market was down very modestly, suggesting it wasn't overly concerned about the negative-sounding news flow or the continued spread of the Delta variant in the U.S.

The overreaction came in the first 90 minutes of action: the S&P 500 information technology sector declined as much as 1.1%, oil prices ($67.34, -0.47, -0.7%) declined as much as 4%, and the 10-yr yield declined as many as six basis points to 1.24%.

The rest of the session saw a steady, and mechanical, advance in the large-cap indices as investors bought the dip on no specific news. The technology sector closed higher by 0.4% amid record-setting gains in Apple (AAPL 151.12, +2.02, +1.4%) and Microsoft (MSFT 294.60, +1.75, +0.6%).

The health care (+1.1%), utilities (+0.7%), and consumer staples (+0.6%) sectors outperformed the tech sector and the benchmark index. Conversely, the energy (-1.8%), materials (-0.5%), consumer discretionary (-0.4%), and financials (-0.2%) sectors closed lower.

Energy stocks struggled, even as oil prices pared losses after OPEC+ rejected calls from the U.S. to speed up production, according to Reuters.

Tesla (TSLA 686.17, -31.00, -4.3%) was an individual laggard, falling 4% after confirming that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating incidents in which TSLA vehicles crashed into first responder scenes.

The 10-yr yield settled lower by four basis points to 1.26%, which reflected lingering growth concerns. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.20%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 92.62.

Reviewing Monday's economic data, the Empire State Manufacturing for August decelerated to 18.3 (Briefing.com consensus 26.0) from 43.0 in July. Looking ahead, investors will receive Retail Sales for July, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for July, Business Inventories for June, and the NAHB Housing Market Index for August on Tuesday.

S&P 500 +19.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +14.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.6% YTD

Crude futures
16-Aug-21 15:30 ET
Dow +58.07 at 35573.45, Nasdaq -40.01 at 14782.88, S&P +6.14 at 4474.14

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.1% while the Russell 2000 still trades lower by 0.7%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows health care (+1.0%), utilities (+0.4%), consumer staples (+0.4%), and information technology (+0.3%) atop the leaderboard. Conversely, the energy (-1.7%), materials (-0.5%), consumer discretionary (-0.4%), and financials (-0.3%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by $0.47 (-0.7%) to $67.34 per barrel. Crude futures were down 4% earlier in the day but recovered amid news that OPEC+ doesn't want to speed up production like the U.S. wants it to.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35343.28 -282.12 (-0.79%)
Nasdaq 14656.17 -137.58 (-0.93%)
SP 500 4448.08 -31.63 (-0.71%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.253
NYSE Adv 902 Dec 2365 Vol 802.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1295 Dec 3055 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Financials, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Home Depot (HD) falls 5% despite beating EPS estimates

-- Retail sales report for July was weaker than expected but industrial production for July was better than expected

-- Lingering Delta/growth concerns

S&P 500 and Dow snap winning streaks
17-Aug-21 16:20 ET
Dow -282.12 at 35343.28, Nasdaq -137.58 at 14656.17, S&P -31.63 at 4448.08

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market struggled on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 (-0.7%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.8%) snapping five-session winning streaks. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) and Russell 2000 (-1.2%) underperformed and declined closer to 1.0%, but the major indices did close off session lows on no specific news.

The market had a lot to chew on, including a 1.1% m/m decline in total retail sales for July (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%), a disappointing earnings reaction in Home Depot (HD 320.75, -14.30, -4.3%), another day of discouraging reports on the Delta variant, and a step taken from China to crack down on unfair Internet competition.

These were clear headwinds for shares of retailers and Chinese companies (China's Shanghai Composite fell 2.0% on Tuesday) while the broader market was caught up in growth concerns and expectations for a pullback. Weaker prices for oil ($66.61/bbl, -0.73, -1.1%) and copper ($4.21/lb, -0.12, -2.8%) corroborated growth concerns.

Despite the late comeback effort, the consumer discretionary sector (-2.3%) was still held back by Home Depot and its mega-cap components, while the materials (-1.2%) and industrials (-1.1%) sectors declined about 1%. The health care sector (+1.1%) was impressive with its 1.1% gain.

Homebuilding stocks were additionally pressured by a relatively disappointing NAHB Housing Market Index for August, which decreased to 75 (Briefing.com consensus 80.0) from 80 in July. The iShares US Home Construction ETF (ITB 71.19, -2.61, -3.5%) dropped 3.5%.

Strikingly, the Treasury market didn't seem too concerned about growth, and longer-dated yields even bounced off lows after the weaker-than-expected retail sales report. A better-than-expected industrial production report for July might have been a supportive factor.

The 10-yr yield settled unchanged at 1.26% after trading at 1.22% prior to the open. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.5% to 93.12.

Walmart (WMT 150.70, -0.05, -0.03%) fared slightly better than the overall market after the company beat top and bottom-line estimates and issued upbeat FY22 EPS guidance. WMT shares closed fractionally lower despite the good news.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Total retail sales declined 1.1% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%) following an upwardly revised 0.7% increase (from 0.6%) in June. Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.4% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) following an upwardly revised 1.6% increase (from +1.3%) in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that there were declines in most retail categories. One notable exception was food services and drinking places (+1.7%), which just might be leading market participants to think that the impact of the Delta variant on the consumer's psyche isn't as bad as feared/reported and that there will be even more robust activity following any future data point that suggests Delta-related cases are peaking.
Total industrial production increased 0.9% in July (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) following a downwardly revised 0.2% increase in June (from 0.4%). The capacity utilization rate increased to 76.1% (Briefing.com consensus 75.7%) from an unrevised 75.4% in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that it showed the potential for increased industrial production activity when the automobile semiconductor shortage issue can get worked out.
Business Inventories increased 0.8% m/m in June (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%) following an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.5%) in May.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for August decreased to 75 (Briefing.com consensus 80.0) from 80 in July.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for July, the FOMC Minutes from the July meeting, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +18.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +13.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.2% YTD

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34960.69 -382.59 (-1.08%)
Nasdaq 14525.90 -130.27 (-0.89%)
SP 500 4400.27 -47.81 (-1.07%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.276
NYSE Adv 915 Dec 2284 Vol 798.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1703 Dec 2554 Vol 3.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Energy, Health Care, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Stocks slumped into the close on no specific catalyst

-- FOMC Minutes from the July meeting were in-line with recent commentary: tapering should begin later this year after substantial further progress has been met

-- Mixed housing data

-- Some relief in retail stocks amid earnings news

Stocks slump into the close
18-Aug-21 16:15 ET
Dow -382.59 at 34960.69, Nasdaq -130.27 at 14525.90, S&P -47.81 at 4400.27

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.1% on Wednesday amid a flush of selling interest into the close on no specific news. The market traded relatively flat for most of the day, as investors digested earnings news from retailers, mixed economic data, and a July FOMC Minutes report that was largely in-line with expectations.

The Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.1%), and Russell 2000 (-0.8%) declined between 0.8-1.1%.

Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors declined at least 1.0%, including energy (-2.4%), which fell more than 2.0%. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.2%) was the lone holdout amid some relief in retail stocks and Tesla (TSLA 688.99, +23.28, +3.5%).

Retail stocks drew support from better-than-expected earnings reports from Lowe's (LOW 199.70, +17.44, +9.6%), Target (TGT 247.95, -7.10, -2.8%), and TJX Cos. (TJX 73.31, +4.36, +6.0%). In addition, Lowe's raised its FY22 revenue guidance above consensus, and Target's CEO said he hasn't seen any slowdown due to the Delta variant. TGT shares closed lower, though.

The broader market didn't really react to the earnings news or to mixed housing starts and building permits data for July. Briefly, total housing starts were weaker than expected at 1.534 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.610 million) while building permits were better than expected at 1.635 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.610 million). Both figures are seasonally adjusted annual rates.

Instead, there was a slight overreaction to the FOMC Minutes from the July meeting, which indicated that several Fed members thought tapering should begin later this year after substantial further progress has been met. This was in-line with recent Fed commentary when the market was hitting all-time highs.

The major indices briefly pushed toward session highs immediately following the minutes at 2:00 p.m. ET, then quickly turned around. The bulk of the selling interest happened well after the minutes were released. It's worth mentioning that trading volume at the NYSE was on the lighter side, which might have contributed to the weak price action.

The Treasury market was well behaved throughout the session. The 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.27%, and the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 93.15. WTI crude futures fell 1.7%, or $1.16, to $65.44/bbl, which reflecting lingering growth concerns.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Total housing starts declined 7.0% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.534 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.610 million) while building permits increased 2.6% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.635 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.610 million).
The key takeaway from the report is that permits and starts for single-family units both declined, which speaks to some of the resistance of prospective buyers to high prices and some of the hesitancy to build new homes due to the high costs for materials, land, and labor.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.9% following a 2.8% increase in the prior week.
Weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 3.23 mln barrels after decreasing by 447,000 barrels during the previous week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for August, and the Philadelphia Fed Index for August on Thursday.

S&P 500 +17.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +9.3% YTD

Crude futures settle lower, weigh on energy stocks
18-Aug-21 15:30 ET
Dow -206.37 at 35136.91, Nasdaq -34.42 at 14621.75, S&P -23.48 at 4424.60

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading lower by 0.4% near session lows.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (-1.6%), health care (-1.1%), and consumer staples (-1.1%) sectors down more than 1.0% while the consumer discretionary sector (+0.6%) sectors is the only sector trading higher.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.7%, or $1.16, to $65.44/bbl. On a related note, weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 3.23 mln barrels after decreasing by 447,000 barrels during the previous week.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34894.12 -66.57 (-0.19%)
Nasdaq 14541.77 +15.87 (0.11%)
SP 500 4405.80 +5.53 (0.13%)
10-yr Note +23/32 1.242
NYSE Adv 971 Dec 2282 Vol 918.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1248 Dec 3042 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples, Utilities, Real Estate, Health Care, Information Technology
Weak: Energy, Financials, Materials, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Large-cap indices close little changed in a defensive session

-- Relative strength in the mega-caps and counter-cyclical stocks

-- Growth concerns lingered, as cyclical stocks struggled, oil prices weakened, and 10-yr yield dipped lower

-- Weekly initial and continuing claims continued to improve

Large-caps indices turn a weak open into a flat close
19-Aug-21 16:20 ET
Dow -66.57 at 34894.12, Nasdaq +15.87 at 14541.77, S&P +5.53 at 4405.80

[BRIEFING.COM] The large-cap indices closed little changed on Thursday, as relative strength in the growth/defensive-oriented stocks belied a mostly negative session. The S&P 500 (+0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) both gained 0.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) lost 0.2%.

The small-cap Russell 2000 (-1.2%) dropped 1%, posting its sixth straight decline and closing below its 200-day moving average (2152) for the first time since last September.

In early action, the S&P 500 was down 0.7% amid wide-ranging concerns surrounding supply chain disruptions, vaccine efficacy, economic growth rates, the Fed's taper timeline, and an extended pullback.

Most stocks succumbed to the early selling pressure, as declining issues outpaced advancing issues by more than a 2:1 margin at the NYSE and Nasdaq. The S&P 500 energy sector (-2.7%) was easily the weakest performer, losing 2.7% as oil prices ($63.69/bbl, -1.75, -2.7%) continued to decline. The other cyclical sectors declined by less than 1.0%.

The large-cap indices didn't truly reflect the underlying weakness because the mega-caps quickly turned it around. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 239.29, +0.96, +0.4%) gained 0.4% after being down 0.8% at the open while the top-weighted information technology sector (+1.0%) gained 1.0%.

Microsoft (MSFT 296.77, +6.04, +2.1%) rose 2% to record highs on no specific news while NVIDIA (NVDA 197.98, +7.58, +4.0%) rose 4% following its better-than-expected earnings report and upbeat revenue guidance. Cisco (CSCO 57.27, +2.12, +3.8%) was another technology standout following its earnings report.

The counter-cyclical consumer staples (+0.9%), real estate (+0.9%), health care (+0.5%), and utilities (+0.4%) sectors also supported the cause, illustrating a defensive mindset.

Interestingly, growth concerns persisted despite initial and continuing claims improving on a weekly basis, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI) increasing 0.9% in July (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%). Weekly initial jobless claims were better than expected at 348,000 (Briefing.com consensus 370,000).

The 10-yr yield decreased three basis points to 1.24%. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.5% to 93.57.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

For the week ending August 14, initial claims decreased 29,000 to 348,000 (Briefing.com consensus 370,000), which is the lowest reading since March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending August 7 decreased 79,000 to 2.82 million, which is also the lowest level since March 14, 2020.
The key takeaway from the report is that it covers the week in which the survey for the employment report is conducted, so the reduced (and improved) level of initial claims should help drive expectations for another strong increase in nonfarm payrolls in August.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 0.9% in July (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%) after increasing a downwardly revised 0.5% (from 0.7%) in June.
The key takeaway from the report is that overall growth was widespread, with all 10 indicators making positive contributions.

There is no economic data scheduled for Friday.

S&P 500 +17.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.0% YTD

WTI crude futures drop and weigh on energy stocks
19-Aug-21 15:25 ET
Dow +1.63 at 34962.32, Nasdaq +43.10 at 14569.00, S&P +13.23 at 4413.50

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.3% along with the Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%).

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows six trading higher and five trading lower. The information technology sector (+1.2%) leads the way with a gain over 1.0%, followed by the counter-cyclical/defensive-oriented sectors. Conversely, the energy sector (-2.7%) leads the cyclical sectors lower with a 2.7% decline.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by 2.7%, or $1.75, to $63.69/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35335.71 +215.63 (0.61%)
Nasdaq 14942.63 +227.99 (1.55%)
SP 500 4479.53 +37.86 (0.85%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.274
NYSE Adv 2262 Dec 1041 Vol 764.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3275 Dec 1166 Vol 3.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Communication Serivces
Weak: Utilities, Consumer Staples, Real Estate, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit all-time highs

-- FDA granted full approval for the Pfizer (PFE)-BioNTech (BNTX) COVID-19 vaccine

-- Energy stocks and oil prices rebounded nicely; growth stocks did well, too

Investors buy the dip to record highs, Pfizer vaccine gets full FDA approval
23-Aug-21 16:20 ET
Dow +215.63 at 35335.71, Nasdaq +227.99 at 14942.63, S&P +37.86 at 4479.53

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market had a strong start to the week, as investors remained steadfast in buying the dip amid some encouraging Covid news. The S&P 500 (+0.9%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%) set intraday record highs, with the Nasdaq also closing at a record high.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) trailed its large-cap peers with a 0.6% gain while the Russell 2000 (+1.9%) and iShares Micro-Cap ETF (IWC 143.33, +3.87, +2.8%) outperformed after underperforming last week.

Briefly, the FDA fully approved the Pfizer (PFE 49.93, +1.21, +2.5%)-BioNTech (BNTX 382.10, +33.42, +9.6%) vaccine for people 16 years and older, which provided some hope that vaccination rates will increase. In addition, the IHME vaccine model suggested that coronavirus cases could be peaking in the U.S.

The gains were relatively broad-based, as advancing issues outpaced declining issues by a 2:1 margin at the NYSE and a 3:1 margin at the Nasdaq. Seven of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, including the energy sector (+3.8%), which rose 4% as oil prices ($65.60, +3.35, +5.4%) rebounded 5%.

The heavily-weighted information technology sector (+1.3%) advanced 1.3%, while the defensive-oriented utilities (-1.3%), real estate (-0.4%), consumer staples (-0.4%), and health care (-0.02%) sectors were excluded from the advance amid some slippage into the close.

Other supportive factors included preliminary manufacturing and services PMIs for August out of the eurozone and U.S. that were expansionary (although they did decelerate from July), news that Treasury Secretary Yellen will back Fed Chair Powell for a second term, and a Barron's cover story that described the mega-cap technology stocks as "unstoppable."

Elsewhere, Treasury yields were subdued despite the bullish price action in the major indices, reportedly because of the deceleration in the IHS data, reduced trading volume, and a wait-and-see mindset for Fed Chair Powell's speech on Friday. Mr. Powell will speak during the annual Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.

The 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.26% while the 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.23%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.5% to 92.99.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

Existing home sales increased 2.0% m/m in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.99 million (Briefing.com consensus 5.85 million) from an upwardly revised 5.87 million (from 5.86 million) in June. Total sales in July were up 1.5% from a year ago.
The key takeaway from the report is that the supply of existing homes for sale at more affordable price points remains extremely limited. That is driving up the pace of price increases well beyond the pace of income growth, which is creating affordability pressures for prospective buyers, particularly first-time buyers, and leading much of the sales growth to occur in higher-end markets.
The preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI decreased to 61.2 in August from 63.4 in July. The preliminary IHS Markit Services PMI decreased to 55.2 in August from 59.9 in July.

Looking ahead, investors will receive New Home Sales for July on Tuesday.

S&P 500 +19.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +15.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.8% YTD

Crude futures rebound 5%
23-Aug-21 15:30 ET
Dow +269.59 at 35389.67, Nasdaq +236.27 at 14950.91, S&P +44.57 at 4486.24

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.0% and on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the sector standings shows energy (+3.8%) up 4% as oil prices rebound more than 5% while the top-weighted information technology sector trades higher by 1.3%. Conversely, the utilities (-1.0%) and real estate (-0.3%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 5.4%, or $3.35, to $65.60/bbl. Oil prices rebounded from a 9% decline last week, as demand concerns eased with the FDA approval of the Pfizer (PFE 49.96, +1.24, +2.6%) vaccine.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35405.50 +39.24 (0.11%)
Nasdaq 15041.84 +22.06 (0.15%)
SP 500 4496.19 +9.96 (0.22%)
10-yr Note -3/32 1.329
NYSE Adv 1885 Dec 1332 Vol 733.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2490 Dec 1875 Vol 3.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Energy, Industrials, Materials
Weak: Health Care, Information Technology, Consumer Staples, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq eke out record highs as bull market continued to attract buying interest in slow, summer session

-- Relative strength in financials sector amid some curve-steepening activity

-- Lighter trading volume at the NYSE

S&P 500 and Nasdaq eke out new record highs (again)
25-Aug-21 16:15 ET
Dow +39.24 at 35405.50, Nasdaq +22.06 at 15041.84, S&P +9.96 at 4496.19

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) eked out intraday and closing record highs on Wednesday, as the bull market continued to attract buying interest in a lower-volume session. The S&P 500 tagged the 4,500 level for the first time but struggled to break above it.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.1%, and the Russell 2000 increased 0.4%.

Buyers appeared slightly more interested in the value/cyclical names, as Delta variant concerns continued to wane amid hopes that infection rates are peaking and that more people will get vaccinated. A bump in long-term interest rates corroborated the optimistic outlook: the 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 1.34%.

The S&P 500 financials sector (+1.2%) keyed off the curve-steepening activity, rising to the top of the leaderboard while the energy sector (+0.7%) continued to rebound with oil prices ($68.34, +0.84, +1.2%). The industrials (+0.6%) and materials (+0.4%) sectors rose modestly.

The semiconductor space was another pocket of relative strength, driven in part by a DigiTimes report indicating that Taiwan Semi (TSM 117.03, +4.92, +4.4%) plans to increase prices of more advanced chips by 10-20% next year. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index advanced 0.8%.

Conversely, the health care (-0.3%), information technology (-0.1%), real estate (-0.2%), and consumer staples (-0.1%) sectors underperformed with small declines as demand for defensive-oriented stocks decreased.

In other developments, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 174.23, -1.16, -0.7%) announced interim data that supported a booster shot for its COVID-19 vaccine, the House advanced the $3.5 trillion budget resolution and the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill through procedural hurdles, and companies continued to beat earnings expectations.

Shares of Dicks Sporting Goods (DKS 129.60, +15.21, +13.3%) rose 13% following its earnings report, which included upbeat FY21 guidance, a 21% increase to its quarterly dividend, and a special dividend of $5.50 per share. Smaller retailers Nordstrom (JWN 31.14, -6.67, -17.6%) and Urban Outfitters (URBN 36.86, -3.87, -9.5%) struggled following their reports.

The CBOE Volatility Index (16.79, -0.43, -2.5%) retraced below the 17.00 level, reflecting decreased hedging interest as the major indices drifted higher on another slow, summer day. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.23%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 92.83.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Total durable goods orders declined 0.1% month-over-month in July (Briefing.com consensus -0.3%) and orders, excluding transportation, increased 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.3%) in June. On a year-over-year basis, durable goods orders were up 25.3%, while orders, excluding transportation, were up 17.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that nondefense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business spending -- were flat after increasing 1.0% in June.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 1.6% following a 3.9% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the second estimate for Q2 GDP and the weekly Initial Claims and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

S&P 500 +19.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +16.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.4% YTD

Crude futures
25-Aug-21 15:25 ET
Dow +43.23 at 35409.49, Nasdaq +24.01 at 15043.79, S&P +11.06 at 4497.29

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.3% and on track to close at a record high. Trading volume is below average at the NYSE, with only 410,000 million shares traded with 30 minutes left in the session.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows financials (+1.3%) as the only sector up or down more than 1.0%. The top-weighted information technology sector (-0.1%) drags on the market with a small decline.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.2%, or $0.84, to $68.34 per barrel.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35213.12 -192.38 (-0.54%)
Nasdaq 14945.79 -96.05 (-0.64%)
SP 500 4469.92 -26.27 (-0.58%)
10-yr Note -23/32 1.360
NYSE Adv 828 Dec 2400 Vol 680.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1582 Dec 2781 Vol 3.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate
Weak: Energy, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Stock market loses rebound momentum

-- Hawkish-sounding Fed commentary

-- Two explosions in Afghanistan killed at least 12 servicemen

-- salesforce.com (CRM) provided encouraging earnings news

Rebound momentum halted
26-Aug-21 16:15 ET
Dow -192.38 at 35213.12, Nasdaq -96.05 at 14945.79, S&P -26.27 at 4469.92

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market's rebound momentum was put to a halt on Thursday, with the major indices losing between 0.5% (Dow Jones Industrial Average) and 1.1% (Russell 2000) amid some negative-sounding headlines. Both the S&P 500 (-0.6%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) snapped five-session winning streaks.

Namely, Kansas City Fed President George (FOMC voter in 2022), St. Louis Fed President Bullard (FOMC voter in 2022), and Dallas Fed President Kaplan (FOMC voter in 2023) each told CNBC that they prefer the Fed taper asset purchases sooner rather than later. In addition, there were two explosions in Afghanistan that killed at least 12 servicemen, exacerbating the geopolitical uncertainty in the region.

These events were largely viewed as convenient excuses for the market to slow down its record-setting pursuit. These Fed officials had already issued similar comments before today, and the Afghanistan situation doesn't seem like it will have any impact on the economy.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, led by energy (-1.5%) as oil prices ($67.35, -0.99, -1.5%) retraced some rebound gains. The heavily-weighted information technology sector (-0.6%) exerted influential pressure on the market with a 0.6% decline, while the real estate sector (+0.1%) was spared from today's selling activity.

Trading volume was below recent averages once again, with only 638 million shares exchanged at the NYSE. This reduced volume might have contributed to the negative price action.

On the earnings front, salesforce.com (CRM 267.79, +6.94, +2.7%) helped limit the decline in the Dow after the company reported better-than-expected earnings results and issued upbeat guidance. Snowflake (SNOW 305.26, +21.50, +7.6%) and Williams-Sonoma (WSM 186.68, +15.95, +9.3%) also registered decent earnings-driven gains.

Conversely, Autodesk (ADSK 310.19, -32.08, -9.4%), Dollar General (DG 225.90, -8.84, -3.8%), Dollar Tree (DLTR 93.48, -12.84, -12.1%), and Burlington Stores (BURL 318.01, -32.14, -9.2%) underwhelmed investors with their earnings results.

Elsewhere, the Treasury market was more subdued, as investors digested the macro headlines and awaited Fed Chair Powell's Jackson Hole speech tomorrow. The 10-yr yield settled unchanged at 1.34%, and the 2-yr yield settled unchanged at 0.23%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 93.05.

The CBOE Volatility Index (18.81, +2.03, +12.1%) jumped two points, as demand for downside protection increased with the negative disposition in the market.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

The second estimate for Q2 GDP checked in at 6.6% (Briefing.com consensus 6.6%) versus the advance estimate of 6.5% and the GDP Deflator edged up to 6.1% (Briefing.com consensus 6.0%) from the advance estimate of 6.0%.
The report's dated nature (we're nearly two-thirds of the way through Q3) and the lack of any meaningful change from the advance estimate have muted its influence.
Initial claims for the week ending August 21 increased by 4,000 to 353,000 (Briefing.com consensus 355,000) while continuing claims for the week ending August 14 decreased by 3,000 to 2.862 million.
The key takeaway from the report is the continued firming of the initial claims trend below 400,000, as that remains consistent with an improving labor market that is anticipated to keep improving based on the number of available job openings.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices for July, the final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for August, and Adv. Intl Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories for July on Friday.

S&P 500 +19.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +16.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.1% YTD

Crude futures retrace some rebound gains
26-Aug-21 15:30 ET
Dow -166.29 at 35239.21, Nasdaq -80.25 at 14961.59, S&P -23.09 at 4473.10

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.5% and on track to snap a five-session winning streak.

One last look at the sector standings shows energy (-1.5%) leading the decline amid a retracement in oil prices while the top-weighted information technology sector trades lower by 0.5%. The real estate sector (+0.2%) remains the only sector trading higher.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.5%, or $0.99, to $67.35/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35455.80 +242.68 (0.69%)
Nasdaq 15129.48 +183.69 (1.23%)
SP 500 4509.37 +39.37 (0.88%)
10-yr Note +5/32 1.307
NYSE Adv 2685 Dec 535 Vol 736.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3329 Dec 997 Vol 3.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Communication Services, Financials
Weak: Health Care, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at record highs after Fed Chair Powell's speech

-- Fed Chair Powell said substantial further progress has been met on inflation but not yet employment: suggests tapering will start later this year

-- Fed Chair Powell differentiates tapering criteria from rate-hike criteria

Powell speech pleases market, S&P 500 and Nasdaq notch record highs
27-Aug-21 16:15 ET
Dow +242.68 at 35455.80, Nasdaq +183.69 at 15129.48, S&P +39.37 at 4509.37

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.9%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.2%) rallied to record highs on Friday, as the market reacted positively to Fed Chair Powell's Jackson Hole speech on the economy and monetary policy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the relative underperformer with a 0.7% gain, while the Russell 2000 pulled ahead with a 2.9% gain.

Fed Chair Powell suggested tapering could start by the end of the year since "substantial further progress" has been met on inflation and that "clear progress" has been made on employment. This qualification on employment implied that the Fed chair still needs to assess incoming data on the labor market before committing to a taper timeline.

Fed Vice Chair Clarida and Fed Presidents Bostic, Harker, Mester, and Bullard were largely in agreement with Mr. Powell in separate television interviews (Mr. Bullard preferred to taper immediately). What's more, Fed Chair Powell said the timing and pace of tapering will have no direct impact to the timing of future rate hikes, which will depend on a more careful assessment of the economy.

In other words, the market was okay with the taper talk on the understanding that the Fed isn't in a hurry to taper and that financial conditions will still be accommodative after the Fed stops buying assets.

The equity gains were relatively broad-based: Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in positive territory, growth stocks and value stocks rose alike, and advancing issues outpaced declining issues by a 5:1 margin at the NYSE and by a 3:1 margin at the Nasdaq.

The information technology sector (+1.0%) was an influential leader, but the energy sector (+2.6%) increased the most amid higher oil prices ($68.77/bbl, +1.42, +2.1%) and rebound momentum. The health care (-0.2%) and utilities (-0.03%) sectors closed slightly lower.

Pfizer (PFE 46.58, -0.80, -1.7%) and Moderna (MRNA 382.22, -18.08, -4.5%) dragged on the health care sector amid word from the White House Press Secretary that guidance for booster shots will remain at eight months and not five months as reported earlier in the day.

Elsewhere, longer-dated Treasury yields moved lower following Fed Chair Powell's speech and the July Personal Income/Spending report, which included 0.1% decline in real PCE. Inflation pressures continued to run persistently high, but the silver lining was that the core-PCE Price Index was unchanged at 3.6% yr/yr, providing some hope that inflation rates are peaking.

The 10-yr yield decreased three basis points to 1.31%, and the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.22%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 92.68.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Personal income was up 1.1% month-over-month in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%), bolstered by a 1.0% increase in wages and salaries and a 2.9% increase in personal current transfer receipts (think Child Tax Credit payments). Personal spending increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), but real PCE declined 0.1% with the PCE Price Index up 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%). The core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%).
The key takeaway from the report is twofold: (1) the decline in real PCE will be a drag on Q3 GDP forecasts and (2) inflation pressures continue to run persistently high. The PCE Price Index was up 4.2% year-over-year, versus 4.0% in June, and the core PCE Price Index held steady at 3.6%.
The final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for August checked in at 70.3 (Briefing.com consensus 70.7), nearly even with the preliminary reading of 70.2. The final reading for July was 81.2. The downturn from July was one of the largest losses since 1978.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that higher inflation trends have led to a worsening in sentiment regarding personal financial prospects.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for July showed a deficit of $86.4 billion, versus a revised $92.1 billion (from $91.2 billion) in June. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for July increased 0.4%, while the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for July increased 0.6%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Pending Home Sales for July on Monday.

S&P 500 +20.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +17.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.3% YTD

Crude futures settle 10% higher for the week
27-Aug-21 15:30 ET
Dow +256.76 at 35469.88, Nasdaq +196.95 at 15142.74, S&P +41.52 at 4511.52

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.9% to trade at session, and record, highs.

One last look at the sectors shows energy (+2.6%) still in the lead, but the information technology sector (+1.0%) is one of the more influential gainers given its top-weighted position in the S&P 500. The health care sector (-0.1%) is down slightly.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.1%, or $1.42, to $68.77/bbl. For the week, crude futures were up 10.5%.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35399.84 -55.96 (-0.16%)
Nasdaq 15265.87 +136.39 (0.90%)
SP 500 4528.79 +19.42 (0.43%)
10-yr Note +3/32 1.284
NYSE Adv 1393 Dec 1847 Vol 703.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2028 Dec 2361 Vol 4.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Real Estate, Communication Services
Weak: Financials, Energy, Materials, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at record highs on the back of the mega-cap stocks

-- Value/cyclical stocks underperformed amid lingering growth concerns

Mega-caps power S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new heights
30-Aug-21 16:15 ET
Dow -55.96 at 35399.84, Nasdaq +136.39 at 15265.87, S&P +19.42 at 4528.79

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.4%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) set intraday and closing record highs on Monday, as money continued to flow into the large growth stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) and Russell 2000 (-0.5%), however, closed lower amid relative weakness in the value stocks.

Apple (AAPL 153.12, +4.52, +3.0%), Microsoft (MSFT 303.59, +3.87, +1.3%), Amazon.com (AMZN 3421.57, +71.94, +2.2%), Alphabet (GOOG 2909.39, +18.38, +0.6%), and Facebook (FB 380.66, +8.03, +2.2%) -- which account for approximately 22.5% of the S&P 500's market capitalization -- had a large say in today's action. AAPL stood out with a 3% gain.

The S&P 500 information technology (+1.1%), consumer discretionary (+0.9%), and communication services (+0.7%) sectors, which are home to these widely-owned names, were among the best-performing sectors today.

The defensive-oriented real estate (+1.2%) and health care (+0.6%) sectors also outperformed, while the cyclical financials (-1.5%), energy (-1.2%), materials (-0.2%), and industrials (-0.2%) sectors closed lower. The financials and energy sectors declined more than 1.0%.

This mega-cap leadership, and the underperformance of the cyclical stocks, was attributed to lingering growth concerns stemming from the Delta variant, Hurricane Ida, and the fate of the infrastructure package. There were some positive-sounding news involving the growth stocks, though.

For instance, the International Data Corporation (IDC) published a report that global smartphone shipments are expected to grow 7.4% yr/yr in 2021 to 1.37 billion units, thanks to a strong recovery in emerging markets. Amazon and Affirm (AFRM 99.59, +31.69, +46.7%) partnered to bring AFRM's buy-now, pay-later service to Amazon's customers.

Shares of Affirm soared 46% on the news, but it was outdone by a 64% gain in Globalstar (GSAT 2.35, +0.92, +64.3%) following an unconfirmed report that Apple will use LEO satellite communications for its next iPhone.

PayPal (PYPL 288.47, +10.14, +3.6%), meanwhile, rose 3.6% after CNBC reported that the company is exploring a stock-trading platform for its U.S. customers. Shares of Robinhood Markets (HOOD 43.64, -3.23, -6.9%) dropped 7% and extended intraday losses after SEC Chairman Gensler told Barron's that banning payment for order flow is “on the table."

Elsewhere, the Treasury market was another signpost for growth concerns, as the 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 1.29%. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.20%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 92.69.

WTI crude futures rose 0.6%, or $0.44, to $69.21/bbl /bbl ahead of an OPEC+ meeting on Wednesday. Investors weighed the temporary shutdown of oil refineries in the Gulf Coast with a report from Reuters relaying a comment from Kuwait's oil minister that the OPEC+ oil production agreement could be reconsidered.

Monday's economic data was limited to Pending Home Sales, which unexpectedly decreased 1.8% m/m in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following a downwardly revised 2.0% decline (from -1.9%) in June.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for August, the Chicago PMI for August, the FHFA Housing Price Index for June, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for June on Tuesday.

S&P 500 +20.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +18.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.7% YTD

Crude futures settle modestly higher
30-Aug-21 15:25 ET
Dow -17.20 at 35438.60, Nasdaq +149.14 at 15278.62, S&P +24.58 at 4533.95

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.6% and on track to close at another record high.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+1.1%) and consumer discretionary (+1.1%) up more than 1.0%, while the financials (-1.3%) and energy (-0.6%) sectors are the only sectors trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.6%, or $0.44, to $69.21/bbl ahead of an OPEC+ meeting on Wednesday. On a related note, Reuters reported that Kuwait's oil minister said the OPEC+ oil production agreement could be reconsidered.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35360.60 -39.24 (-0.11%)
Nasdaq 15259.22 -6.65 (-0.04%)
SP 500 4522.67 -6.12 (-0.14%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.307
NYSE Adv 1819 Dec 1454 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2681 Dec 1706 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Real Estate
Weak: Energy, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Stock market closed little changed in quiet session

-- Zoom Video (ZM) dropped nearly 17% after earnings

-- Consumer consumer decreases in August

Major indices close out strong month on softer note
31-Aug-21 16:15 ET
Dow -39.24 at 35360.60, Nasdaq -6.65 at 15259.22, S&P -6.12 at 4522.67

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.1%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.04%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) closed fractionally lower on Tuesday in a quiet session. The small-cap Russell 2000 ended the session with a modest gain of 0.3%.

Buying conviction might have been lacking because of the softening economic data in the U.S. and China, a 16% decline in shares of Zoom Video (ZM 289.50, -58.00, -16.7%) following its earnings report, an observation that the gains were good in August, and a wait-and-see mindset for the August employment report at the end of the week.

Seven of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in negative territory, including energy (-0.7%) and information technology (-0.6%) at the bottom of the pack. The communication services (+0.3%), consumer discretionary (+0.4%), and real estate (+0.6%) sectors outperformed with modest gains.

Specifying the data, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index decreased to 113.8 in August (Briefing.com consensus 123.0) from 128.9 in July, the Chicago PMI for August decreased to 66.8 (Briefing.com consensus 68.0) from 73.4 in July, China's August Manufacturing PMI decelerated to 50.1, and China's August non-Manufacturing PMI slipped into contraction territory at 47.5.

The slower growth appeared to weigh on oil prices ($68.44, -0.77, -1.1%), which gave back some rebound gains, but not as much on the Treasury market. The 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.30% while the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.20%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 92.66.

In other corporate news, Bloomberg reported on a study in Belgium that showed Moderna's (MRNA 376.69, +6.00, +1.6%) COVID-19 vaccine produced twice as many antibodies as Pfizer's (PFE 46.07, -0.69, -1.5%) vaccine. DigiTimes reported that Taiwan Semi (TSM 119.01, +0.02, unch) is in discussions with suppliers to lower prices for next year by 15% in order to cut costs.

Shares of Kansas City Southern (KSU 280.67, -12.89, -4.4%) declined 4% after the Surface Transportation Board announced a unanimous decision rejecting the use of a voting trust agreement in connection with the company's proposed M&A deal.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 113.8 in August (Briefing.com consensus 123.0) from a revised 125.1 (from 129.1) in July. The August drop sent the Index to its lowest level since February.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflected some of the same concerns as Friday's release of the Consumer Sentiment Survey from the University of Michigan. Consumers were concerned with reports about the Delta variant of the coronavirus as well as rising food and gas prices.
The Chicago PMI for August decreased to 66.8 (Briefing.com consensus 68.0) following an unrevised 73.4 reading in July.
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 19.1% yr/yr in June (Briefing.com consensus 17.6%) following a revised 17.1% increase (from 17.0%) in May.
The FHFA Housing Price Index increased 1.6% m/m in June following a revised 1.8% increase (from 1.7%) in May.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Manufacturing Index for August, the ADP Employment Change report for August, Construction Spending for July, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +20.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +18.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.1% YTD

Crude futures retrace some rebound gains
31-Aug-21 15:30 ET
Dow -65.74 at 35334.10, Nasdaq -18.10 at 15247.77, S&P -8.52 at 4520.27

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.2% to trade near session lows.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows industrials (-0.5%), information technology (-0.5%), and materials (-0.5%) underperforming with 0.5% declines, while the real estate (+0.4%) and communication services (+0.4%) sectors outperform with modest gains.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.1%, or $0.77, to $68.44/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34584.88 -166.44 (-0.48%)
Nasdaq 15043.96 -137.96 (-0.91%)
SP 500 4432.99 -40.76 (-0.91%)
10-yr Note -26/32 1.376
NYSE Adv 1148 Dec 2016 Vol 3.3 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2141 Dec 1946 Vol 6.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care
Weak: Information Technology, Materials, Utilities, Communication Services, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Downside momentum, risk aversion, cash-raising efforts

-- Negative-sounding headlines

-- S&P 500 closes below 50-day moving average (4436)

-- Consumer sentiment report for August misses expectations by a small margin

-- Weakness in semiconductor space amid analyst downgrades

S&P 500 closes below key technical level
17-Sep-21 16:20 ET
Dow -166.44 at 34584.88, Nasdaq -137.96 at 15043.96, S&P -40.76 at 4432.99

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 0.9% on Friday, as investors digested some negative-sounding headlines and hedged for further weakness. The Nasdaq Composite declined 0.9%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.5%. The Russell 2000, however, increased 0.2% amid the quadruple witching-options expiration activity into the close.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, with the materials (-2.1%), information technology (-1.5%), utilities (-1.6%), communication services (-1.3%), and industrials (-1.1%) sectors losing more than 1.0%. The health care sector (+0.1%) was saved by Thermo Fisher (TMO 596.80, +36.36, +6.5%), which provided upbeat FY22 EPS guidance.

Risk sentiment seemed to be partially influenced by news that President Biden was unable to get Senator Manchin (D-WV) on board with the $3.5 trillion infrastructure plan, a warning from the White House that not increasing the debt limit could cause a recession, and the FDA advisory committee voting against Pfizer's (PFE 43.88, -0.59, -1.3%) COVID-19 booster vaccine for people 16 and older.

While none of the news was viewed as surprising, they presumably reminded investors about some of the growth-oriented headwinds the market is facing. The S&P 500 breached support at its 50-day moving average (4436) on a closing basis.

The tech sector weighed on the market amid weakness in its top-weighted components and the semiconductor stocks. BofA Securities downgraded both Cree (CREE 85.70, -2.60, -2.9%) and Cirrus Logic (CRUS 84.73, -3.45, -3.9%) to Underperform from Neutral. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index declined 1.5%.

Separately, the consumer sentiment report showed a smaller-than-expected gain following last month's shocking decline. The preliminary September reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment increased to 71.0 (Briefing.com consensus 72.0) from 70.3 in August.

The negative backdrop seemed to provoke some cash-raising efforts. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.3% to 93.21 while the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.37% amid increased selling interest. The CBOE Volatility Index (20.81, +2.12, +11.3%) closed above the 20.00 level.

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.23%. WTI crude futures decreased 1.0%, or $0.70, to $71.92/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The preliminary September reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment increased to 71.0 (Briefing.com consensus 72.0) from the final reading of 70.3 for August.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that high prices have led to a decline in assessments of buying conditions for homes, vehicles, and household durables. That could lead to slower spending activity in the future if consumers hold off on purchases either because they think prices will come down if they wait longer or if they resist paying persistently high prices altogether in the absence of offsetting income gains.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the NAHB Housing Market Index for September on Monday.

S&P 500 +18.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +16.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.3% YTD

Crude futures settle lower by 1%
17-Sep-21 15:30 ET
Dow -177.69 at 34573.63, Nasdaq -156.84 at 15025.08, S&P -40.22 at 4433.53

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.9% while the Russell 2000 trades lower by 0.4%.

One last look at the sector standings shows losses across the board. The materials sector (-2.0%) is the weakest link with a 2% decline while the health care sector (-0.2%) outperforms on a relative basis with a 0.2% decline.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.0%, or $0.70, to $71.92/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33970.47 -614.41 (-1.78%)
Nasdaq 14713.90 -330.06 (-2.19%)
SP 500 4357.73 -75.26 (-1.70%)
10-yr Note +27/32 1.313
NYSE Adv 523 Dec 2707 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 813 Dec 3263 Vol 4.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities
Weak: Energy, Financials, Materials, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Major indices decline more than 1.5%

-- Concerns over China's Evergrande, debt ceiling, infrastructure, deteriorating technical factors

-- Late-day buying efforts pare market losses

Market closes sharply lower amid host of concerns
20-Sep-21 16:20 ET
Dow -614.41 at 33970.47, Nasdaq -330.06 at 14713.90, S&P -75.26 at 4357.73

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market was down around 3% on Monday, as investors worried about a host of issues involving China's Evergrande, the debt ceiling, infrastructure, and deteriorating technical factors. Buyers stepped in late, though, leaving the major indices well off session lows.

The S&P 500 (-1.7%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.8%) lost a little more than 1.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite (-2.2%) and Russell 2000 (-2.4%) still declined more than 2.0%. Each index closed below its 50-day moving average, with the Russell 2000 also closing below its 200-day moving average (2203).

The weakness started in Hong Kong on reports that Evergrande -- one of China's largest property developers -- is on the brink of defaulting on its $300 billion in debt. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropped 3.3% on Monday while markets in China, Japan, and South Korea were closed for holidays.

Selling interest spread to Europe, as well as the U.S. futures market, amid contagion fears and general uncertainty. Further pressuring risk sentiment were media reports that discussed the loose ends in Washington that still need to be tied: funding the government, raising/suspending the debt ceiling, and settling differences on infrastructure.

There was a dearth of buying interest for most of the session, which left all 11 S&P 500 sectors in the red on a closing basis with losses ranging from 0.2% (utilities) to 3.0% (energy). At one point, declining issues had a 9:1 advantage over advancing issues at the NYSE. That margin, however, decreased to 5:1 by the close on no specific news.

Interestingly, selling pressure abated soon after the S&P 500 was down 5% from its all-time high, which was the first 5% drawdown in the benchmark index in almost 11 months.

Notwithstanding the encouraging finish, investors sought safety in longer-dated Treasuries and hedged against further equity weakness: the 10-yr yield fell six basis points to 1.31% while the CBOE Volatility Index (25.71, +4.90, +23.6%) closed above 25.00.

Separately, Pfizer (PFE 44.25, +0.36, +0.8%) announced its COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for children 5-11 years old, as suggested from a Phase 2/3 trial. On a related note, an FDA advisory panel recommended the FDA grant Emergency Use Authorization for a booster dose in individuals aged 65 or older and individuals at high risk of severe disease.

The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.22%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 93.23. WTI crude futures declined 2.2%, or $1.57, to $70.35/bbl.

Monday's economic data was limited to the NAHB Housing Market Index increased to 76.0 in September (Briefing.com consensus 74.0) from 75.0 in August. Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for August and the Current Account Balance for the second quarter on Tuesday.

S&P 500 +16.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +14.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.5% YTD

Crude futures settle lower by 2% amid de-risking efforts
20-Sep-21 15:30 ET
Dow -845.94 at 33738.94, Nasdaq -457.57 at 14586.39, S&P -109.77 at 4323.22

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 2.6% to trade near session lows. The Russell 2000 is down 3.5%.

One last look at the sector performances shows utilities (-1.0%) joining the other sectors in the red after spending a bulk of the day in positive territory. The energy sector is the weakest link with a 4% decline.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 2.2%, or $1.57, to $70.35/bbl.

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Market Snapshot



https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update



Dow 33919.84 -50.63 (-0.15%)
Nasdaq 14746.39 +32.49 (0.22%)
SP 500 4354.19 -3.54 (-0.08%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.317

NYSE Adv 1739 Dec 1451 Vol 907.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2349 Dec 1873 Vol 4.0 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Real Estate, Information Technology

Weak: Industrials, Utilities


Moving the Market
-- Rebound bid sees volatility

-- Growth stocks outperform

-- Lingering skepticism due to ongoing uncertainty surrounding Evergrande, infrastructure, and debt ceiling





Stock market closes little changed ahead of Fed day
21-Sep-21 16:20 ET

Dow -50.63 at 33919.84, Nasdaq +32.49 at 14746.39, S&P -3.54 at 4354.19
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 decreased 0.1% on Tuesday in an uneven session, which saw the benchmark index up as much as 0.9% in early action and down as much as 0.2% shortly afterwards. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) also closed slightly lower, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) and Russell 2000 (+0.2%) closed slightly higher.

Sector performances were equally underwhelming with no sector gaining or losing more than 1.0%. The energy sector outperformed with a 0.4% gain, while the industrials sector underperformed with a 0.7% decline. The communication services sector (-0.3%) was pressured by Walt Disney (DIS 171.17, -7.44, -4.2%), which provided cautious-sounding business commentary.

Overall buying interest might have been restrained due to a wait-and-see mindset for the FOMC policy announcement tomorrow. There was, however, a preference for growth stocks, as investors presumably wanted to buy the dip in areas less reliant on the economy due to the uncertainty surrounding China's Evergrande, infrastructure, and the debt ceiling.

The Russell 1000 Growth Index increased 0.2%, while the Russell 1000 Value Index decreased 0.3%.

In other corporate news, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 164.53, +0.72, +0.4%) said its booster shot at two months provided 94% protection against COVID-19 in the U.S. Uber (UBER 44.36, +4.57, +11.5%) jumped 11.5% after upwardly revising Q3 guidance, and AutoZone (AZO 1643.07, +57.91, +3.7%) beat top and bottom-line estimates.

In M&A activity, ConocoPhillips (COP 59.33, +2.26, +4.0%) agreed to acquire Royal Dutch Shell's Permian Business for $9.5 billion in cash. U.S. Bancorp (USB 57.10, +1.42, +2.6%) agreed to acquire MUFG Union Bank for $8 billion in cash and stock. DraftKings (DKNG 52.77, -4.23, -7.4%) proposed to acquire Entain (GMVHY) for $20 billion in cash and stock.

Separately, housing starts and building permits data for August beat expectations, but that was largely due to multi-family units instead of single-family units. The Treasury market barely reacted to the report and traded in a tight range in front of the Fed tomorrow.

The 10-yr yield increased two basis point to 1.32% while the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 93.22. WTI crude futures increased 0.2%, or $0.16, to $70.51/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Total housing starts increased 3.9% month-over-month in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.615 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.560 million) while permits rose 6.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.728 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.600 million).
The key takeaway from the report -- and why it isn't as pleasing as the headlines suggest-- is that the upside surprise was driven almost entirely by multi-family units. To wit, single-family starts declined 2.8% month-over-month while permits for single units were up just 0.6%.
The current account deficit for the second quarter totaled $190.3 billion. The first quarter deficit was downwardly revised to $189.4 billion from $195.7 billion.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the FOMC Rate Decision, Existing Home Sales for August, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +15.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +14.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +10.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.7% YTD



Crude futures settle slightly higher
21-Sep-21 15:30 ET

Dow +84.89 at 34055.36, Nasdaq +94.25 at 14808.15, S&P +14.75 at 4372.48
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade slightly higher by 0.3% while the Russell 2000 trades higher by 0.5%.

One last look at the sector standings shows energy (+1.0%), real estate (+0.7%), and health care (+0.5%) outperforming the benchmark index, while the industrials sector (-0.4%) remains the only sector trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.2%, or $0.16, to $70.51/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34869.37 +71.37 (0.21%)
Nasdaq 14969.97 -77.73 (-0.52%)
SP 500 4443.11 -12.37 (-0.28%)
10-yr Note -25/32 1.484
NYSE Adv 1911 Dec 1348 Vol 898.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2654 Dec 1669 Vol 4.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Materials, Industrials
Weak: Information Technology, Health Care, Real Estate, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Energy market gains steam amid reports of energy crunch in China and fuel shortages in the UK

-- Valuation-oriented weakness in the mega-caps

-- 10-yr yield hits 1.51%

Stocks close mixed, growth stocks lag while cyclicals rise
27-Sep-21 16:20 ET
Dow +71.37 at 34869.37, Nasdaq -77.73 at 14969.97, S&P -12.37 at 4443.11

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 decreased 0.3% on Monday in a session that featured positive momentum in long-term interest rates and energy prices, as well as influential weakness in the growth stocks.

The Nasdaq Composite, having more exposure to growth stocks, declined 0.5%, although it was down as much as 1.2% in early action. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2% while the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 1.5% gain.

Prior to the open, the 10-yr yield hit 1.51% after it flirted with 1.30% last week. This speedy ascent was blamed for the early weakness in the growth stocks, and in effect the Nasdaq, due to their high valuations. The 10-yr yield quickly leveled off, though, and settled at 1.48%, or two basis points above Friday's settlement.

Growth stocks came off their lows as yields leveled off, and some buyers stepped into the market as the S&P 500 found support at its 50-day moving average (4442), which it managed to close above. The S&P 500 information technology sector still declined 1.0%, though.

The health care (-1.4%), real estate (-1.7%), and utilities (-1.2%) sectors underperformed with losses over 1.0%. On the upside, the cyclical energy (+3.4%), financials (+1.3%), materials (+0.8%), consumer discretionary (+0.4%), and industrials (+0.1%) sectors were the only sectors that closed higher.

Bank stocks benefited from the higher interest-rate environment while energy stocks rallied with the upwards momentum in WTI crude futures ($75.39/bbl, +1.39, +1.9%) and natural gas futures ($5.71/MMBtu, +0.51, +9.8%). The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 53.65, +1.81, +3.5%) rose 3.5%.

Energy prices were supported by reports of fuel shortages in the UK and an energy crunch in China amid supply constraints and rising demand. On a related note, some technology suppliers in China were forced to halt production this week in order to comply with a policy from Beijing aimed at preserving energy.

Separately, Boston Fed President Rosengren announced he will retire this Thursday, up from June 2022, due to health issues. CNBC reported right after the close that Dallas Fed President Kaplan announced he will now retire Oct. 8, citing the distractions his trading disclosures have created for the Fed. Mr. Rosengren was supposed to be an FOMC voter in 2022 while Mr. Kaplan had a vote in 2023.

The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.28%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 93.40.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

The August Durable Goods Orders report was mixed. Total durable goods orders up 1.8% (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) following an upwardly revised 0.5% increase (from -0.1%) in July. Excluding transportation, orders were up 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) after an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from 0.7%) in July. On a year-over-year basis, durable goods orders were up 24.7%, while orders, excluding transportation, were up 17.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is that business spending remained on a positive track, evidenced by the 0.5% increase in nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for September; Advanced Intl Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories for August; the FHFA Housing Price Index for July; and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for July on Tuesday.

S&P 500 +18.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +16.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.9% YTD

Crude futures settle above $75 per barrel
27-Sep-21 15:30 ET
Dow +102.76 at 34900.76, Nasdaq -57.42 at 14990.28, S&P -6.15 at 4449.33

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.1% after being down 0.4% intraday.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+3.6%) racing ahead with a 3.6% gain, followed by the financials sector with a 1.4% gain. On the downside, the health care (-1.3%) and real estate (-1.2%) sectors are down more than 1.0%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.9%, or $1.39, to $75.39/bbl amid reports of fuel shortages in the UK and an energy crunch in China.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34299.99 -569.38 (-1.63%)
Nasdaq 14546.68 -423.29 (-2.83%)
SP 500 4352.63 -90.48 (-2.04%)
10-yr Note -6/32 1.546
NYSE Adv 627 Dec 2572 Vol 985.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 832 Dec 2982 Vol 4.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy
Weak: Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 loses 2% amid continued upwards momentum in long-term interest rates

-- 10-yr yield settles at 1.53% after touching 1.56%, while energy prices significantly pared early gains

-- Consumer confidence decreases further in September

S&P 500 falls 2% as rising Treasury yields unnerve investors
28-Sep-21 16:20 ET
Dow -569.38 at 34299.99, Nasdaq -423.29 at 14546.68, S&P -90.48 at 4352.63

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 2.0% on Tuesday, closing at session lows, as another increase in long-term interest rates disproportionately affected the growth stocks and undercut general risk sentiment. The Nasdaq Composite declined 2.8%, the Russell 2000 declined 2.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.6%.

The 10-yr yield settled higher by five basis points to 1.53% after touching 1.56% in the morning, as selling interest remained influenced by expectations for sustained inflation and an eventual Fed tapering. The 2-yr yield also closed higher, finishing up two basis points to 0.30%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.3% to 93.70.

The S&P 500 information technology (-3.0%) and communication services (-2.8%) sectors, where several of the mega-cap growth stocks reside, led the retreat with 3% declines. The energy sector (+0.5%) was the only sector that closed higher, even as oil prices coughed up early gains.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.1%, or $0.10, to $75.29/bbl after being up 1.7% intraday. Natural gas futures settled higher by 1.4% to $5.82/MMBtu after being up 10% intraday. The early momentum in energy prices fed into the inflation expectations that drove rates higher.

Unlike yesterday, the weakness wasn't constrained to the highly-valued growth stocks (the Russell 1000 Value Index fell 1.3%), which seemed to engender some concerns about further downside. Reflecting the latter concerns, the CBOE Volatility Index (23.25, +4.49, +23.9%) spiked above the 23.00 level amid increased hedging interest.

The extent and scope of the selling might have been exacerbated by other negative-sounding developments:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 109.3 in September (Briefing.com consensus 114.4) from 115.2 in August, the S&P 500 broke below its 50-day moving average (4444), and Senator Warren (D-MA) told Fed Chair Powell she won't support his renomination because she believes the Fed chair made the banking system less safe.

Both Fed Chair Powell and Treasury Secretary Yellen testified before the Senate Banking Committee today. Mr. Powell reiterated his view that inflation pressures should remain elevated before moderating closer to the Fed's 2% longer-run goal. Ms. Yellen said the Treasury's resources will likely be exhausted by Oct. 18 if the debt ceiling isn't addressed.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 109.3 in September (Briefing.com consensus 114.4) from an upwardly revised 115.2 (from 113.8) in August. Concerns about the Delta variant were cited as a factor that continued to dampen consumer optimism.
The key takeaway from the report is the expectation that consumer spending is apt to be curtailed given that consumer confidence has fallen in back-to-back months.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for August showed a deficit of $87.6 billion, versus a revised $86.8 billion (from $86.4 billion) in July. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for August increased 0.1%, while the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for August increased 1.2%.
The July FHFA Housing Price Index increased 1.4% m/m following a revised 1.7% increase (from 1.6%) in June.
The July S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index was up 19.9% yr/yr following a 19.1% increase in June.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Pending Home Sales for August and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +15.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.1% YTD

WTI crude futures cough up early gain and settle lower
28-Sep-21 15:30 ET
Dow -466.30 at 34403.07, Nasdaq -359.06 at 14610.91, S&P -74.90 at 4368.21

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.7% while the Russell 2000 is down 1.5%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (-2.5%) and communication services (-2.4%) down more than 2.0%, while the energy sector (+0.6%) remains the only sector holding onto a gain.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.1%, or $0.10, to $75.29/bbl after being up 1.7% intraday.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34314.67 +311.75 (0.92%)
Nasdaq 14433.84 +178.35 (1.25%)
SP 500 4345.72 +45.26 (1.05%)
10-yr Note -5/32 1.534
NYSE Adv 1852 Dec 1366 Vol 871.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2517 Dec 1835 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Information Technology, Communication Services
Weak: Real Estate, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Rebound session driven by the mega-caps

-- September ISM Non-Manufacturing Index was better than expected

-- Energy prices and Treasury yields increased, signaling growth/inflation expectations

Mega-caps propel a Turnaround Tuesday
05-Oct-21 16:20 ET
Dow +311.75 at 34314.67, Nasdaq +178.35 at 14433.84, S&P +45.26 at 4345.72

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.1% on this Turnaround Tuesday session, as the mega-cap stocks mechanically bounced back from recent losses. The benchmark index finished right in between the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%) in percentage terms, while the Russell 2000 increased just 0.5%.

There wasn't a specific catalyst today, but with the Nasdaq Composite entering the session down 7.5% from its all-time high on Sept. 7, there was a belief that the mega-caps/growth stocks had gotten oversold on a short-term basis. Encouragingly, investors followed through on early buying efforts, although there was some slippage into the close.

The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 235.22, +3.04) rose 1.3%, but it was still relatively broad-based effort. Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, led by financials (+1.8%) with nearly a 2.0% gain, and the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 151.96, +1.08) rose 0.7%.

The real estate (-0.9%) and utilities (-0.2%) sectors were the only sectors that closed lower, largely due to the bump in long-term interest rates. The latter signaled growth/inflation expectations amid positive momentum in energy prices and a better-than-expected ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for September.

The 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 1.53% while the 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.29%. WTI crude futures settled close to $79 per barrel ($78.97, +1.28, +1.7%). Natural gas futures rose 8.6% to $6.26/MMBtu. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 93.98.

Specifying the ISM report, the Non-Manufacturing Index for September increased to 61.9% (Briefing.com consensus 60.0%) from 61.7% in August. This was the sixteenth straight month of growth for the services sector despite the challenging macro environment.

In other relevant news, Facebook (FB 332.96, +6.73, +2.1%) shares were minimally impacted by the whistleblower's congressional testimony. PepsiCo (PEP 151.09, +0.89, +0.6%) reported better-than-expected earnings results and raised its FY21 organic revenue growth guidance.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for September increased to 61.9% (Briefing.com consensus 60.0%) from 61.7% in August. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The September reading marks the sixteenth straight month of growth for the services sector.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that services sector activity is still running strong in spite of a broad-based industry acknowledgment that services activity is being constrained by labor shortages, logistics problems, and difficulty in obtaining supplies.
The August Trade Balance report was worse than expected. It showed a widening in the trade deficit to $73.3 billion (Briefing.com consensus $71.0 billion) from a downwardly revised $70.3 billion (from $70.1 billion) in July. The widening in the deficit was the result of imports being $3.0 billion more than exports in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that it captured the growth constraints of the semiconductor supply shortage and some of the dampening effects of the Delta variant as exports and imports of automotive vehicles and parts both decreased along with exports to China.
The final IHS Markit Services PMI increased to 54.9 in September from 54.4 in the final reading for August.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ADP Employment Change Report for September and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +15.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.0% YTD

Crude futures settle close to $79 per barrel
05-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow +432.92 at 34435.84, Nasdaq +215.39 at 14470.88, S&P +59.38 at 4359.84

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.4% and has recouped all of yesterday's decline.

One last look at the sector performances shows financials (+2.1%), communication services (+2.0%), and information technology (+1.8%) still in the lead with about 2% gains, while the real estate (-0.5%) and utilities (-0.2%) sectors remain the only sectors trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.7%, or $1.28, to $78.97/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34416.99 +102.32 (0.30%)
Nasdaq 14501.92 +68.08 (0.47%)
SP 500 4363.55 +17.83 (0.41%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.515
NYSE Adv 1468 Dec 1681 Vol 882.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1622 Dec 2600 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Consumer Staples, Real Estate
Weak: Energy, Materials, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Large-cap indices turn positive after Senate Minority Leader McConnell offers Democrats a debt-ceiling concession

-- Treasury yields and energy prices declined

-- ADP Employment Change report for September was better than expected

Large-cap indices recoup early losses and close higher
06-Oct-21 16:15 ET
Dow +102.32 at 34416.99, Nasdaq +68.08 at 14501.92, S&P +17.83 at 4363.55

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.4% on Wednesday, overcoming an early 1.3% decline, as the market turned positive following news of a potential concession on the debt ceiling. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) also recouped early losses to close higher, while the Russell 2000 fell 0.6%.

The weak start was driven by an inclination to sell into strength (in this case, Tuesday's gains) amid ongoing issues surrounding supply chain disruptions, raw material shortages/inflation, infrastructure, and the debt ceiling.

There was some relief on the latter after Senate Minority Leader McConnell offered Democrats the option to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt ceiling extension at a fixed dollar amount into December 2021. In other words, lawmakers could potentially kick the can down the road.

Soon after, it was reported that President Biden and Chinese President Xi will hold an online virtual summit by the end of the year. The positive-sounding headlines were viewed as a good excuse to buy the dip, although the extent of the gains was relatively muted since stocks had already come off session lows before the news.

Nevertheless, eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher after each traded lower in the morning. The defensive-oriented utilities (+1.5%), consumer staples (+1.0%), and real estate (+1.0%) sectors led the rebound effort with decent gains. The energy (-1.1%), materials (-0.3%), and health care (-0.2%) sectors closed lower.

Growth stocks generally outperformed value stocks, as the 10-yr yield settled lower by one basis point to 1.52% after peaking at 1.57% overnight. The retracement in yields came despite a better-than-expected ADP Employment Change report, which estimated private sector payrolls increased by 568,000 in September (Briefing.com consensus 405,000).

Energy prices also did some backpedaling, which might have indirectly influenced the downside move in rates. WTI crude futures fell 1.9%, or $1.47, to $77.50/bbl. Natural gas futures fell 8.5% to $5.73/MMBtu. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 94.21.

Crude futures were pressured by an unexpected build in weekly crude inventories (2.346 mln) and a report from the Financial Times that the U.S. may release fuel from strategic reserves to counter rising oil prices.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

ADP estimated that private sector payrolls increased by 568,000 in September (Briefing.com consensus 405,000) after increasing by a downwardly revised 340,000 (from 374,000) in August.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 6.9% following a 1.1% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and Consumer Credit for August on Thursday.

S&P 500 +16.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.2% YTD

Crude futures settle lower
06-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow +33.29 at 34347.96, Nasdaq +34.71 at 14468.55, S&P +7.42 at 4353.14

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%), Dow (+0.1%), and Nasdaq (+0.3%) are each trading with modest gains.

One last look at the sector performances shows eight sectors now trading higher, led by utilities (+1.1%) with a gain over 1.0%. Conversely, the energy (-1.0%), materials (-0.6%), and health care (-0.5%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.9%, or $1.47, to $77.50/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34754.94 +337.95 (0.98%)
Nasdaq 14654.02 +152.10 (1.05%)
SP 500 4399.76 +36.21 (0.83%)
10-yr Note -3/32 1.558
NYSE Adv 2241 Dec 1000 Vol 882.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3002 Dec 1310 Vol 3.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Consumer Discretionary, Health Care
Weak: Utilities

Moving the Market

--- Senate leaders reach agreement to extend debt ceiling by $480 billion and give the Treasury enough funds through Dec. 3.

-- Better-than-expected weekly jobless claims data

-- Oil prices and Treasury yields rose

Stocks close higher following debt-ceiling agreement
07-Oct-21 16:15 ET
Dow +337.95 at 34754.94, Nasdaq +152.10 at 14654.02, S&P +36.21 at 4399.76

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 0.8% on Thursday following an agreement among Senate leaders that would raise the debt ceiling by $480 billion and give the Treasury enough funds through Dec. 3. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.0%), Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%), and Russell 2000 (+1.6%) outperformed the benchmark index.

After Senate Minority Leader McConnell offered Democrats this pathway yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Schumer confirmed in the morning that a deal was reached with a vote expected to be held soon. Essentially, the market breathed a sigh of relief that the worst-case scenario is likely to be averted, at least for now.

While ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, the market did lose some steam ahead of tomorrow's release of the September Employment Situation report. The S&P 500 also saw some resistance near the underside of its 50-day moving average (4439).

The consumer discretionary (+1.5%), materials (+1.4%), and health care (+1.2%) sectors finished with gains over 1.0%, while the utilities sector (-0.5%) was excluded from the advance,

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (-0.3%) was another area of relative weakness amid concerns that rising fuel costs could eat into profits. WTI crude futures rose 1.1%, or $0.81, to $78.31/bbl following news that the Department of Energy doesn't plan to tap into oil reserves, contrary to prior reporting.

The latest weekly jobless claims figures, meanwhile, showed some improvement. Initial claims decreased by 38,000 to 326,000 (Briefing.com consensus 340,000) while continuing claims decreased by 97,000 to 2.714 million.

The report rekindled selling interest in the longer-end of the Treasury market, causing some curve-steepening activity. The 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 1.57% -- matching a recent high -- while the 2-yr yield increased just one basis point to 0.31%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 94.21.

Pfizer (PFE 42.74, +0.72, +1.7%) was another positive influence after announcing it submitted a request to the FDA for emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine in children 5-11.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending October 2 decreased by 38,000 to 326,000 (Briefing.com consensus 340,000) while continuing claims for the week ending September 25 decreased by 97,000 to 2.714 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that the drop in initial claims fits with a view that the labor market is improving along with the trend in COVID cases.
Consumer credit increased by $14.4 bln in August (Briefing.com consensus $17.0B) after increasing an upwardly revised $17.2 bln (from $17.0 bln) in July.
The key takeaway from the report is that the expansion in consumer credit in August was the seventh straight increase in total outstanding credit as financing conditions remained favorable with the persistence of low rates.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation report for September and Wholesale Inventories for August on Friday.

S&P 500 +17.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +13.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.6% YTD

Consumer credit increases less than expected in August
07-Oct-21 15:25 ET
Dow +421.78 at 34838.77, Nasdaq +196.34 at 14698.26, S&P +48.15 at 4411.70

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+1.1%) is currently up more than 1.0% along with the Dow (+1.2%) and Nasdaq (+1.3%).

Earlier, consumer credit increased by $14.4 bln in August (Briefing.com consensus $17.0 bln) after increasing an upwardly revised $17.2 bln (from $17.0 bln) in July.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.1%, or $0.81, to $78.31/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34746.25 -8.69 (-0.03%)
Nasdaq 14579.54 -74.48 (-0.51%)
SP 500 4391.34 -8.42 (-0.19%)
10-yr Note -25/32 1.614
NYSE Adv 1441 Dec 1756 Vol 713.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1768 Dec 2498 Vol 3.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials
Weak: Real Estate, Utilities, Materials, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Major indices close slightly lower as investors contemplate Fed's policy course

-- Nonfarm payrolls growth was disappointing, but private sector payrolls were closer to expectations

-- Unemployment rate dipped to 4.8% while average hourly earnings increased more than expected

-- Senate passed bill to extend debt ceiling until Dec. 3

Major indices close lower following mixed employment report
08-Oct-21 16:20 ET
Dow -8.69 at 34746.25, Nasdaq -74.48 at 14579.54, S&P -8.42 at 4391.34

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 decreased 0.2% on Friday in a tight-ranged session, as investors contemplated the Fed's policy course following the release of a mixed September employment report. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-0.8%) underperformed, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.03%) was relatively unchanged.

Headline nonfarm payrolls growth increased by just 194,000 (Briefing.com consensus of 450,000), badly missing expectations and seemingly supporting the case for the Fed to delay its taper announcement past November. Beneath the surface, however, were numbers that painted the case for tapering sooner rather than later.

Specifically, private sector payrolls increased by 317,000 (Briefing.com consensus 385,000), the unemployment rate improved to 4.8% (Briefing.com consensus 5.1%) from 5.2% in August, and perhaps more noteworthy, average hourly earnings rose 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%). The latter reflected lingering supply-driven inflation pressures.

Inflation concerns/expectations continued to drive oil prices ($79.40, +1.09, +1.4%) and long-term interest rates higher, which fueled the gains in the S&P 500 energy (+3.1%) and financials (+0.5%) sectors. Notably, WTI crude futures briefly topped $80 per barrel for the first time since 2014 while the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.60%.

The energy sector might have risen 3%, but since it only represents a small weighting in the S&P 500, it didn't have much of a positive influence today. The other nine sectors closed lower, led by the real estate (-1.2%) and utilities (-0.7%) sectors. The heavily-weighted information technology sector decreased 0.4%

Separately, the Senate passed a bill Thursday evening to raise the debt ceiling by $480 billion until Dec. 3. This was the anticipated outcome based on the reporting from the prior two days, and the bill now heads to the House where it's expected to pass on Tuesday.

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.31%, contributing to some curve-steepening activity in the Treasury market. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 94.12.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

September nonfarm payrolls increased by a disappointing (and weak) 194,000, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.8%, average hourly earnings jumped 0.6%, and the labor force participation rate dropped to 61.6%.
September nonfarm payrolls increased by 194,000 (Briefing.com consensus 450,000).
September private sector payrolls increased by 317,000 (Briefing.com consensus 385,000).
September unemployment rate was 4.8% (Briefing.com consensus 5.1%), versus 5.2% in August.
September average hourly earnings increased 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%).
The average workweek in September was 34.8 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.7).
Narrowing down to one takeaway: the report will feed an ongoing sense of uncertainty about the state of the labor market and the state of the Fed's policy course.
Wholesale inventories increased 1.2% in August (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%) following an unrevised 0.6% increase in July.

Looking ahead, there is no economic data scheduled for Monday while the bond market will be closed for Columbus Day.

S&P 500 +16.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +13.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.1% YTD

Crude futures settle just below $80 per barrel
08-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow +65.85 at 34820.79, Nasdaq -38.03 at 14615.99, S&P +2.44 at 4402.20

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.1% and on pace to end the week with a 1.0% gain.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+3.3%) and financials (+0.7%) outperforming amid higher oil prices and higher Treasury yields. Conversely, the real estate (-0.7%), utilities (-0.3%), and materials (-0.3%) sectors underperform in negative territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.4%, or $1.09, to $79.40/bbl after briefly topping $80 per barrel earlier today.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34496.06 -250.19 (-0.72%)
Nasdaq 14486.20 -93.34 (-0.64%)
SP 500 4361.19 -30.15 (-0.69%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.613
NYSE Adv 1366 Dec 1792 Vol 702.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1646 Dec 2636 Vol 3.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Real Estate
Weak: Communication Services, Utilities, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Stocks close at session lows as market fades early gains

-- Treasury market was closed for Columbus Day

-- Oil prices continued to rise

Stocks close at session lows
11-Oct-21 16:25 ET
Dow -250.19 at 34496.06, Nasdaq -93.34 at 14486.20, S&P -30.15 at 4361.19

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.7% on Monday to close at session lows. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.7%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%), and Russell 2000 (-0.6%) fell comparably to the benchmark index after each traded higher in early action.

The session started with the S&P 500 increasing as much as 0.6% in a mechanical trade, followed by a dip into negative territory in the afternoon on no specific news. Sellers maintained control as losses accelerated into the close, leaving nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors in negative territory.

The communication services (-1.4%), utilities (-1.4%), and financials (-1.0%) sectors fell at least 1.0%, while the real estate (+0.2%) and materials (+0.03%) sectors were the only sectors that closed higher. There wasn't a noticeable preference for value stocks or growth stocks.

The flimsy price action was said to be a byproduct of the Treasury market being closed for Columbus Day, which reduced the number of market participants and removed one gauge for economic sentiment. In addition, there was no economic data to influence investing decisions.

Early on, investors focused on the inflation narrative, as WTI crude futures briefly topped $82.00 per barrel amid well-known supply constraints. The S&P 500 energy sector (-0.4%) coughed up a 1.7% intraday gain, though, as crude futures settled closer to $80.50/bbl ($80.43/bbl, +1.03, +1.3%). Natural gas futures fell 4.1% to $5.35/MMBtu.

Comcast (CMCSA 52.22, -2.48, -4.5%) was a notable laggard that weighed on the communication services sector after Raymond James downgraded the stock to Mkt Perform from Outperform. CMCSA shares fell 4.5%.

In other corporate news, Merck (MRK 79.93, -0.70, -0.9%) confirmed it submitted an emergency use authorization application to the FDA for its COVID-19 oral antiviral. Emerson Electric (EMR 94.18, -2.46, -2.6%) confirmed an agreement to merge two of its software units with Aspen Technology (AZPN 159.00, +17.45, +12.3%) in a cash-and-stock deal worth about $11 billion.

Separately, auto supplier Aptiv (APTV 160.15, -4.97, -3.0%) lowered its FY21 revenue guidance by about $1 billion amid the ongoing chip shortage. The Q3 earnings reporting season will unofficially begin on Wednesday.

Looking ahead to Tuesday, investors will receive the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for September and the JOLTS - Job Openings report for August.

S&P 500 +16.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.5% YTD

Crude futures settle above $80 per barrel
11-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow -181.99 at 34564.26, Nasdaq -29.64 at 14549.90, S&P -16.98 at 4374.36

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.4% to trade near session lows.

One last look at the sector performances shows utilities (-1.4%), communication services (-1.0%), and financials (-0.7%) underperforming the market, while materials (+0.3%), energy (+0.2%), and real estate (+0.1%) are the only sectors trading higher.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.3%, or $1.03, to $80.43/bbl after trading above $82.00/bbl in the morning.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34377.81 -0.53 (0.00%)
Nasdaq 14571.63 +105.71 (0.73%)
SP 500 4363.80 +13.15 (0.30%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.556
NYSE Adv 1973 Dec 1212 Vol 795.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2469 Dec 1825 Vol 4.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Materials, Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Real Estate
Weak: Financials, Energy

Moving the Market

-- Market weathers negative-sounding developments

-- Apple (AAPL) likely to cut iPhone 13 production targets due to the chip shortage, according to Bloomberg

-- Delta Air Lines (DAL) says rising fuel costs will pressure profitability

-- Treasury yield curve flattens, undercutting the financials sector

-- Mixed CPI data for September

Market overcomes negative-sounding developments
13-Oct-21 16:15 ET
Dow -0.53 at 34377.81, Nasdaq +105.71 at 14571.63, S&P +13.15 at 4363.80

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.3% on Wednesday, overcoming an early 0.5% decline in a busy news day. The Nasdaq Composite outperformed with a 0.7% gain amid relative strength in the growth stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (unch) closed flat while the Russell 2000 increased 0.3%.

Briefly, the stock market weathered negative-sounding news out of Apple (AAPL 140.91, -0.60, -0.4%) and Delta Air Lines (DAL 41.03, -2.51, -5.8%), persistent inflation pressures indicated in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for September, and weakness in JPMorgan Chase (JPM 161.00, -4.36, -2.6%) following its earnings report.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, led by the utilities (+1.1%), materials (+0.8%), and consumer discretionary (+0.6%) sectors. Heavy individual support came Microsoft (MSFT 296.31, +3.43, +1.2%), Amazon.com (AMZN 3284.28, +36.95, +1.1%), and Alphabet (GOOG 2758.00, +23.74, +0.9%).

The financials (-0.6%) and energy (-0.1%) sectors were the two holdouts amid some curve-flattening activity in Treasuries and lower oil prices ($80.51/bbl, -0.11, -0.1%).

The flattening activity was driven by growth concerns stirred by Apple and Delta. Briefly, Bloomberg reported that Apple is likely to slash its iPhone 13 production target by up to 10 million units because of the chip shortage, while Delta warned that rising fuel costs will pressure its ability to remain profitable in the fourth quarter.

The 10-yr yield decreased three basis points to 1.55%, while the 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.37%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 94.05. Interestingly, the 10-yr yield hit 1.60% in a knee-jerk reaction to the CPI report, then bottomed at 1.53% a few hours later.

Total CPI was up 0.4% m/m in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), which was hotter than expected. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.2% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), which was better than feared. On a year-over-year basis, they were up 5.4% and 4.0%, respectively.

Separately, the FOMC Minutes from the September meeting shed some light on how much the Fed would taper asset purchases if begun later this year. Specifically, asset purchases would be reduced on a monthly basis by $15 billion ($10 bln in Treasury securities and $5 bln in agency MBS) until the middle of 2022.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Total CPI in September was up 0.4% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following a 0.3% increase in August, and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following a 0.1% increase in August.
The key takeaway from the CPI report was the year-over-year figures, which showed persistent inflation pressures. Total CPI was up 5.4%, versus 5.3% in August, and core CPI held steady at a lofty 4.0%.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 0.2% following a 6.9% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for September and the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

S&P 500 +16.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +12.3% YTD

Crude futures settle fractionally lower
13-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow -17.57 at 34360.77, Nasdaq +80.55 at 14546.47, S&P +8.06 at 4358.71

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.2% amid gains in ten of its 11 sectors.

No sector is up more than 1.0%, but the leaders right now are the utilities (+0.8%), consumer discretionary (+0.6%), and materials (+0.6%) sectors. The financials sector (-0.8%) remains the only sector trading lower amid the curve-flattening action in Treasuries.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.1%, or $0.11, to $80.51/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34912.56 +534.75 (1.56%)
Nasdaq 14823.42 +251.79 (1.73%)
SP 500 4438.26 +74.46 (1.71%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.515
NYSE Adv 2513 Dec 753 Vol 795.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2804 Dec 1498 Vol 4.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Information Technology, Materials
Weak: Energy

Moving the Market

-- Strong session amid positive earnings news and economic data

-- Better-than-feared PPI data for September, lower-than-expected weekly claims data

-- 10-yr yield dips

-- Retest of the S&P 500's 50-day moving average (4436)

Stocks rally as market feeds off earnings, data, and lower rates
14-Oct-21 16:15 ET
Dow +534.75 at 34912.56, Nasdaq +251.79 at 14823.42, S&P +74.46 at 4438.26

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied 1.7% on Thursday, bolstered by positive earnings news, relatively encouraging economic data, and a decline in long-term interest rates. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.7%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.6%) performed comparably to the benchmark index, while Russell 2000 increased 1.4%.

The advance was steady and broad-based: all 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher between 1.0% (consumer discretionary) and 2.4% (materials), and the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 155.17, +2.62) gained 1.7%. Notably, the S&P 500 reclaimed its 50-day moving average (4436) on a closing basis.

Growth stocks particularly benefited from the 10-yr yield declining by three basis points to 1.52%, which was driven by a peak-inflation sentiment following the Producer Price Index (PPI) report for September. While the year-over-year rates for PPI remained notably high, core PPI, which excludes food and energy, increased just 0.2% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%).

Value stocks drew support from better-than-expected Q3 earnings reports and from the lowest level of weekly jobless claims since the start of the pandemic. Initial jobless claims decreased by 36,000 to 293,000 (Briefing.com consensus 332,000).

The high-profile earnings winners included UnitedHealth (UNH 420.36, +16.81, +4.2%), Bank of America (BAC 45.07, +1.93, +4.5%), Morgan Stanley (MS 101.01, +2.44, +2.5%), Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 50.77, +3.51, +7.4%), Citigroup (C 70.80, +0.54, +0.8%), and Taiwan Semi (TSM 112.56, +2.58, +2.4%).

Taiwan Semi also provided upside Q4 revenue guidance, which served as an additional boost for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+3.1%). Wells Fargo (WFC 45.31, -0.74, -1.6%) and U.S. Bancorp (USB 60.08, -1.38, -2.3%), however, struggled with losses despite beating expectations.

Separately, an FDA advisory committee unanimously recommended Moderna's (MRNA 331.88, +10.38, +3.2%) booster shot for adults 65 years and older and other high-risk adults.

The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.35%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 93.99. WTI crude futures rose 1.0%, or $0.77, to $81.28/bbl despite a sizable build in weekly crude inventories (6.09 mln barrels).

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

The Producer Price Index for September was a bit softer than expected. The index for final demand increased 0.5% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) and the index for final demand, less foods and energy, increased 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). On a year-over-year basis, the index for final demand was up 8.6%, versus 8.3% in August. That is the largest advance since the 12-month data were first calculated in November 2010.
The key takeaway from the report is in the Treasury market's initial response, which is muted and indicative once again that market participants are sniffing peak inflation. The 10-yr note yield is down two basis points to 1.53% (which is where it was just prior to the release).
The latest weekly initial claims report was the best since March 14, 2020. Initial claims for the week ending October 9 decreased by 36,000 to 293,000 (Briefing.com consensus 332,000). Continuing claims for the week ending October 2 decreased by 134,000 to 2.593 million, which was also the lowest since March 14, 2020.
The key takeaway from the report is that the claims figures are moving in the manner and direction they should be moving given the recurring refrain of labor shortages and the recurring reports showing that there are more than ten million job openings.

Looking ahead to Friday, investors will receive Retail Sales for September, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for October, Import and Export Prices for September, the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for October, and Business Inventories for August.

S&P 500 +18.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +15.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.1% YTD

Crude futures settle higher
14-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow +511.89 at 34889.70, Nasdaq +242.77 at 14814.40, S&P +71.41 at 4435.21

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.6% and continues to wrestle with its 50-day moving average (4436).

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows broad-based gains, led by the materials (+2.3%) and information technology (+2.2%) sectors with gains over 2.0%. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.9%) is the only sector up less than 1.0%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.0%, or $0.77, to $81.28/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35457.31 +198.70 (0.56%)
Nasdaq 15129.08 +107.28 (0.71%)
SP 500 4519.63 +33.17 (0.74%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.607
NYSE Adv 1834 Dec 1372 Vol 695.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2706 Dec 1711 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Energy, Utilities
Weak: Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq up for the fifth straight day

-- Diversified batch of earnings news

-- Mega-cap support

-- Oil prices and 10-yr yield flirting with yesterday's highs

-- Procter & Gamble (PG) warns about higher commodity and freight costs

Market extends winning streak
19-Oct-21 16:25 ET
Dow +198.70 at 35457.31, Nasdaq +107.28 at 15129.08, S&P +33.17 at 4519.63

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.7%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) both advanced 0.7% on Tuesday and extended their winning streaks to five sessions. Risk sentiment was supported by better-than-expected earnings reports from a diversified group of companies while the market continued to weather supply chain challenges.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 increased 0.4%.

The earnings lineup included EPS beats from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 163.87, +3.75, +2.3%), Procter & Gamble (PG 140.66, -1.68, -1.2%), Travelers (TRV 155.39, +2.51, +1.6%), Dover (DOV 167.91, +1.12, +0.7%), and Steel Dynamics (STLD 63.50, +1.08, +1.7%). P&G, however, warned about higher commodity and freight costs this fiscal year.

P&G's warning pressured shares of the company and fed into the inflation concerns that have been driving oil prices ($83.01/bbl, +0.57, +0.7%) and long-term interest rates higher. The 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 1.64%, while the 2-yr yield fell three basis points to 0.39%.

Buyers in the stock market, however, looked past inflation/supply chain headwinds and took the earnings news at face value. Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, led by utilities (+1.3%), health care (+1.3%), and energy (+1.2%) with gains over 1.0%.

The consumer discretionary sector (-0.3%) was the lone holdout amid weakness in the retail stocks, including Ulta Beauty (ULTA 363.35, -43.00, -10.6%), which provided disappointing long-term financial targets.

Aside from JNJ, other heavyweights like Apple (AAPL 148.76, +2.21, +1.5%), Facebook (FB 339.99, +4.64, +1.4%), and Walmart (WMT 144.69, +3.01, +2.1%) also provided key leadership. Walmart was added the Conviction Buy List at Goldman Sachs.

Separately, the market overlooked a disappointing housing starts and building permits report for September. The report featured a 7.7% m/m decline in building permits to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.555 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.620 million).

As highlighted earlier, the Treasury yield curve steepened amid selling interest in longer-dated maturities. Bank stocks, though, underperformed on a relative basis despite the potential benefit for net interest margins. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 55.60, +0.14, +0.3%) increased just 0.3%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.2% to 93.77.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Housing starts declined 1.6% month-over-month in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.555 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.620 million), but were up 7.4% year-over-year. Building permits were down 7.7% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.589 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.670 million) and were flat year-over-year.
The key takeaway from the report is that it reflects a slowdown in the pace of new construction, which is a byproduct of supply shortages, labor constraints, and high prices.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Fed's Beige Book for October and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +20.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +17.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +15.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.2% YTD

WTI crude futures settle at $83 per barrel
19-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow +162.89 at 35421.50, Nasdaq +102.65 at 15124.45, S&P +30.40 at 4516.86

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.7% to trade back at session highs. The benchmark index is on pace to close higher for the fifth straight day.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows health care (+1.3%), utilities (+1.3%), and energy (+1.0%) up at least 1.0%, while the consumer discretionary (-0.2%) and consumer staples (-0.01%) sectors continue to trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.7%, or $0.57, to $83.01/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35609.34 +152.03 (0.43%)
Nasdaq 15121.67 -7.41 (-0.05%)
SP 500 4536.19 +16.56 (0.37%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.638
NYSE Adv 2189 Dec 1016 Vol 738.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2568 Dec 1862 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Utilities, Real Estate
Weak: Information Technology, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Dow hits all-time high

-- Earnings reports remain mostly better than expected

-- Strength in the value stocks, while the mega-caps consolidate

S&P 500 and Dow close just below record highs
20-Oct-21 16:20 ET
Dow +152.03 at 35609.34, Nasdaq -7.41 at 15121.67, S&P +16.56 at 4536.19

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.5%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) closed just below record highs on Wednesday, with the benchmark index rising for the sixth straight day and the Dow setting an intraday record high. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) declined modestly, while the Russell 2000 rose 0.6%.

Value stocks saw increased buying interest following better-than-expected earnings reports from the likes of Verizon (VZ 53.61, +1.26, +2.4%), Abbott Labs (ABT 123.31, +3.97, +3.3%), Anthem (ANTM 424.05, +30.30, +7.7%), and United Airlines (UAL 45.95, -0.27, -0.6%). UAL shares closed lower, though.

The Russell 1000 Value Index advanced 1.0% with a counter-cyclical bias, which was evident in the leadership positions from the S&P 500 health care (+1.5%), utilities (+1.6%), and real estate (+1.6%) sectors.

Conversely, the heavily-weighted information technology (-0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.2%), and communication services (-0.2%) sectors were the only sectors that closed lower, largely due to relative weakness in the mega-cap growth stocks. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 247.26, -0.63) fell 0.3%.

The underperformance of the mega-caps was a byproduct of some consolidation activity and relatively disappointing Q4 guidance from Netflix (NFLX 625.14, -13.86, -2.2%) and Dutch semiconductor company ASML (ASML 767.70, -33.26, -4.2%). Note, the MGK ETF entered the session up 6.8% since Oct. 4.

PayPal (PYPL 258.36, -13.34, -4.9%) was another heavily-weighted laggard following reports that the company is in talks to acquire Pinterest (PINS 62.68, +7.10, +12.8%) for $70 per share. PayPal shares fell 5%. Pinterest shares rose 13%.

Separately, the Fed's Beige Book for October harped on supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and higher input costs affecting economic growth. On a related note, Brinker Intl. (EAT 44.21, -4.74, -9.7%) was one of the latest companies to blame higher input costs for its downside guidance.

The Treasury market was relatively quiet amid a scarcity of economic data. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.38%, and the 10-yr yield was unchanged at 1.64%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 93.60. WTI crude futures rose 1.5%, or $1.24, to $84.25/bbl amid an unexpected draw in weekly crude inventories (431,000).

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 6.3% following a 0.2% increase in the prior week.
Weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 431,000 barrels after increasing by 6.09 mln barrels during the previous week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, Existing Home Sales for September, the Philadelphia Fed Index for October, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for September on Thursday.

S&P 500 +20.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +17.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +16.0% YTD

Crude futures rise amid weekly inventory draw
20-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow +141.70 at 35599.01, Nasdaq -10.50 at 15118.58, S&P +15.20 at 4534.83

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 0.4% amid strength in the value/counter-cyclical stocks.

One last look at the sectors shows health care (+1.5%), utilities (+1.5%), and real estate (+1.2%) leading today's advance with gains over 1.0%. Conversely, the information technology (-0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.2%), and communication services (-0.2%) sectors trade lower amid relative weakness in the mega-caps.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.5%, or $1.24, to $84.25/bbl amid an unexpected draw in weekly crude inventories (431,000).

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35741.15 +64.13 (0.18%)
Nasdaq 15226.70 +136.51 (0.90%)
SP 500 4566.48 +21.58 (0.47%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.632
NYSE Adv 2083 Dec 1222 Vol 805.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2917 Dec 1683 Vol 5.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Materials, Energy
Weak: Financials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Dow hit all-time highs

-- Infrastructure optimism

-- Tesla (TSLA) soars 14% to over $1.0 trillion market capitalization

-- Calmer Treasury market

Market grinds out new record highs
25-Oct-21 16:20 ET
Dow +64.13 at 35741.15, Nasdaq +136.51 at 15226.70, S&P +21.58 at 4566.48

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.5%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) set intraday and closing record highs on Monday, as the market continued to benefit from positive momentum in front of a big week for earnings. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) and Russell 2000 (+0.9%) outperformed with roughly 1% gains.

Risk sentiment today was aided by news that Democrats could reach an agreement on their social spending package this week (setting up a vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill), Tesla (TSLA 1024.86, +115.18, +12.7%) reaching a $1 trillion market capitalization on bullish news, and a calmer Treasury market.

After a shaky start, the S&P 500 ground higher throughout the day, leaving nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors in positive territory on a closing basis. The consumer discretionary (+2.1%) and energy (+1.5%) led the advance with solid gains, while the financials (-0.1%) and utilities (-0.4%) sectors closed slightly lower.

Back to Tesla, the stock rose 13% amid the following developments: 1) Hertz Global (HTZZ 27.17, +2.48, +10.0%) announced an agreement to purchase 100,000 Tesla vehicles, 2) reports indicated that the Long Range versions of its Model X and S cars have increased by $5,000, and 3) Morgan Stanley raised its price target on the stock to $1200 from $900.

In other inflation news, Kimberly-Clark (KMB 130.05, -2.99, -2.3%) said it would continue to pass higher costs to customers, and Walt Disney (DIS 172.14, +2.59, +1.5%) is reportedly raising ticket prices for Disneyland. Kimberly-Clark lowered its full-year guidance, which weighed on its stock price.

WTI crude futures, meanwhile, tagged $85.00 per barrel early in the day before turning around and settling lower by 0.1%, or $0.04, to $83.73/bbl. Natural gas futures jumped 12.0% to $5.88/MMBtu.

In the Treasury market, shorter-dated Treasury yields paced the decline. The 2-yr yield decreased four basis points to 0.43%, and the 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 1.64%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 93.83.

Separately, PayPal (PYPL 246.88, +6.48, +2.7%) said it's not pursuing an acquisition of Pinterest (PINS 50.68, -7.38, -12.7%) right now. Facebook (FB 328.69, +4.08, +1.3%) increased 1% in front of its earnings report after the close.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead to Tuesday, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for October, New Home Sales for September, the FHFA Housing Price Index for August, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for August.

S&P 500 +21.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +18.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +17.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.8% YTD

Crude futures tag $85 then turn around
25-Oct-21 15:25 ET
Dow +44.24 at 35721.26, Nasdaq +142.14 at 15232.33, S&P +20.30 at 4565.20

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.4% to trade slightly off prior highs but is still on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the sector perspectives shows consumer discretionary (+2.0%), energy (+1.4%), and materials (+1.1%) outperforming with gains over 1.0%. The utilities (-0.4%), financials (-0.2%), and consumer staples (-0.1%) sectors underperform with modest declines.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.1%, or $0.04, to $83.73/bbl after trading above $85.00 per barrel earlier in the day.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35490.69 -266.19 (-0.74%)
Nasdaq 15235.83 +0.12 (0.00%)
SP 500 4551.68 -23.11 (-0.51%)
10-yr Note +25/32 1.569
NYSE Adv 925 Dec 2326 Vol 870.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1325 Dec 3157 Vol 6.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Financials, Energy, Industrials, Materials

Moving the Market

-- Market closes lower amid growth concerns, profit-taking activity, and flush of selling interest into the close

-- Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOG) provided offsetting support following their earnings reports

-- Treasury yield curve flattened considerably

Stocks slump into the close
27-Oct-21 16:15 ET
Dow -266.19 at 35490.69, Nasdaq +0.12 at 15235.83, S&P -23.11 at 4551.68

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 0.5% on Wednesday, pressured by growth concerns, profit-taking activity, and a flush of selling interest into the close. Microsoft (MSFT 323.17, +13.06, +4.2%) and Alphabet (GOOG 2928.55, +135.11, +4.8%) mitigated the decline with strong gains following their earnings reports.

The Nasdaq Composite (unch) was relatively unchanged, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.7%) and Russell 2000 (-1.9%) closed lower.

For a more accurate representation of the market, the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 156.45, -2.11) fell 1.3%, nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower with energy (-2.9%) being the weakest link, and declining issues outpaced advancing issues by more than a 2:1 margin at the NYSE and Nasdaq.

The communication services (+1.0%) and consumer discretionary (+0.2%) sectors closed higher, largely due to Alphabet, Amazon.com (AMZN 3392.49, +16.42, +0.5%), and Tesla (TSLA 1037.86, +19.43, +1.9%).

While the S&P 500 traded flat for most of the day, growth concerns were burgeoning in the Treasury market in the form of startling curve-flattening activity. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.48% while the 10-yr yield dropped nine basis points to 1.53%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 93.89.

The increase in the 2-yr yield suggested that investors continued to increase bets that the Fed would hike rates sooner than expected due to inflation. In turn, fears that the economy could be adversely affected by a policy mistake likely contributed to the price action in longer-dated yields, further exacerbated by short-covering activity.

This narrative wasn't kind to the cyclical stocks, especially bank stocks with the compression in yields. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 54.79, -1.85) fell 3.3%, versus the 1.7% decline in the S&P 500 financials sector. Oil prices ($82.68, -1.97, -2.3%) were further pressured by bearish inventory data.

Aside from the two mega-caps, Dow components Visa (V 215.78, -16.04, -6.9%), Coca-Cola (KO 55.52, +1.05, +1.9%), McDonald's (MCD 242.73, +6.31, +2.7%), and Boeing (BA 206.61, -3.20, -1.5%) also reported earnings. V and BA closed lower, while KO and MCD closed higher.

Separately, lawmakers continued to disagree on the contents of a spending package while an FDA Advisory panel recommended the Pfizer (PFE 42.97, -0.59, -1.4%)-BioNTech (BNTX 278.77, -13.62, -4.7%) COVID-19 vaccine for children 5-11 years old.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Total durable goods orders declined 0.4% month-over-month in September (Briefing.com consensus -0.8%) and orders, excluding transportation, rose 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%). On a year-over-year basis, total durable goods orders were up 23.4%. Excluding transportation, they were up 17.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is embedded in the line for nondefense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft, which is a proxy for business spending. That line showed a 0.8% increase on top of a 0.5% increase in August, underscoring that there was a pickup in business spending activity in September.
The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for August showed a deficit of $96.3 billion, versus a revised $88.2 billion (from $87.6 billion) in August. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for September decreased 0.2%, while the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for September increased 1.1%.
Weekly crude oil inventories increased by 4.27 mln barrels after decreasing by 431,000 barrels during the previous week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the advance estimate for Q3 GDP, weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, and Pending Home Sales for September on Thursday.

S&P 500 +21.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +18.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.1% YTD

Crude futures fall amid bearish inventory data, growth concerns
27-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow -171.08 at 35585.80, Nasdaq +51.04 at 15286.75, S&P -9.29 at 4565.50

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.2% to trade at session lows. On an intraday basis, the price action looks startling, but the decline is still small on an absolute basis.

One last look at the sector standings shows energy (-2.8%), financials (-1.3%), and materials (-1.3%) underperforming with losses between 1-3%, while the communication services (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+0.4%), and information technology (+0.2%) are still trading higher.

WTI crude futures fell 2.3%, or $1.97, to $82.68/bbl amid a larger-than-expected build in weekly crude inventories (4.27 million barrels).

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35730.48 +239.79 (0.68%)
Nasdaq 15448.11 +212.28 (1.39%)
SP 500 4596.42 +44.74 (0.98%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.556
NYSE Adv 2241 Dec 1030 Vol 875.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3153 Dec 1318 Vol 5.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Consumer Discretionary, Industrials
Weak: Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite close at record highs

-- Good earnings news rubbed off on Apple (AAPL) and Amazon.com (AMZN) in front of their earnings reports after the close

-- Infrastructure optimism

-- Weekly jobless claims declined to new post-pandemic low, while advance Q3 GDP missed expectations

S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at record highs
28-Oct-21 16:20 ET
Dow +239.79 at 35730.48, Nasdaq +212.28 at 15448.11, S&P +44.74 at 4596.42

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+1.0%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.4%) rallied to record closes on Thursday, bolstered by better-than-expected earnings reports, mega-cap strength, and infrastructure optimism. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.7% while the Russell 2000 rose 2.0%. The Nasdaq also set an intraday record high.

Most companies continued to exceed expectations for the third quarter, and the good news seemed to rub off on Apple (AAPL 152.57, +3.72, +2.5%) and Amazon.com (AMZN 3446.57, +54.08, +1.6%) in front of their earnings reports after the close. Unlike yesterday, the gains were distributed beyond the mega-caps.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher with gains ranging from 0.3% (communication services) to 1.5% (real estate). The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 158.04, +1.59) gained 1.0% after falling 1.3% yesterday. Advancing issues outpaced declining issues by more than a 2:1 margin at the NYSE.

Dow components Merck (MRK 86.55, +5.01, +6.1%) and Caterpillar (CAT 204.09, +7.96, +4.1%) were two earnings standouts along with Ford Motor (F 16.86, +1.35, +8.7%). MasterCard (MA 333.03, -2.69, -0.8%) and Comcast (CMCSA 51.90, -0.54, -1.0%), however, failed to excite shareholders with their EPS beats.

Separately, Facebook (FB 316.92, +4.70, +1.5%) confirmed a name change to "Meta" and a ticker change to "MVRS," starting Dec. 1.

On infrastructure, President Biden announced the framework for the $1.75 trillion budget reconciliation bill that he urged Congress to support. While Democrats remained divided on the bill, investors were hopeful that an agreement could happen soon so that the House could vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.

The market also reacted positively to mixed economic data: real GDP increased at an annual rate of 2.0% in the third quarter (Briefing.com consensus 2.4%), according to the advance estimate, while initial claims were 281,000 (Briefing.com consensus 291,000) for a new post-pandemic low.

Underscoring the slowdown in the third quarter, real final sales of domestic product, which exclude the change in private inventories, were down 0.1% after increasing 8.1% in the second quarter. The silver lining, however, was that headline print was better than feared by some accounts and the news was backwards-looking.

The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.50% after peaking at 1.56% overnight, and the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.57%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 93.37. WTI crude futures ($82.79/bbl, +0.11, +0.1%) settled little changed.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

The Advance Q3 GDP report indicated real GDP increased at an annual rate of 2.0% (Briefing.com consensus 2.4%), down noticeably from the 6.7% growth rate reported for the second quarter, as personal spending growth decelerated to just 1.6% from 12.0% in the second quarter. The GDP Price Deflator was up 5.7% (Briefing.com consensus 5.5%) after increasing 6.1% in the second quarter.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was weaker than meets the eye. Real final sales of domestic product, which exclude the change in private inventories, were down 0.1% after increasing 8.1% in the second quarter. That was the weakest showing since the second quarter of 2020.
For the week ending October 23, initial claims declined by 10,000 to 281,000 (Briefing.com consensus 291,000), marking the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending October 16 decreased by 237,000 to 2.243 million, which was also the lowest level since March 14, 2020.
The key takeaway from the report rests in the improving trend in jobless claims, which is what should be seen when taking into account the massive number of job openings and the recurring acknowledgment of labor constraints heard from companies reporting earnings.
Pending home sales decreased 2.3% m/m in September (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) following an unrevised 8.1% increase in August.

Looking ahead to Friday, investors will receive Personal Income and Spending for September, PCE Prices for September, the final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for October, the Employment Cost Index for the third quarter, and the Chicago PMI for October.

S&P 500 +22.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +19.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +16.4% YTD

Crude futures settle fractionally higher
28-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow +134.23 at 35624.92, Nasdaq +183.41 at 15419.24, S&P +33.88 at 4585.56

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.8% and on track to close at a record high. The Russell 2000 outperforms with a 1.8% gain.

Looking at the S&P 500 sectors shows green across the board. The consumer discretionary (+1.2%), financials (+0.9%), and industrials (+0.9%) sectors are up around 1%, while the utilities (+0.1%) and consumer staples (+0.1%) sectors are up just 0.1%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.1%, or $0.11, to $82.79/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35819.56 +89.08 (0.25%)
Nasdaq 15498.38 +50.27 (0.33%)
SP 500 4605.38 +8.96 (0.19%)
10-yr Note -23/32 1.597
NYSE Adv 1590 Dec 1684 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2276 Dec 2238 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Communication Services, Information Technology
Weak: Real Estate, Energy, Utilities, Materials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow close at record highs in resilient, yet defensive, session

-- Apple (AAPL) and Amazon.com (AMZN) decline about 2% following earnings reports

-- The other mega-caps provided offsetting support

-- PCE inflation increased modestly in September, in-line with expectations

Large-cap indices end week at record highs
29-Oct-21 16:20 ET
Dow +89.08 at 35819.56, Nasdaq +50.27 at 15498.38, S&P +8.96 at 4605.38

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) set intraday and closing record highs on Friday in a resilient, yet defensive, session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) also closed at a record high with a comparable 0.3% gain, while the Russell 2000 (-0.03%) closed fractionally lower.

The session was resilient in that the S&P 500 recouped an early 0.6% decline while weathering relatively disappointing earnings news from Apple (AAPL 149.81, -2.76, -1.8%) and Amazon.com (AMZN 3372.41, -74.16, -2.2%). Both companies missed revenue estimates and issued cautious outlooks due to persisting supply chain issues.

At the same time, a defensive mindset was manifested by notable strength in the mega-caps not named Apple or Amazon, the outperformance of the S&P 500 health care sector (+1.0%), renewed buying interest in Treasuries, and a 0.8% gain in the U.S. Dollar Index (94.11, +0.77).

The information technology (+0.4%) and communication services (+0.8%) sectors also closed higher, propped up by Microsoft (MSFT 331.62, +7.27, +2.2%), Alphabet (GOOG 2965.41, +42.83, +1.5%), Facebook (FB 323.54, +6.62, +2.1%), NVIDIA (NVDA 255.67, +6.26, +2.5%), and Netflix (NFLX 690.31, +16.26, +2.4%).

The mega-cap gains helped mitigate the negative influence from seven of the 11 S&P 500 sectors. The real estate sector (-1.2%) underperformed and was the only sector that lost more than 1.0%.

Starbucks (SBUX 106.07, -7.13, -6.3%) was another earnings loser with a 6% decline, while Dow component Chevron (CVX 114.49, +1.37, +1.2%) gained 1% after beating top and bottom-line estimates.

Treasuries saw increased demand despite the PCE Price Index being up 4.4% yr/yr in September, versus 4.2% in August. To be fair, the 0.3% m/m increase was in-line with expectations, as was the 0.2% m/m increase in the core-PCE Price Index. The latter was up 3.6% yr/yr for the fourth straight month, which supported the narrative that inflation rates could be peaking.

The 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.56% after flirting with 1.63% in the wake of the PCE data. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.49% after flirting with 0.56% intraday. WTI crude futures rose 0.9%, or $0.73, to $83.52/bbl.

Separately, the FDA authorized the Pfizer (PFE 43.74, +0.56, +1.3%)-BioNTech (BNTX 278.96, -5.02, -1.8%) COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in children 5-11 years of age. This was the expected outcome after an FDA Advisory panel recommended the vaccine for this age group earlier this week.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Personal income declined 1.0% month-over-month in September (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%) with the expiration of unemployment benefits and decreases in general in government social benefits. Personal spending was up 0.6% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%). The PCE Price Index increased 0.3% month-over-month, as expected, and the core-PCE Price Index increased 0.2%, also in-line with estimates. On a year-over-year basis, the PCE Price Index was up 4.4%, versus 4.2% in August, and the core-PCE Price Index was up 3.6% for the fourth straight month, exuding some stickiness in inflation pressures.
The key takeaway from the report was the stickiness in inflation pressures and the recognition that the drop in income prompted consumers to spend out of savings to meet their needs and wants. The personal savings rate as a percentage of disposable personal income fell to 7.5% from 9.2%.
The final October University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment increased to 71.7 (Briefing.com consensus 71.4) from the preliminary reading of 71.4. The final reading for September was 72.8.
The key takeaway from the report is the disclosure that consumers feel the most uncertainty about the year-ahead inflation rate than anytime in nearly 40 years.
The Q3 Employment Cost Index was up 1.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.8%) following a 0.7% increase in the second quarter. Wages and salaries, which account for about 70% of compensation costs, increased 1.5%, while benefit costs, which make up the remainder of compensation costs, increased 0.9%.
The key takeaway from the report is that wages and salaries for workers were up from the same period a year ago, yet those gains have increasingly been subsumed by inflation, evidenced by the 5.3% increase in the PCE Price Index seen in the advance Q3 GDP report.
The Chicago PMI increased to 68.4 in October (Briefing.com consensus 63.1) from 64.7 in September.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Manufacturing Index for October, Construction Spending for September, and the final IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for October on Monday.

S&P 500 +22.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +20.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +16.3% YTD

FDA approves Pfizer Covid vaccine for 5-11 year-olds
29-Oct-21 15:30 ET
Dow -1.07 at 35729.41, Nasdaq -5.32 at 15442.79, S&P -4.90 at 4591.52

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.1% and is seeing a loss of price momentum from earlier today.

A short time ago, the FDA authorized the Pfizer (PFE 43.50, +0.33, +0.8%)-BioNTech (BNTX 278.11, -5.87, -2.0%) COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in children 5 through 11 years of age. This was the expected outcome after an FDA advisory panel recommended the vaccine earlier this week.

WTI crude futures, meanwhile, settled higher by 0.9%, or $0.73, to $83.52/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35913.84 +94.28 (0.26%)
Nasdaq 15595.91 +97.53 (0.63%)
SP 500 4613.67 +8.29 (0.18%)
10-yr Note -25/32 1.595
NYSE Adv 2486 Dec 857 Vol 828.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3378 Dec 1192 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Information Technology, Utilities, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Major indices set fresh all-time highs with modest gains

-- Notable strength in the small-caps and micro-caps

-- Tesla (TSL) rises another 6% amid parabolic momentum

November begins with a trio of record closes
01-Nov-21 16:20 ET
Dow +94.28 at 35913.84, Nasdaq +97.53 at 15595.91, S&P +8.29 at 4613.67

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) rose modestly on Monday and each set intraday and closing record highs. The small-cap Russell 2000 (+2.7%) and iShares Micro-Cap ETF (IWC 151.65, +4.11, +2.8%) played catch-up with gains over 2.5%.

The muted price action in the S&P 500 was largely due to weakness in Apple (AAPL 148.96, -0.84, -0.6%), Microsoft (MSFT 329.37, -2.25, -0.7%), Amazon.com (AMZN 3318.11, -54.32, -1.6%), and Alphabet (GOOG 2875.48, -89.93, -3.0%), which account for approximately 20.5% of the S&P 500's market capitalization.

The broader market looked better, not only evident from the big gains in small-caps and micro-caps, but also the 0.8% gain in the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 159.02, +1.26, +0.8%). Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher as new money got put to work on the first day of the month.

The consumer discretionary (+1.5%) and energy (+1.6%) sectors outperformed amid an 8.5% gain in Tesla (TSLA 1208.92, +94.92, +8.5%) on no specific news and higher oil prices ($84.05/bbl, +0.52, +0.6%). The communication services, (-0.7%), information technology (-0.1%), and health care (-0.1%) sectors closed lower.

Semiconductor stocks mitigated the decline in the tech sector following On Semiconductor's (ON 54.96, +6.89, +14.3%) better-than-expected earnings report. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 1.6%.

In Washington, Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Jayapal (D-WA) said progressives will support both infrastructure bills with the addition of several other items, but Senator Manchin (D-WV) said he won't support the budget reconciliation bill without further clarity on its economic impacts.

Treasury Secretary Yellen hinted at the possibility of removing some China tariffs, and the U.S. and EU agreed to ease tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Harley-Davidson (HOG 39.80, +3.31, +9.1%) was a beneficiary of the U.S.-EU agreement.

Separately, there wasn't a noticeable reaction to the October ISM Manufacturing Index, which decelerated modestly to 60.8% (Briefing.com consensus 60.5%) from 61.1% in September. The report continued to depict robust demand along with ongoing struggles to meet that demand due to supply chain issues.

The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.51%, and the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.58%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.3% to 93.86.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

The October ISM Manufacturing Index checked in at 60.8% (Briefing.com consensus 60.5%), down from 61.1% in September. A number above 50.0% is indicative of expansion. October marked the 17th straight month of expansion for the manufacturing sector.
The key takeaway from the report is still the same. Demand is strong, but manufacturers and suppliers continue to struggle to meet increasing demand levels due to a range of factors that includes record-long raw material lead times, shortages of basic materials, transportation difficulties, worker absenteeism, and difficulty filling positions.
Total construction spending declined 0.5% month-over-month in September (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following an upwardly revised 0.1% increase (from 0.0%) in August. Total private construction declined 0.5% month-over-month while total public construction spending decreased 0.7%.
The key takeaway from the report is the continued decline seen in new single family and multifamily construction. That is most likely the consequence of ongoing supply chain pressures and higher costs for builders that are standing in the way of building more affordable homes.
The final IHS Market Manufacturing PMI for September checked in at 58.4, down from 60.7 in the preliminary reading.

There are is no economic data of note scheduled for Tuesday.

S&P 500 +22.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +21.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +19.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.3% YTD

Crude futures settle higher
01-Nov-21 15:30 ET
Dow +45.14 at 35864.70, Nasdaq +56.78 at 15555.16, S&P +1.42 at 4606.80

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.1% ad on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (+1.8%) and consumer discretionary (+0.9%) still outperforming the benchmark index amid higher oil prices and a 6.6% gain in Tesla (TSLA 1187.24, +73.69, +6.6%). The information technology (-0.3%) and communication services (-0.6%) sectors lag.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.6%, or $0.52, to $84.05/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36052.63 +138.79 (0.39%)
Nasdaq 15649.60 +53.69 (0.34%)
SP 500 4630.65 +16.98 (0.37%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.557
NYSE Adv 1523 Dec 1759 Vol 832.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2327 Dec 2250 Vol 5.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Real Estate, Information Technology
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Energy

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq, and Russell 2000 set intraday and closing record highs

-- Better-than-expected earnings reports, catalyzing a host of bullish reactions

-- Mega-cap support, positive momentum

Record closes for each of the major indices
02-Nov-21 16:20 ET
Dow +138.79 at 36052.63, Nasdaq +53.69 at 15649.60, S&P +16.98 at 4630.65

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.4%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%), and Russell 2000 (+0.2%) set intraday and closing record highs on Tuesday. The market drew support from bullish earnings reactions, positive momentum, and some mega-cap support.

Avis Budget (CAR 357.17, +185.71, +108.3%) stole the earnings show, with the stock more than doubling in a short squeeze after the company beat top and bottom-line estimates. Avis shares were up as much as 218%, exemplifying the intense spirit of this bull market, and the intraday retracement didn't deter overall risk sentiment.

To be fair, the breadth of the market was more mixed in front of the FOMC policy announcement tomorrow. While nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, declining issues outpaced advancing issues at the NYSE and were roughly even at the Nasdaq.

The materials sector (+1.1%) was the only sector that gained more than 1.0%, but Apple (AAPL 150.02, +1.06, +0.7%), Microsoft (MSFT 333.13, +3.76, +1.1%), Alphabet (GOOG 2917.26, +41.78, +1.5%), and NVIDIA (NVDA 264.01, +5.74, +2.2%) provided individual leadership.

Conversely, the energy (-1.0%) and consumer discretionary (-0.6%) sectors lower. Tesla (TSLA 1171.97, -36.62, -3.0%) held back the latter after CEO Elon Musk said there has yet to be a signed contract with Hertz Global (HTZZ 35.06, +0.91, +2.7%) and that the deal would have no economic impact on Tesla.

Back to earnings, Pfizer (PFE 45.45, +1.81, +4.2%), Estee Lauder (EL 338.62, +13.47, +4.1%), Arista Networks (ANET 491.87, +83.30, +20.4%), Zebra Technologies (ZBRA 585.55, +42.96, +7.9%), and Under Armour (UA 21.68, +2.65, +13.9%) also saw sizable gains following their earnings reports, although not to the same extent as Avis Budget.

Elsewhere, Treasuries saw increased demand ahead of the Fed decision tomorrow, driving yields lower in a curve-steepening trade. The 2-yr yield fell six basis points to 0.45%, and the 10-yr yield fell three basis points to 1.55%. The U.S. Dollar Index gained 0.2% to 94.10. WTI crude futures decreased 0.2%, or $0.19, to $83.86/bbl.

Hedging interest remained muted amid the resolve in the major indices. The CBOE Volatility Index (16.03, -0.38, -2.3%) closed near the 16.00 level.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Tuesday. Looking ahead to Wednesday, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for October, the ADP Employment Change report for October, Factory Orders for September, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, and the final IHS Markit Serfices PMI for October.

S&P 500 +23.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +21.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +19.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.8% YTD

Crude futures settle slightly lower
02-Nov-21 15:25 ET
Dow +132.15 at 36045.99, Nasdaq +31.76 at 15627.67, S&P +14.81 at 4628.48

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.3% and on track to close at another record high.

One last look at the sectors shows materials (+1.2%) as the only sector up more than 1.0%, while the energy (-1.0%), consumer discretionary (-0.6%), and utilities (-0.2%) sectors are the only groups trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.2%, or $0.19, to $83.86/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36157.58 +104.95 (0.29%)
Nasdaq 15811.58 +161.98 (1.04%)
SP 500 4660.57 +29.92 (0.65%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.557
NYSE Adv 2157 Dec 1098 Vol 908.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3009 Dec 1475 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Materials
Weak: Industrials, Information Technology, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Market notches fresh record highs

-- Fed keeps rates unchanged and announces taper plan

-- Fed Chair Powell talks down rake-hike questions

-- Service-sector activity accelerates in October

Market closes at record highs following Fed decision
03-Nov-21 16:20 ET
Dow +104.95 at 36157.58, Nasdaq +161.98 at 15811.58, S&P +29.92 at 4660.57

[BRIEFING.COM] Each of the major indices set intraday and closing record highs on Wednesday, as the market reacted positively to the Fed's taper announcement and Fed Chair Powell's press conference. The Russell 2000 was the biggest winner with a 1.8% gain, followed by the Nasdaq Composite (+1.0%), S&P 500 (+0.7%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%).

Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, led by the consumer discretionary (+1.8%) and materials (+1.1%) sectors with gains over 1.0%. The energy (-0.8%), utilities (-0.3%), and industrials (-0.2%) sectors closed lower. Small-caps were strong all day, and the larger stocks gained traction following the Fed's policy decision.

As expected, the Fed left the target range for the fed funds rate near zero and said it would reduce net asset purchases by a total of $15 billion this month ($10 billion for Treasury securities and $5 billion for agency mortgage-backed securities). The central bank went one step further and said it would taper by another $15 billion in December.

Fed Chair Powell talked down rate-hike questions with an observation that it'll still take some time to reach maximum employment (perhaps by the second half of 2022) and that inflation should be less of an issue by the second or third quarters of next year. He emphasized that policy will be adaptive to the data.

The 2-yr yield, which is sensitive to expectations surrounding the fed funds rate, settled two basis points higher at 0.46% after hitting 0.51% during the start of Mr. Powell's press conference. The 10-yr yield settled three basis points higher at 1.58%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.2% to 93.90.

Prior to the Fed, the market was drawing support from several factors: 1) the October ISM Non-Manufacturing Index, the October ADP Employment Change report, and Factory Orders for September each exceeded expectations, 2) oil prices ($80.81/bbl, -3.05, -3.6%) continued to cool off, and 3) a lot of companies continued to beat EPS estimates.

T-Mobile US (TMUS 121.94, +6.14, +5.3%), CVS Health (CVS 96.34, +5.19, +5.7%), and Lyft (LYFT 49.03, +3.71, +8.2%) were some of the notable earnings winners. Activision Blizzard (ATVI 66.75, -10.92, -14.1%) and Zillow Group (ZG 65.86, -19.62, -23.0%), however, were two eyesores following their earnings reports.

Investors appeared on board with riding the market higher, with hedging interest continuing to decline. The CBOE Volatility Index (15.10, -0.93, -5.8%) closed near 15.00.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for October increased to a record high 66.7% (Briefing.com consensus 60.0%) from 61.9% in September. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The October reading marks the 17th straight month of growth for the services sector.
The key takeaway from the report is the acknowledgment that demand shows no signs of slowing and services sector activity is running at a record pace even with the constraints of labor shortages, logistics problems, and difficulty in obtaining materials.
Factory orders for manufactured goods increased 0.2% m/m in September (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%) following a downwardly revised 1.0% increase (from 1.2%) in August. Shipments of manufactured goods were up 0.6% after increasing 0.1% in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that the pace of order growth remained positive for nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business spending -- demonstrating that manufacturing demand remained sturdy in spite of the pressures related to the Delta variant.
The ADP Employment Change report estimated 571,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls in October (Briefing.com consensus 370,000). The increase in September was downwardly revised to 523,000 from 568,000.
The IHS Markit Services PMI increased to 58.7 in the final reading for October from 58.2 in the preliminary reading and 54.9 in the final reading for September.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.3% following a 0.3% increase in the prior week.
Weekly crude oil inventories increased by 3.29 mln barrels after increasing by 4.27 mln barrels during the previous week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, preliminary Productivity and Unit Labor Costs for the third quarter, and the Trade Balance for September on Thursday.

S&P 500 +24.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +22.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +21.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.1% YTD

Crude futures settle sharply lower amid bearish data
03-Nov-21 15:30 ET
Dow +69.93 at 36122.56, Nasdaq +131.00 at 15780.60, S&P +23.11 at 4653.76

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.5%, and the Russell 2000 is up 2.0%.

One last look at the sector performances shows consumer discretionary (+1.6%) and materials (+1.4%) sectors leading the advance with gains over 1.0%, while the energy (-0.6%), utilities (-0.7%), and industrials (-0.4%) sectors are the only sectors trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by by 3.6%, or $3.05, to $80.81/bbl amid bearish inventory data out of the EIA, which reported the fifth weekly build in six weeks.

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Market Snapshot



https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update



Dow 36124.23 -33.35 (-0.09%)
Nasdaq 15940.30 +128.72 (0.81%)
SP 500 4680.06 +19.49 (0.42%)
10-yr Note +29/32 1.522

NYSE Adv 1438 Dec 1779 Vol 905.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2021 Dec 2486 Vol 5.2 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology and Consumer Discretionary

Weak: Financials, Health Care, Real Estate


Moving the Market
-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq extend post-FOMC gains

-- Qualcomm (QCOM) provides positive earnings report and upbeat guidance

-- Treasury yields drop as market digests yesterday's Fed commentary

-- Strength in the large growth stocks, weakness in the value stocks





Nasdaq 100 comes out on top in record session
04-Nov-21 16:15 ET

Dow -33.35 at 36124.23, Nasdaq +128.72 at 15940.30, S&P +19.49 at 4680.06
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.4% on Thursday, setting intraday and closing record highs, as strength in the large growth stocks outweighed weakness in the value stocks. The Nasdaq 100, which is heavily exposed to mega-cap growth, rallied 1.3% to outdo the record-setting advance in the Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) and Russell 2000 (-0.1%) closed slightly lower, burdened by the losses in value stocks. The Russell 1000 Value Index fell 0.4%.

Two factors that catalyzed the outperformance of the Nasdaq 100 were noticeable drops in interest rates and positive earnings results and guidance from Qualcomm (QCOM 156.11, +17.63, +12.7%). The former was rooted in tempered rate-hike/inflation expectations after the FOMC meeting yesterday. The latter helped drive NVIDIA (NVDA 298.01, +32.03, +12.0%) to a 12% gain.

Accordingly, the S&P 500 information technology sector, which is home to the semiconductor stocks, rose 1.5%. The consumer discretionary sector (+1.5%) tied for the lead amid strength in Amazon.com (AMZN 3477.00, +93.00, +2.8%) and Tesla (TSLA 1229.91, +16.05, +1.3%).

The broader market, however, didn't look so hot with the ratio of advancing to declining issues favoring the latter at the NYSE and Nasdaq. Laggards were found in the financials (-1.3%), real estate (-1.1%), and health care (-0.8%) sectors.

Investors shied away from the rate-sensitive financial stocks amid the decline in Treasury yields: the 2-yr yield fell six basis points to 0.41%, and the 10-yr yield fell six basis points to 1.52%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 94.32.

Moderna (MRNA 284.02, -61.90, -17.9%) held back the health care sector, and even the Nasdaq 100, with an 18% decline following some disappointing earnings news. Roku (ROKU 289.39, -24.27, -7.7%) was another high-profile earnings loser.

In other developments, WTI crude futures ($78.77, -2.04, -2.5%) extended their pullback below $80/bbl after OPEC+ agreed to maintain its current production schedule for December. The Joint Committee on Taxation said the Build Back Better Act will raise $1.5 trillion over 10 years in new taxes. Weekly jobless claims continued to trend in the right direction.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending October 30 decreased by 14,000 to 269,000 (Briefing.com consensus 277,000). Continuing claims for the week ending October 23 decreased by 134,000 to 2.105 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that the declining level of initial claims fits the script of a labor market that is reportedly brimming with job openings.
Third quarter productivity decreased 5.0% (Briefing.com consensus -1.5%) after increasing an upwardly revised 2.4% (from 2.1%) in the second quarter. Unit labor costs surged at an annual rate of 8.3% (Briefing.com consensus +5.8%) after increasing a downwardly revised 1.1% (from 1.3%) in the second quarter.
The key takeaway from the report is that it was the lowest level of productivity since the second quarter of 1981 and reflects the labor cost pressures that are building with the weak productivity.
The September trade deficit was worse than expected, hitting a record high $80.9 billion (Briefing.com consensus $71.0 billion) after an upwardly revised $72.8 billion deficit (from $73.3 billion) in August.
The key takeaway from the report is the connection that supply chain issues, transportation bottlenecks, and COVID prevention measures have detracted from global trading activity.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for October and Consumer Credit for September on Friday.

S&P 500 +24.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +23.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +21.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.0% YTD



Crude futures extend pullback after OPEC+ decision
04-Nov-21 15:30 ET

Dow -124.13 at 36033.45, Nasdaq +123.43 at 15935.01, S&P +11.51 at 4672.08
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.3% and on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows consumer discretionary (+1.6%), and information technology (+1.6%) sharing the lead with 1.6% gains amid strength in the mega-caps. The financials (-1.8%), health care (-1.4%), and real estate (-1.2%) sectors, though, are down over 1.0%.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by 2.5%, or $2.04, to $78.77/bbl after OPEC+ agreed to maintain its production output plan for December. OPEC+ will increase production by 400,000 barrels per day.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36327.95 +203.72 (0.56%)
Nasdaq 15971.58 +31.28 (0.20%)
SP 500 4697.53 +17.47 (0.37%)
10-yr Note +28/32 1.460
NYSE Adv 2112 Dec 1101 Vol 897.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2408 Dec 2077 Vol 5.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Industrials, Energy, Utilities, Materials, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Health Care, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Stronger-than-expected October employment report

-- Pfizer (PFE) announces positive data for its COVID-19 oral antiviral

-- Pleasing earnings news, including commentary about strong travel demand

-- Long-term interest rates extend retreat

Each of the major indices close at record highs (again)
05-Nov-21 16:15 ET
Dow +203.72 at 36327.95, Nasdaq +31.28 at 15971.58, S&P +17.47 at 4697.53

[BRIEFING.COM] Each of the major indices set intraday and closing record highs on Friday, supported by a stronger-than-expected October employment report, encouraging COVID-19 antiviral news from Pfizer (PFE 48.62, +4.77, +10.9%), pleasing earnings news, and another retreat in long-term interest rates.

The market, however, closed off session highs. The S&P 500 (+0.4%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) rose between 0.2-0.6% after being up 0.7-1.0% early in the session. The Russell 2000 outperformed with a 1.4% gain.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors contributed to the advance. The energy (+1.4%) and industrials (+1.0%) sectors finished atop the standings with gains of at least 1.0%, while the health care sector (-1.0%) fell 1%, ironically due to the success of Pfizer.

Prior to the open, Pfizer announced its COVID-19 oral antiviral reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% in interim data. The news undercut shares of Merck (MRK 81.61, -8.93, -9.9%), which has a competing treatment, and shares of other vaccine makers like Moderna (MRNA 236.99, -47.03, -16.6%). MRK fell 10%, and MRNA fell 17%.

As for the jobs data, nonfarm payrolls increased by 531,000 (Briefing.com consensus 400,000), the unemployment rate improved to 4.6% (Briefing.com consensus 4.7%) from 4.8% in September, and average hourly earnings increased 0.4% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%).

Despite the wage inflation, the 10-yr yield fell seven basis points to 1.45% in a move that signaled easing inflation concerns. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.39%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 94.20.

This retracement in long-term rates was a supportive factor for the growth stocks for valuation reasons, although the value stocks outperformed today. The Russell 1000 Growth Index increased 0.2%. The Russell 1000 Value Index increased 0.5%.

In addition to the Pfizer and jobs news, travel-related stocks in particular keyed off earnings results and/or guidance from Airbnb (ABNB 201.62, +23.17, +13.0%), Uber (UBER 47.19, +1.92, +4.2%), and Expedia (EXPE 182.17, +24.62, +15.6%). Airbnb spoke positively about travel, saying it expects strong demand to extend well into 2022.

The U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 24.63, +1.48, +6.4%) jumped 6.4%, undeterred by the 3% rebound in oil prices ($81.25, +2.48, +3.2%).

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

Nonfarm and nonfarm private payroll growth in October were much stronger than expected and there was a further boost in nice upward revisions for prior months. At the same time, though, this report brought additional wage inflation, as average hourly earnings increased 4.9% year-over-year, versus 4.6% in September.
October nonfarm payrolls increased by 531,000 (Briefing.com consensus 400,000). The 3-month average for total nonfarm payrolls decreased to 442,000 from 629,000 in September. September nonfarm payrolls revised to 312,000 from 194,000. August nonfarm payrolls revised to 483,000 from 366,000.
October private sector payrolls increased by 604,000 (Briefing.com consensus 390,000). September private sector payrolls revised to 365,000 from 317,000. August private sector payrolls revised to 504,000 from 332,000.
October unemployment rate was 4.6% (Briefing.com consensus 4.7%), versus 4.8% in September. Persons unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 31.6% of the unemployed versus 34.5% in September. The U6 unemployment rate, which accounts for unemployed and underemployed workers, was 8.3%, versus 8.5% in September.
October average hourly earnings increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) versus a 0.6% increase in September. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 4.9%, versus 4.6% for the 12 months ending in September.
The average workweek in October was 34.7 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.8), versus 34.8 hours in September. Manufacturing workweek dipped 0.1 hours to 40.3 hours. Factory overtime dipped 0.1 hours to 3.2 hours.
The key takeaway from the employment report is the broad-based pickup in hiring activity across the private sector, as that will be interpreted as being a byproduct of dissipating Delta issues and employers seeing a favorable demand backdrop.
Consumer credit increased by $29.9 bln in September (Briefing.com consensus $17.0 bln) after increasing a revised $13.8 bln (from $14.4 bln) in August.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumer credit expanded for the eighth consecutive month, reflecting continued demand for goods and services.

There is no economic data of note scheduled for Monday.

S&P 500 +25.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +23.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +23.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.7% YTD

Crude futures bounce back over $80 per barrel
05-Nov-21 15:35 ET
Dow +188.48 at 36312.71, Nasdaq +10.70 at 15951.00, S&P +14.01 at 4694.07

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.3% and on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the sectors shows industrials (+1.1%) and energy (+1.5%) in the lead with gains over 1.0%. The health care sector (-1.3%) remains at the bottom while the financials sector (-0.02%) has just slipped into negative territory amid the decline in Treasury yields.

WTI crude futures bounced back from recent losses and settled higher by 3.2%, or $2.48, to $81.25/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36432.22 +104.27 (0.29%)
Nasdaq 15982.35 +10.77 (0.07%)
SP 500 4701.70 +4.17 (0.09%)
10-yr Note -18/32 1.497
NYSE Adv 1818 Dec 1502 Vol 859.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2562 Dec 2052 Vol 5.41 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Financials, Industrials, Technology
Weak: Utilities, Real Estate, Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

House passes $550 bln in new fiscal spending, aiming to approve another $1.75 trln by Thanksgiving

Infrastructure-related names outperform

Crude oil rising toward last week's high

Quiet Start to New Week
08-Nov-21 16:10 ET
Dow +104.27 at 36432.22, Nasdaq +10.77 at 15982.35, S&P +4.17 at 4701.70

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market began the week on a quiet note with the S&P 500 (+0.1%) inching toward its intraday record from Friday. The benchmark index climbed for the eighth consecutive day while the Dow (+0.3%) outperformed slightly.

The S&P 500 hit its best level of the day during the opening minutes before slowly retreating toward the unchanged level. However, it bounced out of the red in the late morning, inching back toward its opening mark as the day went on.

Growth-sensitive sectors like energy (+0.9%) and materials (+1.2%) got out to an early lead where they remained until the close. The energy sector was boosted by crude oil, which climbed $0.71, or 0.9%, to $81.96/bbl, rising toward its high from Thursday (83.42). Meanwhile, the materials sector benefited from the weekend passage of $550 bln in new infrastructure spending. Copper miner Freeport-McMoRan (FCX 39.43, +2.39, +6.5%) was a standout performer in the materials sector, bouncing toward its October high, while fertilizer producer, CF Industries (CF 62.54, +3.34, +5.6%), and building materials provider, Vulcan Materials (VMC 205.76, +9.70, +5.0%), followed.

Gains in heavily weighted sectors like health care (+0.5%) and financials (+0.5%) kept the S&P 500 from finishing in the red while the top-weighted technology sector (+0.6%) also finished ahead of the broader market. Chipmakers were a significant source of strength with AMD (AMD 150.16, +13.82, +10.1%) rallying more than 10% to a fresh record. The company unveiled a couple new products and announced an order from a large customer.

On the downside, the utilities sector (-1.5%) finished just behind the consumer discretionary space (-1.4%). The utilities sector widened its month-to-date loss to 1.0%, which leaves the group at the bottom of the November leaderboard, while the discretionary sector narrowed its November gain to 3.5%. The sector was pressured by losses among half of its components with Tesla (TSLA 1162.00, -60.09, -4.9%) falling toward its low from the middle of last week after CEO Musk indicated that he will abide by the results of a poll that suggested he should sell 10% of his stock.

Treasuries finished the day on a mostly lower note with the 10-yr yield rising four basis points to 1.50%.

In Fed news, Governor and vice chair for supervision Quarles has resigned, planning to depart at the end of the year.

The October NFIB Small Business Optimism (prior 99.1) will be released tomorrow at 6:00 ET, followed by October PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%; prior 0.5%) and Core PPI (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%; prior 0.2%) at 8:30 ET.

S&P 500 +25.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +23.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +19.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +19.0% YTD

Maintaining Slight Gains
08-Nov-21 15:30 ET
Dow +89.63 at 36417.58, Nasdaq +27.78 at 15999.36, S&P +4.96 at 4702.49

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 trades higher by 0.1% with 30 minutes remaining in today's session.

Seven sectors trade in positive territory going into the home stretch with materials (+1.2%) maintaining their lead after the passage of $550 mln in new infrastructure spending. Meanwhile, the energy sector has narrowed its gain to 0.7% after leading through the first half of today's session.

On a related note, crude oil climbed $0.71, or 0.9%, to $81.96/bbl, rising toward its high from Thursday (83.42).
Technology Outperforms
08-Nov-21 15:00 ET
Dow +123.94 at 36451.89, Nasdaq +41.62 at 16013.20, S&P +9.23 at 4706.76

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages are hanging onto slim gains after bouncing off their late-morning lows. The S&P 500 (+0.2%) hovers near the midpoint of today's range with its record high looming about 15 points above.

The materials sector (+1.1%) has overtaken energy (+0.8%) for the lead while the top-weighted technology sector (+0.7%) has added to its gain. Chipmakers have also added to their gains with the PHLX Semiconductor Index now up 1.6% and AMD (AMD 151.57, +15.23, +11.2%) extending its gain to nearly 12.0% after announcing a new product and new product deals.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36319.98 -112.24 (-0.31%)
Nasdaq 15886.54 -95.81 (-0.60%)
SP 500 4685.25 -16.45 (-0.35%)
10-yr Note +26/32 1.442
NYSE Adv 1512 Dec 1719 Vol 834.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1854 Dec 2696 Vol 5.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Real Estate, Consumer Staples, Energy, Materials, Industrials
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Financials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq snap winning streaks

-- Tesla (TSLA) fell 12% amid profit-taking interest, PayPal (PYPL) fell 10.5% after reporting earnings

-- Treasury yields declined despite hot PPI report for October and soft 10-yr note auction

Winning streak snapped
09-Nov-21 16:20 ET
Dow -112.24 at 36319.98, Nasdaq -95.81 at 15886.54, S&P -16.45 at 4685.25

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.4% on Tuesday, snapping an eight-session winning streak amid profit-taking interest and another decline in Treasury yields. The Nasdaq Composite snapped an 11-session winning streak with a 0.6% decline. The Russell 2000 also fell 0.6% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%.

Tesla (TSLA 1023.50, -139.44, -12.0%) was the prime recipient of profit taking, as the stock fell 12% today and extended its two-day decline to 16%. Entering the week, the stock was up more than 55% in a month. Accordingly, TSLA dragged the S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector (-1.4%) to the bottom of the sector standings.

The information technology (-0.4%), financials (-0.6%), health care (-0.4%), and communication services (-0.3%) sectors closed modestly lower, while the six other sectors in the S&P 500 provided offsetting support with 0.3-0.4% gains. The utilities sector (+0.4%) eked out the top spot.

PayPal (PYPL 205.42, -24.00, -10.5%) held back the technology sector with a 10.5% decline following its earnings report. Elsewhere, peculiar curve-flattening activity in the Treasury market weighed on the financials sector.

The price action in Treasuries was counter-intuitive because yields settled lower despite the elevated inflation pressures depicted in the Producer Price Index (PPI) report for October and the lukewarm demand in the $39 billion 10-yr Treasury note auction. Total PPI increased 0.6% month-over-month, in-line with the Briefing.com consensus, and held steady at 8.6% year-over-year.

The 2-yr yield fell five basis points to 0.40%, and the 10-yr yield fell seven basis points to 1.43%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 93.97. WTI crude futures rose 2.7%, or $2.20, to $84.16/bbl.

Presumably, Treasuries were propped up by defensive positioning from investors cautious on equities, by peak inflation expectations, and by an understanding that the Fed isn't in a hurry to hike rates.

Separately, shares of Roblox (RBLX 109.52, +32.52, +42.2%) soared 42% after the company pleased investors with its earnings report. General Electric (GE 111.29, +2.87, +2.7%) rose nearly 3.0% after announcing plans to form three public companies focused on aviation, healthcare, and energy.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.6% month-over-month in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) and the index for final demand, less foods and energy, increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the year-over-year readings for total PPI and core PPI were unchanged from September, which will contribute to the notion that the inflation experienced by producers is at, or near, peak levels.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for October decreased to 98.2 from 99.1 in September.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the the Consumer Price Index for October, weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, the Treasury Budget for October, and Wholesale Inventories for September on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +24.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +23.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +22.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.7% YTD

WTI crude futures rally nearly 3%
09-Nov-21 15:30 ET
Dow -169.86 at 36262.36, Nasdaq -114.13 at 15868.22, S&P -22.05 at 4679.65

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.5% and on track to snap its eight-session winning streak.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows six sectors in the green and five sectors in the red. Consumer discretionary (-1.5%) is the weakest link with a 1.5% decline, while the utilities sector (+0.5%) outperforms with a 0.5% gain.

WTI crude futures rose 2.7%, or $2.20, to $84.16/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36079.94 -240.04 (-0.66%)
Nasdaq 15622.70 -263.84 (-1.66%)
SP 500 4646.71 -38.54 (-0.82%)
10-yr Note -18/32 1.564
NYSE Adv 1036 Dec 2252 Vol 894.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1318 Dec 3201 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples, Utilities, Health Care
Weak: Information Technology, Energy, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- CPI data for October hotter than expected

-- Treasury yields across the curve rise noticeably

-- Expectations for Fed to hike rates in June 2022 increased to nearly 70%, according to the CME Fed Watch Tool

-- Huge Rivian (RIVN) IPO

Hot CPI data cools off market
10-Nov-21 16:20 ET
Dow -240.04 at 36079.94, Nasdaq -263.84 at 15622.70, S&P -38.54 at 4646.71

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 0.8% on Wednesday, as the market cooled off amid hot CPI data for October and a corresponding pop in Treasury yields. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.7%) and Russell 2000 (-1.6%) declined more than 1.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7%.

The information technology (-1.7%), communication services (-1.3%), and energy (-3.0%) sectors were the weakest sectors in the S&P 500 with losses between 1-3%. The defensive-oriented utilities (+0.7%), health care (+0.3%), and consumer staples (+0.3%) sectors were the only sectors that closed higher.

Specifying the data, the Consumer Price Index report showed total CPI was up 0.9% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) and up 6.2% yr/yr -- the largest 12-month increase since November 1990. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.6% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and was up 4.6% yr/yr.

The Treasury market, which was already sniffing a hot report in the wake of hot inflation data out of China and Germany, weakened further intraday on the prospect for the Fed to aggressively tighten policy next year. According to the CME Fed Watch Tool, the probability for a rate hike in June 2022 increased to 67.9%, versus 50.9% yesterday.

What's more, the $25 bln 30-yr bond auction saw weak demand in the afternoon, further contributing to the selling in Treasuries. The 2-yr yield settled higher by ten basis points to 0.50%, and the 10-yr yield settled higher by 13 points to 1.56%. WTI crude futures fell 3.5%, or $2.93, to $81.23/bbl amid bearish inventory data.

Note, the 10-yr yield remained below recent highs, so it was the speedy move that curtailed risk appetite, particularly for the growth stocks and other high-beta names. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 254.95, -3.61) fell 1.4%, and the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 116.64, -3.93) fell 3.3%.

Elsewhere, the excess speculation emanating from the huge Rivian (RIVN 100.73, +22.73, +29.1%) IPO served as another excuse for investors to take profits, or at the very least step away from the market. RIVN closed below its opening price of $106.75 but still finished 29% above its IPO price.

Coinbase Global (COIN 328.60, -28.79, -8.1%) was a high-profile laggard, additionally pressured by disappointing earnings news and a fade in cryptocurrencies. DoorDash (DASH 214.24, +22.23, +11.6%) bucked the growth-stock trend with a nice gain following its earnings report.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Total CPI jumped 0.9% month-over-month in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) and was up 6.2% year-over-year. That was the largest 12-month increase since November 1990. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.6% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) and was up 4.6% year-over-year, which the BLS said was the largest 12-month increase since August 1991.
The key takeaway from the report -- aside from the roughly 30-year highs in total CPI and core CPI -- is the acknowledgment that most component indexes increased over the month, which reflects a broadening of the inflation pressures.
Total jobless claims for the week ending November 6 decreased by 4,000 to 267,000 (Briefing.com consensus 265,000), which is the lowest since March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending October 30 increased by 59,000 to 2.160 million.
The key takeaway from this report is the ongoing improvement in initial claims, which matches the corporate narrative that it has been difficult to find workers in a strong demand environment.
The Treasury Budget saw a $165.1 bln deficit in October, versus a $284.1 bln deficit in the same period a year ago. The budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the October deficit cannot be compared to the September deficit of $61.6 bln.
October, which marks the start of the new fiscal year for the government, marked the 25th consecutive month that the Treasury has seen a budget deficit. The budget deficit over the last 12 months is $2.65 trln versus a deficit of $2.77 bln in September.
Wholesale inventories increased 1.4% m/m in September (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%) following a 1.2% increase in the prior week.
Weekly crude oil inventories increased by 1.00 mln barrels after increasing by 3.29 mln barrels during the previous week.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 5.5% following a 3.3% decline in the prior week.

There is no economic data scheduled for Thursday. As a reminder, the Treasury market will be closed tomorrow for Veterans Day.

S&P 500 +23.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +21.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +21.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.9% YTD

Crude futures settle lower amid bearish data
10-Nov-21 15:30 ET
Dow -208.67 at 36111.31, Nasdaq -256.42 at 15630.12, S&P -36.25 at 4649.00

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.8% to trade off prior lows. Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors are contributing to the decline.

The energy sector (-2.8%) is the weakest performer with a 2.8% decline, followed by the information technology (-1.6%) and communication services (-1.3%) sectors with losses over 1.0%. The utilities (+0.6%), health care (+0.3%), and consumer staples (+0.2%) sectors trade higher.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35921.23 -158.71 (-0.44%)
Nasdaq 15704.28 +81.58 (0.52%)
SP 500 4649.27 +2.56 (0.06%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.554
NYSE Adv 1879 Dec 1405 Vol 762.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2718 Dec 1814 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Materials
Weak: Communication Services, Utilities, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 closes little changed in tight-ranged session

-- Walt Disney (DIS) held back the Dow with a 7% decline on relatively disappointing earnings news

-- Treasury market closed for Veterans Day

S&P 500 closes little changed in lackluster session
11-Nov-21 16:15 ET
Dow -158.71 at 35921.23, Nasdaq +81.58 at 15704.28, S&P +2.56 at 4649.27

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.1% on Thursday in a tight-ranged session. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) and Russell 2000 (+0.8%) outperformed the benchmark index with decent gains, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4%.

Walt Disney (DIS 162.09, -12.36, -7.1%) was a heavy drag on the Dow, falling 7% after missing earnings expectations amid a sharper-than-expected slowdown in Disney+ streaming subscriptions. As for the broader market, there was a meager attempt to rebound from recent losses.

That was partly due to the lack of guidance from the Treasury market (closed for Veterans Day), the absence of economic data, an intraday turnaround in Amazon.com (AMZN 3472.50, -9.55, -0.3%), hawkish Fed expectations for next year, and a sense that the market was still overextended and needed more time to cool off.

Six of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, while five closed lower. The materials (+0.9%) and information technology (+0.5%) sectors finished atop the standings with modest gains, while the communication services (-0.5%) and utilities (-0.6%) sectors underperformed. No sector gained or lost more than 1.0%.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+1.9%), however, did put forth a strong rebound-minded performance with a 2% gain.

Rivian (RIVN 122.99, +22.26, +22.1%), meanwhile, stayed hot with a 22% gain following its strong IPO yesterday. Fellow growth stocks Affirm Holdings (AFRM 151.83, +18.30, +13.7%), SoFi Technologies (SOFI 22.97, +2.55, +12.5%), and Opendoor Technologies (OPEN 22.56, +3.04, +15.6%) rallied on pleasing earnings news.

Beyond Meat (BYND 81.93, -12.55, -13.3%) and Bumble (BMBL 38.56, -9.19, -19.3%), on the other hand, fell sharply following their earnings reports.

Outside equities, the U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.4% to 95.18. -- its highest level since July 2020. WTI crude futures ($81.37/bbl, +0.20, +0.3%) inched higher after falling 3.5% yesterday.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for November and the JOLTS - Job Opening report for September on Friday.

S&P 500 +23.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +21.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +22.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.4% YTD

WTI crude futures inch higher after bad day
11-Nov-21 15:30 ET
Dow -124.07 at 35955.87, Nasdaq +88.87 at 15711.57, S&P +6.67 at 4653.38

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.2% while the Russell 2000 continues to outperform with a 0.8% gain.

One last look at the sectors shows materials (+1.0%), financials (+0.6%), energy (+0.5%), and information technology (+0.5%) outperforming the S&P 500 with decent gains, while the utilities (-0.6%) and industrials (-0.4%) sectors lag with modest losses.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.3%, or $0.20, to $81.37/bbl after falling 3.5% yesterday.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36100.31 +179.08 (0.50%)
Nasdaq 15860.96 +156.68 (1.00%)
SP 500 4682.85 +33.58 (0.72%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.572
NYSE Adv 1760 Dec 1553 Vol 767.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2467 Dec 2140 Vol 5.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services
Weak: Utilities, Energy, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Mega-caps lift S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow to decent gains

-- Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) announces it will separate its Consumer Health Business into a publicly traded company within two years

-- Weak consumer sentiment report amid inflation concerns

Mega-caps lead market higher
12-Nov-21 16:15 ET
Dow +179.08 at 36100.31, Nasdaq +156.68 at 15860.96, S&P +33.58 at 4682.85

[BRIEFING.COM] The large-cap indices posted decent gains on Friday, recouping some weekly losses, thanks to strong leadership from the mega-cap stocks. The S&P 500 gained 0.7%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.0%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5%. The small-cap Russell 2000 increased just 0.1%.

Each of the FAANG stocks plus Microsoft (MSFT 336.72, +4.29, +1.3%) rose between 1-4% on no specific catalysts other than a buy-the-dip sentiment. The broader market performed fairly well, too, as nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, and the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 161.65, +0.78) rose a respectable 0.5%.

The mega-caps carried the S&P 500 information technology (+1.2%) and communication services (+1.7%) sectors to the top of the leaderboard. Conversely, the energy (-0.3%) and utilities (-0.2%) sectors were the only groups that ended the day in negative territory.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 165.01, +1.95, +1.2%) was another heavyweight that outperformed after announcing plans to spin off its Consumer Health segment into a publicly traded company within 18-24 months. Tesla (TSLA 1033.42, -30.09, -2.8%) bucked the trend after CEO Elon Musk continued to sell shares as part of an online commitment to sell 10% of his stake.

Separately, the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for November dropped to 66.8 (Briefing.com consensus 71.7) from 71.7 in October. The November reading was the lowest level for the index since November 2012 amid burgeoning concerns about rising inflation and reduced living standards.

The response in the Treasury market to the inflation takeaway was delayed. The 10-yr declined to 1.54% soon after the report's release, then rebounded back to 1.58%, or two basis points above Wednesday's settlement. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.52% after flirting with 0.55% overnight.

The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 95.09. WTI crude futures fell 0.7%, or $0.54, to $80.83/bbl. The CBOE Volatility Index (16.29, -1.37, -7.8%) dropped below 16.50.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The preliminary November University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment dropped to 66.8 (Briefing.com consensus 71.7) from the final reading of 71.7 for October. It is the lowest reading for the index since November 2012.
The key takeaway from the report is the reporting that escalating inflation is negatively affecting consumer attitudes due to reduced living standards and a growing belief that effective policies are not being developed to reduce the damage from surging inflation.
Job openings decreased to 10.438 million in September from a revised 10.629 million (from 10.439 million) in August.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for November on Monday.

S&P 500 +24.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +23.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +22.1% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.0% YTD

WTI crude futures settle modestly lower
12-Nov-21 15:30 ET
Dow +170.80 at 36092.03, Nasdaq +152.63 at 15856.91, S&P +32.62 at 4681.89

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.7% and on track to end the week with a 0.3% decline. That would snap a five-week winning streak.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+1.2%) and communication services (+1.6%) outperforming with gains over 1.0%, while the energy (+0.5%) and utilities (-0.1%) sectors are the only sectors trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.7%, or $0.54, to $80.83/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36087.45 -12.86 (-0.04%)
Nasdaq 15853.85 -7.11 (-0.04%)
SP 500 4682.80 -0.05 (0.00%)
10-yr Note -27/32 1.620
NYSE Adv 1510 Dec 1769 Vol 764.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2079 Dec 2500 Vol 4.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Utilities, Consumer Staples, Real Estate
Weak: Materials, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Large-cap indices close flat in lackluster session

-- Consolidation activity

-- Treasury yield curve steepened

Flat finish for the large-cap indices
15-Nov-21 16:15 ET
Dow -12.86 at 36087.45, Nasdaq -7.11 at 15853.85, S&P -0.05 at 4682.80

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (unch) finished flat on Monday as the market continued to consolidate near record highs. The Nasdaq Composite (unch) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (unch) also closed little changed, while the Russell 2000 fell 0.5%.

Seven of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, led by the lightly-weighted utilities (+1.3%) and energy (+0.8%) sectors. Conversely, the health care (-0.6%), materials (-0.5%), and information technology (-0.1%) sectors underperformed in negative territory.

There wasn't any specific catalyst driving the action, although there was some curve-steepening activity in Treasuries following the release of the Empire State Manufacturing Survey, which jumped to 30.9 in November (Briefing.com consensus 20.3) from 19.8 in October.

The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.52%, while the 10-yr yield rose four basis points to 1.62%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.4% to 95.54. WTI crude futures were unchanged at $80.85/bbl.

The manufacturing survey was a warm-up for tomorrow's release of the Retail Sales report for October. Later in the week, reports indicated that President Biden could nominate a Fed chair and that the CBO plans to release a complete cost estimate for the Build Back Better Act by Friday.

On a related note, President Biden was preparing to sign the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill after the market close.

Shares of Boeing (BA 233.09, +12.13, +5.5%), meanwhile, rose 5.5% after the company received an order for two Boeing 777 freighters from Emirates. Rivian (RIVN 149.36, +19.41, +14.9%) stayed hot and extended its post-IPO gain to over 90%.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Retail Sales for October, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, the NAHB Housing Market Index for November, Import and Export Prices for October, Business Inventories for September, and Net Long-Term TIC Flows for September.

S&P 500 +24.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +23.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +21.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.9% YTD

Crude futures settle unchanged
15-Nov-21 15:25 ET
Dow -15.70 at 36084.61, Nasdaq -1.93 at 15859.03, S&P +0.62 at 4683.47

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade flat despite gains in eight of its 11 sectors.

One last look at the sector performances shows energy (+1.0%) and utilities (+1.0%) both up 1.0%, while the health care (-0.6%), materials (-0.5%), and information technology (-0.2%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled unchanged at $80.85/bbl.

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Market Snapshot



https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update



Dow 35931.05 -211.17 (-0.58%)
Nasdaq 15921.58 -52.28 (-0.33%)
SP 500 4688.67 -12.23 (-0.26%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.627

NYSE Adv 1089 Dec 2190 Vol 806.7 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1458 Dec 3145 Vol 5.0 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Real Estate, Health Care, Utilities

Weak: Financials, Energy, Industrials, Materials


Moving the Market
-- Major indices close lower in defensive session

-- Target (TGT) plans to absorb some inflation pressures to keep prices down

-- Amazon.com (AMZN) plans to stop accepting Visa (V) credit cards in the UK because of high transaction costs

-- Price action reflected consolidation activity





Down day for the major indices
17-Nov-21 16:20 ET

Dow -211.17 at 35931.05, Nasdaq -52.28 at 15921.58, S&P -12.23 at 4688.67
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.3% on Wednesday in a defensive session. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%) also fell modestly, while the Russell 2000 (-1.2%) underperformed amid weakness in its cyclical components.

Declining issues outpaced advancing issues by better than a 2:1 margin at the NYSE and Nasdaq, and seven of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in negative territory. The energy (-1.7%), financials (-1.1%), materials (-0.6%), and industrials (-0.6%) sectors underperformed.

The index losses, however, were minimized by gains in Apple (AAPL 153.49, +2.49, +1.7%), Microsoft (MSFT 339.12, +0.23, +0.1%), Amazon.com (AMZN 3549.00, +8.30, +0.2%), and Tesla (TSLA 1089.01, +34.28, +3.3%). The consumer discretionary sector (+0.6%), which is home to AMZN and TSLA, rose 0.6%.

The defensive-oriented real estate (+0.7%), health care (+0.2%), and utilities (+0.1%) sectors also closed in positive territory. Pfizer (PFE 50.87, +1.27, +2.6%) aided the health care sector amid news that its COVID-19 booster shot could be available for all adults as soon as this weekend.

Target (TGT 253.80, -12.59, -4.7%), meanwhile, stoked profit-margin concerns after saying it will absorb some inflation pressures to keep prices down -- echoing Walmart (WMT 141.94, -1.23, -0.9%) yesterday. Fellow retailers Lowe's (LOW 245.75, +0.97, +0.4%) and TJX Cos. (TJX 73.55, +4.05, +5.8%) closed higher following their earnings reports.

Lower interest rates and weaker oil prices ($78.31, -2.46, -3.1%) specifically weighed on the financial and energy stocks. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.50%, and the 10-yr yield decreased three basis points to 1.60%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 95.79.

Separately, shares of Visa (V 205.06, -10.12, -4.7%) fell 5% on news that Amazon plans to stop accepting UK-issued Visa credit cards due to high transaction fees, although The Wall Street Journal reported that Visa is trying to mend the relationship. MasterCard (MA 359.17, -10.39, -2.8%) fell 3% in sympathy.

Also noteworthy, shares of Rivian (RIVN 146.07, -25.94, -15.1%) and Lucid Motors (LCID 52.55, -2.97, -5.4%) finally calmed down after a stretch of ridiculous gains. Their retracements represented a pause in the market's speculative energy.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

October housing starts declined 0.7% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.52 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.59 million) from a downwardly revised 1.53 million (from 1.55 million) in September. Building permits, though, provided a positive surprise, rising 4.0% to 1.65 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.64 million) from a downwardly revised 1.586 million (from 1.589 million) in September.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was strength in permits -- a leading indicator -- for single units and multi-family units in all regions. Single-unit permits were up 2.7% month-over-month, led by gains in all regions except the West (-0.4%).
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.8% following a 5.5% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Index for November, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for October on Thursday.

S&P 500 +24.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +23.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +20.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.4% YTD



Crude futures drop 3%
17-Nov-21 15:30 ET

Dow -155.62 at 35986.60, Nasdaq -39.78 at 15934.08, S&P -7.71 at 4693.19
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.2% and has done so for nearly the entire session.

One last look at the sectors shows energy (-1.8%), financials (-1.0%), and industrials (-0.5%) underperforming the benchmark index, while the consumer discretionary (+0.7%), health care (+0.4%), and real estate (+0.5%) sectors outperform in the green.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 3.1%, or $2.46, to $78.31/bbl. In related news, President Biden asked the FTC to "further examine what is happening with oil and gas markets," and the EIA reported an unexpected draw in weekly crude inventories.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35870.95 -60.10 (-0.17%)
Nasdaq 15993.72 +72.14 (0.45%)
SP 500 4704.54 +15.87 (0.34%)
10-yr Note -23/32 1.603
NYSE Adv 1147 Dec 2133 Vol 868.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1456 Dec 3091 Vol 5.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology
Weak: Energy, Utilities, Financials, Materials, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at record highs amid mega-cap strength

-- NVIDIA (NVDA) jumps 8% on pleasing earnings news/guidance, while Cisco (CSCO) falls 5.5% on disappointing revenue guidance

-- Strong showing from the retailers following earnings reports

-- Lingering growth concerns

S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at record highs
18-Nov-21 16:15 ET
Dow -60.10 at 35870.95, Nasdaq +72.14 at 15993.72, S&P +15.87 at 4704.54

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.3%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%) closed at record highs on Thursday, largely due to strength in the mega-cap stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%) and Russell 2000 (-0.6%), however, closed lower.

The set-up today was looking decent: NVIDIA (NVDA 316.75, +24.14, +8.3%) reported positive earnings results with upbeat Q4 revenue guidance, a bunch of retailers including Macy's (M 37.37, +6.53, +21.2%) and Kohl's (KSS 62.49, +6.01, +10.6%) also provided pleasing earnings news, and weekly jobless claims showed continued improvement.

The broader market, however, didn't really key off the good news. Leadership narrowed to NVIDIA and other mega-caps like Apple (AAPL 157.87, +4.38, +2.9%), Amazon.com (AMZN 3696.06, +147.06, +4.1%), and Alphabet (GOOG 3014.18, +32.94, +1.1%), while the rest of the market struggled with modest losses.

Declining issues outpaced advancing issues by roughly 2:1 margins at the NYSE and Nasdaq. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 160.69, -0.59, -0.4%) fell 0.4%. Seven of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower with losses ranging between 0.2% (communication services) and 0.5% (energy).

The information technology (+1.0%) and consumer discretionary (+1.5%) sectors rightfully finished atop the leaderboard with solid gains. The technology sector would have risen more if it weren't for weakness in Cisco (CSCO 53.63, -3.13, -5.5%), which issued disappointing revenue guidance due to ongoing supply issues.

Growth concerns lingered amid the Cisco warning, reported upticks in COVID-19 cases, and rising inflation pressures that could eat into profit margins. Risk sentiment was further restrained by extended weakness in speculative pockets of the market and by a wait-and-see mindset for a Fed Chair nomination and a complete CBO scoring of the Build Back Better Act.

Longer-dated Treasuries settled on a higher note, signaling a defensive bias. The 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 1.59% while the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.50%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.3% to 95.53. WTI crude futures ($78.92, +0.61, +0.8%) rebounded modestly from yesterday's 3% decline.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending November 13 decreased by 1,000 to 268,000 (Briefing.com consensus 260,000), which was the lowest level since March 14, 2020. Continuing jobless claims for the week ending November 6 decreased by 129,000 to 2.080 million, also the lowest level since March 14, 2020.
The key takeaway from the report is that the low level of initial claims should help set expectations for another nice pickup in hiring activity since it covers the week in which the survey for the November Employment Situation Report was conducted.
The Philadelphia Fed Index for November increased to 39.0 (Briefing.com consensus 22.0) from 23.8 in October.
The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for October increased 0.9% (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%) following a revised 0.1% increase (+0.2%) in September.

There is no economic data scheduled for Friday.

S&P 500 +25.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +24.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +19.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.2% YTD

Crude futures rebound modestly
18-Nov-21 15:30 ET
Dow -34.26 at 35896.79, Nasdaq +62.62 at 15984.20, S&P +16.99 at 4705.66

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.4% and will have another shot at closing at a record high. The benchmark index came up short yesterday amid increased selling interest into the close.

One last look at the sectors shows information technology (+1.0%) and consumer discretionary (+1.3%) still leading the advance with gains of at least 1.0%. Conversely, the utilities (-0.6%), consumer staples (-0.4%), and materials (-0.4%) sectors underperform with modest losses.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.8%, or $0.61, to $78.92/bbl after falling 3% yesterday.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35619.25 +17.27 (0.05%)
Nasdaq 15854.77 -202.68 (-1.26%)
SP 500 4682.94 -15.02 (-0.32%)
10-yr Note -27/32 1.601
NYSE Adv 1485 Dec 1841 Vol 943.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1648 Dec 2976 Vol 5.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Consumer Staples, Utilities
Weak: Communication Services, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- President Biden to nominate Fed Chair Powell for a second term and Lael Brainard as Vice Chair

-- Market fades renomination rally into the close amid weakness in the large growth stocks

-- Strength in financial and energy stocks amid higher Treasury yields and oil prices

Market fades renomination rally
22-Nov-21 16:25 ET
Dow +17.27 at 35619.25, Nasdaq -202.68 at 15854.77, S&P -15.02 at 4682.94

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced as much as 1.0% on Monday after President Biden announced he will nominate Jerome Powell for a second term as Fed Chair and nominate Lael Brainard for Vice Chair of the Board of Governors. The benchmark index hit a record high but ended the session with a 0.3% decline amid a wave of selling interest into the close.

Selling interest was concentrated in the large growths, which disproportionately affected the Nasdaq Composite (-1.3%) after it also tagged a record high with an early 1.0% gain. The Russell 2000 fell 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) eked out a gain.

Early on, the market was presumably relieved to hear of Fed Chair Powell's renomination because he was the consensus candidate, maintaining an order of continuity with an easier confirmation process, too. Moreover, Ms. Brainard not being named Vice Chair for Supervision was well-received in the banking sector, as she was mentioned as someone who would espouse stricter regulation.

Accordingly, the S&P 500 financials sector (+1.4%) was an influential leader, further supported by higher Treasury yields. The energy sector (+1.8%) was the top performer, though, rising 1.8% amid a modest rebound in oil prices ($79.77/bbl, +0.66, +0.9%).

Influential weakness came from the mega-caps within the information technology (-1.1%), communication services (-1.2%), and consumer discretionary (-0.5%) sectors, as investors took profits in a rotation-minded trade. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 260.55, -3.28) fell 1.2% after rising 2.2% last week.

The 10-yr yield rose nine basis points to 1.63%, which was also blamed for the growth-stock weakness, although the rise wasn't a hindrance early in the day as the Nasdaq was rallying to record highs. Nevertheless, the sustained rise in long-term rates was still conducive for the rotation into value stocks.

Interestingly, the 2-yr yield jumped six basis points to 1.57%, signaling increased expectations for the Fed to speed up its tapering plan and possibly hike rates sooner than expected. A weak $58 billion 2-yr note auction might have also contributed to the selling interest. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 96.53.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

Existing home sales increased 0.8% m/m in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.34 million (Briefing.com consensus 6.20 million). Total sales in October were down 5.8% from a year ago.
The key takeaway from the report is that prices remain high as inventory remains tight, crimping sales growth in the existing home market as affordability pressures build for prospective buyers.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing and Services PMIs for November on Tuesday.

S&P 500 +24.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +23.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +23.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.4% YTD

Crude futures rebound modestly
22-Nov-21 15:25 ET
Dow +272.86 at 35874.84, Nasdaq -36.63 at 16020.82, S&P +24.94 at 4722.90

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.6% and is on pace to close at a record high.

One last look at the sectors shows energy (+3.1%) and financials (+2.2%) leading the advance with 2-3% gains, while the communication services sector (-0.5%) remains the lone holdout with a 0.5% decline.

WTI crude futures rose 0.9%, or $0.66, to $76.77/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35813.80 +194.55 (0.55%)
Nasdaq 15775.15 -79.62 (-0.50%)
SP 500 4690.70 +7.76 (0.17%)
10-yr Note -3/32 1.666
NYSE Adv 1543 Dec 1797 Vol 896.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1919 Dec 2627 Vol 5.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Real Estate, Consumer Staples
Weak: Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Second day of rotation out of growth into value

-- U.S. plans to release 50 million barrels of oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve in concert with other countries, including China and the UK

-- Energy stocks lead the way amid higher oil prices

-- Interest rates edge higher

Value stocks lift S&P 500
23-Nov-21 16:20 ET
Dow +194.55 at 35813.80, Nasdaq -79.62 at 15775.15, S&P +7.76 at 4690.70

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.2% on Tuesday, overcoming an early 0.7% decline, as investors continued to rotate out of growth stocks into value stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-0.2%) closed lower but off session lows.

The underperformance of the small-cap Russell 2000 indicated the rotation was predominately in the large-caps. The S&P 500 energy (+3.0%), financials (+1.6%), and real estate (+1.1%) sectors rose between 1-3%, while the information technology (-0.2%), consumer discretionary (-0.6%), and communication services (-0.4%) sectors closed lower.

Growth stocks were pressured by another increase in long-term interest rates and by a disappointing earnings reaction in Zoom Video (ZM 206.64, -35.64, -14.7%), which fell nearly 15.0%. The Russell 1000 Growth Index declined 0.4% (-1.7% in two days), versus a 0.6% gain in the Russell 1000 Value Index (+1.1% in two days).

The 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.67% (+13 bps in two days), and the 2-yr yield also increased four basis points to 0.61% after flirting with 0.66% intraday. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.1% to 96.48.

Higher oil prices ($78.38, +1.61, +2.1%) provided the fuel for the energy stocks after the U.S. announced plans to release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over several months. China, India, Japan, South Korea, and the UK are also expected to tap into their oil reserves.

WTI crude futures initially fell on the news, but quickly rebounded on the recognition that Bloomberg reported yesterday that the U.S. was planning to announce this today and that OPEC+ warned it could reconsider output increases as a response. Oil prices were also down 10% since Nov. 10, further signaling the news was already priced in.

In other earnings news, Best Buy (BBY 121.01, -16.99, -12.3%), Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS 134.55, -5.73, -4.1%), Urban Outfitters (URBN 33.80, -3.47, -9.3%), and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 41.12, -5.92, -12.6%) also posted sizable losses despite beating EPS estimates.

Dollar Tree (DLTR 144.71, +12.15, +9.2%) and Burlington Stores (BURL 285.55, +22.55, +8.6%) were earnings outliers.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for November increased to 59.1 from 58.4 in October. The preliminary IHS Markit Services PMI for November decreased to 57.0 from 58.7 in October.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a huge batch of economic data on Wednesday, including weekly Initial Claims, Personal Income and Spending for October, New Home Sales for October, and the final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for November.

S&P 500 +24.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +22.4% YTD
Russell 2000 +17.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.0% YTD

WTI crude futures rise on oil-release announcement
23-Nov-21 15:30 ET
Dow +146.81 at 35766.06, Nasdaq -123.25 at 15731.52, S&P -0.30 at 4682.64

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading back at its flat line a resilient session.

One last look at the sectors shows energy (+2.7%), financials (+1.4%), and real estate (+1.2%) outperforming with 1-3% gains, while the information technology (-0.5%), consumer discretionary (-0.9%), and communication services (-0.4%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.1%, or $1.61, to $78.38/bbl after the U.S. confirmed it will release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in concert with other nations.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34899.34 -905.04 (-2.53%)
Nasdaq 15491.67 -353.57 (-2.23%)
SP 500 4594.62 -106.84 (-2.27%)
10-yr Note +13/32 1.494
NYSE Adv 453 Dec 2769 Vol 741.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 953 Dec 3399 Vol 3.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care
Weak: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Real Estate, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Omicron variant catalyzes risk-off trade in shortened session

-- Stocks, Treasury yields, and oil prices drop noticeably

-- Strength in vaccine makers and stay-at-home stocks

Omicron variant catalyzes sell-off in shortened session
26-Nov-21 13:20 ET
Dow -905.04 at 34899.34, Nasdaq -353.57 at 15491.67, S&P -106.84 at 4594.62

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices dropped more than 2.0% on Friday, as investors sold risk assets after the discovery of a highly-mutated variant of COVID-19 in South Africa. The S&P 500 fell 2.3%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.2%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.5%. The small-cap Russell 2000 underperformed with a 3.7% decline.

The visceral reaction was linked to uncertainty if the variant (Omicron) is resistant to current vaccines and concerns that it could slow down the global recovery effort. Investors, many of whom were caught off guard, de-risked first and waited for answers later. On a related note, the World Health Organization designated Omicron a "variant of concern."

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in negative territory, ten of which fell between 1.4% (consumer staples) and 4.0% (energy). The 10-yr yield was down 16 basis points to 1.49% ahead of the bond market close at 2:00 p.m. ET. WTI crude futures fell 12.3% (-$9.57) to $68.80/bbl. The CBOE Volatility Index popped 54% to 28.62.

The health care sector outperformed on a relative basis with a 0.5% decline due to strength in vaccine makers likes Pfizer (PFE 54.00, +3.11, +6.1%) and Moderna (MRNA 329.63, +56.24, +20.6%). Stay-at-home stocks like Zoom Video (ZM 220.21, +11.91, +5.7%) also posted decent gains.

Notably, rate-hike expectations were dialed back today. According to the CME FedWatch Tool, the probability for a rate hike in May 2022 decreased to 36.4% from 55.3% on Wednesday, and the probability for a rate hike in June 2022 decreased to 61.8% from 82.1% on Wednesday.

Appropriately, the fed-funds-sensitive 2-yr yield was down 12 basis points to 0.52% after rising 13 basis points over the prior three sessions. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.7% to 96.11.

The Omicron news overshadowed the typical news coverage of Black Friday, which Macy's (M 30.48, -1.66, -5.2%) said was off to a great start. It was also a bad day for Merck (MRK 79.16, -3.12, -3.8%) to announce that its COVID-19 oral antiviral reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 30%, according to a late-stage study, versus 48% in interim data.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Friday. Looking ahead, investors will receive Pending Home Sales for October on Monday.

S&P 500 +22.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +20.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.7% YTD

Crude futures down over 11%
26-Nov-21 12:30 ET
Dow -876.87 at 34927.51, Nasdaq -304.41 at 15540.83, S&P -34.85 at 4666.61

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 2.1%, and the Russell 2000 is down 4.3%.

One last look at the sectors shows energy (-4.7%), financials (-3.5%), and industrials (-2.9%) still leading the retreat with losses between 3-5%. The health care sector (-0.2%) has slipped lower with a modest 0.2% decline.

WTI crude futures are trading lower by 11.5%, or $9.01, to $69.40/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34022.04 -461.68 (-1.34%)
Nasdaq 15254.07 -283.64 (-1.83%)
SP 500 4513.04 -53.96 (-1.18%)
10-yr Note +3/32 1.420
NYSE Adv 912 Dec 2365 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1014 Dec 3302 Vol 6.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Major indices fade early rally effort

-- First case of the Omicron variant in the U.S. is detected

-- salesforce.com (CRM) holds back Dow on disappointing guidance

-- Relatively encouraging economic data

Stocks close sharply lower in disappointing session
01-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow -461.68 at 34022.04, Nasdaq -283.64 at 15254.07, S&P -53.96 at 4513.04

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.2% on Wednesday after being up 1.9% intraday, as momentum faded and news of the first reported case of the Omicron variant in the U.S. weighed on sentiment. Stocks closed at session lows amid a wave of selling interest in the final minutes of the session.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.3%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.8%, and Russell 2000 lost 2.3%.

The major indices were up as much as 1.5-2.5% intraday, purportedly as concerns about the Omicron variant and the Fed's policy course were set aside and investors put new money to work on the first day of the month. There were suspicions, though, if the market's rally had a firm foundation for sustained gains given the recent volatility.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors were trading higher, but only one escaped with a gain. The consumer discretionary (-1.9%) and communication services (-2.0%) sectors led the retreat with 2% declines, while the utilities sector (+0.2%) managed to close higher.

High-beta growth stocks were among the weakest performers, receiving little support from a decline in long-term interest rates. The 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 1.43% after hitting 1.50% overnight.

The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 98.60, -7.09, -6.7%), which contains many high-growth story stocks, fell 6.7% as investors shied away from riskier equities. Dow component salesforce.com (CRM 251.50, -33.46, -11.7%) struggled all session and closed lower by 11.7% after providing disappointing guidance.

Value stocks outperformed on a relative basis, but it probably wasn't because of the better-than-expected November ADP Employment Change report and ISM Manufacturing Index since cyclical stocks struggled. Instead, many of the defensive value stocks in the health care and consumer staples industries did okay today.

The 2-yr yield rose four basis points to 0.56% as the market continued to signal expectations for the Fed to tighten policy more quickly. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 96.08. WTI crude futures fell 0.8%, or $0.53, to $65.61/bbl after being up more than 4.0% early in the session.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The November ISM Manufacturing Index checked in at 61.1% (Briefing.com consensus 61.0%), up slightly from 60.8% in October. A number above 50.0% is indicative of expansion. November marked the 18th straight month of expansion for the manufacturing sector.
The key takeaway from the report is that manufacturing activity is still running at a good clip despite supply chain, transportation, and labor constraints; meanwhile, it was noted that manufacturers' sentiment remains strongly optimistic.
Total construction spending increased 0.2% month-over-month in October (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following a downwardly revised 0.1% decline (from 0.0%) in September. Total private construction declined 0.2% month-over-month while total public construction spending increased 1.8%.
The key takeaway from the report is the decline seen in new single family and multifamily construction. That is most likely the consequence of ongoing supply chain pressures, labor constraints, and higher costs for builders that are standing in the way of building more affordable homes.
The ADP Employment Change report estimated 534,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls in November (Briefing.com consensus 515,000). The increase in October was downwardly revised to 570,000 from 571,000.
The final IHS Market Manufacturing PMI for November checked in at 58.3, down from 59.1 in the preliminary reading.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 7.2% following a 1.8% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

S&P 500 +20.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +18.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.7% YTD

Crude futures also fade early gain
01-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow -205.00 at 34278.72, Nasdaq -177.94 at 15359.77, S&P -18.76 at 4548.24

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.4% to trade at session lows. The Russell 2000 is underperforms with a 1.2% decline.

Looking at the sectors shows consumer discretionary (-1.2%) and communication services (-1.2%) leading the decline with losses over 1.0%. The health care (+0.5%), consumer staples (+0.5%), and utilities (+1.0%) sectors are the only sectors trading higher.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.8%, or $0.53, to $65.61/bbl after being up more than 4.0% early in the session.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34639.79 +617.75 (1.82%)
Nasdaq 15381.34 +127.27 (0.83%)
SP 500 4577.10 +64.06 (1.42%)
10-yr Note -3/32 1.435
NYSE Adv 2434 Dec 836 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2800 Dec 1585 Vol 5.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Industrials, Real Estate, Materials
Weak: Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Stocks try to rebound again with value stocks outperforming growth stocks

-- Apple (AAPL) tells suppliers it's seeing less demand for the iPhone 13, according to Bloomberg

-- S&P 500 reclaims 50-day moving average (4543)

-- Omicron concerns tempered

Stocks close higher in cyclically-led rebound
02-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow +617.75 at 34639.79, Nasdaq +127.27 at 15381.34, S&P +64.06 at 4577.10

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.4% on Thursday, bouncing back from two days of sharp losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.8%) and Russell 2000 (+2.7%) outperformed the benchmark index, while the Nasdaq Composite underperformed on a relative basis with a 0.8% gain.

Supportive factors included 1) a bargain-hunting mindset amid an increasing number of stocks trading near 52-week lows, 2) a view that the Omicron variant might not be as bad as feared after the second reported case in the U.S. produced mild symptoms in a vaccinated person like the first case, and 3) a recognition that the S&P 500 reclaimed its 50-day moving average (4543).

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, featuring leadership positions from the cyclical industrials (+2.9%), energy (+2.9%), financials (+2.8%), and materials (+2.0%) sectors. The information technology (+0.8%), consumer staples (+0.8%), and health care (+0.4%) sectors trailed with more modest gains.

The relative underperformance of the Nasdaq was due to softness in Apple (AAPL 163.76, -1.01, -0.6%), Microsoft (MSFT 329.49, -0.59, -0.2%), Amazon.com (AMZN 3437.36, -6.36, -0.2%), Tesla (TSLA 1084.60, -10.40, -1.0%), and Facebook (FB 310.39, -0.21, -0.1%).

Apple was pressured by a report from Bloomberg indicating that the company told suppliers that demand for the iPhone 13 has weakened. AAPL shares declined 0.6%, but they were down as much as 4.2% shortly after the open.

Boeing (BA 202.38, +14.19, +7.5%) stood out with a 7.5% gain on news that China may soon allow the 737 MAX to return to flight. Snowflake (SNOW 360.38, +49.28, +15.9%) and Kroger (KR 44.65, +4.44, +11.0%) rallied noticeably following their earnings reports.

Elsewhere, the Treasury yield curve experienced some flattening activity amid a rise in shorter-dated rates. The 2-yr yield increased five basis points to 0.61%, and the 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 1.45%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 96.14. WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.6%, or $1.03, to $66.64/bbl.

Strikingly, WTI crude futures were down more than 4.0% immediately after it was reported that OPEC+ agreed to stick to its planned production schedule for January. There was some speculation that the ministers would adjust production because of the Omicron variant and the U.S.-led effort for nations to tap into their oil reserves.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

For the week ending November 27, initial jobless claims increased by 28,000 to 222,000 (Briefing.com consensus 255,000). Continuing claims for the week ending November 20 decreased by 107,000 to 1.956 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that initial jobless claims are firming up at lower levels seen before the start of the pandemic.

Looking ahead to Friday, investors will receive the Employment Situation Report for November, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for November, Factory Orders for October, and the final IHS Markit Services PMI for November.

S&P 500 +21.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +19.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.7% YTD

FTC sues to block NVIDIA's acquisition of Arm Holdings
02-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow +664.06 at 34686.10, Nasdaq +128.51 at 15382.58, S&P +69.36 at 4582.40

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 1.5% and is on track to close above its 50-day moving average (4543).

The FTC recently announced that it's suing to block NVIDIA's (NVDA 320.29, +5.93, +1.9%) $40 billion acquisition of Arm Holdings for anti-competitive reasons. NVIDA shares have pared gains but are still up 2% despite the news.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.6%, or $1.03, to $66.64/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35719.43 +492.40 (1.40%)
Nasdaq 15686.91 +461.76 (3.03%)
SP 500 4686.75 +95.08 (2.07%)
10-yr Note -10/32 1.480
NYSE Adv 2590 Dec 690 Vol 1.02 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3433 Dec 1121 Vol 5.00 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Technology, Financials, Energy, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Consumer Staples, Utilities

Moving the Market

Stocks extend Monday's rebound

Crude oil nearing last week's high

Rebound Rally Accelerates
07-Dec-21 16:10 ET
Dow +492.40 at 35719.43, Nasdaq +461.76 at 15686.91, S&P +95.08 at 4686.75

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages built on their gains from Monday with the S&P 500 (+2.1%) jumping to within 60 points of its record high from two weeks ago. The Nasdaq (+3.0%) outperformed after lagging yesterday while the Dow (+1.4%) finished behind the benchmark index after showing relative strength on Monday.

The bulk of the Tuesday rally unfolded at the open, as stocks jumped out of the gate after an upbeat session in global equity markets. The S&P 500 reached its best level of the session just after 11:00 ET, drifting just below that high into the close. The benchmark index finished at its best level since November 24 while the Dow and Nasdaq reclaimed their respective 50-day moving averages.

All eleven sectors ended in the green with nine groups recording gains of 1.0% or more. Top-weighted technology (+3.5%) held the lead throughout the day while energy (+2.3%) and consumer discretionary (+2.4%) finished in the next two spots.

The technology sector rallied behind chipmakers, as the PHLX Semiconductor Index rose 5.0%. Top component NVIDIA (NVDA 324.27, +23.90, +8.0%) was the best performer in the group while Intel (INTC 52.57, +1.58, +3.1%) rallied back above its 50-day moving average (51.33) after confirming plans for a spin-off of its Mobileye unit, which is valued at about $50 bln.

All but six components of the tech sector finished in the green while Western Union (WU 17.35, -0.50, -2.8%) was the weakest performer, giving back yesterday's gain.

Like technology, the energy sector spent the session near the top of the leaderboard thanks to a rally in crude oil, which rose $2.36, or 3.4%, to $71.95/bbl, climbing past its 200-day moving average (69.98). Oil backpedaled from its midday high after a brief push past last Monday's high (72.93).

The consumer discretionary sector was the only other group to gain 2.0% or more with leadership from AutoZone (AZO 2023.57, +143.58, +7.6%) after the company beat Q1 expectations. The stock rallied to a fresh record, as did seven other components of the discretionary sector.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.2%) was one of few soft spots today as airline stocks pulled back from yesterday's rally, masking gains in more than half of the remaining DJTA components.

In Washington, House Speaker Pelosi said that her chamber will vote today evening on a plan to increase the debt limit. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader McConnell said that a "solution" to the debt ceiling issue has been reached. President Biden spoke with Russian President Putin, warning that the U.S. and allies would "respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation" in Ukraine, according to a statement from the White House.

Treasuries retreated, sending the 10-yr yield higher by five basis points to 1.48% with its 200-day moving average (1.493%) looming just above.

Reviewing today's economic data:

The October Trade Balance Report showed a narrowing in the deficit to $67.1 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$66.8 billion) from a downwardly revised $81.4 billion (from $80.9 billion) in September, with exports up $16.8 billion and imports up $2.5 billion from September levels.
The key takeaway from the report is the uptick in both exports and imports, which is a good sign of increased economic activity on a global basis. Exports to China increased $2.8 billion and exports to the European Union increased $1.6 billion.
The revised Q3 Productivity and Unit Labor Costs report showed productivity being revised down to -5.2% (Briefing.com consensus -4.9%) from the advance estimate of -5.0%. That is the largest decline in productivity since the second quarter of 1960. Unit labor costs were revised up to 9.6% (Briefing.com consensus 8.2%) from 8.3%.
The key takeaway from the report is the connection between weakening productivity and rising costs, which isn't a good combination for company profits.
Consumer credit increased by $16.9 bln in October after increasing a downwardly revised $27.8 bln (from $29.9 bln) in September.

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index (prior -7.2%) will be released at 7:00 ET, followed by JOLTS -- Job Openings (prior 10.438 mln) at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +24.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +21.7% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +14.1% YTD

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35754.75 +35.32 (0.10%)
Nasdaq 15786.98 +100.07 (0.64%)
SP 500 4701.21 +14.46 (0.31%)
10-yr Note -26/32 1.520
NYSE Adv 2020 Dec 1258 Vol 877.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3051 Dec 1563 Vol 4.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Communication Services, Materials, Real Estate
Weak: Consumer Staples, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Major indices stave off selling interest after a two-day rally

-- Pfizer (PFE) says a third dose of its vaccine neutralizes the Omicron variant, according to preliminary data

-- Treasury yield curve steepens

Market stays committed to the rebound rally amid Pfizer news
08-Dec-21 16:15 ET
Dow +35.32 at 35754.75, Nasdaq +100.07 at 15786.98, S&P +14.46 at 4701.21

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market closed higher for the third straight day on Wednesday, albeit at a more modest pace. The S&P 500 gained 0.3% and came up short of a closing record high, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) and Russell 2000 (+0.8%) outperformed in percentage terms. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased just 0.1%.

Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in positive territory, although no sector gained more than 1.0%. The communication services sector led the advance with a 0.8% gain, while the financials (-0.5%), consumer staples (-0.4%) and utilities (-0.1%) sectors closed lower.

Concerns about the Omicron variant were further allayed after Pfizer (PFE 51.40, -0.32, -0.6%) and BioNTech (BNTX 291.94, -10.75, -3.6%) said preliminary data suggested that three doses of their current vaccine neutralize the Omicron variant and that two doses protect against severe disease.

The market's rally in the prior two days was attributed to optimism on the Omicron variant, so the ability for the market to hold steady on good Omicron news today was an encouraging development for buyers. What's more, news that lawmakers are moving closer to raising the debt ceiling tempered another area of concern.

Travel stocks like airlines and cruise lines were among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500, but Apple (AAPL 175.08, +3.90, +2.3%), Tesla (TSLA 1068.96, +17.21, +1.6%), and Meta Platforms (FB 330.56, +7.75, +2.4%) were among the more influential gainers. AAPL set an all-time high.

Improved expectations for the economy were also manifested in higher prices for WTI crude ($72.43/bbl, +0.48, +0.7%) and copper ($4.395/lb, +0.05, +1.3%), as well as curve-steepening activity in the Treasury market.

The 10-yr yield rose three basis points to 1.51% after dipping below 1.43% prior to the Pfizer-BioNTech news. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.68%, even though the vaccine news supported the case for the Fed to consider a faster taper plan. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 95.91.

The CBOE Volatility Index dropped below the 20.00 level (19.90, -1.99, -9.1%), as the continued resiliency in the market staved off hedging interest.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Job openings increased to 11.033 million in October from a revised 10.602 million (from 10.438 million) in September.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 2.0% following a 7.2% decline in the prior week.
Weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 240,000 barrels after decreasing by 910,000 barrels during the previous week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and Wholesale Inventories for October on Thursday.

S&P 500 +25.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +22.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +15.0% YTD

Crude futures settle higher
08-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow +33.55 at 35752.98, Nasdaq +83.49 at 15770.40, S&P +12.16 at 4698.91

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at session highs with a 0.3% gain. It's trading about five points below its closing record high (4704.54).

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows communication services (+0.7%) and real estate (+0.6%) outperforming with modest gains, while the financials (-0.2%) and consumer staples (-0.4%) sectors are the only sectors trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.7%, or $0.48, to $72.43/bbl. On a related note, weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 240,000 barrels after decreasing by 910,000 barrels during the previous week.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35754.69 -0.06 (0.00%)
Nasdaq 15517.36 -269.62 (-1.71%)
SP 500 4667.45 -33.76 (-0.72%)
10-yr Note +4/32 1.488
NYSE Adv 810 Dec 2467 Vol 819.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1153 Dec 3464 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Consumer Staples
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Market closes lower in consolidation trade

-- Fatigue and a sense of caution in front of CPI report tomorrow

-- Relative strength in the Dow, weakness in growth stocks

Market closes lower in consolidation trade
09-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow -0.06 at 35754.69, Nasdaq -269.62 at 15517.36, S&P -33.76 at 4667.45

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.7% on Thursday, as the market consolidated its gains from the prior three days. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.7%) and Russell 2000 (-2.3%) struggled with steeper losses, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (unch) closed flat after being down 0.5% intraday.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, including the consumer discretionary (-1.7%), information technology (-1.1%), and real estate (-1.4%) sectors with losses over 1.0%. The defensive-oriented health care (+0.3%) and consumer staples (+0.1%) sectors closed higher.

Fatigue seemed to reign in the market on the recognition that the S&P 500 gained 3.6% over the past three days and Apple (AAPL 174.56, -0.52, -0.3%) gained 11.2% over the same period. Apple lost 0.3% today, even though Morgan Stanley named the stock a Top Pick for 2022 with a Street-high price target of $200.

The biggest gainers between Monday and Wednesday were the biggest losers today, and those were typically the risker stocks in the Nasdaq and Russell 2000. The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 97.73, -5.49, -5.3%), which entered the session up 10% for the week, declined 5% today.

In addition, there was a sense of caution in front of the Consumer Price Index report for November, which will be released tomorrow morning. Longer-dated Treasuries edged higher, the CBOE Volatility Index rose 8.4% to 21.58, and the U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.4% to 96.23.

The 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 1.49% despite weekly initial claims falling to their lowest level (184,000) since Sept. 6, 1969. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.68%. WTI crude futures fell 2.2%, or $1.56, to $70.87/bbl.

In other developments, the Senate passed a procedural bill to allow the debt ceiling to be raised by a fixed amount, and the FDA expanded the eligibility for the Pfizer (PFE 52.08, +0.68, +1.3%)-BioNTech (BNTX 284.21, -7.73, -2.7%) COVID-19 booster shot to 16- and 17-year-olds.

CVS Health (CVS 97.31, +4.21, +4.5%) was an individual standout after providing upbeat guidance and authorizing a $10 billion share repurchase program.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Initial claims for the week ending December 4 dropped by 43,000 to 184,000 (Briefing.com consensus 228,000). That is the lowest level since September 6, 1969. Continuing claims for the week ending November 27 increased by 38,000 to 1.992 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that seasonal factors had a lot to do with the sizable drop in initial claims. On an unadjusted basis, initial claims increased by 63,680 to 280,665.
Wholesale inventories increased 2.3% m/m in October (Briefing.com consensus 2.2%) following a 1.4% increase in September.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for November, the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for December, and the Treasury Budget for November on Friday.

S&P 500 +24.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +20.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.4% YTD

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35970.99 +216.30 (0.60%)
Nasdaq 15630.59 +113.23 (0.73%)
SP 500 4712.02 +44.57 (0.95%)
10-yr Note +26/32 1.458
NYSE Adv 1551 Dec 1733 Vol 827.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1849 Dec 2713 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Consumer Staples
Weak: Financials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 closes at a record high following hot CPI data for November

-- Total CPI increased 0.8% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%), leaving it up 6.8% yr/yr

-- Treasury market held its ground

-- Oracle (ORCL), Broadcom (AVGO), and Costco (COST) rally on positive earnings news

-- Small-caps and micro-caps struggled to attract buying interest

S&P 500 notches record close following hot CPI data
10-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow +216.30 at 35970.99, Nasdaq +113.23 at 15630.59, S&P +44.57 at 4712.02

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.0% on Friday, and closed at a record high, following a hot Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for November. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) also posted decent gains, and like the S&P 500, ended the week with gains over 3.5%.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, with the information technology sector (+2.1%) being the biggest and most influential gainer. The financials sector (+0.1%) underperformed on a relative basis with a 0.1% gain.

Not all stocks reacted positively to the CPI report, though. The small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.4%) and the iShares Micro-Cap ETF (IWC 138.77, -1.12, -0.8%) both closed lower. Declining issues outpaced advancing issues at both the NYSE and Nasdaq.

Specifying the data, total CPI increased 0.8% m/m in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%), leaving it up 6.8% yr/yr -- its highest level since 1982. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.5% m/m, as expected, and was up 4.9% yr/yr.

The report wasn't too surprising given all the commentary about increased inflation pressures and the in-line core CPI print. Some investors took the data at face value: inflation is a byproduct of economic growth and offers companies pricing power for greater earnings potential.

As an aside, Oracle (ORCL 102.63, +13.86, +15.6%), Broadcom (AVGO 631.68, +48.26, +8.3%), and Costco (COST 558.82, +34.49, +6.6%) each rallied noticeably on pleasing earnings results, with ORCL and AVGO also announcing plans to repurchase $10 billion worth of stock.

Separately, based on the counter-intuitive price action in Treasuries, there was a tolerance for the view that inflation pressures could be peaking, which was espoused by the White House yesterday. Treasury yields were mixed and little changed, which was seen as a source of comfort for the stock market.

The 10-yr yield settled unchanged at 1.49% after trading at 1.51% prior to the CPI data. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.66%, even though the report not only supported the case for the Fed be more aggressive with its tapering plan but also to think about hiking rates three times next year.

The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 96.06. WTI crude futures rose 1.2%, or $0.83, to $71.70/bbl.

Reviewing Friday's economic data, which featured the Consumer Price Index for November:

The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed total CPI increased 0.8% month-over-month in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.5%, as expected. On a year-over-year basis, total CPI was up 6.8%, versus 6.2% in October, and was the highest it has been since June 1982. Core CPI was up 4.9% year-over-year, versus 4.6% in October.
There isn't just one key takeaway from this report. There are many:
The Fed totally missed the mark with its transitory inflation view.
The inflation data make it clear that the Fed is going to announce a more aggressive tapering path at next week's FOMC meeting.
These data should stir concerns about a third rate hike being in the mix for 2022.
Inflation pressures are broad based.
Nominal wage gains will be undercut by inflation that will limit real spending growth potential.
The elevated inflation print will stand as a political pressure point.
The preliminary December University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment increased to 70.4 (Briefing.com consensus 68.0) from the final November reading of 67.4.
The key takeaway from the report is the finding that inflation, versus unemployment, was seen as the more serious risk to the economy across all income, age, education, region, and political subgroups.
The U.S. Treasury reported a $191.3 bln deficit for November to follow last month's $165.06 bln deficit. The deficit one year ago was $145.27 bln.

There is no economic data scheduled for Monday.

S&P 500 +25.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +21.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.0% YTD

Crude futures settle higher
10-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow +147.88 at 35902.57, Nasdaq +56.89 at 15574.25, S&P +31.06 at 4698.51

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.7% and is vying for a record close, which is about six points higher than the current level.

One last look at the sectors shows information technology (+1.6%) and consumer staples (+1.9%) leading the advance with gains over 1.5%. The communication services (-0.1%) and financials (-0.1%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.2%, or $0.83, to $71.70/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35650.95 -320.04 (-0.89%)
Nasdaq 15413.27 -217.32 (-1.39%)
SP 500 4668.97 -43.05 (-0.91%)
10-yr Note +27/32 1.423
NYSE Adv 1015 Dec 2284 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1262 Dec 3142 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Utilities, Consumer Staples, Health Care
Weak: Energy, Financials, Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Major indices struggle in defensive session

-- Omicron variant hits UK policy and sentiment

-- Hesitation on the part of buyers in front of the FOMC policy meeting this week

-- Cyclical stocks underperformed, but so did the growth stocks

Major indices struggle in defensive session
13-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow -320.04 at 35650.95, Nasdaq -217.32 at 15413.27, S&P -43.05 at 4668.97

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 0.9% on Monday in a defensive session, as investors digested the latest Omicron news and waited for the Fed's policy decision this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also declined 0.9%, while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.4%) and Russell 2000 (-1.4%) both declined 1.4%.

Risk sentiment was pressured by lingering growth concerns after UK Prime Minister Johnson warned of an impending "tidal wave" of new coronavirus cases and the British government upped its COVID-19 alert level. Cyclical stocks, including travel names, were among the weakest performers today.

The cyclical S&P 500 energy (-2.8%), consumer discretionary (-2.4%), and financials (-1.2%) sectors underperformed alongside the information technology sector (-1.6%). Accordingly, investors leaned defensively into the real estate (+1.3%), utilities (+1.2%), consumer staples (+1.2%), and health care (+0.9%) sectors.

After a record-setting rally last week, it's also plausible that investors saw the news as a convenient excuse to take profits and withhold buying conviction until the FOMC concludes its policy meeting on Wednesday. That's loosely based on the underperformance of the tech sector and growth stocks.

Apple (AAPL 175.74, -3.71, -2.1%) nearly reached a $3.0 trillion market capitalization after JP Morgan raised its price target on AAPL to a Street-high of $210. The firm also reiterated the stock with an Overweight rating and a "top pick into 2022." AAPL shares closed lower alongside the other mega-caps, even though long-term interest rates declined in their favor.

The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 258.09, -3.65, -1.4%) fell 1.4%, which was twice the decline of the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 158.58, -1.16, -0.7%).

Specifying the moves in the Treasury market, the 10-yr yield declined seven basis points to 1.42% while the 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.64% -- flattening the curve and corroborating growth concerns. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.3% to 96.36. WTI crude futures decreased 0.6%, or $0.46, to $71.24/bbl.

Pfizer (PFE 55.22, +2.44, +4.6%) was an individual standout with a 4.6% gain after agreeing to acquire Arena Pharma (ARNA 90.08, +40.14, +80.4%) for $6.7 billion, or $100 per share, in cash. The deal represented a 100% premium over ARNA's closing price from last Friday.

Investors did not receive any economic data on Monday. Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for November and the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for November on Tuesday.

S&P 500 +24.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +19.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +10.4% YTD

Crude futures settle lower
13-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow -221.28 at 35749.71, Nasdaq -147.44 at 15483.15, S&P -28.24 at 4683.78

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.6% amid losses in seven of its 11 sectors.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (-2.3%), consumer discretionary (-2.1%), information technology (-1.0%), and financials (-1.0%) leading the retreat with losses between 1-2%. The health care (+1.0%), consumer staples (+1.4%), utilities (+1.5%), and real estate (+1.4%) sectors are each up at least 1.0%.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.6%, or $0.46, to $71.24/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

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Dow 34932.16 -433.28 (-1.23%)
Nasdaq 14980.93 -188.74 (-1.24%)
SP 500 4568.02 -52.62 (-1.14%)
10-yr Note +3/32 1.380
NYSE Adv 636 Dec 2634 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1267 Dec 3258 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples, Utilities
Weak: Financials, Materials, Consumer Discretionary, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Sharp losses amid growth concerns, although market closes off intraday lows

-- Europe tightens economic restrictions, Senator Manchin (D-WV) rejects Build Back Better Act

-- S&P 500 closes below 50-day moving average (4608)

Major indices decline sharply but off lows
20-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow -433.28 at 34932.16, Nasdaq -188.74 at 14980.93, S&P -52.62 at 4568.02

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.1% on Monday amid pestering growth concerns, although the benchmark index was down as much as 1.9% intraday. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.2%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.2%) both declined 1.2% while the Russell 2000 lagged with a 1.6% decline.

Growth concerns were driven by new COVID restrictions in Europe, word from Senator Manchin (D-WV) that he won't support the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, and a view that the Fed could be tightening policy at an inopportune time next year.

Sellers maintained control of the market until shortly after the close of European markets (11:30 a.m. ET). Buyers stepped in, spying a good entry point with the S&P 500 trading below its 50-day moving average (4608) and down as much as 4.3% from its intraday high last Thursday.

The S&P 500 still closed below that key technical level, but two of its 11 sectors did sneak into positive territory, namely utilities (+0.1%) and consumer staples (+0.04%). The cyclical financials (-1.9%), materials (-1.8%), industrials (-1.7%), and consumer discretionary (-1.7%) sectors closed sharply lower.

Moderna (MRNA 276.38, -18.42, -6.3%) fumbled a 9% gain, and closed lower by 6%, even though the company announced encouraging preliminary data for its COVID-19 booster shots. Oracle (ORCL 91.64, -4.98, -5.2%) fell 5% on confirmation of its acquisition of Cerner (CERN 90.49, +0.72, +0.8%) for $95.00/share in cash, or approximately $28.3 billion in equity value.

Elsewhere, a steepened Treasury yield curve signaled a more constructive perspective. The 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.42% after trading at 1.35% overnight. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.62% amid a view that the Fed could still lean cautiously next year given the economic uncertainty of the Omicron variant.

WTI crude futures fell 3% ($68.66/bbl, -2.27, -3.2%) on expectations for weaker demand amid tighter economic restrictions. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 96.51. The CBOE Volatility Index closed higher by 6.0% at 22.87 after topping 27.00 intraday.

Monday's economic data was limited to the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI), which increased 1.1% in November (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) following a 0.9% increase in October. Looking ahead, investors will receive the Currant Account Balance for the third quarter on Tuesday.

S&P 500 +21.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +16.2% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.1% YTD
Russell 2000 +8.3% YTD

Crude futures settle sharply lower amid demand concerns
20-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow -505.17 at 34860.27, Nasdaq -189.24 at 14980.43, S&P -59.54 at 4561.10

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade lower by 1.3% amid losses in all 11 sectors.

One last look at the sectors shows financials (-2.3%), materials (-2.0%), industrials (-1.8%), and consumer discretionary (-1.8%) underperforming with sharp losses while the consumer staples (-0.1%) and utilities (-0.2%) sectors are down just 0.1-0.2%.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 3.2%, or $2.27, to $68.66/bbl amid demand concerns attributed to new COVID restrictions in Europe.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35492.70 +560.54 (1.60%)
Nasdaq 15341.07 +360.14 (2.40%)
SP 500 4649.23 +81.21 (1.78%)
10-yr Note -5/32 1.484
NYSE Adv 2682 Dec 583 Vol 961.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3360 Dec 1144 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Financials
Weak: Consumer Staples, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Rebound-minded action permeates market

-- A belief that the market was oversold on a short-term basis and was due for a rebound

-- Nike (NKE) and Micron (MU) beat earnings expectations

-- S&P 500 reclaims 50-day moving average (4614)

Rebound bias permeates the market
21-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow +560.54 at 35492.70, Nasdaq +360.14 at 15341.07, S&P +81.21 at 4649.23

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied 1.8% on Tuesday, bouncing back from a three-day skid amid a buy-the-dip mindset. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.6% while the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 outperformed with 2.4% and 3.0% gains, respectively.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, paced by the energy (+2.9%), information technology (+2.6%), consumer discretionary (+2.5%), and financials (+2.0%) sectors with 2-3% gains. The defensive-oriented utilities (-0.2%) and consumer staples (-0.1%) sectors were the exceptions.

There was a shift in sentiment, precipitated by a belief that the market had gotten oversold on a short-term basis and was due for a rebound. Conviction in buying efforts increased as the S&P 500 reclaimed its 50-day moving average (4614) after closing below the key technical level yesterday.

The mega-caps solidified the rally effort later in the day after a slow start to the session. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 255.18, +5.77, +2.3%) advanced 2.3% after being up just 0.1% at its session low.

To be fair, there were some positive-sounding news in the mix. President Biden said the U.S. is "absolutely not" going back to March 2020 in terms of lockdowns and having to worry about serious infection. Separately, reports suggested that the door is still open for Senator Manchin (D-WV) to get on board with the Build Back Better Act.

Nike (NKE 166.63, +9.65, +6.2%) and Micron (MU 90.68, +8.65, +10.5%) supported their own causes with better-than-expected earnings reports, and the positive reactions carried over to the retail and semiconductor spaces. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 87.77, +2.62) gained 3.1%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained 3.4%.

The rebound-minded action extended beyond equities. Briefly, Treasury yields settled higher in a curve-steepening trade, WTI crude futures rose 3.6%, or $2.45, to $71.11/bbl, copper futures rose 1.2% to $4.347/lb, and even cryptocurrencies saw some relief.

The 2-yr yield rose five basis points to 0.67%, and the 10-yr yield rose seven basis points to 1.49%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 96.49. The CBOE Volatility Index dropped 8.1% to 21.01, as hedging interest waned with the bullish price action in the major indices.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Current Account Balance for the third quarter totaled $214.8 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$204.8 billion). The second quarter deficit was upwardly revised to $198.3 billion from $190.3 billion.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for December, Existing Home Sales for November, the third estimate for Q3 GDP, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +23.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +19.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.0% YTD
Russell 2000 +11.6% YTD

Crude futures rebound alongside equities
21-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow +541.27 at 35473.43, Nasdaq +321.68 at 15302.61, S&P +75.47 at 4643.49

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.6% while the Russell 2000 is up 2.8%.

One last look at the sectors shows energy (+3.0%), information technology (+2.3%), and consumer discretionary (+2.2%) up more than 2.0%, while the utilities (-0.2%) and consumer staples (-0.1%) sectors remain in negative territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 3.6%, or $2.45, to $71.11/bbl amid the rebound-minded bias in the broader market.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35753.89 +261.19 (0.74%)
Nasdaq 15521.88 +180.81 (1.18%)
SP 500 4696.56 +47.33 (1.02%)
10-yr Note +7/32 1.457
NYSE Adv 2442 Dec 843 Vol 715.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2748 Dec 1805 Vol 3.99 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Technology, Real Estate, Communication Services, Materials
Weak: Consumer Staples, Utilities, Industrials

Moving the Market

Q3 GDP revised up to 2.3% from 2.1% in final estimate

Discretionary sector paces early advance

Gains in most global markets reflect improved sentiment

Nasdaq Paces Wednesday Rally
22-Dec-21 16:15 ET
Dow +261.19 at 35753.89, Nasdaq +180.81 at 15521.88, S&P +47.33 at 4696.56

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended Wednesday on a firmly higher note with the Nasdaq (+1.2%) finishing ahead of the S&P 500 (+1.0%) and Dow (+0.7%).

The Wednesday advance unfolded in steady fashion, and it followed a positive showing from global equity markets. Reports from Washington remained focused on the administration's fiscal spending plans, which are expected to face continued resistance from Senator Manchin, who indicated that he would like to see spending proposals go through the reconciliation process.

All eleven sectors finished the day in positive territory with the consumer discretionary sector (+1.7%) ending in the lead while eight of the remaining ten groups recorded gains of under 1.0%. Top-weighted technology (+1.3%) finished behind the discretionary sector while industrials (+0.3%) and utilities (+0.4%) finished at the bottom of the leaderboard.

The discretionary sector drew support from gains in most components, though Tesla (TSLA 1008.87, +70.34, +7.5%) was a big driver of the outperformance, rallying back toward its 50-day moving average (1032.61) after CEO Musk said that he has "sold enough stock." Tesla's outperformance masked relative weakness in Amazon (AMZN 3420.74, +12.40, +0.4%) while CarMax (KMX 127.87, -9.12, -6.7%) fell past its 200-day moving average (132.46) to its lowest level since early October after its Q3 beat was marred by contracting margins.

As for technology, the influential group received support from gains in its largest components like Apple (AAPL 175.64, +2.65, +1.5%), Microsoft (MSFT 333.20, +5.91, +1.8%), Visa (V 217.96, +2.58, +1.2%), and Mastercard (MA 357.48, +6.74, +1.9%), which masked relative weakness among chipmakers. However, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (+0.9%) rallied into the close, narrowing its performance gap.

The health care sector (+1.2%) also finished among the leaders thanks to gains in all but six of its components. Pfizer (PFE 59.55, +0.60, +1.0%) climbed toward its record high from Monday after the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for the company's antiviral coronavirus treatment.

The industrials sector (+0.3%) finished at the bottom of the leaderboard, due in part to underperformance from transport stocks that kept the Dow Jones Transportation Average near its unchanged level into the close.

Treasuries climbed with the 10-yr yield slipping three basis points to 1.46%. WTI crude rose $1.66, or 2.3%, to $72.77/bbl, revisiting its high from last week.

Reviewing today's economic data:

The third estimate for Q3 GDP showed an upward revision to 2.3% (Briefing.com consensus 2.1%) from the second estimate of 2.1%. The GDP Price Deflator was revised to 6.0% (Briefing.com consensus 5.9%) from the second estimate of 5.9%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the growth had a lot to do with the change in private inventories. Real final sales of domestic product, which excludes the change in private inventories, were up 0.1%.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index increased to 115.8 in December (Briefing.com consensus 111.5) from an upwardly revised 111.9 (from 109.5) in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that the pickup in the short-term outlook, despite inflation pressures and the arrival of the Omicron variant, suggests consumer spending should remain a positive GDP growth driver.
Existing home sales increased 1.9% m/m in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.46 million (Briefing.com consensus 6.50 million). Total sales in November were down 2.0% from a year ago.
The key takeaway from the report is that inventory remains extremely tight. That is leading to hefty price increases and crimping sales growth in the existing home market because of the limited supply and affordability pressures for prospective buyers.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 0.6% to follow last week's 4.0% decrease. The Purchase Index fell 3.3% while the Refinance Index rose 2.2%.

The market will receive a full slate of data tomorrow, starting with November Personal Income (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%; prior 0.5%), Personal Spending (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%; prior 1.3%), PCE Prices (prior 0.6%), Core PCE Prices (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%; prior 0.6%), weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 206,000; prior 206,000), Continuing Claims (prior 1.845 mln), November Durable Orders (Briefing.com consensus 1.5%; prior -0.5%), and Durable Orders -ex transportation (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%; prior 0.5%) at 8:30 ET, followed by November New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 770,000; prior 745,000) and the final December University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey (Briefing.com consensus 70.4; prior 70.4) at 10:00 ET.

S&P 500 +25.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +20.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.8% YTD
Russell 2000 +12.5% YTD

Crude Oil Nears Recent High
22-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow +207.34 at 35700.04, Nasdaq +129.28 at 15470.35, S&P +35.70 at 4684.93

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 trades higher by 0.8% with 30 minutes remaining in today's session. The benchmark index is now up 1.4% for the week and up 2.6% since the end of November.

All eleven sectors continue holding gains going into the home stretch, including the energy sector (+0.6%), which made a brief appearance among the leaders in early trade. The sector has climbed 2.2% this week, trading only behind the technology sector (+1.0%; +2.3% week-to-date) on this week's leaderboard.

The energy sector received support from a rising price of oil, as WTI crude climbed $1.66, or 2.3%, to $72.77/bbl, revisiting its high from last week.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35950.56 +196.67 (0.55%)
Nasdaq 15653.36 +131.48 (0.85%)
SP 500 4725.79 +29.23 (0.62%)
10-yr Note -26/32 1.499
NYSE Adv 2223 Dec 1060 Vol 647.7 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3181 Dec 1409 Vol 3.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Industrials, Materials
Weak: Real Estate, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 closes at record high as the rebound momentum persisted

-- Decent economic data, although PCE Prices for November remained hot

-- Relatively light trading volume at the NYSE in front of the Christmas weekend

S&P 500 closes at record high in front of Christmas weekend
23-Dec-21 16:15 ET
Dow +196.67 at 35950.56, Nasdaq +131.48 at 15653.36, S&P +29.23 at 4725.79

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 0.6% on Thursday, wrapping up the Christmas week at a closing record high amid buy-the-dip momentum. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also gained 0.6% while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) and Russell 2000 (+0.9%) both gained 0.9%.

Most of the gains were registered shortly after the open, and the major indices slowly drifted slowly higher the rest of the session. There was a slight hiccup into the close, which might have been a byproduct of reduced trading volume at the NYSE and efforts to take some money off the table in front of a three-day weekend.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher with consumer discretionary (+1.2%), industrials (+1.2%), and materials (+1.0%) each rising at least 1.0%. The real estate (-0.4%) and utilities (-0.03%) sectors closed slightly lower.

Today's economic data was decent: weekly initial claims, new home sales for November, durable goods orders for November, and the final December reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment were each better than expected. Personal income and spending for November increased modestly.

One of the wrinkles in the data was a hotter-than-expected core PCE Price Index, which increased 0.5% m/m in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and was up 4.7% yr/yr. The PCE Price Index increased 0.6% m/m, leaving it up 5.7% yr/yr.

In COVID news, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for Merck’s (MRK 75.73, -0.43, -0.6%) oral antiviral for the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease for adults 18 and older. Research continued to suggest that the Omicron variant is milder than the Delta variant despite being more contagious.

The Treasury market softened up, driving yields higher, which was in-line with typical trading behavior when equities rally and the economic data leans positive. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 0.69%, and the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.49%.

The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 96.03. WTI crude futures rose 1.2%, or $0.85, to $73.62/bbl.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Personal income increased 0.4% month-over-month in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) and personal spending increased 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%). The PCE Price Index was up 0.6% month-over-month and the core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.5% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%). On a year-over-year basis, the PCE Price Index was up 5.7%, versus 5.1% in October, and the core PCE Price Index was up 4.7%, versus 4.2% in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that the bad inflation data should keep the Fed focused on gearing its monetary policy toward battling inflation as opposed to the slowdown effect of the Omicron variant.
Initial jobless claims for the week ending December 18 were unchanged at 205,000 (Briefing.com consensus 206,000). Continuing claims for the week ending December 11 decreased by 8,000 to 1.859 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that it covers the week in which the survey for the December Employment Situation Report is conducted. With the low level of initial claims, economists should be predicting some relatively strong gains in December nonfarm payrolls.
New home sales increased 12.4% month-over-month in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 744,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 770,000) from a downwardly revised 662,000 (from 745,000) in October. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales were down 14.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is that the growth in new home sales is concentrated in higher-priced homes, as inflation pressures, exacerbated by supply constraints and labor shortages, are curtailing the building of lower-priced homes and pinching affordability for lower-income buyers.
The final December reading for the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment came in at 70.6 (Briefing.com consensus 70.4) versus the preliminary reading of 70.4. The final reading for November was 67.4.
The key takeaway from the report is that the improvement was driven by higher income expectations among households in the bottom third of the income distribution, which has been sparked by higher wages for younger workers and a 5.9% increase in Social Security payments for 2022.
Durable goods orders increased 2.5% month-over-month in November (Briefing.com consensus 1.5%). Excluding transportation, durable goods orders rose 0.8% (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%).
The key takeaway from the report is that there was some slowing in business spending in November, evidenced by the 0.1% decline in orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft. It is worth pointing out, however, that this small decline comes on the heels of steady increases in orders for these goods, so it can still be viewed as a natural slowing after a strong period of gains as opposed to anything more severe in meaning.

There is no economic data scheduled for Monday, whish is when the market reopens from holiday.

S&P 500 +25.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +21.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +17.5% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.5% YTD

Crude futures settle higher
23-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow +269.03 at 36022.92, Nasdaq +145.33 at 15667.21, S&P +37.20 at 4733.76

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 0.8% and is on track to close at a record high.

One last look at the sector performances shows industrials (+1.3%), consumer discretionary (+1.2%), and materials (+1.2%) in the lead with gains over 1.0%, while the real estate sector (-0.3%) is the lone holdout with a 0.3% decline.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.2%, or $0.85, to $73.62/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36398.21 +95.83 (0.26%)
Nasdaq 15781.71 -89.54 (-0.56%)
SP 500 4786.35 -4.84 (-0.10%)
10-yr Note +2/32 1.461
NYSE Adv 1534 Dec 1718 Vol 568.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1582 Dec 2993 Vol 3.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Materials, Industrials
Weak: Information Technology, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 sets record high above the 4800 level but closes lower

-- CDC shortens the recommended isolation time for asymptomatic people with COVID-19 to five days from 10 days

-- Relative weakness in the information technology sector

-- Low volume at the NYSE

S&P 500 tags record high, then closes lower
28-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow +95.83 at 36398.21, Nasdaq -89.54 at 15781.71, S&P -4.84 at 4786.35

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 decreased 0.1% on Tuesday after setting an intraday record high above the 4800 level early in the day. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-0.7%) underperformed in negative territory, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) rose modestly.

The session started with a carryover of positive momentum, with some attributing updated COVID-19 guidance from the CDC as a supportive factor. The public health agency shortened the recommended isolation time for asymptomatic people with COVID-19 to five days from 10 days.

Seasonal factors also lent support, but the market appeared to be running on tired legs. Entering the session, the S&P 500 was up 4.9% over the prior four sessions while the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 were up nearly 6.0% over the same period. Selling interest was kept in check, though, on this low-volume day.

Seven of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in positive territory with the utilities sector (+0.9%) claiming the top spot with a 0.9% gain. The information technology sector (-0.6%), which led the market higher yesterday, slipped into the laggard position with a 0.6% decline.

The technology sector was pressured by losses in Apple (AAPL 179.20, -1.13, -0.6%), Microsoft (MSFT 341.35, -1.13, -0.3%), and the semiconductor stocks. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 1.2%.

Travel stocks saw some relief following the updated CDC guidance on the hope that there will be less Omicron-related disruptions. On a related note, Booking Holdings (BKNG 2386.91, -7.60, -0.3%) CEO told CNBC that he thinks the travel recovery will continue in 2022, even with the Omicron variant.

Value stocks in general fared better than their growth-stock peers. The Russell 1000 Value Index increased 0.2% while the Russell 1000 Growth Index fell 0.5%.

In the Treasury market, the 2-yr yield rose five basis points to 0.75% while the 10-yr yield settled unchanged at 1.48% after trading at 1.46% intraday. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 96.14. WTI crude futures increased 0.6%, or $0.45, to $76.01/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 18.4% yr/yr in October (Briefing.com consensus 18.7%) following a 19.1% yr/yr increase in September.
The FHFA Housing Price Index increased 1.1% m/m in October following a 0.9% increase in September.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Pending Home Sales for November, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, and the Advance November reports for Intl Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories on Wednesday.

S&P 500 +27.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +22.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.9% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.8% YTD

Crude futures settle at $76 per barrel
28-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow +112.21 at 36414.59, Nasdaq -66.39 at 15804.86, S&P -2.18 at 4789.01

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading flat while the Russell 2000 trades lower by 0.4%.

One last look at the sectors shows utilities (+0.7%), industrials (+0.5%), and materials (+0.5%) outperforming with modest gains. Conversely, the information technology (-0.5%), health care (-0.3%), and communication services (-0.3%) sectors are trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.6%, or $0.45, to $76.01/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36488.63 +90.42 (0.25%)
Nasdaq 15766.20 -15.51 (-0.10%)
SP 500 4793.06 +6.71 (0.14%)
10-yr Note -6/32 1.549
NYSE Adv 1831 Dec 1476 Vol 608.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1938 Dec 2711 Vol 3.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care, Real Estate, Utilities
Weak: Energy, Communication Services, Financials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 and Dow close at record highs in calm session

-- Below-average volume, lack of conviction

-- Treasury yield curve steepened, but bank stocks barely reacted

S&P 500 and Dow close at record highs
29-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow +90.42 at 36488.63, Nasdaq -15.51 at 15766.20, S&P +6.71 at 4793.06

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices closed little changed on Wednesday, but the S&P 500 (+0.1%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) did set closing record highs. The Russell 2000 increased 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite decreased 0.1%. The Dow also set an intraday record high and extended its winning streak to six sessions.

Trading conditions remained thin, particularly at the NYSE, ahead of the new year festivities at the end of the week. That observation, plus the lack of market-moving news, suggested that there wasn't a lot of conviction in today's trading activities.

Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, yet no sector rose more than 0.7%. The health care (+0.6%) and real estate (+0.6%) sectors tied for the lead, while the communication services (-0.3%), energy (-0.6%), and financials (-0.1%) sectors finished in negative territory.

The lack of conviction was further manifested in bank stocks showing little interest to the steepening activity in the Treasury market. Likewise, the energy sector closed lower despite an increase in oil prices ($76.57/bbl, +0.56, +0.7%). The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 54.84, +0.06) increased just 0.1%.

The 10-yr yield rose six basis points to 1.54% while the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.75%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.3% to 95.91.

Growth stocks, which were purportedly trading lower intraday because of the higher rates, recouped losses as the session progressed. The Russell 1000 Growth Index (+0.04%) closed fractionally higher after being down 0.5% intraday.

The 9.5% gain in Biogen (BIIB 258.31, +22.32, +9.5%), however, was linked to a specific catalyst. The Korea Economic Daily reported that the company in in talks to be acquired by Samsung Group for more than $40 billion.

Airlines stocks faced renewed selling interest after Delta (DAL 39.16, -0.47, -1.2%) and Alaska Airlines (ALK 52.14, -0.76, -1.4%) canceled/delayed hundreds more flights due to weather and Omicron issues. The U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 21.14, -0.32) declined 1.5%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The Advance International Trade in Goods report for November showed a deficit of $97.8 billion, up $14.6 billion from October. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for November increased 2.0%, while the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for November increased 1.2%.
Pending home sales fell 2.2% m/m in November (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) following a 7.5% jump in October.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

S&P 500 +27.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +22.3% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +19.2% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.9% YTD

Crude futures settle higher, but energy stocks underperform
29-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow +148.87 at 36547.08, Nasdaq -20.87 at 15760.84, S&P +11.17 at 4797.52

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.2% and is vying for a record close.

Nine sectors are supporting the effort, led by health care (+0.7%) and real estate (+0.7%) with 0.7% gains. The energy (-0.3%) and communication services (-0.3%) sectors are the two holdouts.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.7%, or $0.56, to $76.57/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot
Dow 36338.30 -59.78 (-0.16%)
Nasdaq 15644.96 -96.59 (-0.61%)
SP 500 4766.18 -12.55 (-0.26%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.514
NYSE Adv 1990 Dec 1333 Vol 702.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2141 Dec 2535 Vol 3.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples, Materials, Industrials
Weak: Communication Services, Information Technology, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Market slips into the close, led by the Nasdaq amid weakness in the mega-caps

-- Year-end rebalancing activity

-- Broader market held its ground

Mega-caps lead market lower to wrap up a record 2021
31-Dec-21 16:20 ET
Dow -59.78 at 36338.30, Nasdaq -96.59 at 15644.96, S&P -12.55 at 4766.18

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices declined modestly on Friday amid some slippage into the close, but still wrapped up 2021 with double-digit percentage gains. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6% amid weakness in the mega-caps, while the S&P 500 (-0.3%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%), and Russell 2000 (-0.2%) closed slightly lower.

There weren't any specific catalysts today, but the underperformance of the mega-caps suggested there was some year-end rebalancing activity in the mix. Some of that activity likely happened into the close, as the relatively weak finish coincided with an increase in trading volume.

Six of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher while five closed lower. The consumer staples sector (+0.7%) was the only sector that gained more than 0.5%, while the communication services sector (-1.2%) declined more than 1.0%.

Illustrating the year-end activity, the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 260.76, -1.55) declined 0.6% today and ended the year with a 28.0% gain -- roughly equal to the 27.6% gain in the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 162.75, unch).

Pfizer (PFE 59.05, +0.65, +1.1%) outperformed amid news that its oral antiviral for COVID-19 was approved by UK regulators for people with mild-to-moderate disease and that Israel will offer a fourth coronavirus vaccine to nursing home residents.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average (+0.6%) was another an area of relative strength, particularly the non-airline components like Norfolk Southern (NSC 297.71, +2.98, +1.0%) and CSX (CSX 37.60, +0.28, +0.8%), which set record highs.

The Treasury market had an uneventful, abbreviated session. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.73% (+61 bps in 2021), and the 10-yr yield was unchanged at 1.51% (+59 bps in 2021). The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 95.63. WTI crude futures fell 2.2%, or $1.70, to $75.15/bbl (+55.7% in 2021).

Investors did not receive any economic data on Friday. Looking ahead, investors will receive Construction Spending for November on Monday.

S&P 500 +26.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +21.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +18.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +13.8% YTD

Crude futures end year at $75 per barrel
31-Dec-21 15:30 ET
Dow +66.70 at 36464.78, Nasdaq -37.27 at 15704.28, S&P +4.37 at 4783.10

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.1% while the Dow (+0.2%) and Russell 2000 (+0.2%) retain a small advantage.

One last look at the sectors before the year ends shows real estate (+0.7%) and consumer staples (+0.7%) tied for the lead, while the communication services (-0.7%) and information technology (-0.1%) sectors trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 2.2%, or $1.70, to $75.15/bbl, ending the year with a 55.7% gain.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36799.65 +214.59 (0.59%)
Nasdaq 15622.71 -210.08 (-1.33%)
SP 500 4793.54 -3.02 (-0.06%)
10-yr Note -2/32 1.648
NYSE Adv 1670 Dec 1614 Vol 950.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1857 Dec 2637 Vol 5.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Energy, Industrials, Materials
Weak: Information Technology, Health Care, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Dow sets intraday and closing record highs amid strength in the value/cyclical stocks

-- Growth stocks fall amid continued rise in long-term rates

-- December ISM Manufacturing Index showed ease in inflation pressures

Value stocks propel Dow to record highs
04-Jan-22 16:20 ET
Dow +214.59 at 36799.65, Nasdaq -210.08 at 15622.71, S&P -3.02 at 4793.54

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.1% on Tuesday in a mixed session, which was better represented by the sharp divergence between the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) and Nasdaq Composite (-1.3%). Both the S&P 500 and Dow set intraday record highs while the Dow also set a closing record high. The Russell 2000 declined 0.2%.

Today's session was reminiscent of the classic reopening trade, except that it's 2022 and daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. topped one million yesterday. Value/cyclical stocks outperformed at the expense of growth stocks, the Treasury yield curve steepened, and WTI crude futures settled at $77.00 per barrel (+$1.00, +1.3%).

More specifically, the S&P 500 energy (+3.5%), financials (+2.6%), industrials (+2.0%), and materials (+1.3%) sectors rose between 1-4%. The 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.67% while the 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.76%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 96.28.

Notably, the 10-yr yield has now risen 16 basis points start the year, increasing the probability that 2022 will be marked by a higher-interest rate environment, as forecasted by many analysts on Wall Street. This view weighed on the highly-valued growth stocks, albeit in a delayed reaction since the Nasdaq was up 0.1% in early action.

The information technology (-1.1%), health care (-1.4%), and consumer discretionary (-0.7%) sectors struggled amid weakness in the growth stocks. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 260.20, -3.27) fell 1.2%. The iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB 148.29, -4.08) fell 2.7%. The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 92.69, -4.30) fell 4.4%.

Selling interest in the growth stocks accelerated soon after the release of the December ISM Manufacturing Index at 10:00 a.m. ET. While the index decelerated more than expected to 58.7% (Briefing.com consensus 60.3%) from 61.1% in November, it still denoted an expanding manufacturing sector.

More encouragingly, the Prices Index in the ISM report showed a noticeable ease in inflation pressures. The Omicron variant could pose risks this month, but the inference from today (and prior weeks) is that market sees the economic impact from the variant as short-term.

Growth stocks eventually pared losses in the afternoon, helping the market end the Santa Claus rally period on a better note.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The December ISM Manufacturing Index checked in at 58.7% (Briefing.com consensus 60.3%) versus 61.1% in November. A number above 50.0% is indicative of expansion. December marked the 19th straight month of expansion for the manufacturing sector, albeit at a slower pace.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that price pressures softened some, presumably due to improved supply chain conditions; however, supply concerns (and inflation worries) aren't going to fade away knowing that the Omicron variant is driving global staffing challenges.
Job openings decreased to 10.562 million in November from a revised 11.091 million (from 11.033 million) in October.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ADP Employment Change report for December, the FOMC Minutes from the December meeting, the preliminary IHS Markit Services PMI for December, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.3% YTD
Russell 2000 +1.1% YTD
S&P 500 +0.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -0.1% YTD

Crude futures settle at $77 per barrel amid expected OPEC+ decision
04-Jan-22 15:30 ET
Dow +280.04 at 36865.10, Nasdaq -203.38 at 15629.41, S&P +2.51 at 4799.07

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at its flat line and is vying for a record close despite the weakness from the mega-caps.

One last look at the sectors shows energy (+3.5%), financials (+2.7%), industrials (+2.0%), and materials (+1.4%) leading the effort with nice gains, while the information technology (-1.1%), health care (-1.2%), and consumer discretionary (-0.6%) sectors underperform in negative territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.3%, or $1.00, to $77.00 per barrel. On a related note, OPEC+ reaffirmed an agreement to increase output by 400,000 barrels/day in February, which was expected.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36407.11 -392.54 (-1.07%)
Nasdaq 15100.17 -522.54 (-3.34%)
SP 500 4700.58 -92.96 (-1.94%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.651
NYSE Adv 583 Dec 2682 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 978 Dec 3456 Vol 5.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Utilities, Consumer Staples
Weak: Real Estate, Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Market sells off following release of FOMC Minutes, which highlighted a more aggressive stance on policy normalization

-- Growth stocks extended intraday losses while value stocks gave up intraday gains

-- 10-yr yield tops 1.70%

-- December ADP Employment Change report was stronger than expected

FOMC Minutes catalyzes sell-off in broader market
05-Jan-22 16:20 ET
Dow -392.54 at 36407.11, Nasdaq -522.54 at 15100.17, S&P -92.96 at 4700.58

[BRIEFING.COM] A mixed market turned into a weak market on Wednesday after the FOMC Minutes highlighted a more aggressive stance on policy normalization. The Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 both dropped 3.3%, the S&P 500 dropped 1.9%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.1% after setting an all-time high in early action.

Briefly, the Minutes from the December meeting showed that participants thought it would be appropriate to reduce the size of the Fed's balance sheet at a faster pace than during the previous normalization period. Cited reasons included the fact that the balance sheet is bigger this time around and that the economic outlook is stronger.

What's more, the participants judged that the commencement of a balance sheet runoff would likely be closer to after the first rate hike, versus waiting nearly two years after the first hike in the last normalization episode.

Growth stocks extended intraday losses, as the 10-yr yield topped 1.70% in the wake of the report, while value stocks gave up intraday gains. All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, with real estate (-3.2%), information technology (-3.1%), and communication services (-2.9%) each falling about 3.0%.

The consumer staples (-0.03%), utilities (-0.1%), energy (-0.1%), and materials (-0.1%) sectors closed fractionally lower amid increased selling pressure into the close.

The market might have been caught off guard by the Fed's hawkish tone regarding the balance sheet, but the readiness to hike rates shouldn't come as a surprise. According to the CME FedWatch Tool, the probability for a rate hike in March increased to 67.8% today, versus 59.7% yesterday and 27.1% one month ago.

Rate-hike expectations firmed up today after the release of a stronger-than-expected December ADP Employment Change report, which estimated an addition of 807,000 jobs to private sector payrolls last month (Briefing.com consensus 425,000).

The 2-yr yield, which tracks expectations for the fed funds rate, rose seven basis points to 0.83%. The 10-yr yield settled the session four basis points higher at 1.71%, feeding into expectations for a run-up to 2.00%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 96.20. WTI crude futures rose 1.1%, or $0.82, to $77.82/bbl.

All in all, the balance-sheet commentary, coupled with higher interest rates, was presumably an excuse for investors to double down on the growth-stock selling and take profits in the value stocks.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

ADP estimated that 807,000 jobs were added to private sector payrolls in December (Briefing.com consensus 425,000), up from a downwardly revised 505,000 (from 534,000) in November.
The preliminary IHS Markit Services PMI for December decreased to 57.6 from 58.0 in the final reading for November.
The MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 5.6% on a weekly basis.
Crude oil inventories had a weekly draw of 2.144 mln barrels, which was the EIA's sixth draw in six weeks.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for December, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the Trade Balance for November, and Factory Orders for November on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.2% YTD
S&P 500 -1.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -3.5% YTD

Crude futures settle higher while stocks struggle
05-Jan-22 15:30 ET
Dow -274.74 at 36524.91, Nasdaq -459.72 at 15162.99, S&P -74.30 at 4719.24

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at session lows with a 1.5% decline amid losses in seven of its 11 sectors.

The real estate sector (-3.1%) is the weakest performer, but the biggest drags are the information technology (-2.6%), communication services (-2.2%), and consumer discretionary (-2.3%) sectors. The energy (+0.2%), materials (+0.3%), consumer staples (+0.2%), and utilities (+0.2%) sectors trade higher.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.1%, or $0.82, to $77.82/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36231.66 -4.81 (-0.01%)
Nasdaq 14935.90 -144.96 (-0.96%)
SP 500 4677.03 -19.02 (-0.41%)
10-yr Note -4/32 1.764
NYSE Adv 1648 Dec 1571 Vol 903.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1898 Dec 2514 Vol 4.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Utilities, Consumer Staples
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Growth stocks remained under pressure as 10-yr yield hit 1.80% intraday

-- Nonfarm payrolls increased by 199,000 (Briefing.com consensus 440,000), unemployment rate was 3.9% (Briefing.com consensus 4.1%), average hourly earnings rose 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%)

-- Energy and financial stocks extended weekly gains

-- S&P 500 finds support at its 50-day moving average (4675)

Growth/value divide widens after employment report
07-Jan-22 16:20 ET
Dow -4.81 at 36231.66, Nasdaq -144.96 at 14935.90, S&P -19.02 at 4677.03

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.4% on Friday, as money continued to flow away from growth stocks and into value stocks as the 10-yr yield hit 1.80% intraday. The latter was catalyzed by the December employment report, which depicted tight labor market conditions with a slowdown in hiring and strong wage gains.

The growth/value divide was loosely represented by the steep underperformance of the Nasdaq Composite (-1.0%) versus the Dow Jones Industrial Average (unch). More clearly, the Russell 3000 Growth Index fell 1.1% while the Russell 3000 Value Index rose 0.2%. The small-cap Russell 2000 declined 1.2%.

From a sector perspective, the S&P 500 information technology (-1.0%) and consumer discretionary (-1.7%) sectors underperformed in negative territory. Conversely, the energy (+1.5%) and financials (+1.2%) sectors rose more than 1.0%, extending their weekly gains to more than 10.0% and 5.0%, respectively.

Specifying the key employment figures, December nonfarm payrolls increased by just 199,000 (Briefing.com consensus 440,000), the unemployment rate remarkably declined to 3.9% (Briefing.com consensus 4.1%), and average hourly earnings rose 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%).

The report reaffirmed expectations for the Fed to be more assertive in normalizing policy, even though jobs growth missed expectations and the labor force participation rate held steady at 61.9% (below pre-pandemic levels).

December still capped an impressive rebound for the labor market in 2021, and it appears to be approaching the Fed's goal of maximum employment. Furthermore, the Fed has suggested it's more attuned to keeping inflation pressures in check, and it wouldn't want the robust wage growth to exacerbate inflation pressures.

The 10-yr yield, as mentioned, hit 1.80% in the hours following the employment report, but ended the session at 1.77%, or four basis points above yesterday's settlement. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.87%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.6% to 95.75. WTI crude futures fell 0.6%, or $0.46, to $78.94/bbl.

For what it's worth, the S&P 500 closed just above its 50-day moving average (4675), which is a key technical level that has attracted dip-buying efforts in the past.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

December payrolls growth was quite weak, but that shouldn't remain the case as we get past the Omicron hurdle. The unemployment rate fell to an astounding 3.9%, although the labor force participation rate did not improve. It held steady at 61.9%. Average hourly earnings were up a stronger than expected 0.6%.
December nonfarm payrolls increased by 199,000 (Briefing.com consensus 440,000). The 3-month average for total nonfarm payrolls decreased to 365,000 from 425,000 in November. November nonfarm payrolls revised to 249,000 from 210,000. October nonfarm payrolls revised to 648,000 from 546,000.
December private sector payrolls increased by 211,000 (Briefing.com consensus 420,000). November private sector payrolls revised to 270,000 from 235,000. October private sector payrolls revised to 714,000 from 628,000.
December unemployment rate was 3.9% (Briefing.com consensus 4.1%), versus 4.2% in November. Persons unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 31.7% of the unemployed versus 32.5% in November. The U6 unemployment rate, which accounts for unemployed and underemployed workers, was 7.3%, versus 7.7% in November.
December average hourly earnings increased 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) versus a 0.4% increase in November. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 4.7%, versus 5.1% for the 12 months ending in November.
The average workweek in December was 34.7 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.8), versus a downwardly revised 34.7 hours (from 34.8 hours) in November. Manufacturing workweek decreased 0.1 hours to 40.3 hours. Factory overtime decreased 0.1 hours to 3.2 hours.
The labor force participation rate held steady at 61.9%.
The employment-population ratio increased to 59.5% from 59.3% in November.
The key takeaway from the report is that it shows the Fed is close to meeting its objective of maximum employment and that wage growth in a tight labor market risks feeding into more persistent inflation pressures that will need to be addressed with a tighter policy position.
Consumer credit increased by $39.9 bln in November. The prior month saw a downward revision to $16.1 bln from $16.9 bln.
The key takeaway from the report is that increase in consumer credit in November was the largest monthly increase December 2010.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Wholesale Inventories for November on Monday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.3% YTD
S&P 500 -1.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -2.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -4.5% YTD

Crude futures settle lower but still end higher for the week
07-Jan-22 15:30 ET
Dow +69.13 at 36305.60, Nasdaq -124.46 at 14956.40, S&P -12.62 at 4683.43

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.2% and is on track to end the week with a 1.7% decline.

One last look at the sector performances shows consumer discretionary (-1.6%) leading the decline as the only sector down more than 1.0% today. The energy (+1.4%), financials (+1.0%), and utilities (+1.0%) sectors are each up by at least 1.0%.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.6%, or $0.46, to $78.94/bbl. For the week, crude futures were up 5.0%.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36068.87 -162.79 (-0.45%)
Nasdaq 14942.83 +6.93 (0.05%)
SP 500 4670.29 -6.74 (-0.14%)
10-yr Note 0/32 1.772
NYSE Adv 1174 Dec 2051 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1565 Dec 2943 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Health Care
Weak: Industrials, Materials, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Stocks extend last week's losses amid de-risking efforts, but currently trade off session lows

-- 10-yr yield touches 1.81% before retracing to 1.77%

-- Deteriorating technical posture

Nasdaq completes comeback after 10-yr yield calms down
10-Jan-22 16:15 ET
Dow -162.79 at 36068.87, Nasdaq +6.93 at 14942.83, S&P -6.74 at 4670.29

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.1%) declined for the fifth straight session on Monday, but it only lost 0.1% after being down 2.0% intraday. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) eked out a gain after being down 2.7% intraday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-0.4%) also closed well off session lows.

The intraday weakness was attributed to persisting concerns about rising rates and the Fed's agenda for policy normalization. The 10-yr yield hit 1.81% intraday before ending the session at 1.77%, or one basis point above Friday's settlement. The 2-yr yield rose three basis points to 0.90%.

Investors started to buy the dip soon after it looked like the 10-yr yield peaked for the day, finding a good excuse to buy into an oversold condition. The Nasdaq, for instance, was down 8.2% in less than five sessions and had fallen below its 200-day moving average (14690).

The S&P 500 couldn't reclaim its 50-day moving average (4675), though, as eight of its 11 sectors still closed lower. The industrials (-1.2%) and materials (-1.0%) sectors declined at least 1.0%, while the health care sector advanced 1.0%.

Evidently, cyclical stocks were lumped into the selling activity today. Besides downside momentum, risk sentiment in the space was pressured by a report from the Washington Post indicating that Senator Manchin (D-WV) is no longer interested in passing any legislation resembling the Build Back Better Act.

In the health care space, Pfizer (PFE 56.24, +0.52, +0.9%) told CNBC that a COVID-19 vaccine for the Omicron variant will be ready in March, and Moderna (MRNA 233.70, +19.84, +9.3%) provided an upbeat sales forecast for COVID-19 vaccines in 2022.

Separately, shares of Take-Two Interactive (TTWO 142.99, -21.61, -13.1%) dropped 13% on concerns that it overpaid for Zynga (ZYNG 8.44, +2.44, +40.7%). The cash-and-stock transaction at $9.86 per Zynga share gave the company a total enterprise value of approximately $12.7 billion.

The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 95.97. WTI crude futures declined 1.1%, or $0.83, to $78.11/bbl.

Monday's economic data was limited to Wholesale Inventories, which increased 1.4% m/m in November (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%) following a revised 2.5% increase (from 1.2%) in October. Looking ahead, investors will receive the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for December on Tuesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.7% YTD
S&P 500 -2.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -4.5% YTD

Crude futures settle lower
10-Jan-22 15:30 ET
Dow -306.35 at 35925.31, Nasdaq -111.31 at 14824.59, S&P -33.48 at 4643.55

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.7% as the market continues to recoup losses.

One last look at the sectors shows industrials (-1.5%), materials (-1.4%), and consumer discretionary (-1.5%) down more than 1.0%, while the health care sector (+0.7%) outperforms in positive territory.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.1%, or $0.83, to $78.11/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 36290.32 +38.30 (0.11%)
Nasdaq 15188.39 +34.94 (0.23%)
SP 500 4726.35 +13.28 (0.28%)
10-yr Note +1/32 1.733
NYSE Adv 1654 Dec 1570 Vol 854.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1850 Dec 2609 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Materials, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Large-cap indices eke out gains following hot CPI report for December

-- Total CPI increased 0.5% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), leaving it up 7.0% yr/yr

-- Tame response in the Treasury market

Large-caps eke out gains following hot CPI data
12-Jan-22 16:15 ET
Dow +38.30 at 36290.32, Nasdaq +34.94 at 15188.39, S&P +13.28 at 4726.35

[BRIEFING.COM] The large-cap indices eked out gains on Wednesday, as investors lacked conviction following another hot Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for December. The S&P 500 (+0.3%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) rose between 0.1-0.3% while the Russell 2000 fell 0.8%.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors did close in positive territory, but the lightly-weighted materials sector (+1.0%) was the only sector that rose at least 1.0%. The health care sector (-0.3%) was the lone holdout with a modest decline. Declining issues outpaced advancing issues at the Nasdaq.

Specifying the data, total CPI rose 0.5% m/m in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and was up 7.0% yr/yr, which was the sharpest 12-month increase since June 1982. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.6% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) and was up 5.5% yr/yr.

The 10-yr yield went from 1.74% to 1.71% in the wake of the report, signaling that inflation-rate expectations could be peaking with the Fed planning to tighten policy this year. This immediate decline in long-term rates was cited as early boost for the stock market, particularly the growth stocks.

The S&P 500 was up 0.8% shortly after the open, but as the 10-yr yield stabilized, so did the rebound bias in growth stocks. The Russell 3000 Growth Index, for example, increased just 0.2% after being up 1.2% intraday.

Fortunately for the large-cap indices, the mega-caps did okay. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 252.32, +1.53, +0.6%) advanced 0.6%, which was better than the 0.1% gain in the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 162.61, +0.13, +0.1%).

In the afternoon, the Fed's Beige Book for January noted that economic activity in the U.S. expanded at a modest pace in the last weeks of 2021 and that some districts observed a deceleration in the robust price increases from the previous months. The report was a nonevent for the market.

The 10-yr yield settled the session down two basis points to 1.73%, and the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.89%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.7% to 94.95. WTI crude futures rose 1.7%, or $1.38, to $82.52/bbl amid bullish inventory data.

Separately, shares of Biogen (BIIB 225.34, -16.18, -6.7%) dropped nearly 7.0% after Medicare officials proposed to limit coverage of the company's Alzheimer's treatment to only those patients that participated in approved clinical trials.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Total CPI rose 0.5% month-over-month in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) and was up 7.0% year-over-year. This represented the sharpest 12-month increase since June 1982. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.6% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) and was up 5.5% year-over-year. This was the sharpest 12-month increase since February 1991.
The key takeaway from the report is that while some categories, like the energy index, showed a decrease in December, the continuation of the overall trend resulted in another acceleration of the year-over-year inflation rate at the headline and core levels.
The Treasury Budget showed a $21.3 bln deficit in December versus a $143.6 bln deficit in the same period a year ago. The budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the December deficit cannot be compared to the November deficit of $191.3 bln. December marked the 27th consecutive month that the Treasury has seen a budget deficit.
The budget deficit over the last 12 months is $2.58 trln versus a deficit of $2.70 trln in November.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 1.4% following a 5.6% decline in the prior week.
Weekly EIA crude oil inventories decreased by 4.55 mln barrels after decreasing by 2.14 mln barrels during the previous week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for December and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1% YTD
S&P 500 -0.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -2.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -3.1% YTD

Crude futures settle higher (again)
12-Jan-22 15:30 ET
Dow -13.98 at 36238.04, Nasdaq +22.20 at 15175.65, S&P +7.48 at 4720.55

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.2%, as is the Nasdaq (+0.2%) heading into the close.

One last look at the sectors shows materials (+0.7%) overtaking the information technology (+0.3%) and consumer discretionary (+0.5%) sectors for the top spot. The health care (-0.4%) and consumers staples (-0.2%) sectors trade slightly lower.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.7%, or $1.38, to $82.52/bbl amid bullish inventory data. The EIA reported its seventh straight week of an inventory draw.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35368.47 -543.34 (-1.51%)
Nasdaq 14506.89 -386.86 (-2.60%)
SP 500 4577.11 -85.74 (-1.84%)
10-yr Note -26/32 1.874
NYSE Adv 516 Dec 2818 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 817 Dec 3602 Vol 5.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy
Weak: Information Technology, Financials, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Major indices down over 1.0% as interest rates continue to climb

-- 2-yr yield tops 1.00% on expectations for four rate hikes this year

-- Higher oil prices fuel inflation angst

-- Disappointing bank earnings reactions

Stocks drop amid rising rates and Goldman Sachs EPS miss
18-Jan-22 16:20 ET
Dow -543.34 at 35368.47, Nasdaq -386.86 at 14506.89, S&P -85.74 at 4577.11

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.8% on Tuesday amid anxiety surrounding rising interest rates, as well as some concerns about corporate earnings. The Nasdaq Composite (-2.6%) and Russell 2000 (-3.1%) suffered steeper losses while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.5%.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower with losses ranging from 0.7% (real estate) to 2.5% (information technology). The energy sector (+0.4%) was the exception, extending its monthly gain to roughly 17%, amid another 2% increase in oil prices ($85.48, +1.61, +1.9%).

The first issue for the market today was the persistent rise in Treasury yields, which signaled growing expectations for the Fed to hike rates four times this year -- including a potential 50-bps increase in March -- to keep inflation in check.

The 2-yr yield jumped seven basis points to 1.03%, the 10-yr yield jumped nine basis points to 1.87%, and the 30-yr yield jumped seven basis points to 2.18%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.5% to 95.76. Inflation angst was fueled by the increase in oil prices, which was a byproduct of tensions in Europe and the Middle East.

Goldman Sachs (GS 354.40, -26.54, -7.0%) was the second problem today, as shares fell 7% after missing EPS estimates amid a sharp increase in compensation expenses. Rising wages have previously been cited as a potential headwind for corporate earnings, so to see that play out negatively in Goldman's case might have fueled concerns about this being a pain point for this earnings season.

The latter could explain why selling interest was almost indiscriminate. Growth stocks (big and small) may have led the retreat, but value stocks (excluding energy) also did poorly. The Russell 3000 Index fell 2.4%, and the Russell 3000 Value Index fell 1.5%.

Apart from inflation pressures, risk sentiment was curbed by deteriorating technical factors and a negative reading in the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for January, which dropped to -0.7 (Briefing.com consensus 25.0) from 31.9 in December. The Nasdaq Composite closed below its 200-day moving average (14730) for the first time since April 2020.

Separately, Microsoft (MSFT 302.65, -7.55, -2.4%) announced an acquisition of Activision Blizzard (ATVI 82.31, +16.92, +25.9%) for $68.7 billion, or $95.00 per share, in cash.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for January dropped to -0.7 (Briefing.com consensus 25.0) from 31.9 in December.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for January decreased to 83 (Briefing.com consensus 84) from 84 in December.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for December and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.7% YTD
S&P 500 -4.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -7.3% YTD

Crude futures settle above $85 per barrel
18-Jan-22 15:30 ET
Dow -508.43 at 35403.38, Nasdaq -333.54 at 14560.21, S&P -77.58 at 4585.27

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.7% while the Russell 2000 underperforms with a 2.2% decline.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+0.6%) back in positive territory while the other ten sectors trade lower between 0.8% (real estate) and 2.2% (information technology).

WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.9%, or $1.61, to $85.48/bbl amid rising tensions in Europe and the Middle East.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34265.37 -450.02 (-1.30%)
Nasdaq 13768.92 -385.10 (-2.72%)
SP 500 4397.94 -84.79 (-1.89%)
10-yr Note +4/32 1.762
NYSE Adv 649 Dec 2615 Vol 1.3 bln
Nasdaq Adv 841 Dec 3544 Vol 5.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples
Weak: Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Materials

Moving the Market

-- S&P 500 closes below 200-day moving average (4429)

-- Netflix (NFLX) plunges 22% on disappointing Q1 guidance

-- Concerns about profit margins, valuations, the Fed, and geopolitics

-- Safe-haven trade in Treasuries

S&P 500 loses battle with its 200-day moving average
21-Jan-22 16:20 ET
Dow -450.02 at 34265.37, Nasdaq -385.10 at 13768.92, S&P -84.79 at 4397.94

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.9% on Friday, as de-risking efforts persisted amid an inclination to sell into strength, disappointing Q1 guidance from Netflix (NFLX 397.50, -110.75, -21.8%), deteriorating technical factors, and a flight to safety in Treasuries.

The Nasdaq Composite declined 2.7%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.3%, and the Russell 2000 declined 1.8%.

Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors fell at least 1.0%, including the communication services sector with a 3.9% decline. The consumer staples sector (+0.02%) closed fractionally higher.

The session began with Netflix weighing on sentiment after the company guided for slower subscriber growth and below-consensus revenue for Q1, as well as a smaller operating margin versus Q1 of last year amid higher programming costs.

The operating margin guidance, coupled with a Q1 EPS warning from PPG Industries (PPG 154.74, -4.96, -3.1%), fed into concerns about higher costs eating into profits. In addition, the visceral reaction mirrored the plunge in Peloton (PTON 27.06, +2.84, +11.7%) yesterday, stirring a fear of being invested in high-multiple growth stocks that disappoint.

In Peloton's defense, the company provided reassuring Q2 guidance, and its CEO said prior reporting of its plans to pause production was inaccurate. PTON shares bounced roughly 12% today after falling 24% yesterday.

Back to the broader market, buyers swooped in to defend a violation of the S&P 500's 200-day moving average (4429) early in the session. The benchmark index briefly returned into positive territory, until investors reprised efforts to sell into strength. The benchmark index closed below the key technical level.

This negative price action left buyers mistrustful of the market, imprinting a belief that the dip will keep on dipping until proven otherwise. The CBOE Volatility Index increased 12.7% to 28.85 amid increased hedging interest.

Other worries in the market included what the Fed will say in next week's policy meeting and the Russia-Ukraine conflict that the U.S. is trying to defuse.

The Treasury market was less of a concern, but only because it was acting as a safe-haven trade from equities. The 2-yr yield fell six basis points to 0.99%, and the 10-yr yield fell nine basis points to 1.75%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 95.63. WTI crude futures fell 1.3%, or $1.13, to $85.16/bbl.

Friday's economic data was limited to the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index for December, which increased 0.8%, as expected, following a revised 0.7% increase (from +1.1%) in November. On Monday, investors will receive the preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing and Services PMIs for January.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.7% YTD
S&P 500 -7.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -11.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -12.0% YTD

Crude futures settle lower amid de-risking efforts
21-Jan-22 15:30 ET
Dow -457.74 at 34257.65, Nasdaq -349.14 at 13804.88, S&P -82.85 at 4399.88

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.8% to trade at session lows amid losses in all 11 sectors.

Eight of the 11 sectors are down over 1.0%, including a 3.5% decline in the communication services sector. The consumer staples sector (-0.1%) outperforms on a relative basis with a 0.1% decline.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.3%, or $1.13, to $85.16/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

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Dow 34160.78 -7.31 (-0.02%)
Nasdaq 13352.78 -189.34 (-1.40%)
SP 500 4326.51 -23.42 (-0.54%)
10-yr Note +29/32 1.786
NYSE Adv 904 Dec 2381 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 921 Dec 3551 Vol 5.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Staples, Energy, Utilities, Materials
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Real Estate, Information Technology, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Hawkish Fed expectations continued to weigh on sentiment

-- Tesla (TSLA) falls nearly 12.0% following earnings

-- Disappointing earnings guidance in the semiconductor space

-- Technical resistance at the S&P 500's 200-day moving average (4434)

Market closes lower as Fed concerns linger
27-Jan-22 16:20 ET
Dow -7.31 at 34160.78, Nasdaq -189.34 at 13352.78, S&P -23.42 at 4326.51

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.5% on Thursday, closing lower for the third straight day as investors sold into early strength amid lingering concerns about a hawkish Fed. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.4%) and Russell 2000 (-2.3%) posted steeper declines while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.02%) closed fractionally lower.

Each of the major indices started the session with gains over 1.5% in another rebound-minded pursuit. There wasn't any specific news that triggered the positive bias, and likewise, there wasn't a catalyst to account for the intraday turnaround, although it's likely that the Fed remained a primary concern along with disappointing earnings reactions and stubborn technical factors.

The fed funds futures market started to price in the probability for five rate hikes this year following the FOMC meeting yesterday, and the Treasury market behaved accordingly as the 2-yr yield jumped 11 basis points to 1.19%. The 10-yr yield declined four basis points to 1.81% as investors sniffed the potential for the Fed to upset growth prospects with its tightening plans.

Despite the negative index closes, six of the 11 S&P 500 sectors still closed in positive territory, including energy (+1.2%), utilities (+0.8%), and consumer staples (+0.6%). The consumer discretionary (-2.3%), information technology (-0.7%), and financials (-0.9%) sectors were the influential laggards.

The curve-flattening activity in the Treasury market was a headwind for the bank stocks, but as noted, the consumer discretionary sector was the weakest performer, primarily due to a 10% decline in Tesla (TSLA 829.10, -108.31, -11.6%), which delayed new vehicle launches amid persistent supply chain issues.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-4.8%) was another weak spot, falling 5% after Intel (INTC 48.05, -3.64, -7.0%), Lam Research (LRCX 555.30, -41.37, -6.9%), and Teradyne (TER 111.24, -32.13, -22.4%) each provided disappointing quarterly guidance.

McDonald's (MCD 248.74, -1.11, -0.4%), Dow Inc. (DOW 60.18, +2.96, +5.2%), MasterCard (MA 350.53, +5.87, +1.7%), and Comcast (CMCSA 48.01, -0.45, -0.9%) were other high-profile companies that reported earnings. Apple (AAPL 159.22, -0.47, -0.3%) closed lower in front of its earnings report after the close.

Other factors in the mix included the S&P 500 finding technical resistance at its 200-day moving average (4434), which might have fueled the downside volatility in the broader market, and the Advance Q4 GDP report, which showed decent growth in the economy and inflation.

Separately, the U.S. Dollar Index rose 1.4% to 97.25 amid a view that rate hikes will drive greater demand for the dollar in an environment where foreign central banks are hesitant to rein in policy support. Crude futures ($86.62, -0.74, -0.9%) and precious metals were clipped by the stronger dollar.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

The Advance Q4 GDP report showed real GDP increasing at an annual rate of 6.9% (Briefing.com consensus 5.6%) following a 2.3% increase in the third quarter. The GDP Chain Deflator was also up 6.9% (Briefing.com consensus 5.9%) after a 6.0% increase in the third quarter.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that services spending drove the 3.3% increase in personal spending and that inventory investment was the biggest contributor to the increase in real GDP. Real final sales of domestic product, which exclude the change in inventories, were up 1.9%.
Initial jobless claims for the week ending January 22 decreased by 30,000 to 260,000 (Briefing.com consensus 260,000). Continuing claims for the week ending January 15 increased by 51,000 to 1.675 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that initial claims came down from the prior week, but are still somewhat elevated presumably due to the effects of the Omicron variant.
December Durable Goods Orders decreased 0.9% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%) while orders, excluding transportation, increased 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%).
The key takeaway from the report is the slowdown in business spending, evidenced by an unchanged reading for nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft that followed on the heels of a 0.3% increase in November.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Personal Income and Spending for December, PCE Prices for December, the final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for January, and the Q4 Employment Cost Index on Friday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -6.0% YTD
S&P 500 -9.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -14.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -14.7% YTD

Energy stocks outperform despite lower oil prices
27-Jan-22 15:30 ET
Dow +24.37 at 34192.46, Nasdaq -174.86 at 13367.26, S&P -18.03 at 4331.90

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.7% and is on track for its third straight decline.

One last look at the sectors shows consumer discretionary (-2.2%), real estate (-2.0%), financials (-1.2%), and industrials (-1.1%) leading the decline, while the utilities (+0.8%), energy (+0.5%), and consumer staples (+0.6%) sectors outperform with modest gains.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 0.9%, or $0.74, to $86.62/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35405.24 +273.38 (0.78%)
Nasdaq 14346.00 +106.12 (0.75%)
SP 500 4546.54 +30.99 (0.69%)
10-yr Note -3/32 1.815
NYSE Adv 2403 Dec 878 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3366 Dec 1192 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Financials, Industrials
Weak: Utilities, Real Estate, Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Another strong finish into the close, as market awakens from consolidation activity

-- UPS (UPS) and Exxon Mobil (XOM) rise on pleasing earnings news

-- ISM Manufacturing Index decelerates in January while Prices component increases

Rebound rally extends into February
01-Feb-22 16:15 ET
Dow +273.38 at 35405.24, Nasdaq +106.12 at 14346.00, S&P +30.99 at 4546.54

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.7% on Tuesday, extending its rebound rally into February amid another strong finish into the close. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) kept pace with the benchmark index, while the Russell 2000 rose 1.1%.

There was a cyclical tilt to the session, evident by the leadership positions in the S&P 500 energy (+3.5%), materials (+1.7%), financials (+1.4%), and industrials (+1.4%) sectors. Conversely, the defensive-oriented utilities (-1.3%), real estate (-0.7%), and consumer staples (-0.1%) sectors closed lower.

For most of the session, the market operated in consolidation mode as investors digested better-than-expected earnings reports from Exxon Mobil (XOM 80.83, +4.87, +6.4%) and UPS (UPS 230.69, +28.48, +14.1%). Alphabet (GOOG 2757.57, +43.60, +1.6%) held firm in front of its earnings report after the close.

In addition, the ISM Manufacturing Index for January was another report in the mix. The headline index decelerated to 57.6% (Briefing.com consensus 57.5%) from 58.8% in December amid persistent Omicron-related disruptions while the Prices component of the report increased to 76.1% from 68.2%.

Stocks briefly dipped to session lows in the wake of the ISM report while Treasury yields pushed to session highs, presumably because the pricing pressures supported the Fed's case to be more aggressive in tightening policy. Evidently, the market stomached any hawkish interpretations today.

First-of-the-month inflows might have played a supportive role, but more encouragingly, investors may have liked that the market staved off the temptation to sell into the recent strength. Buying interest really accelerated in the last hour of action on no specific news, resembling a fear of getting left behind in the rebound rally.

Treasury yields ended the session mostly lower, although the 2-yr yield settled unchanged at 1.16%. The 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.80%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.3% to 96.29. WTI crude futures edged higher by 0.1%, or $0.05, to $88.21/bbl.

Separately, AT&T (T 24.42, -1.08, -4.2%) was excluded from the advance with a 4% decline after providing disappointing dividend details surrounding its WarnerMedia spinoff. The company announced a dividend of $1.11 per share, putting it on the low end of the payout range previously forecasted.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The January ISM Manufacturing Index dipped to 57.6% (Briefing.com consensus 57.5%) from an upwardly revised 58.8% (from 58.7%) in December. A number above 50.0% is indicative of expansion. January marked the 20th straight month of expansion for the manufacturing sector, albeit at the slowest pace since September 2020 as the effects of the Omicron variant impacted production.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that pricing pressures worsened in January as supply chain problems persisted. This understanding will contribute to investors' angst about the Fed pivoting to a more hawkish mindset as it works to tamp down inflation pressures.
Total construction spending increased 0.2% month-over-month in December (Briefing.com consensus +0.6%) following an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.4%) in November. That was the slowest pace of increase since July 2021. Total private construction increased 0.7% month-over-month while total public construction spending decreased 1.6%. On a year-over-year basis, total construction spending was up 9.0%.
The key takeaway from the report is the strength seen in new single-family construction, which is a reflection of the ongoing demand for new homes amid a scarcity of supply in the existing home market.
Job openings increased to 10.925 million in December from a revised 10.775 million (from 10.562 million) in November.
The final IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for January decreased to 55.5 from 57.7 in the preliminary reading.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ADP Employment Change report for January and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.6% YTD
S&P 500 -4.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -8.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -8.7% YTD

Crude futures settle fractionally higher
01-Feb-22 15:30 ET
Dow +210.38 at 35342.24, Nasdaq +49.95 at 14289.83, S&P +21.48 at 4537.03

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.5% to trade at session highs. The market has seen a modest up on no specific news.

One last look at the sector rankings shows energy (+3.5%), materials (+1.7%), financials (+1.4%), and industrials (+1.3%) outperforming with decent gains, while the utilities (-1.1%), real estate (-0.4%), and information technology (-0.2%) sectors underperform with modest declines.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.1%, or $0.05, to $88.21/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35089.74 -21.42 (-0.06%)
Nasdaq 14098.00 +219.19 (1.58%)
SP 500 4500.53 +23.09 (0.52%)
10-yr Note -6/32 1.903
NYSE Adv 1431 Dec 1753 Vol 943.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2752 Dec 1599 Vol 4.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Energy, Financials
Weak: Materials, Industrials, Real Estate, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- January employment report showed surprisingly strong jobs growth and higher-than-expected wage gains

-- Amazon.com (AMZN) and Snap (SNAP) provide investors a huge relief with earnings news

-- Increased expectations for the Fed to hike rates by 50 basis points in March

-- Treasury yields rise and oil prices top $92 per barrel

S&P 500 closes higher amid dueling trading narratives
04-Feb-22 16:20 ET
Dow -21.42 at 35089.74, Nasdaq +219.19 at 14098.00, S&P +23.09 at 4500.53

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.5% on Friday in a session featuring earnings relief from Amazon.com (AMZN 3152.79, +375.88, +13.5%) and Snap (SNAP 38.75, +14.25, +58.2%), a surprising January employment report, rising Treasury yields, and uncomfortably high oil prices ($92.30/bbl, +2.08, +2.3%).

The Russell 2000 (+0.6%) kept pace with the benchmark index while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%) outperformed and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1%) closed lower. The market was contending with dueling trading narratives throughout the day.

The first trading narrative was that the bullish earnings reactions in Amazon and Snap suggested that Meta Platform's (FB 237.09, -0.67, -0.3%) earnings disappointment was more a company-specific issue. AMZN shares rose 13.5%, and SNAP shares rose nearly 60.0%.

Amazon carried the S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector (+3.7%) to the top of the sector leaderboard. The financials (+1.7%) and energy (+1.6%) sectors followed suit, while the materials (-1.7%), consumer staples (-1.2%), and industrials (-1.1%) sectors were among six sectors that closed lower.

The second trading narrative was that the January employment report, which included surprisingly strong jobs growth and higher-than-expected wage gains, would force the Fed to be even more aggressive with rate hikes. That could explain the mixed sector performances, as well as the 0.1% decline in the S&P 500 Equal Weight Index.

Specifying the jobs data, nonfarm payrolls increased by 467,000 (Briefing.com consensus 180,000), and private sector payrolls increased by 444,000 (Briefing.com consensus 160,000), which caught many people off guard given the disappointing ADP Employment Change report earlier in the week. December payrolls growth saw sizable upwards revisions.

In addition, the labor force participation rate increased to 62.2% from 61.9% in December, and average hourly earnings increased 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%). The unemployment rate was 4.0% (Briefing.com consensus 3.9%), versus 3.9% in December.

Accordingly, the 2-yr yield rose 13 basis points to 1.32%, and the 10-yr yield rose ten basis points to 1.93%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 95.44. Regarding the Fed's policy meeting in March, the CME FedWatch Tool increased the probability for a 50-basis-point rate hike in that meeting to 36.6% from 14.3% yesterday.

In other earnings news, Pinterest (PINS 27.25, +2.74, +11.2%) was another company that provided better-than-feared earnings results, while Ford Motor (F 17.96, -1.93, -9.7%) and Clorox (CLX 141.41, -23.93, -14.5%) disappointed shareholders with a pair of EPS misses.

Reviewing the Employment Situation report in more depth:

January payrolls were not only strong, they were accompanied by large upward revisions to the payrolls data for December and November. The January employment report was also accompanied by a big pickup in the year-over-year change in average hourly earnings and a nice uptick in the labor force participation rate.
January nonfarm payrolls increased by 467,000 (Briefing.com consensus 180,000). December nonfarm payrolls revised to 510,000 from 199,000.
January private sector payrolls increased by 444,000 (Briefing.com consensus 160,000). December private sector payrolls revised to 503,000 from 211,000.
January unemployment rate was 4.0% (Briefing.com consensus 3.9%), versus 3.9% in December.
January average hourly earnings increased 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) versus a downwardly revised 0.5% increase (from 0.6%) in December.
The average workweek in January was 34.5 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.7), versus 34.7 hours in December.
The labor force participation rate increased to 62.2% from 61.9% in December.
The employment-population ratio rose to 59.7% from 59.5% in December.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will inflame concerns about the Fed being behind the curve in fighting inflation.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Consumer Credit for December on Monday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.4% YTD
S&P 500 -5.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -9.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.8% YTD

Crude futures settle above $92 per barrel
04-Feb-22 15:30 ET
Dow +185.49 at 35296.65, Nasdaq +311.59 at 14190.40, S&P +53.91 at 4531.35

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.3% as the market continues to push higher with no specific catalyst behind the recent move.

One last look at the sectors shows mixed results. The consumer discretionary (+4.7%), financials (+2.4%), and energy (+2.3%) sectors are up between 2-5%, while the consumer staples (-0.7%), materials (-0.9%), and industrials (-0.4%) sectors underperform in the red.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 2.3%, or $2.08, to $92.30/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35091.13 +1.39 (0.00%)
Nasdaq 14015.66 -82.34 (-0.58%)
SP 500 4483.87 -16.66 (-0.37%)
10-yr Note -1/32 1.930
NYSE Adv 1706 Dec 1539 Vol 881.6 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2691 Dec 1876 Vol 4.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Industrials
Weak: Communication Services, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Market slips into the close on no specific news

-- Lack of trading conviction

-- General preference for value/cyclical stocks over growth stocks

Stocks close mixed amid soft finish
07-Feb-22 16:20 ET
Dow +1.39 at 35091.13, Nasdaq -82.34 at 14015.66, S&P -16.66 at 4483.87

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.4% on Monday amid some slippage in the last 45 minutes of action, which erased a 0.5% gain for the benchmark index. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6% after being up 1.0% intraday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (unch) closed flat, while the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 0.5% gain.

For most of the day, there wasn't a lot of trading conviction as the major indices, and most S&P 500 sectors, wavered between gains and losses. Investors continued to contemplate whether the market bottomed on Jan. 24 in the face of rising rates and the Fed's tightening plans.

Trading conviction was reserved for the energy (+1.3%) and communication services (-2.3%) sectors, which diverged in opposite directions, as well as individual story stocks.

Energy stocks outperformed as oil prices stayed above $90 per barrel ($91.27, -1.03, -1.1%), although WTI crude futures did settle on a lower note today. The communication services sector was dragged lower by weakness in Alphabet (GOOG 2778.76, -81.56, -2.9%) and Meta Platforms (FB 224.91, -12.18, -5.1%).

Generally, there was a preference for value/cyclical stocks over the growth stocks. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 155.83, +0.10) increased 0.1% -- as did the Russell 3000 Value Index (+0.1%) -- while the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 233.18, -2.08) fell 0.9%.

One of today's bigger stories was the airline merger between Spirit (SAVE 25.46, +3.73, +17.2%) and Frontier (ULCC 12.82, +0.43, +3.5%), valued at $6.6 billion in cash and stock, including net debt and operating leases. On a related note, both companies reported better-than-expected EPS results.

On Semiconductor (ON 62.26, +4.84, +8.4%) and Tyson Foods (TSN 99.09, +10.80, +12.2%) also exceeded earnings expectations while Peloton (PTON 29.75, +5.15, +20.9%) jumped 21% on reports indicating that Amazon.com (AMZN 3158.71, +5.92, +0.2%) and Nike (NKE 145.14, -0.25, -0.2%) are interested in acquiring the company.

U.S. Treasury yields settled slightly lower amid a warning from National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that Russia could invade Ukraine "any day now." The 2-yr yield declined three basis points to 1.29%, and the 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 1.92%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 95.42.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

Consumer credit increased by $18.9 billion in December (Briefing.com consensus $25.0 billion). The prior month saw a downward revision to $38.9 bln from $39.9 bln.
The key takeaway from the report is that the increase in consumer credit in December was driven mostly by an expansion in nonrevolving credit.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Trade Balance report for December on Tuesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.4% YTD
S&P 500 -5.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -10.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.4% YTD

Crude futures settle lower but stay above $90 per barrel
07-Feb-22 15:30 ET
Dow +132.08 at 35221.82, Nasdaq -7.18 at 14090.82, S&P +3.87 at 4504.40

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.1% in a range-bound session while the Nasdaq (-0.1%) has dipped back below its flat line.

One last look at the sector standings shows energy (+2.2%) up 2% and is the only sector up more than 1.0%. The communication services sector (-1.6%) is the only sector trading lower, and it's down 1.6% amid weakness in Alphabet (GOOG 2800.74, -59.58, -2.1%) and Meta Platforms (FB 227.36, -9.78, -4.1%).

WTI crude futures settled lower by 1.1%, or $1.03, to $91.27/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35768.06 +305.28 (0.86%)
Nasdaq 14490.37 +295.92 (2.08%)
SP 500 4587.18 +65.64 (1.45%)
10-yr Note +25/32 1.929
NYSE Adv 2302 Dec 896 Vol 901.9 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3128 Dec 1349 Vol 4.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Communication Services, Real Estate, Information Technology, Materials
Weak: Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Improved COVID-19 outlook

-- Hopeful-sounding Fed commentary on inflation

-- Market holds onto early gains

-- Nasdaq 100 closes above 200-day moving average (15048)

Market rallies amid optimistic mindset
09-Feb-22 16:20 ET
Dow +305.28 at 35768.06, Nasdaq +295.92 at 14490.37, S&P +65.64 at 4587.18

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 1.5% on Wednesday, as investors were encouraged about the COVID-19 outlook and the ability for the market to hold onto early gains. The Nasdaq Composite (+2.1%) and Russell 2000 (+1.9%) each rose about 2.0% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9%.

Briefly, a growing list of U.S. states included plans to relax mask mandates amid improving COVID-19 trends and an observation from Dr. Fauci that the U.S. is heading out of the "full blown" pandemic phase. These developments benefited the cyclical stocks, but buying interest was really broad-based in a sideways-trading session.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher after registering most, if not all, of their gains at the open. The communication services (+2.5%), real estate (+2.4%), information technology (+2.3%), and materials (+2.1%) sectors gained more than 2.0%. The consumer staples sector (+0.02%) closed fractionally higher.

Growth stocks appeared to benefit from a decline in long-term interest rates, although they outperformed yesterday even when rates pushed higher. The 10-yr yield decreased three basis points to 1.93% amid a strong $37 billion 10-yr note auction and hopeful-sounding commentary from Fed officials that inflation pressures could ease this year.

Atlanta Fed President Bostic (not an FOMC voter) told CNBC that there's some evidence that inflation isn't getting worse. Cleveland Fed President Mester (FOMC voter) said in a speech that she expects inflation to moderate this year on the condition that the FOMC takes appropriate action.

The 2-yr yield settled unchanged at 1.34%, as the market continued to expect five rate hikes from the Fed despite Mr. Bostic's expectations for three to four rate hikes this year. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 95.54. WTI crude futures increased 0.3%, or $0.22, to $89.65/bbl.

Separately, the Nasdaq 100 (+2.1%) closed above its 200-day moving average (15,048) after seeing technical resistance at that level earlier in the day.

In earnings news, Lyft (LYFT 44.00, +2.80, +6.8%) issued downside Q1 revenue guidance, but investors overlooked the guidance in favor of the improved COVID-19 perspective. Shares of CVS Health (CVS 104.79, -6.04, -5.5%) fell 5.5% after reducing the low end of its FY22 cash flow from operations guidance.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Wholesale inventories increased 2.2% m/m in December (Briefing.com consensus 2.0%) following a revised 1.7% increase (from 1.4%) in November.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 8.1% following a 12.0% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for January, the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, and the Treasury Budget for January on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.6% YTD
S&P 500 -3.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -7.4% YTD

Crude futures settle slightly higher
09-Feb-22 15:30 ET
Dow +295.38 at 35758.16, Nasdaq +255.43 at 14449.88, S&P +60.27 at 4581.81

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.3% and while the Nasdaq 100 (+1.7%) continues to outperform, the tech-heavy index has faced some resistance at its 200-day moving average (15048).

One last look at the sectors shows real estate (+2.3%), communication services (+2.2%), and materials (+2.1%) up more than 2.0% while the consumer staples sector (+0.02%) trades near its flat line.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 0.3%, or $0.22, to $89.65/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34738.06 -503.53 (-1.43%)
Nasdaq 13791.15 -394.49 (-2.78%)
SP 500 4418.64 -85.44 (-1.90%)
10-yr Note +32/32 1.921
NYSE Adv 910 Dec 2255 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1348 Dec 3007 Vol 5.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Utilities
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Fears of Russian invasion of Ukraine

-- Treasury yields fall, oil prices rise

-- Hawkish Fed expectations tempered

Stocks tumble on geopolitical angst
11-Feb-22 16:20 ET
Dow -503.53 at 34738.06, Nasdaq -394.49 at 13791.15, S&P -85.44 at 4418.64

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.9% on Friday amid burgeoning fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Nasdaq Composite underperformed with a 2.8% decline while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.4%) and Russell 2000 (-1.0%) fared slightly better than the S&P 500.

PBS reported in the afternoon that the "U.S. believes Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to invade Ukraine." National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan clarified that the White House doesn't think President Putin has made a final decision, but he did acknowledge a "distinct possibility" that Russia could invade Ukraine before the end of the Olympics.

The market, which was trading mixed, took a spill following the news with the mega-caps leading the retreat. The S&P 500 sliced through its 200-day moving average (4452) on closing basis with little interest to buy the dip given the uncertainty heading into the weekend.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, including the information technology (-3.0%), consumer discretionary (-2.8%), and communication services (-2.5%) sectors with steep losses due to the weight of the mega-caps. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 227.74, -7.20) fell 3.1%, versus a 1.3% decline in the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 155.32, -2.08).

Conversely, the energy sector rose 2.8% as oil prices climbed back above $93 per barrel ($93.09, +3.25, +3.6%). The utilities sector (+0.01%) was little changed.

Besides the higher oil prices, the geopolitical angst contributed to a decline in Treasury yields and an increase in the hedging premium (the CBOE Volatility Index rose 14.4% to 27.36). The 2-yr yield fell four basis points to 1.52%, and the 10-yr yield fell eight basis points to 1.96%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 96.03.

Before the Russia-Ukraine news captured the headlines, commentary lingered on the Fed, specifically regarding tempered rate-hike fears. Bloomberg published a report suggesting that an emergency rate hike in between policy meetings was unlikely and that a 50-basis-point hike in March was not a sure bet.

Bloomberg cited less-hawkish Fed commentary in its report. San Francisco Fed President Daly said a half-point hike was not her preference, and Richmond Fed President Barkin said he was "open to it conceptually" but not yet convinced. Both Ms. Daly and Mr. Barkin are not voting members in the FOMC this year.

The probability for a half-point hike in March decreased to 50.2% from 93.8% yesterday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February was not good. It slumped to 61.7 (Briefing.com consensus 67.5) from the final reading of 67.2 for January. The February reading marks the lowest level for the index since November 2012.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers see weakening personal financial prospects, largely due to inflation, which raises the specter of a downturn in consumer spending for an economy that derives close to 70% of GDP from consumer spending.

There is no economic data scheduled for Monday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.4% YTD
S&P 500 -7.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -9.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -11.9% YTD

Crude futures settle above $93 per barrel
11-Feb-22 15:30 ET
Dow -451.31 at 34790.28, Nasdaq -382.41 at 13803.23, S&P -81.12 at 4422.96

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.9% and is trading back below its 200-day moving average (4452).

One last look at the sectors shows information technology (-2.9%) down about 3% amid weakness in the semiconductor stocks (the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is down 4.8%). Conversely, the energy sector (+2.6%) remains on top amid higher oil prices.

WTI crude futures settled higher by 3.6%, or $3.25, to $93.09/bbl.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34988.84 +422.67 (1.22%)
Nasdaq 14139.75 +348.84 (2.53%)
SP 500 4471.07 +69.40 (1.58%)
10-yr Note -5/32 2.044
NYSE Adv 2483 Dec 4.3 bln Vol 919.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 3392 Dec 1007 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Energy, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Relief rally on de-escalation news

-- Producer prices for January were much hotter than expected

-- S&P 500 closes above 200-day moving average (4455)

Stocks rally on de-escalation news
15-Feb-22 16:25 ET
Dow +422.67 at 34988.84, Nasdaq +348.84 at 14139.75, S&P +69.40 at 4471.07

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied 1.6% on Tuesday, as the market welcomed a potential de-escalation in the Russia-Ukraine situation. The Nasdaq Composite (+2.5%) and Russell 2000 (+2.8%) both gained at least 2.5% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.2%.

Prior to the open, reports indicated that Russia pulled back some troops from its border with Ukraine, which the market construed as a sign that Russia was indeed looking to resolve security issues through diplomacy. Most of today's gains were registered at the open following the de-escalation news.

The market proceeded to trade sideways the rest of the session, albeit with minor volatility after President Biden cautioned that the U.S. hadn't verified the withdrawal and that Russia could still attack. Nevertheless, the S&P 500 closed at session highs, reclaiming its 200-day moving average (4455), amid gains in nine of its 11 sectors.

The information technology (+2.7%) and consumer discretionary (+2.1%) sectors led the advance with gains over 2.0%. Conversely, the energy (-1.4%) and utilities (-0.6%) sectors closed lower.

Energy stocks struggled with the retracement in oil prices ($92.07, -3.41, -3.6%), which was a result of easing geopolitical angst. The latter was also the primary driver behind the five-basis-point increase in the 10-yr yield (2.05%), the softer dollar (96.01, -0.36, -0.4%), and the modest decline in gold prices ($1856.40, -13.00, -0.7%).

Interestingly, the 10-yr yield barely reacted to a much hotter-than-expected Producer Price Index (PPI) report. The index for final demand rose 1.0% m/m in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%), leaving it up 9.7% yr/yr. Excluding food and energy, the index for final demand rose 0.8% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%), leaving it up 8.3% yr/yr.

The PPI report may not have that surprising considering the hot CPI print last week while others interpreted the data as a sign of peak inflation, especially if the Fed follows through on being more aggressive in tightening policy. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 1.57%.

In corporate news, Marriott (MAR 181.20, +8.97, +5.8%) reported better-than-expected earnings results, providing a boost for travel-related names. Intel (INTC 48.44, +0.86, +1.8%) announced an acquisition of Tower Semi (TSEM 47.07, +13.94, +42.1%) for $5.4 billion, or $53.00 per share, in cash.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The Producer Price Index for final demand jumped 1.0% month-over-month in January (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following an upwardly revised 0.4% increase (from +0.2%) in December. Excluding food and energy, the index for final demand increased 0.8% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) following an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.5%) in December. On a year-over-year basis, the index for final demand was up 9.7% year-over-year on an unadjusted basis while the index for final demand, less food and energy, was up 8.3% year-over-year on an unadjusted basis.
The key takeaway from the report is that producer inflation pressures are clearly elevated. That is going to crimp profit margins unless those higher costs can be passed onto consumers, which is a problem unto itself. Net-net, inflation is all around and it has yet to show any meaningful signs of abating.
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for February increased to 3.1 (Briefing.com consensus 25.0) from -0.7 in January.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a big batch of data on Wednesday, including Retail Sales for January, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for January, and the NAHB Housing Market Index for February along with the FOMC Minutes from the January meeting.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.7% YTD
S&P 500 -6.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -9.6% YTD

Crude futures settle sharply lower amid de-escalation news
15-Feb-22 15:30 ET
Dow +384.99 at 34951.16, Nasdaq +319.19 at 14110.10, S&P +64.56 at 4466.23

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.5% but remains down 1.1% for the month.

One last look at the sectors shows seven up more than 1.0%, including a 2.6% gain in the consumer discretionary sector. The energy (-1.4%) and utilities (-0.7%) sectors, however, continue to trade lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by 3.6%, or $3.41, to $92.07/bbl amid the de-escalation news with Russia and the West.
Utility stocks clipped by higher rates
15-Feb-22 15:05 ET
Dow +384.02 at 34950.19, Nasdaq +303.96 at 14094.87, S&P +62.08 at 4463.75

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade higher by 1.4% while the Russell 2000 leaps ahead with a 2.6% gain.

The utilities sector (-0.8%) has extended losses amid broad-based weakness within the sector. The increase in long-term rates has pressured the rate-sensitive group with the 10-yr yield currently up four basis points to 2.04%.

Looking ahead, Airbnb (ABNB 178.51, +8.87, +5.3%) and Roblox (RBLX 71.91, +3.69, +5.3%) are some notable companies that will report earnings after the close.
Monolithic Power gains in sympathy to TSEM buyout news, FIS falls following earnings/guidance
15-Feb-22 14:25 ET
Dow +395.63 at 34961.80, Nasdaq +289.35 at 14080.26, S&P +61.68 at 4463.35

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+1.40%) still sits in second place to this point on Tuesday.

S&P 500 constituents Monolithic Power (MPWR 477.04, +43.72, +10.09%), American Airlines (AAL 18.83, +1.40, +8.03%), and Henry Schein (HSIC 81.61, +5.82, +7.68%) are some of today's top performers. MPWR gains as a sympathy play to Tower Semi's (TSEM 47.08, +13.95, +42.11%) move today, AAL grabbed an Outperform recommendation from Wolfe Research this morning, while HSIC posts a strong move in reaction to upbeat earnings and guidance.

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Market Snapshot



https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update



Dow 33131.76 -464.85 (-1.38%)
Nasdaq 13037.48 -344.03 (-2.57%)
SP 500 4225.50 -79.26 (-1.84%)
10-yr Note -26/32 1.993

NYSE Adv 813 Dec 2394 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1098 Dec 3127 Vol 4.5 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Energy

Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Financials, Industrials


Moving the Market
-- Stocks close at session lows in disappointing session

-- Russia-Ukraine situation only seemed to worsen

-- Growth stocks led the retreat

-- Treasury market did not show a flight to safety





Stocks close sharply lower in disappointing session
23-Feb-22 16:15 ET

Dow -464.85 at 33131.76, Nasdaq -344.03 at 13037.48, S&P -79.26 at 4225.50
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.8% on Wednesday, tumbling further into correction territory, in a disappointing session. Investors sold into rebound attempts as the Russia-Ukraine situation only seemed to worsen.

The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.6%, representing the weakness in the mega-caps/growth stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.4%, and the Russell 2000 fell 1.8%.

The first rebound attempt was at the open, which saw the S&P 500 up as much as 0.9% amid gains in all 11 of its sectors. That was driven primarily by mechanical factors on the belief that the market was primed for a rebound. The market, however, quickly turned negative.

There were only lower highs as the session progressed, feeding into the general pessimism in the market and the negative price momentum. The latest Russia-Ukraine headlines kept the buyers in hiding.

Briefly, Ukraine declared a state of emergency and mobilized its reserves; the U.S. canceled diplomatic meetings with Russia and expanded sanctions to Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officers; and the Biden administration warned Ukraine of a full-scale Russian invasion within 48 hours, according to Newsweek.

The growth stocks were at the forefront of selling interest, taking the S&P 500 consumer discretionary (-3.4%) and information technology (-2.6%) sectors to the bottom of the standings. Right before the close, the S&P 500 briefly dipped below its Jan. 24 intraday low (4222.62).

The energy sector (+1.0%) was the only sector that closed higher, rising 1% even as oil prices settled lower ($92.12, -0.15, -0.2%).

Away from equities, there was no flight to safety in the Treasury market, once again suggesting that the stock market's misery was owed to more than just geopolitics, namely the Fed potentially hiking into slower growth.

The 2-yr yield rose five basis points to 1.60%, and the 10-yr yield rose three basis points to 1.98%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 96.21. On a related note, San Francisco Fed President Daly (not a voting FOMC member) said she supported removing accommodation, starting in March.

Wednesday's economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which dropped 13.1% following a 5.4% decline in the prior week. Looking ahead, investors will receive weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, New Home Sales for January, and the second estimate for Q4 GDP on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.8% YTD
S&P 500 -11.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -13.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -16.7% YTD



Crude futures turn negative
23-Feb-22 15:30 ET

Dow -361.98 at 33234.63, Nasdaq -269.84 at 13111.67, S&P -63.33 at 4241.43
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade near session lows with a 1.5% decline.

One last look at the sectors shows energy (+1.1%) bucking the negative trend despite a fade in oil prices following reports that the U.S. is considering tapping into its oil reserves. The goal would be to counteract any increase in oil prices caused by the geopolitical issues overseas.

WTI crude settled lower by 0.2%, or $0.15, to $92.12/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

briefing.com

Dow 33223.83 +92.07 (0.28%)
Nasdaq 13473.58 +436.10 (3.34%)
SP 500 4288.70 +63.20 (1.50%)
10-yr Note +24/32 1.976

NYSE Adv 1860 Dec 1383 Vol 1.5 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2498 Dec 1668 Vol 6.1 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services

Weak: Financials, Consumer Staples, Materials


Moving the Market
-- Russia invades Ukraine

-- Stocks rally into positive territory after initially selling off

-- President Biden announces sanctions against Russia that weren't as severe as anticipated

-- Oil prices retrace initial pop, Treasury yields settled off lows





Stocks make huge comeback despite Russian invasion
24-Feb-22 16:15 ET

Dow +92.07 at 33223.83, Nasdaq +436.10 at 13473.58, S&P +63.20 at 4288.70
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 dropped as much as 2.6% on Thursday after Russia invaded Ukraine, but the benchmark index ended the session up 1.5% in a buy-the-dip trade led by the mega-caps/growth stocks.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 3.3% after being down 3.5% intraday. The Russell 2000 rose 2.6% after being down 2.6% intraday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% after being down 2.6% intraday.

Initially, investors dumped risk assets and flocked into safe-haven assets like Treasuries and gold. WTI crude futures even peaked above $100.00 per barrel. All 11 S&P 500 sectors were trading lower, and Russia's MOEX and RTS indices tanked 33% and 38%, respectively.

U.S. stocks gradually came back, though, and the rebound bid gathered steam as President Biden announced new sanctions against Russia that weren't as severe as some were thinking (or hoping).

Notably, the U.S. will limit certain Russian exports but not oil and gas exports. The U.S. will limit Russia's ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds, and yen, but it will allow Russia to still use the SWIFT financial system. President Putin was not sanctioned.

The most beaten-up stocks -- particularly the mega-caps -- in the S&P 500 information technology (+3.5%), communication services (+3.1%), and consumer discretionary (+2.5%) sectors helped lift the market into positive territory. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 222.02, +7.14) rallied 3.3%.

Conversely, the consumer staples (-1.7%), financials (-1.2%), energy (-0.9%), and materials (-0.3%) sectors were the four sectors that still closed lower.

The Russia-Ukraine situation could still get worse, but the comeback in stock prices, the retracement in oil prices ($92.80, +0.68, +0.7%), and the decreased demand for Treasuries provided investors reasons to lighten up.

In the Treasury market, the 2-yr yield declined six basis points to 1.54% after touching 1.46% overnight. The 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 1.97% after touching 1.84% overnight. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.9% to 97.03. Gold futures rose 0.9% to $1926.60/ozt but turned negative after the settlement time.

Separately, Cleveland Fed President Mester (FOMC voter) acknowledged that the geopolitical landscape will play a role in determining the appropriate pace of removing accommodation. That's to say if the situation worsens inflation, the central bank could double down with its tightening plans, but if not, then the Fed might be more forgiving.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

New home sales decreased 4.5% month-over-month in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 801,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 805,000) from an upwardly revised 839,000 (from 811,000) in December.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that the sale of lower-priced homes has decelerated, likely due to less supply and affordability pressures. That is leading to higher-priced homes accounting for a larger percentage of new homes sold, which is driving up both median and average selling prices.
Initial jobless claims for the week ending February 19 decreased by 17,000 to 232,000 (Briefing.com consensus 240,000) and continuing claims for the week ending February 12 decreased by 112,000 to 1.476 million -- the lowest level since March 14, 1970.
The key takeaway from the report is that initial claims are at a level that is consistent with a tight labor market.
Q4 GDP was revised up to 7.0%, as expected, from the advance estimate of 6.9%, but the GDP Price Deflator was also revised up to 7.1% (Briefing.com consensus 6.9%) from the advance estimate of 6.9%.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that inventory building accounted for the bulk of the GDP increase in Q4, accounting for 4.90 percentage points. Real final sales of domestic product, which exclude the change in private inventories, were up 2.0%.

Looking ahead to Friday, investors will receive Personal Income and Spending for January, PCE Prices for January, Durable Goods Orders for January, Pending Home Sales for January, and the final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for February.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.6% YTD
S&P 500 -10.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -11.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -13.9% YTD



WTI crude retraces most of its gains
24-Feb-22 15:30 ET

Dow -200.26 at 32931.50, Nasdaq +304.87 at 13342.35, S&P +22.70 at 4248.20
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.5%, and the Russell 2000 is up 1.7%.

One last look at the sectors shows communication services (+2.4%), information technology (+2.5%), and consumer discretionary (+1.8%) up noticeably, while the consumer staples (-2.3%), financials (-1.9%), and energy (-1.7%) sectors remain deep in the red.

WTI crude futures settled higher by just 0.7%, or $0.68, to $92.80/bbl after peaking above $100.00/bbl in early action.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33294.95 -597.65 (-1.76%)
Nasdaq 13532.45 -218.94 (-1.59%)
SP 500 4306.26 -67.68 (-1.55%)
10-yr Note +30/32 1.739
NYSE Adv 1326 Dec 1906 Vol 1.3 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1637 Dec 2602 Vol 6.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Real Estate
Weak: Financials, Materials, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Russia ratchets up attack in Ukraine, long convoy of military vehicles approach Kyiv

-- Oil prices top $105 per barrel, even as IEA member countries agree to release 60 million barrels of oil from reserves

-- 10-yr yield drops to 1.70%

Stocks fall while oil prices top $100 on worsening geopolitical tensions
01-Mar-22 16:25 ET
Dow -597.65 at 33294.95, Nasdaq -218.94 at 13532.45, S&P -67.68 at 4306.26

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.6% on Tuesday in a risk-off session, which saw oil prices peak above $106 per barrel and Treasury yields drop noticeably in response to worsening geopolitical tensions. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.6%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.8%), and Russel 2000 (-1.9%) also declined more than 1.5%.

Tensions worsened as Russian forces attacked civilian areas in Ukraine and Russia's defense ministry warned of missile strikes on Ukrainian intelligence and communications facilities in Kyiv. Satellites images of a 40-mile long convoy of Russian military vehicles approaching Kyiv were especially unnerving for the market.

The stock market tried to shake off the bad news with a flat open, but the understanding that things could get worse before they get better -- with a negative impact to growth prospects -- washed out the buyers.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, with the financials sector (-3.7%) taking a brunt of the damage and the information technology sector (-1.9%) acting as a heavy drag. Growth and value stocks alike declined together.

The energy sector (+1.0%), unsurprisingly, closed higher, but it was a little surprising to see just a 1.0% gain when oil prices settled higher by 8.3%, or $7.88, to $103.41/bbl. The relative disconnect might have been owed to the view that the high oil prices will give way to decreased demand.

Interestingly, oil prices received little relief from an agreement among 31 EIA members to release 60 million barrels of oil from their reserves. Supply-constraint fears were the primary driver for prices, which in turn, could dampen consumer sentiment and spending.

The Treasury market was a signpost for growth concerns, which were further exacerbated by more U.S. companies restricting their services in Russia and by disappointing guidance from Zoom Video (ZM 122.78, -9.82, -7.4%), GoodRx (GDRX 16.73, -10.67, -38.9%), and Ambarella (AMBA 96.03, -43.68, -31.3%).

The 10-yr yield accordingly dropped 13 basis points to 1.71% (-28 bps in two days). The 2-yr yield also dropped 13 basis points to 1.30% (-27 bps in two sessions) on the burgeoning belief that the Fed will be less hawkish than previously feared because of the geopolitical risks to the economy.

The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.7% to 97.35. The CBOE Volatility Index rose 10.5% to 33.32. Gold futures rose 2.3% to $1944.70/ozt.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

The February ISM Manufacturing Index increased to 58.6% (Briefing.com consensus 58.0%) from 57.6% in January. A number above 50.0% is indicative of expansion. February marked the 21st straight month of expansion for the manufacturing sector.
The key takeaway from the report is that new orders growth helped drive the faster expansion activity in February, showing that the effects of the Omicron variant had lessened; moreover, a strong pickup in the backlog of orders index -- the largest since January 2011 -- is a reflection of pent-up production potential that should keep the manufacturing sector in an expansion mode.
Total construction spending increased 1.3% month-over-month in January (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%) following an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from 0.2%) in December. That was the strongest increase since the same period a year ago.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was strength in both residential and nonresidential spending, reflecting a fairly broad-based pickup in construction spending activity.
The final IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for February decreased to 57.3 from 57.5 in the preliminary reading.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ADP Employment Change report for February, the Fed's Beige Book, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.4% YTD
S&P 500 -9.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -13.5% YTD

Crude futures settle above $103.00
01-Mar-22 15:30 ET
Dow -630.21 at 33262.39, Nasdaq -232.16 at 13519.23, S&P -41.30 at 4332.64

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.5%, as is the Russell 2000 (-1.5%).

One last look at the sectors shows financials (-3.6%), information technology (-2.1%), and materials (-2.3%) pacing the retreat. The energy sector (+0.8%) remains the only sector trading higher, yet its 0.8% gain pales in comparison to the 9% gain in oil futures.

WTI crude futures settled the session higher by 8.3%, or $7.88, to $103.41/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33891.35 +596.40 (1.79%)
Nasdaq 13752.01 +219.56 (1.62%)
SP 500 4386.54 +80.28 (1.86%)
10-yr Note -27/32 1.786
NYSE Adv 2286 Dec 897 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2714 Dec 1525 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Materials, Industrials, Information Technology
Weak: Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Stocks, Treasury yields, and oil prices rise in hopeful session

-- Cease-fire talks reportedly scheduled for tomorrow

-- Fed Chair Powell says Fed will "proceed carefully" and that he supports a 25-bps hike this month

Stocks, Treasury yields, and oil prices rally in hopeful session
02-Mar-22 16:15 ET
Dow +596.40 at 33891.35, Nasdaq +219.56 at 13752.01, S&P +80.28 at 4386.54

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 advanced 1.9% on Wednesday, as stocks rallied past another spike in oil prices amid hope surrounding the Russia-Ukraine conflict and a potentially less-hawkish Fed. WTI crude futures topped $110 per barrel ($111.04, +7.61, +7.4%).

The Nasdaq Composite (+1.6%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.8%) both looked up to the benchmark index while the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 2.5% gain.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, and 29 of the 30 Dow components closed higher. The cyclical financials (+2.6%), energy (+2.2%), materials (+2.2%), and industrials (+2.2%) sectors each rose more than 2.0%, as did the information technology sector (+2.2%). The communication services sector (+0.7%) underperformed on a relative basis.

The spike in oil prices was attributed to increased expectations for supply constraints after Russia continued its offensive in Ukraine, but the market might have suspected a near-term peak in prices, depending on the result of cease-fire talks scheduled for tomorrow.

Equally as important to the trading narrative today was what Fed Chair Powell told the House Financial Services Committee in his semiannual report on monetary policy.

The Fed chair said the central bank would "proceed carefully" because of the geopolitical uncertainty and that he would support hiking rates by 25 basis points later this month. He went on to say, though, that a 50-bps hike is still possible in the future if inflation is higher than expected.

On a related note, the Fed's Beige Book noted that economic activity expanded at a modest to moderate pace between mid-January and February 18. Some Districts reported a temporary weakening in demand in the hospitality sector due to increased COVID-19 cases.

Treasury yields rose double-digit basis points after a two-day plunge, illustrating how negative sentiment had gotten because of the geopolitical tensions. The 2-yr yield jumped 22 basis points to 1.52%, and the 10-yr yield jumped 16 basis points to 1.87%. The U.S. Dollar Index dipped 0.1% to 97.34.

Other supportive factors included a better-than-expected ADP Employment Change report, which estimated 475,000 additions to private sector payrolls in February (Briefing.com consensus 350,000), and positive earnings news/reactions in salesforce.com (CRM 210.39, +1.50, +0.7%), Nordstrom (JWN 26.93, +7.39, +37.8%), Ross Stores (ROST 95.00, +5.45, +6.1%), and Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE 16.99, +1.68, +10.3%).

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The ADP Employment Change report estimated that 475,000 jobs were added to private sector payrolls in February (Briefing.com consensus 350,000). The increase in January was upwardly revised to 509,000 from -301,000.
Weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 2.6 mln barrels after increasing by 4.5 mln barrels during the previous week.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.7% following a 13.1% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for February, revised Q4 readings for Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, and Factory Orders for January on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -6.7% YTD
S&P 500 -8.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -8.3% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -12.1% YTD

Crude futures settle above $110 per barrel
02-Mar-22 15:30 ET
Dow +610.50 at 33905.45, Nasdaq +233.07 at 13765.52, S&P +84.31 at 4390.57

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to hold a bullish bias with a 2.0% gain amid support from all 11 of its sectors.

The energy (+2.8%), financials (+2.6%), industrials (+2.3%), and materials (+2.3%) sectors are representing the cyclical leadership, but the information technology sector (+2.4%) is also keeping pace. The communication services sector (+0.8%) underperforms on a relative basis with a 0.8% gain.

WTI crude futures settled sharply higher by 7.1%, or $7.31, to $110.72/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 32817.38 -797.42 (-2.37%)
Nasdaq 12830.96 -482.48 (-3.62%)
SP 500 4201.09 -127.78 (-2.95%)
10-yr Note -25/32 1.771
NYSE Adv 658 Dec 2554 Vol 1.4 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1208 Dec 2759 Vol 6.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Utilities
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Communication Services, Financials, Materials

Moving the Market

-- Higher oil prices fuel slowdown concerns

-- Oil prices hit $130 per barrel last night as U.S. and allies discuss ban on Russian oil imports, but settle just below $120 per barrel

-- Foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine agree to meet on Thursday, Germany opposes ban on Russian energy imports

Stocks drop as higher oil fuels slowdown concerns
07-Mar-22 16:20 ET
Dow -797.42 at 32817.38, Nasdaq -482.48 at 12830.96, S&P -127.78 at 4201.09

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 dropped 3.0% on Monday, as investors remained concerned about the Russia-Ukraine situation and an accompanying increase in oil prices ($119.27, +4.00, +3.5%). The Nasdaq Composite underperformed with a 3.6% decline while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-2.4%) and Russell 2000 (-2.5%) fell closer to 2.5%.

The session started on a flattish note, overcoming a 2% drop in the futures market, as oil prices went from $130/bbl on Sunday evening to below $120/bbl prior to the open.

The initial spike in oil (+12%) was catalyzed by news that the U.S. and allies were discussing a ban on oil imports from Russia. The retracement coincided with news that the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine agreed to meet on Thursday and that Germany was holding a softer stance regarding the ban proposal.

Notwithstanding the intraday ease in oil, the fact that prices were still high exacerbated concerns about a slowdown in consumer spending due to people spending more at the gas pump. The weak price momentum in stocks was another cause for concern.

The underperformance of the S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector, which fell 4.8%, corroborated the consumer slowdown narrative. Likewise, the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS 16.91, -2.12, -11.1%) fell 11%, and Uber (UBER 28.57, -1.26, -4.2%) fell 4% despite raising its Q1 Adjusted EBITDA guidance range.

Like last week, the mega-caps were not a place to hide out, presumably because of cash-raising efforts amid expectations for further weakness. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 209.69, -8.88) fell 4.1%, versus a 2.8% decline for the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 149.33, -4.25).

On the upside, the energy (+1.6%) and utilities (+1.3%) sectors each rose more than 1.0%.

The former was an obvious beneficiary of higher oil prices. The latter received support from NextEra Energy (NEE 84.18, +3.97, +5.0%), which was upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at KeyBanc Capital Markets on the view that the company will benefit from increased clean-energy initiatives.

Treasury yields also finished on a higher note, a byproduct of cash-raising efforts as demand for Treasuries decreased. The 2-yr yield increased five basis points to 1.54%, and the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.75%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 99.15.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

Consumer credit increased by $6.8 billion in January (Briefing.com consensus $25.0 billion). The prior month saw an upward revision to $22.4 bln from $18.9 bln.
The key takeaway from the report is that there was a notable deceleration in credit expansion in January, as Omicron issues and rising interest rates came into play. Revolving credit saw its first contraction since April 2021.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Trade Balance for January, the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for February, and Wholesale Inventories for January on Tuesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -9.7% YTD
S&P 500 -11.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -13.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -18.0% YTD

Crude futures settle near $120 per barrel
07-Mar-22 15:30 ET
Dow -658.06 at 32956.74, Nasdaq -396.45 at 12916.99, S&P -107.84 at 4221.03

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 2.5% and could close at its lowest level since last June.

One last look at the sectors shows consumer discretionary (-4.3%), financials (-3.1%), communication services (-3.0%), and materials (-3.0%) down between 3-4%, while the energy (+1.1%) and utilities (+1.1%) sectors both trade higher by 1.1%.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $4.00 (+3.5%) to $119.27/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

briefing.com

Dow 33285.65 +653.01 (2.00%)
Nasdaq 13255.54 +459.99 (3.59%)
SP 500 4277.89 +107.19 (2.57%)
10-yr Note -29/32 1.925

NYSE Adv 2553 Dec 814 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3275 Dec 1029 Vol 5.3 bln


Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Materials

Weak: Energy, Utilities


Moving the Market
-- Stocks rally as oil prices drop 12%

-- Hopeful-sounding rhetoric from Russia and Ukraine in front of ceasefire talks tomorrow

-- UAE supports OPEC to increase production; U.S. officials reportedly want Venezuela to increase oil exports to U.S. in exchange for ease in sanctions





Rebound rally fueled by drop in oil prices
09-Mar-22 16:20 ET

Dow +653.01 at 33285.65, Nasdaq +459.99 at 13255.54, S&P +107.19 at 4277.89
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied 2.6% on Wednesday, as buy-the-dip efforts were emboldened by a 12% drop in oil prices ($108.88, -14.88, -12.0%). The Nasdaq Composite gained 3.6%, the Russell 2000 gained 2.7%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.0%.

The pullback in oil was due to a confluence of factors, including hopeful-sounding rhetoric from Russia and Ukraine in front of ceasefire talks tomorrow, the UAE vouching support for OPEC to increase production, and news that U.S. officials want Venezuela to increase oil exports to the States in exchange for an ease in sanctions.

A 12% decline for a commodity that is still up 45% for the year was the type of drawdown needed to revive risk sentiment, even if the macro environment was still inflationary. It's too early to know if oil peaked for the near term, but there was hope that consumers could start to see relatively lower prices at the gas pump.

Stocks that were hit the hardest this month were among the biggest gainers today, particularly those in the S&P 500 information technology (+4.0%), financials (+3.6%), communication services (+3.5%), and consumer discretionary (+2.9%) sectors.

The energy sector (-3.2%), on the other hand, fell 3% amid the weaker oil prices while the utilities sector (-0.8%) was the only other sector that closed lower. Both sectors remained higher for month, so there was likely some profit-taking activity in the groups.

Bumble (BMBL 23.64, +6.98, +41.9%) was an individual standout, with shares soaring 42% on better-than-feared earnings results.

Besides the scope of today's gains, the risk-on mindset was corroborated by declines in the CBOE Volatility Index (32.45, -2.68, -7.6%), the U.S. Dollar Index (98.00, -1.06, -1.1%.), gold prices ($1987.20, -60.10, -2.9%), and Treasury prices.

To be fair, Treasuries might have been pressured by an acknowledgement that one trading day doesn't remove inflationary pressures and that the Fed is still on track to hike rates multiple times this year, starting next week. On a related note, the $34 billion 10-yr Treasury note auction received lukewarm demand.

The 2-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.67%, and the 10-yr yield increased eight basis points to 1.95%.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Job openings decreased to 11.263 million in January from a revised record-high of 11.448 million (from 10.925 million) in December.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index rose 8.5% following a 0.7% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for February, the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report, and the Treasury Budget for February on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.4% YTD
S&P 500 -10.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -15.3% YTD



Crude futures fall 12%
09-Mar-22 15:30 ET

Dow +757.51 at 33390.15, Nasdaq +479.85 at 13275.40, S&P +120.82 at 4291.52
[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 continues to trade at session highs with a 2.9% in what's been a relatively calm rally.

One last look at the sectors shows nine sectors up more than 1.0%, including the financials (+4.2%) and information technology (+4.2%) sectors with gains over 4.0%. The energy sector is down 3.4% due to the drop in oil, while the utilities sector trades flat.

WTI crude futures settled lower by $14.88 (-12.0%) to $108.88/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33174.07 -112.18 (-0.34%)
Nasdaq 13129.96 -125.58 (-0.95%)
SP 500 4259.52 -18.36 (-0.43%)
10-yr Note -27/32 2.006
NYSE Adv 1312 Dec 1855 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1742 Dec 2600 Vol 5.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Utilities, Real Estate
Weak: Information Technology, Financials, Consumer Staples, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Stocks close off lows as oil prices cough up gains

-- Russia and Ukraine end talks without any real progress

-- CPI data for February was as hot as expected

-- 10-yr yield tops 2.00%

-- Amazon.com (AMZN) announces 20-for-1 stock split and $10 billion share repurchase program

Optimism gets reined in, but stocks close off lows
10-Mar-22 16:20 ET
Dow -112.18 at 33174.07, Nasdaq -125.58 at 13129.96, S&P -18.36 at 4259.52

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.4% on Thursday, although it was down as much as 1.6% intraday amid concerns surrounding the macro environment. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) and Russell 2000 (-0.2%) also fell modestly while the Nasdaq Composite (-1.0%) underperformed.

Yesterday's optimism was pressured by a breakdown in ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine, CPI data for February that was as hot as feared/expected, a 10-yr yield that reached 2.01% (+6 bps today), and a short rebound in oil prices after the UAE clarified that it wasn't going to unilaterally raise oil production.

Fortunately, oil prices went from over $114.00/bbl intraday to below $107.00/bbl ($106.29, -2.59, -2.4%) by the settlement. That seemed to help lighten the mood for the stock market, even as interest rates held firm.

The S&P 500 sectors closed mixed with six sectors closing lower and five sectors closing higher. The heavily-weighted information technology sector (-1.8%) fell about 2%, while the energy (+3.1%) and consumer discretionary (+1.2%) sectors rose 3% and 1%, respectively.

Interestingly, energy stocks bounced back from yesterday's pullback despite the fade in oil prices, which played a constructive role for the consumer discretionary stocks.

The consumer discretionary sector, to be fair, really owed a large part of its outperformance to Amazon.com (AMZN 2936.35, +150.77, +5.4%), which jumped 5% after announcing a 20-for-1 stock split and a $10 billion share repurchase authorization.

The other mega-caps were not as fortunate, evident by the 0.8% decline in the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 215.26, -1.71, -0.8%). The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 151.11, -0.29, -0.2%), for comparison, decreased by 0.2%.

Specifying the consumer inflation data, total CPI rose 0.8% m/m in February while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.5% m/m. Both were in-line with expectations. The year-over-year rates increased to 7.9% and 6.4%, respectively.

The report tugged on inflationary fears and supported rate-hike expectations. The fed-funds sensitive 2-yr yield rose five basis points to 1.72%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.6% to 98.57 amid relative weakness in the euro, which fell 0.9% against the dollar to 1.098.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Total CPI increased 0.8% month-over-month in February, as expected, while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.5%, also as expected. On a year-over-year basis, total CPI was up 7.9%, versus 7.5% in January, and core CPI was up 6.4%, versus 6.0% in January.
The key takeaway from the report is that inflation is still terribly high and going higher given the worsening commodity price trends seen this month and increased rent costs. Accordingly, this report should bring nothing but cold comfort.
The weekly initial claims report showed an 11,000 increase in jobless claims to 227,000 (Briefing.com consensus 220,000) for the week ending March 5. Continuing claims for the week ending February 26 increased by 25,000 to 1.494 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that the level of jobless claims is still consistent with a tight labor market.
The Treasury Budget showed a $216.6 bln deficit in February versus a $310.9 bln deficit in the same period a year ago. The budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the February deficit cannot be compared to the January surplus of $118.7 bln.
The budget deficit over the last 12 months is $2.20 trln versus a deficit of $2.30 trln in January.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for March on Friday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.7% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.4% YTD
S&P 500 -10.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -16.1% YTD

Crude futures extend yesterday's decline
10-Mar-22 15:30 ET
Dow -181.01 at 33105.24, Nasdaq -143.91 at 13111.63, S&P -27.96 at 4249.92

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 is down 0.7%.

One last look at the sectors shows information technology (-2.0%) exerting key pressure on the market, as it trades lower by 2% amid weakness in Apple (AAPL 157.93, -5.02, -3.1%) and the semiconductor stocks. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is down 2.3%.

Conversely, the energy sector is up 3.2%, the consumer discretionary sector is up 1.2%, and the utilities sector is up 0.5%.

WTI crude futures settled lower by $2.59 (-2.4%) to $106.29/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 32944.19 -229.88 (-0.69%)
Nasdaq 12843.81 -286.15 (-2.18%)
SP 500 4204.31 -55.21 (-1.30%)
10-yr Note -1/32 2.007
NYSE Adv 819 Dec 2359 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1306 Dec 3070 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities
Weak: Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology

Moving the Market

-- Investors grow frustrated with the market and economy

-- President Putin reportedly describes a positive shift in talks with Ukraine, but market doesn't believe him

-- Higher oil prices, flatter Treasury yield curve

-- Consumer sentiment declines in March

Stocks close at session lows in frustrating session
11-Mar-22 16:20 ET
Dow -229.88 at 32944.19, Nasdaq -286.15 at 12843.81, S&P -55.21 at 4204.31

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.3% on Friday, as investors appeared frustrated with the state of the market and economy. The Nasdaq Composite (-2.2%) and Russell 2000 (-1.6%) lost more than 1.5% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.7%.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in negative territory, leaving the benchmark index at session lows after it started the day with a 0.7% gain. The information technology (-1.8%), consumer discretionary (-1.8%), and communication services (-1.9%) fell nearly 2.0% while the utilities sector decreased just 0.4%.

The positive start transpired after President Putin reportedly described a positive shift in talks with Ukraine, but the problem for the market was that no one earnestly believed Mr. Putin was going to stop the invasion without a full surrender from Ukraine. On a related note, President Biden announced new economic actions against Russia in coordination with allies.

Other issues included higher oil prices ($109.10/bbl, +2.81, +2.6%) following a suspension in nuclear deal talks between the U.S. and Iran, a flatter Treasury yield curve, a decline in consumer sentiment for March, disappointing guidance from DocuSign (DOCU 75.01, -18.87, -20.1%) and Rivian (RIVN 38.05, -3.11, -7.6%), and continued weakness in Chinese ADRs.

DocuSign and Rivian, specifically, reminded investors that there's still room for further downside in the growth stocks should they not meet expectations. Oracle (ORCL 77.82, +1.17, +1.5%), meanwhile, stood out after providing upbeat revenue guidance.

The mega-caps were a heavy drag on the market. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 210.96, -4.30) fell 2.0%, versus a 1.1% decline for the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 149.52, -1.59).

Strikingly, the Treasury market wasn't as excited as the stock market initially was following the Putin headline. It was relatively quiet, and the ensuing price action signaled concerns that the inflationary environment could lead the Fed to an aggressive rate-hike path and slow down growth even more.

The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.75% while the 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 2.00%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.6% to 99.11.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The preliminary March reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index checked in at 59.7 (Briefing.com consensus 62.5) versus the final reading of 62.8 for February. The March reading marks the lowest level for the index since October 2012.
The key takeaway from the report is that rising inflation is eating away at consumer sentiment, as consumers recognize their purchasing power has been reduced because their income is not keeping up with inflation. That is apt to translate into reduced discretionary spending activity. Notably, it was indicated in the report that personal finances were expected to worsen in the year ahead by the largest proportion since the survey started in the mid-1940s.

There is no economic data of note scheduled for Monday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -9.3% YTD
S&P 500 -11.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -11.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -17.9% YTD

Crude futures settle above $109 per barrel
11-Mar-22 15:30 ET
Dow -84.49 at 33089.58, Nasdaq -216.18 at 12913.78, S&P -34.73 at 4224.79

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.8% while the Nasdaq (-1.6%) and Russell 2000 (-1.1%) continue to underperform.

One last look at the sectors shows information technology (-1.2%), consumer discretionary (-1.3%), and communication services (-1.4%) lagging with declines over 1.0%. The utilities sector outperforms near its flat line.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $2.81 (+2.6%) to $109.10/barrel.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34480.76 +417.66 (1.23%)
Nasdaq 13614.78 +178.23 (1.33%)
SP 500 4411.67 +53.81 (1.23%)
10-yr Note +3/32 2.163
NYSE Adv 2525 Dec 667 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3280 Dec 1103 Vol 5.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Consumer Discretionary, Real Estate
Weak: Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Stocks extend rebound rally to a third straight day

-- Russia refutes reports indicating progress in peace talks, catalyzes 8% rebound in oil prices

-- 10-yr yield rises off overnight lows

Third straight rebound rally
17-Mar-22 16:20 ET
Dow +417.66 at 34480.76, Nasdaq +178.23 at 13614.78, S&P +53.81 at 4411.67

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 1.2% on Thursday, extending its rebound rally to a third straight day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.2%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%) kept pace with the benchmark index while the Russell 2000 (+1.7%) pulled ahead its large-cap peers.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in positive territory with gains ranging from 0.5% (utilities) to 3.5% (energy). Advancing issues outpaced declining issues by roughly a 4:1 margin at the NYSE and a 3:1 margin at the Nasdaq.

Strikingly, the stock market was undeterred by an 8% rebound in oil prices ($103.43, +8.01, +8.4%), which was catalyzed by Russia refuting yesterday's reports that described progress in peace talks with Ukraine. Western officials believe that both sides remain far apart on those talks, according to Reuters.

The market, to be fair, did get off to a slow start despite an encouraging round of economic data, including housing starts for February, weekly initial jobless claims, and the Philadelphia Fed Index for March.

Stocks appeared to key off the price action in the 10-yr Treasury note yield, which settled unchanged at 2.19% after dipping below 2.11% overnight. The ability for the 10-yr yield to move higher, undoing some of yesterday's curve-flattening activity, seemed to alleviate some underlying growth concerns.

The 2-yr yield fell four basis points to 1.94%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.7% to 97.97 amid relative strength in the euro, which rose 0.7% against the dollar to 1.1112. The British pound (unch), meanwhile, moved lower in the wake of the Bank of England's decision to hike its key lending rate by 25 basis points to 0.75%.

Whether or not it was the Treasury market that got things going for equities, there was little doubt that positive momentum, which was borne out of a bearish sentiment, was on the market's side.

With today's advance, the S&P 500 finished 5.7% above Monday's close, versus 8.2% and 6.4% gains in the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000, respectively. Over the same three-day period, the CBOE Volatility Index (25.67, -1.00, -3.8%) has dropped 19%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

February housing starts increased 6.8% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.769 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.700 million) and building permits slipped 1.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.859 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.860 million).
The key takeaway from the report was that single-family units (+5.7%) drove the strength in starts, yet a 0.5% decline in permits for single units (a leading indicator) tempered some of the enthusiasm for the otherwise encouraging February number.
Initial jobless claims for the week ending March 12 decreased by 15,000 to 214,000 (Briefing.com consensus 224,000) and continuing claims for the week ending March 5 decreased by 71,000 to 1.419 million, hitting their lowest level since February 21, 1970.
The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that the latest week is the week in which the survey for the March employment report was conducted. With the low level of initial claims, expectations for a strong pickup in job growth -- and a continuation of the strong labor market the Fed chair was discussing -- will remain high.
Total industrial production increased 0.5% month-over-month in February (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) following an unrevised 1.4% increase in January. The capacity utilization rate rose to 77.6% (Briefing.com consensus 77.9%) from a downwardly revised 77.3% (from 77.6%) in January.
The key takeaway from the report is that industrial production is being held back by the output of motor vehicles and parts, which stems from ongoing supply shortages. The output of motor vehicles and parts declined 3.5% in February.
The Philadelphia Fed Index for March increased to 27.4 (Briefing.com consensus 14.0) from 16.0 in February.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Existing Home Sales for February on Friday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.1% YTD
S&P 500 -7.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -8.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -13.0% YTD

Crude futures settle higher by 8%
17-Mar-22 15:30 ET
Dow +263.54 at 34326.64, Nasdaq +120.38 at 13556.93, S&P +36.09 at 4393.95

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.8% during this final update before the close.

One last look at the sectors shows gains across the board. The top-weighted information technology is underperforming with a 0.2% gain, while the energy sector (+3.4%) leaps ahead amid the sharp rebound in oil prices.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $8.01 (+8.4%) to $103.43/barrel.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34552.99 -201.94 (-0.58%)
Nasdaq 13838.46 -55.38 (-0.40%)
SP 500 4461.18 -1.94 (-0.04%)
10-yr Note -1 12/32 2.315
NYSE Adv 1279 Dec 1956 Vol 1.10 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1733 Dec 2791 Vol 5.59 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Utilities, Industrials
Weak: Financials, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services

Moving the Market

S&P 500 finding resistance near 200-day moving average

Crude oil rising again: EU may block imports of Russian oil

S&P 500 Finds Resistance Near 200-Day Average
21-Mar-22 16:15 ET
Dow -201.94 at 34552.99, Nasdaq -55.38 at 13838.46, S&P -1.94 at 4461.18

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market began the week on a shaky note, causing the S&P 500 (-0.04%) to snap its four-day streak that lifted the benchmark index to a one-month high last week. The S&P 500 ended ahead of the Nasdaq (-0.4%) and Dow (-0.6%).

The S&P 500 flashed a modest gain in early trade that pushed the index above its 200-day moving average (4472), but that area served as resistance today while the 50-day moving average (4428) offered a measure of support to the benchmark index. The S&P returned into negative territory in the early afternoon after Fed Chairman Powell said that the FOMC could raise rates by more than 25 bps on one or multiple occasions this year.

Six sectors finished the day in negative territory with communication services (-0.7%) and consumer discretionary (-0.8%) showing the biggest losses while commodity-linked energy (+3.8%) and materials (+0.9%) outperformed throughout the day.

The communication services sector was pressured by losses in almost all components with Meta Platforms (FB 211.49, -5.00, -2.3%) pacing the weakness after a Russian court charged the company with extremism and banned access to Facebook and Instagram from Russia.

In the discretionary sector, Home Depot (HD 329.37, -11.37, -3.3%) pulled back after recording five consecutive gains while NIKE (NKE 130.19, -1.05, -0.8%) snapped a four-day streak ahead of tonight's release of quarterly results.

On the upside, the energy sector outperformed throughout the day thanks to strong support from crude oil, which climbed $7.18, or 7.0%, to $110.21/bbl amid continued speculation about an EU ban on Russian oil imports.

Steel names contributed to strength in the materials sector after Australia banned exports of aluminum to Russia. Nucor (NUE 142.75, +6.59, +4.8%) rallied to a fresh record while fertilizer stocks also outperformed notably with CF Industries (CF 101.31, +6.06, +6.4%) reaching a new record high.

In other corporate news, Boeing (BA 185.90, -6.93, -3.6%) fell to levels from Wednesday after a 737-800 jet manufactured by the company crashed in China, killing all 132 occupants.

Treasuries retreated throughout the day, sending the 10-yr yield higher by 17 bps to 2.32%, a level not seen since May 2019. The market will not receive any data tomorrow.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.9% YTD
S&P 500 -6.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -8.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -11.6% YTD

Energy Remains Ahead
21-Mar-22 15:25 ET
Dow -275.45 at 34479.48, Nasdaq -107.31 at 13786.53, S&P -13.17 at 4449.95

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 trades lower by 0.3% with 30 minutes remaining in the session.

The benchmark index held a modest gain in early trade, but it has not been able to defend that gain, due in part to a warning from Fed Chair Powell that the FOMC could raise rates by more than 25 bps on one or multiple occasions this year.

Eight sectors trade with losses with communication services (-1.2%) and consumer discretionary (-1.0%) leading the retreat. Meanwhile, the energy sector has extended its lead and is now up 4.1%. On a related note, crude oil climbed $7.18, or 7.0%, to $110.21/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34807.46 +254.47 (0.74%)
Nasdaq 14108.82 +270.36 (1.95%)
SP 500 4511.61 +50.43 (1.13%)
10-yr Note -17/32 2.373
NYSE Adv 1946 Dec 1237 Vol 1.07 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3082 Dec 1355 Vol 5.32 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Financials, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Technology
Weak: Energy, Health Care, Utilities

Moving the Market

St. Louis Fed President Bullard speaks in favor of tighter policy

S&P 500 looking for support near 200-day moving average

Crude oil rally pauses

S&P 500 Reclaims 200-Day Average
22-Mar-22 16:10 ET
Dow +254.47 at 34807.46, Nasdaq +270.36 at 14108.82, S&P +50.43 at 4511.61

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended Tuesday on a firmly higher note with the Nasdaq (+2.0%) pacing a daylong advance while the S&P 500 (+1.1%) and Dow (+0.7%) recorded slimmer gains.

Today's rally lifted the S&P 500 back above its 200-day moving average (4473) after that area offered slight resistance on Monday while the Nasdaq reclaimed its 50-day moving average (13831).

Ten sectors finished the day in positive territory with consumer discretionary (+2.5%) and communication services (+2.0%) holding the lead throughout the day.

The discretionary sector rebounded from yesterday's underperformance with NIKE (NKE 133.09, +2.90, +2.2%), which rallied to its 50-day moving average (139.12) before pulling back. The advance was fueled by above-consensus results for Q3 while top components Amazon (AMZN 3297.78, +67.95, +2.1%) and Tesla (TSLA 993.98, +72.82, +7.9%) also recorded strong gains.

In the communication services sector, top component Alphabet (GOOG 2805.55, +75.98, +2.8%) rallied past its 200-day moving average (2766) to a five-week high while Meta Platforms (FB 216.65, +5.16, +2.4%) reclaimed yesterday's loss.

Other influential sectors like technology (+1.4%) and financials (+1.6%) also spent the day in positive territory with the former benefiting from outperformance in top components like Apple (AAPL 168.82, +3.44, +2.1%) and Microsoft (MSFT 304.06, +4.90, +1.6%) while the latter rallied as Treasury yields continued climbing.

Selling across the curve drove Treasury yields to fresh highs for the year with the 10-yr yield rising six basis points to 2.37%.

On the downside, the energy sector (-0.6%) was the lone decliner, pulling back from Monday's rally. The sector narrowed this week's gain to 3.1% as crude oil fell $0.73, or 0.7%, to $109.48/bbl, snapping a four-day skid. Recent reports about a possible EU embargo on Russian oil were followed by indications that such a ban is unlikely to be implemented.

The market did not receive any data today but tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index (prior -1.2%) will be released at 7:00 ET, followed by February New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 820,000; prior 801,000) at 10:00 ET.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.2% YTD
S&P 500 -5.3% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -9.8% YTD

Energy Remains Behind
22-Mar-22 15:30 ET
Dow +227.23 at 34780.22, Nasdaq +270.05 at 14108.51, S&P +47.93 at 4509.11

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages remain near their best levels of the session with the S&P 500 holding a 1.1% gain with 30 minutes remaining in the session.

Most sectors are hanging onto solid gains with consumer discretionary (+2.5%) and communication services (+2.2%) jockeying for the top spot.

Conversely, the energy sector (-0.9%) remains at the bottom of the leaderboard, but even with today's loss, the group is up 7.7% for the month while the second-best performer—health care (-0.1%)—has gained 5.1% in March.

All but two components of the energy sector trade in the green while Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD 251.66, +0.48, +0.2%) hit a fresh record high. Crude oil, meanwhile, fell $0.73, or 0.7%, to $109.48/bbl.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34358.50 -448.96 (-1.29%)
Nasdaq 13922.61 -186.21 (-1.32%)
SP 500 4456.24 -55.37 (-1.23%)
10-yr Note +17/32 2.321
NYSE Adv 1102 Dec 2112 Vol 944.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1567 Dec 2821 Vol 4.92 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Utilities
Weak: Technology, Health Care, Financials, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

Crude oil rising again

President Biden meeting with European NATO allies

S&P 500 Pulled Back Below 200-Day Average
23-Mar-22 16:15 ET
Dow -448.96 at 34358.50, Nasdaq -186.21 at 13922.61, S&P -55.37 at 4456.24

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended Wednesday on a lower note with the Dow (-1.3%), Nasdaq (-1.3%), and S&P 500 (-1.2%) recording comparable losses while the Russell 2000 (-1.7%) finished behind the large cap indices.

Equities spent the bulk of the session in the red, as the S&P 500 gravitated back below its 200-day moving average (4474), which offered support yesterday, while the Nasdaq made a brief appearance in the green in midday trade before reaching a fresh low ahead of the close.

Crude oil recovered its entire loss from yesterday, rising $5.78, or 5.3%, to $115.26/bbl. The resilience in the commodity weighed on overall sentiment, but it also kept the energy sector (+1.7%) atop today's leaderboard throughout the day. The sector extended this week's gain to 4.9% with ten of its components reaching fresh 52-week highs.

The utilities sector (+0.2%) was the only other advancer, benefiting from the cautious sentiment in the broader market.

On the downside, nine sectors recorded losses with six surrendering at least 1.0%. Financials (-1.8%) and health care (-1.8%) lagged throughout the day due to broad weakness. Wells Fargo (WFC 51.12, -2.27, -4.3%) was the worst performer among financials while ResMed (RMD 233.00, -22.05, -8.7%) was the biggest laggard in health care amid supply chain concerns.

Top-weighted technology (-1.5%) finished near the bottom of the leaderboard even though its largest component—Apple (AAPL 170.17, +1.35, +0.8%)—recorded a solid gain. Chipmakers displayed relative weakness with the PHLX Semiconductor Index sliding 2.5%, while Adobe (ADBE 422.90, -43.55, -9.3%) finished at the bottom of the tech sector after its Q1 beat was overshadowed by below-consensus EPS and revenue guidance for Q2.

In other earnings, General Mills (GIS 64.23, +1.55, +2.5%) beat Q3 EPS expectations and raised its FY22 EPS guidance above consensus. Archer-Daniels (ADM 89.09, +1.53, +1.8%) rallied to a fresh record in sympathy with General Mills, but the consumer staples sector still lost 0.9%.

Treasuries ended the day in positive territory with the 10-yr note reclaiming its loss from yesterday and sending its yield lower by five basis points to 2.32%.

In international news, President Biden traveled to meet with European NATO allies in the coming days.

Reviewing today's economic data:

New home sales decreased 2.0% month-over-month in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 772,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 820,000) from a downwardly revised 788,000 (from 801,000) in January. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales were down 6.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is the recognition that the sale of lower-priced homes has lessened as a percentage of overall sales, likely due to less supply resulting from cost pressures for builders and emerging pressures from rising mortgage rates that are reducing affordability for lower-income buyers. That is leading to higher-priced homes accounting for a larger percentage of new homes sold, which is driving up both median and average selling prices.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Index fell 8.1% after decreasing by 1.2% during the previous week. The Purchase Index fell 1.5% while the Refinance Index fell 14.4%.

Weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 210,000; prior 214,000), Continuing Claims (prior 1.419 mln), February Durable Orders (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%; prior 1.6%), Durable Orders ex-transportation (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%; prior 0.7%), and Q4 Current Account Balance (prior -$214.80 bln) will be reported tomorrow at 8:30 ET, followed by the preliminary March IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI (prior 57.3) at 9:45 ET

Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.5% YTD
S&P 500 -6.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -8.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -11.0% YTD

Energy Holds Lead
23-Mar-22 15:25 ET
Dow -339.51 at 34467.95, Nasdaq -138.72 at 13970.10, S&P -38.84 at 4472.77

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.9%) trades just above its low with 30 minutes remaining in the session. The benchmark index has been pressured back below its 200-day moving average (4474), increasing the likelihood of a volatile finish after the index failed to build on its bounce off morning lows.

Nine sectors remain in the red with five showing losses of 1.0% or more while energy (+2.5%) remains comfortably in the green after crude oil climbed $5.78, or 5.3%, to $115.26/bbl.

Treasuries finished the day near their highs, sending the 10-yr yield lower by five basis points to 2.32%.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34707.94 +349.44 (1.02%)
Nasdaq 14191.84 +269.23 (1.93%)
SP 500 4520.16 +63.92 (1.43%)
10-yr Note -11/32 2.341
NYSE Adv 2105 Dec 1148 Vol 836.3 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2916 Dec 1540 Vol 4.93 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Technology, Materials, Communication Services, Health Care
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Real Estate, Energy

Moving the Market

S&P 500 remains near 200-day moving average

Crude oil dips

Technology Paces Thursday Rally
24-Mar-22 16:20 ET
Dow +349.44 at 34707.94, Nasdaq +269.23 at 14191.84, S&P +63.92 at 4520.16

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market ended Thursday on a firmly higher note with the Nasdaq (+1.9%) finishing ahead of the S&P 500 (+1.4%) and Dow (+1.0%).

Equities followed yesterday's weak finish with an opening advance and a daylong extension of the early gains. The S&P 500 clawed back above its 200-day moving average (4476), which has been in focus since Friday, while the Nasdaq continued this week's outperformance.

Nasdaq faced some pressure in early trade, but it took the lead in midday action with chipmakers fueling afternoon gains in the tech-heavy index. The PHLX Semiconductor Index jumped 5.1% with all but one of its component gaining at least 2.0% while NVIDIA (NVDA 281.50, +25.16, +9.8%) and Intel (INTC 51.62, +3.35, +6.9%) finished in the lead. NVIDIA rallied to its best level in ten weeks while Intel overtook its 50-day moving average (48.75), approaching its 200-day moving average (52.04).

The technology sector (+2.7%) was the only group with a gain of more than 2.0% while the materials sector (+2.0%) finished just behind after outperforming throughout the day. Steelmaker Nucor (NUE 153.52, +6.38, +4.3%) and fertilizer producers Mosaic (MOS 68.57, +0.64, +0.9%) and CF Industries (CF 106.40, +2.81, +2.7%) hit fresh 52-week highs as concerns about supply and rising prices persisted.

Crude oil, meanwhile, was a soft spot today, but not before it touched its best level in almost two weeks in overnight trade. It finished today's session with a loss of $4.02, or 3.5%, at $111.24/bbl. However, the energy sector (+0.1%) was able to eke out a slim gain, extending this week's advance to 5.0%.

The consumer discretionary sector (+0.7%) finished near the bottom of today's leaderboard as modest losses in influential components like Home Depot (HD 315.78, -1.27, -0.4%) and Lowe's (LOW 219.17, -1.75, -0.8%) overshadowed gains in most remaining components. HD and LOW retreated after KB Home (KBH 34.38, -1.65, -4.6%) missed Q1 expectations, but reaffirmed its guidance for FY22 revenue.

Elsewhere in the discretionary sector, travel names finished among the leaders with Booking.com (BKNG 2261.99, +102.24, +4.7%) ending in the top spot after Trip.com (TCOM 24.50, +0.48, +2.0%) beat Q4 expectations.

Treasuries slumped out of the gate but rebounded as the day went on. The 30-yr bond turned positive in the afternoon, sending its yield lower by a basis point to 2.51% while the 10-yr note finished with a modest loss, lifting its yield by two basis points to 2.34%.

On the international front, an Axios reporter tweeted that he has been told by the chief of staff to Ukraine's president that some progress has been made in cease-fire negotiations.

Reviewing today's economic data:

Initial jobless claims for the week ending March 19 decreased by 28,000 to 187,000 (Briefing.com consensus 210,000), which is the lowest level since September 6, 1969. Continuing jobless claims for the week ending March 12 decreased by 67,000 to 1.350 million, which is the lowest level since January 3, 1970.
The key takeaway from the report is that it is consistent with a tight labor market; however, the multi-decade low in initial and continuing claims is going to feed into concerns about a pickup in wage-based inflation pressures that might compel the Fed to take a more aggressive approach in removing its policy accommodation.
Durable goods orders for February declined 2.2% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%) after increasing 1.6% in January. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders fell 0.6% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) after increasing 0.8% in January.
The key takeaway from the report is that the weakness follows on the heels of a solid January report despite the effects of the Omicron variant. The downturn likely reflects some natural slowing, meaning it is too early to tell if this is the start of a weaker trend.
The IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI increased to 58.5 in the preliminary reading for March from February's final reading of 57.3.
The IHS Markit Services PMI increased to 58.9 in the preliminary reading for March from February's final reading of 56.5.
The Current Account deficit narrowed to $217.90 bln in Q4 from a revised deficit of $219.90 bln (from -$214.80 bln) in Q3.

February Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%; prior -5.7%) and the final reading of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey for March (Briefing.com consensus 59.7; prior 59.7) will be released tomorrow at 10:00 ET.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.5% YTD
S&P 500 -5.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -7.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -9.3% YTD

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 35228.81 -65.38 (-0.19%)
Nasdaq 14442.27 -177.36 (-1.21%)
SP 500 4602.45 -29.15 (-0.63%)
10-yr Note +4/32 2.348
NYSE Adv 1388 Dec 1860 Vol 931.1 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1556 Dec 2877 Vol 5.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Utilities, Health Care, Consumer Staples
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Russia refutes breakthrough in peace talks

-- Profit-taking interest after huge rebound rally

-- Treasury yield curve continues to compress

Rebound rally runs into profit-taking interest
30-Mar-22 16:15 ET
Dow -65.38 at 35228.81, Nasdaq -177.36 at 14442.27, S&P -29.15 at 4602.45

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 0.6% on Wednesday, as the market was pressured by profit-taking interest amid tempered hopes for a timely Russia-Ukraine ceasefire. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.2%) and Russell 2000 (-2.0%) posted steeper declines while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined just 0.2%.

Briefly, Russia refuted yesterday's reports that described a breakthrough in peace talks and appeared to redirect troops to eastern Ukraine to focus on the Donbas region. The news contributed to a rebound in oil prices ($107.67, +3.34, +3.2%), which were further aided by bullish inventory data out of the EIA.

The news also functioned as an excuse for the stock market to cool off from a big rebound rally in which, entering the session, the S&P 500 was up 11.0% since March 14 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 16.5%.

Losses were concentrated in the S&P 500 information technology (-1.4%), consumer discretionary (-1.5%), and financials (-0.7%) sectors. Conversely, the energy (+1.2%), utilities (+0.8%), health care (+0.2%), and consumer staples (+0.2%) sectors closed in positive territory.

The financials sector was undercut by weakness in the bank stocks amid the compression in interest rates, which continued to signal concerns about a Fed policy mistake. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 33.91, -1.07) dropped 3.1%.

The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 2.33%, and the 10-yr yield decreased four basis points to 2.36%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.6% to 97.85 amid relative strength in the euro (+0.6%) and yen (+0.9%).

Looking at individual stocks, Micron (MU 79.16, -2.89, -3.5%) coughed up an early 5% gain despite reporting better-than-expected earnings results and guidance, while Five Below (FIVE 160.20, -11.19, -6.5%), Chewy (CHWY 42.79, -8.21, -16.1%), and RH (RH 334.28, -51.41, -13.3%) each provided disappointing guidance.

Lululemon athletica (LULU 376.92, +32.95, +9.6%), on the other hand, stood out with a 10% gain on positive earnings results, upbeat guidance, and a $1 billion share repurchase announcement.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The third estimate of Q4 GDP showed a downward revision to 6.9% (Briefing.com consensus 7.1%) from the second estimate of 7.0%. The GDP Price Deflator was left unrevised at 7.1% (Briefing.com consensus 7.1%).
The key takeaway from the report is that the downward revision was owed to lower personal consumption expenditures and exports while private inventory investment was revised higher.
The ADP Employment Change report estimated that 455,000 jobs were added to private sector payrolls in March (Briefing.com consensus 440,000). The increase in February was upwardly revised to 486,000 from 475,000.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 6.8% following an 8.1% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Personal Income and Spending for February, PCE Prices for February, weekly Initial and Continuing Claims, and the Chicago PMI for March on Thursday.

S&P 500 -3.4% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -7.7% YTD

Crude futures settle higher
30-Mar-22 15:30 ET
Dow -184.77 at 35109.42, Nasdaq -215.45 at 14404.18, S&P -43.47 at 4588.13

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.0% to trade at session lows while the Russell 2000 trades lower by 2.0%.

One last look at the sectors shows consumer discretionary (-1.8%), information technology (-1.6%), and financials (-1.1%) down more than 1.0% while the energy (+0.8%) and utilities (+0.5%) sectors are still trading in positive territory.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $3.34 (+3.2%) to $107.67/barrel amid tempered hopes for a ceasefire and bullish inventory data.

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Market Snapshot

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Dow 34818.27 +139.92 (0.40%)
Nasdaq 14261.49 +40.98 (0.29%)
SP 500 4545.86 +15.45 (0.34%)
10-yr Note -9/32 2.442
NYSE Adv 2097 Dec 1133 Vol 996.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2578 Dec 1747 Vol 4.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Real Estate, Utilities, Consumer Staples, Materials
Weak: Industrials, Information Technology, Financials

Moving the Market

-- March employment report shows solid jobs growth, lower unemployment, and continued wage inflation

-- 2s10s spread inverts again

-- Uptick into the close on no specific news

Stocks close higher despite 2s10s inversion
01-Apr-22 16:15 ET
Dow +139.92 at 34818.27, Nasdaq +40.98 at 14261.49, S&P +15.45 at 4545.86

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.3% on Friday, starting the second quarter on a positive note despite a more inverted Treasury yield curve. The Nasdaq Composite (+0.3%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) also rose modestly while the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 1.0% gain.

Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, led by the real estate (+2.0%), utilities (+1.5%), consumer staples (+1.3%), and materials (+1.1%) sectors. Conversely, the information technology (-0.2%), financials (-0.2%), and industrials (-0.7%) sectors underperformed in negative territory.

The tech sector was pressured by valuation concerns, as the 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 2.38%; the financials sector was pressured by an inversion of the 2s10s spread, as the 2-yr yield rose 15 basis points to 2.43%; and the industrials sector was pressured by weakness in its transportation components. The Dow Jones Transportation Average dropped 4.7%.

Treasury yields pushed higher in the wake of the March employment report, which showed decent jobs growth, a lower unemployment rate, and continued wage inflation -- a recipe for the Fed to hike rates by 50 basis points next month.

More specifically, nonfarm payrolls increased by 431,000 (Briefing.com consensus 475,000) on top of an upwardly revised 750,000 (from 678,000) in February. The unemployment rate improved to 3.6% (Briefing.com consensus 3.7%) from 3.8% in February. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4%, as expected.

Transport stocks were weak, supposedly because the employment report also showed a decrease in transportation jobs (-1,000) following large gains in the prior two months.

The 2s10s inversion once again turned the conversation to a potential recession caused by the Fed aggressively hiking rates into slower growth. On the latter, the March ISM Manufacturing Index decelerated to 57.1% (Briefing.com consensus 58.3%) from 58.6% in February.

Separately, oil prices ($99.54, -0.89, -0.9%) were pressured by news that other IEA nations like Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and South Korea will join the U.S. in releasing oil from their reserves. WTI crude ended the week lower by 12.6%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 98.56.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The Employment Situation report for March showed a smaller than expected increase in nonfarm and private payrolls, which masked big upward revisions to readings from the past two months. Average hourly earnings showed an increase that was in-line with expectations, though average workweek decreased slightly.
March nonfarm payrolls increased by 431,000 (Briefing.com consensus 475,000). The 3-month average for total nonfarm payrolls decreased to 562,000 from 614,000. February nonfarm payrolls revised to 750,000 from 678,000. January nonfarm payrolls revised to 504,000 from 481,000.
March private sector payrolls increased by 426,000 (Briefing.com consensus 450,000). February private sector payrolls revised to 739,000 from 654,000. January private sector payrolls revised to 492,000 from 448,000.
March unemployment rate was 3.6% (Briefing.com consensus 3.7%) versus 3.8% in February.
March average hourly earnings increased by 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) after increasing a revised 0.1% (from 0.0%) in February. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 5.6%, versus 5.1% for the 12 months ending in January.
The average workweek in March was 34.6 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.7) versus 34.7 hours in February.
The labor force participation rate ticked up to 62.4% from 62.3% in February. The employment-population ratio rose to 60.1% from 59.9% in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that while it showed a slowdown in hiring activity, wage growth continued and the unemployment rate returned to a pre-pandemic level, reflecting a tight job market. This combination is unlikely to deter the Fed from staying on what is expected to an aggressive rate hike path.
The March ISM Manufacturing Index decreased to 57.1% (Briefing.com consensus 58.3%) from 58.6% in February. A number above 50.0% is indicative of expansion. March marked the 22nd consecutive month of expansion in the manufacturing sector.
The key takeaway from the report is that activity slowed to its lowest pace since the end of 2020 while prices continued increasing, which suggests that inflation will continue running at a hot pace in the near term.
Total construction spending increased 0.5% month-over-month in February (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) while the January reading was revised up to 1.6% (from 1.3%).
The key takeaway from the report is that residential spending continued increasing, which was masked by a decrease in most public construction spending.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Factory Orders for February on Monday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.2% YTD
S&P 500 -4.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.9% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -8.8% YTD

Crude futures extend weekly losses
01-Apr-22 15:30 ET
Dow +38.27 at 34716.62, Nasdaq -37.92 at 14182.59, S&P -4.27 at 4526.14

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is back in the red with a 0.1% decline and is on track to end the week with a 0.4% decline.

One last look at the sectors shows information technology (-0.9%), industrials (-1.0%), and financials (-0.6%) weighing on the market, while the real estate (+1.6%), utilities (+1.0%), and consumer staples (+0.9%) sectors outperform with healthy gains.

WTI crude futures settled the session lower by $0.89 (-0.9%) to $99.54/barrel, ending the week with a 12.6% decline

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34921.94 +103.67 (0.30%)
Nasdaq 14532.54 +271.05 (1.90%)
SP 500 4582.64 +36.78 (0.81%)
10-yr Note -1/32 2.407
NYSE Adv 1815 Dec 1479 Vol 917.4 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2831 Dec 1798 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer, Discretionary
Weak: Utilities, Health Care, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Big day for the mega-caps/growth stocks

-- Elon Musk discloses 9.2% passive stake in Twitter (TWTR)

-- Broader market has lackluster day

Big day for the growth stocks
04-Apr-22 16:15 ET
Dow +103.67 at 34921.94, Nasdaq +271.05 at 14532.54, S&P +36.78 at 4582.64

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 0.8% on Monday, as money flowed back into the mega-caps/growth stocks, which accounted for the outperformance of the Nasdaq Composite (+1.9%). The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) and Russell 2000 (+0.2%) rose more modestly.

Growth stocks appeared to draw speculative interest from Elon Musk disclosing a 9.2% passive stake in Twitter (TWTR 49.97, +10.66, +27.1%), which propelled TWTR shares to a 27% gain. The investment, and bullish reaction, seemed to instill confidence for dip-buying activity in the growth-stock space, including the mega-caps.

The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 240.27, +4.56, +1.9%) advanced 1.9%, leaving the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 158.56, +0.34, +0.2%) in the dust with its 0.2% gain.

The S&P 500 information technology (+1.9%), consumer discretionary (+2.3%), and communication services (+2.3%) sectors, which contain the mega-caps, each rose about 2%. The energy sector (+0.1%) eked out a gain, while the other sectors closed lower with utilities (-0.8%) finishing in last place.

One more word related to Elon, Tesla (TSLA 1145.45, +60.86, +5.6%) reported over 310,000 deliveries in the first quarter, representing a 68% yr/yr increase despite ongoing supply chain disruptions. TSLA shares rose 5.6%.

Starbucks (SBUX 88.09, -3.40, -3.7%), meanwhile, fell 4% after interim CEO Howard Shultz suspended the company's share buyback program to invest more into company's people and stores.

Elsewhere, oil prices climbed back above $100 per barrel ($103.34, +3.80, +3.8%) amid no reported progress in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Coal prices also hit a 13-year high, exacerbating the inflation narrative that helped drive selling interest in the longer-dated part of the Treasury market.

The 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 2.41% while the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 2.42% -- narrowing the inversion to one basis point. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.4% to 99.01.

Reviewing Monday's economic data:

Factory orders for manufactured goods declined 0.5% m/m in February (Briefing.com consensus -0.6%) following an upwardly revised 1.5% increase (from +1.4%) in January. Shipments of manufactured goods jumped 0.6% after increasing 1.4% in January.
The key takeaway from the report is that it followed a relatively strong month of order growth in January and likely reflects some delayed influence of the Omicron variant on business activity, making it too early to say if this is the start of a weakening trend for factory orders.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for March and the Trade Balance for February on Tuesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -3.9% YTD
S&P 500 -3.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -6.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -7.1% YTD

Crude futures climb back above $100
04-Apr-22 15:30 ET
Dow +77.65 at 34895.92, Nasdaq +255.13 at 14516.62, S&P +32.29 at 4578.15

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is currently up 0.7% while the Russell 2000 lags with a 0.2% gain.

One last look at the sectors shows information technology (+1.8%), consumer discretionary (+2.1%), and communication services (+2.3%) still trading sharply higher due to the mega-caps. The utilities sector (-0.9%) remains the laggard, but the energy (unch) and materials (unch) sectors have recouped intraday declines.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $3.80 (+3.8%) to $103.34/barrel.

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Market Snapshot

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Dow 34496.51 -144.67 (-0.42%)
Nasdaq 13888.80 -315.35 (-2.22%)
SP 500 4481.15 -43.97 (-0.97%)
10-yr Note -26/32 1.0 bln
NYSE Adv 904 Dec 2300 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1357 Dec 2919 Vol 5.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Health Care, Consumer Staples, Real Estate, Energy
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Lingering concerns about the Fed's hawkish mindset, rising interest rates, and slower economic growth

-- Growth stocks pace retreat for second straight day as Treasury yields hit multi-year highs

-- FOMC Minutes corroborate Fed's intentions to tighten policy more aggressively

Growth stocks pace retreat for second day in a row
06-Apr-22 16:15 ET
Dow -144.67 at 34496.51, Nasdaq -315.35 at 13888.80, S&P -43.97 at 4481.15

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.0% on Wednesday, as concerns about the Fed's hawkish mindset, rising interest rates, and slower economic growth continued to pressure risk sentiment. Growth stocks paced the retreat and accounted for the underperformance of the Nasdaq Composite (-2.2%).

The Russell 2000 struggled with a 1.4% decline while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined just 0.4%.

Fed Governor Brainard's (FOMC voter) hawkish expectations for monetary policy remained fresh on the market's mind, such that today's trading dynamics were awfully similar to yesterday.

For example, interest rates hit fresh multi-year highs, which worked against the mega-caps within the S&P 500 information technology (-2.6%), consumer discretionary (-2.6%), and communication services (-2.1%) sectors for valuation reasons. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 229.78, -5.89) fell 2.5%.

In addition, investors continued to lean defensively into the utilities (+2.0%), health care (+1.6%), real estate (+1.6%), and consumer staples (+1.4%) sectors. The energy sector (+0.5%), to be fair, also landed in the green despite a 5% decline in oil prices ($96.59/bbl, -4.94, -4.9%).

The S&P 500 fell back below its 200-day moving average (4490), but the benchmark index briefly peaked above the key technical level following the release of the FOMC Minutes for March. The minutes corroborated Ms. Brainard's concerns about inflation and the need to tighten policy more aggressively.

Participants generally agreed it would be appropriate to reduce the balance sheet by $95 billion per month (about $60 billion for Treasury securities and about $35 billion for agency MBS) and that one or more 50 basis point increases in the fed funds rate could be appropriate at future meetings.

Treasury yields, which had backtracked from overnight highs, also saw some volatility following the FOMC Minutes. The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 2.49% (topped 2.60% overnight) while the 10-yr yield rose six basis points to 2.61% (topped 2.65% overnight). The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.1% to 99.61.

A separate story of note was in the airline industry. JetBlue Airways (JBLU 12.45, -1.19, -8.7%) proposed a $3.6 billion, or $33.00/share, cash offer for Spirit Airlines (SAVE 26.28, -0.64, -2.4%), which had previously agreed to merge with Frontier Group (ULCC 10.61, -1.31, -11.0%).

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 6.3% following a 6.8% decline in the prior week.
Crude oil inventories had a build of 2.42 mln barrels following a draw of 3.45 mln barrels in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report and Consumer Credit for February on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.1% YTD
S&P 500 -6.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -11.2% YTD

Crude futures fall 5%
06-Apr-22 15:30 ET
Dow -237.68 at 34403.50, Nasdaq -333.22 at 13870.93, S&P -54.03 at 4471.09

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.2% after briefly peaking above its 200-day moving average (4490).

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows influential losses in the information technology (-2.6%), consumer discretionary (-2.8%), and communication services (-2.3%) sectors, while the utilities (+1.3%), health care (+1.1%), consumer staples (+1.1%), and real estate (+0.9%) sectors continue to embody a defensive mindset.

WTI crude futures settled lower by $4.94 (-4.9%) to $96.59/barrel amid bearish inventory data and growth concerns.

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Market Snapshot

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Dow 34721.12 +137.55 (0.40%)
Nasdaq 13710.98 -186.30 (-1.34%)
SP 500 4488.28 -11.93 (-0.27%)
10-yr Note -26/32 2.713
NYSE Adv 1373 Dec 1789 Vol 846.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1720 Dec 2684 Vol 4.4 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Health Care, Materials, Consumer Staples
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Value outperforms growth

-- Interest rates continue to creep higher, weighing on the growth stocks

-- S&P 500 closes below 200-day moving average (4493)

Disparate performances in Dow and Nasdaq
08-Apr-22 16:15 ET
Dow +137.55 at 34721.12, Nasdaq -186.30 at 13710.98, S&P -11.93 at 4488.28

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 declined 0.3% on Friday in a mixed session in which value stocks outperformed at the expense of growth stocks. The growth/value divide was evident in the disparity between the Nasdaq Composite (-1.3%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%). The Russell 2000 lost 0.8%.

Growth stocks remained pressured by valuation concerns as long-term interest rates continued to creep higher: the 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 2.71% (+34 bps for the week). Shorter-dated rates also pushed higher, with the 2-yr yield increasing five basis points to 2.52% (+10 bps for the week).

The mega-caps within the S&P 500 information technology (-1.4%), consumer discretionary (-1.0%), and communication services (-0.7%) sectors were among the heaviest weights on the market. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 227.74, -2.78) fell 1.2%.

Transportation stocks also struggled amid underlying growth concerns and negative-minded analyst recommendations. BofA Securities downgraded both Union Pacific (UNP 241.98, -2.88, -1.2%) and UPS (UPS 191.02, -1.68, -0.9%) to Neutral from Buy. The Dow Jones Transportation Average fell 0.9%.

Conversely, the financials (+1.0%) and energy (+2.8%) sectors were the strongest performers amid the higher rates and higher oil prices ($98.18/bbl, +1.88, +2.0%). The defensive-oriented health care (+0.6%), consumer staples (+0.4%), utilities (+0.3%), and real estate (+0.3%) sectors added to their weekly gains.

Blue-chips like UnitedHealth (UNH 545.96, +9.01, +1.7%), Walmart (WMT 157.41, +0.87, +0.6%), and Coca-Cola (KO 63.83, +0.39, +0.6%) set all-time highs, contributing to the outperformance of the Dow, on no specific news. Note, UNH will be among the first batch of companies to report Q1 earnings next week.

Separately, the S&P 500 wavered around its 200-day moving average (4493) the entire session, ultimately closing below the key technical level amid some slippage activity into the close.

The U.S. Dollar Index (99.84, +0.09, +0.1%), meanwhile, rose for the seventh straight session and briefly topped the 100.00 level.

Friday's economic data was limited to Wholesale Inventories, which increased 2.5% m/m in February (Briefing.com consensus 2.1%) following a revised 1.1% increase (from 0.8% increase) in January. There is no data of note scheduled for Monday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -4.5% YTD
S&P 500 -5.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -11.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -12.4% YTD

Crude futures rise 2%
08-Apr-22 15:30 ET
Dow +226.21 at 34809.78, Nasdaq -133.39 at 13763.89, S&P +2.38 at 4502.59

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading little changed while the Russell 2000 trades lower by 0.2%.

One last look at the sector performances shows information technology (-1.1%), consumer discretionary (-0.6%), and communication services (-0.4%) still holding back the market. Conversely, the energy (+3.0%) and financials (+1.3%) sectors continue to sport decent gains amid higher Treasury yields and oil prices.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $1.88 (+2.0%) to $98.18/barrel. The 10-yr yield settled higher by five basis points to 2.71%.

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Market Snapshot

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Dow 34308.08 -413.04 (-1.19%)
Nasdaq 13411.94 -299.04 (-2.18%)
SP 500 4412.53 -75.75 (-1.69%)
10-yr Note -4/32 2.752
NYSE Adv 952 Dec 2237 Vol 926.7 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1517 Dec 2948 Vol 4.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Industrials
Weak: Information Technology, Energy, Health Care, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- 10-yr yield jumps another seven basis points to 2.78%

-- Growth stocks paced the retreat along with energy stocks

-- S&P 500 closes below 50-day moving average (4427) amid late-day selling

Stocks fall as rates continue to rise
11-Apr-22 16:15 ET
Dow -413.04 at 34308.08, Nasdaq -299.04 at 13411.94, S&P -75.75 at 4412.53

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.7% on Monday, as the market remained pressured by rising rates, technical factors, and growth concerns. The Nasdaq Composite declined 2.2%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.2%, and the Russell 2000 declined 0.7%.

The 10-yr yield, specifically, jumped another seven basis points to 2.78% (+45 bps for the month and +127 bps for the year), fueling the valuation-minded selling activity in the growth stocks. Weakening technical factors exacerbated the negative disposition.

The S&P 500 fell further below its 200-day moving average (4493) in early action amid influential weakness in the mega-caps. Moreover, with there being no noticeable interest to buy the dip in front of key CPI data tomorrow, the benchmark index sliced right through its 50-day moving average (4427) late in the session.

The late-day slide took all 11 S&P 500 sectors into negative territory on a closing basis. The information technology (-2.6%), consumer discretionary (-1.9%), and communication services (-1.7%) sectors, which are home to the mega-caps, were influential drags on the market.

The energy sector (-3.1%) was the weakest performer, though, as oil prices dropped below $95.00 per barrel ($94.16/bbl, -4.02, -4.1%), which was attributed to demand/growth concerns resulting from the COVID lockdowns in Shanghai.

The industrials (-0.3%), materials (-0.5%), financials (-0.5%), and consumer staples (-0.5%) sectors outperformed on a relative basis with modest declines.

AT&T (T 19.63, +1.41, +7.7%) was an individual standout, rising 7.7% after completing its planned spin-off of its WarnerMedia segment, The Wall Street Journal reported AT&T is aiming to increase prices and reduce costs, and JP Morgan upgraded the stock to Overweight from Neutral.

The 2-yr yield, meanwhile, decreased two basis points to 2.50%. The U.S. Dollar Index (99.99, +0.20, +0.2%) rose for the eighth straight session. The CBOE Volatility Index jumped 15.0% to 24.34 amid increased hedging interest given the persistent selling pressure in equities.

Investors did not receive any economic on Monday. Looking ahead, the Consumer Price Index for March and the Treasury Budget for March will be released on Tuesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.6% YTD
S&P 500 -7.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -11.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -14.3% YTD

Crude futures fall 4%
11-Apr-22 15:30 ET
Dow -308.48 at 34412.64, Nasdaq -245.64 at 13465.34, S&P -62.13 at 4426.15

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is trading at session lows with a 1.4% decline, slipping just below its 50-day moving average (4427).

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors are trading lower, paced by the energy (-2.7%) and information technology (-2.7%) sectors with losses over 2.0%. The industrials sector (+0.1%) is the only sector trading higher -- barely.

WTI crude futures settled sharply lower by $4.02 (-4.1%) to $94.16/barrel.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 34451.23 -113.36 (-0.33%)
Nasdaq 13351.07 -292.51 (-2.14%)
SP 500 4392.58 -54.01 (-1.21%)
10-yr Note -11/32 2.830
NYSE Adv 1159 Dec 2042 Vol 919.8 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1517 Dec 3003 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Utilities
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Treasury yields bounce back, undercut growth stocks, amid retail sales, unemployment, inflation data

-- S&P 500 closes below 50-day moving average (4418)

-- Mixed earnings reactions

Stocks slump into extended weekend
14-Apr-22 16:15 ET
Dow -113.36 at 34451.23, Nasdaq -292.51 at 13351.07, S&P -54.01 at 4392.58

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.2% on Thursday, slumping into the long weekend as a sharp rebound in Treasury yields weighed heavily on the growth stocks. The Nasdaq Composite underperformed with a 2.1% decline, the Russell 2000 declined 1.0%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.3%.

Influential losses came from the information technology (-2.5%), communication services (-1.8%), and consumer discretionary (-1.6%) sectors, which dragged the S&P 500 below its 50-day moving average (4418) in a steady decline. The energy sector (+0.4%) showed relative strength.

While corporate news captured investors' attention today, the real market driver was the Treasury market in response to the latest economic data. Retail sales, excluding autos, topped expectations with a 1.1% m/m increase in March (Briefing.com consensus 0.9%), weekly jobless claims held near historically low levels, and import/export data for March remained elevated.

The growth/inflation-sensitive 10-yr yield jumped 14 basis points to 2.83% while the fed-funds-sensitive 2-yr yield jumped 11 basis points to 2.45%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.5% to 100.34. Crude futures settled close to $107.00 per barrel ($106.94, +2.69, +2.7%).

The upwards pressure in long-term rates fueled valuation concerns in the mega-cap domain, but to be fair, selling was relatively broad-based. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 220.13, -4.91) fell 2.2%, versus a 0.7% decline for the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 155.53, -1.07).

Interestingly, the curve-steepening bias in the Treasury market provided little relief for the financials sector, which featured weakness in Wells Fargo (WFC 46.35, -2.19, -4.5%) following its revenue miss.

Fellow banks Morgan Stanley (MS 84.79, +0.66, +0.8%), Goldman Sachs (GS 321.64, -0.33, -0.1%), and Citigroup (C 50.93, +0.79, +1.6%) beat top and bottom-line estimates, as did Dow component UnitedHealth (UNH 534.82, -2.18, -0.4). Earnings reactions were mixed.

Twitter (TWTR 45.08, -0.77, -1.7%), meanwhile, was the most widely-discussed stock today after Elon Musk offered to acquire the company for $54.20 per share in cash. The market, however, didn't believe Twitter would accept the deal, evidenced by the 2% decline in TWTR shares.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Total retail sales increased 0.5% month-over-month in March (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) following an upwardly revised 0.8% increase (from 0.3%) in February. Excluding autos, retail sales jumped 1.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.9%) following an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.2%) in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that retail sales were down in March (-0.3%) excluding gasoline station sales, which suggests high prices at the pump and elsewhere detracted from spending on other goods.
Initial jobless claims increased by 18,000 to 185,000 (Briefing.com consensus 175,000) for the week ending April 9. Continuing jobless claims for the week ending April 2 were down by 48,000 to 1.475 million.
The key takeaway from the report is that jobless claims are still running near historically low levels at a time of historically high job openings, which fits the script of a tight labor market that should keep upward pressure on wages.
The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for April jumped to 65.7 (Briefing.com consensus 58.8) from the final reading of 59.4 for March. It was a nice improvement, although the April reading is still one of the lowest readings over the last 10 years.
The key takeaway from the report is that the improvement was driven almost entirely by the Expectations Index, which jumped on improved wage expectations and a belief that gas price increases will moderate substantially in the year ahead.
Import prices rose 2.6% in March after increasing 1.6% in February. Excluding oil, import prices rose 1.2% after increasing 0.7% in February. Export prices rose 4.5% after increasing 3.0% in February. Excluding agriculture, export prices also rose 4.5% after increasing 3.0% in February.
Business inventories increased 1.5% m/m in February (Briefing.com consensus 1.3%) following a revised 1.3% increase (from -0.2%) in January.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the NAHB Housing Market Index for April when the market reopens for trading on Monday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.2% YTD
S&P 500 -7.8% YTD
Russell 2000 -10.7% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -14.7% YTD

Crude futures top $106 per barrel
14-Apr-22 15:30 ET
Dow -9.70 at 34554.89, Nasdaq -251.44 at 13392.14, S&P -39.12 at 4407.47

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.9% to trade near session lows. The benchmark index is on track to end the week with a 1.9% decline.

One last look at the sectors shows information technology (-2.1%), communication services (-1.7%), and consumer discretionary (-1.3%) sectors down between 1-2% amid the rise in long-term rates, while the energy (+0.8%) and utilities (+0.3%) sectors show relative strength.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $2.69 (+2.6%) to $106.94/barrel.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33240.18 -809.28 (-2.38%)
Nasdaq 12490.74 -514.11 (-3.95%)
SP 500 4175.19 -120.92 (-2.81%)
10-yr Note +9/32 2.745
NYSE Adv 585 Dec 2610 Vol 997.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 859 Dec 3380 Vol 5.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy
Weak: Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Mega-caps lead market sharply lower in front of earnings reports

-- Lingering growth concerns

-- Mixed reactions to better-than-expected Q1 earnings results

Trepidation sweeps market
26-Apr-22 16:15 ET
Dow -809.28 at 33240.18, Nasdaq -514.11 at 12490.74, S&P -120.92 at 4175.19

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 2.8% on Tuesday in a relatively broad-based decline led by the growth stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-4.0%) and Russell 2000 (-3.2%) both underperformed while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.4%.

The mega-caps were some of the more influential laggards amid trepidation surrounding their earnings reports this week, starting with Microsoft (MSFT 270.22, -10.50, -3.7%) and Alphabet (GOOG 2390.12, -74.88, -3.0%) after the close. The Vanguard Mega-Cap Growth ETF (MGK 205.66, -8.65, -4.0%) fell 4.0%.

Losses broadened out as the day progressed, though, leaving ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors in negative territory and the taking the S&P 500 below yesterday's intraday low (4200.82) by the close. Investors braced for further downside, evident in the 24% pop in the CBOE Volatility Index (33.52, +6.50, +24.1%).

The consumer discretionary (-5.0%), information technology (-3.7%), and communication services (-3.2%) sectors posted the steepest declines. The former included a 12% drop in Tesla (TSLA 876.42, -121.60, -12.2%) attributed in part to concerns surrounding Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter (TWTR 49.68, -2.02, -3.9%).

The energy sector (+0.04%) was the only sector in the S&P 500 that closed higher, although it couldn't keep pace with the increase in oil prices ($101.42, +2.79, +2.8%), which reclaimed $100 per barrel.

The latest earnings reports continued to have little effect on the market despite the results being mostly better than expected, including those from 3M (MMM 144.22, -4.38, -3.0%), General Electric (GE 80.59, -9.29, -10.3%), UPS (UPS 183.05, -6.59, -3.5%), PepsiCo (PEP 173.30, -0.44, -0.3%), and Sherwin-Williams (SHW 271.37, +23.35, +9.4%).

The mixed reactions added to the uncertainty facing the mega-cap earnings. Growth concerns, meanwhile, persisted and were manifested by another sharp decline in Treasury yields. The 2-yr yield fell eight basis points to 2.55%, and the 10-yr field fell five basis points to 2.77%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.6% to 102.34.

Growth concerns were exacerbated by the threat of lockdowns in Beijing and a warning from Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov that there is a "considerable" chance of nuclear war if western nations continue to deliver weapons to Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.

Separately, the Senate officially confirmed Fed Governor Brainard as Vice Chair of the Fed.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Total durable goods orders increased 0.8% month-over-month in March (Briefing.com consensus +1.1%) following an upwardly revised 1.7% decline (from -2.2%) in February. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders increased 1.1% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following an upwardly revised 0.5% decline (from -0.6%) in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that it conveyed a nice rebound in order activity after a brief slump in February. Notably, new orders for nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business spending -- jumped 1.0% following a 0.3% decline in February.
New home sales decreased 8.6% month-over-month in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 763,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 770,000) from an upwardly revised 835,000 (from 772,000) in February. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales were down 12.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that sales of lower-priced homes have lessened as a percentage of overall sales, likely due to less supply resulting from cost and supply chain pressures for builders, and emerging pressures from rising mortgage rates that are reducing affordability for lower-income buyers. That is leading to higher-priced homes accounting for a larger percentage of new homes sold, which is driving up both median and average selling prices.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dipped to 107.3 in April (Briefing.com consensus 106.0) from an upwardly revised 107.6 (from 107.2) in March. In the same period a year ago, the index stood at 117.5.
The key takeaway from the report is that consumers' expectations did not worsen in spite of the inflation pressures and the war in Ukraine, although it was noted that purchasing intentions are down overall from recent levels.
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index was up 20.2% year-over-year in February (Briefing.com consensus 18.9%) while the FHFA Housing Price Index increased 2.1% month-over-month in February.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Pending Home Sales for March, Advance Intl Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories for March, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.5% YTD
S&P 500 -12.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -15.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -20.2% YTD

Crude futures reclaim $100 per barrel
26-Apr-22 15:25 ET
Dow -688.32 at 33361.14, Nasdaq -441.17 at 12563.68, S&P -101.75 at 4194.36

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 2.4% and has slipped below yesterday's intraday low (4200.82).

One last look at the sector standings shows consumer discretionary (-4.4%), information technology (-3.2%), and communication services (-2.6%) still leading the retreat, while the energy sector (+0.5%) remains the only sector trading higher.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $2.79 (+2.8%) to $101.42/barrel.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33301.93 +61.75 (0.19%)
Nasdaq 12488.93 -1.81 (-0.01%)
SP 500 4183.95 +8.76 (0.21%)
10-yr Note -3/32 2.768
NYSE Adv 1312 Dec 1832 Vol 993.0 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1797 Dec 2657 Vol 4.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Materials, Energy
Weak: Communication Services, Utilities, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Major indices close mixed in volatile session

-- Information technology sector provided key leadership

-- Weakness in the communication services sector after Alphabet (GOOG) missed EPS estimates

-- Mixed earnings picture

Volatile session ends mixed and little changed
27-Apr-22 16:20 ET
Dow +61.75 at 33301.93, Nasdaq -1.81 at 12488.93, S&P +8.76 at 4183.95

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.2% on Wednesday in a volatile session in which the benchmark index traded between a 0.3% decline and 1.6% gain. The Nasdaq Composite (unch), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%), and Russell 2000 (-0.3%) closed mixed and little changed, also fading intraday gains.

Intraday highs were largely mechanical in the sense that the market tried to rally from an oversold condition, although some attributed good earnings news from the likes of Microsoft (MSFT 283.22, +13.00, +4.8%), Visa (V 214.11, +13.01, +6.5%), and T-Mobile US (TMUS 129.84, +4.88, +3.9%) as an influential factor.

The whole earnings picture, when considering reactions and guidance, was somewhat mixed, though. Alphabet (GOOG 2300.41, -89.71, -3.8%) and Boeing (BA 154.46, -12.58, -7.5%) both struggled following their reports while Texas Instruments (TXN 169.39, +0.95, +0.6%) issued downside Q2 guidance.

The S&P 500 communication services sector (-2.6%) was easily the worst-performing sector, as weakness in Alphabet spread over to Meta Platforms (FB 174.95, -6.00, -3.3%) ahead of its earnings report after the close, and the bleeding continued in Netflix (NFLX 188.54, -9.86, -5.0%).

Conversely, the information technology (+1.4%), materials (+1.5%), and energy (+1.5%) sectors each gained roughly 1.5%. The outperformance of the heavily-weighted technology sector overshadowed an underlying negative bias in the broader market: declining issues outpaced advancing issues at both the NYSE and Nasdaq.

Besides the mixed earnings picture, buying conviction was restrained by global growth concerns, the inability for the market to sustain a rebound rally, and weakening technical factors.

Elsewhere, the Treasury market saw modest selling pressure after two days of gains. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 2.57%, and the 10-yr yield increased five basis points to 2.82%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.7% to 102.97. WTI crude futures rose 0.3%, or $0.33, to $101.75/bbl.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for March showed a deficit of $125.3 billion, versus a revised $106.4 billion (from $106.6 billion) in February. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for March rose 2.0%, and the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for March rose 2.3%.
Pending home sales decreased 1.2% m/m in March (Briefing.com consensus -1.5%) following a revised 4.0% decline (from -4.1%) in February.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 8.3% following a 5.0% decline in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the advance estimate for Q1 GDP and the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.4% YTD
S&P 500 -12.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -16.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -20.2% YTD

Crude futures settle slightly higher
27-Apr-22 15:30 ET
Dow +180.40 at 33420.58, Nasdaq +18.69 at 12509.43, S&P +18.75 at 4193.94

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.5% in a relatively underwhelming session given the inability to hold onto prior gains.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows information technology (+1.6%), energy (+1.7%), and materials (+1.7%) trading higher by more than 1.5%, while the communication services sector (-2.8%) remains a pocket of weakness.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $0.33 (+0.3%) to $101.75/barrel.

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33916.59 +614.66 (1.85%)
Nasdaq 12871.52 +382.59 (3.06%)
SP 500 4287.62 +103.67 (2.48%)
10-yr Note -2/32 2.853
NYSE Adv 2429 Dec 733 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2788 Dec 1769 Vol 5.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Energy
Weak: None

Moving the Market

-- Earnings provide fuel for dip-buying efforts

-- Meta Platforms (FB) jumps over 17.0% following better-than-feared earnings report

-- Advance Q1 GDP decreased at 1.4% annualized rate (Briefing.com consensus +1.1%); GDP Chain Deflator rose 8.0% (Briefing.com consensus +7.3%).

Earnings fuel dip-buying efforts
28-Apr-22 16:15 ET
Dow +614.66 at 33916.59, Nasdaq +382.59 at 12871.52, S&P +103.67 at 4287.62

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied 2.5% on Thursday, as earnings reactions helped instill confidence in dip-buying efforts. The Nasdaq Composite rose 3.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.9%, and the Russell 2000 rose 1.8%.

After a shaky start in which the major indices, except the S&P 500, turned negative, the market kicked into higher gear in the afternoon. All 11 sectors in the S&P 500 closed higher with gains ranging from 1.1% (utilities) to 4.0% (information technology).

Meta Platforms (FB 205.73, +30.78, +17.6%) had sort of a halo effect on the mega-caps, as shares surged 17.6% following its better-than-feared earnings report. Apple (AAPL 163.64, +7.07, +4.5%) and Amazon.com (AMZN 2891.93, +128.59, +4.7%) posted strong gains in front of their earnings reports after the close.

Qualcomm's (QCOM 148.19, +13.09, +9.7%) results and guidance had a similar effect on the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+5.6%), while the 11% gain in PayPal (PYPL 92.09, +9.48, +11.5%) despite its downside guidance was viewed as a justification to buy other beaten-down growth stocks -- but not Teladoc (TDOC 33.51, -22.48, -40.2%), which cratered 40% on disappointing guidance.

McDonald's (MCD 254.19, +7.05, +2.9%) and Merck (MRK 88.58, +4.17, +4.9%) also pleased investors with their earnings reports. Fellow Dow components Caterpillar (CAT 212.44, -1.52, -0.7%) and Amgen (AMGN 238.13, -10.66, -4.3%), however, closed lower despite beating EPS estimates.

Of course, the notion that the market was simply due for a bounce from an oversold condition can't be understated. Encouragingly, too, the stock market did not appear fazed by the disappointing Advance Q1 GDP report that had marks of stagflation.

Briefly, real GDP decreased at an annual rate of 1.4% in the first quarter (Briefing.com consensus +1.1%) while the GDP Chain Deflator increased by a larger-than-expected 8.0% (Briefing.com consensus +7.3%).

The Treasury market, however, did react in such a way that maintained expectations for the Fed to prioritize tighter policy to keep inflation pressures in check. The 2-yr yield rose seven basis points to 2.64%, and the 10-yr yield rose five basis points to 2.86%. The U.S. Dollar Index (103.59, +0.64, +0.6%) hit a 20-year high. WTI crude settled above $105 per barrel ($105.31, +3.56, +3.5%).

Reviewing Thursday's economic data:

Real GDP decreased at an annual rate of 1.4% in the first quarter (Briefing.com consensus +1.1%) while the GDP Chain Deflator shot up 8.0% (Briefing.com consensus +7.3%). Real final sales of domestic product, which exclude the change in private inventories, were down 0.6%.
The key takeaway from the report is that it will exacerbate concerns about the U.S. economy being at risk of slipping into an eventual recession at worst or at least entering a stagflation period that will necessitate tighter monetary policy to get inflation under control.
Initial jobless claims for the week ending April 23 decreased by 5,000 to 180,000 (Briefing.com consensus 182,000). Continuing claims for the week ending April 16 decreased by 1,000 to 1.408 million, which is the lowest level since February 7, 1970.
The key takeaway from this report remains the same: jobless claims are near historically low levels, which is indicative of a tight labor market. The tightness in the labor market, though, will continue to fuel concerns about wage-based inflation pressures that can feed into more persistent, and broader, price inflation.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Personal Income and Spending for March, PCE Prices for March, the Q1 Employment Cost Index, the Chicago PMI for April, and the final University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for April on Friday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -6.7% YTD
S&P 500 -10.0% YTD
Russell 2000 -14.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -17.7% YTD

Crude futures settle above $105 per barrel
28-Apr-22 15:30 ET
Dow +728.84 at 34030.77, Nasdaq +445.53 at 12934.46, S&P +120.90 at 4304.85

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 2.9% to trade at fresh session highs as investors continue to follow through on dip-buying efforts.

One last look at the sectors shows gains across the board. The information technology sector sits atop with a 4.5% gain while the utilities sector underperforms with a 1.0% gain.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $3.56 (+3.5%) to $105.31/barrel. The higher oil prices has provided an additional boost for the energy sector (+3.9%).

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Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33128.79 +67.29 (0.20%)
Nasdaq 12563.75 +27.74 (0.22%)
SP 500 4175.48 +20.10 (0.48%)
10-yr Note +3/32 2.941
NYSE Adv 1921 Dec 1207 Vol 975.6 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2401 Dec 1987 Vol 4.5 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Financials, Real Estate, Materials
Weak: Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- Value stocks outperform growth stocks

-- 10-yr yield backs down from 3.00%

-- Waiting for the Fed decision tomorrow

Value stocks lead market higher
03-May-22 16:15 ET
Dow +67.29 at 33128.79, Nasdaq +27.74 at 12563.75, S&P +20.10 at 4175.48

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 gained 0.5% on Tuesday in a session driven by the value stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) both increased 0.2% while the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 0.9% gain.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, paced by the energy (+2.9%), financials (+1.3%), real estate (+1.2%), and materials (+1.1%) sectors with gains over 1.0%. The consumer staples (-0.3%) and consumer discretionary (-0.3%) sectors were the two holdouts, and both declined 0.3%.

It was encouraging to see buyers follow though, albeit tentatively, on yesterday's efforts ahead of the Fed's highly-anticipated policy decision tomorrow. The rebound-minded action helped suppress hedging interest, as shown by the 9.6% decline in the CBOE Volatility Index (29.25, -3.09, -9.6%).

Other supportive factors included a four-basis-point decline in the 10-yr yield (2.96%), a 2% decline in oil prices ($102.86, -2.31, -2.2%), and a better-than-expected 2.2% m/m increase in factory orders for March (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%).

Growth stocks, however, did underperform in the wake of the 30% plunge in Chegg (CHGG 17.42, -7.56, -30.3%) following its disappointing revenue guidance. The Russell 3000 Growth Index closed flat, versus a 0.9% increase for the Russell 3000 Value Index.

Estee Lauder (EL 245.52, -15.11, -5.8%), Expedia Group (EXPE 150.31, -24.50, -14.0%), and Rockwell Automation (ROK 213.80, -36.24, -14.5%) were other earnings losers. Conversely, Pfizer (PFE 49.29, +0.95, +2.0%) and Avis Budget (CAR 285.28, +4.72, +1.7%) came out as earnings winners even though Pfizer issued downside FY22 guidance.

The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 2.76% in a curve-flattening trade that didn't deter the bank stocks. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.3% to 103.46.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Factory orders for manufactured goods increased 2.2% m/m in March (Briefing.com consensus +1.0%) following an upwardly revised 0.1% increase (from -0.5%) in February. Shipments of manufactured goods jumped 2.3% after increasing 1.1% in February.
The key takeaway from the report is that it supports the view that the slowdown in factory orders in February was temporary and that orders rebounded smartly in March as activity picked up with the effects of the Omicron variant fading.
Job openings increased to 11.549 million in March from a revised 11.344 million (from 11.266 million) in February.

Looking ahead to Wednesday, in addition to the FOMC Rate Decision, investors will receive the ADP Employment Change report for April, the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for April, the the Trade Balance for March, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.8% YTD
S&P 500 -12.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -15.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -19.7% YTD

Crude futures settle lower by 2%
03-May-22 15:30 ET
Dow +91.81 at 33153.31, Nasdaq +29.41 at 12565.42, S&P +21.61 at 4176.99

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.5%, and the Russell 2000 is up 1.2%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows energy (+3.0%), financials (+1.6%), and materials (+1.3%) leading the advance, while the consumer discretionary (-0.5%) and consumer staples (-0.4%) sectors remain the only two sectors trading lower.

WTI crude futures settled lower by $2.43 (-2.3%) to $102.68/barrel.
Energy stocks rallying despite lower oil prices
03-May-22 14:55 ET
Dow +77.60 at 33139.10, Nasdaq +28.69 at 12564.70, S&P +22.84 at 4178.22

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.5% after briefly returning to its flat line earlier this hour.

Impressively, energy stocks are among today's top-performing equities despite the 2% decline in oil prices ($102.90/bbl, -2.26, -2.2%). The S&P 500 energy sector is currently up 2.8% amid the broader trend into "value" stocks.

Looking ahead, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 91.09, +1.28, +1.4%), Airbnb (ABNB 145.24, -7.46, -4.9%), Starbucks (SBUX 74.19, -1.16, -1.6%), and Lyft (LYFT 31.16, -0.35, -1.1%) are some notable companies that will report earnings after the close.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 33921.42 +792.63 (2.39%)
Nasdaq 12886.32 +322.57 (2.57%)
SP 500 4277.21 +101.73 (2.44%)
10-yr Note -1/32 2.988
NYSE Adv 2455 Dec 686 Vol 620.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 2965 Dec 1407 Vol 4.3 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Communication Services, Information Technology
Weak: Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Fed Chair Powell says Fed is not actively considering hiking rates by 75 basis points in coming meetings; 50-bps-increases more likely

-- FOMC hikes rates by 50 basis points and approves plan to reduce balance sheet, as expected

-- Treasury yields drop in wake of Powell comments

Crude futures flirt with $108 per barrel
04-May-22 15:30 ET
Dow +792.63 at 33921.42, Nasdaq +322.57 at 12886.32, S&P +101.73 at 4277.21

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is now up 2.4% in a relief rally after Fed Chair Powell said a 75-basis-point rate hike is not on the table right now.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows ten sectors up between 1.9% (health care) and 3.4% (energy). The real estate sector is getting left behind with a modest 0.5% gain.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $5.29 (+5.2%) to $107.97/barrel.
Powell catalyzes relief rally after dismissing 75-bps hike
04-May-22 15:00 ET
Dow +574.50 at 33703.29, Nasdaq +202.69 at 12766.44, S&P +71.47 at 4246.95

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.8% after Fed Chair Powell said the central bank was not considering a 75-basis-point hike in future meetings and is instead targeting 50-basis-point hikes.

That has catalyzed a huge sign of relief in the market considering the fed funds futures market was assigning a 95% probability for a 75-bps hike next month. That probability has now decreased to 70.9%, which is to say that there is some skepticism amid the persistent inflation pressures.

The 2-yr yield, which is more sensitive to changes in the fed funds rate, has dropped 13 basis points to 2.63%.
Fed lifts rates 50 basis points, as expected; to reduce Treasury holdings in June
04-May-22 14:25 ET
Dow +125.03 at 33253.82, Nasdaq -40.40 at 12523.35, S&P +4.40 at 4179.88

[BRIEFING.COM] The broader market briefly lifted higher, but faded a bit after the Federal Reserve approved a 50 basis point rate hike to the federal funds rate to a range of 0.75% to 1.00%, as widely expected.

Additionally, the Committee decided to begin reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities on June 1. For Treasury securities, the cap will initially be set at $30 billion per month and after three months will increase to $60 billion per month.

The Fed also added that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia was causing tremendous human and economic hardship. The implications of this for the U.S. economy are highly uncertain. In addition, the Fed said COVID-related lockdowns in China were likely to exacerbate supply chain disruptions.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 32721.26 -1339.80 (-3.93%)
Nasdaq 12194.36 -770.49 (-5.94%)
SP 500 4109.88 -190.29 (-4.43%)
10-yr Note -31/32 3.052
NYSE Adv 296 Dec 2859 Vol 618.2 mln
Nasdaq Adv 736 Dec 3443 Vol 4.1 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: None
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Communication Services

Moving the Market

-- Stocks coughed up yesterday's relief rally (and some) in a hurry

-- Growth stocks led retreat as 10-yr yield hit 3.10%

-- Unit labor costs soared during the first quarter

-- Disappointing earnings/guidance from e-commerce companies

Crude futures eke out gain
05-May-22 15:30 ET
Dow -1339.80 at 32721.26, Nasdaq -770.49 at 12194.36, S&P -190.29 at 4109.88

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is now down by 4.4% in an all-around ugly session.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors shows steep losses across the board. The consumer discretionary (-6.8%) and information technology (-5.9%) sectors are down about 7% and 6%, respectively, while the utilities sector is down the least with a sharp 1.8% decline.

WTI crude futures increased $0.23 (+0.2%) to $108.20/barrel.
Deflated sentiment
05-May-22 15:00 ET
Dow -1159.40 at 32901.66, Nasdaq -681.25 at 12283.60, S&P -161.64 at 4138.53

[BRIEFING.COM] There remains a deflating feeling in the stock market with the S&P 500 down 3.8%.

There's been little interest to buy the dip and a lot of interest to hedge against further downside. It'll be interesting to see if that bearish sentiment drives some short-covering activity into the close, but for now, it's more of the same.

Looking ahead, Block (SQ 94.47, -12.31, -11.4%), Zillow (ZG 38.85, -4.26, -9.9%), Illumina (ILMN 291.06, -16.62, -5.4%), and DoorDash (DASH 71.72, -9.92, -12.2%) are some notable companies that will report earnings after the close. Note, there will be a plethora of earnings news after the close -- one of the biggest days this earnings season.
Cognizant, Qorvo underperform after earnings
05-May-22 14:30 ET
Dow -1148.38 at 32912.68, Nasdaq -680.84 at 12284.01, S&P -161.43 at 4138.74

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-3.75%) is firmly in second place to this point on Thursday afternoon.

S&P 500 constituents Cognizant Tech (CTSH 73.49, -10.87, -12.89%), Align Tech (ALGN 280.75, -30.14, -9.69%), and Qorvo (QRVO 108.97, -10.37, -8.69%) pepper the bottom of today's trading. Both CTSH and QRVO reported earnings.

Meanwhile, Charlotte-based materials firm Albemarle (ALB 231.92, +16.45, +7.63%) is one of today's top performers following last night's earnings.
Gold higher alongside dollar, yields
05-May-22 14:00 ET
Dow -110.74 at 33950.32, Nasdaq -659.61 at 12305.24, S&P -155.91 at 4144.26

[BRIEFING.COM] With about two hours to go on Thursday the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (-5.09%) slides to session lows.

Gold futures settled $6.90 higher (+0.3%) to $1,875.70/oz even despite eye-catching gains in yields and the dollar.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index adds +1.2% to $103.78.
Salesforce, Nike underperform on Thursday
05-May-22 13:30 ET
Dow -1015.77 at 33045.29, Nasdaq -609.66 at 12355.19, S&P -144.54 at 4155.63

[BRIEFING.COM] The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-2.98%) holds the "slimmest" declines on the session.

A look inside the DJIA shows that Salesforce (CRM 171.94, -13.54, -7.30%), Nike (NKE 118.97, -7.09, -5.62%), and Home Depot (HD 300.76, -14.55, -4.61%) are among today's top decliners.

Conversely, beverage firm Coca-Cola (KO 64.65, -0.38, -0.58%) relatively outperforms though still holds modest losses.

The DJIA trims month-to-date gains to just +0.21%.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 32160.74 -84.96 (-0.26%)
Nasdaq 11737.67 +114.42 (0.98%)
SP 500 4001.05 +9.81 (0.25%)
10-yr Note +3/32 2.999
NYSE Adv 1361 Dec 13 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1642 Dec 2570 Vol 6.2 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Communication Services, Health Care, Energy
Weak: Real Estate, Financials, Utilities, Consumer Staples, Industrials

Moving the Market

-- Mega-caps outperform in volatile session

-- 10-yr yield drops below 3.00%

-- M&A activity

-- David Tepper says he covered his short position in Nasdaq and is now a buyer of S&P 500

Mega-caps keep market afloat
10-May-22 16:20 ET
Dow -84.96 at 32160.74, Nasdaq +114.42 at 11737.67, S&P +9.81 at 4001.05

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 increased 0.3% on Tuesday in a volatile session in which the large growth stocks did the heavy lifting. The Nasdaq Composite pulled ahead with a 1.0% gain, representing the mega-cap outperformance, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) and Russell 2000 (-0.02%) closed slightly lower.

The session started on a strong note for the market: the S&P 500 rallied as much as 1.9% amid gains across all 11 sectors, ostensibly because the 10-yr yield dropped below 3.00% (-9 bps to 2.99%). The price action in the 10-yr yield, though, was rooted in underlying growth concerns amid news that Shanghai was again tightening COVID-19 restrictions.

By early afternoon, the S&P 500 was down as much as 0.8% as investors sold into the early strength on no specific news catalyst. Selling was relatively indiscriminate apart from the steady gains in the beaten-down mega-caps, which ended up leading the market off session lows and the S&P 500 back above the 4,000 level by the close.

The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 193.89, +1.97) advanced 1.0%, whereas the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP 142.51, -0.37) declined 0.3%.

The mega-caps propped up the S&P 500 information technology (+1.6%) and communication services (+0.8%) sectors to the top of the standings, joined by the energy sector (+0.9%). Conversely, the real estate (-2.3%), utilities (-1.2%), and financials (-0.8%) sectors were the worst performers.

The more speculative growth stocks, meanwhile, continued to disappoint, specifically Peloton (PTON 12.90, -1.23, -8.7%), Upstart (UPST 33.61, -43.52, -56.4%), GoodRx (GDRX 7.97, -2.78, -25.9%), and Sofi Technologies (SOFI 5.25, -0.72, -12.1%) following their earnings and/or guidance. Note, SOFI's earnings were released ahead of schedule prior to the close.

Bank stocks, in particular, were pressured by some flattening action in the Treasury market, where the 2s10s spread narrowed by 11 basis points. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 2.63%. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 46.34, -0.62) fell 1.3%.

In M&A news, Biohaven Pharma (BHVN 140.00, +56.86, +68.4%) agreed to be acquired by Pfizer (PFE 49.49, +0.85, +1.8%) for $11.6 billion, or $148.50 per share, in cash -- a hefty 79% premium over yesterday's closing price. Duke Realty (DRE 49.58, +1.87, +3.9%) received a takeover proposal from Prologis (PLD 125.47, -6.90, -5.2%) for about $24 billion, or $61.68/share, in stock.

WTI crude futures settled just above $100.00 per barrel ($100.02, -3.41, -3.3%). The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 103.90.

Tuesday's economic data was limited to NFIB Small Business Optimism, which was unchanged at 93.2 in April. Looking ahead, investors will receive the Consumer Price Index for April, the Treasury Budget for April, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -11.5% YTD
S&P 500 -16.1% YTD
Russell 2000 -21.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -25.0% YTD

Bank stocks clipped by flatter yield curve
10-May-22 15:30 ET
Dow -64.29 at 32181.41, Nasdaq +153.46 at 11776.71, S&P +15.30 at 4006.54

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.4%, and the Russell 2000 is up 0.6%.

One last look at the sectors before the close shows information technology (+2.0%) and communication services (+1.1%) still outperforming with solid gains, thanks to the mega-caps, while the real estate (-2.2%), utilities (-1.6%), and financials (-1.0%) sectors find themselves at the bottom of the standings.

Bank stocks in particular are getting clipped by the curve-flattening activity in the Treasury market. The 2s10s spread has narrowed by nine basis points, predominately due to the drop in the 10-yr yield (-9 bps to 2.99%). The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE 46.16, -0.80) is down 1.7%.

WTI crude futures, meanwhile, settled lower by $3.41 (-3.3%) to $100.02/barrel.
Sofi Technologies disappoints investors with early earnings release
10-May-22 15:00 ET
Dow +19.34 at 32265.04, Nasdaq +198.93 at 11822.18, S&P +29.08 at 4020.32

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 0.9% in a volatile session in which the benchmark index was up as much as 1.9% in early action and down as much as 0.8%, as investors sold into the early strength.

Earlier today, Sofi Technologies (SOFI 5.43, -0.54, -9.1%) released its earnings report ahead of schedule. SOFI shares are down 9% after the company missed EPS estimates on above-consensus revenue and guided the midpoint of Q2 revenue below consensus. Note, the company did raise its FY22 revenue guidance.

Looking ahead, Coinbase Global (COIN 76.31, -7.14, -8.6%), Roblox (RBLX 23.50, -1.11, -4.4%), and Unity Software (U 48.78, -1.60, -3.1%) are some notable growth companies that will report earnings after the close.
Sysco, Microchip outperform following earnings
10-May-22 14:30 ET
Dow +44.18 at 32289.88, Nasdaq +192.28 at 11815.53, S&P +28.80 at 4020.04

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages have leveled off in the last half hour, the S&P 500 (+0.72%) firmly in second place.

S&P 500 constituents Fortinet (FTNT 264.69, +19.47, +7.94%), Sysco (SYY 87.61, +6.53, +8.05%), and Microchip (MCHP 68.37, +4.06, +6.31%) pepper the top of today's standings. FTNT outperforms after UK and US intelligence confirmed findings that Russia was behind a cyberattack targeting Viasat in Ukraine before the country invaded, while SYY and MCHP show solid gains in reaction to earnings reports.

Meanwhile, Virginia-based tobacco firm Altria (MO 51.02, -4.24, -7.67%) is today's worst performer following a downgrade to Market Perform at Bernstein.
Gold slips as dollar cozies up to Tuesday advance
10-May-22 14:00 ET
Dow +123.88 at 32369.58, Nasdaq +239.75 at 11863.00, S&P +42.40 at 4033.64

[BRIEFING.COM] The broader market shot higher at the turn of the last half hour, all now in positive territory, as the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+2.06%) continues to hold the lead.

Gold futures settled $15.60 lower (-0.9%) to $1,841.00/oz, pressured in part by a rise in the greenback.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index is about +0.2% higher at $103.86.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 31834.11 -326.63 (-1.02%)
Nasdaq 11364.23 -373.44 (-3.18%)
SP 500 3935.17 -65.88 (-1.65%)
10-yr Note +28/32 2.924
NYSE Adv 933 Dec 2274 Vol 1.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 942 Dec 3337 Vol 6.0 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Materials, Utilities
Weak: Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services, Financials

Moving the Market

-- Total CPI and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, both increase more than expected in April

-- Mega-caps weighing on the market with sizable declines

-- Oil prices jump amid encouraging COVID news out of China

Mega-caps lead market lower, CPI data comes in hot
11-May-22 16:15 ET
Dow -326.63 at 31834.11, Nasdaq -373.44 at 11364.23, S&P -65.88 at 3935.17

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 fell 1.7% on Wednesday, as the market was pressured by pronounced weakness in the mega-caps despite a decline in long-term interest rates. Growth concerns persisted as hot consumer pricing data for April reinforced expectations for the Fed to stay aggressive with tightening monetary policy.

The Nasdaq Composite (-3.2%) and Russell 2000 (-2.5%) underperformed the benchmark index, with the Nasdaq -- having more exposure to the mega-caps -- taking the brunt of the damage. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.0%) declined 1.0%.

From a sector perspective, the heavily-weighted information technology (-3.3%) and consumer discretionary (-3.6%) sectors both dropped more than 3.0%, owed in large part to huge declines in stocks like Apple (AAPL 146.50, -8.01, -5.2%) and Tesla (TSLA 734.00, -66.04, -8.3%).

Three sectors did escape with a gain, namely energy (+1.4%), utilities (+0.8%), and materials (+0.03%), but the heavy losses of the mega-caps was not a pretty sight. The mega-cap losses not only weighed on the market-cap-weighted indices but also on risk sentiment, which only seemed to worsen as the day progressed.

Initially, there was some relief in the how the market shook off an initially bad response to the CPI report. The monthly figures were disappointing relative to expectations, although the year-over-year readings did moderate versus March. For April, total CPI increased 0.3% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.6% m/m (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%).

After the news settled in, the longer-end of the Treasury market appreciated the idea that inflation rates could be peaking. At the same time, though, there was a fearful belief that the Fed would make sure that inflation peaks by tightening policy in a way that stymies economic growth.

The 10-yr yield, which is sensitive to expectations for inflation and economic growth, fell seven basis points to 2.92% after brushing up against 3.08% on the heels of the CPI report. The 2-yr yield, which is most sensitive to changes in the fed funds rate, increased one basis point to 2.64%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 104.01.

Back to the equities, smaller and more speculative growth stocks continued to bleed. This time it was Coinbase Global (COIN 53.72, -19.27, -26.4%), Unity Software (U 30.30, -17.83, -37.1%), and Fiverr (FVRR 30.39, -10.48, -25.6%) following their disappointing earnings reports and/or guidance.

WTI crude futures, meanwhile, jumped 5.1%, or $5.12, to $105.14/bbl amid hope that Shanghai could soon ease restrictions after reporting a 51% drop in new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday. An ease in restrictions would hopefully increase oil demand.

Separately, Lorie Logan was named Dallas Fed President, effective Aug. 22, while the Senate confirmed Lisa Cook to the Fed Board.

Reviewing Wednesday's economic data:

Total CPI increased 0.3% month-over-month in April (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) and core CPI increased 0.6% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%). Total CPI was up 8.3% year-over-year, down from 8.5% year-over-year in March, and core CPI was up 6.2% year-over-year, down from 6.5% year-over-year in March.
The key takeaway from the report is that it provided some leeway that suggests peak inflation might have been hit, but with the moderation not as significant as had been hoped, it also stirred concerns that inflation might stick at persistently high levels longer than anyone would like, including the Fed.
The Treasury Budget showed a $308.2 bln surplus in April versus a $225.5 bln deficit in the same period a year ago. The budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the April surplus cannot be compared to the March deficit of $192.6 bln.
The budget deficit over the last 12 months is $1.20 trln versus a deficit of $1.73 trln in March.
The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 2.0% following a 2.5% increase in the prior week.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Producer Price Index for April and the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report on Thursday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -12.4% YTD
S&P 500 -17.4% YTD
Russell 2000 -23.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -27.4% YTD

Crude futures settle above $105 per barrel
11-May-22 15:35 ET
Dow -155.13 at 32005.61, Nasdaq -314.03 at 11423.64, S&P -43.12 at 3957.93

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 1.1%, and the Russell 2000 is down 1.9%.

One last look at the S&P 500 sectors before the close shows information technology (-3.0%) and consumer discretionary (-3.0%) both down 3% amid pronounced weakness in the mega-caps. This helps account for the sharp decline in the S&P 500 despite five sectors trading higher.

Energy (+2.5%) is still leading the way amid the rise in oil prices, followed by utilities (+1.2%) and materials (+0.9%) with 1% gains.

WTI crude futures settled higher by $5.12 (+5.1%) to $105.14/barrel amid hope that Shanghai could soon be on the path to loosening COVID restrictions.
Lorie Logan named Dallas Fed President
11-May-22 14:55 ET
Dow -146.77 at 32013.97, Nasdaq -284.55 at 11453.12, S&P -36.93 at 3964.12

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is down 0.8% after being down 1.5% earlier this afternoon. The mega-caps continue to be the biggest weights on the market, as the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK 189.67, -4.22, -2.2%) trades lower by 2% despite a six-basis-point decline in the 10-yr yield (2.92%).

Earlier this afternoon, Lorie Logan was named Dallas Fed President, effective Aug. 22, following Robert's Kaplan resignation. On a related note, the Senate confirmed Lisa Cook to the Fed Board on Tuesday.

Looking ahead, Walt Disney (DIS 105.75, -1.93, -1.8%) will headline the earnings calendar after the close. Bumble (BMBL 18.20, -1.03, -5.4%) and Beyond Meat (BYND 27.07, -3.23, -10.6%) are some other notable companies that will report earnings after the close.
Higher April tax receipts, lower spending provide US gov't second monthly surplus of FY22
11-May-22 14:30 ET
Dow -51.75 at 32108.99, Nasdaq -228.91 at 11508.76, S&P -20.91 at 3980.14

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages have trimmed their session losses modestly following the release of the April Treasury Budget. In short, strong growth from receipts and shrinking spending related to COVID allowed for the second monthly surplus in the government's fiscal year 2022.

The Treasury Budget for April showed a surplus of $308.22 bln versus a deficit of $225.58 bln a year ago. The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted, so the April surplus cannot be compared to the deficit of $192.63 bln for March.

Total receipts of $863.65 bln increased 96.6% compared to last year while total outlays of $555.43 bln were down about 16.4% compared to last year.

The total year-end budget deficit now stands at $360.00 bln, down around -81.4% y/y, vs $1.93 trln last year.
Gold higher following higher than expected CPI readings
11-May-22 14:00 ET
Dow -264.12 at 31896.62, Nasdaq -316.90 at 11420.77, S&P -52.70 at 3948.35

[BRIEFING.COM] The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (-2.70%) is today's worst-performing major average with about two hours remaining on Wednesday.

Gold futures settled $12.70 higher (+0.7%) to $1,853.70/oz, aided in part by this morning's higher than expected inflation readings.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index is little changed at $103.90.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 32196.66 +466.36 (1.47%)
Nasdaq 11805.00 +434.04 (3.82%)
SP 500 4023.89 +93.81 (2.39%)
10-yr Note -29/32 2.929
NYSE Adv 2514 Dec 673 Vol 1.1 bln
Nasdaq Adv 2962 Dec 1215 Vol 5.8 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Information Technology, Energy, Real Estate
Weak: Utilities, Health Care

Moving the Market

-- Stocks bounce from oversold condition

-- Renewed buying interest in mega-cap stocks

-- Short-covering activity

-- Positive-sounding COVID news out of China

Overdue rally into week's end
13-May-22 16:20 ET
Dow +466.36 at 32196.66, Nasdaq +434.04 at 11805.00, S&P +93.81 at 4023.89

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rallied 2.4% on Friday, bouncing from an oversold condition and closing back above the psychological 4,000 level. The Nasdaq Composite (+3.8%) and Russell 2000 (+3.1%) outperformed with gains over 3.0% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.5%.

It was a risk-on day from the get-go, starting from strong showings in foreign equity markets and continuing into the close of U.S. markets. All 11 S&P 500 sectors finished higher with gains ranging from 1.1% (utilities and health care) to 4.1% (consumer discretionary), with individual leadership belonging to the battered mega-cap stocks.

Presumably, risk sentiment was aided by a recognition that the S&P 500 was able to push higher after nearly entering bear market territory yesterday, as well as the ability for the market to sustain an early rally effort.

News factors that supported cause were reports from Bloomberg indicating that Shanghai was aiming to have no community spread of COVID-19 by May 20, spurring hopes for a relaxation of restrictions this month, and that Beijing refuted rumors of potential COVID-related lockdowns. Crude futures rose 3.7%, or $3.92, to $110.32/bbl amid improved demand expectations.

Short-covering activity, meanwhile, was evident in the post-earnings pops in Affirm Holdings (AFRM 23.71, +5.67, +31.4%) and Duolingo (DUOL 89.77, +22.79, +34.0%), and the outsized gain in Robinhood Markets (HOOD 10.69, +2.13, +24.9%) on news that Emergent Fidelity disclosed a 7.6% active stake in the company.

The bullish price action contributed to a 9% decline in the CBOE Volatility Index (28.87, -2.80, -9.1%), reflecting reduced hedging interest, and declines in safe-haven assets like Treasuries, gold ($1,808.30/ozt, -$15.40, +0.8%), and the U.S. dollar (104.57, -0.28, -0.3%).

Selling interest in Treasuries pushed yields higher: the 2-yr yield rose eight basis points to 2.59%, and the 10-yr yield rose 12 basis points to 2.94%.

In Fedspeak, Fed Chair Powell and Cleveland Fed President Mester (FOMC voter) both reiterated support for 50-basis-point rate hikes in the next two meetings after seeing this week's inflation data. On a related note, hopes for peak inflation were reinforced today by a flat m/m change in import prices for April and by downwardly revised export prices for March (to 4.1% from 4.5%).

Separately, Twitter (TWTR 40.70, -4.38, -9.7%) shares fell about 10% amid growing doubts about Elon Musk's takeover of the company. Mr. Musk tweeted that the deal was temporarily on hold following recent analysis that showed spam/fake accounts represented less than 5% of Twitter users -- less than his expectations -- but later said that he was still committed to the deal.

Reviewing Friday's economic data:

The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for May dropped to 59.1 (Briefing.com consensus 63.5) from the final reading of 65.2 for April. In the same period a year ago, the index stood at 82.9.
The key takeaway from the report is that the decline in sentiment was broad-based across income, age, education, geography, and political affiliation with inflation factoring prominently in consumers' assessment of their current financial situation.
Import prices were flat in April after increasing 2.9% in March. Excluding oil, import prices rose 0.4% after increasing 1.2% in March. Export prices rose 0.6% after increasing 4.1% in March. Excluding agriculture, export prices also rose 0.5% after increasing 4.1% in March.

Looking ahead, investors will receive the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for May and Net Long-term TIC Flows for March on Monday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -11.4 YTD
S&P 500 -15.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -20.2% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -24.5% YTD

Still looking up heading into the close
13-May-22 15:35 ET
Dow +486.90 at 32217.20, Nasdaq +460.26 at 11831.22, S&P +98.11 at 4028.19

[BRIEFING.COM] Heading into the close, the S&P 500 is up 2.5%.

All 11 sectors are up. Consumer discretionary (+4.1%), energy (+3.5%), and information technology (+3.7%) are at the top with utilities (+1.0%) at the tail end. Apple (AAPL 147.4, +4.9, +3.4%) has recouped its loss from yesterday, and NVIDIA (NVDA 177.7, +15.9, +10.1%) is up substantially heading into the close.

Crude oil futures rose $3.92 (+3.7%) to $110.32/barrel, possibly in response to the positive news out of Shanghai and Beijing.
Fed Mester reiterates support for 50-basis-point increases
13-May-22 15:00 ET
Dow +351.92 at 32082.22, Nasdaq +397.56 at 11768.52, S&P +81.23 at 4011.31

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is currently up 2.2% and has seen some minor volatility this afternoon. The 4,000 level has become a battleground for the S&P 500, so this will be a level worth watching, particularly on a closing basis, for sentiment reasons.

Earlier today, Cleveland Fed President Mester (FOMC voter) reiterated support for 50-basis-point increases at the next two meetings, echoing recent comments from Fed Chair Powell, St. Louis Fed President Bullard (FOMC voter), and San Francisco Fed President Daly (non-voter) this week.

Looking ahead, Warby Parker (WRBY 17.07, -0.13, -0.8%) and Wix.com (WIX 70.35, +7.07, +11.2%) are some notable companies that will report earnings prior to Monday's open.
Ford outperforms on Morgan Stanley upgrade, Starbucks higher after insider purchase, lockdown easing
13-May-22 14:30 ET
Dow +200.07 at 31930.37, Nasdaq +305.11 at 11676.07, S&P +57.74 at 3987.82

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+1.47%) is firmly in second place to this point on Friday.

S&P 500 constituents Las Vegas Sands (LVS 33.88, +3.74, +12.41%), Ford Motor (F 13.36, +0.92, +7.40%), and Starbucks (SBUX 74.43, +4.53, +6.48%) pepper the top of today's trading. Lockdown easing reports out of China have lifted casino names including LVS, Ford caught an upgrade from Morgan Stanley this morning, while SBUX bounced off April 2020 lows following interim CEO H. Schultz's disclosed stock purchases.

Meanwhile, New Jersey-based medical device company Embecta Corp. (EMBC 25.66, -3.22, -11.15%) is today's top laggard following this morning's Q2 print.
Gold slots worst weekly losses since last June
13-May-22 14:00 ET
Dow +304.49 at 32034.79, Nasdaq +378.31 at 11749.27, S&P +76.01 at 4006.09

[BRIEFING.COM] With about two hours to go on Friday the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+3.33%) holds a healthy lead among its major average counterparts.

Gold futures settled $16.40 lower (-0.9%) to $1,808.20/oz, registering a weekly decline of -4.0%, pressured by this week's gains in the dollar as investors cope with ongoing inflation concerns.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index is down about -0.3% to $104.55.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 32223.42 +26.76 (0.08%)
Nasdaq 11662.79 -142.21 (-1.20%)
SP 500 4008.01 -15.88 (-0.39%)
10-yr Note +2/32 2.894
NYSE Adv 1612 Dec 1564 Vol 945.5 mln
Nasdaq Adv 1956 Dec 2515 Vol 4.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Energy, Health Care, Utilities, Consumer Staples
Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Financials, Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- Growth stocks hold back the market

-- Lingering growth concerns

-- Energy stocks rise in tandem with oil prices

Growth stocks hold back the market
16-May-22 16:20 ET
Dow +26.76 at 32223.42, Nasdaq -142.21 at 11662.79, S&P -15.88 at 4008.01

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 lost 0.4% on Monday amid continued weakness in the large growth stocks, which were largely responsible for the underperformance of the Nasdaq Composite (-1.2%). The Russell 2000 (-0.5%) performed comparably to the benchmark index, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) eked out a gain.

The consumer discretionary sector (-2.1%) was the weakest performer with a 2% decline, as heavyweights Amazon.com (AMZN 2216.21, -44.89, -2.0%) and Tesla (TSLA 724.37, -45.22, -5.9%) continued to struggle. The information technology sector (-0.9%) was another key laggard without the leadership of Apple (AAPL 145.54, -1.57, -1.1%).

Growth stocks in general remained out of favor, evident by the 1.1% decline in the Russell 3000 Growth Index, versus the 0.1% gain for the Russell 3000 Value Index. Energy stocks contributed to the outperformance of the value index and, more directly, the S&P 500 energy sector (+2.6%) as oil prices ($113.80, +3.48, +3.2%) continued to appreciate.

The increase in oil prices was linked to news that Shanghai was planning to phase in business re-openings, thereby increasing demand expectations out of China. Despite the reopening news, risk sentiment was still pressured by ongoing growth concerns stirred by a host of developments.

Namely, weaker-than-expected Chinese data for April, a negative print (-11.6) for the May Empire State Manufacturing Survey, a downwardly revised 2022 eurozone growth forecast from the European Commission, and a temporary ban on wheat exports from India that drove wheat futures higher ($1247.50/bu, +70.00, +5.4%).

The Treasury market, like last week, continued to manifest these growth concerns through a decline in the 10-yr yield, which fell six basis points to 2.88%. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 2.58%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.3% to 104.24.

Overall, there just wasn't a ton of conviction today, but at least the CBOE Volatility Index (27.47, -1.40, -4.9%) dipped further below 30.00 in a move reflecting decreased hedging interest. There might have been a wait-and-see mindset for the retail sales report and a speech from Fed Chair Powell tomorrow.

In corporate news, shares of Spirit Airlines (SAVE 19.27, +2.29, +13.5%) rallied 13.5% after JetBlue (JBLU 9.45, -0.61, -6.1%) officially commenced a hostile takeover bid for the company. Wix.com (WIX 66.68, -4.51, -6.3%) and Warby Parker (WRBY 16.51, -0.93, -5.3%) provided disappointing earnings news.

Monday's economic data was limited to the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for May, which dropped to -11.6 (Briefing.com consensus 15.0) from 24.6 in April. Looking ahead, investors will receive Retail Sales for April, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for April, the NAHB Housing Market Index for May, and Business Inventories for March on Tuesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -11.3% YTD
S&P 500 -15.9% YTD
Russell 2000 -20.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -25.5% YTD

Consumer discretionary still down into the close
16-May-22 15:35 ET
Dow +83.71 at 32280.37, Nasdaq -115.54 at 11689.46, S&P -8.70 at 4015.19

[BRIEFING.COM] Heading into the close, the S&P 500 (-0.2%) is still above the 4,000 level.

Continuing a general downward trend, the consumer discretionary sector is down the most of all 11 S&P 500 sectors before the close with a 2.0% decline. Giving some context for the general longer term trend, this sector is down 8.4% this month and down 27.7% for the year. Tesla (TSLA 725.02, -44.52, -5.3% ) and Amazon.com (AMZN 2224.63, -37.60, -1.7%) are notably dragging down the sector. Unsurprisingly, the energy sector is way up at 3.0%.

Crude oil futures settled higher by $3.48 (+3.2%) at $113.80/barrel.
Tech sector turns positive
16-May-22 14:55 ET
Dow +237.08 at 32433.74, Nasdaq -38.29 at 11766.71, S&P +12.58 at 4036.47

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is currently up 0.4% to trade near session highs amid a nice turnaround in the information technology sector (+0.3%), which was down as much as 1.7% intraday.

Being the most heavily-weighted sector in the market, featuring household names like Apple (AAPL 147.35, +0.29, +0.2%), Microsoft (MSFT 265.03, +3.91, +1.5%), and Visa (V 199.53, +0.30, +0.2%), the tech sector has an influential role in the price action of the S&P 500. Today's decline in long-term rates might be playing a supportive factor for dip-buying activity in the sector.

Looking ahead, Walmart (WMT 148.66, +0.66, +0.5%) and Home Depot (HD 299.01, +2.98, +1.0%) will report earnings prior to Tuesday's open.
Occidental outperforms alongside oil, energy peers
16-May-22 14:35 ET
Dow +305.09 at 32501.75, Nasdaq -9.95 at 11795.05, S&P +19.28 at 4043.17

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages have turned modestly higher in recent trading, the S&P 500 (+0.48%) firmly in second place.

S&P 500 constituents Occidental Petro (OXY 68.49, +4.41, +6.88%), CF Industries (CF 107.98, +4.12, +3.97%), and Ball Corp (BALL 72.34, +2.59, +3.71%) pepper the top of today's action. OXY benefits from higher crude oil prices on Monday, while BALL was the subject of a new wind energy partnership with a NextEra Energy (NEE 70.47, +0.67, +0.96%) subsidiary.

Meanwhile, social media giant Twitter (TWTR 37.84, -2.88, -7.07%) is today's top laggard amid what seems like a he said, she said verbal battle between Elon Musk and TWTR management regarding bot account sizes. The company also disclosed on Friday evening that it wouldn't employ a new employee stock buying program.
Gold climbs higher on Monday
16-May-22 14:00 ET
Dow +170.01 at 32366.67, Nasdaq -66.17 at 11738.83, S&P +3.88 at 4027.77

[BRIEFING.COM] In the last half hour the S&P 500 (+0.10%) has moved back into positive territory, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (-0.56%) remains modestly lower.

Gold futures settled $5.80 higher (+0.3%) to $1,814.00/oz, ending back-to-back losses as a modestly lower dollar and mixed equities saw a modest bump in demand for the yellow metal.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index is down about -0.2% to $104.37.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 32654.59 +431.17 (1.34%)
Nasdaq 11984.52 +321.73 (2.76%)
SP 500 4088.86 +80.85 (2.02%)
10-yr Note -9/32 2.983
NYSE Adv 2281 Dec 821 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3290 Dec 1134 Vol 4.9 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Information Technology, Materials, Financials, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Consumer Staples

Moving the Market

-- Improved sentiment regarding economic growth

-- Contrarian-minded rally effort

-- Powell-induced volatility

-- Treasury yields shoot higher

Stocks rally in feel-good session
17-May-22 16:15 ET
Dow +431.17 at 32654.59, Nasdaq +321.73 at 11984.52, S&P +80.85 at 4088.86

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 rose 2.0% on Tuesday, as the market was supported by a contrarian mindset and a reprieve in growth concerns. The Nasdaq Composite (+2.8%) and Russell 2000 (+3.2%) raced ahead the benchmark index with about 3% gains while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.3%

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher by at least 1.0%, including five sectors with gains over 2.0%. The information technology sector (+2.9%) claimed the top spot, while the consumer staples sector (-1.2%) was the lone holdout amid an 11% drop in Walmart (WMT 131.35, -16.86, -11.4%) following its disappointing earnings results and guidance.

The contrarian mindset today was rooted in a BofA Global Fund Manager Survey that showed cash levels at their highest position (6.1%) since 9/11 and the largest underweight position in equities since May 2020. Growth concerns were alleviated by the following developments:

Home Depot (HD 300.95, +4.93, +1.7%) reported better-than-expected earnings results and guidance, United Airlines (UAL 46.97, +3.43, +7.9%) increased its Q2 unit revenue outlook, total retail sales for April rose 0.9% as expected, retail sales excluding autos rose 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%), and industrial production for April jumped 1.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.9%).

In addition, Shanghai reported no new COVID cases for three straight days outside quarantined zones, further supporting its reopening initiative. On a related note, Hong Kong plans to relax coronavirus restrictions later this week while Japan plans to allow small groups of tourists to enter the country this month.

An improved growth perspective helped tame inflation concerns, which were highlighted by Walmart and Fed Chair Powell at a Wall Street Journal virtual event. Home Depot also mentioned inflation pressures, which contributed to an 8.2% yr/yr decline in customer transactions in the first quarter.

Mr. Powell said the Fed will be more aggressive with rate hikes if inflation doesn't come down in a clear way, but he did preface the comment with an observation that the Fed can be less aggressive if inflation does clearly come down. This was largely consistent with his prior view on monetary policy.

The Treasury market was in sync with rate-hike and inflation expectations, as well as with the general upbeat mood on Wall Street. The 2-yr yield rose nine basis points to 2.67%, and the 10-yr yield rose nine basis points to 2.97%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.8% 103.35. WTI crude futures fell 1.4%, or $1.59, to $112.21/bbl.

Reviewing Tuesday's economic data:

Total retail sales increased 0.9% month-over-month in April (Briefing.com consensus 1.1%) following an upwardly revised 1.4% increase (from 0.5%) in March. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) after increasing an upwardly revised 2.1% (from 1.1%) in March.
The key takeaway from the report, which is not adjusted for inflation, is that higher pricing helped in the sales growth, yet spending increased across most discretionary categories.
Total industrial production increased 1.1% month-over-month in April (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%), marking the fourth consecutive month of gains of 0.8% or greater. The capacity utilization rate increased to 79.0% (Briefing.com consensus 78.6%) from a downwardly revised 78.2% (from 78.3%) in March.
The key takeaway from the report is that it shows ongoing strength in industrial production and exposed the potential for further strength as motor vehicle production is expected to improve with any improvement in supply chains, particularly for semiconductors.
The NAHB Housing Market Index for May decreased to 69 (Briefing.com consensus 75) from 77 in April.
Business inventories increased 2.0% m/m in March (Briefing.com consensus 1.9%) following a revised 1.8% increase (from +1.5%) in February.

Looking ahead, investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for April and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -10.1% YTD
S&P 500 -14.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -18.0% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -23.4% YTD

Ten of the 11 sectors up
17-May-22 15:35 ET
Dow +439.14 at 32662.56, Nasdaq +321.16 at 11983.95, S&P +81.04 at 4089.05

[BRIEFING.COM] Heading into the close, the S&P 500 is up by 1.8% and still comfortably above the 4,050 level.

Ten out of 11 S&P 500 sectors are up. Consumer staples (-1.3%), the lone sector experiencing losses going into the close, is still being dragged down by Walmart (WMT 131.55, -16.62, -11.2%). Adding to the downward trend is Procter & Gamble (PG 154.46, -0.63, -0.4%) and Kroger (KO 65.74, -0.23, -0.3%). Information technology (+2.9%), materials (+2.9%), financials (2.8%), and consumer discretionary (+2.5%) are up the most. Amazon.com (AMZN 2299.81, +83.60, +3.8%) is leading the upward trend with a 3.8% gain; Home Depot (HD 303.62, +7.59, +2.6%) is also pulling up the sector with a 2.4% gain.

Crude oil futures settled lower by $1.59 (-1.4%) to $112.21/barrel.
Powell reiterates policy viewpoint
17-May-22 15:00 ET
Dow +398.20 at 32621.62, Nasdaq +282.30 at 11945.09, S&P +71.42 at 4079.43

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 is up 1.7% after seeing some minor volatility following Fed Chair Powell's comments about the Fed being more aggressive with rate hikes if inflation doesn't come down in a clear way. He did, however, say that the Fed can be less aggressive if inflation does clearly come down.

The Treasury market has been largely unchanged following these comments, but the price action accurately reflects rate-hike expectations and inflation pressures with yields trading higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield is up nine basis points to 2.67%, and the 10-yr yield is up nine basis points to 2.97%.

The fed funds futures market is assigning a probability of 87.0% for a 50-basis-point rate hike in June, according to the CME FedWatch Tool -- roughly unchanged from yesterday and a week ago. That's unsurprising since Mr. Powell essentially reiterated his prior viewpoint on policy.
Markets dip slightly on Powell comments; PARA, CE outperform on Berkshire stakes
17-May-22 14:30 ET
Dow +204.23 at 32427.65, Nasdaq +179.52 at 11842.31, S&P +44.78 at 4052.79

[BRIEFING.COM] The markets have dipped lower as Fed Chair Jerome Powell's WSJ interview commenced; of his key excerpts, Mr. Powell suggested the Fed would need to be more aggressive with rate hikes if inflation does not come down in a clear and convincing way.

S&P 500 constituents Paramount Global (PARA 31.85, +3.83, +13.67%), Take-Two (TTWO 122.10, +11.99, +10.89%), and Celanese (CE 154.93, +10.25, +7.08%) pepper the top of today's standings. PARA and CE gain in light of Berkshire Hathaway's 13F disclosures, while TTWO outperforms after last night's earnings.

Meanwhile, grocery chain Kroger (KR 50.95, -2.25, -4.23%) underperforms after Walmart (WMT 131.03, -17.18, -11.59%) said in its results that it took share in grocery despite higher labor and fuel costs.
Gold ends higher amid weaker dollar
17-May-22 14:00 ET
Dow +333.00 at 32556.42, Nasdaq +245.41 at 11908.20, S&P +63.21 at 4071.22

[BRIEFING.COM] With about two hours to go the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+2.10%) remains today's best-performing index.

Gold futures settled $4.90 higher (+0.3%) to $1,818.90/oz, aided in part by a decent decline in the greenback.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index slips -0.8% to $103.33.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 31928.64 +48.38 (0.15%)
Nasdaq 11264.44 -270.83 (-2.35%)
SP 500 3941.49 -32.27 (-0.81%)
10-yr Note
NYSE Adv 1382 Dec 1920 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1346 Dec 3336 Vol 4.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Utilities, Consumer Staples, Real Estate, Health Care, Energy
Weak: Communication Services, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary

Moving the Market

-- SNAP warning about macro environment

-- Weakness in mega-cap stocks

-- Concerns about slowdown in economic and earnings growth

-- Some weakening in preliminary May PMI data for May



Closing Summary
24-May-22 16:15 ET
Dow +48.38 at 31928.64, Nasdaq -270.83 at 11264.44, S&P -32.27 at 3941.49

[BRIEFING.COM] The rebound effort that began late in the day last Friday hit a wall today as market participants grappled with concerns about economic and earnings growth prospects. Many stocks got battered and bruised hitting that wall while others fared reasonably well.

The biggest pains came early when the Nasdaq Composite was down as much as 3.8%. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 2.5% and 1.6% at their worst levels of the day. There was some healing, however, that occurred as the day progressed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied into positive territory and closed near its high for the session. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the session with lesser declines of 2.4% and 0.8%, respectively.

Unlike the early selling, there wasn't a specific news catalyst for the turnaround effort. Ironically, the early losses themselves likely served as the spark for the turnaround bid as market participants came back to the idea that the stock market is oversold and due for a more meaningful recovery bid.

That notion, though, got put to a serious test this morning following a spate of developments that played into existing concerns about a slowdown in growth here and abroad that could lead to an eventual cut in earnings growth estimates:

Snap (SNAP 12.79, -9.68, -43.1%) said after Monday's close that it expects its Q2 revenue and adjusted EBITDA to be below its prior guidance because the macroeconomic environment has deteriorated further and faster than anticipated.
Best Buy (BBY 73.65, +1.07, +1.5%) acknowledged that it saw a worsening in macro conditions as it lowered its FY23 comparable sales guidance to (3.0%)-(6.0%) from (1.0%)-(4.0%).
Small-cap specialty apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 19.03, -7.70, -28.8%) reported disappointing fiscal Q1 results and issued disappointing guidance, citing higher costs and lower sales due to an assumed inflationary impact on the consumer.
Preliminary May manufacturing and services PMI readings out of Japan, the eurozone, and the U.S. showed a deceleration in activity versus April.
The April New Home Sales Report was much weaker than expected and included a downward revision for March.
UBS and JPMorgan cut their 2022 GDP growth estimates for China; and reports suggested Beijing has stepped up its quarantine efforts to stop the spread of COVID.

The confluence of these developments undercut most sectors, particularly the communication services (-3.7%), consumer discretionary (-2.6%), and information technology (-1.6%) sectors. To be fair, those sectors finished comfortably off their worst levels of the day, as did most sectors.

Nonetheless, the slowdown concerns were evident in the outperformance of the counter-cyclical utilities (+2.0%), consumer staples (+1.6%), and health care (+0.3%) sectors. Real estate (+1.2%) also outperformed, bolstered by the drop in market rates, which was an offshoot of concerns about the economic environment and the ongoing struggles for the stock market.

The 10-yr note yield settled the day down 10 basis points at 2.76% and the 2-yr note yield settled the day down 11 basis points at 2.50%.

The U.S. Dollar Index slipped 0.3% to 101.74, the CBOE Volatility Index jumped 4.2% to 29.67, and the fed funds futures market priced in a noticeably lower probability of 50 basis point rate hikes at the September and November FOMC meetings.

Reviewing today's economic data:

New home sales decreased 16.6% month-over-month in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 591,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 750,000) from a downwardly revised 709,000 (from 763,000) in March. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales were down 26.9%.
The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales are counted when a contract is signed. The sharp drop from March, and the large miss versus the consensus estimate, underscores the affordability pressures that quickly emerged with the spike in mortgage rates.
The preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for May decreased to 57.5 from 59.2 in the final reading for April. The preliminary IHS Markit Services PMI for May decreased to 53.5 from 55.6 in the final reading for April.

Looking ahead, market participants will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, April Durable Goods Orders Report, EIA Crude Oil Inventories, and the FOMC Minutes for the May meeting on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -12.1% YTD
S&P 500 -17.3% YTD
S&P 400 -16.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -21.4% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -28.0% YTD

Looking ahead to tomorrow's econ data
24-May-22 15:30 ET
Dow -57.48 at 31822.78, Nasdaq -309.29 at 11225.98, S&P -42.47 at 3931.29

[BRIEFING.COM] Heading into the last half hour, the major indices remain in the red but are holding above session lows. The S&P 500 is down by 1.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 0.1%, and the Nasdaq is down by 2.7%.

Looking ahead, tomorrow's economic data includes: the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications, Durable Orders, Durable Orders Excluding-Transportation, EIA Crude Oil Inventories, and FOMC Minutes.

Market participants will want to keep a close eye on the FOMC Minutes tomorrow to gain a sense of what the Fed discussed in terms of future rate hikes and balance sheet reduction efforts.

In addition, Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS 71.48, -3.38, -5.1%) will be the featured earnings reporter before the market opens tomorrow.
Sectors are recovering
24-May-22 15:00 ET
Dow -183.70 at 31696.56, Nasdaq -371.06 at 11164.21, S&P -64.47 at 3909.29

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices are still in the red but back up near session highs. The S&P 500 is down by 1.6%, the Nasdaq is down by 3.2%, and the Dow is down by 0.4%.

Taking a look at the sectors, consumer staples (+0.7%) and utilities (+1.3%) are still strong. Most sectors, however, have moved off session lows. The energy sector (-0.2%) has been flirting with positive territory, despite crude oil futures settling lower by $0.37 (-0.3%) to $109.94/barrel.

Dow component Walmart (WMT 123.50, +0.91, +0.7%) is a standout and is giving the consumer staples sector a needed boost today. The company dropped sharply last week following its earnings report and is likely benefitting from some bargain hunting activity.
Dexcom falls after rumors the company could buy Insulet; O'Reilly outperforms on AZO sympathy
24-May-22 14:25 ET
Dow -65.75 at 31814.51, Nasdaq -296.98 at 11238.29, S&P -45.32 at 3928.44

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-1.14%) is near today's intraday highs, though losses still holds worse than 1%.

S&P 500 constituents Dexcom (DXCM 285.05, -38.87, -12.00%), Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH 13.35, -1.75, -11.59%), and Omnicom (OMC 68.89, -6.97, -9.19%) dot the bottom of today's trading. DXCM slips on Insulet (PODD 215.18, +12.33, +6.08%) acquisition rumors, while negative read-throughs from Snap's (SNAP 13.11, -9.36, -41.66%) guidance cut has OMC and fellow ad firms lower today.

Meanwhile, Missouri-based auto parts retailer O'Reilly Auto (ORLY 607.65, +28.54, +4.93%) sits atop the standings, outperforming in sympathy to AutoZone's (AZO 1,882.55, +77.33, +4.28%) results.
Gold ends higher for fourth consecutive day
24-May-22 14:00 ET
Dow -133.19 at 31747.07, Nasdaq -296.61 at 11238.66, S&P -53.17 at 3920.59

[BRIEFING.COM] The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (-2.57%) leads broader market losses with about two hours to go on Tuesday.

Gold futures settled $17.60 higher (+1.0%) to $1,865.40/oz, ending higher for a fourth consecutive session aided in part by lower than expected PMI readings this morning.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index is down approx. -0.3% to $101.75.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 32637.21 +516.91 (1.61%)
Nasdaq 11740.64 +305.91 (2.68%)
SP 500 4057.85 +79.11 (1.99%)
10-yr Note
NYSE Adv 2729 Dec 569 Vol 1.0 bln
Nasdaq Adv 3562 Dec 1160 Vol 4.6 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Consumer Discretionary, Industrials, Financials, Information Technology, Communication Services, Energy
Weak: Real Estate

Moving the Market

-- String of positive news from retailers

-- Oversold situation

-- Moves by fund managers at month end to boost underweight positions

-- Broad-based participation

Closing Stock Market Summary
26-May-22 16:20 ET
Dow +516.91 at 32637.21, Nasdaq +305.91 at 11740.64, S&P +79.11 at 4057.85

[BRIEFING.COM] Today was a good day for the stock market. Bulls had control of the tape from the opening bell to the closing bell, which rang with the major indices sitting near their best levels of the day.

The major indices charged ahead on bargain-hunting efforts that were sparked by reassuring earnings reports from major retailers, a hopeful eye to the end of the lockdowns in Shanghai next week, and some placating price action in NVIDIA (NVDA 178.51, +8.76, +5.2%), which finished higher after trading down as much as 10% after issuing disappointing fiscal Q2 revenue guidance.

The latter went a long way to validate assertions that a lot of bad news has already been priced into stocks and that they are ripe for a meaningful rebound effort.

Similarly, better-than-expected guidance from retailers Macy's (M 22.92, +3.71, +19.3%), Dollar General (DG 222.60, +27.26, +14.0%), Dollar Tree Stores (DLTR 162.80, +29.21, +21.9%), and Williams-Sonoma (WSM 129.70, +14.72, +12.8%), uplifting Q2 revenue guidance from Southwest Airlines (LUV 45.11, +2.66, +6.3%) and JetBlue (JBLU 10.61, +0.35, +3.4%), and an upward revision to the consumer spending component in the Q1 GDP Report also went a long way to temper concerns about the state of the consumer and incite a belief that consumer discretionary stocks have gotten deeply oversold.

Sure enough, the S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector (+4.8%) was the star today in a star-studded lineup of sector performances that also included the outperformance of the information technology (+2.5%), financial (+2.3%), and communication services (+2.1%) sectors.

Notably, those four sectors have been the worst-performing sectors this year, so their outperformance today lent credence to the view that today's rally had the markings of being a rally off deeply oversold conditions.

With today's gains, the S&P 500 reclaimed a posture above 4,000. It is now up 4.0% for the week and presumably destined to break a seven-week losing streak along with the Nasdaq Composite. The Dow Jones Industrial Average for its part is on course to break an eight-week losing streak, the likes of which hasn't been seen in nearly 100 years.

While stocks were getting their rebound groove on, Treasuries ultimately finished their session flat footed. The 10-yr note yield was up one basis point to 2.76% in front of the April Personal Income and Spending Report on Friday, which will include the Fed's preferred inflation gauge in the form of the core-PCE Price Index.

Reviewing today's economic data:

For the week ending May 21, initial claims decreased by 8,000 to 210,000 (Briefing.com consensus 210,000). Continuing claims for the week ending May 14 increased by 31,000 to 1.346 million.
The key takeaway in this report is the recognition that the four-week moving average of 1,347,500 for continuing claims is the lowest since January 17, 1970.
The second estimate for Q1 GDP was revised down to show real GDP decreasing at an annual rate of 1.5% (Briefing.com consensus -1.3%) from the advance estimate of -1.4%. The GDP Chain Deflator was revised up to 8.1% (Briefing.com consensus 8.0%) from 8.0%.
The key takeaway from this report, though, was the upward revision to consumer spending to 3.1% from 2.7%. That exceeded the consumer spending growth in the third and fourth quarters, demonstrating that the U.S. consumer was still acting as a key growth engine in the first quarter despite rising interest rates and higher costs for most goods and services, namely food and energy.
Pending home sales declined 3.9% month-over-month in April following a downwardly revised 1.6% decline (from -1.2%) in March.

Looking ahead, market participants will receive the April Personal Income and Spending Report, the April Adv. Intl. Trade in Goods, Retail Inventories, and Wholesale Inventories Report, and the final May reading for the Univ. of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment on Friday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -10.0% YTD
S&P 500 -14.9% YTD
S&P 400 -12.6% YTD
Russell 2000 -18.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -25.0% YTD

Not much movement heading into the close
26-May-22 15:25 ET
Dow +517.63 at 32637.93, Nasdaq +270.81 at 11705.54, S&P +72.34 at 4051.08

[BRIEFING.COM] The market is still hanging around its session highs heading into the last half hour of trading.

The CBOE VIX Index is down to 27.41, as the recent sell-off has cooled down, mitigating concerns about another material downside leg in the near term.

Looking to tomorrow, the main attraction in the morning should be the April Personal Income and Spending report, which contains the Fed's preferred inflation gauge in the form of the core-PCE Price Index. Market participants are hopeful that it will show a moderation in inflation pressures. This report should have some added bearing on the performance of the Treasury market, which was little changed today.
Gains are mostly holding up
26-May-22 15:00 ET
Dow +586.22 at 32706.52, Nasdaq +325.51 at 11760.24, S&P +85.01 at 4063.75

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (2.2%) and the Nasdaq Composite (2.9%) are both holding above 2% and flirting with their session highs. There hasn't been a lot of change in the overall market last few hours. The bulls continue to have a firm grip on things.

The one sore thumb is the S&P 500 real estate (-0.2%) sector, which is down modestly for the day but stands out as the only sector in negative territory. Conversely, strong gains are holding up in the consumer discretionary (+5.0%) and information technology (+2.6%) sectors.
Medtronic underperforms in S&P 500 following miss, downbeat guidance
26-May-22 14:30 ET
Dow +600.59 at 32720.89, Nasdaq +347.52 at 11782.25, S&P +91.69 at 4070.43

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+2.30%) is firmly in second place among the major averages to this point on Thursday.

S&P 500 constituents DXC Technology (DXC 34.08, +4.63, +15.72%), Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH 15.51, +1.78, +12.96%), and Bath & Body Works (BBWI 42.57, +3.27, +8.32%) pepper the top of today's standings. DXC outperforms after yesterday's earnings, NCLH gains in part following last night's insider buy from Director R. Galbut, while BBWI advances alongside other specialty retail names like WSM, ULTA, and DKS.

Meanwhile, Minnesota-based medtech firm Medtronic (MDT 100.00, -5.54, -5.25%) is one of today's worst-performing names following this morning's Q4 miss and underwhelming earnings guidance.
Gold ends with modest gains on Thursday
26-May-22 14:00 ET
Dow +562.40 at 32682.70, Nasdaq +323.27 at 11758.00, S&P +83.34 at 4062.08

[BRIEFING.COM] With about two hours to go on the penultimate session of the week the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+2.83%) holds a firm lead over its major counterparts, having moved mostly sideways in the last half hour.

Gold futures settled $1.30 higher (+0.1%) to $1,847.60/oz, aided in part by a modest retreat in the greenback.

Specifically, the U.S. Dollar Index is down approx. -0.2% to $101.89.

[ReturntoSender]

Market Snapshot

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

Dow 32991.99 -220.99 (-0.67%)
Nasdaq 12081.38 -49.74 (-0.41%)
SP 500 4132.16 -26.09 (-0.63%)
10-yr Note
NYSE Adv 1093 Dec 2240 Vol 2.2 bln
Nasdaq Adv 1949 Dec 2818 Vol 5.7 bln

Industry Watch
Strong: Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary
Weak: Health Care, Real Estate, Materials, Energy, Industrials, Utilities

Moving the Market

-- Oil prices turn negative after testing $120.00/bbl earlier on EU's agreement to ban 90% of Russian crude imports by the end of the year

-- Fed Governor Waller (FOMC voter) endorses policy rate above neutral rate by end of year

-- Resilience to early selling efforts

Closing Summary
31-May-22 16:05 ET
Dow -220.99 at 32991.99, Nasdaq -49.74 at 12081.38, S&P -26.09 at 4132.16

[BRIEFING.COM] A soft start for the stock market firmed up as the session progressed thanks to the stabilizing influence of the mega-cap stocks and a welcome pullback in crude oil prices, which flirted with $120.00/bbl early in the day before settling the session up just 0.1% at $114.93/bbl.

The pop in oil prices stemmed from a report that EU leaders had agreed to a ban on 90% of Russia's crude imports by the end of the year. That pop in prices stirred concerns about discretionary spending potential and inflation pressures persisting longer than expected. Consequently, there was an early push to do some selling following last week's huge gains.

At their lows of the morning, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 were down 1.4%, 1.6%, and 1.3%, respectively. They didn't stay down -- or at least they didn't stay depressed. Instead, they demonstrated some resilience to selling efforts, which itself became a catalyst that attracted renewed buying interest that helped each of the indices edge their way into positive territory.

The upside momentum, however, didn't run abated like it did last week. There was more weakness beneath the surface than met the eye, evidenced by an advance-decline line that favored declining issues by a 2-to-1 margin at the NYSE and by a 7-to-5 margin at the Nasdaq. The relative strength of the mega-cap stocks stood out in the Vanguard Mega-Cap growth ETF (MGK), which slipped 0.3% versus a 0.9% decline for the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP).

Today ultimately turned into a day of consolidation as market participants sat on the idea that there will be some key economic reports later this week, including the May ISM Manufacturing Index on Wednesday and the May Employment Situation Report on Friday.

Also, the trading action was stunted by a lack of market-moving corporate news and rising yields in the Treasury market, which were triggered by the early move in oil prices and a contention from Fed Governor Waller (FOMC voter) that he supports a policy rate above the neutral rate by the end of the year.

The 10-yr note yield settled the day up 10 basis points at 2.84% while the 2-yr note yield jumped eight basis points to 2.54%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 101.77.

Reviewing today's economic data:

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dipped to 106.4 in May (Briefing.com consensus 103.7) from an upwardly revised 108.6 (from 107.3) in April. In the same period a year ago, the index stood at 120.0.
The key takeaway from the report is that inflation continues to be top of mind for consumers, which could pose downside risk for the economy if inflation pressures persist and curtail consumers' discretionary spending activity.
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index was up 21.2% year-over-year in March (Briefing.com consensus 20.0%) following an upwardly revised 20.3% (from 20.2%) in February. The FHFA Housing Price Index increased 1.5% month-over-month in March following a downwardly revised 1.9% increase (from 2.1%) in February.
The May Chicago PMI checked in at 60.3 (Briefing.com consensus 55.5) versus 56.4 in April.

Looking ahead, market participants will receive the weekly Mortgage Applications Index, the Final IHS Manufacturing PMI for May, the May ISM Manufacturing Index, the April JOLTS - Job Openings Report, the April Construction Spending Report, and the Fed's Beige Book.

Dow Jones Industrial Average -9.3% YTD
S&P 500 -13.3% YTD
S&P 400 -11.5% YTD
Russell 2000 -16.6% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -22.8% YTD

Looking ahead to economic data
31-May-22 15:30 ET
Dow -117.62 at 33095.36, Nasdaq -8.20 at 12122.92, S&P -13.26 at 4144.99

[BRIEFING.COM] Entering the last half hour of trading for the month, the major indices have turned negative. Note that most of the major indices are in the green month-to-date thanks entirely to the rally we saw last week. The one exception is the Nasdaq, which is still down 1.8% for the month.

Looking ahead, market participants will receive several pieces of economic data tomorrow. The two releases that are apt to draw the most attention are the ISM Manufacturing Index for May and the JOLTS Job Openings report for April. The former is a gauge of manufacturing activity and the latter is a labor market indicator.

In coming months, the JOLTS report will take on added importance as a gauge of the Fed's success in tempering demand with its rate hikes.

The most important report of the week however awaits on Friday in the form of the May Employment Situation report.
Crude oil prices pulled back
31-May-22 15:00 ET
Dow -233.05 at 32979.93, Nasdaq -75.45 at 12055.67, S&P -25.35 at 4132.90

[BRIEFING.COM] The market moved to new session highs in the past hour but has been pulling back more recently on some modest but broader selling interest.

Notably, WTI Crude Futures, which tested $120.00/bbl earlier today, settled the session up just $0.16, or 0.1%, at $114.93/bbl. As prices pulled back, so, too, did the S&P 500 energy sector.

At its high today, the energy sector was up 2.2% but it is now down 1.3% for the session. Most stocks within the sector are now negative on the day including Chevron (CVX 174.99, -3.24, -1.8%) and Exxon (XOM 96.66, -0.96, -1.0%).

Separately, the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK), which was up as much as 0.8% earlier today, is now down 0.2%.
Mosaic, fellow material/fertilizer peers higher on Tuesday
31-May-22 14:30 ET
Dow -45.50 at 33167.48, Nasdaq +33.43 at 12164.55, S&P +0.12 at 4158.37

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (flat) is now hovering near last week's closing levels, albeit solidly off morning lows which had the index down about -1.28%.

S&P 500 constituents Mosaic (MOS 64.06, +4.21, +7.03%), Las Vegas Sands (LVS 35.93, +1.31, +3.78%), and Starbucks (SBUX 79.37, +2.66, +3.47%) dot the top of today's standings. MOS, and other fertilizer stocks, move higher on Tuesday, while casino stocks like LVS and casual dining stocks like SBUX get a decent boost today.

Meanwhile, California-based healthcare firm Illumina (ILMN 241.31, -16.75, -6.49%) is today's worst performer, underperforming alongside other biotech/healthcare names amid speculation that Senators Manchin and Schumer could renew discussions about an agreement for drug price control provisions.
Gold modestly lower to start holiday-abbreviated week
31-May-22 14:00 ET
Dow +4.89 at 33217.87, Nasdaq +44.19 at 12175.31, S&P +7.26 at 4165.51

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages have squeaked above flat lines in recent trading, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+0.36%) holding a firm lead.

Gold futures settled $8.90 lower (-0.5%) to $1,848.40/oz owing in part to a modest move higher in both treasury yields and the greenback.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index is up approx. +0.1% to $101.74.